WP: López Obrador Alleges Vote Was Rigged

[cal04]

Mexican's Charges and Plans for Legal Challenge Fire Up Supporters at Rally in Capital
Downtown Mexico City swelled Saturday with the accumulated frustration and rage of the poor, who were stoked into a sign-waving, fist-pumping frenzy by new fraud allegations that Andrés Manuel López Obrador hopes will overturn the results of Mexico's presidential election.

López Obrador ignited the smoldering emotions of his followers Saturday morning, alleging for the first time that Mexico's electoral commission had rigged its computers before the July 2 election to ensure Felipe Calderón's half-percentage-point victory. In a news conference before the rally, López Obrador called Calderón "an employee" of Mexico's powerful upper classes and said a victory by his conservative opponent would be "morally impossible."

López Obrador added a new layer of complexity to the crisis by saying he would not only challenge the results in the country's special elections court, but would also attempt to have the election declared illegal by Mexico's Supreme Court. That strategy presages a constitutional confrontation because according to many legal experts the special elections court is the only body that can hear election challenges.

(snip)
López Obrador also told the crowd that he was organizing a march to the capital Wednesday from all over Mexico, including states hundreds of miles distant.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/08/AR2006070801010.html

[skids]

1. Recommended...

...because of all the news articles on this, this one got his name right instead of calling him "Obrador".

[whistle]

2. Hear that John Kerry....this guy Lopez Obrador is a fighter

[Skip Intro]

4. I must ask, what would you have had John Kerry do? How did he not fight?

nt

[EFerrari]

5. He could have asked the question. It wouldn't have killed him.

But, that's in the past.

Today we need to never ever go into an election again prepared to concede on FAITH.

[Skip Intro]

15. "asked the question" What question? And then? What should he have done?

nt

[EFerrari]

18. First, I hope you know that not only did I vote for John Kerry

and worked his campaign, but, I LIKE him.

There were plenty of questions surrounding the OH vote from the outset. THERE WAS A RIOT AT THE STATE HOUSE by frustrated voters on election night.

There was plenty of room for John to say, "We need to check this out. What happened in Ohio?"

It's not like he'd lose any votes by doing that.

[Skip Intro]

22. I understand, but still, where would that have gone?

It would have gone to the courts, and went there anyway, right? And nothing ever came of it, right?

I think a decision was made by Kerry and the Democratic establishment (whatever that is) that the risk of being ridiculed, growing exponentially as things wore on, and the risk of public tolerance, fed by, hell, probably created by, the media that originally installed this regime, that that risk to the image of the Democratic Party, outweighed the potential realistic gain of going into immediate battle election night. I think it might have been the right decision.

Kerry had no proof.

I don't fault him. He is as much a victim as the American people are. I just don't see what he could have done, that would have made sense. That would have been effective.

[EFerrari]

25. I agree that whatever protest he lodged would not have changed

the outcome.

But, instead of having to start headless and from the underground, had he lodged a protest, reasonable people could have built on that. The whole reform movement that is in full swing now would have gotten a two year head start on the riggers.

My family comes from Central America -- which settled down just about the time they started staging elections.

We can do better, I hope. :)

[ladjf]

26. It might not have gone anywhere. But, by God , he could have at

least tried. That's water under the bridge now. We could quit worrying about and think about November.

Getting back to the Mexican election, I like what Obrador is doing even if it doesn't overturn the election.

[treestar]

54. The risk of being ridiculed?

I'm afraid that anyone who worries about that will never beat the neo-cons.

[Skip Intro]

56. Big picture - look

Vote totals say bush won.

News outlets name bush the winner.

Kerry has no proof.

How long would a challenge lacking proof last? How long would it be tolerated by the public, with all the chiding from the media and repukes and weak-willed Dems, day after day? And NO proof.

What would you have had Kerry do?

I simply refuse to blame the victim.

[robbedvoter]

80. Oh, no! Not ridicule! Too great a risk! Ukraine, Mexico, Romania

those people can risk ridicule - after all they are just some lousy 3rd worlders. Not John Kerry!!!! :sarcasm:

[mod mom]

62. It is in the past but still a pertinent question. How was it done is now

know and we have got to make sure, as you say that we must never allow it again!

[whistle]

12. He did nothing, conceded the election to Dubya without so much as a

...as a challenge and all this within 12 hours of the close of the polls. His running mate went on national TV at midnight election day and took a stand, but John Kerry threw in the towel without any indication that he would challenge the results. That was not the will of the people who voted for John Kerry to be president, but John Kerry took action as though it was the will of his voting base. That was a big mistake and we can not allow any future democratic presidential candidate such discretion.

[Skip Intro]

13. That really doesn't answer the question. What would you have had him do?

I mean, if he had proof of some sort, I mean, he could hold that up and say, "look at this, I will not concede because of it." But he didn't and I don't think he had any proof, at that time, anyway. So how would that eventually play out? How long would it be before the party of criminals and a media on its knees to them would build up such a wall of noise about it being "time to give it up?" How long would the nation put up with it? With no proof, just a belief. How long would Kerry saying, "I know I won, I just know it - I can't prove it, but I know it" be taken seriously, with no proof?

Again I ask, what would you have had him do?

[whistle]

17. Here is what Kerry did do.....

<snip>
The last man to concede...
by Sheila Samples
January 29, 2005

On November 3, just hours after Democratic vice-presidential hopeful John Edwards made a national announcement that he and John Kerry were not going to concede until all the votes were counted, Kerry grabbed the spotlight and conceded -- before all the votes were counted.

Kerry took the money and ran. Seems he couldn't stick around because he and the missus were spending Christmas at a holiday extravaganza in Sun Valley as personal guests of California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who just weeks before had fired up the Republican Convention at Madison Square Garden by declaring that "America is safer with George W. Bush as president."

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "The former candidate, largely AWOL post-election, was seen in intense conversation with Dennis Miller."

It would be another two months before Kerry got around to emailing his millions of stunned, exhausted, and much poorer supporters to let them know that, although he was committed to "ensuring that every vote in this election is counted," alas, he wouldn't be joining the protest of the Ohio Electors. <more>

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1135

You'll find the answer to your question there. Maybe John Kerry did not need to be the last person to concede but he sure as hell had no business being the very first only hours after John Edwards reassured a waiting electorate that the fight would go on. Now Kerry wants the presidential party leader spotlight again. I don't think so! I suggest you read the entire article.

[Zhade]

27. WHAT THE FUCK?

Is this true?

Did he skip out on his voters to HOBNOB WITH SCHWARZENAZI?

This BETTER not be fucking true. I got over my anger toward Kerry - if this is true, fuck him.

[whistle]

31. I don't write 'em, I just post 'em....

....and with the link. That is what it said.

