Slashdot Mirror
Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
jZnat writes, "In June Rolling Stone ran an article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delving into the statistical improbability that Bush won the 2004 election based on massive amounts of evidence that support a Republican-sponsored election fraud across the country, particularly in Ohio. The GOP used a number of tactics in its fraudulent campaign including ballot-stuffing, denying newly registered voters (particularly in urban and minority precincts) their voting privileges via illegal mailings known as caging lists, inane voter registration requirements, preventing thousands of voters from receiving provisional ballots, under-providing Democrat-majority precincts with voting machines thus creating enormous queues of voters, faulty machines (particularly from Diebold) that skewed results in the GOP's favor, mostly unnoticed ballot-stuffing and fraud in rural areas, and a fixed recount that was paid for by the Green and Libertarian parties that essentially supported the initial fraudulent numbers." From the article: "'Ohio was as dirty an election as America has ever seen,' Lou Harris, the father of modern political polling, told me."
There has been fraud, corruption, and all manner of crap going on in elections in the US since the beginning of time. (And, might I add, consider the source.)
This hasn't change since Bush took office, and won't be any different in 2008. It's not just Republicans that do it, nor is is just Democrats. (Witness the decades-old joke from Democratic stronghold cities: "Why did the Democrat walk into the cemetery? To thank his voters.")
As dirty and reeking of conflict-of-interest as it is, when Diebold's CEO said he was committed to delivering Ohio's electoral votes to Bush, he meant it as a Republican corporate leader and campaigner; not in the context of "rigging" an election.
No, the disenfranchisement that happens now and will continue to happen is the same disenfranchisement and dirty tricks that always happens: the rise of the internet for the general population, particularly since the last pre-Bush presidential election, has enabled the kinds of incredible information exchange on all manner of topics that we've seen in the last two elections. That will only increase, and it cuts both ways: as much as it allows the exchange of legitimate information, it acts as a breeding ground for conspiracy theories, some wacky, some not-so-wacky, some with elements of truth, but still serving to subvert any faith we ever had in our system.
The worst part is so many people believe that not one, but two, elections were actively and intentionally "stolen"/rigged exclusively by Republicans, that anytime any Republican/conservative candidate ever wins an election from this point forward, it will always be doubted. Even recounts will be doubted. People want to believe, well, what they want to believe.
All of the political, governmental, financial, famous and otherwise, and other powerhouse figures in the United States on the anti-Republican/conservative side(s) didn't just stand idly by while not one, but *two* elections were stolen.
Nothing new has happened on either side in 2000 or 2004 that hasn't ever happened before. That's just a fact of life. These are the same county election entities that have run elections in locales for generations. Yes, things change a bit, especially with the introduction of electronic voting machines (which, ironically, were the result of various Democratic and bipartisan initiatives designed to allow more equal and consistent management of and access to polling places). But all e-voting vendors offer permament voter-verified receipt options on current and some previous models of machines - but these additions cost even more money; money that many municipalities weren't willing to spend.
Worse still, we're talking about it two (or six, depending) years later. Not only do we have people who believe firmly that both elections were stolen, but we have people who literally believe something will cause a suspension of the 2008 elections, allowing Bush to remain in power. To me, the growing ranks of people who believe that with all their heart - growing mostly because of the internet, and sources of information that reinforce what they want to believe - are actually more of a threat to our system of government than anything else.
Rehashing a Rolling Stone article from June, that was already covered on /. at the time? Running a dupe a few days or a week later is one thing, but it's been 3 months!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Democrats versus Republicans
Creationism versus evolution
Open software versus proprietary
These are all sure to create vicious back-and-forth arguments that'll put the responses over that magical 300 number.
*grabs popcorn*
Seriously though, Diebold machines are a joke. What I don't understand is why widespread vandalism of these machines hasn't been done.
The exploits are, from what I understand, incredibly simple.
Unfortunately, I have a feeling that even if Osama bin Laden won the 2008 presidential election based on votes from machines, it would just be blamed on "terrorist hackers" and no actual accountability would be implemented.
Then, 2 years later, the American public would go back to voting on the same buggy machines, as oblivious as usual. Nothing would of have changed.
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If Bush couldn't be ousted in '04 and if the Dems can't take control of Congress maybe its something they're doing wrong, cause Bush isn't doing anything right.
