Exit polls. "TruthIsAll," the nomme-de-net of a poster on the Democratic Underground, directs our attention to a startling new interpretation of the exit poll figures. I hope no-one will mind if I republish the material here.
Our attention is drawn, first and foremost, to this CNN page displaying exit poll information. (The page takes a while to load.) TruthIsAll then asks:
Am I reading this correctly? If I am, we have the SMOKING GUN:On the face of it, these exit numbers are just as damning as anything to come out of the Ukraine.
1) 59% of the 17% who did NOT vote in 2000 but who did in 2004 voted for Kerry. Just 39% for Bush.
2) 65% of those who did NOT vote for Bush or Gore in 2000 voted for Kerry. Just 13% for Bush and 16% for Nader.
3) 91% of those who voted for Gore, voted for Kerry.
4) 90% of those who voted for Bush in 2000, voted for Bush in 2004.
More on exit polls. Dr. Steven Freeman has updated his investigation again. This summary says it all:
National Election Pool pollsters have acknowledged that their polls deviate from official totals by 1.9% nationwide (a 3.8% shift from Kerry to Bush) and intimated that this deviation was caused by disproportionate numbers of Bush voters refusing to participate in the polls. Analysis of the available data and theory, however, strongly suggests that at least part of the discrepancy is due to miscount. Moreover, a review of 2004 election processes suggests little reason for confidence that the count reflects either the intent of the electorate or the way that the votes were cast.The paper is a draft version, labelled "not to circulate." But it is nonetheless on the net for anyone to read -- so read it.
I expect this claim will meet with incredulity and anger. The idea of mass-scale electoral fraud in a US Presidential election may be difficult to fathom - or to stomach.
Nota bene: If you've been following this controversy, you'll get a huge kick out of part 2 of Freeman's new work, in which he skewers "The Prevailing Theory" of the exit poll/actual tally discrepancy: "Bush Voters' Disproportionate Refusal to Participate." (Participate in the exit polls, that is.) In the past, I've called this the "chatty Dem" theory, which presumes that Republicans are preternaturally reticent to express an opinion. If you've ever met a Republican -- or if you've ever sampled the nazified thuggery over at the "Free Republic" site -- you'll understand why I've always considered that presumption a gut-buster.
Freeman addresses the notion that Republicans are "busier" than Democrats -- too busy to talk to pollsters. But as the CNN chart cited above makes clear, the lower income groups all broke for Kerry. The working poor have far, far less free time than do their economic superiors.
Conyers will challenge. John Conyers will formally challenge the Ohio slate of electors, and he will not be the only House member to do so. Conyers believes that the flagrant illegal activity on the part of Kenny "the kapo" Blackwell justifies discounting the Ohio electors. The point appears indisputable, even if we restrict the argument to the deliberately lengthened election lines in Democratic districts.
As noted, Byrd might step in as the Senator supporting this objection. If he does, then the Bush 2005 election will always have an asterisk next to it -- the first election in well over a century to be formally challenged. And that, my friends, will constitute a victory of sorts. Politics has always been a dirty game, but the Republicans have made matters far filthier, and this gesture -- even if symbolic -- will help awaken the world to that fact.
The recount. The recount in Ohio is over, although we have (as noted earlier) no reason to believe that the new count was any cleaner than the first one. Under Ohio's "three percent" rule, three percent of the precincts in each county were to be chosen at random for a confirmatory count; if the tallies were off, the full county would be recounted.
The Republicans, alas, had a very elastic interpretation of the words "at random," which they took to mean "not at random." The recount, in short, had more "fudge room" than Willy Wonka's factory. This illegal maneuver -- and I have cited but one among many -- alone justifies the Conyers challenge to Ohio's electors.
Precinct cross-voting: In the past, we have discussed, briefly, how the rotating order of names on the Ohio ballots may have helped Bush in Ohio. The situation, we now learn, was worse than we once thought. This fine site explains the crime in detail, with lots of graphs and charts and all that good stuff.
The basic problem: A number of voting places served more than one precinct. The order of the names differed between the precincts. If a voter took a ballot into the wrong booth -- a not-infrequent occurrence -- his Bush vote might register as a Kerry vote, or vice-versa.
All right, you say -- but shouldn't that error skew in both directions? Not if the problem stays within a district such a Cuyahoga County, which heavily favors the Democratic party:
For Cuyahoga County, 602,048 votes are reported, more than 1/10 of the Ohio vote. Since John Kerry received 66.75 percent of the vote in this county, on average, given random events, he would lose two votes to cross-precinct voting to every vote Bush would lose. This estimate assumes a random distribution of cross-voting in relation to candidate support.There's much more. The bottom line is the the cross-precinct phenomenon occurred primarily in Democratic areas -- and that this phenomenon will almost always artificially boost the numbers of the less-popular candidate.
The statistics indicated otherwise -- a third mystery. Why is cross-voting unevenly distributed? Finding an answer to my question was not going to be simple. Since the precincts in the county are not all split 2:1 in Kerry's favor, where cross-precinct voting occurs will impact the ratio of lost and switched votes.
Additional indicators of fraud. If you are looking for a single story to send to Robert Byrd, send this Truthout expose of vote fraud in Ohio. (If Byrd receives about a trillion copies of this piece, he'll have to read it at least once.) I can't help passing along a choice quote:
In the heavily Republican southern county of Perry, Blackwell certified one precinct with 221 more votes than registered voters. Two precincts - Reading S and W. Lexington G - were let stand in the officially certified final vote count with voter turnouts of roughly 124% each.Nothing suspicious here, folks.
