Mark Crispin Miller on Hartmann - "Get psychologically prepared for another election theft"

[Doctor_J]

Ouch. We actually won 50 seats in 2006, instead of 23. Coup 2000 was just the start of the end of democracy, and the elections of 2002, 20004, 2006 were just as bogus, as this November's will be.

when do we go to the torches & pitchforks?

[SoonerPride]

1. I'm nearly ready to move out of this country.

I'm not kidding either.

Obama is my last hope for change.

If it doesn't come this fall, then I'm leaving.

[nancyr]

3. Oh God, me too.

[redqueen]

6. I'd have left already if I could afford to do it.

[Ian David]

7. There are alternatives to leaving

http://www.bartleby.com/73/1065.html

[petgoat]

19. My plan was to leave the country in 2004 if America voted for Bush

When I came to understand that America very likely
did NOT vote for Bush, and the media were refusing
to cover the issue, I realized that leaving the
country would be very irresponsible and there's a
serious fight going on here.

I'd planned to move to Canada. But if the Bush
regime is not stopped, as a Canadian I might wind
up fighting a US invasion launched on a flimsy
pretext to seize the oil sand resources.

I have to fight them here so I won't have to fight
them over there.

[BigDDem]

39. Where will you be going?

[knixphan]

70. There's an argument to be made

That having more Americans living abroad can help in the big picture.

I've contemplated Paris, myself. I visit often and wouldn't need much of a push.

But first we fight!

GOBAMA

GO Progressives!

[cali]

2. oh bullshit. Where's the evidence that we won 50 seats in 06?

And what did Miller predict for that year, anyway? No polls showed the dems picking up anywhere near that number of seats.

[Bolo Boffin]

4. Thank you.

Wow. We took back the House and the Senate, and still the elections were slanted against us? Brother.

[cali]

10. No shit. And virtually NONE of the pundits forecast the dems taking back the Senate

God I hate this kind of stupid fearmongering. Fuck Mr. Miller. Hard.

[petgoat]

21. The statistical analysis of the exit polls was that the Dems should have won by 12%

There was all that revulsion about Tom DeLay and
Abramoff and that pederast Congressman.

Karl Rove hadn't allowed for that so he only gamed
the system by 5%. So the Dems only won by 7%, and
didn't get all the seats they should have had.

That's close to the claims that were made. I haven't
investigated them myself, but I don't find them
implausible.

Why would anybody install cheat-capable vote-counting
machinery unless they wanted to cheat?

[OnTheOtherHand]

29. here's my critique

Well, here. Also the end of here, which provides details on the close overall match between pre-election House polls and official counts (FL-13 being, unsurprisingly, a dramatic exception).

Simon and O'Dell thought they found external evidence that the exit polls were right this time, but it was wishful thinking. It's a pretty bad paper. Believe it or not, if there were good evidence of massive election fraud in 2006, other people would want to know.

[L. Coyote]

31. KKKarl Rove is the MOSES of the post-Heston era. He may not part water well, but

he can decide what percentage to game the system!
Damn, that's more admirble than walking on water!!

LOL :rofl: "Karl Rove hadn't allowed for that so he only gamed the system by 5% ..." :rofl: LOL

[petgoat]

33. Have you heard of the hackable, insecure computerized voting machines?

Do you know that 80% of the vote is counted on machines made
by two manufacturers, and both of these share a common
technological heritage?

Did it ever occur to you that facts are more powerful than smilies?

[L. Coyote]

43. Yes to all the above except one. Smiles are more powerful than facts.

Ask any advertiser. If facts ruled, Bush would be signing baseballs, not laws.

[OnTheOtherHand]

26. in this case, it's very clever (but selectively clueless) fearmongering

There's a little cluster of smart people who mostly listen to each other, so they don't notice themselves getting further and further from reality. Among this group, MCM is arguably the best writer.

I hate it too (but I don't associate with your sadism imagery).

[Bill Bored]

46. Here's the problem though:

There is no evidence that the DEMS actually took back the Senate!

Webb's margin in VA was about 7000 votes. That's .3%.
Tester won MT by less than 3000 votes. That's .7%.

So we won those 2 seats and the US Senate by a total of less than 10,000 votes.

Virginia has NO WAY to independently check the electronic counts.
Montanan has no such check as far as I know, but they do have paper ballots.

