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NY TIMES: There Were Problems on Election Day

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ChicanoPwr Donating Member (536 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 07:50 AM
Original message
NY TIMES: There Were Problems on Election Day
Voting Problems in Ohio Spur Call for Overhaul
By JAMES DAO, FORD FESSENDEN
and TOM ZELLER Jr.
Published: December 24, 2004

In the two weeks since Mr. Bush was certified the winner here by 118,000 votes out of 5.7 million cast, watchdog groups have filed lawsuits contesting the outcome and questioning the counting of provisional ballots. The state has nearly completed a recount, at the request of the Green and Independent Parties. Liberal Democrats have demanded investigations into whether there was voter fraud, tampering and intimidation in urban districts.

<snip>

But Mr. Blackwell acknowledged that the election spotlighted the state's outdated voting system, with 68 of 88 counties still relying on punch cards. In an interview, he called for updating voting machines, and also for early voting, multiple-day voting and other changes that he said would shorten lines and encourage people to vote.

"I don't think it's wrong to have high expectations," he said.

Certainly there were problems on Election Day.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/24/national/24vote.html

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itzamirakul Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 07:54 AM
Response to Original message
1. Yes, and the biggest problems was...
Mr. Blackwell, himself!
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Quakerfriend Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 08:20 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. Haaaaaaaaa! LOL!
You've got that right! Still can't understand why he isn't in jail for all the stunts he's pulled!
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jdog Donating Member (569 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 08:59 AM
Response to Original message
3. That's really a decent article. n/t
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dobegrrrl Donating Member (190 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 09:05 AM
Response to Original message
4. NYT -better late
than never, but if MSM had covered this in the first place it would have given us the creibility we deserved.

:wow:
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Vidar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 09:45 AM
Response to Reply #4
5. It was the same way with Watergate. News was a trickle before
it became a flood. Of course this story is bigger than Watergate, Nixon had a thousand times the integrity of Bush-Cheney (not insinuating that it takes much) and the media is far more thoroughly controlled today.
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roseBudd Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 09:59 AM
Response to Original message
6. This part is false!
And most recently, election challengers in various Ohio counties have said that the tabulators used to count punch cards may have been tampered with before the recount.


But experts in election law say little clear evidence of fraud has emerged. Democratic officials have joined Republicans in arguing that any conspiracy to deny Mr. Kerry votes would have required Democratic complicity, because each of Ohio's 88 county election boards has two Democrats and two Republicans.


Tabulation fraud is invisible! There is nothing to see. The people who work for BoEs are mostly middleage computer illiterates! They don't un derstand that a tabulation program that passes pre election testing can be triggered to start counting fraudulently by "triggers" such as an inprobable combination of votes, a certain time of day or a percentage of votes cast.

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MarkusQ Donating Member (516 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 10:08 AM
Response to Reply #6
7. *sigh* We've been fighting this for years...
And by "we" I mean the computer industry.

  • "That can't be a trojan-thingy. I got it off a site I found on AOL."
  • "A virus? Why would my aunt Mable send me a virus. You're too paranoid!"
  • "No, the disk wasn't 'infected' with anything--I looked at it before I put it in."
  • "Spyware? Don't be silly. Who'd want to spy on me?"
  • "We shouldn't I leave my ports open--I don't have anything to hide."
  • ...and on, and on...
Most people take years to "get it".

--MarkusQ
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ccarter84 Donating Member (412 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 11:56 AM
Response to Reply #7
11. LOL, I love to wake up to stuff like this
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madison2000 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 10:10 AM
Response to Original message
8. what happened to "dissident:s" ?
Did they all go back to being liberal Democrats?!

:dem:
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Peace Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 11:06 AM
Response to Original message
9. I am just boiling about this article...
First of all, WHAT is THIS?
___

"Liberal Democrats have demanded investigations into whether there was voter fraud, tampering and intimidation in urban districts."
___

LIBERAL Democrats??? Who are THEY--Democrats who want black and poor votes counted? Where did they get this phrase from--"liberal Democrats"?

Down further in the article, we find this:

"'I think the majority of Democrats feel that the election was more or less accurate,' said Dan Trevas, the spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party. 'But others are suspicious. Irregularities that are normally overlooked have become the focal point of attention this year. I just can't see those people walking away satisfied.'"
___

I think the Ohio Democratic Party has some work to do, to cleanse itself people like this, who apparently don't think that the Darkies' votes count for much. ("...more or less accurate..."--the "more" is the white folks' votes? the "less" is the colored folks?). Is THIS who told the NYT that it's just the "liberal Democrats"--"those people"--whom he "can't see walking away satisfied"?

