Screaming Numbers - Robert Koehler, printed in AM New York

[iconoclastNYC]

Printed in "AM New York" a free newspaper for subway commuters in NYC.

Editorial by Rober Koehler

I just got back from the National Election reform conference in Nashville, Tenn., an extraordinary pulling together of disparate voting-rights activists -- 30 states were represented, 15 red and 15 blue - sponsored by a Nashville group called Gathering To save Our Democracy.

Was the election of 2004 stolen? Thus is the question framed by those who don't want to know the answer. Anyone who says yes is immediately a conspiracy nut, and the listener’s eyeballs roll. So let's no ask that question.

Lets simply as why the lines were so long and the voting machines so few in Columbus and Cleveland and inner-city and college precincts across the country, especially in the swing states, causing and estimated one third of the voters in these precincts to drop out of line without casting a ballot; why so many otherwise democratic ballots, thousands and thousands in Ohio alone, but by no mans only in Ohio, recorded no vote for president (as though people with no opinion on the presidential race waited in line for eight hours to have their say in the reface for county commissioner)l and why virtually every voter complaint about electronic voting machine malfunction indicated an unauthorized vote switch from Kerry to Bush.

This mind you is just for starters. We might also ask why so many PhD-level mathematicians and computer programmers and other numbers-savvy scientists are saying that the numbers don't make sense (see, for instance, www.northnet.org/minstrel, the Web site of Dr. Richard Hays Phillips, lead statistician in the Moss vs. Bush lawsuit challenging the Ohio election results). Indeed, the movement to investigate the 2004 election is led by such people, because the numbers are screaming at them that something is wrong.

And we might, no, we must, ask about those exit polls, which in years past were extraordinarily accurate but last November went haywire, predicting Kerry by roughly the margin by which he ultimately lost to Bush. This swing is out of the realm of random chance, forcing chagrined pollsters to hypothesize a "shy Republican" factor as the explanation.
And the numbers are still haywire. A few days ago, Terry Neal wrote in the Washington Post about Bush's inexplicably low approval rating in the latest Gallup poll, 45%, versus a 49% disapproval rating. This is, by a huge margin, the worst rating at this point in a president's second term ever record by Gallup, dating back to Truman.

"What's wrong with this picture?" asks exit polling expert Jonathan Simon. Bush mustered low approval ratings immediately before the election, surged on Election Day, and then saw his rating plunge immediately afterward. Yet Big Media has no curiosity about this anomaly.

The contrast to deathly silence of the media is the silent scream of the numbers. The more you ponder these numbers, and all the accompanying data, the louder the scream grows. Did the people's choice get thwarted? Were thousands disenfranchised by chaos in the precincts, spurious challenges and uncounted provisional ballots? Were millions disenfranchised by voting fraud on insurance, easily hacked computers? And who is authorized to act if this is so? Who is authorized to care? No one, apparently, except average Americans, who want to be able to trust the voting process again, and who want their country back.

[pscot]

1. This deserves a kick

and a vote for greatest page. It ought to be in every paper in the country and not just in some subway throw-away.

[AuntiBush]

8. You're right. It Should Be, But Won't Be. Sadly, So.

Kicked n/t

[KaliTracy]

2. nominated for greatest. He was Great on Brad's Radio show, and told

callers/listeners it was ok to print and distribute his piece

http://www.commonwonders.com

[mopinko]

3. has not run in syndicate flagship

chicago tribune. this came out last week. i'm glad at least someone picked it up. that damn liberal media.

[AuntiBush]

9. If the Media gets Anymore Liberal...

I will loose what's left of my mind! Kidding about both.

Liberal Media my AS*!

Corp-Media Whores, plainly put, factually.

