If vote fraud occured, and Kerry fails to fight it, does that prove Nader

[Bread and Circus]

was right?

As time wears on, the more I support the notion that fraud
occured. Kerry has not been forceful in fighting it in my
opinion. Nader seems to be more above board in fighting it
and in doing so, his stature has grown in my eyes. I just get
this sense that he really cares about democracy and the country.
With Kerry, I just get the sense that he would only make an
overt stink if he thought it would benefit him. Furthermore,
it seems as if the whole Democratic party has this sort of
slinky quality to it where it tries to worm only into places
that it thinks it can win. By its "obsolescence" it supports
the status quo, and in so doing is serving the same ends as
the conservative party. This is Nader's whole MO. I guess
I look at this issue as a sort of litmus test and right now,
most in the Dem party are shrinking from it. Even if fraud hasn't
been proven with a "smoking gun", people in high places should be
at least asking questions, and not just a handful of congresspeople.

So again, if Kerry fails to step up and openly ask questions,
was Nader right all along?

[brainshrub]

1. I don't if Nader was right,

but since Kerry isn't fighting, I have to assume that either 1) Kerry was a shill. 2) The Democratic party sucks.

Right now I'm leaning to option #2.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. We don't know what he's doing.

Silence is not assent, neccessarily.

[Goldeneye]

3. I have to believe

that if Kerry had tried to do anything, we never would have stood a chance. It would have been 2000 all over again. I'm gald he's not involved. If he were involved, it seems unlikely that 1) he would have gotten anything done 2) we would ever get the voting system fixed.

[Skink]

6. What if Renhquist cashes in?

There's no time time to replace him. Why not fight for every chad.

[ClarkUSA]

4. Bev Harris on Kerry

BevHarris Donating member (1000+ posts) Click to send email to this
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Wed Nov-24-04 04:40 PM
Response to Reply #15

22. The Dems did nothing to help themselves, let me clarify:

As a nonpartisan nonprofit 501c(3), we cannot get involved in
campaigns, recounts and the like. However, by sending the records
request to every county in the nation, and publishing the exact
documents needed on the web site by midnight Nov. 2, this put ALL
parties on notice what was needed in order to properly audit.

We made ourselves available for consultation on exactly what records
to request and how to use them for auditing.

Other political parties have used information from our public records
request to set up their own recounts and audits. Citizens groups have
also done so on a local basis.

Therefore, the road map for the Kerry campaign was right there. Though
we could not accept, and they certainly did not offer, assistence on
securing our own request, they certainly should have filed an
identical request themselves, litigated and muscled counties into
compliance in Ohio and Florida, and it would have been easy for them
to get teams of computer people to examine the logs and teams of
auditors to match up the records. This all could have been done in a
matter of three days...at most, 5 days, with the muscle they had.

Instead, they rebuffed our attempts to provide expertise, advice, or
evidence, and they made no effort whatsoever to do any auditing at
all, nor even to obtain the records needed for simple, quick, diagnostics.

More recently, we have had overtures, but I admit I've been pretty
rude and completely without patience with them. Too late, and far too
little emphasis on what really needs to be done.

The Kerry attorney in Volusia, by the way, came by but asked not a
single question, never asked to look at any evidence, and told one of
the producers of Votergate that he thought Black Box Voting was just
here to "stir up trouble."

We were very open about the problems we anticipated with this -- the
Election Protection effort, which was admirable, was focused solely on
watching the casting of the vote, rather than the counting of the
vote. When concerned people with access to decisionmakers tried to
bring this huge ommission to the attention of people who could take
corrective action, they said they were not interested and, in some
cases, refused to even take the phone to talk with Black Box Voting.

After the election, everyone came to us asking what we can do. Many
people expected Black Box Voting, an organization held together only
by the grit of volunteers and the efforts of three full time
investigators and a board of directors, with a shoestring budget, to
overturn the national election. Not only was this the expectation
unrealistic (though our nonpartisan charter would prohibit us from
seeking a recount anyway), but the clock had already been run out.

