Election Fraud Brainstorm Thread

[mgr]

1. This thread is from comment #131 and that which follows from this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=393939&mesg_id=393939

The goal of this thread is to brainstorm stolen election evidence as the first step to evaluating that evidence. My role in this endeavor is closer to editor than judge or critic--any comments I make will have the overt intention to draw out explicit assumptions or ideas from a poster's implicit ones. The only exception I will take is with issues pertaining to voter suppression, and expressing my point of view. My role will also be shortlived, if this has legs, since I plan to go on vacation Sept. 30 and return Oct. 10. I will expect Chi, Febble, or Kiwi ExPat to fill my size 9's while I am gone.

I will set out four separate posts to allow for four strings:

1. evidence suggests votes for Kerry were lost
2. evidence suggests votes for Kerry were deliberately stolen
3. evidence suggests that loss of these votes cost Kerry the electoral college vote
4. evidence suggests that loss of these votes cost Kerry the popular vote.

Brainstorming is playing ideas and facts off of ideas. Criticism of ideas or posts is not allowed. I would recommend holding onto the criticism for the second thread which will involve evaluation of the various strings and facts.

2. Not that I don't expect it to occur, but we are adults.

As to criticism, I am not a believer in tombstoning for reasons pertaining to personal attacks. My rationale is that I take people's sincerity at face value unless there is reason to think otherwise--often posts that contain personal attacks also contain valid points, facts, and arguments that should not be censored with the element in the post that constitutes the personal attack. If a post strikes one as a personal attack, I am asking that the author either be PMed to provide the opportunity to edit out the offending portion, or a post made pointing out what in constitutes a personal attack, and would the person amend their post. Please refrain from contacting the moderators, unless there is indication that a concensus of the threads participants that deletion is necessary. Consensus should be that about 80% are in agreement.

The same holds for disruptors. Please do not refer to others as trolls, as this has a derogatory connotation connected to the homeless. This is a little more touchy, but if someone is disruptive or excessively hectoring, point it out to them first.

So much for the tedious start, lets get on with building the edifice:

[mgr]

1. String 1. Evidence to suggest votes for Kerry were lost

[Febble]

5. Okay, I'll kick this off

with my own work on Franklin County here:

Votes lost due to under-provision of voting machines in Franklin County, Ohio

and with a rather better credentially study of the same phenomenon by Walter Mebane here:

Voting Machine Allocation in Franklin County, Ohio, 2004: Response to U.S. Department of Justice Letter of June 29, 2005

and another piece by Walter Mebane here:

Timing And Turnout In Ohio

Here's Jim Knapp's take on the data (I used his dataset, and he posted my plot):

http://copperas.com/machinery/

and another interesting page from his site:

http://copperas.com/fcelection/

And here is Richard Hayes Phillips' calcs:

http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/columbus.htm

Cautious message seems to be: Kerry lost more votes than Bush to machine rationing in Columbus, and that many more African American voters were disenfranchised by machine rationing than white voters. Quantifying the loss is more tricky. I think RHP's numbers are too large, for the same reason that my estimate was too large. But a net loss to Kerry seems an unavoidable conclusion. The next question is: is it actionable?

Mebane concludes:

The allocation of voting machines in Franklin County was clearly biased against voters in precincts with high proportions of African Americans when measured using the standard of the November, 2004, electorate. In precincts with high proportions of African American voters there were 13.6 percent more active voters per voting machine than in precincts having low proportions of African American voters. While shortages of voting machines caused long delays in voting throughout the county, the allocation of voting machines among the county's precincts affected different voters differently. The most severe effects in terms of reduced voter turnout were incident on voters in precincts that had high proportions of African Americans. The most conservative estimate—based on the reported size of the active electorate in November—is that typically the shortages of machines reduced voter turnout by slightly more than four percent in precincts in which high proportions of the voters were African American, while shortages in precincts where very few voters were African American reduced voter turnout by slightly less than 1.5 percent.

