Hmmm… Why Was Karl Rove So Adamant that Romney Not Concede Ohio?

[Time for change]

When Ohio was called for Barack Obama on Election Night, thereby pushing him over the top in the Electoral College, Karl Rove didn’t take it very well, as he encouraged Mitt Romney not to concede for several hours. In fact, Romney didn’t concede until after Obama had won enough states to win the election even without Ohio. From the Washington Guardian:

The prominent Republican strategist and former Bush White House guru didn’t seem able to deal with Mitt Romney’s loss on Election Night. When the network he was appearing on, Fox News, called that Ohio had voted for President Barack Obama, thereby effectively ending the election, Rove strongly pushed back.

"I think this is premature," Rove said, insisting that only part of the vote had been counted. "I don't know what the outcome is going to be, but we gotta be careful about calling things when we have like 991 votes separating the two candidates."

Rove put up so much protest, in fact, that anchor Megyn Kelly traveled back into Fox’s studio to speak with their statisticians and experts who were calling each state. Even before Rove almost had a conniption, Fox in fact had been one of the last to call Ohio for Obama.

Rove insisted that only part of the vote had been counted? As we all know, states are routinely called for one candidate or another when only part of the vote is counted – based on statistical analysis of a combination of the current vote count, exit polls, and what parts of the state have yet to be counted. So what was Karl Rove so sure he knew about the vote count – or looming vote count – that none of the network statisticians knew, even at FOX news? To consider that question, let’s go back to 2004:


Election Night 2004

In the official 2004 Ohio vote count, George W. Bush beat John Kerry by about 118 thousand votes, a margin of about 2.5%. But according to the final Ohio exit polls, John Kerry was predicted to win by a whopping 4.2% – thus producing a huge discrepancy between the exit polls and the official vote count.

Prior to Election Day 2004, it was evident that Ohio was the most critical swing state in the country. Late on Election Night, it became apparent that whoever won Ohio would win the presidency. TV commentators discussed how the situation looked very bad for George W. Bush. Even the right wing political hack Robert Novak acknowledged that Bush had little chance of winning Ohio – and thus the election.

So what happened then? Stephen Spoonamore, a computer expert and close associate of Michael Connell, who was widely known as “Karl Rove’s IT guru”, provided a likely answer to that question in a sworn affidavit on October 26, 2008.

During the evening and early morning on the 2004 General Election in Ohio, on my own computer I was watching the results of incoming counties and precincts. I believed there was a more than likely chance County Tabulators had been programmed to manipulate votes…. As early results showed Kerry ahead, I noticed a trend in a very few counties (I believe I noted 8 counties on election night) that at about 11 p.m. suddenly began reporting radically different ratios of Kerry to Bush votes. All in favor of Mr. Bush. This sudden rate of change… resembled a fraud technique called an Intelligent Man In the Middle, or KingPin Attack. This type of attack requires a computer to be inserted into the communications flow of an IT system…

Other experts found additional data indicating Bush's increase in votes from these counties, and Kerry's decrease in votes… When information about the SmartTech IT routing switch became public… I again stated that we now have confirmation of a KingPin, or Intelligent Man in the Middle position had been created… The SmartTech system was set up precisely as a KingPin computer used in criminal acts against banking or credit card processes and had the needed level of access to both county tabulators and Secretary of States computers to allow whoever was running SmartTech's computers to decide the output of the county tabulators under its control… The SmartTech computer would as the results of the evening proceeded be able to know how many votes Bush needed to steal from Kerry, and flip enough votes on the desired county tabulators to reverse the outcome of the election…

The aborted testimony of Michael Connell

The SmartTech system that Spoonamore referred to was operated by Michael Connell – “Karl Rove’s IT guru”. Two days after Spoonamore’s affadavit, attorneys filed a motion to compel testimony of Connell regarding his knowledge of the workings of the GOP computer systems. On October 31 a federal judge ordered Connell to submit to a deposition on possible election manipulation. Connell gave the deposition on November 4, providing as little information as possible, but eventually he was forced to admit that “he brought Triad and SmartTech into the Ohio election game”.

When it became apparent that Connell would testify in the case, Connell was warned not to fly his plane. Cliff Arnebeck, the Ohio lawyer who brought the suit and subpoenaed Connell, warned the U.S. Justice Department that Connell’s life might be in danger, and requested witness protection. Connell never did get to testify. On December 19, shortly before he was due to testify, he died in a plane crash, presumably caused by his plane running out of gas.


What happened on Election Night 2012?

If up to the point where the TV networks were discussing how hopeless Ohio looked for Mitt Romney on Election Night 2012 seems to you to be eerily similar to Election Night 2004, you’re not alone. As in 2004, Ohio was the critical swing state. As in 2004, the situation looked very bad for the Republican candidate. As in 2004, the Ohio election was being handled by a highly partisan Republican administration. As in 2004, Karl Rove seemed to be a key player. And as in 2004, SmartTech computers played a central role in tabulating the Ohio vote. As explained here two months prior to the 2012 election:

In 2012 the current Ohio GOP Secretary of State Jon Husted plans to once again use SMARTech for the 2012 Ohio Presidential Election. It would be interesting to know how SOS Husted plans to utilize SMARTech and if he will admit knowledge of the use of SMARTech. Will the computer IT architecture be similar to the one created in 2004 where Stephen Spoonamore claimed the architecture was a classic Man-In-The Middle attack format for the ability to manipulate vote totals.

But there were a couple of big differences between 2004 and 2012. One is that the Republican candidate apparently was substantially further behind in Ohio in 2012 than in 2004. And the other difference is that – as we found out soon – it turned out that the Democratic candidate didn’t need Ohio to win the election. So apparently for one or both of those reasons we didn’t see a repeat of 2004 in 2008. Perhaps the decision was made to pull back when it became apparent that even if he won Ohio Romney couldn’t win the election. Perhaps the decision was made a little sooner, when the approximate magnitude the number of votes needed became apparent.

In any event, despite all the evidence to the contrary, both Karl Rove and Kenneth Blackwell (Ohio Secretary of State in charge of the Ohio election in 2004) denied any knowledge of SmartTech. Democracy Now! Producer Mike Burke summed up the situation two months prior to the 2012 election:

Do you think Karl Rove and Ken Blackwell need to take lie detector tests? How can they possibly deny knowledge of SMARTech with a straight face? Will Ohio election integrity folks check into the status of the use of SMARTech in the 2004 and 2012 elections? Perhaps for the integrity of the vote totals in Ohio it would seem like a pretty good idea.

[Scuba]

1. Chaff ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021832862

[RobertEarl]

27. Rove's Man in the Middle: ORCA

ORCA is a program that places itself into the stream that networks county and state election computers. When ORCA is working it is connected to county and state election computers.

At each county computer are read/write pages showing vote totals.
(Read/write means that you can write to that screen and read what was written and rewrite it so that it reads different. On DU you are working with a read/write program. Simply, it is called editable.)

So as the numbers are entered at county level, ORCA reads the numbers and changes those numbers at will. The data entry person at the county computer is updating so much that they can't keep track of the changes.

If the count is from a DRE -- Direct Recording Electronic -- there is no data entry person. The numbers are written from one computer to another without any human sight.

OpScans numbers are also transferred electronically: from a red/write memory stick.

So, there is ORCA with a human sitting there looking at the numbers coming in and editing those numbers as the person sees fit. Those new numbers are sent over the network to the county computers. Changing those numbers sight unseen. It doesn't even have to be a human, it could be a computer program reading and writing.

