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Post by Boomer Chick on Nov 7, 2004 19:26:14 GMT -5
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Post by Boomer Chick on Nov 7, 2004 23:15:41 GMT -5
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Post by Boomer Chick on Nov 8, 2004 0:08:30 GMT -5
Votergate 2004; Karl Rove on the Dis-Information Trail opednews.com/wade_110804_rove.htm By Anthony Wade www.opednews.com Faced with mounting drumbeats from the Internet about voter fraud and the probability that Bush has stolen another election, the man behind the curtain stepped outside today to do a victory lap for his boss. The purposes for Rove’s talk show circuit appearance was not so much to talk about anything factual, as much as it was designed to lend credibility to a faltering electoral result by pretending nothing is wrong. Our media, ever absent from protecting us, was more than happy to capitulate. Since election night, Rove has been at his dis-informational best. Faced with the accurate exit-polling that showed a Kerry landslide was imminent, it was Rove and the Bush cabal that came out to denounce the polling as “skewed” and “under-representing the Bush voters”. He offered no proof of course but it was wholly necessary to have a point of rebuttal before the Diebold machines kicked in and gave the election to his boy. The notion that somehow only people who voted for Kerry wanted to talk with exit pollsters is patently absurd. Millions of people had voted by the time the pollsters had made their initial findings known. Are we really to believe that time after time, in multiple states, at different polling sites, all Bush voters did not want to answer exit polls??? Why then were the exit polls correct in the two states with paper trails for their voting machines Karl? I guess the roving lunatic would have us believe that Bush-backers in those two states had no problem talking to the pollsters, but in those crucial states, such as Florida and Ohio , they got all nervous. Sure Karl. Attempting to legitimize the results today Rove said, "The country is still close, but it has moved in a Republican direction. This election confirmed that". Well, not exactly Mr. Rove. What this election confirmed is that there was gross manipulation of the vote counts in at least 23 Florida counties. You see, when you look at small, traditional democratic counties in Florida , we actually now see a near reversal of the votes. For example, in Baker County, where Bush received around 7,700 votes there is no conceivable way that total could be reached. In order for that to have happened, all 3,000 registered republicans, all 800 non-affiliated voters, and 4,000 registered democrats would have had to have voted for Bush. That is 4,000 democrats out of less than 10,000, nearly 50%. C’mon Karl, what did you guys do with the computers? If Baker County was an anomaly then maybe we could say it was no big deal. Baker County is the rule however, not the exception. In over 20 counties, the results show that the reverse of what the voters’ registrations should have born out. Twenty counties Karl. How long do you think you can continue to pimp this lie? In discussing the exit polls Rove said today, "I mean, it had us 19 points down in Pennsylvania . It had us 17 points down in New Hampshire . It had us 1 point up in Virginia . I mean, you looked at these numbers, and you realize, this is just insane." Insane Karl? People come out from voting and tell the pollsters who they voted for. Those results are compiled. There is nothing insane about this process. It has worked flawlessly for a long time now, at least until Bush came around. I can understand why it drove Rove insane, because it would be difficult to explain how so many registered democrats ALL seemed to reverse course on Election Day. You see, Karl Rove knew that the exit polls wouldn’t match the tampered results. Faced with this dilemma, he had no choice but to question the veracity of the exit polls. He started early on election eve, planting the seed. Then, when the “votes” came in, he allowed the seed to grow, until it was the polls, not the votes that were questioned. Unfortunately for Karl, the truth would remain hidden within the numbers. Maybe it would be Baker County or Lafayette County , but eventually someone would simply lay out the numbers in a spreadsheet and realize that there is no conceivable way that in so many counties, the exact opposite of the expected results turned out. Now, the plan is simple. Make the rounds on the talk shows, make everything seem legitimate. Ignore the fact that there are now 3,000 Freedom of Information Act inquiries pending regarding the computer records from this election. Ignore the fact that citizens in Ohio stormed the state building a few days ago protesting their disenfranchisement. Ignore the drumbeats from the real people who know that their will has been circumvented. Hope that eventually the American people will just get lazy again. They did in 2000, so why not expect the same this time around? Hope that you can just ignore the elephant in the room until the election is certified and your boy has his inauguration. Have him speak about “spending his capital”. Keep repeating the lies that Bush has a mandate. Ignore, delay, and hope that we all just go away and don’t see you for what you are and what you represent. You are nothing more than the man behind the curtain, representing lies, a failed president, and a stolen election. Sorry Karl, we are not going anywhere this time. Anthony Wade is co-administrator of www.ibtp.org, a website devoted to educating the populace to the ongoing lies of President George W. Bush and seeking his removal from office. He is a 37-year-old independent writer from New York with political commentary articles seen on multiple websites. A Christian progressive and professional Rehabilitation Counselor working with the poor and disabled, Mr. Wade believes that you can have faith and hold elected officials accountable for lies and excess. Anthony Wade’s Archive: www.opednews.com/archiveswadeanthony.htm Email Anthony: takebacktheus@yahoo.com *** WTG! Anthony!
