Reports from the Field/Battleground Updates - The Kerry Campaign in Wisconsin

William, Scott and I are heading to Wisconsin to help Kerry win the Presidency and take this country back from the special interests. This will be our daily Blog. It is my intention to file reports on our activities every single day from 10/17/04 – 11/03/04. This will be our “Report from the Field”, if you will. Here you can find out what kind of exciting activities we are up to in Wisconsin. You can also get our take on how the campaign is fairing in this great state.

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11/15/2004

The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy

By Steven F. Freeman
t r u t h o u t Report

Sunday 14 November 2004

Click here to read the pdf file. Adobe PDF Reader Required


And.........

I Smell a Rat
- By Colin Shea, The Freezer Box

"The facts as I see them now defy all logical explanations save one--massive and systematic vote fraud. We cannot accept the result of the 2004 presidential election as legitimate until these discrepancies are rigorously and completely explained. From the Valerie Plame case to the horrors of Abu Ghraib, George Bush has been reluctant to seek answers and assign accountability when it does not suit his purposes." (READ THE WHOLE OP-ED - CLICK HERE)

11/14/2004

KERRY WON OHIO JUST COUNT THE BALLOTS AT THE BACK OF THE BUS

Most voters in Ohio chose Kerry. Here's how the votes vanished.

By Greg Palast

This February, Ken Blackwell, Ohio's Secretary of State, told his State Senate President, "The possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state’s primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity." Blackwell, co-chair of Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, wasn't warning his fellow Republican of disaster, but boasting of an opportunity to bring in Ohio for Team Bush no matter what the voters wanted. And most voters in Ohio wanted JFK, not GWB. But their choice won't count because their votes won't be counted.

The ballots that add up to a majority for John Kerry in Ohio -- and in New Mexico -- are locked up in two Republican hidey-holes: "spoiled" ballots and "provisional" ballots. (Read on by clicking here) - Read and weep!

11/13/2004

The Perfect Election Day Crime

By Steven Rosenfeld

In Ohio, questions persist about intentional or accidental voting mishaps. Which voting problem cost Kerry the most votes may never be known. Kerry's fate aside, Air America's Steven Rosenfeld's investigation found the inadequate supply of polling machines in Ohio may constitute a civil rights violation.

Steven Rosenfeld is senior producer of The Laura Flanders Show on Air America Radio. Previously he was senior editor of TomPaine.com

Americans are learning there are many ways to tilt and take elections. (READ MORE - CLICK HERE)

In Columbus, Ohio, for example, the machines registered several hundred more votes for Bush than the number of total voters who cast ballots. ACT NOW!


Investigate The E-Vote

Friday 2:42 PM

A little more than a week after Election Day, the reports are rolling in of some unsettling trends concerning electronic voting machines. In Columbus, Ohio, for example, the machines registered several hundred more votes for Bush than the number of total voters who cast ballots. And in North Carolina, a voting machine lost more than 4,000 votes because of problems determining the machines' memory capacity. There's been more than 30,000 complaints about electronic voting machines—and the Internet rumors are flying. That's why Working Assets' ActForChange is working with several members of Congress to call for an independent authority to investigate and dig deeper into the electronic voting problems.

You can Help!! Tell the Government Accountability Office to immediately start an investigation—so we can get to the bottom of the e-voting mess. ACT NOW <-----Click

11/11/2004

Investigate the Vote

Six prominent members of Congress have requested an investigation into the integrity of the vote. The decision could come as soon as Monday. Sign our petition (Move On.org) demanding a full investigation into whether the election was conducted honestly or not. Also, share your personal story if you have one -- members of Congress will use it in their call for an investigation.

11/10/2004

Dear Friends and other Gentle People,

I am having fun searching the web and seeing all the “chatter” on fraud and the election of 2004. Yes, I know it is a distraction from organizing and pulling our movement together, however it does serve a purpose. Educating our fellow Americans on voter fraud, voter suppression and errors with electronic voting machines is necessary if we ever hope to have a real democracy.

Here are a few sites I have found dedicated to getting to the facts on the problems with the election of 2004:

VOTERS UNITE

Michael Moore's Election Watch

Black Box Voting

t r u t h o u t 2004

USTOGETHER.ORG

Voter Fraud Compendium - From BuzzFlash

Election 2004 Vote Fraud - PRISON PLANET.com

ELECTION FACT: Bush’s 51% to 48% victory over John Kerry was the smallest margin of victory of any incumbent President running for reelection since Truman. Hardly a mandate.

