So how would Stolen Election postulators react if

[Perky]

instead of the scenario where the GOP and Diebold collaborat to steal the mid-terms that instead:

Dems win more Governorships?

Dems Take back the House?


Dems draw serious blood in the Senate and fall just sort of 51 seats, but no individual state races were all that close?

How would that be explained?

Sorry this is my rant of the moment. Sitting on the sidelines and bemoaning stolen elections is getting really old. Get your ass off the computer and go help your local candidates. Volunteer to be a poll worker. Volunteeer to work at the local election board on election night.

Conjecture and hearsay devoid of any real evidence of tampering is just mind-numblingly lazy. Assuming that massive fraud will occur in the mid-terms is equally lazy.

So...If the Dems win back the House, the majority of Governorships and nearly take back the Senate, how will you explain it?

Or are you simply going to say that KKKarl pulled the plug as a diversionary tactic so that Bush can claim martial law powers and disband Congress altogether.

[Richard D]

1. I really really really really really . . .

. . . hope we have that "problem" to deal with!

[electron_blue]

2. Wow, if all that happened, I'd say I was wrong about the stolen

elections being so rampant. Frankly, I hope that I'm proven that wrong!

What's your point? Are you comfortable with the Diebold machines? Do you think we should not bother replacing them with more reliable, and less tamperable (sp?) machines? Or at least make them accountable?

Finally - how can you write "devoid of any real evidence of tampering"? How much have you researched this? Seriously.

[Perky]

10. My view.

I readily admit electroinc voting is problematic, but there are safeties against fraud in place. And even if you don't accept the safeties as being strong enough.

I think there were some very irregular voting patterns is some districts in Ohio, But I do not think that alone is direct evidence of any actual fraud with respect to the machines.

When would the tampering have occured? How would they have known how many vites to flip in order to seal a Bush Win? The logical conclusion is that inorder to squeak out a victory they would have had to have programmers in on it at a massive level because it would have had to be complex enough to avoid disclosure when the machines were.tha They would have had to know where each machine was headed prior to election day to insure that the right machines were hacked and if they did not they would have had to corrupt the data prior to moving it to secure computers in the Election Board offices. The level of conspiracy necessary to perpetrate enough records to move an election is to significant and given Bush's ratings in the polls, a whistleblower surely would have emgered by now...either because of overwhelming guilt or to make a nice tidy profit.

Lack of admissions and lack of any set of accusations against individidaul in position to perpetrate such a heinous acts leads us to the only things we have sopme disturbing patterns in some districts and conjecture. It is not enough.

They would have to have operatives in every county...they would have had to have found a way to know what the vote counts were in each county before and the state totals before they hit the state computer in order to change the results for a Bush win. But they faced the same problem at the country level with reragd to voting at the precinct level. so they would have had to have people in every precinct on the state to corrupt the results ever so slightly to push Bush through. At a point the argument can be reduced to an absurdity. Which I don't think people who are looking for someone to blame ahve sufficiently dealt with.

[linazelle]

14. Your "logical conclusion" doesn't pan out. First of all, John Conyers has

compiled a massive amount of data and reports to confirm the presence of fraudulent activity at the polls--activity where voting machine company workers showed up and changed hard drives, tampered with data, etc. There is no "masive amount of anything needed to do this. The information is web based and web accessible--all it takes is to change up the votes in a few key areas to get a win. It ain't rocket science. Secondly, election fraud is not just machine related. In my state, there were fake registration drives, discouraging door-to-door campaigners warning that anybody with a criminal record could not vote...

In other states, like Ohio, accessibility to voting machines was reduced to discourage voter turnout. We heard about the long lines into the night at many polls--and those were the students and people who could afford to stay in line to vote.

As for getting off the computer and going to polls...people did that, in 2004. That is how Conyers compiled much of the information he has.

I don't see how you are proposing anything new to address the problem, and at the same time you seem to be asserting that the problem doesn't exist.

[Perky]

15. You miss the salient points

How would they know they needed to push 100K vores to the other side? How would they know that would be enough?

Who did the swap outs? what happened to the replaced drives? Who ordered the swaps? Why? Why didn't Dem Preicnct workers questions the activity?

It as if 30 or forty GOP operative fanned out to key districts across the sates and altereed results to winn the elecion by 100,000 plus votes and diappeared into the fog.

Has anyone said they ordered the swaps. if the swaps took place and they were not authorised at the county or the state level with good cause...then that is evidence. That is great evidence. and yet this stuff ahs not been investigated by any DA in the state not the Secretary of State office either admitting to the swap or vaidating that they did not happen.

Is there denial that the swaps occurred? How widespread was it?

Even if they did occur and they offed all the people who did the deed. how would they know ehaead of time how many votes they were going to need?

[linazelle]

20. I don't think I missed the salient points at all. The information

from the e-voting machines is web based. As I stated, it only takes identifying a few key locations with opportunties for votes exchanges. It happened in Florida (Volusia County) in 2000 and was repeated in Ohio.

