Group to protest voter fraud during inauguration

President George W. Bush will receive a bitter inauguration welcome on the Ithaca Commons this Thursday. A protest rally with speakers, music and an open mike is being held Jan. 20 from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Bernie Milton Pavilion.

"The umbrella reason we are doing this," organizer Fay Gougakis said,"is so we will unite people and point out the voting irregularities that happened in this election. I’m tired of the phrase ’conspiracy theory.’ There is legitimate concern that Bush stole this election."

Steve Calkins, the other organizer of Thursday’s rally, said, "I feel that we need to make a statement this time. There was massive voter disenfranchisement. There are many instances where densely Democratic inner-city districts were not given the voting machines they needed. The lines were sometimes 10 hours long, and voters walked away."

Calkins also claims that the difference between the Kerry-favored exit polls and the election’s actual result are too large to constitute a legitimate election. "Exit poll deviation," he said, "should only be off a point or two. Ukraine had a re-election partly due to the exit polls not reflecting the results. Why aren’t we having a re-election? In seven states the exit poll data was off four to 15 points."

Gougakis believes along with Calkins that the 2004 election was not legitimate, but she noted, "Even if Bush won this time, which I don’t believe he did, he still shouldn’t be president, not after what happened in the 2000 election. This rally is in some ways an extension of what happened in 2000."

In 2000, Gougakis organized a similar rally, which brought former state assemblyman Marty Luster and Tompkins County Democratic Chair Irene Stein to speak. While many feel the reasons for Thursday’s protest rally are not as legitimate as the last election, Gougakis encourages those who believe Bush won but still have problems with the administration to come to the rally, too.

"I’m upset because there is no integrity to our voting process," Gougakis said, "but also because we went to war based on false information. I’m sick of how the Bush administration calls people who disagree with them unpatriotic, or even terrorists. We are just people who want the truth."
Jake McNamara

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?...

-------------------------------------
related news- Mainstream media insults the intelligence of the American people "Exit polls overstated John Kerry’s share of the vote on November 2, both nationally and in many states, because more Kerry supporters participated in the survey than Bush voters"
http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS...