Just one of several stories from the past week that we’re only now getting time to link up (having been furiously driving across country over the past week).
This one from Miami-Herald:
A study on the November general election shows thousands of discrepancies between the number of votes cast and signatures collected by poll workers at the end of the day.
A study by a member of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition found frequent discrepancies between the number of votes cast and signatures collected by poll workers in the November general election.
The study, expected to be released next week, found that workers at dozens of polling places submitted counts of signatures to elections officials that did not match the number of votes recorded on the touch-screen machines.
…
[b]ecause the iVotronic touch-screen machines do not use paper ballots, elections officials may never know for sure — highlighting a continuing issue with the machines.
”I think it’s significant that we can’t be sure that things can’t be counted, compared and investigated all the time,” said the study’s author and University fo Miami Professor Martha Mahoney, who also is a member of the coalition.
The news comes weeks after Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan resigned amid revelations that human error led to the county’s iVotronic touch-screen machines tossing out hundreds of votes. The $24.5 million machines have become such an issue that the county manager has asked the elections department to advise him on whether to keep them.
The study’s findings were a surprise for the elections department, which had considered the November election a success.
…
The study found that there were 5,917 cases where there were more votes than signatures.
…
In at least one case, the problem appears to have been the machine. At precinct 816, the Church of the Ascension, the number of signatures was 945, a figure verified on the machine. But the number of reported votes that day was 1,116.
After testing the machine, its maker, Election Systems & Software, told the state Division of Elections that an internal memory bank failed but the votes were recorded.
ES&S and their “computer glitches” strike again.
Any of you political and MSM ostriches out there realize this is a story yet?
The elections department was suprised?? Even after people like Bev Harris proved on television that the machines were not secure and not reliable!! It seems there are ostriches in the elections department as well as the corporate media!
MSM – Mainly Struthious Media
Until people go to prison for this sort of crap, it will continue. Florida had four years to get its act together, and we hear in May, 2005 that more people voted than were allowed to?
Why did it take 6-1/2 months to discover this? These numbers weren’t available last November or December? Is this another, "You lost, get over it" item? Or does it fall under "We dodged a bullet this time, but we have more work to do." ???????
I’m so, so relieved that E. S. & S. has assured us the votes were counted. I know they’d never lie to us. Of course, it might be nice if they’d open up their source codes…except that would mean having to build a few more prisons.
My name is Suk Dung. Bush definitely won. Didn’t you see the inauguration coverage on TV. It’s was so real. He’s so hansome and such a wonderful man. Who really cares what he does. We should all just love him. Maybe we can get Floridian voters to stand in a single file line, take row call and ask them to carefully recollect who they voted for president and hope they can recall. Wait a second, if a Democratic voter has a momentry lapse of reason and flips to a verbal "George W" the system will be as effective as an invisible paper ballot. You go Diabold!!! You guys sure got this voting thang down with the American people. Cough..Cough..Oregon mail ballots.
Hey asshole, don’t disparage Oregon-Kerry won here handily. Go Troll elsewhere!
Peter in Oregon-Home of the mailin ballot
Well maybe the mailman should be delivering the vote mail in other states and hope the vote counting dogs don’t eat it. Yow
I found this on another site …. I didn’t write it … but was impressed the authors perspective …
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How will democracy end?
May 13th, 2005 : Filed by ~A!
This is not a piece about Bush. I want to square that away right up front, and this isn’t even meant to be a partisan political piece. This is a question I have a lot of interest in, and I think it behooves us all to answer it, or at least consider the idea that it might be answerable at all.
In my life, I’ve always been someone who saw the glass as half empty, never really been much of a half-full kind of guy when it comes to the bigger picture. When I was younger and started a new relationship, I always wondered how it would end, what would the breakup be like, would she get my favorite T-shirt when she left, all that.
Same thing when I started a new job. How will this one end? When will I find something better and tire of the present situation, or when will they get tired of my obviously charming company and turn me out on the street?
So, when I think about the way things are going in the world, I can’t help but wonder how democratic governments across the planet will end. Try to stay with me, I’m not talking about having elections, I’m talking about the people actually having a say in their governments.
In the US, it ended to thunderous applause. When it ended is an issue, of course. Some would say in the early twentieth century, when the banks took over the fed. Some would say it was the Wal-Mart era that killed democracy, when the corporations became too powerful to be stopped, and stopped allowing the people to have a voice, because they own our politicians.
Of course, someone like me says it ended the day two big-ass planes slammed into the twin towers and killed thousands of our brothers and sisters. It ended when the government took the power to arrest and detain citizens of this country without a trial or due process. It ended when we lost our ability to hold free elections in any kind of coherent manner.