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Post by Boomer Chick on Nov 8, 2004 11:56:23 GMT -5
Growing Collection of Vote Fraud links: ATTN Global Media By Richard Lofgren Nov 7, 2004, 07:35 www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_13375.shtml The list of evidence is growing that the US election was anything but a fair vote. Who could possibly think that all of these voting problems are just a minor aberation? The long lines are always in Democratic counties, that the computer ’glitches’ always favor Bush, and the new e-machines were made by a Bush ’Pioneer’ (top donor) that pledged to deliver for Bush. Funny how Diebold makes bank machines which print paper receipts millions of times daily, but they couldn’t get the printer to work in the voting machines. All Europeans must recognize that this vote fraud is no laughing matter- Bush might be coming after ’old Europe’ in the future. Climate Change, senseless killing worldwide, more death and destruction in the name of profits will continue if Bush remains idiot emperor in chief. Since the US press is burying this vote fraud evidence, the world needs the reporters in Europe to help us bring this mountain of proof to light and make this an international scandal that the US media can no longer ignore. Evidence Mounts the Vote was Hacked www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htmUSA today- Machine error gives Bush 3,893 extra votes in Ohio tinyurl.com/65dgzDamschroder said the malfunction occurred when one machine’s cartridge was plugged into a laptop computer and generated faulty numbers in several races. Why is a vote cartridge being plugged into anyone’s laptop? from above story- Franklin county pdf file: tinyurl.com/4kq35screenshot of page 23- cropped for bandwidth/ease, numbers remain the same <emb247|center> **************************** Statistically impossible coinidence of many more repub votes than registered repubs ONLY in Florida optical scan counties ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htmGraph highilighting absurdity of Florida counties in above story- it looks like they just reversed the results! www.rubberbug.com/temp/FloridaChartsMed.jpgFlorida county anomalies discussed here blog.democrats.com/florida*************************** Palm Beach Post- Broward machines count backward tinyurl.com/674mjComputer Loses More Than 4,000 Early Votes portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/11/302304.shtmlToo Many Irregularities to be coincidence bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4175Washington Dispatch- Palm Beach County Logs 88,000 More Votes Than Voters tinyurl.com/6w756Florida Sun-Sentinel- 58,000 votes lost in heavily democratic Broward County, Florida tinyurl.com/4z27rGroup Finds Voting Irregularities in South www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1105-25.htm3 members of Congress call for an investigation bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4188Democracy Now- Voting Problems Widespread in Florida, Pennsylvania tinyurl.com/44ct9Scrub voter rolls in NY nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/129692/index.phpPhilly voter suppression www.phillyimc.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/04/1613256Ohio-not enough machines-flyer says vote wed portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/11/301710.shtmlLinks about the potential for vote fraud before the election- Where were Kerry and Edwards on this issue- NOWHERE! Consider the first article at CommonDreams above with Bev Harris demonstrating on CNBC how to fix a vote in 90 seconds... Why wasn’t the Kerry/Edwards team challenging this ridiculous system long before the election? And why did Kerry give up when he was only down by 136,000 votes in Ohio with 250,000 still to count?! How they can fix the election via modem link to central tabulators portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/11/301589.shtmlGlobal monitors find faults tinyurl.com/4tgvaReasonable Doubt that the primary vote has been tampered www.benfrank.net/nuke/dk/primary_vote.htmlimagicke.blogspot.com- huge collection of background info tinyurl.com/4dgpwTake Action! ************************ Black Box Voting has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems. What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud. We are working now to compile the proof, based not on soft evidence -- red flags, exit polls -- but core documents obtained by Black Box Voting in the most massive Freedom of Information action in history. We need: Lawyers to enforce public records laws. Some counties have already notified us that they plan to stonewall by delaying delivery of the records. We need citizen volunteers for a number of specific actions. We need computer security professionals willing to GO PUBLIC with formal opinions on the evidence we provide, whether or not it involves DMCA complications. We need funds to pay for copies of the evidence. blackboxvoting.org/************************ Shouldn’t most Republicans want a real victory, or would they be happy if their guy stole it- anything to win and stop those evil gay people from getting health care. Are they really that shallow? I think all honest Americans know there is something fishy about both political parties backing electronic voting machines that are so open to hacking. Why should the Great USA have million dollar voting machines that don’t produce a paper trail? If the new Bush ’mandate’ is truly the will of the people, they really