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Today's
Stories
December
8, 2004
Ann
Harrison
The Ohio Recount: Reluctant Officials
and Few Rules
December
7, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Running Battles in Baghdad
Behrooz
Ghamari
Lost Muslim Voices of Dissent
Dave
Lindorff
American Fantasies: Psst! Hey Buddy,
Did You Hear How Well the War's Going?
Joshua
Frank
Dean at the DNC?
Richard
Oxman
Down with Dylan: the Insufferable Interview
Ray
McGovern
All Mosquitoes, No Swamp
John
Chuckman
The Invasion of Hallifax: The Imperial Wizard Visits Canada
James
Petras
Latin America: the Empire Changes Gears
Website
of the Day
ToxMap: Who's Poisoning You
December
6, 2004
Paul
Craig Roberts
Paranoia and Pre-emption: Is the
Bush Administration Certifiable?
December
4 / 6, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Politicize the CIA? You've Got to
be Kidding
Joe
Bageant
Dining with the Rhinos
Alan
Maass
Reporting from the Ground in Iraq: an Interview with Patrick
Cockburn
Brian
Cloughley
Democracy, Bush-style, in the Gulf
Laura
Carlsen
Latin America Shifts Left
Lenni
Brenner
Jefferson, Madison, Bush and Religion
Anna
Ioakimedes
Brazil's Haitian Mission: Doing God's Work or Washington's?
Uri
Avnery
Widow of Opportunity?
Fred
Gardner
Supreme Court Hears Medical Pot Case
Dave
Zirin
Steroids to Heaven
Jackie
Corr
Mining Camp Blues: the Red State Variation
Don
Fitz
Will Greens Abandon IRV?
Lucy
Herschel
"Art can be a Weapon of the Oppressed": an Interview
with Artist Anthony Papa
Richard
Oxman
No Angels in America: Bashing the Gay Play
Ron
Jacobs
Holiday Greeting Card
Poets'
Basement
Collins, Albert, LaMorticella
December
3, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Lie Then Escalate
Ben
Tripp
Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a
Time of Crisis
Joe
Allen
Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer
Gilberto Soto
Matthew
B. Riley
Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson
Meir
Shalev
In the End, It is the Violin that Wins
Bob
Wing
The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
When McCain Bit His Tongue
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The EU, the US, Israel and Iran
December
2, 2004
Tito
Tricot
No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture
Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free
Behzad
Yaghmaian
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration
Dr.
Susan Block
Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes
Frank
/ Chowkwanyun
Liberalism and Its Bounds
Lee
Sustar
Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt
Patrick
Cockburn
Another Grim Record in Iraq
Mark
Engler
Seattle at Five
Michael
Donnelly
Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham
Nate
Collins
The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds
Saul
Landau
The Assassination of Danilo Anderson
December
1, 2004
Phillip
Cryan
Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias
in Wire Coverage of Colombia
Dave
Zirin
What's the Matter with "Leon"?:
Budweiser's Racist Commercial
Ghali
Hassan
Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation:
200 Children Die Every Day
Donna
J. Volatile
Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy"
Patrick
Cockburn
How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency
Nick
Meo
Chemical War Over Afghanistan
Mike
Ferner
The Battle of Toledo
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising
Kathy
Kelly
Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes
of the UN in Iraq
November
30, 2004
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Veil of Secrecy
Toni
Nelson Herrera
Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence
Patrick
Cockburn
The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq
Chuck
Munson
WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization
Movement
Adam
Williams
Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana
Gregory
Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for
North Korea
Website
of the Day
Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!
November
29, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of
the CIA?
Omar
Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine:
Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint
Mike
Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to
Market a Siege
Uri
Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me
Some Credit!"
Matt
Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers
Patrick
Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign
Minister
Alan
Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters
Justin
Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later
Antony
Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy
Gary
Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real
Issue
Website
of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone
November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
November
26, 2004
Peter
Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?
Greg
Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry
of Immigration
Dave
Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the
Way
Gary
Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...
Paul
Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
Website
of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch
November
25, 2004
Willliam
Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks
to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"
Mitchel
Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
Mike
Ferner
An Uncommon Mom
November
24, 2004
Gila
Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence
is Set by the State
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The
Other Mess in Congress
Christopher
Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay
Dave
Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony
Ron
Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem
Ken
Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah
Diana
Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader
John
L. Hess
Safire the Shameless
Jason
Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear
War
Map
of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860
November
23, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach
November
22, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage
in Detroit
Paul
Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada
Kathie
Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill
Ken
Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place
in Iraq"
Mike
Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer
Roger
Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile
Website
of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?
