AP: Bush's Ohio Win Was Closer Than Thought

[tex-wyo-dem]

Bush's Ohio Win Was Closer Than Thought

5 minutes ago

By JOHN SEEWER, Associated Press Writer

TOLEDO, Ohio - President Bush (news - web sites)'s victory over John Kerry (news - web sites) in Ohio was closer than the unofficial election night totals showed, but the change is not enough to trigger an automatic recount, according to county-by-county results provided to The Associated Press on Friday.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041203/ap_on_el_pr/ohio_vote

Check out the last few paragraphs.

[Jack_Dawson]

1. Now "Losing" is called "Close"

It's a start I guess...

[berniew1]

65. Those writing such articles don't know much about the facts-Kerry may win

In addition to the 93,000 uncounted votes at this point that are mostly hanging chad in punch card counties and most for Kerry, there have been obvious mistakes in counties such as Cuyahoga where the vote totals are known to be wrong and will result in big shift to Kerry(Dr. Phillips analysis by precinct on other threads). Also there are well documented indications of irregularities or fraud in many other counties that will likely result in a large shift to Kerry.

http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/alpage.htm

[high density]

2. I see the Freepers are going overtime rating it down.

Damn that truth!

[CyberChas]

8. What effect does that have?

What does changing the rating do to the article or its position?

Is it worth all of us who read it rating it at 5?

I don't normally do those ratings, but if "they" are, then maybe we need to as well just to marginalize the effect they have.

Please advise.

Oh yea, and THOSE LAST TWO PARAGRAPHS ARE AMAZING!!!! It will be interesting to see if they STAY there over the evolution of the article.

Charlie Levenson
Portland, ORegon
[e-mail]
(phone # on request)
----
As Susan in Denver (pookysuz) says: Stay Calm, Committed, Cognitive, and Coherent!
----
If we allow this election to stand without a fight, and the media convinces the masses that it was "fair and trouble-free" then we will never have another honest election in our lifetimes in this country.

[texpatriot2004]

3. Click on the link and rate it a 5...it's getting negative ratings

let's give 'em HE__ (double hockey sticks)

[NMDemDist2]

4. rated and kicked n/t

[progressoid]

5. tee hee - I love to watch the freeps squirm

[TexasChick]

6. Oh, read this little gem:

The narrowing of Bush's margin only increases the possibility that the election results could be changed, the Green Party said. "Who knows what else will turn up when we examine the discarded ballots?" Green spokesman Blair Bobier asked.

[renaissanceguy]

31. Ahhh yes....

it goes to show that the truth does come out, and patience is a virtue.

----------------------
Buy liberal and progressive buttons, t-shirts, and bumper stickers at www.cafepress.com/liberalissues

[Left Brain]

7. Thx Tex!

Can't wait to see if any of the Ohio rallies are featured on tomorrow night's msm.

[Nightwing]

9. Done

The hell with those Bushbots, let the truth ring throughout the land; Bush stole ANOTHER election and we aren't going to let him get away with it.

[bear425]

10. I'm getting a page cannot be displayed error

edit: it's working now

[tex-wyo-dem]

12. Just tried it again....should work

[tex-wyo-dem]

11. Ain't it hilarious....

watching the freepers squirm. I was just checking out the message board for the article and they're squealing their silly heads off.

[Stand and Fight]

13. Here's a kick and a rating from me!

Damn the stooopid FReepers and their infernal lies!
:mad:

[yorkiemommie1]

14. read and rated '5' n/t

[CyberChas]

15. The discussion boards at Yahoo

Tex, how can you stand to read them?

I spend all of about five minutes on that thread and it made me ill.

Are they REALLY that delusional? Have all Republicans drunk so much of the kool-aid that they can't even see the OBVIOUS things that were shown on their own-controlled media, like the 10 hour lines to vote (incredible!) in the highly-Democratic cities and the "easy voting" in the Rep-owned burbs?

I fear for our nation!

Charlie Levenson
Portland, ORegon
[e-mail]
(phone # on request)
----
As Susan in Denver (pookysuz) says: Stay Calm, Committed, Cognitive, and Coherent!
----
If we allow this election to stand without a fight, and the media convinces the masses that it was "fair and trouble-free" then we will never have another honest election in our lifetimes in this country.

