If We Keep Blaming "Diebold" For Every Loss, We Learn Nothing

I think John Kerry is a brilliant man. And I agree with him on almost every issue.
If I had my druthers, he'd be President right now.

I also think he is an inartful and inept politician, who does not understand hand to hand political combat nor how to relate to the average American voter.

I am sure there were election irregularities. There have been in almost every election since the beginning of time.

But I do not think Diebold or anyone else "stole" the last election.

John Kerry lost the election.

And I worry that by chronically solely blaming election fraud for our losses, we will not learn what we need to learn about how to win elections.

Every single thread about our prospects in '06 and '08 is heavily laced with comments like "doesn't matter what we do, they will steal it."

That kind of defeatist thinking is an impediment to us strategizing and focusing and nominating candidates who can win. It is the kind of thinking that dismisses the reality of the work we have to do to reframe the debate.

Eliminating or minimizing election fraud is an important task, and we have brave, committed, dedicated souls who are leading the fight to ensure that we have honest elections. I in no way mean to minimize that struggle.

But, it must go hand in hand with us learning how to be better strategists and more focused politicians.

We have the angels on our side ideologically. Our task is to learn how to effectively make middle America fully understand that the angels who dance with us are standing on their shoulders as well.

Thank you.

that Lucy holds.

they secretly met and decided to give us an off year?

anyone else can find it quickly please post a link?

It was maybe the day after the 05 elections.

and the excuses as to why we swept three major elections that night ranged from bizarre to downright moonbat.

in spite of your sarcasm.

You cannot deny what transpired in Ohio in 2004. They TOOK five Senate seats in 2002 in magical overnight point swings.

To become complacent because they don't do it all the time would be the most mind-numbingly stupid thing we could do now.

Rush Holt's HR-2239 was ignored in the HofR. The Republicans don't want to fix anything. Now why do you suppose that is?

No way. The EVMs without a paper trail MUST be stopped NOW. We will never have a clean election and will ALWAYS wonder until that is done.

Let's see, Strickland in Colorado trailed in virtually every poll. He was facing an incumbent in a red state. Shaheen in new Hampshire had some brief poll leads but the late indicators had her trailing. Cleland's lead collapsed in the final month to the point that race was considered dead even on election day. The GOP had an overwhelming push in Georgia that year led by Ralph Reed. The disastrous race, of course, was Minnesota. Wellstone would have won by several points over Coleman but after his death Mondale was nothing but vulnerable. The poll that always overstates Democrats had Mondale ahead while another had Coleman significantly ahead. We had a pseudo incumbent in Missouri with Jean Callahan, but she was generally a point or two behind down the stretch and the result finished that way.

I have no idea how those results are bizarre or prove theft. There was a headline in the Monday USA Today the day before election day that screamed of a late Republican tide that was detected in nationwide polling over the weekend. That was the cycle we basically stood for nothing. Plus IMO there was a natural letdown after getting legitimately screwed in 2000. A result like that tends to boost the winning party and deflate the losers with a "woe is me, what's the use?" mentality. I wasn't exactly surprised Democrats didn't turn out in great numbers.

That didn't go well for the Democrats and they had just switched to Diebold.

.

The machines are defaulted to give a tilt to the Repubs I'm sure, but anything beyond that requires the participation of other people. As the Dieb-Throat source told Bradblog, the company's attitude is, We won't do it ourselves but we'll tell you how to do it.

The machines in OH just pulled off the most blatant fraud I've seen yet where on the initatives that would have regulated the machines and done a good deal to make elections fair again in OH. On the first initiative the result matched the pre-election polls done very closely while on the others where the pre-election polling said it was about 60-409% in favor, the result was 60-40% opposed. It seems to me this is impossible to understand as anything other than machine manipulation.

Just because the machines don't always cheat at the same rate or in the same way doesn't mean they aren't cheating. The evidence is overwhelming that they are cheating regularly now and will continue to do so in the future, more in some races than in others, at certain places more than others, but always they are cheating.

forgot to use the secret computer code <end of sarcasm>

They used Diebold to steal those elections, but in order to not attract attention they used their 100% control of the media to have it be reported that the Democrats actually won even though the fraudulent vote totals were in favor of the GOP. (This is similar to the 44 Senate seats and 200 House seats that the GOP stole and gave back to us in 2004.)

Corrupt gerrymandering steals a MUCH bigger percentage of the vote than the tabulators did or will.

EVEN IF WE HAD VOTER VERIFIED PAPER BALLOTS, the Repubs start out with a 4-6% advantage in the Electoral College due to redistricting over the last 20 years. They've got us.


Suggested reading:

<http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=0300108702>

edited: spelling

your own failures. It is like blaming your childhood for
your lack of success, blaming discrimination when you fail
in your job, blaming the school for your lack of learning.

I think this post brings up a very succint point. If we
nominate a better candidate and if we do a better job of
getting our message across to the voters, we will have a
better chance of winning than blaming it all on Diebold.

Nevertheless this doesn't invalidate the argument that we need more transparency in our electoral process.

Type 1 Error. We can assume that the election wasn't stolen when it was.

Dangers:

a. Excessive self-doubt, introspection, and trying to revamp a winning team, campaign.

b. Failure to sufficiently emphasize and pour resources into the evoting problem and failure to resolve it.





Type 2 Error. We can assume the election was stolen when it wasn't.

Dangers:

a. Not enough self examination and striving to improve the message.

The exit polls were correct, and the vote was changed in the dead of night. Nobody will ever convince me otherwise.

Gore won Florida in 2000.

Kerry won Ohio in 2004.

The election reforms passed in Ohio in 2005.

We're fucked till we get the polls un-rigged.

ever doubted it.

I watched the polls which seemed to be being skewed to support a * win, knew about the potential problems, and the exit polls.

And about Blackwell in Ohio.

And I followed the whole central tabulator issue etc, some of it through the computer science literature as I completed my Masters of Computer Science and Engineering degree.

The geriatric grad group, not really geriatric, but much older than your average Masters graduate bear in computer science.

Please (if you haven't already) check this out, the links etc:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2302811

were not stolen. Ohio alone should convince you. Could an election get more fucked up than that??

To favor BUSH instead of KERRY. And thats not RIGGED UP SHIT? Hell,we can promise to do anything and everything but.... if every time a button is pushed for a Repuke and they get 1.011122 votes to our 1.0 in key elections it doesn't matter what we say or who we run.

Prove to ME and all Dems with a THOROUGH,out in the open investigation of ALL electronic voting machines and I'll blame all our losses on ourselves.

Until then I'm leaning toward rigged up elections as to our losses in KEY elections.

is a brilliant man and that he should catch a dummy. I hate to be ugly but the thread starter lacks transparency. The agenda is clear!

I appreciate the nod to election reformers and I agree we need better strategists, but with all due respect election reform is THE issue.
Regardless of whether or not they actually stole it, they could if they wanted to. I'm sure you are familiar with the new GAO report.
We absolutely cannot allow a private corporation with right wing ties
to count our votes with secret proprietary software. It is ABSOLUTELY unacceptable.
If we really want middle America to understand what we are about, we will make them understand
how this one issue gets to the heart of the country's problems - we've outsourced our democracy to
corporations who play political games. We can use this issue against Republicans if we frame it right.

But we can tirelessly push for election reform WITHOUT chronically blaming every lost election on fraud.

It is defeatist and whining. And it stops us from doing what we must do, HAND IN HAND with what you suggest: and that is to reframe the debate.

