I feel as if I must be missing something, but here goes. I'm in Illinois and my governor is Rod Blagojevich. Perhaps I am missing the methodology, but CNN's election 2002 page has Blagojevich beating Ryan 52-45... Aha, a little googling and it seems that at least with the Illinois race, bartcop has inverted the results. Zogby showed the race tight.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/special/campaign2002.nsf/0/EFEA791E9271586486256C67000D0600?OpenDocument

The election on the other hand, is what what produced the results bartcop attributes to the poll. I am not sure about the validity of the other data points, but if you want a reason to ignore that theory....

Re the Mondale-Coleman vote, in MN we do have paper ballots that are just scanned/transmitted by the machines. Am I wrong, or isn't that what folks are saying should be the standard?

The Black Box Voting site is full of stories that won't help you sleep any easier, like this one, about three different Republicans in Comal County, TX all receiving the exact same number of votes: 18,181.

Forum -- Voting Machines: A Threat to Democracy?
Sunday, September 7, 2-5 PM
Philadelphia Ethical Society

Rebecca Mercuri, Marc Rotenberg, Lynn Landes and others will discuss a wide range of controversial issues that surround the use of voting machines. Admission is free.
For further details see http://www.ecotalk.org/

What National Security Policy?

After we've spent $100 billion on the less-than-direct threat from Saddam, will we stop and do a cost-benefit analysis?

Well, let's see...our economy is in ruins, our states are going broke, our seaports are going unprotected, our borders are still not adequately monitored, our cities are still not prepared for an anomalous WMD event, Al Qaeda is still issuing threats and causing us to raise our alert level, but we got Saddam!

Well thanks, but no thanks. This has been a colossal waste and mismanagement of time, effort, and resources. We should have kept the Delta Forces on AQ and Bin Laden, and spent much less money on a Marshall Plan here at home, to prepare the Homeland. To secure America.

Not to mention that this money would have been better spent here in America, put into American workers' hands, who we could have hired by the bushel to help out with the security effort. Instead, most of the money we spend goes into the hands of military and arms merchants, to resupply our arsenal after we expend it all, and for various other war supporting efforts, not to mention rebuilding Iraq.

These companies are few in number, much fewer than able-bodied Americans out of work, and invariably in the majority connected to the wanderings and former clients of some of the Administration's key players.

Not to mention we've ruined the global consensus backing us up after 9/11 and during Afghanistan. But I don't want to go on and on and on.

Just remember...cost-benefit analysis. Utilization of resources, choices made in the face of the known threats. Which threats were imminent, and direct, and which were only falsely stated to be so, pretended to be so?

What national security policy?

Common misconception: that the USA has a National Security Policy. In reality, it looks more like you've got a Republican Security Policy.

Doesn't it make you feel safer?

Patrick asks:

Explain to me again how it is that the networks92 election-day exit polling simply stopped happening all of a sudden. Was that magic, too?

No, that was called a fixed-price contract between a contractor and a media group (actually, a loose confederation of all the major networks) that couldn't quite decide on the methodology they wanted. From what I could tell (second hand from someone who worked for the contractor, but not exactly on the contract itself), it was a true software SNAFU where they were testing and finding bugs up to election day. Software created on a two-year cycle with a limited budget--not a pretty sight.

Which isn't to take away from your major point about the electronic voting machines having problems, but the lack of polling results wasn't due to a conspiracy, but other all too human reasons.

Actually, my "major point" isn't "about the electronic voting machines having problems." My major point is a bit broader: too many different things over the past few years have been deeply fishy for even those people (such as myself) who are disinclined to conspiracy theories to feel substantially confident that something very bad isn't going on.

You don't have to believe that right-wingers in black top hats are fixing electronic-vote totals while cackling nyar-har-har in order to think auditable paper trails are a really good idea. Auditable voting systems and other manifestations of open and accountable government are desirable because they help build confidence that whatever hanky-panky you fear most isn't going on.

If I were Karl Rove and committed to continuing and extending Republican rule, I'd be making sure that voting-system reform was a major national priority, because it's something that would yield an enormous payout of respect and support for very little effort. This being the case, the fact that this issue isn't even on the radar screen is doubly chilling.

Rove, et al. are after a Republican rule that derives its legitimacy from a moral basis which is actively antithetical to the historical mechanisms of legitimacy used in the United States.

They made this clear in 2000; it's not something you can do a little of and then stop, especially if it's one of your core objectives rather than a side effect of current political expidiency. (Which it is for the Cheney faction.)

It's not a conspiracy; it's a revolutionary movement. Those don't have to believe in the rights of man or come from the middle classes.

I too resent the way I've been made to feel like a tin foil hat wearing fool, especially since when I voice my concerns that the government is turning fascist, most people just smile and nod and pretend like I just told a mildly amusing joke. Then they go back to watching Fox news. The thing is, I'mnot making this stuff up, just talking about what I've read from legitimate news sources.

So what's it goping to take to get the majority of people to wake up and realize we're being hoodwinked? Fixing one election obviously wasn't enough. Neither was an illigitimate war for oil and hegemony.

Maybe if Bush were to grow a little mustache and fake a German accent at his next press conference people might go, "Gee there's sometghing funny going on in Washington... " But short of that, I don't know what to do. Other than run to Canada when they rig the next election.

Keith --

What's the limit of what you, personally, are prepared to do to assert that the current regieme isn't legitimate?

There's an awful lot that can be done by poll monitoring; if the voting machines have the terrible security they're described as having, several trillion votes for Zaphod Beeblebrox ought to make that pretty clear.

