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Polls & Media Coverage

While polling organizations and the media can provide a check on election fraud, they often make things worse by calling elections before the votes have been counted or by under-reporting large constituencies. One of the best indicators of vote tampering is when a discrepancy appears in the exit polling. European countries are able to use their exit polls to accurately predict the winner of their elections; yet American exit polls are blamed for any discrepancies between their results and the actual election results. Additionally the media blackout on third party and independent candidates also often makes it more difficult for voters to hear the true range of candidates who are on their ballot.

Organize or attend a Voter Assembly in your community on November 7th!

This election is being threatened by unverifiable voting machines, voter ID laws that disenfranchise millions of eligible voters, restrictive election laws for third party candidates and voters who wish to vote early, as well as many other forms of voter suppression that we are likely to witness on November 6 and the weeks leading up to the election.

Sign the Pledge of Action!

Standing for Voters

From: 
www.StandingforVoters.org
What's happening: 

The Standing for Voters campaign is collecting pledges from candidates ready to commit to:

    -- no concessions before all valid votes are counted and all serious challenges resolved;

    -- challenging elections where necessary.

Take the Pledge of Action!

From: 
No More Stolen Elections!
What's happening: 

Many say the 2008 election is being stolen right now. If two stolen elections are two too many, are you prepared to accept a third?

IF you haven't already, please read the important call to action from Rev. Jesse Jackson, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher, Daniel Ellsberg, David Cobb, Frances Moore Lappé, Frances Piven, Holly Near, Jerome Scott, Jim Hightower, John Cavanagh, John Nichols, Manning Marable, Marcus Raskin, Maude Hurd, Medea Benjamin, Mimi Kennedy, Norman Solomon, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Robert McChesney, Starhawk, Tom Hayden, Van Jones, and many more.

Tell the media to report the truth on Election Night

From: 
TrueVote.US & No More Stolen Elections!
What's happening: 

Please take action to urge the media to report the unadjusted exit polls for the 2008 election.

The Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International corporations will again conduct all exit polling for the 2008 federal elections.

Voters should be provided with the unadjusted exit polls. If adjustments are made to the final polls they should be explained publicly. Major media outlets are urged to archive all of the interim exit poll results to allow independent analysis later. Election integrity advocates must push for greater transparency since large-sample exit polls can and should be used be used to audit vote totals.

When the U.S. government audits the vote in a foreign country, the tool of choice is always a large-sample exit poll, which will identify problems in the vote totals. Yet, in the United States, even with the documented problems we have had in voting , our own government does not use the best tool available.

News and political divisions of the major networks must plan to archive all of the preliminary exit poll results since the overall survey will quickly be adjusted by the vendor to match the published vote totals, and will thus no longer be useful as an audit of the integrity of the vote totals.

Organize a Voter Assembly in your community!

Date: 
November 7, 2012 - 12:00pm - 9:00pm

This election is being threatened by unverifiable voting machines, voter ID laws that disenfranchise millions of eligible voters, restrictive election laws for third party candidates and voters who wish to vote early, as well as many other forms of voter suppression that we are likely to witness on and before November 6.  Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 have taught us that our elections can be stolen if we do not act.

Event Contact
First Name: 
Jolie
Last Name: 
Lizotte
Email: 
lizotte@libertytreefoundation.org
Phone: 
920-312-4246

CAP TIMES: Journalists face restrictions as they cover Election Night events

November 9, 2012
By: 
Jessica Vanegeren
Campaigns' control of media gets heavy-handed on election night
news photo

Phil Ejercito, a Madison-based freelance photographer, took the usual steps prior to showing up Tuesday to photograph what turned into the election night victory party for Wisconsin’s new senator, Tammy Baldwin.

After showing identification, he was handed press credentials and then guided to the press area that included nearly 100 other journalists.

But as 8 p.m. approached and the ballroom at Monona Terrace began to fill with roughly 1,000 members of the public, a velvet red rope similar to what you’d find in a movie theater started to be drawn tight to cordon off the media area.

TRUTHOUT: Lack of transparency in exit polling makes it more difficult to know when an election is rigged

November 9, 2012
By: 
Victoria Collier
America's Media Just Made Vote-Rigging Easier
news photo

 

Stealing your vote is easier than ever now that the media has decided it can't afford the exit polling that helped track irregular ballot counts in more than a third of the states. Here's why it's important, and what you can do.

The news that America's mainstream media has cancelled exit polling in 19 states, means that insider election theft this November is now even harder to track, and therefore easier to get away with - something that scarcely seemed possible.

