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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWasn't sure whether to believe the Anonymous/Rove story,until the reaction telling us to shut up @it
I can always tell that people are on to something, when a group of people are sent to convince everyone to shut up about it.
Now Kos thinks it's a conspiracy and not worth talking about?
That seals the deal.
Kos is an authoritarian and won't let anyone talk about 9/11 either.
But posters are allowed to discuss Benghazi and what did or did not happen, who was responsible, who didn't read the warnings.
Many limited hangout 'Democrats' (like Kos who was Republican/CIA?) are misleading the party.
If it weren't for 'Democracts" trying to hold the party back and misdirect, we would have solved the problems of our election systems by now.
He was of no use in prior incidents of election fraud, why would anyone value his opinion now?
Kos has to be an utter moron(or a set up) to believe our elections with secret software should not be questioned.
And the behavior of Rove, the obvious manufactured consent by the media about to cover up a stolen election...the media and GOP were behaving very strangely...but we should just not analyze that at all. yeah, their polls were just way off. Sure. Nothing to see here folks, you can trust 'Dem' blogger Kos.
The best 'argument' the people who tell us to shut up about it have.... If you point out that they might have tried to steal it, that takes away from Obama's win and the hard work. How fucking stupid is that? Anonymous was trying to prevent everyone's time and hard work from being wasted. Duh!!
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randome
(34,845 posts)No one has ever said to shut up. And you have it wrong about the 'best argument'.
The best argument against latching onto this latest CT is that there is no evidence that anything happened.
Peace.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)
Melinda
(5,465 posts)It's very clear to me that the OP is super pissed at Markos, however I don't see any reference to DUers or DU. Granted, I am old now - can you point the insult out to me? TIA. 
randome
(34,845 posts)But it sounds much like the sentiments expressed by many here on DU. Still, that was my misinterpretation.
Melinda
(5,465 posts)Next up: A cane and one of those "help, I've fallen and I can't get up" alert necklaces. 
Danke, randome. Have a cookie?
randome
(34,845 posts) leeroysphitz
(10,462 posts)RepublicansRZombies
(982 posts)Who posted it and why?
This is a discussion board. If you aren't interested in a topic, you click on the ones that you are interested in.
Why would anyone spend their time on threads that they have no interest in, all in an effort to tell others to not be interested?
Who would spend their time like that?
randome
(34,845 posts)Yes, I agree, it's over the top. But the fact is that there is no evidence of an anonymous email having anything whatsoever to do with the election. So the CT nonsense -based on basically NOTHING- gets on some people's nerves. I'm neither upset with you nor anyone else, I just don't like to see CTs gain so much traction without any evidence to back them up.
byeya
(2,842 posts)among some good information, and this censoring of topics that can be discussed is very odd.
Conspiricies occur every day and many people suffer the legal consequences for this activity and to declare a potential criminal conspiracy off limits doesn't serve legitimate public interests.
muriel_volestrangler
(106,207 posts)There are people here who have affection for DU, and don't want it to become the laughing-stock of the internet left. So they oppose the idiotic "there was a conspiracy to defeat the conspiracy" nonsense that people are trying to push here.
MrModerate
(9,753 posts)And election truthers are pretty much in the same category as 9/11 truthers.
AS it turns out, I happen to believe that Republican electoral fraud is rampant, but I have never seen credible evidence that it's done through tabulator manipulation, vote-flipping code, etc., etc.
Until there is some evidence that non-zealots can accept, Kos is probably correct in telling those who are convinced without evidence to go elsewhere.
Bonhomme Richard
(9,545 posts)Do I trust Republicans to be honest?....No!
Is it plausible that Rove was foiled?....Yes!
I am not quick to believe and I am also not quick to deny.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Kind of a stupid reason for believing something you doubted, huh?
You're pissed at Kos so the story is now true?
RepublicansRZombies
(982 posts)The pattern is clear.
People are sent, and they will not let the topic go, they answer each and every reply with the same shit. If they cannot answer a direct question, then they just insult or laugh. Low consciousness detractors.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)How long have you been "studying the net"?
How long have you been at DU?
"People are sent" and they arrive with all sorts of bullshit. That's what I learned about the net.
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)
A Simple Game
(9,214 posts)And I'm not surprised at who it was.
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)Forgive me for being so suspect as to want evidence instead of gibberish!
What the hell was I thinking? Kos hates it should be good enough for everyone to see the logic of the thing that cannot be proven! It is for you!
Cha
(319,067 posts)RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)Those who disagree with the conspiracy theory ARE IN ON THE CONSPIRACY!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Oh man, that is ALWAYS the reaction of the conspiracy theorists!
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)That's how you can tell. WAKE UP PEOPLE!
Goddamn but conspiracy theorists crack me up.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)who also worked for Henry Hyde, opposed Gays in the Military during the Clinton years, like Rush et al, remember? Who called women asking for equal pay for equal work 'the Women's studies set' who he 'would not tolerate on his blog'.
Issued a declaration on his blog that he would not 'tolerate single issue voters' iow, Gays, Women and Minorities, who insisted on speaking up for their rights. That backfired on him when women left the board in huge numbers and he had to apologize or lose jis membership.
Former military, former CIA according to HIM, opposed abortion, openly but has gone silent on it.
Was with Republicans on Election Fraud and banned any mention of it on his blog.
His partner was convicted of posing as a 'regular' commenter to influence financial decisions made by others and was paid to do so. Lol, not that most of us were ever fooled by him when he was pretending to be 'just an ordinary commenter' on DK.
And the biggest giveaway that we always see from 'former Republicans' like Kos, has always been his visceral hatred for what he perceives as 'the Left'. They just cannot hide that.
The CT that kos is a 'liberal' is one of the most laughable theories around the internet.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)I tried criticizing him.
Yikes!
randome
(34,845 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)opposition to Gays in the Military, never publicly trashed women on his blog and minorities or attempted to silence them on issues of importance them and/or anyone interested in fixing our disastrous electoral system.
He did not deceive liberals for years, nor does he have the visceral disgust Kos has displayed for the 'left'.
So there is simply no comparison. Nice try though rather than addressing the many, many issues with Kos over the years. This latest declaration from him is NOT in the least bit surprising considering his right wing views throughout the years, some of which he has been forced to back down on after stepping too far over line.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Lotsa people come to their senses, and good thing, too!
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)Different story.
MADem
(135,425 posts)He may not be left enough to suit you, but there are many flavors of Dem in our big tent. Jon Tester of Montana is probably a bit too far over for your tastes, as well--but he beats the hell out of the alternative and I, for one, am DELIGHTED that he kept his seat.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)you are not seriously suggesting is a liberal democrat? He despises the 'left' just as all Republicans do, 'former' or otherwise.
As I said, he has not apparently 'come to his senses' and this latest outburst from him surprises no one familiar with that history. There is a reason why that blog lost most of its Progressive women members.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Not everyone in the party--like it, or not--is a "liberal" Democrat--and that does NOT make them "the enemy." Some Democrats are moderates. Some are even conservative on a number of issues. Some are "social justice liberal" and "fiscally conservative" Dems--all at the same time. Some Democrats are (gasp) anti-abortion. Others are unwaveringly pro-choice.
It is--as I say, over and over again--A BIG TENT.
I find it irritating when people apply bullshit "purity tests" and demand/insist people believe the very same things that they believe--it's extreme hubris IMO, it's pathological and a bit meglomaniacal. That kind of bullshit SHRINKS a party--it's why the damn GOP are in the shits these days; they've shrunk their party down to a few crabby old white men.
People are different. They prioritize different issues and they have different needs. I may not always agree with every Democrat on every issue, but I don't consider them "evil" or "bad" because they don't agree with me in every way on every issue, and I can understand why people from different regions and with differing perspectives and priorities have differing POVs, even if I take a different view.
Here's my criteria for "A Good Democrat."
If your answer to "Did you vote for Barack Obama/Joe Biden for President?" is yes, and "Did you vote the ticket for your Congressional reps at the state and local level?" is also yes, you're a "Good Democrat."
Not everyone believes as I do--I can live with that. Not everyone has the same priorities that I have. I can deal with that, too.
It's what people do in the voting booth that matters to me.
I am not a fan of Kos, simply because I find the Orange Site difficult to navigate. I don't know what his particular slant is on this issue or that, and I really don't care. I only read stuff that is linked here, I just can't bother to find my way around that forum. That said, if he pushes people to the polls to vote for Democrats, he has a few redeeming qualities in my book. I'm not going to excoriate him and try to paint him, in Limbaugh-Hannity-like fashion, as "The Other" if he shares my goal of putting more Dems in Congress. We need to keep growing our tent, not finding reasons to kick people out of the party--even if we disagree on some things.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)and still means to Democrats is that all people, rich, poor, minorities, women are welcome. You know, the people who were not welcome in the other party.
It was not intended to include stealth Republicans who joined because their own party became so extreme and once in this party spend their time trying to turn it into Republican Lite.
If they do flee to this party, then the goal is to NOT adapt THEIR political views but it is assumed they will learn how wrong they were.
You can care about what you wish, I have observed this individual over several years and as with most people I meet, I do not trust or respect those who deliberately deceive others.
His views were fine for the Republican Party. His tolerance for Republicans on his board and/or Libertarians as his 'rules' used to state, far exceeds his tolerance for actual Democrats. Which is why literally thousands of them left and found forums more suitable and more accepting of Democrats. Women, after he exposed his opinion of them not so long ago, also left in droves.
You are free to welcome Republicans into this Party. I am free to never trust a deceiver especially one who 'used' to be a Republican.
And I sure do not want right wingers taking over the leadership of this Party.
We have plenty of life long Progressive Dems to choose our leaders from.
Republicans and other right leaning people have their own party. If the Big Tent means both parties are welcome in it and the other party gets to be leaders in our party, then that is news to me.
MADem
(135,425 posts)No one requires that you "like" everyone under the Big Tent--it's not a Facebook environment, certainly. And you're free to articulate your points of disagreement with your fellow Democrats any time you'd like.
In any event, I don't see anyone nominating that little kos kid for President anytime soon.
Our Big Tent accomodates guys like Jim Webb, too. I knew him when he was a Republican SECNAV, and he was an asshole, frankly...that said, I preferred him to the jerk he was running against and I was glad he prevailed--because he had Harry Reid's back when it mattered, and the alternative would have sucked.
It's pointless to try to shove people that are disliked out of the tent--it just won't work, and you'll be the one who is viewed as a scold and an exclusionist. You'll just have to work to make your ideas more attractive to the crowd--even those who need a bit of evolving-- under the big top--not expect everyone to see things your way just because you say so.
Calling people who have repudiated their GOP membership and joined the Democratic Party "Republicans" ain't the way to do it. It sounds too much like scolding, sour grapes, and misdirected anger, and it's sure to have the opposite effect you intend.
As for the kos kid, you voted with your feet and so did others. He'll either notice, or he won't .... but that's his issue. Like I said, if he motivates people to vote for the Dem ticket, I'm not going to toss him off a cliff just because I don't care for all of his POVs.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)As for Kos, he is far more likely to lose votes for Democrats which is why I despise him and often wonder if that was his goal. People voted for Democrats in spite of him, I do not know anyone who voted because of him. His 'endorsements' btw, have consistently resulted in losses for Dems. I can't say if that is BECAUSE of his endorsements, but it would be best if he kept his opinions to himself since he is most unpopular with progressive Dems and for good reason. However most of us will not allow our personal opinions of someone like Kos, who is not a 'kid' btw, to influence decisions that affect the future of this country.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Again, I don't patronize his site, but I don't think the vast majority of his acolytes vote the GOP ticket.
