Some places where the '08 election may have been compromised

[truedelphi]

For everyone who thinks that election theft issues are tinfoil hat or crazy people conspiracy theories please be aware that:

One: Rachel Maddow devoted part of her program late in the week to a voting analyst, and between the two of them, they decided that both the overall election in Alaska and the election in two separate counties in Georgia were very "fishy."

What the two of them concluded about Alaska revolves around the fact that a full eighty thousand plus voters failed to show up for the '08 election on Tuesday - despite the home state gal being on the ticket. (In a state like Alaska, which has less than three quarters of one million voters, eighty thousand voters is a BIG DEAL!)

Also, a judge in a Pennsylvania County has ordered that Diebold Touch Screen systems be impounded in his county - as all 185 of the failed to allow voters to review the names of Presidential candidates that they Had chosen before they left the polling place
(Full story at Brad Blog http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6643)

Paper ballots, number two pencils, Please! In all of the fifty
states.

[jillan]

1. I have to wonder about Arizona - 2 issues --

First, exit polls had McCain up .5 %, and yet he won by 7 1/2%

In my little world, I know of 3 people that had to cast provisional ballots because they were not registered when they went to the polls. One of those people have voted previously.

Think about it, Az was in play the last couple of weeks, yet McCain won by a nice size margin.

So what happened?

[truedelphi]

4. A lot of concerned Arizona voters here on DU are posting

Their issues with Tuesday's procedures inside the Arizona forum at DU.

This one was rather revealing:
http://tinyurl.com/create.php

[Overseas]

2. I am glad a lot of voter roll purging and voter suppression cases were caught

in the lead up to the election so the public could see the extent of the GOP's usual bag of tricks, as used in 2004.

I tried to respond to all the silly -- "See, we won so never mind election integrity!" -- type posts right away.

We got the AVALANCHE we needed to get our LANDSLIDE.

I try to impress upon everyone that we need to keep pushing for election integrity-- national bottom lines-- like paper ballots, random audits and non-partisan distribution of voting machines and non-partisan administration of voter registration.

WE NEED ELECTION INTEGRITY FOR THE MID-TERM ELECTIONS, to give Obama even more support. I can see the GOP planning to use its tricks to push more Republicans at the mid-terms to hamper the Democrats' plans. They can engineer such a win with the weaknesses still left in the system and point to historical trends to pretend it is a natural thing. Unless we can get throngs to the polls for the midterms to overwhelm the trickery again.

[truedelphi]

3. My concern about election integrity is that

The way things are now, it is TOTALLY up to the Registrar of Voters in many cases. My concern is not only for things like not repeating the Gore and Kerry snafus of the past, but for those little items on the ballot - things like hospital control. (Loss of control that the big local hospital corporation may not want to see come about.)

With the system we have now, there are no guarantees in
place. As long as whatever local election is stolen, is stolen by 1.25%, nothing to examine it will be done. (Automatic recount laws are usually in place only if the vote margin is .5% or lower.) And a recount often just means re-running the paper ballots through the same hackable machinery that was used the first time around.

Having interviewed several of these Registrar of Voter critters over the last few years, they seem to be more adept at being all "Aw shucks, Gee gosh and golly I am just the most independent voter anyone could ever want in such a position," than concerned with protecting our vote.

Michael Smith, MArin County's Voter Registrar in 2004, told me that he had met every one of the Registrar of Voters in the state of Calif, and that he hoped people like me were not attempting to bring down such a nice group of honest, hard working people.

Two days later, one of these nice people was indicted by their County for fraud and embezzlement. (And I had nothing to do with it! :LOL: )

[Overseas]

10. That's why I hope a commission will set national minimum standards.

Because things are now governed by the states, election procedures are subject to partisan manipulation.

I hope the Obama Administration will have an election integrity commission that will devise minimum national standards for immediate implementation--

-- paper ballots -- no electronic voting without paper receipts
-- random audits
-- non-partisan distribution of voting machines
-- non-partisan compiling of voter registrations

[blm]

5. The DNC showed much more alertness in the days BEFORE election day and THAT made the biggest

difference in avoiding some of the theft in 2008 compared to the RAMPANT election fraud of 2000, 2002 and 2004.

[Overseas]

11. I agree that the advance awareness and publicity regarding voter suppression

really helped the cause.

Mid-term elections typically draw far less attention and fewer voters than the presidential elections, so they GOP is likely to want to try its tricks again then. And they can explain it away by the old saw that people prefer a divided government, whether they do or not.

[glowing]

6. Why a pencil.. we use pens. if you mess up, you have to get a new

ballot.. and they must take the old one and flag it as a screw up.. there's a procedure.. Pencil marks can erase.

[truedelphi]

7. I'm with you on that!!

Of course, just to play devils' advocate, the vote stealers can always hide or "misplace" paper ballots. But at least they can only do that with piles of ballots, thus limiting the number of ballots stolen.

Whereas with machines, you can have millions of votes altered by one modem signal or line of hidden programming code.

