On December 13, 2004 the Electors from Massachusetts made an historic break from the usual ritual of casting their electoral votes on behalf of the voters from their state. While they were sworn in to perform their important duty, the Electors also passed a resolution calling on Congress to investigate and remedy voting irregularities and violations in the 2004 Presidential election and to make remedies to the system as a whole. Posted here tonight is a transcription of the press conference that was held afterwards at the Massachusetts State House.
(transcribed by Robin Weingarten)
Tom Barbera
The weekend before the election I was …. [unintelligible on the tape]
….They assaulted two young men. It was not a simple assault.
They pushed them to the ground and ripped up their signs.
In our two counties, a number of the cities and towns, where for the first time in 14 years polling places all of a sudden were changed.
It always happened to be in high democratic areas.
I’ve been working on elections since I was 11 years old, in 1968, for Robert Kennedy. I have never seen this kind of bull (?) go on in elections, and we were in a state we won but won just barely. I’ve heard from my union brothers and sisters across the country, especially in Ohio and Florida, and a number of other states, that these kinds of things were common.
In this state, where we respect the vote… We today made a statement that every vote that every person cast should be counted. As electors we made that statement.
I firmly believe that. This election should not be certified until they complete the recount in Ohio and in New Mexico. And those individuals are voting today to certify the election.
So for me, coming here today was an easy thing because I believe in democracy. I believe this country should always exhibit this democracy, not just in Mass and New York, but in every state in this country.
Robert Cassidy
I’ve had the honor and privilege to serve today as a member of electoral college for the Democratic party.
Also had the privilege of serving as part of the kitchen cabinet of the State of Minnesota… assisted with the running of the Kerry campaign throughout the state of Minn.
Helped to orchestrate and oversee… congressional districts.
Major problem occurred in Minn
Of 4100 precincts voting in that great state, over 3000 challengers from Republican party came into the state the night before with the sole purpose of delaying the vote.
As members of the legal team we found on election day that they were able to use delay tactics by challenging groups of indivs, which is totally against the law, because they challenged 4-5 people at same time, the law dictates you have to challenge each one individually.
Prior to 7:30 a.m. we had our first challenges.
We had people representing themselves as members of fed gov, dressing themselves up, scaring indivs who were registering that day for first time, because Minn has registration and voting on the same day, by asking them for info that has never been and is not required in order to vote.
Students were questioned of their right to vote...
…..We all share a commitment to this democratic process...
We all cannot stand by while the existing conditions of class and race are abused as such especially within the electoral process.
And increase year after year… starting with the 2000 election and again in this election…
Prior to 2008, we must take into account these violations… and hope that we’ll be joined by Congress, U.S. Senate….
Mushtak Mirsa
Today it is hard for me to vote for somebody who is not going to be the president although he really deserved to be the president if they had done honest voting in Ohio.
I campaigned for John Kerry in NH, Maine, and personally visited mosques there. Also was in touch with mosques in Ohio, Florida, Minn, Mich. Many, many Muslims went out and voted for Kerry. However, in Ohio when students have to wait for 9 hrs to vote, many students didn’t wait. Republicans knew the students would be voting for Kerry, and so they had only 2 voting booths.
I think… is this happening in the great country of America, a technologically advanced country?
Even in India, the country I was born in, people don’t have to wait that long. Here we have to wait, because the wait was created intentionally, bureaucracy for people because they knew the students were going to vote for Kerry.
I personally believe that this sorry state of affairs cannot be repeated. We have to investigate any wrongdoing in any state that has been done, and find the remedy.
If we find that somebody did any of this intentionally and if there was a criminal behavior, then those persons should be charged for criminal behavior in a court.
Today is the day to celebrate that we have pleasure to vote for John Kerry, but today is also the day of sadness, that after years of working and struggling for him, that he cannot be the next president of America…. Because in my opinion, people were not given enough chance to vote in Ohio, because for students to wait for 9 hours, they cannot be there that long, they have classes to go to. There are so many wrongdoings that have been happening in other states.