I personally would hold that the imprisonment of AmCits without charge, holding them incommunicado for an indefinate period of time, is itself grounds to demand the resignation of the entire administration, and to hang them for tyrants if they won't resign, but it appears that very few of your fellow citizens would agree with that.

Patrick asks:

Explain to me again how it is that the networks92 election-day exit polling simply stopped happening all of a sudden. Was that magic, too?

Having had enough statistics courses to make me dangerous, I can understand how they can report outcomes based on a limited sample IF their model and their sampling is accurate. In the 2000 election neither was accurate in some key states. The networks were totally embarassed by their 2000 track record at calling the calling 2000 election and do not want a repeat of that fiasco.

Living in a western state I do not appreciate looking at the results coming in and being informed my vote does not count. Reporting results on TV before the polls close everywhere is not a good idea. On election night in 2000 at 5:00-6:30pm it looked like, according to the exit polling data, Gore was going to win and many people I know did not go vote because there were also somewhat frantic reports (inaccurate in many cases) that the lines were around the block at polling places. Early reporting based on exit polls that showed that Gore was probably going to be the eventual winner (I was getting ready to call Alex Baldwin to see if he would sell me his one-way ticket to France) may have influenced our close local and state elections. The media is so anxious to be the first to call a state on their election night extravaganzas that they have corrupted the election night reporting system to a point where it is worthless and may be unduly influencing elections in progress.

One thing that this last election demonstrated to me was how many ways there were to cheat during elections. Watching the hearings in FL was like attending a seminar on how to throw elections. And some other methods I learned elsewhere at about that time weren't covered in court. Punch cards are extremely easy to manipulate before or after someone votes. I heard an interview with one vote changing expert on NPR during the recount of the recounts in FL. He said let me into a room full of punched cards to recount the votes and I can make the election come out whatever way you want it to right in front of judges. He said he had done it many times for Democrats involved in recounts of close elections. He knew of Republican counters like himself that were just as good.

Election fraud in some areas is probably rampant. If you look at precinct by precinct tallies in the FL vote for example you can see results like 1818 Gore 10 Bush. That count almost screams fraud to me. If the judges were both Democrats it is not only possible but probable that that is what had happened. The same, no doubt, happens in Republican precincts as well. Electronic voting machines are supposed to cure vote manipulation as blatant as that example appears to be. However, I think that if people can figure out ways to manipulate slot machines they can figure out how to manipulate electronic voting machines during the voting process or by changing the software that does the tabulating after the vote is in the system.

One thing for certain if no one trusts the system then election results will always be in doubt and who won will decided by the election judges or courts reading tea leaves. If that happens it is our own fault. Start of lecture: I am going to be an election judge in 2004. How about you? And check your punch cards before and after you punch them. If you want your vote to count you have to take the responsibility of making sure it is properly excuted. We have seen the results of voters leaving it up to others to figure out what the hell they were thinking from scratches, food stains, and partial punches they left on cards. End of lecture.

There are other little voting tricks similar to the voter roll packing Al Gore was accused of during the 1996 election that can play a part in an election. We have had a proposal in our state to use unclaimed lottery ticket money to buy lottery tickets to give to those who vote. And I swear this is true, you can get more than one ticket on election day. What class of voters do you think getting a lottery ticket would more likely motivate to vote? This smacks of Daley's Chicago to me. It reminds me of ministers paying people to register. It reminds me of party workers giving cigarettes to homeless people in order to get them to vote. All these things are probably not illegal but they are certainly unseemly. It is kind of sickening to think that our elections may be decided by a homeless dude who is voting only because he got a couple of packs of smokes or a free lottery ticket? (Note to nitpickers: I am in no way implying that homeless people should not have a right to vote. I know everyone, including homeless people, who is legally qualified, has a right and in my opinion an obligation to inform themselves about the candidates and issues the best they can and vote however they please.) If the lottery ticket scam is adopted in our state I am going to vote ten times instead of my usual two times. It is easy to do since they voted down asking for picture IDs at the polling place. Racism they say.

Vote manipulation can occur many ways not just by changing totals within a computer or punching some additional holes in a card.

I see someone's been issued their freeper talking-points memo.

Well, I will say this about the Georgia election, if nothing else: Barnes got a lot of people in the state upset (the teacher's union, flag nuts, and others), so I wasn't too surprised when he lost. Of course, Perdue's not really doing any better right now. Man acts like he didn't expect to get elected and is now trying to get it together in order to do something, anything. This is resulting in his offending the exact same groups, plus everyone else annoyed at our newly developed two party system deadlock.

It may depend on who he's up against next election, but I expect him to be a one term governor.

While I'm all for a paper trail (why don't Americans just use pencil and paper ballots, then hand count?), I personally think that exit polls were a bad idea right from the get-go. The 2000 election simply emphasized that. They provided lots of empty, speculative discussion on election day/night, I suppose, but really, it was terribly pointless, some might even say dangerous.

If they are going to do exit polls, the least they could do is not disclose the results of those polls until the election is over in Hawaii. But if computerized voting machines can be tampered with, then so can an exit poll done in this manner... which would make them useless, anyway.

So they should scrap exit polls and go back to using pencil and paper hand-counted ballots. Just a simple check-box beside your candidate. Let the ballots be the exit poll. How radical is that?

Aw, cripes. I gotta keep a closer eye on the freep distribution calendar.

Will somebody else please deal with that pile of manure? It's hot muggy summer here, I'm dealing with a major sinus infection, and the barometric pressure keeps changing. I am not in a temperate mood.