Pre-election polls in VA had Kaine up slightly, around the margin of error. If Kilgore would have won, there would have been very few people claiming it was stolen.

Keep in mind that about 90% of Americans are confident that their vote will be counted.

I think it is unbelievably naive to think Republicans would go out of their way to develop a system that would allow them to cheat with impunity
and then not use it. This situation we find ourselves in is a horrible national tragedy. However, I don't think trying to convince Republicans or clueless Dems of the theft is going to get HR 550 or anything like it passed. Unfortunately the Repugs have shown that their "sour grapes" strategy is somewhat successful. We have to spread doubt about secret source code paperless machines. We need to spread this doubt in a non-partisan manner or we will have no chance of passing national paper trail legislation because the sad fact is if Republicans aren't calling their reps about it, it doesn't stand a chance of passing.

DRE's, no paper ballots to do a recount, If you ain't smelling a rat, I'm not sure what to think. You can look at what they are putting in to place now as we speak, to figure out that Dems don't have a fighting chance. I don't care if the Dems promise to kiss everyones *ss on STATE AND MADISON. (Chicago joke)

Diebold had nothing to do with him and his handlers running a pathetic campaign.

Diebold had nothing to do with him turning the other cheek for the entire campaign, letting the swift boat liars run up one side of him and down the other, and letting it all go unanswered.

Diebold had nothing to do with Kerry and his handlers keeping an election close that should NEVER have been close, considering Kerry was running against the worst president in history.

Diebold has become an all too familiar crutch for all those posters who just can't admit that we got beat, not by an unworthy adversary, but we got beat by ourselves.

It's so fricken annoying everytime someone tries to come up with a suggestion on how we can improve our chances of winning the next campaign, and then that suggestion gets hijacked by the Diebold people. Yeah, that's productive. Let's just give up, do nothing positive, and hope they fix the machines. Yeah right.

Thanks for the thread. Nominated.

No matter what was said or done, we couldn't for the love of all that is dear and precious get people to Deal With the election theft problem.

You suggest that DieBold is:

- Beyond contempt.
- Not proven to be linked to massive errors in voting.
- Not run by Republican donors.
- Not non-compliant with many state laws in states that already and will soon employ it.
- Not concealing its proprietary software from the federal and state governments that employ it.
- Not actively opposed to a paper trail for its machines.
- Not being rammed into use by way of "stall for years and then rush to implement and install" tactics by unelected and elected government officials who suddenly realized that they must comply with HAVA and trampled their state laws in order to do so.
- Not so much in need of protection from oversight that Republican House members just passed a 56 Billion dollar tax cut that includes an exemption of electronic voting machines from government and public accountability.*

*Gee, that doesn't seem like a protection that a fair and just electronic voting machine company would need? An act of Congress to protect it and others like it from accountability?

If I suggested ONE of those things you listed, please feel free to quote me on it so I can see where I suggested it.

The ONLY things I suggested was that Diebold had NOTHING to do with any of the things I suggested in MY post. I suggested nothing that's on the list in YOUR post. Amazing how some of you love to stick words into someone else's mouth in order to make a point.

No he didn't. It is faulty reasoning to infer that Kerry is the man because he got more votes than 42 other presidents. Well, hello?? Population grows, and as time goes on, even the biggest losers will have a higher amount of votes than Abraham Lincoln, because the US voting population back then was very low.

Because they have no explanation for the magical swing between exit polls, who were extremely accurate in the past, and official results.

Someday I will figure out exactly where this urban legend came from, and I will have stern words with its progenitor.

Conceivably this post might help:
http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2005/01/the_war_room.html

It is actually hard to tell how accurate U.S. presidential exit polls were in the past. The "raw data" often aren't very accurate at all.

his hell bent for leather midnight ride to alert the colonists that "the British are coming," a local politico just then staggering out of the Cat and the Fiddle, took his horse by the reins, and drunkenly called up to him, "Not to worry, Paul! Don't get all in a lather. Those Brits don't mean to attack us. They're just transporting some tea to replace what we lost in the harbor!"

Not being a damned fool, Revere pushed the man off, alerted Lexington, and rode off to Concord, and into history.

We would be damned fools NOT to alert the populace that they have been ATTACKED IN FORCE by the hackers of George II, and that unpatriotic corporate criminals are WELL ON THEIR WAY to destroying the American Revolution, once and for all, with their goddamn SECRET programming!

And you can bet that there were BLIND people like you, back then, on the eve of the Revolution, who were STILL talking about "productive" discussions with the representatives of King George, and complaining that the debate was being "hijacked" by those "revolutionary firebrands" (read "Diebold people") Tom Paine, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, Nathan Hale, and Thomas Jefferson.

What would Thomas Jefferson be saying about Diebold? Hm-m-m? That we're just using it as a "crutch" to explain all those bad taxes and other oppressions that we are suffering? That, if only the Revolutionaries had run a better campaign to convince the British not oppress them, maybe they wouldn't have had to overthrow them?

You have to attack oppressive rule at its heart. The heart of THIS oppressive rule is NON-TRANSPARENT ELECTIONS--in 2002, in 2004, and forevermore, if we don't stop it.

You can talk all you want about better campaigns of persuasion, and representing the majority, but if you CAN'T SEE HOW THE VOTES ARE COUNTED, you are MORE THAN LIKELY GOING TO LOSE. Better campaigns MIGHT overcome the fraud by sheer numbers of votes (and I think this was true of the Kerry campaign), but you can be sure they are already working to improve their fraudulent election SYSTEM so that it can reverse massive voter rebellion.

See Bob Koehler's column on the 60/40 flipover that was just done to the Ohio ELECTION REFORM initiatives:
http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?custid=67&catid=1824.

This MUST be stopped! Without TRANSPARENT ELECTIONS, we DO NOT HAVE a democracy!

I voted proudly for JK, but felt he ran a campaign in which he failed to connect with the everyday american. I know there are a lot of JK fans here at the DU. But if we are to win in 06 and 08, there are definitely some things we've got to honestly admit to and work to change about the candidates that we put forth. If not, we will continue to suffer elections the likes of 2000 and 2004.

I hope we get it right next time.

We would not have won if they would not have cheated?

have to vehemently disagree with you on that one . . . Kerry did indeed run a less than stellar campaign . . . but he would not have won Ohio if he'd walked on water . . .

I agree. I agree that we have to learn to be better strategists, etc. We must never stop working on that. However, I do believe the election was stolen. Both issues are important. Neither can be ignored.

which is "the elections were not stolen".

Of course when you think the elections were not stolen, you wouldn't see the need of pointing to corporate ownership of the election process, and the conflict of interest involved there.

I'm heartened that the effort to equate election reform with the e-voting issue hasn't succeeded completely.

e-voting is a real issue, but election reform is more than that issue. There are other issues, the most important dealing with access to voting, that are also important, and progress is being made on those fronts, despite the efforts to subordinate them to e-voting and to the effort to prove the 2004 election was stolen.

Because the source code for the machines is proprietary and secret. So in truth we can only guess how
bad the problem is. Now THAT is a serious issue.

I agree that John Kerry was an awful candidate.

I disagree about Diebold. Diebold needs to be scuppered.

Paper ballots ... ballots with papertrails... are essential.

Sue

Paper ballots can get lost, they can be mishandled,
forged and copied, and what is really causing their
demise is the high cost of handling, counting and
tabulating. Paper ballots are also painfully slow
to count and certify. Americans want instant results
of the election, they will not tolerate a 2 or 3 delay
for results. I am talking about the general public, not
the activists and knowlegeable such as those here on DU.
We are a minority, the sheeple are the vast majority.