And the whole time, we hear a minority screaming. But we heard the majority reacting with laughter and standing ovations, even when they knew something was amiss. So caught up in the near-religious fervor created by fear, the American people applauded their way into dictatorship.
Now, anyone who thinks the elections in 2000 or 2004 were bogus is unpatriotic. Anyone who dissents, anyone who uses the right to free speech, is labeled an America-hater, a traitor, or a… (GASP) … Liberal.
We have amused ourselves to death behind a wall of Family Guy and the Simpsons, watching desperate housewives when we should have been watching Hotel Rwanda. While Paula Abdul has made music dirty again ( a good thing, BTW ), Bush and his masters have quietly raped the constitution, stretching it to its limit, breaking it, and then seeking to change it where they find it inconvenient.
And we have laughed and clapped our way to this state. We have eaten our bread and watched our circus, and we have no concept that the time is coming when we will have to pay for that luxury, the luxury of complacent stupidity, of willful ignorance.
And before you tell me how much I hate America, or how lucky I am to have this ability to be so lazy and stupid, I will say neither is true. First of all, I love my country, always have. Well, I love the idea of this country, in its unmolested state as it was intended. That’s not the country we live in.
And we are not lucky to have this supposed luxury of convenient, decadent living. We are soft, fat, and lazy, and we spend our lives living inside a teeny tiny little world when we have the ability to know everything going on around us at the touch of a button, the click of a mouse. We have forced ourselves into a comfortable little box where we emulate the 200 person farming villages of centuries ago, living only within the confines of our perceptions and ignoring everything else.
That’s how they want us, you know. People are easier to control when they are afraid of everything that is not exactly like them. So eat your hot dogs and watch your tv. Play your video games and pay attention to that Michael Jackson trial.
Just remember to stand and clap when you’re supposed to.
~A!
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Hey Peterpoint,
Do you have some kind of problem with your current incubent government cheating to win and lying to you about election results in the last 2 presidential elections? Or is your problem that they got your country in a war and lied about the reasons for that too? Or possibly, that same incumbent government which holds a majority in Congress now is passing and reversing former legislation against American people and the environment? Nevermind Kerry.
Hey Grizzly Bear Dancer,
I’d say all of the above!
RLM #3 – "Until people go to prison for this sort of crap, it will continue."
Even that won’t stop it…
Election Pros are Cons
Seattle Weekly
In 1990, Dean was convicted of first-degree theft in King County for 23 counts of embezzlement of more than $385,000 from a law firm, where he was “a computer systems and accountant consultant,” according to Superior Court records. Dean’s thefts at the law firm, the records state, “occurred over a 21/2 -year period of time . . . The crimes and their cover-up involved a high degree of sophistication and planning in the use and alteration of records in the computerized accounting system that defendant maintained for the victim. . . . ” Dean served just under four years for his crime and was released in 1995. His sentence spelled out the following condition: “Defendant shall be required to notify anyone for whom he works either as an employee or an independent contractor of his convictions. . . . ”
Elder was convicted of delivery of cocaine in 1991. He and Dean both were imprisoned in the Cedar Creek Corrections Center in Littlerock, Thurston County, in 1994, according to the state Department of Corrections. Their postprison employment histories intersect for several years after their release. Both men worked for companies that held important contracts for ballot printing and voting software with King County.
Elder, like Dean, told authorities that his first employer after release in 1996 would be PSI, the mail house that still sorts ballots for King County. By August 2000, in papers filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Elder was listed as the vice president for election products for Spectrum Printing, the now-defunct Mountlake Terrace firm managed by Dean that was printing absentee ballots and installing the new voter-registration software for King County. The same SEC filings indicate that Global Elections Systems would buy Spectrum from Dean and his wife for $1.6 million and would employ both Elder and Dean. When, in January 2002, Diebold, the large corporation with divisions specializing in security and automated teller machines, bought Global Election Systems and renamed it Diebold Election Systems, Dean became a consultant to the company, and Elder was made general manager of the Election Services Division.
"After testing the machine, its maker, Election Systems & Software, told the state Division of Elections that an internal memory bank failed but the votes were recorded."
Give me a break, just because there’s a "total" doesn’t mean the votes were counted ACCURATELY, HAVA spent billions of dollars after the 2000 coup d’état and for what, this, 6 months out and NOBODY knows the real results and never will.
You guys paid BILLIONS of dollars for this crap, whose pockets are lined with that money, not the software engineers, not the hardware engineers, not quality control.
Lets face facts you were ripped off, 6 billion down the crony hole.
Help America Vote Act, yea right.
