2006 Elections

Donna Edwards Moves Right, Falls into Line

davidswanson — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:13:37 -0400

Donna Edwards worked wonders by nearly beating Al Wynn in a Maryland congressional primary in 2006 and threatening to run again. Wynn had been one of the worst members of Congress and became one of the best. He transformed from a defender of loan sharks to a defender of the little guy. He shifted from backing the invasion and occupation of Iraq to opposing it and attending peace rallies. He was the first to sign onto Congressman Kucinich's articles of impeachment against Cheney.

If only Edwards had not actually defeated him in 2008!

Edwards ran as a progressive against Wynn's record as a war supporter and backer of corporate corruption. She never advertised her support for impeachment, but she said she was for it when I asked her. Now her campaign tells me that she opposes impeachment. And she has now signed onto the so-called "Responsible Plan" to keep funding the occupation of Iraq for at least the next 10 months but to withdraw someday as long as it's all right with the new president - who will, of course, have unlimited power as a result of Congress's failure to impeach the current one.

Edwards has outdone Carol Shea-Porter's record for fastest move into line behind her Party's commandants.

Long live challengers!

Beware victors!

Clinton's Embarrassing Flop in Iowa Exposes Dem Leaders' Folly

dlindorff — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 10:53:54 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

The real message of the Iowa caucus yesterday was that the long-operative Clintonian/Democratic Leadership Council assumption that the independent or unaffiliated voter bloc is composed of conservative-leaning, dim-witted and easily manipulated people has got it all wrong.

In fact, in Iowa, where unaffiliated voters are free to participate in either a Democratic or Republican caucus, 41 percent of those people voted not for the conservative, tough-talking “centrist” Hillary Clinton. They voted instead for the black, nominally anti-war candidate, Barack Obama. Another significant percentage of independents went for another progressive-sounding candidate, John Edwards. Clinton only got an embarrassing 17 percent of the unaffiliated vote.

` The implications of this failure on her part are enormous when it comes to next November’s general election.

If Democratic voters in the upcoming primaries, especially in states like Pennsylvania, where independents are excluded from the voting, end up giving the nomination to Clinton, she will almost certainly end up forfeiting much of the independent vote, just as both Al Gore and John Kerry did in the last two presidential elections.

The reality is that many, if not a majority of unaffiliated voters are not at all conservative (or dim-witted). What they are is cynical about the current state of Tweedle-Dum/Tweedle Dee politics in America. They see both the Democratic and Republican parties as being of, by and for the rich and often they don’t even see the point in voting. (They are, in other words, in many ways more politically savvy than many registered Democratic voters, who refuse to acknowledge this reality!)

Because of the disastrous course of the last seven years under the Bush/Cheney administration, these independents are willing, as they showed in 2006, to give it a shot and vote for Democrats IF (and that word has to be capitalized and put in italics for emphasis) the Democrats will stand for something more than just Republicanism with frills. Exit polls in November 2006 showed that these voters (and a majority of Democratic voters) were looking for Democrats to stand up forcefully for the Constitution, and to put an end to the Iraq War.

They were double-crossed. The Democratic Congressional leadership, under the Clintonesque direction of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, have done none of those things, choosing instead to simply pretend to be an opposition, while actually doing nothing on either front.

It’s an approach that Hillary Clinton clearly would continue to follow if she were somehow to manage to get herself elected to the presidency: a fawning obeisance to the wishes of corporate America and Wall Street, continued foreign wars and occupations, continued “tough talk” on crime with little or no effort to attack its causes (poverty, drugs, racism and hopelessness).

It’s also an approach that almost certainly would assure us another four to eight years of Republican control of the White House.

The truth is that those independent voters who turned out for Obama and Edwards are simply not going to vote for Hillary Clinton in November ’08. If it were to become a choice between Clinton and McCain, Clinton and Giuliani or Clinton and Huckabee, they will sit the election out—or even vote Republican. And she’s not going to get the other independents either—the ones who really are conservative leaning. If they vote at all, they’ll go Republican, offered the choice between Republican or Republican lite with a few liberal bells and whistles.

Fortunately, Iowa’s Democratic and independent voters have made it clear to the rest of the country that voting for Hillary Clinton is to commit Democratic Party suicide. Her whole campaign has been based upon the notion that she is the most “electable” candidate in the Democratic field—a notion that now stands exposed as a pathetic farce.

If Democratic primary voters in the rest of the country are paying attention, they will quickly send her packing back to New York, where she can continue her role, with colleague Chuck Schumer, of Wall Street lickspittle.

The rest of the Democrats seeking office or seeking re-election next fall should take heed. There is a frustrated, angry and very large bloc of people out there—independent voters—who are looking for progressive candidates who will not just talk in buzzwords, but who will act to restore some semblance of Constitutional government in America, and who will end the damned war in Iraq. If they’re lucky, those voters might giver them one more chance despite the wretched betrayal of November 2006.
___________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book, co-authored by Barbara Olshansky, is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006, and now in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Debra Bowen Continues to Come Through

davidswanson — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 07:36:26 -0500

California seeks nearly $15 million from voting machine company
Associated Press

SACRAMENTO - Secretary of State Debra Bowen sued a major voting machine company Monday, accusing Election Systems & Software of selling unauthorized machines to San Francisco and four counties.

The lawsuit seeks nearly $15 million in penalties and reimbursements. Bowen contends that ES&S sold 972 of its AutoMark A200 voting machines to San Francisco and Colusa, Marin, Merced and Solano counties in 2006 even though the state had not tested and certified the machines.

"ES&S ignored the law over and over again and it got caught," Bowen said in a statement. "California law is very clear on this issue. I am not going to stand on the sidelines and watch a voting system vendor come into this state, ignore the laws and make millions of dollars from California taxpayers in the process."

The suit was filed for Bowen by the attorney general's office in San Francisco Superior Court. It seeks $9.7 million in penalties and asks the court to order ES&S to reimburse San Francisco and the four counties for the nearly $5 million cost of the machines.

