Alvin Greene getting "elected" shows us what are no 1 issue should be.

[glen123098]

Election reform. Alvin Greene somehow "won" the election when he lost the absentee vote by 84 to 16. Absentee voting has a paper trail, while the electronic machines don't. There is no logical way Greene legitimately won this election. This would be like the constitution party winning the presidency.

This election shows that these machines are simply unreliable. Therefore election reform needs to be our number one issue. If we don't have election reform, none of the other issues matter, because these machines can be manipulated to make any result the powers that be want.

K & R this thread if you think election reform should be our number one issue. Unrecommend it if you think it shouldn't.

[annabanana]

1. If this isn't fixed.. We will be able to fix NOTHING!!

We are disenfranchised, all of us. The contract we have with our own government is broken and thus invalid. If there was ever an invitation to anarchy it is this.

[mod mom]

27. Unfortunately, it appears neither party wishes to correct our elections.

We have control of both houses & presidency, they are fully appear of what occurred in 2000 & 2004 and yet they have done nothing. :mad:

[johnnyplankton]

31. BINGO!

[obxhead]

50. Some of what has been done almost

makes me wish they were doing nothing :(

[Larry Ogg]

52. Unfortunately there are too few of us who are not the least bit surprised.

If the M$M is not effective enough at convincing the electorate as to how they should vote, election results become very suspicious, and bipartisan political prudence dictates that such issues be swept under the rug; lest we have a Constitutional crises that might anger the working class fools, sports fans, party animals and brain dead teabaggers into discovering that the illusions of this great democracy are now nothing more than a facade for organized crime. And when it’s too late to do anything about it, no one will know the difference except for the few of us who are not the least bit surprised…

[tomp]

54. that is because both parties control elections together.

they would rather have joint corruption than have the people decide anything legitimately. The will of the people is what they fear most.

[theFrankFactor]

67. +1 Careful! You'll make us a stronger, more effictive party!

[Sebastian Doyle]

2. Electro-fraud is the big problem, but it's not the only one.

The games played by DLC tool Charles Tapp in Arkansas to ensure a "win" for Blanche WalMart are another example of how even so-called "Democrats" are gaming the system against us.

[defendandprotect]

39. Right -- Schultz was talking about how Democrats there helped "suppress" the vote for

her challenger -- whose name I can't think of at the moment -- "H . . ."

We have to really have the reality of right wing co-option of our party by the DLC

sink in -- it's a continuing effort to move the party to the right.

To create a Democratic Party which is less of a threat to GOP/corporate interests.

In fact, to destroy the party -- but keeping it barely alive.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

58. SC: open primaries, Neither DEM party nore Media vetted candidates

its ironic that the party decries this man's election, but they fell down on the job.

The Party's job is to vet candidates! Same goes for media!

[Sebastian Doyle]

76. In SC you probably have several contributing fucked up factors

Probably electro-fraud, open primaries, AND non-vetting of candidates all contributed. One report said there were more ballots cast than there were voters. You don't get that merely from 'pukes voting a Democratic ballot.

Not that I haven't used open primary ballots myself. Here in Washington, the Democrats use the caucus system in the Presidential year, while the Republicans use a primary. I'm occasionally tempted to vote the Repuke primary ballot if there's one I hate more than the others. (such as Chimp vs McCain in 2000, back when Gramps had us all thinking he was at least tolerable)

It helps when the primary's not the same day as the caucus, so you can vote in both (though technically it's illegal to do so. :evilgrin: )

[ThomWV]

78. I don't believe the results in the Arkansas runoff either

[Sebastian Doyle]

83. Oh hell no!

When that DLC tool Charles Tapp resigned the next day, it was an admission of guilt, as far as I'm concerned.

He shouldn't be the one resigning though. If there were any justice in this world, it would be Blanche WalMart.

[Frosty1]

3. As it should have been our priority after 2000 and 2004

n/t

[flamingdem]

7. I remember how it was ignored again in 2008 nt

[Frosty1]

13. Is this perhaps what you are referring to?

"FOX News and its hit job on ACORN. The group was caricatured as so nefarious and omnipotent, a poll last year by Public Policy Polling found that 52 percent of Republicans believed ACORN had stolen the 2008 election for Obama."

[defendandprotect]

40. Some say that '08 was more of a landslide vote than we've been told and that...

it possibly would have brought as many as 24 more Representatives into Democratic Party!

[Larry Ogg]

93. I don’t believe that 100 more newly elected democrats would make a difference because;

my guess is that the newly elected representatives look for guidance from the old timers who have long ago sold out to the corporations of the status quo. Of course instinct can be a word for conventional thinking and one would naturally expect that one lean upon the wisdom of experience, and when we elect authoritarian followers as our new representatives and place them into a barrel of half rotten apples we shouldn’t expect revolutionary change for the better. In fact we shouldn’t expect any change at all until all the bipartisan rot is brought to justice…

If the Democrats in power wanted change they would expose and fight the corruption, unfortunately they seem to be more concerned about not ratting each out and less concerned about Constitutional Democracy...

