Sid Blumenthal writes: "In the aftermath, Democrats will form their ritual circular firing squad of recriminations. But, finally, the loss was not due to their candidate's personality, the flaws of this or that advisor or the party's platform. The Democrats surprised themselves at their ability to raise tens of millions of dollars, inspire hundreds of thousands of activists, spawn extensive new organizations, attract icons of popular culture and present themselves as unified around a centrist position. Expectations were not dashed. Turnout vastly increased among African-Americans and Hispanics. More than 60 percent of the newly registered voters went for John Kerry. Those concerned about the economy voted overwhelmingly for him; so did those citing the war in Iraq as an issue. But the surge of the Democrats was more than matched. Using the White House as a machine of centripetal force, Rove spread fear and fused its elements."

Greg Palast wrote on Nov. 1: "John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted. He's also losing big time in Colorado and Ohio; and he's way down in Florida, though the votes won't be totaled until Tuesday night. Through a combination of sophisticated vote rustling--ethnic cleansing of voter rolls, absentee ballots gone AWOL, machines that 'spoil' votes--John Kerry begins with a nationwide deficit that could easily exceed one million votes."

NY Times: "In a day of see-sawing court rulings, a federal appeals court ruled early today that the Republican Party could place thousands of people inside polling places to challenge the eligibility of voters, a blow to Democrats who had argued that those challengers would intimidate minority voters. The ruling, by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, reversed two lower courts that had blocked the challenges just the day before. It also came as squadrons of lawyers from both parties in Ohio and other swing states, like Pennsylvania and Florida and New Mexico, were preparing for Election Day skirmishes that will include using arcane laws that allow challenges at the polls... Judge Rogers was appointed by President Bush. Judge Ryan was appointed by President Ronald Reagan. Judge Cole [who dissented] was appointed by President Bill Clinton."

"Several national news organizations defeated an attempt by Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to prohibit exit polling within 100 feet of polling places. The ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Michael Watson granted a temporary restraining order that prevents Blackwell from blocking exit polling. The legal challenge was brought by ABC, CNN, CBS NBC, Fox News and the Associated Press."

Jay Bookman: "Recently, tens of thousands of new voters in Ohio were sent registered letters from the state Republican Party. If the targeted voters weren't home to sign a receipt when the mail carrier came -- if they were working, or at school, or serving in Iraq, for example -- they were left a note, telling them they would have to go down to their local post office during the work day to sign for and receive the campaign literature... You see, the registered mail was Step One of a sophisticated scam. Armed with a list of those who didn't pick up their registered letters, the state Republican Party initiated Step Two by filing legal challenges against their right to vote, claiming those voters either didn't exist or didn't live at those addresses. The idea was to force all 35,000 to either appear at Board of Elections hearings to prove their right to vote, or be stricken from the rolls. Fortunately, the whole thing collapsed at Step Three, when the challenge hearings were held."

Argus Leader: "Republican poll workers in Lake Andes were intimidating Native American voters on Monday, a federal judge ruled early today. Republicans may not write down license plate numbers or follow Native Americans from polling places during today's election, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Piersol ruled in a temporary restraining order. The ruling comes after Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle sued his opponent, John Thune, and the GOP in federal court in Sioux Falls on Monday, asking Piersol to stop what Democrats say was intimidation of voters. 'This ruling will hopefully ensure that every legitimate voter can vote free of intimidation on Election Day,' said Daschle spokesman Dan Pfeiffer."

Miami Herald: "With less than 12 hours before the polls open, Republicans laid the groundwork for a possible legal challenge to the presidential election with an eleventh-hour lawsuit questioning the accuracy of the voting rolls in Broward County, the most heavily Democratic county in Florida. In an emergency court hearing that ended at 8:30 tonight, Broward County Circuit Judge David Krathen ruled that the suit was groundless and he didn't want to micromanage the election'... Lawyers for the Kerry-Edwards campaign countered that Republicans could have pointed out potential problems with the voter rolls earlier in the elections calendar, and that Bush attorneys are resorting to last-minute legal maneuvering because they fear that the 2 million people who voted early in Florida are largely Democratic voters."

Greg Palast writes: "An Observer investigation in the United States has uncovered widespread allegations of electoral abuse, many of them going uninvestigated despite complaints of what would appear to be criminal attempts to manipulate voter lists. The allegations, which come just two days before Americans go to the polls in one of the most tightly contested elections in a generation, threaten to plunge Tuesday's count into a legal minefield and overshadow even the elections of 2000... One of the more serious claims is that no action has been taken in a complex fraud, where more than 4,000 Florida students were allegedly conned into signing a form which could lead them to be doubly registered and void their votes. The Florida Law Enforcement Department has told the complainants that it is too busy to investigate."

AP: "A federal judge issued an order early Monday barring political party challengers from polling places throughout Ohio during Tuesday's election. U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott found that the application of Ohio's statute allowing challengers at polling places is unconstitutional.... In a similar case, U.S. District Judge John Adams of Akron said poll workers are the ones to determine if voters are eligible... [Dlott] said the presence of challengers inexperienced in the electoral process questioning voters about their eligibility would impede voting. Dlott ruled on a lawsuit by a black Cincinnati couple who said Republican plans to deploy challengers to largely black precincts in Hamilton County was meant to intimidate and block black voters. Dlott said in her preliminary injunction order that the evidence 'does not indicate that the presence of additional challengers would serve Ohio's interest in preventing voter fraud better than would the system of election judges.' "

William Rivers Pitt writes: "John Ashcroft and his Justice Department have positioned themselves, by filing Friend of the Court briefs in Ohio, Florida and Michigan voter rights cases, to become the final arbiter of your right to vote... If there remain voters who will not go to the polls because they see no real differences between the candidates, two recent publicly-made comments may at long last end the argument... A report by Thomas DeFrank in Saturday's New York Daily News quotes a Bush/Cheney campaign official stating, 'Anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush.' This campaign official went on to describe the appearance of bin Laden as 'a little gift' to the Bush/Cheney election effort. If voters are seeking to establish a difference between the candidates, these comments help to make that difference clear. Only one campaign looks to profit from the fears of the electorate. Only one campaign views the continued freedom of bin Laden as a gift."

Sun-Sentinel: "Amid a throng of complaints about an absence of absentee ballots, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore agreed Thursday to rush them to some voters by overnight mail. LePore said she would expedite absentee ballots, on a 'case by case' basis, to local voters who are out of the county... LePore says her office already has mailed almost 115,000, compared to about 55,500 four years ago. But an untold number still haven't gotten those ballots, with little time left for mailing back and forth by the 7 p.m. Tuesday deadline to return completed ballots." Ain't this grand, has 'Lame Duck Lepore' engineered another debacle in S. Florida?

