althecat

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Tue Mar-04-08 03:21 PM
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Scoop - "Today America will feast at the table of democracy and yet go home hungry"

Edited on Tue Mar-04-08 03:34 PM by althecat

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0803/S00057.htm

Sludge Report #182: Bigger Than Watergate III

By C.D. Sludge

In This Edition:
Texas & Ohio Primary - Prepare For A Train Wreck
In Election Fraud Terms Ohio and Texas Are Special
Barack Obama & The White Ghosts Of NYC
Did Someone Just Buy All The Votes In Texas And Ohio
Faith Based Voting In The USA - Three Good Videos
Uncounted
Hacking Democracy - HBO
Dan Rather Reports - "The Trouble with Touch Screens" - HDnet
Watch This Space

See also:
Companion Article -
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0803/S00053.htm
Michael Collins: Obama�s "Lost" NYC Votes No Surprise
Tuesday, 8 July 2003 - Sludge Report #154 � Bigger Than Watergate!
Wednesday, 13 June 2007 - Sludge Report #177 � Bigger Than Watergate II

*** # # # ***

Texas & Ohio Primary - Prepare For A Train Wreck

Usually when covering elections its important to wait till the votes are counted before you write your election analysis. However when it comes to US elections in the 21st century this rubric no longer applies.

After the dust settles from today's presidential primary races - "Super Tuesday II" between Obama and Clinton in Ohio and Texas - the lingering story will not be who won.

Rather it will be the stench left behind by an election in which the results are and must remain unverifiable.

Today's election just like several before it this primary season will be riddled with what a growing number of election observers are coming to expect from all significant US elections:
- dirty tricks and allegations of dirty tricks;
- deliberate disenfranchisement of minorities and marginalised voters;
- malfunctioning computer systems;
- inadequate protection of easily hackable voting systems;
- anomalous exit poll results;
- obstructive election officials;
- an impenetrable private corporate election administration system;
- outright illegal conduct by some election officials;
- and then; suspicions and accusations of election fraud and voter fraud.

Today America will feast at the table of democracy and yet go home hungry.

*** # # # ***

In Election Fraud Terms Ohio and Texas Are Special

All the above is these days true of thousands of elections across America every year - but today is special. Ohio and Texas are special.

Ohio is presently ground zero for election fraud in terms of public mythology.

Most good progressives know Bush stole the 2000 election in Florida with the assistance of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris and a failure of the rule of law in the Supreme Court.

And all good progressives know that Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell helped Karl Rove and George steal the 2004 election in Ohio. In the case of Ohio we even have a beautifully written Vanity Fair essay by RFK Junior to back up the case.

And so Ohio is special.

Texas is also special partly because it is the home of a fair bit of electronic voting technology - but also because of this - the 2004 presidential election results:

STATE -|- 2004 -|- 2000 -|- NEW BUSH VOTES -|- % Incr
FL --|-- 3838376 --|-- 2909176 --|-- 929200 --|-- 31.9%
TX --|-- 4495797 --|-- 3796850 --|-- 698947 --|-- 18.4%
NY --|-- 2780749 --|-- 2235776 --|-- 544973 --|-- 24.4%
OH --|-- 2796147 --|-- 2294167 --|-- 501980 --|-- 21.9%

(Note these are election night figures - not final recorded vote totals.)

In 2004 Texas was the second most populous source of new Bush voters in the US. At least 700,000 more Texans for Bush fell in behind the nation's great leader in 2004 than did so in 2000. (The actual number is higher - several thousand GOP voters will have died, moved or got disinterested in democracy over the period, and these are election night figures which exclude provisional votes.)

In the chart above you can see that only Florida had more Bush converts over the 2000-2004 period.

Like Florida Texas is populous and full of electronic voting machines.

And then there are the exit polls.

*** # # # ***

What's Wrong With US Exit Polls?

While a few left-leaning progressive bloggers - most notably the crew of election fraud discussion censors at DailyKos - continue to valiantly deny it, the case is relatively clear that not only are American elections hackable. They have been hacked.

The basic numbers for the 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006 elections do not make a great deal of sense at first glance. In addition:

In each and every federal US election this century:
- the exit polls failed;
- a large number critical races produced surprising results which tended to strengthen conservative power in Congress;
- there have been specific dramatic instances of election fraud in evidence - (most notably in Volusia county Florida in 2000 and in Congressional District 13 Florida and more generally the entire state of Ohio in 2004);

In each case the only technique for explaining the strange movements of US voters among political scientists, pundits and the media has been to refer to the exit polls.

And yet - while it works in lots of other places - exit polling as a science has basically failed to work in US elections since 1998.

The answer to why this is the case is arguably the most pressing political science question in the world today. Unfortunately it is one which most political scientists and statisticians are too frightened to address.

Before he died somewhat suddenly last year the father of modern exit polling Warren Mitofsky was fighting an academic battle in the trenches in relation to the election fraud debate.

Mitofsky first aired his conclusion as to why the most expensive and largest exit poll in history failed in the 2004 election on the morning after.

His exit polls were wrong, he said - because Bush voters were less likely to tell exit pollsters the truth about who they voted for. Thus he coined the "Reluctant Bush Responder" or rBr theory which is the official explanation for why exit polls in America are now always wrong.

Mitofsky was not around to watch the same phenomena morph in the 2008 New Hampshire primary into rCr theory - this time presumably caused by people not wanting to tell pollsters that they voted for Hillary Clinton.

