Itʼs okay to say the ʻFʼ word: Fraud! - Independent Media Center

THEWORDon the streetfrom portland.indymedia.orgNovember 7, 2004Hundreds of Portlanderstake to streets to protestbusiness-as-usual politicsWeeks before sElection Day, activists inPortland called for demonstrations theday after, “No Matter Who Wins”. Formany free thinkers here in Cascadia,John Kerry and George Bush were achoice that offered no choice at all. Theintent of many was to re-focus on thereal problems facing the world: capitalism,imperialism, the unsustainability ofthe American lifestyle, etc.Reports to the Portland IndependentMedia Center website put the crowd oncont’d on next page...Protesters in Portland, Nov. 3, 2004.Sign says, “Diebold is not Democracy”.Diebold has connections to theRepublican Party and makes electronicvoting machines that are easyto hack. (Photo: Jim Lockhart)(S)ELECTION 2004Itʼs okay to saythe ʻFʼ word: Fraud!You’d never know it fromwatching or reading thecorporate media, but “freeand fair elections” did notoccur on Nov. 2, 2004, inthe United States. The nation’sprint and TV mediahave degenerated into amess of celebrity-worship,baby-down-a-well-watching,and corporate propaganda.Real news doesn’tseem to interest them.But in their place, theinternet has become ahaven for real investigativejournalism. On hundredsof websites, ordinarycitizens and professionalsfrom many fields aredigging, reporting, andexposing what really happens.And what really happenedon Nov. 2 was Fraud witha capital “F”.Bev Harris, founder ofBlack Box Voting, hasno problem saying the“F” word. Over the lastcouple years her researchinto electronic votingmachines has revealeda circle-jerk of Republicanshenanigans clearlyintended to steal the votefrom Democrats at thenational level. Black BoxVoting is currently conductingwhat it is callingthe “largest Freedomof Information action inhistory”. At 8:30 p.m. onthe night of the sElection,they “blanketed the U.S.Protester on the streets of Portland,Nov. 3, 2004. (Photo: Chris Leck)with the first in a series of publicrecords requests, to obtain internalcomputer logs and other documentsfrom 3,000 individual counties andtownships.”Independent journalist Greg Palast,who broke the story of the Floridavote fraud of 2000 to an internationalaudience, estimated that, beforesElection Day even arrived, at least1,000,000 voters had been illegallydisenfranchised. Palast has sincegone on to say that Kerry won thepopular vote in both Ohio and NewMexico, but was denied victory bylocal Republican leadership: “At1:05 a.m. Wednesday morning,CNN’s exit poll showed Kerry beatingBush among Ohio women by 53percent to 47 percent. Kerry alsodefeated Bush among Ohio’s malevoters 51 percent to 49 percent.Unless a third gender voted in Ohio,Kerry took the state.”For more information, visit:www.BlackBoxVoting.orgwww.GregPalast.comwww.WhatReallyHappened.com

Optical scan machines skew vote in FloridaAdapted from an article by Thom HartmanAlmost half of thepeople eligible to votein the United Statesdeclined to do so onNov. 2, 2004. Thosewho did were quitepartisan. That is, thoseregistered Democrattended to vote forKerry, while Republicanswent for Bush.This pattern wasnearly universal exceptin 50+ rural countiesin Florida, where finalofficial tallies varied wildly from whatwas expected. For example:• In Baker County, with 12,887 registeredvoters, 69.3% of them Democratsand 24.3% of them Republicans,the vote was only 2,180 for Kerry and7,738 for Bush• In Dixie County, with 4,988 registeredvoters, 77.5% of them Democrats anda mere 15% registered as Republicans,only 1,959 people voted for Kerry, butPortland protests...cont’d from previous pageNov. 3rd at 700-1000. Police arrested atleast three people and pepper-sprayedmany more. Despite this, the demonstrationremained lively as it snakedthroughout downtown, ending at the“Justice” Center, where arrestees werebeing held.A Critical Mass bike ride also took tothe streets on November 3rd and rodefree for a couple hours before facingpolice on the East Side. Writes “Blue-BombingCowboy”: “Unlike their cohortsstill spraying and arresting marcherson the west side, these burgermunching flunkies had no bikes ormotorcycles. Just big dumb giant cars.Ha-Ha!” The cyclists scattered and the4,433 voted for Bush.• Franklin County,77.3% registered Democrats,went 58.5% forBush.• Holmes County, 72.7%registered Democrats,went 77.25% for Bush.The counties experiencingthese high fluctuationsused opticalscan voting machines,which read paper ballotsthat are fed into a centraltabulator PC that is quite vulnerable tohacking.The pattern repeats over and over again,but only in the smaller counties where, itwas probably assumed, the small voternumbers wouldnʼt be much noticed. Inthe larger counties, where such anomalieswould be more obvious to the corporatenews media, high percentages of registeredDemocrats equaled high percentagesof votes for Kerry.writer hoped most escaped safely.Local corporate media was typicallybiased in its coverage of people exercisingtheir First Amendment rights.Posting to portland.indymedia.org, “tYler”noted that Channel 12 called thedemonstrators a “mob”, and observed:“Every channel painted the police as‘just trying to protect the public, keepthe streets safe and traffic moving’. Everychannel portrayed the presidencyas validly won and took glee in bush’s‘promise to unite the country’.”Nov. 3rd’s march was followed by anothermarch (and more arrests) downtownon the 6th. Do these actionsrepresent a mere flare-up of angerfollowing the theft of the pResidency,or will they become the start of a newwave of creative resistance? Only timewill tell...THEWORDon the streetThe information in “The WORDon the Street” was found throughportland.indymedia.org, the websiteof the Portland IndependentMedia Center.Indymedia is a world-wide, grassroots,non-commercial phenomenathat empowers individuals &groups to report the news themselves,rather than depending oncorporate-controlled media.Indymediaʼs audience numbersin the millions and continues togrow. With each day, corporatemedia becomes more unread,unwatched, and irrelevant. Mayit die a quick death so the truthcan flourish freely.