If the allocation of voting machines is compared to information about the size of the active electorate that was available to Franklin County election ofcials at the end of April, 2004, then the allocation of machines is not biased against voters who were active at that time in precincts having high proportions of African Americans. But if election ofcials did use that information to make their allocation plans, then they made plans that involved using a total number of machines that was nearly 45 percent too small. Even using the April measure of the size of the active electorate, 5,023 working voting machines were needed, not 2,800 machines as data supplied by the county indicate were actually deployed on election day. And sticking with plans possibly made using the information from April meant that the officials gnored information during the summer and fall that showed that the November electorate would be substantially larger. Between April and November, voter registration in the county increased by 15 percent. If nothing else, the surge of new registrants should have been a clear indicator that plans made based on the April information would prove woefully insuffient.

(Edit to correct misleading sentence!)

[Blue Shark]

61. Febble...

...sometime turn your extensive analytical powers to precincts in Florida. The vote there was screwier than Ohio. That begs the follow-up questions about Nevada, New Mexico, etc.

...The cumulative weight of the evidence is subtantial and that is the message that ultimately must delivered.

[kiwi_expat]

8. Does this string include the votes in strings 2-4?

Intention is tricky to assess. Does this string include ALL votes lost and switched (and gained?), whether by accident or fraud?

[Febble]

13. I think they were originally my categories

so let me weigh in.

What I'd meant was to sort evidence into categories that they clearly support. Some evidence will support more than one category. For example it seems undeniable that Kerry lost votes to machine rationing in Franklin County Ohio.

What would go in category 2 is evidence that the rationing was done deliberately to deprive Kerry of votes.

But the categories won't be exclusive, I wouldn't have thought. Maybe we can cross-reference where necessary.

[mgr]

17. If I may

I think the problem is that the thread intends to address the matter objectively, but subjective appraisal is appropriate. If you think some evidence or argument walks and talks like a duck, call it a duck. I'm not and others should not tell you its a turkey. What you may self censor may be for me the opening to a different point of view, and a different avenue of attack. There is no 'stupid' here.

All that I think we want is a free play of ideas without suppression. Something may jump out that requires further attention in its own thread, so be it. The idea is to play, and not worry about bullies kicking sand, or spoilsports running home with the ball.

You stated that you have your own ideas on how the election was stolen, put it out there.

Mike

[kiwi_expat]

25. I think the election was "stolen" by vote suppression.

See posts #11 and #24

I think Kerry's "lost votes" in Ohio would have won him the Electoral College.

The under/overvote Kerry-Bush net plus the vote suppression (which I count as "stolen" votes) are sufficient to erase Bush's lead. The rest is just gravy.

Of course this does not necessarily mean that Kerry would have won a (clean) manual recount. I'm not sure that he had enough actual votes, as cast.

[mgr]

55. Deliberately destroyed voter registrations.

Las Vegas, NV, anywhere else?

[Bill Bored]

58. self delete, wrong string. nt

[mgr]

2. String 2: evidence suggesting votes for Kerry were deliberately stolen

[Febble]

23. Walter Mebane's view on machine rationing

in Franklin County

Negligent Or Malicious?

What about the DOJ {US Department of Justice}report result that there were more ballots cast per machine in the precincts having the smallest proportion of African Americans? All that tells us is that, in these precincts, each voter typically took less time to vote than voters did elsewhere. In the precincts with the lowest proportion of African Americans, typically 13 ballots were cast per voting machine per hour that the polls were open. In the precincts with the highest proportion of African Americans, typically 11 ballots were cast per voting machine per hour. The number of ballots cast per machine is not a measure of the fairness of the voting machine allocation.

Should the DOJ have exonerated Franklin County? The argument they used to do so ignored an important fact: The allocation of voting machines reduced voter turnout more among African American voters than among white voters. Probably the simple truth is that Franklin officials made their voting machine allocation decisions using the spring data on active voters, doing little or nothing to respond to the new voter registrations. Was that negligence malicious? Was it criminal? I am not a lawyer, but a clever attorney might argue that the Franklin County machine allocations had a rational and nondiscriminatory basis in the April data. That might legally exculpate them. But the DOJ did not take this approach. The least one can say is there was shamefully negligent administrative failure that deprived thousands of voters of their right to vote.

