Here's my big problem with the "stolen election" theory

As compelling as the emerging evidence is that the Rethugs have stolen this election, and the complete believability that BushRoveCo would not stop at taking that step, one question has always bugged me. Rigging an election on this scale would seem to be a pretty big undertaking, involving many people and a lot of coordination. Don't you think there would be at least ONE leak in that group, one person who realizes they could blow the administration out of the water by going to the media and selling their story for big bucks? Wouldn't there be a "deep throat" in there somewhere? After all, these guys seem so incredibly inept at running the war (not to mention the country) -- how could they be so incredibly successful at rigging a national election, even with the complicity of their media whores?

I've posted it on other threads since it just came out and bears repeating:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/05/voting.problems.ap/index.html

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said.
Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.
Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch.
State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome.
Bush won the state by more than 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results, and Kerry conceded the election on Wednesday after acknowledging that 155,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio would not change the result
The Secretary of State's Office said Friday it could not revise Bush's total until the county reported the error.
The Ohio glitch is among a handful of computer troubles that have emerged since Tuesday's elections.
In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. And in San Francisco, a malfunction with custom voting software could delay efforts to declare the winners of four races for county supervisor.
In the Ohio precinct in question, the votes are recorded onto a cartridge. On one of the three machines at that precinct, a malfunction occurred in the recording process, Damschroder said. He could not explain how the malfunction occurred.
Damschroder said people who had seen poll results on the election board's Web site called to point out the discrepancy. The error would have been discovered when the official count for the election is performed later this month, he said.
The reader also recorded zero votes in a county commissioner race on the machine.
Workers checked the cartridge against memory banks in the voting machine and each showed that 115 people voted for Bush on that machine. With the other machines, the total for Bush in the precinct added up to 365 votes.
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a glitch occurred with software designed for the city's new "ranked-choice voting," in which voters list their top three choices for municipal offices. If no candidate gets a majority of first-place votes outright, voters' second and third-place preferences are then distributed among candidates who weren't eliminated in the first round.
When the San Francisco Department of Elections tried a test run on Wednesday of the program that does the redistribution, some of the votes didn't get counted and skewed the results, director John Arntz said.
"All the information is there," Arntz said. "It's just not arriving the way it was supposed to."
A technician from the Omaha, Neb. company that designed the software, Election Systems & Software Inc., was working to diagnose and fix the problem

errors can cut both ways, in Kerry's favor as well. This one was caught and it's not a Diebold machine. Still I think more should be done to assure voter confidance in these machines.

surprised to see any "errors" in Kerry's favor. Just a hunch.

had any impact at all?

edit- I forgot Daniel Ellsberg, but that was a close call.

Berstein and Woodward were just two men and they uncovered one of the worst scandals ever...Watergate. And it brought down a President.

So it can take just one or two to do it.

and the Pentagon Papers were a whisker from never seeing the light of day.

It doesn't get any clearer than that how corruption can be woven tightly.

And they are the true believers. Christian Reconstructionist whackos who believe the end justifies the means. They are doing God's work by actively aiding the onset of Armageddon...

with access to the master production code for the electronic voting machines. I've been writing software for 20 years, believe me, this is *not* a massive conspiracy involving many people.

could change totals on the reporting machine as it recorded the "approved" numbers that were preset.

A real audit would catch this summary program game, but who is doing a real audit?

And a basic software "fix" on each machine would never get caught without a paper trail, or at least seeing the software - and seeing software may not be possible if the process of transfering the local software to a summary set off a "flash" rewrite of code on the machine.

dropped into a locked box.

10 percent of polling locations are subjected to random, surprise audits by an INDEPENDENT election monitoring body, who show up, receive the vote tally from the polling location first (no chance to alter the numbers now), pick up the box and count the votes and compare to the electronic tally.

Any significant amount of discrepancies detected could trigger an audit of the whole state's votes and suspension of election results.

And, of course, all hardware and software design should be published and open source, available for inspection and critique by all.

:-)

inserted in a truly massive amount of code to gum up the works. Since the "bug" is so small, it goes overlooked.

I myself can demonstrate how easy it is to get around the "security" of the GEMS software, for example. Horrible, horrible piece of work. Yuck.

with just one change of the source code, you could change the values saved in the register. I'm not saying that this is what happened, but I'm very skeptical of the resulting turnout in the swing states.

That's the basic fallacy of "well, paper ballots get faked, too."

I've worked in IT for 16 years, and as in any other kind of department, most people in development groups just can't keep their mouths shut. There's no way, IMO, that you have a huge chunk of the department knowing anything about this. Any rigging is being done by just a few people, and my hunch is that it's something that doesn't live in the system the regular developers and QAs are using. It's either in a patch being applied to the system somewhere between final testing and election day, or there's a back door that allows someone to dial in to the central tabulator and make the changes.

