"bedlam at the polls and a low turnout on the west coast is Bush's plan"

[madfloridian]

Here is Madsen's view on a possible election scenario.

http://www.legitgov.org/essay_madsen_terrorism_and_california_071404.html

SNIP..."Terrorism and the Election: California is the Target!

No postponement, just bedlam at the polls and a low turnout on the west coast is Bush's plan for 'victory'

by Wayne Madsen
SNIP.."You have to give the right-wingers credit. The fear tactics they learned from arch-Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels remain at the front of their political playbook. First, they put out the notion that in the event of a terrorist attack around the time of the November 2 election, a postponement of the vote may be necessary. Second, they start talking about the Federal government’s response to such a scenario. It’s the second item we must all be focused upon.

The idea of terrorism affecting the election was first proffered by Reverend DeForest B. Soaries Jr, the Bush-appointed chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Soaries is a right-wing New Jersey Republican Secretary of State who has been living under the small “fanatics only” revival tent of the Christian fundamentalist crowd for some time. Soaries’s job is to ensure that there is no repeat of the 2000 Florida fiasco. However, he and his friends in the Bush administration (read that as Karl Rove and Tom DeLay primarily) may have their eyes set on causing a major West coast electoral disruption in 2004 that will make Florida 2000 look like a minor glitch by comparison...."

I think we should be aware of all possible scenarios. I just watched a local talk show discuss the voting machines. The two election supervisors said it is all ok, only undervotes and overvotes will be recounted. The ACLU person looked like a deer in the headlights, and could hardly speak in an informed fashion. Pathetic.

I would rather look at all scenarios and consider them.

[aquart]

1. What if Californians bring absentee ballots to the polls?

[yorgatron]

14. anyone blocking my way to vote

will be shot.:mad:

[bossfish]

17. If you apply for a absentee ballot in California..

and show up at the polls, then you are issued a provisional ballot and have to sign a bunch of affidavits and such.

I know this is what happened to me in the Dem priamry this year. Don't know if it statewide, but was in my county.

[AirAmFan]

21. Wouldn't it be better just to mail in you absentee ballot,

or vote by mail, as early as possible? Some states have early voting, too.

All these could be ways of avoiding "bedlam at the polls".

If you brought your absentee ballot with you and Homeland Security had created a 3-hour wait to be searched and get inside to vote, what would you do? Suppose you were on your lunch hour and had to get back to work. Or pick up your youngest at day-care.

[Dookus]

2. California is so geographically large

it's hard to imagine an attack that could wipe out the state. Furthermore, California is safely Democratic, so I don't see how it would have any real effect on the election.

[madfloridian]

4. Just posting an article.

Just said consider various scenarios. Florida is quite long in shape, as well. However we are still quite clueless here.

The fact that CA is Democratic has nothing to do with this article.

[Dookus]

6. I know

I wasn't questioning you.

I just don't see the real benefit to the administration of doing this. If I were an evil genius, I'd rather target the dem areas of a few key swing states, e.g., Philadelphia, Cleveland, Broward County....

[NuttyFluffers]

15. genius is the operative word here.

their evil, i'll give them that. but genius? no.

they'd love to screw california one last time, they hate us with the fire of a thousand suns. i wouldn't put it past them one bit.

by the way i'm preaching that if they don't protect us this time with such public warnings about election time terrorism i'm going to directly blame THEM. either protect us or it's YOUR ASS Bush Administration!

And you'll leave come Jan 20th, misadministration. Because if you allow a terrorist attack to occur during the election then you are either leaving by election results, or mass riots by gross incopetence.

keep talking bushistas, keep talking... if anything happens i know perfectly well who to blame - and who to remove from the equation.

[Doug Decker]

5. I don't think the author believes that an actual....

attack is necessary, just the resultant alarm and confusion caused by the announcement of "Red Terror Alert:.

That is my reading of the article. The problems will be caused by not knowing where an attack would hit, which would discombobulate the entire state.

[madfloridian]

8. Yes, the confusion from the warning.

So many people are just plain afraid still. It would not take much to cause panic.

