UNDERNEWS
NOV 8, 2004
FROM THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
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WATCHING THE COUNT
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THE EXIT POLL ANOMALY AND CYBER WARFARE
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110604.htmlROBERT PARRY, CONSORTIUM NEWS - Theoretically at least, it is
conceivable that sophisticated CIA-style computer hacking - known as
"cyber-warfare" - could have let George W. Bush's campaign transform a
three-percentage-point defeat, as measured by exit polls, into an
official victory of about the same margin. Whether such a scheme is
feasible, however, is another matter, since it would require penetration
of hundreds of local computer systems across the country, presumably
from a single remote location. The known CIA successes in cyber-war have
come from targeting a specific bank account or from shutting down an
adversary's computer system, not from altering data simultaneously in a
large number of computers.
To achieve that kind of result, cyber-war experts say, a preprogrammed
"kernel of brain" would have to be inserted into election computers
beforehand or teams of hackers would be needed to penetrate the lightly
protected systems, targeting touch-screen systems without a paper backup
for verifying the numbers.
Though there's still no proof of such a cyber-attack, suspicions are
growing that the U.S. presidential election results were manipulated to
some degree. Voting analyses of some precincts in Florida and Ohio have
found surprisingly high percentages for Bush. Others have noted that the
large turnout among young voters and the obvious enthusiasm of John
Kerry's voters would have suggested a better showing for the Democrat.
But the most perplexing fact is that exit polls into the evening of Nov.
2 showed Kerry rolling to a clear victory nationally and carrying most
of the battleground states, including Florida and Ohio, whose totals
would have ensured Kerry's victory in the Electoral College.
Significantly, polls also showed Republicans carrying the bulk of the
tight Senate races. However, when the official results were tallied, the
presidential exit polls proved wrong while the Senate polls proved
right.
Explanations from the architects of the exit-poll sampling system also
sound specious. Their report said Kerry voters were simply more willing
than Bush voters to answer the exit pollsters' questions. But this
"chattiness thesis" seems more like a post-facto excuse than a serious
argument.
Another explanation from some pundits was that the exit polls were
adjusted by late in the day to rectify pro-Kerry exaggerations from the
earlier samples. But that is not what happened. As the New York Times
reported, "The presumption of a Kerry victory built a head of steam late
in the day, when the national survey showed the senator with a
statistically significant lead, one falling outside the survey's margin
of error."
By the mid-1990s, cyber-war - also known as "information warfare" - was
such a hot topic within the U.S. military that the Pentagon produced a
breezy 13-page booklet called "Information Warfare for Dummies.". . .
Indirectly, the booklet acknowledged secret U.S. capabilities in these
areas. . . The primer also gave some hints about the disruptive
strategies in the U.S. arsenal. "Network penetrations" include
"insertion of malicious code (viruses, worms, etc.), theft of
information, manipulation of information, denial of service," the primer
said.
The booklet also recognized the sensitivity of the topic. "Due to the
moral, ethical and legal questions raised by hacking, the military likes
to keep a low profile on this issue," the primer explained.
Despite the Pentagon's nervousness, the booklet said the cyber-war
tactics do have advantages over other military operations. "The
intrusions can be carried out remotely, transcending the boundaries of
time and space," the manual said. "They also offer the prospect of
'plausible deniability' or repudiation."
THOM HARTMAN, COMMON DREAMS - When I spoke with Jeff Fisher, the
Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from
Florida's 16th District said he was waiting for the FBI to show up.
Fisher has evidence, he says, not only that the Florida election was
hacked, but of who hacked it and how. And not just this year, he said,
but that these same people had previously hacked the Democratic primary
race in 2002 so that Jeb Bush would not have to run against Janet Reno,
who presented a real threat to Jeb, but instead against Bill McBride,
who Jeb beat. "It was practice for a national effort," Fisher told me.
And evidence is accumulating that the national effort happened on
November 2, 2004. . .
In Baker County, for example, with 12,887 registered voters, 69.3% of
them Democrats and 24.3% of them Republicans, the vote was only 2,180
for Kerry and 7,738 for Bush, the opposite of what is seen everywhere
else in the country where registered Democrats largely voted for Kerry.
In Dixie County, with 4,988 registered voters, 77.5% of them Democrats
and a mere 15% registered as Republicans, only 1,959 people voted for
Kerry, but 4,433 voted for Bush.
The pattern repeats over and over again - but only in the smaller
counties where, it was probably assumed, the small voter numbers
wouldn't be much noticed. . . Yet in the larger counties, where such
anomalies would be more obvious to the news media, high percentages of
registered Democrats equaled high percentages of votes for Kerry. . .
So far, the only national "mainstream" media to come close to this story
was Keith Olbermann on his show Friday night, November 5th, when he
noted that it was curious that all the voting machine irregularities so
far uncovered seem to favor Bush. In the meantime, the Washington Post
and other media are now going through single-bullet-theory-like
contortions to explain how the exit polls had failed.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htmTABLE OF ANOMALIES
http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm
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