When did you come to the conclusion that the election was stolen?

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nov 3 when kerry conceded. he knew.

I knew. I just knew.

I knew we were in trouble when, on election eve, my 82 year old grandmother told me the corporations would never let Kerry win. I believed her; she's a wise woman.

...was when I concluded that the entire election process was a scam.

As soon as the conflict with the exit polls became obvious-- I knew there was a problem. For Pacific time -- that would be earlier in the night. I was getting my new ONLY from the Internet and from AAR.

Not to mention the continuous barrage of stories of registration suppression (remember the ripped up registrations), disinformation, GOP funding of Nader, etc.

Then there was that story that ran that said "Bush Won" - it ran "by accident" about a month before the election.

I was convinced before the election that it was going to be - heavily influenced in the direction of Bush. I'm still not convinced it was "flat out stolen", but the evidence of non-random errors in favor of Bush is indisputable.

who were aching to be or appear to be fair, said 'heavily Democratic" (which it is) Cuyahoga County was yet to come in - and as results came in they made absolutely no change in the eerily constant vote percentage. I smelled ripe Republican rodents at work - if not quite proof of meddling.

In the last few weeks of the campaign season, I was feeling really good about Kerry's chances. But I was pretty well-read about black box voting issues, and was horrified by the news of vote-suppression during early voting periods -- a LOT of unsavory stuff happened during early voting, which made me realized that the Bushies would stop at nothing to win.

It was clear to me before the election that it *could* be stolen. I just got more and more sure that it was during the weeks after the election.

facts.

There was a cartoon in the 1970s entitled "Bambi Meets Godzilla."

It's about 10 seconds long.

And I was thinking of a sequel for the 21st century. Scene 1: Bambi meets Godzilla; Bambi gets smashed into an unrecognizable puddle of DNA within ten seconds. Scene 2: The Godzilla, Inc., attorney then comes on screen and explains that what you just saw was an illusion--trick photography by the liberal media--and that Godzilla didn't really step on Bambi; that sticky red stuff on the bottom of Godzilla's gigantic foot is actually bubble gum that some thoughtless cretan tossed onto the forest floor; Bambi is actually alive and well in some other part of the forest; and the forest creatures who claim to have witnessed this murder are notorious liars and complainers--trolls, elves and leprechauns, all. Go to bed now, children, and sleep well. There is no big bad monster after you, who will squish you like a bug. Nothing to worry about. And be sure to tuck your photo ID with biometric information under your pillow, before you go to sleep, so that the nice Homeland Security men can easily find it when they come to arrest your parents for taking you to this movie--just so they don't arrest you as well. Nightie-night, kiddies. Sweet dreams! Godzilla Incorporated is vigilantly watching over you.

have a Godzilla. And it is easier to think we can undo them if we just find the 'proof' of the election rigging machines. That is the easy way out. Cause then Bush didn't really win ...did he? Then he gets tossed out on his ass so fast. And that means we do not have to give up and grieve the safe benevolent American that we once lived in.

The harder thing is the grieve and let go of the quick fix (that will change this nightmare back). The harder thing is to say "dam - there is a cabal of sociopaths in my life and they mean me no good. And I have to fight. And I will loose at times. And I will cut my losses. And it will be painful and long. And I need to grieve the loss of the place I lived in. Because it is gone. And when I have done that then I will be more adult. And I will fight like an adult. And I will be more discerning of the battles I pick to fight. And I will require proof before I invest in a theory. And I will sit out some battles because I am tired. And sometimes I will sit out some battles not because I am tired, but because it will fool the evil cabal that tries to predict my reactions and manipulate me in that way. (the democrats did that with Terry Schiavo affair, when they just shut down and didn't react..and it made the Repukes look really, really bad). And some battles I will sit out because there is no proof and no witnesses that machines were tampered with to switch votes. So I will put away that childish thing and I will fight for voting transparency laws using the instances of intimidation, vetting of black voters for felonies only, fewer machines, funny exit polls, campaign finance reform, etc. etc. all of which there is much proof for. And I will then be an adult & a soldier in this battle for my democracy and the hearts and minds of my people.

movie and advertised it would be playing at lunchtime. Many, many showed up and watched it for 30 seconds.

...for you. Prove Bush won. Lay it out for me, where you get your election information from, how you've verified it or why you believe that it has been verified, who controls that information and what kind of control they have over it, and what is the "chain of custody" of the vote from voter to state computers to AP to CNN (if that's who you are believing as to the result). Really, what is the basis of your belief that Bush won?

I'm not saying it couldn't have happened. I can certainly see how a lot of people could have been duped, given the pervasive propaganda they were subjected to. I just don't think they were--and I think there is a lot more evidence that Bush didn't win than that he did.

