Michael Collins: Election Fraud in Pennsylvania?

[kpete]

Michael Collins:

Election Fraud in Pennsylvania?
Sunday, 20 April 2008, 8:59 pm

They've got a Secret

The Pennsylvania primary could lock up the Democratic nomination process once and for all. The campaign that Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean asked to be finished by July 1 could be over this Tuesday. Regardless of your candidate or party, you're probably like the vast majority of citizens who insist on fair elections that are open to the public for examination.

Citizens want to know that the candidate taking office is the same candidate who won a majority or a plurality of the votes. A 2006 Zogby poll of 1018 registered voters nationwide found that 92% believed that they, as citizens, have the right to witness vote counting for the election of their paid public servants.

That will not be the case in Pennsylvania any more than it was the case in Florida, Ohio, California, South Carolina, and most other primary states. Almost all states bar any real inspection of vote counting, the process that determines the election result. Even if they did allow you to watch the count, all you would see is a whirring third-rate computer system run by a private company that won't allow anyone to take a comprehensive look inside.

Post election audits are either absent or randomly selected by the people who run the election. Recounts require an exceptionally close election, less than a 1% difference typically. And citizen recounts after the election, where paper records exist, are barred by law in Florida and Virginia and barred almost everywhere else by bureaucratic fiat.

Even if you got to examine each and every ballot, the chain of custody of those paper records will likely be compromised at several key points. Ballots collected by unaccountable individuals, driven around in the trunks of cars, unsupervised, plus other election board customs, mean you can't track the chain of custody of ballots from collection at precincts to delivery at counting locations. Post-election storage oftentimes reflects little concern for real security. If you can't track the chain of custody, you can't know if the ballots recounted or examined are the original voted ballots, if ballots have been replaced, altered, etc.

We elect people who pass laws that are enforced by bureaucrats who then tell us to take a hike when we want to closely examine an election.

"The results are what we say they are," say the keepers of the vote, our so-called public servants. "Move along, there's nothing to see here" is the prevailing attitude toward inquiring citizens.

much more at:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0804/S00288.htm

[livvy]

1. Ohhh...error you've already recommended this post. LOL

I rec'd, then went and finished this excellent piece by Auto, came back and tried to rec again.
The mind is a strange thing, especially the aging one.

[Wilms]

2. How regurgitated.

Pulitzer Prize is comin'.

Read it if you don't know a single thing about election fraud. After all, "you're probably like the vast majority of citizens who insist on fair elections". :eyes:


Then read the other titles:

Election Fraud in Ohio?

Election Fraud in Florida?

Election Fraud in Virginia?

Fraud in Election Fraud Journalism?....Oh don't read that!


Keep peddlin', Mike. :hi:

[truedelphi]

3. Hope that day is soon.

(Of the Pulitzer Prize that is)

[Wilms]

6. Then let me be the first to assert that election as stolen.

Never mind it's yet to occur. :eyes:

Hyperbole rules. And sells.

[truedelphi]

7. What is your problem?

In Michael Collins, we have a writer who is able to synthesize the various and diverse
issues of election fraud and voting malfeasance. Some of what he does couldn't have been done earlier on because the statistics needed for the articles hadn't even been released.

So what if he wasn't the first?

(FWIW, I was the first, and the problem with being the first is that most people are not ready for it. True, it was a nice feeling knowing that 300 blogs had my article "We The People Do Not Concede" on their websites. But it was too soon. People couldn't accept the premise. People weren't really ready until right around the time Robert Kennedy Jr was published in Rolling stone, the summer of 2006.)

[Wilms]

8. His headline cheapens the movement.

Also, it's obviously partisan.

Mike's abilities to write a story notwithstanding, 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. (Though I think the Common Cause piece he cites, does.) Better to take an opportunity to explain how many rural areas might save money by hand counting. Etc.

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

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

[BeFree]

14. Ya gotta love this, eh?

Telling someone else how to get reform done while holding hands with some of the chief obstructionists to ER.

Wilma, I don't, after all these years know where it is you really stand, but with 99% of the posters here, I do.

Go Mike, blow the bastards away!!

[bleever]

4. We all learn as children to count our change

at the store.

As adults, we are expected to believe in an opaque and utterly insecure process to count the votes that constitute the will of We the People.

There is a long way to go before we reach critical mass on the public understanding of this issue.

Keep it coming, Mr. Collins.

[msedano]

5. touch screen culture

sad to say, our culture has long subverted sensible suspicion of touch screen technology. popular music like "he touched me", "you've go that magic touch", a television program "touched by an angel", the Sistine Chapel for xrist's sake, with the two fingers about to touch. Crap, who could possible believe there's something evil about a touch screen voting machine? Haven't we relied on their results since Shithead v. Gore?

Michael Collins has a magic touch of his own when it comes to shining a bright light on issues like this. Thanx, Collins.

mvs

[autorank]

9. Thanks kpete! k*r:)

[kster]

10. The truth is a GOOD thing

K&R.........

[mod mom]

11. OSU ELECTION LAW Professors Share your concern:

OSU Election Law: PA SUFFERS FROM VULNERABILITIES THAT COULD MAKE RESULTS LESS CLEAR

Pennsylvania’s April
22nd primary will be
important to determining
the Democratic nominee
for President, and many analysts
believe that Pennsylvania will
be important to determining the
result of the general election as
well. While its 2004 and 2006
federal elections went fairly
smoothly, Pennsylvania does
suffer from some vulnerabilities
that could make the result of the
2008 election less clear. The state
suffers from a history of absentee
ballot fraud that could corrupt the
result of a close election and lead
to litigation. It also suffers from a
lack of central control that allows
local officials to follow inconsistent
procedures, heightening the
likelihood of disenfranchisement
flowing from administrative
error. Finally, Pennsylvania
relies heavily on controversial
touchscreen voting machines that
have been attacked as unreliable.
But before discussing these issues
in depth, it is appropriate to give
the reader some background with
the following nine-topic digest of
the state’s election administration
system.


The 21-page report is available at

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/docs/50Q_for_PA.pdf

and here is the intro to it:

Key Questions for Key States: Pennsylvania
This new feature provides an analysis of Pennsylvania's election system going into the 2008 Presidential election. Part I digests nine key areas of the law that together cover the entire administrative system. Part II analyzes three challenges faced by the system and attempts to predict the outcome of three hypothetical post-election lawsuits that might arise as a result of these challenges. Visithttp://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/index.php to read the report.

[Wilms]

12. Thanks for the link, Mom.

Now the readers of this thread can actually get a sense of the actual/specific problems in PA.

I wonder how they manage to write that stuff without being partisan and wrapping themselves in a flag. Plus they somehow manage all of that without using US Steel as a prop! These guys are pros.

Hopefully Mike is taking note.

[Kurovski]

13. Tuesday--ELECTION DAY PROBLEMS (links)

Voting Problems Already Reported in PA: Here We Go Again--kpete


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x500959


Big Trouble? - DOJ to monitor Pennsylvania primaries--kpete


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x500964