How the Republican's stole the Mass senate seat

[Faun Otter]

I have obtained the information that finally explains how the Senate election scam in Mass was pulled off.
The quoted "turnout" percentages are the sum of COUNTED votes divided by the number of registered voters times 100 (to make it a percentage) Therefore the "turnout" actually includes the cast votes were discarded without being counted.

How did the optical scanners that are now all owned by the Republicans perform compared with hand counting?
No surprises, they flipped the Coakley and Brown totals. The figures are eerie for their obviousness. I didn't round the figures, I worked from the raw data. Those trailing zeroes are real.

Count method Brown % Coakley % Libertarian % C/O to B/McC ratio (1) "Turnout" (2)
___________________________________________

Republican owned counting machines 52.00 47.02 0.98 52.76 58.80

Hand counted 47.00 51.78 1.22 59.31 60.31

Independently owned counting machines (3) 49.32 50.01 0.67 61.61 70.00

Levers 65.08 33.59 1.33 44.64 50.00


(1) If the Coakley votes are expressed as a proportion of Obama's votes, and Brown's as a proportion of McCain's votes, and the ratio of these figures is calculated, it should be roughly constant since there is no reason for this ratio to change. I also calculated the relationships between Brown's votes on each equipment type and the votes for Barr/Baldwin, and the relationship between Coakley's votes and McKinney/Nader. The variation in these confirms that the Coakley/Brown figures were flipped on the Republican machines, and that Coakley's votes were undercounted on the lever machines.

(2) 100% - turnout % = the combined none voting number (reasonably constant unless suppressed) plus the uncounted votes cast.

(3) Used in only in Milton - acts as cross check by being very similar to the hand count result.

The lever machines were shimmed in favor of Brown by discarding about 8% of the votes cast for Coakley. The person that rigged those machines forgot that the third party candidate total would increase as a percentage of the total count under a three candidate scenario. Can we cross check this? Yes - the alleged turnout (which actually measures turnout minus the uncounted votes that were cast) is below the predicted percentages. The lever figures are easily detected as false because the person who 'fixed' them went way over the top on some machines. See Southbridge for example - 34% turnout (That shows how many uncounted Coakley votes were trimmed) and Coakley only getting 42% while Obama got 65% of the vote in 2008? These figures, combined with the third party 'surge' to almost 3% is an outlier that discloses the magnitude of skimming Coakley's votes.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Bookmarking for later review.

[Beer Snob-50]

2. has this information been passed on to william galvan?

i think he may be interested in this.

[peacetalksforall]

3. If you have time I would change your subject line which reads tame to

something like -

MA election stolen? My theory - supported.

This needs more readers and analysts and any counter arguments.

A straight flip of numbers? Plus cooperation?

What nerve, what arrogance, if this is true.

[monmouth]

4. No wonder Brown wants to be sworn and seated asap....n/t

[Blue Owl]

5. I find this extremely interesting

I believe this is a more likely explanation of why the GOP won in Mass.

The only way today's Republicans can win anything is by lying, cheating, and stealing.

[CrispyQ]

6. Why don't the dems address the electronic voting issue now that they are in power? -nt

[Bill Bored]

83. Because they are in power. nt

[Wilms]

86. Do you have a link to support that claiM?

I see little evidence that Dems are "in power".

:shrug:

[alstephenson]

7. "Unrecs"??? Why?

[alstephenson]

8. And yet another "unrec"...

Somebody doesn't want this information circulated. Maybe you're on to something...

[Blue Owl]

10. obviously, some have a vested interest

in keeping these concepts from appearing too "mainstream"


:tinfoilhat:

[Ellipsis]

9. IBTOTOH. n/t

[OnTheOtherHand]

29. gee, thanks

But why don't you rebut the OP yourself?

[Ellipsis]

76. *grin*

My sarcasm tends to get in the way. You're more proficient, you (typically) speak in complete sentences, and it will be a thought through debate.

