For Those Who Think It's Time To Stop Blaming Diebold

Here are some of the 2002 Magical Overnight Point Swings. Let us NOT forget. Ever.

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****Poll by Atlanta Journal Constitution/WSB-TV of 800 likely voters on Nov. 1 For Georgia Governor

Roy Barnes (D) 51% up 11
Sonny Perdue (R) 40%

** "Official Results" from the 'Diebold Electronic Voting Machines' on Nov. 5

Roy Barnes (D) 46%
Sonny Perdue (R) 51% up 5 - that's a 16-point pro-Bush swing - was it magic?

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

****Poll by Atlanta Journal Constitution Nov. 1 for Georgia Senate

Max Cleland (D) 49% up 5
Saxby Chambliss (R) 44%

**"Official Results" from the 'Diebold Electronic Voting Machines'

Max Cleland (D) 46%
Saxby Chambliss 53% up 7 - that's a 13-point pro-Bush swing - was it magic?

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

****Poll by MSNBC/Zogby on Nov. 3 for Colorado Senate

Tom Strickland (D) 53% up 9
Wayne Allard (R) 44%

** "Official Results"

Tom Strickland (D) 46%
Wayne Allard (R) 51% up 5 - that's a 14-point pro-Bush swing - was it magic?

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

****Minneapolis Star-Tribune Poll on Nov. 3 for Minnesota Senate

Walter Mondale (D) 46% up 5
Norm Coleman (R) 41%

** "Official Results"

Norm Coleman (R) 50%
Walter Mondale (D) 47% up 3 that's an 8-point pro-Bush swing - was it magic?
Did they let this one stay close because they knew MN loved Mondale?

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

****Poll by St. Louis Dispatch/Zogby on Nov. 3 for Illinois Governor

Rod Blagojevich (D) 52% up 7
Jim Ryan (R) 45%

**"Official Results"

Rod Blagojevich (D) 43%
Jim Ryan (R) 44% up 1 that's an 8-point pro-Bush swing - was it magic?

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

****Poll by Concord, NH Monitor on Nov. 3 for New Hampshire Senate

Jeanne Shaheen (D) 47% up 1
John E. Sununu (R) 46%

**"Official Results"

Jeanne Shaheen (D) 47%
John E. Sununu (R) 51% up 4 that's a 5-point pro-Bush swing - was it magic?

When will we have a new Boston Tea Party with these abominations? Liberty is dead when our votes are "collected" by private companies. If we don't do something about it. it's time to leave for good.

Are squishy American brains epidemic?

why recommend this? Does it even respond in any relevant way to the post it's intended to respond to? How could it? It was written in 2002.

win by 60/40 votes, and got flipped over on election day to a 60/40 LOSS!--the most audacious flipover yet. It appears that the machines and their masters are now dictating election policy and PREVENTING reform--a chilling Orwellian twist.

See Bob Koehler's article on the Ohio initiatives:http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?custid=67&catid=1824

NEVER forget. NEVER give up. The dream of democracy will never die in the human heart. We've been lazy and non-vigilant. We've taken it all for granted. Now we have to reclaim it. It is our turn to rise to the occasion and insure that our great democratic heritage is passed along to the future.

Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

...as well as an illegtimate pResident.

a few of their gripes.

How fast people forget!

the poster who said we should stop blaming Diebold was original, and it was written by the person who posted it, and it was written the day they posted it.

A cut-and-post job from November 2002, without attribution, and irrelevant to the post you were responding to, is a poor response, imo.

http://www.voxfux.com/articles(closed)/00000051.htm

This came from an article I wrote in 2002, a copy of which I posted here: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/viewtopic.php?topic=12773&forum=8

The "proof" I was asked for on another thread regarding magical point swings entailed numbers actually gleaned from the ever delightful Bart at www.bartcop.com. I don't appreciate you taking it upon yourself to summarily dismiss and falsely attribute what I post.

These are statistics, dear, and I'm terribly sorry my "cut and paste" job without attribution, myself, is deemed a poor response to the idiotic notion that we don't need to worry about Diebold anymore.

