Why I Distrust PA Election Results…

[Junkdrawer]

This is a long story, but I’ll try to keep it short.

After the 2002 midterms, I was one of the original DU Election Reform posters. I read everything I could get my hands on and soon realized that the key was that elections (and voting machines) needed to be auditable and audited.

Now, it just so happens that my best friend (who now lives across the state from me) was an active advocate for the disabled. Because of this, he was asked to be a member of the Governor’s HAVA advisory committee. (I’m sure they thought he was a sure thing to support the new machines.) I emailed him a lot of what I was reading and soon he got the committee to agree that voter verified paper ballots were necessary. Once it was clear that the committee wouldn’t rubberstamp unauditable machines, the PA Secretary of State refused to meet with them in person and, instead, sent a secretary to one of their meetings to get their findings.

Forward to 2005. The Pittsburgh City Paper ran a long article about voting machines. I nearly choked when I read this:

…

"The voter gets to keep this?" one of the Beaver poll workers asks.

Nope. The paper stays at the poll. If there were ever need for a recount to verify whether the election, or even just one machine, were accurate, the VVPATs can be compared to the machine tallies.

That sounds great.

Except, as Schulte never explains to the ladies, Pennsylvania won't approve any electronic voting machine that also records the vote on paper. The Accupoll 1000 got certified on Aug. 4 with the proviso that their VVPAT will be disabled.
…

http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A29155

Yes, you read that right. In order to get approval in Pennsylvania, voting machines have to be unauditable. An effort by Democrat Dan Frankel was made to change this by legislation, but the Governor didn’t help and the Republican-controlled legislature bottled up the bill.

There was one remaining ray of hope. The PA constitution states that the electorate must approve by referendum any change of voting equipment. A judge in Westmorland County agreed and voting machine purchases were put on hold. That’s when Governor Rendell swung into action. An emergency appeal was made to the State Supreme court and the justices ruled that HAVA trumps the state constitution. Seems to me that a referendum could have been held, but “shut the public out of this decision” seems to be the motto in PA.

So, here we are. Here’s a map of the current situation:



http://www.verifiedvoting.org/verifier/map.php?&topic_string=1019&year=2008&state=Pennsylvania

If you want to believe elections in PA will still be on the up-and-up, be my guest. I don’t.

[Benhurst]

1. This may not come into play tonight; but it does not bode well for

the general election.

[L. Coyote]

2. NPR has national radio call in tonight. I just posted a thread. No details except

coming up and will last over an hour. Tell everyone!

[Junkdrawer]

3. Kick

:kick:

[cui bono]

4. I don't trust it either. Especially now that Fox is the first to call it for Clinton

when apparently 0-5% reporting so far. How can they project that already?

[walldude]

5. They are emboldened by the fact that other stations

called the 2000 election for Gore and then changed their minds when Fox called it for Bush.


Hillary winning is not a surprise. We'll see what the numbers look like tomorrow. I seem to remember Hillary and her supporters ramming Texas down my throat when in the end he ended up with more PD's than she did..

[cui bono]

7. Yeah, that's what I'm worried about.

[doublethink]

9. Terminology tonight ..... "Close" to ..... "Early" ......

When the major cable networks came on the air MSNBC and CNN stated the Pennsylvania primary was "Too CLOSE To Call" ..... I flipped over to FAUX and they were using "Too EARLY To Call" ..... and I shit you not Karl Rove was on when I noticed the difference. Anyway MSNBC and CNN were having discussions on who would tell Hillary to leave the race gracefully .... (Rendal?) as they poured over the EXIT polls which showed it should be a very very close result tonight.

I flipped over to MSNBC again to hear Keith Olberman state .... "we are being told to change our terminology from 'to CLOSE to call' to 'to EARLY to call' ....

then the actual results started coming in ..... shortly thereafter Hillary was declared the winner. As of right now Hillary is up 54% to 46% with 37% of the vote counted. Her 'margin of victory is yet to be determined.

I suspect the word "Close" was being used because all indications of the "Exit Polls" showed it would be a nail bitter, but Obama had done what he needed to do in this state to get Hillary to pack her bags.

The sudden change of word "Early" .... changed the whole dynamic of the night ..... hmmmmm we shall see......

[Junkdrawer]

10. Seriously...I wonder why they still do exit polls....

It only emphasizes the theft to the reporters who are allowed to see them...

[doublethink]

12. Keith Olberman expression "what to make of this' ....... when he announced .....

they changed the terminology from "Too close to call" to "Too early to call" ... wish I could of read his mind at that moment.

[mistertrickster]

16. Yeah, I heard Brit Hume actually say that the "exit polls showed Clinton ahead by 6, but we think

she may do better than that."

What?!

What evidence do they have that's better than an exit poll?

AND

If the exit poll showed Hillary by 6, why is she winning by 10 with 88 percent of the vote in?

Why have exit polls ever since Florida 2000 not meant shit?

[Junkdrawer]

17. Check this...

http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjhlYzZiYjRhNDI0YTMwYzAxMTQ0NWNhNTQyODc4ZGE=

[mistertrickster]

20. WHAT THE HELL?! Early exit poll shows Obama ahead?

From Junkdrawer's NRO source:

On the Verge of a Stunner in Pennsylvania?

Hold on to your hats. I've gotten the usual word of the exit poll results from one of my usual reliable sources. He notes that Obama traditionally over-performs in the earliest exit polls*, and that he expects the numbers to change as the night wears on - perhaps a reversal.

But right now, the exits are saying Obama 52 percent, Clinton 47 percent.

Take these results with the usual grains of salt and skepticism. I'm told that Obama is carrying blue collar workers two to one, and he's winning Philadelphia in the neighborhood of three to one.

