Hey guys. I'm trying to find:

1) Barbara Boxer making a statement on (i think) Jan 6, 2005, when the votes were being certified.

2) any footage of the December 8, 2004 hearings put on by John Conyers.

Thanks in advance if you have either of these.

The Election's Last Gasp
A NY Times Editorial.

Congressional Democrats staged an unusual protest yesterday when Senator Barbara Boxer of California and Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio objected to certifying the results of the 2004 election. Supporters of the defeated (and absent) John Kerry then spent two hours making speeches, most of which began with the declaration that George W. Bush had definitely won.

It could not have been a totally satisfactory afternoon for the president's angry supporters or for the conspiracy theorists who still believe that Bush operatives managed to steal Ohio's electoral votes. The final count showed that Mr. Bush had won the state by more than 100,000 votes, and the Democrats who rose to complain about the process prefaced their remarks by saying things like "the irregularities in Ohio would not have overturned the results."

But the Democrats were right to call attention to the defects in the system. Our elections need to do more than produce a legitimate winner. They need to do it through a process that seems fair to all reasonable citizens. On that count, the United States has a way to go.

Electronic voting machines that do not produce a paper trail that can be rechecked in contested elections create worries that a contest could be stolen by computer hacking or by tampering with the machine software. Those concerns seem to have been unfounded in the last election, but it did not require paranoia to think that such things might happen.

It is not illegal to require voters to stand in lines so long that they wind up being forced to give up or to skip work, but it is unfair - particularly when such delays happen mainly in poor and minority neighborhoods. It is not illegal to leave election operations in the hands of a partisan elected official, but such a situation will make the system seem biased to voters from the other side of the political divide. That is what happened in Ohio, where the secretary of state was also a co-chairman of the Bush campaign in that state.

Democrats were obviously most vocal about the sloppy and highhanded way the election was run in many places, but the Republicans should also object. Mr. Bush won the most votes, but he has been deprived of universal confidence in the way they were counted.

Hi gang.

I'm in the process of figuring out what actually got accomplished yesterday. I'll let you know whatever I can figure out as soon as I've done enough homework to be sure I'm correct. But here's a couple of things that happened, for starters:

1. History was made in that a challenge hasn't happened since 1877. So that's something.

2. Looks like the house and senate each spent two hours debating the issues surrounding the Ohio election and recount, and that there is supposed to be some kind of congressional investigation. So that's something.

3. The House Judiciary Democratic Staff has published a report saying some pretty strong things about Blackwell's involvement, including, but not limited to:

With regards to our factual finding, in brief, we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.

I think this is the lead that needs following up on. (Via the congressional investigation and the other pending lawsuits.)

Like I said earlier -- I will publish my results in a similiar fashion to the last report for easy reference, once the facts manifest themselves.

Just wanted to touch base. That and many Daily Show clips on the way.

thanks!

Senate, House Reject Challenge To Ohio Electoral Votes

Challenge Mounted By U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer

President George W. Bush has been declared the winner of the electoral vote, with 286 votes. Democrat John Kerry got 251 votes, and his running mate, John Edwards, received one.

The declaration came after the House and the Senate have overwhelmingly rejected a Democratic challenge to awarding Ohio's 20 electoral votes to President George W. Bush.

The Senate vote was 74-1, with only Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., voting to support it. The vote in the House was 267-31.

Boxer and U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, lodged a formal protest to the Ohio results, prompting several hours of debate. If a senator hadn't signed on, the protest wouldn't have been heard.

They and others cited a lack of voting machines, unusually long lines and other problems that plagued some Ohio districts, many in minority neighborhoods...

By law, any such challenge that's signed by members of both houses compels each chamber to meet for up to two hours to consider the complaint.

As a result of the move, House and Senate members went into separate meetings for a debate focusing on alleged voting irregularities in Ohio on Election Day.

The challenge, which was expected, disrupted the mostly ceremonial reading of the electoral vote count of each state...

The delay didn't jeopardize Bush's win. The outcome of the race is not in doubt, since Republicans have majorities in both the House and Senate. After the debate, lawmakers reconvened and finished hearing the reading of the electoral votes.

Democratic leaders -- including Sen. John Kerry -- distanced themselves from the challenge. Some said they feared it would make them look like sore losers.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/4053934/detail.html

Senate, House Reject Challenge To Ohio Electoral Votes
Challenge Mounted By U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer

POSTED: 7:41 am EST January 6, 2005
UPDATED: 6:14 pm EST January 6, 2005

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush has been declared the winner of the electoral vote, with 286 votes. Democrat John Kerry got 251 votes, and his running mate, John Edwards, received one.

The declaration came after the House and the Senate have overwhelmingly rejected a Democratic challenge to awarding Ohio's 20 electoral votes to President George W. Bush.

The Senate vote was 74-1, with only Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., voting to support it. The vote in the House was 267-31.

Boxer and U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, lodged a formal protest to the Ohio results, prompting several hours of debate. If a senator hadn't signed on, the protest wouldn't have been heard.

They and others cited a lack of voting machines, unusually long lines and other problems that plagued some Ohio districts, many in minority neighborhoods.

Rep. Rik Keller, R-Fla., told Democrats simply to "Get over it."

But Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, insisted the issue was about "protecting voting rights," not who won or lost.

By law, any such challenge that's signed by members of both houses compels each chamber to meet for up to two hours to consider the complaint.

As a result of the move, House and Senate members went into separate meetings for a debate focusing on alleged voting irregularities in Ohio on Election Day.

The challenge, which was expected, disrupted the mostly ceremonial reading of the electoral vote count of each state.

Each state has held its electoral college vote, and Thursday is the day Congress is supposed to certify the results. Bush won the election by 286 to 252 electoral votes, with 270 required for victory.

Congressional leaders, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, had been reading the vote count of each state, alphabetically, until they got to Ohio. It was only the second time since 1877 the count has been disrupted.

The delay didn't jeopardize Bush's win. The outcome of the race is not in doubt, since Republicans have majorities in both the House and Senate. After the debate, lawmakers reconvened and finished hearing the reading of the electoral votes.

Democratic leaders -- including Sen. John Kerry -- distanced themselves from the challenge. Some said they feared it would make them look like sore losers.

Earlier, the White House dismissed the move. Spokesman Scott McClellan said the Democrats are "engaging in consipiracy theories and rehashing issues that were settled long ago."

Bush won an Ohio recount by more than 118,000 votes.

Bush carries Electoral College after delay
Democrats challenge Ohio vote, push back official certification
On the CNN website.

President Bush officially won a second term in the White House after electoral votes from all 50 states were counted Thursday during a joint session of Congress.

The normally perfunctory ceremony of counting and certifying Electoral College votes was delayed for about four hours as Democrats unsuccessfully challenged Ohio's votes for Bush...

The challenge was defeated 267-31 by the House and 74-1 by the Senate, clearing the way for the joint session to count the votes from the remaining states...

The objecting Democrats, all of whom are House members except Boxer, said they wanted to draw attention to the need for aggressive election reform in the wake of what they said were widespread voter problems.

In a letter to congressional leaders Wednesday, members of the group said they would take the action because a new report by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee found "numerous, serious election irregularities," particularly in Ohio, that led to "a significant disenfranchisement of voters."

"How can we possibly tell millions of Americans who registered to vote, who came to the polls in record numbers, particularly our young people ... to simply get over it and move on?" Tubbs Jones said at a press conference with Boxer...

It was only the second such challenge since the current rules for counting electoral votes were established in 1877. The last was in 1969 and concerned a so-called "faithless elector," according to congressional researchers.

Four years ago, after the disputed election results in Florida, members of the Congressional Black Caucus attempted to block Florida's electoral votes from being counted.

In a scene recalled in Michael Moore's movie "Fahrenheit 9/11," lawmaker after lawmaker was gaveled down by Vice President Al Gore because no senator would support the objections, as the rules require.

House Democrats involved in this year's protest worked for weeks to enlist the support of a senator in their party, and Boxer agreed to join the effort Wednesday.

"This is my opening shot to be able to focus the light of truth on these terrible problems in the electoral system," Boxer told the joint press conference with Tubbs Jones.

"While we have men and women dying to bring democracy abroad, we've got to make it the best it can be here at home, and that's why I'm doing this."...

Kerry released a letter Wednesday saying he would not take part in the protest.

"Our legal teams on the ground have found no evidence that would change the outcome of the election," Kerry said.

Bush carried Ohio by more than 118,000 votes -- the Buckeye State win providing the margin of victory in the Electoral College race. The president received 286 to Kerry's 252 electoral votes.

"There are very troubling questions that have not yet been answered by Ohio election officials," the senator said.

"In the coming months I will present a national proposal to ensure transparency and accountability in our voting process."

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/06/electoral.vote/index.html

Bush carries Electoral College after delay
Democrats challenge Ohio vote, push back official certification

Thursday, January 6, 2005 Posted: 6:55 PM EST (2355 GMT)

Sen. Barbara Boxer, right, joined Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones in objecting to the vote count.



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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush officially won a second term in the White House after electoral votes from all 50 states were counted Thursday during a joint session of Congress.

The normally perfunctory ceremony of counting and certifying Electoral College votes was delayed for about four hours as Democrats unsuccessfully challenged Ohio's votes for Bush.

Bush received 286 electoral votes, 16 more than the 270 he needed to win re-election. Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, received 251 votes. One Democratic elector cast a vote not for Kerry but for former Sen. John Edwards, his vice presidential running mate.

In the vice presidential race, Vice President Dick Cheney received 286 electoral votes and Edwards received 252.

Alleging widespread "irregularities" on Election Day, a group of Democrats in Congress objected earlier Thursday to the counting of Ohio's 20 electoral votes.

The challenge was defeated 267-31 by the House and 74-1 by the Senate, clearing the way for the joint session to count the votes from the remaining states.

The move was not designed to overturn Bush's re-election, said Ohio Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who filed the objection.

The objecting Democrats, all of whom are House members except Boxer, said they wanted to draw attention to the need for aggressive election reform in the wake of what they said were widespread voter problems.

In a letter to congressional leaders Wednesday, members of the group said they would take the action because a new report by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee found "numerous, serious election irregularities," particularly in Ohio, that led to "a significant disenfranchisement of voters."

"How can we possibly tell millions of Americans who registered to vote, who came to the polls in record numbers, particularly our young people ... to simply get over it and move on?" Tubbs Jones said at a press conference with Boxer.

Thursday's joint session of the House of Representatives and the Senate to count electoral votes is specified in the U.S. Constitution. Cheney, in his role as president of the Senate, presided over the session.

The results from each state, read in alphabetical order, were ticked through quickly until Ohio was called, and a clerk read the objection filed by Boxer and Tubbs Jones.

Then, as required by congressional rules in the event that at least one member of each house objects to the vote, Cheney ordered the lawmakers back to their respective chambers for two hours of debate on the merits of the challenge and to vote on it.

It was only the second such challenge since the current rules for counting electoral votes were established in 1877. The last was in 1969 and concerned a so-called "faithless elector," according to congressional researchers.

Four years ago, after the disputed election results in Florida, members of the Congressional Black Caucus attempted to block Florida's electoral votes from being counted.

In a scene recalled in Michael Moore's movie "Fahrenheit 9/11," lawmaker after lawmaker was gaveled down by Vice President Al Gore because no senator would support the objections, as the rules require.

House Democrats involved in this year's protest worked for weeks to enlist the support of a senator in their party, and Boxer agreed to join the effort Wednesday.

"This is my opening shot to be able to focus the light of truth on these terrible problems in the electoral system," Boxer told the joint press conference with Tubbs Jones.

"While we have men and women dying to bring democracy abroad, we've got to make it the best it can be here at home, and that's why I'm doing this."

Republicans dismissed the effort as a stunt, noting that specific allegations of voting problems in Ohio have been investigated by journalists and, the Republicans said, found to be untrue.

"But apparently, some Democrats only want to gripe about counts, recounts, and recounts of recounts," said Rep. Deborah Pryce, an Ohio Republican.

"So eager are they to abandon their job as public servants, they have cast themselves in the role of Michael Moore, concocting wild conspiracy theories to distract the American public."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan dismissed the challenge as "partisan politics."

"The election is behind us," he said. "The American people now expect their leaders in Washington to focus on the big priorities facing this country."

Kerry released a letter Wednesday saying he would not take part in the protest.

"Our legal teams on the ground have found no evidence that would change the outcome of the election," Kerry said.

Bush carried Ohio by more than 118,000 votes -- the Buckeye State win providing the margin of victory in the Electoral College race. The president received 286 to Kerry's 252 electoral votes.

"There are very troubling questions that have not yet been answered by Ohio election officials," the senator said.

"In the coming months I will present a national proposal to ensure transparency and accountability in our voting process."

Kerry was not on hand Thursday. He is in Iraq to thank U.S. troops for their service.

CNN's Ted Barrett contributed to this report.

This is not from today - Jan 6, 2005, this is from December 8, 2004.
(The Jan 6 stuff goes up this weekend -- I'm just catching up.)

I haven't even had a chance to look at these yet, but I wanted to make sure you knew they were up. It's several hours of hearings split up into 20 MB chunks.

Enjoy!

December 8, 2004 Hearings At DC On Ohio Voting Irregularities

Executive Summary: House Judiciary Dems’ final report on Ohio election problems (PDF Original)
By The House Judiciary Democratic Staff.

We have found numerous, serious election irregularities in the Ohio presidential election, which resulted in a significant disenfranchisement of voters. Cumulatively, these irregularities, which affected hundreds of thousand of votes and voters in Ohio, raise grave doubts regarding whether it can be said the Ohio electors selected on December 13, 2004, were chosen in a manner that conforms to Ohio law, let alone federal requirements and constitutional standards.

This report, therefore, makes three recommendations: (1) consistent with the requirements of the United States Constitution concerning the counting of electoral votes by Congress and Federal law implementing these requirements, there are ample grounds for challenging the electors from the State of Ohio; (2) Congress should engage in further hearings into the widespread irregularities reported in Ohio; we believe the problems are serious enough to warrant the appointment of a joint select Committee of the House and Senate to investigate and report back to the Members; and (3) Congress needs to enact election reform to restore our people’s trust in our democracy. These changes should include putting in place more specific federal protections for federal elections, particularly in the areas of audit capability for electronic voting machines and casting and counting of provisional ballots, as well as other needed changes to federal and state election laws.

With regards to our factual finding, in brief, we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.

Here is the full text of the entire document in case the link goes bad:

http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=529

1/5/2005
Executive Summary: House Judiciary Dems’ final report on Ohio election problems
Filed under:

* General

— site admin @ 12:43 pm Email This

Text: Executive Summary of Conyers’ Ohio election report

The following is the text of the Executive Summary written by the House Judiciary Democratic staff about election problems in Ohio’s November presidential election, and is the crux upon which Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) is seeking to contest Ohio electoral votes and open a discussion of the election on the Senate floor Jan. 6. The report was published Wednesday, and the text released to RAW STORY by the Judiciary staff.

The full document in PDF format can be found here.

Executive Summary

Representative John Conyers, Jr., the Ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, asked the Democratic staff to conduct an investigation into irregularities reported in the Ohio presidential election and to prepare a Status Report concerning the same prior to the Joint Meeting of Congress scheduled for January 6, 2005, to receive and consider the votes of the electoral college for president. The following Report includes a brief chronology of the events; summarizes the relevant background law; provides detailed findings (including factual findings and legal analysis); and describes various recommendations for acting on this Report going forward.

We have found numerous, serious election irregularities in the Ohio presidential election, which resulted in a significant disenfranchisement of voters. Cumulatively, these irregularities, which affected hundreds of thousand of votes and voters in Ohio, raise grave doubts regarding whether it can be said the Ohio electors selected on December 13, 2004, were chosen in a manner that conforms to Ohio law, let alone federal requirements and constitutional standards.

This report, therefore, makes three recommendations: (1) consistent with the requirements of the United States Constitution concerning the counting of electoral votes by Congress and Federal law implementing these requirements, there are ample grounds for challenging the electors from the State of Ohio; (2) Congress should engage in further hearings into the widespread irregularities reported in Ohio; we believe the problems are serious enough to warrant the appointment of a joint select Committee of the House and Senate to investigate and report back to the Members; and (3) Congress needs to enact election reform to restore our people’s trust in our democracy. These changes should include putting in place more specific federal protections for federal elections, particularly in the areas of audit capability for electronic voting machines and casting and counting of provisional ballots, as well as other needed changes to federal and state election laws.

With regards to our factual finding, in brief, we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.

First, in the run up to election day, the following actions by Mr. Blackwell, the Republican Party and election officials disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of Ohio citizens, predominantly minority and Democratic voters:

• The misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented long lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters. This was illustrated by the fact that the Washington Post reported that in Franklin County, “27 of the 30 wards with the most machines per registered voter showed majorities for Bush. At the other end of the spectrum, six of the seven wards with the fewest machines delivered large margins for Kerry.” Among other things, the conscious failure to provide sufficient voting machinery violates the Ohio Revised Code which requires the Boards of Elections to “provide adequate facilities at each polling place for conducting the election.”

• Mr. Blackwell’s decision to restrict provisional ballots resulted in the disenfranchisement of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of voters, again predominantly minority and Democratic voters. Mr. Blackwell’s decision departed from past Ohio law on provisional ballots, and there is no evidence that a broader construction would have led to any significant disruption at the polling places, and did not do so in other states.

• Mr. Blackwell’s widely reviled decision to reject voter registration applications based on paper weight may have resulted in thousands of new voters not being registered in time for the 2004 election.

• The Ohio Republican Party’s decision to engage in preelection “caging” tactics, selectively targeting 35,000 predominantly minority voters for intimidation had a negative impact on voter turnout. The Third Circuit found these activities to be illegal and in direct violation of consent decrees barring the Republican Party from targeting minority voters for poll challenges.

• The Ohio Republican Party’s decision to utilize thousands of partisan challengers concentrated in minority and Democratic areas likely disenfranchised tens of thousands of legal voters, who were not only intimidated, but became discouraged by the long lines. Shockingly, these disruptions were publicly predicted and acknowledged by Republican officials: Mark Weaver, a lawyer for the Ohio Republican Party, admitted the challenges “can’t help but create chaos, longer lines and frustration.”

• Mr. Blackwell’s decision to prevent voters who requested absentee ballots but did not receive them on a timely basis from being able to receive provisional ballots likely disenfranchised thousands, if not tens of thousands, of voters, particularly seniors. A federal court found Mr. Blackwell’s order to be illegal and in violation of HAVA.

Second, on election day, there were numerous unexplained anomalies and irregularities involving hundreds of thousands of votes that have yet to be accounted for:

• There were widespread instances of intimidation and misinformation in violation of the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Equal Protection, Due Process and the Ohio right to vote. Mr. Blackwell’s apparent failure to institute a single investigation into these many serious allegations represents a violation of his statutory duty under Ohio law to investigate election irregularities.

• We learned of improper purging and other registration errors by election officials that likely disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters statewide. The Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition projects that in Cuyahoga County alone over 10,000 Ohio citizens lost their right to vote as a result of official registration errors.

• There were 93,000 spoiled ballots where no vote was cast for president, the vast majority of which have yet to be inspected. The problem was particularly acute in two precincts in Montgomery County which had an undervote rate of over 25% each – accounting for nearly 6,000 voters who stood in line to vote, but purportedly declined to vote for president.

• There were numerous, significant unexplained irregularities in other counties throughout the state: (i) in Mahoning county at least 25 electronic machines transferred an unknown number of Kerry votes to the Bush column; (ii) Warren County locked out public observers from vote counting citing an FBI warning about a potential terrorist threat, yet the FBI states that it issued no such warning; (iii) the voting records of Perry county show significantly more votes than voters in some precincts, significantly less ballots than voters in other precincts, and voters casting more than one ballot; (iv) in Butler county a down ballot and underfunded Democratic State Supreme Court candidate implausibly received more votes than the best funded Democratic Presidential candidate in history; (v) in Cuyahoga county, poll worker error may have led to little known third-party candidates receiving twenty times more votes than such candidates had ever received in otherwise reliably Democratic leaning areas; (vi) in Miami county, voter turnout was an improbable and highly suspect 98.55 percent, and after 100 percent of the precincts were reported, an additional 19,000 extra votes were recorded for President Bush.

Third, in the post-election period we learned of numerous irregularities in tallying provisional ballots and conducting and completing the recount that disenfanchised thousands of voters and call the entire recount procedure into question (as of this date the recount is still not complete) :

• Mr. Blackwell’s failure to articulate clear and consistent standards for the counting of provisional ballots resulted in the loss of thousands of predominantly minority votes. In Cuyahoga County alone, the lack of guidance and the ultimate narrow and arbitrary review standards significantly contributed to the fact that 8,099 out of 24,472 provisional ballots were ruled invalid, the highest proportion in the state.

• Mr. Blackwell’s failure to issue specific standards for the recount contributed to a lack of uniformity in violation of both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clauses. We found innumerable irregularities in the recount in violation of Ohio law, including (i) counties which did not randomly select the precinct samples; (ii) counties which did not conduct a full hand court after the 3% hand and machine counts did not match; (iii) counties which allowed for irregular marking of ballots and failed
to secure and store ballots and machinery; and (iv) counties which prevented witnesses for candidates from observing the various aspects of the recount.

• The voting computer company Triad has essentially admitted that it engaged in a course of behavior during the recount in numerous counties to provide “cheat sheets” to those counting the ballots. The cheat sheets informed election officials how many votes they should find for each candidate, and how many over and under votes they should calculate to match the machine count. In that way, they could avoid doing a full county-wide hand recount mandated by state law.

I'm just reading this stuff today myself guys, but I've got a lot of information to post, and the Pete recorded 8 hours of CSPAN today that I'll be receiving Fed Ex on Saturday. I'll figure out the highlights and try to have them ready for you over the weekend sometime.

For now, read William Rivers Pitt's excellent notes from his new blog. I've cut and pasted the whole thing below. (click on "more")

Here's a quote from Pitt's blog:

Today was a good day
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 06:05
I can't recall a day in the last several years when the efforts of citizens yielded fruit in the Senate. Didn't work with the Patriot Act vote. Didn't work with the Homeland Security Act vote. Sure as hell didn't work with the Iraq war vote.

It worked today. Voices were heard, and something we haven't seen since 1877 took place today. This is what Congress exists for, and for once, they responded.

Here are some highlights from Boxer's statement:

We have fought for social justice. We have fought for economic justice. We have fought for environmental justice. We have fought for criminal justice.

Now we must add a new fight – the fight for electoral justice.

Every citizen of this country who is registered to vote should be guaranteed that their vote matters, that their vote is counted, and that in the voting booth of their community, their vote has as much weight as the vote of any Senator, any Congressperson, any President, any cabinet member, or any CEO of any Fortune 500 Corporation.

I am sure that every one of my colleagues – Democrat, Republican, and Independent – agrees with that statement. That in the voting booth, every one is equal.

So now it seems to me that under the Constitution of the United States, which guarantees the right to vote, we must ask:

Why did voters in Ohio wait hours in the rain to vote? Why were voters at Kenyan College, for example, made to wait in line until nearly 4 a.m. to vote because there were only two machines for 1300 voters?

Why did poor and predominantly African-American communities have disproportionately long waits?

Why in Franklin County did election officials only use 2,798 machines when they said they needed 5,000? Why did they hold back 68 machines in warehouses? Why were 42 of those machines in predominantly African-American districts?

Why did, in Columbus area alone, an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 voters leave polling places, out of frustration, without having voted? How many more never bothered to vote after they heard about this?

Why is it when 638 people voted at a precinct in Franklin County, a voting machine awarded 4,258 extra votes to George Bush. Thankfully, they fixed it – but how many other votes did the computers get wrong?

Why did Franklin County officials reduce the number of electronic voting machines in downtown precincts, while adding them in the suburbs? This also led to long lines.

In Cleveland, why were there thousands of provisional ballots disqualified after poll workers gave faulty instructions to voters?

Because of this, and voting irregularities in so many other places, I am joining with Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones to cast the light of truth on a flawed system which must be fixed now.

Our democracy is the centerpiece of who we are as a nation. And it is the fondest hope of all Americans that we can help bring democracy to every corner of the world.

As we try to do that, and as we are shedding the blood of our military to this end, we must realize that we lose so much credibility when our own electoral system needs so much improvement.

Yet, in the past four years, this Congress has not done everything it should to give confidence to all of our people their votes matter.

After passing the Help America Vote Act, nothing more was done.

A year ago, Senators Graham, Clinton and I introduced legislation that would have required that electronic voting systems provide a paper record to verify a vote.
That paper trail would be stored in a secure ballot box and invaluable in case of a recount.

There is no reason why the Senate should not have taken up and passed that bill. At the very least, a hearing should have been held. But it never happened.

Before I close, I want to thank my colleague from the House, Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones.

Her letter to me asking for my intervention was substantive and compelling.

As I wrote to her, I was particularly moved by her point that it is virtually impossible to get official House consideration of the whole issue of election reform, including these irregularities.

The Congresswoman has tremendous respect in her state of Ohio, which is at the center of this fight.

Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones was a judge for 10 years. She was a prosecutor for 8 years. She was inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame in 2002.

I am proud to stand with her in filing this objection.

No perma link yet, so here's the full text of Williams Rivers Pitt's blog for today:

Today was a good day
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 06:05
I can't recall a day in the last several years when the efforts of citizens yielded fruit in the Senate. Didn't work with the Patriot Act vote. Didn't work with the Homeland Security Act vote. Sure as hell didn't work with the Iraq war vote.

It worked today. Voices were heard, and something we haven't seen since 1877 took place today. This is what Congress exists for, and for once, they responded.

The rest is up to the same people who got this ball rolling. Today was a beginning, an introduction into the national dialogue of the fact that lots and lots and lots and lots of Americans get jobbed out of their right to vote every election.

We can fix that. We should fix that. Today, the task was well begun.
List of House members who voted 'Yea'
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 06:02
Revised down to 31:

Brown, Corrine
Carson
Clay
Clyburn
Conyers
Davis (IL)
Evans
Farr
Filner
Grijalva
Hastings (FL)
Hinchey
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
Kilpatrick (MI)
Kucinich
Lee
Lewis (GA)
Markey
McKinney
Olver
Owens
Pallone
Payne
Schakowsky
Thompson (MS)
Waters
Watson
Woolsey
I interviewed Rep. Conyers just before the hearings
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 05:00
PITT: How are you feeling about what is happening today?

CONYERS: We have come a mighty long way. It seems to me, as we began this adventure, to make the ballot as important as it is, and that it be counted, and that it be available to every single qualified American voter, that I had always suspected that it would be hard for the United States Senate to do, again, what they did in 2000. To close down any possibility of any debate, of any investigation, of any recount, and it turns out that my hunch was correct.

The fact of the matter is that we have everything to gain and nothing to lose by doing this. This isn't like there is a down-side to this. It is all up, because as everybody knows, all the phones are jammed, emails are coming in, faxes. People are coming in from all over. This is a test of American democracy, just as in 1878. They passed the law to deal with the presidential election of 1877. We have to, in 2005, pass some more election reform laws to deal with what happened in 2004.

Read the rest here.......
Now it's 32
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 04:31
Feh.
33 votes in the House
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 04:04
to support the objection.

I interviewed Rep. Conyers just before the hearing. I will have the transcript up as soon as I can.
Here comes the House vote
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 03:51
Republicans have trouble pushing buttons, it seems. Two times a vote to uphold the challenge came from the GOP side, and then got switched back after they realized they pushed the wrong button.

There is a GOP vote to uphold the challenge now, and it appears to be sticking.

Nope. Gone now. Learn to push buttons, folks.
Oh, here we go
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 03:45
Mr. I-don't-need-ethics-rules-in-my-face DeLay is up pretending to have any kind of moral standing on anything.

Lying his face off. Bush engineered electronic vote fraud, DeLay says is one theory.

I feel another terrorism quip coming. Yup, there it is.

No voter disenfranchisement in 2000 and 2004, saith DeLay. Everyone knows this.

This guy is a wonder of nature.
The House goes on
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 03:37
I have a feeling that the House vote will be a bit more satisfying to the Democratic base than the Senate vote.
Lock step
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 03:11
It took an incredible amount of effort to get several Democrats to get up and say basically the same thing in support of each other. It was a war to get that done.

The GOP sticks to their message with ease, almost automatically, preternatuarally.

That's a trick the Democrats need to learn.

The vote in the Senate is 74-1. The motion is not approved.
The debate continues in the House
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 03:05
Jackson-Lee blows the doors off, and the GOP Reps. march out accusing Democrats of aiding terrorists...and then complain about bitterness and partisanship.
Boxer votes 'Aye'
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 02:52
GOP Rep. Drier in the House says the people questioning the Ohio vote are aiding terrorists.

Typical.
Lott is trying to shut it down
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 02:42
"Hopes it does not have a lasting impact."

"Merits no further response."

The roll is being called. Here come the votes. Boxer votes 'aye' and the gallery erupts in applause.
Voinovich (R-OH) is up
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 02:37
defending the vote in his state. Bunch of Ohioans in the gallery started bellowing and had to be removed.

Voinovich, like DeWine, is using editorials to prove there were no problems in Ohio. Dizzyingly hilarious.
Text of Boxer's statement today
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 02:33
Statement On Her Objection To The Certification Of Ohio’s Electoral Votes

January 6, 2005

For most of us in the Senate and the House, we have spent our lives fighting for things we believe in – always fighting to make our nation better.

We have fought for social justice. We have fought for economic justice. We have fought for environmental justice. We have fought for criminal justice.

Now we must add a new fight – the fight for electoral justice.

Every citizen of this country who is registered to vote should be guaranteed that their vote matters, that their vote is counted, and that in the voting booth of their community, their vote has as much weight as the vote of any Senator, any Congressperson, any President, any cabinet member, or any CEO of any Fortune 500 Corporation.

I am sure that every one of my colleagues – Democrat, Republican, and Independent – agrees with that statement. That in the voting booth, every one is equal.

So now it seems to me that under the Constitution of the United States, which guarantees the right to vote, we must ask:

Why did voters in Ohio wait hours in the rain to vote? Why were voters at Kenyan College, for example, made to wait in line until nearly 4 a.m. to vote because there were only two machines for 1300 voters?

Why did poor and predominantly African-American communities have disproportionately long waits?

Why in Franklin County did election officials only use 2,798 machines when they said they needed 5,000? Why did they hold back 68 machines in warehouses? Why were 42 of those machines in predominantly African-American districts?

Why did, in Columbus area alone, an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 voters leave polling places, out of frustration, without having voted? How many more never bothered to vote after they heard about this?

Why is it when 638 people voted at a precinct in Franklin County, a voting machine awarded 4,258 extra votes to George Bush. Thankfully, they fixed it – but how many other votes did the computers get wrong?

Why did Franklin County officials reduce the number of electronic voting machines in downtown precincts, while adding them in the suburbs? This also led to long lines.

In Cleveland, why were there thousands of provisional ballots disqualified after poll workers gave faulty instructions to voters?

Because of this, and voting irregularities in so many other places, I am joining with Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones to cast the light of truth on a flawed system which must be fixed now.

Our democracy is the centerpiece of who we are as a nation. And it is the fondest hope of all Americans that we can help bring democracy to every corner of the world.

As we try to do that, and as we are shedding the blood of our military to this end, we must realize that we lose so much credibility when our own electoral system needs so much improvement.

Yet, in the past four years, this Congress has not done everything it should to give confidence to all of our people their votes matter.

After passing the Help America Vote Act, nothing more was done.

A year ago, Senators Graham, Clinton and I introduced legislation that would have required that electronic voting systems provide a paper record to verify a vote.
That paper trail would be stored in a secure ballot box and invaluable in case of a recount.

There is no reason why the Senate should not have taken up and passed that bill. At the very least, a hearing should have been held. But it never happened.

Before I close, I want to thank my colleague from the House, Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones.

Her letter to me asking for my intervention was substantive and compelling.

As I wrote to her, I was particularly moved by her point that it is virtually impossible to get official House consideration of the whole issue of election reform, including these irregularities.

The Congresswoman has tremendous respect in her state of Ohio, which is at the center of this fight.

Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones was a judge for 10 years. She was a prosecutor for 8 years. She was inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame in 2002.

I am proud to stand with her in filing this objection.
Barack Obama is up
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 02:26
and giving his first-ever speech to the Senate in support of Boxer and Tubbs-Jones.

Hot damn.

Tells a touching story of a supporter who was concerned about her right to vote. Obama does not doubt that Bush won. We are not challenging the outcome of the election.

Demands reform in the election system.
Harkin is up
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 02:22
and stands in support.

"The debate is short today, and I hope it will continue."

Not questioning the 2004 outcome. On message.

"I thank Senator Boxer, and Rep. Tubbs-Jones."

Zaps DeWine, says this isn't about removing Bush, but about how we can make elections better in America.

(How can that be a bad thing to stand on as a politician?)

(It isn't)

(For those who might have been worried about this)
Reid is up
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 02:16
I knew someone would bring up the troops, but I expected the GOP to do it in order to cry "Unpatriotic!" Yet here is Reid, saying we owe it to our soldiers to check these allegations out, and to reform the system.
Here comes Hillary
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 02:12
"I commend the Senator from California."

It permits us to air these issues, which protects the integrity of our most precious right. There are many questions about the integrity of this election, and not just in Ohio.

We stood with and admired the people of the Ukraine a few weeks ago when they fought for their rights. Our moral authority is in danger.

Some blivet in the House is telling stories about soldiers. I knew it.
Lautenberg is up
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 02:06
"We have to take a very hard look at this."

Talks about advertising democracy in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, but we have these flaws here.

Not challenging the result, but "we would be derelict in our duty if we failed to investigate."
Pelosi is up in the House
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 02:03
"The right to vote is sacred."

The House will accept Bush and Cheney's victory, this isn't about rjecting that, so let's be respectful. There are problems with the electoral system. It is about election reform.

(Crazy, when you think about it. Pelosi and the others accept the results but discuss a busted system. In other words, the election system in America is broken...but it also worked.)
Wydwen (D-OR) demands a paper trail
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 02:01
for all votes cast on electronic machines.

Oregon, where voting works.
Kennedy is up
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:57
We do not question the outcome, but we gave deep concerns.

They are lining up behind Boxer here.

Hillary just walked in, and we haven't heard from Obama yet.

"The voting process did not live up to the standards we require," said Kennedy. "We must admit the election was flawed...I commend the many thousands of citizens who asked us to register our protest. We hope this issue is firmly planted on our agenda. No democracy worth the name can allow such a flawed process to stand."
You are watching Senators
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:55
speaking the words of the activists. You are watching Senators deliver the goods activists delivered to them.

Impressive.
Stabenow (D) stands in support
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:53
of Boxer, and repeats the stories related in the Conyers report.
Durbin (D-IL)
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:49
The outcome is not being challenged. The nature of this debate auger towards an analysis of the electoral system.

We have the opportunity to have a bipartisan discussion on the disparate election practices across the states.

"I do not challenge the legitimacy of the 2004 election outcome...but we can and should do better."

Durbin touting the Jackson proposal for a constitutional amendment cementing the right to vote. Puts the Conyers report into the Senate record. Gives examples of irregularities in Illinois.

Durbin was on message.
Bernie Sanders in the House
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:45
is en fuego.

This isn't about replacing Bush. "Today is about every American feeling confident in the vote. That is what democracy is about."
Senator Dayton (D-MN)
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:43
rises to object to Boxer's challenge. Calls it "seriously misguided."

This fellow is going to get some nasty emails today.
Reid is telling Senators to get down to the well
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:42
so they can speak. The time is now.
Conyers stands in the House
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:41
"We are here not as partisans for one party or the other, but to protect our democracy."
Senator DeWine is up
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:37
He can't believe they are debating whether Bush won Ohio, thus completely missing the point.

You knew this was coming. I'll bet you a dollar he brings up the troops in Iraq somehow. This is betraying them. Bet he says it.

My favorite bit is how he dismisses all the proof offered of fraud contained in the Conyers report, and proves there was no fraud...by reading editorials. Hm.
Worth a couple of hours
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:36
"I think it is worth a couple of hours to discuss these issues."

She gave a good speech.
Boxer speaking in the Senate
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:34
We now fight for electoral justice. Everyone's vote must matter and be counted. Their votre must have as much weight as any Senator, House member, President, CEO.

"In the voting booth, everyone is equal."

"We must ask certain questions."

Why did voters have to wait in line for hours to vote because there were only two machines?

Why did voters in poor and African-American districts not have enough machines?

Why were machines held back from use in these communities?

Why did thousands leave polling places out of frustration, or because they ran out of time?

Boxer's voice is raw.

The gavel comes down again in the House
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:31
The Senate has not yet gotten together.

Tubbs-Jones stands forth.

"I thank God I have a Senator joining me...joining thousands of Ohio voters denied the right to vote."

Objecting to the electors is the only immediate avenue for raising these issues.

"We, a House member and a Senator...
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:23
...object."

Signed, Boxer and Tubbs-Jones.

The Houses withdraw for debate. The Senate retires.

Hot damn.
Here we go...
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:22
Tubbs-Jones objects to the electoral votes for Ohio.

"I do have a Senator."

Boom.
It will come when they get to Ohio
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:14
I am given to understand that the objection will come when they get to Ohio.

They are on Kentucky.
Idaho is "regular in form"
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:13
Thank goodness.

Observing the marvel that is Trent Lott's hair is more than worth the price of admission.

The gavel comes down
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:07
The joint session has come to order.

Cheney is reading the boilerplate ceremonial language. The man never, ever, ever looks happy.

They will run through every state. Will the bump come when they get to Ohio, or after all the states are read? To be seen. Alabama, Alaska and Arizona just read by Lott.
A mob of pre-teens just carried in the votes
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:02
Egads.

Cheney has arrived, and there is a general milling about. Hastert is yukking it up with Cheney at the podium.
The hearing is about to begin
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 01:01
Stay tuned...
Harry Reid is on board
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 12:15
Announced by Rev. Jackson at the rally about 10 minutes ago.
The Boxer Rebellion
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 11:06
A wee bit of history to start with.

The last time Congress was forced to interrupt the joint session to certify the Electors was in 1969, when a "faithless" Nixon elector broke ranks and threw his vote to George Wallace. After about twelve seconds of discussion, the vote was allowed to go for Wallace. Before that, we have to go all the way back to 1877, during the disputed election between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden. Hayes eventually won.

In short, what is happening here in Washington today has almost never been seen in the history of the republic.

This is the latest as I have it: Senator Boxer made the decision to stand and support the challenge to the Ohio electors. She transmitted a letter to Rep. Tubbs-Jones this morning which stated, "I have concluded that objecting to the electoral votes from Ohio is the only immediate way to bring these issues to light by allowing you to have a two-hour debate to let the American people know the facts surrounding Ohio's election."

Right now, several other Senators are preparing statements of Support for the Boxer/Tubbs-Jones challenge, and a number of House members will also rise in support. There is every expectation that Senators Clinton, Obama and Dodd will be among those offering statements of support.

Reps. Waters, Conyers and Kucinich will be among the House members who stand. Though Rep. Conyers was the main impetus behind this process, it was decided that Rep. Tubbs-Jones should be the one to make the official challenge, as she is a representative from Ohio, where the dispute is centered.

There is a rumor floating around that one of the Senators to rise in support will be a Republican. That is not in any way confirmed.

The process will begin to unfold at 1:00pm EST. Cheney, in his role as President of the Senate, will rise and ask if there are any objections. Tubbs-Jones will then announce her objection, and state that a Senator has signed her objection. The joint session will then adjourn, and there will be two hours (perhaps less) of debate on the issue. At the conclusion a straight up-and-down vote will take place on whether or not to support the objection. Almost certainly, the objections will be defeated along party lines.

This is an incredibly important day for this country, for two reasons.

First, this will initiate a national dialogue on how we run elections, and push forward the process of reform that is so desperately needed.

Second, this was a people's movement. None of this would have taken place without the grassroots effort. Look at the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the beach. That is how many phone calls, emails, faxes, letters and telegrams were sent by ordinary people to the Capitol building in support of what Boxer has done. Jesse Jackson, David Cobb, Progressive Democrats of America and others were involved in getting this done, along with Rep. Conyers.

But it was the folks who got this done. If nothing else, this proves that concentrated activism and advocacy works. It works. It worked. Make sure it keeps working.

Tune in at 1pm EST. I will be blogging the hearing as it happens.

Today is history.

---

Our Voting System Needs A New Constitutional Foundation

Floor Statement

By Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr.

Thursday, January 6, 2005

"The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States." (Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 104 (2000)

"In the eyes of the [Supreme] Court, democracy is rooted not in the right of the American people to vote and govern but in a set of state-based institutional arrangements for selecting leaders." ( Overruling Democracy - The Supreme Court v. The American People, By Jamin B. Raskin, p. 7)

"Amazingly, the government of the United States conducts and provides no official count of the vote for president." (Overruling democracy - The Supreme Court vs. The American People, by Jamin B. Raskin, p. 66)

"Thanks to the long and peculiar way in which suffrage evolved in the United States, the U.S. Constitution contains no affirmative right to vote for American citizens. That is likely the most important single gap in our Constitution, and it ought to be remedied as soon as possible." (Alexander Keyssar, Matthew W. Stirling, Jr., Professor of History and Social Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. His books include The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States.)

Don't be confused or misled. Today's objection is not about an ELECTION RESULT, it's about an ELECTION SYSTEM that's broken and needs fixing.

Today you're hearing the facts about voter irregularities in Ohio. In 2000 you saw a similar mess in Florida. There were serious voting problems in other states - for example, New Mexico, Nevada and Florida again.

As we try to spread democracy to Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, it might be wise, first, to look in the mirror; to take a serious look at our own house; and to analyze our own democracy.

What's wrong with our democracy? What's wrong with our voting system? State-after-state, year-after-year, why do we keep on having these problems?

The fundamental reason is this: most Americans and many in this body will find it shocking and hard to believe, but we have these problems because AMERICANS DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE IN THEIR CONSTITUTION!

In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore said in very plain language, "the INDIVIDUAL CITIZEN has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States."

You say, "Congressman, I'm a registered voter and every time there's an election I'm entitled to vote - and I vote. What do you mean I don't have a `right to vote'?"

I mean as an American you don't have a citizenship right to vote. Voting in the United States is a "state right" not "citizenship right."

We keep on having these problems because our voting system is built on the constitutional foundation of "states' rights" - 50 states, 3,067 counties and 13,000 different election jurisdictions, ALL SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL.

If you're an ex-felon in Illinois you can register and vote. If you're an ex-felon in eleven states, mostly in the South, you're barred from voting for life. There are nearly 5 million ex-felons who have paid their debt to society but are prohibited from ever voting again - including 1.5 million African American males. But in Maine and Vermont you can vote even if you're in jail. Like I said, we have a "states rights" separate and unequal voting system.

You ask, "What's the difference between a citizenship right and a state right?"

The First Amendment contains individual citizenship rights that go with you from state to state (that is, they are the same wherever you are in the U.S.); and they are protected and enforced by the federal government. You have equal protection under the law by the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government. Therefore, as a result of the First Amendment, every American citizen has an individual right to free speech, freedom of assembly, and religious freedom (or to choose no religion at all), regardless of which state you're in - individual rights that are protected by the federal government. You don't have such a right when it comes to voting!

A state right is NOT an American citizenship right, but a right defined and protected by each state - and limited to that state. Therefore, when it comes to voting, each state, county and election jurisdiction is different.

One-hundred-and-eight of the 119 nations in the world that elect their public officials in some democratic manner have the right to vote in their Constitution - including the Afghan Constitution and the interim document in Iraq. The United States is one of the 11 that don't!

The Bible says if you build a house on sand, when it rains, the winds blow and the storms come it will not stand. Our voting system is built on the sand of "states' rights."

That's why every four years when the entire nation is focused on a presidential election, and the rain of politics, the winds of partisanship, and the storms of campaigning come, our democratic house cannot stand the unitary test of voting fairness - and it has come close to collapsing in 2000 and 2004.

The American people are gradually losing confidence in the credibility, fairness, effectiveness and efficiency of our voting system.

We cannot export our current voting system or our form of democracy to other nations because our "separate and unequal" voting system, and our concept of an Electoral College, do not reflect the best of a representative democracy.

We need to build our democracy and our voting system on a rock, the rock of adding a Voting Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that applies to all states and all citizens.

We need to provide the American people with a citizenship right to vote and provide Congress with the authority to craft a unitary voting system that is inclusive of all Americans and guarantees that all votes will be counted in a complete, fair and efficient manner.

It's the only foundation upon which we can build a more perfect Union.

Every two, four or six years every member of Congress wants the people in their district or state to stand up and vote for them. Today it's time for every member of Congress to stand up and vote for the right of the people to vote, and to have their vote fairly and fully counted.
Meanwhile, in Bizarro World
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 10:23
Heard in the Gonzales hearing just now:

SENATOR: Mr. Gonzales, do you approve of torture?

GONZALES: No, I do not.

SENATOR: Do you condemn torture?

GONZALES: Yes, I do.

Case closed, I guess. I hope someone asks him if he still thinks Bush is not subject to the rule of law.
Boxer is in
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 09:58
I just got confirmation from several sources: Senator Barbara Boxer will stand with House members to challenge the Ohio Electors. There will be a debate on what happened in Ohio, in all likelihood followed by a vote to accept those Ohio Electors.

But the messed-up way we run elections in this country is about to become part of a national dialogue, and you know what? It was the people who got this done. The calls, the emails, the faxes, the letters, the protests compelled this action. This is a big day in the history of citizen action.

More Senators may be coming later. Stay tuned.

Further confirmation has come in from the Associated Press.
To the Hill
Thursday 06 January 2005 @ 08:25
I am heading up to Capitol Hill in a few minutes, where I will camp out and wait for the show. The Gonzales hearings are this morning and very much worth tuning in to; we will see if there is bipartisan support for torture in Congress.

Be sure to reserve some TV time for around 1pm. If you are in DC and looking for something to do, head down to Lafayette Park at Pennsylvania and H around 10am.

It is going to be an interesting day.
And the tearing of the hair
Wednesday 05 January 2005 @ 07:58
OK. Looks like even Keith Olbermann is running headlong towards reporting as fact the same unconfirmed situation. In his most recent blog entry, he says, "Challengers are go" in his title.

Read down a bit, and he actually says that challengers are "All but certain" and "not yet formalized." That's a bit different than your headline, Keith.

Scroll down to my entry just below this one, and note the time. Olbermann has posted the same stuff MSNBC sorta-kinda reported on earlier today. In other words, nothing is confirmed yet, again.
Regarding Senator Boxer
Wednesday 05 January 2005 @ 03:54
I made it to DC in time for a bunch of hell to break loose. Apparently, MSNBC advertised a report that Senator Boxer would definitely stand up with Conyers tomorrow. Then, when the actual report came along, the story was that "people are saying" Boxer would stand up, maybe definitely sorta kinda who knows for sure.

General Electric reporting. Grr.

Boxer replied with nothing definite, that she was still considering all the options. Everything is in the wind at this point, nobody knows anything for sure, and a lot of what is being reported in the mainstream media is hooey.

So basically, keep an eye here. Not to sound like a gomer, but if you don't see it here, it isn't true yet. When I know, you'll know.

According to RAW STORY, this is straight from Conyers' Office:

December 30, 2004

Dear Senator,

As you know, on January 6, 2005, at 1:00 P.M, the electoral votes for the election of the president are to be opened and counted in a joint session of Congress, commencing at 1:00 P.M. I and a number of House Members are planning to object to the counting of the Ohio votes, due to numerous unexplained irregularities in the Ohio presidential vote, many of which appear to violate both federal and state law. I am hoping that you will consider joining us in this important effort to debate and highlight the problems in Ohio which disenfranchised innumerable voters. I will shortly forward you a draft report itemizing and analyzing the many irregularities we have come across as part of our hearings and investigation into the Ohio presidential election...

Here is the whole text of the letter (as obtained from):

http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=521

December 30, 2004

Dear Senator,

As you know, on January 6, 2005, at 1:00 P.M, the electoral votes for the election of the president are to be opened and counted in a joint session of Congress, commencing at 1:00 P.M. I and a number of House Members are planning to object to the counting of the Ohio votes, due to numerous unexplained irregularities in the Ohio presidential vote, many of which appear to violate both federal and state law. I am hoping that you will consider joining us in this important effort to debate and highlight the problems in Ohio which disenfranchised innumerable voters. I will shortly forward you a draft report itemizing and analyzing the many irregularities we have come across as part of our hearings and investigation into the Ohio presidential election.

3 U.S.C. §15 provides when the results from each of the states are announced, that “the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any.” Any objection must be presented in writing and “signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received."1. The objection must “state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof."2 When an objection has been properly made in writing and endorsed by a member of each body the Senate withdraws from the House chamber, and each body meets separately to consider the objection. “No votes . . . from any other State shall be acted upon until the [pending] objection . . . [is] finally disposed of."3 3 U.S.C. §17 limits debate on the objections in each body to two hours, during which time no member may speak more than once and not for more than five minutes. Both the Senate and the House must separately agree to the objection; otherwise, the challenged vote or votes are counted.4

Historically, there appears to be three general grounds for objecting to the counting of electoral votes. The language of 3 U.S.C. §15 suggests that objection may be made on the grounds that (1) a vote was not “regularly given” by the challenged elector(s); and/or (2) the elector(s) was not “lawfully certified” under state law; or (3) two slates of electors have been presented to Congress from the same State.

Since the Electoral Count Act of 1887, no objection meeting the requirements of the Act have been made against an entire slate of state electors.5 In the 2000 election several Members of the House of Representatives attempted to challenge the electoral votes from the State of Florida. However, no Senator joined in the objection, and therefore, the objection was not “received.” In addition, there was no determination whether the objection constituted an appropriate basis under the 1887
Act. However, if a State - in this case Ohio - has not followed its own procedures and met its obligation to conduct a free and fair election, a valid objection -if endorsed by at least one Senator and a Member of the House of Representatives- should be debated by each body separately until “disposed of".

Please contact me at 225-5126 to appraise me of your thoughts on this important matter. If your staff has questions, that may be forwarded to Perry Apelbaum or Ted Kalo of my Judiciary Committee staff at 225-6504. Thank you.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr.

Representative John Conyers has announced that he'll be filing an official Objection to the Ohio Electoral votes on January 6, 2005. We need to mobilize and get our Senators to support him. (article underneath senator information below)

Here's the same list of historically-progressive Senators I cite in my report on the Ohio Situation from yesterday:

Note that Russ Feingold is the one senator that voted against the Patriot Act, so he's got the guts to do this kind of thing, and I put him at the top of the list.

When the Senate offices reopen after January 2, 2005, you can call their offices directly:

Senator Russ Feingold, (202) 224-5323, russ_feingold@feingold.senate.gov

Senator Tom Harkin, (202) 224-3254, tom_harkin@harkin.senate.gov

Senator Jim Jeffords, (202) 224-5141, Vermont@jeffords.senate.gov

Senator Edward Kennedy, 202/224-4543, senator@kennedy.senate.gov

Senator Patrick Leahy, (202) 224-4242, senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov

Senator Barbara Boxer, (202) 224-3553, senator@boxer.senate.gov

Senator Dick Durbin, (202) 224-2152, dick@durbin.senate.gov

Representative John Conyers, ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, will object to the counting of the Ohio Electors from the 2004 Presidential election when Congress convenes to ratify those votes on January 6th. In a letter dispatched to every Senator, which will be officially published by his office shortly, Conyers declares that he will be joined in this by several other members of the House. Rep. Conyers is taking this dramatic step because he believes the allegations and evidence of election tampering and fraud render the current slate of Ohio Electors illegitimate.

"As you know," writes Rep. Conyers in his letter, "on January 6, 2005, at 1:00 P.M, the electoral votes for the election of the president are to be opened and counted in a joint session of Congress. I and a number of House Members are planning to object to the counting of the Ohio votes, due to numerous unexplained irregularities in the Ohio presidential vote, many of which appear to violate both federal and state law."

The letter goes on to ask the Senators who receive this letter to join Conyers in objecting to the Ohio Electors. "I am hoping that you will consider joining us in this important effort," writes Conyers, "to debate and highlight the problems in Ohio which disenfranchised innumerable voters. I will shortly forward you a draft report itemizing and analyzing the many irregularities we have come across as part of our hearings and investigation into the Ohio presidential election."

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/123104W.shtml

Conyers to Object to Ohio Electors, Requests Senate Allies
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report

Thursday 30 December 2004

Representative John Conyers, ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, will object to the counting of the Ohio Electors from the 2004 Presidential election when Congress convenes to ratify those votes on January 6th. In a letter dispatched to every Senator, which will be officially published by his office shortly, Conyers declares that he will be joined in this by several other members of the House. Rep. Conyers is taking this dramatic step because he believes the allegations and evidence of election tampering and fraud render the current slate of Ohio Electors illegitimate.

"As you know," writes Rep. Conyers in his letter, "on January 6, 2005, at 1:00 P.M, the electoral votes for the election of the president are to be opened and counted in a joint session of Congress. I and a number of House Members are planning to object to the counting of the Ohio votes, due to numerous unexplained irregularities in the Ohio presidential vote, many of which appear to violate both federal and state law."

The letter goes on to ask the Senators who receive this letter to join Conyers in objecting to the Ohio Electors. "I am hoping that you will consider joining us in this important effort," writes Conyers, "to debate and highlight the problems in Ohio which disenfranchised innumerable voters. I will shortly forward you a draft report itemizing and analyzing the many irregularities we have come across as part of our hearings and investigation into the Ohio presidential election."

There are expected to be high level meetings with high ranking Democratic officials next week to coordinate a concerted lobbying effort to convince Senators to challenge the vote. The Green Party and David Cobb, as has been true all along, will be centrally involved in this process, as will Rev. Jesse Jackson.

The remainder of the Conyers letter reads:

3 U.S.C. §15 provides when the results from each of the states are announced, that "the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any." Any objection must be presented in writing and "signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received." The objection must "state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof." When an objection has been properly made in writing and endorsed by a member of each body the Senate withdraws from the House chamber, and each body meets separately to consider the objection. "No votes...from any other State shall be acted upon until the (pending) objection...(is) finally disposed of." 3 U.S.C. §17 limits debate on the objections in each body to two hours, during which time no member may speak more than once and not for more than five minutes. Both the Senate and the House must separately agree to the objection; otherwise, the challenged vote or votes are counted.

Historically, there appears to be three general grounds for objecting to the counting of electoral votes. The language of 3 U.S.C. §15 suggests that objection may be made on the grounds that (1) a vote was not "regularly given" by the challenged elector(s); and/or (2) the elector(s) was not "lawfully certified" under state law; or (3) two slates of electors have been presented to Congress from the same State.

Since the Electoral Count Act of 1887, no objection meeting the requirements of the Act have been made against an entire slate of state electors. In the 2000 election several Members of the House of Representatives attempted to challenge the electoral votes from the State of Florida. However, no Senator joined in the objection, and therefore, the objection was not "received." In addition, there was no determination whether the objection constituted an appropriate basis under the 1887 Act. However, if a State - in this case Ohio - has not followed its own procedures and met its obligation to conduct a free and fair election, a valid objection -if endorsed by at least one Senator and a Member of the House of Representatives- should be debated by each body separately until "disposed of".

A key legal aspect of this is the second clause referenced in the letter. Rep. Conyers and the other House members involved do not believe the electors have been lawfully certified. They believe that there has been too much illegal activity on the part of Blackwell, other election officials, and Republican operatives on the ground and therefore, as stated in the letter, the electors were not "lawfully certified" under state law. Next week, the House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff will release the report referenced in the letter, which is now still in draft form, and which led Mr. Conyers to this decision.

The Senators who shall receive the greatest focus from Conyers in this matter are Biden, Bingaman, Boxer, Byrd, Clinton, Conrad, Corzine, Dodd, Dorgan, Durbin, Feingold, Harkin, Inyoue, Jeffords, Kennedy, Kerry, Lautenberg, Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Mikulski, Nelson (FL), Jack Reed, Harry Reid, Rockefeller, Sarbanes, Stabenow, Wyden and Obama.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and international bestseller of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'

Well it took a few days, but here's my Roundup Of The Recent Events Surrounding Election 2004's Ohio Recount and Voting Machine Fraud Situation:

It Ain't Over Till It's Over

Including a bunch of
Resources organized by subject and a
What You Can Do section.

I've made all of the evidence -- Congressional letters, videos, affidavits, etc. available in multiple formats (HTML, PDF, Text, etc.), and stored them locally.

I hope you will find it useful. Please spread the word!

Here's the Index:

* Video and Affidavits Confirm Tampering of Recount Machines
* Rep. John Conyers Gets Involved
* Specific Laws That Were Allegedly Violated
* Kerry Surfaces
* Electors Of Several States Pass Resolutions and Call For Congressional Investigation
* Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's Role In Obstructing The Ohio Recount
* What You Can Do
* Resources

Here is the full text of my article in case the link goes bad:

http://video.lisarein.com/election2004/ohioreport/recount.html

It Ain't Over Till It's Over
A Roundup Of The Recent Events Surrounding Election 2004's Ohio Recount and Voting Machine Fraud Situation
By Lisa Rein
December 29, 2004

Here's What You Can Do now to help influence the situation.
Index

* Video and Affidavits Confirm Tampering of Recount Machines
* Rep. John Conyers Gets Involved
* Specific Laws That Were Allegedly Violated
* Kerry Surfaces
* Electors Of Several States Pass Resolutions and Call For Congressional Investigation
* Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's Role In Obstructing The Ohio Recount
* What You Can Do
* Resources

Download this report and all its documents (video and mp3 excluded) as a zip file.
Video and Affidavits Confirm Tampering of Recount Machines

Although things are just heating up over the last week, the events in question took place over two weeks ago, on December 10, 2004. According to a signed affidavit by Sherole Eaton, Hocking County Deputy Director of Elections, Triad employee Michael Barbian, dropped by, free of charge, to "check out your tabulator, computer, and that the attorneys will be asking some tricky questions and he wanted to go over some of the questions they maybe ask."

In her affidavit, Eaton also claims that Barbian worked unsupervised on one or more recount machines for over two hours. She also states that: "He advised Lisa and I on how to post a "cheat sheet" on the wall so that only the board members and staff would know about it and what the codes meant so the count would come out perfect and we wouldn't have to do a full hand recount of the county."

According to a December 20th Wired article written by Kim Zetter, when Wired contacted her for comment, Eaton tried to downplay her statements, saying that they were blown out of proportion, and that she only filed the affidavit in order to prove that no wrongdoing had occurred. However, the affidavit itself seems to do just the opposite, by explaining the details surrounding the Triad techician's unsupervised handling of at least one, and perhaps more than one recount machine, and the existence of a "cheat sheet" in order to assist recount officials with deriving the "right answer" for vote tallies so they wouldn't have to actually conduct a recount by hand.

In a video interview with Triad staffer Michael Barbian, he confirms that the recount machines were taken completely apart and put back together and reprogrammed with new software without any of the supervision required by Ohio State Law. He also says that he has done the same thing in several other counties.
Rep. John Conyers Gets Involved

Representative John Conyers (D-MI), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-OH), have been the only three of our elected representatives to take the last two months of voting fraud allegations seriously. They conducted a Judiciary Democratic 2004 Election Forum in Washington DC on December 13, 2004, and continued with more hearings in Ohio for many days afterwards.

On December 22, after viewing the video, Conyers wrote a letter to Brett Rapp, President of Triad Systems, and Michael Barbian, asking them to explain their actions in Hocking County on December 10, 2004.

On December 23, Conyers learned that Triad Systems had remote access capabilities to the voting machines in numerous counties, prompting him to send a second letter to Rapp and Barbian inquiring about these capabilities and how exactly they were utilized by Triad during the recount.
Specific Laws That Were Allegedly Violated

According to a letter from Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) to Kevin Brock, Special FBI Agent in Charge of the Democratic Staff's investigation into irregularities in the 2004 election, and attorney Larry E. Beal, Hocking County Prosecutor, three federal laws and five Ohio State laws could have been violated by Triad's behavior.

Additionally, according to the Votecobb.org website (a cached google copy), the events in Hocking County represent the compromise of the required randomness of the recount precincts:

(Section 3515 of the Ohio Revised Code) "The board must randomly select whole precincts whose total equals at least 3% of the total vote, and must conduct a manual count."

"If the tabulator count does not match the hand count, and after rechecking the manual count the results are still not equal, all ballots must be hand counted. If the results of the tabulator count and the hand counted ballots are equal, the remainder of the ballots may be processed through the tabulator (for optical scan and punch cards)."

Conyers brings this up in his first letter to Triad's President and Michael Barbian:

I am concerned that your company has operated - either intentionally or negligently - in a manner which will thwart the recount law in Ohio by preventing validly cast ballots in the presidential election from being counted.

You have done this by preparing "cheat sheets" providing county election officials with information such that they would more easily be able to ignore valid ballots that were thrown out by the machines during the initial count. The purpose of the Ohio recount law is to randomly check vote counts to see if they match machine counts. By attempting to ascertain the precinct to be recounted in advance, and than informing the election officials of the number of votes they need to count by hand to make sure it matches the machine count is an invitation to completely ignore the purpose of the recount law.

You as much as admitted that this was your purpose at the December 20 hearing:

Rapp: "Remember: the purpose was to train people on how to conduct their jobs... and to help them identify problems when they conducted their recount... If they could not hand recount the ballots correctly, they would know what they needed to look for in that hand count."

[break]

Observer: "Why do you feel it was necessary to point out to a team counting ballots the number of over-votes and under-votes when the purpose of the team is to in fact locate those votes and judge them?"

Barbian: "It's an easy mistake as you're hand counting... It's just human error. The machine counts it right. We're trying to give them as much information as possible to help them out.

[break]

Interviewer: "You were just trying to help them so that they wouldn't have to do a full recount of the county, to try to avoid that?"

Barbian: "Right."(1)

In a separate interview, Barbian admits that none of the six counties he serviced during the recount actually conducted a full recount:

Interviewer 1: Did any of your counties have to do the full recount?

Michael Barbian: Not that I am aware of.

As of the time of this writing, Triad had not responded to either of Conyers' letters.
Kerry Surfaces

Although the Kerry/Edwards campaign had sent official recount rules to each individual Board of Elections in the state of Ohio, it had remained relatively quiet throughout most of the process.

Then, last week, Kerry seemed to get personally involved in the recount effort. For the first time ever, Daniel Hoffheimer, Kerry's attorney in Ohio, made a statement to MSNBC's Countdown With Keith Olbermann suggesting that the Bush-Cheney result may not be valid:

"Senators Kerry and Edwards are very concerned that the law for conducting the recount should be uniformly followed. Only then can the integrity of the entire electoral process and the election of Bush-Cheney warrant the public trust."

On Monday, December 27, 2004, the Kerry/Edwards presidential campaign filed two important motions to preserve and augment evidence of alleged election fraud in the November election. Note: not only in the recount, but in the election itself.

As truthout explains: "Specifically, Kerry will be filing a request for expedited discovery regarding Triad Systems voting machines, as well as a motion for preservation order to protect any and all discovery and preserve any evidence in this matter."

The "Yost" lawsuit is the one brought about by David Cobb and the Green Party. There is another suit that has been filed against Bush, Cheney, Rove, Moyer, and Blackwell that is a separate matter.

Here's more from the truthout report on the "Yost" suit and Kerry's involvement:

The motions were filed in the matter titled Yost et al. v. Delaware County Board of Elections and J. Kenneth Blackwell (Civil Action No. C2-04-1139) with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. The document is titled "Motion Of Intervenor-Defendant Kerry-Edwards 2004, Inc. For A Preservation Order And For A Leave To Take Limited Expedited Discovery."

The purpose of the motions is twofold: A) To preserve all ballots and voting machines pertaining to the Yost matter for investigation and analysis; and B) To make available for sworn deposition testimony a technician for Triad Systems, the company that produced and maintained many of the voting machines used in the Ohio election. The technician has been accused of tampering with the recount process in Hocking County, Ohio, though other counties are believed to have also been involved. Any officers of Triad Systems who have information pertaining to said tampering are likewise subject to subpoena for sworn deposition testimony.

It would appear that the ever-increasing mountain of evidence was starting to gain Kerry's attention, and was perhaps starting to change his mind about getting more involved. But then, at the end of the day on Monday, December 27, Keith Olbermann posted a blog post and video story that took the wind out of the sails for those of us who were hopeful after the first statement. I think it pretty much speaks for itself that the Kerry/Edwards campaign isn't going to be doing anything drastic anytime soon:

"I would caution the media not to read more into what the Kerry-Edwards campaign has said," Mr. Hoffheimer advised us by e-mail, "than what you hear in the plain meaning of our comments. There are many conspiracy theorists opining these days. There are many allegations of fraud. But this presidential election is over. The Bush-Cheney ticket has won. The Kerry-Edwards campaign has found no conspiracy and no fraud in Ohio, though there have been many irregularities that cry out to be fixed for future elections. Senator Kerry and we in Ohio intend to fix them. When all of the problems in Ohio are added together, however bad they are, they do not add up to a victory for Kerry-Edwards. Senator Kerry's fully-informed and extremely careful assessment the day after the election and before he conceded remains accurate today, notwithstanding all the details we have since learned.

Electors Of Several States Pass Resolutions and Call For Congressional Investigation

Electors across the country have been watching the developments closely. Historically, we never hear much from these people, who quietly cast the votes to actually choose our President every four years. Last week, history was made, when numerous electors from across the country spoke out in favor of a full congressional investigation into the numerous alleged voting violations during the November 2 election and the recounts afterwards.

On December 20, 2004, a group of electors from five different states called for a congressional investigation of voting violations during the Nov. 2 election for president. Electors in Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, California, and North Carolina all registered their concerns as they cast their votes.

On December 22, the entire lot of electors in Massachusetts passed a motion urging members of Congress to object to the vote. They also requested an investigation of "all voting complaints that might have any validity" and remedies for "any voting rights violations or electoral fraud verified by its own agents or through the courts."

It is the electors' hope to get the message read on the floor of Congress prior to certification on Jan. 6, when the ballots are opened.
Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's Role In Obstructing The Ohio Recount

The Greens and Libertarians filed for a recount, and got one. Trouble is, much of the recount has not been allowed to actually take place, due to constant interference by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who has been sealing off the buildings and ballots required to conduct a full recount. Blackwell is earning the reputation of being "the Katherine Harris of Ohio," and with good reason.

Even though he promised in an interview with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann that he would not obstruct a recount in any way, in reality, he has done exactly that. Here's one article which details how one Ohio Recount team that had been assigned to Greene County was stopped in mid-count by a surprise order from Secretary of State Blackwell's office, where the Director Board of Elections stated that "all voter records for the state of Ohio were "locked-down," because "they are not considered public records."

Here's one of the specific laws Blackwell is violating (in an excerpt from Ohio's State Election Code):

Ohio Revised Code Title XXXV Elections, Sec. 3503.26 that requires all election records to be made available for public inspection and copying. ORC Sec. 3599.161 makes it a crime for any employee of the Board of Elections to knowingly prevent or prohibit any person from inspecting the public records filed in the office of the Board of Elections. Finally, ORC Sec. 3599.42 clearly states: "A violation of any provision of Title XXXV (35) of the Revised Code constitutes a prima facie case of election fraud within the purview of such Title."

Blackwell also took six weeks to certify the election in Ohio, which made it impossible for the recount to proceed in a timely manner. As David Cobb's website put it: "Kenneth Blackwell, who served both as Ohio Secretary of State (the man in charge of Ohio's vote-counting process) and the partisan co-chair of the Bush-Cheney Re-election Campaign in Ohio, took six weeks to certify the Ohio vote count, the same time needed by Washington State to certify the vote, complete a state-wide recount, and start a second one."

Here's Blackwell during his interview from November 29, 2004 with Keith Olbermann promising to let the recount move forward unhindered:

Olbermann: As it plays into the recount though sir, are you saying that your office does not anticipate taking any steps to try to prevent a recount in Ohio?

Blackwell: No. We haven't! We've told the two officials..candidates that once we certify on December 6th, they have five days to certify. I mean, to ask for a recount. Once they ask for a recount, we will provide them with a recount. And that's what I've said from the very first indication that they were interested in a recount. Once it was established that they were statewide candidates with standing, our law says that they can ask for a recount. We will regard this as yet another audit of the voting process. The reason it takes us from November the second to December the sixth to certify is because we have a very tedious, very comprehensive process where we audit by precinct, across the state, every vote that was cast to make sure that every vote that was legally cast is counted.

Blackwell is also named in a lawsuit filed on behalf of number of civil rights groups, but Attorney General Jim Petro, representing Blackwell, is claiming that the plaintiff voters of the suit "are not trying to actually contest the presidential election but are merely using this litigation to cast public doubt on the voting system of the State of Ohio without a shred of evidence supporting their theories."

The argument is that Blackwell (and, of course, the argument would carry over to the deposition of Bush, Cheney, Rove and Moyers -- the others named in the suit), is too important and busy as a high-ranking official to be deposed, and that the lawsuit is frivolous anyway. Here's an article from the NY Times explaining just how real the problems with the Ohio vote and recount are, and demonstrating how the claims against Blackwell are in no way frivolous.

Unfortunatlely, only time will tell on these court cases. And, of course, time is the one thing we don't have.
What You Can Do

I wish I had a better answer for what you, or any of us, can really do to rectify this situation. What we really need is another vote in Ohio, not another, properly conducted recount. In my opinion, recounts are not good enough. A recount only gives you a better chance of having your vote counted when you haven't been deprived of casting your vote in the first place. There were, at this point in the tally, hundreds of thousands of people who were not allowed to cast their vote. These are the votes that would have made the difference in the final numbers. As was the case in Florida in 2000, these people were systematically silenced before they even had a chance to speak.

That point made, there are three different ways that you can actually make your voice heard over this next week before the final electorate vote is cast on January 6, 2005:

1.

You can take 30 seconds and send an email to the House Judiciary Committee expressing your concerns on the matter and asking for a full investigation. Conyers is trying to get a million emails by January 3, 2005 in the hopes of turning a few heads there.
2.

If you are in Ohio or Washington D.C., you can show up at one of the protests scheduled to happen from January 3-6, 2005. Looks like there are protest scheduled around the country for the week of January 15-20 too, but that, of course, will be after the fact with regard to the January 6 electoral votes being cast.
3.

You can send emails now to these Senators who might actually endorse the challenge scheduled to be submitted by Rep. Maxine Waters and/or Rep. John Conyers on January 6, 2005.

Note that Russ Feingold is the one senator that voted against the Patriot Act, so he's got the guts to do this kind of thing, and I put him at the top of the list.