I recommend people read it.

You may not agree with it, but it is the product of thought, it's not just the poster bombarding us with cut and paste propaganda.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2302889

Why do YOU support Diebold, you got stock in it or something? :shrug:

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Rod Blagojevich WON in Illinois in 2002, and is currently sitting in the state house as our governor. You just lost any validity you might ever have had.

Mistakes are mistakes. They do not lose someone "any validity you might ever have had."

I agree that Diebold & co. are not--by any means--our only problem as a country. Before Diebold & co., there was our filthy campaign contribution system, and our bought and paid for representatives--the means by which Diebold & co. lobbied their way into our election system, reaping the benefit of Congress' $4 billion electronic voting boondoggle, and inflicting the public with highly insecure, unreliable, hackable voting machines, run on "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY vote tabulation software and firmware, with virtually no audit/recount capability. Without the former--a filthy political system--we would not have the latter. (It was Tom Delay who bottled up the "paper trail" requirement for electronic voting in committee, for instance.)

That rightwing Bushite corporations--Diebold and ES&S--are the ones now tabulating our votes with SECRET, PROPRIETARY software and firmware--is also attributable to political corruption (among Dems and Repubs). (How else explain the Dems' silence on this FACT? Are the Dems insane?)

But we can't DO anything about the filthy campaign contribution system, or the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, or the trillion dollar deficit, or the unconscionable, extensive, repeated tax cuts for the rich, or the horrible war, or anything else, until we have TRANSPARENT ELECTIONS.

The Democrats can gabble all they want about common sense, good government and progressive policies, and the grass roots can do astonishing organizing again, to get out the vote (the Dems blew the Repubs away in new voter registration, nearly 60/40, in 2004), but it's almost all useless if Diebold and ES&S determine the results in secret.

We might be able to win some elections by a boffo voter turnout, and overcome this fraudulent election system with our sheer numbers. I do think this is possible. And, with good, solid antiwar and populist candidates, it's even more possible. (I think Kerry would have overcome the 3% tweak they did in 2004, and even the additional 1% to 2% Dem vote suppression in Ohio, Florida and other places--total of 4% to 5% margin of victory--if he'd been antiwar, in which case his margin would have been more like 7% to 10%.)

So I say: restoring our right to vote, with TRANSPARENT elections, is a first priority. It's not a matter of "forgetting" or "not forgetting." It's a matter of being sane.

It was a complete and total absence of fact checking, on a point which has been prima facie clear to the entire country for three years, and which was also pointed out at the time in the original dialog on the page from which the erroneous stats were copied.

Saying that Jim Ryan has been governor of Illinois for the past three years is not just a mistake. It's bonehead stupid, and evidence of absolute carelessness in regard to facts. It's like saying the earth is flat.

On the other hand, I agree completely with you about the absolute necessity for transparent elections. I just don't think that uncritical regurgitation of blatant falsehoods is the way to get there, and is in fact counter productive.

The following is bartcop's correction to the origianl stats I posted. A mistake. But this hardly disputes my point. Nice try, though.

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The Veterans Day issue, Volume 926 - President suspect apparently contained an error.

I know, you're shocked that such a thing could happen, but it did.

From: Half the people in Illinios

Subject: Another bartcop.com error

I know you don't have the staff to check on everything, but this was was in the polls section:

>****Poll by St. Louis Dispatch/Zogby on Nov. 3 for Illinois Governor

> Rod Blagojevich (D) 52% up 7
> Jim Ryan (R) 45%

>**"Official Results"
> Rod Blagojevich (D) 43%
> Jim Ryan (R) 44% up 1 that's an 8-point pro-Bush swing - was it magic?

http://www.bartcop.com/0928.htm

and the St. Louis Dispatch poll had Ryan up 44% to 43%.

So, the numbers in your example are reversed. It would be good if you could correct the information in your original post.

I unarchived an article I wrote, found the attribution I made to bartcop, and just posted those figures here. In spite of some of the discrepancies in bartcop's figures - he was needless to say beside himself at that time - the point stands that Diebold is a bona fide Republican cheat machine.