So there is no way to know who really won the Senate, and maybe not even the House, and THAT'S a problem. Now doesn't that make a lot more sense then some of the arguments being put forth by Miller and his disciples? Which approach do you think will be more likely to succeed in improving our election systems?

[blm]

66. They did on the shows I watched.

.

[stellanoir]

13. There was a thread posted shortly after the midterms entitled

"landslide denied" which I neglected to bookmark.

Here's a description of some discrepancies though.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=2859666

Miller is brilliant IMHO.

Peace

[Wilms]

22. Gee. Here's what I found at your link.

"The bottom line is not so much the evidence that points towards election fraud as it is the simple fact that our vote counts cannot be verified when votes are counted by electronic DRE machines."

That's reasonable.

[bleever]

51. Where's the evidence we won 23?

[no_hypocrisy]

5. Tell me why the election system can't return to the process and the

machines used before computer touch-screens.

[crankychatter]

9. mandated by HAVA... greatly supported by Clinton

yup

[Vattel]

12. classic smear via innuendo n/t

[EFerrari]

16. Here are her remarks on the floor of the Senate. I think you are mistaken on this one:

Mr. President, I want to express my views on the "Help America Vote Act of 2002."

The "Help America Vote Act of 2002" has many strong provisions that will improve our federal election system. This legislation requires that election districts across the nation provide provisional voting and post sample ballots and other voter information. It allows voters the opportunity to verify and change their vote before casting their vote. The Act implements a statewide voter registration system to help reduce fraud, and ensures that individuals are not wrongly refused the right to vote. It authorizes $3.9 billion in federal funding to help states improve voting systems, make the polls more accessible to the disabled, train poll workers, and educate the electorate.

Despite these positive provisions, however, I cannot vote for this bill because the voting rights of New Yorkers will be negatively affected by this legislation.

For many years, the State of New York has had provisional voting and what is called signature verification. In the 1980s, New York City put in place a digitized signature verification system. When a New Yorker registers to vote, his or her signature is scanned into a computer and placed in the election board's files. Then on Election Day, the voter signs the book of registered voters in that election district. If the signatures do not match, the poll worker has the right to prevent the voter from casting a ballot on the machine, but the voter is permitted to cast a provisional ballot. The board of elections later determines whether the provisional ballot is valid and should therefore be counted.



http://clinton.senate.gov/~clinton/speeches/021016.html

[Wilms]

23. Yep. Clinton and Schumer were the only senators to vote against HAVA.

Also, HAVA doesn't require the use of e-voting or e-vote counting.

And I'm not sure either of those points will sell books, so we'll have to excuse Miller and Palast and the Miller/Palast wannabes.

[EFerrari]

24. I don't think at bottom this is about selling books.

You hafta sell a LOT of books to buy a pizza.

In fact, I don't care why Mark and Greg are on this and talking about it. I'm just glad they are.

:spank:

[Wilms]

27. They're selling books, Beth.

Ask them what they do for a living.

And when they stray into yellow journalism, they can expect to hear from those on the left who see it, and who insist on integrity in general...not just election integrity.


Now please put that fryin' pan down!

:hide:

[EFerrari]

30. I don't care if bookselling occurs if it helps people to start that dangerous process, thinking.

But, that's why I'll never be George Soros.

lol

:)

[Wilms]

32. Grabbing torches and pitchforks based on innuendo and dodgy exit poll data ain't thinkin'!

Want to educate people of the actual vulnerabilities sans hyperbole? Here's a wide ranging treatment about PA.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=500892&mesg_id=500893

[OnTheOtherHand]

35. they're selling themselves, I think

Not in the sense that they are shills. I think they are heroes to a lot of people, and hero is a pretty excellent gig. On good days I'm a hero to my daughters, and that is delightful. Going around being a hero all over the country -- might be addictive.

At the end of the day, I think MCM feels that he has The Story basically right, and that he doesn't need to sweat the small stuff -- and it's all small stuff. Me, I don't think it is.

[Wilms]

38. I think that's a fair assesment...

...bound to piss-off a few people.

But if they're that upset, I'd recommend they stop buying Lefty Celebrity books and start doing a little bit of research on their own and a lot of T H I N K I N G.

[crankychatter]

8. Greg Palast is lurking in PA... this is a rational fear based upon hard evidence

I don't know about Crispin-miller's research and assertion...

