Today's vote fraud links

Keith Olberman of NBC has come out on this issue. You can read his column here, and watch his report here. Damn good reporting.

Expect to see the con-intern demonize Olberman as they did Michael Moore. Olberman will either lose his job or find another subject. Until that happens, follow his work.

Cuyahoga County: I earlier linked to this page, which reveals that some precincts received many (MANY) more votes than registered voters. It should be noted that Cuyahoga is a blue county in Ohio, and, as I recall, one of the last to be counted on election night. It went 66% for Kerry, who did slightly better than Albert Gore fared. Republicans can argue that any fake votes may have gone to Kerry. On the other hand, "salting" the Bush total in a blue county would be tactically clever, since a Democrat is unlikely to call for a recount in an area with a Democratic victory.

The afore-cited page links to this report from Columbus, which includes this paragraph:

Touch screen voting machines in Youngstown OH were registering "George W. Bush" when people pressed "John F. Kerry" ALL DAY LONG. This was reported immediately after the polls opened, and reported over and over again throughout the day, and yet the bogus machines were inexplicably kept in use THROUGHOUT THE DAY.

You've seen pretty much those same words before. The same phenomenon occurred in Florida and other states. If it were accidental, then a "false Kerry" screen would pop up as often as a "false Bush." I've yet to read of a furious Bush supporter complaining of such a thing.

Machine errors: This page gives a good list. Example From North Carolina:

In Craven County, all vote totals in nine of the county's 26 precincts were electronically doubled, increasing the totals for president by 11,283 more than the number of votes cast. Correcting the mistake changed the outcome of at least one race. ES&S Votronic machines used. Automatic warning of double-counting didn't work.

Turnout. Sam Parry of Consortiumnews.org finds that the popular vote numbers stretch credulity. Everyone knows that the Dems achieved incredible turnout, but Republicans always manage to turn out their base well; many believe that there was limited room for improvement on their side of the aisle. Rove's announced strategy concentrated on bringing out the four million evangelicals who had not voted in 2000. But Bush received nine million more votes than he did previously. (Much the same point is made here.)

But, even if one were to estimate that 100 percent of these Evangelical voters turned out for Bush in 2004 and that 100 percent of Bush’s 2000 supporters turned out again for him, this still leaves about 5 million new Bush voters unaccounted for.

Altogether, Bush’s new 9 million votes came mainly from the largest states in the country. But nowhere was Bush’s performance more incredible than in Florida, where Bush found roughly 1 million new voters, about 11 percent all new Bush voters nationwide and more than twice the number of new voters than in any other state other than Texas.

Parry goes on to describe the odd situation in Palm Beach and Broward counties, where the Dems acquired 110,000 new registrants, while the Republicans achieved only 19,000. Kerry should have improved on the Gore's totals in 2000. "Instead, Bush actually increased his vote total in the two counties by earning about 5,000 more new voters than Kerry."

Subtle oddities of this sort offer the best indications of hugger-mugger. Remember: A truly clever tally-manipulator isn't going to do something obvious, like switch Los Angeles from red to blue. A crime of this sort requires finesse.

Now hear this. Amy Goodman's interview with Bev Harris and Aviel Rubin is a must-read (or must listen, if you so choose).

SAIC. Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) is part of the small consortium running our elections. And they have disturbing connections to Admiral Bill Owens (connected to Frank Carlucci and Dick Cheney) and former DCI Robert Gates. Do we really want a "former" CIA-guy counting our votes?

Is paper our savior? Dissident Voice argues that paper trails won't solve the problem of machine voting.

More open: The New York Times summarizes a report on the exit polls.

The report also theorized that the poll results more frequently overstated support for Mr. Kerry than for President Bush because the Democratic nominee's supporters were more open to pollsters.

Horseshit. Why didn't this "more open/less open" inequality manifest itself in the days before electronic voting? Why don't we see a similar phenomenon in other countries?

Finally: There are a few oft-repeated arguments that I think we should retire.

1. "Damn Kerry! He conceded too early!" A concession speech is a mere tradition; it is not legally binding. From a political standpoint, he conceded at exactly the right time. Stop the internecine sniping. And stop bothering Cameron Kerry.

2. Why won't Daily Kos/Atrios/Daily Howler/Josh Marshall/Whoever talk about this issue? They have discussed it, to some extent. But people have differing standards of evidence and differing comfort levels with a story of this nature. The folks running those fine sites have done nothing to discourage further investigation, and I feel sure that they will publicize new hard facts, when and if they emerge.

3. "Those small optical scan counties in Florida went haywire!" Yeah, I was saying the same thing -- for about a day. Then I looked at the voting history in those small counties. If voter manipulation occurred in Florida (and I think it did) it occurred everywhere, in rather subtle percentages. Look to the GEMS system, the central vote tabulator.