Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org
Alachua Co Florida elections people have admitted that not all votes in an April 11 city election were considered. They have also admitted that one voting machine had an error and that absentee ballots were not put into “secrecy folders”. / Some county election officials across the country seem to be discussing the need for emergency paper ballots at the poll site “just in case” / ‘Provisional ballots could again be a leading concern at the polls this year, with new figures showing one in three–more than 650,000 of 2 million cast–were left uncounted or discarded in 2004, according to a new briefing paper by Demos, a national, non-partisan public policy and research center.’ / Sadly activist judges have legislated from the Supreme Court and found that Arizona can require Voter ID / Benton Co Arkansas has not received their absentee ballots from ES&S and won’t until next week. No change for ES&S. / VoteTech (VTI) machines in Randolph Co Indiana are not working properly during testing….
NAtional: Here’s a cartoon to make you smile before you get to the garbage that will make you ill LINK
NAtional: Provisional Ballot Problems Loom For November 7, According to New Publication LINK
NAtional: Ballot blunders abound as election nears LINK
NAtional: Guardian of the Ballot Box ““ Ion Sancho LINK
NAtional: Latino voter registration skyrockets LINK
NAtional: The E-voting Blame Game LINK
NAtional: Are Voting Machines Reliable? Congress Is Questioning The Security Of New Electronic Voting Machines LINK
NAtional: E-voting Push Started With HAVA LINK
NAtional: PFAW Presses Election Assistance Commission to Release Report Debunking Myth of Voter “Fraud” LINK
NAtional: E-voting Technology Faces Critical Test. Challenges to results likely if systems fail during election LINK
AR: No Ballots Spell Election Concerns In Benton County LINK
AZ: High Court: Arizona Can Require Photo ID To Vote LINK
AZ: Arizona’s New Voter ID Requirement Will Prevent Citizens From Voting. Voting Rights Group Responds to Supreme Court Decision Allowing State to Implement New Voter ID Law LINK
CO: Denver judge issues ruling on security for voting machines LINK
FL: ACLU of Florida Issues Voter Empowerment Cards in English, Spanish and Creole to Inform Voters of Their Rights at the Polls LINK
FL: Alachua County – Alachua admits to not considering some election ballots LINK
FL: Broward County – Hundreds of absentee ballots missing pages in Margate and Lauderdale-by-the-Sea LINK
FL: Leon County – County gets ready for early voting. Citizens can cast ballots at courthouse starting Monday LINK
FL: Sarasota County – Paper-ballot amendment LINK
IN: Editorial – Does voter ID do enough to stop fraud? LINK
IN: Randolph County – Voting equipment to be fixed after two failures LINK
KY: Secretary of state: Voter rolls increase since primary LINK
MD: Officials Probe Possible Theft of Voting Software in Md. LINK
MD: WaPo: Diebold Touchscreen Source Code Discovered Stolen In Maryland LINK
MD: Former delegate gets purported Diebold code. FBI is contacted over anonymous package LINK
MD: Voting officials concerned by missing absentee ballots LINK
MD: Mailed disks raise voting machine fears LINK
MD: Has the Washington Post Missed the Boat…Again? LINK
MO: Are there enough voting machines and poll workers for election? LINK
MO: Missouri GOP legislators ponder next step with voter ID LINK
NC: Paper ballots await voters LINK
NM: Cibola County – County gets new voting machines LINK
NY: N.Y. working to keep money for voting gear LINK
NY: State may lose $47 million. Scramble is on to save federal aid not spent on voting machines LINK
OH: Summit County – Summit absentee ballots delayed. Errors mean all 22,000 have to be printed again before they can be sent LINK
OH: Summit County delays mailing absentee ballots to fix misprint LINK
PA: Lawrence County – Making votes count LINK
PA: Mercer County – Proposal seeks ‘adequate’ emergency paper ballots. 50 per precinct is current standard LINK
TX: Harris County – County puts electronic voting through paces LINK
VA: Chesterfield County – Chesterfield, state in voting-law dispute. County’s registrar believes Social Security numbers can be used to verify identities LINK
VA: Chesterfield County – Citing minority voting concerns, ACLU seeks U.S. poll observers LINK
**”Daily Voting News” is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in “Daily Voting News” may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or BradBlog.Com**
How many votes were switched from Kerry to Bush?
The answer: 4.5 million.
1) The 2004 total recorded vote was 122.3mm.
The Census Bureau claimed that 125.7mm (0.30% MoE) voted. Therefore, we must assume that the 3.4mm vote discrepancy was due to spoiled, lost and discarded ballots.
