Greens to challenge Electoral Collge

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org
For Immediate Release:
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, cell 202-904-7614,
mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.org

Greens launch effort against Electoral College manipulation of
presidential elections
Malapportionment of Electoral College votes may lead to a
Republican victory despite the popular vote, disenfranchising tens of thousands
of voters, especially black voters in southern states
Green civil action seeks to democratize the Electoral College by
enforcing 14th Amendment voter protections, names Vice President Cheney
as defendant

WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders said today that the outcome of
the 2008 presidential election may be affected by the antidemocratic
apportionment of Electoral College votes, with the popular vote
misrepresented by the winner-take-all system of assigning votes to electors.
"We're in danger of seeing the 2008 election stolen again, as in 2000
and 2004," said Clyde Shabazz, Green candidate for the US House in
Michigan (13th District) (http://www.migreens.org). "In Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, we witnessed the obstruction and manipulation of votes by election officials and possible tampering with computer voting
machines. But equally insidious is the malapportionment of Electoral College votes, which disenfranchises whole sections of the voting public."
A civil action to protect the voting rights of presidential electors
and the voters they represent was filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia (1:08-cv-01294) on January 28, 2008, by Asa
Gordon, chair of the DC Statehood Green Party's Electoral College Task Force and executive director of the Douglass Institute of Government
(http://members.aol.com/digasa/dig.htm).
The action seeks relief against the defendant, Vice President Cheney,
who will preside over the tabulation of "unbound electoral states" on
January 6, 2009, challenging the recognition of Electoral College votes
that are apportioned by states on a winner-take-all basis.
The civil action seeks enforcement of the 'Mal-Apportionment Penalty'
provided in Section 2 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution,
which mandates a reduction of a state's presidential electors and
congressional representatives if "the right to vote at any election for the
choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United
States... is denied... or in any way abridged."
The civil action alternatively seeks the issuance of a court order
providing proportional apportionment of presidential electors.
"If two thirds of the voters in a state vote for a candidate from Party
A and one third vote for a candidate from Party B, and the state's
winner-take-all rule gives all of the state's electors to Party A, then
one third of the voters have been disenfranchised in violation of
Amendment 14, Section 2 of the US Constitution," said Jody Grage, treasurer of the Green Party. "We've witnessed in election after election how some states have used the winner-take-all formula to prevent the votes of political, ethnic, and other minorities from being counted."
Mr. Gordon noted that the civil action had the potential to "alter the
fate of the 2008 presidential election in a manner different from any
presidential election in the nation's history." (http://www.electors.us)
"By refusing to challenge Electoral College malapportionment in 2000
and 2004, which blocked Democratic electors from voting in those
elections, the Democratic Party's leaders abandoned tens of thousands of their own voters, just as they failed to challenge the election
irregularities in Florida and Ohio in 2000 and 2004," said Mr. Gordon. "Will they fail to challenge malapportionment again in 2008, and hand the Republicans another victory? Barack Obama would not be the Democratic nominee if not for the Democratic Party's proportional assignment of primary delegates. The winner-take-all provisions in the general election present the distinct possibility that Mr. Obama in 2008 will win the popular vote by a considerably larger margin than did Gore in 2000, but will repeat the Democratic loss in the Electoral College."
Mr. Gordon said that African American voters in several southern
states* that were represented by proportional assignment of delegates in the Democratic primary, and who were critical to Barack Obama's success, will be lost to Mr. Obama under the winner-take-all rules of the general election.
"If proportional assignment is considered by Democrats to be vital to
democracy in their primary elections, why won't they fight for it in the
general election?" asked Mr. Gordon, who led workshops for Green
presidential electors during the 2008 Green National Convention
(http://www.gp.org/speakers/detail.php?ID=29)
(http://www.greenparty2008.org/wiki/index.php/Workshops).
As a result of the workshops, several Green electors pledged to
presidential candidate (and eventual Green nominee) Cynthia McKinney agreed to
institute a program for enforcement of the Reconstruction-Era
provision enshrined in the 14th Amendment.
"The 'Democratize the Electoral College' program exposes the hypocrisy
and fraud behind charges that the McKinney campaign might 'spoil' the
Democratic presidential ticket's chances of winning. Democratic leaders
should have to explain why they choose to ignore 13 additional
electors from southern states that they'd gain through the Green Party's
presidential electors project. Why is the Green Party fighting to give
voice to Democratic voters that the Democratic Party will not fight for?
Let me be clear -- we're not doing this to assist Barack Obama, but to
foster real democracy and voter participation, and to offer Cynthia
McKinney as the truly democratic choice for all the people," said Mr.
Gordon.
Green Party leaders noted that after John Kerry quickly conceded the
2004 election, Democratic leaders failed to respond to thousands of
complaints about voting irregularities in Ohio and other states. Green
presidential nominee David Cobb and Libertarian nominee Michael Badnarik
launched the Ohio and New Mexico recount efforts and collected the
initial evidence that Republican officials had blocked the votes of many
African American and young voters (http://www.iwantmyvote.com). Greens
raised most of the money for the recounts. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.)
later held hearings and published evidence of the election theft
(http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1101).
Cynthia McKinney and running mate Rosa Clemente were nominated during
the 2008 Green National Convention in Chicago, July 10-13.
The Green Party's national platform endorses a constitutional amendment
abolishing the Electoral College and providing for the direct election
of the president by instant runoff voting
(http://www.gp.org/platform/2004/democracy.html#309649).
"Americans don't vote for President. Instead, we vote for an electoral
college which was created in the late 1700s to expressly increase the
power of the slave states -- and which it is still doing," said Mark
Dunlea, an election law attorney with the Green Party of New York State.
* Asa Gordon's civil action observes that the Office of the Federal
Register of the National Archives and Records Administration explicitly
declares that "the electors in these (Southern) States (ARKANSAS -- 6
Electoral Votes, GEORGIA -- 15 Electoral Votes, LOUISIANA -- 9 Electoral
Votes, TENNESSEE -- 11 Electoral Votes, TEXAS -- 34 Electoral Votes) are
not bound by State Law to cast their vote for a specific candidate"
(http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/laws.html).
The civil action was filed on July 28, 2008, to commemorate the 140th anniversary of the adoption of the 14th Amendment to the US
Constitution. Since the debacle of the 2000 presidential election, the Green Party in partnership with the Douglass Institute of Government has led the way in educating Americans about their constitutional "right to vote" under the provisions of 14th Amendment, Section 2.

MORE INFORMATION
Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193
• Green candidate database for 2008 and other campaign information:
http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml
• Green Party News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
• Green Party Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers
• Green Party ballot access page http://www.gp.org/2008-elections
Cynthia McKinney/Rosa Clemente 'Power to the People' Campaign for the
White House http://www.runcynthiarun.org
Mal-Apportionment Penalty Civil Actions http://www.electors.us
"Greens: Enforce 14th Amendment's 'Right to Vote' Provision"
Green Party press release, October 18, 2004
http://www.gp.org/press/pr_10_18_04.html
"Greens Push for Real Electoral Reforms at Carter-Baker Hearings, June
30"
Green Party press release, June 27, 2005
http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2005_06_27.shtml
2008 Green National Convention, July 10-13 in Chicago, Illinois
http://www.greenparty2008.org

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