If a hack in Ohio failed, thank DU. (x-post) [View all]

[bleever]

Eight years ago, right around this time, a bunch of people starting discussing their suspicions about the 2004 election's many suspicious anomalies. Here, on DU. You couldn't do it at Kos; you'd get banned as a "fraudster".

DU's Election Results and Discussion Forum (as it was then called) became a place where a lot (and I mean a LOT) of work happened around this issue. It was a very dark time, and many of us believed we had witnessed a crime of incredible proportions. It was the theft of the United States of America, and in time it would lead to one of the most disastrous wars in our country's history, to the subversion of our Constitution in the form of warrantless wiretapping, torture, and more, including (via a blind eye to financial mis- and mal-feasance) the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Consequences so bad, it's difficult to even take it all in.

This year, it looked like things were being set up to happen the same way. Vote suppression. Unverifiable electronic voting. GOP control of elections in key states, especially Ohio and Florida.

But it didn't happen.

Mark Crispin Miller wrote this the day after the election:

It’s time to put an end to such complacent jeering; because people need to know—and want to know—what’s happened here, and what they can do about it. That growing public interest is the reason why our work has finally broken through, with Brad, Victoria, Bob, Gerry and Harvey Wasserman, Jonathan Simon, Sally Castleman, Richard Charnin, Michael Collins, Greg Palast, Bev Harris, John Ennis, Sheila Parks, Paul Lehto, Marta Steele and so many others (and please do forgive me if I didn’t name you here—I’m really tired!) finally seeing, if not their names in lights, their vital findings resonating through the public sphere.

Of the above names, at least four were DUers, regular and heavy contributors to the ERD forum. I am proud to call some of them friends.

Yes, DU. Democratic Underground, playing a vital role in the national conversation about election integrity.


I believe.