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Stolen Election 2004: Tuesday Update
MSNBC's David Schuster says Kerry could pull within 3,000 votes in Ohio, when all the provisional and "spoiled" ballots are counted.
If you assume, for the sake of argument, that Kerry receives 80 percent of the 130,000 provisional ballots most observers expect will be validated... Kerry would receive 104,000 votes and President Bush would get 26,000. That's a net gain for John Kerry of 78,000. At that point, the margin between President Bush and Senator Kerry would drop to 58,000 votes.
Now, let's assume a preference can be determined on all 93,000 spoiled ballots. And let's also assume John Kerry receives 80% and President Bush receives 20%. John Kerry would receive 74,400 votes and President Bush would receive 18,600 votes. That's another net gain for John Kerry of 55,800. However, that still leaves John Kerry 3,000 votes short.
Of course, Schuster then insists "the votes are just not going to be there" to put Kerry ahead.
Hey David - what if another precinct turns up like the one in Franklin County where an initial tally of 4,000 votes for Bush turns into 800? One more precinct like that, and we could be swearing in President Kerry.
In Gastonia NC, Elections Director Sandra Page
is investigating why more than 13,000 votes were excluded from the county's unofficial election results.
Page said the investigation so far pointed to an interrupted download as the likely cause of the exclusion of about 12,000 early votes. She said human error by poll workers probably resulted in the omission of 1,200 votes from a Dallas precinct...
Page said she has asked the company that manufactured Gaston's vote-counting machines, Diebold Election Systems of McKinney, Texas, to review the operation of its equipment. A spokesman for Diebold confirmed that the company is doing so.
The county pays a technician from Diebold to operate its systems on Election Day. That person was in charge of transferring early votes from electronic storage to the counting computer. Diebold believes the transmission was interrupted, said spokesman David Bear.
"It's understood that it was an interruption, and now the question is why didn't we" catch it, Bear said.
Page said she was also planning to speak with poll workers at the Dallas precinct about the possibility that they transmitted their votes incorrectly to the elections office on Election Day.
The laptop computer used to transmit results from the Dallas Civic Center recorded only a single vote from each of the precinct's voting machines, Page said.
The votes are transferred from the machines to the laptop by disk. Page believes the error occurred because poll workers removed the disks from the laptop too quickly.
"These aren't computer people," she said.
BlackBox Red Alert! Diebold not only provides the machines, but they actually operate them on Election Day! What would stop the Diebold operator from rigging the election???
- Bob Fertik's blog
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Recount
Redo the math. Give Kerry 81% of the provisional ballots. He wins by a couple hundred at that point.
I find it fascinating that Schuster picked 80%. Did he then not add this detail about how a one-point increase tips the scales?
Actually, Bob's initial comme
Actually, Bob's initial comment is well intentioned, but wrong. MSNBC did not even factor the Gahana "mistake" into their analysis. If you do their math (80% of provisional and 80% of over/undervotes), Kerry is not 3,000 short, but actually is on top, assuming a beginning margin of 132k instead of 136k. Of course, this does not take any other potential "mistakes" into account.
Innacurate
Actually, those 3,800 extra votes were caught before they were reported to Blackwell, and thus those votes are already taken out of the totals.
Additionally, Kerry does not get 80% of any county, city, etc. Even in urban Cleveland, he received 66% of the votes.
Furthermore, in 2000, 10,000 of the 120,000 uncounted votes in FLorida were analyzed, and only about 300 were even remotely possible to see a preference, and after those were counted, Gore only closed the gap by 5 votes.
The closest this gap will close to in any sort is about 100,000 vote win for Bush in OH. I seriously doubt it will get that close too.
Inaccurate is right
because the 136,000 does NOT include the 3,800 - it was caught after the preliminary totals and these totals will not be adjusted until certification. Thus, under the 80%/80% hypothesis (which I agree is highly unlikely) posed by MSNBC, Kerry wins. The big IF is whether real voting fraud occurred, whether it will be uncovered in time and whether it substantial enough to affect the outcome.
Give it up
This farce of an election is over.Kerry lost and didn't seem to mind.It's time to move on in a positive way and admit why Democrats are loosing and stop it.I am a loyal Democrat and will always be one because I know that all Republicans are the same. If they weren't, they would not all support a man such as George Bush. The reason Kerry and Gore lost is because they refused to fight and get as dirty as the Republicans did. they both were percieved weak by enough people so Bush won. Kerry's campaign manager deserves this loss because she would not go negative for fear of loosing votes. I ask you, what vote would he have lost? I can't think of one. Liberals have taken over the Democratic party and they believe people are smart enough to make decisions based on facts. They are wrong. The people wanted a fight. They knew enough of the facts.The mistake Liberals make is thinking they know what is best for all people, meaning they are smarter than everybody else.Republicans have very successfully used that in every election but Liberals keep doing the same thing. There is no such thing as a civilized election,never has been and never will be. It's is a nasty, stinky rotten game and if you aren't capable of mixing it up with them, don't get in because you will loose.The public likes to see fights, it' something in our makeup because they want the strongest man no matter what baggage comes with him. His manager gave them a debate. They percieved Kerry as an intelectual snob and the rest is history. If Liberals don't back off and be team players with one goal in mind, we will have a one party country from now on. They are to blame and must except that. You have to run the person that has the best chance of winning given the circumstances and they won't give in enough to do that. Now they talk about running Hillary Clinton next time, a guaranteed looser again. More of the same. We have to start over, admit what is wrong and do something about it.When Democrats were winning they played rough with anything they could. It works. Playing the game the way Republicans do doesn't make us like the Republicans, it just makes us as smart as they are.
