SCOOP = Election 2004: The Bush Urban Legend

[L. Coyote]

Election 2004: The Urban Legend
Wednesday, 13 June 2007, 5:43 pm
Article: Michael Collins
Scoop American Coup II presents...
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0706/S00165.htm


... analysis is based on original, unpublished research by
web commentator, anaxarchos ...

See also companion article… "Sludge Report #177 – Bigger Than Watergate II"

The night of November 2, 2004, was exhilarating or devastating, depending on how you voted and where you were. ....



Is this Pattern Plausible or even Possible?

Accepting this strange event requires accepting that an election without any precedent occurred. The Democrats have seen retreats in urban turnout and vote share but these have never been accompanied by retreats in the Republican base area. The two phenomena just don’t happen in the same election. Democrats increased their votes in a diminished rural voting block, significantly improved performance in the small towns, and held close in the suburbs. They were taking three out of every five new voters around the country - but then we are expected to believe that they lost the election in the big cities after taking a similar beating in the smaller cities. This combination of events has never happened before in American history. It is unprecedented… and unbelievable.

....

One thing that we can no longer assume is that the election of 2004 produced the current occupant of the White House. In fact, the inability to show a logical path to the popular victory argues for a stance of informed scrutiny and intense skepticism.

If you believe 4.0 million new white big city voters showed up in 2004, you can believe the 2004 election results.

If you believe that Bush could conjure those new voters representing an 80% increase in white turnout over 2000 with just the slightest Get Out the Vote (GOTV) activity in big cities, you can believe the 2004 election results.

If you acknowledge that Bush lost votes in his political base compared to 2004, the rural segment, yet soared to victory on the basis of substantial gains in the urban areas, then you can believe that he was the truly elected president in November 2004.

Those elected must be able demonstrate that they won a majority or plurality of the votes cast. There is no room left for that scenario in 2004. In the end, we are left with only the Bush Urban Legend.

[Botany]

1. In Ohio the Rove sponsored "Miracle of the exburbs" has been sold ...

... as gospel in explaining bush's victory.

Once again the #s just don't add up.

[L. Coyote]

3. Indeed, in OHIO the #s indicate fraud, esp. in Cleveland, the Dem City.

The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election: Cuyahoga County Analysis
How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes
http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio.html

"In a subset of 166,953 votes, one of every 34 Ohio voters, the Kerry-Bush margin
shifts 6.15% when the population is sorted by outcomes of wrong-precinct voting."

Check out this new PowerPoint: http://jqjacobs.net/politics/precinct_switching.ppt
Inadvertent Wrong-Precinct Voting or Vote-Switching Fraud
NEW June 2007 - precinct_switching.ppt - a 680 Kb PowerPoint
featuring a comparison of various probability sorts.

An advantage of precinct-level of analysis of results is NO Margin of Error. Any analysis based on poling, even exit polling, has a margin of error, inevtable with inferential statistcs. Election results are descriptive statistics, because every voter has been "polled" and there is no sampling error.

Precinct-level analysis a very different and distinct approach to the 2004 election, relative to the approach in the article. The probability sorting in this analysisis a unique analysis of punch card voting. The article introduces a method to reveal any "one-second sleight-of-hand trick" of switching ballots to the wrong precincts, to where a vote cast for Kerry counts for Bush.

[WiseButAngrySara]

8. Thanks for these links. Have you watched the power point

presentation?

[L. Coyote]

25. YES, and it links to another and the article.

[WiseButAngrySara]

26. Haven't watched it yet, but will ... TU ...n/t

[L. Coyote]

27. Bear in mind, it is descriptive stats, so no margin of error.

A lot of attention has been expended on exit polls and possible ways to interpret them. But, a descriptive stats study evidencing fraud and no margin of error does not need interpretation. It is simply a matter of figuring out how the votes were switched. Noone, absolutely noone, has disputed the study results. Uncountable distractions are waved about though.

The article presented in the OP is being criticized as just one more inconclusive study? Why? It is inferential stats!

[WiseButAngrySara]

9. Self-delete; accidental double post. n/t

[jpgray]

2. Of course it's possible. It bears explaining, though

One possible theory, as much as I hate the term, is the so-called "security moms" who bought into the whole fear campaign concerning terrorism. To speak in anecdotes, I did meet a few who were sincerely convinced that Bush would protect them, which apparently was based on his scaring them and the fact that he was in the big chair on 9/11. Always wondered how that worked, but the media certainly repeated it enough.

[unpossibles]

4. maybe, but most of the so-called "security mom" voters I know or met

were suburbanites who already tended to vote Republican. it still doesn't explain anything, although vote-flipping certainly does.

[jpgray]

5. That's another possible explanation. The trouble is all this is extremely difficult to prove

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. Not really. To the scientist, all truths are statistical; The truth is precisely the

contrary: the case for fraud is absolutley unanswerable.

[jpgray]

7. Any prominent statisticians make this claim yet? I doubt it

Precisely because human behavior on a vast scale is not measurable with any kind of pinpoint accuracy. There's no way to prove that urban voters didn't switch over to Bush, without relying on polls and assumptions, all of which leave room for doubt. Second, electronic vote theft is extremely difficult to prove without relying on exit polls, which necessarily include the possibility that a difference between the exit polls and the final ballot tally can exist with no foul play.

I'm not saying fraud isn't part of the results, or that election theft isn't very possible--just that these things can't be empirically proven.

[Joe Chi Minh]

12. "....which necessarily include the possibility that

a difference between the exit polls and the final ballot tally can exist with no foul play."

Wrong. Do you think insurance companies operate on anecdotal evidence? Fraud, in any event is proved by a pattern of evidence, so virtually binding as many of the statistics concerned here are, they are still only one indication among a vast pattern of illegality and unambigous partisn behaviour by a whole population of partisan Republican officials at all levels.

And yes, the statistics have been computed and audited by high-ranking academics at prestigious universities. Don't expect me to provide it all for you. If you are interested it's all been posted on here at great length.

