Was the 2004 Election Stolen? 1425
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."
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
To be fair, though, I've heard that about every president since I've been old enough to know what a presidential term was. At this point I'd be surprised if there weren't people thinking that toward the end of a given president's tenure. Happily, it's always a very small minority of extreme left-wingers (the Republican President is going to declare martial law or some nationa
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
LIARS (Score:3, Interesting)
FACT: Condoleezza Rice was the top National Security official with President Bush at the July 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa. There, "U.S. officials were warned that Islamic terrorists might attempt to crash an airliner" into the summit, prompting officials to "close the airspace over Genoa and station antiaircraft guns at the city's airport." [Sources: Los Angeles Times,
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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?
Re:Yes/No/Maybe (Score:4, Insightful)
The right-wing believed Clinton would do the same thing in the late 1990's. Of course, it didn't happen. And it's about as likely to happen this time.
But, they viewed the 2000 fiasco in Florida through the same lens: for every person that believes that Bush stole that election, there is someone on the opposite side that believes that Gore was narrowly prevented from stealing the election. There is plenty of "evidence" for both, if you carefully choose what to believe.
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.
I agree that the polarization is getting worse, but I don't think the Internet is to blame. I believe the traditional coalitions of "left" and "right" that once wanted similar things (and differed only on the details) are drifting further apart as the extremists take control of the respective major parties. In the past (past 30-40 years), it typically happened to only one party and the other captured the "center".
But now, the center is fed up and stays home, leaving the party faithful to battle it out. And the parties need something to motivate their followers, and aren't above stretching the truth a little to do it.
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:4, Insightful)
"Of course, it didn't happen. And it's about as likely to happen this time."
One is spoken of in terms of a certainty, the other in terms of a probability.
Nary a shred of evidence, not even an argument.
Just: "Probably not." "I don't think so." "I don't know, and it's not worth checking."
Fascinating.
You can get away with anything, when people think like this.
I think it's good that you can cast off concerns about the world for a time, hole up in yourself, and so on. But I wouldn't go around encouraging others to do so.
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:Yes/No/Maybe (Score:4, Informative)
They have a crushingly burdomesome social welfare system which rewards people to STOP working. They also have a very active Communist party. Yup, Commie, hammer and sickle on a red flag. Take a look at who holds the highest political offices in Italy. Income and business taxes in Italy are about twice that of the United States.
I've been in Italy for 3-4 months every year for the past 10 years, seen this with my own eyes. Every manufacturer I represent from Italy is trying to move to the U.S. because Europe is so stagnant and the welfare systems crush all incentives. Never mind their fears of the Muslim invasion (8x the birth rate of the "native" population) and the EU regulating virtually everything. Great Britain isn't that much better, actually.
Sorry, bud, those most certainly ARE very socialist, left-wing, countries who have crippled their economies. Granted, they're not all as bad as the French who decided it's illegal to fire unproductive workers or the Germans who have all but destroyed their industry with welfare programs and now farm out huge amounts of manufacturing to Czech and Polish factories. They've chosen to be socialist and destroy incentive to produce.
Do those countries have jack-booted secret police in the Stalinist model? No.
How your post got modded to 5 is beyond me, unless whoever modded you up has as little familiarity with economics as you do.
Re:Yes/No/Maybe (Score:5, Informative)
Um, it's called outsourcing, the US is a world leader at it, and it's hardly a socialist practice - quite the opposite, really.
"Loss of sovereignty?" (Score:5, Informative)
In case you haven't noticed, there have been several "State's Rights" issues during the Bush Interregnum. In all these cases, the Bush administration has come down solidly in favor of increased federal authority.
In one of the more egregious cases, the Federal Government is in favor [delawareonline.com] of redrawing the boundaries of the state of Delaware so that a large foreign-owned oil company [bp.com] can construct a LNG pier serving the state of New Jersey. In that case, the Bush administration is actually championing the "rights" of British Petroleum, with collusion from corrupt New Jersey authorities, to override the demonstrated will of the citizenry of the US state of Delaware.
When will US conservatives realize they've been betrayed by a pack of radical facists [wikipedia.org], who favor any corporation from any nation over the rights of any individual anywhere?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The question you have to ask is WHY? Why are people now so inclined to believe in "conspiracy theories" and distrust the government on this level now? Is it really just because of the internet? Could it have anything to do with the fact that this
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"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.