I am not a fan of our current president and I have never voted for him (but I did vote) But the democrats were stupid enough to put a Northern Liberal Democrat against a South Western Republican. So what it did was create a polarized nation during the election, it forced people to be deadly afraid of the other side. So they all voted for one side or the other. So being that bush won, all the people who got all hyped up the Bush will be the end of the world are now going on conspiracies and trying to find any thing to make them seem like they were cheated. While it was a fair fight and they lost. If the democrats were more willing to get a more middle of the road candidate they could have one. But they were betting on that GWB wouldn't win because he didn't win the last election with a majority vote so they were betting that if they get a Full to the left Democrat then they would win hands down. But guess what it didn't work. Next time I hope they get a more middle of the road democrat and perhaps I may vote for them.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Slashdot is now blatantly ripping off Salon.com, which also had an article headline about Kennedy's Rolling Stone piece staring with Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" Too bad Slashdot, in its ridiculous slanting, removed the final word of Salon's headline: "No." Even Mother Jones and NPR repudiated Kennedy's claims. Mother Jones, fer Christ's sake! What's next, Slashdot? How about some articles about World Trade Center demolition conspiracies! And Was Paul Wellstone's Plane Shot Down?
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Because one or the other party did it in the distant past does not make it okay. Technology gave the current ruling party the ability to subvert our election process in a broad and coordinated fashion not available historically.
The bottom line is a lot of good people fought and died to uphold the ideal of one person, one vote and take pride that we run honest elections. The current administration tramples on the Constitution and stacks government agencies with unqualified partisans. They've looted our national treasury and gotten three thousand of our people killed in an ideological war in Iraq. Not only should they be impeached, but if evidence of rigging elections come to light it should undo all that Bush has done in office, including his Supreme Court appointments.
I think Bush lost 2000 and 2004 and that represents a greater threat to our country than terrorism. If the right wing wasn't so shamelessly hypocritical they'd be rioting in the streets for Bush's impeachment. The fact they're lending tacit support to this fraud only demonstrates their lack of character.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
If the election was in fact stolen, "moving on" is the worst thing you can do, since its a direct attack on both the constitution and the legitimacy of government - and through that, an attack on the US and its citizens. Finding the criminals who helped steal it would be the right thing.
"Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence." - Robert Hanlon (disputed)
We had a fun 2004 election up here in Washington state. At the end of polling, the Republican Dino Rosse had defeated Democrat Gregoire by ~200 votes - so close that a recount was mandated. After one recount, Rossi was still ahead by about 60 votes. The Dems paid for a second recount, during which multiple small groups of uncounted ballots from highly-Democratic King County kept turning up. Gregoire won that recount, and is now our (rather uninspiring) governor.
Thing is, this really looked like a rigged election; and a lot of Republicans still think it was. But looking at the various pieces, my personal conclusion is just that the King County Elections department is largely incompetent, and has been for a while - it just hasn't come up because we've never had this close an election. Ballots left uncounted inside of voting machines; absentee ballots that get stored away, uncounted; ballots from overseas military people that were wrongly disqualified... it's all easily covered by incompetence.
I have no doubt that fraud occurs; but I also don't doubt it runs both ways.
Another other issue that everyone conveniently ignores, of course, is counting error. Simply put, the likely error in any given count of N random items (as long as N is sufficiently large) is 1/sqrt(N). With a really close election, you simply can't know who the true winner is.
#DeleteChrome
Argue with the argument, not the arguer.
... and then they built the supercollider.
So far, we've got posts bashing the slashdot article for not being current, bashing the Rolling Stone article for being by Rolling Stone, and a few posts of "it's not that bad, get over it". We remember the Florida 2000 fiasco, which was much ado about nothing, and assume this is the same.
It's not.
Seriously, read the article. This isn't just about a few dirty tricks, although there are plenty of those. It isn't about a few thousand votes, like Florida was. It's about outright, large-scale ballot stuffing, hundreds of thousands of votes, fraudulent manipulation of voter rolls, and deliberate sabotage by the Republican secretary of state (who was also the co-chair of President Bush's re-election committee).
It's an extraordinary claim, which does indeed require extraordinary evidence, but the evidence IS there. But no one's willing to look at the naked emperor. Everyone made up their mind about whether Bush was good or bad a long time ago, but now the Bush-supporters have no defense but to close their eyes and plug their ears. And for the most part, they're doing exactly that.
Wikipedia has a nice summary.
But, in short: The dems lost both the first count and the machine recount (which they were legally entitled to). They did, however win the hand recount (which they were also legally entitled to).
The GOP's lawsuit contesting the election was dismissed by the Chelan County (a republican county) Court.
