Thinking that the WI election was "rigged" sets the stage for losing.

[MineralMan]

Claiming that an election was fraudulent is an easy explanation for losing, but it's not a helpful one. Yesterday's election in Wisconsin was heavily monitored, both by volunteer Democrats and legal observers. Given the outcome, it seems unlikely that enough "rigging" of the election could have been done to produce that result.

The results are discouraging. No question about it. But if the conclusion reached is that the election was rigged, that discouragement is a road to non-participation in other elections. "Why bother?", some think. "What's the point of voting if the elections are rigged?" It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As far as I can see, given the heavy monitoring, it seems very unlikely that any election fraud was perpetrated in Wisconsin. There was no Photo ID requirement for this election, and voters could (and did) register on election day and vote. Fixing an election to produce the results that actually happened would be almost impossible, I think.

Instead of falling back on the "rigged election" argument and abandoning other explanations isn't going to help in November. Instead, we need to see what messages led people to vote for Walker while saying they were planning to vote for Obama in exit polls. What really happened, and how can we make sure it doesn't happen again? That's the question we should be asking, instead of looking for vote rigging. If we don't ask that question, we're going to see similar results elsewhere.

Money? Sure. That played a big role in this election. That makes logical sense. So, let's donate to our candidates and their campaigns. Negative campaigning? Maybe. Let's campaign harder for our candidates.

Giving up is not an option, unless abject submission is the goal.

[We Want Peace]

1. what reason do we have to believe the paid off media is telling the truth

All that money Koch brothers gave them, do they listen to them or to the American people and the values of the real voters?

What reason do we have to believe the central tabulators have not been hacked into, like can be done in 5 minutes (google hack the vote)?

They have been stealing elections since 2000, but I am sure when it comes to an election this important, we can 'just trust them'

It's not like they have attempted to steal elections in the past or anything...

Wisconsin politicians and election workers are completely trustworthy and so are our election systems?



What REALLY happened in the last hand 'recount' in Wisconsin?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002767805

[MineralMan]

6. You will think what you want to think.

Was this election lost by "rigging?" That seems very unlikely. More likely is that the huge disparity in campaign money did the trick. It often does. A weird law in Wisconsin lets an office holder being recalled raise as much money as that candidate wishes to raise. It's a weird law.

Walker won in 2010. Walker won again in 2012. A lot of people said that a Governor shouldn't be recalled over politics. A lot of people turned out for the election and voted. The elections were heavily monitored.

If you have actual evidence of election fraud, please bring it forward. I'll look at it, but I'm busy trying to win elections in Minnesota in November.

[zeemike]

46. I would just like to point out one thing.

By buying the explanation that it was money you play the game with them...a game the democrats will certainly lose.
But it will feed an ever growing industry of propaganda TV and democrats will be out the millions of small donations and the rich donors to the GOP will get it all back in tax cuts...
Sorry but it is just a shiny thing to look at so you don't have to fact the ugly truth that is there for all to see if they dare look.

[snot]

2. I appreciate this post. It would help, however,

if I could see more facts about the percentage of voting or tabulation machines that were electronic, who owned and/or had access to them, whether election monitors were focussed on the hazards of electronic voting/tabulation, and the nature of the discrepancies between the exit polls and the reported voting results.

I do believe electronic fraud has occurred in elections past, and by now there've been multiple opportunities to practice making it look plausible; and there was a lot at stake in this election.

I realize I may be seeing so little on the subject 'cuz the evidence just isn't there; but I'd feel a lot better if I knew the monitors were looking for it and knew what to look for.

(See. e.g., this March 5 item:

US E-Voting System Cracked in Less than 48 Hours

Researchers at the University of Michigan have reported that . . . . "Within 48 hours of the system going live, we had gained near complete control of the election server", the researchers wrote in a paper that has now been released. "We successfully changed every vote and revealed almost every secret ballot." The hack was only discovered after about two business days – and most likely only because the intruders left a visible trail on purpose.

More at http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/US-e-voting-system-cracked-in-less-than-48-hours-1463881.html .

See also http://www.democraticunderground.com/125142744 . And if you don't know who Kathy Nickolaus is, see http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002767805 .)

[snot]

23. Here's a summary of the existing uncertainty/lack of transparency re-

whether voting results were tampered with:

From http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9332#more-9332 :

The early Exit Poll results had reportedly predicted the race between Republican Gov. Scott Walker and Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett a virtual tie, leading media to plan for a long night tonight. A second round of Exit Polls results, however, were said to have given Walker a broader lead over Barrett. Even so, we were told, the race based on the Exit Poll data alone was still "too close to call." . . .

