Join the call: "OBAMA, Don't Pull A 'John Kerry'!"

[emlev]

Call or Email Obama and insist he make a commitment to Election Integrity!

See the bottom of this post for contact info.

Before you say, "How could Obama pull another John Kerry? Obama's clearly going to win," please hear me out.

I absolutely agree with you that more people -- many, many more people -- intend to cast their votes for Barack Obama than for John McCain or any other candidate. In a fair election, Obama would clearly have a landslide victory.

A fair election, however, is not what we're having. Look around and you'll find:

• Purging of thousands upon thousands of eligible voters from the voting rolls;
  
• Lawsuits, smear campaigns, and other dirty tricks aimed at preventing people likely to vote Democratic from voting at all;
  
• Apparent preparations by McCain's campaign to challenge the elections should Obama prevail;
  
• A nation whose votes, approximately 95% of them, will be 'counted' by riggable, hackable electronic voting machines. While in some places paper ballots ('counted' by optical scan machines) exist for hand counting, almost nowhere will these paper ballots be counted, and in even fewer places will they be counted before a winner is declared.
  
• Exit polls, used all over the world to detect problems with vote counts and flag the need for investigations, are in the U.S. now adjusted to match the official vote totals before being released to the public.
  
• Karl Rove working for Faux News, where he may have the ability to 'call' the election for McCain just as Bush's cousin inside Faux News 'called' the 2000 Florida vote for Bush.
  
• The corporate media has shown consistent willingness, if not eagerness, to do the GOP's bidding.

So while I'm not saying the election results WILL be manipulated, I am absolutely certain that they CAN be. And equally certain that there is no way, with the current election technology in use, that the entire national vote count can be proven to be accurate.

Anybody who is not considering the possibility that McCain could be declared the winner of the 2008 presidential election is refusing to face reality.

Before the 2004 election, John Kerry repeatedly assured voters that he would make sure all votes were counted. Yet he conceded the day after the election, when even in Ohio -- the state whose 22 electoral votes would decide the race -- millions of votes remained uncounted, concentrated in highly Democratic areas.

In contrast, Barack Obama is not speaking about the integrity of the elections at all.

Why not?

He's likely buying the DNC line that if people are worried about election integrity, they won't vote. As an election integrity advocate for the last four years, I can tell you that the more people learn about the corruption of the electoral process, the more likely they tend to be to work hard for change and make sure they vote!

Barack Obama needs to hear from us. A lot of us. He needs to hear that, just as he calls for us to stand for him -- with our volunteer time, our dollars, and our votes -- we call on him to Stand For Voters. To stand not only for his own political future but for the future of our nation and our democracy.

Will you please join with me in getting this message through to Barack Obama?

I'm working on a program called Standing For Voters, at www.StandingForVoters.org. We're asking candidates for ALL offices, regardless of their party, to sign our Pledge. Presidential candidates Cynthia McKinney (Green) and Ralph Nader (independent) have even signed our stronger Super Pledge. So far, no response from Barack Obama. Please call or email Obama and ask him to:

• Sign the Standing For Voters pledge:
  

  I, _________________, pledge to use my candidacy, whenever feasible, to advance the preservation of democracy. I will officially challenge the results of the election as provided by law if the combination of election conditions, incident reports, and announced election results calls into question the reliability of the official vote count. Should another candidate be declared the winner in my race, I will wait until all valid votes are counted and all serious challenges resolved before conceding defeat.

  
  
• Speak out about the importance of fair, accurate and transparent elections. and
  
• Promise the nation that he will fight for justice in this year's election, should that become necessary.

It's up to you to help get Barack Obama's attention!
Call Toll-Free: [phone] or email from the Obama campaign's webform.

Forward this message to your friends! (Click on "Printer-Friendly Format" just above this post, then copy the post and paste it into an email.) Or send them to Standing For Voters. The "For Voters" page has this contact information and contact info for the other presidential candidates who have not signed the pledge.

And please, if you care about the integrity of the elections, remember: It is not only the presidential election that could be manipulated. Virtually all elections are at risk. Please go to Standing For Voters today and help bring more candidates on board!

I thank you for taking the time to read this and the time to act. A few minutes of your time could really make a big difference.

[IndianaJones]

1. Obama is everything Kerry could never be. nt.

[beachmom]

31. Obama wouldn't even be our nominee if it wasn't for Kerry.

I hate this either/or game. I like BOTH Democrats. Oh, and Kerry wrote that Small Biz proposal (federal disaster loans) Obama unveiled on Friday. The point is the TEAM EFFORT of so many Democrats is making this campaign go so smoothly. And Obama is a great candidate. See -- I can say that without knocking someone else.

[IndianaJones]

39. who's knocking. Kerry is a great supporter. nt.

[scheming daemons]

2. The question itself is insulting and stupid

Obama is the best Democratic politician in a generation.


