 |
| Home | Hot News | Economic Crisis | Barack Obama | Impeachment | Election Integrity | LGBT Gay | Media | Business - Economics | Edges | Government | Religions |
| Life Arts Science | Security WMDs Terror | Rights Justice Democracy | Obama transition | Veterans Military | Torture Guantanamo | Barack Obama Family, et | Iraq Afghanistan Pakista | MiddleEast |
|
Tags for This Article:
Electronic Voting (2846) Voting Integrity (2739) Election-Voting Issues (2075) Voting Machines (1510) Election Reform (1114) Voting Reform (1086) Election Theft (773) Election-Voting Issues News (430) Optical Scan Voting Machines (137) Secret Vote Counting (57)
|
Group(s): Benicia ProgressivesAdd to My Group
We have no idea what happened in NH because most of the paper ballots in NH are counted on optical scanners, in secret by Diebold! We do know that where Hillary's ballots were hand counted, she lost, but where Deibold counted, she won, http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ron_corv_080109_new_hampshire_electi.htm. But we don't have all the information that might explain this latest improbable discrepancy and we will never know if the elections reflect the will of the voters so long as we are forced to vote on proprietarily controlled machines, which have been shown to be as hackable as they're unreliable. Two years ago I wrote the article below. I republish it here with highlighting relating to the bright red flags that the US media continues to ignore and this quote from an article by Thom Hartmann: Perhaps, after a half-century of fine-tuning exit polling to such a science that it's now used to verify if elections are clean in Third World countries, it really did suddenly become inaccurate in the United States in the past few years and just won't work here anymore. Perhaps it's just a coincidence that the sudden rise of inaccurate exit polls happened around the same time corporate-programmed, computer-controlled, modem-capable voting machines began recording and tabulating ballots. If we had a responsible media it would be reminding us daily that this country was founded on the wisdom that a democracy can only survive as long as the open market place of ideas is protected. People must be well-informed in order to make decisions about those they’ve entrusted to represent their interests. Our ability to continue to exercise control over our government is dependent upon our ability to consent or to withhold consent through our vote. Once we lose control of our vote, the very essence of our democracy is undermined: "Unless the mass retains sufficient control over those entrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals and their families selected for the trust." —Thomas Jefferson "Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." – The Declaration of Independence Today millions of Americans have already lost control of their ability to cast a vote for the candidates of their choice and hence we no longer have a government elected by the majority of the people. Regardless of what proof we are lacking, by design, it is indisputable that no one voting on an electronic voting machine knows whether the computer cast their vote as selected or altered it, intentionally or unintentionally. But what we do know is that in the past 6 years, the evidence that millions of votes were not cast as intended is staggering. We have already witnessed the devastating consequences of having lost our vote. We were unable to prevent the Legislature from being taken over, the Executive from staying in power and the concomitant disaster of the Judiciary. The consequences were predictable and indeed predicted: "[We] should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when corruption in this as in the country from which we derive our origin will have seized the heads of government and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people and make them pay the price. Human nature is the same on every side of the Atlantic and will be alike influenced by the same causes." — Thomas Jefferson, 1782 Once we lost our independent press in service to the people, we lost the ability to know that we’d lost control to elect or vote out the government. How could most of us have know when "Never has there been an administration so disciplined in secrecy, so precisely in lockstep in keeping information from the people at large.....Never has so powerful a media oligopoly ....been so unabashed in reaching, like Caesar, for still more wealth and power. Never have hand and glove fitted together so comfortably to manipulate free political debate, sow contempt for the idea of government itself, and trivialize the people’s need to know." — Bill Moyers, The Future of the Media If we had responsible media we would have been able to connect the dots and see the emerging pattern: First Florida in 2000; then the 2002 senatorial races delivering the Legislature to the Republicans; then the 2004 election. The increased use of electronic voting systems is