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 UNIONISTS TO JOIN COUNT-THE-VOTE DEMOS IN JANUARY
By PAI, ILCA Member   30 December 2004

WASHINGTON (PAI)"Marching season" will come early in 2005 to Washington, as two union groups join January demonstrations, one against George Bush and the other against the war in Iraq.

The first protest will be at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. It will support the Congressional Black Caucus' challenge to the electoral vote count certifying GOP nominee Bush's win.

The Constitution mandates that electoral voteswhich Bush supposedly won over Democratic nominee John Kerry by a 286-252 marginmust be opened and certified before Congress.

That gives any combination of senators and representatives the right to challenge a state's votes, and the CBC plans to challenge Ohio's. Citing widespread problems there, the International Labor Communications Association will join the protest.

Individual backers include AFL-CIO Organizing Director Stewart Acuff, Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta, and pro-worker author Barbara Ehrenreich.

"Millions of Americans are losing faith in our political system," said ILCA President Martin Fishgold. "And millions are losing faith in the media to tell them what's going on. We've heard more on our televisions about voting problems in the Ukraine than about what's happening in Ohio.

"People have been disenfranchised, made unable to vote, and prevented from verifying that their votes are counted. Working people sacrificed to win the right to vote. Any loss of that right must be opposed, and the labor media must work to organize that opposition, because the corporate media will not."

In Ohio, GOP Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who ran the election, was also the top Bush-Cheney campaign official. Blackwell has yet to respond to 34 questions about Ohio voting irregularities from Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.).

Other Ohio problems included lack of voting machines for Democratic areas, award of 3,893 votes to Bush in a 638-per-son precinct, 93,000 uncounted provisional ballots and barring of ballot observers from one Ohio county on "homeland security" grounds. Another county added thousands of votes for Bush and none for Kerry after all precincts were counted, ILCA said.

The protest over the vote will precede the anti-war demonstrations, on Inauguration Day itself, Jan. 20. International Answer, including a contingent from U.S. Labor Against the War, will demand the return of troops from Iraq. USLAW has more than 100 sponsoring unions, including locals, CLCs and internationals.



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