What Anon claims to have done is place an administrative password on the ORCA system keeping the person at the ORCA keyboard from logging in (much like you log in to DU) thereby stopping ORCA for accessing the network and rewriting the numbers on the county and state computers.

******

Anon claims to have hacked Rove's ORCA Thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021832154

**********

The following article from the St. Pete Times details election officials not being able to publish its results until 16 minutes after the polls were closed in one Florida county that prides itself on being the first to upload its data to the web.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/local/pasco-countys-voting-website-buckled-under-traffic-officials-say/1260997

[PotatoChip]

125. OK, I could be wrong here but,

my understanding based on the anonymous letter is that it was not ORCA that they used to prevent vote rigging in 3 key states. If you look closely at the first sentence of the 3rd paragraph, notice how it says,

After a short time, we identified the digital structure of Karl's operation and even that of his ORCA

This sentence leads me to believe that anonymous had set up 2 fronts of their attack; the underlined portion to combat the county computer vote rigging (anonymous called this operation 'The Great Oz'), and the ORCA hacking (called 'ORCA Killer') to undermine Rove's GOTV efforts. In other words, it was not ORCA we are talking about here when we refer to the foiled vote rigging. That was the operation anonymous called 'The Great Oz' which had nothing to do with ORCA.

Also, what is written at the bottom of the letter seems to confirm what I am saying here. The 'ORCA Killer' operation occurred at 10am EST, while 'The Great OZ' was implemented at 8pm EST.

ORCA was simply a side project for anonymous that helped cause further problems and confusion for Rove's GOTV efforts and nothing more.

Therefore, while I agree w/nearly your entire post, I just wanted to clarify that one point, because many on the other thread were saying the same thing about ORCA, but unlike you, they were saying that combating bogus votes couldn't be done using ORCA.

Of course I could be wrong as I previously mentioned, but that is nonetheless how I understood it.

[RobertEarl]

126. You make a good case

Question would be what would we call the program that 'The Great Oz' attacked?

Feeling here is that in Orca had the ability to tap into the network. One part being the vote tracking through the day and then the vote editing after the polls closed.

Thanks for your intelligent reply, PotatoChip.

[Tutonic]

2. I think Anonymous claim regarding hacking of ORCA is true.

On election night around 8:00 p.m PT, ORCA collapsed and Romney team was never able ot get the computer system to work again that night. Anonymous blocked Rove system. Rove was blustered because he knew that he was experiencing something surreal!

[robinlynne]

5. ORCA was a system to get out the vote, having nothing to do with vote counting. After 8Pm you can't

take voters to the polls any longer. apples and oranges.

[catbyte]

23. But what if ORCA wasn't merely a GOTV program? I'm not a conspiracy nut but I

put nothing past those criminals in Ohio & Rove. I saw his meltdown live and there was something weird about it. It reminded me of that scene in "Quiz Show" when the contestant, after agreeing to say the wrong answer, up and answered the question correctly which threw the host for a loop. I guess we'll never know, but that was really fishy.

[Cha]

29. We don't have to be "conpriracy nuts" to believe rove would

do anything to win. It may have worked for him in Ohio in 2004..I don't know. But, we know they didn't win in 2000 and brought the Supreme Court 5 into it to make sure of the Bush Coup.

Their history defines them. rove did look fishy as hell on election night. Fox covered up for him too.

[robinlynne]

33. The entire vote count in Ohio is owned a company owned by Romney and Bain Capitral friends.

Orca has nothing to do with it. Of course the vote counting is absolutely unverifiable, and has been since 2000!
but Orca has nothing to do with it.

80% of US votes are counted by private right wing owned corporations.

[hedda_foil]

130. A mild but important caveat.

Hart Intercivic, the voting machine company owned by a company owned primarily by Romney's son, is only used in a few Ohio counties. I am convinced that the results were cooked by Smartech in 2004, and I am inclined to believe Rove was foiled in a similar attempt this year, but not at the voting machine level.

[sabrina 1]

64. How do you know that? Because Karl Rove said so?

The truth is we know nothing about our own electoral system because it has been hijacked which is why each election season we need an army of people to try to push back the would-be thieves.

It should not seem unusual to anyone who has followed this disaster called US Elections, for any length of time, that ORCA was not what Karl Rove said it was.

[CrispyQ]

85. "The truth is we know nothing about our own electoral system because it has been hijacked..."

That is the saddest statement ever in a democracy.

on edit: And Karl Rove would do anything to win. Anything.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

102. Agreed, but

what if ORCA was just a cover? That would explain why they never really tested it and were so sloppy in getting the necessary codes etc to the 30,000 volunteer poll workers who were supposed to use it. Initially I didn't believe the letter from, presumably, ANON....but I am not willing to dismiss it just yet.

[Time for change]

6. Do we know for a fact that ORCA really collapsed?

Or do we just have anonymous' word for that?

[Cerridwen]

18. There's a thread up about how ORCA failed. (updated)

I'll go find and link. Whether or not it was Anonymous, it failed.

BRB with link.

Link and a snip:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021835729

From WillyT


This Is Priceless... From A Conservative Blogger, Re: The Program ORCA....

The Unmitigated Disaster Known As Project ORCA

What is Project Orca? Well, this is what they told us:

Project ORCA is a massive undertaking – the Republican Party’s newest, unprecedented and most technologically advanced plan to win the 2012 presidential election.


Pretty much everything in that sentence is false. The "massive undertaking" is true, however. It would take a lot of planning, training and coordination to be done successfully (oh, we'll get to that in a second). This wasn't really the GOP's effort, it was Team Romney's. And perhaps "unprecedented" would fit if we're discussing failure.

The entire purpose of this project was to digitize the decades-old practice of strike lists. The old way was to sit with your paper and mark off people that have voted and every hour or so, someone from the campaign would come get your list and take it back to local headquarters. Then, they'd begin contacting people that hadn't voted yet and encourage them to head to the polls. It's worked for years.

From the very start there were warning signs. After signing up, you were invited to take part in nightly conference calls. The calls were more of the slick marketing speech type than helpful training sessions. There was a lot of "rah-rahs" and lofty talk about how this would change the ballgame.

Working primarily as a web developer, I had some serious questions. Things like "Has this been stress tested?", "Is there redundancy in place?" and "What steps have been taken to combat a coordinated DDOS attack or the like?", among others. These types of questions were brushed aside (truth be told, they never took one of my questions). They assured us that the system had been relentlessly tested and would be a tremendous success.

On one of the last conference calls (I believe it was on Saturday night), they told us that our packets would be arriving shortly. Now, there seemed to be a fair amount of confusion about what they meant by "packet". Some people on Twitter were wondering if that meant a packet in the mail or a pdf or what. Finally, my packet arrived at 4PM on Monday afternoon as an emailed 60 page pdf. Nothing came in the mail. Because I was out most of the day, I only got around to seeing it at around 10PM Monday night. So, I sat down and cursed as I would have to print out 60+ pages of instructions and voter rolls on my home printer. Naturally, for reasons I can't begin to comprehend, my printer would not print in black and white with an empty magenta cartridge (No HP, I will never buy another one of your products ever again). So, at this point I became panicked. I was expected to be at the polls at 6:45AM and nothing was open. I was thankfully able to find a Kinko's open until 11PM that was able to print it out and bind it for me, but this is not something I should have had to do. They expected 75-80 year old veteran volunteers to print out 60+ pages on their home computers? The night before election day? From what I hear, other people had similar experiences. In fact, many volunteers never received their packets at all.

At 6:30AM on Tuesday, I went to the polls. I was immediately turned away because I didn't have my poll watcher certificate...

More at the link to WillyT's OP.

