I am conflicted about the perennial claims of stolen elections

[Armstead]

One of the fallback positions among progressives and DU types is the claim that we no longer have free and fair elections, and that the GOP "steals" elections.

There are probably elements of truth to that, especially in light of 2000. So, making sure elections are as open and transparent as possible is an important goal that should be universally supported.

However, frankly, I think our side is coming to rely on that too much, as a way to excuse and justify real politcal losses. Frankly, IMO John Kerry really did lose the election in 2004.

The reasons we lose the contest of ideas and politics is what we should focus on. When we blame it all on Diebold, we short-circuit honest scrutiny of the bigger picture.

Again, to emphasize, I fully support all efforts to clean up the electoral system. The modern trend towards "privatizing" the election system through unaccountable computer ballots is especially dangerous.

However, in a more partisan political sense, we should not use that as a replacement for accepting the fact that more people vote for them than for us.

Bad voting systems are a perennial fact of life we have to copoe with. That's always been the case, when we were winning as well as when we lose.

When have we ever really had totally honest elections? Unfortunately, a mix of human error and outright corruption and intimidation are as American as Apple Pie, going back to the country's beginnings....Actually, it's bigger than that. Corruption in elections are common elements around the world to varying degrees.

And, to be fair, it is not only the Republicans who have engaged in it. Democrats also have a long and colorful history of buying or stealing elections too.

The problems revealed in Florida in 2000 were not isolated or new. The closeness and the stakes merely made us aware of the inherent clumsiness and corruption of the whole electoral system, because Florida was placed under a microscope.

Before you get out the blow torches and release mega-flames, I emphasize again that I support all efforts to shed light on and push to clean up the voting system.

However, IMO, it's also vital that we accept the fact that we really have been losing elections, and the most results would be the same if Albert Schweitzer were counting the votes. THAT's the real problem liberals, progressives and Democrats should accept and focus on changing.

[hossman]

1. As a long-time

Dem and long-time lurker, I agree Armstead.

Unfortunately, be prepared for the caterwauling from those in the "reality" based community who can't handle reality, and don't want to engage in the introspection and hard work to change things.

[Peace Patriot]

49. 80% of the 2004 vote was tabulated by two rightwing Bushite electronic

voting machine companies (Diebold and ES&S) using "trade secret," proprietary programming code--code so secret that not even our election officials have the right to review it--with a third of the country not even having a "paper trail" (let alone a paper ballot backup).

That's all anybody needs to know about the 2004 election. The conditions for transparency and verifiability were not present.

So, hossman, when you say that you "agree" with Armstead that Kerry lost the election, how do you know?

It's not up to the public to prove that Kerry won. It's up to our election officials to prove that their results are transparent, verifiable and accurate. They cannot do that. That's all anyone needs to know.

But in addition there is a lot of evidence that Kerry did win--for instance, that Kerry won both the national and state exit polls, evidence that was suppressed by the news monopolies on election night, who ALTERED the exit poll data (Kerry won) to fit Diebold's and ES&S's "official result." Why did they hide this evidence from the American people? It is not hidden in other democracies around the world (in the Ukraine, for instance, where the exit polls alerted the populace to fraud; and throughout Europe.)

What the Carter Center said about our election system is that it does not meet MINIMUM international standards for transparency and verifiability, and they therefore COULD NOT monitor the 2004 election.

One other point: Many of our election officials are invested in electronic voting--despite its huge problems of insecurity, unreliability and hackability--either professionally (they're now the "experts" who know all the gobble-de-gook lingo of electronic voting systems, vs. us peon voters who haven't a clue any more how our votes are counted), or because they like all the lavish lobbying perks by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia (see below), or because they have future job offers in the industry (CA Repub Sec of State Bill Jones and his chief aide Alfie Charles, after authorizing Sequoia electronic voting in California, now work for Sequoia), or because of the heady power of presiding over these big business deals (voting is now a billion dollar business--a tremendous temptation to public officials).

I believe that there has been serious, bipartisan malfeaseance at the federal and state/local level on electronic voting systems--with our right to vote, and our right to transparent, verifiable elections, shoved aside and sold out.

See Amaryllis' post on this coming week of fun and sun at the Beverly Hilton, for election officials from around the country, sponsored by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia. It will burn your eyeballs!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

We only have to look at the opinion polls on Bush, and on all Bush policy, foreign and domestic, over the last year--disapproval of Bush way up in the 60% to 70% range, on all major issues--to know that Bush does not represent the will of the majority and does not have "consent of the governed." The Iraq war (58% opposed the war BEFORE the invasion--Feb. '03). Torture policy (63%--no torture UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES--May '04). Social Security. The deficit. Women's rights. You name it. The great majority of Americans oppose Bush policy on it.

So the question naturally arises: How did he get re-elected? And the answer is: Nobody knows except Diebold and ES&S--and they're not telling, 'cuz it's a "trade secret."

How did that get to be a "trade secret," hm-m-m? --the tabulation of our votes?

It is absolutely the wrong advice to say that we should put this election system scandal aside for politics as usual. Reform of our election system must be our first priority--or it won't matter in 2006 or 2008 what the majority wants, any more than it matters now--which is not at all.

[Robeson]

53. Great post, Peace Patriot. That said it all.

[sam sarrha]

2. the fact they "Refuse" to even investigate "If" there is a problem is Proof

there are thousands of citizen complaints and GROSS hard evidence and the Reich will not even have a committee to check

You just have to face the fact that the Constitution is going round and round and is about 3 turns from disappearing down the toilet..For Ever

We are Doomed because we will not be in the streets before it is too late.

[Armstead]

4. Or....

We could concentrate on making elections so lopsided in our favor that the results can't be tweaked by the otehr side.

Then we can be the ones with the power to really reform the electoral system.

[orion9941]

6. True

But that would also make us just as bad as the Republicans. And that could also come around and nip the Democrats in the butt.

[Armstead]

7. Huh? I think you misunderstood

I didn't say we should be like the Republicans.

I said we should concentrate on politics the old-fashioned way and build a manadte for our side.

[Armstead]

8. Huh? I think you misunderstood

I didn't say we should be like the Republicans.

I said we should concentrate on politics the old-fashioned way and build a manadte for our side.

[Vincardog]

42. Agreed first a landslide in 06 Too big to steal. Then real Election reform

We do not have to prove that the elections were stolen. They have to prove they were not. WE are guaranteed Transparent open Fair elections. The Corporate controlled vote counting with black box vote counting is no war Transparent open or Fair.

[Talismom]

44. With computer hacking and secretive vote counting by software

owners, massive rapid "tweaking"--vote flipping, erasing etc.can overturn even overwhelming support for the democratic candidate. This has been demonstrated over and over. All this talk about running a better candidate, campaign, etc. is useless. It's not who votes, it's who COUNTS the votes"!

[Peace Patriot]

50. I like that idea, Armstead! If Kerry had won by a 20% margin, instead of

by his probable (all things considered) 10% margin, we MIGHT have been able to overcome the fraud plan. Dunno. Hard to believe they didn't have another trick up their sleeve--like big phony "terrorist alerts" (all set up in "the news" just before the election). But at least they would have had to show their hand.

If Kerry had said the Iraq war was wrong, and based on a pack of lies, and that torture is wrong and unethical and illegal, and that job outsourcing by US-based global corporate predators is WRONG and needs to be punished and stopped (not rewarded with yet more tax breaks), etc., etc., etc.--if he'd been a truth-teller and a populist, the country would have loved it, and would have stood even stronger for him.

But we simply cannot put up with NOT KNOWING. We cannot tolerate Bushites counting the votes IN SECRET. Jeez. Have we forgotten what democracy IS? Are our memories that damaged by news monopoly brainwashing?

I believe in VOTING--no matter what. We cannot give up on this precious right that generations of people have died for. We must never give up on democracy. Never!

But we need to know why it's not working. We need to hold the election officials and political officials to account who let this happen, and demand that they restore our right to vote. This is fundamental. It may be a long fight--with degrees of transparency restored over time, or people may just throw these goddamned machines into the ocean--Boston Harbor time! Back to paper ballots, while we figure this thing out (how to make electronic voting and vote tabulation 100% transparent and verifiable).

Ignoring it is insane! That's what I thought of the Dem Party when I first found out about this. Are they insane?

Maybe some of them are. (Corruption is a more likely answer.) But it must be repaired, or our democracy is OVER.

[Al-CIAda]

90. Good posts PPatriot. The Dems are insane to allow this. nt

[Cookie wookie]

If the code in paperless electronic voting machines

is set to move x number of votes from the Democratic candidate to the republican, just how many people would it take to beat it? Hundreds, millions?

The simple truth is that no amount of voters could beat it. Democrats can raise millions of dollars, run great campaigns, but if the code in DREs is designed to move enough of a percentage of votes from Dems to republicans so that the republicans will win, that's all she (or he as the case may be) wrote. How would anyone know or prove it?

Think of how the red flag indicators, like exit polls, were manipulated in the 2004 election. What I remember seeing was tens upon tens of thousands of Democrats turning up at Kerry rallys and thousands at Bush rallys, Democrats were traveling around the country helping to get folks registered but the "news" reports said republicans were just beating them at turning out the votes. It sure didn't look like it. How would your prescription that elections become so "lopsided" in our favor work if the media happens to spin it in reverse, as I suspect happened in 2004?

[driver8]

97. I kept reading how many new voters the Dems had registered and

how many people were coming out to cheer on Kerry/Edwards...I thought for sure that Kerry would win.

When I found out that shrubster had won, the first thing I thought was "those m-fers did it again." The more I read, the more I am certain of it. There is no fucking way that Bush won that election. I will never, ever be convinced that he did.