What was really disgusting is the GOP made personal attacks against the democrats for asking for a recount when the GOP was winning by a narrow margin, but then immediately started acting like the dems when they lost. I think that the WA vote was handled as well as could be expected other than this hypocrisy.
The end result of your statement is circular logic at its finest:
If you have proof that's valid ...
If you already have the proof, why investigate?
The simple fact is that more than half the population feels the election was stolen - an investigation is needed, even if it wasn't - to restore faith in the system.
If I were to put my tinfoil hat on for a second
In fact, this has me thinking now... We may constitute a particularly difficult demographic to brainwash for exactly that reason - geeks don't take anyone but other geeks seriously and that means if you don't bow to geek religious beliefs (such as science and her language), you have very little chance of adjusting our opinions. If there are enough of you and you push buttons fast enough, you might be able to sling your comments around and mod-up the memes of your cohorts, but you will have little chance of making any difference to the thought process of the readership here.
Ok, tinfoil hat off... We geeks are probably just as gullible as everyone else and even easier to control... Just promise us dates if we go along with you...
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
Look, it may not concern you that Bush stole the election, because you wanted him to win, but I garauntee it will concern you when someone you don't like uses the same techniques to steal it. Wake up. This isn't partisan, the Democrats have done the same thing in the past, and it sucked just as much then. But we did somethign about it.
Just read the friggin article and perhaps you will see some ways that our elections are unfair and should be fixed, ignore the fact that it's your man who did it. Mentally insert "Bill Clinton" in place of GWB if that helps, but read it, and believe it, and get riled up and do something or our country is going to go down the crapper in a big scary way. I gaurantee that if no one does anything about this, someone who you abhor is going to use these tricks. And by then it will probably be too late.
And if you think everyone here is lame and pathetic because they don't agree with you, well, maybe this isn't the place for you? I hear freerepublic.com is nice...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
It's nonsense to suggest that just because something happened in the past we should all simply accept the outcome and move on...past elections were rigged? Ah, well...better luck next time!
Accusing the Democrats of sour grapes seems within the realm of possibility but to suggest that even if this were all true just to ignore it undermines the very foundation of your democratic process. Like it or not (and I'm guessing not - as it is a clear and present threat to your obvious political alligence) free and fair voting for everyone matters in a democracy.
You don't like that because your side won't always win?
Tough.
No election frauds should be "let go".
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
>They kept recounting until they got the result they desired, and then told everyone to stop.
They went through precisely the recounts allowed and required by law, under the supervision of a Republican secretary of state. I remember when conservatives were in favor of the rule of law.
Whether or not the elections in 2000 and 2004 were stolen does not change the fact that we are witnessing an unprecedented attempt to consolidate power in the hands of a very wealthy, very few. And they are mostly Republicans.
You say that people believing that the Bush Administration is capable of the most egregious types of illegal activities is more of a threat to our system of government than those illegal activities themselves. This is known as baloney.
Yesterday, we saw a President declare that a law must be passed that will have the effect of absolving him and his administration from any war crimes that may have been committed since 2001, retroactively. He is afraid that as the 14 prisoners that he's transferring from secret prisons (just the thought of secret prisons is anti-American) are interviewed by the Red Cross when they get to Guantanamo (Guantanamo is anti-American) we will learn that they were tortured in ways that violate a Convention that has served us well for more than half a century, and this will expose Mssrs Bush and Cheney to quite valid charges of War Crimes.
So, in a classic cover-your-butt move, this despicable man is going to pardon himself and his friends, in advance. I hope those of you who voted Republican are proud.
All this to protect his sudden need to try people with secret evidence. Let that sink in for a second. You are arrested and not told why. You are held for 3 years without any charges being brought against you. You are brought to court and a judge tells you that you are found guilty, based on evidence that you and your lawyer will not be allowed to see. Who wants to try to argue that any of this is the "American Way"?
And this entire charade, 2 wars and untold suffering is done because 19 guys in dirty nightshirts were able to commandeer a couple of planes and kill 3000 people. We're told not to worry about the guy who masterminded this crime because after all we can't find him anyway, and there's a much more important thing we have to do because of this massive crime and that's fight a war thousands of miles away from where this criminal is hiding. And it just so happens that this war that's so urgent is in a place that has a huge supply of oil. And, it just so happens that the President got into politics with the help of the oil industry, but that's all just a coincidence. And it's a further coincidence that the one corporation that has profited the most from this war was run by the Vice President until a short time before the election. And, by the way, that Vice President's income tax return last year showed income of tens of millions of dollars even though his salary is only about 250 thousand bucks. But ignore all of that because THIS PRESIDENT IS A-GONNA KEEP US SAFE. Safe from terrorists. Forget that you're more likely to die of toenail fungus than from terrorism.