[tex-wyo-dem]

17. Oh, I don't spend much time there...waste of time

If you notice, most of the freeper comments are directly out of the Rethug and right-wing radio playbook...absolutely zero thought-processes going on (i.e. brainwashed).

Edit: correct spelling.

[molly]

16. My Holiday Wish......

is that all of these votes are recounted and we have a new president - John Kerry! Can you imagine the pug back-peddling?

I rated it - now 2.89

[milkyway]

18. Guys, this was not good news yesterday. Kerry only picked up 17,000

votes when the provisionals and overseas were counted. Before yesterday, Kerry was down 136,000 votes, with approximately 250,000 votes left uncounted (the provisionals and spoiled ballots that might be counted in a recount).

Yesterday they added in 121,000 provisionals and overseas (with 35,000 invalid), but Kerry only picked up 17,000. That means he's still 119,000 short, and there are only 93,000 uncounted spoiled votes in the state. After these are gone through in a recount, Kerry will still be far short. He'll need to pick up a lot of votes through evidence of fraud or other machine or human error.

I feel confident Kerry won Ohio, but after yesterday's counting of provisionals it will take more than counting unspoiled ballots to reverse the outcome. I think the best hope is a legal challenge to the election based on evidence of the withholding of voting machines in certain areas, which deliberately denied many people, particularly African-Americans, their right to vote.

[libmeayer]

33. Agreed.

it is mathematically impossible for the recount to overtake Bush lead of 118,775 votes even if we assume all the 93,000 undervotes/overvotes spoiled ballots are counted and we assume that all of them go to Kerry and both assumption are impossible. In fact In Florida 2000, they were able only to approve apporximately only 7% of the undervotes/overvotes spoiled ballots.
You are right to say that the only way to effect the results is to prove that there was massive fraud in Ohio, a recount will not do it, period.

[Truman01]

34. Please don't interrupt the euphoria with facts!!!

This is a great victory for us. We picked up 17,000 votes and only lost by 113,000. Imagine that, it's really close. You know this isn't like Florida where we had the WHOPPING margin of 327 votes to over come. This is different. If we float enough statistically theories we can prove to ma and pa kettle that evil Dr. Rove stole this election and only made it look like we lost by 3,500,000 votes.

My god we need to wake up and fix our party. This mass hallucination is doing us no good. Flame me if you want, Tombstone me if the truth is too ugly, but the Repukes didn't steal this election, WE LOST, and we better do something about THAT if we EVER want to be the ruling party again.

TC

[jdj]

41. oh, they stole it alright.

proof enough to me is the amount of trolls around here protesting too much.

[Truman01]

42. As if trolls would be important enough to know anything.....

or smart enough to do anything about it. The amazing thing to me is that people who believe this election was stolen, automatically accuse anyone who disagrees of being a troll. Way to support dissent.

TC

[tommcintyre]

43. "trolls around here protesting too much " EXACTLY!" N/T

[Truman01]

48. The point is that everyone who disagrees or protests is

NOT A TROLL. What is wrong with us. If every DU poster doesn't wholeheartedly endorse or at least not dissent about every crazy conspiracy theory out there, then they are labeled a troll.

What happen to free discussion? What happened to what we learn synergisticly from each other.

A few days ago it was a sacrilege to mention BBV and Bev in any negative light. Now, maybe the negative posters were right. Maybe, just maybe the critical thinkers were right. We are not lemmings following each other off of ever silly conspiratorial cliff that the majority wishes was true.

You don't have to think for yourself, but stop labeling everyone that disagrees a troll.

TC

[Kurovski]

49. Yes.

"The point is that everyone who disagrees or protests is NOT A TROLL."

But those who say "The Republicans did not steal this election" and do not offer any proof, most likely are indeed trolls.

[Truman01]

53. You are wrong. The burden of proof is on those who

believe the election was stolen. One can not prove that something didn't happen. I can not ever prove that the election was NOT stolen. You must be able to prove it was in order to call the process into question.