As for WMD, to requote something I've said before, which applies here:
To quote something I've said before, but which applies here:
[w]hile I agree that there isn't going to be an Islamic ICBM delivering a nuclear weapon anytime soon, there were *hundreds of tons* of WMD unaccounted for in Iraq, post-1998. The in
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
While true, There has never been wholesale, systemic manipulation of the electoral process on this scale. Previous acts of fraud tended to be minor and localised, mainly due to an overzaealous member of one or the other parties. The irregularities referrenced in the 200 and 2004 elections, however, appear to be a well planned and concerted effort by the extreme right wing to ensure thier a
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
In 2000 and again in 2004 the elections in a swing state were supervised by one candidate's bleeding *campaign manager*. That lethally toxic level of conflict of interest may have happened before, but it can't have been often, and it's always unforgivable.
>we have people who literally believe something will cause a suspension of the 2008 elections, allowing Bush to remain in power.
Simple fact, not conspiracy theo
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Either way, the humor of Ohio and Floridas minority district problems are that they were mostly run by Democrats. Sure these minorities might have been disenfranchised, but it was out of incompitance and not nessesarily some scheme.
Re:Yes/No/Maybe (Score:4, Insightful)
No, counting ballots doesn't have to be hard. What's extremely hard is:
- Making sure everyone only votes once
- Keeping the entire process anonymous
If you only had to to either instead of both, it would be a piece of cake. Unfortunately, having to do both is hard, and with each and every county running their own elections for tens of millions of people, all with different aims, populations, budgets, and so on, it's a lot harder than you think.
This isn't even about paper versus electronic (because we can make 100% trusted electronic systems, with a permanent voter-verified audit trail being present - but even with a paper trail, a lot of people seriously believe there will still be ways to rig the elections...and beyond that, there will still be claims of long lines, voter threats, and so on). It's about the intrinsic difficulties in doing a one-vote election while maintaining anonymity, and disallowing any external entity to find out who any particular person voted for.
Remember, too, that the voting acts (e.g., HAVA) were designed to allow fair and uniform access to ballots and polling places, while taking advantage of streamlining things with technology - something we have done in every other sector of society. Unfortunately, any federal, state, or local initiatives recommending or mandating electronic voting machines are incomplete without a permanent voter-verified paper trail. With that piece, it doesn't matter how complex it is, whether or not the systems are open source or proprietary, or anything else. But even with a paper trail, there will still be the increasing calls of fraud and disenfranchisement, as people who want to believe that will continue to organize and reinforce each other via the internet. Yes, some of the fraud and disenfranchisement is real. But there are people, as I said, who will continue to believe that any Republican victory is stolen, as if Democrats can't game the system (and make no mistake, they do).
I also don't know what you're talking about when you say that the "GOP" wants a complicated system, when the voting initiatives that mandated and extended things like electronic voting were either solidly Democratic or bipartisan.
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: (Score:3, Informative)
As for why this story has been trotted
Re:Yes/No/Maybe (Score:4, Insightful)
You'll concede that both parties commit election fraud via various means, but still want to think of what one party does as "worse".
This is exactly the kind of problem I'm talking about.
I'll answer your question: NEITHER is "worse". I'm not talking about it from a scientific or statistical or emotional standpoint. They're both bad, and they're both dirty tricks.
And for what it's worth, I don't believe that people are flat-out denied their rights to vote en masse. I believe that there are hundreds of examples of isolated incidents, and also things like people believing legitimately long lines or legitimate road construction are actually parts of a carefully coordinated conspiracy to prevent people from voting, and the like. Humorously, where people claim the most "disenfranchisement" are in Democratically-controlled counties. This is a county issue, and ones that Democratic and bipartisan initiatives mandating electronic voting machines was ironically intended to solve.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
90,000 > 100, even for large values of 100.
The rest of your logic makes no sense: of course Dem precincts complain about disenfranchisement in states with Republican-controlled voting systems (hello, Ohio, Florida).
Tell you what--I'll agree that dirty electioneer tricks are a wash when I see both parties having results that are statistically unexpecte
Re:Yes/No/Maybe (Score:4, Informative)
I shouldn't do that, but let's dissect this troll.
Like making 100,000 on a 1,000 cattle futures investment (where can I get a deal like that!);
Stupidest. Conspiracy. Ever. First of all, the cattles future market was insane at that time. Hillary did, indeed, make that much money. In fact, she had to have made that money, you can't just magically get money out of a futures market. What she shouldn't have been able to do is trade on margin like she did. But a) she didn't break that rule, her broker did, and b) that rule is to keep problem from happening when people can't cover losses, which Hillary Clinton certanly could have done. Of course, all this was in 1979.
egregiously firing the WH travel office staff w/o any justification whatever;
Um, you mean the White House Travel staff that is the personal staff of the president, and traditionally gets replaced at each new administration? The travel staff that was already under investigation for misdeed done under a previous administration?
supposedly lost law firm billing records miraculously showing up in the WH living quarters year later;
You mean the billing records that...um...revealed nothing? (Why you think it's amazing that personal records of the president would be in the presidental living quarters is a bit beyond me.)