Some of the AutoMark A200s apparently were used in the November 2006 election along with a previous version of the machines, Bowen said. Local election officials reported some problems with the AutoMarks, but Bowen said her office had no way of knowing if the problems were with the new machines or the older ones.

Omaha-based ES&S, which bills itself as the "world's largest and most experienced provider of
Advertisement
total election management solutions," said the AutoMark A200 included only "minor hardware modifications" from an earlier model that was certified by the state.

The company said it followed an "established practice" in which California relied on federal testing to decide if it would allow minor modifications to existing voting systems without new state certification.

Ken Fields, an ES&S spokesman, said the AutoMark A200 modifications were submitted to federal labs in late 2005, when former Secretary of State Bruce McPherson was in office.

Under established protocol at that time, the state allowed equipment to be modified if the federal labs determined the changes didn't alter the "fit, form or function" of the equipment, he said.

The changes were intended to make the AutoMarks easier to service and manufacture, Fields said.

"The penalties sought by the secretary of state bear no relationship to the claimed violations, particularly given that the claimed violations resulted from ES&S adhering to the state's established practice," the company said in a statement.

But Bowen said it wasn't up to ES&S to determine if the hardware modifications were minor and that the AutoMark A200s had to be submitted to her office as well as to federal labs for testing and certification.

"California law does not ask the manufacturer if the changes to a voting system are big or small or medium size," she said in a conference call with reporters. "That's a matter for California's chief elections officer to decide."

A spokeswoman for Bowen, Nicole Winger, said the independent labs used by the federal government "clearly do not test these systems to the depth and breadth that California expects and the standards that California has."

The AutoMarks are designed to be used by voters with disabilities to mark ballots that are then read by scanners.

Bowen said the secretary of state's office became aware of the sale of the AutoMark A200s to San Francisco and the four counties when an ES&S employee accidentally mentioned the changes in the system during a conference call in July with members of the secretary of state's staff.

But Fields said examiners for the secretary of state's office saw the AutoMark A200 in 2006 as part of testing and certification of voting equipment used by San Francisco.

"I don't know if (the examiner) marked it A200, but that was the equipment that was there," Fields said.

Winger said local election officials were unaware they were getting modified equipment when they bought the AutoMark A200s. State officials also didn't know of any changes until the July conference call, she added.

Bowen said her office is now testing the AutoMark A200s to make sure they work as they should. She hopes to have results by early December.

If her lawsuit is successful, ES&S could be required to reimburse the five local governments for the AutoMark A200s, even if Bowen's office subsequently certifies the machines and they resume using the devices.

---

On the Net:

Secretary of State's office: www.ss.ca.gov

Election Systems & Software: www.essvote.com

Democratic House Officials Recruited Wealthy Conservatives

Chip — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:24:16 -0400

According to Democratic candidates who ran for House of Representative seats in 2006, Rahm Emanuel, then head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, took sides during the Democratic primary elections, favoring conservative candidates, including former Republicans, and sidelining candidates who were running in favor of withdrawal from Iraq....

...According to Doug Thornell, spokesperson for the DCCC, "The policy of the DCCC is not to get involved in primaries, unless there is an unusual circumstance that demands it. I cannot speculate on what those circumstances might be. The majority of these cases [2008 primaries] will be left up to the voters on the ground. Meddling hasn't taken place this cycle, and for the most part last cycle. That isn't an accurate way to describe what happened. We are cognizant of having local support for our candidates."...

However, a source close to the DNC indicated that there was disagreement between Dean and Emanuel over election tactics. In his recent book, "The Thumpin'," Naftali Bendavid, a journalist who spent months inside the DCCC operation and at Emanuel's side, reported a heated conversation between Dean, Emanuel and Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) regarding election strategies of the DCCC and the DNC. At the time, Dean was focusing on helping local organizations across the country to mobilize their communities to support Democrats. Emanuel wanted to focus the resources of the national party on specific races that were the most likely to be competitive for Democrats. According to Bendavid, Emanuel said to Dean, "You're nowhere, Howard. Your field plan is not a field plan. That's fucking bullshit ... I know your field plan - it doesn't exist. I've gone around the country with these races. I've seen your people. There is no plan, Howard."

How Emanuel came to his decisions about which candidates to support against Democratic opponents is known only to Emanuel and his staff. Emanuel declined direct comment on this story. But an examination of individual races reveals a pattern of financial and political support for wealthy conservative candidates and an assault on their grassroots-supported opponents who were running on platforms that included a full withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.

Read the whole report on the DCCC's smarmy "We're Not in Kansas anymore" tactics.

2004-2006 Election Fraud Analytics

Gore4US — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 00:29:04 -0400

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm

2004/2006 Election Fraud Analytics

Dec.12, 2000 is a day that will live in infamy. Bush needed the help of five right-wing Republicans on the Supreme Court to stop the recount in Florida and enable him to steal the election. There has been an ongoing controversy regarding the 2004 election. State and national pre-election and exit polls pointed to a Kerry victory. Those who claim that Bush won fair and square are relentless in their attempts to thrash polling analyses which suggest that fraud occurred. Since the media will not release tell-tale precinct-level data, analysts must rely on publicly available polling data. And they have determined that the polls provide powerful statistical evidence of fraud. “Voter fraud” has been shown to be a non-existent distraction from the evidence of massive “election fraud”. Voters don’t fix elections, election officials do. The corporate media was quick to dismiss claims of election fraud as a left-wing “conspiracy theory” and the statistical polling analyses of “spreadsheet-wielding Internet bloggers”, The said that Bush won again, just like he did in 2000. Get over it. Move on. He won by three million votes. You can’t steal that many.

This is what Richard Morin, a Washington Post Staff Writer, wrote on Thursday, November 4, 2004. The article encapsulates the canard that the early exit polls were wrong because they did not match the final vote count, and therefore had to be adjusted accordingly. This is a clear implication that the election was fraud-free.

