Thursday, February 02, 2006

A couple of vote fraud notes...

Arizona: According to this Arizona Republic article (clued into which I became via good old Brad Blog), the FBI has seized ballots in a close Republican primary for the office of state representative in Arizona's District 20. There have been lingering suspicions over this battle for quite a while now.

Here's what's really odd: The County refused an order from a State Senate committee to cough up the actual ballots for inspection. But now they say they are quite happy -- "elated" even -- to comply with the Federal order. What's going on?

Well, on occasion I've ruminated that even paper ballots aren't safe enough, although they are surely better than e-voting. Over time, chain-of-custody issues can make paper suspect.

The controversy raises the interesting prospect of Republican vote fraud being exposed during a primary race. The media won't recognize the presence of sharks in our waters until the creatures start to eat each other.

Pennsylvania: A group called Butler County Democrats for Change is suing to keep voting machines out of PA. One of the heartening aspects of this suit is that it targets ES&S machines. The public keeps hearing about Diebold, and I fear that many will come under the impression that the fault rests with a bad company, not a bad technology.

In Allegheny County, the Board of Elections is still deliberating the issue:
"Obviously we've read a lot of the allegations that people are talking about," she said, referring partly to criticisms that some Diebold officials were too close to Republicans. "Obviously we cannot base our decision on hearsay or what's on the Internet."
Cute, huh? The problems with e-voting are now relegated to the "hearsay" file. Why should we even bother accumulating further evidence, when so many are willing to label inconvenient fact as rumor?

By the way...as I may have mentioned before, Brad Friedman and I have had (behind the scenes) a friendly "running battle" over terminology. He prefers "electoral fraud" to "vote fraud;" in his view, the latter term connotes the (usually false) allegations of voter registration fraud propounded by Republicans. I say "vote fraud" is punchy and I'll continue to use it. How say you?

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's got to be election fraud, which
actually threatens (negates) our
democracy, caused by secret codes
in voting machines and the people
who manipulate them; vote fraud,
as pointed out, usually false
allegations, caused by random
individuals, not a threat to our
democracy unless used as a front
by republicans to avoid the real
issue of Election Fraud.

Anonymous said...

sofla said...

I like election fraud. It's all-encompassing, and captures the full court press methodology of the GOP, which is not limited simply to the electronic counting machines, but runs the gamut through many means of suppressing the votes for the 'wrong' party.

Milo Johnson said...

A rose by any other name...

It doesn't matter what it's called, as long as we keep YELLING IT AT THE TOPS OF OUR LUNGS!

Anonymous said...

I think Brad is right, technically. "Vote fraud" is ambiguous and over-broad: it could give unintended support to Repubs who are trying to distract attention from the real issues by making a phony case over false registration, etc., as if too many votes are being counted, and too many people are voting, and not too few.

The more precise the accusation, the better.

As for the idiots who run these county offices -- I don't think it's conspiracy in most cases, just stupidity and laziness. The manufacturers take them out for $27 lunches, they're thoroughly incapable of making technical assessments of the equipment, and they don't want their decisions scrutinzed.

Anonymous said...

Now Republicans are stealing their own internal elections! Check this out from Talking Points Memo:

"No honor among vote scammers!

This is actually kinda funny. Rich Lowry just filed this little squib at the Corner. "More ballots cast [on the House leadership vote] than there are members. Re-voting now...."

Roll Call has it too: "House Republicans are taking a mulligan on the first ballot for Majority Leader. The first count showed more votes cast than Republicans present at the Conference meeting."

Says TPM Reader JP: "This is priceless. They try to steal their own elections!"

TPM Reader JW is even more biting: "That's right, the Repubs are so corrupt they can't even hold an honest INTERNAL election..."

TPM Reader JM has a constructive suggestion: "Shouldn't Jimmy Carter have monitored the GOP vote?"

Anonymous said...

Hearsay from the internet on how unsecure they are.
Hearsay from the company about how secure they are.

WHY IS ONE SUPERIOR TO THE OTHER?!?! I'M NOT SAYING I'M RIGHT, I'M SAYING DON'T CERTIFY WITHOUT TESTING!

Yeesh.

Anonymous said...

It's your blog and all, so you're free to mislead your readers by omission if you choose, but I get the sense you seek a fair representation of facts because you're so convinced the truth has got your back. But you seem to have overlooked:

"MILWAUKEE, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- Four men accused of puncturing tires to sabotage Republican get-out-the-vote efforts in 2004 agreed to plead no contest to misdemeanors. . .Pratt and Omokunde were accused -- along with three other former staffers for the Kerry-Edwards campaign -- of vandalizing 25 vans rented by state GOP officials to get people to the polls on Election Day 2004. The vans were parked outside Bush for President headquarters."

Just go to news.google.com and search for "slash milwaukee" and read for yourself. Then again, maybe you could add UPI to your libel campaign.

Joseph Cannon said...

You mean Reverend Moon's UPI?

