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June 9, 2008 at 10:23:40
Promoted to Headline (H2) on 6/9/08: by Jonathan Simon Page 1 of 4 page(s) |
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Jonathan Simon and Bruce O'Dell, Election Defense Alliance Summary Statement We present evidence supporting the hypothesis that systematic attempts are being made to manipulate the results of the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination contest, through overt means such as crossover voting by non-Democrats, and through covert means targeted at the electronic vote tabulation process itself. The net effect has been to prolong the nomination battle and sharpen its negativity, thereby boosting the prospects of the Republican nominee and making more plausible his "victory" in November-either by an honest count, or through continued exploitation of the proven security vulnerabilities in American voting systems. Introduction 
Perhaps John McCain is, as Humphrey Bogart says of the young Bulgarian who wins the money for his family's exit visa at the roulette table in Casablanca, "just a lucky guy." Lucky that the Democrats find themselves locked into a protracted primary season inexorable in its dynamics and increasingly destructive in its impact. Lucky that Hillary Clinton has been magically revived each time she has found herself on electoral life support, to assume a position just far enough behind Barack Obama to be induced to resort to desperate measures and increasingly-negative ads, yet not so far behind as to be forced to bow out. Lucky that dynamics ostensibly out of McCain's control have combined to give him such material assistance.
Perhaps. But there is compelling evidence that something other than luck is at work. With 82% of Americans polled convinced the nation is on the wrong track, self-destruction by the Democratic party is the only remaining credible means by which, come 2008, the GOP could sustain the perpetual rule envisioned by Karl Rove. (Rove, of course, has hardly retired and is now working from home, beyond the reach of the mandatory email backup system installed at the White House just before he left to "spend time with his family.") The goal of Democratic party self-destruction in 2008 could most reliably be brought to pass by one progression of events, one choreography: if a candidate, Hilary Clinton, known for her sense of entitlement, lifelong ambition, tenacity-and willingness to go negative-could be placed and kept in a desperate but not quite hopeless position, the result would follow, quite predictably.
What the mainstream media have now set up and trumpeted as an epic "blood feud" in the Democratic Party, whether or not it actually undermines the party's prospects in November, will certainly pre-establish a plausible "explanation" for the defeat of whoever the Democratic nominee turns out to be. The same is true for US Senate and House races, where Democrats are heavily favored to expand their majorities, given the large number of open seats this November that were formerly held by Republican incumbents and a string of recent special election victories. But Democratic congressional candidates in both houses are arguably now facing the prospect of negative coattails. By setting the stage for post-election "spin" for the Presidential and congressional races in November, any outcome-determinative electoral manipulations would become much less "shocking", and that much less likely to trigger investigation and ultimate detection.
This jaundiced overview of the Democratic primary season[1] is unfortunately supported by a body of evidence that goes well beyond the odd anomaly or two. When we examine-as the media has steadfastly refused to do-the numbers and disparities discovered in a parade of key states that determined the path the Democratic contest has taken to date, we find a telling pattern. This pattern is consistent with a tactical manipulation of the primary election vote counts in the service of the strategic choreography alluded to above: keeping Clinton in the race and desperate.
There are sound reasons why the Clinton campaign itself is not among the suspects: if Clinton's campaign or supporters had the capacity and the will to alter election outcomes, it is reasonable to conclude that she would have won, or at least be ahead in, the race; and the ownership and operation of electronic voting equipment remains almost exclusively in the secretive hands of vendors (Diebold/Premier, ES&S, Hart, and Sequoia) with avowedly right-wing Republican political sympathies.
Our examination includes the Democratic primaries in the following key states: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, each of which had surprising and unexpected results. In each of these critical elections there was a significant pro-Clinton disparity when comparing pre-election surveys and Election Day exit polls against the official vote counts.
1/8/08: New HampshireThis was the first of the "must-wins" for Clinton. She went into New Hampshire on the heels of an embarrassing third-place finish in Iowa and a 20%+ defeat in Wyoming, had lost momentum, and was trailing by substantial margins in every pre-election poll in the Granite state (the range was from 5% to 13%, with Obama's and Clinton's internal polling both also showing a double-digit Obama margin). Observers consistently reported Obama rallies that were far larger and more enthusiastic. There was no sign of a Clinton groundswell. Yet on Election Night the voters apparently changed their minds, and gave her a 3% victory.
