National Election Reform Commission E.D. Charges Harassment

Earlier this evening, we received a phone call from Dr. Robert A. Pastor, the Executive Director of the Baker/Carter National Election Reform Commission. It was an interesting conversation. Apparently, he was irate at us because Americans are sending Email to him and the commissioners complaining about the fact that James A. Baker, III is co-chairing the Commission. Baker, of course, is the long-time Bush Family loyalist and Bush/Cheney trial law attorney who architected the strategy to ensure that American's votes would not be counted in the 2000 election.

Pastor made it clear that he felt those Emails, sent by individual American citizens to the commission, actually constituted "harassment" and he charged that the thousands of Emails that he and the commissioners were receiving was, in actuality, being sent by "about 6 or 7 people"!

Velvet Revolution is a coalition of some 100 Election Reform and Voting Rights organizations, none of whom were invited to participate in this commission in any way, nor even knew anything about its creation. VR is co-founded by BRAD BLOG and has created a page where American's can send Email to Jimmy Carter and the commissioners to let them know how they feel about Baker sitting as Co-Chair and some of his other cronies being seated on this commission.

If you are not one of the "6 or 7 people" who have already sent Email via that page, feel free to do so now.

If you are one of the "6 or 7 people" that have sent email via that page, you can let Bob Pastor know that it was really you who sent the email hoping to make your voice heard, by sending him another email to that effect at his email address, rpastor@american.edu, which is posted on his public webpage at the American University, Center for Democracy & Election Management site. His phone number is also listed on that page if you'd like to chat with him, but we will do him the courtesy of not reposting it here.

We did our best to make notes of the extraordinary conversation that took place during the phone call as it unfolded...These are some of the highlights...or lowlights as the case may be...

"If you're trying to make sure you are heard," he yelled at us on the phone, "you've been heard! But we're not going to work with you because you are harassing us!"

"How is individual email being sent by individual American Citizens to let you know that they find it absurd that the man responsible for ensuring the votes of Americans would never be counted in the 2000 Election would be appointed as co-chair of a secretly formed Election Reform Committee?...That there couldn't be a more inappropriate choice for the job...how is that harassment?" we asked him.

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