Reasonable questions about Kerry and 2004 Election...plus Ohio...

I think Mark Miller brought out a fundamental problem when he related his conversation with John Kerry about "Stolen Election." There is dispute on both sides about what was said there...but let's leave that aside and focus on this....as Democratic Undergrounders.

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Why can't the left face the Stolen Elections of 2004 & 2008?
by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
October 18, 2005


That Kerry and the spineless Ohio and national Democratic Parties have been complicit is a crucial part of the problem much of the left also seems unwilling to face. But if you live in Franklin County, Ohio, and watch the Republican and Democratic Parties run joint tickets against progressive candidate, and cut backroom deals allowing incumbents of either party run unopposed, you may miss the full scope of the disaster.

And until the left faces the rot that defines the Democratic Party, there is no hope for a fair election in this country. In other words: those who think the White House can be retaken in 2008, but refuse to face the theft of the vote in 2004, should prepare to be ruled by the likes of Jeb Bush, now and forever.

Before we go into the sordid details, we have to ask: exactly what is it about Team Bush that makes people think they could not or would not steal an American election? Do they lack funds? Do they lack expertise? Is there something in the Machiavellian/mobster moral code of Karl Rove and the Bush Family that would prevent them from doing here what they've been doing throughout the Third World for so long?

CIA meister Poppy Bush long ago perfected the art and science of stealing elections. US manipulators have interfered with and tipped elections for decades. Why should Ohio be any different? Especially when all the world knew control of the most powerful office on earth would be decided right here.

Much More of this great read which explains so much at.................
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/15...

that lack of information what our fears are. Progressives trust Bush much less - they hate any war - they see him as a criminal already so they assume the elections were stolen because they could be. People who hated SAddam and fell for the "intelligence" and thought people of Iraq could be helped and that there was actually a plan for war - they are not so much reading in that Bush is anything but incompetent and led by a bunch of Utopian boobs. They read that into the election.

It works to divide us. And pays off every time to the neocons. Once again - by doling out various fears to various people - they nail us and smash our big tent apart.

35% of people did not vote. If most of those democrats showed up - there would not be a machine that could touch anything.

We know they'll play dirty with exit polls, # of machines, intimidation, vetting felons by race, etc. We have PROOF of all this. So too with diebold defaulting improperly (going both ways).

Let's focus on what we can agree on. And not let the fear and lack of proof drive us apart.

I belong to a group of Progressives in a RED STATE ...and all of us were with Bush after 9/11 to go into Afghanistan where they told us Bin Laden had "terrorist training camps" and we would find Bin Laden and wipe out those camps. I don't know anyone who has protested against the Iraq Invasion here in NC with me who is against WAR for a good reason.

But ALL OF US are against "Bush Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Strike" where we went into Iraq based on PNAC/NeoCON Ambitions about Oil which "morphed" into "Bringing Freedom and Democracy to the Middle East."

What have you been reading that would have led you to such a bizarre conclusion? :eyes:

And, that you would still not believe that our Elections have been tampered with after Florida 2000 and the work done by DU'ers, the Green Party and the US Government GAO REPORT requested by a BI-Partison Commission showing that their was fraud in Election 2004...makes me wonder how the hell you ended up here on "Democratic Underground."

I guess you thought those "hanging chads" and DRE Machines not counting votes, losing votes and putting votes in the "wrong column" are all fantasy? Or, do you think some Democrats who've observed this and the US GAO are lying?

no cold hard facts on the machines. To you - you speculate that the elections were stolen because they could be. I don't see them going that far. For sure we all should be vigilant and fight for transparency.

Don't teach apathy. Don't divide us. The lady has not sung. We don't have proof the election was stolen in that particular way. We don't.

And accusing folks here on "Democratic Underground" of "teaching apathy" is really lowdown.

Dividing us? What the hell do you think this website is...DLC/DNC?

It isn't. And your post was extremely rude to Progressives on this site and to anyone who has been here since "Selection 2000."

Are you aware that this site was FOUNDED OVER A STOLEN ELECTION 2000?

Have you ever asked anyone about the "History" of DU? :shrug: :eyes:

ups at Dem heavy polls or the phone calls from a hotel to people previously in trouble with the law to keep them home, from phone banks being jammed, from felons being vetting if they were black in Florida to people being intimidated by "rule-makers" at their polls.

I deny none of it.