I think those anxious to support the notion that we don't need to worry about Diebold are attacking these numbers, IMO as subterfuge, but the gist of bartcop's compilation stands. I wish I could correct the numbers too to assuage the naysayers and redirect them to the real point that they don't want to discuss.

In order to further junior's demented agenda, Republicans needed to TAKE Congress, and this is where it happened.

Don't add words or motives to my post that aren't there. I simply attempted to point out that this one "mistake" was so outrageously egregious as to cast serious doubts in the mind of the public as to the credibility of any of the information. The enemies of democracy are looking for any excuse to dismiss election reform advocates as wing-nuts and crackpots. This sort of carelessness only makes the job harder.

I'm sorry if I overstressed my point, or gave offense to you personally. I just get a little testy when I see mistakes that were corrected three years ago get repeated all fresh and new.

I have the same response to the huge number of sundry and miscellaneous snippets of urban folklore that well meaning people forward to my in-box on a regular basis. I'm talking here about all the fake kids fighting various misfortunes, or the bogus claims that Microsoft or someone is donating for each time a specific email is sent, or that Hillary dissed the DAR, or that Bush had a telling Freudian slip, etc., etc.

Forwarding of information that has already been shown to be in error is just a hot button for me, I guess.

I have the butt-kicking flu right now, posted this in the wee hours in response to a thread claiming EVMs without a paper trail were no big thang. I had worked on Rush Holt's HR-2239 and vehemently beg to differ. I had written an overview on this in 2002, resurrected a copy of my article, and used the data I compiled at that time, specifically from bartcop whom I attributed in my original article (see link upthread FYI). I apologize profusely for what can be justifiably called a sloppy post. But the issue was too huge to just let slide.

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

I think it's time to stop blaming Diebold exclusively. It is a factor -- a big one -- no doubt! But, we have got to do better at all the other things that will get us elected in spite of them. Better candidates (ones with actual spines would be nice), better issues, a united and LIBERAL Party platform (we need to start standing not only for something, but the SAME something), and an absolute intolerance for cooperation and collusion with the Republican Party.

Just my opinion.

TC

Please read Off Center, by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson. Very dry, but scholarly work about this whole mess.

One of the best statistical research they've done shows that Republicans start out in any national election with a 4-6% advantage in most districts (especially in the Electoral College) due to the HEAVY GERRYMANDERING over the last 20 years. The issue is that all minority and dem voting has been diluted by redistricting. We've been set up to fail like a game at a carnival.

I assert that even if we had voter verified paper ballots, we would still lose due to the dilution of the minority vote. The Repubs have got a 4-6% advantage. Without Diebold. Period. They cheat through redistricting.

THIS IS A BIGGER PROBLEM THAN DIEBOLD AND ES&S - because no one is talking about it or doing anything about it!

Same pattern everywhere!
Please sign the HR 550 petition, Rush Holt's comprehensive election reform bill if you haven't yet, and encourage your Rep to add his/her name to the 159 House sponsors. It's the best everyone can do right now!
http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html

After HR-2239 was ignored in the House, I lost all hope. But the Dems aren't giving up and it is critical we fix this gaping hole in our democratic process.

I apologize for the inaccuracies I quoted from bartcop, but there is no question the exit polling was in start contrast to many of the EVM final tallies. That's the point that seems to elude some people here.

**Poll by SurveyUSA on 11/07/05 for Virginia Governor 804 Likely Voters +/- 3.5%**
Kaine(D) 50%
Kilgore(R) 45%

**Official Results**
Kaine(D) 52% Up 2
Kilgore(R) 46% Up 1

Virginia uses electronic voting machines as well in most parts of the state including where I live. Was the vote hacked? No. I believe that we need accountable voting machines with paper trails and that voting irregularities are a serious problem. However, we can't continue to only blame Diebold when there are a host of other factors at play. Yeah, some of the swings that you cite are huge but Colorado, Georgia, and New Hampshire are republican leaning and the unjustified media frenzy around the Wellstone memorial service may have hurt Mondale.