You may not like that fact, but nonetheless, that is the fact. You can not ASSUME the election was stolen and get anything done.

The burden of proof is on you, and if the best you can do is call those who disagree that the election was stolen trolls, then you are pissing in the wind and you swear it's raining.

TC

[Kurovski]

56. Yes.

And the jury is still out, in fact the investigations have hardly begun.

So I don't see how someone can say that recent elections were NOT stolen when investigations have not yet taken place.

You write, "You can not ASSUME the election was stolen and get anything done."

This is why we want investigations of all the issues that have been brought up by DU, the GAO, the Greens, Libertarians, etc,.

You, dear Truman01, are wrong. You are wrong to tell us to "get over it" before we've gotten to the bottom of it.

Edited to add: Can you understand some of our concerns that the integrity of the electoral process is at stake?

Additionally, I'm thinking that when one is accused of something in a court of law, one does have to make an effort to prove against the charges, despite where the burden of proof exists.

The Republican owned Sequoia and ES&S can end all this today by giving complete access to computer records and other pertinant information.

I don't think "corporate secrecy rights" or whatever they call it has any place whatsoever in the election process. It is outrageous on its face.

[Truman01]

62. I'm sorry but you don't know what you are talking about....

Additionally, I'm thinking that when one is accused of something in a court of law, one does have to make an effort to prove against the charges, despite where the burden of proof exists.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<,

In a court of law you are not required to OPEN YOUR MOUTH AT ALL. In fact in the 5th Amendment you have the absolute right to not present any evidence the burden of proof falls totally on the prosecution.

We don't even have a prima facia case here. If we did, someone would be in court and would have this count stopped for reasons of fraud. All we have are some statistical anomallies, a bunch of generalized stories of voter suppression, and wishfull thinking.

I'm not telling you to get over it, invistigate until the cows come home if you want to, but the real work is in fixing the two things that are really wrong: One, we do need an audit trail for these machines, not having one just invites fraud. Two, and most important, we need to decide who we are as Democrats and run a consistant campaign on that.

If we sit around the next two years pissing and moaning about how this election was stolen and how we can't ever win because the big corporations own the machines, we will never get anything done.

Let's do something productive:

1. * is going to be President.
2. The papertrail needs to be fixed.
3. Elect a DNC chair that will put us on point so we can start winning elections.

TC

[Time for change]

71. If we lose elections mainly because of vote fraud

And there appears to be a great amount of evidence that that is the case -- then the most productive way to address the the problem is to find out how to stop the vote fraud. And the first step in doing that is to find out what happened. Until we do that we may never win another election.

[Kurovski]

74. Yes. n/t.

[Kurovski]

75. We've been winning elections since 2000

You write, " Elect a DNC chair that will put us on point so we can start winning elections."

The Republican party would love for us to navel gaze, and I also believe it is a waste of time at this juncture. but there is little or nothing to figure out regarding the Dem message.

We're for people being able to care and provide for themselves and their families, we're for individual rights.

The R's are for the same thing if you happen to be a very large corporation. And they do so love the welfare for these corporations.

This has been the message for decades now. Intospection is worthless when the only way a Democrat can win is by joining the party which controls the vote count.

We need paper and pen to vote, and we need to get rid of the machines. Period. Is that what you mean when you say " the paper trail must be fixed"?

The vote is not trustworthy. The Republicans are not trustworthy.
Perhaps the only way we can achieve any office is by making it all a war of stealing votes.

Until there is a case made regarding vote fraud, my question " What's a defense lawyer for?" is moot and rhetorical.


Edit: We have a right to demand that voting in this country be trustworthy. We have a right to demand that people be accountable, whether we have a legal case or not.

If the American people demand that, it WILL HAVE to be delivered. Quite simply put, it is OUR country. If those at the helm do not want to make reasonable assurances that the vote is trustworthy, well then, what was it Jefferson said about changing the way Govt. operates every 30 years or so?

George W is already changing the way Govt. operates, without our consent and often in secret--right up to the way we vote.

[Time for change]

50. I won't label you a troll

But I don't think it's very productive to claim that Kerry lost the election -- and therefore the exit polls were were so far off that the odds or more than a billion to one that that could have happened by chance -- without puting forth a shred of evidence to back that up.

