Standards of evidence

Today, the Daily Kos drew our attention to someone calling himself "kid oakland," who argues against pursuing the allegations of fraud: "...in the absence of clear evidence of deliberate fraud, claims that the election was rigged are irresponsible and really bad politics." k.o. goes on to make some good points about touch screen voting.

My response:

Speaking as someone who HAS used, and will continue to use, the word "fraud," let me offer a few words of defense.

You say there is no clear evidence of fraud. But we all have differing standards of evidence. I cannot ask you to accept my standard, and you cannot demand that I accept yours.

By my standards, the pattern of disparity between the exit polls and the final tally constitutes sufficient evidence. I am not (to repeat a point I've made about a zillion times now) arguing that exit polls are accurate; I'm arguing that that the errors should go in both directions. In some states, the Republican vote should be undervalued and in some states the Democratic vote should be undervalued.

Yet it is ALWAYS the Republican vote that turns out to be undervalued. In state after state. In election after election.

How many times does a coin have to come up heads before you have sufficient grounds to suspect that this is no ordinary coin?

As for the argument that discussion of the issue is impolitic -- sorry, but this is the POST-election season. This is not a time when when I am going to worry about the larger strategic impact of every damn phoneme that escapes from my mouth. I have an obligation only to tell the truth as I see it. Screw all other considerations.

"We stand on guard for thee...!"

This story describes the growing number of people interested in moving to Canada. Consider Vancouver Island. Only about three-quarters of a million people live there. Lots of trees, little crime, few religious nuts, amazing sunsets (you'll think you just dropped acid) -- and the national anthem is a lot easier to sing.

How to prove fraud

You may have read part of this before. It's still important:

Black Box Voting has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems. What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud. We are working now to compile the proof, based not on soft evidence -- red flags, exit polls -- but core documents obtained by Black Box Voting in the most massive Freedom of Information action in history.

Black Box Voting (.ORG) is conducting the largest Freedom of Information action in history. At 8:30 p.m. Election Night, Black Box Voting blanketed the U.S. with the first in a series of public records requests, to obtain internal computer logs and other documents from 3,000 individual counties and townships. Networks called the election before anyone bothered to perform even the most rudimentary audit.

America: We have permission to say No to unaudited voting. It is our right.

An FOIA request barrage of this magnitude will cost some $50,000. I've never asked my readers for money before, and I've never before linked to anyone asking for money. I know (on a very personal level) that the Kerry campaign left a lot of you feeling tapped out. But folks -- we're not talking about a lot of money, and that tiny investment could make history. So please -- to get the latest info, and possibly to contribute to the good fight, go here.

Bev Harris and others on vote fraud

I can't write much, but I can link and quote. Bev Harris has come out with a statement on the election:

Our organization has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems. What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud.

We are working now to compile the proof, based not on soft evidence -- red flags, exit polls -- but core documents obtained by Black Box Voting in the most massive Freedom of Information action in history.

We need: Lawyers to enforce public records laws. Some counties have already notified us that they plan to stonewall by delaying delivery of the records. We need citizen volunteers for a number of specific actions. We need computer security professionals willing to GO PUBLIC with formal opinions on the evidence we provide, whether or not it involves DMCA complications. We need funds to pay for copies of the evidence.

There are certainly indications that a sting, or at least an investigation, is in play right now.

Strong indications that both Florida and Ohio would be flipped if election manipulations are rolled back. Some indication that fraud may have occurred in at least 30 states.

This analysis cites a few of those "red flags":

In Florida Bush received a million extra votes, while Kerry received only 500,000 extra votes, in spite of a massive Democratic Get-Out-The-Vote(GOTV) and registration campaign in that state;

- In Florida's Broward County, a democratic stronghold and heavily black community, unauditable voting machines recorded a 33% (70,000+) vote gain on Bush's 2000 results and a much smaller gain to Kerry – again Broward was the scene of a massive GOTV campaign;

- In several places voters reported ( http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/4154/) voting for Kerry but noticing the machine record their vote for Bush...

The same writer goes on to make a point I've been repeating endlessly:

There is a bit of math involved but don't worry, I taught market research at a University - a place where Republicans fear to tread, according to the media’s own polls! The Bush people argue that the exit polls are skewed by the methodology employed. It is odd that they don’t say what that error producing part of the methodology might be. A skew means a systematic error is introduced by the test protocol and causes a consistent shift in one direction.

IF this was true, then all the exit polls would show the same sort of shift from 'actual' results.

