CASE-MN Letter to Senator Mark Dayton

December 29, 2004

Senator Mark Dayton
Bishop Henry Whipple Building, Suite 298
1 Federal Drive
Fort Snelling, MN 55111



Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position
that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular;
but one must take it because it is right.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dear Senator Dayton,

We are founding members of Citizen's Alliance for Secure Elections - Minnesota (CASE - MN) and we are writing on behalf of the group. CASE - MN is a grass-roots organization committed to ensuring election integrity, both with regard to the 2004 election and for future elections. We are affiliated with CASE-Ohio www.caseohio.org

More than eight weeks have passed since the 2004 Presidential Election -- but every day, more and more information surfaces that call into question the 2004 election's integrity and accuracy.

In Ohio, electronic voting machines stopped working, counted backwards, eliminated votes, and registered votes for the wrong candidate. African-American and college neighborhoods experienced by far the longest lines on Election Day, the most vote spoilage, the most elimination of provisional ballots, and the most victimization by precinct manipulation. It seems clear that the imbalanced allocation of voting machines between suburban and predominately African American precincts was designed to suppress black voting. This racist policy must be exposed and corrected immediately, not two years or four years or six years hence.

Nationwide, 400,000 callers phoned voter protection hotlines, with complaints ranging from absentee ballots lost in the mail, to outright voter intimidation and disenfranchisement. And partisan election officials with conflicts of interest undermined voting rights in states from Ohio to Florida to New Mexico. As you are likely aware, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, have questioned the election's legitimacy in a series of rigorous, painstakingly detailed hearings and letters documenting the unprecedented extent and scope of vote suppression, available at http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/  .

Exit polls strongly suggest that the tabulated results of the 2004 election do not accurately reflect the votes cast. University of Pennsylvania Professor and Statistician Steven Freeman calculates the odds of the exit polls in PA, OH and FL all diverging from the tabulated results by the margin that they did at 662,000 to 1. This means it is statistically impossible that the discrepancies between the predicted and actual vote counts in the three critical battleground states could have been due to chance or random error.  http://www.dakotatechnics.com/downloads/Exitpoll_discrep_v00p1_Part_I.pdf

CASE - MN sent nine members to Ohio to participate in the recent recount. We found significant issues with regard to both the original vote and the accuracy and validity of the recount. The Minneapolis Star Tribune has published an editorial in today's edition written by two CASE - MN members who traveled to Ohio to oversee the recount: http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5158534.html . Updated information regarding the recount and the follow-up investigation can be found at the Cobb-LaMarche web-site at http://www.votecobb.org/

On January 6, 2005, Congress will meet in joint session to certify the 2004 presidential election. On that day, if one member of the House and one member of the Senate object to the certification of the vote, then all members of Congress will finally discuss these issues.

We are grateful that you are our senator and we are proud of the courageous positions that you have taken during your first years in office. We recall when you stood up as the only senator to challenge the veracity of the NORAD claims regarding the chronology of the events of 9/11. You were a strong voice of reason on the Medicare prescription drug bill and you bravely challenged your senate colleagues to "have a taste of their own medicine" by receiving drug benefits no greater than those provided to our seniors.

We are now at a pivotal point in the history of our country, a time when our future as a Democracy is in the balance, and we are writing to ask you to take a stand of conscience. We ask that you object to the certification of the vote for the 2004 presidential election when Congress meets on January 6, 2005 so that the serious issues that we have addressed above can be carefully considered and addressed by Congress. We ask that you stand up against those who would take our freedom to vote, and to have every vote counted, away from us.

Members of CASE - MN, together with our partner organizations from the Twin Cities, would like to meet with you before January 6 to further delineate our concerns and to discuss your thoughts regarding the certification of the vote. We look forward to hearing from you with a day and time that is convenient for you to meet with us.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

On behalf of Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections - MN,

Mark Halvorson
Lance Henderson
Susan McAninch
Susan Solomon