Analysis: Protesters try last hurrah

By Marie Horrigan
UPI Deputy Americas Editor   04 January 2005

Washington, DC, Jan. 3 (UPI) Electoral-reform advocates and protesters who allege the Nov. 2 election was either rigged or marred by widespread irregularities are launching the last desperate measures to effect change before Congress certifies the Electoral College vote Thursday.
 

Citizen Web logs, which have largely sustained the calls for vote recounts, are leading a frenzy of activities including rallies, vigils, online petitions and mass e-mail messages as the Jan. 6 deadline looms.

Citizens calling for Congress to launch an inquiry into the vote before certifying it face the same hurdle as the 2000 election, in that a member of each chamber of Congress must call for the inquiry. Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., spearheads a group of more than a dozen members of the House in calling for a recount, but so far no senators have stepped up to the plate.

Massachusetts native Sheila Parks has set up vigils in front of Sen. John Kerry's residence in Boston, which she said are attended by 10 to 15 people each day. Parks also is part of a delegation that is scheduled to travel to Washington Tuesday to make its case personally to a "dream team" of senators they think might be willing to hold up the vote certification.

Her group, Coalition Against Election Fraud, also is scheduled to meet Wednesday with representatives from Kerry's Senate office, who they will give copies of online petitions, letters and postcards from supporters and citizens asking Kerry not to certify the vote.

Despite their efforts, Parks said she is not sure what will happen Thursday when both chambers of Congress convene to certify the vote.

"I wish I had a feel for how it was going," she said with a sigh. "It depends what minute you get me."

Parks said her group was not composed of conspiracy theorists or diehard Kerry supporters, but of "very concerned citizens" who believe the election was fraudulent.

"The cornerstone of American democracy (is) one person one vote ... so our democracy is destroyed as far as we're concerned," she said.

It is the same requirement that stymied calls for an investigation into the 2000 election results, when members of the Congressional Black Caucus appealed to their Senate colleagues to no avail. The session was presided over by Vice President Al Gore, who had lost the Electoral College vote and, it was later reported, asked Democratic senators not to contest the vote.

Supporters of the recount effort were dealt a blow last month when Ohio's electors certified that state's vote. Despite that, however, groups rallied Monday in Columbus to continue pressing their calls for a recount. A consortium of civil-rights groups, the We Do Not Concede Coalition, was scheduled to head out with disenfranchised Ohio voters on a "Freedom Ride" from Columbus to Washington.

"There's a real human side of this," said coalition Director Kat L'Estrange. "These people were kept from voting and they were kept in lines for hours and it was terrible the way they were treated. ... We're going to put a face on the issue."

A spokesman for Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., one of several Democratic senators named on blog lists as a possible candidate to repudiate the vote, said he was out of the running.

In response to an e-mail message from a friend involved in the recount movement, Durbin thanked him for his interest but wrote that with the Ohio vote certified, "It is clear that Sen. Kerry was correct in announcing his concession on November 3rd."

"The basic test hasn't been met," said spokesman Joe Shomaker. "There is no compelling evidence of massive voter fraud." He added that Durbin is a strong proponent of electoral reform and supports abolishing the Electoral College but said that "tilting at the windmills" about November's outcome would not help his credibility on the issue.

No amount of petitions, faxes or phone calls would likely change Durbin's stance, he said.

A spokeswoman for another possible ally, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., said it was a time "to come together as a nation, not to further divide it."

Kennedy had not been contacted by protesters, she said, but added the senator expected the election results to be certified on Thursday.

A spokesman for Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., meanwhile, said the office had received a number of petitions Monday but would not comment on how Boxer intended to vote on the certification.

Parks said she couldn't imagine why no Democratic senator had stepped forward. "Maybe it's what we always said, that once they get in there they lose their integrity," she said.

But if no one does so, she added, she was going to start voting Green.