In Miami County's Concord South West precinct, Blackwell certified a voter turnout of 98.55 percent, requiring that all but 10 voters in the precinct cast ballots. But a freepress.org canvas easily found 25 voters who said they did not vote...
By contrast, in heavily Democratic Cuyahoga County, amidst record turnouts, a predominantly African-American precinct, Cleveland 6C, was certified with just a 07.85 percent turnout.
Provisionally speaking. Here's a fun fact you may want to pass along to your red state relatives:
Some 14.6% of Ohio votes were cast on electronic machines with no paper trail, rendering them unauditable. But on election night, electronic machines and computer software were used throughout the state to tabulate paper ballots. The contrasts are striking. Officially, Bush built a narrow margin of roughly 51% versus 48% for Kerry based on votes counted on election night. But among the 147,400 provisional and absentee ballots that were counted AFTER election night, Kerry received 54.46 percent of the vote. These later totals came from counts done by hand, as opposed to counts done by computer tabulators, many of which came from Diebold.The story does not end there. As I've noted earlier, we have good reason to suspect that Blackwell simply tossed out a number of provisional ballots that went for Kerry. Allow me to repeat a point I made on December 12:
According to an AP report, four out of every five provisional ballots were deemed acceptable. Yet in Cuyahoga County -- Kerry country -- that figure dropped to two out of three.
In order to reach the state-wide figure, the acceptability of the ballots must have been judged by a very, very lenient standard in counties outside Cuyahoga.
In Bush-land, Kenny's attitude was "Provisional ballots? Sure! We love 'em! No need to examine the details very closely -- we trust the voters!" Yet in Kerry-land, Kenny became a hard-ass: "Provisionals? I dunno -- these things can be mighty iffy. We'd better double-check and triple-check. Make sure the addresses and signatures are valid."
Despite this differing approach, and despite the fact that absentee/military votes often skew Republican, Kerry won 54.46 of the provisional/absentee ballots.
Recusal. Interestingly, Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Moyer refused to recuse himself in a case involving his own re-election. Here in California, any party to a minor lawsuit can ask for -- and receive -- a new judge without offering any reason for the request. But in Ohio, an elected official is allowed to decide a matter involving his own election.
Is there a non-corrupt Republican judge anywhere in this country?
Didja know? Angry Girl, a blogger who is also in the band Nightweed, has compiled a superb list of 20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA. I'll reprint just the facts; go to her page for the many supporting citations.
Did you know....A fine start, Angry One, but there is oh-so-much-more. A few more fun facts:
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.
8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
11. Diebold is based in Ohio.
12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html
13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of General Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.
14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it!
17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.
18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.
20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.
21. The money power behind ES&S is the Ahmanson family, which also supports Dominionism, an anti-democratic form of Christian theocracy.
22. In Warren county, Ohio, the el-fake-o "Homeland Security" alert allowed the Republicans to keep media observers out of the Board of Elections. Not only that, all Democratic and third-party observers were kept out as well.
Gee -- you think they'll have something to say about the vote? Rev. Jesse Jackson has announced that he and Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones will hold a press conference at 2 pm on Sunday, January 2nd, at the Olivet Institutional Baptist Church, 88th and Quincy in Cleveland.
Jackson has already said that the Ohio recount "was not conducted in a meaningful manner based on uniform standards as required by the equal protection and due process provisions of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution."
Code orange. There is an international movement to make orange the official color of vote fraud protest. Not my favorite color, frankly. My lady hates orange. How about black? Black is both elegant and funereal -- very much in keeping with the title of this particular post.
26 comments:
Joseph, I prefer a more earthy, burnt orange, which goes nicely with black. Incidentally, orange was chosen as a symbol of the travesty in Florida, where all republican dreams come true.
WOW! Another SUPER article. It compiles much of the fraudulant election into one article. It would take forever to compile everything. It cannot reasonably be viewed as anything other than BLATANT FASCISM IN THE USA that must be stopped if it is not already to late to do so.
Hi, Joseph: Thank you for an excellent piece.
I agree with almost everything you have said, but I cannot join you in support of black. Orange is visible, active, engaged and engaging! Black is WAY too subdued; it makes you look like an investment banker. Orange says "Caution! Danger!" Black says "Too late! Too bad!"
Domestic tranquility being what it is, I do not contest your lady's opinion lightly. But in this one case I really do think she's wrong. Domestic tranquility is for later. Maybe. But for now, orange is definitely the color.
Well, it's a super article for comic book readers. If you want something that corresponds to reality, you will, as usual, have to look elesewhere. The page displaying early exit poll results tells us nothing new, but raises again the question of how those early polls were manipulated. The actual final exit poll results can be found exactly where a sane person would expect to find them:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html
You continue to ignore the obvious objections to your fantasies:
1) Why does the Kerry campaign maintain absolute silence on the subject of exit polls? Could it be that, as they know who mainipulated them, they really don't want to open what promises to be a can of worms? Mitofsky IS a Democrat, a slightly inconvenient fact for the fantasists. Yes, let's investigate those implausible results thoroughly. We should all be eager to discover how Kerry built up his 20-point lead in Pennsylvania.
2) You continue to act as though no Democratic election officials are ever present anywhere. Internet liars keep braying about the Warren County lock-out, but Jeff Ruppert, a lawyer for the Kerry campaign was present, as were several Democrat election officials. All this imaginary skullduggery, and no Democrat is ever around.
3) Everybody is still looking for that one county with a truly anomalous result.
Your "smoking gun" remains a worthless, manifestly rigged exit poll.
"The actual final exit poll results can be found exactly where a sane person would expect to find them...."