I hope bush wears a condom, all the time, because we the people in the rest of the world hope one day to have a free America back after this temporary illness passes and hope its not fatal.You have achieved much in your short history and it has been a great experiment in democracy ,two hundred plus years of “moving the bar higher” and in two “terms” a thief has engineered a way to destroy it all while you watch powerless.
Diabolic voting machines produce a microcosm of behaviors that have the same DNA of the macrocosm of the recent elections. They depict a scenario that is likewise impossible.
The exit polls show that the official election reports are a statistical impossibility, and like the Ukraine, people should have been in the streets. The problem is they don’t have an establishment fascist MSM to spread the lies in the name of news.
Diabolic Voting, Inc., sweetheart of demockracy. Next thing you know Jeffie Gannon will be their poster boy … he was at the DeLay celebration trying to get the indictments DeLaid. Wonder who paid his tab this time?
In Ireland it took about 2 years for the undervotes and overvotes in our 2002 supposedly "successful" pilot run to come to light. And the information only came to light because of a private citizen who made (and paid for) Freedom of Information requests.
This kind of information should be made public immediately after every election, and election officials should be held accountable. Some foreign countries don’t accept any discrepancies between the number of voters and the number of votes cast. Why should we?
So that’s it. The American people are trapped by a their own form of government. Advancement and population growth in this country has altered the game so corporate industryand a bunch of corrupt thugs in charge of counting the votes complete control. What about American ingenuity? What about the court system? OK lawyers here’s a chance to clear the tarnished name of lawyers in this country. What would in take to bring a court case to trial? Voting American people vs the integrity of election 2004 supported by fraudulent election 2000. We the people demand a new election this year. The creators of our government designed it for the American people to fix a corrupt government. Nobody said we have to wait 3 more years of Bushit. How bout some due process of law? You want signatures? We’ ll get signantures. Mountains of Evidence? We got it! We are the people and we are in control of this thing. Let’s work as a team and take the bastards down. NOW!
So that’s it. The American people are trapped by a their own form of government. Advancement and population growth in this country has altered the game so corporate industry and a bunch of corrupt thugs in charge of counting the votes have complete control. What about American ingenuity? What about the court system? OK lawyers here’s a chance to clear the tarnished name of lawyers in this country. What would in take to bring a court case to trial? Voting American people vs the integrity of election 2004 supported by fraudulent election 2000. We the people demand a new election this year. The creators of our government designed it for the American people to fix a corrupt government. Nobody said we have to wait 3 more years of Bushit. How bout some due process of law? You want signatures? We’ ll get signatures. Mountains of Evidence? We got it! We are the people and we are in control of this thing. Let’s work as a team and take the bastards down. NOW!
To many people would sooner fight a "grizzly bear" than admit there is a problem ,is the problem.
Up one day down the next.
"Since the election outcome and the exit poll are two possible views of the “correct” result, one can not prove that one is right and the other is not. One can only construct hypotheses other than fraud that might explain the differences, and confirm or reject these with the data. If no reasonable alternative hypotheses can be supported by the data, then the suspicion of fraud intensifies."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/t...ke-on-byr.html
We need people who care about the Grizzly. The last in the lower 48 are being killed off. The Yellowstone Grizzly is isolated and being turned into an inbreed like Bush. The Bushit government wants to delist the Grizzly and develope the oil, gas, and timber there. They changed the rules of forestry last December so they don’t even need to provide an impact statement to the American people anymore. People driving their offroad vehicles on public lands is destroying their habitat. Stupid GREEDY uncaring people are developing the land. The only place the GRIZZLY is gonna exist soon is on my fcking state flag and I’m ready to fight. What I want to do is make a Vegas bet. If the Chicago Bears go to the Super Bowl everyone must back off and leave their land alone. Connect the remaining populations of Grizzly Bears in the lower 48 and urge Canada to STOP HUNTING the Grizzly and place it on the Endangered Species List. Our Bushit government doesn’t care. The are trying to delist the Grizzly. It will take down other remaining wildlife with it. The NRDC has a plan for reconnecting the last 1000 remaining GRIZZLY BEARS. http://www.nrdc.org wildgriz@aol.com
HELP ME AND I WILL FIGURE OUT A WAY TO GET THE BUSHIT ADMINISTRATION OUT OF POWER.
You can not be "a little bit raped" or a "little bit corrupt"
Grizzly Bear…If bullshit were dynamite, you could blow up Cleveland.
Hey Peterpont and Grizzly Bear Dancer –
You guys ARE ON THE SAME SIDE!!! There’s been some misinterpreting going on!
Shake hands and start again…
I’ve got it! Shy Bush voters too shy to sign their signatures at the polls.
