OK, the BBV thread and the guy who called into the Malloy Show

[Ladyhawk]

have me a bit spooked about election theft via those notorious DIEBOLD and similar voting machines. How can we know if someone fudges the numbers? And if someone does, what recourses do we have?

[Andy_Stephenson]

1. Not much...

Just work harder to ensure the next election is not on electronics.

Paper...not vapor.

[blue sky at night]

2. Sorry I don't buy what "Phil" said to Mike

What are they going to do, make the vote B 100%, K 0%. I just don't think that could happpen, he sounded so cock-sure but you know what.......fuck him.

[SoCalDem]

13. "They" will/would not be that obvious..

That's why all the "close" poll numbers are so dangerous.. They provide COVER for tweaking the numbers here and there..just enough..

Let's say that a state that uses touch screens, and is within the margin of error is actually leaning Kerry....If that master PC is available to a republican hack who is cagey, the totals can be tweaked just enough to give * the EVs.. or what if the innards are rigged to swap 3 for 1 , very 4 hours or so..and then to "expire" the command a half hour before polls close?
How would we know?? Where are the ballots to cross check and recount??

I am just hoping that the hackers who lean democratic are better than the preppy repube hackers:)..or that the polls were SO grossly wrong, and the turnout is HUGE enough, that it won;t matter..

It's disgusting to think that after all the effort and money that has been spent, that we might not end up with the guy who really won...AGAIN...and worst of all, there will be NO WAY to even begin to prove we were wronged (if it happens again)..

[Eloriel]

3. That's the really big problem: there IS no way to know

in the absence of paper ballots tht are printed out, verified by the voter, and then left at the precinct, retained in separate ballot boxes. (Where have you been? We've been discussing this for months and months.)

[Andy_Stephenson]

4. Literally

months and months...

Hey Eloriel did you see the latest report we came out with?

Stick a fork in Dean Logan...he is done.

[Ladyhawk]

7. I know and I have been paying attention. It just hit me hard tonight.

It was that caller into the Mike Malloy Show. He was so SURE Bush* was going to win that I almost had a panic attack.

[Kanary]

11. It's hitting a lot of us hard, from time to time.

You don't have to defend yourself, and that was a very careless remark made to you. "Reality" comes in different ways, and there is no reason we have to absorb someone else's anxiety and anger just because we have the audacity to speak out loud what affects us. Things are hitting different people different ways........ I don't see that means we need to attack over it.

I know that you have been working very hard on GOTV, and in doing so, probably trying to keep your spirits up by "looking on the bright side" as much as you possibly can. We need to do that in order to keep putting one foot in front of the other when dealing with others in the process of getting them to vote, etc. That makes you vulnerable to such sudden realizations, and there's nothing at all wrong with that!

I think I know some of what you're going through..... the consequences are so severe for me personally, that I feel isolated from most people over this.

You're doing fine, Ladyhawk, and have just as much right to voice your concerns as *anyone else*!

:pals:

Kanary

[Philostopher]

5. How can we know?

without a paper trail, we really can't.

What recourse do we have? Well, none, if we don't have any proof. Where does the proof go? Into the ether.

HAVA should have been called the 'him who has the gold makes the rules' act. The only Americans the 'Help America Vote Act' really helps are the Americans who are in control of the sales of the machines, and those who are selling the machines. Like the guy at Diebold who said he was going to deliver Ohio to Bush* (he failed, you know -- mostly, Ohio is voting punch cards and scanned ballots again this year, a small minority of precincts will use EV). He failed because the system was unreliable and vulnerable to crashes, lost votes and hacking. The security on Diebold voting systems sucks, that's why I'll be voting on a punch card machine again this year (and I'm grateful).

I would ask this question -- if Ohio wasn't ready to drink the Kool-Aid, as much as the GOP runs it, what reason could there possibly be but dishonesty for other states to go heavily for it without a paper trail/voter's receipt?

Some folks on DU have accused people who don't trust electronic voting of 'tinfoil hattism' -- but it's clear from your post you can see where the weakness in the system lies. I don't consider myself an outlandish tinfoil hatter or conspiracy theorist, and I'm pretty distrustful of no-paper-trail electronic balloting. I think something is rotten in Denmark.