It's difficult to know if your posts are the result of ignorance or calculated disinformation, but let me take you by hand, once again, and show how the world actually works, on the one factual claim you make which can be easily tested.
The exit polls you cite are *adjusted*, meaning they were brought into conformity with tabulated votes. These "adjustments" are performed at the end of the night, when exit polls are no longer being used for predictive value (we already know the result by then), but rather for demographic analysis. The only "real" exit polls are the early ones -- those unadjusted (i.e., uncorrupted) by actual vote tallies.
Now, if you want a thorough investigation of early exit polls which showed Kerry ahead in virtually every contested state, I suspect every reader of this board would whole-heartedly agree -- provided, of course, the actual voting in those states receives the same scrutiny.
Further, I gather you're persuaded early exit polling is an accurate predictor of voting (your right-wing colleagues apparently think so, when it comes to Ukraine). So I can only assume you will agree that Bush stole the election, if it can be shown that exits polls consistently favored Kerry and contested states, and no fraud was found.
Or doesn't your world work quite that way?
The fact that two brothers and two companies with ties to the Republican Party, Christian Dominionists, and the Military Industrial Complex sit unregulated with their felonious staff in the private tabulation of 80% of America's vote is enough evidence for me to challenge the transparency and legitimacy of this election. Kerry can sit as quiet as he wants because I don't believe the powers that be were going to lose either way. We lost...not Kerry!
As I have always advocated and as a citizen...I demand verifiable paper trail balloting with dual tabulation! In other words:
1) Voters sign in to vote
2) They cast their ballots on new electronic machines
3) They then view their paper ballot behind glass to verify their vote
4) They receive a paper receipt for their vote
5) They sign out to vote certifying that their vote was properly recorded
6) Both the electronic ballots and the paper ballots are counted independently of each other. Paper ballots shall be hand counted!
7) Standardized machines for the purpose of voting and tabulation are used in every precinct in the country and all machines and counting is under government control and regulation with independent supervision.
If we can spend $250 billion dollars for an illegal war and occupation to protect American oil and gas companies and heap profit upon our Military Industrial Complex...we can surely spend a few billion dollars to protect our own democarcy and insure our elections are fair, clean, and legitimate in every race, especailly races for President. We demand a new election! Using the process and systems above! And then let's see if George W. Bush can get away with another one! It's time to demand another election with the investment mentioned, otherwise it's time to take to the streets and take our country back!
The fact that two brothers and two companies with ties to the Republican Party, Christian Dominionists, and the Military Industrial Complex sit unregulated with their felonious staff in the private tabulation of 80% of America's vote is enough evidence for me to challenge the transparency and legitimacy of this election. Kerry can sit as quiet as he wants because I don't believe the powers that be were going to lose either way. We lost...not Kerry!
As I have always advocated and as a citizen...I demand verifiable paper trail balloting with dual tabulation! In other words:
1) Voters sign in to vote
2) They cast their ballots on new electronic machines
3) They then view their paper ballot behind glass to verify their vote
4) They receive a paper receipt for their vote
5) They sign out to vote certifying that their vote was properly recorded
6) Both the electronic ballots and the paper ballots are counted independently of each other. Paper ballots shall be hand counted!
7) Standardized machines for the purpose of voting and tabulation are used in every precinct in the country and all machines and counting is under government control and regulation with independent supervision.
If we can spend $250 billion dollars for an illegal war and occupation to protect American oil and gas companies and heap profit upon our Military Industrial Complex...we can surely spend a few billion dollars to protect our own democarcy and insure our elections are fair, clean, and legitimate in every race, especailly races for President. We demand a new election! Using the process and systems above! And then let's see if George W. Bush can get away with another one! It's time to demand another election with the investment mentioned, otherwise it's time to take to the streets and take our country back!
Thank you Joseph for the awesome and comprehensive piece on vote fraud, a standing ovation from this corner.
On orange v. black, it's not over til it's over. If we believe in the vote fraud, and I think, unfortunately, that we have no choice but to, then we know there are more of us than them. In my mind, there is no such thing as "random error" skewing in only one direction regardless of the measure used. In the absence of the introduction of some other below the radar unmeasured independent variable, you would expect random error. Random (honest) error is usually present (and is accounted for in the +- statements), and can go either way. But in this case, the +- is well above that predictable noise level. These "unmeasured" independent variables (we refer to as vote fraud) are exactly what the statistical reports are bringing to light and describing. Each report fairly includes those possible IV's like "republican reluctance" etc. AND goes on to discount those theories as being capable of accounting for ALL of the discrepancy found between the final vote and THE measure - the exit polls. If some logic is escaping me, please tell. (Not counting pomeroo the perhaps necessary but irrelevant antagonist in this perticular scenario).
Since we know there are more of us believing in truth and fairness and democracy than there are of them, the manipulators, we MUST still be a mostly Democratic America - albeit a seriously forewarned one!
So I say, Code Orange. I too hate orange - but just enough to piss me off and to remain disgusted and cautioned that we have been formally put on notice. As the majority, we can do what we need to do...Speak Out.
As a majority, we must battle the phenomenon of "Diffusion of Responsibility" (remember Kitty Genovese), whereby the more people present to witness a crime in process, the less each individual is to believe that there is NOT "another guy" who will the take the responsibility to help. The unfortunate result is that no one acts - each thinks another guys will step in. Kitty was murdered, there were many bystanders. Also called, bystander apathy.
Another thank you to Joseph and all Americans out there who are not letting this go.
Samual Adams, in my favorite quote, "If we suffer tamely an attack on our liberty, we encourage it...and involve others in our doom."
