If y’all think the election was stolen, put your $ where your mouths are!

[oxbow]

Let me start out by saying that I for one think the odds are against a conspiracy of this scale. The Lewinsky scandal was a conspiracy of 2, and we all know how long that was kept secret. A fixed election would have required years of planning and at least dozens of accomplices. However, there is some intriguing circumstantial evidence to the contrary, most notably the statisticians’ report. That’s why I freely admit I could be wrong on this.

My solution: create a bounty for information leading to criminal prosecution of the Bush admin for election fraud. Set up a way for people to collect the reward anonymously. Submit proposals to Moveon.org, John Kerry (Theresa’s loaded!) and other interested parties to contribute to the jackpot. They wouldn’t pay out unless REAL evidence came out, so it’s a win-win situation. As it is, all you have on your side is circumstantial evidence, and we still live in a nation where you’re innocent until proven guilty. If these people really rigged an election, I would think at least one of them is corrupt enough to be bought out by a reward, if it was a large enough, that is.

[Last Lemming]

1. Can't go to usual democratic powerbrokers

their buzz is "no election fraud. Bush won fair and square." They didn't even blink as they said that. Who's going to support a bounty when the alpha and omega of the Democratic Party is that no fraud took place

in other words, we've been betrayed by our own.

[BeFree]

2. Look at it this way...

...the power brokers, were they to admit the election was stolen, would be admitting guilt by reason of incompetence. The main goal of power brokers is: Power. They would lose power by admitting that elections are a sham.

So, the only way to get where we want to be is to tweak the bastards long enough and hard enough (in other words: gently lobby them) until they can't take it anymore and thereby make moves to secure the system.

[oxbow]

7. Would the option of anonymous contributions work though? nt/

[Land Shark]

9. the inability to understand the sum total of many smaller

events is what's killing us. Because of that, many people on all sides of the debate assume that there HAD to be some kind of large organized conspiracy. It's possible but certainly not necessary or even the most likely scenario.

it doesn't take even a single conspiracy to "get the job done". 100 million or more people knew what was needed *votes*, when they were needed *Nov 2*, why they were needed *electoral college* who they were needed for *favorite candidate* and where they were needed *battleground states*.

every person also knows several ways HOW. so we have 100 million people (both sides) knowing who what when where why and how.

it only takes one person to steal a vote, suppress a voter, or hack a system. no 'order' from on high is needed at all.

Add lots of little bites together with some bigger bites, and what do you get?

[liam_laddie]

11. electical/electronic corruption

There was an local election in SW Ohio in 1979. One of the losing candidates sued to discover what went wrong. In 1984 or 86, at trial, it was admitted that the phone company gave orders to a technician to install a wiretap on the phone line from the
BoE's tabulators to the county's Regional Computer Center (where, back then) the votes were compiled. The wiretap was to a phone in California. Hmmmm! This is way before wireless modems, cell phones, and other such modern conveniences. High-powered lawyers were able to keep it from going too far, or maybe there was an out-of-court settlement, I forget. If anyone cares, I'll try to find the references. I know one witness was a Louis or Lewis Gates. Maybe goggle would find it. So imagine the level of equipment sophistication now, 25 years later.

With the sophisticated software in use now, it's not rocket science to gerrymander congressional districts so that now only
30-40 seats of 435 are really contestable, IIRC. So it's very possible to select precincts where a "few more votes" added to the popular total will, in aggregate, swing an election. Who has any idea what Rove was doing with his laptop evening of Nov. 2?
I'd really like an expert to hazard what might have been possible.

It would NOT take a huge conspiracy to swing a national election. It's the electoral college, stupid! Remember, FL in 2000 and OH in 2004 were the keys. In FL (537) votes in a STOPPED recount, with plenty of illegal actions by JEB and K. Harris beforehand. And in Ohio, a (118,000) vote "margin" with similar shenanigans by SoS and some local BoE's. With about (11,600)
precincts in Ohio, it would have taken, on average, a shift of just
SIX votes per precinct to change the winner. That's not a huge
conspiracy at work, just clever, targeted techniques, both sociological and electronic. That's my opinion and I'm stickin'.

