VOTEGATE 2004
Links to Vote Fraud Websites & Info.
VOTEGATE 2004
Links to Vote Fraud Websites & Info.
Was the 2004 Election
Stolen?
BY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen
VoteGate 2004 Powerpoint Presentation/Movie
http://www.apfn.org/Movies/VoteGate-2004.ppt
VoteGate Flash Movie 8.32MB
http://www.apfn.org/flash/VoteGate-2004.swf
Flash movie.
UPDATE: 02/15/05
Jeff Gannon's alma mater: The Leadership InstituteMon Feb 14, 2005 02:1164.140.158.41
====================
APFN, Mon Feb ... Nothing to Preempt, A Former
CIA Weapons Analyst ... Builds for Bush Decision on Iraq WMD Probe
MUCH MORE:>>
LEAK - GATE:
(Page 4)
This White House Scandal Finally Tips the Scale!
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/leakgate4.htm
Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (50 U.S.C. 421 et seq.)
(governing disclosures that could expose confidential Government agents)
http://foi.missouri.edu/bushinfopolicies/protection.html
Click to subscribe to LEAK-GATE
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LEAK-GATE/join
Outing a CIA agent is illegal, not to mention unpatriotic!
Did outed agent act in political role?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/10/13/EDGVL29CHS1.DTL
Editor -- Linda Chavez's column, "Spy is a political operative" (Oct. 10) misleads readers in an attempt to discredit Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame. Chavez points out that Wilson was a Clinton appointee, but doesn't mention that Wilson also was appointed ambassador to Gabon by the first President Bush.
Chavez blames Plame for hurting national security by contributing to the Gore 2000 campaign and listing her employer (a CIA front), but fails to point out that (as Robert Novak has reported) Plame used a fictitious company name.
The bottom line is that it doesn't matter which political party Wilson and Plame belong to. When senior Bush administration officials leaked that Plame was a CIA operative, they committed a serious crime, and perhaps threatened national security and the lives of other CIA operatives. No amount of spin by Chavez can deflect the blame from the Bush administration.
DAN KARASIC
San Francisco-- -- --
Editor -- Linda Chavez descended to unsubstantiated smears in her column about former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame. In her attempts to paint the couple as partisan Democrats, Chavez neglects to mention that Wilson donated money to George W. Bush's campaign. She similarly neglects to mention that Wilson served under the president's father and, by all accounts, they have publicly praised each other.
It is telling that Chavez completely ignores the issue at hand: that outing Plame as a CIA agent is illegal, not to mention unpatriotic.
PAIGE BROWN
Oakland
============================
NEWS ANALYSIS
Uneasy bedfellows in investigation of CIA leak
White House and journalists both under scrutiny
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/10/12/MN115224.DTL
Washington -- The first real political scandal of the Bush administration appears to have legs, to the discomfort of an unusually large number of people in Washington --
both in the White House and the press corps.
The White House is facing accusations that two of its officials outed a CIA agent, endangering national security and possibly committing a criminal act, to punish a critic of the administration's policy on Iraq.
But Washington journalism is also facing scrutiny for its unhealthy dependence on government leaks.
In this case, at least a half-dozen prominent Washington-based journalists are said to have firsthand information that investigators need to determine whether White House officials have committed a felony -- in this case, the unauthorized and deliberate exposure of a covert intelligence agent. But they are clamming up, citing the need to protect confidential sources.
===============================================[3 articles]
Lawyers to challenge election in Ohiohttp://www.cleveland.com/
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Julie Carr Smyth
Plain Dealer Bureau
Columbus- A trio of activist lawyers armed with mysteriously wrong exit
polls and hundreds of voter horror stories announced plans Friday to
contest Ohio's presidential election as soon as the vote is official.
Their challenge could lead to widespread reconsideration of dozens of
alleged election irregularities around the state - from reported
computerized voting glitches to provisional-ballot mishaps to unusual
incidents involving voter rolls, poll workers and machine technicians.
But it is unclear whether the complaint will ever get that far.
Columbus attorney Cliff Arnebeck, a national officer in the Alliance for
Democracy, could not predict exactly when members of the coalition will be
ready or able to file their request.
And, after they do, the Ohio Supreme Court would have to rule in their favor.
To qualify to reopen consideration of the election, Arnebeck said, the
group needs find only 25 aggrieved electors and evidence of irregularities,
both of which he and his associates have collected in abundance at hearings
around the state, he said.
Another hearing is scheduled in Cleveland today.
Arnebeck said the national boards of the NAACP, Alliance for Democracy and
Common Cause are reviewing requests to sign on to the litigation, which is
not affiliated with either political party.
Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for the secretary of state's office, said many
glitches brought to light on Internet blogs and in the alternative press
will be corrected in the state's official canvass of the election.
That process, which turns unofficial election results into official ones,
is still under way.
LoParo said the canvass includes precinct-level auditing of results, poll
book reviews, provisional-ballot verification and an actual recount of all
ballots cast on Election Day. Official results historically have varied
from final totals only enough to affect the outcomes of very close local
races, nothing of the scale of a national race.
Susan Truitt, co-founder of Citizens' Alliance for Secure Elections and one
of the participating lawyers, said Ohioans need to know their vote was
properly counted.
"Our intent is to examine this election, and to prevail, so that we will
have a democracy in this country," she said. "So that we will not have our
voices shut down."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
jsmyth@plaind.com, 1-800-228-8272
-------------------------------------------------------
Lawyers Plan To Challenge Election Results
http://www.onnnews.com/Global/story.asp?S=2592759&nav=LQlCTMEA
November 20, 2004
Lawyers who have been documenting voting may problems in Ohio say they'll
challenge the results of the presidential election as soon as the vote is
official.
The lawyers say documented cases of long lines, a shortage of machines and
a pattern of problems in predominantly black neighborhoods are enough
evidence to bring such a challenge.
The lawyers, who will represent voters who cast ballots November Second,
will use a state law that allows them to file a request to challenge the
election with the Ohio Supreme Court. The law allows the challenge to be
heard by the chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court.
In the case of Ohio, that's Justice Thomas Moyer, a Columbus Republican.
The official vote will not be certified until early next month.
Requests strain election boards, county budgets
Groups checking election results are asking county elections boards for all
kinds of documents, everything from provisional ballot totals to voter
signature poll books.
Elections officials say such requests from political and advocacy groups,
media outlets and other organizations are straining their staffs and
budgets as they try to finish the official ballot count for the
presidential election.
Ross County elections director Nancy Bell says she's never experienced
anything like this in her 19 years at the elections board.
Bev Harris is founder of Black Box Voting, a Seattle-based nonprofit
consumer protection organization. She says her group has filed records
requests for every Ohio county to check the accuracy of the the final vote
report sent to the secretary of state.
-------------------------------------------------------
AfD to File Lawsuit Contesting Ohio Presidential Election Results
http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/html/eng/2163-AA.shtml
Coalition to contest election results
Lawsuit aimed at problems reported in presidential race
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Jon Craig
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
A coalition of citizen-action groups announced plans yesterday to file
a new lawsuit contesting the presidential election results in Ohio.
Columbus lawyer Clifford O. Arnebeck of the Alliance for Democracy
joined Upper Arlington lawyer Susan Truitt and political-science
professor Robert Fitrakis at a news conference outside the Ohio Supreme
Court to discuss their impending legal action.
"Please make no mistake. There is nothing short of democracy at risk
here," said Truitt, co-founder of Citizens' Alliance for Secure
Elections in Ohio.
"There have been an abundant number of reports of irregularities in
the election," Arnebeck said. "The objective is to get to the truth."
Arnebeck said Common Cause, the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People and People for the American Way also have
been asked to join the challenge, based on two sections of the Ohio
Revised Code. Arnebeck said a petition must be signed by at least 25
voters before it can be filed with the Ohio Supreme Court.
"Time is critical," he said. "We intend to file as soon as we can."
During the past week, Fitrakis, a lawyer who teaches at Columbus State
Community College, helped organize several public hearings in Columbus,
Cincinnati and Cleveland for people to voice election complaints.
Hundreds of people who were "disenfranchised, intimidated or somehow
discouraged from voting" gave sworn testimony that will support the
complaint, Truitt said.
At a minimum, the coalition thinks it can challenge the outcome of the
election based on scientifically designed nonpartisan exit polling that
found Kerry led in Ohio.
But Ohio State University law professor Edward B. "Ned" Foley
disagrees with the coalition's thinking.
"I do not believe that the discrepancy between exit polls and actual
(voter) rolls would be a sufficient basis for a contest action under
the statute," Foley said. "The case law is clear that it is very
difficult to prevail in one of these contest procedures.
"I would be extremely hesitant to bring a contest procedure in
general," Foley said. "I think it is unhelpful to dispute the result
when there isn't the evidence to support that dispute. We should be
focusing on fixing the process in the future."
