Black disenfranchisement. An African-American writer named Shanikka comments on the official Democratic response (or lack thereof) to Republican measures to keep blacks from voting:
So, as I said before, y'all don't get it. I am becoming increasingly convinced that you will never get it because, in the end, it's all about you, and not about us. What is happening now with the Democratic "leadership" (including its strongest advocates and mobilizers in the blogosphere) is making crystal clear that you are quite happy to allow our rights to be sacrificed for some "larger good" that you are seeking (one which conveniently doesn't negatively impact YOUR rights or access to power).These words have truth, but do not suffice. Let me raise a counter-argument.
As I mentioned in the last post I made, I've been a lifelong Democrat. My mother was in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. However, my mama also didn't raise no fools. I'm African-American first and no matter how much other folks tell me that they care about my people's rights, the proof is in the pudding.
I'm old enough to remember both times my city burned. Obviously, my memory of the second event is clearer -- I still recall the smell of the smoke and the sound of the Emergency Broadcast Signal used for real.
And what caused that uprising? A jury in Simi Valley had acquitted the cops who beat a black motorist.
I'm not saying that the grounds for revolt at that time were insufficient. But the grounds are far more compelling now. The theft of the black vote will continue until the disenfranchised respond with outrage, mass action, and...
...well, we all know the meaning of the words "by any means necessary."
It is not fair to accuse all white Democrats of doing nothing. I've devoted roughly an eighth of all my waking hours since November 2 to the task of getting some attention focused on this issue. Many others have done far more.
I called for revolt and unrest before the election. (My suggested method of protest: A mass refusal to pay taxes.)
Scowling at the Democratic leadership will accomplish little, since -- in the present conservative political climate -- they can do little. They have little power.
"Street heat," properly applied, could provide that power. Black people have a source of power denied to the Democratic leadership, for blacks have an undeniable greivance. The victims always possesses a unique ability to address the consciences of the oppressive and the ignorant. They -- perhaps only they -- can shock this country back to its senses.
If a schoolyard bully steals your lunch money and you do not fight back, chances are he will steal it again tomorrow. This is hardly the first time black people have had their votes stolen.
Clinton Curtis. Keith Olbermann has mounted an attack on Curtis' credibility. Brad Friedman, natch, has mounted the counter-attack. Any objective party who reads both pieces will have to admit that Friedman scores several direct hits.
Olbermann, it seems, made no attempt to contact Curtis. This is the point at which many will mutter something about "Journalism 101" -- although, truth be told, standards are much more relaxed in the blogosphere. What rankles me is the fact that Olbermann did bother to contact Congressman Feeney, the target of Curtis' accusations. If Olbermann wants to take the reportage to that level, why not speak to both sides?
Friedman correctly scores Olbermann for the charge that Curtis threatened his former employers "in writing." If he did, where's the evidence? Where is the evidence that the police were (as Olbermann reports) contacted as a result of this alleged threat? Olbermann has here simply functioned as a stenographer to the monied, never bothering to double-check the allegations of Feeney and Yang.
The Brad Blog delivers many more details, of course. The site even reprints the farewell card given to Curtis by his former office-mates -- a nice bit of visual evidence which tends to disprove the oft-heard line that Curtis is a mere disgruntled employee.
Friedman deserves an ovation for his efforts.
Are there any Democrats at Diebold? Robin Baneth of North Carolina wants to know. Indeed, she is offering 500 smackers, cash money, to any Diebold or Triad employee who can honestly testify that that he or she voted for Gore and Kerry.
A brilliant move, Robin! I'll bet there are no takers...
Recount in Ohio: Most of the counties have been counted (remember, Ohio law mandates an initial three percent recount) and Kerry has picked up an underwhelming 242 votes. Keep in mind that this recount does not look into undervotes, and does not double-check the voter logs, which is where much mischief may lie.
Can the recount be rigged? We've seen indications that it can be. You will recall the unpleasantness in Greene County, where ballots were kept from the recounters but made available to anyone else who cared to walk into the building.
Contrary to law, precincts were not selected at random for the three percent recount -- a factor which renders the whole recount effort somewhat farcical.