If you have any comments on this post - send me an e-mail at unionman11@yahoo.com, and I will post it.

Good day Friends and God Bless.

-Robert

Kerry Won !!!!!

Published on Thursday, November 4, 2004 by TomPaine.com

by Greg Palast

Kerry won. Here's the facts.

I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.
So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.

Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]
Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.

The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.
And not all vote spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African American and minority precincts. (To learn more, click here.)

We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely—leaving a 'hanging chad,'—or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks. (To read the report from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, click here .)
And here's the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday's election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.

So here we go again. Or, here we don't go again. Because unlike last time, Democrats aren't even asking Ohio to count these cards with the not-quite-punched holes (called "undervotes" in the voting biz).

Ohio is one of the last states in America to still use the vote-spoiling punch-card machines. And the Secretary of State of Ohio, J. Kenneth Blackwell, wrote before the election, “the possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state’s primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity.”

But this week, Blackwell, a rabidly partisan Republican, has warmed up to the result of sticking with machines that have a habit of eating Democratic votes. When asked if he feared being this year's Katherine Harris, Blackwell noted that Ms. Fix-it's efforts landed her a seat in Congress.
Exactly how many votes were lost to spoilage this time? Blackwell's office, notably, won't say, though the law requires it be reported. Hmm. But we know that last time, the total of Ohio votes discarded reached a democracy-damaging 1.96 percent. The machines produced their typical loss—that's 110,000 votes—overwhelmingly Democratic.

The Impact Of Challenges
First and foremost, Kerry was had by chads. But the Democrat wasn't punched out by punch cards alone. There were also the 'challenges.' That's a polite word for the Republican Party of Ohio's use of an old Ku Klux Klan technique: the attempt to block thousands of voters of color at the polls. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, the GOP laid plans for poll workers to ambush citizens under arcane laws—almost never used—allowing party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot. The Ohio courts were horrified and federal law prohibits targeting of voters where race is a factor in the challenge. But our Supreme Court was prepared to let Republicans stand in the voting booth door.

In the end, the challenges were not overwhelming, but they were there. Many apparently resulted in voters getting these funky "provisional" ballots—a kind of voting placebo—which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic. Count them up, add in the spoiled punch cards (easy to tally with the human eye in a recount), and the totals begin to match the exit polls; and, golly, you've got yourself a new president. Remember, Bush won by 136,483 votes in Ohio.

Enchanted State's Enchanted Vote
Now, on to New Mexico, where a Kerry plurality—if all votes are counted—is more obvious still. Before the election, in TomPaine.com, I wrote, "John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted."

How did that happen? It's the spoilage, stupid; and the provisional ballots.

CNN said George Bush took New Mexico by 11,620 votes. Again, the network total added up to that miraculous, and non-existent, '100 percent' of ballots cast.

New Mexico reported in the last race a spoilage rate of 2.68 percent, votes lost almost entirely in Hispanic, Native American and poor precincts—Democratic turf. From Tuesday's vote, assuming the same ballot-loss rate, we can expect to see 18,000 ballots in the spoilage bin.

Spoilage has a very Democratic look in New Mexico. Hispanic voters in the Enchanted State, who voted more than two to one for Kerry, are five times as likely to have their vote spoil as a white voter. Counting these uncounted votes would easily overtake the Bush 'plurality.'
Already, the election-bending effects of spoilage are popping up in the election stats, exactly where we'd expect them: in heavily Hispanic areas controlled by Republican elections officials. Chaves County, in the "Little Texas" area of New Mexico, has a 44 percent Hispanic population, plus African Americans and Native Americans, yet George Bush "won" there 68 percent to 31 percent.

I spoke with Chaves' Republican county clerk before the election, and he told me that this huge spoilage rate among Hispanics simply indicated that such people simply can't make up their minds on the choice of candidate for president. Oddly, these brown people drive across the desert to register their indecision in a voting booth.

Now, let's add in the effect on the New Mexico tally of provisional ballots.
"They were handing them out like candy," Albuquerque journalist Renee Blake reported of provisional ballots. About 20,000 were given out. Who got them?

Santiago Juarez who ran the "Faithful Citizenship" program for the Catholic Archdiocese in New Mexico, told me that "his" voters, poor Hispanics, whom he identified as solid Kerry supporters, were handed the iffy provisional ballots. Hispanics were given provisional ballots, rather than the countable kind "almost religiously," he said, at polling stations when there was the least question about a voter's identification. Some voters, Santiago said, were simply turned away.