[Truman01]

54. The evidence is the count. and

The exit polling itself never had Kerry ahead, that is the big lie. The only "exit polling" that had him ahead were the numbers leaked around 12 and 3pm. Those numbers were made up. Why? I don't know. That is definitely something to ask someone.

TC

[Kurovski]

58. Can you please direct us to a source?

I have found just the opposite in my reading.

It is why, I imagine, that I've also read so much spinning about how exit polls are suddenly--and after many decades of being accurate within 2%--completely unreliable.

Thank you.

[Truman01]

61. I can't find the thread,, look for

Truthinall(I think) was emailing Mr. Mitofsky asking for the raw data of the exit polling. Mr. Mitofsky emailed back and forth with him several times and a few of those emails were posted here, I can't find them. In those emails Mr. Mitofsky said they did not release any exit polling until polls had closed. We chose to ignore that.

TC

[Time for change]

72. Check out the screen shots of CNN exit polls

12:21, November 3rd. These screen shots, taken before CNN "adjusted their poll data" show Kerry up 6 among women and up 2 among men in Ohio. How can you tell us that Kerry didn't lead in Ohio in the final exit polls? Do you have information to refute the screen shots?

[Name removed]

59. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Truman01]

64. I'm quite familiar with King Lear, and both my educational

level, my ability to construct a cogent argument, and my status among the party are such that you would be embarrassed if you did know me. But I am happy to hear from blow hearts like you.

My statement still stands, whether some idiot has me on a troll list or not.

TC

[Time for change]

73. Your status among the party is not the issue here

You could be John Kerry himself, and that doesn't make your argument valid or even well founded.

You started your thread off by noting that Kerry picked up only 17,000 votes from the overseas and provisional ballots, and he's still over 100,000 short, and you act like that is some sort of proof that Bush won Ohio, and you berate us for thinking otherwise.

What sense does that make? The investigation has just begun. Until the Ohio votes are all recounted by hand, anyone who claims to know that election fraud did not take place for no other reason than that Kerry has only made up 17,000 votes so far is asking for us to put a lot of trust in a very secretive system.

You talk about us floating all sorts of "statistical theories"? How about this really complicated statistical theory: The final exit polls in Ohio showed John Kerry winning the state by 4.2%, yet he lost it by over 2%. The discrepancy is so far outside the margin of error that the probability of it happening by chance are over 1000 to 1. Give me an historical example of exit polls being off by that much.

And additionally, the same thing happened in numerous other states, and wherever the discrepancy was outside the margin of error (which happened in 17 states) the advantage was always in Bush's favor. It doesn't take much of a complicated "statistical theory" to see that information and know that something is rotten.

[Kurovski]

77. Are you aware that the term is " blow hards'

And not " blow hearts?"

Unless it's a new thing they teach exclusively to those on higher educational levels.

[Niche]

57. Yeeehhh! go Jdj!

:hi:

[Megahurtz]

69. Wish I was here Saturday for this one.....

Truman dude, you need to do your homework. If you do your homework you will see that the GOP DID steal the election.

Maybe you truely don't want to believe that people would actually do these things but, look again......begin by searching this website, I'm sure you've seen it, have you not? http://corporatenewslies.com/

Besides all of the abundant PROOF that the election was stolen, or call it "preponderance of evidence" if it sounds better to you, think of this: We live in an age of DOCUMENTATION, EVERYTHING is documented.

NOTHING was documented in this election but singular vote counts, (tallied up by an everyday PC) Number of voters and registered voters don't match up. I called my Registrar to inquire if my absentee ballot was counted. They said it was, but when I asked them to tell me who my vote was counted for they would not tell me because they said "the votes are private"

What the fuck? My own vote is private from myself???

Privacy is secrecy, and Corporate Secrecy I DO NOT TRUST.

Republican Diebold is ES&S is Sequoia, which by the way happens to be the name of Bush's brand new yacht!!!

The "devil's advocate" mindset does not work, for ANYTHING (unless you're a pushover) This mindset is giving you a closed mind, dude, do your homework.

