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reprehensor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 03:07 PM
Original message
Election Fraud: It's Time to Make a Stand.
It was the Republicans who first bandied the term "coup d'etat" to describe the 2000 presidential election. Since then, many have turned the tables and labeled Bush's victory a coup. But how much of this is merely political rhetoric?

- John Dee, COUP2K


How much, indeed.

I’m posting this as a wake-up call. I see a lot of Democrats, Progressives, Centrists and Moderates engaged in a serious bout of self-delusion. They believe, (quite earnestly), that by learning how to ‘frame the issue’ and by getting voters to the polls, they can defeat the Republican machine.

I see it differently. I see a lot of energy going to waste.

The issue, the only issue, is whether or not your vote is being counted fairly. It’s not about ‘Security Moms’ or ‘Family Values’ or ‘Social Security Reform’ or ‘gay marriage’. That is because all of these issues are meaningless once the ballots are cast. And if your ballot is cast digitally, it’s just a number that can be changed with a password and a few keystrokes, and voila, another ‘close-call’ election.

It turns out that Florida was a trial run. A successful trial run. The most important lesson learned is: have a Secretary of State in place who will do anything for you, as Gore Vidal illustrates below;

Asked to predict who would win in '04, I said that, again, Bush would lose, but I was confident that in the four years between 2000 and 2004 creative propaganda and the fixing of election officials might very well be so perfected as to insure an official victory for Mr. Bush. As Representative Conyers's report, Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio, shows in great detail, the swing state of Ohio was carefully set up to deliver an apparent victory for Bush even though Kerry appears to have been the popular winner as well as the valedictorian-that-never-was of the Electoral College.

I urge would-be reformers of our politics as well as of such anachronisms as the Electoral College to read Conyers's valuable guide on how to steal an election once you have in place the supervisor of the state's electoral process: In this case, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who orchestrated a famous victory for those who hate democracy (a permanent but passionate minority). The Conyers Report states categorically, "With regards to our factual finding, in brief, we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State Kenneth J. Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio." In other words, the Florida 2000 scenario redux, when the chair for Bush/Cheney was also the Secretary of State. Lesson? Always plan ahead for at least four more years.

It is well-known in the United States of Amnesia that not only did Ohio have a considerable number of first-time voters but that Blackwell and his gang, through "the misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented long lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters."

For the past few years many of us have been warning about the electronic voting machines, first publicized on the Internet by investigator Bev Harris, for which she was much reviled by the officers of such companies as Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S, Triad; this last voting computer company "has essentially admitted that it engaged in a course of behavior during the recount in numerous counties to provide 'cheat sheets' to those counting the ballots. The cheat sheets informed election officials how many votes they should find for each candidate, and how many over and under votes they should calculate to match the machine count. In that way, they could avoid doing a full county-wide hand recount mandated by state law."


By preempting a recount with a big enough 'win' margin, things don't have to go to the stacked Courts, which draws too much attention, and where things could get messy.

David L. Dill, Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University, and Founder of the Verified Voting Foundation and VerifiedVoting.org, gave this testimony Before the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, June 21, 2005, Hearing on Voter Verification in the Federal Election Process;

We can have a trustworthy voting system if, instead of a futile effort to ensure that the voting equipment is error-free by design, we empower each voter to verify that his vote has been accurately recorded. In other words, we need voter-verified paper ballots.

The call for paper ballots is not based on nostalgia. Paper has specific properties, as a technology, that we don’t know how to replicate in electronic media. For example, most voters can verify the contents of a paper ballot without computer mediation; paper can be written indelibly; and the procedures for handling critical paper documents are easily understood by ordinary poll workers and voters. In addition, electronic ballot marking devices now exist to enable voters with disabilities to mark and verify optical scan ballots.

Paper is not a magical solution to our election problems, but, at least, understandable procedures exist for ensuring the accuracy of an election conducted with paper ballots. In particular, the ballots must be protected, and the processes for storing, transporting, handling, and counting them must transparent. Ideally, members of the public and non-governmental organizations as well as political party representatives should be able to observe all of the steps of an election, including machine testing, polling place operations, counting of votes, auditing and recounting.