[blm]

67. And what did RFK's article say? NO LEGAL EVIDENCE TO CONTINUE THAT DAY.

So you choose to post a piece of LYING CRAP.

[leftchick]

64. that is the most depressing piece of history

next to the 2000 theft in my lifetime. That is why I no longer like Kerry. He melted like butter in the face of adversity. I hope he does not even try and run again.

[blm]

66. Article is full of CRAP. Read RFK's article - THERE WAS NO LEGAL EVIDENCE

to continue that day.

[whistle]

83. Are you referring to the June 15, 2006 issue of ROLLING STONE?

...in the first paragraph, third and fourth lines Robert Kennedy Jr does in fact write, "-- and the next day, lacking enough legal evidence to contest the results, Kerry conceded."

However, read the full article and you will see that Robert Kennedy goes on to outline the amassed evidence that followed in the investigations conducted by at first by John Conyers of Ohio and then many others who questioned the official results and have in fact prove that the election was stolen.

Kennedy concludes his article with the following two paragraphs at the end of his article:

"The issue of what happened in 2004 is not an academic one. For the second election in a row, the president of the United States was selected not by the uncontested will of the people but under a cloud of dirty tricks. Given the scope of the GOP machinations, we simply cannot be certain that the right man now occupies the Oval Office -- which means, in effect, that we have been deprived of our faith in democracy itself.

American history is littered with vote fraud -- but rather than learning from our shameful past and cleaning up the system, we have allowed the problem to grow even worse. If the last two elections have taught us anything, it is this: The single greatest threat to our democracy is the insecurity of our voting system. If people lose faith that their votes are accurately and faithfully recorded, they will abandon the ballot box. Nothing less is at stake here than the entire idea of a government by the people."

Although Robert Kennedy nowhere in his article except in the first paragraph says that John Kerry should or could have taken a firmer stand of rejecting the vote counts rather than to immediately concede and accept the results as they were officially being reported that evening, Kennedy does write in the fourth paragraph of his article: "After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004."

The question was also put forth in this discussion by a poster and I paraphrase...what could Kerry have done differently?

I suggest to you that John Kerry could have done what his constituent voters expected of him and that was to contest the counts and demand recounts and a full investigation. Instead, before most Americans had their first cup of coffee or orange juice that following morning, John Kerry concede, folded his tents and went into seclusion while others, like John Conyers stood alone and took the flak crying foul. Kerry could have taken some of that campaign treasure chest of public campaign contributions and given it to Conyers and others to help underwrite the efforts to amass the avalanche of evidence of vote fraud that has come to light since the election.


The Editors update note found at the end of article states, "EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to clarify a statement in the published version. The article originally stated that John Kerry's campaign "helped the Libertarian and Green parties pay for a recount of all eighty-eight counties in Ohio." In fact, the Green Party paid the state recount fee, and the Kerry campaign paid for its own attorney as a party to the litigation surrounding the recount."

I do recall in the days and weeks following the ground-swell of opposition to the official results of the election and peoples uproar being heard around the country and most certainly here in the DU blog, that the election had again be stolen by the GOP, the Kerry campaign representatives coming out and saying they would in fact provide necessary funding to pay for the recount fees. That never happened, but more importantly, neither John Kerry nor any of his campaign officials ever cleared up even those misrepresentations, leaving a false perception that Kerry was making a commitment to get to the facts of vote fraud in Ohio. He could have done any number of things besides paying only the per-diem attorney fees for his lawyer to be a "party to the litigation surrounding the recount." In other words, John Kerry pissed in the ocean, but claimed to have caused the tides to surge. That dog does not hunt!


The excellent RFK article begins as follows with the link below:

<snip>
Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House. BY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.

Like many Americans, I spent the evening of the 2004 election watching the returns on television and wondering how the exit polls, which predicted an overwhelming victory for John Kerry, had gotten it so wrong. By midnight, the official tallies showed a decisive lead for George Bush -- and the next day, lacking enough legal evidence to contest the results, Kerry conceded. Republicans derided anyone who expressed doubts about Bush's victory as nut cases in ''tinfoil hats,'' while the national media, with few exceptions, did little to question the validity of the election. The Washington Post immediately dismissed allegations of fraud as ''conspiracy theories,''(1) and The New York Times declared that ''there is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale.''(2)

But despite the media blackout, indications continued to emerge that something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004. Nearly half of the 6 million American voters living abroad(3) never received their ballots -- or received them too late to vote(4) -- after the Pentagon unaccountably shut down a state-of-the-art Web site used to file overseas registrations.(5) A consulting firm called Sproul & Associates, which was hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in six battleground states,(6) was discovered shredding Democratic registrations.(7) In New Mexico, which was decided by 5,988 votes,(8) malfunctioning machines mysteriously failed to properly register a presidential vote on more than 20,000 ballots.(9) Nationwide, according to the federal commission charged with implementing election reforms, as many as 1 million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting equipment -- roughly one for every 100 cast.(10)
<more>

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen/1

Read the article, it says a lot about how much work needs to be done if American elections are ever to be fair and legitimate.

[blm]

84. Of course the elections need securing, NOW - and no candidate is in charge

of doing that - the DNC is in charge, and there is nothing that can be done AFTERWARDS about the rigged machines, because rigged machines have no evidence left in them AFTERWARDS.

Kerry had NO LEGAL EVIDENCE that day to CONTINUE, and had the math working against him for a full recount, too.

[OregonBlue]

52. I heard the reports of long lines at Dem polling booths that very day.

I heard reports of all kinds of hanky panky that very day. If I heard them so did John Kerry. What do you mean "what would you have had him do?" What I would have had him do was stand up to these pukes. He bugged out, he threw in the towel, he failed to stand up for the people that voted for him. Now he's out there day after day trying to rally us around him. SORRY BUT, HE HAD HIS CHANCE, HE TOOK THE EASY WAY OUT. Don't rock the vote, don't take a chance that he'll be criticized or ridiculed. KERRY WILL NEVER GET MY VOTE AGAIN. John Dean would never have laid down and taken that travesty they called an election in Ohio!!!

Someone from the office of John Kerry called here yesterday trying to raise money. My husband told him that he would never give another penny to these wimps and quitters and hung up.

Kerry supporters don't seem to get it. He blew it. He cut and ran, he flip flopped. He let us down. We don't trust him any more.

[sendero]

69. The way I see it..

... John Kerry was handed a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be a hero to America. He folded like a paper napkin.

Bush is ridiculed DAILY. He keeps doing what he does. That is why he is so formidable. Being afraid of ridicule is not the real reason Kerry bailed, he was afraid of messing up his 2008 chances. Of course, the irony is as sharp as an icepick.

And sure, these are JUST MY OPINIONS, based on watching what Kerry says and does over the last few years. Anyone posting about stuff he did 20 years ago is sure to get a flaming response, because I don't give a shit what he used to be.