Michael Kane writes "A plan may be afoot to induce a national terror threat on Election Day to lower voter turnout and steal the election for Bush once again, but this time in a different manner. At least three states have WMD/Terrorism Incident drills scheduled for Tuesday, November 2, 2004 - Election Day. As of May 8, 2001, Dick Cheney was placed in charge of managing all domestic preparedness related to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). It is likely that Cheney will be managing all of the Election Day WMD/Terrorism Incident drills across the country. The presidential statement, which gave Cheney this power, also created the Office of National Preparedness. FEMA's website makes the national announcement, but omits any dates, saying only that this is a training course that takes place over three 8-hour days. The course is headed by the Office of Domestic Preparedness...."

NYT: "Residents of Ohio's largest county, Cuyahoga, who are voting by absentee ballot this year have to solve a brainteaser. They were each given a ballot with candidates' names, arrows pointing to the right and small numbers. And they each got a punch card with hundreds of little boxes and a number inside each one. A voter is supposed to ignore the arrows on the ballot - which appear to be there by mistake - and punch out the chad in the box on the punch card whose number corresponds to the candidate selected. If, instead, the voter follows the arrow and punches out the chad in the box it points to - as would someone voting in person, with a machine to align the ballot and punch card - that vote could be counted for the wrong candidate, or no candidate.. more than 75,000 absentee ballots that have been requested in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland... There is no way of knowing how many voters are simply punching the wrong holes and mailing their ballots."

Cox News: "In a bustling downtown conference room, the phones are ringing faster than the volunteers can grab them, as hundreds of people from Florida to New Mexico call daily to ask for help with voting troubles. With polls open already in a handful of states, the non-partisan Election Protection Program's call center is awash in complaints about polls that open late, voting machines that appear to erase votes, absentee ballots that never arrived and names that aren't on registration lists. The more than 2,000 calls so far are only a hint of what's to come when the polls open nationwide next week. 'We have a more attentive electorate,' said Scott Lyons, a recent law school grad who is the center's volunteer director... The project and its hotline number (1-866-OURVOTE), which are a response to the 2000 vote count breakdown in Florida, were set up by a coalition that includes the Lawyers' Committee on Civil Rights Under Law, People for the American Way and the NAACP."

"It's amazing what you can capture when your camera is turned on. This video shows what George Bush thinks of democracy. He was caught on video while governor of Texas. On November 2nd please join the army of volunteers who will keep an eye on our democracy. Volunteer here to submit video of disturbances outside polling locations. Enter your contact info and we will send you an email with more information. PLEASE NOTE: We are not asking people to videotape INSIDE polling locations. We want volunteers to monitor the intimidation where it happens -- on the streets outside the polling locations. "

WashPost: "A U.S. District Court judge yesterday effectively ended efforts by Republicans in Ohio to challenge the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters in one of the most closely contested states in this year's presidential race. Judge Susan J. Dlott in Cincinnati issued an order preventing local election boards from going forward with plans to notify challenged voters and hold hearings until she hears legal arguments tomorrow. But because her ruling means that those election board hearings cannot take place within the time frame state law requires before the election, Dlott's ruling killed the GOP effort that had targeted 35,000 voters." The downside is the Repugnants will still be able to send 3500 thugs to the polls on election day -- to intimidate voters.

UK Guardian: "The panicked emails start flooding in, untold thousands of overseas voters still have not received their ballots - and clearly won't be able to get them back in time... Activists now fear that huge numbers of Americans overseas - both military and civilian - may be as disenfranchised as they were in 2000, when (many) ballots just plain never showed up... far from helping civilians, the Federal Voting Assistance Program has dragged its feet... The GAO excoriated the agency for losing thousands of overseas votes in 2000, but the FVAP insists it has corrected its problems this year. Frustrated civilian advocates, however, say the FVAP remains biased and ineffective. Despite reforms... it still has not shaken its Pentagon roots: It spends the bulk of its energy getting out a heavily Republican vote among half a million service people - but has failed the far greater numbers of civilians who tend to vote a different way."

Steve Cobble and Charles Shaw write, "Sadly, because the fight in 2000 was seen as between two candidates, the right wing successfully seized a tactic that has been the foundation of progressive change forever - massive, nonviolent, public protests on the side of justice and fairness. Not this time. This time, our energized activist base is watching. This time, let's use the same spirit and organizing tactics that worked so well for us on Feb. 2, 2003, when the whole world came together to say no to war. If fraud is apparent, we need to put people in the streets for justice on Nov. 3. We encourage everyone to come together with their local allies, schedule an event for the day after election day, and lay the groundwork for a public gathering." Sign the "No Stolen Elections" pledge (http://nov3.us )

"Appearing on the October 21 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, John R. Lott Jr., resident scholar at conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, claimed that the federal government's '[U.S.] Commission on Civil Rights did an extensive set of hearings [on voter disenfranchisement], they weren't able to identify even one person' who was disenfranchised in Florida during the 2000 election." Guess what? John Lott is a serial LIAR who was caught inventing statistics about guns, and even inventing a "student" named "Mary Rosh" to defend his LIES on the Internet. Lott also falsely claimed to be a law professor. Why did Lou Dobbs put Lying Lott on his show???

AP: "Counties across Alabama struggled to deal with a backlog of thousands of last-minute voter registrations as the state's longtime head of voter registration quit Wed. less than two weeks before Election Day. Secretary of State Nancy Worley's office also was attempting to sort out a record-keeping discrepancy that left uncertain the actual number of registered voters in the state - thought to be around 2.54 million. The seeming disarray led some would-be voters to wonder whether their vote would get counted on Nov. 2. "It looks like it's crooked," said Robert Wells, who moved to suburban Birmingham from Washington in September..."

Is it possible to get lower than this? "Students at U. Central Florida and two local community colleges claim they were duped into switching their party affiliations from Democrat to Republican, campus police officials said Tuesday. Fewer than 10 students have filed reports with UCF police saying they were approached by a middle-aged couple in the student union who asked for support in changing child molestation laws. The students filled out a form that asked for personal information, and some time later they received a notice from the county election supervisor's office that their party affiliation had been changed, said Sgt. Troy Williamson, a spokesman for the UCF police. Similar incidents have occurred at Valencia Community College in Orange County and Seminole Community College, Williamson said. 'They thought they were signing a petition to change child molestation laws,' Williamson said. 'They didn't realize they had changed their political party.' "

AP: "Alachua County's elections supervisor gave more than 500 voter registration forms to local prosecutors because some people said their party affiliation was fraudulently changed to Republican by a student working for the GOP. Beverly Hill, Alachua's Democratic elections supervisor, last week began reviewing the forms collected at the University of Florida and other schools by Mark Jacoby, who worked for a contractor that signed up voters for the Republican Party of Florida. 'I decided it was fraud,' Hill said Tuesday, a day after she gave the forms to the State Attorney's Office in Gainesville... Jacoby handed in a total of 1,218 forms, Hill said. Of those, 510 named people who already were registered... Mindy Tucker Fletcher, a state Republican adviser, confirmed that Jacoby worked for Arno Political Consultants, subcontracted to register voters at central Florida college campuses..."