Webster Hubble in jail;
Okay, now I'm confused. You think he shouldn't be? He defrauded people and evaded taxes! I understand, though if you're saying it sucked that the Clintons misjudged him as trustworthy. (OTOH, don't start 'Clinton was friends with criminals'. You know the expression about what people in glass houses shouldn't do.)
Craig Livingstone(!);
Yup. Filegate sucked, and the Clintons might have been involved. And now I must point out 'glass houses' again with the fact the current president is wiretapping whoever he wants to.
a president lying in front of a grand jury about a stupid affair w/ an intern during the same timeframe as our embassies and barracks are bombed in the ME and Africa by the folks who would eventually take down the WTC;
Yes, because logically if he'd been telling the truth, that...no, wait, he'd still been questioned. Well, surely if he hadn't been doing anything illegal he wouldn't have been questioned...no, wait, he wasn't doing anything illegal before testifying. What was the claim again? The president was distracted by people making random and eventually disproven accusations against him? Well, that's hardly his fault, is it? You can complaing about The Lie, but The Lie is not a cause of the distraction.
illegally obtaining FBI records of the majority of republican lawmakers to dig up embarrasing dirt (unreal, and you guys piss and moan about wiretapping a few arabs with terrorist ties. the fucking gall!).
Yes, because we know for a fact that's all Bush is doing, because the process is so open.
Maybe if your buddy Bill had been more concerned about national security as opposed to getting his cock sucked 3000 people wouldn't have died.
Are we talking about the same Bill here? Because the Bill I know did do something about national security...he arrested the WTC bombers, for one thing. He repeatedly went after bin Laden, although at the time that was called 'wagging the dog' to try to distract everyone from his multiple murders or whatever. He warned the next president, he even made a plan for the invasion of Afganistan.
And interesting universe you live in where a blowjob is too time consuming, especially when you consider that Bush has now put in more vacation time than any two term president in history, and still has two years to go.
Maybe if Al Fucking Gore hadn't contested the election the GWB administration would have been put together in the normal timeframe, and we'd have been a couple of months up on the disaster of a National Security policy that w
Slow news day indeed... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Slow news day indeed... (Score:4, Informative)
- They screwed up.
- The early numbers released were inaccurate due to bad gender participation weighting factors. (the end-of-day results were actually much closer to the actuals than most people realize)
- There was no difference in exit poll errors between touch screen and other methods."Some have suggested that the exit poll data could be used as evidence of voter fraud in
the 2004 Election by showing error rates were higher in precincts with touch screen and
optical scan voting equipment. Our evaluation does not support this hypothesis. In our
exit poll sample overall, precincts with touch screen and optical scan voting have
essentially the same error rates as those using punch card systems. In the larger urban
areas these systems had lower WPEs than punch card precincts."
- Kerry supporters were more likely to participate and complete an exit poll
- strong correllation between the age of the poll volunteer and the pollee's willingness to participate
I haven't given any credence to the notion that the election was stolen since I read this [nytimes.com] piece in the NYtimes. It follows Dem operatives in Ohio on election day in 2004. It documents their intial happiness and as they spend the day trying to get the vote out (for the Dems) and increasing nervousness as they see more and more indications that the Republicans simply had a stronger get-out-the-vote campaign. (Read it all - whatever your political leanings, it is very educational as to the lengths the parties will go to try to swing the vote up to the last second).Re:Slow news day indeed... (Score:4, Insightful)
That being said, if people really want change, they'll vote Libertarian. Democrats are the same as Republicans, except they take their money from different interest groups.
Bzzt! (Score:5, Informative)
such an intellectual source (Score:3, Insightful)
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a left-leaning site. I have NEVER seen a right-leaning article approved here. Ever.
It does drive traffic though, so they're still making money, which is why they do it in the first place.
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.
BFD (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Ooh, a political flame war (Score:4, Informative)
I'm far more frightened by voter stupidity than election fraud, but would like to see widespread cracking of Diebold machines because that is the only way the public will exert pressure for change.
Theoretical exploitation of teh mysterious boxes is one thing, but grossly hacking an election would get the attention of the average tard on the street.
WAAAAAA!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Cry Cry Cry (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cry Cry Cry (Score:4, Informative)
American politics has become based on fear. Not so much the policies because in the end politicians will only use fear to manipulate the public in order to get (re)elected. But after they get elected they go back to the normal business of corruption and cronyism. In the end it's our fault, we let it happen resulting from our own ignorance and apathy.