One great thing about this country is that although it's possible to scare Americans, they don't stay scared for long. If there's a God in heaven, the Bush Administration and his Republican lickspittles are going to pay dearly for what they've done to a country that not too long ago was held in regard by the world as being a beacon of freedom, but is now known for secret prisons, torture, domestic spying and stupid, destructive wars.
To Hell with George W. Bush. And Dave Schroeder, regardless of whatever it is that would make you try to defend him, to Hell with you.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Perhaps, but why have exit polls been so amazingly accurate in the past - and now, when anomalies turn up, the exit polls don't match for those places where weird shit was going on, like voters being turned away from the polls, or machines malfunctioning?
On a related note, I love the duality of various far-left Democrats,
That doesn't make any sense. The terms "far left" and "Democrat" are mutually exlusive. Democrats are typically centrist, many of them increasingly right-leaning.
howling at the same time that the current administration is completely incompetent, while at the same time accusing them of managing to conspire to rig the election.
I don;t see the contradiction. They are incompetent at running the country, because they spend so much time on their corrupt self-serving schemes. Same with most bad politicians, of whatever persuasion
If they can't keep secret prisons secret, what's the chance that they'd keep an election conspiracy secret?
They can't, and they haven't. Anyone with their eyes open knows there's dodgy stuff going on. Of course, that doesn't mean most Americans care. Hell, we KNOW, for sure about hundreds of screw-ups and lies, and somehow Bush hasn't been impeached yet. They openly come out and advocate torture, and it seems nobody cares. Maybe it would be a different matter if the President got a Blow Job. Seems that harmless personal infidelity is evil in the eyes of the voters, but corruption on a massive scale is perfectly OK. People very quickly forget. How many people really even remember what happened at Abu Ghraib? How many people remember the "anthrax attacks" and who it was that was investigated for those?
If people don't even remember such major events and atrocities, they aren't going to remember much about the fiascos in Ohio and Florida. It's basically been revealed that Diebold machines are easily hackable, and the people that run the company have partisan intentions. Where is all the outrage? Why isn't that issue being covered every day on the national news networks? Instead, all you get is celebrity gossip and talking points about Democrats "giving aid to the enemy" or being "terrorist sympathizers" and other such nonsense.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Seeing as this is a 4-month-old political opinion piece of a speculative, conspiratorial nature that doesn't even pretend to promote an unbiased or nonpartisan viewpoint, what business does it have on Slashdot?
If Slashdot is going to be linking to Robert Kennedy, Jr's writings, it better also link to those of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore, Al Franken, and Bill O'Reilly. Frankly, I'd rather Slashdot stay away from all of them.
I wish the article itself could be modded down to -1 Flamebait.
THANK YOU.
Geez...
I lean to the right politically, but I would love - LOVE - to have an alternative party. The Democrats have largely set themselves as simple contrarians with one plank on their platform - "vote for us, we're not the Republican party!"
Yes, I can see that. I saw that little "D" instead of the "R" which seems to be so dominant amongst elected officials these days.
But why on earth should I vote for a party which wants to get into power before stating a platform?
Economically speaking, the U.S. is doing quite well, so economics aren't much of the issue and elected officials have an often overstated effect on the economy as is. That's not much of a reason to vote for the Democrats. The present deficit level is high, to be sure, but that's not the sort of concern that really gets the voters out.
Iraq's a bit of a mess, but the Democrats haven't really stated what they're going to do with it beyond "we shouldn't have gone in". Great, we shouldn't have gone in, that's lovely and all, but guess what, we're there now - what do we do? They won't say. They don't have a plan at all... granted, the Bush administration's own plans are not particularly well-defined, but they are committed to staying for some time, which isn't the road map I'd like to see but it's heading in the right direction. Democrats can't decide to stay, go... or do anything else. Give me your party's POSITION on the matter! Do you have a position? Oh, that's right, I forgot, your position is, "we're not Bush!"
Then there's the "cultural issues". Democrats and their supporters alike can't seem to wrap their heads around this, but every time they lose an election they blame it on people who vote on "cultural issues". Perhaps if they learned that these cultural issues were really, truly important to many voters they could win votes, but noooo... instead, we hear the same mantra of, "stupid rednecks only care about x!" each election cycle. These stupid rednecks are voters, you know, and cultural issues are important to people, no matter how much the Democrats want to deny it. Responding to elections lost due to cultural issues by reaffirming your stance on these issues will NOT somehow magically bring people to your point of view.
