New book - Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?

Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? : Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count (Paperback)
by Steve Freeman, Joel Bleifuss


It is odd to BuzzFlash that so many progressives still think that the possibility that the Busheviks stole the 2004 election is some sort of fringe theory.

After all, they stole the 2000 election. Why wouldn't they do it again, if they could? In fact, it defies common sense to think that getting away with one robbery, they, all of a sudden, wouldn’t try it a second time.

So many individuals have uncovered the evidence of a multi-pronged approach to suppressing and altering the votes by Republicans (the latter theory rooted in the private ownership of electronic voting machine tabulating software). Why then is the GOP penchant for stealing elections still a taboo topic among mainstream media and Democrats?

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As the authors note in their chapter on how the media has ignored the questions raised by the 2004 election, "That a journalistic examination of the exit-poll discrepancy is deemed 'not fit to print' by both the corporate and the independent media indicates how far our standards have devolved. It seems undeniable to us that the very same set of facts applied to a foreign election anywhere in the world would have garnered front-page coverage in every American newspaper and would have been the lead story on every American news program. If election fraud in Ukraine or Haiti is news, why isn’t election fraud in the United States?"

more -

http://www.buzzflash.com/store/reviews/240

on any topic--since the fate of American democracy in this era may determine the fate of human race and the fate of our planet. I've read the preliminary papers, and know the thesis and some of the facts that it is based on. All I can say is: Read this book! No doubt it's short. Freeman is economic with words, and a wonderful writer. Buy it! Give it away! Spread it far and wide. I believe that he has the firmest grasp on what really happened, and is the best presenter of the exit poll material (which points right at widespread electronic fraud--the easiest, quickest, most difficult-to-detect, and newest, form of Bushite vote stealing).

There is quite a library of books, articles and official and unofficial reports, and web sites, on this subject now. Each of them has something (or a lot) to offer--and much blood, sweat and tears, and heartfelt effort, went into them, on the part of the authors and many others. Freeman's thesis, and his accessible way of writing, have struck me from the beginning as the most persuasive of them all, and the easiest for novices in the subject to grasp. He convinced me, early on--with his first paper--and was vital to my understanding of the issue.

Some thoughts I have on election fraud 2004:

1. CONTEXT, AND BUSHITE INTENT. This fraud goes back to 2002 and the passage, by the Anthrax Congress, of the infamous "Help America Vote Act," engineered by the biggest crooks in Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney (abetted by Bilderberg "Democrat" Christopher Dodd). It was clearly the intent of this bill to corrupt our election system--and render it NON-TRANSPARENT--with a $4 billion electronic voting boondoggle by which state officials were bribed and bullied into purchasing highly insecure, and extremely hackable, electronic voting systems, run on "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, controlled by Bushite corporations--mainly Diebold and ES&S--with virtually no audit/recount controls. Transparent, verifiable elections are not difficult. People vote, and you count the votes in public view. They DIDN'T WANT a transparent election in 2004, or ever again. That is the CONTEXT for the exit poll results that show a Kerry win (the REAL exit polls, that is--not the doctored exit polls that the corporate news monopolies put on everybody TV's screens, late on election day, which had been falsified--in impossible ways-- to make them FIT the "results" of Diebold/ES&S's secret vote tabulation formulae). Exit polls are a standard tool, worldwide, for verifying elections and checking for fraud. They are essential in NON-TRANSPARENT conditions, such as we suffered in 2004. The real exit polls, combined with other evidence, form an overwhelming inferential case for 2004 election fraud, in highly non-transparent conditions. Those conditions were deliberately created.

2. OHIO, AND BUSHITE INTENT. The blatant, illegal, visible election fraud in Ohio and other states--massive suppression of poor, black and other Democratic votes, by Repub officials and operatives--was supplemental to the main fraud, which was electronic, and speaks to intent. Would the people who so viciously violated the Voting Rights Act in Ohio and other places, GIVEN SECRET CONTROL OF VOTE COUNTING NATIONWIDE IN HIGHLY NON-TRANSPARENT CONDITIONS, USE that power to lay the foundation of a fraudulent election win? You don't have to add in other Bushite crimes, and stolen elections, to have your answer. They needed to pull out all the stops--including unconscionable repression of black voters, whose voting rights have been only recently established--to "win" THIS election. (The "thumb on the scales" for Bush in the electronic systems was not enough.)

3. THE DEAFENING SILENCE. The silence of the corporate news monopolies is not surprising, since they participated in the election fraud itself, by doctoring the exit polls. They also failed to inform the American people of the new, secret, Bushite-corporate control over vote counting. The silence of the Democratic Party leadership, from 2002 to the present, is the bigger mystery of this story. How could they abide secret vote tabulation by Bushite corporations? Are they insane? I think the answer is complex, and includes some corrupt operators, like Christopher Dodd (who apparently advised John Kerry on electronic voting), and a mix of various kinds of corruption at various levels (on the war, on electronics in government; lavishly lobbied state/local election officials, etc.), and--maybe primarily--a whole lot of fear. I saw this fear at work among Dem state legislators in California, when the junta went after our good Secretary of State, Kevin Shelley, and 'swiftboated' him out of office, on entirely bogus corruption charges, after he had sued Diebold and decertified the worst of their election theft machines prior to the 2004 election. He was replaced with a Schwarzenegger appointee (Bruce McPherson) who has now illegally re-certified the Diebold machines. The state Dems hid under their desks during this horrible development--no doubt in fear of getting "swiftboated" themselves, and in fear of the new power of corrupt county election officials and corporate election thieves--and some colluded. What happened in California, a state with a 2 to 1 Dem majority in the state legislature, is perhaps instructive as to what happened in other states, and in Congress, on a nationswide basis. Amazingly--and wonderfully--the grass roots Dems and progressives are fighting back, and a real election reformer, Debra Bowen, has emerged, to run against McPherson in the fall. (She won big in the Dem primary.) Bowen has NOT been silent about this disaster of an election system--she's a highly respected, veteran state senator, who has held tough public hearings on the matter, has closely monitored McPherson's activities on behalf of Diebold, and has long advocated and fought for open government. And she is not likely to be silent if they try to Diebold HER, or pull any other dirty tricks.

