Lopategui et al versus the State of New Mexico is proceeding at a surprising pace, with the litigants currently in the "discovery" phase of the trial, the point at which lawyers are allowed to question key witnesses and dig for facts and opinions with wide latitude. The targets of discovery right now include Sequoia Elections, two of the big three voting machine companies; Rebecca Vigil-Giron, New Mexico Secretary of State; state and local election officials; and officials of the state's voting systems support vendor.The attorneys represent eight ordinary people who wish to make sure that their future votes will count. The right of discovery has uncovered evidence that the very concept of democracy faces grave dangers:
Highly disturbing facts and allegations have already emerged in this well-run but under publicized case. For example, in one majority Hispanic precinct, the voting machines produced exactly zero votes for John Kerry. More issues will arise as the Plaintiffs' legal team digs deeper into the highly irregular events of Election Day 2004. Remarkably, these events occurred at a much higher rate in predominantly Hispanic and Native American precincts.
The most likely problem was simply to find out that your vote for president or other offices was not counted. Ballots with missing votes are called "under votes." In New Mexico there were around 23,000 under votes out of a total of about 750 thousand votes cast. That is a rate of 3.0% for the state, or six times the expected rate of under votes in a presidential election. In Hispanic and Native American precincts under votes range from 6% to as high as 49%. One poll worker described watching 141 voters come to the precinct, enter the polling booth where a voting machine awaited, stay for a short period, and leave. At the end of the day, there was only one vote counted for president. That's a 99% plus rate of under votes for that precinct.(Emphasis added.)
In precincts using optical scan machines, Native Americans had the lowest undervote rate of any group -- one third of one percent. But in precincts using Sequoia's computers, that undervotes increased to 9.1 percent.
The lawsuit will also recount horrifying instances of citizens who tried to cast a vote for one candidate only to see the opposing candidate's name pop up on the computer screen. This did not happen in only a few instances. One voter spent the better part of an hour trying to make the machine register her true wishes. The "mistakes" appear to have favored conservative candidates on a consistent basis. "Erroneous" machines had a tendency to show up in areas with heavily Hispanic and Native American populations.
Who is leading the charge? The main lawyer is Lowell Finley, of San Francisco, who has already faced off against Diebold and the corrupt Republican power structure:
He is also one of the very few lawyers to win a victory over a voting machine vendor when his client, Alameda County, CA, received a refund from Diebold Inc. for problems with their voting machines. Finley also successfully blocked California Governor Schwarzenegger from using campaign contributions to repay a $4 million personal loan to his campaign.So what does the suit mean for the future of the Bush regime? Heh heh. That's the juiciest part of the steak.
New Mexico went in the Bush column by a mere 5,988 votes. This suit, if successful, will convince many that Kerry would have carried the state if the Bush forces had not burgled votes. The state has five electors, not enough to overturn the contest. Bush "won" by 286 to 251 in the electoral college. (Actually, a "faithless elector" went for Edwards; if Kerry had stood a chance of winning, that elector surely would have kept the faith.) Switching the New Mexico vote votes would change those numbers to 281 to 256 -- still a 15 point spread.
However: A success in the New Mexico courts would illustrate a principle. Millions of Americans would understand that the large companies charged with tabulating the vote are corrupt, and that they have engaged in a conspiracy with the Republican party to undermine democracy. The G.O.P. would lose all credibility for at least a generation.
Similar lawsuits can occur in other states, demonstrating to history that the 2004 vote was fixed. By keeping the heat on the fraudsters, we make vote-rigging much more difficult in 2006.
Let us posit two not-at-all-unlikely events: 1. Bush maintains his near-record unpopularity. 2. One or both houses of Congress changes hands. What then?
The Voter Action suit, if successful, could force a truly hard-hitting congressional investigation of the 2004 contest. The result would create a Constitutional crisis; the laws governing impeachment do not cover nationwide vote theft. (If memory serves, James Madison -- in the tenth Federalist Paper -- expressed doubts that "vicious arts" could affect the vote on a national level. The Founders had no idea of what might one day become possible.)
The resultant controversy may force an unprecedented action: A revote.
A foolish dream? Perhaps. I honestly do not expect to see such a day.