One of the most important practices that could be adopted is the routine auditing of elections by choosing a small random sample of the ballots and manually counting them. This practice would make a valuable distinction between “audits,” which are routine checks on the quality of elections, and “recounts,” which have become increasingly politicized. Routine random audits would often catch procedural, equipment, and personnel problems in uncontroversial elections, so that those problems can be fixed before they potentially affect an election outcome.


So there is a solution, that is not covered by the ironically named 'Help America Vote Act'.

When you see things like Senate Committee meetings that air the concerns of professionals you may think, "I don't have to worry about this, my Party will ensure a fair election!"

Wrong.

The DNC, even under the navigation of Howard Dean has not mounted the issue of Voting Reform on the masthead. This banner should be flying high NOW, not a couple of months before the mid-term elections. Instead, since the DNC released the 2004 Election Report, it has been stowed away, where it should be brandished like a rapier in the office of every Democrat in Congress.

Bob Fitrakis and Steven Rosenfeld pull no punches when assessing the DNC's report;

The Democratic National Committee's investigation into Ohio's 2004 presidential election irregularities is the perfect postscript to the party's 'election protection' efforts last fall: it is a shocking indictment of a party caught completely off-guard in its most heated presidential campaign in years, and a party that still doesn't fully understand what happened and how to avoid a repeat in the future.

The report primarily documents the fact that Jim Crow voter suppression tactics targeting Democratic African-American voters were rampant in Ohio's cities during the 2004 presidential election. It cites and spends most of its time analyzing the most visible problems: from shortages of voting machines in minority precincts, to unreasonable obstacles to voter registration, to disproportionate use of provisional ballots on Election Day among new voters and Democratic constituencies, to inadequate poll worker training and election administration, to poor post-Election Day record keeping.

But the DNC reports says those factors do not mean John Kerry won the election, nor does it mean that the new electronic voting machines are unreliable — even though some of the precincts with the highest percentages of reported problems were outfitted with the new electronic voting machines, known as DREs. The DNC asked for access to the new electronic voting machines and their software, but was denied by local election officials and the private manufacturers. The report leaves the matter there.

It is statements like this one, on page 189, and a failure to follow-through that make the report more than a disappointment to election protection workers, voter rights advocates and those grassroots activists who worked for John Kerry's campaign. Speaking of the new electronic voting machines, the DNC report states, that "many of the county boards (of elections) do not actually control the electronic records created during the tallying process." When the Fairfield County Board of Elections was asked for election results, they merely forwarded data from a private vendor.


This reminds me, sadly, of George Tenet running around Washington 'with his hair on fire' warning of an impending strike, which turned out to be 9/11. Bob Fitrakis' hair is on fire, and he is doing his best to tell you that there is another impending strike, it is called the 2006 mid-term election.

The DNC, and groups like America Coming Together and MoveOn are devoid of references to voter reform or voter fraud on the front pages of their websites. I think we should all support Cindy Sheehan, but guess what, no matter how many people are woken up politically over the next year, it's not going to matter if the votes aren't counted properly.

Ok, so my hair is on fire too.

But Mark Crispin Miller is the Human Torch. His essay, 'None Dare Call it Stolen' was the cover essay on the August 'Harper's' magazine;

