Conyers to Hold Hearings on Ohio Vote Fraud

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Conyers to Hold Hearings on Ohio Vote Fraud
By William Rivers Pitt

Friday 03 December 2004

Democratic Representative John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan, ranking
Minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, will hold a hearing
on Wednesday 08 December 2004 to investigate allegations of vote fraud
and irregularities in Ohio during the 2004 Presidential election. The
hearing is slated to begin at 10:00 a.m. EST in the Rayburn House
Office Building in Washington DC.

Democratic Representatives Melvin Watt and Robert Scott will also
be centrally involved with the hearing. Rev. Jesse Jackson will be in
attendance, along with Ralph Neas (President, People for the American
Way), Jon Greenbaum (Director, Voting Rights Project, Lawyers Committee
For Civil Rights Under Law), Ellie Smeal (Executive Director, The
Feminist Majority), Bob Fitrakis ( The Free Press), Cliff Arnebeck
(Arnebeck Associates), John Bonifaz (General Counsel, National Voting
Institute), Steve Rosenfeld (Producer, Air America Radio), and Shawnta
Walcott (Communications Director, Zogby International). Ohio Secretary
of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has been invited to attend.

The term ‘hearing’ is technically not accurate in this matter, as
Conyers and his fellow Representatives will be holding this forum
without the blessing of the Republican Majority leader of the Judiciary
Committee. Staffers from the Minority office at the Judiciary Committee
describe the event as a ‘Members Briefing.’ That having been said, this
event will be a hearing by every meaningful definition of the word.
Expert testimony will be offered, and a good deal of data on potential
fraud previously unreported to the public will be discussed and
examined at length.

The hearing came together thanks to a confluence of events, and
through the work of like-minded individuals who are deeply concerned
about the allegations of vote fraud in the Ohio Presidential election.
Tim Carpenter and Kevin Spidel, along with other members of Progressive
Democrats of America, went to Washington DC to speak with the
Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee about the need for an
investigation into these allegations. They found Rep. Conyers, his
fellow Judiciary Democrats, and their staffers already working on
assembling such an investigation.

The core of what Conyers and his fellow Minority members will be
discussing at this hearing can be found in the letter below, which was
sent by the Minority office to Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell on 02
December. In the letter, Conyers, along with Reps. Watt, Nadler and
Baldwin, outline a broad and detailed series of questions and concerns
about the manner in which the Ohio election took place.

I will be traveling to Washington DC to begin t r u t h o u t
coverage of this event on Tuesday night, and we will keep you posted on
further developments as they arise.

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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.'