No Recount Please-By Nancy Tobi (X)

[kster]

(X)POSTED BY Kpete http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=492108&mesg_id=492108

No Recount Please

Submitted by davidswanson on Fri, 2008-01-11 05:37. Elections
By Nancy Tobi

I am telling everyone who asks to beg Paul and others to NOT request a recount. I would beg you to urge everyone to STAND DOWN from this strategy. It is a trap. Use all your influence to inform the Paul and Kucinich campaigns, which are being targeted to carry this out, to please NOT pursue the recount this year. I can not stress enough how important it is they do NOT have a recount.
............

You do not walk into a battle ground not knowing where the snipers are, just because you were invited. Strategically, going into something like this where you have NO CONTROL is foolishness.

And I say this as one of the strongest recount proponents of former times. Things I come to learn and understand have changed my mind. The recount is someone else's game, not ours.

NO RECOUNT PLEASE

In the recount, we have no control, and we have already lost 48 long hours of ballot chain of custody oversight. We need citizen control and oversight. This is not going to come from the recount. If the election was rigged, which we will never know, but if it was, don't you think the riggers would have a backup Plan B rigged recount, knowing how easy it is to get a recount in NH?

No. It is time to take control. We want accountability and change. We get this NOT from a recount, but from an investigation. We need questions asked and answered, and changes made so we have a clean election in NH in November.

more at:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/30018

[midlife_mo_Jo]

1. If you cry wolf too many times

it's going to be harder to generate public support when we "do" have evidence of fraud. I tend to agree with this.

[burythehatchet]

2. UNfortunately the wolf has been at the door the entire time.

[Enrique]

4. doing the recount isn't the crying wolf

the crying wolf is all the DEMANDS for the recount, probably assuming there would be no recount.

The recount is the village looking to see if there really is a wolf.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

10. It is QUALITY CONTROL ffs. Standard operating procedure, especially

when the system has been shown to be defective in the past. Why have other states banned such devices? Why should we not care about quality assurance in our voting mechanisms?

[1awake]

12. I agree,

It will get to the point, if it hasn't already, where most people will stop seeing it as a question fraud and more of a question of political advantage. And, I believe that's exactly what they want.

[midlife_mo_Jo]

24. Exactly my point.

We have to make serious challenges in a few races where we KNOW we can prove fraud. That is how we will change the system.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

25. How will you KNOW ahead of time?

[midlife_mo_Jo]

27. We knew in Ohio, didn't we?

Exit polls matched the results. Unless we can prove collusion with the media, I don't believe this election was problematic.

[KittyWampus]

16. asking for random audits of paper ballots is a FUCKING REQUIREMENT. It need be done EVERY timeh

it is unacceptable that it wasn't done.

[Freddie Stubbs]

3. "It's a trap!"

[ixion]

5. yeah, because it's so much nicer to pretend that it doesn't exist... as we have been doing since

the coup of 2000. Since that time, there have been odd 'irregularities' in EVERY election, but we have those who want us to just walk away and pretend like it doesn't happen.

That's the way you slip and slide slowly in to fascism.

[Enrique]

7. the author thinks there ARE irregularities in this election

[disndat]

6. WHAT??

This convoluted logic makes no sense to me. I trust Dennis Kucinich to monitor this recount to insure reliability. Do it now while the interest is highest. Delay could dilute the process and allow more hanky panky.

[MadHound]

8. What the fuck ever

So a person who is supposedly for honest, open elections is now saying that there shouldn't be a recount. Hmmm, why does this stink to high heaven?

Sorry, but I think that the recount should go ahead, and frankly I see once again that Dennis is the only Dem who is doing the right thing.

I wonder what vested interest this person has in not having a recount.

[Perry Logan]

9. Does the OP understand that, if it wasn't rigged, it can't be a trap? Some logic there.

[1awake]

13. depending

on what was rigged, and for what reason.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

15. please, do elaborate...

