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That said, I have looked in-depth into the many claims made about how Ohio was "stolen," including the claims made by RFK Jr. in Rolling Stone, and it is almost all total bullshit. He completely made up almost all of the "disenfranchised Democratic voters" he claimed.

Having done the same, I am now sure that you are a liar, a troll or both.

Either way, further discussion is pointless, as you clearly have an anti-truth agenda.

Huh. You accuse me of wrongdoing, yet you are the one introducing several logical fallacies, including at least two overt argumentums ad hominem.

Do you really want to defend RFK Jr.'s lies? Don't give me your ad hominem bullshit. If you are too bored or lazy or disinterested to have a discussion, say so; don't try to fool people into think you are superior just because you called me a liar (and so far have shown no ability whatsoever to back it up).

I'll even go first, and I'll make it simple.

RFK Jr. says that 374,000 voters were disenfranchised by Republicans.

174,000 of these he claims were "forced to leave" because of long lines. But that number is conjured from thin air from a stat that says something else. Democrat experts estimated that "not providing a sufficient number of voting machines in each precinct was associated with roughly a two to three percent reduction in voter turnout presumably due to delays that deterred many people from voting." (emphasis mine) RFK omits the words "roughly" and "presumably" and changes "two to three" to "three" and changes "was associated with" to "caused." That is how he came up with 174,000.

That is half of the supposed 374,000. Want to continue?

Next up is 72,000. This, he says, is the number "disenfranchised by avoidable registration errors." But the 72,000 is not how many were disallowed from voting at all. That's the number of people who were either "at risk" votes, or "may have been lost." None of those 72,000 may have actually lost the right to vote, and of those that did, they might have been perfectly legitimate reasons for losing the right to vote (such as refusing to give enough information on the registration card, or perhaps even giving disqualifying information, such as not being a citizen, etc.). Every single one of those 72,000 who was not excluded by law from voting had the opportunity to fix the problem prior to voting (including at the poll on election day).

So that one is wrong. Wanna keep going?

The 66,000 he claims were invalidated by faulty voting equipment is not backed up by any data whatsoever. 95,000 ballots had no vote for President, and he just assumes at least 66,000 of those were improperly invalidated. He completely made this number up from thin air.

Same goes for the 30,000. 300,000 people were legally purged from the voter rolls. He assumes that at least 30,000 of those would have voted AND would have gotten their notice of purging lost in the mail. Again, he just made this number up.

That leaves 15,000, and for the sake of argument, let's just say, fine, those 15,000 were disenfranchised (there's no evidence for at least 5,000 of the 15,000, but whatever). 15,000 is not enough to overturn the election.

The Democrats' own expert, Jasjeet Sekhon, said to me in e-mail:

RFK's article is misconceiving, socially damaging and simply wrong---much like his previous one on autism and vaccines. RFK selectively cites the DNC report. More voters supported Bush in Ohio in 2004 than Kerry. There is no scientific evidence that they did not. There were some irregularities (such as the allocation of voting machines), but they were not large enough to change the outcome. Bush won in 2004; Democrats have to admit that he really did if they are to fix their

I'm not the grandparent, but I don't see it as a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes, when you say mean things, people get offended. That's just the way society works. If others learn a lesson and mind their manners, that's just a result of society's reaction to bad behavior. If you really want to say things like that, go right ahead. Just be aware that a large segment of society doesn't particularly approve. Personally, I think that the whole social dynamic that was exposed in the process was interesting. I like Matt Taibbi's take on it quite a bit.

Tools.
Some of you folks are pretty gullible.
Skew the vote 3% - 4%, within the margin of error. Plausible deniability.
This ain't rocket science with collusion.
There are just too many links, in defense of this.
Most of you have had your reality replaced, in other words you've been pwded!
They "hacked" your reasoning, said a few key words - boom!
"We don't need no stinkin' paper trail - NO!"
Blind to the obvious.
Substituted reality - the new bliss.

Authoritarianism, works every time.