[OregonBlue]

88. Exactly. He didn't stand up for me. Never again!!

[EFerrari]

19. Yes! We need to make our agreement with our candidate more plain.

It will help both sides of the contract.

[blm]

70. MAKE YOUR DEAL WITH THE DNC who is in charge of countering GOP efforts

to suppress Dem votes. The GOP works for FOUR FOCKING YEARS every cycle to suppress the Dem votes in many ways, and people want to blame a Dem nominee who is supposed to trust the DNC's four years of work.

Nice distraction - blame Kerry, so NOTHING ELSE HAS TO CHANGE BUT THE TOP OF THE TICKET - - that's the actual bottom line so many of you don't even realize you're promoting.

FOCUS and STAY FOCUSED on the actual problem.

[Terran1212]

38. His ENTIRE CAMPAIGN was not fighting

It seems like Dems WANT to lose.

[blm]

68. Yeah - we noticed how he decisively won EVERY DEBATE.

And nice of you to stick with the CORPORATE MEDIA VERSION when Kerry actually won with more votes than any candidate in history.

But, you go and believe the corpmedia who lies to distract from the rigged machines.

[Terran1212]

72. Kerry was as establishment/corporate as you can get...

I'm not sure where this radical leftist antiestablishment kerry you're talking about is coming from.

In every debate he tried to out-right wing Bush on every subject except the tax cuts.

[blm]

75. You're obviously not a modern history major. No one with half a clue

about the last 35 years could make such a LAUGHABLE CLAIM.

You can't even name ONE LAWMAKER in the last 35 years who has bucked the DC establishment more seriously than Kerry has, or effected this nation's history more positively during that timne. And I mean REAL HISTORY, not rhetorical gas clouds.

And it was Kerry who wrote the Clean Money, Clean Elections bill submitted by him and Wellstone in 1997 - not surprising to people who know that Kerry has been an advocate for public financing of campaigns since 1985 and refused CORPORAT PAC money for all his senate races.

So have at it - name ONE who has done more against government corruption - should be easy for someone who CLAIMS that Kerry is the most establishment, corporate Dem.

[blm]

73. Talk to Terry MacAuliffe - his job was to protect Dem votes from GOP

efforts to suppress them. He should have secured the machines for EVERY CANDIDATE on the ballot, not just Kerry who was the nominee for 6 months.

Terry Mac was given FOUR YEARS to counter GOP efforts.

[Skip Intro]

3. Why didn't this happen here? Or did it? Anyway, the media's role?

I mean, it went to the Supreme Court here - and ended there as well.

I was just wondering tho, is the Mexican media telling that nation that its over? Are they humilitating Obrador? Is the media controlling public opinion there as I seem to remember it trying so hard to do here in 2000?

I was just wondering if that's the difference from what we saw here in 2000...the media here played a great role in installing and maintaing our fraudulent regime. And I wonder, is the lack of such a media force - and maybe the lack of such a lazy, willingly gullible populace - why we see the challenges in Mexico?

Just wondering out loud...

[EFerrari]

6. The media here withheld Palast's story of the disenfranchisement

of thousands of black Americans.

The WaPo did, in specific, for 8 weeks.

[annabanana]

7. I don't like their tone....

It's ALL OBRADOR'S FAULT...
There isn't the whiff of a hint of a suggestion that he may have a point...

Already he is trying to "overturn" the results.. as if they were so rock-solid..

[seafan]

8. Shades of 2000, and "Gore is trying to CHEAT by counting votes!!!!"

Man, does this infuriate me like a 6-year old festering abscess.

[EFerrari]

11. I know. But remember, Karl attacks our "strengths". Mr. Gore

won that election. We know it and he knows it. Recently, he claimed Florida during a Daily Show appearance.

I have no problem trying to "cheat" by following the rules. lol!

[seafan]

21. They gaslighted us from day one. Not for much longer. n/t

[oddtext]

9. same old biased crap

to the right-wing candidate. this thing was rigged and as Palast has pointed out, may have been done by many of the usual suspects we're familiar with in our rigged elections. thing is, ALMO likely won this; there hasn't been a recount of ballots nationwide and he could easily make up 2 votes per precinct and win the election. yeah, from the WP perspective, Calderon stole the damn thing fair and square. this's always their slant when the right "wins".

and yeah, for ALMO to call for a nationwide march on Mexico City takes balls that Kerry didn't have. in November '04 if he had made such a call, it could have happened here -- everyone was that fired up -- he didn't and we are looking at the entrails of our democracy scattered about the floor.

[ngant17]

10. why is it so hard to count votes in the modern age?

At what point did it become impossible to accurately count everyone's vote?

You'd think with computers that can process many gigabytes of data per second, we only need it as an adding machine, that's all we want it to do (not predicting weather or chaos theory), it would never be a question that had to be asked. Why can't the votes be added within a normal statistical error (degrees of freedom)?

Why can't the exit polls (random surveys of a sample population size), why can't they yield the same approx. results?

Why do over 4 million uncounted votes get discovered in a dumpster, and the same day, Calderòn is mysteriouly gaining 1/2 of 1 percent over Obrador? Was this so-called 'insurmountable lead' before or after the 4 million votes were counted? It would be irresponsible journalism to make statements like this.

[RB TexLa]

23. People lie to exit pollers

I don't know anyone that tells them the truth.

[ngant17]

24. that sounds subjective

Actually, I've never been approached by exit pollers after voting. Not yet anyway. So how can I "lie" if they never polled me? If I told the truth to an exit poll, would you automatically "know" me?

You'd have to show me something more than subjective opinion to convince me otherwise.

[Bucky]

29. Actually, people are mostly honest. And why would you boost your opponent?

"I voted for Kerry, but next time a pollster asks me who I'm voting for, I think I'll say I just love president Bush." Can you say that? I sure as hell can't.

[Emit]

30. lol -- that's exactly what I was pondering

Would I lie to a pollster and tell them I voted for Bushco? I don't think so!!

[RB TexLa]

32. you would want to boost your opponent to have them think

during the day that their votes are getting out in certain areas and they will not put as much GOTV in those areas. Every campaign I have ever been involved with we found out where the exit pollers would be and told our people to go and be interviewed and give them the incorrect information. I have sent people to "swing" precincts to go in for a few minutes as if they were voting and then go near the exit pollers to say they voted for the opponent.

[w4rma]

37. That would be pretty dumb to do if you thought folks might think

the vote was rigged when the exit polls differ, wouldn't it? I think one should assume that Calderon's campaign wouldn't be stupid enough to do that in a close race like this where corporatists don't want the vote fully counted since they almost always lose votes in a full count, since poorer folks tend to make more errors on ballots than wealthy, healthier, more educated folks.