won the popular vote, then they shouldn’t be afraid of a little transparent auditing and hand recounts. So many were disenfranchised by waiting in long lines, 58,000 votes LOST, name taken off voter list, etc.... I think it would be worthwhile to have a nationwide re-vote, all paper ballot and hand count. Millions of dollars to produce new ballots? Hardly- just create one ballot put it on a website and computers across the country can print the simple Bush/Kerry/Nader. Sure, Nader too, this will get the Bushies to sign on to this re-vote... but we need to also toss in a quick 50% majority to win rule- Why not Mr. Bush and fellow boner Kerry? Why wouldn’t you support a 50% or runoff rule... do you think this might give Nader a fighting chance? It doesn’t have to take that long, just hire more counters. Imagine that we could hire millions of jobless, even if it’s temporary it’d sure be a boost to them and the economy, and we could hand count every single ballot in the nation. It is unacceptable to have longer lines in the city than in rural (republican) areas- the cities need more polling places- period. ps- to all the name calling Republicans calling "sore loser" and "get over it"- are you afraid of a recount? bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4194
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Post by Boomer Chick on Nov 8, 2004 13:13:37 GMT -5
November 8, 2004 www.legitgov.org/ www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news Ohio County: More Votes Than Voters --Cuyahoga County Precincts (americans4america) "Each precinct in Cuyahoga County, Ohio Highlighted areas represent 90% (very, VERY unlikely) and higher (up to 1160.78%) voter TURN-OUT! 29 are above 100% Calculated from data on county page --(Ballots Cast/Registered Voters) *100 = % turn out. Ballots Cast SHOULD NEVER be more than Registered, thus per cent should NEVER be higher than 100% This amounts to 93,136 EXTRA votes beyond 100% in those precincts! This is just for ONE county!" Nebraska County: More Votes Than Voters --Too many votes --Sarpy County election officials are trying to figure out how they ended up with more votes than voters in the general election. As many as 10,000 extra votes have been tallied and candidates are still waiting for corrected totals. Sarpy County borrowed the election equipment from Omaha-based Election Systems & Software. Wet Ballots Found, Rejected By Voting Machines (FL) Several hundred ballots in Seminole County, Fla., mysteriously got wet and were rejected by voting machines Tuesday, according to Local 6 News. The wet ballots were apparently discovered unmarked Tuesday at the Community United Methodist Church in Casselberry, Fla. 'I spent a lot of time looking in Ohio, and a lot of time looking in Florida.' --Karl Rove, interview with Chris Snow (Fox [Faux] News Sunday), November 7, 2004. [Looking?!? That's not *all* you did, whackjob!!] "I was tipped off by a person very high up in TV that the news has been locked down tight, and there will be no TV coverage of the real problems with voting on Nov. 2. Even the journalists are pretty horrified. My source said they've also been forbidden to talk about it even on their own time, and he was calling from somewhere else. He was trying to figure out how to get the real news out on vote fraud. This is a person I've worked with off and on for nearly two years, and the voice was so somber it really bothered me." --Bev Harris, blackboxvoting.org
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Post by Boomer Chick on Nov 8, 2004 15:13:04 GMT -5
Nebraska Countinghouse Blues Too Many Votes Too many votes www.wowt.com/news/headlines/1161971.html Sarpy County election officials are trying to figure out how they ended up with more votes than voters in the general election. As many as 10,000 extra votes have been tallied and candidates are still waiting for corrected totals. Johnny Boykin lost his bid to be on the Papillion City Council. The difference between victory and defeat in the race was 127 votes. Boykin says, "When I went in to work the next day and saw that 3,342 people had shown up to vote in our war, I thought something's not right." He's right. There are not even 3,000 people registered to vote in his ward. For some reason, some votes were counted twice. Deputy Sarpy County Election Commissioner Ed Gilbert says, "It affected 32 of the 80 precincts. And I suppose as many as 10,000 votes." Sarpy County borrowed the election equipment from Omaha-based Election Systems & Software. Its employees operated the machines that are now double-checking the ballots. No one is sure exactly what went wrong. Gilbert says, "The only thing we know is that if you load the disc out there, it reads fine. They didn't read fine on this computer." Election officials say they don't believe the glitch will impact who won and who lost any of the races. They figure that when votes were doubled in a particular race, the totals were doubled for both candidates. Vote totals would be skewed but percentages would not change. In spite of that, the candidates want to know the real numbers. Boykin says, "I think we owe it to those folks to make sure all the votes got counted, correctly." As of Thursday night, the problem still had not been pinpointed. The Sarpy County Election office had hoped to post the updated results on its Web site but, at last check, we got the following message: "Updated unofficial results for the 2004 General Election are pending. Please check back later."
