WILL THE ACLU TAKE MY CASE?

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

DAVID G. COHEN,
PLAINTIFF

V.

GEORGE W. BUSH,
DEFENDANT.

1. The plaintiff David G. Cohen is a natural person residing in Northampton, Massachusetts. Cohen is a citizen of the United States by virtue of his birth in the Commonwealth of Massachusets. Cohen is a registered voter who intends to vote in the next general election for the office of President of the United States.

2. The defendant George W. Bush is President of the United States and responsible for the faithful execution of the laws of the United States and for preserving and defending the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic.

3. This Court has jurisdiction over this matter as it arises under the Constitution of the United States.

4. The government of the United States, acting by and through Bush and his appointees and designees, has scheduled a general election for the Presidency on the first Tuesday following the first Monday of November, 2004. All citizens of the United States registered to vote and otherwise qualifying are entitled to vote in this election.

5. The preservation of an effective franchise is guaranteed to the citizens of the United States by the Constitution and is incumbent upon Bush.

6. All citizens of the United States have the right to due process of law and to the equal protection of the laws of the United States, regardless of race, religion, sex and economic status.

7. The provision of voting machinery is left to the several states and to their subordinate municipal and county governments. The several states use different voting machinery in different geographic locations. The differing voting machinery have different error rates, meaning that the chance of a vote being miscounted or missed entirely vary depending upon the voting machinery used and thus upon the voter's geographic area.

8. Members of minority groups and the ecnomically deprived are more often than other Americans required to use voting machinery that is less reliable than the average.

9. As a result, the vote of certain Americans, because it is more likely to be registered accurately, weighs more heavily towards the election of public officials than the vote of other Americans. Minority citizens are more likely to suffer disparately from other Americans in having their vote underweighted.

10. The foregoing subverts the Constitutional requirement of "one man, one vote," which the Supreme Court has held guarantees that every person's vote should count equally towards the final result of an election as every other person's vote.

11. The federal government, acting by and through Bush and his appointees and designees, has failed to provide voting opportunities to guaranteeing one man, one vote to the extent practicable, and thus to the extent required by the Constitution.

12. As a result, any attempt to hold a general election for the Presidency would violate the Constitutional rights of many American citizens, including he Plaintiff, because no citizen would be ensured that his or her vote would have the same effective weight as every other vote.

13. This failure threatens the plaintiff with immediate, irreparable harm for which there is no adequate remedy at law.

WHEREFORE, the plaintiff respectfully demands that this Court:

(a) enter an injunction prohibiting the government of the United States, acting by and through its President, Bush, and his appointees and designees, from holding an election for President in November 2004 and thereafter, until such time as the government of the United States can guarantee the absolute equality of each person's vote;

(b) further require Bush to continue in the office of the Presidency until such time as he is reelected or his successor is elected after an election held in compliance with the relief requested above;

(c) order the government to pay the sum of TEN BILLION DOLLARS AND NO CENTS ($10,000,000,000.00) to plaintiff and others similarly situated as reperations for 214 years of imperfect ballot counting; and

(d) order such other and just relief as this Court in its discretion deems proper, including the award of reasonable attorneys' fees and costs.

Posted by David Cohen at September 17, 2003 9:00 PM