Our elections are rigged.  By
   means of voter suppression, ballot
   tampering, ballot box stuffing,
   failure to count all the votes, and
   wholesale alteration of the vote
   count, the winner can lose and the
   loser can win.  In Ohio there is
   the additional problem of ballot
   rotation, through which the order in
   which the candidates’ names appear
   on the ballot rotates from precinct
   to precinct, an insidious device
   that constitutes an open invitation
   to error and fraud.  Our elections
   are certified by Secretaries of
   State such as Katharine Harris and
   J. Kenneth Blackwell, both of whom
   were openly partisan supporters of
   the candidates whose questionable
   victories they were certifying.
        People should care that our
   elections are rigged.  This is not
   a laughing matter.  Our founders
   braved the guns of the Redcoats and
   the winter of Valley Forge, in order
   that we might establish this noble
   experiment in self-government.

Suffragettes like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton devoted
their lives to secure for women the right to vote, and did not even live
to see the fruits of their labors.  The freedom riders and civil rights
workers in Mississippi and Alabama risked their lives, and some even
gave their lives, in order that all citizens might have the right to
vote, no matter what the color of their skin.  And now, when Jim Crow
rears his ugly head in Ohio, shall we look the other way?  What shall
we say to our children?  “We’re sorry.  We did not bequeath unto you
that which our ancestors entrusted unto us.”  How soon we forget.
     It matters that our elections are rigged.  The ballot box is the
only means available for peaceful political change.  Petitioning the
government for redress of grievances is meaningless if public officials
cannot be voted out of office.  Most politicians will not be responsive
to the will of the people if they have nothing to fear from the people.
In this regard, gerrymandering of legislative districts and
outrageously expensive campaign financing are as much of a problem as
rigged and fraudulent elections.  With “safe districts” held
perpetually by one major party or the other, campaigns so expensive
that only the wealthy can buy access, and the major parties in control
of the election process itself, we are left with a mere semblance of a
representative democracy.
     To the casual observer, and the wishful thinker, nothing much has
changed.  We still have three branches of government, and elections are
held on a regular basis.  But this is the appearance, not the reality.
The executive power is not checked, the branches of government are not
balanced, and the election results are not to be trusted.  The words of
Machiavelli are relevant here:

     “Whoever wishes to reform an existing government in a free
     state should at least preserve the semblance of the old forms
     ...  so that it may seem to the people that there has been
     no change in the institutions, even though in fact they are
     entirely different from the old ones.  For the great majority
     of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they
     were realities, and are often even more influenced by the
     things that seem than by those that are.”  (Discourses,
     First Book, Chapter XXV).

     Our government is illegitimate because our elections are not
verifiable, and that is worse than fraud, because if results cannot be
properly audited, mistakes cannot be corrected, and fraud cannot be
detected.  Only paper ballots can provide a verifiable record of the
intent of each and every voter, and only if they are counted by hand,
in full public view, at the polling place, on Election Night, before
any “chain of custody” questions have arisen.  Precinct results must
be readily available to all, within a very short time, and any citizen
must be allowed to examine the actual ballots, poll books, and voter
signature books, without interference by Boards of Elections, or County
Prosecutors, or paramilitary police, or anyone else, well within the
time frame during which an election may be legally challenged.
     There are only three possible reasons to switch to electronic
voting: to make more money for Diebold, ES&S, and other private
corporations; to provide election results instantaneously, in order
to satisfy our inordinate demand for instant gratification; or to
steal an election.
     To those who ask if John Kerry is the rightful President, I say
that Al Gore is the rightful President.  To those who ask if counting
the hanging and dimpled chads in Florida would have won the election
for Gore, I say that counting the write-in votes would have won the
election for Gore.  To those who ask how the world might have been
different if Gore had been elected, I say that Gore was elected, and
it made no difference at all.
     Did John Kerry win Ohio?  The short answer is “no.”  J. Kenneth
Blackwell certified George W. Bush as the winner.  From a legal
standpoint, the matter is settled.  In words attributed to Joseph
Stalin:  “Those who vote decide nothing.  Those who count the votes
decide everything.”
     Did John Kerry win Ohio?  The cautious answer is “we shall never
know, because there will never be a fair and accurate count.”  Duly
registered voters were purged from the rolls, or otherwise prevented
from voting.  Provisional ballots were discarded if cast in the wrong
precinct, even if cast in the right polling place.   Ballots were
punched for more than one presidential candidate, not always by the
voter, and we do not know which punch was genuine.  Ballots were cast
on the wrong voting machine, or shifted to the wrong precinct, and
counted for candidates not of the voters’ choosing.  Ballot boxes were
stuffed, and we do not know which ballots are fake, and which ones,
if any, are real.
     Did John Kerry win Ohio?  The longer answer is “more likely than
not, he did.”  The evidence has been set forth in relentless detail in
this book.  We know the election was rigged.  It must never happen
again.  And no matter what we think of John Kerry for failing to fight,
or even to investigate the outcome, we, the people, were robbed.  This
was a presidential election, with the leadership of the free world at
stake.  Ohio was the state that decided the election.
    The major parties are obsolete.  The acquiescence of the Democratic
Party to what happened in Ohio makes them an accessory to the crime,
and constitutes a cover-up by the victim.  I can only conclude that
both major parties like the system the way it is.  One party controls
the levers of tyrannical power, and the other wishes it did.  Neither
party will challenge the system that maintains them.  They have no
defining principles.  They are unresponsive to the will of the people.
Historians will note that it was through the initiative and leadership
of the Green and Libertarian parties that the 2004 Ohio election was
challenged, even if the “recount” was only a mockery.  And if the
Republican and Democratic parties should fold, as I wish they would,
as I think they should, the historic challenge in Ohio will rightly
be seen as the defining moment.
     This book will stand the test of time.  It will become the
document of record for the 2004 Ohio election, a pivotal moment in
American history.  Like Thucydides in the days of ancient Greece, and
Tacitus in the days of ancient Rome, I am writing of the early days of
empire, while our beloved republic is still a living memory.  Whether
the current crisis in our electoral system results in the downfall of
our republic or its restoration is up to every one of us to decide.