“An Election Day filled with unexpected twists ended with a familiar question: What went wrong with the network exit polls?... In two previous national elections, the exit polls had behaved badly. Premature calls by the networks in Florida led to a congressional investigation in 2000. Two years later, a computer meltdown resulted in no release of data on Election Day... Results based on the first few rounds of interviewing are usually only approximations of the final vote. Printouts warn that estimates of each candidate's support are unreliable and not for on-air use...That is why the early leaks anger Joe Lenski of Edison Media Research, which conducted Tuesday's exit poll with Mitofsky International for the National Election Pool, a consortium of the major television networks and the Associated Press…. After the survey is completed and the votes are counted, the exit poll results are adjusted to reflect the actual vote, which in theory improves the accuracy of all the exit poll results, including the breakdown of the vote by age, gender and other characteristics”.

They continue to maintain that pre-election and exit polls which indicated a Kerry win were biased, but have yet to provide plausible statistical evidence to back up their claim. Instead, they have resorted to tortured explanations: Kerry voters were more likely to respond to exit pollsters; exit poll interviewers sought out Kerry voters; Gore 2000 voters must have lied or forgot when they told the exit pollsters that they voted for Bush 2000; polls are not pure random samples; U.S. exit polls are not designed to detect fraud; early exit poll data was inaccurate because women voted early and Republicans voted late; Gore 2000 voters defected to Bush at twice the rate that Bush voters defected to Kerry; the GOTV campaign headed by Karl Rove mobilized millions of Christian fundamentalists for Bush, etc. None of these explanations are supported by factual data and have been thoroughly debunked.

They cited a post-election retrospective NES 600-sample survey as evidence that 7% of former Gore voters lied or forgot that hey voted for him when they told the exit pollsters they voted for Bush in 2000. They say it was due to a long-term Bush “bandwagon effect”: former Gore voters wanted to associate with the “winner” of the prior election. But Bush had a 48.5% approval rating on Election Day and Gore won by 540,000 votes. Why would Gore voters lie or forget more than Bush voters? Why would they claim to have voted for Bush when they knew he stole the election? Why would they forgive Bush? Was it because of his job performance?

They noted a built-in Democratic bias in the exit polls. But they dismiss the fact that in every election approximately 3% of total votes cast are uncounted, mostly in heavily Democratic minority districts. Although Bush “won” Florida in 2000 by an “official” 537 votes, there were 180,000 spoiled ballots (3% of the total cast) and thousands of other provisional and absentees which were never counted. Since more than 65% of the spoiled ballots were intended for Gore, he clearly won the state by at least 60,000 votes. Gore’s nationwide margin was two million if all the votes cast had been counted. But we know that in 2004 over 90% of reported electronic vote switching incidents were from Kerry to Bush and that an exhaustive statistical study indicated that 6.15% of Kerry votes were switched to Bush in Ohio’s Cuyahoga County. So it’s reasonable to assume that in addition to the uncounted votes, a certain percentage of Gore votes were switched to Bush. The 2000 election was not even close, although the 5-4 Supreme Court decision was.

They claimed that the vaunted 2004 Republican GOTV campaign brought Bush millions of new Christian fundamentalist votes. But they fail to note that according to the National Exit Poll, the Democrats have won first-time voters in the last four elections by an average 14% margin. Ruy Teixeira wrote about it in The Emerging Democratic Majority.

They rejected the assumption that late undecided voters would break for Kerry. But pollsters Zogby and Harris, who have a combined 60 years of polling experience, indicated they voted 67-75% for Kerry. The National Exit poll also reported that Kerry won a clear majority of undecided voters. But this was not unusual; historical evidence indicates that undecided voters break for the challenger over 80% of the time, especially when the incumbent is unpopular. Bush had a 48.5% average approval rating on Election Day.

They dismissed the significance of the Bush 48.5% approval rating on Election Day. But all presidential incumbents with approval below 50% lost re-election (Ford, Carter, Bush I) while all incumbents over 50% won (Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan and Clinton). The near-perfect 0.87 correlation between Bush’s monthly approval rating and national poll average share is further evidence. The correlation was confirmed by the 12:22am National Exit Poll which Kerry won by 51-48%.

They insisted that Bush led the pre-election polls. But they failed to consider undecided voters. Final Zogby polls had Kerry leading by 50-45% in nine battleground states. Assuming that he would capture 75% of the undecided vote, Kerry was projected to win all 9 states by 53-46%. He won just 5 and his average margin was only 50-49%. The margin of error was exceeded in six states - a 1 in 52 million probability.

They also failed to use weighted averages in calculating national vote share based on state polling, claiming that Bush led the weekly state poll (unweighted) average. But except for the first two weeks in September, Kerry led the national weighted average based on state voting population from July to Election Day. Kerry also led the monthly unweighted national pre-election polls all year. The final weighted average of 51 state polls (Kerry 47.88-46.89%) was confirmed by the unweighted average of 18 national polls (Kerry 47.17- Bush 46.89%).

They refused to accept the fact that both state and national projections in the Nov.1, 2004 Election Model had Kerry winning the popular vote by 51-48%. But the projections were confirmed by the 12:22am National Exit Poll which Kerry won by 51-48%. A Monte Carlo Simulation (5000 election trials) forecast that Kerry would win 320-337 electoral votes with 60-75% of the undecided vote - which he did if you believe the National Exit Poll and pollsters Zogby and Harris. The pre-election projections were confirmed in the Interactive Election Simulation Model by the state and national exit polls.

They overlooked the fact that 41 states favored Bush from the final pre-election polls to the recorded vote. But none of the 10 states which favored Kerry was a battleground state. Forty-three state red-shifted to Bush from the 12:22am exit polls. Oregon was the only battleground state which blue-shifted to Kerry – by less than one percent. It was also the only state in which all voting is done by mail. Was this all just a coincidence, a case of bad polling or a powerful indication that fraud occurred? You decide.

