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Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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Friday, September 22, 2006 5:28 AM

FUTUREMRSFILLION


I submit this for your reading pleasure.





Will the Next Election Be Hacked?
By Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Rolling Stone

Thursday 05 October 2006 Issue

Fresh disasters at the polls - and new evidence from an industry insider - prove that electronic voting machines can't be trusted.

Read Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" in the June 15th, 2006, issue of "Rolling Stone," his investigation into how Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted - enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.
The debacle of the 2000 presidential election made it all too apparent to most Americans that our electoral system is broken. And private-sector entrepreneurs were quick to offer a fix: Touch-screen voting machines, promised the industry and its lobbyists, would make voting as easy and reliable as withdrawing cash from an ATM. Congress, always ready with funds for needy industries, swiftly authorized $3.9 billion to upgrade the nation's election systems - with much of the money devoted to installing electronic voting machines in each of America's 180,000 precincts. But as midterm elections approach this November, electronic voting machines are making things worse instead of better. Studies have demonstrated that hackers can easily rig the technology to fix an election - and across the country this year, faulty equipment and lax security have repeatedly undermined election primaries. In Tarrant County, Texas, electronic machines counted some ballots as many as six times, recording 100,000 more votes than were actually cast. In San Diego, poll workers took machines home for unsupervised "sleepovers" before the vote, leaving the equipment vulnerable to tampering. And in Ohio - where, as I recently reported in "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" [RS 1002], dirty tricks may have cost John Kerry the presidency - a government report uncovered large and unexplained discrepancies in vote totals recorded by machines in Cuyahoga County.

Even worse, many electronic machines don't produce a paper record that can be recounted when equipment malfunctions - an omission that practically invites malicious tampering. "Every board of election has staff members with the technological ability to fix an election," Ion Sancho, an election supervisor in Leon County, Florida, told me. "Even one corrupt staffer can throw an election. Without paper records, it could happen under my nose and there is no way I'd ever find out about it. With a few key people in the right places, it would be possible to throw a presidential election."

Chris Hood remembers the day in August 2002 that he began to question what was really going on in Georgia. An African-American whose parents fought for voting rights in the South during the 1960s, Hood was proud to be working as a consultant for Diebold Election Systems, helping the company promote its new electronic voting machines. During the presidential election two years earlier, more than 94,000 paper ballots had gone uncounted in Georgia - almost double the national average - and Secretary of State Cathy Cox was under pressure to make sure every vote was recorded properly.

Hood had been present in May 2002, when officials with Cox's office signed a contract with Diebold - paying the company a record $54 million to install 19,000 electronic voting machines across the state. At a restaurant inside Atlanta's Marriott Hotel, he noticed the firm's CEO, Walden O'Dell, checking Diebold's stock price on a laptop computer every five minutes, waiting for a bounce from the announcement.

Hood wondered why Diebold, the world's third-largest seller of ATMs, had been awarded the contract. The company had barely completed its acquisition of Global Election Systems, a voting-machine firm that owned the technology Diebold was promising to sell Georgia. And its bid was the highest among nine competing vendors. Whispers within the company hinted that a fix was in.

"The Diebold executives had a news conference planned on the day of the award," Hood recalls, "and we were instructed to stay in our hotel rooms until just hours before the announcement. They didn't want the competitors to know and possibly file a protest" about the lack of a fair bidding process. It certainly didn't hurt that Diebold had political clout: Cox's predecessor as secretary of state, Lewis Massey, was now a lobbyist for the company.

The problem was, Diebold had only five months to install the new machines - a "very narrow window of time to do such a big deployment," Hood notes. The old systems stored in warehouses had to be replaced with new equipment; dozens of state officials and poll workers had to be trained in how to use the touch-screen machines. "It was pretty much an impossible task," Hood recalls. There was only one way, he adds, that the job could be done in time - if "the vendor had control over the entire environment." That is precisely what happened. In late July, to speed deployment of the new machines, Cox quietly signed an agreement with Diebold that effectively privatized Georgia's entire electoral system. The company was authorized to put together ballots, program machines and train poll workers across the state - all without any official supervision. "We ran the election," says Hood. "We had 356 people that Diebold brought into the state. Diebold opened and closed the polls and tabulated the votes. Diebold convinced Cox that it would be best if the company ran everything due to the time constraints, and in the interest of a trouble-free election, she let us do it."

Then, one muggy day in mid-August, Hood was surprised to see the president of Diebold's election unit, Bob Urosevich, arrive in Georgia from his headquarters in Texas. With the primaries looming, Urosevich was personally distributing a "patch," a little piece of software designed to correct glitches in the computer program. "We were told that it was intended to fix the clock in the system, which it didn't do," Hood says. "The curious thing is the very swift, covert way this was done."

Georgia law mandates that any change made in voting machines be certified by the state. But thanks to Cox's agreement with Diebold, the company was essentially allowed to certify itself. "It was an unauthorized patch, and they were trying to keep it secret from the state," Hood told me. "We were told not to talk to county personnel about it. I received instructions directly from Urosevich. It was very unusual that a president of the company would give an order like that and be involved at that level."

According to Hood, Diebold employees altered software in some 5,000 machines in DeKalb and Fulton counties - the state's largest Democratic strongholds. To avoid detection, Hood and others on his team entered warehouses early in the morning. "We went in at 7:30 a.m. and were out by 11," Hood says. "There was a universal key to unlock the machines, and it's easy to get access. The machines in the warehouses were unlocked. We had control of everything. The state gave us the keys to the castle, so to speak, and they stayed out of our way." Hood personally patched fifty-six machines and witnessed the patch being applied to more than 1,200 others.

The patch comes on a memory card that is inserted into a machine. Eventually, all the memory cards end up on a server that tabulates the votes - where the patch can be programmed to alter the outcome of an election. "There could be a hidden program on a memory card that adjusts everything to the preferred election results," Hood says. "Your program says, 'I want my candidate to stay ahead by three or four percent or whatever.' Those programs can include a built-in delete that erases itself after it's done."

It is impossible to know whether the machines were rigged to alter the election in Georgia: Diebold's machines provided no paper trail, making a recount impossible. But the tally in Georgia that November surprised even the most seasoned political observers. Six days before the vote, polls showed Sen. Max Cleland, a decorated war veteran and Democratic incumbent, leading his Republican opponent Saxby Chambliss - darling of the Christian Coalition - by five percentage points. In the governor's race, Democrat Roy Barnes was running a decisive eleven points ahead of Republican Sonny Perdue. But on Election Day, Chambliss won with fifty-three percent of the vote, and Perdue won with fifty-one percent.

Diebold insists that the patch was installed "with the approval and oversight of the state." But after the election, the Georgia secretary of state's office submitted a "punch list" to Bob Urosevich of "issues and concerns related to the statewide voting system that we would like Diebold to address." One of the items referenced was" Application/Implication of '0808' Patch." The state was seeking confirmation that the patch did not require that the system "be recertified at national and state level" as well as "verifiable analysis of overall impact of patch to the voting system." In a separate letter, Secretary Cox asked Urosevich about Diebold's use of substitute memory cards and defective equipment as well as widespread problems that caused machines to freeze up and improperly record votes. The state threatened to delay further payments to Diebold until "these punch list items will be corrected and completed."