The media pundits scratched their collective heads and scrambled to explain this stunning reversal, which would have been remarkable enough if it had been a double-digit shift from a single reputable tracking poll, but was truly staggering when viewed against the backdrop of the entire phalanx of tracking polls. There was palpable grasping at straws-but never even a hint that perhaps the polls had it right and something was wrong with the vote counts.
Nor was there a mention that the first posted National Election Pool (NEP) exit poll had Obama ahead 39.4% to 38.1%, while earlier unposted NEP exit polls put Obama further ahead. The first posted exit poll was already weighted to a carefully calibrated demographic profile of the electorate, and therefore as reliable an indicator of voter intent as is available. Indeed, that first-posted exit poll may already have been partially adjusted toward conformity with the incoming vote counts, thereby understating the apparent exit poll-vote count disparity. That exit poll was largely spot-on for the other candidates; only Clinton and Obama's exit poll numbers shifted significantly as votes were tabulated.
The mainstream media also did not mention the extraordinary disparity between votes that were counted by hand (Obama + 6.5% head-to-head with Clinton) and those tabulated by computerized optical scan devices (Clinton + 5.5% head-to-head with Obama). Although the counting method (machine vs. hand) was not strictly homogeneously distributed throughout the state, neither was it clustered in such a way that would readily explain the huge statistical disparity in results.
When considering benign reasons for such surprising and unexpected outcomes, conventional explanations all begin and end with the unquestioned belief that the computerized vote counts are valid. Quite an assumption in light of the parade of anomalies, disparities, and machine failures witnessed nationwide since the advent and proliferation of computerized vote counting. Official election results are assumed valid, even though the votes are tabulated by secret software[2] concealed on memory cards immune to inspection and under the strict proprietary control of an outsourced corporate vendor; in New Hampshire, the vendor is LHS, about which unanswered questions abound.
In an on-going epilogue, the New Hampshire primary remains under scrutiny. Investigators are amassing detailed evidence of pervasive mistabulation, focused in certain counties. On the Democratic side, there were an alarming number of polling sites reporting more votes than voters. Recounting was rendered effectively useless by a nonexistent chain of custody, which permitted more than ample opportunity for ballot substitution and revision. Memory cards were reported as having been erased and were never made available to investigators. Even something as basic as a reconciliation of the number of ballots delivered to number of ballots voted, spoiled, and uncast was lacking. Nor was there reconciliation of number of voters checked in at the polls to number of ballots cast.
www.ElectionDefenseAlliance.org
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Stalin, anyone?
Holy Cow! Thanks for writing this article - I knew it was bad, but this is awful. We've got to go back to plain old hand counted paper ballots - and make it a neighborhood affair - to count the votes in a totally transparent way. Hope for a Change this year -- we need a veritable Tsunami of voters for Obama. NO MORE reThugs. Thanks again - I'll try to spread the link around. by AllDems08 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 90 comments) on Monday, Jun 9, 2008 at 11:26:32 AM  (0+)
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AGREE and DISAGREE
I do not at ALL doubt that the Democratic Primary process might have been manipulated to keep it "close" in the hopes that such a result would benefit the Reghuglican candidate. That said, this did not have to be a successful strategy. If the two Democratic candidates (Obama and Clinton) had been going at it day-after-day saying "Vote for me, because I will be a great candiate to stop this Republican madness, because John McCain is an insane right-win neo-con who will bring another four years of miserable and failed Bush policies to the white house, and we must defeat John McCain in November and expose his lies, flip-flops, and total inability to govern" then that would have meant TWO people saying that every day to John McCain's ONE. That would have had the MESSAGE that the eventual front-runner would have had to get out being GOTTEN out starting in April, rather than June. It was Hillary Clinton and her inside-the-beltway, old-school-thinking, DCCC, SCCC, DNC advisors who had her out there fighting and saying negative things about OBAMA when she should have been DEFENDING OBAMA at every turn and ATTACKING McCain. Yes, the Rethuglicans probably KNEW Clinton would act in a self-serving and anti-Democratic-Party way, but still, it was HER decision. The strategy worked because one of the two candidates LET it work, otherwise it could have backfired, giving the Democrats a 2-1 (Really 3-1, as the media covers Bill equally with Hillary) advantage in the media game. by Charlie L (2 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 747 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Jun 9, 2008 at 1:19:51 PM (0+)
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Secret Vote Counting is Unconstitutional and Unreliable!!!