They cited “false recall” and non-response bias as explanations for the exit poll discrepancies. But they failed to account for the deviations between final pre-election state and national polls and the recorded vote. Exit poll non-response and false recall are not applicable to pre-election polls – and yet the pre-election polls matched the exits. The best evidence indicates that the “pristine” state and national exit polls were close to the true vote, unlike the final exit polls which were forced to match a corrupt vote count. All they can say is that the polls were wrong.

They hypothesized that the Final NEP 43 Bush / 37 Gore weights were due to “false recall” on the part of Gore 2000 voters who claimed to have voted for Bush 4 years earlier. But the weights were irrelevant and misleading since they were mathematically impossible. What is relevant is who the 2004 exit poll respondents said they voted for just minutes before.

They claimed that exit poll non-responders were Bush voters. But they cannot logically explain why a linear regression analysis showed that exit poll non-response increased going from the strongest Bush states to the strongest Kerry states, indicating that non-responders were most likely Kerry voters.

They said that the margin of error used in calculating probabilities of the exit poll discrepancies was too low. But even assuming a 50% “cluster effect”, the probabilities were still near zero. The exit poll discrepancy exceeded the margin of error in 16 states - all in favor of Bush. The probability: 1 in 19 trillion. Not a single state deviated beyond the MoE for Kerry.

They ridiculed the near 100% probability of a Kerry popular vote victory, claiming that the exit poll “cluster effect” and response bias invalidates the theoretical 1.0% margin of error. But a probability sensitivity analysis showed that even assuming a 50% increase in MoE, Kerry still had a 98% probability of winning a majority of the popular vote.

They maintained that exit polls are not accurate indicators since they are not perfect random samples. But pollsters Edison-Mitofsky state in the noted to the National Exit Poll that respondents were randomly-selected and that the margin of error was 1%. The MoE was confirmed for various exit poll samples in their NEP Methods Statement.

They claimed that the early exit polls were off and imply that the Final National Exit Poll was accurate. But the Final was forced to match the recorded vote with impossible weights and implausible vote shares. This implies that the recorded vote was fraud-free – not exactly a reality-based assumption.

They failed to appreciate the Law of Large Numbers and find nothing unusual about the fact that Kerry led the National Exit Poll by 51-48% at 4pm (8649 respondents), 7:30pm (11027) and 12:22am (13047). But Bush won the 2pm Final NEP (13660) by 51-48% through the use of impossible weights and implausible vote shares which were required in order to match the recorded vote.

They ignored the astounding fact that all 22 Eastern Time Zone states red-shifted from the exit poll to Bush and 12 deviated beyond the exit poll margin of error! But the probability of this occurrence is 1 in 32 trillion. The East is a vote-rich Democratic region and the most fertile ground for fraud. Of the 28 states outside the Eastern Time Zone, “only” 20 deviated to Bush while the margin of error was exceeded in “just” 4 states.

They dismissed the 12:22am NEP timeline (13047 respondents) which indicated that 8% of Gore voters defected to Bush in 2004 while 10% of Bush 2000 voters defected to Kerry and claimed that twice as many Gore voters (14.6%) defected to Bush than Bush voters (7.2%) defected to Kerry. But this is not plausible if you believe that the Bush 48.5% Election Day approval rating means anything. This is just a last-ditch feeble attempt to justify the Bush recorded margin. And it means that they have no case.

They failed to explain how Bush found 16mm new voters (DNV2k) to reach 62mm in 2004. He had 50.5mm votes in 2000. But only about 46mm returned to vote in 2004. The decrease was due to two factors: 1) approximately 1.7mm Bush voters died (0.87% annual mortality rate) and 2) an estimated 2.5mm did not vote (95% turnout). According to the 12:22am National Exit Poll, Bush won 41% or 10.8 of 26.3mm new voters. He needed 60% or 15.8mm to reach 62. The 19% discrepancy was 11 times the 1.72% margin of error. The probability of the discrepancy is ZERO. It’s important to note that a solid majority of new voters were Democrats and Independents who gave Bush an approval rating much lower than his total 48.5% average on Election Day 2004. His approval rating has declined almost 1% monthly since Sept. 11, 2001 and is currently at 32%.

They need to explain how Kerry lost the popular vote in 2004, yet won a solid 57-41% share of new voters. Kerry won first-timer voters by 55-43% as well as others by 61-37%. Compare this to 2000: Gore won the popular vote, yet lost new voters by 52-44%. Gore won first-time voters by 52-43%, but Bush won others by a whopping 71-26%.

They claimed that 7% of returning Gore voters told the exit pollsters that they voted for Bush in 2000 because of a long-term “bandwagon effect”; they wanted to “associate with the winner”. But this was just a last-ditch attempt to explain the mathematically impossible “Voted in 2000” weights. Even if Gore voters they lied, it was irrelevant. What is relevant is who they said they voted for just a few minutes earlier. And 91% said they voted for Kerry.

They argued against the conclusion that the NEP “Voted in 2000” weights (Bush 43/Gore 37%) were impossible and claimed that it was standard operating procedure to re-weight demographics based on incoming votes. But how can 43% (52.6mm) of the 122.3mm who voted in 2004 have been Bush 2000 voters when he only had 50.5mm votes in 2000? Furthermore, since approximately 1.8mm Bush 2000 voters died prior to the 2004 election, the maximum number of Bush 2000 voters who could have voted in 2004 was 48.7 million, assuming an impossible 100% turnout. This physical, incontrovertible fact drove the naysayers wild. The longer they tried to refute the logic, the sillier they looked.

They had to accept an inconvenient truth: the Final National Exit Poll inflated the Bush vote by at least 4 million. The weights were contrived to force the exit poll to match the corrupted recorded vote. Even though the weights were mathematically impossible, the exit-pollsters had no choice but to use them. And they hoped no one would notice.

They finally agreed that the Final 2pm NEP “How Voted in 2000” weights were impossible and derived a set of feasible weights. But they had to compensate for the weights by inflating the Final NEP Bush vote shares in order to match the recorded count. This was necessary despite the fact that Final NEP Bush vote shares were already inflated in order to match the recorded vote. With feasible weights applied to the “pristine” 12:22am NEP vote shares, Kerry won by 52.6-46.4% – a 7.7 million vote margin! Using feasible weights applied to the Final NEP vote shares, Kerry won by 51.2-48.4%. The 3.4 million vote margin more than reversed the Bush 3mm “mandate”!