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Post by Boomer Chick on Nov 8, 2004 15:37:49 GMT -5
Edited on Mon Nov-08-04 12:15 AM by BevHarris www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2636130 I was tipped off by a person very high up in TV that the news has been locked down tight, and there will be no TV coverage of the real problems with voting on Nov. 2. Even the journalists are pretty horrified. My source said they've also been forbidden to talk about it even on their own time, and he was calling from somewhere else. He was trying to figure out how to get the real news out on vote fraud. This is a person I've worked with off and on for nearly two years, and the voice was so somber it really bothered me. At any rate -- and perhaps, especially important due to the tipoff above, there are things you can do to take back America. ==================== We have a different list for lawyers, computer people, statisticians. But if you are a regular person like most of us, and want to help, here's what to do. Please distribute: If you have not done so already, sign up at Black Box Voting -- www.blackboxvoting.org -- to audit the election and deal with vote fraud. HELP AMERICA AUDIT: 5 Things You Can Do Right Now to Reclaim Democracy You’re our greatest hope. If you choose to accept it, your job is to spread the word in order to build a fast-growing grass roots movement -- a voting integrity project so powerful that it cannot be mowed down. 1. BE THE MEDIA -- See below. 2. CRUNCH THE NUMBERS: Discrepancies please, and hurry. E-mail them to tips@blackboxvoting.org . Pass the word. Need source documents, too. ASAP. Follow your nose, or join the Black Box Scavenger Hunt: Pick a county. Look at small counties, as we are seeing many discrepancies in those. Look in any state. Get the official number of registered voters, Dem and Republican. Get the number of votes cast on Nov. 2, Republican and Dem. Make a grid like this, filling in the right numbers: # reg. voters % # votes cast % Rep 100 33% 150 50% Dem 200 67% 150 50% Totl 300 100% 300 100% We can find out a lot from this procedure, very hard data, that will make a real difference. As soon as you have finished a county, e-mail it to us. Do as many counties as you can. 3. HAVE A HOUSE PARTY: Show the film “Votergate” (the real one, which you can download for free at www.Votergate.tv .) Organize “Be the media” actions and set up investigative teams to help dig up information like you have in #2. Timeline is NOW, to get action before seating the electoral college. 4. HELP CONNECT THE WIRES: Hook Black Box Voting (.ORG) up with powerhitters you know, people who can make things happen. 5. DONATE to any of 3 organizations: Black Box Voting (.ORG), the consumer protection group for elections; or the new recount fund (information upcoming, contact DU's Hedda_Foil), or send contribution to Votergate.tv (The REAL Votergate film, by Russell Michaels, Robert Carrillo Cohen, and Simon Ardizzone. There is another by someone else, make sure you get the right one.) The real VOTERGATE is the most powerful investigative film on this topic, and consequently it has been attacked and blocked repeatedly. They deserve your support. “HOW TO BE THE MEDIA” Don’t expect to see vote burglary on TV. To get the message out fast, you’re going to have to become the underground railroad. Do it now. Take pictures of each other doing it. Have house parties to show others how to do it. Here’s how to “be the media.” BE YOUR OWN REPORTER: We will send you new information as we get it. We need your e-mail to get you on the list, so if a friend sent this to you, please shoot an email to crew@blackboxvoting.org to sign up. Spread the information we send you to every blog, listserv, forum you know and throughout your personal network. Talk about it at work and to people you meet everywhere, lots, quickly, all the time. SELF SERVE SOUND BITES: Frequent, very short messages to immediately increase public awareness. Assume you won’t see it on TV. Put vote fraud related messages on: - Yard signs - Car windows - Write them on duct tape and wear them - Print REMOVABLE stickers and stick them on things: - Bathroom door at the gas station. - On telephone poles in the dead of night - At bus stops - On the back of bus seats - Stick them into your junk mail and send it back via return mail - Slip them into menus at restaurants - Leave them in books at the bookstore - Share new self serve sound bite ideas with us and we’ll send them out with new messages. ELECTION “TRUTH TOURETTES”. Please excuse the political incorrectness, as it is not meant to be hurtful. It is for a good purpose. This the antidote to “watch what you say.” It is a good icebreaker at a party. Have your guests make up truths, like those below, and mix them into the conversation at surprise times throughout the party. Unexpectedly and urgently blurt them out: Recount! Electile Dysfunction! Gotta audit-Gotta audit-Gotta audit Florida! --mathmatically impossible!-- Count all the votes! Count all the votes! Count all the votes! Votefraud. Paperballots! Handcounts! --where’s my vote?-- Where’s the paper? Feel free to interchange and mix it up, or even try a game where different people have to interject with different truths. - WHO REALLY WON -- I DUNNO -- GOTTA AUDIT! Also, here are more ideas. - Magnetic signs for your car - If you know a trucker, have them put a message in the window as they drive across the county. - Make a patch and put it on the front of your baseball cap - Carry a sign and stand in the window outside the Today Show If we have to be our own media, so be it. We will not sacrifice democracy just because TV executive producers have a problem with this issue. # # # # #
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Post by Boomer Chick on Nov 8, 2004 15:44:12 GMT -5