[RB TexLa]

39. depends on how many votes you think you can cause your

opponent to lose by shifting GOTV resources. With people trying to use exit polls for such I don't think many people put much weight in them.

[w4rma]

41. Besides I don't think that any campaign would have the resources to

shift an exit poll by 3 - 4% nationally in a national campaign.

Espeically since, according to you, everybody is doing it, therefore the other side would be canceling your work out.

[RB TexLa]

42. You can do it in state races, I've seen it done

we had about 40 people go to two swing precincts and find the exit pollers after going inside for about 5 minutes. We had 200 or so people on our opponents call lists in our area. When the exit polls went to the media at 4:00 PM there were no more calls to people in those precincts by our opponent and people in other areas started getting calls.

It's as old as the changed phony push cards.

[w4rma]

43. I dont know if you are lying or whatever, but I don't think the math works

And it doesn't matter, anyway because:
http://www.jornada.unam.mx.nyud.net:8090/2006/07/05/portada.jpg
Election ballots found in trash dump in Veracruz

[RB TexLa]

44. not lying, we tried to use the exit polls to gain either an advantage

or give our opponent(s) a disadvantage in GOTV. You use everything you can. I don't know if it applies to the campaign in Mexico or not. I just have always looked at exit polls as something to use not something to go by.

[w4rma]

35. Why do you lie to exit pollers, RGBolen?

You said you don't know anyone that tells them the truth (which includes yourself). And if you are or aren't lying then why do you think you are any different from others?

[RB TexLa]

36. see reply 32

[ngant17]

51. why introduce bias when it isn't there?

Anyone can screw up a voting process if they have the means and intent to do it. The point is, why go to such extremes to wreck the system?

RGBolen, I think you are operating on the assumption that it is within the statistical norm for people to lie to exit pollers and you are trying to rationalize their deceptive behavior because of GOTV.

That behavior could be considered a statistical norm if voting would be thought of as an immoral act, like stealing or being a patholocial liar. In such a case, most people who are that apathetic and discouraged toward voting, they would never bother showing up at the voting booth to begin with.

[RB TexLa]

58. you do it to win the election

you use whatever you can to effect what your opponent does on election day, if you can keep them from calling their people to get them to the polls you do it.

[ngant17]

59. doesn't sound like a democracy to me

sounds more like a tactic that came from the Southern US, post-1865 states, right after the Civil War. Find creative ways to disenfranchise or discourage voting. Intimidate them. Or make a poll tax. Do anything to keep them from voting.

I look at exit polling as a form of quality control or quality assurance, just as if voting was a industrial mass-production process. You know there is error, nothing is perfect, but you want to account for it while at the same time, making sure that the rate of error does not become excessive. To the point that you have to shut the production line down (turn off the voting machines and check them for defects) if it becomes excessive.

If someone was deliberately introducing error into my sampling (such as you have suggested with the tampering of exit polling), I would suspect something was wrong almost immediately. It is highly unlikely that the rate of voting fraud would equal the rate of fraudulence in the exit polling. As long as there was independent random sampling.

To make your (criminal)system work and remain undiscovered or relatively undetectable, you would have to create the same rate of fraud in both the actual voting and mirror that fraud with subsequent exit polling. Otherwise the statistics would not account for these discrepancies and alarm bells should be going off right then and there. It would have to be a complex and large conspiracy to be even remotely successful. "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."

[RB TexLa]

61. no concern with the exit polls mirroring anything

If you know from previous elections what time Republican voters vote in certain areas, if you can make them think they are voting by using people to manipulate the exit polls then they will move their GOTV efforts to other areas and you can lower their vote in either a stronghold or a swing district. It doesn't matter what matches after the polls have closed, they can't go back and get their people go go vote after the polls have closed.

One thing you have to remember in Louisiana most elections are on Saturday so there are many things that prevent people from voting, how well your GOTV is goes along way in determining who wins. In a close race you not only have to protect your efforts but work to disrupt your opponent's.

Also there is nothing criminal in someone providing false information to an exit poller.

[ngant17]

78. why would you want individuals with criminal intent to do exit polling?

I doubt it if there is empirical evidence to support your claim that the manipulation of exit polling causes negative (or positive) voter turn-out. This is like saying "umbrellas cause rain". Correlation does not imply causation. I may observe some umbrellas popping open right before the rain, but it is a false assumption to think that it has to be causing the rain. Same way with voting (rain) and exit polling (umbrellas). I may observe some exit polling which suggests that the majority is voting Democrat, but the exit polling isn't actually causing people to vote. Maybe if it was a hugh landslide, but you're talking a close race, remember. And if it was a close race, there would be even less chance for exit polling to make a difference - on the contrary, it might tend to encourage more turnout!

Again, this is a quality control process. IMHO you are disqualified to conduct the exit polling if you are introducing prejudice into the 'QC' process. You may even be breaking a federal election law or two, by engaging in this highly unethical activity. However, I suspect this is a grey area which has not been addressed by the legal system yet.

It sounds to me that you are trying to discredit the exit polling process by artificially introducing 'failure rates'. As long as this 'QC' process is conducted impartially, it will work just as it has always worked in elections in the past (well, let's keep the 2000/2004 fraud out of this one).

I didn't suggest it was criminal for someone to lie to an exit poller, but rather I stated that it is not normal for persons to lie. As someone has already stated, most people are honest.

Disrupting the GOTV process might work when elections are close, but it's clear to me that this has nothing to do with affecting the exit polling. It is simply a statistical sampling of a population group. Nothing mysterious about that.

[RB TexLa]

79. campaigns use exit polls to determine through the day where to best use

their GOTV efforts. That is what you are trying to affect and thusly the election.

I have never been involved in running an exit poll. I have been involved in using campaign volunteers to manipulate them with the afore stated purpose. And no one had any problem with lying to a pollster to help do this. There is no concern about the process of the exit poll except for when our opponent's campaign gets the information from the media outlet they see enough of a turnout for them in a certain place to shift their GOTV efforts when they shouldn't.




spelling on edit

[ngant17]

81. exit polls were not designed to affect voter turnout

As I understand it, exit polls are simply a QC/QA statistical tool to insure validity in the voting process. For the process to be accurate, there shouldn't be a conflict of interest.

I don't know much more about the origins of exit polls, except that it was designed in 1964 by a woman named Ruth Clark.

Voting may cause exit polls to occur, but exit polls should not be used to encourage or discourgage voting. From Wikipedia: "Some countries, such as the United Kingdom, punish the publication of exit poll figures, before the polling stations have closed, as a criminal offence, while others, such as New Zealand and Singapore ban them altogether."

Anything you might do to poison this QA/QC process, that would discredit the whole foundation of a democratic society and the voting process. The things you are suggesting or implying in your posts, RGBolen, it is extremely immoral if not illegal.