We have consistently been ahead of the curve on this. We identified
the problems with voting machine reliability and nontransparency way
back in 2002; we have stressed since 2003 that the problems are not
just touch screens, but with all computerized systems, including
optical scans and punch cards, and we have focused on auditing as the
solution since mid-2003.

While everyone else was focusing on getting a "paper trail" (without
making any efforts to ensure that something meaningful was done to USE
the paper to audit), we were focusing on auditing ommissions, both
with the machines and with election procedures. While 40,000 people
charged off to watch votes being cast, we published guidelines to
create human audit logs for the central tabulator, the machine that
COUNTS the votes.

In short, the time to set things up to contest this election on a
national basis was a few weeks BEFORE the election. No one in a
decisionmaking capacity bothered to do that, though we had been
publicly calling for this, even going to Washington D.C. in September
to meet with people and hold a press conference, in September.

Now, after the fact, people are realizing the mistakes.

1. Focusing on touch-screens and computer solutions, instead of
focusing on basic auditing and bookkeeping

2. Focusing on touch screen machines instead of the central tabulator
and the optical scans and punch card computers as well.

3. Failing to put any procedures in place to audit elections properly
on a county by county basis

And now, failing to use the legal muscle of the party to enforce
production of audit documents, and failure to do any auditing at all.

The result is that the American People are left with uncertainty on a
nationwide basis.

Stay tuned for an upcoming national conference which will be put on by
Black Box Voting, called "Help America Audit," in which we will teach
citizens groups, political parties, candidates, and private citizens
how to conduct citizen audits of elections on a county by county
basis, the only method available to us, really -- and stay tuned,
also, for an action we'll be taking soon to beef up compliance with
the public records requests needed for election auditing.

Love ya,

Bev

More from Bev Harris at DU... For those who contributed to enable
Kerry to be sure that the vote was legit:

Forum Name General Discussion
Topic subject Completely irresponsible.
Topic URL
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104\
x2746037#2746158

2746158, Completely irresponsible. A $52 million litigation war chest
Posted by BevHarris on Wed Nov-24-04 02:21 PM

A $52 million litigation war chest accumulated from citizen
donations for that purpose.

If they were the slightest bit interested in either voting system
integrity or actually winning, they would have litigated the BBV
records requests to apply some real muscle into prompt disclosure of
audit materials, at least in Ohio and Florida. Failure to comply with
sunshine laws is against the law, yet a citizens group like Black Box
Voting cannot claim legal urgency, forcing immediate compliance, in
the same way that a campaign can. There is no question that if the
campaign had enforced the sunshine laws, analyzing the audit data, two
things would have happened:

1) records would have been produced
2) auditing would have been enabled, and we all know that would
have produced hard evidence of irregularities.

The screen shots of the NETWORKED Volusia County GEMS server
alone, along with the logs showing attempts to access it remotely,
should have hit the national press. (I showed them to CNN cameramen
yesterday, along with 59 orange-tagged poll tapes that were missing
signatures, zero tapes, sometimes missing results altogether! No
interest in getting a shot of that smoking gun at all.)

Oh yeh, and we intereviewed poll workers. On camera. Showed them
the poll tapes we were given by Volusia County. To a person, they
said, with great concern, "That is NOT what we submitted to the
county." One remembered the results on his poll tape. What he
remembered, before ever seeing the results tape or hearing what was on
our copy, was not the same. His memory for a precinct with a tad over
400 voters had 60 more votes for Kerry. Of course, that's not legally
binding, since he hadn't written it down.

You have to wonder. The purpose of our audits is to get some real
answers, so we don't have to wonder any more.

Bev

From last Friday's email to his 2 million mailing list:

"I will fight for a national standard for federal elections that has
both transparency and accountability in our voting system. It's
unacceptable in the United States that people still don't have full
confidence in the integrity of the voting process," Kerry said.

[Bread and Circus]

9. Can U summarize that for me?

[Cowboy Joe2k]

16. As an American who voted, this makes me sick.

I think that This election, and Kerry should be the subject of a Class Action Law Suit. When did the election become a game of poker? I didn't know you were allowed to fold rather then pony up especially when you have a winning hand. Bottom line is that the President was chosen by rigged voting machines or worse one man who decided that what he wanted was more important then the will of the People. If I had known that Kerry was a shill and would give up so easily, I would have written in Nader so at least I would feel like my vote might have matter.