I'm not entirely pleased with the Republican party at the moment, and would love to see some new ideas pop up on the hill. But the U.S. lacks an opposition party, and only has a band of contrarians without ideas.
It's like the Cola wars all over again, except instead of 'Coke' and 'Pepsi', I have 'Coke' and 'we're not Coke and we think Coke sucks!'
Please, SELL me some ideas and I might BUY THEM!
</rant>
I don't know how it works in Australia, but I lived in Brazil for a long time, where it is also compulsory to vote. What they do is make your life difficult if you don't have the receipt that says you voted in the last election (they require the receipts in order for you to get renewed documents such as passports, etc). Thus, the system works in that people do vote. The argument there is similar to the one you're making. You have the right to vote, so you should damn well use it, because that's what makes a democratic government great. I disagree with that in so many ways that I can't cover it all, but I'll just discuss the major problems with it right now.
I suppose the most important reason is the practical one: It doesn't work. They can make you vote but they can't make you care. The ballots were secret as they are here (a very good thing), so there were a large number of nullified ballots by people who just didn't want to vote. Essentially, they'd check the mark next to all the candidates, making the ballot worthless. They're doing the electronic voting there too now, but that's after I moved out, so I have no idea if the software disallows that. If the software does prohibit you from doing that, it puts you in a much scarier situation. I imagine most people who didn't care would simply vote for the first person on the list.
The second reason why voting shouldn't be compulsory also relates to the fact that most people don't care. You say that the system gets screwed up if people don't vote, but I claim it gets screwed up even more when people who don't do their research vote. I really hate the whole "get out and vote" campaigns because they make it seem like just showing up and voting satisfies all your civic responsibilities. It's not about just making a decision, it's about making an informed decision (although I guess "The Decider" would disagree). I'd be seriously in favor of the "Get out and learn about the candidate's track records, their proposals, and the success rate of similar actions to the ones they are proposing in the past, then vote for the best candidate" campaign, but people don't seem to want to do the hard things. Frankly, people who just show up and vote based on the fact that, "I don't like the damn republicans, I shall vote democrat" or "I'm conservative, I shall vote republican" are ruining for the rest of us who are actually doing our research.
Finally, there's the freedom argument. I don't like any laws that restricts people's freedoms. Your right to not vote is as important to me as your right to vote. If you want to vote I'll fight against anyone trying to prevent you to do so, regardless of whether or not I agree with who you are voting for. If you do not want to vote, I'll fight against anyone trying to make you do that.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Ignoring the fact that you have failed to rebut any of the facts or arguments presented in the article:
1. Use a word processor to replace references to Kerry and Bush and election 2004 in that article with other names and a different election.
2. Read the article.
3. Note whether you form emotions of anger or if there is a "salty discharge" flowing down your cheeks due to feelings of sadness.
Because what the article shows is that regardless of who "won" that election, our election system as 1) far from perfect and 2) even outright broken.
Now, the fact that there is even a case to be made here means that our election system is seriously flawed. Counting is a mechanical process - it should not be subject to even the slightest error, and therefore should not be subject to even the slightest doubt. Transparency and perfection are achievable. And yet, at every turn, Mr. Kennedy has been able to show the continuing presence of openings and loopholes and conflicts of interest in the counting process and the registration process.
Now, why haven't we reformed the election process? It's in everyone's interest to make sure that the will of the people is realized, correct? It's in everyone's interest to see that the votes are counted and that we live in a truly Democratic society, right? Or is it?
This is so very important. Unless we establish transparency and reliability in our voting system we are forfeiting our democracy itself.
The Kennedy article was a rehash of all the nonsense liberals have been spewing since 2004.
Since 2004 Republicans have been calling these accusations "nonsense" when it appears to be in their interest to settle the question (and thereby obtain a stronger mandate) by discrediting the facts at hand. And yet this hasn't happened. A mandate was asserted even without rigorous testing of the election results. And here you are, defaming the article and its author as "nonsensical" without actually countering any of the facts.
It's almost like one side is screaming "Our democrcacy is dying" and the other side responds by tacitly and cynically admitting "Haven't you heard? Our democracy is already dead."
As your best friend forever George W. Bush has stated, "Sometimes you need to repeat the truth over and over, so it sinks in." In this case, of course, the "real truth" is what's at stake, and we have an obligation to discover what the real truth is, and repair it if it offends us. Lots of credible people are still reporting on this issue, yet, for some reason, it hasn't made its way into the mainstream media besides in minimal ways.
