Reply #26: In 2004, we were testing out a new and highly controversial voting...

[Peace Patriot]

...system nationwide for the first time--including controversies surrounding the complete unverifiability of one third of the vote due to paperless electronic voting machines (and Tom Delay's blockade of a paper trail in Congress), the partisan (major Bush donor) ownership and control of the secret, proprietary software used in electronic voting machines and tabulators, and, adding to this, pre-election vote suppression against Democratic voters in Ohio, Florida and other places (including reports of RNC operatives shredding Democratic voter registrations in western states, the Republican Sec of State of Ohio inventing new and bizarre rules for voter registration, and the Republican Gov and Sec of State of Florida purging thousands of black voters from the voting rolls), not to mention the high profile controversies of the 2000 election, which resulted in the installation of the highly insecure, hackable, unreliable electronic voting systems in 2004.

This situation CRIED OUT for fraud detection exit polls. To deliberately choose exit polls not specifically designed for that purpose was to commit a huge violation of the public trust to begin with. To then continue to suppress the raw data from those polls is further violation of the public trust, as is failing to conduct a thorough investigation of the official tally that is so at variance with the exit polls, and instead making up a damned lie about it.

If the Bush regime had wanted a verifiable and transparent election, why didn't we have one?

If the news monopolies had wanted a verifiable and transparent election, why didn't they insist on one, and commission exit polls specifically for that purpose--especially in view of the stolen election in 2000?

Finally, as for rBr, I will repeat here what I have posted elsewhere. Last week, 30 members of a Baptist Church in Waynesville, NC, were expelled from their church for refusing to pledge support to Bush. Think back to the election, and imagine these Baptist dissenters from the Bush paradigm in a polling place, probably not far from their church, having decided to vote for Kerry but feeling bullied by their pastor and others in the congregation, and fearful of the repercussions for their vote. They could count on the secret ballot to protect the privacy of their vote. But what if a stranger claiming to be an exit pollster approached them afterward and asked them to state who they voted for, there in a public place where anyone could hear their answer?

Is this not the most likely "reluctant responder" of all--a person voting for Kerry amidst intense pro-Bush social pressure and intimidation in a Bush stronghold?

Yes, I think there were Evangelical reluctant responders--and I think they were people who saw through the B.S. of Bush's war and his lies and his torture policy and his favoritism to the rich and his Christian hypocrisy, who voted for Kerry and whose votes were stolen because it was the easiest place to do so without detection.

Now think about the OTHERS in that church--the repressive majority who kicked these 30 members out of their church for not pledging support for Bush. Think they're shy? Think they would have anything to fear from disclosing a vote for Bush in that social and political atmosphere?

This recent news story is a very strong counter to the "rBr" theory. It gives it the lie. Republicans may have been "reluctant responders" in the past. But if this news item is even partly reflective of social conditions within the Republican subculture, Republicans for Bush in 2004 were not just loud about their support, they were repressive of others' rights to vote for anyone else. Shyness and reluctance--and even just plain civility--do not seem to be notable characteristics of Bush 2004 voters.