Friday, November 05, 2004

House Dems Seek Election Inquiry



House Dems Seek Election Inquiry

Kim Zetter: House Dems Seek Election Inquiry, Wired News, November 5, 2004
"Three congressmen sent a letter to the General Accounting Office on Friday requesting an investigation into irregularities with voting machines used in Tuesday's elections. The congressmen, Democratic members of the House of Representatives from Florida, New York and Michigan, cited a number of incidents that came to light in the days after the election. One was a glitch in Ohio that caused a memory card reader made by Danaher Controls to give George W. Bush 3,893 more votes than he should have received. Another was a problem with memory cards in North Carolina that caused machines made by UniLect to lose 4,500 votes cast on e-voting machines..."



ARTICLES ON SERIOUS ELECTION SNAFUS AND SUSPICIONS


Ann Harrison: The Ghost Votes in the Machine, Voting Snafus Across the Nation, CounterPunch, November 3, 2004
"A non-partisan coalition monitoring problems at polling sites has reported failures of electronic voting machines around the United States - some of which recorded touch screen votes for candidates voters had not selected. While errors were resolved in the cases brought to the attention of poll watchers, many voters remain uncertain whether their proper vote was cast in a bitterly contested election in which President George Bush has claimed victory."


Jackson Thoreau: Never Say Die-bold: So You Don’t Think the Bush Campaign Stole This Election? Think Again, opednews.com, November 4, 2004
"A few days before the 2004 election, the Washington Post published an article detailing increasing dirty tricks, mostly by Republicans. In Lake County, Ohio, some people received a memo on bogus Board of Elections letterhead informing voters who registered through Democratic and NACCP drives that they could not vote. In Leon County, students at Florida State and Florida A&M universities who signed petitions to legalize medical marijuana or impose stiffer penalties for child molesters unknowingly had their party registration switched to Republican and their addresses changed. The latter would affect their ability to vote since they would not be registered at the proper site. The media traced the source to a group hired by the Florida Republican Party. In Allegheny County, Pa., fliers on a bogus county letterhead were handed out and mailed, saying that “due to immense voter turnout expected on Tuesday,” the election had been extended. Republicans should vote Tuesday, while Democrats should vote on Wednesday – the wrong day."


The Blue Lemur: Exit Polls and 'Actual' Results Don't Match: E-Voting States Show Greaster Discrepancy, November 3, 2004
"An analysis of the original AP exit polling, which showed Kerry with a tighter margin and leading in myriad states, raises serious questions about the authenticity of the popular vote in several key states, RAW STORY has learned. Since the actual outcome of the votes have been called, AP has changed nearly all of their exit polling to tighten the margin. A reason has not been given. The analysis, first conducted by a poster at the popular Democratic Underground, suggests possible voter fraud in states that do not have electronic voting receipts, and those that limit the media’s access to polls... While exit polling is unreliable, the odds of President Bush having gaining an advantage from every exit poll in swing states is an extremely improbable coincidence... Kerry does not gain by any significant margin in actual voting in any state for which analysis has been conducted, RAW STORY found. Exit polling accurately predicted the results in most states with very little error. Where there were discrepancies, they were significant in the +5 percent range, and always favored Bush."



Thom Hartmann: The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy, Common Dreams, November 4, 2004
"The hot story in the Blogosphere is that the "erroneous" exit polls that showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states) weren't erroneous at all - it was the numbers produced by paperless voting machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and more analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive election fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical that we keep the largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are We The People allowing private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to their officers and boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and politicians that will enhance their profitability, to handle our votes? ... [B]loggers and investigative reporters are discovering an odd discrepancy in exit polls being largely accurate in paper-ballot states and oddly inaccurate in touch-screen electronic voting states Even raw voter analyses are showing extreme oddities in touch-screen-run Florida, and eagle-eyed bloggers are finding that news organizations are retroactively altering their exit polls to coincide with what the machines ultimately said."


