"Expert" Says Arnebeck's Got Nothing -- "Expert" Needs To Be Destroyed

[EMunster]

Someone's got to call this guy on his shit. He shows no evidence that he's even read the brief. Can't let this float around unattacked. This is the kind of reasoning Moyer is looking for.


Posted on Wed, Dec. 22, 2004

Expert: Fraud possible but no evidence it threw election

JOHN McCARTHY

Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The fraud alleged in a challenge to President Bush's victory may have occurred, but there is no evidence it was widespread enough to have thrown the election, a professor who studies voting systems said Wednesday.

The challenge filed Friday in the Ohio Supreme Court alleges fraud including computer hacking, post-election vote switching, fraudulent absentee ballots and the denial of public inspection of voting records at county boards of elections, among other things.

"I do agree with the petitioners when they assert there were serious problems with these elections. Does that mean the election was stolen? Does that mean (Democrat John) Kerry really won? In my opinion, no," said Daniel Tokaji, an assistant professor of law at Ohio State University who has been closely following the Ohio vote and its aftermath.

Bush defeated Kerry by 119,000 votes, according to the official vote count by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. Ohio's 20 electoral votes gave Bush the 270 he needed for victory. Kerry conceded the morning after Election Day.

A statewide recount paid for by presidential candidates of the Green and Libertarian parties has given Bush 346 extra votes an additional 494 votes to Kerry, with all counties except Lucas reporting, according to a survey of county boards by The Associated Press. Neither Democrats nor Republicans expect the recount to affect the outcome.

The challenge filed on behalf of 37 Ohio voters by a group led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Columbus lawyer Cliff Arnebeck is based on comparison of reports of exit polling data with the offical vote. Arnebeck and other lawyers on the case say they would like to see the supporting data that produced the exit poll results.

U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, has asked the polling firm that compiled the numbers for the AP and five television networks - ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox - to provide more data but was turned down. A spokeswoman for the media consortium said the numbers were still being analyzed and no decision would be made on how to release a full report until at least early next year.

"What adjustments are they making a month after the election that they can't release the raw data?" said Peter Peckarsky, a lawyer for the challengers.

The challengers maintain that vote tabulation software is easy to hack and votes were taken from Kerry and given to Bush. The challenge cites a study of poll books in Trumbull County found that 580 absentee votes were cast for which there was no notation in the books.

They also allege that ballots cast by someone other than registered voters were added to the legitimate votes and the votes they replaced were "destroyed or altered."

"These are allegations of good old-fashioned ballot stuffing," Tokaji said. "Ballot stuffing can happen. Did I see any evidence that it happened in this election? Not really. The likelihood of it being able to occur in one county are low, given the safeguards."

(snip)





more:
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/10478401.htm

GoogleNews of Daniel Tokaji http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=Daniel+Tokaji&btnG=Search+News

GoogleGeneral of "Expert"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Daniel+Tokaji%22&btnG=Google+Search

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Oh. Assistant Professor of LawWWWWWW!

Yeah, they are always the experts you want!

If you are looking for someone, anyone to throw some FUD around.

[IowaGuy]

5. Near as I can tell, he is just expressing his "opinion"....

With that and a couple of quarters he can get a cheap cup of bad coffee...We need less opinions in this and more facts, we need less obfuscation by those in gov't and more light on everything that happened. I know, fat chance!

[Goldeneye]

2. Has he consulted a statistician?

Being a lawyer doesn't necessarily mean you know everything. We have a number of lawyers and statisticians on our side who say that fraud could have flipped the vote.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

8. Someone needs to aim an...

Intercontinental Truth Is ALL Missile right down his throat. That might wake his ass up. ;-)

[buddysmellgood]

3. What an idiot. The suit is all about have the power to subpoena in order

to force election officials to testify under oath and be able to dig for the truth.

[liam97]

6. Could they not find

a legal scholar and lawyer of the stature of Bonifaz or Neas or those in the entire House Judiciary Committee or statisticians from Berkeley and U Penn or computer experts from Stanford? Or Richard P.Hayes who crunches numbers at the speed of lightning... Those are the kind of people who think there is fraud...

[McCamy Taylor]

4. How does a troll like this get MSM coverage? AP sucks up to Rove again

[understandinglife]

7. Here's his "blog"....hmmm

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji/

[understandinglife]

16. A dose of 'the expert'....

..."Electronic voting has the potential to reduce the number of lost votes, while effecting substantial improvements in racial equality, disability access, and multilingual access. At the same time, the implementation of this technology poses serious risks, if unaccompanied by appropriate procedural safeguards. There are also legitimate concerns about the transparency of present-generation DRE technology.

But in focusing myopically on the “paper trail,” the public debate has lost sight of the core democratic values that should inform the comparison of different voting technologies. In turning paper into the gold standard, the debate has largely ignored the interests of minority, disabled, and non-English proficient voters who stand to benefit from....."