[tiny elvis]

28. orca's claimed use was quackery

did rove want to make suckers of his clients?
more likely orca had a real purpose

joe trippi says

On election night for some reason neither Rove nor I can get into the Ohio Secretary of State’s website to get any county data – or any data for that matter. We both tore into the Florida and Virginia election data the second their polls close.

Chris Wallace off air is begging us to get into the Ohio Secretary of State website but Karl and I get the same error messages we have gotten all night long.

Chris Wallace received an email that he would read on the air from someone high up in the Romney campaign – that email says that Romney will win Florida by 10,000 votes. Virginia is tight and Ohio is moving their way. At that same moment I receive an email report from an Obama contact insisting that Obama will win Florida and with it the Presidency, Virginia is close but they will win it – but (and this is a direct quote) “Ohio is scary”.

Karl and I scrambled to see if we could get into the Ohio Secretary of State’s website again. Karl yelled out that he had gotten in. And just at that moment we hear in our ear Bret Baier declare that the Fox News Decision Desk has called the state of Ohio for Barack Obama.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/11/12/what-saw-with-karl-rove-on-election-night/

[femrap]

48. I read the same

blog the day after the election. But I find it odd that there weren't more blogs, personal accounts, people speaking to reporters about this fiasco of ORCA. Now maybe I missed them....but this is the only personal account I read.

Maybe ORCA was for Fixing the Election.

It should be investigated...only to put KKKarl in jail. He has to be forced to wear orange....and then I can die in peace.

And my theory is that Anonymous hacked it....and I'm sticking to it.

[sabrina 1]

93. It did collapse. Here is some info on that:

Epic Failure of ORCA Big Data APP

Many things went wrong with Romney's campaign for president, but one of the biggest was the epic failure of the campaign's big-data app for getting out the vote, called Orca. When the campaign needed it most, Orca was beached.

Politico has an excellent summary of the problems it says that Orca had. Among them were that the Romney campaign kept it secret and didn't beta-test it before it was rolled out on Election Day. That meant that the people who it was designed for -- the thousands of volunteers across the country -- didn't have a chance to learn how to use it before it was launched. And Orca kept crashing throughout the day.

[Baitball Blogger]

11. If this is true, then they are heroes who will probably never receive the full credit.

Because our legal agencies will probably hunt them down.

God bless them for their courage.

[Swagman]

22. given Anonymous is so technically expert, I don't see why they wouldn't

have had their eyes on rigged voting.

And the perfect way would be to ensure everything went smoothly and , remain anonymous.

Rove's reactions were far too suspicious.

[femrap]

56. A couple of weeks

before the Election this year, Anonymous made a YouTube WARNING ROVE that they were WATCHING HIM about the upcoming election. I watched it on DU.

Whoever Anonymous is, they're SMART. REAL SMART. Rove is just evil....not smart.

[Squinch]

100. But we were just lucky this time in that Anonymous is on our side. It's only a matter of time

before the teabag counterpart of Anonymous gets around Anonymous and steals another election.

[femrap]

121. The odds are against it...

the more education people get, they usually become more progressive.

But in reality, I just don't think there are that many smart repugnants or baggers. I have them in my family...dumb as dirt. They live a life of dogma. No analysis. Little creativity. No imagination.

I don't see Anonymous going away...hopefully. And maybe they had nothing to do with the votes of OH and in other states.

If we just used paper and pencils to vote, none of this would be necessary and the cost be so much less!

[Squinch]

123. But Republicans, it seems, are investing in voting machines. Which means they see the

potential for shenanigans. You are right, though, of course, about their dimwittedness.

Here's hoping you are right.

[femrap]

134. I believe that

the Repugnants have reached their limit of dirty tricks. The Progressives are no longer naive and have seen the evil that these neo-cons are capable of.

I have to believe that Good prevails over evil.

I like your name, Squinch....where did that come from?

[Squinch]

140. It's a nonsense word my family uses to describe the expression in your eyes when

you think something is pure BS. Or when you are smiling so big your eyes close.

[RomneyLies]

136. If they are so "technically expert", why is the letter so techically inept? n/t

[dflprincess]

30. Thom Hartman was talking about this today

and he seemed inclinded to agree with you and, after listening to his show, so am I.

It does explain why Rove seemed to be losing it when things didn't go his way.

Here's a link to Thom Hartman's show

[robinlynne]

47. wow. He does think it is anonymous. surprising.

[lexw]

96. Scary and awesome. Whew!

[marions ghost]

111. thanks for posting this

good background on how Anonymous could have done it.

[BlueStreak]

106. Then Anonymous should have no difficulty posting documentation that proves this point

The man-in-the-middle -- if there was one- was the "emergency" software patch Husted ordered on the tabulation systems. It is possible that somebody hacked that system. However, it is much more likely that Husted decided he wasn't willing to go to jail for Karl Rove, considering:

1) there were already thousands of lawyers bearing down on Husted;

2) the Obama lead might have actually been beyond the leel they were prepared to flip, or at least Husted calculated that his odds of getting away with such a large scale flip were pretty low; and

3) Husted could commit this felony and still Obama would win the election.

As I see it, the most telling point is that it was widely reported that at about the time Rove was having hes meltdown live on Faux, Husted decided to call it a night and went home. That was only about 10PM, as I recall, long before all the votes in Ohio were counted. After every thing Husted had done to try to rig this election for Republicans, why in the world would he go home at 10PM?

That makes no sense at all, unless Husted had just held a conversation with Rove that went something like this,

"F--- you Karl. I'm not going to prison for you. You lost Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Nevada. You are losing Florida, Virginia, and Colorado. It is over. I'm not touching any votes. I not going to be anywhere near the scene as we wrap up our count. I am outta here. Don't call me. Don't mention my name. You are on your own, pal."

[liberal N proud]

3. 2004 was close enough to steal, not so much in 2012

KKKarl was still betting on the fix, but the numbers were not there so they couldn't or wouldn't risk it.

[femrap]

53. In 2004, exit polls

showed Kerry leading by 4.2%!!!!! That's BIG. I live in OH and the SoS, Blackwell wanted to please Rove and make a name for himself.

The 2004 election was stolen and it was done in OH. I saw it up close and personal.

Didn't you read that the Rove's IT guru, Michael Connell, was to give his deposition about the 2004 theft and then died in ANOTHER SMALL PLANE ACCIDENT....ran out of gas???? Come on.

I believe Anonymous is on the side of Democracy and they saved us. And remember the letter said there were more than just OH that was being fixed this year.

I hope this is investigated. And then once and for all we can put KKKarl in the orange jumpsuit.

[democrattotheend]

63. I don't know if it was close enough to steal

I think some votes may have been shaved from Kerry but I don't think he necessarily would have won otherwise, because almost every poll going into election day had Bush winning. I think both Kerry and Obama in 2012 may have had votes shaved but not enough to flip the state. But this needs to be investigated...one of these days it will be close enough to steal and just on principle, this can never happen.

[arikara]

101. The 2004 mainstream translation of the polls may have said Bush was ahead

just like the mainstream translation of the 2012 polls said Romney was ahead much of the time. If they had managed to steal the election like 2004 there would have been enough mainstream media polls muddying the water that enough people would have believed it. Yet the accurate poll readers like Nate Silver maintain that Obama was always ahead.

[democrattotheend]

105. I meant the polls right before the election in 2004.

Marist had Kerry up by 1, but every single other poll had Bush leading, albeit by varying margins. In other words, pretty much the same as this year.