Whichever candidate you voted for (or think you voted for), or even if you did not vote (or could not vote), you must admit that last year's presidential race was—if nothing else—pretty interesting. True, the press has dropped the subject, and the Democrats, with very few exceptions, have “moved on.” Yet this contest may have been the most unusual in U.S. history; it was certainly among those with the strangest outcomes. You may remember being surprised yourself. The infamously factious Democrats were fiercely unified—Ralph Nader garnered only about 0.38 percent of the national vote while the Republicans were split, with a vocal anti-Bush front that included anti-Clinton warrior Bob Barr of Georgia; Ike's son John Eisenhower; Ronald Reagan's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, William J. Crowe Jr.; former Air Force Chief of Staff and onetime “Veteran for Bush” General Merrill “Tony” McPeak; founding neocon Francis Fukuyama; Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute, and various large alliances of military officers, diplomats, and business professors. The American Conservative, co-founded by Pat Buchanan, endorsed five candidates for president, including both Bush and Kerry, while the Financial Times and The Economist came out for Kerry alone. At least fifty-nine daily newspapers that backed Bush in the previous election endorsed Kerry (or no one) in this election. The national turnout in 2004 was the highest since 1968, when another unpopular war had swept the ruling party from the White House. And on Election Day, twenty-six state exit polls incorrectly predicted wins for Kerry, a statistical failure so colossal and unprecedented that the odds against its happening, according to a report last May by the National Election Data Archive Project, were 16.5 million to 1. Yet this ever-less beloved president, this president who had united liberals and conservatives and nearly all the world against himself—this president somehow bested his opponent by 3,000,176 votes. How did he do it? To that most important question the commentariat, briskly prompted by Republicans, supplied an answer. Americans of faith—a silent majority heretofore unmoved by any other politician—had poured forth by the millions to vote “Yes!” for Jesus' buddy in the White House. Bush's 51 percent, according to this thesis, were roused primarily by “family values.” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, called gay marriage “the hood ornament on the family values wagon that carried the president to a second term.” The pundits eagerly pronounced their amens—“Moral values,” Tucker Carlson said on CNN, “drove President Bush and other Republican candidates to victory this week”—although it is not clear why. The primary evidence of our Great Awakening was a post-election poll by the Pew Research Center in which 27 percent of the respondents, when asked which issue “mattered most” to them in the election, selected something called “moral values.” This slight plurality of impulse becomes still less impressive when we note that, as the pollsters went to great pains to make clear, “the relative importance of moral values depends greatly on how the question is framed.” In fact, when voters were asked to “name in their own words the most important factor in their vote,” only 14 percent managed to come up with “moral values.” Strangely, this detail went little mentioned in the postelectoral commentary.

The press has had little to say about most of the strange details of the election—except, that is, to ridicule all efforts to discuss them. This animus appeared soon after November 2, in a spate of caustic articles dismissing any critical discussion of the outcome as crazed speculation: “Election paranoia surfaces: Conspiracy theorists call results rigged,” chuckled the Baltimore Sun on November 5. “Internet Buzz on Vote Fraud Is Dismissed,” proclaimed the Boston Globe on November 10. “Latest Conspiracy Theory—Kerry Won—Hits the Ether,” the Washington Post chortled on November 11. The New York Times weighed in with “Vote Fraud Theories, Spread by Blogs, Are Quickly Buried”—making mock not only of the “post-election theorizing” but of cyberspace itself, the fons et origo of all such loony tunes, according to the Times.

Such was the news that most Americans received. Although the tone was scientific, “realistic,” skeptical, and “middle-of-the-road,” the explanations offered by the press were weak and immaterial. It was as if they were reporting from inside a forest fire without acknowledging the fire, except to keep insisting that there was no fire. Since Kerry has conceded, they argued, and since “no smoking gun” had come to light, there was no story to report. This is an oddly passive argument. Even so, the evidence that something went extremely wrong last fall is copious, and not hard to find. Much of it was noted at the time, albeit by local papers and haphazardly. Concerning the decisive contest in Ohio, the evidence is lucidly compiled in a single congressional report, released by Representative John Conyers of Michigan, which, for the last half-year, has been available to anyone inclined to read it. It is a veritable arsenal of “smoking guns”—and yet its findings may be less extraordinary than the fact that no one in this country seems to care about them.


As precious time wastes away, with no political leadership to speak of; the timid, cowed media dips its collective toe into the murky waters of 'paper trails' with carefully 'balanced' pieces like this one from USA Today;

Three years into a national debate over the security and reliability of computerized voting machines, the skeptics are winning.

In the past month, legislatures in five states — Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York and Oregon — have passed laws requiring computer-based voting machines to produce a paper backup that can be verified by the voter, according to Electionline.org, which monitors voting systems. That brings to 25 the number of states that require a paper trail.

snip

"We're not getting many landslides these days, so it's crucial that the votes be counted accurately," says Will Doherty, director of VerifiedVoting.org, which lobbies for paper trails on voting machines.

snip

"The unintended consequence of a (paper trail) mandate could diminish, rather than enhance, voter confidence," says Conny McCormack, who runs elections in the nation's largest voting jurisdiction, Los Angeles County.


What is the reader supposed to draw from this article? There is an admission that yeah, paper trails are necessary, but 'some people say' that it might cause problems!

I guess this writer didn't get the memo.

WE'VE ALREADY GOT PROBLEMS! BIG ONES!

But you want proof, you say! Show me some research! I'm skeptical!

Alright, you selectively skeptical rascal, you!

