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Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Journal written by jZnat (793348) and posted by
kdawson
on Sun Sep 17, 2006 04:40 PM
from the disenfranchising-ohio dept.
from the disenfranchising-ohio dept.
jZnat writes, "In June Rolling Stone ran an article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delving into the statistical improbability that Bush won the 2004 election based on massive amounts of evidence that support a Republican-sponsored election fraud across the country, particularly in Ohio. The GOP used a number of tactics in its fraudulent campaign including ballot-stuffing, denying newly registered voters (particularly in urban and minority precincts) their voting privileges via illegal mailings known as caging lists, inane voter registration requirements, preventing thousands of voters from receiving provisional ballots, under-providing Democrat-majority precincts with voting machines thus creating enormous queues of voters, faulty machines (particularly from Diebold) that skewed results in the GOP's favor, mostly unnoticed ballot-stuffing and fraud in rural areas, and a fixed recount that was paid for by the Green and Libertarian parties that essentially supported the initial fraudulent numbers." From the article: "'Ohio was as dirty an election as America has ever seen,' Lou Harris, the father of modern political polling, told me."
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Will the Next Election Be Hacked? 904 comments
plasmacutter writes to let us know about the new article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Rolling Stone, following up on his "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" (slashdotted here). Kennedy recounts the sorry history of electronic voting so far in this country — and some of the incidents will be new even to this clued-in crowd. (Had you heard about the CERT advisory on an undocumented backdoor account in a Diebold vote-tabulating database — crediting Black Box Voting?) Kennedy's reporting is bolstered by the accounts of a Diebold insider who has gone on record with his concerns. From the article: 'Chris Hood remembers the day in August 2002 that he began to question what was really going on in Georgia... "It was an unauthorized patch, and they were trying to keep it secret from the state," Hood told me. "We were told not to talk to county personnel about it. I received instructions directly from [president of Diebold election unit Bob] Urosevich...' According to Hood, Diebold employees altered software in some 5,000 machines in DeKalb and Fulton counties, the state's largest Democratic strongholds. The tally in Georgia that November surprised even the most seasoned political observers. (Hint: Republicans won.)
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Yes/No/Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
This hasn't change since Bush took office, and won't be any different in 2008. It's not just Republicans that do it, nor is is just Democrats. (Witness the decades-old joke from Democratic stronghold cities: "Why did the Democrat walk into the cemetery? To thank his voters.")
As dirty and reeking of conflict-of-interest as it is, when Diebold's CEO said he was committed to delivering Ohio's electoral votes to Bush, he meant it as a Republican corporate leader and campaigner; not in the context of "rigging" an election.
No, the disenfranchisement that happens now and will continue to happen is the same disenfranchisement and dirty tricks that always happens: the rise of the internet for the general population, particularly since the last pre-Bush presidential election, has enabled the kinds of incredible information exchange on all manner of topics that we've seen in the last two elections. That will only increase, and it cuts both ways: as much as it allows the exchange of legitimate information, it acts as a breeding ground for conspiracy theories, some wacky, some not-so-wacky, some with elements of truth, but still serving to subvert any faith we ever had in our system.
The worst part is so many people believe that not one, but two, elections were actively and intentionally "stolen"/rigged exclusively by Republicans, that anytime any Republican/conservative candidate ever wins an election from this point forward, it will always be doubted. Even recounts will be doubted. People want to believe, well, what they want to believe.
All of the political, governmental, financial, famous and otherwise, and other powerhouse figures in the United States on the anti-Republican/conservative side(s) didn't just stand idly by while not one, but *two* elections were stolen.
Nothing new has happened on either side in 2000 or 2004 that hasn't ever happened before. That's just a fact of life. These are the same county election entities that have run elections in locales for generations. Yes, things change a bit, especially with the introduction of electronic voting machines (which, ironically, were the result of various Democratic and bipartisan initiatives designed to allow more equal and consistent management of and access to polling places). But all e-voting vendors offer permament voter-verified receipt options on current and some previous models of machines - but these additions cost even more money; money that many municipalities weren't willing to spend.