Wisconsin report Election stolen, group suspects 60 meet at UW, plan next steps www.madison.com/tct/home/topstories/index.php?ntid=15673&ntpid=0By Bill Dunn November 8, 2004 American democracy: a shining city on a hill or gutter politics that steals votes and suppresses voter intent? To about 60 people who gathered Saturday at the UW Humanities Building, it's more like the latter. Sue West of Rockford, Ill., saw notice of the "No Stolen Elections" meeting on the Madison Area Peace Coalition's Web site. The meeting followed an anti-war rally that attracted 500 to 600 people to State Street and the Capitol. "I think we need to protest this election no matter what Kerry does," said West, originally a Dennis Kucinich supporter. "I think it's fraud, pure and simple." John Kerry conceded too quickly to suit many in the audience, with CNN reporting about 6 million ballots uncounted in the country.A young couple's matching "Skull and Bones" shirts showed they didn't rule out that maybe the Yale secret society has some very dark secrets. Moderator Ben Manski, a law student and Green Party activist, said the biggest concern is "black box" voting. How is it, he asked, that Ohio precincts with 70 percent Democratic registration went 60 percent for George Bush? (Ohio voters' party affiliation is determined by how they vote in primary elections.) A related concern, Manski said, is the effort to suppress votes before and on Nov. 2. District 8 Ald. Austin King said misleading voting information posted at UW-Madison and other campuses "was clearly a coordinated national effort by Republicans to suppress the college vote." "I'd very much like to see someone put in jail for this, and I'm not a tough-on-crime guy," King said. Nationwide, there's a loose coalition of groups protesting the election, and news reports surface every day detailing problems with things like electronic voting, people waiting hours to vote and supposedly nonpartisan election officials making decisions that helped Republicans. Three Democratic congressmen - U.S. Reps. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Robert Wexler of Florida - have asked the General Accounting Office to investigate. Whether the election is overturned or not, said Phyllis Hasbrouck, it's key in the future to require paper ballots and to ban touch-screen voting. "If we don't do this, we'll never have a real election again," she said. It's troubling to Bill Hawkes, a retired A.C. Nielsen Co. statistician, that exit polls and vote totals were so far out of whack. "I've spent my whole life in marketing. The difference is clearly beyond any sampling variability. ... The community of statisticians and media experts need to not let this be dropped." A woman who didn't want to be identified said the public needs to keep the pressure on. "How many millions did they spend on the Lewinsky investigation?" she asked. A problem, Manski said, is trying to coordinate national and local efforts. He said he would participate in a conference call today with a coordinating committee. A public meeting and hearing are being organized for Sunday in Columbus, Ohio. It was suggested that people write and call their elected representatives and voter rights groups to demand action. "It's important that we get institutions involved that are outside the blog community," Manski said. Groups like MoveOn.org and True Majority so far aren't getting involved, he said. "There's a lot going on, but in terms of liberal leadership there's not a lot going on." Well, it's like this, said a woman in the back of the room: "If it is to be, it is up to me." People signed up for various tasks to keep the drive alive, and another meeting is set tentatively for Saturday. Electoral College electors vote in their home states Dec. 13. John Peck, a recent UW graduate who said he's now overqualified for a job in his field and is driving a cab, wants to put up "democracy walls" like the Chinese did in the 1970s and 1980s. "We should have a democracy wall in every town so people who don't have the Internet can read them. It's time to reclaim our public space." Peck added a thought about electronic voting. "The Luddites had an answer to machines." E-mail: bdunn@madison.com
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Post by Boomer Chick on Nov 8, 2004 20:34:26 GMT -5
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Post by Boomer Chick on Nov 8, 2004 21:57:46 GMT -5
www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/08/1513252Bev Harris, investigative reporter and author of the book "Black Box Voting." She has announced plans to file the largest FOIA action in history by seeking the internal logs from voting machines from every county that used electronic voting machines. Aviel Rubin, professor at Johns Hopkins University and co-author of the report "Analysis of an Electronic Voting System" the initial study of security flaws in voting machine software. He served as an election judge in Baltimore County on November 2nd. AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the woman behind that process, investigative reporter, Bev Harris. She is the author of the book, Black Box Voting. We also are joined by Professor Aviel Rubin who teaches at Johns Hopkins University and is co-author of the report, “Analysis of an Electronic Voting System,” the initial study of security flaws in voting machine software. He served as an election judge in Baltimore county on November 2. Bev Harris, let's begin with you. What exactly -- what kind of information are you looking for now? BEV HARRIS: Well, first, we’re seeking internal audit logs of the machines, which are public record. There's nothing proprietary about this. It's interesting so far. We have been getting responses, but the officials who run the machines, the county officials, are really so clueless. They don't know what their machines' records are, or how to print them out. So we find ourselves guiding them through the menus on their own software to show them how to print this information out which is a bit scary. But we also sought documentation on all of the troubled slips in all of the documentation of any problems that they had. Right now, we're following up, you know, we have all of the anomalies such as the viewer mentioning, and we're following up with specific public records requests, for example, give me the internal log of machine number such and such of that precinct, or depending on the type of anomaly they're reporting, we are seeking the specific types of records that will shed more light on that. AMY GOODMAN: We're going to go to a break and then come back to this discussion of the counting of the votes last Tuesday. This is Democracy Now!. We'll be back in a minute. [break] AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, as we continue on the issue of the electronic voting machines and the overall count in the election. Our guest are Bev Harris, author of the book, Black Box Voting, has plans to file the largest Freedom of Information Act Request in history, by seeking the internal logs from voting machines of every county that used electronic voting machines, and Aviel Rubin, professor at Johns Hopkins University, who served as an elections judge in Baltimore county on November 2 and is co-author of the report, “Analysis of the Electronic Voting System.” Professor Rubin, your assessment of what happened Tuesday. AVIEL RUBIN: Well, I think that we have a problem now, which is that we have dug ourselves a big hole by running an election using systems that -- there's really no way to tell what's going on inside the voting machines. So, when -- I'd like to separate out all of the talk about the glitches and things not working from the idea that somebody, you