Good f*cking question. Nothing in our society stays relevant. Important articles disappear all the time - we live in an information world where, regardless of actual relevancy, nothing stays relevant for more than 24 hours. Or it could just be a collective will of our news media not to "rock the boat" too much, as I believe Keith Olbermann points out in the article.
On top of it, they never mention how US military overseas from Florida specifically (that overwhelmingly vote republican) didn't get their absentee ballots
You did notice that the whole point of this article was the 2004 election, right? All of your linked articles are about the one in 2000. Fuck, we're like barely literate here.
Bush *is* an illegitimately elected aspirant dictator, a large scale mass murderer, and a war criminal.
This is why you guys are going to keep losing. As a conservative who actually believes in limited government and individual freedom, I strongly disagree with the current Republican leadership on many issues. But when the opposition is this unhinged, all I can do is either leave my ballot blank or "waste" it on a third party.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
If I don't vote and thereby lose my US citizenship, can I stop paying taxes too?
br>
You can actually stop paying taxes now, and retain your US citizenship. You'll even get room and board for some number of years, and never have to worry about voting again, since felons lose their right to vote...
In Australia they issue you a small fine if you didn't get your named marked off at polling booth. You don't actually need to vote for anyone - you can put the blank ballot in the box and go home. And it's really easy to dispute the fine (speaking from experience) - if you have anything vaguely reasonable as an excuse you tell them and they drop it with no need to go to court or anything like with parking fines... There is no receipt and no way to prove you voted (other than the electoral commission checking their lists I guess).
The informal voting rate isn't that large - about 5% of the votes cast are informal (there's a great tradition of Donkey voting though - being first on the ballot can give you an extra 1.4% or so, unless you're a woman strangely enough when it gives you nada - Robson rotation would fix that but they don't bother). And the turn out rate is 95%. So 90% of the registered voters (which is essentially everyone 18+ with a few slipping through the cracks - made up for by the dead people who manage to vote somehow) cast a valid vote.
Compulsary voting gets rid of the "get out and vote" idiocy that clearly favours candidates with the resources to round people into buses... It also removes the ability to influence the outcome by preventing people from voting - or at least makes it very noticable if you try.
Are you also going to fight against those who try and make people do other "civic duties" like jury duty?
I suspect compulsary voting would interact badly with first past the post voting, and hence would be a bad thing for America - not that that's an issue - it goes completely against the concept of liberty the US has (though the last few years seem to have shown that liberty isn't so important to most americans but that's an unrelated issue).
All these arguments about who's more biased or who has "sour grapes" are anti-intellectual clap-trap that serve only to stiffle open discussion of vitally important issues.
Evidence of Democratic fraud does not invalidate evidence of Republican fraud.
It is not "OK" if both sides cheated. Evidence that both sides cheated re-inforces the conclusion that the election was invalid.
Why do people keep doing that? countering accusations of fraud with counter-accusations of fraud? It does not follow from that argument that the election result was an accurate tally of voter intentions, quite the contrary. Are people seriously suggesting that we make an assumption that the level of fraud was "probably about even repub/dem" so we don't need to recount?
I also don't understand why there is any opposition to counting ballots.
If results are very close and/or if anyone doubts the validity of the results I can think of no legitimate reason to refuse to count the paper ballots.
Except one: cost. I have a hard time believing that americans are willing to forgo double-checking their election results because it would cost too much.
Am I the only one here who thinks that fighting to stop a ballot recount should be a criminal offence?
I think it's fair to say that all the reasons stated above for holding elections on a Tuesday, while stellar in their reasoning for the nineteenth century, are now obsolete. Read on...
Although measures have been taken in some places, clearly it's too little at this late stage of the game. If the american public wants to scare the pants off the Washington lobbyists, a good place to start would be to campaign for Election Saturdays. Ironically, it's something that will probably be decided on a Tuesday.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
I wasn't going to post in this thread, but "The Man" probably already has a file on me, so I'll go ahead and excercise my first amendment rights and comment.
My comment is this: so what? The president cheated. It seems pretty clear that something fishy was going on in the 2004 election. I am from Ohio, I saw as our shameful Secretary of State (possibly our future governor) stood by his man and took 3rd party candidates off the ballot to make it easier for his master to get re-elected. As much as I didn't want Bush re-elected, I accepted the "truth" like everyone else did. I was even suspiscious. But what's going to happen? Is the Republican controlled Congress going to investigate? Is the Republican appointed Supreme Court going to invalidate the election two years after the fact? Is an armed militia going to march down to the White House and give control back to the people?