Re:Cry Cry Cry (Score:4, Insightful)
(He can best be considered a centerist, but he's more conservative than clinton.. a democrat who friggin deregulated several industries for christ sake!)
Ever since reagan we've had center, right, and wackjob hard-right.
Both bush's were wackjob hard-right, reagan was between right and wackjob hard-right, clinton was centerist, and kerry was at best center-right.
You don't want "middle of the road", and if you consider right "middle of the road" than you need to stop watching fox news and listening to hannity and re-evaluate your outlook on the world.
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.
Re:Gotta love a good conspiracy theory! (Score:4, Informative)
While in many instances you can think of counting as having a poissonian distributed "counting error" (the uncertainty of which goes like sqrt(N), not 1/sqrt(N)), one actually has to justify whether such a model applies before using. It doesn't seem clear that it does apply in this case. If what were concerned with is the number of recorded votes for a particular candidate (arising from a number of actual votes for a candidate), then what we'd be interested in is the number of errors. If there's a constant error rate (meaning voting errors are a poissonian stochastic process), then the mean number of errors would be proportional to N rather than sqrt(N), but the important point is that the proportionality constant could be arbitrarily small, depending on the reliability of the voting method. Now it's true that the standard deviation of the number of errors would be equal to sqrt(N), but that really isn't relevant to the question at hand. In short, there's no a priori estimate of the number of voting errors without some model for how those errors occur, and there's no reason to think it should go as sqrt(N).
Now, if you were viewing voting totals as a poll of populous at large, then assuming the sample was large but still small compared to the total population, you might image that the vote total would approximate the will of the populous with a sqrt(N) counting error; however, this reasoning is invalid for two reasons: the proportional of the population is not that small (though still, perhaps, smaller than we'd like), and the sample of people that turnout to vote is not random, and therefore not represenative. In any case, the vote is not a poll but is supposed to reflect the will of the people who actually votes, so again this sqrt(N) counter error is not relevent.
I think there is some sense in determining what the error rates are on voting systems (perhaps this is already done) and what things are, statistically, too close to call, but you simply can't say that was the case in Washington or anywhere else without more evidence.
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.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
STATISTICS, not hypothesis (Score:3, Interesting)
You can trash this article all you want, but if you are a math-fearing geek (as you should be to have a slashdot membership card), then you simply cannot argue with the conclusion of this article. Being a republican or a democrat does not allow you to magically modify mathematical certainties. Personally, I am appalled at the number of people trashing this article because it is written by JFK Jr or published in the Rolling Stones. Use your geek sense! Geeks dont think like that... So who are you guys?
Mentioning Diebold is like mentioning Hitler (Score:4, Interesting)
Diebold machines were only used in two counties in Ohio - Hardin and Lucas - and in both counties, these were optical scan machines. The total population of these two counties is less than 500,000, or about 1.5x the vote margin in the entire state. Couple that with the fact that Lucas County went heavily in favor of Kerry in that election, and we see that implicating Diebold in improprieties in Ohio's 2004 election is a load of crap. Most left-wing noisemakers have the good sense not to implicate Diebold directly, instead trying to make a tenuous connection to the former Diebold CEO's comments about winning the election for Bush, and letting suspicion and paranoia take care of the rest. But never let the truth stand in the way of political propaganda on Slashdot!
Diebold machines were used in about half the state's counties in 2005, so if you want to rail about that, go right ahead.
I'll speak my mind. I've got karma to burn. (Score:4, Insightful)
If Slashdot is going to be linking to Robert Kennedy, Jr's writings, it better also link to those of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore, Al Franken, and Bill O'Reilly. Frankly, I'd rather Slashdot stay away from all of them.
I wish the article itself could be modded down to -1 Flamebait.
My Governor stole the election. (Score:3, Informative)
This is like the Democrats of the Chicago era.
Half of the voters lose (Score:4, Interesting)
In a parliamentary democracy, what would happen is probably that the largest few parties would form a coalition that held a majority in parliament. They would be in power, but the parliament would still have a say. This way, there's a much closer representation of the various wishes of the voting public.
"Democracy is the mistaken belief that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time." It's a nice quote, and especially applicable to systems in where there's only one winner (e.g. the winner-take-all system in the US).
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?
Dead on! MOD PARENT UP! (Score:4, 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.
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.
You know, with all of these fcts in mind.. (Score:4, Interesting)
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"?)
To the point, and not so briefly: (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes. So was 2000. So, also, will 2008 be stolen.