know, security -- somebody may have rigged the machines or tampered with them. And I think the fact that we're using systems where it's impossible to tell is very scary. So, Bev talked about these problems that they're trying to uncover, and we have seen the news stories about problems, but what I worry about are the ones that may have happened that are totally undetectable. For example, it doesn't make bug news if a voting machine switches 5% of the votes from one candidate to another, because nobody ever knows it because we have a secret ballot in this country. I think it's very important that we move away from systems where nobody can really see what's going on inside at the time of the election. And there's no capability of doing a recount towards more verifiable, auditable systems, for example, if you had a voter verified paper ballot. AMY GOODMAN: Why the opposition? You had the Election Monitoring Group, that the State Department brought in itself from the OSCE, the Organization of Security and Cooperation Europe. Some of their election monitors were saying that this is worse than the situation in Serbia, another one referring to the Venezuelan elections and saying, their electronic voting machines, people were given a ticket that they dropped in a box and randomly around the country, they can compare the paper trail in the boxes to the voting machines. Why is there such fierce opposition to having any paper trail, which means zero possibility of recount? AVIEL RUBIN: I have always been very surprised that the people running elections are not jumping at the chance of having a way to recount the election. I think that, you know, the best thing would be to get one of those people on the show and ask them that question, because it doesn't make any sense it me. From the vendor's perspective, they would sell a more expensive, more feature-rich product if they could add photograph verifiable printout. I have been completely confused about why they're -- everybody is not embracing this concept. AMY GOODMAN: Are you convinced, Professor Rubin, that President Bush won this election? AVIEL RUBIN: I don't know. I think that as long as we use systems where you cannot really tell what's going on inside the machine -- you know, when I was an election judge, I watched people walk into the precinct, walk up to Diebold machines, vote, and walk out. And at the end of the day we printed results. And I was thinking if I had written that program that's running on those machines, I could have made any outcome that I wanted come out. So, you know, do I believe that Bush really won? Well, I don't know. AMY GOODMAN: What about this letter, Bev Harris, that has been signed by three Congress members, including Florida Congress member Robert Wexler, John Conyers, and Gerald Nadler. Can you talk about it? We have hardly seen any reference to it. BEV HARRIS: Well, you know, the concern I have is, we have got to go after this from all fronts. I haven't seen any reference to it in the media. I have also been told from sources that I have inside the media that are fairly high up that particularly in TV, there's been -- there is now a lockdown on this story. It is officially and from an executive producer level, let's move on time. And I am very concerned about that, because it looks like we're going to have to go to places like BBC, to get the real story out. I find it amazing that we went ahead with an election without even auditing it. You are never going to find the problems with the machines that you can quantify until you at least do the basic canvassing that's in the current election procedures, such as, comparing how many people showed up to vote with how many signatures are in this poll book with how many votes show up in the machines. They haven't even done that. And to make it even worse, Ohio, they don't even know how many provisional ballots there are. They don't know if there's 150,000 or 500,000. They don't seem to be able to tell us what records they have. This is amazing, and I knew this was going to happen. They set up this thing. They said we're going to have provisional ballots nationwide. They didn't set up any auditing for them. And so, in case after case, we're not able to account for those ballots. We ought to know, because they're cast at the precinct. We ought to know how many provision ballots we have on election night. Why wouldn't we if we have proper book keeping?
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Post by Boomer Chick on Nov 8, 2004 21:58:30 GMT -5
AMY GOODMAN: There's been serious questions raised about New Mexico, but does it hurt trying to find out the ultimate counts that John Kerry and John Edwards so immediately conceded, despite the fact that Edwards had said as they promised during the campaigns, making references to Al Gore squelching protests four years ago, that they would make sure that the votes were counted?
BEV HARRIS: Oh yes, they conceded very prematurely. As I was saying in Ohio, they don't even know if they won or lost in Ohio, really. They are basing this on, I think, a verbal okay from someone in the Secretary of State's office that said, that they were being assured there was only 150,000 provisional ballots. Well I said, where is the source data on that? What auditing do they have on those? They couldn't tell me. You see, I don't understand how you would concede anyway without even beginning the canvassing, because with these voting machines, we don't have adequate auditing in place, but we have some. The full auditing we have does -- it does find some anomalies that are quite big and sometimes they flip elections. So, you know, why not just wait a couple of days. The other thing I'm seeing is that in some parts the media gave a huge push to hurry, hurry, hurry, certify. This was happening in New Mexico. They're saying -- they're putting tremendous pressure on Governor Bill Richardson to hurry and certify the election. Well why? You have x-number of days to certify the election. One would think you would want it to be right, and you’d think would you want to go through and you want to check out the information. And understand, a lot of this is already election procedures. We keep saying that election procedures are what really save us from the insecure and mysterious machines, and that the election procedures would catch anomalies. Understand, that they have not done the election procedures yet in most cases. They have chosen to go ahead and call elections without doing the very procedures that they say protect the system.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us, Bev Harris, who is filing the largest Freedom of Information Act request in the history of the act, and Professor Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins University.
