Wisconsin: How to steal an election and cover it up.

[AdHocSolver]

A wise person once said: "Don't listen to what they say. Look at what they do!"

The excuse given by Waukesha county clerk Nikolaus for omitting over 14,000 votes when reporting the county's voting numbers in the April 5, 2011 election is totally absurd.

Also absurd is the fact that allegedly nobody noticed this supposed "undercount" for the county. If the votes were withheld, it was not done accidentally. It was done with malice aforethought.

So what would be the purpose for intentionally withholding the reporting of some 14,000 votes?

A logical hypothesis would go something like this.

Think of how a magician tricks his audience. The magician gets the audience to look in a certain direction while he sets up the trick elsewhere.

In other words, the most important part of the illusion to enable it to succeed is the distraction of the audience by the magician.

The purpose of the "mistake" in reporting the votes in Waukesha was as a backup plan to prevent a statewide recount of votes in which irregularities such as "vote flipping" could be discovered in other predominantly right wing counties.

In the 2000 election, Florida was the distraction in which a complete statewide recount was prevented. With the country's attention on Florida, and particularly Dade county, little attention was paid to other parts of Florida and, in fact, other parts of the country.

In a close election, only 3 or 4 percent of the total votes need to be flipped to obtain a victory. In fact, the perpetrators wouldn't want to flip any more than that so as not to arouse suspicion.

The right wing did not expect such a large turnout against their candidate. They expected to be far enough ahead so that a modest vote flipping in predominantly right wing areas would be sufficient to ensure that their candidate could win without arousing any suspicion.

This hypothetical scenario for stealing an election, and making it look like an "honest" win, too conveniently correlates with the events of Tuesday's election in Wisconsin.

Kloppenburg's narrow lead near the end would give her a win and was an unexpected occurrence. Just finding a few more votes for Prosser would "trigger" a recount. A recount had to be prevented or any vote counting irregularities could be discovered. What better way to "discourage" a thorough statewide recount than to conveniently discover several thousand "missing" votes in a largely right wing locale.

These coincidences are just too convenient to have occurred by accident. A thorough investigation into the vote counting in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race and a statewide audit are needed.

[Blue Owl]

1. K & R

:kick:

[flamingdem]

2. How do they detect vote flipping, interesting analysis nt

[AdHocSolver]

6. Some information about vote flipping.

If a computer is used to tally votes cast on a paper ballot, you compare a hand count of the ballots with the count made by the machine after running a test set of ballots through it.

In the case of touch screen machines, you can test the computer by inputting a number of votes and seeing if the machine gives you back the same count of the data that you just entered into it.

Tests done on several voting machines done before an election have shown that vote flipping, whether due to software bugs or by design, is a serious problem with some voting machines.

In several cases, these machines with problems were used in elections without any serious troubleshooting of the hardware or software having been done beforehand.

Testing hardware and software is standard practice in the computer business. It is a major component of development and maintenance.

[pnwmom]

3. I doubt it was a coincidence that, immediately after these votes

were put back in, they had only THREE votes more than they needed to avoid an automatic recount.

[dragonlady]

9. If that was the plan, it failed

According to Saturday's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the difference between them now, after almost all counties have certified their totals, is 6,744, well under the .5% that will give Kloppenburg a free recount if she requests it. (It's not automatic. The right will scream long and loud about how she wants to spend taxpayer money on a hopeless recount.)

[PeaceNikki]

12. Um, it's only $5 per ward. A pittance compared to what's been spent on this race.

And that's if it's between .5% and 2%.

[shraby]

4. That's what I said last night. The Waukesha votes are a

shiny object meant to hide the real stuff. Only a 10 vote switch in all red precincts if half the precincts are republican would add a good number of votes to republicans from democrats.
3630 precincts divided by 2 = 1815 times 10 votes from each to the other side = 18,150 votes switched.

[bbgrunt]

5. yes. they've got it down to a science.

