FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DECEMBER 30, 2004
12:00 PM
 CONTACT: Coalition Against Election Fraud
Heleni Thayre, 617-232-8180
Robin Weingarten, 617-325-8224
caef@caef.us 
  
Coalition Urges Congress to Act Against Election Fraud
  

WASHINGTON December 30 Massachusetts Elector Tom Barbera and local activists with the Coalition Against Election Fraud (CAEF) will call on members of Congress to take action in response to election fraud at a Rally for the Republic, to be held inside of Faneuil Hall on Monday, January 3 at 7:00 p.m. Organizers invite all those concerned about preserving our voting rights to gather at 6:30 p.m. at the State House entrance to Boston Common for a march to the indoor Rally at Faneuil Hall.

The Coalition is part of a nationwide grassroots movement to urge members of Congress to object on January 6 to the Electoral College vote from states such as Ohio, Florida and New Mexico, where mounting evidence of election violations has resulted in questions about the outcome of the 2004 presidential election. This event coincides with Rallies for the Republic planned for early next week in cities across the country, including Columbus, Ohio, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. Organizers aim to influence members of Congress to vote NOT to certify the Electoral College votes from states where the election results are in question, and/or to delay the vote certification entirely due to the need to complete investigations and recounts currently underway.

Coalition members are currently lobbying a national list of Senators, including Massachusetts Senators Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, to urge them to vote against certification of Electors' votes from states such as Ohio, where the election results are being challenged in court. Several Coalition activists will head to the U.S. Capitol early next week to present their case in person to Senators before Congress reconvenes on January 6. Congress-woman Maxine Waters of California, Chair of the Democratic Caucus Special Committee on Election Reform, stated this week that she, along with other members of the House of Representatives, will be challenging the seating of the Ohio electors.

The Monday Rally, the D.C. Delegation, and a daily vigil outside of the Boston home of Senator John Kerry are among the Coalition's strategies to mount a Constitutional Challenge to the Electoral College vote in response to increasing evidence of election fraud. They cite concerns about discrepancies between vote tallies and the number of registered voters in specific precincts; inequities in the number of voting machines available at highly Democratic polling places; and widespread disenfranchisement of voters through vote suppression tactics targeted largely at African Americans and college students.

"We do not have to suffer another four years of an illegitimate presidency since the Constitution and Federal law set out how to challenge unlawfully acquired electoral votes," according to David Lytel, a leader in the 2000 and the current challenges to the legitimacy of the Florida and now the Ohio electoral votes. Lytel, the keynote speaker at Monday's Rally, explains that the U.S. Constitution has provisions mandating specific penalties be invoked by Congress if the right to vote is 'in any way abridged.'?

"There are considerably more reported cases of vote suppression, fraudulent vote casting and fraudulent vote counting than George W. Bush?s margin of victory in Ohio and in Florida," Lytel continues. "In Warren County (Ohio), for example, officials closed the vote counting to outside observers for the first time anyone can remember, on the [alleged] advice of the national Department of Homeland Security, which now denies it. Warren County has nothing in it Al Qaeda cares about, but it is the single most important county in the nation to Bush?s re-election, being the last polling place in the state to close and providing a third of the margin he needed to claim victory on election night.

?There is overwhelming evidence that the misadministration of the election was non-random. It is literally impossible that chance could produce errors that all point in the same direction, giving votes to Bush," states Lytel, who asserts that exit polls were most likely accurate, showing that "considerably more people went to the polls that day to vote for John Kerry" than shown in the vote counts.

The media has implied that alleged fraud in the 2004 election amounts to ?merely random 'glitches' or 'irregularities' and that the only recourse is to fix the system in time for the next election," according to Lytel, who is quick to add, "they are wrong on both counts... The misadministration of the election was deliberate and purposeful and we have

more than one course of action to return the nation to the proper path right now.?

Also to speak at the Rally are John Bonifaz, General Counsel of the National Voting Rights Institute and Co-counsel for Presidential Candidates David Cobb and Michael Badnarik in their demand for a meaningful recount of

all of the votes cast for President in Ohio; Jonathan Simon, a political survey research analyst who collaborated with U. Penn. professor and statistician Steven Freeman, PhD on exit poll analysis of the 2004 election; Tom Barbera, a Waltham Elector whose motion asking for the investigation and remedy of election violations was passed unanimously by all twelve Mass. Electors; Faye Morrison, an Ayer Selectwoman who spent six months campaigning and working with Election Protection in several states; and Donna Palermino, a local attorney who will speak on the legal aspects of the challenge. Local citizens who campaigned in Ohio, Florida and other states will also share their own observations of vote suppression during the 2004 election. Musical entertainment will be provided by area folk musician Greg Greenway.

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