curiously proportional to the declining reliability of exit polls, still viewed as highly reliable everywhere --except here. Electronic voting is part of a larger plan to secure one party rule permanently. The loss of our constitutionally guaranteed free press has been an accomplice. Still not there? Consider this: The 2002 Congressional Elections: With Republican control only two seats away, the 2002 senate races were hard fought; the "upsets" extraordinary. Right up to election day public opinion polls (Zogby and Harris, for eg. were within a ½% point margin of error in 2000 and previous elections) had predicted Democrats winning in numerous key battleground states. But then unexplained last minute swings resulted in all of those races going to the Republicans. The polls were somehow all "wrong". Remarkably these last minute improbable swings appear to have been concentrated in critical senate races (Georgia and Minnesota), thus sealing Republican control of the Senate. –In Minnesota, Senator Paul Wellstone, was leading by 5 points when he was killed in a small plane crash less than two weeks before the election. The situation was eerily reminiscent of the fatal plane crash that killed senate candidate Gov. Mel Carnahan, also within a few weeks of that election. The Republicans still couldn’t get their man in though; Ashcroft lost to the deceased Carnahan. But that was in 2000. Two years later we have more electronic machines counting the vote (Diebold and ES&S machines were used in 2/3s of the counties in the state) and Norm Coleman (with his100% approval rating from the Christian Coalition) beats Wellstone’s replacement, former VP Walter Mondale, even though Mondale had retained the 5 point lead going into the election. When the computerized machines were done counting the vote a few days later somehow Coleman had beat Mondale by 50 to 47 percent, a statistically remarkable 8 point swing! – In Georgia, polls going into the election showed Dem. Senator Max Cleland with a 5% lead over Rep. Saxby Chambliss (who also had a 100% approval rating from the Christian Coalition). Cleland lost to Chambliss 46 to 53 %, an incredible last-minute 12 point swing . And in the governorship race, polls right up to the election showed Roy Barnes, the incumbent Democratic governor, leading by 11 points. Amazingly Barnes lost the governorship to the Republican, Sonny Perdue, 46 to 51 per cent, a swing of 16 percentage points! The press failed to point out that Georgia had became the first state in the country to conduct an election entirely with touch screen voting machines and that the entire election was run, not by the government, but by Diebold. Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people: Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers www.re-media.org
Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which exists for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. We aim to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Electronic (computerized) voting systems are simply antithetical to democratic principles.CER set up a lending library to achieve the widespread distribution of the DVD Invisible Ballots: A temptation...
good job! great article, andi, then and now. thanks for bringing it back to our attention. by
Joan Brunwasser (172 articles, 3588 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 674 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 7:25:05 AM
A political junky from childhood cut my teeth on vietnam era protests.Have lived in Bucks county all my life.My favaorite saying" Good ani't cheap and cheap ain't good,never has been never will be"
Who's vote counts I'm sorry but when you are the party of the "right" the ends justify the means, whatever means necessary, because it's quite clear if you are not right then you are wrong. And you know the wrong people shouldn't have much of a say just look at the record numbers of filibusters the party of "right" prevailed on this year. by
tjb (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 242 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 7:56:43 AM
TPM quotes Zogby saying vote was explainable Talking Points Memo quotes pollster Zogby offering fairly reasonable scenario for how Hillary coul have pulled off an upset. He essentially has Biden and Richardson voters breaking for that other centrist candidate. by
Richmond Gardner (33 articles, 1 quicklinks, 18 diaries, 32 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 8:23:11 AM
A concerned citizen and former mathematician/engineer now retired and living in rural Maine.
Another Analysis I found another statistical argument quite revealing. Take a look at this data. This should scroll down automatically to the comment titled "Diebold favors Clinton analysis", but if not, just scroll down manually. by
PrMaine (13 articles, 12 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 415 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 8:38:39 AM
Just another concerned citizen.