AP:"A voting expert testifying for the state agreed Tues. with an attorney for U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler that the nation's system of electronic voting is 'out of control'. The testimony came on the second day of trial by the Boca Raton Democrat, who wants to force the state to create a paper trail for touch-screen voting machines when recounts are needed in tight races... In the Ft. Lauderdale trial, voting expert Michael Shamos detailed the problems of electronic voting but stopped short of endorsing a paper trail. Shamos, a computer scientist at Carnegie-Mellon University, told a congressional committee in July that machine makers lack industry standards, testing is inadequate and no compulsory procedures exist for fixing problems. 'The system is out of control just about, isn't it?'Jeff Liggio, Wexler's attorney, asked on cross-examination. 'Yes,' Shamos responded in court. He said electronic voting processes "are much more out of control that anyone is willing to admit.' "

Philly.com writes "You'll be shocked, shocked, to learn that Philadelphia isn't the only place in battleground state of Pennsylvania where Republican officials sought to move polling places in heavily Democratic neighborhoods at the last minute -- a move that could cause some confused voters not to cast ballots on Nov. 2... Campaign Extra! is reporting that officials in Scranton, PA's Lackawanna County last week successfully moved 21 polling places over both citizen and Democratic objections. The GOP had just grabbed a 2-1 majority on the county's board of commissioners. Unlike Philly, there's no racial angle. But Democrats say that each one of the polling places are in districts that vote at least 60 percent Democratic." It's pretty clear when George Bush or the GOP talks about Freedom and Democracy, they are lying.

Hesiod blogs, "This is extremely serious and urgent. Everyone must do whatever they can to expose this, help the Ohio Democratic party, and contact the DNC and the Kerry campaign -- immediately! This could literally swing the election! 'The Lucas County Democratic Headquarters was burglarized overnight, and three computers, including the party's main system, were stolen. The computers contained highly sensitive information, including the party's financial information, names and personal phone numbers of hundreds of party members, candidates, and volunteers. The computers also stored e-mails from candidates that included discussion about campaign strategy. A second computer, belonging to an attorney-volunteer working to ensure voters' rights, also was taken, officials said. The headquarters on 1817 Madison Avenue does have an alarm system that volunteers believed they set late Monday when they left.' The thieves knew exactly what to steal."

"Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, said Wednesday that the Bush-Cheney campaign is planning some October 'surprises' for challengers John Kerry and John Edwards. 'We've got a couple of surprises that we intend to spring,' Rove told ABC radio host Sean Hannity while explaining that he intends to wage an aggressive campaign no matter what the polls show." Let's guess some of the possible surprises: 1) some tall guy with a long beard is captured, and FOX breathlessly insists it's Osama... 2) a bullet is fired at Bush, and "terrorists" are blamed... 3) the Internet is shut down and "terrorists" are blamed... 4) the election is cancelled and "terrorists" are blamed... Visit octobersurprise.net for more predictions.

"In early June uniformed officers began knocking on doors and asking threatening questions of dozens of black voters who had been in contact with Ezzie Thomas. Several said the [Florida State Troopers] 'took-off their jackets and exposed their firearms', while questioning them. In at least one case, the officer crossed his legs and tapped a 9mm pistol sitting in an ankle holster while he asked detailed questions about the interviewee's reasons for voting absentee. (Absentee voting is a choice under Florida law, so one can wonder about the line of questioning.) 'I felt threatened, embarrassed and like I was being accused of being a criminal,' one interviewee, Willie Thomas, wrote in a statement. Many others told attorney Joe Egan later, that they 'no longer wanted to vote absentee', because they felt it was somehow 'illegal'... [Firefighter] Steve Clelland also noticed the officer tapping the 9mm pistol in his ankle-holster, as he let loose his barrage of questions."

Isn't this special! Cruella De Harris clone Glenda Hood continues to make it up as she goes, she "stepped in and submitted her own appeal which automatically suspended the court order, putting Mr Nader back in the running just in time for absentee ballots to be posted to 50,000 US soldiers and other overseas voters by a Saturday deadline." Then she had election director Dawn Roberts tell local election supervisors 'Hurricane Ivan' made her do it! Say What? Share your comments with Ms. Hood - secretary@mail.dos.state.fl.us, and Gov. Jebthro - fl_govenor@myflorida.com

NY Times opines, "Members of the military will be allowed to vote this year by faxing or e-mailing their ballots - after waiving their right to a secret ballot. Beyond this fundamentally undemocratic requirement, the Electronic Transmission Service, as it's known, has far too many problems to make it reliable, starting with the political partisanship of the contractor running it. The Defense Department is making matters worse by withholding basic information about the service, and should suspend it immediately." The Busheviks are STEALING the election - right under America's nose!

As the US and North Korea traded insults, "North Korean nervousness is expected to reach an even higher pitch in late OCTOBER, when warships from the United States, Japan and other allied nations are to conduct joint exercises in the Sea of Japan... 'They really believe that Bush and Koizumi are in a plot for a pre-emptive attack on North Korea,' Mr. Quinones recalled of conversations in Pyongyang about Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi." Will Bush's October Surprise be an "incident" growing out of the naval exercises?

Part of Bush's plan to steal the Venezuelan recall election was a US-funded "exit poll" by US pollster Penn, Schoen & Berland. Despite a ban on publicizing election polls while voters were voting, PS&B issued a press release four hours before polls closed claiming 59% voted to oust Chavez. In fact, 59% voted to KEEP Chavez. If the election was closer, the CIA would have used this "poll" to get Chavez opponents to riot in the streets claiming fraud. We can expect BushRove to do the same kind of poll manipulation in the US on November 2.

Bob Herbert writes, "State police officers have gone into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando and interrogated them as part of an odd 'investigation' that has frightened many voters, intimidated elderly volunteers and thrown a chill over efforts to get out the black vote in November. The officers, from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to Gov. Jeb Bush, say they are investigating allegations of voter fraud that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March. Officials refused to discuss details of the investigation, other than to say that absentee ballots are involved. They said they had no idea when the investigation might end, and acknowledged that it may continue right through the presidential election... A heavy-handed state police investigation that throws a blanket of fear over thousands of black voters can only help Bush. The long and ugly tradition of suppressing the black vote is alive and thriving in the Sunshine State."