No. None of this is going to happen. As much as our commander in chief goes around waving his flag and talking about how we are "spreading freedom" across the globe, we have lost our freedom in this country. Even if this article is 100% true, nothing will ever come of it. You know why? There are two ways of dealing with those who dissent. One way is to kill them all. Stalin did this, and it worked for a while, but he tends to be frowned upon by history. The other way is to just ignore them. What are they going to do? Post an angry article in their blogs? Write a letter to their congressman? Write and host a satirical fake news show? Even worse, are they going to show the fat cats in Washington and run for office themselves? At the end of the day, nothing will happen. Don't think that the Democrats are any better. The illusion of politics is that you actually have a choice. You don't. All the people in power just take turns passing it around to each other. They pretend to disagree about the issues, but they all have one thing in common. They all want to wear the crown and carry the sceptre. The most devious ones make it to the top, and the others end up getting jobs as high paid lobbyists or fade out of existance.
So here is what I'm choosing to do. I'm not stupid enough to fight the system. It's like swimming against a rip tide. You swim and swim against the current, and you never get anywhere. Eventually it takes you out to sea, and you die. Instead, I'm going to make the best life I can for myself and my family. I stand up for my rights where I can. I write my congressman, and read about the issues, but I don't fool myself into thinking I can make a difference. Most importantly, I put blind faith in the idea that what goes around comes around. I am not a member of an organized religion, but I'm not arrogant enough to think I know how the universe works. I think there are other facets to our existance that we can't even begin to comprehend. I believe that in some way, in some form, the people who do evil in this world face subsequent consequences in the next. I strive to be the best person I can in this one, and hopefully I will be rewarded. If not, hey, at least I didn't waste my whole life on this Earth stressed out about something I can't do anything about. Sometimes, the blue pill isn't all that bad.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
We had Republican gubernatorial administrations for a quarter century until the most recent. So if, as you claim, there are no legitimate elections here, the Democrats apparently have been cheating for the purpose of bringing in Republican administrations for decades. So you have to admit that they at least are evenhanded in cheating on behalf of everyone.
As to Democratic corruption, the last Republican governor, George Ryan, was just sentenced to six years in Federal prison for...corruption. The point is not that both sides engage in this type of behavior, but that it can't be condoned or excused because "everybody does it". It needs to be exposed wherever it occurs by whoever engages in it.
(If you replace "Illinois" with "Chicago" in your post, I think i might be inclined to agree with you, though).
I'm not an American. I am gob-smacked at the head-in-the-sand attitude being displayed by Republican supporters on Slashdot.
From the article:
"According to the exit poll, Kerry should have received sixty-seven percent of the vote in this precinct. Yet the certified tally gave him only thirty-eight percent. The statistical odds against such a variance are just shy of one in 3 billion."
This is something to be VERY concerned about, not to be brushed aside with some facile quip.
The article also mentions the fact that the Democrats don't seem to be pushing the issue of electorial fraud, which rather puts the lie to all the posters claiming that this is about Democrats not accepting defeat. The reality is, that had this election been held in a third world country, we would all be decrying it as a case of clear electorial tampering and demanding a fresh election with neutral observers in place.
When you fail to care whether the electorial process was tampered with, you fail to care about democracy at all. What's more important? GW winning or democracy itself? To me, that's a no brainer, but clearly that's not the case for many of the Republican supporters here and as a member of TheRestOfTheWorld, that's a real worry for me. You need to sort your priorities out.
I reminded someone else that apparently didn't read the cited article in the grandparent posting, but it's worth repeating:
Rice made her comment about not postponing the elections in 2004, in response to concerns about discussion of what to do if terrorists tried to disrupt elections. This was shortly after the train bombings in Madrid, a few days before national elections in Spain.
You can choose not to believe her. But you cannot dispute the fact that the 2004 elections were held.
As the original poster cautioned: cool the rhetoric. The facts are making you look like a fool.
only providing enough polling booths for the turnout based on the previous election
turning voters away at voting day based on some dubious criteria
disenfranchising working voters by holding elections on working days
The benefit of maintaining the integrity of the voting system (from the point of the government properly administering an election) far outweighs the cost to the "right not to vote".
Compulsory voting also diminishes the influence of ideologically extremists who vote not because they are informed.
The ballot should be preferential and the first candidate should be "The ballot ends here", so if someone numbers the ballot straight down, it is an indication that the voter votes for no one solving your "scary" scenario.