[Wilms]

8. The paper ballot is scanned by a computer. Recounts rarely happen. Good audits don't exist.

I hate touchscreen DREs as much as any election reformer. But the fact is, and you probably are sufficiently aware, that most of the voters who get to say "at least I voted on a paper ballot" are having that vote COUNTED BY A COMPUTER.

Let's not continue to misinform people of the dangers still involved. Yes we should ban DREs. Yes, we should vote on paper (or a lever machine). AND YES, we must apply risk-based audits to these elections, AND improve chain of custody procedures.

Thanks.

[truedelphi]

9. If we are not able to count the ballots by hand, under NAFTA

I imagine we could import enough Canadians to do the job for us - they do quite well counting their own ballots by hand, Eh??

[Wilms]

12. I called for a risk-based audit of computerized vote counts and got insulted for the effort.

I'm disappointed.

You talk about "programming" of DREs and want to hide the fact that paper ballots are scanned by computers?

That ain't cool.

[truedelphi]

21. I didn't think my remark would be taken by you as an insult.

I am sorry if I was so flippant that you didn't think I understood you.

You made an excellent contribution to the subject. We should have the paper counted by hand. Not machines. And people should start understanding that in most cases the paper ballots do end up counted by machines. That we could stopworrying aboutt he results if we just got more insistent that the machines go away.

When I typed it, I thought maybe someone from Canada might take it as an insult.

But if you think about my remark, the only people it insults are us Americans.

Why don't we insist on hand counting paper ballots. Are we too pre-occupied with our so called lives that we can't insist on this??

There. The last two sentences are probably all I should have said.

[Wilms]

24. Nah. I think I could have made a better effort to understand.

Still, without even advocating HCPB per se, risk-based audits are a viable means of confirming machine counts.

And yes. Ya need a paper ballot to do that!

Meanwhile, plenty of small jurisdictions would save a lot of money, and otherwise spend it locally, if they'd HCPB.

:hi:

[truedelphi]

29. One of the things that made me feel I could joke around a bit with you,

Is that you are someone who has posted so much material - obviously carefully researched. I felt rather honored that you took time to post here.

I forget that other people can be as sensitive as moi!! :bounce:

[Wilms]

30. Me? (Gulp/Blush)

Go on and joke around with me. Now that the election is over I really SHOULD loosin' up a bit!

:D

[SoCalDem]

32. 5 x 7 cardstock ballot..sharpie pen... all the same..EVERY state

Local & state stuff can be on ANY style ballot they choose and voted on & counted on diamond-studded Diebol;ds, for all I care..

BUT
the nationally significant races must be uniformly offered to all states..the exact same way..and cardstock makes them infintely re-countable..

[Versailles]

13. I don't know about paper ballots...

So inefficient time wise and we should be working toward as many voters as possible in every single election. One of the major reasons people don't vote is the time factor. Even with the touch screens, lines have been huge.

I think a more effective method for the touch screens would be something similar to ATMs. Where you're vote is printed on a "receipt" with a time stamp, etc. Each voter can review their slip and after they do and before they leave, the receipt is dropped into a balloting box. If a recount is required, the paper ballots are the final source of the votes. If a voter forgets to put their receipt in the box after reviewing, the vote is invalidated.

I also think the voting machine code should be open source for those of us who are tech savvy can review the code to look for irregularities.

Just my opinions.

[dreamnightwind]

33. shorter lines with touch screens? i think not...

Are the touch screen machines really that must faster than filling out a paper ballot?

I had assumed that the long lines preventing more people from voting were caused by not having enough machines in those precincts. My thinking was that by using a paper ballot, those precincts wouldn't be limited by the number of machines, depending of course on what kind of paper ballot is used (punch card, fill-in-the-oval, etc). If we eliminate the machines, we eliminate one of the tools used by republican election officials, the "not enough machines in dem precincts" strategy. It's relatively inexpensive for the precinct to set up tons of voting booths when all they are is a nook for filling in a paper ballot.

There are many more important reasons that I support paper over electronic voting, but your post surprised me since it was taking an opposite approach to shortening the lines than I was thinking of.

Not sure which of us needs to change our opinion here, honestly, I'll look into the speed issue and the "number of machines" bottleneck issue. I won't support anything electronic anyway, too many security issues, but I like to understand the different aspects of the arguments involved.

[BeFree]

14. Yeh

The down ticket races are of big concern. Too many votes were cast for pubbies down ticket when at the top Obama creamed McCain. Are they really wanting us to believe dems overwhelmed the 'fix' at the top and then voted for a pubbie down ticket, when most voters usually didn't even recognize the names?

And what about this prop 8 in Calif.? Ballots counted by computers there, too. And the one guy who just about invented the election computers is the same who was pushing for passage of 8.

If that don't make you wonder.....

[Window]

15. I'm sure there were many more places where the vote was compromised.

Unless and until some of the great minds we have in these United States come up with a near cheat-proof system, we are going to continue to see problems such as this.

