Greens Challenge D's R's: Ensure Fair Elections

Greens Challenge Democrats and Republicans to Ensure Clean and Fair Elections in 2004.

For Immediate Release,
Thursday, July 31, 2003

Calling an engineered election the 'real spoiler' in 2000, Greens demand close public scrutiny, repeal of racially biased state voting rules and practices, and reforms such as Instant Runoff Voting and Proportional Representation.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Party activists in the Green Party of the United States are challenging all Democrats and Republicans who value democracy to ensure clean and fair elections in 2004.

Greens are preparing to run in hundreds of local and state races in 2004 and discussing whether to field a national candidate. Most party organizers who participated in the party's mid July national meeting in Washington, D.C. expressed enthusiasm for a presidential race; the decision will be made by state parties at the Green Party's national convention in Milwaukee in July 2004.

"Many Americans are concerned that Bush and the Republicans might have stolen the 2000 election, through vote engineering in Florida and other states and through a politically motivated Supreme Court decision," said Beth Moore Haines, Media Coordinator of the Green Party of California. "It's naive to believe that election manipulation doesn't happen in the U.S., or that we're not in danger of seeing it again in 2004."

"It was clear after 2000 that disqualification and obstruction of legitimate votes in Florida influenced the national election," added Vivian Houghton, 2002 Green candidate for Delaware Attorney General. "The votes of African Americans were especially targeted. The danger will become greater as states move towards certain electronic voting systems that reduce public oversight, leave no paper trail, and allow anyone with access to the software to engineer an election."

Greens call for the repeal of laws in some states that bar voting by felons who have served their sentences, calling them deliberate ploys to prevent votes from African Americans, Latinos, poor whites, and others who have been disproportionately incarcerated, often through biased laws, police actions, and judicial procedures.

Greens also challenged Democrats and Republicans to:

* enact Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), Proportional Representation (PR).

* enact 'clean elections' options that allow candidates to receive state funding in lieu of corporate contributions.

* repeal state laws, passed by Democrats and Republicans, that make ballot access difficult for independent and third party candidates.

* confirm and defend the principle of 'one person, one vote' -- which Chief Justice Rehnquist, speaking for the majority in the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision, denied that the U.S. Constitution guarantees.

MORE INFORMATION

The Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org National office: 1314 18th Street, NW Washington, DC 20037 202-296-7755,866-41-GREEN

More information on IRV, PR, and other reforms: The Center for Voting and Democracy http://www.fairvote.org

Investigation of the Florida election scandal: 'The Best Democracy Money Can Buy' By Greg Palast (Plume, 2003)

Greens Call for Impeachment of Bush http://www.gp.org/press/pr_07_21_03.html

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