When the Senate offices reopen after January 2, 2005, you can call their offices directly:

Senator Russ Feingold, (202) 224-5323, russ_feingold@feingold.senate.gov

Senator Tom Harkin, (202) 224-3254, tom_harkin@harkin.senate.gov

Senator Jim Jeffords, (202) 224-5141, Vermont@jeffords.senate.gov

Senator Edward Kennedy, 202/224-4543, senator@kennedy.senate.gov

Senator Patrick Leahy, (202) 224-4242, senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov

Senator Barbara Boxer, (202) 224-3553, senator@boxer.senate.gov

Senator Dick Durbin, (202) 224-2152, dick@durbin.senate.gov

Resources

Index of Resources:

* Triad Voting Machine Fraud Evidence Links
* Congressional Action Links
* Kerry's Re-Emergence Links
* Electoral College Speaks Out Links
* Blackwell Interfering With Recount Links
* January 3, 6, and 15-20 Protest Information
* Law Suits Against Bush, Cheney, Rove, Moyers and Blackwell Links
* Other Relevant Articles and Websites

Triad Voting Machine Fraud Evidence Links

*

Video and MP3 Files Of Interview With Michael Barbian
(Video - 3 MB, Video - 6 MB, MP3, HTML Transcription)
via truthout
*

Affidavit of Sherole Eaton, Hocking County Deputy Director of Elections
December 13, 2004
(HTML, PDF-original, Text)
via t r u t h o u t
*

American Democracy Hangs by a Thread in Ohio
By Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
The Columbus Free Press
December 15, 2004
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/986
via t r u t h o u t
*

Ohio Recount Stirs Trouble
December 20, 2004
By Kim Zetter for Wired News.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,66072,00.html?tw=rss.TOP
*

Ohio Voting Bombshell
December 24, 2004
By Ken Hoop for the American Free Press.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/ohio_voting_bombshell.html
*

Map Of Triad's Ohio County Customers
jpeg of this pdf file
http://www.votingindustry.com/VR_Review/2nd%20Tier/PDFs/triadcustomers.pdf
http://video.lisarein.com/election2004/ohioreport/triadcustomers.pdf
*

Votingindustry.com Listing for Triad Systems
http://www.votingindustry.com/VR_Review/2nd%20Tier/triad_GSI.htm
*

Triad GSI Website
http://www.triadgsi.com/

Congressional Action Links

*

First Letter From Representative John Conyers To Triad GSI
December 22, 2004
(HTML, PDF)
*

Second Letter From Representative John Conyers To Triad GSI
December 23, 2004
(HTML, PDF)
*

Letter from Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) to Kevin Brock, Special FBI Agent in Charge of the Democratic Staff's investigation into irregularities in the 2004 election, and attorney Larry E. Beal, Hocking County Prosecutor
December 15, 2004
(HTML, PDF-original)
*

Judiciary Democratic 2004 Election Forum
December 13, 2004
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/voteforum2.html
*

Representative John Conyers' Website
http://www.house.gov/conyers/
*

Representative Stephanie Tubbs-Jones' Website
http://www.house.gov/tubbsjones/
*

Representative Maxine Waters' Website
http://www.house.gov/waters/
*

House Committee on the Judiciary
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/index.html

Kerry's Re-Emergence Links

*

Keith Olbermann's Blog Post From December 27, 2004
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6667405/#041227b
*

Kerry Files Motion to Protect Ohio Vote Evidence
December 27, 2004
By William Rivers Pitt for Truthout.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122804V.shtml
*

MSNBC's Countdown With Keith Olberman's Report On Ohio Recount
December 22, 2004
(Video, MP3, Text)
Keith Olbermann's Blog
*

MSNBC's Countdown With Keith Olberman's Report On Kerry's Involvement
December 27, 2004
(Video, MP3)
Keith Olbermann's Blog
*

Kerry to Enter Ohio Recount Fray
December 23, 2004
By William Rivers Pitt for Truthout.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122404Y.shtml
*

Vote-cobb.org Website (Google Cache)
Retrieved on December 27, 2004
http://video.lisarein.com/election2004/ohioreport/cobbcached.txt
*

Coming Up For Air
Kerry Preparing Grounds To Unconcede - Election Challenge Likely On Jan 6th
December 25, 2004
http://www.breakfornews.com/articles/kerrypreparinggroundstounconcede.htm
*

The Official Kerry-Edwards Position on How to Handle the Ohio Recount, Sent to the Individual Boards of Election in the State
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/12/ale04101.html

Electoral College Speaks Out Links

*

Massachusetts electors pass unanimous resolution calling for an investigation
December 23, 2004
http://votefraudinfo.blogspot.com/2004/12/massachusetts-electors-pass-unanimous.html
*

Electors Call for National Voting Reforms
December 23, 2004
http://www.vermontguardian.com/national/0904/Electors.shtml

Blackwell Interfering With Recount Links

*

Video and Transcription of Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's Interview With Keith Olbermann
November 29, 2004
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/002325.php
*

Video and Transcription of Jesse Jackson's Interview With Keith Olbermann
November 30, 2004
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/002326.php
*

Blackwell Locks Out Recount Volunteers
December 10, 2004
By Ray Beckerman
http://fairnessbybeckerman.blogspot.com/2004/12/blackwell-locks-out-recount-volunteers.html
*

Ohio Official Refuses Interview Over Vote
December 28, 2004
By Andrew Welsh-huggins for the AP.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4696816,00.html
*

Ohio GOP election officials ducking subpoenas as Kerry enters stolen vote fray
December 28, 2004
by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1046

January 3, 6, and 15-20 Protest Information

*

Information About January 3rd and 6th, 2005 protests in Ohio and Washington DC
December 27, 2004
*

Information on the January 15-20 protests
http://www.counter-inaugural.org/

Law Suits Against Bush, Cheney, Rove, Moyers and Blackwell Links

*

Lawsuit Before the Ohio Supreme Court
December 24, 2004
Summarized by Mary Anne Saucier
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1028
*

Ohio electoral fight becomes 'biggest deal since Selma' as GOP stonewalls
December 22, 2004
By Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman for the Free Press.
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1015

Other Relevant Articles and Websites

*

Voting Problems in Ohio Spur Call for Overhaul
December 24, 2004
By James Dao, Ford Fessesfen and Tom Zeller Jr. for the NY Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/24/national/24vote.html
Blogged Text of Article (In case original link is broken.)
*

Election 2004 - Aftermath Category
On Lisa Rein's Radar
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/election_2004_aftermath/index.php
*

Votecobb.org Daily Updates Website
http://www.votecobb.org/recount/daily_update/

List of Specific Laws That Were Allegedly Violated

Everything below is quoted from Representative John Conyers' Letter to Kevin Brock, Special FBI Agent in Charge of the Democratic Staff's investigation into irregularities in the 2004 election, and attorney Larry E. Beal, Hocking County Prosecutor.

* Alleged Violations Of Federal Law
* Alleged Violations of Ohio State Law

Alleged Violations Of Federal Law

1.

Tampering with ballots and/or election machinery would violate the constitutional rights of all citizens to vote and have their votes properly counted, as guaranteed by the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
2.

42 U.S.C. 5 1973
provides for criminal penalties against any person who, in any election for federal office, "knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds, or attempts to defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by . . .the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held."
3.

42 U.S.C. 3 1974
also requires the retention and preservation, for a period of twenty-two months from the date of a federal election, of all voting records and papers and makes it a felony for any person to "willfully steal, destroy, conceal, mutilate, or alter" any such record. Further, any tampering with ballots and/or election machinery would violate the constitutional rights of all citizens to vote and have their votes properly counted, as guaranteed by the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Alleged Violations of Ohio State Law

1.

OHIO REV. CODE ANN. 3599.27
provides "[n]o person shall tamper or attempt to tamper with, deface impair the use of, destroy or otherwise injure in any manner any voting machine...No person shall tamper or attempt to tamper with, deface, impair the use of, destroy or otherwise change or injure in any manner any marking device, automatic tabulating equipment or any appurtenances or accessories thereof."
2.

OHIO REV. CODE ANN. 3599.24
provides "[n]o person shall...destroy any property used in the conduct of elections."
3.

OHIO REV. CODE ANN. 3599.34
provides "[n]o person, from the time ballots are cast or voted until the time has expired for using them in a recount or as evidence in a contest of election, shall unlawfully destroy or attempt to destroy the ballots, or permit such ballots or a ballot box or pollbook used at an election to be destroyed; or destroy, falsify, mark, or write in a name on any such ballot that has been voted."
4.

OHIO REV. CODE ANN. 53599.33
provides "[n]o person, from the time ballots are cast or counted until the time has expired for using them as evidence in a recount or contest of election, shall willfully and with fraudulent intent make any mark or alteration on any ballot; or inscribe, write, or cause to be inscribed or written in or upon a registration form or list, pollbook, tally sheet, or list, Iawfully made or kept at an election, or in or upon a book or paper purporting to be such, or upon an election return, or upon a book or paper containing such return the name of a person not entitled to vote at such election or not voting thereat, or a fictitious name, or, within such time, wrongfully change, alter, erase, or tamper with a name, word, or figure contained in such pollbook, tally sheet, list, book, or paper; or falsify, mark, or write thereon with intent to defeat, hinder, or prevent a fair expression of the will of the people at such election.".
5.

Ohio Revised Code 3505.32
which provides that during a period of official canvassing, all interaction with ballots must be "in the presence of all of the members of the board and any other persons who are entitled to witness the official canvass," given that last Friday, the Ohio Secretary of State has issued orders to the effect that election officials are to treat all election materials as if they were in a period of canvassing,(2) and that "Teams of one Democrat and one Republican must be present with ballots at all times of processing."(3)

eXTReMe Tracker

This is from the December 27, 2004 program of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

There's the one with the latest from Kerry's Ohio lawyer, an analysis by Howard Fineman of the Kerry situation, more about Washington State, Feinstein pushing the popular vote, one big clip of everything - 18 MB, and MP3s of everything.

Here's a mirror for it all.

The strangest thing about this interview with Triad Employee Michael Barbian is that the only damning part of his words is the below quote, where he admits that a recount didn't actually take place in any of the counties Triad services:

Interviewer 1: Did any of your counties have to do the full recount?

Michael Barbian: Not that I am aware of.

Otherwise, there isn't a lot there. Apparently, Barbian said a lot more when he testified in Ohio at Conyers' investigative hearings. (More on this coming up.)

This was originally distributed via Truthout. I've copied the videos to my own server, generated and MP3 from them, and transcribed the interview myself (see "more" below).

Video Of Interview With Michael Barbian (6 MB)

Video Of Interview With Michael Barbian (3 MB)

MP3 Of Interview With Michael Barbian (5 MB)

Here is a full transcription of the video located at:

http://video.lisarein.com/election2004/ohioreport/triadtech_100k.mov

Interview with Michael Barbain, Triad Systems Technician.

Words I can't make out denoted with (can't make out) or (?). Periods denote pauses only.

Interviewer 1: Could you ID yourself? I didn't get your ID earlier.

Michael Barbian: My name's Michael Barbian, and I'm the reason we're all here today. I work for Triad Governmental Systems.

Interviewer 1: When you were telling them about the under and over votes, it seems to me, now that I've heard what you've said, that you were just trying to help them so that they wouldn't have to do a full recount of the counties.

Michael Barbian: As much information as possible is what I was trying to provide them with. And that's all it amounts to. It's for elections people to do the best job that they can, and they do a very thorough job. The more information you give someone, the better job they can do.

Interviewer 1: And the information, it sounded to me, unless I've got the wrong piece there. It sounds like the under and over votes per precinct should be information that they had anyway on their computer.

Michael Barbian: It was there.

Interviewer 1: It was on their computer. And then there was that one copy there that was taken back for backup.

Michael Barbian: It's normally not run off. In the last Presidential Election it became an issue in Florida and in this election. It just provides more information. It doesn't affect the outcome of the race, but it's information some counties like to have.

Interviewer 1: So you work quickly with the Board of Elections, trying to help them I mean. You guys are trying to work on this election together.

Michael Barbian: Year round support of elections.

Interviewer 1: So when you heard there was a recount, what did you think your job was gonna be? I mean, did you know you were gonna have to...

Michael Barbian: Same job it always is.

Interviewer 1: Have you done a recount before?

Michael Barbian: Yes ma'am.

Interviewer 1: So...

Michael Barbian: It's just a normal day at the office.

Interviewer 1: How many counties did you go through personally?

Michael Barbian: Probably six. For the recount you mean?

Interviewer 1: Yeah.

Michael Barbian: Six.

Interviewer 1: And which counties. Do you know?

Michael Barbian: Bright (wright?) county, Harrison, (?), Muskingom, and Clark county. I'm not sure...(can't make it out) (Note: I realize that "Bright, Muskingom and Clark aren't counties :-)

Note: Here's a map of the Ohio counties Triad Services.
(PDF, JPEG.)

Interviewer 1: We certainly know more about Ohio counties than we did before, don't we?

Michael Barbian: We always knew. The Board of Elections did a good job.

Interviewer 1: Were you able to help them out at all? Try to help out the other counties -- give them as much information as you could?

Michael Barbian: To answer every question and try to help the witnesses with answering questions for them and educating them on the whole overall process.

Interviewer 1: Did any of your counties have to do the full recount?

Michael Barbian: Not that I am aware of.

Interviewer 1: Thank you very much. (to another person) Do you have any questions?

Interviewer 2: Sure.

Interviewer 2: How long have you been working at Triad?

Michael Barbian: A little over 8 years now.

Interviewer 2: Did Triad do a background check on you when they hired you?

Michael Barbian: I don't know.

Interviewer 2: Okay. How many technicians work for Triad?

Michael Barbian: There are, let's see, we have five.

Interviewer 2: And are you involved in any kind of programming? Or just maintenance?

Michael Barbian: I'm on the technical support side. I don't know how to program. I do tech support for voter registration and ballot counting.

Interviewer 2: And how long to you have to be working there, and how much training do you have to go through before you can start doing what you do now?

Michael Barbian: We work closely. When we bring on a new employee, we don't really turn them loose for about a year or a year and a half...because there are so many things that you have to watch closely. Anytime a new employee comes on, they are watched closely and double checked. All of our work is double checked by Boards of Elections. So they test very thoroughly (can't make it out)...bring anything from our office.

Interviewer 2: So what does that process involve? Does the person just basically tail somebody for a year and a half? And observe what somebody else is doing? How do they earn their money while they're not...

Michael Barbian: They're paid like a regular employee. We put them to work. Normally, once they've watched the process a couple times, then we put them more involved (skip in tape) in overseeing every step of the process.

Back to Interviewer 1: You seem like a senior guy. Have you trained anybody? Have you had anybody tail you?

Michael Barbian: Yes ma'am.

Interviewer 1: Who was that?

Michael Barbian: I worked with one of our current technicians, Brandon, and Jose, one of our other technicians. So they..everyone goes through training. I go through training (can't make it out) something pops up. It's a learning process. Everytime (?) changes or the Board of Elections asks for something new. So every day we always learn something new, and try to help out.

Interviewer 1: Great. Can you give me Brandon and Jose's last names?

Michael Barbian: It's Brandon Sandham (sp?) and Jose Trejo (sp?)

Interviewer 2: How many technicans total did you say you have right now?

Michael Barbian: Five.

Interviewer 2: And you've been with them for how long?

Michael Barbian: Over 8 years. It was eight years I think last week or the week before actually.

Interviewer 2: How long had Triad been in the election business when you joined the company?

Michael Barbian: I'd have to do the math.

Interviewer 2: They started in 1985?

Michael Barbian: 84, 85. (nods head)

Interviewer 2: It is my understanding that some of the software that's used to count the votes now was purchased in 2001? Is that accurate in any way? or...

Michael Barbian: Um. It could of been, but it was the same versions of the program that was used in all of our counties. Some of the counties came on board after, and it's possible. I'd have to look and see which counties...

Interviewer 2: What I mean is that, the software that you guys use was actually purchased in full from a previously existing company?

Michael Barbian: Oh. Not our tabulation. It was from (?) our company wrote it and it's our program. We did not purchase it.

Interviewer 2: So your tabulation program, you guys programmed in-house?

Michael Barbian: Yes sir.

Interviewer 2: And when was that program written?

Michael Barbian: Early 80's. That's when it first got started.

Interviewer 2: So there was no...

Michael Barbian: As far as some of the dates, and when some of the different revisions...I don't know. Before I got there.

Tape ends.

Ohio Official Refuses Interview Over Vote
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins for the AP.

Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has requested a protective order to prevent him from being interviewed as part of an unusual court challenge of the presidential vote.

Blackwell, in a court filing, says he's not required to be interviewed by lawyers as a high-ranking public official, and accused the voters challenging the results of ``frivolous conduct'' and abusive and unnecessary requests of elections officials around the state.

Citing fraud, 37 people who voted for president Nov. 2 have challenged the election results with the Ohio Supreme Court. The voters refer to irregularities including long lines, a shortage of voting machines in minority precincts and problems with computer equipment...

Petro said the voters ``are again engaging in frivolous conduct'' after a Dec. 20 request to interview elections board officials in 10 counties was denied.

Petro also argued that the state Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction over a federal election. Even if the court did, the attorneys for the voters aren't following the proper timelines for collecting evidence.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4696816,00.html

Ohio Official Refuses Interview Over Vote

Monday December 27, 2004 11:46 PM

AP Photo OHWS101

By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS

AP Statehouse Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has requested a protective order to prevent him from being interviewed as part of an unusual court challenge of the presidential vote.

Blackwell, in a court filing, says he's not required to be interviewed by lawyers as a high-ranking public official, and accused the voters challenging the results of ``frivolous conduct'' and abusive and unnecessary requests of elections officials around the state.

Citing fraud, 37 people who voted for president Nov. 2 have challenged the election results with the Ohio Supreme Court. The voters refer to irregularities including long lines, a shortage of voting machines in minority precincts and problems with computer equipment.

President Bush defeated John Kerry by 119,000 votes, according to the official count by Blackwell. Ohio's 20 electoral votes gave Bush the 270 he needed for victory. Kerry conceded the morning after Election Day.

The challenge, with support from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, is based on comparison of reports of exit polling data with the official vote. Columbus lawyer Cliff Arnebeck and other lawyers on the case say they would like to see the supporting data that produced the exit poll results.

The voters ``are not trying to actually contest the presidential election but are merely using this litigation to cast public doubt on the voting system of the State of Ohio without a shred of evidence supporting their theories,'' Attorney General Jim Petro, representing Blackwell, said in last week's filing with the Ohio Supreme Court.

Petro said the voters ``are again engaging in frivolous conduct'' after a Dec. 20 request to interview elections board officials in 10 counties was denied.

Petro also argued that the state Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction over a federal election. Even if the court did, the attorneys for the voters aren't following the proper timelines for collecting evidence.

Arnebeck said Blackwell's request shows ``a lack of good faith'' in the process to contest elections.

On Dec. 21, officials named in Arnebeck's challenge learned that he planned to issue subpoenas to several high-ranking officials, including Blackwell, Bush and the president's political adviser, Karl Rove, according to Petro.

The state Supreme Court ``should halt their ability to subpoena any person until such time as they make a good faith showing for the reason to take any deposition,'' Petro said.

The last time a similar challenge was made to a statewide race came in 1990 when Paul Pfeifer contested Lee Fisher's 1,234-vote victory in the attorney general's race. Six justices of the court sided with Fisher.

This just in on the Bloggermann website.
(His permalink-generator isn't working right now, but you can hit the homepage for the time being.)

Keith Olbermann got Kerry's lawyer to clarify his statement from last week.

He practically said "I take it all back. The new information doesn't change anything. We still give up."

Daniel Hoffheimer to Keith Olbermann:

"I would caution the media not to read more into what the Kerry-Edwards campaign has said," Mr. Hoffheimer advised us by e-mail, "than what you hear in the plain meaning of our comments. There are many conspiracy theorists opining these days. There are many allegations of fraud. But this presidential election is over. The Bush-Cheney ticket has won. The Kerry-Edwards campaign has found no conspiracy and no fraud in Ohio, though there have been many irregularities that cry out to be fixed for future elections. Senator Kerry and we in Ohio intend to fix them. When all of the problems in Ohio are added together, however bad they are, they do not add up to a victory for Kerry-Edwards. Senator Kerry's fully-informed and extremely careful assessment the day after the election and before he conceded remains accurate today, notwithstanding all the details we have since learned."

Ug. What does it all mean?

Well I'm still going to finish up my little report and post it tomorrow.

This election will be challenged on January 6th with or without John Kerry.

Although.. I guess I was getting hopeful that Kerry might actually come through in the end. (Like Spiderman! And he had this great plan, see? All along. And he was just waiting for the timing to be just right, so he could spring into action...[echo and fade] in action....action.... )

Anyway, glad I snapped out of my fantasy long enough to go check out what happened in the real world today and read Keith Olbermann's blog.

I'm taping his show from tonight right now, and then I'll put it right up.

Here is the full text of the link (until bloggermann gets a permalink for this post):

December 27, 2004 | 7:45 p.m. ET

Conspiracies theorized, or conspiracies invoked?

SECAUCUS, N.J. — A theory advanced by John Harwood of The Wall Street Journal goes, more or less, that certain politicians are endeavoring to take advantage of the 20 percent of the population that the last Gallup Poll says is not fully convinced of the legitimacy of the last presidential election.

It seems fair to suggest that Sen. John Kerry just might be one of the politicians Harwood means.

Last Thursday night, his lead attorney on the ground in Ohio, Daniel J. Hoffheimer, issued a statement that constituted the third or fourth eyebrow-raiser from the Kerry camp in the post-election period.

In announcing that the Kerry-Edwards group would join the bid in Federal District Court in Ohio to preserve all "evidence" from the election and recount there, Mr. Hoffheimer said, on behalf of the senators, that such preservation was necessary because, "Only then can the integrity of the entire electoral process and the election of Bush-Cheney warrant the public trust."

This evening, after several Web columnists and bloggers joined me in questioning the bluntness of the phrase (one even wildly claiming this was a precursor to a Kerry "un-concession"), Hoffheimer changed his tone.

"I would caution the media not to read more into what the Kerry-Edwards campaign has said," Mr. Hoffheimer advised us by e-mail, "than what you hear in the plain meaning of our comments. There are many conspiracy theorists opining these days. There are many allegations of fraud. But this presidential election is over. The Bush-Cheney ticket has won. The Kerry-Edwards campaign has found no conspiracy and no fraud in Ohio, though there have been many irregularities that cry out to be fixed for future elections. Senator Kerry and we in Ohio intend to fix them. When all of the problems in Ohio are added together, however bad they are, they do not add up to a victory for Kerry-Edwards. Senator Kerry's fully-informed and extremely careful assessment the day after the election and before he conceded remains accurate today, notwithstanding all the details we have since learned."

The problem is, of course, that it was not some great, conspiracy-based, tin-foil-hat, piece of linguistic gymnastics, to infer from the conclusion to Mr. Hoffheimer's Thursday statement, that the Kerry-Edwards campaign did not believe that "the integrity of the entire electoral process and the election of Bush-Cheney" warranted the public trust. It is, in fact, to use Mr. Hoffheimer's phrase, "the plain meaning" of the first statement.

How do I know that? To borrow Chairman Sam Ervin's answer to that same question, as posed by John Ehrlichmann at the Senate Watergate hearings in 1973: "Because I can understand the English language. It's my mother's tongue."

The Kerry campaign spent much of 2004 being accused by its critics of trying to be all things to all people. It seems poised to continue to wear the bull's-eye well into the New Year.

E-mail: KOlbermann@msnbc.com

• December 27, 2004 | 12:11 p.m. ET

Kerry lawyer: does the re-election warrant the public trust? (Keith Olbermann)

NEW YORK - I spent the weekend holding the latest statement from John Kerry’s Ohio attorney up to the light, to see if I could read the secret treasure map written in invisible ink on the other side.

In signing on to the Glibs’ court bid to preserve all the evidence of what has been a severely compromised recount, Daniel Hoffheimer told us at Countdown: “Only then can the integrity of the entire electoral process and the election of Bush-Cheney warrant the public trust.”

Surely, I’m not going out on a limb here to infer that at the moment, Mr. Hoffheimer and the Kerry-Edwards campaign don’t think the entire electoral process and the election of President Bush warrant the public trust.

I mean, the infamous “regardless of the outcome of the election,” phrase in Kerry’s only post-concession comment on the mangled vote was so subtle in both temporality and meaning that it could have been inserted in a statement dealing with any eventuality ranging from a clearly determined vote that was in the past, to a still undecided result.

But not Hoffheimer’s. Them’s (to borrow the language of the noted political pundit Yosemite Sam) fightin’ words. Fightin’ words issued last Thursday evening, as America got out of town for a holiday weekend. Fightin’ words that came just eight working days before the Electoral College votes are opened before Congress, and Maxine Waters or John Conyers or anybody else in the House can crawl all the way out on the limb of formal challenge, and it won’t matter a jot if there isn’t one Senator to crawl out there with them.

It’s unfathomable that Kerry would sign the requisite written challenge. Given his incredibly nuanced response to the entire voting irregularities story, and his evident aspiration to become the Adlai Stevenson or even William Jennings Bryan of the 21st Century, becoming the Senate sponsor of the challenge would seem about as likely and about as consistent as a motorist doing 20 in the right hand lane, suddenly accelerating to 110 and doing the full Bill Murray Groundhog Day bit into the quarry.

Kerry’s signature might not even be sought. There has been “very serious” contact among the staffs of leading Democrats in both houses about the implications of the challenge, according to a congressional figure privy to that contact. He estimates for us that the chance of a Senator actually signing on has — in the last week — risen from almost nothing, to upwards of one third.

And there is still that coda from Hoffheimer’s statement. By itself, it is the thrown gauntlet, and yet it is produced at a time when gauntlets are pretty much symbolic protests. Unless, perhaps, that is the strategy here. The Ohio election was undeniably full of holes, but barring developments unforeseen, the collective verified hole is not likely to be big enough to drive a truck carrying 10,000 uncounted votes through it.

However, the recount has been butchered, badly enough that even an editorial in Sunday’s Toledo Blade noted “the miserable performance of much of the American electoral system.” The Green Party says that 86 of the 88 counties violated Ohio voting law and pre-selected what were to be randomly chosen precincts for hand recounts. It claims that only one county (Coshocton) ran a full hand recount of all of its votes, and, oopsie, its certified total number of votes rose from 16,000 on election night, to 17,000 after the recount (evenly split, we might add, between Bush and Kerry, but indicating 6% of all votes disappeared). The official recount in Fairfield County found added 1,130 votes to the first count of 66,378. Representative Conyers last week wrote again to Triad Systems asking them to refute charges that they had “remote access” to their voting equipment in Fulton and Henry Counties (read as: they could change computer stuff over the internet). In the kindest of all possible lights, a Triad employee tried to save the elections officials of Hocking County the ‘trouble’ of a full hand recount at Christmas time by helping them find a precinct whose second tally would match the first one.

Is the political premise here to redirect attention from the hazy confusion of election day voter suppression or unexplained lockdowns or troubled equipment, to the simpler-to-digest black-and-white issues of the recount? “Law says A. You did Z.” The full Hoffheimer statement includes this: “Senators Kerry and Edwards… want to be sure that all circumstances involved in the Ohio election, including the recount, should be put before the Court and disclosed to the American people.” For the record, Hoffheimer’s full statement to Countdown is included at the bottom of this entry.

Excepting the possibility that the Greens/Libertarians/Kerry-Edwards suit will be immediately dismissed, this court action in Ohio is not going to be processed quickly enough to affect the inauguration. It could, instead, become a kind of institutionalized protest, the exact kind of lingering, evolving post-post game show that Al Gore swore the Democrats off of in 2000. It could become, in effect, the slow-moving symbol of the final line Hoffheimer’s statement, questioning public trust in “the entire electoral process and the election of Bush-Cheney…”

Voters and politicians will have to determine if that is an appropriate playing field for political discourse for the next two or four years.

Speaking of discourse, I’ve received a handful of e-mails since I mentioned in passing in last Tuesday’s post, the claims of a Florida computer software worker that he was asked to write a ‘vote-switching program’ in 2000. There have been several points raised that can, I think, be pretty easily cleared up here:

* Several e-mails noted that the programmer, Clint Curtis, testified before the Conyers Voting Forum in Columbus, Ohio, earlier this month. Well, yes and no. He did tell his story there, but it’s instructive to note that he was not asked to do so until after Representative Conyers left the forum, and had turned the chairing of the meeting over to a local politician. This wasn’t a case of Conyers rushing to catch a bus, nor a problem with too many witnesses, nor a coincidence.
* For weeks, say sources at various levels of the formal investigations into the voting irregularities, Mr. Curtis has promised them corroboration of his accusations — even if it was just the statement of someone to whom he said, in 2000, ‘hey, this guy just asked me to write a vote-switching program.’ These sources say they’ve received no such corroboration, and certainly none has been presented publicly.
* One e-mailer complained that the denial by the politician accused by Mr. Curtis of soliciting the program seemed pretty tepid, and confined itself largely to his comment “I don’t remember meeting Mr. Curtis.” Well, the ambiguity of the denial is partially my fault. Much of the remarks were boilerplate and repetitive, but I did leave out a fairly salient one, in which he said these were: “some of the most ridiculous, fictional charges you could ever imagine.” I wouldn’t classify that as a ‘non-denial denial.’
* Two readers asked why we didn’t simply put Mr. Curtis on 'Countdown' or otherwise interview him. Unfortunately, there is a question of the size of the platform here. If the details of his charges can be found on an innocuous website with limited readership, it doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things if the possibility that they are partially or totally untrue, turns out to be the correct one. But if that’s the case — if this is actually the story of a guy out to hurt a politician — and we put him on national television, I will have effectively recreated the Swift Boat Veterans fiasco. Under those circumstances, especially in the absence of corroboration, the truth becomes secondary, and the damage is the only verifiable thing.
* Lastly (and, for my money, most entertainingly): I noted that an attorney for Curtis’s former employers, for whom he was working when he claims to have been asked to develop the nefarious program, described him to MSNBC as a ‘disgruntled former employee.’ However, an e-mailer writes, at the time of his departure from the firm, the company gave him a going-away card. I had to smile at this evidence. When I left ESPN in 1997, the company gave me a tape of my oddest moments on the air, a huge farewell banner, and a going-away party that lasted until sunrise and was so joyous that the authorities were summoned. Still, I have to be the first one to say it: if anybody has the right to call me a ‘disgruntled former employee,’ it’s ESPN.

As promised, the full text of the statement to Countdown from the evening of December 23 of Daniel J. Hoffheimer, State Legal Counsel, Ohio, Kerry-Edwards 2004, Inc., (and, yes, he’s referring to himself in the third person here):

“Daniel Hoffheimer, State Legal Counsel for the Kerry-Edwards campaign, told MSNBC today that Kerry-Edwards will support the third-party candidates in asking the Federal Court in the Ohio recount lawsuit to order the preservation of the evidence obtained during the recount and to expedite discovery of the facts. Hoffheimer said that various problems and errors have occurred in a number of Ohio's 88 county boards of elections during the recount, which will conclude next week. Hoffheimer acknowledged that the most publicized of these problems was the machine manipulation in Hocking County but said that the developing evidence will reveal other problems as well. He said that Senators Kerry and Edwards are very concerned that the law for conducting the recount should be uniformly followed. They want to be sure that all circumstances involved in the Ohio election, including the recount, should be put before the Court and disclosed to the American people. Only then, Hoffheimer said, can the integrity of the entire electoral process and the election of Bush-Cheney warrant the public trust."

E-mail: KOlbermann@msnbc.com

This is from the December 22, 2004 program of
Countdown With Keith Olbermann.

The clip is only 47 seconds long, but it means a hell of a lot. I've transcribed the entire thing below, and Video and an MP3 file is also available.

I'll be posting more about the details of this tonight and all day tomorrow, along with an article that puts everything together in one cohesive post.

I'm doing this for everyone, of course, but I'm also doing it to make it easier for press folks in the mainstream media to cover these developments over this upcoming, critical week.

The situation seems a bit complicated, at first, and I found myself having to print out all of the articles and lay them out on my desk and read them over a couple of times to understand which names kept coming up, and why, and what seemed to be the important story to tell, which, as it turns out, is actually quite simple:

The Ohio Recount has been totally invalidated due to a combination of factors, most notably the obvious and incontestable recount machine tampering by a Triad employee.

Bush can't win without Ohio, so if the results are in question, the entire election is in question. (Final count: Bush: 286 Kerry: 252 - so Ohio's 20 electorates switching to Kerry would make the count Bush 266 Kerry 272.)

The Kerry-Edwards campaign is filing papers tomorrow to impound all of the recount equipment in question until the entire matter can be investigated in a timely manner.

Representative John Conyers (D-MI) and others are planning to challenge the election on January 6th, and they say that, this time around, unlike in 2000, they can get the support of one or more Senators to make the Challenge hold.

Here's the Video (2 MB) and MP3 (1 MB) of the Countdown story quoting Kerry's attorney.

I've transcribed the entire thing right here:

And although the race for president really is all but over tonight, in the state of Ohio, Senator John Kerry's legal team is filing papers in Federal Court, asking in effect that all of the evidence obtained during the recount be saved, and that the court move quickly to uncover the facts.

While Senator Kerry is still technically the third party in all of this, acting in support of the Libertarians and the Greens, the parties that officially requested the recount, the outcome affects him. Kerry's lawyer in Ohio, Daniel Hoffheimer, telling Countdown tonight that the Democratic ticket wants to make sure that things are done right:

"Senators Kerry and Edwards and very concerned that the law for conducting the recount should be uniformly followed. Only then can the integrity of the entire electoral process and the election of Bush-Cheney warrant the public trust."

Yippie! The irregularities have made the NY Times.

Voting Problems in Ohio Spur Call for Overhaul
By James Dao, Ford Fessesfen and Tom Zeller Jr. for the NY Times.

From seven-hour lines that drove voters away to malfunctioning machines to poorly trained poll workers who directed people to the wrong polling places to uneven policies about the use of provisional ballots, Ohio has become this year's example for every ailment in the United States' electoral process.

With a state recount expected to be completed next week, few experts think the problems were enough to overturn President Bush's victory here. And many of the shortcomings have plagued elections for decades.

But with the 36-day Florida recount of 2000 proving that every vote counts and with the two major parties near parity, the electoral system is being scrutinized more closely than ever. Election lawyers and academics say Ohio is providing a roadmap to a second generation of issues about the way the nation votes.

Congressional passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 - which mandated the provisional ballot as a failsafe and provided states money to update voting technology - was considered a landmark overhaul that would help prevent another Florida.

But an array of voting rights groups contend that Ohio has underscored shortcomings in the law, including one of its centerpieces, the provisional ballot. Now those groups are pushing for a re-examination not only of the law, but also of other voting issues, including the role of partisan secretaries of state in overseeing elections, electronic voting and the elimination of the Electoral College...

Certainly there were problems on Election Day.

In Franklin County, a computing error initially awarded nearly 4,000 extra votes to President Bush. In Mahoning County, improperly calibrated touch screens resulted in an unknown number of votes incorrectly going to President Bush before the problem was caught.

And most recently, election challengers in various Ohio counties have said that the tabulators used to count punch cards may have been tampered with before the recount...

Perhaps the most visible of Ohio's problems were its long lines. Christopher McQuoid reached his polling place in Columbus at 4:30 p.m., congratulating himself for beating the after-work rush. By 7:30, he was getting impatient. And when he finally voted at 9:30, there were 150 people in line behind him.

"I was lucky," said Mr. McQuoid, a radio announcer. "I had the day off."

But how many people decided not to vote because of long lines, and was it enough to make a difference? No one has been able to say with authority. Much attention has focused on whether elections officials served one constituency better than another.

Among the 464 complaints about long lines in Ohio collected by the Election Protection Coalition, a loose alliance of voting rights advocates and legal organizations, nearly 400 came from Columbus and Cleveland, where a huge proportion of the state's Democratic voters live...

In the Columbus area, the result was that suburban precincts that supported Mr. Bush tended to have more machines per registered voter than center-city precincts that supported Mr. Kerry - 4.6 machines per 1,000 voters in Mr. Bush's 50 strongest precincts, compared with 3.9 in Mr. Kerry's 50 best. Mr. McQuoid's precinct, a Kerry stronghold, lost one of the four machines it had in 2000, despite an increase in registration.

"Somebody came up with a very sophisticated plan for machine distribution which, either by accident or design, greatly enhanced the president," said Robert Fitrakis of Columbus, who is part of a group that has contested the election results in court...

The problem was pronounced in minority areas, typically Kerry strongholds. In Cleveland ZIP codes where at least 85 percent of the population is black, precinct results show that one in 31 ballots registered no vote for president, more than twice the rate of largely white ZIP codes, where one in 75 registered no vote for president.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/24/national/24vote.html

Voting Problems in Ohio Spur Call for Overhaul
By James Dao, Ford Fessesfen and Tom Zeller Jr.
The New York Tmes

Friday 24 December 2004

Columbus, Ohio - William Shambora, 53, is the kind of diligent voter who once assumed that his ballot always counted. He got a rude awakening this year.

Mr. Shambora, an economics professor at Ohio University, moved during the summer but failed to notify the Athens County Board of Elections until the day before the presidential election. An official told him to use a provisional ballot.

But under Ohio law, provisional ballots are valid only when cast from a voter's correct precinct. Mr. Shambora was given a ballot for the wrong precinct, a fact he did not learn until after the election. Two weeks later, the board discarded his vote, adding him to a list of more than 300 provisional ballots that were rejected in that heavily Democratic county.

"It seems like such a confused system," said Mr. Shambora, a John Kerry supporter who blames himself for the mistake. "Maybe if enough people's votes had counted, the election might have turned out differently."

From seven-hour lines that drove voters away to malfunctioning machines to poorly trained poll workers who directed people to the wrong polling places to uneven policies about the use of provisional ballots, Ohio has become this year's example for every ailment in the United States' electoral process.

With a state recount expected to be completed next week, few experts think the problems were enough to overturn President Bush's victory here. And many of the shortcomings have plagued elections for decades.

But with the 36-day Florida recount of 2000 proving that every vote counts and with the two major parties near parity, the electoral system is being scrutinized more closely than ever. Election lawyers and academics say Ohio is providing a roadmap to a second generation of issues about the way the nation votes.

Congressional passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 - which mandated the provisional ballot as a failsafe and provided states money to update voting technology - was considered a landmark overhaul that would help prevent another Florida.

But an array of voting rights groups contend that Ohio has underscored shortcomings in the law, including one of its centerpieces, the provisional ballot. Now those groups are pushing for a re-examination not only of the law, but also of other voting issues, including the role of partisan secretaries of state in overseeing elections, electronic voting and the elimination of the Electoral College.

"We're in an environment where people believe that even the tiniest number of votes can have a huge impact," said Doug Chapin, director of Electionline.org, a nonpartisan clearinghouse for voting information.

Ohio is emblematic of that attitude.

In the two weeks since Mr. Bush was certified the winner here by 118,000 votes out of 5.7 million cast, watchdog groups have filed lawsuits contesting the outcome and questioning the counting of provisional ballots. The state has nearly completed a recount, at the request of the Green and Independent Parties. Liberal Democrats have demanded investigations into whether there was voter fraud, tampering and intimidation in urban districts.

"This has fundamentally shocked people's sense of whether any election can be accurately counted," said Daniel Hoffheimer, counsel to Mr. Kerry's Ohio campaign.

It is far from clear that Republicans in Congress will have any appetite to revisit voting issues, and many Republicans here argue that the system suffered only minor glitches, even with high voter turnout. "There are no error-free elections," said Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican whom Democrats have accused of worsening the state's voting problems in the way he interpreted state law.

But Mr. Blackwell acknowledged that the election spotlighted the state's outdated voting system, with 68 of 88 counties still relying on punch cards. In an interview, he called for updating voting machines, and also for early voting, multiple-day voting and other changes that he said would shorten lines and encourage people to vote.

"I don't think it's wrong to have high expectations," he said.

Certainly there were problems on Election Day.

In Franklin County, a computing error initially awarded nearly 4,000 extra votes to President Bush. In Mahoning County, improperly calibrated touch screens resulted in an unknown number of votes incorrectly going to President Bush before the problem was caught.

And most recently, election challengers in various Ohio counties have said that the tabulators used to count punch cards may have been tampered with before the recount.

Yet there were widespread problems, many of which point to defects in the election rules, experts say.

"I think the problems weren't sufficient to cast doubt on the results," said Edward B. Foley, director of the Election Law Program at Ohio State University's law school. "But I do think there were more problems than usual in Ohio."

Provisional ballots are a prime example. In 2002, Congress authorized using the ballots in federal elections for voters whose names do not appear on registration rolls. The ballots are sealed and held until after an election, so a voter's eligibility can be checked. Valid ballots are then counted, others discarded.

But Congress largely left it to the states to promulgate rules for provisional ballots, resulting in a hodgepodge of policies. In Ohio, Mr. Blackwell, who was co-chairman of Mr. Bush's state campaign, ruled that provisional ballots would be counted only when cast from a voter's proper precinct. (At least 26 other states followed the same practice.) Democrats challenged the ruling, but a federal court upheld Mr. Blackwell.

Rules for reviewing provisional ballots also vary widely within the state. Some counties checked voter registration records dating back several years to validate ballots; others searched only recent records. Cuyahoga County, a Democratic bastion that includes Cleveland, did not check older records, and its rejection rate for provisional ballots was about 35 percent. The state average was 23 percent.

Mr. Blackwell says that despite the complaints, Ohio had one of the country's highest acceptance rates for provisional ballots: 77 percent of its 155,000 provisional ballots were counted, the highest in a 16-state survey by Electionline.org. Illinois and Pennsylvania, which went for Mr. Kerry, accepted only about half of their provisional ballots.

Perhaps the most visible of Ohio's problems were its long lines. Christopher McQuoid reached his polling place in Columbus at 4:30 p.m., congratulating himself for beating the after-work rush. By 7:30, he was getting impatient. And when he finally voted at 9:30, there were 150 people in line behind him.

"I was lucky," said Mr. McQuoid, a radio announcer. "I had the day off."

But how many people decided not to vote because of long lines, and was it enough to make a difference? No one has been able to say with authority. Much attention has focused on whether elections officials served one constituency better than another.

Among the 464 complaints about long lines in Ohio collected by the Election Protection Coalition, a loose alliance of voting rights advocates and legal organizations, nearly 400 came from Columbus and Cleveland, where a huge proportion of the state's Democratic voters live.

"It's possible that it made a difference in the outcome but unlikely," said Dan Tokaji, an assistant professor of law at Ohio State, where academics plan a voter survey to test whether large numbers were discouraged.

In Columbus, Franklin County election officials reduced the number of electronic voting machines assigned to downtown precincts and added them in the suburbs. They used a formula based not on the number of registered voters, but on past turnout in each precinct and on the number of so-called active voters - a smaller universe.

By contrast, the state's most populous county, Cuyahoga, allocated machines based on the total number of voters, a move that the county's election director, Michael Vu, said helped stave off even bigger lines.

In the Columbus area, the result was that suburban precincts that supported Mr. Bush tended to have more machines per registered voter than center-city precincts that supported Mr. Kerry - 4.6 machines per 1,000 voters in Mr. Bush's 50 strongest precincts, compared with 3.9 in Mr. Kerry's 50 best. Mr. McQuoid's precinct, a Kerry stronghold, lost one of the four machines it had in 2000, despite an increase in registration.

"Somebody came up with a very sophisticated plan for machine distribution which, either by accident or design, greatly enhanced the president," said Robert Fitrakis of Columbus, who is part of a group that has contested the election results in court.

Matthew Damschroder, a Republican who is the director of elections in Franklin County, said the urban precincts lost machines because many of their voters had not voted recently and because those precincts historically had had low turnout.

Indeed, election results show that a much higher suburban turnout on Nov. 2 meant that machines in Bush areas were more heavily used on average, although whether that was because their voters were less easily discouraged by long lines or simply more efficient in voting is unclear.

"Most of the precincts that stayed open late because of long lines were in the suburbs," said William Anthony Jr., a Democrat who is chairman of the Franklin County election board.

Another area of contention is the large number of ballots - 96,000 by recent counts - that registered no vote for president. Known as "residual" or "lost" votes, they involve cases where no candidate for president appeared to have been selected or where multiple candidates were chosen, rendering the ballot invalid for that race.

The problem was pronounced in minority areas, typically Kerry strongholds. In Cleveland ZIP codes where at least 85 percent of the population is black, precinct results show that one in 31 ballots registered no vote for president, more than twice the rate of largely white ZIP codes, where one in 75 registered no vote for president.

Experts say punch cards contributed to the problem, because the ballots, which require voters to punch a hole through a heavy-stock paper, are prone to partial perforations, or the buildup of chads. Election officials say that nearly 77,000 of the 96,000 residual ballots in Ohio were punch cards.

But Mr. Foley, the election expert at Ohio State, noted that some people consciously withhold their votes for president and that 77,000 residual punch cards is in keeping with failure rates for punch cards nationwide.

Mr. Blackwell said Ohio's residual votes actually declined this year from 2000. Of the 4.8 million votes cast in 2000, about 90,000 - 1.9 percent - registered no vote for president. This year, 96,000 of 5.7 million votes cast - 1.7 percent - did so.

Mr. Blackwell favors changing to a system that uses an optical scanner to read a paper ballot, which, he said, meets federal requirements, is less expensive than other machines and can handle more voters. But he said groups who say that just about every electronic voting system can be hacked are not helping things.

"There is still evidence out there that we need to transform the machinery," he said. "But it will be harder to do now."

"I think the majority of Democrats feel that the election was more or less accurate," said Dan Trevas, the spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party. "But others are suspicious. Irregularities that are normally overlooked have become the focal point of attention this year. I just can't see those people walking away satisfied."

Electors speaking out like this is absolutely unprecedented.

Electors from five different states are saying the system sucks, and they don't feel good about casting their electoral votes at this time.

One has even cast their vote as "provisional," pending "all votes being counted - provisional, absentee, under- and over-votes, computerized without paper ballots, even getting valid votes from those turned away illegally, intimidated, discouraged by incredibly long waits, etc."

Perhaps now, someone in the Senate will listen. Now is a good time to start writing them. I think we should target Hilary and Barbara Boxer, for starters.

Electors Call for National Voting Reforms
By Greg Guma for The Vermont Guardian.

Breaking with tradition, electors in at least five states have called for a congressional investigation of voting violations during the Nov. 2 election for president. Electors in Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, California, and North Carolina registered their concerns as they cast their votes last week.

The following day, the Berkeley City Council adopted a resolution "supporting the request that the Government Accountability Office immediately undertake an investigation of voting irregularities in the 2004 elections." Drafted by Berkeley's Peace and Justice Commission, the resolution also lists 17 measures to improve elections...

Massachusetts electors passed a motion urging members of Congress to object to the vote. It also requested an investigation of "all voting complaints that might have any validity" and remedies for "any voting rights violations or electoral fraud verified by its own agents or through the courts."

Massachusetts elector Tom Barbera said his life was threatened during get-out-the-vote efforts.

Another elector spoke of being targeted for intimidation. Noting that many whose voting rights were violated were African American, Barbera, who presented the Massachusetts' motion, said, "we believe that as electors, we have a unique opportunity and obligation to ensure that justice does not again become so delayed as to be denied."

Vermont electors expressed concerns about a reported 57,000 complaints received by a congressional Judiciary Committee and called on Congress and Vermont's congressional delegation to investigate.

In California, one elector cast his ballot provisional upon "all votes being counted - provisional, absentee, under- and over-votes, computerized without paper ballots, even getting valid votes from those turned away illegally, intimidated, discouraged by incredibly long waits, etc."

This is an attempt to get the message read on the floor of Congress prior to certification on Jan. 6, when the ballots are opened.

"Never has such a vote been cast by an elector," said Grace Ross, an organizer of the national effort to support electors to take action, and a member of Truth in Elections. "And without a parliamentarian to rule it in or out at the Electoral College level, we await whether Congress will acknowledge this type of provisional vote and address the issues this elector sought to raise, or whether they, too, will ignore provisional votes."

In North Carolina, Democratic electors and activists talked about local problems while Republicans voted inside. Elector Mary Roe mentioned problems she witnessed as an election observer in her own county. State officials admit that 4,500 votes disappeared in a computerized voting machine crash.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.vermontguardian.com/national/0904/Electors.shtml

Electors Call for National Voting Reforms
By Greg Guma
The Vermont Guardian

Thursday 23 December 2004

Breaking with tradition, electors in at least five states have called for a congressional investigation of voting violations during the Nov. 2 election for president. Electors in Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, California, and North Carolina registered their concerns as they cast their votes last week.

The following day, the Berkeley City Council adopted a resolution "supporting the request that the Government Accountability Office immediately undertake an investigation of voting irregularities in the 2004 elections." Drafted by Berkeley's Peace and Justice Commission, the resolution also lists 17 measures to improve elections.

After hearing citizens speak, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates said, "Nothing is more fundamental than a free, fair election. When you start tinkering with that, it throws the whole system into disarray. I am pleased that we are taking this stand."

In Massachusetts, elector Cathleen Ashton of Wayland demanded that "every vote be counted and every vote count," while Maine's electors called for national voting reforms. Their statement pointed to Maine initiatives such as same-day registration, allowing felons to vote, and clean election reforms.

"Our four electoral votes are held meaningless if our sister states cannot hold elections that are fair, accurate, and verifiable," said elector Lu Bauer after the ceremony at the Maine State House.

Massachusetts electors passed a motion urging members of Congress to object to the vote. It also requested an investigation of "all voting complaints that might have any validity" and remedies for "any voting rights violations or electoral fraud verified by its own agents or through the courts."

Massachusetts elector Tom Barbera said his life was threatened during get-out-the-vote efforts.

Another elector spoke of being targeted for intimidation. Noting that many whose voting rights were violated were African American, Barbera, who presented the Massachusetts' motion, said, "we believe that as electors, we have a unique opportunity and obligation to ensure that justice does not again become so delayed as to be denied."

Vermont electors expressed concerns about a reported 57,000 complaints received by a congressional Judiciary Committee and called on Congress and Vermont's congressional delegation to investigate.

In California, one elector cast his ballot provisional upon "all votes being counted - provisional, absentee, under- and over-votes, computerized without paper ballots, even getting valid votes from those turned away illegally, intimidated, discouraged by incredibly long waits, etc."

This is an attempt to get the message read on the floor of Congress prior to certification on Jan. 6, when the ballots are opened.

"Never has such a vote been cast by an elector," said Grace Ross, an organizer of the national effort to support electors to take action, and a member of Truth in Elections. "And without a parliamentarian to rule it in or out at the Electoral College level, we await whether Congress will acknowledge this type of provisional vote and address the issues this elector sought to raise, or whether they, too, will ignore provisional votes."

In North Carolina, Democratic electors and activists talked about local problems while Republicans voted inside. Elector Mary Roe mentioned problems she witnessed as an election observer in her own county. State officials admit that 4,500 votes disappeared in a computerized voting machine crash.

I'll have some video up from Keith Olbermann on this a little later this morning.

After the recount, and before another 700+ votes were counted from the largely democratic Seattle area (King County), Democrat Chris Gregoire is ahead by a slim margin.

Rossi (R) hasn't conceeded yet, but after the King County votes are in, he'll probably have to.

Here's an article on this from the Baltimore Sun:

Democrat is declared governor of Washington
3rd count gives Gregoire the victory by 130 votes

Democrat Christine Gregoire won the Washington governor's race by 130 votes out of 2.9 million ballots cast, according to final recount results announced yesterday from Seattle's King County, the last of the state's 39 counties to report.

Hundreds of belatedly discovered ballots helped extend what otherwise would have been just a 10-vote advantage for Gregoire in her race with Republican Dino Rossi. The first ballot count showed Rossi winning by 261 votes, and a subsequent machine recount had Rossi winning by 42. The latest recount was conducted by hand.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.washgov24dec24,1,807444.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines

Democrat is declared governor of Washington
3rd count gives Gregoire the victory by 130 votes
Associated Press
Originally published December 24, 2004
SEATTLE - Democrat Christine Gregoire won the Washington governor's race by 130 votes out of 2.9 million ballots cast, according to final recount results announced yesterday from Seattle's King County, the last of the state's 39 counties to report.

Hundreds of belatedly discovered ballots helped extend what otherwise would have been just a 10-vote advantage for Gregoire in her race with Republican Dino Rossi. The first ballot count showed Rossi winning by 261 votes, and a subsequent machine recount had Rossi winning by 42. The latest recount was conducted by hand.

"Wooo-hooo!" exulted state Democratic Party spokeswoman Kirstin Brost moments after the results were announced. "We're very excited. We always believed she would win."

Secretary of State Sam Reed is scheduled to certify the election Dec. 30. After that, the election results probably will be challenged in court, or possibly the Legislature.

State law allows any registered voter to challenge election results. Republicans have begun asking elections officials to reconsider votes for Rossi that they say were wrongly rejected.

"We're going to be going across the state demanding they make every vote count," Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane said earlier yesterday.

Since Election Day, Gregoire has gone from favorite to underdog and back to favorite.

A three-term state attorney general, Gregoire, 57, was widely viewed as the anointed successor to Democrat Gov. Gary Locke. Rossi, 45, a real estate agent and former state senator, jumped into the race only after the GOP's first three choices declined to run.

In Washington Democrats hold the majority in the Legislature, both U.S. senators are Democrats, and John Kerry won 53 percent of the statewide vote. But voters also flaunt a strong independent streak, and Rossi's sunny message of change caught on with swing voters.

Gregoire and Rossi spent $6 million each on the campaign, a state record, and outside groups spent millions more.

After Rossi won the first two counts, Democrats paid $730,000 for the hand recount. By law the state has to repay the party if the recount reverses the results.

Kerry to Enter Ohio Recount Fray
By William Rivers Pitt for t r u t h o u t.

2004 Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry will file today, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, papers in support of the Green Party/Libertarian Party recount effort. Specifically, Kerry will be filing a request for expedited discovery regarding Triad Systems voting machines, as well as a motion for a preservation order to protect any and all discovery and preserve any evidence on this matter...

Kerry's entry into this recount effort changes the math on this matter dramatically. He can likewise show irreperable harm, and unlike the Green and Libertarian candidates, he can also prove a substantial chance for success on the merits because he lost the Ohio vote by a statistical whisker.

It should be noted that Kerry's filing of these requests does not indicate his complete entry into the recount process, but does clearly indicate that he is moving decisively in that direction. His previous stance on the matter was based simply on his desire to defend the right to have a recount in the first place. The evidence of election tampering in Ohio, specifically surrounding Triad, has motivated him to actively join the fight. The Democratic Party is also quietly putting financial resources into the Ohio recount effort.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122404Y.shtml

Kerry to Enter Ohio Recount Fray
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report

Thursday 23 December 2004

2004 Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry will file today, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, papers in support of the Green Party/Libertarian Party recount effort. Specifically, Kerry will be filing a request for expedited discovery regarding Triad Systems voting machines, as well as a motion for a preservation order to protect any and all discovery and preserve any evidence on this matter.

Triad Systems has come under scrutiny recently after Sherole Eaton, deputy director of elections for Hocking County, swore out an affidavit in which she described her witnessing the tampering of electronic voting equipment by a Triad representative. Rep. John Conyers, the ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, has requested an investigation into this matter by the FBI and the Hocking County prosecutor.

Truthout will have more on this specific Triad allegation later in the day.

Previously, the Green Party and Libertarian Party have not fared well in their efforts to get emergency orders regarding this matter in Ohio. In order to pass muster with a judge, the individual or group requesting an emergency order for such a recount must show both irreperable harm as well as a substantial chance for success on the merits. While Green and Libertarian representatives have been able to show irreparable harm, they could not establish a substantial chance for success on the merits, because no recount would deliver Ohio to either party.

Kerry's entry into this recount effort changes the math on this matter dramatically. He can likewise show irreperable harm, and unlike the Green and Libertarian candidates, he can also prove a substantial chance for success on the merits because he lost the Ohio vote by a statistical whisker.

It should be noted that Kerry's filing of these requests does not indicate his complete entry into the recount process, but does clearly indicate that he is moving decisively in that direction. His previous stance on the matter was based simply on his desire to defend the right to have a recount in the first place. The evidence of election tampering in Ohio, specifically surrounding Triad, has motivated him to actively join the fight. The Democratic Party is also quietly putting financial resources into the Ohio recount effort.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of all this, from the activist point of view, has been the effectiveness of the telephone calls and letters to Kerry. The activist push to get him involved had a very significant effect on his decision to enter this effort. Likewise, calls to other Senators in order to convince them to join House members in challenging the election have likewise had significant effect. If such an effort continues, the activists involved will very likely see the desired result unfold.

Jesse Jackson reminds us to stay focused over the holidays, because
critical developments are taking place, now, in Ohio.

A lawsuit challenging Ohio's election result has been filed successfully
(Moss v. Bush).

Bush, Cheney, Rove, and Blackwell have all been subpoenaed.

Blackwell's attorney considers it harassment, and has already stated that Blackwell has no intention of testifying under oath.

Remember in Farenheight 911, when several members of the house filed a challenge to the election results, but they couldn't get ONE senator to sign on to it? Well Conyers is getting ready to file one of those, but this time I would hope that we could at least get one senator to sign it.

Anyway, there's a lot going on and this article does a good job of explaining it.
I'll be putting up the week's Keith Olbermann probably thursday or friday night.

Ohio electoral fight becomes 'biggest deal since Selma' as GOP stonewalls
By Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman for the Free Press.

As Republican officials stonewall subpoenas and subvert the recount process, Rev. Jesse Jackson has pronounced Ohio's vote fraud fiasco "the biggest deal since Selma" and has called for a national rally at "the scene of the crime" in Columbus January 3.

Another major national demonstration will follow in Washington on January 6, as Congress evaluates the Electoral College. Should at least one US Representative and one Senator challenge the electors' votes, a Constitutional crisis could ensue.

Meanwhile, volunteer attorneys have poured into Columbus from around the US to help investigate the bitterly contested presidential vote that has allegedly given George W. Bush Ohio's electoral votes and thus a second term. A lawsuit filed at the Ohio Supreme Court charges that a fair vote count would give the state and the presidency to John Kerry rather than Bush.

On December 21, notice of depositions were sent to President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to appear and give testimony regarding the legal challenge of Ohio's elections results in the case Moss v Bush et al.

But Republican Blackwell's attorney at the Secretary of State's office told the attorneys issuing the notice of deposition and subpoena that Blackwell will not testify under oath. The Republican-controlled Attorney General's office has labeled any attempt to put Blackwell under oath, "harassment." Blackwell supervised the November 2 vote in Ohio at the same time he served as co-chair of the state's Bush-Cheney campaign....

In a December 21 conference call with activists from the around the US, Jackson said he has urged Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) to stand with US Representatives who intend to challenge the Electoral College's expected approval of George W. Bush for a second term. A challenge by US Representatives in 2000 failed because no Senators would join their motion.

Jackson says this year will be different, urging election protection activists to stay focused over the holiday season. "We can't let [the Republicans] get away with this, he told the conference call. "Do not underestimate the outrage of the people. We are a legitimate force for democracy, here and around the world."

"We will count every vote," he said, and make sure "every vote counts."...

The election challenge suit was filed Dec. 17. Blackwell, the Bush-Cheney campaign, and Ohio�s Republican electors have 10 days to respond. Then, according to court procedural rules, each side has 20 days to do discovery � or additional evidence gathering, with those bringing the suit going first. With January 6 being the date Congress accepts the Electoral College vote, and January 20 being the inauguration, the GOP seems determined to make the recount drag on as long as possible.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1015

Ohio electoral fight becomes 'biggest deal since Selma' as GOP stonewalls
by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
December 22, 2004

COLUMBUS -- As Republican officials stonewall subpoenas and subvert the recount process, Rev. Jesse Jackson has pronounced Ohio's vote fraud fiasco "the biggest deal since Selma" and has called for a national rally at "the scene of the crime" in Columbus January 3.

Another major national demonstration will follow in Washington on January 6, as Congress evaluates the Electoral College. Should at least one US Representative and one Senator challenge the electors' votes, a Constitutional crisis could ensue.

Meanwhile, volunteer attorneys have poured into Columbus from around the US to help investigate the bitterly contested presidential vote that has allegedly given George W. Bush Ohio's electoral votes and thus a second term. A lawsuit filed at the Ohio Supreme Court charges that a fair vote count would give the state and the presidency to John Kerry rather than Bush.

On December 21, notice of depositions were sent to President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to appear and give testimony regarding the legal challenge of Ohio's elections results in the case Moss v Bush et al.

But Republican Blackwell's attorney at the Secretary of State�s office told the attorneys issuing the notice of deposition and subpoena that Blackwell will not testify under oath. The Republican-controlled Attorney General's office has labeled any attempt to put Blackwell under oath, "harassment." Blackwell supervised the November 2 vote in Ohio at the same time he served as co-chair of the state's Bush-Cheney campaign.

However, some counties like Clarmont have agreed to cooperate with the attorneys in the election challenge. On December 22, a team of attorneys descended upon the Clarmont County Board of Elections between 8:30-10:30am to pour over election day records.

In a December 21 conference call with activists from the around the US, Jackson said he has urged Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) to stand with US Representatives who intend to challenge the Electoral College's expected approval of George W. Bush for a second term. A challenge by US Representatives in 2000 failed because no Senators would join their motion.

Jackson says this year will be different, urging election protection activists to stay focused over the holiday season. "We can't let [the Republicans] get away with this, he told the conference call. "Do not underestimate the outrage of the people. We are a legitimate force for democracy, here and around the world."

"We will count every vote," he said, and make sure "every vote counts."

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus have strongly questioned Bush's purported victory, pointing out that more than half the votes cast in Ohio and the nation were recorded on electronic voting machines owned by Republicans, with no audit trail.

Conyers recently conducted hearings at Columbus City Hall to take testimony from Ohioans who were deprived their right to vote. Another public hearing in Mahoning Valley, at the Warren Heights and Trumball Library, documented "thousands of complaints of voting irregularities" that helped throw the vote count to Bush. Election observers have testified under oath that more than a dozen voting machines in Mahoning County regularly switched Kerry votes to Bush votes while voters watched in amazement. Some 580 more absentee voters were certified than were identified by election board officials. As in Franklin and other counties, there were also strategic machine shortages in largely Democratic precincts. The November vote, said one observer, was "the crime of the century."

As dozens of volunteer attorneys pour into the state to help with the recount, Blackwell's stonewall has prompted widespread suspicion about what the Republicans are hiding.

On Monday the expanded legal team issued subpoenas to top election officials in 10 counties where vote-count fraud is suspected.

The rapid filing of subpoenas, the first step in interviewing people under oath, provoked the shrill rejection from Blackwell. Though Blackwell is a state constitutional officer, his business office is in a private building, where protesters -- including former California Congressman Dan Hamburg---have been arrested without apparent provocation.

�They huffed and they puffed, trying to bully people around,� said attorney Peter Pectarsky, a key member of the election challenge legal team. �Now we�re fighting over discovery. We served 10 depositions. The attorney general blew a gasket. They filed a motion to stop it� We will file our response.�

This past Friday, attorneys refiled their election challenge suit, a day after state Supreme Court dismissed it on a technicality. The challengers are trying to get a meaningful recount before the January 6 Congressional vote, while Blackwell's GOP has done all it can to stall.

The election challenge lawsuit claims that statewide vote patterns reveal vote count fraud on a scale that incorrectly awarded the state�s majority � and the presidency � to George Bush. They are using the litigation process to document that fraud.

�Maybe this (the explanation of the Ohio vote) is much closer to the surface than anybody thinks,� said Pete Pectarsky, a lead challenge attorney. �It doesn�t add up. If everything was above board, why are they hiding everything? They could bury people in the details� Okay, look at these records. Look at those.�

The election challenge suit was filed Dec. 17. Blackwell, the Bush-Cheney campaign, and Ohio�s Republican electors have 10 days to respond. Then, according to court procedural rules, each side has 20 days to do discovery � or additional evidence gathering, with those bringing the suit going first. With January 6 being the date Congress accepts the Electoral College vote, and January 20 being the inauguration, the GOP seems determined to make the recount drag on as long as possible.

�We have stuff that points to big numbers,� Pectarsky said, referring to votes that should have been counted for John Kerry. �What we need now is (someone saying) �We did it. Here�s how. Don�t take my word. Here�s the evidence.��

Tuesday, December 22 is the starting point for Pectarsky's negotiations with election officials from 10 counties as to when they can be deposed. They will be asked a wide range of questions to uncover answers explaining the presence of what are, at the least, voting irregularities.

In the Miami County town of Concord, certified returns show that all but 10 registered voters cast ballots on Election Day. But the election challenge team has already identified more than 10 registered Concord citizens who did not vote, an incongruity that points to election fraud.

In Trumbull County, citizens using electronic machines saw their vote for Kerry register as a vote for Bush. Additional hearings in Trumbull and other counties are adding to the litany of fraud and theft.

In the meantime, among the attorneys who have come at their own expense to join Ohio's presidential election challenge:

# Bonnie McFadden, formerly a deputy public defender, law professor from both the University of New Guinea and the University of Hawaii, and director of the Cambodia Defenders Project in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, currently resides in Maui. Bonnie believes that Conyers� Committee hearings have provided clear evidence of illegal election practices. �Democracy cannot survive without honest elections. The Ohio election fraud lawsuits are about saving our democratic form of government. There is nothing more important than that.�

# Karen Peterson, an attorney who worked for more than a decade in legal services specializing in public benefits, consumer and family law and was a professor at both Cornell and the University of Minnesota law schools, is volunteering in Ohio because she believes that it is critically important that election irregularities are exposed to the light of day. �We will lose our democracy unless we are willing to fight for it. If we allow voter suppression and dirty tricks to go uncovered and unpunished, we should not be surprised if these tactics become more virulent in future elections.�

# Lillian Ritt, formerly a research attorney working for the San Diego Superior Court and the 4th DCA Division 1 for more than twenty years, and part of the team researching election law for Al Gore, is in Ohio because she believes voting is critical to our democracy. �Voting has to be done openly and without any possibility of machine error and/or tampering. The problems in Ohio threaten this world, not just the United States. If they are not solved, then I consider this to be another stolen election by Bush without the courage of the Ukraine people.�

# Steve Chaffin, an attorney in Ohio for twenty-four years, has worked in many ways to provide for those who have needed legal assistance and not been able to afford it. He has worked with those who are facing rising costs of health care and other quality of life issues. His interests and work have been to help those who are disenfranchised. Steve�s latest focus is on election and political issues. Volunteering for this legal battle is just one more way in which he is helping our country.

# Judy McCann, a civil rights attorney from Santa Rosa, California, left for Ohio with one day�s notice promising her children she would be home for Christmas, even if it meant she would be on a plane back to help in Ohio on December, 26th. Judy expressed her concern for the integrity of the voting process. She spent Election Day in Florida monitoring the vote, learning first hand that our votes may be cast but not accurately counted. Judy has been asked by the legal team to take depositions and to travel to counties to collect the evidence of voting irregularities.

# Melanie Braithwaite, an attorney in Columbus, Ohio, wants to volunteer for this election contest because of her concern for her children and grandchildren. �To me free expression and exchange of ideas, and the right to vote in free and fair elections are paramount moral and civic values to be protected at all costs. If it costs me some time and inconvenience to volunteer in this effort, then so be it. It is the price I pay to be an American citizen. I personally witnessed a moral outrage on election day. I am peculiarly in a position to take this one on, as I have personally nothing left to lose.�

As the team of election protection attorneys grows alongside the grassroots demand for a fair vote count in Ohio and around the nation, the likelihood of an unprecedented Constitutional confrontation beginning January 6 continues to escalate.

Stay Tuned!

--
Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of the upcoming OHIO'S STOLEN ELECTION: VOICES OF THE DISENFRANCHISED, 2004, to be published in January. Fitrakis is a co-counsel in the Moss case. Support for this project is welcome through www.freepress.org or by sending a check to The �Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism�, 1240 Bryden Rd., Columbus, Ohio 43205.

Yet another reason to send the House Judiciary Committee an email telling them to investigate the election in Ohio.

If nothing else, it demonstrates how these machines weren't treated very securely.

Ohio Recount Stirs Trouble
By Kim Zetter for Wired News.

As a statewide election recount got underway in Ohio last week, a Democratic congressman called on the FBI to impound vote-tabulating computers in at least one county and investigate suspicions of election tampering in the state.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), ranking Democrat of the House Judiciary Committee, sought the investigation after an Ohio election official disclosed in an affidavit (.pdf) that an employee of Triad Governmental Systems, the company that wrote voting software used with punch-card machines in 41 of Ohio's 88 counties, dismantled Hocking County's tabulation computer days before the recount and "put a patch on it."

Conyers called the action "inappropriate and likely illegal election tampering." A spokesman for the Green Party, one of the parties requesting the recount, called it "compelling evidence" of deliberate tampering. A public hearing in Ohio on Monday will determine if there is cause for an investigation.

But Sherole Eaton, a Democrat and the deputy director of elections for Hocking County who wrote the affidavit, said her words have been blown out of proportion. She doesn't think Triad tampered with the votes and is a little angry that the Green Party and others have spun her words to imply that they did.

Ohio Recount Stirs Trouble

By Kim Zetter | Also by this reporter Page 1 of 2 next »

02:00 AM Dec. 20, 2004 PT

As a statewide election recount got underway in Ohio last week, a Democratic congressman called on the FBI to impound vote-tabulating computers in at least one county and investigate suspicions of election tampering in the state.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), ranking Democrat of the House Judiciary Committee, sought the investigation after an Ohio election official disclosed in an affidavit (.pdf) that an employee of Triad Governmental Systems, the company that wrote voting software used with punch-card machines in 41 of Ohio's 88 counties, dismantled Hocking County's tabulation computer days before the recount and "put a patch on it."

Conyers called the action "inappropriate and likely illegal election tampering." A spokesman for the Green Party, one of the parties requesting the recount, called it "compelling evidence" of deliberate tampering. A public hearing in Ohio on Monday will determine if there is cause for an investigation.

But Sherole Eaton, a Democrat and the deputy director of elections for Hocking County who wrote the affidavit, said her words have been blown out of proportion. She doesn't think Triad tampered with the votes and is a little angry that the Green Party and others have spun her words to imply that they did.

Eaton's story came to light only when members of the Green Party contacted her before the recount to discuss the procedures and asked who had access to the counting software. When Eaton mentioned Triad's recent visit, the Green Party took the information to Conyers and presented it at an ad hoc Judicial Committee hearing in Ohio as evidence of possible vote tampering.

Eaton said that after the Green Party started spreading the information around, she decided to write the affidavit to get her account on record so that it would not be distorted or misinterpreted.

Doug Jones, Iowa's chief examiner of voting equipment and a computer scientist at the University of Iowa who has been a leading critic of electronic voting machines, said the matter was less likely a case of election tampering than poor election procedures and oversight. But he added that even if no one tampered with votes, the fact that someone had unsupervised access to tabulating equipment before the recount was a breach of security procedures and might even violate Ohio election law.

"The tabulating room should be viewed as a secure computer systems site where nobody goes in there unsupervised, but the affidavit suggests there was no supervision in the tabulating room," Jones said. He said that suspicions of tampering are just as destructive to the integrity of an election as actual tampering and laws prohibiting unsupervised access to voting equipment should be enforced.

According to Eaton's affidavit, Michael Barbian, a technician for Triad, called Eaton on Dec. 10 to say he'd be coming to the office to "check out" the elections computer before the recount Dec. 14. When he arrived to examine the machine, a 14-year-old Dell PC, the computer wouldn't boot up. Barbian told Eaton the computer's internal battery was dead and that "stored information" on it was "gone."

Barbian told Eaton he "could put a patch on" the computer and "proceeded to take the computer apart and call his office to get information" to put into the computer. When the computer was fixed, Barbian asked Eaton which precinct the county planned to hand-count, then returned to the tabulating room. When he came out again, he said the computer was ready and told them to reboot it once to reset the internal clock, then leave it on so the battery could recharge.

Voting activists have seized the detail about the "patch" and the precinct as proof that Barbian rigged the machine. Under Ohio's recount law, a county must first hand-count 3 percent of ballots and then run them through a machine count. If the hand tally matches the machine tally, the county can recount the remaining ballots by machine only. But if the hand and machine counts differ, the county must hand-count all ballots.