The morning after the election, with President Bush holding an
unofficial 136,000-vote lead in Ohio over Sen. John Kerry and with
about 155,000 provisional votes yet to be counted statewide, Kerry
determined he could not win and conceded.
Arnebeck said the legal action would be aimed at protecting the
integrity of the election process, not deciding a clear winner. The
action is separate from a formal recount request planned by candidates
for the Green and Libertarian parties.
Among voting irregularities cited by the coalition:
* There was a shortage of voting machines in precincts in Franklin and
Knox counties more heavily populated by blacks or students expected to
vote Democratic.
* A Gahanna precinct mistakenly recorded 3,893 more votes for
President Bush because of an unexplained touchscreen machine
malfunction.
* People have been found to have voted both in person and by absentee
ballots in Madison and Summit counties.
* A printer in Trumbull County testified that he was asked to supply
punch-card ballots on heavier bond paper, possibly making voting more
difficult.
* Discrepancies were found in vote counts on machines in Miami County
and some ballots may have been counted twice in Sandusky County.
* New voter-registration cards reportedly were discarded in Hamilton
County.
* A former electronic-voting machine worker possibly tampered with
equipment in Auglaize County.
Earlier this week, the Ohio Democratic Party announced it would join a
lawsuit arguing that the state lacks clear rules for evaluating
provisional ballots, a move the party said will keep its options open
if problems with the ballots surface.
The federal lawsuit was filed Election Day against Ohio Secretary of
State J. Kenneth Blackwell alleging voters would not be treated
equally, as the Constitution requires, because the state's 88 counties
evaluated provisional ballots differently.
A separate federal lawsuit is expected to be filed next week over the
planned recount.
jcraig@dispatch.com
===================================================
Recount efforts in Ohio by Kerry intensify
http://www.northcountynews.com/view.asp?s=11-17-04/news5.htm
November 17 - November 23, 2004
by Adam Stone
A top-ranking official with Democratic Senator John Kerry's presidential
campaign told North County News last week that although unlikely, there is
a recount effort being waged that could unseat Republican President George
W. Bush.
"We have 17,000 lawyers working on this, and the grassroots accountability
couldn't be any higher -no (irregularity) will go unchecked. Period," Kerry
spokesman David Wade said.
A verbal firestorm erupted last week between an area supporter of
independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader and Wade after the Kerry
spokesman derided Nader for creating a "phony wedge issue between
progressives."
Nader has been calling on Kerry and his vice presidential running mate,
Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, to, in his words, "follow through
on their post-election promise to the American people to make sure every
vote counts, starting in Ohio."
A Kerry victory in Ohio means he would have the necessary electoral votes
to take the White House.
The local Nader supporter, Don DeBar, an Ossining resident, took umbrage
with Wade's remarks.
"It seems to me the (wedge) was created when Kerry, after promising to
ensure that every vote would count, conceded before they were counted,"
DeBar, who worked for the Nader campaign in San Antonio during the ballot
access drive, wrote in an e-mail message to Wade.
The Kerry spokesman said, so far, "there hasn't been any indication" of
swinging a state or the overall election.
"…But we'll make sure every single vote is counted," he added.
Nader press secretary Kevin Zeese said "I'm laughing," after being informed
of Wade's remark about creating a wedge issue.
"They used those same 17,000 lawyers to keep us off the ballots," Zeese
said during a telephone interview.
Wade said Nader "should be working with Democrats to guarantee the right to
vote is protected."
During a flurry of e-mail exchanges with Wade, DeBar said, "What about the
concession? If there are sufficient indicia of fraud and/or inaccurate
counting, will Kerry 'unconcede'?"
Former Vice President Al Gore conceded in his 2000 battle with Bush for the
White House before demanding recounts, which were ultimately halted by the
United States Supreme Court.
Two third-party presidential candidates have raised enough money to file
for an official recount of the vote in Ohio.
Green Party candidate David Cobb announced Monday the $113,600 needed to
file for a recount had been raised.
"Thanks to the thousands of people who have contributed to this effort, we
can say with certainty that there will be a recount in Ohio," Cobb said in
a statement.
The Green Party has been working with the Libertarian Party - both parties
were on the ballot in Ohio - in securing a recount. Both Cobb and
Libertarian Michael Badnarik say they've demanded that Ohio Secretary of
State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican who co-chaired this year's Bush
campaign in Ohio, recuse himself from the recount process.
Cobb Media Director Blair Bobier said, "The Ohio presidential election was
marred by numerous press and independent reports of mismarked and discarded
ballots, problems with electronic voting machines and the targeted
disenfranchisement of African-American voters."
The Ohio vote will be certified on Dec. 3 at the latest, Bobier said.
The Electoral College votes on December 13, so it is unclear whether or not
a recount would be completed by then.
However, Jonathan Turley, a professor of constitutional law at George
Washington University, told WorldNetDaily.com that "those votes are not
opened by Congress until Jan. 6. So there is still time to challenge the
results in Ohio."
A demand for a recount in Ohio can only be filed by a presidential
candidate who was either a certified write-in candidate or on the ballot in
that state.
Bush won Ohio by a vote of 2,796,147 to John Kerry's 2,659,664. Despite
reports of irregularities and outstanding provisional ballots, Kerry
conceded Ohio and the election on November 3.
In the 11 Ohio counties that have finished checking provisional ballots
cast in the presidential election, 81 percent have turned out to be valid.
It is too early to know whether the ballots have benefited Bush or Kerry
because counties first need to determine their validity before conducting
the count.
Badnarik received 14,331 votes in Ohio and Cobb, as a write-in candidate,
received 24 votes.
When asked about how the Kerry campaign has reacted to Nader's efforts,
Zeese said, "You've got the closest thing to a response," referring to the
comments made by Wade to North County News.
According to a November 5 article by the Associated Press, elections
officials admitted that an error with an electronic voting system gave
President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a Gahanna precinct. Franklin County
reported Bush with 4,258 votes and John Kerry with 260, even though only
638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Election officials in that county
now say a cartridge from a voting machine generated errors after the
precinct closed, and only 365 people voted for Bush, Nader notes in a press
release.
Additional machine errors in Ohio reported by VotersUnite.org, include:
• Mahoning County: The glass on top of one electronic screen
was too far from the screen, making it difficult for people to use their
fingers to cast ballots. A screen went blank on a Youngstown voter while he
cast his ballot.
• Mahoning County: 20 to 30 machines needed to be recalibrated
during the voting process because some votes for a candidate were being
counted for that candidate's opponent.
• Mahoning County: About a dozen machines needed to be reset
because they essentially froze.
• Cincinnati: Problems with punch card voting machines delayed
the start of voting for up to an hour Tuesday morning at a suburban
precinct. Voters were unable to slide their punch-card ballots all the way
into any of the six voting machines that had all evidently been damaged in
transit.
• Columbus: Overcharged batteries on Danaher Controls
ELECTronic 1242 systems kept machines from booting up properly at the
beginning of the day.
The resulting delays, combined with higher voter turnout, resulted in lines
of several hours, in one case 22 hours, and led to some citizens' voting
rights being taken away by administrative default, Nader contends.
The situation in Ohio and other states bears out, according to Nader, what
he warned against before the election.
Among them:
Computers are inherently subject to programming error, equipment
malfunction and malicious tampering.
Paperless electronic voting machines make it impossible to safeguard the
integrity of the vote.
"However, the Democratic National Committee has remained silent on the
issue since Election Day," Nader's press release states. "Neither the DNC
web site nor the Ohio Democratic Party site offered any response or any
advice to voters on where to turn."
"With the extensive pre-election effort to prevent election fraud,
including international observers, activist poll watchers and attempts to
enforce paper trail backups, the Democratic Party's silence on Ohio is
puzzling," Nader stated.
Regardless of whether it changes the outcome, the release continues, the
Democrats should follow through on their promise to make sure every vote
counts in Ohio and other states discovering similar problems with
electronic voting machines and other irregularities.
Other trouble spots exist in Ohio, including rules that allow officials to
reject some of the 155,000 provisional ballots being cast in that state,
Nader states.
Before Election Day, Blackwell, the Republican who co-chaired Bush's
statewide campaign, was challenged by voters-rights organizations for
denying citizens their voting rights on the basis of a rule, later
rescinded, requiring voter registration forms be printed on 80-pound paper
stock.
Voter registration forms were submitted on newsprint in Cuyahoga County
after being printed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Blackwell is also
accused of trying to suppress the registration of poor and minority voters
who most often vote Democrat.
"Our offices are being flooded with faxes and e-mails asking for assistance
in resolving these irregularities - a lot of them are citizens who voted
for you," Nader says in a direct challenge to Kerry and Edwards.
"In the spirit of good government, I urge you to make this effort now,"
Nader concluded.
Kerry, in Zeese's mind, should be more direct.
"Kerry should say: 'I was serious about counting every vote," Zeese said.