Flame away, I'm out.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/wa s_the_2004_election_stolen

http://www.wheresthepaper.org/index.html

http://www.votergateproject.com/

http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/

The article does a horrible job of explaining the campaign. Here are http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070402/music_nm/ninei nchnails_dc;_ylt=AgIXkKsEUNycFRi_5MtSiIeVEhkFtwo http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/20 07/02/22/year-zero-project-way-cooler-than-lost/si tes that do a better job. This "new thing" everyone is talking about has less to do with the fact that he's giving music away on USB keys and more to do with the series of sites that are linked together and help promote the album. The first site's address to be "discovered" by fans was given in highlighted letters on a tour t-shirt. From there, further "codes" were solved and those lead to other sites, all related to NIN and the album. The keys/songs are just bonus material for fans at the concerts. The sites, with the USB keys, with the tour, with the album is what they are buzzing about, not just the USB keys.

Say what?

Jobs has been saying Apple doesn't want DRM since at least 2003.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5939600/ste ve_jobs_the_rolling_stone_interview/

"When we first went to talk to these record companies -- you know, it was a while ago. It took us 18 months. And at first we said: None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content." ...

"Of course. What's new is this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the Internet -- and no one's gonna shut down the Internet. And it only takes one stolen copy to be on the Internet. And the way we expressed it to them is: Pick one lock -- open every door. It only takes one person to pick a lock. Worst case: Somebody just takes the analog outputs of their CD player and rerecords it -- puts it on the Internet. You'll never stop that. So what you have to do is compete with it.

At first, they kicked us out. But we kept going back again and again. The first record company to really understand this stuff was Warner. They have some smart people there, and they said: We agree with you. And next was Universal. Then we started making headway. And the reason we did, I think, is because we made predictions."

http://www.macworld.com/news/2002/03/04/jobs/

"If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own," said Jobs."

I'd never heard of the DefectiveByDesign site before your post today (I thought it was a tag on Slashdot!) but these quotes stuck in my mind when I read them years ago. It looks like the music industry is catching up to Jobs' way of thinking.

You have to face facts - Jobs has a history and he's turning the music industry around. First he reclaimed the wasteland left behind by Napster, now he's pushing for unrestricted music and achieving some success. It's not a 'right place at the right time' thing, unless you completely discount the years of work to get Apple to the 'right place at the right time.'

They both follow the same model, which is to reinvent the wheel every time, and keep the code secret from the competitors. What they should both fear is a competitor who can always start where the last guy left off.

Right on, how about this one?

Apple maybe first, with its locked software and DRM mania.

Yep, you'd never get Jobs saying "Well, there's a lot of smart people at the music companies. The problem is, they're not technology people... And so when the Internet came along, and Napster came along, they didn't know what to make of it... And so they're fairly vulnerable to people telling them technical solutions will work, when they won't... When we first went to talk to these record companies -- you know, it was a while ago. It took us 18 months. And at first we said: None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content." in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2003.

Halliburton was founded in 1919.
By 1982, it had 115,000 employees. A company with over 100,000 people is very much "something", not "nothing".
Cheney was Secretary of Defense in 1989.
So you, stephanruby, are either a frickin liar or just plain ignorant.

You're right. I'm a complete dumb ass. I tried, but couldn't substantiate the details of what I asserted.

The Halliburton stock did almost hit rock bottom, but that was when Cheney was the Minority Whip -- a couple of years before he became Secretary of Defense.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=HAL&t=my&l=on&z=l& q=l&c=

Also, my claim that Dick Cheney knew about the asbestos liability time-bomb before he got into asbestos seems to be contradicted by this otherwise very insightful anti-Cheney article.
Also, my claim that Dick Cheney's first job in the private sector was as CEO of Halliburton was false. He had worked in the Private Sector once before.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/6450422 /the_curse_of_dick_cheney

All in all, I got outraged and I got lazy, that's why I wrote so much unsubstantiated gibberish in my previous post.

Hey, Diebold did their job and delivered Ohio.


Mission Accomplished.

there is already a cure, just stop getting immunized.

As far as "right-wing" media compaines... try Clear Channel Communications and Sinclair broadcasting for starters. They control a lot of local broadcasting (radio and television)...

