BBV: Lead Sunday NY Times Editorial Has All Guns Blazing!!!

[gristy]

This was just posted by La_Serpiente in Editorials, but I wanted everyone to see!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=30459

The editorial just covers everything! Outside hackers, malicious insiders, Wally "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president" O'Dell, blank electronic ballots in Florida last month, Fortune's naming of paperless voting as its "worst technology" of 2003, CA's decision for paper records, Holt's bill, dangerous Internet voting, purging of voter rolls, HAVA, and partisan gerrymandering. A friggin filthy laundry list!

[BeFree]

1. Good news, for a change.

Started as a little seed, grew some roots right here on DU, and look at it now! Proof that when we can put our heads together, nothing is impossible! Yeehaaa!

[dusty64]

33. Is good news,

lets see if it is ignored after. Hopefully not.

[TruthIsAll]

42. This editorial brings everything together. I am now convinced...

that Bush is truly toast.

This unbelievable editorial is over a year late, but better now than never. It will start a flood of TV programming and give the go-ahead to BBV-related issues by uncovering past (and potential) election fraud.

It covers all the bases. There is more to this editorial than meets the eye. The Times, by acknowledging that millions of felons, mostly black, have been disenfranchised, has also finally agreed that Gore won big, and the election was clearly stolen.

The establishment icon has formally declared open war on Bush.

[ParanoidPat]

2. WHAT????

They didn't mention R. Doug Lewis? :shrug:

Oh well, any press is good press. :evilgrin: (Unless you're a voting equipment manufacturer. ;-) )

[Andy_Stephenson]

24. ***Rubs Eyes***

Not a mention of Jeffery Dean...or John Elder...

[ParanoidPat]

26. Well if you Google "Jeffrey Dean", voting, you get......

......574 hits! "John Elder", voting only gets 268 hits. :shrug:

If you try "R. Doug Lewis", voting, you get 359 hits.

I guess we'll have to do something about that. :evilgrin:

:kick:

[psychopomp]

3. NYT comes to the aid of democracy in the U.S.

These are strange days, indeed.

From the article, just a snippet:

"We no longer have poll taxes, but there are still significant obstacles to voting. In Florida in 2000, Katherine Harris, then the secretary of state, hired a private company to purge the voting rolls of felons, but ended up purging many nonfelons as well. There will be more voting roll purges this year, and little scrutiny is being given to how secretaries of state, many of whom are highly political, are conducting them. And the Help America Vote Act, passed after the 2000 debacle, includes new requirements for voter identification that could be used in some states to turn away voters."

Good on ya, NYT!

[Karenina]

30. Am I correct to assert that those who were "purged"

have yet to have their voting rights restored! :wtf:


"They are right to be concerned. There is a fast-growing list of elections in which electronic machines have demonstrably failed, or produced dubious but uncheckable results. One of the most recent occurred, fittingly enough, in Palm Beach and Broward Counties in Florida just this month. Touch-screen machines reported 137 blank ballots in a special election for a state House seat where the margin of victory was 12 votes. The second-place finisher charged that faulty machines might have cost him the election. "People do not go to the polls in a one-issue election and not vote," he said. But since the machines produce no paper record, there was no way to check. It is little wonder that last month, Fortune magazine named paperless voting its "worst technology" of 2003."

:thumbsup: for the NYT brothel.

[moof]

4. It's about way past Freakin time.

n/t

[aquart]

5. Is the New York Times becoming a newspaper?

Or is this some strange fluke?

[DrBB]

6. Hot DAMN! Do I read this right? It looks like

...they're saying they're going to be returning to this topic periodically? I hope so. Nice to see how much space they devoted to electronic voting. This is going to make it VERY hard for Diebold and the PR consortium the BBV companies have created to marginalize critics as paranoid whackos.

My one concern in all this--and I hope it is merely a paranoid whacko one--is that if it looks like Bush is in trouble nearing election time, we may see him use this in a classic dictator's trick. Suspending or "delaying" elections precisely because their integrity can not be guaranteed. If that happens, we will truly know the darkness is upon us.

But I've been having dark thoughts all day about why they can't allow a Dem to prevail, and maybe it's just the vapors. In my rational moments, I tell myself they have no need to resort to such crudities; they've been getting everything they want so far just by gaming the system....

[psychopomp]

8. I don't see that going down

This is unadulterated good news, it is a blow against the Bushistas. Don't let (well-earned) cynicism get you down! There is no good reason that we cannot have the elections on-time with the better part of a year to go.