Of course, the raw, unadjusted Exit Polling data itself is no longer entrusted to us mere mortals. It can only be seen by members of the mainstream media, and we are simply left to trust them to report it all accurately to us or not. And when, after all, have we not been able to rely on the mainstream media to report everything accurately to us? But never mind the Exit Polls. We've got real polls, real votes, actual ballots now to tell us who won or lost. If only we'd bother to actually count them...

Instead, those ballots --- Wisconsin votes on mostly paper ballots --- are tabulated by computer optical-scan systems like the ones in Palm Beach County, FL which, in March of this year, had named several losing candidates to be the "winners". And like the ones in New York City which, in 2010, managed to toss out thousands of valid votes, including as many as 70% in one South Bronx precinct. And like the ones in Oakland County, Michigan where officials found the same machines failed to count the same ballots the same way twice in 2008. And like the ones in Leon County, FL which, in 2005, were hacked to entirely flip the results of a mock election.

In Palm Beach County, FL the failure was discovered during a state mandated post-election spot-check of 2% of the paper ballots. In New York City, it took nearly two years before the failures were discovered after the New York Daily News was able to examine the paper ballots via a public records request. In Oakland County, MI, election officials were lucky enough to discover the failure during pre-election testing. And in Leon County, FL, the hacker --- a computer security expert --- revealed the op-scan system flaw he exploited to flip the results of the election in an Emmy-nominated HBO documentary.

(Links to more info in quoted portions are omitted but can be found in the link above.)

Let me be clear, I whole-heartedly agree that we must continue to work for campaign finance reform and other reforms as well; but electronic voting is an ongoing travesty that we can't afford to ignore.

[glinda]

93. I am with you, Snot.

[HiPointDem]

102. +1

[snacker]

116. Free voting machines were distributed throughout the state.

According to this article:

Forty-six Wisconsin counties and 3,000 voting machines are being controlled by a two-person company operating out of a strip mall in Minnesota

http://wcmcoop.com/members/meet-command-central-the-people-in-charge-of-wisconsin-voting-machines/

Tonight, I was just randomly looking at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel voting results map. I thought it was a bit of a coincidence that three adjoining lakeshore counties--Sheboygan, Manitowoc, and Kewaunee---all had the exact same percentage (64%-34% Walker) while on the western side of the state, three adjoining counties--Burnett, Polk, and St. Croix--all the very similar percentages (60-61% Walker to 39% Barrett). Maybe I'm reaching...

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/152346265.html

[Matariki]

81. and we've all been well trained to rationalize our losses...

[hobbit709]

3. was the heavy monitoring at the polling place or at the counting place?

[MineralMan]

11. I'm not in Wisconsin. But, others on DU are, and

they said that monitoring in both places would be heavy. I listen to people who are there.

[dionysus]

4. because a lot of DUers can't comprehend the fact that there are people who believe differently

than they do.

ie

Walker wins?

1) it's obama's fault!!1
and\or
2) it was stolen!1!

somewhere in podunk USA a dem loses running for dogcatcher and it was either stolen or a referendum on the president for many here.

[Shrek]

7. +1

[MineralMan]

12. I'm afraid you're right.

This country is almost evenly divided in political thinking. Winning elections is a very difficult thing to do for either party.

[truckin]

20. You make good points that I agree with but

how do you know that the scanners counted the paper ballots accurately when no ballots are counted by hand to make sure the machines are accurate? As Scuba says, the results may be accurate but they may not be. How do we know? Opscan voting without any audits is almost as bad as paperless touchscreen voting.

On the other hand we cannot say it was rigged for sure and stop voting in future elections. We need to fight for election reform as we continue to fight in the electoral process. At a minimum, get random audits of the machines in Wisconsin.

[JHB]

38. It's not a one or the other thing...

We can keep a sharp eye out for counting improprieties and suspicious circumstances to fight those where we see them, but that's only one thing and it won't be the one that can drive a pushback. (My own suggestion is to go back to paper ballots. The ways of tampering with those sorts of votes are well-known and easily (and widely) understood, as are the ways to guard against such tampering. And the means to do such tampering isn't nearly as invisible as more modern systems allow.)

The thing to do is to drill down and do what MineralMan was saying in the OP: find out why people voted the way they did, find the cracks and weak points so that we can find ways to break up the voting block they rely on. That's going to be a long hard slog, and the other team has a whole infrastructure devoted to having their people work on these things full time.

This is like wrestling a bear: it's exhausting, it's stinking, it hurts, and it seems to never end, but if you stop fighting, the bear eats you. So you keep fighting.

[truckin]

39. I agree with you. That was the point I tried to make that we need to continue to fight in each

election while we try to improve the electoral process.

[dionysus]

51. i'm not saying the republican election fraud doesn't exist.

but some seem to think we'd have a perfect 100% victory record and that every election we lose is due to fraud.

