Diaferia Calls for Free and Fair Elections in the United States

Green Party Congressional candidate Joseph Diaferia (NY-16) is calling for free and fair elections in the United States in 2012. Citing a “tortured pattern of electioncrigging and fraud in this country”, Diaferia is calling for the creation of
citizens committees across the US to supervise and ensure the honest
administration of America’s democratic processes this year.

Diaferia, not known for subtlety, is calling for the fullcexposure and prohibition of numerous practices including electronic voting, voter intimidation, purging of voter enrollment rosters, and votercdisqualification due to specious allegations of criminal history. 

Said Diaferia, “Let’s be frank; George W. Bush served two terms as president despite losing two presidential elections. We all know what happened in Florida in 2000, yet mostcAmericans are unaware that by 2004, the GOP perfected the art of electioncrigging through the use of computerized voting. Across the US but particularlycin the pivotal state of Ohio, Bush recorded impossibly high vote totals, and this happened invariably where votes were cast electronically.  

Many voters reported casting their votes for John Kerry only to see [their electronic votes] roll over to Bush. Furthermore, there were reports of ballots being lost, voters told that they would be arrested if they turned out to vote, and even some instances in which voters were told that Republicans were to vote on Tuesday—Election Day, while Democrats were to vote on Wednesday.

Diaferia continued, “In not one instance did a single blunder or irregularity benefit the Democratic ticket. It was always the Bush/Cheney ticket or other Republican candidates who benefitted from such improbable or impossible totals.”

Diaferia suggested that the ties of computerized voting apparatus manufacturers to the Republican Party, and the sway that elected secretaries of state might hold over electoral processes “make America a sitting duck for fraudulent electoral outcomes”.

Diaferia, a former Democratic candidate for the Westchester County Legislature, and the son of a former Democratic candidate for Mayor of Yonkers, notes that as far back as the historic Republican landsides of 1994 there were reports of dubiously high vote totals for Republicans in traditionally Democratic areas. Diaferia also expressed some doubt as to the legitimacy of the victories of Rudolph Giuliani as Mayor of New York, Christie Whitman as Governor of New Jersey, and Andrew O’Rourke’s re-election as Westchester County

Executive, all in 1993. “None  [of the aforementioned] was favored to win and in the case of Whitman’s victory in New Jersey, that result was as awry of exit polls as Bush’s were in many states in 2004”, commented Diaferia.

Perhaps the most notorious instance of a suspicious election prior to 2004, according to Diaferia, is the case of Republican Chuck Hagle’s election to the US Senate from Nebraska in 1996: “From what I have read [Hagle] finagled  a surprise landslide victory via a computerized voting system, manufactured by a company that he was once part owner of”.

Asked if there could be a greater propensity for election rigging in 2012 than in years past, Diaferia commented, “There is growing political discontent in the US for which our political leaders have no answer and which they are powerless to defuse. If I were a political leader, or a member of the One Percent, I would be doing everything in my power to prevent the emergence of a political movement seeking alternatives. I would be very uneasy at the growing Occupy movement and how they might parlay their strength into a political and economic transformation of society.  What’s more, my party, the Green Party now has ballot status in New York State. I can only imagine how unsettling a development this must be to the One Percent, that an anti-corporatist party now holds the status of a full-fledged political party. So yes, I believe we are at greater risk of electoral fraud this year than in the past, and I know that I want to do everything in my power to see that my Green Party running mates and I get honest counts.”

Asked what could be done to ensure a fair and honest 2012 Election, Diaferia insisted that computerized voting be abandoned in favor of paper balloting and that affirmative measures be taken to guarantee all voters access to their respective polling places. “Paper balloting may seem primitive, but it is the only way than we can be reasonably certain that votes are counted properly and honestly. Computer voting terminals are easily pre-programmable and should never have been permitted operation in the US to begin with. We also have to ascertain that voters are neither intimidated nor eliminated from the political process under false pretenses; short of UN intervention—which I’m sure few would favor—there must be a committed and concerted public effort to guard against voter suppression”, said Diaferia.

Diaferia also said that in the long term he would like to see the Electoral College abolished, and congressional elections conducted on the basis of proportional representation instead of single member representation per district.  He has also
issued a call for public financing of all political campaigns, and less cumbersome ballot access laws. “It is really the only way that independent voices are ever going to be heard in American political life. I’ve often heard that our political institutions are constructed as they are as a check against frivolous candidates and issues. To that, I might first ask who these all knowing political pundits think they are that they can judge any political issue to be frivolous. Furthermore, countries that have proportional
representation and public campaign financing have suffered no invasion of
frivolous or dopey candidates”, Diaferia concluded.

Diaferia, a registered Green Party member, is making his second run for public office. In 1987, he ran as a Democrat against the late Katherine Carsky for a seat on Westchester County’s Board of Legislators.