Worse Than 2000: Tuesday's Electoral Disaster (final w/ link)

[WilliamPitt]

THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED.

===

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110804A.shtml

Worse Than 2000: Tuesday's Electoral Disaster
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report

Monday 08 November 2004

Everyone remembers Florida's 2000 election debacle, and all of the new terms it introduced to our political lexicon: Hanging chads, dimpled chads, pregnant chads, overvotes, undervotes, Sore Losermans, Jews for Buchanan and so forth. It took several weeks, battalions of lawyers and a questionable decision from the U.S. Supreme Court to show the nation and the world how messy democracy can be. By any standard, what happened in Florida during the 2000 Presidential election was a disaster.

What happened during the Presidential election of 2004, in Florida, in Ohio, and in a number of other states as well, was worse.

Some of the problems with this past Tuesday's election will sound all too familiar. Despite having four years to look into and deal with the problems that cropped up in Florida in 2000, the 'spoiled vote' chad issue reared its ugly head again. Investigative journalist Greg Palast, the man almost singularly responsible for exposing the more egregious examples of illegitimate deletions of voters from the rolls, described the continued problems in an article published just before the election, and again in an article published just after the election.

Four years later, and none of the Florida problems were fixed. In fact, by all appearances, they spread from Florida to Ohio, New Mexico, Michigan and elsewhere. Worse, these problems only scratch the surface of what appears to have happened in Tuesday's election. The fix that was put in place to solve these problems - the Help America Vote Act passed in 2002 after the Florida debacle - appears to have gone a long way towards making things worse by orders of magnitude, for it was the Help America Vote Act which introduced paperless electronic touch-screen voting machines to millions of voters across the country.

At first blush, it seems like a good idea. Forget the chads, the punch cards, the archaic booths like pianos standing on end with the handles and the curtains. This is the 21st century, so let's do it with computers. A simple screen presents straightforward choices, and you touch the spot on the screen to vote for your candidate. Your vote is recorded by the machine, and then sent via modem to a central computer which tallies the votes. Simple, right?

Not quite.

...more...

[Auntie Bush]

1. Thank you Will...so glad to have you on our side!

[Pithy Cherub]

2. You are appreciated

more than you will ever know! I look forward to 5 different people emailing it to me tomorrow.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. Hey Will-- I have a question for you regarding this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1338685&mesg_id=1338896

[KittyWampus]

4. Thanks, Very Even-Keeled Article. May I Just Add One Word?

Racketeering.

[WilliamPitt]

5. .

[WilliamPitt]

6. One last

[leftofthedial]

7. rockin as always Will

If the Dem lawyers won't fight it, how do we?

This can be fought locally. In most states, each county or township is responsible for determining the methods for voting.

[meganmonkey]

8. Wonderful!!!

Credible evidence put forth in a well written report. Too bad there aren't more journalists like you!! Let's get this in the NYTimes or WaPo!!!!!!!!!!!

:toast:

[blue neen]

9. This is a very effective article.

I just printed out some copies to send to friends who don't have computers.

It's time to come out of the state of shock I have been in.

Thank you for posting "Worse Than 2000."

[Cha]

10. Much "Worse than 2000"

The neo fascists were just sharpening their knives then.

Thank you so Much for compiling all of these voter fraud instances into one Truthout article!

[SoCalDem]

11. 2K was the "new product roll-out) 02 was the fine tune..

04 was the dividend..:cry:

06 will be even worse..there should be DREs in about 2/3 of the polling places by then and by 08 probably upwards of 75%..

We will never again "know" who won.

The repubes love things the way they are, and have no reason to shange.. They run the show..we are screwed..maybe forever.:cry:

The "Vapor-Vote Machine" is capable of producing mandates to verify the bogus totals, and without a way to really re-count, who's the wiser?

The mandate-maker feature is accomplished by "creating" votes in counties, states, precincts that would never be suspected, and never questioned.

The "win-generator" feature tweaks just enough in a few key states to make the difference, and with more than one way of voting in those areas, the results are bulletproof..If a recount of ALL is not possible, then a re-count af ANY is unlikely..

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. Funny how the tide turned

just when Karl Rove got back to the WH, sick to his stomach about the results, after flying around the country on AF1 all day.

I wonder what happened when they took that little pit stop in OH earlier in the day?

[laruemtt]

13. excellent article.

thanks for all your hard work, will. :hug:

[WillyT]

14. You Da Man Will !!! - Thank You !!!

:yourock::yourock::yourock:

[gardenista]

15. Excellent, Will. Good editing. It's just perfect. Thanks! nt

[senseandsensibility]

16. Thanks Mr Pitt

I actually got misty reading this. Someone is speaking for us!:headbang:

[yardwork]

17. Thank you Will! Gotta question...is it General Accountability Office

or Government Accountability Office, or both?

Both names are used in the letter, and I noticed that after your fact-checking you retained the original, seemingly in error, version.

Is the GAO officially named "General Accountability" and known as "Government Accountability"?

Folks I've been forwarding the original letter to have been writing me to ask. Thankee!

[Poiuyt]

18. Great article - I hope someone in the media picks this up.

Keith Olberman is starting to investigate. I hope something comes of this.

[Ithuilwen]

19. Absolutely gorgeous. nt

[toddzilla]

20. kick

[in_cog_ni_to]

21. kick

:kick:

[WilliamPitt]

22. ,

[blue neen]

23. A friend just asked me for a copy of this great article.

We have to get this message out there. How can we get the media to pay attention? If we hammer away about voter fraud will they finally stop ignoring this travesty?

Thanks for keeping this kicked.

[Shopaholic]

24. Just sent a copy of it to

Keith Olbermann and his staff at Countdown. I encourage everyone to send this to everyone you know in the media, esp. the foreign press.
Let's get going on this--NOW.

Will-you're a poet!

[blue neen]

28. Here's hoping that Olbermann talks about the voter fraud

story tonight. Keep your fingers crossed!

[Skittles]

25. *kick*

well worth reading

[WilliamPitt]

26. .

[writes2000]

27. Can ANYONE Verify This Info? Huge Ohio Fraud If True...

30 counties in Ohio where the votes totals are ABOVE the number of registered voters?

http://pages.ivillage.com/americans4america/id20.html

[hang a left]

29. I emailed your article to about 20

Canadian newspapers today. Hope you don't mind

[Brundle_Fly]

31. can I post it on my site?

with a link of course to your fantastic site.

[Baja Margie]

30. Go get 'em Will,

and thank you a trillion for being a slugger !!



YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!