Peter Phillips, of Project Censored brings you research from Cal Poly Poloma;


New research compiled by Dr. Dennis Loo with the University of Cal Poly Pomona now shows that extensive manipulation of non-paper-trail voting machines occurred in several states during the 2004 election...

...In 2004 Bush far exceeded the 85% of registered Florida Republican votes that he got in 2000, receiving more than 100% of the registered Republican votes in 47 out of 67 Florida counties, 200% of registered Republicans in 15 counties, and over 300% of registered Republicans in 4 counties. Bush managed these remarkable outcomes despite the fact that his share of the crossover votes by registered Democrats in Florida did not increase over 2000, and he lost ground among registered Independents, dropping 15 points. We also know that Bush "won" Ohio by 51-48%, but statewide results were not matched by the court-supervised hand count of the 147,400 absentee and provisional ballots in which Kerry received 54.46% of the vote. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio the number of recorded votes was more than 93,000 greater than the number of registered voters.

More importantly national exit polls showed Kerry winning in 2004. However, it was only in precincts where there were no paper trails on the voting machines that the exit polls ended up being different from the final count. According to Dr. Steve Freeman, a statistician at the University of Pennsylvania, the odds are 250 million to one that the exit polls were wrong by chance. In fact, where the exit polls disagreed with the computerized outcomes the results always favored Bush - another statistical impossibility. .

Dennis Loo writes, "A team at the University of California at Berkeley, headed by sociology professor Michael Hout, found a highly suspicious pattern in which Bush received 260,000 more votes in those Florida precincts that used electronic voting machines than past voting patterns would indicate compared to those precincts that used optical scan read votes where past voting patterns held."


No, not good enough?

Let's continue;

In order to believe that George Bush won the November 2, 2004 presidential election, you must also believe all of the following extremely improbable or outright impossible things...

...A big turnout and a highly energized and motivated electorate
favored the GOP instead of the Democrats for the first time in history.

...The fact that Bush got more votes than registered voters, and the fact that by stark contrast participation rates in many Democratic strongholds in Ohio and Florida fell to as low as 8%, do not indicate a rigged election.

...The fact that Bush “won” Ohio by 51-48%, but this was not matched by the court-supervised hand count of the 147,400 absentee and provisional ballots in which Kerry received 54.46% of the vote doesn’t cast any suspicion upon the official tally.


Is any of this getting through? The game is rigged. The deck is stacked. The dice are loaded.

It's over.

No it's not. It's not over unless you decide it's over. You can keep your keep your head tucked in the sand like a good little ostrich, or you can get involved.

You can cover your ears, eyes and mouth like a no-evil monkey, or you can load for bear.

Get this book.



It will inspire (anger) you to action.

Move into action at the Verified Voting Foundation. There are many other places to get started, but this site is easy to navigate.

Do something!
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In Truth We Trust Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 03:33 PM
Response to Original message
1. second time around kick- Paper ballots NOW! Hand counts NOW!
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BeFree Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 03:50 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Yeah, Paper
But we ain't gonna get all paper and nothing but paper, even though I really wish we would.

The best we are gonna do is get paper counted by a computer of some kind or another. It's in a bunch of new laws moving through state legislatures across the country, called: Voter Verified Paper Ballots (or some such name, names with a lot of V's, P's, and B's).

Anyhoo, it's what some of the people linked in the OP refer to, so they had a hand in getting those laws passed, and they will see them through to activation.

Activation: That's where yall come in. It will be up to us, as the democrtaic grassroots, to see that the laws are not twisted as they were in Florida and Ohio. Frankly, most of us just sat back and watched their shenanigans in the last election. (Me too) We can't do that again.

Each of us needs to get involved this time. Each of us needs to go over to the Election Discussion Forum and learn what to do. Each of us needs to become semi-experts on voting laws. We can no longer trust THEM to do the right thing.... just look at the last three stolen elections.
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In Truth We Trust Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 04:11 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. Agreed, most definitely agreed.
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colonist Donating Member (2 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-18-05 11:32 AM
Response to Reply #2
44. paper ballots.
Why can't ballots be counted in each precinct as they come in by impartial counters and verifiers? Third world countries can do it without machines. We could have foreign observers assigned to precincts. They were kept out by the Republicans in Ohio.
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TruthIsAll Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 10:03 PM
Response to Reply #1
18. This is why ONLY paper ballots will do.
Edited on Tue Aug-16-05 10:05 PM by TruthIsAll
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slay Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 11:10 AM
Response to Reply #18
29. We can not accept anything less than paper ballots
Thanks in large part to all your work TIA, we now know that paper ballots and hand counts are a MUST for fair elections.
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BeFree Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 01:52 PM
Response to Reply #18
35. Only paper?
that would be best, but that isn't what we will get. Indeed, the OP clearly states the experts are suggesting a paper trail that can be audited and that is what we will get for 2006. I'm not happy about it...that's the way it goes.