2) In every presidential election, the vast majority of spoiled/lost votes occur in democratic minority districts. Allocate the 3.4mm lost/spoiled votes to Kerry (2.5mm) and Bush (0.9mm).
3) Assume that 95% of 2000 Gore and Bush voters turned out to vote in 2004.
4) Adjust the 12:22am National Exit Poll (NEP) “How Voted in 2000” weights. The 41% Bush/39% Gore weights are mathematically impossible. Change the weights to a plausible 38.2% Gore/37.8% Bush.
The new weights are a function of:
a) total recorded 2000 vote (Gore 51.0-Bush 50.45mm)
b) 0.87%/year mortality rate (3.5% over 4 years)
c) A 95% turnout in 2004 of 2000 Bush and Gore voters.
5) Assume the 12:22am NEP vote shares to calculate the total Kerry/Bush vote.
Calculations:
1) The actual recorded vote:
Bush 62.0mm
Kerry 59.0mm
Other 1.3mm
2) Allocate the 3.4mm spoiled/lost/discarded votes
(2.5mm to Kerry; 0.9mm to Bush):
Bush 62.9mm
Kerry 61.5mm
Other 1.3mm
3) Calculate the 2004 Total vote shares based on 125.7mm votes (see below):
Kerry 66.0mm (52.5%)
Bush 58.4mm (46.5%)
Other 1.3mm (1.0%)
4) Solve for X, the votes switched from Kerry to Bush
X = Kerry 66mm Total Vote (see calculation below) – (Kerry 59.0mm recorded vote + 2.5mm spoiled, lost, discarded ballots)
X = 4.5mm = 66.0 – (59.0 +2.5)
National Exit Poll
12:22am (13047 respondents)
(adj. plausible weights, 125.7mm votes)
Voted in 2000 Demographic
Assumed Turnout of Gore/Bush 2000 voters: 95%
Result: Kerry 66mm; Bush 58.4mm; Other 1.3mm
Voted Weight Votes Kerry Bush Nader
No 21.77% 27.36 57.0% 41.0% 2.0%
Gore 38.24% 48.06 91.0% 8.0% 1.0%
Bush 37.83% 47.55 10.0% 90.0% 0.0%
Other 2.17% 2.72 71.0% 21.0% 8.0%
—–
Share 100% 125.7 52.5% 46.5% 1.0%
Vote 100% 125.7 66.0 58.4 1.3
Kerry margin: 7.59 million
———
Sensitivity of Kerry Vote to 2000 Gore voter turnout
Turnout% Kerry% Margin(mm)
90 52.76 8.25
95 52.52 7.59
98 52.38 7.20
100 52.29 6.93
———
[B]
1) Why would we assume that the Census 2004 vote estimate of 125.7mm is correct?
Here’s why:
There were 122.3 million recorded votes. Over 3.6 million votes were cast and never counted in 2004, according to Greg Palast. This is quite close to the 3.4mm vote Census discepancy.
[/B]
Here is what Palast had to say:
http://www.buzzflash.com/interv.../int06022.html
It was Ohio, New Mexico, Iowa, and on and on. 3.6 million votes were cast and never counted in the 2004 election ““ 3.6 million. This isn’t Greg Palast getting the info from a black helicopter. This is Greg Palast and our team going through the computer files of the election information agency ““ and, by the way, the computer files of the Republican National Committee, which is one of the most enjoyable parts of the investigation because some schmuck at the RNC wrote some e-mails, in which they were discussing exactly how to jigger the election. We were able to suck that down through a fake web site.
And this is another Buzzflash interview of Greg.
http://www.buzzflash.com/contri.../con06219.html
But the shoplifting of those votes in Ohio was just the tip of the theft-berg. November 2, 2004 was a national ballot-box bonfire. In total, over three million votes (3,600,380 to be exact) were cast — marked, punched, pulled — YET NEVER COUNTED. I’m not talking about the Ukraine or Uganda. I’m talking about the United States of America “with liberty and justice for all.”
Well, not “all.” The nine-to-one Black-to-White ballot spoilage rate is a national statistic — not just an Ohio trick. Last year, I flew to New Mexico to investigate the 33,981 cast but not counted ballots of that state in the 2004 race. George Bush “won” New Mexico by 5,988 votes. Or did he? I calculated that, of all the ballots rejected and “spoiled,” 89% were cast by voters of color. Who won New Mexico? Kerry won — or he would have, if they had counted the ballots.
