RFK, Jr. urges Democrats to ensure the votes are counted.
http://www.novoterleftbehind.netRFK Jr's Stark Warning and Appeal, "Count the votes or lose" (+)
by: Karita Hummer
Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 00:23:51 AM EDT
Cross-posted from EENR Blog, http://www.eenrblog.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2460
Ok, the title is a paraphrase of what RFK, Jr. actually said. To quote him, from an urgent appeal he sent out today, on behalf of the Democrats for America's Future Campaign called, "No Voter Left Behind", http://www.novoterleftbehind.net/ RFK, Jr. actually laid it out in the starkest of terms, saying, "Democrats can't win unless our votes are counted."
You will recall that RFK, Jr. had conducted a major expose' of the 2004 election, in which he connected all the dots from that sorry debacle of an election, mincing no words when he refers to the Republican effort of that election this way : "The Republican Party mounted a coordinated, criminal campaign to steal the 2004 Presidential election -- and it worked."
His expose', a great patriotic effort, published in Rolling Stone Magazine, got almost nary a yawn from most quarters, including from the Democratic Party, as far as I can tell. http://www.rollingstone.com/ne...
More below...
Karita Hummer :: RFK Jr's Stark Warning and Appeal, "Count the votes or lose"
Already heartbroken by the election theft of 2000, the last one of 2004 was even more devastating to many of us, because it represented a serial offense of the gravest sort for our democracy. It was especially hard when we, victims, were told to get over it or just move on. For me, it was a matter of justice, and I thought we needed redress for our grievance. I am still aggrieved, and I hold the Republican Party to be most at fault, but I think the Democrats should share some of the blame, for being such timid wimps, who by neglect, colluded in the theft.
Especially interesting to me in RFK, Jr's appeal is his support for "No Voter Left Behind Campaign's" policy of asking candidates, apparently up and down the ticket, to not accept the final results, until counts are completed.
RFK, Jr. did us a service by keeping the issue of criminal election theft alive, and I am ever so grateful to him.
We can do our part by supporting the effort of Leave no Voter Behind
Here is RFK, Jr's. patriotic appeal in its entirety:
A MESSAGE FROM ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.:
PLEASE SUPPORT NOVOTERLEFTBEHIND.NET
Dear Fellow Democrat:
Like many Americans -- especially those of us who worked on John Kerry's presidential campaign -- I spent Election Night 2004 wondering how the exit polls, which had overwhelmingly predicted defeat for George W. Bush, got it so wrong.
Baffled -- and sick at heart that a President so unpopular and incompetent was heading for a second disastrous term in the Oval Office -- I heard the rumors of a Republican campaign to suppress Democratic votes.
And then, painstakingly, page-by-page, with no agenda in mind but finding the truth -- the same skills I have employed in my career as an attorney -- I began to examine the evidence. What I found shocked me to the core -- and by the time I pieced it together in an expose for Rolling Stone magazine, I was convinced beyond all doubt:
The Republican Party mounted a coordinated, criminal campaign to steal the 2004 Presidential election -- and it worked.
Now, as another election approaches, you and I need to stand with Democrats for America's Future (DAF) to make absolutely certain it doesn't happen again. You can get involved now by supporting us here. http://www.novoterleftbehind.net/
We need to stand up because our country cannot stand for another four years of reckless Republican policies. But most of all, we need to stand together because the integrity of our democracy is at risk.
This is about more -- far more -- than who wins the next election, as important as that is. If we can't guarantee the citizens of a democracy that their votes will be counted, every other liberty we hold dear is at risk.
And that, I regret to say, is a guarantee that our nation failed -- abysmally -- to uphold in 2004. Consider:
Of six million Americans living abroad -- a constituency known to vote Democratic -- nearly half either never received their ballots or received them too late because the Pentagon shut down a web site that files overseas registrations.
George W. Bush "won" New Mexico by 5,988 votes -- but more than 20,000 ballots there weren't properly tallied.
Nationwide, as many as 1 million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting machines.
You might be wondering how irregularities like that happened all over the country. After all, elections are administered by state officials free of partisan influence, right?
Well, allow me to introduce you to a man named Kenneth Blackwell. He's the former Republican Secretary of State in Ohio -- the state that, as you surely recall, officially tipped the 2004 election to George W. Bush.
As such, Blackwell's job was to administer an impartial election. But he had another portfolio that year -- Ohio chair of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign.
If that sounds like a conflict of interest, it was. And Blackwell -- having earned his stripes as a top Bush-Cheney official during the notorious Florida recount of 2000 -- exploited it with relish.
In the run-up to the 2004 elections, Blackwell -- known in Ohio as a partisan Republican zealot -- allowed 300,000 voters to be expunged from the registration rolls, including almost one in four voters in predominantly Democratic Cleveland.
Blackwell also set up a network of kangaroo courts at which Ohio Republicans challenged Democratic voter registrations -- often without giving the voters in question a fair opportunity to stand up for their rights.
The whole affair was so egregious that a federal court declared it unconstitutional -- but by that time, much of the work was done. All told, more than 35,000 newly registered voters were challenged. Many were disenfranchised outright, and many more were intimidated.
I could go on. Sadly, though, we can't reclaim what I am now convinced was the stolen election of 2004 -- an election in which the Republican Party implemented a nationwide effort to suppress Democratic votes.
What we can do, though -- and must -- is work together to make sure every last Democratic vote is counted in 2008. That's where Democrats for America's Future comes in.
DAF is mobilizing a nationwide "NoVoterLeftBehind.net" project that will monitor voting on Election Day in 2008. The squad will shine a public spotlight on every last irregularity. Democrats for America's Future will urge every Democratic candidate not to concede a single race until every last vote is counted.
And from beginning to end -- from the voter registration process to Election Day challenges and beyond -- DAF will fight every last fight to the very end, insisting that every American is guaranteed a democracy's most sacred right: their vote.
Here's the challenge: We have every reason to believe the Republicans are, at this moment, preparing a 2008 vote-suppression effort that will rival, or even exceed, the dirty tricks they pulled in 2004.
Unless DAF is equally active -- unless they have the resources to monitor every vote, every precinct, every campaign, every court challenge -- the Republicans may very well get away with it again.
That's why I urge you, in the strongest terms, to rush a generous contribution of $30, $50, $100, $250 or even more to support DAF's "NoVoterLeftBehind.net". Your help will ensure that this effort is as aggressive and broad-based as it absolutely must be to succeed.
The 2008 elections are approaching fast -- and Democrats can't win unless our votes are counted. Please help today
Sincerely,
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
http://www.novoterleftbehind.n...
Remember, let's hold Democratic Candidates' feet to the fire to not accept results until the final vote is counted. (Just as JRE wanted to do in 2004, but Kerry and others wouldn't listen to him.) Once elected, we must still hold their feet to the fire to bring about true election reform, for Open Source code voting, and other verifiable systems, reform of campaign finance law, primary inequities elimination, electoral college inequities and arcane party rules that don't work for democracy.
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Insist that democratic candidates wait for the results. Noble humility is not what we need. We need fighters for Democracy, with backbone to stand for all of us!
Taking on the mantra of "no voter left behind" is a good beginning: http://www.novoterleftbehind.n...
Karita Hummer
Edwards Democrat, who insists that our party have backbone to stand against election theft, and call it when they see it. Candidates: Leave no vote4er behind.
Visit No Voter Left Brehind Campaign: http://www.novoterleftbehind.net/rfk_message.cfm