Worse still, we're talking about it two (or six, depending) years later. Not only do we have people who believe firmly that both elections were stolen, but we have people who literally believe something will cause a suspension of the 2008 elections, allowing Bush to remain in power. To me, the growing ranks of people who believe that with all their heart - growing mostly because of the internet, and sources of information that reinforce what they want to believe - are actually more of a threat to our system of government than anything else.
Dave Schroeder, you are kind of dopey. (Score:5, Insightful)
You say that people believing that the Bush Administration is capable of the most egregious types of illegal activities is more of a threat to our system of government than those illegal activities themselves. This is known as baloney.
Yesterday, we saw a President declare that a law must be passed that will have the effect of absolving him and his administration from any war crimes that may have been committed since 2001, retroactively. He is afraid that as the 14 prisoners that he's transferring from secret prisons (just the thought of secret prisons is anti-American) are interviewed by the Red Cross when they get to Guantanamo (Guantanamo is anti-American) we will learn that they were tortured in ways that violate a Convention that has served us well for more than half a century, and this will expose Mssrs Bush and Cheney to quite valid charges of War Crimes.
So, in a classic cover-your-butt move, this despicable man is going to pardon himself and his friends, in advance. I hope those of you who voted Republican are proud.
All this to protect his sudden need to try people with secret evidence. Let that sink in for a second. You are arrested and not told why. You are held for 3 years without any charges being brought against you. You are brought to court and a judge tells you that you are found guilty, based on evidence that you and your lawyer will not be allowed to see. Who wants to try to argue that any of this is the "American Way"?
And this entire charade, 2 wars and untold suffering is done because 19 guys in dirty nightshirts were able to commandeer a couple of planes and kill 3000 people. We're told not to worry about the guy who masterminded this crime because after all we can't find him anyway, and there's a much more important thing we have to do because of this massive crime and that's fight a war thousands of miles away from where this criminal is hiding. And it just so happens that this war that's so urgent is in a place that has a huge supply of oil. And, it just so happens that the President got into politics with the help of the oil industry, but that's all just a coincidence. And it's a further coincidence that the one corporation that has profited the most from this war was run by the Vice President until a short time before the election. And, by the way, that Vice President's income tax return last year showed income of tens of millions of dollars even though his salary is only about 250 thousand bucks. But ignore all of that because THIS PRESIDENT IS A-GONNA KEEP US SAFE. Safe from terrorists. Forget that you're more likely to die of toenail fungus than from terrorism.
One great thing about this country is that although it's possible to scare Americans, they don't stay scared for long. If there's a God in heaven, the Bush Administration and his Republican lickspittles are going to pay dearly for what they've done to a country that not too long ago was held in regard by the world as being a beacon of freedom, but is now known for secret prisons, torture, domestic spying and stupid, destructive wars.
To Hell with George W. Bush. And Dave Schroeder, regardless of whatever it is that would make you try to defend him, to Hell with you.
Re:Yes/No/Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
Democrats didn't "stand by idly", but were locked out of any action. As you'd know if you'd RTFA, rather than just rush to First Post some spin to excuse Republican vote fraud "because everyone does it".
Don't you think that Harris saying 2004 in Ohio was as bad as it's ever been, meaning it's worse than almost every other election? If 2006 is rigged even worse, will that still be OK? Where is your limit to accepting vote fraud, where you no longer think "bad enough" is OK? When Democrats do it someday?
Re:Yes/No/Maybe (Score:5, Interesting)
Everyone registered as a citizen gets a voting ticket by regular mail well before the election. This ticket you need to bring to the voting office and can be checked against ID. No differences between states here
There's one single voting system for the entire nation.
Of course, this goes against the 'States' part of the 'United States', but then again, the reputation of the fairness of the US elections is currently seen as a bit lower than that of Uganda.
Re:Yes/No/Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter, you can't discriminate against the homeless, period. (Duh.) They are, for the most part, citizens, too, and therefore, have the right to vote. If it comes down to discriminating against the homeless or figuring something else out, well, we'll just have to figure something else out. Or else next time, maybe we'll just discriminate against you.
Why? Does anyone else remember the "good old days" when the people in this country didn't have to show thier "papers" just to exercise their basic rights?
I hate to burst your bubble, but I run across people with the nutty idea of keeping certain undesirable U.S. citizens from voting a lot. Wake up, Sherlock, illiterate people have just as much right to choose who represents them as literate people do.