The GOP offer an alternative argument that the exit polls are not large enough samples and therefore the results are off by a large random error.

IF this was true, then the exit polls should scatter on either side of the actual result, especially if the final result is close to 50/50.

This good piece notes exit polls in a specific county:

The Institute for Public Accuracy also outlined various problems. Susan Truitt, co-founder of the Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections, was quoted on its site saying that seven counties in Ohio had electronic voting machines without paper trails, and scientific exit polls showed Kerry with the lead. But verifying votes was impossible, she said.

“A recount without a paper trail is meaningless; you just get a regurgitation of the data,” Truitt said. “A poll worker told me [Wednesday] morning that there were no tapes of the results posted on some machines; on other machines the posted count was zero, which obviously shouldn’t be the case.”

I would add this: Nevada has caused me to rethink the value of paper trails. As noted earlier, the paper comes into play only if someone calls for a recount. Thus, in a "paper trail" state you can pad the popular vote margin once the election has been won elsewhere.

Finally, this progressive writer does not get it. He's casting a suspicious eye at the exit polling organization. Dude, the exit poll data is helpful to our side...!

Another look...

I probably should not post anything right now, having worked all night while running a temperature. (At times like these, one almost expects to see leprechauns.) But I need to correct a false impression.

Earlier, I referred to tiny Jackson County in Florida, where the voters are mostly registered Democrats who -- surprisingly -- voted overwhelmingly for Bush. This phenomenon occurs in odd little counties elsewhere in the state. Evidence of fraud? Maybe not, unless you want to argue that the fraud extends back in history. (Well, this is Florida, after all -- land of the voting dead.)

I've just been given access to the data for that county for past election cycles. Bottom line: They really do tend to vote Republican at the top of the ticket, and Democratic when it comes to congressional seats and such. The pro-Republican tilt in this election was heavier than usual, however.

Can this be a state-wide phenomenon? There are other counties in Florida with odd voting patterns. A correspondent calls the inhabitants of Jackson County "hillbillies." I didn't know Jethro and Jed could be so schizy.

None of this invalidates the over-all allegation of computerized vote tampering. We certainly do not have an explanation for the poll/tally disparity, which keeps cropping up over and over.

Another correspondent reminds me that the issue is not whether computers or optical scans are used at polling places, because the vote for all counties is tabulated on a central computer, which is hackable. If we posit a system programmed to switch a small percentage of votes in each county, many mysteries are explained.

Remember the bulge?

There's a new semi-official explanation for Bush's back bulge. (Scroll down.) It is now admitted to be real -- proving Bush a liar. Apparently, he really was fearful that those Jewish youngsters at the Menorah-lighting ceremony were going to gun him down...

Can you figure out this one?

From the Washington Post of October 26, 2004:

Republicans have pointed to what they contend is widespread evidence of fraud in voter registration. Making the rounds on the Sunday talk shows, for instance, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie pointed out that in Franklin County, the latest Census shows there are more registered voters than there are age-eligible residents.

From a report offered today by an Ohio NBC affiliate:

An electronic voting machine error gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a suburban precinct, elections officials said.

Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democratic challenger John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, said Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections.

First Ed complains about granting voting rights to invisible men -- and then those invisible men multiply and vote for Bush! Even Rod Serling would've been creeped out by Franklin County...

Hard proof (Updated)

If someone calls you a "conspiracy theorist" because you suspect vote fraud, send them this chart. It proves the issue.

By the way -- in Jackson County, Florida, 71.5% of the voters are registered as Democrats, yet Bush won some two-thirds of the vote. And you thought that "Jews for Buchanan" thing in 2000 was weird! (Note: I re-wrote this paragraph based on reader info; see comments section.)

Those efficient Germans

Someone just brought a fine story to my attention, and I simply must share one paragraph (emphasis added):

When I lived in Germany, they took the vote the same way most of the world does – people fill in hand-marked ballots, which are hand-counted by civil servants taking a week off from their regular jobs, watched over by volunteer representatives of the political parties. It's totally clean, and easily audited. And even though it takes a week or more to count the vote (and costs nothing more than a bit of overtime pay for civil servants), the German people know the election results the night the polls close because the news media's exit polls, for two generations, have never been more than a tenth of a percent off.

Hold everything...

I was just sent this link, which has forced me to reconsider the vote in Florida.

