I'm going to re-post my comments from the other threads here--we now have 3 threads going simultaneously on this topic--then I'm going to stick with one of them--this first one:
"DNC releases report on 2004 presidential election in Ohio"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x37963356. Strategy...
Kerry won the exit polls, and the ways in which the official total varies from the exit polls have been proven to be impossible.
The Democrats blew the Republicans away in new voter registraton in 2004, neary 60/40.
The vast majority of new voters voted for Kerry.
The vast majority of Independent voters voted for Kerry.
The vast majority of Nader voters voted for Kerry.
The vast majority of Gore voters (who won the popular vote in 2000) voted for Kerry, and got all of the above to vote for Kerry, too. (Switch Gore/Bush voters were a wash.)
Bush's approval rating is down to about 40%! --and has been bad for over a year.
The vast majority of Americans disapprove of Bush, and of every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, up in the 60% to 70% range.
Major Bush partisans own and control the counting of our votes in virtually ALL voting systems using "trade secret," proprietary programming code!
What's to understand here?
This DNC report is crap. And I think we have to start hunting down and rooting out the corruption within the Democratic Party on the matter of electronic voting systems. We've begun naming names in California. Let's get on with it.
We can't do anything about the Bush fascist Republicans. We CAN do something about the corrupt and collusive Democrats. And that's what we must do.
------
As I said elsewhere, they did not have to use the "fraud" word to describe the 2004 election. But their failure to identify and oppose BUSH PARTISAN OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF THE VOTE COUNT is a catastrophic omission.
I still have been unable to read the full report--it won't fully download--but the pieces that I've been able to download and those that have been posted here are telling me that they OMITTED this crucial information. AND the "revolving" door employment between election officials--both Rep and Dem--and these private, secretive electronic voting companies. AND the lobbying corruption. THESE are the critical problems. And they appear to have been completely left out.
They go for optiscans. Optiscans are crap. They, too, run on secret, proprietary software--owned and controlled by the same Bushites.
I'm really utterly appalled at such deliberate blindness. And unless they have a "secret plan" to address these matters at the state/local level, then we are not going to get any help from the Dem leadership--who are currently ignoring and obstructing on these critical matters--and this is going to be a very long and tough fight.
------------
It's our right NOT to vote on Bushite-controlled voting machines, stupids!
------------------------
65. More strategy...
Re: this report.
1. The DRE section is quotable in our state/local fights--to at least get rid of the worst of these election theft machines. Send to local/state Dem legislators and election officials (and any honest Republicans you may know of).
2. The optiscan section will be used against us in our fight for open source code or paper ballots/hand counts. It needs to be debunked (and we will run up against corrupt Dems on this one.)
3. Do they ANYWHERE mention secret, proprietary software? (--still can't download the full report).
-----
Re: general
The DNC is A YEAR BEHIND the grass roots (us), on understanding this situation, and YEARS behind the Bushites, who have understood it all very well for years, and have acted like the fascists they are to gain control of the vote count with highly insecure and fraud-prone electronic voting systems controlled by Bushites.
The "generals" at the DNC are "fighting last year's war." In fact, they're fighting a "war" that is DECADES old--enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. They are way, way, way behind the Bushites. The Bushites ALREADY have a plan in place--the phony, private Baker-Carter "Commission"--to FEDERALIZE election systems under Bush Cartel control, and take the matter of election systems and voter databases as far from the people as they can get it. Our ability to solve this critical problem at the state/local level will be destroyed. That is the B/C goal, in my view.
And the Dem Party is obviously clueless about this (or corrupt, some of them) and will likely APPLAUD it because it has a "PAPER TRAIL"!!!! (god...)
A word about Ohio: Ohio was election fraud plan B, in my opinion. The highly visible violations of the Voting Rights Act on election day was risked BECAUSE Kerry's victory was looking like a blowout. The electronic percentages scam was not enough (and this would mean that it was probably mostly pre-set programming). That was plan A. Plan C was the "terrorist alert" partial shutdowns of the vote in urban areas, probably in the west, that was so carefully prepared in the "news" leading up to election day.
It took a combination of plan A and plan B to keep the Bush Cartel in the White House (with a sufficient fraudulent vote margin to be able to claim a "mandate"--or at least to make that a headline for a day). Plan C was not needed (except in Warren County.) (If Kerry's margin had been 20% instead of 7% to 10%, we would have seen Dick Cheney's plane in trouble over the Pacific on election day, leading to a vote shutdown on the west coast. So I believe.) (He inexplicably flew off to Hawaii two days before the election, cuz Hawaii was promising to turn "red," don't you know?) (--har, har).
Conclusion: the DNC's obsessive focus on Ohio is, a) an attempt to ameliorate black voters, who are rightfully outraged by what took place there (AND in Florida and other places); b) an attempt to deflect attention from the utterly corrupt and fraudulent election SYSTEM that was foisted upon us (for whatever reason they are attempting to do this--probably mostly their own guilt and malfeasance); and c) evidence that they are stupidly worrying about whether anybody will ever vote again--instead of strongly acting to insure that our votes will in fact be counted (work that must be done at the state/local level).