Tim Russo writes, "Reality check, folks. The State Dept. jumped at this because it isn't a threat. Anyone who has participated in any OSCE election observation mission (I've been on three) knows that the verdict of the mission will be written by OSCE member state ambassadors, who have political agendas to grind. Guess who is the most important member state of the OSCE - the US. Guess who appoints the ambassador to the OSCE - GW Bush. In January, I wrote a piece for the London Sunday Times on the impending OSCE election observation mission in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, warning of a whitewash (which happened.) It's a good primer on the OSCE's internal processes. "

AP reports, "Tens of thousands of Americans will vote in November using a special kind of ballot that must be counted by hand, potentially leaving the outcome of the presidential election in doubt as elections officials argue over each vote. Sound familiar? Although it might stir memories of hanging and pregnant chads from the 2000 election, the 'provisional ballot' is a new national voting requirement meant to ensure no voter is turned away. For the first time, provisional ballots will be available at precincts nationwide for those who can't find their names listed at the polls. Yet, just three months before what looks to be another extremely close presidential election, states don't agree about how to count these ballots. Some localities are worried they won't have time to tally them, and voting rights advocates fear many won't be counted at all."

Tom Engelhardt writes, "Whatever surprises this administration is planning for the coming months, it's hard to imagine an administration that's been as regularly caught off-guard by events as this one. Reality has been biting back with surprising ferocity. Among their manipulations that haven't worked out quite as planned you would have to include the front-loading of the economy (those tax rebates now long gone) and the passing of Iraqi 'sovereignty' in a two-day early June 'surprise' that managed to shove Iraq onto the inside pages of the papers and deep into the nightly news for a month -- but in both cases (see below), reality shoved back in surprising ways. Not only is there no guarantee that an administration electoral surprise will work as planned, but it's a reasonable guess that, of the surprises that lie ahead, the majority aren't likely to fall Bush's way. These could be a long three months for Karl Rove & Co."

Ronnie Dugger writes, "On November 2 millions of Americans will cast their votes for President in computerized voting systems that can be rigged by corporate or local-election insiders. Some 98 million citizens, five out of every six of the roughly 115 million who will go to the polls, will consign their votes into computers that unidentified computer programmers, working in the main for four private corporations and the officials of 10,500 election jurisdictions, could program to invisibly falsify the outcomes. The result could be the failure of an American presidential election and its collapse into suspicions, accusations and a civic fury that will make Florida 2000 seem like a family spat in the kitchen. "

"Calling attention to escalating concerns about the fairness of election practices in the United States, delegates in Las Vegas at the annual National NOW Conference last week passed a resolution urging United Nations oversight of the November elections. The resolution, which passed unanimously on July 18, supports the members of Congress who sent a letter to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on July 1 asking for U.N. oversight of the presidential elections... NOW members vividly recall Dec. 2000, when the Supreme Court issued a decision in Bush v. Gore-one of the most controversial pieces of jurisprudence in history-preventing a complete re-counting of the votes in disputed Florida precincts and counties." You go, NOW! (And special thanks for linking to the petition at Democrats.com/monitors )

Jim DeFede writes, " 'I can tell you with the utmost certainty that it was unintentional and unforeseen,' [Glenda Hood's] spokeswoman told me three weeks ago. At the time I questioned how Hood or de Lara could be so certain no one in their office knew the databases had trouble identifying Hispanics. De Lara was indignant that I would suggest anyone in the secretary of state's office would have known about the problem. Oops. Turns out that was a big mistake, too. On Tuesday, the company that started assembling the felon purge list in the late '90s said election officials knew [in 1998! that] Hispanics were unlikely to show up on any list that used race as a criteria... Firing Hood and replacing her with a nonpartisan individual or group to oversee the state's election would be only the first step to restoring voter confidence. After that, we need a grand jury to start issuing subpoenas to find out exactly what people knew, and when they knew it. Only then will we get to the truth."

CLG's strategy in case of stolen elections: Part 2, The Revolution Will Be Webcast! by Michael Rectenwald. "What are the TRIGGERS, what 'election' events will trigger the Grand Refusal? The following list is by no means exhaustive. The Bush regime may very well alter their approach to stealing the election this time. But, this is a list that will guide us... The Real Revolution was against the people and the Constitution and took place in 2000 and continues to this day."

Mark Morford writes, "Do you feel it? Can you smell it in the air? The sensation that the Republican party, though various tentacles, will stop at absolutely nothing to maintain power in the White House? It's true. It's the feeling that, during the next few months, it's all about to get very shrill, and very surreal, indeed... Let this be a warning. Get ready. Expect the unexpected. Watch the skies, scrutinize the headlines, dust off your stash of duct tape. Because Karl Rove and the cutthroat BushCo war hawks and corporate cronies who run the show aren't about to go down without a screaming, sickening, fiery fight. And if BushCo has proven anything in the past four violent, budget-gutting, honor-molesting, nearly unbearable years, it's that there ain't no international law that can't be broken, no fear synapse that can't be hammered to death, no fraudulent power tactic that can't be abused. Anything is possible. You have been warned. God bless America."

Democratic leaders write, "We are writing to request that the General Accounting Office (GAO) complete a study of critical issues that concern the integrity of the voting process in the United States. The ability of Americans to register to vote, cast a ballot and have each vote counted in the upcoming Federal election are issues central to the health of our democracy. The importance of an immediate review by the respected professionals at GAO cannot be overstated." The letter focuses on 4 issues: Provisional Voting, Voter Registration, Personal Identification, and Purging of Voters. Unfortunately paper trails are not included. Dems want answers by 9-15-04 to prevent chaos on Election Day.

Ohio Voter Purge "I noticed that one of the most critical counties in President [sic] Bush's re-[s]election efforts in Ohio, Hamilton County (Cincinnati), had a dramatic decrease in the voter rolls. It went from over 585,000 in 2000 to 519,048 today." --by Steven Monroe, for Citizens For Legitimate Government

Prof. Peter Shane writes, "Suppose that some of the electors - the people who under our constitutional system conduct the real presidential election some weeks after voters go to the polls - aren't actually selected by the voters. Impossible? Not if you give a close reading to the Supreme Court's decision in the case of Bush v. Gore, which finally settled the presidential election of 2000, if not to everyone's satisfaction. Under that decision, there is no guarantee that the electors who are decisive in choosing the next president will themselves be selected by the people of the United States. That's because the justices ruled in that case that state legislatures have unlimited authority to determine whether citizens in their respective states shall be allowed to vote for president at all... Republican state governments in FL, NH and OH, and Democrats in NM, could spare us all some electoral suspense and simply decide their respective states' electoral votes on their own."

