Thursday, November 04, 2004
Voting Fraud
Since Kerry has conceded any attempt to track election fraud is for posterity. Here are a few examples:
Wired - The National Protection Coalition, composed of several nonpartisan groups that include the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Verified Voting, reported Tuesday afternoon it had received more than 600 calls from voters complaining about problems with e-voting machines around the country. A separate group, Common Cause, reported receiving 50,000 calls, though not all of them were related to voting technology. Both groups had established toll-free phone lines for voters to report problems.
The National Protection Coalition received 80 reports of problems in New Orleans where machines made by Sequoia Voting Systems failed to start on election morning, resulting in voters being turned away from polls because election officials didn't have a back-up plan. By late afternoon some machines still had not booted up. . .
In Florida, where George W. Bush won the 2000 presidential election by only 537 votes, 10 touch-screen voting machines failed at precincts in Broward County. Voters in Florida and Texas complained about calibration problems with touch-screen machines. Problems occurred when voters touched the screen next to one candidate's name and an "X" appeared in a box next to another candidate's name. The Election Protection Coalition also received more than 32 reports from various states that spread across all the top e-voting brands made by Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems & Software, Hart Intercivic and Sequoia.
These problems involved e-voting machines that appeared to record votes correctly when voters touched the screen, but indicated a different selection on the review screen before voters cast their ballot. In some cases voters had to redo their ballot five or six times before the correct votes took. . .
Voters in Palm Beach County, Florida, reported that when they went to vote on Sequoia machines some races on their electronic ballots were already pre-marked before they started voting. They had to ask poll workers to assist them in removing the selections from the ballot so they could start with a clean ballot. In some cases they weren't successful in doing this.
In Texas, voters casting straight-party tickets reported that machines cast ballots for candidates outside of their chosen party. For example, if a voter chose to vote straight Republican, rather than automatically marking all Republican choices on the ballot, the machine marked some Democratic choices.
Daily Kos - The assertion by pundits/Bushies that exit polling was 'way off', and thus, exit polls, which showed an easy Kerry victory in both Ohio and Florida, were incorrectly skewed and did not represent the electorate, is completely bogus. This is disproved in minutes by simply noting the entire rest of the suite of exit polls conducted by AP and distributed to the news media. . .
Notice, if you will, that states with a narrow or wide Bush margin of victory not called Ohio or Florida, project perfectly. Missouri leans to Bush in exit polls, and leaned to him in the vote. Tennessee likewise was favorable to Bush in exit polls, and it showed in the final results with a clear Bush margin of victory. Pick a state, any state, there is not one single exit poll off by more than a few percentage points in any semi-competitive race. Not one.
Except two: Ohio and Florida, the latter of which has already been "awarded" to Bush, and the former, which appears to nearly be a lock for him . . . George Bush's win in each of these 2 states is nowhere near what exit polls suggest. In Ohio, Kerry had a small but noticeable lead with both male and female voters, a rare thing for him as males have tended to favor Bush in this election by a small margin. Likewise, independent voters clearly broke for Kerry, by a 21 percent margin, 60-39. This is not anywhere near the result we are seeing now, and along with Florida, whom I will get to in a moment, it is a clear and blatant sign of voter fraud. I don't use that most dangerous of "F" words lightly, but I must call a wolf a wolf and a sheep a sheep, and this whole setup stinks like Karl Rove after he's ran 15 feet.
Wired - The National Protection Coalition, composed of several nonpartisan groups that include the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Verified Voting, reported Tuesday afternoon it had received more than 600 calls from voters complaining about problems with e-voting machines around the country. A separate group, Common Cause, reported receiving 50,000 calls, though not all of them were related to voting technology. Both groups had established toll-free phone lines for voters to report problems.
The National Protection Coalition received 80 reports of problems in New Orleans where machines made by Sequoia Voting Systems failed to start on election morning, resulting in voters being turned away from polls because election officials didn't have a back-up plan. By late afternoon some machines still had not booted up. . .
In Florida, where George W. Bush won the 2000 presidential election by only 537 votes, 10 touch-screen voting machines failed at precincts in Broward County. Voters in Florida and Texas complained about calibration problems with touch-screen machines. Problems occurred when voters touched the screen next to one candidate's name and an "X" appeared in a box next to another candidate's name. The Election Protection Coalition also received more than 32 reports from various states that spread across all the top e-voting brands made by Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems & Software, Hart Intercivic and Sequoia.
These problems involved e-voting machines that appeared to record votes correctly when voters touched the screen, but indicated a different selection on the review screen before voters cast their ballot. In some cases voters had to redo their ballot five or six times before the correct votes took. . .
Voters in Palm Beach County, Florida, reported that when they went to vote on Sequoia machines some races on their electronic ballots were already pre-marked before they started voting. They had to ask poll workers to assist them in removing the selections from the ballot so they could start with a clean ballot. In some cases they weren't successful in doing this.
In Texas, voters casting straight-party tickets reported that machines cast ballots for candidates outside of their chosen party. For example, if a voter chose to vote straight Republican, rather than automatically marking all Republican choices on the ballot, the machine marked some Democratic choices.
Daily Kos - The assertion by pundits/Bushies that exit polling was 'way off', and thus, exit polls, which showed an easy Kerry victory in both Ohio and Florida, were incorrectly skewed and did not represent the electorate, is completely bogus. This is disproved in minutes by simply noting the entire rest of the suite of exit polls conducted by AP and distributed to the news media. . .
Notice, if you will, that states with a narrow or wide Bush margin of victory not called Ohio or Florida, project perfectly. Missouri leans to Bush in exit polls, and leaned to him in the vote. Tennessee likewise was favorable to Bush in exit polls, and it showed in the final results with a clear Bush margin of victory. Pick a state, any state, there is not one single exit poll off by more than a few percentage points in any semi-competitive race. Not one.
Except two: Ohio and Florida, the latter of which has already been "awarded" to Bush, and the former, which appears to nearly be a lock for him . . . George Bush's win in each of these 2 states is nowhere near what exit polls suggest. In Ohio, Kerry had a small but noticeable lead with both male and female voters, a rare thing for him as males have tended to favor Bush in this election by a small margin. Likewise, independent voters clearly broke for Kerry, by a 21 percent margin, 60-39. This is not anywhere near the result we are seeing now, and along with Florida, whom I will get to in a moment, it is a clear and blatant sign of voter fraud. I don't use that most dangerous of "F" words lightly, but I must call a wolf a wolf and a sheep a sheep, and this whole setup stinks like Karl Rove after he's ran 15 feet.