I Ask other countries such as the Ukraine to hold the United States elections to the same standard that Powell is trying to apply to them. I think that all the world leaders should get together and say to the Unites States "We cannot accept your election until the allegations of Fraud are resolved" Just as Powell is saying to them.

As I am a newbie, and cannot post topics of my own, can some one please post a topic asking that the rest of the world Hold the U.S. election to the same standards that Powell is trying to impose on them.

[Fovea]

5. Not necessarily

I am assuming that someone with the letter R in their name has successfully threatened Kerry/Edwards. Note the sudden illness of the challenger in Ukraine.

But that does not change the fact that we are in a war. And our Heinz Guderian apparently just surrendered.

[FloridaPat]

7. I've always thought Nader was right. But I don't think a third party

will ever be able to make a difference unless we get rid of the electorial college. As Michael Moore stated, there is no one in Washington working for the common folks. The Democrats give us crumbs instead of screws.

[drunkdriver-in-chief]

8. Yup - Nader has been saying this for 35 years

More and more people, esp in the conspiracy groups, feel the same way too. Both parties and the media work as one for their own agenda and it has nothing to do with helping america. Sure looks plausible after the last 4 years in which the dems have not attacked the many repug failures and the media has openly championed the repugs. Famous CT alex jones talks about this a lot at prisonplanet.com.

[PATRICK]

10. Results will speak for themselves

Intentionality is trivial compared to getting to such a disaster in the first place. The party leadership will be for all practical intent vacated in the eyes of real Democrats and other rational people.

As of now, Nader is worse than right. Everyone has been pointed down the path to irrelevant defeat and each by their own lights dutifully descended.

The mystery of why Bev was ignored is the dark one. Any idiot could have seen it or had to take it seriously.

But America is blind to a fault.

[Red State Blues]

11. Nader is just plain right.

First, don't discount Kerry so easily. He really can't do anything about a REcount until there is a count. Kerry may wind up being more decent than most of the elected Democratic party before this is all over but there is no doubt that Nader was right about the two major parties in general.

How could Nader expect his cause to be taken seriously if he had decided not to run because of Bush? This goes for any of the third party candidates, "Oh, we only nominate a candidate in years when nothing important is happening."

The way the Democratic party trashed Nader right out of the gate was shameful, and I'm sure turned off a lot of Green voters. They never once addressed him on the issues, only making a massively concerted ad hominim attack on his "ego" Let me make it clear that there was nothing the Democratic party could have done to deter me from casting my vote in a way to do maximum damage to Bush, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

[Carolab]

14. What really makes me sad

is that Dean was part of it.

What IS going on?

[Red State Blues]

15. Somewhere

high up in the Democratic leadership, early on, it was decided that this was the way they were going to handle Nader (above). They blame him for costing the Democrats the 2000 election which ignores 2 things: 1. Gore didn't lose, he won. and 2. Nader votes do not inherently belong to the Democrats.

It was disappointing to see Dean go off on Nader but I think this is yet another example of how their should be room for more than two points of view in this country. It was a rare example of Democratic unity to sticking on message which may be helpful in the short term but I believe will only make things worse long term. The quicker the two parties can present their unified view, the quicker any alternative view is eliminated and options for resolution are reduced.

I hope Dean's attack on Nader was a required taking one for the team that was required for a future in the party (which is in itself repugnant) similar to John McCain's support of Bush.

[lthuedk]

12. Does Kerry know

the significance of this do-or-die point in our country's life? Absolutely.

[KnowerOfLogic]

13. Overall, the dems are certainly not giving a good accounting of

themselves, and haven't been for a long time. I voted for Nader, and i certainly don't have any regrets.

[Stand and Fight]

17. Deep Thoughts

I can say this with a very clear conscience. You guys have given me -- someone with very, very high political aspirations -- pause to think about this country and the direction that it is ultimately headed in, for both of the two major political parties seem to be by and large out of contact with us, the general will, the people.