[mopinko]

13. public editor don wycliff's response to my e-mail

my e-mail-
**

dear mr wycliff,
an op-ed column by robert c koehler, entitled "the silent scream of
numbers", has come to my attention. i had hoped to see it in my paper
today, although i was not surprised that it was not there. i hope that
that is simply a function of logistics, and it will appear in the next
day or two.
this is the central issue of our democracy. if the transparency of our
elections is so poor that they do not stand up to scrutiny, are we still
a democracy? i found it ironic that your column today dealt, in part,
with people's dissatisfaction with the MSM. we are dissatisfied, sir,
because the truth and the whole truth is no where in evidence today.
fortunately, the internet exists, and the truth is in evidence there. i
read news from place like the UK, where journalism remains alive and
well. i keep my subscription to the trib mostly to see what isn't in
it. but it gets harder every day to accept this sorry excuse for the
fourth estate.
please run this column. our democracy depends on it.
yours,
XXXXXXXX

his pathetic reply

*****
Dear XXXXXXX:

That Op-Ed by Mr. Koehler makes for wonderful reading by conspiracy theorists, but not by people who want a journalism that attempts to verify and report facts. Our first obligation is to the truth, and Mr. Koehler's article falls short of that.

Don Wycliff
Public Editor

[berniew1]

15. what is the contact info for Mr. Wycliff?? obvious he's one of uninformed.

[mopinko]

17. he is the public editor,

so things like bias in the news, etc are his job. apparently, tho, he does not know the difference between news reporting and op-ed.

[e-mail]

[berniew1]

19. I wrote him; more need to also

I sent him the summary of researchers analyses from the N. conference
that Kerry won Ohio & national vote total

http://www.flcv.com/ohiosum.html

[mopinko]

20. i replied to his reply

far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, but you do know there is a difference between news reporting and op-ed, don't you? read the conyers report, sir.

[jen4clark]

16. OMG

That is truly heartbreaking mopinko. I weep for us all.

:-(

Thank God for the Internet and for all the fighters that at least have places to gather, motivate, inspire and pour out endless letters and emails. At some point we are going to have to take it to the streets in numbers that can not be ignored.

[mistertrickster]

4. I resisted believing that they could throw the election again, but now

I am led to that inescapable conclusion.

Excellent post!

[LatePeriduct]

5. The new talking point has arrived...

Coming right out of the mouths of the dominionists.

"The 2004 election is the result of voter fraud, voters illegally voting and skewing our results"

Which could not be further from the truth.

If the Carter Commission gets away with this, it will allow the fascist empire to employ laws and regulations which require voters to show even more personal information about themselves.

Exactly what my friend was hoping DIDN'T happen. Once they are required to show more proof thanks to voter fraud, data collection companies like Accenture will have total control over purging voters and voter mis-tabulation for all time.

[Fly by night]

6. Bob's column has now appeared in the Nashville paper ...

... and in newspapers in Idaho and Louisiana. Keep encouraging your local newspapers to pick it up and run it. BTW, Bob says that his web-site (with the column posted) has had over 12,000 hits since the column was posted. Now to get it in print.

[Fly by night]

12. The Nashville title: AMERICANS MUST TAKE BACK THE BALLOT BOX (!!!!!!)

and it was on the top of the Tennessean op-ed page, on Monday.

Now let's hope we hear from others around the country that Bob Koehler's "call to patriotism" piece is being read by everyone -- at least once.

Kick and pass it around on the internet. It is having an impact: Boy, howdy.

[Fly by night]

14. kick

[Wilms]

7. kick for the strap-hangers n/t

[berniew1]

10. whats with the typos, doesn't he have a spell checker?

[Fly by night]

11. There weren't any typos in the column. Probably when it was retyped here

[Wiley50]

18. Folks, Bob K. sent me his latest one today

It'short ( so posted in entirety here)
But the boy's on a roll:

ROBERT C. KOEHLER

For release 4/21/05

DEMOCRACY'S ABU GHRAIB

By Robert C. Koehler

Tribune Media Services

"That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on." - Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

What if it could happen here?

This is the disquieting question I hesitate to ask because, once asked, it pretty much changes everything. The answer roars in behind it, as obvious as a Florida hurricane, an Ohio twister, ripping up the complacent heart. What if it could? What if it did? I think of my daughter, quickly, guiltily, and the country she'd inherit. I can no longer stay on the sidelines. No breath comes easily afterward.

