Show me the vote counts

[arendt]

SHOW ME THE VOTE COUNTS
by arendt

After four years of media distortions, and outright
lies by the President and Vice President in nationally
televised debates, I am not about to take that same corrupt
media's word about some crooked e-voting machine companies'
unverifiable and highly unlikely vote totals without some
evidence.

As a citizen I have a right to see the tabulations of the
votes, county by county, precinct by precinct. I want to see
exactly where George Bush picked up the millions of
votes he needed to win swing state after swing state -
despite all polls and all exit polls showing that he was
losing and that momentum was going against him, despite
craven panic among the right wing, despite massive turnout
that traditionally goes against an incumbent. As Tucker Carlson
said, "These people aren't standing in line for four hours to vote
for more of the same."

If voting is to mean anything, which is highly doubtful
given the lack of a single Republican co-sponsor of Rep.
Rush Holt's bill calling for a paper trail, it must be
beyond suspicion. When I see real numbers, instead
of exit polls, changed at 1 AM by networks; when I
see all the mechanical voting machine votes, and all
the absentee ballots, then I can begin to examine
the data.

The data will show me where Bush's magical majority
came from. Then we can ask if those locations are plausible
or wildly unbelievable. Right now, we are playing blackjack
by calling out 16 or 19 or 21, without seeing any cards.

All we know right now is that Bush's votes didn't come from Democrats,
who roundly despise him. We also know he has alienated formerly
GOP groups such as Arab-Americans, Libertarians, Gay Republicans, moderate Republicans, and economic conservatives of all stripes, not to
mention sizable percentages of the rock-solid military and Miami
Cuban votes.

We know the votes did not come from Greens or Nader voters, who polled
almost zero. No last minute events moved voters Bush's way. On the contrary,
the Al Qaqaa story, the Haliburton scandal, and the signature dissembling
over them, poured salt into the wounds inflicted in the debates.

Therefore, a rational person can only assume that Bush got all his
unexpected margins in hardcore Republican districts, stuffed full of
fundamentalist voters. That, in fact, is exactly what the GOP spinners
are claiming to explain the massive turnout.

Fine. Show me the numbers. I will look to see what those numbers
say the turnout rate of fundamentalists was in those locales. We
know that Democrats were motivated; we can check their turnout rates
as well. We can compare those rates in e-voting districts versus
paper-trail districts. We can compare rural/GOP safe patterns to
urban/GOP hostile patterns. Then we can decide if we had an honest
election or another piece of corporate-directred theater of the absurd.

I do not think it is an unreasonable request, to ask for matters of
public record in a public election - especially in light of the fact
that this information was surppressed in 2000 until conveniently
just after 911. If e-voting is as fast as it is claimed to be accurate,
those records should be on-line already, to dispel any doubts.

Bottom line: show me the numbers. No substitutes are acceptable.
54% is not enough to claim immunity from public scrutiny. We paid
$70 Million to investigate ludicrous claims against Bill Clinton. We
can afford a few million to preserve the integrity of our democratic
voting process.

[sksoapfan24]

1. When will Kerry speak again?

I don't know about the rest of you guys but I'm anxious to hear from Kerry again. I know it's over and we have to accept that but I hope that he does an interview or something with Barbara Walters where he can speak freely about the campaign. It's only after a campaign is over and there is nothing left at stake that you can speak honestly about highlights of the campaign and mistakes. I'd like to know what he truly thinks about a lot of things without the filter that politicians have to send their remarks through during the course of a campaign. I'd also like to know how running for president affected him on a personal level. I know some might have voted for Kerry because he was the anybody but Bush candidate but I voted for him because I really thought he was the right guy to lead the country and I really like him as a person. I want to hear from him again. I realize it's kind of early after the election results but I hope that in the next few months we will be hearing more from him.

[arendt]

2. No offense, but what does this have to do with what I posted? n/t

[sksoapfan24]

3. LOL

LOL, your right, absolutly nothing. I'm just wanting to put up a lot of replies so I can finally have an original post of my own here. I was suprised you had to do post 250 some odd replies here before you could do that. I wanted to reply to a post towards the top of the page. I just joined this forum. I am finding great comfort here. I can't tell you the disappointment I feel because of Kerry's loss. I'm sure you feel the same way. I didn't mean to irritate you at all. I'm not one of these people that comes online to start board wars or anything. I realize emotions are running high though.

[sksoapfan24]

5. I thought I'd reply to what you said

I have the same concerns about the vote counts as you do but unfortunatly this is not a perfect system. I'm not sure if the politicans could ever get their act together and agree on reforms. It might take a miracle.

[arendt]

6. If they get away with this, democracy is a farce

The hack is very subtle, but you can't hack bad statistics.
Things look ridiculous:

rural small towns (presumably un-hacked) voting more liberal
than cities (presumably hacked)

GOP turnout rates over 90%

If you are too stupid to see you are being cheated, I don't see how
you can expect to survive.

Fight them now. It will only get harder later.

arendt

on edit: corrected un-hacked

[genius]

7. You're absolutely right.

[genius]

4. You're right. WE had the largest turnout in history. Where are the votes?

[DELUSIONAL]

8. I'm copying this and sending it to my friends

You should email it to your congressional delegation and ALL the democrats in the Senate and Congress.

