So, What Are the Facts that 'Prove' Ohio '04 was a Rigged Election?

[The Doctor.]

Just curious.

[southernyankeebelle]

1. If you are really interested in this issue go over to the Brad blog.com.... He does alot of stuff

on this issue. He has talked about the 04 election and OH.

[blm]

2. here's a good start

http://justice-integrity.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=453:cutting-through-vote-fraud-claims-hypocrisy&catid=44:myblog

[Botany]

3. Facts

25% of the registered voters in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) were removed
from voter roles prior to the election .... 250,000 votes in total all black all
democratic .... Karl Rove had those same voters in a list in his desk in the
White House ... Bill Moyers had a T.V. Show about this

2 people were indicted, arrested, tried and convicted of rigging the recount ...
a republican judge overturned the convictions and dropped their prison time.

Miami County Ohio had 20,000 votes loaded into the final count long after
voting was over ..... the 20,000 votes were loaded @ the exact same %s that
the previous bush and Kerry votes had been tabulated @ .... even to the
point of matching 2 places to the right of the decimal point .... Miami also
had some precincts showing 99.7% turn outs.

smartech mike connell

you can go to the Sec. of State's web site and see where votes were flipped
"The Connelly Anomaly"

Warren County declared a "terrorist threat" and counted their ballots in secret

Delaware County BOE ordered new poll books and ballots in 2005 (2006??) after a federal
judge ruled that all election material from the 2004 vote must be turned in ....
many other counties just destroyed their "stuff" and told the Federal Judge they
no longer had any records from the election even though they were ordered by the
court to save "the stuff" One county said that a coffee maker had fallen into the
box that contained the records so they had to throw it out because they didn't want
anybody to get cut by the broken glass ... true story

@ 1:03 AM on the day after the election CNN exit polls showed the following:
male voters Ohio 47 % bush 48.9% Kerry ..... female voters 47% bush 51% Kerry
after that CNN started to show "blended polls"

mahoning county had 82 of 86 voting machines flipping Kerry votes to bush

@ 6:00 PM Karen Hughes told W that he had lost the election .... bush just
laughed

Before the recount a tech from Triad systems visited some county BOEs and repalce
parts of the voting machines .... he then gave the BOE employees sheets to
post that would match the #s that machines would produce during the recount.

Trumbull County had more absentee votes than the# of absentee ballots that
were requested ... Trumbull County is Democratic but the Absentee Votes were
very strong for bush

I worked for the Kerry Campaign and saw it w/ my own eyes and heard it w/
my own ears .... it still haunts me to this day.

The Conyers Report on Ohio 2004 & Robert F Kennedy Jr.'s Rolling Stone Article
are good sources of info.

http://www.salon.com/2006/06/03/kennedy_39/

Sorry to babble

[The Doctor.]

4. Thank you.

But which of those 'prove' the election was stolen and how? You see, like the climate change deniers, the election fraud deniers won't be convinced of anything because they refuse to 'connect the dots'. They just want 'one big dot' that 'proves' something.

Which of those, that can be proven irrefutably, would you consider to be 'one big dot'?

[Botany]

5. big dots

From 2000 to 2004 the # of votes in the national Presidential election
increased by 19 million for bush to have won he would have had to
have gotten 16.5 million or 86% of all of the first time voters to vote
for him and not a single one of his 2000 voters could have died, not voted,
or voted for Kerry ..... in Ohio alone the new voters were something
like 325,000 new registrations for democrats and 35,000 new republican
voters.

The Connelly anomaly is stark too .... Connelly was a black woman who
was pro choice, pro gay rights, liberal, and without much money* but in
a # of counties in south and western Ohio she got more votes than John
Kerry who was on the top of the ticket ..... these Connelly votes are "footprints"
of vote switches.

In Warren County she got 28,000 votes and John Kerry got only 26,000 votes
that shows a 4,000 vote swing from Kerry to bush ..... because why would people
turn out and vote for a down ticket liberal black women after voting for W?

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/elections/Research/electResultsMain/2004ElectionsResults/04-1102ChiefJusticeSupCt.aspx

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/elections/Research/electResultsMain/2004ElectionsResults/04-1102PresVicePres.aspx

* she ran no ads

It is easier if you print out the returns and look @ them side by side. Clermont County
shows a 10,000 vote swing to W..

Also the fact that the Sec. of State, Ken Blackwell, hired Michael Connell who came in to the
Sec. of State's office on election day and sent the I.T. people home @ 8:00 PM and then shipped
the Ohio vote data to a computer server in Chattanooga, TN ..... smartech .... which was
also the server used by the RNC, GWB 43, and as Karl Rove's off the record computer is pretty
damning. In Dec. of 2008 Michael Connell's small plane crashed killing him.

The media all know about these cases but has refused to say anything. I worked for the Kerry
campaign and I saw and heard things in person that proved to me that the "fix was in." National
Democratic leaders such as Harry Reid have thanked John Kerry for not making an "issue" about
Ohio 2004.

[The Doctor.]

6. I understand...

It's just one smoking gun after another.

The problem is that each of those is 'feasible' without absolutely indicating fraud.

Yes, 4000 people might have come out and voted for Bush, but also figured they wanted a super-liberal judge. Perhaps they just hated Kerry. It absolutely strains credulity, but the point is that 'because it's possible' the deniers can dismiss it.

That's how they work. There's a mountain of evidence, but they just look at each piece and find some way, ANY way to dismiss it without ever taking into account how all that evidence points to a conclusion that is virtually impossible to escape once the sheer improbability of all of those indications being 'merely coincidental' is understood.

Yes, it's almost impossible for all of those things to have 'just happened' in such a way that it gave Bush the election and almost certain that they were deliberate as they would all be Prima Facie indicators of fraud. We know this. Unfortunately, the willfully ignorant and dedicated deniers have their 'Each tree does not a forest make' approach to examining this.

Where is proof of the forest?