So... we need numbers people to begin working the kinks out of the audit system. Numbers people who can tell us what is the minimum allowable limit of numbers that can be audtied to give us a reasonable expectation of what the full numbers should be. Think of it in terms of it being an exit poll type system that only by local manipulation can they be altered.

Then, in each precinct we need people either doing the audits or at least looking over the shoulder of those doing the auditing.

Even if we have all paper we need honest people overseeing, eh? Let's do it.
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Atomicat Donating Member (1 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-18-05 01:50 PM
Response to Reply #35
49. Paper ballots
Up here we only use paper ballots and have never had any election tampering that I can recall. A quick google of "Canada election fraud" yields didly squat. I read somewhere that it costs something like $3 to use paper ballots and $18 for the machines. Also, what's with the 10-20% of the machines with paper printouts jamming? Ask your local grocery checkout lady how often her cash machine jams. As for the counting of ballots, heck, my mom helped with that one year, you get three people, one from each major party (New Democrats, Liberal, Prog Conservatives), get some coffee and doughnuts (you know us canuks and our doughnuts) and count the ballots. Usually takes about five hours and recounts are very rare. I personally think that the entire American government needs to be completely razed to the ground. Look into our parliamentary structure, it works much better.

Atomicat
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newyawker99 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-21-05 03:37 PM
Response to Reply #49
56. Hi Atomicat!!
Welcome to DU!! :toast:
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Independent_Liberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 04:16 PM
Response to Original message
4. Kick!
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renate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 04:17 PM
Response to Original message
5. thank you for this excellent post
Before November 2004 I thought the important thing was to persuade people of the truth about the Bush administration, because the idea that an American election could be stolen in plain sight and that nobody would care was just too hard to believe. I knew there were problems but, naively, I thought that somehow everything would work out, or that the reports I was reading and the things I was hearing were exaggerations, that surely in the greatest democracy in the world an election couldn't be out and out stolen.

That was in 2004.

I certainly believe it now.
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meganmonkey Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 04:23 PM
Response to Original message
6. Hell yeah!
Great post. Well written, good citations, I give you an A+ :)

and recommended.

and :kick:
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Nightjock Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 04:26 PM
Response to Original message
7. This should be REQUIRED reading on DU
Thank you reprehensor. There is nothing more important than election reform.
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GreenPartyVoter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 04:29 PM
Response to Original message
8. Would you like this posted on my site?
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reprehensor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 04:37 PM
Response to Reply #8
10. Sure!
BTW, I took a quick look at your PEI pix. Isn't it a beautiful little island?

Those old sandstone Mason buildings look as solid as the day they were built.
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GreenPartyVoter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 04:40 PM
Response to Reply #10
12. It was so lovely there. I recall more of those buildings in old
Quebec city, though.. for obvious reasons.

Do you want me to cut n paste or would you like to do any amending anywhere in the article? (I ask because my site, infrequently visited though it is, does seem to attract a lot of conservatives too. And some of them even care about election reform. *lol*)
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reprehensor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 05:50 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. Does your site...
Use BBCode?

Many message boards do, I've got markup for that to save you time, if so.
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GreenPartyVoter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 07:01 PM
Response to Reply #13
15. Nope. Just standard old HTML. I am not much of a web wizard, which is why
the pages look the way they do.
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bleever Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 04:34 PM
Response to Original message
9. Absolutely. Without comprehending and handling this, the rest
is moot.
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reprehensor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 04:39 PM
Response to Reply #9
11. I guess that's my point.
What's the split going to be in 2006 and then 2008? Both sides are getting out the voters... but only one side is cheating... in volume.
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Peace Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 06:25 PM
Response to Original message
14. I think that all you have to know is that 80% of the country's votes were
tabulated by two private, electronic voting machine companies, owned and run by major Bush donors and supporters, using SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code. And...