Actually, maybe not so funny. Here's an article about a physicist named Lowell Wood who proposes that we spray particles into the sky to reflect sunlight, similar to what would happen after a volcano eruption. Scary, maybe, but worth thinking about. Certainly it makes the problem much more tractable -- because even if more advanced nations halt their pollution, it's going to be nearly impossible to get countries that are just starting to industrialize to do it.

1. Yet another reason to use encrypted email
2. Yet another reason to impeach him
3. Yet another reason to abolish presidential signing statements
4. Yet another reason to 'not trust the government'

No, it's simply because of Wal-Mart.

If it's impossible for the election authority to cheat the system... why do you even need this receipt?

Without the receipts (and some fraction of voters checking them), it is possible for the election authority to cheat undetectably, because the receipts might be the only evidence that the authority cheated.

I haven't seen that. But if so, why not address that issue instead of going off and arguing an argument that has nothing to do with the initial problem?

See Was the 2004 Election Stolen? I submit that we ought to address these problems by adopting Punchscan and publishing voter rolls.

Publishing voter rolls with plain paper ballots is not sufficient, because ballots could still be altered or substituted. This is known to have happened in the past, and most of the time that it happens we probably never find out. Punchscan makes it impossible to do this without being detected.

I agree that it is possible to make plain paper ballots sufficiently secure, but it would be very expensive to do so, and we would never be able to tell how much security is enough. Punchscan is a much better solution.

Well, you can always verify the election using statistical sampling of exit polls. The results are accurate enough to verify that an election was valid. That's what the US does to assure that the election of other countries were on the level. Surely, Americans will rise up in anger if exit polling showed that a Presidential election was tampered with. Or maybe not. Oops.

No offense intended, but that is a CROCK.

The primary author and steward of HAVA was Rep. Bob Ney, the GOP chairman of the powerful U.S. House Administration Committee. Ney had close ties to the now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose firm received at least $275,000 from Diebold to lobby for its touch-screen machines.

Ney also made sure that Diebold and other companies would not be required to equip their machines with printers to provide paper records that could be verified by voters. In a clever twist, HAVA effectively pressures every precinct to provide at least one voting device that has no paper trail - supposedly so that vision-impaired citizens can vote in secrecy. The provision was backed by two little-known advocacy groups: the National Federation of the Blind, which accepted $1 million from Diebold to build a new research institute, and the American Association of People with Disabilities, which pocketed at least $26,000 from voting-machine companies. The NFB maintained that a paper voting receipt would jeopardize its members' civil rights - a position not shared by other groups that advocate for the blind.

Also, other people with different disabilies are effectively disenfranchised, as their need for accomodations while voting is not being addressed. Second, many, if not most people with disabilities who vote, don't care whether or not they vote in privacy. (Their concern is "what will an elected official actually do for people with disabilities", other than give speeches.)

You are so twisting the story.

First off, you link to a new site which has reposted a blogger post from "Say Anything" blog - who apparently will say anything to make his point, even if it doesn't make sense. Most conclusions on his blog page are completely illogical.

The actual article to which you refer is here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/kmbc/20061102/lo_kmbc/1021 4492
and the leadership of ARORN had nothing to do with the fraud - they immediately fired the people involved.

Now contrast this to the litany of counter examples and suspicious patterns listed here:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/wa s_the_2004_election_stolen

no, I think the words he meant were "was STOLEN" - but (I would assume) his intellectual honesty lead him to hedge his language because he knew he doesn't have evidence himself.

However, the evidence does exist and has been published. For you - read this:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/1171710 5/robert_f_kennedy_jr__will_the_next_election_be_h acked
for first hand accounts of memory card transfers in 2004, in Diebold machines, from an insider/whistleblower.

The Left has to grow up and start calling a spade a spade - by asserting the TRUTH directly and clearly, without blame of judgment: The Neocon executive leadership in the US are criminals, their actions undermine the tenets of Democracy, and they need to be reigned in, now (as in arraignment).

on election cheating... rfk jr. had a very nice article in Rolling Stone on 10/5 with many details; first few paragraphs below and link to full text.