With the current voting system we have now, the Dems will never win another election; Diebold will make sure of that.

[Peace Patriot]

104. The Dems blew the Bushites away in new voter registration in 2004, nearly

60/40. People were FLOCKING to the Democratic Party. So, driver8, your sense of things was correct.

The great majority of the new voters voted for Kerry. The great majority of independent voters voted for Kerry. The great majority of Nader voters voted for Kerry. Gore/Bush 2000 switch voters were a wash (and not a factor). And it was the Gore 2000 voters who got all their non-voting family members, co-workers and friends to register and vote for the first time, because this was "the most important election in our history" (high motivation).

Who else is there? Bush 2000 voters...and? Karl Rove's "invisible" get out the vote campaign? Har, har.

Besides the bipartisan corruption in the billionaire dollar election system industry, we have the problem of news monopoly reporters who will accept an answer like that--that the Bushites had an "invisible" get out the vote campaign--without studying and understanding the numbers on their own, and coming back with a follow-up question, or two.

[orion9941]

3. I agree...

I think too many people use the premise of a stolen election as a knee-jerk reaction. Also if all of us on the left continue to scream 'stolen election, stolen election' like some political chicken little, then no one is going to be taking any of us seriously.

[fhqwhgads]

14. word...

...i know some of us are probably going to get labeled as freepers (esp. with our low post counts), but i gotta agree with armstead and orion. it got a little crazy the other day when people were claiming the election was stolen from paul hackett in oh-2, despite the fact that he lost by only four points in an overwhelmingly republican district.

of course we should be working toward making sure elections are absolutely free and fair - but armstead's right...they never really have been.

we constantly scream election fraud and that * ordered the planes into the wtc, and that's when we get dismissed as the loony left - regardless of how much truth there may be to what we say. it's the same for the wackaloons on the right who claim hillary killed vince foster and that bill's a serial rapist - most people don't take that seriously either.

the way to win is to do what paul hackett did - stand up for progressive ideals and put up a strong fight. don't take the dlc approach, and don't wear a tinfoil hat, but fight. if hackett could do what he did in a blood-red area (and without a ton of money), think about what we could do in the purple districts.

[sam sarrha]

29. suspecious "Extra 4000 votes "Found" in the last 10 minutes.is rediculous

[driver8]

98. "Oh, the machines in that district just happened to go down because

of...because of...the humidity! Yeah, the humidity! That's the ticket!"

Unbefuckinglievable that this people get away with this shit.

[Carolab]

59. If elections "never really have been fair", is that an EXCUSE?

I mean, if cheating has gone on in the past, does that somehow make it acceptable?

Or if it's BOTH parties?

C'mon. The system is corrupted and needs to be fixed so we know that our votes counted and we can elect who we REALLY want!

This argument is specious.

Furthermore, are you aware of the fact that introducing the e-voting and electronic voter databases into this mix has created a recipe for UNPRECEDENTED levels of stealing?

Far easier to steal tens of thousands of votes, and push the margins just far enough apart so there is no automatic recount triggered.

The problem in the 2004 election is there WAS a huge turnout of Dems. So they pulled every trick in the book. And it left a trail behind.

[Old and In the Way]

96. You said it.

Think how proficient the Republicans are becoming on using the DRE to steal elections. You are absolutely correct that they'll always be squeeking out wins outside the margin of automatic recounts.

If they weren't stealing it, why are they so reluctant to open up the code and make the process transparent? Why do they form bogus front organizations to investigate DRE's and conclude the system is fine? Or if it's broke, it's the Democrats who are trying to steal it.

Gore won by 500,000 votes in 2000. Bush:

* Let 9/11 happen and 3,000 people died.
* Opened the Treasury to the uber rich and corporations and turned a $500BB surplus into a $500BB deficit.
* Lied about Iraq's WMD threat to invade and take over their oil.

And we are to believe that he's rewarded by the American people for this performance? Sorry, I'm not taking the stupid pills.

But we also have a corporate media who plays along and validates the election results.....so how we will ever win another election with the system that's in place, I have no clue.

[ulysses]

5. much agreed.

:applause:

[Armstead]

9. Did you make that banner yourself?

Good job, and great message.

Maybe Sloth and indolence will be the dark horse upsetters in 08...But I guess it's too much work to focus on 06, eh? Don't do today what you can put off til tomorrow.

[ulysses]

19. heh - yup

I'm restarting the candidacy. :silly:

[newportdadde]

10. I have doubts as well.

There are some good links, I'm sure you will be peppered with them soon as you being non-believer. One of them has a vote tally matching exactly for like 3 different elections in Texas which raises a huge question mark in my mind etc. As a programmer myself I realize the danger of having a closed source code that is not audited externally. Its extremely dangerous.. however I'm not yet sold.

I find it hard to believe that such a conspiracy could happen on the national stage, perhaps in a small district I could see it. I find it even harder to believe noone has talked about it... as an IT person there is one thing that we like to do and thats brag, our profession attracts the anal, the detail oriented and in many cases those with super egos. I would think somehow it would come out, a leak of source code via the warez community or some such from an anon programmer.

Yet here we are and nothing has come up that will stand up in a court of law. No whistle blower, nothing. Just some amazing coincidences which although very interesting aren't going anywhere. In the real world here we need some hard evidence and that needs to be picked up and ran with the press. Even our current press would gladly pic up a good corruption story if it ment more $ for them.

Looking back on 2004 I have to face a grim reality that I don't like. Kerry by all accounts should have won by a landslide, given his debate performance(particularly the 1st one), given Bush's track record. It shouldn't have been stealable, and if it was stolen then the margin needed for the Republicans to maintain control should have been so large it would never have gone unnoticed.

That didn't happen.. I'm not sure why but it appears that at least in Nov 2004, the RW was selling something that the American people were buying or at least being told to buy by a corporate controlled media. And lets be honest Kerry being portrayed as pretty boring, elitist and the flip-flopper stuff absolutely killed him. The RW attack media was at top notch this past election and that does influence votes.

For myself personally I think I underestimated the role of people voting because of 'terror' frankly I never got that afraid but I think for a lot of people this rattled their cage that and not wanting to 'change horses'. People like Randi Rodes like to say "But people stood in line for hours, how could Bush have won?" I hate to say it but people will stand in line for hours to vote for the other guy too if they believe in it strongly enough.

In conclusion I have to go with Occams Razor here. Its sucks I'm not happy about it and frankly I'm extremely surprised but thats the direction I have to take at this point.

[Armstead]

16. Yes, Reality Bites...But that's what wre have to work with

Good post and you raise good points.

Like most people in this half of the political spectrum, after the election of 04, I was scratching my head and mumbling "What was this country thinking?!? There must be a mistake somewhere."

And I was hoping that some trunkful of stolen votes would be discovered in the car of some Republican operative in Ohio or Florida.

But alas, it was also clear that more than half the electorate voted for another four years of hell and that no Deus ex Machina was going to alter that sad fact.

[sunnystarr]

28. Sigh

I find it even harder to believe noone has talked about it...

People have been talking but and the facts are out there. As long as MSM treats it all as conspiracy theory and applies the tin foil hat label no one listens. With the guilty in power who's really going to investigate it and give it the credence it holds?

You obviously haven't read all the material that has appeared on DU and the links to the documentation and the testimony that confirms it.

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

45. "You obviously haven't read all the material that has appeared on DU" Yup!

Anyone who thinks our whining and moaning is just sour grapes isn't familiar with the mountains of evidence amassed and analyzed on DU and elsewhere.

[Talismom]

46. Thank you Sunnystarr, I was feeling very alone here!

I think a lot of people find it just to horrifying to conceive of widespread computer voting fraud and are drinking the right-wing koolaid 'cause it just tastes better than the bitterness of the reality. Read the Conyers report folks! These folks are willing to do anything to achieve their goals, including killing thousands of innocent people. Why wouldn't or couldn't they steal elections?

[eridani]

99. Bottom line--if vote tabulation is secret and proprietary--

--we will never know one way or another, period.

[amjfv]

11. My $0.02

I'm sure a great deal of fraud was perpetrated during the election (see the article in Harpers this month). I'm sure quite a few votes probably were stolen by the Republicans (probably a few by the Dems too-- if I were in a position to send a few thousand extra votes Kerry's way in Ohio, I'd have been sorely tempted to say the least.) I could imagine that the right actually did succeed in stealing Ohio (though its not a certainty). However I don't think there's any plausible way that Kerry actually recieved more votes nationwide that Bush did.

Democrats need to understand that there are a lot of people out there who earnestly believe the blather comming out of W's mouth. We need to knock some sense into these people's heads if we want to return to power in this country.

[amjfv]

15. Oh, on this same topic

Came across this article online <http://www.fairvote.org/?page=1555>, which actually said that if W had won the popular vote by less than 425,000 votes, Kerry would have been elected (apparently Bush's victory margin in OH was narrower than his margin nationwide.)

Regardless of what you think about the fraud question, the Electoral College is a silly way of electing a President, no?

Also, apparently Virginia will be a swing state next year.

[Armstead]

17. Silly Electoral College

>>>Regardless of what you think about the fraud question, the Electoral College is a silly way of electing a President, no?<<<

Actually, there are some merits to the Electoral College system, in terms of protecting the interests of states and regions with smaller populations.

However, the "winner take all" aspect of it is totally ridiculous. At the very least, the proportion of electoral votes shouild correspond to what each candidate actually receives. In otehr words, if Candidate A gets 40 percent of the popular vote in a state and candidate B gets 60 percent, that's how the electoral college votes should be divided, instead of Candidate B getting 100 percent of them.

