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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAm I the only one who thinks Bibi stole the election?
It's right out of the George W Bush playbook...the polls show too tight, claim victory even before everything is counted or the polls indicate a winner, and then, when the message is out there enough that you say you've won, your opponent comes off as a sore loser for questioning it. I have no clue how legitimate Israeli elections are..but if they have virtually no oversight like we do, stealing would be easy to do.
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SoLeftIAmRight
(4,883 posts)When they do not match it seems the right win.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,710 posts)truebrit71
(20,805 posts)...but we need to get a few more results in order to figure out how much tweaking it needs to be plausible"....
TheNutcracker
(2,104 posts)That you can COUNT on.
B2G
(9,766 posts)
former9thward
(32,025 posts)Israel has around 30 parties and there is plenty of oversight of the elections.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)or do they tally everything by hand?
The electronic scanners are just as much a risk as electronic voting machines per se.
former9thward
(32,025 posts)
I have never heard of charges of election fraud by any of the 30 parties involved. Only by anonymous internet posters in the U.S.
mylye2222
(2,992 posts)former9thward
(32,025 posts)Are they too stupid to realize votes can be rigged?
NM_Birder
(1,591 posts)that THIS message board is the one that knows everything.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)Please read what you typed and then read how Israel votes.
onenote
(42,714 posts)you're talking about or whether you'll do the smarter thing and self-delete it so that fact isn't preserved on the Internet forever.
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)You really should educate yourself about Israeli election procedures before posting this nonsense.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)one had it 28-27 Likud.
But no one had 29-24. 
JustAnotherGen
(31,828 posts)But I want to watch this thread. I haven't been enmeshed in the Israel election to have an informed opinion.
TheNutcracker
(2,104 posts)And can we get Brad Freidman on the ground immediately? Clint Curtis?
sinkingfeeling
(51,459 posts)thought.
SoLeftIAmRight
(4,883 posts)I wish they all would move to Utah. It would be less expensive for us.
TheNutcracker
(2,104 posts)Ask yourself why since the early 70's has nothing changed here? Now they disrespect us after all the years of funding, like you have never seen. America has been more open to the Jewish community than any other people, ever. They run our wonderful fashion houses, movie/television industry, hold office, and so much more. This has been a real slap and with an election this close, with a country so close to the U.S., and it's own history of election fraud,
the silence is deafening.....
it's like "The Silent Scream of the Numbers"
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2005-05-16/news/0505160123_1_elections-column-media
The column itself, best preserved by Democratic Underground should be reviewed once again. Every other news source shut the story down. Do read the link above first...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=356725
The Silent Scream of Numbers -- Robert Koehler's "Nash-ional" column
This syndicated column is available now from the (Chicago) Tribune Media Services syndicate. It will be made available automatically this morning to 200+ newspapers that use this syndicate nationwide. However, any newspaper in the country can obtain this column from the Tribune syndicate and reprint it. Please encourage your hometown paper to do so.
We all owe Bob Koehler a great deal of gratitude for this hard-hitting piece. He doesn't mince words -- the election was stolen and it is up to us as citizens to do something about it. We were honored to have him in Nashville with us.
This column is reprinted here in its entirety with the permission of the author. I will post a web-link as soon as one is available in the morning.
------------------------
THE SILENT SCREAM OF NUMBERS
By Robert C. Koehler
Tribune Media Services
As they slowly hack democracy to death, we're as alone - we citizens - as we've ever been, protected only by the dust-covered cliches of the nation's founding: "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."
It's time to blow off the dust and start paying the price.
The media are not on our side. The politicians are not on our side. It's just us, connecting the dots, fitting the fragments together, crunching the numbers, wanting to know why there were so many irregularities in the last election and why these glitches and dirty tricks and wacko numbers had not just an anti-Kerry but a racist tinge. This is not about partisan politics. It's more like: "Oh no, this can't be true."
