Group offers $100,000 reward for proof of fraud that could change electoral outcome

Group offers $100,000 reward for proof of fraud that could change electoral outcome 11/12/2004 By John Byrne RAW STORY Editor A non-profit music advocacy group is offering a $100,000 reward to anyone with evidence of voting fraud that could change the outcome of the presidential race, RAW STORY has learned. The group, Justice Through Music, said that one of their major donors from Ohio had agreed to front the money for the award. Ohio was the battleground state that decided the 2004 election. They are offering “at least a $100,000 reward to any person or persons who provide conclusive and verifiable evidence that the results of the 2004 presidential election were not correctly tabulated” if it would affect the electoral outcome. “Mainly we’re looking for whistleblowers, insiders, stuff like that,” media director and photographer Shahzad Rauf said. Rauf stressed that the group is hoping to increase the size of the award, so that if someone loses their job by reporting anything, they would have something to live on for a fair amount of time. “I’m asking some of the bloggers to donate too,” he said. “I think if we could get it up to a million, it’s a better incentive.” If anything, Rauf says he hopes the reward will give life to the movement questioning the security of the nation’s voting systems and the myriad cases of erroneous vote tabulations. No evidence of deliberate fraud has surfaced beyond statistical analyses, though there have been numerous reports in Ohio of machines giving out wrong totals. In a Columbus suburb, nearly 4,000 votes were erroneously tallied for Bush, though they were not cast by actual voters. Electronic machines malfunctioned in Mahoning and Mercer Counties; the machines had to be reset. At one point showed votes of “negative 25 million,” according to the head of the local board of elections. In Howard County, a judge ruled Election Day that everyone standing in line to vote at 7:30 p.m. had to eventually be allowed inside, but the Republican Secretary of State avoided the ruling by sending everyone home at 12 a.m., since the ruling only applied to Election Day. In Warren County, officials said they had been told of a threat of terrorism, though the FBI denied any such threat. Rauf called the reward “a way to get it out there without being involved in the big conspiracy theories.” “I get so tired of that,” he added. “I tend to agree that the numbers look fishy and fuzzy, but I haven’t really seen any evidence.” Awarding of the money will be considered by a five-member internal panel in February of 2005. Justice Through Music is a non-profit, 501©(3) organization that uses famous musicians and bands to organize, educate and activate young people about the importance of civil rights and voting.