But daring to dream costs not a penny, and a worthy dream can motivate people to fight. As I see it, nothing bad -- and much potential good -- can come of the New Mexico case.
8 comments:
ho boy.
this brings back such fond, intense memories of just a year ago, when there was hope in the world and bush looked so damn bad in the debates, and i was first introducted to joe.
something of an anniversary, of sorts.
lots to ponder here, but what i'd like to suggest is, your fantasy scenario is no less a 'sugar mountain' than mine was.
to refresh: we take back congress, impeach the prez, the freshly installed dem speaker is inaugurated as commander in chief, and together they open up all manner of hearings into the war, the presstitution, the profiteering, the torture, the corruption, and not least of course, the election fraud.
congress takes the bold move of nullifying the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections, and establishes a new election. however, all this will likely take us right up into 08.
meanwhile, congress and the new prez continue to correct our listing state by also nullifying all appointments, executive orders, and laws established since 01. and in the midst of all that digging, they discover that the documents roberts refused to release actually incriminated the hell out of him, and he is also impeached.
for now, i'll assume sandra day is forced to remain on the court because bush cannot seem to get any of his nominations past the xian rightwingnuts.
like ya said, sugar mountain....
but like i said, hey, this is the kind of dream worth nurturing.
Sorry to be bratty, but the edges of the lines of the latest entries are now running under the edge of the Buzzflash headlines box. Just FYI.
Ah, III's post reminds me of my mindset this time last year. Actually, The Day After wasn't so bad. I was in denial, which is a good thing, since I didn't find Joe's blog for a few more days. It was 11/4/04 that sucked like nothing has ever sucked before, silver lining or no (I had already figured out, like most good liberals, that Diebold/media has scammed us HUGE). Waking up, reading about EE's health status, looking at headlines on MSN like, "How Bush Pulled It Off," which were basically complete fiction--I felt like I was living in the twilight zone. That being posted, I am NOT looking forward to THAT anniversary tommorow. If possible, Joe should post something funny.
i need to do something about my signature. folks think it's either III or Ill. whatever. it's LLL.
in any case, jen, yeah, last year held out some hope. but if you just consider how steadily things have disintegrated for these thugs, and how just as steadily the public has paid attention (despite the presstitutes!), it's really pretty amazing.
but, i digress. the reason i jumped back on this little wagon here was to add to my own wish list:
in addition to imprisoning all these godforsaken war mongers, congress turns them all over to the world court, where they are tried as war criminals.
and the 'they' includes the whole lot of 'em, including rummy and condi and vice and shrub and all their little scurrying rats.
and while we're at it, let's include judy miller and robert novak and their ilk in the press. after all, one thing folks fail to recall is that the nuremberg trials also hanged a civilian who was not a government official. julius streicher was condemned for having fomented the hatred and hostility necessary to support the holocaust in his paper, der sturmer.
yeah, you never read about that little gem.
Sorry, lll. That was my very bad.
oh jen, don't be silly! how can anyone tell? it's certainly not obvious.
in any case, no apology necessary. what's in a name, after all?
i'm just glad mine's not scooter.
lll-- re your fantasy, I posted just above before reading what you wrote here. Likely our scenarios are not mutually exclusive.
Alway good to read your comments.
The war, the presstitution, the
profiteering, the torture, the corruption, the election fraud, war crimes, and 9/11. (And four calling birds, three french hens, two turtle doves why not?)
We need an investigation into the
failure to heed warnings from eleven
countries, the obstruction of
investigations by at least three FBI
offices, the failure to mount an air
defense, the destruction of the
steel at the WTC before it could be
analyzed (particularly WTC7), and the possibility that flight 93 was
shot down just when passengers were
regaining control of the plane.
But first we must recapture the Senate and the House in 2006. We need a children's crusade--college students taking a summer and a semester out to do something historic, moving to battleground
states to campaign.
Joseph, thank you so much for posting my article. This is a case with great merit and a citizen and legal team with the quiet determination to pull it off.
What a simple request--the right to vote "without hinderance in future elections"...
I enjoy this site a great deal and I'm honored that you gave this piece such careful consideration.
Michael Collins
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