READER COMMENTS ON
"Voters in SC Encouraged to Print Out Their Own Ballots Before Going to Polls"
(16 Responses so far...)
COMMENT #1 [Permalink]
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ewastud
said on 1/26/2008 @ 2:02 am PT...
I highly recommend this Q & A with Mark Crispin Miller about election fraud at Scott Horton's blog at the Harper's Magazine website:
http://www.harpers.org/a...ive/2008/01/hbc-90002227
Some choice bit from the piece:
2. The center stage for the 2004 election was in Ohio, and the major foci of the extensive afterword to your book are the U.S. press’s treatment of the issue of election fraud, and the evidence of further fraud in the ‘06 election. Even now, three years after the election, the Ohio story seems still to be unfolding. Earlier this month, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner acknowledged that the 2004 presidential election in Ohio–which put Bush over the top, delivering the state to him in the face of exit polls that gave the nod to Kerry–may well have been stolen. In fact there were a series of prosecutions of voting officials in connection with fraud, a report led by House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers pointed to a slew of gross irregularities. Yet Brunner’s remarks still provoked a storm of ridicule from Ohio Republicans and drew little attention in the mainstream media. This shows that even when concerns are raised by the state’s senior elections officer, they aren’t taken seriously. How do those concerned about fair elections overcome the “tin-hat-wearing loon” tactics used by the Republicans to dismiss the issue?
This sort of resistance is, at long last, just now starting to break down, because there’s finally so much evidence of fraud, or of the likelihood of fraud, that anyone who keeps on trying to laugh it off now looks suspicious. Not that the Bush Republicans will stop deriding all discussion of that evidence. They must resort to ridicule because their only hope lies in preventing others from examining that evidence, which is in fact conclusive. Better, then, that all the evidence be cast as lunacy; and, as you note, the press has so far bought that view, and thereby helped the GOP to bury the explosive facts. (The Democrats have mostly done the same.)
But now the press is starting to recover from such blindness. Certainly the risks of electronic voting are widely recognized today, with organs like The New York Times Magazine, and several Secretaries of State throughout the nation, speaking out against the use of paperless e-voting machinery. This is a promising first step, although we have a long way yet to go, as such critics still refuse to use the f-word– fraud–preferring to insist, or to pretend, that the machines are merely insecure and prone to breakdown. Until we face the fact that Bush & Co. is bent on the subversion of U.S. democracy, and that they’ll always find a way to block the vote, we will continue to consider weak “reforms” that won’t deter or hinder them. Blind to the regime’s subversive program, the Times and those well-meaning civil servants, among others, now propose replacing all the paperless machines with optical scanners. While that’s a good idea, it isn’t good enough, as op-scans too can be, and have been, manipulated–and, more important, op-scans too make it impossible to count the vote in public. Secret vote counts have no place in any real democracy, and it is therefore staggering that any good American would call for them.
There is no doubt that the op-scans were manipulated in the New Hampshire primary, as Hillary won by six points where the votes were counted by those gadgets, while Obama won by six points where the ballots were hand-counted–and, contrary to a lot of comfy punditry, there was actually no demographic factor that explains the difference. (I suspect that Republicans manipulated the machines, to ensure that Hillary will be the candidate they run against.) The startling outcome in New Hampshire also helped to wake some people up: Bill Maher spoke very powerfully about it on his show, along with Catherine Crier and Mark Cuban; and when Tony Snow, predictably, attempted to make all of them sound crazy, he only made himself look ludicrous. The audience was clearly on the other side. It marked a real breakthrough, as Maher had never yet dared to touch the subject of election fraud.
COMMENT #2 [Permalink]
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Floridiot
said on 1/26/2008 @ 5:57 am PT...
Watch it... Obama leads by 8 points over Hitler(y) in S Carolina and it was closer to 18 last week.
COMMENT #3 [Permalink]
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BOB YOUNG
said on 1/26/2008 @ 9:28 am PT...
No Problem #2.
The South Carolina State Constitution requires that the counting can not be secret! That should halt any fraud for this state unless they "count" the votes UNCONSTITUTIONALLY!!!
COMMENT #4 [Permalink]
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GWN
said on 1/26/2008 @ 10:51 am PT...
COMMENT #5 [Permalink]
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Dredd
said on 1/26/2008 @ 12:13 pm PT...
GWN #4
Good thing preznit blush looked into the eyes of Pootie Poot and found soul baby.
Or the bushie mouth pieces would be calling Russia a "turrist" organization and charging that bradblog and bbv support "turrists".
And Amurkans would be all awhirl doncha know.
COMMENT #6 [Permalink]
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Dredd
said on 1/26/2008 @ 12:15 pm PT...
Bob Young #3
Is shame of custody constitutional in SC?
COMMENT #7 [Permalink]
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Dredd
said on 1/26/2008 @ 12:19 pm PT...
Brad said from Santa Cruz (I love that coast ... envy ... envy) "Horry County".
I would not have believed a county could be a whore until the shame of custody in NH.
Bring a condom ... print your own ...