At TomPaine

[mgr]

54. Could this be elsewhere, away from Ohio?

I've had a difficult time with what went on in Maricopa County in Arizona; there's also the big three from Florida; as well as FooBar's Shouptropic issue in Phildelphia?

Any place else?

Mike

[OnTheOtherHand]

57. dunno , but anyplace you see long lines is a suspect... n/t

[Febble]

28. Just some headers

maybe people can fill them out:

Blackwell's conflict of interest.
Blackwell's obstruction of the Ohio recount
Blackwell's messing about with provisional ballot rules
Warren County lock-down.
Clint Curtis's testimony
Congressman King's "we'll take care of the counting" comment
Walden O'Dell's promise to deliver Ohio for the president.
Testimony regarding attempts at voter intimidation/misinformation
Apparent interference by Triad operatives in the Ohio recount (Sherole Eaton's testimony?)
Political donations from voting machine company to Republicans.

[Febble]

37. EIRS database

indicating that machines may default to a Bush vote.

[Bill Bored]

59. I think this thread has the best evidence ever presented on DU:

See posts by Iceburg who is a professional in this field.

Follow this string to my comments and link to the Ohio Ballot Order Bombshell thread started by Minvis:
<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=337686&mesg_id=338528>
and read the exchanges with rosebud57 and anything else you see in this thread that might be cool.

If you've never read this one, it's a classic!

Might also fall under the string here about Kerry winning that electoral college, but I'll just leave it here for now.

Good day.

[mgr]

3. String 3: evidence suggest that loss of these votes cost Kerry the

electoral college vote

[kiwi_expat]

11. list by Richard Hayes Phillips

ESTIMATED VOTE COUNT IN OHIO

by Richard Hayes Phillips


http://www.freepress.org/images/departments/Vote_Count_Ohio.pdf

[kiwi_expat]

24. Vote suppression in Ohio (mgr and Febble): 100,000+

"As an example, if one compares the voter turnout of Cleveland (53%) against Cincinatti (59%), almost 50,000 votes are lost; include the calculation (Febble) made for Franklin, and the total jumps to 100,000." -mgr

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x393939

[kiwi_expat]

26. Let's not forget Florida....

It is entirely possible that Kerry lost enough votes in Florida (land of the felon lists and "DREs for Bush") to have cost him that source of an Electoral College victory.

[mgr]

29. Long lines in Palm Beach, Volusia, Miami Dade

More voter suppression ala Mahoning in Ohio.

Mike

[kiwi_expat]

32. Here is a good list of Ohio vote-suppression fraud from Time_for_change:

"Voter intimidation, failure to issue absentee ballots, failure to issue provisional ballots in accordance with the law, probable illegal voter registration purges, giving voters incorrect information in order to prevent them from voting" -Tfc

He also mentions "obstruction of a full and fair recount" fraud. If, despite vote suppression, Kerry did have enough votes-as-cast in Ohio, the lack of a full and fair recount prevented him from becoming President.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=395100&mesg_id=395284

[kiwi_expat]

50. Greens' recounts indicate no tab fraud in Ohio "clean" counties

The Greens-Libertarian recounts in December '04 were thwarted in many ways. However the recounts in some "clean" counties, such as Hamilton county, were judged to be transparent and their manual-recount precincts were selected in a manner approaching "random".

No evidence of tabulator-fraud was discovered in those "clean" counties. That fact indicates that no state-wide systematic tabulator-fraud occurred in Ohio.


I figure that the above statement might possibly qualify as "evidence" rather than analysis. I got tired of waiting for mgr to return and start his second brainstorming thread. :-)

[mgr]

4. String 4: evidence suggests that loss of these votes cost Kerry the

popular vote.