It sure would be personally convenient for me if the country was run by people who catered to people just like me. Unfortuantely, I don't get that luxury, and neither do you. The purpose of government is to represent all of the people: black, red, yellow and white; male and female; smart and stupid; rich and poor; everyone.
Re:Yes/No/Maybe (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree that fraud is a problem common to both parties. But historically, it has been worst in the party in power, because they have more power to cover it up. You can argue all you like about the president of Diebold's actual meaning, but the fact is that no one in his position should ever say anything like that, and a company who's president says things like that, and who's machines have been proven to be insecure, should never be allowed anywhere near an election. That's just common sense, and it applies to either side.
Democrats were caught cheating long ago, there haven't been any democratic vote scandals on the same scale for years. If you ca refute this with evidence, I invite you to do so. This story does a good job of showing what the Republicans have done, if you are so sure the Demcrats have operated on the same scale, why don't you provide some references? Otherwise, it's just your opinion, isn't it?
Do the Democrats still cheat? Sure. Do they do it as much as the Republicans? Probably not. Is that why they lost the election? Partly, but their snooze-o-rama candidate probably did far more to lose the election for them than their opponants ever could. As a democrat, I can admit that. Can you, as a Republican admit that perhaps this cheating isn't as bipartisan as you make it out to be? If not, pony up some references or we will all know how much your opinion is really worth.
Re:Yes/No/Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
Hogwash.
"Axis of evil" is rhetoric, just as much now as it was then. Accurate? Maybe, maybe not. The point is that it's just political rhetoric, not a conspiracy theory.
Axis of evil is an implication of a conspiracy on the part of the members of said group. It is very much a conspiracy theory in that it implies they are conspiring to do us wrong. Is it rhetoric? Sure, but it is also meant to get people thinking in terms of the axis plotting evil against them.
The often repeated claim, which you could call rhetoric, but which is also clearly a conspiracy theory, is that "liberals want to destroy the country". The people who espouse this will offer "evidence" to their audience to support it. They, in essence, offer factoids about "liberals" and then fill in the gaps as to their meaning.
But perhaps I'm wrong in my semantic use, but please, humor me, and explain to me what is the difference between a group of partisans advancing ideas that another group of partisans are out to destroy america, that a group of nations are out to do evil to us, etc... how are these really different in the effects they have on those that believe it, than the conspiracy theories are?
As for the rest of your stuff, it's all irrelevant to the point of my post.
You are asking for the villification of Bush to stop and you are saying that you view those who believe in "conspiracy theories" as a bigger threat to our system than government. On the former, I disagree, he has reaped what he's sown, on the later, I somewhat agree. Our system is not in a good place when over 1/3rd of the people believe not only that the government could take part(either actively or passively) in a terrible thing like 9/11, but actually did... that is not a good place for our system to be.
But, when you constantly lie, and lie, and lie, what is the logical result of that? People don't trust your word. People don't trust your character. People don't trust you.
This administration has lied, either knowingly or unknowingly on the WMD issue, the secret prisons, the wiretapping, etc... and your post about what you think Iraq was about, if it is indeed true, is a very good example of the people being told lies to hide true intentions(conspiracy theory?). If that's what it was about, then the president should have been forthcoming with our true goals there from day one. To suggest otherwise, is to compromise the integrity of our democratic republic, an integrity that is built on the trust the people have of the government. If the government can't trust the people with the truth, then the people can't trust the government to do their will, and then the conspiracy theories start to take hold. It's cause and effect.
Right or wrong, whether you believe it or not, Clinton lost a lot of clout and respect for himself and the office with the great many Americans when he did what he did
And it's amazing to me that you are sitting here telling me how Clinton lost clout for his lies, while seemingly unwilling to see that Bush has lost clout for his lies too. It really doesn't matter whether you think he deserves to lose clout for his lies, the fact is, he has lost clout and his lies are the reason(whether you think they are "good" lies or not). For the record, I supported Clinton's impeachment at the time, and I would again under the same circumstances. That was all irrelevant to my point.
And on that John Kerry bit...