"Lawyers for the [Kerry] campaign are gathering intelligence and preparing litigation over the ballot machines being used and the rules concerning how voters will be registered or their votes disqualified. In some cases, the lawyers are compiling dossiers on the people involved and their track records on enforcing voting rights. The disputed 2000 presidential election remains a fresh wound for Democrats, and Mr. Kerry has been referring to it on the stump while assuring his audiences that he will not let this year's election be a repeat of the 2000 vote. 'A million African-Americans disenfranchised in the last election,' he said at the N.A.A.C.P. convention in Philadelphia on Thursday. 'Well, we're not just going to sit there and wait for it to happen. On Election Day in your cities, my campaign will provide teams of election observers and lawyers to monitor elections, and we will enforce the law.'"

"Think the passions from the 2000 presidential election have cooled? Certainly not in the House, which voted Thursday to strike a Florida representative's words from the record after she said Republicans 'stole' that closely fought contest. The verbal battle broke out after Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., proposed a measure barring any federal official from requesting that the UN formally observe the U.S. elections on Nov. 2. His proposal was approved 243-161... Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., and several other House Democrats have made that suggestion. They argue that some black voters were disenfranchised in 2000 and problems could occur again... 'I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure it doesn't happen again,' Brown said. 'Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said, 'Get over it.' No, we're not going to get over it. And we want verification from the world.'"

"Members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights called Thursday for a federal investigation to determine whether Florida officials violated the Voting Rights Act when they put together an error-plagued list designed to purge felons from the state's voting rolls. The state Division of Elections scrapped the list Saturday because it is riddled with mistakes, including the omission of nearly all Hispanic felons in the state. Civil-rights commissioners also expressed concern that scrapping the list could lead to the unequal treatment of voters as election supervisors in all of Florida's 67 counties scramble to remove the names of those who are ineligible to cast ballots... 'This is not just about sloppy databases; it's not just about bureaucracies strapped for resources,' commission member Christopher Edley said. 'It's about the possible deprivation of a civil right, possibly criminal.'"

Reuters: "The US will not cancel or suspend the presidential election this Nov. in the event of a terror attack or other catastrophic event... Individual states may suspend or reschedule elections if disaster strikes, but that would not change voting in other states... I can't conceive of any circumstances under which a presidential election could be postponed or canceled, Soaries said."

"Dario Cruz has lived in the US for 16 years, but just became a citizen last week as he and about 200 other immigrants were naturalized. One of the things he had always wanted to was register to vote, but when he was offered the chance to do that right outside the ceremony, he knew something wasn't right -- the place on the form where you're asked to choose Democrat, Republican or independent was already filled out. 'It's like one side,' Cruz said. 'You don't get to choose.' According to Cruz and his family, every form was checked off Republican. It was something his wife, Linda Cross, first noticed. She said she asked what was going on, and was told the woman registering voters said they were with a Republican organization. 'I am Republican,' she told Channel 4. 'I was very angry with that if they want to register whatever party, you shouldn't try to dictate to people what party they are going to register; who they are going to vote for, because then you don't have any freedom.'"

CLG's strategy in case of postponed elections: The Ballot, The Bullet, and the Grand Refusal --by Michael Rectenwald, CLG Founder and Chair "...[A] postponed election, or the playing the fear factor for low voter turnout, are acts of terrorism in themselves. We are already being attacked. This warning is yet another in a series of attacks on our rights, on our democratic system, on our freedom, and on our self-determination."

"To George W. Bush: We call on you to request expert election monitors to avoid an unprecedented electoral - and Constitutional - crisis over the Presidential election of November 2, 2004. Such a request was made by 13 Members of Congress on July 1, 2004. We saw a preview of this crisis in 2000 in Florida. We believe the 2004 crisis will be worse... The American people share our concerns. A poll in June 2004 found 44% of all voters - and 62% of Democrats - fear a Florida-style debacle in November. We believe observers who are experts in administering honest, transparent, and fair elections are needed for the 'battleground' states (Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin) that will decide the Presidency. We call on you to request such experts from the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and the Carter Center." Sign the petition!

"A Democratic congressman who receives classified briefings on the threat of terrorist attacks said yesterday that top U.S. government officials' repeated statements that international terrorists want to disrupt the American electoral process this year 'appear to have no basis.' Rep. Jim Turner (TX), ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, said that after several recent briefings by U.S. intelligence officials about perceived terrorist threats this summer and fall, 'I don't have any information that al Qaeda' plans to attack the election process. 'Nobody knows anything about timing' or the exact nature of any possible attack, although U.S. officials say al Qaeda wants to mount an attack this year... Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) [said]: 'This administration has a long track record of using deceptive tactics for political gain. One cannot help but question whether their aim was to deflect attention from the Kerry-Edwards ticket during their inaugural week.'"

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission is holding a public meeting at 1:00pm Tuesday (7/13/04) at 1225 New York Ave, N.W., Suite 1100 in Washington, D.C. Go to the meeting and tell the Bush administration to preserve American democracy, require paper trails for touchscreen machines, and back off its plan to hijack the election for its own political gain. If you're not in Washington, e-mail them at this address: HAVAinfo@eac.gov

Newsweek reports, "[Tom] Ridge's [Homeland Security] department last week asked the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel to analyze what legal steps would be needed to permit the postponement of the election were an attack to take place." This is an outrage on many counts! First, Tom Ridge has repeatedly LIED about terror alerts to grab the headlines away from Democrats. Second, the Office of Legal Counsel is the office that justified TORTURE. Third, even if there is a terrorist attack, any postponement decision should be made by LOCAL officials - just as was done on 9/11, an election day in NYC.

Miami Herald columnist Jim DeFede writes, "'I can tell you with the utmost certainty that it was unintentional and unforeseen,' responded [Sec of State Glenda] Hood spokeswoman Nicole de Lara. I don't know how de Lara can be so certain. I don't know how she can so casually disregard the possibility there's been an orchestrated attempt to defraud the public and that no one in the state knew about the flaws. As far as I'm concerned, there is no more trust. There are no more second chances. Glenda Hood must resign. She is either amazingly incompetent or the leader of a frightening conspiracy, but either way she should go. Next, the governor should remove himself from matters affecting elections and an agency such as the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights should step in and assume direct oversight of the state's election system. Florida is simply a joke that just isn't funny any longer. "

NY Times reports, "Of nearly 48,000 Florida residents on the felon list, only 61 are Hispanic. By contrast, more than 22,000 are African-American. About 8 percent of Florida voters describe themselves as Hispanic, and about 11 percent as black. In a presidential-election battleground state that decided the 2000 race by giving George W. Bush a margin of only 537 votes, the effect could be significant: black voters are overwhelmingly Democratic, while Hispanics in Florida tend to vote Republican [because of the right-wing Cuban community]... 'This was absolutely unintentional,' said Nicole de Lara, spokeswoman for the Florida secretary of state, Glenda E. Hood, an appointee of Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother... Democrats said yesterday that the latest disclosure should be the last straw. 'The honorable thing to do,'' Scott Maddox, the Democratic state chairman said, 'is throw the list out and not purge people erroneously on the eve of election.' "

NY Times opines, "This year in Missouri, it's hard to imagine that voters can have great confidence in the objectivity of the secretary of state, Matt Blunt, who is active in the Bush-Cheney campaign and is himself a candidate for governor. He has insisted on staying on the job, and he has ruled on important election matters in ways that help his own campaign... Right now, Mr. Blunt is trying to stop St. Louis from holding early voting this fall. The Missouri legislature voted to join the majority of states that allow voters to cast ballots in advance of Election Day. St. Louis - where many voters were wrongly prevented from voting in 2000 because of the incompetence of election officials - announced plans for early voting, a move that would give eligible voters a better chance of making sure that their ballots were properly cast. Republicans have opposed early voting in the city, which has a large black population and votes overwhelmingly Democratic."