Even with three weeks to go, American ingenuity can ensure a timely vote.

edit: added "reason"

[Stephanie]

16. You're right, and we need to add another provision to Holt's bill -

It should say that in the event of failure of the voting machines, or machines that can't be certified in time, or whatever, there will be enough paper provisional ballots on hand so that the voting can take place anyway. We need to codify this.

[Eric J in MN]

22. Does anyone know what HAVA says about provisional ballots?

I know that HAVA requires provisional ballots, but is there any mechanism to make sure this is complied with?

In November, will thousands of people be told, "you can't vote in the usual way because you're a 'suspected felon,' and we're out of provisional ballots so you can't vote with a provisional ballot, either?"

[aldian159]

46. If they cancel elections, they're toast

they will awake the sleeping american public who sees voting as a civic right and great responsibiliy...

What the hell was I saying? Nobody will care, they'll just watch "The Newlyweds" and keep their heads in the sand.

Edit for clarity

[FreakinDJ]

7. Your beautiful Bev

How did you pull that off

Are they trying to beat the TV networks to the story so they pulled no punches.

I wonder how the Freeps are going to take this. I bet they won't allow news of this on their site.

Bev this is too good to be true

BTW did it mention anything about PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY

[rusty charly]

9. did NOT appreciate the above-the-fold front page photo though...

dean as a cardboard cutout! thanks alot. shades of gore all over again.

[FreakinDJ]

10. WTF is going on here

Bev

How come a little 3rd world country like the Philippines recognise the problem with these machines and deal with it and the BIG ALMIGHTY UNITED STATES can't

Recently they vioded the contract with the supplier of the electronic voting machines and decided to go back to hand count once they learned of the software flaws. Yet here they are still pushing the machines. I mean really WTF is the problem

As a fallback to the nullification of automated elections, Comelec would have wanted to implement electronic transmission systems.

The Electronic Transmission System is meant to speed up the submission of election results for all the national candidates including the President, vice-president and senators down to the municipal level.

But Congress has questioned the system as being vulnerable to hacking.

http://thefreeman.com/local/index.php?fullstory=1&issue=articles_20040118&id=14196

[gristy]

11. I posted the story at free republic with some sarcastic comments

I can't bear to look. Tell me what they say!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1060113/posts

[PaDUer]

12. Comments thus far..

This account has been banned or suspended. But here's the comments, and I copied the thread because they usually change it around a bit. Now we can watch how they're going to talk to themselves since they've banned you..Bunch of idiots!
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The lead editorial in the New York Times tomorrow covers electronic voting. It's nice to see this starting to get this kind of coverage in the mainstream press. I mean, can you imagine if the use of electronic voting machines really became widespread? With the chance (likelihood?) of fraud, how could we be sure that the votes of the clear Republican majority in this country would be properly counted? And what would happen if the current administration turned their backs on our ideals of pre-emptive war, environmental degradation, and tax cuts for the rich (i.e., us)? I mean, we wouldn't be able to vote the clowns out of office even if we wanted to!!

1 posted on 01/17/2004 10:45:29 PM EST by shotput
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To: shotput
And what would happen if the current administration turned their backs on our ideals of pre-emptive war, environmental degradation, and tax cuts for the rich (i.e., us)? I mean, we wouldn't be able to vote the clowns out of office even if we wanted to!!
Hi troll.


2 posted on 01/17/2004 10:47:58 PM EST by Dog Gone
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To: shotput
Sounds to me the libs are already making excuses for why their candidate is going to lose.

3 posted on 01/17/2004 10:48:02 PM EST by 11th Earl of Mar
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To: shotput
Hey... and don't worry.

Rove will 'take care' of everything.

hehehe

4 posted on 01/17/2004 10:49:20 PM EST by 11th Earl of Mar
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To: shotput
Of course they leave out, That the United States of
America is a constitutional republic, and not a
democracy.

5 posted on 01/17/2004 10:50:02 PM EST by HuntsvilleTxVeteran (A little knowledge is dangerous.-- I live dangerously::))
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To: Dog Gone
Well Said!

6 posted on 01/17/2004 10:51:51 PM EST by cmsgop ( How Come Vic Tayback Never Won an Oscar ???????????????????????????????)
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To: HuntsvilleTxVeteran
None of this matters. The judiciary calls all the shots, anyway.