[jpgray]

13. Did I ever suggest anecdotal evidence is proof? Did I suggest statistics were proof?

No. You claimed I suggested the former, and you yourself suggested the latter. Further, I never contested the validity of individual polls or statistics, but rather the flawed interpretations of them that believe they irrefutably "prove" something. Unfortunately, the burden of proof is therefore on you. I'm making the claim that a widespread human activity encompassing myriad motivations such as a national election cannot have its results impugned simply by wishful analysis of polls. Even if the exit polls and the actual polls were even wider apart, there would still be a possibility that there was no foul play. You can't prove foul play with these polls--you can argue there's an inconsistency, but there are so many possible reasons for the inconsistency that are so difficult to measure, it's impossible to make a definitive claim either way.

That's all I'm saying. There are conservative rebuttals which claim to "prove" there was -no- foul play, and they use the same polls and similarly flawed logic.

Look, I don't have a problem with arguing the possibility of massive, election-stealing fraud. There is plenty of evidence of voter fraud in various cases, and the voting machines are incredibly susceptible to tampering. Proving that this happened with polls is impossible. You can say it's plausible and possible and I agree with you, but that's all you can say.

[Joe Chi Minh]

14. Perhaps you didn't read what I just wrote:

(Statistics).... are still only one indication among a vast pattern of illegality and unambigous partisn behaviour by a whole population of partisan Republican officials at all levels.

Get over it.

[jpgray]

16. I have no problem with that statement. It's still not proof, however

The problem comes in not with the existence of the facts (individual statistics, evidence of illegality and partisan voter fraud), but your analysis of those things in concert. It's not an irrefutable analysis. Arguing these facts may indicate nation-wide theft is plausible, and I have no problem with that. Arguing they are irrefutable proof of nation-wide election-stealing fraud is impossible, because there is no evidence as yet that the fraud was played out on enough fronts to swing the election, and the polls all have a margin of error, not just statistically but concerning question phrasing/emphasis and methodology. That's what some DUers love to point out when a poll doesn't go their way.

The case can be made to show election theft on a nation-wide scale is perfectly plausible, but that isn't proof. If you have proof, after you post it here, please take it to the courts, and to your congressperson.

[Joe Chi Minh]

18. Your name's really Doane, isn't it? Argue with a fool and that just makes 2 fools. Sorry.

You're on your own.

[Joe Chi Minh]

15. "Any prominent statisticians make this claim yet? I doubt it"

You have already branded yourself as lacking even in the most elementary familiarity with this topic.

[jpgray]

17. I'm still waiting. You're the one who says it's been proven

I'd love to see the proof. So would everybody else here.

[Joe Chi Minh]

19. Wrong. Everyone else on here, including the trolls know that the evidence

is totally compelling. It'll come out, buddy, but you'll have done your best.

[jpgray]

21. Now you're calling me a troll, because you said you have proof yet can't produce it

Okay. :shrug: It's compelling evidence, it's just not proof.

[L. Coyote]

35. focus?

[OnTheOtherHand]

32. umm, no

Some of us have even attempted to explain at length why this isn't so.

[L. Coyote]

51. We have the voting result and they are subjectable to analysis. Easily ..

and I have to wonder why the people focusing on exit polling as the litmus of all completely ignore this possibility. Any inferential statistician would jump at a chance to have a 100% sample. There either must be something satisfying about creating aditional inferences from inferences, or those doing so must not know that inferences can be blatantly incorrect. Maybe, there is a third possibility, the cover up of the actual fraud.

[L. Coyote]

46. Have you seen the PowerPoint that is under investigation for Hatch Act violations

It actually shows how war time makes a difference in number of congressional seats won/lost by the incumbent party. They are really planning ahead for 2008, showing how with a war there is an advantage for Republicans. This was a huge factor in 2002, and in 2004, no doubt. The tide has turned, we hope, and war may now be a liability because the People are seeing once again that war is more than bravado, hoopla, and patriotism.

[Peace Patriot]

10. One solution to this puzzle may lay in the urban/rural distribution of new electronic

voting systems (run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations) (...duh). If California distribution holds true across the nation, urban areas were the first to purchase these election theft machines and get the systems up and running, while poor or sparsely populated rural counties lagged behind, still using punchcard machines and other systems, in many cases.

However, California had the damnedest stat of the whole election, and I still don't understand it. In California, John Kerry took the state by 10%, but Barbara Boxer, running for Senate, took the state by 20% in the same election. That might not be so hard to explain, except that the entirety of the difference between them occurred in Republican counties (many of which are the same as the rural counties). Boxer and Kerry ran about even in the Dem counties. In the Republican counties--and only in the Republican counties!--Boxer ran ahead of Kerry, creating the 10% difference between them statewide. Figure THAT out--a big chunk of people voting for Boxer...and Bush! And ONLY in Republican counties. And not tied to Diebold voting machines.

How I figure it is: First of all, though punchcards were still used in some of these Rep counties, the central tabulators are Diebold. So, theft of Kerry votes, if it occurred (and I'm pretty sure it did), occurred in the central tabulators. Second, Republican counties would be the safest places to steal Kerry votes (big votes for Bush wouldn't be so noticeable). Third, Boxer was going to win anyway, so why draw attention to the theft by making it a double-theft (and her opponent was a potential future Schwarz rival; Schwarz is a key Bush Cartel player; they had little reason to help Boxer's opponent do well, simultaneously with stealing votes from Kerry). Four, Kerry was likely to win Calif--they couldn't reverse that without being too obvious--but a percentage of Calif votes may have been needed to help pad Bush's national popular majority. They stole those votes from Rep's or Dem's voting for Kerry in Republican counties.

The only possible other explanation is women voting for Boxer, but, if Rep county women were voting for Boxer on women's issues, why would they also vote for Bush? That doesn't make sense. And why only in Repub counties?