I am saying the Diebold is speculation. It is. It is insulting to many here when you say it is true when so far it is speculation. Our worst fears perhaps, putting nothing past the evil Rovebots cause they have demonstrated that there isn't a rule they will not corrupt if given half a chance.

This is the DU. I am not DLC or DNC. And in case you haven't been around ... this is a place to discuss issues. Sometimes it is heated. Sometimes one generalizes in an argument. But we discuss.

We also speculate ALL DAY LONG.

And we try and shore each other up emotionally. But not by silencing ourselves. By giving each other the respect for same or differing opinions.

And Apathy is an issue. It is. We talk about that all day long. We talk about how important motivation is for the 2006 elections. We talk about the Big Democratic Tent. We talk about how we all fit in.

Sorry I was vague for the purpose of clarity. My bad.

We also talk about wedges and that is what I was doing. If your speculation or belief looks like a wedge to me, I should speak up - eh?

going toward Kerry.

While I agree we need to address 'all' angles - the way the vote is counted as well as trying to get even more people to the polls and for the right reasons, I feel that we all need to feel confident that our votes counted.

I'm not suggesting that Diebold is the only problem, but they were part of it, imo.

I look at it this way - if you have a group of people who has been proven time and again to take any measures necessary to win, and then give them an opportunity to cheat, they will take it.

If the vote can be stolen, this is the group to do it.

But this is not to say that they used a battery of tactics to "steal" the election, from pretending to care about America to pretending to go after the culprits of 9/11 to bringing "morality" and marriage into it. In my view, they played so dirty, the mudslinging seemed refreshing.

But you are right on one thing: we do need to pull together. As a group that is composed of a large variety of beliefs, we need to be able to accept one another's beliefs and help each other get the crooks out of the White House.

that was collecting information..not making conclusions out of various stats and annecdotes. It mentioned that defaulting errors and complaints at some of the polls went both ways. I'm not sure of percentages. But it defaulted to Kerry and people complained.

I think it may have been in Ohio. I just cannot remember.

I followed as many of the post-election stories as I could, and do not remember that. i do remember some questionable behavior on the part of a group of Dems in Ohio, but it was pretty small time.

Even so, I feel that it defaulted to Bush a lot. I know that the chances are the same, but.... it starts to look funny.

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1529

And:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5273594
the GAO report on e-voting and e-counting at a glance for busy folks

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05956.pdf

The non-partisan report issued by the US Government Accountability Office to the Congressional Committees on Government Reform and on the Judiciary in September 2005 is a very carefully worded document. Yet its implications for the next election cycle are ominous. The electronic voting and vote-counting systems currently in place are neither secure, nor reliable. Their numerous weaknesses and vulnerabilities “have the potential to affect elections outcomes.” (53)

The Help America Vote Act of October 29, 2002 that funded the purchase of electronic voting technology also required that states meet federally mandated improvements in voting standards. (19) By August 31, 2005, a total of $2,5 billion had been disbursed to purchase new electronic voting systems. In the 2004 elections 35% of US voters used optical scan systems and 29% cast their votes into direct recording electronic systems.

HAVA also established the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to adopt “voluntary systems guidelines,” to manage a “national program to testing, certification, decertification, and recertification” of voting systems and to maintain a clearinghouse of information on voting systems administration. The EAC was to be appointed 120 days after HAVA was enacted. It took the President a whole year to appoint the 4 EAC commissioners, who began their work in January 2004 after their Senate confirmation. Moreover, the commission received only $1.2 million in funding for its work in fiscal year 2004 and $14 million in 2005. (20)

Thus, electronic voting systems were purchased and put in place across the country prior to updating and implementing national standards for testing, assessing and improving their security and reliability. The current security provisions are vague and incomplete. The voluntary status of the guidelines also leaves states “free to adopt them in whole or part, or reject them entirely.” (32)
The central part of the GAO report highlights the security weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the electronic voting systems currently in place: (25-38)

• Data files containing cast votes are not encrypted to protect them from being viewed and modified.

• Other computer programs can access cast votes and alter them without the system recording this action in its audit logs.

• Some ballot definition files can be altered on some models so that votes shown on the touch screen for one candidate could be counted for another candidate.

• A regional vote tabulation computer could be accessed via a modem connection.

• Using altered memory cards an optical scan system could be accessed and modified without leaving any record in the audit log.