"To Jimmy Carter & The Carter Center: There is a crisis of confidence in America both at home and abroad. Starting with the 2000 presidential election and continuing until today, the concepts of democracy and what it means to be American have taken a beating. From the disenfranchised Florida voters to the suspect reasoning for entering into a pre-emptive war against Iraq, confidence and trust in the United States is at an all-time low. We have lost the respect of our friends around the world. So, as we approach another presidential election, rebuilding the reputation of America as a strong and true democracy is of the utmost importance... We believe the time has come that we must turn to Jimmy Carter & the Carter Center to fix things at home. There is no one we trust more to restore faith in the democracy this country was founded upon." Sign the petition!

"Still smarting from the 2000 Florida recount, a group of congressional Democrats led by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas has asked the United Nations to monitor this year's presidential election. 'We are deeply concerned that the right of U.S. citizens to vote in free and fair elections is again in jeopardy,' the lawmakers wrote to Secretary General Kofi Annan. While the request might evoke images of blue-helmeted peacekeepers outside the local library, the request won't be granted. 'Generally, the United Nations does not intervene in electoral affairs unless the request comes from a national government or an electoral authority -- not the legislative branch,' said U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe." What a stupid rule - it lets incumbents steal elections!

Miami Herald: "More than 1,600 Florida felons whose right to vote was legally restored remain on a state list of potentially ineligible voters because they have yet to re-register to vote, a hurdle that critics say is sure to create confusion as the national election looms. State officials have directed county election supervisors to make each of the voters - some of whom have been voting legally for decades - register again before the November presidential election. The move is drawing fire from several fronts - from local election supervisors forced to deal with the bureaucratic morass, from black politicians who believe that the list unfairly targets minorities, and from voting rights activists who say it skirts the spirit of open voting."

"The government needs to establish guidelines for canceling or rescheduling elections if terrorists strike the United States again, says the chairman of a new federal voting commission. DeForest Soaries was appointed to the federal Election Assistance Commission last year by Bush. Soaries said he wrote to Condoleezza Rice and Tom Ridge in April to raise the concerns. 'I am still awaiting their response,' he said. 'Thus far we have not begun any meaningful discussion.' Spokesmen for Rice and Ridge did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Soaries noted that Sept. 11, 2001, fell on Election Day in New York City -- and he said officials there had no rules to follow in making the decision to cancel the election and hold it later. Events in Spain, where a terrorist attack shortly before the March election possibly influenced its outcome, show the need for a process to deal with terrorists threatening or interrupting the Nov. 2 presidential election in America, he said."

We're just 132 days from Stolen Election 2004. This week, Jeb Bush will get $47 million from the Feds under HAVA to improve election technology. But Jeb has decided not to spend the money until AFTER the 2004 election - despite the numerous documented problems with Florida's new touchscreen machines. Impeach Jeb Now!

"44% are worried that another Florida-style mess could mar Election 2004. That includes 18% who are very worried about such a possibility. There are stark partisan differences on this question. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that 62% of Democrats are worried about a repeat debacle, including 31% who are very worried about such an outcome. Among Republicans, just 26% are worried about the possibility, including just 6% who are very worried. Those not affiliated with either major party fall in between. Among unaffiliated voters, 42% are worried about another post-Election mess. Just 15% of this group are very worried."

In Florida, "County elections supervisors peppered state officials on Wednesday with questions about purging felons from their voter rolls, suggesting at a meeting here that numerous attempts to clarify Florida's policy had not ended confusion on the issue... Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, told the supervisors it was illegal to deny anyone the right to vote based on an out-of-state conviction. In a brief presentation, Mr. Simon also told the 67 supervisors that they should focus on restoring the voting rights of people who were incorrectly purged from the rolls in 2000. But some supervisors said they were overwhelmed with investigating a new list of possible felons, as the state requires, and determining which should be disenfranchised." Remember how the Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Gore that variations between counties in election practices (such as how to count hanging chads) were intolerable? Nah, don't remember.

Tampa Tribune writes, "Today, as the 2004 election nears: * More than 43,000 Floridians are on the waiting list to have their rights restored, some of whom first learned in 2000, after voting for years, that they weren't legally entitled to vote. The restoration process can take years, and the list is growing, not shrinking. * Hundreds of people wrongly removed from voter rolls in 2000, who never committed felonies or whose rights had been restored, may not yet have been put back on the rolls. * A lawsuit charges that Florida's felon disenfranchisement is unconstitutional and affects up to 600,000 people. Despite all this, state officials have just sent elections supervisors in Florida's 67 counties another list of 47,000 names of individuals who may have committed felonies in the past, telling the supervisors to purge their rolls again."

On 5/24/04, Florida "denied a CNN request for a copy of the list of up to 48,000 people [who] could be ineligible to vote because they are felons or have multiple registrations -- or have died since the last election... The state said that only government officials, candidates for office, and political parties can be provided copies of such records under state law. CNN as well as members of the general public were invited to view the documents in the Florida Division of Elections headquarters in Tallahassee, on the condition that there be no photocopying or note-taking. 'Unless people look at the list and see their names and know that it's wrong, then they could end up in a situation where they don't have the right to vote,' said Tampa attorney Gregg D. Thomas of the law firm Holland & Knight, who is representing CNN in the matter. 'It is incredible that information this important to a constitutional right, the right to vote, is not freely and openly disseminated.'"

"In the wake of the Florida Secretary of State's order to evaluate as many as 40,000 'potential felon matches' to determine if they should be removed from the voting rolls, People For the American Way Foundation (PFAWF) announced plans to contact county election officials to head off the massive voter disenfranchisement caused by a similar voter purge during the 2000 election fiasco. 'Here we go again. Why the rush to take more people off of the voting rolls when people who should not have been removed in 1999 and 2000 haven't yet been reinstated?' asked Ralph G. Neas, President of PFAWF. 'We want to make every effort to independently reach out to these voters, and do all we can to make sure that if they have the right to vote, they can vote in 2004.'... Neas said the foundation is writing to each of the 67 county election officials to offer help in identifying people who may have been placed on the purge list erroneously to correct the situation before the November 2, 2004 election."