Along with all the OTHER deathblows dealt to liberty (even over the last few weeks) this one is also a critical blow. It feels like we're at the very end of a mortal combat battle and Democracy is sailing backwards into the spiked pit after the triple-katana lightning-strike mortal-blow-to-the groin attack.

ANYWAY, I found the full article fascinating.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/1171710 5/robert_f_kennedy_jr__will_the_next_election_be_h acked

Will The Next Election Be Hacked?

The debacle of the 2000 presidential election made it all too apparent

      to most Americans that our electoral system is broken. And

      private-sector entrepreneurs were quick to offer a fix: Touch-screen

      voting machines, promised the industry and its lobbyists, would make

      voting as easy and reliable as withdrawing cash from an ATM. Congress,

      always ready with funds for needy industries, swiftly authorized $3.9

      billion to upgrade the nation's election systems - with much of the

      money devoted to installing electronic voting machines in each of

      America's 180,000 precincts. But as midterm elections approach this

      November, electronic voting machines are making things worse instead

      of better. Studies have demonstrated that hackers can easily rig the

      technology to fix an election - and across the country this year,

      faulty equipment and lax security have repeatedly undermined election

      primaries. In Tarrant County, Texas, electronic machines counted some

      ballots as many as six times, recording 100,000 more votes than were

      actually cast. In San Diego, poll workers took machines home for

      unsupervised "sleepovers" before the vote, leaving the equipment

      vulnerable to tampering. And in Ohio - where, as I recently reported

      in "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" [RS 1002], dirty tricks may have

      cost John Kerry the presidency - a government report uncovered large

      and unexplained discrepancies in vote totals recorded by machines in

      Cuyahoga County.

      Even worse, many electronic machines don't produce a paper record that

      can be recounted when equipment malfunctions - an omission that

      practically invites malicious tampering. "Every board of election has

      staff members with the technological ability to fix an election," Ion

      Sancho, an election supervisor in Leon County, Florida, told me. "Even

      one corrupt staffer can throw an election. Without paper records, it

      could happen under my nose and there is no way I'd ever find out about

      it. With a few key people in the right places, it would be possible to

      >

No case better demonstrates the dangers posed by electronic voting machines than the experience of Maryland. As in Georgia, officials there granted Diebold control over much of the state's election systems during the 2002 midterm elections. (In the interests of disclosure, my sister was a candidate for governor that year and lost by a margin consistent with pre-election polls.) On Election Night, when Chris Hood accompanied Diebold president Bob Urosevich and marketing director Mark Radke to the tabulation center in Montgomery County where the votes would be added up, he was stunned to find the room empty. "Not a single Maryland election official was there to retrieve the memory cards," he recalls. As cards containing every vote in the county began arriving in canvas bags, the Diebold executives plugged them into a group of touch-screen tabulators linked into a central server, which was also controlled by a Diebold employee.

"It would have been very easy for any one of us to take a contaminated card out of our pocket, put it into the system, and download some malicious code that would then end up in the server, impacting every other vote that went in, before and after," says Hood. "We had absolute control of the tabulations.

RFK Jr.

Now I am getting extremely curious about the code(s) that could be in a server used to tabulate the results. Also, what about the security of the servers and the software that is used. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least 2 people locally who could interpret a source code. (I'm not a programmer.)

And, the motherboards were changed in Maryland.

Diebold Election Systems shipped Maryland flawed electronic voting machines that were used in the 2004 election, then quietly replaced the malfunctioning components last year, documents and interviews show.

Gilles W. Burger, chairman of the State Board of Elections, said this week that he and fellow members were initially told that Diebold was performing a "technical refresher" of the voting machines during July and August last year. He later learned that the refresher was really the repair of a flaw discovered by Diebold about three years earlier but not disclosed to him and other board members.

Yeah, right, EVERY motherboard goes/is defective and needs to be replaced!

And, Diebold sent a reply to Rolling Stone re: the article, and not once was Maryland mentioned.

Solution: Release ALL souce codes. Diebold, Sequoia, et al, have to prove that ALL of their software is properly written, instead of whining "trade secrets" and answer ANY and ALL questions.