Don't bother quoting John Kerry to me. I hold both parties in equal contempt. Quoting one liar to justify another means very little to me. I will say this, I don't subscribe to most of the conspiracy theories. In fact, I share a good deal of your concern, but rather than trying to VILLANIZE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE who believe them(which you are clearly trying to do), I see cause and effect at work. A deceptive government does not deserve to be believed. Whether they intentionally decieved or no
Re:Yes/No/Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
The parties aren't getting wider apart in their policy, they are simply getting more divisive in the marketing. In practice the two parties are more similar in ideology than ever. Certainly they're more similar in methodology than ever - politics has ceased to be about ideas or leadership and has become about marketing, focus groups, and push button issues. The key to political campaigns in this day and age is analyse your potential voters and find whatever issues have emotional ties. Usually those issues are trivial ones because ultimately it's the little things that we encounter in day to day life that irk us, it's the things that often don't matter in the grand scheme that tend to piss us off in that deep emotional way that is being exploited by politicians. Once the political strategists have gotten a decent list of irrelevant but emotionally charged issues they use them as convenient push buttons to try and herd people in the direction they want. But they've gotten so obsessed with all the trivial issues themselves that they don't even have a direction anymore and are, ultimately, themselves driven by whatever helps them push the electorates buttons. Mostly that means cash for marketing campaigns. Both major parties in the US have become parties of corporate control. Sure they have their hand picked issues to bicker over, and certainly those are highly emotionally charged issues so that they're highly divisive, but ultimately they re both selling the same thing.
So let's repeat that: the parties haven't gotten more extremist over the last few decades. Rather they have simply gotten a lot better at mining the public psyche to find out what particular issues and bullet points currently carry the greatest emotional weight, and at focussing all discussion on those bullet points. Instead of considering the powerpoint style rhetoric on the hot button issues of the day, try comparing actual legislative records - what actually gets done - and compare that to legislative records of the past: In practical terms the two parties are more similar than ever.
Re:Yes/No/Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
So Britain, Canada, Italy, Germany, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, etc. are all left-wing exteremists. Ok...
Gun control (other then hitting what your aiming at).
Six years of Republican rule, and we still have gun control. If this is such an extreme left-wing issue, how come they haven't done something about it?
BTU taxes, Koyoto treaty.
Actually, these are economic issues, not liberal: BTU taxes and Kyoto treaty is about paying for what you use. There is economic value to dumping your trash (waste, exhaust, etc) without having to pay for it. The above is about measuring and billing for what you dump.
World court. Loss of sovernty to the UN.
Sorry dude, but you're drinking some serious bunker koolaid there.
Re:LIARS (Score:5, Insightful)
I reminded someone else that apparently didn't read the cited article in the grandparent posting, but it's worth repeating:
Rice made her comment about not postponing the elections in 2004, in response to concerns about discussion of what to do if terrorists tried to disrupt elections. This was shortly after the train bombings in Madrid, a few days before national elections in Spain.
You can choose not to believe her. But you cannot dispute the fact that the 2004 elections were held.
As the original poster cautioned: cool the rhetoric. The facts are making you look like a fool.
Re:Yes/No/Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember - Hitler was elected before he stopped holding elections, and many of his other techniques are in use today. Using fear to keep us in line, claiming we are always minutes away from being attacked. Casting political opponents and outspoken citizens as being unpatriotic simply because they disagree. Starting wars under false pretense to keep the military growing at a rate that is able to sustain a police state. I especially like how Bush used the word "Nazi" this past friday as a general term to describe people who are fighting him in congress. I've never seen a blacker pot or kettle. Hermann Göring has a famous quote citing the best way to steal and hold political power - it's a good read, and every single thing in it is currently being done by the Bush administration. Are we going to learn from history before it becomes too late to do anything about it?
Slow news day indeed... (Score:5, Informative)
Bzzt! (Score:5, Informative)
KIcking up an ant's nest (Score:5, Insightful)
Democrats versus Republicans
Creationism versus evolution
Open software versus proprietary
These are all sure to create vicious back-and-forth arguments that'll put the responses over that magical 300 number.