"'The reports of problems on Election Day raise serious questions that need
to be fully reviewed. I am instructing my lawyers to provide support to
those urging review of the vote count and my campaign is available to work
in any way to make sure the vote count is accurate.'"
Nader drew roughly one percent of the vote nationally. He held a press
conference last Wednesday and said he was speaking out for the "thousands"
of American voters asking for recounts and not on his own behalf.
"Over 2,000 citizens including voting rights advocates are urging in
writing the Nader Camejo campaign to help make sure every vote is counted
and counted accurately," Nader remarked. "The Nader Camejo campaign does
not view the election to be over merely because concession speeches, which
have no legal effect, have been given. Rather they are over when every vote
is counted and legally certified."
"Striking inconsistencies exist between the vote as reported on the
AccuVote Diebold Machines and exit polls and voting trends in New
Hampshire," he added. "These irregularities in the reported vote count
favor president George W. Bush by five to 15 percent over what was expected."
"Problems in these electronic voting machines and optical scanners are
being reported in machines in a variety of states," Nader said.
New Hampshire is about to become a test case for the accuracy of optical
scan vote-counting machines because Nader has asked for a recount.
The request covers 11 of the state's 126 precincts that use Diebold Inc.'s
Accuvote optical scanning machines to count paper ballots. Depending on the
results, his campaign could ask for recounts in other states, Zeese said
Monday.
Nader doesn't expect to change the outcome: In New Hampshire, Kerry
defeated Bush, 50 percent to 49 percent, while Nader got less than 1
percent from the state's 301 precincts.
Lawyers with John Kerry's presidential campaign are gathering information
from Ohio election boards about uncounted ballots and other unresolved
issues from last week's election, according to a Plain Dealer article
published last Thursday.
Although Wade suggested a recount has no real chance of turning the
election in Kerry's favor, bloggers and liberal talk radio show hosts have
speculated the senator was allowing grassroots candidates and campaigns to
take up the fight so Kerry can appear statesmanlike and above the fray.
Conservative radio commentators, conversely, are dismissing the recount
efforts.
"What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, are spam e-mail campaigns
spreading conspiracy theories and rumors generating hard news
investigations on the old media networks," Rush Limbaugh said during his
radio program on November 12.
Others, however, have complained that the mainstream media have failed to
cover the story adequately.
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has covered the story aggressively on his Countdown
program, as have liberal radio talk show hosts on Air America.
"There has been a justifiable uproar about the major differences between
the exit
polls in Ohio and Florida and the actual results," writes Sheldon Drobny, a
CPA and venture capitalist and co-founder of Air America Radio.
"Democrats and Republicans, who both saw the same exit polls that showed an
electoral landslide in favor of Kerry, have confirmed this," he
continued. "It is important that people know how accurate random sampling
of historical events can be in order for them to understand how unlikely it
is that the exit polls were wrong."
"We have a Watergate story here that could give the media a post-election
explosive news story that could make the 2000 Florida vote debacle look
like small potatoes," Drobny concluded.
DeBar stressed a concession was not legally binding. He also believes a
"Constitutional crisis" is about to erupt.
"What he should do is call a national press conference, recite each and
every case of apparent fraud and or error that could bear on the outcome,"
DeBar said. "(Kerry) should remind voters strongly of the 2000 theft of
Florida…he should redefine the results, and then redefine himself as
someone worthy of challenging them. And he should go to the mat, both
legally and politically."
"Call a million-voter rally in D.C, or, better, simultaneously in (New
York), D.C, (Boston), L.A., (San Francisco), Cleveland, (Chicago), etc…Hey,
maybe there really were only 51 (million) that voted for Kerry and 53
(million) that vote for Bush. Let's see our 51 million in the streets.
Better, let Bush and Cheney see 'em.".========================================================
Ohio Presidential Results to be Challenged
News Updates from Citizens for Legitimate Government
November 20, 2004
http://www.legitgov.org/
http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news
Ohio Presidential Results to be Challenged (freepress.org) Ohio's 2004
presidential vote will be challenged as soon as next week in the state
Supreme Court, a coalition of public-interest lawyers announced Friday. The lawyers have taken sworn testimony from hundreds of people in hearings in Columbus and Cincinnati, and will use excerpts as well as documents obtained from county election officials and Election Day exit polls to make a case that thousands of votes were incorrectly counted or not counted on Election Day.
More Ohio voter suppression testimony prompts upcoming legal filing for
statewide recount (freepress.org) As transcribed testimony from citizens
denied their right to vote November 2 has become public, a coalition of
public interest lawyers says it will initiate a legal filing demanding a
statewide recount.
Democrat picks up seat in recount (NH) A Nashua Republican state
representative still lost his seat after a recount of ballots in his
race Friday, but a Francestown Democrat picked up a seat when a recount
in her district changed the result.
*****
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CLG Newsletter editor: Lori Price, General Manager. Copyright ©
2004, Citizens For Legitimate Government ® All rights reserved.==========================================
Activists hold hearings on voting rights in Ohio
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1241
by Ariella Cohen
Nov 17 - Public hearings in Ohio, initiated by a coalition of voter
advocacy groups, concluded yesterday with the promise of lawsuits over
voter disenfranchisement and a recount to be filed in Ohio.
Nearly 200 people gave sworn testimony during the two-day hearings, held
Saturday at the New Faith Baptist Church in East Columbus and Monday at the
Columbus courthouse.
Among the complaints listed by people who voted or tried to vote were
snaking Election Day lines and widespread confusion over new precinct borders.
Groups like People for the American Way, Common Cause Ohio, Citizens
Alliance for a Fair Election (CASE Ohio) and the League of Pissed-Off
Voters, all co-organizers of the event, contend that state election
practices systemically suppressed voters in lower-income precincts and
violated constitutional laws guaranteeing all US citizens equal right to vote.
While the voter advocacy organizations involved in the hearings plan to
pursue separate lawsuits, a shared interest in a reformation of the
electoral process that goes beyond the 2004 election unites them. While
they concede that lawsuits most likely will not overturn the most recent
election results, they want to make sure that every voter is heard at the
polls next time.
In an interview with The NewStandard, Franklin County Board of Election
Director Matthew Damschroder said he knew of the potential for a troubled
Election Day for some time. "We've been warning people about the changed
precincts and telling people since June to expect long lines on Election
Day," Damschroder said. While Damschroder did not attend the hearings, he
expressed interest in reviewing transcripts.
Editor's Note: NewStandard reporter Ariella Cohen attended both days of
hearings in Columbus Ohio and is compiling a longer, more detailed article
on the testimony provided as well as follow up actions intended by the
various groups involved. We expect to publish that article within the next
few days.
========================================
Berkeley study scrutinizes Florida tally for Bush
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/11/19/VOTERFRAUD.TMP
Unexplained boost linked to e-voting; some not so sure
Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, November 19, 2004
Researchers at UC Berkeley released a statistical analysis Thursday that
shows, they say, that President Bush may have received at least 130,000
extra and unexplained votes in Florida counties that used electronic voting
machines.
A professor and three graduate students from the university's Survey
Research Center conducted the study and said they have been able "to
explain away all other factors" that might have increased Bush's support.
But some political scientists dismissed the analysis, pointing out that
researchers did not and probably could not account for massive Republican
get-out-the-vote efforts, differences in money spent or differences in
amount of advertising by candidates, as well as other political intricacies.
"(E-voting) is not the only factor left because the model is so incomplete.
How do you control for the fact that churches and gun groups were out there
pumping out people; how would you measure that?" asked Bruce Cain, a
political science professor and director of UC Berkeley's Institute of
Governmental studies.
"Until you can disprove what Republicans claim was the biggest factor, you
don't have a case," he said.
Even 130,000 fewer votes simply would have trimmed Bush's margin of victory
in Florida, and the study only shows that something went wrong, but not
what that the problem may have been, the researchers said.
Several faculty members reviewed the analysis and could not find major
flaws, said Michael Hout, a sociology professor who made Thursday's
announcement.
"It's held up to our skepticism and our scrutiny, and I've concluded
something went awry with e-voting in Florida," Hout said.
The researchers said the counties with the largest discrepancies, which
they attribute to electronic voting machines, were Democrat-heavy
Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Counties where Bush won
decisively did not show such dramatic shifts.
In the statewide study, researchers used a technique called multiple
regression analysis to account for differences in county size, change in
overall voter turnout (not by party), past voting history of residents and
demographic factors of income and race.
They also looked at whether a county used an electronic voting machine or
another ballot counting system. That distinction was the only one of the
six factors that showed a statistically significant relationship with the
increase in the Bush vote from the 2000 election, Hout said.
The researchers conducted an identical analysis of Ohio counties and found
no distinction between electronic voting machines and other types of
systems. Only seven counties in Ohio use electronic machines, and 70
percent of the state still uses paper punch ballots.