As usual, if you're a Pennsylvanian and haven't voted yet, don't let these or any other numbers discourage you.

UPDATE: Brendan Loy looked at Obama's performance in the early exit polls and concludes "Obama generally does 7-8 points worse in the actual results than he did in the leaked, unweighted exit polls."

ANOTHER UPDATE: Yes, I know Drudge has the numbers reversed. I checked with my source, and this is what they've got. I have more than one source who hears the early exit poll numbers, and haven't yet heard from all of them.

******

Not only that, but Wolf Blitzer hemmed and hawed and finally said that the exit polls had Hillary 52 and Obama 48. That's only FOUR points up. And she wins by TEN?

WTF.

In Georgia, they kicked out a president for election fraud based on the exit poll. In this country, it's "nothing to see here."

[Junkdrawer]

33. Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC confirms...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=501059&mesg_id=501059

[doublethink]

18. Wow your post, and this night reminded me of something I wrote back in 2004 ...

and sent to the BuzzFlash mailbag .... actually went back and found it in their archives ...... a few snips ...

"Subject: Rove's October Surprise ..... Nov 2nd"

Nov 2nd 2004,

All day long the news reports had Kerry pulling ahead in the exit polls, extremely long lines were being shown from coast to coast, unprecedented turnout, records falling across the nation, the newscasters started interviewing possible cabinet members for President Elect John Kerry ...... and even the right wing pundit reporters seemed to be accepting the inevitable......

Then there was a report of Karl Rove beginning to wander to and from the white house, and a 'war room' cell phone put to his ear ..... and at that moment 'it' happened ........ my stomach sank. I looked away from the computer where John Kerry was leading in the exit polls of Ohio and Florida by 2% in each and 'trending' further ahead. Zogby had actually called the Presidency for John Kerry about a half an hour earlier .... online.

Rudy Giuliani immediately appeared on MSNBC, as the head of the Bush re-election committee also came on CNN ...... along with I can't remember who it was on Fox ...... but the smoke screen for Rove's next move was in place. The disinformation being presented by these three at the same moment in time seemed so scripted .... "exit polls are undercounting Republicans in Florida and Ohio by 3%" they said ..... and any attempt to refute their statements by the evidence at hand of what was actually going on in the real world out there was met by a rather too cocky 'we will win Ohio and Florida.' -snip-

anyway the rest is at the bottom (the last story) of this link http://www.buzzflash.com/mailbag/04/11/mai04317.html

Sounds Eerily Familiar when reading it again. Peace.

[McCamy Taylor]

22. This is a classic RNC divide and conquer tactic to get one side to accuse the other of cheating

and it looks like you are falling for it. Which network does Brit Hume work for, by the way?

[nebula]

6. Fox was given the Diebold results in advance

[Junkdrawer]

8. Exit Polls: Too Close to call...42% of the "vote" in, it's Clinton by 10%...

Yeah...

[Sensitivity]

11. The Philly numbers are suspicious

[Freddie Stubbs]

15. How so?

:shrug:

[Junkdrawer]

13. So I'm watching the CNN discussions and Obama wins counties in the center of the state....

I look at my map and, sure enough, it's the non-DRE counties...

[mistertrickster]

19. I just saw the CNN map on Larry King. I actually didn't see much overlap.

Maybe one or two counties right in the middle of the state.

Meanwhile, the Philly area (SE) went to Obama.

[Junkdrawer]

30. On closer examination, the counties were close, but did not overlap. n/t

[depakid]

14. Bottom line- if there's no way to audit

then the old saw fails.

Trust, but verify.

[Ichingcarpenter]

27. 90 percent have no paper trails, even computer checks..

Listen that is an issue, for all democrats to stand behind. ... that sucks for even a election in the fall
against a republican.. Don't get cocky Hillary supporters, you should want the same thing too.


Even in California we have problems but it is not at 90% unverifiable.
I know you are gloating on your win, as you should, but you
could lose in the fall to unfair machines.

[depakid]

29. Any reasonable person from my Dad's generation would agree

Just as people from other countries do.

[WA98296]

21. K&R

[Eric J in MN]

23. kick

kick

[McCamy Taylor]

24. This thread is a Divide and Conquer zone. Drudge and Fox have both been spreading bogus polls

in order to fan rumors of e-vote fraud in order to incite a war of words, just like the one after the New Hampshire primary that Obama supporters used to make Clinton's victory there seem illegitimate and which turned Clinton's supporters extremely angry.

It looks like some people here are going to repeat history all over again as we head to North Carolina. That means it is time to trot out "And Pennsylvania is full of racists, too!"

[Yes We Did]

25. PA was rigged. Why should anyone trust machine politicians? They gave her what they had to.

10 points. 200 thousand votes. The machine worked. It was predictable. Just like Ohio. Can't blame PA. They want business as usual there. Sorry that people can't understand the bad air blowing from the Clintons. These are politicians who want the same thing as we've always had.

After 8 years of Bush, how can people be so gullible?

[Skwmom]

26. Exit polls use to be right on the money and are used in other countries to

identify vote fraud.

If you REFUSE to allow a paper trail, there is a reason for it.

[donheld]

28. I distrust election results in all 50 states

So I'm paranoid.

[windbreeze]

31. Remind me someone...what is it that Stalin said...it isn't how many votes are cast,

it's who counts the votes, or some such thing..machines with no paper trail, and exit polls that are wrong...lead me to believe that we are being played...I wonder why the top Dems aren't making verified voting one of their most important causes....I actually find that, more than a little curious...wb

[jackson_dem]

32. Notice the whining about rigged elections only happens when Obama loses?

[smith7745]

34. election machine menu