really, an honest chicago alderman is being framed for

[mopinko]

"voter fraud"

honest. he is a great progressive democrat who has fought walmart, the iraq war, and called for impeachment a long, long time ago. on the public record.
read about the race here

An Open Letter to Don Gordon:

We are the Steering Committee of the Edgewater/Rogers Park Democracy for America (DFA) Group. DFA is an organization founded by Governor Howard Dean and dedicated to progressive reform. We are writing to urge you to withdraw your lawsuit, which seeks to throw out more than half of the votes cast in the recent aldermanic election, thereby disenfranchising thousands of 49th Ward voters.

Your lawsuit claims you lost the aldermanic election through fraud. Yet you fail to allege any specific acts of fraud. On that basis alone, your legal challenge appears without merit.

What is even more troubling, however, is that while you say you wish to protect the right to vote, you ask the court to void the results in 22 precincts, which represent most of the precincts in the 49th Ward. In other words, if you were to prevail in your lawsuit, all votes cast in those 22 precincts would no longer be counted, and over half the voters in the last election would be disenfranchised.

This incredibly extreme measure runs contrary to every democratic principle. Mr. Gordon, if you have evidence of voter fraud, which we seriously doubt, we urge you to turn that evidence over to the U.S. Attorney, the Illinois Attorney General and the Cook County State's Attorney. But do not continue this attempt to deprive the voters in the 49th Ward of their right to vote.

We also find it extremely curious that the 22 precincts whose voters you seek to disenfranchise happen to be the same 22 precincts that Joe Moore won in the last election, a fact which underscores the blatantly political nature of your lawsuit and belies your claim that the purpose of your lawsuit is to see that "all the votes are counted." In fact, using such serious allegations for such a transparently political maneuver demonstrates a shocking level of contempt for the principles of our democracy and an appalling willingness to disenfranchise your neighbors for your own political purposes.

Many of our members participated as volunteers in the 49th Ward election, and none of us saw any evidence of fraud or misconduct on the part of election officials or Moore campaign workers. Instead, we observed many attorneys from the Cook County State's Attorney's office and many investigators from the Chicago Board of Elections, who monitored the polling places all day. None of these professional observers witnessed any acts of fraud or misconduct.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the attorney you hired to represent you on your lawsuit, Michael Lavelle, is the same attorney who represents Protect Marriage Illinois, the conservative Christian fundamentalist organization that attempted last year to place an anti-gay marriage referendum on the statewide election ballot.

Mr. Gordon, these divisive, anti-democratic, right-wing tactics have no place here in Rogers Park and Edgewater. It's time to acknowledge you lost the election and move on. Please join us in uniting, not dividing our community.

Sincerely,

Shannon Fisk, Jim Ginsburg, Carol Levy, Melissa Lindberg,
Michi Schulenberg and Sandra Verthein

Edgewater/Rogers Park
Democracy for America
Steering Committee



.......
and my comments-

here, here. in polling place after polling place, judges from both sides congratulated each other on a clean election, well fought. the precinct where i was a judge is on the challenged list.
a gordon volunteer said that the precinct i judged had been "written-off", yet the poll watchers had a long list of challenges. they challenged roughly a dozen voters, 3 provisional ballots were given, the rest had white applications, current drivers licenses, and matching signatures. they got a regular ballot and voted. now 16 votes are said to be invalid in that precinct. almost 10% of the total. so, these voters already were challenged, and judged valid. you had your pollwatchers, and judges who worked your campaign. you lost. fairer than fair.
don gordon is the ronald reagan of rogers park, blowing smoke, twisting words, spinning issues out of thin air, and paving the way for big business to take down an independent voice.
we are democrats here, don. you lost.
and who the hell is the freeman insititute, anyway.

[JimDandy]

1. Thanks for this. Hope you don't mind if I put in a working link to the article.

http://blogs.chicagoreader.com/politics/tag/Don%20Gordon

[mopinko]

4. sorry, the link works for me,

but thanks.

[JimDandy]

2. Yikes! I just read several articles on this race.

I live in Utah and my nonpartisan election judge hat is on when I say this, so don't jump on me...