"Real" hand audits would be a start to make this type of paranoia (no offense to the OP) go away. AS to fraud... from what I understand not being from MA., and I would hope some one from MA would chime in, the "political machine is more democratic then republican, if they thought there was manipulation I would imagine they would have "figured out" a way to count some ballots by hand, behind doors to affirm this.

Poor candidate, underfunded, unions went against the Dem's this go round'(from what little I read), conversely the "pubs" spent tons of cash on this race working a familiar strategy IMO of after a victory using the media to change momentum in their direction nationally, it seemed to be working ...for a while.

[OnTheOtherHand]

79. ooh, I almost missed your edit

Yeah, I've had to learn to use sentence fragments for dramatic effect. :)

Yes, real hand audits would be an excellent start -- although the aftermath of the 2008 NH primary (with the partial recount) shows that there is always some scenario of ballot subversion that can't be ruled out to everyone's satisfaction. But a well-run audit, with good ballot security, would help.

I hope that no one has been secretly hand-counting ballots -- that's the last thing we need! Shades of Cuyahoga County. The truth is that as far as I can tell, there is nothing very suspicious about the Massachusetts results, so I doubt that the insiders would feel a great need to "sneak a peek." But you raise a question about access to cast ballots in MA that I haven't yet found an answer to. I think I'll have to (sigh) pick up the phone.

By the way, when I say that there's nothing very suspicious about the results, I don't mean that it isn't surprising that Coakley lost, although that's true; I mean that I don't see big outliers that cry out "machine error," nor a great contrast between the hand count and scanner results around the state. That doesn't prove that the results are accurate, of course.

[elocs]

11. I'm beginning to think a Democratic loss can never be accepted as legitimate.

It always seems to be, "we was robbed". Kind of reminds me of the prima donna wide receivers who cry for a flag every time they miss a pass because obviously they had to have been fouled since they would never drop a pass.

How about: entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. Occams Razor--the most simple explanation is preferred. In this case we don't need any elaborate statistical tin-foil conspiracy theory to explain an election loss when Democrats had a less than stellar candidate who did not fight as hard for Ted Kennedy's seat as hard as he would have fought for it himself and seemed to assume that the seat was hers (after all, how could a Republican capture Ted Kennedy's seat?)

How about when Brown faces reelection that the Democrats put against him a candidate that will fight as hard as it takes to win the seat and take nothing for granted?

[Faun Otter]

13. The figures are there

How about you trust science rather than the media?

I don't care who 'won' or 'lost' - I am just pointing out how the figures were tampered with. If the Dems had done it, I'd point that out as well.

Faun

[elocs]

14. As Twain said, "there are lies, damn lie, and statistics.

Figures can always be found. Democrats lost because they did not have a good candidate who really wanted to win. That's the simple explanation.

[Faun Otter]

19. Explain the figures

If you can point out any flaw in the formal analysis presented, I'll address it.

There isn't one that we can find - and we are all nerds, not politicians.

Faun

[smoogatz]

24. Who's we?

[Faun Otter]

38. We

Search old election fraud posts on DU, Bartcop, BradBlog etc. and you'll see some of we. I won't disclose without permission. They may want to do their own thing with the data.

Faun

[virgogal]

12. Where did you get this information? As far as I'm concerned

Brown won because Coakley was a lousy candidate and she ran a terrible campaign.

Looking forward for more info on your source.

[Faun Otter]

16. Sources

The precinct by precinct counting methods are on the MA SOS site.
The precinct turnout and precinct figures for the 2008 and 2010 elections are on the Boston Globe's website.
The turnout being a measure of undervote is calculable from the voter registration figures on MA SOS site.

All you have to do is paste it all into a spread sheet and run some calculations.
Faun

[virgogal]

28. Thank you so much. eom

[OnTheOtherHand]

31. so, you allege that the Coakley and Brown figures literally were swapped?

Here's something you can try: try plotting the official results against the party registration figures; then plot your idea of what the results should have been against the registration figures. See which makes more sense.

[Faun Otter]

43. Registrations age

Regressing party registration versus outcome is less effective than primary voters or general election voters versus outcome cross-tabulated versus machine type. The reason is that registration was longer ago and of more none voters than either the primary or 2008 election. I have provided the links and you can try to run that analysis if you would like.