But they didn’t count them. And that was deliberate. It’s in the plan. It’s the program. And the program for 2008 is simple. Two million ballots were cast but not counted in the 2000 race. (Over half, 54%, were cast by African-Americans.) In 2004, the GOP kicked it up to THREE million. Get ready, these guys aim high: “four in ’06” and “five in ’08” looks to be their game plan.
Yes indeed, Palast again
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php
Kerry won. Here are the facts.
I know you don’t want to hear it. You can’t face one more hung chad. But I don’t have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it’s my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.
Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. At 1:05 a.m. Wednesday morning, CNN’s exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. The exit polls were later combined with””and therefore contaminated by””the tabulated results, ultimately becoming a mirror of the apparent actual vote. [To read about the skewing of exit polls to conform to official results, click here .] Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio’s male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.
So what’s going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, “Who did you vote for?” Unfortunately, they don’t ask the crucial, question, “Was your vote counted?” The voters don’t know.
Here’s why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, “An Election Spoiled Rotten,” November 1.]
[B]
2) Why would we assume that 3/4 of the spoiled ballots were Democratic?
Here’s why:
As Palast said, 54% of spoiled ballots are in black districts. Blacks vote 90% for democrats. The majority of the other 46% were also in minority districts (hispanic, asian, muslim). A conservative estimate is that 60% of the remaining 46% were democratic.
Do the math: 76.2% = 54%*90% + 46%*60% = 48.6%+27.6%
3) Finally, the “false recall” hypothesis that poll respondents overstate having voted for the previous winner is patently FALSE!
Here’s why:
In 2000, GORE was the winner by 540,000 recorded votes.
[/b]
Gore WON the popular vote and he also won in Florida. It’s common knowledge that the 2000 election was stolen. There is no question about that FACT. But what about the fact that the Florida RECORDED vote did NOT include 180,000 lost, stolen, over-punched, under-punched and butterfly ballots? And that the MAJORITY of them were Gore votes? And what about the 2 MILLION lost and spoiled votes nationwide? Gore won a clear majority of them as well. So his true victory margin was near 1.5 million votes.
Democrats who voted for Gore in 2000 KNOW that he was the REAL WINNER. The records prove it. And most Bush voters agree, although they won’t admit it. So much for that false recall myth. The fact that Gore won invalidates its central premise. Furthermore, the 43/37% “How Voted in 2000” weights were manufactured to match the Bush “vote”, even though they are mathematically impossible. No false recall there. It’s just simple arithmetic.
Will we see more propaganda and spin to camouflage the facts? Will naysayers continue to push the bogus “false recall” argument to explain the 2004 exit poll discrepancies? Will they continue to defy common sense by claiming that Bush won in 2004 because many Gore Democrats decided to switch. Of course they will.
Of course, there is no evidence that Bush stole it. Bush doesn’t torture. He doesn’t spy on Americans. Rove’s private polling data assured him that the exit polls were wrong. There were WMD in Iraq. No one in the WH had anything to do with the Plame outing. No one even thought the levees would break in NO. No one even thought of planes being used as missiles into buildings. As Condi said, BushCo did at least as much as Clinton to get Bin Laden. Bush never knew Abramoff. Diebold/ESS machines are not hackable; they passed certification with flying colors. Bush was very popular on Election Day. After all, he had a 48.5% rating. Bush was so popular that in 2004 he received 14 million more votes than he did in 2000. Rove never used dirty tricks to win an election. Tom DeLay and Bob Ney (R-OH) pushed for HAVA because they knew the voting machines would provide fast, accurate counts. Must I go on?
Naysayers do us a disservice every time they ignore, deny and obscure the facts. They use faith-based arguments like “reluctant Bush responders” and Gore voter “false recall” and exit poll workers “seeking out” people who appeared to be democrats.
Are those examples of scholarly research? Give us a break.
Hagel stole his Senate seat in 1998.
Bush stole the White House in 2000.
Chamblis stole his Senate seat in 2002.
Bush stole the White House AGAIN in 2004.
We will vote Democratic across the country in MASSIVE numbers, but the Republicans will hold the house and senate by theft in 2006.
It matters not when you own the mass media.
TruthIsAll:
It would help if Democrats would stop talking about the elections as if it was common knowledge that Bush won also.
I forgot about that fake website Greg Palast put up. Very maddening! That story has been out there for months and the media is talking about the elections as if they’re concerned there might be problems.
The Republicans want us to believe that even though everybody is mad as hell at the congress as a whole, they’re going to put “their guy” back in anyway.
We’re supposed to believe that Americans were MUCH MORE angry at Bill Clinton in the 1994 midterms, and “voted the bums out”. Just how long HAVE they been stealing elections?