AVIEL RUBIN: Thanks a lot.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you.
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Post by Boomer Chick on Nov 8, 2004 22:03:19 GMT -5
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Post by Boomer Chick on Nov 8, 2004 23:03:18 GMT -5
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Post by Boomer Chick on Nov 8, 2004 23:28:57 GMT -5
www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/html/20041106T200000-0500_68984_OBS_A_LOBOTOMY_FOR_DEMOCRACY.aspA lobotomy for democracy COMMON SENSE Sunday, November 07, 2004 "The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery." - Tom Paine JOHN MAXWELL In the 1940s, I remember reading an American magazine which was trumpeting a new cure for anti-social behaviour. This now discredited surgical operation was called prefrontal lobotomy or leukotomy, in which the nerves connecting the frontal lobe to the higher centres of the brain were cut. The procedure, invented by a Portuguese surgeon, won him a Nobel Prize. Lots of supposedly anti-social people were 'cured' by this operation. As it turned out, the operation destroyed the personality and left the victims emotional zombies. One woman said that after the operation her daughter was present physically but her soul was somewhere else. Troublemakers among the rich and famous were often subjected to the operation. Rosemary Kennedy, sister of JFK, was given a lobotomy on the orders of her dad, Joseph Kennedy. The result was so awful that she was confined to a mental institution for the rest of her life. Frances Farmer, a famously beautiful actress, was thought by her parents to be too unruly. Carter. warned that the voting arrangements in the United States for the Presidential Election could not be considered satisfactory, fair and above board. "She was a radical political activist, communist sympathiser and of a rebellious and aggressive nature. After several squabbles with the authorities, in 1942 she was wrongfully declared 'mentally incompetent' and was committed by her parents to various asylums where all therapies failed to tame her into "normalcy". In 1948, her parents ordered a lobotomy. "She was released in 1953 from the hospital, no longer a threat to society." - Renato ME Sabbatini, PhD, The History of Psychosurgery, Brain & Mind magazine, June 1997. Prefrontal lobotomy cured lots of troublesome ailments, including "nymphomania", socialism and the insatiable thirst for freedom. For me, the defining moment of last week's US Presidential Election came about an hour before midnight. All night the CNN anchor, General Blitzer, had been refusing to reveal the results of the exit polls; CNN didn't want to mislead people. But it was nevertheless becoming clear that John Kerry was going to be the next president of the United States. Robert Novak was a panellist on Blitzer's show. Wan, demoralised, and apparently near to complete collapse, Novak told Blitzer that he had just been in touch with his GOP cronies in Ohio who told him that all appeared to be lost. What Novak did not know was that help was on the way in the shape of the Diebold company, makers of electronic voting machines. Within hours, Kerry was no longer winning but on the road to conceding the election to Mr G W Bush. The Republicans had stolen the presidency of the United States for the second time in a row. The most significant thing about the state of US politics is the compliant posture of the national press. They seem ready to believe anything. They appear to have been lobotomised, physically present but missing their souls. Mark Twain got it right: "Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the press, for they will steal your Honour. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse"(Thanks to Tom at (http://www.informationclearinghouse). Exit polls - asking people just after they voted who they voted for - are not precise indicators, because they are sample surveys. But they have always been more precise than the pre-election sampling. For years the networks have depended on them. Only in 2002, in Florida, was there any question of their reliability. And we soon found out why. According to the US media on Tuesday night, the exit polls got it wrong. This, of course, can only mean that people who voted for Bush told the pollsters that they voted for Kerry. A most unlikely event. And it would be interesting to discover why CNN and other news media changed their published exit poll data after Wednesday morning. Jonathan Simon of Alliance for Democracy notes, "Statistical discrepancies were identified in key battleground states that exceeded the margin of error of the exit polls. In Ohio, for instance, a 'shift' of 3.1 per cent toward Bush converted a 52 per cent - 48 per cent exit poll "victory" for Kerry into a 51 per cent - 49 per cent electoral "victory" for Bush. In the group of 12 critical states selected for analysis, exit poll vs tabulated vote shifts exceeded the polls' margin of error in four cases, which, according to statistical analysis, [should] occur only 0.2 per cent (or one five-hundredth) of the time in the absence of significant mistabulation of votes." Simon also notes that exit polling appears inexplicably to have been significantly more accurate in non-battleground states than in the states that were crucial to a Bush victory. Citizens for a Legitimate Government (CLG) (www.legitgov.org) declares: "Rather than objectively exploring reasons for these identified discrepancies, the networks now glibly claim exit polling based on scientific methodology is completely unreliable, and have all but forgotten that there was a deep and widespread concern about the reliability and security of the vote tabulating apparatus leading up to this election." CLG continues: "A statement by Wally O'Dell, the CEO of Diebold, providers of Ohio's electronic voting equipment in August 2003, may have foreshadowed the November 2 results, at least in Ohio. O'Dell, acting as a Republican fundraiser at the time wrote, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president" .George Bush seemed to take O'Dell's pledge at face value, hardly deigning to campaign in Ohio, which was a confusing strategy to many pundits given the state's cliffhanger closeness and critical importance." One crucial statistic made me quite sure that the election was stolen. It is a well-recorded phenomenon that after an election result is known, more people will claim to have voted for the winner than actually did. After this election, is a remarkable fact that only 51 per cent of the US electorate said they were happy Mr Bush had been elected. The post-election bandwagon effect is well documented. "Response error tied to over-estimation of voting is one of the oldest and most persistent types of response error to be documented. .[Stanley Presser] reports that such response errors tend to range between 12 and 16 per cent. with the error tending to be larger the closer a survey was done to the election". ( Robert H Prisuta, A post-election Bandwagon Effect 1992 and Stanley Presser: Can Context Changes Reduce Vote Over-reporting?; Public Opinion Quarterly, Wier 1990) In this case, and as far as I can discover, only in this case does the percentage claiming to have voted for the winner fall below the percentage actually voting for him. The US press in its cocoon of fantasy, pretends to believe that this result is possible and accurate. No one can - without his consent - be deprived of his rights. It says so even in Third World constitutions.