Re:KIcking up an ant's nest (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:KIcking up an ant's nest (Score:5, Funny)
I think the reason for that should be pretty self-evident. Just look at the left's policies from the perspective of the average Slashdot geek:
Welfare: Because working takes time away from completing my tier 17 class set
No war: Because I can only hit stuff in Counterstrike
No warrant-less surveillance: Because not everyone in my private collection is 18
Anti-trust legislation: Because Microsoft needs to die
Abortion: Because if I ever manage to find a girl that'll sleep with me, I sure don't want to have to worry about multiplication errors
Gay marriage: Because I'll probably never find that girl anyway
Need I go on?
Re:KIcking up an ant's nest (Score:5, Insightful)
Or is it simply more Democratic "free speech and tolerance, unless you disagree with us, then it's theft/fraud/racist/sexist/facist"
Like the ABC movie "The Path To 9/11"?? Yeah, threatening to revoke a network's broadcast license because you disagree with the content of their programming isn't censorship.
Ooh, a political flame war (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously though, Diebold machines are a joke. What I don't understand is why widespread vandalism of these machines hasn't been done.
The exploits are, from what I understand, incredibly simple.
Unfortunately, I have a feeling that even if Osama bin Laden won the 2008 presidential election based on votes from machines, it would just be blamed on "terrorist hackers" and no actual accountability would be implemented.
Then, 2 years later, the American public would go back to voting on the same buggy machines, as oblivious as usual. Nothing would of have changed.
WAAAAAA!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Plagiarism (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Plagiarism (Score:5, Informative)
Too bad you missed the rebuttal [salon.com] supporting Kennedy and showing that the naysayers are the ones who are full of it.
Bad excuses (Score:5, Insightful)
Because one or the other party did it in the distant past does not make it okay. Technology gave the current ruling party the ability to subvert our election process in a broad and coordinated fashion not available historically.
The bottom line is a lot of good people fought and died to uphold the ideal of one person, one vote and take pride that we run honest elections. The current administration tramples on the Constitution and stacks government agencies with unqualified partisans. They've looted our national treasury and gotten three thousand of our people killed in an ideological war in Iraq. Not only should they be impeached, but if evidence of rigging elections come to light it should undo all that Bush has done in office, including his Supreme Court appointments.
I think Bush lost 2000 and 2004 and that represents a greater threat to our country than terrorism. If the right wing wasn't so shamelessly hypocritical they'd be rioting in the streets for Bush's impeachment. The fact they're lending tacit support to this fraud only demonstrates their lack of character.
Gotta love a good conspiracy theory! (Score:5, Insightful)
We had a fun 2004 election up here in Washington state. At the end of polling, the Republican Dino Rosse had defeated Democrat Gregoire by ~200 votes - so close that a recount was mandated. After one recount, Rossi was still ahead by about 60 votes. The Dems paid for a second recount, during which multiple small groups of uncounted ballots from highly-Democratic King County kept turning up. Gregoire won that recount, and is now our (rather uninspiring) governor.
Thing is, this really looked like a rigged election; and a lot of Republicans still think it was. But looking at the various pieces, my personal conclusion is just that the King County Elections department is largely incompetent, and has been for a while - it just hasn't come up because we've never had this close an election. Ballots left uncounted inside of voting machines; absentee ballots that get stored away, uncounted; ballots from overseas military people that were wrongly disqualified... it's all easily covered by incompetence.
I have no doubt that fraud occurs; but I also don't doubt it runs both ways.
Another other issue that everyone conveniently ignores, of course, is counting error. Simply put, the likely error in any given count of N random items (as long as N is sufficiently large) is 1/sqrt(N). With a really close election, you simply can't know who the true winner is.
No one will believe the it's unthinkable (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not.
Seriously, read the article. This isn't just about a few dirty tricks, although there are plenty of those. It isn't about a few thousand votes, like Florida was. It's about outright, large-scale ballot stuffing, hundreds of thousands of votes, fraudulent manipulation of voter rolls, and deliberate sabotage by the Republican secretary of state (who was also the co-chair of President Bush's re-election committee).
It's an extraordinary claim, which does indeed require extraordinary evidence, but the evidence IS there. But no one's willing to look at the naked emperor. Everyone made up their mind about whether Bush was good or bad a long time ago, but now the Bush-supporters have no defense but to close their eyes and plug their ears. And for the most part, they're doing exactly that.