So activists say Barbian asked about the precinct so he could set the machine to record only those ballots correctly, while tampering with votes in other precincts.

Hocking completed its recount Wednesday, and the results differed from the certified results by only three votes. President Bush and Sen. John Kerry picked up an additional vote each when pregnant chads fell out of two ballots that had previously shown no vote in the presidential race. A second extra vote went to Kerry from a previously uncounted absentee ballot. Bush won Hocking County with 6,935 votes to John Kerry's 6,173.

In the end, the county hand-counted a different precinct from the one Eaton told Barbian it would count. The county changed the precinct after members of the Green Party expressed concern that Barbian knew which precinct was planned. The results of that precinct matched the original certified results.

Page Two

Brett Rapp, president of Triad, said Barbian visited the Hocking County elections office before the recount because the state had mandated that only the presidential race would be recounted and Barbian had to set up the computer to count and report only that race on punch cards.

"All Ohio counties had to do that," Rapp said. "Not just ... counties (using Triad software)."

He said that when the computer experienced "a CMOSerror," indicating that the rechargeable battery on the motherboard had died, the computer had lost stored information about the hard drive's specifications, which it needed to make the computer boot up. No other data on the machine was lost.

He said Barbian took the case off the computer to identify the hard drive's make and model.

"He called our office, told us the model and we obtained the hard drive parameters by looking them up on the internet," Rapp said. "That's the information we gave him over the phone. He installed no patches on the computer system. He did not tamper with it. He simply fixed a piece of equipment that was broken." He said that Eaton must have misheard Barbian say he was going to put a patch on the machine.

Rapp said that once Barbian fixed the computer, he tested all of the precincts and showed the election officials that the computer and tabulator were counting correctly. Then election officials ran their own test to make sure the machine was counting properly.

Rapp said he believed Barbian asked about the hand-counted precinct because he was trying to make sure the election officials, who had never conducted a recount before, understood what they were doing and which precinct they were going to count.

"He was trying to help them make sure the process went smoothly," Rapp said.

Eaton and Lisa Schwartze, director of elections for Hocking County, confirmed that they ran a test to make sure the machine was counting properly. But Eaton took issue with Rapp's assertion that she misheard Barbian say he mentioned placing a patch on the computer, which, in computer terms means to install computer code on a machine.

"I wouldn't just come up with that. I don't use that term or know what it means," she said. She added that Barbian used the same word with the 70-year-old chair of Hocking County's elections board, who she said also wouldn't have come up with the term on his own.

Still, she does not believe that Barbian tampered with the machine.

"I have had, and still do have, complete trust in Triad," Eaton said. Eaton, who is 65 and by her own admission not computer-savvy, did not understand much of what Barbian did, and said that when he asked if he could take apart the computer, he had to ask for a screwdriver from one of the office workers. "He brought no tools with him," Eaton told Wired News, "which indicates to me that he wasn't planning on working on the machines."

She also said that Barbian's office visit wasn't out of the ordinary since Triad "ran" the county's primary and general elections this year.

"A lot of the (election) boards hire the company that (makes) their program to come in on election night and do all of the computer work and run the tabulators and do that type of thing," Eaton said. "We pay them for that."

Voting activists have long criticized the practice of allowing voting company employees to run tabulation equipment during elections. Iowa's Doug Jones said the practice allows for the possibility of vote tampering and should be stopped.

"If access is being permitted that even allows for manipulation, that's a serious problem," Jones said. He said he hoped that the issue in Ohio will prompt legislators and election officials to re-examine the practice and strengthen laws that would control access to voting equipment.

Rep. John Conyers has been our one friend in congress who has been compelled to investigate the obvious hanky panky that went on during the Ohio election.

He would like to compel the House Judiciary Committee to hold hearings about the 2004 election, but he feels he would need a million emails to turn their heads enough to go for it.

Let's give him two million!

Go here:
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/contact.html

Type "Ohio Voting Irregularities" in the "Other" box of the form, and then write your own letter, or cut and paste this email in the body of the form, and send it off. (Update: Yeah, the first version of the below letter was corny, so I amended it.)

Estimated time: 30 seconds.

I am writing to urge the House Judiciary Committee to hold hearings as soon as possible on the irregularities of the 2004 election.

There were too many things that just didn't add up, including several precincts where there were more votes for Bush than registered voters.

It is important to know exactly what happened in Ohio, and many other states, so that it does not happen again.

With all this in mind, I ask you to take these discrepancies seriously by holding hearings immediately to investigate them.

More thoughts on this from an email sent to me:

Please spread this message among your list of friends and associates.

There's a growing awareness, with increasing coverage now in national
papers such as the Washington Post and LA Times, that we need an
investigation of the voter suppression and other fraud in Ohio and
elsewhere.

Like Watergate, this issue will build momentum -- and we, the people, to keep it alive until it can no longer be ignored.

It's late, and I'm taking off in the morning for a couple days to go see my sister's play in Los Angeles, so I want to make sure to let you guys know that in an hour or so I'll have uploaded this week's clips on the Ohio Recount/Voting Fraud situation from our new buddy, a friend to you, me, and democracy...

My man Keith Olbermann.

Keith has continued to be impressive with his coverage of the Ohio situation.
Not to mention that he's the only journalist in America covering this story on a national news channel. It's really astounding. But there he is and we're all just lucky to have him.

He's got a blog too.

With that in mind, here are quicktimes and mp3s from the 13, 14, 16, and 17th:

What The Hell Is Going On In Ohio? (just fixed this link. sorry guys)

(Mirror)

But really guys, after taking so long to file the damn thing, couldn't you at least get the rules right?

Anyway, it looks like it will be refiled, but it is a bit disheartening.

Ohio Justice Throws Out Election Challenge
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins for the Associated Press.

The Ohio Supreme Court's chief justice on Thursday threw out a challenge to the state's presidential election results. The 40 voters who brought the case will likely be able to refile the challenge.

Chief Justice Thomas Moyer ruled that the request improperly challenged two separate election results. Ohio law only allows one race to be challenged in a single complaint, he said.

The challenge was backed by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Cliff Arnebeck, a Columbus attorney for the Massachusetts-based Alliance for Democracy, who accused Bush's campaign of "high-tech vote stealing."

Claiming fraud, the voters cited reports of voting-machine errors, double-counting of ballots and a shortage of voting machines in predominantly minority precincts as reasons to throw out the results...

Without listing specific evidence, the complaint alleges that 130,656 votes for Kerry and John Edwards in 36 counties were somehow switched to count for the Bush-Cheney ticket.

The allegations are based on an analysis comparing the presidential race to Moyer's Supreme Court race against a Cleveland municipal judge.

But nothing in state law or any previous court decision allows challenges to be combined, Moyer said.

"Were this court to sanction consolidation here it would establish a precedent whereby twenty-five voters could challenge, in a single case, the election results of every statewide race and issue on the ballot in any given election," Moyer wrote.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121704V.shtml

Ohio Justice Throws Out Election Challenge
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
The Associated Press

Thursday 16 December 2004

Columbus, Ohio - The Ohio Supreme Court's chief justice on Thursday threw out a challenge to the state's presidential election results. The 40 voters who brought the case will likely be able to refile the challenge.

Chief Justice Thomas Moyer ruled that the request improperly challenged two separate election results. Ohio law only allows one race to be challenged in a single complaint, he said.

The challenge was backed by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Cliff Arnebeck, a Columbus attorney for the Massachusetts-based Alliance for Democracy, who accused Bush's campaign of "high-tech vote stealing."

Claiming fraud, the voters cited reports of voting-machine errors, double-counting of ballots and a shortage of voting machines in predominantly minority precincts as reasons to throw out the results.

Ohio and its 20 electoral votes determined the outcome of the election, tipping the race to President Bush. The state declared Bush the winner by 119,000 votes, but counties are in the middle of a recount - requested by two minor party candidates and supported by John Kerry's campaign.

The complaint questioned how the actual results could show Bush winning when exit-poll interview findings on election night indicated that Kerry would win 52 percent of Ohio's presidential vote.

Without listing specific evidence, the complaint alleges that 130,656 votes for Kerry and John Edwards in 36 counties were somehow switched to count for the Bush-Cheney ticket.

The allegations are based on an analysis comparing the presidential race to Moyer's Supreme Court race against a Cleveland municipal judge.

But nothing in state law or any previous court decision allows challenges to be combined, Moyer said.

"Were this court to sanction consolidation here it would establish a precedent whereby twenty-five voters could challenge, in a single case, the election results of every statewide race and issue on the ballot in any given election," Moyer wrote.

Messages seeking comment on the court decision were left for Jackson and Arnebeck.

I'm externalizing the vote-switching software thread into its own category.

I don't want this category to get bogged down in a vote switching software controversy.

Yet, the controversy is interesting, and worth tracking.

So there it is. Look here for stories about this from now on.

Startling new revelations highlight rare Congressional hearings on Ohio vote
by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman of the Free Press

Startling new revelations about Ohio's presidential vote have been uncovered as Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee join Rev. Jesse Jackson in Columbus, the state capital, on Monday, Dec. 13, to hold a rare field hearing into election malfeasance and manipulation in the 2004 vote. The Congressional delegation will include Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, and others.

Taken together, the revelations show Republicans – in state and county government, and in the Ohio Republican Party – were determined to undermine and suppress Democratic turnout by a wide variety of methods.

The revelations were included in affidavits gathered for an election challenge lawsuit filed Monday at the Ohio Supreme Court. Ohio's Republican Electoral College representatives are also to meet at noon, Monday, at the State House, even though the presidential recount, requested by the Green and Libertarian Parties, is only beginning the same day.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/985_

Startling new revelations highlight rare Congressional hearings on Ohio vote
by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
December 13, 2004

Startling new revelations about Ohio's presidential vote have been uncovered as Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee join Rev. Jesse Jackson in Columbus, the state capital, on Monday, Dec. 13, to hold a rare field hearing into election malfeasance and manipulation in the 2004 vote. The Congressional delegation will include Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, and others.

Taken together, the revelations show Republicans – in state and county government, and in the Ohio Republican Party – were determined to undermine and suppress Democratic turnout by a wide variety of methods.

The revelations were included in affidavits gathered for an election challenge lawsuit filed Monday at the Ohio Supreme Court. Ohio's Republican Electoral College representatives are also to meet at noon, Monday, at the State House, even though the presidential recount, requested by the Green and Libertarian Parties, is only beginning the same day.

On Sunday, John Kerry spoke with Rev. Jesse Jackson and urged him to take an more active role in investigating the irregularities and ensuring a fair and impartial recount. Kerry said there were three areas of inquiry that should be addressed: 92,000 ballots that recorded no vote for president; qualifying and counting provisional ballots; and supported an independent analysis of the software and set-up of the optical scan voting machines.

What follows are excerpts from some of the affidavits for the election challenge.

- In Warren County, where election officers declared a homeland security emergency on Election Day, and barred reporters and others from watching the vote count, it now has been revealed that county employees were told the previous Thursday they should prepare for the Election Day lockdown. That disclosure suggests the lockdown was a political decision, not a true security risk. Moreover, statements also describe how ballots were left unguarded and unprotected in a warehouse on Election Day, and they were hastily moved after county officials received complaints.

- In Franklin County, where Columbus is located, the election director, Matt Damschroder, misinformed a federal court on Election Day when he testified the county had no additional voting machines – in response to a Voting Rights Act lawsuit brought by the state Democratic Party that minority precincts were intentionally deprived of machines. It now appears as many as 81 voting machines were being held back, out of 2,866 available, according to recent statements by Damschroder and Bill Anthony, the chairman of the Franklin County Board of Elections. The shortage of machines in Democratic-leaning districts lead to long lines and thousands of people leaving in frustration and not voting. Damschroder's contradictory statements raise the possibility of perjury.

- Also in Franklin County, a worker at the Holiday Inn observed a team of 25 people who called themselves the "Texas Strike Force" using payphones to make intimidating calls to likely voters, targeting people recently in the prison system. The "Texas Strike Force" members paid their way to Ohio, but their hotel accommodations were paid for by the Ohio Republican Party, whose headquarters is across the street. The hotel worker heard one caller threaten a likely voter with being reported to the FBI and returning to jail if he voted. Another hotel worker called the police, who came but did nothing.

- In Knox County, students at Kenyon College, a liberal arts school, stood in line for up to 11 hours, because only one voting machine was in use. However, at nearby Mt. Vernon Nazarene University, there were ample voting machines and no lines. This suggests the GOP shorting of voting machines was a more widespread tactic than just targeting inner-city neighborhoods.

- Reports in sworn affadavits affirm numerous instances of direct official interference with the right to vote. In Warren County, Democrats were being targeted and forced to use provisional ballots, even if they had proper identification. These ballots were then subjected to more rigorous standards to be counted than were other ballots. In a half-dozen precincts in Franklin County, people who were not inside polling places by 7:30 PM were told to leave - even if they had waited in line for hours. This is a violation of the Voting Rights Act. Sworn affidavits also confirmed reports of old voter rolls being used, meaning that new voters were not on the list and would be given provisional ballots, if allowed to vote at all.

Affidavits were also filed in support of the election challenge suit raising questions about manipulating exit poll results and computer tabulation of county and statewide votes.

In one exit poll affidavit, Jonathan David Simon, an expert witness, notes that at 12:53 a.m. the exit polls altered the projected winner – even though the same number of votes had been cast. "Although each update reports the same number of respondents (872), the reported results differ significantly, with the latter (12:53 a.m.) exit poll results apparently having been brought into congruence with the tabulated vote results." In other words, the exit polls were made to conform to a political decision to declare Bush the victor.

Another exit poll affidavit, filed by Ron Paul Baiman, an economist and statistician at the University of Illinois and University of Chicago, said the swing in national exit poll results, recorded at 12:33 a.m., when Kerry was winning with 50.8 percent of the vote, to Bush winning with 51.2 percent, was, "in lay terms, impossible."

"This is more than a 100 percent swing in the other direction of the exit poll margin, he said. "There is less than a one in 25,000,000 (1/25,507,308) chance of this occurring."

Another affidavit by Richard Hayes Phillips, a geomorphology Ph.D. from University of Oregon with a special expertise in spotting anomalous data, found dramatic examples of erroneous voting patterns – with votes taken away from Kerry - that can only be explained by computer manipulation.

For instance, in 16 precincts in Cleveland, he found votes that were shifted from Kerry to other candidates. In at least 30 precincts, there was ultra-low voter turnout reported – as low as 7.1 percent or 13.05 percent – and seven entire wards where total turnout was below 50 percent. He writes, "Kerry won Cleveland with 83.27 percent of the vote to 15.88 percent for Bush. If voter turnout were really 60 percent of registered voters, as seems likely based on turnout in other major cities of Ohio, rather than 49.89 percent as reported, Kerry's margin of victory in Cleveland has been wrongly reduced by 22,000 votes."

Phillips points to other counties where has says "there is compelling evidence of fraud." In Miami County early on election night, when 31,620 votes had been counted, and later, when 50,235 votes were counted, "Kerry had exactly the same percentage, 33.92 percent, and the percentage for George Bush was almost exactly the same, dropping by 0.03 percent from 65.80 to 65.77 percent. The second set of returns gave Bush a margin of exactly 16,000 votes, giving cause to question the integrity of the central counting device for the optical scan machines. "

He cites many other examples, but summarizes his findings: "It is my professional opinion that John Kerry's margins of victory were wrongly reduced by 22,000 votes in Cleveland, by 17,000 votes in Columbus, and by as many as 7,000 votes in Toledo. It is my further professional opinion that John Kerry's margins of defeat in Warren, Butler, and Clermont Counties were inflated by as many as 37,000 votes in the aggregate, and in Miami County by as many as 6,000 votes. There are still 92,672 uncounted regular ballots that, based upon the analysis set forth of the election results from Dayton and Cincinnati, may be expected to break for John Kerry by an overwhelming margin. And there are still 14,441 uncounted provisional ballots."

--
Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of OHIO'S STOLEN ELECTION: VOICES OF THE DISENFRANCHISED, 2004, upcoming from www.freepress.org.

My peeps are sending me great links and lots of them. I'll be trying to catch up tonight and tomorrow so just keep em coming as events progress.

Basically:

1) It's time for the electoral college to officially cast their votes in Ohio

even though

2) the recount has just started

and

3) Rep. Conyers held a congressional hearing last week on the matter and

4) He just held another on in Ohio State today

meanwhile

5) The vote switching software allegations are being investigated. The programmer has testified to Conyers and the Judiciary Committee Democrats holding hearings this morning in Columbus, Ohio on Election 2004 Voting Irregularities.

More Questions for Florida
By Kim Zettner for Wired News.
(via
Brad Blog)

A government watchdog group is investigating allegations made by a Florida programmer that are whipping up a frenzy among bloggers and people who believe Republicans stole the recent election.

Programmer Clint Curtis claims that four years ago Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Florida) asked his then-employer to write software to alter votes on electronic voting machines in Florida...

He said his employer told him the code would be used "to control the vote" in West Palm Beach County, Florida. But a fellow employee disputed the programmer's claims and said the meetings he described never took place...

Curtis said Feeney asked for code that could go undetected on a voting machine and be easily triggered without any devices by anyone using the machine. Curtis had never seen source code for a voting machine, but in five hours, he said he designed code in Visual Basic that would launch if someone touched specific spots on the voting screen after selecting a candidate.

Once the code was activated, it would search the machine to see if the selected candidate's total was behind. If it was, the machine would award that candidate 51 percent of the total votes recorded on the machine and redistribute the remaining votes among the other candidates in the race.

Curtis said he initially believed Feeney wanted the code to see if such fraud were possible and to know how to detect it. The programmer told Feeney that such code could never be undetectable in source code, and he wrote a paper describing how to look for it. But when he gave the paper and code to his employer, Yang told him he was looking at it all wrong. They weren't looking at how to find code, Curtis said she told him. They needed code that couldn't be found...

Many questions have been raised about Curtis, the 46-year-old programmer, who said he doesn't know if anyone ever placed the prototype code on voting machines. But this hasn't stopped frustrated voters and bloggers from seizing his story. Daily Kos mentioned the allegations, and Brad Friedman of The Brad Blog has written extensively about them.

Staff members for Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) met with Curtis last week to discuss the election allegations. Representatives for Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Florida) inquired about other allegations from Curtis that his former company spied on NASA.

In September 2000, Curtis was working for Yang Enterprises in Oviedo, Florida, a software design firm that contracts with NASA, ExxonMobil and the Florida Department of Transportation, among other clients. According to Curtis, Feeney met with him and Lee Yang, the company's president, to request the voting software.

At the time, Feeney was Yang's corporate attorney and a registered lobbyist for the company as well as a member of Florida's legislature. A month later, he would become speaker of Florida's House of Representatives. In 2002 he was elected to Congress.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,66002,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev2

Welcome to Wired News. Skip directly to: Search Box, Section Navigation, Content.

Search:

More Questions for Florida

By Kim Zetter | Also by this reporter Page 1 of 2 next »

02:00 AM Dec. 13, 2004 PT

A government watchdog group is investigating allegations made by a Florida programmer that are whipping up a frenzy among bloggers and people who believe Republicans stole the recent election.

Programmer Clint Curtis claims that four years ago Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Florida) asked his then-employer to write software to alter votes on electronic voting machines in Florida.
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He said his employer told him the code would be used "to control the vote" in West Palm Beach County, Florida. But a fellow employee disputed the programmer's claims and said the meetings he described never took place.

Many questions have been raised about Curtis, the 46-year-old programmer, who said he doesn't know if anyone ever placed the prototype code on voting machines. But this hasn't stopped frustrated voters and bloggers from seizing his story. Daily Kos mentioned the allegations, and Brad Friedman of The Brad Blog has written extensively about them.

Staff members for Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) met with Curtis last week to discuss the election allegations. Representatives for Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Florida) inquired about other allegations from Curtis that his former company spied on NASA.

The FBI in Tallahassee, Florida, has set up a meeting with Curtis, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, said it was trying to corroborate his claims about possible election fraud and NASA spying.

The group hopes that even if the election allegations aren't proven, they will inspire legislators to pass a law requiring voting software to be open to public inspection to help deter fraud and restore public confidence in the election process. The software code used in voting machines is considered proprietary and it is protected from public examination -- an issue voting activists have been trying to address.

"I think Mr. Curtis helps make that issue a little more difficult to shunt aside," said CREW Executive Director Melani Sloan. "You don't even have to believe what he says (in order to be concerned about voting machines), just that he created a program. If he can do it, anyone can."

In September 2000, Curtis was working for Yang Enterprises in Oviedo, Florida, a software design firm that contracts with NASA, ExxonMobil and the Florida Department of Transportation, among other clients. According to Curtis, Feeney met with him and Lee Yang, the company's president, to request the voting software.

At the time, Feeney was Yang's corporate attorney and a registered lobbyist for the company as well as a member of Florida's legislature. A month later, he would become speaker of Florida's House of Representatives. In 2002 he was elected to Congress.

Curtis said Feeney asked for code that could go undetected on a voting machine and be easily triggered without any devices by anyone using the machine. Curtis had never seen source code for a voting machine, but in five hours, he said he designed code in Visual Basic that would launch if someone touched specific spots on the voting screen after selecting a candidate.

Once the code was activated, it would search the machine to see if the selected candidate's total was behind. If it was, the machine would award that candidate 51 percent of the total votes recorded on the machine and redistribute the remaining votes among the other candidates in the race.

Curtis said he initially believed Feeney wanted the code to see if such fraud were possible and to know how to detect it. The programmer told Feeney that such code could never be undetectable in source code, and he wrote a paper describing how to look for it. But when he gave the paper and code to his employer, Yang told him he was looking at it all wrong. They weren't looking at how to find code, Curtis said she told him. They needed code that couldn't be found.

"Her words were that it was needed to control the vote in West Palm Beach, Florida," Curtis said. "Once she said, 'We need to steal an election,' that put me back. I made it clear that I could not produce code that could do that and no one else should."

Curtis says he left the company in February 2001 because he found its ethics questionable. He doesn't know if his code was ever used.

Neither Feeney's spokeswoman nor election officials in Palm Beach County returned calls for comment. But a man who identified himself as Mike Cohen, Yang's executive assistant at the time whom Curtis said was in the meeting, told Wired News the meeting never occurred. Cohen said Curtis was "100 percent" wrong and that Cohen didn't attend such a meeting. He added he knew nothing of any meeting on the topic that occurred without him.

Story continued on Page 2 »

More Questions for Florida

By Kim Zetter | Also by this reporter « back Page 2 of 2

02:00 AM Dec. 13, 2004 PT

Yang attorney Michael O'Quinn called Curtis' assertions "absurd and categorically untrue." He said Curtis is an opportunist and a disgruntled former employee furthering an agenda by telling lies. According to O'Quinn, Curtis tried the same tactic in 2002 when he leveled other charges against Yang and Feeney.

Some details of Curtis' statements don't check out. West Palm Beach city didn't use touch-screen machines in 2000, something Curtis didn't know when Wired News spoke to him. It was the pregnant chad controversy in that year's presidential election that led Palm Beach county, where West Palm Beach resides, to replace its much-maligned punch-card system with touch-screen machines made by Sequoia Voting Systems in December 2001.
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* A Patch for Broken Hearts
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* Wired News RSS Feeds

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But Curtis said the program could have been adapted for use in the counting software used with punch-card machines and optical scan machines, or it could have been used on the new touch-screen machines in 2002, the year Feeney was elected to Congress.

Adam Stubblefield, a graduate student in computer science at Johns Hopkins University who co-authored a now-famous report (.pdf) about Diebold's voting machine code last year, thinks the chances that Curtis' code was used in a voting machine are nil.

"(Curtis) clearly didn't have the source code to any voting machine, and his program is so trivial that it would be much easier to rewrite it than to rework it," said Stubblefield.

Stubblefield also found fault in Curtis' statement that any malicious code would be detected in a source code review. This would be true only for unsophisticated malicious code, like Curtis' prototype.

Despite Curtis' concerns about statements Yang and Feeney supposedly made regarding election fraud, Curtis didn't tell the FBI or election officials in West Palm Beach about them, even after the 2000 election thrust Florida into the international spotlight.

He said he didn't worry about the code or Yang's statements because he believed if anyone installed malicious code on a voting machine authorities would find it when they examined the code. It wasn't until he read a news story last spring indicating that voting software is proprietary and is not open for inspection once it's certified that the earlier conversations began to concern him.

He claims he did later tell the CIA, the FBI, an investigator for Florida's Department of Transportation and a reporter for the Daytona Beach News-Journal about the voting issues when he gave them other information about Yang and Feeney. But so far this has not been corroborated. The FBI did not return calls for comment. The Department of Transportation investigator is dead.

And writer Laura Zuckerman who worked closely with Curtis on several stories for the Daytona paper, told Wired News he never mentioned the voting software code.

In 2002, Zuckerman wrote about allegations Curtis made that Yang Enterprises overcharged the Department of Transportation for work it never performed. In addition, Curtis told Zuckerman that Yang employed an illegal Chinese national while working on government contracts for NASA, and that the company was possibly spying on NASA by downloading documents from the NASA computer system.

"I didn't get a hint of anything like that at the time that I was writing any of these stories," Zuckerman (who no longer works for the newspaper) said.

However, other information provided by Curtis has been somewhat corroborated. The overbilling charge was confirmed by a Department of Transportation employee, although an official state investigation found no wrongdoing. Curtis thinks pressure from Feeney and others helped squelch the investigation, charges that Zuckerman did not find implausible from her own research.

And Last March, the Chinese national that Curtis discussed, Hai Lin Nee, was arrested in a 4-year-old Immigration and Customs Enforcement sting operation for trying to mail sensitive computer chips to Beijing in 1999 in violation of export rules.

But no one at Yang has been arrested for spying on NASA or stealing documents, despite a letter Curtis sent to a NASA investigator in February 2002 suggesting the company might be doing so. Curtis believes Feeney squelched that investigation as well to protect Yang. Both CREW and staff for Sen. Nelson's office are looking into those charges.

Curtis recently signed an affidavit (.pdf) and says he's willing to take a polygraph test. In the affidavit, Curtis stated that Feeney once "bragged that he had already implemented 'exclusion lists' to reduce the 'black vote'" and discussed ways of further impeding the black vote through strategic use of police patrols on Election Day.

His willingness to go on record with his vote fraud allegations is what makes some believe him.

Jon Kaney, a prominent Florida attorney who represents the Daytona Beach News-Journal and sparred with Feeney over articles the paper wrote about the lawmaker in 2002, said the affidavit does take things up a notch.

"You don't casually go around swearing under penalties of perjury unless you think you're right," Kaney said. "The affidavit struck me as something somebody ought to be looking at." But he said his first reaction to the affidavit was: "Gag. This can't be believed."

It remains to be seen if any new investigations can uncover the truth.

Protesters Urge Delay for Ohio Electors
By John McCarthy for the Associated Press.

As it has done for 200 years, Ohio's delegation to the Electoral College is to meet Monday to cast ballots for president and vice president - but this time, there are demands that the electors wait until after a recount. A demonstration was held Sunday as about 100 people gathered outside the Ohio Statehouse to protest the delegation's vote.

The Electoral College's vote in the Ohio Senate chamber is expected to be accompanied by demonstrations outside the Capitol sponsored by groups who don't accept that President Bush won the key swing state by 119,000 votes, guaranteeing his victory over Democrat John Kerry.

Protesters Urge Delay for Ohio Electors
By John McCarthy
The Associated Press

Sunday 12 December 2004

COLUMBUS, Ohio - As it has done for 200 years, Ohio's delegation to the Electoral College is to meet Monday to cast ballots for president and vice president - but this time, there are demands that the electors wait until after a recount. A demonstration was held Sunday as about 100 people gathered outside the Ohio Statehouse to protest the delegation's vote.

The Electoral College's vote in the Ohio Senate chamber is expected to be accompanied by demonstrations outside the Capitol sponsored by groups who don't accept that President Bush won the key swing state by 119,000 votes, guaranteeing his victory over Democrat John Kerry.

Led by a coalition representing the Green and Libertarian parties, the dissidents are paying for recounts in each of Ohio's 88 counties that will begin this week. The recount is not expected to be complete until next week.

"John Kerry conceded so early in the process that it's maddening," said Kat L'Estrange of We Do Not Concede, an activist group born after the election that believes Kerry was the real winner in Ohio and nationally.

L'Estrange, Susan Truitt of the Columbus-based Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections, and others demanded that the electoral vote be put off until the recount is completed.

"In Ohio, there has not been a final determination. Therefore, any meeting of the Electoral College in Ohio prior to a full recount would in fact be an illegitimate gathering," said John Bonifaz of the National Voting Rights Institute.

The dissidents claim there were disparities in vote totals for Democrats, too few voting machines in Democrat-leaning precincts, organized campaigns directing voters to the wrong polling place and confusion over the counting of provisional ballots by voters whose names did not appear in the books at polling places.

The Kerry campaign does not dispute that Bush won the election, but supports the Ohio recount. Kerry issued a statement Wednesday saying reported voting problems should be investigated to ensure there are no doubts in future elections.

Monday's Electoral College vote will follow the same script it has since 1804, when Ohio picked Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic Republican, over Federalist Charles C. Pinckney.

The electors will gather in the Senate chamber and cast votes for president, then vice president, on separate paper ballots. The ballots are counted by representatives of Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's office and then handed to Blackwell, who is the presiding officer of the electoral vote.

Blackwell then signs a "transmittal" of the vote total and sends it to the president of the U.S. Senate, who will announce the national total on Jan. 6.

Ohio's electors are a mix of GOP officials and others who are being rewarded for service to the party.

"It's a great honor to serve as a member of the Electoral College and it's a great honor to vote for President Bush," said Alex Arshinkoff, longtime chairman of the Summit County Republican Party who is an elector for the second straight meeting.

Karyle Mumper, chairwoman of the Marion County Republican Party, will be an elector for the first time. She, too, feels honored but believes the demonstrations outside will be a distraction.

"It's a shame they do not believe in the honesty and the professional people working the polls," said Mumper. "I just think they are sore losers and money and time (for the recount) could be spent on other things."

-------

This goes with this post.

There has been a bit of a tinfoil hat alert with regard to the story I posted the Repubs hiring a programmer to write "vote switching" software.

I still have not personally had a chance to investigate the article, but Bev Harris had this to say on her blackboxvoting.org website, and it seemed important to take her stance into consideration while reading the article.

While MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and I had a run-in recently, I agree
with Olbermann's earlier critique of the Madsen homeland security
story, and this new Madsen story is just as weak. Most of both Madsen
stories are bait and switch. Madsen wanders all over the place,
recapping unrelated information from real news agencies, piggybacking
onto their credibility, with only the most tenuous ties to what he is
actually trying to prove. The work done on BradBlog is much more
focused, and Brad seems to be a responsible researcher.

========================================

In my original critique, I raised questions about the Feeney
vote-manipulation story; some of them related to Madsen's work. Brad
Friedman, the author of BradBlog and the primary researcher for more
credible work on Curtis, answered my original questions here. I have
updated this section.

1. Madsen's article implied that Curtis's vote-rigging program was
used in elections. Brad Friedman correctly points out that the Clint
Curtis affidavit explains that he designed a prototype and did not put
it into machines. (Many people have written vote-rigging prototypes,
and the writing of a program doesn't prove anything about the
integrity of the 2004 election.) The issue then becomes: Are Curtis's
allegations about Tom Feeney correct?

- Documents do confirm that Curtis worked for Yang Enterprises, and
that Feeney was involved with Yang. Documents do not confirm that
Curtis met with Feeney and discussed vote-rigging. Curtis names
witnesses in his affidavit, which is a good sign. The witnesses have
not confirmed the story, yet.

from: http://blackboxvoting.org
------------------
TUESDAY DEC 7 2004:
Why the Feeney vote-rigging story sounds like disinformation, as Wayne
Madsen writes it

The story hangs together better at BradBlog.com.

ABOUT DISINFORMATION: Like a good lie, it has elements of truth.
Trouble is, the truth in Madsen's story doesn't relate to the nuts and
bolts of the story.

DISINFORMATION IS DANGEROUS TO THE CLEAN VOTING MOVEMENT: Getting the
facts is tedious, unexciting work, consisting of auditing and personal
interviews, and it takes time. Many Americans want a magic bullet, a
single shot that will blow the lid off everything at once.

That's risky. If the mainstream media continues to be bombarded with
stories that sound credible, but aren't, when the real thing comes
down the pike it will be ignored.

While MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and I had a run-in recently, I agree
with Olbermann's earlier critique of the Madsen homeland security
story, and this new Madsen story is just as weak. Most of both Madsen
stories are bait and switch. Madsen wanders all over the place,
recapping unrelated information from real news agencies, piggybacking
onto their credibility, with only the most tenuous ties to what he is
actually trying to prove. The work done on BradBlog is much more
focused, and Brad seems to be a responsible researcher.

========================================

In my original critique, I raised questions about the Feeney
vote-manipulation story; some of them related to Madsen's work. Brad
Friedman, the author of BradBlog and the primary researcher for more
credible work on Curtis, answered my original questions here. I have
updated this section.

1. Madsen's article implied that Curtis's vote-rigging program was
used in elections. Brad Friedman correctly points out that the Clint
Curtis affidavit explains that he designed a prototype and did not put
it into machines. (Many people have written vote-rigging prototypes,
and the writing of a program doesn't prove anything about the
integrity of the 2004 election.) The issue then becomes: Are Curtis's
allegations about Tom Feeney correct?

- Documents do confirm that Curtis worked for Yang Enterprises, and
that Feeney was involved with Yang. Documents do not confirm that
Curtis met with Feeney and discussed vote-rigging. Curtis names
witnesses in his affidavit, which is a good sign. The witnesses have
not confirmed the story, yet.

2. I mentioned a second problem, in that several of the Florida
counties used different software in 2000 than they do now, and that
various Florida counties use different manufacturers and different
systems. Writing one program that would tamper with ES&S punch cards
and Diebold optical scans at the same time is unrealistic. However,
since Curtis says he did not insert the software into any voting
system, this is (almost) a moot point.

- The counties Curtis alleges Feeney wanted to rig were Miami-Dade,
Broward, Palm Beach. The first two used punch cards in 2000, switched
to ES&S touch-screens in 2002, and used ES&S touch-screens in 2004.
Palm Beach County used the infamous "butterfly ballot" in 2000, and
switched to Sequoia touch-screens in 2002, and used those also in
2004. The Sequoia system has significant differences from the ES&S
system, and the same software would not likely work for both

- Note that the Wayne Madsen article does a bait and switch when he
discusses Volusia County. He starts by saying it is Feeney's district,
and then actually goes on to report a story broken by Black Box Voting
in October, 2003, about minus 16,022 votes for Bush in Volusia --
which appears to have nothing to do with the Feeney story. BradBlog
takes care not to draw conclusions that aren't supported.

3. The techniques used to program a vote-rigging system in the
affidavit by Clint Curtis still have some technical problems.
Candidate-switching is not difficult, and there are a number of ways
to accomplish it. Programmers have pointed out the the use of VB5
doesn't match use of Unix systems, but several programmers I spoke
with were unaware that the Sequoia touch-screens, used in Palm Beach,
create their ballots from WinEDS, and that program runs on Windows,
and is so replete with security problems that the state of Texas
refused to certify it. Now, when I get a high-speed document scanner,
I'll post the Texas FOIA documents that show how susceptible the
Sequoia WinEDS program is to tampering.

4. Most political shenanigans are not conducted by the candidate
himself, but by operatives. It is certainly possible for a politician
to hold several meetings in which he commits a felony in front of
several witnesses, but that's not usually how it is done. A more
common technique is an envelope full of cash left in a drawer of an
operative, with at least one, sometimes more, buffer layers between
the operative and the politician.

Clint Curtis says Feeney himself had meetings to directly discuss
election rigging software. Could happen, certainly, but this seems
unusual.

But this gets a bit more interesting. As I was checking this out, I
got a report from someone completely unrelated, on an entirely
different kind of vote-manipulation endeavor, and Feeney's name came
up in that, too. So the issue of Feeney's behavior is about as clear
as mud.

5. The author says it will be difficult to write a program that will
escape notice if the source code is examined. That's not quite true.

I originally wrote that putting a trigger into a program can involve a
very small amount of code, hard to detect -- and you can comment the
code such that it looks like it is there for another purpose. Also,
the certifiers do a slipshod job of code analysis, and you could
probably drive a greyhound bus through their examination of the source
code.

But I've been receiving e-mails from programmers that point out
something even more obvious: by slipping the rig into a .dll, a
program that runs in the background in the operating system (which is
never examined at all) you can certainly achieve vote-rigging and
survive a source code review.

Programmers pointed out to me that Curtis, as a programmer, should
have known that. However, according to his affidavit, Curtis got his
degree in Political Science and History, not computer science. He was
apparently a self-trained programmer. I won't go into the technical
merits more here, because if he didn't put the program into voting
systems, they aren't relevant.

6. Now, my most significant objection to the story, which goes to
Curtis's credibility, still involves his statement on the affidavit
saying that he filed a "QUITAM" whistleblower suit, that is "pending."
First, he doesn't spell it correctly. The correct spelling is two
words, "Qui Tam." Next, Qui Tam cases MUST be filed under seal. If a
Qui Tam is filed in Florida, both the evidence and the existence of
the case must be sealed, and only the Florida Attorney General can
unseal it.

People have written to me to explain that Curtis did file a
whistleblower suit, but did so a day after the deadline. That is not a
Qui Tam, but an employment-related suit. In his affidavit, Curtis
refers to filing lawsuits two different places. One is an employment
suit, the other is a "QUITAM" suit. I found documentation of the
employement suit and its dismissal, but saw no documentation at all
about a Qui Tam suit. That means it's either still under seal, and
therefore, by talking about it, Curtis just invalidated the suit and
violated a court order, or there is no Qui Tam suit.

Please do show it to me, if you can find it in the dockets and it has
been unsealed.

Black Box Voting board member Jim March and I filed a Qui Tam suit in
California in November 2003, against Diebold Election Systems. Using a
California law, we refused to seal the evidence, but still had to keep
the existence of the case under seal. It did not come out from under
seal until the California Attorney General got the court to unseal it,
and the Associated Press covered the unsealing of the case. You cannot
keep the unsealing of a Qui Tam case away from the press. The press
has mentioned no FDOT Qui Tam.

This goes directly to Curtis's credibility. I was not able to get hold
of him today, and I will keep trying tomorrow, so that we can learn
the answer to this.

There are two other credibility-checking questions I need answered.
First, a small scrambled egg on my face: I wrote "Court documents
refer to a judgment against Curtis for copyright infringement.
Actually, the court documents referred to might have been papers filed
by an opposing party, i.e. Yang Enterprises, alleging the copyright
infringement without proving it. According to the Daytona
News-Journal, Yang says Curtis was "successfully sued" over copyright
infringement.

Parsing words here: "successfully sued" may mean there was a judgment
entered, but according to Brad Friedman, Curtis says the case was
settled out of court without either side paying the other. ("Each side
paid their attorney's fees and went their merry way.") "Successfully
sued" could also mean an out-of-court settlement in which Curtis paid
a settlement to the other party. It is really stretching it to
interpret "successfully sued" as simply filing a case. The term
"successfully sued" could be a smear by Yang or Feeney, or it could be
that Curtis didn't fully disclose the problems with the copyright
infringement case.

Because this goes to credibility, and in this case credibility is
extremely important, the next two questions that must be answered are:
Who was the former employer and what were the real terms of the
settlement or judgment?

One more credibility test: When Curtis lived in Illinois, he ran for
office as a Republican. While discussing his run for office in a
letter to the Bloomington Pantagraph he accused a local attorney of
stealing $28,000. The accusation might be accurate, since it
apparently was an embezzlement, and those are much more common than
people realize. I'd like to know the names of the attorney and the
injured party.

My gut tells me -- but this is only speculation -- that Curtis was
correct in blowing the whistle on the attorney for misappropriating
$28,000. I say that because I've seen written up several financial
fraud cases, met the embezzlers, it happens frequently. If he blew the
whistle on a $28,000 theft and his charges were correct, that would
shore up his credibility on the Feeney story.

I announced on a national radio show Friday that I will be happy to
take what you folks throw at me, if I am wrong on these points. In the
mean time, because the implications of this story are so significant,
I think we need to continue to exercise caution and get the story to
the point where it is truly bulletproof.

-- Bev Harris # # # # #

Oopsy. Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell promised America that he would not interfere with a recount. Now his office has instructed employees that Ohio voting records are not considered "public records."

That means that Kenneth Blackwell has been caught in a big fat lie. And I've got the proof (I provide video and a transcript):

Last week, he promised in an interview with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann that he wouldn't do anything to interfere with the recount. He said he would consider it "yet another audit of the voting process."

Here's the story detailing Blackwell's "lockdown" of the Ohio voting records:

Blackwell Locks Out Recount Volunteers
By Ray Beckerman.

On Friday December 10 two certified volunteers for the Ohio Recount team assigned to Greene County were in process recording voting information from minority precincts in Greene County, and were stopped mid-count by a surprise order from Secretary of State Blackwell’s office. The Director Board of Elections stated that “all voter records for the state of Ohio were “locked-down,” and now they are not considered public records.”

Here's Blackwell during his interview with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann saying he won't interfere:

Olbermann: As it plays into the recount though sir, are you saying that your office does not anticipate taking any steps to try to prevent a recount in Ohio?

Blackwell: No. We haven't! We've told the two officials..candidates that once we certify on December 6th, they have five days to certify. I mean, to ask for a recount. Once they ask for a recount, we will provide them with a recount. And that's what I've said from the very first indication that they were interested in a recount. Once it was established that they were statewide candidates with standing, our law says that they can ask for a recount. We will regard this as yet another audit of the voting process. The reason it takes us from November the second to December the sixth to certify is because we have a very tedious, very comprehensive process where we audit by precinct, across the state, every vote that was cast to make sure that every vote that was legally cast is counted.

By the way, voting records are public by definition. Here's an excerpt from Ohio's State Election Code:

Ohio Revised Code Title XXXV Elections, Sec. 3503.26 that requires all election records to be made available for public inspection and copying. ORC Sec. 3599.161 makes it a crime for any employee of the Board of Elections to knowingly prevent or prohibit any person from inspecting the public records filed in the office of the Board of Elections. Finally, ORC Sec. 3599.42 clearly states: “A violation of any provision of Title XXXV (35) of the Revised Code constitutes a prima facie case of election fraud within the purview of such Title.”

December 10, 2004

Blackwell Locks Out Recount Volunteers

Subject: Blackwell Locks Down Ohio Voting Records

Ohio Election Investigation Thwarted by Surprise Blackwell Order

Dayton, Ohio Friday December 10, 2004

On Friday December 10 two certified volunteers for the Ohio Recount team assigned to Greene County were in process recording voting information from minority precincts in Greene County, and were stopped mid-count by a surprise order from Secretary of State Blackwell’s office. The Director Board of Elections stated that “all voter records for the state of Ohio were “locked-down,” and now they are not considered public records.”

The volunteers were working with voter printouts received directly from Carole Garman, Director, Greene County Board of Elections. Joan Quinn and Eve Roberson, retired attorney and election official respectively, were hand-copying voter discrepancies from precinct voting books on behalf of the presidential candidates Mr. Cobb (Green) and Mr. Badnarik Libertarian) who had requested the recount.

One of the goals of the recount was to determine how many minority voters were unable to vote or denied voting at the polls. Upon requesting copies of precinct records from predominantly minority precincts, Ms. Garman contacted Secretary of State Blackwell’s office and spoke to Pat Wolfe, Election Administrator. Ms. Wolfe told Ms. Garman to assert that all voter records for the State of Ohio were “locked down” and that they are “not considered public records.”

Quinn and Roberson asked specifically for the legal authority authorizing Mr. Blackwell to “lock down” public records. Garman stated that it was the Secretary of State’s decision. Ohio statute requires the Directors of Boards of Election to comply with public requests for inspection and copying of public election records. As the volunteer team continued recording information from the precinct records in question, Garman entered the room and stated she was withdrawing permission to inspect or copy any voting records at the Board of Elections. Garman then physically removed the precinct book from Ms. Roberson’s hands. They later requested the records again from Garman’s office, which was again denied.

Ohio Revised Code Title XXXV Elections, Sec. 3503.26 that requires all election records to be made available for public inspection and copying. ORC Sec. 3599.161 makes it a crime for any employee of the Board of Elections to knowingly prevent or prohibit any person from inspecting the public records filed in the office of the Board of Elections. Finally, ORC Sec. 3599.42 clearly states: “A violation of any provision of Title XXXV (35) of the Revised Code constitutes a prima facie case of election fraud within the purview of such Title.”

Contact Information: Joan Quinn (937) 320-9680, (916) 396-9714 – cell Katrina Sumner (937) 608-5861

Permanent Link to this Post posted by Ray Beckerman @ 9:57 PM

Update: this post now goes with this one. (Bev Harris weighing in on this story.)
Texas to Florida: White House-linked clandestine operation paid for "vote switching" software
By Wayne Madsen for the Online Journal.

According to a notarized affidavit signed by Clint Curtis, while he was employed by the NASA Kennedy Space Center contractor, Yang Enterprises, Inc., during 2000, Feeney solicited him to write a program to "control the vote." At the time, Curtis was of the opinion that the program was to be used for preventing fraud in the in the 2002 election in Palm Beach County, Florida. His mind was changed, however, when the true intentions of Feeney became clear: the computer program was going to be used to suppress the Democratic vote in counties with large Democratic registrations.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/120604Madsen/120604madsen.html

December 6, 2004—The manipulation of computer voting machines in the recent presidential election and the funding of programmers who were involved in the operation are tied to an intricate web of shady off-shore financial trusts and companies, shady espionage operatives, Republican Party politicians close to the Bush family, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) contract vehicles.

An exhaustive investigation has turned up a link between current Florida Republican Representative Tom Feeney, a customized Windows-based program to suppress Democratic votes on touch screen voting machines, a Florida computer services company with whom Feeney worked as a general counsel and registered lobbyist while he was Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, and top level officials of the Bush administration.

According to a notarized affidavit signed by Clint Curtis, while he was employed by the NASA Kennedy Space Center contractor, Yang Enterprises, Inc., during 2000, Feeney solicited him to write a program to "control the vote." At the time, Curtis was of the opinion that the program was to be used for preventing fraud in the in the 2002 election in Palm Beach County, Florida. His mind was changed, however, when the true intentions of Feeney became clear: the computer program was going to be used to suppress the Democratic vote in counties with large Democratic registrations.

According to Curtis, Feeney and other top brass at Yang Enterprises, a company located in a three-story building in Oviedo, Florida, wanted the prototype written in Visual Basic 5 (VB.5) in Microsoft Windows and the end-product designed to be portable across different Unix-based vote tabulation systems and to be "undetectable" to voters and election supervisors.

Yang, an engineering and computer services company subcontracted to NASA prime contractors like Lockheed Martin, was founded in 1986 by Dr. Tyng-Lin (Tim) Yang. Granted minority-owned "Section 8A" and woman-owned preferential status by the U.S. government, Yang's clients also include the Florida Department of Transportation (DOT). Yang's President, Li-Woan (Lee) Yang, is Tim Yang's wife. Feeney was the registered agent for another Yang company, Y & H Greens, Inc., a company that was dissolved in 1988 and operated from the Yangs' residence on Merritt Island. The Yangs also serve as co-trustees for an entity called Yang of Merritt Island, Ltd., founded on January 31, 2000, and also run from their residence.

In the autumn of 1999, Curtis, who served as a sort of technology adviser for Yang, first became aware of Feeney's interest in election rigging. Curtis said at one meeting, Feeney "bragged that he could reduce the minority vote and deliver the election to 'George.'" At the same meeting, according to Curtis, Feeney said he had "implemented a list that would eliminate thousands of voters that would vote for Democratic candidates" and that "a proper placement of police patrols could further reduce the black vote by as much as 25 percent."

Feeney's desire to manipulate the vote would be manifested in his home base of Volusia County in the 2000 presidential election. According to The Washington Post, at 10 p.m. on election night, Al Gore was leading Bush in Volusia County by 83,000 to 62,000 votes. One-half hour later, Gore's vote total had been reduced by 16,000 to 67,000 and an obscure Socialist candidate saw a sudden surge to 10,000 votes in a precinct with only 600 voters. The information on the Volusia optical scanner voting anomalies came from a leaked internal Diebold memorandum. In the end, Bush won Florida and the White House by a mere 537 votes in the most controversial U.S. presidential election in history.

Feeney had long been a voice in Florida GOP politics. He was gubernatorial candidate Jeb Bush's running mate in 1994, a race in which Democratic incumbent Lawton Chiles defeated Bush. Chiles once referred to Feeney as "the David Duke of Florida politics."

In 2002, Feeney asked Curtis if he could develop a touch screen voting machine "flip flop" program. According to Curtis, Feeney asked him, "Can you write a program to flip votes around on touch screen machines?" Curtis said Feeney wanted the program to merely reduce votes in heavily Democratic areas and flip Republican votes to 51 percent and keep Democrat votes to 49 percent. Curtis added that Feeney "did not want to win by a lot." In return, Curtis said Feeney offered him "big jobs." Curtis's main tasks at Yang were to develop the Florida DOT's Electronic Document Management System. He also worked on the Project Pipeline Information System at another one of Yang's major clients, Exxon Mobil's Coral Gables facility.

Curtis said he developed the voting program and eventually handed off his prototype to Feeney. The program was also reviewed by Curtis's senior coder, Hai Lin (Henry) Nee, who according to Florida Department of Transportation sources, was an illegal alien working in the United States. According Curtis, not only did Nee review the vote switching program code but he constantly downloaded sensitive data to his computer from NASA's computers. Nee, according to Curtis, moonlighted at an Orlando company called Azure Systems, described by The Orlando Sentinel as a "three person engineering firm" and one of a number of companies linked to Ting Ih-Hsu, a former Lockheed Martin employee. At the same time Nee was reviewing Yang's vote switching program, he was also being investigated by U.S. federal investigators for illegally shipping Hellfire missile parts to China. Oddly, although U.S. law enforcement agents had put Nee and his associates under surveillance for illegal exports of technology to China in 1999, he and his colleagues were not arrested until March of this year.

Curtis claimed that Yang's corporate bosses stressed that the company had "unlimited" sources of money that came "mostly" from China. According to Florida DOT employees, House Speaker Feeney pressured their agency to give money to Yang for nonexistent software. The sources also revealed that Feeney was aware that Yang was employing a number of illegal aliens on State of Florida and federal contracts.

Feeney's ties to Yang paralleled similar close ties to NASA. Feeney's wife Ellen has worked as an engineer for NASA's Kennedy Space Center since 1985. Jeb Bush ensured that Florida's 24th Congressional District was redrawn so that Feeney would have an easy time in his 2002 race against Democratic opponent Harry Jacobs. According to Florida state officials, who spoke on the condition anonymity, 500 Yang employees at the Kennedy Space Center were paid for their time when they agreed to picket against Jacobs. In addition, NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe, according to the same sources, lobbied extensively for Feeney within NASA. In addition, O'Keefe and his close friend and former Pentagon boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, made campaign appearances for Feeney at the Kennedy Space Center.

Feeney's close ties to Jeb Bush and Cheney paid off. In 2002, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a race that also saw the re-election of Jeb Bush. Early in "vote switch's" development stages, Feeney had told Curtis that he wanted the program "made to control Palm Beach" in 2002. Palm Beach County's Election Supervisor was still the controversial Theresa LePore, nicknamed "Madam Butterfly," who designed the infamous "butterfly ballots" in the 2000 election. LePore had once been an employee of Saudi multi-billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi link that is tied to a huge multi-billion tranche of money distributed throughout off-shore trusts, accounts, and corporations with interlocking directorships that are controlled by Bush interests in Houston. It was this Bush-controlled money cache, originating in the East, and known in Houston by the name "Five Star" and other cryptonyms that was, according to U.S. intelligence insiders, used to fund the rigging of the 2004 election.

When he arrived in Congress, Feeney was given a seat on the House Science and Technology Committee, which oversees NASA's operations. Feeney was also appointed to the important House Finance and Judiciary Committees. He was also given a clean bill of ethical health by Florida's Ethics Commission, a panel that has a Republican majority.

After Feeney's ascension to Congress, Yang's questionable billing activities with its Florida DOT contract came to the attention of Ray C. Lemme, a seasoned senior investigator with the Florida DOT Inspector General's Office and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War. Lemme had a lot of evidence to suspect that Yang was overbilling the DOT for "millions." After discovering Yang's dirty laundry, Curtis went to work for the DOT. Mavis Georgalis, the DOT's contracting officer for the Yang contract, was also aware of improprieties with the contract. As a result of pressure from the Florida State House, both Curtis and Georgalis were eventually fired by the DOT because of their complaints about the Yang contract. Someone was obviously trying to send Curtis a message when, on August 14, 2002, he discovered that someone poisoned his pet Pomeranian dog, Emily. Lemme was forced to stop his official investigation of Yang for similar reasons. However, he decided to continue an "unofficial" investigation of Yang and its practices on the side. It was a fateful decision.

According to DOT employees familiar with the Yang case, Lemme was aware that it was Jeb Bush who personally shut down his investigation of Yang. Lemme also leaked details concerning his investigation to the Daytona Beach News Journal. The investigator had previously requested a full audit of the Yang contract with the DOT, a request that was denied. Lemme also became aware of something else outside the framework of the DOT contract—that Yang had been involved in producing a prototype vote switching program for use with touch screen voting machines and that Tom Feeney was in on the scam. The last time Clint Curtis spoke to Lemme, he remembers the silver haired investigator excited about where his case was leading. Lemme told Curtis that the cover up of Yang was coming from "as high up as I could imagine" and that he had "proof" that was "shocking."

On Sunday, June 29, 2003, evidence indicates that Lemme drove from Tallahassee to Valdosta, Georgia, the home of Moody Air Force Base. A motel receipt indicated that Lemme checked in at the Knight's Inn off Interstate 75 at 6:49 p.m. Lemme's wife said that her husband left home for work on Monday, June 30, at 5:15 a.m., an hour earlier than usual. According to a Leon County Sheriff's report, Lemme's wife said she received a voice message after she returned home at 6:45 p.m. on Monday. The message was from her husband's supervisor, Bob Clift, who informed her that earlier in the day, at 6:15 a.m., Lemme called into work, left a message, and said he would not be coming to work that day. Clift said he was checking up on Ray Lemme. Mrs. Lemme called Clift and told him that her husband was not at home. Mrs. Lemme told police that her husband was working on a "big case." Mrs. Lemme filed a missing person report with the Leon County, Sheriff's Office. Clift later determined that Ray Lemme made his earlier call to work at 6:15 a.m., one hour after he supposedly left his home for work, from a pay phone at the junction of Interstate 10 and Highway 1 in Jefferson County, Florida. Shortly after 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, July 1, the maid assigned to clean Lemme's room—132—received no answer when she knocked. The door was locked. There was no response when the maid called the room's telephone. The hotel manager then called the police.

The following is from the Valdosta Police Detective Report filed by Detective Craig Spencer and dated July 1, 2003: "On July 1, 2003 at approximately 1330 hours, I received a page advising me to be en route to Knights Inn at 2110 West Hill Avenue in reference to an unattended death." When Spencer and other police officers and detectives arrived at the motel, the manager told them that the occupant of Room 132, Ray Lemme, was to have checked out by 11a.m. The officers yelled through the slightly ajar door but received no answer and they discovered the upper swing latch was locked. The officers used a special tool provided by the motel to open the swing latch lock. Spencer said that one of the officers entered the room and found a suicide note and then proceeded to the bathroom where Lemme was found dead in the bathtub. Police also discovered that the inside of Lemmes's left elbow—the cubital tunnel—was slashed. There were spurts of blood on the wall but no blood found on the floor. A belt possibly used as a tourniquet and a double- edged straight razor blade were found on the side of the tub. A bath towel was unfolded and neatly placed on the floor next to the tub.

Later on July 1, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Laboratory in Moultrie informed the Valdosta Police that based on the "suicide" details, no autopsy would be performed on Lemme. Unlike Florida, Georgia does not perform mandatory autopsies. A doctor, with 25 years' clinical experience, who was interviewed for this story claimed that the circumstances of Lemme's death appeared to him to be a classic "mob hit." If the Leon County Sheriff missing person report is to be believed, it is clear that someone other than Lemme checked into the Valdosta motel on Sunday evening using his name. Clearly, the Leon County Sheriff's report contains a number of details that directly conflict with facts found in the Valdosta Police report. In addition, the Lowndes County, Georgia, Coroner's report fails to indicate an estimated time of death based on a full medical examination—it surmised that the time of death was the same time as indicated on the suicide note: 8:10 a.m. on July 1.

An empty manila folder and a blank legal pad notebook were found on the hotel room's desk along with an undated and unsigned suicide note written on lined paper, which lacked any identifiable fingerprints, from Lemme's day planner. The note merely contained the time 8:10 a.m. with the following notation: "I love my family (family underlined once) with all my heart. I am sorry. I am depressed and in pain. Mary Ann (Lemme's wife), I love you." ("I love you" underlined twice). It was certainly not indicative of a person who was ecstatic that he was finally going to nail a long investigation that involved vote rigging, overbilling, and fraud abetted by the very top political leadership in Tallahassee. Interestingly, the last number on Lemme's pager (an 850 960-XXXX) ended with the number "911." It is also interesting that Lemme's watch, when discovered by the police, was stopped at 12:34 p.m. on June 30–a possible indication that Lemme was trying to convey the time of a possible in extremis situation. Also, Lemme's Florida driver's license was in his room while his wallet was in the glove box of his car, which was parked in front of the room. Two motel receipts were found in Lemme's room by the police. One was a check-in receipt dated June 29 and timed at 6:44 p.m. The other was a receipt, without a notation of check-in or check-out, dated June 30 and timed at 6:54 a.m. A witness told police that Lemme's car was parked in front of his room on the afternoon of June 30.

Sergeant Eugene Bell of the Valdosta Police Department interviewed a 39-year old female guest who was staying in Room 236 over the weekend. She and her daughter noticed three men standing in the parking lot across from Lemme's room at 8 a.m. on the morning of July 1. The behavior of the men made the guest suspicious enough that the woman initially believed the men were engaged in a drug deal. According to the police report, the camera used to photograph the crime scene was later discovered to have a defect in the flash memory card. The defect resulted in no usable photographs being submitted with the official police report.

Lemme was no stranger to Florida politics. His wife, Mary Ann, worked as a secretary for Martha Walters Barnett, a partner with the politically-connected Holland & Knight law firm in Tallahassee, where she specializes in campaign finance and election law and government contracts. Another Holland & Knight partner, Ginny Myrick, was appointed by Jeb Bush as the vice chair of the Florida Community Trust, a state land acquisition and grant program. Although officially a bipartisan law firm, even Democrats working for Holland & Knight largely support Jeb Bush. In addition, Bill McBride, Bush's Democratic opponent in the 2002 gubernatorial race and a Holland & Knight partner who had defeated former Attorney General Janet Reno in the Democratic primary amid reports of voting irregularities from around the state, commented that his race against Bush "may be the Democrats' race to lose."

The NASA connection to the money trail that is linked to the development of the vote switching program is of particular note. When the first sketchy details of the vote switching operation emerged, a Houston-controlled money tranche associated with an offshore entity called Five Star Trust, registered in the Isle of Man, was reported by high-level intelligence sources familiar with past Bush-related covert activities to be behind the operation. Five Star has been connected by these informed sources to have originated in 1983, when deposed Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, and then-Vice President George H. W. Bush were allegedly looking for a repository for an estimated $3 billion in looted Philippine gold and gems. Since that time, Five Star's accounts are said to funnel more funds from Saudi Arabia as well as cash reserves hidden away in offshore artificial shells by Enron before it collapsed. What is not yet certain is whether Sean O'Keefe, the NASA administrator and close Cheney friend who supported Feeney's and Yang's activities in Florida, facilitated the transfer of Five Star funds from Houston to Cape Canaveral using contract vehicles of both the Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers to disburse the funds to the principal players. A NASA insider in Texas said he has long suspected large amounts of money have been moved into the United States and that these transfers involved NASA and Saudi and Chinese money sources.

There is additional information that the election rigging principals connected to the State of Florida and Jeb Bush may have also tried to use contractors tied closely to state contracts to parlay the touch screen software into Maine, which has proportional distribution of its electoral votes by congressional district, and Ohio, the key state in 2004. The information was provided by insiders in Tallahassee who are close to offices involved in procurement by the state government.

Sources close to U.S. intelligence pointed to a $29.6 million check supposedly issued on October 22, 2004, by Laurentian Bank in Montreal, Canada, that was rumored by intelligence circles to have been used to pay for the technicians who developed the software to rig the election. The computer voting machine technicians and maintenance personnel involved with the rigging were reported to have included Russians, Mexicans, and Brazilians.

According to Laurentian Bank, the check, a U.S. dollar "money order," is a bogus instrument tied to Nigerian scamming activities. Laurentian Bank said that a U.S. dollar money order would never be for amounts over $1,000 and any higher amount would be in the form of a bank draft that would require the signature of two senior bank officers. In addition, the bank would never use a cell phone number (514-588-5569) on their checks. The payer on the "check," Equity Financial Trust of Toronto, is said by the Canadian Fraud Office to be involved with Nigerian scammers. In fact, the Canadian Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions reports that Equity Financial Trust, Toronto, Ontario "may be violating provisions of the Bank Act (Canada) or other Canadian financial institution regulations" and "may also be conducting unauthorized banking transactions in the United States."

The payee on the "check," Five Star Investments, Ltd., once registered on the Isle of Man, is a Lexington, Kentucky-based entity tied to Marion "J.R." Horn, convicted in 2002 by Judge Joseph M. Hood of the U.S. District Court for Eastern Kentucky for wire fraud. He was also ordered to serve time in Butner Federal Penitentiary, North Carolina for a "mental study." He eventually served an unusually light 18-month sentence while on parole for another fraud case. When interviewed by a researcher for this article, Horn expressed surprise that the check his lawyer in Nassau was waiting to clear a bank in New York, was, in fact, a fake. According to CIA documents obtained from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Five Star Trust may have, in fact, had a past relationship with Horn. According to Offshorebusiness.com, Five Star Trust has been linked with an "illegal" bank.

The connection of Enron money and Nigerian scammers to Five Star is intriguing because of a September 23, 2004, Houston Chronicle report that said Enron was involved in an off-the-books deal to invest in Nigerian power generation barges. Tina Trinkle, a former Merrill Lynch banker, said she was asked not to do the normal background checks for such a business deal.

A former Justice Department prosecutor who investigated the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) said that the bogus check and those responsible for it are typical "feints" used to mask actual clandestine money movements from law enforcement investigators. In addition, the former prosecutor said the purported check lacked the necessary SWIFT codes in the numbers found at the bottom of the check to facilitate the movement of money through international financial networks. He said that in his experience as a prosecutor, the name "Five Star Trust" came up in relation to the covert activities of the Nugan Hand Bank, a CIA-connected activity that was involved in covert activities in Australia and South East Asia.

Five Star entities, active and dissolved, have been discovered in the Isle of Man, the island of Nevis, the Bahamas, Florida, Kentucky, and Texas. Other Five Star-related entities stored large sums of money in the Cook Islands, according to U.S. intelligence sources, and these funds were directly linked to Khashoggi and BCCI. Khashoggi also approached top Nigerian leaders in 1982 to set up a company there that would deal exclusively in minerals. According to knowledgeable insiders, Khashoggi used a company called Triad to hammer out lucrative international deals on precious minerals. In 1994, Five Star Investments, Ltd., the entity tied to Horn, attempted to buy International Standards Group ISG), Ltd., a consulting company based in Boca Raton, Florida. According to the Palm Beach Post, Horn was the person who proposed the acquisition. ISG was also the target of a bid by UMI, Inc., a mortgage banker based in Coral Gables, Florida. The Palm Beach Post was never able to determine the source of UMI's cash.

Phony checks are not the only telltale signs associated with some of the various Five Star entities. Another bogus document, a bogus UN customs declaration for a shipment to a "Counter Terrorist Unit" in Lagos, Nigeria, was also obtained in the investigation of this story.

Horn has had a running battle with the CIA over allegations that he is owed money for his past activities on behalf of the agency. Although Horn has produced a number of dubious documents to support his claims, one of the names mentioned in documents filed in U.S. court in Washington, DC is that of E. Warren Goss, an actual attorney in Boulder, Colorado. It has not been established if E. Warren Goss has any family connection to Porter Goss, the current CIA director.

In a September 17, 2003, declaration by Marilyn A. Dorn, Information Review Officer in the Directorate of Operations at the CIA, in response to Horn's Freedom of Information Act request, it was determined that the agency had no records containing the names "Five Star Trust" or a reported subsidiary, "U.S. Mortgage and Trust (Bahamas)." Dorn reported that no records containing references to either entity were discovered but that two documents, cables—"field traffic consisting of one and a half pages and eight partial lines of message text, respectively, dating from the early 1980s"—were responsive to Horn's request. It is interesting that the CIA admits the time frame because the genesis of Five Star Trust was 1983, when, according to U.S. intelligence insiders, then-Vice President Bush authorized a Boeing 747 with a special "carriage" to airlift several tons of gold bars from Clark Air Force base in the Philippines to LaGuardia Airport in New York.

The gold bars were then transported to the International Diamond Exchange Vaults near Rockefeller Center. A CIA proprietary firm called Oceaneering International of Houston was reportedly involved in airlifting some of the gold from the Philippines, in addition to sealifting the remainder to Oregon. After George W. Bush's victory in 2000, the last of the gold in New York was moved to UBS Bank in Zurich. Marcos and Khashoggi set about to create Five Star Trust in 1983 as a means to create a vehicle to use the Philippine wealth to create and funnel fungible assets. In 1989, Five Star Trust was officially established in the Isle of Man by a Houston-based attorney who was a close friend of the Bush family.

The CIA's explanation of its decision to withhold the release the two cables was partly based on the use of cryptonyms–artificial words used as substitutes for the actual name or identity of a "person, organization, or project." The CIA statement continues: "when obtained and matched with other information, a cryptonym possesses a great deal of meaning for those who are able to fit it into the proper cognitive framework." The denial of Horn's FOIA request also stated that the two responsive documents could "reveal the existence or location of covert CIA field installations in multiple foreign countries." In addition, the CIA stated that release of the documents in question would "reveal specific and sensitive subjects in which the CIA is or was interested." Finally, disclosure of the requested documents was denied because of "foreign relations." The agency emphasized that, "in carrying out its legally authorized intelligence activities, the CIA engages in activities that if known by foreign nations, could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to U.S. relations with affected or interested nations."

The story of this corruption is nothing new. What is new is the purpose. The use of this old and covert tranche of money for a special Bush operation to deny the American people their right to a free and fair vote was not the typical illegal sale of arms to a terrorist nation, the overthrow of a foreign government, or the payment of bribes to foreign potentates. It was a high crime in every constitutional sense. The target was the American political system and not just in 2004 but also in 2003, 2002, and 2000. The scandal goes right up to the White House and the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee. It involves an extremely crooked Florida national politician and other Florida state government officials. And, as with all modern American political scandals, we have at least one dead body, a number of whistleblowers and anonymous "Deep Throats," powerful but corrupt politicians, counterfeit and real documents, con men, and a money trail tied to off-shore foreign bank accounts.

People may wonder why a group of intelligence insiders would come forward to a non-major media outlet with such tantalizing information at this time. The corporate-beholden media cannot be trusted to report such a news story. A common theme from all the intelligence and ex-intelligence officials with whom I have communicated is that George W. Bush made a major mistake in attacking and purging the clandestine service of the CIA. The "agency," which extends far beyond the confines of Langley, Virginia, is having its revenge. It has willingly exposed a portion of a traditional clandestine CIA money route to expose the vote scam that was used to ensure Bush's election.

The clues, for example, the bogus check, were conveyed to us as exactly that—clues. Those markers pointed to the illegal nature of the covert money flows. The connections between NASA contracts, Texas, and Florida were additional clues to one of the major sources of the money used for the vote rigging. There were a number of roads that led to the same destination. But that is the nature of covert intelligence. Some patriotic and brave people, who have served in silence for a number of decades, have chosen their country over a corrupt family and administration. It is now time for the constitutional process to begin. Rectification of the criminal conspiracy that denied John Kerry and John Edwards the White House must begin in Ohio, and extend to Florida, California, Texas, Georgia, and other states where votes were flipped by computers from the Kerry to the Bush column. Past elections must also be investigated and those who were done in by this fraud, namely, people like Max Cleland, Gray Davis, Al Gore, and others must also have their day in court.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and syndicated columnist. He is the author of "Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops & Brass Plates."

This is from the December 8, 2004 program of Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Report On Conyers Hearing On Voting Irregularities In Ohio (9 MB)
Mirror

According to the CSPAN Website, the congressional hearing with Rep Conyers will be broadcast on CSPAN.

Many thanks to those of you who emailed and called CSPAN to help make this possible. (I forgot to remind you yesterday, but I guess you guys had it under control :-)

My cable company, Comcast, seems to think it's more important to give me another home shopping channel than broadcast my country's government to me (oh yes, they'll be hearing from me), so I can't tape it. So that means it's up to one of you to hack the stream or grab it with your pvr or camera or vhs player for me to be able to store it in my archive.

At least we can all watch it online on CSPAN. I would much rather have a copy that I can study and analyze in the future.

Talk soon,

lisa

2004 VOTE
Review of Ohio Balloting
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Cmte., hosts a forum on the election in Ohio and possible irregularities in the vote itself and the subsequent counting of ballots. Many other Congressmen and interest group representatives take part in this event.

This just in from the Democratic Party.

They are still beating around the Shrub a bit. Because, of course, if Kerry won Ohio, it would overturn the election.

Democratic News
---------------
Dear Lisa,

Your response to Washington Governor candidate Christine Gregoire's plea for help
has been overwhelming. Thanks to your generosity, the recount in Washington will now
go forward. With only 42 votes separating Gregoire and her Republican opponent,
today we can ensure that every ballot is accurately counted. This could not have
happened without you.

Your incredible grassroots support is vital to our continued fight to ensure a full
and legitimate count of every single vote in this election and future elections. In
addition to our strong commitment to the recount in Washington State, the Democratic
Party has empowered the Ohio Democratic Party to represent us as our official
observer during the recount. We will make sure that every vote in Ohio is counted.

But we aren't stopping there. After consulting with our Voting Rights Institute
staff, Voting Protection Coordinators, Ohio legal team, Party activists, supporters,
elected officials, and others, and after reviewing available information, the
Democratic National Committee has decided to conduct a thorough investigation of key
election issues arising from the conduct of the 2004 general election in Ohio.

This investigative study will address the legitimate questions and concerns that
have been raised in Ohio and will develop factual information that will be
critically important in crafting further key election reforms. This project seeks to
answer such questions as:

* Why did so many people have to wait in line in certain Ohio precincts and not
others?

* Why weren't there enough machines in some counties and not others?

* Why were so many Ohioans forced to cast provisional ballots?

We will find answers to help implement and advocate reforms in the future.

Let me be clear. We do not expect either the recount in Ohio or our investigation to
overturn the results of this election. But both are vital to protecting every
American's voting rights in future elections. And the Democratic Party will never
waver when it comes to upholding this sacred trust.

