Democracy, too, can drown (updated again)

Major corrections: Contrary to my statement yesterday, Tom Feeney has not filed a lawsuit against the Seminole Chronicle. He has, however, made serious noises about doing so. As always, I blame Satan for the error. (I also blame Old Scratch for the many typos in yesterday's post.)

Speaking of errors: The other paper in Feeney's home town, The Oviedo Voice, is putting together a response to the vote-theft coverage offered by the rival Seminole Chronicle. The Voice labeled Christopher Bollyn, a reporter for American Free Press, as a guest writer for the Brad Blog. I am quite sure that Brad Friedman writes all his own material. (I speak with the authority of one who, on a regular basis, cribs from that fine site -- with Brad's cheerful acquiescence.)

At the same time, the Voice saw fit to note that bloggers are "not always totally accurate." Which is true, of course. Even so, don't you love it when the traditional media -- you know, the advertising-supported venues which can afford editors, proofreaders, fact-checkers and so forth -- commit serious mistakes even as they score bloggers for sloppiness?

On a similar note, you'll be entertained by Brad's response to the latest anti-Curtis barrage by Keith Olbermann. Face it, folks: Olbermann's no longer on our side. That's not the problem. The problem is, he seems to have gone over to the other side.

Subpoenas for the Prez, Cheney, and Rove? The Nashua Advocate asserts that the lawyers involved with Cliff Arnebeck's suit in Ohio will attempt to depose the men who run our country, and will also seek a deposition from George W. Bush.

The Free Press also reports that Blackwell is doing his damnedest not to make any statement about the election under oath:

Richard Conglianese, Ohio Assistant Attorney General, is seeking a court order to protect Blackwell from testifying under oath about how the election was run. Blackwell, who administered Ohio's November 2 balloting, served as co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign.

James R. Dicks, Miami County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, filed a motion to block a subpoena in his county while Conglianese filed to block subpoenas in ten key Ohio counties.

All of which has a "we've got 'em on the run" flavor." Alas, matters are not so simple. The Supreme Court of Ohio has moved to dismiss a large part of Arnebeck's case. That Court, dominated by Republicans, has also been asked to quash the subpoenas on Bush and his comrades.

For a fine analysis of the trouble the Ohio Supremes have just handed Cliff Arnebeck, go to georgia10's extremely helpful diary on Daily Kos. You'll have to scroll down to the update at the very end.

Arnebeck on the Ohio recount. I'm gratified to learn that Cliff Arnebeck has made much the same point I've tried to make. From the Guardian:

Cliff Arnebeck, an attorney representing the voters in the challenge, wasn't taking much stock in the recount effort. He questioned why there was no independent investigation into the accuracy of counting machines to determine whether the machines had been tampered with.

"You're allowing the original error to be repeated a second time, so it's not a meaningful recount," he said.

In this light, you'll want to pay close attention to the Triad story below. You'll also want to savor the following choice oddity...

This blogger's account from December 18 shows evidence that Coshocton County, Ohio, showed a wide variety of reported vote totals. At some point between Blackwell's official count on December 6 and an official county announcement of vote totals issued on December 10, the number of votes jumped from 16,242 to 17,300. The recount brought the number up to 17,329. Over a thousand new votes were "found."

But, but, but...

According to today's AP story on the recount, "Kerry gained 734 more votes in the recount, and Bush picked up 449." Math was never my strong suit, but I tote those numbers up to 1183 new votes found statewide.

Were the additional votes all found in Coshocton County? Is that likely? Is that possible?

To my eyes, these recount numbers look seriously questionable. I'll be happy to stand corrected if anyone out there has a counter-argument...

Let's all hang with the Kerrys: There is a movement to maintain a vigil outside John Kerry's house, in order to pressure him not to certify the electoral college vote on January 6. That would be a real "Profiles in Courage" moment, wouldn't it? If Kerry challenges the slate of electors from Ohio or Florida, he can kiss goodbye any hope of running in 2008. He would probably also lose his senate seat in the next election. On the other hand, if he doesn't speak out against vote theft, who will?

Vote hopping. Even the Washington Post acknowledges the problem: On electronic voting machines in Ohio (and elsewhere, if numerous anecdotal reports count for anything), the default vote went to Bush. The damned machines were programmed to operate in that fashion. Of course, a small sector of the electorate will not cast any vote in the presidential election. Did those votes automatically go to W?

You gotta love it. Dick Morris offers this observation on the election in the Ukraine:

In both previous elections, Yushchenko actually got upward of 60 percent of the vote, only to have the government falsify the results. Fortunately, he adopted a technique I had found useful when fighting against the PRI, the party that controlled Mexico's government for decades: using exit polls to establish the real winner, and so expose the government's count of the votes as rigged.

