Hoyer: "If we conclude ultimately the machinery didn't work then we need to order a new election".

[eomer]

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was interviewed by David Bender on his Air America Radio show Politically Direct and talked about the election contest in the Florida 13th Congressional District.

Here is my transcription of that part of the show:

David Bender: We just saw what happened in Sarasota, Florida, and in that election Vern Buchanan was seated, Christine Jennings has been on this program, is still contesting the validity of that. How do you see that playing out. Are you involved in the leadership in overseeing that process?

Steny Hoyer: I am. We're working with Christine Jennings, I've even talked to Mr. Buchanan, and the fact is that it is just... it defies reason that in some of the polling places in some of the jurisdictions, in one in particular, 18,000 people decided not to vote for the congressional office and voted for lesser offices in numbers greater than 18,000.

David Bender: Those of us in politics for a long time -- you're in your fourteenth term in the Congress -- that just doesn't happen.

Steny Hoyer: It defies reason and the chances of that happening are astronomical. Therefore, a reasonable conclusion is the machinery didn't work. If we conclude ultimately the machinery didn't work then we need to order a new election. We're not going to know who won or lost but we need to have a new election and that's really what we're looking at. We talked about that yesterday. We're pursuing that vigorously. It's in the courts in Florida but ultimately under the Constitution the House has the absolute oversight and right to determine who should be seated and we have the responsibility to do that. This is an election decided by less than 400 votes with a very substantial question raised.

To listen to the full interview, go to the Politically Direct with David Bender Podcast page and play 02/16/07 Segment 2. The excerpt above begins at 2:36 in.

_{Edit: typo}

[Greeby]

1. ......

:popcorn:

[Jackpine Radical]

2. We need to stick all our levers into that crack in the facade.

[Mnemosyne]

3. . n/t

[kster]

4. kick.nt

[Stevepol]

5. After so many years in the wilderness, I really think people are listening!!

This election, when we look back on it, could be the one we say was the straw that broke the camel's back. Except that 18,000 votes isn't a straw, and neither is the difference between the 3% victory the exit polls say Kerry won by, and the 2 1/2 % that * and the voting machines claim * won by.

Which do you believe? The exit polls or the voting machines?

At least you can audit and recount the exit polls.

[L. Coyote]

7. How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes

OHIO 2004: 6.15% Kerry-Bush vote-switch found in probability study
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x259620

Read the revised article with graphs of new findings:

The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election: Cuyahoga County Analysis
How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio.html

[In Truth We Trust]

6. K&R Hand Counted Paper Ballots NOW! Nothing More Nothing Less!

[rumpel]

8. wonderful

a new election hopefully with real independent oversight -

[KoKo]

9. Hoyer being a "pragmatist" gave the only true answer that a

"pragmatist" could make. "Have a New Election!"

[Morgana LaFey]

10. I hate to say this, but I don't trust Steny -- at all -- on this subject

Maybe he's coming around, but he has been in so thick on the whole HAVA debacle, so resolutely and firmly unreachable up til now (if he's not just giving lip service), that I truly consider him one of our enemies on the subject. Maybe he just didn't understand before, maybe he's gotton on board. I hope so. But until I'm sure.......I'm very wary of this old silver-tongued fox.

[Peace Patriot]

11. This is the deal. The Corporate Reich takes over our election system with

a $3.9 billion coup--the "Help America Vote For Bush Act" of 2002--and rams fascism down our throats, by converting our vote counting system to electronics run on "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, fast-tracking these completely non-transparent systems all over the country in two years' time. Their first position is that these systems need no paper trail at all. Trust them. In 2004, one third of the country votes in a "trade secret" voting system that cannot be recounted, and a total of 80% of the country votes using the corporate "trade secret" machines of one kind or another, with virtually no audit/recount controls (--maybe a 1% audit--at best-- in new systems that the most election officials don't even understand).

When a mountain of evidence has been accumulated that the paperless touchscreens are fraudulent--by the back-breaking sweat of grass roots activists and associated scientists and researchers--then and only then does the Corporate Reich switch to its backup position: touchscreens are bad and optiscans are okay because they have a paper trail.

The country has already been stolen. NOW we get a paper trail.

We have meanwhile lost the right to a real ballot. A "paper trail" is nearly worthless, depending on how it is defined in the law, and depending on how much of an automatic recount (audit) is required. Venezuela requires a FIFTY-FIVE PERCENT hand-count, as a check against machine totals that are OPEN SOURCE CODE to begin with. The Democrats in Congress are proposing a TWO PERCENT hand-count--in a TRADE SECRET SOURCE CODE system owned and controlled by Bushites--which I guess they think sounds better than 0% to 1%. Jeez. These people.

ALSO, the Democratic proposal leaves the SECRETLY CODED CENTRAL TABULATORS in place, and lards billions of more taxpayer dollars on these bad actor corporations (Diebold, ES&S) to "fix" an election system that they deliberately broke--for MORE of their machines, for printers, for upgrades, for more patches, for long term "servicing" contracts. They even get contracts for printing the ballots or "paper trails," whatever flavor to "transparency" the people want.

This is all about MONEY. That's how they got to the Democrats (for the most part--but some have been directly collusive with the Corporate Reich and "trade secret" vote counting, Sen. Christopher Dodd being the prime example--a real snake in the grass).

Several levels of corruption:

Straight up venal corruption. Lavish lobbying. "Revolving door" employment. (Cash payments?)

Power corruption--financial. Billions through the fingers of Congress critters to local/state, thence to Diebold/ES&S.

Power corruption--as in "power corrupts"--the heady power of secret vote counting and "expert" obscurism. All these pissy little "professionals" now running our election system, who treat the public as "the enemy," deny us the right to information, and sneer at the stupid voters who can't possibly understand these esoteric voting systems.

Corporate Reich corruption--how to prevent the People from pulling the charters of bad actor corporations, dismantling them and seizing their assets for the common good, when the shit hits the fan over the next decade (or sooner).

War profiteering--how to keep warmongers in office.

------------------

Yeah, they may have to do something about FL-13. But then--after soaking the taxpayers for another election--they're going to give ES&S BILLIONS MORE TAXPAYER DOLLARS to create a NEW vote stealing system, with subtler capabilities.

Virtually everyone in Congress--the good, the bad and the ugly--now owe their power to Diebold and ES&S, and, even if they were put in office by the voters outvoting the machines in 2006, they can easily be dis-elected, next time around, the moment the public relaxes its anger and its vigilance. And they all know it.

[Morgana LaFey]

12. Most righteous rant!

Very well said, and a superb overview.

[donkeyotay]

13. Great post. That's part of the beauty of the system

that no one inside Washington will dare advocate for real reform, because they all benefit from, or can be harmed by, the existing system. Real reform would have to come from, oh say, something like general strikes. Until they are afraid of the peasants with the torches and pitchforks, they're not going to do any thing substantive. Even then, it would be incredibly easy to change the subject with a terra attack or a nice war.

[LiberalEsto]

14. Hooray! A Maryland Democrat takes a stand

on cheatin' machines.

Far too many Maryland party leaders have refused to take action to get rid of the state's Diebold machines. Probably because the state elections commissioner, a Democrat, is a huge proponent of Diebold both in the state and around the U.S.

The House of Delegates passed a bill last year to get rid of the machines, but the state Senate killed it. Both houses are controlled by Democrats.

Bless Hoyer for what he said.