7 posted on 01/17/2004 10:51:58 PM EST by JusPasenThru (Reasoning with a man is futile when his opinions were not reached by reason in the first place.)
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To: Dog Gone
...the rich (i.e., us)...
I can't wait to tell the wife that we are indeed rich. She'll be pleased.


8 posted on 01/17/2004 10:52:43 PM EST by TankerKC (...and, don't flash at me or I'll never move over!)
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To: shotput
Oh dang, you've been banned or suspended.

9 posted on 01/17/2004 10:52:56 PM EST by Dog Gone
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To: shotput
Zotted within 6 minutes of posting? Admin Mod is quick tonight.

10 posted on 01/17/2004 10:52:57 PM EST by Semi Civil Servant

[aldian159]

47. I hate to change the subject, but

who the hell is Vic Tayback?

[psychopomp]

13. Unfortunately, a missed opportunity

I believe you may have gotten more interesting responses if you had resisted offering a (well-deserved) jab at freepers. This is an issue which crosses party lines: it is about our democracy.

Not everybody over there is a fascistic blowhard, but their more reasonable voices will now likely be drowned out by the usual gang of idiots looking for a scatological scrap.

This issue will sadden and anger the hearts of all Americans who love their country.

[gristy]

14. Yes, it should be a bipartisan issue.

Only a handful of Repubs have cosponsored Holt's bill, though. As far as my post goes, I just couldn't help myself. :)

[GregD]

28. FWIW, I layed low over here last week

when I posted this over at FR. We had a pretty thoughtful conversation, and I've had a number of nice responses privately.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1056584/posts

It's a long thread - and of course their slant is that the Dems are trying to steal the election, tried to steal FL2000, and so on... I'm not going to dive into that mess with them - my goal was to get their support, and I hope that is happening now. This really is, as Gristy stated, a non-partisan threat.


Anyhow... They also posted a link in there somewhere to a whole section of "Dem vote steals" (similar to the BFEE Primer - I think it was a recap of several threads) as well as a message listing several examples in this one giant paragraph. I think it would be quite interesting and educational if someone were to take those examples and start a thread here in DU - and review each and every.

The basic allegation is that Dems do 90 percent of the vote stealing. I frankly have not followed politics all my life with the attention I give it today, and have therefore not the historical knowledge (or the time) to examine their examples and research them. Like I say, it would be an interesting research project if someone wishes to amuse themselves.

If someone took it on, I'd throw a link to someone over there and ask them to respond. Could be good for giggles and grins.

GregD

[ozymandius]

15. Truly disheartening responses to your FR post.

I can only shake my head in reaction to their responses. So blinded by party ideology, they cannot see past their own hyperbole to recognize the potential for vote fraud on a massive scale. They cannot step outside of their circus of damning Democrats to consider that our Democratic Republic is under threat from a technological enemy.

[Military Brat]

17. "... the U.S.A. is a constitutional republic, and not a democracy."

"Of course they leave out, That the United States of America is a constitutional republic, and not a democracy."

Who's the smart-mouth in Freeperville that thinks the technically correct interpretation of our country is an excuse for suffocating democracy when it's inconvenient for their agenda? I guess that poster is looking forward to a Saddam-like Republican Guard in America. I'm beginning to truly understand that such freepers somehow believe they'll be in charge and can satisfy their power-hungry egos. Fat chance!

[psychopomp]

18. Let's keep this thread on-topic

Yours is a good post, but it would be disappointing to derail a thread about this important victory into criticism of the responses on the other side.

[ParanoidPat]

19. IMHO, Analysis of the arguments used to counter our 'victory'.....

.....would seem to be very much 'on topic'. :evilgrin:

Knowing the 'spin' being used by those in opposition to Voter Verified Paper Ballots allows us to preemptively develop further arguments in favor.

:kick:

[psychopomp]

21. Yes, it is a win

It is a victory for truth. Yes, analysis of the spin is vital. At the same time let's not get bogged in the mud by shooting from the hip at the less thought-out FR bushit?

:toast:

(edit: noting the irony of this sub-thread)

[0007]

20. btt

I'll go to bed happy at least!

[rman]

29. so according to freeps, elections are supposed to be rigged?

-

[rucky]

27. You're a terrible liar/troll

Good for you!

next time...just the facts

[grasswire]

23. has Bev posted since last night?

I haven't seen anything from her since yesterday.

[Andy_Stephenson]

25. Talked to her.

She is fine.