So there you have it: According to Dick, the exit polls demonstrate which candidate should be a "shoe-in" -- in every country except the United States.

By the way...is it true (as this story claims) that shadowy Republican pollster Frank Luntz helped run the exit polls in the Ukraine? For an eye-opening run-down on Luntz' startling career, check here.

More on Triad: A professional computer consultant offers a few choice words on Triad's "ever so helpful" system of offering modem access to tabulating machines:

Triad non-chalantly used this modem method to reset machines in preparation for the Ohio recount. No doubt that this is a practical short-cut: Makes sense; it saves gas, time. In fact, this is the same mechanism that I -- a computer consultant -- use to support 200 computers spread out across North Carolina.

It is now public record that Triad "legally hacked" into Van Wert County, Ohio on December 9th, and other counties on different dates in preparation for the recount...

The big picture: Everything is fine until you consider that passive modem-access means that these machines have been available for remote re-configuration for months if not years. We know this because nothing special was done (like Triad calling Van Wert’s elections board) to prepare for this recent remote connectivity.

The revelation that Triad used a modem to hack into the tabulators before the recount is verified by the Green Party Website. (You'll have to scroll down.)

It's been said before (many times, many ways), but there is no legit reason to attach a modem to any machine linked in any way to the counting of our votes.

Video proof. Want to see a strong video demonstration of the outrageous efforts to disenfranchise black voters in Ohio? Click here.

An anti-Conyers editorial in an the Port Clinton News Herald (an Ohio newspaper) includes this noteworthy bit of snarkiness:

If Conyers was so concerned about voting problems, where was he in 1998 when election officials in his hometown of Detroit took a disgraceful two weeks to count ballots due to lost poll books and miscounting of precinct totals?

Where was he in 2001 when the counting of absentee ballots in Detroit had to be halted in midstream by state officials after it was discovered that the city clerk was simply ignoring state requirements for the use of software that would eject ballots that couldn't be read by machine?

And where was he when a memo allegedly drafted by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's aides in 2002 claimed that Detroit's voter rolls were overstated by about 150,000 people -- a strong hint that something may be seriously amiss in the Detroit election process, threatening the value of the ballot for people who are genuinely qualified to vote?

"A disgraceful two weeks"? Jeez, we would have loved it if Ken Blackwell had finished the official Ohio vote count within two weeks. Would it be churlish of us to mention his election-night promise to complete the work within ten days? Instead, he dragged out the process for more than a month, obviously with the intention of making the recount efforts moot.

Back to the article quoted above: Do we have any evidence that the incident in 2001 was not rectified as soon as it was discovered? In the absence of such evidence, why is the Port Clinton News Herald trying to imply culpability on the part of John Conyers?

The same can be said of the 2002 memo, which remains controversial. The issue comes down to the question of whether or not Detroit has no more than 450,000 registered voters, as Kirkpatrick estimated. According to the Detroit News:

But Detroit Elections Director Gloria Williams maintains there are 611,321 registered voters in the city. This summer, the city spent $143,363 to mail registration cards.

"That's way wrong," Williams said of the 450,000 figure in Kilpatrick's memo.

By the way, we also do not know which side would be favored by these alleged ghost voters -- if they exist. Would John Conyers or his Republican opponent feel a greater need to pad the Detroit vote?

I draw attention to this attempt to smear Conyers because it gives us a hint as to the propaganda barrage the Republicans will surely mount, should his efforts justify a major counter-attack.

Funny, innit? The anti-Conyers forces in Ohio have become very worked up by a memo from 2002 estimating (based on what evidence, I know not) a lower number of registered voters in Detroit. But Conyers' critics do not see much wrong with the situation in Perry County, Ohio, where the number of votes significantly exceeded the number of people who signed the books. Democrat Bill Crane, who lost (by a razor-thin margin) the vote to retain his auditor's position, is filing suit...

We haven't even mentioned the ballooning absentee vote numbers in Turnball County, Ohio:

The Trumbull County investigation showed some 650 more absentee votes than there were absentee voters identified in the poll books examined. If the absentee vote inflation rate there were consistent statewide, then over 63,000 votes were up for grabs in Ohio. This unexplained problem would have been brought to light much earlier had it not been for an unlawful directive by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to prevent any public inspection of poll books prior to vote certification.

Let us summarize.

A right-leaning Ohio newspaper damns Conyers because of an unproven allegation of "funny numbers" in Detroit. But when similar allegations come backed by actual data, and when the dubious activity occurs in Ohio, and when a Democrat suffers -- that isn't anything for an Ohio newspaper to worry about.

Comprende?