Florida uses the electronic machines in 15 counties that represent a
majority of the state's residents.
Hout said he doubted Florida residents in larger counties simply changed
their minds and voted for Bush over Kerry.
"If they did, they're acting very much out of the pattern that is
established in the other 64 counties in Florida," he said.
The researchers said their work was not politically motivated and does not
provide a type of smoking gun that shows fraud or an attempted stolen election.
The results could mean embedded software glitches, smudged touch screens
that misread votes or machines that counted backward, as happened in at
least two counties in other states, Hout said.
But academic scrutiny like the Berkeley study can lead to all types of
incorrect conclusions and conjectures, said Jack Pitney, associate
professor of government at Claremont-McKenna College.
"There's a big difference between social science and reality," said Pitney,
who questioned the results of Hout's study. "The difference is social
scientists like to confine things to formulas, and reality is a lot more
complicated than a formula."
The company that manufactures the electronic machines used by Broward and
Miami-Dade counties, Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb., had their
own concerns about the study.
In a statement released Thursday, they called the Berkeley analysis a
"hypothetical statistical study" and said ES&S officials had not yet
reviewed the results.
"If you consider real-world experience, we know that ES&S' touch screen
voting system has been proven in thousands of elections across the country.
... Based on this solid track record -- as well as the extensive testing
process that is required before equipment may be used in an election -- we
are confident in the security, reliability and accuracy of all our voting
systems," the statement read.
There were problems nationwide with electronic voting machines from a
variety of manufacturers. The Verified Voting Foundation has logged 695
separate complaints about e-voting, some that account for thousands of lost
votes, said Will Doherty, executive director of the foundation.
"What we're finding is the more you look at the election, the more problems
you see,'' he said. "We don't have any way to say if this election has more
problems than prior elections because we've never looked at an election
before as much as we've looked at this one."
E-mail Wyatt Buchanan at wbuchanan@sfchronicle.com .
============================================Rural Okla. Voting Machines Count Backwards
Vote Fraud Suspected
by Bob Nichols
bobnichols@cox.net
(Oklahoma City) November 18, 2004 - Rural Oklahoma Voting machines know how
to count backwards. That looks like what the secretly programmed machines
did for Sen. Kerry in President Bush's easily won Presidential Election
victory in Oklahoma.
The respectable, conservative Tulsa World newspaper reported Nov 3rd that
Kerry was winning in 57 of the states's rural counties. Turns out that the
famous November 3rd report was not supposed to be printed.
The "official" State of Oklahoma Election Board vote totals released later
show Kerry not winning; but, losing in all the state's 77 counties,
including 57 rural counties. Yea, somebody let the cat out of the bag.
A simple comparison of total votes for Kerry between the staid establishment
mouthpiece the Tulsa World newspaper and the so-called "official" final vote
totals at the State Election Board show fewer votes for Kerry in 57 counties
than the Tulsa World does.
Ten of the 57 counties clearly demonstrate that Sen Kerry lost 10,521 votes
to the Voting Machines. At the same time, the same 10 counties analyzed
demonstrated that President Bush gained 37,982 votes. That a 48,473 vote
turn around. Nice, slick, easy way to win an election. As a man once said
He stole it fair and square!"
In other words, Kerry lost votes already cast by voters. The voting machines
counted backwards before the final tally. Who programs these things, eh?
It turns out the every vote in the state, all 1.4 Million of them cast, were
counted on the same type of flawed machine, programmed by the same company.
Who really won? Well, nobody really knows! Time for a re-count, this time by
hand!
Not that Oklahoma's few Electoral Votes make much difference in the grand
scheme of things. Except, fraud is suspected in Ohio, too. A recount is
already guaranteed in Ohio. What will Oklahoma officials do?
That is what's happened in ten of the 57 rural counties. The other 47 rural
counties numbers are being analyzed now.
"Film at 11." Fat chance!
We all know that the Professional Hairdo Anchors in the Oklahoma TV stations
and the Radio Celebrities will not touch this with a 30 Foot pole since
their right wing owners keep them on a real short leash.
But, the money is good and the living is easy, in the great flyover state
where The Oklahoma Observer says 20% of the people can't even read. This
makes TV and radio even more important.
If they are reading this, and you know they are, then these parasites know
the truth. I dare you, Kelley! Go for it! Get a life, dude!
Watch for more election 2004 reports here as I get to them. Please circulate
and distribute this report widely. You know that none of us can depend on
the so-called press to do so in the great state of Oklahoma. There are only
47 more counties to add up. I will do it myself.
Meantime, I reminded of the Salsa ad for some company. When informed that
somebody had bought Salsa from a company in New York City, an ole boy
hollers "Get a rope!"
By the way, what are YOU going to do about this situation?
-----
Copyright 2004, Bob Nichols. All rights reserved. Permission for reposting
is allowed provided the complete text and attribution are kept intact. Bob
Nichols is a Project Censored Award winner. He lives and works as a writer,
political commentator and community organizer in Oklahoma City. Citizens
may reach Mr Nichols at bobnichols@cox.net
============================================================
Problems are cited on electronic voting
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2004/11/19/problems_are_cited_on_electronic_voting/
Watchdogs urge higher standards
By Sam Hananel, Associated Press | November 19, 2004
WASHINGTON -- The record use of electronic voting machines on Nov. 2 led to
hundreds of voting irregularities and shows the need for higher standards,
a voting rights group said yesterday.
The companies that make the electronic machines said their equipment was
reliable and had relatively few problems considering the millions who cast
their ballots.
The Election Verification Project reviewed nearly 900 reports of electronic
voting problems on Election Day, ranging from lost votes in North Carolina
to miscounted votes in Ohio and breakdowns in New Orleans that caused long
lines and shut down polling places.
''The documented problems with touch-screen machines, vote-counting
irregularities, and the fact that votes cannot be verified or recounted
show us how vulnerable our democracy will be in the future when there are
disputed or unclear results," said Kim Alexander, a project member and
president of the California Voter Foundation.
The members of the verification project said they hadn't seen evidence that
the problems would change the election results -- President Bush captured
60.5 million votes to Senator John F. Kerry's 57.1 million. But they said
the problems raised the specter of that possibility in a closer race.
Without a paper trail of electronic votes, they said, officials can never
be sure that machines are recording votes correctly. ''If this were the
banking industry, the gambling industry, there would be standards for
making sure the software was working right," Alexander said.
More than 40 million Americans cast their votes Nov. 2 using about 175,000
electronic voting machines.
''To the extent that such episodes exist, they appear to be of limited
scope and easily fixed," said Bob Cohen, spokesman for the Information
Technology Association of America, a trade group that includes voting
machine manufacturers.
===============================================TUESDAY NOV 16 2004: Volusia County on lockdown
Florida:
County election records just got put on lockdown
Dueling lawyers, election officials gnashing teeth, Votergate.tv film crew catching it all.
Here's what happened so far:
Friday Black Box Voting investigators Andy Stephenson and Kathleen Wynne popped in to ask for some records. They were rebuffed by an elections official named Denise. Bev Harris called on the cell phone from investigations in downstate Florida, and told Volusia County Elections Supervisor Deanie Lowe that Black Box Voting would be in to pick up the Nov. 2 Freedom of Information request, or would file for a hand recount. "No, Bev, please don't do that!" Lowe exclaimed. But this is the way it has to be, folks. Black Box Voting didn't back down.
Monday Bev, Andy and Kathleen came in with a film crew and asked for the FOIA request. Deanie Lowe gave it over with a smile, but Harris noticed that one item, the polling place tapes, were not copies of the real ones, but instead were new printouts, done on Nov. 15, and not signed by anyone.
Harris asked to see the real ones, and they said for "privacy" reasons they can't make copies of the signed ones. She insisted on at least viewing them (although refusing to give copies of the signatures is not legally defensible, according to Berkeley elections attorney, Lowell Finley). They said the real ones were in the County Elections warehouse. It was quittin' time and an arrangment was made to come back this morning to review them.
Lana Hires, a Volusia County employee who gained some notoriety in an election 2000 Diebold memo, where she asked for an explanation of minus 16,022 votes for Gore, so she wouldn't have to stand there "looking dumb" when the auditor came in, was particularly unhappy about seeing the Black Box Voting investigators in the office. She vigorously shook her head when Deanie Lowe suggested going to the warehouse.
Kathleen Wynne and Bev Harris showed up at the warehouse at 8:15 Tuesday morning, Nov. 16. There was Lana Hires looking especially gruff, yet surprised. She ordered them out. Well, they couldn't see why because there she was, with a couple other people, handling the original poll tapes. You know, the ones with the signatures on them. Harris and Wynne stepped out and Volusia County officials promptly shut the door.
There was a trash bag on the porch outside the door. Harris looked into it and what do you know, but there were poll tapes in there. They came out and glared at Harris and Wynne, who drove away a small bit, and then videotaped the license plates of the two vehicles marked 'City Council' member. Others came out to glare and soon all doors were slammed.