Diebold's response has not been made public - but its machines remain in place for Georgia's election this fall. Hood says it was "common knowledge" within the company that Diebold also illegally installed uncertified software in machines used in the 2004 presidential primaries - a charge the company denies. Disturbed to see the promise of electronic machines subverted by private companies, Hood left the election consulting business and became a whistle-blower. "What I saw," he says, "was basically a corporate takeover of our voting system."

The United States is one of only a handful of major democracies that allow private, partisan companies to secretly count and tabulate votes using their own proprietary software. Today, eighty percent of all the ballots in America are tallied by four companies - Diebold, Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Sequoia Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic. In 2004, 36 million votes were cast on their touch-screen systems, and millions more were recorded by optical-scan machines owned by the same companies that use electronic technology to tabulate paper ballots. The simple fact is, these machines not only break down with regularity, they are easily compromised - by people inside, and outside, the companies.

Three of the four companies have close ties to the Republican Party. ES&S, in an earlier corporate incarnation, was chaired by Chuck Hagel, who in 1996 became the first Republican elected to the U.S. Senate from Nebraska in twenty-four years - winning a close race in which eighty-five percent of the votes were tallied by his former company. Hart InterCivic ranks among its investors GOP loyalist Tom Hicks, who bought the Texas Rangers from George W. Bush in 1998, making Bush a millionaire fifteen times over. And according to campaign-finance records, Diebold, along with its employees and their families, has contributed at least $300,000 to GOP candidates and party funds since 1998 - including more than $200,000 to the Republican National Committee. In a 2003 fund-raising e-mail, the company's then-CEO Walden O'Dell promised to deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush in 2004. That year, Diebold would count the votes in half of Ohio's counties.

The voting-machine companies bear heavy blame for the 2000 presidential-election disaster. Fox News' fateful decision to call Florida for Bush - followed minutes later by CBS and NBC - came after electronic machines in Volusia County erroneously subtracted more than 16,000 votes from Al Gore's total. Later, after an internal investigation, CBS described the mistake as "critical" in the network's decision. Seeing what was an apparent spike for Bush, Gore conceded the election - then reversed his decision after a campaign staffer investigated and discovered that Gore was actually ahead in Volusia by 13,000 votes.

Investigators traced the mistake to Global Election Systems, the firm later acquired by Diebold. Two months after the election, an internal memo from Talbot Iredale, the company's master programmer, blamed the problem on a memory card that had been improperly - and unnecessarily - uploaded. "There is always the possibility," Iredale conceded, "that the 'second memory card' or 'second upload' came from an unauthorized source."

Amid the furor over hanging chads and butterfly ballots in Florida, however, the "faulty memory card" was all but forgotten. Instead of sharing culpability for the Florida catastrophe, voting-machine companies used their political clout to present their product as the solution. In October 2002, President Bush signed the Help America Vote Act, requiring states and counties to upgrade their voting systems with electronic machines and giving vast sums of money to state officials to distribute to the tightknit cabal of largely Republican vendors.

But according to recent e-mails obtained by Rolling Stone, Diebold not only failed to follow up on most of the recommendations, it worked to cover them up. Michael Wertheimer, who led the RABA study, now serves as an assistant deputy director in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "We made numerous recommendations that would have required Diebold to fix these issues," he writes in one e-mail, "but were rebuffed by the argument that the machines were physically protected and could not be altered by someone outside the established chain of custody."

In another e-mail, Wertheimer says that Diebold and state officials worked to downplay his team's dim assessment. "We spent hours dealing with Diebold lobbyists and election officials who sought to minimize our impact," he recalls. "The results were risk-managed in favor of expediency and potential catastrophe."

During the 2004 presidential election, with Diebold machines in place across the state, things began to go wrong from the very start. A month before the vote, an abandoned Diebold machine was discovered in a bar in Baltimore. "What's really worrisome," says Hood, "is that someone could get hold of all the technology - for manipulation - if they knew the inner workings of just one machine."

Election Day was a complete disaster. "Countless numbers of machines were down because of what appeared to be flaws in Diebold's system," says Hood, who was part of a crew of roving technicians charged with making sure that the polls were up and running. "Memory cards overloading, machines freezing up, poll workers afraid to turn them on or off for fear of losing votes."

Then, after the polls closed, Diebold technicians who showed up to collect the memory cards containing the votes found that many were missing. "The machines are gone," one janitor told Hood - picked up, apparently, by the vendor who had delivered them in the first place. "There was major chaos because there were so many cards missing," Hood says. Even before the 2004 election, experts warned that electronic voting machines would undermine the integrity of the vote. "The system we have for testing and certifying voting equipment in this country is not only broken but is virtually nonexistent," Michael Shamos, a distinguished professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, testified before Congress that June. "It must be re-created from scratch."

Two months later, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team - a division of the Department of Homeland Security - issued a little-noticed "cyber-security bulletin." The alert dealt specifically with a database that Diebold uses in tabulating votes. "A vulnerability exists due to an undocumented backdoor account," the alert warned, citing the same kind of weakness identified by the RABA scientists. The security flaw, it added, could allow "a malicious user [to] modify votes."

Such warnings, however, didn't stop states across the country from installing electronic voting machines for the 2004 election. In Ohio, jammed and inoperable machines were reported throughout Toledo. In heavily Democratic areas of Youngstown, nearly 100 voters pushed "Kerry" and watched "Bush" light up. At least twenty machines had to be recalibrated in the middle of the voting process for flipping Kerry votes to Bush. Similar "vote hopping" was reported by voters in other states.

The widespread glitches didn't deter Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell - who also chaired Bush's re-election campaign in Ohio - from cutting a deal in 2005 that would have guaranteed Diebold a virtual monopoly on vote counting in the state. Local election officials alleged that the deal, which came only a few months after Blackwell bought nearly $10,000 in Diebold stock, was a violation of state rules requiring a fair and competitive bidding process. Facing a lawsuit, Blackwell agreed to allow other companies to provide machines as well. This November, voters in forty-seven counties will cast their ballots on Diebold machines - in a pivotal election in which Blackwell is running as the Republican candidate for governor.

Electronic voting machines also caused widespread problems in Florida, where Bush bested Kerry by 381,000 votes. When statistical experts from the University of California examined the state's official tally, they discovered a disturbing pattern: "The data show with 99.0 percent certainty that a county's use of electronic voting is associated with a disproportionate increase in votes for President Bush. Compared to counties with paper ballots, counties with electronic voting machines were significantly more likely to show increases in support for President Bush between 2000 and 2004." The three counties with the most discrepancies - Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade - were also the most heavily Democratic. Electronic voting machines, the report concluded, may have improperly awarded as many as 260,000 votes to Bush. "No matter how many factors and variables we took into consideration, the significant correlation in the votes for President Bush and electronic voting cannot be explained," said Michael Hout, a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Charles Stewart III, an MIT professor who specializes in voter behavior and methodology, was initially skeptical of the study - but was unable to find any flaw in the results. "You can't break it - I've tried," he told The Washington Post. "There's something funky in the results from the electronic-machine Democratic counties."