I certainly don't think he will persuade any "progressive Dems" to abandon their principles, but he may persuade conservative independents to move our way. Everyone has a role. That is the "Big Tent" thing working.
I don't think his endorsements lost elections for Dems--you're ascribing to him far too much power, I believe.
To me, kos is a kid. He's much younger than I am.
kilgore_trout
(2 posts)so he want to nudge you
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/magazine/16Sunstein-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
kilgore_trout
(2 posts)"How on Earth Do You Tame Extremists? Cass Sunstein tackles an impossible task."
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)SoCalMusicLover
(3,194 posts)Those people who use the argument that this somehow diminishes Obama's win, or takes away from all the hard work, are completely missing the point.
If this story is true, all that happened was essentially a validation of Obama's victory.
How does this in any way take away from the Democratic victory, any more than poll watchers or exit polls take away from it?
There is nothing to suggest that Anon, if they did in fact do something, did anything to alter the results or sway the election. They merely claim to have prevented Rove and his cronies from doing so.
Perhaps if Karl got up and said, "yeah, you got me, I tried to rig it for Rmoney, but got caught," then some might begin to accept the mere possibility something like this occurred.
And if you think Rove, and all his henchmen, are not capable of pulling something like this off, you haven't been paying attention these past 15+ years.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Also, the conflicting reports about ORCA and the debunking by those with actual technical knowledge makes the story even less believable.
Atman
(31,464 posts)Last edited Tue Nov 20, 2012, 02:39 PM - Edit history (1)
I've posted this at least half a dozen times, and you've been in on the threads, so I know you've seen it. ORCA is a complete non sequitur, just a distraction.
So, ONE MORE TIME: ORCA was merely a GOTV/Voter Demographics system designed for the Romney campaign and used nationwide. What the issue is is the last minute SOFTWARE PATCHES the Ohio SoC had installed on the voting machines in specific districts. Patches which he said would allow them to tabulate the votes and post them online in real time. And while the date was accessible right up until the end of election day, suddenly, just before the polls closed the system became inaccessible. No one could see these "real time" votes being tabulated.
Husted's "software patches" were supposed to be the magic bullet for the GOP, ORCA was an entirely different system running out of the Romney campaign HQ in Boston. My guess would be they expected it to be a lot closer, and flipping some votes in Ohio during the tabulation process, not at the machine level, was going to allow them say "See, you could watch the votes tabulate in real time! How can you say Romney didn't win?" But a funny thing happened...they were getting trounced all over America. Ohio was out of play, and their vote rigging would suddenly have been very suspect if exit polls showed Ohio went like the rest of the nation, but Romney still one.
It is certainly, IMHO, a very plausible scenario given Rove's reaction, and knowing what these weasels have done and tried to do in the past. I don't necessarily believe that Anon had anything to do with it, but perhaps he did. We'll never know. But I am not willing to just accept the "It's a conspiracy theory!" crap, either, or the cries from the "It was Obama's GOTV effort that won Ohio!" We simply DON'T KNOW, and those using ORCA as a smokescreen are deliberately muddying the waters into any legitimate inquiry...because if you are looking to ORCA for vote-flipping, you won't find it, and they'll be vindicated. But no one is questioning Husted's "software patches." That, to me, is very suspicious.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)You wouldn't set up the software to say "just flip a few votes". You'd set up the software to flip however many votes are necessary to hit your target. Because there's no reason to stop at "just flip a few".
Because exit polls are always treated as gospel. Never mind all the other times they've been wrong. (And to move that safely out of "hacking" range, in 1980 they showed a slight Reagan edge, yet it turned out to be a large Reagan victory)
lalalu
(1,663 posts)jeff47
(26,549 posts)lalalu
(1,663 posts)downloading an update can have a negative rippling effect.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Say I want to make sure Romney wins. This is accomplished by a whopping three lines of code when adding a new vote for president
if ( total_romney <= total_obama )
total_romney += 1
else
//normal vote processing
aquart
(69,014 posts)Not a link of proof? Exit polls are used worldwide to check the honesty of the count. IIRC, they were only "wrong" in Bush elections.
Present your evidence.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Exit polling can show if there was massive fraud, in that the results of the exit poll were very far from the actual results (60% candidate A is reported as 20% candidate A). They don't work on slight differences because there is a margin of error.
As for 1980, Exit polling showed a slight win for Reagan. Instead Reagan got a 489 EV win with Carter only winning 6 states. Why? Those slight leads turned out to be a little larger than pollsters thought.
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/presidential/presidential_election_1980.html
You can use exit polling to find that 60%-to-20% switch. You can't use exit polling to find a 49%-to-51% switch.
aquart
(69,014 posts)Gosh-a-rooney, I ain't never heard of no margin of error before!
jeff47
(26,549 posts)
regnaD kciN
(27,639 posts)...that ORCA was the vote-rigging program -- which is just another reason I find it incredible.
Atman
(31,464 posts)I pointed this out in my first post...ORCA had no connection to actual voting or vote-rigging. That is what made Anon's claim suspect. But it doesn't discount anything else I've posted. ORCA is a smokescreen, because if we're all clamoring for info on ORCA, we're not looking at the Husted's "software patches" for "real time tabulation."
.
muriel_volestrangler
(106,207 posts)Your logic is as useless as the OP. You know nothing about the software patches, but you're boring us to death with your claims about them.
Atman
(31,464 posts)Except for that I have done some research, and you are just in denial. At some point, common sense must enter into it. You just don't seem to be able to accept that anything could have been amiss. Meanwhile, I admit that I don't KNOW that anything was amiss, but as they say in court, there is circumstantial evidence to support my hypothesis. Yours "evidence" is just based upon faith.
muriel_volestrangler
(106,207 posts)but you are harping on, again and again, that "it's all about the software patches". You are contradicting yourself. Your posts are wasting everyone's time.
Why don't you tell use what your "circumstantial evidence" evidence is? You've failed to do so, in several posts. Your 'hypothesis' is a wild guess that something was evil about the software patches, and that it was something to do with Rove. As others have pointed out, Ohio could have been won by Romney, and Obama would still have comfortably won the election.
"At some point, common sense must enter into it."
God, yes, please, start trying to exercise some common sense. You are currently saying that Rove had an evil genius plan to hack one state, but that the magic of mask-wearing video makers foiled him. And then they claimed to have hacked a different program instead. For the lulz, presumably.
Atman
(31,464 posts)I pointed out EXACTLY what the "circumstantial evidence" is. I explained my whole rational for believing some was amiss. Meanwhile, you just rely on faith. Jesus H., Muriel...if you're going to try to kick some ass, at least know where the ass is! You don't appear to have read one single word of my post.
muriel_volestrangler
(106,207 posts)He crowed about how everybody would be able to go the SoC web site and see the votes tabulated in real time, and therefore there was nothing to fear. Then there is the post from earlier today in which it was stated the SoC site suddenly blocked access to this data just as the polls closed.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1843197
What post from earlier?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1850465
What are you talking about? The patches were not installing on voting machines.
"The software is not on voting machines themselves, but on equipment that tabulates vote totals."http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Judge-rejects-lawsuit-s-Ohio-voting-software-claim-4011176.php#ixzz2BTVVdVLM
The 'data' (I presume that's what you mean) was not "accessible right up until the end of election day" - they are not allowed to report any vote totals until the polls are closed. Which 'system' do you claim "became inaccessible"? What do you mean, for that matter, by the 'SoC'? Is that meant to be something to do with the Ohio Secretary of State? You say 'SoC' in different posts, so I assume it's not just a typo. Can you link, for instance, to some DU posts showing that a system became inaccessible, apart from your own?
Husted's "software patches" were supposed to be the magic bullet for the GOP
(a complete fabrication - who said that? They were supposed to enable everyone to see the vote count more easily. You appear to be assuming there was a GOP conspiracy if you think the patches were 'supposed' to be for the GOP.)
no one is questioning Husted's "software patches." That, to me, is very suspicious.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1855745
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1857438
No, there's not 'circumstantial evidence' there. Your 'rational' appears to be a wish for Republicans to have done someone wrong, but magically foiled with no-one knowing how.
RepublicansRZombies
(982 posts)Exactly. So what are these poster's problems?
If they are not interested in the issue then don't answer.
If you have an opinion a normal person might post it once, or twice....but these people feel the need to post the same thing over and over responding to everyone.
They think if they say the same thing enough times, people will start to believe it.
It is a Rove tactic, The Big Lie, brainwashing by repetition.
It has worked really well on the Republican party but I would like to think we are smarter than that.
randome
(34,845 posts)
There you go.
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)accurate and verifiable or stand down.
x + 1 = x + 1 is not a trade secret
randome
(34,845 posts)We won the election is pretty solid circumstantial evidence that...we won the election. An anonymous email is nothing.
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)their product.
randome
(34,845 posts)It needs to be open yet secure, two diametrically opposed ideals. By no one knowing the code that is used, you could say that makes the process more secure, not less, since no one would know how to hack into it.
But I understand the reverse argument, that it also makes it easier for someone with the company to leak details of the code. So I agree that something more needs to be done, I just don't think an anonymous email is evidence that anything happened at all on election night other than we won.
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)Anything that holds itself out to be open to everyone will have the ability to be hacked.
Atman
(31,464 posts)Who the heck do you work for? You seem to respond to EVERY post questioning the ability of the vote to be hacked and/or blocked, switched, whatever.
At this point, I find your opposition to the mere QUESTIONING to be as troublesome as the original question.
randome
(34,845 posts)Except bowing to some anonymous email without evidence.
I'm doing the same as you, pointing out problems with the current system. I'm not sure if there is a perfect answer but I know open source isn't it.
I think electronic voting that prints out a receipt that the voter can verify before placing in a locked box would be a big step forward. That way the manual counts would need to match the machine counts.
That was RobertEarl's suggestion, not mine, but I think it's a good one.
Now getting every state to cooperate with this is another problem.
Atman
(31,464 posts)That's been a great talking point, but seriously...let's take Husted's "software patch" for tabulating in real time as an example...
You cast your vote on an ATM-like machine. They no longer flip the votes like they used to, that's old-school! Instead, you get a "receipt" saying you voted for Candidate D. THEN, "Software Patch" sends your vote to the central tabulator to be counted in real time...and in your vote's electronic journey, it is flipped, using an algorithm based upon the current lead/deficit of the person the software patch has been programmed to "win."
You'd never know a f**king thing. Your receipt is worthless since the algorithm always keeps the vote spread outside the range of automatic recount. It will NEVER be counted. The SoC will say "Well, we had no irregularities, everyone got their receipts, Candidate R has won!"
What good would your crummy receipt do you then?
This is why ALL proprietary EV machines MUST be eliminated, or their code open to regular inspection at the very least. It is Pollyanna thinking to believe that the power brokers are being honest when they've just spent $350,000,000 to win a $400,000 job.
randome
(34,845 posts)Manual counts would then occur which would have to match the totals tabulated by computer. It's not a receipt, per se, it's a manual ballot in conjunction with a voting machine. Instead of picking one method over another, use both.
When the results are sent electronically, they still know from what precincts they come from.
Atman
(31,464 posts)If the algorithm keeps the vote outside of the range allowed for a recount, why would anyone demand a recount?
I need to bookmark everything I read on the web. There was an article, posted here on DU also, about exactly how such an algorithm works. VERY simply programming. I know this since my son is a software architect. Exactly the type of person these guys would go to to write this kind of code. Except he's a Democrat. I asked him about this, and I got one of those "Dad, you're such a dork!" looks. He thought this was so elementary as to be barely worth discussion. It is incredibly easy to write code that will flip votes in transit, then erase itself when done.