They were forced to suggest this implausible Bush win scenario in the Democratic Underground Game thread:
1) 14.6% of Gore 2000 voters defected to Bush. But the 12:22am NEP reported 8%; it was increased to 10% in the Final in order match the vote.
2) Kerry won 52.9% of voters who did not vote in 2000. But the 12:22am NEP reported he won by 57-41%; it was reduced to 54-45% in the Final.
3) 7.2% of Bush 2000 voters defected to Kerry. But the 12:22am NEP reported 10%; it was reduced to 9% in the Final.

They belittled a comprehensive sensitivity analysis which indicated that Kerry won all plausible scenarios of voter turnout and new voter share. But assuming 12:22am NEP vote shares and 100% Bush 2000 voter turnout, Gore voter turnout had to be 73% for Bush to tie Kerry and 64% to match the recorded 62-59mm vote.

They need to explain these implausible changes in Bush NEP vote shares from 2000 to 2004:
-The Bush share of male voters decreased by 0.2% while his female share increased by 4.2%
-His share of white females increased by 5.0% while his share of white males decreased by 0.9%
-His share of non-white females increased by 4.0%
-His share of female independents increased by 1.8% while his share of male independents decreased by 5.6%
Didn’t females vote 54-45% for Kerry? Didn’t over 90% of blacks vote for him? Weren’t independents for Kerry by 52-44? Why would independent males defect to Kerry at triple the rate that independent females defected to Bush? Didn’t Nader voters break 3-1 for Kerry?

They neglected to ask why six of the eight states which deviated to Kerry from the exit polls were strong Bush states: TN (1.63), TX (1.65), SD (1.67), ND (2.51), KS (2.37) and MT (0.22). The exit poll discrepancies (shown in parenthesis) were all within the exit poll margin of error. But only two competitive states deviated to Kerry: OR (0.75) and HI (1.25). Is it just a coincidence that Oregon is the only state which votes exclusively by mail (100% paper ballots), and that any discrepancy in that state would be small and could favor either Bush or Kerry? And is it just a coincidence that Hawaii was not exactly a critical state?

They agreed that the vote-rich battleground states would decide the election. But was it just a coincidence that six deep-red states deviated to Kerry and not a single blue state? Was it because Bushco did not want to explain the 50-state red-shift? Did they disregard the six states knowing that Kerry would not come close to winning them? Is that why they focused on thwarting a nationwide blue-shift in competitive states? The beast was in the East, the rest were in the West.

They claimed that the raw exit poll data which have not been made public indicates that there was no tendency for Bush to do better in 2004 relative to 2000 (“swing”) than he did in the 2004 exit poll (“red-shift”). They presented their analysis in a swing vs. red-shift scatter chart and concluded from the flat regression line that the exit poll discrepancies had little effect and therefore fraud was unlikely. But they did not considering the following factors: According to the 2004 National Exit Poll, Kerry won 71% of returning Nader voters compared to 21% for Bush. A similar split would have increased Gore’s margin by 1.4mm. Assuming that 75% of approximately 3 million uncounted votes were for Gore, his margin increases by another 1.5mm. When added to his recorded 540,000 vote majority, Gore’s adjusted margin becomes 3.4mm. And that does not consider the effects of vote-switching. Thanks to Ohio, we know a lot more about vote-switching than we did in 2000. It’s very likely that Gore votes were switched to Bush. If 3% (1.5 million) were switched, then his final adjusted margin is 6.4 million: 3mm switched + 1.5mm uncounted + 1.4mm Nader + 0.54mm recorded.

They never normalized the 2-party state votes in calculating “swing”. But adjusted state swing (before vote switching) exceeded red-shift in 24 of the 43 states which deviated to Bush. Adjusted national swing was 3.0 (51.24-48.24). Based on the NEP How Voted in 2000 demographic, red-shift was 3.15 (51.24-48.09); based on Gender, it was 2.53 (51.24-48.71). But red-shift was just 1.75 (51.24-49.49) based on the weighted average state poll. This clearly indicates that the naysayer swing vs. red-shift argument is just another ruse meant to divert, confuse and mislead. With 3% vote-switching, Bush’s adjusted vote swing exceeded red-shift in 34 of the 43 red-shift states. A realistic linear regression analysis of swing vs. redshift shows that for every 1% increase in adjusted swing, red-shift increased by 0.6%.

They still maintain that the Ohio exit poll does not indicate fraud. But they ignored the massive documented evidence of uncounted and switched votes, voter disenfranchisement. Not to mention that two election workers were convicted of rigging the recount. They criticized the 12:22am Ohio exit poll (1963 respondents) which Kerry won by 52-48%, yet believe the 2:06pm Final (2020 respondents) in which demographic category vote shares were changed in favor of Bush to match the miscounted recorded vote. This was just like the final NEP in which vote shares were also changed to match a miscounted national vote. If the original weights were used, it would have been necessary to inflate the Bush vote shares to implausible levels. How can they explain these Ohio exit poll anomalies?

-When Decided: Of the 14% who were first-time voters, 55% were for Kerry. Are we to believe that he won just 47% of the other 86%? Of the 21% who decided in the month prior to the election, 62% voted for Kerry. Are we to believe that he won just 45% of the other 79%? Were there any Ohio pre-election polls which showed Bush leading by 10% at the end of September?

-Party ID: Democrat/ Republican weights changed from 38/35 to 35/40, a 7.9% shift. With the original 38/35 weights, Bush needed 17% of Democrats to match the recorded vote, as opposed to his 8% at 12:22am.

-Ideology: Liberal/Conservative weights changed from 21/34 to 19/21, a 9.5% shift. With the original weights, Bush needed 23% of Liberals to match the recorded vote, as opposed to his 13% at 12:22am.

