From: Tom Atlee

Like many of you, I am still digesting the significance of what happened in the U.S. election over the last couple of days.  I try to use major events like this to re-orient my work to make a better world and a wiser democracy.  Such re-orientation requires observing, reflecting and dialoging -- talking and listening with others.

Personally, I wonder about the role of fraud in this election.  And I'd love for activists and concerned citizens to put some effort into transforming the U.S. electoral and political system so that it produces more satisfying results to more people more of the time.

However, at this point I would most like to help all of us reflect together on our new circumstances.  I've initiated an online dialogue space at QuickTopic where any of us can reflect on (and add to) a set of questions about the election and its implications for social change.  To participate in that collective reflection, use your browser to go to <http://www.quicktopic.com/28/D/LxzG8aUr2kNn.html>. You can participate immediately without registering or signing in.

A few hints to orient you when you get there:  There are three tabs across the top.  The "Document" tab shows you the questions and allows you to post responses to any of them, one at a time.  That's where you'll start.  The "Comment Review" tab (which you can click at any time) lists each question, then all the responses to it. Finally, the "Comment Forum" tab lists all responses (regardless of question), starting with the most recent, and allows you to post a general comment, if you want.  If you want to receive email notification of newly posted messages, just click the Subscribe button when you are in either "Comment Forum" or "Comment Review" mode.

Now, the questions that I've posted there are these:

1.  What, if anything, puzzles or frustrates you about the 2004 election process?
2.  In this campaign season, what do you think we can be proud of?
3.  What lessons might we learn from this election experience that could help us in what we do next?
4.  What impact do you think this election's outcome will have on long term social change and transformation?
5.  If you were able to mobilize millions of people, what would you want them to realize and do?
6.  Given what is happening, what changes are you, personally, eager to play a role in?
7.  What other questions should we be considering here?

I've submitted my own initial responses to these, to get started, but I don't expect to "lead" the dialogue.  I'm just interested in what we all have to say about this.  So take a look at it and, if you feel called to do so, offer some responses of your own.

If you think it would be useful, gather some friends together in your home (or gather some other citizens together in a public place, or convene a Lets Talk America group <http://www.letstalkamerica.org> in a cafe) and talk about one or more of these questions.  If you take notes, you could add responses from your face-to-face conversations into the online dialogue above, or invite participants to write their own thoughts there.

Below are some of my notes so far, which add to what I've written in the QuickTopic dialogue space mentioned above.

I hope that whatever happens next serves Life in its effort to transform our world, though us all, into something more decent, sustainable and wise.

Coheartedly,
Tom

_ _ _ __


Kerry's concession came as a surprise and betrayal to many.  I can understand both that response and the concession.  I can imagine Democratic strategists being less than eager to take on the U.S. Presidency when it became clear they wouldn't control even one house of Congress -- especially when the next president will face such an extremely volatile economic, environmental and security environment. Whichever party takes the White House will probably have a hard time doing well enough to be legitimately re-elected in 2008.  It is very hard for a President to get anything done -- especially in the kind of polarized political environment that currently exists in the U.S. -- when their party doesn't control either legislative house, or at least come close.  However, Kerry and Edwards had pledged to stick it out until the last vote was counted.  So Kerry's premature concession has upset a number of people who worked hard to get him elected. Even without control of the House and Senate, some grassroots Kerry supporters hoped that at least he could block further progress on the Bush administration's agenda.

On top of all that, some people are pointing out that the election, itself, may not have been legitimate.  They point to evidence of voting irregularities, voting turn-out suppression and voter fraud -- and the very real possibility of un-recountable voting machine problems and fraud.  I'm not clear how much of this is new and how much of it is simply more visible because so many people have been watching for it.  Certainly such things have been going on for many decades and have been practiced by both major parties in the U.S. (Democrats in Chicago used to count the votes of dead people).  But this year's scrutiny has resulted in articles like the following:

_________

<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/latimests/20041027/ts_latimes/signsofvoterfraudappear>
"Signs of Voter Fraud Appear"
chronicles a lot of voter registration irregularities and possible crimes.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/jesse/cst-edt-jesse02.html
"GOP doing all it can to keep minorities from voting"
describes efforts at voter suppression.

NOTE:  If you'd like to participate in a conference call on voter suppression, you can connect up at 1 pm Central time on Thursday, November 4th, for a discussion of "Vote suppression/problems with the election -- focus on Ohio."  Call 661-705-2000.  Access code: 656544#.  Email mark@nationalvoice.org or call 612-870-3400 with any questions or comments.

__________

And then there's the electronic voting problems:

<http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65579-2,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_next1>
"Watchdogs Spot E-Vote Glitches"
describes some of the problems in determining if there have been problems with voting machines.

<http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/4154/>
"Presidential Votes Miscast on E-Voting Machines Across the Country"
describes how machines have recorded votes for different candidates than voters thought they were choosing.

And <http://www.rense.com/general59/steI.HTM> reports on analysis from <http://www.democraticunderground.com/> that suggests that "EVERY STATE that has EVoting but no paper trails has an unexplained advantage for Bush of around +5% when comparing exit polls to actual results.  In EVERY STATE that has paper audit trails on their EVoting, the exit poll results match the actual results reported within the margin of error."  Hmmmm....

Exit poll numbers can be seen at
<http://slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2109053&lMSID=FFE5A62B46734856AA79B2749488D58E>
and Excel spreadsheet comparisons of exit polls and actual results (which I haven't analyzed) are available through <http://www.electoral-vote.com/>.

The folks at Black Box Voting -- who are leaders in tracking and whistleblowing about problems with electronic (computerized and touch-screen) voting -- have begun an effort to actually audit the mechanics of the election:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON Nov 3 2004 -- Did the voting machines trump exit polls? There's a way to find out.
   Black Box Voting (.ORG) is conducting the largest Freedom of Information action in history. At 8:30 p.m. Election Night, Black Box Voting blanketed the U.S. with the first in a series of public records requests, to obtain internal computer logs and other documents from 3,000 individual counties and townships. Networks called the election before anyone bothered to perform even the most rudimentary audit...
   Among the first requests sent to counties (with all kinds of voting systems -- optical scan, touch-screen, and punch card) is a formal records request for internal audit logs, polling place results slips, modem transmission logs, and computer trouble slips....
   Responses from public officials will be posted in the forum , is organized by state and county, so that any news organization or citizens group has access to the information. Black Box Voting will assist in analysis, by providing expertise in evaluating the records. Watch for the records online; Black Box Voting will be posting the results as they come in....