Questions also arose in Texas in 2004. William Singer, an election programmer in Tarrant County, wrote the secretary of state's office after the vote to report that ES&S pressured officials to install unapproved software during the presidential primaries. "What I was expected to do in order to 'pull off' an election," Singer wrote, "was far beyond the kind of practices that I believe should be standard and accepted in the election industry." The company denies the charge, but in an e-mail this month, Singer elaborated that ES&S employees had pushed local election officials to pressure the secretary of state to accept "a software change at such a last minute there would be no choice, and effectively avoid certification."

Despite such reports, Texas continues to rely on ES&S. In primaries held in Jefferson County earlier this year, electronic votes had to be recounted after error messages prevented workers from completing their tabulations. In April, with early voting in local elections only a week away, officials across the state were still waiting to receive the programming from ES&S needed to test the machines for accuracy. Calling the situation "completely unacceptable and disturbing," Texas director of elections Ann McGeehan authorized local officials to create "emergency paper ballots" as a backup. "We regret the unacceptable position that many political subdivisions are in due to poor performance by their contracted vendor," McGeehan added.

In October 2005, the government Accountability Office issued a damning report on electronic voting machines. Citing widespread irregularities and malfunctions, the government's top watchdog agency concluded that a host of weaknesses with touch-screen and optical-scan technology "could damage the integrity of ballots, votes and voting-system software by allowing unauthorized modifications." Some electronic systems used passwords that were "easily guessed" or employed identical passwords for numerous systems. Software could be handled and transported with no clear chain of custody, and locks protecting computer hardware were easy to pick. Unsecured memory cards could enable individuals to "vote multiple times, change vote totals and produce false election reports."

An even more comprehensive report released in June by the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank at the New York University School of Law, echoed the GAO's findings. The report - conducted by a task force of computer scientists and security experts from the government, universities and the private sector - was peer-reviewed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Electronic voting machines widely adopted since 2000, the report concluded, "pose a real danger to the integrity of national, state and local elections." While no instances of hacking have yet been documented, the report identified 120 security threats to three widely used machines - the easiest method of attack being to utilize corrupt software that shifts votes from one candidate to another. Computer experts have demonstrated that a successful attack would be relatively simple. In a study released on September 13th, computer scientists at Princeton University created vote-stealing software that can be injected into a Diebold machine in as little as a minute, obscuring all evidence of its presence. They also created a virus that can "infect" other units in a voting system, committing "widespread fraud" from a single machine. Within sixty seconds, a lone hacker can own an election.

And touch-screen technology continues to create chaos at the polls. On September 12th, in Maryland's first all-electronic election, voters were turned away from the polls because election officials had failed to distribute the electronic access cards needed to operate Diebold machines. By the time the cards were found on a warehouse shelf and delivered to every precinct, untold numbers of voters had lost the chance to cast ballots. It seems insane that such clear threats to our election system have not stopped the proliferation of touch-screen technology. In 2004, twenty-three percent of Americans cast their votes on electronic ballots - an increase of twelve percent over 2000. This year, more than one-third of the nation's 8,000 voting jurisdictions are expected to use electronic voting technology for the first time.

The heartening news is, citizens are starting to fight back. Voting-rights activists with the Brad Blog and Black Box Voting are getting the word out. Voter Action, a nonprofit group, has helped file lawsuits in Arizona, New York, Pennsylvania, Colorado and New Mexico to stop the proliferation of touch-screen systems. In California, voters filed suit last March to challenge the use of a Diebold touch-screen system - a move that has already prompted eight counties to sign affidavits saying they won't use the machines in November.

It's not surprising that the widespread problems with electronic voting machines have sparked such outrage and mistrust among voters. Last November, comedian Bill Maher stood in a Las Vegas casino and looked out over thousands of slot machines. "They never make a mistake," he remarked to me. "Can't we get a voting machine that can't be fixed?" Indeed, there is a remarkably simple solution: equip every touch-screen machine to provide paper receipts that can be verified by voters and recounted in the event of malfunction or tampering. "The paper is the insurance against the cheating machine," says Rubin, the computer expert.

In Florida, an astonishing new law actually makes it illegal to count paper ballots by hand after they've already been tallied by machine. But twenty-seven states now require a paper trail, and others are considering similar requirements. In New Mexico, Gov. Bill Richardson has instituted what many consider an even better solution: Voters use paper ballots, which are then scanned and counted electronically. "We became one of the laughingstock states in 2004 because the machines were defective, slow and unreliable," says Richardson. "I said to myself, 'I'm not going to go through this again.' The paper-ballot system, as untechnical as it seems, is the most verifiable way we can assure Americans that their vote is counting."

Paper ballots will not completely eliminate the threat of tampering, of course - after all, election fraud and miscounts have occurred throughout our history. As long as there has been a paper trail, however, our elections have been conducted with some measure of public scrutiny. But electronic voting machines are a hacker's dream. And today, for-profit companies are being given unprecedented and frightening power not only to provide these machines but to store and count our votes in secret, without any real oversight.

You do not have to believe in conspiracy theories to fear for the integrity of our electoral system: The right to vote is simply too important - and too hard won - to be surrendered without a fight. It is time for Americans to reclaim our democracy from private interests.




----
Bestower of Titles, Designer of Tshirts, Maker of Mottos, Keeper of the Pyre

I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"




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Friday, September 22, 2006 5:52 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by FutureMrsFIllion:
...The right to vote is simply too important - and too hard won - to be surrendered without a fight. It is time for Americans to reclaim our democracy from private interests.


I agree. And when we validate the voting process we should validate the voters too. Let's require valid photo I.D. and proof of citizenship from all voters.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, September 22, 2006 5:59 AM

RIGHTEOUS9


Problem with your post GEEZER is that as far as I know, there has been no evidence of massive voter fraud. There's a lot of evidence of election fraud.

Id's for voting are essentially a poll tax. You can argue that people are supposed to have one by law anyway, but for poor people, who don't have the extra 10 or 15 bucks it takes to get an I.D. card, if they don't have one they simply won't vote. That's a chilling effect on our election turn-out and not one that a purported democracy should be advocating.

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Friday, September 22, 2006 6:00 AM

SPACELIPS


If every voter had to be validated it would be a Republican landslide every four years. And besides, voting is simply way too important to make sure that all ballots casted are from citizens.

Make a free voter card. Last I checked my SS card was free, and I've lost that about a millon times.

