BBC Reporting - Berlusconi making MIRACULOUS COMEBACK

[Vinnie From Indy]

Wanna see what the US election may look like in November? Just watch the Italian election results this evening. The BBC on NPR at 3:00pm just reported that exit polls that showed a 5 point win by Prodi earlier in the day may turn out to be a "wafer" thin victory by Berlusconi's party. I wonder how the Italians will handle this new development.

EDIT: Here's a link to outlets reporting the Italian election results:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=italian+election&ie=ISO-8859-1&scoring=d

[mdmc]

1. but ...

:mad:

[CJCRANE]

2. It's those "values voters" again..nt

[electropop]

42. No, it's RBVs - Reluctant Berlusconi Voters

too embarassed to tell the truth to pollsters. Or something. :eyes:

[sasquatch]

3. I wonder if Prodi will fight it?

[Notoverit]

75. Will he try a Gore or pull a Kerry on his voters? Interesting to see.

Ukraine, Romania had recounts/upsets of the original steal.

[kaygore]

4. Better than we did: I hope that they take to the streets

[MADem]

10. They are not shy about doing that, but there is one big problem

If the media won't cover it, it didn't happen.

And Berlusconi owns the damn media over there.

[laruemtt]

5. oh man, are they using

diebold?

[Richard Steele]

8. Some areas are, yes.

[SammyWinstonJack]

74. Paid for courtesy of bu$co,Inc.

[babylonsister]

6. They have Diebold machines, too? nt

[Junkdrawer]

12. They just converted about 1/5 of Italy...

Electronic voting comes to Italy (as do conspiracy theories)

When Lucio Stanca, the minister of innovation and technology, began preparing Italy for electronic vote counting a few years ago, there were some naysayers. But test runs for European Parliament elections in 2004 and Italian regional elections in 2005 silenced the critics - temporarily.

With the arrival of the April 9 and 10 general elections, the dress rehearsals are over. Electronic vote tabulating will move beyond the test phase in Italy for the first time: It will be used in four of the nation's 20 regions and will affect a fifth of the population.

Detractors worry that mischief will mar the count, especially if there is a close race in any of the four regions, which have many undecided voters.

Silvio Berlusconi, who has been prime minister for five years, is running against Romani Prodi, a former president of the European Commission who heads a vast coalition of center-left parties.

Prodi has maintained a lead in opinion surveys but Berlusconi can never be counted out.

...


http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/04/news/rome.php


In the US, 2006 will see something greater than 90% of us voting on these wonderful machines... :sarcasm:

[Roland99]

16. Holy fvcking shit. "It's the end of the world as we know it."

[babylonsister]

22. Whoa. I was only kidding...sort of. Sigh. nt

[GreenPartyVoter]

72. Crap

[TechBear_Seattle]

7. Is it Diebold, Sequoia or ES & S counting the Italian elections? n/t

[Junkdrawer]

34. Accenture...picked by cronies of Berlusconi....

...

Issues of conflict of interest have often hovered over Berlusconi, who controls 90 percent of the Italian television market.

The perception has been revived in connection with how the contracts to run the electronic vote tallies were awarded.

The main contract was awarded without a public tender to Telecom Italia, the nation's dominant telecommunications company and the former government monopoly.

It hired the consulting firm Accenture to do some of the work. Gianmario Pisanu, a partner at Accenture, is the son of the interior minister.

Telecom Italia declined to comment on how Accenture was picked. A spokeswomen for the consulting company declined to comment on the contract. She did say, however, that Pisanu would have no role in work connected to the vote tallies.

....

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/04/news/rome.php

[electropop]

43. Accenture - formerly known as Arthur Anderson

of Enron fame. Great.

[Julius Civitatus]

53. Arthur Andersen, famous for cooking the books for ENRON...

and round and round it goes.

It's like a daisy chain of CROOKS that never ends.