Kerry was, as you put it, an inartful candidate and Diebold is destroying our democratic process. We can multitask, after all, we aren't Republicans.

"While electronic voting systems hold promise for a more accurate and efficient election process, numerous entities have raised concerns about their security and reliability, citing instances of weak security controls, system design flaws, inadequate system version control, inadequate security testing, incorrect system configuration, poor security management, and vague or incomplete voting system standards, among other issues. For example, studies found (1) some electronic voting systems did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, and it was possible to alter both without being detected; (2) it was possible to alter the files that define how a ballot looks and works so that the votes for one candidate could be recorded for a different candidate; and (3) vendors installed uncertified versions of voting system software at the local level. It is important to note that many of the reported concerns were drawn from specific system makes and models or from a specific jurisdiction’s election, and that there is a lack of consensus among election officials and other experts on the pervasiveness of the concerns. Nevertheless, some of these concerns were reported to have caused local problems in federal elections—resulting in the loss or miscount of votes—and therefore merit attention."

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

There were numerous, significant unexplained irregularities in other counties throughout the state: (i) in Mahoning county at least 25 electronic machines transferred an unknown number of Kerry votes to the Bush column; (ii) Warren County locked out public observers from vote counting citing an FBI warning about a potential terrorist threat, yet the FBI states that it issued no such warning; (iii) the voting records of Perry county show significantly more votes than voters in some precincts, significantly less ballots than voters in other precincts, and voters casting more than one ballot; (iv) in Butler county a down ballot and underfunded Democratic State Supreme Court candidate implausibly received more votes than the best funded Democratic Presidential candidate in history; (v) in Cuyahoga county, poll worker error may have led to little known thirdparty candidates receiving twenty times more votes than such candidates had ever received in otherwise reliably Democratic leaning areas; (vi) in Miami county, voter turnout was an improbable and highly suspect 98.55 percent, and after 100 percent of the precincts were reported, an additional 19,000 extra votes were recorded for President Bush.

http://truthout.org/Conyersreport.pdf

See also:

http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/The_unexplained_exit_poll_discrepancy_v00k.pdf

Frankly, I think the question is a moot point, because by the 2008 election cycle Our Fearless Leader is simply going to suspend elections forever. If by some miracle enough observers are put on the 2006 elections to swing them the wrong (read: our) way, it'll happen then. Bush likes the throne and I'm certain he's not fond of the electric chair if he's the one scheduled to be sitting in it, which is what he may face if we the people ever find out what the http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:1UeufYqqE6IJ:www.bonitanews.com/01/09/florida/d678875a.htm+%E2%80%9CSunCruz+Casinos+turns+over+documents+in+terrorist+probe.%E2%80%9D++&hl=en">September 11 terrorists were doing on http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/8/16/233950/633">Jack Abramoff's boat.

country's peril. How anyone can be so willfully ignorant in the face of mountainous evidence is beyond this poster's comprehension.

Partial list of voting 'irregularities'...
http://www.solarbus.org/election/archives.shtml

It's time to stand up and be the BETTER Party for the American people! And, we need to be better at letting them know that. And we need to stop the DLC from co-opting this Party, and from muddying up our message.

TC

being strongly against Bush's dreadful war) AND they stole it from him, and from us--the antiwar grass roots that worked so hard on his behalf, and garnered a 60/40 blowout for the Dems in new voter registration in 2004. The evidence is really quite overwhelming that Kerry won by a margin of 3% to 5%. If he had been stronger on the war, and on principles such as no torture, I think we might have been able to overcome the electronic fraud and the Ohio, Florida and other Dem vote suppression.

Our new private corporate election system--mainly Diebold and ES&S (both major backers of Bush, Republicans and rightwing causes)--with its "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY software and firmware, and virtually no audit/recount capability--was designed to hide the evidence of who won and who lost. It could not have been better designed for that purpose, and anyone who thinks that the Bushites didn't want it that way, and didn't use it to keep their idiot in power, is just being naive.

In ADDITION, there is very strong evidence that Kerry won--from the national and state exit polls whose real results were suppressed by the war profiteering corporate news monopolies (and later became known), to the new voter registration figures, to the turnout numbers, to others polls (Zogby, for instance, said that Bush's numbers were so low prior to the election that Bush could not win), to all the issue polls showing a great majority of Americans disapproving of every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, way up in the 60% to 70% range, and to the huge number of election anomalies with astronomical odds against them (machines changing Kerry votes into Bush votes, and almost never the other way), very uneven (and impossible) exit poll numbers vs. "official" numbers (it looks like they tweaked the machines on the east coast, and in the battleground states, for an early theft), and so much more.

It's just silly and fractious to make this a contest between those who are familiar with the above evidence and are convinced that the Bushites stole it (mostly with their new secret programming), and those who want our Dem leaders to address issues and be the advocates of the majority that they should be.

Elections should be TRANSPARENT. If they are not, then we do not have a democracy. It is NOT useless, in that circumstance, to discuss issues and try to advocate for the majority. But it is...what is the word?..."insane" keeps coming to mind...to IGNORE the FACT that the votes are being counted in SECRET, by partisans of one side, in a fraudulent election SYSTEM.

We MUST address BOTH things--that our party has largely failed us on the war and on many other issues, AND that our elections are NOT TRANSPARENT (--and, indeed, that the non-transparency of our elections is one of their failures). To my mind, the transparency of our election system is priority number one. Without transparent elections, we and our leaders may recognize what's wrong on policy issues and propose great ideas, but we CANNOT get them implemented.

Transparency is the key to clean elections.

debate again. Bush made good use of his oft repeated line "He's criticizing the war, but the man VOTED FOR IT."

Actually, Kerry voted to give Bush authorization to go to war to pressure Saddam to open up to inspections etc. But Bush had a point. Kerry said Colin Powell's presentation to the UN was "convincing" and he DID vote to let Bush go to war.

Which made him a lot less credible on his criticisms of Bush's war than he would have otherwise been to a lot of people.

On top of being brilliant, Kerry has been a US Senator for 20 years, fighting back stupid caricatures of him painted by wingnuts for as long, beating Weld at the height of a bitter campaign, capturing more votes (yeah, more people showed up, but 9 million of them voted for Kerry) than any other Democratic candidate with a question mark surrounding Bush's return to the WH, and what you draw from Kerry's record is the following incongruous conclusion:


I think John Kerry is a brilliant man. And I agree with him on almost every issue.
If I had my druthers, he'd be President right now.

I also think he is an inartful and inept politician, who does not understand hand to hand political combat nor how to relate to the average American voter.

At that point in his career, he oozed charisma. I think his years in Congress rubbed him down to a mediocre candidate.

who at the time had 48% approval ratings.

He did not use any wedge issues effectively, all the while letting Republican wedge issues go unanswered.

He ran a truly dysfunctional, unorganized campaign that had to be fundamentally restructured two or three times, with key people replaced and reshuffled.

He did NOT, despite what anyone might protest, respond quickly enough or effectively enough to the Swiftboat nonsense, which eroded his favorable ratings very quickly, as he was not yet defined in the public's mind as a national figure. So, in his hesitancy, he allowed the nastiest, most vile Republicans to define him instead of defining himself.

He spoke in tired, mundane cliches about Iraq (and other issues), instead of articulating simple, powerful positions.