I just got back from what was officially called the National Election Reform Conference, in Nashville, Tenn., an extraordinary pulling together of disparate voting-rights activists - 30 states were represented, 15 red and 15 blue - sponsored by a Nashville group called Gathering To Save Our Democracy. It had the feel of 1775: citizen patriots taking matters into their own hands to reclaim the republic. This was the level of its urgency.
Was the election of 2004 stolen? Thus is the question framed by those who don't want to know the answer. Anyone who says yes is immediately a conspiracy nut, and the listener's eyeballs roll. So let's not ask that question.
Let's simply ask why the lines were so long and the voting machines so few in Columbus and Cleveland and inner-city and college precincts across the country, especially in the swing states, causing an estimated one-third of the voters in these precincts to drop out of line without casting a ballot; why so many otherwise Democratic ballots, thousands and thousands in Ohio alone, but by no means only in Ohio, recorded no vote for president (as though people with no opinion on the presidential race waited in line for three or six or eight hours out of a fervor to have their say in the race for county commissioner); and why virtually every voter complaint about electronic voting machine malfunction indicated an unauthorized vote switch from Kerry to Bush.
This, mind you, is just for starters. We might also ask why so many Ph.D.-level mathematicians and computer programmers and other numbers-savvy scientists are saying that the numbers don't make sense (see, for instance, www.northnet.org/minstrel, the Web site of Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips, lead statistician in the Moss vs. Bush lawsuit challenging the Ohio election results). Indeed, the movement to investigate the 2004 election is led by such people, because the numbers are screaming at them that something is wrong.
And we might, no, we must, ask - with more seriousness than the media have asked - about those exit polls, which in years past were extraordinarily accurate but last November went haywire, predicting Kerry by roughly the margin by which he ultimately lost to Bush. This swing is out of the realm of random chance, forcing chagrined pollsters to hypothesize a "shy Republican" factor as the explanation; and the media have bought this evidence-free absurdity because it spares them the need to think about the F-word: fraud.
And the numbers are still haywire. A few days ago, Terry Neal wrote in the Washington Post about Bush's inexplicably low approval rating in the latest Gallup poll, 45 percent, vs. a 49 percent disapproval rating. This is, by a huge margin, the worst rating at this point in a president's second term ever recorded by Gallup, dating back to Truman.
"What's wrong with this picture?" asks exit polling expert Jonathan Simon, who pointed these latest numbers out to me. Bush mustered low approval ratings immediately before the election, surged on Election Day, then saw his ratings plunge immediately afterward. Yet Big Media has no curiosity about this anomaly.
Simon, who spoke at the Nashville conference - one of dozens of speakers to give highly detailed testimony on evidence of fraud and dirty tricks from sea to shining sea - said, "When the autopsy of our democracy is performed, it is my belief that media silence will be given as the primary cause of death."
In contrast to the deathly silence of the media is the silent scream of the numbers. The more you ponder these numbers, and all the accompanying data, the louder that scream grows. Did the people's choice get thwarted? Were thousands disenfranchised by chaos in the precincts, spurious challenges and uncounted provisional ballots? Were millions disenfranchised by electronic voting fraud on insecure, easily hacked computers? And who is authorized to act if this is so? Who is authorized to care?
No one, apparently, except average Americans, who want to be able to trust the voting process again, and who want their country back.
- - -
Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bkoehler@tribune.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.
© 2005 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
SoLeftIAmRight
(4,883 posts)great post
Smarmie Doofus
(14,498 posts)
Spazito
(50,365 posts)of governance in Israel, imo.
The Likud party won 29/30 seats out of 120, only 1/4 of total seats and won only half of the seats needed to form government.
Due to Netanyahu going full on racist re Arab Israelis and dropping his pretense re a two state solution, voters who might have voted for parties even further right than Likud decided to support Likud instead. I believe 15% to 20% of voters were undecided when polled, a large number.
In multi-party governance systems, parties with less than 40% of the vote, ie Canada, can form government.
deutsey
(20,166 posts)that they believed he was going to win the election. Maybe the surprise in today's victory was how strong it turned out to be, but these experts didn't think he had any real chance of losing.