Graydon,

I'm more than willing to do my part. I unfortuneately, won't be able to volenteer at my local polling place for the election as I'll be in Grad School and voting by absentee ballot. But I have been doing everything else that the system allows: emailing my reps, joining protests, sending letters. I talk to people all the time, trying to get a diologue going but other than my close friends, who are in agreement no one wants to put forth any effort. I hear from people all the time, "Sure it's bad but what can ya do?"

Complacency has become pandemic amongst Americans. We feel we are entitled to freedom but unwilling to work to ensure that we have it.

I don't mean to rant and rave, I'm just becoming increasingly worried that even those of us willing to work for change are fighting a loosing battle because we're working inside of a system that is corupted beyond the point of no return.

Keith --

I don't think you're raving. I think you're being disturbingly temperate.

The freep steaming heap is an assertion that fair elections are difficult to hold. This is obvious nonsense, since there are plenty of places which manage fair elections without difficulty or huge expense.

The "Olympics?" plebiscite in Vancouver cost about 5 CDN per vote cast; it used the regular municipal election machinery (optical tallying machines, paper ballots, really diverse scrutinizers) and reported results at the close of the polls.

One of the things I think US politics could benefit from noticing is that if the electoral mechanisms aren't fair, it's becuase there's an effective consensus that they shouldn't be.

You can boycott; you can hand out flyers by the Jesus-load, giving a list of facts and address to complain to; you can get heavily involved in organizing effective protests. A single "don't buy anything" month would definately get the attention of the various governmental entities.

First off Dennis, some sourcing on some of your stuff. Concerning the radio report on punchcard ballot fraud, I have just spent some time hitting the NPR audio archive that goes back to 1996. Summaries aren't perfect, but there isn't a story similar to what you describe in the archive, and it covers everything on ATC, ME, and Talk of the Nation for the past seven years. Could it be CSPAN or a local station?

And the comment on 1996 and Al Gore. Are you referring to the now well documented butterfly ballot issues in that election or something else?

I'm glad to see this story is finally catching on, as it has been circulating in conspiracy circles since 2000. This only touches on the problems.

I wrote to my Congressman about this. There is a bill in the House right now that would require states to use machines that produce a verifiable paper trail. See, that's the main problem with the Diebold machines and others - they don't. You punch a button. There is no way to verify that the button you pushed in the vote that was recorded. No way. If the election is close, there is no way to recount those votes. End of story. So I wrote to my congressman asking him to please support this bill that's in the house. He said he had read the bill and couldn't support it because there were no measures to provide Federal money to make sure states use the verifiable machines. Translated - we can't afford fair and free elections, so we'll just pretend. Anyway, if he had read the bill, he would see that it does in fact take that into account and provides for the states to use other election tallying systems until they can replace their crappy electronic ones.

He is, by the way, a Democrat.

Dennis Slater does make one good point - this country's history is rife with election fraud. Now we have machines that allow people to game the system invisibly. No way to catch them, unless you catch them with their fingers on the keypad changing vote totals.

What Dennis misses is that the three major electronic voting machine makers all have ties to the Taliban wing of the Republican party. Including Diebold. Giving out cigs to homeless people in Chicago just doesn't compare with having an evangelist writing the computer code that counts the votes.

As for the bartcop page, I believe he corrected that Illinois governor result on his main page the day after he posted that, but apparently forgot to correct it on the linked page.

I can't volunteer at the polls: we don't have them, Oregon is on the all-mail-only ballot system.

I heard an interview with one vote changing expert on NPR during the recount of the recounts in FL.... He said he had done it many times for Democrats involved in recounts of close elections.

I have a rule: When someone publicly confesses to a felony for which he has not already been tried and convicted, he is invariably lying.

James, I bow to your epistomological superiority -- can I quote you? (That riteria would nicely handle an agument I am having with a friend . . .)

When you can get your brother's favorite gal to strike 58,000 voters from the records, who needs to tamper with voting machines?

But I certainly think trusting electronic voting machines is silly. If you'd like to support Rush Holt's legislation to change that, go to http://capwiz.com/voice4change/issues/alert/?alertid=2295036

James, I was never tried and convicted of the felony (or felonies, depending how you count) I committed in Georgia while attending ConFederation. And I'm not lying.

Of course, that law's been overturned...after being repealed.

Just a quick sweep, since I've gotta go meet some people soon.

Dennis: The networks were totally embarassed by their 2000 track record at calling the calling 2000 election and do not want a repeat of that fiasco.

Could you provide some details? The only major embarassment along these lines I can recall was when the networks called Florida for Gore, and since it was eventually shown that more Floridians had pulled the lever/marked the box/pucnhed the chad for Gore than for Bush, that's still an embarassment, but not for the networks.

Watching the hearings in FL was like attending a seminar on how to throw elections. And some other methods I learned elsewhere at about that time weren't covered in court. Punch cards are extremely easy to manipulate before or after someone votes.

I'll agree here. Punch cards are an invitation to trouble.

I heard an interview with one vote changing expert on NPR during the recount of the recounts in FL.

A couple of other posters have already adressed this claim.

If you look at precinct by precinct tallies in the FL vote for example you can see results like 1818 Gore 10 Bush.

Care to name the counties in which such precincts can be found?

There are other little voting tricks similar to the voter roll packing Al Gore was accused of during the 1996 election that can play a part in an election.

Again, a citation? I'm already familiar with the tricks like Jeb pulled in 2000 and 2002, stripping thousands of Floridians of their right to vote by shoddily manipulating a list of supposed felons. Is that the sort of thing you mean?