So, Harris and Wynne went and parked behind a bus to see what they would do next. They pulled out some large pylons, which blocked the door. Harris decided to go look at the garbage some more while Wynne videotaped. A man who identified himself as "Pete" came out and Harris immediately wrote a public records request for the contents of the garbage bag, which also contained ballots -- real ones, but not filled out.
A brief tug of war occurred, tearing the garbage bag open. Harris and Wynne then looked through it, as Pete looked on. He was quite friendly.
Black Box Voting collected various poll tapes and other information and asked if they could copy it, for the public records request. "You won't be going anywhere," said Pete. "The deputy is on his way."
Yes, not one but two police cars came up and then two county elections officials, and everyone stood around discussing the merits of the "black bag" public records request.
The police finally let Harris and Wynne go, about the time the Votergate.tv film crew arrived, and everyone trooped off to the elections office. There, the plot thickened.
Black Box Voting began to compare the special printouts given in the FOIA request with the signed polling tapes from election night. Lo and behold, some were missing. By this time, Black Box Voting investigator Andy Stephenson had joined the group at Volusia County. Some polling place tapes didn't match. In fact, in one location, precinct 215, an African-American precinct, the votes were off by hundreds, in favor of George W. Bush and other Republicans.
Hmm. Which was right? The polling tape Volusia gave to Black Box Voting, specially printed on Nov. 15, without signatures, or the ones with signatures, printed on Nov. 2, with up to 8 signatures per tape?
Well, then it became even more interesting. A Volusia employee boxed up some items from an office containing Lana Hires' desk, which appeared to contain -- you guessed it -- polling place tapes. The employee took them to the back of the building and disappeared.
Then, Ellen B., a voting integrity advocate from Broward County, Florida, and Susan, from Volusia, decided now would be a good time to go through the trash at the elections office. Lo and behold, they found all kinds of memos and some polling place tapes, fresh from Volusia elections office.
So, Black Box Voting compared these with the Nov. 2 signed ones and the "special' ones from Nov. 15 given, unsigned, finding several of the MISSING poll tapes. There they were: In the garbage.
So, Wynne went to the car and got the polling place tapes she had pulled from the warehouse garbage. My my my. There were not only discrepancies, but a polling place tape that was signed by six officials.
This was a bit disturbing, since the employees there had said that bag was destined for the shredder.
By now, a county lawyer had appeared on the scene, suddenly threatening to charge Black Box Voting extra for the time spent looking at the real stuff Volusia had withheld earlier. Other lawyers appeared, phoned, people had meetings, Lana glowered at everyone, and someone shut the door in the office holding the GEMS server.
Black Box Voting investigator Andy Stephenson then went to get the Diebold "GEMS" central server locked down. He also got the memory cards locked down and secured, much to the dismay of Lana. They were scattered around unsecured in any way before that.
Everyone agreed to convene tomorrow morning, to further audit, discuss the hand count that Black Box Voting will require of Volusia County, and of course, it is time to talk about contesting the election in Volusia. http://www.blackboxvoting.org/
# # # # #
A Message from John Kerry
Friday 19 November 2004
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112004V.shtml----- Original Message -----From: ranger116@webtv.netTo: APFN@apfn.orgSent: Friday, November 19, 2004 10:17 PMSubject: [apfn-1] The Election is NOT Over! Your help is needed to ensure every voteThe Election is NOT Over!
Your help is needed to ensure every vote counts…
Did you know that
most states don't certify their vote counts until Dec. 12th?
recounts are happening in OH and NH?
senior members of the House Judiciary Committee have requested the
Government Accountability Office, the office which conducts internal
audits for the federal government, to immediately investigate voting
machine problems?
stories of voting machine "failures" are pouring in—more than 30,000
of them?
a fraud audit has been launched in FL? Election officials tried to
pass-off phony audit logs. The originals were found in garbage bags
outside.
fraud and discrepancy investigations are being launched in many other
counties, states, and jurisdictions?
extremely sophisticated hackers are attempting to disable
www.blackboxvoting.org , the primary site of Bev Harris, the force behind many of the investigations?
… and much more
This is a non-partisan issue! If we don't have fair and accurate
elections, we don't have democracy. Nothing else you care about will
matter.
Below is a list of actions you can take and excellent web sites for more
information. Pick and choose. Don't get overwhelmed!
MORE INFORMATION
http://www.solarbus.org/stealyourelection/ excellent site with
up-to-date info on what's happening where, news reports
http://www.actionspeaksportland.org/index.html news, action alerts,
Portland, Oregon ways to get involved, public meetings and work groups -
SEE THE END OF THIS E-MAIL FOR THIS WEEKEND'S ACTIONS AND HOW TO GET
FURTHER INVOLVED.
http://www.votersunite.org/ great site for list of voting problems
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/ great site for list of voting problems
http://blackboxvoting.org how to help in your county or nationally (see
clean up crew instructions), what they're finding as the audit.
watch "Votergate" at http://www.votergate.tv (approx. 30 min.) Invite
your friends!
Listen to The Randi Rhodes Show, 3-6 p.m. on Air America (620 AM in
Portland).
Pressure your local paper to cover the investigations, reports of voting
machine problems and result discrepencies
make fliers, copy this one, or download them from
http://www.actionspeaksportland.org/index.html, resources. Distribute
them: door to door (never IN mailboxes), on cars--especially ones that
still have election stickers on them, at gatherings of people, etc.
email this out to everyone. Downloadable, with active links, at
http://www.albertkaufman.com
Oregon, with it's mail-in ballot procedure had one of the most
problem-free elections and is being held up as a model for other states.
Urge national talk show hosts to interview Bill Bradbury, OR Sec. Of
State, on their show. If you are from OR (make sure you say you are) and
can make the suggestion on the air during a call-in opportunity, even
better. Air America would be ideal (be aware they are "live" 3 hours
earlier than we hear then, unless you listen to it on the web). So would
Oprah.
contact Ken Blackwell, OH Sec of State and the head of the Bush Campaign
in Ohio. Urge him to step down as the tie-breaker between the Republican
and Democrat vote counters, and not to bias the vote by disenfranchising
voters over minor technicalities. He has backed off once already in
response to public pressure. blackwell@sos.state.oh.us or 614/466-2585============================================================
UPDATE: 11/14/04
"tiaka" <bcommon@h...>
Date: Sun Nov 14, 2004 12:22 am
Subject: Kerry Considering Reentering the Race to Ask for Recount!
If you live in America, give the would be President elect John Kerry
a call - he is taking a tally on whether to ask for a recount in at
least the state of Ohio. There is strong evidence of massive fraud
at the hands of the Republican Party, once again, though even worse
this time:
Kerry's considering unconceding and having a recount. He asked
people to send firsthand experiences of disenfranchisement to his
brother's law office and his office is eagerly counting calls that
are encouraging him to unconcede and ask for a recount!
In This Post
(1) Call/fax Kerry's senate office--contact info below
(2) If you have first handexperience of voter disenfranchisement (not
just articles) contact his brother
(3) Support 3 organizations that are uncovering hard evidence of
fraud:blackboxvoting.org and votewatch.us
(1) Kerry can still request a recount in Ohio (and he may have the
best chance of winning with a recount there)and perhaps elsewhere! He
has until they count the provisional ballots 11-15 days after
counting the provisionals. (It doesn't matter if he'll have a
hostile Congress to work with because even if he can't get much done
as president at least he would prevent the havoc and destruction of
4 more years of W in which our rights, environment,economy, social
security, and our very lives are at stake!)
When I called they put me through to someone who asked for my state:
they are adding them up! Contact Kerry at
(202) 224-2742 -Phone
(202) 224-8525 - Fax
and urge him to unconcede and do a recount in Ohio (and perhaps
elsewhere)
(2) If you have witnessed or experienced disenfranchisement you can
contact his brother's law office--they are collecting this
information which will be vital in considering unconceding at
CKerry@M... (Don't just email articles or they will be
inundated with emails. They already know about the articles.)
(3) Help These Three Organizations Prove Fraud
There is anecdotal evidence of widespread fraud with the paperless
voting machines (see links at the end of post for votefraud links .
There are three groups working to uncover hard evidence who need your
support
(b) Please support the work of http://blackboxvoting.org -- which is
the only group uncovering hard evidence of fraud of the paperless
electronic voting machines--with donations and/or volunteer work--
they need to raise $50,000 to file freedom of info act requests for
as quickly as possible to pay for records and the fees some states
charge for them.
E-mail to join the Cleanup Crew. (they need all types from doing
grunt work, to lawyers and programers) crew@b...
This is an excellent organization that has been conservative in its
approach, using highly respected statisticians and developing trusted
relationships with key media contacts. They are collecting and
analyzing data to determine if there was fraud in the election as
seems to be indicated by the 5% (or so) discrepancy between exit
polls and reported results from the touch screen voting with no paper
trail vs. the other types of voting where exit polls closely matched
reported results.
