In reaction to the voting scandal, Congress allocated billions of dollars to upgrade the nation's voting equipment, but growing questions about electronic voting machines' reliability and vulnerability to manipulation have slowed progress on modernizing the U.S. electoral system. As November approaches, state, county and municipal governments are scrambling to improve the mechanics of voting, hoping to avoid a repeat of the 2000 election, which saw the Supreme Court install George W. Bush as president, although he had lost the popular vote by half a million ballots.

In the midst of the tumultuous 2000 election recount in Florida, BBC investigative journalist Greg Palast uncovered documents which established that Florida officials had purged more than 57,000 registered voters, a majority of them African Americans, Hispanics and likely Democrats, off the rolls in advance of the November vote. Between the Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Greg Palast, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," who explains why he believes reform legislation enacted after the scandal-ridden 2000 election, could result in disenfranchising up to one million minority voters in this year's presidential ballot.

Greg Palast is an investigative reporter with BBC television and the London Observer newspaper. Read his columns online at www.gregpalast.com. His book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," was recently updated and re-released by Penguin.

Related links:

• "Vanishing Votes," by Gregory Palast, The Nation, April 29, 2004
• "California Panel: Don't Use Diebold Touch-Screen Voting Machines," by Jim Wasserman, Associated Press, Apr. 22, 2004
• "File Sharing Pits Copyright Against Free Speech: Voting Machine Giant Diebold Seeks To Silence Critics," by Jon Schwartz, The New York Times, Nov. 3,2003
• "Electronic Voting's Vulnerability to Tampering Could Undermine Public Confidence in Machinery of Democracy," Interview with Bev Harris, author of "Black Box Voting, Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century," conducted by Scott Harris, Between The Lines, week ending Oct. 17, 2003
• "Florida's 'Disappeared Voters': Disfranchised by the GOP," by Gregory Palast, The Nation, Jan. 18, 2001

As a defendant in the famous Chicago 8 trial, which followed militant protests that disrupted the 1968 Democratic Convention, Dave Dellinger left his mark as a courageous activist not afraid to speak truth to power. He along with four co-defendants were convicted of crossing state lines to incite a riot, later overturned by a federal appeals court , as were several contempt citations.

Later in life, Dave Dellinger and his wife Elizabeth Peterson moved to Vermont and remained active on many issues including prison reform. At the age of 85, Dave participated in raucous protests in Quebec City aimed at derailing the Free Trade Area of the Americas treaty. Between the Lines' Scott Harris spoke with veteran human rights attorney Leonard Weinglass, who served as counsel, along with William Kunstler, to the defendants in the Chicago 8 trial. Weinglass, who has represented Angela Davis and Mumia Abu Jamal among many others, remembers David Dellinger.

To offer condolences, write to Elizabeth Peterson, c/o Toward Freedom, P.O. Box 468, Burlington, Vermont 05402. Dave Dellinger's autobiography is titled, "From Yale To Jail."

Related links:

• "Dave Dellinger: The Life of a Nonviolent Warrior," by Greg Guma, Toward Freedom, May 26, 2004
• "Nonviolent Warriors: Dave Dellinger and the Power of the People," 2-CD audio documentary set, produced by Toward Freedom
• "Remembering Dave Dellinger," by Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, Common Dreams, May 31, 2004

This week's summary
of under-reported news

Compiled by Bob Nixon

• A diverse coalition of conservative intellectuals have banded together to oppose the Iraq War and the neo-conservative agenda of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, as nothing more than empire-building. The Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy includes analysts from the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation and The American Conservative magazine. ("Realistpolitik," American Prospect, May 2004)
• Lane McCotter, a former Utah state corrections commissioner who is now a prison consultant in the infamous Abu Ghraib scandal, has links to past cases of abuse in the U.S. prison system. ("Exporting America's Prison Problems," The Nation, May 12, 2004)
• The Bush administration is planning to exempt a well-known arms trader in Africa, Victor Bout, from U.N. sanctions because of Bout's role in aiding U.S. military operations in Iraq. ("U.S. fights U.N. Move for Sanction on Arms Traffickers Linked to Iraq," The Financial Times, May 19, 2004)
  

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Credits:
Senior news editor: Bob Nixon
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