[demodonkey]

4. I've been saying this for the last six years, hoping to get people to wake up and PAY ATTENTION.

Just because Obama won, does NOT mean our elections are OK.

And we can't wait around for the "perfect" bill or the "perfect" solution. We have to start somewhere and IMO that should be the basic protection of an auditable voter-marked paper ballot for every vote in every election. Then we can build from there.

[notesdev]

5. I don't see why it's that unbelievable

First name on the ballot, people didn't know either name, they checked off the first one. Absentees tend to be a little more involved on average since it takes extra effort to vote absentee.

[Stevepol]

8. Can you give an example where this happened? Besides,

if the election followed the usual protocol, the names were systematically switched so that one name didn't always come up first. Am I wrong about that?

This same thing happened in IA I believe in 05 in a Repub primary where a college student put his name in the running on a lark and got far more votes than an established, well-liked incumbent. A woman elections official guessed that the optiscans were not properly programmed, i.e., as to how to count the paper ballots that were run thru, and that was found to be the problem. In a case like this, you can be almost 100% sure it's the counting and not some other explanation. Why would Dems come to vote in a primary and not know the name of the person they want to vote for???

The punditry will come up w/ many other explanations for this outcome of course, since they're paid to talk and not to think or reason, but none of them will make the slightest sense. This is a voting machinery problem. It cd have been bad machines, honest errors in programming, but since this guy had no way to pay his filing fee, etc., and is a first-class idiot, this is almost certainly just one more of hundreds of highly suspicious results coming courtesy of ES&S, your friendly Right-Wing corporation which has taken on itself the burden of counting votes for the US (as well as keeping track of the voting rolls and all the other duties that elections people used to do themselves to make sure they were accurate and there was no fiddling w/ the vote).

[SoxFan]

9. Illinois, 1986

LaRouche candidates won the Dem nomination for Lt Gov and treasurer (or comptroller or auditor, something like that).

Conspiracy theories might be fun, but they usually don't hold up. In this case, we had an ultra-low awareness race and an inept, lazy "annointed" candidate. Absentee voters tend to be very high awareness voters (and receive early and ardent attention from campaign staffs), so it is hardly surprising that the absentee tally doesn't square with the overall tally.

[droidamus2]

25. You can't really believe that

Come on,that is no explanation for the statistical difference in this race. Maybe if the difference was one guy won the absentee by 10 and the other guy won the ES&S by 10 I might be able to buy it. In this guess the one guy won the absentee by 68% and the 'winner' wins the ES&S votes by 18%. That's a 86 point swing between the absentee and machine votes (after having looked around this might not be the exact amount anybody know what the real difference was?) . Statistically I don't think there is any explanation other than problems with the machines that would explain this kind of discrepancy.

To add to the conspiracy theorizing if the machine people are manipulating elections I posit that they will test what the limits of manipulation that can the public and the media will accept before they call foul. If so they would try it out in smaller races first before attempting it in more important races. Maybe in this case it was bad programmer or the machines weren't set up right but an 86 point swing definitely calls for an investigation.

[customerserviceguy]

95. I'd venture to guess

that white voters avail themselves of absentee ballots in a much higher proportion than African-American voters. I'm also assuming that enough people knew Greene was black, and Rawl was white.

[notesdev]

11. There's another good explanation as well

That in a primary with a lot of black voters the name "Alvin Greene" was appealing to more of them than was "Vic Rawl".

[fasttense]

22. Why does the name Alvin Greene appeal to black people more

than Vic Rawls? That sounds very strange to me to think that that name somehow is more black sounding or looking.

No, it's simply a right wing talking point. So, why are neocons putting out talking points for a Democratic race? Why do they care enough to need talking points? Because they rigged it. Either by switching votes on the fake voting machines or by getting RepubliCONS to cross over in an open primary and vote in a Democratic primary.

But that crap about the name is pure spinning by right wingers.

[LisaL]

44. Even that wouldn't explain why Alvin Greene won, since

he also won in counties that have only a small percentage of African-Americans.
If he won because his name appealed to African-American voters, then why would he win in counties that are predominantly not African-American?

[immoderate]

45. Who is more likely to be black, Rawl or Greene?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mUdgZhoYIXU/ReoG_xwOwCI/AAAAAAAAAFs/P0rsoB8wa-Y/s400/al+green04.jpg ?

--imm

[sunnybrook]

65. I know we've all heard of Al Green

Have we not heard of Lou Rawls?

