The Diebold threat in November: it ain't the vote stealing.

[Atman]

Being a poll worker and an Assistant Registrar of Voters, this stuff has been first and foremost in my mind for quite a while. In fact, I am one of those who believe we simply don't have a chance in November, that no matter what the exit polling says, no matter how wide the polling spread is, the GOP just doesn't care. They have too much at stake. War crimes charges, defense contracts, you name it...too much is at stake.

But Diebold will still be the prominent factor in November, but not with direct theft of our votes. All they need now, they have -- total chaos with the voting system. You'll see major troubles with the machines in key races, some of which will call for recounts which can't be done, thereby requiring judges to intervene. There will be so many races totally effed up because of malfunctioning machines, that we'll have no choice but to throw out some races, re-do some, call some for whomever. The GOP doesn't even need to do much at this point...just sit back and wait for the ensuing chaos, and the elections will fuck up all by themselves. It is all part of their longer range plan to totally undermine Americans' confidence in the system.

This isn't much better than outright vote theft, but it is more likely a scenerio. Just go for total chaos. I can see some GOP underdogs getting to hold onto their seats while it all sorted out. I see lawsuits pending all over the place. Hopefully I'm wrong. The trouble is, I haven't been wrong on this stuff before. Paper trails, audits, they mean nothing. Chaos. That's all they need.

[SheilaT]

1. Yes, you've said it quite

succinctly.

I've been warning for a very long time now that we will not have a free, fair, and honest election this November, just like we have not had for the past three election cycles. The administration came to power in a coup, and people like that do not give up power readily, least of all for something as silly as a free, fair, and honest election. Forgive me for repeating myself.

I expect things to play out very much as you've outlined, and the true end result will be that a significant number of people -- perhaps even a majority -- will be more convinced than ever that all polling is highly inaccurate, my vote does not count so why bother? and since everyone lies, Dems and Repubs alike, it doesn't really matter who wins or which party is in control.

What we ought to have, given what you and I expect, is rioting in the streets in November, and a rise of at least two new political parties who are not beholden to special interests, who truly want to represent the average worker, and who create a genuine grass-roots movement that comes to power within two or at the most three election cycles. But I doubt that will happen, given the complacency and laziness of so many people.

[ngant17]

6. rioting in the streets is "terra"

which will predictably lead to an overt military command and control situation in the White House. And all those secret interment camps will suddenly have a raison d'etre.

[formercia]

22. That's the plan.

and with the legislation pending to detain indefinitely........We will al be slaves in the new and improved penal factory system. Give the Chinese a good run for their money.

[Benhurst]

2. Recommended. I'm afraid you're right. And the precedent has been

set by the recent special election for a Congressional seat in California where the Republican candidate was sworn in before he was certified. The House (Republicans) will swear in their candidates, contested or not.

[Beowulf]

26. I thought of that, too.

By creating chaos in the voting system, they discourage people from voting. I hope you are wrong, but I fear you will be prophetic.

[goclark]

3. Field tested and it worked in Maryland

[alfredo]

4. The whole neo con mode of operation is to create

chaos then exploit it. Look at Iraq. Some very well placed individuals are making a shit load of money.

[BlueEyedSon]

9. yes, there is more opportunity for excess profits in chaos than in

orderly markets

[alfredo]

11. That's it. Why do you think they have gutted regulatory

agencies?

[meldroc]

5. Cooking the vote count is only one way to Diebold the vote.

What you're talking about is technically called a DoS attack. In other words, malicious code would be installed on these machines, say using a virus, and that code is programmed to cause the machines to crash or otherwise malfunction when pre-programmed conditions are met (for example, the machines might be programmed to crash right at 7:00am on election day.) You can also introduce conditions, to only crash certain precincts & such.

Another attack is to deliberately cook the votes in a way that they obviously look cooked, and there's no way to fix them. When this happens, that precinct's votes have to be thrown out. Why do you think you see reports of precicts with ten times as many votes as voters?

[madokie]

7. in my opinion all they have to do is steal this next election

after that whatever they want will be law and nothing we can do about it. Except we all take to the streets but with the new microwave weapons I don't know if that will even work this time. yes it is time to be afraid very afraid.

[Sinti]

8. REC #5 fo-ya - rule through chaos that is their method.

Scary as hell, ain't it. I agree, they've been working for a long time to undermine American's confidence in the system - more "government can't do anything right" BS, so we'll eventually be ruled by International Megacorp and her subsidiaries, and be happy about it... :mad:

[Atman]

10. Sheila T's first response it what scares me most.

If Bush is allowed to suspend Habeus Corpus, and all his detention camps are indeed in place, it means they're planning for just such an occurence. As KO so succinctly pointed out, dictators don't become dictators to support the revolution...they start the revolution in order to become dictators. Chaos and rioting in the streets, the normal, expected reaction to the bullshit they will be pulling, will be all BushCo needs to send in the troops and start arresting American citizens and holding them without bail or right to council. They'll do. Put nothing past these people. They know the shit that will come down when they steal it again, and they're gonna be ready for it.