Why is this so hard? (Score:5, Insightful)
Evidence of Democratic fraud does not invalidate evidence of Republican fraud.
It is not "OK" if both sides cheated. Evidence that both sides cheated re-inforces the conclusion that the election was invalid.
Why do people keep doing that? countering accusations of fraud with counter-accusations of fraud? It does not follow from that argument that the election result was an accurate tally of voter intentions, quite the contrary. Are people seriously suggesting that we make an assumption that the level of fraud was "probably about even repub/dem" so we don't need to recount?
I also don't understand why there is any opposition to counting ballots.
If results are very close and/or if anyone doubts the validity of the results I can think of no legitimate reason to refuse to count the paper ballots.
Except one: cost. I have a hard time believing that americans are willing to forgo double-checking their election results because it would cost too much.
Am I the only one here who thinks that fighting to stop a ballot recount should be a criminal offence?
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
My comment is this: so what? The president cheated. It seems pretty clear that something fishy was going on in the 2004 election. I am from Ohio, I saw as our shameful Secretary of State (possibly our future governor) stood by his man and took 3rd party candidates off the ballot to make it easier for his master to get re-elected. As much as I didn't want Bush re-elected, I accepted the "truth" like everyone else did. I was even suspiscious. But what's going to happen? Is the Republican controlled Congress going to investigate? Is the Republican appointed Supreme Court going to invalidate the election two years after the fact? Is an armed militia going to march down to the White House and give control back to the people?
No. None of this is going to happen. As much as our commander in chief goes around waving his flag and talking about how we are "spreading freedom" across the globe, we have lost our freedom in this country. Even if this article is 100% true, nothing will ever come of it. You know why? There are two ways of dealing with those who dissent. One way is to kill them all. Stalin did this, and it worked for a while, but he tends to be frowned upon by history. The other way is to just ignore them. What are they going to do? Post an angry article in their blogs? Write a letter to their congressman? Write and host a satirical fake news show? Even worse, are they going to show the fat cats in Washington and run for office themselves? At the end of the day, nothing will happen. Don't think that the Democrats are any better. The illusion of politics is that you actually have a choice. You don't. All the people in power just take turns passing it around to each other. They pretend to disagree about the issues, but they all have one thing in common. They all want to wear the crown and carry the sceptre. The most devious ones make it to the top, and the others end up getting jobs as high paid lobbyists or fade out of existance.
So here is what I'm choosing to do. I'm not stupid enough to fight the system. It's like swimming against a rip tide. You swim and swim against the current, and you never get anywhere. Eventually it takes you out to sea, and you die. Instead, I'm going to make the best life I can for myself and my family. I stand up for my rights where I can. I write my congressman, and read about the issues, but I don't fool myself into thinking I can make a difference. Most importantly, I put blind faith in the idea that what goes around comes around. I am not a member of an organized religion, but I'm not arrogant enough to think I know how the universe works. I think there are other facets to our existance that we can't even begin to comprehend. I believe that in some way, in some form, the people who do evil in this world face subsequent consequences in the next. I strive to be the best person I can in this one, and hopefully I will be rewarded. If not, hey, at least I didn't waste my whole life on this Earth stressed out about something I can't do anything about. Sometimes, the blue pill isn't all that bad.
The Republican attitude here stinks (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
"According to the exit poll, Kerry should have received sixty-seven percent of the vote in this precinct. Yet the certified tally gave him only thirty-eight percent. The statistical odds against such a variance are just shy of one in 3 billion."
This is something to be VERY concerned about, not to be brushed aside with some facile quip.
The article also mentions the fact that the Democrats don't seem to be pushing the issue of electorial fraud, which rather puts the lie to all the posters claiming that this is about Democrats not accepting defeat. The reality is, that had this election been held in a third world country, we would all be decrying it as a case of clear electorial tampering and demanding a fresh election with neutral observers in place.
When you fail to care whether the electorial process was tampered with, you fail to care about democracy at all. What's more important? GW winning or democracy itself? To me, that's a no brainer, but clearly that's not the case for many of the Republican supporters here and as a member of TheRestOfTheWorld, that's a real worry for me. You need to sort your priorities out.