[droidamus2]

34. Not significant enough

I found a source online (sorry just did a quick check and didn't get the link) that says the first name on the ballot can get 'up to' 2% more votes just from that position. That is could get but not guaranteed in any particular race. That would not explain the discrepancies of this election. As to absentees being substantially more politically involved that may be but I find it hard to believe that the kind of person that would just vote for the first name on the ballot is the kind of person that would go out and vote in large numbers in the first place. An anomaly that doesn't get mentioned as much is the one that seems to show that all these errors and questionable results always seem to benefit the Republicans/Conservatives. Yes I'm sure somebody could find a couple of examples that effected the other side but it is skewed to hurting Democrats.

[Hamlette]

47. I thought it was because it was an "open" primary and the GOP voters crossed over to vote for Greene

Not sure how it works in SC but in my state, if they put out the word on the QT in GOP circles to vote in the dem primary and vote for one particular candidate, it would happen. No question.

But if we're not hearing anything about a plan by the GOP to cross over, then it is suspicious.

We had an election for judge where the ballot said "vote for one" and the translation said "vote for uno". One of the judges running was named Uno. There was fear he won because of that but in Spanish speaking areas he didn't get any higher percentage than any where else. People know the difference between the number one and a persons name. (Duh) It was a big deal here at the time. So I don't buy the "first name on the ballot" answer.

[sunnybrook]

62. But those kind of disparities?

I think that would have to be highly improbable. He won close to 60% of the vote in person and 16% on the absentee? I think the first name on the ballot idea might be plausible for some cases, but for that number of voters? And even given the more invested interests of absentee voters, this just does not add up.

[lurky]

77. If there was an auditable voting system, we could just

do a public recount and put it to rest.

Unfortunately, SC uses a magical "trust us" voting system whose inner workings are secret and are totally controlled by ES&S, a shadowy private company with known ties to right-wing political figures. Because they have total control of the machines, and the system is totally unauditable, ES&S could easily "elect" anyone they felt like and we would never be able to prove it or have any way to dispute it. We are completely at their mercy.

So, yeah, odd results do happen in elections (though they seem to happen a lot more in places with electro-voting). Wouldn't you like to know for sure, though?

[flamingdem]

6. Isn't there information about how an unusual number of people voted in SC ? (machine fraud) nt

[kestrel91316]

10. Alvin Green hasn't been elected. He's been nominated.

[Toots]

35. He WAS elected to be the nominee

Now the Democrats HAVE to run him against Demint...

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

12. This was a dry run for something bigger

Obviously a SC Democrat has a snowball's chance anyway, but I smell teabag bullshit behind this.

[lunasun]

14. Trial run for nation wide in November??? nt

[csziggy]

15. Rawls isn't going to fight on those grounds

He's the guy Greene beat in the primary. Apparently former SC Democratic Party head, long time party guy. Olbermann interviewed him and brought up election irregularities. Rawls said he was not worried about that. He's going after Greene for claiming to be indigent so he could get a public defender on the obscenity charge and then coming up with the money for filing for office.

I had hoped this would show how corrupt the electronic voting system is and get peoples' attention on this issue, but the Democratic Party will not support a challenge of the machines. This really smells as bad as the oil in the Gulf.

[FirstTimeVoterAt37]

16. The whole thing stinks

I dunno, anything can happen, but this really really stinks to me.

[bobburgster]

17. We're totally screwed if electronic voting isn't fixed.

There has to be a paper trail.

[Wilms]

19. Yes. "There has to be a paper trail." However...

There were paper trails in FL2000, and in OH2004. If the paper trail isn't audited sufficiently (and they aren't...anywhere) it's no better than a paper-less machine.

[defendandprotect]

38. Yes -- the GOP-sponsored fascist rally to stop the hand counting of ballots in Miami-Dade

County shouldn't be foregotten --

Evidently, our SC Justice Roberts was very actively involved in all of those

questionable activities in Florida 2000 as he helped lead Bush to his criminal

"win."

[annabanana]

64. yup. . the "Brooks Brother Riot"

And then the uncounted ballots being removed ..A Very Sad Day:

[defendandprotect]

88. Hold onto that info . .. needs reposting often ---

I remember the night they announced that there would be a recount in Miami-Dade county...

I came home singing in the car!!

This was a real shocker . . . with no interference in the GOP riot from police enforcement!!

:) :)

Thanks, again!

[bobburgster]

89. God, my head is again shaking in disgust...thanks for reminding me.

[droidamus2]

26. Audit trail only part of the solution

If they can program the machines to register a different vote than the citizen voting entered what makes you think that they couldn't program it to print an audit document for the voter that shows that their vote was registered correctly. If each individual voter believes their vote was registered correctly it will be hard to get any large push to question a given election. I think a number of other things have to be in place in conjunction with the audit trail to make it all work.