• Security examinations revealed inadequate password protections, including easily guessed passwords, or IDs usable by all supervisors.

• Smart cards or memory cards are not secured on some voting systems, making them easily accessible to vote multiple times, change vote totals and produce false election results.

• Reliance on telecommunications or networking services, including wireless communication, exposes electronic voting systems to risk of intrusion.

• Source code information is inadequate, hard to detect or contains hidden functionality.

• Current tests assess functionality, while security flaws can escape testing.

• System failures and malfunctions during elections have led to polling place disruptions, disenfranchised voters and vote-counting errors.

• Because of poor version control of software, uncertified software was installed in California and Indiana.

Although there is no consensus about the pervasiveness of these problems, if the security weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the electronic systems currently in place are exploited, “changes in election results could go undetected.” (38) There is evidence that these weaknesses and vulnerabilities “have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes.” (38)
In its conclusion the GAO report states that national initiatives are under way to improve voting system security and reliability, but it also warns that “important initiatives are unlikely to affect the 2006 elections, due, at least in part, to delays in appointment of EAC commissioners and in funding the commission.” (52) Until then, the voting systems that by many state and local jurisdictions rely on for their elections, not deserve the trust placed in them by the electorate.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05956.pdf

machines. I am for all manner of propert records being kept on each machine. You could not line up enough people on one machine to make it too hard for any moderately sized computer to hold all the data in a bank. Fact is it should be easy as pie to make the machines transparent.

We have to fight for that.

But I fear the Repukes know that the "fear of new technology" and the wedge it puts between dems as we all speculate (and we all do) pays off way to much for them with a wedge.

35% of Americans didn't vote and never vote in elections.

Let's work on that. And then, the next generation of machines will have to be kick-assed transparent.

Why would a corporation solve all the "issues" in one go? Does Bill Gates? No! If they make it so that the machines have to be retooled and rebought due to lack of transparency - they double their money - don't they?

There could be many reasons why they made the machines this way.

Not simply the reasons you speculate.

Keep your mind open and your heart together with other Dems in the big tent - even though we do not always agree what to speculate on.

one pager. You keep calling for unity under a "Big Tent." I really think talking to you is useless. You refuse to read and comment on the info, and you talk down to us by saying "keep your mind open and your heart together with other Dems in the big tent."

Whatever "Big Tent" you see out there just doesn't exist. As I said, I think you are looking for the Democratic Party DNC or DLC Website where you can post comments and talk about unity. If you can't Google the links then I will be happy to give them to you.

But, don't talk down to me about Party Unity and Big Tent stuff when you refuse to read or discuss issues the Democratic Party is facing and has been working on. When Democratic Activists/Grassroots folks have worked on Voting Issues since "Selection 2000" and WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? That you wont take the time to get up to speed on the issues and accuse Progressives in the Democratic Party of being "Anti-War." As I said...:eyes: Unbelievable.

winning the election is what it is all about. So that people will have some say on how the country is run.

Without a "big tent" Dems have never won. Seats in congress or Senate seats. Or the WH.

And I did read your piece. It was very interesting and it talked about all sorts of serious issues with Diebold. The reason you state for why the machine was built that way is pure speculation. Because you did not build the machine. The reasons I offered up for machines to be built (with mistrust built in) are also speculation.

We are speculating you and I.

I admire your resolve because astute observations in this regard are greeted by nothing less than what you experienced with the first reply, pathetic and desperate accusation that you don't belong here.

I more or less gave up last December because the Diebold crew is relentlessly insulting and tunnel vision. They have no clue regarding state or county tendencies or anything that doesn't feed their irrational fear. I compiled a list of bellwether counties in every state PRIOR to the election. Every different type of voting machinery and method. When I slowly evaluated them in comparison to 2000 and recent, there was a slight but distinct and critical switch in preference toward Bush and the GOP in 2004. We can either theorize on how to counter and reverse that, or bury our noggin and scream the machines did it, even when the only nearby machine was a pencil sharpener. I can't count the times I've seen Republican victories attributed to Diebold, even though machines didn't exist in the state or have never existed. Someone recently was insisting Ehrlich was elected in Maryland due to Diebold. I chose not to correct him, that the machines hadn't been installed in 2002. It's just not worth it.