So, if the software works correctly, the votes are flipped and the "wrong" guy wins. Who will call for a recount? If it's outside of the margin for a recount, what good is a receipt? Nothing to recount.
That was the point of Husted's attempted scam...don't flip the votes at the machine-level, that is too obvious. But go public and tell people you're just enabling them to "see the results in real time." Americans are stupid for this kind of smoke and mirrors. So while you're seeing NUMBERS in real time, those numbers don't actually have to have anything to do with the information going through the internet to the secret tabulating software. If there is no challenge, a paper receipt is meaningless.
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)You're thinking correctly, in my opinion. ORCA, and the posters who obsessively bring it up to refute the supposed CT, is part of the misdirection, it was just GOTV.
I read the Anonymous announcement a little differently than most, apparently. I read that they did something to ORCA (why? seems that they should not have, but we'd need to learn more about their claim), and they did something else to quarantine the tunnels they found which could supposedly be used for vote total manipulation. I did not (and do not) think they claimed that ORCA was about manipulating votes.
Regardless of what they claimed, we don't know who they are anyway, or if their claim has any credibility.
When I start reading denials of exit polls as reliable indicators of fraud, it raises a big red flag for me. I know plenty about exit polls, I studied the "fixed" results in 2004 from the media consortium exit polls, and I studied the raw results that came from election-day screen shots before the fix was in. I know the difference, and why they say they correct them to match the results of the election before releasing them to the public. The media consortium claims the polls were designed to analyze voting trends, not to monitor the veracity of an election. It's odd, though, how the arguments change when it's Russian or Iranian exit polls that appear to indicate fraud.
This whole unverifiable election business is 100% bogus. Personally, I would like to see the Anonymous claim treated seriously, it would bring much needed scrutiny to system vulnerabilities.
Anyway, I found your post right on. It makes a lot of sense that they'd program any vote count changes to stay closer than the recount threshold. And you are right to look at tabulator-level man-in-the-middle attacks, not at something like ORCA which monitored individual voters (but not their votes).
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)as advertised. Security is a different problem.
randome
(34,845 posts)Because the results very much match what Nate Silver and the DNC expected. That's not saying the code is foolproof and doesn't need changes. So long as people don't have faith in it, the system needs improvements.
And we're not inching our way any further along on that road if we spend all this time debating an anonymous Internet email.
Atman
(31,464 posts)So Nate Silver predicted D result.
Karl and Husted predicted R result.
Only three states were in play, and curiously, EACH ONE had similar "voter fraud" issues.
If you watched even ten minutes of news prior to the election, you'd know OHIO was the linchpin. As Ohio goes, so goes the nation. So they focused everything on Ohio, based upon their own flawed polling. They installed "software patches" to do tabulating in real time. But then...their polling turned out to be wrong. Drastically wrong. They had rigged one state which they thought would be the decider, which everyone was watching closely, and which would turn out to be a total outlier which the exit polls would reveal.
ABORT! ABORT!
As has been reported already, the Ohio SoC "real time vote tabulating" web page went dark just as the polls closed. Ooops. I wonder what happened? And then Karl is on live TV shitting in his pants..."WHA WHA WHAAAAT?" Hey, the best paid-for plans...
aquart
(69,014 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)Javaman
(65,710 posts)until there is evidence, it's Anonymous's word against everyone elses.
Please stop. It's really not helping.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Could be a 15 year old kid in Thailand.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)He needs people convinced he is an evil super genius thwarted by the super heroes.
Occulus
(20,599 posts)That's how code like this works if you don't want people knowing what happened. Yes, computer code can delete itself without a trace after execution.
It's a trivial thing to accomplish.
However, the red flags that point to "something" happening.... those are all over the place, in a straight line leading to that black hole of self-deletion. In a sense, the very lack of evidence, when added to all the red flags, is itself evidence.
Javaman
(65,710 posts)sorry, until there is real evidence, we are supposed to take their word for it?
that doesn't work in the real world.
librechik
(30,957 posts)jeff47
(26,549 posts)And there's no actual smoke where they're pointing.
librechik
(30,957 posts)I'm sure you would have been one of those who were totally convinced there wasn't a problem--no matter how many times the engineers pointed it out. It would still invisible to you.
Inform yourself.
regnaD kciN
(27,639 posts)...and only shows the deliberate blindness to reason of conspiracy-theory diehards.
In the Challenger mission, there was good reason, based on sound physical science, to suspect there was a problem. In this case, all we have is a floridly-written statement from a nameless, faceless individual, which paints a scenario regarded as technologically-implausible that, furthermore, misidentifies the ORCA system and, most-fatally, describes in some detail an alleged Rove plot that, even had it succeeded in every respect, wouldn't have flipped enough states to win the election.
To be honest, this conspiracy assertion reminds me of nothing do much as young-earth creationism. If someone were to post a thread asserting the OP never was really convinced if the truth of creationism until he or she saw how many "authoritarian" scientists were trying to " silence" it, and then realized it must therefore be true, don't you think such a thread would BR openly mocked? I see little difference in this case.
librechik
(30,957 posts)in order to come to a generalized concluding label. It's also stupid to generalize about the capacities of many posters by pointing to one.
It's REALLY stupid to try to shut down discussion by personal name-calling--But shutting down discussion because other folks on the forum are stupid CTers seems to be the order of the day.
muriel_volestrangler
(106,207 posts)whose negligence killed people. You should examine your own disdain for DUers before you start claiming to see problems in others.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)It was Management. Over the protests of the engineers.
louslobbs
(3,416 posts)The only thing a comment like yours does, is breed upset and confrontation, it stops conversations that can over time help to breakthrough issues, and instead causes a breakdown in communication. Take a moment to think about that.
Lou
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Claims have been made, but there is no evidence backing up those claims. In addition, the claims that were made were riddled with gibberish, making it much harder to believe the claim.
Your flailing about for insulting analogies is still not evidence.
IdaBriggs
(10,559 posts)Historically, election fraud has been around for about two centuries. In Chicago, jokes about "my parents voted Democrat their entire lives, and they haven't stopped just because they are dead!" are old news.
With new technology comes new ways of messing with results. I think anyone who has heard "crazy" concepts like
-- Identity Theft
or
-- Credit Card Theft
or
-- Civil Rights Violations
or watched a movie or television show that involved "hacking" a system has to have at least an inkling that crooks *always* find a new way of robbing people.
What on earth makes *ANYONE* believe that "votes" are more sacred than money? Especially when being in power means $$$ if you can control regulation and enforcement of laws, rules, etc.?
I make my living with computers; I can make them report anything I want, and while I appreciate the "computer programmers have more integrity than a pharmacist!" concept, I also know that people get paid, and don't always pay attention to the consequences of what they do on a day-to-day basis. I am also aware that programmers from other countries are employed by manufacturers thanks to visas, which means "it isn't really treason" especially when it is your job....
Do I think Karl Rove and his minions tried to "steal" the election? Yes. Do I think Obama and Team did an outstanding GOTV effort? YES!
But believing one thing does not mean I can't believe the other.
Elections need to be trustworthy, no matter which party wins.
I support Election Integrity.
I do not support closing one's eyes, covering one's ears, and chanting "la, la, la, I can't HEAR you!" when the topic is broached.
Did he, or didn't he? Don't care - want to make sure NEITHER SIDE can get away with it, EVER.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)There's evidence of identity theft. There's evidence of credit card theft. There's evidence of civil rights violations.
There's claims of an attempted hack by Rove. The people making that claim have failed to provide any evidence. Plus, their description of Rove's operation is incoherent.
So if they have evidence, they should publish it. Even if no prosecutions occur, the evidence would make it very easy to replace these machines and protect the elections as you want.
Publish no evidence, no changes, and no protection.
IdaBriggs
(10,559 posts)Do you remember Andy Stephenson? He told me a story about asking an elderly election worker if her computer was connected to the internet. She indignantly replied that it wasn't because it was against the rules. He politely pointed out the modem connection (this was back in ancient 2004 days), and she explained that it was for email (which she truly didn't understand had "something" to do with the internet).
There is a widely circulating YouTube video of an election machine in 2012 that WOULD NOT take a vote for Obama. Back in 2004 (again, ancient days), there was a beautiful website that contained over THREE HUNDRED cases of "issues" with voting machines - and all but two favored Republicans. These were well documented - and no one in authority did anything to investigate.
You can read these stories in the DU archives under "Election Integrity". They were real.
There is a woman "Who Shall Not Be Named" who had a video of machine tapes in trash bags in Florida (again, 2004). This was widely reported on DU, and her name was not unknown to appropriate officials.
NO ONE in an official capacity *EVER* investigated this incident.
For over a decade, "voter suppression" techniques have made voting in certain areas - Florida comes to mind awfully fast, doesn't it? - a (polite word) challenge, with hours of lines. This is well documented in the media. It is not a surprise. It is reality.
Notice all the prosecutions? Can you count to Zero?
I support perp walking *anyone* who interferes with voting and election integrity. I do not pretend these things don't or can't happen. I am not in a position to be of much help, except to add my voice to the chorus.
RepublicansRZombies
(982 posts)and everything you said 
aquart
(69,014 posts)That's it in a nutshell. Randome and Jeff's cries that EVERYTHING has to be proven before we can even discuss it, hell...it just wreaks of this same old stonewalling. Just keep everyone talking about the DISCUSSION, and you'll take up all their time, wear them down before anyone can take a serious look. It's actually a pretty good strategy. We should know better.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)On different systems in different states? You don't have much of a grasp of what "evidence" means. I'm talking about this specific letter. Not "has something weird every happened anywhere". Because if there's evidence to go along with these specific claims, that can be used to fix the system.
Btw, your specific 2004 anecdote doesn't actually prove anything. The modem doesn't have to connect to the Internet to get email. You do to get Internet email, but not all email is Internet email. The SoS could have set up an internal network with email to communicate to the polling stations without using the Internet. Believe it or not, it's possible to have that modem call someone other than an ISP!!!
Frankly, I don't know if they did or they didn't, but that evidence is only a slam-dunk if you assume all email is Internet email.
Yes, in PA. Older touch-screen systems are actually not "touch-screen". The way they worked is a line of LEDs on two sides of the monitors and optical sensors on the other two sides. Your finger interrupts the beam, and the software uses the location of your finger to figure out where you are pointing.
Dirt is a significant problem for this style of touchscreen, since that will also block the LEDs, and after cleaning the PA systems worked as they were supposed to.
Why'd PA use this style of touch-screen? Because it's far more reliable under the massive load experienced by a voting machine.
But that is PA. Anonymous's claims are about OH, FL and VA.
In fact it was such a fantastic web site that....what, it disappeared? You just didn't feel like linking it while citing it as evidence?
You don't need prosecutions to force a change in voting systems. What you need is evidence that DRE systems were hacked, so that states move to optical-scan-backed-by-paper-recount, like CO and NY (and others, that's just the two where I've voted on such systems). That move doesn't require someone to go to jail. Hence my desire for these anonymous folks to actually publish some evidence.
I'm not pretending they can't happen. I'm asking for actual evidence that they did happen.
IdaBriggs
(10,559 posts)You need to know what you are talking about.
Since you don't, how about you do some reading on 2004, and CURRENT ongoing issues with election integrity nowadays, and THEN we can talk some more.
Start here: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0601-34.htm and then google the topics referenced.
The fact that the "anonymous" scenario is plausible should scare people; it scares me. Saying it can't or couldn't happen is the equivalent of clapping for tinker bell - computer systems aren't secured by wishing really hard.