[truckin]

56. That is true, some believe every election that doesn't go our way is rigged. However,

the current election system is broken and needs to be fixed.

[dionysus]

115. on this we agree.

[cali]

30. ring a ding a ding dong.

yep. it's gobsmackingly stupid.

[freedom fighter jh]

33. People believe it was stolen because there's no reason to trust the system.

Upthread someone said most of Wisconsin votes on paper ballots. Good. But the ballots are counted electronically. How are the counting machines programmed? No amount of monitoring can guard against a counting program that either (1) favors one side in the first place or (2) gets hacked. Is there accountability to the voters? I don't know Wisconsin, but in much of the country there is not.

Most elections in this country can be stolen, and an election that can be stolen very likely will be.

This is why people jump to that conclusion.

We need a voting system that is accountable to the people.

[ag_dude]

49. As long as you are raising those same questions...

...with the same vigor when a Democrat wins, I'll agree with you.

This same conspiracy theory stuff was what was going to keep Obama out of office too.

[freedom fighter jh]

55. I have raised the issue generally, many times, before it pertained to any particular election.

But when and how I raise the issue really has nothing to do with how valid it is.

The right to vote is meaningless unless the voters have the right to witness the counting. As long as citizens cannot witness the counting, we can have no confidence that the person that gets the office is the person that the majority voted for.

[ag_dude]

64. Actually it IS valid.

Otherwise you are no different than the whackos on both sides that only claim elections are rigged and democracy is broken when their side loses.

[freedom fighter jh]

68. This has nothing to do with who I am.

It has to do with the right to vote in a meaningful way.

I repeat: The right to vote in a meaningful way includes the right to witness the counting. Without the right to witness the counting, there is no confidence that the person sworn into office is the person for whom most of the votes were cast.

This is true even if I am a wacko.

[ag_dude]

85. Like I said.

Come on here and raise the same kind of hell when Obama is elected in a few months and you'll be standing on perfectly legitimate footing.

[rhett o rick]

111. Bullcrap. We have seen mountains of evidence of Republican cheating for years and years.

KKKarl Rove does it for a hobby. Show me comparable cheating by Democrats and maybe you will have a point.

We know for a fact that Repukes cheat. We cant always prove it, but IMO they cheat every chance they get whether they need to or not. It's like a game to them.

[ag_dude]

113. You sound no different than the republican nuts.

[rhett o rick]

114. LOL. I am saying that Repukes cheat at every turn and you call me a Republican?

Nice try.

[ag_dude]

117. I'm saying you are a mirror image of them.

The only thing different is the parties you back.

Nobody accepts that their side just plain old lost an election any more.

Republican wins? It's only because of the software companies changing the results.

Democrat wins? It's only because of voter fraud.

[rhett o rick]

120. I will say it again very slow. There is a ton of evidence that repukes cheat.

There is a ton of evidenced. Therefore it isnt a stretch to assume they always cheat. Now you show me any evidence that Democrats have participated in voter fraud.

I assume Republicans are guilty until proven innocent.

[libtodeath]

125. Explain then

why progressive policies are supported by huge majorities in polls yet somehow very few can get elected that do.

[rhett o rick]

112. If you are a wacko, so am I. nm

[shcrane71]

86. Thanks freedom fighter. nt

[marions ghost]

98. Exactly

There is no reason to trust the election system.

[Tarheel_Dem]

121. Damn dion. You get to the nub pretty quick, don't you?

[dionysus]

122. i try!

[ananda]

5. Walker had 39 million dollars to spend.

That buys a lot of corrupt media .. and votes.

Sure machines can be rigged, and probably were,
but that 39 million has people in place to completely
prevent a good inspection or scrutiny of both the
elections process and the machines.

As they said regarding FL 2000 and OH 2004..
get over it.

We've been screwed and punked, our body politic is
shredded and bloody.. but we just have to pretend
that everything is fine and move on.

When enough say screw that and decide not to move
on for the long haul, to literally bodily take back the
statehouse like they did for a little while after Walker's
first win, only then will anything change.

Occupy!

[Javaman]

8. There will never be a fair election as long as we have electronic voting. nt

[aggiesal]

70. Amen . . .

I want to know why the polls leading up to the election had a dead heat,
and during the election, exit polls had 50-50.

Then when the results appear, Walker has again a magical 6-7% win?

My belief is that if the polls leading up to the election are within 6%,
then the election will probably be stolen.

There have been waaaay tooooooo many examples since 2000 of
this phenomenon happening.

[marions ghost]

101. +100

agreed

[shcrane71]

79. +1,000,000,000,000

[Matariki]

82. And electronic vote counting

via optical scanning.

[libtodeath]

9. With the way the polls swung towards the challenger

as often happens at the end when independents and undecideds finally make up their mind then the massive turnout which usually favors the angry I refuse to believe that this was an honest election.