After the 2004 election Congressman John Conyers among others called for a release of the 2004 election exit poll data. The consortium who conducted the poll refused to supply it claiming privacy issues would arise if they released precinct based data with locations identified.

The raw data has never been released or examined by any independent researchers.

Mitofsky published his own research into the data in early 2005 - waiting till safely after inauguration on January 20th - posing only the reluctant bush responder theory as an explanation for the anomaly.

*** # # # ***

Barack Obama & The White Ghosts Of NYC

Fortunately the progressive blogger blindspot, election machine manufacturer propaganda, statistical trickery and media incompetence is failing to achieve its objective - namely shutting down this debate.

Largely thanks to the internet (though increasingly election fraud news is becoming mainstream these days) millions of Americans know that the corporatisation of their democracy is also killing it. Millions of americans are getting increasingly angry about this and are organising to fix it.

Today there will probably be thousands of personal accounts of election irregularities witnessed at polling places across Texas and Ohio posted to thousands of websites around the US.

Perhaps more importantly now the e-voting story has break through today reporters will also be looking out for stories on the subject.

In 2008 election fraud in the US not only has a constituency but an active audience and an active media.

That said the mainstream media clearly still need considerable help in seeing the blindingly obvious.

And so lets roll back a bit and look at the recent primary in New York, another state which showed its deep deep love of the Bush Administration's work durig the 2004 presidential election.

In June last year Scoop posted the following expose from ace election reporter Michael Colins.

Click for big version

Today we have an update.

Michael Collins: Obama�s "Lost" NYC Votes No Surprise

"If you want to call it significant undercounting, I guess that's a euphemism for fraud." Michael Bloomberg, Mayor, New York City - 2008

What! That statement really does bear repeating. Michael Bloomberg said what?

"If you want to call it significant undercounting, I guess that's a euphemism for fraud." Michael Bloomberg, Mayor, New York City

And then there is this.

"� a review by The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city�s 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district." Sam Roberts, New York Times Feb. 16, 2008

Go read all about it here on Scoop.co.nz at:
Michael Collins: Obama�s "Lost" NYC Votes No Surprise

The short version of the story is that democracy as currently exercised in New York City - just like the rest of Aerica - is fast becoming a sham.

*** # # # ***

Did Someone Just Buy All The Votes In Texas And Ohio

Another Scoop contributor Catherine Austin Fitts brought this to our attention yesterday. It is a remarkably timed financial announcement and the full text of Catherine's blog is repeated here for the benefit of media truth seekers who - having first read Michael Collins tale of New York - would now like to delve a little deeper into the decay of American democracy:

Catherine Austin Fitts Blog - March 3, 2008 at 10:53 am �

This weekend, mega defense contractor United Technologies announced an offer for Diebold (1) (2) at a 66% premium to the current stock market price. Leading this effort is the board of directors of United Technologies. United Technologies board includes Jamie Gorelick, partner at WilmerHale, who was the former Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton Administration who played such a significant role in promoting prison privatization and was a member of the 911 Commission.

Gorelick is a large contributor to Hillary Clinton�s presidential campaign. Her firm, WilmerHale, is a large backer of the Clinton campaign. Not surprisingly, Gorelick is mentioned as a likely Attorney General in a Hillary Clinton Administration. In its February 2008 Proxy, United Technologies described its lead investor as follows:

In a filing made with the SEC, State Street Bank & Trust Company, acting in various fiduciary capacities, reported that it held as of December 31, 2007 sole voting power with respect to 37,348,324 shares of UTC Common Stock, shared voting power with respect to 65,761,775 shares of UTC Common Stock, and shared dispositive power with respect to 103,110,099 shares of UTC Common Stock. State Street Bank & Trust Company serves as Trustee for UTC�s Employee Savings Plan and disclaims beneficial ownership of the reported shares.

Hence, it is hard to determine who exactly will control a significant percentage of the voting machines during the upcoming Presidential election. Question is, what does offering a $14 per share premium in a down stock market to the people who control Diebold have to do with Tuesday�s vote counting in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont?

Is Hillary Clinton suddenly back in the race?

Whatever happens Tuesday, my bet is UT will be positioned to win lots of new sales and contracts from the Pentagon in the new Administration. What do you think? Is owning the voting machines a government contractor�s most creative marketing strategy? If it is, Diebold has now indicated they want more than $14 per share:

Diebold Rejects United Tech Takeover Offer As Too Low
By Reuters (3 Mar 2008)

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results of 2008 Election Early

*** # # # ***

Faith Based Voting In The USA - Three Good Videos

Uncounted

Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections

http://www.uncountedthemovie.com/
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2053171972904749134

Hacking Democracy - HBO

http://www.hackingdemocracy.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzPXer7946E

Dan Rather Reports, "The Trouble with Touch Screens" - HDnet

http://www.hd.net/drr227.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8424269587813976191

*** # # # ***

Watch This Space

Check back here for an update of how today's election train wreck on Ohio and Texas turns out - alternatively - keep and eye on the best news source for breaking news on the the decay of American democracy at.

http://www.bradblog.com/

Placeholder Picture�. Bookmark this page�.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0803/S00057.htm

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Anti�opyright 2008

**** ENDS ****

Source URL: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0803/S00057.htm

Scoop - "Today America will feast at the table of democracy and yet go home hungry"

Sludge Report #182: Bigger Than Watergate III

Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections

Hacking Democracy - HBO

Dan Rather Reports, "The Trouble with Touch Screens" - HDnet

Bigger Than Watergate III - US Voting Oddities: Democracy As A Train Wreck