Yes... better than the Big Dawg.

[msallied]

6. Hells to the yeah.

Nuff said! :thumbsup:

[GoneOffShore]

29. Hell - Eisenhower was a better Democrat than Clinton.

And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

[TankLV]

46. umm, ahh,,,suuuurrrrreee...

WTF?!?!

whatever gets you off...

once an irrational Clinton Hater, always an irrational Clinton Hater...

sigh...

[GoneOffShore]

65. Not an irrational Clinton hater

I voted for him with real enthusiasm the first time and a little less the second. I supported and apologized for him for eight years and then watched with horror as he proudly signed Welfare Reform, the MDCA, DOMA and NAFTA.

Carter was a better President - much better. And he's done great things since he left office. Clinton - not so much.

[thunder rising]

3. Chill...Barack's done just fine without you calling the shots.

[cliffordu]

4. That is exactly right...

[msallied]

5. Oh boy.

:popcorn:

[CakeGrrl]

7. You assume he's just sitting around with his finger up his nose about this. FAIL. n/t

[endthewar]

8. Babar!!!

Loved him as a kid. :hug:

[Forkboy]

32. "Is that with one B or two?"

"One, B-A-B-A-R."

"That's two."

"Yeah, but not right together. That's what I thought you meant."

[CakeGrrl]

68. Me too! One of my favorites along with Madeline.

:-)

[high density]

9. Umm, I think people can stop worrying about how Obama is running his campaign right about now

I know it's a weird feeling to have a Democrat running an effective presidential campaign, but it seems that's the case we've got right now.

[Eric J in MN]

10. K & R.

NT

[Kittycat]

11. Is this a joke?

What about the way Obama has ran his campaign reminds you of how Kerry ran his campaign? Because I sure the hell don't see it.

[ProSense]

15. "Presidential candidates Cynthia McKinney (Green) and Ralph Nader (independent) have even signed..."

Yeah, jokers.

[ProSense]

12. What a stupid, factless, and insulting post

First, know the facts.

Second:

In contrast, Barack Obama is not speaking about the integrity of the elections at all.

Why not?

He's likely buying the DNC line that if people are worried about election integrity, they won't vote. As an election integrity advocate for the last four years, I can tell you that the more people learn about the corruption of the electoral process, the more likely they tend to be to work hard for change and make sure they vote!

Barack Obama needs to hear from us. A lot of us. He needs to hear that, just as he calls for us to stand for him -- with our volunteer time, our dollars, and our votes -- we call on him to Stand For Voters. To stand not only for his own political future but for the future of our nation and our democracy.

Will you please join with me in getting this message through to Barack Obama?

I'm working on a program called Standing For Voters, at www.StandingForVoters.org . We're asking candidates for ALL offices, regardless of their party, to sign our Pledge. Presidential candidates Cynthia McKinney (Green) and Ralph Nader (independent) have even signed our stronger Super Pledge. So far, no response from Barack Obama. Please call or email Obama and ask him to:

What the hell are you talking about?

Third: Fuck Ralph Nader.

[globalvillage]

13. Insulting his best surrogate

might not be the most effective strategy. I'd try something that wouldn't alienate a whole lot of people who might otherwise join your effort. I'd probably skip Nader, too. Just the thought of him tends to piss a lot of people off.

[Undercurrent]

14. Do you seriously think

that Obama doesn't have this covered? He has constructed the best political machine in decades, maybe the best in the history of our country.

[emlev]

17. There is reason for serious concern that it is not covered.

As you can see from the early responses to this thread, there's a lot of denial about the possibility of significant manipulation of this election. That denial extends way up in his campaign. I know this from colleagues in the election integrity movement who have been trying very hard to educate those in the campaign about the dangers. What Obama's personal views are on the subject, I do not know.

I'm not accusing him of anything. I'm asking that people communicate to him that the fairness, accuracy, transparency, and integrity of the election matter to us.

[ProSense]

25. "What Obama's personal views are on the subject, I do not know. "

Wouldn't it be a good place to start before launching an insulting petition, accusing Obama of doing nothing and attacking the DNC?

By the way are you aware that the DNC is a vastly different organization today from 2004?

Better to do what Kerry is doing, getting out the vote. Vote suppression accounted for nearly one million votes in Ohio and Florida alone.

[emlev]

36. There's no insulting petition here. It's a request to speak out on a crucial issue. n/t

[ProSense]

42. Your post is insulting.

You unnecessary decided to bash Kerry, Obama and the DNC under the guise of calling for election integrity.

Your post if bullshit.

[mzmolly]

16. Obama has just announced a committement to EE and is sending

over 100 volunteer attorneys to various swing states. :hi:

[emlev]

19. link?

I heard this was going to happen today and haven't seen it.

I hope it's way over 100 attorneys! Just in case.