But this does nothing to explain the paper ballot/exit poll discrepancies. All the theories people are offering to explain how the *predictive polls* might have been wrong-- McCain siphoning Independents, the Richardson effect and whatnot-- have absolutely no relevance to *exit polls* and the discrepancy in paper vs. Diebold ballots (with Obama winning on the auditable paper ballots, losing on the unverifiable Diebold machines). Unlike predictive polls, exit polls show *how people actually voted* since they are done of people who've left the polling stations. That's why they're used to check elections across the world, and the exit polls clearly showed an Obama victory-- http://tinyurl.com/3aav94 Whatever one's arguments about the pre-primary polls, the discrepancy with the exit polls is automatic grounds for raising alarm bells. Even more than the exit polls, the paper-ballot discrepancy is even more questionable. The paper vs. Diebold ballots were scattered in precincts throughout the state, yet we're supposed to believe that Obama handily won the paper ballots (which are easily counted and verified), yet lost the precincts where the Diebold machines, which are easily hacked and not verifiable, were used? C'mon! The fact is, we don't have a transparent electoral system, which essentially makes us a third-world country in the way that we run our elections. In 2005, technical experts showed how easy it is for somebody with a minor in computer programming at school to hack the Diebold systems-- you just pre-program a "bias factor" into the machines (e.g. +5 or -5), and you don't see this when the numbers are tallied. The NH primary has the stench of vote fraud all over it. We need to stop using the Diebold machines and hand-count the ballots. As someone said, we flip more burgers in a single day than we count ballots in a year, so hand-counting is a snap. by
Ivan the Terrible (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 5 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 3:28:55 PM
HCPB Results differ from Computer tabulated results I totally agree: "Even more than the exit polls, the paper-ballot discrepancy is even more questionable. The paper vs. Diebold ballots were scattered in precincts throughout the state, yet we're supposed to believe that Obama handily won the paper ballots (which are easily counted and verified), yet lost the precincts where the Diebold machines, which are easily hacked and not verifiable, were used? " Ballots counted by hand vs. ballots counted by computer should be proportionally the same. This is the issue, as you have said. That's where any investigative focus should go. by
Rady Ananda (133 articles, 300 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 1225 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 9:28:32 PM
More than 20 years ago, Bob McCarty went to college with Garth Brooks. Same classes. Same teachers. Same degree. In the years that followed, he's served as an Air Force officer, a political campaign manager, technology sales consultant and public relations guru.
About the Alarms While Tuesday night’s election outcome in New Hampshire surprised many Americans, it didn’t shock me one bit. Why? Because I’m one of those unseen individuals the polling firms should blame for the discrepancies between election-day forecasts and the results that followed the first-in-the-nation Democratic Primary. I’m a political opinion poll dancer, driven to do my utmost to prevent pollsters and their accomplices in the news media from exerting undue influence over the populace on election day. by
Bob McCarty Writes (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 8:36:35 AM
Just another concerned citizen.
You're only explaining predictive polls not exit polls/paper I have little doubt that people occasionally lie to the pollsters doing those annoying polls prior to the primary. But this has absolutely nothing to do with the discrepancies between Obama's counts on hand-counted ballots vs. the Diebold ballots, or of the exit polls, which are not predictive but taken *of actual voters at the polling station*. This is why exit polls and paper ballots are used as a standard to overturn elections, in countries like the Ukraine! Again, exit polls and hand-counted ballots represent raw data after the election, and thus any attempt to present a theory against predictive polls-- about McCain taking independents, or a vote split between Obama and Edwards-- do nothing to explain discrepancies with paper ballots and exit polls that, whatever those factors, unambiguously demonstrate an Obama victory in the state. It's especially suspicious that the paper ballots which are hand-counted and easily verifiable and auditable, show an Obama victory while the untrackable data in the Diebold machines shows the opposite. Harri Hursti showed just how easy the Diebold machines are to hack for someone with entry-level programming skills-- you just program in a "plus or minus factor" for the candidates prior to the Diebold tally and voila, hacked elections. This was what the HBO film "Hacking Democracy" so chilingly showed, and there's enormous evidence that it's occurred in the New Hampshire primary here. by
Ivan the Terrible (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 5 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 3:35:46 PM
nice to be living a life where you can waste other people's time and your own and feel good about it. Exit polls are designed to help protect democracy, and you're playing head games with them. Twisted!! by
Rob Kall (890 articles, 4057 quicklinks, 350 diaries, 1922 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 6:18:34 PM
this guy is not believable he makes it sounds like he gets calls all the time? Pollsters usually call between 500 and 1500 people- out of millions in most states, and 300 mil nationwide- I've never gotten a call and don't know anyone that's ever talked to a pollster. Most people are basically decent and won't lie, they want their opinion to mean something, and the ones that take the time to talk to a pollster enjoy being asked about their opinions and honestly express them. The number of "dancers" out there- if any- is probably exceedingly small, which is why polls, until evoting machines got into widespread use, usually match closely with election outcomes. by
Better World Order (4 articles, 464 quicklinks, 35 diaries, 1030 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 6:51:10 PM
How hard can it be? Just how hard can it be to place and count our votes? It simply stretches the imagination that in a day and age when we can count the number of moons on a planet 200 light years away that we can't do a simple thing like count votes correctly here. There is a simple answer to this question of course, they, "they" being the powers that be, don't want our votes counted. Our entire election process is a farce that keeps those that need representation the most from the process. From the beginning only land-owning white men were allowed to vote and any measure to bring the rest of the people in has always been fought tooth and nail that include any one else from sharing that power. Every dirty trick that can be employed is used to disenfranchise the masses and it's succeeded rather well, to the point that over 50% of the voting age public don't even bother to take part in the process. So if you were to those numbers, split 50% = 25%, take away, 12% for independent voters and "irregularities", leaving 13% of the voting public put our leaders in office, and 13% isn't a "majority" of anything. Even simple things like moving the voting day to Saturday, or even over a three-day period and eliminating the antiquated Electoral College hasn't even been addressed. If we ever - and I doubt we ever will - have a simple, fair, verifiable elections we wouldn't recognize this country from what we're seeing today, but that isn't going to happen. One would have thought after the 2000 debacle a massive effort would have been put forth to fix the system. Not only was not fixed, it was made worse. If voting could change things - they'd make it illegal. by
Mr M (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 51 diaries, 2028 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 8:53:12 AM
Midwesterner, veteran of VietNam era naval service, I still feel an obligation to defend the Constitution against "all enemies, foreign and domestic."