in your area? Rethugs or dems? How does your state determine the count? Is there not a Blackwell figure involved? I was under the impression that it only takes a handful of people (maybe even just one) to change the count. I don't know if they could get away with it without some sort of collusion from election authorities. Just a thought... As for the huge swings, nothing compares to the most recent vote in Ohio on the props 1-5... most damning seeing as how Rethug Prop 1 passed according to exit polls, but polls on 2-5 were off by LARGE numbers (one of them by 40 points or so)... all voting integrity issues. Fitrakis is the author of the article. I'm looking for the link... couldn't find it on a quick search. Wasserstein is co-author and it's about the Nov 2005 props...

but what you're missing AK, is that OTHER last minute polls showed the margins to be almost exactly what they turned out to be on election day.

But you don't post those polls because they invalidate your point.

Again, I'm not saying fraud doesn't exist and we shouldn't work to eliminate it.

But we can't run around being defeatist saying it doesn't matter what we do, because they will steal the election regardless.

Fraud is an important issue. But revamping the way we frame our message and learning how to be far better strategists is vital to our return to majority status.

if you had read all this thread, you would know my OP was actually based on an article I wrote that included but far from being based entirely on some data from bartcop in 2002.

I reject your assertion that my intention is to deceive.

To deny that there wasn't a glaring discrepancy between the exit polling - and that indeed is the absolute final last minute poll, is it not? - and the final EVM tallies is purposeful ignorance, in my opinion.

Nobody is disputing we have other issues regarding elections. There is no black and white argument here. But to trivialize or even minimize the abject fraud that has occurred is done at your own peril as a citizen.

And I don't appreciate the personal attacks from you and others in my efforts to state my position.

it is about polls run by newspapers/polling outfits a few days before the elections that year.

and, again, I point out that there were OTHER polls run by newspapers/polling outfits that year, just prior to the election, which turned out to be fairly reliable predictors of the actual results.

And that isn't intended as a personal attack at all. Merely that I disagree with the methodology with which you attempt to validate your argument.

And again, we agree on many points. But we disagree that there is a huge organized conspiracy to commit fraud. I see fraud as a problem, but as a random and too common part of larger voting irregularities, including voter registration issues, etc.

And, yes, the exit polling in '04 was unusual. But the folks who run those polls have fully explained their faulty methodology and until they are proven, with hard evidence, to be liars, I have no reason to disbelieve them.

Believe what you want.

The Republicans are counting on complacency and gullibility and inability to imagine a rampant "huge organized conspiracy to commit fraud."

Well done.

While some are content to trash the candidates and split the efficacy of a party voting en bloc, the rest of us will continue to work on putting a leash on the electronic voting machines.

You can thank us later. Or not.

You state:
...there were OTHER polls run by newspapers/polling outfits that year, just prior to the election, which turned out to be fairly reliable predictors of the actual results.

Pony up, please. Show us the link that backs your claim. I remember polls, even exit polls, showing the loosers should have been winners.

So, show us your polls. Or you have zero credibility. Your choice.

For starters,

The OP mentions a Star Tribune poll showing Mondale ahead.

There is no mention of a St Paul Pioneer press poll showing Coleman ahead by six points.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/3406448.html


The St. Paul Pioneer Press/ Minnesota Public Radio also polled 625 active voters at the same time as the Minnesota Poll. It found Coleman with 47 percent of the support and Mondale with 41 percent, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 points. The difference between the polls suggests an electorate in tremendous flux but also could be the result of different polling methods.



also, as noted by others the OP got the facts BACKWARDS in the Illinois race. But the OP also only cites one Zogby poll, showing a dead heat.

Two OTHER polls in the final days showed Blagojevich comfortably ahead. And he did win, comfortably, just as those polls indicated.

http://www.research2000.us/in_the_news/20021101_voters_favor_blagojevich.php


The Pantagraph-WEEK-TV survey of 600 likely voters indicates that the congressman from Chicago continues to hold a commanding lead over Republican Jim Ryan heading into the final days of the 2002 gubernatorial campaign.