Mike Whitney: Sour grapes or voter fraud?, The Smirking Chimp, November 4, 2004

"If you believe that George Bush won last night's election "fair and square" then forget about reading this article. If you know however that tens of thousands of people who lined up for up to four hours at a time in Ohio and Florida to have their vote counted, were not standing there to endorse the aggression and suicidal policies of the current administration then read on. The unprecedented high turnout coupled with new registrations ( that were overwhelmingly in favor of John Kerry) suggest that there was foul play at the voting booths. As a result, consumer investigator and activist Bev Harris (founder of Black Box Voting) "is conducting the largest Freedom of Information action in history... The fact of the matter is (as every reasonable person who hasn't been hoodwinked by the pageantry of election night fraud realizes) that the election was stolen again in full view of the American public. The Republican owned voting machines prevailed over exit poll projections and the will of the American people."



Cynthia L. Webb: Bloggers Let Poll Cat Out of the Bag, Washington Post, November 3, 2004
"In the thick of a historic and obsessively watched Election Day, bloggers shook up the mainstream media by providing an early look at election exit polls, proving once and for all their influence not only in the coverage of politics but perhaps in the electoral process itself. The early-afternoon posts of the numbers -- purportedly based on the data that media organizations get from people who have actually voted, which the media then use to predict outcomes and make correlations between votes and issues -- indicated bad news for President Bush, stoking early-afternoon chatter that grew to a roar and sparked a stock market sell-off. ... The article noted the importance of the blog race against the mainstream media outlets: "Many polling experts had warned that such shifts were almost inevitable since the bloggers were posting exit poll numbers hours before they could be considered reliable. ... The attention paid to blogs last night highlighted their increasing prominence in the worlds of politics and media."


Rachel Konrad: Electronic Voting Machine Woes Reported, Yahoo, November 3, 2004
"Voters nationwide reported some 1,100 problems with electronic voting machines on Tuesday, including trouble choosing their intended candidates. The e-voting glitches reported to the Election Protection Coalition, an umbrella group of volunteer poll monitors that set up a telephone hotline, included malfunctions blamed on everything from power outages to incompetent poll workers. But there were also several dozen voters in six states — particularly Democrats in Florida — who said the wrong candidates appeared on their touch-screen machine's checkout screen, the coalition said."


Faun Otter, Vote Fraud- Exit Polls vs. Actuals, Sccop.com, November 4, 2004
- In Florida Bush received a million extra votes, while Kerry received only 500,000 extra votes, in spite of a massive Democratic Get-Out-The-Vote(GOTV) and registration campaign in that state;

- In Florida's Broward County, a democratic stronghold and heavily black community, unauditable voting machines recorded a 33% (70,000+) vote gain on Bush's 2000 results and a much smaller gain to Kerry – again Broward was the scene of a massive GOTV campaign;

- In several places voters reported ( INFOZINE ) voting for Kerry but noticing the machine record their vote for Bush;

- Recollections, reported here at Scoop.co.nz in 2003, that there is evidence of vote fraud in Florida in 2000 involving security holes in voting systems;

- Observations that many of the security flaws reported in mid 2003 in vote counting systems remained in place for the 2004 count last night (see… BlackBoxVoting for details.)

SEE MY LAST POSTING ON THE POSSIBILITY OF ELECTION FRAUD





Adam Yoshida: A Shining Example of Good Faith



Adam Yoshida: A Shining Example of Good Faith

When our leader refuses to forward a genuine offer to heal America, you cannot expect he will set a decent example for other Americans.

As I have said, I am very sad for our nation. I don't even turn on CNN, FOX, or MSNBC anymore. They spread propaganda from Republican strategists only. MSNBC even hired the filthy scumbag Ben Ginsberg, who helped orchestrate the Swift boat smearing, as one of their house pundits. I can't believe I'm abandoning them, but I also can't believe a word they say anymore. (See: Too Little, Too Late by Robert Parry--it explains how the media is used - and it isn't just FOX News, although they are the worst of the mainstream monstrosities trying to pass themselves off as good journalists).

Observe, my friends, the slow death of democracy and freedom within our own borders - and the approaching era of a new, accepted intolerance for political diversity at a level possibly never before seen in our nation.

Warning to our Republican Representatives, if Bush cannot be a uniter, you'd damned well better be. Take responsibility for the People - all the people. Yes, it's true you have a political edge, and it's acceptable that you take advantage of your strengths. Yet, you cannot ignore the deep division in this nation. Beneath the surface there is a slow-burning fire. We'll be watching you.

Warning to our Democratic Representatives: Start representing us! Stand up for us. If you fail to do so, you will be abandoned, and righhtfully so.

Dramatic, you say?

Call me a canary in a coal mine.