In some cases, election officials went to a private room to compare the hand counts to the machine counts, declared that the counts matched, yet wouldn't let the observers see the printouts. In other cases, the the 3% handcount did not match the machine count, yet election officials refused to do a full handcount as required by Ohio law. Election officials in many counties also won't give access to poll books, absentee ballots, and provisional ballots as required by Ohio law. To this day, we've still not seen any investigation of why an ES&S official was on a tabulator before election day. We've also not seen any investigation or reasonable explanation for the lockdown in Warren county. Other election officials have been caught in boldfaced lies (e.g., claiming under oath that all machines were distributed on election day when we now know that 81 sat in a warehouse). Blackwell himself won't answer the 36 questions posed to him by congressman Conyers, and now says he refuses to go under oath and considers the request "harassment."Any plan to steal an election must, of course, include a contingency plan to rig a recount.
Exit polls: Mark Blumenthal's "Mystery Pollster" column has consistently argued against Dr. Freeman's work, and against the notion of vote fraud in the 2004 elections. "Exits: Were They Really "Wrong?'" attempts to demolish Freeman's analysis.
However, this response at Democratic Underground mounts a persuasive counter-argument.
Let's sample the debate. First, the Mystery Pollster:
Some have asked that I calculate my own estimate of the joint probability of an error in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. I am reluctant to do so for two reasons: First, the rounding error in Freeman's data alone renders this sort of hairsplitting moot. Second, and more important, it really doesn't matter. Everyone concedes there was a small (2%) but significant average error in Kerry's direction. For those concerned about problems with the count, what matters most is why that error occurred.Now, from the Democratic Underground respondent (as in original; apologies for the "all caps" approach):
DON’T JUST LOOK AT FL AND OH AND PA. LOOK AT ALL 51 STATES. AND CALCULATE THE PROBABILITY THAT 16 OUT OF 51 STATES WOULD MOVE BEYOND THE MOE IN FAVOR OF BUSH.If I follow the Mystery Pollster's argument correctly, he takes the end-of-day exit numbers as gospel. But as we have seen, these numbers were contaminated by (or, as some prefer to put it, "conformed to") the incoming "actuals." So the earlier numbers remain the closest thing we have to an independent check on the official tallies.
I AND OTHERS AT DU HAVE CALCULATED THE ODDS THAT THIS COULD OCCUR DUE TO CHANCE:
ONE OUT OF 13.5 TRILLION.
IF YOU CONSIDER THAT FOR EXIT POLLS, THE HISTORICAL NORM MOE = +/- 2%, THEN 23 STATES DEVIATED BEYOND THE 2% MOE IN FAVOR OF BUSH.
THE PROBABILITY OF THAT IS ZERO.
And even the conformed"numbers leave that small but significant error in Kerry's direction. This error remains mysterious to all, even the Mystery Pollster.
Bev Harris. I always feel a little guilty when I offer critical words about the woman who first opened many an eye to the dangers of the e-vote. But my feelings of guilt evaporate when I think about those poll tapes she is allegedly hoarding. Dammit, I wanna see 'em!
For the other side of the story, check out this laudatory piece. Here's a noteworthy slice:
In the blue states, Bev Harris is a standard bearer, a pioneer, and a patriot. In the red states, many who know her believe that Bev Harris is a conspiracy nut, a rabble rouser, and an agitator.And yet, as we are continually reminded, she runs a group which remains officially non-partisan. (So does Pat Robertson, but few doubt that he voted for W.)
In paranoid moments -- yes, believe it or not, I have a few -- I wonder if some Rovian trickster tried to foist some data on her which would tend to implicate Democrats in vote tampering?
Slide show: If you want to direct newcomers to a site that provides a terrific introduction to the topic, go here.
9 comments:
Apart from the exit poll issues, it is increasingly clear that much was achieved by voter suppression efforts. Of interest may be the following video of Ohio on election day:
http://460design.net/ohio/
An excerpt from Salon today:
"Unless there's a dramatic turnaround in public sentiment between now and Jan. 20, Bush will be sworn in to office with the lowest job-approval rating -- barely 50 percent -- of any president in the last 80 years, or since modern-day presidential polling began....
Since his 3-percentage-point win over Sen. John Kerry, Bush has experienced a complete lack of bounce in the polls."
Perhaps it is quite possible that further evidence of fraud is offered in today's approval ratings. Bush's numbers are "down", because they were never really up.
I'm not trying to oversimplify here, but sometimes those hoofbeats really are horses, not zebras.
Kim in PA
"When you make peaceful revolution impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable" John F. Kennedy
Just a thought.
It occurs to me that the stories of Bush being sat down and told he was going to lose might not be just Rovian disinformation. The Bushist core may well have believed they were going to lose.
