We prefer not to see those limits tested again.
And we need to have people prepared to take tangible action. In 2012 Bob Fitrakis filed a successful Election Day lawsuit preventing illegal computer patches being rigged into Ohio's electronic machines. In a closer race, those patches might have made the difference. We believe the expectation that they would work did cause Karl Rove to do his legendary flipped-out double-take on Fox News as he was told Mitt Romney had lost Ohio.
We also reported (as did The Nation) that voting machines in key Cincinnati precincts were financially linked to the Romney family. We each wrote separate articles about that and were each blacklisted by Daily Kos for doing so, even though the vast bulk of Harvey's 150+ previous blogs on that site were about nuclear power and renewable energy.
Some publications that aren't progressive understand the problem. Twenty-three minutes into the 2012 Election Day, Forbes took the Free Press reporting seriously, and warned voters of the dangers of private, for-profit companies owning and maintaining voting machines.
Over the years we've been repeatedly told that we should stop reporting on electronic election theft because it might discourage voter turnout. And that the key to a Democratic victory in 2016 will be another massive vote count victory that will be "too big to steal."
Frankly, we don't see that happening this year.
And we find such talk deeply disturbing. We have no doubt that innumerable US House and Senate races have been stolen over the years, along with governorships, control of state legislatures, referenda and more, all of it producing a deep reinforcement of the corporate control of our government.
We're also reasonably certain that neither Hillary nor Bernie is likely to amass in November a margin of victory over either Ryan or Trump that would be big enough to negate the possibility of massive disenfranchisement and electronic vote flipping in key states like Ohio, Michigan, Iowa or Arizona.
And anyway ... why the hell are we even thinking about leaving such a problem unsolved?
This disease needs a definitive cure.
We look forward to further reasoned and reasonable dialogue. We invite Josh and Ari to join us on our panel at the upcoming Left Forum in New York in May. We welcome a public discussion with Steve and Mark in California.
Above all, we hope to see those millions of Bernie supporters joining us at the reactor sites, the banks, the women's health centers, the shelters, the schools and so many other critical hot spots in our corporate-plagued society, no matter who wins (or how) in November.
_____________________
*Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of six books on election integrity, including the new Strip & Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim Crows and Electronic Election Theft (www.freepress.org and www.solartopia.org). Bob's Fitrakis Files are at www.freepress.org. Harvey's Organic Spiral of US History is coming soon at www.solartopia.org.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
3
1
1