[Febble]

14. Well, the exit poll discrepancy

has got to go in here.

If the exit poll was accurate, then Kerry won the popular vote.

Do I evaluate this here?

[OnTheOtherHand]

15. (no, as I read the instructions, don't evaluate) n/t

[mgr]

20. Let me push what may be a stand up argument:

Bill Bored and mgr make the argument that the exit poll discrepancy does not correlate well to patterns of fraud associated with either DREs or central tabulator fraud; and does not provide a coherent explanation of how the fraud was done. The problem may be that the organization of fraud was not top down or centralized, but diffuse throughout the republican party, with various BoEs taking direction only to have Bush win.

Please note that this takes a critique elsewhere, and offers an explanation as to why the critique does not apply. This is perfectly acceptable.

Mike

[OnTheOtherHand]

16. assertion that the pre-election polls showed Kerry ahead

based on registered-voter (rather than likely-voter) results, and allocation of undecideds

also buttressed by Bush's low approval ratings

I won't evaluate this evidence here, either ;)

[Time for change]

18. Also butressed by the fact that the pool of undecideds was large enough

that, according to the conventional wisdom that undecideds almost always break towards the challenger in the last few days of the election, that should have easily put Kerry over the top.

[Febble]

22. Means, motive and opportunity

as expressed by Mr_Jefferson_24 here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=395100&mesg_id=395170

The fact that we...

...had an election/voting system shoved down our throats that does not provide for complete transparency (during vote collection and tabulation) and conclusive accuracy verification through some kind of redundancy check, tells me everything I need to know. Who but a thief would even contemplate such a system, much less propose and implement it? Who but a thief would fight so hard to prevent effective means of transparency and verification from being put in place as the GOP has done? If we were to sit down and play poker with my new poker system where only I (the dealer) get to look at the hands dealt, determine the bets and cards taken, and then report the results without anyone but me ever allowed to look at any cards, might you become suspicious after I win all your money? Would you need to do statistical analysis to decide whether or not you'd been defrauded?

I still don't think it happened (for reasons I am prepared to defend) but it's got to be relevant that it could have done.

[Febble]

27. I've been putting this off

but I do think the following need evaluating as evidence in support of the hypothesis that the popular vote was stolen:

The perceived-by-many (including me) sheer implausibility of a majority of the nation's voters voting for Bush.

The insecurity of software that could have allowed a massive hack.

Wally O'Dell's notorious promise to deliver Ohio's votes for the president.

Congressman King's promise to "take care of the counting".

Clint Curtis's affadavit.

TIA's analysis that demonstrates that the apparent Gore-Bush proportions in the exit poll responses are impossible once the poll was reweighted to the vote returns.

I'm sure that there are more that could be added here.


(edited to delete an item already in the thread viz. pre-election polls)

[kiwi_expat]

33. Rove's three million Evangelicals

Someone had to say it. ;-)

This is not a straw man. I have this terrible fear that Evangelicals may have played a big part in this election, but I have no evidence to support it or refute it. There are tens of millions of voters who voted in some prior election but not in 2000. Rove's 3-million could easily have come from that pool.


Why did they not show up in the exit polls? These would be people who do not vote regularly. They might be as reluctant to participate in exit polls as they are to participate in real polls (elections).

[Febble]

34. That's what I've been wondering

not necessarily the evangelicals, but if Bush/Rove managed to mobilize rare voters into voting for Bush, they might well have been precisely the people most reluctant to confront the exit pollsters. It would be good to work that into some kind of testable hypothesis. hmmm.

[OnTheOtherHand]

35. gulp

I will e-mail you two an interesting few cross-tabs for the evaluation thread. I can't really think about this right now, but it bears thought.

[kiwi_expat]

36. "Fundamentalists" vs. "Evangelicals"

I should have proposed that the additional Bush voters were "Fundamentalists". I was just using Rove's term.

