If you believe the election was stolen, you have far more faith

[cali]

in the electorate than I do. I'm in the fraud was not decisive in the election contingent. I have very little faith in the judgement of the American public- and that's putting it mildly. I have to admit, I'm somewhat puzzled by the large number of people on DU who believe that the election was out and out stolen. I've kept up with all of the fraud threads and have yet to see enough evidence to convince me that it was. I'm used to the bad judgement of my fellow citizens; the outcome didn't surprise me in the least.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

1. you don't have to believe it was stolen to believe fraud is a problem

that should be taken very seriously.

[Brundle_Fly]

4. yeah

even if the election wasn't "stolen" there is so many reports of troubles and disenfranchisement, that investigation is needed, we can't go through this every two years...

[cali]

7. I'm absolutely a big proponent of

election reform. I have no faith in bbv. I believe we need a verifiable paper trail. I support Conyers, and a complete investigation into all irregularities in the 2004 election. It's a vital issue.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

26. Computer professional very uneasy with BBV

If I handled a corporations money the way we handled votes with computers, the accountants would be on me like white on rice, I'd be fired and possibly under criminal charges.

Even if there is no deliberate fraud, something I doubt, the system is so slipshod and open to abuse it needs to be totally replaced. Whatever that is, it needs to include a paper trail.

BTW, any recount needs to be done by hand. IF the machines get it right, fine, but we need eyeballs counting paper, just to make sure.

[sepia_steel]

2. Yeah okay.

That's a healthy, reality-based way to perceive it.


/sarcasm

[whathappened]

3. you could be close

to being right , i just don't no for sure , these new com voting machines i just don't trust , but yet i hear so many i no hated jr. and still didn't vote for kerry , kerry was freeped so hard by the right wing rag , that i beleive it mite have took him down

[eowyn_of_rohan]

5. Are you talking about fraud with the electronic voting equipment or

in the form of disenfranchisement? There is an avalanche of direct evidence of disenfranchisement. And though direct evidence of voting machine fraud is so far lacking, circumstantial evidence is abundant, motive is clear, and there are a number of convincing theories for how it could have been done (eg., in Clint Curtis's affidavit).

[s-cubed]

12. Actually, there is direct evidence of election fraud,

in addition to that due to suppression and intimiation and misinformation.
According to Ohio law, Blackwell's denial of access to election records is prima facie evidence of election fraud. His failure to insure the integrity of the ballots and voting machines after the election and prior to the election, is also, I believe (I'm no lawyer). Many of the observers in the recount have been denied adequate access to observe the recount, and many counties have violated the 3% "random" requirement for selecting the hand counted ballots. The technictians tampering with the tabulating machines prior to the recount is fraud. The precincts (in several states) that have turnouts of more than 100% are at least suspicious: could be errors, but no one knows at this point. There is an affidavit of a "slush" fund in Blackwells's office and illegal purchasing procedures. Arnebeck says his statisfical evidence proves fraud. Although we have not seen her evidence, Bev Harris claims to have hard evidence of fraud in FL. There is Curtis" affidvit of intent, if not execution. There may be other examples. Has a case been proved in court, and has someone been prosecuted? No, but the whistleblowers are coming out of the woodwork.

[cali]

15. I didn't say there wasn't evidence.

I said I don't believe there is enough evidence of fraud to conclude that the election was stolen. That, compounded by my belief that the majority of the electorate is indeed ignorant enough to vote for bushco, have led me to the tentative conclusion that bushco won. I do believe there was fraud and vote suppression. I'm very interested in Arnebeck's suit. I have no faith whatsoever in Bev Harris. I don't buy any of her reasons for not showing the proof of Florida fraud.

[IndyPriest]

24. Cali, you're obviously open to the fraud argument, so

how much, or what kind, of fraud would it take to convince you that it was a HUGE part of the electon? I ask because I think there are many people like you who are waiting for some "fraud shoe" to drop. What "shoe" is that?