The statewide poll, which was conducted by Research 2000 of Rockville, Md., also shows U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, likely will coast to re-election on Tuesday.

... In the governor's race, the survey showed Blagojevich with a 53-42 advantage over the two-term attorney general. Two weeks ago, a similar Research 2000 poll had Blagojevich leading 53 percent to 39 percent.

While the newest numbers point to a late surge by Ryan, pollster Del Ali said it is unlikely that Ryan will be able to close the 11 point gap by the time voters go to the polls Tuesday. The margin of error for the poll was 4 percent



Additionally, A USA Today Gallup did indeed indicate a last minute surge for Republicans across the country. Another poll strangely missing from the OP.

http://www.zogby.com/soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=4864


Nationally, the CNN/USA TODAY/Gallup Poll did report a movement toward Republican congressional candidates on Monday.

"I have to give credit where credit is due. Gallup had suggested that there was a Republican move," said John Zogby, president of Zogby International. "With that said, there were a number of races that were too close to call. That made it hard to determine a direction."




There were bad polls that year, sure, just as there are every year. Some of those bad polls indicated a dead heat or a Republican win and it turned out a Democrat won. Some of those polls indicated a Democratic win when, in fact, the Republican turned out the majority.

But there was not uniformity in polling in 2002 that showed that vast numbers of Democrats were heading for victory only to see their hopes dashed on election day, as the OP infers.

There were bad and good polls on both sides of the equation.

Which is exactly the info missing in the OP.

Okay, slick?

I clicked on two of your links, here's what I found: In the first one Mondale is shown ahead in the polls. The OP says nothing about Coleman being in the lead. Wow.

The poll, conducted Wednesday through Friday, shows Mondale at 46 percent and Coleman at 41 percent, but that falls within the margins of sampling error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/3406448.html
==========================

Pollsters may have goofed in not picking up the Republican surge in Georgia, however, some pollsters said. In the Senate race, for instance, Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland by a margin of 53 to 46 percent.
The Hotline, a political news service, recalled a series of polls Wednesday showing that Chambliss had been ahead in none of them. The closest was the most recent Zogby International poll that had showed Cleland leading 46 to 44 percent, within the plus or minus 4 point margin of error.

"I don't think you can make a blanket statement that polls were less accurate," said Greenberg, whose firm handled political polling for Bill Clinton while he was president. "For one thing, the public doesn't see 99 percent of the polls that candidates take. In the media polls, there is generally more fluctuation than in those taken by campaigns."

The media polls usually employ smaller samples, she said.

http://www.zogby.com/soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=4864
================

Totally contradicts your points. And they are your links!?!?!?

Credibility is going down. Is down.

Or is it just blind wilfullness to refuse to see what you don't want to see, even when it is in black and white?

Or perhaps you do see it, but you refuse to admit your error.

What the OP asserts, in one example, is that polls showed the Democrat (Mondale) to be ahead in the days just prior to the election. And then Coleman somehow miraculously won. As if there must have been fraud.

What I asserted was that the OP was selectively showing polls which showed Democrats ahead, but that there were other polls which showed Republicans ahead, thus the methodology used to prove the OP's point was faulty.

You challenged me to provide you with a link.

The first link I provided you mentions the very poll the OP highlighted. But, if you scroll down the story a few paragraphs, there is this, which the OP didn't bother to mention and which more than proves my point:



The St. Paul Pioneer Press/ Minnesota Public Radio also polled 625 active voters at the same time as the Minnesota Poll. It found Coleman with 47 percent of the support and Mondale with 41 percent, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 points. The difference between the polls suggests an electorate in tremendous flux but also could be the result of different polling methods.



http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/3406448.html

In other words, just as I asserted, there was polling data right before the election, in this case Minnesota, which showed COLEMAN ahead, not Mondale, just prior to election day.

Thus the point of the OP is utterly disproven.

Thanks for the laughs, slick.

Seriously. You are as obnoxious as my 2-year-old niece. Your unpleasant demeanor in going after this is really inappropriate and unnecessary.