Thank you again for your incredible support.

Sincerely,
Terry McAuliffe
Chairman

Sure, you've heard all this information before. But it is pretty incredible. The foxes are guarding the hen houses big time.
from the google cache of http://www.retrovsmetro.org/blog/.

Diebold
Diebold ranks third behind ES&S and Sequoia. Diebold manufactures an array of machines including ATM machines, ticket machines, and the like, and notably, only its voting machines fail to provide an auditable paper trail. CEO Wally O'Dell, a Bush Pioneer who has visited Bush at the Crawford Ranch, promised to deliver Ohio for Bush in 2004, and indeed he did. O'Dell sponsored a $600,000 fundraiser in his home for Dick Cheney (and attended by Cheney) in July 2003. Director WR "Tim" Timken is also a Bush Pioneer, and has donated over a million dollars to the Republican party since 1991.

Diebold is arguably the most political of the voting machine companies; its directors and corporate officers are staunch GOP contributors, including Louis Bockius III, Donald Gant and Eric Roorda. Since 2000, the company has donated $170,000 to the Republican National State Elections Committee. All of the $240,000 donated by Diebold's directors and chief officers to political campaigns since 1998 has gone to GOP candidates or the party.

SIAC
Admiral Bill Owens, a top Republican Party donor, military aide to Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary, is a former CEO of SIAC. On the board: Robert Gates, former CIA director, George H.W. Bush's Deputy National Security Advisor and head of the George Bush School of Business. Owens and Gates are now on the Board of VoteHere, another voting machine company with strong ties to the defense industry.

Populex
Populex is responsible for Illinois' e-voting system. Frank Carlucci, former CIA Director, is on its Advisory Board. Carlucci is a business partner of G H W Bush, and head of the Carlyle Group.

Accenture
Spun off from Arthur Anderson in the wake of that nasty Enron scandal, Accenture reportedly has the exclusive government contract to provide electronic voting for the military. Accenture got into the voting biz when it acquired Election.com, a company funded by Saudi money. Accenture's biggest business partner is Halliburton.

This just in from t r u t h o u t
(See the entire article under "More" below, including a letter to Kenneth Blackwell from Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Rep. Melvin Watt, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, and Rep. Tammy Baldwin.

Democratic Representative John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan, ranking Minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, will hold a hearing on Wednesday 08 December 2004 to investigate allegations of vote fraud and irregularities in Ohio during the 2004 Presidential election. The hearing is slated to begin at 10:00 a.m. EST in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington DC...

Any who wish to see this hearing receive wide attention should contact their Senators and Representatives and ask that they attend. Furthermore, any who wish to see this hearing receive wide attention should contact the television network C-SPAN and ask them to broadcast the event in its entirety. C-SPAN accepts suggestions for events to be broadcast at events@c-span.org. The network can also be contacted via telephone at (202) 737-3220.

I just sent the following letter:

Hi guys,

Democratic Representative John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan, ranking Minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, will hold a hearing on Wednesday 08 December 2004 to investigate allegations of vote fraud and irregularities in Ohio during the 2004 Presidential election. The hearing is slated to begin at 10:00 a.m. EST in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington DC.

I hope you will be broadcasting this event in its entirety.

Thanks,

Lisa Rein

Starting Monday morning, when their offices open, I'll be calling every day to say the same thing the letter does. Hope you do the same. (I'll post a reminder here, no worries :-)

Thanks!

lisa

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120404W.shtml

Editor’s Note | Any who wish to see this hearing receive wide attention should contact their Senators and Representatives and ask that they attend. Furthermore, any who wish to see this hearing receive wide attention should contact the television network C-SPAN and ask them to broadcast the event in its entirety. C-SPAN accepts suggestions for events to be broadcast at events@c-span.org. The network can also be contacted via telephone at (202) 737-3220. - wrp

Also see below:
Letter from House Committee on the Judiciary to Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell •

Conyers to Hold Hearings on Ohio Vote Fraud
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report

Friday 03 December 2004

Democratic Representative John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan, ranking Minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, will hold a hearing on Wednesday 08 December 2004 to investigate allegations of vote fraud and irregularities in Ohio during the 2004 Presidential election. The hearing is slated to begin at 10:00 a.m. EST in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington DC.

Democratic Representatives Melvin Watt and Robert Scott will also be centrally involved with the hearing. Rev. Jesse Jackson will be in attendance, along with Ralph Neas (President, People for the American Way), Jon Greenbaum (Director, Voting Rights Project, Lawyers Committee For Civil Rights Under Law), Ellie Smeal (Executive Director, The Feminist Majority), Bob Fitrakis ( The Free Press), Cliff Arnebeck (Arnebeck Associates), John Bonifaz (General Counsel, National Voting Institute), Steve Rosenfeld (Producer, Air America Radio), and Shawnta Walcott (Communications Director, Zogby International). Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has been invited to attend.

The term ‘hearing’ is technically not accurate in this matter, as Conyers and his fellow Representatives will be holding this forum without the blessing of the Republican Majority leader of the Judiciary Committee. Staffers from the Minority office at the Judiciary Committee describe the event as a ‘Members Briefing.’ That having been said, this event will be a hearing by every meaningful definition of the word. Expert testimony will be offered, and a good deal of data on potential fraud previously unreported to the public will be discussed and examined at length.

The hearing came together thanks to a confluence of events, and through the work of like-minded individuals who are deeply concerned about the allegations of vote fraud in the Ohio Presidential election. Tim Carpenter and Kevin Spidel, along with other members of Progressive Democrats of America, went to Washington DC to speak with the Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee about the need for an investigation into these allegations. They found Rep. Conyers, his fellow Judiciary Democrats, and their staffers already working on assembling such an investigation.

The core of what Conyers and his fellow Minority members will be discussing at this hearing can be found in the letter below, which was sent by the Minority office to Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell on 02 December. In the letter, Conyers, along with Reps. Watt, Nadler and Baldwin, outline a broad and detailed series of questions and concerns about the manner in which the Ohio election took place.

I will be traveling to Washington DC to begin t r u t h o u t coverage of this event on Tuesday night, and we will keep you posted on further developments as they arise.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and international bestseller of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You To Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.'

Go to Original

One Hundred Eighth Congress
Congress of the United States
House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington DC 20515-6216
(202) 225-3951

December 2, 2004

The Honorable J. Kenneth Blackwell
Ohio Secretary of State
180 East Broad Street, 16th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215

Dear Secretary Blackwell:

We write to request your assistance with our ongoing investigation of election irregularities in the 2004 Presidential election. As you may be aware, the Government Accountability Office has agreed to undertake a systematic and comprehensive review of election irregularities throughout the nation. As a separate matter, we have requested that the House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff undertake a thorough review of each and every specific allegation of election irregularities received by our offices.

Collectively, we are concerned that these complaints constitute a troubled portrait of a one-two punch that may well have altered and suppressed votes, particularly minority and Democratic votes. First, it appears there were substantial irregularities in vote tallies. It is unclear whether these apparent errors were the result of machine malfunctions or fraud.

Second, it appears that a series of actions of government and non-government officials may have worked to frustrate minority voters. Consistent and widespread reports indicate a lack of voting machines in urban, minority and Democratic areas, and a surplus of such machines in Republican, white and rural areas. As a result, minority voters were discouraged from voting by lines that were in excess of eight hours long. Many of these voters were also apparently victims of a campaign of deception, where flyers and calls would direct them to the wrong polling place. Once at that polling place, after waiting for hours in line, many of these voters were provided provisional ballots after learning they were at the wrong location. These ballots were not counted in many jurisdictions because of a directive issued by some election officials, such as yourself.

We are sure you agree with us that regardless of the outcome of the election, it is imperative that we examine any and all factors that may have led to voting irregularities and any failure of votes to be properly counted. Toward that end, we ask you to respond to the following allegations:

I. Counting Irregularities

A. Warren County Lockdown – On election night, Warren County locked down its administration building and barred reporters from observing the counting. When that decision was questioned, County officials claimed they were responding to a terrorist threat that ranked a “10" on a scale of 1 to 10, and that this information was received from an FBI agent. Despite repeated requests, County officials have declined to name that agent, however, and the FBI has stated that they had no information about a terror threat in Warren County. Your office has stated that it does not know of any other county that took these drastic measures.

In addition to these contradictions, Warren County officials have given conflicting accounts of when the decision was made to lock down the building. While the County Commissioner has stated that the decision to lockdown the building was made during an October 28 closed-door meeting, emailed memos – dated October 25 and 26 – indicate that preparations for the lockdown were already underway.

This lockdown must be viewed in the context of the aberrational results in Warren County. In the 2000 Presidential election, the Democratic Presidential candidate, Al Gore, stopped running television commercials and pulled resources out of Ohio weeks before the election. He won 28% of the vote in Warren County. In 2004, the Democratic Presidential candidate, John Kerry, fiercely contested Ohio and independent groups put considerable resources into getting out the Democratic vote. Moreover, unlike in 2000, independent candidate Ralph Nader was not on the Ohio ballot in 2004. Yet, the tallies reflect John Kerry receiving exactly the same percentage in Warren County as Gore received, 28%.

We hope you agree that transparent election procedures are vital to public confidence in electoral results. Moreover, such aberrant procedures only create suspicion and doubt that the counting of votes was manipulated. As part of your decision to certify the election, we hope you have investigated these concerns and found them without merit. To assist us in reaching a similar conclusion, we ask the following:

1. Have you, in fact, conducted an investigation of the lockdown? What procedures have you or would you recommend be put into place to avoid a recurrence of this situation?

2. Have you ascertained whether County officials were advised of terrorist activity by an FBI agent and, if so, the identity of that agent?

3. If County officials were not advised of terrorist activity by an FBI agent, have you inquired as to why they misrepresented this fact? If the lockdown was not as a response to a terrorist threat, why did it take place? Did any manipulation of vote tallies occur?

B. Perry County Election Counting Discrepancies – The House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff has received information indicating discrepancies in vote tabulations in Perry County. For example, the sign-in book for the Reading S precinct indicates that approximately 360 voters cast ballots in that precinct. In the same precinct, the sign-in book indicates that there were 33 absentee votes cast. In sum, this would appear to mean that fewer than 400 total votes were cast in that precinct. Yet, the precinct’s official tallies indicate that 489 votes were cast. In addition, some voters’ names have two ballot stub numbers listed next to their entries creating the appearance that voters were allowed to cast more than one ballot.

In another precinct, W Lexington G AB, 350 voters are registered according to the County’s initial tallies. Yet, 434 voters cast ballots. As the tallies indicate, this would be an impossible 124% voter turnout. The breakdown on election night was initially reported to be 174 votes for Bush, and 246 votes for Kerry. We are advised that the Perry County Board of Elections has since issued a correction claiming that, due to a computer error, some votes were counted twice. We are advised that the new tallies state that only 224 people voted, and the tally is 90 votes for Bush and 127 votes for Kerry. This would make it appear that virtually every ballot was counted twice, which seems improbable.

In Monroe Township, Precinct AAV, we are advised that 266 voters signed in to vote on election day, yet the Perry County Board of Elections is reporting that 393 votes were cast in that precinct, a difference of 133 votes.

4. Why does it appear that there are more votes than voters in the Reading S precinct of Perry County?

5. What is the explanation for the fluctuating results in the W Lexington AB precinct?

6. Why does it appear that there are more votes than voters in the Monroe Township precinct AAV?

C. Perry County Registration Peculiarities

In Perry County, there appears to be an extraordinarily high level voter registration, 91%; yet a substantial number of these voters have never voted and have no signature on file. Of the voters that are registered in Perry County an extraordinarily large number of voters are listed as having registered in 1977, a year in which there were no federal elections. Of these an exceptional number are listed as having registered on the exact same day: in total, 3,100 voters apparently registered in Perry County on November 8, 1977.

7. Please explain why there is such a high percentage of voters in this County who have never voted and do not have signatures on file. Also, please help us understand why such a high number of voters in this County are shown as having registered on the same day in 1977.

D. Unusual Results in Butler County

In Butler County, a Democratic Candidate for State Supreme Court, C. Ellen Connally received 59,532 votes. In contrast, the Kerry-Edwards ticket received only 54,185 votes, 5,000 less than the State Supreme Court candidate. Additionally, the victorious Republican candidate for State Supreme Court received approximately 40,000 less votes than the Bush-Cheney ticket. Further, Connally received 10,000 or more votes in excess of Kerry’s total number of votes in five counties, and 5,000 more votes in excess of Kerry’s total in ten others.

It must also be noted that Republican judicial candidates were reportedly “awash in cash,” with more than $1.4 million and were also supported by independent expenditures by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.

While you may have found an explanation for these bizarre results, it appears to be wildly implausible that 5,000 voters waited in line to cast a vote for an underfunded Democratic Supreme Court candidate and then declined to cast a vote for the most well-funded Democratic Presidential campaign in history. We would appreciate an answer to the following:

8. Have you examined how an underfunded Democratic State Supreme Court candidate could receive so many more votes in Butler County than the Kerry-Edwards ticket? If so, could you provide us with the results of your examination? Is there any precedent in Ohio for a downballot candidate receiving on a percentage or absolute basis so many more votes than the Presidential candidate of the same party in this or any other presidential election? Please let us know if any other County in Ohio registered such a disparity on a percentage or absolute basis.

E. Unusual Results in Cuyahoga County

Precincts in Cleveland have reported an incredibly high number of votes for third party candidates who have historically received only a handful of votes from these urban areas. For example, precinct 4F in the 4th Ward cast 290 votes for Kerry, 21 for Bush, and 215 for Constitution Party candidate Michael Peroutka. In 2000, the same precinct cast less than 8 votes for all third party candidates combined.

This pattern is found in at least 10 precincts through throughout Cleveland in 2004, awarding hundreds of unlikely votes to the third party candidate. Notably, these precincts share more than a strong Democratic history: the use of a punch card ballot. In light of these highly unlikely results, we would like to know the following:

9. Have you investigated whether the punch card system used in Cuyahoga County led to voters accidentally voting for third party candidates instead of the Democratic candidate they intended? If so, what were the results? Has a third party candidate ever received such a high percentage of votes in these precincts.

10. Have you found similar problems in other counties? Have you found similar problems with other voting methods?

F. Spoiled Ballots

According to post election canvassing, many ballots were cast without any valid selection for president. For example, two precincts in Montgomery County had an undervote rate of over 25% each – accounting for nearly 6,000 voters who stood in line to vote, but purportedly declined to vote for president. This is in stark contrast to the 2% of undervoting county-wide. Disturbingly, predominantly Democratic precincts had 75% more undervotes than those that were predominantly Republican. It is inconceivable to us that such a large number of people supposedly did not have a preference for president in such a controversial and highly contested election.

Considering that an estimated 93,000 ballots were spoiled across Ohio, we would like to know the following:

11. How many of those spoiled ballots were of the punch card or optical scan format and could therefore be examined in a recount?

12. Of those votes that have a paper trail, how many votes for president were undercounted, or showed no preference for president? How many were overcounted, or selected more than one candidate for president? How many other ballots had an indeterminate preference?

13. Of the total 93,000 spoiled ballots, how many were from predominantly Democratic precincts? How many were from minority-majority precincts?

14. Are you taking steps to ensure that there will be a paper trail for all votes before the 2006 elections so that spoiled ballots can be individually re-examined?

G. Franklin County Overvote – On election day, a computerized voting machine in ward 1B in the Gahanna precinct of Franklin County recorded a total of 4,258 votes for President Bush and 260 votes for Democratic challenger, John Kerry. However, there are only 800 registered voters in that Gahanna precinct, and only 638 people cast votes at the New Life Church polling site. It was since discovered that a computer glitch resulted in the recording of 3,893 extra votes for President George W. Bush.

Fortunately, this glitch was caught and the numbers were adjusted to show President Bush’s true vote count at 365 votes to Senator Kerry’s 260 votes. However, many questions remain as to whether this kind of malfunction happened in other areas of Ohio. To help us clarify this issue, we request that you answer the following:

15. How was it discovered that this computer glitch occurred?

16. What procedures were employed to alert other counties upon the discovery of the malfunction?

17. Can you be absolutely certain that this particular malfunction did not occur in other counties in Ohio during the 2004 Presidential election? How?

18. What is being done to ensure that this type of malfunction does not happen again in the future?

H. Miami County Vote Discrepancy – In Miami County, with 100% of the precincts reporting on Wednesday, November 3, 2004, President Bush had received 20,807 votes, or 65.80% of the vote, and Senator Kerry had received 10,724 votes, or 33.92% of the vote. Miami reported 31,620 voters. Inexplicably, nearly 19,000 new ballots were added after all precincts reported, boosting President Bush’s vote count to 33,039, or 65.77%, while Senator Kerry’s vote percentage stayed exactly the same to three one-hundredths of a percentage point at 33.92%.

Roger Kearney of Rhombus Technologies, Ltd., the reporting company responsible for vote results of Miami County, has stated that the problem was not with his reporting and that the additional 19,000 votes came before 100% of the precincts were in. However, this does not explain how the vote count could change for President Bush, but not for Senator Kerry, after 19,000 new votes were added to the roster. To help us better understand this anomaly, we request that you answer the following:

19. What is your explanation as to the statistical anomaly that showed virtually identical ratios after the final 20-40% of the vote came in? In your judgment, how could the vote count in this County have changed for President Bush, but not for Senator Kerry, after 19,000 new votes were added to the roster?

20. Are you aware of any pending investigations into this matter?

I. Mahoning County Machine Problems – In Mahoning County, numerous voters reported that when they attempted to vote for John Kerry, the vote showed up as a vote for George Bush. This was reported by numerous voters and continued despite numerous attempts to correct their vote.

21. Please let us know if you have conducted any investigation or inquiry of machine voting problems in the state, including the above described problems in Mahoning County, and the results of this investigation or inquiry.

II. Procedural Irregularities

A. Machine Shortages

Throughout predominately Democratic areas in Ohio on election day, there were reports of long lines caused by inadequate numbers of voting machines. Evidence introduced in public hearings indicates that 68 machines in Franklin County were never deployed for voters, despite long lines for voters at that county, with some voters waiting from two to seven hours to cast their vote. The Franklin County Board of Elections reported that 68 voting machines were never placed on election day, and Franklin County BOE Director Matt Damschroder admitted on November 19, 2004 that 77 machines malfunctioned on Election Day. It has come to our attention that a county purchasing official who was on the line with Ward Moving and Storage Company, documented only 2,741 voting machines delivered through the November 2 election day. However, Franklin County’s records reveal that they had 2,866 “machines available” on election day. This would mean that amid the two to seven hour waits in the inner city of Columbus, at least 125 machines remained unused on Election Day.

Franklin County’s machine allocation report clearly states the number of machines that were placed “By Close of Polls.” However, questions remain as to where these machines were placed and who had access to them throughout the day. Therefore, what matters is not how many voting machines were operating at the end of the day, but rather how many were there to service the people during the morning and noon rush hours.

An analysis revealed a pattern of providing fewer machines to the Democratic city of Columbus, and more machines to the primarily Republican suburbs. At seven out of eight polling places, observers counted only three voting machines per location. According to the presiding judge at one polling site located at the Columbus Model Neighborhood facility at 1393 E. Broad St., there had been five machines during the 2004 primary. Moreover, at Douglas Elementary School, there had been four machines during the spring primary. In one Ohio voting precinct serving students from Kenyon College, some voters were required to wait more than eight hours to vote. There were reportedly only two voting machines at that precinct. The House Judiciary Committee staff has received first hand information confirming these reports.

Additionally, it appears that in a number of locations, polling places were moved from large locations, such as gyms, where voters could comfortably wait inside to vote to smaller locations where voters were required to wait in the rain. We would appreciate answers to the following:

22. How much funding did Ohio receive from the federal government for voting machines?

23. What criteria were used to distribute those new machines?

24. Were counties given estimates or assurances as to how many new voting machines they would receive? How does this number compare to how many machines were actually received?

25. What procedures were in place to ensure that the voting machines were properly allocated throughout Franklin and other counties? What changes would you recommend be made to insure there is a more equitable allocation of machines in the future?

B. Invalidated Provisional Ballots

As you know, just weeks before the 2004 Presidential election, you issued a directive to county election officials saying they are allowed to count provisional ballots only from voters who go to the correct precinct for their home address. At the same time, it has been reported that fraudulent flyers were being circulated on official-looking letterhead telling voters the wrong place to vote, phone calls were placed incorrectly informing voters that their polling place had changed, “door-hangers” telling African-American voters to go to the wrong precinct, and election workers sent voters to the wrong precinct. In other areas, precinct workers refused to give any voter a provisional ballot. And in at least one precinct, election judges told voters that they may validly cast their ballot in any precinct, leading to any number of disqualified provisional ballots.

In Hamilton County, officials have carried this problematic and controversial directive to a ludicrous extreme: they are refusing to count provisional ballots cast at the correct polling place if they were cast at the wrong table in that polling place. It seems that some polling places contained multiple precincts which were located at different tables. Now, 400 such voters in Hamilton county alone will be disenfranchised as a result of your directive.

26. Have you directed Hamilton County and all other counties not to disqualify provisional ballots cast at the correct polling place simply because they were cast at the wrong precinct table?

27. While many election workers received your directive that voters may cast ballots only in their own precincts, some did not. How did you inform your workers, and the public, that their vote would not be counted if cast in the wrong precinct? How many votes were lost due to election workers telling voters they may vote at any precinct, in direct violation of your ruling?

28. Your directive was exploited by those who intentionally misled voters about their correct polling place, and multiplied the number of provisional ballots found invalid. What steps have you or other officials in Ohio taken to investigate these criminal acts? Has anyone been referred for prosecution? If so, what is the status of their cases?

29. How many provisional ballots were filed in the presidential election in Ohio? How many were ultimately found to be valid and counted? What were the various reasons that these ballots were not counted, and how many ballots fall into each of these categories? Please break down the foregoing by County if possible.

C. Directive to Reject Voter Registration Forms Not Printed on White, Uncoated Paper of Not Less Than 80 lb Text Weight

On September 7, you issued a directive to county boards of elections commanding such boards to reject voter registration forms not “printed on white, uncoated paper of not less than 80 lb. text weight.” Instead, the county boards were to follow a confusing procedure where the voter registration form would be treated as an application for a form and a new blank form would be sent to the voter. While you reversed this directive, you did not do so until September 28. In the interim, a number of counties followed this directive and rejected otherwise valid voter registration forms. There appears to be some further confusion about the revision of this order which resulted in some counties being advised of the change by the news media.

30. How did you notify county boards of elections of your initial September 7 directive?

31. How did you notify county boards of elections of your September 28 decision to revise that directive?

32. Have you conducted an investigation to determine how many registration forms were rejected as a result of your September 7 directive? If so, how many?

33. Have you conducted an investigation to determine how many voters who had their otherwise valid forms rejected as a result of your September 7 directive subsequently failed to re-register? If so, how many?

34. Have you conducted an investigation to determine how many of those voters showed up who had their otherwise valid forms rejected to vote on election day and were turned away? If so, how many?

We await your prompt reply. To the extent any questions relate to information not available to you, please pass on such questions to the appropriate election board or other official. Please respond to 2142 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515 by December 10. If you need more time to investigate and respond to some of these inquiries, we would welcome a partial response by that date and a complete response within a reasonable period of time thereafter. If you have any questions about this inquiry, please contact Perry Apelbaum or Ted Kalo of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff at (202) 225-6504.

Sincerely,

Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Rep. Melvin Watt
Rep. Jerrold Nadler
Rep. Tammy Baldwin

This is from the November 30, 2004 program of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann."

It's available in one big 18 MB file and two smaller files.

Report On Ohio Election and Interview with Jesse Jackson

This is the second of a series of programs covering the Jesse Jackson vs. Kenneth Blackwell developments. Kenneth Blackwell's interview available here.

This transcript is word for word and unabridged.

11-30-04 - Transcript

It is four weeks to the day since the general election here turned George W. Bush to the White House for a second term. Tomorrow will be four weeks since John Kerry conceded. Tomorrow could also be, although the odds may be approximated at a billion to one, the day an Ohio Supreme Court Justice could change all that.

As he concluded his trip through Ohio, Jesse Jackson said its Supreme Court should consider setting aside the outcome there. Tomorrow, a political advocacy group plans to make a similar request directly to that Supreme Court. The Boston-based Alliance For Democracy is planning to file a "Contest of Election" tomorrow. The request requires a single Ohio Supreme Court Justice to either let the election stand, declare another winner, or throw the whole thing out.

The loser of any such decision can appeal to the full court, which, in Ohio, consists of five Republicans and two Democrats.

The appeal and recount process in Ohio was going along without too many people noticing until Reverend Jesse Jackson arrived in Colombus on Sunday. He called for a Federal Investigation of the vote count. He used the word "fraud." Today, he wrote that the election was "marred by intolerable and often partisan irregularities and discrepancies." And last night he was blasted, on this program, by Ohio's Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who insulted him on eight separate occasions although I only asked Secretary Blackwell about Reverend Jackson once.

Reverend Jackson joins us now from Philadelphia.

Olbermann: Good evening sir. Thank you for your time.

Jackson: How are you?

Olbermann: Well, I'm interested in your answers to a series of questions on this subject. There had literally been no official response to the possibility of a recount from any major Republican organization until you went to Ohio. And then yesterday there's a press release calling you a professional publicity hound, and Secretary Blackwell on this show calling you a professional provocateur for hire. And you "ran around the block and tried to get in front of a parade that was already on the march." What exactly did you do in Ohio that stirred all this up?

Jackson: Well, this is November the 30th, and the election in Ohio has not been certified yet. Why has it not been certified? We know that even before the election started, Mr. Blackwell sought to nullify 30,000 votes, saying that they were on the wrong weight of paper. We know that last spring, people could vote in the state, a provisional vote, in their county. He changed that process to voting by precinct. In the middle of the..the balloting places changed and, at the time, it led to much confusion. So you have 155,000 provisional ballots that are in confusion. You have 92,000 votes that are yet to be counted. You have an interesting case in Warren, Ohio, (sp?) where they actually used Homeland Security to lock the press out and to lock independent observers out.

Another thing that also I found striking, was that Ellen Connally, an african-american running for Supreme Court in Cayahoga County, where Cleveland is, carried 120,000 more votes than she had down around Hamilton county and Claremont county (sp?) in the other part of Ohio, she had 190,000 more votes than Kerry in 15 counties.

And you had electronic machines where there are questions about their authenticity. We need a thorough, federal investigation, and then, if the information warrants it, we should then have a recount. And those who ran this election should be recused from managing their own investigation.

Olbermann: The Republicans did make seemingly one unanswerable point on this, and you and others may be critical of the Ohio count, but as the Baltimore Sun quoted John Kerry's chief election lawyer in Ohio as saying "Our eyes have been wide open, and, to this date, we have found no evidence of confirmed election fraud." If there has been fraud, where are the Democrats in response to it?

Jackson: Well, I'm amazed frankly at the silence, really, of Senator Kerry and the Democratic Party. They promised that we would stay in the fight until every vote was counted. They appear not to have been acting aggressively, demanding that real questions be answered. For example, electronic machines. In this case, we have private machines where there is no audit trail. We deserve an open, fair process. Why would we allow them to shift the rules in provisional balloting from county to precinct. The reality is that in Cayahoga county Cleveland and Cincinatti, they've eliminated almost a third of the voters on technicalities. Like 50,000 voters. The 130,000 vote margin of Mr. Bush over Mr. Kerry -- we need to know, through forensic computer analysts, in fact, was there tampering. We need to know. And right now, we do not know.

Olbermann: You said that last Friday night you spoke to John Kerry, and you quoted him as telling you that he was in favor of the investigations of the Ohio vote. Where is he? Why did he concede when he did? And why does the Democratic Party appear to be trying to fly under the radar in terms of Ohio?

Jackson: He conceded in my judgement much, much to quickly, because he conceded before a count was in. And now he says he has some lawyers on the ground, but his lawyers ought to be challenging. Were it not for the Green party and the Libertarians, we would not even have standing in the court of finding out what happened. You look how they have 155,000 provisional ballots uncounted. Look at 92,000 ballots unprocessed. Look at what happened in Warren, Ohio. You look at the electronic voting process where there may have been tampering. We do not know. These numbers are beginning to move real fast. Again, I repeat, when I begin to think about Ellen Connally, and the gap where Kerry got 120,000 more votes than she got in Cayahoga county, then in 15 other counties, she got 190,000 votes less. To me, that's very suggestive. It deserves a thorough investigation.

Olbermann: There are degrees of what could have caused that and the other irregularities that you refer to. On one end of the spectrum, as Secretary Blackwell put it last night, "It's a free and fair election" without significant problems. In the middle, a lot of human and technical mistakes, but they are mostly errors of omission, not errors of comission. At the other end, would be out and out electoral fraud. Where do you stand on that spectrum? Which one of those things do you think happened?

Jackson: It's interesting that Mr. Blackwell is the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign, yet he is the chief person in charge of the process. Now, it seems to me to be unfair for the man who owns the team to also be the chief umpire at game seven of the world series. That somehow that taints the process.
But this matter has not been approached. This Mr. Blackwell in Ohio. Katherine Harris in Florida -- those who run the process should not in fact be an advocate for one party or the other. Which raises another question: We really do need a constitutionally federally protected right to vote. We should in fact have federal supervision over federal elections. We do not have, although people think we have, the constitutional federally protected right to vote. We deserve to move beyond just states rights on national elections.

Olbermann: Well let me see if I can pin you down now on just that part of the question. Do you think there was fraud in Ohio?

Jackson: Well I think so. But we will only know if there is a thorough investigation. There are some huge number gaps here. Why is it that 28 days after the election it has not yet been certified? That's a long time to wait.

Olbermann: Reverend Jesse Jackson, Founder and President of the Rainbow Push Coalition, twice candidate for the Democratic nomination for President. Thanks for your time tonight sir. We appreciate it.

Jackson: Thank you sir.

This is from the November 29, 2004 program of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann."

It's available in one big 23 MB file and two smaller files.

Report On Ohio Election and Interview with Kenneth Blackwell
(Mirror)

This is the first of a series of programs covering the Jesse Jackson vs. Kenneth Blackwell developments. Jesse's interview w/Olbermann the following just went up too.

This transcript is word for word and unabridged.

11-29-04 - Transcript

The Ohio recount now has cousins out west. The Green and Libertarian parties today filed for recounts in Nevada and New Mexico. The complaints are based largely on the absence of paper trails for electronic voting in each state.

Back at the ranch, the word "fraud" has been used on the record by a former democratic presidential candidate about the voting four weeks ago, tomorrow, in Ohio. In turn, the man who used the word was described by local republican leaders as a "professional publicity hound."

Reverend Jesse Jackson spoke this morning in Cincinatti. He had addressed a rally in Columbus yesterday, saying voting irregularities disenfranchised many of Ohio's citizens. He also told reporters "The playing field is uneven. The rules are not public. The goals are not clear."

Cut to live footage of Jesse Jackson:

"We want everybody to vote. And for their vote to count. We can live with winning and losing. We cannot live with fraud and stealing...

Most Americans must know the election in Ohio has not been certified. This is the 28th of November. Twenty-six days later, the election has not been certified because there are patterns of irregularities that are impeding the process."

Back to Olbermann:

While Jackson reiterated the Democratic party line that a different outcome is, at best, an unlikely result of a recount, Jackson had earlier told reporters that he spoke with Senator John Kerry on Friday, and that Kerry "supports the investigation. His lawyers are observing it closely." But the Baltimore Sun quoted Kerry's chief Ohio attorney, Daniel Hoffheimer, as saying "Our eyes are wide open and, to this date, we have found no evidence of confirmed fraud."

Asked why, if Ohio had problems meriting the recount, Senator Kerry had conceded on November 3rd, Jackson was quoted by the Cincinatti Enquirer as saying "Kerry was inclined to believe what he was told. And he was told the election was over. But now we are unearthing information that did not surface at first. I suppose the more information Kerry gets, the more you will hear from him."

Republicans today responded with a news release headlined "Democrats struggle to jusify unneccessary recount." Noting it will cost Ohio tax payers 1 1/2 million dollars and quoting state GOP chairman Bob Bennett as saying "Jackson has a stellar reputation for ignoring the facts and distorting the truth."

The focus of criticism for the Ohio count and legal actions about it, and a recount, is the state's top election official, its Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, who joins us now from Cincinatti.

Olbermann: Secretary Blackwell, thank you for your time tonight.

Blackwell: Thanks for having me Keith.

Olbermann: When the Green and Libertarian parties filed for the recount, I didn't hear anybody in Ohio's government jumping up and down and applauding, but I also didn't hear anybody accusing them of being profession publicity hounds or of ignoring facts. Why the harsh reaction towards the Reverend Jackson?

Blackwell: Keith, I think what happened is that Jesse Jackson ran around the block and tried to get out in front of a parade that was already on the march. We had indicated that Ohio law allows for a recount once the vote has been certified. So the recount is already a determination. You know, so, for him to get out and run around the block and get out in front of the parade probably gives credibility to the charge that, you know, he is a provocateur for hire.

Olbermann: One of his suggestions, and that of some of your critics, has been that there is an attempt to make the window for a recount in Ohio so narrow as to make a recount meaningless. How do respond to that criticism sir?

Blackwell: We are, in fact, abiding by the law, which basically says that once there's a certification, you have five days to ask for a recount. I would anticipate that they will ask for a recount, the two minor party candidates, and they will get it. The fact of the matter is that they are entitled to request a recount. We're entitled to give them a recount. Even though the cost to the taxpayers far exceeds the $120,000 dollars that it will cost the two candidates to ask for one to this count. These are two gentlemen that between them got less than..just a tad more than a quarter of one percent of the vote. They know, the courts know, the people know that they have no way of changing the results as it affects them. They have the standing, not Jesse Jackson, and because Senator Kerry has conceded and has not asked for a recount, he has no standing. I would anticipate that the Electoral College will be held on the 13th of December, and our 20 electorate votes will go to the certified winner.

Olbermann: Then again, as your law gives you the right to certify under the conditions that you mentioned, your laws also say how much a candidate is charged per precinct. It's not like these are the prices being set by candidates.

Blackwell: Oh absolutely. And that's what I said. They are entitled to it under the law. I think the legislature will probably have some work to do. This was a rule that was established in 1956, and the price of ten dollars per precinct was established, you know, back then. They are going to have to make a determination as to whether or not they want to keep at 1956 dollars, or if they really want to have the recount charge reflect the real cost of doing business in the 21st century.

Look Keith, here's the deal. I just heard Jesse Jackson complain about the unfairness and the unevenness of the field. Ohio has a delicately balanced, bi-partisan that counts votes at the local level. I have nothing to do with counting the votes. They're done by the 88 county Boards of Elections. And let me give you a point here to show the duplicity of Jesse Jackson's criticism.

In Franklin county, where Colombus is located, the head of the Board of Elections is an african-american Democrat. Not just any democrat, but the head of the Franklin County Democratic Party. He is overseeing. You know what he said last week? He told Jesse Jackson to stop it. He said "what makes Jesse Jackson think that he would sit quietly and watch the african-american vote be suppressed? Or watch democrat votes be suppressed?

You know, Jesse Jackson is just trying to stir up a hornet's nest. And what I've told people today is that Elvis is dead, and I'm not gonna fret over Jesse Jackson's misinformation and confusion.

Olbermann: As it plays into the recount though sir, are you saying that your office does not anticipate taking any steps to try to prevent a recount in Ohio?

Blackwell: No. We haven't! We've told the two officials..candidates that once we certify on December 6th, they have five days to certify. I mean, to ask for a recount. Once they ask for a recount, we will provide them with a recount. And that's what I've said from the very first indication that they were interested in a recount. Once it was established that they were statewide candidates with standing, our law says that they can ask for a recount. We will regard this as yet another audit of the voting process. The reason it takes us from November the second to December the sixth to certify is because we have a very tedious, very comprehensive process where we audit by precinct, across the state, every vote that was cast to make sure that every vote that was legally cast is counted.

Look, Keith. We have 45,000 square miles of geography in Ohio. 88 counties, and on election day dealing and leading 50,000 poll workers and election officials. They did a great job, and what we are planning to do, in February, in March, is to take a look at how we can improve our system. They reality is that we have 70% of our voters use a punch card system that I tried to change and that bipartisan resistance in the legislature stopped. And so we had the punch card system. We have a system that allows us to manage a free and fair election, free of fraud, free of intimidation, and that's what we delivered on election day, and we're very very proud of it. And we have the most scrutinized election system in the United States, and we have met every test. Every test we have made. And I'm very proud of the 50,000 poll workers and election officials who delivered a free and fair election.

Olbermann: As part of that scrutiny. one of the criticisms regarding the campaign and the election in Ohio that was directed at you personally, that as the state's top election official, it is a conflict of interest, or, minimally, it has the appearance of a conflict of interest for you to have also been the honorary co-chairman of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. As Reverend Jackson put it, you may or may not agree with his presence there, but the phrase is certainly interesting: "Mr. Blackwell cannot be both the owner of the team and the umpire." Could those two jobs not be mixed?

Blackwell: Let me tell you. I just told you Keith. We have a bi-partisan system in Ohio where the Hallinan county chairman of the Board of Elections, Tim Berk (Berg?) is also the Democratic chairman of the Democratic Party in that county. The same for Dayton. The Democratic Chairman is the chairman for the Board of Elections in Montgomery county. So I've just given you three counties where Democrat chairmen who were pushing for John Kerry are the chairpersons of the Boards of Elections over our 88 counties. We have a checks and balances system that allows for a bipartisan review, a very transparent system, and Jesse Jackson, let me just tell you, he would like to be the co-Secretary of State for the state of Ohio, but Jesse Jackson has not had the courage or the credibility to run and get elected to "Dog Catcher."

Olbermann: Last question sir. Can you refute or confirm one of the Internet's favorite stories that no one seems to have gotten an answer, that you had a meeting with President Bush on the day of the election in Ohio?

Blackwell: That's just hogwash. Absolutely zero. Not true. And it's the sort of mythology that grows out of, you know, a lot of people with a lot of time on their hands and the imaginations of Jonathan Swift. But it goes with the territory. Like I said, we had 45,000 square miles of geography, 88 counties, board of elections, 50,000 folks that ran a great election on election day. We had a record turnout of voters in Ohio. We had record registration, and I think the facts speak for themselves. Thank you for having me and giving me the opportunity to speak to the truth of the matter.

Olbermann: Kenneth Blackwell. Secretary of State in Ohio. Our thanks for your time tonight sir.

Blackwell: Thank you sir.

You
heard it here first folks -- on the night of the Election. Something fishy is definitely going on in Ohio. Let's hope it's not too late to rectify the situation.

Something's fishy in Ohio
By Jesse Jackson for the Chicago Sun-Times.

Ohio is this election year's Florida. The vote in Ohio decided the presidential race, but it was marred by intolerable, and often partisan, irregularities and discrepancies. U.S. citizens have as much reason as those in Kiev to be concerned that the fix was in. Consider:

In Ohio, a court just ruled there can't be a recount yet, because the vote is not yet counted. It's three weeks after the election, and Ohio still hasn't counted the votes and certified the election. Some 93,000 overvotes and undervotes are not counted; 155,000 provisional ballots are only now being counted. Absentee ballots cast in the two days prior to the election haven't been counted.

Ohio determines the election, but the state has not yet counted the vote. That outrage is made intolerable by the fact that the secretary of state in charge of this operation, Ken Blackwell, holds - like Katherine Harris of Florida's fiasco in 2000 - a dual role: secretary of state with control over voting procedures and co-chair of George Bush's Ohio campaign. Blackwell should recuse himself so that a thorough investigation, count and recount of Ohio's vote can be made.

Blackwell reversed rules on provisional ballots in place in the spring primaries. These allowed voters to cast provisional ballots anywhere in their county, even if they were in the wrong precinct, reflecting the chief rationale for provisional ballots: to ensure that those who went to the wrong place by mistake could have their votes counted. The result of this decision - why does this not surprise? - was to disqualify disproportionately ballots cast in heavily Democratic Cuyahoga County.

Blackwell also permitted the use of electronic machines that provided no paper record. The maker of many of these machines, the head of Diebold Co., promised to deliver Ohio for Bush. In one precinct in Franklin County, an electric voting system gave Bush 3,893 extra votes out of a total of 638 votes cast.

Blackwell also presided over a voting system that resulted in quick, short lines in the dominantly Republican suburbs, and four-hour and longer waiting lines in the inner cities. Wealthy precincts received ample numbers of voting machines and numerous voting places. Democratic precincts received inadequate numbers of machines in too few polling places that were often hard to locate; this caused daylong waits for the very working people who could least afford the time.

In Ohio, as in Florida and Pennsylvania, there was a stark disconnect between the exit polls and the tabulated results, with the former favoring John Kerry and the latter George Bush. The chance of this occurring in these three states, according to Professor Steven Freeman of the University of Pennsylvania, is about 250 million to 1.

In one of dozens of examples, Ellen Connally, an African-American Supreme Court candidate running an underfunded race at the bottom of the ticket, received over 257,000 more votes than Kerry in 37 counties. She ran better than Kerry in the areas of the state where she wasn't known and didn't campaign than she did where she was known and did campaign.

There should be a federal investigation of the vote count in Ohio, with the partisan secretary of state removing himself from the scene.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/jesse/cst-edt-jesse30.html

Something's Fishy in Ohio
By Jesse Jackson
The Chicago Sun-Times

Tuesday 30 November 2004

In the Ukraine, citizens are in the streets protesting what they charge is a fixed election. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell expresses this nation's concern about apparent voting irregularities. The media give the dispute around-the-clock coverage. But in the United States, massive and systemic voter irregularities go unreported and unnoticed.

Ohio is this election year's Florida. The vote in Ohio decided the presidential race, but it was marred by intolerable, and often partisan, irregularities and discrepancies. U.S. citizens have as much reason as those in Kiev to be concerned that the fix was in. Consider:

In Ohio, a court just ruled there can't be a recount yet, because the vote is not yet counted. It's three weeks after the election, and Ohio still hasn't counted the votes and certified the election. Some 93,000 overvotes and undervotes are not counted; 155,000 provisional ballots are only now being counted. Absentee ballots cast in the two days prior to the election haven't been counted.

Ohio determines the election, but the state has not yet counted the vote. That outrage is made intolerable by the fact that the secretary of state in charge of this operation, Ken Blackwell, holds - like Katherine Harris of Florida's fiasco in 2000 - a dual role: secretary of state with control over voting procedures and co-chair of George Bush's Ohio campaign. Blackwell should recuse himself so that a thorough investigation, count and recount of Ohio's vote can be made.

Blackwell reversed rules on provisional ballots in place in the spring primaries. These allowed voters to cast provisional ballots anywhere in their county, even if they were in the wrong precinct, reflecting the chief rationale for provisional ballots: to ensure that those who went to the wrong place by mistake could have their votes counted. The result of this decision - why does this not surprise? - was to disqualify disproportionately ballots cast in heavily Democratic Cuyahoga County.

Blackwell also permitted the use of electronic machines that provided no paper record. The maker of many of these machines, the head of Diebold Co., promised to deliver Ohio for Bush. In one precinct in Franklin County, an electric voting system gave Bush 3,893 extra votes out of a total of 638 votes cast.

Blackwell also presided over a voting system that resulted in quick, short lines in the dominantly Republican suburbs, and four-hour and longer waiting lines in the inner cities. Wealthy precincts received ample numbers of voting machines and numerous voting places. Democratic precincts received inadequate numbers of machines in too few polling places that were often hard to locate; this caused daylong waits for the very working people who could least afford the time.

In Ohio, as in Florida and Pennsylvania, there was a stark disconnect between the exit polls and the tabulated results, with the former favoring John Kerry and the latter George Bush. The chance of this occurring in these three states, according to Professor Steven Freeman of the University of Pennsylvania, is about 250 million to 1.

In one of dozens of examples, Ellen Connally, an African-American Supreme Court candidate running an underfunded race at the bottom of the ticket, received over 257,000 more votes than Kerry in 37 counties. She ran better than Kerry in the areas of the state where she wasn't known and didn't campaign than she did where she was known and did campaign.

There should be a federal investigation of the vote count in Ohio, with the partisan secretary of state removing himself from the scene.

In Cleveland, as in Kiev, Ukraine, citizens have the right to know that the election is run fairly and every vote counted honestly. Citizens have the right to nonpartisan election officials. Citizens have the right to voting machines that keep a paper record and allow for an independent audit and recount.

This country needs no more Floridas and Ohios. This shouldn't be a partisan issue. We call for a constitutional amendment to guarantee the right to vote for all U.S. citizens and to empower Congress to establish federal standards and nonpartisan administration of elections. Harris and Blackwell are insults to the people they represent, and stains upon the president whose election they sought to ensure. Democracy should not be for export only.

Ohio in the 2004 election is just like Florida in 2000. The Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell, was co-chairman of the Bush Campaign in 2004. (Just like Katherine Harris chaired the Bush campaign while she was Secretary of State of Florida in 2000.)

How is this allowed to take place? How can this be legal?

We must be the laughing stock of the world right now.

I feel like I'm living in a bad made-for-tv movie. One where -- "they could never get away with that in real life."

And yet, here it is.

Nearly a Month Later, Ohio Fight Goes On
By John McCarthy for the Associated Press.

Ohio essentially decided the outcome of the presidential race, with Kerry giving up after unofficial results showed Bush with a 136,000-vote lead in the state.

Since then, there have been demands for a recount and complaints about uncounted punch-card votes, disqualified provisional ballots and a ballot-machine error that gave hundreds of extra votes to Bush.

Jackson said too many questions have been raised to let the vote stand without closer examination.

"We can live with winning and losing. We cannot live with fraud and stealing," Jackson said Sunday at Mount Hermon Baptist Church.

An attorney for a political advocacy group on Wednesday plans to file a "contest of election." The request requires a single Supreme Court justice to either let the election stand, declare another winner or throw the whole thing out. The loser can appeal to the full seven-member court, which is dominated by Republicans 5-2...

Other critics have seized on an error in an electronic voting system that gave Bush 3,893 extra votes in a suburban Columbus precinct where only 638 people voted. The extra votes are part of the current unofficial tally, but they will not be included in the official count that will be certified by the secretary of state.

Some groups also have complained about thousands of punch-card ballots that were not counted because officials in the 68 counties that use them could not determine a vote for president. Votes for other offices on the cards were counted.

Jackson said Blackwell, who along with other statewide GOP leaders was a co-chairman of Bush's re-election campaign in Ohio, should step down from overseeing the election process.

"You can't be chairman of the Bush campaign and then be the chief umpire in the seventh game of the World Series (news - web sites)," Jackson said.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20041129/ap_on_el_pr/ohio_vote

Nearly a Month Later, Ohio Fight Goes On

Mon Nov 29, 6:18 PM ET

By JOHN McCARTHY, Associated Press Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Nearly a month after John Kerry (news - web sites) conceded Ohio to President Bush (news - web sites), complaints and challenges about the balloting are mounting as activists including the Rev. Jesse Jackson (news - web sites) demand closer scrutiny to ensure the votes are being counted on the up-and-up.

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Jackson has been holding rallies in Ohio in recent days to draw attention to the vote, and another critic plans to ask the state Supreme Court this week to decide the validity of the election.

Ohio essentially decided the outcome of the presidential race, with Kerry giving up after unofficial results showed Bush with a 136,000-vote lead in the state.

Since then, there have been demands for a recount and complaints about uncounted punch-card votes, disqualified provisional ballots and a ballot-machine error that gave hundreds of extra votes to Bush.

Jackson said too many questions have been raised to let the vote stand without closer examination.

"We can live with winning and losing. We cannot live with fraud and stealing," Jackson said Sunday at Mount Hermon Baptist Church.

An attorney for a political advocacy group on Wednesday plans to file a "contest of election." The request requires a single Supreme Court justice to either let the election stand, declare another winner or throw the whole thing out. The loser can appeal to the full seven-member court, which is dominated by Republicans 5-2.

Jackson said he agreed with the court filing planned by lawyer Cliff Arnebeck, who has represented the Boston-based Alliance for Democracy in other cases.

"The integrity of our election process is on trial," Jackson said Monday in Cincinnati.

Elections officials concede some mistakes were made but no more than most elections.

"There are no signs of widespread irregularities," said Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell.

Blackwell, a Republican, has until Dec. 6 to certify the vote. The Green and Libertarian parties are raising money to pay for a recount that would be held once the results are certified.

Other critics have seized on an error in an electronic voting system that gave Bush 3,893 extra votes in a suburban Columbus precinct where only 638 people voted. The extra votes are part of the current unofficial tally, but they will not be included in the official count that will be certified by the secretary of state.

Some groups also have complained about thousands of punch-card ballots that were not counted because officials in the 68 counties that use them could not determine a vote for president. Votes for other offices on the cards were counted.

Jackson said Blackwell, who along with other statewide GOP leaders was a co-chairman of Bush's re-election campaign in Ohio, should step down from overseeing the election process.

"You can't be chairman of the Bush campaign and then be the chief umpire in the seventh game of the World Series (news - web sites)," Jackson said.

Blackwell's office responded by saying the state has a "bipartisan and transparent system that provides valuable checks and balances."

"The problem seems to be that Rev. Jackson's candidate didn't win," said Carlo LoParo, a Blackwell spokesman.

This is an article from November 17, 2004. I meant to put it up earlier.

Ohio Provisional Ballots Seem Legitimate
By Mark Williams for the Associated Press.

The vast majority of provisional ballots cast in Ohio were legitimate, say election officials who are poring over thousands of presidential election ballots...

Of the 11 counties that have completed checking provisional ballots, 81 percent of the ballots are valid, according to an Associated Press survey Monday. Counties that have completed partial tallies also said most of the provisional ballots were being counted.

Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is located, has processed 40 percent, or 9,719 votes, of its 24,788 provisional ballots and rejected a third, according to a board tally. Most are being rejected because the voters were not registered.

In many counties, the smallest portion of rejected ballots were due to votes being cast in the wrong precinct. Before the election, Democrats lost a court appeal seeking to allow people to cast provisional ballots in precincts where they do not live...

Ohio voters cast 155,337 provisional ballots, which are used when voters names are not on the rolls for some reason or their eligibility is otherwise in doubt. Counties have until Dec. 1 to complete their final count. In 2000, about 87 percent of provisional ballots were counted.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111804V.shtml

Ohio Provisional Ballots Seem Legitimate
By Mark Williams
The Associated Press

Wednesday 17 November 2004

Columbus, Ohio - The vast majority of provisional ballots cast in Ohio were legitimate, say election officials who are poring over thousands of presidential election ballots.

The ballots that are being rejected are invalid because people simply were not registered, did not give information such as addresses or signatures, or voted in precincts where they do not live.

"Some people thought because they had changed their mailing address at the post office, or had changed their utilities, that they had done everything necessary to be eligible to vote," said Nancy Moore, deputy director of the Belmont County Board of Elections. "They still have to change their address at the board of elections. We're not mind readers."

President Bush beat Democrat John Kerry in Ohio by 136,000 votes in unofficial tallies, and Kerry has conceded not enough outstanding votes exist to sway the election his way in the key battleground state.

Of the 11 counties that have completed checking provisional ballots, 81 percent of the ballots are valid, according to an Associated Press survey Monday. Counties that have completed partial tallies also said most of the provisional ballots were being counted.

Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is located, has processed 40 percent, or 9,719 votes, of its 24,788 provisional ballots and rejected a third, according to a board tally. Most are being rejected because the voters were not registered.

In many counties, the smallest portion of rejected ballots were due to votes being cast in the wrong precinct. Before the election, Democrats lost a court appeal seeking to allow people to cast provisional ballots in precincts where they do not live.

Election officials said heightened public attention to the court case and the efforts of poll workers helped voters arrive at the right precincts.

Ohio voters cast 155,337 provisional ballots, which are used when voters names are not on the rolls for some reason or their eligibility is otherwise in doubt. Counties have until Dec. 1 to complete their final count. In 2000, about 87 percent of provisional ballots were counted.

Officials are determining voters' eligibility before counting each vote, so the result is not yet known.

In Colorado, the approval rate of provisional ballots was 76 percent, according to a survey of counties by the Denver Post. Nearly 24 percent of the state's estimated 51,000 provisional ballots had been rejected, the newspaper reported Wednesday.

Election officials had not yet compiled the reason for the rejections, the newspaper said. The rejection rate was 12 percent in Colorado in 2002, a non-presidential election year.

President Bush won in Colorado by more than 5 percentage points.

These are from November 24 and 26, 2004.

Nov 24

Mirror of Nov 24

Nov 26

Mirror of Nov 26

This is from the November 22, 2004 episode of Countdown w/

Keith Olbermann's Report On The Latest Ohio Recount Developments
(In one 20 MB vid or two smaller vids)

This also goes with this blog entry of Keith Olbermann's. This is actually a link to a bunch of posts on election developments.

Here is the complete text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6533008/#041122b

Ohio Dems join recount effort (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS— The headline might be a little expansive since the national headquarters has not yet echoed it, but it's still pretty impressive as it is:

"Kerry/Edwards Campaign Joins Ohio Recount."

The news release was issued this afternoon over the signature of Ohio's Democratic chairman, Dennis White: "As Senator Kerry stated in his concession speech in Boston, we do not necessarily expect the results of the election to change, however, we believe it necessary to make sure everyone's vote is counted fairly and accurately." White called for witnesses, volunteers, and donations.

The statement ends nearly three weeks of official Democratic ambivalence towards the formal recount process in the election's decisive state. As late as Friday, Senator Kerry's email to 3,000,000 supporters contained a seemingly ambiguous reference to that process, which began with the phrase "Regardless of the outcome of this election, once all the votes are counted, and believe me they will be counted, we will continue to challenge the administration."

It had been left to the independent parties, the Greens and Libertarians, to do the initial work demanding a recount in each of Ohio's 88 counties. Their combined effort led to a bond of $113,600 being posted with the state last Friday to guarantee the coverage of expenses incurred. Just today, the "Glibs" amplified their demands in Ohio, filing a federal lawsuit that, if successful, would require the completion of the "full, hand recount" before the meeting of the Electoral College on December 13.

The Ohio Democrats did not attach themselves to the lawsuit. "The recount can begin after the official results are certified, which likely will be in the first week of December," reads the news release. "The Democratic party wants to be fully prepared to begin a recount immediately."

Howard Fineman joins me on Countdown tonight at 8 and Midnight eastern to discuss the ramifications.

E-mail KOlbermann@MSNBC.com

• November 21, 2004 | 5:51 p.m. ET

Relax about Ohio, Relax about the guy tailing me (Keith Olbermann)

NEW YORK— Anybody else notice that when you politely refer to the Secretary of State of Ohio, you have to call him “Mr. Blackwell,” just like that guy who compiles the goofy worst-dressed list?

Mr. Kenneth Blackwell is the subject of three actions regarding the Ohio vote that you haven’t seen on television yet. Each (the Cobb/Badnarik Recount bid, the Alliance for Democracy legal challenge, and the Ohio Democratic Party suit over provisional ballots) has an undertone suggesting time is of the essence, and that he is wasting it. The accusation may or may not be true, but it also may or may not be relevant.

The Glibs’ recount effort was underscored last week by their letters to Blackwell insisting he hurry up and finish certifying the count well before the announced deadline of December 6, because otherwise, there won’t be enough time for the recount before the voting of the Electoral College on December 13. The Alliance attorney Clifford Arnebeck told The Columbus Dispatch that his quite separate legal challenge to the election must be addressed immediately because “time is critical.” The local Democrats haven’t been commenting on their low-flying suit - more about that later. They’re just smiling quietly to themselves.

Cobb, Badnarik, Arnebeck, and everybody else actually has more time than they think. I addressed this topic with the wonderfully knowledgeable George Washington University Constitutional Law professor, Jonathan Turley, back on Countdown on November 9th. He noted the election process is a little slower— and has one more major loophole— than is generally known. It begins on December 7th, the date “when you essentially certify your electors… it gives a presumption to the legitimacy to your votes. And then, on the 13th, the electors actually vote.”

But, Turley noted, “those votes are not opened by Congress until January 6. Now, if there are controversies, such as some disclosure that a state actually went for Kerry (instead of Bush), there is the ability of members of Congress to challenge.” In other words, even after the December 13th Electoral College Vote, in the extremely unlikely scenario that a court overturns the Ohio count, or that the recount discovers 4,000 Gahanna-style machines that each recorded 4,000 votes too many for one candidate, there is still a mechanism to correct the error, honest or otherwise.

“It requires a written objection from one House member and one senator,” Turley continues. Once that objection is raised, the joint meeting of the two houses is discontinued. “Then both Houses separate again and they vote by majority vote as to whether to accept the slate of electoral votes from that state.”

In these super-heated partisan times, it may seem like just another prospective process decided by majority rule instead of fact. But envision the far-fetched scenario of some dramatic, conclusive new result from Ohio turning up around, say, January 4th. What congressman or senator in his right mind would vote to seat the candidate who lost the popular vote in Ohio? We wouldn’t be talking about party loyalty any more - we’d be talking about pure political self-interest here, and whenever in our history that critical mass has been achieved, it’s been every politician for himself (ask Barry Goldwater when Richard Nixon trolled for his support in July and August, 1974, or Republican Senator Edmund Ross of Kansas when his was to be the decisive vote that would have impeached President Andrew Johnson in 1868).

The point of this dip into the world of political science fiction is that the Ohio timeframe is a little less condensed than it seems. The drop-dead date is not December 13, but January 6.

It is noteworthy that the announcement of a legal challenge made it into weekend editions of The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Columbus Dispatch, the Associated Press wires, and other publications. The Columbus paper even mentioned something curious. “Earlier this week, the Ohio Democratic party announced it would join a lawsuit arguing that the state lacks clear rules for evaluating provisional ballots, a move the party said will keep its options open if problems with the ballots surface.”

This makes a little more sense out of a confusing item that appeared in an obscure weekly paper in Westchester County, New York, last Wednesday, in which a reporter named Adam Stone wrote “A top-ranking official with Democratic Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign told North County News last week that although unlikely, there is a recount effort being waged that could unseat Republican President George Bush.” Stone quotes Kerry spokesman David Wade as saying: “We have 17,000 lawyers working on this, and the grassroots accountability couldn’t be any higher - no (irregularity) will go unchecked. Period.” Gives a little context to Senator Kerry’s opaque mass e-mail and on-line video statement from Friday afternoon.

The Ohio newspaper coverage suggests that even the mainstream media is beginning to sit up and take notice that, whatever its merits, the investigation into the voting irregularities of November 2nd has moved from the Reynolds Wrap Hat stage into legal and governmental action. Tripe does continue to appear, like Carol Pogash’s column in today’s San Francisco Chronicle. Its headline provided me with a laugh: “Liberals, the election is over, live with it.” I’ve gotten 37,000 emails in the last two weeks (now running at better than 25:1 in favor), and the two most repeated comments by those critical of the coverage have been references to the ratings of Fox News Channel, and the phrase “the election is over, (expletive deleted), live with it. I hesitate to generalize, but this does suggest a certain unwillingness of critics to engage in political discourses that don’t have no swear words in ‘em.

Meantime, The Oakland Tribune not only devoted seventeen paragraphs Friday to the UC Berkeley study on the voting curiosities in Florida, but actually expended considerable energy towards what we used to call ‘advancing the story’: “The UC Berkeley report has not been peer reviewed, but a reputable MIT political scientist succeeded in replicating the analysis Thursday at the request of the Oakland Tribune and The Associated Press. He said an investigation is warranted.”

In fact, he - MIT Arts and Social Sciences Dean Charles Stewart - said more than that. “There is an interesting pattern here that I hope someone looks into.” Stewart is part of the same Cal Tech/MIT Voting Project that had earlier issued a preliminary report suggesting that there was no evidence of significant voting irregularity in Florida. Dean Stewart added he didn’t necessarily buy the Berkeley conclusion - that the only variable that could explain the “excessive” votes in Florida was poisoned touch-screen voting - and still thought there were other options, such as, in the words of The Tribune’s Ian Hoffman “absentee voting or some quirk of election administration.”

Neither MIT nor Cal Tech has yet responded to the comments of several poll-savvy commentators, and others, that its paper was using erroneous statistics. Its premise, you’ll recall, was that on a state-by-state basis, the notorious 2004 Exit Polls were within the margin of error and could be mathematically interpreted as having forecast the announced presidential outcome. It has been observed that the MIT/Cal Tech study used not the “raw” exit polls - as did Professor Steven Freeman of Penn did in his study - but rather the “weighted” polls, in which actual precinct and county official counts are mixed in to “correct” the organic “Hey, Buddy, who’d you vote for” numbers. The “weighted” polls have been analogized to a football handicapper predicting that the New Orleans Saints would beat the Denver Broncos 24-14, then, after the Broncos scored twenty points in the first quarter, announcing his prediction was now that the Saints would beat the Broncos 42-41, or even, that the Broncos would beat the Saints 40-7.

None of the coverage of the Berkeley study clarified a vitally important point about its conclusions regarding the touch-screen wobble in the fifteen Florida counties, and that has led to some unjustified optimism on the activist and Democratic sides. Its math produced two distinct numbers for “ghost votes” for President Bush: 130,000 and 260,000. This has led to the assumption in many quarters that Cal Tech has suggested as many as 260,000 Florida votes could swing from Bush to Kerry (enough to overturn the state). In fact - and the academics got a little too academic in summarizing their report and thus, this kind of got lost - the two numbers already consider the prospect of a swing:

a) There may have been 130,000 votes simply added to the Bush total. If proved and excised, they would reduce the President’s Florida margin from approximately 350,000 votes to approximately 220,000;

b) There may have been 130,000 votes switched from Kerry to Bush. If proved and corrected, they would reduce (by double the 130,000 figure - namely 260,000) the President’s Florida margin from approximately 350,000 votes to approximately 90,000.

On the ground in Florida, uncounted ballots continue to turn up in Pinellas County. Last Monday, an unmarked banker’s box with 268 absentee ballots was discovered “sitting in plain sight on an office floor, with papers and other boxes stacked on top of it,” according to The St. Petersburg Times. On Friday, the same paper reported that County Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark found twelve more—ten provisionals in a blue pouch at a loading dock, and two absentees in a box headed for a storage facility. “I’m sick about this,” the paper quoted Clark, whose office also whiffed on 1400 absentee ballots on Election Day 2000, and counted another 600 twice. Asked by a reporter if the election is over, she replied “I certainly hope so.”

Well, I know how Ms. Clark feels. To close, a little anecdote from Big Town: I approached Seventh Avenue from the east and the guy in the black trenchcoat was walking north.

He got that little surprised look of recognition in his eyes and said “Keith! How are you?” We shook hands and he added, with apparent nervousness, “I’ll just be tailing you for the next block.” I laughed and said I was used to it.

Now, I’ve been getting recognized in public since 1982, and I had a stalker for eight years who once talked her way into ESPN and wound up being escorted to my desk— so I think I can tell the difference between a fan and a threat (this was a fan; a threat doesn’t come up and announce he’s going to tail you). I relate this just because of the timing. In the last week, I have read that I’ve been fired, suspended, muzzled, threatened (that, I think, was my NBC colleague Kevin Sites, who reported the Marine prisoner shooting in Iraq— our mailbox had a couple of those), and in the middle of it, I get a ‘What’s the frequency Kenneth moment’ from a fan who was just trying to be funny.

The laugh was genuine. As was my decision to cross the street.

Write me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

(Olbermann returns from not very much of a vacation to host Countdown, Monday November 22, 8:00 P.M. ET. Presumably.)

• November 19, 2004 | 5:39 p.m. ET

Didn't you run for president once? (Keith Olbermann)

SECURE UNDISCLOSED LOCATION— There has been a John Kerry sighting.

“Regardless of the outcome of this election, once all the votes are counted— and they will be counted— we will continue to challenge this administration,” the 2004 Democratic candidate said in a prepared statement released today. “I will fight for a national standard for federal elections that has both transparency and accountability in our voting system. It is unacceptable in the United States that people still don’t have full confidence in the integrity of the voting process.”

Since his concession, Kerry’s silence on the questions of voting irregularities in Florida, Ohio, and elsewhere, has perplexed those pursuing those questions, helped render largely passive the media who should’ve been doing so, and provided virtual proof to others that there weren’t any questions at all. His supporters have been mystified at news this week that millions of dollars from his war chest went unspent. His lawyers have been characterized as flying below the radar as the Libertarian and Green Parties have pushed their recount in Ohio.

He has seemed to his supporters and many neutrals, in short, as being AWOL.

The statement doesn’t exactly dispel that aroma. It came by way of an e-mail to supporters— but not to the media— and a video on his otherwise update-free campaign website, which maintains the frozen-in-time November 2 front page that makes it look like the political equivalent of Miss Haversham’s cobweb-strewn house in Dickens’ "Great Expectations."

The primary topic of the mass e-mail isn’t even this election or future ones. It’s about a petition drive for universal child health care legislation Kerry intends to introduce on the first day of the new Congress. Whether the voting stuff was added as a sop to supporters loudly wondering where he— and the unspent $15,000,000— has been, is conjecture.

But the video is just plain weird. The phrasing of the start of the relevant passage—“Regardless of the outcome of this election”— is open to the same kind of parsing and confusion usually reserved for the latest release from Osama Bin Laden. Those seven words are extra-temporal; they are tense-free. In them he could be describing an election long-since decided, or one whose outcome is still in doubt.

And the timing and delivery of the message are equally confusing. No notification to the media? When much of the mechanism of political coverage is kick-started by statements like this one? And its issuance on a Friday afternoon— the moment of minimum news attention so famously titled “Take Out The Trash Day” on the NBC series “The West Wing”?— is perplexing, if not suspicious.

It has the vague feel of deliberate ambiguity, as if Kerry is saying to those who are plagued by doubts about the vote just seventeen days ago, that he agrees with them, but they shouldn’t tell anybody. It’s exactly what these confusing times do not need: more confusion.

Thoughts? E-mail KOlbermann@MSNBC.com

• November 19, 2004 | 9:40 a.m. ET

All I know is what I don't read in the papers (Keith Olbermann)

SECURE UNDISCLOSED LOCATION— I’m beginning to think like Jim Bunning now.

So far in this post-election trip through Alice’s looking glass we’ve had:

—a University of Pennsylvania professor defending the accuracy of exit polling in order damn the accuracy of vote counting;

—a joint CalTech/MIT study defending the accuracy of exit polling in order to confirm the accuracy of vote counting;

—a series of lesser academic works assailing the validity of the Penn and CalTech/MIT assessments;

—and now, a UC Berkeley Research Team report that concludes President Bush may have received up to 260,000 more votes in fifteen Florida counties than he should have, all courtesy the one-armed bandits better known as touch-screen voting systems.

And, save, for one "New York Times"reference to the CalTech/MIT study "disproving" the idea that the exit poll results were so wacky that they required thoroughly botched election nights in several states, the closest any of these research efforts have gotten to the mainstream media have been "Wired News" and "Countdown."

I still hesitate to endorse the ‘media lock-down’ theory extolled so widely on the net. I've expended a lot of space on the facts of political media passivity and exhaustion, and now I’ll add one factor to explain the collective shrugged shoulder: reading this stuff is hard. It’s hard work.

There are, as we know, lies, damn lies, and statistics. But there is one level of hell lower still— scholarly statistical studies. I have made four passes at “The Effect of Electronic Voting Machines on Change in Support for Bush in the 2004 Florida Elections,” and the thing has still got me pinned to the floor.

Most of the paper is so academically dense that it seems to have been written not just in another language, but in some form of code. There is one table captioned “OLS Regression with Robust Standard Errors.” Another is titled “OLS regressions with frequency weights for county size.” Only the summary produced by Professor Michael Hout and the Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Time is intelligible.

Of course, I’m reminded suddenly of the old cartoon, with the guy saying “I don’t understand women,” and the second guy saying, “So? Do you understand electricity?”

In his news conference yesterday at Berkeley (who attended? Who phoned in to the conference call? Why didn’t they try?) Professor Hout analogized the report to a “beeping smoke alarm.” It doesn’t say how bad the fire it is, it doesn’t accuse anybody of arson, it just says somebody ought to have an extinguisher handy.

Without attempting to crack the methodology, it’s clear the researchers claim they’ve compensated for all the bugaboos that hampered the usefulness of previous studies of the county voting results in Florida. They’ve weighted the thing to allow for an individual county’s voting record in both the 2000 and 1996 elections (throwing out the ‘Dixiecrat’ effect), to wash out issues like the varying Hispanic populations, median income, voter turnout change, and the different numbers of people voting in each county.

And they say that when you calculate all that, you are forced to conclude that compared to the Florida counties that used paper ballots, the ones that used electronic voting machines were much more likely to show “excessive votes” for Mr. Bush, and that the statistical odds of this happening organically are less than one in 1,000.

They also say that these “excessives” occurred most prominently in counties where Senator Kerry beat the President most handily. In the Democratic bastion of Broward, where Kerry won by roughly 105,000, they suggest the touch-screens “gave” the President 72,000 more votes than statistical consistency should have allowed. In Miami-Dade (Kerry by 55,000) they saw 19,300 more votes for Bush than expected. In Palm Beach (Kerry by 115,000) they claim Bush got 50,000 more votes than possible.

Hout and his research team consistently insisted they were not alleging that voting was rigged, nor even that what they’ve found actually affected the direction of Florida’s 27 Electoral Votes. They point out that in a worst-case scenario, they see 260,000 “excessives” - and Bush took the state by 350,000 votes. But they insist that based on Florida’s voting patterns in 1996 and 2000, the margin cannot be explained by successful get-out-the-vote campaigns, or income variables, or anything but something rotten in the touch screens.

It’s deep-woods mathematics, and it cries out for people who speak the language and can refute or confirm its value. Kim Zetter, who did an excellent work-up for "Wired News,"got the responses you’d expect from both sides. She quotes Susan Van Houten of Palm Beach’s Coalition for Election Reform as saying “I’ve believed the same thing for a while, that the numbers are screwy, and it looks like they proved it.” She quotes Jill Friedman-Wilson of the touch-screen manufacturer Election Systems & Software (their machines were in use in Broward and Miami-Dade) as responding “If you consider real-world experience, we know that ES&S’ touch-screen voting system has been proven in thousands of elections throughout the country.”

What’s possibly of more interest to us poor laymen is what isn’t in the Berkeley report.

As I mentioned previously, they don’t claim to know how this happened. But more importantly, they say that they ran a similar examination on the voting patterns in Ohio, comparing its paper ballot and electronic results, and found absolutely nothing to suggest either candidate got any “bump” that couldn’t otherwise be explained by past voting patterns, income, turnout, or any other commonplace factor.

In other words: No e-voting machines spontaneously combusting in Ohio.

“For the sake of all future elections involving electronic voting,” Professor Hout concluded, “someone must investigate and explain the statistical anomalies in Florida. We’re calling on voting officials in Florida to take action.”

Anybody want to belly up to this bar?

This is from the November 10, 2004 program.

Note that there is a zip file of all 4 clips also available for download.

Daily Show Clips From November 10, 2004

Included in these clips:
Ashcroft's resignation and hand written resignation letter

Ed Helms on Florida's disenfranchisement ploy of a checkbox in which
voters had to affirm that "I have not be adjudicated mentally incapacitated
with respect to voting, or, if I have, my competency has been restored.

Science Scope - finding the 18,000 year-old remains of a man-like "hobbit"
Global Warming creating a lovely "Northern Sea Route" in Russia
(Makes global warming worth it all!)