[jimlup]

7. Yes, this is an important point

I would say that a statistical analysis of these votes should be able to detect such a ploy. Nate Silver, we need you here to more than just a voter participation analysis.

[Keith Bee]

8. She has clearly spent time in Florida

K&R

[PeaceNikki]

10. A) There's no way they could prevent a statewide recount.

B) All ballots are paper, as required by law, and will be inspected by human eyeballs on recount

C) I will C&P my standard reply on this topic:

How would she have known which city she should "withhold"?

I still don't and won't ever understand that.

Burying those votes would ALWAYS have been caught in certification process regardless. As it was.

The thing I don't understand in all of this is what she would have had to gain in burying a WHOLE CITY. I will C&P what I have said repeatedly here:

THIS is why I think the case of the Brookfield votes WAS a mistake. A dumb incompetent mistake. They HAD to know it would launch a full investigation. I think THIS is why she was a nervous twit at presser- she knew she'd be the center of unwanted attention.

GAB is investigating with a fine-tooth comb. The Kloppenburg campaign is investigating with an even finer tooth comb. And there will be a recount in which every ballot is looked at with human eyeballs.

If this asshole wanted to throw the election to Prosser, this is about the stupidest way she could have done it. Anyone with access to city and county vote totals and a calculator would discover it in 5 minutes once the error was announced.

BUT it MUST and WILL be thoroughly investigated. Incompetence to that degree is as bad as fraud. That woman is responsible for *MY* vote and I want answers and I want a fine-tooth comb to see if she's made other mistakes and/or actually acting nefariously. This alleged mistake has opened her up to a deep deep dive that I am sure she didn't want. If she so much as forgot to cross a "t", we'll find it.

[Cal33]

31. I wish I could be as optimistic as you. I just don't trust those Neocons.

As far as votes are concerned, they should never be out of
the sight of Dem. observers. And nothing should be done without
Dem. observers taking part. Even then, there still are other
dirty tricks up their sleeves.

[pacalo]

32. Did you see the Democratic observer at Nickolaus' press conference?

She was elderly & I'd be willing to bet that she doesn't have anywhere near the technical expertise as Nickolaus has. It is a point that she could have made during her very brief opportunity to speak. Instead, she chose to say without qualification that "nothing is wrong". How in the hell would she know? :eyes:

[Cal33]

34. I think I've seen a small picture, and I didn't notice the Dem. observer's age.

I would assume all observers would be knowledgeable and competent
enough to to a good job in something as important as this.

No, I didn't watch the press conference.

[Imajika]

11. So in other words, you have nothing..

Absolutely not one shred or indication of voter fraud, election tampering or anything else.

An entire city's ballots were not reported in the total. That appears to be it right now.

There will be a recount, Wisconsin has paper ballots, the Democratic canvass member agreed with the new totals, the city of Brookfield DID report their votes election night, when the city's votes were correctly added in to the total they matched exactly what they originally reported.

You've got nothing, and speculating on how the election was stolen is just plain silly unless real evidence of wrong doing turns up in the investigation (which is ALREADY happening) and recount.

[labor4ever]

13. As a Professional Software Developer, with Decades of Experience, the Latest Error exposes...

many faults in the current system that leaves me with 0 confidence in their vote tallying processes.

A serious investigation must be conducted immediately.

[PeaceNikki]

14. Yes, we're doing that. And all ballots will be inspected by human eyeballs...

taking the electronic tallying out of the equation.

[labor4ever]

16. Wisconsin is NOT hand counting the ballots- only comparing voter rolls with diebold tabulated result

according to this post...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x853540

However, considering the state of our union today, I must confess that I'm not surprised.

If they leave it at that, then no one should have any confidence in the system, and processes they have in place in Wisconsin for vote tallying. As a matter of fact, wherever they are using electronic means for vote tallying should be suspect until a thorough inspection is done, and when finished every system must be open, and have voter verifiable paper ballots.