[Calvinist Basset]

47. Hold up . . .

Don't forget the likelihood of fraud within the ES&S and Diebold machines.

I really think that's where the votes can--and will--be found.

[mountainvue]

19. Rate it up! n/t

[texpatriot2004]

20. It's at 2.89, and going up...keep reading and rating, it's working

[dougrhess]

21. how many uncounted ballots in the state?

Besides the provisional ballots that were declared unvalid (20% of all of them it says), what number of uncounted ballots are there?

Also, is there anybody with county 2004 vote data for the whole country?

[newyawker99]

25. Hi dougrhess!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[RaulVB]

22. Uh, uh...AP in CYA "mode" (n/t)

[floridadem30]

23. Saw the same message on fox news but of course it was in the form of a

banner

[Cronus Protagonist]

24. I rated it with two Yahoo accounts

It still needs more help....

:kick:




http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13
Buttons for brainy people - educate your local freepers today!

[ExclamationPoint]

38. Great buttons

Damit I hope that article is true. Much as I hate to say it, I really would rather beleive that the USA actually had a democratic process than move to Canada.

[Donailin]

26. Next to last paragraph quotes:

"Some county leaders think spending an estimated $1.5 million on a recount would be a waste of money."

as opposed to rewarding a similar sum to Blackwell for his superb performance. . ?

[keepthemhonest]

28. oh yeah

we don't want to waste any of that money on democracy.

another thread earlier today was writing back in response to the GOP leader who said aobut the same thing. Waste the tax payers money on something that isn't going to change the outcome. abunch of us wrote back to the nimrod and told him a think or two

[chrisclub]

27. Doesn't add up

Ohio Provisionals with 88 of 88 counties counted
Bush 61,505 44%
Kerry 79,482 56%
Total 140,987
Kerry Net = 17,977


+electronic voting system glitch that gave Bush 3,893 extra votes

Kerry Net = +21,870

Start =136,000

Final should be = 114,130

[libmeayer]

32. The machine error in Franklin

county that gave Bush 3800 extra votes was corrected in the final official numbers that Franklin county submitted yesterday.

So in the final official count Bush is leading Kerry by 118,775 votes.

[NVMojo]

29. here's another version that hasn't been freeped yet

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041204/ap_on_el_pr/ohio_vote&e=1&ncid=

please rate it

[ourbluenation]

30. Just gave it a 5 for what it's worth...

"Its current average rating is 2.89 with 1837 vote(s)."

5:43 pm pst

[Chipper Chat]

35. Media freepers at work:

Today's local paper (Fort Wayne Journal Gazette) buried the story on p. 5 of the metro section BUT THEY LEFT OUT THE LAST THREE PARAGRAPHS!
"All the news all the time" my ass!

[4dsc]

36. Bush didn't win Ohio!!!!!!!

Here's an email making its rounds..


Voter Fraud - Please Read My Explanation Below



Brad Menfil is not my real name. I work for the RNC. I fear reprisals
if I'm found out.

The truth about this election is this: Florida and Ohio had to go for
Bush in order for him to "win" the election. In reality he lost both
states. In fact, he did not even win the popular vote. He lost the
national popular vote by at least 1,750,000. This shows you the scale
of the fraud.

The exit polls were not wrong. Kerry was the clear winner, but victory
was snatched from him.

Florida first. The 200,000+ margin of victory for Bush made this state
uncontestable. Everybody assumes that even with some fraud, Kerry could
never have made up the difference in a recount. But Kerry actually won
by about 750,000 votes. The numbers were changed by a computer program
(in both electronic and scan-tron voting systems) called "KerryLite."
"KerryLite" of course is not actual name of the program. The actual
name is 11-5-18-18 etc. For additional encryption, the numbers were
jumbled but I'm not sure in which order. The numbers replace the
letters of the alphabet. For example, K is the eleventh letter of the
alphabet.

So the if-then statement goes something like this: "if total true
Kerry>total true Bush, Bush x 1.04x (.04 is a random number)(total true
Kerry), total true Bush". The second part of the equation takes the
total number of votes cast and subtracts the new Bush total, subtracts
the third party totals and leaves the rest for Kerry.