Here is a note sent to me by Michael Barone, senior political analyst at the U.S. News & World Report:
"I'm not sure the Democrats slammed the exit polls; I just
think it's very likely. It's the only way I can explain the
58-59% the exit polls showed for Kerry in MN, PA and NH
and the relatively even results they showed for VA, NC
and SC. The reason the networks, including Fox, were
late projecting Bush in NC and SC was the exit poll
numbers. We had to make sure what we suspected,
which is that they were wrong and the tabulated vote
would show clear Bush victories."
Michael Barone
I have often cited John Fund's book, Stealing Elections. He makes the point that Democrats are unreceptive to any reforms that serve to reduce vote fraud and create a verifiable paper trail. I enthusiastically support precisely the steps you outline. But the Democrats do not want fair and honest voting. And for good reason--they just stole an election in the state of Washington.
Want to hear their latest fabrication? They claim that Republicans sent flyers to black voters telling them that the election would be held on a Wednesday. Let's agree that anyone over the age of ten who doesn't know that Election Day falls every year, 100% of the time, on a Tuesday is a moron. The disgraceful, racist assumption that blacks could be tricked into going to the polls on the wrong day is beyond the pale. Do you believe that the Republicans would authorize, and pay for, such a stupid, ham-fisted stunt, when the only possible outcome is a Democrat screaming about it on all media outlets that tolerate such nonsense? I predict that the voter suppression scam is going to blow up in the Democrats' faces very soon.
Are you ever going to address the Kerry camp's silence on the subject of exit polls? They know what happened: You still don't get it. Explain, once and for all, how did Kerry acquire his 20-point lead in Pennsylvania. Was it real? Why did he actually win by 2 points? Assuming that the Bush magicians vanished hundreds of thousands of votes, why did the pre-election polls show Kerry with a small lead in the state. What about New Hampshire? Minnesota? How about the insane exit poll results from those Southern states--were they really too close to call? I'm still trying to determine if you people actually swallow this idiocy, or if it's another con.
Poor Pomeroo. And now poor Mr. Barone. Can you post a link to his analysis supporting his theory? BTW, his "what went wrong" opinion is addressed in the Simon et. al. report - that you still haven't read.
Love your show! But you're at the wrong party. Here we celebrate truth...not red herrings.
"I have often cited John Fund's book, Stealing Elections. He makes the point that Democrats are unreceptive to any reforms that serve to reduce vote fraud and create a verifiable paper trail."
I see. That explains why Democrats introduced legislation to require paper trails, and Republicans refused to act on it.
"I enthusiastically support precisely the steps you outline."
In that case, you're out of step with your own party. Better talk to Barone and Fund to get the story straight.
"But the Democrats do not want fair and honest voting. And for good reason--they just stole an election in the state of Washington."
Yes, when all the votes are counted (including votes intitially disqualified by incompetent election officials), and Democrats win, it's clear evidence of cheating. What is it with Republicans, that they just can't bear to count all the votes -- unless, of course, they happen to be losing?
Apparently, in your view, Democrats are doing such a grand job of stealing elections, they have no incentive to reform the counting procedure. I gather you live a parallel universe, where the Democrats control the Presidency and the Congress, and have for years, thanks to vote fraud.
"Want to hear their latest fabrication? They claim that Republicans sent flyers to black voters telling them that the election would be held on a Wednesday."
This is hardly the "latest". There's a Republican operative (the name momentarily escapes me), formerly of Ohio, currently on trial for just this sort of dirty trick. Suppression of the black vote in the U.S. is hardly anything new, it's been going on for centuries. You may recall that an act of congress addressed the issue.
If you think Republicans and GWB aren't capable of such perfidy, ask John McCain about what GWB's operatives were saying about him (McCain) in South Carolina. Or how about those Republican delegates, who never served a day in the military (they had "other priorities at the time"), mocking Kerry's war wounds (the man still carries sharpnel)?
"Let's agree that anyone over the age of ten who doesn't know that Election Day falls every year, 100% of the time, on a Tuesday is a moron. The disgraceful, racist assumption that blacks could be tricked into going to the polls on the wrong day is beyond the pale."
Now I'm a racist. Thank you for very much. Consider this: when most Americans believe things that are patently and demonstrably false, why should we assume that many of them (regardless of color) can't be persuaded that voting occurs on a Wednesday? After all, many of your fellow right-wingers believe they're going to ascend to heaven in the Rapture, any day now. In the face of that absurdity (and dozens of others, from supply-side economics to Saddam's "link" to 9/11), what's an election on Wednesday? If that's the worst thing Americans can be persuaded of, there's hope for this country.
"Do you believe that the Republicans would authorize, and pay for, such a stupid, ham-fisted stunt, when the only possible outcome is a Democrat screaming about it on all media outlets that tolerate such nonsense?"
What media outlets? Where have you seen these accusations? Most Americans get their news from TV. If it ain't on TV, it don't matter. Republican operatives knows this as well as you and I do. Which is why they're perfectly happy performing ham-fisted voter suppression.
Of course, I could go on and on, but it's a waste a breath, isn't it?
Joe, you may not be a fan of orange, but the Ukranians have forever associated fluoro orange with protests against election fraud in the minds of any thinking person who reads the news.
Orange ribbon campaign, here we come!
I love the one about Republican fraud in New Mexico: yeah, that Bill Richardson is a crafty guy. He and Rove must be really chuckling--wait a minute. Didn't the Republicans accuse Gore of stealing New Mexico in 2000? Isn't Richardson a Democrat? I have a hunch the Dems won't be pressing too hard to look at those New Mexico results. It's a very safe bet that Bush won by more than the official margin.
