Brad Blog: 3rd party out polls Bush in some OH counties -- MSM coverage

[jamboi]

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001005.htm

[democraticinsurgent]

1. this is huge

this is one of the tactics we are supposed to be looking out for, unusual totals for 3rd party candidates. Proof of fraud? Well, it's either fraud or machine malfunction.

I can't believe these guys from the Daily News are doing this.

[Straight Shooter]

2. bushies will come up with some lie for this -- er, I mean rationalization

"In precinct 4F, located at Benedictine High School on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Kerry received 290 votes, Bush 21 and Michael Peroutka, candidate of the ultra-conservative anti-immigrant Constitutional Party, an amazing 215 votes!

That many black votes for Peroutka is about as likely as all those Jewish votes for Buchanan in Florida's Palm Beach County in 2000.

In precinct 4N, also at Benedictine High School, the tally was Kerry 318, Bush 21, and Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik 163.

Back in 2000, the combined third-party votes in those two precincts - including the Nader vote - was 8."

This must be one of those instances which the attorney on C-span was thinking of this morning, those "migrating votes."

[AndrewClarke]

14. Actually . . .

I was surprised to find that there really is a logical explanation: precincts that share the same building, but have Presidential candidates rotated in a different order. If someone is directed to, or goes to, the wrong spot to vote after getting a ballot, their vote will go to the wrong candidate.

It points out yet another significant problem with our voting system, but fraud is not the most likely explanation in this case.

For a detailed analysis, including which precincts shared locations, read the second post on this page:

http://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=13369.15

[AndrewClarke]

16. Also . . .

The machines, after being set, could have been (intentionally or unintentionally) placed in the wrong part of the room.

[sabra]

3. Holy Shnikes!

It just get's more and more interesting...

[roseBudd]

5. I saw a graphic of a punch card machine recently

There is a guard layer that is prepunched for each election that allows a stylus to punch a chad in a certain area. Each machine has the guard layer. Wonder what individuals produce the guard layer?

[sabra]

7. Now thath numbers are "cerified"...

I hope that we can get the recount going, and they can get to the bottom of this shiite.

[roseBudd]

8. They also need to impound the punchcard machines and examine

the guard layers and the styluses. We must be open to all possible modes of cheating from the high to the low tech, especially in Ohio with 70% punchcards.

[geo]

4. Another great thread JamBoi! We should all use that e-mail link..

and write the paper. I would recommend changing up the title of the e-mail a little, and maybe shifting around the e-mail address order in the form so it appears less like form mail from the same site.

Awesome find! :) - G

[kk897]

6. the third party thing

Hi all---I've been investigating the participation of right wing extremists in the election, and I'm not so sure it's that farfetched that Peroutka outpolled Bush. Let me explain:

There's this far-out movement called sovereign citizens. They're the kind of folks who deny that the government has any authority in their lives and home school their children, as well as impersonate agency officials to intimidate people, file flurries of frivolous lawsuits against people they don't like in a tactic called "paper terrorism", and they often "secede" to become their own "countries."

As it so happens, while most of the lot are white supremacists, there *is* a group of Black people, headquartered in Cuyahoga County (at least in the articles I've read about it so far; research continues), called the Al Moroccan Empire.

OK, so, these sovereign citizens HATE Bush as much as they hate Democrats. They're also agitating to get involved with politics to effect change, even though they dispute the legitimacy of the goverment (they're weird, but that's the gist of it, really!). On a website dedicated to a sovereign citizen "revolution," leaders of the movement were pushing a vote for the Constitution Party (Peroutka) or the Libertarians (Badnarik). Even though the Al Morocccan Empire would most likely not get along with other sovereign citizens, they do have a similar underlying political value system.

I'm not that familiar with Cuyahoga County geography, but it's not inconceivable, to me anyway, that 200-some people sympathizing with, or actual members of, the Al Moroccan Empire might have voted Peroutak/Badnarik in one precinct.

Not saying it's so... just saying it's not impossible.

