On November 22, a Federal district court judge denied a request by Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb and Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik to expedite the Ohio recount. The judge said Cobb and Badnarik do not face "irreparable harm" if the recount doesn't take place until after the December 7 date to certify presidential electors, since they will not have any electors anyway.
The judge did not consider the irreparable harm faced by the world or the nation, and Cobb and Badnarik as citizens, should constitutional democracy be subverted a second presidential election in a row.
This information came from a Vote Cobb press release by Cobb/LaMarche Ohio Recount campaign manager Lynne Serpe and passed along by the No Stolen Elections (Nov3.us) network. Here are excerpts from that November 27 e-mail regarding the timeline of the Ohio recount, past and future.
11/10 Green Party Presidential candidate
David Cobb announces on KPFK
radio that he and Michael Badnarik
of the Libertarian Party are considering
filing for a recount in Ohio. Hundreds
of emails pour in, encouraging the
Green Party to take a stand.
11/15 Common Cause, the National Voting
Rights Institute, Demos, the Fannie
Lou Hamer Project and People for the
American Way Foundation issue a
joint statement in support of the
Cobb-Badnarik demand for an
Ohio recount.
11/15 The Cobb/LaMarche campaign meets
initial fundraising goal of $150,000
(including the $113,600 recount fee
needed to file).
11/17 Attorneys on behalf of David Cobb
and Michael Badnarik deliver letters to
each Ohio county election director,
asking them to prepare for the recount.
11/18 [Ohio] Congressman Dennis Kucinich
publicly endorses recount efforts.
11/19 Cobb-Badnarik representatives
deliver bond to guarantee $113,600
recount fee to each of the 88 Ohio
county election directors.
11/21 Cobb/LaMarche team meets second
fundraising goal, reaching $250,000 [total]
in eleven days.
11/21 Cobb-Badnarik lawyers file a request
for an expedited recount in federal
district court in Toledo, Ohio, so that
a "meaningful recount" can take place
prior to the December 7th "safe harbor"
certification and December 13th
meeting of Ohio presidential electors
11/22 The Delaware County, Ohio Board of
Elections seeks a temporary restraining
order to block Green and Libertarian
presidential candidates from forcing a
recount of the Nov. 2 election results
prior to December 1st. Their request
is granted by the judge.
11/22 Federal district court judge denies
Cobb-Badnarik request to expedite
recount, saying that Cobb and Badnarik
do not face "irreparable harm" if the
recount doesn't take place until after
the December 7 date to certify
presidential electors, since they will
not have any electors anyway.
11/24 Over 1,000 volunteers have already
signed up to help on website at
http://www.votecobb.org but many
more still needed.
12/01 Date by which most Ohio counties will
have certified their initial vote totals.
12/04 Citizen electoral reform groups [plan]
a rally to "Investigate all 88."
12/06 Date that Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth
Blackwell currently (as of 11/25) says he
will finally certify the vote. Then, as detailed
in Ohio Election law procedures, Cobb and
Badnarik will formally request a recount
and Secretary Blackwell will notify other
candidates of their right to have observers
at the recount. Under law, other candidates
must have 5 days of notice before the
recount can start.
12/07 The "safe harbor" date by which presidential
electors in all 50 states must be
conclusively determined.
12/11 Earliest possible start date for the Ohio
recount, based on recent judicial ruling and
Blackwell's current timeline for
certification of the state vote.
12/13 Date by which, pursuant to Constitutional
mandates, Electoral College electors must
meet to cast their votes. This applies to
Ohio and all other states.
There is no practical reason for the recount not to start as soon as counties complete their first initial tallies-- by December first. Ken "Katherine Harris" Blackwell, co-chair of Bush and Cheney's Ohio campaign as well as Secretary of State, could easily certify the results then, and the five days' notice could have been given in advance if the court allowed it, or even be considered to have been given by these publicized requests.
This is no time to say we put up a good clean fight, they cheated, and we lost. Democracy in the U.S. will affect democracy in the rest of América and the world.
The United States and América cannot afford beautiful losers at this point.