We've been over the various voter suppression canards. Bottom line: black turnout in Florida four years ago was up by 300,000 over 1996. This year, turnout in Cuyahoga County, Ohio increased at a higher rate than in the rest of the state. How do you continue to make a baseless charge that is flatly contradicted by the actual numbers?
Whenever a flyer containing crude racist sentiments is brought to my attention, it always by a Democrat on a talk show. I'm just curious why those horrible Republicans waste time and money giving their opponents free publicity. The only possible purpose of these simpleminded appeals to bigotry--the ONLY way this farce could play out--is to keep black voters from straying off the Democratic plantation. How could that benefit Republicans? Hey, I just thought of the party it benefits...
The problem in Washington is that three tallies showed the Republican winning. Each time, more Democrat votes are "discovered" in--surprise!--Democrat-controlled Kings County. You can follow this story on realclearpolitics.com. Not only partisan Republicans are noticing the stench.
Richard Morin, Polling Director for The Washington Post and a Democrat, thinks that everyone is making too much of those exit polls. He notes that they were skewed to the Democrat by as much in 1992: nobody cared because the election wasn't as close. There was a slightly smaller Democrat skew in 2000, and a smaller one still in 1996. Why there are always Democrat skews remains a mystery, but he doesn't think Barone is right about the slamming. You see, the locations of the indicator precinct are supposed to be kept secret, so how could Democrat operatives learn where to go. Nobody in a polling firm could possibly leak information, so I guess that settles it.
The people on this site resolutely refuse to confront hard data. They ride their hobbyhorses into the ground, brandish meaningless early exit poll numbers as swords, and never take so much as a fleeting glance at the actual returns. Look at the sheer nonsense posted here yesterday. In 2000, there were roughly 105 million votes cast. This year, that figure rose to over 123 million. That's a difference of 15%. Not everyone who voted last time voted again. Let's assume that between five and ten percent of last election's voters stayed home this year--split the difference and say 8 million voters. Since we have 18 million more votes than in 2000, and 8 million voters didn't show up this time, we need to account for 26 million new voters. If Kerry got 60% of them, he beat Bush by 5.2 million votes among this group. Add that to his 500,000 vote lead from 2000 and it turns out he won by almost SIX MILLION votes. Nah, that isn't ridiculous. Of course, it requires every single national survey to be wrong by more than its margin-of-error, but so what?
It's a smoking gun, all right. It proves conclusively that objectivity is a dead concept on the left.
"It's a smoking gun, all right. It proves conclusively that objectivity is a dead concept on the left."
That probably explains why none of your successive posts answer any of the points raised by those who are foolish enough to respond to you here. Rather, you just fling a new round of mud.
So, for the last time, I'll try to take you by the hand, and point out the obvious: it doesn't matter a damn who's the governor of New Mexico. Vote fraud --if it's occurring -- would not necessarily be happening with the acquiescenceor participation of high state officials (and couldn't be stopped by them, if they happened to be of the wrong party, the one which isn't cheating).
And who cares if a Democrat happens to be in the room when the votes are "counted"? Private company, all of them closely allied with the Republican party, and some run by felons, are recording and counting most of the votes, and their proprietary software is deemed to be a trade secret. Even if they are free of malfeasance themselves -- and the story of Chuck Hagel still needs some explaining -- their systems can be easily hacked. Forgive me for saying so, but Republican dirty tricks have a long history; Democrats are amateurs by comparsion. Democrats simply don't have the same evangelical devotion to serving the interests of big money.
Further, we don't have to look far for clear evidence of the Republican "fix" at high levels. Is it your position that Katherine Harris, for example, presided over the 2000 Florida count with impartiality? Did you know that the NAACP sought -- and achieved -- legal relief (imaginary relief, alas) for the abuses of 2000? That Florida was once again going to use a voter exclusion list which wrongly disqualfied tens of thousands of black voters, and ebandoned it only when forced to reveal that list by the courts?
The question isn't, how could vote fraud occur if a Democrat is governor, or an incompetent election official calls him or herself a Democrat (ever heard of Teresa La Pore?), but whether the vote is fair and free, whether it's counted in an impartial manner, and whether the voter's intention is respected even in the case of human or machine error.
You can cite as many obfuscatory figures as you want. There are so many unanswered questions and the procedures are so shoddy and subject to manipulation, that any reasonable person could question the result. Add that to the exit poll results, and something stinks. I can assure you, this Republican administration would not certify this result in another country (unless, of course, their candidate won).
Well, Anonymous, you appear to have fallen into a fairly obvious trap. If you substitute "Florida" for "New Mexico" you will perhaps begin to grasp what we conservatives have been saying for the past four years. Jeb Bush and Katharine Harris had absolutely no involvement with the counting of ballots. We know that Democrats in Palm Beach County engaged in fraud because of the anomalies (there's that word again). Bush ran ahead of Bill McCollum, the Republican senatorial candidate who lost by 300,000 votes, in every county except Palm Beach. There, Bush received 4,000 votes fewer than McColum; he also got fewer votes than the total of Republican congressional candidates running in the county. By the strangest coincidence, the overvote rate in Palm Beach was ten times higher than in the rest of the state. Two cops reported that they observed Democrat election workers in vehicles used for transportation to central tabulating centers opening bags and handling ballots. See Stealing Elections for details. Typically, you allege--with no evidence whatever--that Republicans practice fraud. That's a great game: the Dems actually do it and Republicans get accused of it.
I understand that my "obfuscatory numbers" are terribly inconvenient for you. As they are accurate, they would naturally pose insurmountable problems for any fantasist.