[mzmolly]

28. I heard that same thing about today...

We probably read the same article? Sorry, I don't recall where the link was...

[emlev]

57. Maybe this one?

Obama Aides: Record Cash Raised In September, Polls Show McCain Ads Backfired

[firedupdem]

18. self delete

[emlev]

20. Cute. Most of the signers are Democrats.

I only listed the presidential candidates who signed. You're welcome to go to the site and see the list of people who have signed on so far. It'd be nice to know who you're insulting, wouldn't it?

[Overseas]

21. Obama's team has been closely watching election integrity and will not

concede early if there are clear doubts like last time, or before the counting has finished.

He won't be intimidated by not wanting to appear as a "sore loser." He knows he's fighting for us.

[emlev]

22. Comforting if true.

Where have you seen the indications of that? I'd really like to see them for myself.

[Overseas]

55. Recent series of quick legal actions around the country

curbing Republican standard vote stealing incidents, such as purging of voter rolls-- caught and stopped one recently. And a few other ways in which voters were being disenfranchised have been caught or adjudicated within the past year. The Obama campaign said somewhere that it had legal counsel standing by, monitoring such issues. (I hesitate because I recall Senator Kerry saying the same thing. I just think the public knows so much more about the issue now that they'll give Senator Obama more time, and no one will think him a sore loser type if he asks for a moment for the counting to be reviewed. No one will be pushing him to concede too soon if the Republicans try to steal it again.)

I am hoping the nobly active election integrity organizations will have a list of the recent legal cases for you. Senator Obama has proven himself to be aware of all kinds of civil rights issues, so, with his fleet of attorneys, I'm sure they've reviewed election integrity issues and stayed current with the latest cases. www.velvetrevolution.us I think, is a main one. www.stealbackyourvote.com will also list some of the recent victories, to renew your faith that things can change.

For an emergency update pamphlet prepared by passionate advocates of voting rights, RFK Jr and Greg Palast, please send friends to www.stealbackyourvote.com .

The deal is the Republicans used dribs & drabs method of vote stealing. It was a pain to track down. When we'd be shouting about one odd anomaly, more moderate folks would shout us down with "Aw. Those few votes won't affect the total outcome. Don't sweat it." The Republicans would use several methods to disenfranchise democrats, each little one wasn't much -- from preferential distribution of voting machines (i.e. too few in Democratic precincts), to robocalls and fliers misdirecting voters, to tossing out tons of ballots as "spoiled" on technicalities even when the intent of the voter is clear, to purging voter rolls of large blocks of voters with a very broad brush, to challenging voter registrations at the polling places not really to stop fraud but more to cause those hours-long lines we saw in 2004, designed to discourage Democrats from voting-- (I am still moved by their perseverance in hanging out for hours and hours just to be able to vote.)-- but put them all together and sorry to say, the 51/48 Bush Kerry official result was the actual one, flipped. A six-point shift happened in the wee hours of election night. The formerly accordant exit poll data and vote counts diverged to end up SIX POINTS DIFFERENT-- Kerry down three, Bush up three. See below for documentary info to see the stuff on film.

So I've seen a lot of legal action in the past year, which has brought election integrity in battleground states into everyone's focus, including Senator Obama's. But he doesn't need to become embroiled in the minutiae of vote manipulation personally; he can designate a staffer to keep him up to date with the latest cases, which I'm sure he does. It's a hot button issue, and so far Senator Obama has been on top of all of them, in a rational and compassionate manner. And he's got that team of lawyers to summarize key events and workshop certain scenarios.

He has been a very precise person in his moves thus far, so I do expect that he's been working on various scenarios pertaining to whether or not the Republican party leaders manage to call off the dirty tricks squad and allow the people's choice to stand this time. Or whether they plunder ahead and steal this one too, or try some clumsy twisting to imply the election has been stolen from them and get their corporate tigers on the Supreme Court to give them four more years again. So election integrity is quite Hot Button, he and his team know.

Things have been moving. Still far to go. Lots more people are watching this time.

Luckily, enough people have seen calm and comprehensive documentaries like "Stealing America: Vote by Vote" www.stealingamericathemovie.com , and know that Republicans used the dribs and drabs method last time. 1,000 votes here and there, by various methods. Electronic is just one of many. But election 2004 was allowed to stand, even with exit poll v. vote count anomalies only occurring in Democratic precincts, favoring Republicans... Movies like that, as calm and considerate as it was in giving an overview of election manipulations past and present, also alert everyone to the complexity of the issue and the various techniques the Republicans have emplyed. It's not just the software. It's intimidation and many other older techniques the RNC rolls out just to confuse things.

Like those voter registration challenges at the polls. That's where they wanted to use foreclosure voter roll purging and were stopped. But Republicans will look for a list of other reasons to challenge voters to prove their registrations, not really worried about much actual fraud, but just wanting to slow things down to depress Democratic turnout.