Faun

[OnTheOtherHand]

55. what makes you think I haven't?

The reason I didn't suggest using other elections is that (much of) MA has used scanners for a while, so when I demonstrate to you (in case you didn't already notice) that the relationship between Obama and Coakley vote shares looks pretty damn similar for hand count and scanner jurisdictions, you can retort that I'm assuming that Obama's vote counts were right. If we use registration data, I suppose you could assert that that was swapped, too, but it's more of a stretch.

But all this is too subtle, perhaps. If you really think that the Coakley and Brown counts were swapped on scanners throughout the state, then you must think that Brown won Boston. Yes?

If you don't think that (and it would behoove you not to), then you have some work to do.

[Faun Otter]

60. Nope

The pre-marked Brown votes would be discarded as over votes IF they were cast with Coakley added and cause the under vote (misreported as a low turn out) in Boston etc.
This is more prolific than just a swop - but there is no way that vote counting method should correlate perfectly with results unless tampered with. If you'd like the raw figures, let me know and I'll send you a spread sheet.

Faun

[OnTheOtherHand]

71. sorry, I don't understand this response

The pre-marked Brown votes would be discarded as over votes IF they were cast with Coakley added...

OK, let's please rewind to the OP:

How did the optical scanners that are now all owned by the Republicans perform compared with hand counting?
No surprises, they flipped the Coakley and Brown totals....

The variation in these confirms that the Coakley/Brown figures were flipped on the Republican machines, and that Coakley's votes were undercounted on the lever machines.

So, are you telling me that by "they flipped the Coakley and Brown totals," you actually meant that they pre-marked many ballots for Brown? and, apparently, only about four voters in the entire state noticed? I'm willing to entertain that hypothesis, but I'm feeling a bit dizzy. :)

...there is no way that vote counting method should correlate perfectly with results unless tampered with.

Who says that it correlates perfectly? You seem to be using statistical terms in a remarkably freehand way.

I think before we worry about comparing my raw numbers with yours, we should get the terms of your analysis clear.

[YOY]

15. and all conspiracy theories aside maybe we just had a weak ass candidate.

n.t.

[Faun Otter]

17. This isn't a theory

The figures are facts. They don't lie.

Faun

[YOY]

18. Get some links for your facts.

Even truthers have some.

[Faun Otter]

21. Sure

http://www.boston.com/news/special/politics/2010/senate/results.html

http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/eleidx.htm

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/election_results/ma_president/

Simple and easy to find. all you have to do is cross-tab them.

Faun

[OnTheOtherHand]

34. what's your source of info on equipment?

I'm very curious to find out which Massachusetts localities used lever machines in the Senate special election.

[Faun Otter]

39. Levers

From the Mass SOS site, confirmed by locals in MA by 'phone:

Not sure how this will paste from a spread sheet but here are the locations, machines and 2010 stats:

Southbridge 34% 96.80% 39.15% 40.44% 2271 1748 98 4117 55.16% 42.46% 2.38% 64.77% AVM 40 - Lever Automatic Voting Machine (AVM) AVM 40
Northbridge 56% 106.52% 45.34% 42.56% 3987 1638 76 5701 69.94% 28.73% 1.33% 58.50% AVM 50 Lever Automatic Voting Machine
Wilmington 60% 105.10% 52.60% 50.05% 6225 3057 81 9363 66.49% 32.65% 0.87% 65.92% AVM 40 - Lever Automatic Voting Machine (AVM) AVM 40

Faun

[OnTheOtherHand]

56. you think that supports your inference?

I can see why you might be suspicious of Southbridge. But to state as fact that "The lever machines were shimmed in favor of Brown by discarding about 8% of the votes cast for Coakley" is quite odd. Have you run this by Bill Bored? (Heh.)

[Faun Otter]

61. Poll books

If Mass would release the sign in books for each precinct (which they have failed to do) the under count would be known rather than inferred.