Sometimes the program would also reduce third party votes and award
them to Bush. And even where Bush legitimately won, he was still
awarded additional votes. The big Democratic counties (Broward for
example) went to Kerry because it had to appear that everything was on
the up and up. It's interesting to see this unfold. Does anybody wonder
why the Republican counties were mostly counted after the Democratic
counties? You should wonder, and also know that this was no accident.
The Bush team had to make up the votes as the night went on.

In Ohio, computer voting fraud, vote tossing and voter suppression were
the main methods. Vote tossing was simply the removal of Kerry votes
and some third party votes. In some areas, the Bush vs. Kerry votes
were absurd. Nine to one, eight to two.

Voter suppression took the form of making voters stand in four hour
long lines. This of course took place in Democratic areas. The simplest
thing to do was to have too few voting machines. Sometimes that's all
it takes. People eventually lose patience and leave without casting a
vote.

In other states such as New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire,
Kerry's leads evaporated very quickly once the polls were shut down.
Kerry only won New Hampshire, but barely. As it turned out, the lead
was 6% for Kerry in that state and not enough fraudulent activity took
place to flip the state to Bush.

So this will all come out and be known to everyone. Nothing this
massive can be kept a secret. You're already beginning to see these
"irregularities" and the whisper will become a roar.

[Branjor]

37. What good is this e-mail....

if its veracity cannot be checked?

[tommcintyre]

44. It casts increasing doubt on an obviously stolen election

I'm going to "lift" this email, and give it it's own post. I think it deserves more attention.

IT SHOULD BE SENT TO EVERY PERSON THAT HAS AN EMAIL ADDRESS IN THE U.S!

Thanks for posting this.

[ExclamationPoint]

39. Wow. That just blows me away.

Send this email to 16 Pennsylvania Avenue.
What courage that was, it brings new hope to my eyes to see that a republican will play fair and tell the truth. That fraud frightens me worse than a steven king novel.

[Time for change]

51. You say that this will all come out?

Please tell us how. Are you going to bring it out? Or can you give us some advice on where to look to make it come out?

[Kurovski]

52. That Email making the rounds from "Brad"

is worse than useless.

It could undermine any real investigations as detractors of securing a fair voting process in America point to us lapping up unsubstantiated claims that are impossible to investigate. For all we know, it could have come from the WH itself.

It's curious that Brad does not offer any way to actually rectify the situation by telling us how to look for these programs. Nor does Brad mention any contact he might have made with the FBI, the GAO, or the Senators wishing to investigate our suspicious voting systems.

Until Brad decides to come out of the closet with pay stubs in hand, or some proof he was involved in this, people would be wiser to ignore it.

The proof of any fraud will be in the machines themselves. We must demand access to those machines


"Brad" is proof of nothing at all, and if he's real, then we should urge him to come forward before we support or promote his specific claims.

So, how about it "Brad"? Even a pimply-faced freep can emerge from his mother's basement and do the right thing.

[Calvinist Basset]

55. I really, really want to believe this e-mail is true.

After all, I find the details credible and likely.

Unfortunately, there are too many things about it that won't convince any die-hard Republican. Consider the following:

1. The writer provides a pseudonym, not a name that can be verified.

2. Of course, he/she does cite fear as a reason for not using a real name. But even if that's the case, is there absolutely no clue or information that would give the testimony rock-solid proof? What about names of culprits, paperwork that only an RNC person would have, etc.?

3. The computer program could be proven, if we could get our hands on the computers. But there is so much stonewalling and resistance going on, we need something a little easier to verify the story right now, in order to give even more irrefutable reasoning to sieze the computers. For instance, who wrote the Kerrylite program? When and where? How was the voter suppression effort organized?

4. Then, one might ask why this person has not contacted the GOA or some other entity that could take official and immediate action. An e-mail doesn't convince any opponent, it just gives more to chew on for those of us who already believe it.

Like I said, I genuinely want to believe that the e-mail is legitimate. It's just that I can see myself passing it on to some of the right-wing Republicans I know, and having them pooh-pooh it for reasons like the ones I mention. If I could give them a message that can't be refuted easily, now that would be great!