KCRA News: "California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley ordered the plug pulled on all touch-screen voting machines in the state because of concerns over security... The decision goes beyond the recommendations that an advisory panel made earlier this week. It means four California counties that use a specific model of touch-screen machine will definitely have to find another voting system, and 10 other counties that use similar systems will have to do the same, unless the makers of the machines take steps to guarantee every vote gets counted. 'I came about this close to banning outright and decertifying outright with no possibility of reprieve in those 10 counties, as well,' Shelley said... 'While we are disappointed that the Secretary of State did not go all the way on this recommendation, he did make a historic step today in the decision he announced,' said California Voter Foundation spokeswoman Kim Alexander."

The UK Independent: "The United States may be on the way to another Florida-style presidential election fiasco this year because legislation passed to fix the system has either failed to address the problems or has broken down because of missed deadlines and unmet funding targets. Such is the conclusion of a damning new report by the US Commission on Civil Rights, a bipartisan government body which previously looked into the Florida mess... 'Many of the problems that the commission previously cautioned should be corrected yet prevail ... It said that out of 22 key deadlines that have come and gone since the [HAVA] act's passage, only five have been met. Most seriously, an oversight committee designed to advise states on streamlining their voting procedures and implementing the act's provisions was not appointed until last December, 11 months behind schedule. Most states are unlikely to make reforms before the presidential election on 2 November."

Democratic Representatives Henry Waxman and Edward Markey write to Bush: "Mr. President, we request that you fully explain the understanding that you or your Administration reached with the Saudis to boost oil production and disclose any promises that have been made to the Saudis on behalf of the U.S. Additionally, we request that you explain what steps you are taking today to address excessive gasoline prices, and why your Administration has not pressed the Saudis to increase their oil production prior to this year's driving season. Our nation's economy is too important to suffer from high gasoline prices to suit the political timing of any Presidential reelection campaign. We urge that you immediately address Mr. Woodward's claims."

Josh Marshall writes, "The more I read that passage (below) from this morning's gaggle, the more perplexed I become. Why couldn't Scott McClellan give a straight denial to any of the questions about whether Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar had pledged to President Bush that his country would lower gas prices in time for the November election?... I think such an arrangement or understanding is quite possible. Yet such agreements aren't written out on paper. And they should be easily deniable even if they are true -- especially with a White House that, from my experience, seldom gets hung up on such minor quibbles. So, again, why the evasion?" Hey Josh - McClellan's "answers" are classic Nixonian "non-denial denials" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-denial_denial) - in other words, there IS a deal, so that's why McClellan cannot issue a straightforward denial. Impeach Bush Now!

On Sunday, "Woodward told 60 Minutes that Bandar has promised the president that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election - to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day. Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: 'They're [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.'' On Monday, Woodward told CNN's Larry King Live, "I don't say there's a secret deal or any collaboration on this. What I say in the book is that the Saudis ... hoped to keep oil prices low during the period before the election, because of its impact on the economy. That's what I say." Bandar told CNN, "So yes, it's in our interests and in America's interests to keep the prices down. But that was not a deal." Who do you believe?

60 Minutes reports, "Prince Bandar enjoys easy access to the Oval Office. His family and the Bush family are close. And Woodward told 60 Minutes that Bandar has promised the president that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election -- to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day. Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: 'They're [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.'" Remember how viciously the GOP and the media (including Tim Russert on 4/18/04) bashed Kerry for saying "foreign leaders" supported him? Bush actually CONSPIRED with Saudi Arabia to manipulate the election!!! This is a huge illegal foreign campaign contribution - and one MORE impeachable offense!

Carl Hiaasen writes, "Long live Manuel Yip! The legacy of Miami's most famous dead voter is being revived -- and just in time for the presidential election. Determined to keep Florida in the national spotlight, [Republican] legislators are poised to pass a law that will make it infinitely easier to corrupt the voting process again. The proposed measure would do away with the meager requirement that absentee voters have their ballots signed by a witness. Finding a witness doesn't seem like such a hardship -- a relative can do it, and the signature doesn't even have to be notarized. Yet apparently many Floridians are so lonely and cloistered that they can't dredge up a single soul to watch them seal their ballots. Or so election officials and legislators would have us believe. They say the witness requirement is burdensome and unnecessary. To which Manuel Yip might say: Here, here! "

Margaret Kimberley writes: "Polling place dramas will not be the only impediment to a fair election. Computerized voting machines have already been implicated in unexpected and suspicious election results in races across the United States. In 2002 polls showed Georgia's Democratic Senator Max Cleland defeating his Republican challenger, Saxby Chambliss by 49% to 44%. Not only did Cleland lose, but by a margin of 53% to 46%. The new computerized voter machines that also declared a Republican victory in the Governor's race produced no paper verification of results. The losses to Democrats in Georgia were a surprise, but the system now in place does not allow for a means of determining if fraud occurred."

Bev Harris of Black Box Voting writes, "I hear this every day: 'What can I do to help?' Here's what you can do: Volunteer for the 2004 elections Clean Voting Crew and make your nomination for a trouble spot county that belongs on the 'Top 10 Clean-Up' list, warranting special attention. We need crew members all over America. Two things to do right now: 1. E-mail Bevharrismail@aol.com with 'Volunteering!' in the subject line to join the Clean Voting Crew. We need more than 2,000 Crew members all lined up, practiced, and ready to go for fall, and this means getting started NOW. 1,000 Crew members will pop up in local elections all over the place. We'd like you to be one of them. 1,000 more will be recruited in designated 'Clean-Up' counties. Join the Crew!... If you can put together a little Clean Voting pod, that's even better. Recruit a few friends and family members and have some real fun ensuring the survival of democracy. "

"Evoking the razor-thin 2000 election that the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately settled, John Kerry said he is building a legal team to prevent any voting irregularities this year in the state that put George W. Bush in the White House. Kerry made his remarks to a crowd in Broward County, a central battleground in the 2000 recount, responding to a woman who asked what would keep the Republicans from 'stealing the election again.' Kerry promised a strategy that could include 'pre-challenges' and injunctions 'where necessary' to avoid a repeat of 2000 in November. 'Not only do we want a record level of turnout,' Kerry said to applause from hundreds gathered at a community center, 'we want to make sure that every vote is counted'... Kerry also sought to swat down a Saturday jab from the president, who suggested that Kerry wanted to raise taxes. 'It's another, what should we call it, misleading statement?' Kerry said, drawing cheers of 'lies' from the crowd."