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Friday, September 22, 2006 6:28 AM

FUTUREMRSFILLION


Quote:
Originally posted by Righteous9:
Problem with your post GEEZER is that as far as I know, there has been no evidence of massive voter fraud. There's a lot of evidence of election fraud.

Id's for voting are essentially a poll tax. You can argue that people are supposed to have one by law anyway, but for poor people, who don't have the extra 10 or 15 bucks it takes to get an I.D. card, if they don't have one they simply won't vote. That's a chilling effect on our election turn-out and not one that a purported democracy should be advocating.


Hmmm. I have to show a valid picture ID as well as my voter registration receipt to vote. I have no problem with it. The right to vote is a right given only to citizens over the age of 18. Proving that you are both is not an encumbrance. Also, all the poor people I know, have to have a picture ID to cash/apply for their Wic and Welfare and food stamps - so I am afraid I disagree. Having to prove who you are is not undemocratic if everyone has to do it.


----
Bestower of Titles, Designer of Tshirts, Maker of Mottos, Keeper of the Pyre

I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"



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Friday, September 22, 2006 6:44 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


It's FAR too late in the election cycle to insist on this now. How about a 5 year lead time?

But I agree with righteous. There is NO evidence of massive voter fraud. That's a republican decoy. There IS evidence of massive election fraud.

What do YOU all propose to do about it?

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Friday, September 22, 2006 6:46 AM

FELLOWTRAVELER


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
It's FAR too late in the election cycle to insist on this now. How about a 5 year lead time?

But I agree with righteous. There is NO evidence of massive voter fraud. That's a republican decoy. There IS evidence of massive election fraud.

What do YOU all propose to do about it?


Bloody coup?

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Friday, September 22, 2006 6:59 AM

RIGHTEOUS9



Right Spacelips... you make such a convincing argument...

all those "damned illegals that couldn't give a shit about our country - who only come here to take advantage of the privilages we fought for and then take their money and run",(did I get this right so far?)

are going to take time out of their day to then go vote in our election? Makes perfect sense to me.


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Friday, September 22, 2006 7:24 AM

SPACELIPS


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
It's FAR too late in the election cycle to insist on this now. How about a 5 year lead time?

But I agree with righteous. There is NO evidence of massive voter fraud. That's a republican decoy. There IS evidence of massive election fraud.

What do YOU all propose to do about it?



Wow that's news to..er..reality. Most states have not even tried to tackle this issue, and for those that have the results have been unbelievable. When Arizona passed prop 200 in 2000 they found up to 60% of voters were illegal(Prima county), when Sanchez won his house seat in California investigators found "concrete evidence" of 700+ votes cast by non-citizens, There are hundreds of cases of real evidence about this. The case for "NO" evidence is foolish and dishonest at best, and the problem is far more than GOP hype. Has this board always been so full of untrue blanket statements that people let slide?

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Friday, September 22, 2006 7:38 AM

RIGHTEOUS9


Hehe...so in all of google all I have for prima county voter fraud are freerepublic links and one to Hannity.

That's your hard evidence?

oh here.

http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/starmedia/43645

Graf - the guy arguing for the prop said that there were at least 3 or 4 cases of voter fraud in the county

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Friday, September 22, 2006 7:41 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


I said MASSIVE.

MILLIONS of LEGAL voters were dropped off the rolls in the last 2 election cycles. MILLIONS more had their votes spoiled. Roughly 3 MILLION total voters in the last election cycle, mostly democrats, were denied their vote.

"... the problem is far more than GOP hype. Has this board always been so full of untrue blanket statements that people let slide?" Not until your post.

So, what do YOU intend to do about MASSIVE election fraud that denies MILLIONS of legal voters their vote?

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Friday, September 22, 2006 7:49 AM

HERO


Quote:
Originally posted by Righteous9:
Problem with your post GEEZER is that as far as I know, there has been no evidence of massive voter fraud. There's a lot of evidence of election fraud.

Thats true. I myself only defrauded a few of my fellow Ohio'ns. And is running over a little old lady on her way into the polls to vote for kerry really a fraud? I think not.

I noticed a comment that voter IDs are another poll tax...how about if we make them free? Problem solved...

H

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Friday, September 22, 2006 8:56 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Unless you are a poor black who was born in the south at home - no birth cert, no SS#, no driver's license - none of the usually accepted IDs. In which case free = impossible.

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Friday, September 22, 2006 9:16 AM

DREAMTROVE


Geezer,

Good idea.

I think there's also a problem which is going to come from the other end. I think we should have a back up system, an independent citizen's record of voters and how they voted, so we can challenge any machine generated result. It would be nice to be able to say definitively "To Smith voted for McCain, even if the machine says he voted for Hillary, because we have hear on election day Tom signing his name swearing his vote was for McCain."

We have the technology to keep track of everyone and their votes, no reason to rely on massive number sums anymore, as these voting machine systems still do.

Quote:
Righteous:
There has been no evidence of massive voter fraud.


What country are you in?

Quote:
Id's for voting are essentially a poll tax.


Nonsense. IDs are IDs. we can accept anything, as long as it can be looked up in a database. How about social security numbers. You could type them in. Maybe give everyone a password.

Quote:
Spacelips:
If every voter had to be validated it would be a Republican landslide every four years.


You think democrats cheat that much? I know they have a problem with dead people voting, but I don't credit this claim.

Quote:
Rue:
It's FAR too late in the election cycle to insist on this now. How about a 5 year lead time?


How about 2 or 3? We ought to be able to straighten this out for 2008.

Quote:
Rue:
But I agree with righteous. There is NO evidence of massive voter fraud. That's a republican decoy. There IS evidence of massive election fraud.


Rue,

There is voter fraud, on both sides. In Ohio in 2004 some white woman, a republican, went into her primarily black democrat precinct, and went into one booth, claimed the machine was broken, and then they let her go into the other booth. She was able to break both machines, shutting down voting for that precinct, thus killing several hundred democrat votes.

It happens on both sides, and all over the place.

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Friday, September 22, 2006 9:33 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Unless you are a poor black who was born in the south at home - no birth cert, no SS#, no driver's license - none of the usually accepted IDs. In which case free = impossible.


Let the Government pay for verifying citizenship then. There are legal steps which can be taken to do this in situations where there is no paper trail. This would also help such a person get SSA benefits, Medicare, etc., so it's a win-win.

C'mon. You're willing to spend multi-millions to completely revamp the process of casting ballots, based on allegations, most of which have never made it to the judicial system, but aren't willing to spend a bit of the taxpayer's money to verify that the people voting actually have the legal right to vote?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, September 22, 2006 9:47 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Quote:
You're willing to spend multi-millions to completely revamp the process of casting ballots ... but aren't willing to spend a bit of the taxpayer's money to verify that the people voting actually have the legal right to vote?

You've got me all wrong. Talk about mis-representing the argument.