Avarm:

The only major embarassment along these lines I can recall was when the networks called Florida for Gore,

Isn't that is enough? It had a pretty big impact on the election. If you lived in the western US and turned off your TV at that point the chances of you going out to vote were zero. If Gore won FL the election was over. This is a pretty good article that describes the problems the networks were having. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/mar2001/med1-m14.shtml I usually do not recommend stories from the World Socialist Website but this one seems to be more or less free from bias. Another interesting thing about the news coverage that night was that the networks called Gore states within minutes after the polls closed in a state even though the vote was extremely close and waited to call Bush states for 20 minutes or more and in one case waited 1.5 hours in a state that he won by more that 5% of the vote. This gave the impression that Gore was winning big and that network technique, intended or not, could have significantly influenced voter turn-out in the west.

Care to name the counties in which such precincts can be found?

Sure, here are the counties, some example precincts, with links to the data.

Palm Beach County.

http://www.pbcelections.org/ElectionResults/2000/GEN/PCT0001.HTM Look at precincts 066,160, 168, 222, and 223.

Broward County.

http://www.sbgo.com/Papers/Election/Broward%20Precinct%20Level%20Data.xls Look at precincts 10A, 6C 17D, 27M, 70R and 28-37Z. I was recalling figures from memory and I can't recall exactly where I saw a total like 1800/10 but there is one like that because it burned into my memory but not into my bulging favorites list. There are probably similar outcomes in Bush strongholds if you look for them.

Votes are bought and sold all the time in our country. There are some disgusting examples of it. If we are worried about the accuracy and security of voting machines we should also we worried when this type of raw politics that goes on to essentially buy votes. A couple of examples: There was a conservative Republican precinct in Hillary's election that voted 1359 to 10 for her in the Senate race. Her husband shortened the sentences of 3 of 4 men from that community against the recommendation of his own Justice Department on his infamous last day in office. htmhttp://www.nationalreview.com/george/george012501.shtml
Her husband also offered clemency to 14 FALN terrorists from NYC prior to the election that was a purely political move made to help his wife in her NY Senate race. http://www.jonathanpollard.org/1999/092199. This is old stuff and I don't mean to pick on the former president because I know we can dredge up plenty of examples of Republicans doing the same thing. It is a problem with the system not with particular individuals or particular parties.

Gore's push to get more immigrants added to the voter roles:

It is referenced here: http://www.migrationint.com.au/ruralnews/finland/oct_1996-14rmn.asp There were a lot of other articles concerning this program at the time and there were the usual calls for congressional hearings. I do not know if they were ever held. I recall the INS put pressure on local offices to forgo FBI background checks on applicants to speed up the process and Gore was pressuring the INS. Both political parties must have smart people who sit around all day and do nothing but think up things like this to do to give them a little extra edge. Then everyone is supposed to act 'outraged' at the 'stunning' 'massive' effort someone makes to swing a couple extra votes their way.

tricks like Jeb pulled in 2000 and 2002, stripping thousands of Floridians of their right to vote

I think these are the facts. As required by FL law, the FL State Department provided the basic list of purged voter candidates, which was provided to them by a firm called DBT, to each county election supervisor prior to the election. Under FL law it was the supervisor's responsibility to insure that the list was correct. Either DBT did terrible job of screening the names on the list or it was a case of garbage in garbage out - they may have had very poor and incomplete data to begin with that they had gotten from a variety of sources. Prior to DBT, there was a small company was doing this job on a shoe string. There is no question there was a problem with DBT getting good clean data to work with in the first place. Then, on top of that, the county election supervisors did a terrible job of checking the list, riddled with errors, that DBT gave them. So if most felons or former felons in FL usually vote Democratic as the Democrats claim, it hurt the Democrats the most. Sure, it was partially Harris's fault, she was the one responsible for the process up until the point in the process where the county election supervisors assumed responsibility. Since she was an elected official (in our state the Sec of State works with the Gov not for her) I do not know if you could say Bush was her boss or not but for the sake of argument we can assign him blame as well. A controversial election will expose all the warts in any election process. I understand a lot of people investigated this matter. It has been 3 years now, have Bush and Harris or anyone else been charged with election fraud yet?

Hey, I remember the peculiar number cropping up. 18181, I believe it was. It showed up for both Democrats and Republicans, a lot more often than you would intuitively expect. People talked about it, and there are 380 pages in Google, some of them seeming to be official vote tallies.

Looked more like a software bug to me, though, than a thumb on the scales.

There is a bill in the House right now that would require states to use machines that produce a verifiable paper trail.

If the Diebold machines do not a verification system what good are they? It seems to me if my online bank has figured out a way to be electronically comfortable with who I say I am then a electronic voting machine company should be able to figure out some kind of system that does the same thing. I will go look up that bill and give my congersman a hollar too. Sounds like a good idea. Did you talk to the congressman or one of his interns?

is that the three major electronic voting machine makers all have ties to the Taliban wing of the Republican party. Including Diebold

Would you be more comfortable if Diebold had ties to the ____________ (fill in a name - I do not want to offend any one of the nine candidates) wing of the Democratic Party instead? I will be looking for those Republican Taliban on the floor of the Republican convention. Will they be wearing traditional headgear and executing non-believers? Where did you find that information about the voting machine makers' political affiliations?

I understand a lot of people investigated this matter. It has been 3 years now, have Bush and Harris or anyone else been charged with election fraud yet?

Greg Palast has done the most work on this and pretty much has the case nailed shut. It's been ignored by the media. Until the media hammers it, you are not going to see a strong enough push in either the legislative or judicial branches of Florida government to open a case against them. But the media was ready to move on the day after the election.