He allowed himself to come across on television as a caricature of an effete Northeasterner. When John Stewart jokingly asked him on the Daily Show if he and Theresa made a nickel off of each bottle of ketchup sold in the U.S., instead of saying something witty or self deprecatory or charming, he replied "Would that it were, John, would that it were."

If you think the man ran a good, or even mediocre campaign, you are blinding yourself to reality.

So, I repeat. I think he's brilliant, I would trust him implicitly to run the country and do the right thing, and I think he's an awful strategist and tactician and national candidate.

but glad we agree.

:toast:

You have repeated every RW description of Kerry that is not supported by fact. Kerry created energy and excitement on the campaign trail. I witnessed the sheer disbelief on this forum and other blogs when Kerry and Edwards conceded (noting that most participants were adamant he had won).


Even with no widespread media coverage of the issue, 10% of voters were doubtful that their vote was accurately counted and another 17% were only somewhat confident. That's 27% of the electorate expressing a lack of confidence in the system.

http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/naes/2004_03_mindset-bush-kerry-supporters_%2001-05_pr.pdf


The questions surrounding election fraud are fact based; it's not just my opinion. The number of votes suppressed in Ohio and Florida alone could have handed the election to Kerry. How would they have voted? I don't know, but I am not convinced the election was fair. It's not a conspiracy, it's a reality given what transpired.

I don't admire his political skill nor his strategic skills, nor his skills at running an organized, masterful campaign.

So you can't "see why I don't like Kerry" because I've never written that.

to move on. In the meantime, keep thinking Kerry won or that he ran a good campaign. Maybe by the time 2008 rolls around it'll all sink in what a drastic candidate he was, despite his history of being a fine candidate and a fine man.

I meant to say "a fine Senator", not "a fine candidate" in the last part of my sentence.

and tabulated (and he had run the same campaign):

Maybe one subject of discussion now would be what a great campaign Kerry ran.

How he chose his battles wisely, how he didn't give in to their petty, lying ways etc, ie the Swift Boat Liars.

That in the end, good trumps evil etc.

Politics as it is practiced here and now stinks.

Hindsight is 20/20, cause you already know the outcome.

Or in some cases you don't know the actual vote outcome for sure.

Also had Kerry won as noted above, there'd be talk about what a stupid misleading campaign * ran.

It isn't like athletic competition, where there are relatively objective measures, supposedly unbiased expert judges, umpires, and referees.

It is more like a staged wrestling brawl with the players pretending to wrestle and spouting off about each other. Someone might slip some money to one or the other to stumble, fall, look stupid, foolish. And in the end everyone (wrestlers, refs, audience) drinks and insults everyone and whoever is left standing when all others have fallen by the wayside wins.

Democracy, if we really had it, would be a wonderful thing.

:eyes:

if the election wasn't suspicious and Kerry had come out on top, we'd all be saying what a great job he did. It's SO boring to sit around discussing how Dem candidates could be better, when the bottom line is that we have absolutely no assurance whatsoever that elections in this country are fair and accurate (and lots of evidence to the contrary). It's time to clean up the system and not pretend that we can simply overcome election theft with a new, improved candidate (yawn).

...the days in between the same folks blame the DLC.

This is not about "blaming Diebold."

What is the big deal with LOOKING FORWARD and GUARANTEEING FREE AND FAIR AND VERIFIABLE U.S. ELECTIONS? No matter how you choose to downplay it, WE DO NOT HAVE THAT NOW.

That MUST be done. AND we need effective candidates. (altho if you thing JK is "an inartful and inept politician, who does not understand how to relate to the average American voter" compared to the imbecile in chief, THAT is a whole different discussion).

This OP is another strawman argument that reinforces the ineffectiveness of Dems and DU, and does NOT contribute to making real change.

You got it!

...reinforces the ineffectiveness of Dems and DU, and does NOT contribute to making real change...

Aside from the desperate need for honest elections, the above statement says so well what I believe is the worst part of this kind of discourse.

It is demoralizing and unncessary self-flagellation that some in our party take on from the other side. At least I think it begins with all their smears etc, flip-flop etc etc.

Then after we "lost" they started in right away talking about how down and out Dems were, unfortunately we carried it on from there ourselves.

:hi:

(Easier to toss stones and say "pink tutu" than look down and realize yer wearin one........................................................)

it.

:hi:

But I do see progress, in terms of legal suits, an awareness of the problem that has grown leaps and bounds SINCE Nov 04.

Unfortunately some of us have been beating our heads against the wall since well before the election.

That added on to a lawless administration including a war we and the planet was dragged into against our will tends at times to leave me feeling very powerless, one of the worst feelings there is.

Thank goodness there are a lot of people working on the problem.

including on DU. I attended a MoveOn house party to watch the "framing" guru's DVD in Jan. 05, right after Senator Barbara Boxer stood up for the nation in the Senate. The election was SUCH a non-issue it was frightening. The Euphemedia had told people to get over it AND THEY DID for the most part. Someone at that meeting actually used the words "sour grapes" regarding questions about the election. AT A "FRAMING" MEETING! SOUR FUCKING GRAPES! :freak:

Many Americans believe only what the TeeVee tells em. Many Americans are comfy/cozy in their assumptions that the next election will happen and happen predictably. (May need to re-examine the meaning of "predictably" :evilgrin:)

There is a definite buzz on DU around this, this weekend. I just checked out both the Research Forum and the Election Reform Forum (hadn't been in there since the Homepage Real Estate dustup). If we want to DU something, the GD/P energies could be directed through there...........

We are here to share the discouragement and get past it, to encourage each other. If we remain here feeling powerless, we have only ourselves to blame.

happen is due to the somewhat technical aspect of the process.

I tend to limit my posting in the argument topics about whether it happened or not.

I used to post over at BBV, did some work over there prior to the election on getting FOIA information for many counties using the DRE.

I personally don't feel hopeless about it now, as there has finally been some light seen at the end of the tunnel.

I am encouraged, I hold on to hope, because I must.

There is also the local aspect to the voting reform issues, and each state has a forum over on the vote reform. I try to keep tabs on my own state and what's up there.

At each point, I contribute what I am able to in a way I am able to. That is what keeps the heeby-jeebies at bay.

You said it all and what you said is my view as well.

Yes, the election machinery has its probelms - serious problems. But it is not the sole reason we lost the last two presidential elections.

Thank you for saying this.

and Nevada was a swing state--I suppose Voter Outreach didn't rip up those Democratic registrations-and that Repug judge didn't stop Democratic voters from re-registering and the head of Voter Outreach didn't attend Bush's inaugral ball and all of the voting machines in Nevada have paper for verification. It's just that Kerry ran a lousy campaign. How would I know? I just live in Nevada.:sarcasm:

I was summarily dismissed on another thread because I had the audacity to suggest that EVMs without a paper trail remain dangerous. I think some people just want to slam the candidates. Although much of that criticism is legitimate, the rampant fraud is unignorable vis-a-vis EVMs. I will never believe the results of any election until that is dealt with appropriately.

Particularly this line: "Eliminating or minimizing election fraud is an important task, and we have brave, committed, dedicated souls who are leading the fight to ensure that we have honest elections. I in no way mean to minimize that struggle."

No one is saying there aren't problems. Look at Paul Hackett's 'loss' just a few weeks ago in Ohio for more of the same.

The OP was a different point than voting irregularities and voting crimes.

couple of weeks ago that if we only had 50 more democratic voters from every precinct, every state would have gone for Kerry.

Bush won in a lot of places that don't even use e-machines. It shouldn't have even been close.

