Partly Partisan in Tallahassee: A mixed crowd speaks up for vote reform and recounts.
Florida election activists and notables assembled at the steps of the Old Capitol steps in Tallahassee Wednesday afternoon, March 21, to speak for paper ballots, the right to recount votes, and to audit elections for public office in Florida. At a venue well acquainted with front step speeches, this event drew the usual crowd expected on a work day, but speakers were eloquent and passionate.
The event was structured in two parts, non partisan under Bill Faulkner of Pensacola, who is Florida's Representative from VerifiedVoting.org, presiding as Master of Ceremonies. A energetic loud tone shift followed later in the afternoon as partisan speakers delivered messages challenging election results from the November 06, 2006 General election.
Non partisan speakers included Ion Sancho, Supervisor of Elections in Leon County, who in December 2005 was recognized nationwide for refusing to subject his voters to unreliable voting equipment following a series of tests on Diebold voting machines which revealed how easy they are to compromise.
Sancho was joined by Ben Wilcox, Executive Director of Common Cause Florida; Reggie Mitchell, State Counsel for People for the American Way; and Marilynn Wills, 1st Vice President of The League of Women Voters of Florida, all based in Tallahassee.
Later, the partisan half of the event coordinated by Union Activist Charlie Wiggins of Volusia County's Democratic Club, featured Clint Curtis, the computer programmer who was asked, back in 2000, to demonstrate how paperless voting machines can be used to cheat on vote counts, and did it, but then famously ratted out the state senator who asked him to do it. Curtis is a contesting candidate for House District FL24 in Brevard County. In November he ran for the congressional seat held by that same state legislator, and now Congressman, Tom Feeney. In that race, exit polls showed Curtis such a strong winner that least one local television station named him the winner of the race, yet Feeney stilled showed more votes when results were tallied.
The other partisan speakers were John Russell, also a contesting candidate (House District FL5, Pasco), and attorney Mark Adams. Adams is representing both Curtis and Russell in their suits contesting the official election results from last November, based on affidavits they and their volunteers have gathered in their respective districts indicating significant vote anomalies within each of their races.
Adams is also contesting certification of similarly suspicious state wide results for the referendum on amendments to Florida's constitution which, if allowed to go forward, makes it much harder for citizens' groups to get referendums for amendments in the future, such as (I believe) the recent attempt to force state redistricting last year.
Defendants in the Russell and Curtis cases are asking to have the suits thrown out at a hearing in Tallahassee on March 28, and Adams spoke to that issue.
Bill Bucolo
3/27/07
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William Faulkner Nobel Prize speechby zzahier102,689 views
well done sub4sub
hamstertito 3 years ago
Thank you for all you do! Do not let the crooks win!
justanoone 4 years ago