Most Dems in at least one TN county think the election was stolen

Mods, this is another column by my friend, Don Williams. I called him today and he has given me permission to post this in its entirety since The Knoxville News-Sentinel is subscription only.

By Don Williams

Last Friday I addressed a group of Democrats in a Blount County cafeteria, and standing there amid some 50 or so finishing their coffee and iced tea and apple pie, I satisfied my curiosity about something: "How many of you believe Bush stole the 2004 election?" I asked.

I was surprised when at least two-thirds immediately raised their hands. Ask the same question to a room full of Republicans, and you'll get hooted off the floor. It's a sign of the times. These days what you know or think you know depends on who you tune in.

The 2004 election is a perfect example. It may or may not surprise you, depending on where you get your news, to learn there were demonstrations, lawsuits, recounts and hearings in Ohio, Washington State, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere about the irregular voting patterns that gave us four more years of George W. Bush.

You likely heard little about those activities unless you checked Internet sources. On the day Rep. John Conyers held hearings on such matters, they hardly made the evening news.

Still, the good folks who raised their hands in the Blount County cafeteria had reason to be suspicious of this election. After all, no media had taken much trouble to alleviate their fears. The networks and cable mostly ignored, hooted down or offered dubious explanations for voter anomalies.

But these were not trivial.

First of all, exit polls predicted a substantial Kerry victory. Even conservative Fox News loudly acknowledges that discrepancy in a mocking way. Our government often regards discrepancies between exit polls and official tallies in other countries as signs of voter fraud. I've heard no convincing reason from the media or government for the difference here. So I wonder about it, especially given the 2000 election debacle.

The January issue of Harper's magazine lists several other reasons - some anecdotal, some more telling - why we should be concerned about the state of our democracy.

# For example, a Franklin, Ohio, precinct possessed of 638 voters at first awarded 4,258 votes to Bush.

# In 47 of 67 counties in Florida, Bush got more votes than there were registered Republicans.

# Of the 120 million-plus votes cast nationwide, about one-third were on voting machines provided by private corporations. At least one of them - Diebold - was under control of a zealous Republican CEO who promised to deliver Ohio to Bush.

# In Illinois, Maine and Wisconsin, states that relied mostly on paper ballots, exit polls agreed with the final tally. In North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio, which relied much more heavily on electronic touch screens, the discrepancy between exit polls and the final tally invariably favored Bush.

# In 10 of 11 swing states, the final result differed from the predicted result, and in all 10 of those states, the shift added votes for Bush.

# Voters in six states reported touching the screen for Kerry and seeing their ballots marked for Bush.

None of this was conclusive proof of a stolen election, but it should've been enough to spark in-depth stories by the media. We should know beyond doubt who controls the software in touch-screen machines. Is it foolproof? I don't know. I suspect you don't either. Such ignorance and press indifference bodes ill for the future of our democracy.

I wouldn't bring up the negligent post-election coverage if the media had not let us down lately in so many ways. Several news organs apologized for not being more skeptical of the Bush claims about weapons of mass destruction and al-Qaida connections and Saddam's alleged ties to 9/11 and the costs of waging war in Iraq.

If big media led us astray on Iraq - and they admit they did - isn't it possible they also blew the election coverage? To many of the good folks I spoke to in Blount County last week, it isn't a close call.

Don Williams is the founding editor of New Millennium Writings. You may write to him at PO Box 2463, Knoxville, TN., 37901, e-mail him at donwilliams7@charter.net.

Copyright 2005, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.

http://knoxnews.com/kns/opinion_columnists/article/0,1406,KNS_364_3468898,00.html

During my conversation with Don to thank him for this column, he thanked me for the links I provided and the information I sent him. He wanted to test this out on a group of Dems before he wrote the column and the result is listed above.
He told me that it was more than the 2/3rds he wrote about - he said when he asked the question, a "sea of hands" went up in response to his "was the election stolen" question. He said without taking an actual count, he suspects it was about 85 percent of those in the room.
We just have to keep getting the word out to truth-friendly reporters and columnists and we'll eventually GET the truth out to those who are willing to hear the truth.

... most fellow Dems and progressives have that same stunned expression that they were suckered.

Good article, btw. Thanks for posting it!