[Botany]

7. People can have different opinions but you can only have one set of facts

However people will see what they want to see and the facts can be damned ...
Here in Columbus, OH OSU's Byrd Institute of Polar Studies has an excellent
scientist called Lonnie Thompson who has been looking @ ice cores from around
the world and what they show on the earth's climate history and they show
that global warming is real and it started w/ the industrial revolution and the
use of fossil fuels. Prof. Thompson has had people tell him to his face that
he is wrong and all the data he has collected does not show what it shows.
One time some whack job (an optometrist ) wanted to set up a debate w/ him over
the "controversy" but he said that he didn't want to give "his nonsense" any
kind of pub.

Here is a fun graph that is very hard to explain



In 2004 all states that had paper ballots the exit polls matched the vote
with a slight drift to Kerry less than the margin of error but in all states
where they used electronic machines the exit polls did not match the vote
and their was a drift to bush that was greater than the margin of error.



This is election night 2004 to the left of Rove is Susan Ralston who used to
work for Jack Abromoff and through Bob Ney is connected to HAVA ... Help
America Vote Act .... which after Florida 2000's problems got the country
to use electronic voting machines. Karl claimed that his own private polls
allowed him to predict a bush victory but in fact he knew that the votes
would be "taken care of." The flip was not just in Ohio.

[The Doctor.]

8. Such proof is not hard to explain.

Wherever there are paper ballots that have a chain of custody, it is much more difficult to alter the totals than with electronic machines.

It's blatantly obvious to anyone who understands it, but that's where the problem is, understanding.

I can lead a wingnut to info but I cannot make him think.

[Scuba]

9. You don't have to convince him that it happened. You only have to convince him that it's possible..

.... and that there is no good reason not to have paper ballots, hand counted, in public, cameras rolling. No reason.

[truedelphi]

22. + Every one of those millions of Americans who understand the issue

[Botany]

11. I can lead a wingnut to info but I cannot make him think.

So true .... i am a landscaper and i had a customer's wife tell me that the
reason we have a shortened supply of oil is because Cuba is letting China
drill for oil off of its coasts and that the Chinese are drilling horizontally
and stealing "our oil" from the Gulf of Mexico. I asked her and she is
a big viewer of Bill O'Rielly and Fox. I must say she is salt of the earth
good people .... pitchers of ice water or lemonade when I am working on
hot days.

The proof that Ohio 2004 was dirty is massive because if you believe in math and
statistics all the "things" that happened favored W .... if it was random
then the glitches would have broken evenly for either Kerry or bush
but every f***ing one broke for bush. Please believe it was not just in Ohio
in Oklahoma voting machines ran backwards, in Indiana in some counties
a third party candidate got more votes than John Kerry, in a small town in N.
Carolina of less than 3,000 people W pulled in over 20,000 votes which was
attributed to a "glitch" in some software.

As for me I have given up on the 20 to 25% of dumb ass born again right wingers
because they will not listen to or read the facts. To me they are more of a threat
to American than the al Qaeda ever was.

[Scuba]

10. Thank you for this excellent summary / recap of these event....

... and for your fighting to prevent recurrence. If we can't trust our elections, no other aspect of government can be trusted.


Paper ballots, hand counted, in public, cameras rolling. Nothing less.

[The Doctor.]

14. Can you please provide a link for those?

I've seen them many times, and I know that they are authentic, but it would help.

[kctim]

12. So the salon.com article

provided by Botany does not give you any cause to doubt the election was stolen by the "evil Republicans?" You don't even believe the Democratic Party's own report and statement?

- “Despite the problems on Election Day, there is no evidence from our survey that John Kerry won the state of Ohio.”

[The Doctor.]

13. No, it's called a 'starting point'. I have trouble believing that you 'did the research'.

You now have an opportunity to do so starting with the information that Botany provided.

But I'll ask you a couple questions to find out if you're actually serious about learning anything here.


1) Botany provided a series of charts that show, very clearly, that everywhere verifiable paper ballots were used to produce a count, the election results closely mirrored exit poll results. However, wherever electronic voting machines were used to generate an electronic count, the deviation from the exit polling was very remarkable.

Knowing, as I'll assume you do (You DID claim to have done 'research' after all), that it is much more difficult to 'rig' the results of a paper ballot count than flip votes from an electronic count, would you say that such an anomaly is 'suspicious'?

2) Given that nearly every single (16:1 iirc) exit poll deviation beyond the MOE favored the Republican candidate(s), would you say that there seemed to be quite a bit of 'favoritism' by these 'anomalies'?

3) That survey you refer to, Who put it together, how was it put together, and who was surveyed? I hope it wasn't lost on you that they said "survey" as opposed to "investigation".

[kctim]

15. Ah, a 'starting point'

It really doesn't matter if you have trouble believing that I have looked into the claims of some evil Republican conspiracy on this, I get the same response from those who claim to have all the "facts" about UFOs, 9-11, birth certificates, NWO, Bilderbergs and the scary Illuminati.

YES, the charts are interesting and maybe even 'suspicious' enough to have been looked into. 'Suspicious' does not automatically validate the conspiracy theory though, as the salon article tries to explain.

Yes, I understand they use the word 'survey,' that is why I used the words 'report' and 'statement' instead of 'investigation.'

Salon.com is hardly a Republican rag. We both have read the article, the claims and the realities. I agree with most of the info given by those in the know, you disagree with them. They presented facts, you present personal assumptions. They explain how it is according to the facts, you explain how it "really" is according to what you believe really happened.

So, why must I accept your partisan assumptions and opinions over their facts, in order for me to 'learn anything here?'

[The Doctor.]

18. Yes, a starting point.

Unfortunately, you're not in the least bit interested in researching or understanding the many events, anomalies, and coincidences that, taken together, overwhelm any doubt of fraud in OH and FL.

You have long since made up your mind, in ignorance of all of the information that is available, and are now engaging in the very typical tactic that climate change deniers use.

By saying that a single tree is not proof of a forest, you may examine a million trees and never know that you're standing in the middle of one.