[AirAmFan]

23. Rove and company have manufactured FEAR after FEAR. They use Orwell's

'1984' as a political handbook. First they made the media afraid of criticizing the "President". Now they evidently are thinking, "how can we make people SCARED TO VOTE, and engender much more fear among Democrats than among Republicans?"

[Ediacara]

7. Just go after the Bay Area?

The Bay Area is the major democratic area in the state, and disrupting the Bay Area could effectively tilt California's votes to Bush....

Washington is also safe Kerry, BUT if voting was disrupted in Seattle/King County, the effect would be a Kerry loss in Washington.

[Dookus]

11. well

if there were some attack that prevented millions of people from voting, I'd support postponing the election until conditions were safe enough for people to do so. I know that's a very unpopular view here, but I'm just old-fashioned enough to believe that people should be given the chance to cast a vote.

[Q]

12. Who would determine when it was 'safe' to vote?

- Under martial law...Bush* would decide. He might even get to decide HOW and WHERE people could vote.

- I find it difficult to believe that anyone would trust THIS administration to obey the law and honor the Constitution after what they did in 2000.

- The Bushies would also love you to believe that 'terorists influenced Spain's elections. Believing this is accepting the theory that Spain would have never kicked out the conservative/Bush* supporting elements without the help of the TERRORISTS.

-

[Dookus]

13. nah

I don't want any one individual to have the power.

But I'm not philosophically opposed to a bipartisan system that has clear, defined criteria AHEAD OF TIME for delaying the election.

[AirAmFan]

19. Right, "bedlam at URBAN polls in SWING STATES" might tip the election to *,

while "bedlam at SUBURBAN polls" and "bedlam at the polls" outside NC, FL, NJ, MO, and a few other states would be less relevant to Bush "re-"election efforts

"Bedlam at the polls" is unlikely to change the vote MUCH anywhere--just a few percent at most. But that can be enough to tilt dozens of electoral votes in a few key swing states.

The Soaries Election Day Terra Scare plan still is BRILLIANTLY devious, IMO. Look at the map below, focusing on county-by-county outcomes within swing states last time.

Everyone knows that terrorists look for concentrations of people in small areas before they do what they do. Thus the higher the concentration of people in a county, the more its residents may change their behavior (stay home) when the media create hysteria over the threat of terror. Also, the more concentrated people are in neighborhoods, the easier it would be for Homeland Security body scans and searches of belongings to create hours-long waits to vote for those who nonetheless venture out to the polls. At least a few percent of people in a three-hour line will change their minds and go home without voting.

Would there be a net advantage to Bush (red counties) or to Gore (blue counties) if continual talk about Election Day Terra scared more geographically concentrated people disproportionately into staying home, and disproportionately slowed down urban polling places?

The numbers at the bottom of the map have the answer: divide the first column into the second.If my math is correct, the 2,436 red counties Bush won overall average 59 people per square mile, while the 676 blue counties Gore took have 221 people per square mile. I haven't done the calculation separately for swing states, but do not expect the relationship between population density and county vote outcome would be much different just in swing states.

The bottom line: ADVANTAGE BUSH almost four-to-one from an Election Day terra scare! In the Gore counties, people are packed together 3.7 times more closely than in the Bush counties. Thus any stay-home or vote-line slowdown reactions to phony Election Day'Terra' scares would tend to hit Gore counties much harder than Bush counties.

That will not matter in most states, but in swing states "bedlam at URBAN polls" could tip dozens of electoral votes to bush.

[Doug Decker]

3. A truly frightening and unfortunately, likely...

scenario.

:kick:

[Lindacooks]

9. They could raise the terror 'threat' color code to red

and claim that they have 'credible evidence' that polling places are going to be attacked by those 'godless terraists'.

Although I would think that Repukes would be far more likely to believe that shit, so it could backfire on them. It wouldn't deter me from voting.

[bobbieinok]

10. check out earlier thread on scary scenario to steal the election

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1983378

[Cha]

16. I'm sure this makes everyone else as sick as I am

to read this. We never know what they could have up their devious sleeves and it's Good to have People like Wayne Madsen figuring out some futuristic plots for us.