There are Evangelicals (e.g., some Methodists) who are not Fundamentalists and there are Fundamentalists (e.g., Exclusive Brethren) who are not Evangelicals. Some of my best friends are evangelicals, of one sort or another. I am a conservation "evangelical", myself. :-)

[mgr]

52. One specific example is from Arizona (Tucson?)

Apparently a minister represented the republican monitor, while his wife was the democrat monitor at the same precinct. Both were fundamentalists.

Any others?

Anyone note or explain what was up with Maricopa County?

Mike

[kiwi_expat]

51. Manual recounts: no evidence of widespread tabulator fraud.

Manual recounts in 3 states have not unearthed any evidence of widespread tabulator fraud:

(1) Ohio (see post #50, above)

(2) Nader's New Hampshire recounts

(3) Washington state gubernatorial race full manual recount

[mgr]

53. However # 3 did assist in addressing some anomalies in Snohomish,

Landshark's focus. So there may be some assistance to the DRE issue from this.

Mike

[kiwi_expat]

56. The DRE issue is different from "widespread tabulator fraud".

Fortunately tabulator fraud can be discovered by manual recounts - IF THERE IS A PAPER RECORED of the votes.

DRE fraud (with no paper vote records) can NOT be detected by manual recounts.

How were DRE anomalies detected in Snohomish?

[Febble]

60. I think we need

perhaps to take account of the evidence presented by both Freeman and Mitofsky at the Philadelphia debate.

And probably a new thread!

[Time for change]

6. Here's a thread where I propose 10 issues

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=2052179

I would say that all except item # 9 relate to string 2.

I think that items 1, 3, and 5-10 relate to string 3.

And items 1-5 relate to string 4.

[Time for change]

7. I'm nominating this thread because it's a very good format for a debate

[OnTheOtherHand]

9. bear in mind this is a brainstorm thread, not a debate thread

and I prefer mgr's formulation that the second thread will be to _evaluate_ arguments, not to "debate" them. It's fine to disagree, but we shouldn't come in with a Crossfire mentality. (I'm sure you weren't saying that we should -- "debate" means different things to different people.)

[Time for change]

10. I guess I don't clearly understand the difference between

debate and evaluate, if the evaluating is done by more than one person simultaneously. I think they're very close, and there's a fair amount of overlap.

[Febble]

12. I think that mgr's idea

is to make this primarily a thread for assembling evidence. It can be our dataset if you like.

Then when it's good and fat, we can have a second thread in which the evidence can be evaluated.

But herding cats is never easy, so I expect there will be some critiquing of the evidence going on in this thread too.

Still, I like mgr's idea that this is where we stack up what we know (or think we know) about what happened, and where it fits in suggesting various levels of theft.

I'd be quite happy to put exit polls in the "popular vote was stolen" thread for example - because that is what it is evidence of. However, if it is the only evidence for theft on that scale, then I would argue that it is weak - and will make that argument on the subsequent debate thread!

[mgr]

30. The way I suspect most will settle on is

That either posts of direct evidence or interpretations of evidence will start discussion. We have an enormous wellspring of talent and insight that I want to tap into. I suspect that a several coherent interpretations of what happened in the election have not been voiced primarily due to timidity, or concern that dissent may present the wrong picture to the other side, or fear of being shouted down.

The idea is to have others riff on the suggestions of others their own interpretations, but should driven essentially by agreement; but if there is dissent, to offer a counter interpretation without the criticism of the point of view expressed. An example is Kiwi's posting my estimate that 50,000 votes were suppressed in Cleveland; someone can equally post Knapp's estimate for Cuyahoga County that he did in December. The idea is to assist in moving everyone's ideas and arguments forward to where they may have the greatest power in showing something was wrong in the election.

I gave a sincere example of what might be up with the exit poll's red shift pattern, and not as a straw man that I could knock down later--my interpretation could have explanatory power. I hope those that 'own' the red shift argument are willing to rift on it, so we can get away from the acrimony of what the various interpretations mean.

