Do BBV and voter suppression make USA elections illegitimate?

[billbuckhead]

Why isn't this meme of the left? Until our votes count, not much else matters.

[benburch]

1. The social contract has been broken.

It is not now a matter of if there will be Civil War, but when.

[stillcool]

2. One of many riddles...

It was obvious on election day,it was stolen. There was plenty of info about the machines pre-Nov 2. Nothing jives in the logic dept with 'not enough to change the results' bull. 9/11 still doesn't make sense. Iraq does, but the comments from politicians are like a broken record. WMD's and AlQueda are wearing on the nerves, yet NOBODY goes on the record with any of this except Howard Dean.

[Cleita]

3. Any election that isn't transparent and can't be audited is

fraudulent,IMHO.

[Pacifist Patriot]

12. Exactly

[SmokingJacket]

13. You are SO correct. nt

[me b zola]

20. That is the simple truth of it

If you can not verify,
You can not certify.

Simple.

[depakid]

4. This holds true for state initiatives, too

When one side has all of the money and can effectively monopolize the airwaves with lies- and the corporate media actively encourages this- and holds no one accountable- that makes a mockery of democracy.

No, it's been quite a while since the US has actualy had free and fair elections. Electronic voting machines and the active suppression of voters by the far right only mke matters worse.

[Unforgiven]

5. Kick!

Please kick this thread.

[tommcintyre]

6. Until we get adequate election reform, IT MUST BE ISSUE #1 FOR ALL

Our democracy is "hanging by a thread". Right now, we are moving toward 100% Evoting with no verified "paper trail" (most likely by 2006 without a grassroots intervention). As Ed Griffin (Producer of "Invisible Ballots") explains in the interview linked below, "once this happens <100% evoting> no reform candidate will ever be able to win."

http://www.independentmediasource.com/evotingfraud.htm#Listen_Online
6-17-04 - Listen Online (52 minute interview) - INVISIBLE BALLOTS
Edward Griffin discusses electronic voting machines and how they will negatively affect our lives. (Source)
<G. Edward Griffin is the Executive Producer and host of the documentary, "Invisible Ballots". (watch preview online).>

Also, anyone interested in this subject should read the document listed in this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x319305

[helderheid]

7. I agree I agree I agree

and couldn't agree more.

[uppityperson]

8. Of course. Open elections necessary or they don't count.

Free and open elections or it doesn't count.

[Land Shark]

9. Kick n/t

[Laurab]

10. Yes! n/t

[mousie]

11. absolutely, no doubt about it!! n/t

[oasis]

14. Bush is twice illegitimate. Two elections stolen.

[ngant17]

15. but voter verification not possible?!!!

In this day and age when you can RFID your pet cat or dog, bar-codes are tracked in all commodities, DNA and all sorts of other ways of uniquely and positively identiying things (living or not) are commonplace, it's at the point that can be mass-produced pretty reliably, but for some reason we can't have 100% accountability at the ballot box?

There is low-tech and hi-tech solutions, redundany checks with independent, unbiased ways of insuring vote integrity but why are Republicans in control of the the vote-machine business?

I already know something has to be crooked with the elections. The fed is part of the problem itself, they had 2 years to make the reforms, we got nothing substantial for it. The only solution has to come from the local grass-root communities.

The one thing the Republicans haven't realized yet, is that in order for it to work in the long run, they can't quit, their scam has to be perpetuated. Once a few honest people can break up their stanglehold on the voting systems, they will have to find an excuse to declare martial law and get the Pentagon to do away with the Constitution. Or maybe they will 'fess up to the fact that they are really pretty warped and mess-up bigtime. It's hard to say which way they're gonna go.

[babylonsister]

16. kick!

[tommcintyre]

17. kick

[Senator]

18. Not just illegitimate - unlawful and racist (this is settled fact)

This is not an opinion, but rather the official position of the US Government in the form of the US Commission on Civil Rights.

They made this legal finding in June 2001 and recommended prosecutions. (Which are "still pending" I suppose.)

This is why one of the first illegal acts by the regime was to try to force another crony onto the Commission in time to stop the truth about Coup2000 from being part of the historical record.

They failed.

And since Ohio and Florida were clearly worse this time, no further finding is needed to make the factual statement that the occupant of the WH is an appointed ruler as opposed to an elected leader, and secured office and power by unlawful, racist means.

Nothing can make him or his stolen elections legitimate, ever.

History will not be kind.
-------------

www.thedeanpeople.org

[ultraist]

19. Yes, those things invalidate the legitimacy of the election

Voter intimidation, voter suppression, & inaccurate vote counts do not make for a fair or valid election. Those are simply ways to rig the election.

The only way we can assure a fair count is to have transparency and a method to perform a recount.

[orleans]

21. it's not like we were all having a coloring contest

or a guess # of the jelly beans in jar!

we were voting for president--something that tends to be rather important. flushing your vote into a black box, telling populations that they vote november 3rd, etc. etc. (of course you all know the rest).

yes--the election was illegitimate and so is the freak we got sleeping in the white house.

[tblue37]

22. Are those 8 "No" votes from Freepers?

[loudsue]

23. Yep. They have to be.

Everybody else knows damned good and well that the election was stolen.

:kick::kick::kick:

[tommcintyre]

26. They don't realize all the "No" votes IP's are being tracked ;)

Just kidding... that's something the repubs would probably do though.