Tom Wolfe interview about his new book: "I am Charlotte Simmons."

This post contains both an article and video.

Here's where you can download the PDF and data for yourself.

Here's a direct link to the PDF file. (Working Paper: The Effect of Electronic Voting Machines on Change in Support for Bush in the 2004 Florida Elections
by Michael Hout, Laura Mangels, Jennifer Carlson, and Rachel Best)

ATTENTION: This isn't just some bumpkin like me at home with a calculator spouting off, this is the
University of California's Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team.

These guys give new meaning to the phrase "Do The Math."

It took a little while to get the numbers together and crunch them and double and triple (and quadruple x 10 to the 6th power)-check everything, but now the numbers are in baby, and they just plain don't add up.

In fact, it's statistically impossible for them to be what the official count says they are.

UC Berkeley Research Team Sounds 'Smoke Alarm' for Florida E-Vote Count
Research Team Calls For Investigation
By UC Berkeley.

There's also some video of the researchers explaining their findings:

http://undergroundclips.com/video/ucdata/11-18-04_VidConf_HQ.mov
(120 MB)

http://undergroundclips.com/video/ucdata/11-18-04_VidConf_LQ.mov
(26 MB)

(
My mirror up of these clips is here.)

Today the University of California's Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team released a statistical study - the sole method available to monitor the accuracy of e- voting - reporting irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The study shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods - what the team says can be deemed a "smoke alarm." Discrepancies this large or larger rarely arise by chance - the probability is less than 0.1 percent. The research team formally disclosed results of the study at a press conference today at the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center, where they called on Florida voting officials to investigate.

The three counties where the voting anomalies were most prevalent were also the most heavily Democratic: Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, respectively. Statistical patterns in counties that did not have e-touch voting machines predict a 28,000 vote decrease in President Bush's support in Broward County; machines tallied an increase of 51,000 votes - a net gain of 81,000 for the incumbent. President Bush should have lost 8,900 votes in Palm Beach County, but instead gained 41,000 - a difference of 49,900. He should have gained only 18,400 votes in Miami-Dade County but saw a gain of 37,000 - a difference of 19,300 votes...

"No matter how many factors and variables we took into consideration, the significant correlation in the votes for President Bush and electronic voting cannot be explained," said Hout. "The study shows, that a county's use of electronic voting resulted in a disproportionate increase in votes for President Bush. There is just a trivial probability of evidence like this appearing in a population where the true difference is zero - less than once in a thousand chances."

The data used in this study came from public sources including CNN.com, the 2000 US Census, and the Verified Voting Foundation. For a copy of the working paper, raw data and other information used in the study can be found at: http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111904W.shtml

UC Berkeley Research Team Sounds 'Smoke Alarm' for Florida E-Vote Count
By UC Berkeley

Thursday 18 November 2004

Research team calls for investigation.

Today the University of California's Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team released a statistical study - the sole method available to monitor the accuracy of e- voting - reporting irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The study shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods - what the team says can be deemed a "smoke alarm." Discrepancies this large or larger rarely arise by chance - the probability is less than 0.1 percent. The research team formally disclosed results of the study at a press conference today at the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center, where they called on Florida voting officials to investigate.

The three counties where the voting anomalies were most prevalent were also the most heavily Democratic: Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, respectively. Statistical patterns in counties that did not have e-touch voting machines predict a 28,000 vote decrease in President Bush's support in Broward County; machines tallied an increase of 51,000 votes - a net gain of 81,000 for the incumbent. President Bush should have lost 8,900 votes in Palm Beach County, but instead gained 41,000 - a difference of 49,900. He should have gained only 18,400 votes in Miami-Dade County but saw a gain of 37,000 - a difference of 19,300 votes.

"For the sake of all future elections involving electronic voting - someone must investigate and explain the statistical anomalies in Florida," says Professor Michael Hout. "We're calling on voting officials in Florida to take action."

The research team is comprised of doctoral students and faculty in the UC Berkeley sociology department, and led by Sociology Professor Michael Hout, a nationally-known expert on statistical methods and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center.

For its research, the team used multiple-regression analysis, a statistical method widely used in the social and physical sciences to distinguish the individual effects of many variables on quantitative outcomes like vote totals. This multiple-regression analysis takes into account of the following variables by county:

* number of voters
* median income
* Hispanic/Latino population
* change in voter turnout between 2000 and 2004
* support for Senator Dole in the 1996 election
* support for President Bush in the 2000 election
* use of electronic voting or paper ballots

"No matter how many factors and variables we took into consideration, the significant correlation in the votes for President Bush and electronic voting cannot be explained," said Hout. "The study shows, that a county's use of electronic voting resulted in a disproportionate increase in votes for President Bush. There is just a trivial probability of evidence like this appearing in a population where the true difference is zero - less than once in a thousand chances."

The data used in this study came from public sources including CNN.com, the 2000 US Census, and the Verified Voting Foundation. For a copy of the working paper, raw data and other information used in the study can be found at: http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/.

'Stinking Evidence' of Possible Election Fraud Found in Florida
by Thom Hartmann for Commondreams.

This is an incredible sequence of events. The entire article is available below, but for those of you who have less time, I thought I'd summarize it for you:

Bev Harris shows up at Florida's Volusia Country Elections Office on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 16, 2004 to see, under a public records request, each of the poll tapes for the 100+ optical scanners of that county. The elections workers were notified in advance of her request. When she shows up, they give her a set of printouts that were oddly dated November 15 and lacking the proper signatures.

Bev complains that the printouts provided were not the original poll tapes and had no signatures, and were therefore not what she requested. They tell her that the originals were actually kept in another location, the Elections Office Warehouse, and that, since it was the end of the day, she should meet them there the following morning to see them.

Bev shows up bright and early on November 17th -- several hours before the scheduled meeting -- to discover three of the Elections Officials in the Elections Warehouse standing over a table covered with what looks like the poll tapes. When they see her and the others there, she is thrown out and the door is slammed in her face.

Once thrown out on the porch, she noticed a garbage bag on the porch with what appears to be the original poll tapes in it (signed appropriately, etc.).

When the Elections Officials see them looking through the trash on the porch, they call the cops on them. They fought for the garbage, kept it, and took it back to compare the original tapes to the printouts given to them previously that were dated November 15th.

During the comparison, they had a camera crew from votergate.tv there. As they are doing their comparison, another election employee passes by with another bin of "garbage" that clearly looked like more polling tapes. Bev and her crew recover the garbage and, sure enough, it turned out to be more signed original polling tapes.

The officials had excuses for why they were throwing out what they claimed were "back up copies" (signed, back up copies?!) -- and the Elections Supervisor for the Volusia County Elections Office, Deanie Lowe, was unavailable/unwilling to speak to reporters.

I don't have to tell you how the comparison turned out: the "new" printouts provided to Harris from November 15th had hundreds of extra votes for The Shrub.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1118-22.htm

'Stinking Evidence' of Possible Election Fraud Found in Florida
by Thom Hartmann

There was something odd about the poll tapes.

A "poll tape" is the phrase used to describe a printout from an optical scan voting machine made the evening of an election, after the machine has read all the ballots and crunched the numbers on its internal computer. It shows the total results of the election in that location. The printout is signed by the polling officials present in that precinct/location, and then submitted to the county elections office as the official record of how the people in that particular precinct had voted. (Usually each location has only one single optical scanner/reader, and thus produces only one poll tape.)

Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org, the erstwhile investigator of electronic voting machines, along with people from Florida Fair Elections, showed up at Florida's Volusia County Elections Office on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 16, 2004, and asked to see, under a public records request, each of the poll tapes for the 100+ optical scanners in the precincts in that county. The elections workers - having been notified in advance of her request - handed her a set of printouts, oddly dated November 15 and lacking signatures.

Bev pointed out that the printouts given her were not the original poll tapes and had no signatures, and thus were not what she'd requested. Obligingly, they told her that the originals were held in another location, the Elections Office's Warehouse, and that since it was the end of the day they should meet Bev the following morning to show them to her.

Bev showed up bright and early the morning of Wednesday the 17th - well before the scheduled meeting - and discovered three of the elections officials in the Elections Warehouse standing over a table covered with what looked like poll tapes. When they saw Bev and her friends, Bev told me in a telephone interview less than an hour later, "They immediately shoved us out and slammed the door."

In a way, that was a blessing, because it led to the stinking evidence.

"On the porch was a garbage bag," Bev said, "and so I looked in it and, and lo and behold, there were public record tapes."

Thrown away. Discarded. Waiting to be hauled off.

"It was technically stinking, in fact," Bev added, "because what they had done was to have thrown some of their polling tapes, which are the official records of the election, into the garbage. These were the ones signed by the poll workers. These are something we had done an official public records request for."

When the elections officials inside realized that the people outside were going through the trash, they called the police and one came out to challenge Bev.

Kathleen Wynne, a www.blackboxvoting.org investigator, was there.

"We caught the whole thing on videotape," she said. "I don't think you'll ever see anything like this - Bev Harris having a tug of war with an election worker over a bag of garbage, and he held onto it and she pulled on it, and it split right open, spilling out those poll tapes. They were throwing away our democracy, and Bev wasn't going to let them do it."

As I was interviewing Bev just moments after the tussle, she had to get off the phone, because, "Two police cars just showed up."

She told me later in the day, in an on-air interview, that when the police arrived, "We all had a vigorous debate on the merits of my public records request."

The outcome of that debate was that they all went from the Elections Warehouse back to the Elections Office, to compare the original, November 2 dated and signed poll tapes with the November 15 printouts the Elections Office had submitted to the Secretary of State. A camera crew from www.votergate.tv met them there, as well.

And then things got even odder.

"We were sitting there comparing the real [signed, original] tapes with the [later printout] ones that were given us," Bev said, "and finding things missing and finding things not matching, when one of the elections employees took a bin full of things that looked like garbage - that looked like polling tapes, actually - and passed by and disappeared out the back of the building."

This provoked investigator Ellen Brodsky to walk outside and check the garbage of the Elections Office itself. Sure enough - more original, signed poll tapes, freshly trashed.

"And I must tell you," Bev said, "that whatever they had taken out [the back door] just came right back in the front door and we said, 'What are these polling place tapes doing in your dumpster?'"

A November 18 call to the Volusia County Elections Office found that Elections Supervisor Deanie Lowe was unavailable and nobody was willing to speak on the record with an out-of-state reporter. However, The Daytona Beach News (in Volusia County), in a November 17th article by staff writer Christine Girardin, noted, "Harris went to the Department of Elections' warehouse on State Road 44 in DeLand on Tuesday to inspect original Nov. 2 polling place tapes, after being given a set of reprints dated Nov. 15. While there, Harris saw Nov. 2 polling place tapes in a garbage bag, heightening her concern about the integrity of voting records."

The Daytona Beach News further noted that, "[Elections Supervisor] Lowe confirmed Wednesday some backup copies of tapes from the Nov. 2 election were destined for the shredder," but pointed out that, according to Lowe, that was simply because there were two sets of tapes produced on election night, each signed. "One tape is delivered in one car along with the ballots and a memory card," the News reported. "The backup tape is delivered to the elections office in a second car."

Suggesting that duplicates don't need to be kept, Lowe claims that Harris didn't want to hear an explanation of why some signed poll tapes would be in the garbage. "She's not wanting to listen to an explanation," Lowe told the News of Harris. "She has her own ideas."

But the Ollie North action in two locations on two days was only half of the surprise that awaited Bev and her associates. When they compared the discarded, signed, original tapes with the recent printouts submitted to the state and used to tabulate the Florida election winners, Harris says a disturbing pattern emerged.

"The difference was hundreds of votes in each of the different places we examined," said Bev, "and most of those were in minority areas."

When I asked Bev if the errors they were finding in precinct after precinct were random, as one would expect from technical, clerical, or computer errors, she became uncomfortable.

"You have to understand that we are non-partisan," she said. "We're not trying to change the outcome of an election, just to find out if there was any voting fraud."

That said, Bev added: "The pattern was very clear. The anomalies favored George W. Bush. Every single time."

Of course finding possible voting "anomalies" in one Florida county doesn't mean they'll show up in all counties. It's even conceivable there are innocent explanations for both the mismatched counts and trashed original records; this story undoubtedly will continue to play out. And, unless further investigation demonstrates a pervasive and statewide trend toward "anomalous" election results in many of Florida's counties, odds are none of this will change the outcome of the election (which exit polls showed John Kerry winning in Florida).

Nonetheless, Bev and her merry band are off to hit another county.

As she told me on her cell phone while driving toward their next destination, "We just put Volusia County and their lawyers on notice that they need to continue to keep a number of documents under seal, including all of the memory cards to the ballot boxes, and all of the signed poll tapes."

Why?

"Simple," she said. "Because we found anomalies indicative of fraud."

Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk show. www.thomhartmann.com His most recent books are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," "We The People: A Call To Take Back America," and "What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return To Democracy."

Ohio Presidential Results to be Challenged
By Steven Rosenfeld for the FreePress.org.

Ohio's 2004 presidential vote will be challenged as soon as next week in the state Supreme Court, a coalition of public-interest lawyers announced Friday.

The lawyers have taken sworn testimony from hundreds of people in hearings in Columbus and Cincinnati, and will use excerpts as well as documents obtained from county election officials and Election Day exit polls to make a case that thousands of votes were incorrectly counted or not counted on Election Day.

"The objective is to get to the truth," said Columbus Ohio lawyer Cliff Arnebeck, coordinator of the Ohio Honest Elections Campaign. "What's critically important, whether it's President Bush or Sen. Kerry, whoever's been elected actually elected, is to know you won by an honest election. So it's in the interest of both sides as American citizens to know the truth and have this answered."

The challenge comes as the Green Party has plans to file for a recount of the state's 2004 presidential vote. The Green Party and the Ohio Honest Elections Campaign both believe the unofficial results announced on Election Day were wrong. Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has not yet certified the Nov. 2 vote. The state's election law says an election challenge must show the wrong candidate was been declared the winner, or it can be dismissed without a hearing. The state Supreme Court's chief justice hears the case...

The 'Ohio Honest Election Campaign' is a coalition of public-interest groups and citizens interested in free and fair elections. The three lawyers announcing the challenge are associated with a variety of established groups. Arnebeck is the counsel for Common Cause's Ohio chapter and The Alliance for Democracy. Attorney Susan Truitt is with Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections-Ohio, www.caseohio.org. The boards of groups have not yet formally endorsed the election challenge but are expected to do so in coming days.

The Honest Election campaign is part of a populist groundswell to safeguard voting rights. The 2004 campaign saw the most new voters in a generation. Even though Kerry conceded on Nov. 3, many people were not satisfied with national media explanations of the Ohio vote. Scientifically designed nonpartisan exit polls taken during the day showed a different result from the result reported that night, when George W. Bush was declared the victor.

Moreover, on Election Day there were long lines and widespread accounts of people who did not get to vote in urban Democratic-leaning precincts across the state. These factors and other reports of voter frustration, computerized voting miscounts and still-changing provisional ballot counting rules left many doubts about the unofficial vote count and George W. Bush's 130,000 vote margin.

Those concerns coalesced into a grassroots campaign for an answer. Within two weeks following Election Day, Arnebeck had talked to the Green and Libertarian Parties about filing for a recount - if the funds could be raised. The Greens and the Honest Election Campaign started fundraising the same day, and in less than a week, the Greens had raised $150,000 via their website to file for the recount. The Ohio Honest Election Campaign raised about $90,000 via the Alliance for Democracy site, after two Air America Radio hosts, Laura Flanders and Randi Rhodes, embraced the cause and talked up the campaign.

Meanwhile, FreePress.org's Bob Fitrakis inspired Amy Kaplan and Jonathan Meier, two young members of the League of Pissed-Off Voters' Ohio chapter (www.indyvoter.org) to organize public hearings to gather testimony under oath of the people who saw or experienced what they thought was voter suppression or intimidation. Such intentional acts would violate the federal Voting Rights Act. Two hearings were held in Columbus and hundreds of people showed up and testified. Then activists in Cincinnati and Cleveland organized hearings.

At these hearings, scores of people said too few voting machines were put in Democratic-leaning inner-city precincts, creating long lines and deterring many people from voting. In contrast, Republican-leaning suburbs had plenty of voting machines and did not have the long lines. There were also reports of miscounts by computer voting machines, as well as errors registering the wrong candidate for president. Minority voters also spoke of disproportionately getting provisional ballots, including long-time residents.

Early in the weeks those hearings were being held, the Green and Libertarian Parties announced they would seek a statewide recount. By week's end, the Honest Election Campaign announced its intention to challenge presidential election result at the Ohio Supreme Court.

Others lawsuits may be announced next week, Arnebeck said, because there is limited time to hold a meaningful recount and to address election irregularities before the Electoral College meets in December.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/899

Ohio Presidential Results to be Challenged
By Steven Rosenfeld
FreePress.org

Saturday 20 November 2004

Ohio's 2004 presidential vote will be challenged as soon as next week in the state Supreme Court, a coalition of public-interest lawyers announced Friday.

The lawyers have taken sworn testimony from hundreds of people in hearings in Columbus and Cincinnati, and will use excerpts as well as documents obtained from county election officials and Election Day exit polls to make a case that thousands of votes were incorrectly counted or not counted on Election Day.

"The objective is to get to the truth," said Columbus Ohio lawyer Cliff Arnebeck, coordinator of the Ohio Honest Elections Campaign. "What's critically important, whether it's President Bush or Sen. Kerry, whoever's been elected actually elected, is to know you won by an honest election. So it's in the interest of both sides as American citizens to know the truth and have this answered."

The challenge comes as the Green Party has plans to file for a recount of the state's 2004 presidential vote. The Green Party and the Ohio Honest Elections Campaign both believe the unofficial results announced on Election Day were wrong. Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has not yet certified the Nov. 2 vote. The state's election law says an election challenge must show the wrong candidate was been declared the winner, or it can be dismissed without a hearing. The state Supreme Court's chief justice hears the case.

The Ohio Republican Party dismissed the challenge on Friday, the Associated Press reported, but the coalition announcing it said they were ready to litigate.

"The sworn statements that we've received should give everyone cause to go forward in terms of this inquiry," said Robert Fitrakis, a lawyer, political science professor at Columbus State Community College, and editor at www.freepress.org, at the announcement.

The 'Ohio Honest Election Campaign' is a coalition of public-interest groups and citizens interested in free and fair elections. The three lawyers announcing the challenge are associated with a variety of established groups. Arnebeck is the counsel for Common Cause's Ohio chapter and The Alliance for Democracy. Attorney Susan Truitt is with Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections-Ohio, www.caseohio.org. The boards of groups have not yet formally endorsed the election challenge but are expected to do so in coming days.

The Honest Election campaign is part of a populist groundswell to safeguard voting rights. The 2004 campaign saw the most new voters in a generation. Even though Kerry conceded on Nov. 3, many people were not satisfied with national media explanations of the Ohio vote. Scientifically designed nonpartisan exit polls taken during the day showed a different result from the result reported that night, when George W. Bush was declared the victor.

Moreover, on Election Day there were long lines and widespread accounts of people who did not get to vote in urban Democratic-leaning precincts across the state. These factors and other reports of voter frustration, computerized voting miscounts and still-changing provisional ballot counting rules left many doubts about the unofficial vote count and George W. Bush's 130,000 vote margin.

Those concerns coalesced into a grassroots campaign for an answer. Within two weeks following Election Day, Arnebeck had talked to the Green and Libertarian Parties about filing for a recount - if the funds could be raised. The Greens and the Honest Election Campaign started fundraising the same day, and in less than a week, the Greens had raised $150,000 via their website to file for the recount. The Ohio Honest Election Campaign raised about $90,000 via the Alliance for Democracy site, after two Air America Radio hosts, Laura Flanders and Randi Rhodes, embraced the cause and talked up the campaign.

Meanwhile, FreePress.org's Bob Fitrakis inspired Amy Kaplan and Jonathan Meier, two young members of the League of Pissed-Off Voters' Ohio chapter (www.indyvoter.org) to organize public hearings to gather testimony under oath of the people who saw or experienced what they thought was voter suppression or intimidation. Such intentional acts would violate the federal Voting Rights Act. Two hearings were held in Columbus and hundreds of people showed up and testified. Then activists in Cincinnati and Cleveland organized hearings.

At these hearings, scores of people said too few voting machines were put in Democratic-leaning inner-city precincts, creating long lines and deterring many people from voting. In contrast, Republican-leaning suburbs had plenty of voting machines and did not have the long lines. There were also reports of miscounts by computer voting machines, as well as errors registering the wrong candidate for president. Minority voters also spoke of disproportionately getting provisional ballots, including long-time residents.

Early in the weeks those hearings were being held, the Green and Libertarian Parties announced they would seek a statewide recount. By week's end, the Honest Election Campaign announced its intention to challenge presidential election result at the Ohio Supreme Court.

Others lawsuits may be announced next week, Arnebeck said, because there is limited time to hold a meaningful recount and to address election irregularities before the Electoral College meets in December.

Thanks to Green Party candidate David Cobb for pulling this off.

I don't know you (never even heard of you before this instant), but I love you :-)

This just in from T r u t h o u t:

Recount in Ohio a Sure Thing
Green Party Campaign Raises $150,000 in 4 Days, Shifts Gears to Phase II

On Thursday, David Cobb, the Green Party’s 2004 presidential candidate, announced his intention to seek a recount of the vote in Ohio. Since the required fee for a statewide recount is $113,600, the only question was whether that money could be raised in time to meet the filing deadline. That question has been answered.

“Thanks to the thousands of people who have contributed to this effort, we can say with certainty that there will be a recount in Ohio,” said Blair Bobier, Media Director for the Cobb-LaMarche campaign.

“The grassroots support for the recount has been astounding. The donations have come in fast and furiously, with the vast majority in the $10-$50 range, allowing us to meet our goal for the first phase of the recount effort in only four days,” said Bobier.

Bobier said the campaign is still raising money for the next phase of the recount effort which will be recruiting, training and mobilizing volunteers to monitor the actual recount.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111604W.shtml

Green Party Campaign Raises $150,000 in 4 Days, Shifts Gears to Phase II

WASHINGTON -- November 15 -- There will be a recount of the presidential vote in Ohio.

On Thursday, David Cobb, the Green Party’s 2004 presidential candidate, announced his intention to seek a recount of the vote in Ohio. Since the required fee for a statewide recount is $113,600, the only question was whether that money could be raised in time to meet the filing deadline. That question has been answered.

“Thanks to the thousands of people who have contributed to this effort, we can say with certainty that there will be a recount in Ohio,” said Blair Bobier, Media Director for the Cobb-LaMarche campaign.

“The grassroots support for the recount has been astounding. The donations have come in fast and furiously, with the vast majority in the $10-$50 range, allowing us to meet our goal for the first phase of the recount effort in only four days,” said Bobier.

Bobier said the campaign is still raising money for the next phase of the recount effort which will be recruiting, training and mobilizing volunteers to monitor the actual recount.

The Ohio presidential election was marred by numerous press and independent reports of mis-marked and discarded ballots, problems with electronic voting machines and the targeted disenfranchisement of African American voters. A number of citizens’ groups and voting rights organizations are holding the second of two hearings today in Columbus, Ohio, to take testimony from voters, poll watchers and election experts about problems with the Ohio vote. The hearing, from 6-9 p.m., will be held at the Courthouse, meeting room A, 373 S. High St., in Columbus. The Cobb-LaMarche campaign will be represented at the hearing by campaign manager Lynne Serpe.

A demand for a recount in Ohio can only be filed by a presidential candidate who was either a certified write-in candidate or on the ballot in that state. Both Green Party candidate David Cobb and Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik will be demanding a recount. No other candidate has stated an intention to seek a recount and no other citizen or organization would have legal standing to do so in Ohio. The Cobb-LaMarche campaign is still exploring the possibility of seeking recounts in other states but no decision has been made yet.

Ohio voters tell of Election Day troubles at hearing
By Reginald Fields for The Plain Dealer.

Tales of waiting more than five hours to vote, voter intimidation, under-trained polling-station workers and too few or broken voting machines largely in urban or heavily minority areas were retold Saturday at a public hearing organized by voter-rights groups.

For three hours, burdened voters, one after another, offered sworn testimony about Election Day voter suppression and irregularities that they believe are threatening democracy.

The hearing, sponsored by the Election Protection Coalition, was to collect testimony of voting troubles that might be used to seek legislative changes to Ohio's election process.

The organizers chose Ohio because it was a swing state in the presidential election as well as the site of numerous claims of election fraud and voter disenfranchisement.

"I think a lot of us had a sense that something had deeply went wrong on Nov. 2 and it had to do with the election process and procedures in place that were unacceptable," said Amy Kaplan, one of the hearing's coordinators.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1100428444286470.xml

Ohio voters tell of Election Day troubles at hearing
Sunday, November 14, 2004
Reginald Fields
Plain Dealer Bureau

Columbus

Tales of waiting more than five hours to vote, voter intimidation, under-trained polling-station workers and too few or broken voting machines largely in urban or heavily minority areas were retold Saturday at a public hearing organized by voter-rights groups.

For three hours, burdened voters, one after another, offered sworn testimony about Election Day voter suppression and irregularities that they believe are threatening democracy.

The hearing, sponsored by the Election Protection Coalition, was to collect testimony of voting troubles that might be used to seek legislative changes to Ohio's election process.

The organizers chose Ohio because it was a swing state in the presidential election as well as the site of numerous claims of election fraud and voter disenfranchisement.

"I think a lot of us had a sense that something had deeply went wrong on Nov. 2 and it had to do with the election process and procedures in place that were unacceptable," said Amy Kaplan, one of the hearing's coordinators.

Kaplan said the hearing gave everyday citizens a chance to have their concerns placed into public record.

Both a written and video report on the hearing will be provided to anyone who wants a copy, especially state lawmakers who are considering mandating Election Day changes, Kaplan said.

Many of the voters who testified were clearly Democrats who wonder if their losing presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, was able to draw all the votes that were intended for him.

"I call on Sen. Kerry to un-concede until there is a full count of the votes," said Werner Lange of Trumbull County, who claimed that polling places in his Northeast Ohio neighborhood had half the number of voting machines that were needed.

"This caused a bottleneck at polling stations, and many people left without voting," he said.

Others said they were testifying not on political grounds but out of concern for a suspicious election system that should be above reproach.

Harvey Wasserman of Bexley said he tried to vote absentee with the same home address he has used for 18 years but was told he couldn't because his absentee application had the wrong address.

"But the notice telling me I had the wrong address arrived at the right address," he said. "I wonder, how many of these absentee ballots were rejected for no good reason?

"My concern is not out of the outcome of the election," Wasserman said, "but that this could go on and an election could be stolen. And we simply can't have that in a democracy."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

rfields@plaind.com, 1-800-228-8272

And there are A LOT of them.

In a nutshell, a lot of voters in the poorer and minority areas were turned away for a variety of unfair reasons. The film documents these cases of disenfranchisement.

This was produced by Michael Moore's "Video The Vote" crew in Cleveland.

Video The Vote (59 MB)

Here's a link to Xeni's
Boing Boing Post and a bunch of Mirrors

The producers of this (and the editor, Dave Pentecost) wanted me to mention the following:

1)
People for the American Way and
Election Protection

2) Their apologies to The Jayhawks for not clearing the music first. (They are still waiting to hear back, their rights person is in transit) but they felt that it is really a free music video for the group!

3) This was shot by a dedicated group of 20 volunteer filmmakers, but any mistakes in the editing or focus of this video are Dave Pentecost's fault.
(Aww Dave, I didn't see any errors :-)

4) The organizers of the trip will release a longer selection of statements by voters who had problems voting. (Probably on Monday, November 15, 2004)

This goes with this earlier post.

I've had this since November 5, 2004, so I guess that's the publishing date. You've probably seen it around already, but I promised I would host it here so...better late than never :-)

Emphasize peep! (The peep we've all been waiting for :-)

Kerry campaign scrutinizes Ohio
Checks provisional ballots, other issues
By Scott Hiaasen for The Plain Dealer.

Lawyers with John Kerry's presidential campaign are gathering information from Ohio election boards about uncounted ballots and other unresolved issues from last week's election.

Attorneys say they are not trying to challenge the election but are only carrying out Kerry's promise to make sure that all the votes in Ohio are counted. They describe this effort, which began this week, as a "fact-finding mission."...

Dan Hoffheimer, the statewide counsel for the Kerry campaign, said the goal is to identify any voting problems to prevent them in the future - and quell doubts about the legitimacy of the Ohio election being raised on the Internet.

"We're not expecting to change the outcome of the election," Hoffheimer said. "We want to be sure that the public knows what really happened."

The campaign's inquiries come against a backdrop of increasing hysteria among Internet activists who, in chains of e-mails and articles, claim that Ohio's election was so riddled with problems that the outcome may not be legitimate.

For example, a confusing counting method used in Cuyahoga County's election totals wrongly suggests that more than two dozen suburbs had more votes than voters. And a computer glitch in Franklin County added nearly 3,900 phantom votes for Bush in one precinct...

The Kerry campaign has compiled a list of more than 30 questions for local election officials, asking about the number of absentee and provisional ballots, any reports of equipment malfunctions on election night, and any ballots that still listed third-party challenger Ralph Nader as a candidate. (Nader was removed from the ballot by Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.)

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.cleveland.com/cuyahoga/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1100169336227680.xml

Thursday, November 11, 2004
Scott Hiaasen
Plain Dealer Reporter

Lawyers with John Kerry's presidential campaign are gathering information from Ohio election boards about uncounted ballots and other unresolved issues from last week's election.

Attorneys say they are not trying to challenge the election but are only carrying out Kerry's promise to make sure that all the votes in Ohio are counted. They describe this effort, which began this week, as a "fact-finding mission."
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Unofficial totals give President Bush a 136,000-vote advantage over Kerry in Ohio, but the totals won't be certified until early next month.

Dan Hoffheimer, the statewide counsel for the Kerry campaign, said the goal is to identify any voting problems to prevent them in the future - and quell doubts about the legitimacy of the Ohio election being raised on the Internet.

"We're not expecting to change the outcome of the election," Hoffheimer said. "We want to be sure that the public knows what really happened."

The campaign's inquiries come against a backdrop of increasing hysteria among Internet activists who, in chains of e-mails and articles, claim that Ohio's election was so riddled with problems that the outcome may not be legitimate.

For example, a confusing counting method used in Cuyahoga County's election totals wrongly suggests that more than two dozen suburbs had more votes than voters. And a computer glitch in Franklin County added nearly 3,900 phantom votes for Bush in one precinct.

"There were enough problems reported around the state that undermined people's confidence," Hoffheimer said.

The Kerry campaign has compiled a list of more than 30 questions for local election officials, asking about the number of absentee and provisional ballots, any reports of equipment malfunctions on election night, and any ballots that still listed third-party challenger Ralph Nader as a candidate. (Nader was removed from the ballot by Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.)

As of yesterday, the attorneys had not yet contacted the Cuyahoga County's elections director, Michael Vu.

Election officials cannot begin to officially canvass the ballots until Saturday. But in Cuyahoga County, they have begun reviewing provisional ballots to make sure the voters are registered and did not vote more than once.

This review process is being monitored by representatives of both political parties. Mark Griffin, a Democratic lawyer, said he's worried that some provisional ballots - special ballots given to voters who believe they are registered but who don't appear on the voter rolls - may be discarded because poll workers failed to sign the ballot envelope as required.

But election officials said they would count these provisional ballots if the voter's signature matched the one in their records.

About 155,000 provisional ballots were cast in Ohio, including nearly 25,000 in Cuyahoga County. Whether these ballots are counted is a decision left to the local election boards, which are each made up of two Democrats and two Republicans.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

shiaasen@plaind.com, 216-999-4927

Nice job Donna!

She makes the really excellent point that, if the Repubs had lost, due to any reason whatsoever, you can bet they'd be fighting to recount every single vote.

I hope there's somebody listening out there.

Kerry and Edwards: are you listening?!?

Worst Voter Error Is Apathy Toward Irregularities
By Donna Britt for The Washington Post.

Is anyone surprised that accusations of voter disenfranchisement and irregularities abound after the most passionately contested presidential campaign in memory? Is anybody stunned that the mainstream media appear largely unconcerned?

To many people's thinking, too few citizens were discouraged from voting to matter. Those people would suggest that not nearly enough votes for John Kerry were missed or siphoned away to overturn President Bush's win. To which I'd respond:

Excuse me -- I thought this was America.

Informed that I was writing about voter disenfranchisement, a Democratic friend admitted, "I'm trying not to care about that." I understand. Less than two weeks after a bruising election in a nation in which it's unfashionable to overtly care about anything, it's annoying of me even to notice.

But citizens who insist, election after election, that each vote is sacred and then shrug at hundreds of credible reports that honest-to-God votes were suppressed and discouraged aren't just being hypocritical.

They're telling the millions who never vote because "it doesn't matter anyway" that they're the smart ones.

Come on. If Republicans had lost the election, this column would be unnecessary because Karl Rove and company would be contesting every vote. I keep hearing from those who wonder whether Democrats are "too nice," and from others who wonder whether efforts by the mainstream media to be "fair and balanced" sometimes render them "neutered and less effective."

Perhaps. But the much-publicized voting-machine error that gave Bush 4,258 votes in an Ohio precinct where only 638 people cast ballots preceded a flood of disturbing reports, ranging from the Florida voting machine that counted backward to the North Carolina computer that eliminated votes. In Ohio's Warren County, election officials citing "homeland security" concerns locked the doors to the county building where votes were being counted, refusing to allow members of the media and bipartisan observers to watch...

Why aren't more Americans exercised about this issue? Maybe the problem is who's being disenfranchised -- usually poor and minority voters. In a recent poll of black and white adults by Harvard University professor Michael Dawson, 37 percent of white respondents said that widely publicized reports of attempts to prevent blacks from voting in the 2000 election were a Democratic "fabrication." More disturbingly, nearly one-quarter of whites surveyed said that if such attempts were made, they either were "not a problem" (9 percent) or "not so big a problem" (13 percent).

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43630-2004Nov11.html?sub=new

Worst Voter Error Is Apathy Toward Irregularities

By Donna Britt
Friday, November 12, 2004; Page B01

Is anyone surprised that accusations of voter disenfranchisement and irregularities abound after the most passionately contested presidential campaign in memory? Is anybody stunned that the mainstream media appear largely unconcerned?

To many people's thinking, too few citizens were discouraged from voting to matter. Those people would suggest that not nearly enough votes for John Kerry were missed or siphoned away to overturn President Bush's win. To which I'd respond:
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Excuse me -- I thought this was America.

Informed that I was writing about voter disenfranchisement, a Democratic friend admitted, "I'm trying not to care about that." I understand. Less than two weeks after a bruising election in a nation in which it's unfashionable to overtly care about anything, it's annoying of me even to notice.

But citizens who insist, election after election, that each vote is sacred and then shrug at hundreds of credible reports that honest-to-God votes were suppressed and discouraged aren't just being hypocritical.

They're telling the millions who never vote because "it doesn't matter anyway" that they're the smart ones.

Come on. If Republicans had lost the election, this column would be unnecessary because Karl Rove and company would be contesting every vote. I keep hearing from those who wonder whether Democrats are "too nice," and from others who wonder whether efforts by the mainstream media to be "fair and balanced" sometimes render them "neutered and less effective."

Perhaps. But the much-publicized voting-machine error that gave Bush 4,258 votes in an Ohio precinct where only 638 people cast ballots preceded a flood of disturbing reports, ranging from the Florida voting machine that counted backward to the North Carolina computer that eliminated votes. In Ohio's Warren County, election officials citing "homeland security" concerns locked the doors to the county building where votes were being counted, refusing to allow members of the media and bipartisan observers to watch.

Bush won the county overwhelmingly.

Much of the media dismisses anxiety over such irregularities as grousing by poor-loser Democrats, rabid conspiracy theorists and pouters frustrated by Kerry's lightning-quick concession. Some of it surely is.

But more people's concerns are elementary-school basic -- which isn't coincidental since that's where many of us learned about democracy. We feel that Americans mustn't concede the noble intentions upon which our nation was founded to the cynical or the indifferent. We believe in our nation's sacred assurance that every citizen's voice be heard through his or her vote.

The point isn't just which candidate won or lost. It's that we all lose when we ignore that thousands of Americans might have been discouraged or prevented from voting, or not had their votes count.

If it were us, we'd be screaming bloody murder.

Yesterday, Lafayette Square was the scene of a lively rally at which dozens of upbeat, mostly older-than-25 protesters organized by ReDefeatBush.com heard democracy-praising singers, rappers and speakers. Protester Susan Ribe, 33, a Wheaton tax researcher, said that though she's "open-minded" to the possibility that election results might be correct, she believes that reports of irregularities suggest "there's the need for a serious investigation."

page 2

Election Protection, the nonpartisan coalition of civil rights organizations that sent 25,000 poll monitors across the nation to ensure that registered voters could cast their ballots, received hundreds of reports of Election Day abuses.

Some were from voters who said they repeatedly pressed the "Kerry" button on their electronic voting screens, only to have "Bush" keep lighting up. Others said that though they pushed "Kerry," they were asked to confirm their "Bush" vote. There were calls about a Broward County, Fla., roadblock that denied voters access to precincts in predominantly black districts, and reports from hundreds who said they'd registered weeks before Florida's October deadline yet weren't on the rolls.
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Why aren't more Americans exercised about this issue? Maybe the problem is who's being disenfranchised -- usually poor and minority voters. In a recent poll of black and white adults by Harvard University professor Michael Dawson, 37 percent of white respondents said that widely publicized reports of attempts to prevent blacks from voting in the 2000 election were a Democratic "fabrication." More disturbingly, nearly one-quarter of whites surveyed said that if such attempts were made, they either were "not a problem" (9 percent) or "not so big a problem" (13 percent).

Excuse me?

Electronic, paper-trail-free voting is a danger to democracy that the United States can, and I believe will, address. But not giving a damn about fellow citizens' votes?

Election Protection volunteer Bernestine Singley, a Texas-based writer-lawyer I know, was torn between elation and outrage on Nov. 2 as she monitored polls in three Florida precincts. Inspiring to Singley were hundreds of volunteers, most of them white, who'd traveled hundreds of miles to ensure the inclusion of minority voters. She felt stirred by scores of young, black voters whose attitude, she says, was, "I don't care how long I have to stand in line before I do what I came here to do."

Singley's outrage was sparked by clearly hostile white poll workers, and the police officer who stood -- illegally -- by a polling place door, hand on his revolver.

Did I mention the guy who shoved her?

After watching Singley assist voters for hours, a scowling, white-haired 70-something poll worker patronizingly suggested that she was not a poll monitor. When she replied that he knew exactly what she was doing, he rammed his chest into hers, shoving her backward.

Pushing right back, Singley told the man, "You better get off me." He did. Minutes later, Singley says the man told another poll worker within her hearing: "I don't know why she thinks I know who she is. They all look alike to me."

Excuse me -- is this 2004 or 1954?

Ironically, if all Americans did look alike -- if "black" and "white" and "poor" and "well-to-do" didn't exist -- outrages such as those would happen much less often.

When they did, many more Americans would fight to ensure they never happened again.

I was mad as hell about Nader running at all. And we're still not sure (since we're not sure about any of the numbers in this election) if he affected Kerry's numbers adversely or now.

That said, it looks like Nader's the only one so far with enough guts to request a recount. Where's Kerry in all of this!?!

This post goes with this one.

State approves Nader recount
By The Associated Press.

State election officials agreed Friday to a last-minute recount of the presidential race requested by Ralph Nader.

Nader asked for a recount in 11 wards last week, but the state initially said no because his request did not include the $2,000 fee. He had until 4:30 p.m. Friday to get the money to the Secretary of State's office.

Nader's campaign said some voting machines in the state logged results that favored President Bush by as much as 15 percent over what previous trends and exit polls would suggest.

Nader requested hand recounts in Litchfield, Sandown, Newton, Danville, Salem, Pelham, one ward in Somersworth and four wards in Manchester.

Nader's campaign could be required to pay additional fees as the recount proceeds. There was no estimate as to when the recount might begin.

Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese said the campaign would consider requesting additional recounts after reviewing the results of the initial 11.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/nader/articles/2004/11/12/state_approves_nader_recount/

State approves Nader recount

November 12, 2004

CONCORD, N.H. -- State election officials agreed Friday to a last-minute recount of the presidential race requested by Ralph Nader.
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Nader asked for a recount in 11 wards last week, but the state initially said no because his request did not include the $2,000 fee. He had until 4:30 p.m. Friday to get the money to the Secretary of State's office.

The fee is required of candidates who lose by more than 3 percentage points. Democrat John Kerry won the state with 50 percent to Bush's 49 percent. Nader had just under 1 percent.

The state agreed to the recount Friday after Nader's campaign electronically transferred the fee Friday afternoon.

Nader's campaign said some voting machines in the state logged results that favored President Bush by as much as 15 percent over what previous trends and exit polls would suggest.

Nader requested hand recounts in Litchfield, Sandown, Newton, Danville, Salem, Pelham, one ward in Somersworth and four wards in Manchester.

Nader's campaign could be required to pay additional fees as the recount proceeds. There was no estimate as to when the recount might begin.

Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese said the campaign would consider requesting additional recounts after reviewing the results of the initial 11.

Naked Promotional Announcement (Keith Olbermann)

Interestingly, none of the complaining emailers took issue with the remarkable results out of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. In 29 precincts there, the County’s website shows, we had the most unexpected results in years: more votes than voters.

I’ll repeat that: more votes than voters. 93,000 more votes than voters.

Oops.

Talk about successful get-out-the-vote campaigns! What a triumph for democracy in Fairview Park, twelve miles west of downtown Cleveland. Only 13,342 registered voters there, but they cast 18,472 votes.

Vote early! Vote often!

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240

Naked Promotional Announcement (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS -- A quick and haplessly generic answer now to the 6,000 emails and the hundreds of phone calls.

Firstly, thank you.

Secondly, we will indeed be resuming our coverage of the voting irregularities in Ohio and Florida -- and elsewhere -- on this evening's edition of Countdown {8:00 p.m. ET}. The two scheduled guests are Jonathan Turley, an excellent professor of law at George Washington University, and MSNBC analyst and Congressional Quarterly senior columnist Craig Crawford.

For Jonathan, the questions are obvious: the process and implications of voting reviews, especially after a candidate has conceded, even after a President has been re-elected. For Craig, the questions are equally obvious: did John Kerry's concession indeed neuter mainstream media attention to the questions about voting and especially electronic voting, and what is the political state of play on the investigations and the protests.

Phase Two, in which Doris gets her oats...

Keep them coming. Email me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

• November 9, 2004 | 12:55 a.m. ET

Electronic voting angst (Keith Olbermann)

NEW YORK — Bev Harris, the Blackbox lady, was apparently quoted in a number of venues during the day Monday as having written “I was tipped off by a person very high up in TV that the news has been locked down tight, and there will be no TV coverage of the real problems with voting on Nov. 2… My source said they’ve also been forbidden to talk about it even on their own time.”

I didn’t get the memo.

We were able to put together a reasonably solid 15 minutes or so on the voting irregularities in Florida and Ohio on Monday’s Countdown. There was some You-Are-There insight from the Cincinnati Enquirer reporter who had personally encountered the ‘lockdown’ during the vote count in Warren County, Ohio, a week ago, and a good deal of fairly contained comment from Representative John Conyers of Michigan, who now leads a small but growing group of Democratic congressmen who’ve written the General Accountability Office demanding an investigation of what we should gently call the Electronic Voting Angst. Conyers insisted he wasn’t trying to re-cast the election, but seemed mystified that in the 21st Century we could have advanced to a technological state in which voting— fine, flawed, or felonious— should leave no paper trail.

But the show should not have been confused with Edward R. Murrow flattening Joe McCarthy. I mean that both in terms of editorial content and controversy. I swear, and I have never been known to cover-up for any management anywhere, that I got nothing but support from MSNBC both for the Web-work and the television time. We were asked if perhaps we shouldn’t begin the program with the Fallujah offensive and do the voting story later, but nobody flinched when we argued that the Countdown format pretty much allows us to start wherever we please.

It may be different elsewhere, but there was no struggle to get this story on the air, and evidently I should be washing the feet of my bosses this morning in thanks. Because your reaction was a little different than mine. By actual rough count, between the 8 p.m. ET start of the program and 10:30 p.m. ET last night, we received 1,570 e-mails (none of them duplicates or forms, as near as I can tell). 1,508 were positive, 62 negative.

Well the volume is startling to begin with. I know some of the overtly liberal sites encouraged readers to write, but that’s still a hunk of mail, and a decisive margin (hell, 150 to 62 is considered a decisive margin). Writing this, I know I’m inviting negative comment, but so be it. I read a large number of the missives, skimmed all others, appreciate all— and all since— deeply.

Even the negative ones, because in between the repeated “you lost” nonsense and one baffling reference to my toupee (seriously, if I wore a rug, wouldn’t I get one that was all the same color?), there was a solid point raised about some of the incongruous voting noted on the website of Florida’s Secretary of State.

There, 52 counties tallied their votes using paper ballots that were then optically scanned by machines produced by Diebold, Sequoia, or Election Systems and Software. 29 of those Florida counties had large Democratic majorities among registered voters (as high a ratio as Liberty County— Bristol, Florida and environs— where it’s 88 percent Democrats, 8 percent Republicans) but produced landslides for President Bush. On Countdown, we cited the five biggest surprises (Liberty ended Bush: 1,927; Kerry: 1,070), but did not mention the other 24.

Those protesting e-mailers pointed out that four of the five counties we mentioned also went for Bush in 2000, and were in Florida’s panhandle or near the Georgia border. Many of them have long “Dixiecrat” histories and the swing to Bush, while remarkably large, isn’t of itself suggestive of voting fraud.

That the other 24 counties were scattered across the state, and that they had nothing in common except the optical scanning method, I didn’t mention. My bad. I used the most eye-popping numbers, and should have used a better regional mix instead.

Interestingly, none of the complaining emailers took issue with the remarkable results out of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. In 29 precincts there, the County’s website shows, we had the most unexpected results in years: more votes than voters.

I’ll repeat that: more votes than voters. 93,000 more votes than voters.

Oops.

Talk about successful get-out-the-vote campaigns! What a triumph for democracy in Fairview Park, twelve miles west of downtown Cleveland. Only 13,342 registered voters there, but they cast 18,472 votes.

Vote early! Vote often!

And in the continuing saga of the secret vote count in Warren County, Ohio (outside Cincinnati), no protestor offered an explanation or even a reference, excepting one sympathetic writer who noted that there was a “beautiful Mosque” in or near Warren County, and that a warning from Homeland Security might have been predicated on that fact.

To her credit, Pat South, President of the Warren County Commissioners who chose to keep the media from watching the actual vote count, was willing to come on the program— but only by phone. Instead, we asked her to compose a statement about the bizarre events at her County Administration building a week ago, which I can quote at greater length here than I did on the air.

“About three weeks prior to elections,” Ms. South stated, “our emergency services department had been receiving quite a few pieces of correspondence from the office of Homeland Security on the upcoming elections. These memos were sent out statewide, not just to Warren County and they included a lot of planning tools and resources to use for election day security.

“In a face to face meeting between the FBI and our director of Emergency Services, we were informed that on a scale from 1 to 10, the tri-state area of Southwest Ohio was ranked at a high 8 to a low 9 in terms of security risk. Warren County in particular, was rated at 10 (with 10 being the highest risk). Pursuant to the Ohio revised code, we followed the law to the letter that basically says that no one is allowed within a hundred feet of a polling place except for voters and that after the polls close the only people allowed in the board of elections area where votes are being counted are the board of election members, judges, clerks, poll challengers, police, and that no one other than those people can be there while tabulation is taking place.”

Ms. South said she admitted the media to the building’s lobby, and that they were provided with updates on the ballot-counting every half hour. Of course, the ballot-counting was being conducted on the third floor, and the idea that it would have probably looked better if Warren had done what Ohio’s other 87 counties did— at least let reporters look through windows as the tabulations proceeded— apparently didn’t occur to anybody.

Back to those emails, especially the 1,508 positive ones. Apart from the supportive words (my favorites: “Although I did not vote for Kerry, as a former government teacher, I am encouraged by your ‘covering’ the voting issue which is the basis of our government. Thank you.”), the main topics were questions about why ours was apparently the first television or mainstream print coverage of any of the issues in Florida or Ohio. I have a couple of theories.

Firstly, John Kerry conceded. As I pointed out here Sunday, no candidate’s statement is legally binding— what matters is the state election commissions’ reports, and the Electoral College vote next month. But in terms of reportorial momentum, the concession took the wind out of a lot of journalists’ aggressiveness towards the entire issue. Many were prepared for Election Night premature jocularity, and a post-vote stampede to the courts— especially after John Edwards’ late night proclamation from Boston. When Kerry brought that to a halt, a lot of the media saw something of which they had not dared dream: a long weekend off.

Don’t discount this. This has been our longest presidential campaign ever, to say nothing of the one in which the truth was most artfully hidden or manufactured. To consider this mess over was enough to get 54 percent of the respondents to an Associated Press poll released yesterday to say that the “conclusiveness” of last week’s vote had given them renewed confidence in our electoral system (of course, 39 percent said it had given them less confidence). Up for the battle for truth or not, a lot of fulltime political reporters were ready for a rest. Not me— I get to do “Oddball” and “Newsmakers” every night and they always serve to refresh my spirit, and my conviction that man is the silliest of the creator’s creations.

There’s a third element to the reluctance to address all this, I think. It comes from the mainstream’s love-hate relationship with this very thing you’re reading now: The Blog. This medium is so new that print, radio, and television don’t know what to do with it, especially given that a system of internet checks and balances has yet to develop. A good reporter may encounter a tip, or two, or five, in a day’s time. He has to check them all out before publishing or reporting.

What happens when you get 1,000 tips, all at once?

I’m sounding like an apologist for the silence of television and I don’t mean to. Just remember that when radio news arose in the '30s, the response of newspapers and the wire services was to boycott it, then try to limit it to specific hours. There’s a measure of competitiveness, a measure of confusion, and the undeniable fact that in searching for clear, non-partisan truth in this most partisan of times, the I’m-Surprised-This-Name-Never-Caught-On “Information Super Highway” becomes a road with direction signs listing 1,000 destinations each.

Having said all that— for crying out loud, all the data we used tonight on Countdown was on official government websites in Cleveland and Florida. We confirmed all of it— moved it right out of the Reynolds Wrap Hat zone in about ten minutes.

Which offers one way bloggers can help guide the mainstream at times like this: source your stuff like crazy, and the stuffier the source the better.

Enough from the soapbox. We have heard the message on the Voting Angst and will continue to cover it with all prudent speed.

Thanks for your support.

Keep them coming... Email me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

• November 7, 2004 | 6:55 p.m. ET

George, John, and Warren (Keith Olbermann)

NEW YORK— Here’s an interesting little sidebar of our system of government confirmed recently by the crack Countdown research staff: no Presidential candidate’s concession speech is legally binding. The only determinants of the outcome of election are the reports of the state returns boards and the vote of the Electoral College.

That’s right. Richard Nixon may have phoned John Kennedy in November, 1960, and congratulated him through clenched teeth. But if the FBI had burst into Kennedy headquarters in Chicago a week later and walked out with all the file cabinets and a bunch of employees with their raincoats drawn up over their heads, nothing Nixon had said would’ve prevented him, and not JFK, from taking the oath of office the following January.

This is mentioned because there is a small but blood-curdling set of news stories that right now exists somewhere between the world of investigative journalism, and the world of the Reynolds Wrap Hat. And while the group’s ultimate home remains unclear - so might our election of just a week ago.

Stories like these have filled the web since the tide turned against John Kerry late Tuesday night. But not until Friday did they begin to spill into the more conventional news media. That’s when the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that officials in Warren County, Ohio, had “locked down” its administration building to prevent anybody from observing the vote count there.

Suspicious enough on the face of it, the decision got more dubious still when County Commissioners confirmed that they were acting on the advice of their Emergency Services Director, Frank Young. Mr. Young had explained that he had been advised by the federal government to implement the measures for the sake of Homeland Security.

Gotcha. Tom Ridge thought Osama Bin Laden was planning to hit Caesar Creek State Park in Waynesville. During the vote count in Lebanon. Or maybe it was Kings Island Amusement Park that had gone Code-Orange without telling anybody. Al-Qaeda had selected Turtlecreek Township for its first foray into a Red State.

The State of Ohio confirms that of all of its 88 Counties, Warren alone decided such Homeland Security measures were necessary. Even in Butler County, reports the Enquirer, the media and others were permitted to watch through a window as ballot-checkers performed their duties. In Warren, the media was finally admitted to the lobby of the administration building, which may have been slightly less incommodious for the reporters, but which still managed to keep them two floors away from the venue of the actual count.

Nobody in Warren County seems to think they’ve done anything wrong. The newspaper quotes County Prosecutor Rachel Hurtzel as saying the Commissioners “were within their rights” to lock the building down, because having photographers or reporters present could have interfered with the count.

You bet, Rachel.

As I suggested, this is the first time one of the Fix stories has moved fully into the mainstream media. In so saying, I’m not dismissing the blogosphere. Hell, I’m in the blogosphere now, and there have been nights when I’ve gotten far more web hits than television viewers (thank you, Debate Scorecard readers). Even the overt partisanship of blogs don’t bother me - Tom Paine was a pretty partisan guy, and ultimately that served truth a lot better than a ship full of neutral reporters would have. I was just reading last night of the struggles Edward R. Murrow and William L. Shirer had during their early reporting from Europe in ’38 and ’39, because CBS thought them too anti-Nazi.

The only reason I differentiate between the blogs and the newspapers is that in the latter, a certain bar of ascertainable, reasonably neutral, fact has to be passed, and has to be approved by a consensus of reporters and editors. The process isn’t flawless (ask Dan Rather) but the next time you read a blog where bald-faced lies are accepted as fact, ask yourself whether we here in cyberspace have yet achieved the reliability of even the mainstream media. In short, a lot gets left out of newspapers, radio, and tv - but what’s left in tends to be, in the words of my old CNN Sports colleague NickCharles, a lead-pipe cinch.

Thus the majority of the media has yet to touch the other stories of Ohio (the amazing Bush Times Ten voting machine in Gahanna) or the sagas of Ohio South: huge margins for Bush in Florida counties in which registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 2-1, places where the optical scanning of precinct totals seems to have turned results from perfect matches for the pro-Kerry exit poll data, to Bush sweeps.

We will be endeavoring to pull those stories, along with the Warren County farce, into the mainstream Monday and/or Tuesday nights on Countdown. That is, if we can wedge them in there among the news media’s main concerns since last Tuesday:

* Who fixed the Exit Polls? Yes - you could deliberately skew a national series of post-vote questionnaires in favor of Kerry to discourage people from voting out west, where everything but New Mexico had been ceded to Kerry anyway, but you couldn’t alter key precinct votes in Ohio and/or Florida; and,
* What will Bush do with his Mandate and his Political Capital? He got the highest vote total for a presidential candidate, you know. Did anybody notice who’s second on the list? A Mr. Kerry. Since when was the term “mandate” applied when 56 million people voted against a guy? And by the way, how about that Karl Rove and his Freudian slip on “Fox News Sunday”? Rove was asked if the electoral triumph would be as impactful on the balance of power between the parties as William McKinley’s in 1896 and he forgot his own talking points. The victories were “similarly narrow,” Rove began, and then, seemingly aghast at his forthrightness, corrected himself. “Not narrow; similarly structured.”

Gotta dash now. Some of us have to get to work on the Warren and Florida stories.

In the interim, Senator Kerry, kindly don’t leave the country.

Thoughts? Let me know at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

• November 3, 2004 | 2:51 a.m. ET

Pick a total, any total (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS — At 2:37 A.M. Eastern Time, the five major television news organizations were in complete disagreement over the electoral count:

* NBC: Bush 269 Kerry 211.
* Fox: Bush 269 Kerry 238.
* CNN: Bush 249 Kerry 242.
* CBS: Bush 249 Kerry 238.
* ABC: Bush 249 Kerry 225.

Remember when I scored the debates as boxing matches? Those are boxing judges' scorecard totals— and not one of them agrees.

The Kerry campaign announcing at 2:45 a.m. ET, a "full lid" -- political news terminology for no further comment for the night.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

• November 3, 2004 | 1:46 a.m. ET

Premature jocularity (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS— Oh, here we go.

The legal equivalent of the Bat Signal has just gone up from Cleveland.

The Kerry Campaign isn’t going to concede until the last lawyer is spent in Ohio. Manager Mary Beth Cahill issuing the statement at 1:27 AM EST and to quote it in full: "The vote count in Ohio has not been completed. There are more than 250,000 remaining votes to be counted. We believe when they are, John Kerry will win Ohio."

The Ohio challenge actually began yesterday when two Federal District judges ruled that Republican vote-challengers could not position themselves at the poll. Those Republicans successfully appealed, and then the court actions began to multiply like rabbits.

Today came news of interminable lines, voters offered paper ballots in voting districts that had no provisions for counting them, and then the provisional ballots issue. It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet for litigators.

And when we wondered if it could be worse than 2000, we just found the way. I split part of October in 1997 between Miami and Cleveland, covering the World Series. Miami was warm, humid, and enjoyable. Cleveland had a wind-chill of 22 degrees with snow.

So it’s Florida— only with parkas.

• November 3, 2004 | 12:18 a.m. ET

Too close leads too early by two million (Keith Olbermann)

So much for the ultra-conservative state-calling by the television networks in the wake of the debacle of 2000.

As midnight came to the East, ABC and CBS, were out there, alone, having called Florida for the President. Just as four years ago, that’s great if they’re right. But if they’re not, it will again guarantee a long-running dispute and perhaps a Constitutional crisis.

And in the interim, the fact that two big news organizations called Florida for Bush while the others - CNN, Fox, NBC - did not immediately follow, may foment a crisis whether the Florida prediction is wrong or right. If the assumption of the last few months is correct and that the Democrats will cede nothing, the partial-prediction may have already given Senator Kerry a platform from which to mount a protest or a contest, whether it’s justified or not.

Also shaping up as a controversy, the quality of the exit-polling— all of which looked disastrous for Bush from late afternoon onwards. What happened there will be heavily scrutinized, and the question will be raised, did it replace the quick-calling of 2000 as the area in which the media (and the campaigns) could replace fact with extrapolation.

• November 2, 2004 | 10:35 p.m. ET

It's 10 p.m., do you know where your spin is? (Keith Olbermann)

Secaucus — How right have we been tonight about the distress in the White House? The re-election campaign admitted a pool camera and still photographers to the residence to videotape images of Mr. Bush and his family sitting around stiffly on a couch, he in a white shirt and a tie, smiling towards the media and saying “I believe I will win. It’s going to be an exciting evening.”

Well, the night Titanic sank was an exciting evening.

The President’s men had begun whining about the exit polling and its interpretation since shortly after 7 PM tonight. Norah O’Donnell’s 9:50 EST report had referred to “anxiety” from Republicans out in the field, and perhaps the odd photo-op was designed as much to reassure them as to counter-effect the exit polling with which the White House so fervently disagreed.

Brian Williams offered the astute observation that the White House did need to influence photo and videotape selection. Mr. Bush had been captured with stern and/or exhausted looks on his face at yesterday’s pre-election events, and today’s voting - and that’s the last thing the campaign wanted to project. Hence, in Norah’s phrase, the decision to “put the President out.”

As I write here Mr. Bush is up by around 80 Electoral Votes, and just about that many from the promised land. But the Zogby forecast from 5:30 EST tonight — which ends with Senator Kerry getting at least 311 and the President no more than 227 —has performed flawlessly through the first 32 NBC state projections.

Zogby’s forecast will be sorely tested in the next few hours in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Washington, and Wisconsin - all of which he’s predicted for Kerry. And then, later—maybe much later— the big three: Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, all of which Zogby thought were “trending” to Kerry. Interestingly, if Zogby’s model holds up in the smaller states, Kerry could lose Ohio and Pennsylvania and still gain the White House— providing he wins Florida.

• November 2, 2004 | 9:01 p.m. ET

Exit numbers meaning a Bush exit?

Secaucus — The exit polling is sometimes easy enough to read that even I can figure it out.

The NBC information released at 8:23 indicates numbers crushing for the president’s hopes of gaining significant votes based on the war in Iraq.

Only 12% of voters nationally agreed that things were “going well” in Iraq, and only another 32% said things were going “somewhat well” there. 55% were clearly negative, saying things were going “badly.”

More significantly perhaps, the President’s argument that the war in Iraq is a component of the war on terror, was only partially successful with voters. 52% of today’s voters, 45% said the two elements were separate.

Overall, the exit polls show voters evenly split about the wisdom to go into Iraq in the first place, 48-48.

And most strikingly, when asked if the action in Iraq improved our security or harmed it, only 43 percent said it had improved it - 54 percent felt otherwise.

No wonder Norah O’Donnell latest report refers to more grim faces inside the White House strategy and war rooms - what we liked to call the “interior numbers” would suggest that the fundaments of the President’s reelection strategy haven’t succeeded, and the Zogby forecast of a Kerry 100+ Electoral College vote looks ever-increasingly plausible.

And those “interior numbers” in Ohio fascinate.

The NBC exit polling there suggests the state saw 800,000 new voters — 13 percent of the entire electorate there — and they went 56-44 Kerry (58-41 Kerry among those under 30), with the only demographic group going for the President in Ohio being those 60 and over.

But Ohio still shows the closeness of the votes-in-hand.

As of 8:15 EST, out of the 40,367 absentee ballots cast in Franklin County — that’s Columbus, the President led Senator Kerry by exactly 267 of them. That’s not the case in Cuyahoga (Cleveland), where Kerry got nearly two out of every three absentees (49,816 to 27,770).

• November 2, 2004 | 7:34 p.m. ET

"Discouragement" at the White House (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS — That’s the term used by NBC’s White House Correspondent David Gregory in his 7:05 PM report, describing the reaction of President Bush’s “top advisors” in a war room within the war room at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

David’s sources report a “tense” set of advisors, who have already determined an unwanted “tightness in the race,” not unlike what they saw in the waning days of the 2000 Gore-Bush vote.

Any time word leaks of an incumbent official’s top advisors being “discouraged” when only a handful of states have closed, you can interpret the verbal body language. They’ve seen it, it’s bad, and it’s likely to get worse - so maybe Friend Zogby’s 100-point electoral margin for Kerry is not so wildly broad as it may have first looked (two posts down).

The NBC News Exit Polling released at 7:23 EST continues to provide troubling numbers for the incumbent:

* 50% of today’s voters say the country is on the wrong track; 47% say it’s going in the right direction.
* The first numbers on Mr. Bush’s job approval are razor tight: 51% positive, 47% negative.
* The partisanship within those numbers is extraordinary: 92% of Republicans give the President approval; 84% of Democrats disapprove.

On the Senatorial level, only one of the races thus far called affects the swing: the Republicans taking the open seat in Georgia. The good news for the GOP is that Congressman Johnny Isakson is projected to beat the Democratic Congresswoman Denise Majette. The bad news is, the seat belonged to Zell Miller, so it’s a numerical loss for the Democrats but not much of a political one.

North Carolina is evidently close enough that Democratic VP nominee John Edwards actually held his plane on the tarmac in Orlando so he could call in to African-American radio stations in North Carolina to push the candidacy of former Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles over Republican Congressman Richard Burr.

• November 2, 2004 | 6:46 p.m. ET

Notes from the balance of power desk (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS— Which, you may be as delighted to read as I was to see, was still being constructed — plastic flats being stapled into place — even as Chris Matthews was signing on from Democracy Plaza.

The tone of Norah O’Donnell’s first report from the White House suggested that whatever the Re-Election Campaign is reading in the way of exit polls, they must be similar to the 5:30 ET final Zogby tracking numbers which forecast a Kerry landslide by as many as 100 Electoral Votes (while giving Mr. Bush an absolutely useless popular majority of 3/10ths of one percent). Norah reported the President and his supporters putting on positive but somewhat forced faces.

If they read those Zogby numbers, we know why (I summarized Zogby’s findings in the previous post — scroll down).

And if they heard the first set of nationwide exit polling released by NBC a little after 6 PM, the White House can’t be very hopeful:

* 54% thought the economy was “not good”; only 45% “good.”
* 46% thought they were worse off today than they were in 2000; only 21% said they were better off;
* Only 52% said they thought we were safer from the threat of terrorism now than before; 43% thought we were less safe.
* And while 53% said they were somewhat worried about another terrorist attack, just 22% described themselves as “very” worried, a comparatively small percentage.

The last two numbers can be interpreted in favor of either candidate (although it seems like more mental gymnastics would be required to spin them in Mr. Bush’s favor). Those first two — I don’t think so.

All of which brings us to what might be a very unpleasant Election Night party in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington— the President’s soiree.

The Washington Post reported this morning that reporters are only being admitted to the grounds if they pay $300 - $500 if they want food.

That doesn’t even get them inside.

The ticket cost got the journalist a two foot by three foot work space, and a chair (padded), in a tent near the party itself, plus the right to watch the party on closed-circuit television.

Periodically, small groups of reporters will be escorted into the building atrium to gather “color” —what it looks like— but they won’t be permitted to talk to guests (although a twenty might get you a quote if you ask the right person).

Question: If there’s no Bush party tonight, do the reporters get their money back?

• November 2, 2004 | 5:51 p.m. ET

Redskin rule and Carter corollary (Keith Olbermann)

Secaucus — John Zogby’s polling was generally considered the most accurate during the crazed 2000 election, and if he maintains that measure of reliability, you can go to sleep now.

Zogby’s final tracking poll, state by state, released at 5:30 EST, suggests the prospect of a Kerry win by a margin of 311 Electoral Votes to 213, with only Colorado and Nevada too close to call (and representing just fourteen votes between them).

Oh and by the way, he has Mr. Bush winning the popular vote, narrowly— an irony of biblical proportions that one Democratic pollster rated a one-in-three chance just last week.

It should be noted Zogby is doing a lot of extrapolating. In the two from Column A (Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania), two from Column B (Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin) states, he gives them all to Kerry. But Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are listed as “trending Kerry” based on exit polling. The smaller three states show Kerry up by 5-6%.

If he’s right, it upholds both the Redskin Rule (a bloody football team would be 18-0 predicting who gets to run the country) and the Carter Corollary (no incumbent is reelected nor defeated narrowly).

A lot of people remaining uncertain that he’s right.

• November 2, 2004 | 5:15 p.m. ET

Why is red red, and blue blue? (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS— So in the most ambiguously colored of the states, Florida, the Kerry Campaign reported within the hour that voting has been "very smooth." The spokesman, Matthew Miller, says the campaign has received word of less than 20 voter challenges and only about 1,000 provisional ballots being issued. The Bush campaign agrees on those rough figures and everybody seems stunned by the smoothness, though there was one confirmed case of that Internet animation gag coming true. You probably got it in an e-mail: a guy trying to vote for Kerry on one of the touch-screens, and various "are you sure you don't mean Bush" messages appearing instead. It apparently happened to one voter in Pinellas County, where she needed six tries to get "Bush" from popping up, even after she repeatedly hit "Kerry."

In an ominous sign for those of you who want the Red/Blue election decision and Christmas to coincide, however, they cleared it up.

Which reminds me: where the hell did this Red/Blue stuff come from, anyway?

If you happen to pull down your VHS copy of NBC’s coverage of the 1976 Election (what? You didn’t roll tape? Regretting that now, aren’t you?) you’ll see David Brinkley and Tom Brokaw and John Chancellor referring to a huge map not very much dissimilar from the ones we’re showing tonight on MSNBC. It’s full of Red States and Blue States.

The Blue States, obviously, belong to then-President Gerald Ford, the Republican.

The Red States, naturally, belong to his challenger, Jimmy Carter, the Democrat.

Huh?

The newspaper The Bergen Record noted this curious historical fact in an article a few weeks ago which tried to trace our now standardized, clichéd representation of this nation as Red Nation and Blue Nation. Turns out the standardization is a pretty damn recent thing— 2000, in fact.

As late as 1980 on ABC, Red was for the Democrats, Blue for the Republicans (and white for the not-yet-called states). So there’s your color scheme: Red, White, and Blue.

So the Red and the Blue have no more historical status than four years’ worth. And in the big picture, they are interchangeable— the Washington Post not only noted today that its color maps of the election were Red/Democrat, Blue/Republican as late as 2000, but that the first reversal appears to have occured on MSNBC just a week before the 2000 vote.

They thus fall into that category filled with similar contradictions and reversals. When the National Hockey League was divided into two divisions, American and Canadian, a now-defunct team called the New York Americans played, incongruously, in the Canadian Division. And for years, the official name of the American League baseball team in the capital was “The Washington Nationals.”

One further historical curiosity missed by The Record and others researching the Red/Blue phenomenon. Before World War II, when there were only about five national radio networks, NBC owned not just one, but two of them. They were each identified as NBC, with the only differentiation being that the one originally owned by RCA was called the NBC Blue Network, and the one purchased by RCA from AT&T was called the NBC Red Network. The government later forced RCA to sell one of the networks (Blue) to the man behind Life Savers candy - he re-named it ABC in 1946.

Two closing personal notes. Not to encourage you to do this, but if you happen to catch the CNN shot from the new Time-Warner Center in New York (they used it during Crossfire), you can see my house on the right. I opted not to hang out a “CNN *****” sign on my balcony.

And it was very entertaining to see on the “Citizen Journalists” page here a shot of a college freshman— Danny David— proudly holding his absentee ballot, one of which was provided last June to each member of his high school graduating class.

Turns out the high school is in Hastings-On-Hudson, New York— my hometown.

• November 2, 2004 | 1:34 p.m. ET

Gore's Law and the Redskin Rule (Keith Olbermann)

NEW YORK - Somebody’s Law (we don’t know whose; fittingly, he forgot to name it after himself) tells us that if we ignore a prospective logistical disaster, it’ll promptly occur, but if we’re fully prepared for it, especially if we’ve spent large sums of money in the preparation, it won’t happen.

Perhaps we can name the law after Al Gore. Or pick a television executive. For, clearly, the election four years ago was a confluence of everything the media and the politicians had ignored: the failure of exit polling, the naked partisanship of judges and state officials, the haste of tv newsrooms, the premature jocularity of the candidates themselves.

Well, we have so many counterweights in place this year - from the daily e-mails reminding us tv types that we don’t get a bonus for “extrapolating” data (i.e., making stuff up), to nearly every analyst predicting a late night or a late morning or a late autumn decision, to the roaming packs of election attorneys foraging across the countryside like those cloned Homer Simpsons in the Halloween episode a few years back, to the voters who apparently this morning followed the old joke: Vote Early, Vote Often.

With that much preparation, Gore’s Law insists - nothing will happen.

The President and Senator Kerry haven’t agreed on much, but they both insisted the election would be decided tonight, not next month. We had two Secretaries of Commerce on Countdown last night, Don Evans and Mickey Kantor, and they said the election would be decided tonight (although when Evans asked one question I asked each of them - if you had a choice of seeing your opponent win, or having the process dragged out as badly or worse than it was in 2000, which would you choose - Evans said the country survived the 2000 process quite nicely, thus scaring the shinola out of me).

So, if Gore’s Law predicts a decision tonight, what are the augurs about who?

— On the ground at mid-day, we have the Miami Herald’s reports of the voting going surprisingly quickly and smoothly in Florida (sure it is: those touch-pad machines are actually just modified Speak & Spell toys for children - the votes aren’t being recorded at all). Craig Crawford said last night that the early exit polling from Florida saw heavy Democratic voting, which surprised both of us, and when Secretary Evans reported that his party would have the greatest get-out-the-vote-effort in history, John Harwood of The Wall Street Journal said “they’d better” because if they don’t, the Democrats will.