[PeaceNikki]

22. In certification, yes. On recount they WILL.

It's Kevin Kennedy, Director of GAB on Ben Meren's show on WPR on Thursday about an hour before the press conference. The entire program is about this race. They talk about the Brookfield votes. It's an interesting program and will clear up a lot of misinformation being spread.

One interesting conversation of note starting around 17:00:

Kennedy: "When we do the re-count every ballot gets looked at by a human being and ballots that wouldn't have been read by the machine will be decided by the Board of Canvass"

Merens: "So the canvass is counting of the official tape and the recount is a look at all the ballots that make up that tape?"

Kennedy: "That's correct"

http://www.wpr.org/wcast/download-mp3-request.cfm?mp3file=bme110407l.mp3&iNoteID=96721

[labor4ever]

26. That sounds better

Thanks for the info :toast:

[pacalo]

33. Thank you. Other IT experts have said the same on DU & at Daily Kos.

[AdHocSolver]

17. Incompetence is often used as a cover up for very clever fraud.

The details of Nickolaus "mistake" are unimportant.

The purpose of her "mistake" would be to distract people from any serious investigation into vote counting fraud, such as vote flipping, occurring in other counties.

The purpose of this "mistake" would be to have the public place all of its attention on this one person in one county, and forget about all of the other counties where the real fraud took place.

This technique worked very will to Republican advantage in Florida where all the attention was focused on "hanging chads", and little attention was placed on the vote counting irregularities that took place in other counties.

Of course, you won't find election fraud if you don't look for it.

[PeaceNikki]

18. And this is where I think this theory falls apart:

This mistake opens up the whole thing to a deep DEEP dive, in Waukesha County and the rest of the state. I think the Brookfield votes were a terrible mistake that she deeply regrets because NOW we're turning over every rock.

[WillyT]

15. K & R !!!

:kick:

[liberal life]

19. well said! WE need a full hand count throughout the entire state!

http://fucorporatemedia.com/

[Cleita]

20. Because since double entry accounting standards are not used

for tabulating votes, this is an old election stealing strategy. Single entry makes it so easy to cheat. Just withhold some of the votes and stash them away. When the results are tabulated and are not in favor of your party and candidate, then pull out those votes that tip the balance and claim they got mislaid. I wonder how many other mislaid votes haven't been tabulated? Double entry bookkeeping would expose those missing votes in each precinct before they are put in the final total. This is how stores and banks balance their cash at the end of the day. We need to do the same with something as important as votes.

[PeaceNikki]

21. Technically, that's what the canvass: a is counting of the official tape.

And that is where it was caught. It's not as if the votes were missing from the official count. The risk that they would have been is almost non-existent.

[Cleita]

24. Somehow they ended up not being counted, or counted

twice. It seems that the canvass isn't good enough and needs tighter protocols.

[PeaceNikki]

25. It seems the canvass did exactly what it was designed to do - catch errors

[Rex]

27. Exactly.

[Cleita]

28. I don't want to start a pissing match with you, but it

seems the missing votes thing is what happened in Florida during the 2000 presidential election which emboldened the Supreme Court to do what it did, and I'm not satisfied that this was above board considering the people who were in charge and where their loyalties lie. The missing votes suddenly turning up thing is very common in voter fraud around the world. The next step is to make the voters so afraid to show up and vote contrary to the party in power that only those voting in favor of the ruling party show up so that the ruling party often wins with close to 100% of the vote.

[PeaceNikki]

29. But they were easily verified. Anyone with a calculator and the ward totals can verify that.

[Cleita]

30. Then why was the total different?

Anyone with a calculator can verify that there are two different totals. You need to go through the paper ballots again.

[Zorra]

This occurred to me also. knr

[Zorra]

23. dupe

[Cal33]

35. So what is actually happening now, are the votes of the whole state being counted, or

just Waukeesha County?