|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
Media Release January 9, 2005
In a few hours Matt Blunt will officially be declared Missouri Governor and Peter Kinder will be sworn in as lieutenant governor, but not everyone believes they were legitimately elected. In fact, a growing number of voters believe the 2004 Missouri election was fraudulent and are organizing a Missouri Votescam Action Team to try to do something about it plus strive to prevent vote fraud in future Missouri elections. This grassroots group is also working with Bev Harris of Blackbox Voting; Commongroundcommonsense; Constitutional Justice Society, Inc.; and No Stolen Elections. MOVAT includes those from a variety of political backgrounds and people from across Missouri in addition to some other states. Most of those involved have never met personally nor been involved in any of the same groups in the past, but have been brought together because they have seen that something was improper about Missouri elections 2004 and believe if they were honest and real statesman neither Matt Blunt nor Peter Kinder would accept taking office knowing they were not legitimately elected.
A website http://votescamissouri.blogspot.com has been established to publish some of the information and for discussions of possible remedies.
Several participants in the group have been inspired by
Dr. Matthew Fox, PhD, of Princeton, who published an article with Opednews.com
(http://www.opednews.com/foxMatthew_missouri.htm)”To
Be Blunt, Missouri's Election Reeks of Conflicts of Interest and
Warrants a Recount”. Aside from
concerns about Blunt’s conflict of interest in having certified the results of
his own election, Dr. Fox points out the governor select, who declared he beat
Claire McCaskill by a margin of 50.8% to 47.9% “[I]n a full 80% of Missouri's
counties, both urban and rural, Matt Blunt underperformed George W. Bush, often
by discouraging margins. For example, in Camden County, with 68% turnout, Bush
garnered 67%, Blunt only 61%, of the vote. The pattern recurs in county after
county…
In 23 counties Matt Blunt outperformed Bush, sometimes
miraculously so. In Clark County, up in the state's northeast corner, Bush just
barely took the county with 50.8%. Not
Matt Blunt, he walked away with 67% of the vote!… Apparently all
across the north and northeast of Missouri there are voters of this sort
"anti-Dixiecrats" we might call them who threw in their name for
Kerry and presidential change, but then in the next penstroke voted for Matt
Blunt. This also happened in Adair, Barton, Jasper, Knox, Lewis, Marion,
McDonald, Mercer, Newton, Pike, Putnam, Ralls, Schuyler, Scotland, Shelby, Ste.
Genevieve, Sullivan, Vernon, in all of which Blunt did far better than Bush...
Perhaps the most curious of all is St. Louis City, where over 80% voted for
Kerry; but in the governor's race 2%, around 2800, of these diehard Democrats
switched sides and voted for Matt Blunt.”
And in regards to Blunt’s home territory, Greene County
Dr. Fox stated, “I found that the suburban and rural areas surrounding
Springfield matched quite well the statewide pattern of Blunt's
underperformance compared with Bush. Only in the city precincts, where
Democrats overall performed much better than in the surrounding county, did
Blunt outperform Bush, sometimes by as much as 3%…The county-wide average
turnout was around 70%. But dozens of the urban precincts had turnouts that
were vastly below the average. We're talking 20-30% below average! For example,
9-A, one where Blunt did so well, had a turnout of 40%. In that same precinct
30% of all votes were straight party Democratic, and John Kerry earned 55%. But
in this same precinct Blunt beat Claire McCaskill 46.4% to 47%. (Incidentally,
or not, Roy Blunt also did very well in these low turnout precincts, pulling in
47.5% in 9-A). In other statewide races 9-A gave the majority to Democratic
candidates…
There is also a completely implausible occurrence
involving sub-precincts, where voters were divided alphabetically into two or
three groupings. In several cases voter turnouts were far lower in the second
and third subsets than in the first. In
other words, in precincts countywide, it seems that voters with names A-L
turned out to vote in far greater numbers than voters with names M-Z.”
A gentleman from the St. Louis area also worked with the numbers and has found among other things, “Dr. Fox examined precinct-by-precinct voter turnout in Greene County and questioned an apparent
difference between turnout in Springfield and the surrounding precincts in the county.
He did so by looking at deviations from the average turnout of all precincts. A formal test
shows that the turnout in Springfield was 11.5% lower than it was in the rest of the county.
It is virtually impossible that a difference this large would arise solely by chance.
(The odds are about one in a trillion.)”