— We have the late ruling of the Ohio Appeals Court, voting 2-1 along party lines to let the Republican Piranha Lawyers back in to the polling places to challenge anybody named Dick Tracy or Mary Poppins who shows up, having been enrolled by the guy who claims he got paid in crack cocaine. Does anybody besides me find that entire story just too perfect to be true?

— We have the last set of pre-voting numbers from Zogby. It’s kind of close. As of 5 PM yesterday he has Bush at 252 Electoral Votes and Kerry at 252, with only Pennsylvania (21 votes) and Virginia (14 votes) outstanding - and each state tied. That bodes poorly for Gore’s Law - although I have no idea if Zogby has yet applied the Carter Corollary that he himself pushed so hard once Kerry had sealed the Democratic nomination, namely that the undecideds always break against the incumbent.

The top supporting evidence for Gore’s Law is of course Sunday’s application of The Redskin Rule. I wrote it about it here at (probably too great) length, and then the Kerry-Edwards campaign got it wrong while boasting it. In short, in the 17 elections since the football team became the Redskins, its last home game before the vote has presaged the presidential outcome. Redskins win, and the incumbent party retains the White House; Redskins lose, and the challengers take over. The Redskins lost on Sunday, 28-14, to the Green Bay Packers in a game that even came complete with a rallying Washington touchdown called back due to a penalty flag thrown by Celebrity Referee Antonin Scalia.

You know, that joke killed at Democracy Plaza on Sunday.

Immediately after the Green Bay victory, somebody in the Kerry-Edwards camp issued an overwrought news release, complete with an overwrought quote attributed to the candidate, claiming that the streak dated back to Herbert Hoover and Herbert Hoover lost all those jobs and so did George Bush and Herbert Hoover then lost his job and so will George Bush.

Down, Sparky!

The Redskin Rule dates back not to 1932 (Hoover) but 1936 (Alf Landon). In 1932, the franchise, then still called The Boston Football Braves, actually won its last home game, against The Staten Island Stapletons (yes, Staten Island had an NFL team), which should have predicted Hoover retaining the White House, not losing it.

I do all this research about this thus-far infallible forecaster and you guys don’t bother to read it?

Anyway, the Redskin Rule says nothing about margin of victory, length of election, or the beneficiary understanding it and not keeping his big bazoo closed long enough to avoid possibly jinxing it. So, if it doesn’t work this time, John Kerry has nobody to blamebut himself.

Got something to say? E-mail me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

• October 31, 2004 | 9:47 a.m. ET

Of Rehearals and Reelections (Keith Olbermann)

NEW YORK - After six months telling us that Tuesday is going to be tighter than Britney Spears’ pants, the murmurs from the cognoscenti during our MSNBC election rehearsal last night reflected a much older conventional wisdom: that incumbents never have tight elections, win or lose.

The bigger-margin-than-we-thought talk was not the result of the rehearsal. For the pure purposes of practicing, elaborate story lines are created (for the paranoid of both parties, it’s your worst fear come true: the same people who’ll bring you the election results are making stuff up on-camera). But even these were relatively balanced from a smorgasboard of scenarios: a big Kerry win, a big Bush win, lines of thousands waiting to vote and polling hours extended in a swing state, early reports of voters being blocked from the polling places - all that good juicy political science fiction stuff that, if we had been thinking, we should have recorded, edited down, and sold as a DVD.

No, the “somebody by 30 Electoral votes” talk was history itself speaking: the Clinton and Reagan second-term victories, the Bush 41 and especially the Carter defeats. Carter’s was invoked because on the Friday before it, the 1980 election looked as tight as, well, to adjust the cultural reference, Cher’s pants, yet Reagan wound up walking away on Tuesday. The theory goes that by now, the electorate has pretty much made its mind up on the incumbent: they either want him back or they don’t.

The benefit of the large-margin doubt talk seemed to be mostly in the President’s favor, and I have to assume that has to do with the Osama Bin Laden tape from Friday. I follow the logic - there is a significant tide of terror anxiety prevalent among the proverbial Soccer Moms (that’s why otherwise Democratic-controlled New Jersey is believed to be in play).

But I guess what I don’t follow is the logic of the Soccer Moms.

I saw or read nearly the entirety of the Bin Laden tape and it’s the damnedest one yet. I can’t understand how it could be viewed as being beneficial to Mr. Bush. On a fundamental level, it’s clearly recently-recorded - the Ramadan reference suggests maybe as late as a week ago - and he’s clearly alive and healthy. I can’t imagine that among the Soccer Moms and the others dismissing all other issues to focus their vote solely on the terror threat, that one of the other primal reactions in their synapses wouldn’t be “Umm, how come we haven’t caught him yet? Who’s in charge of that?”

And to anybody who listened to the madman’s comments had to feel perversely liberated. Unless the tape was an elaborate, subtle feint to suddenly get this country to let it’s guard down (a very poor bet, to say nothing of exhibiting nuanced psychological planning in which the terrorists have shown no prior interest whatsoever) - Al-Qaeda’s sole intervention in this election will have turned out to be its head gangster to announcing that it didn’t really matter to him who anybody voted for, because the re-election of Bush or the election of Kerry wasn’t going to impact how Al-Qaeda wants to impact us.

This has to, in some minds anyway, have reduced the apocalyptic anticipations which the Bush-Cheney campaign has repeatedly invoked. Bin Laden may not be one for subtle actions, but it can’t have been accidental that he appeared without his trademark sub-machine gun. It’s not like he forgot it back in the cave. Don’t get me wrong on this: I’m not buying his explanations nor his posture as a borderline-sane geo-politician. But those intentions were clear. That was a policy speech. In his lunacy, he probably thought it was statesmanship.

I may be wildly wrong about its impact in the days before this election. It may very well be that the It-Helps-Bush crowd is right, that the knee jerk reaction will certify the re-election: There’s Osama, Better Keep Bush. Back in my sports days when people asked me for a prediction on a game I used to be smart enough to invoke the great sportscaster Red Barber’s standard reply: If I knew in advance who’d win, they wouldn’t have to bother playing the game, would they?

But I’m covering news now, therefore I am dumber.

And I think the political analysts have forgotten to examine the psychology of an electorate under the stress of war and fear. For the longest time, even when Mr. Bush’s approval ratings were at their apex in the post-Afghanistan and immediate post-Saddam periods, I kept wondering if he wouldn’t fall victim to the Winston Churchill effect.

Mid-20th Century British politics aren’t taught much in American schools any more, but it has fascinated me always that in the spring of 1945, with Hitler dead, England’s gamble to fight the Nazis having been vindicated, and his own gallantry and leadership acclaimed universally, that the British promptly voted Churchill out of office in favor of a first-time Prime Minister in Clement Attlee. It astonished Churchill, and British pollsters, and world leaders in general.

There were many factors - the country clamored for universal health care (sound familiar?) and Churchill loathed the concept. But I always wished someone had conducted an exit poll, not with statisticians or political volunteers, but with psychologists. I continue to wonder if the British voters, in the brief quietude of their voting booths, hadn’t looked at Churchill’s name and seen not just victory, but also death and destruction and most of all anxiety, and if they hadn’t said “Thanks for getting us through that, Buddy. We’d like to forget that now. Bye bye.”

What will sound more loudly in the psyches of more voters on Tuesday? The idea that terrorists are still an extraordinary threat, or the idea that George Bush’s presidency, whether through his fault or merely by the circumstances of history, has been a time of stress and death and war and falling skyscrapers and terror color codes - things we may or may not be personally able to alter or impact in any way - but which we really wish would just go away.

When offered an incumbent for a second term, a country has always tended to decide not just on a man, but also on an era. I’ve wondered for two years if the Americans of our time would choose - rightly or wrongly, thoughtfully or naively - to ask Mr. Bush to go away, and take the years 2001-2004 with him.

The history of the large margins for or against an incumbent with which I started these meanderings, and which we’ll address in a special Sunday edition of Countdown tonight, includes FDR and Abraham Lincoln. It’s a shocking fact to look at the 1944 vote, in the midst of a World War the necessity and conduct of which few had any doubts, and see that Roosevelt gained a fourth term by only 53-46 over Thomas E. Dewey.

And as to our greatest war-time leader, the history books show Lincoln having handled General George McLellan pretty easily in 1864, 55-45. Less easily remembered is that as late as that August, Lincoln was certain he wouldn’t be returned to office, his greatest media ally Horace Greeley wrote of how the nation begged for peace at any price, and that leaders in his own party were calculating if there was still time to nominate another candidate.

People wanted it to all go away.

And then Sherman captured Atlanta.

The videotape may remind voters, perhaps in a deeply subconscious way, that Mr. Bush has not made Osama Bin Laden go away, and there doesn’t seem to be an Atlanta on the schedule between now and Tuesday night.

Thoughts? email me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

• October 29, 2004| 11:13 a.m. ET

Election to be decided Sunday (Keith Olbermann)

New York— Well, so much for saving the Bill O’Reilly tapes. We got up to about $175,000 in your pledges (excuse me for a 1970ism, but how far out is that?) but we couldn’t top Bill O’Reilly, who may have paid a year’s salary ($2M-$10M, says The New York Daily News) to keep the tapes from showing up at Tower Records. We’ll have to settle for those lovely transcripts and the knowledge that you can never get all the toothpaste back in the tube, nor all the soap out of the loofah.

We now rejoin the election, already in progress.

And, as teased here these last two days, we might be told Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, or not until January 15th, but, if history holds, we will know by around 4 p.m. EST Sunday who will be president next year. There are many irrelevant indicators out there on which to hang a forecast (the NASCAR dads, the stock market, Robert Novak), but to my knowledge only one logical fallacy has stood the test of time. So here goes.

By definition, the logical fallacy, of course is simply this: Event A occurs. Then Event B occurs. Therefore, Event A caused Event B. Obviously, it’s simply not true. Nonetheless, when the presidential election is this close, we look for anything and everything that might predict the outcome— whether common-sense or logically fallacious.

And as logical fallacies go, we are privileged to have a doozy, one that seems to have correctly predicted the last seventeen Presidential Elections.

Terror? The economy? The incumbent’s final rating in the Gallup poll? Turnout in Ohio?

Nope.

It’s the Washington Redskins.

The football team with the politically incorrect name has been anything but incorrect in presaging which party will win the White House. The franchise began its life in Boston in 1932, when George Preston Marshall bought a dormant team that had gone belly-up in Newark. Originally named after the baseball team in town— the Braves— they were re-christened the Redskins in 1933, and thus it would not be until November 1st, 1936, that the ‘Skins played their first game during an election season.

In their last game home before the vote, the Boston Redskins beat the Chicago Cardinals 13 to 10. And two days later, Franklin Roosevelt was reelected president. By the time FDR ran again in 1940, Marshall had moved the Redskins to Griffith Stadium in Washington. And, again, in their last home game before that election, the Redskins beat Pittsburgh 37-10, and Roosevelt was returned to office.

On November 5th, 1944, it was Cleveland at Washington. Redskins won 14-10. Two days later, Roosevelt was re-re-reelected. And four years later, they repeated the trick, preceding Harry Truman’s unexpected holding of the White House for the Democrats. The Redskins were now 4-0 in their “election day games”— and so were the Democrats.

But on November 2nd, 1952, the Redskins, in their last home game before the vote, lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers 24-23. And days later, Democrat Adlai Stevenson lost the presidency to Dwight Eisenhower. In '56, it was a pre-election home victory for Washington, and a re-election for Ike.

And in 1960, the tanking Redskins were clobbered in that last home game before the vote, by Cleveland, by 21 points. Nine days later, it was John F. Kennedy over Richard Nixon, by about 21 votes. And by now, the pattern had emerged. If the Redskins won their final home game before a presidential election, the incumbent party kept the White House. If the Redskins lost that game, so did the party in power.

And this, remarkably, has held up:

1964: Skins 27, Bears 20. Lyndon Johnson retains the office.

1968: Washington loses the last home game before the vote, to the New York Giants. The Democrats fall out of power, in favor of Richard Nixon

1972: Skins win; so does Nixon.

1976: Washington loses to Dallas; Republican Gerald Ford loses to Democrat Jimmy Carter.

1980: They lose again; Carter loses to Republican Ronald Reagan.

1984: Washington wins, Reagan wins again.

1988: Washington wins, George W. Bush wins.

1992: Washington loses to the Giants 24 to 7, and the incumbent party is bounced again: Bush out, Clinton in.

1996: Clinton's re-election is foretold: the Redskins win their final home game before the vote, against Indianapolis.

Going into the Bush-Gore race of 2000, the outcome of Washington's last home game before the election had coincided perfectly for 16 consecutive games, and 16 consecutive elections: 10 Redskins wins, each of which is followed by the incumbent president and/or party retaining the office, and six Redskins losses, each of which is followed by the incumbent president and/or party losing the office.

On October 30th, 2000, the Washington Redskins, with, to that point, 6 victories and 2 losses, hosted the Tennessee Titans, who had 6 victories and 1 loss. In betting circles it was a virtual toss-up, with a slight edge to Washington because it was playing at home. The Redskins scored first and led 7-0, giving an early hint that the Democrats would retain the White House. But Tennessee rallied to go in front 20-7, and hold on for a 27-21 win. It’s a six-point victory, and, six weeks later, a five-electoral-vote victory for George W. Bush— of the party that had been out of office, the Republicans.

Now it would be really spooky if those 17 games had all surprises, upsets as they call them. I was disappointed to find, after having gone back and calculated won-lost records and intangibles, that, in fact, all but three times the Redskins were favored to win and did, or they were expected to lose and did. Then again, how many elections in that same span have really been upsets? Truman, anecdotally if not truly; maybe Reagan over Carter, probably Bush over Gore— and no, the Redskins’ game upsets do not perfectly coincide with the election upsets.

Still, it's some streak. The Redskins have played home games before 17 Presidential Elections, and only 17 Presidential Elections, and their results have easily and without qualification forecast the outcomes of all 17.

And now for the 64-billion dollar question. When is/was the Redskins’ last game before this year's election? The one in which the prophecy says, if they win, George Bush is re-elected, and, if they lose, John Kerry takes office? It’s Sunday, against the Green Bay Packers, who’ve won two in a row. Who play in Lambeau Field— which Senator Kerry infamously misidentified earlier in the campaign as Lambert Field. The Redskins, meanwhile, have already suffered a four-game losing streak and found that the return of Coach Joe Gibbs (himself a NASCAR owner and presumably a NASCAR dad) has not been the panacea Washington sports fans always expect as if it was an unfunded federal mandate.

Oddsmakers favor Green Bay by two or two-and-a-half points, which, as any politician— or football gambler— can tell you, is well inside the margin of error.

But this is an ironclad sports tradition:

Skins win, incumbents stay in;

Skins lose, incumbents are old news.

An ironclad sports tradition, just like the fact that in 122 years of post-season competition, no baseball team has ever come back from down three-nothing to win a playoff series.

Oh, wait— didn’t somebody just do that?

Email me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

New Standards for Elections
By The New York Times.

1. A holiday for voting. It's wrong for working people to be forced to choose between standing in a long line to vote and being on time for work. Election Day should be a holiday, to underscore the significance of the event, to give all voters time to cast ballots and to free up more qualified people to serve as poll workers.

2. Early voting. In states that permit it, early voting encourages people to turn out by letting them vote at times that are convenient for them. And it gives election officials and outside groups more time to react to voting problems ranging from faulty voting machines to voter intimidation.

3. Improved electronic voting. For voters to trust electronic voting, there must be a voter-verified paper record of every vote cast, and mandatory recounts of a reasonable percentage of the votes. The computer code should be provided to election officials, and made public so it can be widely reviewed. There should be spot-checks of the software being used on Election Day, as there are of slot machines in Nevada, to ensure that the software in use matches what is on file with election officials.

4. Shorter lines at the polls. Forcing voters to wait five hours, as some did this year, is unreasonable, and it disenfranchises those who cannot afford the wait. There should be standards for the number of voting machines and poll workers per 100 voters, to ensure that waiting times are reasonable and uniform from precinct to precinct.

5. Impartial election administrators. Partisan secretaries of state routinely issued rulings this year that favored their parties and themselves. Decisions about who can vote and how votes will be counted should be made by officials who are not running for higher office or supporting any candidates. Voting machine manufacturers and their employees, and companies that handle ballots, should not endorse or contribute to political candidates.

6. Uniform and inclusive voter registration standards. Registration forms should be simplified, so no one is again disenfranchised for failing to check a superfluous box, as occurred this year in Florida, or for not using heavy enough paper, as occurred in Ohio. The rules should be geared to getting as many qualified voters as possible on the rolls.

7. Accurate and transparent voting roll purges. This year, Florida once again conducted a flawed and apparently partisan purge of its rolls, and went to court to try to keep it secret. There should be clear standards for how purges are done that are made public in advance. Names that are due to be removed should be published, and posted online, well in advance of Election Day.

8. Uniform and voter-friendly standards for counting provisional ballots. A large number of provisional ballots cast by registered voters were thrown out this year because they were handed in at the wrong precinct. There should be a uniform national rule that such ballots count.

9. Upgraded voting machines and improved ballot design. Incredibly, more than 70 percent of the Ohio vote was cast on the infamous punch card ballots, which produce chads and have a high error rate. States should shift to better machines, ideally optical scans, which combine the efficiency of computers and the reliability of a voter-verified paper record. Election officials should get professional help to design ballots that are intuitive and clear, and minimize voter error.

10. Fair and uniform voter ID rules. No voter should lose his right to vote because he is required to produce identification he does not have. ID requirements should allow for an expansive array of acceptable identification. The rules should be posted at every polling place, and poll workers should be carefully trained so no one is turned away, as happened repeatedly this year, for not having ID that was not legally required.

11. An end to minority vote suppression. Protections need to be put in place to prevent Election Day challengers from turning away qualified minority voters or slowing down voting in minority precincts. More must be done to stop the sort of dirty tricks that are aimed at minority voters every year, like fliers distributed in poor neighborhoods warning that people with outstanding traffic tickets are ineligible to vote. Laws barring former felons from voting, which disproportionately disenfranchise minorities, should be rescinded.

12. Improved absentee ballot procedures. Voters outside of their states, including military voters, have a right to receive absentee ballots in a timely fashion, which did not always happen this year. Absentee ballots should be widely available for downloading over the Internet. Voters should not be asked, as military voters were this year, to send their ballots by fax lines or e-mail, denying them a secret ballot.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/opinion/07sun1.html

New Standards for Elections

Published: November 7, 2004

The 2004 election may not have an asterisk next to it the way the 2000 election does, but the mechanics of our democracy remained badly flawed. From untrustworthy electronic voting machines, to partisan secretaries of state, to outrageously long lines at the polls, the election system was far from what voters are entitled to.

It's patently obvious that presidential elections, at least, should be conducted under uniform rules. Voters in Alaska and Texas should not have different levels of protection when it comes to their right to cast a ballot and have it counted. It's ridiculous that citizens who vote in one place have to show picture ID while others do not, that a person who accidentally walks into the wrong polling place can cast a provisional ballot that will be counted in one state but thrown out in another. States may have the right to set their own standards for local elections, but picking the president is a national enterprise.

This is obviously a job for Congress, and it deserves the same kind of persistent, intense lobbying effort that reformers have given the issue of campaign finance. But improvements by the states may be easier to achieve, and will clearly help prod Congress by their good example. Advocates should push every level of government to be part of the solution:

1. A holiday for voting. It's wrong for working people to be forced to choose between standing in a long line to vote and being on time for work. Election Day should be a holiday, to underscore the significance of the event, to give all voters time to cast ballots and to free up more qualified people to serve as poll workers.

2. Early voting. In states that permit it, early voting encourages people to turn out by letting them vote at times that are convenient for them. And it gives election officials and outside groups more time to react to voting problems ranging from faulty voting machines to voter intimidation.

3. Improved electronic voting. For voters to trust electronic voting, there must be a voter-verified paper record of every vote cast, and mandatory recounts of a reasonable percentage of the votes. The computer code should be provided to election officials, and made public so it can be widely reviewed. There should be spot-checks of the software being used on Election Day, as there are of slot machines in Nevada, to ensure that the software in use matches what is on file with election officials.

4. Shorter lines at the polls. Forcing voters to wait five hours, as some did this year, is unreasonable, and it disenfranchises those who cannot afford the wait. There should be standards for the number of voting machines and poll workers per 100 voters, to ensure that waiting times are reasonable and uniform from precinct to precinct.

5. Impartial election administrators. Partisan secretaries of state routinely issued rulings this year that favored their parties and themselves. Decisions about who can vote and how votes will be counted should be made by officials who are not running for higher office or supporting any candidates. Voting machine manufacturers and their employees, and companies that handle ballots, should not endorse or contribute to political candidates.

6. Uniform and inclusive voter registration standards. Registration forms should be simplified, so no one is again disenfranchised for failing to check a superfluous box, as occurred this year in Florida, or for not using heavy enough paper, as occurred in Ohio. The rules should be geared to getting as many qualified voters as possible on the rolls.

7. Accurate and transparent voting roll purges. This year, Florida once again conducted a flawed and apparently partisan purge of its rolls, and went to court to try to keep it secret. There should be clear standards for how purges are done that are made public in advance. Names that are due to be removed should be published, and posted online, well in advance of Election Day.

page 2

8. Uniform and voter-friendly standards for counting provisional ballots. A large number of provisional ballots cast by registered voters were thrown out this year because they were handed in at the wrong precinct. There should be a uniform national rule that such ballots count.

9. Upgraded voting machines and improved ballot design. Incredibly, more than 70 percent of the Ohio vote was cast on the infamous punch card ballots, which produce chads and have a high error rate. States should shift to better machines, ideally optical scans, which combine the efficiency of computers and the reliability of a voter-verified paper record. Election officials should get professional help to design ballots that are intuitive and clear, and minimize voter error.

10. Fair and uniform voter ID rules. No voter should lose his right to vote because he is required to produce identification he does not have. ID requirements should allow for an expansive array of acceptable identification. The rules should be posted at every polling place, and poll workers should be carefully trained so no one is turned away, as happened repeatedly this year, for not having ID that was not legally required.

11. An end to minority vote suppression. Protections need to be put in place to prevent Election Day challengers from turning away qualified minority voters or slowing down voting in minority precincts. More must be done to stop the sort of dirty tricks that are aimed at minority voters every year, like fliers distributed in poor neighborhoods warning that people with outstanding traffic tickets are ineligible to vote. Laws barring former felons from voting, which disproportionately disenfranchise minorities, should be rescinded.

12. Improved absentee ballot procedures. Voters outside of their states, including military voters, have a right to receive absentee ballots in a timely fashion, which did not always happen this year. Absentee ballots should be widely available for downloading over the Internet. Voters should not be asked, as military voters were this year, to send their ballots by fax lines or e-mail, denying them a secret ballot.

This year's election, thankfully, did not end in the kind of breakdown we witnessed in 2000. But that was because of luck. There were many places in the country where, if the vote had been closer, scrutiny of the election process would have produced the same sort of consternation. In a closely divided political world, we cannot depend on a margin for error when it comes to counting votes. We have four years now to make things right.

Making Votes Count: Editorials in this series remain online at nytimes.com/makingvotescount.

Update 9:52 pm: In re-reading this, a thought occurs to me: Can anyone help me out with some data supporting the numbers in the second paragraph? Thx! - lisa

Someone emailed this to me, and I thought it was interesting.

It was written by Carl Dix, the National Spokesperson of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, and a cofounder of the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality.

It reads like it was written before or during the election, rather than afterwards.

We disagree on the point that I do believe that voting Bush out of office is a postivie step in the right direction. Or would have been...or will be...or, well, you get the picture.

Another Stolen Election? -- Time For Serious Resistance!
by Carl Dix

Black people have had to fight fiercely for every gain. From slave revolts down thru people being killed just for trying to register to vote, every step of the way has been marked by struggle to force the authorities to grant basic rights. Now today the right to vote is being snatched back from many Black and Latino people.

Am I exaggerating? Not one bit. Earlier this year, Florida's Secretary of State issued a list of 47,000 "felons" who would be ineligible to vote. Most of them were Black. Florida was forced to make the list public, and it was found to contain thousands of errors, including having hundreds of people who were listed as being convicted in the future. This is on top of the 94,000 people, again mostly Black, who were stricken from the voting rolls by a similarly error filled list in 2000, most of whom have not still not been put back on the voting lists!

Ohio is using an old state law about the kind of paper voter registrations must be on to invalidate newly registered Black voters. The Republican Party has lined up thousands of "poll watchers," who are really political thugs, to challenge Latinos and Blacks to present proof that they are citizens or that they live in the precinct they're voting in on election day. This is another rerun of 2000 when some "poll watchers" wore shirts that falsely implied they were federal police to intimidate people from even trying to vote. Additionally, corporations tied to the Republicans have made electronic voting machines that leave no way to check the accuracy of their count that will be used in states across the country.

All this is on top of the way the criminal injustice system works to criminalize Black and Latino people. Youth of color are routinely jacked up by the cops, beaten down and arrested for nothing more than being the wrong color or having been in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is part of the reason why half of the two million people in jail in the US are Black.

Bush and company are out to disenfranchise millions of Black and other minority voters. THIS POINTS TO THE PROSPECT OF A STOLEN ELECTION IN 2004.
This is what the Republicans did in 2000, and the Democrats let them get away with it. They didn't build a fight to stop it and stood in the way of others who wanted to fight it. Things must be different this time. There must be massive resistance to any and all attempts by Bush and company to steal the presidency again!

Another Stolen Election? -- Time For Serious Resistance!
by Carl Dix

Black people have had to fight fiercely for every gain. From slave revolts down thru people being killed just for trying to register to vote, every step of the way has been marked by struggle to force the authorities to grant basic rights. Now today the right to vote is being snatched back from many Black and Latino people.

Am I exaggerating? Not one bit. Earlier this year, Florida's Secretary of State issued a list of 47,000 "felons" who would be ineligible to vote. Most of them were Black. Florida was forced to make the list public, and it was found to contain thousands of errors, including having hundreds of people who were listed as being convicted in the future. This is on top of the 94,000 people, again mostly Black, who were stricken from the voting rolls by a similarly error filled list in 2000, most of whom have not still not been put back on the voting lists!

Ohio is using an old state law about the kind of paper voter registrations must be on to invalidate newly registered Black voters. The Republican Party has lined up thousands of "poll watchers," who are really political thugs, to challenge Latinos and Blacks to present proof that they are citizens or that they live in the precinct they're voting in on election day. This is another rerun of 2000 when some "poll watchers" wore shirts that falsely implied they were federal police to intimidate people from even trying to vote. Additionally, corporations tied to the Republicans have made electronic voting machines that leave no way to check the accuracy of their count that will be used in states across the country.
All this is on top of the way the criminal injustice system works to criminalize Black and Latino people. Youth of color are routinely jacked up by the cops, beaten down and arrested for nothing more than being the wrong color or having been in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is part of the reason why half of the two million people in jail in the US are Black.

Bush and company are out to disenfranchise millions of Black and other minority voters. THIS POINTS TO THE PROSPECT OF A STOLEN ELECTION IN 2004.
This is what the Republicans did in 2000, and the Democrats let them get away with it. They didn't build a fight to stop it and stood in the way of others who wanted to fight it. Things must be different this time. There must be massive resistance to any and all attempts by Bush and company to steal the presidency again!

Much is at stake. Bush and company have set the country on a dangerous course--a "War On Terror" (WOT), which is really a power move aimed at keeping the US the dominant imperialist power in the world. It includes the illegitimate, immoral and illegal occupation of Iraq, an intensifying repressive clamp down in the US and the promise of more wars and more repression for generations to come. The attempts to steal the election thru thuggery and manipulating the vote count is an extension of the fascist direction they have the country on. Many, many people are agonizing over what can and must be done to stop all this.

As a revolutionary communist, I have to say that voting Bush out isn't going to reverse this direction. Kerry and the Democrats provide no answer to this. The terms on which this election is being fought out don't include should the US occupy Iraq or not, or should the repressive laws and policies be reversed. Instead the terms for this election come down to who would be the better commander in chief for the WOT! People who want to vote against the occupation, can't do that. People who want to vote against the USA PATRIOT Act in this election can't do that either. That's why I say the will of the people cannot and will not be exercised in this election.

We can't rely on the Democrats to lead the fight to stop Bush and his crew from stealing this election. We have to take the initiative into our hands and rely on ourselves to win this fight. The Republican Party will have its thousands of poll watching thugs at voting sites nationwide. They must be met by thousands of determined people in the streets declaring that they will not sit by while Bush steals another election. There must be massive resistance to this and to the whole agenda Bush and company have set in motion.

And we need to go beyond resistance. It's going to take revolution, millions of people rising up to overthrow this imperialist ruling class and going on to build a whole new society in place of this one to solve all the problems this system forces countless millions in the US and millions more worldwide to endure once and for all. There is leadership that exists to lead the masses in doing just that. Bob Avakian, the chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party has analyzed the accomplishments and shortcomings of previous revolutionary societies and developed a vision of how to make revolution and how to involve the masses of people in building a new society after seizing power. A society that is no longer dominated by a rich capitalist class, where whites no longer lord it over people of color and men no longer dominate women. Avakian is addressing all the questions that would confront us in preparing for and making revolution here in the belly of the beast, as we used to put it in the 1960'S. (Interested readers can find writings by Avakian at http://www.bobavakian.net)

The ballot box has never been where the direction of the country has been decided. Nor has it been where issues of major concern for the people have been decided. But it is intolerable that Bush and company are trying to steal this election. It is a reflection of how serious things are in the US that they can't even allow the election to go down without the group in power trying to rig the result. This can't be allowed to happen. It must be met with determined resistance.
* * *
CARL DIX is a longtime revolutionary political activist. Carl is the National Spokesperson of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, and a cofounder of the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality. A Vietnam-era veteran, Carl was one of the Fort Lewis 6 active duty GI's who refused orders to Vietnam. To can contact Carl, e-mail him at:comradecarl@hotmail.com or call (866) 841-9139 x2670.

Even though I personally feel that Nader should have dropped out of the election the day before, at least he has the guts to ask for a recount.

No word yet on any response from the GAO to the letter sent on Friday by three Democratic congressmen requesting a formal investigation.

The complete letter is included below (underneath the quote that goes with this story).

Nader requests N.H. vote recount
By Kevin Landrigan for the Telegraph Online.

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader requested a hand recount of ballots in New Hampshire after getting seven-tenths of 1 percent of the vote.

“We have received reports of irregularities in the vote reported on the AccuVote Diebold Machines in comparison to exit polls and trends in voting in New Hampshire,’’ Nader wrote.

“These irregularities favor President George W. Bush by 5 percent to 15 percent over what was expected. Problems in these electronic voting machines and optical scanners are being reported in machines in a variety of states.’’

Nader’s recount request came in as a fax at 4:59 p.m., one minute before the deadline.

The application is not legal, however, because it did not come with payment, according to Assistant Attorney General Bud Fitch.

“At this point, we aren’t considering it to be a valid request,’’ he said.

Anyone who loses by more than 1 percent of the vote has to pay for a recount, he said, noting the cost statewide could be $80,000.

Nader can appeal that decision to the state Ballot Law Commission...

Gardner said his staff intends to meet today to schedule the 14 recounts that were legally requested - three state Senate elections and 11 for seats in the 400-person House of Representatives.

The recounts requested on Friday included Hillsborough County District 27, the Hudson-Litchfield-Pelham district that elected 13 representatives on Tuesday.

Hudson Democrat Donna Marie Marceau requested the recount after finishing 32 votes away from the 13th-place finisher.

Here's the letter that Nader faxed over:

November 5, 2004

Via fax: 603-271-6316

To The Secretary of State of New Hampshire:

The Nader/Camejo campaign requests a hand recount of the ballots in the
presidential election in New Hampshire. Numerous voting rights activists have
requested that we seek a recount of this vote.

We have received reports of irregularities in the vote reported on the
AccuVote Diebold Machines in comparison to exit polls and trends in voting in New
Hampshire. These irregularities favor President George W. Bush by 5% to 15% over
what was expected. Problems in these electronic voting machines and optical
scanners are being reported in machines in a variety of states.
We are requesting that the state undertake this recount or a statistically
significant sample audit of these vote counts.
We would like to make sure every vote counts and is counted accurately.

Sincerely,
Ralph Nader

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041106/NEWS02/111060040/-1/news

Nader requests N.H. vote recount

By KEVIN LANDRIGAN, Telegraph Staff
landrigank@telegraph-nh.com
Published: Saturday, Nov. 6, 2004

CONCORD - Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader requested a hand recount of ballots in New Hampshire after getting seven-tenths of 1 percent of the vote.

“We have received reports of irregularities in the vote reported on the AccuVote Diebold Machines in comparison to exit polls and trends in voting in New Hampshire,’’ Nader wrote.

“These irregularities favor President George W. Bush by 5 percent to 15 percent over what was expected. Problems in these electronic voting machines and optical scanners are being reported in machines in a variety of states.’’

Nader’s recount request came in as a fax at 4:59 p.m., one minute before the deadline.

The application is not legal, however, because it did not come with payment, according to Assistant Attorney General Bud Fitch.

“At this point, we aren’t considering it to be a valid request,’’ he said.

Anyone who loses by more than 1 percent of the vote has to pay for a recount, he said, noting the cost statewide could be $80,000.

Nader can appeal that decision to the state Ballot Law Commission.

Two years ago, the commission agreed to go forward with a recount for a legislative seat after a losing candidate tried to fax a copy of the check to pay for the recount.

Secretary of State Bill Gardner said a Nader official told him the campaign tried to fax a copy of the check to pay for the recount but it jammed.

“If they appeal, it’s up to the Ballot Law Commission to settle this,’’ Gardner said.

Fitch said he had been in contact with Nader campaign officials throughout Friday to inform them of the recount requirements.

In the request, Nader said he wants either a full recount or a “statistically significant sample audit’’ of these vote counts.

“We would like to make sure every vote counts and is counted accurately,’’ Nader wrote.

Gardner said his staff intends to meet today to schedule the 14 recounts that were legally requested - three state Senate elections and 11 for seats in the 400-person House of Representatives.

The recounts requested on Friday included Hillsborough County District 27, the Hudson-Litchfield-Pelham district that elected 13 representatives on Tuesday.

Hudson Democrat Donna Marie Marceau requested the recount after finishing 32 votes away from the 13th-place finisher.
Kevin Landrigan can be reached at 224-8804 or landrigank@telegraph-nh.com.

This is from the November 8, 2004 program.

Amy Goodman's Interview With Bev Harris from blackboxvoting.org and Aviel Rubin from Johns Hopkins University (Real Stream) (Ogg (50 MB), MP3 28MB)

Bev Harris is the creator of blackboxvoting.org and the one spearheading a huge Freedom Of Information Act request for election information.

Aviel Rubin of John Hopkins University is the one who wrote the highly respected and virtually unchallenged white paper,
Analysis of an Electronic Voting System, which detailed the insecurities of electronic voting machines.

(Thanks, Joel!)

I found the "Political Capital" Shrub speech I and others were looking for (Thanks Hetty).

There are Windows and Real clips available, but nothing you can download.

I'd still prefer a copy from one of you so keep looking everybody, ok?

There's also a transcription available ("More" below).

It's even more frightening to read it in print.

Apparently, he's enjoying himself madly. (Emphasis on madly.)

How can he laugh and crack jokes when he's going Roman on Fallujah, killing thousands of innocents, and sending 10,000 of our troops to their death in the process?

He's also decided that our "Free Press" only needs to have one question answered at a time now.

He also hasn't bothered to figure out how much the war will cost, or how many troops it's going to take to do the job.

Incredible that he hasn't felt the need to do President work while campaigning while we're casually at War on the other side of the globe. The War's like a back drop to him. Like "Made In America."

He's also lying about when he says that he hasn't heard from anyone in the army that they need more troops. They've been saying that since before we made our first attack. The estimates were 200-300,000 soldiers would be needed to do the jjob. (It's all in the Rumsfeld's War program on PBS's Frontline.

Q Would you like it? Now that the political volatility is off the issue because the election is over, I'd like to ask you about troop levels in Iraq in the next couple of months leading up to elections. The Pentagon already has a plan to extend tours of duty for some 6,500 U.S. troops. How many more will be needed to provide security in Iraq for elections, seeing as how the Iraqi troops that you're trying to train up are pretty slow coming on line?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, first of all, the -- we are making good progress in training the Iraqi troops. There will be 125,000 of them trained by election time. Secondly, I have yet to -- I have not sat down with our Secretary of Defense talking about troop levels. I read some reports during the course of the campaign where some were speculating in the press corps about the number of troops needed to protect elections. That has not been brought to my attention yet.

And so I would caution you that what you have either read about or reported was pure speculation thus far. These elections are important, and we will respond, John, to requests of our commanders on the ground. And I have yet to hear from our commanders on the ground that they need more troops...

Q Do you feel more free, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, in terms of feeling free, well, I don't think you'll let me be too free. There's accountability and there are constraints on the presidency, as there should be in any system. I feel -- I feel it is necessary to move an agenda that I told the American people I would move. Something refreshing about coming off an election, even more refreshing since we all got some sleep last night, but there's -- you go out and you make your case, and you tell the people this is what I intend to do. And after hundreds of speeches and three debates and interviews and the whole process, where you keep basically saying the same thing over and over again, that when you win, there is a feeling that the people have spoken and embraced your point of view, and that's what I intend to tell the Congress, that I made it clear what I intend to do as the President, now let's work to -- and the people made it clear what they wanted, now let's work together.

And it's one of the wonderful -- it's like earning capital. You asked, do I feel free. Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style. That's what happened in the -- after the 2000 election, I earned some capital. I've earned capital in this election -- and I'm going to spend it for what I told the people I'd spend it on, which is -- you've heard the agenda: Social Security and tax reform, moving this economy forward, education, fighting and winning the war on terror...

Listen, thank you all. I look forward to working with you. I've got a question for you. How many of you are going to be here for a second term? Please raise your hand. (Laughter.)

Good. Gosh, we're going to have a lot of fun, then. Thank you all.

Here is the full text of the webpage in case the administration decides to alter it in the future:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/11/20041104-5.html

President Holds Press Conference

video screen capture
multimedia

President's Remarks
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audio image listen

President George W. Bush holds a press conference in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building Thursday, Nov. 4, 2004. White House photo by Tina Hager. 11:17 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Please be seated. Yesterday I pledged to reach out to the whole nation, and today I'm proving that I'm willing to reach out to everybody by including the White House press corps.

This week the voters of America set the direction of our nation for the next four years. I'm honored by the support of my fellow citizens, and I'm ready for the job.

We are fighting a continuing war on terror, and every American has a stake in the outcome of this war. Republicans, Democrats and independents all love our country, and together we'll protect the American people. We will preserve -- we will persevere until the enemy is defeated. We will stay strong and resolute. We have a duty, a solemn duty to protect the American people, and we will.

Every civilized country also has a stake in the outcome of this war. Whatever our past disagreements, we share a common enemy. And we have common duties: to protect our peoples, to confront disease and hunger and poverty in troubled regions of the world. I'll continue to reach out to our friends and allies, our partners in the EU and NATO, to promote development and progress, to defeat the terrorists and to encourage freedom and democracy as alternatives to tyranny and terror.

I also look forward to working with the present Congress and the new Congress that will arrive in January. I congratulate the men and women who have just been elected to the House and the Senate. I will join with old friends and new friends to make progress for all Americans.

Congress will return later this month to finish this current session. I urge members to pass the appropriations bill that remain, showing spending discipline while focusing on our nation's priorities. Our government also needs the very best intelligence, especially in a time of war. So I urge the Congress to pass an effective intelligence reform bill that I can sign into law.

The new Congress that begins its work next year will have serious responsibilities and historic opportunities. To accelerate the momentum of this economy and to keep creating jobs, we must take practical measures to help our job creators, the entrepreneurs and the small business owners. We must confront the frivolous lawsuits that are driving up the cost of health care and hurting doctors and patients. We must continue the work of education reform, to bring high standards and accountability not just to our elementary and secondary schools, but to our high schools, as well.

We must reform our complicated and outdated tax code. We need to get rid of the needless paperwork that makes our economy -- that is a drag on our economy, to make sure our economy is the most competitive in the world.

We must show our leadership by strengthening Social Security for our children and our grandchildren. This is more than a problem to be solved; it is an opportunity to help millions of our fellow citizens find security and independence that comes from owning something, from ownership.

In the election of 2004, large issues were set before our country. They were discussed every day on the campaign. With the campaign over, Americans are expecting a bipartisan effort and results. I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals. And I'm eager to start the work ahead. I'm looking forward to serving this country for four more years.

I want to thank you all for your hard work in the campaign. I told you that the other day, and you probably thought I was just seeking votes. (Laughter.) But now that you voted, I really meant it. I appreciate the hard work of the press corps. We all put in long hours, and you're away from your families for a long period of time. But the country is better off when we have a vigorous and free press covering our elections. And thanks for your work. Without over-pandering, I'll answer a few questions. (Laughter.)

Hunt.

Q Mr. President -- thank you. As you look at your second term, how much is the war in Iraq going to cost? Do you intend to send more troops, or bring troops home? And in the Middle East, more broadly, do you agree with Tony Blair that revitalizing the Middle East peace process is the single most pressing political issue facing the world?

THE PRESIDENT: Now that I've got the will of the people at my back, I'm going to start enforcing the one-question rule. That was three questions. (Laughter.)

I'll start with Tony Blair's comments. I agree with him that the Middle East peace is a very important part of a peaceful world. I have been working on Middle Eastern peace ever since I've been the President. I've laid down some -- a very hopeful strategy on -- in June of 2002, and my hope is that we will make good progress. I think it's very important for our friends, the Israelis, to have a peaceful Palestinian state living on their border. And it's very important for the Palestinian people to have a peaceful, hopeful future. That's why I articulated a two-state vision in that Rose Garden speech. I meant it when I said it and I mean it now.

What was the other part of your question?

Q Iraq.

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, Iraq, yes. Listen, we will work with the Allawi government to achieve our objective, which is elections, on the path to stability, and we'll continue to train the troops. Our commanders will have that which they need to complete their missions.

And in terms of the cost, I -- we'll work with OMB and the Defense Department to bring forth to Congress a realistic assessment of what the cost will be.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. How will you go about bringing people together? Will you seek a consensus candidate for the Supreme Court if there's an opening? Will you bring some Democrats into your Cabinet?

THE PRESIDENT: Again, he violated the one-question rule right off the bat. Obviously, you didn't listen to the will of the people. But, first of all, there's no vacancy for the Supreme Court, and I will deal with a vacancy when there is one. And I told the people on the campaign trail that I'll pick somebody who knows the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law. You might have heard that several times. I meant what I said. And if people are interested in knowing the kind of judges I'll pick, look at the record. I've sent up a lot of judges, well-qualified people who know the law, who represent a judicial temperament that I agree with and who are qualified to hold the bench.

The second part of your two-part question?

Q Any Democrats to your Cabinet, by any chance?

THE PRESIDENT: I haven't made any decisions on the Cabinet, yet.

Q How else will you bring people together?

THE PRESIDENT: We'll put out an agenda that everybody understands and work with people to achieve the agenda. Democrats want a free and peaceful world, and we'll -- and right away, right after September the 11th we worked very closely together to secure our country. There is a common ground to be had when it comes to a foreign policy that says the most important objective is to protect the American people and spread freedom and democracy. It's common ground when it comes to making sure the intelligence services are able to provide good, actionable intelligence to protect our people. It's not a Republican issue, it's a Republican and Democrat issue. So I'm -- plenty of places for us to work together.

All right, Gregory.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. On foreign policy, more broadly, do you believe that America has an image problem in the world right now, because of your efforts and response to the 9/11 attacks? And, as you talked down the stretch about building alliances, talk about what you'll do to build on those alliances and to deal with these image problems, particularly in the Islamic world.

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that. Listen, I've made some very hard decisions: decisions to protect ourselves, decisions to spread peace and freedom. And I understand in certain capitals and certain countries, those decisions were not popular.

You know, you said -- you asked me to put that in the context of the response on September the 11th. The first response, of course, was chasing down the terror networks, which we will continue to do. And we've got great response around the world in order to do that. There's over 90 nations involved with sharing information, finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. That is a broad coalition, and we'll continue to strengthen it.

I laid out a doctrine, David, that said if you harbor terrorists, you're equally as guilty as the terrorists, and that doctrine was ignored by the Taliban, and we removed the Taliban. And I fully understand some people didn't agree with that decision. But I believe that when the American President speaks, he'd better mean what he says in order to keep the world peaceful. And I believe we have a solemn duty, whether or not people agree with it or not, to protect the American people. And the Taliban and their harboring of al Qaeda represented a direct threat to the American people.

And, of course, then the Iraq issue is one that people disagreed with. And there's no need to rehash my case, but I did so, I made the decision I made, in order to protect our country, first and foremost. I will continue to do that as the President. But as I do so, I will reach out to others and explain why I make the decisions I make.

There is a certain attitude in the world, by some, that says that it's a waste of time to try to promote free societies in parts of the world. I've heard that criticism. Remember, I went to London to talk about our vision of spreading freedom throughout the greater Middle East. And I fully understand that that might rankle some, and be viewed by some as folly. I just strongly disagree with those who do not see the wisdom of trying to promote free societies around the world.

If we are interested in protecting our country for the long-term, the best way to do so is to promote freedom and democracy. And I -- I simply do not agree with those who either say overtly or believe that certain societies cannot be free. It's just not a part of my thinking. And that's why during the course of the campaign, I was -- I believe I was able to connect, at least with those who were there, in explaining my policy, when I talked about the free election in Afghanistan.

There were -- there was doubt about whether or not those elections would go forward. I'm not suggesting any of you here expressed skepticism. But there was. There was deep skepticism, and -- because there is a attitude among some that certain people may never be free -- they just don't long to be free or incapable of running an election. And I disagree with that. And the Afghan people, by going to the polls in the millions, proved -- proved that this administration's faith in freedom to change peoples' habits is worthy. And that will be a central part of my foreign policy. And I've got work to do to explain to people about why that is a central part of our foreign policy. I've been doing that for four years.

But if you do not believe people can be free and can self-govern, then all of a sudden the two-state solution in the Middle East becomes a moot point, invalid. If you're willing to condemn a group of people to a system of government that hasn't worked, then you'll never be able to achieve the peace. You cannot lead this world and our country to a better tomorrow unless you see a better -- if you have a vision of a better tomorrow. And I've got one, based upon a great faith that people do want to be free and live in democracy.

John, and then I'll get to Terry. No follow-ups today, Gregory.

Q Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: I can see one -- yes.

Q Would you like it? Now that the political volatility is off the issue because the election is over, I'd like to ask you about troop levels in Iraq in the next couple of months leading up to elections. The Pentagon already has a plan to extend tours of duty for some 6,500 U.S. troops. How many more will be needed to provide security in Iraq for elections, seeing as how the Iraqi troops that you're trying to train up are pretty slow coming on line?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, first of all, the -- we are making good progress in training the Iraqi troops. There will be 125,000 of them trained by election time. Secondly, I have yet to -- I have not sat down with our Secretary of Defense talking about troop levels. I read some reports during the course of the campaign where some were speculating in the press corps about the number of troops needed to protect elections. That has not been brought to my attention yet.

And so I would caution you that what you have either read about or reported was pure speculation thus far. These elections are important, and we will respond, John, to requests of our commanders on the ground. And I have yet to hear from our commanders on the ground that they need more troops.

Terry.

Q Mr. President, your victory at the polls came about in part because of strong support from people of faith, in particular, Christian evangelicals and Pentecostals and others. And Senator Kerry drew some of his strongest support from those who do not attend religious services. What do you make of this religious divide, it seems, becoming a political divide in this country? And what do you say to those who are concerned about the role of a faith they do not share in public life and in your policies?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, my answer to people is, I will be your President regardless of your faith, and I don't expect you to agree with me necessarily on religion. As a matter of fact, no President should ever try to impose religion on our society.

A great -- the great tradition of America is one where people can worship the way they want to worship. And if they choose not to worship, they're just as patriotic as your neighbor. That is an essential part of why we are a great nation. And I am glad people of faith voted in this election. I'm glad -- I appreciate all people who voted. I don't think you ought to read anything into the politics, the moment, about whether or not this nation will become a divided nation over religion. I think the great thing that unites is the fact you can worship freely if you choose, and if you -- you don't have to worship. And if you're a Jew or a Christian or a Muslim, you're equally American. That is -- that is such a wonderful aspect of our society; and it is strong today and it will be strong tomorrow.

Jim.

Q Thank you, sir. Mr. President, you talked once again this morning about private accounts in Social Security. During the campaign you were accused of planning to privatize the entire system. It has been something you've discussed for some time. You've lost some of the key Democratic proponents, such as Pat Moynihan and Bob Kerrey in the Congress. How will you proceed now with one of the key problems, which is the transition cost -- which some say is as much as $2 trillion -- how will you proceed on that? And how soon?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first, I made Social Security an issue -- for those of you who had to suffer through my speeches on a daily basis; for those of you who actually listened to my speeches on a daily basis -- you might remember, every speech I talked about the duty of an American President to lead. And we have -- we must lead on Social Security because the system is not going to be whole for our children and our grandchildren.

And so the answer to your second question is, we'll start on Social Security now. We'll start bringing together those in Congress who agree with my assessment that we need to work together. We've got a good blueprint, a good go-by. You mentioned Senator Moynihan. I had asked him prior to his -- to his passing, to chair a committee of notable Americans to come up with some ideas on Social Security. And they did so. And it's a good place for members of Congress to start.

The President must have the will to take on the issue -- not only in the campaign, but now that I'm elected. And this will -- reforming Social Security will be a priority of my administration. Obviously, if it were easy it would have already been done. And this is going to be hard work to bring people together and to make -- to convince the Congress to move forward. And there are going to be costs. But the cost of doing nothing is insignificant to -- is much greater than the cost of reforming the system today. That was the case I made on the campaign trail, and I was earnest about getting something done. And as a matter of fact, I talked to members of my staff today, as we're beginning to plan to -- the strategy to move agendas forward about how to do this and do it effectively.

Q If I could, Mr. President --

THE PRESIDENT: Yes -- no, no, you're violating the follow-up rule. It would hurt Gregory's feelings. King.

It's a new --

Q Mr. President, thank you.

Q That's always one of my concerns.

THE PRESIDENT: Hurting Gregory's feelings? He is a sensitive guy. Well centered, though. (Laughter.)

Q I'm not going there. Mr. President, you were disappointed, even angry 12 years ago when the voters denied your father a second term. I'm interested in your thoughts and the conversation with him yesterday as you were walking to the Oval Office, and also whether you feel more free to do any one thing in a second term that perhaps you were politically constrained from doing in a first.

THE PRESIDENT: At 3:30 a.m. in the morning on, I guess, it was the day after the election, he was sitting upstairs, and I finally said, go to bed. He was awaiting the outcome and was hopeful that we would go over and be able to talk to our supporters, and it just didn't happen that way.

So I asked him the next morning when he got up, I said, come by the Oval Office and visit. And he came by and we had a good talk. He was heading down to Houston. And it was -- there was some uncertainty about that morning as to when the election would actually end. And it wasn't clear at that point in time, so I never got to see him face-to-face to watch his, I guess, pride in his tired eyes as his son got a second term.

I did talk to him and he was relieved. I told him to get a nap. I was worried about him staying up too late.

But -- so I haven't had a chance to really visit and embrace. And you're right, '92 was a disappointment. But he taught me a really good lesson, that life moves on. And it's very important for those of us in the political arena, win or lose, to recognize that life is bigger than just politics, and that's one of the really good lessons he taught me.

Q Do you feel more free, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, in terms of feeling free, well, I don't think you'll let me be too free. There's accountability and there are constraints on the presidency, as there should be in any system. I feel -- I feel it is necessary to move an agenda that I told the American people I would move. Something refreshing about coming off an election, even more refreshing since we all got some sleep last night, but there's -- you go out and you make your case, and you tell the people this is what I intend to do. And after hundreds of speeches and three debates and interviews and the whole process, where you keep basically saying the same thing over and over again, that when you win, there is a feeling that the people have spoken and embraced your point of view, and that's what I intend to tell the Congress, that I made it clear what I intend to do as the President, now let's work to -- and the people made it clear what they wanted, now let's work together.

And it's one of the wonderful -- it's like earning capital. You asked, do I feel free. Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style. That's what happened in the -- after the 2000 election, I earned some capital. I've earned capital in this election -- and I'm going to spend it for what I told the people I'd spend it on, which is -- you've heard the agenda: Social Security and tax reform, moving this economy forward, education, fighting and winning the war on terror.

We have an obligation in this country to continue to work with nations to help alleve poverty and disease. We will continue to press forward on the HIV/AIDS initiative, the Millennium Challenge Account. We will continue to do our duty to help feed the hungry. And I'm looking forward to it, I really am.

It's been a -- it's been a fantastic experience campaigning the country. You've seen it from one -- perspective, I've seen it from another. I saw you standing there at the last, final rally in Texas, to my right over there. I was observing you observe, and you saw the energy. And there was just something uplifting about people showing up at 11:00 p.m. at night, expressing their support and their prayers and their friendship. It's a marvelous experience to campaign across the country.

Mike.

Q Mr. President -- thank you, Mr. President. Do you plan to reshape your Cabinet for the second term, or will any changes come at the instigation of individuals? And as part of the same question, may I ask you what you've learned about Cabinet government, what works, what doesn't work? And do you mind also addressing the same question about the White House staff? (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: The post-election euphoria did not last very long here at the press conference. (Laughter.)

Let me talk about the people that have worked with me. I had a Cabinet meeting today and I thanked them for their service to the country and reminded them we've got a job to do and I expected them to do the job.

I have made no decisions on my Cabinet and/or White House staff. I am mindful that working in the White House is really -- is exhausting work. The people who you try to get to leak to you spend hours away from their families, and it is -- the word "burnout" is oftentimes used in the -- in Washington, and it's used for a reason, because people do burn out.

And so obviously, in terms of those who are -- who want to stay on and who I want to stay on, I've got to make sure that it's right for their families and that they're comfortable, because when they come to work here in the White House, I expect them to work as hard as they possibly can on behalf of the American people.

In the Cabinet, there will be some changes. I don't know who they will be. It's inevitable there will be changes. It happens in every administration. To a person, I am proud of the work they have done. And I fully understand we're about to head into the period of intense speculation as to who's going to stay and who's not going to stay, and I assured them that -- today I warned them of the speculative period. I said, it's a great Washington sport to be talking about who's going to leave and who their replacements may be, and handicapping, you know, my way of thinking.

I'll just give you -- but let me just help you out with the speculation right now. I haven't thought about it. I'm going to start thinking about it. I'm going to Camp David this afternoon with Laura, and I'll begin the process of thinking about the Cabinet and the White House staff. And we'll let you know at the appropriate time when decisions have been made. And so, nice try, Mike.

Yes, Ed, and then --

Q What you learned --

THE PRESIDENT: Learned and not learned about the Cabinet?

Q What works, what doesn't.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, well, first I've learned that I put together a really good Cabinet. I'm very proud of the people that have served this government, and they -- to a man and a woman, worked their hearts out for the American people. And I've learned that you've got to continue to surround yourself with good people. This is a job that requires crisp decision-making, and therefore, in order for me to make decisions, I've got to have people who bring their point of view into the Oval Office and are willing to say it.

I always jest to people, the Oval Office is the kind of place where people stand outside, they're getting ready to come in and tell me what for, and they walk in and get overwhelmed in the atmosphere, and they say, man, you're looking pretty. And therefore, you need people to walk in on those days when you're not looking so good and saying, you're not looking so good, Mr. President. And I've got -- those are the kind of people that served our country.

We've had vigorous debates, which you all, during the last four years, took great delight in reporting, differences of opinion. But that's what you want if you're the Commander-in-Chief and a decision-maker. You want people to walk in and say, I don't agree with this, or I do agree with that, and here's what my recommendation is. But the President also has to learn to decide. You take, you know -- there's ample time for the debate to take place, and then decide and make up your mind and lead. That's what the job's all about.

And so I have learned how important it is to be -- to have a really fine group of people that think through issues, and that are not intimidated by the process, and who walk in and tell me what's on their mind.

Ed, and then Stevens.

Q Good morning. Sir, does it bother you that there's a perception out there that your administration has been one that favors big business and the wealthy individuals? And what can you do to overcome that, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Ed, 70 percent of the new jobs in America are created by small businesses. I understand that. And I have promoted during the course of the last four years one of the most aggressive, pro-entrepreneur, small business policies. Tax relief -- you might remember -- I don't know if you know this or not, but 90 percent of the businesses are sole proprietorships or subchapter-S corporations. (Laughter.)

Q We've heard it.

THE PRESIDENT: Tax relief helped them. This is an administration that fully understands that the job creators are the entrepreneurs. And so in a new term, we will make sure the tax relief continues to be robust for our small businesses. We'll push legal reform and regulatory reform because I understand the engine of growth is through the small business sector.

Stevenson.

Q Sir, given your commitment to reaching out across party lines and to all Americans, I wonder if you could expand on your definition of bipartisanship, and whether it means simply picking off a few Democrats on a case-by-case basis to pass the bills you want to pass, or whether you would commit to working regularly with the Democratic leadership on solutions that can win broad support across party lines?

THE PRESIDENT: Do you remember the No Child Left Behind Act? I think there the model I'd look at if I were you. It is a -- I laid out an agenda for reforming our public schools. I worked with both Republicans and Democrats to get that bill passed. In a new term, we'll continue to make sure we do not weaken the accountability standards that are making a huge difference in people's lives, in these kids' lives.

But that's the model I'd look at, if I were you. And we'll -- there's a certain practicality to life here in Washington. And that is, when you get a bill moving it is important to get the votes, and if politics starts to get in the way of getting good legislation through, you know, that's just part of life here. But I'm also focused on results. I think of the Medicare bill -- you might remember that old, stale debate. We finally got a bill moving. I was hoping that we'd get strong bipartisan support -- unfortunately, it was an election year. But we got the votes necessary to get the bill passed. And so we will -- I will -- my goal is to work on the ideal and to reach out and to continue to work and find common ground on issues.

On the other hand, I've been wizened to the ways of Washington. I watched what can happen during certain parts of the cycle, where politics gets in the way of good policy. And at that point in time, I'll continue to -- you know, I'll try to get this done, I'll try to get our bills passed in a way, because results really do matter, as far as I'm concerned. I really didn't come here to hold the office just to say, gosh, it was fun to serve. I came here to get some things done, and we are doing it.

Yes, Big Stretch.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. I know you haven't had a chance to learn this, but it appears that Yasser Arafat has passed away.

THE PRESIDENT: Really?

Q And I was just wondering if I could get your initial reaction? And also your thoughts on, perhaps, working with a new generation of Palestinian leadership?

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that. My first reaction is, God bless his soul. And my second reaction is, is that we will continue to work for a free Palestinian state that's at peace with Israel.

Yes.

Q Mr. President, as you look at your second term domestic priorities, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you see the sequence of action on issues beyond Social Security -- tax reform, education. And if you could expand a little bit for us on the principles that you want to underpin your tax reform proposal -- do you want it to be revenue neutral? What kinds of things do you want to accomplish through that process?

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that. I was anticipating this question; that, what is the first thing you're going to do? When it comes it legislation, it just doesn't work that way, particularly when you've laid out a comprehensive agenda. And part of that comprehensive agenda is tax simplification.

The -- first of all, a principle would be revenue neutral. If I'm going to -- if there was a need to raise taxes, I'd say, let's have a tax bill that raises taxes, as opposed to let's simply the tax code and sneak a tax increase on the people. It's just not my style. I don't believe we need to raise taxes. I've said that to the American people. And so the simplification would be the goal.

Now, secondly, that obviously, that it rewards risk and doesn't -- it doesn't have unnecessary penalties in it. But the main thing is that it would be viewed as fair, that it would be a fair system, that it wouldn't be complicated, that there's a -- kind of that loopholes wouldn't be there for special interests, that the code itself be viewed and deemed as a very fair way to encourage people to invest and save and achieve certain fiscal objectives in our country, as well.

One of the interesting debates will be, of course, in the course of simplification, will there be incentives in the code: charitable giving, of course, and mortgage deductions are very important. As governor of Texas, when I -- some time I think I was asked about simplification, I always noted how important it was for certain incentives to be built into the tax code, and that will be an interesting part of the debate.

Certain issues come quicker than others in the course of a legislative session, and that depends upon whether or not those issues have been

debated. I think of, for example, the legal issue -- the legal reform issues, they have been -- medical liability reform had been debated and got thwarted a couple of times in one body in particular on Capitol Hill. And so the groundwork has been laid for some legislation that I've been talking about. On an issue like tax reform it's going to -- tax simplification, it's going to take a lot of legwork to get something ready for a legislative package. I fully understand that. And Social Security reform will require some additional legwork, although the Moynihan Commission has laid the groundwork for what I think is a very good place to start the debate.

The education issue is one that could move pretty quickly because there has been a lot of discussion about education. It's an issue that the members are used to debating and discussing. And so I think -- all issues are important. And the timing of issues as they reach it through committee and floor really depend upon whether or not some work has already been on those issues.

A couple more questions. Bob.

Q Mr. President, American forces are gearing up for what appears to be a major offensive in Fallujah over the next several days. I'm wondering if you could tell us what the objective is, what the stakes are there for the United States, for the Iraqi people, and the Iraqi elections coming up in January?

THE PRESIDENT: In order for Iraq to be a free country those who are trying to stop the elections and stop a free society from emerging must be defeated.

And so Prime Minister Allawi and his government, which fully understands that, are working with our generals on the ground to do just that. We will work closely with the government. It's their government, it's their country. We're there at their invitation. And -- but I think there's a recognition that some of these people have to -- must be defeated, and so that's what they're thinking about. That's what you're -- that's why you're hearing discussions about potential action in Fallujah.

Heidi.

Q Thank you, sir. Many within your own party are unhappy over the deficit, and they say keeping down discretional spending alone won't help you reach the goal of halving the deficit in five years. What else do you plan to do to cut costs?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I -- I would suggest they look at our budget that we've submitted to Congress, which does, in fact, get the deficit down -- cut in half in five years, and is a specific line-by-line budget that we are required to submit and have done so.

The key to making sure that the deficit is reduced is for there to be, on the one hand, spending discipline, and I -- as you noticed in my opening remarks, I talked about these appropriations bills that are beginning to move, and I thought I was pretty clear about the need for those bills to be -- to be fiscally responsible, and I meant it. And I look forward to talking to the leadership about making sure that the budget agreements we had are still the budget agreements, that just because we had an election, that they shouldn't feel comfortable changing our agreement. And I think they understand that.

And secondly, the other way to make sure that the deficit is -- decreases, is to grow the economy. As the economy grows, there will be more revenues coming into the Treasury. That's what you have seen recently. If you notice, there's been some write-downs of the budget deficit. In other words, the deficit is less than we thought because the revenues is exceeding projections. And the reason why the revenues -- the revenues are exceeding projections -- sometimes I mangle the English language. I get that. (Laughter.)

Q Inside joke.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, very inside. (Laughter.)

The revenues are exceeding projections. And as a result, the projected deficit is less. But my point there is, is that with good economic policy that encourages economic growth, the revenue streams begin to increase. And as the revenue streams increase, coupled with fiscal discipline, you'll see the deficit shrinking. And we're focused on that.

I do believe there ought to be budgetary reform in Washington, on the Hill, Capitol Hill. I think it's very important. I would like to see the President have a line-item veto again, one that passed constitutional muster. I think it would help the executive branch work with the legislative branch, to make sure that we're able to maintain budget discipline. I've talked to a lot of members of Congress who are wondering whether or not we'll have the will to confront entitlements, to make sure that there is entitlement reform that helps us maintain fiscal discipline. And the answer is, yes; that's why I took on the Social Security issue. I believe we have a duty to do so. I want to make sure that the Medicare reforms that we've put in place remain robust, to help us make sure Medicare is available for generations to come.

And so there is a -- I've got quite an active agenda to help work with Congress to bring not only fiscal discipline, but to make sure that our pro-growth policies are still in place.

Herman. I'm probably going to regret this. (Laughter.)

Q I don't know if you had a chance to check, but I can report you did eke out a victory in Texas the other day.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, sir.

Q Congratulations. I'm interested in getting back to Steven -- Stevenson's question about unity. Clearly, you believe you have reached out and will continue to reach out. Do you believe the Democrats have made a sincere and sufficient effort to meet you somewhere halfway, and do you think now there's more reason for them the do that in light of the election results?

THE PRESIDENT: I think that Democrats agree that we have an obligation to serve our country. I believe there will be goodwill, now that this election is over, to work together. I found that to be the case when I first arrived here in Washington, and working with the Democrats and fellow Republicans, we got a lot done. And it is with that spirit that I go into this coming session, and I will meet with both Republican and Democrat leaders, and I am -- they'll see I'm genuine about working toward some of these important issues.

It's going to be -- it's not easy. These -- I readily concede I've laid out some very difficult issues for people to deal with. Reforming the Social Security system for generations to come is a difficult issue; otherwise, it would have already been done. But it is necessary to confront it. And I would hope to be able to work with Democrats to get this done. I'm not sure we can get it done without Democrat participation, because it is a big issue, and I will explain to them and I will show them Senator Moynihan's thinking as a way to begin the process. And I will remind everybody here that we have a duty to leave behind a better America, and when we see a problem, to deal with it. And I think the -- I think Democrats agree with that.

And so I'm optimistic. You covered me when I was the governor of Texas. I told you that I was going to do that as a governor. There was probably skepticism in your beady eyes there. (Laughter.) But you might remember -- you might remember, we did -- we were able to accomplish a lot by -- and Washington is different from Austin, no question about it. Washington -- one of the disappointments of being here in Washington is how bitter this town can become and how divisive. I'm not blaming one party or the other. It's just the reality of Washington, D.C., sometimes exacerbated by you, because it's great sport. It's really -- it's entertaining for some. It also makes is difficult to govern at times.

But nevertheless, my commitment is there. I fully -- now more seasoned to Washington, I've cut my political eye-teeth, at least the ones I've recently grown here in Washington. And so I'm aware of what can happen in this town. But nevertheless, having said that, I am fully prepared to work with both Republican and Democrat leadership to advance an agenda that I think makes a big difference for the country.

Listen, thank you all. I look forward to working with you. I've got a question for you. How many of you are going to be here for a second term? Please raise your hand. (Laughter.)

Good. Gosh, we're going to have a lot of fun, then. Thank you all.

END 11:57 A.M. EST

Thanks to William Rivers Pitt for including this in his latest article.

Here's a Wired News article explaining more of the details behind the letter.

Representatives John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler and Robert Wexler, all members of the House Judiciary Committee, posted a letter on November 5th to David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States. In the letter, they asked for an investigation into the efficacy of these electronic voting machines. The letter reads as follows:

November 5, 2004

The Honorable David M. Walker
Comptroller General of the United States
U.S. General Accountability Office
441 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20548

Dear Mr. Walker:

We write with an urgent request that the Government Accountability Office immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration.

In particular, we are extremely troubled by the following reports, which we would also request that you review and evaluate for us:

In Columbus, Ohio, an electronic voting system gave President Bush nearly 4,000 extra votes. ("Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes," Associated Press, November 5)

An electronic tally of a South Florida gambling ballot initiative failed to record thousands of votes. "South Florida OKs Slot Machines Proposal," (Id.)

In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots could hold more data that it did. "Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes," (Id.)

In San Francisco, a glitch occurred with voting machines software that resulted in some votes being left uncounted. (Id.)

In Florida, there was a substantial drop off in Democratic votes in proportion to voter registration in counties utilizing optical scan machines that was apparently not present in counties using other mechanisms.

The House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff has received numerous reports from Youngstown, Ohio that voters who attempted to cast a vote for John Kerry on electronic voting machines saw that their votes were instead recorded as votes for George W. Bush. In South Florida, Congressman Wexler's staff received numerous reports from voters in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade Counties that they attempted to select John Kerry but George Bush appeared on the screen. CNN has reported that a dozen voters in six states, particularly Democrats in Florida, reported similar problems. This was among over one thousand such problems reported. ("Touchscreen Voting Problems Reported," Associated Press, November 5)

Excessively long lines were a frequent problem throughout the nation in Democratic precincts, particularly in Florida and Ohio. In one Ohio voting precinct serving students from Kenyon College, some voters were required to wait more than eight hours to vote. ("All Eyes on Ohio," Dan Lothian, CNN, November 3)

We are literally receiving additional reports every minute and will transmit additional information as it comes available. The essence of democracy is the confidence of the electorate in the accuracy of voting methods and the fairness of voting procedures. In 2000, that confidence suffered terribly, and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this inquiry.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr., Jerrold Nadler, Robert Wexler

Ranking Member, Ranking Member, Member of Congress
House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution

cc: Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Chairman

Worse Than 2000: Tuesday's Electoral Disaster
By William Rivers Pitt for Truthout.

Another point of interest included in this article is the actual letter sent out by John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler and Robert Wexler (all members of the House Judiciary Committee) that was sent last friday to the GAO office asking for an investigation of several voter irregularities.

Four years later, and none of the Florida problems were fixed. In fact, by all appearances, they spread from Florida to Ohio, New Mexico, Michigan and elsewhere. Worse, these problems only scratch the surface of what appears to have happened in Tuesday's election. The fix that was put in place to solve these problems - the Help America Vote Act passed in 2002 after the Florida debacle - appears to have gone a long way towards making things worse by orders of magnitude, for it was the Help America Vote Act which introduced paperless electronic touch-screen voting machines to millions of voters across the country.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110804A.shtml

Worse Than 2000: Tuesday's Electoral Disaster
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report

Monday 08 November 2004

Everyone remembers Florida's 2000 election debacle, and all of the new terms it introduced to our political lexicon: Hanging chads, dimpled chads, pregnant chads, overvotes, undervotes, Sore Losermans, Jews for Buchanan and so forth. It took several weeks, battalions of lawyers and a questionable decision from the U.S. Supreme Court to show the nation and the world how messy democracy can be. By any standard, what happened in Florida during the 2000 Presidential election was a disaster.

What happened during the Presidential election of 2004, in Florida, in Ohio, and in a number of other states as well, was worse.

Some of the problems with this past Tuesday's election will sound all too familiar. Despite having four years to look into and deal with the problems that cropped up in Florida in 2000, the 'spoiled vote' chad issue reared its ugly head again. Investigative journalist Greg Palast, the man almost singularly responsible for exposing the more egregious examples of illegitimate deletions of voters from the rolls, described the continued problems in an article published just before the election, and again in an article published just after the election.

Four years later, and none of the Florida problems were fixed. In fact, by all appearances, they spread from Florida to Ohio, New Mexico, Michigan and elsewhere. Worse, these problems only scratch the surface of what appears to have happened in Tuesday's election. The fix that was put in place to solve these problems - the Help America Vote Act passed in 2002 after the Florida debacle - appears to have gone a long way towards making things worse by orders of magnitude, for it was the Help America Vote Act which introduced paperless electronic touch-screen voting machines to millions of voters across the country.