[Scuba]

10. I don't know that the election was rigged...

... but I don't know that it was not, either. Clearly the Republicans engaged in a multitude of dirty tricks. Somehow I find it unlikely that they stopped just shy of election rigging. That would be so unlike them.

The election needs to be certified, somehow. I have little faith that electronic scanners accurately tally ballots, and less in the touchscreen units, and even less in the corporations who manufacture and promote them to our municipal clerks.

Let's count the paper ballots and see. If things match up, fine. But to ignore a possible rigging is unfathomable. We need to redouble our efforts, including that this and future elections are honestly run.


on edit: here's my post with a recommended course of action... http://www.democraticunderground.com/10843453

[MineralMan]

14. Interestingly enough, that has been done elsewhere.

In Minnesota, for example. Twice. Every paper ballot in the entire stated that had been scanned was counted again. The results did not show any large differences between the two counts. There were minor differences. We use paper ballots and optical scanners throughout the state. No evidence of rigging was found in either recount.

This election in Wisconsin is not close enough to trigger a recount.

[Scuba]

32. Interestingly enough, that has been done elsewhere besides Minnesota....

... and the tallies have NOT always matched.

Why are you so anxious to overlook possible election fraud?

[freedom fighter jh]

35. So if the fraud is massive there is no check on it?

Needing an election to be close to trigger a recount is a holdover from paper ballot days. If you can hack a machine to change a result slightly, you can hack a machine to change a result massively. These days, a fat win margin is not a good reason to rule out a recount.

The rules should be changed to keep up with the times.

[MineralMan]

73. If every election required a recount, the situation would be unmanageable.

Close margins trigger recounts in most states, automatically. If a recount is wanted for other elections, someone has to pay for them. Each state has its own laws about that. Changing the laws is possible, of course, on a state-by-state basis. But guess who has to change those laws in most states...the elected legislators.

[freedom fighter jh]

76. So then the choice is between unreliable results and an unmanageable situation?

There is a third way: a system that produces reliable results. Paper ballots counted by hand. They do it in Canada and in England, among other places, and it works. It worked here before there were machines.

[MineralMan]

92. No. That's what you think the choice is.

That the situation would be unmanageable is clearly true and has been demonstrated by Al Franken not being seated for six months. The unreliable results side of that hasn't been demonstrated. In Wisconsin, all we have is results we don't like and no evidence of tampering. If evidence appears, then it's a different matter.

Hand counted ballots? That would be fine with me. But don't believe that such are not liable to being tampered with. That, too, happened when ballots were hand-counted. I remember when ballots were hand-counted in California. They had recounts then, too. There is no tamper-proof system of voting.

[freedom fighter jh]

119. What evidence *could* there be?

"The unreliable results side of that hasn't been demonstrated." What would serve as demonstration and where should the burden of proof be?

Again, I don't know about Wisconsin specifically, but (a) in most places electronic voting machines are programmed with proprietary code -- the public has no right to see the code, even if an election is contested; and (b) programming code can be changed by wireless devices.

Not only does this leave the system vulnerable to fraud, but if there is fraud, there will be no public evidence of it.

Again, the problem is that citizens' right to witness the counting is being violated.

Yes, even hand-counted paper ballots are subject to tampering. But with hand-counted paper ballots, unlike with computers, it takes more than a few keystrokes to flip large numbers of votes.

Oh, and please don't tell me what I think. Snark does nothing to advance the debate.

[aggiesal]

110. We asked our ROV in San Diego ...

to have the paper ballots counted at the precinct before they leave
to the ROV for official counting on the Opti-Scanners from Diebold.

This would have given us an extra layer of transparency, because
the hand count and the Opti-Scanners count would have to be almost
identical. And it would identify if the LOST-ON-MY-COMPUTER ballots
are official.

[greytdemocrat]

13. Blaming Rove is more fun.

[HotRodTuna]

54. +1

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

15. You don't need to steal an election when you can buy one.

Just forking over a fat wad of cash is a whole lot easier and less complicated than fiddling with voting machines or tricking voters into showing up at the wrong place or not showing up or whatever. GOPers bought this one fair and square, as we knew they would. Their money allowed them to buy all that mendacious advertising, which is enough to sway a low-information populace whose primary source of "information" is Faux News.

You can prevent election fraud but how do you prevent election purchasing? Citizens United, which, along with Dred Scott and Bush v. Gore, has to be one of the worst, most corrupt and dishonest Supreme Court decisions ever, has made election fraud pretty much unnecessary, even though I'm sure they'll do a bit of it here and there.

The silver lining, if there is one, is that they were forced to spend a lot of money to protect Scott Walker's fiefdom. Unfortunately the pockets of the Koch Brothers seem to be infinitely deep.