The work of Bev Harris and others has caused us to mistrust computerized voting. But the numbers here (yes, I know that the chart isn't all that easy to read, but keep studying it) indicate that wildly unexpected voting did, in fact, occur -- not in counties with electronic voting machines, but in counties using old-school optical scanning.

Example: In Miami-Dade county, the e-vote rules. 248,045 people were expected to vote Republican (based on past performance), and 326,362 actually voted for Bush, a 31.6% jump. Before you react, note this: In the same county, 305,486 people were expected to vote Democratic, yet Kerry got 383,032 votes -- a 25.4% increase.

Bottom line: High voter turnout could explain the difference between expectation and the final tally for both Republicans and Democrats.

Much the same story can be told in most of the counties using electronic voting (although Nassau and Sumter counties may seem iffy). If computers were used to "massage" the vote, it was done with finesse.

Have I broken the hearts of conspiracy theorists? Well, prepare to have your hearts mended. Because a glance at the non-electronic vote counties shows us a different picture. Very different.

Example: Baker County. The "actual" Republican vote increased over the expected vote a staggering 220.4% -- while the Democratic vote decreased -68.4%.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I hear the skeptics saying. "That's just one county. Bush was popular there this year. So what?"

So this: Similarly wild numbers occur in nearly all of the other counties using optical scan ballots. We're talking 52 counties. In case after case, we see Brobdinagian jumps for the Republicans, and decreases -- sometimes drastic decreases -- for the Democrats.

The results are unmistakable. In every "e-vote" county the numbers are much less suspicious. But very suspicious figures cropped up in nearly every one of the optical scan counties. In each case, Republicans -- only Republicans -- reaped rewards.

Granted, many of these counties are small, so small that a relative handful of party defections can cause the percentages to fluctuate. But not all the counties in this category are that small (Duval, for example), and the pattern holds true throughout.

I'm not saying we should now trust the computers implicitly, or that we should all send snarky emails to Bev Harris. The e-vote counties are mostly quite large. In a large county, a hypothetical manipulator could switch 10,000 or more votes without causing any eye-popping fluctuations in the "percent changed" category.

But if this chart is accurate, we shouldn't just cast a wary eye at the electronic vote. The optical scan vote may be filthy.

(I'd appreciate any alternative "reads" of these data.)

Strange vote: The reason my numbers differed from Slate's

A man fighting both the bug and a deadline should avoid blogging, but I can't stop thinking about the oddities of this election. Among the most gnawing of the problems: The allegation that exit-poll discrepancies were greater in states that allowed e-vote verification.

Here's what Slate had to say about what I had to say:

Cannon's analysis doesn't jibe with Slate's exit-poll numbers. A comparison to the latest vote tallies shows Slate's final exit numbers in the paper-trail states of New Hampshire (undervalued Bush by 5 percent) and Nevada (undervalued Bush by 3 percent) were less accurate than those in Ohio (2 percent off), Florida (3 percent), and New Mexico (2 percent). The other state Cannon lists, Illinois, won't require a paper trail until 2006.

The numbers I used were provided by another blog-person, who won't be named here. If those numbers were off-base, the egg facial should stay squarely on my own mug.

But were they off?

The key words: "latest vote tallies." Concerns about the exit poll discrepancies sent me scurrying onto the net around 6 a.m. on November 3. The numbers I found were probably posted a couple of hours before then, and presumably originated from televised reports. Those numbers -- which showed congruence between exit poll data and the count in Nevada and New Hampshire -- were not final.

After the final vote came in, the congruence disappeared. Once again -- as was the case in New Mexico, Ohio and Florida -- the exit polls undervalued the Bush vote.

Which means that a last-minute flurry of votes went to Bush. Not impossible. (Things to do: Check which county's votes were counted last in Nevada.)

Bottom line: Both Slate's numbers and mine were probably accurate; the difference is explained by timing.

The fact remains that the discrepancies are suspicious, because they always go in one direction. Nevada -- let us concentrate on that state for the nonce -- only helps prove the point.

Since international election overseers view exit poll disparities as evidence of vote tampering, we have good reason to suspect foul play. And if we allow ourselves such suspicions, what can we further deduce from a last-minute Bush surge in Nevada?

"Hold on!" I hear Mr. Scoffee saying. "Are you implying that there was 11th-hour cheating in Nevada as well? How could they hope to get away with it? Yes, Nevada has electronic voting, but they also mandate a paper trail."