I just discovered that rightwing websites are ablaze with conspiracy theories involving poor Warren Mitofsky. It seems that he was the polling director at CBS for 23 years. Imagine that--some guy works with Rather and Co. for a mere quarter-century and everyone assumes that he's out to get George Bush. I'm confident that Mitofsky's reasons for refusing to allow anyone to look at his complete exit poll tables are perfectly honest. Someday, real soon, some professional Democrat somewhere will dare to speak the dreaded words, "exit polls." Tell a Kerry higher-up that you want a congressional investigation into those early results, and you can be very certain that he'll tell you it's time for all of us to move on. The idea that someone who worked at CBS would leak information to the Democrats is just too, too awful to contemplate.
I finally read Baiman's paper (trouble with PDF files). What can I say? His math is correct. The exit polls were wrong. That national total for Kerry of 50.8% includes respondents from those early polls that showed Kerry up by twenty in Pennsylvania, seventeen in New Hampshire, ten in Minnesota--we're all tired of hearing me repeat this. Garbage in, garbage out. You start with a result that is wrong, and the conclusions you extrapolate will be wrong. If I tell you that the exit poll shows Kerry leading in Pennsylvania 60-40 and he ends up winning 51-49, yes, it's a bazillion to one that one of those results is very wrong. If all the pre-election surveys echo the actual result, you should start to suspect the exit poll. To be more precise, a reasonable person understands that the exit poll cannot be correct. You, on the other hand, would fabricate a dozen preposterous rationales for doubting the raw vote.
Hey pomeroo! Seems the other anonymous one is kicking your butt! lol If, as you suggest, that there are voting anomalies in other states or areas favoring Democrats, then what you are agreeing to is that the November 2nd election was not up to snuff anywhere! It was not transparent, not accurate, and not legitimate. In other words, you are defeating your own cause by helping us contest the election for a new one!
And that's just fine...we'll be happy to do a new election under the seven steps I outlined for a dual tabulation paper ballot system everywhere! Let's do it! In fact, we demand it! Seems you have no answer, other than to legitimize the complaints the Democrats have already made! Also, your Republican Party is under a standing court order to stop practices that suppress black votes. Not the Democrats...the Republicans have already been proven in Court to suppress black votes and there is a court order to prove it!
pomeroo and everyone, I refer you to: Check out update:
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1065
Evidence is growing for investigation! Sorry pomeroo, cry all you want, but the ship is sinking!
I promised myself I wouldn't do this again, but what the hell, it's only a waste of breath.
"Jeb Bush and Katharine Harris had absolutely no involvement with the counting of ballots. "
True enough. They just engineered the exclusion of tens of thousands of black voters in 2000. Who needs to count, when one party's voters are excluded from the start? I refer you to Greg Palast, and the successful NAACP lawsuit, if you want the details on how it was done.
"I understand that my "obfuscatory numbers" are terribly inconvenient for you. As they are accurate, they would naturally pose insurmountable problems for any fantasist."
The trouble with your numbers is, you provide no basis or support for them, and the analysis is so tortured, it's not clear you yourself know what you're arguing.
If you want to examine some really troubling numbers, try these: Democrats are at least half the country, but they can no longer seem to win a national election (even when they clearly win the popular vote). At the state level, Democrats can be ahead in polls by 8-15 polls (the pre-election polls in which you have so much faith), and then lose by 5-6 points (Max Cleland, Walter Mondale, etc.). In the case of Chuck Hagle, the man overcame enormous odds not once, but twice. One can only imagine the outcry if Republicans were suffering similar setbacks at the hands of Democrats.
I promised myself I wouldn't do this again, but what the hell, it's only a waste of breath.
"Jeb Bush and Katharine Harris had absolutely no involvement with the counting of ballots. "
True enough. They just engineered the exclusion of tens of thousands of black voters in 2000. Who needs to stuff the ballot box, when one party's voters are excluded from the start? I refer you to Greg Palast, and the successful NAACP lawsuit, if you want the details on how it was done.
"I understand that my "obfuscatory numbers" are terribly inconvenient for you. As they are accurate, they would naturally pose insurmountable problems for any fantasist."
If you want to examine some really troubling numbers, try these: Democrats are at least half the country, but they can no longer seem to win a national election, even when more than half the country dislikes the incumbent and believes we're going in the wrong direction (and even when more than half the country votes for the Democrat, per 2000). At the state level, Democrats can be ahead in polls by 8-15 points (according to the pre-election polls in which you have so much faith), and then lose by 5-6 points (Max Cleland, Walter Mondale, etc.). In the case of Chuck Hagel, the man overcame enormous odds not once, but twice. One can imagine the outcry if Republicans were suffering similar setbacks at the hands of Democrats -- and electronic voting machines controlled by well-connected Democratic companies.
"I finally read Baiman's paper (trouble with PDF files). What can I say? His math is correct. The exit polls were wrong. "
You missed the point of Baiman's paper. His methodology makes allowances for errors in exit polls. His argument -- lost on you -- is that such large discrepancies, in so many states, could not have happened without human intervention. Your party, as I've noted before, has a lot of faith in exit polling. Witness Ukraine. Do we really think exit polling in so much worse here, than there?
Now, if you want to argue that exit polls were intentionally corrupted, thereby accounting for the statistically impossible discrepancy, you're going to have to provide some proof. Simply mouthing off won't do it.
But what you're really arguing is, GWB won, so the exit polls must have been wrong. A bit circular, no?
Consider the progress, pommero, you've made in this thread. You began by insisting that "sane" people would only consult adjusted exit polls, in which GWB was the winner -- which is rather like saying you can prove GWB won the election because GWB won the election.