Do you deny there was rampant electronic voting machine fraud in 2002? State your case if that is the real issue stuck in your craw.

Rebecca Mercuri and Prof. Dill at Stanford beg to differ.
Bev Harris begs to differ.
John Conyers begs to differ.
And so do million of Americans.

Give it a rest.

that you were only showing one side of the story.

So, I did.

End of story.

Why so snotty? There is no need for that attitude.

On edit, I see you are the OP of the thread downplaying EVM fraud. There is no need to be so abrasive because some people don't agree with you. Instead of incessantly trying to torpedo this thread, how about bolstering your own? That's the civilized, mature, dare I say democratic way of doing things.

I predict you will behave exactly like this in the Dem primaries. Mark my word.

Edited for my own personal snottiness.

he/she has now edited it, but I was just responding in kind to his/her tone.

Because it was a rude slip, I edited it.. But you want to be rude, eh? You like being rude, eh?

Good to know.

The elections were stolen, nearly across the board. And the results are supported only by the media who refuse to publish hard info or do any research. Yet you go right along with 'em? You believe E/M?

Sad. You seem like an intelligent DEM.

is that how it works?

That's a joke, btw.

;-)

I made a mistake by not reading through the page. Indeed there was listed another poll of Coleman/Mondale. The whole thing is a mess, and heads and tails are hard to be determined. If you like, you win. Happy now?

Still the other links you provided do nothing to build your case. Most polls showed DEMS winning, as the OP suggests.

Now, I guess it's your obstinacy about whether or not the elections COULD have been stolen which is most grating. And yes, you can cherry pick polls and believe Edison Mitofsky all you want, whilst beating down the truth tellers of the E-voting fiasco which stole the last few elections.

Why anyone would so obstinately support the E-voting and rail against open, honest and free elections, especially on this board, is beyond me. But you have been so noted.

This thread we're writing on was provoked by an OP I wrote in which I clearly stated:

"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."

I don't know how much clearer I can be. I am sure you and I have much more in common than we have differences. And if you want to pursue voting fraud, more power to you, I totally respect it. I just don't want us, in the process, to give short shrift to the very hard work of getting good candidates out there who know how to be effective and on message.

Peace.

Here is your sentence, from your thread:"But I do not think Diebold or anyone else "stole" the last election."

You can't have it both ways. You either believe the election was fair and square, or you believe the election was stolen, or at least, could have been stolen. You stated above that it wasn't stolen.

So, you must think E-voting is ok, or at least is not worthy of attention, although you tried to have it both ways with your further- shall we say- spin. Spin, as I read it, meant to deflect attention from E-voting.

but I'm also not a fan of conspiracy theories run amok.

And your point is illogical, it is perfectly possible to think that Diebold did NOT steal the last election and to still respect and support the move to minimize election fraud.

As I said before, I'm sure you and I agree far more than we disagree on most major issues. You see this as the dividing line between good and evil apparently, that is your right. I don't. That is mine.

And again, I reiterate, I have nothing but support for those that wish to pursue election fraud. I just don't want them to be defeatist about everything else which we have to do.

....to ignore the facts that show the election was stolen. And then you want me to take advice from you? See where we have a problem?

Without diebold, et al, we win. With them, we lose. It's simple, anyone denying it tends to get on my nerves, know what i mean?

and since you see this as the watershed beyond which there is no common ground, then we'll have to leave it at that. Hopefully, we'll find ideas/issues down the road where we see more eye to eye.

testified at hearings of the EAC, Election Assistance Commission.

And one computer scientist Newmann who has written articles for Association for Computing Machinery, ACM, on the subject.

Bev of BBV's attention.

election were asked to focus on Georgia in Nov 04 as they were the only state that only had touch screen machines.

Jimmy Carter, who has done a lot of work with international elections, asked for the observers.

Of course, like everything else it didn't matter because the International observers were not allowed to observe anything anywhere they tried to go.

In three races in Georgia, three candidates won by precisely 18,881 votes. The link is no longer available, although you will comes across that fact in overviews from time to time. Do you realize the astronomical odds against that occurring?