True. But as I understand the situation (and I'll be happy for any correction), nobody looks at that paper trail unless someone demands a recount. And nobody is going to demand a recount if the election has already been decided elsewhere. If Nevada's five electoral college votes aren't crucial, then no-one will see if those slips of paper contain Kerry votes, Bush votes, or chicken soup recipes.

So let us add this item to our list of suspicious circumstances: In Nevada, Bush received a sudden surge of votes -- a "bulge" if you will -- only after Kerry's chance of victory in Ohio went from slim to grim. The moment Nevada lost all chance to be a "player" in this election, the pro-Bush electoral floodgates opened.

But why pad the vote in Nevada? Earlier today, I noted one good reason to hack the system in non-crucial states: To give W the widest plausible popular vote victory and thereby justify talk of a mandate.

I plan to offer further musings and research as soon as work and health permit. In the meantime, here are some links for further investigation.

The latest offering from Raw Story offers numbers, plus an unsuccessful attempt to get feedback from the firm that did the polling. Some comments from the readers are infuriating: "Exit polling is unscientific," and the respondents are only those who choose to cooperate. All such commentary ignores some basic points: Why did the errors on November 2, 2004, all go in one direction? Why do we not see such patterns in other countries which use exit polling? Why was exit polling in this country so much more reliable in the days before e-voting?

Donkey Rising offered this explanation:

What happened? Some combination of bad precinct samples, response bias, or failing to accurately account for early and absentee votes must have been at work. Whatever it was, it was a major problem. In 2000, the national exit poll also overestimated Gore's vote, but not by nearly as big a margin.

Lame, lame, lame.

Bad precinct samples? Response bias? Poor weighting of absentee ballots? C'mon, think about it: Exit polls have been a staple of the American political scene for decades. In the past, they did not present problems of this sort. Are we arguing that the pollsters get worse at their jobs as the years pass? Don't you think it an odd coincidence that their skill level should diminish just as e-voting grows in popularity?

Think, too, on this: This is the second presidential election (as Donkey Rising helpfully reminds us) in which the exit polls indicated that the Democrat would receive more votes than the "actual" count gave him. The 2002 elections also saw disparities between poll predictions and final numbers. The errors always go in one direction -- state after state, year after year.

A conservative poster to the above-mentioned site opined that the exit pollsters were evil librul plotters who deliberately skewed their results to discourage Bush voters -- even though everyone in the "liberal" media refused to report the poll numbers. This same fellow says that guys like me are just "conspiracy theorists."

More pleasing is the latest by Greg Palast, who reminds us of the problem of "spoilage" -- egads, more chads! -- in non-evote districts. Spoiled ballots (which can usually be un-spoiled by a glance at the actual card) are a problem primarily in minority areas. His comments on the scene in New Mexico deserve quotation here:

Already, the election-bending effects of spoilage are popping up in the election stats, exactly where we'd expect them: in heavily Hispanic areas controlled by Republican elections officials. Chaves County, in the "Little Texas" area of New Mexico, has a 44 percent Hispanic population, plus African Americans and Native Americans, yet George Bush "won" there 68 percent to 31 percent.

I spoke with Chaves' Republican county clerk before the election, and he told me that this huge spoilage rate among Hispanics simply indicated that such people simply can't make up their minds on the choice of candidate for president. Oddly, these brown people drive across the desert to register their indecision in a voting booth.

On Slate, Martin Plissner, who calls himself a friend to one of the two men in charge of the National election Pool, offers a disingenuous "defense" of exit polling which comes down to this argument:

But the real problem is not that the exit polls were wrong. They were about as accurate as they usually are. The problem was that in the age of the Internet the exit polls were being seen by thousands of people who didn't know how to read them. Like any sophisticated weapon, they are dangerous in the hands of the untrained.

He's talking about you and me, folks.

And -- quite predictably -- he refuses to address the point I've made repeatedly. I don't demand that exit polls be completely accurate, but I do want to know why the errors always went in one direction. And I want to know why they err in the same way election after election. Read Plissner's piece carefully. Read it three times. Tell me if you get even a hint of an explanation.

There's much more to be said, but I've already outlined the way the argument will go and go and go. We will continue to ask: "Why do exit polls always undervalue Republicans?" And guys like Plissner will always respond: "Exit polls are not always accurate." Which avoids the damned question.

When a coin keeps landing head's up, you gotta wonder if there's something funny about that coin.

Brief note

Wish I had more time to write at this moment. Briefly: Both Slate and my readers have assailed one part of my take on the election, though not (I am relieved to say) the more important part.