Historically, lever machines are easily shimmed and the effect on a two candidate race is hard to detect. However, the sudden outlier of the high score on the third party votes gives the game away, especially since there was no equivalent third party peak in the 2008 election or in the primary.

The Libertarian votes in the 2010 primary in Southbridge were ZERO! There were NO third party votes in the Libertarian primary and yet this is a place where the Libertarian did almost three times as well as his average across the state. This is in the 'winning a state lottery twice in a week' territory for unlikeliness. It is caused by suppressing votes for other candidates without adjusting the Libertarian votes to stay in proportion.

Faun

[Wilms]

66. Please provide details and links regarding

your assertion that, "lever machines are easily shimmed and the effect on a two candidate race is hard to detect".

Thanks

[Faun Otter]

73. The history is here

http://www.constitution.org/vote/votescam__.htm

This is the collier's book online. They explain how lever machines are tampered with. The point about skimming of one candidates vote versus just one other is that the proportions will move in lock step - one up, one down. However, if a third party candidate with a small proportion of the votes is left unadjusted, their percentage take will rise and stick out above their results elsewhere. This happened with the Libertarian who got almost three times as many votes as his average while there were NO votes cast in this location in the Libertarian primary.

Faun

[Wilms]

77. Is that the ONLY source.

Apart from the eyerolls that title produces, is there a way for me to see the allegation detailed?

[OnTheOtherHand]

67. hmm

It would be great for MA to release the sign-in books -- but it's almost as if you're saying that your lack of evidence for your proposition supports your proposition. I don't see how you're in a position to say much of anything about undervotes.

Historically, lever machines are easily shimmed....

Well, that's your unsupported assertion. Even if true, it still wouldn't support your case here. You don't even seem to be making a case for anywhere other than Southbridge, and your case there isn't very compelling.

However, the sudden outlier of the high score on the third party votes gives the game away....

It's funny that you say so, since Kennedy's vote share appears to vary more in the hand count jurisdictions than in others.

...this is a place where the Libertarian did almost three times as well as his average across the state. This is in the 'winning a state lottery twice in a week' territory for unlikeliness.

O RLY? If voters are randomly assigned to places, perhaps. Or perhaps not. Maybe you can post your calculation.

It is caused by suppressing votes for other candidates without adjusting the Libertarian votes to stay in proportion.

Interesting if true. So you're positing that turnout in Southbridge should have been almost three times as high?

[OnTheOtherHand]

80. after further review...

Although the Verified Voting website indicated that all these jurisdictions use scanners, it was arguably ambiguous as to whether all voters use them, and I hesitate to impugn your unnamed locals, so I wanted to check a few other ways.

Here is an actual link to the Mass SOS site (I guess really the "SOC" site), which indicates that Southbridge, Northbridge, and Wilmington all use Accu-Vote optical scanners.

I just got off the phone with the town clerk in Southbridge, who told me that they haven't used the levers since 2003. Sounds right.

It made me wonder what website you could actually have gotten this information from. So I Googled "AVM 50 Lever Automatic." One hit, on bbv.org. That's puzzling, or ironic, or something, because Bev Harris's own analysis of Massachusetts didn't list these as lever machine jurisdictions.

Oh well. It would have been more interesting the other way.

(edited for clarity)

[Faun Otter]

81. BBV

I got the lever info form BBV, as you indicated. i had pasted a link (which I suppose is below this one somewhere) So - starting with bad info didn't help! Thanks for the update.

Faun

[Bill Bored]

85. OTOH, the explanation is simple:

It was another one of those MAN IN THE MIDDLE ATTACKS!

Democratic operatives wanting to discredit lever voting machines redirected Faun's browser to a mirror site in Albany, NY -- the home base of the anti-lever conspiracy.

The plan was to show a very narrow margin of victory that could have been reversed by shaving the gears of only a single lever machine, throwing the whole US Senate into chaos (and by extension, the House) by making it appear as if the Dems only had 59 votes instead of 60, and therefore would not be able to pass even a single bill without massive, nearly unanimous, Republican support -- not even a corporate DLC Health Care Scam!