Get rid of those damned voting machines, now. If the Republicans didn't know for th most part that the voting machines were being manipulated, they know now, after so many studies have shown how to do it. Even if you think no one stole an election using those damned things before, they will be stolen now. They've step-by-step instructions. How can they possibly stop themselves? You think a little vote change is going to present moral problems to the party that gave us an Iraqi invasion, an executive who claims he has authority to cancel the constitution, 14,000 people kidnapped into secret prisons, that gave us Swift-boating and Ken Starr?
Why just the Republicans? I've noodled it for years now (soapbox time) and I've narrowed it down to this: business morality. All seem to be profoundly religious, seem to anyway, and profess godly morality and all that. BUT. It's a party of businessmen, whereas Democrats tend to be a populist party. Businessmen, have you ever noticed, no matter their private morality, shut off the Ten Commandments as soon as they're on the clock? Lying, cheating, and stealing, even killing, is okay if you do it in the name of winning. This businessman's exemption to common ideas of morality is overwhelmingly present in the Republican party's situational ethics. Lying isn't just a necessity, it's practically a sport with them. There's so much BS pouring forth per second on Fox News that the heads are strangling, trying not to break out laughing in wonder at how much crap they can say without losing any professional credibilty.
Unfortunately, business's preocupation with fibbing and ignoring reality to make short-term gains inevitably butts up with reality. Cognitive dissonance, big time. Even a country that watches "Lost" instead of the news -- and who can blame it, considering how "balanced" and useless the news is now -- is noticing that the buggers are lying to them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So where is your fact checking? I followed reference number 6 and it appeared to be accurate.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Moo (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know how it works in Australia, but I lived in Brazil for a long time, where it is also compulsory to vote. What they do is make your life difficult if you don't have the receipt that says you voted in the last election (they require the receipts in order for you to get renewed documents such as passports, etc). Thus, the system works in that people do vote. The argument there is similar to the one you're making. You have the right to vote, so you should damn well use it, because that's what makes a democratic government great. I disagree with that in so many ways that I can't cover it all, but I'll just discuss the major problems with it right now.
I suppose the most important reason is the practical one: It doesn't work. They can make you vote but they can't make you care. The ballots were secret as they are here (a very good thing), so there were a large number of nullified ballots by people who just didn't want to vote. Essentially, they'd check the mark next to all the candidates, making the ballot worthless. They're doing the electronic voting there too now, but that's after I moved out, so I have no idea if the software disallows that. If the software does prohibit you from doing that, it puts you in a much scarier situation. I imagine most people who didn't care would simply vote for the first person on the list.
The second reason why voting shouldn't be compulsory also relates to the fact that most people don't care. You say that the system gets screwed up if people don't vote, but I claim it gets screwed up even more when people who don't do their research vote. I really hate the whole "get out and vote" campaigns because they make it seem like just showing up and voting satisfies all your civic responsibilities. It's not about just making a decision, it's about making an informed decision (although I guess "The Decider" would disagree). I'd be seriously in favor of the "Get out and learn about the candidate's track records, their proposals, and the success rate of similar actions to the ones they are proposing in the past, then vote for the best candidate" campaign, but people don't seem to want to do the hard things. Frankly, people who just show up and vote based on the fact that, "I don't like the damn republicans, I shall vote democrat" or "I'm conservative, I shall vote republican" are ruining for the rest of us who are actually doing our research.
Finally, there's the freedom argument. I don't like any laws that restricts people's freedoms. Your right to not vote is as important to me as your right to vote. If you want to vote I'll fight against anyone trying to prevent you to do so, regardless of whether or not I agree with who you are voting for. If you do not want to vote, I'll fight against anyone trying to make you do that.
Re:Moo (Score:5, Interesting)
The informal voting rate isn't that large - about 5% of the votes cast are informal (there's a great tradition of Donkey voting though - being first on the ballot can give you an extra 1.4% or so, unless you're a woman strangely enough when it gives you nada - Robson rotation would fix that but they don't bother). And the turn out rate is 95%. So 90% of the registered voters (which is essentially everyone 18+ with a few slipping through the cracks - made up for by the dead people who manage to vote somehow) cast a valid vote.
Compulsary voting gets rid of the "get out and vote" idiocy that clearly favours candidates with the resources to round people into buses... It also removes the ability to influence the outcome by preventing people from voting - or at least makes it very noticable if you try.
Are you also going to fight against those who try and make people do other "civic duties" like jury duty?
I suspect compulsary voting would interact badly with first past the post voting, and hence would be a bad thing for America - not that that's an issue - it goes completely against the concept of liberty the US has (though the last few years seem to have shown that liberty isn't so important to most americans but that's an unrelated issue).
