Politics.340 - Black Box Voting: And Irregularities in the Election

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Politics.340
Black Box Voting: And Irregularities in the Election

{Politics.340.1}: {redleader} Tue, 09 Nov 2004 16:11:20 EST (1 line)
{name removed by chiles Mon, 21 Jan 2008 11:55:27 EST}

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/

{Politics.340.2}: Dan Wylie-Sears {dsws} Tue, 09 Nov 2004 16:35:20 EST (1 line)

Do we need another topic about this?

{Politics.340.3}: it's mourning again in america {paracletus} Tue, 09 Nov 2004 20:12:09 EST (3 lines)

let's vote on it.

i'll tally.

{Politics.340.4}: Richard Clark {cardo} Tue, 09 Nov 2004 21:53:39 EST (1 line)

No.

{Politics.340.5}: it's mourning again in america {paracletus} Tue, 09 Nov 2004 21:58:19 EST (3 lines)

richard's vote is rejected for not being republican.

next.

{Politics.340.6}: Richard Clark {cardo} Tue, 09 Nov 2004 22:31:21 EST (HTML)

Okay, I change my vote. Now it's yes. I think we should have one overall topic on BlackBox voting. Let this be it. And let me christen it with this letter from Peter Coyote which was written to a friend of a friend of mine, who asked me to circulate it. It's a couple of pages, but quite good, and covers some of the main issues. I've hidden it in the next post.

{Politics.340.7}: Peter Coyote's letter: {cardo} Tue, 09 Nov 2004 22:32:24 EST (HTML)
{hidden}

{Politics.340.8}: In tomorrow's Wash Post: {cardo} Tue, 09 Nov 2004 23:08:33 EST (HTML)

"We have received reports of irregularities in the vote reported on the AccuVote Diebold Machines in comparison to exit polls and trends in voting in New Hampshire," Nader wrote Secretary of State William M. Gardner. "These irregularities favor President George W. Bush by 5% to 15% over what was expected."

New Hampshire uses Diebold machines at 132 polling places. Gardner's office received Nader's fax at 4:59 p.m. Friday, one minute before the deadline. Under state law, if a candidate requesting a recount finished more than three percentage points behind, he must pay for the process. Gardner said that if the Nader campaign sends a check for $2,000 and promises to pay any additional charges, he will round up the ballots and initiate a hand count."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38000-2004Nov9.html

{Politics.340.9}: Letter from Kerry's brother: {cardo} Tue, 09 Nov 2004 23:13:49 EST (HTML)

"I am grateful to the many people who have contacted me to express their deep concern about questions of miscounting, fraud, vote suppression, and other problems on election day, especially in Florida and Ohio. Their concern reflects how much people care about the outcome of this election. I want to you to know we are not ignoring it. Election protection lawyers are still on the job in Ohio and Florida and in DC making sure all the votes are counted accurately. I have been conferring with lawyers involved and have made them aware of the information and concerns people have given me.

Even if the facts don't provide a basis to change the outcome, the information will inform the continuing effort to protect the integrity of our elections. If you have specific factual information about voting problems that could be helpful to the lawyers doing their job, please send it to vri@dnc.org rather than to me. The election protection effort has been important to me personally, and I am proud of the 17,000 lawyers around the country who helped. It's obvious that we have a way to go still, but their efforts helped make a difference. Their work goes on.

Thank you, Cam Kerry

{Politics.340.10}: Ron Levin {eclectic} Wed, 10 Nov 2004 09:25:17 EST (56 lines)

Was the election stolen?
By Farhad Manjoo

Did John Kerry actually win the presidency? If you've spent any time
online this week, you've no doubt heard this argument: The election
was stolen. Corrupt officials, rigged voting machines, a sleepy media
and a Democratic Party that's been less than fully aggressive in its
efforts to counter Republican dirty tricks came together to subvert
the true will of the people.