[cali]

27. That's a good and fair question.

I'd like to see a paper trail leading back to Diebold or testimony from employees of bbv companies. I'm already on board re vote suppression, though I do wish that could be quantified. I wish I had more faith in Bev Harris, but I'd still like to see her video evidence. But what I really want is for the focus to be on reforming election law, not on whether or not bushco actually stole the election. There's enough evidence of fraud and voter suppression to convince me that whether or not bush stole this election, the entire system is gravely imperiled.

[IndyPriest]

28. I hear you. Whistle blowers are going to

be key. And they're coming. Check out this thread, about ES&S, but relevant: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=177817&mesg_id=177817

[eowyn_of_rohan]

18. You are absolutely right! I had forgotten that Blackwell's

obstruction and other misdeeds are prima facie evidence of election fraud!!

[iconoclastic cat]

6. What if it's both?

Then we're really hosed.

[Senator]

8. You have to add the suppression to any fraud

It was naked and massive. And not only in "swing states."

We had suppression of colleges even here in NJ. Where no one believes that the bushkid did 5% better than 2000.

There's just no incentive to quantify it in most states. The biggest bushkid anomolies are in places like Queens, NY (Peter King fiefdom).

Small visibility. Big raw numbers.

But bottom line, "it's the suppression, stupid."

Like 2000 (as established by the USCCR) we had an unlawful, racially disparate outcome.

We either tolerate that, or become complicit with it.

Those who don't comply can go here:

www.thedeanpeople.org

(We exhort, You decide)

__

[genieroze]

10. In Ocean County * did better by 10% , then in 2000. eom

[SmokingJacket]

9. It COULD have happened. That's a BIG problem.

Why I believe that this country needs to take the fraud issue WAY more seriously:

1. It CAN be done very easily. Bev Harris showed Howard Dean how. The voting machine companies will NOT let anyone see the source code. WHY not?? Why the secrecy? Makes for an atmosphere where fraud is extremely easy... and the temptation very great. In this kind of situation, I need proof that the elections WEREN'T tampered with. There is a complete lack of that proof.

2. I read Votescam by the Collier brothers. While there are problems with that book, I am convinced of the basic premise: that the authors tried and tried and tried to get anyone interested in investigating the issue and had doors slammed in their faces over and over again. Why NOT investigate, unless there's too much at risk? Too much funny business, too many people in power with too much at stake to risk losing an election. The book points to a pattern of sporadic fraud over the last 40 years -- and again, no evidence that this has been cleaned up at all. Quite the contrary: with computers it's easier to do than ever, with far less oversight.

3. Reports of machines over and over again registering Bush instead of Kerry. WTF?? Is that just an innocent "glitch"?

4. "Glitches" favoring Bush to overwhelming extent. Innocent glitches should err on the side of each candidate about half the time.

5. Kerry was surging in the days running up to the election. That this surge went nowhere is explained by people saying that the GOP had a better GOTV. Actually, I've seen no evidence that this was the case. Dems had an AWESOME GOTV. The surge did not end until the "counting" started. It stinks to high heaven to me. Did you see that video of Rep King saying how the election (whichever one he was referring to) depended on the fact that the Repubs were doing the counting? I think fraud is an open secret among Repubs in DC.

6. I do have slightly more faith in the electorate than you do. This is more or less the same country that prospered under Clinton. People have not forgotten that. Kerry whooped Bush's ASS in the debates. We have a massive debt, a crumbling economy, dead soldiers, a quagmire of a war. Kerry was more appealing a candidate than Gore.

I could go on (statistical evidence, Clint Curtis, etc). When a crime happens there's rarely definitive proof of what happened, especially BEFORE an investigation has even begun.

All I want is an official recognition that there is far too much opportunity for fraud in our election system, that fraud COULD have happened, and that in order to find out IF it happened (and to prevent it happening in the future) there needs to be a complete and open audit of every voting machine tallied up with every poll book in the country.

That's all!