I do not care what party is elected as long as we can have fair elections and we can use impartial and scientific methods to insure that the elections are not fraudulent. Exit polling is one part of that quality process in the democratic society.

[blm]

86. I was exit-polled and didn't lie, and there was not ONE STRATEGY SESSION

at the Dem HQ's in NC that told campaign workers to lie to pollsters.

[bvar22]

53. Maybe you need some new friends.

Exit polls have a solid record for accuracy.

[sendero]

71. Exactly..

... exit polls have an excellent record. In the US, they were very predictive until certain electronic voting practices came along, then they suddenly went all flaky. Go figure.

[tandot]

14. Bush wanted the conservative in power in Mexico...Bush gets what he wants

http://ktla.trb.com/news/ktla-mexicoel,0,7505155.story?coll=ktla-news-1

"However, local election officials did open hundreds of individual boxes Wednesday. In many cases, they found significant discrepancies between the polling sheet reports and the ballots inside, often changing the official count in favor of Lopez Obrador, witness and news reports said."

The only way conservatives can win is through cheating.

"It is not who votes that counts, but who counts the votes" Joseph Stalin

[cal04]

16. Collusion In Mexico?

found this on MYDD
Over at the Agonist, Sean-Paul writes about allegations that the Mexican media was pressured by their government to provide support for neo-liberal Calderon, who narrowly defeated Lopez Obrador.

(snip)
Manuel Camacho Solis, member of the campaign of Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, indicated that there has been pressure on the part of the government of Vicente Fox that some mass media support Felipe Calderón.

In an interview with Ciro Go'mez Leyva, Solis affirmed that some days ago there was a meeting of the secretary of Interior with radio concessionaires and television requesting support for the Pan candidate. “Also I can say that they had meetings with a radio concessionaire iwhere they said to him that .. they were going to have two weeks of show but that in the end Calderón was going to be President”.

They asked one director of a magazine to put a photo oF Calderon on the cover of its next edition or resign.

http://agonist.org/sean_paul_kelley/20060706/collusion_in_mexico

Al Giordano predicted the night before.
What Mexico will wake up to
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2006/7/5/171915/9815#3

[autorank]

20. Remember Los Angeles, Denver, San Antoniio, DC, in May 2006

:patriot: This is going to blow people away. Mexico has been called the "sleeping giant" in the past due to periods of significant economic growth and a bright, hard working populace. The "sleeeping" part refers to the relatively peaceful body politic; the absence of violence and contention in a nation made up of over sixty different ethnic strains.

Guess what, they now have a reason to unify and a solid connection to families and friends in California and elsewhere across the USA. There were 500,000 demonstrators in LA alone. How about Sacramento, where several hundred thousand Latinos marched and made their voices heard?

The sleeping giant is awakening. The * folks and their allies in Mexico are too clever by half. They have united a people in outrage, I predict. I also belive that people will march from all over the country and converge on Mexico City where 18 million people are already located; and those 18 million are Obrador's base!

[Zhade]

28. Here's hoping!

NT!

[w4rma]

33. That's how you fight a rigged vote. (nt)

[Clarkie1]

34. Does he have any evidence that this is the case? nt

[autorank]

45. Check this out...

www.gregpalast.com

Matt pascarella is doing reports from mexico and palast is writing some articles. it's really devastating stuff. Choicepoint was actually arrested by mexican authorities a year or so ago for taking the id files of millions of mexicans. Why? Who knows but they're the folks who owned the company that did the felon purge for jeb bush in 2000, the one that cost gore the election - 50 thousand voters at least, mostly black, wrongfully purged form the FL voting roles; showed up; couldn't vote.

Check it out. They short and to the point.

If you want something with more background, check this out. It's the best over view I've seen.
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3344

[Clarkie1]

46. 827,000 "blanco" ballots certainly does raise a lot of questions.

I wonder if these were all punch-card type ballots (back to the hanging chads).

Thanks for the links.

[autorank]

47. You're welcome. It's the Florida Crew - what can I say.

I like the term "demonstration elections," meaning they're just for show. Why risk all that dough when you can fix it so the pols jump when you say "frog":bounce:

[cal04]

40. more comments from López Obrador

"We are aware we are confronting a powerful group, economically and politically, that are accustomed to winning at all costs, without moral scruples," he told the crowd. He maintained that this group had "conspired against democracy" and that "they are the ones who now want to put a servant in the presidency."


He said his opponent's supporters had resorted to fraud and vote-buying in northern states where the conservative party is dominant, like Jalisco and Guanajuato. He also said he had been the victim of a smear campaign on television and radio that far exceeded campaign spending limits.

He said that the Federal Electoral Institute should have recounted Sunday's ballots during the official tally. He pointed out that mistakes favoring Mr. Calderón were found in about 2,600 cases where officials did recount votes, when tally sheets were missing or contained errors.

He said he would present a case for recounting the votes to the Federal Electoral Tribunal on Sunday, and that he would also challenge the validity of the election before the Supreme Court, arguing that President Vicente Fox had interfered with it.


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/world/americas/09mexico.html?hp&ex=1152504000&en=e2099162f64b10a5&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Adelante]

50. This would have been against the law

"He said that the Federal Electoral Institute should have recounted Sunday's ballots during the official tally."

It would have broken Mexico's election law to open paquetes that did not have clear evidence of tampering observable from the Acta. I support AMLO's call for a recount, but he knows very well it has to be done by the elections court following, not during, verification of the tallies by the IFE. He should stop obfuscating and go by the law. Mexico has a good election protection setup, which is untested at the national level, and much better than ours, but the process has to be seen through for it to work. Going after the IFE for doing its job the way it was intended is not helpful and muddies the real issues.

[autorank]

57. What about the 2.5 million missing ballots...found after Obrador protests.

That's the smoking gun, imho. What is that about. And he has to hector them to count the damn
ballots. My understanding is that they made a declaration of Calderon's victory without these.
The missing ballots being found by one candidate and not the IFE is enough. If the timing on the
results by IFE is correct, then it is even more devastating.

[Adelante]

60. Nobody can order the paquetes opened

Except the elections court. That's just how it is. It is unlawful to do it any other way and would nullify the election. The court only comes into play after the IFE completes its part. That's exactly what's happening. AMLO is asking for a recount, as is his right. The court will examine the evidence he presents and determine if there will be a recount. Many seem to be wanting it to happen in a way that is outside the voting system. But Mexico has set up its check system and it should be respected.

There are four conditions in which the pacquetes could have been opened in the charge of the IFE: the Acta tally did not match the content of the Acta; the Acta was missing from the paquete; the Acta was obviously tampered with; the sealed paquete itself was obviously tampered with. Under those conditions the IFE is expected to open the paquetes and produce a new Acta to conform with the balloting, which it did. Recounting the remainder of the vote is not within the legal purview of the IFE. The IFE's job was to verify the conteo rápido (preliminary) made at the local casillas as compiled by the Programa de Resultados Electorales Preliminares (PREP).