November
20 / 21, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice
Todd
May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear
Abbas
Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account
Kevin
Zeese
Mishandling Nader
Landau
/ Hassen
After Arafat
Tom
Barry
The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley
Fred
Gardner
Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd
Justin
E.H. Smith
Triumph of the Will: the Sequel
Carl
Estabrook
Where We Are Now
Gary
Leupp
Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue
Dave
Lindorff
Apocalypse Soon
Jenna
Michelle Liut
Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower
and Lives
Mickey
Z.
The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William
Blum
Greg
Moses
The Same Old Struggle Against Imperial America
Sharon
Smith
Abortion Rights and the Election: What Now?
Ron
Jacobs
Sandwiches and Car Bombs
Ben
Tripp
Raising d'Etre: Finding Money in Hollywood These Days
Richard
Oxman
Basketbrawl Two Pointer: Iraq Rules!
Gilad
Atzmon
Politics and Jazz
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Albert, Ford, & Anon.
Website
of the Day
Voice of the Forest
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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December 8, 2004
Counting Deep
The
Ohio Recount: Reluctant Officials and Few Rules
By
ANN HARRISON
Thousands of protesting Ukrainians successfully
forced their Supreme Court to order a new presidential run-off
election and are still agitating for anti-fraud legislation.
But their counterparts in the U.S. - which holds itself up as
a model of Democracy - are plunging into a tough fight to recount
and dispute the election in Ohio which handed President Bush
twenty decisive electoral votes.
On December 6th, Ohio Secretary
of State J. Kenneth Blackwell certified the vote in the critical
swing state declaring that President George Bush beat out John
Kerry by 118,775 votes. The President's 136,000 vote lead on
election night was narrowed to two percent after the absentee
and provision votes were counted. But the election was not close
enough to trigger an automatic recount and Blackwell, who co-chaired
Bush's campaign, declared on NPR that there was "no widespread
proof of fraud or intimidation or shenanigans."
Not so, say Ohio election activists
who have spent the past month gathering what they say is evidence
of voting irregularities, voter intimidation and suppression.
Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb and Libertarian
presidential candidate Michael Badnarik plan to file a request
for a recount in all 88 Ohio counties. Having raised the required
$113,600 and landed a favorable federal ruling against a county
that tried to stop the recount, the candidates also want to review
all 155,000 provisional ballots. A recount must begin within
ten days of the formal request, but it is unlikely that it will
be completed when Ohio's presidential electors are set to meet
on December 13th.
There's an urgency to postpone
the electors meeting, but the pressure's not coming from the
Democrats. The third party recount is supported by John Kerry's
presidential campaign which also wants to count votes, but not
dispute the results. "The Kerry Edwards campaign does not
expect the outcome to change," said Don McTigue, a Columbus
lawyer who filed suit for the campaign in U.S. District Court
seeking to impose uniform standards for counting provisional
ballots.
The Democratic National Committee
announced December 6th that it would appoint a panel of experts
to look at voting problems in Ohio. Outgoing Democratic National
Chairman Terry McAuliffe, vowed that Democrats will spend "whatever
it takes" to examine voting flaws and "make sure every
vote is counted." But they're not seeking to overturn the
race either, focusing instead on issuing a report on how to improve
future elections - due out next spring.
The main effort to actually
channel election investigations into a win for Kerry is being
led by a fair election group called the Alliance for Democracy.
The organization says it will press the Ohio Supreme Court to
review what it says is abundant evidence of election irregularities
and ask the court for a declaratory judgment which names Kerry
the winner.
"We are basically going
to make allegations that the votes, if properly counted, would
reveal a different result then that which was certified by the
Secretary of State not in the change in number, but a change
in the outcome by which candidate won," said Cliff Arnebeck,
a Columbus lawyer who represents the group. He says that for
this to happen, the December 13 meeting of the state electors
should be postponed. "The Supreme Court has the power to
order that the election outcome be determined differently than
what was presented by the Secretary of State by a standard of
proof and by clear and convincing evidence," said Arnebeck.
Gathering The
Evidence and Making It Count
As an example of the type of
evidence that might overturn the Ohio election, Arnebeck points
to a computer error on election night which recorded an extra
3,893 votes for Bush in the Columbus suburb of Gahanna where
the precinct recorded only 638 people casting votes on Danaher
electronic voting machines. He said concerns about "inadvertent
migration of votes from one candidate to the other" has
been raised in a number of Ohio counties with different types
of voting systems. According to Arnebeck, they include Clermont
County's optical scan machines and punch card ballot readers
used in Warren, Butler and Hamilton County.