-Voted for Senate: Democratic/Republican weights changed from 43/57 to 36/64, a 16.3% shift. With the original weights, Bush needed 14% of those who voted for the Democratic candidate, as opposed to his 7% at 12:22am.

They ignored Florida’s implausible vote count by machine type and party registration. Bush supposedly “won” Florida by 52-47%, a 368,000 vote margin. But there was a 41- 37% Democratic registration advantage in Touch Screen (TS) machine counties and a 42-39% edge in Optical Scan (OS) counties. In 2000, Bush “won” Florida by 547 votes, but Kerry must have won by at least 60,000, given his 70% share of 180,000 uncounted under/over votes. Kerry won TS counties (3.86mm votes) by 51-47%, but Bush won OS counties (3.43mm votes) by a whopping 57-42%. Florida voter registration by party is consistent across TS and OS counties, so it’s not comparing apples and oranges. The total TS county vote share matched the 12:22am NEP to within 0.43% for Bush (17,000 votes) and 0.31% for Kerry (12,000). But the Bush OS county share deviated by 9.0% (307,000) while Kerry’s discrepancy was 8.1% (278,000). The final Zogby pre-election poll had Kerry winning by 50-47%.

Why was there such a large vote share discrepancy in OS counties? Party ID weights for OS and TS counties were virtually the same. There was massive fraud in OS counties, but TS counties were hardly fraud-free. Assuming a 1.0% margin of error, the probability is 1 in 12.7 trillion that Kerry's total TS county vote share would exceed his total Florida share by 4.2%. Three distinct models indicate that Kerry won Florida by 221,000 votes. Two were based on voting machine type (optical scanners and touch screens). The models assume 2004 NEP “How Voted in 2000” vote shares with weights set to party registration percentage. Kerry won both scenarios by a total of … 221,000 votes. The third model was based on uncounted and switched votes applied to the 2004 recorded vote. Kerry wins by…. 221,000 votes. Considering that Kerry probably won 70,000 of 96,000 Nader 2000 votes (based on his 71% NEP share), he had a built-in 100,000 advantage on Election Day …assuming that all the votes were going to be counted.

They cited the final NY pre-election poll which Kerry won by 59-40 (matching the recorded vote) to support their argument that the pre-election polls did not match the exits (the NY exit poll was 64-35). But they failed to mention that the typical pre-election state poll has a 4% margin of error (600 respondents) while the corresponding exit poll has a 2-3% MoE, depending on the number of respondents so a 5% discrepancy between a given state pre-election and the corresponding exit poll is not unusual. In fact, the weighted average vote share of 51 state pre-election polls, adjusted for undecided voters, matched the weighted average exit poll vote share to within 1%.

They implied that the NY pre-election poll was accurate since it matched the recorded vote. But this is not plausible since the 2000 recorded vote was Gore 60-Bush 35-Nader 5 and the 2004 NEP reported that 10% of Bush2000 voters defected to Kerry while just 8% of Gore voters defected to Bush. Assuming conservatively that the Bush/Gore defection rates were equal, the 59-40 recorded vote implies that 100% of returning Nader 2000 voters defected to Bush - an absolute impossibility. The NEP indicated that Kerry won Nader voters by 71-21. Allocating Nader 2000 votes and assuming equal defection rates, the 2004 recorded vote is Kerry 63-Bush 36. Allocating the 3% uncounted votes (75% Kerry/ 25% Bush) widens the vote split to 64-35, matching the exit poll. The True Vote Model determined that 7% of Kerry’s national votes were switched to Bush while a comprehensive analysis of total votes cast in Cuyahoga County (Ohio) showed that 6.15% were switched. Assuming that 4% of Kerry’s NY votes were switched, he won the state by 66-33%.

They have never explained why the Exit Poll Response Optimizer confirmed the USCV simulation. Both models analyzed summary exit poll data for 1250 precincts supplied by Edison-Mitofsky and independently debunked the reluctant Bush responder (rBr) hypothesis. The Optimizer employed the Excel Solver algorithm to obtain a feasible 2-party vote share solution (Kerry 52.15-Bush 47.85%). The constraints included the actual recorded vote (Bush 51.24-Kerry 48.76%), along with response rates and within precinct error (WPE) categorized into five partisanship groupings: Strong Bush, Bush, Even, Kerry, Strong Kerry. The robust solution exactly matched the 12:22am National Exit Poll “Voted in 2000” demographic. Two independent mathematical methods applied to two distinct sets of national and precinct summary exit poll data produced the identical result.

They can try to refute the True Vote Model. The base case scenario determined that Kerry won by 66.1-58.4mm. The model was based on the 12:22am NEP vote shares, with feasible weights adjusted for 1) the 2000 recorded vote, 2) 3.5% mortality, 3) 95% turnout of 2000 voters in 2004. It assumed that 2.74% of total votes cast were uncounted, based on the 2004 Election Census which reported that 125.7mm votes were cast. Only 122.3mm were recorded, therefore 3.4mm were uncounted. Assuming that Kerry won 2.6mm of the uncounted votes (a 75% share), then 4.5mm (6.8%) of total votes cast for Kerry must have been switched to Bush to match his 66.1-58.4mm margin. By allocating the 3.4mm uncounted votes to each state based on its racial mix, the model also determined that Kerry won 336 electoral votes. This matched the Election Model Monte Carlo Simulation which was based on final state polling and 5000 election trials.

Except for the notorious 2006 FL-13 congressional race in which 18,000 mostly Democratic votes were mysteriously missing, the evidence of massive fraud in the midterm elections is hardly mentioned in the corporate media. But a Pew 2006 Election Analysis describes voting “anomalies” and computer “glitches” that occurred in virtually every state. The fraud probably cost the Democrats 10-20 congressional seats.