I talked to the congressman. He is one of the few who actually answers my questions and addresses my concerns. We sometimes disagree on things, sometimes we agree. But he always responds. I just got an email from him today about something else.

I would prefer that the manufacturers of voting machines not have political affiliations at all. That is unrealistic, so it would be nice if there were a balance. Scroll to the bottom of http://www.bartcop.com/diebold.htm and see who the officers of Diebold donate money to.

Then of course there is this:
"One underlying issue is whether Hagel (R-Nebraska) properly disclosed his financial ties to Election Systems & Software (ES&S), a company that makes nearly half the voting machines used in the United States, including all those used in his native Nebraska." "Hagel, who was reelected last November by a lopsided majority, declined to comment on the ethics filing matter." This is from http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx

Oh, and by the way, one of ES&S's largest owners is Omaha World-Herald Company, decribed in the previous link as ultra-conservative.

Maybe these are nebulous links. Over there are some more. And more over there. In Texas, in Florida, in Georgia, in Tennessee, in Nebraska. Spread out, it looks like clouds of coincidence. But rake it all together and it looks like shit, smells like shit.

Maybe I am an alarmist. Maybe they aren't the Taliban wing. Maybe they are just the Saudi princes. In any case, they won't be executing non-believers until after the election. Patriot Act II provides for that, you know.

Xopher:

Of course, that law's been overturned...after being repealed.

Did you go on the radio in Georgia while the law was still on the books to announce that you'd committed a felony?

Dennis:

Would you be more comfortable if Diebold had ties to the ____________ (fill in a name - I do not want to offend any one of the nine candidates) wing of the Democratic Party instead?

No. I would prefer that the companies that make voting machines not be owned or influenced by parties or politicians of any stripe.

Regardless of letting men out of prison on the day before an election, or offering others cigarettes to go to the polling place, once the individual is alone in the booth, they can still do what they please. (This is one of Murphy's Laws: Under the most rigorously controlled conditions ... the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

On the other hand, if the machines are rigged so that it doesn't matter what the voter does, that's a whole new level of fraud, and that's a place I don't want to see us going.

It isn't enough to avoid impropriety. What's required is to avoid so much as the appearance of impropriety. Open source, with an ironclad auditable paper trail is the only acceptable standard.

BTW, if you want to get into tinfoilhat conspiracy theory, Theresa Lepore, the lady who designed the infamous butterfly ballot had a previous job. She was a stewardess on the private plane owned by Saudi weapons dealer Adnan Khashoggi. Adnan Kashoggi was a middleman in the Reagan-engineered illegal arms sales to Iran. (Cue Twilight Zone theme.)

Dennis Slater wrote:

"Would you be more comfortable if Diebold had ties to the ____________ (fill in a name - I do not want to offend any one of the nine candidates) wing of the Democratic Party instead?"
-----

My gut response is "Yes!" given that the current crop of big-name Dems seem to be somewhat less capable of successfully running a large-scale scam. That's not exactly complimentary toward either side, but hey-- if someone asks me who I'd prefer to have running my world's Dark and Sinister Conspiracies, I'll vote "halfwits" every time.

My more serious response is: Dennis, why is it that your stock response to a "Republicans did something bad" statement from someone around here is almost inevitably "The Democrats did that, too" or "Would you like it better if the Democrats did it instead?" Most of us are usually quite aware of the former and the latter isn't an argument, it's a particularly half-assed evasion.

-----
"There was a conservative Republican precinct in Hillary's election that voted 1359 to 10 for her in the Senate race."
-----

Well, um... I don't know what to say beyond, "I guess it wasn't a very conservative Republican precinct, then, was it?" Seriously, what the hell's a "conservative Republican precinct?" Voting precincts aren't rocket science. People have a distressing tendency to move around, change their minds, or die. Is it possible that the voters in that precinct found the alternatives to Hilary distasteful enough to grudgingly support her? Heck, man, even Andrew Sullivan is actively shopping for an alternative to Bush in '04. Voting habits sometimes shift even when populations don't.

-----
"I will be looking for those Republican Taliban on the floor of the Republican convention. Will they be wearing traditional headgear and executing non-believers?"
-----

I don't like that ridiculous aphorism either. It trivializes the real Taliban's crimes against humanity just as it obscures the real character of the GOP's religious conservatives behind a cheap slogan. It's like "smoking Nazi" and "software pirate" (real Nazis killed millions, real pirates hijacked ships, killed their crews, and raided towns)-- phrases that grotesquely trivialize the true horror of their allusions.

I see someone's been issued their freeper talking-points memo.

Yes, i got mine this afternoon. It is printed on the back of the DLC talking points memo that you got this morning.

There was a conservative Republican precinct in Hillary's election that voted 1359 to 10 for her in the Senate race. Her husband shortened the sentences of 3 of 4 men from that community against the recommendation of his own Justice Department on his infamous last day in office.

You're talking about New Square, a Hassidic village. Ultra-Orthodox communities generally vote as blocks, so that 1359-to-10 result isn't all that unusual. I heard a man from New Square talking about this on the radio last year (or maybe the year before), and he said that New Square almost always votes for incumbent, or the party of the outgoing office-holder, which in this case, in that race, was the Democratic Party, and therefore Hillary. Not that it should surprise anyone that a Jewish community in the NYC area would vote Democratic.

And Dennis, I notice that your source article for the New Square story also repeats the lie about the Clinton staff trashing the White House.

Dennis Slater wrote:

>If you lived in the western US and turned off your
>TV at that point the chances of you going out to
>vote were zero. If Gore won FL the election was
>over.