AND!

Kerry won the exit polls--the only independent gage of the will of the majority. And...

maybe one more AND!

...and the corporate news monopolies, acting in concert, FALSIFIED the exit poll numbers on everybody's TV screens on election night, "adjusting" the exit polls (Kerry won) to "fit" the "official result" derived by the two private Bushite companies with secret formulae (Bush won). The corporate news monopolies thus made it LOOK LIKE there was no evidence to the contrary--after which they piled on their scorn and derision of any protests or calls for investigation. (Oh, the villains!)

Our election system has been completely compromised, and was a fraud going in. The fraud occurred long BEFORE the election, when the states approved the signing of contracts with private companies permitting "trade secret" vote tabulation--programming code so secret that not even our elected secretaries of state are allowed to review it.

Much bipartisan corruption was involved in what has become a billion dollar business (the counting of our votes). For a taste of "the sale of our right to vote," see Amaryllis' post about the recent event (last week) at the Beverly Hilton, sponsored by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia--a week of fun, sun and high-end shopping for election officials from around the country, concluding with "graduation awards"...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

Connie McCormack (Democrat!), head of Los Angeles elections, and major shill for Diebold--who is quoted in the article posted above, saying that a "paper trail" will make voters suspicious--was a featured speaker at the Beverly Hilton. She has done more to corrupt California's election system than any other official in California, possibly with the sole exception of former CA Repub Sec of State Bill Jones who, with his chief aide Alfie Charles, now works for Sequoia.

The Selling of Our Right to Vote. That should be a book.

-----

Note: The massive, blatant violations of the Voting Rights Act that occurred in Ohio were, in my opinion, Plan B, to be enacted in case of a Kerry landslide. The pre-programmed electronic fraud (Plan A) had to be somewhat subtle--grabbing a few percentages here and there in many states (mostly in the eastern time zone, as it turns out), and was not sufficient to stem the Kerry tide. Thus, the high risk, high visibility vote suppression in Ohio, where much work had been done to intimidate Democrats, and to thoroughly corrupt the Republican Party, and create operatives who would do anything to advance themselves within Bushite circles.

Ohio was a disgusting, and searing, event--burning the brand of bigotry right back onto our national soul, a wound we had tried so hard to heal in the 1960s. It epitomized extensive disenfranchisement of black and other minority voters, several million of whom have been unfairly purged from voter rolls across the country, according to investigative reporter Greg Palast. But it was not really the main event in 2004, in my opinion, and we had better keep this in mind when we consider remedies, because if we don't rid ourselves of these infernal Bushite election theft machines, created by Diebold, ES&S and co., we are never going to have a honest election, and a real vote count, in this country ever again.

Into 'Boston Harbor' with these machines, I say!

Invisible vote counting IS tyranny!
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reprehensor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 07:49 PM
Response to Reply #14
17. What he said.
Trust is earned, and this administration has earned NONE.
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blm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 07:09 PM
Response to Original message
16. We must do a massive mailing to the DNC on this. It's past time the DNC
speak out about this issue - it's the biggest one out there, yet it just languishes right along side the GOP media problem.

I do feel that Dean and Kerry are working another angle, via the Sec of State route, but, it couldn't hurt to go after the truth with a tsunami size torchlight.

This whole issue needs the light of day, and maybe 2006 is just too far away to await Sec of States' to be in position.

Why not do BOTH?
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pox americana Donating Member (622 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 10:15 PM
Response to Original message
19. awesome job, recommended! n/t
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Al-CIAda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-05 10:53 PM
Response to Original message
20. .
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Tigress DEM Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 01:25 AM
Response to Original message
21. Agree with one Caveat..... IMPEACH and Prosecute those who...
committed the vote fraud and all companies whose machines malfunctions resulted in uncounted votes.

You said,
"The issue, the only issue, is whether or not your vote is being counted fairly."

I agree mainly except that
"Those who counted the votes and refused to behave in a correctly transperrant manner to their constituents must be held accountable - if not in a court of law then in the voting booths and those with the most power must be held accountable by the house of representatives acting on the will of the people...."