Spazito
(50,365 posts)it says to me even Netanyahu believed he could lose, the Likud party's internal polls must have been pretty ugly, imo, for him to go full on racist re Arab Israelis, promising more illegal settlements and showing his true face re promising no two state solution as long as he's in power.
Without appealing to the rabid right wing voters in the final days, I really do think he might have lost.
deutsey
(20,166 posts)saying that he got votes from the smaller, right-wing parties.
The Zionist Union party got exactly the number of seats they were expecting. Bibi pulled ahead by appealing to the right and attracting seats to his own voting bloc with his racist rhetoric.
I've missed her name (the expert's name). I'll post it when I hear it.
Spazito
(50,365 posts)In essence, he promised the rabid right voters he would do what their parties would do and the rabid right wing voters, seeing him make the same commitments as the parties they usually support, switched their vote. Party loyalty in Israel is not huge in the big picture and Netanyahu used that lack of party loyalty to his benefit.
He still has to find enough seats, 31 or 32, to form a coalition government, if he finds them only among the rabid right wing then any move to soften the commitments he made in the last few days of the election could cause his newly formed coalition to fall with Israel being back into another election.
If Netanyahu doesn't try to backtrack from his appalling promises, from his racist view, the global community, a community Netanyahu promised he would seek a two state solution, may not offer the same support to Israel as they did previously.
Going rabid right may have served him well in the very short term but may well be very costly to him and Israel in the long term, imo.
deutsey
(20,166 posts)I missed where she was from (university/institute).
Spazito
(50,365 posts)Here's her info:
http://www.une.edu/people/marcia-b-cohen
deutsey
(20,166 posts)The host of the show didn't say UNE. She had some affiliation with an institute in DC, I think.
Spazito
(50,365 posts)as well as a professor at UNE, I stand to be corrected, though, as I cannot find the name of the DC institute.
groundloop
(11,519 posts)As much as we don't like this result, at this point I don't think we have any evidence to claim the election was stolen. (Not to mention the fact that it seems kind of arrogant to be making claims like that about another country - whether or not we agree with their policies or not).
edit to add: Spazito must have been typing at the same time I was - the explanation offered seems to make perfect sense. I think most of us don't have a very good understanding of how the Israeli election system works.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)even the articles noted he claimed victory when the exit polling still showed too close to call.
ananda
(28,866 posts)Those exit polls just don't match the outcome.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)he did play up to Israelis who worried more about Palestinians than about their own society and economy. Not really stealing, but political hardball.
Don't say we haven't seen it here.
Takket
(21,577 posts)check out this site...
http://www.haaretz.com/st/c/prod/eng/2015/elections/center/
it lists all the polls leading up to the election Bibi's party is not showing having a majority in any of them......... some there is a 23/23 tie between Likud and Zionist Union.... but Likud ended up with 30????????????? There is NO WAY they could get all the polls that wrong.
bobclark86
(1,415 posts)Tommy_Carcetti
(43,182 posts)That was the case here in 2004, and that was the case in 2015 Israel as well.
brooklynite
(94,597 posts)Herzog isn't claiming it was stolen.
The Arab list isn't claiming it was stolen.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)The CBC isn't claiming it was stolen (except for Maxine Waters).
cilla4progress
(24,736 posts)Very similar to what happened here during western expansion and genocide of the native people. That we are supporting him is manifestly unfair and vile.
GitRDun
(1,846 posts)He trumpeted a racist election eve message and got his kind out to vote.
Israelis routinely destroy Palestinian homes, property and chop down olive trees in the dead of night.
Many are as racist as Bibi.
It should be no surprise he can energize these bad people to help him stay in power.
Israel is a racist, apartheid state, with many citizens acting as willful agents of hate.
Many Americans blindly wave the flag in support of these monsters, willfully ignoring their part in the destruction of Palestine.
Their will be nothing more than new destruction until the rest of the world, or his own people have had enough and hand him his hat.
We have the same problem in this country. Fear and loathing drive votes more than a desire to take responsibility for the welfare of our brothers and sisters who are less fortunate.