[bunny planet]

10. puhleeeeeeze!!!! Not speaking for all African-Americans but one would

think that they had more important things to consider in this election than joining the 'far-out movement called sovereign citizens.' Like perhaps removing the President with one of the worst civil rights records in history (if not the worst) from the WH! Somehow I don't think the 'Al Moroccan Empire' was the decisive vote in these counties. Maybe it's just me.

[kk897]

13. hey, man...

just google it.

Here's from the Anti-Defamation League website on sovereign citizens:

Moorish groups. The resurgence of sovereign citizen activity in the 1990s led to an unexpected development: the appropriation of sovereign citizen ideology and tactics by a variety of African American groups. These groups, generally identifying themselves as "Moors," combine standard sovereign citizen theories with many new twists and additions of their own. Some groups are, to varying degrees, Islamic in nature, while others adhere to various New Age philosophies. Examples include the Moorish Nation, the United Mawshakh Nation of Nuurs and the Washitaw Nation. A number of such groups have ties to "traditional" sovereign citizen groups. Many of their tactics are the same, too, from bogus automobile documents to Redemption.

http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/SCM.asp?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_America&xpicked=4&item=sov

Another one from ADL:

Charles K. Bailey, an anti-government extremist with links to the "sovereign citizen" movement, was sentenced on June 10, 2003 to ten years in prison following his conviction in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Common Pleas Court on an array of charges related to a paper terrorism scam.


Bailey, 38, of Canton, Ohio, who calls himself Shareef Malik El Bey, was found guilty on 36 charges ranging from racketeering and theft to forgery and possession of criminal equipment; all part of a scheme known as "redemption," a tactic involving bogus checks that has become increasingly popular among anti-government extremists since 1999.

<snip>

Bailey is among 17 people who were indicted by Cuyahoga County prosecutors in August 2002 for a variety of "redemption" tactics that according to authorities inundated area businesses and county agencies with nearly $4 million in fake checks....

Bailey claims to be the "prime minister" of the anti-government Moorish Republic Federal Government, a "Moorish" group, whose members claim to be exempt from the law. It is also known as the Al Moroccan Empire.


The "Moorish" movement is an African-American spin-off of the sovereign citizen movement, whose members are mostly white and which was created largely by white supremacists. "Moorish" groups adopt the rhetoric and tactics of the sovereign citizen movement, adding their own Afrocentric theories and ideas.

http://www.adl.org/learn/news/Paper_Terrorism.asp

From "Cleveland Scene" earlier this year, an in-depth article:

Color Scheme
Mix black nationalism with a white supremacist's scam, and what do you get? Prison time.
BY FRANK LEWIS

....Police knew that Bailey, of Canton, was running a scam under the cover of two distinct but strangely compatible anti-government ideologies: redemption, an elaborate conspiracy-theory-cum-get-rich-quick scheme with roots in white supremacy, and Moorish nationalism, an equally complex black-separatist movement. He appears to have been the first in Ohio to meld the two....

Redemption grew out of the "sovereign citizen" and white-supremacist movements of the 1980s. Mark Pitcavage, an Ohio historian with the Anti-Defamation League, traces it to Roger Elvick, who was associated in the 1970s and '80s with the anti-government Committee of the States as well as the Aryan Nation. The Committee of the States was an offshoot of Posse Comitatus, the first to put forth the notion that the federal government is illegitimate and that Americans could declare themselves sovereign, or outside government's reach....

...Bailey was probably a little of both when he turned to Right Way L.A.W. ("learn and win") in 2000. The Akron-based, self-styled legal-resource center taught redemption, according to assistant prosecutor Dan Kasaris, who's handled all but one of Cuyahoga County's 30-odd redemption cases.

http://www.clevescene.com/issues/2004-01-28/news/feature_print.html

(My note: I'm connecting Right Way LAW to election fraud, BTW)

They have adherents all over the country.

I'm not saying that they're this huge contingent in Cuyhoga county. But a couple hundred? Maybe. It's not out of the realm of possibilty.

[kk897]

15. replying to my own post

I'd like to add that I found the Cleveland Scene article a bit patronizing and belittling of Bailey and his cohorts.