You say I'm willing to spend millions to install new voting machines. I never wanted or even approved of new machines. And I've said that what's been put in place is a travesty. That was Bush and buds who wanted it, pushed it, and did it. As far as I'm concerned, paper ballots and wooden boxes are just fine, as long as they work.

And I think BILLIONS should be spent on verifying voter ID and getting everyone who can vote access to vote.

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Friday, September 22, 2006 12:22 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Will the Next Election Be Hacked?
Of course it will. Why are we still talkin' about something that's been decided?

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Saturday, September 23, 2006 8:52 AM

KANEMAN


Quote:
Originally posted by Righteous9:
Hehe...so in all of google all I have for prima county voter fraud are freerepublic links and one to Hannity.

That's your hard evidence?

oh here.

http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/starmedia/43645

Graf - the guy arguing for the prop said that there were at least 3 or 4 cases of voter fraud in the county

http://www2.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/02/13/cq/sanchez.html
Google "illegal voters"
Look up the rest your self...Or don't... you don't want to know the truth. It is always easier for morons to live with their heads up their asses than to face reality when it is in direct conflict with their baseless beliefs...Well, it's true....

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Saturday, September 23, 2006 10:20 AM

RIGHTEOUS9



Thanks for the link Kaneman. I didn't look up the second example spacelips gave because the first one sucked so bad.

So there we are. 748 votes is the great debacle of voter fraud? Not even enough registered cases to skew a local election? Not even enough for the republican dominated congress to call foul at the time?

So there we have it. Voter fraud = red herring. Thank you for your contribution to our point, Kaneman. I always thought you more of a righty.

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Saturday, September 23, 2006 11:24 AM

KANEMAN


No, that is not the great debacle of voter fraud. It is the number of illegals voting in just one election in one county is what it is. And there have been many elections throughout this country that have been decided by less than that. If that is not a problem in your book, you are either an idiot, intellectually and morally dishonest, or both. I'd wager on the latter. Your posts are as transparent as air.

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Saturday, September 23, 2006 7:33 PM

PIRATEJENNY


Q.) will the next elections be hacked

A.) YES

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Saturday, September 23, 2006 8:22 PM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


Quote:
Originally posted by Righteous9:
for poor people, who don't have the extra 10 or 15 bucks it takes to get an I.D. card, if they don't have one they simply won't vote. That's a chilling effect on our election turn-out and not one that a purported democracy should be advocating.

Saw a piece the other day about some state where they require IDs to vote-- Federal legislation requires the state to provide voter IDs *F*R*E*E*--another one of those pesky unfunded mandates

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Saturday, September 23, 2006 9:02 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


There is one thing they can do to improve elections: make it a Federal holiday.

I mean, there are people that I talked to who had to run out on their lunch break in order to vote. LUNCH BREAK for crissake! And there are people who don't even get that. Combine that with the three or eight-hour waits in some places- no WONDER people had to leave before they got a chance to vote!

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Saturday, September 23, 2006 9:23 PM

SOUPCATCHER


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
There is one thing they can do to improve elections: make it a Federal holiday.

Or go the Oregon route: all absentee, all the time. It's worked out quite well for them.

* edited to add: As far as the original thread question... The fewer minorities who vote, the happier Republican Secretaries of State are and they have consistently done everything in their power to limit the number of eligible voters who even get a chance to cast a vote. As bad as hacking the vote, in my mind, is limiting the vote.

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Saturday, September 23, 2006 9:27 PM

RIGHTEOUS9


I'm happy to hear that NewoldenBrownCoat, and I hope you are right. It doesn't stay my fears though. Its only a part of the problem. It puts more control over who votes in the hands of election's boards(I assume that's who would handle the voter ids), and from the kind of corruption evidenced at that level in certain districts, that is something I don't like at all.

And all of this for the sake of tackling a problem that doesn't seem to exist. One 'major' case 10 years ago in one district that numbered in the hundreds? Kaneman,the incident was isolated and the effect nil.

I want it to be legitimate voters who vote, just like you do, but all american citizens are legitimate voters, and I think it would be a travesty if we passed legislation that convoluted the voting proccess even moreso to the point where less and less people excercised this right and responsibility because it was made too hard to act on. We're talking millions versus hundreds.

You tell me, which option is more harmful to democracy?

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Saturday, September 23, 2006 10:35 PM

CITIZEN


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
There is one thing they can do to improve elections: make it a Federal holiday.

I mean, there are people that I talked to who had to run out on their lunch break in order to vote. LUNCH BREAK for crissake! And there are people who don't even get that. Combine that with the three or eight-hour waits in some places- no WONDER people had to leave before they got a chance to vote!
How long do your voting stations stay open? Ours stay open easily long enough for people to make it after or before work.


More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Sunday, September 24, 2006 3:25 AM

FELLOWTRAVELER


Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
How long do your voting stations stay open? Ours stay open easily long enough for people to make it after or before work.


It varies from state to state, but basically runs in the neighborhood of 7AM to 7PM.

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Sunday, September 24, 2006 4:38 AM

PDCHARLES

What happened? He see your face?


More from our Princeton friends and those universal Diebold keys...

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1064

What bothers me is that not only is the key found so common, it is 15 years old or so. Diebold: passing on the savings to the customer.


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Sunday, September 24, 2006 5:46 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


And, strangely, my workday is from 7 AM to 7 PM. I don't know about most other places, but in the USA the working poor often work 2 jobs and have a 2-3 hour bus commute to and from work.

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Sunday, September 24, 2006 5:58 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


If the Dems win, we'll know the election was tampered with.

If the GOP wins, then we'll know a fair election has taken place.

The Dems bitched and moaned when, in 2000, using THEIR OWN vote counting method, (remember the butterfly ballot ? ) there was a push to automate the election proccess. Well, that's taking place, and the Dems still aren't winning. So they've resorted to, once again, attack the method. The Dems will continue to play this game of 'blame the system, not the voter' for long after they do win. It's part of the false premise they intend to build their mythology on..that being the GOP steals elections, and only Dems play by the rules. Nothing could be further from the truth.

People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Sunday, September 24, 2006 6:36 AM

FELLOWTRAVELER


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
And, strangely, my workday is from 7 AM to 7 PM. I don't know about most other places, but in the USA the working poor often work 2 jobs and have a 2-3 hour bus commute to and from work.


Come on, we don't want the poor voting...

And to add to insult to injury, the closest polling station to your work place is likely not the one where you are registered. That one is closest to your home. So, good luck making it there and back during your lunch break.

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Sunday, September 24, 2006 7:12 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
And, strangely, my workday is from 7 AM to 7 PM. I don't know about most other places, but in the USA the working poor often work 2 jobs and have a 2-3 hour bus commute to and from work.

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.


Then vote absentee. You don't even have to show an I.D. Just vote and drop it in the mail. Problem solved. Contact your pricinct or party's election committee to find out details. You can choose to be proactive and do something about your situation, or you can bitch about how unfair life is and blame everyone else. The choice is up to you.