Diebold probably stole votes. And we need to do something about that. But I don't think they stole 3 million votes, which is what Bush won by.

To explain that, one simply needs to look at how Kerry and Edwards watered down their message after they won the primaries to try to appeal to the idiot "undecideds" and in the process seemed to stand for nothing.

I agree with the poster. Blaming every loss on Diebold means we just keep losing because we never give the majority what they want--leadership.

"50 more democratic voters from every precinct, every state would have gone for Kerry."

Really?

security hole in it, suitable for hacking.

But Diebold itself didn't hack the vote. That had to be done by people with access to the computer on election day.

The central tabulator software was able to be changed by thousands of votes at a time, again and again and again.

What I said another time was that we don't need to prove the election was stolen.

What is certain is that the manufacturers of the machines and software left security back door access to vote totals. And that could have been used and can be used in the future.

Others here point out the GAO report, which I haven't looked at, which confirms election theft.

The hole in the software along with the literally thousands of reported irregularities are pretty overwhelming evidence.

The hole in the software was written by Diebold workers at least one of whom was a convict, and not by experts in computer science.

It only involved manipulating the most fundamental of databases in a programming language so simple it is called "Basic."

All I can do is repeat my belief and what I do know.

Why this issue tends to take on the tone of a religious "debate" is puzzling to me. It doesn't bode well for exchange of ideas and reasonable discourse, unfortunately.

then explain to me how we won any race? If it's so "basic", why are they just barely ahead when they had the means to annihilate us?

Throw it out of the ballpark?

Or add enough to win, but no more so as not to make it terribly obvious?

I'd probably steal a few more Senate seats.

"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."
____ Joseph Stalin

Of course development of intelligent policies and intelligent electioneering is important but ---

Without an accurate vote tally, electioneering skill means nothing.

we STILL learn nothing...and STILL lose.

comparable to when Oregon governor John Kitzhaber faced first an obvious idiot (Denny Smith) and then a fundamentalist loon (Bill Sizemore) to win his two terms by overwhelming margins.

Kerry should have been able to steamroller the Bushboy so flat that he'd always be invisible from the side. It should have been Johnson versus Goldwater all over again.

Diebold or no Diebold, the election was close enough to steal.

Like Gore, Kerry talked in vague generalities, didn't fight back against unwarranted attacks, and was hobbled by his inability to argue against a war that he himself voted for. I saw him in person twice, and he was NOT an exciting speaker. There was no over-arching vision of a brighter America, just a list of policies. Audiences cheered loudest at the mention of beating Bush rather than at the ideas he presented.

Voters who hated Bush, whether Democratic, Green, or Socialist, voted and volunteered for him, but he did NOT make the case to the less-informed voters, who at that point thought things were just fine. He did not explain how he could improve the lives of average Americans, and so the beloved and much-courted swing voters thought, "Might as well stick with the guy who's already in there" or "No reason to vote."

That is the task before the 2008 candidate, whoever it is: not only to bash the Republicans but also to speak to the average voter about his vision for the future of America. We need an FDR to undo the ruin wreaked on this nation in the past 25 years, but I fear that we'll get some inoffensive blow-dried, telegenic non-entity whose main purpose in life is to offend as few people as possible.

ON EDIT: Yes, I believe that electronic voting is a huge problem, but it's not the ONLY problem. It makes it possible to steal a close election. It does not make it possible to steal a landslide.

What makes you think they'd break a sweat stealing 3 million votes? Have you read the data? It's not only possible, I believe it happened.

Dissatisfaction with the candidate is another thing altogether. Kerry ran a shitty campaign. For instance, Bill Clinton would not have let the Swift Boat Liars get away with their crap. I used to love the way Clinton answered questions. He'd say yes or no and I'll tell you why. Kerry would go into a disjointed dissertation.

Still the bottom line can be drawn in Ohio where John Conyers has thoroughly investigated and eloquently outlined the rampant fraud that occurred. That state was rightfully Kerry's. That state would have change the election.

We cannot afford to trivialize the effects of electronic voting machine fraud. IMO there is no point voting again until that is resolved. I will never ever again trust the outcome of an election until it is dealt with.

claims of tampering. How many voters will avoid voting because they believe it won't matter? What if their particular precinct is flawless and those few dozen voters could have made the difference?

We should be encouraging so many people to vote our way that it is a landslide rather than encouraging them to give up.

it is the contrary.

It goes something like this, "It doesn't matter because they are going to steal the election anyway"

Sounds kinda defeatist to me.

here is an exert from a correspondence i had yesterday with a very dear and respected friend of mine. he is a skeptic at heart not unlike myself.

i just thought it should be injected into the dialog.

<snip>

Many people like to believe something can actually be done about this
whole mess, I am of the mind that it is far, far too late for the
people to regain any sort of control. The people who run things have
much too great an understanding of the public psyche, and know exactly
just how much they can get away with. Add to that the alarming increase in crowd control technology, and I have to believe that "the people" stand little chance at all.

It's all very disappointing, I know, and I wish I could paint a more
optimistic picture of the future, but, I'm just not seeing it. Of
course, the Liberal/Progressive elements are very much to blame for the dilemma, as they continue to brainwash opposition elements into believing that some "honest" President will come along shortly and somehow save everyone. The cynical choice of John Kerry should have sent red flags up in every opposition camp, as this had to have been the most foolish "Battle of Dunces" ever staged in a Presidential election. This is one reason I don't really get very involved with any of the "Bush Bashing" and all of that. The Rulers most likely enjoy seeing the Bush Bashing, as that's what he's there for: to absorb the sins of the regime and convince people that things will change once his administration is gone. In the end, the American people have become far too damaged psychologically to recognize what's happening around them, and, although certain "Truth Movements" seem to be making some headway, the scary thing is that people will accept the Truth while at the same time believing that the "System" will somehow rectify itself. In this way, the efforts of the 9/11 Truthers are wasted. 50% of New Yorkers believe in some sort of government complicity... an impressive figure, yet, these same people will march out to the polls and vote for some candidate, thinking that this is going to change things.

The goal of the "Conspiracy," then, isn't to hide the Truth, but to get
people to accept the Truth, while at the same time believing in the
system. Much like the way 90% of the people believe the government was involved with Kennedy's death, yet, they refuse to accept the implications of this. It's a type of schizophrenia. People just aren't mad enough and they're too easily placated through cheap food and toys. Perhaps the tee-pee idea isn't so bad after all. As Sartre said, The people deserve the government that they have. Time to save yourself and find a lifeboat before things get too strange.

<end snip>

You suggest that candidate Kerry has faults:

"I also think he is an artful and inept politician, who does not understand hand to hand political combat nor how to relate to the average American voter."

Then you omit that W has faults as well, such as appearing to be mostly ignorant and defeated in the debates.

********

You suggest that there were, as usual, some election irregularities:

"I am sure there were election irregularities. There have been in almost every election since the beginning of time."

You reach this conclusion, YOUR OPINION AGAIN, without any due consideration, IN YOUR REMARKS, of:

1). Very extensive factual problems documented with Diebold (electronic) voting machines.

2). Very extensive factual problems documented with the voting processes (such as in Ohio where voting resources were allocated disproportionately in favor of Republican precincts, which resulted in disproportionately more delays, lines, and lost votes for voters in heavily Democratic voting precincts).

3). Numerous other factual and documented irregularities with the 2004 vote.

You, THEREBY, made a thoroughly dismissive suggestion that the 2004 election irregularities were not substantially different or greater in scope and type than in previous elections.