Re:Moo (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, there's nobody watching you vote, so people turned in blank ballots too. The more paranoid people would nullify them instead to prevent people that are counting the votes from checking the boxes themselves (I don't know if it's actually an issue, but it doesn't hurt to be paranoid). As for the fine, it's the same method in Brazil. After all, they're not going to just not allow you to renew your documents. If you don't have your receipt, you pay a fine, and all is well. Still, generally people don't want to pay a fine, so you get extremely high voting turnout, but I argue that doesn't mean the system is better.
That may be true, but still doesn't solve the problem of people voting for people without doing their research. Name recognition is a huge boost for example. It's the reason why Arnold gets to be governor of California. There are a whole bunch of stupid reasons that causes people to make choices, and although many of those people would stay home, more of them show up if they're forced to show up. Now, if they want to show up and vote for their stupid reason, that's their right, but I see no reason in forcing the other people who don't care to go.
That's pretty interesting. I had no idea you could get so much of an advantage by being first, even when you can turn in a blank ballot. I guess the problem would be even worse if you couldn't because the software forced you to choose someone. Of course, it would also be easier to implement a rotation, but somehow I'd think that they still wouldn't bother.
Those are good points. I guess there are some advantages to compulsary voting, but I still don't think it's worth it.
Yep. Although that's an easy fight, anyone who wants to can get out of jury duty in the US. There's an old joke, "the only people in the jury are the ones that are too stupid to get out of jury duty."
Re:Moo (Score:5, Informative)
1. To win, a candidate must muster at least 50% + 1 of the number on his or her electoral role to secure the seat.
2. The vote is a SINGLE, TRANSFERRABLE VOTE, which means that for a ovte to be valind (and ocunted) it must list the voter's preferences from 1 to the last person on the ballot paper. Any missed candidates will render the vote invalid.
3. After the initial count, if no silgle candidate hass the magic 50% +1, the person with the least number of votes is eliminated, and the vote preferences are allocated to the other candidates, based on that person's voter's second preferences. This process, eliminating the bottom candidate, and allocating those votes based on next highets preference, goes on until one candidate has the mandatory 50% +1 vote.
4. Voting rolls are not within the control of any political party - the voting rolls are maintained by a federal department, which does not include political appointees (well, not officially), and there is open scrutiny of the rolls at all times.
5. The candidates in the election are all able to provide scrutineers to the count(so apart from so-called "drover's dog" electorates ("If it wore the right political colors, even a drover's dog could get elected in this constituency, there are scrutineers at all counting ststions).
6. Party advertising is not allowed inside the polling stations - party people can distribute their stuff outside, but not inside. 7. In federal and stae elections, people don't directly vote for the Prime Minister or state Premier, but that office is held by the leader of the majority party in the state or federal parliament. so, voting tends to be on party lines, and the chances of a good candidate of the "wrong" political persuasion getting up against a bad candidate of the "right" political persuasion is always very poor.
8. As a corrollory to 7., if you live in a marginal seat (one that changes election to election, or which may change with a smallish swing), your vote is worth commensurately more than if you live in a "safe" seat.
Hope that clears it up a bit.
Re:Moo (Score:5, Insightful)
only providing enough polling booths for the turnout based on the previous election
turning voters away at voting day based on some dubious criteria
disenfranchising working voters by holding elections on working days
The benefit of maintaining the integrity of the voting system (from the point of the government properly administering an election) far outweighs the cost to the "right not to vote".
Compulsory voting also diminishes the influence of ideologically extremists who vote not because they are informed.
The ballot should be preferential and the first candidate should be "The ballot ends here", so if someone numbers the ballot straight down, it is an indication that the voter votes for no one solving your "scary" scenario.
Re:Moo (Score:4, Funny)
br>
You can actually stop paying taxes now, and retain your US citizenship. You'll even get room and board for some number of years, and never have to worry about voting again, since felons lose their right to vote...
Re:Moo (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Moo (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll go you one better.
Change the election date to the fourth of july. What better way to celebrate your independence then to vote. It's a holiday, people are running around getting BBQ supplies and beer anyway. Just pull into the polling place on your way to the supermarket.
Easy, simple, effective. There is no way it will get done.
Re:Moo (Score:5, Informative)
I think it's fair to say that all the reasons stated above for holding elections on a Tuesday, while stellar in their reasoning for the nineteenth century, are now obsolete. Read on...
Although measures have been taken in some places, clearly it's too little at this late stage of the game. If the american public wants to scare the pants off the Washington lobbyists, a good place to start would be to campaign for Election Saturdays. Ironically, it's something that will probably be decided on a Tuesday.