Every piece of evidence I bring to an AGW denier, they discount as 'not proof' of AGW. They perhaps do not possess the intellectual capacity to 'see the whole picture'. It could also be the case that they have simply made up their mind and have no wish to learn and change it. In which case, they become a 'denialist'.

You are exactly that.

There is no evidence, no matter how compelling, that you will not simply dismiss while refusing (or unable) to recognize that the multitude of evidence could not exist absent deliberate efforts to skew the elections.

The Salon article does not consider the vast body of evidence, instead, it engages in the same kind of 'pick and pluck' tactic you would expect a hit piece to do. It is plain that the article sets out to prove Kennedy wrong, but does nothing to consider the implications of the vast number of incidences as a whole. But even in the second paragraph:

To date, dozens of experts, both independently and as part of several research panels, have spent countless hours examining 2004′s presidential election, especially the race in Ohio. Many of them have concluded that the election there strains conventional notions of what a democracy ought to look like; very little about that race was fair, clean or competent. Way back in January 2005, a panel headed by Democratic Rep. John Conyers of Michigan reported that it had found enough irregularities in Ohio to call into question the state election results and the entire presidential vote. A report by the Democratic Party released last year found “evidence of voter confusion, voter suppression, and negligence and incompetence of election officials.”

The article admits, for the sake of appearing fully legitimate, that there is a prima facie case for fraud. But then it goes on to only pick apart Kennedy's assertions. As it does so, it claims that because 'such anomalies (as the Connally discrepancy) have occurred elsewhere', then the case in Ohio 'must not be linked to fraud'.

That's so weak a line of reasoning, yet you're perfectly willing to accept it.

Even worse:

He {Kennedy} says that 174,000 mostly Kerry voters didn’t vote because they were put off by long lines. But the source states it was actually 129,543 voters, and that those votes would have split evenly between Kerry and Bush.

Where the hell did the author get the information that "those votes would have split evenly"? Nowhere. When Kennedy cited that, he was referring directly to the fact that the long lines were in heavy Democratic precincts. As we now know, many of the machines that should have been deployed in those precincts were kept in storage by... you guessed it, Republican-led BOEs.

Document reveals Columbus, Ohio voters waited hours as election officials held back machines

The Board of Elections’ own document records that, while voters waited in lines ranging from 2-7 hours at polling places, 68 electronic voting machines remained in storage and were never used on Election Day.

An analysis of the Franklin County Board of Elections’ allocation of machines reveals a consistent pattern of providing fewer machines to the Democratic city of Columbus, with its Democratic mayor and uniformly Democratic city council, despite increased voter registration in the city.

The result was an obvious disparity in machine allocations compared to the primarily Republican white affluent suburbs.

The legendary affluent Republican enclave of Upper Arlington has 34 precincts. No voting machines in this area cast more than 200 votes per machine. Only one, ward 6F, was over 190 votes at 194 on one machine. By contrast, 39 Columbus city polling machines had more than 200 votes per machine and 42 were over 190 votes per machine. This means 17% of Columbus’ machines were operating at 90-100% over optimum capacity while in Upper Arlington the figure was 3%.

Of course, there’s a direct correlation between affluence and votes for Bush and below medium income areas and votes for Kerry. Franklin County, Ohio’s formula served to disenfranchise disproportionately poor, minority and Democratic voters under the guise of rewarding the “likely” voter or active registered voters.

A clear pattern and practice of voter disenfranchisement is emerging:

Franklin County BOE Director Matt Damschroder [remember him from above?] admits he ran the election with a “fixed and exhausted” pool of voting machines, the Dispatch reported. Franklin County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy pointed out that Damschroder and Franklin County election officials told her “We’re fine, we’re fine” and never requested additional money over the initial allocation - despite an increased registration of more than 167,253 new voters.

Franklin County’s voting machine allocation report shows that Damschroder deployed his Danaher (formerly Shooptronics) voting machines, which have been in use since 1992, in a formula that favored Bush over Kerry.

In precinct 55-B on Columbus’ near east side, there were 1,338 registered voters and, according to Franklin County Board of Elections estimates, 956 active voters who had voted in the last two federal elections. Despite voter registration being up 17%, and by the BOE’s own guidelines the polling place requiring ten machines (one per 100 voters), the polling site had only three machines, one less than for the 2000 elections.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0411/S00293.htm

The conclusion that the author of the Salon article simply 'made shit up' rather than doing the diligence required to cast real doubt on Kennedy's assertions is foregone.

But you don't care about the quality of the information or the source... so long as it supports your conclusion.

[kctim]

25. It is not only MY conclusion

it is also the conclusion of the Democratic Party and, due to the lack of legal action taken, it is also the conclusion of those with the closest association with the issue raised.

You are arguing an opinion of what "really" happened based on interpretations of information that the majority of people involved do not agree with, and there is nothing that ANYBODY can show you that will make you change that opinion.

It's the birther conspiracy for elections.
YOU have the info nobody wants to acknowledge.
YOU have pieced together all that info no one else could.
YOU have proven without a reasonable doubt that YOU are the one who is right.
YOU can bring down the entire process but nobody will listen.

I can't argue against that man. You win.
I will now go tell the guy who has proof Bigfoot is flying UFOs that he also wins.

[The Doctor.]

26. How typical. All you have is derision to fall back on.

Last edited Sat Apr 28, 2012, 02:30 PM - Edit history (1)

Like I said, you aren't in the least bit interested in learning a damn thing about this. You decided on your position in ignorance of the facts with the most tenuous excuse: 'Well, because no on acted on it, it must not have happened.'.

That level of intellectual laziness is shameful. The fact that you so easily admit to it speaks volumes.

[truedelphi]

27. Those in control of the Democratic Party at the highest levels are

One) Not necessarily Democrats
Two) Often collusionary with the Republicans
Three) Offer up as the "Truth" about matters things that are not necessarily so.

Just because at the highest levels, there are Democrats who are not supportive of the reality that the election machinery is hackable or the need to be concerned about this, etc, doesn't mean that the average person should not be concerned.