[MineralMan]

17. Walker's ability to raise unlimited funds for this election

was not based on Citizens United. It was based on a state law that allows elected officials in a recall election to do that. I agree that the money differential is probably the real reason Walker didn't get tossed.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

19. True in this particular instance, but I was considering the larger impact

of that egregious decision. Money made the difference.

I wonder if he has any left over for his legal defense? Wouldn't it be interesting if, after winning this thing, he ends up indicted anyhow? There's a pyrrhic victory for ya. We can hope.

[MineralMan]

24. Yes. The criminal investigations continue.

May they do the job the voters didn't do.

[RC]

16. You are far too trusting and not nearly cynical enough.

You need to remember who and what the citizens of Wisconsin are dealing with. The sociopaths with the end justifies the means mind set, no matter who gets hurt, running Wisconsin, who care for nothing except themselves.
Let's at least wait until the Recall can be analyzed, along with any exit polling that was done.

There is not way we can compete with money from the big boys, no matter how hard we try. Citizens United took care of that.
Campaigning cannot compensate for crooked elections and from past history, this election is suspect on its face, till proved otherwise.

[MineralMan]

21. I'm not trusting, and I'm quite cynical.

But, there are easily identifiable reasons for Walker's win. And money is the probable reason. Wisconsin state law let Walker raise unlimited funds, and the Koch Brothers and others were happy to supply it. There was no need to rig this election when it could be bought. It's not trust that makes me think so; it's reality.

What I'm cynical about is the idea that we can find a way to defeat this process. Not so much for the Presidential race, which I think Obama will win handily, but for state and federal legislative races, which most people don't really think that much about. The legislatures are where the power lies, but we focus on the executive. That's a huge mistake. So, yes, I'm plenty cynical enough.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

25. "The legislatures are where the power lies." - Bingo.

You are correct. And amid all the wailing and gnashing of teeth we need to consider that notwithstanding Walker's bought-and-paid-for victory, Wisconsin's senate now has a Democratic majority. There's one defeat for the dark side, and it's an important one. The GOPers spent most of the money protecting Walker, and that's what everybody was thinking about. But a Dem majority, even a narrow one, is a big f'in' deal. Because there's a whole lot of power there. Walker got to keep his job, but he won't be driving a steamroller any more.

We have got to pay more attention to state legislatures.

[truckin]

37. You are probably right that Walker won fair and square but would you agree that

it is a flawed election system when a private corporation does all the counting of the votes with no checks by the citizens of WI to see if the machines are counting accurately? A complete recount is not needed. Random audits of the machines would provide confidence in the results. The way it stands now one programmer from the voting machine company could have slipped in a couple of lines of code that would have swung the election and no one would know about it. Is this an election system you are comfortable with?

[proverbialwisdom]

43. Excellent points, all.

https://freedom-to-tinker.com/

Freedom to Tinker is hosted by Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy, a research center that studies digital technologies in public life. Here you'll find comment and analysis from the digital frontier, written by the Center's faculty, students, and friends.

https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/appel/broken-ballots/
Broken Ballots
April 23, 2012 By Andrew Appel

A important new book has just been published on the technology and policy of elections. Broken Ballots: Will Your Vote Count by Douglas W. Jones and Barbara Simons, covers voting systems from the 19th century to the present, with particular focus on the last two decades. The authors describe the strengths and weaknesses of the machinery itself–lever machines, optical-scan vote counters, touchscreen voting computers–with technical sophistication, yet in a way that will be accessible to a wide audience. Then they describe the strengths and weaknesses of the policy processes–at the level of election administration, congressional legislation, and Federal administrative-branch agencies–with particular emphasis on the last 10 years. The authors are experts in the field of voting technology and policy, and it shows. The book is well researched with extensive citations, but it’s also a good read (with photos and illustrations) that has an interesting story to tell.

http://brokenballots.com/

Americans want to believe their votes are counted reliably, fairly, and fully, yet they have a nagging suspicion that all is not well in our country's voting systems. Broken Ballots chronicles in the greatest detail how these suspicions have been examined and how improvements have been pursued, rejected, implemented, or defeated. Jones and Simons detail the intricacies involved in maintaining the integrity of voting procedures and technologies and in protecting the outcome of elections from error or manipulation.

Presenting evidence that ballot box access and security are under serious threat by the push for unauditable voting machines and untested and unsecured internet-based voting, Broken Ballots forces us to examine closely our electoral process. As a nation, we must take a serious look at the suggestions provided by Jones and Simons and enact the legislation needed to make strides toward secure, accessible, and verifiable elections. What can be more important?

— Rush Holt, U.S. Representative for New Jersey's 12th congressional district.