Am I thinking too far ahead? There’s gotta be a spin on this sooner or later.
In reference to comment #20:
Bushit as in the Bushit Administration is the self appointed political party in this country. It’s common knowledge that you don’t need brains to steal, cheat, kill something with a gun, or blow something up. Human Psychology would dictatate that you need a reason. Your wrong. Human beings don’t need a reason. Now we’re talking bout human superiority. I wouldn’t turn Cleveland or Iraq for example into a parking lot because of the kind of person I am. Here’s a secret. The answer is in the mind. Have you ever talked to your power animal? The answer is in another plane other than the physical world. Do not underestimate the power of the Grizzly Bear in the Spiritual Kingdom or move out of Cleveland.
Hey Thanks, Peg C. I don’t know where this guy is coming from. He sure likes to type. I don’t. So-Truce—-You (Grizzly)keep typing, and I will keep reading.
Peter
Who is this Dean guy who is a consultant at Diebold? If that history cited above is true, then doesn’t he have exactly the credentials you’d want in your people if your goal was to manipulate elections?
He sounds like someone who should never, ever be 3employed at an election machine company, unless his job was to show how the machines could be rigged or attacked in order to improve security.
Hello Phil,
I’d suggest you read Bev Harris’ book, Black Box Voting, which she is offering free at her site (in pdf format.) Follow the link I’m posting below:
Blackboxvoting.org
This is the exact chapter that deals with Dean & others:
Chapter 14
Thanks, Kira. My ref also.
Hi, Grizzly Bean Dancer #23 – we are all talking to our power animals (mine is the lion). With our minds we are going to shift the liars and murderers out of the White House. Probably, Rove and Bush should go first, together!!! Followed on their heels by Cheney and the rest of the gang.
Re: Comment #3
RLM, I found this article from November 2004, I had saved regarding the Florida count. "Bush earned about 20,000 more votes than registered Republicans".
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html
Correction to # 29
"Bush racked up more votes than registered Republicans in 47 out of 67 counties in Florida. In 15 of those counties, his vote total more than doubled the number of registered Republicans and in four counties, Bush more than tripled the number. StATEWIDE Bush earned about 20,000 more votes than registered Republicans".
Hi, Gwn #29, #30 – didn’t they tried to explain that one by saying Democrats voted for Bu$h(?) Well, I don’t believe that one for a nanosecond. But the neocons and their hangers-oners like to think that the rest of America is downright stupid. And if the neocons and their wealthy fan club members are not put out of business very quickly, they will consider their assessment of Americans to be correct.
Glad to hear we’re talking about Florida again. With all the problems in Ohio, it’s easy to forget that Florida remains the geographic poster child for election fraud.
At a single rural precinct in Bealsville, Florida, I witnessed (as a poll watcher) both the vote-rigging techniques the G.O.P. used in Ohio…shorting of voting machines in a minority district (five for the presidential election, ten for the previous primary, a pattern that was consistent throughout the state), and vote-flipping from Kerry to Bush (also a pattern, but no votes flipped from Bush to Kerry).
It was Florida where the exit polls were deadly accurate in the Senate race, but not in the presidential race. Did the same voters answer truthfully about one but lie about the other? It was in Florida where Bush ran up 75-80% of the vote in areas with Democratic registration majorities.
Florida taught Ohio everything it knows.
"Election Systems & Software, told the state Division of Elections that an internal memory bank failed but the votes were recorded."
If the memory failed then how’d they record the votes, on a napkin? The statement sounds like a bogus explanation for lost votes. As an explanation of how the system managed to record too many votes, it’s pure nonsense.
Miami-Dade precinct info. More Es&S iVotronic "errors"?
http://www.recountflorida.com/u...unty=miamidade
😉 I am finally getting my Christmas Wish, to have our Democracy Really Work!
Of course it is going to be a daunting task considering the POWER the BUSH WHITE HOUSE has.
But, we cannot let it deter us , we must keep after it, sooner or later the people will get fed up with the rauncy tactics of this WHITE HOUSE and demand full discosure! Remember Watergate! They thought they would not be brought down. We PROVED THEM WRONG. THANKS FOR ALLT THE HARD WORK!
Remember Folks …
The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease!!!
Keep on SQUEAKING!!!
Vote flipping –! From Kerry to bush!
Of course! That is why there were numerous attempts to change new voter applications from Demo to Repug.
Change the new voter affiliation and there would still be the actual vote which would go for the Demo. But when flipped! Who could question it?
The only reason to change someones affiliation before the election is that the ability to flip the vote was a known fact–that is why promises to ‘deliver votes’ to bush were made and kept.
Excellent point, Kira (#36). Truer words were never written.