So the Calif '04 picture doesn't fit well with the OP's point--that Bush increased his vote in urban areas, and decreased in rural areas. This "urban legend" is a preposterous outcome--totally unbelievable. But, anyway, the big Dem areas in Calif--which tend to be the big urban areas--went for Kerry at the approximately same rate as Boxer (by 20%). Aside from this stat, which runs contrary to the OP chart, the big urban/Dem areas of Calif were certainly equipped to steal votes for Bush, electronically--and maybe did steal them (Kerry may have won bigger than we know)--and were furthermore staffed, in many cases, by corrupt Diebold-shill county election officials.

JPGray mentions that other urban legend--the "soccer mom." Be very skeptical of any war profiteering corporate news monopoly meme about elections (or anything else), especially "soft talking points" like this (yeah, it COULD BE true, and so could a lot of other things), not backed up with hard facts, data, good analysis, and good context-setting, and even then, know that they are out to kill your brothers and sisters and profit from their deaths in Iraq. They are bad dudes. They don't have you interests at heart. They had the means, motive and opportunity to cover up the 2004 stolen election, and to create the illusion that it was an endorsement of the war and other fascist policy. But surely they wouldn't use their monopoly of our public airwaves to do that, would they? (It's kind of like putting "trade secret" vote counting code in the hands of a Bush/Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser, Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell. Would Republicans cheat? Na-a-a-a-w! Trust them with your votes. Trust them with your life. Trust them with your sense of reality.)

(But I digress.) Every which way you look at the stats for the 2004 election, they point to election fraud. My favorite is that the Democratic grass roots blew the Bushites away in new voter registration in 2004, nearly 60/40. People were flocking to the Democratic Party to oust Bush. (Where did all those votes go?) But the one big thing that is missing from all efforts to analyze that coup..ahem, election...is the ability to recount the votes, 80% of which were cast in electronic systems (mostly Diebold and its brethren corp, ES&S), with a third of the country having no paper trail at all, and the rest having a paper trail but no automatic recount (audit), or, at best, a 1% recount (totally inadequate for extremely insecure and insider hackable voting machines, controlled by the opposition party)--a condition of non-transparency that was fast-tracked across the country in the 2002 to 2004 period, by the "Help America Vote for Bush Act" of 2002, passed in the same month as the Iraq War Resolution, in order to handle the voter blowback on the war. And that it did. (--and did again in '06, if the truth were known.)

This voting system was DESIGNED not to be recountable. That was the whole point--to pull the vote counting out of the public venue, and into the realm of "soft talking points." (Oh, it was the Soccer moms. Oh, it was Rove's magical-mystical GOTV. Oh, everybody was so-o-o-o afraid of the latest absurd "orange alert.") (So, why didn't they REGISTER Republican?)

We can talk about voter "caging lists" against black voters, and U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq, or the blatant crimes in Ohio (visible even then) against black, other minority, student, poor and other Dem voters. Or Republicans shredding Democratic voter registration forms. Or U.S. attorneys fired/purged to promote political prosecutions. Or the ungodly amounts of money in our campaigns, by which the rich outvote the poor, without even having to vote. But when you ADD "trade secret" vote counting, controlled by Bushites, to these other handicaps on the great progressive American majority, you've pretty much killed democracy in the U.S.

Will we recover? Will we get our country back?

One final stat. 56% of the American people opposed the war on Iraq, back in Feb. '03, before the invasion and before all of Colin Powell's pack of lies to the UN were exposed. 56%! That would be a landslide in a presidential election (and believe me, it was). 56%! --despite relentless, 24/7 warmongering, all channels, all the time. 56%, now grown to 70+%. It was to thwart that antiwar majority--which the war profiteers knew would only get bigger--that the diabolical scam of non-transparent vote counting, controlled by a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and rightwing fanatics, was devised, in the same month, by the same people (Delay & Co., and complicit Dems).

And until we repair this, and restore vote counting that everyone can see and understand, nothing is going to change.

That is the task that history has thrown in our path. That is the essential first step toward putting things right. When the first of these election theft machines goes splashing into 'Boston Harbor,' that will be the beginning of American Revolution II: the revolt against the Corporate Rulers.

[jpgray]

11. But none of your own theories are backed up with hard facts, or data

Not in any irrefutable way. It's perfectly possible that massive voter fraud took place, but on the facts it's almost as impossible to prove as the "soccer mom" theory insofar as it relies on polls, and very loose interpretations of polls at that. Polls and statistics can be dangerous things on which to base sweeping declarations, especially when considering such a vast human behavior as a nation-wide election.

But let me prove my point using the same tactics as you use above to prove voter fraud. I know for a fact a lot of fraud took place in the old fashioned sense, and I know for a fact that vote theft (especially electronic theft) was very possible, and would leave no evidence. However, without proof, these charges won't go anywhere. Why aren't interpretations of statistics proof? I'll show you.

Polls leading up to the election showed Bush ahead in fighting terrorism, national security and morality. Polls showed that these issues decided the election. Statistics show that the incumbent has an overwhelming advantage in Congressional races.

Using your logic, those points explain all your quibbles with regard to California--they show why Boxer did better than Kerry in Republican areas (incumbent bonus would show more by percentage in Republican-dominated areas than Democratic areas, which would be inclined to Boxer anyway) and they show why Kerry lost voters in some urban Democratic strongholds (voters trusted Bush on terror and morality, terror and morality were the most important issues to voters).

Now this above analysis is absolutely preposterous. No DUer would take it seriously. But it uses the same kind of skewed statistical analysis one sees far too often here. I don't mean to discount theorizing based on apparent statistical inconsistencies, but the scope of a nation-wide vote and the inherent probability that something weird can happen for reasons that aren't at all measurable makes it impossible to -prove-. Theorize all you want, but don't claim to have proof. Since so much fraud has been unveiled and since the voting machines are so easily manipulated, your theory is plausible--but it does not represent any kind of proof.