Broken Ballots provides clear and definitive answers to the questions: “How did our voting systems get to be the way they are?”, “Are our voting systems secure?” and “What can be done to improve the way we vote?” Using examples from the earliest mechanical voting machines to today's proposals for voting over the Internet, it provides numerous vivid illustrations of the risks of using complex technology to collect and count our votes. It covers not only technology, but also election law, government policy and regulation, accessibility of voting systems, and the history of voting machine companies in the United States.

This book is extremely well researched and exceptionally well-written. The breadth and depth of coverage bear witness to the authors' long involvement with these issues.

This wonderful book is essential reading for anyone concerned about the security of our election systems: vendors, election officials, technologists, election integrity activists, and voters.

— Ronald L. Rivest, Viterbi Professor of Computer Science in MIT's EECS Department, an ACM Turing Award winner, and a co-founder of RSA Data Security and of Verisign. He has served on the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC), advisory to the Election Assistance Commission with respect to the establishment of voting system certification guidelines, and is a member of the CalTech/MIT Voting Technology Project.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Appel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Felten

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/personnel-notes/127705-princeton-prof-edward-felten-named-ftcs-first-chief-technologist

Princeton prof. Edward Felten named FTC's first chief technologist
By Gautham Nagesh - 11/04/10 12:07 PM ET

Federal Trade Commission chairman Jon Leibowitz announced Thursday that Princeton computer science professor Edward Felten will serve as the agency's first chief technologist.

A prominent researcher, Felten is founding director of Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy and serves as a part-time consultant for the FTC. In his new role — starting in January — he will advise the commission on consumer-related technology policy issues such as cybersecurity, online privacy and antitrust matters. Felten will take a one-year leave of absence from Princeton to work at the FTC.

"The trade commission is heavily involved with issues that touch on technology," Felten said. "Much of my research and the work of CITP focuses on issues of consumer protection and competitiveness. This is a chance for me to apply what I've been studying and see the policymaking process from the inside."

<...>

I found this appointment reassuring.

[Blue_Tires]

18. You can agree the network calling the race 45 minutes in was at least

a little wierd...

[MineralMan]

22. Media are always weird.

I didn't listen last night. I often don't. I wait for the morning, when the results are more stable.

[kentuck]

26. If your message is weak...

No amount of organizing or campaigning can help you.

[sunnystarr]

27. I would love to see a manual recount

of the ballots. At least then I could fairly blame those in Wisconsin who voted to end Unions in their state and, due to the election's high profile, in other states. Then I would know with certainty that they also voted against education, against women, and against the poor. Right now I'm feeling pangs of guilt knowing that it takes so little to flip those numbers while sitting in an unkown location.

[MineralMan]

29. Such a recount won't occur.

The margin is too large, and nobody's going to pay for a recount. Moving on to the November elections is the only thing we can do, frankly.

[kudzu22]

28. I agree. It's too easy to throw accusations of fraud

than to admit that our candidate lost a fair election. Voters are fickle, and what is profoundly important to us may not be important to them, and vice versa. But some just can't accept that. I have to ask them, if the Reps are so adept at stealing elections and the media always covers for them, then why isn't John McCain president?

[MineralMan]

31. Exactly, and why does Minnesota have a Democratic

governor and a Republican majority in both legislative houses. Voters vote as they please, and it's often hard to explain.

[glinda]

94. There was a huge emphasis on watching the votes and counts for Governor and you

forget how big a stink was made about that by conservatives.

[MineralMan]

95. And yet, he is the Governor.

There was a huge emphasis on watching the votes in WI yesterday, too. If there was election tampering, where's the evidence? I'm sorry, but I think we just lost this one.

[glinda]

100. Watching votes is one thing and

eliminating potential fraud from voting machines is another. I will include in this robocalls, dirty tricks.
Dems need to wise up and get aggressive in fixing these issues. Not just talk.

[GarroHorus]

34. Rec'd n/t

[jeff47]

36. Walker won because the concept of a recall lost.

Exit polls show:
60% think recalls should only be used to remove a politician for official misconduct
10% think recalls are never appropriate.

With 70% objecting to even the concept of voting yesterday, it's pretty clear why Walker won.

[SlimJimmy]

47. A much better explanation than anything else I've heard. It amazes me that there is *no* theft when

we win, but always stolen when we lose. The simplest explanation is most often the best.

[MineralMan]

74. When we win, the Republicans claim the election was stolen.

I guess every election is stolen, based on that. Uff da!

In Minnesota, we've had two statewide complete recounts. In the first, in 2008, the result changed and Al Franken ended up being the winner. In 2010, our Democratic Governor's election was confirmed. In neither case was there evidence found of any fraudulent counting of ballots. Mistakes and uncounted ballots, yes, but no deliberate fraud. Some elections you win. Some you lose.