We cannot sit back and do nothing because it will keep on repeating again in 2008.
And I want to be very clear that whether the winner is a Republican or Democrat we want an honest election.
Selectwoman from Ayer, Faye Morrison
Not an Elector, but was a delegate for Kerry and Gore. If you had asked me while I was sitting in the Fleet Center if I thought we would be doing this again after 2000, I would have said absolutely not, we had too many people out there on the ground bearing witness, and yet here we are again not sure of the outcome of an election.
Worked for this campaign pre-primary in NH, ME , Del, SC, and then during the election in Ohio, Fla. I left Ohio feeling pretty good about it, and then spent last 2 wks before election in Fla.
Intimidation that I saw in Florida took my legs out from under me, maybe because I live in the North and in a state where I don’t question my vote being counted, and I have never been intimidated and asked for my i.d. or treated disrespectfully. When I was working on the polls for the early voting and on election day, I was crushed to see how people were rushing up to me trying to keep me from getting in, because they thought I was there to vote. People who were from the other side said some awful things to me, things that it took awhile for me to get over, like “We don’t want you here, you’re in wrong polling place.”
Polling place was moved in Riviera Beach in Florida and no one was told. People were showing up there. Only way people found out where their new voting place was that a voter made own sign to tell people, no govt agency or election commission told people or helped them find where to vote.
I spent some time with the legal rapid response team …. Recording machines where wrong vote was being cast. Machines recording Bush votes when Kerry was selected, machines that were counting backwards…
It’s obvious that voting was not meant to go into the electronic age. I don’t think that’s what our forefathers meant when they talked about voting.
A right such as voting takes a little time. I don’t agree you should be standing in line 9 hours. But it’s not too much work to fill out a circle on a paper ballot and slip it into an opti-reader, a paper ballot that you can track, put your hands on, you know it exists and if you need a recount you can do that. The only reason you’re not hearing about this from reporters is they don’t have any of that.
.
Sometimes voting places are in someone’s home or garage. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it leaves all these things up in the air that are problematic and can’t be quantified and I think voting should be.
Intimidation in the South played a big role. People were intimidated when they were turned away and told they didn’t have the right to vote.
People were very hesitant to question authority.
Thank God for those of us there from other states as observers who went with them and walked them back in. A lot of times they didn’t want to go back in, they were afraid…
I had to be cautious… these people were playing for keeps, they were very serious about their intention to hold onto power by any means necessary.
I don’t know if Senator Kerry won or lost Florida, but I know our exit polls had us way ahead on election day, and I’d like to know what happened in Fla, and why these numbers…
In history of voting, polling has never been as far off as it was in Fla.
We got messages in the Kerry campaign around 4:30 pm that we were going to see a concession from this president, that he was being prepared to concede this race, because he was going to lose Florida. So, I’d like to know why that turned around in an hour or so. And if we can’t answer those questions then we certainly shouldn’t be delivering the electoral process to another country, we don’t have the right if we can’t get it right here.
Grace Ross (Coalition Against Election Fraud)
I want to thank our electors for taking this courageous step and moving us out of pomp and ceremony and into reality.
Our brave electors here are joined by electors in Maine who also passed a resolution to call on their Congressional delegates. I know there was an elector in Vermont who was going to enter into the record himself, if he couldn’t get the rest of that state’s electors to support him, a call on the Congressional delegation also in deploring the vote situation. There are at least five electors in Calif that are doing something… And we understand that the electors in Hawaii are also acting. There was one particularly courageous Democratic elector in NC who spoke to press all day, while the Republican electors were voting, to speak out about not only the interesting voting machine behavior in North Carolina, but also about what she witnessed in a state that was not being watched. We are only seeing what was visible because there were literally tens of thousands of eyes and feet on the ground in certain states. We need to be aware that there are many other states where there was not that kind of visibility, that these things were happening there too.
Coalition Against Electoral Fraud is not done. We have our work cut out for us and I look forward to continuing to work with everybody here.
