would get off their corrupt, fearful or ignorant/uninvolved butts and help us do it! It could be so powerful!
"Those who can, vote absentee."
YES! It's the best we can do, it's a real PAPER BALLOT, it means a recount is possible, and it may scare off election fraud in some cases. If possible in your state, walk it to the precinct on election day (instead of mailing). Another big thing it does: It puts election officials, other officials, and the public on notice that you ARE NOT HAPPY with these non-transparent, Bushite-controlled, electronic voting systems. In Calif, I think we're up to 30% absentee ballot voting (in Los Angeles). That's a protest! And it builds on other protests and growing information (the machines failing tests, etc.) to get this changed.
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"Those who can't, pay very close attention to the exit polls this time."
Well, Edison/Mitofsky, who--in cahoots with the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, pretty much destroyed our democracy on Nov. 2, 2004, by FALSIFYING their exit polls, late on election day, FORCING their exit polls (Kerry won) ) to FIT the results of Diebold's and ES&S's secret formulae (Bush won)--has promised never to let us get hold of their REAL exit poll numbers again. These are not honest polls. You've got to understand this. Exit polls are used worldwide to verify elections and check for fraud. But what they do with them here in the U.S. (with Edison-Mitofsky in charge, and they pretty much monopolize the exit polling) is they conduct the exit polls, then CHANGE the exit poll numbers, based on the "official returns." They smear them together, creating ONE number, not two numbers that you can compare. This starts happening as soon as the polls close. They pollute the exit poll numbers with the "official results" so that you can't see any discrepancy--a disreputable practice.
What happened on Nov. 2, 2004, is that alert bloggers and statisticians caught screen shots of the real numbers before they were taken down--and the pollster later had to admit that Kerry won the exit polls. They had fiddled their exit poll numbers in impossible ways, to make them seem to confirm a Bush win. (See www.TruthIsAll.net.) This would not be so bad if we had had a transparent, verifiable vote--but the vote was "tabulated" by Bushite corporations (mostly Diebold and ES&S) using "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls. These SECRETLY tabulated results were then fed into an AP computer (totally insecure as well), thence to the corporate news monopoly computers and those of their shyster pollster (all of them used the same one--Edison/Mitofsky).
Really, they screwed us over--completely. Worst journalistic crime I have ever witnessed!
**WE NEED THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO FUND INDEPENDENT EXIT POLLS** -- by some completely separate, non-corrupt, truly independent polling organization (not corporate shills).
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"pay very close attention to...the election results."
YES, indeed! Verify the election however you can. They used a "parallel election" technique in San Diego very effectively, recently. Also see: www.UScountvotes.org (they plan independent statistical monitoring). www.votersunite.org is closely monitoring the "paper trail" scene in all states, so they likely will track election results to see how they correlate with paper trails/no paper trails.
And let me say this again: **WE NEED THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY--or **SOMEBODY** (rich person out there?)--TO FUND INDEPENDENT EXIT POLLS**
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"If thousands of Repug voters sit this one out, and those wanting to see a change in policy show up in droves, any attempt to manipulate the results will be obvious."
YES! YES! YES! It's my opinion that we CAN overwhelm the fraud with sheer numbers. I think they have to pre-program a certain percentage advantage to Republicans ahead of time, and it's not so easy to change that percentage on election day. The fraudulent lines of code are entered into the central tabulators prior to election day (in the manufacture and servicing and testing, and through backdoor modems, etc.). At least, that's what appears to have happened in 2004. That's why they had to do the very visible, blatant, unlawful suppression of Dem votes in Ohio--shorting black voters on voting machines, creating 5 hour lines, etc.--the pre-programmed fix wasn't enough to overcome Kerry's win.
This pre-programming in the central tabulators (which limits the fraud to certain %'s) applies to all methods of voting (electronic and non-electronic). So if you vote on optical scans, punchcards or paper ballots--all of which are then computerized--the central tabulators are going to switch a certain PRE-SET percentage of votes around (to favor Bushites and war-mongers). IF YOU BOOST TURN-OUT, YOU CAN OVERCOME THAT PERCENTAGE.