[SlimJimmy]

87. Agree on all points

[shcrane71]

80. WI bucks the trend, and high voter turn out is now good for Republicans.

Truly suspicious behavior.

[SlimJimmy]

88. Walker got about 38% of union housholds. Add to that fact that about 60% said they

didn't think the recall was necessary unless criminal activity had occurred and I think we see the result. As I said earlier in response to another poster, sometimes it's just not that difficult to determine.

[shcrane71]

90. That makes absolutely no sense, whatsoever. It's not that difficult to understand.

Some want us to believe that voters are erratic, vote against their own self-interest, vote for someone who has the worst jobs record in the nation and is waiting indictment, and then say they'll vote for Obama.

Nah, I'm not that dumb to buy that "logic".

[SlimJimmy]

91. I'm just using the polling data to come to some realistic conclusions.

Feel free to wing it.

[HiPointDem]

103. +1

[HomerRamone]

41. YOU CAN'T MONITOR THE INSIDE OF A VOTING MACHINE nt

[shcrane71]

42. Yep... thank you! And who manufactures the voting machines? nt.

[2pooped2pop]

50. bingo

and as long as there is a possibility of fraud, we will never be comfortable with the vote.

and we know they will cheat. It is not allowed for us to correct this situation. They (republicans and perhaps the dems too) need to be able to override the peoples voice.

This is no longer a democracy. (if it ever was)

[marions ghost]

105. yep

from what we've seen, there is no logical reason to trust ANY election in the United States.

And if you can't trust elections, we have a democracy in name only--which is almost a worse lie to endure than living under a declared dictatorship.

[EFerrari]

44. Interrogating election integrity isn't about hope or hopelessness.

It's about determining if votes were counted.

[shcrane71]

57. Holy fucking shit! THANK YOU!!!!

You're my hero for the day.

[gkhouston]

71. ^^ This ^^

That should be an OP. If the Republicans got more votes, they got more votes. And they might well have... between their attempts to disenfranchise college students, the robocalls, the ads lying about Barrett's positions on firearms, the invalid request for voter ID in some locations, and the slooooow voting (oh, gosh! We ran out of forms again) in Milwaukee, yeah, they could have gotten more votes.

But given what we do know about their behavior in this election, I think it's laughable to believe they'd be law-abiding or gentlemanly when it comes to how votes are tabulated.

This will come up, again and again, until we have publicly hand-counted paper ballots or some other system that is far less open to attack than what we've got now.

[cosmicaug]

45. NYT exit poll

A snapshot of the Wisconsin electorate, gleaned through surveys with voters as they left the polls, found that a majority of men had supported Mr. Walker, while most women had voted for Mr. Barrett. Almost a fifth of the electorate was 65 or older, with only about one in 10 voters of college age. The recall race unfolded against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, with only 2 in 10 voters saying their family’s finances have improved in the two years since Mr. Walker was elected. About a third said their financial situation had grown worse, and more than 4 in 10 said their finances had stayed the same.

From http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/us/politics/walker-survives-wisconsin-recall-effort.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&pagewanted=all

I think those demographics are, potentially, sufficient to explain the result.

[hfojvt]

48. meh

[AllyCat]

52. In para. 3, photo ID and registering at the polls have nothing to do with election fraud

Those would fall under the causes/preventions of voter fraud if it existed.

No one is saying don't bother voting next time. What we are saying is that something is wrong when people are standing in line to vote and the media is calling a winner. When were absentee ballots counted? The first box arrived in the morning in my precinct while I waited in line to vote. It was the first of many per the election officials delivering them. There appeared to be a couple score of envelopes in the box. Yet when my husband voted after work that night...the optical scanner closely matched the number on his ticket. So it does not appear they had been counted.

Why was pre-election polling and exit polling so far off the mark?

Why were there long lines at the polls like most people have never seen, yet fewer people voted than in 2010?

Are there some uneducated, uncaring, red-voting nuts in my state? Yep. Did Walker spend a boatload of cash with 5 times as many nasty ads and hour as Barrett? Yes. We need to address that.

But we need to protect the integrity of our elections or it doesn't matter how many people we get to vote...they'll just change the numbers.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

53. HAHAHA... too sick

WHEN will the rest of you wake up to the fact elections are being rigged via voting machines? I have no patience anymore

[shcrane71]

58. You know who the true silent majority is?

It's all those people who have the same suspicions as you do.

[EFerrari]

61. Why are we reduced to faith based voting?

Why do we accept it? Why does MineralMan's circular argument which promotes magical thinking ("Be positive or you will lose&quot get 30 votes on DemocraticUnderground? What about, counting the votes before you concoct a rationale for the result you can't check?