About 70% of Ohio voters cast
their ballots via punch cards. Arnebeck notes that the certification
of votes on December 6th did not address the 92,000 spoiled punch
card ballots with no valid presidential choice which he says
will be addressed in the recount process. The Alliance for Democracy
also plans to use sworn testimony gathered in public hearings
in Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland where witnesses charged
that election officials disenfranchised voters by withholding
voting machines in African American and Democratic precincts
- while dispersing them generously to Republican leaning suburbs.
But the Alliance for Democracy
is particularly concerned about voting machines. According to
Arnebeck, statistical anomalies in vote totals are evident in
both a statewide county by county macro analysis of the vote,
and a micro analysis on the precinct level. He says his group
seeks to break the vote analysis down by county and determine
if the anomalies are a result of error, inadvertence or fraud.
"We want to clearly establish what happened and that can
include having all the machines and all the documents subjected
to analysis by the top experts in the country," said Arnebeck.
Getting election officials
to agree to an analysis of voting machines has proved difficult.
On November 22, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and
the Verified Voting Foundation (VVF) announced that they had
sent letters to voting officials in eight counties around the
country urging them to allow independent testing of their electronic
voting machines. The two groups were among the 60 organizations
in the Election Protection Coalition which ran an election day
hotline and the web-based Election Incident Reporting System.
The Coalition received 37,862 reports of election irregularities,
including 2,112 incidents concerning voting machines.
The two major machine errors
involved voters who selected Kerry on an electronic touch screen
and saw their vote change to Bush on a summary screen. The second
was a specific problem with the Sequoia AVC Edge machine where
voters saw preselected default choices presented to them. According
to EFF and VFF, counties where the most serious problems were
reported include Mahoning and Franklin County in Ohio, Broward
and Palm Beach Counties Broward and Palm Beach in Florida, in
Florida, Mercer and Philadelphia County in Pennsylvania, Harris
County in Texas and Bernalillo County in New Mexico.
The response so far from these
counties? "Pretty much zilch," says EFF staff attorney
Matt Zimmerman who notes that many county officials are under
heavy pressure to certify the vote. Matt Damschroder, directer
of Ohio's Franklin County Board of Elections, said officials
there have received the request. But he insisted that the county
had "no problems" with it's Danaher e-voting machines
- the same machines that malfunctioned in Gahanna. "They
functioned as they were intended to on election night,"
said Damschroder.
Even when election activists
appeal to the courts, Zimmerman says judges often give local
election officials broad authority on how to conduct machine
audits. Former Riverside, California County Board of Supervisors
candidate Linda Soubirous learned this lesson when she challenged
Riverside County and its Registrar of Voters earlier this year.
The county refused to conduct a proper recount of a race that
Soubirous lost by 45 votes. Soubirous requested examination of
the audit logs and redundant memory stored in the machines. But
the Registrar refused to grant her access to any of this material
arguing it was not "relevant" to a recount. According
to Zimmerman, a state court ruled that local election officials
could decide what recount data is relevant and the case is now
on appeal.
"If we wanted to get close
to voter intent, that would mean going to machines individually
to look at data," said Zimmerman. "But a judge is mostly
going to defer to election officials and the law does not require
them to look at individual machines and undergo the labor intensive
task to get the vote counts - the judge will not require them
to do that."
Even if activists turn up evidence
of tampering with punch card readers or optical scan machines,
Zimmerman says there are few clear guidelines or laws that would
force officials to act on the information. "To the extent
that there is some kind of paper record, that is good thing,"
said Zimmerman. "But unless the laws and regulations force
you to do something with it, they are almost worthless."
Will recount activists be able
to look inside each voting machine in Ohio to conduct a post
election analysis? If they get the right judge with the right
disposition who lets them look at the logs, it's possible, says
Zimmerman. But if the judge simply requires that the election
tallies be recounted, he says the counties may just look at the
votes after they have been filtered through a central tabulation
system.
EFF is trying to use the Open
Records Act to get access to voting data, but Zimmerman said
it cannot be used effectively to impound voting machines. "It
underscores the notion that election laws have not caught up
to technology," said Zimmerman. "Right now we are up
against a ticking clock and time is running out to uncover problems
and malfeasance that might have been examined."
Ann Harrison covers politics for CounterPunch,
the San Francisco Bay Guardian and other publications. She can
be reached at ah@well.com.
Weekend Edition
Features for November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
|