The MSM polls pretty much all had Obama ahead this year, by margins that probably made it too hard to steal without someone noticing. But you are right that there was a wide variation...some polls had Obama up 5-6 but others only 1 and Ras had it tied. Since the media tends to mostly report their own polls, it is a little surprising that they didn't seem to notice that the Marist poll had Obama up 6 and he only won by 2. I guess they figure as long as he won it's not news. But if he had lost it would have been surprising enough that it might have raised suspicions.

Not necessarily the case if Kerry had won, because he was the challenger, but the fact that Bush was leading in all the polls makes it harder to believe that Kerry actually won but had it taken away from him by rigged machines. If there had been a national shift toward Kerry in the last few days then I might believe it.

[samsingh]

124. why did Kerry concede?

[Time for change]

127. A lot more is known about the extent of the cheating now than it was on Election Day 2004

Nevertheless, there was still enough information about this out there that Kerry would have done well not to concede until this had been investigated much further. But there was tremendous pressure put him by our corporate owned communications media to concede. Had he not conceded he would undoubtedly have been lambasted as a "sore loser", etc, and it would be claimed that he was putting out country in great jeopardy by holding out (Whereas in truth, he would have been doing our country a great service had he demanded an thorough invesetigation before conceding).

[Barack_America]

4. I think they used it, but their polling sucked...

...and they underestimated how much they'd need, where and when.

It's also tough when the districts they'd have to flip held off reporting because people were still standing in line. Then Ohio was called on the assumption of what those votes would look like based on exit polling. Well, how the hell do you flip it then when the world is watching the returns come in under a magnifying glass? And obviously, Dems were far more savvy, considering what happened in 2004. Finally, who knows, maybe some Anonymous group did intercept something.

[Robb]

7. Compelling stuff, from a dedicated skeptic.

K&R.

[robinlynne]

8. Election protection advocates had a federal judge watching Ohio this year. They sued a few

days before the election. That is why Husted backed off. If he gave the election to Rove this year, he was going to jail.
There were 2 or 3 different lawsuits over the Ohio 2012 election BEFORE election day. There was a press conference about it in DC at noon on election day.

[Time for change]

10. I didn't hear about that

I know that there were lots of law suits regarding voter suppression. But I didn't hear about getting a federal judge to watch for electronic manipulation of the vote. Do you have a link for that?

[robinlynne]

35. will find one for you. The Ohio SOS put "patches" on the software a few days before the election. the

software changes were untested. he called them "experimental" to get around the testing. That was one of the lawsuits, the last one. in addition there was a lawsuit because on Friday night before the elecion he changed the way provisional votes would be cast. He created paperwork for the voter to do, late on Friday night, and declared that any unfilled paperwork would invalidate those votes!

there were several lawsuits in Ohio this year right before the election. The judge ruled on election day that the election could continue with the untested software, but that he was open to investigation afterward if need be. THAT is what happened. that is why Rove was shocked. the SOS did not have the courage to do what he was supposed to do.

[Ikonoklast]

83. Husted bailed on Rove. He wasn't taking Federal rap for Rove in a losing effort.

As soon as Pennsylvania was called, Husted knew it was all over no matter what he did in Ohio, and with a Federal judge shining a flashlight up his ass, Husted went home and didn't take any of Rove's phone calls.

[tblue37]

90. Yes, and from what I've read, he went home

Astonishingly EARLY and in a big hurry--which sounds like more suspicious behavior, like Rove's freak-out on FOX.

[Ikonoklast]

91. Yes. He did not want to be anywhere near his office if Rove decided to move without him.

Rove will now rat-fuck Husted, watch.

Husted has huge political ambitions, all of which will now be stymied by Rove.

[robinlynne]

37. Here: If you go to the link, there are 4 or 5 more links to read about it, within the article.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1091627

[Time for change]

41. Thank you -- very interesting

[robinlynne]

43. Yes it is!

[femrap]

55. Bob's attempts

at court were dismissed and Husted went on to change the rules on Friday night at 7:00 pm. A judge did STOP Husted from that rule change.

[CitizenPatriot]

110. My thoughts as well

Though I admit I did wonder if ORCA was the man in the middle, it would explain why Romney campaign never bothered to reply to any of their volunteers who couldn't log on all day. Maybe it was never about GOTV.

[RomneyLies]

9. tinfoilhat bullshit. nt

[TheAmbivalante]

81. BS? Dude, accept the evidence.

Ask Nate Silver if polling and outcome and can be off by by 8 points. He'd laugh.

A guy named Brad Friedman (BradBlog.com) and a lady named Bev Harris (blackboxvoting.org) have been tracking this issue for years now. They've verified the ability to manipulate electronic voting at pretty much every link in the chain.

Your vote can be switched in the booth and you'd never know it because there's no paper trail. The tally at the voting station can be changed before it leaves because someone there can change the numbers. Digital transmission (think: email) of the results can be intercepted and changed like what is described above. And those are just the easy to explain parts. And none ofthis difficult. You don't need the Mission: Impossible team to get it done.

When there's ample evidence and numerous people who have gone on the record to verify that evidence, it's time to act.

[RomneyLies]

84. Nate Silver would say, "yes, they can be off by 8 points"

He stated emphatically all the way through this election his probabilities relied on the accuracy of the polls and that he could be way off.

Shit, dude, READ!

[TheAmbivalante]

132. When you assume...

Any and every researcher will qualify their data with the disclaimer "if the polls are accurate, then..." Accuracy is refined and defined by repeated sampling. Each repeat of the experiment measured against the accumulation of historical data reduces the likelihood of inaccuracy. You assume that I don't read. I do. Quite a bit. But see, I do more than read. I think. And when a pile of evidence the size of Kilimanjaro points to outliers being produced by manipulation of data, I think that the nature of the GOP machine combined with unlikely and implausible outcomes is enough for, at the very least, investigation.

[RomneyLies]

139. Rasmussen and Gallup were both off by wide margins

Karl Rove does not have a magical button to steal votes on voting machines.

Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK.

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

The United States successfully landed twelve men on the moon and returned them safely to the earth.

[marions ghost]

145. You're obviously AGAINST investigation

of anything that happens with regard to voting.

Now why is that?

[HangOnKids]

158. Why Indeed?

Great question!!!

[LanternWaste]

162. You forgot to add one...

You forgot to add one...

"low-count concern trolls are pervasive at DU, and get a wee bit testy when others disagree with their own personal dogmatic opinions..."

[RomneyLies]

163. Wow, must have struck a nerve. Two conspiracy theorists I have on ignore have responded

I wonder if it was the Lee Harvey Oswald comment?

Musta been. That's the one that is almost universally believed in by those who believe in other conspiracy theories.

[Godhumor]

128. Bev Harris is not a welcome reference on DU and I would be careful quoting her

She is an awful, awful person.

And the evidence is that Obama won. Everything else is horseshit.

[TheAmbivalante]

131. I don't care if she's Idi Amin

I didn't quote her. I referenced her as point of history. I have no idea what she did to DU and don't track her. For all I know she sets Democratic children on fire for Karl Rove. I do know that BlackBox Voting got some people talking way back in the day. What she has done since hasn't graced my blotter. I do know that Brad Friedman has been and is on the good side. The point is that plenty of people have spotted, reported, and substantiated electronic election fraud of all kinds. For years.

And I would disagree, too, the Obama victory is the only thing that matters and everything else is horseshit. Especially if that shit is going to be at issue again in just a couple of years. Hell, with the right code and a back door, our next man in office could be President Godhumor. And as a good Dem, you'd get plenty of DU support. But electronic vote switching doesn't favor Dems.

[StrictlyRockers]

12. Ohio does seem to have been stolen for Bush in 2004.

And Rove acted REALLY weird on Pox Noise on election night in 2012. I don't know if there is any fire here, but I sure do smell some smoke.