Promiscuous election madams and pimps ... gives new meaning to pimp my diebold.
COMMENT #8 [Permalink]
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Floridiot
said on 1/26/2008 @ 12:48 pm PT...
Bob #3, The Rusters in SC don't even have a ballot to look at let alone they're counting on proprietary software.
So in other words, the whole fuking election is illegal!!!
Or were you just being cynical ?
COMMENT #9 [Permalink]
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Dredd
said on 1/26/2008 @ 1:22 pm PT...
Floridiot #9
"Rusters"?
... wha ... folks who rust? yo no comprendo dude.
COMMENT #10 [Permalink]
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Floridiot
said on 1/26/2008 @ 2:02 pm PT...
he-he ya know, pricks, dickheads, johnsons, crackers...
COMMENT #11 [Permalink]
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Dredd
said on 1/26/2008 @ 2:22 pm PT...
Bring a roll of toilet paper and write shame of custody on that "ballot".
The election priests of the election faith religion have about as much respect for ballots as they do toilet paper.
I would not be surprised to learn ballots have been used for just such a purpose by the custodians of demockcrazy.
Who would have their money carried around in anything other than an armored truck? How many of you election warlord lunatics would let Butch Custody and the Hoppy Kid carry around money in these frickin' walmart cardboard boxes? None fools!
But ballots, the DNA of democracy, are carried around in walmart boxes where you can reach in and grab what you want. You do not give a shit about democracy you lying bastards.
People have exposed their values here ... some value the buck over freedom ... but some value freedom over the buck ...
If the SoS in NH is the standard, then the standard in Amurka is pass the buck ... screw the freedom ... move along ... we got people to please.
Like in Germany just before the holocaust ... when all the nice folk got socially nice then got put on ice.
COMMENT #12 [Permalink]
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Floridiot
said on 1/26/2008 @ 2:36 pm PT...
Hey JoJ ? where you at bro ?
COMMENT #13 [Permalink]
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Floridiot
said on 1/26/2008 @ 5:29 pm PT...
Jesus, this is enough to make me want to puke...liars
[...]But Pakistan is refusing to reconsider a regulation that bars monitors from conducting exit polls, said Lorne W. Craner, the president of the International Republican Institute, a U.S. democracy promotion group that planned to send dozens of election monitors to Pakistan.
"It's very unusual not to be able to do an exit poll," said Craner, explaining that such surveys provide an independent means of verifying official election results.
"An exit poll or a parallel vote tabulation is an extra assurance of the legitimacy of the election," he said.
Link
So exits are good everywhere but here eh ?
COMMENT #14 [Permalink]
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Ellen B
said on 1/26/2008 @ 11:52 pm PT...
COMMENT #15 [Permalink]
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BOB YOUNG
said on 1/27/2008 @ 9:49 am PT...
#6:
“Is shame of custody constitutional in SC?”
There is no “shame of custody” in SC because and only because there is to custody to be ashamed of there.
#8 “Or were you just being cynical?”
Actually what I said would be completely true if only they followed their own constitution.
Unfortunately that is far from the case.
Here in Section 1 of the South Carolina State Constitution:
“ARTICLE II.
RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE
SECTION 1. Elections to be by secret ballot; protection of right of suffrage.
All elections by the people shall be by secret ballot, but the ballots shall not be counted in secret. The right of suffrage, as regulated in this Constitution, shall be protected by laws regulating elections and prohibiting, under adequate penalties, all undue influence from power, bribery, tumult, or improper conduct.”
The election system now in use by South Carolina (SC) is clearly unconstitutional based on line one of section 1.
There are no ballots used and there is no verifiable public counting of the ballots the constitution requires.
A bloodless coup led by partisan Governor Mark Sanford ® and the partisan State Election Commission the Governor hand-picked set up a clearly unconstitutional voting system in SC.
Nobody who takes part in the charades they call elections in SC has any reason whatsoever to believe that the buttons they press have any influence on the outcome of any “election” they pretend to vote in There is no proof whatsoever that any votes are being counted as cast. The machines at times print out a paper trail but there is no reason whatsoever to believe that what winds up on that paper trail has any correlation to the selections of the “voter”. That trail is a complete waste of paper.
At this point in time nobody knows who really won yesterdays election. Nobody ever will know if any of the secretly “counted” votes were secretly counted as cast. The secret software used by the machines has complete control of the outcome of any election as long as nobody hacks the easily hackable software that otherwise acts as the sole Dictator over SC “democracy”.
There is no “shame of custody” in SC. There is to custody to be ashamed of. All the rustlers of the bloodless coup, that stole democracy from SC, left SC is the pure unadulterated Shame everyone should have for the election system in place in that state at this time!
COMMENT #16 [Permalink]
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BOB YOUNG
said on 1/27/2008 @ 9:58 am PT...
#13:
"So exits are good everywhere but here eh ? "
Correct you are! The polls you mentioned in #2 were way of the SC "results" yesterday but that is ok since it was here. All those persistently inaccurate polls in our primaries should have us all well prepared for the big surprises in the November "results"!