Just don't call it proof, is all I'm saying. Exactly what you said may have happened--I don't know. But I guess my point is that nobody else knows either, except the fraudsters themselves.

[Joe Chi Minh]

24. As ever yurr'e wrong. And so thick you think I'm going to be jerked around by you,

producing the articles in point, when I told you at the outset, you must do your own research from the oodles of evidence provided on this board by experts of all kinds, including distinguished statisticians and other experts. But then you don't want to find the proof, do you? I should say "remember" it.

You see your problem is that you are too transparent with your babbling about "proof", without specifying what you or the law would accept as proof in this case. You prefer to concentrate on the theoretical influence of variables. You have, though, one insuperable problem that shows you up for the cynical casuist you are: virtually all the evidence of massive multifaceted fraud (unsurprisingly to most of us, supporting the exit polls) points in the one direction. And you ask for proof, dummy!

As a result of your obsessing with the exit polls, you've given the game away, OnTheOtherHand. It's your signature. The bigger picture, Magoo, the bigger picture!

[Joe Chi Minh]

20. Don't waste your breath on dumbo.

[jpgray]

22. Dumbo will remain cheerfully polite

Maybe next time you'll manage that as well. :hi:

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[foo_bar]

30. calling people imbecilic and "Dumbo" isn't strongly suggestive of intelligence

Especially when the recipient of this honor is a Bard polsci professor who professes statistics, and you're a proud Creationist relating an entirely different person to this professor as the only explanation for the poster's awareness of introductory statistics. I guess we all must seem like college professors:

"proof", because of its vernacular evocations of unique certainty

versus...

But there is no empirical argument for Creationism (other than common-sense, which is not part of the reductionist paradigm essential, to some extent, to the pursuit of empirical knowledge), any more than there is one against it. That's where you seem to lacking in perception. <http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2775205#2791223>

So the problem isn't the popular conception of proof, it's the belief that knowledge itself (the "reductionist paradigm" in contrast to "common-sense", which brings with it such useful adjuncts as geocentrism, creationism, and a flat earth (isn't the horizon patently horizontal?)) is an affront to the safety blanket of a bible school yarn or the internet equivalent. In the States we call this "conservatism" or "faith-based (noun of your choosing)", but perhaps the BNP uses a quainter euphemism. As someone who flees the light of any debate concerning science or mathematics or logic or reason, preferring the high ground of alluding to your wisdom without demonstrating any, perhaps these imbecility-related concerns are better focused inward.

Only those two could be so parrot-like in their imbecility.

I think "parroting" refers to the mindless repetition of arguments one doesn't personally comprehend. *a bell rings in the distance*

As a result of your obsessing with the exit polls, you've given the game away, OnTheOtherHand. It's your signature.
<...>
I think you're our old friend, OnTheOtherHand or that Elizabeth whatsername, who's an Edinburgher.

Psychosis isn't an excuse; find help if you can't hack a message board without seeing a conspiracy of two people retained to undermine your precarious beliefs regarding reason as a tool of "secular fundamentalism". The reality is you can't provide any evidence of even comprehending the barest minutiae of this subject, so you're left with pubescent variations of "Google it!" and muttering about people out to get you.

[Joe Chi Minh]

31. Wow, you're special. He! He! He! You can't rebutt my words so you

go for imbecilic 'ad hominems'! Go for your life! Where's that happy geniality gone! You don't last long do you, OTOH? All over the shop! Whoops-a-daisy!

You've just revealed yourself as the ultimate academic hack, a professor who can't rebut the truths uttered by a guy who left the army with the rank and position of Duane Doberman. Love it!

You've done us all a great service on DU by encouraging us to focus on the three unassailable facts that constitute circumstantial evidence so compelling as to be binding.

1) The fact that up to the 2000 election, exit polls, notably by the person who presided over that one, had a reputation for being extraordinarily accurate within a quite small margin of error. They were used all over the world to check electoral integrity. I'm sure there were variables involved in those computations, too.

2) The impossibly anomalous irregularities of all kinds that were observed and attested to durng that election, were virtually all in favour of Bush, and most improbably so. One other element, though an immensely significant one, of that circumstantial evidence, that overall context, which contributes to substantiate the reliability of those exit polls.

3) The margin of error would have to go off the scale to match the statistical impossibilities involved in the swings from Kerry to Bush - and sometimes to also-rans! A wee quiddity that seems to have escaped your convoluted thought-processes.

My 'ad hominems' are evidently just as applicable. More so. You could have avoided making a fool of yourself.

Never mind. As long as you don't mind your students and colleagues trying to suppress their laughter in your presence!

Ah, I perceive you're foo-bah, the Grand Poobah! Another one of the merry band or the same OTOH?

[foo_bar]

34. the word you seek is "rebut"

Fascinating about people being out to get me! Where did I say that?

"I think you're our old friend, OnTheOtherHand or that Elizabeth whatsername"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1102374&mesg_id=1106873 (reply to jpgray)

"As a result of your obsessing with the exit polls, you've given the game away, OnTheOtherHand. It's your signature."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1102374#1106970 (reply to jpgray)

"Another one of the merry band or the same OTOH?"
- your latest post, three edits later

As long as you don't mind your students and colleagues trying to suppress their laughter in your presence!

Wait, so I'm OnTheOtherHand too?

(regarding the second edition of your post...)

1) The fact that up to the 2000 election, exit polls, notably by the person who presided over that one, had a reputation for being extraordinarily accurate within a quite small margin of error. They were used all over the world to check electoral integrity. I'm sure there were variables involved in those computations, too.

Repeating a lie ad nauseam doesn't transform it into a fact. To wit:

The 1992 exit polls were off by nearly as much as those in 2004.

http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2005/01/the_war_room.html

So the "fact" is actually an unsupportable belief, which is why you can't provide any "research" for this dogma.

2) The impossibly anomalous irregularities of all kinds that were observed and attested to durng that election, were virtually all in favour of Bush, and most improbably so.

Source? Is this a reference to TIA's debunked "250 billion to one" threads?

3) The margin of error would have to go off the scale to match the statistical impossibilities involved in the swings from Kerry to Bush

Can you explain what you think a "margin of error" is? That might be helpful in explaining why your perception of "off the scale" isn't a statistical one.

[Joe Chi Minh]

36. Excellent! You'll see I've spelt it properly elsewhere. I took the trouble to

check. But is that best you can do...?

[L. Coyote]

38. focus?

[OnTheOtherHand]

40. wacky

I'm trying to figure out how anyone could read post #11 and decide that it shows me obsessing about exit polls. Not only does it not sound like me, but it is much less about exit polls than the OP.

But hey, that's just one picayune detail.

[L. Coyote]

37. In Ohio, e-voting replaced the punch cards, and Dems swept the elections.

Yet, all those who screamed e-voting was the problem in 2004 refuse to analyze the two elections side-by-side to see if their pet theory holds any water. Some of the counties had e-voting in 2004, while near 3/4ths had punch cards. There is ample data to do an analysis, and its all vote results, so no inferential stats and no margins of error. But hey, if they prove their 2004 e-vote theory wrong, they will demonstrate that the fraud was punch card vote-switching. That is what is being covered up, the 2004 fraud.

And it is being covered up by screaming DIEBOLD, DIEBOLD. What a crock. That's like arguing what color things are in the dark. There is no way to show that e-vote fraud was committed, so blame e-vote fraud. Meanwhile, there is irrefutable evidence of punch card vote-switching.

The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election: Cuyahoga County Analysis
How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes
http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio.html

In a subset of 166,953 votes, one of every 34 Ohio voters, the Kerry-Bush margin
shifts 6.15% when the population is sorted by outcomes of wrong-precinct voting.

Simply put, Ohio votes were NOT counted as cast. Many votes were miscounted, and Kerry votes were counted for Bush. ....

Ask yourselves three question.
How difficult is it to move ballots from one pile to another?
How difficult is it to fix the code in every electronic voting machine?
Which of these would be easier Republicans in Ohio to do?

Now ask one more question. For how many elections had they been doing that before Diebold machines saved the day and elected a near complete sweep of Democrats?

Man, the cover up is clever, and everyone falls for it because it is endlesly repeated, even by those most ardently convinced that fraud took place.

[L. Coyote]

50. I worry about a simplistc, broad brush view of e-voting and e-voting fraud

Facts from Ohio 2006.

A. The near 3/4ths of voters using punch cards in 2004 used Diebold e-voting machines in 2006.
B. In 2006, Dems sweep the election and oust nearly every Republican state office holder.

There have been problems with e-voting in OH since 2004. There are specific instances where votes are not counted in some heavily Dem areas.
There have been problems with e-voting in FL since 2004. There are specific instances where votes are not counted in some heavily Dem areas.

This matches what happened in New Mexco in 2004.

I'd prefer to see a focus on and study of actual problems, rather than broad brush consideration that simplify very real e-voting problems.

[L. Coyote]

28. PROBLEMS: The methodology employed lacks credibility

First, the article (self-styled "study") presents interesting material which warrants a study.

Second, the methods are problematical. A lot of material is stitched together and conclusions
are drawn as if they are reliable. They are not. The margin of error issue when dealing with
any polling or sampling seems to be entirely ignored. Other problems should be more than obvious
to any critical academic reader, so I won't waste my time delineating them.

At best, this "study" suggests that the exit polling was flawed and points to several avenues
of investigating that issue (hopefully with reliable methods).

At worst, this article will become an urban myth detracting from studies employing reliable
methods without margins of error.

Useful factual data, state by state shifts in voting, can be found in this spreadsheet:
Comparison: 2000 and 2004 Presidential Election Results
http://jqjacobs.net/politics/spreadsheets.html

[Peace Patriot]

29. Election fraud debunkers ignore the biggest fact of all--the elephant in the room:

That the fraudsters deliberately destroyed the evidence, by fast-tracking totally non-transparent, highly insider hackable electronic voting systems all over the country, in the 2002 to 2004 period.

Fraudsters OFTEN do that--destroy the evidence (in this case, ballots--the ability to recount the election). That's why judges allow statistical analysis--of the kind that has been done on the exit polls and other election data--into court cases, as evidence for fraud. If the "paper trail" has been shredded, and the "smoking guns" wiped from the hard drives, OTHER evidence is permitted, and if the "preponderance of the evidence" favors fraud, the perps can go to prison on that basis. No "smoking gun."

The difference is that, in that case, you have the perps in hand, who are suspected of fraud. Now you have to prove it, and if the "smoking guns" have been shredded, you can convict on collateral evidence. But in the case of non-transparent vote counting in the control of rightwing Bushite corporations, we have the entire pro-war political establishment of this country as the perps, and the few anti-war voices within the establishment apparently too bullied, threatened, subject to "groupthink," or stupid, to oppose it. How do you get this powerful pro-war establishment into court?

And how do you get a Congress elected by "trade secret" voting machines to ban "trade secret" voting machines? We can't even get THAT done!

I repeat: Virtually all of our votes are now being "counted" by "trade secret" programming code, in voting systems owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls, by deliberate design--and this ANTI-DEMOCRATIC vote counting system keeps producing ANOMALOUS results, like a 60/40 Democratic edge in new voter registration in 2004, yet a Bush victory (WHERE did his votes come from?!), or the exit poll discrepancy (Kerry won), or 56% American opposition to the Iraq War in Feb. '03 growing to 70% opposition today, with NO CHANGE IN POLICY through two elections now, the one '04 apparently won by the Bushites, the other '06 apparently won by the Democrats (and by the overwhelmingly anti-Iraq War American voters).

And that doesn't even begin to list the anomalous results in this non-transparent voting system, and the RED FLAGS of major "glitches," such as the 18,000 Democratic votes for Congress that were 'disappeared' by ES&S machines in Fl-13 last year (in an election won by only 350 or so votes--won, of course, by the REPUBLICAN!). Anomalies that NEVER FAVOR DEMOCRATS!

Election fraud debunkers ignore this basic fact--that our election system has been gamed--not just with money, not just with "voter caging lists" but directly, by introducing corporate secrecy and high-speed, secretly programmed electronics into our vote counting system, on a widespread basis, and very quickly, under the public's radar. And, in my opinion, it is no accident that that gaming of the election system occurred simultaneously with the Iraq War Resolution (October 2002). Want to perpetrate a bad, illegal war, on the basis of lies that the majority of Americans (56%!) didn't buy from the beginning? You've got to fix the elections. That's what they did.

[L. Coyote]

33. Fraud debunkers have us ignoring this basic fact-the evidence is right in front of us

The 2004 Ohio punch card ballots are still there, and the precinct results are still there, and anyone can study them. Instead, immediately after the 2004 tally, the debunkers shifted the focus to the electronic voting, taking attention from the evidence right in front of our eyes. It is still there, right in front of our eyes, just like the caging lists and the non-vote percentages in New Mexico.

But hey, look over here at the e-voting where nothing can be proven. Yes, there were problems with e-voting, and the system is corruptable. However, if we are to demonstrate fraud, I recommend turning back to the evidence right there in front of us, all this while.

[Joe Chi Minh]

39. You mean as yet another element in the circumstantial evidence

invariably used to prove fraud - in this case machine-fraud of many kinds.

Read Ernest Partridge's parable of the airport sniffer dogs. Damning. Totally damning. That's what's got you, isn't it? You want people to ignore the machine fraud, obstinately disregarding the fact of fraud's being proved by the context of circumstantial evidence! Full marks for persistence, though. As with Watergate, it's the cover-up.

[L. Coyote]

45. NO, NO, NO

You write, "You want people to ignore the machine fraud,..." NO. I don't want any fraud ignored. That's my point, ignore no fraud. And, don't let a lot of hot air about machine fraud where there was none detract from where there was fraud, from where it is clearly evidenced. Do not ignore Ohio punch card vote-switching when Ohio was nearly 3/4ths punch cards because someone raised a suspicion that there was e-vote fraud in Ohio due to national exit polls. The Ohio punch card vote-switching readily explains Ohio's exit poll discrepancy. So, why turn to a small fraction of the Ohio vote and look for fraud there, when the punch card fraud is already in evidence. Only those wanting to cover up the punch card fraud would employ that silly and implausible misdirection. Ohio 2004 was not stolen in the few e-voting counties, except by long lines and purging voter registrations there too like elsewhere statewide.

[Peace Patriot]

41. Just want to say that I know there was punchcard fraud. I've read some of the

Ohio studies. They took unnumbered punchcards ballots for Kerry over to the wrong punchcard tabulators, where his votes became votes for other candidates. And that, and other massive fraud in Ohio, is why they had to make the election "come down to Ohio," where they had a highly corrupt Bushite political machine in place, to conduct and/or overlook these fraudulent acts. But how did they make it "come down to Ohio"? Bush was losing all over the country according to the exit polls and other indicators. Paper ballots, punchcards and all other forms of voting are LIMITED in scope, and potentially visible, compared to the unlimited capacities of "trade secret," proprietary software inside high speed voting machines and central tabulators, which can be programmed to do almost anything, including massive switches of votes, or clever, selective switches of votes, without detection. Paper or punchcard can be fiddled, but not on such a massive scale, and detection is a much greater danger. Given the fast-tracking of this extremely anti-democratic electronic vote counting system all over the country, in two years time, it is reasonable to presume that it was/is NON-transparent for a REASON. It can grab small percentages here and there, wherever there is a close count--the "battleground" states--and turn the ride for Bush in those states--which is precisley what the exit poll studies show. THEN, with the election hanging in the balance, we get to Ohio--where Blackwell & cabal lay in wait, with multiple tools for many kinds of fraud all set up.

It's not an either/or. Either they stole it electroncially, or they stole it in Ohio using many methods. It's both.

[L. Coyote]

43. Ohio punch cards have no precinct marks or identifiers

Once they are switched to the wrong precinct, or cast with the wrong precincts ballot order, the damage is done. A simple slight of hand, if you will, and Kerry votes become Bush votes.

You write, "Paper or punchcard can be fiddled, but not on such a massive scale, and detection is a much greater danger", and this is true in states where punch cards bear precinct markings. No so in Ohio, and before the study cited above, noone had come up with a statistical method to detect moving ballots to the wriong precinct. The probability sorting method was not foreseen, I suspect. So, sufficient punch card ballot precinct switching could alter the outcome with little risk of detection, before DU anyway. Electronic voting is a horrid danger, no doubt, but in Ohio it has served as a distraction from fraud that potentially altered the outcome of the Presidential election.

You also write, "multiple tools for many kinds of fraud all set up." Indeed, the outcome in Ohio 2004 was altered by a multi-faceted strategy. And voter registration purging, long lines, voter supression and challenges were not enough to shift the outcome. Ballots had to be swapped to different precincts too. It is important to remember that 2004 was still nearly 3/4ths punch cards, and Dem stronghold Cleveland and Cuyahoga County was a punch card county.

[jpgray]

42. There's no question the voting machines give the opportunity for near-undetectable theft

I'm just saying you can't prove that theft with polls alone. The best you can do is establish a pattern of fraud, use the polls as backup evidence, and argue the case for theft is plausible. The -only- argument I have is with those who argue the case for nation-wide theft is irrefutable. It isn't--there exists the possibility that it was won without such widespread theft.

[L. Coyote]

44. Indeed. The Presidential race outcome could be altered by fraud in only a few locations.

New Mexico is a good example. The uncounted votes far exceed in number the candidate total difference, and the high undercount correlates with specific e-voting counties. Ohio alone altered the outcome. Nearly tripple the number of voters were purged that the candidate tally difference, plus the long lines, plus the vote-switching, plus the uncounted votes, all adds up. No e-voting theft required to alter Ohio 2004. The idea that there was massive e-vote theft is certainly a great distraction from the Ohio facts though. If Ohio was stolen, the Presidency was stolen, that simple!!!!!