I mean, hells bell's, James Carville, is as we all know, a registered Democrat. But just whose side was he on when he persuaded Kerry to not fight for the right to recount the ballots in the state of Ohio?

[The Doctor.]

29. Also, a question:

It is an indisputable fact that many of the machines used in the elections were very easily hackable by anyone with access. Throwing out for the moment that you have chosen to be entirely ignorant of the astoundingly improbable fact that everywhere they were used the results contradicted exit polls and their margins of error (almost entirely in favor of Republicans), I ask you this:

Why are you okay with these machines given the threat to democracy they represent?


Now, I know your next argument is to play dumb about why they are a threat to democracy, so just come up with a straight answer please.

Thanks.

[Sancho]

19. What proof do you want?

In 2004, my wife and I were voting and witnessed a DRE that flipped votes on a Senate race (long story). We called officials, protested, and demonstrated the machined occasionally changed votes to the GOP candidate. The machine was taken out of service, "rebooted; reset"?, and put back in service. I was escorted out for politely protesting and demanding impounding the machine. I was threatened by the election supervisor for continuing to argue.

Concerning that same election, the American Statistical Association published an article in Chance magazine analyzing the undervote in Florida (13), early voting, etc. and concluding that that wrong candidate was "elected".

In other words, no one will allow precinct data, access to the source code of the machines, or mirror polls so that "proof" is gathered. Just like John Snow (look him up), a number of collections of evidence point to the inevitable conclusion that some elections are manipulated - most recently by hacking the DRE's and tabulators.

At this point, there is way to much evidence to indicate that investigations and a paper trail should be the minimum process. My experience in Florida has been repeated all over the US. Richard Charmin sorts out the distributional evidence compared to exit polls. Others have focused on the machines, etc. Regardless, there can't be any more convincing evidence than I've seen in Florida. I haven't seen a UFO, I'm not worried about birth certificates.

[southernyankeebelle]

28. You know kctim you keep talking and talking. I really suggest you take the time to go over

to the Brad Blog. He has alot of background information. Read more then one source please. Read what happened to the pilot of the small plane who was on his way to testify on the cheating and somehow the experienced pilot crashed. Wonder? This guy had alot of Rove and the group who had computers based in TN. But I guess you being a republican don't want to believe it. But the Brad Blog has a lot of information if you really want the truth.

[truckin]

16. Read "Witness to a Crime" by Richard Hayes Phillips.

No one hes done more research into the 2004 Ohio election and while he doesn't provide proof he does present a strong case that Kerry won Ohio and that a thorough investigation should have taken place. Phillips reviewd several counties and photocopied more than 30,000 ballots.

http://www.witnesstoacrime.com/

[truedelphi]

20. You might thoroughly read the following article:

At one point in mid Spring 2005, it was posted on over 350 blogs that were up and running.

I own all copyrights to the article, as I wrote it:

Stolen Election 2004 (originally published in December 2004 edition of "The Coastal Post" Monthly newspaper out of Bolinas Calif, editor Don Deane)
By Carol Sterritt

On November 2, 2004, for the second time in 48 months, George W. Bush and his minions illegally altered the Presidential election results by enough of a count that he will again illegally occupy the White House for another four years.

How did this happen? Due to the new machinery purchased under the "Help America Vote Act," at least 29% of the American electorate had their vote counted on equipment that is tamper-friendly and that leaves no auditable paper trail.

According to some observers, that statistic is shy of the actual reality-they say sixty to sixty-one million votes were counted on such machinery. This would mean that more than HALF the vote was counted by defective machinery.

Although Bev Harris and Andy Stephenson of Black Box Voting (blackboxvoting.org) had been patiently making the rounds of radio talk shows, and demonstrating to the press, to college campuses and to various Secretaries of State all across the nation, their pleas for the citizenry to demand a paper trail before November elections seemingly went unheard. Even MoveOn directors did not get it. A full year before the election, Harris tried to explain it to them: they could hold all the garage sales, and have all the voter registration drives that they wanted, but if it was left possible for the Dark Side to play around with a pool of 61 million votes, well, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out the sad result.

Additionally, the Republicans utilized every trick in the book. First of all, they continued to purge voter registration rolls. According to Greg Palest, who I must admit it, is as funny as any pundit, but this man works it, folks, he finds out where the records are, he goes in with subpoenas or cameras, whichever will be most effective, throws Secretaries of State on the floor and Xeroxes those documents that are needed to prove what he says, and this is what he emailed in October: one million voters would have their names wiped out of registration banks before the polls ever opened the morning of November 2nd. ONE MILLION VOTERS. PURGED.

Just as importantly, Republicans have seen to it that Republicans hold almost every Chief Precinct Inspector position (the CPI, aka polling place judge) in polling precincts all across the country. This is significant for several reasons. It is the CPI who can stare down a person or persons who are causing trouble inside a polling place. Should someone appoint themselves as a "challenger" to other voters, the CPI can make a call to the County Registrar Office (or to the police) and have that person removed. They have much to say about the number of voting machines and needed equipment. They are the person entrusted with bringing the hard physical proof, in these days special memory cards, from the polling place to the County Registrar of Voters. They can challenge a voter's right to vote. Also, polling place official observers are often Republicans. Additionally, it is Republicans who most often develop and distribute the training tapes that show what a polling place workers duties would be during an election.

Let's discuss an occurrence here in Marin City on November 2nd that illustrates this. Jessamyn Sabbag has given me an account of her election day experiences. Sabbag is with Grassroots Leadership Network here in the County. Their group had printed up voter guides to help people make decisions about various propositions. The entire group had studied thoroughly all the particulars of State of California election day law. They knew that they were within their rights to be at 100 feet of the polling place. There they planned to hand out their materials. And they could encourage those who took the guides to mark them up and then use them when they were in the voting station. (I myself used such a guide to help keep various propositions clear in my mind.)

Her group was approached by "Charlotte," a woman in perhaps her late 60's who told them that they needed to be 300 feet away (essentially down the block and out of view of that polling place.) She also told them that no one could bring the guides with them into the polling station. She also told them (Get this!) that they could hand out the guides, but only to people who had already voted!!

She claimed to be in charge of 27 polling places. The group used their cell phone to call the local attorney, Larry Organ, making his time free to those having problems. When "Charlotte" saw him getting out of his car, she immediately addressed Sabbag with words to the effect, "I'm gonna' be nice and make an exception and let you do what you asked to do earlier." But without Attorney Organ's presence, it is not clear what would have happened.

Sabbag's group did a survey that data-banked 350 some respondents and their experiences on election day. Thirty-eight of those so polled had bad experiences. One bad experience involved one of her Mill Valley friends. When he could not locate his absentee ballot, he went to a polling place in Mill Valley and asked for a provisional ballot. It was about 7:30 election night. The workers there told him that he must go to a different polling place, i.e. the one assigned him based on his address. But based on state law, any polling place in your home city is fine. The workers refused to give him the provisional ballot and he lost his right to vote.

Ironically, Sabbag's group had worked closely with the League of Women Voters here in Marin County when they first developed their materials. But even so, they were still badgered and harassed by this "Charlotte." To this day, no one seems to know her last name.

Section 245, Chapter 18 of the US Code stipulates that anyone who injures, intimidates or interferes with any other citizen(s) in their undertaking their right to vote, shall by fined under this section of law, or imprisoned for A YEAR, or BOTH. (This section also reserves the same privileges for thoseÉ participating lawfully in speech or peaceful assemblyÉ)

I definitely hope, "Charlotte," that this is the last year that you are "put in charge of 27 polling places." So, "Charlotte," who are you and where are you? I would like to see you charged with your crimes, imprisoned or at least coughing up your duly appointed fine.

And that goes for many such Republican individuals who intimidated voters in the state of Ohio as well. There, Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State, oversaw a huge re-writing of the State of Ohio's election laws. He needed to strong arm the state's rules and regulations to overcome disturbing reports: this fall, in Ohio, 90,000 new voters would make up more than 10 percent of the electorate in just one county where Democrat Al Gore won by only 5,000 votes in 2000. Reports coming out of other counties were just as disturbing.

Now Blackwell has political aspirations, including some say, to run for president himself someday. As a Republican, his delivering the vote for George W. would help further his cause and curry his party's favor. But he needed to switch a state that went Democratic in 2000 into the Republican column. Not an easy task if you play by the rules. Bush was headed into the election with his polling number at 50% or below - and no incumbent President has ever won with such numbers. The American people were polled to death, especially in Ohio, and they were sick of the pollsters. However they were even more sick and tired of a president disinterested in a failing economy, and who was continuing with policies that had turned Iraq into a bloodbath for both sides. So the Ohio survey numbers rang out loud and clear and scary if there was a ¨ by your name: 53% of the Ohio women were voting for Kerry and 51% of the men. Like Palast tells it, unless there was a third gender operating in Ohio, a legally held, fairly played out election should have won it for the man from Massachusetts by a landslide.

Perhaps for that reason, Blackwell issued a decree in October that only 80 weight paper would be acceptable for voter registration forms. Although officials in some counties ignored the directive, in other counties, it was followed. Those persons attempting registration in counties where his directive was adhered to probably lost their right to vote. Blackwell also directed election officials to issue provisional ballots only to voters who went to the correct polling location. Democrats say federal law gives voters the right to obtain a provisional ballot and have it counted if they mistakenly go to the wrong precinct.

On Election Day itself, poorer counties in Ohio opened their doors to long lines of people. But inside the polling place there stood simply too few machines to accommodate the crowds. Often these polling places seemed to deliberately have fewer machines than they had four years earlier. Despite this, Ohio citizens determinedly stood and waited their turn, in lines that went out the polling place door and into the intemperate weather. Newscasters caught the tired, wet and distressed faces of those forced outside in a drizzle. Republican challengers knocked college-aged newly registered voters out of the process. Although some students knew how to finagle the local County Registrar's office into validating their right to enfranchisement, it was too much for others. Even if you knew what to do and where to go when challenged, you still needed to cut classes or your part time job in order to regain your right.

In one Ohio polling place, machines were not working when the doors opened at 7 AM. By the time they were up and running, fifty would-be voters had left. Then the place ran out of the pencils needed to mark in the selected candidates. A young polling worker finally went and bought pencils out of his own pocket, when he realized that the CPI was not that interested in doing anything about it. And so innumerable stories came out of that mass of election corruption. The last polling place open in America was a rain-drenched Ohio precinct, where lights finally went out after 3 AM November 3rd. You better believe that it was not in one of Ohio's wealthier, more Republican strongholds.

When Blackwell's office released the final vote count for Ohio, it gave the state to George W Bush by 136,00 votes. However, at least 125,000 and some say as many as 250,000 absentee, provisional and military ballots had been left uncounted. Also, tens of thousands of discrepancies, intimidations, and suppressions of the right to enfranchisement were also in need of examination. Blackwells' Office of the Secretary of State simply REFUSED to allow claimants to cite the polling officials who had disallowed the casting of their ballots. It seemed that ON ALL LEVELS, much needed to be sorted out. This sorting out was essential because victory in the State of Ohio decided electoral votes for a presidential victory as well.

During the morning and early afternoon, the Internet was wild with rumor. Stories from Florida, from Colorado, and from New Mexico indicated that perhaps recounts would be demanded in those states as well. In New Mexico, some voting districts reported 185% of all Republicans voting, perhaps as a result of their serious patriotism and godliness? This report turned out to be true-I later had the final vote count faxed to me from that state, and voting district after voting district had numbers greater than 100% with regards to the final Republican tally.

But still, on the third of November, the problem in Ohio was that the vote had not even been finished yet. Then to make matters worse, John Kerry conceded at 2 PM, less than 24 hours after the final voters had left the polls. By evening of November 3rd, crowds of angry Ohio citizens stormed the State Capital. To the chant of "O-H-I-O! Suppressed Democracy Has Got To Go", they interlinked arms and faced down police in riot gear. They were joined by compatriots in as many as forty towns and cities across America, who needed to voice what the gut-wrenching sickness inside them had them feeling: something had gone terribly wrong, and not in the state of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the media, both national and local, issued a lockdown on the truth. Both Bev Harris and Peter Coyote have claimed that close journalistic friends have told them that their careers are over if they should attempt to write about this election being stolen. Instead, the irregularities and outright corruption that indicate that this election was so fraudulent that it should not be considered a true election of anything, let alone the Office of the President of the United States, these accounts are going unreported in the mainstream press. It is the alternate media that is shedding light on this: handing out flyers, holding church basement meetings, setting up web blogs, and continuing to harass the "real" media with letters to the editor, letters that despite their eloquence usually go in the trash. From such a flyer, I offer these Ten Indications that the 2004 Election Was Stolen:

1) Systematic Voting Machine Irregularities
2) Highly Irregular Intervention by Federal Authorities;
3) Impossible Vote Totals;
4) Unfair Election Supervisors;
5) Untrustworthy Vendors of Election Machinery
6) Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancies;
7) Unreliable or Nonexistent Voting Machinery in Poor or Ethnic Areas;
8) Atypical Voting Changes from 2000 to 2004;
9) Uncounted Ballots;
10) Illegal Voter Suppression Activities

The list leaves out the most important-having the operatives from only one party occupy positions in all of the most important election positions, from lowly poll worker to Secretary of State, having the operatives from one party develop the machinery that will be used for the elections, and in essence, having a one party state.

And if you have been following the rest of the news, that means that the military-industrial Hydra that Eisenhower warned against is now snapping its fiercest of heads in places everywhere above the heads of the common citizenry.

As I put this article for December 2004 to bed, I receive a late breaking report from Wayne Madsen that Saudis and Enron bankrolled the expense of stealing this election. "According to informed sources in Washington and Houston, the Bush campaign spent some $29 million to pay polling place operatives around the country to rig the election for Bush. The operatives were posing as Homeland Security and FBI agents but were actually technicians familiar with Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S, Triad, Unilect, and Danaher Controls voting machines. These technicians reportedly hacked the systems to skew the results in favor of Bush." Madsen is a Washington DC based investigative reporter. The article can be read in full at "onlinejournal.com"



Coastal Post

[truedelphi]

21. You might also read this article as well:

Election Crime Scene-2004
"We the People Do Not Concede"
By Carol Sterritt (published in January 2005 article in The Coastal Post, monthly newspaper out of Bolinas Calif. editor: Don Deane) I currently own all rights )

John Kerry did not lose the electoral votes in Florida. They were stolen.

Nor did he lose the electoral votes in Ohio. They were stolen as well.

And with these two states being a rigged game, suspicions multiply. Suspicion falls especially hard upon the supposed three and a half million votes that Bush now claims as the popular vote margin. Across the nation, at least 400,000 people used voter hotlines to report the difficulties noticed on election day. Among those complaints, a full 50,000 instances were outright malfunctioning voting machinery. And in each of these 50,000 instances the vote went to Bush. If election day machine malfunctions were random, then logic dictates that Kerry must receive the benefit of the machine failures at least a few times. Unless the breakdowns were not random. And if not random, then they must be considered part of a network of fraud.

This indicates one thing: a major crime was committed. Perhaps like Richard Nixon's Watergate, the process may take more than a year-but in the end, the trail will lead back to the White House. Election 2004 looks, walks, talks and smells like racketeering. There is evidence of criminal conspiracy, evidence of obstruction of justice, forgery of government documents, misuse of the Postal Service and crime committed through and across wires. Also one instance of intimidation demands justice, when late at night on a dark Ohio highway, a young voting activist was run off the road by a gang of thugs. So this is not your simple voting fraud case with several election officials being over- zealous for their party or candidate. This is fraud -carefully coordinated and plotted out. The threads of this particular spider web lead back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. We stand in the midst of a nightmare whose ending will either be the destruction of this country, or else through our citizenry proving a case of Presidential racketeering, the dissolution of this ill-begotten Presidency.

Sixty one million votes were counted on machines that would allow for no paper trail. The existence of these machines made the crime of the century possible. Andrew Card, Chief of Staff to President George W Bush, may well live to regret his announcements at 5 AM on Nov. 3rd. But at the time he was exultant at what the voting machines had wrought. His voice rang out resonant and a tad bit festive, happily victorious, "I'm Andy Card. I am President Bush's chief of staff. We are convinced that President Bush has won re-election with at least 286 electoral college votes. And he also had a margin of more than three and a half million votes. President Bush's decisive margin of victory makes this the first Presidential election since 1988 in which the winner received a majority of the popular vote. And that in this election, President Bush received more votes than any other presidential candidate in the history of our countryÉ In Ohio, the President has a lead of at least 136,000 votes. The Secretary of State's office has informed us that this margin is statistically insurmountableÉ So President Bush has won the state of Ohio."

What did Andrew Card know that John Kerry did not? Card knew who Kerry's real opponent was. Kerry thought his opponent in this election was George W. Bush. His real opponent was the rigged voting machines. If we the people of the United States possessed an election system with the integrity of Canada's paper ballot and pencil system, Kerry would be President. He was defeated by a modern technology so tamper friendly that major alterations to any district's vote tally could be made within 90 seconds and without leaving a trace.

This explains the flip-flopping of entire counties and even states-that exit poll numbers were reversed to give Bush the margin predicted for Kerry. And it explains how Bush "shaved" down the margin in voting districts predicted to give Kerry a sizable lead. Because of the duplicity of the voting machinery it is not possible to say how many votes were cast, or for who. The switch was possible, and not just in Florida or Ohio, but across the nation.

In Volusia County, Florida, Bev Harris, Andy Stephenson, and Kathleen Wynne undertook a month long investigation. The Black Box Voting team found enough "irregularities" in 236,000 Florida ballots that they began to use the "F" word-FRAUD. The problem facing them was that state law requires that 336,000 ballots be seen as questionable. Election officials stonewalled them so that they could not come up with the extra 100,000 problem votes. In thirteen voting districts, officials withheld the hard physical evidence until the clock ran out. Without those polling tapes, memory cards, actual paper ballots, or access to the machines, the three intrepid investigators could not force that state to conduct a revote. But the hard evidence that Black Box Voting did uncover could serve us well in a criminal case against Florida officials leading from the smallest election officer up to the grand master of them all, Governor Jeb Bush.