At first blush, it seems like a good idea. Forget the chads, the punch cards, the archaic booths like pianos standing on end with the handles and the curtains. This is the 21st century, so let's do it with computers. A simple screen presents straightforward choices, and you touch the spot on the screen to vote for your candidate. Your vote is recorded by the machine, and then sent via modem to a central computer which tallies the votes. Simple, right?

Not quite.

A Diebold voting machine.
Is there any evidence that these machines went haywire on Tuesday? Nationally, there were more than 1,100 reports of electronic voting machine malfunctions. A few examples:

* In Broward County, Florida, election workers were shocked to discover that their shiny new machines were counting backwards. "Tallies should go up as more votes are counted," according to this report. "That's simple math. But in some races, the numbers had gone down. Officials found the software used in Broward can handle only 32,000 votes per precinct. After that, the system starts counting backward."

* In Franklin County, Ohio, electronic voting machines gave Bush 3,893 extra votes in one precinct alone. "Franklin County's unofficial results gave Bush 4,258 votes to Democratic challenger John Kerry's 260 votes in Precinct 1B," according to this report. "Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, said Bush received 365 votes there. The other 13 voters who cast ballots either voted for other candidates or did not vote for president."

* In Craven County, North Carolina, a software error on the electronic voting machines awarded Bush 11,283 extra votes. "The Elections Systems and Software equipment," according to this report, "had downloaded voting information from nine of the county's 26 precincts and as the absentee ballots were added, the precinct totals were added a second time. An override, like those occurring when one attempts to save a computer file that already exists, is supposed to prevent double counting, but did not function correctly."

* In Carteret County, North Carolina, "More than 4,500 votes may be lost in one North Carolina county because officials believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. Local officials said UniLect Corp., the maker of the county's electronic voting system, told them that each storage unit could handle 10,500 votes, but the limit was actually 3,005 votes. Officials said 3,005 early votes were stored, but 4,530 were lost."

* In LaPorte County, Indiana, a Democratic stronghold, the electronic voting machines decided that each precinct only had 300 voters. "At about 7 p.m. Tuesday," according to this report, "it was noticed that the first two or three printouts from individual precinct reports all listed an identical number of voters. Each precinct was listed as having 300 registered voters. That means the total number of voters for the county would be 22,200, although there are actually more than 79,000 registered voters."

* In Sarpy County, Nebraska, the electronic touch screen machines got generous. "As many as 10,000 extra votes," according to this report, "have been tallied and candidates are still waiting for corrected totals. Johnny Boykin lost his bid to be on the Papillion City Council. The difference between victory and defeat in the race was 127 votes. Boykin says, 'When I went in to work the next day and saw that 3,342 people had shown up to vote in our ward, I thought something's not right.' He's right. There are not even 3,000 people registered to vote in his ward. For some reason, some votes were counted twice."

Stories like this have been popping up in many of the states that put these touch-screen voting machines to use. Beyond these reports are the folks who attempted to vote for one candidate and saw the machine give their vote to the other candidate. Sometimes, the flawed machines were taken off-line, and sometimes they were not. As for the reports above, the mistakes described were caught and corrected. How many mistakes made by these machines were not caught, were not corrected, and have now become part of the record?

The flaws within these machines are well documented. Professors and researchers from Johns Hopkins performed a detailed analysis of these electronic voting machines in May of 2004. In their results, the Johns Hopkins researchers stated, "This voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts. We identify several problems including unauthorized privilege escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network threats, and poor software development processes. We show that voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal software."

"Furthermore," they continued, "we show that even the most serious of our outsider attacks could have been discovered and executed without access to the source code. In the face of such attacks, the usual worries about insider threats are not the only concerns; outsiders can do the damage. That said, we demonstrate that the insider threat is also quite considerable, showing that not only can an insider, such as a poll worker, modify the votes, but that insiders can also violate voter privacy and match votes with the voters who cast them. We conclude that this voting system is unsuitable for use in a general election."

Many of these machines do not provide the voter with a paper ballot that verifies their vote. So if an error - or purposefully inserted malicious code - in the untested machine causes their vote to go for the other guy, they have no way to verify that it happened. The lack of a paper ballot also means the end of recounts as we have known them; now, on these new machines, a recount amounts to pushing a button on the machine and getting a number in return, but without those paper ballots to do a comparison, there is no way to verify the validity of that count.

Worst of all is the fact that all the votes collected by these machines are sent via modem to a central tabulating computer which counts the votes on Windows software. This means, essentially, that any gomer with access to the central tabulation machine who knows how to work an Excel spreadsheet can go into this central computer and make wholesale changes to election totals without anyone being the wiser.

Bev Harris, who has been working tirelessly since the passage of the Help America Vote Act to inform people of the dangers present in this new process, got a chance to demonstrate how easy it is to steal an election on that central tabulation computer while a guest on the CNBC program 'Topic A With Tina Brown.' Ms. Brown was off that night, and the guest host was none other than Governor Howard Dean. Thanks to Governor Dean and Ms. Harris, anyone watching CNBC that night got to see just how easy it is to steal an election because of these new machines and the flawed processes they use.

"In a voting system," Harris said on the show, "you have all the different voting machines at all the different polling places, sometimes, as in a county like mine, there's a thousand polling places in a single county. All those machines feed into the one machine so it can add up all the votes. So, of course, if you were going to do something you shouldn't to a voting machine, would it be more convenient to do it to each of the 4000 machines, or just come in here and deal with all of them at once? What surprises people is that the central tabulator is just a PC, like what you and I use. It's just a regular computer."

Harris then proceeded to open a laptop computer that had on it the software used to tabulate the votes by one of the aforementioned central processors. Journalist Thom Hartman describes what happened next: "So Harris had Dean close the Diebold GEMS tabulation software, go back to the normal Windows PC desktop, click on the 'My Computer' icon, choose 'Local Disk C:,' open the folder titled GEMS, and open the sub-folder 'LocalDB' which, Harris noted, 'stands for local database, that's where they keep the votes.' Harris then had Dean double-click on a file in that folder titled Central Tabulator Votes,' which caused the PC to open the vote count in a database program like Excel. 'Let's just flip those,' Harris said, as Dean cut and pasted the numbers from one cell into the other. Harris sat up a bit straighter, smiled, and said, 'We just edited an election, and it took us 90 seconds.'"

Any system that makes it this easy to steal or corrupt an election has no business being anywhere near the voters on election day.

The counter-argument to this states that people with nefarious intent, people with a partisan stake in the outcome of an election, would have to have access to the central tabulation computers in order to do harm to the process. Keep the partisans away from the process, and everything will work out fine. Surely no partisan political types were near these machines on Tuesday night when the votes were counted, right?

One of the main manufacturers of these electronic touch-screen voting machines is Diebold, Inc. More than 35 counties in Ohio alone used the Diebold machines on Tuesday, and millions of voters across the country did the same. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Diebold gave $100,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2000, along with additional contributions between 2001 and 2002 which totaled $95,000. Of the four companies competing for the contracts to manufacture these voting machines, only Diebold contributed large sums to any political party. The CEO of Diebold is a man named Walden O'Dell. O'Dell was very much on board with the Bush campaign, having said publicly in 2003 that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

So much for keeping the partisans at arm's length.

Is there any evidence that vote totals were deliberately tampered with by people who had a stake in the outcome? Nothing specific has been documented to date. Jeff Fisher, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 16th District, claims to have evidence that the Florida election was hacked, and says further that he knows who hacked it and how it was done. Such evidence is not yet forthcoming.

There are, however, some disturbing and compelling trends that indicate things are not as they should be. This chart displays a breakdown of counties in Florida. It lists the voters in each county by party affiliation, and compares expected vote totals to the reported results. It also separates the results into two sections, one for 'touch-screen' counties and the other for optical scan counties.

Over and over in these counties, the results, based upon party registration, did not come close to matching expectations. It can be argued, and has been argued, that such results indicate nothing more or less than a President getting cross-over voters, as well as late-breaking undecided voters, to come over to his side. These are Southern Democrats, and the numbers from previous elections show that many have often voted Republican. Yet the news wires have been inundated for well over a year with stories about how stridently united Democratic voters were behind the idea of removing Bush from office. It is worth wondering why that unity did not permeate these Democratic voting districts. If that unity was there, it is worth asking why the election results in these counties do not reflect this.

Most disturbing of all is the reality that these questionable Diebold voting machines are not isolated to Florida. This list documents, as of March 2003, all of the counties in all of the 37 states where Diebold machines were used to count votes. The document is 28 pages long. That is a lot of counties, and a lot of votes, left in the hands of machines that have a questionable track record, that send their vote totals to central computers which make it far too easy to change election results, that were manufactured by a company with a personal, financial, and publicly stated stake in George W. Bush holding on to the White House.

This map indicates where different voting devices were used nationally. The areas where electronic voting machines were used is marked in blue.
A poster named 'TruthIsAll' on the DemocraticUnderground.com forums laid out the questionable results of Tuesday's election in succinct fashion: "To believe that Bush won the election, you must also believe: That the exit polls were wrong; that Zogby's 5pm election day calls for Kerry winning Ohio and Florida were wrong (he was exactly right in his 2000 final poll); that Harris' last-minute polling for Kerry was wrong (he was exactly right in his 2000 final poll); that incumbent rule #1 - undecideds break for the challenger - was wrong; That the 50% rule - an incumbent doesn't do better than his final polling - was wrong; That the approval rating rule - an incumbent with less than 50% approval will most likely lose the election - was wrong; that it was just a coincidence that the exit polls were correct where there was a paper trail and incorrect (+5% for Bush) where there was no paper trail; that the surge in new young voters had no positive effect for Kerry; that Kerry did worse than Gore against an opponent who lost the support of scores of Republican newspapers who were for Bush in 2000; that voting machines made by Republicans with no paper trail and with no software publication, which have been proven by thousands of computer scientists to be vulnerable in scores of ways, were not tampered with in this election."

In short, we have old-style vote spoilage in minority communities. We have electronic voting machines losing votes and adding votes all across the country. We have electronic voting machines whose efficiency and safety have not been tested. We have electronic voting machines that offer no paper trail to ensure a fair outcome. We have central tabulators for these machines running on Windows software, compiling results that can be demonstrably tampered with. We have the makers of these machines publicly professing their preference for George W. Bush. We have voter trends that stray from the expected results. We have these machines counting millions of votes all across the country.

Perhaps this can all be dismissed. Perhaps rants like the one posted by 'TruthIsAll' are nothing more than sour grapes from the side that lost. Perhaps all of the glitches, wrecked votes, unprecedented voting trends and partisan voting-machine connections can be explained away. If so, this reporter would very much like to see those explanations. At a bare minimum, the fact that these questions exist at all represents a grievous undermining of the basic confidence in the process required to make this democracy work. Democracy should not ever require leaps of faith, and we have put the fate of our nation into the hands of machines that require such a leap. It is unacceptable across the board, and calls into serious question not only the election we just had, but any future election involving these machines.

Representatives John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler and Robert Wexler, all members of the House Judiciary Committee, posted a letter on November 5th to David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States. In the letter, they asked for an investigation into the efficacy of these electronic voting machines. The letter reads as follows:

November 5, 2004

The Honorable David M. Walker
Comptroller General of the United States
U.S. General Accountability Office
441 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20548

Dear Mr. Walker:

We write with an urgent request that the Government Accountability Office immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration.

In particular, we are extremely troubled by the following reports, which we would also request that you review and evaluate for us:

In Columbus, Ohio, an electronic voting system gave President Bush nearly 4,000 extra votes. ("Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes," Associated Press, November 5)

An electronic tally of a South Florida gambling ballot initiative failed to record thousands of votes. "South Florida OKs Slot Machines Proposal," (Id.)

In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots could hold more data that it did. "Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes," (Id.)

In San Francisco, a glitch occurred with voting machines software that resulted in some votes being left uncounted. (Id.)

In Florida, there was a substantial drop off in Democratic votes in proportion to voter registration in counties utilizing optical scan machines that was apparently not present in counties using other mechanisms.

The House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff has received numerous reports from Youngstown, Ohio that voters who attempted to cast a vote for John Kerry on electronic voting machines saw that their votes were instead recorded as votes for George W. Bush. In South Florida, Congressman Wexler's staff received numerous reports from voters in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade Counties that they attempted to select John Kerry but George Bush appeared on the screen. CNN has reported that a dozen voters in six states, particularly Democrats in Florida, reported similar problems. This was among over one thousand such problems reported. ("Touchscreen Voting Problems Reported," Associated Press, November 5)

Excessively long lines were a frequent problem throughout the nation in Democratic precincts, particularly in Florida and Ohio. In one Ohio voting precinct serving students from Kenyon College, some voters were required to wait more than eight hours to vote. ("All Eyes on Ohio," Dan Lothian, CNN, November 3)

We are literally receiving additional reports every minute and will transmit additional information as it comes available. The essence of democracy is the confidence of the electorate in the accuracy of voting methods and the fairness of voting procedures. In 2000, that confidence suffered terribly, and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this inquiry.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr., Jerrold Nadler, Robert Wexler

Ranking Member, Ranking Member, Member of Congress
House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution

cc: Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Chairman

"The essence of democracy," wrote the Congressmen, "is the confidence of the electorate in the accuracy of voting methods and the fairness of voting procedures. In 2000, that confidence suffered terribly, and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004." Those fears appear to be valid.

John Kerry and John Edwards promised on Tuesday night that every vote would count, and that every vote would be counted. By Wednesday morning, Kerry had conceded the race to Bush, eliciting outraged howls from activists who were watching the reports of voting irregularities come piling in. Kerry had said that 10,000 lawyers were ready to fight any wrongdoing in this election. One hopes that he still has those lawyers on retainer.

According to black-letter election law, Bush does not officially get a second term until the electors from the Electoral College go to Washington D.C on December 12th. Perhaps Kerry's 10,000 lawyers, along with a real investigation per the request of Conyers, Nadler and Wexler, could give those electors something to think about in the interim.

In the meantime, soon-to-be-unemployed DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe sent out an email on Saturday night titled 'Help determine the Democratic Party's next steps.' In the email, McAuliffe states, "If you were involved in these grassroots activities, we want to hear from you about your experience. What did you do? Did you feel the action you took was effective? Was it a good experience for you? How would you make it better? Tell us your thoughts." He provided a feedback form where such thoughts can be sent.

Use the form. Give Terry your thoughts on the matter. Ask him if those 10,000 lawyers are still available. It seems the validity of Tuesday's election remains a wide-open question.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and international bestseller of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'

This shouldn't technically be in the "Aftermath" category, because it was published the day before. But I feel like it needs to be here to make this category complete.

An Election Spoiled Rotten
By Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, for TomPaine.com.

It's not even Election Day yet, and the Kerry-Edwards campaign is already down by almost a million votes. That's because, in important states like Ohio, Florida and New Mexico, voter names have been systematically removed from the rolls and absentee ballots have been overlooked—overwhelmingly in minority areas, like Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, where Hispanic voters have a 500 percent greater chance of their vote being "spoiled"...

Through a combination of sophisticated vote rustling—ethnic cleansing of voter rolls, absentee ballots gone AWOL, machines that "spoil" votes—John Kerry begins with a nationwide deficit that could easily exceed one million votes.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/an_election_spoiled_rotten.php

An Election Spoiled Rotten
Greg Palast
November 01, 2004

It's not even Election Day yet, and the Kerry-Edwards campaign is already down by almost a million votes. That's because, in important states like Ohio, Florida and New Mexico, voter names have been systematically removed from the rolls and absentee ballots have been overlooked—overwhelmingly in minority areas, like Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, where Hispanic voters have a 500 percent greater chance of their vote being "spoiled." Investigative journalist Greg Palast reports on the trashing of the election.

Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight. The documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has been released this month on DVD .

John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted. He's also losing big time in Colorado and Ohio; and he's way down in Florida, though the votes won't be totaled until Tuesday night.

Through a combination of sophisticated vote rustling—ethnic cleansing of voter rolls, absentee ballots gone AWOL, machines that "spoil" votes—John Kerry begins with a nationwide deficit that could easily exceed one million votes.

The Urge To Purge

Colorado Secretary of State Donetta Davidson just weeks ago removed several thousand voters from the state's voter rolls. She tagged felons as barred from voting. What makes this particularly noteworthy is that, unlike like Florida and a handful of other Deep South states, Colorado does not bar ex-cons from voting. Only those actually serving their sentence lose their rights.

There's no known, verified case of a Colorado convict voting illegally from the big house. Because previous purges have wiped away the rights of innocents, federal law now bars purges within 90 days of a presidential election to allow a voter to challenge their loss of civil rights.

To exempt her action from the federal rule, Secretary Davidson declared an "emergency." However, the only "emergency" in Colorado seems to be President Bush's running dead, even with John Kerry in the polls.

Why the sudden urge to purge? Davidson's chief of voting law enforcement is Drew Durham, who previously worked for the attorney general of Texas. This is what the former spokesman for the Lone Star State's attorney general says of Mr. Durham: He is "unfit for public office... a man with a history of racism and ideological zealotry." Sounds just right for a purge that affects, in the majority, non-white voters.

From my own and government investigations of such purge lists, it is unlikely that this one contains many, if any, illegal voters.

But it does contain Democrats. The Dems may not like to shout about this, but studies indicate that 90-some percent of people who have served time for felonies will, after prison, vote Democratic. One suspects Colorado's Republican secretary of state knows that.

Ethnic Cleansing Of The Voter Rolls

We can't leave the topic of ethnically cleansing the voter rolls without a stop in Ohio, where a Republican secretary of state appears to be running to replace Katherine Harris.

In Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), some citizens have been caught Registering While Black. A statistical analysis of would-be voters in Southern states by the watchdog group Democracy South indicates that black voters are three times as likely as white voters to have their registration requests "returned" (i.e., subject to rejection).

And to give a boost to this whitening of the voter rolls, for the first time since the days of Jim Crow, the Republicans are planning mass challenges of voters on Election Day. The GOP's announced plan to block 35,000 voters in Ohio ran up against the wrath of federal judges; so, in Florida, what appear to be similar plans had been kept under wraps until the discovery of documents called "caging" lists. The voters on the “caging” lists, disclosed last week by BBC Television London, are, almost exclusively, residents of African-American neighborhoods.

Such racial profiling as part of a plan to block voters is, under the Voting Rights Act, illegal. Nevertheless, neither the Act nor federal judges have persuaded the party of Lincoln to join the Democratic Party in pledging not to distribute blacklists to block voters on Tuesday.

Absentee Ballots Go AWOL

It's 10pm: Do you know where your absentee ballot is? Voters wary about computer balloting are going postal: in some states, mail-in ballot requests are up 500 percent. The probability that all those votes—up to 15 million—will be counted is zip.

Those who mail in ballots are very trusting souls. Here's how your trust is used. In the August 31 primaries in Florida, Palm Beach Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore (a.k.a. Madame Butterfly Ballot) counted 37,839 absentee votes. But days before, her office told me only 29,000 ballots had been received. When this loaves-and-fishes miracle was disclosed, she was forced to recount, cutting the tally to 31,138.

Had she worked it the other way, disappearing a few thousand votes instead of adding additional ones, there would be almost no way to figure out the fix (or was it a mistake?). Mail-in voter registration forms are protected by federal law. Local government must acknowledge receiving your registration and must let you know if there's a problem (say, with signature or address) that invalidates your registration. But your mail-in vote is an unprotected crapshoot. How do you know if your ballot was received? Was it tossed behind a file cabinet—or tossed out because you did not include your middle initial? In many counties, you won't know.

And not every official is happy to have your vote. It is well-reported that Broward County, Fla., failed to send out nearly 60,000 absentee ballots. What has not been nationally reported is that Broward's elections supervisor is a Jeb Bush appointee who took the post only after the governor took the unprecedented step of removing the prior elected supervisor who happened be a Democrat.

A Million Votes In The Electoral Trash Can

"If the vote is stolen here, it will be stolen in Rio Arriba County," a New Mexico politician told me. That's a reasoned surmise: in 2000, one in 10 votes simply weren't counted—chucked out, erased, discarded. In the voting biz, the technical term for these vanishing votes is "spoilage." Citizens cast ballots, but the machines don't notice. In one Rio Arriba precinct in the last go-'round, not one single vote was cast for president—or, at least, none showed up on the machines.

Not everyone's vote spoils equally. Rio Arriba is 73 percent Hispanic. I asked nationally recognized vote statistician Dr. Philip Klinkner of Hamilton College to run a "regression" analysis of the Hispanic ballot spoilage in the Enchanted State. He calculated that a brown voter is 500 percent more likely to have their vote spoiled than a white voter. And It's worse for Native Americans. Vote spoilage is epidemic near Indian reservations.

Votes don't spoil because they're left out of the fridge. It comes down to the machines. Just as poor people get the crap schools and crap hospitals, they get the crap voting machines.

It's bad for Hispanics; but for African Americans, it's a ballot-box holocaust. An embarrassing little fact of American democracy is that, typically, two million votes are spoiled in national elections, registering no vote or invalidated. Based on studies by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and the Harvard Law School Civil Rights project, about 54 percent of those ballots are cast by African Americans. One million black votes vanished—phffft!

There's a lot of politicians in both parties that like it that way; suppression of the minority is the way they get elected. Whoever is to blame, on Tuesday, the Kerry-Edwards ticket will take the hit. In Rio Arriba, Democrats have an eight-to-one registration edge over Republicans. Among African American voters...well, you can do the arithmetic yourself.

The total number of votes siphoned out of America's voting booths is so large, you won't find the issue reported in our self-glorifying news media. The one million missing black, brown and red votes spoiled, plus the hundreds of thousands flushed from voter registries, is our nation's dark secret: an apartheid democracy in which wealthy white votes almost always count, but minorities are often purged or challenged or simply not recorded. In effect, Kerry is down by a million votes before one lever is pulled, card punched or touch-screen touched.

Wow. Here's one I missed from ABC News that was published on Election Day (Nov 2, 2004).

Electronic Voting Machine Woes Reported
By ABC News.

Voters nationwide reported some 1,100 problems with electronic voting machines on Tuesday, including trouble choosing their intended candidates.

The e-voting glitches reported to the Election Protection Coalition, an umbrella group of volunteer poll monitors that set up a telephone hotline, included malfunctions blamed on everything from power outages to incompetent poll workers.

But there were also several dozen voters in six states - particularly Democrats in Florida - who said the wrong candidates appeared on their touch-screen machine's checkout screen, the coalition said.

In many cases, voters said they intended to select John Kerry (website - news - bio) but when the computer asked them to verify the choice it showed them instead opting for President Bush (website - news - bio) , the group said.

After 10 minutes trying to change her selection, the Pinellas County resident said she called a poll worker and got a wet-wipe napkin to clean the touch screen as well as a pencil so she could use its eraser-end instead of her finger. Harvey said it took about 10 attempts to select Kerry before and a summary screen confirmed her intended selection. Election officials in several Florida counties where voters complained about such problems did not return calls Tuesday night...

The Election Protection Coalition received a total of 32 reports of touch-screen voters who selected one candidate only to have another show up on the summary screen, Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a coalition member.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.whtm.com/news/stories/1104/184856.html

Electronic Voting Machine Woes Reported
UPDATED - Tuesday November 02, 2004 11:23pm
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Voting Goes Smoothly for the Most Part103-Year-Old Has Been Voting Since 1920Update On Absentee BallotsFlorida Fixes Voting Machines, Recount RulesPoll Watchers to Crowd Voting Venues
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - Voters nationwide reported some 1,100 problems with electronic voting machines on Tuesday, including trouble choosing their intended candidates.

The e-voting glitches reported to the Election Protection Coalition, an umbrella group of volunteer poll monitors that set up a telephone hotline, included malfunctions blamed on everything from power outages to incompetent poll workers.

But there were also several dozen voters in six states - particularly Democrats in Florida - who said the wrong candidates appeared on their touch-screen machine's checkout screen, the coalition said.

In many cases, voters said they intended to select John Kerry (website - news - bio) but when the computer asked them to verify the choice it showed them instead opting for President Bush (website - news - bio) , the group said.
abc27 -
Electronic Voting Machine Woes Reported (source: AP)

After 10 minutes trying to change her selection, the Pinellas County resident said she called a poll worker and got a wet-wipe napkin to clean the touch screen as well as a pencil so she could use its eraser-end instead of her finger. Harvey said it took about 10 attempts to select Kerry before and a summary screen confirmed her intended selection. Election officials in several Florida counties where voters complained about such problems did not return calls Tuesday night.

A spokesoman for the company that makes the touch-screen machines used in Pinellas, Palm Beach and two other Florida counties, Alfie Charles of Sequoia Voting Systems Inc., said the machines' monitors may need to be recalibrated periodically.

The most likely reason the summary screen showed wrong candidates was because voters pushed the wrong part of the touch screen in the first place, Charles said.

He said poll workers are trained to perform the recalibration whenever a voter says the touch screen isn't sensitive enough.

"Voters will vote quickly and they'll notice that they made an error when they get to the review screen. The review screen is doing exactly what it needs to do - notifying voters what selections are about to be recorded," Charles said. "On a paper ballot, you don't get a second chance to make sure you voted for whom you intended, and it's a strong point in favor of these machines."

The Election Protection Coalition received a total of 32 reports of touch-screen voters who selected one candidate only to have another show up on the summary screen, Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a coalition member.

David Dill, a Stanford University computer scientist whose Verified Voting Foundation also belongs to the coalition, said he wouldn't "prejudge and say the election is going smoothly just because we have a small number of incident reports out of the total population.

"It's not going to be until the dust clears probably tomorrow that we have even an approximate idea of what happened," Dill added.

---

AP Technology Writer Matthew Fordahl in San Jose, Calif., contributed to this report.

House Dems Seek Election Inquiry
By Kim Zetter for Wired News.

Three congressmen sent a letter to the General Accounting Office on Friday requesting an investigation into irregularities with voting machines used in Tuesday's elections.

The congressmen, Democratic members of the House of Representatives from Florida, New York and Michigan, cited a number of incidents that came to light in the days after the election. One was a glitch in Ohio that caused a memory card reader made by Danaher Controls to give George W. Bush 3,893 more votes than he should have received. Another was a problem with memory cards in North Carolina that caused machines made by UniLect to lose 4,500 votes cast on e-voting machines. The votes were lost when the number of votes cast on the machines exceeded the capacity of the memory cards.

There were also problems with machines that counted absentee ballots in Florida. Software made by Election Systems & Software began subtracting votes when totals surpassed 32,000. Officials said the problem affected only certain countywide races on one of the last pages of the ballot. Elections officials knew about the problem two years ago, but the company failed to fix the software before the election this year.

Reports from voters in Florida and Ohio also indicated that some of them had problems voting for the candidate of their choice. When they tried to vote for John Kerry, they said, the machine either wouldn't register the vote at all or would indicate on the review page that the vote was cast for Bush instead...

In their letter, representatives John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Robert Wexler of Florida asked the GAO to "immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration."

John Doty, spokesman for Nadler, said the congressmen emphasized that they were not seeking a nationwide recount and were not anticipating that an investigation would change the outcome of the election.

"But we do want to make sure that where there are problems they're fixed so that it won't affect other elections in the future," Doty said. "We want to make sure that people can be confident in the system."

Here is the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65623,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3

House Dems Seek Election Inquiry

By Kim Zetter

04:38 PM Nov. 05, 2004 PT

Three congressmen sent a letter to the General Accounting Office on Friday requesting an investigation into irregularities with voting machines used in Tuesday's elections.

The congressmen, Democratic members of the House of Representatives from Florida, New York and Michigan, cited a number of incidents that came to light in the days after the election. One was a glitch in Ohio that caused a memory card reader made by Danaher Controls to give George W. Bush 3,893 more votes than he should have received. Another was a problem with memory cards in North Carolina that caused machines made by UniLect to lose 4,500 votes cast on e-voting machines. The votes were lost when the number of votes cast on the machines exceeded the capacity of the memory cards.

There were also problems with machines that counted absentee ballots in Florida. Software made by Election Systems & Software began subtracting votes when totals surpassed 32,000. Officials said the problem affected only certain countywide races on one of the last pages of the ballot. Elections officials knew about the problem two years ago, but the company failed to fix the software before the election this year.

Reports from voters in Florida and Ohio also indicated that some of them had problems voting for the candidate of their choice. When they tried to vote for John Kerry, they said, the machine either wouldn't register the vote at all or would indicate on the review page that the vote was cast for Bush instead.

In their letter, representatives John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Robert Wexler of Florida asked the GAO to "immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration."

John Doty, spokesman for Nadler, said the congressmen emphasized that they were not seeking a nationwide recount and were not anticipating that an investigation would change the outcome of the election.

"But we do want to make sure that where there are problems they're fixed so that it won't affect other elections in the future," Doty said. "We want to make sure that people can be confident in the system."

Doty said, however, that if the GAO does find a lot more problems that haven't yet been reported, then people will at least know about them and be able to decide what to do about them.

"We're hopeful that the GAO does not find such terrible irregularities that it would demonstrate widespread problems," Doty said.

No one was available at the office of the GAO to respond to questions. But a GAO representative told Wired News in September that the agency was planning to produce a report on e-voting after the election anyway.
To read Wired News' complete coverage of e-voting, visit the Machine Politics section.

End of story

Karl Rove is on Meet The Press right now, and I'll have it up around noon today.

I gotta say that it's rather frustrating watching all of these people talk about the Election as if all of these miscount reports didn't exist.

Obama, Illinois' new Democratic Senator, just said that he "shared a million votes with President Bush." There's no way that a million Democrats in Illinois voted for Bush.

We're now finding out that this is exactly what we're supposed to believe: that millions of Democrats took it upon themselves to vote for Bush. This concept is laughable to say the least. (Here's an article that deals with this specifically.)

I just wanted to drop you guys a note and say "no worries." This strange episode of the Twilight Zone will continue, but it may just have a happy ending, eventually. There seem to be a lot of folks paying attention to the facts now, and the hard math is on our side.

The question is: what will the Democrats do when it's been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the election was faulty. A recount is in order, to say the least, but I don't hear anybody asking for one.

But don't dispair. We're in this together guys. Thanks for sending me all the great links. I'm committed to archiving them here.

It's my birthday on the 10th., and I'm taking a few days off to rest up a bit. So if you don't hear back from me, that's why. But I'll catch up on everything when I get back, and I'm here all day today, so now's a good time to send anything over. I cancelled my trip. I'll be right here :-)

Evidence Mounts That The Vote Was Hacked
By Thom Hartmann for Commondreams.

When I spoke with Jeff Fisher this morning (Saturday, November 06, 2004), the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 16th District said he was waiting for the FBI to show up. Fisher has evidence, he says, not only that the Florida election was hacked, but of who hacked it and how. And not just this year, he said, but that these same people had previously hacked the Democratic primary race in 2002 so that Jeb Bush would not have to run against Janet Reno, who presented a real threat to Jeb, but instead against Bill McBride, who Jeb beat.

"It was practice for a national effort," Fisher told me.

And evidence is accumulating that the national effort happened on November 2, 2004.

The State of Florida, for example, publishes a county-by-county record of votes cast and people registered to vote by party affiliation. Net denizen Kathy Dopp compiled the official state information into a table, available at http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm, and noticed something startling.

Also See:

Florida Secretary of State Presidential Results by County 11/02/2004 (.pdf)

Florida Secretary of State County Registration by Party 2/9/2004 (.pdf)

While the heavily scrutinized touch-screen voting machines seemed to produce results in which the registered Democrat/Republican ratios matched the Kerry/Bush vote, and so did the optically-scanned paper ballots in the larger counties, in Florida's smaller counties the results from the optically scanned paper ballots - fed into a central tabulator PC and thus vulnerable to hacking - seem to have been reversed.

In Baker County, for example, with 12,887 registered voters, 69.3% of them Democrats and 24.3% of them Republicans, the vote was only 2,180 for Kerry and 7,738 for Bush, the opposite of what is seen everywhere else in the country where registered Democrats largely voted for Kerry.

In Dixie County, with 4,988 registered voters, 77.5% of them Democrats and a mere 15% registered as Republicans, only 1,959 people voted for Kerry, but 4,433 voted for Bush.

The pattern repeats over and over again - but only in the smaller counties where, it was probably assumed, the small voter numbers wouldn't be much noticed. Franklin County, 77.3% registered Democrats, went 58.5% for Bush. Holmes County, 72.7% registered Democrats, went 77.25% for Bush.

Yet in the larger counties, where such anomalies would be more obvious to the news media, high percentages of registered Democrats equaled high percentages of votes for Kerry.

More visual analysis of the results can be seen at
http://ustogether.org/election04/FloridaDataStats.htm, and
www.rubberbug.com/temp/Florida2004chart.htm.

And, although elections officials didn't notice these anomalies, in aggregate they were enough to swing Florida from Kerry to Bush. If you simply go through the analysis of these counties and reverse the "anomalous" numbers in those counties that appear to have been hacked, suddenly the Florida election results resemble the Florida exit poll results: Kerry won, and won big.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm

Published on Saturday, November 6, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
Evidence Mounts That The Vote Was Hacked
by Thom Hartmann

When I spoke with Jeff Fisher this morning (Saturday, November 06, 2004), the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 16th District said he was waiting for the FBI to show up. Fisher has evidence, he says, not only that the Florida election was hacked, but of who hacked it and how. And not just this year, he said, but that these same people had previously hacked the Democratic primary race in 2002 so that Jeb Bush would not have to run against Janet Reno, who presented a real threat to Jeb, but instead against Bill McBride, who Jeb beat.

"It was practice for a national effort," Fisher told me.

And evidence is accumulating that the national effort happened on November 2, 2004.

The State of Florida, for example, publishes a county-by-county record of votes cast and people registered to vote by party affiliation. Net denizen Kathy Dopp compiled the official state information into a table, available at http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm, and noticed something startling.

Also See:

Florida Secretary of State Presidential Results by County 11/02/2004 (.pdf)

Florida Secretary of State County Registration by Party 2/9/2004 (.pdf)

While the heavily scrutinized touch-screen voting machines seemed to produce results in which the registered Democrat/Republican ratios matched the Kerry/Bush vote, and so did the optically-scanned paper ballots in the larger counties, in Florida's smaller counties the results from the optically scanned paper ballots - fed into a central tabulator PC and thus vulnerable to hacking - seem to have been reversed.

In Baker County, for example, with 12,887 registered voters, 69.3% of them Democrats and 24.3% of them Republicans, the vote was only 2,180 for Kerry and 7,738 for Bush, the opposite of what is seen everywhere else in the country where registered Democrats largely voted for Kerry.

In Dixie County, with 4,988 registered voters, 77.5% of them Democrats and a mere 15% registered as Republicans, only 1,959 people voted for Kerry, but 4,433 voted for Bush.

The pattern repeats over and over again - but only in the smaller counties where, it was probably assumed, the small voter numbers wouldn't be much noticed. Franklin County, 77.3% registered Democrats, went 58.5% for Bush. Holmes County, 72.7% registered Democrats, went 77.25% for Bush.

Yet in the larger counties, where such anomalies would be more obvious to the news media, high percentages of registered Democrats equaled high percentages of votes for Kerry.

More visual analysis of the results can be seen at http://ustogether.org/election04/FloridaDataStats.htm, and www.rubberbug.com/temp/Florida2004chart.htm.

And, although elections officials didn't notice these anomalies, in aggregate they were enough to swing Florida from Kerry to Bush. If you simply go through the analysis of these counties and reverse the "anomalous" numbers in those counties that appear to have been hacked, suddenly the Florida election results resemble the Florida exit poll results: Kerry won, and won big.

Those exit poll results have been a problem for reporters ever since Election Day.

Election night, I'd been doing live election coverage for WDEV, one of the radio stations that carries my syndicated show, and, just after midnight, during the 12:20 a.m. Associated Press Radio News feed, I was startled to hear the reporter detail how Karen Hughes had earlier sat George W. Bush down to inform him that he'd lost the election. The exit polls were clear: Kerry was winning in a landslide. "Bush took the news stoically," noted the AP report.

But then the computers reported something different. In several pivotal states.

Conservatives see a conspiracy here: They think the exit polls were rigged.

Dick Morris, the infamous political consultant to the first Clinton campaign who became a Republican consultant and Fox News regular, wrote an article for The Hill, the publication read by every political junkie in Washington, DC, in which he made a couple of brilliant points.

"Exit Polls are almost never wrong," Morris wrote. "They eliminate the two major potential fallacies in survey research by correctly separating actual voters from those who pretend they will cast ballots but never do and by substituting actual observation for guesswork in judging the relative turnout of different parts of the state."

He added: "So, according to ABC-TVs exit polls, for example, Kerry was slated to carry Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Iowa, all of which Bush carried. The only swing state the network had going to Bush was West Virginia, which the president won by 10 points."

Yet a few hours after the exit polls were showing a clear Kerry sweep, as the computerized vote numbers began to come in from the various states the election was called for Bush.

How could this happen?

On the CNBC TV show "Topic A With Tina Brown," several months ago, Howard Dean had filled in for Tina Brown as guest host. His guest was Bev Harris, the Seattle grandmother who started www.blackboxvoting.org from her living room. Bev pointed out that regardless of how votes were tabulated (other than hand counts, only done in odd places like small towns in Vermont), the real "counting" is done by computers. Be they Diebold Opti-Scan machines, which read paper ballots filled in by pencil or ink in the voter's hand, or the scanners that read punch cards, or the machines that simply record a touch of the screen, in all cases the final tally is sent to a "central tabulator" machine.

That central tabulator computer is a Windows-based PC.

"In a voting system," Harris explained to Dean on national television, "you have all the different voting machines at all the different polling places, sometimes, as in a county like mine, there's a thousand polling places in a single county. All those machines feed into the one machine so it can add up all the votes. So, of course, if you were going to do something you shouldn't to a voting machine, would it be more convenient to do it to each of the 4000 machines, or just come in here and deal with all of them at once?"

Dean nodded in rhetorical agreement, and Harris continued. "What surprises people is that the central tabulator is just a PC, like what you and I use. It's just a regular computer."

"So," Dean said, "anybody who can hack into a PC can hack into a central tabulator?"

Harris nodded affirmation, and pointed out how Diebold uses a program called GEMS, which fills the screen of the PC and effectively turns it into the central tabulator system. "This is the official program that the County Supervisor sees," she said, pointing to a PC that was sitting between them loaded with Diebold's software.

Bev then had Dean open the GEMS program to see the results of a test election. They went to the screen titled "Election Summary Report" and waited a moment while the PC "adds up all the votes from all the various precincts," and then saw that in this faux election Howard Dean had 1000 votes, Lex Luthor had 500, and Tiger Woods had none. Dean was winning.

"Of course, you can't tamper with this software," Harris noted. Diebold wrote a pretty good program.

But, it's running on a Windows PC.

So Harris had Dean close the Diebold GEMS software, go back to the normal Windows PC desktop, click on the "My Computer" icon, choose "Local Disk C:," open the folder titled GEMS, and open the sub-folder "LocalDB" which, Harris noted, "stands for local database, that's where they keep the votes." Harris then had Dean double-click on a file in that folder titled "Central Tabulator Votes," which caused the PC to open the vote count in a database program like Excel.

In the "Sum of the Candidates" row of numbers, she found that in one precinct Dean had received 800 votes and Lex Luthor had gotten 400.

"Let's just flip those," Harris said, as Dean cut and pasted the numbers from one cell into the other. "And," she added magnanimously, "let's give 100 votes to Tiger."

They closed the database, went back into the official GEMS software "the legitimate way, you're the county supervisor and you're checking on the progress of your election."

As the screen displayed the official voter tabulation, Harris said, "And you can see now that Howard Dean has only 500 votes, Lex Luthor has 900, and Tiger Woods has 100." Dean, the winner, was now the loser.

Harris sat up a bit straighter, smiled, and said, "We just edited an election, and it took us 90 seconds."

On live national television. (You can see the clip on www.votergate.tv.)

Which brings us back to Morris and those pesky exit polls that had Karen Hughes telling George W. Bush that he'd lost the election in a landslide.

Morris's conspiracy theory is that the exit polls "were sabotage" to cause people in the western states to not bother voting for Bush, since the networks would call the election based on the exit polls for Kerry. But the networks didn't do that, and had never intended to. It makes far more sense that the exit polls were right - they weren't done on Diebold PCs - and that the vote itself was hacked.

And not only for the presidential candidate - Jeff Fisher thinks this hit him and pretty much every other Democratic candidate for national office in the most-hacked swing states.

So far, the only national "mainstream" media to come close to this story was Keith Olbermann on his show Friday night, November 5th, when he noted that it was curious that all the voting machine irregularities so far uncovered seem to favor Bush. In the meantime, the Washington Post and other media are now going through single-bullet-theory-like contortions to explain how the exit polls had failed.

But I agree with Fox's Dick Morris on this one, at least in large part. Wrapping up his story for The Hill, Morris wrote in his final paragraph, "This was no mere mistake. Exit polls cannot be as wrong across the board as they were on election night. I suspect foul play."

Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk show. www.thomhartmann .com His most recent books are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," "We The People: A Call To Take Back America," and "What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return To Democracy."

Well, I said I wanted numbers. Here are a lot of them. Now I've got to figure out what all this means. (Yes, I'll update this post.)

Looks like the Repubs have done particularly well in the E-voting districts.

What a surprise.

There are also a number of other links with different perspectives of looking at the data towards the bottom of the page.

Surprising Pattern of Florida's Election Results

Look at the Percent Change columns
Explanation, Sources, and Graphical Plots are Below the Chart
by Kathy Dopp, kathy@directell.com, Wednesday November 3, 2004

Here's a link to my own version of this HTML table page in case the link goes bad:

http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm

My version:
http://video.lisarein.com/election2004/numbers/floridanumbers.html

I meant to put this up Wednesday. It's from November 3, 2004.

Exit polls and ‘actual’ results don’t match; Evoting states show greater discrepancy
By The Raw Story.

An analysis of the original AP exit polling, which showed Kerry with a tighter margin and leading in myriad states, raises serious questions about the authenticity of the popular vote in several key states, RAW STORY has learned.

Since the actual outcome of the votes have been called, AP has changed nearly all of their exit polling to tighten the margin. A reason has not been given.

The analysis, first conducted by a poster at the popular Democratic Underground, suggests possible voter fraud in states that do not have electronic voting receipts, and those that limit the media’s access to polls.

Two inquiries placed by RAW STORY with the media contact for the six-network exit polling consortium at NBC News has received no response.

The curious result comes after the head of Diebold, which produces much of the nation’s electronic voting machines, told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=388

11/3/2004
Exit polls and ‘actual’ results don’t match; Evoting states show greater discrepancy
Filed under:

* General

— site admin @ 11:04 am Email This

LATEST: Officials admit machines gave Bush extra votes in two states

An analysis of the original AP exit polling, which showed Kerry with a tighter margin and leading in myriad states, raises serious questions about the authenticity of the popular vote in several key states, RAW STORY has learned.

Since the actual outcome of the votes have been called, AP has changed nearly all of their exit polling to tighten the margin. A reason has not been given.

The analysis, first conducted by a poster at the popular Democratic Underground, suggests possible voter fraud in states that do not have electronic voting receipts, and those that limit the media’s access to polls.

Two inquiries placed by RAW STORY with the media contact for the six-network exit polling consortium at NBC News has received no response.

The curious result comes after the head of Diebold, which produces much of the nation’s electronic voting machines, told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”

An exit poll involves asking someone after they walk out of the election booth who they voted for. While not a guide for proving results, it can be a mechanism for ensuring voting accuracy and flagging potential fraud. Exit polls were recently used in Venezuela to ensure the vote was accurate and legitimate.

Perhaps more importantly, while exit polling is unreliable, the odds of President Bush having gaining an advantage from every exit poll in swing states is an extremely improbable coincidence.

In Florida, Bush led exit polling by CNN’s exit polling consortium by just 5355 votes (when the exit polling information is multiplied by the actual vote). Yet he led by 326,000 in the end result. On Wednesday morning, CNN changed their exit polling to favor Bush, saying that had overweighted African American voters.

In Wisconsin, where exit polls put Kerry up seven percent, Bush has a lead of one percent, an unexplained difference of eight percent.

In New Mexico, Kerry led Bush by 3.8 percent, yet Bush leads Kerry by 3 percent in actual reported voting.

In Minnesota, where a new law sharply restricts reporters’ access to polls, Kerry led 9.6 percent in exit polling. Actual voting counts found that Bush trailed by 5 percent, with a 5 percent discrepancy favoring Bush.

Ohio, which does have paper trail capability but does not mandate receipts, had exits showed Kerry and Bush in a dead heat; in the near-final results, Bush led by three percent.

Exit polls put Kerry up by 8 percent in Michigan; actual results show Bush trailing by just 3 percent.

Nevada, which also has electronic voting – though should have mandated paper trails, had a variance of 4.2 percent. Kerry led the exit polls by 1.2 percent, while Bush led reported votes by 3 percent.

Two states with paper trails for voting were within 0.5 percent margin of error.

New Hampshire, which has electronic voting but provides verified receipts, exit polling is within 0.1 percent of the actual vote. Kerry led by 3 percent in exit polling, and 2.9 percent in the actual vote.

Maine, the final state for which analysis of exit polling was conducted before the AP “resampled” their data, was in the Kerry column by 7.5 percent; the end result put Kerry up 8 percent, a variance of 0.5 percent. Maine has no electronic voting.

Kerry does not gain by any significant margin in actual voting in any state for which analysis has been conducted, RAW STORY found.

Exit polling accurately predicted the results in most states with very little error. Where there were discrepancies, they were significant in the +5 percent range, and always favored Bush.

Allegations of voter fraud is not new to President Bush. On November 12, 2000, the Washington Post ran an article suggesting anomalies in the hotly constested state of Florida.

Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official of Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and found that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000 votes. But when she checked the county’s Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore’s count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000 … all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters.

Early returns from Florida showed the Green Party candidate leading President Bush and Sen. Kerry in two Ohio counties. They later appeared corrected, but raised eyebrows among liberal bloggers.

Another site created a graph comparing the exit poll percentages and the end result; click to enlarge.

Correction: An earlier version of this article said CNN had polled more than 3 million voters, based on information RAW STORY received from the original analysis. The actual polling was of several thousand voters, but was multiplied by the actual vote using percentages supporting each candidate to compare the statistical results. The voting difference, 5355, is what the difference would be if the exit polling queried as many voters as actually voted.

Don't worry Shrub, most of the disenfranchised don't have the money or resources to sue the government properly.

Group Finds Voting Irregularities in South
By Doug Gross, Associated Press Writer.

A national voting rights group said Friday it documented hundreds of voting irregularities affecting poor and minority voters in seven Southern states — from long lines and faulty equipment to deliberate voter intimidation.

"While the United States of America is a strong democracy, it is also a flawed democracy," said Keith Jennings, director of Count Every Vote 2004, formed after the 2000 election to assure voting rights for "underrepresented and marginalized sectors of the population."

The group sent monitors Tuesday to 700 precincts in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina. Their goal was to observe such issues as the timely opening of polls, the presence of correct ballots and functioning machines, and the impartiality of elections officials.

Among their preliminary findings, the group listed a shortage of early voting locations in Duval County, Fla., the largest county in Florida in area and voting-age population, the failure of electronic voting machines in three South Carolina counties, and the loss of votes at a North Carolina precinct when too much information was stored on a computer unit.

"In one case, sprinklers came on while people were waiting to vote and the poll workers didn't know how to turn them off," said Alma Ayala, who monitored voting in St. Petersburg, Fla...

Group leaders did not know exactly how many irregularities were cited and could not say which states appeared to have the most. They said those issues will be more fully explored in their final report, to be issued in about two weeks.

But volunteers provided anecdotal evidence of voting problems in every state they monitored.

Randall Tussaint, who helped register voters and monitor polls in an eastern Georgia congressional district, cited a precinct at historically black Savannah State University where the 25 provisional ballots provided were gone by 11 a.m.

Some voters whose registration status was unclear after that time left without voting, he said.

In Florida, monitors said they observed prospective voters leaving polling places when they saw long lines for last week's early voting. Faulty equipment and sub-par facilities in some poor neighborhoods also contributed to possible voter disenfranchisement, they said.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&u=/ap/20041105/ap_on_re_us/voting_report&printer=1

Group Finds Voting Irregularities in South

1 hour, 33 minutes ago

By DOUG GROSS, Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA - A national voting rights group said Friday it documented hundreds of voting irregularities affecting poor and minority voters in seven Southern states — from long lines and faulty equipment to deliberate voter intimidation.

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"While the United States of America is a strong democracy, it is also a flawed democracy," said Keith Jennings, director of Count Every Vote 2004, formed after the 2000 election to assure voting rights for "underrepresented and marginalized sectors of the population."

The group sent monitors Tuesday to 700 precincts in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina. Their goal was to observe such issues as the timely opening of polls, the presence of correct ballots and functioning machines, and the impartiality of elections officials.

Among their preliminary findings, the group listed a shortage of early voting locations in Duval County, Fla., the largest county in Florida in area and voting-age population, the failure of electronic voting machines in three South Carolina counties, and the loss of votes at a North Carolina precinct when too much information was stored on a computer unit.

"In one case, sprinklers came on while people were waiting to vote and the poll workers didn't know how to turn them off," said Alma Ayala, who monitored voting in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Volunteers with the organization met Friday at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church — where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached — to compile their findings and plan for collecting new information.

Group leaders did not know exactly how many irregularities were cited and could not say which states appeared to have the most. They said those issues will be more fully explored in their final report, to be issued in about two weeks.

But volunteers provided anecdotal evidence of voting problems in every state they monitored.

Randall Tussaint, who helped register voters and monitor polls in an eastern Georgia congressional district, cited a precinct at historically black Savannah State University where the 25 provisional ballots provided were gone by 11 a.m.

Some voters whose registration status was unclear after that time left without voting, he said.

In Florida, monitors said they observed prospective voters leaving polling places when they saw long lines for last week's early voting. Faulty equipment and sub-par facilities in some poor neighborhoods also contributed to possible voter disenfranchisement, they said.

The group's preliminary report made some positive observations.

The report applauded increased voter participation and numerous "get out the vote drives" and called elections throughout the South "relatively well administered."

But members said the fact that the presidential election's outcome is not being challenged — as it was in 2000 — should not obscure problems that still occurred.

"We had an election on Nov. 2 that fell outside the zone of litigation," said Patrick Merloe, an attorney and human rights activist who has observed elections in 27 countries. "That does not mean we had an election that met acceptable standards."

This is ANOTHER instance of the President getting more votes than were possible. (
Here's the other one I've blogged so far.)

Election problems due to a software glitch
By Sue Book for the Sun Journal.

A systems software glitch in Craven County's electronic voting equipment is being blamed for a vote miscount that, when corrected, changed the outcome of at least one race in Tuesday's election.

Then, in the rush to make right the miscalculation that swelled the number of votes for president here by 11,283 more votes than the total number cast, a human mistake further delayed accurate totals for the 40,534 who voted.

The glitch occurred Tuesday night as absentee ballot totals for one-stop early voting at three Craven County locations and ballots mailed-in were being entered, said Tiffiney Miller, Craven County Board of Elections director.

The Elections Systems and Software equipment had downloaded voting information from nine of the county's 26 precincts and as the absentee ballots were added, the precinct totals were added a second time. Precincts affected were Havelock East, Havelock West, River Bend, Cove City, Ernul, Fort Totten, Grover C. Fields, Glenburnie and West New Bern.

An override, like those occurring when one attempts to save a computer file that already exists, is supposed to prevent double counting, but did not function correctly, Miller said.

"I have redone every (personal electronic ballot) completely and am adding the absentees," she said early Thursday. "Every precinct was redone."

The second set of incorrect numbers came when the total for one of the batches of absentee ballots was not included in the first manual recount.

"That's why we have a week before the votes are official, so if we do find problems we can get them straight before the votes are certified," said Miller, who was in her office before 8 a.m. Thursday, hand-crunching the numbers retrieved from the voting machines.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.newbernsj.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=18297&Section=Local

Election problems due to a software glitch
November 05,2004
Sue Book
Sun Journal

A systems software glitch in Craven County's electronic voting equipment is being blamed for a vote miscount that, when corrected, changed the outcome of at least one race in Tuesday's election.

Then, in the rush to make right the miscalculation that swelled the number of votes for president here by 11,283 more votes than the total number cast, a human mistake further delayed accurate totals for the 40,534 who voted.

The glitch occurred Tuesday night as absentee ballot totals for one-stop early voting at three Craven County locations and ballots mailed-in were being entered, said Tiffiney Miller, Craven County Board of Elections director.

The Elections Systems and Software equipment had downloaded voting information from nine of the county's 26 precincts and as the absentee ballots were added, the precinct totals were added a second time. Precincts affected were Havelock East, Havelock West, River Bend, Cove City, Ernul, Fort Totten, Grover C. Fields, Glenburnie and West New Bern.

An override, like those occurring when one attempts to save a computer file that already exists, is supposed to prevent double counting, but did not function correctly, Miller said.

"I have redone every (personal electronic ballot) completely and am adding the absentees," she said early Thursday. "Every precinct was redone."

The second set of incorrect numbers came when the total for one of the batches of absentee ballots was not included in the first manual recount.

"That's why we have a week before the votes are official, so if we do find problems we can get them straight before the votes are certified," said Miller, who was in her office before 8 a.m. Thursday, hand-crunching the numbers retrieved from the voting machines.

New numbers put incumbent Commissioner Leon Staton in front of Republican challenger Tony Michalek for the Craven County Board of Commissioners District 5 seat. It does not appear that any other local races will be affected as a result of the malfunction, even with the results of about 1,000 provisional votes still to be entered Nov. 9.

Joined by her staff when the Craven County Administration Building opened, Miller already had been discussing the problem and remedies with Craven County Board of Elections Chairman Gloria Stanley, Electronic Systems and Software local representative Owen Andrews and North Carolina State Board of Elections Director Gary Bartlett.

Other than the cranking sound of numbers adding and an occasional ring of the phone, the office was dead quiet as they scrutinized the emerging tapes and hand-posted them on notebooks to be added by hand.

Craven County Commissioner Renee Sisk, a Republican who would be in the new majority on the board with Michalek's election, came by to assess the situation, followed by Craven County Manager Harold Blizzard, then Craven County Republican Party Chairman Steve Tyson, who both came in to inquire about the problem and possible solution. Then a national Republican political consultant who had watched the returns and had some concern that other precincts were involved in the problem entered the office.

Andrews arrived and made contact with the ESS home office in Omaha, Neb.

"What she is dong now is the failsafe way to make sure we get it right," said Andrews, of Owen G. Dunn in New Bern.

"When a voter casts the vote, it stays in the memory of the machine, which has redundancy as a safeguard," he said.

While there is no paper ballot, Andrews said "(Miller) has a paper trail. She can print as many paper vote tallies out of the machine as she'd like."

That information remains in the voting machine until the election is decided and it is deliberately removed.

Andrews will work with the manufacturer, Miller and the elections board to correct the problem to ensure it will not happen again, but said "it really has nothing to do with the integrity of the vote as cast or counted."

"We will produce an honest outcome by the time we canvass Tuesday," said Craven County Board of Elections member Walter Leake, who was one of the last to stop by the elections office Thursday. "The poll books will match the machine."

Election difficulties also were reported in a number of other North Carolina counties, including nearby Carteret, where 4,530 early votes were irretrievably lost.

Sue Book can be reached at (252) 638-8101 ext. 262 or sue_book@link.freedom.com.

Hmmm. Seems like these kids understand the direction of the country perfectly.


Worried students spend night in school to protest direction of country
By P. Soloman Banda for the Associated Press.

At least 85 students worried about war, a return of the draft and the future of the environment staged an overnight protest in the Boulder High School library before leaving peacefully Friday morning.

The students said they wanted assurances from political leaders about the direction of the country. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., met with some of the students for about an hour after they left the library at 7 a.m.

''We're worried that in four years we're going to be at war with five countries and we're going to have no trees,'' senior Cameron Ely-Murdock said.

''I know that's an extreme position, but I'm really worried about the draft,'' he said.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.casperstartribune.net/apdata/wire_detail.php?wire_num=40707

Worried students spend night in school to protest direction of country

AP Photos pursuing

pbde

By P. SOLOMON BANDA

Associated Press Writer

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) - At least 85 students worried about war, a return of the draft and the future of the environment staged an overnight protest in the Boulder High School library before leaving peacefully Friday morning.

The students said they wanted assurances from political leaders about the direction of the country. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., met with some of the students for about an hour after they left the library at 7 a.m.

''We're worried that in four years we're going to be at war with five countries and we're going to have no trees,'' senior Cameron Ely-Murdock said.

''I know that's an extreme position, but I'm really worried about the draft,'' he said.

President Bush and other administration officials have repeatedly said they have no plans to reinstate a draft, despite concerns about the number of troops needed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Principal Ron Cabrera agreed to let the students spend the night in the library if they would leave in time for Friday morning classes, which they did. A handful of teachers and parents stayed with them.

''It's become a really large learning event about civics and having a political voice. And you can't beat that,'' Cabrera said.

The sit-in began after school Thursday. The students, who brought sleeping bags and food, said they were not protesting Bush's re-election but were worried about the national debt, Iraq and other issues.

The students said they wanted to talk to representatives of GOP Gov. Bill Owens and U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo. Musgrave sponsored the failed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

It was not immediately known whether either received a request or responded.

Why Did CNN Change Their Exit Poll Data for Ohio After 1:00 AM?

We likes to be thorough :-)

When the San Francisco Department of Elections tried a test run on Wednesday of the program that does the redistribution, some of the votes didn't get counted and skewed the results, director John Arntz said.

I know it's only 3,893 "extra" votes, but if this kind of thing happened enough times, it would make quite a big difference.

Time to get our calculators out and start doing the math guys. According to this article, Kerry "lost" by 136,000 votes. 3,893 divides into 136,000 around 35 times. There are 88 counties in Ohio. That means this kind of error would only have to take place in less than half of them to provide Bush with a winning result.

One thing I'm wondering is: are there even enough Repubs registered to cast the votes they are claiming to be cast? Or are we supposed to believe that some Democrats voted for Bush? Help me out here guys! Or send me the numbers and I'm happy to do the math myself.

Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes
By John McCarthy for the Associated Press.

An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said. Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Bush's total should have been recorded as 365...

Bush won the state by more than 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results, and Kerry conceded the election on Wednesday after saying that 155,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio would not change the result...

Kimball Brace, president of the consulting firm Election Data Services, said it's possible the fault lies with the software that tallies the votes from individual cartridges rather than the machines or the cartridges themselves.

Either way, he said, such tallying software ought to have a way to ensure that the totals don't exceed the number of voters.

County officials did not return calls seeking details.

Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch that on one of the three machines at that precinct, a malfunction occurred when its cartridge was plugged into a reader and generated a faulty number. He could not explain how the malfunction occurred.

Damschroder said people who had seen poll results on the election board's Web site called to point out the discrepancy. The error would have been discovered when the official count for the election is performed later this month, he said...

Other electronic machines used in Ohio do not use the type of computer cartridge involved in the error, state officials say.

But in Perry County, a punch-card system reported about 75 more votes than there are voters in one precinct. Workers tried to cancel the count when the tabulator broke down midway through, but the machine instead double-counted an unknown number in the first batch. The mistake will be corrected, officials say.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041105/ap_on_el_pr/voting_problems

Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes

28 minutes ago

By JOHN McCARTHY, Associated Press Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio - An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush (news - web sites) 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said. Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites)'s 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Bush's total should have been recorded as 365.

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Bush won the state by more than 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results, and Kerry conceded the election on Wednesday after saying that 155,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio would not change the result.

Deducting the erroneous Bush votes from his total could not change the election's outcome, and there were no signs of other errors in Ohio's electronic machines, said Carlo LoParo, spokesman for Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell.

Franklin is the only Ohio county to use Danaher Controls Inc.'s ELECTronic 1242, an older-style touchscreen voting system. Danaher did not immediately return a message for comment.

Sean Greene, research director with the nonpartisan Election Reform Information Project, said that while the glitch appeared minor "that could change if more of these stories start coming out."

In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost in this election because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did.

And in San Francisco, a malfunction with custom voting software could delay efforts to declare the winners of four races for county supervisor.

In the Ohio precinct in question, the votes are recorded to eight memory locations, including a removable cartridge, according to Verified Voting Foundation, an e-voting watchdog group. After voting ends, the cartridge is either transported to a tabulation facility or its data sent via modem.

Kimball Brace, president of the consulting firm Election Data Services, said it's possible the fault lies with the software that tallies the votes from individual cartridges rather than the machines or the cartridges themselves.

Either way, he said, such tallying software ought to have a way to ensure that the totals don't exceed the number of voters.

County officials did not return calls seeking details.

Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch that on one of the three machines at that precinct, a malfunction occurred when its cartridge was plugged into a reader and generated a faulty number. He could not explain how the malfunction occurred.

Damschroder said people who had seen poll results on the election board's Web site called to point out the discrepancy. The error would have been discovered when the official count for the election is performed later this month, he said.

The reader also recorded zero votes in a county commissioner race on the machine.

Other electronic machines used in Ohio do not use the type of computer cartridge involved in the error, state officials say.

But in Perry County, a punch-card system reported about 75 more votes than there are voters in one precinct. Workers tried to cancel the count when the tabulator broke down midway through, but the machine instead double-counted an unknown number in the first batch. The mistake will be corrected, officials say.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a glitch occurred with software designed by Election Systems & Software Inc. for the city's new "ranked-choice voting," in which voters list their top three choices for municipal offices. If no candidate gets a majority of first-place votes outright, voters' second and third-place preferences are then distributed among candidates who weren't eliminated in the first round.

When the San Francisco Department of Elections tried a test run Wednesday, some of the votes didn't get counted. The problem was attributed to a programming glitch that limited how much data could be accepted, a threshold that did not account for high voter turnout.

Samuelson in, Rembert out ... for now
First recount changes county commission result
In The Charlotte Observer.

Nice how the mistakes get "fixed" when it means a Republican keeping her position.

A retally of early voting ballots has changed the result of the tight Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners race, possibly putting incumbent Republican Ruth Samuelson back on the board.

But totals could change again. And elections voting officials can't say yet what caused the problems.

When voting ended Tuesday, Democrats appeared to sweep three at-large seats.

But on Wednesday, Republicans pointed out early-voting discrepancies that showed more votes in the presidential race than people who voted. Elections officials spent today counting the ballots anew. The end result: former school board member Wilhelmenia Rembert, a Democrat, slipped from second to fourth, a mere 28 votes behind Samuelson.

Democrats Parks Helms and Jennifer Roberts were first and second, and Samuelson was third, with 63 fewer votes than Roberts. Elections officials still must rule on whether roughly 6,000 provisional ballots will be counted. That decision could change the close race again.

N.C. Computer Loses More Than 4,500 Votes
In the Associated Press.

More than 4,500 votes have been lost in one North Carolina county because officials believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. Scattered other problems may change results in races around the state.

Local officials said UniLect Corp., the maker of the county's electronic voting system, told them that each storage unit could handle 10,500 votes, but the limit was actually 3,005 votes.

Expecting the greater capacity, the county used only one unit during the early voting period. "If we had known, we would have had the units to handle the votes," said Sue Verdon, secretary of the county election board.

Officials said 3,005 early votes were stored, but 4,530 were lost.

http://www.goupstate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041104/APP/411040876

Posted on November 04, 2004
N.C. Computer Loses More Than 4,500 Votes

The Associated Press

More than 4,500 votes have been lost in one North Carolina county because officials believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. Scattered other problems may change results in races around the state.

Local officials said UniLect Corp., the maker of the county's electronic voting system, told them that each storage unit could handle 10,500 votes, but the limit was actually 3,005 votes.

Expecting the greater capacity, the county used only one unit during the early voting period. "If we had known, we would have had the units to handle the votes," said Sue Verdon, secretary of the county election board.

Officials said 3,005 early votes were stored, but 4,530 were lost.

Jack Gerbel, president and owner of Dublin, Calif.-based UniLect, said Thursday that the county's elections board was given incorrect information. There is no way to retrieve the missing data, he said.

"That is the situation and it's definitely terrible," he said.

In a letter to county officials, he blamed the mistake on confusion over which model of the voting machines was in use in Carteret County. But he also noted that the machines flash a warning message when there is no more room for storing ballots.

"Evidently, this message was either ignored or overlooked," he wrote.

County election officials were meeting with State Board of Elections Executive Director Gary Bartlett on Thursday and did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

The loss of the votes didn't appear to change the outcome of county races, and President Bush won the state by about 430,000 votes in unofficial returns. But that wasn't the issue for Alecia Williams, who voted on one of the final days of the early voting period.

"The point is not whether the votes would have changed things, it's that they didn't get counted at all," Williams said.

Two statewide races remained undecided Thursday, for superintendent of public instruction, where the two candidates are about 6,700 votes apart, and agriculture commissioner, where they are only hundreds of votes apart.

How those two races might be affected by problems in individual counties was uncertain. The state still must tally more than 73,000 provisional ballots, plus those from four counties that have not yet submitted their provisionals, said Johnnie McLean, deputy director of the state elections board.

Nationwide, only scattered problems were reported in electronic voting, though roughly 40 million people cast digital ballots, voting equipment company executives had said.

And we're not just talking about "in spirit."

Kerry Won
By Greg Palast for Common Dreams.

I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state...

First and foremost, Kerry was had by chads. But the Democrat wasn't punched out by punch cards alone. There were also the 'challenges.' That's a polite word for the Republican Party of Ohio's use of an old Ku Klux Klan technique: the attempt to block thousands of voters of color at the polls. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, the GOP laid plans for poll workers to ambush citizens under arcane laws—almost never used—allowing party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot. The Ohio courts were horrified and federal law prohibits targeting of voters where race is a factor in the challenge. But our Supreme Court was prepared to let Republicans stand in the voting booth door.

In the end, the challenges were not overwhelming, but they were there. Many apparently resulted in voters getting these funky "provisional" ballots—a kind of voting placebo—which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic. Count them up, add in the spoiled punch cards (easy to tally with the human eye in a recount), and the totals begin to match the exit polls; and, golly, you've got yourself a new president. Remember, Bush won by 136,483 votes in Ohio...

Already, the election-bending effects of spoilage are popping up in the election stats, exactly where we'd expect them: in heavily Hispanic areas controlled by Republican elections officials. Chaves County, in the "Little Texas" area of New Mexico, has a 44 percent Hispanic population, plus African Americans and Native Americans, yet George Bush "won" there 68 percent to 31 percent.

I spoke with Chaves' Republican county clerk before the election, and he told me that this huge spoilage rate among Hispanics simply indicated that such people simply can't make up their minds on the choice of candidate for president. Oddly, these brown people drive across the desert to register their indecision in a voting booth.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-36.htm

Published on Thursday, November 4, 2004 by TomPaine.com
Kerry Won
by Greg Palast

Kerry won. Here's the facts.

I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.

So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.

Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]

Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.

The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.

And not all vote spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African American and minority precincts. (To learn more, click here.)

We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely—leaving a 'hanging chad,'—or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks. (To read the report from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, click here .)

And here's the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday's election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.

So here we go again. Or, here we don't go again. Because unlike last time, Democrats aren't even asking Ohio to count these cards with the not-quite-punched holes (called "undervotes" in the voting biz).

Ohio is one of the last states in America to still use the vote-spoiling punch-card machines. And the Secretary of State of Ohio, J. Kenneth Blackwell, wrote before the election, “the possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state’s primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity.”

But this week, Blackwell, a rabidly partisan Republican, has warmed up to the result of sticking with machines that have a habit of eating Democratic votes. When asked if he feared being this year's Katherine Harris, Blackwell noted that Ms. Fix-it's efforts landed her a seat in Congress.

Exactly how many votes were lost to spoilage this time? Blackwell's office, notably, won't say, though the law requires it be reported. Hmm. But we know that last time, the total of Ohio votes discarded reached a democracy-damaging 1.96 percent. The machines produced their typical loss—that's 110,000 votes—overwhelmingly Democratic.

The Impact Of Challenges

First and foremost, Kerry was had by chads. But the Democrat wasn't punched out by punch cards alone. There were also the 'challenges.' That's a polite word for the Republican Party of Ohio's use of an old Ku Klux Klan technique: the attempt to block thousands of voters of color at the polls. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, the GOP laid plans for poll workers to ambush citizens under arcane laws—almost never used—allowing party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot. The Ohio courts were horrified and federal law prohibits targeting of voters where race is a factor in the challenge. But our Supreme Court was prepared to let Republicans stand in the voting booth door.

In the end, the challenges were not overwhelming, but they were there. Many apparently resulted in voters getting these funky "provisional" ballots—a kind of voting placebo—which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic. Count them up, add in the spoiled punch cards (easy to tally with the human eye in a recount), and the totals begin to match the exit polls; and, golly, you've got yourself a new president. Remember, Bush won by 136,483 votes in Ohio.

Enchanted State's Enchanted Vote

Now, on to New Mexico, where a Kerry plurality—if all votes are counted—is more obvious still. Before the election, in TomPaine.com, I wrote, "John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted."

How did that happen? It's the spoilage, stupid; and the provisional ballots.

CNN said George Bush took New Mexico by 11,620 votes. Again, the network total added up to that miraculous, and non-existent, '100 percent' of ballots cast.

New Mexico reported in the last race a spoilage rate of 2.68 percent, votes lost almost entirely in Hispanic, Native American and poor precincts—Democratic turf. From Tuesday's vote, assuming the same ballot-loss rate, we can expect to see 18,000 ballots in the spoilage bin.

Spoilage has a very Democratic look in New Mexico. Hispanic voters in the Enchanted State, who voted more than two to one for Kerry, are five times as likely to have their vote spoil as a white voter. Counting these uncounted votes would easily overtake the Bush 'plurality.'

Already, the election-bending effects of spoilage are popping up in the election stats, exactly where we'd expect them: in heavily Hispanic areas controlled by Republican elections officials. Chaves County, in the "Little Texas" area of New Mexico, has a 44 percent Hispanic population, plus African Americans and Native Americans, yet George Bush "won" there 68 percent to 31 percent.

I spoke with Chaves' Republican county clerk before the election, and he told me that this huge spoilage rate among Hispanics simply indicated that such people simply can't make up their minds on the choice of candidate for president. Oddly, these brown people drive across the desert to register their indecision in a voting booth.

Now, let's add in the effect on the New Mexico tally of provisional ballots.

"They were handing them out like candy," Albuquerque journalist Renee Blake reported of provisional ballots. About 20,000 were given out. Who got them?

Santiago Juarez who ran the "Faithful Citizenship" program for the Catholic Archdiocese in New Mexico, told me that "his" voters, poor Hispanics, whom he identified as solid Kerry supporters, were handed the iffy provisional ballots. Hispanics were given provisional ballots, rather than the countable kind "almost religiously," he said, at polling stations when there was the least question about a voter's identification. Some voters, Santiago said, were simply turned away.

Your Kerry Victory Party

So we can call Ohio and New Mexico for John Kerry—if we count all the votes.

But that won't happen. Despite the Democratic Party's pledge, the leadership this time gave in to racial disenfranchisement once again. Why? No doubt, the Democrats know darn well that counting all the spoiled and provisional ballots will require the cooperation of Ohio's Secretary of State, Blackwell. He will ultimately decide which spoiled and provisional ballots get tallied. Blackwell, hankering to step into Kate Harris' political pumps, is unlikely to permit anything close to a full count. Also, Democratic leadership knows darn well the media would punish the party for demanding a full count.

What now? Kerry won, so hold your victory party. But make sure the shades are down: it may be become illegal to demand a full vote count under PATRIOT Act III.