Read the Freeman and Bleifuss book (Score:5, Informative)
I have to say that I think the situation is even worse than I thought it was... after the 2004 election, I had the impression that the people who wanted to believe that it was legit at least had some wiggle room, because it seemed like there was some disagreement about the meaning of the exit polls: there was that study at Berkeley that found a discrepancy, but then the MIT study chimed in saying there wasn't, so who do you believe?
The thing is, the MIT guys later admitted that they screwed up: they used the "corrected" data, not the originally reported exit poll results. The media never reported that development, and I missed it myself...
Freeman and Bleifuss do a very thorough analysis of the various theories that have been presented to cover the discrepancy, and none of them seem to hold up. It's difficult to see how anyone could read this book and not conclude that phrasing the title as a question was excessively polite...
And it's impossible to see how you can come away from this situation without seeing that we badly need reform of the electoral system -- a paper trail that can actually be recounted would be a nice start, eh? Even if you don't believe the 2004 election was "stolen", how do you know the next one isn't going to be?
And anyone who speaks out against that point, is speaking out against Democracy itself, and needs to take a good long look in the mirror to think about what kind of world they want to live in.
(The "corrected" data by the way, is by definition "corrected" so that the discrepancy goes away. So what good is it? Why do people call it "corrected" and not, oh, say, "fudged"?)
Re:Maybe it is time to let this go. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe it is time to let this go. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
The end result of your statement is circular logic at its finest:
If you have proof that's valid ...
If you already have the proof, why investigate?
The simple fact is that more than half the population feels the election was stolen - an investigation is needed, even if it wasn't - to restore faith in the system.
Re:Maybe it is time to let this go. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All I need to see.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Argue with the argument, not the arguer.
Re:All I need to see.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps, but why have exit polls been so amazingly accurate in the past - and now, when anomalies turn up, the exit polls don't match for those places where weird shit was going on, like voters being turned away from the polls, or machines malfunctioning?
On a related note, I love the duality of various far-left Democrats,
That doesn't make any sense. The terms "far left" and "Democrat" are mutually exlusive. Democrats are typically centrist, many of them increasingly right-leaning.
howling at the same time that the current administration is completely incompetent, while at the same time accusing them of managing to conspire to rig the election.
I don;t see the contradiction. They are incompetent at running the country, because they spend so much time on their corrupt self-serving schemes. Same with most bad politicians, of whatever persuasion
If they can't keep secret prisons secret, what's the chance that they'd keep an election conspiracy secret?
They can't, and they haven't. Anyone with their eyes open knows there's dodgy stuff going on. Of course, that doesn't mean most Americans care. Hell, we KNOW, for sure about hundreds of screw-ups and lies, and somehow Bush hasn't been impeached yet. They openly come out and advocate torture, and it seems nobody cares. Maybe it would be a different matter if the President got a Blow Job. Seems that harmless personal infidelity is evil in the eyes of the voters, but corruption on a massive scale is perfectly OK. People very quickly forget. How many people really even remember what happened at Abu Ghraib? How many people remember the "anthrax attacks" and who it was that was investigated for those?
If people don't even remember such major events and atrocities, they aren't going to remember much about the fiascos in Ohio and Florida. It's basically been revealed that Diebold machines are easily hackable, and the people that run the company have partisan intentions. Where is all the outrage? Why isn't that issue being covered every day on the national news networks? Instead, all you get is celebrity gossip and talking points about Democrats "giving aid to the enemy" or being "terrorist sympathizers" and other such nonsense.
So it's wrong because it was in the Rolling Stone? (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were to put my tinfoil hat on for a second
In fact, this has me thinking now... We may constitute a particularly difficult demographic to brainwash for exactly that reason - geeks don't take anyone but other geeks seriously and that means if you don't bow to geek religious beliefs (such as science and her language), you have very little chance of adjusting our opinions. If there are enough of you and you push buttons fast enough, you might be able to sling your comments around and mod-up the memes of your cohorts, but you will have little chance of making any difference to the thought process of the readership here.
Ok, tinfoil hat off... We geeks are probably just as gullible as everyone else and even easier to control... Just promise us dates if we go along with you...
Re:Washington State