I'm from TN. Thanks for posting the article.

and my guess is that you'd find a similar reaction across Tennessee. I wish that Gallup would repeat the poll they ran in late November or early December where 20% of respondents thought the election was stolen. I would love to know what that number is up to now.

We just can't stop saying this and taking every opportunity to keep saying it to anyone and everyone. I'm now scheduled to show the electionfraud2004 slideshow (with some more slides I created and added, based on the new analyses of the "raw" exit poll data) to two county Dem organizations, a church-based group and graduate classes at one local university in the next few weeks. We need to keep talking and talking and talking ... and doing other visibility-raising events. For example, we're doing an election theft protest in front of our Federal Building from 4-6 pm on 1/20 -- during rush hour and with candles and LOTS of signs. We want to keep working hard and smart until every Nashvillian has been exposed to the truth, one way or the other.

I imagine that you have provided Don with the Freeman paper and other resources. He has emailed me recently so I will write him to offer the same thing. Be sure to mention the proposed national conference in Nashville on the 2004 election theft -- he would be a perfect panelist for one of the media-related panels. See this link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x274772

Again, thanks for the post. Stay warm tonight -- I have both of my wood stoves cranked up now.

It's not so cold here, right now (Knoxville).

And, thanks for all your hard work in getting out information to the good people of our state. Imagine how effective we'd be if the media would just give an ounce?

I read an article in the Tennessean about the marches and it was not snarky or condensending and it spelled out our case very well. I wish other newspapers across the country had such disciplined reporting.

I live in College Park, MD, but my roots are there. Both my mom and my dad are buried there.

I am ashamed to return to Tennessee because most of my relatives with whom I stay in touch and discuss politics are Bush* proponents. I have never understood how anyone from Tennessee could vote for Bush* over Gore.

I read the stories about Tennessee being a mini-Florida with regard to suppressing the votes of the African-American community, and I just don't understand why people think that is okay.

I know Al Gore has found a way to return to Tennessee to mend some fences; he's a bigger person than I. I just can't go back for now. Reading your post makes me realize, however, there's hope.

We're not a red state, we're an Orange State. Besides, we're working now to host a national conference on the 2004 election theft, which will assist ourselves, the nation and the world to throw off the "asses of evil" who now control the country.

See this post about the national conference:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x274772

You'd be surprised at the number of people here from Dems to moderates to traditional Republicans who don't like Shrub.

Knoxville - the city - went blue this year. It's just that the county went red and, coupled with the red in the city, the entire county shows up red on those maps - but the city did, in fact, go for Kerry. I live in Fountain City - nice, middle to working class neighborhood. My neighborhood also went Kerry.

Please feel free to return anytime and help out.

BTW, odd question - but were are your parents buried. I live near Greenwood Cemetery and my mother lives near Lynnhurst. Those are great places to ride bikes, so I see a lot of the old (and fascinating) stones.

It's always colder quicker deep in this hollow. It is laid out north-to-south, so my farmhouse is directly in line with the north wind.

I'm the last surviving owner of a collective farm, started in the late 60s by a group of Vanderbilt professors. (I was their student.) I have managed to hold on and expand the farm to around 190 acres -- fourteen ridges, thirteen valleys, five creeks that start on my farm, two-thirds woodland, 60 acres of pasture, five acres of commercial berries (blackberries, blueberries, red and black raspberries), no neighbors within sight. And yet I'm less than an hour away from downtown Nashville, so it's the best of all worlds. (Unless I was high in the mountains of northern New Mexico, my second home.)

Yes, I appreciated the article that the Nashville Tennessean ran, and our Nashville CBS TV affiliate has covered all of our rallies. Plus we've now done nine 30 minute long radio shows on the election theft, which have covered a 200 mile radius. Since I'm not sure whether you've seen these Tennessee Independent Media Center reports, they have also given us excellent (and world-reaching) coverage.

http://www.tnimc.org/feature/display/3890/index.php
http://www.tnimc.org/feature/display/3944/index.php
http://www.51capitalmarch.com/scrapBook/december04/nashvilleTN12-19.shtml
http://www.tnimc.org/feature/display/4027/index.php

The more we all do, the more the word will get out. Ask Don whether he'd like me to come over to east Tennessee with my slideshow. I'll bet that all of us could put on a good tag-team presentation.

I sent him the link you just provided so he can go reading for himself.

When you write him next, just let him know you're the person whom I got this info from and we can hope you guys can get together. :thumbsup: