DETAILS OF SUPREME COURT'S REJECTION OF LANDES' SUIT TO BAN VOTING MACHINES

[Guest guest]

" John Ervin " <muservin

Wed, 5 Apr 2006 18:56:12 -0700 (PDT)

DETAILS OF " SUPREME " COURT'S REJECTION OF LANDES' SUIT TO BAN

VOTING MACHINES

 

 

 

Here is the statement released yesterday at Lynn Landes' website,

www.banvotingmachines.org, which details the circumstances of the U.S.

Supreme Court's dismissal of her landmark suit to ban voting machines

and absentee ballots ( and arguments of the complete absence of

meaningful witness and oversight by the voter ). It suggests that the

" court " ( closer than ever in its current composition to kangaroo than

jurist, after two consecutive inaugurations of an illegally imposed

" presidency, " and the resultant wholly illegal high court ~ no doubt

another very good " job security " reason for the justice's rejection of

her suit... ) did not take her case " seriously. "

 

But that is a modest disavowal: the truth lies closer to what we

suggested, before they rejected the " standing " of her suit, and also

imposed punitive costs upon her: their ideological and results-driven

malice, exposed. That is the chief benefit, at this stage of the

" game, " of her efforts on the behalf of all of us, American voters,

having pursued this to the highest judicial level: a de facto

condemnation of the bias and malice of this " court, " by the events

themselves, as was notably the similar result of the Bush vs. Gore

fiasco. The facts of what has been discovered about machine voting,

and other crimes, speak for themselves..... When we have a Congress

voting into " law " the many contracts for, and the manufacture of,

voting machines programmed by numerous ex-felons ~ so many of them

with criminal records and sentences for multiple computer crimes, such

as Jeffrey Dean and his huge contract for VoteRemote software to

" process " our absentee ballots ~ this very " Court's " own Bad Faith

will smell off the pages of history books for centuries to come, the

world over............

 

Let them try however they may ~ with whatever sophistries they may

fashion ~ to deodorize their rejection of Landes' suit, their smell

will cling to their robes and to whole chapters of our voting

histories, already " fragrant " from their specious noises in the Bush

vs. Gore " opinion. " One of the chief sources of this odor of course

is Antonin Scalia, for those who noted well that chapter, December

2000. Our guess would be that the Mafia Chief(tain) of Justice has

weighed in, yet again ~ not that he needs much help, anymore, as the

court is jammed and stacked ever rightward. That is the neo-con

Right's sense of Law.......

 

And now this " court, " in this case, has shown its Bad Faith in a

stance redolent of unalloyed Fascism: how else to interpret their

rejection of her suit ??

 

It is actually they, literally, who have " no standing, " as is clear to

anyone who still has left a love of logic and law, intact. This suit

exposes the utter lawlessness of this " court, " and coming developments

will bring that ever more to light...........

 

With the number of crimes that have been already exposed in the

programming of these machines, and countless others implicit, with

hardly the need of any proofs, so glaring and mountainous the

evidence, there is no other judgment available, clearly, to any

unbiased observer, than a coast to coast culture of computer crime....

 

.....and recent months have shown a sharply increased awareness of this

by the American public, so long asleep at the wheel.

 

Well, so much for our " highest " court.

 

May Landes' suit be but the first of many more !! The hijacked

Supreme Court can break all of our rules that they want: the mere fact

of these suits being brought ever more to their bench will continue to

expose their total nakeness and moral poverty.

 

" A la Bastille, " patriots, and all lovers of our freedoms, everywhere

!! ~JE

 

 

 

 

Lynn Landes Lynn Investigates ...

 

Go back to Voting Machine Webpage

 

Supreme Court Denies Standing & Allows Costs Against Voting Rights

Activist

 

 

Washington DC -- April 4, 2006: In an alarming wake-up call to voting

rights activists across the country, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand

last week a decision by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The

lower court ruled (Landes v Tartaglione, et al) that Philadelphia

journalist and voting rights activist, Lynn Landes, had no standing to

challenge the constitutionality of election laws which Landes claimed

deny direct access to a tangible ballot and meaningful transparency to

the election process.