I want to know how the GOP got out the vote when they were busy suppressing the vote?

The vote turnout was huge -- and this many people do NOT come out to support the status quo.

We need to continue questioning how the vote was counted (or not counted).

bushies is still illegitimate and he will ALWAYS be illegitimate -- the whole world is aware that he has stolen yet another election. In fact I will bet that more people in Europe and throughout the rest of the world know that this president is a fraud.

[nolabels]

9. Logical is the antidote to brain wash

Thanks arendt

I am also thinking some of this might of went on in 02/s election #'s with Hagel a for sure.

Everything about these folks tells you they are liars and cheats or worse.

Bush can come out stone faced with lies, but the logic and phrasing betrays him. The lie about his bad shirt wrinkle in the debate is a prime example.

There is quite a pattern here, and no way in hell every thing can be coming up as coincidence. These establishment gangsters got all the pollsters to knuckle under except zogby.

The CNN screen shots and how they changed to fit the data instead of the projections is also prime example of why most of the major media is also in collusion or least being hammered down to make it appear that way.

There are also much thuggery going on. People getting killed. Anthrax and unexplained air plane crashes. We could go on and on but am just trying point out the patterns


We have gangsters running our country somebody got to know and see that

[cthrumatrix]

10. I agree....we contributed to these campaigns ... we should be able to see

all results...

[SmokingJacket]

11. Show me too dammit

It's crazy that it's all such a hidden mystery. Have they counted early votes? Provisionals? Absentee? How many? When? Who counted? How reliable is the software? Who has tested it? Where's the proof???

Why are none of these questions being answered???

There's no reason the election can't be on paper and pencil and absolutely open. UNLESS you don't want the people's choice to win.

[berry]

12. I agree. And so do many foreign observers who are shocked

by the machinery of our "democracy."

Also shocking is the number of people who are saying things like "nothing's perfect" (shades of Rumsfeld's response when he was asked how elections could be held in Iraq when some areas would be too violent to set up polls). Also, just on Wednesday, I heard 2 election officers (on TV) say that the people just have to trust them to get it right. I was appalled. Not even "trust but verify"!!

I'm really ignorant about the numbers you are seeking. But I agree that we need them. During the 2002 elections, I went to the SoS site to watch the numbers as they came in for the Stephanie Herseth election. There was data posted for every county separately, updated every 10 minutes as it came in. I think I remember reading that such info is save for only a few years? And I don't know how the laws in each state may differ in requirements that this info be made public.

I looked at the Wisconsin map this year (at the CNN site) and then went to the WI state site. The county I was especially interested in (having family there) was one of the few that did not post numbers on their website. But most did. I don't know--there might be a central site? I haven't yet searched further.

So what info do we want/need?
1) # of registered voters, by party if possible (I may be wrong but I think I read somewhere that some/all states actually sell this info to anyone who pays for it?? I do believe it should be free and open info, not least because then new voters can check to see that they are on the list, and which precinct they are in, etc.)
2) total # of voters who voted a) on election day b) early c) absentee
3) total # of people who were turned away (with reasons listed too, preferably)
4) final vote counts (aggregate, but also separate #s for early and absentee)
5) # of requests received for absentee ballots, # sent out, # received back on time, # received back late.

Is this being done? by people we can trust? Or do we start doing this ourselves? How to go about doing it? I'm not a computer or even a math person, but maybe there is some way I can help? I'm going to keep looking for what I may be able to do. At present, I'm just writing some letters to Congress-peeps....

In passing, it has occurred to me that we would have done better to outsource the administration of our elections to some other country--like Norway or Sweden maybe? I know, never happen. But there are MANY democracies in the world that have better safeguards than we do. What we have is a system I stopped trusting in 2000. I'm ashamed of our "democracy." And ashamed that I didn't make more noise about the most basic issue--one person one vote.

So, anyway, thanks, Arendt, for posting this. I always read your posts (when I find them), and am always the better for it.

[arendt]

13. I need to educate myself on the whole e-voting process

> 2) total # of voters who voted a) on election day b) early c) absentee

I do not know what kind of info these infernal machines
keep. It would be very interesting if they recorded the
time of votes. That would allow us to validate against
exit polls.

If all they do is add up numbers, then why are they so
complicated; and why do they produce NEGATIVE numbers
with such embarrasing regularity?

Anyway, we need to support BBV. I now regret blowing this
off in favor of organizing.

Whatever you do, don't drink the kool aid about there being
no problem with no paper trails.

Thanks for responding.

arendt

[berry]

14. Indeed--BBV is central! (and I hate kool-aid)

So central I didn't even mention it! Whoops. But clearly, with most DREs now in use, there is no easy way to recover the sort of info we really need. I was hoping that some statistical analysis (with the help of the exit data) might make up somewhat for the gaping hole that the missing paper trail leaves.

Also though, from reading some of the threads here, I'm inclined to think that it is quite possible that the fraud was spread over many different systems and methods, to distract diffuse the visibility. Sleight of hand. And make it harder to deconstruct the crime. Not that I know this, of course.

OK, I'm off to Bev's site. And I'll keep an eye out for further posts from you. If you find a site that is organized and handing out tasks for people to do, spread the word!