Really, this guy has got to go.
__________________

"Mr. Blackwell acknowledged that the election spotlighted the state's outdated voting system, with 68 of 88 counties still relying on punch cards. In an interview, he called for updating voting machines..."
___

As in "updating voting machines" after the fact so their phony tallies are made to match the hand recount?

Jeez. Reporters like this, using the guise of "objective journalism" (like, uh, the NYT reporting on Chalabi's reasons for invading Iraq?), let people like Blackwell--and all Bushites--get away with bloody murder!

Mr. Blackwell thinks that "updating voting machines, early voting, multiple-day voting" and other changes "would shorten lines and encourage people to vote."

Encourage people to vote??? ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO VOTE!!!???

They let him get away with THAT!?

Blackwell then states: "I don't think it's wrong to have high expectations."

Unbelievable.
___________

And here come the bloviating, Bush ass kissing, sell your degree like toilet paper and play tutti-fruiti with the Lords of the Earth EXPERTS...

"But experts in election law say little clear evidence of fraud has emerged."

Experts. See below.

And here's Trevas again--surely:

"Democratic officials have joined Republicans in arguing that any conspiracy to deny Mr. Kerry votes would have required Democratic complicity, because each of Ohio's 88 county election boards has two Democrats and two Republicans."

Democratic officials? The ones who consider the colored vote to be "less," as in "more or less accurate"?

I'd check this guy out for owning stock in Triad. Really.

____________

"Yet there were widespread problems, many of which point to defects in the election rules, experts say."

Experts say. Here's one with a brown "B" branded on his forehead:

"'I think the problems weren't sufficient to cast doubt on the results,' said Edward B. Foley, director of the Election Law Program at Ohio State University's law school. 'But I do think there were more problems than usual in Ohio.'"

Those Darkie problems again. Can't punch a ballot properly. ("...less...").

___

"Among the 464 complaints about long lines in Ohio collected by the Election Protection Coalition, a loose alliance of voting rights advocates and legal organizations, nearly 400 came from Columbus and Cleveland, where a huge proportion of the state's Democratic voters ((read: colored folks)) live."

"'It's possible that it made a difference in the outcome but unlikely,' said Dan Tokaji, an assistant professor of law at Ohio State, where academics plan a voter survey to test whether large numbers were discouraged."

What do you think THAT survey is going to show? (Hint: He already knows the outcome.)
______________

"In Columbus, Franklin County election officials reduced the number of electronic voting machines assigned to downtown precincts and added them in the suburbs. They used a formula based not on the number of registered voters, but on past turnout in each precinct and on the number of so-called active voters - a smaller universe."
___

Did the NYT's ace reporters think to ask WHEN they thought up this B.S.? (--"the number of active voters") (--at least they put "so-called" in there!).
___

"Indeed, election results show that a much higher suburban turnout on Nov. 2 meant that machines in Bush areas were more heavily used on average, although whether that was because their voters were less easily discouraged by long lines or simply more efficient in voting is unclear."
___

Huh? WHAT "long lines" in suburban areas? Was this supposed "heavier" usage actual voters voting or was it electrons voting? Wealthy white suburbanites are "more efficient in voting" than.....? (Where does this idea come from--that suburbanites are "more efficient in voting"? Whose idea is it? Is it like, Republicans don't answer Exit Pollsters because they are embarrassed at voting for Bush? That is, made up out of whole cloth? Who planted this idea in the reporters' heads? Or did they just make it up? What evidence is there for it?)

_________

"Another area of contention is the large number of ballots - 96,000 by recent counts - that registered no vote for president. Known as 'residual' or 'lost' votes, they involve cases where no candidate for president appeared to have been selected or where multiple candidates were chosen, rendering the ballot invalid for that race.

"The problem was pronounced in minority areas, typically Kerry strongholds. In Cleveland ZIP codes where at least 85 percent of the population is black, precinct results show that one in 31 ballots registered no vote for president, more than twice the rate of largely white ZIP codes, where one in 75 registered no vote for president."

Must be those Darkies inefficiently voting again.
___

And here are "the experts say" bloviations:

"Experts say punch cards contributed to the problem, because the ballots, which require voters to punch a hole through a heavy-stock paper, are prone to partial perforations, or the buildup of chads. Election officials say that nearly 77,000 of the 96,000 residual ballots in Ohio were punch cards.