John Kerry, in particular, surely has the legal status of facing that "irreparable harm" should Bush stay president by fraud. Hints that he supports a recount are not enough. The Kerry campaign needs to file suit itself.
But, as in the election campaign, we can't sit around waiting for Kerry.
It is way past time for a sit-in in Blackwell's office. A siege on his home. Around-the-clock protests in Ohio. Non-violent business-as-usual-stopping civil disobedience in whatever form anyone can think of.
We can all tell blackwash Blackwell that in a democracy, we count the votes, then elect a president.
The good Secretary's contact information:
J. Kenneth Blackwell
Ohio Secretary of State
180 E. Broad St. 16th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
General Telephone Number (Toll Free): 1-877-767-6446
General Telephone Number (Local): 1-614- 466-2655
Elections questions or comments:
email: election@sos.state.oh.us
call: 1-614-466-2585
I'm not leaving my $10.44 an hour job in Massachusetts, so I don't have much moral ground here. But I'll provide up to $1,000 (total) in support, like transportation and food, to people who are going to occupy the offices of the Secretary of State (your room is free!), and the "support staff" for this effort. That's not much considering the legal threats (contact the amazing National Lawyers Guild if you go to do civil disobedience) but it's as strong a statement of solidarity as I can muster.
If like me you can't make it, they gave us a toll-free number, kids: 1-877-767-6446. If you don't have a phone, those even work from pay phones.
We must demand that a recount begin at least five days before Ohio's electors are to be seated on December seventh (in other words, two days from now), and that if more evidence of fraud emerges, the electors not be seated. The added moral imperative for counting every vote, especially provisional ballots, is the voters who were never able to vote in Ohio due to lines hours long and misinformation about polling stations.
The time to shut down government and business in defense of democracy, starting with Ohio's Secretary of State office (and expanding the logical circle from there) is NOW.
Write me: web design contact page
Read my 14-word bio.
Email this page
Digg
Delicious
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Facebook
Google
New evidence of fraud. Only we can make it matter.
Submitted November 30, 2004 - 5:30 pm by Benjamin MelançonThe latest evidence of fraud comes from New York Daily News reporter and Democracy Now! cohost Juan Gonzalez: in Columbus precincts he and Daily News reporter Larry Cohler-Esses looked into, blacks would appear to be voting for third-party candidates in ridiculous numbers.
Many independent media sources reported on the possibility or likelihood of Republican stolen elections in 2004, and some, including the Daily Kos are doing pretty well trying to sort through all the evidence of fraud and voter suppression. But the people who decide on center columns at such sites, including Indymedia, haven't put much of the evidence or any calls to action in the center column. Daily Kos has an Ohio status page and several recommended diaries on vote suppression and election fraud, but nothing center-columned except the same kind of issues as any time. Even Thom Hartmann, showing how U.S.-funded groups in the Ukraine and elsewhere take back stolen elections, is talking about the left adopting these tactics for 2006 and 2008.
The vote-protection networks aren't doing anything. The earliest protest called is for December 4, and that's way too little, too late, and not endorsed by any major group or highlighted by any independent media site.
There's no apology for posting this on Narco News because this is a huge issue for Latin America as well, not just in determining who the U.S. president will be but in seeing if anyone will use objective standards to check for free and fair elections. Calling the United States 2004 election fraudulent based on exit polls is nothing like the Venezuela elite's attempt to call the recall referendum fraudulent based on exit polls: the U.S. exit polls were done by professionals, the pre-election polls were close, and there is no prospect of an official audit of the results, internationally monitored or not.
I'm absolutely serious about my offer to help support shutting down of the government in Ohio (for now) with whatever nonviolent tactics seem fit. If it takes a sociologist to tell us that only direct action will work, so be it. Ricky Baldwin interviewed Francis Fox Piven and wrote "movements found their concerns fell on deaf ears until they directly disrupted 'business as usual' either in government or business operations, and then they made significant gains."
That article was titled "How to Stop the War: Francis Fox Piven Says It Takes More Than Elections." Now we need to disrupt business as usual to stop the stealing of an election.