That way, the electoral College would at least more closely track the actual popular vote.

[liberalpragmatist]

91. Not really

It's long said that the electoral college "protects small states" - from what? Though it was a major fear at the time of the drafting of the Constitution, there has never been a conflict between states based on size. It's always by region.

As it stands, nobody competes in small states anyway. They get no attention. And the only states that DO get attention are a handful of swing states.

Also, why should a president be beholden to regional politics? For all the claims that the Electoral College permits candidates to have a "truly national" constituency, it does no such thing. It entrenches regionalism, locking up regions as the base of a party's support. Besides, why should a president be beholden to regional interests? S/he should have a full national coalition.

And a proportional breakdown, while far better than what we have right now, would give no incentive to different states to promote turnout.

Sorry, way of topic. Anyway, I agree with you on everything you said in the OP.

[Norquist Nemesis]

21. Yes, and Virginia is where we should have

our asses right now. I don't doubt that there is already a well-oiled network humming away there from the other side. That's one of the ways they've been able to do it so far. So, while we're still trying to figure out Florida and Ohio...well, enough said.

I'm pretty well convinced Florida was stolen. But it was shut down and handed over through legal procedures. And when the final count was complete, with the timing of the announcement a 'mistake' in the election was the last thing anyone in the country was going to notice.

Ohio was closely watched in '04, but so was Florida. And there are so many questions that will never be answered throughout the states.

But in the end, we have to move on looking ahead. Karl Rove had said Florida for 2000 and Ohio for 2004. He has said Virginia will be the next battleground. That tells us right there where we need to focus. :)

[Armstead]

27. Virginia? Yikes!

Having roots in Virginia that go waaaaay back, and having lived and spent a lot of time there over the years, the thought that Virginia could be the next battleground is kind of scary.

Virginia's biggest problem, IMO, is that it's southern enough to be part of the red Zone, but far enough north to be defensive and paranoid about it. Which means that many Virginians still blame the Yankees for the Civil War.

But I also have many relatives there who are very liberal in many ways. And many consvertaives are bothered by the loss of their land and better social qualities to things like sprawl and exploitation of the environment.

So maybe it is a good template for how liberals and progressives can tailor a message without selling out.

[amjfv]

35. Yep...

The swing states are the spots where blue and red meet.

Also, just for the sake of arguing, the EC dosen't really help small states (look how often Bush or Kerry visited South Dakota), it only favors states that are really close.

[Armstead]

37. If it were proportional they would visit there more

I agree with you about the current electoral college placing far too much emphasis on the "swing states" at the expense of the rest of the country.

However, that has more to do with the "winner take all" structure of it. Say, for example, a state that is at 60/40 according to the projections. A campaign is more tempted to cencede that to concentrate on states with a tighter margin currently. However, if in the bigger picture, that state's electoral votes could still be won despite a popular loss, it becomes more important in the calculations of campaigning.

In other words, it would require candidates to pay somewhat attention to smaller states like a pure popular-vote election would. It's the either/or nature of the current electoral college system that's the problem in that regard.

But I basically agree with your contention that as it is the Electoral College is silly.

[Talismom]

47. If you could imagine them stealing a few votes, given the nature

of how quickly software systems do things, why can't you imagine massive, widespread fraud? If we don't do exit polling, as they did in the Ukraine and, not whine, but scream about the discrpencies, how will we ever know and be assured that we are really electing our "leaders"?

[TahitiNut]

12. I see two realities which are not in conflict.

(1) The trust and confidence Americans have in our electoral systems and processes is grossly insufficient to sustain a democracy. There can be no partisanship in acknowledging and addressing this critical failing lest we lose the final vestige of an egalitarian representative democracy. The "burden of proof" falls not on the side that suspects fraud and corruption - it falls on ALL our backs to ensure that those systems and processes, which must be regarded as "mission critical" for our ship of state, are 'head and shoulders' above even the appearance of unreliability.

(2) It serves no person or persons to identify impediments that they are themselves unable or unwilling to remove or overcome. The difference between 'blame' and 'responsibility' is the same as the difference between 'surrender' and 'achievement.' The first is about cowardice and the second is about courage. Unless and until the number of people who regard this administration as anything but a collection of sociopaths and war criminals is less than 20% of this nation, we're an outlaw nation doomed to plunging ever deeper into corruption and criminality. Liberals have sneeringly abandoned the "trenches" on the frontiers of democracy in this nation for 30 years, "trenches" like military service, school boards, zoning boards, and town councils. As a result we are an occupied nation, for all intents and purposes identical to India in the 1930s, a nation without a Gandhi or national will to assemble and stand in the path of the occupiers.

Until we muster the sustained will to change these two realities, we'll see "business as usual" under increasingly oppressive regimes. And we'll deserve it!

[Armstead]

18. I totallty agree with Point 1....

Your first point is totally spot-on, and one that ought to be a bi-partisan concensus, not just a battle between one side temporarily in power against those temporarily out of power.

I partially agree with your Point 2. The difference is that I don't think Democrats have totally abandoned the trenches everywhere. But I live in a very blue area, and so our local political systems are also blue and not a haven for fundies and right wing whackos (yet).

[Norquist Nemesis]

13. I agree we can't always put that at the top of the list

No doubt, we should always be watching and taking necessary steps to stop or correct things. We need to make certain they are completely transparent, open, and beyond reproach.

I don't doubt that as Democrats win, the shrill cries from the Whimps and Whiners Party will be deafening. Lawyers will be their best friends and 'activist' judges over the proceedings will be demanded removed from the bench.

We really need to be thinking and acting five steps ahead of them though. That's our biggest downfall politically, IMO. We play so much catchup, that we rarely get to put Plan A into place.

[PATRICK]

20. Before you get beat up too much

this is obviously about how we want to frame the election issue in its entirety including the system. IMHO Kerry was the majority choice of the American voter and the biggest mistake of many campaigning in a hostile rigged playing field was in precisely this type of underestimation of the vote rigging issue.

Continuing to see the dangers of "possible" theft is a vast understatement of GOP purpose here. I do share your misgiving about the less than pure history of our own party, especially the blown opportunities when in power to get rid of the electoral college, the wink and nod to chicanery and give and take of competing frauds, the pragmatism of cultivating corporate donors. Progressives too smiled at the shenanigans of Mayor Daley's machine, while I thought, is it true we have to rely on this to hold on to the majority? We accept the dumbness and fickleness of uniformed minds and myth besotted hearts. The smiles and grumblings of the media, the circus, the satisfaction of "winning". Meanwhile the massive influence of money and lies was beaten up a bit, made to pony up to committee chairmen and left to continue chafing for an opening. They made pacts with whoever could vengefully seize power while the masses were left to lie fallow under the benevolent auspices of incumbent Dem majorities.

Oh, I believe Kerry lost all right. More than Gore he left untended the inevitable new assault on the "sacred" ballot, the harsh lessons learned, the new methods well advertised and even grossly played. The votes disappeared and are not there to count, if they were even allowed to be cast. The tabulations, the surveys, buried by traditional submission to the rules of the contest. Lost too by playing cautiously with a hostile corporate media, with a predictable and inevitable dirty campaign. Even so- I believe- he won but a victory first repressed then suppressed then explained away with the most outrageous form of puerile lying ever to grace the political abuse of Madison Avenue PR. I wonder too who gets to write the history books and edit out this shadow of doubt as we "move on" in a very predictable Trail of Lost Elections.

The assault on democracy is pervasive, LONG in the works since the first days of ES&S and optical scan. 20 years and forecast by the report to Reagan: With stuff like this no one could ever prove theft. Like computer experts who either presumed nothing would be cheated on or didn't care, non pols never expected them to dare or even had imagination for suspicion or followed through on obvious oddities. We expected our party professionals to be aware and taking care of business. They did neither. Now that we know it is not the small effort of trying to stem the flow of touchscreen bandits.

It is worldwide totalitarian pyramiding with the wink and nod, bit of this and that that protects ALL local pol tricksterism from legal peril magnified to the point of ease and slick efficiency. It is the difference between a mugging and Dachau with the scale of invisible fraud now possible in the hands of those simply daring to use it.

Why cannot a proved piece of abusive junk in partisan hands like the Diebold machine be stopped cold? Because in getting this far all real raw power backs up the closing of the deal. We are simply stemming tides trying to preserve the imperfection we had in "safe" states while
forced to plead for bandaids on the wonderful new machines. Who is more naive, the waning Dem reps who think they can patch and fight for improved legislation or those who cry incredulously about crime and conspiracy? Or about lies and illegal doomed war and treason?

Everyone is too glib about this whether one simply presumes the facts about a stolen election(when one is forced by invisible balloting to take that on faith and indirect evidence) or trying to move on by swallowing the defeat- presumably like a man. Well, yes we were beaten in a sham of democracy, flaws daringly exposed with impunity and muted national media. Gosh, we were humiliated. Is that more important than the single fact the electorate was robed first of the vote and then the truth? The most angry thing about the whole thing is not the argument over proof etc, but the fact that then as now the central DNC campaign regulars and Kerry could not even face up to the bald reality of the outright conspiracy of treason against an ill-protected flawed mess. To save their own careers, to not let the nation rest on outmoded
presumptions facing gangland methods? They chose instead the same invisibility, the same muted talk, the same denial even of foresight and imagination. Oh, they fought some of the last campaign's battles with great noise as the warnings about early voting, suppression came and went with the loss of hundreds of thousands before Nov. 4th. Gone. Not retrievable, countable or recountable.