[BlueDog2u]

21. Nice synopsis

I agree with everything you say. And whether or not Bush won because of the fraud is not the critical issue. The critical issue is that we know massive, ugly, racist voter suppression took place, and we have strong reasons to think that tabulation tampering also took place. Neither one is acceptable in a Democracy. Blackwell and his minions should go to jail. Paper ballots or paper trail. Constitutional amendment right to vote. Jail Tom Feeney. etc.

[SmokingJacket]

32. I didn't mention suppression, but I think it's probably a bigger issue --

if only because it was blatant and easily provable, and no American should tolerate it.

:grr:

It really goes hand in hand with fraud: Stopping at Nothing to Win.

Wasn't that their mantra?

[eomer]

11. I don't have much faith in the electorate either...

but I can't really gauge just by my personal acquaintances and general feeling from media reports, etc, whether the electorate is split 51/49 or 49/51.

It seems to me that the exit poll must be a much more accurate measure of that question than my gut feeling (or, respectfully, yours).

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

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

[cali]

17. I gather, Yancey, that you're on the right

and I hope that you too are concerned about the many flaws in our electoral process. I don't believe this is an issue just for the left. As I said, it makes intuitive sense to me, based on a number of factors, that more people voted for bush than Kerry, but I do believe that we have to make election reform the first order of business. And quite frankly, I'm more concerned with the folks on the right who have lost their minds over being in power. Freeperville is unbelievably ugly these days. If it represents a sizeable number of those on the right, rational republicans better get to work. There's far more hatred and willingness to dismantle the constitution expressed on that board than here at DU.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

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

[roseBudd]

14. Fraud+voter suppression=stolen election

I don't doubt that red states with mostly rural populations went for Bush. What I don't buy is that Ohio and Florida with significant minority & urban populations that outnumber the population that lives in suburbs/rural areas went for Bush. I do believe the exit polls were correct. Tabulation fraud is too easy to not consider the likelyhood.

[GOPBasher]

16. I don't know for sure that it was stolen, but it was POSSIBLE!

And there's no way to prove it wasn't stolen. If the programmers cheated -- making Bush get extra votes or Kerry lose some -- there is no way anyone will ever know. Does that sound like democracy to you? We need a transparent voting system, or we can say goodbye to democracy.

[corbett]

19. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121604Z.shtml

The proof is out there for Florida, Ohio, New Mexico and South Dakota. It's documented and sworn affadavits with dry ink are on the books. The FBI believes it. The GAO believes it. The best place to start reading about it is at

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121604Z.shtml

Send me a private message if you'd like to see further evidence and I'll send it your way.

[Atman]

20. LESS "circumstantial evidence" convicted Scott Peterson

There is nothing but "circumstantial evidence" in the infamous Peterson trial. No witnesses. Just a bunch of very, very peculiar looking circumstances which appear somehow connected at least tangentially, to the death of Scott Peterson's pregnant wife. But no actual evidence linking him to the crime.

Do you think he is guilty? Might be? Not Sure?

Far less evidence was used to convict Scott Peterson than has already been presented in the "vote fraud" non-trail of the century. Some might regard the telephone calls to Amber Frye as pretty damning proof of Peterson's guilt. But what then of the comments made by the CEO of Deibold promising to "do whatever it takes" to deliver Ohio?

The fact -- and that word cannot be understated here, as the right and the naysayers are often so quick to do -- the fact that the previously unheard of "voting industry" has emerged like a stealth bomber, completely out of view of the people whose votes they are charged to accurately count, and that stealth bomber is piloted by a consortium of Republicans, large donors and convicted felons alike, all four companies responsible for the manufacture of the equipment and the tabulation of the results are squarely and unabashedly Republican operatives is a fact that cannot be ignored.

I'm sure they'd prefer not to use the word "operative," but I know that I have not fallen off of any turnip trucks lately...The histories of these companies alone should make you DEMAND a recount to start, with a complete and thorough congressional investigation to boot.

Oh, wait...Congress is all republican-controlled, too.