First there needs to be an agency with oversight on the electronic machines. The agency should include programmers and experts that can verify the software and hardware as doing what ES&S claims it does. So no 'proprietary' argument as the law will be written so that any leak of the code will be strongly punished. I would even support the idea of a second panel outside of government also checking the systems to keep any particular party from stacking the government agency with yes men that just rubber stamp the machines as good. Also, a system has to be set up so no changes can be made to the machines by representatives of ES&S after a certain point leading up to an election and absolutely no changes on election day. If this requires a reserve of already loaded machines in each voting area to cover for breakdowns so be it. Next, for a given period of time like maybe 8 or 12 years all elections will be 100% audited. Don't know exactly how to guarantee it but you have to be sure that the paper copy used for auditing matches the receipt copy the voter gets or the whole thing falls apart. There have been enough question about results since electronic voting was instituted that a program to strongly verify that a vote cast is a vote counted correctly needs to be implemented. Lastly we have to break the medias hold on when and how results are to be reported. The media has people convinced that the results have to be made available and finalized immediately. Nothing says the votes have to be counted within 12 hours of an election (if the law does say that it should be changed). Elections, especially at the federal level, are important enough to our democracy that we should take our time counting the votes and make sure we get it right. Voting is the basis of our representative democracy so therefore every possible effort should be make sure that it is done accurately and that includes returning to paper ballots that are hand counted.

[defendandprotect]

41. IMO, we need to totally rid ourselves of electronic voting which can be hacked . . .

Please also see this post by me on this thread --

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8545297&mesg_id=8548462

I think we can go as far back as the Nixon/Humphrey vote -- another squeaker of 130,000 votes --

and question it.

Besides all of this we've had 50 years of right wing political violence --

still unacknowledged by the "TV" --

[droidamus2]

92. Absolutely

I totally agree that the best solution is a return to hand marked hand counted ballots with high security to make it as fool proof as possible (nothings perfect). Being a techie myself I was just discussing how you would try to make electronic machines work and being a programmer I can say that it is probably impossible as long as you have people involved who have no morals or ethics and see elections as a win at all costs game.

[defendandprotect]

97. One of the Founders . . . Jefferson? . . . said ... the reason we had to have a Bill of Rights ...

"is because not all men are honest men" --

[Tx4obama]

18. Article regarding the ES&S voting machines....

Here's a great article regarding the ES&S voting machines and the Alvin Greene issue:
http://crooksandliars.com/node/37691

[Scuba]

20. Switching votes is easy. Any good programmer can do it......

Last fall, ES&S quietly purchased Diebold, giving them 80% of market for electronic voting machings. And it's not just the un-auditable vote-counting; they now also own polling place check-in software (electronic pollbooks), voter registration software and vote-by-mail authentication software.

http://www.benalexandra.com/cool_stuff/diebold_ess.htm

This link has very scary information, all with appropriate citations, regarding what could easily be a mass-manipulation of our elections.

They've already been caught registering voters who thought they were just signing petitions. Getting total registered voter numbers higher gives them more room to fudge numbers.

When you buy a pack of gum, you get a receipt. Why is there no receipt/audit trail on our votes? I can only think of one reason.

[breadandwine]

21. The elections are being rigged before our eyes and Obama is too DLC to do anything about it.

The GOP is going to take Capitol Hill in the Fall and no one is going to utter a peep of protest because no one wants to admit that the whiff of fascism is in the air. President Obama even favorably mentioned electronic voting in his victory speech on election night in November, 2008. He hasn't a clue that the elections are being rigged and whenever the fascists think they can get away with it they are going to rig the machines. This happened in 2004, it will happen in 2010 and it will happen in 2012. After the GOP takes over Capitol Hill they will start a new round of impeachment proceedings and finish the screw. All because Democrats, Obama included, do not have the guts to crawl out of their DLC closet and do something against these one-armed-bandit fake voting machines and their rigged servers.

[fasttense]

23. I think the DLC is just happy with fake voting results.

They don't want the masses in control anymore than the RepubliCONS do. It's a way of ensuring that no one too liberal every gets elected.

So much for Democracy. The dancing supremes killed off democracy, along with justice and the Constitution (where does it say in a contested election the dancing supremes get to pick our president?), when they picked the bushes for our president.

It's time to move on and continue to pretend this fascist country is a democracy, or we could protest and march for months in DC. Oh never mind, let's just all pretend.

[defendandprotect]

42. DLC wants Dem Party moved to the right . . .

that's the stated goal --

The right wing wants to make sure the Democratic Party offers no resistance to

corporatism -- and they're pretty close to getting their way --

PLUS, we've had 50 years of right wing political violence -- still unacknowledged by the "TV" --

I'd also pick up what Chomsky frequently points to -- the effort to demoralize the left --

until we are finally identifying ourselves as impotent -- completely losers.