But maybe, this time, nobody thought that stealing a few measly votes was a good idea - after all, if you can do all of the other rotten things we KNOW they did, why would it occur to the folks who PROGRAM THE MACHINES to "fix" the election? Why, that would be WRONG! (Where is my fainting couch? I think I might swoon at the thought!)
Oh, and the email wasn't an "internal only" system; Andy knew enough to check that. The election worker just didn't understand how computers and the Internet work. It is still a pretty common problem.
Kingofalldems
(40,277 posts)Kingofalldems
(40,277 posts)I resent 30 day wonders telling DU what to post.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)so little time!
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(106,207 posts)
Z_I_Peevey
(2,783 posts)
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)Hamlette
(15,556 posts)connect the dots
Demeter
(85,373 posts)and I think we have reached that point.
As far as I can tell, Anonymous is under no obligation to "prove" anything. They are private individuals, not funded by anything other than their own resources, supported by nothing but their own intellect.
If they were able to defeat the forces of evil, more power to them! If they are able to instill in an apathetic nation the idea that Evil can and should be overcome, even better, whether or not the previous sentence applies.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)If anonymous can prove voting machines can be hacked, but they decline to publish that proof, that means they want to hack elections in the future - or allow Republicans to continue hacking elections.
That means even though I like most of what anonymous does, they should all be thrown in jail for manipulating elections.
They are not the good guys if they insist on allowing election hacking to continue.
This can only be accomplished by publishing their evidence.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)If Anonymous reveals what it knows and what it's done, the true forces of evil can counteract it.
This is not Marquis of Queensbury rules. People who try to steal elections play for keeps.
This is more of a Superhero situation...at least, until the US government gets its head out of the sand and its hands out of the pockets of the Obscenely Wealthy and Immoral, and fixes the problem, to wit: the election process is not democratic, observable, verifiable, etc. And saying it is doesn't make it so.
I work at the polls. And as an engineer, I know the ways to defraud the election. It isn't going to happen at the precinct level (unless the voting is paperless), it's going to happen when all the precincts are added together. And that means software.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)This isn't some stupid spy novel. This is the real world.
If you find a vulnerability, you disclose it so the vulnerability can be fixed. In this case, it would allow us to replace the DRE machines with ones that include a paper trail.
If there's no evidence, then the state won't spend the money to change the system. If there is evidence, then the state will.
No, it's not. It's not even close. I appreciate that you have a rich fantasy life, but this is mundane engineering.
You want to close the holes, you need a paper trail. The way you get a paper trail is to show the DRE systems are vulnerable.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Otherwise, you are just making it easier for the fraudsters to steal the next election.
The holes have been pointed out for several elections.
Not one has been closed. Not one.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)For example, plugging in some hardware let people reprogram the DRE voting machines. The response from SoS offices was to either cover the ports or claim poll workers would see it happening.
A hack on actual election day destroys the SoS's belief that the machines aren't realistically hackable. Which would force them to take action.
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)"How, exactly, would they counteract new voting machines with a recounted paper trail?"
How about keep everything within whatever threshold is used to determine the need for a recount?
They should use the paper ballots as the real ones, and if there is a problem with them, or with their results, use the machines to check the paper ballot count. I trust paper ballots, hand-counted, much more than I trust anything electronic currently out there.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Hand-counting the ballots requires staffing up a lot in November, which can cause it's own set of issues - remember the woman in Oregon who was filling in the "Republican" straight ticket on absentee ballots? You can't hire just anyone, but they'll have little to do the rest of the year so you can't hire full-time. That's why we originally switched to the punch-card ballots in the 1960s - it was getting quite hard to get enough hand-counting staff.
So what seems like a good compromise to me is to count the ballots using an optical scanner, and then manually hand-recount randomly-selected precincts. Those random precincts would be selected after election day, so that there's no way to know which precincts are safe to 'hack'. If those random recounts discover more than a trivial difference between the hand count and the machine count, then you recount everything by hand.
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)Not saying it's easy, but it's definitely something we can, and should, do.
Neither the DRE's, the scanners, nor the tabulators should be trusted.
Off the top of my head, the hand-count for random precincts might suffice, though I doubt that I'm seeing all of the potential problems with this. I'd rather hand-count everything.
We can deal with rogue counters that cheat. The counting should be under constant video surveillance. What we can't deal with are un-verifiable electronic results. That seems like a no-brainer, especially considering what kind of interests control our voting equipment. Also, the scale of any fraud that comes from biased humans counting votes would be much smaller than the scale of possible electronic fraud.
Finally, and I know this is obvious, but from some posts I've seen it seems worth saying: a paper trail is only useful if the paper ballots are actually counted.
Response to RepublicansRZombies (Original post)
Post removed
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)Then you'd know its ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT.
And no, Kos using common fucking sense about this is NOT the best argument we have. The best argument we have is that there are many of us with years of IT experience that have read the alleged Anonymous statement and immediately knew it was full of nonsensible techno-babble, drawing lines of correlation between apples and oranges and made absolutely no sense whatsoever. It was utter bullshit. Period.
RepublicansRZombies
(982 posts)ah, another tactic. 'The experts say'
Koch experts say there is no such thing as Global warming.
There are many IT experts that think our election system is set up to be hacked.
Rove had an IT expert that knew how to do it, then he died right before Fitrakis got him on the stand to testify.
THAT might be why some of us are suspicious, but no...just trust Kos, he knows everything because he is such a popular liberal blogger, that somehow 'leads' Democrats after he voted for Bush.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)But continue embarassing yourself by buying into the fake Anonymous statement. You are in flat earth territory here and are too damned uninformed to realize it.
randome
(34,845 posts)I know which side I'd come down on.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)And I'll happily answer any questions you have.
There is no such thing as a "false tunnel". Yet anonymous claims there was. There are several technologies that are sometimes referred to as "tunnels", such as SSH, VPNs or TOR. But the description of the tunnels by anonymous do not match SSH, VPNs, TOR or any other "tunneling" technologies.
Additionally, there's the issue that the voting machines and/or tabulators (depends on precinct) were not connected to the Internet. How could Rove and Anonymous get to these machines over an Internet connection that doesn't exist?
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...in 2004 as well? If so, how did it happen that when the machines in Ohio crashed, the results were routed to servers in Tennessee for processing? Please let us know how this miracle occurred.
RepublicansRZombies
(982 posts)Just because they weren't paying attention doesn't mean that we weren't.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)And some are trying to bring in the 2 machines in PA. All of these use different systems.
In any case, the OH voting machines are not on the Internet. The tabulators may or may not be on the Internet, depending on the precinct. Most were not.
In any case, please inform us how the counties that sent their voting information to TN in 2004 never managed to notice that their local numbers didn't match the SoS's numbers. Did they hit "transmit" and immediately fall over dead? Were the Democrats in those counties bribed?
Btw, I also noticed that you decided to change the subject from the current claims to 2004. Are you now agreeing that these claims do not appear to be true, or are you flailing about hoping I'll go away and you can go back to pretending something happened here?
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...okay, so you admit that vote counting systems may have been on the Internet. Since our system works by COUNTING THE VOTES, it would seem to be very important to CONTROL THE SYSTEMS THAT COUNT THE VOTE. But if these systems are ON THE INTERNET then they can indeed be subject to hacking and changing results.
As to whether local precincts "notice" discrepancies or not, I would not want to pin my hopes on whether each precinct pays attention to the vote counts before and after they have been rerouted.
I brought up 2004 because there were claims back then that the machines were not on the Internet -- until it was shown that many of them were indeed accessible via Internet. Sorry if that is inconvenient. Given the similarities with the timing in this vote as compared to that one, it seemed relevant to this discussion.
There has been no change in subject, it was just a question. So now you have admitted that indeed the Internet "may" be a factor this year as well. Thank you for reinforcing my point.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Some tabulators in one of the 4 relevant voting systems are on the Internet. Thus the Internet is not going to be your path into stealing the election in the other 3 voting systems, or in the tabulators that aren't on the Internet.
So...all Democratic observers in OH are incompetent or just don't care about elections?
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...who have read the alleged Anonymous statement and think there COULD be something there.
It is easy to dismiss something because it is not an exact technical description of how things work. But if Anonymous were to use exact technical descriptions, no one would have read it because most people will fall asleep when reading tech specs.
I am not saying one way or the other, we don't have any hard evidence so we cannot make any conclusions. However, we do have video showing Rove making a fool of himself on national television, in a manner eerily reminiscent of the 2004 Ohio results. So it is suggestive. The difference this time is, Obama didn't need Ohio anyway, so in that sense the discussion may be moot.
But what about next time? We do need to be vigilant. First things first: we need to get rid of the voting machines. Voter-verified paper ballots, that's the ticket.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)ORCA was a Romney campaign voter strike list, emailed to volunteers in a massive PDF document. It has zero connection to anything related to e-voting tabulation systems. None, zero, zilch, nada. To claim there is some connection doesn't even BEGIN to become any kind of argument. That FAKE Anonymous statement was full of nonsensicle technobabble strung together. Anyone with real technical knowledge can read it and immediately see that. It it utter bullshit. That fact isn't even open to debate among those of us that actually know what we are talking about.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...that is not strictly technically "just so". It's part of their schtick.
Furthermore, I am very aware that ORCA was a piece of software intended to help with GOTV. Or at least so we're told.
However, the Anonymous email mentioned ORCA but did not claim it was the central element: "We identified the digital structure of Karl's operation and even that of his ORCA." Please read carefully: "Karl's operation" "and" "his ORCA". Two separate things.
So yes, the letter was filled with flowery language and less-than-tech-spec language. It was intended to be somewhat of a popularization. As I stated, I don't know at all whether they really did prevent some vote-switching in Ohio. After 2004's debacle, I am not inclined to dismiss it out-of-hand, that's all. And certainly not because some hackers decided to use flowery language.
Now as far as the personal attack in your header, my response is: you can go to hell.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)And ORCA was referred to more than once in the letter. They wouldn't even mention it if they weren't trying to infer a connection to vote rigging. You are obviously out of your element here. Just stop already.
Occulus
(20,599 posts)which would be very important if they ever intend anything similar.
By the way: code can delete itself the instant after execution. That's trivial.
I think the whole ORCA mention was a red herring designed to deceive. Why? To preserve their tactics for future use. This is also known as "never let the enemy know exactly how you got past their sentries and behind their lines."
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)Because shit like what you just said would have me ripping every folicle out of my head right about now.
They don't need to mention ORCA in order to preserve tactics for future use. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? "Oh yea, we'll release this statement bragging about how we saved democracy, but we'll fill it full of red herrings and bullshit, thus discrediting ourselves and making ourselves sounds like lying, technically illiterate fuckheads".
Christ, where do you people come up with this stuff?
Look, I never would put it past Republicans to steal an election if they could. But this Anonymous stuff is definately bullshit. Theres nothing credible about it at all. And none of the people saying otherwise have put forward even a single technical argument based in reality that has any merit whatsoever, at all.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...and I'll stop, or not, when it pleases me to do so, not at your command.
Idiot.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)You on the other hand, don't. Its really that simple.
Progressives should be solid on the facts. Thats suppose to be our schtick. And if that is so, we don't just buy a bunch of unverifiable, meritless bullshit that some 15 year old nobody in a Guy Fawkes mask posts on the Internet... which is exactly what you are doing.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...since I have stated repeatedly that I don't know whether or not Anonymous did anything in Ohio on voting day. I just said I am not ready to dismiss it out-of-hand based on an analysis of the letter that is purportedly from Anonymous, and its use of language that is not technically exact.
