User:Kevin baas~enwiki/open letters to my congressman
To Russ Feingold
[edit]First letter
[edit]To the Honorable Senator Russ Fiengold,
You may be under the impression, as the majority of citizens are, that the election in Ohio went "smoothly". It is likely that you were watching the news at the time of the election and you heard the reports to this extent. Have you asked where the reports came from; where the reporters were getting this information from? Where would you get this information from, if you were a reporter?
First thing that comes to mind is the Ohio State Department. I'd call up the Secretary and ask how the election is running. He might tell me how great everything is running, reassuring me and giving me trust and confidence in his ability to run the state department. As a news reporter, I would then tell the world how smoothly the election is running in Ohio.
Suffice it to say that not everyone shares this faith in Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a name I'm sure you've grown used to hearing lately. Let me put it this way: There are three possibilities: either Kenneth Blackwell lied when he said that the election was running smoothly, managed to not realize that there were more digits on "percentage of provisional ballots rejected for being filed in the wrong precincts" than "percentage of provisional ballots rejected because the voter was not registered" when he told reporters that the latter was the reason most provisional ballots were rejected, and has either lied about or not noticed a number of very obvious things that it is his responsibility to be keenly aware of, and that in many instances where direct consequences of his own decisions, which were objected to, and the direct consequences of which were brought to his attention both in and out of court. So either he needs a new pair of glasses, needs to get his hearing checked, and is completely unprepared for the most basic responsibilities of being a Secretary of State (i.e. is incompetent), he knowingly and repeatedly lied on a number of issues important to a vast number of people and imperative to a functional democratic election, or there is a much more complicated explanation for the numerous phenomena surrounding the 2004 general election in Ohio, including, but not limited to, fifteen lawsuits filed against Kenneth Blackwell, thirty-six questions asked of him by the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary (all of which he has declined to answer), and over one-hundred-thousand disputed votes.
Now let me put my best efforts into defending Kenneth Blackwell, and extend my faith in the Ohio electoral process to its very limits, in order to fully articulate what this third possibility could be. We have firstly to assume that Kenneth Blackwell is both competent and telling the truth. This immediately poses a number of problems:
1. A vast number of people are therefore not only lying, but committing perjury, including, but not limited to:
- Green Party 2004 presidential candidate David Cobb
- 37 voters contesting the election
- Clint Curtis
- Steve Rosenfeld
- Prof. Robert Fitrakis
- Hilary Shelton
- Jon GeenBaum
- Judith A. Browne
- Debra Hanania Freeman
- Melanie L. Campbell
- Norman Robbins
- Judy Gallo
- Robert Richie
- Cliff Arnebeck
- John Bonifaz
- Rev. William Moss
- Richard Hayes Phillips
etc., etc., etc.
And thousands upon thousands of people have lied pathologically.
Due to time and space restrictions, I'll cut my explanation off there, after only one aspect of the problems. As you can see, it is serious enough in that aspect alone. I'm sure you won't argue that perjury is a serious crime, and I'm sure you won't deny that if we have to commit all of those people and more of perjury, then we have some very serious and difficult problems to deal with.
In summary, either there was widespread systematic election fraud and voter disenfranchisement in Ohio, that Kenneth Blackwell was either complicit in or amazingly ignorant of, or Ohio official records, including voting machine assignments, are way off, and therefore the Ohio electoral college votes should not be certified and we need to do a comprehensive investigation, and thousands of people in Ohio need to have their eyes checked, be taken into a psychologist, or be prosecuted for perjury.
Let us hope that it is the former case, for this is the less problematic and more easily rectifiable of the two. In the former case, we need only to have the House Committee on the Judiciary conduct an investigation with full hearings and therefore subpoena powers, and for a Senator to not certify the electoral votes on January 6th.
I will continue to be hopeful, as I’m sure you will be, that our problems are not more serious than our most conservative logic estimates them to be, that they are dealt with swiftly and effectively, and that they therefore do not grow to become a more serious threat.
Your fellow citizen and respectful supporter,
Kevin M. Baas
Second letter
[edit]To the Honorable Senator Russell D. Fiengold,
Thank you for your letter in response to my concerns. I am aware of everything that you have told me in it, and was thus aware before writing you. For example, I am aware that the GAO is conducting a post-election study of systemic election issues, and what that investigation involves. I am also aware of numerous other investigations, including those of the Democratic National Committee, The Alliance for Democracy, BlackBoxVoting.org, and the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary Democrats.
Each of these different investigations focus on different issues, and have different powers to resolve issues. That is, they are not redundant, but complimentary. For example, BlackBoxVoting.org has filed Freedom of Information Act requests in six states, including everything from data tapes to computer logs to internal correspondence, and with a nation-wide network of computer security analysts, is conducting a thorough investigation of electronic voting machines. No other investigation is examining this aspect of the election as comprehensively and meticulously.
Unfortunately, BlackBoxVoting.org has encountered a great deal of resistance in places such as Volusia County Florida, where "copies of ballots" have mysteriously changed their votes from the originals, and Ohio, which according to Bev Harris, has been by far the most non-compliant with their requests of all six states.
Likewise, the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary Democrats are facing difficulties. Unlike the GAO, the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary has subpoena powers when they have full hearings. This allows them to get answers to questions that the GAO simply cannot get. Unfortunately, the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary Republicans have refused to attend the hearings, and thereby effectively cutting off the only source of this information. The Secretary of the State of Ohio Kenneth Blackwell has refused to answer a single one of the thirty-six questions that the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary Democrats asked him in a letter. In his response, Kenneth Blackwell cited the fact, as you have, that the GAO, which, as you know, cannot make him answer any questions either, is investigating.