[lonestarnot]

12. Damn I know you're right, but I'm praying you're wrong. Don't hold it

against me! :cry:

[Atman]

13. Pray harder!

I hope it works.

[lonestarnot]

14. I will damn sure be in the streets screaming my lungs out! I won't stand

for it again!

[jarnocan]

15. Boxer's bill? Doesn't go far enough IMHO but I guess PETITION LINK

it's a small step toward democracy.

Called Counting Every Vote, but it doesn't make a paper trail a given- the uninformed people's votes should count too! Heck likely this meager measure won't even pass, but here's the link.
"It urges local jurisdictions to make paper ballots available at every polling place, so any voter who wants one can use one." http://ga4.org/campaign/confidence_in_voting?source=count_votes

[FogerRox]

23. Boxers new bill calls for paper ballots for this Nov.

[jarnocan]

24. another action PDA-petitio-and cALL- it IS important but

it only would ENCORAGE staes to have them available on request. It is a step but not enough to restore faith in our democracy- how sad that even this baby step in the right direction is a tough battle. http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/issues/alert/?alertid=9055781&queueid=

[rudy23]

16. After the election, being on the right side of the law won't matter

We can go on national TV and show video footage of the election being stolen, what's anybody gonna do about it?

What can we do about it? The rule of law and media will completely be on their side, so even if it's determined that it was obtained illegally, what's anybody going to do about it?

I do not want to look back once again and see that our country went to ruin because we would rather lose with dignity than play rough.

[PATRICK]

17. Our race, western NY

Massa(D)/Kuhl(R) has few of these elements. Stable, old voting procedures. No suppression as such. Yet Cheney pays a visit and it isn't just for money and polls. What are they up to? last time it was a trap so easy that it might not even have been intentional. The young campaign team lunged at the prize of openly accessible messy divorce papers that actually created late sympathy for troll Kuhl. He didn't need Rove or much spin-doctoring(a lot of the media stills hates his guts for what he did to NY). This time he has incumbency. Period.

The Massa campaign has noted what I think to be the obvious. When realistically appraising the candidates, educated voters break for Massa two to one and they are now dead even in the polls. So suppression here means giving no extra access to the public to even learn about Massa, much less Kuhl's miserable record. What shenanigans then? Well last time I talked about the close race with a closer member of the Barend team. Who is protecting the ballots? I asked. He got on his cell phone immediately and talked with people about being ready to do impound the ballots in such and such a region(which didn't surprise me, it being Kuhl's stalking ground).

So I am going to have discussions now with the Massa team about that issue. But I think, all local sparring aside, something is in the works for outside effect. Cheney has had his filthy mitts on our region for some time, in re-apportioning seats to oust one of two liberal Dems. They want to help make Kuhl's seat an easy re-win. Not just a personal attack on Massa which could backfire but some national surprise. Then wherever you live and whatever garbage the GOP uses, they will make their moves. What locals can do is try now to circumvent all those particular moves because history has shown they will use them all. Our best is to create a tide of voter support with hard informational work. And watch your candidate's back.

[liberaldemocrat7]

18. To shut down the Bush administration and the Republican congress

shut down corporate America.

Complain to their donors, tie up their telephones with complaints.

Don't buy their products, tell them why, and make demands of them.

[Marr]

19. I would agree with but for one thing:

The way the Republicans are trying to cram this new torture definition through the Congress as fast as they can makes me think they're not all that positive about a November victory. I have absolutely no doubt that they will cheat again, but I don't know if they're will to cheat as blatantly as they'll need to in order to win.

[Parche]

20. solution

I know the best way to deal with this, everyone in the US who votes will be required to
show their purple fingers...............

[cascadiance]

21. I think it might also be an attempt at distraction too...

I know I'm very concerned and working a lot on trying to counter it. That takes a lot of time from me to do other things or to be working on other issues or helping other candidates win. So maybe that's part of their strategy. To blunt criticism in other areas if enough people just worry about the votes. I think ALL of these issues need to be worried about, but that could be their strategy by letting the prospect of massive election fraud fester and occupy us even if they don't have plans to cheat.

And I have to admit, given my concern about the lack of visible concern by the Democratic Party on this, I've also held back my donations in many instances when the DCCC calls me on this, saying that I don't want to give money to them until they confront this issue and deal with it as they should be. That of course is the fault of organizations like the DCCC, which had they been on this way back when and done things more constructively to fix it, we might not have to deal with this issue now.

[Imagevision]

25. 04 election, Bush announces he has a comment only fo press to show Bush

clan gathered around tv screen smiling-laughing as the MSNBC camera pans to barney the dog, and if any remember, that was the comment msm felt compelled to watch. This occured when early exit polls had Kerry as leading Bush. (Karen Hughes tells Bush he's losing at this time)

A distraction once again contributing to total chaos taking the public's attention off the ball
perhaps for just a minute would do it?