But it is in the fact of the absolute insecurity of the touchscreens and other digital connections to your vaporized ballot that not enough is even now being done because of that blindness and silence of putative leaders. The situation worsens state by state with victories in the resistance to the degree of HAVA incursions against what remains of democracy. Maybe no one has the whole perspective much less the proper one, but the momentum of this crime is still sweeping and progressing even as the commons become more aware of their peril and more powerless once more government is utterly lost to such corruption.
leaders? Courts? The rising outcry, the demonstrations? We are back again in the good old days when the outcome of the classic battle of good vs. evil is not written in stone. But we also have much less up there to rely on. MLK dared because he had Dem leaders, partly, and the courts, and a bipartisan bedrock of law. Now, with less blood spilled, less physical danger, less publicity granted, what could he do against this hellish chorus? This victory of sheer greed allied to all things negative and deceptive?

Totally honest elections? The ideal America of the past? The prefect future? The restoration then going back to our own affairs? You are right there. So many illusions, so little comfort in facts. The hard core of all things bad about this country or America is set up in a vicious test that has been underway for decades or a century or more. Unfaced truths are like undefeated enemies. You can only pretend in temporary lulls and personal comfort that they aren't so bad. But as we pretend let us not ever believe again that a good America is anything but a work in progress. Unlike the dictators who preach the lie of temporary misery while things get worse we find hope in taking the pain now and every day.

Otherwise we are not alive or American, just typically flawed humans seduced by prosperity away from the growing cancer in our midst. We have a variety of opinions and beliefs here. I hope we become single-minded in unity in the struggle, neither presuming hope or losing it.

[Armstead]

22. Good post.

You are stating the underlying problem really well. I don't agree with you totally, but I absolutely agree that we too often lose sight of the Bigger Picture. We bask in small victories, while ignoring the underlying rot that ultimately makes them meaningless. (See the 1990's.)

IMO one of the Democrats' bigger mistakes after 2000 was not pushing hard enough for a real concensus on true election reform. Instead they went along with a phony reform that has made the possibility of election theft more likely, not less likely.

They should have kept that issue in the forefront. (They also should have made it bi-partisan by enlisting the vestigaes of moderation and character among Republicans in the right for actual "clean elections.". That way it would have been more of a real issue of democracy, instead of looking like sour grapes.)

My basic point, though, was that when we lay all defeats on claims of election fraud, we miss the opportunity to focus on what's needed to build a base that is large enough and solid enough to withstand dirty election practices.

[PATRICK]

26. Your second paragraph

exactly sums up my 2000 views. I learned fast about the GOP system and projection into the new computer technology was easy to see. What was absolutely incredible was the total lack of response and insight by the party leadership. It was stunning. But then they had been taken to the cleaners for decades.

Your last paragraph is OK and true but it sums up the feeble solitary strategy of such truncated reasoning by the leadership. The vicious circle they have allowed defeats the very aim that would break the circle. Media suppression of Democratic message, pretext of not having a popular base, suppressed voting, money flowing to keep the circle spinning, constant production of more unrepresentative raw power.

What kind of base would we need by the time the GOP is facing undeniable dissent by the vast majority of Americans with a clear position and alternative? By that time we should have been giving the "base" guns and training. Which I am not advocating(the other side is, we rely on their cowardice for our safety)- because when it gets that bad it is too late- because not enough was done besides throwing more of the same against firmer entrenchments.

We have to wake people up to the whole truth as much as possible as a base activity, not merely provide a wonderland agenda that is pure fantasy in a situation of repression. There will always be conflicts of interest dividing people. Our coalitions must focus on the truth above all and too often the common wisdom is to skirt what the public has been cunningly denied too long.

[Armstead]

30. IMO, politics is actually secondary

I believe (always have) that electoral politics is more an effect than a cause. IMO a much more important goal is to challenge and provide alternatives to the worldviews that allow politics to be so corrupt and narrow.

I'm not speaking in a utopian sense. But for at least 30 years, Americans have bought into a bunch of self-defeating beliefs sold to them by the corporate sector including the corporate media, corporate Republicans and corporate Democrats.

The majority are the losers the more that average peopel have bought into such lies as "Giving up your own economic intsrests to the wealthy is how you will serve your economic interests." Or (the one I really like) buy into such claims as "Monopolies are necessary to preserve competition."

In other words, we need to look at things outside of the narrow partisan framework, and as a society restore some basic common sense and decency as default values beyond the meaningless labels of "left" and "right" and "center." If that were to happen, it would place more pressure on the political system to become more responsive to real people. The Democrats would benefit from that in a partisan sense if they saw it as an opportunity instead of a threat.

[PATRICK]

33. I agree again

While seeing politics as a narrowly framed sidebar for "activists" the large society consciousness has been mammothly deformed in wide ranges of myths, dislikes, frames, language and conformity to the deformity ruled by the TV box in absence of strong cohesive social groupings.

Oddly, while new activists flock to the party to war against the national blindness and the deception they find to their horror that many entrenched pols have made their career in the shrinking sideshow with old strategies and new sellouts while ate the same time buying into the general self-deception of the poisoned society. And in speeches, books, actions and actual gloating it is patently clear how, why and by whom this is perpetrated.

The middle ground that some seek to stand on is denied territory in very forums of our civilization. In situations allowed to exist like that that there are only brutes sides in a fanatical war of sucker vs. sucker for the benefit of the powerful.

German dissenters who retreated in impotence or dissidents who were repressed are not our model. We mean for truth to regain its footing in such a way to build an America that in fact has never actively existed before. A citizen democracy not a corporate republic.

As far as actual left agendas. Well, necessity should not make an ideology feel righteous. We will need to be either progressive in some fashion or tragically at each other's throats fighting for scraps. Separate issues should not separate strongly committed citizens united for the common good.

[seaglass]

23. I believe that the election of 2000 was unfair, especially the

decision of the USSC and I also agree that because it was so close we saw the warts that exist in the system.

When I started disbelieving all the "election is stolen every time we lose" was when people on this site and others were so sure Kerry stole the primary from Dean in NH. The evidence was so poor and the "facts" that were being stated were baldly untrue. It really opened my eyes to how ready people are to claim foul when their candidate loses and how really sloppy the "evidence" and "analysis" can be.

I don't believe the election in Ohio was stolen from Kerry.

I do believe there are faults in counting votes and I believe that means we need to get more of them. I don't believe this means counting on people who don't vote.

Anyway, I'm glad you posted this.

[Armstead]

24. You said it in a nutshell

>>>I do believe there are faults in counting votes and I believe that means we need to get more of them.<<<

Exactly.

[lvx35]

73. I agree, its a valid point.

Simply keep the ball rolling. The belief that we already have the majority of the country and don't need to do anything else to get it but focus on election fraud is simply wrong, and its a poisonous misconception for the success of our party!

[CWebster]

25. But wouldn't expecting our politicians to actually

make a stand and differenciate themselves with clarity and purpose be demanding too much purity, after all?

It has to be fixed, after all. ;-)

[Armstead]

31. Yes, that's why we should not get too distracted by claiming fraud

That makes it harder to convince the Ichabod Crane Democrats in power to actually consider such a "radical" step as making a stand with clarity and purpose.

B-)

[eridani]

100. Whatchu mean "fraud screamers"?

I say that we can't possibly know one way or another unless we have transparent, publicly audited voting systems.

Suppose I take your ballot from you at gunpoint, and demand that you tell me how you want it filled out. I fill it out and deposit it in such a way that you can't see what I'm doing. I say that if your default assumption is not fraud, you are seriously disturbed and delusional, even though I might very well have filled it out according to your instructions.

[Lexingtonian]

32. yup.

What bothers me about the Fraud Screamers is not so much the claims but the unwillingness to really deal logically with the rot there is.

Election problems, disparities, and minor fraud take place because there is no powerful enforcement mechanism. There is no enforcement mechanism because there are no standards of sufficient breadth and depth to implement. There are no national standards because states resist it. States resist it because their disenfranchisement laws make the administration of them different and abominable everywhere it matters.

Yet I don't see any of the fraud allegers deciding that elections can't be fixed without addressing the fundamental problem of the differential disenfranchisement laws. That would entail actual hard work, after all. How much easier to blame Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell personally and the machinery than the laws at their disposal which they exploited.

[pgh_dem]

34. This isn't a flame, just a disagreement...

When people argue against the possibility of election fraud by the GOP, it is consistently done by presenting "facts" which, if the suspicion of fraud is correct, are simply not fact.

Since nobody with the power to investigate is actually investigating, and since nobody with the power to change election laws in the way you insist you support all efforts to, the whole discussion is moot, like discussing strategy on how to beat a 3-card monty game, which is by nature rigged against the player.

We can't *know* that the votes are counted correctly, so we can't know how badly, and on which issues, we might be legitimately losing votes.

Particularly if, as alleged in Ohio 2004, a significant number of votes we are 'losing' are Repubs who crossed party lines to vote Dem, but their votes were swapped back by tabulators/other machine fraud. If so, there can be no confidence that anything *else* would attract more moderate/swing voters.

So while it is a fact that we are losing *some* elections, it seems pointless to counsel against investigating fraud...and if WE aren't calling for it, it just won't get done.

[Armstead]

36. I'm not couseling against investigations

Personally, for starters, I think there ought to be an automatic, carefully scrutinized recount in EVERY election as standard operating procedure, no matter what the margin.

And by all means, anywhere there are suspicious of wrongdoing or gross error, investigations are especially called for.

However, what I am talking about is using that as the fallback and inevitable first reponse to every election loss on our side. It's become so predictable. Rather than saying "We didn't really lose. The election was stolen" as our first response, we ought to ask why we apparently lost. Otherwise, we look like sore losers, and we also avoid the more important questions by using that as a crutch.