My argument came down to disparities between the exit poll numbers and the final tallies in various states. Two facts struck me as suspicious: 1. The "false positives" -- I like that term and I'll keep using it until someone suggests a better one -- early in the day always went to Kerry. 2. False positives occurred in states lacking paper trails for e-voting, not in states with paper trails.

No-one has mounted a serious challenge to, or explanation for, point 1.

Slate has challenged point 2. Perhaps justifiably. I must confess that right now, I am not on my home computer (where I have my files stored) and thus cannot give you the URL of the site from which I drew my info.

That said, is the main argument substantially weakened? If false positives for Kerry (or undervaluations of Bush) occurred in New Hampshire, Nevada and Illinois as well as in New Mexico, Florida, and Ohio -- well, isn't that a little like a coin coming up heads six times in a row?

Actually, the "coin" metaphor doesn't really work. The exit polls offer three possibilities: 1. An undervaluation of the Bush vote, 2. An undervaluation of the Kerry vote, and 3. Accuracy. Possibility number 1 seems to have occurred in every instance.

I stopped taking math classes after Intermediate Algebra (and that ordeal occurred quite a few years ago), and therefore never took a course in statistics. And a statistician is just what we need right now.

Consider this column a call to those who have taken such a course. What is the likelihood? What are the odds against exit polls undervaluing the Bush vote in every battleground state?

So far, I've confined the inquiry to a small group of swing states. But perhaps we should look at other areas of the country as well. If exit polls undervalued the Bush vote in red states, then the situation becomes even more striking.

Why, you may ask, would anyone "massage" the vote in Bush's favor in a hard-core red state (or, for that matter, in a state that ultimately went for Kerry)? The answer should be obvious. A solid popular vote win gives right-wing news outlets, such as the Daily News in my own city of Los Angeles, the opportunity to scream "MANDATE" across the front page. If a manipulator switched a few hundred thousand votes to the Bush column in Texas, who would notice?

Face it -- the explanations we've heard for the pattern of exit poll disparity are not credible. (Sort of like Bush blaming his tailor for the bulge.) Perhaps, some have suggested, Bush voters are less likely to talk to pollsters. Those who consider Republicans averse to making their voices heard have met few Republicans.

The case for fraud (UPDATED)

Ignore the rightist snickers. Ignore those who would straightjacket permissible thought. We have a right to ask difficult questions.

And the question of the moment concerns exit polls and electronic voting.

Some have criticized my pessimistic attitude toward this election, but I always heeded the warnings sounded by Bev Harris and others regarding the danger of computerized vote tampering. If Kerry did not win handily, he could not win at all. A truly lopsided vote would have been impossible to hide, because oversized gaps between polls and election night counts would prove too suspicious.

Although the vote was tight, such gaps nevertheless exists. And although those gaps were not massive, the pattern is suspicious. Very suspicious.

Remember when networks used to trumpet the accuracy of exit polling? Last night, on-air talking heads (especially on CNN) loudly derided these same exit polls as untrustworthy. Perhaps polling methodology has become sloppy. Perhaps respondents have learned to enjoy fibbing to pollsters.

Or perhaps something in our current vote-tabulation system is fishier than an all-you-can-eat sushi bar.

Before proceeding, recall the commonly-heard axiom that Democrats tend to vote late, while Republicans tend to vote early. Many challenge that belief. Still, keep the notion in mind as you read what follows.

Exit polls published yesterday afternoon (by Slate and a number of blogs) gave this portrait of certain key results:

OHIO: Kerry 50, Bush 49.
FLORIDA: Kerry 50, Bush 49.
NEW MEXICO: Kerry 51, Bush 48.

At times, the poll data was even more favorable to Kerry in these three key states. See, for example, this screen capture of CNN data in Ohio. No exit poll showed a Bush lead in any of these states.

Here we find grounds for suspicion. Electronic voting machines figured heavily in the final tabulation of the results in Ohio, Florida, and New Mexico. Moreover, in all three, paper audit trails do not exist.

These states therefore offered the best, safest opportunity for manipulation of the final count.

Question 1: Even if we grant the potential inaccuracy of exit polls, how likely is it that in all three cases the inaccuracy would show a "false positive" working toward the Democratic advantage? Why doesn't the disparity ever work in the other direction?

Question 2: Why did problems afflict exit polling in three swing states that have widespread computerized voting with no paper trails?