I've worked for an agency that receives government money and here is the amount of paperwork necessary to get payment: one copy for the file (which goes to adminsitration), one for billing, one for the state, one for the feds, one for an additional funder (if applicable), one for the vendor. And no one knows about the replacement of motherboards?

The first defense against electoral corruption is a strong turn-out, so get out there and vote.

If I vote, I would vote third party or write-in a candidate who has no chance in hell of winning. Democrats want my vote, they have to prove they deserve it. (And, there are a hell of a lot of people--not just in my district--who aren't voting due to the lousy candidates running.)

Final thought: think its possible third party votes and write-ins are "flipped/tabulated incorrectly"? I sure do.

No case better demonstrates the dangers posed by electronic voting machines than the experience of Maryland. As in Georgia, officials there granted Diebold control over much of the state's election systems during the 2002 midterm elections. (In the interests of disclosure, my sister was a candidate for governor that year and lost by a margin consistent with pre-election polls.) On Election Night, when Chris Hood accompanied Diebold president Bob Urosevich and marketing director Mark Radke to the tabulation center in Montgomery County where the votes would be added up, he was stunned to find the room empty. "Not a single Maryland election official was there to retrieve the memory cards," he recalls. As cards containing every vote in the county began arriving in canvas bags, the Diebold executives plugged them into a group of touch-screen tabulators linked into a central server, which was also controlled by a Diebold employee.

"It would have been very easy for any one of us to take a contaminated card out of our pocket, put it into the system, and download some malicious code that would then end up in the server, impacting every other vote that went in, before and after," says Hood. "We had absolute control of the tabulations.

RFK Jr.

Now I am getting extremely curious about the code(s) that could be in a server used to tabulate the results. Also, what about the security of the servers and the software that is used. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least 2 people locally who could interpret a source code. (I'm not a programmer.)

And, the motherboards were changed in Maryland.

Diebold Election Systems shipped Maryland flawed electronic voting machines that were used in the 2004 election, then quietly replaced the malfunctioning components last year, documents and interviews show.

Gilles W. Burger, chairman of the State Board of Elections, said this week that he and fellow members were initially told that Diebold was performing a "technical refresher" of the voting machines during July and August last year. He later learned that the refresher was really the repair of a flaw discovered by Diebold about three years earlier but not disclosed to him and other board members.

Yeah, right, EVERY motherboard goes/is defective and needs to be replaced!

And, Diebold sent a reply to Rolling Stone re: the article, and not once was Maryland mentioned.

Solution: Release ALL souce codes. Diebold, Sequoia, et al, have to prove that ALL of their software is properly written, instead of whining "trade secrets" and answer ANY and ALL questions.

I've worked for an agency that receives government money and here is the amount of paperwork necessary to get payment: one copy for the file (which goes to adminsitration), one for billing, one for the state, one for the feds, one for an additional funder (if applicable), one for the vendor. And no one knows about the replacement of motherboards?

The first defense against electoral corruption is a strong turn-out, so get out there and vote.

If I vote, I would vote third party or write-in a candidate who has no chance in hell of winning. Democrats want my vote, they have to prove they deserve it. (And, there are a hell of a lot of people--not just in my district--who aren't voting due to the lousy candidates running.)

Final thought: think its possible third party votes and write-ins are "flipped/tabulated incorrectly"? I sure do.

There is ample evidence of a) the ease in which Diebold voting machines can be patched and b) votes being switched to Republican candidates. Diebolds CEO vowed to deliver the 2004 presidential election to Mr. Bush.

Concerns are already mounting in Texas and Arkansas that votes are being flipped in early 2006 voting.

It's not a conspiracy when so many municipalities conclude that Diebold machines are not fit for elections.

Was the 2004 election stolen?

A call for investigation

Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine

They Said it Couldn't be Done

Was the 2004 election stolen?

A call for investigation

Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine

They Said it Couldn't be Done

Quote: "Anyhow, in the end history will judge this presidency. It is impossible to judge it whilst we are in the middle of it."

Bullshit. That's a Bushie cop-out equivalent to "Duh, I have no idea if these poker cards are good until the hand is done." Intelligent people can weigh evidence and come to a likely conclusion. In this case the existing evidence is overwhelming.