FEAR

There is another fear we all have--including me--that the truth will further suppress the vote, with people saying, "It's all rigged--why bother to vote?" I think this fear is in operation in Dem Party leadership circles--and is part of the reason for their silence. My conclusion: This country is sick unto death from lack of truth. We MUST tell the truth--if we believe in democracy--and trust in our 200-plus year history of democracy, and trust in the American people, whom I guarantee you are much better informed--and far more progressive--than they are given credit for. They NEED TO KNOW what happened. Not knowing is making them sick and crazy--and filling them with despair at their fellow Americans, and is furthering their demoralization and disempowerment. They need to know, and THEY need to fix it. This has to be a collective realization, and a positive reclaiming of our democratic tradition and our country. The reform of our election system cannot occur any other way. Nobody in power is going to give us back our right to vote. The people of this country have to demand it. Our right to vote is the mechanism by which we exercise our sovereignty as a people. That mechanism has been royally messed with--with intent to rob us of our sovereignty as a people, and our right to hold our government accountable for its actions. Nothing is more important than restoring our right to vote. Without it, we have no power. And it's pretty obvious to me that that is our condition right now: we are a people with no power to influence or control our government.

My best advice for how: Pressure on state/local election officials--a long term, messy, multi-jurisdictional battle, but the most feasible. The decisions on voting systems are still made at this level, where ordinary people still have some influence. The "Help America Vote Act" did NOT mandate electronic voting. It just used money and coercion to achieve this coup. Paper ballots, hand counted at the precinct level (the best voting system) is STILL a legal option. We must convince state/local election officials to toss these machines into 'Boston Harbor,' and start over. Also, a surge of absentee ballot voting (which is already occurring) could make the machines obsolete; then we can work on getting rid of the central electronic tabulators. (Absentee ballots also provide a tangible record of your vote to help investigators, and for election challenges. It's a form of protest, and a stopgap measure for the immediate future.)

Will DIEBOLD rumors keep you at home on election day? We MUST keep election reform in front of the public but we must also VOTE and hope it counts in Nov. Your vote won't count for sure, if you fail to cast it.

To hell with "don't worry about dieblod". That is just plain #1 crazy. And your little preach about going to vote is a close second. Who in hell do you think you are talking too? How utterly condescending your comments are. Your attitude is precisely why we are in Iraq and we have to live with the crooks in power - yall looked the other way as they stole the election. And you are still looking the other way!

You act as if its all normal. That is just plain sick. Nothing is normal about the past elections.

and if I don't vote, what standing would I have to sign a lawsuit against Diebold for spoiling my vote? http://www.voteraction.org/

The fact that the elections were not normal is exactly why we should press for normality--all the while screaming about the crimes they have already perpetrated.

This point was reiterated in a speech by Gre Palast I saw last night.Even though it's fucked, the best thing you can do is go to the polling place. Try even to get a volunteer role, or pollwatcher, work with a party. This is not a DemvPug issue. Everybody is getting burned.

So the ghost has ghost speakers for him, eh? Neat trick.

I would also go so far as saying that I think bush* stole the texas governorship from Ann Richards too.

by Republicans..." -- the Elephant in the Room

:applause: for this book

How in the world can progressives be so regressive in that area? I never quit understood that phase, beam me up Scotty, but now I do. This is something that made sense to me right after reading Greg Palate's commentary about why he thought the election was stolen.

Like all non-profit orgs they can only operate with contributions. They have about 6 or 7 PhDs in stats, along with a few other folks degree-ed in other fields, poli-sci e.g. Freeman is one of those contributing to the org. aka Election Archive. You can get to their site either way I think.

If you want to feel that your money is being put to good use, I believe this is a worthwhile org to throw your rupees in the direction of.

But whether or not the stats are accurate, and I think the overall evidence is overwhelming that they are, one fact remains true:

If the vote is counted by extreme partisans of one side in total, court guaranteed, secrecy and that count is accepted without any audits or hand counts used to check or verify the result, YOU CANNOT EVEN HAVE A DEMOCRACY.

This is the bottom line. An intelligent 6th grader would have no trouble understanding it.

that's why talking about it is taboo. You will be ostracized or fired for talking about it, just like in the Soviet Union--without the gulags, so far.

I have a job at a news organization. The brass won't air this stuff, even with sterling sources. Their butts would be buttered and toasted. They are just as stubbornly hypnotized as the Shrub. It's infuriating.

definite instructions from up above, or do they just fear reprisals from conservative owners? Or do they just consider the stories to be too far fetched to believe (it just COULDN'T happen here in America)?

That's what they admit to. But I often wonder if they are literally tools of the CIA. There's just no way to know for sure. All I know is I continue to inform them about what they ought to know from the record in the press. After that it's out of my hands.

already witnessed in 2004, whistle-blowers are arrested these days,

sorry bout the pessimism but with this government I see too much corruption, at least in the olden days? it was better concealed, today it's practically flaunted while laughing in your face saying catch me if you can...

...it bothers me that it has the exact same title as the Rolling Stone article by RFK Jr. This might cause some confusion that could be exploited by the ReThugs.

This bother anyone else?:shrug:

before he wrote the article. Read it! It is GOOD!