I believe we are assembling a lot of evidence. In court, evidence becomes proof if the jury buys it, right? Of course, appeals to the SCOUS might be fruitless, but by then, there'll be blood in the streets. Read history of arisings over the last several hundred years; it's foolish to think that human behavior or our reaction to suppression has changed; when enough people get angry enough, look out! We're getting there, one mind at a time.

[Blue Shark]

14. Great Post!...

...In addition...had there NOT been something to hide, the recount of Ohio would have been conducted openly and honestly rather than the Farce that was perpetrated by Blackwell and his band of boobs.

...That is SOOooo why we needed Our Candidate to hang in there and fight. Once he said "I conceed"...America walked away too.

[KaliTracy]

26. and the certification of votes wouldn't have been drawn out until December

n/t

[mgr]

23. Agree totally

For political pressure, the place we need to be looking is at the state elections in the battleground states, and ignore what may have happened with the popular vote. Ohio is the weakest link, followed by Florida, and Pennsylvania, Iowa, and New Mexico. I have a predilection that something happened in Arizona based upon recent pre election polling, and large reports of long lines in Maricopa County (Phoenix area).

To protect the vote, we need to address all opaque voting solutions.

Landshark, I believe it was your post (or one of your team members)that indicated that the exit polls from Washington underestimated Democratic support as was found during the gubernatorial recount. That post ended any support I could give to the red shift being a characteristic of fraud. That said I appreciate your honesty and all the effort that went into your lawsuit

Thank you,
Mike

[Brotherjohn]

3. I don't think there was one organized conspiracy.

I think few unethical acts by partisans in charge (particularly of Ohio and Florida) went a long way, though.

Voter intimidation DID occur. The Republican National Committee recruited and paid for thousands of "observers" who had the stated goal of challenging voter credentials. They were sent to primarily minority districts.

Since when is this THEIR job?

The Repubublican Sec'y of State's office in Ohio admittedly under-ordered voting machines (coincidentally in primarily minority districts), resulting in long lines and the likelihood that many people who wanted to vote did not vote.

The Republican Sec'y of State and Governor in Florida instituted ANOTHER voter purge which was riddled with innaccuracies, no doubt resulting in many more people being unable to vote.

All this organized obstruction aside (whether or not you want to call it "conspiracy"), all it would take is a few people driven by partisan fervor in a few districts or state offices to tweak a switch or dump some ballots or close some office... all of this could easily lead to millions of votes changing over or lost on a national scale. And it would not have to be an organized conspiracy. It would simply have to be "enthusiasm" run out of control by a few players within the party in power.

As to whether that can ever be proven, well, that's highly unlikely.

But it WOULD be reflected by such things as, oh, I don't know, unexplained discrepancies between exit polls and the official vote tally.

Less provable cases of electoral shenanigans have resulted in elections being overturned in other countries (at our urging, most recently in the Ukraine).

Lastly, if a large Democratic donor who headed one of the biggest vote-tallying machine companies in the country was on record as saying "We're going to deliver Florida for John Kerry", we would have already had a Congressional investigation into the election results.

[oxbow]

6. Either way, the reward could be paid upon receiving evidence that calls

the 2004 election results into question. Something on the order of 118,000 votes in Ohio IIRC?

[Clark Bayh 2008]

4. Indeed... if the Dems put as much effort into Ohio before the election...

as they did afterwards ranting about about this rigged election, Kerry might have won....

Instead of protesting in NYC, if more Dems & celebs had just gone to Ohio in October like Springsteen (& I) did, maybe Kerry would have eked it out.

The electors have spoken. Let's move on & put up candidates that the country can feel safe with as security is a continuing issue for the next 8 yrs.