[snot]

38. Some of us are NOT sure the election outcomes would be the same--

that's the problem.

And if we base our strategy on false outcomes . . . it's like medicating a patient based on an incorrect diagnosis.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be thinking about your concerns. But I do believe that the majority of Americans are more liberal than you'd know from the last few elections, and that what we need most is clean elections, media reform, and maybe some new rhetoric, rather than any fundamental change in position on most issues.

[CWebster]

39. Maybe the question we should be asking is

when the Bush gang is so bad for this country, why are the elections so close and is that due to a failure on the part of the Democrats lack of will to do their job.

[Armstead]

65. Bingo

The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars but in ourselves.

Falling back on the automatic excuse that Republicans only win because of election fraud is akin to blaming fate for our own shortcomings.

[meganmonkey]

40. "our side is coming to rely on that too much"

I assume you aren't talking about the dems or the progressive community in general...because they are DANGEROUSLY silent on this issue.

If 'our side' took this seriously, there wouldn't have have been less than 100 people at the last election reform teach-in I went to Ohio. There would have been tens of thousands in Columbus at the rally for a recount in December instead of 800.

You seem to recognize that it is happening, but you think we would still lose if it weren't. Why would someone cheat if they were going to win anyway? It doesn't make any sense.

You give lip service to the idea of 'cleaning up' elections but you say it has always happened and it always will...
The difference is that thanks to the new methods of couting the votes, fraud is easier and the numbers being played with are huge.

Hope that doesn't sound like flames, it really isn't meant that way. It's just that your logic doesn't seem to work for me.

:shrug:

[Peace Patriot]

57. meganmonkey, you are forgetting the impact of those falsified exit poll

numbers on everybody's TV screens on election night. If people had seen the discrepancy--if it hadn't been deliberately hidden--there would have been huge protests and cries for investigation, just as there was in the Ukraine. It would have changed the political landscape.

As it is, it was just too much for people to grasp that they were being given false numbers. I myself believed that Bush had somehow won the exit polls for a few hours on election night--and I already knew something about electronic voting. I believe that this polluted exit poll data--making it look like Bush had won the exit polls--was critically important--and one of the greatest journalistic crimes I have ever witnessed.

If ever an election needed exit poll verification, it was this one--with a previous stolen election, and new electronic systems owned and controlled by Bushites being tested nationally for the first time.

And the Dem Party's silence was the capper.

Where WERE these Dem Party leaders of ours, when our election system fell into private rightwing hands? That's what I want to know.

Let's keep our eyes open here. Our election system MUST be changed. And independent exit polls MUST be implemented.

Squealing in the dark--no matter how right we are about the war or anything else, and no matter how much of a majority agrees with us--is not going to change anything if the votes are being counted in secret by Bush fanatics.

Isn't that obvious--or am I the one who's nuts?

---------

I have to go to work now. I'll re-visit this forum late tonight.

[meganmonkey]

63. I think it is obvious, too

As to whether or not you are nuts...well, I don't know you well enough to have a conclusion on that ;)

It is clear that the Dems are not helping the situation much at all. In most cases (like county election boards and clerks and average citizens) I truly think it is because people don't understand the problem. For reasons like the exit poll manipulations, as you pointed out. But at its root, this is a situation of corruption and manipulation and theft. It is big business intertwined with power-hungry government leaders. And the scariest part is that I am not sure that the big Dems even want to fix it. I don't get it.

If we figure out how to get Dem candidates to win by such a margin that elections can't be stolen, well that's great. But that doesn't fix the problem. We need to fix this problem. I wish I knew how.
This is a big monster to fight.

Never give up.
:patriot:

[Armstead]

68. I don't disagree with a lot of what you say

But my concern is that too often always blaming it on the voting system lets our side off the hook.

Frankly, Kerry lost because he ran a lousy, uninspiring campaign. We had an opportunity to knock Bush out of the water, and we blew it. Blaming that solely on bad voting machines distracts us from the honest self-evaluation necessary to avoid repeating the same old same old.

Voting reform is important. But unless our side gets its own act together, the cleanest elections in the world won't make any difference.

[meganmonkey]

71. I think you are right about the Dem party - but I don't see the conflict

between that and election reform.

I have never been registered as a dem - I am independent, I never voted Dem for pres until 2004. I think they have a lot of work to do to clarify what they stand for, and I am glad to be in a place like DU where I have learned that a hell of a lot democrat citizens are on the same page as me when it comes to war, rights, poverty, basic stuff. I agree with what you say about Kerry - I voted for the guy, I was very optimistic, but I was never fully convinced.

BUT - seperately from that, regardless of party affiliation or anything else, our voting system needs to be fixed. It is a basic fundamental part of our democracy and to me it is a priority.

I don't expect it to be a priority to everyone. There are lots of different issues that need work. You can choose yours and he can choose his and she can choose hers and it's okay. They don't have to compete with each other, they can complement each other. I happen to focus on anti-war and election reform. I am not a partisan person, I am an issue person. But that's just me. I am glad there are people focusing on helping the party define itself better and represent us better.

That's how I see it. They aren't mutually exclusive, they are complementary.

So let's keep working our butts off at what we think is important, and hopefully we will get to 2008 with a perfect candidate and a fair election!

:toast:

[Armstead]

77. We can walk and chew gum

I agree the voting system needs to be examined and fixed (in the correct use of that term). And those who are passionate about the issue should be.

My problem is constantly using that as an excuse to avoid facing unpleasant realities. It is more comforting to believe that all defeats are due to stolen elections than it is to admit when we lose.

[meganmonkey]

81. That's cool

I just don't see that mentality - most people I know who are working on election reform didn't think Kerry was all that great either...I think it is more of an impression that is coming from external sources, like the corporate media portraying us as hardcore Kerry fans who can't come to terms with the fact that he lost. That's not at all the truth, but that's the impression people have. Go figure.

:shrug:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

41. Kerry vs. Bush/2004 should have been Johnson vs. Goldwater/1964

Kerry had an opponent so bad that the average candidate would have fallen down on his knees in gratitude to be given such a gift.

Here's my analysis: Whatever part the voting machines played, Kerry squandered an opportunity by 1) not attacking Bush on specific points, and just as important, 2) not demonstrating in block letters written in crayon how the average voter's life would be better if they voted for him.

I saw Kerry in person twice. Both times, he was too "cool" and too vague about how his presidency would be different. Unlike Kucinich, and to a lesser degree, Edwards, he did not create a sense of excitement in the crowd beyond the idea of defeating Bush. Both Kucinich and Edwards were able to work a crowd into positive enthusiasm for their ideas, not just negative enthusiasm against Bush.

There was a ready-made constituency of "dump Bush" voters, crossing party lines from Democratic to Libertarian to Green, and they worked hard to elect Kerry. When I went out canvassing in Minneapolis, I sometimes ran into one or two other canvassing teams who had been sent in by MoveOn, the Sierra Club, or ACT. The anti-Bush coalition was so thorough that by the end, I was commonly getting the reaction, "All right already!"

But the pro-Kerry forces had no ready answers to questions from swing voters of how voting for Kerry would improve their lives. The war? Well, Kerry had voted to authorize Bush (a vote that 12 Senators understood as authorizing an illegal war) and he wanted to send in more troops. Health care? He talked about tax credits for health insurance (something that we self-employed people already get, and it does nothing to compensate for exorbitant montly premiums and high deductibles) and buying into the federal insurance pool (again, what if you're too "rich" for Medicaid and too poor for even the federal pool?). His positions on the two biggest issues that people actually talk about were vague and mushy.

He didn't fight back against the Swift Boat gang early enough or hard enough. He tacitly endorsed other Republican positions, such as the one on gay marriage or the idea that war is the best way to fight "terrorism." He had himself photographed in obviously stage-managed photo ops. I worried as early as CSPAN coverage of the Iowa caucuses when I saw that he seemed stiff and shy in the company of other Vietnam vets, as if he'd forgotten how to mix with the common folks. He did not urge crowds to vote for Democrats for down-ballot offices, something that should be an absolute requirement for any presidential candidate's speech.

Let me say before the flamethrowers start fueling up that I do NOT believe that there is no difference between Bush and Kerry. However, Kerry did not put ENOUGH distance between himself and Bush. The mushy middle voters saw Kerry defined by the MSM and defamed by the wingnuts. They did not see a positive, optimistic message from him that spoke to the country's actual needs.

Most of them had not (yet) been harmed by Bush's policies, and so they saw no reason not to stick with Bush.

The 2006 candidates need to have a united message, a positive, forward-looking program that they all can agree on, and assertiveness training.

The 2008 candidate had better start thinking now of what is both attractive and feasible to present as his platform, and it had better be in small words, specific, and capable of being summarized on an index card. Above all, he must avoid agreeing with anything the Republican candidate says, unless it's something like "wow, this sure is a big crowd here tonight." It should never happen that 1/3 of the electorate is undecided just a few days before the election (2000), a phenomenon that is possible only if the Dem has failed to distinguish himself from his opponent in the minds of the voters.

If Goldwater had tried to steal the election from Johnson, everyone would have been amazed and indignant. With a "close" race like 2000 and 2004, the election is too easy to steal.