In other states, where recounts are easier to accomplish, the exit polling matched the final results rather well. In Nevada, Illinois, and New Hampshire, computer votes do have paper trails -- and in those instances, the exit polls mirrored the final totals.

To recap: In three states with no paper trails, we have exit poll/final tally disagreement. In three states with paper trails, we have exit poll/final tally congruence.

Coincidence?

Let's return to the notion that Republicans vote earlier than Democrats. Many dispute that bit of folk wisdom. Even so, is it likely that the people waiting four, five or more hours in long lines, well into the cold of the night, underwent this endurance test to demand more of the same? Shouldn't the polls have showed Kerry's lead expanding as the night went on, instead of evaporating?

Intriguingly, CNN's exit poll results underwent a mysterious revision not explained by an increased number of respondents.

Black Box Voting plans to file the world's largest FOIA request to uncover the internals of the compu-vote. Don't presume that such an inquest will come up goose eggs:

Such a request filed in King County, Washington on Sept. 15, following the primary election six weeks ago, uncovered an internal audit log containing a three-hour deletion on election night; "trouble slips" revealing suspicious modem activity; and profound problems with security, including accidental disclosure of critically sensitive remote access information to poll workers, office personnel, and even, in a shocking blunder, to Black Box Voting activists.

Today's Boston Globe expands on some of the points I've made here:

Although some of John F. Kerry's leads in the state exit polls narrowed during the course of the day yesterday, there was a significant discrepancy between the actual vote total and the polling numbers, particularly in two states believed to be keys to the outcome.

While the exit data had Kerry winning Florida and Ohio by a narrow margin, the actual tabulated vote late last night had Bush carrying Florida by about five points and winning Ohio by two. In addition, a projected Kerry win of about five points in Wisconsin turned into a very tight contest, and what was projected as a close race in North Carolina turned into a double-digit win for Bush.

Again: Note the pattern. Why do exit polls always go wrong in the same way? Pundits who assail these polls never address this question.

Logic tells us that about half the exit polls would show false positives for the Republican side. But in the past two presidential elections, they have almost always (perhaps I should strike out the word "almost") delivered false positives for Democrats, and Democrats only.

The simplest explanation: The Democratic false positives are not, in fact, false. The computerized tally is false.

Remember: If malign parties have tampered with the electronic result, then our first, best -- and perhaps only -- indication of fraud will be a conflict between the exit poll data and the "official" results.

A pattern of false positives functions much like a canary in a coal mine. It's a warning. Something is wrong.

As for what to do about it: May I suggest a visit to www.blackboxvoting.org?

Update: Others are catching the whiff of brimstone in the air. From News Target Network...

Another burning question is surfacing: if this was such a record turnaround, with long lines all over the country, where did all the votes go? Because the vote totals don't show much of a difference from the 2000 election. It's as if a few million votes just vanished...

And from the good folks at the Raw Story:

In Wisconsin, where exit polls put Kerry up seven percent, Bush has a lead of one percent, an unexplained difference of eight percent.

In New Mexico, Kerry led Bush by 3.8 percent, yet Bush leads Kerry by 3 percent in actual reported voting.

In Minnesota, where a new law sharply restricts reporters’ access to polls, Kerry led 9.6 percent in exit polling. Actual voting counts found that Bush trailed by 5 percent, with a 5 percent discrepancy favoring Bush.

Ohio, which does have paper trail capability but does not mandate receipts, had exits showed Kerry and Bush in a dead heat; in the near-final results, Bush led by three percent.

Exit polls put Kerry up by 8 percent in Michigan; actual results show Bush trailing by just 3 percent.

Two states with mandated paper trails for electronic voting were within 0.1 percent margin of error.

Finally, at the Murdochian New York Post, Dick Morris notes the astounding coincidence of Democratic false positives -- and implies that they prove a liberal conspiracy! This is not, of course, the first time Dick has suffered from foot-in-mouth syndrome.

Mr. Morris, your theory does not explain why exit polls proved accurate in "paper trail" states. My theory does.

Final attack in the battle of the bulge

I had dreams of publishing a huge story today -- actually, several days ago.

Those of you following the bulge-gate controversy may not know that, behind the scenes, odd things have happened over the past few weeks. Writers pursuing this story have received anonymous missives offering "confirmation" of the earpiece theory. These faceless communicants often convey the promise -- never delivered -- of grand, on-the-record revelations to come.

One such missive advised that we were heading in the "right direction," but could expect no direct aid from any insider.