[oxbow]

5. I definitely agree that we should move on

I'm just getting a bit overwhelmed with allegations of election fraud on DU. I feel that if donors can anonymously contribute to this reward and people can anonymously call in tips, then we can either get some real evidence or just move on. People won't have to pay unless someone is convicted, so whoever contributes knows that they'll get some bang for their buck.

[tommcintyre]

22. "move on"? Then this is for you too. Please read.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x355834#355982

[KaliTracy]

27. overwhelmed? then why was there a Conference in Nashville? Do

you think that was all DU people? What about this analysis refuting Mitofsky's report? Do you think all of these professors hang around at DU too?

http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit_Polls_2004_Edison-Mitofsky.pdf


Something happened that night -- and personally I don't think it was a re-election of a president. I only found DU because of my constant searching on-line after the election -- I happen to be in Ohio and voted in a neighborhood that had many machines. I was physically ill the next day as they talked about long lines, especially in minority districts and the 9 hour line in the liberalarts college -- SICK.

None of this should have happened in America -- and because people think 1st that America is great they think it "couldn't" happen in America. So they shut off in themselves the possibility that something could have happened.

But thinking something "couldn't" happen doesn't make it so. Thinking something "might have" happened doesn't make it so, either, but at least there are people here on DU and elsewhere who have put in countless hours trying to make sense of a system that should already have some transparency (such as re-countable paper ballots on electronic machines). At least people care enough to try and make sense of this so that there is a better likelihood that it doesn't happen again.

[tommcintyre]

21. "move on & put up candidates.."??? YOU are in denial. Read this article

http://www.democraticunderground.com/crisis/05/006_ep.html

"...if GOP partisans own the voting machines, count the votes, refuse to allow independent validation of the tallies, and if the Republicans choose to take advantage of this opportunity for fraud, is there any way – any way at all – that the Democrats could win the 2006 election and regain control of Congress?

If not, then why do the Democrats persist in looking hopefully to 2006 - "the next time?" After all, 2002 and 2004 were "the next time," and there is abundant evidence that in both cases, the peoples' will was reversed by the Diebold and ES&S black boxes.

Clearly, the Democratic Party and its allies look forward to victory in 2006 because they are in denial: they simply cannot bring themselves to face the compelling evidence that in the United States today, the electoral process is rigged, thus the will of the people is irrelevant to the governance of the nation, and thus the United States has ceased to be a democracy."

Considering all the evidence that has been compiled, you should NOT be urging people to "move on", but rather to take action to insist upon a special prosecutor to investigate the fraud!

Just like France in WWII, our country is now "occupied". This time it didn't happen from the outside, but from within. And not with the force of guns, but instead with a tampered vote. But the result is no different - in both cases - THE DEMOCRACY WAS STOLEN!

And just like it was in France, if you choose to encourage people to "move on", etc. you are aiding and abetting the occupiers in their illegal takeover. In other words, you have become A COLLABORATOR.

Is that what you want? Is that how YOU want to be remembered after this tyranny is exposed for what it is - as they all eventually are?

Instead, why not join "the resistance"? FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT! HELP SAVE OUR DEMOCRACY.

If you do, you will feel good about yourself, and have done a very good thing. Not only for ourselves, but all the generations who will come after us.

PEACE

[kansasblue]

8. there has been years of planning.

Oxbow, Take a look at the book at the online book at www.blackboxvoting.org. You'll see that it's possible that the electronic voting problems have been in development for years. And we can assume that in the future it will become even more complex. Take a look at Georgia in 2002. Do you assume this is the first time it's been tried?

[Bill Bored]

10. Bounty site is already out there.

Unfortunately, I forget the URL.
The guy posts here occasionally.
He's a professor somewhere.

Because this isn't a household word yet, it needs more publicity!

