Voting Rights Hero Dies. Who Will Fight Diebold Now?

Ohio Rep. Stephanie Tubb Jones

The American people suffered a great loss Wednesday with the death of Stephanie Tubbs Jones. The Ohio Congresswoman was one of a handful of politicians in the U.S. Capitol who really stood up for her constituents and for all those voters who were disenfranchised by an unjust electoral system.

Tubbs Jones was not a very famous woman politician like Hillary Clinton or Maxine Waters, but she was to anyone who met her in Washington, D.C., an iconic figure. I interviewed Tubbs Jones a few times back in 2005 and she was always a very strong, courageous, and dynamic woman who never held back how she felt. At press conferences she left us, reporters, pale with admiration. She was a true liberal, a progressive, more than that, Tubbs Jones was an inspiration for all humanity. Even FOX News' Chad Pergman acknowledged Tubbs Jones' profound persona in an opinion piece that he wrote today.

Mrs.Tubbs Jones was well-known for denouncing and fiercely criticizing election fraud. In January 2005, she led fellow Democrats in opposing the certification of the 2004 election results before a joint-session of the House and Senate. She demanded that election fraud complaints in her home state of Ohio be investigated, that there was enough evidence supporting that there was wrongdoing. Unfortunately, the Republican-controlled House and Senate, led by Dick Cheney went ahead and certified the votes anyway. Bush was again, handed another term in the White House.

Tubbs Jones supported legislation to require electronic voting machines to give voters proof of their vote. She and folks in the Senate like John Kerry, Sen. Barbara Boxer and Sen. Hillary Clinton argued that these paperless machines needed to provide a paper backup of votes casted to avoid possible fraud. Tubbs Jones believed in her heart that companies like Diebold had covered up voting machine glitches in order to give an advantage to W. Bush in 2004. But despite all the proof in the world, Ohio voters in predominantly black areas of Cleveland were cheated from voting or from having their votes counted. It was a repeat of the Florida Dade County incident of 2000.

With another Presidential election less than 3 months away, I wonder if indeed electronic voting machines will continue to decide the outcome of elections like they did in 2004. Just today in the Washington Post there was an article titled, "Ohio Voting Machines Contained Programming Error That Dropped Votes." The Post article reveals some of what Tubbs Jones feared: voting machine errors. Here is a snippet --

A voting system used in 34 states contains a critical programming error that can cause votes to be dropped while being electronically transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point, the manufacturer acknowledges.

The problem was identified after complaints from Ohio elections officials following the March primary there, but the logic error that is the root of the problem has been part of the software for 10 years, said Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold.

Diebold admits that for 10 years their machines have been fuc!!!ing up -- that they have been "dropping votes." Tubbs Jones wasn't crazy and neither were those who supported her in looking into allegations of voting machine glitches in 2004. It's just too sad that this was published a day after she died. If she wasn't successful at protecting our voting rights from Republican companies like Diebold here on earth, I do hope her ghost hunts the a$$holes who get away with cheating us all at every election.

One thing I will point out before I finish this article, it's that ironically Sen. Barack Obama had been approached by Tubbs Jones, Boxer, and Clinton to join them in their efforts to not certify the 2004 election results, but he declined to add his name to the petition. I have this on the record in an interview I did with him that same day. If you don't believe me, go to my personal blog at http://doloresmbernal and click on my interview with Obama in the "My Radio Journalist Years" page. It's sad, but true. At the time he told me that "George Bush had clearly won." To his credit, however, Sen. Obama did acknowledge that there were serious issues going on with our voting system and that they needed to be resolved.

So, what will be the election results at the end of Election Day this November? Will voting machines make errors? Will Diebold deny any wrongdoing? Will voters be disenfranchised again and again? Most importantly, who will have the guts Stephanie Tubbs Jones had to stand up for us?

You will be missed Mrs. Tubbs Jones. You were one of my personal heroes. May God have you resting in a better place.

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	Ohio governor sets special congressional election	Associated Press	Wed Aug 27	1
	Ohio Voting Machines Contained Programming Error That Dropped Votes	The Washington Post	Thu Aug 21	6