Your Kerry Victory Party
So we can call Ohio and New Mexico for John Kerry—if we count all the votes.
But that won't happen. Despite the Democratic Party's pledge, the leadership this time gave in to racial disenfranchisement once again. Why? No doubt, the Democrats know darn well that counting all the spoiled and provisional ballots will require the cooperation of Ohio's Secretary of State, Blackwell. He will ultimately decide which spoiled and provisional ballots get tallied. Blackwell, hankering to step into Kate Harris' political pumps, is unlikely to permit anything close to a full count. Also, Democratic leadership knows darn well the media would punish the party for demanding a full count.

What now? Kerry won, so hold your victory party. But make sure the shades are down: it may be become illegal to demand a full vote count under PATRIOT Act III.

I used to write a column for the Guardian papers in London. Several friends have asked me if I will again leave the country. In light of the failure—a second time—to count all the votes, that won't be necessary. My country has left me.

Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight. The documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has been released this month on DVD .

© 2004 TomPaine.com

11/09/2004

Ohio Organization for Election Reform

Saturday, November 13, 2004, 1-4 pm Public Hearing on Election Irregularities and Voter Suppression. We are calling on anyone who experienced or observed election irregularities or voter suppression this election season to come to give testimony at a public hearing before public officials, community representatives and the media. Your stories will be documented, recorded and put into a report and formal complaint to the Board of Elections. If you have any information about election irregularities please participate. New Faith Baptist Church, 955 Oak St., Columbus, Ohio, 43205. Call 253-2571 or truth@freepress.org.Sponsored by Citizen's Alliance for Secure Elections, the CICJ, League of Pissed Off Voters, Election Protection Coalition, Common Cause, WVKO Radio.

WHAT CAN YOU DO:

Contact the DNC, John Kerry, and The Government Accountability Office - All in one shot! - GREAT SITE!

Sample Right-wing Voter Suppression Letter:


For any of you who doubted the reports of Right Wing voter suppression campaigns, here's a sample letter that was sent out targeting Democrats in an Ohio county.
Posted by Hello

Howard Dean considering bid to chair Democratic Party

Monday November 08, 2004

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) Former presidential candidate Howard Dean is considering a bid to become chairman of the national Democratic Party.

Steve Grossman, himself a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Dean had told him he was thinking about it.

Dean was traveling today in New York and unavailable for comment. His spokeswoman, Laura Gross, said ``it was far too early to be speculating on that.''

The 240 members of the Democratic National Convention will elect a new chair early next year. Several names are already being mentioned, including former Clinton aide Harold Ickes; Donna Brazile, who ran Al Gore's presidential campaign, and Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack.

Dean has been outspoken since the beginning of his presidential bid in saying that the Democratic Party must establish a separate and unique identity from Republicans.

The next chairman will replace Terry McAuliffe, whose term is ending.

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Some Voters and Voting Advocacy Groups Continue to question the election results!!


The following is a letter to most major media outlets from Isaac Lieberman of the Kerrytravelers@aol.com. This group went to Nevada from California to assist the Kerry campaign"

November 8, 2004 - Nightline

ABC News

Dear Nightline:

President Bush and Senator Kerry are acting as though they have the authority to decide who won the election by mutual agreement. They are, of course, wrong: there is no official count yet. Accordingly, I hope you will help the citizens of Ohio and the nation ensure that the Ohio Secretary of State fully cooperates with the non-partisan efforts to get a full and fair accounting of the results of last Tuesday's election in Ohio.

AP, CNN, and ABC News all covered the "glitch" where records show only 638 voters cast ballots, but that 4,258 votes were given to President Bush. This was in just one Ohio precinct in Gahanna. Clearly we need to have a full accounting of all Ohio precincts to ensure all such errors are corrected.

Sandy Buchanan, Executive Director of Ohio Citizen Action, and Victoria Lovegren, working with www.BlackBoxVoting.org, are working hard to get the actual results of the election.

While much of the mainstream media seems to have gone on to trumpet the Bush administration's claim to a nationwide mandate, the margin of victory is razor-thin, and in fact, the votes in Ohio are statistically even. We need to have a full and fair examination of Ohio's vote to even make a convincing claim that Bush has indeed been elected to another term.

Thursday's Columbus Dispatch attributed to Blackwell's office the figure of 92,672 ballots uncounted, not including provisional and late-arriving absentee, military and overseas votes.

