The election section

I'm going to make this column a round-up of news related to vote fraud, but not related to the Wayne Madsen controversy -- because I'm still trying to get my head around that stuff.

Hearings: The House Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on what mainstream reporters are pleased to call voting "irregularities." The Committee's letter to Ken Blackwell makes for interesting reading.

What to expect: A few nuggets of good information sprinkled amidst acres of Republican pomposity, misdirection and molehills made mountainous. We will hear much about the alleged inaccuracy of exit polling and very little about the pattern of error. Mitofsky will testify, and his alleged "raw data" will prove convenient to the conservatives. The mainstream media will report his words as a wise and noble corrective to the irresponsible blatherings of bloggers such as yours truly. Of course, nearly every one of the many opinion pieces parroting this argument will contain an oh-so-clever reference to tin foil hats -- gosh, that one never gets old.

Will there be any real action on this issue? Of course not, since the Democrats hold so little power and the G.O.P. is the Borg. Permissible discussion will be limited to the concept of accidental problems. Any witness who insists that the Republicans made a concerted effort to depress the Democratic vote will receive the sort of "buzzsaw" treatment accorded Anita Hill.

Further predictions: A right-wing Borg on the Committee will make an attempt to blame the Democrats for malfeasance in some precinct somewhere. Maybe Mitofski will take the pay-off and "admit" that the exit polls were skewed to favor Dems; the Rovians have favored bold propaganda strokes of that sort in recent years. (How much is a "confession" of that sort worth? I'm guessing a few million.)

In the end, everyone will agree that "there were problems on both sides" but "not enough to change the election." There will be a resolution to correct these problems by the time of the next election, which means, of course, that exactly nothing positive will happen. Any legislation that results will only make vote fraud easier to get away with next time. (Remember the "Help America Vote Act"?) The radio rightists, who specialize in turning reality on its head, will use these hearings as an excuse to "prove" that Democrats tried to steal the election, and that outrageous proposition will become the bedrock belief for the millions of brainwashed Borgies in Jesusland.

The whole sequence of events is so bloody predictable. The hearings will do much more harm than good, and I advise everyone to treat them with contempt from the very start.

Keeping the vote white: Buzzflash has published a powerful essay collating data on how blacks were kept from the voting booth.

Olbermann vs. Bev Harris: After learning from a correspondent that Obermann has heaped praise on the lying neocon Gerry Posner (and I wouldn't call a lawyer a liar in print unless I could prove the accusation), I've given up all hopes of seeing another worthwhile word from the MSNBC correspondent.

For what it is worth, though, I suppose fairness dictates that I relay his side of the tiff with Ms. Harris:

One final note here. I should clarify what I wrote in this space last night about Countdown's interaction with Bev Harris of Black Box Voting. My staff is not certain that any of our messages to Ms. Harris inviting her on the show since the week of November 15 have specifically asked her for permission to play the videotapes of her work trying to audit the Florida vote. We think so, but I've got only three people booking all the guests on this program, and they each probably make about 100 calls a day.

Complicating our effort is the fact that even as we hoped to provide a platform to publicize and illuminate her efforts, Ms. Harris had returned none of the messages left on her own voicemail by Countdown staffers since she spoke to our staffers briefly, twice, during the week of November 8. Only today did she even get back in touch with us, and was so belligerent, threatening, and demanding, that we have chosen to withdraw our invitation to her to appear, or to have videotape of her efforts played, on Countdown.

Threats against myself or my staff will not be tolerated. We are not only busting our humps on the voting irregularities beat, but we remain the only mainstream news organization to continue to cover this vital story. These are my people -- they are running professional risks I can't begin to describe -- and I will stand up for them, first, last, and always.

I doubt that anyone was seriously "threatened." Harris doesn't look like the kind of woman who could take someone out. Everyone agrees that she can be testy. Hell, from what I've read, if ever I met her I would probably be screaming at her within the first half-hour.

But so what? Personality issues matter less than the fact that she was the first to draw our attention to the dangers of electronic voting. And she had a right to get pissed off when a mainstream writer like Olbermann insinuated that she was only in it for the money. As noted yesterday, we hear that particular cheap shot quite a lot these days -- always directed at liberals, never at conservatives -- and I, for one, just won't stand for it any more.

Smoothing over the problems. PBS has discussed the allegations of "irregularities" in Ohio and elsewhere, but every point in their piece was phrased in the most soothing manner possible. Compare the bland pap you read here to the outrageous details revealed in the now-famous Cleveland hearings.