Oprah's vote got flipped. Perhaps she, Michael Moore and others of some standing can get on this NOW, and help we who care prevent some of these anomalies before mid-term elections.

Let's get this done and get some laws passed.

Edited to add, we can send astronauts to the moon and bring them back, etc. Don't tell me we can't fix this mess.


Peace:thumbsup:

[yardwork]

16. It looks like there are shenanigans with at least two senatorial elections - in MN and in AK

They both have Republican governors, right? Do they have Republican secretaries of state?

[Sebastian Doyle]

17. The turnout was good enough to beat the fraud

We cannot count on that in the 2010 midterm, maybe not even in 2012, so we have two years to get rid of every last one of these fucking machines, or mark my words, the Senate will be stolen.

[judasdisney]

18. My Ultimate "Conspiracy" Theory

My Ultimate "Conspiracy" Theory:

The 2008 elections went exactly as planned by the Neocons.

McCain was set-up as the designated nominee to force the angry Republican base to shift farther-right "because McCain was too moderate".

And Palin's "dumb factor" is an exact duplicate of what Rove treasured in Dubya: the "dumb factor" makes the Left react in a frenzy of what appears to be condescension to the angry Republican base.

Above all:

Voting machines WERE used to steal the election FOR Democrats. Because the Neocons know that the real economic chaos has not yet begun -- the $1.14 Quadrillion dollar Derivatives Market bad-asset meltdown. Currencies worldwide will collapse. And Neocons needed Democrats to be completely in the driver's seat -- to be scapegoated.

The 2008 elections WERE stolen.

It just looks fine to stupid Democrats who don't see what's coming.

[guruoo]

19. I've been toying around with a similar

theory myself. In my theory, McCain plays the patsy.

[truedelphi]

20. Wasn't Letterman saying Wed or Thur night that

The US treasury and other financial gurus talked to Obama for awhile after his acceptance, then he got on the phone to McCain and conceded.

It is a rough road to travel, that is for sure.

[autorank]

22. Thanks k*r

As long as those ballots don't go through a machine;) That's not a real paper ballot.

Glad they figured out Alaska and Georgia. That's a start.

:hi:

[truedelphi]

23. The world this Sunday night looks a whole lot better than

My paranoic alter ego thought it would just one week back.

:toast:

[autorank]

25. Yep

Just because your paranoid doesn't mean you're not being followed.

:toast:

[No Elephants]

26. I feel drawn to paper ballots, but I am not sure why. they are scanned electronically. The scanner

can be messed with. And, when it comes time for a recount, a whole batch of forged ballots can be added to the pile. I guess I am not sure that using paper ballots ALONE is a magic bullet. We need a federal election law that governs federal elections, with STIFF penalties for any kind of undesirable action. Would it be a bear to write such a law? Yes, but that doesn't mean no one should try. Would there be a lot of outcry about states's rights? Sure, just as there was with federal civil rights laws, but that doesn't mean no one should try.

[Wilms]

31. That's why lever machines, in retrospect, seem to have been the way to go...and stay.

The concerns you express are real problems solved a lifetime ago with the lever machines. They brought down Tammany Hall and it's voting rigging/ballot box stealing/stuffing ways.

Read about it here.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Machining-the-Vote--A-brie-by-Rady-Ananda-080628-791.html

You'll realize why some NYers are working to keep their lever machines.

[dreamnightwind]

34. Thanks

I read the article you posted, and a related one too, good stuff! I didn't even know about the old lever machines at all. The comments on the vulnerabilities of HCPB were disturbing, I've been yelling for us to go back to HCPB. It's probably still a good idea, but doesn't look as good as I had imagined.

Regardless, we absolutely HAVE to get rid of these proprietary, unauditable electronic touch screens, and even the optical scanners, also the electronic tabulators, and any electronic transfers of precinct results to central tabulators, all of these are inviting fraud on a massive scale and such fraud could well be undetectable.

[CrispyQ]

27. In the precinct where I volunteered as an election judge,

there were numerous cases of people who had voted in the 2004 election who were no longer on the voter rolls & had to vote provisional. Provisional ballots are not counted at the same time as regular or mail in ballots. Each provisional ballot has to be investigated to determine if the ballot will be counted & how much of it will be counted.

There were also a significant number of voters who wrongly showed up at our precinct. Fortunately, our (democratic) County Clerk had provided each precinct with a map & street listing of the entire county so we could look up where they were actually supposed to vote & give them good directions on how to get there. After about three incidents of this, I started asking the voters, "Who informed you of this change?" & also asked, if they didn't mind revealing, what their affiliation was. All of them stated that they received some official looking postcard in the mail & they were all democrats. :eyes: They were welcome to vote at our precinct if they wanted, but it would have been on a provisional ballot.

People are naive if they think just because the election wasn't stolen that they didn't try. We can give thanks to the many voices that have warned us of election shenanigans over the past four years, that more & more people are aware of this issue & on the lookout for it.

[truedelphi]

28. It might be of interest to autorank and others where all this occurred.

If you don't mind sharing the details.