"Electronic Voting: The Catastrophe that Wasn't" Left-wing vote-rigging conspiracy...

[Amaryllis]

Poor Diebold. The media "dragged them through the mud."

Electronic Voting: The Catastrophe that Wasn't
After election, media silent on left-wing claims of Diebold-Bush conspiracy.

By Julia A. Seymour
Business & Media Institute
11/15/2006 2:30:56 PM

Like claims the U.S. was responsible for 9/11 and Republicans were fixing gas prices, the media promoted the left-wing electronic vote-rigging conspiracy. Now that the votes have been cast and counted, Republicans lost, and the silence of the national media has been deafening.

The idea was that somehow the company Diebold had programmed the machines to let Republicans win. The theory, perpetuated by left-wingers posting on Daily Kos and The Huffington Post and Bev Harris’ book, “Black Box Voting,” was embraced by all three broadcast networks, as well as CNN and MSNBC.

Following Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) defeat in 2004, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann ignored statements by the candidate’s own Ohio attorney about the lack of evidence of “confirmed fraud.” Instead, Olbermann ranted for days about fraud causing the Kerry defeat during his show “Countdown with Keith Olbermann.”

Leading up to the 2006 election. Lou Dobbs and Kitty Pilgrim waged a five-month long, two-person war against electronic voting in regular “Democracy at Risk” segments during CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”

But from 2004 to Nov. 7, 2006, the media dragged the Diebold Corp. – the largest of the four makers of electronic voting machines – through the mud. Some even went so far as to color Diebold as a potential election thief.

More: http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2006/20061115142856.aspx

[INDIA]

1. Interesting article...

But I'm sure some people here won't like it.

I'm sure some DU'ers will claim that there WAS a conspiracy, but strong Democratic turnout was enough to overcome it.

Personally, I think both parties (mostly republicans though :) ) are guilty of small scale voter intimidation, missing ballots etc at the local level, but I never bought the whole "KKKarl Rove Orchestrated Nationwide Diebold Voting Conspiracy." The polls pretty much dictated the outcome of the elections, and when they were off, they favored the DEMOCRAT! (Casey, Webb)


I'll be curious to to see the responses to this post...

[aquart]

3. Never been to Bradblog, dear?

<http://www.bradblog.com/>

[kster]

8. That explains why the vote count and tabulating

has to be done in complete secret. We must never see the vote counting, we must never see the vote counting, we must never see the vote counting.

[Fly by night]

15. Here's my response to [e-mail]

Your "electronic voting" article was a piece of uninformed agit-prop. Perhaps that's why your "institute" exists. If you really want to cover this all-important story, why not view three documentaries -- none of them produced by the corporate media:

1) Eternal Vigilance: The Fight to Save Our Elections ( www.eternalvigilance.us )

2) The Right to Count -- Richard Van Slyke

3) Stealing America: Vote by Vote -- Doroithy Fadiman.

Then write a retraction, if you are capable of doing that.

Sincerely,

Fly by night, Organizer
Gathering To Save Our Democracy

[OnTheOtherHand]

14. well, this doesn't even really purport to be journalism

or maybe it does, if one squints. The Business & Media Institute is a spin-off of the Media Research Center "devoted solely to analyzing and exposing the anti-free enterprise culture of the media" (http://www.businessandmedia.org/about/about.aspx). (I'm taking that quotation slightly out of context, so I encourage people to follow the link to see that the story doesn't change much with the context provided.)

Everyone knows I'm a skeptic about the idea of oodles of votes having been electronically stolen in 2004, or any other year including this one. But the article referenced in the OP is just crap propaganda.

[aquart]

2. Sooo, how sorry is she going to be that she said that?

[Der Blaue Engel]

4. Did a certain self-righteous DUer write this article?

Well, I have this to say to that: pfffffftttttt.

If we ignore the potential for fraud that is Diebold/electronic voting, we ignore it at the peril of our democracy. We can't afford to get complacent, or wallow in denial, about this reality.

[Bonhomme Richard]

5. What a crock.

Believe me, if the vote was close they would have stolen it. The problem was that it had to be somewhat believable that they wo, and no one would have bought that this time.

[AnnieBW]

6. Diebold Realized

that they were under MUCH more scrutiny this year, and didn't tamper with the machines.

[kster]

11. And they most certainly ain't going to take another chance on idiot

*. Would anyone, after watching his antics?

[lyonn]

7. Who is now saying they don't care if there is a paper trail?

in the event a recount is needed. You know, trust but verify. That is the bottom line. We need security for the programming of the machines, not completely left up to the company that owns, maintains and manufactures them.

Her article is pompous. Fixing gas prices, yeh, at least the Saudi fella mentioned that to bush.

[zbdent]

9. Okay, righties ... let's go for opening up the source code!

prove yourselves right, that the lefties got the votes rigged!

Or are you afraid to be exposed that the vote-rigging of Diebold was unable to overcome the tsunami, and that exposing the source code would show that it wasn't enough?

[Peace Patriot]

10. Yeah, well, it was only a matter of time before this piece of corporate

crapola got written.

1. The new Congress, even with the Democratic wins, still does not even come close to representing the majority of Americans, 70% of whom want the Iraq War ended, Bush and Cheney impeached, and economic policies that don't lavishly favor the super-rich, and 92% of whom want transparent elections (with 50% to 60% voting by Absentee Ballot in many places, to try to get around the rigged electronics). How much of that majority will is going to get through this new Congress, with its block of "Bushite Democrats" (like those who voted for torture and suspension of habeas corpus a few weeks ago) acting as "swing" votes, and with warmonger Lieberman as the pivotal vote in the Senate, and warmonger Feinstein chairing the Senate committee on election reform? It looks to me like a Congress carefully crafted to blow off the majority of Americans on most vital issues.

2. Almost all of our votes are now "counted" by two Bushite corporations, using TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, in extremely insecure and insider hackable voting machines and central tabulators, with virtually no audit/recount controls. Non-transparent elections are not elections. They are tyranny. That's what we have. And they can do anything they want with this tyrannical power including designing a Congress that will keep the war profiteers in clover, and impoverish the rest of us, while throwing us a few sops, like a raise in the minimum wage, to shut us up. This DIRECT, secret corporate control of the vote tabulation is IN ADDITION to the filth of our campaign contribution/lobbying system and rightwing corporate monopoly of news and opinion. It is the final coup. And anyone who is comfortable with it, and anyone who acts as an apologist for it, is either an idiot or a fascist.

[In Truth We Trust]

19. I love how you are always so right and diligent about the truth Peace Patriot. NGU

[EFerrari]

12. This is disinformation. Olbermann, for example, didn't

"rant for days about fraud". That's just a flat out lie.

And who has all those affidavits signed in Ohio? Bob? Mr. Conyers must have some, too. The internets didn't fabricate all that testimony -- and that's just Ohio and that's just the election. The "recount" was just as fraudulent.

Sorry, presstitute. Nice try.

[EFerrari]

13. The contact for feedback on this piece of trash is

dgainor @ mediaresearch.org

I'm glad this was posted. We should keep tabs on these pieces and answer them.

[Fly by night]

16. I sent a email. It was bounced back as "not accepted".

Everything about this article and this "institute" is crap.

[EFerrari]

17. Wow. Why bother to have a contact email that's fake?!

[rman]

18. There aren't that many Repubs claiming Dems stole this election,

are there? For all i know, virtually none.
I mean, wouldn't that be why the MSM is now silent about election fraud?

[EFerrari]

20. I haven't seen any anywhere. And now I wonder if this article

wasn't an innoculation.