Re:Moo (Score:5, Insightful)
Just read the friggin article and perhaps you will see some ways that our elections are unfair and should be fixed, ignore the fact that it's your man who did it. Mentally insert "Bill Clinton" in place of GWB if that helps, but read it, and believe it, and get riled up and do something or our country is going to go down the crapper in a big scary way. I gaurantee that if no one does anything about this, someone who you abhor is going to use these tricks. And by then it will probably be too late.
And if you think everyone here is lame and pathetic because they don't agree with you, well, maybe this isn't the place for you? I hear freerepublic.com is nice...
Re:Moo (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nonsense to suggest that just because something happened in the past we should all simply accept the outcome and move on...past elections were rigged? Ah, well...better luck next time!
Accusing the Democrats of sour grapes seems within the realm of possibility but to suggest that even if this were all true just to ignore it undermines the very foundation of your democratic process. Like it or not (and I'm guessing not - as it is a clear and present threat to your obvious political alligence) free and fair voting for everyone matters in a democracy.
You don't like that because your side won't always win?
Tough.
Thank you, sir. (Score:4, Interesting)
THANK YOU.
Geez...
I lean to the right politically, but I would love - LOVE - to have an alternative party. The Democrats have largely set themselves as simple contrarians with one plank on their platform - "vote for us, we're not the Republican party!"
Yes, I can see that. I saw that little "D" instead of the "R" which seems to be so dominant amongst elected officials these days.
But why on earth should I vote for a party which wants to get into power before stating a platform?
Economically speaking, the U.S. is doing quite well, so economics aren't much of the issue and elected officials have an often overstated effect on the economy as is. That's not much of a reason to vote for the Democrats. The present deficit level is high, to be sure, but that's not the sort of concern that really gets the voters out.
Iraq's a bit of a mess, but the Democrats haven't really stated what they're going to do with it beyond "we shouldn't have gone in". Great, we shouldn't have gone in, that's lovely and all, but guess what, we're there now - what do we do? They won't say. They don't have a plan at all... granted, the Bush administration's own plans are not particularly well-defined, but they are committed to staying for some time, which isn't the road map I'd like to see but it's heading in the right direction. Democrats can't decide to stay, go... or do anything else. Give me your party's POSITION on the matter! Do you have a position? Oh, that's right, I forgot, your position is, "we're not Bush!"
Then there's the "cultural issues". Democrats and their supporters alike can't seem to wrap their heads around this, but every time they lose an election they blame it on people who vote on "cultural issues". Perhaps if they learned that these cultural issues were really, truly important to many voters they could win votes, but noooo... instead, we hear the same mantra of, "stupid rednecks only care about x!" each election cycle. These stupid rednecks are voters, you know, and cultural issues are important to people, no matter how much the Democrats want to deny it. Responding to elections lost due to cultural issues by reaffirming your stance on these issues will NOT somehow magically bring people to your point of view.
I'm not entirely pleased with the Republican party at the moment, and would love to see some new ideas pop up on the hill. But the U.S. lacks an opposition party, and only has a band of contrarians without ideas.
It's like the Cola wars all over again, except instead of 'Coke' and 'Pepsi', I have 'Coke' and 'we're not Coke and we think Coke sucks!'
Please, SELL me some ideas and I might BUY THEM!
</rant>
Re:Moo (Score:5, Insightful)
Ignoring the fact that you have failed to rebut any of the facts or arguments presented in the article:
1. Use a word processor to replace references to Kerry and Bush and election 2004 in that article with other names and a different election.
2. Read the article.
3. Note whether you form emotions of anger or if there is a "salty discharge" flowing down your cheeks due to feelings of sadness.
Because what the article shows is that regardless of who "won" that election, our election system as 1) far from perfect and 2) even outright broken.
Now, the fact that there is even a case to be made here means that our election system is seriously flawed. Counting is a mechanical process - it should not be subject to even the slightest error, and therefore should not be subject to even the slightest doubt. Transparency and perfection are achievable. And yet, at every turn, Mr. Kennedy has been able to show the continuing presence of openings and loopholes and conflicts of interest in the counting process and the registration process.
Now, why haven't we reformed the election process? It's in everyone's interest to make sure that the will of the people is realized, correct? It's in everyone's interest to see that the votes are counted and that we live in a truly Democratic society, right? Or is it?
This is so very important. Unless we establish transparency and reliability in our voting system we are forfeiting our democracy itself.
The Kennedy article was a rehash of all the nonsense liberals have been spewing since 2004.
Since 2004 Republicans have been calling these accusations "nonsense" when it appears to be in their interest to settle the question (and thereby obtain a stronger mandate) by discrediting the facts at hand. And yet this hasn't happened. A mandate was asserted even without rigorous testing of the election results. And here you are, defaming the article and its author as "nonsensical" without actually countering any of the facts.