Jed, I've allowed you to post the same shit twice. Next time, you will have to come up with something original -- it need not even be honest: Just original. Otherwise you will be killfiled as a spammer.

Even if the UPI story is true, the very idea of equating infamtile tire-slashing (the sort of thing twe've had to deal with, alas, in every election since, like, forever) with Diebold's manipulation is insane.

And...sorry folks -- I still like "vote fraud." The sound of the words. Like a couple of shots from a .22 -- y'know what I mean?

Anonymous said...

Apologies for the second post Joseph. I posted it the first time several days after you put up your post and since there was no response I wasn't sure it had been read.

But the tire-slashing story has been reported on in regional papers in Wisconsin. And here's the new info for you for this post. This one is from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/may05/324933.asp

"Inquiry finds evidence of fraud in election
Cast ballots outnumber voters by 4,609

Investigators said Tuesday they found clear evidence of fraud in the Nov. 2 election in Milwaukee, including more than 200 cases of felons voting illegally and more than 100 people who voted twice, used fake names or false addresses or voted in the name of a dead person.. . . The findings, however, carry extra significance in a state that had an 11,000-vote margin in the presidential contest, one of the closest in the nation.

Democrat John Kerry topped President Bush in Wisconsin, mainly because of Kerry's margin in Milwaukee and Madison."

Separately, I agree with you on "vote fraud"

Anonymous said...

Of course "Jed" likes "vote fraud" -- it misleads people in exactly the way he and his Republican string-pullers want.

As for Jed -- you posted these charges before, and you were answered before. Namely, the scale of the incidents you're citing, and the scale of the incidents Democrats are citing (many fully substantiated), are ridiculously out of balance.

If Republicans believe there's serious fraud going on, they're free to investigate it. After all, they control all 3 branches of goverment (in case you didn't notice). Why not set up a bipartisan commission -- or a special prosecutor? Of course, that would mean looking at many other states, and the actions of Republicans. But of course Republicans, you included, have no interest in doing that.

So until you're actively lobbying your fellow Republicans for just an investigation, kindly keep your trap shut.

Anonymous said...

I pinged Mark Crispin Miller, author of "Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the Election in 2004 and How They'll Steal the Next One Too". I bought 7 of his books and gave them for holiday presents.

His book includes Republican chicanery that took place in Wisconsin.

Below is what Mark wrote in his email to me about the tire slashing incident and Jed's claim that the Dems "stole" the election in Wisconsin:

"There was extensive fraud by the Republicans throughout Wisconsin.
While I don't doubt that there were pockets of "voter fraud" in
some Democratic precincts, it cannot have added up to much, compared with what the Busheviks were doing. In any case, the Republican claims of widespread voter fraud have mostly been debunked by now. They're
either wild exaggerations of plain lies.


The tire-slashing episode is, I think, authentic. If I'm not mistaken, the son of some Democratic candidate was busted for it. (Maybe he was framed? Who knows?) Certainly such things go on. But even if the many tales of Democratic voter fraud were true, they'd come to just a fraction of the votes stolen by the GOP, whose frauds were vast, systemic and collective, as opposed to the isolated cases on the other side.


It's necessary to the GOP to float the view that Democrats keep trying
to steal elections. It's necessary both psychologically and actically.
They have to think it, and they have to have us think it. But their evidence does not stand scrutiny.


That claim about Bush/Cheney's victory margin is hilarious. In 2000, Bush lost Wisconsin by about 100,000 votes: 92,000+ went for Nader, the rest for Gore. In 2004, Bush loses by less than 12,000 votes--when Nader wasn't running, the Democrats were tightly unified, and the turn-out was immense. In a blue state.

And this suggests that Kerry's side was cheating?"

MCM (end of written comments from Mark)

Anon from SF:

It seems to me that Ned and his ilk are using this one incident to smear the entire Democratic party with accusations of voter fraud or electoral fraud when in fact it amounts to a drop in the bucket compared with the massive fraud conducted by the Republicans in Nov 2004 across the Red States.

My gut feeling is that Kerry would have solidly won the Nov 2004 if the voting machine companies hadn't blatantly tinkered with the tabulator machines, voting machines and changed the vote subtotals/totals for Bush vs Kerry in states like Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, Nevada. The Republicans couldn't win the last election, so that they had to steal it and make huge payoffs. The sickening thing is to consider all the war money from Iraq that was siphoned off most likely went to pay off the voting machine companies and their proxies and made promises to folks like Ken Blackwell that he'll get an unlimited funding for his guberatorial race.

It's all about the money, who has it and making sure they (the folks with the biggest piles of money who have lied and cheated and stole their way ) get their candidates in place. It's not just bush-cheney-rumsfeld that we should be pissed off, but their very powerful, very conservative, power mavens who back them and stay "low profile" and in the background.

Anonymous said...

Lastly to follow up with my last comment, I highly recommend watching the movie "Syriana" with George Clooney while it is still showing.

this movie hints at how the very powerful executives who run some of our very large corporations greatly influence and help direct foriegn policy and dictate to the CIA who they should knock off next in order for these folks to give them the terms they want.

it's a very corrupt world we live in here in the USA.

anon from SF

Anonymous said...