You do so:

1). DESPITE the larger role of electronic voting nationwide and the Diebold machines that most of those votes were cast on.

2). DESPITE the OHIO Secretary of State employing a figurative "poll tax" on Democratic leaning precincts by his allowance of disproportionately lower distribution of voting resources to those precincts.

3). DESPITE the evidence that exists in support of these claims.

******

You wrote this comment:

"But I do not think Diebold or anyone else "stole" the last election."

But you haven't established or even tried to establish using any factual sources that the claims that the election was stolen are invalid, instead you dismiss them by stating your OPINION that they are invalid!


******

You then offer additional OPINION:

"John Kerry lost the election."

You offer innuendo by stating the obvious.

The final result of the 2004 presidential election demonstrates that Kerry lost, but you seem to be trying very hard to suggest by you choice of words that it was because "John Kerry lost (usage of a verb) the election"

This comment is, YOUR OPINION AGAIN, based on your other opinions and not on any factual offerings in your post and without any other possible causes for Kerry's defeat, especially election irregularities and/or theft.

******

Next, you make the following appraisal of YOUR OPINIONS:

"And I worry that by chronically solely blaming election fraud for our losses, we will not learn what we need to learn about how to win elections."

You blatantly state that there is a chronic blame of election fraud for election losses by Democrats.

Chronic?

Chronic?

Your choice of vocabulary surely would lead one to believe that this is some type of illness on the part of the Democratic Party.

Yet, you exaggerate your point and in doing so expose your vocabulary to be chosen carefully to discredit, rather than carefully to inform the readers of your off-base remarks.

You offer no evidence to support your point, but instead offer it as YOUR OPINION - AGAIN!

The word "solely" in your comment is plainly ignorant.

It is nothing more than your imagination when you suggest that DU'ers and the Democratic Party solely blame election fraud for their losses.

You offer no explanation of how you learned "it" and what "it" is that you know that Democrats didn't learn and don't know about "what we need to learn about how to win elections."

******

You OVERGENERALIZE and MISREPRESENT many fine threads in DU when you offer this OPINION:

"Every single thread about our prospects in '06 and '08 is heavily laced with comments like "doesn't matter what we do, they will steal it.""

In fact, many threads claim that without ensuring an accountable, verifiable voting policies, procedures, and systems (including electronic voting machines) that it is likely that the recently DEMONSTRATED (see above, for examples) election irregularities will continue to occur and justifiably call into question whether or not the elections are being stolen.

Your OPINIONS don't allow for such notions in DU about election theft and Democratic prospects.

*******

Next, this OPINION:

"That kind of defeatist thinking is an impediment to us strategizing and focusing and nominating candidates who can win. It is the kind of thinking that dismisses the reality of the work we have to do to reframe the debate."

You label, again to discredit, DU members and/or the Democratic Party as employing "defeatist thinking," then go on to OPINE that that is an "impediment to us strategizing and focusing and nominating candidates who can win" to AGAIN discredit DU'ers and/or the Democratic Party as having candidates who CANNOT win, only to add to that that those DU'ers and the Democratic Party "have to" do work to reframe "the debate!"

You offer no suggestions on what is missing from the Democratic Party's agenda in "the debate," and you make no mention of what is wrongly offered in the Democratic Party's agenda in "the debate."

Instead, your OPINION here utilizes Republican Neo-con Lexicon and gives the appearance of discrediting DU'ers and Democrats by relying on absolutely no supporting evidence to make outrageous claims.

******

Further, you make a claim in support of eliminating or minimizing election fraud, and then you strangely try to distance yourself from your preceding OPINIONS that such efforts are misplaced and overblown:

"Eliminating or minimizing election fraud is an important task, and we have brave, committed, dedicated souls who are leading the fight to ensure that we have honest elections. I in no way mean to minimize that struggle."

How can you say that you "in no way mean to minimize that struggle" when the thrust of you OPINIONS up to this point in your thread DO EXACTLY THAT?

Note your use of the word "souls" again invokes the Republican Neo-con Lexicon.

You then knock DU'ers and the Democratic Party and their supporters as needing to become better strategists and more focused politicians:

"But, it must go hand in hand with us learning how to be better strategists and more focused politicians."

You AGAIN use YOUR OPINION to discredit DU'ers and the Democratic Party by supporting your thesis of OPINIONS by relying on another YOUR OPINIONS: You "do not think Diebold or anyone else "stole" the last election."

After all, you rely on your above opinion as fact in making such a declaration that DU'ers and the Democratic Party need to "be better strategists and more focused politicians."

******

FINALLY, you complete your remarks with a dab of additional Republican Neo-con Lexicon when you add angelic ornaments to your array of OPINIONS:

"We have the angels on our side ideologically. Our task is to learn how to effectively make middle America fully understand that the angels who dance with us are standing on their shoulders as well."

Ah, yes, "angels" and more "angels," are very convincing to middle Americans, aren't they?

Ideologically?

What ideology is that?

Republican Neo-con ideology?

******

Your thread seems like a Republican talking points attack on DU'ers and the Democratic Party.

Your thread is severely lacking in facts and overloaded with overgeneralized OPINIONS.

Your thread exposes you as either a very disingenuous Democrat or a Republican Neo-con supporter in DU'ers clothes.

You thread is neither the work of an insightful fellow Democrat who is being supportive of the causes that unite the Democrats OR offering of solutions to problems that you allege exist for DU'ers and the Democratic Party.

Your harsh criticism and discrediting OPINIONS of DU'ers and the Democratic Party seem to do no more than divide DU'ers and Democratic Party members into two groups:

1). Those who can discern your Republican Neo-con Lexicon and OPINIONS as just OPINIONS presented, without supporting evidence IN YOUR POST, but without merit as more than propaganda.

2). Those who cannot discern your Republican Neo-con Lexicon and OPINIONS as just OPINIONS presented, without supporting evidence IN YOUR POST, but without merit as more than propaganda, who might ignorantly be inclined to become convinced of your OPINIONS as some sort of facts or truths.

I do, however, give you credit for your valiant effort to splinter and render as useless the Democratic Party's most fervent supporters.

You put forth a real whopper of a thread.

The fact that you have to reach into the gutter to question someone's Democratic bona fides in order to respond to an opinion you disagree with just demonstrates my point in spades.

I have written, and responded to, many posts about how we must reframe the debate, in very specific language, on specific issues. I have discussed, in depth, in that context, Iraq, national security, immigration, abortion, gay marriage, taxes, healthcare, privacy rights, and a host of wedge issues which I believe could work very effectively for our side. Many of use here have had long, in depth discussions about the ideas of Thomas Frank and Lakoff and how their theses can be applied in practice to bring home traditionally Democratic voters in the ensuing elections. If you didn't read any of the aforementioned threads, or if you disrupted them, that tells me all I need to know where your head is at.

I wrote my post out of frustration because half of the discussions that I and others have been involved in recently were HIJACKED by one issue devotees inserting their defeatist "it wont' matter what we do, because it's all rigged" mantra and trying to thus destroy the productive brainstorming. Candidates read this forum, and I would hope they occasionally get ideas from us, or our discussions spark some thought. But I wouldn't blame them if they stopped reading here out of disgust.

You do yourself no favors by accusing me (and everyone else) who want to focus on strategy and winning of being "Republican neo cons." It's the worst form of juvenile debate, and, again more than anything else, only illustrates the character of the shrill accuser.