The estimated vote difference between the two candidates is not statistically insurmountable, and Ohio citizens, as well as citizens of the rest of the nation, are anxiously and carefully watching to see the answers to Ms. Buchanan's questions and the precinct by precinct voting results. Full cooperation with Ohio Citizen Action and Black Box Voting efforts to satisfy the necessity of a full and fair accounting of Ohio's votes will be much appreciated.

Here, for the record, are the questions submitted by Sandy Buchanan on Friday:

1)How many ballots have undervotes or overvotes or are otherwise uncounted in each county?
When will a database of such uncounted ballots by precinct be available?

2) Have you issued instructions to the county boards of elections on the disposition of these ballots?

3) What is your plan to check the 92,672 uncounted ballots to confirm that the precinct-level or county-level decisions to ignore them were proper and to remedy it if not? Improper discarding of ballots can come from simple mistakes, confusion or incompetence; it does not necessarily involve a pattern of bias or a conspiracy. The consequence for the voter is the same whatever the origin of the error.

4) Does your plan for checking both the 155,428 provisional ballots and the 92,672 other uncounted ballots include direct oversight by the media and citizens so that all Ohioans can be certain that Tuesday's balloting was fair?

5) On Wednesday, you reported to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card that President Bush's lead was "statistically insurmountable" considering the number of provisional ballots outstanding. Did your calculations include the 92,672 ballots mentioned above, and late-arriving absentee, military, and other overseas votes?

6) If not, why not?

7) And would the lead have been insurmountable had you included them?

Reportedly, the military and other overseas ballots are not expected to exceed 10,000. If 14% of provisional ballots were disallowed, as happened in Ohio in 2000, then the number of countable provisionals would be about 133,668. Some of the other uncounted ballots would be disallowed as well, of course, but there is no reliable rule of thumb for estimating how many.133,668 provisionals + 10,000 (military and overseas) + unknown number of late absentees + 92,672 (other) = at least 236,340 ballots. If Senator Kerry received 78% of these votes, with President Bush receiving the balance, Kerry's vote total would be 2,846,372 and Bush's would be 2,845,778. Thus, the outcome would be changed. It is not possible to assess the likelihood of Kerry receiving this proportion of the outstanding votes, since -- as Florida demonstrated -- vote errors can be geographically concentrated, creating a considerable shift in results. That is why a precinct-level database will be helpful.And I'm sure there are ways to improve on these estimates. It is clear, however, that the vote difference between the top two candidates is "statistically insurmountable" only if you fail to examine carefully these 92,672 uncounted votes to make sure no one was unfairly discounted.

Sincerely,

Isaac Lieberman
Kerrytravelers@aol.com

11/08/2004

Evidence of a Second Bush Coup?

Friends,

I usually do not engage in conspiracy theory talk. However, I like many of you have a hard time believing Bush won this election in a fair and square manner. The lost votes, problems with electronic voting can raise anyone suspicions.

To throw a little gas on the conspiracy fire, take a look at “Evidence of a Second Bush Coup?” – By Robert Parry

Keep the faith,

- Robert

VOTE FRAUD IN THE 2004 ELECTIONS????

Dear Friends and other Gentle People,

Getting over the election is harder for many of then expected. I believe the solution to our malaise is to get organized for the next election. DON’T MOURN, ORGANIZE.

I keep getting notes from readers who cannot accept the election results as presented. Many folks believe that the election results were subject to Republican high jinks. To keep up on this you can check out Verified Voting.com. Also, check out TWD Wire (News and Analysis from the Washington Dispatch) and WhatReally Happened .com.

Keep the faith and focus on the future.

- Robert

11/05/2004

Elizabeth Edwards........

As difficult as this week has been for all of us, the Edwards' family is dealing with far more emotional issues. On Wednesday, Elizabeth Edwards' was diagnosed with breast cancer. She found a lump in her breast last week but held off getting a biopsy until after Election Day. Please keep Elizabeth and her family in your thoughts and prayers. Cards and well wishes can be sent to her at:

Mrs. Elizabeth Edwards
P.O. Box 75428
Washington, DC 20013-0428


BREAKING NEWS: Reports From The Field to continue!!! We will live to fight another day!

Hello friends. I know my blog has become silent after last Tuesdays election day disaster. I do want you to know I am looking at creating an ongoing blog to report on efforts to build a progressive movement in Upstate New York. Upstate (Western New York is as Republican as Wyoming). In addition I will be doing a “Robert’s Picks” on web sites I find relevant to our struggle. Sooooooooo, give me a few days and check back for the link.