Once all that's done, it's the court's job to rule on the legalities.

The 2.5 million votes, 2,581,226 to be exact, said to be "missing" were never missing; they were withheld until they could be clarified for various Acta discrepancies, including challenges by opposition parties, conflicts in calculation, any and all issues causing rejection by the PREP computer. The Actas in question were not included in the PREP results, which was the tally of the rough count on election day provided by the local casillas, because their various problems would have to be addressed by the IFE during its verification on Wednesday night, and were, whereupon the "missing" votes were "found." At the point of the PREP, however, Sunday night, the IFE did *not* declare a Calderon victory and it could not. It said the race was too close to call, which it was, because, again by law, the spread has to be at least 10% in order for the race to be called based on the conteo rápido and it was not remotely wide enough. The IFE would, even in that case, follow up with its audit of the Actas, in order to turn it over complete to the election court, but the public would have been informed of the preliminary result. That is all.

Once the IFE completed its work on Wednesday night, it concluded based on its final count that Calderon won, barely, but won. That's its decision. You may not like it, DU may not like it, AMLO may not like it, but it is what it is -- the IFE's judgment based on its audit of the Actas, which it has to make and submit for review by the TEPJF. The IFE turns the whole shabang over to the Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación (TEPJF) - this is the elections court and it is the body who DECIDES whether the election was legitimate or not. This is the ONLY body who can order a ballot by ballot recount. Before it does it will hear many, many, many complaints, overcounts, undercounts, vote-buying, intimidation, ballots in garbage dumps, what have you. That's why the Mexican system takes until September before the official blessing is made, so the court can hear evidence from all sides and adjudicate disputes, after which it can, if it deems proper, order a recount or even a new election. This can be because it found corruption or massive error, or it can simply decide the vote was too close for comfort and needs to be recounted for the sake of election integrity.

None of this is to say the election was not stolen. None of it is to say it was not manipulated through all sorts of evil shenanigans, probably on both sides, even if not quite stolen. I want a full recount, vote by vote, casilla by casilla, as much as anyone, because it's too damned close for comfort.

I want to say one other thing. Both Calderon and AMLO have been in Mexican politics all their lives. Neither candidate just fell off the turnip truck. AMLO didn't "find" any missing votes, that's just gamesmanship at which he is very good. Calling his followers into the Zócalo is leverage and smart, but his asking for a recount, the court's examination of conflicts and adjudicating them, deciding the legalities, all of it would have happened without the protests - they're gamesmanship, too. It all would have happened because it's the PLAN. We should be so lucky as to have such a plan protecting our fucking elections.

[Imajika]

63. Thank you...

..so much for that post. Very balanced and imformative.

It is one of the few I've seen here on DU that actually shed light on the situation.

[Justice Is Comin]

48. Way to go Lopez !

That vote count was more predictable than a happy ending on a Columbo episode. 40 million angry Spanish Americans can correct that and force the real results.

Bring em with you amigo all the way to the Supreme Court!!

[cal04]

49. Mass protest

Protesters packed into Mexico City's vast Zocalo Square

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5161862.stm

[bridgit]

55. it was rigged, bush/republican operatives were all over the landscape...

down there shaving points and now this...too familiar :thumbsdown:

[fordnut]

65. yep

The same way ours was in 2000 and 2004 most likely 2006

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

74. Duh.

:shrug:

Now he knows how WE feel.

[Joanne98]

76. The International Republican Institute are the ones running the fraud

Venezuela and Haiti....
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1481

Overview

The International Republican Institute (IRI), which was initially known as the National Republican Institute for International Affairs, receives government funding for international democratization programs, principally from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Founded in 1983, it is “dedicated to advancing democracy, freedom, self-government, and the rule of law worldwide.” IRI states that it is an independent, nonprofit institute that is not affiliated with the Republican Party, and “is guided by the fundamental American principles of individual liberty, the rule of law, and the entrepreneurial spirit.” (1)

The IRI is the indirect product of a democratic globalism effort spearheaded in the late 1970s by neoconservatives and their allies in the AFL-CIO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and in the two main U.S. political parties. This project, which aimed to create a quasi-governmental instrument for U.S. political aid, came to fruition in 1982 when President Ronald Reagan proposed a new organization to promote free-market democracies around the world, the National Endowment for Democracy. In 1983 Congress approved the creation of NED, which was funded primarily through the U.S. Information Agency and secondarily through USAID. Designed as a bipartisan institution, NED channels U.S. government funding through four core grantees: IRI, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), and the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI)—the AFL-CIO’s international operations institute that is currently known as the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS).

Like NED and the other core grantees, the early focus of IRI was Central America and the Caribbean—a region that in the 1980s was the cutting edge of the Reagan administration’s revival of counterinsurgency and counter-revolutionary operations. After the Soviet bloc began to disintegrate in 1989, IRI says it “broadened its reach to support democracy around the globe.” (2) IRI has channeled U.S. political aid to partners—which like itself are often creations of U.S. funding—in 75 countries, and it currently has operations in 50 countries. Most recently, it has expanded its operations into Central Asia, having opened offices in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. In Latin America, IRI has offices in Guatemala, Peru, and Haiti. In Africa, IRI has offices in Kenya, Nigeria, and Angola. IRI’s offices in Asia are found in Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, and Mongolia. In Central and Eastern Europe, IRI has offices in Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Turkey. There is also an IRI office in Moscow. (3)

The principals of IRI span the center right-far right spectrum of the internationalists in the Republican Party. Most of its staff and board have links to right-wing think tanks, foundations, and policy institutes, while many also represent major financial, oil, and defense corporations. George A. Folsom, IRI’s president and CEO, was a member of the Bush-Cheney Transition Team, serving on the Treasury Department task force. An international investment banker, Folsom was a leading member of the Scowcroft Group, an international advisory firm headed by Brent Scowcroft. An adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Folsom is a frequent guest at forums and strategy sessions hosted by the Heritage Foundation, National Defense University, American Enterprise Institute, and Washington Institute for Near East Policy. IRI’s vice president of strategic planning and Latin America expert is Georges Fauriol, the former director of the Americas program at CSIS, where he cochaired with Ambassador Otto Reich the Americas Forum, a hemispheric network of like-minded policy professionals. Among Fauriol’s other affiliations are his work with the right-wing Foreign Policy Research Institute and the U.S. Information Agency (USIA). Since the early 1980s Fauriol has worked closely with right-wing Cuban Americans such as Otto Reich and is a member of the Center for a Free Cuba. Among the corporations represented on the IRI’s board are Lockheed Martin (Alison Fortier), Chevron Texaco (Michael Kostiw), AOL Time Warner (Robert Kimmitt), and Ford (Janet Mullins Grissom). Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is IRI’s chair. Michael Grebe, the president and CEO of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and former general counsel to the Republican National Committee, sits on IRI’s board. Other prominent IRI board members include: J. William Middendorf, Frank Fahrenkopf, Jr., and Brent Scowcroft. (4)

The Attempted Coup in Venezuela

After the April 2002 aborted coup against Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez, many observers accused Washington of having been behind the attempted ouster. The Bush administration denied any U.S. involvement in the affair. However, one relatively clear connection has emerged between the U.S. government and the anti-Chávez movement: millions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money were channeled through the IRI and other U.S. organizations, including CIPE and ACLIS, to groups that opposed Chávez during the years preceding the April coup.

