Fighting vote fraud!

Action in California! Brad Blog scoops the world on this one: A group called VoterAction will file suit to halt Secretary of State Bruce McPherson's dastardly scheme to foist Diebold's machines on the elctorate -- despite the fact that the damn things are easily hackable, despite the fact that Diebold is on the receiving end of lawsuits for securities fraud, and despite the fact that nobody who lives in California wants those filthy devices.

Do what you can to support this effort. If California's vote gets Diebold-ized, California will become a red state and the presidency will remain in Republican hands FOREVER.

We need international attention. First, note what California State Senator Debra Bowen has to say about this mess:

February 28, 2006 – Secretary McPherson releases the ITA report – dated February 23, 2006 – from CIBER on the Diebold memory cards. The report notes the Diebold system uses interpreted code – something banned by the FEC standards the Secretary said on August 3, 2005, he would follow.

Why violate reasonable standards set by the FEC? Obviously, the Republicans are going to such outlandish lengths because they plan to steal the election. No other motive explains their actions.

So how do we stop election theft in the all-important congressional races of November, 2006 (presuming, as always, that we make it from now until then without Big Wedding II)? We need international observers, and we need independent exit polling.

Here is where we run into a snag. The international monitoring group is called the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe -- the OSCE. They did do some observation in this country in 2004. Unfortunately, those monitors simply could not get their heads around the fact that the United States has no federally-set elections standards. We have fifty different states with fifty different rulebooks, a situation without parallel in Europe. That fact of history completely floors the OSCE.

Write to the OSCE at info@osce.org. They need to understand that the lack of federal standards in American elections is a situation that will not change any time soon. They also need to understand that the need for clean elections in this country is immediate and dire. The problem affects the world: More Republican vote-theft means more war.

Even if vote fraud occurs in 2006, a report explaining how it occurred will inform that international community that the majority of the American people do not support the thugs who've overpowered and raped our democracy. Such a report may spur a boycott of American goods until freedom is restored.

We also need truly unbiased exit polling. As I noted in a recent post, the 2004 pollsters -- contrary to popular belief -- drastically over-represented the Bush vote. Do you think that happened by accident?

Truth Is All -- for the latest (the news, it seems, is not good), go here.