Originally blogged at:
We Do Not Consent:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2008/10/peter-b-collins-dave-berman-to-discuss.htmlPeter B. Collins, Dave Berman to Discuss Unprovable Federal Election Results - 10/23 5pm PTBy Dave Berman
10/22/08
Listen live through
PeterBCollins.com Thursday at 5pm PT as I'll be on this great talk radio show to discuss whether the accuracy of federal election results can be proven.
For a long time I have argued federal election results are inherently inconclusive, unknowable and unprovable - based entirely on the conditions under which "elections" are conducted. There is simply
no basis for confidence in the reported results, that is, no reason to believe them.
As
I hinted last Friday, when I wrote about
the Nation's John Nichols coming around to describing the 2000 and 2004 elections as "inconclusive," during tomorrow's interview we will begin to hear a louder chorus taking up this message and calling out the media.
Why should we be expected to believe reported election results that media have not and can not independently verify, which can't even be proven, and which come from only one source - the very government whose grip on power is at stake?
In fact, for as long as I've written the
We Do Not Consent blog there have been others making this point. In the back of my book,
We Do Not Consent, (free .pdf), there are testimonials that have permanently appeared in the sidebar of the blog as follows:
"This is an important collection of essays with a strong unitary theme: if you can't prove that you were elected, we can't take you seriously as elected officials. Simple, logical, comprehensive. 'Management' (aka, the 'powers that be') needs to get the message. 'The machines' are not legitimizers, they're an artful dodge and a path to deception. We've had enough...and we most certainly DO NOT consent."
— Michael Collins {DUer autorank} covers the election fraud beat for "Scoop" Independent Media
and...
"If in the future we have vital elections, the "no basis for confidence" formulation that GuvWurld is popularizing will have been a historically important development. This is true because by implicitly insisting on verification and checks and balances instead of faith or trust in elections officials or machines as a basis for legitimacy, it encourages healthy transparent elections. It's also rare that a political formulation approaches scientific certainty, but this formulation is backed up by scientific principles that teach that if you can't repeat something (such as an election) and verify it by independent means, it doesn't exist within the realm of what science will accept as established or proven truth."
— Paul Lehto, Juris Doctor {DUer LandShark}
Over the years, these points have been made in countless ways. Tomorrow we will unveil perhaps the most impactful expression yet. In the meantime, here's another that I submitted last week as a letter to the editor of the
North Coast Journal. I'm posting it now because their new issue came out today without it.
Dear Editor:
Thank you for the even-handed run down of state and local ballot issues (Oct. 9). Perhaps you could also devote a little space to both sides of a national question: are federal election results provable?
One side says: we have secret corporate vote counting computers in more than 95% of the country; about 30% of the country doesn't even use paper ballots to allow a serious re-count; and these electronic voting machines frequently produce results impossible in a legitimate election, such as John Kerry's negative 25 million votes in Youngstown, OH (Nov. 2004), or Palm Beach County's 12,000 votes in excess of the number of voters (Aug. 2008).
These self-described "election integrity advocates" say there is no way to prove federal election results. They further allege that media is abandoning its most basic principles by publishing election results as fact, when the information has not and can not be independently verified. Worse still, they say, is that media reports of election results rely on only one source--the government--even though the government can not prove the reported results.
Opponents argue federal election results are provable because. Just because.
While this is fairly convincing, the Journal could do a genuine public service in affording more space for elaboration of this point of view. The Journal could also encourage the media industry at large to advocate for hand counting paper ballots, reasoning that this method of counting allows media greatest access to observing and documenting the process, affording the reported results the greatest credibility, and demonstrating that the reported results have been proven to the satisfaction of the thousands of ordinary Americans who would be involved in counting ballots.
Dave Berman
Eureka, CA# # #
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