As for 30 or 40 GOP operatives, you continue to push the "massive" line when what has been learned about election theft via evoting, is that you don't need 30 or 40 people--one monkey can stop the show, literally.

Your question: "has anyone said the ordered the swaps"...is ludicrous. Laughable really.

You keep asking questions as if you want this fraud to be proven to you. There are boatloads of information about it. I think you should start doing your own research and prove why it cannot be true since you seem to lean toward that conclusion. The information is readily available here on DU and other search engines.

You make up your own mind. At this point, you don't seem informed enough to make any type of decision about this issue.

[marions ghost]

17. "safties against fraud in place"

:rofl: your questions are so naive...spend time in the Election reform forum and learn, if you really are interested.

You advocate that people go work at the polls. Have you ever done that? If you had, you might have some idea of how corrupt the system is.

[TheWatcher]

22. electroinc voting is problematic, but there are safeties against fraud in

place.

And here, we have Exhibit A that this:



Is not just a river in Egypt.

[Duer 157099]

3. It will mean that the dems actually won by MASSIVE landslides

instead of relatively narrow margins that can be played with

[liberal43110]

13. Bingo

[Mythsaje]

4. This is one of the reasons

I posted my "A strategy for October" deal, currently at 11 votes on the Greatest Page.

The defeatist attitude is making me nuts.

[stillcool]

5. Wow...what an effed up post...

you can't just say what happened didn't happen....if a political party has the means to steal an election...would they?...

[Perky]

12. I did not say it did not happen

I am simply saying that the level of conspricay would have extened so far and so deep from a progamming and election oprecinct official view of how it could be done that mit would have been virtually imppossible to keep it under wraps for so long.

See my psy #10. The so-called evidence is certainly some supspect precincts...but tie those election officials to the fraud...Show me how it was done. I will buy the evidence if you can give me the enough facts.

But it is intellectually lazy to say because it could happen it did happen then not provide the evidence to support the proposition.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. Oh, stop making sense it interrupts the transmissions from Elvis.

[Nay]

7. Actually, it will be much more difficult to rig elections in the dozens

of different states, towns, etc., in order to interfere with the dozens of races in November. If Dems win many races, it may just be because of the huge number of races (compared to the one race for Prez) that may stymie many attempts to steal the election. I just don't see how this compares to the last 2 presidential elections -- Repub operatives found it pretty easy to figure out which states (AZ, OH, FL) were going to have to be fiddled with in order to get the over-the-top number of electoral votes needed to give the election to Bush. They didn't have to go into every state -- only the ones with the electoral votes they needed.

That said, I don't think it is a given that people are so pissed off they are going to vote their Repubs out. Lots of these idiots say politicians are assholes, or that * is a jerk, but still go out and vote THEIR asshole back in, because "he's not as bad."

I try not to underestimate the gullibility of these people.

[gore08]

8. How would I react?

To the Dems taking back the House?
To the Dems winning more Governerships and drawing blood in the Senate?

Like this:

WOOOOO HOOOOO!!!!

What's your point? That people who believe the elections were stolen shouldn't look into it and discuss it? Don't you understand that the reason that we're hesitant to go help our local candidates is BECAUSE THE Rs WILL STEAL THE ELECTION no matter how hared we work.

Thanks for your suggestions, oh Wise One.

[newyawker99]

24. Hi gore08!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[napi21]

9. I understand your gripe, and you culd be right about there not

having been tampering. The problem I have with the issue is that there have been a number of people prove exactly HOW it could be done! THAT alone puts doubt in MY mind and in the minds of many other voters that there COULD be manipulation! Have you never heard the quote that goes something like this..."Reality is NOT what is real but what is PERCEIVED to be real."

I personally don't KNOW if there was any vote minupulation in the past elections, but I DETEST the idea that the possibility exists!!!

If my bank told me "Just trust us that our system is great and every penny of your money will be accounted for" I'd go to another bank instantly! I don't have the option of "Going to another voting system".

To answer your question about what would all the naysayers say if the Dems won in 06...I think you're right, they'd probably say the margin of the win was such that it couldn't be hidden, or maybe they'd just shut up. But I think what would happen is that the Pubs would take up the griping and make the same claims the Dems are now.

The only way around that is for the Voting machine manufacturers to make their systems transparent enough to get rid of the PERCEPTION of fraud.

There is ONE system that I've heard of that has a machine that would do that. Sequoia has a machine with the capability of printing a paper ballot that shows you, through a small window, exactly how you just voted. When you check it and say OK, it automatically cuts off that sheet and deposits it into a sealed container. The votes are still counted electronically, but if there are questions, there is something physical to re-count! Those paper ballots would not be suceptable to bad handwriting, mis-marking, or any of the other human errors we've all heard about in the past. I would think something like that should put most of the skeptics at ease. Their machine does require an additional "printing module" be purchased, and so far, the districts that have purchased the Sequoia machines have not yet spent the extra $$, but the capability at least exists!