[1awake]

19. I think

the trap would revolve around the polling and not the actual voting. If I were a high ranking repub, or anyone else looking to steal a vote, the first thing I would do is foster the belief that those calling for a recount do it frequently and for nefarious reasons. Once that's established, what else is there. So why not pick a democratic primary.. something that has no "obvious" ties.. it looks like democrats eating their own. A perfect storm so to speak.

But then.. I'm feeling very "conspiratorial" today.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

20. Fear of how the Repukes spin this has paralyzed the Democratic

party for far too long. This is SOP to ensure quality of the system that any responsible business would employ -- especially when unexplained anomalies show up.

[1awake]

21. I'm not against

recounts.. in fact I think they should be mandatory everywhere without request. It should be a set standard, not upon request.. especially since 2000.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

22. We have to start somewhere, no?

Why not in a smaller election that has less initial cost?

[Richard Steele]

11. Fuck that noise, Nancy! nm

[PATRICK]

14. Nader's belated effort

where he stood practically begging people for funds to meet the recount deadline looked spur of the moment and not well thought out. People assured him they would catch the key fraud there and they spin around like a top and "verified" all the doubt away.

People have been doing this for years and the best thing has almost always been, prevention by changing machines and process. Like peace demonstrations all the finger pointing and evidence in the world was kept in the awareness "fringe" as if nothing at all happened. The main miracle of the machinery was to render results invisible, empowering the state whose system needed only that extra cloak of darkness to hinder any complaint or reform.

After all these years of NOT getting all the assured victims of corporate voting fraud together and the national reform nationally off the ground it gets a little lame when suddenly a couple days before a hot contest, people notice the state machinery is bent and THEN want to do something- depending on the results. That is really getting into the spirit of the GOP game, isn't it?

Anyone ask what the vote fraud possibility road map looks like for Dems this year? Take heart, I doubt anyone in the Dem organization puts any time into worrying about all the possible manipulation.

You can't stop campaigns who suddenly want to inject election cheating into their message to their base. These would all be losers unless I miss my guess, looking more to the NEXT states than actually caring about the last one. For all the steam somehow it never comes across that anyone is serious about vote protection per se. If they were, they would noisily confront it before they got screwed as they do in other nations where some are not afraid to call for a boycott or withdraw from a sham. Not they we necessarily should, but it would never even occur to them. it is one thing to be helpless, another to be feckless, and still another to start pumping the issue too late as if it is simply another way to garner helpless outrage energy and turn doubt of themselves into doubt of the system.

It is sick what is happening this year despite the hard work of many reformers and SOS's across the country. They don't mind hinting that this terrible, something should be done(to screw with your minds)
so long as the clock is running out this year. Our one single, simple issue and the Dems avoided it like the plague. Don't come whining now. Mostly we are still on track for 2004 suppression fighting which a wave from the Dem approved bunch could make easier and legal for voter ID scams.

This reminds me of poor Dick Gephardt writing brilliant legislative treatises that could not and would not ever go anywhere. Get rid of the fraud. Tooth and nail. Fang and claw. it isn't just the handicap of lost votes it is the betrayal of the people who never get to show the "leaders" who should be fighting for them any measure of support- to rival the big donor bucks the Dems are slaves to.

[JackRiddler]

17. Okay, so what? Discovery of a clean count or...

a rigged recount are going to do what? Convince people that Diebold machines can't be hacked? Everyone knows they can.

On the contrary, there should be a recount demanded every time any electronic machine is used as the primary counting and reporting device, until such time as no machines are used and a hand-count of the paper ballots always occurs regardless of result.

[Bennyboy]

18. INVESTIGATION! HA! HA! HA! HA!

Yeah investigations are really the way to go. Look at the progress made on the Florida vote investigation. Or the 2004 investigations. or the Plame Affair. Or 9-11, or Gonzales.

I personally don't want to wait another fifty fucking years to find out what goes on.

[FourScore]

23. Thank you for posting this kster.

It's so important.

Recommend

[Kokonoe]

26. All we need to do is SEE HOW WE VOTED.

It's THAT SIMPLE. After the election we should log on and see our vote. If everyone confirms their vote it's legal, just like a grocery store. STUPID AMERICANS. Lets count all Penny on a side walk and agree who is right.