Mike

[Febble]

31. I hope I haven't been guilty of posting straw men

Some of the men I posted are, I think, straw, but that's not why I posted them. I'm prepared to be convinced that they are solid if someone shows me good reason. I certainly think they ought to be there.

[DemReadingDU]

19. recommended

[emlev]

21. A collection of evidence regarding Ohio

can be found here:

http://fairnessbybeckerman.blogspot.com

and Richard Hayes Phillips studies are all here:

http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/alpage.htm

(Dr. Phillips's poetry and song lyrics are also on the site. The Attorney General of Ohio tried during court proceedings there to denigrate Phillips by saying he was "apparently better known as a poet.")

[Febble]

38. I'm kicking this

as it is only the first stage of what we hope will be a two stage process. If anyone has other stuff to slot into the relevant threads, please do. I'm sure there is lots more to add.

When the second thread goes up we can keep adding stuff to this one, of course. This should be our dataset.

[kiwi_expat]

39. Lost Kerry votes - three more strings:

I have been itching to do this for some time and this thread seems a good place for some more lists.

I think (in addition to dividing lost votes into accidental/fraud and popular/EC losses, as mgr has done with strings #1-4) it also might be helpful to divide the lost Kerry votes by these 3 categories:

a. Kerry votes that were unable to be cast (vote suppression).

b. Kerry votes that were cast but can never be counted properly.

c. Lost Kerry votes that can be counted properly in a manual recount.

[kiwi_expat]

40. a. Kerry votes that were unable to be cast (vote suppression). n/t

[kiwi_expat]

43. "Voter intimidation, failure to issue absentee ballots, failure to issue..

....provisional ballots in accordance with the law, probable illegal voter registration purges, giving voters incorrect information in order to prevent them from voting" -Time_for_change

[foo_bar]

46. do systematically broken machines go under suppression?

The ELECTronic 1242 (original caps), aka the Shouptronic 1242, was used in Philly PA (80% Kerry), Franklin Ohio (54% Kerry), Bernalillo NM (52% Kerry) and Shelby TN (58% Kerry). It's named for Ransom Shoup II, a person convicted of "conspiracy and obstruction of justice related to an FBI inquiry into a lever machine-counted election in Philadelphia" in 1979. There's pages upon pages of EIRS reports of these things breaking down en masse:

Philly:
"Two machines, one is broken. Wait is up to 30 minutes, poll workers aren't doing anything."

New Mexico:
"1 of 2 machines down, no explanation forthcoming, technician called. Election Judge somewhat unfriendly."

Ohio:
"3 machines, 2 broken - voter could not wait in line to vote"

Tennessee:
"Long lines 5 machines at polling site but 4 are not working. Had to wait over one hour to vote."

[kiwi_expat]

47. Thanks! Long lines - caused by any problem - suppress votes.....

whether the problem is deliberate or not. Although I would think that most vote suppression is deliberate (fraud) - or, at the very least, systemic disenfranchisement.


I can't believe I forgot to include "long lines" in my original list. :blush:

[kiwi_expat]

49. Felon lists; Destruction of Democrats' voter-registration forms; and...

Stricter voter-ID requirements at urban precincts.

[kiwi_expat]

41. b. Kerry votes that were cast but can never be counted properly. n/t

[kiwi_expat]

44. Under/over votes that do not clearly show voter intent. Also....

Cross-precinct card-PUNCH errors,

Bush) voter fraud,

Missing Kerry ballots,

Extra Bush ballots...

[kiwi_expat]

48. Kerry DRE votes switched to Bush n/t

[kiwi_expat]

42. c. Lost Kerry votes that can be counted properly in a manual recount. n/t

[kiwi_expat]

45. (Unless DRE votes) Tabulator errors and clear Under/over votes. Also....

Rejected Provisional Ballots,

Rejected Absentee Ballots....


(Note: rejected provisional and absentee ballots could be counted manually, but it is very unlikely any would be included in the revised official counts.)