Then there was the haunting tale of the pseudonymous "Brad Menfil," who has peppered the Indymedia boards with alleged insider revelations about bulge-gate and the Osama video. I do not accept Brad's tale at face value -- in fact, I think he has tried to snooker his readers. On the other hand, I don't consider him as a mere leg-puller, since his tale is intimately linked with the Knoxville G.O.P. headquarters. (It's a lonnnnngggg story; see here.)

We have good reason to suspect that the "Brad" operation had a purpose beyond mere yocks. But what could that purpose have been?

Indymedia (which has become something of a fixation for certain hard-right haters) was also the recipient of one of those anonymous communications. This one alleged that a company called Tether Technologies, of Columbia, MO, constructed Bush's communication system, using an extremely thin (so thin as to be virtually invisible) earpiece developed by the Israelis. If such a firm exists, it remains invisible to a Google search and to the online telephone pages I have consulted.

Indymedia received still another anonymous message claiming that Bush used a device designed by a firm called Otologics, which does exist; they manufacture a revolutionary hearing aid. Their device requires surgery; the result is an undetectable earpiece. Most researchers have resisted this suggestion. The idea that Bush would undergo surgery in order to fool the public strikes most people as improbable, although I am not sure we should dismiss the idea.

The most fascinating of these anonymous tipsters sent the following words to the Is Bush Wired site:

As a Secret Service Agent, I can tell you that President is always wired with a communicator receiver to enable him to acquire detailed information in advance of situations that may arise. In the case of his first and second debates, campaign advisors were providing rebuttal information to President Bush as Senator Kerry was answering questions. This is not uncommon for an incumbent president. Having worked for President G.H.W. Bush, President W.C., and now President G.W. Bush, I am at all times aware that the president is wired, primarily to inform him of hostile crowds that he may encounter.

This missive (which I have reprinted only in part) offered potentially verifiable details. If one could prove the contention that "W.C" or the elder Bush -- or any previous president -- used earpieces to warn of hostile crowds, one has gone a long ways toward proving the further contention that Dubya used such a device during the debate.

Not only that. This claim resembles one made by a countersurveillance expert who -- wonder of wonders -- isn't afraid to use his name. James Atkinson confirmed that Clinton also used such aids, though not during any debates.

When I read this, I thought: "Now we have a direction, a lead, a task, a positive action, Something To Do." I needed to find someone who worked for a previous administration who could provide on-the-record testimony that, yes, modern presidents re routinely wired for sound.

That confirmation did not come easily -- in truth, "on the record" confirmation never came. But it was oh so close.

One Salon writer tried his darnedest to get word from the Clinton camp. You would think that Clinton would return Salon's call, considering how helpful that publication has been to Democrats. But...no luck. Neither did my own "write Hillary" campaign achieve anything but the silent treatment.

The silence strikes me as odd. One would presume that someone on her staff would have cobbled together a pro-forma denial.

I could not reach anyone connected to the Clinton administration who would touch Atkinson's claims. Frankly, this sort of work is not easily done by a mere blogger. A CBS reporter can expect a call back from Dee Dee Myers; I cannot.

I was able, however, to contact a former staffer in the Ronald Reagan White House whom I will here call "Bob." (Don't make any presumptions regarding this source's actual name or gender.) Bob's initial response seemed like paydirt: Of course Ronald Reagan used an earpiece to receive prompting from staffers.

My response to this was obvious: How do you know, and will you go on the record?

The answer was disheartening. Bob could not go on the record -- for very good reasons which I will not discuss here. More importantly, the RR earpiece was not something my source had witnessed personally; rather, this business fell into the category of "Oh, everyone knew."

All was not lost. Bob recalled reading a news story -- a serious one -- published shortly after the end of Reagan's second term, which confirmed that he used an earpiece for radio prompting. The article alleged that Reagan worried that the Russians might "tap" into his voice stream.

All righty then, I thought. It's just a matter of finding that article.

Easier thought than done.

If Bob still had the clip, it was packed away in a dusty box somewhere. I got much the same response from info-junkie acquaintances who collected stories of this sort during the pre-net days. A few folks vaguely recalled running across an article matching this description, but no-one could remember which publication (or even which type of publication) carried it.

I spent some time at a university library doing research the old-fashioned way -- ah, that wonderful smell of actual ink on paper! Alas, newspaper indices and the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature did very poorly what Google does so well. How the hell did we know anything before the advent of the world wide web?

So close. So far.