Early exit polls like the one listing us ahead by 18 points in New Hampshire are accepted as gospel by many Diebold dreaders, even though they knew zilch about early exit polls or the methodology behind them just days earlier. The research that was passed out here as the Truth was such slantboard garbage I got weary of correcting so many basic flubs, to the point its author was whining and crying and threatening to post a poll asking if I was a troll. Extremely revealing of the mindset. He couldn't demonstrate that I was wrong, so instead of correcting the math he got brain warped that someone here wasn't puddling in praise of his phony numbers, and defaulted to childish insults.

Luckily, whenever there is a Steven Freeman firing out mush, there is also a Febble figuring out the hidden trump card realities. No one is saying 2000 was anything close to legit. The GOP has simply spread and perfected the old vote suppression techniques that you mentioned. If we don't stop insisting 2002 and 2004 were thefts instead of outright losses due to 9/11 residue and fear, those old techniques will take further and more significant hold right beneath our blindfolded eyes.

poll games, too few machine games, calling dems in on parole and warning them off voting from a hotel, ... I don't know that if you added all this up - that Kerry would not have run.

Add some of them up - like illegally released & faulty exit polls saying Dems had it locked up by 2PM with someone in a line up for too few diebold machines.. with kids in tow and dinner to cook... and the Dems have won already....


Add up too the 35% of people who do not vote. I don't know why. Perhaps it is impossible for them to walk down the street and vote and they have no car.

I'd like to know more about that.

There are so many things that went wrong. So much of the thinking of Americans (which results in actions) was taken over by one tactic or another...

I really have not done a study, nor have I seen a study, that can possibly cross all the t(s) and dot all the i(s). There is much to wonder about.

I don't begrudge people speculating. I just don't want them to tell me I cannot speculate too.

And yes - the biggest part of the election stealing was hearts and minds of Americans using fear and jackboot tactics of nefarious puppeteers. But again, that is only part of it. One could say that if the 35% who never vote, voted, that even the Rovebots could not have won. So what are the reasons for 35% not voting? Who are they? Are they on drugs? Are they in endemic poverty? Is it not safe to be outside at night? WHO ARE THEY. Have their minds been taken over by video games so much so that to leave and vote would destroy 3 hours of electronic bliss and start them into withdrawl? I don't have all the answers. That is what I am asking the people who I debate in this thread to acknowledge. I dont' have all the answers. Neither do they. Neither do you.

being "Tarred" as "Anti-War," though. You still haven't answered the assumption, declarative that you made...that those of us protesting are all "Anti-War."

Anti-Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Strike...YES.. But NOT Anti-War if there is a total and undeniable THREAT to us on the scale of World War II.

Korea, Vietnam and the rest of the hoked up "Wars" were WRONG...IMMORAL and POLITICAL.

America should take TIME before going into Battle. And it should be BASED ON Extreme length of time for "REVIEW." :-( At least that's my 2 Cents worth.

whoever we are.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2226640

Because every time somebody says there's a smoking gun, all I find is a sparkler.

1. Warren County landed the vote count in an unauthorized warehouse rather than the official secure location,

With results that aren’t terribly far off from 2000. Even California lost a couple of percentages to Bush.

125,165 total 95,512 vote 72.06% Bush 27.58% Kerry 2004
96,536 total 70,109 vote 69.95% Bush 27.71% Gore 1.54% Nader

2. African-American court candidate who ran zero campaign in those counties.

She got more votes than Kerry in every single precinct in those counties. Every single one. Either the Republicans rigged every single precinct, or people did choose the woman they didn’t know was black.

3. Mahoning County where voters who chose Kerry saw Bush light up. Rakocy says that problem was "only" on 18 of 1,148 machines, and that it was corrected early.

That is not, however, what the Board of Elections said.

Mark Munroe, Chairman of the Mahoning County Board of
Elections, said there were 20 to 30 machines that needed
to be recalibrated during the voting process because
some votes for a candidate were being counted for that
candidate’s opponent. In addition, about a dozen
machines needed to be reset because they “essentially
froze.” Later on election night, problems arose in 16
precincts (11 in Youngstown, 2 in Boardman, and one each
in Jackson Township, Craig Beach, and Washingtonville),
causing election results to be delayed for three hours
as Board of Elections employees checked the vote tallies
of the touch screen machines.

They did address election problems that came up, all day long.

Another complaint is regarding machine errors in 3 precincts in Mahoning County. Unfortunately, this only amounts to a few hundred votes cast, not enough to steal an election and a dumb way to do it.