I don't have to demonstrate to you my Democratic bona fides. And neither does any other committed Democrat who agrees with me. This forum is for Democrats to discuss ideas with each other. On occasion, that discussion is going to be an internal examination of Democratic strategy, without references to this administration. I didn't criticize George Bush in this thread, because this thread is NOT ABOUT him. It's about us. Read my other hundreds of posts lambasting Bush where it is relevant to do so.

Your post is laced with red herrings, personal attack idiocies, angry language and regrettable misinterprations (putting it politely) of what I wrote. It really didn't even merit a response, but I had a couple of extra minutes this morning and thought I'd waste them.

may I remind you of your behavior on another thread?
you can dish it out, but can't take it.
just a teensy hypocritical, eh?

is inappropriate, then I suggest we have a different set of values.

And you keep harping on me, when the person who was agreeing with you on your thread was the one who instigated the hostility.

And as I noted there, you said nothing to him. A bit selective, eh?

And of course, you couldn't respond to that, because how could you?

Re read this OP, there is no attack on anyone, yet everyone who agrees with me gets vile, juvenile insults thrown at them by you and your compatriots.

Very telling.

period.

just pointing out your hypocrisy.

his post, before he edited it, was hostile and juvenile. Just like yours was (before YOU eidted it) after I pointed out the fact that you SELECTIVELY pointed to polls that seemed to prove your point, when there were MANY other polls that DISPROVED your point.

Your rage aside, you still haven't addressed the fact that numerous people disproved your contention with factual references. You just continue to respond with anger.

And now you follow me around, throwing snide remarks at me.

Does wonders for your cause, let me tell you.

All you proved were some statistical discrepancies, that's all.

My point stands and that is that Diebold remains a serious threat to democracy.

And you are a silly man.

I'm done. I invite you to have the last word since it seems so critical to you to dominate. Not be right, just dominate.

Your entire post was based on statistics. If the statistics were flawed, or you omitted other statistics showing just the opposite result (which I don't think you did intentionally), then your premise is not proven.

On a more important note, hope you feel better. I know the flu can be awful.

love,

the silly dominating man

Your original post was guilty as charged by the judged, and your response to it was more of the same: Opinions gone wild.

and yes I responded to him. Sorry it didn't jive with what you felt I should say.

Facts mentioned in these posts:

Kerry did get 59 million votes
He did get more than any other Democratic candidate
The machines did malfunction
Voters were turned away from the polls
The GAO did issue a report
Conyers also issued a report.

A lot of facts posted here.

anything written in the OP. And I was referring to commentary. I can say that John Kerry ran a slipshod campaign, and the underlying FACT that Kerry ran for President is self evident. But the rest of it is commentary. Just as we can point to some electon irregularities as fact. But the conclusions we draw from that fact are entirely our own.

an opinion even if based on an underlying fact. Stating that the GAO issued a report citing election irregularities is neither an opinion or an implied fact. It is a stated fact.

"Sorry it didn't jive with what you felt I should say."

To be sure, I have not felt you should say anything.

Your suggestion is wholly fabricated.

Lastly, I repeat:

Your original post was guilty as charged by the judged, and your response to it was more of the same: Opinions gone wild.

voting?

The answer is that we MUST NOT LET IT. We must strategize on the basis of truth. There is really no other way to restore democracy. One, we need the people in order to repair this non-transparent election system; two, they have a RIGHT TO KNOW what is going on (NOT KNOWING creates demoralization and disempowerment); and three, they need to know how VALUABLE their vote is, and that THAT is WHY it was taken away.

Our collective sovereignty as a people--which we implement through voting--has the potential power to dismantle global predator corporations, and stop war, forever. WE have the power to create world peace and justice, and, not incidentally, to save our dying plant. We are uniquely situated to do so, as American citizens with the LEGAL RIGHT to throw off corporate rule (the entities causing all the trouble) and seriously reform our government. That's WHY they have corrupted our election system and are reversing our votes.

Our message must be: NEVER, NEVER, NEVER give up on your right to vote! NEVER! The election system is damn well rigged--but we CAN fix it, and we CAN overcome it with sheer numbers in the meantime.*

Demoralization and disempowerment occur when you DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON. That's where most Americans are at right now--they are hugely anti-Bush (and have been for some time; read the issue polls, you will be amazed) and they DON'T UNDERSTAND why he's still in power, and how other Americans can have endorsed a trillion dollar deficit, unjust war, the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocents, torture, multiple tax cuts for the rich, and all the rest. If they KNEW about the election system--and UNDERSTOOD that they have been DISENFRANCHISED--they would have beginning conditions for RE-EMPOWERMENT, rather than depression, disgust and despair.

Re-empowerment and re-enfranchisement require EYES WIDE OPEN. You have to know what's wrong in order to fix it!

Instead of looking at the 2004 election evidence--the rigged SYSTEM, and the overwhelming case that they used it to keep Bush in power--people often argue from speculation and theory. 'Well, if it's rigged, why didn't they win ALL the elections?' Or, 'where's the PROOF? Where's the slam dunk case for a court of law?' (--missing the point that the election system is NON-TRANSPARENT, designed to be impenetrable, and therefore invalid on its face, AND there is overwhelming evidence that Kerry won, from external sources like the exit polls, and from massive internal anomalies). Or, people say, 'surely the Democrats wouldn't let that happen.' I hear this one a lot. And the answer is: They DID let it happen. And we can argue all night about WHY (some of it corruption or collusion, some of it fear, some of it ignorance), but this cannot change the FACT of it--that this is our STARTING reality for the 06 and 08: We have a serious handicap going in, which our party did not disclose in '04, and is not working hard enough to change now.

-------

Note: Russ Holt has a bill, HR 550, that will stop the corporate privatization of our election system in its tracks, and reverse it. It has 169 co-sponsors (mostly Dems). Sign the petition at: http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html

The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (H.R. 550) will require full implementation of the following provisions by *2006*:

--Prohibit the use of undisclosed software and wireless and concealed communications devices and internet connections in voting machines (!!!);•
--Mandate a voter-verified paper ballot for every vote cast in every federal election; a ballot verified by the voters rather than by the machines, that will serve as the vote of record vs. electronic records (!!!);
--Provide Federal funding for voter-verified paper ballots;
--Require random, unannounced, hand-count audits of actual election results in every state, and in each county, for every Federal election;
--Protect HAVA voting rights for those with disabilities.

-------


The election system that was put into place in the 2002-2004 period is FRAUDULENT. It is NON-TRANSPARENT, non-auditable and controlled by Republican partisan companies with SECRET, PROPRIETARY software and firmware. Congress created a $4 billion boondoggle for conversion to electronic voting (the falsely named "Help America Vote Act), which BUSHITE companies benefited from: $4 billion into the pockets of Bushite companies like Diebold and ES&S, with some of it going right back into Republican campaign coffers. And people think they didn't USE this insecure, hackable, not-ready-for-prime-time electronic voting system to keep Bush in power? Give me a break. Show me ANY action of Bushite Republicans over the last five years that was not aimed at DE-FRAUDING, LOOTING AND LYING TO the American people and destroying our democracy. ANY ACTION! But they didn't take advantage of the NON-TRANSPARENT, PARTISAN-CONTROLLED election system that THEY created? Right. (You really don't need the mountain of evidence that Kerry won, but WITH all that evidence, it's a no-brainer.)

ANOTHER problem of common perception is belief that the war profiteering corporate news monopolies would more or less tell us the truth--give us valid numbers--about the election.