We all know a lot more about this issue. Check out the documentary if you haven't seen three already. A lot more people know a lot more about the many methods used to skew the vote counts now. We won't be alone. Moderate Democrats won't be so quick to brush us aside this time if we witness and report on anomalies in the field.

So, given what we know, we want that landslide to be more like an avalanche. To overcome whatever awful mix of election manipulation techniques the RNC has planned.

I hope the dirty tricks squad is called off because Republicans know they need the Democrats now to clean up the economy and move the USA into alternative energy rapidly. They may realize they need the Democrats to clean things up and build up a budget surplus for the next Republican to steal.

[mod mom]

23. excellent post! rec'd

I'm working EP w OH Dems. We've been recruiting attys to serve as observers for Nov 4. Fitrakis et al are recruiting observers for the Greens. I suggested today it would be nice if they could work somewhat together so there is no overlap while other precincts go un-observed. Someone is checking into the logistics of this. I explained that Bob ran for Gov in '06 because Streickland refused to sign a won't concede until all votes are counted form and he didn't trust Blackwell or that the Dems would fight. I believe the
dems will fight this time (or else I wouldn't be working for them.)

thanks for this!

[emlev]

34. Glad to hear how it looks from your vantage point. Thanks!

[stillcool]

24. How about we the people..

hold our state government's accountable for the security, and accuracy of our voting systems?

[emlev]

30. Absolutely!

That's a big part of what the election integrity movement has been working on.

This particular project, the candidate pledge at Standing For Voters, is related to that. In some situations, whether because of legal standing or availability of resources (lawyers, money, etc.), it will be the candidates who are in the best position to push the states to make the needed changes. The situation is very complicated and really calls for a multi-pronged strategy. Getting candidates to stand up for the voters is just one of the prongs, which could lead to election challenges resulting in administrative or judicial rulings that make big changes in states' election systems.

Which is why I'm asking that We the People ask candidates to do their part. Not just Obama. All candidates.

[stillcool]

44. I do not believe it is a candidates..

responsibility to have my vote count. It is my vote, not theirs. It is our responsibility. It is our Secretary of State. It is our State Government. I am really tired of people blaming John Kerry for not counting votes that could not be counted, while Kenneth Blackwell is writing about election fraud in the newspaper and appearing on tv. It's been four years! Half the country is still voting on DRE's with absolutely no way to conduct a recount, but at the same time 18 states have legislated paper ballots and standard audits after each and every election.

[sandnsea]

26. Fuck this thread

and the stupid idiots who don't know there wouldn't be a Barack Obama candidacy without John Kerry.

[beachmom]

33. I want to second that sentiment.

[Name removed]

35. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JanusAscending]

37. Well said sandsea !!

I couldn't have said it better myself. I'm afraid if I did, I'd be tasting pizza for a while!!! Some people seem to have no trust in Obama, and as far as John Kerry is concerned, THEY NEVER KNEW HIM!:mad: :wtf:

[beachmom]

27. Oh, for crying out loud. Kerry did the right thing in 2004. The point

is to win above a certain percentage so the shenanigans aren't a factor. That is what Obama is doing.

So .... your post is annoying for its bashing of Kerry and future bashing of Obama. Sheesh.

[ProSense]

38. People don't give a shit.

They just want to continue the BS spin for grandstanding purposes.

Preemptively bash Obama, bash Kerry, and bash the DNC? Isn't the DNC a different organization under Dean from the failed one run by McAuliffe?

I understand wanting to call attention to the GOP tactics, but to turn it into a negative post aimed at Democrats is ridiculous.

[foo_bar]

40. the part about exit polls is horseshit as you're probably aware by now

Exit polls, used all over the world to detect problems with vote counts and flag the need for investigations, are in the U.S. now adjusted to match the official vote totals before being released to the public.

Corrected version follows:

Exit polls, used for over fifty years by television networks to project races, often incorrectly, have recently enjoyed a revival by conservative thinktanks lobbying to destabilize democratic regimes abroad:

A key part of the media game has been the claim that Yushchenko won according to "exit polls". What is not said is that the people doing these "exit polls" as voters left voting places were US-trained and paid by an entity known as Freedom House, a neo-conservative operation in Washington. Freedom House trained some 1,000 poll observers, who loudly declared an 11-point lead for Yushchenko. Those claims triggered the mass marches claiming fraud. The current head of Freedom House is former CIA director and outspoken neo-conservative, Admiral James Woolsey, who calls the Bush administration's "war on terror" "World War IV". On the Freedom House board sits none other than Brzezinski. This would hardly seem to be an impartial human-rights organization.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/GA20Ag01.html

Two separate exit polls showed a clear victory by Mr. Yushchenko. One poll showed him ahead by 4 Percent, and the otherby the Exit Pollconsortium, supported by European governments and private Western foundations -- showed Mr. Yushchenko winning by 11 percent.

