Friday, December 10, 2004

Not Just An Academic Venting Session

I have been watching on CSPAN 2 tonight a Congressional Panel Discussion about the alleged Ohio election fraud from last month's presidential election. There is a lot to this story, and it's actually footage that was shot on Wednesday Decemeber 8th, yet I have heard nothing about it until flipping to DirecTV channel 351 this evening. To describe quickly the content of this hearing, I shall list and briefly describe:

1. There are numerous lawsuits that are in motion and will be heard regarding the subject of voting fraud and voter disenfranchisment during this year's presidential election in Ohio.

2. There has just been approved by the Ohio Federal court a re-count of every vote cast in Ohio. There was a lot of dirty work involved in this re-count being stonewalled for a while. Two Independent candidates for president excersized their right to call for a re-count. The state said they could, but they needed to pay a $113,000 + Bond to have it done. So the candidates got the word out and they raised enough money. The state repeatedly rejected their right for a re-count even after the money was raised. It was only after the effort was brought in front of the Ohio Federal court that it was finally granted. But not before it was too late to get the re-count done before the Ellectoral College casts their final ballots on December 13th. Those in charge of the re-count effort expressed in this hearing that if the re-count resulted in the state being called in favor of Kerry(I paraphrase that, John Kerry was not mentioned in the hearing as I watched it), then a new Electoral College would be charged with casting their ballots based on the 'will of the people', and when the new session of Congress starts up in January of '05, they would be forced to deal with two election results.

3. There was a call for a reform on Federal Election procedures. Most expressed their opinion to make Federal Elections run in a uniform style, as outlined in a Federal law as opposed to state law, meaning the same voting machines/technology used throughout the country in Federally mandated districts(meaning no last minute juggling of district borders).

4. Jesse Jackson Jr. called for a Constitutional Amendment to give all American citizens the right to vote. He has tried to get such a motion passed through congress three times and has yet to succeed, though it is gaining steam.

As I write this, the link to the video of this meeting on CSPAN.com is down :(

This was an informative discussion about a topic that should smack every American right in the face. Jesse Jackson Sr. said "I hope this doesnt amount to just an academic venting session", I couldn't agree more.


0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home