Have you really thought about this?

 

"I vote third party whenever I can...."

Has your vote ever been counted towards the same candidate you voted for? How would you know?

80% of all U.S. votes, no matter whether they are cast on paper or on voting machines, are counted by central tabulators that can undetectably flip the votes from one candidate to another. When you vote for Nader and your vote is counted for Obama or McCain, what have you accomplished?

Because the computer programs that tell the central tabulators how to reallocate the votes often use third party and independent votes to smooth the spread, minor candidates usually find themselves getting many votes in areas of the country where they have little or no support, and no votes in parts of the country where they have a lot of support and many people swear that they voted for them.

Voting is only useful if your votes are counted for the same candidates you voted for. In faith-based elections held by authoritarian or totalitarian governments, where the candidates and winners are pre-selected and the votes counted secretly behind closed doors or inside computers to ensure the pre-ordained outcome, voting is only useful to those who wish to flip your votes to their chosen candidates to make it appear as if those candidates were democratically elected and have the support of the people.

What do you think you've accomplished when you vote for a third party candidate and the results come in showing no votes for that candidate in your precinct, but a much higher vote for the two major party candidates than was expected?

Ever watch a chessmaster play fifty simultaneous chess games against lesser players and win them all? The chess novice reacts to each move, whereas the chessmaster has hundreds of games memorized and thinks four to eight moves ahead. I see the same thing at work in our election system.

When the candidates are pre-selected and the votes are counted secretly, the real problem isn't who people vote for, because the choices are limited and the votes are easily flipped from one candidate to another, the real problem is getting people to vote in such rigged elections.

Right now half the U.S. electorate doesn't vote. The only poll that ever asked them, since most pollsters just hang up on nonvoters, a Zogby poll commissioned by Paul Lehto, found that the reason people don't vote isn't apathy but the exact opposite of apathy--they don't feel that anyone on the ballot would represent their interests and they care enough about their own interests not to vote for people who won't represent them, cannot be held accountable, or have no chance of winning and would have too little Congressional support to accomplish anything if they did.

But those who don't care or don't think are easily stampeded into voting and the two-party system spends millions of dollars (usually between $8 and $10 per vote) in presidential election years trying to get out the vote. That doesn't count all the other millions that are spent trying to frighten people into voting.

An example where I live in California is that two right-wing millionaires have put a twice-failed parental notification initiative back on the ballot. They know it will fail for a third time, but they are spending millions to frighten pro-choice voters into getting out and voting against the measure so that their candidate votes can be flipped to one of the two anti-choice major parties. In other words, if they can scare people into voting against something, they can flip those votes to ensure a candidate (and Supreme Court) that will do the opposite of what the voters want.

Voter suppression efforts are similar. There is no need to suppress the vote as was done in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. Both Gore and Kerry conceded before the votes were counted and the popular vote is totally irrelevant. But by actively suppressing the vote they panic people into fighting for the right to vote in rigged elections where their votes don't count anyway, or can be counted against them.

Nobody fought for our right to vote in rigged elections. The fight was for our right to a voice in government. Uncounted or miscounted votes are not a voice in government.

It is sad to see how the political chessmasters expertly manipulate the masses. Why say that not voting has no effect and then present no logical arguments whatsoever to substantiate that statement? The fact that half the electorate doesn't vote already has had an effect, in that it demonstrates that this government has, at most, the support of only half the people. With even less support, they'd have even less credibility and legitimacy.

If enough people boycotted the election, the government would have no credibility or legitimacy at all. It was an election boycott that finally discredited the Apartheid regime in South Africa when they held an election and almost no one voted. But that was because most South Africans did not support Apartheid. Those Americans who support torture, wars of aggression, job outsourcing, taxing only the poor, illegal wiretapping, and other bipartisan policies, are likely to continue to vote because they don't care which candidates their votes are flipped to, they just want to show their support for the status quo. It is inexplicable to me that somebody who claims to oppose the status quo, would continue to vote for it.