[Peace Patriot]

24. And in California, they're getting rid of an HONEST Secretary of State...

...Kevin Shelley, who decertified and sued Diebold for its lies about the security of its machines, and provided Californians with a paper ballot option prior to the 2004 election. Phony corruption charges have been hurled at him, and he has resigned. And it appears that DEMOCRATS with ties to Diebold are doing the dirty work. Ah, me. Does our task as citizens NEVER END? I guess it doesn't.

IT IS VITAL TO SUPPORT KEVIN SHELLEY, AND TO EDUCATE CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATIC POLITICIANS AND OFFICE HOLDERS OF THE PERILS OF E-VOTING, AND ON HOW IT IS THAT THE MOST UNPOPULAR PRESDIENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES GOT "RE-ELECTED."

GO HERE for ACTION on Kevin Shelley (his resignation is not effective until March 1):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x319613

HERE IS A PACKET OF INFORMATION and some SAMPLE TEXT to send to California Democrats and OTHERS who need education on this matter:

Democratic losses in the 2004 presidential election and in other elections are traceable to electronic voting systems in which

• the programming source code that counts all our votes is held as secret, proprietary information by major donors and supporters of the Bush/Cheney regime, including Wally O'Dell (Diebold) and H. Ahmanson (ES&S).

• a third of country now votes with no paper trail whatsoever—let alone a voter verified paper ballot—a circumstance that was deliberately arranged by Tom DeLay's obstruction of transparency measures in HAVA

• the electronic machines are notable for their extreme insecurity, unreliability and hackability.

Please read Dr. Steven Freeman's second report on the 2004 election, which was circulated in draft form on the internet, will be published as a book in May and is available to interested parties upon request at

http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm

Dr. Freeman provides an astute analysis of the predictable vote for John Kerry, using the base vote going in (who voted in 2000), the big switch from Nader to Kerry in 2004, and new voter registration, which favored Democrats by 57% to 41%. Adding these three groups of voters together, Dr. Freeman finds a discrepancy of over 4 million votes (and possibly as high as 8 million) that Kerry should have gotten and didn't, in the official results.

In yet another study, on January 29, 2005, nine Ph.D.'s and other experts from leading universities issued a report that calls the 2004 election result into serious question. They find that Kerry won the exit polls (by a 3% margin). They find the odds against exit poll error--and thus, the odds against the Bush win --to be 1 in 10 million. They find a large, unexplained skew toward Bush at the precinct level in electronic voting vs. paper ballot (a skew that has been confirmed by other reports--see the U.C. Berkeley/Florida, and democraticunderground.com/North Carolina reports, below).

This report also finds the explanation by Edison/Mitofsky (the exit pollsters) for why Kerry won the exit polls--that Republicans were shy of the pollsters--to be without foundation. In fact, the data points to the opposite conclusion--that the exit polls actually favored Bush--which makes the unexplained discrepancy between the exit polls and the official results even larger. The report calls for a full investigation of the 2004 election--the latest in a growing list of expert reports that do so. See:

http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf

These reports come after many other investigations, all of which point to the same thing: Stolen Election II. Here are some of the reports that you should be familiar with, on 2004 election fraud and the perils of electronic voting:

Exit poll analysis: astronomical odds against Bush win

Dr. Steven Freeman: http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm
Dr. Ron Baiman: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/997
Dr. Webb Mealy: http://www.selftest.net/redshift.htm
Jonathan Simon:http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00142.htm
(9 Ph.D's from leading universities call for investigation of 2004 Election:)
http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf

(Florida: 130,000 to 230,000 phantom votes for Bush--paper vs. electronic voting:)
Dr. Michael Haut & UC Berkeley stats team: http://ucdata.berkeley.edu

Johns Hopkins report on insecurity of electronic voting (general): http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00196.htm#5

Easy demo of the how insecure voting machines are:
http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevote.htm

Ohio vote suppression: http://www.bpac.info

Documentation of widespread machine fraud and dirty tricks in over 20 states: http://www.flcv.com/ussumall.html

Democratic Underground (ignatzmouse):
(North Carolina: absentee ballot vs. electronic, inexplicable 6% edge to Bush in electronic:)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x45003
(also at:) http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/12/233831/06

Democratic Underground (TruthIsAl)l: "To believe Bush won, you have to believe…"

Part 1
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1316010

Part 2
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1358806

Part 3
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x197878

In progress compilations of various articles and materials on 2004 Election Fraud:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x311105

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=304579

------

Exit Polls "adjusted" on Election Day

Here is something else that most Americans don't know. The Exit Poll data showing a Kerry win on everybody's TV screens on election night was changed, as the night went on—it was "adjusted" to fit the "official results" that were coming in from central electronic vote tabulators. Americans were thereby denied the information that Kerry won the Exit Polls—unlike in the Ukraine, where voters could see the two conflicting figures—the Exit Polls vs. the "official results"—and knew something was wrong. This Exit Poll "adjustment" in our election contributed to the illusion of a Bush win, and prevented an outcry by voters.

But that majority—which voted for Kerry, and voted with particular intent to oust the Bush regime—still exists, and still believes in our progressive country and its founding principles—the rule of laws not men, consent of the governed, a balance of power, and equality and justice.

Thousands of activists around the country are fighting to restore majority rule in this country, beginning with restoring our right to vote. We hope you will join us in this greatest of democracy movements.

[tommcintyre]

25. Excellent resource collection! Thanks Peace Patriot n/t

[slay]

27. kick

THE most important issue facing our nation is election fraud.

[abbiehoff]

28. Absolutely!!! No question.