[Marie26]

56. You're KIDDING.

Bush corruption going world-wide, I see. Wasn't Accenture the company that Jeb Bush selected to create voter purge lists for Fla. in 2001? It also received a contract in 2003 to create online voting for US military abroad; and was recently sued for bribing foreign officials. This is a Bush crony company - it's partnered w/Halliburton, contributed $200,000 to the Republicans, & received $1 Billion dollars in US contracts out-sourced from the federal government. It also off-shored to Bermuda to avoid US taxes.

Accenture is the leading offshore beneficiary of government contracts whose main business is the privatization of government services, according to Lee Drutman of Citizen Works, a non-profit founded by Ralph Nader. Accenture has a troubling track record, a close business relationship with Dick Cheney's Halliburton, and 2500 partners - more than half are not U.S. citizens.

Since 2001 Accenture and Election.com have been strategic partners "to jointly deliver comprehensive election solutions to governments worldwide," according to their press release. Last month Accenture bought the public-sector election assets of Election.com, which suffered its own scandal this year when it was discovered that Osan Ltd, a firm of Saudi and other foreign investors, bought controlling interest in it. According to Mark Harrington of NewsDay.com, "Several shareholders of the company said they were surprised by the recent buyout and have asked for securities regulators to investigate."

Election.com has had other problems. In January 2003, during Canada's New Democratic Party leadership convention, the Canadian Broadcasting System reported, “Earl Hurd of Election.com said he believes someone used a "denial of service" program to disrupt the voting – paralyzing the central computer by bombarding it with a stream of data”…service was restored, then… "Toronto city councilor Jack Layton's victory on the first ballot surprised many, who had expected a second or even third round of voting before a leader was chosen from the pack of six candidates."

For election security experts, a strong and growing suspicion is that computer glitches or disruptions are actually vote rigging. A surprise election result should raise a red flag.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0718-05.htm

[Dudley_DUright]

70. "...deliver comprehensive election solutions to governments worldwide"

Election solutions?? Now just what is that suppose to mean? Perhaps that if exit polls show the government about to be voted out of office the "solution" is electronic voting machines.

[Marie26]

63. And EDS n/t

[dogday]

9. Oh man, that is a scary

Polls, we don't need no stinking polls... Isn't that what they said in 2004 election.. The polls were wrong.. The odds makers were wrong, Zoogby was wrong... All of them wrong....:wtf:

[yellowcanine]

11. Hmm, The dead fascist vote must have come in.

[laruemtt]

13. Vinnie from Indy's made a really good point:

"Wanna see what the US election may look like in November?" what are we gonna do to stop it from happening here - again?

[berni_mccoy]

14. "Too Close To Call"... Those words sound eerily familiar!

[npincus]

15. so America really is a role model for the world

[Vinnie From Indy]

19. It must be gallows humor, but that is pretty funny!

LOL!

[malaise]

17. Very strange

but no surprise.
They may just have to face the youth in the streets. People are very angry with the scum ruling this planet.

[dogday]

18. Is this ringing any bells for anyone else but me????? nt

[seabeyond]

21. right below you dog, it did me. spun me to another dimension n/t

[dogday]

35. My head hurts, the bells are so loud

read my piece below on how they prevented a terror attack right before the election... All of this must be a script they go by....

[seabeyond]

20. wow.... dejavu......do do do do .... lollol. hm

i ma just stunned with this headline. can you tell. will be interesting to see what happens. yup i remember well election 2004, about 7:30 at night, the bush's in the yellow room, i knew it got stolen

[annabanana]

23. whad'ya know.. the EXIT POLLS are wrong again!

It stinks!!

[annabanana]

24. Will the Italian populace be as supine

as ours? Or will there be an uproar?

[me b zola]

31. I hope they take to the streets and demand verification

Good God, I have a horrible sinking feeling.


The question is, are we prepared to fight back this next time????

[Beetwasher]

25. Oh Shit, That's Fucked Up

n/t

[SeattleRob]

26. gee... Sounds familiar.

Are the Italians using Diebold Machines?