If I were one of these few people hired to rig the system, I'd be scared to death that I'd end up dead in a ditch somewhere, quite frankly. Once they have what they need from you, you're a risk, and they'll never know if you might crack if someone gives you enough money.

presented in the media as Repubs PROTECTING against fraud when in fact they were organizing to CREATE fraud via disenfranchising voters.

It has only been 3 days in the news cycle. Usually it takes a bit longer for the truth to come out.

There are already at least 10 stories from local news media concerning fraud or "glitches" in various localities.

being handsomely rewarded with Bush in office.

On other threads,sorry, can't find them presently, it was exposed that Mr. O'Dell (Diebold owner) is a major contributor to the GOP and a friend to the * family.

Well, O'Dell is not all over this just because of the good ol' friendship thing. He is in it mostly for the money- just think of how many more electronic voting machines will be purchased by the states in the future! So, it would make financial sense to him to find ways to rig the code.

If Kerry was elected, those unreliable, low-security things would have probably been thrown out.

Not sure I agree it would take that many people to effect the voting systems, especially if it was just in two states like Florida and Ohio. It like the mob.. once your in, to try to jump out and squeal -- for any amount of money -- means looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life. If someone was "paid" to tamper with voting, I would assume the price was enough to keep them quiet forever.

...they would also be easy to dispose of...

Behind the curtain, with his fingertips resting on the controls ....

One neednt be at every precinct, one only need be at ONE terminal, shaving off percentages through back door hooks at ANY of the online tabulators ....

Ever look inside your computer to see the numbers being calculated ? ...

Think about it ...

And it doesn't make a bit of difference what brand of machine is used or whether the machines in the polling places are touch screen or optical scan or even punch card. The hacking and rigging takes place at the COUNTY TABULATING SYSTEM which is nothing more than a standard computer with a bank of modems to report the results from the precincts. The Diebold GEMS system, and its brothers and sisters produced by the other companies, are set up so it's a cinch to change, hack or rig the results by any of a number of methods, from inside or outside the elections office. That's why, when the touch screens got too hot to handle in Florida this year, they rigged the County tabulating systems for optical scan ballots instead. As long as the final tally was outside challenging range (I believe it's .5% in Florida), they knew that the results would never be recounted.

The Central Tabulators are the locus of hijacking efforts ....

And; completely invisible to us ....

We knew chapter and verse how this was going to be pulled off. It doesn't take as many conspirators as you think.

They successfully managed Florida (Tennessee, too, possibly) last time and simply expanded the scope by ramming thru hysterical voting machine legislation, requiring state after state to buy these deliberately defective machines.

It's time to pass thru this denial phase and get to anger.

to the fabric of the rw machine.

Consult Orwell.

it's rare that their story makes the news--even the local news. generally, they are left hanging or get fired. everyone knows this, which is why there are so few whistleblowers among the millions in position to be.

where is there an investigation of 9/11 despite the thousands of insiders who have spoken out or questioned the official story??

My guess is that the first time Bush called the reporters into the White House was the moment they were sure the fix worked. Up till then they weren't sure.

I don't believe Bush could have gotten over 48% of the vote without fraud.

There are an increditable amount of things that have happened over the last four years and the people just shine on. We accept any bull shit explantion the media puts out there. The ground work was laid for this many years ago. I think that if the truth be known it would boggle even our minds.

about these things. They are, however, ridiculed and written off as cranks, UFOnuts, contrail devotees and the like.

YOU have heard about it for years, and YOU don't believe it.

It's easy to keep a secret, even a big one, when you make everyone ELSE sound crazy.

History is actually loaded with conspiracies that no one believed at the time, but turned out to be quite true.

Or pretty much so at least. Whether or not THIS election was actually stolen, our election system is still a huge mess. We need a voting system we can trust and we need it now. We need reliable, accurate, easy to use, nonpartisan equipment with a paper trail that allows for an easy recount. We need a better system of registration that allows every eligible voter to vote, but eliminates ineligible people & doesn't allow people to vote multiple times. We need sufficient equipment to eliminate long waits. We need trained, knowledgeable, honest poll workers. We can't sit back & wait for the government to fix the problems. They don't care.

I believe that there are. The Dems have so demonized and alienated the other side that the communication lines are badly damaged, so to speak. It goes both ways, of course, but we can only control what we do. I am working through a list of people I have made contact with over the last few years and calling all of them. They are evangelical Republicans, and they are not happy with Bushco and they are disappointed in the Democratic party's complete lack of spine on this. They are trying to bridge the gap, and I believe that if the Dems pass on these opportunities to take the Bush cabal down, Republicans will do it. Kerry was a harder sell, I am hearing, then Clark or Dean was, by the way, for what that is worth. An image of being a straight shooter trumps policy disagreements is how it is being explained to me.