If whoever wrote the e-mail catches this message, I implore him/her to note what I've written and give us an easier chance to expose the fraud! In fact, if anyone out there who worked for ES&S, Diebold, the RNC or other such group is reading this and having a guilty conscience, please do the decent thing and help us show the world what a pathetic liar Smirky the Chimp is.

I hope I'm not asking or expecting too much . . .

[Time for change]

66. Yeah, me too

But if he/she is serious about this, why did he/she make one post and then ignore us, and not give us any clues as to how to take advantage of the information?

[boom83]

60. Fraud

Now I wont deny that there has been fraud in this election....However you are making the assumption that "we" did not commit any fraud also!! Wisconsin comes to mind...We need to get a clue if we want to retake the White House!!! We are becoming more and more marginalized in America because we have become an exclusive club! We do not want anyone who differs from our views to have anything to do with us!! I believe that the gophers will become stronger unless we awaken to the current realities!! Pro-life..pro-choice...who gives a crap!! Why do we insist on that as OUR holy grail sometimes?? I really believe that if we stop using that as a MAIN issue as a party that we can get many more Americans to see the light!!!

By the way...they were BOTH "SKULLS"!!!!

[Cheswick2.0]

63. I hate this kind of thing

I have no use for people saying something and not being willing to back it up. Does he care about the USA or not....or is this just stupid spam?

[Wordie]

40. Does anyone know about the treatment of "rejected" ballots in OH?

I started wondering about this upon reading the following in a different post about the WA recount for the governor's office:
from THE SEATTLE TIMES
<snip>
And in a simultaneous move that Republicans called a "nuclear bomb," Democrats filed suit in the state Supreme Court, seeking to compel counties to reconsider ballots that had previously been rejected. <unsnip>

So, I started wondering, what about the rejected OH ballots? How many are there, and will they be recounted also? Could they, if they still need to be counted, make a significant difference in the outcome? Is there anyone who is thinking there may be more votes for Kerry that could be found in a review of those votes? Will it be done? Do some of the lawsuits cover this issue? I just haven't heard anything about this and am hoping someone knows.

[righteous1]

67. 93000 and they will be hand counted

Expect 10% to have a decernable presidential vote on them

[Cha]

45. I'll just bet it was "closer

than expected"..try..Kerry's gonna pass bush ass.

[davidwparker]

46. From Democrats.com (I'll be glad when I can post new messages.)

It contains the email address/phone number for C-SPAN to cover the Ohio hearings.

http://blog.democrats.com/node/1727

[Bill Bored]

68. This story sounds fishy to me

156,977 provisional ballots, 77% of them counted. That's 121,598 provs.

Take the unofficial margin of ~136,000 less the ~4,000 erroneously awarded to Bush by that one flakey machine = 132,000.

Now the margin is supposed to be 119,000? This means that out of 121,598 provsionals and whatever the overseas ballot count was, Kerry only picked up 13,000 votes? No way.

The results were supposed to have been sealed and delivered to Blackwell at the time this article was written. Does AP say they were leaked to them from all 88 counties, or what? Otherwise, how'd they get 'em? This is very sloppy reporting.

We'll see today or tomorrow what the "official" count is.

Then, let the recount begin!

[Name removed]

70. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[greatscott15]

76. Spoiled Ballots

I keep reading about the 90K "spoiled ballots". Can someone help me understand these? How can they benefit us any in these recounts? I thought the key word was "spoiled". Can they be manually counted and determined who the votes were for? Sorry, but kind of new here, and trying to understand.

All I can say, is the internet is so powerful. It allows folks like us, including 1,000s of experts to collaborate in real time.

Thanks for the good work folks. I am guardedly optimistic.

[morffin]

78. RE Spoiled Ballots

Spoiled ballots are ballots that can't be read by the optical machine. They will have to be hand checked to determine if a clear vote for President was made ( hanging chads and stuff ).

Blackwell put inferior machines in Dem. areas in order to get more spoiled ballots in heavy Dem. areas.


Kerry should gain another 5,000 votes from a hand check of these ballots.

May not seem like much , but it's chipping away at the total.