IPS: Abolishing the Electoral College will solve the problem of having "swing" states

November 5, 2012
By: 
Becky Bergdahl
Focus on Swing States Could Weaken Democracy in the U.S.
news photo

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 5 2012 (IPS) - A small number of states in the United States have a peculiar power. As swing states, they are extremely influential in the outcome of the presidential election. As presidential candidates focus intensely on these states, some argue that this imbalance and several other factors threaten to undermine the country’s democracy.

Democracy Now discusses how the Obama and Romney campaigns control debate questions and exclude third party candidates; Chilean student movement receives award

October 16, 2012

Democracy Now interviews author George Farah and Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald about how the Commission on Presidential Debates restricts the ability of the presidential debates to be fair and open. The broadcast ends with an interview with two of the leaders in the Chilean student movement, which recieved an award for organizing Chile's largest protests for free higher education. (skip past headlines to get to interviews):

 

GUARDIAN: Corporate-sponsored Commission on Presidential Debates places undemocratic restrictions on debates

October 16, 2012
By: 
Glenn Greenwald
The lame rules for presidential debates: a perfect microcosm of US democracy
news photo

The way the two major parties control the presidential debates is a perfect microcosm of how political debates are restricted in general. Though typically shrouded in secrecy, several facts about this process have recently come to light and they are quite instructive.

AMERICAN PROSPECT: Third party presidential candidates locked out of debates

October 11, 2012
By: 
Cole Stangler
Stuck in Second-Class Debate Gear
news photo

The 2012 election is the fifth straight presidential election to feature no third-party candidates in the debates—and as a result, there's also a lack of engagement with issues that the two major-party candidates don’t want to discuss. 

The debates are organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a 501(c)(3) organization created by the Democratic and Republican national committees and funded by corporate sponsors. This year, as usual, the commission extended invitations to only the Democratic and Republican candidates—much to the chagrin of third-party candidates and the handful of nonprofit organizations committed to including more voices in the debates.

NEWSWEEK: Serious doubts remain about the 2000 Florida recount's legitimacy

May 13, 2012
By: 
Michael Isikoff
The Final Word?
news photo

(originally published on November 18th, 2001)

After spending nearly $1 million, a consortium of big news organizations last week rendered what it once thought would be final word on last year's bitterly contested Florida recount.

The decision: a split verdict.

HUMANIST: Touchscreen voting machines leave a paperless trail in districts where the polls do not match the results

January 1, 2004
By: 
Michael I. Niman
A brave new world of voting
news photo

Manipulating election votes, the act of stealing an American election, used to sound far fetched. While many people weren't always confident that voters would make fully informed decisions, it was always assumed that each vote would at least be counted. Then came Florida--and the whole quaint notion of elections got tossed out the window. The final 2000 election recount showed that George W. Bush didn't win but he came close enough to move in for the kill.

Prospects for Participatory Democracy in the U.S.A

December 1, 2008
Ben Manski

Location: Barcelona, Spain Presented at the International Seminar on Participatory Democracy "Participatory Democracy. Political Actors and Social Movements" Abstract Diagnosing Democratic Collapse The U.S. political system suffers from a potentially fatal condition, a malady that can be diagnosed as "Democratic Collapse." The causes of this collapse are known: First, the consolidation of corporate control of the establishment political parties. Second, the sacrilegious enshrinement of corporations as persons under law, entitled to constitutional protections against citizens and governments.

Additional Information: 

Ben Manski is a Fellow with the Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution in its Local Democracy and Democratizing Education program areas. He served as Co-Chair of the Green Party of the United States from 2001 through 2004, and was active in the U.S. student, labor, peace, and environmental movements throughout the 1990s. Ben has a degree in law from the University of Wisconsin, and has written on the corporatization of higher education in the United States.

NICHOLS: Special Report on the 2008 Elections

November 5, 2008
John Nichols

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change.
And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. ~ Barack Obama<

~ NOVEMBER 5, 2008 ~

Additional Information: 

John Nichols is the Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine.
He is also a member of the Liberty Tree Board of Directors.

Voter Bill of Rights

September 26, 2009

From unreliable electronic voting machines and millions of uncounted ballots, to partisan election officials and 10-hour waits at the polls, it is clear that our electoral system is in dire need of an overhaul. To build a more just, secure, and robust democracy, please support the following 10-point Voter Bill of Rights:

1. Pass a Constitutional Amendment Confirming the Right to Vote

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