[dogday]

27. THIS IS A WAKE-UP CALL EVERYONE!!!!! nt

[jsamuel]

30. yep

[EFerrari]

54. Yes, it is. Who is the Dem running for Secretary of State

in YOUR state and what can you do to support them? We have to stay on this before it gets any worse than it is.

And, it's plenty bad already with the fake presidential elections.

[davidwparker]

28. I thought this was a fait de compli when I was watching French news

last night. Guess not. I suppose in western countries exit polls are suspect and be used to accurately know the outcome of the election. But, in communist countries they can.

I hope the Italians take to the streets and shut down Italy. They can be an example to us in this country.

[EFerrari]

29. But I've just skimmed a bunch of stories that say he's losing.

Damn.

[stellanoir]

32. Three times on the BBC this morning (EDT)

they crowed about the inaccuracy of exit polls. I thought "OMG" here we go again.

Exit polls. . .good enough for the former Soviet Bloc but not good enough for Western Europe or Amerika.

Go figure.

I doubt those passionate Italians will roll over and play dead though. Unlike most yanks have.

[lostnfound]

36. I hope you are right..

but I am not optimistic.

IF you are right, it would be a wonderful wake-up call.

[dogday]

33. Son of a Bitch read what I found---they even pull this shit

in Italy


Terror plot disclosed ahead of Italian election as Berlusconi stokes bitter campaign

ROME – The Italian government announced Thursday that police had foiled a planned terrorist attack on a Bologna basilica and the Milan subway, a disclosure that came just days before Italians vote in a bitterly contested national election.
While government and opposition forces praised the police work that thwarted the alleged plot, some of Premier Silvio Berlusconi's center-left opponents sought to play down any political impact of the disclosure.

Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said the alleged terrorist plot involved seven people. Three suspects have been expelled from Italy, two were arrested, one is under surveillance and one is being sought, he told reporters at a political rally in Sardinia.

“There was a terrorist plot that was to be carried out in our country, and the monitoring and prevention action of our forces allowed us to thwart it,” Pisanu said.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20060406-1355-italy-terrorism-politics.html

[Catrina]

38. Terrorists 'expelled from the country'?? This is unbelievable. The same

recipe ~ ahead in the exit polls, last minute turnaround, and just to scare people before the vote, a terror threat!!

So why would they expel terrorists? And where did they send them? Over here in time for the Nov. election?

[seabeyond]

40. so this will be used as reasoning why polls off, like religious right

vote was used on our election fraud, even though all evidence shows otherwise.

[cascadiance]

41. Does this surprise you? Thom Hartmann would predict this!

He notes periodically on his show how basically Berlusconi owned pretty much all of Italy's media before he got elected (which not so coincidentally probably had a lot to do with him getting elected). These sort of "news" reports don't surprise me in the least. In some ways, Berlusconi controls the media there more than the Bushies and the Rethug cabal control the media here.

[coalition_unwilling]

37. Hold off on the freak-outs for a few seconds. I teach English as

a Second Language and have many students from Italy. I've often expressed my bewilderment that Berlusconi hasn't yet been driven from power. According to my Italian students, Berlusconi (and Forze Italia, his party) still enjoys a huge amount of support (although none of them would admit to supporting him or his party, Forza Italia).

That said, I'll be eagerly asking them about this tomorrow or the day after, when I next hold class.

[electropop]

45. Just like here, people think the dictator has support

because the media tells them he does.

[Trevelyan]

39. Bushco cannot let an honest Italian government in... they might reveal

info on SISMI's connection to the Niger forgeries. Go to Rep. Hinchey's site to read about Fitz's recent letter to him and the 39 dems who requested Fitz look into the Niger forgeries and help with the impeachment inquiry.

[dogday]

44. Polls Say Italian Race Too Close to Call

yes I bet they are... They have changed the language about the polls now...

[ananda]

46. oh dear

Sad days.

Sigh... this is so ominous.

Poor Italy. Poor world. Poor us.