But the plan failed when the scanner jockeys from LHS fixed it so the election wasn't even close! They don't need no stinkin' Internets to rig elections. They got PAPER BALLOTS counted by computers.

Can't wait to see what happens in the mid-term elections this year! Maybe we'll see some more of these DIEBOLD LEVER MACHINES in COL-I-FORN-IA!

[Wilms]

87. And they did all that without a small plane crash?

:wow:

[Bill Bored]

89. Thankfully. nt

[smoogatz]

20. Sources please.

You need to explain where your numbers came from and provide a link, otherwise people might think you just made them up.

It sure looked to me as though Coakley just didn't want the gig that much, and Brown out-ran her in just about every possible way. I doubt he'll still be a senator post-2012, though.

On edit: I'm also really curious about the mechanism by which you think the lever machines were hacked, in a state with a Democratic secretary of state.

[Faun Otter]

22. See above

I used the SOS site plus the official results spread sheets from the Boston Globe. I don';t know how to upload a spread sheet here or I'd give you an acre of raw data to play with.

Faun

[smoogatz]

23. i think it's obvious what happened:

Democratic voters didn't turn out, and Coakley lost. She should have run a better campaign, and the DNC and the DSCC should have gotten behind her--this was a crucial race, and they totally dropped the ball. I think the suggestion that there was concerted fraud because you've found some numbers to massage is actually counter-productive: Democrats need to read this as a canary-in-the-coal-mine moment and get their shit together.

On edit: you're still not linking to the actual results you're citing--just giving us the general neighborhood and saying "go find it." Please link to the actual numbers you're using.

[elocs]

26. But that would be too simple, wouldn't it? We need a deep, dark conspiracy to explain things.

That's preferable to a Democrat losing an election because then it's somebody else's fault.

[Faun Otter]

42. Accuracy is what matters

I don't care who wins or loses - if one side cheated, then what is the point in holding elections? Are you suggesting the Democrats should start trying to fix the voting machines in their favor? It makes no sense. I think the majority of people would like an election system that records their choices and then counts them accurately.

Faun

[Faun Otter]

40. Exact locations of source material

Sorry, I had to go out to have a real life for a few hours. Here are the locations of the figures. If you know how to get spread sheets into this window, please let me know and I'll give you all the data with analysis. Whilst I agree that the Coakley campaign may have sucked, she still got the most votes cast for her. Losing health care because of a fraudulent election is far more than a "wake up call."

In this link, you will find the 2,168 precincts listed by groups in their 350 counting city locations for the 2008 election:
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/election_results/ma_president/

In the next link, you will find the 2010 figures arranged in the same way except that the order has been changed (do not cut and paste as a whole, go line by line to make sure the data is correctly arrayed) Note the 'turnout' figure is not a true turnout figure. If you take the total of COUNTED votes and divide by the SOS sites figure for registered voters, you get this figure except for those locations (primarily Worcester) that had purged their voter rolls.
http://www.boston.com/news/special/politics/2010/senate/results.html

Much of the counting equipment info is on the next link but was confirmed by on the ground people from BBV:
http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/eleclk/clkidx.htm

If you have not been following the discussions of Republican partisans owning the various companies, use Google. ES&S bought Diebold's election division and renamed it. Sequoia is independent. No one owns hand counting, it is done with counters from every candidate observing at all times.

Here is the MA SOS PDF of registrations:
http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/elepdf/st_county_town_enroll_breakdown_08.pdf

I think all the other figures can be derived from these FACTS. If I have missed a source, let me know and I'll post it.

I am also going to run a cross check versus the primary results on a city by city basis. If the hand count (the gold standard of counting and the method used to check scanners are working) doesn't match the scan results for other areas, it raises a red flag. If the discrepancy is great, especially in view of the relative sample sizes being effectively 100% of the measures of that type, it means something was wrong with either the hand counts or the machine counts. Since the hand counts don't go wrong, the machines are the one's that got flipped. Here are the priamry reults for you to do the same analysis if you want:

http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/elespeif/senatorincongressmaprires.htm
Faun

[OregonBi]

50. HE MADE THEM UP

I cannot find a link to any of them.

