The rally started at the State House and marched to the historic Faneuil Hall where a variety of political candidates, voting rights activists, and lawyers spoke about election suppression and fraud.
I estimated about 250 people were there and about half of them stayed the entire 3 hours until through all of the speakers.
The highlights from the night included:
David Lytel, the president of ReDefeatBush.com gave a rousing speech on the need to put pressure on politicians to reform the electoral system. In addition, he wanted to see a grassroots movement form that pushes electoral reform to satisfactory conclusion.
He also said that he personally heard that senator Barbara Boxer WOULD contest the electors of Ohio which would shift the process into debate in the House and Senate for two hours. He did not mention if other states would also be contested.
The green party Vice Presidential Candidate Pat LeMarche emphasized the green party's determination to get a full hand recount of Ohio. She described several incidents of intimidation and suppression in Ohio and elsewhere.
A lawyer for the Cobb campaign and the Voting Rights Institute (I'm not sure of his name) said that the Ohio recount was illegitimate because it did not conform to state or federal laws. A 3 percent random sample was supposed to be taken from the county. He says that one county did a hand recount of all ballots, 1 county refused to do any recount, and the other 86 counties took a pre-selected sample instead of a random sample.
Faye Morrison (assemblywoman) gave several stories about voter intimidation. She said she was threatened with assault by a half dozen people because she was carrying Kerry signs. She also said that the water was shut off at the Kerry campaign office and that the electricity and phone lines were also disrupted at various times.
The mood of crowd was fired up and outraged. I talked with at least ten people who had sent letters and/or phone calls to congressman. At one point in the speeches the crowd started chanting "count the votes" for five or ten minutes.
Unfortunately the questions at the end seemed to me off target and strange. One person asked about the misspelling of the John Kerry name on the New York electors ballots. Another focused on the power of corporations in the political process. However, one woman asked about what should be done next. The organizers encouraged people to visit senator's offices in person and also to talk to educate as many people as possible about election reform.