Dr. Simon's analysis of the disparities between the polls and the official "counts" shows that the most logical explanation is that the secret vote counting computers are being used to manipulate the outcome of our elections! That may explain why secret vote counting is unconstitutional. For more information, see Project Vote Count’s Election News at http://www.projectvotecount.com/ElectionNews.aspx My article, "Virginia’s Elections Are UNCONSTITUTIONAL?!?!" includes a link in my comment to a video of my conversation with election officials in Virginia who pretend not to understand that computers count in secret. They say no one ever even thought of that. Yeah, right!?! It also includes a link to my letters to each candidate asking them to take action to require that our elections be conducted in a constitutional manner. Naturally, not a single one took action. In addition, it cites U.S. Supreme Court decisions which hold that the right to vote includes the right to make sure your vote is counted. How can you do that when your vote is counted in secret and the courts and even Congress refuse to allow evidence to be presented in election contests? For more on that, see http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mark_ada_070919_how_to_take_action_o.htm by Mark Adams (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 312 comments [39 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Jun 9, 2008 at 3:26:25 PM (0+)
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So we are clear...
Ciao, CZ by steve scheetz (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 829 comments [52 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Jun 9, 2008 at 7:24:54 PM (0+)
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Reply: It's a Hard Case to Make
Gore was defeated by a Supreme Court that was determined to put Bush in the White House. You can play through all kinds of what if's (e.g., if only Nader had not run in Florida; if only the butterfly ballot had not been used; ...) but it really is hard to say what would have happened in each case. In point of fact, Florida had no practical way in their laws for a candidate to request a recount of the entire state; it would have to be a separate request for each precinct. No doubt, the Republican noise machine would have had a field day if Gore had issued several hundred requests for recounts. by PrMaine (13 articles, 13 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 510 comments [22 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Monday, Jun 9, 2008 at 7:42:12 PM (0+)
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Reply: It is not a hard case to make.
He was shot down by the Supreme Court because he requested a re-count in certain precincts of florida, which is against the law, according to the Supreme Court. Had he requested a full recount of the entire state, he would have gotten it, he would NOT have even had to go to court to GET IT, because of how close Florida happened to be. AND we all know, from all accounts, that had Florida been recounted, in its entirety, Al Gore would be president. That wasn't difficult at all... ;-) Ciao, CZ by steve scheetz (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 829 comments [52 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Jun 10, 2008 at 7:57:04 AM (0+)
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Reply: It's Never Hard if You Ignore Reality
The reality is that the Supreme court was looking for an excuse, any excuse. Given another set of circumstances they would have found a different excuse, but they would nevertheless have found an excuse to make sure that their candidate won. At that time, the Florida Supreme court had already ordered a recount of the entire state of Florida, even though that is not what Gore had requested. The Supreme court ruled that any recount would have caused irreparable harm to Bush. That's probably true, since it would have shown him to have lost. At the time of the Federal Supreme court decision, it was not an issue whether the recount was to be of part of Florida or of all of Florida. If you want to argue that this was an error on the part of the Gore campaign, argue that asking for a full recount would have been a more defensible position politically. That is an arguable position, though there were practical problems that made them decide otherwise. by PrMaine (13 articles, 13 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 510 comments [22 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Tuesday, Jun 10, 2008 at 11:30:57 AM (0+)
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Reply: I could swear
that was the point I made. SCOTUS could not have stood in the way of a full recount in Florida, particularly given how close the vote count. Ciao, CZ by steve scheetz (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 829 comments [52 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Jun 11, 2008 at 7:36:54 AM (0+)
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Reply: I could swear
that was exactly the point I made. SCOTUS did stand in the way of a full recount in Florida, despite the close vote count and despite any claimed errors on the part of Gore. by PrMaine (13 articles, 13 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 510 comments [22 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Wednesday, Jun 11, 2008 at 6:36:52 PM (0+)
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Reply: well, you are wrong.