http://www.freedomhouse.org/media/pressrel/112204.htm

More provocatively, the US and other western embassies paid for exit polls, prompting Russia to do likewise, though apparently to a lesser extent. The US's own election this month showed how wrong exit polls can be. But they provide a powerful mobilising effect, making it easier to persuade people to mount civil disobedience or seize public buildings on the grounds the election must have been stolen if the official results diverge.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukraine/story/0,15569,1360297,00.html

Pro-Yanukovich television stations used Russian exit poll results to vouch support for him as outcries against falsification increased and the CEC stalled in delivering official results. In addition, the exit poll did not really exist in Ukrainian political culture before 2004. Voters, who already believed the vlada would falsify the election months in advance, had a new tool at their disposal to reconfirm their suspicions. Steele posits that the exit polls, funded by the US and Russia, influenced the voters to take to the streets.

http://leopolis.blogspot.com/2004_12_01_leopolis_archive.html

a) The Democracy Program is the Center's most well known initiative. It works for "the development of inclusive democratic societies and the empowerment of citizens through election observation, consensus-building for international standards for democratic elections, and democracy-strengthening activities in emerging democracies and regional organizations." To date, the Carter Center has monitored more than 50 of what Jimmy Carter calls "troubled democratic elections, all of them either highly contentious or a nation's first experience with democracy." Since 2000, Carter Center delegations have overseen local and national elections in Peru, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guyana, East Timor, Zambia, Sierra Leone, China, Kenya, Mozambique, Guatemala, Indonesia, Congo, and Ethiopia. In most of those cases, the Center opposed the use of independent exit polls to verify whether its assessments of the elections' integrity were accurate.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7314

According to the Chicago Tribune,

Alejandro Plaz, president of Súmate, which has worked closely with opposition groups to observe the referendum process, said a quick count by his organization also showed Chavez winning Sunday's referendum. At the same time, Plaz said a nationwide exit poll commissioned by Súmate of 20,000 voters showed the opposition winning 59 percent of the vote. "Our results have given us a doubt the machines produced an outcome that reflects the will of the people," Plaz said.

But Carter, a veteran election monitor, discounted the Súmate and other exit polls, which he explained are "quite unreliable" in predicting electoral outcomes. "There is a high chance even in the best of circumstances that exit polls are biased," Carter said Monday.

http://www.zonalatina.com/Zldata373.htm

[PBS Poll-435]

43. I trust all of your sources. Thanks.

:eyes:

[foo_bar]

45. did you have anything specific in mind?

Freedom Haus conducted the magical exit poll cited by True Believers, so the horse's mouth seemed appropriate.

[PBS Poll-435]

47. Sure. What is a little dioxin poisoning among friends?

Why wouldn't you believe a surrogate of the Kremlin? They haven't done anything horrific in a really long time!

[foo_bar]

48. ah, Putin rearing his head.

You're being pretty harsh on the Guardian. How many of the articles did you read in the <5 minutes it took you to respond? Do you also boycott books you haven't read?

[PBS Poll-435]

50. Did I say anything about Putin?

Or his "rearing head?"

Nope.

On a side note, do you think Ohio was legit. All 88 were a-okay with you?

[foo_bar]

53. I must have been thinking of that other Putin (Re: "Kremlin surrogate")

I'm sorry you didn't appreciate the Palin joke (no one wants their sacred cow gored), but it is strange to see common cause between the Nader folks and the Hillary 4ever peeps. I doubt Ohio was "legit" by any stretch, but the exit poll estimates (read: samples of less than 1% of the voting population, using a dozen precincts out of hundreds in Ohio, for instance) were "off" by considerably wider margins in states like Vermont with relatively secure elections and no republicans near the levers of power, which is to be expected: exit polls are estimates, no more and no less than a media spectacle to fill in the dead air until official returns trickle in and provide titillating data about society's ample divisions.

Feel free to read the non-tainted sources if fear of the US Interests Section ever matches its Russian counterpart.

[PBS Poll-435]

54. We should end this sub-thread now.

We obviously do not agree about this issue.

[Peace Patriot]

58. Yup, corrupt exit pollsters produce corrupted exit poll results.

But where the exit pollsters are not corrupt--as in Germany--the exit polls are very reliable. And they have been very reliable here, until the Bush Junta.

It is a Bushwhack "Alice in Wonderland" psyops trick to corrupt government and election processes, and then cry "Election fraud!" or more recently, "Voter fraud!", in order to disrupt democracies, destabilize countries and prevent good leaders and governments from being elected.

You could as well use, say, electronic voting, run by Bushwhack corporations, with 'TRADE SECRET' code, to say that democracy just doesn't work, so let's forget about voting and let the Corpo/fascists crown a king.

Exit polls are an excellent tool for detecting error and fraud when used properly by honest pollsters.