Well, Chomsky doesn't put it that way -- neither does Zinn, but hopefully you get what I mean?



:)

[daleanime]

24. 200+ years of practice...

and we still can't get it right?

[Sienna86]

28. Maybe they let Obama receive his real votes in 2008

The economy was beginning to dive and the Republicans were unable to keep it undercover, hence the first stimulus plan. So let Obama win, pin the economic woes on his Administration, and try again in four years.

[defendandprotect]

46. Can partially agree with you . . . think they knew there was going to be a huge landslide . . .

and that they couldn't stop it --

Btw, many say that it was huge and that we should have had 24 more Democratic Reps in

Congress --

A year or more before the election, MSNBC/GE was moving to the left with giving us some

liberal hosts -- Olberman and later Rachel -- Ratigan, I've never seen.

But, GE knows who butters their military bread.

Also the push to get people out early on voting day and LATE also helps cause they can't

completely judge how much they have to steal --

Plus absentee voting - - though I understand that's also counted by computer.

MIC is our biggest business -- the majority of our corporatism, aside from oil industry --

and military uses most of the oil produced.

Please see this post of mine here re the computers --

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8545297&mesg_id=8548462

[Speciesamused]

29. "We want this guy to crawl back under the rock he came from."

In a telephone interview from her Charleston home, Greene's accuser -- Camille McCoy, 19 -- says she didn't know that Greene was running.

"I really wish I'd known before the election, so I could have said something so that people would have known who they were voting for."

She says Greene asked her to look at pornography on his screen at a computer lab in a University of South Carolina dormitory and suggested, "Let's go to your room."

[Myrina]

30. ... and the #2 issue, IMO, as well is ...

... that anyone would automatically conclude that he's a plant simply because he's not part of the favored machinery and rolling in corporate-donated dough.

I'm sure in this case, because of mounting evidence, he is, but when our government has come to the point that 'Joe Citizen' simply cannot be considered for office because 'he doesn't have enough money' to be considered a 'real' candidate, we have a HUGE problem.

[defendandprotect]

48. No one's saying "Jane Citizen" can't run . . .

What we are saying is that voters have to presume that the candidate has been checked

out by the Democratic Party as legitimate.

Would you have approved this candidate for the party as legitimate?

[Myrina]

73. You're missing my point ...

Joe/Jane Citizen CAN'T run because they'll be assailed by the party machinery - like this guy was, but also like Halter was in Arkansas - as an 'upstart' who can't be allowed to seen as legit because she/he isn't "in the club". "The Club" will circle the wagons and cast anyone that threatens their status quo as 'a ringer' or ' a plant'; so the days of Jane or John Citizen being able to represent her or his neighbors in gov't are just about over, sadly. We the people are being pushed out of the electoral process, except for the token gesture of being allowed to vote for 'party-approved' candidates who may or may not have our best interests in mind.

:(

[defendandprotect]

86. Halter was a legitimate candidate of the Democratic Party ... approved...

this individual -- with a questionable and possibly criminal background -- was not!

Yes . . . Halter was attacked by the DLC-corporate wing -- just as Howard Dean has been.

But that doesn't make Alvin Greene the equal of Halter or Dean!!

And, yes, money is also keeping the Democratic Party rather corporate-elite --

and keeping average people from running from office --

but that's NOT the situation with this guy -- he's an obvious plant.

He's indigent, had no money, but paid $10,000 to run!!


Otherwise, we all get your point on what else is going on --

but this case is different from that.



You're missing my point ...
Joe/Jane Citizen CAN'T run because they'll be assailed by the party machinery - like this guy was, but also like Halter was in Arkansas - as an 'upstart' who can't be allowed to seen as legit because she/he isn't "in the club". "The Club" will circle the wagons and cast anyone that threatens their status quo as 'a ringer' or ' a plant'; so the days of Jane or John Citizen being able to represent her or his neighbors in gov't are just about over, sadly. We the people are being pushed out of the electoral process, except for the token gesture of being allowed to vote for 'party-approved' candidates who may or may not have our best interests in mind.

[NewJeffCT]

32. Doesn't South Carolina have open primaries?

And, since DeMint was not seriously challenged, it was likely easy enough for a group of dedicated Republic activists to vote for Greene.

Edit - and, Republics have done this sort of thing before - have a group of dedicated activists vote for the Democrat who was less of a threat in the general.

[lurky]

79. If there were an organized effort, where was the organizing?

To mobilize that many people to vote in the Dem primary, they would have had to get the message out. Usually, this means RW radio hosts encouraging cross-voting (a la "Operation Chaos"), editorials in local papers, or even mailings to party members. At the very least, there would have been discussion of it on FR, etc. I haven't seen anybody here mention anything like that going on.