Sept 24-26 I'm going to Washington with my list of offenders who need to be Impeached/Prosecuted. I think there is room for another 200,000 to 300,000 people or supportive vigils in every home town. Blue votive candles with tealites would be nice.


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wakemewhenitsover Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 02:36 AM
Response to Original message
22. Kick
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garybeck Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 03:02 AM
Response to Original message
23. get this free CD on election fraud
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magellan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 03:34 AM
Response to Original message
24. I got a call from the Dems tonight asking for a contribution
So the lady gives me the 'this call may be recorded' spiel, followed by a request for $150. I nearly choked. Now before you all jump all over my case, I honestly couldn't afford a dime -- I gave the last of my pocket change to Skinner!! And it wasn't anything near a tenth of what the Dems wanted. But their call gave me a(nother) great opportunity to confront them with this issue.

"We need your support", the lady said, and I'm paraphrasing, "to put more Democrats back into Congress next year."

"I'm sorry," said I, "but I can't afford it right now. And even if I could, the only thing that's going to put more Dems in Congress next year is fixing the election system. The Democratic leadership have got to finally stand up and take the problem with election fraud seriously."

"Yes, ma'am, I understand what you're saying. Would a smaller donation be something you'd be more comfortable with?"

I paused. Tenacious buggers, aren't they?

"Perhaps you didn't hear me. There is no sense in my throwing money at the Dems when they have completely failed to address election fraud. The Republicans own the machines."

"Ma'am, I do understand what you're saying. But if you'd be willing to help --"

"I'm sorry, there are no 'buts'. Please tell me how giving you money is going to stop the GOP from flipping votes as they please next year? The machines are RIGGED. How is it going to stop voter suppression and intimidation and all the other problems in the election system if the Democrats refuse to publicly acknowledge these problems and don't fight to fix them?"

She gave up there. She either understood me or was thinking 'fruit loop'. I don't care. I watched what happened last year. I've seen the reports and studies and public forums; I've heard the statisticians and the eye-witness accounts. GOP election fraud is an obstacle to everything else we hope to achieve. If we don't sort that out -- if the Dems don't seriously get behind their own few heros in Congress like John Conyers who recognize how our election system has been undermined -- then I truly believe any hope of a Dem upset, or even much of a rally in '06, is a pipedream...regardless of the situation with Bush**.
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 03:46 AM
Response to Original message
25. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
meganmonkey Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 09:09 AM
Response to Original message
26. How in the hell could there be a deleted message on this thread!?
:crazy:

Anyway, it deserves a kick!

:kick:
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Imagevision Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 10:58 AM
Response to Original message
27. Diebold has no problems producing receipt at the ATM'S !!
Bur for the election of a President they say it's not necessary? where the hell were our DEM Sentors when this was going on?? This has always bothered me! where were they??

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slay Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 11:07 AM
Response to Original message
28. Election Fraud is one of the biggest problems facing America today
Partially because your average Joe doesn't even know about it (thanks corporate media), but mostly because a democracy is impossible without fair elections.
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Al-CIAda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 11:52 AM
Response to Original message
30. .
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blm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 12:32 PM
Response to Original message
31. kick////
.
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In Truth We Trust Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 12:34 PM
Response to Original message
32. Kick for Truth- this IS the problem and the solution is Paper ballots and
Hand counts. we are facing another fraWd next spring and fall and it is past time these electronic means of voting and counting were thrown to history's trash heap much the way lead eating utensils, asbestos, and lead paint have been diagnosed and disposed of.
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Imagevision Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 12:37 PM
Response to Original message
33. I don't understand why nothing came out of election fraud in Ohio
especially after seeing the sworn statements given by the computer programmer that Tom Feenie contracted to design software that would flip an election 51-49 - the video on this is incredible, he was asked to hide the voting manipulation in the source code so no-one would see it!
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colonist Donating Member (2 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-18-05 11:36 AM
Response to Reply #33
45. ignored fraud in Ohio
The Repubs are in charge of the State of Ohio, the Congress, the Presidency, and they win. Are you kidding? We will never have a voice unless we get honest elections!
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stevietheman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 01:35 PM
Response to Original message
34. If Bush received more votes than registered voters...
where is the criminal investigation into this clear fraud? I mean, isn't this beyond statistics and a clear impossibility?

Perhaps this should take on a different tack than just ensuring the next election is fair. Perhaps what we need to do is collect a few unassailable facts, with immaculate backup, and as a movement, make it known that an investigation needs to be made.