This is totally unscientific and anecdotal, but I do believe that there is a need for communication across the aisle and I am going to pursue it. Many Republicans may be ready to put country before party. Imagine if the situation were reversed and a Democratic president had gone berserk. It would be harder for us to accept and we would be slower to accept it and face it.

Think "populism" - that is what I think I am hearing rather than just "fundie right wing" attitudes from some Republicans.

on edit - think Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill when you think of "repukes" being the bad guys.

Working on building some bridges - albeit smaller ones - myself.

NGU.

All it would take is for ONE machine in every precinct in both Florida and Ohio to account for all of the votes that Bush won both states by.

... no matter how minor or seemingly irrelevant, is cause for a more thorough look everywhere.

Throwing out votes by the tens of thousands.
THey knoew that this technique would have been watched.
So they returned to the original Republican technique of stealing a little bit from a lot of people in a lot of little places.

In South Florida ONE machine was found that had taken 1700 odd votes cast for Kerry and gave then to Bush. All it would take was a few machines in each precinct to do the same, and this would easily account for Bush winnning the state of Florida. In another county, a machine was found that was "SUBRACTING" votes from the count whenever A Kerry vote was cast. In COlumbus, Ohio, another case of a single machine taking votes assigned to Kerry and giving them to Bush. Just a few machinesin each precinct where kerry led doing this would reduce Keerry's lead, and give Bush a very large advantage.

I certainly hope, nad in fact I belelve that Kerry yielded to the Bush "win" but behind the scences they are actively looking for the evidence that the race was fixed in these two states but this time are not going to reveal anything until they havee nailed down proof that not only was he election stolen, but are looking prooove that the president was not only cognizant of the fact, but was in on ple planning of it.

We have seen hoe Bush has been able to wriggle out of all accountablility by feigning bein unaware that intelligence was not legitimate, suich as the Yellow Cake intelligence, and the intelligence on WMD's. He has been able to claim that he was not responsible because no one could prove that he actually was aware of anything. If anything, Kerry pulled out because he knew he could not win. But he also knew that in order to prove that Bush id not win, he must quietly gather evidence that the election was fixed, and that uless someone exposes that the Republican Party at the highest level was responsible for it, American democracy is over. Perhaps Kerry has sacrificed his own presidency in order to try to make certain it is not destroyed. There us too much evidence that something went wrong in both Florida and Ohio, the two states that were known to surely be critical in 2004. If there was anything shady in either state, Kerry is the one person who wil be able to get the facts, and bring them ouyt into the open.

It will all come out.

This will be Bush's watergate.

You know the list: 9/11, Plame affair, tax cut number manipulations,
the lies about the war, the torture and murder of Iraqis,
international threats and intimidation, etc etc. Thousands of Americans in the military, State, Justice, Treasury Depts etc had to have a hand in all of this. Where all they? I am telling you that BushCo kisses or kicks people into compliance. The truth will only come out sometime in the future when it is safe.

(1) what you said -- seems it would require more than one person to provide Bush w/all of the votes that he garnered -- not just in Ohio and Florida, but across the U.S. He won the popular vote. Did he do that via election fraud? If so, how?

(2) WMD's. Before the war I was convinced if they did not find them they would plant them. The fact that they didn't made me skeptical that they could pull off other things such as pulling OBL out of a hole prior to the election (which they also did not accomplish).

(3) exit polls on "moral values." No democrat believes we would be getting the majority of those votes. Yet exit polls revealed this was a huge issue for voters this year. This translates to me to extra votes for Bush by all gay-hating bigots. There are apparently a lot of them around the country.

I don't know anything about the technical grounds for claiming or disclaiming fraud, but it appears to me that there are explanations for what happened on Tuesday, even if they SUCK!

didn't they also show that kerry won? as someone here has been pointing out since tuesday, how can the "morals" crap be valid if the exit polls were wrong about kerry?

Only 21% (or possibly 22) of all voters named "values" as the driving issue in the election. Nearly 80% named another issue ... the economy, terrorism and Iraq. That's somewhere between 40 and 45% of Bush's total vote ... huge, but far from enough in and of itself.

using bush and morals in the same sentence is OBSCENE...thinking about bush anywhere near a moral is OBSCENE.
what on earth are people thinking?! far from enuf is right.

Why were the exit polls wrong? there is no reasonable explanation for it. But if they were right, then that means the "moral values" part was right too, doesn't it?