But
Tug,
If we as a country are going to continue to believe that we actually have a say in our government, then we all should care if our votes actually counted. If the shoe were on the other foot, they would screaming to (pardon the pun) to high heaven. Thats why none of us can give up on the vote count, even if Kerry did.
You are correct about the historical (hysterical?) messiness of elections. I spoke about this elsewhere, but the Republicans are now the masters of creating the self fulfilling prophesy. They have been doing it for years. We must learn to do that too. It will take years of practice to get it right, so we have to start now.
So we must continue to not only assert the election was stolen, Bush is a liar, etc, But we must take it beyond this web sight and create new venues to say it. If you say often enough over and over again, eventually others will believe it.
huh?
are you a troll?
I disagree that we should accept and/or advocate for anything but free and fair elections. It's an issue that doesn't have much to do with either candidate - it's about "We the People."
Do not give it up
IMO the wishy-washyness of Democratic politicians is related to the wishy-washyness and circular firing squadedness of the people they represent. "Kerry and Edwards don't have what it takes, so we should give up." Or, to put it another way, Kerry and Edwards don't have what it takes, and neither do the rest of us.
You do not win the next election, or the one after that, or the one after that, etc., by letting the other side rig elections. What is being done about rigging should be done, regardless of whether Kerry ends up the winner. Never give up. Similarly, whether he wins or loses, John Kerry should sue the Swift Boat Liars for defamation. Make people think twice before they defame Democrats. I remember how some of the Bushist voting rights challengers in Ohio, I think, gave it up when it was explained to them they were committing a felony. Make them think twice. Empty their pockets. Show them the prison bars. Never give up.
I hope that Kerry actually did mock-concede, to avoid the trap Bush set for him by scheduling the Falluja massacre for just after the election. It would be the right thing for Kerry to do IMO -- let surrogates challenge the election. The problem with it is that we can't know for sure whether Kerry is faking it or really has given up. Also we cannot know whether he is faking it because he wants to win, or is faking it because he wants future elections to be fairer, or whether there is a mixture of both.
Keep Hoping...
You can keep hoping for all these conspiracy theories to come through, and insisting that Bush and the reps stole this election, but the true fact is that thousands of lawyers were watching the voting, and even more were observing the counting by 2 reps and 2 dems, and the count is 99% correct. (im assuming the obvious that humans make small errors here and there counting.)
I cannot wait till December 15th when everything is certified, and electors have voted, and all these ridiculous theories have been proven false and failed.
If you're so sure
Why the outcry against verifying that all votes are accurately counted? You should be supportive if indeed the count is 99% accurate, as you claim. Doesn't verification work to the benefit of both parties? I believe it does. Also, I haven't seen proof either way. Your stating something is true doesn't make it so. You, and most others opposing any other opinions, seem pretty pushy and hostile for people so sure that Shrub legitimately won anything. All those entitled to vote must be assured their votes will count. Without that, we have no democracy.
Cynthia Blalack
gb4evr@cox.net
I just read that Rove is at t
I just read that Rove is at the top of the list for Time's Person of the Year for 2004.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041116/pl_nm/media_time_dc...
If Kerry backed down and isn't fighting behind the scenes he deserves what he gets. We don't. We have to fight. No one but the third parties are fighting for us. What does that tell you?
Hypocritical
The same people that buy the "dog ate my homework" lie about establishing democracy in Iraq at the same time do not support counting all the votes in the U.S. Many of these same people mistakenly refer to "anti-choice" as "pro-life" but are perfectly comfortable with 100,000 citizens, including women and children, dying in Iraq. The move on and shut-up crowd doesn’t really believe in democracy or the republic. Waving the flag does not make a fascist a patriot. In my view the country is still divided along the pre-civil war lines. The difference is that the Confederate Republicans are now running the country and they brought "Jim Crow" with them. We should say no to "Jim Crow". The confederates are turning the country into a third world country.
Hypocritical
And the same people that talk Christlike values also don't mind lavishing corporations and the very rich with tax cuts, and gutting social programs that help the poor and elderly and disadvantaged. They are the decendants of the Confederate racists and probably are in league with the same people who plotted and killed both Kennedys and King, who were the left wing vision for a generation. Their are two Americas again and it seems like we are setting up scenarios for civil war in the future, so we gotta just work harder to get our good guys in the and keep their heads intact.