I really believe Kerry is going to win so I must think that whatever they try is Not going to work but the more we are armed with fore- knowledge the better.

[TexasSissy]

18. I will not accept a President who gets elected this way.

[Lerkfish]

28. its not like he was elected properly to begin with in 2000...

...and the country rolled over like a sated puppy and let it happen.

[AirAmFan]

20. What would "bedlam at the polls" look like? John Ashcroft knows

If only the GOP had had better plans to exploit overcrowded polling places in St. Louis four years ago, John Ascroft would have become Senator, instead of losing his seat to a dead man. Unexpectedly large turnout in predominantly African-American precincts created THREE-HOUR-long lines at some polling places. The GOP got the courts to close down the lines on many thousands waiting to vote. But more than enough got through for a big Democratic win.

Does this context give you more or LESS confidence in the meetings AG Ashcroft is holding with Tom Ridge and DeForest Soaries to "protect" our votes in November?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From http://www.evote.com/news_section/2000-11/11092000Fraud.asp

"November 9, 2000

Sen. Bond Charges Vote Fraud in St. Louis

ST. LOUIS, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., Thursday charged there was widespread vote fraud in St. Louis on election night....

A St. Louis judge ordered polls be kept open past their scheduled 7 p.m. closing time but a three-member appellate court panel overturned the ruling 40 minutes later. Bond charges some polls remained open despite the appellate decision.

Judge Evelyn Baker Tuesday afternoon ruled ... that St. Louis polling places remain open until 10 p.m. because LONG LINES AND LACK OF VOTING MATERIALS WERE DEPRIVING PEOPLE OF THEIR RIGHT TO VOTE. The Missouri Court of Appeals, however, ordered the polls closed at 7:45 p.m. and the Election Board ordered polls closed at 8:15 p.m. Board Chairman Floyd Kimbrough said, however, the last vote was cast about 10 p.m.

"Despite the court order, numerous witnesses have stated that voters were registered and permitted to cast ballots late into the evening in direct violation of that court order," Bond wrote. "Furthermore, witnesses have stated that individuals registering voters and encouraging voting were aware of that order and knowingly ignored the court order, thereby committing voter fraud. ...

A TEARFUL ASHCROFT ...CONCEDED THE ELECTION ...

Gov. Roger Wilson has said he would appoint Carnahan's widow, Jean, to take her husband's place in the U.S. Senate and she said she would accept the two-year appointment to keep her husband's dreams alive. Carnahan, his son, Roger, and campaign aide Chris Sifford died in a plane crash en route to a campaign appearance. It is the first time a dead man has been elected to the Senate. Before the crash, some polls showed Ashcroft leading in the race.

Carnahan received a winning margin of 73,557 votes in St. Louis and won by 48,911 votes statewide."

[madfloridian]

22. Or like the road blocks in Florida, or the inability to phone HQ.

Chaos, but they still deny it.

[AirAmFan]

24. Or any airport gate during Thanksgiving or Christmas since 9/11

"Homeland Security" technicians don't much care how long the lines get as they scan and search for anything "suspicious". The big difference between an airport gate and a polling place is that voters haven't paid subsantial money for often nonrefundable tickets and haven't planned on being away from home for the next few days.

[yankeedem]

25. They can just create a terra warning

Against polling places, and recommend that many of them be closed so that the open ones can be protected. Take a guess where the closed ones will be? In urban, poor areas where people can't get transportation to a polling place 5-10 miles away.

[Shopaholic]

26. We all need to vote absentee ballots

this year---

[dusty64]

27. I do think their crazy terra

talk is trying to achieve just this. While the regime touts the fact they have made us all "safer", all these bullshit and vague "alerts" are coming outta the woodwork with talk of "delaying" elections in Democratic states and strongholds. This really needs to be stopped and stopped LOUDLY by the Democrats in power ASAP.

[MGKrebs]

29. Keep you weekends open in October!

We may need to respond.
If they restrict travel as part of the plan (which they will), it will make it harder, but we must resist the coup!