[seabeyond]

47. i noticed the change in language; so many threads now

i dont remember where reading the poll interpretation. but another reminder how they were saying one thing about the poll and have flat out changed the language of the polls. just amazing, such similarities. i hope italy rises

[Laughing Mirror]

48. Shades of 2000? 2004?

Mathematicians have discovered a bug, an "anomaly" in the change in Italian election laws late last year that allows for the minority coalition to become the majority, which may be what we're seeing now.

A somewhat prescient article about just this in today's LeMonde.

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-727571,36-760247@51-740414,0.html

[renate]

49. Berlusconi may own the Italian media

Does he own any/much of the French, German, Swiss, etc media?

If not, I bet journalists from other members of the EU will say :wtf:

[ContraBass Black]

50. God must really favor conservatives.

They keep getting all these miracles.

[seabeyond]

51. or these conservatives sold their souls to the devil, wink n/t

[ananda]

52. Berlusconi is..

.. the richest man in Italy and owns the media.

I bet a lotta money changed hands to fix the vote fast.

Sue

[dogday]

55. Why would they have 84% turn out of the vote

if they were not looking to make a change????

<snip>

Projections showed Berlusconi's coalition leading in the Senate, but the two sides running neck-and-neck in the lower Chamber of Deputies.

Based on 95 percent of pollster Nexus' sampling, Berlusconi's alliance won 158 Senate seats, compared with Prodi's 151. The margin of error was between 1 and 3 percentage points.

Also, the projections did not account for six seats chosen by Italians abroad.

Voter turnout was about 84 percent, the Interior Ministry said.

</snip>

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060410/ap_on_re_eu/italy_election_20

[robertpaulsen]

57. Will Italians react like Americans? Or like Ukranians?

What did Americans do after the Rethugs stole Ohio in 2004? Well, some did more than others to expose the fraud, but we should have done what the Ukrainians did: TAKE TO THE STREETS AND SHUT THE GOVERNMENT DOWN TO REVERSE THE THEFT!

[stop the bleeding]

58. FUCK

FUCK

[Atman]

59. MUST READ - Electronic Voting in Italy...

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/04/news/rome.php

And the DU thread...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=896441&mesg_id=896441

[Marie26]

62. Good article

This blog has English translations of Italian news articles on the election (including the danger of fraud.)

Electronic Voting Fraud, Italian Style

There’s an election coming up on April 9 in Italy. Right-Wingnut Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is about 5% behind in the polls. But he may have found a high-tech, all American solution.

Il Blog di Beppe Grillo (English edition):

The “Diario” of Enrico Deaglio came out today with an edition devoted to possible election frauds due to electronic voting, to be used for the first time in Italy in national elections thanks to the decree dated 3 January 2006.
…
This operation, which is not necessary and has not been requested by anyone, costs 34 Million Euro and was outsourced by private negotiations for reasons of urgency, “since the time interval available was very short” according to Stanca. The contracts were won by three companies: Accenture, EDS and Telecom Italia. Deaglio points out that the son of the Minister of the Interior Pisanu is a partner in Accenture and that EDS is the company involved in the presumed electoral fraud in Florida for the election of Bush.

http://www.correntewire.com/electronic_voting_fraud_italian_style

[Burried News]

60. Mmmmandate for Berlusconi facce brutte

So what do you think Justice Scalia?

Nino says 'Vafanculo'!! Back at you Don Cicco

[mvd]

61. Eek

x(

[spinbaby]

64. When do the polls close?

And when can we expect "official" results?

[Zynx]

65. Okay, considering that this flies in the face of everything I've seen

about Italian public opinion, I'm skeptical.

[Marie26]

66. Latest articles predict Prodi to win according to exit polls.

ETA - And, 5 minutes later, it's "too close to call". I wish they'd make up their minds.

[Career Prole]

67. I think I may be sick. n/t

[populistdriven]

73. same here

[tandot]

68. There is nothing a little e-voting machine can't fix

[glitch]

69. No one could possibly be surprised by this. In your face predictable.

They don't seem to fear discovery much.

[spanone]

71. 2004 deja vu