4. indictments that have recently come down on election thieves in Cuyahoga County

Two people are accused of not randomly selecting precincts and running ballots without witnesses. Again, openly thumbing your nose when you are part of a stolen election conspiracy is a pretty dumb way to steal an election.

These just don't add up to anything except the need for election reform.

The Triad employee who left cheat sheets with elections officials, showing them how they could circumvent the recount?

The recount which never happened.

You find it hard to believe Republicans would openly thumb their nose at voters? Where have you been for five years? Isn't that pretty much all they do?

"Diebold dreaders"? "Fear of new technology"?

Wow.

Listen, if I'm sitting in an office and I've got a bunch of left wing lunatics breathing down my neck, and somebody comes along and says "here's how you get it done quickly", fuck it, let's get the goddamned thing done.

I'm not attacking you or anybody else as a left wing lunatic. I'm just trying to put a little perspective on some of this and how Secretary Sally is going to respond. You said you've worked in immigration, that's government, right? Tell me people don't cut corners.

And when it's illegal, they have to be prosecuted. But what I heard these people saying at the time sounded more like frustration than conspiracy. Too bad, so sad, they'll have to pay.

I think people around here think I just spout off. But I don't. I spent as much time as anybody going over reports, returns, working calculations, trying to find a pattern. Screaming Glitchgate because I still think that's the way to get attention on this. But I have not found a pattern to indicate conspiracy. Just yesterday I read something on Ohio, I don't remember what it was, but I went to check it out. Again, it amounted to about 1,000 votes total, total, not the margin. You don't fix an election dealing with 1,000 votes.

When I went and checked the stuff I posted, I was surprised to see that O'Connally had more votes than Kerry in every single solitary precinct. They took the risk of rigging machines in all those precincts??? I just don't think so. So again, I am open-minded, but every road leads to a dead-end or unlikely scenario.

That doesn't make me evil, stupid, a bad Democrat, or a freeper either.

My edited version is how an ordinary citizen would react. The reason for the refusal to properly recount is that Blackwell engineered it by threatening to fire anyone who didn't follow his illegal orders.

On edit: I should clarify I agree that some of the election workers may have been motivated as you describe (let's get it done quickly). But the important issue has to do not with the election workers but with the people who orchestrated that reaction by the election workers. It is not possible that workers in almost every county simultaneously decided to take this approach each one independently as their own idea. Obviously they were coached into doing it this way by someone. The someones who coached them were vendors and the SOS office, including in some cases Blackwell himself.

What was the motivation of those doing the coaching? Was it to just get it done quickly? I don't think so. It was to ensure a particular result.

So what do we call an orchestrated campaign to usurp the written recount rules and substitute them with procedures designed to ensure a particular result? We call it a criminal conspiracy to steal the election.

Whatever happy little world you live in. I haven't had anybody give a shit about getting anything done right in 25 years.

Please see my edit.

Wanting to get the job done, quickly and expeditiously, without any chance of a discrepancy to drag the thing out in the courts and cost the state millions of dollars. Because, at least at the local board of election level, it was fair in their minds. Not due to motivation to steal an election, even though it could be legally argued.

Now, whether Blackwell was orchestrating something different to cover up a theft is another matter. But there have been only 2 people indicted in 1 county, and they haven't squealed.

A year later. 2 people. 1 county.

And you want any Democrat to stand up and yell "stolen election". Frankly, I haven't even heard Dennis Kucinch being vocal on the issue, and Ohio is his state.

"Wanting to get the job done, quickly and expeditiously, without any chance of a discrepancy to drag the thing out in the courts and cost the state millions of dollars."

So, all of a sudden, when it is convenient to your side of the argument, those election workers who, just a few minutes ago couldn't give a rat's ass about whether the election results were correct, all of a sudden their motivation was to make sure taxpayer dollars were not wasted.

LOL back at you.

That's just the way people think. This is stupid, Kerry lost, all this recount stuff is a waste of time and money. Get the thing done and get these people out of my hair.

I don't know how old you are, but if you're over the age of 25 and denying this, then you're just not being honest with yourself about it. If you're under age 25, then sorry to burst your bubble, but this is how people are.

because Ohio is completely wired. Where is the risk for them?

That's human nature as well -- to get away with what you can. And, they did.

So that kind of goes against that theory. People got indicted.

Well, let's see how we do.