But rampant fraud is well documented, as is VERY questionable tallying of Electronic Voting and even, where paper ballots are used... of Windows Based tallying...

The tallying machines are highly hackable

The voting so far has had some questionable results... especially where E-votes are used

Has anyone noticed how crazy the polls are this year?

Has anyone noticed the MSM now only gives demographic exit polling, because exit polling?

Exit polling is HOW we busted them in Ohio and elsewhere...
They don't want to get caught again...

[EFerrari]

15. Mark and Greg are on the same page.

Vote caging

Felon's lists

Dropping Dem registrations off of the HAVA databases

Vote suppression (student, colorful, military) in swing states via under equipping, moving or vanishing polling places.

And you're right, they don't want to leave any tracks. The problem with that is, we can see them coming.

[DefenseLawyer]

11. Do you think McCain would be in on it?

I have little doubt that the 2004 election was tainted (Bush summoning the press to the East Wing on election night with his creepy family on the couch to say he was going to win is still etched in my mind). But I have always assumed that the fraud was pulled off electronically, with a very small group of people that were actually in on it. If that is the case, would McCain really be on board? Or would "they" do it without telling him? I mean even for Republicans, this is pretty vile stuff.

[EFerrari]

18. They've been setting this up for years, no kidding.

Everywhere you find a "vote fraud" outfit pretending to clamp down on this virtually non-existent problem, what it means is that they're priming the pump to defraud voters.

This is what the Justice Department scandal is really about.

I doubt he will be directly involved. It will be the fixers, the people around him who were there before him and who will be there after him.

[EFerrari]

14. I really need all you people to understand we need to work ELECTION PROTECTION

this year.

We can predict with a great deal of accuracy WHERE they will try to steal it. We know SO much more than we did in 2004.

But knowing that is worthless unless we know what to do with that knowledge. And unless we have people willing to get off their @sses and help secure the vote.

[KaryninMiami]

34. AND if those exit polls do not match the results-- we need to be ready to react-

immediately. I am very concerned about PA being rigged. VERY Concerned. I still believe something went on in NH (exit polls and results were very different ONLY on those votes counted by machines- not on the hand counts) and those of us who have been involved in the vote rigging nightmare for the past few years, know full well what could easily happen tomorrow in PA and as we move towards the GE. We know more now then we did in 2004 (and 2000) but that doesn't help if we don't do something about it if things go wrong. Brad Friedman (www.bradblog.com) is worried too-we all should be!


The Pennsylvania Primary: Democracy of the Gods

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5916

Tuesday's Election Will be 'Unrecountable, Unverifiable, and Unauditable'...
On Tuesday night, you will be told who the winner of the Pennsylvania Primary is. You will accept it. You will have no choice. No matter who the winner really is. Or isn't.

This Tuesday's crucial contest will be primarily run on 100% faith-based, Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen or push-button) e-voting machines across the state. There will be no way to determine after the election whether the computers have accurately recorded, or not, the intent of those voters who voted on them. As VerifiedVoting.org summarizes the crucial contest, it "will be essentially unrecountable, unverifiable, and unauditable."

Most of the votes, more than 85%, will be cast on such DRE systems which do not provide so-called "Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails" (VVPATs), as their use has been found unconstitutional in the state, since its been determined, accurately, that ballot secrecy cannot be guaranteed when using such paper trail systems. Not that it matters.

With or without a so-called "paper trail" printer, all touch-screen/push-button/DRE voting machines are equally unverifiable and antithetical to American democracy. Period.

So, as with South Carolina's primary, so so long ago, and other states since, whatever the officials tell you at the end of the election is what you, and we, will have to accept. Whether votes are counted accurately is completely out of anyone's hands at this point. It's strictly Democracy of the Gods...

[OnTheOtherHand]

36. huh?

(exit polls and results were very different ONLY on those votes counted by machines- not on the hand counts)

If you have access to information on the 2008 NH primary exit polls in machine-count jurisdictions as opposed to hand-count jurisdictions, I hope you'll share!

It's fine to worry about the machines.

[Kurovski]

17. K&R. (nt)

[Helga Scow Stern]

20. Duh! n/t

[stillcool]

25. I'm ready!

hoping against hope that something gives. Zero expectations of accuracy.

[L. Coyote]

28. Coincidence. I was just doing that, for PA tomorrow. I was wondering if anyone was

already typing up the "stolen election in PA' articles before the election started! :rofl:

Keep selling those books, Mark.