Democratic Party nominee for Mo. House in 2004, former Reform Party nominee for Mo. Secretary of State, federal whistleblower, and vote fraud researcher since 1994, Marvalene Pankey, is assisting with the MOVAT investigation. Among the disturbing information she found during her review of the packets submitted to Blunt’s office by the election authorities were several notations by Blunt’s staff member “TS” changing the number of ballots cast adding 100 to thousands of ballots without any apparent logic or relationship to other numbers allegedly certified by election authorities. For instance, the county clerk for Clark County certified 3695 ballots were cast, but “TS” changed that to 3795 and in Cass County the county clerk certified 42,177 ballots were cast, but “TS” acted under the supervision of Matt Blunt to change that number to 44,363. Ms. Pankey commented, “If one staff member in the secretary of state’s office has the power to change numbers certified by election authorities then why do we bother to have election laws requiring bi partisan teams to handle other election issues or leave Article IV, Section 18 in the state constitution, which requires a board of state canvassers to “open and canvass the returns of the votes cast? How can the public be sure any of the numbers are trustworthy if one person can merely change certified numbers?” Ms. Pankey also believes the votes shown for Jay Nixon were most likely closer to the real vote for all Democratic Party candidates versus those reported. Among other numbers, she bases that contention on the fact in at least twenty-one counties Nixon’s opponent’s votes were within 50 votes of those reported for Claire McCaskill or Bekki Cook. She does not believe that many people voted for Jay Nixon for attorney general, but Matt Blunt or Peter Kinder for governor or lieutenant governor nor those numbers would end up that close by normal voting.
One of the Kansas City voters involved with MOVAT agrees there is mounting evidence Missouri elections were fraudulent. She notes the Show Me state needs to show all the votes without the manipulations, tampering and “It’s a family affair here with the Blunts (congressman Roy and governor select Matt) and Kinders (Peter and his billionaire cousin, Richard, former CEO of Enron) just like the Bush gang. Whatever happened to each person, one vote and equal representation?”
The Jackson County Board of Election Commissioners must have had a lot of problems on election day since they have asked for $17,000 for copies of any notes regarding problems. And the attorney for the Republican election director for the Kansas City Board of Election Commissioners responded to the Freedom of Information Act request stating they board would respond in “a week or so” and no further response has been made. City of St. Louis did not respond at all.
Other problem areas spotted by MOVAT thus far include: less than half of Missouri’s provisional ballots were counted and numerous absentee ballots were not counted if returned plus many others were not turned back in (St. Louis County apparently did not report to the secretary of state how many absentee ballots were sent out or returned); there were an unusually large number of under votes in some races in some counties; people reported polls that opened late and others that closed early; Blunt’s staff members opened and tampered with the contents of the sealed packets submitted to the Mo. Secretary of State’s office and required to by the Mo. Constitution to be “opened and canvassed” by the Board of State Canvassers; at least one county clerk was reported as having banned the public and media from observing the vote tabulation; there were reports that Nathan Sprouls and Associates shredded voter registrations of those believed to be Democrats; some Kansas City area voters addresses were changed on their voter registrations without the voters knowledge; at least two candidates were left off of absentee ballots; Bekki Cook appears to have been given a punch card number in several jurisdictions that is known to fall under a bar on the devise, which often prevents the chad from falling out; certain counties with problems in the past, such as Jasper and Newton had vote tabulation equipment problems on election night and were delayed in issuing returns; one county clerk certified three different sheets as to different numbers of ballots cast; Macon County kept removing Kerry votes yet on recounts of two precincts Blunt lost 8 votes and in another 4 votes; Crawford County had a precinct with 325 ballots cast and 0 valid ballots then some of the zeros on printout with numbers added; and elsewhere some African American and Hispanic voters have reported they were not permitted to vote.
Bekki Cook only lost the election by 13,814 votes and there were considerably more ballots than that cast, but not counted. We simply cannot continue to pretend to have free and fair elections when that can occur.
Although the group would have preferred at least one of the statewide candidates would have brought an election contest they are not otherwise discouraged by the silence of those they believe were actually elected. MOVAT is investigating the 2004 election further, plans to ask attorney general Jay Nixon to explain how the numbers in his own race tend to flip in several counties, will call for a federal special grand jury investigation, file one or more civil actions, possibly file for a restraining order to prevent the same tabulation software companies involved in the election this year from further profits by providing so called new systems to election authorities until greater vote fraud prevention laws are enacted; and attempt to work with incoming secretary of state Carnahan and any members of the Mo. General Assembly who will listen to influence some positive changes in Mo. election laws. An attorney is on call to help meet the goals.
For
further information contact:
votescamusa04@yahoo.com voterswakeupcall@yahoo.com indictblunt@yahoo.com
417-876-4626 or Statesmanship Party, Inc. messages only 660-547-2314 or fax 775-361-0611
####