Electronic touchscreens--the worst of the election theft machines--can be programmed to directly change votes at the time of voting (many Kerry votes changed to Bush votes on these machines in 2004). For touchscreens, you should double-and triple check your vote (the switch was actually visible in some cases).
It might be possible for them to write more sophisticated election fraud programs--such as one that trigger a percentage vote switch depending on who is winning and by how much. And they're probably working on it. I don't think that's what they had in 2004. And we'll just have to see. They sometimes switched Kerry to Bush; they sometimes just deleted Kerry votes (lots of evidence of that). And they sometimes gave Kerry votes to 3rd party candidates. (That's something to look for--unusual votes lower down on the ticket, and for 3rd parties.)
But whatever they do, a massive turnout can either overcome it, or create such a stink that their whole fraudulent system is exposed. They do have to be careful about that. They NEED this fraudulent election system to win. They don't want to risk exposure of it. That's in our favor, too.
Also, finally, they can't just manufacture elections out of thin air--not yet anyway. There have to be votes, for them to fiddle the votes. The candidates have to have some support--donations, enthusiasm, and of course votes. So we can try to make up for the disadvantage the machines impose on our candidates, by extra hard work on the other elements: donations, organization, and get-out-the-vote efforts. We certainly did that in 2004 (we gave the Dems a blowout success in new voter registration, nearly 60/40); we also matched the Bush/Cheney money machine; but Kerry wasn't anti-war enough to get the margin needed, and the Dem Party threw the election in many ways (especially by their inexplicable SILENCE as this fraudulent election SYSTEM got installed). The American people have been opposed to the Iraq war from the beginning, before the invasion--nearly 60% opposed, way back then. They're even more opposed to torture "under any circumstances" (63% - May '04). They also want universal health insurance. And if Kerry had done just those three issues right, he would have blown Bush out of the water. (I think Kerry won by 4% to 5%, all in all--but he needed to win by 10%, in order to win.)
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"Warn the people ahead of time."
YES!!! I totally believe in this. We MUST proceed on a basis of truth and reality. We must tell people the truth, and engage them in overcoming the fraud. I understand why some politicos don't want to do this, but I think they are dead wrong. People NEED TO KNOW why good people aren't being elected. They need to know the REASON. Or, 1) they can't help us fix it; and 2) they are going to feel demoralized, depressed and utterly bewildered (as they felt after 2004), and many will just stop voting. But if they know what we're up against, and are included in trying to solve the problem, I think we can create the big turnouts needed to win, and we can get a whole lot of the non-voters involved, too. And then, if we lose, people will know WHY. It's not because we're "liberals." It's not because people want thieving, murdering, lying Republicans in office. It's because they're cheating! And it really is because of that. It's not an invention.
We've got the Dem Party utterly dragging its feet on this--because some of them are collusive with it, some are corrupt on electronics in government and electronic voting (many of our election officials are), and some of them are fascists, just like Bush & Co. And those who aren't collusive and corrupt seem to be afraid of those who are--and they're all afraid on the money issue. If they elections are fixed, and they keep losing, they'll stop getting their coffers filled.
It's a HUGE PROBLEM. There are some signs of hope. See www.debrabowen.com--a Calif state Senator who's running for Sec of State on a good election reform platform. (She's been busting Diebold and our Schwarz-appointed Sec of State.) Also see:
http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html Sign the petition (Russ Holt, HR 550, great election reform bill-has 169 sponsors). And Howard Dean has said some of the right things--but he, too, is up against entrenched corruption within the Party. There are some good Dems here and there, on this issue--and (very rare) even some good Repubs. Repub voters need to know that if they voted for Kerry, THEIR votes were stolen, too (possibly more even than Dem votes for Kerry--much easier to steal votes for Bush in a Repub precinct).
There is also quite a lot going on, in grass roots election reform groups, all over the country--sometimes within Dem Party groups, sometimes not--all the grass roots. See: www.verfiedvoting.org (great activist site), and www.solarbus.org/election/index.shtml (fab compendium of all election info).
Clearly, if we want our democracy back, we have to do almost everything ourselves. But that's what it's all about, isn't it?
:patriot: :woohoo: :patriot:
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Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!