Mike Cesar, an analyst for the IRC’s Americas Program, reported that in an April 12, 2002 fax sent to news media, IRI President George A. Folsom rejoiced over Chávez’ removal from power. “The Venezuelan people rose up to defend democracy in their country,” he wrote. “Venezuelans were provoked into action as a result of systematic repression by the government of Hugo Chávez.” (5) With NED funding, IRI had been sponsoring political party-building workshops and other anti-Chávez activities in Venezuela. “IRI evidently began opposing Chávez even before his 1998 election,” wrote Cesar. “Prior to that year’s congressional and presidential elections, the IRI worked with Venezuelan organizations critical of Chávez to run newspaper ads, TV, and radio spots that several observers characterize as anti-Chávez.” Furthermore, “The IRI has … flown groups of Chávez opponents to Washington to meet with U.S. officials. In March 2002, a month before Chávez’s brief ouster, one such group of politicians, union leaders, and activists traveled to DC to meet with U.S. officials, including members of Congress and State Department staff. The trip came at the time that several military officers were calling for Chávez’ resignation and talk of a possible coup was widespread.” One opposition figure who benefited from IRI support said that bringing varied government opponents together in Washington accelerated the unification of the opposition. “The democratic opposition began to become cohesive,” he said. “We began to become a team.” (6) (7)

The Coup in Haiti

In the first year of the Bush administration, IRI received funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for a new “Party Building Project.” IRI, which in 1987 began working “with the Haitian people in their quest for democracy,” has sponsored various projects in election-monitoring, polling, party-building, and civil society support since 1990. Its latest USAID-funded party-building project has focused on working with the political opposition living outside Haiti. By creating a website ( www.haitigetinvolved.com ) and a listserv, IRI states that it is using U.S. political aid funding that allows “political parties, civil society, the Haitian Diaspora, Caribbean constituencies, and representatives of the international community to explore solutions to Haiti’s democracy and governance obstacles.” (8) (9) (10) (11)

According to Robert Maguire, director of the Haiti Program at Trinity College in Washington, DC, “NED and USAID are important, but actually the main actor is the International Republican Institute (IRI), which has been very active in Haiti for many years but particularly in the past three years. IRI has been working with the opposition groups. IRI insisted, through the administration, that USAID give it funding for its work in Haiti. And USAID has done so but kicking and screaming all the way. IRI has worked exclusively with the Democratic Convergence groups in its party-building exercises and support. The IRI point person is Stanley Lucas who historically has had close ties with the Haitian military. All of the IRI sponsored meetings with the opposition have occurred outside Haiti, either in the DR or in the United States. The IRI ran afoul with Aristide right from the beginning since it has only worked with opposition groups that have challenged legitimacy of the Aristide government. Mr. Lucas is a lightning rod of the IRI in Haiti. The United States could not have chosen a more problematic character through which to channel its aid.” (12)

Funding

IRI states: “IRI is federally funded through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The Institute also receives grants and donations from individuals, corporations, and foundations.”


Right Web connections

Individuals

Georges A. Fauriol (IRI Bio)
George A. Folsom (IRI Bio)
Jeane Kirkpatrick
Otto Reich
Randy Scheunemann
Organizations

American Enterprise Institute
Bradley Foundation
Empower America
National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Contact Information

International Republican Institute (IRI)
1225 Eye Street, NW, Suite 700
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Website: http://www.iri.org /

[whistle]

85. The tentacles of vote fraud are everywhere...

:wtf:

[Jeanette in FL]

77. Palm Beach County, Florida, redux

I've told this story before but this Mexican election brings back the same feelings I had during the 2000 election.

At the time, during the 2000 election, I lived in Palm Beach County. I voted at 11:00am. While trying to vote for Gore/Lieberman, I could feel that the "chad" was not being penetrated when pushing in the little pin. I pulled my card out of the machine and it was not punched out as I thought. I put it back into the machine and tried again, but I could feel that it was not making contact. I pulled it out again and this time it had a tiny dent in it but was punched out. On try number three, the same thing happened. So I used the pin thing and punched it out without the use of the machine and pulled the chad out manually. This only happened on page 1. The rest of my votes, I could feel being punched out.

When I finished voting, I told the person in charged of the voting at that prescient the problem I had on machine #3. She said that no one else seems to be having any problems and that I was the first person to complain.

I went home and called everyone in my family and told them that not only was the ballot totally different than what the voter guide showed, but the problem that I had trying to punch out Gore's name. That is when I found out how many different kinds of voting machines were in Florida.

Now when Randi went on the air at three, she was livid. She had calls that whole day of people who had problems voting. The ones I described, the difficulty in figuring out which number to vote for Gore. Gore was the second listed but was number 5 on the chad chart because of the Butterfly ballot. She had on Rep. Wexler, who said that his offices in Florida had flooded with phone calls from people complaining of the problems. This was way before it had even made National News. Lieberman called into the show and Randi was telling him of all the problems that were going on in Palm Beach County and Lieberman was so wishy washy saying, "It will be alright, it will be fine". Randi was persistent with him, telling him there is a big problem down here in Florida. A lawyers office called into Randi's show saying that they would take affidavit's of anyone who thinks that they had something funky go on with their vote. They gave a phone number with voice mail that was filled within a half hour of giving that number out.

By the next day, the National News was saying that Florida, especially Palm Beach County was having difficulty in voting because of the elderly and some of them think that they might have voted for Buchanan. Well we all know how Florida became the joke of the nation from then on.

We protested at the Dept. of Elections and I thought that people across the nation would take notice and join us. And everyday it became more and more of a joke, and that we were just sore losers. I wish Gore and Lieberman would have been more vocal about the problems we were having instead of thinking that the system of equality would work out. No it was rigged.

I am so happy for the Mexican people. You know when the story is about you and that the media is portraying it wrongly, that you need to take to the streets.

I guess you can imagine, I have never gotten over it and never will.