--plus two other candidates in two other states that won by the same margin. Al Republican, for some strange reason.

:kick:

They used optical scan.

And the optical scanner was deemed the culprit in 2004, particularly in Florida. The Dems weren't looking there but at the EVMs without a paper trail. Tricky bastards.

http://blog.democrats.com/florida
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1106-30.htm
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=printer_friendly&forum=203&topic_id=21315&mesg_id=21424
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/1/20201/90005

And that is bad. Did an audit take place? I doubt it.

DREs can't be audited, Op-scans can, but are also subject to be programmed to count the votes any which way desired.

An audit is the only way to discover fraud on Op-scans. Don't let your state get away with not auditing.

The thing I like very much about optical scan is that there is a PERMANENT record of the vote which the voter has filled out with his own hand. If the optical scan machine is somehow corrupt or has been compromised, this is detectable and fixable because the PAPER BALLOTS are the official record.

do not belong in America. Were the elections stolen? If I use any logic at all, I have to say yes.

Am I missing something?

and has acknowledged it ... but, for some reason, has decided not to edit the original post. It unnecessarily brings into question the main points that are being made, but that is the author's prerogative.

On occasion there are certain polls that are simply not reliable. That is why you look at all of the polls to try and get a more accurate picture of where you really are. I also wonder what Barnes' and Perdue's internals were showing, but of course they won't release these.

It's not that I don't think an election can be stolen, I witnessed it in Florida 2000, it's just that I don't think that a 10 point lead can really be stolen.

....means that only 5.1 percent of the votes need to be changed to turn the looser into the winner.

In 1 million votes, that is only 51,00 votes changed from Kerry to bush.

Roughly that many votes could come from as few as 2,000 precincts with an average of 500 votes each. That equates to 26 votes per each of the 2,000 precincts being changed, or 5.2% of each precinct.

Totally doable, given the broad reach of E-voting.

Were dumb enough to vote based on the confederate flag issue? Or that even less people were stupid enough to believe Saxby Chambliss' Saddam Hussein ads?

But common sense dictates that it is not probable.

The question, IIRC, was: How could an election be stolen?
Through the use of E-voting, it is shown that the possibilities are endless.

The question doubters must ask themselves is this: Could it have been stolen?

Once pondered and having factored in that the perps had motive, means and opportunity, one can simply conclude that it was, indeed, stolen.

I think the way that they do it in Europe and Canda is perfect. TV cameras and observers lurk over the election workers as they hand count the ballots.

But I also think that Diebold is far from the only thing that is keeping Democrats from winning elections. Also, as others have noted, Democrats have won in states where electronic machines are used.

I know that in 2002 Mary Landrieu ultimately won her senate race in Louisiana. I also know that in New Orleans, the only really liberal part of Louisiana, there were some polling places with electronic voting machines.

I posted this in the wee hours under the influence of full-on influenza. I took the info from my notes from an article I wrote (posted link) in 2002 with the proper attributions, however, the data was originally from www.bartcop.com and was deficient in a few areas.

Again, I profusely apologize for the errors and would correct them if I could. I thank all for their diligence in pointing this out and for those who chose not to crucify me. :)

But still it doesn't detract from the larger picture. I trust you agree.

The larger picture, we all almost agree on.

Frankly, it is the hugest of mistakes to not consider the situation given the perpetrators involved. So, for some to actually come on this board and dismiss the fraud most of us find quite evident is a slap in the face of the truth.

You have made an effort, AtomicKitten, to inform and educate those not willing to believe. Ya done good.

I just believe with every ounce of my being that forgetting what has transpired since 2000 and particularly the threat of Republican owned and operated electronic voting machines will be to our detriment and demise as a society.

did they use Diebold or any other electronic voting machines?