They STILL despise the grass roots of this party. That has not changed (even with Dean). They're STILL largely pro-Mideast War. That has not changed. (And they don't mind Bush taking the rap for the deaths and the cost.) Many of them are very corrupt on several major matters--including war profiteering and tie-ins ("revolving door" employment and perks.) Although the election facts, and all the polls consistently over time, show a big anti-war majority, and huge disapproval of all Bush policy, the Dems STILL by and large are not acting like representatives of the majority (with some exceptions). They talk about winning the yahoo vote (even Dean did this the other day). They talk about "framing" issues to win over rightwing voters (as if they needed to be won over--they are very much the minority!). And damn few of them are talking about illegal war, about Bush's baldfaced lies about the war, and about torture.
Some of this is just perception. The corporate news monopolies--who colluded on election night in creating the ILLUSION that Bush won, by ALTERING the exit poll results on everbody's TV screens--are stifling the message of those Democrats who ARE trying to represent the majority. But other Dems are actively playing along--out of cowardice, or corruption.
I don't envy Dean his job, working with such a party. I think the man is highly intelligent and has good instincts (and is not himself corrupt). But jeez...
This election was OBVIOUSLY stolen, and the Dems not only fail to acknowledge this, and not only perpetrate the myth that it was not stolen, but they AREN'T DOING WHAT'S NECESSARY to correct the situation. Simple, no-brainer things--like getting the Bushite companies out of our elections!
The DNC report may have been a compromise that Dean was forced to make. Let's hope so--and that he WILL get the party to do what is necessary. If not, we're on our own, citizens, and will have to get this done somehow without the Democratic party.
We sort of knew that (especially after the Kevin Shelley thing in Calif.). This DNC report points further in the direction of Dem cluelessness and/or corruption. They are patting themselves on the back--and people are applauding them--for acknowledging the most egregious crimes against federal election law in Ohio. But their blindness and stupidity in STATING that the election is not challengeable, and in NOT strongly attacking the utterly corrupt heart of the election SYSTEM--the "privatization" of vote counting in Bushite hands--has placed the DNC on the wrong side of this vital matter, as the enemy.
Once again, we have to fight THEM, before we can ever get at the Bushites. Once again, they are running interference for Bushite election theft.
The headline tomorrow will be that the DNC and Howard Dean say that this election was not a fraud. How is that for a kick in the butt?
I think we need to be realistic about all this. We can still win, and we WILL win--but the DNC has now made our task all the harder.
--------
Peace Patriot - Response to Reply #58
67. Exactly right, Nothing Without Hope!
"Most of the public have no idea about the electronic fraud, but many Dem voters know about those long lines. Fix those, and it looks good. The GOPs would probably go along with that, because it removes visible evidence that is hard to suppress ***while keeping intact the central machine of fraud."*** --Nothing Without Hope (emphasis added)
I think targeting Dem officials' corruption on electronic voting systems has to become a big part of our strategy in fighting this fight.
-------------
(Nothing Without Hope posts the electronic voting recommendations in the DNC report, post #62...)
--------------
71. Thanks for the info, Nothing Without Hope!
So they DO say something about secret, proprietary software--item #5 above (although NOT about who owns it!!!), but they go on to say (and how is this for speaking out of both sides of your mouth?)...
"Vendors are welcome to protect their intellectual property with copyrights and patents, but their full designs must be subject to public scrutiny....".
I'm choking on it.
-----
Item #1: "Precinct-based optical scan systems are the most 'accurate' voting systems available today."
This is not only NOT TRUE, it is totally unacceptable. And they're PUSHING **ES&S**--one of the two most criminal election theft companies in the country, funded by the far right.
------
"The computers used to tabulate election results are a tempting target for election fraud..."
Really, I'm on the floor laughing (and crying...).
------
Yup, we're going to have to target the corrupt Dems (people like Diebold shill Connie McCormack, head of elections in Los Angeles). That's the only way we can overcome the huge disadvantage that this DNC report has loaded on our shoulders.
We have to show people WHY the Democratic Party is not calling for dumping these electronic machines into Boston Harbor NOW!
Ordinary Americans will understand the war argument as well. Look how many Dems voted for the war, and are profiting from it! THAT's one reason why they won't cry foul on the election. They LIKE Bush's war.
But the most convincing argument is the outright corruption of so many Dem election and other officials on the electronic systems. They're benefiting from the HAVA largesse (billions!) and lavish lobbying. They're being wined and dined in Hollywood and Beverly Hills. They're looking to future lucrative employment by these companies. They like being esoteric experts riding above ordinary voters who don't have a clue any more how their votes are counted. It's a game of "experts" and "professionals"--what should be simple for every voter to understand. This "expertise" thing is a also a form of corruption. (It's OUR government! It's OUR votes, goddammit!). And some of them are just plain bought and paid for. And all of this heavy corruption in election systems affects legislators and other public officials and party leaders as well.
