Election doubts provoke protest
Crowd gathers on Capitol Campus

CHRISTIAN HILL THE OLYMPIAN    12 December 2004

OLYMPIA More than 30 people stood Saturday in the shadow of the Capitol to vent about an electoral system they say has left voters out in the cold. They're among many in the United States who believe the presidential election nearly six weeks ago was fraught with voting irregularities and other problems, putting the outcome in doubt.

"If we can't count the vote, we can't trust the results," said Shawn Newman, an Olympia attorney who has litigated election law cases.

Earlier, he spoke through a bullhorn before a group of people bundled for the cold holding signs reading, "No stolen elections" and "Count all our votes."

An identical event is scheduled for noon today on the Capitol steps as part of a national protest focusing on the lost security of the nation's voting systems on Election Day.

The protest will occur the day before slates of electors meet in their respective state capitals to vote for the presidential and vice presidential candidates that carried their state. Bush won the Electoral College and secured his re-election.

Many gathered Saturday to dispute Bush as the legitimate winner. They point to irregularities involving electronic voting machines around the nation and problems in Ohio, the key state that secured Bush's victory.

Literature passed out Saturday referenced several problems. For example, it stated more votes were recorded than there are registered voters in six Florida counties.

In another example from the literature, the software of most of the electronic voting machines is not open source, so its functioning can't be independently verified and does not produce an auditable paper trail.

Recounts are scheduled in both Ohio and New Mexico.

Newman said it's past time for the United States to create a uniform ballot instead of having the wide array of methods voters face each election, from punch cards to optical scan to electronic ballot.

"How can you have a valid recount when there's no uniformity among the ballots?" Newman asked.

Gail Johnson, a 57-year-old professor at The Evergreen State College, said she became aware of the issue after reading Greg Palast's "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." She said it includes an instance in Florida where thousands of votes in the 2000 presidential election weren't counted because the names of the voters closely matched felons' names. Residents with felony records there couldn't vote during the election.

Without an honest election, our nation's democracy can't survive, she said.

"The fact we could have an election that appears to be fraudulent is just unconscionable," she said. "How can we let that happen? We're America."

Chris Stegman, a local Green Party member who organized the event, said he wanted the protest to draw attention to the recent presidential election but also to changes that must take place to ensure it can't happen again.

"We want every vote to count," he told the crowd. "But we also want to expose the fraud that has not only occurred in Ohio but elsewhere."

To learn more

For more information about the protests or about reported irregularities during the 2004 presidential election, visit www.51capitalmarch.com or www.nov3.us