[emlev]

64. Well put. n/t

[foo_bar]

66. it's an urban myth though

"they have been very reliable here, until the Bush Junta."

One of the odd bits of received wisdom I keep hearing about the exit poll controversy is that up until this year, the exit polls were "always right." If so then this year's errors seem "implausible," and wild conspiracy theories of a widespread fraud in the count somehow seem more credible. The problem with this reasoning is that exit polls similarly "wrong" before, though perhaps not to the same degree or consistency. <...>

http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2005/01/the_war_room.html (Mark Blumenthal, Democratic pollster)

Short answer: no, they aren't. Actually, I had to go back all the way to 1980 to find a U.S. presidential exit poll that seems to have been accurate within sampling error. (There could be one or two others; partly it could depend on how one assesses accuracy.) The 1992 exit poll was almost as discrepant as the 2004 poll, and I still haven't encountered a serious, sustained argument that it evinces fraud. That's probably why Kennedy resorted to Germany to make his point -- which is actually flat-out wrong anyway. I'll say a bit more on that below. When (for instance) Warren Mitofsky talks about his record of accuracy, what he means is that he has rarely made wrong projections. Basically that is because the "exit pollsters" don't rely on interviews alone to project close races; they wait for quick count and/or county returns. So the interview data don't have to be entirely "accurate." To answer your original question, the U.S. exit polls don't seem to be very reliable either. The discrepancies vary from state to state and from year to year.

http://archives.neuralgourmet.com/2006/07/18/of_public_opinion_exit_polls_and_fraud_or_the_lack_thereof_part_2 (Mark Lindeman, the fearsome ER polsci professor)

Exit polls are an excellent tool for detecting error and fraud when used properly by honest pollsters.

Elections are much better tools than estimates when "used properly", since they reflect the will of one-person-one-vote (archaic concept I realize) instead of the will of the one-in-a-thousand who offer to participate in the postgame show; if exit polls can and have been corrupted or even biased, as Carter maintains and even you admit in the post I'm responding to, how are corrupted statistical inferences superior to a corrupt election? Right, "when used properly by honest pollsters"; how do you go about finding one? In your words, on the 2004 exit pollster: "I've no doubt Mitofsky is in collusion with the War Party...Mitofsky himself TOLD A BIG FAT LIE"( -src); how do you reconcile the belief that a pollster is corrupt yet his polls were more accurate than every election in the northeast? I mean it's within the realm of possibility, except real election fraud every two years is invariably suppression based, and people who are illegally prevented from voting don't show up on exit polls (unless they tell the pollster they voted), so by definition exit polls aren't a theft metric. And more to the point, the argument is just as weak from the fascistic Right:

Critics of the exit poll have questioned how it was conducted because Penn, Schoen & Berland worked with a U.S.-funded Venezuela group that the Chavez government considers to be sided with the opposition. The firm had members of Súmate, a Venezuelan group that helped organize the recall initiative, do the fieldwork for the poll, election observers said. Schoen said his firm "worked with a wide variety of volunteers that were provided by Súmate" but that they "were trained to administer the poll."

http://www.zonalatina.com/Zldata373.htm

You could as well use, say, electronic voting, run by Bushwhack corporations, with 'TRADE SECRET' code, to say that democracy just doesn't work, so let's forget about voting and let the Corpo/fascists crown a king.

I'm not really following your point here (besides the trade secrecy mantra), the only folks implying democracy "just doesn't work" are the ones who believe it's all a Diebold puppet show in The Matrix. I believe democracy does work, much better than statistics or nihilism anyway, since every person gets to have their voice counted (in an honest system) instead of letting a chosen few decide the fate of all. In that sense, elections are merely exit polls with a 100% sample instead of a 0.5% one, which is to say it takes much less corruption to subvert a poll with <1000 people than one with 100,000,000.

[Pokey Anderson]

41. Unfortunately....

Unfortunately, these days, running an excellent campaign is not sufficient to win.

Getting more votes is not sufficient to win, unless those votes count.

In 2004, I would have bet good money that George W. Bush would not get a second term in office. It was pretty clear to me he hadn't done much of anything right for 4 years. However, he did get a second term. On the basis of "winning" the state of Ohio.

Raise your hand if you think George W. Bush won Ohio in 2004.

Okay, now think up all the ways an electronic election can be stolen, and report back hee. If you have less than 8, go get some more.

Once you've done a little homework, remind Obama to do the same.

[ginnyinWI]

49. Obama would resent that kind of remark.

There is no need to diss Kerry now. I agree with others in this thread who've said the same. It's childish and ignorant and Obama would have none of it, seeing as how Kerry is one of his earliest and strongest surrogates.

[emlev]

51. It was not my *intention* to insult anyone, yet I can see I have.

I wish now I'd chosen a different subject line for my post, because I think the one I used has unnecessarily set people off.

