HOW BUSH BACKERS CHEATED KERRY OUT OF WHITE HOUSE

[babylonsister]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/genera_sherwood_070602_how_bush_backers_che.htm

HOW BUSH BACKERS CHEATED KERRY OUT OF WHITE HOUSE

by Sherwood Ross

snip//


What’s more, on Voting Day, the Republicans “launched a massive multimillion-dollar campaign of mass challenges of voters in Black precincts, concentrating on Ohio,” Palast writes. The attack was a legal no-no as the Republican National Committee had signed a no-race-baiting decree in 1981 pledging it would never again engage in this shoddy tactic. Besides Ohio, the GOP challenged thousands of African-American voters in Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Another trick used in the 2004 swindle was to not fix broken voting machines --- the sort that mutilated ballots--- and plant them, as Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell did, in minority precincts. Did the bad machine spoil your ballot? Too-o bad! In New Mexico, nine out of 10 ballots that were rejected were cast by non-Anglo voters, Palast said.

Still another ploy is the undervote: In Jacksonville, Fla., a Republican voting supervisor removed several machines from Black precincts. This was also done in Ohio, where Blacks and students waited in some precincts for seven hours or longer to vote. Many discouraged voters walked away, never counted. Palast said this reduced Kerry’s net vote in Columbus, Ohio, alone by an estimated 9,000+ votes.

As for absentee ballots, in Arapahoe County, Colorado, three times more absentee ballots mailed to Democrats “failed to return” as compared to Republican ballots. As for those that were returned, a total of 526,426 absentee ballots from around the nation were received but not counted, Palast said. And guess what? In strong Kerry precincts, “voters were 265% more likely to have their absentee ballots tossed out than voters in Bush-majority precincts.”

“Absentee balloting in the USA is the greatest expression of mass faith since the Hebrews walked across the Red Sea bed trusting the Lord would keep the waters parted,” Palast writes. “The difference is, in 2004, the absentee voters mailed their ballots to Pharaoh’s clerks.”

The above are just some of the deceits used to cheat Senator Kerry out of the White House in 2004. If you doubt Mr. Bush would steal a national election, keep in mind he has deceived the American people about Iraq’s WMD, lied to the public that his underlings do not torture prisoners, trashed President Nixon’s honorable stand on germ warfare, scrapped President Reagan’s good work against nuclear proliferation, and politicized the Federal government, subordinating the public good to what’s best for his Republican chums. My hunch is in 2008 a lot of thoughtful Republicans will cross over to vote Democratic. The big question is, who will count their votes?


P.S. And speaking of a level playing field for all income groups, what about switching election day from a week day, when so many people have to work, to a weekend, when wage-earners can get away from their jobs? And why isn’t it mandatory for voter registration forms to be published in all newspapers so readers can fill them out at home at their leisure?

[DS1]

1. Chances of this being on CBS/ABC/NBC/CNN/FOX/MSNBC

Zero to none

[mzmolly]

8. They may cover it if we "investigate?"

:evilgrin:

[spag68]

13. I would say

slim to none and slim left town.

[Roland99]

20. Are you kidding me? That commie liberal media is plastering this 24/7!!!

Oh wait.....



:(

[bleever]

2. Odds of us shutting up and getting over it:

also zero to none.

Recommended.

[Fridays Child]

3. Hear, hear!

:toast:

[wakeme2008]

4. No matter what Palast says about absentee voting

I will do that over touch screens any day.

[exlrrp]

19. Me too

Oregon, where I live, does it all on mail in ballots. I really like that, i can drive right to the county seat and drop it in the ballot boxes (don't trust the mails either)
I wouldn't trust a voting machine as far as I could throw it

[bvar22]

22. I'm not sure that this applies directly to Oregon, BUT

Mail-In absentee ballots in some states were simply run through a Scanner, and the electronic votes were then sent to a central Tabulator where they were compiled.

Dennis Kucinich has offered the only secure alternative:

Paper Ballots publicly Hand Counted at the Precinct!!

Why does the Democratic Party refuse to address this issue?

[The Wielding Truth]

31. A truly honest vote! I love Kucinich!

[msongs]

5. don't you wish the democratic party USA Inc cared as much as greg palast and US? nt

[HowHasItComeToThis]

6. SO PROUD TO BE A REPUBLICON

YAAHOO























HATER

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

7. Kand R,....we're talking high crimes here! nt

[democrat in Tallahassee]

9. I was a poll watcher in a black precinct here in Tallahassee;

it was deplorable. They challenged voter after voter. At one point we had Ion Sancho come out an he told them to cut it out. They were very well manned and despicable.

[aquart]

12. May they never sleep.

May they itch. May boils ache. May shingles flare. Heartburn. Acid reflux. I want them to start weeping at the thought of getting into bed, so painful and unsatisfying is any attempt to sleep.

I want them to know what hell will be like before they go.

[Prophet 451]

10. Palast is an anachronism

He's a dinosaur, a throwback, a man out of his time.


And that's a GOOD thing. Palast is a throwback to the days of muckraking journalists who actually covered important stories, unlike today's journalist's who resemble televised gossip columnists.

[elocs]

11. Considering what the Republicans have done and will continue to do,

why does any, ANY black person EVER vote for a Republican? It makes absolutely no sense, like the chickens supporting the election of the fox.