Some sites with voterfraud info
http://www.stolenelection2004.com
http://radtimes.blogspot.com
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/2004votefraud.html
http://legitgov.org====================================================
Help America Recount!
If the Politicians and the Parties Won't Do It,
America's Citizens Will!
NATIONAL BALLOT INTEGRITY PROJECT
Speak Out to Congress Now!
Demand Emergency Measures to Protect the 2004 Vote Count!
Another questionable Federal election is certain to precipitate a national crisis, regardless of who is declared the winner.
http://www.ballotintegrity.org/em2004actions.html
How YOU Can Help Fight the Vote Fraud That Stole The 2004 Election
http://www.opednews.com/thoreau_111304_help_fight.htm
* A nationwide citizens' movement to generate a public outcry demanding the hand counting of voter verified paper ballots in all jurisdictions.
* A national media blitz and public education saturation efforts to mobilize broad support.
* Coordinated public pressure on multiple fronts.
* Aggressive investigation and data collection to expose irregularities, illegalities and criminality associated with our voting systems, with vigorous prosecution of all crimes thus uncovered.
* Coordinated legislative initiatives in multiple states and on the Federal level.
* Tactical Legal Initiatives on all available fronts, including mass class-action litigation seeking a range of remedies, including injunctions/restraining orders/emergency orders guaranteeing that:
1. All ballots shall be paper ballots and hand counted.
2. Any use of electronic voting systems, whether DRE, optical scan or punch card, shall provide a voter verified paper ballot for every vote cast, at the time the ballot is cast, and that paper ballot -- and only that ballot -- shall be used for the original hand vote count, audit, and final record.
3. Ballot counting shall be performed in the polling place, with full public oversight immediately upon close of the polls.
4. Ballot-count results shall immediately be posted at each polling place and no ballots shall be removed from that polling place until the results of the public vote count are prominently and publicly posted.
5. Official election results will be compiled directly from the signed tally sheets/report forms from each polling place. No central servers or other tallying mechanism(s) manufactured, sold, leased or promoted by any manufacturer or vendor of any type of electronic voting equipment may be used to aggregate voting results.
6. Media outlets shall wait until all polling places are closed and until all official vote counts are completed before reporting any election results or outcome predictions.
* Mobilization of citizen participation and effective training for elections oversight.
* Coordinated Election Monitoring, including relaying of "red flag" alerts, in real time, from poll watchers to technical and legal resources.
* Galvanizing broad support for adoption and implementation, in the 2004 elections, of a Manual Parallel Accounting Control System (MPACS) with uniform auditing of the elections in accordance with computer and accounting industry standards and practices. · Independent exit polling of key federal elections.
http://www.ballotintegrity.org/about.html
Materials to Use
1) Implementation Plan
2) Hand-counting guidelines
3) Explanation of the proposal
4) Proposed legislation
5) Script for calling Congress
6) Sample letter to Congress
7) Another sample letter
8) Sample letter to editor
9) Discussion board post
10) Flyer to hand out
11) Petition
12) FAQ
13) Procedures for Optical Scan Systems
14} Articles calling for solution
http://www.ballotintegrity.org/em2004actions.html
NOW LETS GET TO WORK!!
"Every vote must be recounted in Ohio and the methods for counting and conveying precinct totals must be checked and rechecked," Alliance Co-chair Cliff Arnebeck announced. http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/
Ohio recount could put
Kerry in the White House
http://blog.democrats.com/ohio
Take Action!
************************
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.
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.
**** **** **** ****
Shouldn’t most Republicans want a real victory, or would they be happy if their guy stole it- anything to win and stop those evil gay people from getting health care. Are they really that shallow?
I think all honest Americans know there is something fishy about both political parties backing electronic voting machines that are so open to hacking. Why should the Great USA have million dollar voting machines that don’t produce a paper trail? If the new Bush ’mandate’ is truly the will of the people, they really won the popular vote, then they shouldn’t be afraid of a little transparent auditing and hand recounts.
So many were disenfranchised by waiting in long lines, 58,000 votes LOST, name taken off voter list, etc.... I think it would be worthwhile to have a nationwide re-vote, all paper ballot and hand count. Millions of dollars to produce new ballots? Hardly- just create one ballot put it on a website and computers across the country can print the simple Bush/Kerry/Nader. Sure, Nader too, this will get the Bushies to sign on to this re-vote... but we need to also toss in a quick 50% majority to win rule- Why not Mr. Bush and fellow boner Kerry? Why wouldn’t you support a 50% or runoff rule... do you think this might give Nader a fighting chance?
It doesn’t have to take that long, just hire more counters. Imagine that we could hire millions of jobless, even if it’s temporary it’d sure be a boost to them and the economy, and we could hand count every single ballot in the nation.
It is unacceptable to have longer lines in the city than in rural (republican) areas- the cities need more polling places- period.
ps- to all the name calling Republicans calling "sore loser" and "get over it"- are you afraid of a recount?
by : Richard Lofgren
Sunday 7th November 2004
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4194Evidence of Possible Election Fraud
Note: more and more discrepancies are popping up all over the country -
http://shadowbox.i8.com/stolen.htmEUREKA! very telling-Every voting irregularity Always favors RepubliCONS
http://maineindymedia.org/newswire/display/2184/index.php**** **** ****
WATCH THIS SPECIAL ELECTION FILM NOW!
Votergate (the movie)
http://www.votergate.tv/Saturday 13th November 2004 :
Media Black Out on Vote Fraud Allegations
The "mainstream" media has fallen down on the job by failing to cover efforts since November 2 to ensure that all votes in the presidential election are accurately counted. The conclusion by John Kerry that an investigation could not possibly reverse the election may quite possibly have been premature. But the question that both activists and the media should be asking is not whether there was enough fraud and errors to decide the election, nor even whether there was more than is usual, but whether there was any fraud or errors, where the problems occurred, how they can be prevented in the future, and -- in particular -- whether new kinds of fraud were permitted by new technologies and by the privatization of our election process.
The International Labor Communications Association is particularly concerned, because of indications, detailed below, that fraud may have occurred in areas where there are heavy populations of workers, African-Americans, and other progressive voters that our member organizations represent. People deserve to have their votes counted, and the strategists who will spend four years studying the election results deserve to have the facts. Some citizens and independent media outlets are raising these issues, but the corporate media is AWOL. An investigation by the media would seem especially appropriate, since the 2000 election led to investigations in Florida that determined the loser was occupying the White House.
Evidence existed before this election that quite possibly "the fix" was in: the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio was running the 2004 election in that state and had for weeks been demonstrating every intention to disenfranchise Democrats; the head of a company manufacturing electronic voting machines for use around the country had announced his intention to help Bush stay in the White House. The weaknesses and susceptibility to abuse of electronic voting machines, including the machines that many people vote on and the machines that add up the votes from multiple precincts, had been well documented.
QUESTIONS ABOUT EXIT POLLS
If the pre-election context wasn’t enough to put the media on alert, the exit polls on election day should have been. The polls by the National Election Pool, throughout the day, showed Kerry ahead in a number of swing states. Media commentators made it quite clear that they had seen and took seriously the polls. Professional pollster John Zogby took them seriously enough to call the race for Kerry. Wall Street took them seriously enough to start dropping stock prices.
Back on September 28, the New York Post, in agreement with other U.S. media outlets, editorialized that the results of a recall election in Venezuela had been proven fraudulent by exit polls. "It is unconscionable," the Post quoted Jimmy Carter as saying, "to perpetuate fraudulent or biased electoral practices in any nation." The Post then commented:
"Oh, really? Funny, Carter quickly endorsed the results of last month’s recall effort against Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez. Chavez, a pal of dictators from Saddam Hussein to Fidel Castro, officially beat back the recall with nearly 59 percent of the vote. Oddly, that result was completely opposite the findings of an exit poll conducted by a well-regarded polling firm used often by the U.S. Democratic Party, which showed Venezuelan voters booting Chavez by the same 59 percent....Yet Jimmy Carter said that the election was ’free and fair.’"
Other U.S. media coverage was similar. The Miami Herald ran this headline: "Find Out If Chavez Stole Vote." United Press International ran a column arguing that Carter was unqualified to criticize voting procedures in Florida because exit polls had proved him wrong in Venezuela. Carter had said that Florida’s voting arrangements didn’t meet "basic international requirements."
On October 17, the New York Times ran an article on the use of exit polls to identify and prevent election fraud in a number of countries. The article suggested that exit polls might play a similar role in the upcoming U.S. election.
A November 5 New York Times article, and the rest of the U.S. media’s coverage after the election, sang a very different tune, building in as an unargued assumption that the November 2 exit polls had been proved wrong by the official vote counts. The Times’ article sought to determine in a very "balanced" and "objective" manner exactly what went wrong with the exit polls, but not whether they were wrong or right.