In answer to your question:

In Illinois 2002:
1) ES&S
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/978/
http://www.votersunite.org/info/previousmessups.asp
2) Optical scanners.
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/13022.html?1131025004

According to Gumbel’s report in the London Independent, what happened in Georgia was not unique in the 2002 elections. Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, and New Hampshire also experienced unusual last-minute swings in some of their election districts, but only in the ones that used electronic voting machines. Interestingly, those sudden and unexpected swings only occurred in hotly contested districts, and in each case, the winning underdog was a Republican.
http://www.theemailactivist.org/voter_fraud.htm

Here's another link putting forth the same statistics as in my OP:
http://www.voxfux.com/articles(closed)/00000051.htm

A site describing e-voting used to steal the Senate in 2002.
http://www.oilempire.us/ballot.html

which is where I voted in 2002. On a punch card machine, which is what they used in my county, Cook County, the largest county by far in IL, with a population more than twice the combined population of the two counties, Lake and DuPage, which were the two counties that went to optical scans.

And the optical scan is far better than the punch card system, which in Cook County in 2000 had a greater failure rate (uncounted votes) than Florida in that election.

And Diebold was not involved.

And Blagojevich won.

Yes, I know, you had the flu.

You asked for Illinois, not specifically Cook County. I provided that information.

ES&S is also a Republican owned and operated company who also makes the OptiScanner.

Diebold is sort of a catch-all; EVM/DRE issues include all kinds of Republican owned and operated companies including Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia, etc. The history of these companies is fascinating and something that would be educational for you if you were so inclined.

Optical scanners are also hackable; you can do your own research on that. Much has aleady been provided.

And, thank you for your diligent repetition, but it has already been ascertained that Blagovejich did win. You may have noted that one of my links provided the same erroneous information.

It is clear you aren't particularly well educated on this issue which is perhaps why you choose snottiness to cover up that fact rather than doing your homework on a really important issue.

The truth is e-voting is a serious threat to our democracy. I don't care is you have a differing opinion; hey, that's the American way. Your crusade against this, however, is dangerous. I can only hope others are more curious than you are and actually do some research before summarily dismissing this issue.

are they comparable, as you see it.

I'm not crusading against anything. I believe that I was the person who first made Bev Harris aware of Rush Holt's original paper trail legislation, HR 2239.

I firmly believe in having a paper trail, in small part because of the potential for foul play, but much more because the potential that exaggerations about the security of voting has hurt confidence in elections, which is very dangerous in a democracy, and that a paper trail could restore some of that confidence.

And imo, the optical scan systems satisfy the paper trail requirement, and they don't have the flaws that the punch cards have been proven to have.

IMO any voting mechanism that does not provide transparency is rife with opportunities for fraud.

This is in combination with all kinds of factors such as conflict of interest Secretaries of State, improper counting procedures, purging of voter rolls, and mysterious data dumps.

There is so much impropriety, we will never again be sure we have had a clean election.

And then we can worry about our candidates and platform.

On edit, with all the cheese going on today, with Cunningham suspected of laundering DoD money and channeling it to the GOP, outing a CIA agent, lying to go to war, how can anyone think the Republicans wouldn't pull out the stops to steal elections? They have proven they will do anything, and I mean anything, to win. And IMO they have.

We cannot afford to give them the benefit of the doubt. They don't deserve it.

and what do you mean by transparency.

And don't the optical scanners satisfy the paper trail requirement already? If you added a paper trail to DREs, how would that be better than what the optical scanners already have?

What type of voting system are you in favor of?

Lets look at punch cards.

Punch cards leave a paper ballot. So what? Not only is there a program which controls how the votes are counted, the only time we had a real recount of the punch cards (to my knowledge) Gore won Florida. But who took office?

That paper ballot was a problem for the vendors. So they pushed the DREs on us. No paper ballot. Viola, * wins big time, with somewhere around 30 percent of the votes on DREs.

Not satisfied with that, the pukes improved on their obfuscation last year and together with the DREs, punch cards, and refusals to do any recount of what paper ballots were left, snuck off with another election.

Folks need to quit making excuses for the lying, stealing pukes, and help get rid of the obfuscation, the electronics, and the refusal to do, at the very least, an audit of the Op-scans.

As Verbal said in the Usual Suspects: "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."