I do not think that word "zero" means what you think it means. I do not think that the election could have reasonably been considered over if Gore won Florida. I do not know of any evidence that election predictions purporting to decide a race discourage turnout among the 'losing' candidate's party over the winner's, although IIRC there have been studies showing that it depresses voter turnout among both parties about equally. I am not aware that there were any states in 2000 which had only one contested election.

Is there any circumstance, I wonder, in which you would consider the ratio of fallacies to sentences in your posts to be unacceptably high?

Steve:

I do not think that the election could have reasonably been considered over if Gore won Florida. If you reviewed the states called for Gore up until that point and add in California I think it would have been safe to say that Gore had the election won at that point.

although IIRC there have been studies showing that it depresses voter turnout among both parties about equally. I did not say it depressed one party's vote versus another's.

I do not think that word "zero" means what you think it means Tell me what I think it means.

I am not aware that there were any states in 2000 which had only one contested election.
I am not sure what elections you are talking about or what you actually mean by this statement.

Is there any circumstance, I wonder, in which you would consider the ratio of fallacies to sentences in your posts to be unacceptably high? Fallacies? I am not aware of any fallacies.

Avram: That is a terrible article. I should have looked for something better about the matter. I wanted to document the vote numbers. Try this http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/01/28/wclin128.xml&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=120859. Hasidic Jews normally vote Republican. Two nearby precincts on primarily Hasidic Jews voted Republican in the same election.

Scott:

I don't like that ridiculous aphorism either.Talk to Jeff, he brought it up first to get in a dig at Republicans with deep held religious beliefs for some reason. I was just doing a little light mocking of what he said. You are right Taliban are certainly the epitome of evil. Bush was 100% correct at removing them from power in Afghanistan.

why is it that your stock response I tried my best in my post to be as balanced as everyone else is by saying that Republicans are guilty of the same sort of thing. They are. I didn't want to upset the over-sensitive readers who thought I might be only bashing the poor helpless Democrats.

Is it possible that the voters in that precinct found the alternatives to Hilary distasteful enough to grudgingly support her No. See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/01/28/wclin128.xml&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=120859 The surrounding Hasidic precinct voted Republican. This one did too in 1998. I guess maybe Hillary's ads touched their hearts?

James:

No. I would prefer that the companies that make voting machines not be owned or influenced by parties or politicians of any stripe. I agree. A rock solid verification system that Jeff suggests would guard against hanky-panky because as a cynic I know we will never have a politically pure system. Without verification the integrity of our elections will always be in question. The losers will always cry foul and will try to remove the mantle of electoral legitimacy from the winner if the system isn't secure.

Theresa Lepore, the lady who designed the infamous butterfly ballot had a previous job [in a heavy German accent] Ferrry Interrresssttting. [end of accent] I have a hard time imagining her as a stewardess. Stewardesses are trained to be poised and self-confident. Ms Lapore was anything but that as unfair criticism rained down on her from all sides. She made a mistake and paid for it dearly. She probably thanks God everynight that she was not a Republican.

Jeff:

Scroll to the bottom of http://www.bartcop.com/diebold.htm and see who the officers of Diebold donate money to If I were a lawyer employed by Diebold I would recommend to top management that they sue this individual for libel. They probably won't because Otter is a small rabid fish in a samll stagnant and polluted pond. It is not against the law to be a conservative, an ultra conservative, or a right wing whack job. Nor is it against the law donate to the party of your choice. Otter makes the grassy knoll and black helicopter people look normal. From my reading of the article it sounds like instead of connecting the dots Otter is trying to connect invisible dots. He is lucky that the subpoena bearing people aren't knoclomg at his door as we write.

Palast quickly bypasses any discussion of the role that election supervisors play in the elections in FL. Probably because it does not fit in with his agenda. Election supervisors in FL are elected. They do not work for the Sec of State. The Sec of State's role in the election is to set basic guidelines and certify the election. The Sec of State does not micromanage the elections at the county level. The county supervisors have a lot of power. Palast ignores all that and seems to quickly pass over their responsibilities in general and with the certification of the voter rolls. Palast wants to get into placing the blame on Harris and Bush. At least in the article I read. Perhaps no other media did not get into this story because it was just simple story of government incompetence. That isn't news.

Teresa: Please ... have a nice day. You can be sooooo funny.

"I do not think that word "zero" means what you think it means Tell me what I think it means."

one time I went into a candy store with a friend, he said: "I want to buy some candy", the salesperson asked "what kind" he replied "you decide".

You evidently think that zero means the value of the outcome of x in the case that the person deciding upon doing x is most likely to think that the effect of doing x has been nullified by others doing y and as a consequence decides not to do x.

She [Theresa Lepore] probably thanks God everynight that she was not a Republican.

Lepore, of course, was a Republican. She then became an independent sometime in the '80's, and only became a Democrat in 1996, when she decided to run for the job of election supervisor in a heavily Democratic county. After the 2000 election she re-registered as a Democrat. The notion that she somehow "paid heavily" for designing a ballot that increased by sixfold the number of invalid overvotes is partisan spin, as is the notion that she had any perceptible loyalty to the Democratic party which might have made suspicions of bad faith on her part implausible.

Dennis: The surrounding Hasidic precinct voted Republican. This one did too in 1998.

Could you back up that claim with some specifics? The article you link to doesn't say anything about who the village voted for in '98. What race are you talking about, and does this contradict the claim I mentioned earlier, that the village tends to vote for the incumbent?