The New York Post switched song books as well, running on November 3 in its online edition a column by Dick Morris demanding to know who had rigged the exit polls. Exit polls, according to Morris, cannot be off by as much as they were this time without intentional fraud. Morris presented no evidence of fraud in the exit polling and no evidence that it was the polls rather than the official counts that got it wrong.
As pointed out in various analyses, the exit polls were accurate within their margin of error in many states but were surprisingly far off in a number of swing states, and always off in the same direction, showing more support for Kerry than was found in the official counts. Warren Mitofsky, co-director of the National Election Pool, told the News Hour with Jim Lehrer that "Kerry was ahead in a number of states by margins that looked unreasonable to us." Mitofsky speculated that perhaps more Kerry voters were willing to participate in the exit poll, but did not suggest any reason for that speculation other than the difference between the exit polls and the final counts. He and his colleagues have since produced other speculative reasons why the exit polls could have been wrong, all grounded in circular reasoning. Mitofsky told the News Hour that on the evening of November 2 he decided to wait for the official counts and then use those to "correct" the exit polls, thus rendering the hugely expensive exit polls useless as either predictors of the election outcome or measurements of the count’s accuracy. Media outlets "corrected" the exit polls on their websites early in the morning of November 3. Mitofsky promised in the future to keep exit poll results secret, thus fully rendering them useless for any stated purpose related to election outcomes (they will still be able to tell us after the fact how many voters were female or Jewish or go to church weekly or believe health care is the most important issue, etc.).
Other surprising outcomes should stimulate investigation, including the low gain in voter turnout for Kerry in Florida despite massive get-out-the-vote efforts and widely reported record lines at polls on election day and in early voting.
MISCOUNTING DOCUMENTED
Reasons for concern over this election are, however, no longer limited to surprise over the outcome. Nor need this issue be focused on the uncountable votes of those wrongly denied voting status, turned away, intimidated, forced to vote on provisional ballots, or discouraged from voting by long lines.
Specific evidence of miscounting has been uncovered. And, despite the national media’s near-blackout of the issue, local reporting has documented some of the problems. In fact, although you won’t learn it from the corporate media, three members of Congress have asked the General Accounting Office to investigate irregularities with voting machines in the November 2 election. The Congress Members, John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler, and Robert Wexler, cited a few of the problems that have already arisen, including a machine in a single Ohio precinct awarding Bush an extra 3,893 votes, machines in North Carolina losing 4,500 votes, machines in Florida miscounting absentee ballots, and voters in both Florida and Ohio reporting machines registering votes for Bush that were intended for Kerry.
More troubling than these problems and others like them is the fact that much of the electronic vote counting is in the hands of private companies, produces no auditable record, and can easily be tampered with. A leading investigator of this problem, BlackBoxVoting.org, appeared in 23 "mainstream" media articles or transcripts in the weeks leading up to the election, according to a Nexis search, but only one since then, and that was a mention by a caller to a radio show. BlackBoxVoting has not vanished from the media because it’s ceased activity. Rather, it’s launched the largest series of FOIA requests in history and announced that it believes fraud took place in the election.
An analysis reported on by Thom Hartmann found that in Florida, in the smaller counties in which optically scanned ballots were counted on a central computer the results were quite surprising. For example, Franklin County, with 77.3 percent registered Democrats, went 58.5 percent for Bush. Holmes County, with 72.7 percent registered Democrats, went 77.25 percent for Bush. "Yet in the larger counties," Hartmann noted, "where such anomalies would be more obvious to the news media, high percentages of registered Democrats equaled high percentages of votes for Kerry. And, although elections officials didn’t notice these anomalies, in aggregate they were enough to swing Florida from Kerry to Bush. If you simply go through the analysis of these counties and reverse the ’anomalous’ numbers in those counties that appear to have been hacked, suddenly the Florida election results resemble the Florida exit poll results: Kerry won, and won big."
According to Hartmann, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida’s 16th District, Jeff Fisher, claimed to have evidence of hacking that would explain these results, and to be turning that evidence over to the FBI. Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org explained how easy such hacking is on a CNBC talk show some months back. Watch the clip. The "mainstream" media has not touched this story.
Nor has the corporate media touched on the topic of spoiled ballots and hanging chads in Ohio, which BBC reporter Greg Palast believes wrongly cost Kerry the election there.
The stories of election problems that would seem to merit investigation are numerous. See, for example, these:
one, two, three, four, five, six. In New Hampshire, the Nader/Camejo campaign has challenged the electronic voting results. In Auglaize County, Ohio, in October, a former employee of Election Systems and Software (ES&S), the company that provides the voting system in Auglaize County, was allegedly on the main computer that is used to create the ballot and compile election results, which would go against election protocol.
The mainstream media will not report these claims unless indisputable evidence is produced that Kerry won the election. And, if the 2000 election is any guide, the media will bury the story even then. In the meantime, following the narrowest win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson, the media has announced that Bush has a "clear mandate" to enact his agenda an agenda that the media is reporting on more now than prior to the election.
Clearly the top agenda item for those who care about democracy in this country must be reshaping our media. Passing media reform through Congress presents the same chicken-and-egg problem as campaign finance reform or term limits or instant runoff voting or greater access for third parties: how do you force politicians to oppose their own interests and those of their funders?
An alternative is to build our own media to compete with the corporate version. Rebuilding labor media is the mission of the ILCA, and we see that mission as having just grown more important than ever.
David Swanson is the media coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association. He can be reached at: dswanson@aflcio.org
original article with links
http://www.opednews.com/swanson_111004_media_black_out.htmThe World Votes For John Kerry
THE HAGUE, 11/1/’04 – If the rest of the world could vote in the U.S. Presidential election, John Kerry would win in a landslide. That is the conclusion of an international election conducted by The World Votes.
According to the international election, John Kerry receives 81.6% of the vote. George Bush is favoured by a 6.2% minority. Independent candidate Ralph Nader gets 5.3%. The other candidates together receive less than 6%. In total, nearly 10,000 citizens from countries all over the world took part in this election.
The World Votes
http://www.theworldvotes.org/index.php?nid=876&newsid=174"Who Ordered Media Lockdown Reported?"
From: WC
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2004 9:37 PM
Subject: Fw: Media Lockdown-Actions you can take
The information attached is vital to our interests. Act to raise enough of a fuss by calls and emails to get major media coverage.
----- Original Message -----
From: JH
To: HT
Subject: Re: Media Lockdown-Actions you can take
HT forwarded:
From: WheresthePaper.org
Posting of Nov 11,'04
Link: http://www.wheresthepaper.org/mediaLockdown.htm
Letter from a friend:
On Friday I received a phone call from a good friend who works at CBS - I've known her for years and she is a Producer for some of the news programs, one well known one in particular. She tipped me off that the news media is in a "lock-down" and that there is to be no TV coverage of the real problems with voting on Nov. 2nd. She said similar "lock-down orders" had come down last year after the invasion of Iraq, but this is far worse - far scarier.
She said the majority of their journalists at CBS and elsewhere in NYC are pretty horrified - every one is worried about their jobs and retribution Dan Rather style or worse. My source said they've also been forbidden to talk about it even on their own time but she was pissed and her journalistic and moral integrity as what she considers to be a government watchdog requires her to speak out, even if covertly, and she therefore asked me to "spread" the word...She said that journalism and the truth are at stake. She said another friend of hers, a producer at MSNBC, said that an anchor by the name of Keith Olbermann had brought it up on his show on Friday eve and the axe came down. He's at least fighting back and talking about it on his "Blog", but she said that people there are worried that he's going to be fired by higher ups.
She said at this point the only way that the "real news" was going to be known is if the people started talking about it and made a big enough stink about it to our elected officials, the FEC, and "noise" to the international media, that our own media won't have any choice but to cover it. The only place you'll see this talked about right now is on the internet and on AirAmericaRadio.