Exit polls: Democratic Underground has an interesting discussion of the statistical likelihood of the exit/actual disparity in 16 states. Many a large number is referenced. But the comment I can't help repeating is this one: "That Bush won by chance alone is still about as likely as Dennis Miller becoming funny again any time this century."

Arrests in Ohio? Such was the claim in an Arkon Beacon-Journal news account. The link involves some irritating sign-in rigamarol, so I'll reprint the guts of the piece here:

Charges are expected in an ongoing probe of voter registration fraud in Summit County.

Board of Elections Director Bryan Williams on Wednesday told board members he was given an update of the investigation from the county sheriff's office.

"They anticipate that arrests would be made," Williams said in the meeting.

The elections board forwarded more than 800 apparently fraudulent voter registration cards to the sheriff for investigation in August and September, when the cards returned to the elections board appeared to be suspicious.

Many of the cards contained fake addresses or phony names, and many appeared to be in the same handwriting.

Summit County detectives have been working on a bi-county task force being led by the U.S. attorney's office in Cleveland and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification & Investigation.

I'm troubled by this story, but not for the reason you think.

It would be a beautiful Rovian trick to send in 800 fraudulent voter registration cards and then plant evidence pointing to some Democrat. This move would take the heat off of Blackwell. Moreover, it would put the controversy right where the Bushites want it: With the conservative media screaming that Dems were the primary malefactors and the mainstreamers admitting that a certain degree of "irregularity" occurred on both sides.

Mark my words: Before another month is out, the right-wingers are going to find some way to turn this issue to their benefit. They always do. After all, they actually managed to "flip" the issues of Kerry's service and Bush's lack of service. If they could do that, then they can create the impression that liberals tried to rig the election. If he wanted to do so, Karl Rove could find a way to convince this country that Poland invaded Germany.

Just a Fly on the Wall. This is the title of a book which claims to offer an insider account of how the election was stolen. Oddly, the author of this book, Clint Curtis, is not mentioned by name on the front page of the website promoting the work.

Those of you who feel burned by Fisher and Madsen may be rolling your eyes at this point. But the basic story is worth reading, as is the supporting documentation. The author gets on my good side by calling for an economic boycott -- an idea I proposed before the election.

Here are the guts of it, and you are invited to come to your own conclusions:

While employed at Wong Enterprises, Congressman Feeney had requested if Wong could write a voting program that could alter the vote and be undetectable. As the technology advisor, I explained that as long as the source code was provided and complied under supervision, code which altered the vote and was undetectable could not be built. Another problem would be that no one would trust a program that provided for no paper trail to substantiate its accuracy. When the vote was flipped the paper trail could easily detect the fraud.

This request was early in my exposure to Congressman Feeney, so I was not familiar with what a total piece of crap he truly was. My assumption was that he was worried that the other side (the Democrats) would introduce voting machines which could manipulate the vote. Mrs. Wong volunteered that we (meaning me) could put together a quick prototype that he could view and show others.

I have recreated that prototype and posted it at http://www.justaflyonthewall.com/votefraudprogram.htm. It is essentially the same code that I built for the vote fraud demo for Congressman Feeney. You will notice that by clicking on the correct hidden spots on the screen, the vote will flip so that the Republican candidate will receive fifty one percent of the vote. The hot spots make it possible to flip the vote as often as necessary yet it will never fire accidentally so as to avoid detection. My prototype was actually very simplistic. The actual sequence to flip the vote could be as complex as the programmer wished or even to operate automatically. In cases when the Republican is already leading, the vote is left as is. I built the program to demonstrate that with proper supervision that the election machines would be safe. The code would not be able to be hidden.

The next day I complete the prototype and presented it to Mrs. Wong. I stressed how the tampering could be detected. She quickly set me straight as the to true intention. Her exact words were "If we can’t hide the manipulation, we won’t get the contract the program is needed to control the south Florida vote." Another confirmation of why I needed to get a different job. I would not build something that would defraud every voter in this country. Even better, I knew that as long as the election supervisors used proper computer procedures, no one else would or could either.

What I did not anticipate was that this country would allow the placement of voting machines where the source code was not provided. The programs were pre-compiled (you have no idea what is in them or what hidden triggers exist), and where no paper trail would be required to check their accuracy. Any moron could build a voting program that could flip the vote under those circumstances and no amount of testing could discover the deception.

Note: I have not downloaded the "vote fraud" program referenced above, and have no idea if it contains a virus. Be careful when downloading anything.