They "won," of course, but they did so because the subversives do not have a centralized "brain." Small groups do what they do, but if you expose one there is no obvious trail to the bigshots. Kathy Blackwell doesn't need anyone in the Bushist White House to tell him to build up long lines at Democratic polling places (although someone may have suggested to him how to do it). Bush and Rove don't need to know that Blackwell is actually going to do it and will succeed. Bushist operatives all over the land have the liberty to act on their own initiative, and they do so.
* * *
I think Black Box Voting's failure to disclose its evidence is perfectly understandable. They are engaged in a forensic examination of the election. They intend to present this evidence sometime in the future, with the goal of repairing a broken electoral system. Patrick Fitzgerald does not reveal his evidence, and neither does Bev Harris reveal hers. As the BBV website states:
IT'S TOO SOON TO PRESCRIBE REMEDIES
...
2. This is not the only election.
...
6. It is premature to recommend specific legislation....The italics are mine. BBV's goal is to change how elections are done, not to fix the current travesty.
I happen to think that goal is misguided. I fear that it has gotten so you could expose a Bushist master plan for subverting American democracy and yet wonder whether it will make a difference. When the Bushists threaten to "go nuclear" in the Senate, they are telling everyone something we cannot afford to avoid confronting. Our government is not founded upon written laws, but upon a general agreement to do things in certain ways, with laws as one aspect of that agreement. The Bushists are withdrawing, bit by bit, from general agreement. The method of forensics followed by legislation is obsolete, because the Bushists barely care anymore what the law says.
Even so, it's better to have someone doing these election audits than having no one do it.
-- chemoelectric.org
As has been stated in your comments many times, there is nothing mysterious about the skew to Kerry in the exit polls. The precincts polled in the design of the poll were almost certainly mainly urban, and therefore mostly democratic.
This does not affect the predictive strength of the poll one bit.
Why don;t you take a look in any basic polling handbook? This is basic polling procedure.
"Scowling at the Democratic leadership will accomplish little, since -- in the present conservative political climate -- they can do little. They have little power."
Bullcrap!
I seem to recall when the Republicans were the minority the weilded quite a bit of power through the rules of congress.
What do Democrats want to do?
Give up on a womans right to choose, and Hillary goes Buchanon on immigration.
Since Clinton ( recall how he advised Kerry to support the ban on gay marriage) the Democrats have become Republican light.
Now you see the single party state, fed by corporate payolla.
I say it's time for Blacks, Unions, Liberals ( christ you are even scared of that word), and young people to massively go third party.
Democrats fought Naders right to get on ballots harder than they fought against vote fraud.
"Friends, I have to admit -- the number of vote fraud stories is thinning. I will continue to relay the information as long as new information pops up. But I am beginning to worry that the issue will die soon unless we catch a big new break."
The reason this story is dying is because the losing candidate had nothing to say about it, and never has. Did we really expect Bev Harris, the Green Party and independent statisticians to carry the load for democracy in America?
Those suicidal at the thought of four more years of GWB can take one small comfort: Kerry would never have stood up to powerful interests, as this episode makes painfully clear.
This very telling sentence appeared in a current AP story on the Washington state governor's race:
<"Republican officials said they will also blanket the state over the next week looking for Rossi voters whose ballots were mistakenly disqualified.">
Isn't it odd that Democrats aren't doing much the same in Ohio? Thank John Kerry and the DLC.
"The establishment media would dearly love to run with anything that undermines Bush,"
Sure, that explains why the media declined to pursue Bush's WMD claims, lets the Bush administration routinely claim black is white (and vice versa), hasn't pursue Bush's ethical lapses in his pre-presidential years (remember a guy named Bill Clinton?), ignores blatant lies, delusions and/or staggering misstatements which would doom any Democrat ("we have found the WMD...."; asserting in an internationally covered press conference with Kofi Annan that "we" invaded Iraq because Saddam wouldn't let the inspectors he, etc.), and won't ask the man simple questions like, "how many times have you been arrested, and are there instances we don't already know about" or "if you served your Guard duty, why didn't anyone ever see you on the base?" or "why is social security in crisis, but not the Federal deficit which your tax cuts blew through the roof?" or "If Donald Rumsfeld is doing such a great job, what would a failure look like?" or "Why did you appoint an ex-CIA agent and former Saddam associate as head of the provisional Iraq government, if we invaded the country to establish freedom democracy?"
Of course, one could argue that Mr. Bush either doesn't give the press an opportunity to ask, or refuses to answer any difficult question and/or ends the career of any troublesome journalist by shutting him out.
From the tone of your post, one can only assume you voted for Kerry, since you have so much respect for his judgment in not purusing a recount. I jest, of course, but when a right-winger praises a democrat, when tends to look for the fix....
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