It's almost like one side is screaming "Our democrcacy is dying" and the other side responds by tacitly and cynically admitting "Haven't you heard? Our democracy is already dead."
As your best friend forever George W. Bush has stated, "Sometimes you need to repeat the truth over and over, so it sinks in." In this case, of course, the "real truth" is what's at stake, and we have an obligation to discover what the real truth is, and repair it if it offends us. Lots of credible people are still reporting on this issue, yet, for some reason, it hasn't made its way into the mainstream media besides in minimal ways.
Good f*cking question. Nothing in our society stays relevant. Important articles disappear all the time - we live in an information world where, regardless of actual relevancy, nothing stays relevant for more than 24 hours. Or it could just be a collective will of our news media not to "rock the boat" too much, as I believe Keith Olbermann points out in the article.
Here in Illinois (Score:5, Informative)
As to Democratic corruption, the last Republican governor, George Ryan, was just sentenced to six years in Federal prison for...corruption. The point is not that both sides engage in this type of behavior, but that it can't be condoned or excused because "everybody does it". It needs to be exposed wherever it occurs by whoever engages in it.
(If you replace "Illinois" with "Chicago" in your post, I think i might be inclined to agree with you, though).
Re:Here in Illinois (Score:5, Interesting)
This can actually be seen as further proof of cheating. No, seriously. Let me explain.
I live in Kentucky. We consistently elect Republicans for the Senate and have voted Bush in both elections, and there is only one Democrat in our national delegation (who happens to be from my district). Yet if you look at the State Senate and the State House, they are both overwhelmingly Democrat and have been for years. In other words, Republicans tend to get the majority of votes here, yet the State congressional districts have been gerrymandered to the point that it's pretty pointless to run against a Democrat in a State race. The only time Republicans tend to stand a chance here is in popular vote elections, or local elections in the Republican enclaves in the extreme western and northern parts of the state. The Democratic party in this state is as dirty as you'll find. They just lack the charisma of Louisiana's Dirty Dems, and the overtness of Illinois Dems.
State and local politics are so much more fun... PS: I'm a registered Democrat. Mod me +1 Ironic.
Where's the beef? (or is this merely infowar?) (Score:5, Interesting)
Does anyone have anything other than innuendo on this talking point? It sounds a little too much like a Rove snowjob to me -- I hear the talking point a lot from different sources but never any deeply resourced, specific complaints such as RFK aired.
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:4, Insightful)
The argument is that we should've investigated. Are you honestly arguing that we shouldn't investigate until we have proof? The whole point of an investigation is to find proof, one way or the other!
Please read this until you understand. Please do not reply with the same illogical line you keep repeating.
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.
Re:All I need to see.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, good. I was afraid there wouldn't be any ad hominem responses, without which we would have to judge on the basis of facts and reason. Who wants that?
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
The Secretary of State for Washington is a Republican. If there were any problems with the election, he certainly would have said something.
Re:Washington State (Score:5, Interesting)
Wikipedia has a nice summary. [wikipedia.org]
But, in short: The dems lost both the first count and the machine recount (which they were legally entitled to). They did, however win the hand recount (which they were also legally entitled to).
The GOP's lawsuit contesting the election was dismissed by the Chelan County (a republican county) Court.
What was really disgusting is the GOP made personal attacks against the democrats for asking for a recount when the GOP was winning by a narrow margin, but then immediately started acting like the dems when they lost. I think that the WA vote was handled as well as could be expected other than this hypocrisy.
Re:Washington State (Score:5, Informative)
They went through precisely the recounts allowed and required by law, under the supervision of a Republican secretary of state. I remember when conservatives were in favor of the rule of law.
Instant Runoff Voting (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, the quickest fix would be Approval Voting [wikipedia.org]. It's as accurate (in terms of game theory / the 5 criteria of Arrow's Paradox [wikipedia.org]) as IRV is, and is a hell of a lot easier both in implementation (the method of counting the votes is almost identical to how we do it now), and in explaining to people how it works (i.e. "Put a check next to anyone you think would do a good job. You are not limited to one choice.")
As for the best solutio
Re:This is a stupid story (Score:5, Informative)
You did notice that the whole point of this article was the 2004 election, right? All of your linked articles are about the one in 2000. Fuck, we're like barely literate here.
Re:Been doing the rounds for a long time... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why you guys are going to keep losing. As a conservative who actually believes in limited government and individual freedom, I strongly disagree with the current Republican leadership on many issues. But when the opposition is this unhinged, all I can do is either leave my ballot blank or "waste" it on a third party.