http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/123104W.shtml
Conyers to Object to Ohio Electors, Requests Senate Allies
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report
Thursday 30 December 2004
Representative John Conyers, ranking minority member of the House Judiciary
Committee, will object to the counting of the Ohio Electors from the
2004 Presidential election when Congress convenes to ratify those votes
on January 6th. In a letter dispatched to every Senator, which will be
officially published by his office shortly, Conyers declares that he
will be joined in this by several other members of the House. Rep. Conyers
is taking this dramatic step because he believes the allegations and
evidence of election tampering and fraud render the current slate of
Ohio Electors illegitimate.
"As you know," writes Rep. Conyers in his letter, "on
January 6, 2005, at 1:00 P.M, the electoral votes for the election of
the president are to be opened and counted in a joint session of Congress.
I and a number of House Members are planning to object to the counting
of the Ohio votes, due to numerous unexplained irregularities in the
Ohio presidential vote, many of which appear to violate both federal
and state law."
The letter goes
on to ask the Senators who receive this letter to join Conyers in objecting
to the Ohio Electors. "I am hoping that you
will consider joining us in this important effort," writes Conyers, "to
debate and highlight the problems in Ohio which disenfranchised innumerable
voters. I will shortly forward you a draft report itemizing and analyzing
the many irregularities we have come across as part of our hearings and
investigation into the Ohio presidential election."
There are expected to be high level meetings with high ranking Democratic
officials next week to coordinate a concerted lobbying effort to convince
Senators to challenge the vote. The Green Party and David Cobb, as has
been true all along, will be centrally involved in this process, as will
Rev. Jesse Jackson.
The remainder of the Conyers letter reads:
3 U.S.C. '15 provides
when the results from each of the states are announced, that "the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if
any." Any objection must be presented in writing and "signed
by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives
before the same shall be received." The objection must "state
clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof." When
an objection has been properly made in writing and endorsed by a member
of each body the Senate withdraws from the House chamber, and each body
meets separately to consider the objection. "No votes...from any
other State shall be acted upon until the (pending) objection...(is)
finally disposed of." 3 U.S.C. '17 limits debate on the objections
in each body to two hours, during which time no member may speak more
than once and not for more than five minutes. Both the Senate and the
House must separately agree to the objection; otherwise, the challenged
vote or votes are counted.
Historically, there
appears to be three general grounds for objecting to the counting of
electoral votes. The language of 3 U.S.C. '15 suggests
that objection may be made on the grounds that (1) a vote was not "regularly
given" by the challenged elector(s); and/or (2) the elector(s) was
not "lawfully certified" under state law; or (3) two slates
of electors have been presented to Congress from the same State.
Since the Electoral
Count Act of 1887, no objection meeting the requirements of the Act
have been made against an entire slate of state electors.
In the 2000 election several Members of the House of Representatives
attempted to challenge the electoral votes from the State of Florida.
However, no Senator joined in the objection, and therefore, the objection
was not "received." In addition, there was no determination
whether the objection constituted an appropriate basis under the 1887
Act. However, if a State - in this case Ohio - has not followed its own
procedures and met its obligation to conduct a free and fair election,
a valid objection -if endorsed by at least one Senator and a Member of
the House of Representatives- should be debated by each body separately
until "disposed of".
A key legal aspect
of this is the second clause referenced in the letter. Rep. Conyers
and the other House members involved do not believe the
electors have been lawfully certified. They believe that there has been
too much illegal activity on the part of Blackwell, other election officials,
and Republican operatives on the ground and therefore, as stated in the
letter, the electors were not "lawfully certified" under state
law. Next week, the House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff will release
the report referenced in the letter, which is now still in draft form,
and which led Mr. Conyers to this decision.
The Senators who shall receive the greatest focus from Conyers in this
matter are Biden, Bingaman, Boxer, Byrd, Clinton, Conrad, Corzine, Dodd,
Dorgan, Durbin, Feingold, Harkin, Inyoue, Jeffords, Kennedy, Kerry, Lautenberg,
Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Mikulski, Nelson (FL), Jack Reed, Harry Reid,
Rockefeller, Sarbanes, Stabenow, Wyden and Obama.
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William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and international bestseller of two
books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and 'The Greatest
Sedition is Silence.' |