[Armstead]

69. As usual I agree with you completely

[ooglymoogly]

43. diebold and all their kind are hackable

the ceo of diebold said he would help deliver the ohio vote to bush. there is no paper trail from the machines. all of the glitches and mistakes amounting to tens of thousands of votes accrued to bush and the gop. something is wrong here and we need to keep screaming as loud as we can to rectify it. to hell with tinfoil hats, our democracy is being flushed down the toilet. to pretend there was not overwhelming fraud is just plain...your adjective

[Talismom]

48. Amen! I'm with you oogly! n/t

[Chemical Bill]

51. You kids nowadays, I remember...

back in the '60s when the Democrats were just shot if they were any good. People said that was no conspiracy either. You must be one of them "coincidence theorists".:eyes:

Bill

[Kolesar]

52. The time has come for our party to lead on global warming

The Democrats need and issue to lead on and this is it. Most of the world is with it. Public opinion is moving that way. The lying PR disinformation campaign of Exxon is being exposed. I think Democratic leaders are afraid of big oil and king coal, but how many Americans are really fond of the companies that sell them expensive gasoline? How many Americans like writing a check to the electricity company? The Dems can rail against those industries like old-time populist anti-railroad trust busters! Go for the throat. What do they have to lose but some campaign funding?

[Uncle Joe]

62. I agree and I would add

the corpwhorate media monopoly in to the mix as well, five corporations owning 80+% of the so mainstream media is a bit much to say the least. It was the corpwhorate media, our famed fourth estate and supposed watchdogs that enabled the incompetent corrupt one to power in the first place. We need to break their corporate ass up.

[Senator]

54. Required Reading >>>> (and a comment)

HIGHLY IRREGULAR
The Ohio election story is going to come back. By Matt Taibbi

And since I'm here, let me take issue some of what you've said as I think you're being somewhat misled by euphemedia propaganda memes. I don't mean to single you out personally, as many people have the same notions.

>>>The problems revealed in Florida in 2000 were not isolated or new. The closeness ... because Florida was placed under a microscope.<<<

The "closeness" of 2000 is a canard that is only defensible by the circular logic of accepting the "ofishyl" results - post theft. The simple extrapolation of uncounted ballots, by precinct, gave Gore a margin of tens of thousands in Florida. And Florda accounts for a swing of 50 electoral votes -- roughly 7 or 8 full "red states."

The theft mechanisms certainly were new. No one has ever hired a database company to scrub the voter rolls of opposing party voters. No one has ever successfully challenged a dimpled chad. No one since the Civil War has ever challenged a state's ability to apply their own election laws through their own courts.

(The same can be said for 10-hourlines in Ohio and invisible, unauditable, computer tallying.)

Now, on to the larger point: which basically is that we should "face facts." (no?)

You say in your opinion Kerry really lost. Well first, I should not have to be an opinion. What has been "stolen" in the past 2 cycles is our right to confidence in the results. That a fact.

You say we are losing the "contest of ideas and politics." But this conflates the two. We are (and have been) winning the contest of ideas, just not the politics.

So politically, what are we to do with this "opinion" that the last 2 elections were brazenly stolen from the (formerly) American People?

Do we, as you suggest, accept our loser status and fail to accuse, investigate, and punish, even when we think it warranted? Or do we consider ourselves winners and seek to build on our, albeit small, success? They are 2 very different options.

Some of us think the "stolen elections" revolt, like the recent rumblings to impeach, can help to counteract the long-standing, pervasive "political problem" that the left is perceived as "weak."

But when it comes to the stolen elections, the problem is even larger. Because when you fail to accuse and punish, when you believe it's warranted, you are not only "weak," but complicit in the travesty. Thus fostering alienation and apathy in the electorate.

As (the last legitimate) President Clinton often says; many voters will opt for "strong and wrong" over "weak and right." And there is no reason not to be bold on this issue.

Just ask Barbara Boxer.

---

[Griffy]

55. PROVE it.. bush won?.. PROVE it.. you cant! that the point!!

you are just guessing .. with unverifiable voting we are all guessing, HOWEVER, the exit polling seemed to indicate Kerry won, and so on... I cant prove Kerry won, the system is broken and why you would think Kerry lost is beyond me, you believe the news?.. bushes crowd? I just dont know what source of information leads you to a Kerry lost conclusion...

it is vital we EXPOSE the rigged elections if we ever hope to get verifiable elections, nothing will change if people think it is working (i.e. if you think Kerry lost, what are you complaining about, the system worked... see?)

[Armstead]

78. It's impossible to have absolute certainty.

And there should be ways to verify results as accurately as possible.

But in the case of 2004, it's pretty clear we got skunked. It wasn't only Bush, it was a lot of Congressional races too.

Sure we should expose rigged elections. I'm not trying to discourage investigations, etc. However, that can't become an all-purpose excuse.

[Griffy]

106. Check those stats again..

I do believe we made gains in state houses in many states... also, the net gain in the house for the repubs was 5, but they got 7 from TX due to the redistricting they did.. you remeber, the dem state senators fled to a Dennys in OK.

Its not "pretty clear" when the facts are viewed more closely, alot of right wing effert has been put out to make us feel like the minority, we won in 2000, and senators like Max Cleland should still be in the congress. So.. whats pretty clear to me is that criminals are running the country, and expecting them to play fair is foolhardy. We had an election were millions of ballots were "cast" into a machine owned/built/operated by staunch republican companies. I have zero faith in the result, the exit poll info seemed to show a Kerry win... so my OPINION is Kerry won, but no one knows... and if no one thinks the system is broke, it wont get fixed!

how about instead of not trying to discourge, you actually activly go ENCOURGE investigation... its like you tell the firefighter saving you.. I wont stop you! HELP US... we are up against massive propaganda and we need every mouth ,pen and keyboard out there demanding ALL the truth and answers!

BE the MEDIA!

[Eloriel]

56. And I am conflicted about ...

you.

However, frankly, I think our side is coming to rely on that too much, as a way to excuse and justify real politcal losses.

You mean a few thousand DUers, don't you? Our elected leaders in Washington are BARELY aware of the problem and even Howard Dean, tho ON it, doesn't have it as his highest priority by any means. AND, there are actually some Dems in Congress who are on the WRONG side of this issue (Steny Hoyer, Chris Dodd, and others I'm sure).

And even more importantly: UNTIL THE PROBLEM IS FIXED, we have no earthly idea how we're doing, what we're doing right and what we're doing wrong. We'll be asking -- and answering! -- the wrong questions. "Why did we lose?" is a rather pathetic exercise in futility IF we didn't lose at all, wouldn't you say?

And, to be fair, it is not only the Republicans who have engaged in it. Democrats also have a long and colorful history of buying or stealing elections too.

So what? THIS stealing is done at a scale that overrides everything else, and it's not likely being done by Dems (Cathy Cox aside -- but we'll just see how well she does in HER Gubernatorial run; I can hardly wait.

Even so, yes, you're right. Dems have been guilty in the past as well. We need to stop it wherever it happens and whoever's doing it. Period, end of discussion.


However, IMO, it's also vital that we accept the fact that we really have been losing elections,

You really have no basis whatsoever for saying that. AND, this remark makes me realize you actually don't know what you're talking about:

The problems revealed in Florida in 2000 were not isolated or new. The closeness and the stakes merely made us aware of the inherent clumsiness and corruption of the whole electoral system, because Florida was placed under a microscope.

No, there were definitely many NEW problems revealed in FL.

In any case, I heartily recommend that you spend quite a bit of quality time in the Election 2004 forum.

[Armstead]

80. I'm conflicted about me too -- But that's another story

I hope you will note that I said "conflicted." I did not say something categorical like "Claims of election fraud are all bogus."

I do agree that the Democratic Establishment should be a lot more vigorous about pursuing real electoral reform on many levels. And they should be especially zealous in opposing electronic vapor voting.

But you seem to miss something yourself, though. This has been a consistent and long-term pattern of losing national elections. It is too far and wide to be totally attributable to rigged elections. That makes me gnash my teeth. But taking the easy path of chalking it all up to "stolen" elections is to me akin to becoming "born again" as a way to avoid painful scrutiny of the situation.

[bleever]

95. Damn, I was going to enjoy coming up with a response to the OP,

but you already said it here.

Thanks.

[rucky]

58. Easy solution:

voter verified paper ballots, and total transperancy in the counting process. no scerecy, no shouting down dissenters. If there's no fraud, it should hold up to public scrutiny.

given the current environment, these ass clowns do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. we should definately be looking at ourselves down the road, but right now, Jesus Christ could run as a Democrat and lose. It's not as much our candidates as the system in place to keep the people already in power...in power.

[Armstead]

82. I agree with the need for paper ballots

If there's going to be electronic voting, there should also be a paper receipt that is a printed form with your votes on it. Actually, it should also include a duplicate receipt -- one goes into a back-up ballot box and anotehr you keep as firther back up.

[On the Road]

60. There Are Ways to Go About Any Public Debate

One of the worst is to claim proof when the proof isn't there, or is the kind that would only convince someone whose mind was already made up.

To my mind, the exit poll argument is of this type. You normally lead with your best argument, and if your lead argument doesn't hold water, your whole position can be discredited.

The best way is lead with specific things can be proven even if they're not as sweeping. Emphasize the incompleteness of the information. Leave questions in people's minds. Let them wish for more and draw their own conclusions. This is the way the Valerie Plame issue is progressing.

Think of the response you want to create in listeners. They need to be on your side and be interested in hearing more. They need to need to feel that there is more to this story than is pubicly available.

Making sweeping generalizations can have the opposite effect. If people don't accept the proof, it can put them on the other side of the wedge. They will less likely to agree about other claims, or to want to hear about them. This is straight cognitive dissonance.

Successful prosecutors know this. So do successful debaters. Democratic activists have to know it too.

[preciousdove]

61. Actually people like you are the reason they can still do it.

You cannot have been reading the data and technical explainations and still hold your opinon so I assume you are posting this post so you don't have to read, think or more importantly ACT.