When that position proved untenable, you became an instant expert in the polls only insane Democrats would look at, and the ones your Republican colleagues (or is it employers?) cited in Ukraine (i.e., the real exit polls, though the source and accuracy of your data remains unclear to me).
Add that sudden and remarkable switcheroo to a host of false and/or fallacious arguments you've thrown up on each successive post, and instantly abandoned when they proved indefensible, as well as a number of unproven charges no one could easily hope to refute (am I really supposed to know what an unnamed police officer saw in Palm Beach, according to you?), and I come to the conclusion that you're probably not an amateur, and quite likely more than one person.
Granted, there's nothing more stultifying than a room full of people who agree with each other, and require no proof of their assertions (Democrats can be quite as bad as Republicans in that respect), but the peculiar character of your posts, and the apparent range of falsehood they command, suggests more than yet another deluded Republican from the "heartland", one of those "normal Americans" your party so loves to deceive and fleece.
In a word, give my regards to Ed Gillespie and Tom Delay. If they can pay me enough, I might even consider changing sides and becoming a troll like you. Shall I send you a resume?
Joe- I hope everything is ok with you...I check in with your site daily and I notice we haven't heard from you since Saturday! WE MISS YOU! Hope this finds you well!
I think we can safely conclude that Anonymous (at least one of them) is terribly confused. He insists that I keep retreating from indefensible positions. Every position I have taken here has been shown to be correct:
1) There isn't a shred of evidence for Republican vote fraud in any state.
2) Kerry's astonishing leads in the early exit polls have not been satisfactorily explained.
3) Baiman's contention that exit polls are infallible is demonstrable nonsense. That is, at any rate, what Warren Mitofsky (who merely created exit polls) says. The exits skewed Democratic by 3 points in 1992; by somewhat less in each of the last three elections.
I notice a new fantasy emerging: Democrats have huge leads in state polls and somehow manage to lose. Amazing--how do those Republicans do it? Of course, Max Cleland's lead in the final Georgia polls had dwindled to low single digits and many pundits were predicting that he would lose. Mondale's initial surge evaporated in the wake (is that a pun?) of the Wellstone Memorial/ Beer Bash. Coleman's strong debate performance had turned that race into a toss-up by Election Day.
I'm still waiting for someone to explain how increased turnout suggests vote suppression. An investigation of Florida 2000 by the Civil Rights Commission concluded that the allegations of Rev. Shakedown & Co. were unfounded.
Great article.
There is hope!:
PRESS! PRESS! PRESS! PRESS! PRESS! PRESS! PRESS!
April 7, 2005
CONTACT INFO:
HANK RAMEY,
Major Organizer
Recall Arnold Movement
Owner, Grassroots-CA-OH-FL
21845 Grand Terrace Rd., #23
Grand Terrace, CA., 92313
TEL.: (909) 872-1826
bighank98@yahoo.com
doeramey@sbcglobal.net
recallarnold@sbcglobal.net
http://www.angelfire.com/biz/hankramey/page4.htm
recallarnold.blogspot.com
Dot, Moderator
Grassroots-CA-OH-FL
wwwdothello@yahoo.com
GRAND TERRACE, Calif.-California liberal progressive activists are announcing an initiative drive to put the California Honest Voting Act of 2005 Initiative on the Ballot. They will request California Attorney General Bill Lockyer’s Office for a “Title and Summary” for their Initiative.
Hank Ramey, whose prior foray in any initiative was a failed Initiative in 1990 in Bell Gardens, regarding an Amendment to the General Plan is planning with a message board and others into circulating the Honest Voting Act for more likely the June 2006 Ballot.
“We don’t think that we would get on this November’s Ballot”, Ramey said, “even if any of Arnold’s ((Schwarzenegger) Initiatives did qualify for the November Ballot. We are OPPOSED to all of Arnold’s Initiatives, because he favors hospitals, businesses, far-right educational activists. We believe at Grassroots-CA-OH-FL (standing for Grassroots-California-Ohio-Florida) that the Democrats and Greens should recall Arnold, and send a message to the minority Republican Party that we want progressive changes in California Government, and we will not have a Governor who curries with the REAL special interests. Hell, we didn’t like Gov. Gray Davis for being the Dialing for Dollars Governor!”
The Honest Voting Act of 2005 would ban any new uses of voting machines, but would require Counties with existing machines to require a paper trial on the existing machines. Those Counties would also require poll workers to randomly count at least 10% of the ballots at least four times during election day.
Most of the reforms were hashed out in the Grassroots-CA-OH-FL Yahoogroup, as well as in the CASE_OH Yahoogroup. “We are trying to avoid the problems Ohio and Florida had in 2000 and 2004,” Ramey said, “If California adopts this Initiative, other States would follow. We are also trying to Initiative campaigns started with similar provisions in Ohio and Florida.”
In Ohio, an initial petition with 100 signatures is needed before Grassroots-CA-OH-FL could start with similar initiative in Ohio. In Florida, they need proponents, which is hard to come by.
“Given the urge by Republicans to force us to have electronic voting by fiat,” Ramey said, “we would need to educate voters to get voting reform initiatives in all States where the initiative process is available. Where it’s not available, we will try to get States like Connecticut, Illinois, Hawaii, and Oklahoma to vote for a Constitutional Convention, even though Oklahoma has an initiative process.”
As to Florida, “in light of the Terri Schiavo case,” Ramey explained, “the attempted gutting of the Minimum Wage Initiative, and the wholesale gutting of the Initiative Process, Florida also needs a Constitutional Convention yesterday.”
