Was the 2004 Election Stolen? by Steve Freeman and Joel Bleifuss

[sarahlee]

Freeman's specialty is polling. He wisely begins with November 2, 2004, reminding us of the afternoon and early-evening exit polls that showed Kerry winning. The sudden and dramatic reversal late that night, all-too-reminiscent of November 2000, made many of us suspect dirty tricks. It's clear that the discrepancy between the polls and the election results should have sounded a warning, the way it did in Ukraine just weeks before. It was easy for Freeman to convince me that the NEP consortium that created the exit polls produced a state-of-the-art sample that was the fruit of years of experience and expertise. Indeed, some of the polling procedures seem more trustworthy than the gerry-rigged American voting system that differs from one district to the next.

It would be wrong to put our faith in polling. Freeman provides photo evidence that NEP tampered with poll results after the “official” election results in order to make it seem that Bush's election was predicted. The proprietary NEP data belongs to the corporation that produces it: citizens don't have access to it unless NEP makes a mistake, as they did when raw scores were televised on Nov. 2. (The authors make it very clear that proprietary secrets have no place in our voting process, which needs to depend on checks, balances, audits, and recounts to keep it honest.) Luckily, enough raw data was revealed to allow statisticians like Freeman to examine the discrepancies closely.

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[PATRICK]

1. Two separate questions

Were the Republicans engaged in massive fraud, suppression, vote fixing, tally manipulating and on and on down the entire list of possibilities while ANY complaints by Dems would be the exception that proves their honesty? Of course. In media fraud alone the election could be rendered illegitimate in reality if not by our quaintly "contest" defined law.

So yes it was stolen even if they did not have to. But in that case true competence and bi-partisanship and image even would have made it an honest horse race. The entire underpinning of this government is illegitimate.

Now the smoking gun nostrum. Was it in fact a change from a Kerry victory to a Bush victory lie? Was there some poll on the grassy knoll, some incontrovertible math, some physical evidence and witnesses? You know who has been winning the GOP installed Catch-22 clause in election law. One starts with logic and is left floundering in GOP spaghetti spin. You have the comedy of warring statisticians trying to divine disappeared ballots and lost voters making it as easy to blame the dissenters and the "loser" as the transparent crooks.

If you NEED to know the exact facts, you know they are suppressed and conspicuous by being absent. Is it to affirm your own doubts in this murk as much as to search for the Holy Grail of Proof Positive? That is a dialogue of victims. We know they steal votes and change tallies, suppress voting. That is what we are going to fight and change.

And then prosecute them up the wazoo.

[sarahlee]

2. Excellent questions and conclusion

We just have to figure out how to get politicians in DC that will stand up with us.

That is one reason I support Progressive Democrats of America.