[Fly by night]

64. Oh look, ya'll, it's Ground-hog Day all over again.

For those of us who have actually been following the 2004 election theft story (whose electronic vote-switching methods extend into the 90s and maybe up through this Tuesday), these puzzling but periodic DU threads questioning the propriety of a legitimate concern for "stolen elections" are beginning to look familiar. Here's why.

To begin with, they are invariably started by someone who appears not to have done any reading on the subject. The OPs seem completely unfamiliar with Freeman, Fitrakis, Conyers, Mitteldorf, TIA, Alter, Stewart, Gideon, Thiesen, Griscom, Hitchens, Miller, Windham -- their non-reading list (of which this is a tiny taste) is quite impressive.

Then they appear unable to have ever found the DU 2004 Election Results and Discussion forum, where there are now thousands of threads documenting the evidence for the 2004 election theft. Hell, if they even went to today's front page of the 2004 ERD and lingered a while, they would know more than they appear to know now.

And if they have ever found the 2004 ERD, they seem to have never had the time, interest or inclination to post there. I know, because I just did a simple search for your handle, and guess what? No posts identified in the simple search. Nada. Then I did an advanced search and found just one post from you on the 2004 ERD forum over the past year, that one last December. The pithy and provocative title? "It's 5:03 pm and I'm here." That's it. A single irrelevant post, with five irrelevant responses.

Yes, folks, we're dealing with a real expert here on the subject of election fraud, someone we should all take advice from in the "just get over it" arena. While we're at it, it might be fun to see just how many of your fellow travelers on this thread who have chimed in on your "move on" mantra have ever bothered to post on 2004 ERD. My guess -- fewer than there are seed-ticks crawling up my leg right now.

This thread reminds me of a coke-head Rethug county commissioner I had the displeasure of dealing with when I was on an extended public health assignment in north-central Wyoming a while back. Whenever some organization would come before the commission to ask for support, our skinny snow-man would get up and leave the room to go powder his nose. He would generally come back only when the organization members were finishing up their presentation, occasionally with a tiny bit of "frosting" still clinging to his nostrils. Then, when the chairman of the county commission would ask the other commissioners if they had any questions or comments, this pinsized-pupilled snow-rabbit would say, "I can't support this request for funds, because the organization hasn't presented enough evidence to me that they need the support." And he would say that every time with a straight face, under which dwelled some nervously grinding teeth. That commissioner was a fool and a knave -- rude, condescending and ignorant to boot. And in fairly short order,he was an ex-commissioner.

Before I take advice from anyone to ignore the importance of free, fair and verifiable elections or the Wind River Range-sized accumulation of evidence that our elections have been anything but for the past decade; I would want to know if that person knows his metaphorical ass from his elbow. On that score, by the evidence of your non-presence on the 2004 ERD over the past year, you fail the ass/elbow test. However. there's still hope for you yet. The 2004 ERD is still open for business (if you can find it) and there's still abundant evidence for the methods and the madness being used to steal elections, in the event that you, your ground-hog buddies and -- what the hell -- the leadership of the Democratic Party ever wants to visit.

'Til then, my suggestion is that you keep starting threads about telling time -- it does appear to be a subject you know something about.

[Armstead]

85. Congratulations

You win the needlessly rude flame award of the day.

Yeah, you really make it an inviting prospect to visit the ERD fosum.

(I have no recollection of writing any "telling time" post, but it's possible I did, especially that evening. Big f'n deal, if I did. I'm sure if you did some more searching, you'd find more acceptably substantive posts from "this handle."

You might have some justification for your snootyness if I'd written a post saying "Anyone who presses for election reform is a moron" or something like that.

But I didn't. I merely expressed an opinion that we need some sense of proportionality, and not become knee jerk and tell ourselves that we really "win" even though we lose.

And I specifically emphasized that I support the basic goals of investigating and pushing to make the process more honest and transparent.

But, there is an Ignore function. If my innocuous "thinking out loud" original post is so upsetting to you, please find it and use it.

[Fly by night]

94. Please don't let my blunt talk keep you from learning something ...

... on the 2004 ERD. It is and has been an excellent forum for the remaining "reality-based" Americans among us. My decision to do a search on you in that forum was to find out how often you had visited and had commented on the evidence being presented there. I was very surprised that someone who was "conflicted" hadn't bothered to review the evidence for election theft that is so abundant and available at 2004 ERD. Maybe you'd be less conflicted if you would only read more.

And we don't accept weak or faith-based arguments there anymore than any other DU forum, even from our friends. I myself had to correct a poster who kept claiming yesterday that Hackett was ahead throughout the vote counting in OH-2 until the very end, when that was untrue and the poster should have known better. So come visit anytime. I am certainly not alone among the respondents to your OP in thinking that would be a good idea, and would maybe help un-conflict you.

But a Flame Award. Really, I'm touched. Here in middle Tennessee, the only Flame Award is given to the most attractive Nashville country singer, and I wouldn't be remotely in the running for that award, even if I shaved my back for ya'.

Come visit the 2004 ERD, read what we know and what we suspect. In fact, read Land Shark's postings on GD/2004 ERD today. His logic about our need to abandon faith-based voting is irrefutable.

Love and kisses from the Orange State. Really.

[Sean Reynolds]

66. 2004 shouldn't have been close to begin with.

I often wonder why people believe the Republican Party just woke up right before the 2000 election and decided to steal it. Why didn't they do it in '96 or '92? They had their chances back then, yet a Democrat won.

The big difference between those two elections, and the past two, is that THOSE were blow-out results. Going into Election Night '92 we knew Clinton would win. Then in '96, again we knew Clinton would win.

In 2000 and 2004 there was no excuse for the results being as close as they were. In 2000 Gore was the VP of a successful president, the country had a strong economy and was at relative peace. Bush was a former son of a mediocre president, who couldn't debate and had only EIGHT years worth of governmental experience. It should have been a homerun for Gore, but it wasn't.

In 2004 Bush was coming off a first term riddled with mistakes. He had approval ratings in the upper-40s, a country at war (which had turned to bedlam), a shaky economy and a growing unemployment rate. Kerry should have been at least ten points up on Bush heading into election night.

But the race was a dead heat. Why?

Because the Democrats failed to get their message out. Kerry was perceived to be a flip-flopping liberal from the North-East. Sadly Kerry was too slow in dispelling that belief. And while Bush was not popular, he was well-liked; Kerry was not. People felt they knew where Bush stood on the issues; they didn't about Kerry. People felt that Bush was speaking to them; they didn't about Kerry.

End result? Bush wins a close election.

The point? It shouldn't have been a close election to begin with. If the Republicans stole the election, it only happened because the race was so close. Every poll done by the media and campaigns showed the race a dead heat. IF Kerry had been up by ten or so points the weekend before the election, stealing the election would be too obvious. It'd of never happened and Kerry would have won. However in a close race, the chances of it happening ARE greater.

If Democrats don't want Republicans to steal elections they need to field better candidates. Someone that isn't going to be in a close race against a guy that has an approval rating below 50%.

Bush became the first president since Truman to win an election with an approval rating below 50%.

In the end, even those that disapproved of him voted for him. That shouldn't happen and it wouldn't have had happened if the Democrats ran a better campaign.

[WI_DEM]

84. it shouldn't have been but it was because we blew it

The entire month of August and into September was wasted because of the Swift Boat Lies and our inability to counter it quickly and it grew way out of proportion. Another problem was the Dem convention which paid too much attention to Kerry's past and not enough to the present problems and offering solutions. That is what people wanted. Kerry didn't get the usual boost out of his convention.

[eridani]

101. This is all true--one thing we know from the Iraq election fiddling--

--is that the neocons are still concerned about plausibility. They didn't dare have Allawi win, so they transferred 10% of the vote from the Sistani slate (58% dropped to 48%) to Allawi (4% raised to 14%). The winning slate couldn't form a government by itself, and Allawi got slightly more clout. That means that any Republican fiddling would have been caught out if Kerry had put the race out of reachh.

[Imagevision]

67. WE would have no Problems with Diebolds if they worked like ATM's

and provided a receipt! Only goes to show the corruption is at the highest levels.

A Bank machine provides a receipt - electing the President? no, it's not really necessary?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

70. Look, I'm knowledgeable about voting issues, and I've even called

in to radio talk shows where "experts" were trying to reassure everyone that vapor voting was nothing to worry about.

But the voting machines are only part of the problem.

You cannot say with confidence that Kerry definitely would have won if it hadn't been for Diebold and their ilk. Close races are prone to be stolen.

Landslides are not. We need candidates and campaigns who can create landslides based on positive proposals waged by personable candidates, not just on hatred of the other side.

That's all Armstead is really saying.

[Cookie wookie]

86. Again, as I said above, if the code is written to

move a percentage of votes from Dems to Republicans at a ratio that will always be higher, the Republicans will always win, no matter how many people vote Democrat.

You can't say with confidence that Kerry lost either.

For anyone not getting the seriousness of the problem using DREs and proprietary secret code belonging to Republican corporations, take the time to read David Jefferson's latest update (last week) to his rebuttal to the R. Doug Lewis document on voting security at http://www.gaforverifiedvoting.org/docs/election_center.html

Jefferson is a computer scientist working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, was on the NSF Panel on Internet Voting, and among other credits is Chair of the CA Secretary of State's Voting Systems Technical Assessment and Advisory Board. R. Doug Lewis heads the Election Center, which bills itself as "a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting, preserving, and improving democracy. Its members are government employees whose profession is to serve in voter registration and elections administration." http://www.electioncenter.org/ No one knows what his credentials are, but the Center organizes the National Conference for Election Directors, this year held in Beverly Hills and cosponsored by Diebold, ES&S and friends.