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Post by Boomer Chick on Nov 8, 2004 23:29:46 GMT -5
cont... Shortly after he returned from Venezuela in August, former President Carter warned that the voting arrangements in the United States for the Presidential Election could not be considered satisfactory, fair and above board. This was in contrast to Venezuela, where they also used voting machines, made in the USA, but those machines had a paper trail. Many people foresaw the theft of the election. In an article for The Nation earlier in the year, ('How They Could Steal the Election This Time') Ronnie Dagger revealed that five out of every six US voters would be casting votes in machines which could easily be programmed to produce the wrong result. She predicted: "The result could be the failure of an American presidential election and its collapse into suspicions, accusations and a civic fury that will make Florida 2000 seem like a family spat in the kitchen." Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's labour secretary, has written, "Automated voting machines will be easily rigged, with no paper trails to document abuses". Senator John Kerry told Florida Democrats last March, "I don't think we ought to have any vote cast in America that cannot be traced and properly recounted". Pointing out in a recent speech at the NAACP convention that "a million African-Americans were disenfranchised in the last election", Kerry says his campaign was readying 2,000 lawyers to "challenge any place in America where you cannot trace the vote and count the votes" [ www.thenation.com/ Greg Palast, "Vanishing Votes", May 17, 2004]. The probability that the election was stolen becomes even more likely when it is recalled that GOP majority leader in the House, Tom DeLay, and the speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, have for two years prevented a vote on a bill requiring that all electronic voting machines should have an auditable paper trail. Congressman Rush Holt introduced the bill requiring all electronic voting machines to produce a voter-verified paper ballot. The bill was co-sponsored by a majority of the members of the House of Representatives - GOP and Democrat. There were serious anomalies in the reported Florida vote. According to the results, there were 1,392,639 new voters. There were 7,355,296 votes cast in this election as against 5,963,657 in 2000 when, according to the official results, Bush got 2,912,790 in 2004 to Gore's 2,912,253 a difference of less than 600. The split in 2000 was approximately 50/50. In this election Kerry got 3,459,293 or 47 per cent, while 3,836,216 or 53 per cent voted for Bush. Despite the Democrats outperforming the GOP 60/40 in registering new voters, Kerry got half-a-million more, while Bush got twice as many. Unbelievable. We must believe, contrary to all the known facts, that there was a swing to Bush of eight per cent! Bush got 32 per cent more in 2004 than four years before, while Kerry increased Bush's total by only 19 per cent. But there was no swing. According to one exit pollster, both candidates retained 90 per cent of their party's 2000 voters. So the swing came in the computers. In Florida people complained that their votes were recorded for Bush although they had voted for Kerry. Republicans were so worried about their failure in signing up new voters that they set out to intimidate and disqualify as many voters as possible. Can anyone, even including the US press, believe that these figures are anything but bogus? The real problem is that many people cannot believe that the Republicans could be so arrogant and barefaced to do what it is obvious that they must have done. On KLAS-FM on Wednesday morning, the two presenters initially thought I was being funny when I said the election had been stolen. But it isn't funny, and forecasts horrendous consequences as we shall see in Fallujah shortly, and perhaps Haiti. After the 2000 election I predicted that we were in for a hard time. I didn't think it was going to be this bad. I had no idea that democracy itself and its handmaiden, the press, were scheduled for prefrontal lobotomies. The ultimate irony, of course, was provided by the American media which solemnly pronounced that Bush won the election on moral values, despite Enron, Halliburton, Iraq WMDs, Abu Ghraib, the Patriot Act and the host of other scandals. If that represents morality, perhaps we should all get prefrontal lobotomies. We need to remember though, that nothing is ever over until we give up. Copyright©2004 John Maxwell john.maxwell02@uwimona.edu..jm
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