Activists protest voting irregularities outside lawmaker's office

RACHEL KONRAD

Associated Press   06 December 2004

SAN FRANCISCO - Activists rallied Monday outside of U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi's office to protest electronic voting irregularities and other problems at polls on Nov. 2, ranging from long lines to invalid provisional ballots.

The protest, organized by an Oakland-based Democratic club, attracted more than 150 people - from longtime liberal activists to passers-by dismayed with President Bush's comfortable margin of victory over John Kerry.

"I wasn't heavy into politics, but after I voted this time I smelled something funky right away," said San Francisco resident Nathaniel Winston, 28, who joined the rally on his way to lunch. "The fact that the exit polls said one thing and the results said another, and the fact that we keep hearing about long lines and suppression in Ohio - this stuff makes you want to be more active, more involved."

The event was supposed to be a show of support for a larger rally in Ohio, whose secretary of state certified Bush the winner by nearly 119,000 votes. But the Columbus rally attracted only about 20 people.

Civil rights groups are upset that some Ohio voters - particularly those in Democratic-leaning and African-American precincts in Cleveland - had to wait in line for more than eight hours to cast ballots. They're also upset that more than half of Pennsylvania's provisional ballots weren't counted.

Academics have found statistical irregularities in Florida counties with paperless voting machines. According to graduate students at University of California, Berkeley, Bush may have received as many as 260,000 more votes than should be expected, given historical voting trends, demographic changes and turnout.

"If they stole the election in 2000, what's to think they didn't steal it again in 2004?" asked San Francisco protester Glen Risdon, 55.

Don Goldmacher, chairman of the Voting Rights Task Force of the 300-member Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club of Oakland, blamed senior Democratic leaders - including Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry - for not being aggressive about investigating allegations of fraud and miscounts in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and elsewhere. The club is imploring Pelosi, the House minority leader, to join U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Detroit in calling for an investigation of Ohio voting problems.

"For those of us who worked on the ground in this election, to find the Democratic leadership so tentative and so fearful does not present to Democratic voters and to the American public at large a picture of strength," said Goldmacher, whose club raised about $250,000 for the Democratic Party and sent it to swing states. "It's clearly a picture of weakness, precisely playing into the Republican Party's painting of John Kerry as a weak leader."

Protesters' placards said, "Smart elections, not smart bombs!" and "If my vote counts, count my vote." Many activists blamed mainstream media for shifting Americans' attention from election problems to less substantive issues.

"Even the Ukraine is getting a new election, but we're not because our government isn't interested, and the media has put our attention on the NBA brawls," said Mill Valley, Calif., resident Ted Newman, 47. Newman traveled twice to Ohio to help campaign for Kerry but said the challenger has since disappointed.

"Mr. Kerry did a disservice to democracy when he conceded on Nov. 3, when not all votes had been counted yet and the election was yet to be certified," Newman said. "There is no constructive purpose to call an election before all votes are counted."