[kk897]

17. another reply

Sorry---yes, I agree that 99.9 percent of the people there probably were voting based on substantitive issues. It's just that I've been trying to trace the sovereign citizens'/right wing extremist tracks in election fraud and happened to note that, oddly, they've got a presence in Cuyahoga county. I hadn't even heard about the Al Moroccan Empire until earlier today, when I was searching for extremist movement ties with possible voter intimidation or fraud.

[bunny planet]

19. ok, it was very interesting info, just don't think it was a big factor in

this election:-)

[kk897]

21. you're probably right

...I'm looking for a needle in a haystack, so when I come upon anything sharp, I pounce on it. Is that a stupid enough metaphor?

:tinfoilhat:

[bunny planet]

22. I think we are all a bit overwhelmed with information coming from the

internets! I know I'm addicted to reading anything and everything about this election and it's 'irregularities'. I think it is helping me keep hope alive that something can be done to change what's happened. This story in the NYDaily News (the one this thread is about, I'd almost forgotten) is a good thing, a major NY paper not calling us tinfoilies.
Keep looking in those haystacks, something might show up.:-)

[bunny planet]

9. I already thanked the reporters at the Daily News!

[e-mail]

[e-mail]

This is indeed somethin smokin (I think:think:)

[jfern]

11. I found why this happened

Read here for how Kerry had a net loss of 369 votes at just one Ohio polling place.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/2/44647/2043

[catcatcat]

12. a quick comparison with the 2000 results...

...supports the suspicion:

using data from http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/BOE/results/history/2000/110700_GE_Canvass.txt
for Cleveland 4F (this is the only one i've looked at):

2000: Bush=28 Gore=377 Other=6
2004: Bush=20 Kerry=299 Other=215

[jfern]

23. asdf

Precincts may have changed.

[catcatcat]

27. that's possible...

...as i'm having a tough time finding info on precinct changes,
i'll just leave the question open -- other equally innocuous
explanations for the results can be as easily imagined,
so i'm not trying to prove anything here...i just found the
anomoly suggestive.

[marions ghost]

18. Thanks

...for posting good stuff from Bradblog, jamboi. Appreciated. Am getting so much input from everywhere, it's easy to miss some, and Bradblog is solid.

[jsamuel]

20. WOW, nice

[jmknapp]

24. Blackwell has certified the precincts in question

...letting the high counts for Badnarik and Peroutka stand.

Official results released today!

Joe

[BradBlog]

25. MORE BRAD BLOG BREAKING NEWS! House Judiciary Dems to Hold Hearings!

Again, I don't have the creds to post this as it's own item (if someone else does, like the fine jamboi, please feel free to kick it!)

U.S. House Judiciary Dems to Announce Hearings on Voter Irregularities!
** A BRAD BLOG EXCLUSIVE! **
A source inside the House Judiciary Committee has informed The BRAD BLOG that Democratic members of the committee will be announcing public hearings in Washington to begin next Wednesday on Voting Irregularities in Election 2004!

FULL STORY/DETAILS at http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001016.htm

Additional reporting on related matters soon!

As they say...DEVELOPING HARD...

Brad
THE BRAD BLOG
http://www.BradBlog.com

[mamalone]

26. WHOOP-DEEE-DOOOOO!

That is exciting news! Can't wait for the press release tomorrow:bounce:
Diane

[SueZhope]

28. Thanks Brad

Great news cant wait for more on it

[Twist_U_Up]

29. Bout Damn Time !! Thank -You Brad Blog n/t

[Twist_U_Up]

30. I LOVE this part :

"As well, the House Judiciary committee Democrats have today sent a detailed letter to Ohio Sec. of State (and Co-Chair of Ohio's Bush/Cheney Re-Elect Committee), J. Kenneth Blackwell, requesting his assistance in responding to some 15 pages of documented allegations and concerns that the committee has compiled to date in regards to Ohio's election"

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001016.htm

[Carolab]

31. Where have I seen THIS before?

Oh, yeah, I know--in Minnesota's 6th Congressional District on election night, when the third parties got 8000-9000 votes, whereas in all other districts they got in the low to mid 100's.

FRAUD!!! RED HANDS!!!