Shame on all of us.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)be.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)bobclark86
(1,415 posts)Remember that the next time someone talks about going Green or Socialist... Or just remember 2000.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)You describe a problem where people leave the "big" party to vote for the "small" party. The exact opposite happened.
Voters from an even-further-to-the-right party voted for Likud in order to prevent a center-left government. Every other party ended up about where previous polling said they would, +/- a seat.
This isn't about diluting the vote between parties. It's actually about concentrating the vote into one party.
Spazito
(50,365 posts)a splintered left will be defeated by a united right. Canada had 18 registered political parties in 2011, the majority being fringe with little, if any effect, on election results however 5 of them, the Conservatives, the Liberals, the NDP, the Bloc Quebequois and the Green Party very much determine who forms government. Four of the five parties are left to a greater or lesser degree while only one is right. The left vote is split which gives the Conservatives a win with only 39% of the vote.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Spazito
(50,365 posts)Left votes were dispersed among multiple parties as opposed to being concentrated among one, or at most, two parties.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Thanks to the formation of the Zionist Union, there are not a wealth of left-leaning parties diluting the vote. If the latest pre-election polls had been the result (ZU beats Likud by about 2-4 seats), they would have to form a coalition with the centrists.
Spazito
(50,365 posts)the vote to the extent as to be pivotal as to who forms government. A left/centrist coalition or a right/hard right coalition does not negate the effects of a multi-party governance system.
All governance systems, imo, have strengths and weaknesses. In the multi-party system there is more choices, an upside, imo, but if only the left has multiple choices while the right has one or two, the left is more likely to lose due to the dispersement of the vote, a downside, again imo.
A two party system has only two choices, a downside, but the winner is the clear choice of the majority of voters, an upside, imo.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)And if you want to keep claiming that is the case, show your numbers.
And that's why we have a 43% turnout rate.
Multi-party systems allow the government to transition ideologies - when the "old" left party starts dropping the ball, the "new" left party gets votes.
In our two-party system, the "old" left party starts dropping the ball, and turnout plummets because there's no one else to vote for.
Spazito
(50,365 posts)Results of the last Presidential election: President Obama received 51% of voters, a majority. Voter turnout 54.9% (A two party system)
Results of Canada's last federal election: Stephen Harper received 39.62% of the voters, not even close to a majority. Voter turnout 61.1 (A multi-party system)
The numbers speak for themselves, imo.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Exit polls show voters from an even-further-right party voted for Likud. That gave Likud a boost in seats so that they could get first pass at forming a government.
Every other party ended up about where polling said they would, +/- a seat.
This isn't a case of too many parties diluting the vote. This is a case of the vote concentrating under one party.
LeftishBrit
(41,208 posts)Extreme forms of PR (Israel) and complete lack of it (UK) are both threats to democracy.
TheNutcracker
(2,104 posts)Why not?
GGJohn
(9,951 posts) Dawgs
(14,755 posts)We should all know that by now.
sabbat hunter
(6,829 posts)a few days early in Israel, unlike here where they poll right up to the day of the election. So we have no way of gauging what the populace was thinking in the last couple of days.
GoCubsGo
(32,086 posts)Given what the latest polls said, the outcome was quite surprising to me, as well.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)Why should we care? are we really going to have to pay attention to elections in Japan too. I don't remember any country getting this much attention over an election. Israel has been fighting since 1947 and probably won't stop ever quite frankly.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Every party except Likud and one further-right party ended up about where previous polling said they would. +/- a seat.
Going racist in the last days siphoned votes from the further-right party, because while those voters would prefer an even harder-right policy, they are more interested in preventing a center-left government. So they voted for the "big", slightly-more-moderate party in order to block a center-left government.
Since it's a multi-party system, voters have a lot more strategic options.
SoLeftIAmRight
(4,883 posts)What happens if Iran's oil hits the market?
No agreement - no more oil on the market - just a thought.