 

Specifically, Landes challenged the use of voting machines and

absentee voting in elections for public office. The defendants in the

lawsuit were Margaret Tartaglione, Chair of the City Commissioners of

Philadelphia; Pedro A. Cortes, Secretary of the Commonwealth of

Pennsylvania; and Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General of the United

States.

 

Landes says that the court's decision does not mean that the use of

obstructive and non-transparent voting processes or technologies is

constitutional. But, it doesn't send a good signal, either.

 

" Since I represented myself without the support of a voting rights

organization, this decision may be a matter of the Court not taking me

seriously, rather than any reflection on the case itself, " says

Landes. She points out that the Third Circuit based its dubious

decision on three cases that had nothing to do with elections, voting

rights, or challenges to the constitutionality of state and/or federal

law.

 

[ Re-editor: A very visible signal, and one easy to deduce from the

progress of this suit, is that they do not wish to even touch upon any

of the issues of constitutionality, so threatening are any of these

challenges, in essence and principle, to the entire fabric of our

current laws on these voting issues and gadgetries. " HAVA " itself was

passed by a quorom of criminals, congressional style.... ~JE ]

 

 

 

Landes encourages activists to continue to pursue legal action, but

adds a strong note of caution. " The Court is now packed with extremely

conservative judges who are taking extraordinary steps to discourage

civil rights litigants, " she warns.

 

In what appears to be a punitive measure, the Supreme Court let stand

the Third Circuit's judgment to tax court costs against Landes as the

plaintiff, an unusual move in a civil rights case. The Third

Circuit's ruling ignored previous U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in

Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC (1978) and Fogerty v. Fantasy,

Inc.(1994). In the latter case, Justice William Rehnquist stated,

" ... we found (it) to be the important policy objectives of the Civil

Rights statutes, and the intent of Congress to achieve such objectives

through the use of plaintiffs as " `private attorney general.' "

In light of the Court's action, Landes is again emphasizing the

critical need for 'open voting'. In a January 2005 article, Landes

called for activists to conduct Parallel Elections outside of official

polling places as a check against official election results.

Activists in California, Texas, and Florida did just that and more

Parallel Elections are planned for this year. In Parallel Elections,

voters are asked to vote twice, once inside the official polling

station and again outside in a Parallel Election. Voters write down

their name, address, and signature along with their choice of

candidates. Unlike exit polling, Parallel Election ballots can and

have been used to challenge official election results.

Landes also suggests that any candidate for elective office request

that voters mail that candidate a letter indicating the voter's name,

address, signature, a witness's signature, and for which candidate

they voted. It should be mailed directly after the voter has voted at

the polls. Candidates should delay conceding or declaring victory for

at least a week after the election in order to allow sufficient time

to receive these unofficial ballots.

Something similar to this idea was put into practice last winter in

North Carolina. According to a February 6, 2005 editorial in the

Ashville Citizen-Times, " ...a voting machine error ...caused 4,400

votes to vanish in Carteret County. As (candidate) Troxler led in the

count by 2,287 votes in a race that saw more than 3 million votes

cast, the missing votes threw the outcome into disarray. Troxler's

campaign rounded up affidavits from more than 1,400 Carteret voters

who said they had voted for him. " As a result, his opponent conceded.

Lastly, since it appears that America's political parties are

particularly vulnerable to the influence of big corporations and the

wealthy few (and have only given lip service to the right to vote and

to have votes counted properly), Landes is encouraging all voters to

consider supporting write-in candidates for political office.

-----

Lynn Landes is one of the nation's leading journalists on voting

technology and democracy issues. She has also written on the subject

of the environment and health. Readers can find her articles and

research at EcoTalk.org. Formerly, Lynn was a news reporter for DUTV

and commentator for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Contact info: lynnlandes / (215) 629-3553

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NOTE: LANDES POSTED THIS NEWS PIECE YESTERDAY, APRIL 4, THE

ANNIVERSARY OF THE ASSASSINATION OF REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.