But please feel free to reply to this so you can have the Last Word. That is obviously important to you.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)Thats what my entire argument has been the whole time. The Anonymous letter (which I don't believe is even authentically from anyone who is an actual Anonymous hacker to begin with) is the only thing I've been talking about. I never once said that stealing an election or vote rigging would be beneath Republicans. This entire thread is pretty much about the Anonymous thing (try reading the title of the OP) and thats all I'm speaking to.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...you are aware, are you not, that ORCA failed miserably on election day? This is a matter of public record.
Again: I have no idea whether Anonymous had a hand in ORCA's failure OR in preventing vote rigging. But if they did contribute to ORCA's failure, then one would expect them to mention it when bragging about their activities.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)It was a Get Out the Vote list and nothing more. It was just a simple database of potential voters, tracking which ones had voted and which ones had not. The campaign attempted to provide access to that data via the web and the servers they housed it on weren't load balanced properly to handle a lot of traffic. And its also possible there was some sort of DOS attack against those servers to overload them and thus making it inaccessible to a lot of people. Regardless of any of that, theres no connection at all between that and these other completely separate systems that are used to tabulate votes. ORCA had NOTHING to do with voting, vote tabulation or anything related to that purpose at all. I could reconstruct exactly what ORCA was myself by creating a database, populating it with voter lists and writing a simple web application to allow people to read it and mark off which people had been confirmed as having voted. Thats all there was to it.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...yes we all know ORCA was GOTV software. So stipulated... as I did in an earlier post. Your need to belabor this point demonstrates just how shoddy your argument is, since we have NO, ZIP, ZERO disagreement about the purpose of the ORCA software.
That said, ORCA did fail on election day as a matter of public record. So if Anonymous had anything to do with that, it makes sense they would brag about it. That's ALL I am saying.
Furthermore it is certainly possible that they had nothing to do with the ORCA failure nor with preventing vote rigging, and that their purported letter is a bit of after-the-fact revisionist chest-beating.
You of course have stated that you dismiss their involvement out-of-hand. Fine, you are welcome to do so. What I am not okay with is your disagreeableness in doing so, and your need to call names and question the integrity and/or knowledge of those who may disagree with you. You can shout "I'm RIGHT" all day long, doesn't make it so.
We may never know anyway. And that really is the take-home lesson here: whatever Anonymous may or may not have done, as long as we have electronic voting machines and electronically-tabulated results, we can never be certain about the results.
There has always been vote tampering, but making our votes electronic enables it on a grand scale and without traceability. I find that more than a little disconcerting.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)So yea, I dismiss it out of hand. And people who act like it adds any credibility to the notion that there was a vote rigging operation are making themselves look like fools. Thats that.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...to the point that they will attempt to shout down those who disagree with them, merely show that they are susceptible to group-think and want to be viewed as Very Serious People by the arbiters of such things -- whoever the hell that may be.
But I'll bet you think there was nothing fishy in Ohio in 2004, either; and that the death of Rove's IT specialist in a small-plane accident, right before he was due to testify in that case, is merely a coincidence -- and that to even entertain any notion otherwise makes one stupid / gullible / misinformed / a LIAR. Right?
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)I think there was something fishy in Ohio in 2004. I've been an Ohio resident since 1998. I live in Columbus. I remember the shit Blackwell was pulling back then quite well. I remember there being no paper trail. I remember precincts being shorted on machines. I was here.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)Did you notice Rove's nearly identical reaction when the Ohio vote came in?
In other words, did you learn nothing from the 2004 debacle?
In any case my problem is with you is not whether or not you believe there is or was a vote rigging conspiracy in Ohio, then or now. My problem is your need to denigrate others who start to voice opinions on the topic based on the (purported) Anonymous letter.
Whether or not you agree that anything untoward occurred this time, at least you should be able to admit we do not find out about these things if we shut down all discussion a priori. It is not a sensible approach. Given the past history of the GOP in Ohio, and given Rove's bizarre meltdown on election night, I should think you would want some investigation, with or without the Anonymous letter that has you so riled up.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)For one, we have a lot of e-voting machines with paper trails in Ohio now. We also have very vigilant eyes on everything the SOS does during an election because of 2004. Strickland/Brunner put a very robust voting infrastructure in place that was not undone by Kasich. I never said there wasn't suspicious stuff going on, with Husted having shit illegally patched and trying to screw people out of early voting. None of that has fuck all to do with this silly Anonymous business.
I'm denigrating people for believing something some unknown joker in a Guy Fawkes mask posts on the Internet, especially considering that the details of what was posted was a bunch of stuff that contradicts known facts about how the technology involved here works. It makes us all look STUPID. We are suppose to be the group that relies on reason, facts, verifiable information and science. This kind of shit makes us look like flat earthers.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...no, not really. I mean, if anyone here were defending the (purported) Anonymous letter with one-half the vehemence of those who are denying its authenticity, you might have a point. But many of us are just saying, hey, it's possible there is something going on there. We don't know if the letter is authentic. But we do know that Karl Rove melted down; we do know that the Ohio machines crashed briefly at nearly the same time that it happened in 2004, when Rove had a similar reaction to the vote totals -- but there was a very different outcome that time. All of which is SUGGESTIVE but hardly PROBATIVE.
I just don't get the need to try and squelch discussion. If you really think a particular discussion thread will make "us" "look bad", then a more effective response on your part would be to ignore it altogether, since each of your replies kicks the thread back up to the top, and the number of replies in a thread tends to suggest the level of interest in a topic.
Just a friendly suggestion.
cali
(114,904 posts)like the one Anon is making. You're not big on that, eh?
regnaD kciN
(27,639 posts)...how it is that, according to the story, Rove went to the trouble of setting up an election-rigging scheme that, if totally successful, would still have left his candidate on the losing end of a 272-266 margin?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)
Pbs1914
(147 posts)would suggest that if the Republicans in power did everything on the ground level (voter ID laws to try and win Pennsylvania, robo calls to the wrong date/precinct in New Mexico, shortening early voting in Ohio and Florida, trashing absentee ballots in to supress the vote in Virginia) that they would not leave the biggest and basically easiest to manipulate (no paper trail) area of suppressing and changing the vote alone. Without ALL of the things suggesting votes being switched in Ohio in 2004 and "lost" votes in Florida 2000, the simple fact that every possible angle to suppress votes was used by Karl Rove etc. would logically lead one to conclude that they would indeed try and manipulate the electronic side as well; and the part with the least amount of visibility. I mean really, they just openely tried to suppress votes and yet they had some type of moral ethics when dealing with the electronic portion? Well I have a bridge I'd like to sell in Brooklyn to those who believe that every possible cheat wasn't used or on the table to be used without some sort of court intervention or in this case, cyber intervention.
RepublicansRZombies
(982 posts)"would logically lead one to conclude that they would indeed try and manipulate the electronic side as well"
"I mean really, they just openly tried to suppress votes and yet they had some type of moral ethics when dealing with the electronic portion?"
regnaD kciN
(27,639 posts)In short, do I think Republican operatives would rig the voting if they could develop a plan that had a) a good chance of success and b) little chance of being exposed. However, the scenario described by the self-proclaimed Anonymous spokesman fails that test. Therefore, I conclude it's probably B.S.
There are many plausible theories about the JFK assassination -- whether he was killed by the Mafia, CIA, Castro, etc. But, if someone were to assert that he was killed by Martians acting under the direction of the British royal family, who poisoned his cornflakes at breakfast that morning, such an assertion would be rightfully laughed-off...as would be anyone who claimed that he or she was convinced of its truth simply because "authoritarians" thought it ridiculous and, furthermore, went on to imply that those who found it ridiculous we're doing so because they had some sort of vested interest in the truth being suppressed. I fail to see much of a difference in this case.
joeunderdog
(2,563 posts)Witnesses in cases get suicided, money gets misappropriated, districts get redistricted, corporations get personhooded...
votes get flipped. Why the hell not?
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)
for the facts and the logic of it allIdaBriggs
(10,559 posts)
Invalid. The one thing don't necessitate the other, nor does it provide evidence for the conspiracy theory at all.
naaman fletcher
(7,362 posts)Where did you hear that?
starroute
(12,977 posts)Beyond that, it's all rumor and allegation -- but there are enough incidents like the current one to keep the rumors going. Here's a typical example of the claims:
http://www.thehollywoodliberal.com/2007/08/11/more-on-the-daily-kos-cia-connection/
naaman fletcher
(7,362 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)claims got mocked.
Sorry, but some dude in a mask on the Internet making claims with zero evidence is laughable.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)All Birthers are right wing nut jobs.
Some on the left still buy into the Fraudster bullshit while the Fraudster ranks are now being filled with right wing nut jobs who are pissed off at their guy losing so they blame it on George Soros pushing the magic button to change the outcome on electronic voting machines.
Of course, many of these newly formed Fraudsters are also Birthers.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)on the Internet.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)... just because some personality with a gillion posts and a bad attitude towards that something or someone, tells them to.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Not a shred of evidence. Moreover, it conflicts with common sense and what factual information we do have.
99Forever
(14,524 posts).. nothing more, nothing less.
Very impressive.
randome
(34,845 posts)And Climate Change deniers. And 'I'm not sure how old the Earth is' proponents.
If there is one thing that separates Democrats from Republicans, it's that we look at facts and evidence instead of aiming for the lowest common denominator.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Equally impressive.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)99Forever
(14,524 posts)... you making shit up, worthy of a legitimate response?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Ohio
Florida
Pennsylvania
Virginia.
Why should I believe him?
99Forever
(14,524 posts)What the fuck does that have to do with ANYTHING? Just throwing shit at the wall to see what will stick, are you?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)There is nothing resembling evidence or proof. Nothing.
Those who embrace this theory do so purely out of faith.
Occulus
(20,599 posts)That's a trivial thing to write into any piece of software.
randome
(34,845 posts)99Forever
(14,524 posts)... proved ZERO of that which you demand of others, you sure don't spend any time looking inward, do you?
Where's YOUR fucking "proof" of ANYTHING you spew?
randome
(34,845 posts)No, you don't, or you would have presented it. Let's fix the current system but let's not believe in every bit of crap that appears on the Internet.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)... fucking what? You aren't in charge of jack shit. What I do or don't "believe" is none of your fucking concern, even IF you knew what that was, which quite CLEARLY you don't. You CLEARLY have an agenda to marginalize Anonymous. As such, I consider every word you type to be questionable, AT BEST.
Have a nice life. You are gone.
randome
(34,845 posts)
Cha
(319,067 posts)99Forever
(14,524 posts)Have another cup of fail.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Karl Rove was electronically altering votes in Ohio, and that Project Orca was a vote fraud operation.
That is, a fact not coming from behind some random dude in a mask on a YouTube video.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Karl Rove wasn't electronically altering votes in Ohio, and that Project Orca wasn't a vote fraud operation.
That is, a fact not coming from behind some random dude on an internet forum.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)the burden of proof.
Moreover, Orca was a digitized strike list that involved thousands of people coming into contact with it. And it failed spectacularly.
The imposter in that web video was ignorant of what Orca actually was.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)... nu uh, is not.
I just love the good ol' baffle 'em with bullshit style.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)Indeed, the very fact that I am also making fun of this thread and OP is additional evidence that the Anonymous Magic Programming Trick is REAL REWAL REAL, since another way "they" attack the TRUTH is by mocking it with sarcasm, and now I'm getting even more meta, since pointing out that I'm mocking it is just another way of mocking and silencing, as is pointing out that I'm pointing out that I'm mocking it!