[liberalmuse]

6. It chilled me to the bone, but...

the Bushies sure aren't acting like they have the election sewn up, are they? 'Desparate' is the word, and if they truly did have it rigged, you'd think they wouldn't be coming across so shrill.

As horrific as that caller's scenario was--and god, it was, I'm glad he dragged my worst fear out of the closet. The stealing of the election via electronic vote fraud is the one thing I haven't wanted to face because there's not a damn thing we can do about it at this point in time. It's the black cloud I've been pushing out of my consciousness for 3 years now.

We have punchcards here. I called the County Clerk's office to verify if there were any plans to get electronic machines over 2 years ago. Bev Harris and other's have done an excellent job bringing what was a 'whacky conspiracy theory' more into the mainstream. Anyway, this is Utah. No sense in planting those machines here. They seem to be popping up in swing states though.

Even so, I plan on keeping a positive outlook on the election. I'm going into November 2nd full of hope, not fear. Dammit!

[Ladyhawk]

8. Yes, I asked ahead of time about voting machines here, too.

And yes, I've known about this problem since I first started posting on DU. It's just the combination of the BBV thread and Mike Malloy's caller nearly did me in. I haven't had a panic attack in a long time, but when I do have one, I usually need a shot to get back in control.

I guess I wanted someone to assure me that everything will be OK, but there's no way anyone can be sure of anything. Maybe I wanted someone to make the scary Republicans go away.

If this election is stolen--as the 2002 Georgia elections probably were (8181 8181; haha haha)--we're going to need proof if we plan to protest and take back our country.

[Ladyhawk]

9. Great...now I'm so scared I can't sleep.

:mad: Why can't life be simple????

[Jeebo]

10. We'll KNOW it if that happens...

If Kerry wins, say, 53-47, in paper-ballot precincts nationwide, and to overcome that, the Bushies have to program the electronic machines to produce, say, a 64-36 Bush margin in the 29 percent of the country that uses them, don't you think everybody will KNOW that the electronic machines were rigged? That's where that caller's theory fails. It will be SO obvious that the electronic machines were rigged, that the Bushies won't DARE do it.

Greg Palast said a week or two ago on Malloy's show that "This time, they'll cover their tracks better than they did four years ago." If the election is rigged, it will be rigged in a much more subtle way.

Which is why the Kerry camp needs to supplement their army of lawyers with another army -- an army of statisticians, mathematicians, oddsmakers and pollsters, who will analyze and scrutinize the Tuesday vote in minute detail, from all the angles, looking for the subtle statistical anomalies that will alert us to vote fraud.

That way, if the election is rigged, we will KNOW it, and we will be able to PROVE it statistically.

Ron

P.S. -- I'm thinking about a few months ago, when Bev Harris was on Malloy's show, and she said that the difference between the pre-election polls and the election-day tally in the Georgia senate and gubernatorial races was a "statistical impossibility." I suspect strongly that if the Kerry campaign employs that army of statisticians, they will find a number of "statistical impossibilities" subtly hidden in Tuesday's results.

[crickets]

12. Excellent points!

I feel much better after reading your post. Georgia got ROBBED in 2002. I'll never forget the sinking feeling, standing in line staring at those machines for the first time. I knew.

It's one thing for this to occur to a state, quite another to try to pull it off in several states at once during a presidential election involving an unprecedented turnout - especially since people are more attuned to the possibility of the steal. That will be the monkeywrench in their plans, I think.

[wildflower]

14. I'm worried too; thinking about what we can do.

The only things I can think to do are:

(1) Get out every last vote in the country; and

(2) Get this problem into the public awareness, so if something suspicious happens, there will be an outcry.

I know many of you have already been working on (2). (And (1), for that matter!)

Oh, and

(3) Contribute to the GELAC fund: https://contribute.johnkerry.com/gelac.html?team=4595 .

Because I liked what Jeebo said in this thread as well:

"Which is why the Kerry camp needs to supplement their army of lawyers with another army -- an army of statisticians, mathematicians, oddsmakers and pollsters, who will analyze and scrutinize the Tuesday vote in minute detail, from all the angles, looking for the subtle statistical anomalies that will alert us to vote fraud."

-wildflower