Seven justices (the five Justice majority plus Breyer and Souter) agreed that there was an Equal Protection Clause violation in using different standards of counting in different counties. The Supreme Court held that there needed to be ONE standard for counting the ballots in the State.. Meaning that if one county was hand counted, they ALL had to be hand counted... Gore did not ask for the whole state to be hand counted, because he thought he would LOSE... Ironicially, that decision cost him the election win.. Ciao, CZ by steve scheetz (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 829 comments [52 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 9:10:02 PM (0+)
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Reply: We Will Have to Agree to Disagree
I think it comes down to the fact that, along with most other people in the world, I believe that Bush v. Gore was a partisan exercise by a disfunctional Supreme Court in disregard of the law, past precidents and their own philosophy of law. You appear to believe, in contrast, that the Supreme Court acted honorably in Bush v. Gore with due regard to the law and past precidents. You seem to be in agreement with most die-hard Republicans that Gore is at fault, probably without regard to the issue. These are probably irresolvable differences. by PrMaine (13 articles, 13 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 510 comments [22 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 13, 2008 at 10:40:59 AM (0+)
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Reply: To be quite honest
I would have been happy to see the entire state recounted by hand, and simply put the matter to bed one way or another. Gore could not have been a worse preznit than the current preznit, so I can't agree that I am in agreement with die hard republicans.... However, to me, the standard as to whether they were partisan or not is irrelevant considering that there were 7 in agreement that the law was in fact the way that it was... I don't always agree with the Supreme Court, but the equal protection ruling was right on given the wording of the 14th Amendment... Until that is changed, that is the way it is. Anyway, Again, Gore would have won had the hand recount been applied to the whole state, and that is that... I know we can agree on that, because that is documented fact. Anyway, on the other, if you want to agree to disagree, that is fine, though I still think I can persuade you to my way of thinking! :-D Ciao, CZ by steve scheetz (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 829 comments [52 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 13, 2008 at 3:53:05 PM (0+)
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My calculation reinforces Jonathan's already strong case.
What a terrific article by Jonathan Simon! Kudos! He must have spent hundreds of hours gathering pre-polling and exit-poll results for the critical states New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and demonstrating that the official vote counts in each case displayed surprising and unexpected pro-Clinton disparities. By January of this year, I had just developed a mathematical analysis of the disparities between the early balloting and at-the-precinct voting (no polling needed in this case) in the 2004 presidential Election in Arizona Legislative District 27 comprising about 80,000 registered voters, using public data obtained by my friend John Brakey by FOIA request. This analysis calculated the probabilities of these disparities being accidental (as in no rigging) and found them to be highly improbable. It was to have been part of my chapter for the new book edited by Mark Crispin Miller, entitled Loser Take All – Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000 – 2008. But at the last moment it was cut by the publisher for length considerations. (I want to say, however, that to their credit the part they did publish still tells a large part of the story without any distortion). So when I heard of the totally bizarre disparity between the hand-counted and machine-counted ballots in the Obama-Clinton contest in New Hampshire (well described by Jonathan), I decided to apply my binomial analysis to calculate the probability of this having happened by accident. And essentially I found that probability to be a number so close to zero that it can't be conveniently looked up in a table: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_david_gr_080131_was_the_new_hampshir.htm by David Griscom (11 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 51 comments [28 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Jun 9, 2008 at 8:26:21 PM (0+)
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David, your concurrance has great weight
Excellent! by Michael Collins (130 articles, 20 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 485 comments [42 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Jun 9, 2008 at 8:46:14 PM (0+)
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Excellent and vital piece of analysis
Thank you! This is first rate. I've got questions about the exit polls but I suspect that they're doing much better than they did in 2004 with theire claimed 66% increase in "big city" turnout (impossible). In any event, they are the point of comparison with the "faith based" vote totals announced by localities and states. Based on your insightful, power packed statement, lets see what follows. "we have observed to date no battleground state primary with a significant[4] exit poll-vote count disparity in Obama's favor." Simon 1) Flawed polls/polling technique: If they've not gotten their at together, there would be some errors in Obama's favor and some in Clintons. There are only "errors" in Clinton's favor. Flawed polls/polling techniques is ruled out due to uniform benefit for one candidate. 2. Lets say that since 2004, the polling organization has been fixed and runs at peak efficiency. Now we're just dealing with random errors in polling - 1 in 20 or whatever the confidence interval is. We would not expect major discrepancies at all, except in maybe one case, given the total number of primaries. But what we saw was exit poll results out pacing Obama's reported totals in every case. Random polling error is ruled out. 3. There are only three options left. This one is simple - the polling company just likes Obama and exaggerates his exit poll totals. Not at all likely. 4. "The Bradley effect" - The exit polls are private. Why would anyone agreeing to participate not assume privacy unless they didn't care (in which case "Bradley" doesn't apply). Given the assumption of privacy and the acceptability to the public, in the broadest sense, of either candidate, there's no Bradley effect likely. 5. Finally, given the above, on primary day in every instance where Obama's exit poll numbers were higher than his vote count, the laws of statistics, mathematics, etc. were suspended and God intervened in behalf of Hillary Clinton. Silly isn't it, but that's what we're left with. There is more than enough evidence here to seriously doubt the vote count in many of these states. Also, there's no clear way to examine that process or the technology to achieve vote totals. We're left with our well justified suspicions that it's a rigged game to favor whomever is doing the rigging. We don't know but we can narrow the usual list of suspects by asking who benefits (which does not provide a solution but narrows the field). Outstanding work. Thank you. by Michael Collins (130 articles, 20 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 485 comments [42 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Jun 9, 2008 at 8:48:03 PM (0+)
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Reply: There IS a way to find out who is doing the rigging!