[emsimon33]

33. I agree

Obama got elected and the issue went away, but the problem remains. Blanch Lincoln is another election I question. Without verifiable voting, there are no honest elections!

[nxylas]

36. Absolutely

Not just fixing rigged voting machines and Republican voter suppression efforts, but creating publicly financed elections that don't leave 99.9% of the population without political representation. That last bit sounds like hyperbole, like one of those asshole LTTE writers who prefaces their latest belch of ignorance with "I speak for 99% of the population when I say that...", but I mean it quite literally. I truly believe that the USA is now a plutocracy rather than a democracy, and has been for many years.

[defendandprotect]

37. Voters have long understood this....where is the Democratic Party, even now????

They find no urgency in this report?

No urgency in 2000 or 2004?

In fact, these computers began coming in during the mid-and-late 1960's --

coincidentally just about the time America was passing The Voting Rights Act.'


The large computers used by MSM came in first --

Prior to those computers MSM were only able to report actual vote tallies --

They could get a panel/group together to opine about likely direction of votes --

areas, etal, but the computers gave them new powers to PREDICT and CALL elections --

to PREDICT and CALL winning candidates. And finally to CALL STATES for candidates

and ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTES -- and CALL a win for the new president!

In 2000, we simply saw Fox News/Jon Ellis reverese those new powers by recalling

Florida from Gore --


Germany has banned use of computers in elections as "Unconstitutional" --

Again, where is the Democratic Party?


:)

[Chemical Bill]

43. K&R. n/t

[jimmyzvoice]

49. It should be #1 and it should be easy...

Now that democrats control both houses of congress and the
White House, I don’t understand why it not a simple matter to
pass federal legislation to require a paper trail in all
federal elections. This should not only be a top priority, but
be easy to accomplish. All Americans need to be able to trust
the results of their elections.

A paper trail is not a receipt that the voter gets listing how
he voted. (This would be meaningless and not prevent the
voting machines from coming up with a fraudulent tally.)
Having a paper trail effectively means mandating “optical scan
paper ballots” that could be counted by hand if vote fraud was
suspected. These ballots are still read and tallied by a
computer and could thus still be manipulated. Therefore the
requirement of regular, random hand counts are necessary as a
safeguard.

We also need to include, in this federal legislation, the
outlawing of proprietary software used in optical scan readers
and other devices to count the votes. Such software should be
open to inspection by all government agencies to insure
against voting fraud.

The federal legislation probably also needs to include funding
for states to replace their touch screen machines with optical
scanners. Although several voting rights organizations have
computed that such scanners are cheaper to maintain than the
larger numbers of touch screen machines required.

I live in Florida’s 13th congressional district. In 2006, I
followed very closely what appeared to be obvious vote fraud,
perpetuated by touch screen voting machines in Sarasota
County. Thanks to Governor Charlie Crist, Florida now uses
Optical Scan Paper Ballots in every county.

[jimmyzvoice]

51. Compare South Carolina to the 2006 Florida's 13th District...

Vote fraud can never be “proven” on Touch Screen Voting Machines without a paper trail. As we found out in Florida’s 13th Congressional District in the 2006 election, a recount of the voting machines simply means looking at the tally on the machines a second time and saying, “Yep, that’s what it reads”.

But the statistical comparisons in that election were astounding. Not only did the absentee ballots in Sarasota County give a different election result than the Touch Screen Machines, as in the recent South Carolina election. But neighboring Manatee County (which already used Optical Scan Paper Ballots) mirrored the absentee ballots in Sarasota County as opposed to Sarasota County’s Touch Screen Machines.

The vote fraud was obvious but impossible to be proven. I am sure you can Google the stats.

[flyarm]

53. Yes and in 2008 Florida became the only state to get rid of the DRE voting machines and how were we

paid back? We had 2+ million democratic primary votes negated ..by the dem party..totally thrown out..caput..

Because added and tagged onto the bill that abolished the DRE voting machines in Fla..the repuke legislature changed the date of our primary.

So no one gets my symapthy now..no one stood up enmass for our primary votes in 2008..

now?? I don't give a rats ass!

[MissDeeds]

55. K&R n/t

[totodeinhere]

56. I absolutely support election reform. But we also need to try to understand exactly what happened

this time. Was it inadvertent machine malfunctioning, or was it deliberate tampering? Either result is unacceptable of course.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

57. yes they need 100% paper ballots, but DEM party admits not vetting candidates

and only one newspaper in the state even bothered to vet them

SC: Vic Rawl for U.S. Senate (the one media article that vets both candidates)
http://www.heraldonline.com/2010/06/01/2206829/vic-rawl-for-us-senate.html#ixzz0pdJ8Xrn9

And just because other contests were won by "acceptable" candidates who appear to be serious,
why should their election be deemed any more legitimate than Greene's?