This plays right into the same pattern for 2000 when they stole the Florida electoral votes through intimidation and legal trickery and by appealing to the stacked Supreme Court.

[democrattotheend]

61. I think it might have been rigged but not stolen

If these sources are really true I think there was some definite funny business going on. But I can't say that it was out and out stolen, because almost every poll going into Election Day had Bush winning, and there was no late-breaking surge for Kerry nationally. It's possible that some votes were shaved from Kerry and if so that is very disturbing and needs to be investigated. But I don't think 110,000 votes were stolen from him, because 2012 proves that rigging the machines can only make up so much without being detected.

I think the OP might be onto something about 2012 as well. I don't know if Karl Rove was involved in a rigging scheme, but it is fishy to me that Ohio was so close when Obama outperformed the polls nationally and in almost every other battleground state by a couple points.

[Time for change]

135. The Ohio exit polls indicated a Kerry lead of over 4 percentage points in 2004

That was beyond the margin of statistical error.

Pre-election polls indicate who people think they are going to vote. One problem with that is that they may change their mind on Election Day. Another problem is that many of these people may not actually vote. Statistical methods are used to estimate who is most likely to vote, but there is not uniform agreement on how well this can be predicted or what model to use. Exit polls, on the other hand, indicate how people actually voted. And unlike pre-election polls, the possibility of their not voting is not an issue.

[Auntie Bush]

13. Blackwell and Rove are pure slime running down a rusty pipe.

Rethugs couldn't get enough votes to throw the election even after all the disenfranchising they did. Man did we tromp the Thugs into the ground.

[MannyGoldstein]

14. Don't worry, it will be investigated

And monkeys...

[7wo7rees]

15. OUTSTANDING post

Well written. Wildly unlawful. Extreme exposure. Hang 'em high!

[msongs]

16. maybe rove was acting to look good to his $$ - "look, Im trying to save the election" nt

[Honeycombe8]

17. Most of this makes sense to me. Is it regarded as paranoia? Why would Congress...

or the DOJ not look into this? Is it considered a wacko conspiracy theory?

It makes sense to me. I don't believe in conspiracy theories, normally. I think Oswald killed Kennedy and Elvis is not alive.

[Time for change]

25. Like a lot of other things

Many people regard this stuff as a wacko "conspiracy theory" (probably without looking into what evidence there is to support it), while many others (like the good majority of people who are involved with election integrity organizations) take it very seriously.

An idea should not be judged by how it sounds, but by an analysis of what evidence there is to support it.

I don't know why this has not been investigated in much more depth. Well, we see what happened to Michael Connell when he was getting ready to testify about it.

Why on earth do we rely on machines that cannot be verified to count our vote? It's like turning our elections over to anonymous people who we don't know, to go into a dark room to count our votes and tell us the results, and we're supposed to accept it. The bottom line is that there is way too many opportunities to steal elections and not enough concern about it. Does it take a wacko to believe that if elections CAN be stolen, some will try to do it?

[go west young man]

32. The amazing thing is that if this was happening in Russia or Venezuela

half of the posters at DU would be saying it goes on. When it happens in the US it's referred to as a "conspiracy theory". That gullibility is what makes it even more possible in my mind. The fact that most people would believe it could never happen here is what, I believe, empowers a Karl Rove. Something not mentioned in the article at all is the exit polls and how CNN changed their polling results at 11:30 election night 2004 to match the "official" vote count. For the first time in the history of polling the discrepancy was 10% off in the other direction. A statistical improbable result.

[Time for change]

38. You're exactly right that that is the kind of thinking that empowers a Karl Rove

The use of "conspiracy theorist" is a means of denigrating people who are concerned about the loss of our democracy is just a means of marginalizing those who threaten their power. Conspiracies to grab power are as old as human history, and anyone who doesn't understand that needs to learn about it. Otherwise the "could never happen here" mindset enables tyrants to grab power, as it has throughout human history.

[go west young man]

67. Sorry to have just realized that you did mention the voting discrepancy of 2004.

I'm behind the curb.

[iemitsu]

99. Important observation, Go West.

Of course we would immediately recognize a discrepancy between exit-polling and election results as a red flag indicating a stolen election, if it were in Russia or Venezuela but fail to even consider such a thing happening here. That is how we have been trained. Unquestioning belief that "it couldn't happen here" is an elemental part of the jingoistic faith to which Americans are subject.
Yet if one looked into "modern stolen election" schemes (second half of the 20th century to present), especially in Latin America, one might discover that the CIA (through the SOA) taught those governments all they needed to know about stealing elections.
Only a fool would think that the tools associated with Psy-War would never be used here.

[rtassi]

87. TFC, in 04 we blindly accepted that diebold

a company who had been making auto tellers for 20 years didn't have the technology to have the machines produce a paper receipt indicating who the voter had voted for ... and people believed it! Anyone watching the election results in 04 as you and I apparently did ... noting that the official Ohio site went down at a critical moment showing Kerry way ahead, and then came back up showing Bush as the victor knew that the election had been stolen ... Nothing tinfoil about that one ... maybe Elvis is still around ... i think I see him once in a while ... as for Oswald being the lone gunman ... well, some folks just won't see the truth even with mountains of evidence to the contrary ... guess it helps them sleep better , but then I wonder why they want to be engaged in public discourse when they clearly can't reason ... I guess I also don't understand how the SOS's of these states are in positions of autonomy to effect elections as they seem to be doing ... put a bunch of there asses in fed prison and I think this problem would smooth out ... I mean why Blackwell is walking the streets is beyond me ... and as for Connell, this is no longer election tampering ... it's murder

How are you btw ... since the new format I have had trouble finding your journals ,,, are you still writing?

rt

[Time for change]

118. Yes, there are so many things about this that are so difficult to understand

It seems apparent to me (and you too, I guess) that there are so many powerful forces at work in these matters, and figuring out how they all fit together is a massive undertaking beyond the reach of any small group of people. As you say, putting some of these people in prison would go a long way towards addressing our problems.

I'm doing fine. I've been writing for DU less largely because I'd been working on a couple of books, but there are still plenty of posts in my journal. My latest book, about our woeful election system, was released a few weeks before the election, and can be found in my sig line.

I hope you are doing well

[Zorra]

19. Thanks for this post. Hopefully it will serve to dispel some of the extreme naivete

regarding electronic vote manipulation that is presently being widely manifested at DU.

[boomer55]

20. another great read

http://www.michaelparenti.org/stolenelections.html

[ProudProgressiveNow]

21. Fascinating read. Thank you. K&R

[jmowreader]

24. Rove knew he was fucked

Think about the last time you took your kid for a shot. He knows it's going to hurt. Did he just stand there and get it over with?

Probably not. Instead, he ran around, freaked out, got his adrenaline flowing...and, in the process, made it hurt worse.

Same thing here.

Karl Rove took hundreds of millions of dollars from people with absolutely no sense of humor in exchange for an absolute, ironclad promise he would get the (insert epithet from Blazing Saddles here) out of the White House on November 6, and install someone with good old fashioned American values like cuttin' taxes, deregulatin', gettin' rid of the minimum wage and six-year-olds minin' coal like their great-granddaddies did. It prolly woulda helped if they hadn't picked a candidate who's held every side of every issue, often simultaneously.

Mitt is out of contention for all time, Rove's marks are out zillions and there's gonna be hell to pay.

[femrap]

58. Makes me wonder if

KKKarl will ever get into a small plane!

However, I'd rather see him dressed in orange and suffering for awhile.