And I notice you seem to have drifted a bit from various forms of vote fraud and election-tampering to the more common practice of getting people to vote for you by using the power of your office to do things they want. Does the latter practice strike you as being as bad as the former?

You are right Taliban are certainly the epitome of evil. Bush was 100% correct at removing them from power in Afghanistan.

I'm not 100% sure they're the epitome of evil, but they're certainly playing in the big leagues. There's some tough competition.

I think that most folks here agree that the US was justified in its war in Afghanistan, and I think you'll find that we enjoyed wide-spread world approval and support for our actions there. In addition to local fighters, we had ground troops from Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Italy,Turkey, Australia, and New Zealand, and the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force.

Yeah, those cowardly villains France and Germany sent troops. Those traitorous, backstabbing Frenchmen and Germans. The ones George W. at the time called "close friends."

Our actions since then have been less impressive. Fighting continues, the warlords have returned, the opium harvest is the best it's been in years, the Taliban are still there, and the rebuilding effort is not giving any comfort to people who are looking at how the rebuilding of Iraq will go.

Dubya allowed himself to get distracted by his grudge against Saddam from his real task of fighting terrorists. As a result, we've lost the international support we once enjoyed, Osama is still on the loose and apparently planning new and bigger attacks, and the Taliban are returning in Afghanistan.

We have distressed our friends, delighted our enemies, broken our alliances, squandered our moral leadership, and failed our objectives.

Smooth move, Georgie.

One suspects someone upthread is a mite confused about what the "DLC" is.

'Dose Lovable Conservatives?

Actually, he was probably making a joke about how conservative the DLC is.

Bush was 100% correct at removing them from power in Afghanistan.

What? Bush helped the Taliban into power in Afghanistan... oh, wait, you meant SonBush. Yes, he's sort of reverted Afghanistan to the state of chaos which his daddy left it in back in 1989. That state of chaos eventually led to the establishment of the Taliban. As the Taliban are now coming back into Afghanistan from the US ally Pakistan, I suspect that the end result for SonBush will be much the same as it was for BushOne.

James,
As a result, we've lost the international support we once enjoyed, Osama is still on the loose and apparently planning new and bigger attacks, and the Taliban are returning in Afghanistan.

We have distressed our friends, delighted our enemies, broken our alliances, squandered our moral leadership, and failed our objectives.

I gotta tell you (and as far as my admittedly meager knowledge of foreign affairs goes), beyond lip service from diplomats, I've never seen any examples of precisely what international support we supposedly enjoyed before Bush took office. I mean beyond partying—actually what efforts or initiatives our allies took to help us out.

Also, IMHO, if the despots of Syria and Iran are delighted these days, they sure have a funny way of showing it.

I was impressed by this article, however. And from the emails coming from the actual soldiers to various blogs, I think the Iraqis are pretty happy.

Me: Of course, that law's been overturned...after being repealed.

James: Did you go on the radio in Georgia while the law was still on the books to announce that you'd committed a felony?

First off, I don't really consider my counterexample relevantly similar. It was a snark on the exact way you put it, with humorous intent (which apparently fell flat; sorry).

But to answer your question, no, I wasn't the sort of person who gets on the radio. I did, however, wear a "Georgia Felon" button, as did hundreds of others. This was right after the Supremes handed down Bowers v. Hardwick, and a lot of us were feeling guilty going to Georgia at all.

I gotta tell you (and as far as my admittedly meager knowledge of foreign affairs

No kidding.

goes), beyond lip service from diplomats, I’ve never seen any examples of precisely what international support we supposedly enjoyed before Bush took office. I mean beyond partying — actually what efforts or initiatives our allies took to help us out.

Did you even read the post you were quoting? Canada, Germany, France, Australia, the Netherlands, and Turkey, as well as Britain — and probably others I’m forgetting — all sent troops to Afghanistan. How many of those are in Iraq?

Also, IMHO, if the despots of Syria and Iran are delighted these days, they sure have a funny way of showing it.

Get your facts straight. Iran doesn’t have a despot. Iran has a democratically elected president fighting against a reactionary judiciary and security apparatus.

David,

Er, I said before Bush took office, not before 9/11. Please take the trouble to read carefully.

Iran doesn92t have a despot. Iran has a democratically elected president fighting against a reactionary judiciary and security apparatus.

Thanks for the link to persia.org. It certainly reassures me....

John, the invasion of Afghanistan wasn't before 9/11 either, was it?

Anyway, how the original Gulf War? According to CNN, non-US coalition troops made up about a quarter of the forces there. Other countries also provided money and material aid.

Before Bush took office:
Let's not forget that during the 2000 campaign when Bush was complaining that Europe should send troops to aid the US peacekeeping mission, most of the troops still on that mission were European.

Returning to our regularly scheduled topic of election fraud and the surrounding issues.

Uncharacteristically, I took the time and trouble to download the report of the California Task Force on Electronic Voting and submit my comment to the state secretary of state (this will only be even conceivably helpful if we still _have_ a state government in three months, of course).

My favorite line is "While the commission disagreed about the risk of inserting malicious code, the computer scientists on the commission felt that the risk was high."

My underlying concern was that the report went into some detail about background checks and protections guarding against programmers and designers with malicious agendas, and NEVER MENTIONED, let alone recommended, any controls on ownership of voting machine companies.

Bay Area resident and acquaintance of many on this blog, Doug Faunt, has been a polling place supervisor for over a decade. He voiced a polite concern about our new touch-screen, no-paper-record technology at a meeting before the last election, and was not asked to resume his regular duties thereafter.