"Vote-count fraud"

and/or

"Corrupted votes"/"A corrupted vote"

[The latter coined by Dr. Freeman of PA.]

P.S. Yes, I've been thinking lately how Cheney's actions as VP are revealing to the world what the inside of a major U.S. Corporation's Office of the President/CEO looks like, and how it operates. Like a cutthroat pirate operation. Only now they're playing with the public's money, not that of the stockholders. But: it's still the same sick ethics of the same sick players playing their same sick games on the rest of mankind.

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Anonymous said...

Joe, this is off topic so I hope you don't mind.
Help spread the word...

by Greg Nixon
nixongreg@msn.com

The phony 'Left wing" media are de facto Bush regime supporters since they refuse to talk about the massive frameup on humanity in the name of the fraudulent "War On Terror". It is time to confront these 'gatekeepers' who keep the reality of 9/11 from going mainstream. Come march for truth in NYC on February 20th to restore law and order to our Republic.

March for Truth N.Y.C. 2006

When? February 20th 2006
Where? “Ground Zero” New York City 10:00am

-On February 20th 2006, 9/11 Truth activists will convene at “Ground Zero” former site of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan New York City to march against the U.S. Government’s mass murder of 2,986 Americans on September 11th 2001.

- Since our Government is a totally illegitimate criminal enterprise for perpetrating these attacks, we have chosen President’s Day as an appropriate
Occasion to march to restore the rule of law and order to our Republic.
We demand an international independent tribunal akin to the Nuremberg Trials to seek justice for the crimes committed on 9/11 2001 and for all crimes committed against humanity in its wake.

- Protesters will proceed to march to Attorney General Elliot Spitzer’s office with a letter demanding his resignation for his failure to investigate this crime committed in his jurisdiction despite overwhelming evidence.

-We will then confront the media organizations The Nation Magazine, Democracy Now, The New York Times, and A.N.S.W.E.R as symbolic targets of de facto complicity with their silence and neglect of journalistic duties in the face of the greatest crime of the 21st century on American soil –This despite an abundance of specific credible evidence for the Government’s role as the source of the attacks.

-The rally will conclude at the office of former N.Y.C. Mayor Giuliani in Times Square, where we will deliver citizen’s warrant for his arrest for his role in the attacks at The World Trade Center and criminal complicity in removing evidence from a crime scene. Civil disobedience will then be encouraged by protesters in an effort to call on fellow Americans to speak out against the colossal crimes being committed in the name of a fraudulent ‘War on Terror” and to demand the U.S. Government be arrested for treason and mass murder.


-We ask for all to come and march to uphold the moral principle that all human life deserves to live free from the tyranny of a rogue government, a government which committed mass murder on its very citizens for political expedience and financial enrichment. The weaponry in the hands of the forces of evil occupying our government has the capability of ending all life on this planet. It is therefore of the utmost imperative that this be dealt with over all other political concerns.

-Please spread the word to any and all to come to Ground Zero on February 20th and make their voice heard that this frame-up on humanity in the name of ‘The War on Terror” Ends now. March for Truth N.Y.C. 2006!

Contact: Greg Nixon: nixongreg@msn.com

Attorney General Spitzer's office 120 Broadway
Democracy Now Productions Inc. - 87 Lafayette St,
Nation Magazine 33 Irving place
New York Times 229 W 43rd
A.N.S.W.E.R. 2295 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd
Giuliani Partners LLC 5 Times Square

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/01/145161.php

Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Dear Greg Nixon,

I don't want to discourage folks from showing up at your upcoming protect march in NYC, but the reality is that the FBI will have cameras and will be filming everyone who participates and will setup files for each person identified.

The folks that control the media, the Bush-Cheney regime are not going to lose control by letting a few protestors complain about how things are.

So be careful incase the police become violent (react to some trumped up event) even if the protestors are peaceful.

It's really a dangerous place we live in if you dissent with the current administration.

Anonymous said...

Ehh....bottom line is, whatever you call it, KEEP SAYING IT!!!!

Personally, though, I'd prefer "election fraud." Close second is "vote fraud."

Reason is, keep in mind that we don't want to preach to the choir on this issue. That, imo, might even be counter-productive.

No, we've got to get thru the thick skulls of soundbite-Americans. It must be immediately understood. They've got to understand that its BAD, no matter which party does it. And they've got to understand that it includes not only altering electronic machine counts, but also anything that impedes votes from being cast - such as deliberately placing too few machines in polling places, changing polling places without notification, fradulently purging voter names, refusing to accept registration cards because the paper isn't the right weight, tying up phone lines, etc.

"Electoral fraud" seems to hoity-toity; maybe something to do with the Electoral College -- which many soundbite-Americans don't understand anyway.

Actually, I wonder if we could frame it in a more positive way -- "Be sure your vote counts," or something similar.