Fascinating Articles Found in the DU Election Reform Forum

[Emit]

Warning: Best get your :tinfoilhat::tinfoilhat::tinfoilhat: on!

March 6, 2008
Clinton Comeback: Courtesy of Diebold
Posted by Bill Noxid

It’s unfortunate that the American people still just don’t understand. ...

~snip~

... Once again we are supposed to believe that it was the leaked memo, or the red phone ad, or buyer’s remorse or some other such nonsense. In reality however, she won for the same reason George Bush has been president for eight years. She won because this country still uses Diebold and ES&S voting machines that have time and again altered the outcome of our elections. I don’t think I can say it any clearer than that.

The challenge in demonstrating this reality is finding some kind baseline or control factor for comparison. ... In my last writing on Diebold ( which I suggest you read {posted below}), the fact that so many hand-counted districts were right next to Accuvote districts made the discrepancies glaringly apparent.

Although we don’t have a comparable arrangement in this case, we do have similar components. We have touch-screen counted votes and hand counted votes, but we also have something entirely new. In fact this new factor is ( as far as I’m concerned ) the definitive evidence.

Let’s start with Rhode Island. ...If you exclude the imaginary results we’ve been given, this margin in Rhode Island coincides nicely with the margins we have seen consistently over the previous 11 contests. 58% - 40% is an Obama margin we’ve seen repeatedly.

To illustrate that point, let’s look at Vermont. Here we have an almost identical margin ( 59% - 39% ) except this time it is for Obama. The difference in this state - as you might expect - is that Vermont uses hand counted ballots in the majority of it’s municipalities.

The Texas two-step gives a look at both machine count and hand count. The primary in Texas is all machine count and it gives the win to Clinton 51% - 47%. However the caucus results ( hand count ) reflect the opposite and then some ( 56% - 44% Obama ).

But without question, the Ohio results are by far the most interesting. Although this superficially looks like an across the board win, there is a fascinating hidden story. ...{read at link}... The story of this plan is a fascinating one. ...

~snip~

So I retell all of this to illustrate a very simple point. Someone seriously did not want a system that actually counted and secured votes to be implemented in Ohio, and they tried very hard to prevent it… Let’s see why they went to so much trouble.

~snip~

As you can see from the map, the only counties where Obama won are also the counties that had secured, centrally counted, paper ballots.



~snip~

So here we are once again with a situation we’ve seen several times before. Underneath the smokescreen of the kitchen sink strategy we see the real problem. Once again ( when viewing all four contests ), the machine vote goes to Hillary and the paper ballot ( or hand count ) goes to Obama. The fact that Hillary’s actions and reactions have coincided so seamlessly with the Republican, Rovian, Limbaughvian philosophy and tactics, could actually lead one to question if it is coordinated.

~snip~

So before anyone questions whether I wear a tin foil chapeau, ask yourself why United Technologies Corporation is so determined to purchase Diebold ( a company currently under investigation by the DOJ and SEC ) before election day. You can bet Charlie Black ( McCain’s Campaign Director and lobbyist for United Technologies ) has a very good reason for this arrangement.

~snip~

http://billnoxid.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/clinton-comeback-courtesy-of-diebold/

Pretend Primary: Diebold strikes again
Posted by Bill Noxid

2000, 2004 revisited…

~snip~

Almost instantly, the tide swept through to New Hampshire and within a day, the polls reflected as much. The momentum only increased over the five days to the point that the Clintons were visibly angry, agitated, and confused. ...

~snip~

Yet one day later and here we are again with primary results that in no way shape or form match the pre-election polls, the sentiment of the country, or the turnouts “on the ground” in New Hampshire. Magically we are transported to elections gone by, and topsy-turvy results. Once again in the last moments, 14% of the population of New Hampshire voters decided that change in fact was not what they wanted, and decided this without any indication whatsoever. I don’t believe a bit of it, and neither should you.

Numerous hypotheses have been posed to explain this “miraculous” occurrence. “Tearing up” made her seem more “sensitive” or “human” - A flimsy argument at best if you saw the remainder of that “tearful” comment in which she proceeded to assault Obama. Perhaps it was because young people didn’t turn out...

So what did change between these two events? What dramatic difference could account for such a shift? The answer is quite obvious. The Iowa caucus was conducted with people raising their hands, in the open, and walking to a particular side of the room to be counted. There’s no way to “hack” that. Voting machines counting the so-called “secret” ballot in New Hampshire however, can be, have been, and are being.