And given that I believe that there is a much stronger case for Bush losing than for Bush winning, I have to start there, with an understanding of how the will of the people was thwarted. This does not make me any less active in opposing Bush policy (or any less mournful about the country I thought I was living in). Rather, it is my beginning point for understanding the state of the country. For instance, the majority of Americans don't need to be convinced that torturing prisoners is wrong. They already believe that--63% of Americans oppose torture UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Yet they've had the torture memo writer himself, Albert Gonzales, shoved down their throats as the chief law enforcement official of the U.S.A.

It is the same for many issues--in fact for ALL major Bush policies. Americans don't agree, in big numbers--consistently over time--and don't approve of Bush himself either, in unprecedented numbers.

I think it's very important to know that Americans do not agree with these polices, that Bush does not represent the majority of Americans on any major policy, foreign or domestic, and that he and his policies have been shoved down their throats, against their will.

I would take a different approach to the activist things that I do if I thought otherwise. I would think that we had a huge educational task, and a huge job of persuasion to do. But I really don't think we do. Education is always needed, of course, but I'm talking about strategic focus. I think Americans are actually quite progressive in their views and have a lot of common sense, and are a lot smarter than people give them credit for. I think they figured Bush and his Cartel out a long time ago--as all opinion polls consistently reflect. They just can't get their will enforced. And that is a different problem than trying to educate people on how rotten and how criminal his policies are.

People know that already--or rather, most people know it. Most people don't need to hear it all again--it just tires and frustrates them. What they need is empowerment. Why is the Bush regime not listening to their views--the views of the vast majority of the people in this country? How do they get their votes to be counted? And why weren't they?

"They just can't get their will enforced."

There was no way in hell Mr.bushandhisevilminions were going to let any election stand as voted. We had to try, even knowing they would steal it, and they still stole it.

had give Kerry the edge during the afternoon - I was tracking exit polls from salon.com all day - so I was happily partying away that evening, secure that the polls had correctly predicted Kerry's election as president, hardly watching TV news until the Florida bombshell dropped.

From that moment I was a changed man.

If I had any doubts, the results from Ohio cinched it.


Peace - but never give up the struggle -

che

As soon as they said he had invited the press in, I knew.

That did it. Call me old fashioned but this was the proof. The state was corrupt and could not stand a trial and airing of the truth about the election. I'm sorry this didn't go to trial (don't know why). It was supposed to result in new "safeguards." Oh, really!

I reasoned that if Florida could do this and get away with it (where was the Department of Justice?), then there was nothing that would stop broader election fraud.

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

Florida Faces 2000 Election Fraud, Will Settle With NAACP

By Catherine Wilson
Associated Press | Boston Globe

Tuesday, 27 August, 2002

MIAMI (AP) The NAACP's lawsuit over Florida's disputed 2000 presidential election appears headed for a close as the state and two counties the only remaining defendants have agreed to a settlement, attorneys said Tuesday.

Joe Klock, an attorney for the state, told U.S. District Judge Alan Gold that all parties promised to file final papers by Friday for approval. Attorneys would not discuss terms of the settlement.

The class-action lawsuit filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other civil rights groups argued voters were disenfranchised during the on Nov. 7, 2000 election; it included allegations that blacks were kept from voting in some counties.

<snip>

Provisions of those settlements included sweeping modifications to voter registration, voter-roll maintenance and polling practices. They also required counties to improve election day communications between precincts and election headquarters and in some cases guaranteed foreign language-speaking workers would be at the polls to assist voters.

<snip>

A settlement would eliminate the likelihood of unflattering headlines from a trial projected to last through parts of Gov. Jeb Bush's re-election campaign.

And then held back all the other so-called "swing" states that had Kerry waaaay ahead in the exit polls. I was probably convinced by 10 pm ET, but was pretty damn sure an hour or so earlier.

and they were holding back states we carried. I've watched elections my whole life and this one had a big BLIP at around 10 or 11 that did not compute.
mg

...the place was like as if somebody had died. Never saw anything like it in years of delivering election results prior to this one. It was eerie and scary. Made me just about ready to resign from being a pollworker on the spot (actually from being a voter, too!)

Thank God I had found DU just days earlier.

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When the exit polls were not reflecting who won.

to a Kerry win--the big turnout, the big Dem success in new voter registration that I'd heard about (confirmed by the data later), the big enthusiastic and spontaneous crowds wherever Kerry showed up, personal reports I'd heard from friends about scads of older Republican voters turning against Bush, Bush's imbecilic performance in the debates, his continued low approval ratings, then the exit polls showing a Kerry win all day on election day --and then, suddenly, out of nowhere, late in the day, it was a Bush win.

I knew something about electronic voting. But, I'll tell you, it was still a shock to me to find out how completely our election system had failed us. It's obvious now. But I still had hope--on election day--that somehow it would all work right.

I had an early warning. A close older friend of mine--whose judgment I've learned to trust--had observed, in the weeks leading up to the election, that Bush, Cheney & Co. were just acting too smug, like they had it in the bag. He was sure they were going to steal it, and was not surprised when they did.