Why do we question the unverifiable results only when there is an implausible winner?

Maybe Green really did win but we'll never know because of the paperless voting,
but we also need to evaluate the canvassing - turnout vs ballots cast, chain of custody etc.

Without paper ballots, no you cannot validate an election. Period.

[The Wizard]

59. Antonin Scalia proved

elections don't matter when totalitarians are in charge.

[defendandprotect]

60. k

[DFW]

61. I saw Olbermann interview this guy

I saw the clip of KO interviewing the "Democrat" Greene. This guy has the IQ of a bell pepper. But KO also interviewed an old SC Democrat party chairman who was used to Republican manipulation of the elections there, up to and including getting ringers into the list of Democratic candidates. Ever since Riley left as Governor and Fritz Hollings retired as Senator, there hasn't been a sane South Carolinian in the Senate or the Governor's mansion, and there probably won't be in the foreseeable future.

[Infinite Hope]

63. Agreed...

[Mojeoux]

66. K & R throw out the machines!! nt

[KWMB]

68. No surprise

This is what happens when we try to streamline democracy; if we cannot be bothered to count actual votes ourselves, then we might as well be an absolute dictatorship. If we want a democracy, we'll just have to roll up our sleeves and wade knee-deep in paper ballots. Without a paper trail there is no accountability whatsoever.

[Dinger]

69. K & R (nt)

[xxqqqzme]

70. Each state needs to elect a Secretary of State who

cares about this issue. Each state controls its voting procedure. Right now, here in California we are fortunate to have a Secretary of State who made 'Every Vote Counts' her mantra.

SoS - that is were it starts.

[sam sarrha]

71. what is this guys IQ...? that is the big question..! what is his platform.?

[democraticinsurgent]

72. Similar happening in Indiana in May?

In the 5th Congressional District primary, a teabagger type named Tim Crawford won the Democratic nomination to challenge longtime pain in the ass Republican Dan Burton.

This was a huge surprise, because Crawford mounted no campaign at all. He did have a website, but that's it. His opponent, a medical doctor named Nasser Hanna, actively campaigned and was widely expected to win easily. Instead Crawford won 61% to 39%. More here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/24/10258/2736

Indiana bloggers attributed the surprise to Hanna's middle-eastern sounding name, which seemed somewhat plausible at the time.

Now, though, with what's happened in SC, there is a pattern emerging. The 5th CD is heavily Republican and although Burton was challenged hard (but foolishly, by FIVE republicans) he is likely to win no matter who the Dems would have nominated. Yet, as some think, this may have been a quiet, under-the-radar test of nominating a plant by manipulating voting machines. That, and a bit of insurance in case Burton had been upset in the primary.

And yeah, Indiana uses DRE's too. I'm going to try to find out how the absentee votes came in, I don't remember reading that statistica anywhere.

[ProudDad]

74. I recommended but NOT because "election reform" is all that important

The way elections are now and always have been conducted are exactly how the status-quo wants and allows them to be conducted.

USAmerican elections are designed to keep the duopoly in power; the two right-wings of the Big Business Capitalist Party, that Louis Black so rightly called "a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror!"

The Big Business Capitalist party has been created and is maintained to protect the privilege and wealth of the very few against the significant needs of the many.

Peeling off another layer of the onion, the basic system of dominator hierarchy that permeates most people's thinking and world view is the real problem. This is the frame that most people cannot escape, this short-lived experiment (less than 20,000 years) in a system that places a few in "leadership" positions and the many as willing and unwilling slaves, and a social and political economy based on that setup.

We all have to think outside of that box. We have to begin thinking about a Steady-State economy that fulfills the needs of Earth's creatures (of which we are but one group) and Earth's future as a habitable planet. We have to begin powering down to preserve Earth as a habitable planet. We have to begin realizing that we, the Collective, HAVE THE POWER in spite of the bullshit brain patterns inducing servility that the dominator hierarchy has imprinted in us all our lives.

Human brains are flexible. They were evolved in a much different social setup over millions of years and can be self-reprogrammed to throw off the chains of this recent, deadly programming!

DO IT!

[deaniac21]

75. It is just a miracle that we elected a President and majorities

in the house and senate.

[Hyper_Eye]

80. "are no 1 issue"?

Considering that this is the top article on the recommended right now and so is close to the top of the front page I think a correction would probably be beneficial.

[alp227]

81. the politicians AND votecounters=both perverts

In South Carolina, Republican governor candidate Nikki Haley allegedly slept with a couple other men not her husband, and Democratic US Senate candidate Alvin Greene showed porno to an unwilling college student.

Electronic voting machine manufacturers program the machines to screw over Democrats.

Yikes.