The supporters of the Honest Voting Act of 2005 would need to request the “Title and Summary”, which goes on top of each of their Petitions. Ramey and his Group would need over 600,000 signatures to get it on the June 2006 Ballot. After the group receives the “Title and Summary” in a couple of months, Ramey and the group would have up to five months to get all the necessary signatures.
ADDENDUM
THE HONEST VOTING ACT OF 2005.
First-Section 4 of Article II of the Constitution of California is amended as follows:
CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE II, SECTION 4
SEC. 4. (a) This Section shall be named “The Honest Voting Act of 2005”.
(b) Neither the State of California nor any County shall be allowed to purchase, operate, and authorize the use of any voting in any Federal, State, County, City, or other election by electronic means, but the Legislature shall authorize the use of paper ballots, as of the effective date the amendment of this Section is adopted by the voters. The People find and declare that all computerized touchscreen voting machines can break down, they are very expensive, and they are not easily distributed in an equal manner to all voters. This does not affect Counties that have already purchased, operate, and authorize any voting by electronic machines, but use of those machines shall be subject to subdivisions (c) through (e).
(c) In Counties that already purchased, operate, and authorize any voting by electronic machines, each vote from each of those machines shall contain a receipt of each vote made by the voter.
(d) On election day, there shall be a Precinct Board containing five Members who are in the Registrar of Voter Service defined in Subdivision (i). At least four times a day, a different Member shall count and tally at least 10 percent of the receipts from the electronic machines, but shall not disclose the results of each tally until the receipts and tallies are turned over to the Office of the Registrar of Voters.
(e) The software source code of each electronic machine shall be a public record, and shall not be exempted under Government Code Section 6254 or any other law or statute.
(f) The Legislature shall prohibit improper practices that affect elections and shall provide for the disqualification of electors while mentally incompetent or imprisoned.
(g) All persons shall be allowed to register or re-register to vote up to election day.
(h) Nothing shall prevent the voter from voting by mail, if only the voter or a relative not beyond the third degree of relationships so mails his or her vote to the Registrar of Voters of the County.
(i) All votes shall be hand-counted by registered voters who appointed in the same manner as petit jurors under the supervision of the Registrar of Voters. The master rolls shall be randomly selected from the voter registration rolls, driver's license records, and real estate records for each County. Those called for an election shall be selected in order from a Registrar of Voters service list on paper, and filed by January 1 of the year of selection. Requests for excuses shall be in writing, which would be for (a) illness or injury, (b) financial hardship, (c) on a previously scheduled vacation, and/or (d) a temporary or permanent disability; all to the extent the previous reasons would interfere with Registrar of Voters service. Excused absences shall be granted in writing, stating the name, the excuse, and when was the excuse granted. No employer can terminate for the required performance in doing Registrar of Voters service. No counting of the votes shall be given to persons not selected for Registrar of Voters service or to private corporations.
(j) Each County shall be divided up into precincts of no more than 400 voters each.
(k) No voter shall be mislead by any election official, any person engaged in Registrar of Voters service, any member of the precinct board, any member(s) of any political party, or any supporter or opponent of any candidate or any initiative or referendum as to when
and/or where he or she can vote, who could vote, and any qualifications as to voting or voter registration.
(l) No voter shall be denied his or her right to vote on the basis of race, gender, orientation, religion, or previous condition of servitude or incarceration.
(m) Any voter who has previously voted at a previous address, but has moved from a prior address shall be entitled to register to vote and vote at the new precinct. All votes from voters that have moved before election day who refuse to vote at the new precinct will not have their vote counted, unless a provisional ballot is required to be given to the voter to be cast.
(n) Only the members of the precinct board or if none, the chief election officer of the County, may disqualify a voter before he or she may cast a vote, and only then, if required by law, may allow the voter to vote by provisional ballot.
(o) The voter shall not be prevented by way of arrest from voting, nor shall any peace officer shall prevent the voter from going to his or her polling place unless there is a reasonable belief or suspicion that the voter will engage in any illegal activity.
(p) All Counties, and in municipal elections, all cities, shall provide for enough absentee ballots, provisional ballots, paper ballots, and all other election materials at each polling place, provided, that each polling place shall have in excess of 125% of their supplies. If there is a need for a County, city, or a Registrar of Voters needing assistance, other Counties, cities, and Registrar of Voters may assist the County, city, or Registrar of Voters so requesting.
(q) All polling places shall be opened at 7 o'clock ante meridian and shall close at 10 o'clock post meridian, and shall not allow any more voters after that time, unless the voters are already in line at the time of closing. In each polling place in any election, there shall be two precinct boards, one operating between 7 o'clock ante meridian and 2 o'clock post meridian, and the other shall operate between 2 and 10 o'clock post meridian. Persons serving on Registrar of Voters Service shall be divided among both precinct board shifts, and the third group shall be used after hours to hand-count the ballots.
(r) Any violation of this section shall be reviewed by mandamus, quo warranto, or by way of elections contest and the court of competent jurisdiction may declare that the person receiving more elected votes to be the winner, whether any measure is approved or rejected, or may require another election. If any of the provisions of this Section is violated, or the election results were obtained by way of fraud, the costs and attorney’s fees, including the costs of any recounts, shall be assessed to the County conducting the election where the provisions of this section was violated or where the fraud occurred. This section is expressly applied to all elections for Federal and statewide offices, and for Members of the Legislature. In any proceedings regarding violations of this section, any contestants or petitioners shall have a right to secure all voting records, and all discovery under the Code of Civil Procedure and California Rules of Court shall be permitted.
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