Post a link Faun to those numbers and let us do the math!

[OnTheOtherHand]

57. c'mon, Faun already linked to the numbers

I have a lot of problems with the analysis, but you've provided even less basis for your allegation of fraud than the OP presents for its own.

[Faun Otter]

62. Thanks OTOH

I hope the more specific list of links are useful. Another list of the counting machine types can be found at:

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/149/149.html

Faun

[yowzayowzayowza]

25. Meh.

"...should be roughly constant since there is no reason for this ratio to change." 'Roughly' introduces more than enuf error to swamp the actual margin. Statistical masturbation.

[OnTheOtherHand]

33. the premise is faulty

"there is no reason for this ratio not to change." There, fixed it.

[Faun Otter]

41. Yes or no, I think!

This ratio should not correlate with counting method. If anyone can tell me how the method of counting the votes, if accurate, can ever cause a change, please let me know. It certainly makes no sense that hand counting would produce a change in the outcome compared to machine counting unless one of the methods had been tampered with.

Faun

[OnTheOtherHand]

58. you're moving the goalposts, actually

You assert in the OP, without a shred of justification, that the ratio (Coakley / Obama) / (Brown / McCain) ought to be "roughly constant." But it isn't "roughly constant" even within the hand count jurisdictions.

Now you're making a different claim: that the ratio shouldn't vary between hand count and scanner jurisdictions. That would be pretty reasonable if jurisdictions selected their voting methods at random, but they don't. So there's no reason to assume that your ratio, the Coakley vote share, or anything else should be the same in the two kinds of jurisdictions.

If anyone can tell me how the method of counting the votes, if accurate, can ever cause a change....

I'm sure you've heard the saying, "Correlation does not imply causation." Apply it.

[smoogatz]

59. Well said.

If Democratic voters don't turn out, the ratios are going to be strikingly different. They didn't turn out.

[Faun Otter]

63. Turnout is a misnomer

Thanks for brining this up. The turnout figures do not show this to be the case. The turnout is actually the votes counted divided by the registration. This ignores the undervotes.

Further, why would Coakley voters turn out in hand count jurisdictions and the Sequoia jurisdiction but not in those places that use counting machines owned by Republican companies?

As someone sagely put it - the problem is the lack of trust in any outcome when which we are simply expected to trust a machine to count the votes without any auditing.

Faun

[OnTheOtherHand]

64. defection affects the ratio(s), too

If one plots Coakley's vote share against Obama's, what stands out is that Coakley's typical vote share is relatively close to Obama's in the localities where Obama did best, but substantially less in the localities where Obama did worst. That's true in both hand count and scanner jurisdictions. That probably has less to do with Democrats staying home than with Obama voters defecting to Brown -- not in Democratic strongholds, so much, but in other places.

I really think the turnout issue has been widely overstated; it's part of the picture, but not the only part, and quite possibly not the most important part.

[Faun Otter]

70. Thanks

I'll take a look at this distribution again and see if it is independent of vote counting method.

Faun

[yowzayowzayowza]

65. This analysis is chasing the statistical shadow of the ghost ...

of the turnout disparity betwixt the 2008 presidential election and the special election. Useless.

[msongs]

27. the democratic party INC does not give a damn about vote integrity or it would be doing something

about it, which it is NOT.

Msongs

[Faun Otter]

44. A theory

I agree.

I had looked at the figures from MA to see if there was any evidence of Democrats dickering with the results and simply losing a 'battle of the vote hackers.' I didn't find any evidence of this. It is unlikely since the Republicans own two of the counting machine companies. It also would have seemed unneeded in view of the strength of Democratic leanings in Mass. Recall that Mass borders Vermont and shares their socialist mentality in that area.

Faun

[Bill Bored]

88. It's not about the "counting machine companies." Most of the state outsources their programming!

They are therefore clueless as to whether or not anything malicious has occurred. With this level of cluelessness and lack of accountability regarding their election system, all bets are off in Mass. Any analysis that does not hand count the original ballots is mostly a waste of time.