[Peace Patriot]

47. I'm sorry to come back to this discussion so late, but it is an important discussion.

I just want to make two points.

1. Why design an egregiously non-transparent vote counting system, with "trade secret" code owned and controlled by a Bush/Cheney campaign chair (Wally O'Dell) running Diebold and its brethren corporation, ES&S, with even scarier rightwing connections?

I mean, why do it? Our Democrats asleep at the switch or what? Electronic voting, as designed, is EGREGIOUSLY, OUTRAGEOUSLY anti-democratic!

And it didn't have to be that way. Venezuela uses electronic voting, but it's OPEN SOURCE code--anyone may review the code by which votes are counted--with a paper ballot backup, and they hand-count 55% (!) as a check on machine fraud. WE handcount ZERO percent in many states. No check on fraud AT ALL. And a meager 1% (totally inadequate) in the best states. The best!

Why the "trade secret" code? Why the no paper trail? Why the rightwing connections?

IT. IS. MIND-BOGGLING.

Rushed into place, fast-tracked across the country with $3.9 billion on boondoggle funding (corrupting everything in its path), with a Congressional bill (the "Help America Vote for Bush Act") at the same time as the Iraq War Resolution (Oct. '02).

Why not create a TRANSPARENT system?


2. The reason this electronic voting system is such a grave concern is that it STILL EXISTS, all over the country, and is growing! Diebold and ES&S "counted" 80% of the votes in 2004. And they are trying to get it into every venue. (Big Diebold effort in New York right now--one of the holdouts.) And all of this under the public's radar (except for smart, passionate, committed activists). Many, many Americans know that SOMETHING IS WRONG. But too many still don't know about this election theft system.

I'm not saying that Ohio isn't important--and wasn't decisive in 2004. It was. I'm saying it's OVER. It was a one-time convergence of election circumstances and criminal acts. But this extremely riggable electronic voting system remains!

And when you think about it, we have 70% of the American people opposed to the Iraq War and wanting it ended, and they couldn't get themselves a Congress to implement their will? In fact, they got a Congress that just ESCALATED the war INSTEAD, and larded $100 billion more into the pockets of the war profiteers.

The latest poll (WSJ--deduct 10%) shows Bush with at 28% approval--and Congress at 23%!

SOMETHING IS WRONG. And I think it's the voting machines.

Election theft is not like any other crime. Those who run elections are guilty until proven innocent. That is a basic principle of democracy. If the votes are not counted in a way that everyone can see and understand, fraud must be presumed. Transparency is an ESSENTIAL component of elections. And NO election is valid without it. Electronic voting with secret code is a fraudulent voting SYSTEM. Inherently fraudulent.

And Ohio has come and gone. And Kenneth Blackwell has come and gone. And the punchcards are quickly vanishing. But this INHERENTLY fraudulent voting system REMAINS, supported by both the Democratic and Republican leadership.

And, funny thing, they both just ESCALATED the war!

23%! That's what the American people think of this shit. But many don't know how they have been disenfranchised, because there is such a bipartisan "Iron Curtain" over this theft of our democracy.

[L. Coyote]

49. "SOMETHING IS WRONG. And I think it's the voting machines."

Indeed. Your statements are true. And this has already been proven to be true repeatedly. It happened in New Mexico in 2004. It is entirely plausible that the election result was switched in NM in 2004, and Gov. Richardson sat on his hands, awakening too late in the game.

New Mexico Election Data with a Statistical Summary and a Non-Voter Analysis - http://jqjacobs.net/politics/xls/new_mexico_county.xls



In New Mexico, why does the Sequoia and Danther E-voting equipment
fail to count so many votes? On average, 2.62% of voters did not vote
per these machines, compared to 0.46% non-votes in the Op-Scan counties.

* United Voters of New Mexico - Statistical Analysis of Voting Results - http://www.uvotenm.org/info-da.html
* Some Observations of New Mexico Election Data with links to spreadsheets - http://lnvb.westside.com/NewMexico/observations.view

I discussed this issue with people while in New Mexico recently. They think other elections may have been altered too. Also, a filmmaker had been interviewing some New Mexico activists about this, particularly about the uncounted votes and which political segments of New Mexico were disenfranchised by the e-voting machines. This is going to hit the big screen.

I remain concerned about how a misplaced 2004 focus can do harm to revealing the truth about 2004. You write, "And the punchcards are quickly vanishing." Actually, they are now preserved as evidence, in the custody of the State of Ohio.

AND, forensically speaking, they still have fingerprints on them!!! --so easy to determine if they were switched to the wrong precinct, if Kerry votes were fraudulently switched to Bush votes just as the descriptive statistical analysis indicated. No doubt, this has the cover up activists working overtime, albeit futilely.

The TRUTH of Ohio 2004 should not be obfuscated by false impressions about e-voting, even if those impressions are VERY TRUE in other instances and places. This is a simplification vs. complexity of understandings issue. Hey, keep shouting FIRE, FIRE, but remember what burned down the theatre in 2004 was a distinct fire from the one today.

In the final analysis, Diebold e-voting probably restored democracy in Ohio in 2006. Someone should actually analyze that possibility using descriptive statisics instead of building a house of cards on an inferential foundation.

[Joe Chi Minh]

52. "In the final analysis, Diebold e-voting probably restored

democracy in Ohio in 2006."

You really don't get it, do you? If Diebold e-voting did restore democracy, you have no way of knowing, one way or the other. And that is UNACCEPTABLE. Pure conjecture and a surely a fatuously gratuitous one, in view of the "sniffer-dog" syndrome the Republicans are chronically afflicted with in relation to the machines, codes and Uncle Tom Cobley.