From: The Paperless Chase: Electronic Voting and Democratic Values
Daniel P. Tokaji
Public Law and Legal Theory
Working Paper Series
No. 25
Center for Law, Policy and Social Science
Working Paper Series
No. 18
September 2004
This paper can be downloaded without charge from the
Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=594444


Just the type of expert the folk at Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia, Triad....et al., are probably oh-so-very-happy the AP contacted (randomly, for sure) .....

[GregD]

9. Tokaji: color him "enemy"

This puke has been fighting for paperless e-voting for at least the past 18 months, and should be considered an enemy.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

11. Oh...

Does he have The Diebold Chair?

[pleiku52cab]

10. Just like the old adage

'Opinions are like assholes - everyone has one'. Mr. Tojaki's opinion, like his asshole, stinks. Like many uninformed amateurs he's missing the point. There should be NO 'serious problems" in ANY voting process if we are to trust the outcome. Sounds to me like AP is stacking the deck again.

[righteous1]

12. Destroy a man because his opinion differs from yours,

not sure I like then sound of that

[GetTheRightVote]

14. Not destory, but if he is not corrected point it out to him and world

:bounce:

[Peace Patriot]

19. righteous1, yessiree...

...when you get selected by the Dark Lords to flaunt your ignorance of the facts all over the goddamned world, using your law degree like a piece of toilet paper to wipe Bush's ass cleany-clean clean, then you DESERVE to be destroyed (not literally, of course, but as to your reputation and ability to trumpet propaganda).

I'm sorry, but this is NOT just one man's opinion. This is a carefully crafted piece of shit journalism--possibly intended to throw suspicion off AP for its role in polluting the Exit Poll data with the Republican-controlled electronic "results" on election night (to prevent a Ukraine here), as well as giving aid and comfort to the war regime. You think this guy just happened to speak up one day, and an AP reporter just happened to be under his window when he did? And where are the other, far more knowledgeable experts in this article?

This is a hit piece--on US, and on every expert who has risked his neck telling the truth, and on every election volunteer in Ohio, and on Cliff Arnebeck, and on democracy itself. So you can just go away, with your "righteousness."

[eowyn_of_rohan]

13. Talking from both sides of his mouth?

"Two-thirds of Ohio's voters continue to use the very same punch card voting machines that caused the Florida election fiasco. By failing to act, the state of Ohio has left our democracy hanging by a chad," said Daniel Tokaji, an ACLU of Ohio volunteer attorney. 68 of Ohio's 88 counties currently use punch card voting systems."

www.ccao.org/CIDS/news20040806.htm

[GetTheRightVote]

15. Yes & the court ruled they work just fine but only in Minority areas

or Democratic. I guess they did not have the pay check ready for Diebold yet ??

[Igel]

17. I don't think so.

"Blackwell scored a victory in federal court last week, when U.S. District Judge ruled that the state's use of punch cards does not violate either the U.S. Constitution or the Voting Rights Act. (Disclosure: I'm co-counsel for the plaintiffs in this lawsuit.)"

So he honestly believes (oh, that's from his blog, link is given above) that the punch-cards are a problem. I don't think anybody hear would disagree with that (the solution ... that's a different matter).

Just because you think that fraud is *possible* doesn't entail thinking it's *actual*.

In other words, he could have consistent views and be expressing them.

[Carolab]

18. Opinions are like

well, you know...everybody's got one

This guy and everyone who expresses likewise opinions have nothing on which to base said opinions that "nothing proves fraud or that Kerry would have won". They remain just that--unsubstantiated opinions.

OTOH, there IS proof that the problems enumerated DID occur. The extent to which they influenced the outcome can only be determined by a thorough investigation. Moreover, the effect of any such investigation is not, and cannot be, limited to whether or not Kerry won or Bush won. It is a matter of ascertaining what, exactly, happened, and what, exactly, is the TRUE outcome of that election.

Now that Ohio has seen fit to essentially ignore its own elections laws and to provide six weeks to massage the data, and that Mitovsky & Edison Research are following suit by delaying release of their raw data (excuse me, but what about "raw" data needs to be analyzed? It's raw, and by definition, needs no analysis, just tabulation), we may possibly never be certain of that outcome even WITH a full investigation.

We can see that even with obvious manipulation of the "recount", Kerry still gained more votes than Bush, which is indicative of "something" being wrong with the official results. In a true random recount, what would the actual difference have been? And, what of the 93,000+ ballots that have not been examined?

That these self-styled "experts" get valuable print space that should be designated to reporting of actual facts is more than offensive; it is a full-on affront to the millions of citizens in this country and abroad who are desireous of dispensing with opinions and getting to the facts.

Why are they so afraid of the facts--if, in fact, nothing is wrong?