The other issue is witness protection which might be hard to come by if the Government or some of its members are involved. Remember, a joint House/Senate committee couldn't even get the FBI to enforce a subpoena of a 9/11 informant. And now they want to put journalists in jail for not revealing sources, even though Novak leaked the story and doesn't seem worried at all. So clearly, the press will be intimidated.

No one was going to be intimidated over oral sex (Monica). While that was blown out of proportion (no pun intended) by the Republicans, this is a much more serious accusation. It could be called Treason and that's the only crime in the Constitution punishable by death.

[garybeck]

13. here's the link for the reward site

http://www.jtmp.org/

it says $100,000 but I'm sure it's $200,000, unless someone withdrew their offer. I think the website just needs and update.

For those of you who don't know, the Justice Through Music folks are closely related to the Velvet Revolution folks.

And everyone should know that Clint Curtis' testimony made its way to Bradblog by way of the Justice Through Music offer. He ultimately turned down any monetary reward because he didn't want it to taint his testimony.

------------------------------------
the solar bus
ELECTION JUSTICE CENTER
your home for updated information on the fight for democracy in America
http://election.solarbus.org
------------------------------------

[Bill Bored]

29. There's another one. Posted here about a week ago.

[Wilms]

30. This one?

Election Fraud Bounty Hunter
http://electionfraudbounty.org

[garybeck]

12. this is already done, and you need to eductate yourself

no offense, but if you look at the facts you'll realize there is no other possible explanation than a stolen election and a conspiracy. your argument in comparing to Lewinsky makes no sense.

there has been a $200,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of those involved ever since shortly after 11/2.

We already have more than enough evidence to convince a grand jury. once a trial is opened and lawyers can issue subpeonas, you will see more than enough to put people behind bars. the problem right now is that judges are sitting on everything.

Check the facts, read up. If you are objective you will take back your statement about there being no fraud.

------------------------------------
the solar bus
ELECTION JUSTICE CENTER
your home for updated information on the fight for democracy in America
http://election.solarbus.org
------------------------------------

[melissinha]

15. Its sickening

I heard Britt Hume say on Sunday that we should trust Tom DeLay that he didn't know about the illegal lobby contributions.. and the same argument goes for election fraud... "they wouldn't dare"... um yes they would... We've got no bid contracts for Iraq Reconstruction (which by the way .... banks guaranteeing development projects will never accept... and they also follow completion schedules and payouts very carefully), we've also got a war that was apparently started on "misinformation".... there are so many things that aren't outright legal and simple that the stakes were so high, it HAD to be rigged. But the thing about surpressing the truth is...... that you have to expend so much MORE energy to cover up lies, than there would be to tell the truth. I mean there is MOTIVE HERE.... Everyone keeps saying that Bush is looking out for his friends in his tax cuts... lets spell it out.... you know the main person he is giving a tax cut to..... HIMSELF.

What I really hate is that the Republicans just refuse to address teh long lines in OH.... refuse to acknowldege the hundreds of affidavits submitted by OH residents.... what they are say to you all in Ohio is YOU ARE LIARS.... I think that NO ONE can argue that equitable numbers of voting booths should be allocated to all precints.... I think that Democrats can bring this issue out.... we all want these assurances... and if some repukes try to argue with us on this... it will be clear that they are only interested in the success of the GOP and not the country.

[garybeck]

17. stop watching brit hume

it's bad for your health.

screw the corporate controlled media.

they are not media. they are mind control.

screw them.

we can find other ways to get the truth out.

their house of cards will fall one day. until then, don't poison your mind with it.

[FogerRox]

18. I have no cable--I turn the TV on to watch Letterman--then I turn it off

No kool aid for this Mo Fo

[melissinha]

19. I didn't know about Britt Hume

I don't have cable so I had never really witnessed the Faux News BS.... All I have is PBS and the major networks... Just happened to be at my sister's house...

Whats so horrible is that these "journalists" spend so much time defending .. but when the people are found unequivocably guilty.. they drop the subject.