The best verification tool we had for the 2004 election was the exit polls conducted by one pollster (Edison-Mitofsky) on behalf of all the war profiteering corporate news monopolies. These are independent, scientific polls of people who actually voted on election day (after they voted). All day long, on Nov. 2, 2004, these polls were saying Kerry won. Around 6 pm, they shut down the reporting system for several hours, with a so-called computer glitch, and when it came back up, the totals had magically changed to a Bush win. Magic, indeed. What they had done was to FALSIFY the exit poll numbers to make them MATCH the results of Diebold's and ES&S's secret vote tabulation formulae. This was not the normal adjustment of exit polls to fit election day demographics. They DOCTORED these numbers in IMPOSSIBLE ways, to confirm the SECRETLY tabulated ("official") Bush win, and to hide major evidence that, in truth, he lost.

See www.TruthIsAll.net for an analysis of what they did. (The pollster has now admitted that Kerry won the exit polls.)

THIS reality is very hard for people to take in--that the news monopolies put FALSE NUMBERS on everybody's TV screens, hiding major evidence of election fraud. People have been suckered not by the propaganda about the war (they overwhelmingly rejected that way back BEFORE the war--58% opposed to the Iraq war, Feb. '03, across the board in all polls), nor by the other fascist lies and 'talking points,' but rather they have been suckered by the ILLUSION that they, the great progressive American majority, are the minority, and that what they are seeing on TV, or hearing on radio, or in some cases, reading in newspapers, TRULY REFLECTS THE OPINIONS OF OTHER AMERICANS, and IS MORE OR LESS PROVIDING FACTUAL INFORMATION.

Well, the war profiteering corporate news monopolies are reflecting the opinions of SOME Americans--a small minority--30%! --and maybe as much as 40% on some issues. The great majority of Americans oppose every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, way up in the 60% to 70% range, across the board in all polls, and have for some two years now. And this great progressive American majority has been edited out of our nation's corporate news and opinion coverage; and neither is it being properly represented in Washington DC, in proportion to its numbers.

As for providing factual information, you can MAYBE trust their reports on "injury accidents" on the freeway, and POSSIBLY what the weather was yesterday, and that's about it. You only have to review the coverage of Bush's war to know this. Virtually EVERY WORD that they broadcast or printed was aimed at creating the ILLUSION of majority American support for Bush's war on Iraq that DID NOT EXIST.

Most people are living in the frigging "MATRIX" of corporate controlled ILLUSION. And we MUST get them out of it, if our democracy is to be saved. And you can't do that by LYING to them that everything is okay, and that if they just get out and vote, and contribute to the Democratic Party, everything will be put right.

It is NOT TRUE. Diebold and ES&S control the primaries as well as the general election. They--and their buds in the war profiteering corporate news monopolies--WILL NOT PERMIT a true, populist, antiwar candidate to succeed. Despite the utterly overwhelming American revulsion at Bush's war (and all Bush Cartel policy), we WILL have a War Democrat shoved down our throats as our ONLY choice in '08. The election system is NON-TRANSPARENT, and EASILY riggable, and the fascists who are running it, and the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, and, yes, some of our Democratic leaders, are hell bent upon KEEPING it that way.

That is our situation. And we MUST face it, and strategize REALISTICALLY, in order to overcome it--for instance,a) by getting a bill like Holt's HR 550 passed by the skin of its teeth now, or b) by wheedling a commitment to transparent elections from the War Democrat that the fascists may put in the White House in '08, for their own purposes (for instance, to get a military Draft, which Bush can't do), and getting a national bill through THEN, or c), barring those national solutions, continuing our with election reform movements at the state/local level, and continuing to put as much pressure on our Dem leaders as possible to support honest elections.

There are no easy solutions. There will be no easy victory. We have to fight, relentlessly, for democracy to be restored!


--------------

* (I'm pretty sure they had to pre-program the tweak to Bush in 2004, and could not easily change that programming on election day. It was rigged for a 3% to 4% tweak, which occurred in the east coast time zone, early on, and in the battleground states. That's what exit poll analysis shows. The very visible, overt suppression of Dem votes in Ohio was a desperate act, needed to overcome a BIGGER Kerry win than expected. Ergo--if conditions remain the same in the electronic voting systems--it IS POSSIBLE to overcome the fraud with sheer numbers of Dem/progressive votes.

(However, they ARE experimenting with massive vote flipovers. Recently, in Ohio, four ELECTION REFORM initiatives were predicted to win by 60/40 votes, and were flipped over to 60/40 LOSSES on election day. (The machines and their masters are now dictating election policy and PREVENTING reform--a chilling Orwellian twist!)

(Read Bob Koehler's article on the Ohio initiatives. It's damn scary (but then, what isn't these days?):
http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?custid=67&catid=1824 ).

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General information:

For an easy to read pamphlet on the perils of electronic voting ("Myth Breakers") (One of the myths is that HAVA mandated electronic voting; it did NOT; we and election officials still have a choice!):
www.votersunite.org

For a project for statistical analysis, monitoring and challenges in '06 and '08:
www.UScountvotes.org

More info: www.verifiedvoting.org

For the recent GAO report on the horrendous insecurity of our voting system in 2004:
access to pdf: http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-05-956
text only: http://www.gao.gov/htext/d05956.html

For evidence of the lavish lobbying by Bushite electronic voting companies that is corrupting local election officials on a bipartisan basis (a week of fun, sun and high end shopping, for election officials from around the country, sponsored by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia, this summer, at the Beverly Hilton (hold your nose):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

Ring of Fire, Robert Kennedy Jr.'s Air America show on corporate accountability: Show on the 2004 stolen election NEXT SATURDAY 12/17, announced on last week's show):
Sat. 5-7 pm (ET)
Sun. rebroadcast: 3-5 pm (ET)
http://shows.airamericaradio.com/ringoffire/

:toast:

on Diebold and raise hell with our senators and representatives. For some reason we dems, and I'm one of them, seem to go off in different directions with very valid complaints. When we finally get back together again we look like a back lash on a open face fishing reel. We have to pick one topic, and Diebold would be good, and hammer it down their throats until they say "give". 1,000 different talking points won't cut it.

I didn't know sheep could use the Internets.

What is with this "all or nothing" or "black or white" mentality? The fact is quite obvious that the GOP uses several techniques to steal elections in America. The idea that one must either agree totally or disagree totally is just plain silly. In addition, whether one believes in electronic manipulation or not, cannot everyone agree that the system should be verifiable and transparent?

And I agree with every word you said! With my few number of posts, I'd have been scrubbed, so thanks for saying it so well!

Perhaps the good General should seek the Republican nomination next time.

On the same subject, this letter is published today on the DU homepage:

Dear Howard Dean: Why Bother?

December 13, 2005
By Ernest Partridge, The Crisis Papers

Dr. Howard Dean, Chair
Democratic National Committee

Dear Dr. Dean,

Every week I get dozens of solicitations from the Democratic National Committee, from the Democratic Senate and Congressional Campaign Committees, or from various Democratic candidates and office-holders, each of them asking for contributions. "You can help us achieve victory next November," I am told.

If by "victory" is meant a majority vote cast at the polls, then the Democrats achieved "victory" in 2000, 2002 and 2004. And yet, the Republicans remain in control of the Congress and the White House.

Small wonder! Republicans build the voting machines, Republicans write the secret software, Republicans count and compile the totals. The Republican machines allow no auditing of the vote totals they report. So Republicans have the ability to "win" elections, regardless of the will of the voters. There is compelling evidence that they have done just that.

<...>

http://www.democraticunderground.com/crisis/05/041_ep.html