[Divine Discontent]

14. amazing, and so disturbing,

because we all felt it was being stolen, especially watching Ohio on the TV that night...

and then hearing the dozens of negative stories of machines breaking, challenging voters, long lines...

and somehow, we remain rather CALM about it all when 200 years ago they'd march and burn down the capitol in Columbus for the state being so negligent in the election process. Is that b/c we're not brave anymore, or is it b/c we believe the people who are supposed to keep an eye on these people will do it, or is it just that we can't believe such an orchestrated level of evil doing could occur - keeping B*sh in office is perhaps the greatest worst thing this country has ever done, only slightly ahead of the Supreme Court overruling the Florida court and declaring the recount null and void in 2000 and declaring B*sh the winner by their decision!

Just sickening... GO PALAST! I support you, man!

and thanks for the post babylon!

www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <<-- check it out, top '08 stuffpport you man...

[rainy]

30. It's because we have no leaders. If one politician said hey "we are not going

to stand for this" we would have joined them in the streets.

[Divine Discontent]

35. hmmm

interesting thought...

I can see a great point in your words, thank you..

[avrdream]

15. Bloody amazing.

With each donation I make to the Democratic party, I hope and pray that they will send lawyers, pollsters, whoever, to the voting area to make sure this doesn't happen again.

I'm ashamed of my country.

[lfairban]

16. The view from Columbus, Ohio.

This was also done in Ohio, where Blacks and students waited in some precincts for seven hours or longer to vote. Many discouraged voters walked away, never counted. Palast said this reduced Kerry’s net vote in Columbus, Ohio, alone by an estimated 9,000+ votes.

[mnhtnbb]

26. The Ohio sister of one of my son's teachers (Chapel Hill, NC) stood in line 10 hours

at her Ohio precinct to cast her ballot on election day 2004.

[AtLiberty]

17. I figured this all out Nov. 3, 2004

In fact, I figured it out long before that date and then witnessed the nightmare on Nov. 2. By the next day, I was a raging lunatic and haven't changed since that day.

What is most frustrating is how difficult it's been to convince the Democrats that they're being screwed. That's the biggest obstacle. Even when many are presented with overwhelming evidence, they still don't get it.

By the way, don't let the 2006 election results fool any of you that everything is okay. Far from it. Statistics show that Dems should have won even bigger in 2006. Electronic voting machines have secret software which is owned by a few highly partisan corporations. These machines and the results are easily manipulated by those with the means, motive and opportunity. The immigration bill on the Senate floor right now has an amendment to make voter I.D. mandatory in the 2008 elections which would automatically disenfranchise the poor, the elderly and minorities. If that amendment passes, you might as well kiss the Oval Office, Senate, House and all state and local offices good-bye forever.

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. And yet another trick was a massive county by county strategy

to call any registered Republican voter on election day who hadn't registered a vote in that county, and convince them that their vote hadn't counted. Of course, this confused a number of Republican voters who sent in absentee ballots which went to another county. They just might not have understood how the system worked.

I know one Republican voter, who brought this to my attention, and said he feared he was voting twice but he couldn't understand why the electronic system in the State hadn't picked up on his absentee ballot. (Maybe because we don't have a statewide electronic system keeping track of individual votes?) I hadn't understood the system myself, so I didn't make the connection until after election day. But I always wondered if this had been an intentional exploitation of the weakness in the system, by the RNC.

[LiberalFighter]

33. You need to explain it better what you are trying to say

Are you saying that the party had Republicans vote in other counties therefore voting more than once?

If so, then an investigation needs to take place to determine if it did happen and which ones voted more than once.

It wouldn't be difficult. A complete voter registration file of the whole state. Identify voters with same last name and dob. Then identify those voters that voted in the same election more than once.

Good chance that there would be major players in the Republican party voting more than once.

[Patsy Stone]

21. Additionally

Isn't it odd how little (to absolutely none) the military vote was mentioned in 2004? Wonder why. (Not!) Hmm.

[babylonsister]

23. Yep, and the results have not only never been seen by the US, but

they won't ever be seen. There must be a reason...

[unpossibles]

24. K&R n/t

[DS1]

25. It's obvious from reading some of these testimonials that it's not so much the GOP's fault

that the system was gamed, it's the entire system that's fucked up and needs to be redone.

First, sorry, IOWA, you are insignificant, and the primaries being held in your state first is a fucking joke. I hope you see it as such. Nobody cares about your stupid little state that doesn't do shit. Put some real revenue into the system and then you'll earn your respect. Same goes for South Carolina, and all of the states between LA and GA, Florida only gets a pass because the money going into Miami and Tampa.

Second, get the voting rules changed. Allow vote challenges only to occur a year or more before the vote takes place. That will fix 90% of this shit.

[djjimz]

29. Will the maddness ever stop? n/t

[applegrove]

27. The MSM also had Kerry winning most of the day..which would have

kept lazy Dems home or leaving a long line-up while it lit a fire under GOP voters.

[disndat]

28. The people have to

organize and mobilize every precinct in ever swing state in preparation to prevent what happened in '04 or this will be deja vu all over again.
Guiliani, for one, has Karl Rove's top assistant on his campaign staff. What does that tell us?

[JPZenger]

32. Defective Voting Machine Trick

The defective voting machine trick is an old one. In the 1970s in Philadelphia, Mayor Frank Rizzo used to put the very oldest voting machines in the wards with the highest number of minority voters. Guess what - they broke down.

[LiberalFighter]

34. Voting machines should not be left in the hands of one person or one party.

Details about each machine should be inspected by both parties. Determining the allocation of the machines should be done by both parties.