[peacetalksforall]

30. Please don't let all the comments about it ALL being Coakley's fault deter you.

Persevere with your case. Others who have looked at the numbers have been treated the way you're being talked to.

I would suggest finding what some of the Caltech and MIT (etc.) people who worked on Ohio and Florida and other races have looked at the statistics already - ask them to look at yours.

Ignore here until someone who speaks your language can reply.

The simple way of replying is to blame Coakley. When we have over a decade of 'lesson's from those who own the machines.

If someone really want to make a simplistic remark - a person could say that all people from MA are trite and glamorous and were attracted to Brown for the same reason.

Yes, she did a lousy job - it just may not be ALL of the reason.

I would want to know what the numbers 'say' before simple words in the form of explanations.

[Faun Otter]

45. Contacts

Thanks for the encouragement.
I am a stats expert (letters after the name and all that stuff) and appear in the acknowledgements in Black Box Voting and Fooled Again.
I'll keep you updated on other experts comments on my analysis.

Faun

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[OregonBi]

49. Easly stolen? How? By Who?

As I stated - conspiracy theories are just that. Just because some nut job throws up a bunch of whack job posts or a web site pointing to a hundred more links to more whack job conspiracy theory web sites does not make the premise true.
Is it any wonder a bunch of members here are discounted and thus Democratic Underground is laughed at AND discounted because of these goofball theories?

If you say the counting machines are owned by Rethugs, then PROVE it!
Now, I have no doubt they would steal the elections if given the opportunity but just because YOU say it is so does NOT make it so.

STOP SHITTING ON THE GOOD NAME OF DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND BY POSTING THIS BULLSHIT JUST BECAUSE YOU CANNOT COME TO TERMS WITH A COAKLEY RUNNING A SHITTY CAMPAIGN THUS LOSING THE ELECTION.

If you want to investigate then fine. Just use REAL math and REAL facts to back up your statements.
I have zero cause to believe that elections have ___NOT___ been stolen by the repub-pricks in the past but rolling out that meme EVERY time a Democrat loses an election BASTARDIZES the times when an election is REALLY stolen.

Run off, grab your proof, and post it back here.

Grab some credibility along the way and STOP MAKING THE DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND LOOK LIKE A BUNCH OF WHACK-JOB ALIEN ABDUCTEES!

[Faun Otter]

68. Strat here

C Republican Senator Chuck Hagel and his undisclosed Chairmanship of ES&S:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chuck_Hagel

Or the old IED list:
http://www.iefd.org/articles/amazing_voting_facts.php

Or Bob Fitrakis's article here:

http://www.opednews.com/fitrakis032204_diebold.htm

Or this article concerning the ES&S purchase of Diebold's election division:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7392

I don't understand why you equate vote theft with alien abduction. Furthermore, your opposition to reasonable attempts to analyze the data to see if yet another election has been compromised is peculiar. I appreciate the help from people who are poking holes in my reasoning and I will redraft the analysis to address their concerns. If the irregularities disappear or are explicable, then I shall withdraw my statements. If the figures still show fraud, I shall share this information with other vote integrity groups.

Faun

[Wilms]

37. Do you have a link for the DU thread claiming ""aliens abducted me and probed my butt""?

Thanks in advance.

[OregonBi]

51. sure!

school-library-booze-friends-jokes-more booze-jocular-your dreams.

[Name removed]

69. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Faun Otter]

46. Funny

Why is it Okay for the machines to steal your vote? You obviously haven't been following what has happened in the last twenty years as far as vote fraud.

Do you even know why Diebold sold their elections division or what Lauch Faircloth believed as far as stealing elections?
Follow the money and you'll see what the FEC reveal about Diebold's donations to a candidate who believed that it was his Christian duty to steal the election from the heathens.

They also believe in stoning homosexuals. I expect they'd stretch that to include bisexuals. That would affect at least one of us and probably both if they hadn't stoned me as an atheist first!
Christian Reconstructionists. Read their websites and see what they own - oh, ballot counting companies. That makes me feel so secure.