My post laughing at the claim is evidence for the claim! (Look, I'm even mocking that, because CCC is so desperate to shut down this discussion - but notice that I can say CCC because nobody believes that there is such an entity, which there is, and I've been sent by them, but saying this has no real effect, since we've spent so long belittling conspiracy theorists that only other fringe people believe them! Ha ha ha...you cannot beat CCC, silly conspiracists. Indeed, we like having conspiracy theorists around, so we have people to laugh at and thereby create an Other that people can contrast themselves to...our greatest conspiracy was inventing conspiracy theorizing itself!!!!We OWN you!!!)
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)
regnaD kciN
(27,639 posts)...as the OP might say.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)I caught Rove jacking off behind a 7-11 in Dallas back in July, don't you folks want more details from my scoop!
randome
(34,845 posts)Never mind!
MineralMan
(151,267 posts)Please put it away, now.
madokie
(51,076 posts)pretty much in a nutshell too
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts) MineralMan
(151,267 posts)There's your proof, as used by every conspiracy theorist out there. It's the only proof you need.
randome
(34,845 posts)That's further proof!
regnaD kciN
(27,639 posts)
Hugin
(37,848 posts)This is how I've heard feelings like you are experiencing described in the past. I can understand how the insistent caterwauling of those who see nothing here and their calls for discussion to move along as there's nothing to see here might heighten your curiosity and suspicions in the matter.
Maybe, we should discuss it.
OTOH, We have:
Personally, after reading technical descriptions of Romney's laughable Rube Goldbergian apparatus known as ORCA. I have to think it's possible "Ham Head" Rove may have spent some of his (or the Koch's money, I should say) on some sort of software application of his own. If such a thing exists then it's possible some persons stumbled upon it and decided to observe it and derive it's possible function. As, that's what self-described "hackers" do.
OTOH, We have:
Was it an Election Changing software package? I doubt it. Although, I can see Rove and/or whoever sold it to him portraying it that way. They LIKE the simplicity of a silver-bullet solution. Having thusly oversold it, I can see where Rove NEEDS something like the explanation of a shady group of anonymous (note the lower case "a"
"hackers" to soothe his very burned benefactors.
Software Hacking is only one facet of the whole realm of Social-Engineering. I'm sure that in a large public event like an Election where many millions of livelihoods and many Trillions of Dollars are concerned there is both official and un-official social engineering efforts in action on all sides.
peace13
(11,076 posts)that the threat to our election process is real. Three years ago our SOS said that our voting machines were easily hackable and then went on to leave her job before even trying to correct the problem. Secret software, routing machines through private servers, limiting paper ballots...you name it. We need to fix this problem or give up because MSM and big business have all but strangled the process!
Z_I_Peevey
(2,783 posts)The almost religious fervor with which some are trying to shut down any discussion of this topic is frightening.
Maybe Anonymous had a hand in things on election night; maybe they didn't. But the topic of election integrity should not be the subject of such concentrated repetition/ridicule.
RepublicansRZombies
(982 posts)n/t
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)Well, unless he's changing his mind about someone running for the Senate when he changes his mind overnight! Lol!
It always amazed me that he was ever able to fool so many people, although to be honest, early on people had some serious questions about him and his partner, the 'father of dk'.
truckin
(576 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)To go on that alone? Maybe they just don't want the left to look like loons, as the Tea Partiers do.
mstinamotorcity2
(1,451 posts)And with all the antics he and his wittle organizations have been involved in would not surprise me if he wasn't into election rigging. But if we are to be a fact based community we need that, Just the Facts. Anonymous has claimed to have pulled off several feats. Some seem to be with timing. But all in all this one deserves some fact based shit to make it plausible. Like real Proof so that Karl Rove is spending his money buying Esquire time by the hour. And Reince Prebus is trying not to drop the Soap!!!! No if any of what is being floated out there in virtual heaven is true then the Public has the right to know!!! Fuck conspiracy theories and fables. Where's the Proof??? We have been fighting it seems like a lifetime for Justice and Equality in America, and still we have some who refuse to have proof for things not connected to their religious beliefs. Like most fables, Karl rove getting disappointed on Election night , is a splendid ending.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Lots of people won't discuss the moon landing being fake. Lots of sites, including DU, will shut down any discussion over the moon landing being fake.
Do you now think the moon landing was faked?
What's so strange about being shocked when you lose in a landslide after convincing yourself you will win? What's so strange about acting odd when you suddenly realize your career is over?
Actually, the people trying to shut down this conspiracy theory are actually asking you to analyze it, As in analyze what happened on election day and what evidence has been produced of a hack.
So far, no one has produced evidence of an attempted hack. There's a claim there was one. This letter uses technical terms incorrectly. That doesn't help the claim-er's argument.
So what we're left with is people's feelings that Rove tried to hack it. But no evidence.
No, the best argument is that no one has provided any actual evidence. Tons of people claim Obama is a secret Muslim. Does that mean you believe them, or would you want to see some evidence first?
You're missing one important thing. If what Anonymous says is true, they can also hack the election. Which means hard work was irrelevant. They could just install Obama just as you claim Rove was going to install Romney. Which is why it would be incredibly bad for Anonymous to not release their evidence - the system would be open for anyone to hack in the future.
Releasing the evidence would make it extremely easy to replace these machines. Not releasing the evidence means the machines stay in service, and any future election can be switched on the whim of some "hackers" - and you shouldn't assume all hackers are liberal.
Phx_Dem
(11,198 posts)claims of voter machine manipulations makes me sick. She doesn't have say she thinks it happened, she doesn't even have to acknowledge that it may have happened in Ohio, but she absolutely should acknowledge that it is possible and we need to take action to ensure it never does.
We cannot protect our democracy from a threat that we refuse to acknowledge even exists.
Z_I_Peevey
(2,783 posts)gravity
(4,157 posts)We are the party of facts and science.
There is just as much evidence of Rove hacking the election as there is for Obama being born in Kenya.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)There is a big difference. These are not the people you see working down at HQ on the phones doing the GOTV.
regnaD kciN
(27,639 posts)We have a winner!
Myrina
(12,296 posts)Some folks here on DU are practically apoplectic at the very discussion & need to jump all over threads insisting that anyone entertaining the possibility is either stupid or naive.
Makes me wonder why they're so fervent to quash the discussion - are they part of Anon & want to keep the mystery, or are they part of the "official denial brigade"?
randome
(34,845 posts)That anyone who chooses to believe in an anonymous email that offers no evidence is either stupid or naive.
The 'fervency' you see is merely logical points being made in a debate. Without evidence, there isn't much of a debate so it's worrisome to see DU subject itself to this level of faith in something that has nothing to back it up with.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)The same, predictable group that defends every corporate, right-wing, neocon, and authoritarian police state policy coming from corporate Democrats.
No way they are part of Anonymous. We know the work of this group very well, and their fervent attention to this issue is...interesting.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)about it. They could just think that it is embarrassing.
RepublicansRZombies
(982 posts)Why do they answer every poster in the threads on the topic?
doesn't compute
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)RepublicansRZombies
(982 posts)Why aren't they on some other thread then? Very bizarre behavior.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)before it becomes the new Bible of the wackos on the left and yet another falsehood gets built upon it, further enshrining unreality and making it yet more difficult to save us all
xfundy
(5,105 posts)To me, the ONLY important issue is adressing the FACT that the machines are hackable.
Personally, to me, it would be TREMENDOUSLY healthy if the cons start screaming about the hackability of the machines, so we can finally get rid of them. Completely.
I don't know why some are so eager to shut down the discussion. Did it happen? Dunno. But given Rove Ham's past, and all the attempts to shut people out of voting even before they reach the machines, I refuse to give that asshole angel points for not trying to rig the election electronically.
RepublicansRZombies
(982 posts)I agree completely.
We should not even have to question this. There is no way to prove a stolen election using secret software with no paper ballot hand recount and that never happens.
We can still count by hand America! I know we can.
Most precincts have few than one thousand voters.
That doesn't really take that long to count.
They have set up this system on purpose, and not for our purposes.
byeya
(2,842 posts)We need to encourage as many people to vote as possible and we need to have evidence that the vote was cast.
RepublicansRZombies
(982 posts)nt
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)At least not to the election integrity experts who understand all the intricacies of the issue.
an e-mail from Bev Harris:
My e-mail seems to have two recurring themes lately, each from the opposite side of the political spectrum. It goes like this:
"Hey, have you seen this? Anonymous claims to have hacked Karl Rove's intended election manipulation."
And this:
"Are you doing anything about the rampant voter fraud that put Obama in office?"
1. The alleged "hack" by Anonymous may or may not have been real, but if it was, a careful reading indicates that it was not a hack of voting machines, but more akin to the odious phone-jamming scheme used by a Republican operative in New Hampshire some years back. Whether you wear a blue or red political shirt, this kind of attack is nothing to brag about. It involves interfering with get out the vote efforts, and regardless of which side is working on get out the vote, obstructing such efforts is uncool.
There is no credible proof that this Anonymous hack even happened. If it did, it violated the principle of encouraging political participation. We have to be careful about stories such as this, because they can divert important work on election transparency into chasing phantoms.
2. The "rampant voter fraud" claim diverts attention from where wholesale tampering actually takes place. If you plan to rig an election, you do it as an inside job, not with alleged busloads of people casting multiple votes, and not with herds of voter impersonators fooling election judges.
You do it with absentees, you do it by manipulating who can vote, you do it by altering the voting machine counts, you do it by thwarting chain of custody. In other words, it's not the outsiders -- the voters -- where the focus needs to be. Let's keep our eye on the ball. Who handled the ballots? Who watched? Who programmed the machines? Was the list loaded into electronic pollbooks the real one? Was the count interrupted for some reason? Did any ballots disappear? Were people prevented from voting? How do we know that the ballots said to have been mailed in are the same ones that were counted, and how do we know they were put into the pool by real voters rather than an elections worker?
We need to step away from our favorite political candidates to deal with the underlying structural problem. Until we fix transparency problems, actual tampering -- considerably more damaging than anything Anonymous claimed to have done -- will happen over and over.
The real problem that we have to wrap our heads around, educate others about, and solve, is public right to see and authenticate the count.
Germany ruled that the public must be able to see and authenticate every essential step of the election, without need for special expertise, and that no after the fact procedure can be substituted for the right to authenticate the original count.
That is exactly the model we here in the USA need to work towards, but first, we have to help the public understand that public controls over our own elections are the very essence of self-government, and self-government is the basis for all democratic systems.
There are four things the public must be able to see and authenticate:
1) Who can vote (voter list)
2) Who did vote (poll list)
3) Counting of the vote
4) Chain of custody
These are the fundamental issues, and we will restore these to the American public, once we properly identify them and demand these things, with no compromise and no wasting time on side issues, half-measures, or capitulation.
You may ask what you can do to help. I love that question. It's so much better than the passive "what is being done?"
Each major civil rights movement has several stages. We are now moving from the focus group stage, where we have been learning to craft the most accurate description of the problem to be solved, in the most persuasive terms, and into the distribution stage, where we are passing the message -- quite literally -- from person to person to build momentum to help tip the scales in legal and legislative efforts.
So that's what you can do: Learn to discuss election transparency in terms of basic right to self-govern, which is the principle that is the foundation for all democratic systems. To have self-governance, you have to have real, tangible, meaningful transparency.
Specifically, "The public must be able to see and authenticate each essential step of the election, without need for special expertise, and no after-the-fact procedure can be substituted for the right to authenticate the original.
* * * * *
starroute
(12,977 posts)There was some sort of blowup that I never fully understood -- though part of it had to do with Andy Stephenson's death -- and she left a lot of bad feelings behind at this board. As I recall, there were also questions about whether she was just out to enrich herself. In any case, you're not likely to get far here by quoting her as an authority.