So, we certainly know we have motive: there is simply too much at stake, financially and in terms of the global power of the so-called BFEE. Do not take lightly the words Mr. Bush repeated as part of his 2000 election theft (funny, we're allowed to consider that highly probable, but not to consider that the same crew, emboldened by their first success and now further punishment-proofed by party control of every branch of government would not do whatever was necessary to secure that stolen power)...America is being run like a business.

Nothing more, nothing less. It's only business.

You've seen movies like Wall Street and Barbarians at the Gate. Big business is even more cut-throat than hardball politics. These people are answerable to a higher power, and it ain't Jesus. It is money, and through money more power. Pure and simple. It is difficult to imagine; being "good people," and thus democrats, ;-) many of us cannot fathom doing something that "evil" or underhanded...the risks are too great, the karma too negative, the whole deal just too stinky to believe would happen right here in America...

...and besides, Bush won by over 3 million votes!

So the fuck what! We have the motive, and now we have the means, via the voting machine companies. And with the help of a complacent media. I'm no programmer by any means, but I've dealt enough with scripting to know that writing something that would transfer (x) number of votes to the other candidate every time (y) action happened would be a piece of cake.

Oh, but we'd be able to spot that easily in the code! you scoff. Of course we could. If we could see the code. But this is very private, very proprietary code being used to run and tabulate our most public of democratic rituals. The very act of voting and counting has been privatized by the Bush Administration and placed almost entirely under the auspices of four republican-controlled donor-operated felon-run companies. They won't let us see it, and there is no one in republican-controlled Congress who is going to make them.

The whole process coincides with the second consecutive mass failure of exit-polling, long considered so reliable by our own government that it is regularly used as proof of fraud in other countries. Which brings us to the literally impossible odds of that actually occurring, a far more "circumstantial" proof of guilt than any presenting in the Peterson trial. It is at the very least solid enough evidence with which to convene a grand jury.

There is motive, there is the means, there is a complacent media and a complicit Congress. We have wild coincidence and inexplicable happenstance, like the Warren County lock-down. We have so many reasons to believe this was a fraudulent election, I feel just as strongly toward non-questioners and you do to wards us!

"How could they NOT question this election?!" I've so often thought. If they just are willing to put two and two together, while simultaneously putting aside the pre-conceived notions of what they thought America is supposed to be. But America is what it is now...a business, a subsidiary of BushCo/a Halliburton Company. And they see vote-rigging no differently than any other method commonly used in Big Business to close the deal. Bribes, junkets, favors, outright payoffs, threats, extortion, whatever it takes.

The deal is what its all about. Failure is not an option. After all...it's only business.




1st Amendment Shoppe

[Mister Ed]

22. Crimes are proven BY investigating. Not BEFORE investigating.

The evidence accumulated so far provides ample reason for investigation. To assume that fraud could not have occurred requires as great a leap of faith and logic as is required to assume that fraud did occur.

[McCamy Taylor]

23. economy plus pre-election polls plus issues equalled Kerry win...

...I have followed a lot of presidential elections in this country and I know how people vote. So does Karl Rove. That is why he organzied this election theft. He knew that his boy was going down in flames, so he decided he had nothing to lose and everything to gain by playing the Big Lie.

Karen Hughes knew it. Was why she told W. he had lost and then got out of DC as fast as she could on election night--she wasnt about to go to jail for Karl Rove. Was why she let the press know that she had told W. that he had lost too---plausible deniablity.

The members of the Bush clan with IQ's over 70 knew it...was why they rushed to DC and posed for that surreal Stepford Family photo-op on election night. ("We have to look like winners so the nation will think we are winners, guys"---Rove to Bush clan.)

The members of the Bush cabinet knew it. Thats why the rats who have a future that does not include the Bush family are leaving the sinking ship.

Tucker Carlson knew Kerry was gonna win cause his mommy told him. Bob Novack knew Bush would steal the election cause Rove told him.

This has been a secret from no one...except the American people.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

25. Exit polls were dead accurate in every election until 2000

Did the laws of statistics and probability get repealed?

The disparity between the exit polling and the outcome is evidence that election fraud took place.

The only question is can we prove it.