[Wilms]

37. autorank has come the closest to claiming fraud before the election starts.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x500840

It's like spreading a lot of gasoline around and waiting for Bev Harris to show up with a match (ooh! Look! It's Butch & Hoppy! And they're driving fast! :eyes: )

[petgoat]

42. Why would anyone insist on using hackable insecure voting machines

unless they want to cheat?

Hey, you want to shoot some craps on my electronic dice?
Don't worry, they're as honest as the day is long.

[Wilms]

45. Look at my sig line, PG!

You know how things aren't always as they seem. And that either unintentionally or otherwise, misinformation and disruption can enter the discussion, discrediting efforts to mend a broken system.

When a response is as unverifiable as the election system we criticize, I figure highlighting the open questions is a better way to illuminate the isuue.

I wrote recently...

...it can too easily become a reason for voters to decide to stay home or to decide election reformers are cranks...or partisan.

...focusing (alleging as a standard operating procedure) on fraud ignores the important possibility that errors with hardware, software, and procedure...devoid of malice...could more easily and likely alter an outcome.

Besides, the system may actually produce a correct result of a match between candidates foisted on the voter in part through media fraud.

Seeing branding and marketing in some advocacy journalism, perhaps I'm overly-sensitive and harboring a bad view of it.

[L. Coyote]

44. Ohhh, that's rich. That's up there in rank!!

And, if you find crystal ball gazing hilarious, you get flamed as an ignoramus :rofl:

There seems to be a school of delusion, one postulating that if an election can be fixed, it is!
But, can these gazers show us one iota of real evidence? Will they even cite the real evidence? Says it all.

[Wilms]

48. Most of the evidence they'll show is dodgy exit poll data. Why?

'Cause that's the product they're selling.

Meanwhile, evidence actually worthy of pursuit is ignored either because it doesn't fit the trademark, or because it utterly eludes them.

[Bill Bored]

49. You mean they didn't print any of your Cuyahoga County (Ohio) vote switching studies?

Don't they know Karl Rove arranged that back in the '70s? Or didn't the exit polls reveal that? :rofl:

[EFerrari]

47. . . .

:rofl:

[BigDDem]

40. Right! and did you hear the govt invented HIV???

[annie1]

53. Goddamn America. Amen.

[kster]

41. RIGHT NOW!!!

On Tuesday night, you will be told who the winner of the Pennsylvania Primary is. You will accept it. You will have no choice. No matter who the winner really is. Or isn't.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5916

Not because of 2000,2004 or 2006, but because these machines have no business in our elections.

Torches and pitchforks, is long over due.

[bleever]

50. ALL IS WELL.

Nothing to see here.

Please tune back in to the official narrative, so you'll know how to interpret the result that is announced.

Your cooperation is appreciated.

[zonkers]

52. TOJ, DEFEND YOURSELF!!!!!!!!!!! SAY SOMETHING!!!!!!! DONT CUT AND RUN!!!!!!!

[Doctor_J]

59. Sorry. I was very busy yesterday - no time to follow up

Apparently the 50 seat thing is laid out carefully in Miller's new book, which is actually a compilation of essays on the MASSIVE election fraud in 2000, 20002, 2004, and 2006.

This is not just a Diebold thing, though that's the fascists' last line of defense. There is voter caging, voter roll purging, insufficient supplies (machines) at Dem polling places, voter intimidation (Jeb Bush had the Florida Bureau of Investigation go to elderly black peoples homes and threaten them), phone jamming, etc. The documentation is voluminous. Get the book, read it, and prepare to take some sort of weapon with you to your polling place.

[OnTheOtherHand]

60. "Apparently... laid out carefully"

Well, I'm pretty sure the 'careful laying out' about 2006 is a reprinting of "Landslide Denied," which I critiqued here and in more detail here (further details about polls in individual House races appear here). But these folks don't generally engage informed critiques.

[cyberpj]

62. Name of book? Thanks. nt

[annie1]

54. If someone like Sen. Clinton had been the running for pres instead of Kerry...

we'd have a dem in the white house. he LET them steal that election. As we see, Hillary Clinton doesn't walk away so easily. So even the hillary haters should give her that. But there will not be theft allowed this november, not gonna happen. What he should be talking about is get ready for possible theft, not psychology of having something stolen.