Powerful people (BFEE and friends) would not like it.
malaise
(269,054 posts)I wondered right here on DU whether the exit polls would suddenly be wrong lie Ohio 2004.
Ah well.
mylye2222
(2,992 posts)Plus fear using.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)onenote
(42,714 posts)Although I've heard nothing to suggest anyone in Israel thinks that.
Its rather pathetic that you would form an opinon that the election must have been stolen even as you admit total ignorance about the Israeli voting process, which bears no resemblance to ours (and even though information about that process is readily available on the web for someone who actually wanted to reach an informed opinion).
Embarassing. Just embarassing.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)Clearly nothing you have to say is of any interest to me.
onenote
(42,714 posts)Insulating yourself from information that gets in the way of your uninformed opinions is clearly your modus operandi.
By the way I don't mind being put on ignore. My feelings don't get hurt. And I still get to see the posts and I can still respond to them. So go ahead and knock yourself out.
NoJusticeNoPeace
(5,018 posts)to steal the election BY DEFINITION, ALL cons steal elections.
If he won, then there is an excellent chance he stole it.
Sarcastica
(95 posts)He stirred up ethnic hatred at the very end to get out the bigot vote. Classic Conservative Southern Strategy.
virgogal
(10,178 posts)winners always cheat and losers never do and be done with it.
This kind of accusation is thrown about by both sides and getting tiresome.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)Both times Bush trailed in the final polls, as did Bibi's party.
former9thward
(32,025 posts)Bush lead by 2.4% in the final polls in 2004. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2004/president/us/general_election_bush_vs_kerry-939.html
BainsBane
(53,035 posts)Likud didn't even need a majority of the seats to be able to put together a winning coalition. They have come out in the leadership in the past without having won a majority of seats in parliament.
Every election that doesn't turn out like you want isn't stolen.
2naSalit
(86,647 posts)
Corey_Baker08
(2,157 posts)Last edited Thu Mar 19, 2015, 03:01 PM - Edit history (1)
Yes I believe this election was stolen especially when they are claiming 75% of registered voters cast a ballot.
I'm no mathematician but with no early voting, the lack of polling places and 75% of nearly 6,000,000 voters showing up to vote, I just don't understand how this happened or how the votes were counted so quickly as to where Netenyahus Party could claim victory so abruptly?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1042349
onenote
(42,714 posts)First, let's start with the numbers you assume are right (but arent).
If there were 7 million eligible voters and 75 percent voted, then you would have 5.25 million voters casting ballots at 10,373 polling places. That's an average of a whopping 506 votes per polling place. How long do you think it takes to count 506 ballots?
Second, the actual numbers are 5.8 million eligible voters and a turnout of 72 percent. So that's 4.176 million votes, or 402 votes per polling place on average.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-election-2015/.premium-1.647133#!
Corey_Baker08
(2,157 posts)This is where my numbers came from...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1042349|
Okay so maybe my logic is incorrect but I believe 10,000 polling places is a small number, hell there are prolly 10,000 polling places if not more here in my home state of Ohio...
I'm not an expert, never claimed to be so there is no need to reply to me like I'm a complete idiot...
Nuclear Unicorn
(19,497 posts)Israel has a population just over 8 million. Roughly, only about a third of them are voting age leaving a voting eligible population of 5.6 million of whom 72% turned out making for 3.8 million ballots.
If your citation about the number of polling places is accurate we should be as lucky as the Israelis.
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)course they cheated. They cheat at everything.
eas999
(1 post)It appears that Israel DOES use electronic voting machines, possibly with undocumented software
See
https://sites.google.com/site/evotingisrael/TEHILAs-voting-system
I don't see a date on it, but undoubtedly pre- this election
eridani
(51,907 posts)Israel replaced its hand-counted paper ballots with a beta test machine system
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2015/03/would-you-trust-election-system-that.html
The appeal to the worst instincts of the citizenry may have worked its dark magic, as often happens here in the United States. But let us not be too quick to exclude the possibility of election hugger-mugger. Take note:
The new electronic voting system is being designed and implemented by TEHILA, which is a subdivision within Israel's ministry of finance. TEHILA's original mandate was to develop Israel's government portal. The task of developing the new voting system was assigned to TEHILA by Israel's minister of interior, Meir Shitrit.