Finally, I much agree with Patrick that it isn't so much the specifics of electronic balloting but the underlying concerns. I have a deep belief in the resilience of our system and its ability to get around horrifying periods of corruption, but if reasonably free and reasonably fair elections are undermined, then I have no trouble visualizing the path from here to rampant dictatorship.

Which is why I wrote to the CA secretary of state.

If you lived in the western US and turned off your TV at that point the chances of you going out to vote were zero.

Zero? Not just lowered, but actually zero?

Jimmy Carter, you may recall, actually conceded in 1980 before the polls had closed in the western states. That put a much bigger damper on voting than the networks calling Florida for Gore (which did not end the possibility of Bush pulling off enough other open states to win), and indeed, several western Democratic congressional losses in 1980 were attributed to the effects of Carter's concession. But zero voters after that point ... no.

The 2000 election night off-again on-again Florida fuss actually benefited Bush more. During the period it was called for Gore, other states were open. Gore was never actually called the winner of the whole election. But when it was later called for Bush, he was declared the winner of the election, which created a presumption that even the second reveral of the Florida call could not take away.

In other news, electronic voting without a paper trail is certifiably nuts. Even ATMs give you a paper trail.

Nor is it against the law donate to the party of your choice.

Nor is it against the law to publish who receives how much money from whom. It is public domain.

Defensive as you are about this, doesn't it concern you in the least that the officers (I won't say all, because I don't know that it is all of them, but it certainly looks that way) of a company that produces electronic voting machines that cannot be audited donate to the Republican party in what appears to be a block?

Anybody who gives up and doesn't vote because they think their candidate has lost, based on what they see on TV, is too shallow to feel sorry for. After all, there's still the point spread to consider.

Anyone care to sugguest a beneign motivation for producting a voting machine that doesn't have an ironclad audit trail?

I can't think of one. There are always close elections that require a review of the vote count; anyone who has the least familiarity with elections knows this.

It's also something that should be understood in light of the Republican Party's changed policies concerning donations; they have gone from accepting contributions from anyone, in the traditional American manner, to refusing to accept donations from anyone who also donates to the Democratic party, along with making public comments about an objective of permanently marginalizing every other political party.

People who actually believe in and value representative democracy don't do that; that's breaking the system, quite deliberately, rather than working within it. It's difficult to imagine how it could possibly be anything but a plan to take irrevocable political control.

Anyone care to sugguest a benign motivation for producting a voting machine that doesn't have an ironclad audit trail?

Because, [cue Evil Overlord voice] "Nothing Could Possibly Go Wrong!"

People who are really interested in nothing going wrong want -- as I'm sure you're aware -- to be able to prove it to their mother-in-law and their third grade teacher, never mind your typical skeptical audience.

eg, the suite of tests that comes with subversion; it takes longer to run than subversion does to compile, and that's just for a version control system. Someone serious about their voting software would publish the spec and offer large cash prizes for breaking it.

It looks a dreadful lot like "going wrong" has been defined as "our candidate doesn't get elected".

Please excuse slip of the middle mouse button in midst of name. (Default Zope password. Mutter.)

they have gone from accepting contributions from anyone, in the traditional American manner, to refusing to accept donations from anyone who also donates to the Democratic party

Could I get a link to that policy please? Thanks.

Anybody who gives up and doesn't vote because they think their candidate has lost, based on what they see on TV, is too shallow to feel sorry for. After all, there's still the point spread to consider.

Sure, someone is going to stand in line 2 hours outside in the heat (I live in Arizona) to vote either in a lost cause or a blow out. In your dreams. It would be like standing in line for a sold out movie that you knew was sold out as far as I am concerned. Rather than calling someone shallow for doing that I would call them stupid. I am partisan as they come and I won't do it so hang the shallow tag on me (for that).

Fine, Dennis. Don't vote.

I suspect that someone as ignorant of the practices of his home team as Dennis shouldn't vote.

I strongly suspect that "refusing to accept donations from anyone who also donates to the Democratic party" refers to the Gingrich-Norquist-DeLay "K Street Project", in which Republicans in Congress refuse to deal with lobbyists who also talk to the Democrats. That's documented here and has been known for years.

The chief purpose of these gatherings is to discuss jobs--specifically, the top one or two positions at the biggest and most important industry trade associations and corporate offices centered around Washington's K Street, a canyon of nondescript office buildings a few blocks north of the White House that is to influence-peddling what Wall Street is to finance. In the past, those people were about as likely to be Democrats as Republicans, a practice that ensured K Street firms would have clout no matter which party was in power. But beginning with the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, and accelerating in 2001, when George W. Bush became president, the GOP has made a determined effort to undermine the bipartisan complexion of K Street.

Dennis, if no one’s voting, how can the lines be two hours long?

Dennis - here's a Washington Monthly article discussing that very policy.

And yes, that's not quite the same thing as asking some guy trying to write you a hundred dollar cheque about his party affiliation. It's still very clearly a policy designed to tie political marginalization to economic marginalization and to make it clear that regulatory survival requires contributions to the Republican Party.

Structural damage to the Amercian political system, in other words, done by mechanisms more or less completely independent of the elected representatives of the American people.

Since we observe this particular cabal to be all for that, it makes a willingness to commit the more extensive structural damage involved in emplacing mechanisms for undetectable vote fraud entirely plausible.

Dennis, if no one’s voting, how can the lines be two hours long?

"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

Fine, Dennis. Some day you'll make a joke, and I'll be sure and treat it the same way you treated mine.

I generally vote in the morning, on my way to work. It's cooler then, too. If I had to vote in the evening, I would anyway. There've been lots of elections in Virginia that were a lost cause for me, and I still voted in them.