The progressive Community in the USA should be celebrating this election. We did everything right. We insured a higher turnout than ever recorded in modern history. We saw to it that there were 4.2 million new registered young voters. We urged everyone registered to vote. And vote they did-despite the long lines, despite the weather, despite the denial of regular ballots and the forced issuance of provisionals. As we watched the election returns, we were encouraged by the major exit polls telling us that John Kerry held a decisive margin over George W Bush. But the exit polls, viewed across the world as the results of infallible science, fell apart at the last minute. No other explanation can account for this, except for fraud. Yes, because of Republican criminality, we are about to witness the JANUARY 20th inauguration of George W. Bush.

When A Crime Is Committed, You Must Act Quickly

It was the progressive community that acted immediately after November 2nd. First progressives made protests and then they undertook legal action demanding a recount. These actions proceeded quickly, with John Kerry missing in action. Within days after Kerry's Nov. 3rd concession, both of the men who ran for president as progressives, Badnarik, and Cobb, put into motion a chain of events leading to a vote recount in Ohio.

Countless lawyers, voting rights experts, computer experts, and also Ohio's common citizens were part of the effort. They worked fourteen hour days. Among the pieces of the stolen election puzzle that they uncovered: deliberate withholding of voting machinery badly needed in Democratic neighborhoods where voter numbers had soared; deliberate misinformation from election officials to voters, so that the votes would be disqualified; and machinery rigged during the actual recount.

Even more unbelievable, an entire county, Warren County, was illegally shut down from any oversight on Nov. 2nd. Election officials there claimed that a terrorist attack alert forced this. Only after the election was it realized that neither Homeland Security nor the FBI had requested that Warren County do this. However, some election workers explained to the press that they had been told the previous Thursday, October 27th, that there would be a "lockdown" of the polling place.

The Washington Post reported new affidavits from Mahoning County documenting electronic "vote hopping" from Kerry to Bush. Before the voter had a chance to record his or her vote, the voting machine highlighted Bush as their choice. The legal team has been told by a computer expert that this could indicate the machines were pre-set with a Bush vote as the default. Dozens of other individuals have brought forth sworn statements to the same effect. The legal team is also exploring new evidence that in Coshocton, Ohio, write-in votes wrongly defaulted to Bush when run through the voting machine.

As the recount cast light on so much criminal behavior, it became apparent that Badnarik and Cobb needed to file another lawsuit. This time, the filing was for the preservation and augmentation of evidence and is centered on Hocking County, Ohio. According to a sworn affidavit by Sherole Eaton, Hocking County deputy director of elections, a technician for Triad Systems entered the elections office on Dec. 10th and dismantled one of the vote tabulation computers. And at a Dec. 14th evening hearing in Toledo, stunning new sworn testimony revealed that Diebold technicians have tainted official voting machines before a recount could be done, irrevocably compromising the process.

Although John Kerry finally joined the lawsuit, questions remain as to why the presidential candidate was slow to respond. When a crime is committed, a solution begs for quick action, to ensure that evidence is observed and preserved. The longer one waits, the more likely that key evidence will be destroyed. Kerry acts as though he is not on his own team. This begs the question, was the fix in? Was this election nothing but an elaborate sting?

John Conyers Asks for Hearings and Investigations

Revelations of the most startling order surfaced in regards to Ohio's presidential vote. They came to light during the Dec. 13th field hearing brought about by John Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee. Joining him were Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones. Conyers has taken the concept of the stolen election to heart. Because of his efforts, hearings conducted in Columbus, Ohio were well-attended and recorded by C-Span. Citizens, poll workers, computer experts, and voting record examiners were able to relate their election day experiences. Conyers also attempted to have testimony from Kenneth Blackwell, the infamous Ohio Secretary of State, but the man refused.

"I know that Kenneth Blackwell made some decisions that were blatant and outrageous for a secretary of state," said Conyers. "How he felt that his head was big enough to be chairman of the 'Re-elect Bush' committee and also head of the administration of the electoral vote for the president in that same state was beyond me. There are very few people who did what he did."

Among those criminal activities that Conyers finds most scandalous is Blackwell's decision to "lockdown the ballots." One website, Democratic Underground, filed this report: On December 10th, Ohio election volunteers were denied further access to public voting records. At the Greene County Board of Elections in Xenia, two California women from the recount coalition (CASE and the Green party) were copying public records and requesting access to other voting records, per Ohio statute. The Board was told by Secretary of State Blackwell's office to deny any further access to voting records, a clear violation of law. Apparently, the quote was: "These records are no longer public. There is a lockdown on all Ohio voting records." Ohio is no longer the Ukraine. Ohio is now the Soviet bloc and Blackwell has made his office the Politburo.

There Is Nothing Wrong With Conspiracy Theories

There are three choices when it comes to truth and events of significance in America:

1) accepting, in the words of Janet Reno, that "we will never ever know;" 2) accepting what New York Times/Pravda, Chicago Tribune/Pravda, and all of Mainstream Media/Pravda states the truth to be, or 3) believing what seems to be the facts as we are observing and intuit them. In 1972, two reporters, Woodward and Bernstein of the Washington Post, began hearing testimony and seeing evidence that brought about their investigation into the Watergate Burglary. "Conspiracy" said all the many Republicans of the time. "Absurdly stupid and silly news story," said all the other newspaper editors in the country. But their editor, Ben Bradlee, let them run with it. And the result was the 1974 resignation of Richard Nixon.

When it comes to labeling a discussion as that of conspiracy buffs, we must learn to say, "Bring it on."