I have little doubt that such an article was published -- and that someone will pass it before my eyes after the election.

As we approach the finish line, what can we say of this story?

The bulge-gate meme traveled widely, but -- despite the impressive photographic and audio evidence -- never achieved true respectability. A number of skeptics scoffed at the latest "conspiracy theory" without explaining away those disturbing images. The White House's weak and contradictory excuses served only to keep the story alive. Conservatives soon learned to avoid the story altogether.

A few rightist pundits and bloggers tried to assail bulge-gate researchers as "monetized" (do you see any advertising on this site?) or as secret Kerry hirelings. In truth, we received zero help from anyone involved with the Democratic campaign.

When you think about it, the sphinx-like Democratic silence is more intriguing than the embarrassed Republican silence. Kerry gave Bush a pat on the back after the second debate. After the third, Bush (according to lip readers) privately asked to speak with his Democratic rival. If anyone outside the Republican party knows what the hell is going on here, it's John Kerry.

And yet he has refused to discuss this "rumor," for reasons which I can only presume to be strategically sound.

The mainstream reaction to this story is best summarized by this final story from David Lindorff. The bottom line: Few newspeople seem to discount the earpiece theory outright, and some truly wanted to look into it. But no-one in the so-called "liberal" media -- not even Bob Woodward! -- would countenance the commission of investigative journalism. For reasons outlined above, a diligent reporter for a well-known periodical could well have gotten "call-backs" that we mere bloggers do not merit.

By way of comparison: Mainstream news sources still credit the allegations made by right-wing bloggers that the CBS "National Guard" documents were concocted using Microsoft Word -- even though those claims have been decisively countered.

We come, at last, to philosophical issues.

How much evidence is enough? Some will aver that we never acquired enough proof to hoist bulge-gate out of the rumor category. Others feel that the available photographs, and the lame "blame the tailor" ploy, suffice to prove the point; no need to look further.

No-one can define your standards of evidence for you. No one has ever established absolute standards. I, for one, will always disagree with those who operate under the presumption that the only acceptable evidence is an admission of guilt by the accused party.

Has "bulge-gate" affected the election? Has the available evidence proven strong enough to convince some Bush supporters to think twice about their vote? Polls may one day give us an answer.

Finally, a question for my fellow researchers into this matter: Was it worth it? Did we do our part? Did we help uncover the truth?

Whatever the result of this election, I will always look back on these days as a great period, a time of promise and engagement. I never thanked my fellow researchers sufficiently, even though I always benefited from their writings and leads. They did amazing work, better than my own humble efforts. It was an honor to have some small role in the fight alongside them.

I'd also like to thank a special lady -- who, I like to think, is the one who started it all. She was not the first to ask "Is Bush wired?" That question was first posed years ago. Even so, when she asked me (during the rebroadcast of the first debate) "What's that thing on Bush's back?" she spurred me into taking a closer look. I publicized the controversy as much as possible, acquiring first the attention of Buzzflash, and then David Lindorff of Salon. Salon's terrific articles made sure that no-one in the country could ignore this matter.

Think of it: One lady, an unknown, sits on a bed while petting her scruffy little dog. She watches the television and wonders: "What's that thing...?"

A few weeks later, people all over the world ask the same question.

That is power.

Happy Halloween

Just came back from my Halloween jaunt. I did not dress up as a hump-backed W, as announced. Instead, I was the Devil. Insert your own joke here.

Tomorrow, you should see a fairly longish piece on the bulge, perhaps my last. I've spent some time looking for an old newsclip that would go a long ways toward legitimizing this story. I've also been looking for an "inside" source willing to go on the record. (There have been a few off-the-record claimants.)

Until tomorrow, you'll want to read "A media bulge leads down a prickly rabbit hole," which discusses the role of the press, as well as the medical device theory.

I also strongly advise you to check out David Lindorff's piece in Mother Jones, which serves nicely as the last word on the subject before the election.

A new photo enlargement is said to show signs of an LED. Personally, I think this is an artificat of over-Photoshopping a familiar image. But check it out for yourselves.

The official White House site, bless 'em, has given us another very clear bulge shot.

This last minute piece on Karl Rove (boo! hiss!) in the Internatioal Herald Tribune more-or-less accuses him of being the man whispering in Bush's earpiece.

I should have mentioned this a while back, but the Bush campaign's willingness to use doctored photos goes a long ways toward substantiating the notion that they cheat in other areas.

Hope you all had a happy All Hallow's Eve.