"If Ohio's Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has his way, Diebold will receive a contract to supply touch screen electronic voting machines for much of the state. None of these Diebold machines will provide a paper receipt of the vote. Diebold,.. does its primary business in ATM and ticket-vending machines... virtually every other machine the company makes provides a paper trail to verify the machine's calculations. Oddly, only the voting machines lack this essential function, and ...wherever Diebold goes, irregularities and historic Republican upsets follow. Alastair Thompson, writing for scoop.co of New Zealand, explored whether or not the 2002 U.S. mid-term elections were 'fixed' by electronic voting machines supplied by Republican-affiliated companies. 'The state where the biggest upset occurred, Georgia, is also the state that ran its election with the most electronic voting machines.' Those machines were supplied by Diebold."

NY Times opines, "One outcome of this year's presidential election is already certain: people will show up to vote and find they have been wrongly taken off the rolls. The lists of eligible voters kept by localities around the country are the gateway to democracy, and they are also a national scandal. In 2000, the American public saw, in Katherine Harris's massive purge of eligible voters in Florida, how easy it is for registered voters to lose their rights by bureaucratic fiat. Missouri's voting-list problems received far less attention, but may have disenfranchised more eligible voters. It's hard to judge where voting lists are being mishandled, since the procedures by which they are kept and corrected are shrouded in secrecy. That's the beginning of the problem. The public has a right to know that the rolls are being properly maintained - and to know it before the election. As became clear in 2000, after the fact is too late."

"Punch cards may be gone in Florida, but chads still thrive elsewhere and are actually gaining favor in some quarters. As many as 32 million voters in 307 counties in portions of 22 states will use punch-card ballots during the November general election, according to a study released last week. Could that contribute to another electoral meltdown? Yes, experts say, possibly at the presidential level, more likely somewhere else along the ballot. 'I know there will be a close race someplace, and it will be this same issue that will be discussed,' said Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services... 'Because of what took place in your state four years ago, it could become a front-page story again. The reason: It turns out that comprehensive federal legislation in 2002 to reform and improve the electoral system wasn't as comprehensive as many people believe. The new law discouraged the use of punch-card ballots, but it did not decertify or otherwise outlaw them."

"Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is convinced the U.S. will track down the elusive mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks before November. 'Obviously, he'll be caught between now and the election,' Grassley said Monday when asked if he's disappointed that Osama bin Laden hasn't been killed or captured. 'I think they're on his trail now in a way they haven't been all year,' Grassley said. 'It will happen because we will be able to divert more resources [to hunting down bin Laden].' Grassley, who's an overwhelming favorite to win a fifth term in November, declined to say why he's so confident that bin Laden will be brought to justice." Maybe because Bush already has Osama in a spider hole, just waiting for an October Surprise?

Lori R. Price writes, "There is no way on God's green earth that Karl Rove will let the Idiot Usurper debate *any* Democratic candidate three nights in a row on national television, and Rove can't 'Wellstone' all of them... Even a staged bin Laden 'capture' may not be enough. Bush needs to turn to something that would grab a little more attention and the desired clampdown, just in time for the 2004 s-election."

"A new $22 million system to allow soldiers and other Americans overseas to vote via the Internet is inherently insecure and should be abandoned, according to members of a panel of computer security experts asked by the government to review the program... The trojans, viruses and other attacks that complicate modern life and allow such crimes as online snooping and identity theft could enable hackers to disrupt or even alter the course of elections, the report concluded. Such attacks 'could have a devastating effect on public confidence in elections,' the report's authors wrote, and so 'the best course to take is not to field the SERVE system at all.' A spokesman for [Rumsfeld] said the critique overstated the importance of the security risks in online voting. 'The Department of Defense stands by the SERVE program,' Glenn Flood said. 'We feel it's right on, at this point, and we're going to use it.'" Here it comes - Stolen Election 2004. Impeach Bush Now!

Three years after cheering on Bush's Theft of the Presidency, the NY Times seems to be having a slight change of heart. "The morning after the 2000 election, Americans woke up to a disturbing realization: our electoral system was too flawed to say with certainty who had won. Three years later, things may actually be worse. If this year's presidential election is at all close, there is every reason to believe that there will be another national trauma over who the rightful winner is, this time compounded by troubling new questions about the reliability of electronic voting machines." All true - but when will the NY Times apologize for helping Bush steal the White House - and for lying about the results of their own Media Consortium recount?

St. Petersburg Times reports, "Less than a year before Floridians vote again for president, the election system remains bedeviled by inconsistencies, red tape and potential obstacles to prospective voters:.. The counties have been told to deal with inconsistencies in the list as best they can. Some are returning to the rolls any voters who the county can't prove are felons. But others are making voters prove they aren't felons in order to vote next year. Despite a legal settlement to make it easier for felons to regain their voting rights, the backlog of former prisoners who have applied to restore their rights has grown to nearly 39,000. That's a six-fold increase since 2001, yet the state earlier this year cut the number of Parole Commission staffers who handle applications. In 2004, could Florida voters again be wrongfully denied their voting rights? 'I don't know that I can answer that,' said Sec. of State Glenda Hood, whom Gov. Jeb Bush appointed to succeed Katherine Harris."

"Imagine casting a vote for president from a cybercafe in Thailand, an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf or a laptop computer at home. Thousands of people serving in the military and Americans living abroad will have that option next year in the nation's most extensive Internet voting experiment... The Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment [under the Pentagon], which began as a tiny demonstration project in the 2000 general election and involved just 84 voters, could give 100,000 voters the chance to cast absentee ballots online in next year's presidential primaries and general election... 'We're opening up a whole host of opportunities for voter coercion and voter fraud,' said Rebecca Mercuri, a research fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government... Mercuri said even the most secure systems can be cracked, hacked or left vulnerable to Internet viruses, leaving the ballot contents and the identity of the voter open to perusal."

While the world is preoccupied with W-ar, Karl Rove is secretly engineering the cancellation of Presidential primaries. As the Moonie UPI reports, "Colorado has already scrapped its presidential preference primary and ... Arizona, Kansas, Maine, Missouri and Utah all have legislation pending that would eliminate their primaries... The legislatures considering dropping the primaries are all Republican-controlled except Maine, but [Tim] Storey doesn't believe that's a major factor. George W. Bush is not expected to have any opposition in 2004" - and Karl Rove is determined to make it IMPOSSIBLE for there to be any! Before the Stolen Election in Florida, we remember the Prohibited Election in New York, when Karl Rove tried to keep the surging John McCain off the ballot. When "Operation Empire" gets ugly and the Homeland Security Code goes to Red, stay tuned for the emergency cancellation of Election 2004...