People and Agencies to Contact regarding this matter:
1) Your two US Senators & Congressional Representative - here is the main switchboard number for the House and Senate: 1-800-839-5276 Although individual numbers are listed below, you can reach all Senators and Representatives via this 800 number
2) Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader: 202-225-4965
3) These members are allegedl/reportedly looking into the issue - urge them to introduce a bill to investigate voter fraud:
Rep. Henry Waxman of CA - 202-225-3976
Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones of OH - 202-225-7032
Rep. Dennis Kucinich of OH - 202-225-5871
Rep. Tim Ryan of OH - 202-225-5261
4) Democratic & Republican Members of the House Judiciary Committee:
Rep. Robert Wexler of FL - 202-225-3001
Rep. Maxine Waters of CA - 202-225-2201
Rep. Chabot of OH (R)- 202-225-2216
Rep. King of IA (R)- 202-225-4426
5) Democrat & Republican Members (call both) of the Senate Judiciary Committee:
Sen. Patrick Leahy of VT - 202-224-4242
Sen. Ted Kennedy of MA - 202-224-4543
Sen. Joe Biden of DE - 202-224-5042
Sen. Russ Feingold of WI - 202-224-5323
Sen. Charles Schumer of NY - 202-224-6542
Sen. Arlen Specter of PA (R) - 202-224-4254 (thank him also for having urged the Pres. to not choose anti-abortion judges and taking the body blows)
Sen. Mike DeWine of OH (R) - 202-224-2315
Sen. Chuck Grassley of IA (R)- 202-224-3744
6) Federal Elections Commission:
Audit Division
Joseph Stoltz, Assistant Staff Director, Telephone: 800-424-9530 (press 0, then ext. 1200)
Inspector General
Lynne McFarland, Inspector General, Telephone: 800-424-9530 (press 0, then ext. 1015)
7) The news media - we have to put pressure on them:
NBC/MSNBC- Nightly@NBC.com & viewerservices@msnbc.com
CNN- http://www.cnn.com/feedback/
CBS- 212-258-6000 - 60II@cbsnews.com , evening@cbsnews.com, 48hours@cbsnews.com ,
earlyshow@cbs.com
8) Call the Secretary of State's office in the state of OH and FL -
Tell them that you demand under the HAVA law to have all votes counted - especially the absentee, military and all provisional ballots counted and verified - tell them you suspect foul-play.
Phone to Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's Office: toll free - 1-877-767-6446 or email: election@sos.state.oh.us or phone 614-466-2585
Phone to FL Sec. of State Glenda Hood's Office: 850-245-6500
9) Donate $5 to Bev Harris at http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ - she has been filing 1000's of information requests under the "FOIA-Freedom of Information Act" to account for the various voting machines across the country.
10) Email or Fax Ralph Nader - Yep, here's his opportunity to make up for any feelings of bad will after the 2000 election and the current one. Ralph has been a lifelong advocate for us, the consumer and little guy and he is actually in the unique position right now to do something since he was a Presidential candidate and has the ability to be listened to. He has actually already filed a challenge in NH (not that he is looking to overturn the results, but because he can prove there may have been bigger problems and he qualifies there as having been on the ballot).
Urge him to do this across the board on a national level. The media seemed to love him before the election, could they possibly ignore him now? Contact Ralph at - 202-265-4000
11) Call/email Jimmy Carter at the Carter Center: carterweb@emory.edu or call at (800) 550-3560
Former President Jimmy Carter and the Carter Center are considered to be the most experienced in the election process and conducting fair democratic elections - urge him to get involved and investigate possible fraud and the unexplainable discrepancies throughout the election involving the computer voting machines, especially in swing states
======================================MSNBC - The best reporting by far in the mainstream media has been by
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. Both on TV and on his blog, Mr. Olbermann is asking
serious questions. He is even asking why other major media aren't reporting
many of these sensational stories. His most excellent blog gives continual
updates of recent developments in the elections scandals. Here are a few key
quotes from three of the entries there:Nov. 7, 6:55 p.m. "Officials in Warren County, Ohio, "locked down" its
administration building to prevent anybody from observing the vote
count there....Emergency Services Director Frank Young explained that he had
been advised by the federal government to implement the measures for the sake of
Homeland Security." "The majority of the media has yet to touch the other
stories of Ohio (the amazing Bush Times Ten voting machine in Gahanna) or huge margins for Bush in Florida counties in which registered Democrats outnumber registered
Republicans 2-1."Nov. 9, 12:55 a.m. "....the remarkable results out of Cuyahoga County,
Ohio.
In 29 precincts there, the County's website shows, we had the most
unexpected results in years: more votes than voters. I'll repeat that: more votes
than voters. 93,000 more votes than voters." (more on this below)November 10, 12:43 p.m. "The computerized balloting in North Carolina
is so thoroughly messed up that all state-wide voting may be thrown out and a
second election day scheduled."WOWT/NBC (Nebraska) - "Sarpy County election officials are trying to
figure out how they ended up with more votes than voters in the general
election.
Sarpy County borrowed the election equipment from Omaha-based Election
Systems & Software. Its employees operated the machines that are now
double-checking the ballots. No one is sure exactly what went wrong."Sun Journal - A North Carolina newspaper reports that "a systems
software glitch in Craven County's electronic voting equipment is being blamed
for a vote miscount that ... swelled the number of votes for president here by
11,283 more votes than the total number cast."Palm Beach Post (Florida) - "Early Thursday, as Broward County
elections officials wrapped up after a long day of canvassing votes, something
unusual caught their eye. Tallies should go up as more votes are counted.
That's simple math. But in some races, the numbers had gone . . . down. Officials
found the software used in Broward can handle only 32,000 votes per precinct.
After that, the system starts counting backward."New York Times - In mid-August 2003, Walden W. O'Dell, the chief
executive of Diebold, wrote a letter inviting 100 wealthy friends to a fund-raiser
at his home in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. He wrote, "I am committed to
helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." A longtime
Republican, he is a member of President Bush's "Rangers and Pioneers,''
an elite group of loyalists who have raised at least $100,000 each for the 2004 race.
Through Diebold Election Systems, Mr. O'Dell's company is among the country's
biggest suppliers of paperless, touch-screen voting machines.Project Censored (Excellent university website exposing media
cover-ups): "ES&S, Diebold, and Sequoia are the companies primarily involved in
implementing the new, often faulty, technology at voting stations throughout the
country.
All three have strong ties to the Bush Administration along with major
defense contractors in the United States. Some of the most generous
contributors to Republican campaigns are also some of the largest investors in ES&S,
Sequoia, and Diebold. Most notable of these are government defense contractors
Northrup-Grumman, Lockheed-Martin, Electronic Data Systems."USA Today - The three companies that certify the nation's voting technologies
operate in secrecy, and refuse to discuss flaws in the machines to be used by
nearly one in three voters in November. Federal regulators have virtually no
oversight over testing of the technology. Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon
computer scientist and electronic voting expert, told lawmakers in Washington,
D.C. "I find it grotesque that an organization charged with such a heavy
responsibility feels no obligation to explain to anyone what it is doing." The
system for "testing and certifying voting equipment in this country is not only
broken, but is virtually nonexistent," Shamos added.Michigan City News-Dispatch - In LaPorte County, Indiana, a Democratic
stronghold, electronic voting machines decided that each precinct only
had 300 voters. "At about 7 p.m. Tuesday," according to this report, "it was
noticed that the first two or three printouts from individual precinct reports all
listed an identical number of voters. Each precinct was listed as having 300
registered voters. That means the total number of voters for the county would be
22,200, although there are more than 79,000 registered voters."Common Dreams (excellent news website) - In Florida's counties using
results from optically scanned paper ballots - fed into a central tabulator PC
and thus vulnerable to hacking - the results seem to contain substantial
anomalies.
In Baker County, for example, with 12,887 registered voters, 69.3% of
them Democrats and 24.3% of them Republicans, the vote was only 2,180 for
Kerry and 7,738 for Bush, the opposite of what is seen everywhere else in the
country where registered Democrats largely voted for Kerry. In Dixie County, with
4,988 registered voters, 77.5% of them Democrats and a mere 15% registered as
Republicans, only 1,959 people voted for Kerry, but 4,433 voted for Bush. The pattern
repeats over and over again - but only in the counties where optical scanners
were used.Popular Mechanics - A team of former National Security Agency (NSA)
computer experts conducted a weeklong exercise with six Diebold machines and a
server. According to team leader Michael Wertheimer, the group uncovered
"considerable security risks." They found that the smart cards used to provide
supervisors with access to the machines could be easily hacked; the removable media
containing voting information was protected by flimsy locks that the
team picked in under a minute using bent paper clips. The paper clips weren't even
necessary, since all 32,000 keys supplied by Diebold for the machines are
identical, allowing any key to open all of the machines. On the software side, the
most glaring weakness was in election headquarters servers: Dell PCs ran the
Windows 2000 operating system without Microsoft's security upgrade patches,
which left servers susceptible to viruses and worms, enabling a remote attacker to
tamper with election systems by phone."(pg 3 of 4 webpages)Popular Science - In South Carolina, officials bought machines too late
for adequate testing. And on many of their onscreen ballots, the
presidential contest included names of candidates from local elections. Several
Texas counties are thousands of votes short because a bug in the software failed to
record Spanish-language ballots. For hundreds of thousands of votes, there
will be no paper record at all. In Colorado, a group of hackers is boasting that
they stole a box of electronic smartcards used to activate e-voting machines and
reprogrammed them to allow multiple votes, just for fun. In virtually
every state, officials failed to invite outside technical experts to participate in
the process of e-voting machine selection. Because none of the major
vendors of e-voting machines release their code for security testing, states and
counties are forced to trust vendors' own assessments of their machines'
reliability.