Occulus
(20,599 posts)as it should be when that grifter lowlife is quoted.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)But thanks for the hurtful ad hominem. It reveals a lot more about you than about her.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)out-of-proportion reaction, nothing more than a fun sideshow orchestrated by some clever people, forcing Roves criminal past re elections back into the spotlight.
Seems very odd to see the over the top reaction to people simply having fun with Rove. Now, I'm thinking it may be true after all.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)And what she says is relevant and authoritative too.
Occulus
(20,599 posts)whose every claim should be taken with an entire mine of salt.
Quoting her for any reason is death to the acceptance of any argument or claim, including that the sky is blue, up is above your head, and down is under your feet.
Those of us who were around when she was here wouldn't trust her to clean up catsick. That opinion is pretty much universal.
Don't quote her. Don't use her as a source, even for the time of day. You'll lose any credibility you had if you do.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)Please provide a link to your election integrity researches and findings, software code discovered, videos published, etc., you know the ones.
MADem
(135,425 posts)aquart
(69,014 posts)And give me back my lovely levers.
Taverner
(55,476 posts)Since we don't have enough information to draw a proper conclusion, and there's nothing more to say, yet.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)...Why would anybody care so much? To bother to diss & denigrate others opinions on this particular topic so relentlessly?
Pigs are flying and so are flying monkeys.
randome
(34,845 posts)An anonymous email is nothing.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)So now, I'm revising my views. Anon might not have been just playing with Rove's head after all.
Seeing kos weigh in, knowing his history, definitely is cause to wonder.
Lol, that guy is so transparent.
RepublicansRZombies
(982 posts)Another DUer just started a thread about election integrity in general, and one of the posters did a eye roll- like 'who cares' about election integrity.
But they care so much about not caring, they are in every thread on the topic.
TroglodyteScholar
(5,477 posts)Wouldn't you like to see even an ounce of actual proof? I sure would. Until then, I agree with Kos. It's conspiracy theory until proven otherwise.
Matariki
(18,775 posts)Mwahahaha. The machinations, they go so deep.
RepublicansRZombies
(982 posts)And why would a Republican/CIA try to discredit Kos, when he is misleading the Democratic party to nowhere? That was the whole plan. He's doing a great job. If only more people would just get in line and follow. How dare the minions think for themselves.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...one way or the other about an Anonymous hack, I agree with you that strident reactions can be clues. In this case, however, I'm not sure I buy that Kos' strident reaction is a clue. On the other hand, Rove's reaction was definitely a clue.
I do find it puzzling that, even though we know conspiracies occur in politics and they have done so for all of recorded history, we are still supposed to believe they don't happen in OUR country in OUR time. And if any of us dare to posit a conspiracy, even when there is evidence in that direction, we are shouted down or dismissed.
I find it even more puzzling that this kneejerk reaction kicks in among liberals almost instantly -- even though the actual conspiracies have often been against us (Lee Atwater, anyone? Iran-Contra? Watergate? etc.) It looks to me like another case of liberals running from anything that might get them criticized by the right as nutcases. Which when you think about it is ridiculous, since being called a nutcase by the most demonstrably nutty groups out there ought to be a badge of honor...
Furthermore, the striking similarities between Rove's behavior now and in 2004, including the timeline, deserve comment. There should be at least a few weeks after an election, while we are discussing what happened, when we are allowed to point out such things without being shouted down.
We want to keep this fiction that ours is a country where power is transferred peacefully, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Guess what folks? Politics is a blood sport and it has been since time immemorial. The more we try and hide from that fact, the more we will be victimized by those who do not shy away from employing nefarious means, whether vote rigging or worse.
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)election fraud took place?
I'm from Missouri. You've got to show me.
Gore1FL
(22,951 posts)Unless and until there is actual evidence, there is no reason to discuss it.
muriel_volestrangler
(106,207 posts)I can always tell that people are on to something, when a group of people are sent to convince everyone to shut up about it.
Now Buzz Aldrin thinks it's a conspiracy and not worth talking about?
That seals the deal.
Aldrin is an authoritarian and won't let anyone talk about Creationism either.
But people are allowed to discuss Jesusand what did or did not happen, who was responsible, who didn't read the warnings.
Many limited hangout 'Christians' (like Aldrin who was a secret Kenyan Muslim?) are misleading the church.
If it weren't for 'Christians" trying to hold the party back and misdirect, we would have solved the problems of our belief systems by now.
He was of no use in prior incidents of space travel, why would anyone value his opinion now?
Aldrin has to be an utter moron(or a set up) to believe our film makers with secret sound stages should not be questioned.
And the behavior of NASA, the obvious manufactured consent by the media about to cover up a fake landing...the media and scientists were behaving very strangely...but we should just not analyze that at all. yeah, their calcs were just way off. Sure. Nothing to see here folks, you can trust 'Christian' astronaut Aldrin.
The best 'argument' the people who tell us to shut up about it have.... If you point out that they might have tried to fake it, that takes away from Armstrong's success and the hard work. How fucking stupid is that? Coast to Coast was trying to prevent everyone's time and hard work from being wasted. Duh!!
regnaD kciN
(27,639 posts)
Turn CO Blue
(4,221 posts)Deserves its own post (except I guess copycat posts are not allowed, huh?)
2pooped2pop
(5,420 posts)As to if Anonymous did this, I hope so. I kind of like having someone watching out for us. I leave it at possible, yet with doubts, but hopeful. lol
And I came to the same conclusion (thinking maybe it is indeed true) with some people just really really trying hard to knock it down. If they feel it's not true, why worry about it either way? Why spend so much time and energy telling us it's not true, nothing to see here, while complaining about the time and energy that the rest of us should spend doing something else, anything else, but discuss it. lol They do seem to be protesting a bit much.
I'm sorry but my spelling check refuses to correct run on sentence problems. Just gonna have to live with it.
ejbr
(5,892 posts)What can't be proved unless you hold the data to prove or disprove then you have a tinfoil hat!
valerief
(53,235 posts)tell other players what you think they're holding. Politics is a poker game.
JohnnyRingo
(20,870 posts)... and the new Diebold machines with a paper trail are the ones present at the most Democratic districts thanks to former Governor Strickland.
People who think it's rampant are going by the '04 election before there was a paper trail installed. I suppose someone could install vote switching software, but they'd most likely be caught right at the precinct when a voter claims the live printout doesn't match his or her vote.
In every conspiracy theory there is always one piece of the puzzle that has to be beaten in with a hammer to fit. Touch screens in Ohio with a certified printed paper trail is that puzzle piece.
yourout
(8,820 posts)JohnnyRingo
(20,870 posts)...if I understand what you mean, but most voting is done electronically. Anyone can request a paper ballot, and most early votes are done so.
I live in a part of Ohio that uses the infamous Diebold touch screen machines. Trumbull and nearby Mahoning Counties (Youngstown) are 2:1 democrat so they would be prime targets for vote switching in an alleged Rove conspiracy.
We received these machines in 2004 when we and almost all of Ohio replaced the old punch card machines with touch screens that had no paper trail to determine after the election how those units actually voted, other than a computer memory chip. When Ohio went suspiciously for Bush in the '04 election, a public cry went out to add a paper print-out for accountability. Vote switching was cited as the reason.
At first, Diebold said that the technology was impossible, but we elected a Democratic governor that year, and they quickly found a way to print the ballots on a paper roll (like a register receipt) when governor Ted Strickland threatened to termonate their contract immediately (money talks).
I"m a precinct worker here in Trumbull County, and as such, I and three others (2 dem 2 Repub) are largely responsible for security of these paper rolls at our precinct. Here's how that works: The rolls are loaded into the machine and the door is locked (There's only one key). Serial #s are recoded and a tamper proof sticker is placed over all parts that can be opened. The moment a voter casts their vote, the machine begins printing the vote, line by line, while the voter watches.
When the roll fills up, one republican and one democrat replace the roll, record & replace the sticker over the hatch, and all four workers (two from each party) sign the roll and place it in a locked steel box. Accounting, such as machine serial # and sequential paper roll #, are recorded in a book and signed off by all four of us. The vote totals for the machine are printed on the last roll as a final report. At the end of the day, those rolls are returned in the locked box by car to the BOE by one Representative of each party. The rolls and logs are then stored for (I think) two years in case there's a problem that requires accounting.
"Back door" programs can still be installed to change votes, but it's much easier to get caught doing so now. Unfortunately, in spite of my advice, many people do not watch the real time print out, though I've never seen a discrepancy myself, nor has anyone ever complained of one. If they did, the paper roll is to be removed at once by a member of each party and examined for accuracy.
Unlike in 2004, I now have a great deal of confidence in this system.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)The OP is a perfect example of irrational conspiracist thinking. they are trying to silence the TRUTH!!!" argument is a fallacy.
starroute
(12,977 posts)Sure, there are some of those -- and we often find out about them because they're the most likely to slip up and get arrested. But Anonymous also has older and wiser members who are technically highly competent and know exactly what they're doing.
I remain unsure as to whether this alleged hack really happened or whether it's a poker move -- but either way, there's something important going on, and it's worth discussing.
For example, I could easily believe that the references to Orca were put into the letter after the fact, when it was known how badly the system had failed, and were designed for the pure purpose of making Republicans paranoid. That's the sort of mind-fuck games Anonymous loves to play. And that in itself could be an interesting development.
Ever since the McCarthy era, liberals have been afraid of their own shadows -- scared of making any move for fear it could come back and bite them in the ass -- while conservatives have been fearless. I'd really like to see the shoe on the other foot, and Anonymous may be the ones who can do it.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Thats how we *know* the moon landings were faked, the Earth is 6,000 years old and shaped like a piece of pie, and HAARP is actually a sooper sophistimicated landing guidance system for satan-powered UFOs, piloted by Illuminati space lizards.
It's true!
Ford_Prefect
(8,610 posts)seems to be key here.
I see no specific proof that it was. But there is no proof it was not either.
Anonymous may have nothing to do with the post claiming they stopped Rove in Ohio. I agree there is little to prove it was true. I accept that the language of the post is weak on facts and terminology.
That it could be true in both degrees should worry anyone. That is worth discussion.
It does not mean that GOTV efforts did not win the day. It does not mean the voting system is reliable or accurate.
It does not mean the Democratic party knows what it is doing either. It only does for us what we force it to do. It remains a well funded institution amenable to well funded interests as we all know. That remark is not cynicism nor heresy, unfortunately. Just ask Eleanor Roosevelt.
Denzil_DC
(9,100 posts)In fact, a number of DUers with extensive technical knowledge have taken the time and trouble (and opened themselves up to badmouthing from some quarters for that trouble) to point out that that video is grand-sounding tech gobbledygook.
That's the best argument.
If you don't agree with scientific opinion, the best way to address that isn't to shoot the messengers and throw around insults and insinuations that people were somehow "sent," argue the point in scientific terms. If after attempting to argue that, some of our IT-savvy members have grown impatient when their opinions have been distorted or ignored or dismissed as inconvenient, I can't say I blame them.
If whoever posted that video has any proof of what they claim, they need to make it public as that's the only way deficiencies in the vote-recording system are going to be addressed--or are you happy that any old "hacker" (a.k.a. script kiddie) can supposedly render people's votes invaid? The onus is on them to take this forward if they have anything at all except unfounded allegations.
What proof do you have other than suppositions, some sort of wishful thinking, and an interpretation of Karl Rove looking shifty on TV? It's Karl Rove, for heaven's sake!
regnaD kciN
(27,639 posts)After all "a bunch of hackers, standing alone against the forces of evil, singlehandedly save democracy" is a pretty great story, wouldn't you say? Sort of in the "if it isn't true, it ought to be" sense. But being a "great story" doesn't, in and of itself, make it so.
iandhr
(6,852 posts)They just want everyone to think that they are relevant.