[Pierre de Fermat]

30. Sorry, not true.

From a liberal blog:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_11/005178.php

Making false claims does more harm than good.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

31. I'd never seen a state called wrong prior to 2000

Also, your source is showing raw data, not the corrected totals that were broadcast back in the days of broadcast journalism, prior to MediaWhoreDumb becoming the norm.

I don't recall the trends failing to hold the way they have recently. Networks used exit polling and vote totals to make their calls. Florida 2000 was the first one I remember being called wrong.

Perhaps something has changed in the methodology, but the lack of paper trails makes me very suspicious of the whole process, especially when proven statistical methods suddenly fail.

[gulogulo]

40. all the analyses of the exit polls

that are posted on DU also involve raw exit poll data. The adjusted exit polls in 2004 were not incorrect.

[Name removed]

37. Deleted message

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

[TruthIsAll]

38. In every case, the democrat lost votes. Good exit poll. Good theft.

Thanks for this info, but we've seen it before.

The Exit Polls were right in FL 2000. But 175,000 votes were spoiled - and most for Gore. The vast majority in minority precincts.

Your numbers prove our case. Fraud and/or machine malfunction. A tough combo to beat. And then throw disenfranchisement into the mix.

And you have the Holy Trinty of Stolen elections.

[GettysbergII]

33. Funny I have the exact opposite perspective.

I have very little faith in the judgement of the American public- and that's putting it mildly.

Of course I live in an integrated community on the southside of Chicago and teach in a 90% poverty Chicago Public School.

Further, I believe that Kerry's stances on the Iraq War, outsourcing jobs, NCLB, etc were directed more at appeasing the ruling class than appealing to the working class. His campaign was a bunch of bullshit that we all went along with to get rid of Bush. I certainly wasn't happy with it and I doubt most working people were.

I think any Democratic candidate would lose a good proportion of the vote (30%) to fundamentalism and racism/zenophobia/homophobia, and another 10% because Bush does offer more immediate benefits to the ruling class and those who identify with the ruling class. (This is particularly true among white males by the way.) But other than that the other 60% of the population's interests are for a more liberal and democratic government despite the flaws in Kerry's campaign and I believe the majority of Americans voted that way and by a wide enough margin to be a landslide.

[AndyTiedye]

34. If You Are Right, We Are Doomed

That would mean that they have learned how
to fool most of the people all of the time,
in which case democracy is doomed.

[FogerRox]

35. 23 states had 2% or more discrepancy -exit polls VS resutlts

And thats with 2 white guys running--Kerry won 55% of Pop vote and AT LEAST 317 in the EC.

[rman]

36. aren't you puzzled by the discrapencies between exit polls..

and election result?
never before where so many election polls outside the historical margin of error.

23 cases in favor of Bush
2 in favor of kerry

what are you? a coincidence theorist?

"hard" evidence can only be found by a thourough, impartial legal investigation.

[MarkusQ]

39. As a life-long registered Republican in a very red state...

...I was very surprised by the results. K & E signs everywhere, many of my Republican friends (ex military, fiscal conservatives, etc.) openly berating Bush, and then (if you believe the results) we all voted for Bush, as did a bunch of the Democratic minority.

As one of my friends (also a Republican) said when Kerry conceded "Something doesn't smell right about this."

--MarkusQ

[lthuedk]

41. Then Cali, you may have selectively integrated information.

Voter intimidation and disenfranchisement ALONE may have cost millions of Democratic votes. But, the fraud in Ohio is obvious and overwhelming. Ohio is key to the election. Computer fraud is also well established. Yes the election was stolen. Yes, your analysis is incorrect.

Where have you been?

[Bill Bored]

42. Exit polls?

Cali,

I think there are only disagreements about the magnitude of the fraud.

The major piece of evidence that there was widespread national fraud sufficient to swing the election is Mitofsky's infamous early exit polls, which unfortunately, even he has said were not properly adjusted. If, for example, he sampled the wrong precincts, this could skew the results. See: <http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6533008/#041124a>

Now either we trust this guy or we don't.

