Why is it that all the flaws went against votes for Democrats? That alone warrants a full investigation. When you learn millions of voters were turned away, and machine glitches going against the Democrats, why is it so hard to understand that if these voters had been allowed to vote and all their votes recorded acurately, Kerry would have won? Nothing seems to raise a flag for the media to notice that the election was beyond suspicious.


Published on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 by United Press International
Election 2004: Lingering Suspicions
by Greg Guma
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1116-33.htm

The Internet, that wonderful engine of democracy, is rife with messages purporting to demonstrate how the U.S. presidential election results were manipulated in ways benefiting the Republicans.

To start, voting analyses of selected Florida and Ohio precincts conducted by the University of Pennsylvania's Steven Freeman and independent investigator Faun Otter have revealed surprisingly high percentages for Bush. Those skeptical about the results further suggest spoiled ballots and provisional votes, which may have a disproportionate impact on the results in the areas with high concentrations of minority voters, could have made the difference.

The earliest exit poll data released on Nov. 2 indicated Kerry -- who had run narrowly behind Bush but within the margin of error for most of the race -- was rolling to victory and carrying many of the battleground states, including Florida and Ohio, by higher than expected margins. These same polls also suggested the Republicans were ahead in most of the tight U.S. Senate races.

By the end of the night, however, the predictions in the presidential exit were wrong while the Senate projections were largely correct.

Exit polling by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, which created the National Election Poll for ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, Fox, and NBC, had shown Kerry leading by 3 percentage points in Florida and by 4 points in Ohio. Kerry lost Florida by 5.2 percent, with Bush running ahead of his 2000 performance in 58 of the state's 67 counties. In Ohio, the margin was 2.5 percent.

Florida's 8.2-percent spread -- between the early exits and the results -- is more than double the standard error rate. In Ohio, the spread is 6.5 percent.

In Baker County, Fla. located near the city of Jacksonville and just across the border from Georgia, there are 12,887 registered voters: 69.3 percent are Democrats, 24.3 percent are Republicans. Yet 2,180 of county residents voted for Kerry while 7,738 voted for Bush -- the opposite of what some election critics say was the typically pattern elsewhere in the United States.

In Florida's Dixie County, located on the Gulf Coast between Tallahassee and Tampa, 77.5 percent of the 4,988 registered voters are Democrats, 15 percent are Republicans. On Election Day, Bush carried the county with 4,433 votes vs. 1,959 for Kerry.

Nationally, few outlets have pursued the story of what happened in Baker and Dixie, why and whether it actually indicates a problem with the counting of the ballots. Most of the coverage of the alleged irregularities has focused on why the exit polls were so far off. Skeptics dismiss them as flawed or somehow favoring Kerry and say that, though they may have influenced the narrative of election coverage, they couldn't affect the outcome.

To explain the difference, some unconvincing theories have been floated including the one offered by the architects of the sampling system used for exit polling. They say Kerry voters were simply more willing to answer the questions. It's called the "chattiness thesis" and it sounds like a weak excuse -- but so was the pollsters' earlier claims that the numbers were right, the media just read them wrong. In an article for Tom Paine.com, a liberal Internet publication, Greg Palast, an author and frequent critic of the 2000 election returns in Florida, goes farther.

"Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded," he writes. Palast says he thinks the election was decided by "spoilage," the small part of the vote that is voided and thrown away.

In Ohio, as in Florida four years ago, a large number of spoiled votes were cast on punch cards, 54 percent of which were cast by black voters, according to statisticians investigating the issue for Verified Voting, a group formed by a Stanford University professor to assess electronic voting. Verified Voting has collected 31,000 reports of alleged election abnormalities.

Other factors also could have affected the vote count, including last-minute legal challenges filed in several states, both by Democrats trying to block Ralph Nader from appearing on state ballots and Republicans concerned about lax registration rules. Long lines at precincts in the evening and the large number of total provisional ballots cast across the United States also may have influenced the outcome somewhat.