"In early 2004, an informal survey of 415 historians conducted by the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent considered the Bush administration a 'failure.'" (Sean Wilentz, Rolling Stone magazine: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/profile/story/996 1300/the_worst_president_in_history )

Which is that we don't have an independent media anymore.

Yes we do. It's called the Internet. You and I and everyone who creates Slashdot content are participants in the new independent media revolution. Have you noticed that (1) many large newspapers are losing money; (2) the major broadcast TV networks have been bleeding viewers for years; (3) even the cable news networks are now bleeding viewers as people watch TV via self-selected clips downloaded from YouTube or BitTorrent. The entire media landscape is changing and users are becoming more capable of generating their own content and exchanging it with like-minded people, as well as debating those with opposing views. As long as net neutrality is maintained (that's a big IF), this process will continue.

Personally, after watching 911mysteries and other films on related topics, and reviewing the scientific facts for myself, I'm convinced that we already live in 1984...

You've just certified yourself as just another nitwit conspiracy theorist. Get a clue. At worst 9/11 was LIHOP due to incompetence. Please read this or just learn how to think better. 9/11 conspiracy theorists are about as respected by the vast majority of the scientific community as are intelligent design proponents.

I'm surprised I don't see a link to the original story yet, so here it is:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/24/122153/98

From the story:

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl, --AZ-01: Rick Renzi, --AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth, --CA-04: John Doolittle, --CA-11: Richard Pombo, --CA-50: Brian Bilbray, --CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave, --CO-05: Doug Lamborn, --CO-07: Rick O'Donnell, --CT-04: Christopher Shays, --FL-13: Vernon Buchanan, --FL-16: Joe Negron, --FL-22: Clay Shaw, --ID-01: Bill Sali, --IL-06: Peter Roskam, --IL-10: Mark Kirk, --IL-14: Dennis Hastert, --IN-02: Chris Chocola, --IN-08: John Hostettler, --IA-01: Mike Whalen, --KS-02: Jim Ryun, --KY-03: Anne Northup, --KY-04: Geoff Davis, --MD-Sen: Michael Steele, --MN-01: Gil Gutknecht, --MN-06: Michele Bachmann, --MO-Sen: Jim Talent, --MT-Sen: Conrad Burns, --NV-03: Jon Porter, --NH-02: Charlie Bass, --NJ-07: Mike Ferguson, --NM-01: Heather Wilson, --NY-03: Peter King, --NY-20: John Sweeney, --NY-26: Tom Reynolds, --NY-29:

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl --AZ-01: Rick Renzi --AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth --CA-04: John Doolittle --CA-11: Richard Pombo --CA-50: Brian Bilbray --CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave --CO-05: Doug Lamborn --CO-07: Rick O'Donnell --CT-04: Christopher Shays --FL-13: Vernon Buchanan --FL-16: Joe Negron --FL-22: Clay Shaw --ID-01: Bill Sali --IL-06: Peter Roskam --IL-10: Mark Kirk --IL-14: Dennis Hastert --IN-02: Chris Chocola --IN-08: John Hostettler --IA-01: Mike Whalen --KS-02: Jim Ryun --KY-03: Anne Northup --KY-04: Geoff Davis --MD-Sen: Michael Steele --MN-01: Gil Gutknecht --MN-06: Michele Bachmann --MO-Sen: Jim Talent --MT-Sen: Conrad Burns --NV-03: Jon Porter --NH-02: Charlie Bass --NJ-07: Mike Ferguson --NM-01: Heather Wilson --NY-03: Peter King --NY-20: John Sweeney --NY-26: Tom Reynolds --NY-29: Randy Kuhl --NC-08: Robin Hayes --NC-11: Charles Taylor --OH-01:

To be certain, politicians from all parties have tried to rig elections - republicans have just been the most successful to date. They're very well organized. Maybe the party that cheats best should win.

Its already been done.

From the referenced url: '"Electronic voting machines also caused widespread problems in Florida, where Bush bested Kerry by 381,000 votes. When statistical experts from the University of California examined the state's official tally, they discovered a disturbing pattern: "The data show with 99.0 percent certainty that a county's use of electronic voting is associated with a disproportionate increase in votes for President Bush. Compared to counties with paper ballots, counties with electronic voting machines were significantly more likely to show increases in support for President Bush between 2000 and 2004."'