If we do, and he's telling us to ignore his own polls, then we have to look for other evidence of fraud until such time as he releases his raw data, which John Conyers, among others, has asked him to do sooner rather than later. I think we need to direct a bit more public outrage against Mitofsky since so much of this fraud hypothesis rests on his data and he has not been forthcoming with it.

Personally, I think the GOP could have hacked the early polls to help them get out the vote, but DU-ers are pooh-poohing this idea in droves, in favor of the larger conspiracy theory. It would however be much easier to tamper with data on a few co-located servers in Mitofsky's network, than to perpetrate the fraud on over 3,000 central tabulators nationwide. Anything is possible though and we should keep our minds open.

Dick Morris has suggested that the Dems hacked the exit polls to boost THEIR turnout by making it look like Kerry was ahead. This argument is completely false in my view; an early Kerry lead would get out the Bush vote -- not Kerry's! But Morris' story could serve as a cover for the GOP hacking the polls, the actual election, or BOTH.

Now, OH and FL were probably hacked in various ways, beyond the usual "glitches" inherent in the voting processes. That's why OH is being contested.

FL, I'm afraid is no-man's land. A failed state not unlike the old South Africa. Only regime change down there, or perhaps a massive economic boycot of the state could change things there, unless Clint Curtis' story can be turned into prosecutorial evidence. I hope it can be!

One more point: Peter King's district does NOT include Queens, NY. And there are few if any electronic machines in NY State. Yet there was a large Red Shift in the those infamous exit pools in NY -- among the largest in fact. This remains unexplained.

There are a number of reasons why people voted for Bush, but too many to go into in this post. The GOP propaganda machine alone accounts for MANY votes. It would be nice if media reform were the solution to this whole thing, but unfortunately, it's probably not. We need to work on election reform too, in a big way. With the Republican majority in Congress, the state level is the place to do this!

I therefore propose we sue the states, and maybe even the two major parties, to force them to prove to us that our votes are being counted correctly as cast. They can _not_ prove this because of the proprietary nature of the voting machines and software, and so they will either have to get the machine code released and inspected, or change the laws to require a paper trail, and actually USE it to verify EVERY election. That's the answer IMHO.

Now who's with me?

[m.standridge]

43. I agree with you except that in the past one branch

of the federal government has always been won or kept by the Demos in the aftermath of such election landslides (i.e., 1972, '84, and, to an extent, '88).
This time, it's all been lost, including the High courts.
It's all on the Executive, and Ohio is the only short-term shot we've got to keep some semblance of hope for democracy.
No one's ever had all three branches for more than 2 1/2 years.

Bush, if this proceeds, will have that for at least 6 years, and with unprecedented powers.
I'd concede that there's a distinct possibility that Kerry didn't win the Popular vote this time, because, for one thing, he might be less popular than Gore, and in different, more lightly populated areas, too.

But he hired an Electoral College specialist for his campaign this time, and the focus was Ohio and Florida. There are glitches and odds and ends in both of those states this time. It could be that Kerry won in the Electoral College. It wouldn't take but about 50-some-odd thousand votes changing hands in OH to turn it around in the Electoral College.
There are things, odds and ends, about some other states, too. Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, and Arkansas. All of those states showed Kerry with leads in the pre-election period, at one time or another. And, even when Bush had a lead, he was in Pluralities in those states, nearly every time.
The one thing your argument does have going for it, is that the pre-election polls showed a lot of people were Undecided and that key states were back and forth, and were going to be close.
But I believe there was enough in Ohio, especially, to suggest that Kerry may have carried it narrowly, and Bush knew it.
And, look at it this way: if Kerry does edge out an Electoral win, it won't be any magic bullet for the Democrats, and because of what you've described: a lot of Democrats, en masse, unfortunately, are subjectable to media manipulation and can be swayed to vote wrongly or not vote. Kerry was allowing for that kind of thing with this Electoral College strategy.

And I think there's a good bit about Florida, but most of that won't be accessible for awhile...