 

 

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments) on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 at 5:04:14 PM
 

Not voting agreement but more than that needed

I have not voted since 1998 and, as I have written before here at OEN, I have no intention of doing so unless and until there is the option to vote "None of the Above" and/or "Abolish the Office". The only exception to this would be on a referendum that explicitly addresses the issue of reducing or removing government regulations. Since it is unlikely that either of these options will appear on a ballot anytime soon, I have no idea when or if ever I will cast another ballot in a government election.

As I wrote in my comment at "Celebrating UnPresident's Day" in February:

I won't be voting in the 2008 elections either. But then I haven't voted since 1998 having since then become convinced that the entire system is even more than a farce. While the US started off as the best of what existed for a society, it was flawed from its inception, which inevitably produced the massive problems that are present today. See "Return to the Constitution?!? "

You write: "If enough people boycotted the election, the government would have no credibility or legitimacy at all....It is inexplicable to me that somebody who claims to oppose the status quo, would continue to vote for it."
I most definitely agree with the first. And I would very much like to see the sources of the statistics you state regarding the numbers of actual nonvoters in the USA at this time - " Right now half the U.S. electorate doesn't vote.". I have searched online in the past (not exhaustively I admit) and have found no real numbers. Also, I have not found Zogby Poll results themselves that cover the subject of eligible voter apathy, but rather only blogs or articles stating that such were the results. Neither the words "apathy" or "nonvoter" turned up any results at www.zogby.com So please provide the links in both cases.

As for the last part of your ending paragraph, those who oppose the status quo need to understand what is really the problem in the US (and other industrialized countries) and what is needed for an orderly society. From my observations, the majority of the opposers do not understand either of these areas and many do not even realize that this knowledge is a necessity. The time that they spend reading and viewing the election campaigns could be used on doing just this. I suggest by starting with the idea that the nature of human beings does not automatically lead to the conclusion that individuals must be ruled by others in order that there be orderly interactions between them. Society, just like any other natural system can be naturally self-regulating by means of interactions between its members, if only humans seeks to discover and are allowed to implement the methods by which such self-regulation can be effective, rather than continuing to embrace social systems that need to be constantly held in an unnatural (and very non-optimal) state of balance by the operations of their rulers and other influencers. Individual self-order without rule by others is the social system whose members are humans, who have become fully adult. Just as people can become physical adults, so can they become social adults - if only they are allowed (and even required in the sense that they will not achieve their desires unless they do) to socially mature sufficiently.


**Kitty Antonik Wakfer

MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org
Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality
Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org
Self-sovereignty, rational pursuit of optimal lifetime happiness,
individual responsibility, social preferencing & social contracting

by Kitty Antonik Wakfer (22 articles, 4 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 128 comments) on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 at 10:07:10 PM
 

I'm sorry I don't have the link, Kitty.

The Zogby poll was commissioned by Paul Lehto. His member page here is:

click here he doesn't seem to have posted in a long time. You could try googling. I think he may have a website, but I'm not sure of the URL.

As for the statistic that half the electorate doesn't vote, I don't have a source for that either, I've just seen it cited numerous times.

 

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments) on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 1:23:38 AM
 

Oops, that link didn't work.

Try looking in the member archives or googling.

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments) on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 1:33:01 AM
 

Would you please elaborate

I don't understand this.  What does it mean to "flip" a vote?

"An example where I live in California is that two right-wing millionaires have put a twice-failed parental notification initiative back on the ballot. They know it will fail for a third time, but they are spending millions to frighten pro-choice voters into getting out and voting against the measure so that their candidate votes can be flipped to one of the two anti-choice major parties. In other words, if they can scare people into voting against something, they can flip those votes to ensure a candidate (and Supreme Court) that will do the opposite of what the voters want. "

by Nick van Nes (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 202 comments) on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 12:24:04 AM
 

Sure, Nick.

You know that software programs tell computers what to do, and that the central tabulators that count 80% of all U.S. votes are computers, right?