'Charles Stewart III, an MIT professor who specializes in voter behavior and methodology, was initially skeptical of the study - but was unable to find any flaw in the results. "You can't break it - I've tried," he told The Washington Post. "There's something funky in the results from the electronic-machine Democratic counties."'

For a moment, ignore the WMDs, Bush and Iraq. The current leaders of this nation have recklessly ignored the long-term viability of this country for immediate political gain. The deficit? Katrina? The dysfunction of congress? Others have given more examples. The people in office are bad people. They deserve to lose their offices. Although they have usurped the GOP, and although they call themselves conservatives, these bad people do not subscribe to any political philosophy except greed. True conservatives are as appaled by the government's misdeeds as we liberals are, and should vote accordingly. Conservatives and liberals alike believe in a government for the people, which this government demonstratably is not.

Some articles to think about in the upcoming election:

Jon Kyl Rick Renzi J.D. Hayworth John Doolittle Richard Pombo Brian Bilbray Marilyn Musgrave Doug Lamborn Rick O'Donnell Christopher Shays Vernon Buchanan Joe Negron Clay Shaw Bill Sali Peter Roskam Mark Kirk Dennis Hastert Chris Chocola John Hostettler Mike Whalen Jim Ryun Anne Northup Geoff Davis Michael Steele Gil Gutknecht Michele Bachmann Jim Talent Conrad Burns Jon Porter Charlie Bass Mike Ferguson Heather Wilson Peter King John Sweeney Tom Reynolds Randy Kuhl Robin Hayes Charles Taylor Steve Chabot Jean Schmidt Deborah Pryce

If you want to support musicians forget about paying for the CD go to the concert and buy a t-shirt. " Touring is simply far more profitable than selling CDs, explains Jim Guerinot, who manages Gwen Stefani (No. 16, $23.9 million). "With CDs, you're making between fifteen and twenty-five percent royalty," he says. "On the road you get a royalty of eighty-five to ninety percent" [from ticket sales]. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/9447993/the _richest_rock_stars_of_2006
  If the majority of music profits shift to live concerts record companies will eventually provide cheap or free downloads to promote their artist's tour.

Did you read the Rolling Stone article about how the exit polls in the 2004 US Presidential Election were skewed from the actual election number? Someone already beat you to the punch.

"Was the 2004 Election Stolen?"

In any case, though, the CNN exit poll data from 2004 should make the case for a Bush win, if you go by exit poll data alone.

While one cannot be certain what exactly will happen, history has shown us that people usually react fairly strongly to anything that gets in the way of their freedom. And Americans have certainly proven this point.

When exactly in the last years?

There is a difference between rumours of elections being rigged versus actual evidence.

I'd say the evidence is there just nobody seems interested in picking it up. Might be because some KGB^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Federal institutions are actively persecuting people who have differing opinions?

Remember: Elections are not a sign of democracy. Hitler was democratically elected (besides, he won most of his wars and took personal responsibility after obviously loosing the last one). They are necessary, but they are not enough.

You're wrong. The coup was in November of 2000. September 11 was used to consolidate power. It's getting worse; try this little gem: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/wa s_the_2004_election_stolen/1

If we could garner that sort of support there would be no need for a violent uprising, we could defeat them at the polls.

Maybe, maybe not.

The Gestapo isn't going to stop them from voting or rig the election.

Just to make it clear... the democrats aren't the only ones accused of stuff like this... Republicans do stuff too.

...I suspect one side to be a lot more rotten than the other.

Historically, democrats have been backed by big unions... which for a long time (maybe still) were pretty much run by and for the mafia. So the Mafia found ways to get people to register their dead relatives as voters, and vote for them by mail... or at least sign their 'signature' on petitions. In exchange for helping the Democratic Machine, I'm sure the Mafia got some leeway...

I'm sure the Republicans have done some things equally as dirty to throw elections in their favor... Recently saw this theory for instance: Was the 2004 Election stolen?