But I do think Karma is coming around!

[Pakid]

26. It does not matter if this is true or not

what does matter is that we put in place a system for voting that is 100% honest and that is all that matters. So far no one seem able to do that. Why is that? We also need a federal laws on a person right to vote and put an end to any and all attempt to restrict anyones right to vote, and those are goal that we as a group should be working for!

[patrice]

34. Agree. There's no way to make the compuers reliable. People will not trust the vote.

In addition to authentic campaign finance reform, We need:

- Instant run-off, paper ballots that provide each voter with an encrypted receipt of his/her vote;
- Count the ballots in public;
- On a happily patriotic national voting holiday that starts on a Friday morning and runs through to the next Tuesday morning.

And however long it takes to count that vote, that's how long it takes.

I think this should take precedence over movement to amend, because #1. I'm just not sure we can expect to get The Constitution amended to create permanent sub-classes of persons whose 1st Amendment Rights are abridged. #2. What we REALLY need is campaign finance reform, with transparency, instead and movement to amend doesn't even address transparency. #3. The amendment process is enormous, can take about a decade, and can fail anyway.

[reformist2]

40. There is nothing wrong or "backward" about requiring paper ballots....

We need to stand up to the techies and tell them to back off!

[Time for change]

44. Yes, we need a much better system than we have

I think it helps to remind people of the dangers we face with our current system -- in order to get them more concerned about the need to improve it.

[femrap]

59. I'm in OH...

We have early voting. In our county, if you voted early, you did so on a PAPER BALLOT. If you waited until Election day to vote, you HAD to use the machine.

I told everyone to vote early so there would be a PHYSICAL RECORD of their vote.

I hate the machines. First, they are hackable...proven. Second, they cost a lot of money (paper and pencil are pretty cheap). Third, it costs a lot to maintain and store them. And last, corporations who manufacture them have a conflict of interest with the outcome of an election.

If the repugnants are serious about reducing deficits, get rid of the costly machines.

[patrice]

31. KICK!

[yardwork]

36. I think that this is what happened in 2004.

I don't know what happened in 2012. I do know that a federal judge was mad as hell at Husted a couple of days before the election, and I'm thinking that the Secretary of State of Ohio decided that it wasn't worth going to federal prison for a lost cause.

I believe that in both 2008 and 2012 Obama's team was onto the real possibility of vote theft, and that they took steps to prevent it from happening.

I've always been very disappointed that Kerry didn't fight the 2004 results. It was so obvious that theft in Ohio took place.

[robinlynne]

45. Obama's team? hell no. the election protection advocates took steps

to prevent it from happening. not Obama's team. Obama did not even appoint any commissioners to oversee the EAC, the federal election watchdog.
The FEC is also empty of commissioners.
Obama plays the game. Thank the citizens who did the election protection work!

[yardwork]

50. It's infuriating that the Democrats aren't investigating this.

If it was Anonymous, then we all owe them a great deal.

[robinlynne]

52. agreed. on both points. I like your election posts, yardwork.

I belive if it were anonymous they would sign their name. They always do, don't they? . And not explain how it was done. I don't know, of course, but I'm having a hard time believing in that letter.

[yardwork]

73. Thanks! I don't know much about the election fraud, but I'm sure it happened.

I don't know anything about computers or code. I do know what I saw and heard on election night 2004. Oddly enough, it changed my life.

[robinlynne]

54. and when Duers believe "Obama took care of it", that means more election theft in the future....

[loudsue]

60. Obama said in his book he doesn't believe the "conspiracy theory" about elections being stolen.

He has a closed mind about it. He's naive. I have no doubt that Karl Rove fully intended to steal Ohio this year, and had worked something out with the SOS that obviously fell apart.

There should be serious serious consequences .....many years of jail time....for anyone caught programming election software to switch votes. And in order to avoid problems, software should be OPEN to scrutiny, and obvious to all parties exactly how things are going down.

[yardwork]

75. I hope that Obama is just saying that and meanwhile is actually taking steps to prevent fraud.

I don't know.

[robinlynne]

114. no he is not taking steps. He nominated not one Commissioner to head the EAC in 4 years, the federal

oversight program created by George Bush. he left it as is, with bush appointees in charge, and 2 empty seats where 2 Dems should be.
Our elections are currently run by HAVA crated by the republicans, with a mandate for electronic vote counting, privately owned!!!

[yardwork]

115. That's crazy. That's irresponsible. Or worse.

[femrap]

62. Believe me, Husted

believes he is above the law. He has been an asshole for many, many years. He went all the way to the Supreme Court to get his wishes fulfilled. He has no conscience.

Listen, these kind of dudes never see themselves getting caught. They have no guilt. Husted couldn't have stopped ORCA if he wanted to.

I really think Anonymous stepped in. Again, Anonymous is smart; Husted is just evil.

[global1]

70. Let's Explore The Motivations Of A Husted......

Is he that much of a loyal Repug that he would risk his career/life to fix an election? Seems to me that most people do shady or illegal things because of money - the 'almighty dollar'. There were a lot of 'almighty dollars' floating around in this election. Karl Rove had a lot of those 'almighty dollars' as his disposal.

Do you think some of those 'almighty dollars' that Rove had were somehow dangled before or transferred to Husted?

It might be interesting to keep and eye on Husted going forward and watch if his living standard will change in any major ways. Maybe he'll just lie low and if there was any passage of monies to him for doing a 'job' - he'll just use it when he feels that any the stink of what he was trying to do in Ohio has dissipated.

[femrap]

94. Ken Blackwell

the former SoS in OH during the '04 election didn't get caught. He ran for governor but was smacked down.

Husted would do something illegal just to get his foot into the 'national venue.'

Good idea: Follow the Money!

Two years from now, I just want this entire Ohio gov't GONE! Kasich, Mandel, Husted, DeWine, etc. GONE. With the gerrymandering they have done to OH, I don't know if we can ever get our Senate or House back. It got rid of Kusinich on the national level.

When you tally up the votes for State offices, the Dem votes out number the Repugnant votes. Same for Federal Congressional seats. Gerrymandering is so efficient...and depressing. I have a very difficult time just reading what these horrible people are doing...like voting to defund Planned Parenthood. HB125 is back...the most cruel of all anti-abortion bills in the nation. It's like living in the Dark Ages here. Pretty soon, everyone will move from here to CO and they'll have no one to torture.

edit for spelling.

[sellitman]

39. That we even wonder about it is the real tragedy

It doesn't have to be true to be sad. Why should our elections have even a taint of wrongdoing attached?

What utter Bull! Screw those machines.

[arely staircase]

42. much more plausible than the anonymous thingy

if there was a plan in place they pulled back on it because of the magnitude of the obama lead or the fact ohio became unecessary for an obama win.

makes more sense than comic book hero wannabes saving the day.. just sayin'

[silvershadow]

46. In the back of my mind, Obama's Justice Department should dig DEEP on this. Wouldn't it be just

delicious if Rove is up to his eyelids in this and gets caught?

[JEB]

49. Lots of debate, but one things for certain.

Rove is more than willing to lie cheat and steal and expose CIA agents. Traitor.

[OldDem2012]

51. Knowing Rove like we do, I'm surprised that anyone thinks this is not a plausible scenario. nt.

[SomethingFishy]

57. It made for good TV...

Roger Ailes even said it...

When Kelly was walking back to the stats room she said "this is where my wireless went out during the rehearsal".

It's not news it's entertainment.

[Justice4All1]

65. I was afraid about them stealing votes in PA & OH

Luckily they failed.

