Smoking Gun: Volusia County Memos Disclose Election 2000 Vote Fraud

[Karmadillo]

This story just gets more and more incredible. Guess it's time to go read Bev Harris' book.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0310/S00211.htm

"DELAND, Fla., Nov. 11 - Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters."
- Washington Post Sunday , November 12, 2000 ; Page A22

Yes. Something very strange happened in Volusia County on election night November 2000, the night that first Gore won Florida, then Bush, and then as everybody can so well remember there was a tie.

Something strange indeed. But what exactly? In the above report ( click for full version), written days after the election, hotshot Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank goes on to attribute the strange 16,022 negative vote tally from Volusia's precinct 216 to an apparently innocent cause.

"…. faulty 'memory cards' in the machines caused the 16,000-vote disappearance on election night. The glitch was soon fixed," he wrote.

But thanks to recent investigations into Black Box Voting by Washington State writer Bev Harris we now know this explanation is not correct. In fact it is not even in the ballpark.

more...

[La_Serpiente]

Someone told me

that Diebold was going on the internet and deleting all the memos. Is this true? They were contacting the ISP to take the memos off of the website. Are there still memos on the website?

[La_Serpiente]

1. delete

[NewYorkerfromMass]

2. big problem with all of this

no more evidence.

Chads have been poked where they needed to be to disqualify Gore ballots aplenty. Nobody knows when the punching was done to turn these balots into "overvotes".
Of course, one thing to do is take all of the "overvotes" and study them for some consistent pattern that might indicate some evil-doer overpunched them alone. But besides that what can be done 4 years later other than to rally the troops to get them to the polls and avenge the crime?

[RedEagle]

4. The Point is to Point out the Shell Game and its Effects

The bruha over hanging chads was to cover up what was happening with the optical scan, either a la the negative 16,000 Gore votes, or what Palast found with systems that happened to perform correctly depending on which county (Dem-leaning, or not) they happened to be in. It also kept the voter roll purge off the front page.

The chads were important but their main use was to divert attention to the more insidious culprit. Later, they became the rallying cry for new voting systems, leading to Congress stampeding, once again without thinking a whole lot, to backing unaccountable voting by providing money to the states for touch screen machines and research into Internet voting.

Revisiting 2000 is important for understanding what really went wrong and how the scenario has been twisted to the benefit of those who already benefitted from the 2000 fiasco.

It's not too late to fix this but we've got to get going and going NOW! Since Senator Dodd has seen fit to suddenly marshal through HAVA funds for machines, the states will be there, cash in hand, ready to buy voting systems that will "fix democracy" in 2004, by insuring voting that cannot be audited. Dodd has been a long time hobnobber with the wealthy corporate elite in Europe in their meetings every year- side by side with Chuck Hagel. Ditto for McAuliffe and his GOP counterpart.

McAuliffe needs to be jettisoned asap. Dodd is not friendly to democracy. Dems are going to have to wake up and identify their representatives in government who have been "doing good deeds" on one side while backing questionable activities on the other.

Pay attention to how this game is played. Witness the recent statements by Senator Hagel against Bush. Keep in mind Bush's daddy sent him to Nebraska where he took over the voting machine company and then ran for office. Hagel wants to run for president. Hagel is in a position in congress where, due to others who can pick up the slack, he can occasionally vote in a manner that seems anit-administration. That can be done quite safely if the GOP knows they have enough votes in the bag to let him to that. Perhaps they are grooming Hagel to take over for Cheney in 2004.

We need people across the country yelling about vote theft. I have little doubt that Congress was rushed to act on funding HAVA because of the recent revelations about the voting machines. The rush is to get the compliant Secretaries of State to purchase such equipment before the cat is out of the bag entirely. The losers will be the voters and the states and counties who buy these things.

Everyone remind their state officials that HAVA money depends on compliance with 2002 standards. If they buy machines now that don't meet those standards, they are going to be faced with a hefty upgrade bill later on. The fight for HR 2239, which will require paper ballots, is far from over. And there are systems out there right now that currently MEET those 2002 standards because they were designed to. They only need recertification, not redesigning and quick patches to make them 2002 compliant. Accupoll and Avante come to mind. They both produce a voter-verified paper ballot and the big three and vested interests are doing their best to keep them from gaining any of the market.

By the way, the quotes for outfitting current DRE's with a printer to handle voter-verified paper ballots is just outrageous. More skimming from the big vendors.

We can stop this, but it takes action and it needs to happen now.

Call Congress and demand an investigation into the voting industry. Demand a halt to all funds until this is done. Right off the top, The Election Center and its relationship to vendors, ITA's, NASS and NASED come to mind. Go back and investigate vendor/lobbyist influence on HAVA. And investigate the firing of an engineer who was about the blow the whistle on VoteHere DRE programming, just before a GAO investigation. Investigate the Election Task Force, backed by a bunch of defense/government contractors who admitted in a telephone conference that HAVA was created primarily to get Congress to spend money that benefitted them.

FLOOD Congress with this information and requests for congressional and independent investigations. FLOOD your state officials with the same. (There are a few states, I think N. Dakota comes to mind, who have backed off and are going with paper, I believe) Many Governors have the ability to not sign for HAVA funds. Push them to not sign until provisions are in place mandating voter-verified paper ballots and laws that mandate their use in recounts and audits, and that there is a good percentage of random audits of every election.

Pick out the chapters of Bev's book that hit home the hardest about the realities of voting systems in our country, copy, and send them to legislators with a cover letter as to why and request for action.

Sign petitions and send them in.

Write every paper in your area about the fallacy of voting that cannot be audited. Call in to every radio talk show you can and voice your concerns.

Make appointments with your state and federal legislators to inform and request they mandate verified, paper ballots.

I guarantee you that legislators who have to talk to at least 5 - 10 people a month- in person- are going to start paying attention. It goes without saying they should receive much more in the form of calls and letters.

Legislators are also, by a long shot, not immune to public opinion and perception. Remind them of Bev's book and the growing public awareness and concern. Their political careers will depend on how they address that concern. I don't think the apparatus for fixing elections is quite working at full speed at local levels yet. These guys will have to pay attention to how the public perceives they are handling this matter. It's up to you to let them know the public and their constiuentcy is watching and their political career depends on upholding and defending democracy.

You have more tools at hand then you realize. Just USE them and do it NOW!

Democracy- for our kids sake.

We can rock this country!

:yourock: :yourock: :yourock:

[KoKo]

8. Excellent Points RedEagle! Maybe you need to post this separately

to get some more attention.

[kodi]

3. it was here that bush stole the election.

that socialist candidate garnered 97% of his state-wide votes in that county.

[phillybri]

5. Everyone please read this....

:kick:

[Karmadillo]

6. Mine's a dupe. Here's the original posting.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=581141&mesg_id=581141

[JackRiddler]

7. kcik

ckik

[AnnabelLee]

9. Locking--Dupe

Please continue discussion here
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=581141