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Courtesy Gigi Gaston
Mathametician Dr. Linda Hayes reading from the DNC laws that were not followed

Take A Stand: Eliminate Election Fraud

By Yaffa Fredrick, Massachusetts – November 2010

With passion, people are capable of the extraordinary – and not just in the purely positive sense. In fact, when political passions escalate, as they have since the election of President Barack Obama in 2008, individuals have engaged in some pretty questionable behavior and activity, such as voter intimidation at polling precincts and voter fraud at caucus stations.

Ironic as it may be, the nation that often sends emissaries to other countries to ensure their elections are corruption-free has been involved in similar vote-tampering. Such was the case on Tuesday, November 2 when Americans cast their votes in the mid-term congressional elections.

This year’s midterm elections were marked by over 200 claims of voter intimidation that were filed with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. Can the integrity of the electoral process really be secure if hackers are paid to alter ballots cast on computerized voting machines or fake absentee ballots are sent to voters in Pennsylvania and California?

Voting misconduct and intimidation seems to have become more the rule than the exception these days which throws into question whether winners of any election came by their ascension into office honestly.

Such questionable procedures apparently were the case in the 2008 presidential election. Illustrated in the film, “We Will Not Be Silenced,” through interviews with disenfranchised voters and precinct investigators, documentary film producer and self-proclaimed life-long Democrat Gigi Gaston informs viewers that Barack Obama was, in fact, not the legitimate Democratic presidential candidate – that Hillary Clinton was the rightful Democratic nominee.

“Caucuses in the 2008 democratic primary were filled with violations of party rules, and, more importantly were fraught with malicious practices unacceptable in any election in any country.  They violated the principle of one person—one vote, so gaming the system produced a huge impact,” Gaston said.

In states like Texas, precinct investigators found that many Obama supporters had voted in the wrong district, shown invalid identification on Election Day, or voted without recording their names on the precinct sheets. Several of those interviewed documented how Obama supporters had manipulated the precinct sheets, and thus secured his victory through illegal means.

In other states, Obama supporters tried to “overwhelm the system, and in the chaos that ensued… steal the election,” remarked Dr. Linda Hayes, a Houston precinct worker and one of Gaston’s interviewees in the film. Their philosophy was “We have the numbers. We don’t have to follow the rules.”

In precincts where Obama’s support dwindled, his followers resorted to standard intimidation techniques – particularly of the elderly. One senior citizen recounts her encounter with an Obama proponent who claimed the woman cast her vote in the caucus. The senior citizen shouted that, indeed, she had not.

Instead, she stated that she had a tendency to talk with her hands, and that the Obama supporter had mistakenly interpreted her hand motions for a floor vote. However, the man refused to back down. He raised his arm to the woman, and if not for the interruption of a fellow Hillary supporter, she would have likely bore the brunt of his rage.

And in states, such as Indiana, other intimidation tactics reminiscent of the 1950s segregated South were evident, when white southerners threatened the personal safety of blacks trying to cast their votes on Election Day. Civil Rights activist Helen Latimer, who marched with the venerable Martin Luther King Junior, said in 2008, however, it was a situation of blacks intimidating blacks.

In the film, Latimer recounts the tale of an elderly black woman entering an Indiana precinct on Election Day to vote for Hillary Clinton. At the door, she was met by a group of young black men who shouted, “You’re not coming in here if you’re not going to vote for Obama.” Fearful for her life, the elderly woman turned around and didn’t cast her vote that day, or perhaps as Latimer mused, perhaps ever again.

“If Martin Luther King Junior woke up from the grave right now, he would say ‘put me back.’ We [the civil rights movement] did not fight for a vote to be dictated or threatened,” Latimer said.

Gaston, who comes from a long line of Democrats – her grandfather was the 29th Governor of Massachusetts— could not agree more. Despite her die-hard democratic background she wanted her film to expose the corruption in the Party that no major news network had revealed to the public. “The media is owned and operated by a powerful group with a hidden, but clearly biased agenda—one which does not include, nor represent the voices of women or any group of individuals who supported Hillary.”

In distributing the film, Gaston seeks to raise concern for an issue that concerns her deeply and should concern all Americans. “Whether you’re black, white, brown – or whatever, I think all of us should have protection as voters.”

Gaston believes change is possible. “We have a fractured and broken Democratic Party, but we are capable of putting it back together. This film is taking the first step in the repair process.”

Citing Elizabeth Bowler, a fellow film producer, Gaston added, “I’m presenting silence as more of a testament to the power of a diverse America that cares so deeply about one vote.” As a country founded on the democratic principle of fair elections, it is the duty of each and every American to break the silence, should he or she bear witness to the kinds of voter fraud depicted in the 2008 Democratic primaries.

Echoing Gaston’s sentiments, Jon Stewart, at the Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear in Washington DC October 31, said, “We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is — on the brink of catastrophe — torn by polarizing hate, and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done. But the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day. The only place we don’t is here [in Washington].”

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