Okay, suppose instead of a central tabulator we were going to let my personal computer count the votes in a little election as to whether you or I are going to pay for dinner for us and ten of our mutual friends, and everyone in on the deal gets to vote, okay?

But let's say that before the gang came over to my place, I had written a little program for my computer (which is why I suggested that we vote on who gets to pay). My program tells the computer to set up an election program when I tell it to, and to allow two names to be entered as candidates, yours and mine. But I wrote the program so that when somebody votes for me, it shows on the monitor that a vote was cast for me, and it counts that vote for me so that when it adds up the results, every vote cast for me is also tallied for me. But I wrote the program so that when somebody casts a vote for you, it shows on the monitor that a vote was cast for you, but every other vote cast for you will be flipped (counted for me instead of for you) when the computer tallies the results.

We let everyone cast a private vote, which means that nobody else looks at the computer monitor screen when a person votes. I have the monitor turned away from the room so that only the person voting can see it. Each one can see that the computer recorded their vote as cast, but nobody can see how the computer tallies the results.

Now suppose we each vote for ourselves and we're equally popular among our mutual friends, so five vote for you and five vote for me. That means we each get six votes and it should be a tie, so we'd split the tab and both pay for dinner. Only my program is going to show the results that I got half of the votes that were actually cast for you, because I wrote the program to flip half of your votes to me. So when we ask the computer for the results, it says that I got nine votes and you only got three, and since loser pays for dinner, you're stuck with the tab.

You may suspect something was wrong and demand a recount, but I'd just laugh and call you a sore loser who doesn't want to pay for dinner. You can't examine my computer to see if I wrote a program to flip the votes, so you're just stuck with the tab.

That's how our elections work.

If you want to know more about it, I'd suggest reading some of the sources cited at the end of this little essay:

Consensual Political Intercourse

The clip of Clint Curtis testifying before Congress at the end of this little country song also is about vote flipping, but it allows people to think that votes can only be flipped if the race is close. That isn't true. The programmer can have the machine allocate any proportion of the total vote to whichever candidate they want.

Before computers, sometimes corrupt elections officials would take all the ballots into a back room, lock the door, pretend to count the votes, and then come out and announce the "results." Now the ballots are counted by computers and it is no different. We have no way of knowing if the computer counted the votes accurately or not and there are many instances when we found out later that they had not, but it was too late to do anything about it.

Once the media announces the machine "results" of an election, that candidate is considered to be the winner and their opponent either concedes graciously or is called a sore loser and can't prove that they won anyway. Once the candidate is sworn into office, only Congress can remove them and Congress usually doesn't like to do that. The last few Federal Election Contests that I know of that were filed with Congress by candidates claiming their elections had been stolen, were dismissed without anyone even bothering to look at the evidence. But when computer programs are involved, the program that alters the results can also erase itself after the damage is done, so even forensic computer experts wouldn't be able to prove that the election had been stolen.

Another interesting video you can find on the site that I linked is the trailer for Free For All.

And there are many articles about election fraud right here on opednews -- a recent one is about Dorothy Fadiman's new documentary posted by editor Joan Brunwasser.

 

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments) on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 2:11:04 AM
 

No Choices?

vote... green party - gp.org
if any party gets 5%+, becoming an official "major party", then they get public funding and less obstruction
there are 13 candidates on ballot lines for 20 parties, not just 2, so there are real choices
it just requires people who feel the republicrats don't offer choices to choose another choice
to not vote is to support the republicrat lack of choices

by monte letourneau (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 5 comments) on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 1:50:18 AM
 

That would be a great idea, Monte....

....but only if we had honest elections.

What has been happening in our elections since 2000, and you can check with any third party or independent candidate who has run in any election since then, is that the programmers seem to have programmed the central tabulators to use votes cast for third party and independent candidates to "smooth the spread" when the computers reallocate the votes.

Third party and independent candidates are usually astonished to find themselves getting lots of votes in areas of the country where they have little or no support, and few or no votes in areas of the country where they are known to have strong support.