As an advocate of elections with integrity I am still, four years later, asked at least weekly, "Why did Kerry concede so early?" I mean it. I'm not making this up.

I'm often also asked, in these words, "Do you think Obama will pull a John Kerry?"

I am asked these two things so often that I may have miscalculated how common these concerns -- and these phrases -- are here on DU.

So, my subject line was crappy. I can admit that.

Beyond that, though, the main content of my post is important. I ask that you read it all the way through. I am not saying that the election will be manipulated, or even that if it is manipulated it will be to the extent that would cause Obama to be declared the loser.

I'm not saying that Obama doesn't care or that he won't fight.

I'm saying he hasn't spoken out about this issue and we need him to speak out. Again, It's not just the presidential election in question. So even if you believe he's got it in the bag for the mere reason that thousands upon thousands more people will vote for him, take a look at the possibility that Congressional elections are also at risk, including some very close elections. Visible leadership from Obama on the issue of election integrity would have a ripple effect all the way down the ticket.

It's important that Obama hear from his supporters about this. I'm not asking you to criticize him.
If it's important to you that the candidates who get the most votes actually win their elections, why not ask candidates you support to say out loud that they care about our democracy, too?

[GuvWurld]

52. Wow. So many enlightened DUers in this thread willfully missing the point.

We should all know better by now than to think we can have credible elections with:

--paperless electronic voting in 30% of the country;
--secret corporate vote counting in 95%+ of the country;
--media who report results that come from one source (government), even though media hasn't and can't independently verify the reported results and the government can't prove them

Who are we kidding anyway? We are so deluded. The consent of the governed is being assumed and taken for granted.

You want to see an Obama landslide, then great, work your asses off. But don't think the results will be provable unless every Obama voter is prepared to stand and be counted in the streets and Obama himself is willing to persist in ways Kerry did not.

Please, all the bullshit up thread is not relevant and intentionally misses the point of the OP and the entire Standing For Voters project.

Keep up the good work, emlev!

[GuvWurld]

56. Kick for visibility

[Alter Ego]

59. Barack's got enough money to get lawyers to whatever state there's even

a hint of election fraud in.

He's not gonna give this up if the Republicans try to steal it. You saw how he handled that mess in Michigan with the foreclosures.

[Mass]

60. No, I wont. No need to attack a good Dem to make your point. And you better campaign than doing

that anyway.

[Jersey Devil]

61. *&#@*% nozzle OP

idiotic

[Mass]

62. I think you meant a McAuliffe, but Dean is not McAuliffe, so go back and campaign,

[Peace Patriot]

63. Excellent post! Much needed! Thank you, Emlev!

Something we all need to face--and which cries out for investigation--is our own party's complicity in the destruction of transparent vote counting, and giving over our election system to private, partisan, Bushwhack corporations and their "TRADE SECRET" code.

This coup d'etat occurred between 2002 and 2004, with the fast-tracking of completely non-transparent, electronic voting systems all over the country, with a $3.9 billion electronic voting boondoggle from the Anthrax Congress, passed with overwhelming Democratic support in the same month as the Iraq War Resolution (Oct 02).

Our so-called Democratic leadership in Congress has said nothing about it and done nothing about it--and in fact buried the scandalous Florida-13 ES&S election theft (06) six feet under. In that case (06), ES&S (brethren to Diebold) voting machines 'disappeared' 18,000 Democratic votes for Congress, in an election that the Republican 'won' by only some 350 votes. When lawyers for the Democrat (Christine Jennings) took the matter to court, and requested to review ES&S's source code--to try to figure out what happened to those 18,000 votes--ES&S refused, and argued that their right to profit from our elections, with their 'TRADE SECRET' code, trumps the right of the voters to know how their votes were counted--and the judge agreed with ES&S!

Then Jennings took it to Congress--the ultimate arbiter of who sits in Congress--and we never heard about it again. Tabled and forgotten.

It is very possible that our democracy died there--tabled and forgotten.

THIS. NEEDS. TO. BE. DEALT. WITH.

THIS. IS. UNACCEPTABLE.

'TRADE SECRET' VOTE COUNTING, RUN BY BUSHITE CORPORATES, WITH VIRTUALLY NO AUDIT/RECOUNT CONTROLS IS, UNACCEPTABLE!

It is symptomatic of all the other ills in our election system--from voter purges to the filthy business of paying billions of dollars to Corpo/fascist TV monopolies for campaign ads.

It gives the Corpo/fascists the DECISIVE power--on top of everything else they do, to get Corpo/fascists into office--to bend, tweak and steal any election, anywhere in the country, in order to maintain a Corpo/fascist majority in Congress, whether D or R, and to keep Corpo/fascists in the White House long past their "expiration date" (2004), and, furthermore, to--at their will--permit a good guy to be elected president, but significantly shave his mandate, and saddle him a Blue Dog Congress and Great Depression II.