I chose Nov. 2, 10 pm, for when I knew it was stolen. But it was more like midnight (not a choice in this poll). By midnight, I had a good working theory of HOW they had stolen it. My theory at that time was that the theft had occurred across the board, in all states, a few %'s here and there, with the blatant vote suppression in Ohio as a sort of red herring, calling attention away from the bigger and much less detectable fraud in the electronic voting systems. I now think that the visible and often racist fraud in Ohio--open violations of the Voting Rights Act--was needed because Kerry's win was so big. They had to use almost every fraud plan they had put in place to flip it to Bush. (The only plan they didn't use was the "terrorist alert" plan--well prepared in the "news" just prior to the election--although they did use it one time, in Warren County, Ohio.)

In the weeks after the election, I found the DU election forum, and began to review the exit poll analyses and other information that more or less confirmed my theory--except that the vote theft was a bit more obvious than I expected it to be (the red flag of the weird skew to Bush in certain states, in the exit polls vs. the official tally).

Another shocker for me--despite everything I knew about the news monopolies--was that the TV networks would DOCTOR the exit polls, which created the illusion that Bush won with no evidence to the contrary. I am still shocked by this--that they CHANGED the exit poll numbers ("adjusting" them to fit the official tally).

One thing I was never shocked at was that the Bush Cartel would TRY to steal the election. That's a no-brainer. But that our voting system would collapse, and that the TV networks would give the public false information, and then, later, that the Democrats would cave--out of fear, or collusion, or corruption, or whatever--and also that the Democrats had PERMITTED Wally O'Dell and other Bush buddies to get control of our voting system, and to count all our votes IN SECRET, without a loud protest and warning to the public--these all shook me up.

All the opinion polls (for instance, disapproval of all Bush's policies, up in the 60% to 70% range, and personal approval of Bush at only 49% on his Inauguration Day!) are now confirming what many of us knew on election night--that Bush does not represent the majority of Americans, and was not elected.

It could hardly have been clearer what was going to happen. Both Max Cleland and Roy Barnes, the incumbent Governor, in GA losing after enjoying healthy leads in pre-election polls. Barnes led by 9-11% in all the polling up to 4 days before the election.

The exit polls also gave the nod to Barnes and Cleland by a fairly large amount evidently since those exit polls were pulled off the IT as soon as possible. I've never seen anything about the exit polls or read anything about the numbers, other than reading a rep for the pollsters interviewed by a reporter in GA and saying that in all the other elections they polled the results were well w/i the MOE, in other words, in GA in 02 the exit polls were way off.

GA had become all Deibold all the time, no audits, no paper, just trust me to count the votes for you.

There couldn't have been a clearer case of fraud in an election it seemed to me, yet nobody did or said anything about it, even the Dem politicians who got beat.

I realized that in 04 this is exactly what would happen. The Dem candidate, whoever it was, would have an edge in the pre-election polls and would win the exit polls by a comfortable margin but the voting machines would give it to the Repubs. I was not in the least surprised by the 04 election. It was exactly what I and many others knew would happen.

So I guess you could say I came to the conclusion the election was stolen in 02 after the GA election there.

...heard about it (the surprsing Cleland defeat), and knew that electronic voting had something to do with it--although what I had heard more about were the ads saying Cleland was sympathetic to Osama bin Laden--how foul that all was. In short, I hadn't quite connected the dots by 11/2/04, that it had just been plain stolen by means of GA's all electric, paperless voting system. I didn't have the facts as you have laid them out here.

And I'm wondering again about Kerry. Cleland must surely know what happened in his own election, and would have told Kerry (no? --maybe I'm assuming too much). Why then no warning from Kerry or from any of the Dem leaders? Maybe they thought the Bush Cartel wouldn't dare do it on a national scale, but even if they thought that, the potential and the precedent were there. Nothing. Nada from them.

I suspect that Kerry knows NOW. (Teresa sure seems to.) And he is of course hamstrung on several fronts, and has been since 11/3: 1) the public perception that Bush won, created by the TV news monopolies when they altered the exit polls--"adjusting" them to fit the official tally--thus depriving the public of strong evidence of fraud; and 2) the Bushcon "pod people" in Congress for whom massive violations of the Voting Rights Act means nothing, and many of whom are in power due to fraudulent elections (fairness and justice have gone out the window)--so there is no redress possible.

Or? Threats? Blackmail? Collusion? (Kerry's concession is the damndest thing I ever saw in American politics. And I really don't understand it, nor does anyone else whom I've read or talked to. It just doesn't compute.)

Re: the OBL ads and the Cleland campaign. I'm beginning to realize that these sort of dirty smear tactics (so characteristic of Karl Rove) are not meant to persuade anybody. They are meant to give the impression that people were persuaded after their votes were stolen (when lamebrained political columnists look back over the "election").

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