I've heard this meme (that "the Democrats also steal a lot of elections") a lot lately but I have not seen anyone substantiate it. I don't recall anyone getting up in arms about the process of the Clinton elections, though certainly there were people upset that he won.
Does anyone have anything other than innuendo on this talking point? It sounds a little too much like a Rove snowjob to me -- I hear the talking point a lot from different sources but never any deeply resourced, specific complaints such as RFK aired.
"Change Election Day from Tuesday to Saturday. "
I'll go you one better.
Change the election date to the fourth of july. What better way to celebrate your independence then to vote. It's a holiday, people are running around getting BBQ supplies and beer anyway. Just pull into the polling place on your way to the supermarket.
Easy, simple, effective. There is no way it will get done.
evil is as evil does
1. To win, a candidate must muster at least 50% + 1 of the number on his or her electoral role to secure the seat.
2. The vote is a SINGLE, TRANSFERRABLE VOTE, which means that for a ovte to be valind (and ocunted) it must list the voter's preferences from 1 to the last person on the ballot paper. Any missed candidates will render the vote invalid.
3. After the initial count, if no silgle candidate hass the magic 50% +1, the person with the least number of votes is eliminated, and the vote preferences are allocated to the other candidates, based on that person's voter's second preferences. This process, eliminating the bottom candidate, and allocating those votes based on next highets preference, goes on until one candidate has the mandatory 50% +1 vote.
4. Voting rolls are not within the control of any political party - the voting rolls are maintained by a federal department, which does not include political appointees (well, not officially), and there is open scrutiny of the rolls at all times.
5. The candidates in the election are all able to provide scrutineers to the count(so apart from so-called "drover's dog" electorates ("If it wore the right political colors, even a drover's dog could get elected in this constituency, there are scrutineers at all counting ststions).
6. Party advertising is not allowed inside the polling stations - party people can distribute their stuff outside, but not inside. 7. In federal and stae elections, people don't directly vote for the Prime Minister or state Premier, but that office is held by the leader of the majority party in the state or federal parliament. so, voting tends to be on party lines, and the chances of a good candidate of the "wrong" political persuasion getting up against a bad candidate of the "right" political persuasion is always very poor.
8. As a corrollory to 7., if you live in a marginal seat (one that changes election to election, or which may change with a smallish swing), your vote is worth commensurately more than if you live in a "safe" seat.
Hope that clears it up a bit.
Will those of you who think that you know what you are doing, get out of the way of those of us who know what we are doi
I have to say that I think the situation is even worse than I thought it was... after the 2004 election, I had the impression that the people who wanted to believe that it was legit at least had some wiggle room, because it seemed like there was some disagreement about the meaning of the exit polls: there was that study at Berkeley that found a discrepancy, but then the MIT study chimed in saying there wasn't, so who do you believe?
The thing is, the MIT guys later admitted that they screwed up: they used the "corrected" data, not the originally reported exit poll results. The media never reported that development, and I missed it myself...
Freeman and Bleifuss do a very thorough analysis of the various theories that have been presented to cover the discrepancy, and none of them seem to hold up. It's difficult to see how anyone could read this book and not conclude that phrasing the title as a question was excessively polite...
And it's impossible to see how you can come away from this situation without seeing that we badly need reform of the electoral system -- a paper trail that can actually be recounted would be a nice start, eh? Even if you don't believe the 2004 election was "stolen", how do you know the next one isn't going to be?
And anyone who speaks out against that point, is speaking out against Democracy itself, and needs to take a good long look in the mirror to think about what kind of world they want to live in.
(The "corrected" data by the way, is by definition "corrected" so that the discrepancy goes away. So what good is it? Why do people call it "corrected" and not, oh, say, "fudged"?)
Sorry, but your "debunking" was counter-debunked, on Salon as well. Turns out Manjoo was just using the right-wing's classic tricks of distraction and red herrings.
It amazes me how the Bush administration can spout rhetoric in total opposition to its actions, and people will still buy in.
In case you haven't noticed, there have been several "State's Rights" issues during the Bush Interregnum. In all these cases, the Bush administration has come down solidly in favor of increased federal authority.
In one of the more egregious cases, the Federal Government is in favor of redrawing the boundaries of the state of Delaware so that a large foreign-owned oil company can construct a LNG pier serving the state of New Jersey. In that case, the Bush administration is actually championing the "rights" of British Petroleum, with collusion from corrupt New Jersey authorities, to override the demonstrated will of the citizenry of the US state of Delaware.
When will US conservatives realize they've been betrayed by a pack of radical facists, who favor any corporation from any nation over the rights of any individual anywhere?