[abq e streeter]

82. One disagreement--those machines are VERY reliable--they do exactly what they're programmed to do

by the corporations that build and run them.

[Aleric]

84. Why wasn't it such a problem in 2000 or 2004?

Sure, when an anointed demoblican wins, it's OK. It's OK in Florida. (MoveOn, people!) It's OK in Ohio. (MoveOn, people!). But suddenly an unknown pops up who hasn't been approved by his betters and suddenly the machines are a problem?

Greene won. The Democratic Party won. The DLC lost. Again. Quit whining.

[Stevepol]

90. It's not OK anywhere, and it's happened in the elections won by Dems.

In the last presidential election, Obama almost certainly won by a wider margin than reported. I'm relying primarily on the work of statisticians at Election Defense Alliance for that and other indicators. Remember, when you've got the machines used across the whole country, some touch screen (no paper trail at all) and some touch screen with a paper print out supposedly representing what the machine is recording in its innards, and optiscans, where you do have a paper record for audits and recounts, the overall results tend to be less noticeable. In 04, e.g., the worst tilting and cheating took place in OH probably (nothing can be certain since it's impossible to verify the vote almost anywhere in the US right now) and solme thorough sifting of the data has taken place already and the indications are strong that fraudulent machine counting took place. Most of the egregious cases are in single states or small areas where the machines just went mad. In GA, e.g., in 02, the Diebold touchscreen, no paper at all, totally faith-based, counted all the votes. The incumbent Dem governor, Roy Barnes, up by +11% in pre-election polling, lost by 5%, a flip of 16 points, impossible to account for as a normal deviation it seems to me, same w/ Max Cleland who was up by about 5% in pre-electin polling and lost by 8%, a 13-point flip. In Potowatamie County in IA I believe in 05 in a Republican primary, a college kid put his name on the ballot and won by a large margin over a popular Republican incumbent, but thankfully they had paper to go to and found the results were erroneous. The ballot definition that has to take place in programming the optiscans was not done properly evidently.

There are hundreds and hundreds of examples of the machines malfunctioning, flipping votes, going berserk in every way inmaginable.

It would be much simpler, cheaper in the long run, more popular with the voters, and vastly more verifiable if we just went to paper ballots hand-counted at the precinct level.

[Aleric]

99. Yes but where was the outcry?

It would be relatively simple to create voting machines with verifiable paper trails but there is no political will to do so.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

85. K&R

[patrice]

87. K & R + Also the issue that will draw the most cross-over support.

Who could possibly be against counting the vote??? It would be political suicide to be against this.

[JHB]

91. By all means investigate it thoroughly...

If it turns up some Republican dirty tricks -- Good.

If it exposes faulty or tampered electronic voting -- Good.

If it turns out Alving Greene won fair and square -- also Good.

Whatever is exposed -- tampering, bad machines, or that the Party needs to pay more attention to its voters -- fixing it will only be for the better.

[Imajika]

94. Investigating is fine, but Greene probably really did win...

There is simply no evidence at all that he didn't. The real question is really only whether someone put him up to it. Where did he get the 10k filing fee money?

Actually, if it is his own money it is the best 10k he ever spent. Greene is all over TV and if he milks the situation he is probably looking at being able to write a book and maybe pick up a reality TV show somewhere.

This reflects very poorly on the South Carolina Democratic Party and is embarrassing for South Carolina Democrats in general. The fact that we couldn't put a decent candidate, even one who is probably only a sacrificial lamb, against DeMint is just sad.

"There is no logical way Greene legitimately won this election. This would be like the constitution party winning the presidency."

Wrong. People claiming there is no way Greene could have won offer no actual evidence to support their theory. Wierd things can happen in elections when voters don't know the candidates or understand the issues. Very few South Carolina primary voters had ever heard of either Greene or Rawl, and it appears being the first name on the ballot along with having a name primary voters identified with more was enough to win the nomination.

I am for investigation. That is a win/win really. The integrity of our election process is absolutely critical. If people have no confidence in how the votes are counted then citizens won't feel we are legitimately governed. I am fine with paper ballots as well. Still, there is no evidence to suggest Greene didn't actually win his votes legitimately. How he got the money to get on the ballot is a different story.

[customerserviceguy]

96. Thanks for stating that

People on this thread seem to be a bit more sensible than ones I've been in tussles with on other threads. It's embarassing, and failure to own the circumstances that led to this are what lead people to jump to conspiracy theories.

Alvin Greene's bank account should be proof either that he saved the money in small amounts, or that he got one or several large 'donations'. It wouldn't be impossible to trace the source of the deposits, and that's how you deal with the "plant" issue once and for all.

Even if he was a plant, there's no rational reason as to how or why DeMint's people would have risked being caught doing voting fraud. If you have that ability, why not save it for the general election?

[Angry Dragon]

98. kick