ELECTION FACT: Bush’s 51% to 48% victory over John Kerry was the smallest margin of victory of any incumbent President running for reelection since Truman.
Hardly a mandate.

Good day Friends and God Bless.

-Robert

This is Message is from a Member of the Kerry Travelers. This group went to Nevada to work for Kerry.

Friends,

Like all of you, I am terribly disappointed by the choice 51% of America made yesterday. It was one made out of ignorant fear, greed and biggotry. Fortuately, 49% of voting America saw through the scare tatics and smear campaigns.

I have received several emails and phone calls regarding the tragedy. Talking to one another is carthetic... so long as we don't dwell but try to put our minds to the next task. There is much work to be done. It feels defeating right now, but it doesn't have to be.

Feel free to mail or call me if you need to talk. Call your freinds, your co-workers, your mother... anyone who supported Kerry and is down. Let's not let this be the end of the fight. There is so much injustice, immoral wars, corporate greed, biggotry, selfishness, hatred and ignorance. We have 49% of the voting population behind us. Now we have to set our hearts and minds on those who don't vote and those who are being drawn in by those who would manipulate this country for their own selfish needs.

I will forever be grateful to John Kerry, John Edwards, their family, the staff and their supporters. We have made a statement. More people voted against a sitting president than ever before. And, we will not go away.

Kerry On Forever.

Peace,
Terri Armstrong
Kerrytravelers@aol.com

11/03/2004

It is time for our Country to heal……

Kerry concedes. The election is over. I want to thank everyone who has supported me in this effort to "Take Our Country Back". I also want to thank you for supporting this Blog. I never expected this blog project to be such a success. Now it is time to go home to my family and friends. I have not seen my eight year old daughter Breanna since I landed in Green Bay on 10/17/04. Much to long. I am sooooo eager to see her. Goodbye and God bless every one of you. My advice to all of you is: "Don't Mourn, Organize".
Posted by Hello

EVERY VOTE MUST BE COUNTED!!!!

Update: The margin in Ohio is now under 100,000 votes. This one is not over. Kerry campaign statement:

“The vote count in Ohio has not been completed. There are more than 250,000 remaining votes to be counted. We believe when they are, John Kerry will win Ohio.”

Lawyers are heading out to Ohio to demand a fair count.

WE DEMAND TO HAVE EVERY VOTE COUNT!!! EVERY VOTE!!!

It would be irresponsible for John Kerry to concede this election until every single vote has been counted. It does not matter if it takes two weeks or two months, we want every vote to count. There is no certainty in the numbers now available. There are ballots yet to be counted, all voters have a right to be heard. This country, our nation deserves a fair and equitable election where every single vote is given its due!

In 2000, Fox News and their Republican allies called the election prematurely for George W. Bush. This was a travesty of justice that can not be allowed to ever happen again. When all the votes are counted and if Bush is the clear winner of the election, so be it. But until every voter’s ballot is counted, we do not concede.


NO RETREAT BABY, NO SURRENDER!!!


* Robert Leonard and the Entire Wisconsin Brigade


11/02/2004

Daily Report from the Battleground State of Wisconsin - 11.2.04

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose. -- Frederick Douglass

Today is the day we take our Country back. This note will be short because I am heading out to assist the Wisconsin GOTV effort. With all probability, this will be the last time we speak until after the polls close. Godspeed to you all!! GET OUT THE VOTE!!

Here are some sites you can check out through the day:

THE DAILY KOS

Electoral Vote Predictor 2004: Kerry 298 Bush 231

Robert's Pick!!! (My Prediction)

NowChannel.com!

My Way political news (You may need to refresh)

THE DRUDGE RETORT

Oh yes, I found one new Wisconsin Newspaper Endorsement for Senator Kerry;

Marinette Eagle Herald

The Wisconsin Newspapers that have endorsed Kerry for President are:

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, La Crosse Tribune, Madison Capital Times, Racine Journal Times, Wausau Daily Herald, Green Bay News-Chronicle, Kenosha News, La Crosse Tribune, Shepherd Express, Sheboygan Press, Marinette Eagle Herald.

Take care….. GET OUT AND VOTE!!!!

If you have any comments on this post - send me an e-mail at unionman11@yahoo.com, and I will post it.

Good Day My Friends, and God Bless you!

-Robert

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