I used to write a column for the Guardian papers in London. Several friends have asked me if I will again leave the country. In light of the failure—a second time—to count all the votes, that won't be necessary. My country has left me.

Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight. The documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has been released this month on DVD .

This is from the November 3, 2004 program.

Jon covers Kerry's concession, Bush's relishing in his glory, and Stephen Colbert's commentary on it all.
Daily Show Clips From November 3, 2004

The Daily Show (The best news on television.)

The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy

By Thom Hartmann for Common Dreams.

The hot story in the Blogosphere is that the "erroneous" exit polls that
showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states) weren't
erroneous at all - it was the numbers produced by paperless voting
machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and more
analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive election
fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical that we keep the
largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are We The People allowing
private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to their officers and
boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and politicians that will
enhance their profitability, to handle our votes?

Maybe Florida went for Kerry, maybe for Bush. Over time - and through the
efforts of some very motivated investigative reporters - we may well find
out (Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org just filed what may be the
largest Freedom of Information Act [FOIA} filing in history), and bloggers
and investigative reporters are discovering an odd discrepancy in exit
polls being largely accurate in paper-ballot states and oddly inaccurate
in touch-screen electronic voting states Even raw voter analyses are
showing extreme oddities in touch-screen-run Florida, and eagle-eyed
bloggers are finding that news organizations are retroactively altering
their exit polls to coincide with what the machines ultimately said.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-38.htm

Published on Thursday, November 4, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy
by Thom Hartmann

The hot story in the Blogosphere is that the "erroneous" exit polls that
showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states) weren't
erroneous at all - it was the numbers produced by paperless voting
machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and more
analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive election
fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical that we keep the
largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are We The People allowing
private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to their officers and
boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and politicians that will
enhance their profitability, to handle our votes?

Maybe Florida went for Kerry, maybe for Bush. Over time - and through the
efforts of some very motivated investigative reporters - we may well find
out (Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org just filed what may be the
largest Freedom of Information Act [FOIA} filing in history), and bloggers
and investigative reporters are discovering an odd discrepancy in exit
polls being largely accurate in paper-ballot states and oddly inaccurate
in touch-screen electronic voting states Even raw voter analyses are
showing extreme oddities in touch-screen-run Florida, and eagle-eyed
bloggers are finding that news organizations are retroactively altering
their exit polls to coincide with what the machines ultimately said.

But in all the discussion about voting machines, let's never forget the
concept of the commons, because this usurpation is the ultimate felony
committed by conservatives this year.

At the founding of this nation, we decided that there were important
places to invest our tax (then tariff) dollars, and those were the things
that had to do with the overall "life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness" of all of us. Over time, these commons - in which we all make
tax investments and for which we all hold ultimate responsibility - have
come to include our police and fire services; our military and defense;
our roads and skyways; our air, waters and national parks; and the safety
of our food and drugs.

But the most important of all the commons in which we've invested our
hard-earned tax dollars is our government itself. It's owned by us, run by
us (through our elected representatives), answerable to us, and most
directly responsible for stewardship of our commons.

And the commons through which we regulate the commons of our government is
our vote.

About two years ago, I wrote a story for these pages, "If You Want To Win
An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines," that exposed how Senator
Chuck Hagel had, before stepping down and running for the U.S. Senate in
Nebraska, been the head of the voting machine company (now ES&S) that had
just computerized Nebraska's vote. The Washington Post (1/13/1997) said
Hagel's "Senate victory against an incumbent Democratic governor was the
major Republican upset in the November election." According to Bev Harris,
Hagel won virtually every demographic group, including many largely black
communities that had never before voted Republican. Hagel was the first
Republican in 24 years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska, nearly all on
unauditable machines he had just sold the state. And in all probability,
Hagel run for President in 2008.

In another, later article I wrote at the request of MoveOn.org and which
they mailed to their millions of members, I noted that in Georgia -
another state that went all-electronic - "USA Today reported on Nov. 3,
2002, 'In Georgia, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll shows Democratic
Sen. Max Cleland with a 49-44 lead over Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss.
'Cox News Service, based in Atlanta, reported just after the election
(Nov. 7) that, "Pollsters may have goofed" because 'Republican Rep. Saxby
Chambliss defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland by a margin of 53
to 46 percent. The Hotline, a political news service, recalled a series of
polls Wednesday showing that Chambliss had been ahead in none of them.'"
Nearly every vote in the state was on an electronic machine with no audit
trail.

In the years since those first articles appeared, Bev Harris has published
her book on the subject ("Black Box Voting"), including the revelation of
her finding the notorious "Rob Georgia" folder on Diebold's FTP site just
after Cleland's loss there; Lynn Landes has done some groundbreaking
research, particularly her new investigation of the Associated Press, as
have Rebecca Mercuri and David Dill. There's a new video out on the topic,
Votergate, available at www.votergate.tv.

Congressman Rush Holt introduced a bill into Congress requiring a
voter-verified paper ballot be produced by all electronic voting machines,
and it's been co-sponsored by a majority of the members of the House of
Representatives. The two-year battle fought by Dennis Hastert and Tom
DeLay to keep it from coming to a vote, thus insuring that there will be
no possible audit of the votes of about a third of the 2004 electorate,
has fueled the flames of conspiracy theorists convinced Republican
ideologues - now known to be willing to lie in television advertising -
would extend their "ends justifies the means" morality to stealing the
vote "for the better good of the country" they think single-party
Republican rule will bring.

Most important, though, the rallying cry of the emerging "honest vote"
movement must become: Get Corporations Out Of Our Vote!

Why have we let corporations into our polling places, locations so sacred
to democracy that in many states even international election monitors and
reporters are banned? Why are we allowing corporations to exclusively
handle our vote, in a secret and totally invisible way? Particularly a
private corporation founded, in one case, by a family that believes the
Bible should replace the Constitution; in another case run by one of
Ohio's top Republicans; and in another case partly owned by Saudi
investors?

Of all the violations of the commons - all of the crimes against We The
People and against democracy in our great and historic republic - this is
the greatest. Our vote is too important to outsource to private
corporations.

It's time that the USA - like most of the rest of the world - returns to
paper ballots, counted by hand by civil servants (our employees) under the
watchful eye of the party faithful. Even if it takes two weeks to count
the vote, and we have to just go, until then, with the exit polls of the
news agencies. It worked just fine for nearly 200 years in the USA, and it
can work again.

When I lived in Germany, they took the vote the same way most of the world
does - people fill in hand-marked ballots, which are hand-counted by civil
servants taking a week off from their regular jobs, watched over by
volunteer representatives of the political parties. It's totally clean,
and easily audited. And even though it takes a week or more to count the
vote (and costs nothing more than a bit of overtime pay for civil
servants), the German people know the election results the night the polls
close because the news media's exit polls, for two generations, have never
been more than a tenth of a percent off.

We could have saved billions that have instead been handed over to ES&S,
Diebold, and other private corporations.

Or, if we must have machines, let's have them owned by local governments,
maintained and programmed by civil servants answerable to We The People,
using open-source code and disconnected from modems, that produce a
voter-verified printed ballot, with all results published on a
precinct-by-precinct basis.

As Thomas Paine wrote at this nation's founding, "The right of voting for
representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are
protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery."

Only when We The People reclaim the commons of our vote can we again be
confident in the integrity of our electoral process in the world's oldest
and most powerful democratic republic.

Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored
Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally syndicated
daily progressive talk show. www.thomhartmann .com His most recent books
are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection: The Rise of
Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," "We The People: A Call
To Take Back America," and "What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return To
Democracy."

A Blue City (Disconsolate, Even) Bewildered by a Red America
By Joseph Berger for The New York Times.

Striking a characteristic New York pose near Lincoln Center yesterday, Beverly Camhe clutched three morning newspapers to her chest while balancing a large latte and talked about how disconsolate she was to realize that not only had her candidate, John Kerry, lost but that she and her city were so out of step with the rest of the country.

"Do you know how I described New York to my European friends?" she said. "New York is an island off the coast of Europe."

Like Ms. Camhe, a film producer, three of every four voters in New York City gave Mr. Kerry their vote, a starkly different choice from the rest of the nation. So they awoke yesterday with something of a woozy existential hangover and had to confront once again how much of a 51st State they are, different in their sensibilities, lifestyles and polyglot texture from most of America. The election seemed to reverse the perspective of the famous Saul Steinberg cartoon, with much of the land mass of America now in the foreground and New York a tiny, distant and irrelevant dot.

Some New Yorkers, like Meredith Hackett, a 25-year-old barmaid in Brooklyn, said they didn't even know any people who had voted for President Bush. (In both Manhattan and the Bronx, Mr. Bush received 16.7 percent of the vote.) Others spoke of a feeling of isolation from their fellow Americans, a sense that perhaps Middle America doesn't care as much about New York and its animating concerns as it seemed to in the weeks immediately after the attack on the World Trade Center.

"Everybody seems to hate us these days," said Zito Joseph, a 63-year-old retired psychiatrist. "None of the people who are likely to be hit by a terrorist attack voted for Bush. But the heartland people seemed to be saying, 'We're not affected by it if there would be another terrorist attack.' "

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

Editor's Note | A centerpiece of the Bush campaign was their claim that Bush was the best man to keep America safe from another terrorist attack. It is worthwhile to note, therefore, the reaction of the city of New York to the election results on Tuesday. This great city, which absorbed the horrific blow of 9/11, did not think Bush was the right man for the job. - wrp

A Blue City (Disconsolate, Even) Bewildered by a Red America
By Joseph Berger
The New York Times

Thursday 04 November 2004

Striking a characteristic New York pose near Lincoln Center yesterday, Beverly Camhe clutched three morning newspapers to her chest while balancing a large latte and talked about how disconsolate she was to realize that not only had her candidate, John Kerry, lost but that she and her city were so out of step with the rest of the country.

"Do you know how I described New York to my European friends?" she said. "New York is an island off the coast of Europe."

Like Ms. Camhe, a film producer, three of every four voters in New York City gave Mr. Kerry their vote, a starkly different choice from the rest of the nation. So they awoke yesterday with something of a woozy existential hangover and had to confront once again how much of a 51st State they are, different in their sensibilities, lifestyles and polyglot texture from most of America. The election seemed to reverse the perspective of the famous Saul Steinberg cartoon, with much of the land mass of America now in the foreground and New York a tiny, distant and irrelevant dot.

Some New Yorkers, like Meredith Hackett, a 25-year-old barmaid in Brooklyn, said they didn't even know any people who had voted for President Bush. (In both Manhattan and the Bronx, Mr. Bush received 16.7 percent of the vote.) Others spoke of a feeling of isolation from their fellow Americans, a sense that perhaps Middle America doesn't care as much about New York and its animating concerns as it seemed to in the weeks immediately after the attack on the World Trade Center.

"Everybody seems to hate us these days," said Zito Joseph, a 63-year-old retired psychiatrist. "None of the people who are likely to be hit by a terrorist attack voted for Bush. But the heartland people seemed to be saying, 'We're not affected by it if there would be another terrorist attack.' "

City residents talked about this chasm between outlooks with characteristic New York bluntness.

Dr. Joseph, a bearded, broad-shouldered man with silken gray hair, was sharing coffee and cigarettes with his fellow dog walker, Roberta Kimmel Cohn, at an outdoor table outside the hole-in-the-wall Breadsoul Cafe near Lincoln Center. The site was almost a cliché corner of cosmopolitan Manhattan, with a newsstand next door selling French and Italian newspapers and, a bit farther down, the Lincoln Plaza theater showing foreign movies.

"I'm saddened by what I feel is the obtuseness and shortsightedness of a good part of the country - the heartland," Dr. Joseph said. "This kind of redneck, shoot-from-the-hip mentality and a very concrete interpretation of religion is prevalent in Bush country - in the heartland."

"New Yorkers are more sophisticated and at a level of consciousness where we realize we have to think of globalization, of one mankind, that what's going to injure masses of people is not good for us," he said.

His friend, Ms. Cohn, a native of Wisconsin who deals in art, contended that New Yorkers were not as fooled by Mr. Bush's statements as other Americans might be. "New Yorkers are savvy," she said. "We have street smarts. Whereas people in the Midwest are more influenced by what their friends say."

"They're very 1950's," she said of Midwesterners. "When I go back there, I feel I'm in a time warp."

Dr. Joseph acknowledged that such attitudes could feed into the perception that New Yorkers are cultural elitists, but he didn't apologize for it.

"People who are more competitive and proficient at what they do tend to gravitate toward cities," he said.

Like those in the rest of the country, New Yorkers stayed up late watching the results, and some went to bed with a glimmer of hope that Mr. Kerry might yet find victory in some fortuitous combination of battleground states. But they awoke to reality. Some politically conscious children were disheartened - or sleepy - enough to ask parents if they could stay home. But even grownups were unnerved.

"To paraphrase our current president, I'm in shock and awe," said Keithe Sales, a 58-year-old former publishing administrator walking a dog near Central Park. He said he and friends shared a feeling of "disempowerment" as a result of the country's choice of President Bush. "There is a feeling of 'What do I have to do to get this man out of office?'''

In downtown Brooklyn, J. J. Murphy, 34, a teacher, said that Mr. Kerry's loss underscored the geographic divide between the Northeast and the rest of the country. He harked back to Reconstruction to help explain his point.

"One thing Clinton and Gore had going for them was they were from the South," he said. "There's a lot of resentment toward the Northeast carpetbagger stereotype, and Kerry fit right in to that."

Mr. Murphy said he understood why Mr. Bush appealed to Southerners in a way that he did not appeal to New Yorkers.

"Even though Bush isn't one of them - he's a son of privilege - he comes off as just a good old boy," Mr. Murphy said.

Pondering the disparity, Bret Adams, a 33-year-old computer network administrator in Rego Park, Queens, said, "I think a lot of the country sees New York as a wild and crazy place, where these things like the war protests happen."

Ms. Camhe, the film producer, frequents Elaine's restaurant with friends and spends many mornings on a bench in Central Park talking politics with homeless people with whom she's become acquainted. She spent part of Tuesday knocking on doors in Pennsylvania to rustle up Kerry votes then returned to Manhattan to attend an election-night party thrown by Miramax's chairman, Harvey Weinstein, at The Palm. Ms. Camhe was also up much of the night talking to a son in California who was depressed at the election results.

When it became clear yesterday morning that the outlook for a Kerry squeaker was a mirage, she was unable to eat breakfast. Her doorman on Central Park West gave her a consoling hug. Then a friend buying coffee along with her said she had just heard a report on television that Mr. Kerry had conceded and tears welled in Ms. Camhe's eyes.

Ms. Camhe explained the habits and beliefs of those dwelling in the heartland like an anthropologist.

"What's different about New York City is it tends to bring people together and so we can't ignore each others' dreams and values and it creates a much more inclusive consciousness," she said. "When you're in a more isolated environment, you're more susceptible to some ideology that's imposed on you."

As an example, Ms. Camhe offered the different attitudes New Yorkers may have about social issues like gay marriage.

"We live in this marvelous diversity where we actually have gay neighbors," she said. "They're not some vilified unknown. They're our neighbors."

But she said that a dichotomy of outlooks was bad for the country.

"If the heartland feels so alienated from us, then it behooves us to wrap our arms around the heartland," she said. "We need to bring our way of life, which is honoring diversity and having compassion for people with different lifestyles, on a trip around the country."

Dan Gillmour has written his usual classy piece on what another four years of the Shrub will mean for this country.

Except for his agreement that Kerry should have conceded in the beginning of the piece, it's a great one.

Four More Years

The Republicans have an even stronger congressional majority. They have shown how gladly ruthless they can be in using their power. Bush and his allies have never believed in compromise. They have even less incentive to govern from the middle now, even though the nation remains bitterly divided.

There's no secret about what's coming. We don't have that excuse this time.

Here comes more fiscal recklessness -- as we widen the chasm between the ultra-wealthy and everyone else, cementing a plutocracy into our national fiber, we'll pay our national bills on the Treasury Bill credit card for the next few years. Many economists expect a Brazil-like financial crisis to hit the U.S. before the end of the decade. If we muddle our way though the near term, we'll still have left our kids with the bill.

Here comes an expansion of the American empire abroad, a fueling of fear and loathing elsewhere on the globe. This is also unsustainable in the end. Empire breeds disrespect.

Our civil liberties will shrink drastically. This president and his top allies in Congress fully support just one amendment in the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment's right to bear arms. Say goodbye to abortion rights in most states. Roe v. Wade will fall after this president pushes three or four Scalia and Thomas legal clones onto the Supreme Court. Say hello, meanwhile, to a much more intrusive blending of church and state.

The environment? We'll be nostalgic for Ronald Reagan's time in office.

This is not sour grapes. This is reality.

I hope, but doubt, that the Democrats re-discover enough of their collective spine to block the most extreme moves. If they do it'll be a change for a party that stands for so little these days.

People say there are two Americas. I think there are at least three.

One is Bush's America: an amalgam of the extreme Christian "conservatives," corporate interests and the builders of the burgeoning national-security state.

Another is the Democratic "left": wedded to the old, discredited politics in a time that demands creative thinking.

I suspect there's a third America: members of an increasingly radical middle that will become more obvious in the next few years, tolerant of those who are different and aware that the big problems of our times are being ignored -- or made worse -- by those in power today.

That third America needs a candidate. Or, maybe, a new party.

Here is the complete article in case the link goes bad to:

http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/010986.shtml#010986

November 03, 2004
Four More Years
• posted by Dan Gillmor 07:18 AM
• permanent link to this item

UPDATED

Kerry has conceded, properly so. And now we're onto the next four years.

The Republicans have an even stronger congressional majority. They have shown how gladly ruthless they can be in using their power. Bush and his allies have never believed in compromise. They have even less incentive to govern from the middle now, even though the nation remains bitterly divided.

There's no secret about what's coming. We don't have that excuse this time.

Here comes more fiscal recklessness -- as we widen the chasm between the ultra-wealthy and everyone else, cementing a plutocracy into our national fiber, we'll pay our national bills on the Treasury Bill credit card for the next few years. Many economists expect a Brazil-like financial crisis to hit the U.S. before the end of the decade. If we muddle our way though the near term, we'll still have left our kids with the bill.

Here comes an expansion of the American empire abroad, a fueling of fear and loathing elsewhere on the globe. This is also unsustainable in the end. Empire breeds disrespect.

Our civil liberties will shrink drastically. This president and his top allies in Congress fully support just one amendment in the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment's right to bear arms. Say goodbye to abortion rights in most states. Roe v. Wade will fall after this president pushes three or four Scalia and Thomas legal clones onto the Supreme Court. Say hello, meanwhile, to a much more intrusive blending of church and state.

The environment? We'll be nostalgic for Ronald Reagan's time in office.

This is not sour grapes. This is reality.

I hope, but doubt, that the Democrats re-discover enough of their collective spine to block the most extreme moves. If they do it'll be a change for a party that stands for so little these days.

People say there are two Americas. I think there are at least three.

One is Bush's America: an amalgam of the extreme Christian "conservatives," corporate interests and the builders of the burgeoning national-security state.

Another is the Democratic "left": wedded to the old, discredited politics in a time that demands creative thinking.

I suspect there's a third America: members of an increasingly radical middle that will become more obvious in the next few years, tolerant of those who are different and aware that the big problems of our times are being ignored -- or made worse -- by those in power today.

That third America needs a candidate. Or, maybe, a new party.

Comments

Posted by: Terry Heaton on November 3, 2004 07:34 AM

Kudos, Dan, on an excellent post. Sign me up for the new party -- seriously.

Posted by: ashusta on November 3, 2004 07:41 AM

"This is not sour grapes. This is reality."
I agree with much of what you say about the current fiscal insanity, and the fact that the middle class is going to get shafted.
However, if the election was clean (and it appears to be better than 2000 so far) then you need to acknowledge that the majority of Americans want all of those things you just decried.
They want the church to be funded by the state. They want to be poor. They want to send our military on foreign expeditions. They want a ruling elite made up of old-boy networks.
And that's fine, because this is after all a democracy and the people should be given what they want.
As for those of us who don't want those things, I guess we just need to move to countries that have parliamentary systems with proportional representation. Or, bide our time until the next election season when people have had a chance to reap the rewards of their choices and see how things stand then.

Posted by: Miles Baska on November 3, 2004 07:49 AM

Since the Repugnants are in control of Congress a Demo president would perhaps restore some balance. I shudder at the thought of Ms. Kerry in the White House, however.

Ben Sargent had a wonderful cartoon four years ago that seems even more appropriate now. Dorothy(the voter), the Scarecrow (Bush) and the Tin Man (Gore) are walking the Yellow Brick Road. Scarecrow says, "I wish I had a brain!"; Tin Man says, "I wish I had a heart!"; and Dorothy thinks, "I wish I had a choice."

Posted by: leon on November 3, 2004 08:06 AM

Something I keep reading in the UK and hearing from friends is that there is nothing that can be done now other than to build a stronger Europe to counter the US. What does everyone think of this idea?

Posted by: anonymous on November 3, 2004 08:16 AM

Face it there is a third nation already. It's capital is somepalce between San Francisco and Hollywood, and it's totally out of touch with the rest of America.

You guys wanted anybody but Bush and look who 51% of the American voters wanted.

And so much for the "get out the vote" strategy - Republican triuph again.

Have a great 4 years!

Sour grapes make bad whine...

Posted by: Al on November 3, 2004 08:24 AM

You're half right, it's not sour grapes, but it's not reality either. On every issue you mention, your statements are wrong or vastly overblown.

Fiscally, Kerry was advocating spending more than Bush. So you should be happy that Bush is in.

As is plainly obvious, we are not conquerers. This empire notion is idiotic. If your goal is for us to yield to the corrupt UN and the bribed Europeans, then I'm proud that we lead the way beyond these people.

ashusta commented about "a ruling elite made up of old-boy networks". Isn't this how the many of the leading countries that liberals look up to operate? In many countries , the government leaders are intertwined with major industries. You guys think it's bad here, go look elsewhere.

As for civil liberties, you guys are like Chicken Little. I agree that we need to be vigilant with regard to government powers, but I think you guys use this issue more for political gain versus it actually being a big problem.

Dan, your comment "Another is the Democratic 'left': wedded to the old, discredited politics in a time that demands creative thinking" is important. If this is what you were thinking, why couldn't you be more transparent and have told us?

At least you see that the Dem's are tied to the old playbook of scare tactics. But you do it yourself: empire building, civil liberties issues, the environment, the evil pharmacuetical companies, Big Oil, etc, etc. Everything you guys come up with is on the negative side of things; you guys have no ideas and offer people no hope. Part of it is because you guys don't seem to have and grounded base of beliefs that you'll stick to.

Another party isn't going to solve the Dem's problems because the Dem's problems are deeper.

Posted by: Rik Gary on November 3, 2004 08:25 AM

Let's take a deep breath folks. Bush has an ok, but not huge, lead in the House and Senate. Seems re-election is all but certain, with another thin margin. These are not the makings of some proto-fascist supermajority. Even if you assume the worst about the Bush administration, there's plenty of opposition out there to blunt any extreme moves.

My thinking is, that after all the trouble in Iraq, the administration has no hunger for more adventures abroad-- or at home. If President Bush tried appointing 1950-era Strom Thurmondites to the Supreme Court he'd have his head handed to him and he knows it.

Second terms are almost always more cautious than the first, and this one's had so much wind taken out of it that I doubt there'll be much appetite for many Horatio Hornblower adventures. Oppose the Bush administration if that's your wish, but working yourself into a lather leads to "Fahrenheit 9-11" styled rhetoric, and inevitable backlash.

Posted by: M1EK on November 3, 2004 08:31 AM

Third party again. Yay.

Until the mechanics of our electoral process are changed, the only thing third parties do is destroy the chances of the major party closest to them in ideology. This isn't the 1800s, where third parties could acquire electoral votes and then engage in horse-trading at the electoral college.

Posted by: David Weinberger on November 3, 2004 08:42 AM

Oprah in 2008.

You want to win with a radical center party that can pull votes from all sides?

Oprah in 2008.

Posted by: Bob B. on November 3, 2004 08:44 AM

This is exactly why Kerry lost - you are way overstating your case, and I think most people know it, and reject what they know to be overblown charges. The US is not creating an "empire". Lack of fiscal responsibility is a bi-partisan trait. We have not really lost any civil liberties, though I too worry abut this while the 'war on terror' is going on. But I doubt a Democrat would be any different.

I think that your rant is indeed sour grapes - we have had worse presidents (remember Nixon?) and we have survived. The pendulum always swings back the other way.

Posted by: Evo on November 3, 2004 08:46 AM

I suspect there's a third America: members of an increasingly
radical middle that will become more obvious in the next few
years, tolerant of those who are different and aware that the
big problems of our times are being ignored -- or made worse
-- by those in power today.

That third America needs a candidate. Or, maybe, a new party.

Gee... ya think? We need a shake up of the most severe kind, not at the higher eschelons of government, but with ourselves. Dems almost had it with Dean, but then they got scared. Too bad.

We need new ideas, not new programs. Fixing the Democrat party won't help. Candidates need to stand up for what they believe in and say things that not everyone is going to agree on. There are enough of us who would listen... eventually.

Posted by: john on November 3, 2004 08:48 AM

i think you are being a wee bit over dramatic about the end of the world, taliban style-US government in the lurking.

I know you're an editorial writer and you get paid to have opinions, but please try to be a little measured. These things go in cycle's and the one point we can all agree on is that Republicans are good for small businesses (which tend to be more community oriented).

The other issue i think we as a nation need to get more involved in is our communitied, people whine, bitch and complain about national issues (which have little impact on their lives), but then do NOTHING in their communities... Democrats take the next two years as a breather reorganize and figure out what you stand for (NOT against), Republicans enjoy it, but as they said in Rome to Ceasur as he was riding in hie chariot "you are not a god" - please don't let it go to your head...

there are huge issues that need to be tackled:
- social security
- medical insurance
- jobs
- GWOT

we need to fix these as a nation, otherwise we all will loose, j

Posted by: jazmac on November 3, 2004 08:48 AM

I think there's four Americas. I think the Neo-con power mongers use the rest of "Bush's America" as the raw materials to build its empire; but the vast Red State contingent has no clue that's what's happening. They believe the IMAGE of "Bush's America" but are ignorant - some willfully so - of the way they're being played. The neo-cons don't give a rat's patootie for the issues and causes the (apparent)masses believe are being represented by Bush.

Posted by: john on November 3, 2004 08:51 AM

both parties need fixing:
1. fix the gerrymadering problems across states
2. this will increase churn of people in congress (you know some folks have been there for almost 45 years ???? this is shocking) and make them less likely to be in the pockets of special interests
3. we need new ideas and people
j

Posted by: Hiram on November 3, 2004 08:53 AM

'For a successful solution of all these tasks, three conditions are required: a party; once more, a party; again, a party.'
-- L.D. Trotsky, The Revolution in Spain (1931)

A workers' party, that is. A revolutionary socialist party. Kerry lost because he's just another bourgeois with nothing to offer the vast majority of people in the USA.

Posted by: Dave on November 3, 2004 09:00 AM

We've tried third parties--and they don't work with the current electoral college system and with the current structure of the Senate and the House of Reps. Third parties are only viable in a parliamentary system. As to a more radical middle, I agree that the ranks of radicals will grow as things become worse, but they will not be tolerant. If you study the history of the Sixties, you see that when people are ignored after trying EVERY legal method to be heard, they become confrontational and eventually they become violent. Expect more protests and inevitible violence as frustration builds into rage.

Posted by: morden/al franken/question/query on November 3, 2004 09:01 AM

In line at the Ronald Reagan Building, for Bush's acceptance speech. The mood here is jubilant.

Four more years, and 55 Republican senators!

The largest vote for any President in American history.

The talk here is, that every American will get 20% or so of his Social Security taxes put into a investment account that the government can NEVER take away.

We can look forward to a completely recast tax system, with low and flat rates, with dramatic new incentives for savings.

We will all get cheap, affordable "high deductible" health care savings accounts.

Trial lawyer fees will be sensibly capped, and rapacious litigation will fade.

We'll see reinvigoration of free trade.

The Supreme Court will be recast for the next 25 years, putting aside once and for all the pretense that the institution is a group of philosopher kings, who should remake America into a far Left fantasy.

We'll see final victory in Iraq, a real solution to Israeli security, new and secure sources of oil -- enabling us to transition to the future hydrogen economy. There is talk about a renaissance of nuclear power, specifically "micro" generation.

No more demagoguery about WMD, Osama, and "explosives". No more poppycock about "two Americas".

The oppressive boot of Democrat policy on the American throat is history.

Join us.

Posted by: Micah on November 3, 2004 09:02 AM

The majority has spoken. Now you're set up for Hillary in 2008.

Posted by: Mark Crummett on November 3, 2004 09:15 AM

>... look who 51% of the American voters wanted.<

Yeah, but I'd call 49% a pretty significant number of Americans who DIDN'T want him. One percent is not exactly what I'd call a mandate from the people.

Posted by: Joe I. on November 3, 2004 09:16 AM

Bush, increased lead in Senate, House, Republicans take more governorships and state legislatures!! Wow it is a big WIN for the Republicans. All gay marriage ban proposals pass with huge majorities even in liberal Oregon! Talk about a united issue. No longer can people claim it divides American, it unites it apparently. Even in my state of Washington (it is real close by about 1,500 votes) but we are going to probably elect a very right wing governor Rossi. WOW.

Shows that I think the liberal Democrats screwed this for us that wanted Kerry. They needed the centrists like Clinton and me. Liberals and their 527's lost the election for Kerry!!!!

Posted by: Chris on November 3, 2004 09:17 AM

You left out so much. Despite the Dept of Homeland Security, this administration wants to shrink gov't. That's what the unfunded mandate is all about. We can kiss a lot of wonderful programs goodbye. Forget loosing Roe v Wade, look for Social Security to get privatized (Morden, the gov't won't take it away, but an economy in shambles sure as shit will, go ask enron employees,) and affirmative action to disappear. No child left behind will remain underfunded, leaving states and counties to cover the rest (the Bush league may not raise your taxes, but what choice will states and municipalities have?)

The Fed will decrease dramatically, and the replacements in four years will have a lot to fix. Maybe this is sour grapes, maybe it is exaustion mixed with a hangover, but it feels like there's no more energy for patriotism left. I'm going to go join some cheese eating surrender monkeys. At least the food is better over there.

C

Posted by: Sean on November 3, 2004 09:18 AM

We don't need another party: the Democrats need to start learning from the Republicans. What would they do if the roles were reversed?

Start working toward impeachment!

Posted by: Alex on November 3, 2004 09:18 AM

What a nightmare. Yesterday it was unimaginable to me, here in the UK, that you'd do anything less than kick Bush and co. out on their collective ear.

And what did you do? You have given him a mandate to continue butchering his way across the world, in the name of security, to put profit into the rich man's pocket.

I wish I could think of a place to go to try to escape what is going to happen in the next four years: more, and worse, exploitation of poor countries, a greater divide between rich and poor, and more corporate control of your media, resulting in an even more clueless electorate.

God help us.

Posted by: GHDDS on November 3, 2004 09:20 AM

So, does crow taste anything like chicken?

The fact of the matter is Kerry lost because he ran as a populist, never addressed the real issues that voters cared about and let Bush dictate the campaign.

Posted by: George on November 3, 2004 09:21 AM

Hiram, take a pill! I suggest you do NOT go out there and advocate the creation of a revolutionary socialist party, you might just end up disappeared.

It is hard not to be depressed, though. Four more years of Gruppenfuhrer Ashcroft, continuous (and ever-more meaningless) security alerts, emails scanned by government agents, pro-life Supreme Court Justices, deteriorating environmental standards and war with whomever doesn't agree with us. Whew!

But let's not lose sight of the fact that more people voted yesterday than ever before, and that the Supreme Court will not be deciding who will be President. Time for Democrats to do some self-examination. Time to look again at someone like Howard Dean, not afraid to take an anti-war position, not afraid to be called liberal.

Posted by: Ross M Karchner on November 3, 2004 09:22 AM

"The Third America Party" has a nice ring to it, in fact.

Posted by: Tim Robertson on November 3, 2004 09:23 AM

Well, America, you will now get what you deserve. No crying about it, this is what you wanted. Good luck to us all, we WILL need it.

Posted by: Ted Stapleton on November 3, 2004 09:24 AM

"...there is nothing that can be done now other than to build a stronger Europe to counter the US. What does everyone think of this idea?"

That just cracks me up... I can't stop laughing... sorry... build a stronger Europe... mmmmph...

Posted by: M1EK on November 3, 2004 09:24 AM

Republicans good for small bidness? Not from where I sit - no effective benefit from tax cuts, and the worst affected by health-care cost.

Posted by: Chris on November 3, 2004 09:28 AM

President Bush spent the last 6 months talking about what he was going to do if re-elected.

Senator Kerry spent the last 6 months talking about what Bush would do if re-elected.

Is it any wonder Bush won?

Posted by: Stan Krute on November 3, 2004 09:28 AM

Some thoughts:

[1] A 3rd party means GOP wins bigger.

[2] A Democratic party moving to the left
means GOP wins bigger.

[3] The Democrats didn't have anyone this
round who could beat Bush, other than
Edwards, who they would never have nominated.

[4] Simple wins. Subtle doesn't.

[5] People hate homosexuals, and are
unashamed about it.

[6] Supreme Court, environment, Empirism,
and the deficit are the saddest things
coming down the pike.

[7] Democrats need to spend some time
here in red-state-of-mind America, so they
understand what's going on.

Stan

Posted by: Rob on November 3, 2004 09:28 AM

Morden, before you crow too loudly about Bush getting the "largest vote for any President in American history", realize that this is a function of voter turnout. Kerry also got more votes in this election than Reagan did in '84.

As for your fantasy on the events of the upcoming four years, I think someone stayed up too late last night waiting for a victory speech.

Posted by: Voted 3rd Party on November 3, 2004 09:32 AM

"Yeah, but I'd call 49% a pretty significant number of Americans who DIDN'T want him"

And of those 49% who didn't want him, how many actually wanted Kerry?

Posted by: Avi Flax on November 3, 2004 09:38 AM

Count me in on that new party!

Posted by: Bob on November 3, 2004 09:40 AM

morden/al franken/question/query: Based on your predictions, I can only assume that you're already taking advantage of the Republicans' new Free Oxycontin Program.

Posted by: Ann's Cooter on November 3, 2004 09:43 AM

This time, not even Dan "The Sky is Falling" Gilmor can overstate the potential for disaster.

Posted by: Nathan on November 3, 2004 09:52 AM

What we need now, more than a new party, is a new _country_. Let them have this one, it's dead.

Posted by: Dean in Des Moines on November 3, 2004 09:52 AM

I was willing to consider your points, and offer some limited brain-cycles to reason through your claims - you didn't provide any links, proof, or logic so I was going to Google around a bit. But when you said "radical middle", I gave up. That's just nonsence.

Please, please, please give me a link for lawsuits currently filed against Bush or high-ranking cabinet member.

Show me when in our history a divided populace lead to demise.

Radical Middle - nonsence.

Posted by: engineer_scotty on November 3, 2004 09:55 AM

The Apogee of the Republicans

An incumbent president from Texas wins election to his second term in office. His opponent--a prominent Congressmen. His first term was marked by a grave national tragedy, and the involvement by the United States in a controversial foreign war (one ostensibly waged on behalf of the people there, who by and large wanted no part of the US). His party had dominated the Presidenency for an entire generation--other than a two-term administration by a moderate of the opposing party, whose VP subsequently lost a close election--and controls both houses of Congress. The president--whose first term already was marked with sweeping legislation that resulted in great social upheaval--plans even more massive changes in his second term. With control of Congress, it appears the opposition party is unable to stop him. There is talk of an enduring political dynasty being created, and that the other major political party might well be on its way to irrelevance.

George Bush, 2004?

Nope. LBJ, 1964.

What happened four years later? That same president left office in disgrace, and would be dead within five years. The war in Vietnam was well on its way to being the quagmire we all remember. And the unstoppable political juggernaut that was the Democrats in the 60s? Split into two different factions (the blue-dog dems and the "liberals"), who strongly distrusted each other and still do today. The other party, preying on this distrust, began the assimilation of many Democratic faithful into its ranks--a process which has been ongoing until now.

What does this have to do with 2004? It's amazing how many of the mistakes of LBJ have been repeated by this administration. From the machine politics, to the foreign misadventures, to the gross disregard of the opposition party's concerns, to the mistaken belief that being feared equates to being loved, George Bush is well on his way to being the Republican equivalent of LBJ. Of course, all could go well for Dubya--the Iraqi resistance could be smashed, the economy might boom, and Osama bin Laden's head might be mounted on a pike in the Oval Office. In which case this analogy would fail spectacularly. But I doubt it.

This election, due to the constant overreaching of this administration, might well mark the end of the current Republican era of dominance in US politics, just as the second Johnson administration was the apogee for the Democratic machine that was launched in 1932 with the election of FDR. The excesses of LBJ (many of which I agree with, but which prompted a huge backlash nonetheless) launched a rightward shift in US politics that has continued unabated since.

In short, if the Republicans are not careful, this election could be the end of the current conservative era; not the beginning. But you wouldn't know it from reading the paper (or the blogs, or listening to talk radio or watching the TV) today in 2004.

Just like you wouldn't have known what was about to come in 1964.

engineer_scotty

Posted by: Tony on November 3, 2004 09:56 AM

"They have even less incentive to govern from the middle now, even though the nation remains bitterly divided."

Dan, you forgot that Daschle was thrown out of office. Now, we finally have conditions to increase unity.

"This is not sour grapes. This is reality."
No,no,no... it's sour grapes

Posted by: stevesgt on November 3, 2004 10:01 AM

People like "morden/al franken/question/query" always fail to mention the one area in which Bush's policies have done by far the most damage: the environment.

They're leading us, in blissful ignorance, to life on a poisoned, uninhabitable rock within our children's lifetime.

Think that's overly dramatic?

The latest word on climate change is that with the uncovering of sequestered carbon in the arctic by melting ice sheets, the rate of climate change will increase, not decrease. There's a positive feedback loop in place now, and it will take even more to counteract it. Without added forests, greenbelts, and estuaries, there won't be adequate photosynthetic activity to counteract the increased burning of fossil fuels. We could see 20 foot rises in ocean level in 50 years. Dan could be going to his office in San Jose by boat.

Ask yourself this: Why has the Bush administration fired scientists who won't write biased papers to support the administrations pro-industry agenda? Why have lobbyists for energy and chemical companies been put in charge of our environmental protection, our public lands, especially our parks and precious remaining wilderness areas?

A: The large corporations, who owe no aliegance to any particular people of the world, are perfectly willing to corrupt the political system to boost their short-term profits, with no regard for our long-term welfare. You don't have to work for any multi-national corporation for very long to see how that happens.

Perhaps the religeous right foolishly believe that god will take their faithful to heaven in the next four years, leaving the rest of us rot in a planet increasingly like Venus. It appears that their blissful ignorance, their reliance on one ancient book as the source of all truth, has made them sheep, lead by myopic executives with only quarterly profits in mind. They've blissfully carried us closer to our own destruction.

What we really need in technology policy is the principle that no costs be externalized. Companies and individuals must be responsible for the polution they create, the resources they extract, the health risks they cause. Tech policy should be based on true capitalism where products and services actually have to include the costs to the commons, not government subsidies to extractive and environmentally exploitive industries.

Posted by: Dewayne Hendricks on November 3, 2004 10:07 AM

Very well said, Dan! You did a great job at expressing how I find myself thinking this morning. While I didn't get any sleep any sleep last night, I arose this morning with a new perspective on things and ready to start a journey to find that undiscovered country we now find ourselves in.

See you at the 'Accelerating Change' conference at Stanford later this week. Perhaps we can really make some real progress on just what changes out there need to be accelerated.

Posted by: Steve K on November 3, 2004 10:08 AM

9/11 was obviously an inside job. It's time to try Bush and co. for crimes against this country.

Posted by: sbw on November 3, 2004 10:12 AM

Dan,

Please don't give up in despair. There may yet be hope:

"While some see this election as a continuation of the deep cultural and ideological divides which surfaced in the 2000 race, that is not necessarily so. Reflecting on the near 50-50 split election, people can view the country two ways: 1) Voters gathered around the poles at the left and right extremes, or, 2) Voters gathered near the center seeing problems similarly but differing about how to solve them."

See: http://blogs.rny.com/sbw/stories/storyReader$197 , 2004 Election Aftermath, for an outside the valley analysis.

Regards/Stephen

Posted by: Will on November 3, 2004 10:31 AM

History is full of examples where decisions based on fear will lead to fearful, unintelligent results. I think Dan is right that we'll see drastic changes in four more years with the "Patriot" act being an indication of how civil liberties will be treated (perhaps "discarded" is the better word). Questions arise as to if or how long it will take for the environment to recover from the plundering it will sustain. Unfortunately, we'll see this in the short term while the longer term multi-trillion dollar bill will be left to our children and grandchildren. The nation has failed their future... The hope lies in them being wiser than those who will have handed them these problems. After all, the nation has seen "true" uniters at key times in our history. Who knows, perhaps another Abraham Lincoln is being born today. There is always hope...

Posted by: DonnieBnyc on November 3, 2004 10:37 AM

I blame everything on Lincoln. He should have let the south secede.

Posted by: Max on November 3, 2004 10:46 AM

Dan talked of a "third america" ... yes indeedy, there IS a Third America:

http://www.culturalcreatives.org/

http://www.lightparty.com/Misc/DiscoveringCultural.html

http://members.aol.com/wrfr/why.htm

http://wrir.org/x/modules/xoopsfaq/index.php?cat_id=1#q7

And I think that the progressives of today are in exactly the same position that the Right was in the 1960s ... the question is, will Progressives learn the lessons of what worked for those Retroactives in the 1960s ? A thirty year effort to come back in from the Wilderness has paid off BIG yesterday. Will the progressives learn? I believe one way we will know is if TV watching by progressives drops dramatically. TV literally takes less energy and imagination than eating ... TV sucks people into a kind of SOMA so if someone doesn't like the current mess and then sits down in front of a TV to veg instead of DOING SOMETHING, then they have no-one to blame. The Retros in the 1960s took a long view 'no prisoner' attitude and girded themselves to have discipline and think how they could resist the Federal Government intrusions into their lives, and now its the Progressives turn to feel the same way.

Posted by: Dan Wood on November 3, 2004 10:46 AM

Lets start talking...
http://thenewparty.blogspot.com
newparty@gmail.com

Posted by: Camilo on November 3, 2004 10:47 AM

O agree with you, Jon: a new party definitely needs to arise: The promise of the Dems has gotten thin, its actual ability almost nonexistent. Four more years of Bush were unthinkable a few months ago, and right now the future looks grim. You can kiss goodbye your civil liberties, your advanced thinking, your uncompromised science: Under Bush, we will have theologically appointed doctrine instead of knowledge, and ideology and opinions instead of facts.
The USA has become a dictatorship and its people do not even notice.

Posted by: Al on November 3, 2004 10:48 AM

Voted 3rd Party: remember that Clinton never got 50% of the vote. He was close, but no cigar.

As for now, 51.5% of the vote was for Bush and it was a 3.5 million vote spread.

If Bush had received a few more percentage points, it could be called a rout by historic terms. (I think Reagan had 58% of the vote against Mondale.)
In any event, it's a convincing victory.

Posted by: Al on November 3, 2004 10:52 AM

One other thing, even in lefty California, Bush got 44% of the vote and Kerry got 55%. I thought Kerry would get 60%.

Posted by: Bob on November 3, 2004 11:03 AM

Al writes: If Bush had received a few more percentage points, it could be called a rout by historic terms.

And if a frog had wings, he wouldn't bump his tuchas.

Posted by: M. Mortazavi on November 3, 2004 11:06 AM

I'm afraid you may not be seeing or taking in the full picture. See http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/MortazaviBlog/20041103#moral_values_economy_and_war , particularly the link to the radical analysis http://www.counterpunch.com/cockburn11032004.html , and it may clear matters a bit. What we have in America is a one-sidedness and an atrophy of moral discourse in politics, testified by the fact that the major contender dares not speak of the immorality of a war of aggression but criticizes only its execution. Democrats' main objection to Bush has always been formulated in utilitarian terms (familiar to the left-liberals). However, large numbers of people voting for and against Bush are doing so because of their moral values, which have nothing to do with utilitarianism.

Posted by: Marianne Mueller on November 3, 2004 11:14 AM

I suggest we call it the Resistance.

Posted by: Jim M on November 3, 2004 11:23 AM

We need a Tommy Douglas. http://www.weyburnreview.com/tommydouglas/welcome.html

You can listen to him telling the story of Mouseland here http://www.saskndp.com/history/mouseland.html.

It's the story of a place called Mouseland. Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do.

They even had a Parliament. And every four years they had an election. Used to walk to the polls and cast their ballots. Some of them even got a ride to the polls. And got a ride for the next four years afterwards too. Just like you and me. And every time on election day all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big, fat, black cats.

Now if you think it strange that mice should elect a government made up of cats, you just look at the history of Canada for last 90 years and maybe you'll see that they weren't any stupider than we are.

Now I'm not saying anything against the cats. They were nice fellows. They conducted their government with dignity. They passed good laws--that is, laws that were good for cats. But the laws that were good for cats weren't very good for mice. One of the laws said that mouseholes had to be big enough so a cat could get his paw in. Another law said that mice could only travel at certain speeds--so that a cat could get his breakfast without too much effort.

All the laws were good laws. For cats. But, oh, they were hard on the mice. And life was getting harder and harder. And when the mice couldn't put up with it any more, they decided something had to be done about it. So they went en masse to the polls. They voted the black cats out. They put in the white cats.

Now the white cats had put up a terrific campaign. They said: "All that Mouseland needs is more vision." They said:"The trouble with Mouseland is those round mouseholes we got. If you put us in we'll establish square mouseholes." And they did. And the square mouseholes were twice as big as the round mouseholes, and now the cat could get both his paws in. And life was tougher than ever.

And when they couldn't take that anymore, they voted the white cats out and put the black ones in again. Then they went back to the white cats. Then to the black cats. They even tried half black cats and half white cats. And they called that coalition. They even got one government made up of cats with spots on them: they were cats that tried to make a noise like a mouse but ate like a cat.

You see, my friends, the trouble wasn't with the colour of the cat. The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats, they naturally looked after cats instead of mice.

Presently there came along one little mouse who had an idea. My friends, watch out for the little fellow with an idea. And he said to the other mice, "Look fellows, why do we keep on electing a government made up of cats? Why don't we elect a government made up of mice?" "Oh," they said, "he's a Bolshevik. Lock him up!" So they put him in jail.

But I want to remind you: that you can lock up a mouse or a man but you can't lock up an idea.

Posted by: axel maser on November 3, 2004 11:26 AM

today i am glad not to be american.
glad to be an old european, and looking forward
to regime change in the us, one way or the other.

americans can no longer claim they didn't know
what they were in for.

america has to change itself radically or others will do the changing for it.

americans beware, bring a flak-jacket when you leave the
land of the formerly free, you will have no choice than be brave
and no one to blame but yourselves.

seasons greetings axel maser

Posted by: RIGHT coast on November 3, 2004 11:32 AM

Hey Dan - ever consider the fact that YOU MIGHT BE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY? Just asking...

Enjoy the next 4 years. I know I will!

Posted by: MD on November 3, 2004 11:36 AM

"At least you see that the Dem's are tied to the old playbook of scare tactics"

WHAT? The GOP's ENTIRE campaign was based on scare tactics. Bush had nothing to run on, so Rove and Co. had to resort to scaring people away from Kerry. For a Bush supporter to accuse the Dems of scare tactics would be funny if it weren't so frighteningly out of touch with reality... which seems to describe a lot of Bush supporters.

"we have had worse presidents (remember Nixon?) and we have survived."

Nixon worse? If you take the criminal acts of Watergate out of the equation, there's no comparison -- Bush has been one of the worst presidents this country has ever had. NOTHING is better off in the U.S. than it was four years ago. The economy, national security, the environment, foreign relations, health care, education... you name it, it's worse now than it was then. Yet people buy into the GOP's scare campaigns about terrorism, higher taxes, etc. -- most of it flat-out false -- and re-elect the guy who has screwed up more things in four short years than anyone thought possible.

"Dan, you forgot that Daschle was thrown out of office. Now, we finally have conditions to increase unity."

Exhibit #1 in why Bush won: people who buy the GOP's rhetoric hook, line, and sinker. Daschle has been portrayed by the GOP as a "divider" and as someone who has created gridlock. But the facts are (1) He's nowhere NEAR as bad in these areas as the GOP was under Clinton (which was the worst it's been in modern times); and (2) these accusations are mainly the same old Rovian "exaggerate your opponent's flaws and create a false image about them" tactics. For any GOP supporter to claim that a Democrat is a divider or responsible for Congressional gridlock is the height of hypocrisy.

Posted by: FEAR on November 3, 2004 11:37 AM

Homophobia, Xenophobia, Racism. Fear won, as it usually does.

Posted by: Ross M Karchner on November 3, 2004 11:39 AM

Maybe this is a good starting point?

http://www.ibiblio.org/spc/tp96/cgd.html

Posted by: theodore on November 3, 2004 12:04 PM

America is screwed. Part of me really does not care that Bush won. Luckily I have the type of skill set that makes me employable internationally. Sure someone may argue to me, "Go ahead leave". Such a response makes my point. Many of those who voted for Kerry are some of the most highly skilled workers of this country, who can be employed outside the US, while many of those who suppported Bush don't have such a skill set. I would rather make my fortunes abroad than wait for a Brazil style economic collapse to hit the US. I love this country, but we are headed down a road that, in my opinion, the majority of the US has not fully considered the ramifications of following.

Good Luck!!

Posted by: JamesJayToran on November 3, 2004 12:08 PM

"I suspect there's a third America: members of an increasingly radical middle that will become more obvious in the next few years, tolerant of those who are different and aware that the big problems of our times are being ignored -- or made worse -- by those in power today."

As tolerant as the power-mavens and thoughtless-leaders in Tech?

Like Shelley Powers, who rarely comes outta her shell except to do her Joan of Arc shtick..

Like you, in this post.

You wouldn't know the middle if it hit you in the face, which I just did... I'll spare you the additional post I was going to do over @The Scobleizer, because you are so deluded you couldn't even understand the words..

..let alone the point(s) I was getting at.

You would need to learn some no small number of things about BEING TOLERANT, before you'd even be able to RECOGNIZE it, as well as IT.

Posted by: JamesJayToran on November 3, 2004 12:11 PM

Link to The Scobleizer: http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/11/02.html#a8566

Btw, you should update your picture, Dan Gillmor. The cognitive dissonance is palpable. As is Shell's post at Doc W's, who is apparently NOT too depressed to blog.

Like he COULD stop even if he actually wanted to.

Posted by: mossholderm on November 3, 2004 12:12 PM

What the Dems need is a breeding and brainwashing program. Then they can have just as many members are the Republicans! ;)

Posted by: engineer_scotty on November 3, 2004 12:36 PM

Changing demographics...

One issue for the Democrats, whichever way they decide to lean, is that there has been a significant population shift to the red states. In 2000, Gore got 265 or so EVs. The same set of states would have been only worth 260 EVs to Kerry, due to restricting. A majority of the US population, it seems, is conservative or has conservative leanings. There still remains a set of swing voters that can be persuaded to go either way; but they have increasingly voted for Republicans--or third parties (ie the Reform Party in 92 and 96).

Unless some major demographic shift brings them new voters, Democratic (or 3rd-party) prospects at the national level will require bringing some of the Republican core back into the Democratic fold. Clinton had some success appealing to economic conservatives with the "new democrat" agenda, but he was aided a great deal by the presence of Ross Perot. And--he thorougly enraged the left wing of the Democratic Party, many who responded by going for Nader in 2000. Kerry tried the opposite tactic; of appealing to the economic self-interest of lower-income Republicans, but that didn't work either (many of them considered moral issues, as well as terrorism, more important concerns than jobs and healthcare). The left didn't much like Kerry either, but jumped on his bandwagon anyway because they thought W was so awful. Expect much debate within the Democrats wherein the various factions blame each other for losing the election. Some will accuse Kerry of moving too far to the right (and not firmly challenging Bush in issues like Iraq); others will respond that a Dean-like candidate would have been beaten by a wider margin. (Both arguments have merit).

So, given that... what to do? A couple of ideas.

1) Wait. Bush now has a green light to continue his policies; if they are as ruinious as the Dems claim (i.e. continuing gap between rich and poor, more bodybags coming home from Iraq), I suspect the Republicans will experience a major correction in 2008 (see previous post). Bush was given the benefit of the doubt this time around; but the public is already growing restless of the war in Iraq.

2) Work on dividing the religious right/big business axis. During the Civil Rights Movement, the "liberal" churches were a major social force in advancing and articulating public morality; today that role seems to have been abdicated to the conservative church, which ignores issues of social justice altogether and instead focuses on issues like gays and abortion. But there is much in the Bible which denounces (indirectly) the economic and foreign policies of the current regime.

3) Recruit new leaders from places other than the Senate. Daschle losing may have been a blessing in disguise; it means one less retread Senator worrying about his next Presidential run as opposed to voting his conscience. (Daschle's political career is probably over--though expect Gephardt, Harkin, and a few others to try again in '08). The Republicans have had great success turning actors into politicians; surely the Dems could do better than Reagan and Ahnold?

4) Reclaim the liberal legacy. Right now, the "l" word is a profanity in American political discourse. It conjures up images of wishy-washy pseudo-intellectuals, more interested in abstract political theory than in the lot of ordinary Americans. It should conjure up the image of someone who will fight for the common man. After all, commen men and women dominate the electorate.

5) Go into hostile territory. Both candidates largely ignored states not considered "in play". But what would happen were Kerry (or another Democratic nominee) to actually go to Idaho or Mississippi and talk to the voters? At a minimum, such would reduce the ability of the Republicans to carciture Democrats as effectively as they do now.

6) Strategy, not tactics. Democrats seem to worry about the next election--and whenever they lose, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth (and pointing of fingers). The Republicans have demonstrated much greater ability to plan long term.

Posted by: j. Huntress on November 3, 2004 12:39 PM

Thanks for your fine comments. The third party must be formed by the young with a vision of how to better lives in the 21st Century. Truly hoping we don't have another Bush ruler so that next election we can learn to recognize the problems of the entire world and HELP.

Posted by: Ankur Vakil on November 3, 2004 12:51 PM

Word! It really hasnt settled in yet....

Posted by: step back on November 3, 2004 01:00 PM

U.S. Democrats are in shock.
How did this happen?
We won all the intellectual arguments.
We won all three debates.
And yet 51% of America pulled the lever the other way.
How did this happen?

Europeans be aware.
You are next.
Karl Rove (Bush's campaign manager) has proven that mind control works over the mass media.

The Mixed Messages Machine succeeded. Rove plucked all the strings like a master musician. Some call it "the politics of fear". They understand a small part, but not the whole thing. The battle field is not at the intellectual level but rather at the level of the lower brain folds: the limbic brain and the reptilian brain.

Step #1: Create an amorphous enemy.
(They are everywhere. I see them all the time. They want to harm you. They have weapons of mass destruction.)

Step #2: Threaten the children.
(Mothers be afraid. Be very afraid. The amorphous enemy wants to harm your children)

Step #3: Build artificial cages.
(They hate our freedoms.)
(Homeland defense will protect you.)

Step #4: Flash colorfull lights.
(Code Orange, code red, spin & off balance)

Step #5: Cast yourself as the only true savior.
(Who ya gonna trust? Only I am strong and steadfast enough to save you and the children, the babies, the embryos from the harm that is out there. I have God's blessing on me.)

Step #6: Use repetition and harmonic resonance to drill those mixed messages deep down to the limbic and reptilian levels. Bypass the cerebral cortex. What it thinks, matters not.

cc: Compassionate Conservative
ff: Flip Flop
hh: Harbor Hate
hh: Heart of Hearts
ll: Love Life
bb: Bunker Busters
mm: Mixed Messages
ss: Shifting Sands
tt: TerrorisT ThreaT

Got a cerebral cortex? Try turning it back on.

It's too late. You are the Manchurian Voter.

Posted by: Sina on November 3, 2004 01:01 PM

Today,I weep for America,Not only America,I weep for our planet.

Posted by: wah on November 3, 2004 01:08 PM

Nice post, Dan.

One is Bush's America: an amalgam of the extreme Christian "conservatives," corporate interests and the builders of the burgeoning national-security state.

Just think how happy we will all be when we pay taxes to corporations instead of the government. Woohoo fixing social security by dumping taxes into the market will work great, because corporations REALLY want us to be FREE.

It's on their charter...isn't it?

Posted by: engineer_scotty on November 3, 2004 01:10 PM

One more thing....

The way to convince the Bush voters to vote for progressive causes is **NOT** to tell them they are stupid. As cathartic as it may be, suggesting that the red-state voters cast ballots because they did because they are mindless sheep, etc... is about as productive as the claims from the right that progressives are traitors/agents of Satan/etc.

Posted by: wah on November 3, 2004 01:25 PM

---The way to convince the Bush voters to vote for progressive causes is **NOT** to tell them they are stupid.---

This is true. Do what Bush has done. Lie to them. But do it with a smile and an Orwellian edge.

Ugg, not much of a solution, IMHO. Personally I prefer EXPLAINING why Christ said that attacking people who didn't attack you or pose a real threat to your life never makes anyone safer.

Posted by: eli on November 3, 2004 01:30 PM

Hoy es un d�a triste me acabo de enterar de la "victoria" de Bush en las eleciones.

Posted by: standa on November 3, 2004 01:47 PM

from http://www.andrewsullivan.com

A MANDATE FOR CULTURE WAR: What we're seeing, I think, is a huge fundamentalist Christian revival in this country, a religious movement that is now explicitly political as well....As blue states become more secular, and red states become less so, the only alternative to a national religious war is to allow different states to pursue different options. That goes for things like decriminalization of marijuana, abortion rights, stem cell research and marriage rights. Forcing California and Mississippi into one model is a recipe for disaster. Federalism is now more important than ever. I just hope that Republican federalists understand this. I fear they don't.

Posted by: engineer_scotty on November 3, 2004 01:48 PM

The Good News:

And now, the good news from the election:

1) The turnout was amazing. Unfortunately for the Democrats, the turnout was amazing for both sides. But an interested electorate is always better than a disinterested one.

2) It is highly unlikely that any new foreign misadventures will be embarked on. Barring an attack on US soil, there isn't going to be support in Congress for invading anybody else. Even many in the President's own party are regretting the decision to authorize force.

3) Had Kerry won--Iraq would have become the Democrat's problem. (And unfortunately, I don't think Kerry had a better plan then "maybe France and Germany will help my administration, because unlike Dubya, I haven't spent the last four years giving them the finger".) Now, it remains a Republican problem; if the quagmire continues there will be nobody else to blame.

4) Three fewer Democratic senators worrying about their next presidential run. Part of the reason that the Dem's have been such a feckless opposition party is that far too many of them were worrying about how their votes would play in swing states--Kerry's votes on Iraq being a prime example. Many of them, I think, voted for war precisely because a vote the other way would have doomed instantly their chances at the White House. (Compare that with Ted Kennedy, who having lost to Carter in 1980 is no longer considered a White House prospect--and thus is in a position to vote however he pleases).

5) Barak Obama. (How soon before some right-wing talk-show host starts replacing the "b" in his last name with an "s"?)

6) The Dems did fight back, unlike 2002 when they hid in the corner. They still lost, but looked much more impressive in their effort.

Posted by: Abandoned by both parties on November 3, 2004 01:48 PM

This nation needs some statesmen and few politicians ... in both of the major parties.

Both parties pander to their fringes. And neither one represents most Americans' views. So we're left choosing between the lesser of two evils.

Until that happens, my vote will go to third party candidates as a form of protest.

Posted by: standa on November 3, 2004 01:53 PM

How could Zogby's exit polling show a CONSISTANT MISS of 3 - 6% ( or higher ) in ALL 20 Battleground states except for 1 PA ?

Clue: when Karen Hughes appeared on CNN and began spinning that the exit polls being done by their people showed what the results would later be and they were different from those everyone else had. In other words it was get it out front that the Republicans had the only polls that mattered and everyone else was wrong. Amazing it was best exemplified in the 2 states where Diebold and Jeb Bush 'guaranteed' victory. All that was needed in "hacked" or "gamed" machines is a margin for Bush - who would be the wiser.

BTW, in Nevada (the ONLY state with across-the-board verifiable paper records) the exit polling most closely matches the actual vote.

Battleground States from http://www.zogby.com and final results from CNN.com.

Arizona
Zogby had it +6% for Bush
Final +11% for Bush

Arkansas
Zogby had it +3% for Bush
Final +9% for Bush

Colorado
Zogby had it too close to call
Final +7% for Bush

Florida
Zogby had it +.1% for Kerry and trending Kerry
Final +5% for Bush

Iowa
Zogby had it +5% for Kerry
Final +1% for Bush

Michigan
Zogby had it +6% for Kerry
Final Result +3% for Kerry

Minnesota
Zogby had it +6% for Kerry
Final +3% for Kerry

Missouri
Zogby had it +3% for Bush
Final +8% for Bush

Nevada
Zogby had it too close to call
Final +3% for Bush

New Hampshire
Zogby had it +5% for Kerry
Final +1% for Kerry

New Mexico
Zogby had it +3% for Kerry
Final +1% for Bush

North Carolina
Zogby had it +3% for Bush
Final +13% for Bush

Oregon
Zogby had it +10% for Kerry
Final Result +5% for Kerry

Ohio
Zogby had it +2% for Bush but trending Kerry
Final +2% for Bush

Pennsylvania
Zogby had it trending Kerry
Final Result +3% for Kerry

Tennessee
Zogby had it +4% for Bush
Final +14% for Bush

Virginia
Zogby had it slight edge for Bush
Final +8% for Bush

Washington
Zogby had it +10% for Kerry
Final +7% for Kerry

West Virginia
Zogby had it +4% for Bush
Final +14% for Bush

Wisconsin
Zogby had it +6% for Kerry
Final +1% for Kerry

FINAL THOUGHTS ?

1. Could Karl Rove have pulled off a well disguished evoting fraud without a paper trail ) across ALL BATTLEGROUND STATES ?

2. Could a scenario like this have been even was considered by Kerry/Edwards ?

3. If so, Karl Rove can simply say says PROVE IT or concede and perhaps we'll work something out.

ps: also see http://tinyurl.com/3q99r

A poster at Democratic Underground did the SCREEN CAPTURES of the now missing exit poll data from the CNN site both before and after they "altered them". He then constructed a clever MATH PROOF how the eVoting FRAUD was done in the battleground states with out paper audit trails. There is a consistant 5% edge for GWB.

Posted by: jirji biernvel on November 3, 2004 01:55 PM

It is official now.
America is the enemy.

The rest of the world
will act accordingly.

Posted by: conrad on November 3, 2004 01:57 PM

i've thought during the recent campaign that a party restructuring was imminent. the center of the democrats and the republican "realists". parties die and are born in america. remember the whigs? in retrospect, if kerry had chosen gephardt as running mate, might he have carried missouri and perhaps ohio?

Posted by: Bob McKeand on November 3, 2004 02:16 PM

In the name of Gandhi and MLK: RESIST

Or, leave the usOFa like I will be doing!

Posted by: nondezkrypt on November 3, 2004 02:20 PM

I doubt this would ever happen, but with many old-guard Republicans having been left behind after their party was hijacked by fundamentalist religious zealots and neocons, it would be interesting to see the Repubs fragment. There are many fiscally conservative Republicans who are very at odds with the administration. A new Conservative party would be palatable to many run-of-the-mill Republicans and likely be well financed.

Posted by: Amentoraz on November 3, 2004 02:21 PM

It is a dreadful day.

How many Polands will the United States invade before we notice?

Posted by: Pat on November 3, 2004 02:32 PM

Should we not use the energy generated by this emotional and divisive election to act on one issue upon which all can agree-the securing of the nuclear weapons in the former soviet union? From what I understand, the legislation is in place, but it has not been funded. Perhaps Move On and some of the internet communities could begin a campaign to force our legislators to get this done.

Posted by: Markle on November 3, 2004 02:46 PM

I was very struck by this comment on /.:

http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=128217&cid=10709464 It summarises the intense polarization we currently have. Read it if you have the patience.

Posted by: owen on November 3, 2004 02:49 PM

The historian in me appreciates the parallels to LBJ and laments the parallels to 'tween-wars Germany. The election showed that pandering to the lowest elements in our national character -- fear, prejudice and greed -- can be successful if brilliantly packaged. As many have noted, all the elements of Kerry's failure to convince America were predicted months ago...complexity, intellectualism, elitism, party orthodoxy, lack of a positive alternative.

Where I part company is the suggestion of a third party. The two party system is so fundamentally part of our legislative, political and historical foundations that I doubt a third party can ever be more than a distraction that divides opponents of the status quo. To defeat the unholy alliance of greedy industries, conservative Christian churches and powerful right-wing demagogues can only be accomplished if the Democratic party regains vision and courage, and if the disaffected moderate elements of the Republican party can begin bringing it back towards its roots of economic prudence, limited central government, respect for individuals and rule of law.

The damage that will be done to the legal, natural and economic environments in the next four years will take generations to undo unless thoughtul Americans move from handwringing to positive change to restore America to greatness, which is a far different thing from power.

It will not be sexual misconduct or lack of wealth that will bring down the American version of the Roman empire...it will be an excess of power and a shortage of wisdom and character.

Posted by: mike arauz on November 3, 2004 02:50 PM

there is indeed a third alternative.

the problem is that we don't realize how many of us there are and how powerful we can be.

check out this paper by sociologist Paul H. Ray, author of Cultural Creatives.

go here -
http://culturalcreatives.org/thoughts.html

and click on - 'The New Political Compass'

unfortunately it's pretty outdated, but i think that the most fundamental arguments still hold true.

we've got to spread the word.

Posted by: JamesJayToran on November 3, 2004 02:57 PM

"It is official now.
America is the enemy."

"The rest of the world
will act accordingly."

Thanks for getting this word out, Dan Gillmor, Dave Winer, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Halley Suitt, BurningBush, Seth Godin, Robert Scoble, Jeff Jarvis, (what they call a True Repugnantcan...;-), Britt Blaser, the Sifry Brothers, and NOT the least the last but not least AKMA, Unka Frankie the Pseudo-Pascifists and Liz Lawley and Mr. John Perry Barlow and all your all's friendz at the EFF protecting our Freedoms, meaning their own freedoms while they exclude those like mine, a True semi-Liberal...

Btw, I didn't mean (and didn't) imply that ALL of these folks have banned me from replying to their inanities... Perhaps coincidently, perhaps not, most have.

To name a few of the bloggers who got all-a us right where we are.

Problem is, that word already WAS out.

It's called scapegoatism, and the sheep buy in.

"Engineer_Scotty" @ 12:36pm

You got a name?

1) Right. Excuse me, I guess that'd be left, now... Anyhoo, yup, the Republicans have enough rope to hang themselves. What happens?

2) There is no such axis. The axis would be between EU and the UN and the profitably semi-aligned and the "Third World" countries.

Problem there is there are fluid boundaries, between these, and the consumer debt off-shore labor, off-shore high-tech labor (which even STATE and LOCAL governments won't give up, because home-shoring it costs too much, btw)..

..well, whether and/or when the U.S. becomes/became Third World is not yet apparent.

Btw, the Libertarian-fascist Churches already TOOK over the Dem platform.

3) "Recruit new leaders from places other than the Senate."

Yeah, the Oprah for President Movement... Points out problems with movements, left there at the altar, so to pun... I think running large organizations is a benefit, but the Oprah show may not signify... Used to watch, so semi-fan, but she's buddies with the likes of Mr. Bezos and I'm not a big fan due to the patent squeeze.

However, as you noted, stranger things have happened.

At the same time, I think we ALL have enough strange things going on, so do we need any MORE even STRANGER things...? I mean, figuring the Bosox win and the Redskins loss implies...

?

4) I HIGHLY recommend any-a you with an honest interest look at John Palfrey's write-up on discussion revolving around some honest skepticism of blogs.

Crap, kind find link I visited today, nor by search...

Outstanding, except the line demarcating the positive and negative effectives of blogs was slightly skewed. (I wonder why...;-)

This "Empowerment of the Individual" is what was DIRECTLY CAUSAL of all the items on the Blue State side of the issue. Meaning, the negatives of blogs are DUE to this scam called "We're here to empower the individual, and it's NOT.. repeat NOT for our OWN BENEFIT, primarily... Iow, we aren't trying to build our OWN POWER-BASES, by claiming falsely you'll be empowered, hope ya know.. You can trust me, I blog...!!!"

5) Uhhhhh... I been doing that, and it's not as much fun as it sounds. You gotta either just PRETEND TO LISTEN the way bloggers have perfected, or you hear some-a THE STUPIDEST crap posing as wisdom....

6) Strategy *AND tactics not being mutually exclusive.. you'll also note my comments are Party agnostic... Helps with the listening part, but I alreadly know you all can't read anything longer than a cut-and-run job, so you either didn't get this far or have already zoned out, or already have corrected me in my delusion so many times, mentally, that it don't matter none ta me, either way...

Btw, this was NOT the link to John Palfrey:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/

However, if you gotta ask, "Do we only browse to what we agree with?" then I'd suggest a course in applied listening. You can only PARTIALLY UNDERSTAND what you agree with, AT BEST.. the rest, mess with their best..

..blogger buddy-near-mind-clones, while SAYING what a diverse crowd I have around ME, ME, ME!!!

Posted by: JamesJayToran on November 3, 2004 03:02 PM

That was a fly-by, obviously, as heading out the door and didn't have time to preview.

Posted by: George on November 3, 2004 03:04 PM

Conservatives are already bridling at the policies of the Bush admin. The New York Times writer David Brooks yesterday wrote one of the best denunciations of their policies...before implying he was still voting for Bush. Mother Jones has a series of interviews with conservatives who don't support Bush that is very interesting. Maybe it's time for progressives and real conservatives to start a dialog about how to suppress the growing influence of religious fundamentalists in American politics. Republican are already fragmenting, and the longer this war goes on, the more it reminds me of Viet Nam. Stay tuned for a continuing spiral downward in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Posted by: JamesJayToran on November 3, 2004 03:08 PM

Should-a reviewed this, before prior comments:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/palfrey/2004/10/16

May later.

To cut the Dem Leadership to a short list (maybe GOP, too, I dunno), eliminate the early vultures, it'd be my best guess.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&ncid=536&e=7&u=/ap/20041103/ap_on_el_pr/eln2008

And the "conservatives" I've read bridle at anything they didn't author, mainly.

Suppressing influence, that part of the Gnu Democrat Party, as I've already gathered elsewhere? Stay tuned to the future, but knowing what is currently going on would help, im(ns)ho..

Posted by: llcoolJJ on November 3, 2004 03:40 PM

The aneurisms have popped.

If I would have known that the deluded, conspiracy theorist, Bush haters were going to go stark raving mad if Bush won, I wouldn�t have deliberated so long before I cast my vote for him.

But in all seriousness people, get a grip.

Grab this page, print it out, and stash it away till a few months before the election of 2006 or 2008. Read it and compare your world then with your fears and ranting of today.

If just 10% of the negative events occur, then you have the right to call for a revolution.

If you feel a bit silly as you read b