[Emit]

55. I have read elsewhere that Diebold Machines favor Hillary

for what it's worth:


The Diebold Effect": Hillary's Votes Higher From Diebold Machines Even Controlling for Demographics (education, income, population, etc)
http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2008/01/the_diebold_effect_hillarys_vo.php

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

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

[OnTheOtherHand]

57. Herron, Mebane and Wand

Voting Technology and the 2008 New Hampshire Primary
Hand-count jurisdictions in New Hampshire voted differently than op-scan jurisdictions in at least the two presidential primaries before this, which isn't inherently surprising. They vary along lots of other dimensions too.

It would be nice if controlling for demographics "explained" this difference, but one wouldn't necessarily expect it to, because (1) demographics usually don't explain most of the variance in vote choice, and (2) aggregate data aren't ideal for that analysis anyway.

It's conceivable that all the primaries have been hacked in the same way, but it doesn't seem likely. Dean won the hand-count jurisdictions in 2004, but overall lost the state, as predicted in pre-election polls. I'm pretty sure Bradley won them in 2000 (it's been a while since I've looked at the numbers).

[Kurovski]

56. Kick. (nt)

[barack the house]

58. Jeff Farias says that things have vastly improved since 04 in polling placs PLUS volunteer.

[MarjorieG]

69. How so, with more electronic machines, fewer audits/recounts by law?

PA has 90% plus unverifiable voting, in additional to political machine hanky panky and insider fraud. A lot less understanding by officials and voters just how vulnerable we are by this privatization of our elections.

Databases are now cleaned up electronic poll books, with many mistakes due to error and fraud. Even this current registration will be tinkered with before November. Each voter needs to check on their registration in September.

[cyberpj]

61. kick. nt

[Doctor_J]

63. To all who have lambasted me for posting this

Please read:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5617557&mesg_id=5617557

The fact that our elections are fixed is not a conspiracy. It is a fact.

[petgoat]

64. It can be a conspiracy AND a fact.

Any agreement between two or more persons to do evil is a conspiracy.

[OnTheOtherHand]

65. your link has nothing to do with your OP

The OP presents no evidence that the 2006 election was "bogus," nor that the 2002 and 2004 elections were.

This link doesn't present such evidence either. (It also doesn't present evidence of tampering in 2008 -- although I don't think anyone here would be very surprised.)

ETA: Of course it 'has to do with' the OP in that they are both about elections. And if you think this story proves that "elections are fixed," then I guess it relates perfectly. For you.

[Bake]

67. OK, I understand the questions about "dodgy exit polling"

But without an auditable paper trail, how will we ever KNOW if an election is stolen or not?

And if we don't know, isn't it safe to assume that at some point it IS being stolen?

Bake

[OnTheOtherHand]

68. something like that

We need fewer "smoking guns" and more ticking clocks, or something like that....

[Wilms]

74. I hate to complicate things but...

Actually even WITH an auditable paper trail, how will we ever KNOW if an election is stolen or not? :shrug:

There's very little auditing being done. So we don't even know the result of an OpScanned election.

I'm glad the trend, by popular sentiment, is toward altogether abandoning DREs with or without VVPAT.

But the "at least I voted on a paper ballot" crowd seems to ignore the fact that a paper recount can be hard to get. And without, at minimum, a statistically significant audit I see only so much difference between DREs and Optical Scan.

[madrchsod]

71. we make sure there are enough booths

and we make sure everything is counted...the election will not be stolen again!

[Awsi Dooger]

72. I'm proposing theft in 2010

Might as well get the jump on this. Make sure my name goes first, when credit is applied in early November 2010, approx 10 PM Eastern on election night.

Or if any primaries are stolen, that's me also.

Situational influence. Since we're likely to win in '08, including squeezing out more House and Senate seats, to a percentage beyond our natural partisan edge over the GOP, 2010 looks like a vulnerable midterm cycle. Plus you've got the prospect of the Democratic governors elected in odd states in '02, and re-elected in '06, being replaced by Republicans, states like Oklahoma, Kansas, Wyoming, Arizona. Perhaps we have promising proteges in those states, otherwise the natural landscape favors the GOP.

Besides, the new criteria is not only to attack defeats, but any victory that wasn't enough of a victory.

I love my chances. :)

[cyberpj]

73. kick.