Thank you, Michael, for your huge contributions to uncovering election fraud in these United States. …there's no clear way to examine that process or the technology to achieve vote totals. We're left with our well justified suspicions that it's a rigged game to favor whomever is doing the rigging. We don't know but we can narrow the usual list of suspects… Here you’ve given me an opportunity to reveal to the world a great triumph by my friends back in Tucson, particularly Bill Risner, John Brakey, and Jim March. John began by making FOIA requests for the election-computer data bases and soon began to discover irregularities. Attorney Bill Risner accordingly filed a civil suit against the Pima County Elections Department and, as an “officer of the court,” carried evidence of possible criminal activity to the Arizona Attorney General (who whitewashed it). See short history here: http://impactglassman.blogspot.com/2007/12/concise-history-of-election-integrity.html But recently Bill won his civil case …BIG TIME! Pima County was ordered to release elections databases going back to 1998 to the political parties and pay $228,000 in legal fees to the attorney for the Democratic Party (Bill), which sued the county to force the records' release. Moreover, the Pima Board of Supervisors (BOS) dropped their idea of appealing this decision: http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/fromcomments/242129.php http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/87120.php I hasten to mention that, while the suit was formally on behalf of the Pima Democratic Party, its demand was that the election-computer data bases should be turned over to ALL major parties. Moreover, as you can read in the first link I give above, the short history began with Republicans getting the notion that their primaries were being stolen …and not liking it. In fact, a number of Republicans were fully behind this suit. In particular, Republican BOS member Ray Carroll played an absolutely pivotal roll in convincing the BOS not to appeal: http://www.soundandfury.tv/pages/brakey.html #:-) by David Griscom (11 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 51 comments [28 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Jun 10, 2008 at 10:12:49 AM (0+)
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Democratic Primaries Maipulated?
Very well said, Jonathon and I loved the final statement about junking the machines and returning to hand counted paper ballots. Saying that publicly takes great courage for which you must be commended! Proprietary software- driven counting machines have no place in our democracy. by Judith Conoyer (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 9 comments) on Monday, Jun 9, 2008 at 10:13:05 PM (0+)
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The System that Should Be..
Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000168 EndHTML:0000001271 StartFragment:0000000489 EndFragment:0000001254 The hand counted ballot is probably the best method although we must face facts, the computer is here to stay. Using that fact the absolute best system for gathering and tallying the votes is a system called seeVote. This system not only counts the votes but provides an internal audit to assure accuracy, verifies the vote by providing a printed receipt for the voter, tabulates the vote and then provides further verification to the voter that his/her vote was recorded as they intended. I direct your attention to http://www.seeVote.com to give you a first hand examination of this process. by Dennis Kaiser (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 35 diaries, 730 comments [137 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Jun 10, 2008 at 5:42:21 AM (0+)
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Re: SeeVote
Blackbox Voting has been discussing SeeVote - follow this Link to see their analysis: - This system allows secret vote counting by AllDems08 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 90 comments) on Wednesday, Jun 11, 2008 at 11:08:15 PM (0+)
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