I like open source software, but just being open source doesn't mean it's any more secure. The problem here is using a common lock with easily available keys to obtain physical access to the computing device... think console. If you have console access, you can pretty much do what ever you want. Security doesn't depend on any one thing, it depends on layers.

A better lock on the Diebold machines would just lead to a false sense of security. The keys would be more difficult to get, but I have no doubt that people looking to rig elections would still be able to get them.

There are many varities of locks, from combination to tubular pin tumbler to independently coded quad-raceway locks (think a standard lock with a key shaped like a X, and 10 pins for each of three keyways. It's about 4" long.)

At least with these generic locks it is a known issue, and in theory we know not to rely on them to protect the contents of the machine. So the machines will be guarded better. In theory.

In practice... man are we screwed.

We are screwed not because of poor design, but because we haven't made enough ruckus to stop what is essentially planed voting fraud.

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Printers are cheap, easy to find, off the shelf, and you can use one designed for cash registers. So why are most computerized voting machines lacking them? Because an independent slip of paper with the votes cast would give a verifiable and auditable trail, exactly what "they" don't want. See this. Sure, it's got a bias, it uses loaded words, but the basis of it is just too true for me to completely disregard it.

Quick question: If we have viable alteratives, such as those presented by the Open Voting Consortium, why do we continue to bother with these stupid Diebold machines?

It's a lot like Rock stars. They do a lot of publicity stunts and live a lifestyle that seems garish and offensive to the social conservatives of their time, but looking back in hindsight, most of the hype is just plain silly. Biting off the head of a bat? Ozzie, your domestic home life is much scarier than that; so is the fact that we find it entertaining to televise it.

According to Ozzy, that incident was a mistake. Apparently some fool threw a real bat on the stage and Ozzy bit the head off thinking it was a rubber toy. He ended up having to get tested for rabies.

http://www.rollingstone.com/Mythozzy

Riiiight... And Lucas is fluent in Dutch is he? Odd that in interviews before Empire he talked about Obi Wan and Luke's father fighting Darth Vader. Hell - Vader even appeared in early drafts where there was no way he could be Luke's father.

And wouldn't any half competent screenwriter throw in an occasional clue rather than a total outright lie?

A relevant quote from the very detailed Rolling Stones article on the whole issue:

Now, thanks to careful examination of Mitofsky's own data by Freeman and a team of eight researchers, we can say conclusively that the theory is dead wrong. In fact it was Democrats, not Republicans, who were more disinclined to answer pollsters' questions on Election Day. In Bush strongholds, Freeman and the other researchers found that fifty-six percent of voters completed the exit survey -- compared to only fifty-three percent in Kerry strongholds.(38) ''The data presented to support the claim not only fails to substantiate it,'' observes Freeman, ''but actually contradicts it.''

What's more, Freeman found, the greatest disparities between exit polls and the official vote count came in Republican strongholds. In precincts where Bush received at least eighty percent of the vote, the exit polls were off by an average of ten percent. By contrast, in precincts where Kerry dominated by eighty percent or more, the exit polls were accurate to within three tenths of one percent -- a pattern that suggests Republican election officials stuffed the ballot box in Bush country.(39)

38) Freeman and Bleifuss, pg. 128.
39) Freeman and Bleifuss, pg. 130.

''Blackwell made Katherine Harris look like a cupcake,'' Conyers told me. ''He saw his role as limiting the participation of Democratic voters. We had hearings in Columbus for two days. We could have stayed two weeks, the level of fury was so high. Thousands of people wanted to testify. Nothing like this had ever happened to them before.''

''The secretary of state is supposed to administer elections -- not throw them,'' says Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat from Cleveland who has dealt with Blackwell for years. ''The election in Ohio in 2004 stands out as an example of how, under color of law, a state election official can frustrate the exercise of the right to vote.''

For congress and governor in my state, my choices are between do-nothing incumbents and their challengers who out for themselves. What kind of a choice is that? I'm so disgusted, I swear, I am giving serious thought to writing in my own name and getting a few friends to do the same. Just curious as to how the tabulating software really counts a write in vote. Know what I mean?