Right now I can't make much sense out of anything. Everything leading up to the election seemed to be going our way -- we had the turnout. We had the enthusiasm. The repubs always have turnout and enthusiasm. But I thought this time we were going to beat them at their own game. It was/is so heartbreaking. And now the implications are horrifying.

Believe me that nothing would be sweeter than proof of a stolen election -- at least it would mean we had enough numbers and the will to win, even if they stole it.

see hedda_foil's post for an explanation that does make snese.
and yes...they did steal it. as much as they'd like to think so: we aren't crazy. we know turnout favors democrats, and of course, as you mention: the exit polls were right :D the truth will come to light.

...over the head so hard that it's driving you into the ground.

Let me make this real simple for you...everything the NeoCons did for the past four years was in preparation for taking total control of the country. If you thought the last four years was tough, wait until you see what they have planned for the future.

Obviuosly, stuff is leaking or we wouldn't know about the problems going on.

They had four years to rigg it better than they did in 2000, the small numbers of votes that kerry got in large democrated areas, should of send alarm bells off straight away with the media, but they are too busy reporting laura's new puppy.

hey we know they did in florida in 2000, any leaks there, firstly. secondly, we know they did in florida 2000 and they got away with it and there side nor media has made a stink. just pisses the democratics. well , that is them getting away with it. so it just encouraged them to a grander scale. a liar, a non consciences liar doesnt care if they are caught they just never admit adn pretend no one know the truth. an amazing experience to be with a liar that feels no guilt or shame

Why does everyone forget about the 155,000 provision ballots from Ohio? 2.7% of Ohio's votes were PROVISIONAL. That is MUCH higher than the other states I have looked at.

A little bit of BBV, a little bit of challenging, a little bit of voter intimidation, a little bit of vote shifting and WHAM, you have stolen an election without anyone really being able to "blow a whistle".

No one is perfect, but these freaks are rotten to the core. Get a bunch of them together, their evil is solidified and conspiracies are possible, even if someone "leaks." Given the lies about 9/11, WMDs, abuses at Abu Ghiraib, the no-bid contracts to Halliburton, the wire during the debates, and a bunch of shit we can't prove and/or don't know, all of it proves IMO they are capable of exactly what you are questioning.

I'm not religious at all, but some saying about the best trick the Devil played on humanity is to convince man he doesn't exist is fitting for these folks.

That's swallowing their Koolaid if you start doubting what you see with your own eyes. There is no "delusion" of a conspiracy, there is one.

voting companies in a couple of states.

And then realize that the Republican half is controlling many of the country's voting machines.

Paper ballot states = Exit polls match up.
Electronic states = Exit polls dead wrong.

Hello? Wake up.

In Florida you might need a slightly bigger team surrounding Jeb, but I'm sure the've been very well paid (or they're just doing it because God is on their side).

top-level were Republicans were utterly united in their hatred of the Clintons and would do anything they could (mostly lie and fabricate) to get at them.

How hard would it be to get just enough Republican fanatics to rig the voting systems in an untraceable way? Not very. And not very many people would have to know, just a few strategically placed programmers and the masterminds in Washington.

I had exactly one programming course twenty years ago, and I can think of two algorithms for cheating:

1) Change every other Kerry vote to Bush

2) At the end, if Bush<Kerry, take votes from the Kerry column equal to the difference between Bush and Kerry plus some number arbitrary number (depending on the number of voters in the precinct) and give them to Bush.

If I actually knew something about programming, I could probably think of more ways that wouldn't necessarily arouse suspicion, but cheating would be neither difficult nor easy to detect without a paper trail.

It is not like they are professional administrators or deep thinkers about policy or creative .......... they are good at lying, cheating and stealing. It is a calling they have from their right God.

The machines are all on the same program and the same server and the code has been written by a group of programmers that are being paid to write the code.

What I am saying is the rethugs have computer programmers on their team and it wouldn't be hard to do because the "little guy" that works at the precinct wouldn't know what is going on. The machines would not tell the workers that the code is skewed for Bush.

In 2004 someone on the Internet posted that out of every 4 votes recorded for Gore 1 vote was sent into the Bush column.

Programmers can set the code up so that the computers will put out what they want them to put out.

and your post is very misleading.

If the software that goes on the voting machines is tampered with, then the evidence of that can be found on thousands of electronic voting machines. Easy to detect

If the software is on the server, then it's easy to remove the offending code, but then, if the results are fed through the server again, it will come up with a different total, providing evidence of tampering. Easy to detect.

Bottom line: Code based schemes are detectable.

I have. They "take care" of each other. It's a game to them. Their objective: to win.

Good god there are so many dots available. We need to just connect them and it will all seem perfectly clear.