[roamer65]

82. Shut down PEMEX

If the people will not be heard in Mexico, they need to shut down every PEMEX facility in that country. PEMEX is the Mexican national oil company. Mexico is the second largest supplier of oil to the United States. Hit everyone in the pocketbook until the Mexican people get justice.

[whistle]

87. There is something rotten in the state of Denmark and ....

...in the United States of America also.

Note: Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute - as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003


<snip>
Private Company Still ‘Controls’ Election Outcome

Secretive company administers almost every last aspect of ‘democratic’ election process

By Christopher Bollyn

CHICAGO, Illinois—The morning after Election Day, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and the vice presidential candidate John Edwards promised the nation that the Democrats would make sure that every vote counts, and that every vote is counted. Later in the day, Kerry and Edwards, however, conceded defeat before some 170,000 to 250,000 provisional ballots from Ohio, which could have changed the outcome of the election, had been counted.

But how were the votes actually counted across the nation on Nov. 2? On Election Day, voters in Cook County, Ill., were among the 60 million Americans who voted with machines made by Election Systems & Software, a secretive company based in Omaha.

ES&S, as it is known, calls itself “the world’s largest and most experienced provider of total election management solutions.” According to the company’s own figures, 42 percent of all registered voters in the United States voted on ES&S equipment on Election Day.

ES&S sells its “end-to-end election management suite of solutions” to replace traditional voting methods and election officials with what it calls “‘one-stop-shop,’ full service election coordination
from start to finish.”

What this means on Election Day is that ES&S, a private company, manages everything about the voting, from voter registration, the printing of ballots, the programming of the voting machines, the counting and tabulation of the votes and the final reporting of the results—for 60 million Americans in 47 states.

Four years after first revealing the flaws inherent in the insecure ES&S electronic voting machines used in Cook County, American Free Press went to the county clerk’s office to observe how ES&S manages the counting of the votes for America’s third largest city, Chicago, and the suburban area around it.

Scott Burnham, spokesman for the county clerk, had informed me that the vote count is open to the public and that press credentials would not be required.

Shortly after arriving, I ran into Burnham and David Orr, the county clerk, in the hallway. Although I had arrived just shortly before the polls closed at 7 p.m., I was the only member of the public or the press around except for a couple of Associated Press (AP) reporters in the far corner of the room.

They were busy setting up their laptop to the ES&S computer in the backroom, which provided them with “direct feed” of the results. I was surprised to see so few people attending such an important event. In France, scores of citizens watch the vote count in each polling station.
While the results were coming in, the AP reporter read a novel while her laptop did the communicating.

PLEASE LEAVE

When I went to talk to the AP reporter, Burnham quickly appeared and told me to leave. “You should talk to AP,” he said.

“She is AP,”I replied.

“She just works for AP,” he said.

Clearly the subject of AP having direct data feed from the mainframe computer was something Burnham did not want me to discuss.

Dane Placko, a local reporter for the Fox News network,
told AFP that “Fox gets direct feed.”

Any actual counting of the votes by citizens is very rare in the United States except for a few counties in Montana and other states where paper ballots are still hand-counted.

In most counties the ballots are treated as input data to be processed through computer systems controlled by private companies like ES&S.

In Cook County the ballot is inevitably a cluttered punch card with nearly 100 votes. After voting for the president and vice president, a senator and a congressman, the voter has to wade through pages of choices to vote for some 80 local officials from the sanitation board to the state’s general assembly. Every voter had to vote on nearly 80 judges.

LONG & COMPLICATED

Rather than holding separate elections for national and local officials, as is done in most countries, the Cook County ballot is extremely long and complicated. Officials who support electronic voting systems give the complexity of the ballot as the main reason why voting machines are necessary—because it would take too much time to count the votes manually.

After calling and personally visiting ES&S headquarters in Omaha and Chicago, I can say it is a highly secretive company. In August, I visited ES&S company headquarters on John Galt Blvd. in Omaha.

Although the company says it is the largest voting machine company in the United States, they were unable to provide any information about their company or their products. The ownership of the company is a closely guarded secret.

I asked to meet with Todd Urosevich, one of the two brothers that founded the company.

Bob and Todd Urosevich started ES&S as a company called Data Mark in the early 1980s. Today, Bob Urosevich heads Ohio-based Diebold Election Systems, a competitor of ES&S and the second largest U.S. manufacturer of electronic voting machines. Together, the computerized ballot scanners and touch-screen voting machines systems made by ES&S and Diebold recorded some 80 percent of all votes cast in the recent U.S. presidential election.

As ES&S had no media relations person available, and Todd Urosevich was not willing to be interviewed, the company’s chief financial officer Tom O’Brien finally appeared. Clearly displeased with my visit and questions, O’Brien refused to provide any information about the company.

MORE NAUSEOUS

Although I was ill on Election Day, I knew I had to go to the county clerk’s office to observe “counting” of the vote. It is, after all, the only “counting” open to the public. What I saw in Chicago, however, only made me more nauseous.

The only “vote count” the press or public can observe in Chicago is what is projected on screens.

The opening screen read: ES&S Automatic Election Returns, Release 35, Under License to the City of Chicago, Serial No. 0004, Copyright 1987.
Carl Zimmerman, technical supervisor for the clerk’s office, said that the computer that ran the system was in the back—“in the ES&S room,” he said.

At 7 p.m., Jonathan Lin, a worker on the county clerk’s computer staff, came out and turned on the monitors on the 6th floor, where the City of Chicago votes were tallied and displayed. Behind him was Rick Thurman, an ES&S technician, checking the first results.

Thurman seemed surprised when I asked him if he worked for ES&S. He said that the company had about six engineers running the computer in the back room. He then checked himself, saying he had said too much.

Later I asked Lin who was actually operating the computer that was generating the results being shown on the monitors. “ES&S is running the mainframe for all of this,” Lin said, pointing to the television displays.

In the press room in the back I noticed stacks of boxes containing “Votamatic” voting machines and “prepunched” ballots printed by ES&S of Addison, Texas, for the different precincts in Cook County. In the rear hallway behind the pressroom was the ES&S room. Only ES&S personnel
were allowed into the room.

When I poked around in the hallway and peeked into the ES&S room, an armed marshal and ES&S employee quickly appeared. In no condition for a confrontation, I made myself scarce.

I met a couple reporters from CLTV, a local cable channel of WGN. One of the reporters asked about my interest in the Chicago tallies. I said I was interested to see how a private company runs the elections in Chicago.

Seemingly unaware of how ES&S operates elections in Cook County, I explained the basics. “I’ve observed elections across Europe,” I added, “from France and Germany to Serbia and Holland. Everywhere in Europe, voting is done on paper ballots that are counted by the citizens, except Holland.”

Obviously uncomfortable with this discussion, the reporter responded: “I’m glad I’m not in Serbia. I don’t mind if a machine counts the votes.”


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