Taken together, such factors could significantly change the vote in some areas, bringing the count more into line with the exit poll results.

Were the election results manipulated in some way? At the moment, the question invokes the same kind of polarizations generated by the election choice itself; a much more thorough analysis is needed -- and will not be quick in the offing -- before the Internet chatter can taken seriously, even though some will always believe it did in fact occur.

Even if the thesis can eventually be demonstrated to be accurate, that some form of manipulation did occur, the technology involved is so complex that those responsible will likely escape the consequences.

Postscript: There is as yet no solid proof that a cyber-attack occurred on Nov. 2. For one thing, it would probably require hacking into multiple local computer systems, presumably from one or more remote locations. Nevertheless, suspicions are mounting and evidence is emerging to suggest that the U.S. presidential election results were manipulated to some extent.

Could it be pulled off? As far as we know, the CIA’s successes in cyber-war include targeting specific bank accounts and shutting down computer systems. But stealing an election is considerably more difficult, requiring the alteration of data in many computers.

According to Robert Parry, writing for Consortium News, "a preprogrammed ‘kernel of brain’ would have to be inserted into election computers beforehand, or teams of hackers would be needed to penetrate the lightly protected systems, targeting touch-screen systems without a paper backup for verifying the numbers."

It’s a form of "information warfare," a hot item within the U.S. military since the mid-1990. The Pentagon has even produced a 13-page booklet, "Information Warfare for Dummies." Indirectly, this primer acknowledges considerable secret capabilities in these areas.

It also recognizes the sensitivity of the topic. "Due to the moral, ethical and legal questions raised by hacking, the military likes to keep a low profile on this issue," it explains.

So, did it happen here? Perhaps time will tell. But as the Pentagon readily admits, cyber-warfare has considerable advantages over other tactics. "The intrusions can be carried out remotely, transcending the boundaries of time and space," the manual explains.

And, best of all, if the fraud is ever discovered, there is such a technological buffer between those responsible and those doing the deed you might say it’s the state-of-the-art in plausible deniability.

Greg Guma edits the Vermont Guardian, a statewide weekly, and Toward Freedom. He can be reached at greg@vermontguardian.com

© 2004 United Press International


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Boston Globe!

The recount begins on Thursday in New Hampshire.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 16, 2004 For Further Information:
Kevin Zeese 202.265.4000

Nader-Camejo Hand Recount in New Hampshire Begins Thursday

Washington, DC: The Nader-Camejo hand recount in New Hampshire will begin this Thursday

Nader-Camejo requested recounts in 11 wards where the results seemed anomalous in their support for President Bush and where the votes were counted on optical scan machines – primarily the Diebold AccuVote Machine. This Thursday five wards in Manchester and Litchfield will be recounted. The remaining six wards will be recounted soon.

The Nader-Camejo campaign received more than 2,000 faxes from citizens concerned about the vote count who urged the campaign to request a hand recount in New Hampshire. (Review the request for a hand recount in New Hampshire.)

“Voters need to have confidence that their vote is being counted accurately. A hand recount of suspect results will either rule out the possibility of machine error or show a discrepancy between the machine and the actual vote count – either way voters need to know,” said Nader. “Even in an election year with record turnout tens of millions of Americans did not vote. We need to give people a reason to vote and that begins with ensuring votes are counted accurately.”

Voting-rights groups and others have identified trouble spots and irregularities in several states, including Ohio, meriting further investigation. The Nader-Camejo campaign is working with voting rights activists on these concerns.

“Turning over the counting of votes to corporations gives new meaning to the term ‘corporate power,’” said Nader. “Three or four proprietary corporations being given the authority to count the vote on trade secreted software undermines the transparency of elections. With other obstructions and massive corporate campaign cash, they threaten the very foundation of our democracy – its elections.”

Yahoo!!!

If this hsppens I'll even forgive Nader for letting himself be used by Repugs!