Litany of Shame This article and particularly these elections that it sheds light on should be published in every civics textbook. And we should be guaranteeing that our schools teach civics with the same level of emphasis as Math, Science or English. by
John Sanchez Jr. (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 1378 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 9:48:58 AM
THE "I COUNT CORPS" -- Sign up to take back our elections Over the past 6 years we have learned that when the “official results” defy the polls we need real answers, not spin which covers up one of the greatest crimes of our history. The exit poll data coming in from New Hampshire is once again sounding that alarm. How is it exit polls have only been wrong since official results are provided courtesy of Diebold and the other voting vendors? We have also learned that our leaders are not going to take the actions to protect our electoral system. WE the citizens of our nation need to collect this evidence and WE must count our ballots on election night. We are entitled to honest, transparent elections with checks and balances - all of which is made impossible by the oblique processes of a computer. It is time for us to build our own corps of citizen volunteers. We are beginning a national registry of citizens who will be available on election day to count the ballots on election night after the polls close (or conduct citizen exit polling if enough people sign up). Election Defense Alliance will provide the training. Much like jury duty, this is our civic responsibility. Go to SIGN UP TO TAKE BACK OUR OUR ELECTIONS- THE "I COUNT CORPS at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_andi_nov_080110_sign_up_to_take_back.htm by
andi novick (54 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 15 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 11:23:35 AM
A well traveled and slightly worse for wear 72 year old Englishman; widower, several children and grandchildren and a penchant for wondering 'what is the hidden agenda' in almost everything I read. A keen interest in American culture (an oxymoron?) (JOKE!) and politics and an international world view, except where I haven't got first hand experience of the parts of the world I have not visited. Editor of some books about the Qur'an and Islam. Teacher of English in little known countries like Mau...
Why no investigation? Perhaps the spectacle of Kerry and Gore not fighting the results could tell you something? It might be that they were told it was not their time, this time, and knowing how things worked they just rolled over for it. Today, it's Hillary's time. Enough said! by
ibrahim turner (25 articles, 32 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 179 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 3:24:00 PM
I am an American who loves her country and would like to see us get back to the constitutional values that made America great.
Keep your eye on the top In addition to Hillary's, you might want to question the number one in the Replican count too, since he's a top Bush cheerleader. I can't believe this is happening in America. How sad for us. by
GatorVol (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 10 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 10:51:23 PM
Just another concerned citizen.
This apparent Diebold Bump or Diebold Bounce for Hillary is extremely dangerous for the health of our democracy, since it raises basic questions about the fidelity of our voting system. The Democratic primaries are already becoming racially charged with Hillary's comments taking a swipe at Martin Luther King, and Cuomo Jr's idiotic racist terms against Obama. American Blacks are already furious about this, and the prospect of vote fraud in New Hampshire is bringing many cities close to rioting worse than anything seen since the late 1960's. This is a matter of national survival here-- we have to have trustworthy elections, with fully transparent voting and tabulation. Anything less, and we're not a democracy in the first place. by
Ivan the Terrible (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 5 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 3:51:22 PM
Poll Voting Should Be our Verification Procedure For once, I would like to see Polls, actually tabulated. In fact when coming to vote, you actually vote twice. You vote your pick for the Poll, then go inside and make your vote of the election. In fact Polls should be verification indicators.
by
Dom Jermano (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 40 diaries, 930 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 5:44:36 PM |