According to proponents of this theory, proof of electoral fraud
abounds. The journalist Greg Palast argues that in Ohio, there were
probably enough "spoiled" punch-card ballots -- ballots tossed out by
counting machines -- to make up Bush's margin over Kerry. Keith
Olbermann points out that in some voting precincts in Cuyahoga
County, which includes Cleveland, there were more votes cast than
registered voters -- for instance, in the Fairview Park area, 13,342
registered voters cast 18,472 ballots. Isn't that odd? Then there's
the analysis by a former high school math teacher named Kathy Dopp,
which seems to show that in counties using optical-scan voting
systems in Florida, people registered as Democrats voted for Bush at
an usually high rate. Did they really mean to do that, or did the
voting machines corrupt their votes?

There are dozens of other points of concern. In Broward County,
Florida, the counting software has been counting votes backwards. In
Franklin County, Ohio, Bush was somehow given 4,000 more votes than
he'd actually won. Citing vague security concerns, officials in
Warren County, Ohio, locked down the vote-counting building on
election night, preventing the media from observing the count. And
what about those exit polls? Could it be that they were correct in
their prediction of a Kerry win? To judge from the tone of the e-mail
pouring into our in boxes here at Salon, not to mention the panicky
posts on lefty sites like Democratic Underground, it's clear that
many online find these arguments quite convincing. For many, it's
difficult to believe that the election the nation held last week was
completely on the level.

In fact, it probably wasn't; Election Day 2004, like all national
elections, saw its share of glitches, ineptitude, fraud and
intimidation. The Election Incident Reporting System, a national
database of election irregularities compiled by volunteers working
with various voting-rights groups, lists 30,000 such incidents for
2004. They range from the tragic (a voter who "didn't know how to
read") to the alarming ("Two African-American voters were arrested at
the polling place before they had the opportunity to vote").

There's little question that the American election process is a mess,
and needs to be cleaned up. But even if this particular election
wasn't perfect, it was still most likely good enough for us to have
faith in the results. Salon has examined some of the most popular
Kerry-actually-won theories currently making the rounds online, and
none of them hold up under rigorous scrutiny.

More:
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/11/10/voting/index.html

{Politics.340.11}: it's mourning again in america {paracletus} Wed, 10 Nov 2004 09:56:08 EST (1 line)

Et tu, Salon?

{Politics.340.12}: Lee Angel {tegota} Wed, 10 Nov 2004 10:57:16 EST (2 lines)

I think the real question is...when has there not been voting fraud
in America.  It's as common as apple pie.

{Politics.340.13}: Richard Clark {cardo} Wed, 10 Nov 2004 11:42:10 EST (HTML)

Listen to BBC's Greg Palast report on the felonies that have been committed by Republicans in their effort to prevent Democratic votes from being counted:

http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm

Also see his printed report which was the number-one BBC report, in terms of international audience interest, but which American papers avoided like the plague.

http://www.gregpalast.com/

{Politics.340.14}: Richard Clark {cardo} Wed, 10 Nov 2004 11:48:29 EST (HTML)

Greg says that Ken Blackwell in Ohio will not even allow the counting of the provisional ballots to _begin_ unless he is threatened with a lawsuit from the Kerry folks. Honestly, I find this hard to believe, but that's what he said.

Greg also claims that black voters in Florida and Ohio are _eight_ times less likely to have their votes counted than are whites and that special efforts have been made by Republican operatives to make sure most blacks either never get to vote, or if they vote, that their votes are never counted. Why is this? Because 90-95% of all blacks vote Democratic.

{Politics.340.15}: Professional Detachment {asepsis} Wed, 10 Nov 2004 11:50:23 EST (7 lines)

Given that Bush led in the polls by a small margin throughout the
entire campaign, except for a couple "bounce days" for Kerry, I guess
I'm not terribly surprised that he ended up winning by a small margin.

O people of the coasts, turn off your computers, drive inland a
couple hundred miles and attend a church barbeque, and you'll realize
that Bush is actually a very popular man in this country.

{Politics.340.16}: Professional Detachment {asepsis} Wed, 10 Nov 2004 11:51:24 EST (3 lines)

...Of course, so is having sex with sheep and pigs.

Not that I'm in *any* way suggesting a correlation.