Faun

[Name removed]

52. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Faun Otter]

74. You asked

The Diebold (Ohio) voting company executives donated substantial amounts to Lauch Faircloth on the same day. See FEC records quoted here:

http://www.bartcop.com/diebold.htm

As for their sense of entitlement to power and wanting to stone homosexuals, see here:

http://www.bartcop.com/111402faun.htm

Faun

[Stevepol]

36. Analyses like this are all good and useful, but the main point

is simple. There's no way to prove a conspiracy by statistics. Someone will always claim that you're whining about losing or your figures don't take this or that into account. Meanwhile, the main point is very simple:

When the vote is counted in total secrecy without verification, it's impossible to know who really won any election. That's the simple truth.

The opscans used in MA apparently were the same kind that Hari Hursti was able to flip using a memory card (which the company swore couldn't be used to change the programming) in "Hacking America," the HBO special several years ago. The machines are "trivially easy" (Steven Freeman's term) to rig or hack or tamper with. If the rig is done properly, it's practically impossible to get caught unless somebody squeals.

All these analyses of the results of these elections as if they can be trusted in the least is amazing to me.

Who knows who won the election? It could have been Coakley. It could have been Brown. It's impossible to know. Until we decide to have transparent elections, at least as transparent as possible, we just can't have a democracy. Plain and simple.

[Faun Otter]

47. Absolutely true

It was Hacking Democracy - anyone interested can find it online.

http://www.hackingdemocracy.com/

Here it is on video Google:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7926958774822130737#

Here it is in episodes on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVlZTWH7u8w

Books? Start here (Disclosure - I don't get any royalties but I contributed research):

http://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Again-Mark-Crispin-Miller/dp/B000Q6GXYU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265259070&sr=8-2

or try these:

http://www.amazon.com/Was-2004-Presidential-Election-Stolen/dp/1583226877/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_c

http://www.amazon.com/What-Happened-Ohio-Documentary-Election/dp/1595580697/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_c

http://www.amazon.com/Steal-This-Vote-Elections-Democracy/dp/B000TFUGLY/ref=pd_sim_b_6

http://www.amazon.com/How-Rig-Election-Confessions-Republican/dp/1416552235/ref=pd_sim_b_1

http://www.amazon.com/Deliver-Vote-Election-Political-Tradition-1742-2004/dp/0786718439/ref=pd_sim_b_2

http://www.amazon.com/HACKED-High-Election-Theft-America/dp/0615132553/ref=pd_sim_b_3

http://www.amazon.com/Election-Fraud-Detecting-Manipulation-Administration/dp/081570139X/ref=pd_sim_b_5

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Box-Voting-Tampering-Century/dp/1890916900/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265259319&sr=1-1

Faun

[diva77]

48. Well said. If the onus were on the SOS and voting machine companies to

DISPROVE the hypothesis that the elections they have "run" were manipulated, we would have decades of uncertified elections on our hands... :argh:

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

72. here is where I wish we could recommend comments

I'd most definitely recommend yours.

[Betty Karlson]

53. Bookmarked for later.

Still hoping this is NOT true, by the way. I mean: Massachusetts is controlled by Democrats, right?

[Stevepol]

54. The elections are controlled by private vendors, ES&S primarily.

As in almost every place in the country, as far as I know, in MA, routine audits to verify the accuracy of the vote tabulation are not done.

The US has pretty well privatized its election system and very few of those in power seem to have noticed or even to care very much.

[Faun Otter]

75. The lack of audits

Without audits, we'll never know. As someone said, this is like chasing ghosts. We have some admissions and even some statements under oath verifying that there has been tampering on occasion, but without some system of random audits of significant numbers of votes in each election, we will never know who really had the most votes cast for them.

Here is Verified Voting's audit map of the US:
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/

Faun

[Wilms]

78. Those audits are usually inadequate. n/t

[Bill Bored]

82. There are no lever machines in Mass. Where did you find them? nt

[OnTheOtherHand]

84. there's one at the Norman Rockwell Museum!

I have a picture around here somewhere. Granted, I doubt they used that one in the special election.