A Change In Tactics Ensures Victory

Up until now, Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections (CASE) was seeking only the examination of all things related to voting. They were concerned with voter signatures, memory cards for voting machines, polling tapes, county voting tabulators, GEMS and other proprietary software that counts and manages the vote, etc. But after tonight December 28th 2004, they will be interested in things related to criminal prosecution. Among these might well be the phone records of various Ohio election officials and workers. Those of us acquainted with local election officials know how unlikely it is that Warren County officials, on their own, dreamt up the idea of a Homeland Security polling place lockdown. They acted on instructions from someone(s) higher up. Susan Truitt, who heads Ohio CASE, is enthused about the idea of sniffing out the actual workings of the illegal enterprise. She is willing to find out who talked to whom, and on what date. By next month, she may well have assembled important information for Coastal Post readers, and hopefully the world.

Meanwhile please visit www.themmob.com to connect with one of the most effective organizations in grassroots activism.

Coastal Post Home Page

[truedelphi]

23. You might also consider purchasing the excellent video

"Stealing America Vote By Vote" by Dorothy Faddiman.

Dorothy covers a whole lot of territory in that one.

[truedelphi]

24. Also look at the "Carville Effect"

I have posted this many times on DU - it is the morning after the Nov 2004 Presidential election.

James Carville is whispering into John Kerry's ear, that in regards to Ohio, Kerry should concede. Kerry is misinformed: he is told that there are only 250,000 ballots in dispute that could possibly be counted to overthrow Bush's 138,000 ballot lead.

What those of us who hate Carville for this know are the following salient points:
One) there were other matters above and beyond the 250,000 ballots.
Those matters include the suppression of the vote by not allowing enough election machines into heavily Democratic areas, while keeping the Republican districts supplied with surplus of machinery.
The outright flipping of votes: see the most excellent film "Stealing America- vote by vote", by Dorothy Faddiman
The wrongful tallying of votes - as when several dozen districts had more Bush voters than actual registered voters

Two) The lock down inside Warren County's vote counting headquarters, by official Young of the local Emergency Services. Young was claiming that Homeland Security said that there was a threat. After Kerry's concession, it came out that Homeland Security had not ruled that there was a terrorist threat. Nor had the FBI CIA or any other security agency. Kerry should not have conceded at least until charges were levied against Mr. Young. Other wise it sets the stage for any voting official who desires that the vote be counted in secret use this action as a precedent.

(Currently, as the National Election guidelines and state guidelines are written, any person(s) who wish to watch the vote count at their local Registrar of Voters office may do so, simply by letting the local ROV know of their intention ahead of time. Failure of the ROV to comply carries legal penalties. Contact yr local County District Attorney if you are denied this right.
Three) Voting activists in Ohio now believe that at the time that Kerry conceded - there were about 400,000 ballots that could have entered into a contested election scenario. Those 400,000 ballots would be more than enough ballots to defeat Bush's lead, especially considering that many of these were provisional ballots - and provisionals are usually from poorer minority voters.

The fact that Kerry conceded sets up an incredibly painful precedent. It shows us that whenever an election is won by illegal means, there is no point in fighting to establish the wrongfulness of said election: after all, Kerry "did the right thing for the country while we were at war."

The fact that Carville was acting, perhaps as much on Clinton's behalf as his own behalf, to secure for her the chance to run in 2008, indicates to me that Clinton is not out for this country but for her own self interests.


Here is a portion of an article which can be read in entirety at

http://tinyurl.com/yrfaqo


Did Carville and Joe Lockhart Sell Kerry Out?



Woodward's book lays it out pretty plainly. No one should be surprised.

One important point, however, is that people have started talking about the Carville - Matalin angle, but everyone stops there. If you read a bit further Mike McCurry comes into the picture. It seals the deal.

Here's a story not in the Woodward book. According to one person I talked to today, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Joe Lockhart, in the middle of a heated presidential campaign, started making new business calls out of the Kerry war room giving out confidential campaign information while he was at it. Obviously trying to hedge his bets, he'd call out, give poll data and other info to people, while trying to drum up business for himself. Class act.

Frankly, it reminds me of what McCurry did on the Net Neutrality stuff.

For DC Democrats it's all about keeping your candidates close, but your business associates and their interests closer.

As for what's said in the Woodward book, one Kerry camp insider I talked to today certainly wasn't surprised by the revelations.


"The fact that the Clintonistas did not truly have JK's best interest at heart in 2004 comes as no surprise to anyone deeply involved in the Kerry camp." - Kerry insider, who would not go on the record.

At some point it got out of control.

The DC Dems hired to fight for John Kerry simply sold him out at the first sign of a fight. Except for a loyal group closest to Kerry, many of the people in his employ simply sucked. I can't say it any plainer. Woodward offers more proof on what's been speculated about for a couple of years now.

But did Carville and McCurry really sell Kerry out? Playing stenographer, because this is important, I offer the whole picture, which goes way beyond Carville. It points to the reality that if our presidential candidate is going to win he or she has to extricate themselves from these self-interested traitors inside our own party who are willing to sell out the Democratic Party cause, which must be to fight and win elections, in support of their own interests.

It's important to hammer this scene out because we are facing a critical election in just a few weeks. Every single candidate must be prepared to stand up and fight back, because it takes more than just counting the vote against Republicans these days. As an aside, if you can vote through absentee ballot, which offers a paper trail that electronic voting does not, do it.

But when the end isn't certain there is only one thing to do: declare victory and fight it out.

It's clear Carville and McCurry had their eyes on something else entirely. With Democrats like Carville and McCurry helping us out on election night we hardly need Karl Rove.


After 1 a.m., Card called Cahill.

Cahill said the Kerry campaign felt confident.

Card was caught off guard. ... --Is there going to be a phone call?"

"We won't be calling you," Cahill replied. She seemed to be half asking whether Bush would be calling Kerry to concede.

(snip)

Matalin is married to James Carville, a Democrat who had been chief political strategist for Bill Clinton in 1992. ... ...

"Look, I know this is hard for you," she told him sympathetically.
Did Carville and Joe Lockhart, and McCurry Sell Kerry Out?



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