It's what I would call the spirit of Nashville, where a national conference was held in early April on the issue of vote fraud and election reform - a conference of expert testimony on dirty tricks, uncounted ballots, needlessly long lines, weird numbers and evidence of electronic vote tampering, adding up to a crime against democracy.

As angry as I've ever been with the direction of any given administration's foreign or domestic policy, I never doubted the bedrock premise that the country itself was sound and free, and that political activity - speaking up, attempting to sway public opinion - always had the chance of reversing that policy. I never doubted, even after moving to Chicago in the mid-'70s, with the old Daley Machine ("vote early and vote often") still huffing and wheezing, that elections mattered and could alter the balance of power. I never felt disenfranchised. Now that certainty is gone, replaced by dread.

I do know that I'm not alone. The column I wrote about the conference last week hit a nerve, generating more e-mail and more hits to my formerly obscure Web site, commonwonders.com, than anything else I've ever written, by several powers of 10. It was not "sore loser" stuff. John Kerry, indeed, was hardly a candidate to inspire that kind of loyalty. I heard from readers who saw irregularities firsthand last Nov. 2 that churned their stomachs:

"I live near Toledo, Ohio and worked 12 hours on Election Day driving people to the polls, mostly in the inner city," one woman wrote. "I saw up close what was happening - the long lines, the aggressive Republican challengers, the broken machines. I personally live in an upscale, predominantly Republican suburb of Toledo and people sailed through the lines at my voting place. The difference in voting conditions vs. in poorer areas couldn't have been more glaring."

There was a malice afoot that day directed at our electoral process that cannot be explained away as mere flaws in a basically sound system, as Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell attempted to do, shrugging off his critics with the glib observation that "There's no such thing as an error-free election."

No, no, we can't let copouts and smug catchphrases stand as answers to the serious questions the nation must ask. What happened on Nov. 2 were not "errors," honest or otherwise, to be tolerated as harmlessly inevitable. Nor were they random. Nor did they occur "on both sides."

There were, on that day, a "dizzying list of electoral problems that might make some wonder how any ballots were counted in November." So the Washington Post reported the other day, as part of the coverage of the opening session of the Commission on Federal Election Reform hearings.

Well, gosh. Think of that. This is not page 17 news, though that's where the Post buried it, in its unfathomable news judgment. But at least the story is seeping out. This requires national outrage, an unstinting demand that the details of fraud and disenfranchisement be outed, the perpetrators punished and, most important of all, future elections secured from a repeat. It's democracy's Abu Ghraib.

I fear that a force is loose in the land that will stop at nothing to impose its agenda on the nation. We already have a permanent state of war and the USA Patriot Act. Now the Senate Republicans are attempting to implement the "nuclear option" and eliminate the filibuster - what William Rivers Pitt calls "the last lingering firebreak" separating church from state - so that 12 far right nominees to the federal judiciary (a mere 5 percent of the Bush administration's total) can be confirmed over Democratic objection.

". . . right now they believe they have the power to get anything they want," writes Pitt, referring to the "theocracy" wing of the GOP. In the context of a disabled electoral process, this is truly chilling. Could it happen here?

With God on your side, who needs democracy?

- - -

Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at [e-mail] or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.

© 2005 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

[LatePeriduct]

21. Frame the issue: Vote fraud, not voter fraud.

Republicans part of a whacked out religious cult bandwagon would have the entire world believe, voters committed massive fraud in the 2004 and 2002 elections!

http://www.nytimes.com

They would have everyone believe that yes, voters are to blame for the fraud and for swinging the election to Bush! Its the new attack strategy, forget attacking exit polls. Voters are to blame!

Then the fake stooges can suggest putting all voters under watch, but remember it is not voters...

It is the VOTES compromised and defrauded by illegal criminals working for the Cartel De Aet!

http://www.votersunite.org

VOTERS making up the name of Mary Poppins and millions others, could never have committed this large scale offense! Only the people's 'government' is capable of this.