"But Mr. Foley, the election expert at Ohio State, noted that some people consciously withhold their votes for president and that 77,000 residual punch cards is in keeping with failure rates for punch cards nationwide."
___

"SOME PEOPLE consciously WITHHOLD THEIR VOTES FOR PRESIDENT..." !!!???

Right. You think black voters were deciding NOT to oust that racist S.O.B. Bush, whose army recruiters are seeking out unemployed black youths to send them to their deaths in Iraq? And they did this in great numbers?
___

"...and that 77,000 residual punch cards is in keeping with failure rates for punch cards nationwide.
___

What does "in keeping with" mean? Why don't they ask him for some numbers (and the DATES of those numbers)? And, if they fail at such a high rate, and, given the Florida 2000 vote suppression against black voters, and all that "chad" business, WHY THEN were black precincts inflicted with punchcards AGAIN? Huh?
___

"Mr. Blackwell said Ohio's residual votes actually declined this year from 2000. Of the 4.8 million votes cast in 2000, about 90,000 - 1.9 percent - registered no vote for president. This year, 96,000 of 5.7 million votes cast - 1.7 percent - did so. "
___

SO WHAT??!!! Is 2000 the STANDARD???
___________

"Mr. Blackwell favors changing to a system that uses an optical scanner to read a paper ballot, which, he said, meets federal requirements, is less expensive than other machines and can handle more voters. But he said groups who say that just about every electronic voting system can be hacked are not helping things." // "'There is still evidence out there that we need to transform the machinery,' he said. 'But it will be harder to do now.'"
___

YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT IT WILL BE!!!!

("...we need to transform the machinery..."--why, WHY do they let him get away with this?)

__________

This NYT article is "stacked" with: 1) One voter's experience (the lead); 2) bloviating experts; 3) a Democratic official who doesn't much mind if colored folks votes are not counted, and considers Democrats who disagree with him to be "those people" ; 4) a lying, lawbreaking Republican election official who presided over a fraudulent election and is permitted to sound like he WANTS peoples' votes to be counted; 5) then we get to Bob Fitrakis; 6) followed by Damschroder and more lies.

It is a hit piece in disguise (and not very good disguise). The NYT wants war in Iraq. That's the long and the short of it. I spit on their pretensions to be the nation's "paper of record." And I cringe every time one of us whines that the MSM is not interested in the election having been stolen, and we have to get them to cover it. I understand this whine. They control EVERYTHING. They control REALITY. But I still cringe, because I know what a disgrace to journalism they are; I know how they "stack" articles and twist and omit the truth to SERVE the War Party. And it just makes me want to cry! They have the power--the clout--and the language skills and means of promulgation to tell the truth, and they will not do it.
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WMoses Donating Member (19 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 12:17 PM
Response to Reply #9
14. Hey Peace Patriot:
I sure would have liked to see you have written that article. You're exactly right and make it sound perfectly obvious. I think you should send that to the NYT.

Out Bush!
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davidlynch Donating Member (461 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 12:47 PM
Response to Reply #9
16. Agree--NYT Is Just Maddening
Although it's a relief to see them covering the issue, the spin is just maddening. But the mere presence of this front page article means that the powers that be are getting scared--otherwise they would just stay in phase I (ignore us). Now they're in phase II (ridicule us).

That's progress.

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bush_is_wacko Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 11:33 AM
Response to Original message
10. NOT VOTER FRAUD! ELECTION FRAUD!
When will they get THAT simple wording correct?
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Catamount Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 11:57 AM
Response to Original message
12. This is the part I liked........
When the recount is completed next week, no one expects the questions about the election to die, with several groups poised to challenge the recount.

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Pithy Cherub Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 12:08 PM
Response to Original message
13. Blackwell received a blinding flash of the obvious
and is trying to "spin". KB wants electoral changes we just want him gone before 2005! May this torpedo any terrible thoughts he has about running for a further office - if he can't run an election properly or fairly...
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juslikagrzly Donating Member (646 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 12:18 PM
Response to Original message
15. At least we're getting attention
ala Lakoff's "don't think of an elephant"...

but "Liberal democrats" really pissed me off, as if that's an insult. Of course we're liberal you asshat, or we'd be republicans. Geeezzz
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davidlynch Donating Member (461 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 12:49 PM
Response to Reply #15
17. Agree--Liberal Democrats--They Might As Well Have Said "Sore Losers" n/t
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Carolab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-24-04 12:52 PM
Response to Original message
18. Sure Ken
"other changes that he said would shorten lines"

LIKE RELEASING MACHINES SITTING IN A WAREHOUSE WHILE DEMOCRATS ARE BEING SHORTED?
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