People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Sunday, September 24, 2006 7:25 AM

RIGHTEOUS9


Well Auraptor, the butterfly ballots were bad. Pat Buchanon suggested that he got 1000's of votes he shouldn't have gotten in 2000 because of those ballots,

which means in a fair election where people know who they're voting for, the democrats would have won.

Do you have any evidence of large scale democratic vote tampering or do you like to just spew that crap to try to smear everybody?

And what kind of logic suggests that because we didn't like the last system we should take whatever system our gop government puts in place to replace it as something better.

- with no facts have you denied the validity of the claims - and so you go after them by just stamping democrats as complainers. I understand how sick to your stomach it must make you to read through post after post at freerepublic, but some sort of distorted fact would be appreciated when you're making your claims.

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Monday, September 25, 2006 12:10 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:
Originally posted by Righteous9:
Well Auraptor, the butterfly ballots were bad. Pat Buchanon suggested that he got 1000's of votes he shouldn't have gotten in 2000 because of those ballots,

which means in a fair election where people know who they're voting for, the democrats would have won.

Do you have any evidence of large scale democratic vote tampering or do you like to just spew that crap to try to smear everybody?

And what kind of logic suggests that because we didn't like the last system we should take whatever system our gop government puts in place to replace it as something better.

- with no facts have you denied the validity of the claims - and so you go after them by just stamping democrats as complainers. I understand how sick to your stomach it must make you to read through post after post at freerepublic, but some sort of distorted fact would be appreciated when you're making your claims.


Q: How the hell would Pat Buchanan know ? On what basis does he make the claim that "1000's" of votes shouldn't have gone his way ? I'm so sick and tired of folks excusing the VOTER for not taking it upon themselves to either ask for help / and or a new ballot. Please. If you're too stupid to figure out a simple ballot, or even ASK for assistance, you don't deserve to vote!

I have the Chicago election of '60, where dead folks voted early and often for Kennedy. Had that election been 'fair', Nixon would have won, not Kennedy. But I'm over it. Can't say the same for the Dems and 2000. What pisses me off about that is all the lies and false allegations the Dems raised about blacks being kept from voting. Not a single case was verified. Not one. Yet the rumors and mythology continue on in the media as if they were true.

It isn't the 'gop gov't' which determines how votes are counted. That decission rests w/ each ELECTION BOARD. Don't blame the GOP, blame your local Democrats for any voter fiasco you think exists.

People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Monday, September 25, 2006 5:06 AM

FELLOWTRAVELER


Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
...What pisses me off about that is all the lies and false allegations the Dems raised about blacks being kept from voting. Not a single case was verified. Not one.

...Don't blame the GOP, blame your local Democrats for any voter fiasco you think exists...


Good grief, you have been misinformed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Central_Voter_File

Quote:
At first, Florida specified only exact matches on names, birthdates and genders to identify voters as felons. However, state records reveal a memo dated March 1999 from Emmett "Bucky" Mitchell, a lawyer for the state elections office who was supervising the felon purge, asking DBT to loosen its criteria for acceptable matches. When DBT representatives warned Mitchell that this would yield a large proportion of false positives (mismatches), Mitchell's reply was that it would be up to each county elections supervisor to deal with the problem.

In February 2000, in a phone conversation with the BBC's London studios, ChoicePoint vice-president James Lee said that the state "wanted there to be more names than were actually verified as being a convicted felon"

On 17 April 2001, James Lee testified, before the McKinney panel, that the state had given DBT the directive to add to the purge list people who matched at least 90% of a last name. DBT objected, knowing that this would produce a huge number of false positives (non-felons).

Lee went on saying that the state then ordered DBT to shift to an even lower threshold of 80% match, allowing also names to be reversed (thus a person named Thomas Clarence could be taken to be the same as Clarence Thomas). Besides this, middle initials were skipped, Jr. and Sr. suffixes dropped, and some nicknames and aliases were added to puff up the list.

"DBT told state officials", testified Lee, "that the rules for creating the [purge] list would mean a significant number of people who were not deceased, not registered in more than one county, or not a felon, would be included on the list. DBT made suggestions to reduce the numbers of eligible voters included on the list". According to Lee, to this suggestion the state told the company, "Forget about it".

Florida has re-cedited its felon list five times since 1998 to correct errors.

The first list DBT Online provided to the Division of Elections in April 2000 contained the names of 181,157 persons. Approximately 65,776 of those included on the first list were identified as felons.

In May 2000, DBT discovered that approximately 8,000 names were erroneously placed on the exclusion list, mostly those of former Texas prisoners who were included on a DBT list that turned out never to have been convicted of more than a misdemeanor. Later in the month, DBT provided a revised list to the Division of Elections (DOE) containing a total of 173,127 persons. Of those included on the "corrected list", 57,746 were identified as felons.

There were many specific problems with the purge list regarding the verification of felons, including over 4,000 blank conviction dates, and over 325 conviction dates dating in the future.

Nearly 3,000 out-of-state ex-felons with voting rights restored, as well as voters linked to felonies in states which do not remove felons from voting rolls or that automatically restore voting rights that were included on the list. According to a 1998 ruling by the 2nd District Court of Appeals, they cannot then be ruled ineligible by another state.

DBT had decided in March of 1999 not to include felon lists from South Carolina or Texas, which automatically restore voting rights, but that was overruled by the head of the Florida Office of Executive Clemency, Janet Keels, who ordered inclusion of any felon who did not have a written order of clemency, even from these states, wrongly placing 996 voters on the felon list. Florida did not restore their voting rights until three months after the election.

Additionally, a number of persons listed as felons had been convicted of misdemeanors only, and therefore were eligible by law.


http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/04/voter_file/index.
html

Quote:
In the 10 counties contacted by Salon, use of the central voter file seemed to vary wildly. Some found the list too unreliable and didn't use it at all. But most counties appear to have used the file as a resource to purge names from their voter rolls, with some counties making little -- or no -- effort at all to alert the "purged" voters. Counties that did their best to vet the file discovered a high level of errors, with as many as 15 percent of names incorrectly identified as felons.


http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040517/palast

Quote:
According to records given to the courts by ChoicePoint, the company that generated the computerized lists, the number of Floridians who were questionably tagged totals 91,000. Willie Steen is one of them. Recently, I caught up with Steen outside his office at a Tampa hospital. Steen's case was easy. You can't work in a hospital if you have a criminal record. (My copy of Harris's hit list includes an ex-con named O'Steen, close enough to cost Willie Steen his vote.)

The state admitted Steen's innocence. But a year after the NAACP won his case, Steen still couldn't register. Why was he still under suspicion? What do we know about this "potential felon," as Jeb called him? Steen, unlike our President, honorably served four years in the US military. There is, admittedly, a suspect mark on his record: Steen remains an African-American.


Well, there's your one verifiable case: Willie Steen.

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Monday, September 25, 2006 6:33 AM

RIGHTEOUS9


Quit spewing bullshit auraptor. It's not the democratic election boards that have been the problem.