TEHILA did not make public any technical paper describing their system. This is despite their repeated promises to be transparent, and to publish technical details and code.
The voter registers his or her vote on a smart card. Interestingly, the system allows the voter to change his vote -- once. (Why isn't the voter simply told to discard the first card and take another?) These votes are then counted by another machine.
What we do know for sure is that the system is fully software based, and does not have any "physical" component. As we argue here, this is a fundamental conceptual flaw in the design of the system.
onenote
(42,714 posts)Israel still uses paper ballots.
See post 94
onenote
(42,714 posts)Yes, there was a proposal to implement an electronic voting system spearheaded by Minister of the Interior Meir Sheetrit. But here's the rub. Sheetrit was Minister of Interior from 2007 to 2009. The implementation of e-voting was part of a proposed change to Israel's voting law in 2008 -- seven years ago. It went nowhere. Conseuqently, Israel still uses paper ballots despite your unsubstantiated contention to the contrary.
Here's a story from 2013 that points out that e-voting wasn't implemented. And another story in which the Green party in Israel in 2013 was starting a new push for e-voting. If these changes had been made in the past two years, there would be some evidence of it. Yet I challenge you to find a single story indicating that e-voting, proposeed but rejected six years ago, was approved and implemented.
http://e-lected.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-implementation-of-e-voting-in.html
Israel, a country known for its fast and continuous development of technology, had the chance to implement e-voting as early as 2008. However, in spite of general approval from the political class, this did not happen, and today the country is still stuck with an outdated voting model. Why? Israel is an example of the risks a country runs when its electoral modernization process is not transparent and open to the people.
http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Greens-Move-to-electronic-voting-system
It took me maybe three minutes to find these articles. You could have found them too if you had made the effort.
donna123
(182 posts)Not everyone of course but I was not surprised he won, I expected him to. I am actually glad things turned out this way as the status quo was not getting anyone anywhere. I am glad Bibi stated straight out that there will not be Palestine because at least now there is no more prevarication. I hope now that US stops providing Israel cover, stops sending money. There were some idiots on TV going crazy, I think they were accusing Obama of not loving Israel. Why the F does he need to love Israel? The only country he and I need to love is the US. It is simply mindblowing that these nutcases, these repubs, seem to think we should put Israel ahead of the US, that Israel's interests come first, that somehow Israel is indispensable to the US. If anything, Israel has been nothing but a PITA and has harmed the US more than helped. By trying to play peacebroker, all the US gets is grief and hate from both Israel and Palestinians and other Arabs, so I welcome this development and hope this will help extricate us from this situation, we can join other countries and act in concert with them, particularly our European partners who I think are more of our ally and who we share values with. We've stuck our neck out long enough on this issue. I am not necessarily on the side of Palestinians either as Hamas are a bunch of extreme lunatics too. Israel is going to do whatever they want, we need to stop supporting them and sacrificing ourselves on their behalf.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)catbyte
(34,403 posts)notadmblnd
(23,720 posts)Stealing elections is the one science the right has down pat.
TBF
(32,065 posts)would not put a thing past that war-monger.
Gothmog
(145,321 posts)bibi won but Israel lost
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)and curious as to how you came to your conclusion. Then you stated this: "your opponent comes off as a sore loser for questioning it."
If ones opponent is that weak, he lost because of his own personal issues. Mainly cowardice. I see no way in which that rises to the level of your claim in the subject line.
mylye2222
(2,992 posts)At first the Herzog center left was given winners. Then Bibi claims. You are right. It really sounds a remake of Bush inc methods.
former9thward
(32,025 posts)Just anonymous internet posters in the U.S.
b.durruti
(102 posts)LeftishBrit
(41,208 posts)I doubt that the whole thing was rigged, but in a place with very close elections, a bit of rigging in some voting centres isn't impossible.