--------------------------------------------
MANY EARLY VOTING MACHINES AT SEVERAL VOTING LOCATIONS IN DALLAS COUNTY ARE CHANGING DEMOCRATIC VOTES TO REPUBLICAN ONES.
TODAY THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY FILED SUIT IN COURT TO STOP EARLY VOTING FOR THIS ELECTION UNLESS THE MACHINES ARE TESTED AND FIXED SO THAT THEY WON'T STEAL ANY MORE VOTES FROM DEMOCRATS.
The Democratic Party needs your help to test the early voting machines. If you have not already voted early or by mail, please go vote Wednesday and see if the machine you use registers your votes correctly.
We have had dozens of calls at the party office from people who voted straight-party for the Democrats, but found that the machine showed a vote for John Cornyn for U.S. Senate against Ron Kirk, or for other Republican candidates. The Elections Department said they have had "only" some half-dozen or so problems, and that was "normal" at the start of an election. The Republicans say they haven't had any calls at all about problems.
Well, it isn't "normal", and it isn't surprising that the Republicans haven't had any calls - their votes aren't being changed, only ours are.
Here in Ron Kirk's home county, where he can be expected to win by a large margin and help with his coattails all of our other candidates (both statewide and local), Democratic votes for Kirk are being changed to Republican ones. The elections department is controlled by very partisan Republican County Commissioners, and is using an elections vendor owned by Republicans. WHAT AN AMAZING COINCIDENCE.
Our attorneys, including former Dallas County Democratic Chair Ken Molberg, went to court today to demand that this be fixed. The attorney for Republican-controlled Dallas County dared to claim that they saw no problem. The county had told us that they would retest all the machines before today's voting. That did not happen. Although these problems were showing up on the first day of early voting on Monday, the vendor is only sending in a crew tonight. Guess they don't see a problem either.
They claim anyone who spotted the problem and complained to the election
judge got to re-vote on another machine. The problem is: HOW MANY PEOPLE DIDN'T THINK TO LOOK AND JUST ASSUMED THEIR STRIGHT-PARTY VOTES WERE COUNTED RIGHT? How many votes were lost like that for Democrats?
WE CANNOT COUNT ON PARTISAN PREVARICATORS TO TEST THE MACHINES TO MAKE SURE THEY STOP USING THE ONES RIGGED TO CHANGE VOTES. We need Democratic voters to go test them so that we can find the problems ourselves.
ON WEDNESDAY, IF YOU HAVEN'T VOTED YET, PLEASE GO TO ANY OF THE EARLY VOTING SITES BETWEEN 8 AM AND 5 PM AND VOTE EARLY. MARK THE STRAIGHT PARTY DEMOCRATIC BOX, THEN CAREFULLY GO THROUGH EACH PAGE OF THE BALLOT AND MAKE SURE IT HASN'T CHANGED ANY OF YOUR VOTES TO REPUBLICANS. Ron Kirk is not the only candidate these machines have been cheating, so look at every race.
If any of your votes have been changed, call over the officials at that polling place and show them what happened and demand that the offending machine be removed. Then call the Dallas County Democratic Party office at 214-821-8331. That's the new number at the Parry Street office, which has several phone lines, but if there are lots of calls, please leave a message with a number where they can call you back.
RON KIRK NEEDS YOUR HELP, SO DO TONY SANCHEZ AND ALL OF OUR OTHER STATE AND LOCAL CANDIDATES, AND SO DOES THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
REMEMBER FLORIDA. HELP US STOP THEM FROM STEALING ANOTHER ELECTION.
Here's a link to a story on the Dallas News website Tuesday night, which gets the essence of the story wrong (guess they see no problem either): http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/102202dnmetvotingproblems.3 80b6.html
You can see a better analysis on the the Democratic Party's website: www.dallasdemocrats.org
Here's a link to the list of Early Voting Locations in Dallas County: http://www.dalcoelections.org/nov52002/EARLYVOTING.htm
The Dallas County Democratic Party number again is 214-821-8331. You can also email Mike Atwood at the office at matwood at dallasdemocrats.org
_________________________________ Steven