Your letter has a very reassuring tone: its intent seems to be to create the impression that everything is being addressed fully and comprehensively. Yet, logically, I cannot accept this to be true when such a large and essential piece is invariably missing, as are so many others.
You spoke of the U.S. Department of Justice. The word "justice" in the title does not by itself provide for justice. The people within this department determine its course of action, and as much as one would like to, one cannot trust blindly in them. Indeed, we have only to look at the handling of the Florida Central Voter File fiasco in 2000, and we are reminded of what such imagining would do. I encourage you to look into this. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights pressured the U.S. Department of Justice to act on this with the full force of its power, and the U.S. Department of Justice did nothing.
I assure you that I am keenly aware of the issues, actions, laws, procedures, etc., surrounding the irregularities in the 2004 election. My eyes are wide open. There is no need to inform me, I have well informed myself and I understand the situation considerably well. I have even taken the time to inform others: if you do a Google search on "election controversy", you will see that the first page that comes up is a topic page of a rather informative set of articles which a number of people, including me, have worked together on. I assure you that I am keenly aware of every detail in those articles, and of many more related things that are not in them. It is this very awareness that compels me to write to you.
On a final note, you wrote that "An individual's right to vote is one of the cornerstones of our democracy..." I disagree. An individual's right to vote is not "one of the cornerstones" of our democracy, it is the arcstone of any democracy. The first defense of this arcstone is vigilance. I encourage you to look into these issues more autonomously, and to seriously consider acting on alternatives to the compromised mechanisms mentioned in your response. If you have any questions regarding any of these issues, please feel free to contact me. Thank you for taking the time to consider my views.
Sincerely and Respectfully,
Kevin M. Baas
United States Citizen
Third letter
[edit]To the Honorable Senator Russell Feingold,
I am writting you again because of the importance of the matter concerned. I have told you that I am keenly aware of the circumstances, and that there is nothing you can tell me regarding this matter that I do not already know. With all due respect, circumlocutory form letters are of no interest to me. I am only interested in you seriously considering what I am telling you here.
You may have already been informed that Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has requested a protective order to prevent him from being interviewed as part of a court challenge of the presidential vote. (I'm assuming this court challenge is Moss v. Bush, which, if you haven't heard about or invested the time to discover the details of, I encourage you to look into: I am sure you will find it very interesting and important to know.)
There are a lot of questions that need to be answered. Questions regarding the legitimacy of American government and the future of democracy in this country by means of precedent. These are questions that only one person can answer. That person is doing everything possible to not answer the questions that America needs to know. It is imperative that he is subpoenaed. The GAO does not have subpoena powers. The House Committee on the Judiciary has subpoena powers if and only if full hearings are held. I encourage you to do what you can to enlighten Mr. Sensenbrenner as to the importance of this. (His response to me has been quite disappointing.)
Failing that, and respecting the evidence in the case of Moss v. Bush, we cannot be confident that the Ohio electoral votes, as they currently stand, represent the will of the voters in Ohio. Therefore, to certify -- to not contest -- the Ohio electoral votes on January 6th, would be disingenuous. I encourage you, I petition you, with all due respect, to not certify the Ohio electoral votes before Moss v. Bush has been concluded and the court-sanctioned certificates recieved, and not before Kenneth Blackwell has answered questions under Oath.
Sincerely and Respectfully,
Kevin M. Baas
United States Citizen
Sensenbrenner
[edit]Probably my 3rd or 4th letter
[edit]To the Honorable Congressman Sensenbrenner,
I received a letter from you in error. It did not respond to what I am telling you. Perhaps you didn't understand it. Please read it carefully. I have no questions for you; I am not asking you anything. I am telling you. Please keep this in mind. When I say, for instance, that "In Volusia County, Florida, the elections office withheld and falsified voting records stored in electronic voting machine tapes and on paper ballots.", I am telling you this. I am not asking you whether this is true or false, I am telling you that it is true. When I say "In the 2004 election, problems with the election system were more numerous and severe in Ohio than such problems in Florida in the 2000 election were, affecting a larger percentage of the total state vote.", I am telling you this. I am not asking you whether this is true or false, I am telling you that it is true. If you understand what I am telling you, I would like some confirmation of this, such as "I understand that the problems with the election system in the 2004 election were more numerous and severe than those in the 2000 election.", or a similiarly phrased sentence, clearly expressing the same idea.
What we will do here - and this is standard - is we will send letters back and forth until we are confident that we have reliably communicated. This verification of message receipt and comprehension by restating it in your own words is an essential step in this process. Or if you are unclear about the underlying premises, you may ask questions. As a congressman, I am sure that you have access to information resources that will answer all of your questions, such as the 102-page report by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, or the depositions in Moss v. Bush. If you have specific questions, you may contact the National Voter Rights Institute, or you may use your power as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to hold public congressional hearings, in which citizen voters will answer any questions you may have that are not related to aggregate information, which only nonpartisian institutions such as NVRI would be able to answer. You should consider these your primary sources of information. If they are not able to answer any questions you may have, feel free to ask me. Having told you these things, I carry the burden of proof. I told you them with full knowledge of this burden, and I am prepared to fully substantiate everything that I am telling you here. If you have any doubts about my ability to substantiate what I am telling you, I encourage you to test it...