One would have hoped that with the mountain of evidence of the “hackability” of the Diebold ( Accuvote ) machines and their scandalous past, no state would “touch” these fraudulent devices. Yet 81% of the votes in the New Hampshire primary were counted on these same Accuvote atrocities… A fact that ( as usual ) has escaped any mention from the endlessly speculating punditry.

New Hampshire ( thankfully ) is not entirely Accuvote however, and the remaining municipalities use paper ballots that are hand counted. ...

So to satisfy my certainty of the fraud I was witnessing, I decided to add up the hand counted ballots and add up the Accuvote ballots to compare the margins and trends. ...

See: http://billnoxid.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/pretend-primary-diebold-strikes-again-2/

... What this clearly shows however, is where the 14% points some polls indicated Obama was leading by went. As you can see, the ballots that were counted by hand give Obama a 7.5% win while the Accuvote “count” gives Clinton a 5.5% win. The combined “shift” is 13%. Here is where the percentage points disappear that were expected right up to the casting of ballots. Not tears, not lazy young people, right here in this “shift”.

There’s no way to legitimately explain why this discrepancy would exist. ... The only difference between these two groups is that one had their votes counted by hand, and the other by Accuvote. One group voted definitively for Obama, and the other definitively for Clinton…

~snip~

Graphs Hand Counts vs Machine Counts:
?w=521&h=4271
?w=521&h=4220

http://billnoxid.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/pretend-primary-diebold-strikes-again-2/

[NoBushSpokenHere]

1. Rec'd nt

[Emit]

2. Is there anyone here who can talk rationally about these articles

and maybe help me remove the :tinfoilhat: or at least loosen it a bit?


Anybody?

:hide:

[OneBlueSky]

4. I don't know if I can talk rationally about these articles, other than to say . . .

what else is new? . . . I've believed for many years now that the entire election process that uses electronic voting is thoroughly corrupt and that the outcomes can -- and in many cases are -- whatever the tabulators want them to be . . . that it's also happening in the Democratic primary is no surprise at all . . .

election fraud is one of the reasons I can't get all excited about this farce of a primary season between two corporatist candidates . . . Clinton, Obama, or Joe Blow, it won't matter who we nominate because, imo, the fix is already in . . . there are enough states using electronic voting, and the election will be close enough with either candidate, that manipulating the vote total in a few select precincts in a few select states is all that will be needed to ensure that McCain wins . . . that people still argue over who will be the "stronger candidate" frankly amuses me, since it won't make a whit of difference in the outcome . . .

what pisses me off is that the Democratic Congress has had plenty of time to address this issue, take control of elections back from the corporations, and return it to the people, and they haven't done shit . . . many in Congress, in fact, either don't believe that election fraud occurs, or believe it and are denying it for their own purposes . . . when President McCain is inaugurated, we'll have our "representatives" in Congress to thank . . .

the phrase "it's not who votes that counts; it's who counts the votes" is not hyperbole . . . it's a fact, and it means that your vote and mine are pretty much meaningless . . .

[Liberal Dose]

3. An attempt at discussion was made when the NH primary turned out to be so very different from the

polls, and the conversation immediately devolved into Hillary supporters and Barack supporters fighting with each other. Hillary supporters now believe that exit polls cannot be trusted, even though they are still used in other countries to monitor fraud. I cannot stress enough that it doesn't matter who we run against them, it could be Christ himself and we cannot win when the fix is in. All this hate being thrown at each other here at DU for absolutely nothing when the GE has already been decided for McCain. I wish all this time and energy could be harnessed towards ensuring honest elections *sigh* Combined, it would certainly be a force to be reckoned with.

[Stevepol]

5. It's not possible to have confidence in ANY ELECTION in the US right now,

as long as the vote is counted in total secrecy without verification. This is simple enough a proposition that an average 5th grader could understand it, yet it seems to be far too profound a concept for many elections officials.

Slowly, this is changing but it's a real question if there's enough time or political will.

For the Hillary supporters, why not say that you still believe Hillary won the elections, but that you are equally concerned about the fact that you can't prove it to be so since there's no paper or where there is paper there's no audit?

For the Obama supporters, why not say that there is no reason to trust any election, not just this one and the same thing would be true if Hillary had not won. The same thing is true in the places where Obama won and the vote was counted by machine. I'm sure there are such places. The point isn't who won or lost; the point is whether or not we have a functioning democracy.

At some point, ALL DEMOCRATS AND HONEST REPUBLICANS if there are any of those left HAVE TO COME TOGETHER ON THIS ISSUE. Unless it is solved, we do not have a democracy. That's the long and short of it.

[alteredstate]

6. k & r