If you could be sure that your vote would be tallied for the same candidate you voted for, it would be a good idea to vote for whichever candidate you felt would best represent you, even if they didn't have a chance of getting elected, because it would show that they have support. But in rigged elections like ours, you can't know who your vote will be flipped to, so it isn't a good idea to vote at all, unless you don't care who your vote is given to.

Ask any third party or independent candidate about this phenomenon. If they're honest, they'll tell you that they can't explain why they didn't get any votes in areas where people donated heavily to their campaigns, volunteered with their campaigns, and swore that they'd voted for them, and they got lots of support in areas of the country where they had no known supporters and nobody registered with their party.

If there are too many votes for the major party candidate who has been pre-selected to "win," some will be flipped to the other candidate and some will be distributed among third party and independent candidates. If there aren't enough votes for the major party candidate who has been pre-selected to "win," votes will be taken from third party and independent candidates and given to the candidate that needs them. It is all in the programming.

If you care about who you're voting for, you won't vote in faith-based elections.

 

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments) on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 2:30:20 AM
 

So don't vote, nobody will know or care

I agree with the idea of not voting making this system invalid. However just as they control who the candidates are by the manipulation of information, so can they make it so that we would never know if none or very few voted. In other words if there was a general strike on voting we would never hear about it except in places like this, but certainly not in the MSM. In this system the control by the elite is total and making them irrelevant is the only solution.

by arlen custer (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 288 comments) on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 8:18:22 AM
 

How to give up your right to complain.

Voting is the only voice we have individually unless you have a LOT of money to give to campaigns.  True we don't always get choices that make us happy but you can always write in your neighbor's name, or your own!

The one thing I always say about voting or not voting is that if you don't vote, you have given up your right to complain. 

If you vote for the winner, you can complain if they don't live up to your expectation. If you voted for the loser you can complain that the wrong person is in office. 

When you vote for no one, you have silenced yourself...how does that help you or anyone else? What do your words mean if you took no action to back them?

The answer is to vote wisely. Choose the lesser of two evils if necessary, but at least preserve the fact that you participated, hanging on to your right to complain.

My idea is to vote for new guy and throw them all out of office.

by Paul Kruger (33 articles, 1 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 275 comments) on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 11:16:56 AM
 

We can

not vote. But that smatters of just giving up when I could send a message.

While voting is not our only recourse, it is our major lawful one. What these two major parties do not realize, is that they are promoting frustration and anger in the populace, which could well lead to extra-legal means of redress. They should know full well what that means, as they use the extra-legal means so often themselves.

It is about time it became our turn at bat. Time to organize educated  poll watchers,  educate the public as much as we can, letters to the editor, internet, personal contact.

We have already made them very nervous, so let's try for a case of post election PTSD for the major party SOB's who are trying to run every aspect of our lives. 

And vote Green just to tick them off. 

by Jack Harrington (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 428 comments) on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 1:06:02 PM
 

Arlen, Paul, and Jack:

 

Arlen, U.S. presidential elections are covered by the foreign media as well as the corporate-owned U.S. media. Even a slighly lower turnout in November than there was in the primaries would make news worldwide and could only be suppressed in the mainstream media here, not in the alternative media.

Paul, the writers of our Declaration of Independence included a lengthy list of complaints, but they had not yet formed a government, and had not voted in an election. The right to complain of injustice is an inalienable right that no government can grant or take away. Thinking that you only get the right to complain if you vote in rigged elections is illogical thinking and a disgrace to this country's founders. Read the Declaration of Indepence again, Paul, and think about it. When there is injustice, it is not only our inalienable right to complain, but it is our duty and responsibility to establish justice.

