46,500 voters cast ballots in last week's primary election, not 80,000

[helderheid]

Joel McNally: Milwaukee's vote count is raw meat for the GOP
By Joel McNally

Perhaps never before in history have votes been counted so carefully without even bothering to look at which candidate received those votes.

Having faced unfounded Republican charges of vote fraud in the past, Milwaukee just completed a massive hand recounting of ballots to determine exactly how many votes were cast in last week's primary.

It turns out that about 46,500 Milwaukee voters cast ballots in last week's primary election, not 80,000 as the city previously reported.

The amazing thing is that despite originally being off by nearly 34,000 votes, the city's laborious recount of all the ballots didn't even bother to check to see whether any of the vote totals for individual candidates also may have been miscounted.

The city just wanted to know how many people voted and couldn't believe its own computer records because of what it described as a programming error.

Meanwhile, out in heavily Republican Waukesha County, which is apparently immune to accusations of vote fraud, voters not only found many new voting machines inoperable, but erroneous vote totals were initially posted declaring the loser of an assembly race to be the winner.

More >>>>

http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/index.php?ntid=100132&ntpid=0

[helderheid]

1. .

[lonestarnot]

2. Democracy's detrimental reliance on these death machines

out of coercion from the corporate war profiteers will be her demise.

[helderheid]

3. Couldn't agree more. That and a complicit media.

[helderheid]

4. This is THE issue.

[helderheid]

5. more

In Milwaukee, such major foul-ups would lead to weeks of screaming headlines and investigations. Instead, the first Milwaukee Journal Sentinel headline on the Waukesha problems described its voting as "Bedeviled." A follow-up story referred to the numerous problems, such as attributing votes to the wrong candidates, as mysterious "glitches" and "snafus."

Counting errors in Waukesha are the minor work of devilish imps. In Milwaukee, they're evidence of incompetence, corruption and vote fraud.

That's pretty funny since the only actual charge of vote fraud recently was filed in Waukesha County. That charge also could be considered a case of selective prosecution since it was filed by District Attorney Paul Bucher against one of the few politically active Democrats who ever lived in the county. After Donovan Riley moved to Milwaukee to run against conservative Democratic state Sen. Jeff Plale, a right-wing attack group uncovered voting records suggesting Riley might have voted both in Chicago and in the town of Oconomowoc in the 2000 presidential election.

The charges against Riley haven't been proved, but they do demonstrate why vote fraud is far more likely to occur among upscale voters living on country estates than among poor folks living in the city.

Very few poor or middle-class Milwaukeeans have multiple residences in different states from which it would ever be possible to cast multiple votes.

That won't stop Republicans from using the latest confusion over voter totals - the ones in Milwaukee, that is, not the more serious ones out in Waukesha - as an excuse to once again try to throw up obstacles to make it more difficult for poor people and minorities to vote in Milwaukee. None of the counting problems in Milwaukee or Waukesha would have been affected one iota by a law requiring voters to show photo IDs at the polls. The same is true of any vote fraud perpetrated by lawless wealthy folks voting from multiple residences.

[lonestarnot]

6. Damn what a mess! Should be interesting for sure.

44 days to go :rofl:

[helderheid]

7. I feel like going back to bed. Wake me when this nightmare is over!

[lonestarnot]

8. No when it's over, I'll take a knap! Not until it's over!

[helderheid]

9. check this out too:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2204808

[lonestarnot]

10. Checking it out now!

[sandnsea]

27. Glitchgate

5 years of "glitches", when are we going to focus on the very real 'glitches' that people can understand instead of accusations of hacking that nobody can prove has happened.

[lonestarnot]

11. Kick.

[helderheid]

12. thanks :)

[lonestarnot]

13. another thanks!

[helderheid]

14. do you think we're the only 2 reading this?

:hi:

[lonestarnot]

15. Nope, I know better!

:hi: Hang in there! It's two hours, people are watching.

[helderheid]

16. I obsess. :)

[lonestarnot]

17. Me too. Did you cross-post in GD politics?

[helderheid]

21. no! You're welcome to! ;)

[lonestarnot]

23. ok

[lonestarnot]

24. Done. Still listening. Appalled!

[helderheid]

33. I had to stop it as it was depressing my husband - thanks for the xpost!

[lonestarnot]

36. Poor husband. Give him a cup of tea.

[Generic Other]

18. That's a big discrepancy!

Imagine if your bank made mistakes like that!

[lonestarnot]

19. Did you become enraged when you watched the video or did

you just wonder about what to do?

[Generic Other]

20. I am voting absentee for what little good it does

[lonestarnot]

22. Good choice, but does it get counted?

[helderheid]

26. Probably not but it would be a powerful boycott, no?

[lonestarnot]

28. Doesn't the optical scanners count these? Also made by ES &S

or Diebold?

[helderheid]

29. yes, I believe so. I am voting absentee as a protest against the touch

screen machines. Get rid of them and then attack the tabulators and scanners as well. We need paper and hand counts.

[Generic Other]

30. We have had recounts in last two elections

Handcounted. At least the ballot I mailed in was paper.

[helderheid]

32. Exactly!

[lonestarnot]

25. kick

[dkofos]

31. And still little or no public outcry

Wake up sheeple

[helderheid]

35. I'm seeing the stories more and more - hope they keep coming.

edited to say I want the stories of the truth to keep coming, not stolen elections! LOL!

[lonestarnot]

34. kick

[bobthedrummer]

37. I posted about this in several forums. The situation here in Wisconsin

is literally a battleground, but so is everywhere else.

[helderheid]

38. Please keep us posted on what happens there!

[fooj]

39. Isn't this where that dickhead Sensenbrenner is from?

I'd LOVE to see that horse's ass go down.

[katinmn]

40. See y'all in DC in November!

We're about to get Deibolded agian - royally.

[helderheid]

41. I don't doubt it. I'm voting absentee as a boycott

[bobthedrummer]

42. You asked for an update on some of the Wisconsin political news.

A prominent Wisconsin Republican backer, Michael F. Wille, has died in a plane crash.
Mr. Wille was the national chairman of the title industry's political action committee, TIPAC.
He had flown many Republican politicians and their family members and friends-including a former President's wife and son, Tommy Thompson, and US Congressman Mark Green.

Here is how the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is reporting his death.
http://www.jsonline.com/watch/?watch=1&date=9/23/2006&id=11792

Check out the State political news to get a better picture of the situation here.

Mr. Wille was also the President-elect of the American Land Title Association/ALTA.
Here is his ALTA bio.
http://www.alta.org/state/wille.cfm

Another "coincidence theory", perhaps???

[helderheid]

43. Holy crap!

:scared:

[bobthedrummer]

44. Do you believe in "coincidence theories"??? eom

[helderheid]

45. I don't believe in coincidence!

[bobthedrummer]

47. I should have qualified that since there are coincidences &singular

events.

[Benfea]

46. Democracy is dead in America. Thanks, Diebold. -NT