[garybeck]

31. here is where you can get your news

http://democracynow.org

it's all online if you don't get it on TV.

I'm convinced this is the only legitimate TV news there is.

[kster]

16. I am way beyond

THINKING it was stolen,if I was a juror its been proven to me "beyond a reasonable doubt" and/or "to a "moral certainty" that it was stolen.

[DoYouEverWonder]

20. The election was rigged in numerous ways

even the recounts that were done incorrectly showed enough of a statistical variation, that puts the outcome in question. Of the 100's probably 1000's of instances where the machine miscounted votes, 95% of the time the miscount favored Bush.

The touch screen systems are a joke. No touch screen systems were subject to recounts, so it is impossible to know if there were serious discrepancies.

But even more important was the padding of the vote prior to election day. Absentee voting was the highest in our history. Many states relaxed their laws and made it very easy to vote absentee. The result is a pool of inactive voters rip for fraud. I was told by my SOE, that the REPS were very interested in the inactive voter lists and the absentee voter lists and kept coming back for updates. While at the same time she couldn't get the DEMS (she's a DEM) to pay any attention to these lists.

So here's the trick. The REPS worked these lists for all they were worth. One trick is to intercept the absentee ballots for inactive voters, forge them and send them back. The second trick is to send out operatives who 'help' people vote. They prey upon elderly, poor, illiterate people, who just have to sign the ballot that the nice man helped you fill out. In the meantime, you could have voted for Hitler and you would never know it.

This last allegation is not speculation. I have information regarding a particular person in my area. Serious inquiries only.

[berniew1]

24. Case that Kerry won Ohio & U.S. total is very strong; lots of research and

documentation and its all consistent and cross supporting.

A combination of documenation and analysis by researchers at the Nashville Conference on 2004 Election Irregularities makes a strong case that Kerry won Ohio, and the national election:

http://www.flcv.com/ohiosum.html

Florida http://www.flcv.com/fla04EAS.html

nationwide http://www.flcv.com/summary.html

[mopinko]

25. problem with your premise

"The Lewinsky scandal was a conspiracy of 2, " the scandal part was a right wing conspiracy, of, well, vast proportions.
richard mellon scaife, and the republican noise machine, the whore media who flogged it all day, the republican corpulent pustules in the house who stood up for "the rule of law", ken starr, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
got any more rw talking points you'd like to sell??

and btw, people did put their money where there mouths are. at what other time in HISTORY have voters, BY THE THOUSANDS, reached into their pockets to fund recounts???

move along, sonny, there's a tombstone waiting for you.

[burn the bush]

28. we have put our money where our mouth is

we have supported Cobb in attempting to prove the fraud that happened. It is rather difficult to do when they refuse to let you examine the machines, refuse to testify about the machines, refuse to give a full count, cheat on the count that they do give you, allow machines to be cleared when a suit is already filed on the machines.

I would have cheated! If I had control of all that they had control of, I would have cheated and I am an honest person. They had the means and the motive for cheating. All evidence points to a Kerry win. Yet, in the last couple of hours, suddenly all changed. It would not have taken many accomplices. One person could have done it all. Karl Rove is that person imo. For Gods sake, they own the companys doing the counting. The companys make bank machines without flaw but we can't have an adding machine (that's really what the voting machines are) that works> There were over 60,000 occorances of problems. Many of those occurances involved thousands and thousands of votes.

nope they cheated. period.

[FogerRox]

32. I have put in up 90 hours/week ...........between 45 hrs driving a cab

and then the rest in organizing the resistance,

1) 51capitalmarch.com ,,,,nj coordinator

2) vote.org ,,,,,,,,,,,founding member

3)Grassroots action supporting progress:
GRASP: local group. Chair of GRASP Voting Issues Project
4)Essex Voting Issues Project, County wide effort to coordinate
all election reform groups & to form a startegic and
tactical doctrine to rid Essex County of DRE's.
5)DFA Essex, ya heard of HOward Dean, right?