In California, the Bush Cartel showed what would happen to any public-minded election official who fights Diebold or ES&S or any other Bush donor. They will be ruined by black ops/secret dossier campaigns.
Fear and corruption are what's happening. And I think we need to face this front and center, and take it on.
Because if we don't, we are constantly going to be frustrated and stymied by these questions, "If the Democrats think the election was stolen, why don't they say so?", "If the Democrats don't trust electronic voting, why are most of them for it?," and "If it's important, why isn't it in the news?"
How many times do you want to hear these questions over the next year?
This means hurting some of our own. But we've got to realize that anyone who shills for Diebold and ES&S (and a few others--such as Sequoia) is NOT "one of our own." And there are far too many of these bad actors within our own party.
-----
72. P.S., one of the things that Kevin Shelley was cracking down on, in...
California, was "revolving door" employment between state and county election officials and private voting machine companies.
---------------
(From the second thread on this subject...)
(The first part of my comment was posted before the DNC report was available.)
"DNC report online now!"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x37976510. Here is my comment on this matter, as to hope for the DNC.
I posted this on the other DNC report thread in response to someone who said that Donna Brazile's focus has been on voting rights.
27. It's about our right to vote!
Donna Brazile is a beautiful woman and her story of her rise in politics is an inspiring tale. For more about her, see:
http://authors.aalbc.com/donnabrazile.htm But I have to ask of her, and of all other leaders of the Democratic Party over the last several years: WHERE WERE YOU WHEN THE BUSH CARTEL VOTING MACHINE COMPANIES TOOK OVER OUR ELECTION SYSTEM WITH ELECTRONIC VOTE COUNTING MACHINES RUN ON SECRET, PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE WITH NO PAPER TRAIL?
Democrats should have been screaming bloody murder about this long before the 2004 election. That they did not was the most catastrophic failure of Democratic Party leadership in our lifetimes.
We MUST, MUST, MUST get our voting systems back into the public venue NOW. The only way to do this is at the state/local level, where control over voting systems still resides, and where ordinary people still have some influence. But the DEMOCRATIC leaders' silence, corruption and collusion on this matter, across this land, at every level, is one of our biggest obstacles to reform.
I hope and pray that this report will radically alter party policy on this matter, and will, a) inspire a Democratic Party housecleaning of corrupt election and other officials; and b) call for paper ballots and hand counts until we can purge our election system of private, partisan Bushite companies and outrages like secret, proprietary vote counting software.
That's what is needed. We'll see if they come through. But BEWARE of any FEDERAL solution that would have to be implemented by Bush's "pod people" in Congress, or any solution that takes power over voting systems further away from the people at the local level. Beware!
That was a viable solution in 1965--when the Voting Rights Act was passed by a DEMOCRATIC Congress especially to insure the right of black citizens to vote. This is a FAR DIFFERENT power situation, in which the election thieves are running our federal government, and WILL NEVER restore our right to vote. Never! Any meaningful federal legislation WILL BE gutted, or it will be a 'Trojan horse' by which the Bush Cartel will gain total control over centralized election systems and voter databases.
True election reform must be, and can only be, done at the state/local level, in the present circumstances. And if the DNC does not recognize this fact, then they are not sincere and they will be ineffective at restoring transparent, verifiable elections.
Just look at what HAVA did--the total corruption of our election system--and ask yourself if you want Tom Delay's fingers in the "solution"!
----------
Posted at:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x379633---------
I would add that focus SHOULD BE placed on the utter failure of the Bush Cartel to enforce the Voting Rights Act in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere in 2004--and on its egregious and official violations of that Act. But that is just one part of the story. It speaks to INTENT to defraud, as well as to the theft of the election in Ohio and Florida in particular. But the overt and visible vote suppression can distract attention from the main problem--Bushite control of the vote count nationwide--which is the problem that most needs fixing. We cannot force the Bush Cartel to obey the law. But we CAN get our election system back into the public's hands, via state/local election rules (the only way it can be done, at present), and we can do it quickly if the Democratic leadership helps out. But they are mostly not helping at the moment, and in some cases (California, for instance) the Dem leaders are ignoring and obstructing--because there are so many Dem election officials who have been corrupted by HAVA (billions of dollars flooding into the states for purchase of shoddy, insecure, fraud-prone election systems owned and controlled by Bushites, and the lavish lobbying of these election theft companies!)
I noticed a comment by Howard Dean, early on, to this effect--that election reform has to be done locally. That makes me hopeful about this report.
---------
From reading the quick skims of the report by others, I gather that they do NOT focus on throwing private Bushite voting machine companies out of our election system, and say little or nothing about it. So, forget 2006 and 2008. This is going to be a lo-o-o-o-ong hard battle first of all within our own party.
It's a battle we MUST fight and win.
I would say: Bombard the DNC with their catastrophic failure to protect our right to vote from Bushite companies and their goddamned secret source code. Jeez. It's a no-brainer!
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