[global1]

69. I Thought I'd Add This Link To Ailes Comments On Rove's Meltdown....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1833046

[joanbarnes]

66. Any doubters should go back and watch Rove meltdown. Very suspicious.

[JackRiddler]

68. Bravo - hope you appreciate reposts...

Nice synthesis. You are the treasure around here.

http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=33931&p=484269#p484269

[Time for change]

119. Thank you

Very interesting article on Democracy Now!

[BlueinOhio]

71. Rove

Day after election ordered to federal court about election ballots. He kept changing his rules. By the time Ohio was called Obama already won without Ohio and Florida. I believe Rove was going to by then too late and SoS already under federal court scrutiny. The southern strategy finally is broke. The GOP is carrying the torch for Confederates. This mess With Petraeus has Rove's fingerprints all over it. All the players are republican yet the media is trying to tie them to the democrat party?
The voting machine issue needs to be addressed. Howard Dean when he was over DNC went on national TV with a programmer hacked into the machines. The vulnerability of the machines has been brought up several times since 2004.

[We_Must_Organize]

72. Everyone here is forgetting

that the Obama administration would've known about this! Is it really feasible that the Obama's people - in particular those who run his technological infrastructure - would have not been aware about Karl ass clown Rove's attempt to steal the election? I, for one, certainly feel the president and his people are more than competent; they would fuck up Rove and his cronies had they tried some shit like this. And lets not forget the resources at the President's disposal, which he would certainly be justified in using had they had an inkling of suspicion that the fucking election was about to be stolen from them. Yes, I do believe Rove and the GOP would do anything in their power to steal this election - they just did not have the ability. Our President is much too savvy to let that happen.

[IDemo]

74. And, despite all the evidence here and in 2004

the known vulnerabilities of e-voting systems, and their partisan ownership, nothing is going to be done about this. For whatever reason, it seems more important to the PTB of both parties to support the myth of inviolability of the American electoral process than to investigate threats to that process. To do so would immediately be used as fodder for political attacks and chuckled at endlessly by the chuckleheads of the MSM.

[Time for change]

79. I think you're right that it is more important to the PTB of both parties to support

the myth of inviolability of our electoral process.

But that doesn't mean that we have to lie down and take it. It can be forced into the light.

[IDemo]

82. By "nothing is going to be done about this", I mean by elected officials and the DoJ

While I certainly support the efforts of Brad Friedman (BradBlog) and others for their hard work in investigating and exposing the threats of e-voting, it won't be until those actually in a position to do something about it take notice and take action that this will ever be an issue that is given any credence. What is needed will likely be a credible (and preferably a non-flying) insider coming forth with incontrovertible evidence.

[pipewrench]

76. great find

Thanks Time for change

[chuckstevens]

77. THIS IS FUCKING HUGE!

This is fucking huge! I want a full scale Justice Department probe, indictments of Rove, Bush, Cheney and the whole criminal cabal. This is PROOF that we can no longer use electronic voting machines in any election and that Karl Rove is the treasonous, sociopath we all knew. I WANT HIM IN FRONT OF FIRING SQUAD. No more weaseling out of his crimes! FOR GOD'S SAKE, IT'S TIME TO ARREST THIS SO CALLED "ARCHITECT.'

[malaise]

78. A brilliant post

Thanks Time for Change

[Iggy]

80. Hmm, Maybe Because It's Almost Impossible to Get Elected

without winning Ohio?

keep in mind this is hugely about Herr Rove's credibility as a big time politcal "expert", fund raiser and king maker. also keep in mind this may have been the last salvo for privileged, elitist white men. and they just got their asses kicked in an epic way.

the big lesson for the fantasy-land, always in denial GOP is our nation is rapidly becoming more brown/black/asian.

they totally blew it and they know it. they have NOTHING to offer the major, growing voter groups in our nation.

[Phillip McCleod]

86. possible to have safe computer voting

if we treated the tech like we do other standards like data encryption. there's no reason to keep the hardware/software designs secret -- a good encryption algorithm should be opaque. it doesn't matter if you know how data is encrypted, if you don't have the key knowing the algorithm doesn't help you.

these corporations are hiding behind corporate secrecy laws to conceal their tech. theres no reason we cant have an open sourced secure voting system that uses computers. but we dont have that now. now we have corporate owned and operated voting systems and thats what makes me think anonymous could be telling the truth.

btw it would only take one or two people to block a network the way anonymous said they did with a firewall. not ddos so it could be anybody at all.

[Buzz Clik]

88. As far as conspiracy theories go, this one is well supported.

It answers a lot of strange questions.

[DirtyDawg]

89. Lie detector my...

...ass...the bastards should be waterboarded. Now how 'poetic' would that be?

[WillyT]

92. Most Excellent Post !!! - K & R !!!

[Change has come]

95. K & R

[lexw]

97. This is very frustrating:

if the Republicans didn't have this bull shit in place, this country would be so far to the left and doing so much better. This really sucks.

[bleever]

98. Excellent synopsis.

No one does it better.

And you were one of the people I had in mind when I posted this: "If a hack in Ohio failed, thank DU.": http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021784461

[Time for change]

116. Thank you bleever

We may never know exactly why the Ohio hack failed or never began this year. But what we do know is that we have to keep the pressure on.

[NorthCarolina]

103. This all seems to lend credibility to the claim by Anonymous.

Oddly enough though there are many on this site brought to rage against even the slightest mention of Rove/ORCA/Anonymous and 2012 election theft efforts. Why are they so desperate to immediately squelch any discussion of this? Most curious.

[PrMaine]

156. Maybe, ...

Just maybe Karl Rove has a war room set up to argue his defense here on-line.

Nope, can't prove it, no, shoe doesn't fit. Not me. Couldn't have happened!. What kind of a conspiracy theory is this? You must be a tin-foil-hat crazy!

I think that sums up the defense.

[krobar659]

104. Karl Rove made the changes himself in 2004

I remember seeing a photograph of Karl Rove typing on a laptop computer where votes were being tabulated on election night in 2004. Don't know what he was typing on the laptop but I did have a feeling that he was up to no good. Karl Rove reminds me of one of those kids who got picked on when he was out on the playground in 2nd grade and now seeks revenge. I am sure that I am not the only one who gets creeped out by him. I switched the channel from MSNBC to fox news as soon as it was announced that President Obama had won his second term. I got to witness Karl Rove's meltdown. Obviously the fix was gonna be in but I think that someone had waited too long or that they had some technical difficulties. Then it became quite obvious that the President didn't need Ohio. But with all those who were stating that Romney was gonna win, and win big, such as Dick Morris and others, I wonder to this day if they knew something ahead of time. How else could they all be so wrong? Was it actually a technical malfunction in the system that prevented Rove and others from stealing the election? I think so. By all of the so-called experts telling us that Romney was gonna win and gonna win big then when they put the fix in, no one would question it. Well I think that we should question it. There has been too many people who have come forward with credible information to at least look at it. I would love to be able to say "We got ya Karl, we got ya!!!"

[Kingofalldems]

107. Kick and Rec

[Bucky]

108. Maybe the Democrats have finally hired some rat unfuckers

Ultimately, it didn't change the election, since Obama would've won comfortably even without Ohio. But it could matter if Rove's got a tricks team or more likely an informal network of voter suppression efforts in Ohio and several other swing states.

But that's implausible. I mean, to organize something like that, he'd have to be someone who could get access to millions of dollars from a variety of silent benefactors... and also have a way of raising all that money without any of it being reported. And just how likely is something tin-foil crazy like that gonna happen? Right? Right?