The letter Jefferson is rebutting is given out by election officials to the public to teach them about the security of their votes on DREs.

A few quotes from Jefferson's rebuttal:

"Yes, I do claim that voting software can be manipulated to change the outcome of elections, and quite possibly without detection. No one is specifically trying to scare anyone. But when we carefully explain the dangers of introducing DREs without voter verification, the implications are indeed scary. It is vital that security problems with voting systems not be covered up in the name of voter confidence."

snip

"The most dangerous potential vulnerabilities (1) can affect hundreds of elections simultaneously, rather than just one; (2) are easily hidden and unlikely to be detected; (3) can be perpetrated by a single person without requiring a larger conspiracy; or (4) are particularly easy to perpetrate. DRE software, and the associated development and distribution processes, should be designed so that attacks like these are virtually impossible; but sadly, they are not. Fortunately, most of the serious bug and attack scenarios can be prevented or at least detected and ameliorated with the addition of one mechanism, voter verification, which is why we advocate it."

snip

"The DRE software might, for example, do all of the vote switching in a few milliseconds during the shutdown procedure at the end of the day—which is actually the optimal time, I believe. But it is also perfectly possible to change votes all day during the voting process, and there are a hundred ways to do so. These vote changes will not be detected by election official because no one is allowed to look at vote subtotals during an election; doing so would compromise voter privacy. "

snip

"Today one vendor controls over 50% of the U.S. voting system market, and there is no reason to suppose that this pattern will not continue. Now that DREs are widespread, an attack on that one vendor’s system could have national effect, swinging many close races around the country. A successful attack on any one kind of widely-used machine has to be considered the electoral equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction."



So why are those who seriously question the legitimacy the elections of 2002 and 2004 labeled "conspiracy theorists"?

Why would anyone think that republican controlled corporations who have the opportunity, the motive, and the means to commit the perfect election crime, NOT steal the elections?

[digitaldave]

72. Honesty comes first

You said "Frankly, IMO John Kerry really did lose the election in 2004". Bull****.

Every election since exit polling was invented has been MORE accurate than the one before it, and 2004 was no exceptiion... even for Ohio. That's right, the 2004 exit polls in Ohio were the most accurate ever taken in that state! That is, for all questions save one: "Who did you vote for as President?" That question alone garnered a result so inaccurate it was the worst in the history of Ohio exit polling; more than twice the maximum mathematically possible degree of error.

Get it - The worst poll ever was inside of the best poll ever! Anyone that's willing to shrug and look the other way after seeing this fact is simply dishonest. We are not going to start winning elections by lying to ourselves or each other.

[LittleClarkie]

74. Two questions: Who did you support in the primaries

and would you be more inclined to believe in fraud if it had been that person running.

Just trying to filter out possible prejudices.

That said. But without elections we can count on as being fair, we'll never know, will we.

[welshTerrier2]

75. i feel much the same way ...

i wouldn't rule out for a second, the possibility that elections are being rigged ... every possible effort should be made to document all election corruption ...

but too many times, in raising other issues on DU, there are a stream of replies saying none of that other stuff matters because the elections are rigged ...

now that's just plain craziness ... even if we could prove the last couple of elections were stolen, we still need to define our values and beliefs and we still need to convince the American people that we have ideas that will take the country in the right direction ... if we abandon the essence of what we're fighting for because the "scorekeepers" are corrupt, we've lost the battle without even a fight ...

the struggle for justice and better government must continue whether there is election fraud or not ...

[Armstead]

89. Exactly -- That's what prompted this

>>>but too many times, in raising other issues on DU, there are a stream of replies saying none of that other stuff matters because the elections are rigged ...<<<

That's exactly what bugs me. When discussions of other issues get blocked by that response, as if nothing else has anything else to do with losses.

We sorta had a right to use that in the first four years, because 2000 was a theft. But election fraud has always been a fact of life to some extent. Can;t use that as a code for "We really won" all the time.

[libertypirate]

76. Why can't we simply be for the truth no matter how hard people

try to hide it?

The true nature and foundation of our system of democracy was based accountability; without it we are nothing.

If we the owners of our democracy do not demand this we don't deserve democracy.

[Helga Scow Stern]

79. I am conflicted by the perennial claims of fair elections....

when there is much evidence to the contrary. What is up with that? Why not study the issue in depth and then still see if you are so conflicted about it? The evidence is there for anyone who cares to look, although it is a lot of boring drudgery to go over all those figures, statistics, reports, etc. Too much work?

I would much rather believe that the country is ignorant in the majority and actually elected incompetent scoundrels like Bush and Cheney than that something so dark and insidious as stealing our votes is taking place. Nightmare upon nightmares made even darker especially when people who should know better act as if it isn't happening. I wonder how many more elections will have to be stolen before those who express an opinion without knowing the facts start to wake up?

2006? 2008? There is a lot of work to do alright. Trying to sweep this huge problem under the rug does not seem a proper way to begin it.

[Armstead]

87. I'm not advocating sweeping it under the rug

But I do believe that blaming it all on that is ignoring a lot of even bigger questionjs and issues.

[WI_DEM]

83. Excellent post with many great points

Obviously fair elections must be a priority and we should have investigations into diebold. But it seems to be getting to be a natural reflex with any election result which is negative that it is blamed on fraud. The Hackett election is the perfect example. Some people forget that Hackett did better than any democrat running for congress in that very republican district since 1980. It was always going to be a long shot to win it and that we did that well is actually a good indication that democrats could have momentum going into 2006.

[autorank]

88. Election fraud today carries on the tradition of racist barriers to voting

from the civil war forward through the 70's. It's also an extension of the denial of gender based voting rights.

VOTING RIGHTS IS OUR ISSUE. WAKE UP AND LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE.

WE'RE PERENNIAL LOSERS IF WE DON'T.

YES VIRGINIA, THERE IS NO SANTA CLAUS, IT'S AN UGLY WORLD AND
TODAY, WE THE PROGRESSIVES ARE ON THE SHORT END OF THE STICK,

Wake up and smell the coffee...before it's too late and we lose
everything we've worked for...that is the master plan, I'm sure we
all agree on that. No more Social Security, no more civil rights, no more right to privacy, no more meritocracy, and, every Republican's favorite SOCIALISM FOR THE RICH, FREE ENTERPRISE FOR THE POOR.

"Scoop" Independent Media Article

or the following DU link

A comprehensive explanation of fraud--text and key links

[Armstead]

92. Folks this is not an either/or question

In true DU/progressive tradition, this looks like another case of false divisions.

It's not like you have to be "for" or "against" voting reform, investigations and accountability.

It is possible to support that, but also believe that it should not be used as a reason to rationalize larger failures or ignore the reasons for them.

To reiterate my original post, the problem is when every loss is dismissed as being attributable to that, while ignoring flaws of messages, candidates, strategies, policies, etc. or not acknowledging the possibility that a majority of voters pull the levers for R's, despite our best efforts because they want to.

I fully agree with those who say the Democratic party establishment should be getting on this case more aggressively. They should be fighting against the privitization of the electoral process, and they should be advocating for things like paper receipts of ballots. And they should be pushing for recounts in all races where there areany suspicions.

However, saying Bush and the Republicans didn't really "win" in 02 and 04 is not the real answer either. IMO, the healthiest and most productive approach is to push for voter reform, but accept the fact that they are the winners and they have the power. Changing that predicament has more to do with changing minds than anything else.

[Cookie wookie]

93. Sorry, but that's like saying

a crime has been committed, that's the past, now let's move forward. When there is a suspicion of a murder, people aren't asked to forget about investigating, looking for evidence and perpetrators AND bringing them to justice.

Stealing elections is terrorism. It ranks up there with being a traitor to our country. Forget 2002 and 2004? That's an unacceptable statute of limitations for a high crime and some of us will not move on until we do everything in our power to track down every clue, expose every irregularity and area of suspicion, and bring it to public light. Even "perfect" crimes are committed by people who eventually make mistakes.

The only move on here is one that works to legislate every possible means to stop future similar crimes, but if the public doesn't know about or acknowledge that crimes are likely being committed, there is no moving on because the crime perpetuates.

[eridani]

102. More like saying that there is PROBABLE CAUSE that a crime--

--has been committed. You can't possibly have proof one way or another unless you do the investigations that our leadership refuses to do.

[fujiyama]

103. You are right that we shouldn't use fraud as an excuse for our own failure

but I completely disagree and believe you are naive when claiming the "Democrats do it too line.". This basically reduces all republican tactics at REAL DISENFRANCHISEMENT of minority voters as "politics as usual", a claim that repukes all too often use.

And what happened in Florida was more than "just politics". It was blatant theft and the SC overstepping its bounds, showing the ultimate hypocrisy of the five that stopped the recount.

Also regarding the '04 election, while I'm not completely convinced it was stolen, it is indisptable that there were way too many anomalies and oddities.

[sunnystarr]

105. I should have posted some links in my earlier post

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_controversies_and_irregularities

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._election_voting_controversies

It's best to be knowledgeable about an issue before making your opinion. Until these issues are resolved, every election will be suspect. That's the point! We've lost confidence that our votes count or are counted or that voting just provides data to manipulated into a desired result.

This message should be going out everywhere. Until the American people are educated about the issue and learn not to trust the present system, there won't be enough pressure to demand the necessary reforms.

Personally I'd love to see a state election where every Democrat stays home and doesn't vote. That would make national news and scare the shit out of Dem leadership and force them to insist on changes. Then the facts can get out there in MSM to inform every American about the fraud in our democratic election process. Let me nominate Evan Bayh's state of Indiana - we don't need the likes of him in our party.