If you haven't read Ernest Partridge's parable of the airport sniffer-dogs, make a point of doing so. First principles can be far more reliable than so-called "hard" evidence. Witness the instances of false "hard" evidence mixed in with the genuine, adduced by the malefactors/their agents in the JFK assassination cover-up. Then consider the actuarial odds adduced by professional insurance actuaries against the bizarre sequence of strange deaths of more than twenty eye-witnesses within the following three years - people who came forward to attest to what they saw in a normal spirit of patriotism. A totally astronomical figure, which renders all the half-assed attempts at producing spurious "hard" evidence of the single gunman scenario, not even worth laughing at.

Why would anyone trust such people, whose negative credentials are well-sestablished and at least in part cited by PeacePatriot.

[L. Coyote]

53. U: "If Diebold e-voting did restore democracy, you have no way of knowing..."

I admit, the Dems could have hacked the e-vote machines and stolen the 2006 election, and who would blame them.
And, I agree, there is no way of knowing for sure, one way or the other. But, I think they didn't hack the e-vote.
I know there were some dirty tricks that lost Dem votes in critical precincts that would have made proving previous fraud easier.

I do know these simple facts:

Vote-switching happened with punch cards.
Dems lost political control of Ohio during the punch card voting era.
Dems regained control of Ohio after the transistion to Diebold e-voting.

Simple little facts. Just because e-voting is used does not mean the election is fixed.

That's all I'm saying. After years of working on election fraud, I don't need a lecture on the obvious.

Here is another fact. I get it! Now, if you don't mind, allow me to discuss specifics without broad brushing me an idiot.

=====================
On edit:

It is possible to do an analysis that compares 2006 changes in vote results in 2004 punch card counties vs. in 2004 e-vote counties. Noone has done this yet, fearful of destroying their pet theories I presume. It might confirm the vote-switching evidence found in the 2004 precinct analyses. So, there is a "way of knowing" something of the impact that the change in voting equipment had. Sorry, but I just could not let you get away with defining for me whether or not I "have no way of knowing."

[Joe Chi Minh]

54. "Simple little facts. Just because e-voting is used does not mean the election is fixed."

You still don't get it! Nor does it mean it's NOT fixed. If they needed to in that particular context, do you really think they would not have fixed it with the machines. You're talking locally, but missing the bigger picture. Everything you say about that election is probably 100%; indeed, I wasn't disputing it. But the problem of private, unauditable machines trumps everything else on the bigger stage.

Those punch-card machines are going to be phased out anyway! It's in the fraudsters' interests to do so. Your "on edit" piece is just puerile. WE KNOW ALREADY. I'm talking about the physical proof that seems to be what they are terrified of your discovering - as opposed to extrapolating. If you had that as well as the statistics, we wouldn't even have Noddies going on about the exit polls not being reliable. Your fixating on the punch-cards just seems a variant.

But, hey, don't mind me. Get on with your important stuff.

[L. Coyote]

55. There are two major types of statistics, descriptive and inferential

Analysis of election results is descriptive statistics. It is a 100% sample of the population, the voters, instead of a sample or poll from which inferences would be drawn. So, the physical proof of Ohio 2004 fraud has no margin of error. Follow post #3 and read the article and powerpoints? The proof is the statistics, without margin of error.

Punch card were phased out by HAVA. That deadline passed befor 2006 elections. There were no punch cards in the 2006 elections anywhere in the USA. Blackwell made sure they were used in 2004 in Ohio. They should have been phased out earlier, but the Rs made sure they were used again, especially in the Dem stronghold of Cleveland. Some Ohio counties used e-voting in 2004, but near 3/4th of voters had punch cards.

If you want to forget what happened in 2004 in Ohio, get on to your important stuff, and it is important. The detractors who ignore actual proofs of election fraud in 2004 do so either at their own peril (or to obfuscate the facts). One proof in hand is far better than a lot of exit poll inferences. Ohio swings the election, after all. Giving past crimes a free pass just emboldens future election thefts. Fortunately, the AG or SoS in Ohio today do not share your lack of concern about the punch cards.

[Joe Chi Minh]

56. My you are a slippery customer, aren't you. I have never minimised

the importance of the punch-card fraud. God forbid that I should. But neither, without emphatic objection, will I allow you to minimise the catastrophic potential for fraud of the machines. Which was precisely the tenour of your surreal misrepresentation in the larger context of your post, in which you state that "Diebold" had "restored democracy".

It's akin to saying that the Nazi invasion of Poland meant that the rest of Europe was safe. National statehood throughout the rest of the countries of Europe, free of the Nazi jackboot, if not restored, was made safe by the invasion of wee Poland. So much for Churchill and his pet theories! Perspective, man, perspective.

[L. Coyote]

57. My family was in the underground, we housed the secret radio transmitter to England

in the family attic, my cousins killed Nazis with their bare hands, my mother endured the occupation by living on sugar beets.

How dare you make such indsultory and ridiculous accusations!! You do not know who I am (or do you?).

[Joe Chi Minh]

58. Can't say I do, but I read your posts and, correct me if I'm wrong,

but you sounded uncommonly like an apologist for Diebold, intent on insulting people here who believe that those machines are the biggest danger of all to your now reduced and fragile democracy. And what, pray, has your family history got to do with the price of fish and chips? Do you think that there are not many Jewish and African American people who are friends of this administration?

I prefer to think you are deeply confused about these issues. Even so, I find it very difficult to believe that you are so foolish that you are unable to recognise a very straightforward metaphor. I think you should open your eyes.

[L. Coyote]

59. Try rereading the posts a few times to clear your confusion, instead of mischaracterizing

what is said with insults. Yes, you are wrong. End of discussion, since it lacks substance and is just argumentive.

[brettdale]

48. In the Past

I would of send this to all on the National Media list, I would of posted on several boards, for everybody to comment the media, ring and email, with hope that the MSM would report on this.

But I now know, that its no use, because all they are interested in, is who's penis Paris is sucking on and not a stolen election.