It is MIND-BOGGLING that our party leaders went along with this system, voted for it enthusiastically and still support it, although it is fraudulent on its face, and there is now overwhelming evidence that it has been used against Democratic candidates, and only Democratic candidates. It has to be a combination of fear and corruption that could result in this--and different mixtures of these two things in different Dem leaders. Just think about the obvious good guys, for a moment--Dean, Obama, Holt, Feingold, Kucinich. Any one of them can be destroyed by 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting, should the corporations that own and control the 'TRADE SECRET' code decide to do it. They would have no recourse. There is no transparency. So what I see that they are doing is trying to work around it--for instance, overwhelm the SECRET CODE with huge voter turnout, or minimize other Puke vote suppression tactics.

They are not facing this total lack of transparency head on, as they should. WHY?

Let me just tell you how insane 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting is, by a comparison. In Venezuela, they use electronic voting, but it is an OPEN SOURCE CODE system--anyone may review the code by which the votes are tabulated--and they, additionally, handcount a whopping 55% of the votes, as a check on machine fraud.

Here, we have 'TRADE SECRET' code throughout the system--code that the public is forbidden to review--and we handcount...take a breath!...ZERO percent of the votes, as a check on machine fraud, in half the systems in the country, and a miserable 1% in the rest (totally inadequate in a 'TRADE SECRET' code system). Some experts say we need a minimum 10% audit to detect fraud. We are not even close. And the reason we do a ZERO audit of these PRIVATELY CODED voting systems, in half the country, is that there is no ballot or paper trail of any kind TO count.

HOW. DID. THAT. HAPPEN?

It was NOT all the doing of the Republicans. It was in fact engineered by Christopher Dodd, working closely with the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney--and the $3.9 billion helped spread the corruption to nearly every election official, in every state in the country. One of the few who resisted--Kevin Shelley in California--was driven from office on entirely bogus corruption charges, after he sued Diebold to get a look at their SECRET code six months before the 2004 election. In 2005, election officials from around the country gathered at the Beverly Hilton, in Hollywood, for a week of fun, sun and high-end shopping--and e-voting propaganda--sponsored by Diebold, ES&s and Sequoia!

This thing is sickeningly corrupt. And our democracy is hanging by a thread, because of it.

What have the Democrats (and only the best of them, not all) done about this? They have lamely advocated adding a paper trail to this highly corrupt, 'TRADE SECRET' system, with a 1% audit.

Now tell me that they are not, a) fearful, or b) corrupt--or some mixture of the two. Fear I can understand. It is a frightening thing being in the middle of a coup d'etat. I have considerable sympathy for those who fear the naked power of Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia.

The main point is this: Not, will they steal it from Obama? But, CAN they steal it from Obama? The answer is they CAN, and they can do it EASILY, and we will have no recourse if they do.

THAT. IS. UNACCEPTABLE!

As for Congress, there is hardly a member of Congress, D o R, who can prove that he or she was actually elected. True of the 04 and 06 Congresses. Will be true of the 08 Congress.

THAT. IS. UNACCEPTABLE!

But don't look to Congress--or Obama--to change this. They will not. We must get this changed through a massive citizen campaign at the state/local level, where officials are somewhat more accountable to ordinary people. Your country registrar may live right now the street from you. That's who should be targeted--and thrown out, if, for nothing else, for the sheer, profligate expense of electronic voting systems and their maintenance, but mostly for the utterly anti-democratic lack of transparency. And we must do it before the Diebold III Congress federalizes control over our election systems, and mandates electronic voting without mandating an audit! The Anthrax Congress did not mandate electronic voting--they just corrupted the system with money. Handcounted paper ballots is still an option. Requiring a substantial audit is still up to state legislators. But our "window of opportunity" for this essential reform may be a narrow one. They can let Obama win--for a short period of godawful financial and social turmoil--then bring in Hitler II in 2012. And they won't need "brownshirts" stuffing ballot boxes and beating up voters. It will all be invisible.

I see this petition to Obama as a way to publicize the issue and educate people. I don't expect Obama to say or do anything about it. I don't think he can afford to cross the Bushwhack Corpo 'TRADE SECRET' vote counters, at this point. He got his start in the caucus states--which are not counted by Diebold & brethren--and that told me that he has genuine support. The activists who represent the 70% of the American people who opposed the Iraq War (review the polls from Feb 03 thru today)--the vast majority of the people--flocked to his campaign, since he was the last one standing who opposed the war. He is a good guy, doing his best. They may let him win. They may not. And their scenario--that of the Corpo/fascists who are running things--for the next decade, may work out, or may not. A key factor in how things go, for this country, will be what we do about 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting. Those who are dependent on these corporations for their power are not going to change this. We, the people, must change this--however we can get it done.

[GuvWurld]

67. Kick (eom)