The 2006 National Exit Poll “How Voted in 2004” weights were changed from 47 Bush / 45 Kerry at 7pm on Election Day to 49/43 in the Final NEP at 1pm on the following day. Once again, just like in 2004, the exit pollsters had to match the vote count by expanding the weight spread from 2% to 6%! This had a major effect in cutting the Democratic margin in half - from 55-43% to 52-46%. As noted earlier, the 2004 12:22am NEP “How Voted in 2000” Bush/Gore weights (41/39) were changed to 43/37 in the Final at 2pm the next day, turning a 51-48% Kerry victory into a 51-48% loss.

If plausible 49 Kerry/ 46 Bush weights based on the 2004 NEP were used, the TRUE Democratic margin becomes 56.7-42.1%, exactly matching the 120 pre-election Generic Poll trend line. Was this just a coincidence or another confirmation that the pre-election polls matched the 7pm National Exit Poll? You decide.

Mr. and Mrs. America buy a new car, and it's NOT an Augmentation

thepen — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 04:10:13 -0500

Tonight's alert is a little different, in the form of an humorous and entertaining (hopefully) story. If you have already called your members of Congress toll free at 800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 or 800-614-2803, to voice opposition to the Bush/Cheney escalation, please consider forwarding a link to this posting to all your friends.

ACTION PAGE: http://www.peaceteam.net/no_escalation2.php

Late this last fall, as November approached, Mr. and Mrs. America decided to go shopping for a new car. Almost from the day they had bought it six years earlier, their current car, a Liberator model, had been very unreliable. Its instruments were constantly telling them things they knew from their own senses to be untrue. The gas gauge would indicate empty when they had just topped up the tank, or the speedometer would show them at over the speed limit when parked in their driveway.

Worse yet, the only time it seemed to run strong was when headed off at breakneck speed for distant cities. And even there it had proven difficult to control, swerving wildly and always smashing into other cars there. Most of the time it behaved as if someone else were driving it. Repair and insurance costs were becoming shocking, even awesome, with no end in sight. In a word, it was too large, and ill-suited for doing the protection errands they really needed to do closer to home.

So it was that they set out to return to the dealership that sold them their Liberator. The salesman stepped forward as he saw them walking onto the lot. "We just got in all the new models." he enthused. Mr. America interrupted him. "The Liberator you sold us last time has given us nothing but problems . . . we've decided to downsize." The salesman countered, "But the new models are so POWERFUL, the ads are all over the TV newscasts. Take the new Escalation for example, everybody's going to want one." Mr. and Mrs. America both frowned. "The Escalation has a very bad reputation," said Mrs. America. "Our family bought one 40 years ago and it was a total disaster. We lost a family member in that one."

"Never mind," urged the salesman, "take a look at this one. It's another brand-new model called the Surge." The name sounded intriguing, and Mr. and Mrs. America were willing to look. But when they saw it they immediately reacted. "I don't think you're hearing us," spoke Mr. America, "we wanted something smaller, this one looks just like the Escalation to me." "But wait," interjected the salesman, "the deal is, it may LOOK like an increase in size now, but in a couple months when the factory has a smaller replacement vehicle ready, you can trade it in for what you really want." "Gee, I don't know," said Mrs. America hesitantly, "how do we know when the replacement model will actually be ready?"

The salesman seemed a bit less confident now and started to hem and haw. "Well you know, there are always unexpected delays in producing a new product, labor strikes, things like that. But our estimates are it shouldn't be more than a couple months, a year at the outside." Mr. and Mrs. America could not bear the thought of being stuck with an oversized clunker for another year. "No," said Mr. America, "we're definitely not going to go for the Surge."

By now the salesman was starting to sweat profusely. He knew that the boss had already committed the entire capital resources of the dealership to buy a fleet of new Escalations, together with Surges and all its other sub-models. They were taking delivery on them already on the back lot. And the word had come down that any salesman who did not push the new lines would be fired on the spot. So many dedicated, talented, experienced and hard-working career employees had been terminated already. "OK, OK," stammered the salesman. "I've got just the thing for you, here it is, it's called the Augmentation."

Mr. and Mrs. America were becoming increasingly annoyed, even angry. They could not for their lives tell the fundamental difference between this Augmentation and the other models the salesman had already tried to push on them. It was still too big for them and the one thing they knew for sure was that they wanted something smaller that would give them better service at home. They just shook their heads and started to walk off the lot.

The salesman came running after them in a panic. "How about a Boost? It's just a little Boost." he pleaded. "Is it smaller than the car we have now?", asked Mrs. America. "No," admitted the salesman, as his face turned increasingly red, "but the Boost is only a SUBCOMPACT increase in size." "We're not interested in anything you've got," asserted Mr. America firmly as Mrs. America also shook her head.

It was then that they noticed another dealership across the street, so they thought they'd give them a chance. They told the salesman there, "we are interested in a new car, something less unwieldy than what we have now, and everything we've seen so far has been just the opposite" "Yes, I know," said the salesman, "a lot of people are coming over to us for our flagship model, the Direction." On first glance the Direction appeared to be much more like what they were looking for. It was at least somewhat smaller, but they remained skeptical.

ACTION PAGE: http://www.peaceteam.net/no_escalation2.php

Mr. America asked, "If we buy this new Direction, do you promise to give us responsive service, and that it won't turn out to be the same kind of trouble we have now." "I promise," assured the salesman. "OK," sighed Mr. America, "we'll take the new Direction, but you better be telling us the truth." "Or else, we'll bring it right back again this time," added Mrs. America. And that's the story of how Mr. and Mrs. America bought a new car.

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours.

To be added to the list go to http://www.peaceteam.net/in.htm

anybody have a video of the nomination process of nancy pelosi today from cspan?

austin tam — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 01:32:31 -0500

anybody have a video of todays nominating nancy pelosi for speaker of the house from cspan?

Granny Bee – In with the New

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 15:10:43 -0500

Listen to your granny!