[font size="1"]Right ??[/font]

[PrMaine]

109. Thom Hartmann on the Subject

Thom Hartmann had some words, and some additional evidence about this. Check it out at

&feature=g-all-u

[RomneyLies]

122. Thom Hartman is usually reasonable, but I consider him WAY over the top on this tinfoil nuttery n/t

[sabrina 1]

129. Why? Care to counter what he says? Just saying I don't agree

tells us nothing.

[PrMaine]

137. Please elaborate

I do appreciate that you didn't call it a conspiracy theory - though it obviously is one.

But I do have to ask why do you think he is way over the top on this? Is it that you just trust Rove not to do anything underhanded? Or perhaps you don't think it is possible to manipulate computer technology for such evil purposes as subverting an election. Or is it that you think it impossible for a group like anonymous to block such a scheme? I really am curious what makes this such a crazy notion.

[RomneyLies]

138. Giving air to this is no different than Limbaugh giving air to Birtherism

Both conspiracy theories are completely nuts.

This puts Thom Hatmann into the same category as Alex Jones now. Nothing he ever says again can be considered reliable. I used to quote him when debating Republicans in online forums, but can no longer do so since he's pushing the "ERMERGERD MERCHINS STERL MER VERT" bullshit.

[PrMaine]

141. That is Not a Reason

Yes, I understand you have some emotional reaction to this idea, you said that before. But I still don't see what you are reacting to.

I don't hear Thom stating this hypothesis as if it is established fact, but only a scenario for consideration. The only thing he states as established fact is that there is a release from someone claiming to represent Anonymous.

[RomneyLies]

142. I have a rational reaction to the idea

Anybody who buys into it is being emotional.

[PrMaine]

143. A Ragional Reaction that Cannot be Explained Rationally

Imagine that.

[RomneyLies]

144. There is no evidence to support the claim

ergo the rational stance is to reject the claim out of hand.

[PrMaine]

146. No

The rational response is to qualify it as an unverified hypothesis that seems to answer some questions.

There are lots of unverified hypotheses that are nevertheless useful to discuss and investigate. Was Osama bin Laden really involved in the 9/11 attack? It is an unproven assertion that he was; so is the assertion that elements of the U.S. government were involved. Was Kennedy killed by a lone gunman? That too is an unproven assertion. Were there more than one? Likewise an unproven assertion.

Sometimes there are questions we just can't answer yet. It is irrational to reject hypotheses that fit with the facts even if, emotionally, we don't like the implications.

[RomneyLies]

147. Even a hypothesis will have some evidence upon which it is based

Hence, this is merely a claim, not a hypothesis.

[Time for change]

148. Evidence

We have in 2004 in Ohio:

1. A vast discrepancy between exit polls (scientific random sample of people who had just voted) and the official vote count.

2. A computer expert (Spoonamore) and close associate of Karl Rove's IT guru who provided a sworn affadavit of his opinion of the rapid and bizarre shifts in the Ohio official vote count on Election night 2004.

3. The bizarre death of Rove's IT guru (Michael Connell) in a plane crash (presumably because this experienced pilot ran out of gas) right before he was scheduled to testify about what happened on Election Night 2004.

What part of that do you not consider evidence or do you disagree with? And WHY?

[RomneyLies]

149. And every bit of that is as worthleas as the bullshit the Birthers cite n/t

[Time for change]

151. Your method of arguing is simply to assert your opinion without giving any reason for it

That's what is worthless

[RomneyLies]

152. Go look at the shit the birthers cite

You will find all manner of scientific experts etc, just like with the BBVers.

[PrMaine]

155. Here, here!

Why didn't I say that?

[HangOnKids]

160. Well He Said It! We Should Just Believe It!

It happens in every thread, obviously he is an EXPERT!

[randome]

153. Your 'evidence'.

1. A discrepancy is not evidence.
2. The testimony was that it was possible to rig the voting.
3. People die in airplanes all the time. NO evidence of foul play was found, which means it was a coincidence.

[Time for change]

154. .

1. Exit polls are used to monitor elections. They ARE evidence
2. Apparently you didn't read Spoonamore's testimony. He said a lot more than that the rigging was possible. He said the pattern was likely indicative of a rigged election. We can add to that the fact that the computer system that Connell operated was used in this election.
3. It is very rare that experienced pilots crash planes because they run out of gas. Murder is much more common than that.

[PrMaine]

161. Call it what you will

A hunch maybe?

Nearly everything the human race knows begins with a hunch, a claim, a guess. It is the very beginning of any investigation. It is damn foolish just to reject the germ of an understanding that seems to fit or seems to explain known facts. Just damn foolishness, but I guess the world is full of fools.

[mother earth]

112. Evidence has always been there for election theft & it's never been dealt with. Will this finally

be the beginning of dealing with these bums? The guilty parties belong in jail. I do believe Anonymous reversed their stealth this time. Now can we for once and all ensure it can never happen again?

Maybe Rove's jailing is around the corner.

[paparush]

113. Rove was expecting the Ohio central computers to crash...

The vote data to be transferred to servers housed by a GOP friendly private company where the votes could be, shall we say, scrutinized, then transferred back to Ohio when the central servers were recovered.

Nah...that sounds too much like science fiction.

[Window]

117. K/R.

I know they stole 2000 and 2004, but you imagine what shape America would be in if they had succeeded in stealing 2008 and 2012. Rhetorical.

[pam4water]

120. My first thought when I heard he said don't concede was Rove thought he could steal the votes during

the night.

[doc03]

133. He figured Husted and Kasuck would fix it n/t

[randome]

150. This kind of evidence-free speculation usually comes from watching too many dramas on TV.

When the only way you can tell a character's inner thoughts is by showing it visually.

If the evil 'genius' (LOL) Rove was truly trying to fix the election, he would not broadcast his intentions visually. It wouldn't matter whether anyone called Ohio for Romney or not, he would still have won.

I can't believe there are so many threads in DU willing to believe in something without evidence other than Rove's facial expressions. It's ludicrous.

[Zorra]

157. kick

[Mr Dixon]

159. IMO

When ever you see this "he died in a plane crash" you know the fix is in, SMH

[zappaman]

164. The simplest explanation is always the best

Rove had the look and demeanor of a man who just spent 300-400 million dollars of someone else's money without delivering what he had promised and who suddenly realized his career was over.
Why is that so hard for people to understand?

[tammywammy]

166. +1 n/t

[Time for change]

169. The simplest explanation is NOT always the best.

The God explanation for everything that happens is a lot simpler than most scientific explanations.

Rove's behavior indicated more than someone who was severely disappointed. He purported to understand the vote count situation in Ohio better than the statisticians who called the race for Obama. What made him think that he had a better understanding of the Ohio vote situation than the statisticians? Why is it hard for you to understand the significance of that, and why is it so hard for you to believe that Rove would manipulate the vote count?

[begin_within]

165. Pay no attention:

[lifebiomedguru]

167. TREASON.

Nixon committed treason by offering the S. Vietnamese leader a better deal if they stopped negotiating with LBJ. TREASON.

Reagan's people negotiated a delayed release of the US Hostages in Iran to deny Carter a better chance @ re-election. TREASON.

Bush had Harris disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters in Florida. TREASON.

Man-in-the-middle servers flipped the vote for Bush against Kerry. TREASON.

Now, ANONYMOUS has STOPPED the traitors in their tracks with ORCAKILLER.

ANONYMOUS ARE NATIONAL HEROES AND PROTECTORS OF THE US CONSTITUTION.

[hrmjustin]

168. Welcome to DU!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

170. AHA...makes me dream that Obama Team read our post about discounting the most

likely fraud-prone states and finding the most hopeful anti-fraud path to 270