{Politics.340.17}: {paracletus} Wed, 10 Nov 2004 11:57:25 EST (0 lines)
{erased by paracletus Wed, 10 Nov 2004 11:58:11 EST}

{Politics.340.18}: it's mourning again in america {paracletus} Wed, 10 Nov 2004 11:58:03 EST (HTML)

is that the only way to get one's vote counted?

{Politics.340.19}: Tom Austin {taustin} Wed, 10 Nov 2004 12:12:59 EST (9 lines)

Given that Bush led in the polls by a small margin throughout the
entire campaign,
>>>>>

this is incorrect.


www.electoral-vote.com  had a graph showing the lead see-sawing from
one to the other through the entire campaign.

{Politics.340.20}: George Klos {osceola} Wed, 10 Nov 2004 12:19:14 EST (8 lines)

I agree with {15}. The GOP had a tremendous get out the vote
operation stronger than 2000. Rove specifically targeted evangelicals
who didn't vote in 2000.

Oh, wait. Greg Palast doesn't say so, so it must be a massive coverup.
{14} The Secretary of State is required by law to count all votes.
And the Dems do have lawyers working on it, or don't you read your
own posts?

{Politics.340.21}: Richard Clark {cardo} Wed, 10 Nov 2004 12:32:39 EST (HTML)

"Ohio election officials said Monday that they would begin this week the final count of 155,428 provisional ballots and an unknown number of overseas absentee ballots that were cast in the presidential election.

According to the preliminary tally, which included all domestic absentee ballots, Sen. John F. Kerry lost Ohio by 136,483 votes, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell said.

Attorneys for the Kerry campaign said Monday that they did not believe the outcome of the Ohio vote - which gave President Bush the electoral votes needed to win - could possibly change; they have discouraged speculation that voting irregularities caused Kerry's loss.

Nonetheless, the Ohio count is attracting scrutiny by groups who say the election was tainted and that voting equipment in Ohio, Florida, South Carolina and elsewhere was defective. On Friday, three congressional Democrats asked for a federal investigation.

Since the election, Internet sites and political blogs have buzzed with speculation that the vote was manipulated. "Evidence mounts that the vote may have been hacked," reads the title of one widely circulated Web offering.

Voting machine failures did occur, and long lines in heavily Democratic precincts discouraged some potential voters.

If all provisional votes are deemed valid, Kerry would need 88% of them to overcome Bush's margin of victory in Ohio, assuming the remaining overseas absentee ballots were split evenly.

But many provisional ballots will probably be tossed out. In past elections, about 10% were judged as not coming from legitimately registered voters. What's more, Blackwell (for the first time in Ohio history) ruled (before the election) that provisional ballots had to be cast in the correct precinct, and that any cast at the wrong polling place would not be counted.

If 10% of the provisional ballots were rejected, Kerry would need to get 97.6% of those remaining to overcome Bush's lead.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111004B.shtml

{Politics.340.22}: Richard Clark {cardo} Wed, 10 Nov 2004 12:38:12 EST (HTML)

Problem is, we have no idea how many provisional and absentee ballots Ken Blackwell and his agents have already discarded without counting.

It is nothing less that a scandal that a Republican operative and Christian fundamentalist can be in charge of counting the votes that might elect John Kerry as president of the U.S. I've heard that when Europeans hear this they are incredulous.

{Politics.340.23}: Professional Detachment {asepsis} Wed, 10 Nov 2004 12:54:35 EST (8 lines)

Of course, we fought a seven-year war with the Europeans about 220
years ago so we'd have the right not to have to pay attention to what
they thought.

Cardo, seriously, if events prove that Kerry won in Ohio, wouldn't it
bother you at all that he still lost the popular vote?  Please answer
that question without references or links; I just want your honest
opinion.

{Politics.340.24}: Tom Austin {taustin} Wed, 10 Nov 2004 13:02:18 EST (2 lines)

it wouldn't bother me a bit.   the laws of the country make the
winner of the electoral college vote the president.  The End.

{Politics.340.25}: Jivan Vatayan {panlight} Wed, 10 Nov 2004 13:51:29 EST (2 lines)

Recent 60 Minutes clip on touch-screen voting:
http://home.comcast.net/~hugh.moore/60Minutes_BBV_100.wmv

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