[leftchick]

31. Anyone see C-span Washigton Journal this Morning?

I am curious to know if this was mentioned at all. Great Editorial!!

:bounce:

[althecat]

35. Perhaps seemslikeadream will step up to the plate?

This is good news... is a FANDAMTASTIC editorial...

[Kelvin Mace]

32. You have to wonder....

"the public has a right to expect that voting machine companies that run elections will not also seek to influence them."

Here, here! These companies must be like Caesar's wife, above even the APPEARANCE of impropriety. Officers and managers of voting machine companies should not be involved in fund-raising or endorsing ANY public candidate for office if their machines will be used to decide the candidate's race. Candidates should not accept money from such companies either. While doing so may be legal, it is unethical and immoral. Wally O'Dell should resign from all political fund-raising projects immediately. George Bush should return all money he received as a result of this man.

But, of course, they won't and you must ask yourself, "why not"? After all, the amount in question is a tiny fraction of the Bush war chest. Giving the money back would not damage his fund-raising efforts and would send the public a message that the integrity of vote is paramount in Bush's mind. Similarly, O'Dell would defuse his critic's objections and demonstrate Diebold's commitment to fair and honest elections using his company's equipment.

And yet, they won't do this. They cling to the discredited view that what they are doing is proper and in so doing, undermine the people's faith in democracy.

You really have to wonder why.

[Karenina]

34. Cuz they're "right,"

and into the "divine right" of faux Xtian *icons, the pretenders to the throne. Didn't you get Pat Robertson's memo?

[Kelvin Mace]

36. Uh

Didn't you get Pat Robertson's memo?

I did, but we were out of toilet paper and....

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org

37. And to think

Without me, tbis probably would never have happened. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would go this far!

I educated Bev and David Dill last year, and I did a Diebold analysis two weeks before the Hopkins one...

Now I am onto more interesting problems! When you get bored with the voting thing, read my website for the issue everyone will be talking about a year from now!

Dan
"The BBV before BBV."

[gristy]

38. Yes, you are the MAN, Dan.

Thank you for everything. We do sometimes forget. But that's how things work I think. Everyone has to move on at some point. Especially when capable followers (Bev, Plan9 Pub, Red Eagle, and many others) have picked up the ball. And now with the NY Times editorial staff and Paul Krugman and so many others in the mainstream media exposing the threats of BBV, the ball is being passed again. Or the team is getting a lot bigger, anyways.

I saw your thread on how inflation is calculated and visited your web site. Pretty interesting. What you are suggesting is pretty horrific. That inflation calculations are being manipulated by those who could profit from said manipulation? Is that it?

edit: english

39. RedEagle

She's great, so tireless.

We still talk on the phone every once and a while. Just did today.She is fighting in the state to do voting right.

Dan

40. Yes, they should fix the broken inflation indicators

How about at the same time they fix the broken(rigged?) voting machines?

Yes it does look to me like manipulation, on top of bad oversight...for the inflation indices as well as the voting machines.

Whatever the explanation, what we were being told in both cases, was WRONG!

[Stephanie]

41. Dan, that is a very interesting article

Thanks. It makes perfect sense to me that they would be cooking the books on inflation. Why don't you post a thread about it here - have you yet? Have you sent it to Dean/Clark/Kerry etc.?

43. It took months of research

I was hoping I would find mistakes somewhere in my study, but I couldn't. I actually found problems, and THEN the CNN article, and the one by the economist I link on my sidebar.

Keep in mind,as long as they can claim inflation is low, everything is in their favor. Lower social security payments for the old!!!

So their must be tremendous pressure to bend the truth. Apparently, someone has been giving in, especially recently.

One more thing the American people were let down on.

I submitted the article to Common Dreams today, I hope they will print it.

I built on the research techniques that helped Bev and David Dill, et. al, Black Box Voting.

No matter what they say, this is clearly an area which needs fixing! There isn't any real oversight--just like with voting machines!

Make sure to read ALL the links on the site. There are a TON of them for research.

[barbaraann]

44. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Dan.

:loveya:

And from the hearts of everyone in my family, too!

[VOX]

45. Great news!

Thanks for posting the link -- :toast:

[0007]

48. btt

[dusty64]

49. Kick!

x

[RedEagle]

50. Yep, we're all still at it

We have to move this thing on the state level, too.

There are some Secretaries of State and State Election Directors who need to be shown the door.

Dan pointed this out to me a long time ago:

There is virtually NO oversight for Secretaries of State.