NRaleighLiberal
(61,857 posts)And I don't believe that 2000 or 2004 were on the up-and-up either.
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)
Jennicut
(25,415 posts)How about we worry about actual real voter suppression efforts in Ohio and FL and other states. Lack of voting machines, long lines, etc.
That stuff can be proven.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts) Especially if the vid is really low quality! That seals the deal.
muriel_volestrangler
(106,207 posts)It could be the "I got this" of the next 4 years ...
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Conspiracy theories do indeed abound! 
ProSense
(116,464 posts)cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)
NYC Liberal
(20,453 posts)"Rove acted like an idiot on Fox News" is NOT evidence.
"There has been fraud in the past" is evidence for fraud in the past, but not for this election.
There have been posters here who have not only suggested that evidence is unnecessary, but have also suggested evidence is actually bad! Incredible.
Even batshit crazy birthers have "evidence" to present, as hilariously wrong as it always turns out to be. In this case, we don't have have bad evidence.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Only a RW hack and stupid person would consider that not evidence!
NYC Liberal
(20,453 posts)we are REALLY fucked.
regnaD kciN
(27,639 posts)...not to mention proof that not all lunacy comes from the right side of the political spectrum (although most of it does).
gcomeau
(5,764 posts)"People are saying it's not true! That proves it! It's true!"
You have just established the grounds for concluding that every ridiculous conspiracy theory in the history of the world must be true. Please exercise some minimal level of critical thinking. That's just ridiculous.
NightOwwl
(5,453 posts)Right here on DU!
rightsideout
(978 posts)I frequent the AnonNews site. Since the election there hasn't been a single thing posted on the election on behalf of Anonymous.
Usually, after a "cyber intervention" there will be some message stating what they've done.
Sure, there is the message about ORCA and Oz but I believe that was posted by someone from the "Protectionists" or someone on their behalf. The details such as the R.A.T (remote access tool?) in the sewers, 105 password attempts and the election day timeline, among more clues hint at something that went on.
But I just find it odd that there has been no real messages from those involved on AnonNews except the one message after the election that was posted elsewhere.
It may not mean anything. But just from past situations, Anonymous usually follows up with more messages after a "cyber intervention." Maybe the have been occupied with hacking into Israeli servers the past few days.
I'm against the "just shut up" stance. There are alot of unanswered questions. Maybe that's the purpose.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)A conspiracy is three or more people agreeing in secret to commit a crime. Who on this board is delusional enough to try and pretend that conspiracy is not a substantial element in what takes place every day, in this pure-as-the-driven-snow fiasco that we laughingly call "life today"? It would be easier to list the few things which are NOT the result of conspiracy of some sort. Yet in spite of that undeniable fact there's constant sneering at CT? And that makes one "smart" I guess?
Give me a friggin' break! The epithet of "conspiracy theory" as a dismissive putdown has been used since primordial ooze as the #1 original cover up and favorite discrediting technique of those (for one, can-you-spell C-I-A, as a symbolic umbrella for all the other acronyms and assorted privatized Smedley-esque freaks) who seriously, no kidding, yes they really do, spin the damn things night and day. Wake up, this is 2012! We were way past this in overall comprehension of what's going on, back in 1970.
It really is depressing, watching what passes for intelligence marching constantly backward. God help the deniers when those who have lived long enough to see enough to know better are gone. Then, it will be actually Orwellian. There will be none left to dare (or even of a mind to, apparently) call it conspiracy. And so it will proceed, "...not with a bang, but a whimper".
Well not till we're gone from this world though! And we're not all gone yet.
Now, I don't know about this particular Anonymous/Rove story. But I do know this: 1) slapping a label of "CT" or "woo woo" on it disproves nothing; and 2) far stranger things than this have happened before. So I would think that a reasonable person would wait to see what else comes of it, or doesn't come of it, as the case may be. As for Moulitsos, this little episode has been enough to demonstrate to me, fwiw, that he is too small of a thinker to take seriously. So be it, no big loss there.
randome
(34,845 posts)Um, no one. Building up a case based on an anonymous email with no supporting evidence is very much a CT. No one is denying that conspiracies exist. But many are saying this one does not have even a shred of evidence to support it.
Hell, there is more evidence supporting Bigfoot than this!
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"Now, I don't know about this particular Anonymous/Rove story. But I do know this: 1) slapping a label of "CT" or "woo woo" on it disproves nothing; and 2) far stranger things than this have happened before."
Yeah, you don't want to commit to believing it, but hey it's just as real as Obama is a Muslim from Kenya. Who cares if some people have slapped the "label of 'CT' or 'woo woo' on it"?
Asking for proof is not absurd. This is not the JFK assassination. Someone claimed they foiled a hack of the election, that someone should be able to provide proof. Otherwise, why the hell are any CT nuts dismissed? Anyone can claim anything and without evidence, it has to be taken seriously. That's a ridiculous premise.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)Needing so much proof before thesis... my, it's a good thing Watergate wasn't up to someone who thinks that way.
Z_I_Peevey
(2,783 posts)Question authority. Always.
Eyes of the World
(93 posts)Plenty of concerned posters here who have dismissed the Conspiracy Theory, and yet have found the time to post in this and many other threads over and over about the "lack of evidence".
I find it fascinating that someone could be obsessed with taking the side of an issue that they feel is non-issue, to the extent that they disturb the flow of conversation among those who do want to discuss.
If its a fantasy then there is no harm fantasizing. It may even call attention to verifiable voting problems, the discussion of which seems to have ceased as of the day after the election.
Attempts to Randomely shut down conversation are suspicious and do serve to increase my likelihood to keep an open mind about an issue.
starroute
(12,977 posts)Some of you may recognize the name from his coverage of he Don Siegelman case and Alabama corruption in general. The point is that he's well enough established that if he says a source told him something, there's reason to take that seriously.
http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2012/11/did-progressive-firewall-keep-karl-rove.html
Does President Barack Obama owe his re-election to the electronic handiwork of a group that is known for its shadowy videos featuring the face of a character from the film V for Vendetta? It probably is too early to know for sure what happened on election night. . . .
Details are murky at the moment, but a source tells Legal Schnauzer that progressive groups kept a watchful eye on ORCA and did communicate with representatives from Anonymous in the days leading to the election.
MADem
(135,425 posts)the FBI, Interpol, CIA and NSA. The other little punks who think they are members or associates of this little thing called Anonymous are just being played, and the real noxious ones get outed and arrested by their buddies, who are law enforcement personnel pretending to be Friends of Guy Fawkes.
But whatever.
The theory I happen to like is that Obama WON THE ELECTION. Why? Because his GOTV and his message were better than that of the Money BooBoo team. He had focus, a great ground game, determination and a better message. That's how and why he won.
No one likes simple things anymore--the more convoluted, the better, it would seem.
To me, simplicity is elegance.
peace13
(11,076 posts)to think that the integrity of our elections is not in peril is very naive. When Jennifer Brynner was SOS of Ohio she said that our machines are easily hackable. That was four years ago and not a thing has been done about it. Romney's family had stock in the software we used in counties of our state for this past election. That is a fact Hiding our heads in the sand is beautifully elegant but not very useful in this application.
I do agree that President Obama had boots on the ground and won the election. It was close enough to steal and could have been on another.
MADem
(135,425 posts)I think we won the election because we worked harder and smarter, we didn't let anyone run roughshod over our voters, we got in people's faces if they tried... and we had better ideas. GOTV was what did it, too.
I haven't missed an election in decades (to include local and off-year contests), so I'm not one of those lazy voters... and I got five calls on my answerphone urging me to go vote (I wasn't home--I was driving 88 people to the polls).
Our GOTV was strong on behalf of Liz Warren, but I imagine the push was the same in other states, and even stronger in battlegrounds.
When I hear hoofbeats, I think horses. I don't think "Anonymous" outsmarted "Evil Genius Karl Rove." I think that's a child's fantasy. Hard work carried the day--and we'd best not forget that in the next off-year contest.
peace13
(11,076 posts)'on their way' to be counted nationally? This may be of value to you.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)Ohio election results were posted on the internet by servers which host republican websites also. A repub SoS in OH hires a repub firm. I'm shocked!!
And this is the guy twisting that story.
peace13
(11,076 posts)Suit yourself.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)sometimes. We don't live in a simple world anymore, not when billions are spent on elections.
Just because Obama won doesn't mean that someone didn't try to rig it, y'know?
MADem
(135,425 posts)But it's unlikely that we'll know the truth, about so-called election rigging, or who the brains are behind Anonymous, at least not for a decade or three. Or maybe a century or more.
I think it's a bit amusing that people fight so hard about shit that they don't KNOW the facts about..it's a bit of a time-waster. An easier way to get the blood moving is to take a walk around the block!
Simplicity...and better for us, too.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)Conspiracy theories such as this are dredged from over-active imaginations unrestricted by common sense or, in many cases, logic.
Yes, conspiracies exist but never like the ones concocted by Conspiracy Theorists.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)Rove are beyond pure.
What's so funny about this is that few people cared whether or not Anon was serious, it was just a fun way to go after Rove and to watch Republicans try to defend him. NOW, with kos, whose rep is well known on these matters, is so upset over what was simply fun to most people, makes me wonder. Maybe we were wrong, maybe Anon was serious after all. But they sure exposed the poseurs and I bet they're having a good laugh at seeing them running all over the internet trying to defend, poor Karl Rove's exemplary reputation.
On the Road
(20,783 posts)you must have developed an extremely strange view of the world over the years.
brooklynite
(96,882 posts)The $180,000 my wife and I spent to re-elect President Obama and a Democratic Senate was simply a front so that when a bunch of bloggers revealed our clever plot to steal the election by hacking voting machines, I would be able to criticize them for offering no hard evidence whatsoever...but YOU were too clever.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)in 2000 and 2004 also. That didn't stop them from stealing elections did it? Or are you a supporter of the theory that Bush was a duly and rightfully elected President of the United States both times?
For some people the proportion of their income they donated to Democrats over the past decade probably exceeds your donation proportionately. And may even have strained their finances which most likely was not the case for those who can afford to make big donations.
So it's even more of an issue for those who made those sacrifices, not at beautiful private fundraisers (yes I've been there, it's very enjoyable) but out on the streets pounding the pavement, knocking on doors, in the rain, in the snow and in intense heat and buying less for their children in order to do so.
I fail to see your point, frankly unless you are equating the amount of money you can afford to give to a campaign to refusing to believe that you waste that money when elections are stolen.
I view it proportionately, in the biblical 'widow's mite' sense of the value of what people contribute.
But no matter what they give, how does that in any way relate to the issue of Election Fraud, unless you do not believe it exists?
colsohlibgal
(5,276 posts)I surely wouldn't rule it out. Rove is slime and will cheat to win, I do think the 2004 vote was very fishy.
9/11? I'm about 100% sure that the real conspiracy is the official narrative. So many US citizens just take what's fed to them, take it all at face value, without research and digging.
warrprayer
(4,734 posts)Oh God please, make it stop...
:rofl
Zorra
(27,670 posts)"An open and honest examination of the flaws in electronic voting will lead us to only one possible conclusion: electronic voting machines are dangerous to democracy because there is no way of ensuring their accuracy."
~ Rep Dennis Kucinich
Don't know if you've notice, but, like all Third Way anti-democrats, Kos apparently despises Rep. Kucinich as well.
Third Way shills are the phony progressive propagandist Gatekeepers of the Bankster Status Quo.