I had to point that out to you on another thread about ohio and of course you ignored it, but at least find a new lie.

The point about Buchanon is that he got a disproportionate ammount of votes in a democratic voting area where he didn't campaign, and even he, kooky conservative that he is, was willing to see the screw-up there.

That's a lame way to judge somebody's intelligence by the way. It has no more basis than me saying anybody who voted for Bush is too incompitent to be given the right to vote.

So first you guys had to go back to 1996...now we have to go all the way back to 1960? Next you're going to be screaming about the pictograms on cave walls, that prove beyond a doubt democratic voter fraud is a problem.

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Monday, September 25, 2006 7:16 AM

KANEMAN


Auraptor,
Q:How the hell would Pat Buchanan know ? On what basis does he make the claim that "1000's" of votes shouldn't have gone his way ? I'm so sick and tired of folks excusing the VOTER for not taking it upon themselves to either ask for help / and or a new ballot. Please. If you're too stupid to figure out a simple ballot, or even ASK for assistance, you don't deserve to vote!

A: He wouldn't, couldn't, and doesn't know. Aren't you tired of the "voter fraud" stampede every time a Dem loses? That gang of poor losers will always blame it on the ineptitude of the process or voters, never on themselves or the unpopularity of their politics. I must go, we have a local election today. I am going down to the local church with a bus to help get out the minority vote. I'll tell them how and who to vote for on the ride to the polling station...Hey, they get free sandwiches and soda.


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Monday, September 25, 2006 7:45 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Ahhhh ... I'm satisfied. I still find no reason to call him anywhing but asswipe.

Now to get a nice shiny name for kaneman.

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Monday, September 25, 2006 8:03 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


In case you are all wondering - I see no need to treat evil people well.


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Monday, September 25, 2006 8:05 AM

KANEMAN


CiTiZen's...Rainman was pretty clever.

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Monday, September 25, 2006 2:57 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Righteous9 wrote:
Monday, September 25, 2006 06:33
Quit spewing bullshit auraptor. It's not the democratic election boards that have been the problem.

I had to point that out to you on another thread about ohio and of course you ignored it, but at least find a new lie.

The point about Buchanon is that he got a disproportionate ammount of votes in a democratic voting area where he didn't campaign, and even he, kooky conservative that he is, was willing to see the screw-up there.

That's a lame way to judge somebody's intelligence by the way. It has no more basis than me saying anybody who voted for Bush is too incompitent to be given the right to vote.

So first you guys had to go back to 1996...now we have to go all the way back to 1960? Next you're going to be screaming about the pictograms on cave walls, that prove beyond a doubt democratic voter fraud is a problem.


Sorry brain donor, but you didn't do any such thing. Fact is, it IS the duty of the local election committee to fix their own problems. But, in CLASSIC liberal style, you prefer to lay the burden solving your own problems on anyone else BUT those responsible. Again, you being wrong is NOT a case of someone else 'lying'. A 3 yr old knows better, but somehow you don't.

Also, about those pin headed voters who 'claim' they really voted for Gore, but then were so suddenly sure their vote ended up being for Buchanan. So sorry Granny, but if you were that certain about your own screw up AFTER you submitted your ballot, you'd have been more awake while voting in the 1st place. Rules are printed plainly there for all to see, or if you can't read the damn thing, a poll worker will READ to you what it says. Same rules apply to everyone. You're nothing special. Tough nugggets.

There's nothing in the least bit 'lame' about using that very valid example to show the lack of intelligence for an idiot who can't follow simple directions. Even an imbecile knows enough to ask a question, HOW DO I .... , even if the task asking them to " punch hole by name of person you're voting for " is suddenly all that more daunting than it was the last time they voted.


Then there was the U.S. Civil Rights commission hearings which couldn't find one single black voter who could say that he or she was kept from the polls and denied their right to cast their vote. NOT ONE! To this very day neither Florida nor national Democrats have been able to produce one single black Floridian who was denied their opportunity to cast a legal vote during in the 2000 election. Such fairy tales and mythology by the Democrat's cries to the contrary only gave rise to Kerry's * Election Day Manuel which tells Democrats to lie - "If no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a 'pre-emptive strike.'" Basically telling folks to ' spread rumors of voter intimidation events which never have occurred. Just assume it's happening, because America is racist anyway, and that justifies your lying for the greater good.'


* http://www.drudgereport.com/dnc66.htm

People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself.

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Monday, September 25, 2006 3:45 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:
Well, there's your one verifiable case: Willie Steen.


Sorry, but there's still nothing about that case to suggest he wasn't allowed to vote because he was black .

Despite the specious claims by The Nation ( yeah, there's an objective source ) ....
Quote:
(My copy of Harris's (sic) list includes an ex-con named O'Steen, close enough to cost Willie Steen his vote.)


Errors and problems in the voting proceedure do not imply intent. Every state has its own problems, and Florida's wasn't any worse than any other state's.

For christ's sake...it's 2006. Turn the friggen page.

People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Monday, September 25, 2006 6:03 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


As usual Auraptor you don't know WTF you're talkin' about. (Nothing new!) The company that drew up the FLA list (which was eventually bought out by Choice Point) warned Katherine Harris by letter that the match criteria were overly broad and scooping up too many people. Harris told the company bascially damn the torpedoes, she would take the responsibility. So I think she should be charged.


---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Monday, September 25, 2006 6:24 PM

RIGHTEOUS9


Such disdain for your fellow human beings Auraptor.

I will say that I don't think you're an idiot. On the other hand, intelligent people aren't neccesarily right more often than other people, they're just a hell of a lot better at rationalizing their position to themselves, right or wrong.

I'm not sure why you wouldn't want people's actual intentions to be heard on eleciton day, and I'm not sure why it should matter whether you think a person dumb or slow or senile, when judging if a person deserves a vote on election day, unless you're an elitist of the ilk that doesn't really believe in democracy - I don't think you need to answer that.

.....

I'll point out again that the election board in Chayahoga County, where much of the alleged voter suppresion took place was Republican dominated, so please at least patch that hole in your argument if you want to continue to fly your hot air baloon in the real world.

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Monday, September 25, 2006 7:54 PM

RIGHTEOUS9


Auraptor --- the measures of that preemptive strike are clearly laid out in the manual and all have to do with protecting the voters in that election.

None of the items in the proposed press release suggest making shit up. So where's your beef? with what line? just 'preemptive strike?' hehe, how weird that that phrase would offend a Bush apologist.