Granny Bee is now regularly featured on the
Jeff Alan Wolf Show on ZTLK.com and RadioPower.org

Granny Bee

1/4/07 - In with the New (2:00) Real .mp3

MORE MORE MORE

Granny has been thinking about the new year and the new Congress and the new Democratic majority and a woman elected Speaker of the House of Representatives for the first time in our country’s history.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

Senate's First Day Sure To Shock Bush

Bob Geiger — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 10:12:56 -0500

Like a young boy who's the new kid at school, George W. Bush probably has no idea what to expect as he starts life with a new, Democratic Congress today. Facing a crew fronted by new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Bush will have to deal with a Congress intent on the actual work of governing, like passing meaningful legislation, scrutinizing judicial nominees and, most frightening of all for Team Bush, actually fulfilling their role in performing oversight on the executive branch of government.

In the Senate, things will start out this morning with a joint, all-Senators meeting in the Old Senate Chamber before officially opening the 110th Congress at noon.

Fear not partisan Democrats: I interviewed Harry Reid last month and, while he says this "bipartisan caucus" is intended to foster a "new tone" in the Senate, there was no mistaking a look in his eye that said he has had enough of Republican games and is committed to governing in a way true to Democratic ideals.

Indeed, when Bush wrote in his silly Wall Street Journal editorial yesterday that "If Congress chooses to pass bills that are simply political statements, they will have chosen stalemate," Reid fired back as follows:

"There is nothing political about finding a policy to end the war in Iraq, raising the minimum wage, achieving energy independence or helping kids afford college. In fact, politics has prevented progress on these issues for too many years."

No amount of having coffee and bagels with the Republican minority for an hour today -- in a get-together that's entirely ceremonial and not legislative -- will make that go away.

They then move to the Senate chamber to officially open the new Congress by swearing in the following incoming Senators:

Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Ben Cardin (D-MD)
Bob Casey (D-PA)
Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
Jon Tester (D-MT)
Jim Webb (D-VA)
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

Oh, yeah, they'll swear in some Republican guy named Corker also.

If the organizing resolution -- which is formally voted on by all Senators and sets all committee assignments for the next two years -- is all haggled out and ready, it will be quickly formalized. If some minor deals still need to be worked between Reid and incoming Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the vote will be postponed until next week and may stall initial committee meetings until the memberships are codified.

Now comes the fun part as Democrats make it clear that the days of the do-nothing, Republican Senate are over by beginning to deliver on legislation they promised in the 2006 campaign on the very first day of the new Congress. In fact, Senate Democrats may even introduce key pieces of legislation as soon as this afternoon.

"It's time for Congress to get back to work," wrote Reid in a lengthy memo to his Senate colleagues yesterday. "The 110th Congress will also be known for its renewed commitment to work. There will be a 5-day work week in the 110th Congress. Teachers, miners, and shopkeepers across this country don't get three-day work weeks, and neither should their representatives in Washington."

If that's not enough of a shock to the systems of Senate Republicans, Reid used his memo to lay out in no uncertain terms that Democrats would rapidly begin moving forward on the initiatives endorsed by the American people when they rejected GOP rule over the House and Senate in November.

"Our busy first work period will begin in both the House and the Senate with ethics and lobbying reform so that we can change the way Congress works and do the real work we were elected to do. Next, we will take up a long-overdue increase in the minimum wage to give millions of American families an opportunity to achieve the American Dream, reform the Medicare Prescription Drug program to save seniors, the disabled, and American taxpayers money, and act on the 9/11 Commission Recommendations to fully secure our ports and borders and ensure that our first responders have the resources they need to keep America safe.

"As we move into the second work period, we will work toward full-funding of stem cell research, address global warming and put America on a path toward energy independence, ease the financial burden of college tuition to increase accessibility for hardworking students and their families, strengthen and rebuild America's military, enact comprehensive immigration reform, and enact pay-as-you-go legislation so that Congress has to cover its costs just like American families do.

And, on the Iraq war, Reid made it clear that a change is coming in Iraq policy and that hearings on the Bush administration's conduct of the war and manipulation of Intelligence leading to that quagmire are on the way.

"The days of putting party loyalty ahead of the interests of our troops an the American people are over," said Reid. "Democrats will work with Republicans to bring oversight and accountability to the Bush Administration's conduct of the war and ensure a new policy that meets the conditions on the ground, ensures that the Iraqi government takes responsibility for its own future, and allows our troops to come home."

On a day that is typically full of pomp and circumstance alone, Reid is drawing a line in the sand and telling the other side of the Senate aisle that, like it or not, the time for change is here.

Said the new Senate Majority Leader: "The American people have a right to expect real
leadership from Washington that delivers the needed results that will unite this country and move us forward."

Let's see how Senate Republicans and George W. Bush adjust to that.

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

MSNBC Says Democrats "Didn't Win The Election"

Bob Fertik — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:40:47 -0500

According to the megacorporations Microshit (MS) and the National Bullshit Corporation (NBC), Democrats didn't win the 2006 election, and their campaign platform wasn't a mandate from the people but just a "wish list."

Democrats, aware that they didn't win the election so much as Republicans lost it, hope to spend much of January passing ethics reform and wish-list items like a minimum wage hike and cuts in oil industry tax breaks.

The Democratic sweep in 2006 was bigger than the Republican "Revolution" of 1994 - yet no one ever say Republicans didn't "win" in 1994. And the Democratic "mandate" in the 2006 election is ten times the "mandate" that Bush had after stealing the elections of 2000 and 2004.

Why do Microshit and the National Bullshit Corporation have to lie to the American people about Democrats?

Because they do not believe in Democracy, but rather in the Corporate Kleptocracy they have enjoyed since Ronald Reagan, the spokesman for NBC's parent General Electric, seized the White House in a corporate coup in 1980.

Share your outrage with these email addresses: letters@msnbc.com, viewerservices@msnbc.com, today@nbc.com, WT@nbc.com, nightly@nbc.com, dateline@nbc.com, mtp@nbc.com, imus@msnbc.com, hardball@msnbc.com, countdown@msnbc.com, joe@msnbc.com, msnbcinvestigates@msnbc.com

Feel free to inform them that you will not purchase products by Microsoft and General Electric or the advertisers on MSNBC and NBC because they perpetually lie about Democrats.