Moore, who apparently is not a neophyte campaigner, was doing some blatant and http://morsehellhole.blogspot.com/2007/02/moore-illegal-electioneering.html">illegal electioneering! As an outsider looking in, I think they both deserve the mess their in. The problem is the voters didn't, so shame on both of them.

[mopinko]

3. that website is full of lies.

ok, i admit that they sent out donuts with a note who they were from. of all the crap being slung that is the only one with any truth. and by the way, that food NEVER gets put where voters would see it, and the judges mostly know enough to remove the tags.
other than that, joe knows the rules very well, and the rest of that shit is distortions and outright fabrications. there has been a mudslinging propaganda campaign going on here that would make uncle kkkarl proud.
like the dfa letter says- this was the most closely watches election that i remember, ever. they are throwing out broad smears, and no specifics. there are none in the complaint.
the guy who runs that website has some stuff up on you tube that really shows the way he thinks- he has one called joe moore's pub crawl. his main claim is that joe has closed nuisance bars and liquor stores, and is therefore a hypocrite when, on superbowl sunday, with the bears playing, he gave out go bears keychain bottle openers. he claims joe went to all the bars in the ward, buying drinks for everyone. but the tape shows joe having one beer, in one bar, and saying that he had visited one other bar. that pretty much sums up everything these clowns say.
they bellow about corruption and bribes, but can't come up with anything more than a box of donuts. really, they are freepers.

[mopinko]

5. and- about those donuts-

first of all, that pic is from the febuary primary, not the election that is being contested. there were no tags on the donuts in the runoff. besides, electioneering is not included in the lawsuit. and neither joe nor his people are that stupid. we were under the microscope and we knew it.
but second, joe sent food for all the election workers and poll watchers, and don send food only for his own people. small. really small.

[JimDandy]

7. Thanks for clearing that up.

Couldn't do much digging around myself...I've been swamped with finals this last week.

Is the food thing a tradition at your polls? I've been an election judge and poll watcher many times and no one has ever provided us with any goodies -- it's been brown bag it or starve! (can't leave the polling place either)

[mopinko]

9. lot's of party chairs do it.

pretty much all of them in the city, afaik, and lots in the burbs as well. coffee and donuts in the morning, and a sandwich in the late afternoon. you get a 1 hour break to return to your home precinct and vote and eat. you don't always get that, but ..
i worked an election in a catholic high school and they fed up with the nuns. i worked the last 2 in a fire station. i brought them a coffee cake on the second one, tho. it is an old cramped station, and they were clearly sick of sharing their 'house' with so many people.

[mopinko]

6. wow, made it to the greatest

i will add a few words, then.
first let me introduce you to the worst of the slimebloggers-
http://rogersparkbench.blogspot.com/
there are about half dozen that parrot the bs.

and let me introduce you to joe moore-
http://www.ward49.com/

this ward is a truly independent place, and had one of the 3 (i think) white alderman who sided with chicago's first black mayor, the late great harold washington. joe still has the support of that guy, david orr.
a few things that joe has done- he introduced a resolution opposing the invasion of iraq, and organized buses to go to anti-war rallies. shortly thereafter he introduced a resolution to impeach both bush and cheney, long before anyone was willing to say the i word. he also joined with some of the best chefs in chicago, and sponsored the ordinance that banned the sale of foie gras in chicago. which the opposition made into a real issue. go figure. he sponsored an ordinance that essentially is a qui tam law for chicago contracts. and he sponsored and passed, although it was vetoed, an ordinance known as big box, which would require walmart, target, best buy, etc, to pay $10/hr, plus $3 in benefits. this is what drew a $60K contribution from david herro, one of the swift boat funders. and he was a deaniac, and a great supporter of dfa.
the slimeblogs somehow managed to convince people that all these things were distracting him from representing the 49th ward.
i know it is hard to believe that there is a chicago alderman that is honest and decent, but joe is. so, why is he the target? hmm..

[mopinko]

8. read the complaint here. sorry it is a freeper blog

strangely, don has not posted this on his own site, but his attack dog did. i don't know how stable this link is. there is a link in right margin- don gordon's complaint


http://rogersparkbench.blogspot.com/2007/04/moore-news-on-chicagos-49th-ward.html