The New Democratic Plan
Democrats can win back the government from the Right. It CAN be done, but we must move back to the moderate center that we were at in 1992 and 1996. To do that, we must nominate Moderates like Evan Bayh and Bill Richardson. I have got the beginnings of a plan to reform and refine the Democratic Party available on my website, http://newdemocrat.tk. Check it out, leave comments, and spread the word!
Election
My honest opinion:
Democrats need to let it go. You all can whine, bitch, and be poor sports but lets move on. A nation was divided by this election, now is the time to let go.
I am personaly sick of hearing excuses, and I would dred for this to become another Al Gore elction, where it took 3 rulings for him to finaly say "Its over." I respecte democrats, I dont support their ideas, but I think you guys should let go.
I dont mean this in an attack, but BOTH parties need to start working together. I am sick of this fighting and mud sligning at each other. BOTH parties need to get over them selves and move on, working togehter to better this nation.
Quiter?
Look the issue that is most important is to expose voter fraud. And I don't care if it means some Democratic gets caught with all the Republicans. We must insure fair elections in the future, if Kerry wins or not.
respect.....
I totally respect your opinion, and being a member of the military gets more admiration from me and my fellow dems that you can know. There are many friends I have in Iraq and other theaters, and wish them a safe and speedy return to the land that loves them and needs them. My personal thanks to you and your family for the sacrifice of being military in thought and mind. It is a proud and necessary position you hold in our society. I feel that the current administration has treated you,your comrades and family poorly, and we as democrats fight that battle for your fair treatment daily here. It is because of that, I would appreciate support on certain issues. We don't ever expect you to give up values to stand with us on all fronts, and that also is the history of our party. We have a big tent here, and our mission is to look out for ALL Americans, which we view as patriotic in its own right. I urge you to stay informed of the topics we raise, burn the midnight oil to support those issues that support you and ALL Americans, and once again thanks for your service and support of our nation. Support free and fair elections, it is the glue that binds us as a nation.
Just count the votes.
If Bush won, let him continue his mandate. If he lost, get him out. Does he need to be indicted? I think so. He has committed war crimes with over 100K Iraqi's dead, the Falluja deaths of women and children, the dead soldiers and hostages and Iraqi police. There were no WMDs and seemingly, no grounds for war.
Osama seems as if he is under contract and allowed to roam free. His attack on the World Trade should have never happened and he should not be alive.
He is working towards an Academy award and Bush is not looking for him anymore. Indict Bush. Indict Bush. Impeach him, then indict him.
If there was voter fraud in t
If there was voter fraud in the election, and by all accounts it seems as there was, then no American should just "let it go". Might as well let go all of our other liberties.
Concerned citizens, please visit www.blackboxvoting.org
and become aware of how the election officials are trying to supress our votes. The accounts of what happened on Nov 17, this Tuesday, the treatment of citizens attempting to view public records, is horrendous. Please make yourself aware of the situation.
We must stand up for our rights, as the people at blackboxvoting.org are doing. As others are so quick to remind us, freedom isn't free. The cost is being ever vigilent.
voter fraud. fair elections
There is a point that all of these posts seem to miss, especially the repug above.
Whether a "Winning Side" voter thinks the election is fair is totally irrelevent. The only thing that matters in a true democratic and fair election is whether the LOOSING side thinks so. Now you may ask..why is that? It is because the losers are the ones that need to feel fairly defeated. And guess what...we don't. Imagine a ballgame where the ump never called a strike on only one teams batters. There would be no problem with that right repugs?????Right. There would be a riot that would make headlines in Singapore. But to have an election with out a paper trail is way cool right???? Fairness is soley in the mind of the looser, and if you want us to accept Bush as the real president you have to establish fair elections. And there is no such thing here. We in America are so far from having free and fair elections that we would have to travel 5 yrs at the speed of light just to get back to crooked. If Kerry won by the 10% that the exit polls showed.........won as reported by the precincts......there would be insane actions by the repugs...........because they know in advance they rigged the election to win.....and demand the right to have their purloined goods.
1. Long voter lines in demo counties
2. Rejected provisional ballots
3. Felonious ownership of rigged software, that give and take votes
4. Owner of machine co. pledging support to idiot boy
5. Sec. of State in several states co chair or chair of campaign.
6. Unapproved software
7 Exit polls(devloped by repugs ) showing Kerry win.
8. Repugs suggesting their own polls now are false and want them outlawed.
Anyone that thinks this is fair is nuts.....or a repug.
Make no mistake, our country has been stolen from the people, there has been a coup, and we MUST take actions against the evil empire in place. If you are a repug, remember this is your country too, and when there is a backlash don't come crying about fair elections. We'll be nailing those repugs doors shut on election day. We'll give you fair elections allright. You can watch from the comfort of your fine silk sofa as we take back America.