I mean... more votes than registered voters! Trumpet this as loud as we can!!

It just seems to me that we really cannot safeguard the next election unless and until we get the country to realize that some real fraud occurred in the last one. We don't have to talk about "Kerry being the real President"... Just talk about the top three "impossible things" that happened in the election. Present the math in a way where there is no room for fuzziness.

Pardon me for saying this, but we have got to "dumb down" what the fraud was about.
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Al-CIAda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 10:09 PM
Response to Original message
36. .
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Nothing Without Hope Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 10:11 PM
Response to Original message
37. What a superb opening post. The people at BuzzFlash thought so too -
it's on their home page now.

Thank you for this!
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reprehensor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 11:13 PM
Response to Reply #37
41. !
I love Buzzflash. Thanks for the heads up.
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faithnotgreed Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 10:46 PM
Response to Original message
38. any post that discusses election fraud & john conyers & gore vidal
has to be the greatest

thank you reprehensor
this is the vital crucial ofutmostimportance subject

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AuntPatsy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 10:48 PM
Response to Original message
39. Kicking for non fraudelent voting systems....
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bpilgrim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 10:57 PM
Response to Original message
40. awesome post!
:toast: thank you

peace
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Mnemosyne Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-17-05 11:22 PM
Response to Original message
42. Amen. Thank you. n/t
:kick: :kick: :kick:
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faithnotgreed Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-18-05 11:23 AM
Response to Original message
43. i wont let you fall~
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reprehensor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-18-05 12:18 PM
Response to Original message
46. Visibility.
This DU post is listed on BuzzFlash;

"More on Election Fraud 8/18"

and Mr. Miller listed it on his blog as well;

Mark Crispin Miller blog.

Now if we could just get Howard Dean's advisors to read it...


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bearfan454 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-18-05 12:21 PM
Response to Original message
47. Proof right here. You said:
"...In 2004 Bush far exceeded the 85% of registered Florida Republican votes that he got in 2000, receiving more than 100% of the registered Republican votes in 47 out of 67 Florida counties, 200% of registered Republicans in 15 counties, and over 300% of registered Republicans in 4 counties."

He CANNOT get more votes than there are voters. It's impossible.
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GuvWurld Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-18-05 12:48 PM
Response to Original message
48. Looking for something to do about it?
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Al-CIAda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-19-05 12:44 AM
Response to Original message
50. .
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reprehensor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-19-05 10:39 AM
Response to Original message
51. Paul Krugman: What They Did Last Fall
What They Did Last Fall

By running for the U.S. Senate, Katherine Harris, Florida's former secretary of state, has stirred up some ugly memories. And that's a good thing, because those memories remain relevant. There was at least as much electoral malfeasance in 2004 as there was in 2000, even if it didn't change the outcome. And the next election may be worse.

In his recent book "Steal This Vote" - a very judicious work, despite its title - Andrew Gumbel, a U.S. correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, provides the best overview I've seen of the 2000 Florida vote. And he documents the simple truth: "Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election."

snip

Meanwhile, the whitewash of what happened in Florida in 2000 showed that election-tampering carries no penalty, and political operatives have acted accordingly. For example, in 2002 the Republican Party in New Hampshire hired a company to jam Democratic and union phone banks on Election Day.

snip

Our current political leaders would suffer greatly if either house of Congress changed hands in 2006, or if the presidency changed hands in 2008. The lids would come off all the simmering scandals, from the selling of the Iraq war to profiteering by politically connected companies. The Republicans will be strongly tempted to make sure that they win those elections by any means necessary. And everything we've seen suggests that they will give in to that temptation.
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Al-CIAda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-19-05 11:30 AM
Response to Original message
52. .
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Al-CIAda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-19-05 02:08 PM
Response to Original message
53. .
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Humor_In_Cuneiform Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-20-05 06:55 PM
Response to Original message
54. I could not agree more
And I'm tired of saying it over and over, and apparently not being heard.

There'll be a March on Washington for Peace.

We need large scale demonstrations for making every vote count.

We need to be like the Ukrainians.

Just say no to vote fraud.
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Al-CIAda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-21-05 01:16 PM
Response to Original message
55. .
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Al-CIAda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-21-05 08:49 PM
Response to Original message
57. .
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