[Junkdrawer]

11. I speculated that 2006 (first year of touch-screen for many)...

may be a bad year to throw too many elections. I held a DU poll, and 91% thought they'd steal it anyway.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=5524457

[SoCalDem]

16. What gets reported on tv about the polls will determine how bold

repubes dare to be..

You see, as long as "the polls say" the races are "ohhhh.soooo close", it's a safe bet that there's some tweaking possible, BUT if *²'s numbers are still in the shitter, and the press is raking the admin across the coals, AND dems have an overwehming turnout, they might actually be afraid to take action.

There is also the possibility that a lot of repubes will be so disgusted that they just stay home.. Mid term elections usually get lower turnouts, and they may just sit it out..

All we :tinfoilhat:ers are saying is that without any real failsafes in place, and with no exit polls and no way to recount, we have every right to question and even deny the results that the republican owned and operated voting systems "offer" us.

Sure..we have 300 million people, but fewer than half of the potential voters even vote, and there are surely enough people around who would gladly accept a paying job at polling stations, counting votes..

Voting is not rocket science...

names on paper (in any language)
a sharpie pen
some people to count them
a chalkboard to record the votes
a phone to call the totals in
a video camera to record the count & calls
reporters to verify that theses things were done..
boxes to store the papers
police to inventory the numbers of boxes and see to their security in case of a recount

It's NOT that difficult..and it costs a lot less than brazillion-dollar computerized voting

[seabeyond]

18. cant remember the names. there was recently an election

where democrats did pretty good. and even in the races that the dems won we saw the things repugs are doing to stel votes. so even if dems win doesnt mean theft isnt there, it is just that the dem won by a great enough number to not have the race stolen in a loss. there was theft, just dem was still able to win. those are what are going to have to be addressed and we are going to have to watch adn speak out about it even if we won.

[mod mom]

19. We still want transparent and verifiable elections. If they would give us

our day in court (instead of dismissing and threatening to sanction our attorneys) we could prove it.

[OneBlueSky]

21. "Conjecture and hearsay devoid of any real evidence of tampering " . . .

you obviously haven't been paying sufficient attention . . . there's TONS of evidence in Ohio . . . it's just that the corporate media refuses to investigate or report it . . . there's also plenty of evidence in Florida, beginning with the list of people who were incorrectly removed from the voter rolls for the 2000 elections (by ChoicePoint, I believe), and were STILL off the rolls for the 2004 elections . . .

there's plenty of good solid evidence out there, but no one in any official capacity (either government or media) wants to hear it or follow up on it . . . and therein lies the problem you seem to be dismissing . . .

[TheWatcher]

23. And how will YOU react if the Republicans get a Super majority in BOTH

Houses?

If they gain Absolute Power, despite their growing unpopularity, and the fact it would be virtually IMPOSSIBLE for them to gain such an apex with their Messiah only having a 36% Approval Rating, and their own ratings even lower, because of all the scandal and corruption that is being brought to light, with more to uncovered by then?

How will THAT have happened?

Will you blame it on not enough Activism?

That we just didn't have a coherent message?

That we didn't sign enough petitions?

That we didn't make enough phone calls to the Congress Critters?

That not enough of a percentage of us voted?

Or will you FINALLY wake up to what these machines can really do and were DESIGNED to do?

Your assertions that those of us who are firmly behind the notion that the Elections of 2000, 2002, and 2004 were stolen are just sitting on the sidelines bitching and moaning and being defeatist are offensively presumptuous.

There are many who are being very active and giving a lot of time and effort to BRING this issue out into the light of day. They are fighting to be heard, and there is a MOUNTAIN of evidence supporting what you would probably call conspiracy, and it is growing by the day. The problem is no one wants to hear it, and no one wants to deal with it.

Perhaps that is because if it IS true, then the reality of where we are at becomes a VERY dangerous picture, and the remedies available for us to stop these people, TRULY stop them begins to bleed over into territory that most are not ready to deal with, and CANNOT deal with. The unthinkable. That which cannot be discussed in public. And I admit, that is too much for most to deal with. It's too much for ME to deal with. But I have to try. It is better to live within a sphere of realism, even if it is brutal on the senses. To be in complete denial in the light of this much evidence is JUST as dangerous as giving up in the light of same. Do you not agree?

Also, speaking for me, just because i believe the Elections were STOLEN, DOES NOT mean I have given up, or will give up.

You seem to forget what I said not long ago.....

FIGHT THEM ANYWAY.

You underestimate these people and what they are capable of at your Peril.

What do they have to do, and how many times do they have to do it before you will listen?

One thing is for sure, I HOPE AGAINST HOPE that you will be right in this matter. There isn't a SINGLE person on this Board who is of like mind with the results you want to see that does not hope that.

But if the reverse should happen, if you can honestly say that our Electoral System has not been COMPLETELY compromised, then I simply don't know what I can say or do, or what could possibly convince you.