Jack, I don't think I need to repeat myself for a third time just because you commented without bothering to read the discussion first. Voting Green, Libertarian, or any other third party, or writing in Mickey Mouse, doesn't tick off the central tabulators that count the votes. They're machines. They don't have emotions. They reallocate the votes the way they are programmed to do and it doesn't matter who those votes were cast for, they are counted according to the instructions encoded in their software. It DOES tick off third party and independent candidates when they get a lot of votes in areas of the country where they have no registered voters and no known supporters, because they know those votes were reallocated from a major party candidate when the central tabulators shaved that vote, just as it ticks them off when they get no votes or only a few votes in areas of the country where they have many registered voters and a lot of strong support, because they know that people voted for them and those votes were reallocated to a different candidate when the central tabulators smoothed the spread.

I may be wasting my time here, as the problem may not be failure to read before posting or a lack of reading comprehension skills. It might just be that some people need to post slogans and nonsense for whatever reason, to support their political party, as part of the job they're paid to do, or just to be disruptive. I don't think that my explanations were unclear or difficult to understand. Maybe some people just don't want to understand, but I didn't write anything that would be too complex for anyone with at least an 80 I.Q. and third grade reading skills. From Rob's fledgling demographics, it seems to me that many opednews readers are way at the other end of the bell curve with higher than average I.Q.'s and post-graduate level reading and comprehension skills.

 

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments) on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 2:39:07 PM
 

Oh yeah and BTW

And you might have read my comment before wandering off into the wilderness yourself.

by Jack Harrington (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 428 comments) on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 10:49:44 PM
 

Well Mark

It is your ignorance that is showing. I live in a paper ballot, hand counted state.

I do not need your inanities or put downs, nor, I suspect, do the rest of us. Just because you like to see your name in print does not mean you are putting anything particularly meaningful, out there.

I was just having a little fun with a spare few minutes and gouging the majors where I could but you take yourself so seriously that fun does not seem to be in your ballpark.

As to intelligence, we will leave that one open. I know where I think you lay, and I know what you have for a level of tolerance for others.

Just saying.

And oh, BTW, I did read the original. Did not bother to read your stuff.

by Jack Harrington (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 428 comments) on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 10:47:51 PM
 

To Any Of The Above

The elite control the media in other countries too, not just here. On the issue of voting I agree with George Carlin on this one. " There is no real difference between the candidates so if you vote for any of them, you are responsible for the crap they do. By not voting I am not responsible for their crap and have a right to complain about what they do"

by arlen custer (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 288 comments) on Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 8:19:55 AM
 

Vote Flipping and the Idea of Not Voting

The idea of voting machines not registering the intended votes of voters is certainly a scary one.  It occurs to me sometimes to be this cynical about the way in which those in power "manage" me, and my fellow members of the masses.  I think that it underlines the picture of Congress as the World Wrestling Federation in suits.  To have the same party win all of the time would probably generate too much suspicion.  But the results are always predetermined when it's all for show.

I wonder if America's votes in "Pop Idol" are being manipulated as well!!  Thank God I don't care about THAT!

Still, not to vote is easily ignored.  I worry that those who don't vote out of conscientious objection are counted among those who don't vote out of laziness, apathy, or inability to learn to register and find their polling place.

Even if the voting system is broken (and I live in Florida, so I'm also thinking it IS broken) I still think of the Founding Fathers and the principles of the  Preamble to the Constitution when I vote. 

It could be that I need to spend the other 3 years of the presidential election cycle being an activist against voting fraud. 

Not to vote at all as a way of protesting says only one thing to me.  It says "everything is wrong and my solution is to sit on my hands until someone else fixes it".  Even if your vote doesn't count the way you intended it to, the act of voting itself says that you're still here, and you're still a citizen, you're still a believer in the REAL United States of America.

After all, I know that Chris Rice and I agree when I say that when you're choosing between the candidates that ARE being offered, it doesn't matter WHICH one is "elected".

Let's work together to preserve honest voting results, and proper choices among the candidates.  Consumer Strike.  Buy used.  Wear last decade's clothing and drive last decade's car model PROUDLY.  Be willing to make sacrifices even more important than these to preserve freedom in America.

 

 

by Catherine Willikers (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments) on Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 8:54:49 AM