Here are the items the DNC wanted to be addressed.

i. Reviewing Republican tactic [sic] issued in the past in your area or state

ii. Quoting party/minority/civil rights leadership as denouncing tactics that discourage people from voting

Prime minority leadership to discuss the issue in the media; provide talking points
Place stories in which minority leadership expresses concern about the threat of intimidation tactics

Warn local newspapers not to accept advertising that is not properly disclaimed or that contains false warnings about voting requirements and/or about what will happen at the polls

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Tuesday, September 26, 2006 5:41 AM

FELLOWTRAVELER


And the hits just keep on coming...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/us/politics/26voting.html?_r=1&ref=w
ashington&oref=slogin

"Stricter Voting Laws Carve Latest Partisan Divide"

Some interesting quotes from the story:

Quote:
Republicans say the laws are needed to combat fraud, especially among illegal immigrants. Democrats say there is minimal fraud, if any, and accuse Republicans of suppressing the votes of those least likely to have the required documentation — minorities, the poor and the elderly — who tend to vote for Democrats.


Quote:
Daniel J. Parker, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said: “Close to 10 percent of registered voters here do not have driver’s licenses. Who does that impact most? Seniors and minorities.”


Quote:
“Democrats believe they represent stupid people who are not smart enough to vote,” said Randy Pullen, a Republican national committeeman from Arizona who championed a statewide initiative on the new requirements. “I do not.”


Quote:
There is no data, however, to show more than isolated instances of so-called impostor voting by illegal immigrants or others.

Experts in election law say most voter fraud involves absentee balloting, which is unaffected by the new photo identification laws. Few people, they say, will risk a felony charge to vote illegally at the polls, and few illegal immigrants want to interact with government officials — even people running a polling place.


Quote:
Of Arizona’s 2.7 million registered voters, 238 were believed to have been noncitizens in the last 10 years; only 4 were believed to have voted; and none were impostors, plaintiffs stipulate in their lawsuit to overturn the law, statistics the state has not challenged.


Quote:
It was during a registration drive at her assisted-living center, Desert Palms, that Mrs. Steele learned she could not vote. Disabled, with a son, an Army staff sergeant, on active duty, she left Missouri recently to stay with her brother and subsequently moved into the center.

Lacking a driver’s license, she could get a new state identity card, but she said she had neither the $12 to pay for it nor, because she uses a wheelchair, the transportation to pick it up.




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Tuesday, September 26, 2006 5:53 AM

FELLOWTRAVELER


Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Sorry, but there's still nothing about that case to suggest he wasn't allowed to vote because he was black.


Well, you didn't say because they were black. You said:

Quote:
What pisses me off about that is all the lies and false allegations the Dems raised about blacks being kept from voting. Not a single case was verified. Not one. Yet the rumors and mythology continue on in the media as if they were true.


You said it was false that blacks were kept from voting. They clearly were.

Quote:
Despite the specious claims by The Nation ( yeah, there's an objective source ) ....


Now, that IS a fair criticism. In that spirit, maybe you shouldn't cite The Drudge Report.

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Tuesday, September 26, 2006 10:16 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:
Originally posted by Righteous9:
Such disdain for your fellow human beings Auraptor.

I will say that I don't think you're an idiot. On the other hand, intelligent people aren't neccesarily right more often than other people, they're just a hell of a lot better at rationalizing their position to themselves, right or wrong.

I'm not sure why you wouldn't want people's actual intentions to be heard on eleciton day, and I'm not sure why it should matter whether you think a person dumb or slow or senile, when judging if a person deserves a vote on election day, unless you're an elitist of the ilk that doesn't really believe in democracy - I don't think you need to answer that.

.....

I'll point out again that the election board in Chayahoga County, where much of the alleged voter suppresion took place was Republican dominated, so please at least patch that hole in your argument if you want to continue to fly your hot air baloon in the real world.


What good does it do to have folks voting when they don't even know what the hell they're voting for or HOW to vote? There's a REASON why we don't let children vote, because we assume that adults will have the intellect and ability to choose on their own.

And what the hell is Cayahoga Co. have to do w/ anything ? I was talking Florida and you're talking Ohio. And there you go again, with the false premise that it was 'voter supression'. The very language you use is biased, or do you not see that ?

Quote:
Auraptor --- the measures of that preemptive strike are clearly laid out in the manual and all have to do with protecting the voters in that election.

None of the items in the proposed press release suggest making shit up. So where's your beef? with what line? just 'preemptive strike?' hehe, how weird that that phrase would offend a Bush apologist.
WRONG - It SPECIFICALLY states that voters should whip up controversy where none exists. It's poisoning the well by flatly stating voter intimidation WILL be out there, so be ready for a fight. How about ' Go to your poll, vote, go home. '. But no, the Dems can't allow for that. There MUST be civil unrest. WHY? It fits the Dems's template that America IS racists, and we're no better off now than we were in the 1920's. THAT is pattently BULLSHIT!


Quote:
Here are the items the DNC wanted to be addressed.

i. Reviewing Republican tactic issued in the past in your area or state
No mention of Democrat tactics, such as trying to convince voters in Texas that Bush's Texas was responsible for the dragging death of James Byrd, a black man. Fact is, Bush's Judicial system put to death 2 of the 3 men involved, and the 3rd man got sentenced to life in prison.

Quote:


ii. Quoting party/minority/civil rights leadership as denouncing tactics that discourage people from voting
Basically stating the the NAACP and the DNC are one in the same.

Quote:
Prime minority leadership to discuss the issue in the media; provide talking points
Place stories in which minority leadership expresses concern about the threat of intimidation tactics
There is no 'issue' here, but the ones which are being fabricated by the Dem party. These race warlords are masters at self fulfilling prophecies, because they are the ones behind the so called 'crisis'. With out a crisis, they're out of a job. THINK ABOUT IT.

Quote:
Warn local newspapers not to accept advertising that is not properly disclaimed or that contains false warnings about voting requirements and/or about what will happen at the polls
Basically try to blackmail local papers, as Jessie Jackson does with his Rainbow Push thugs.

People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Tuesday, September 26, 2006 10:24 AM

RIGHTEOUS9



Okay, if you're speaking specifically about Florida then why are you talkinga about the DNC manual? But fine, reserve my example for another day, and respond to the example SYGM gave on Florida - not interested? surprise surprise.

..........

Your smearing of the DNC as basically fabricating complaints of voter suppresion was a false premise, and way too easy to disprove. There's plenty of evidence to support voter suppresion in Ohio. If that evidence is bunk, it should be just as easy for you to disprove it.

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Tuesday, September 26, 2006 10:34 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:
Originally posted by Righteous9:

Okay, if you're speaking specifically about Florida then why are you talkinga about the DNC manual? But fine, reserve my example for another day, and respond to the example SYGM gave on Florida - not interested? surprise surprise.

..........

Your smearing of the DNC as basically fabricating complaints of voter suppresion was a false premise, and way too easy to disprove. There's plenty of evidence to support voter suppresion in Ohio. If that evidence is bunk, it should be just as easy for you to disprove it.


Per Kerry's pamphlet, I was showing a pattern of deceit by the DNC.

You simply stating that there was plenty of evidencde of voter supression in Ohio doesn't make it so. You'll excuse me if I don't buy your word or that of Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Sigym gave nothing but him saying that Katherine Harris said something. No citing of a source. I won't waste my time on innuendo.

People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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