Were did all the pragmatists go, anyway? lol

Beth, proud graduate of the Andy Stephenson School of Election Integrity

[shcrane71]

66. I didn't think Progressives read crappy books like The Secret.

eh, learn something new every day.

When I hear that voters only think recalls should be used for only "misconduct" PRIOR to the election, and their framing Walker's recall as a "policy" recall, I know we're in for it. It's not rocket science.

Nice to meet you Beth. I'll do more research on Black Box voting.

[EFerrari]

72. Voters were deluged by media that re-inforced the idea the recall was illegit. n/t

[shcrane71]

78. NBC called it while people were still voting. NYT's called it prior to polls closing.

I wonder how they knew??? Peculiar.

[EFerrari]

83. Yes, peculiar. n/t

[HiPointDem]

104. +1. I'm disgusted to see so many people who are ok with this election & so invested in

telling us how 1) the party was correct in not putting resources into it; 2) it doesn't matter anyway, the important thing is the presidential; 3) wisconsin democrats don't like recall elections so voted republican; 4) nearly half of union members voted to kill unions; 5) we can have confidence that elections in the us are fair; 6) democrats who question any of the above are conspiracy theorists, negative thinkers, republican, etc -- whatever slur they can think of.

[EFerrari]

109. Obey, goddammit.

[Fozzledick]

59. Black-box tabulation sets the stage for wholesale theft.

Why accept dubious results when the votes are never actually counted?

[Bradical79]

60. People who feel it was rigged lack hard evidence.

So they need to focus on action. Increase efforts to create transparency and take down laws and practices that stack the deck against you (citizen's united and electronic voting machines from the sounds of it). While there seems to be good effort against Citizen's United, in general, I rarely hear of any kind of organized effort against electronic voting machines other than the occasional rant on these forums.

[hifiguy]

62. In a post-Citizens United world, every election is rigged.

Not necessarily by funny business with voting machines, which I am sure exists and will continue to exist, especially in very close elections, but by money.

The fascist plutocrats are willing to spend however many billions it takes to catapult the lies and propaganda. Given the percentage of the electorate that is very low-information or just plain to-the-bone bigoted and/or stupid, it is, for the most part, easier to manipulate these sorry sheeple than to rig the mechanisms of voting themselves and lower risk. It is merely a cost of doing business, which will be handily recouped many times over once they have complete control and can finish their looting the 99%.

What can be done to reverse or stop this? As far as I can see at this moment, not one thing, for when money is speech, the rich can easily drown out everyone else and when there is such a significant uninvolved/imbecile segment of the electorate more than willing to be led to their own slaughter and resistant to any form of facts the tool of reason is a very small slingshot indeed.

[Stevepol]

63. Almost impossible

I don't think it's possible to say that the election was fraudulent, but it's not possible to say it was fair either. I disagree strongly with the statement: "Fixing an election to produce the results that actually happened would be almost impossible, I think." Were there any monitors inside the machines? Did any monitors watch the commpany com-puter experts as they programmed the machines for the election?

As Steven Freeman has said about elections where votes are tabulated using electronic voting machines, it is "trivially easy" to hack, patch, mis-program etc., ESPECIALLY FOR INSIDERS, meaning the folks who program and maintain the machines.

WI does not have, that I know of, any requirement for auditing an election by actually HAND-COUNTING the actual paper ballots used after the election takes place to try to insure that the machines have not been intentionally manipulated or are just malfunctioning. In other words, there is no way to know if the machines are giving correct read-outs. It could be the results are pretty close to correct. It could be that Walker won by a wider margin than the machines show. It could be that Barrett actually won. The point is THERE IS NO WAY TO KNOW. The fail rate for computers is quite high around the country and I'd suggest that anybody thinking that computers are "almost impossible" to fix or manipulate is living in Never-Never Land.

[Javaman]

65. Yeah it was rigged...

by us being out spent 10-1.

It's the American voting process being sold to the highest bidder.

Who needs to tamper with electronic voting machines. That's such ugly dirty work suited best for the likes of rove and his ilk.

nope, this time the election was gamed by money.

You see, prior to citizens united, tampering with voting machines was the way to ensure your guy won.

Now, money took it's place.

Look at it this way, once upon a time, the mafia used to shake down local business owners for protection money, but then they learned it was easier just to control the industry.

And here we are.

Sure they won "fair and square", but they only did that once they changed the rules.

See how it works?

[coalition_unwilling]

67. Bookmarking for later. Thanks. K&R - n/t

[Bluenorthwest]

69. "Fixing an election to produce the results that actually happened would be almost impossible"

A classic use of the word 'almost' to modify an absolute. Just as 'almost never' means 'sometimes does' 'almost impossible' means possible. It is just such an overused turn of phrase, lampooned by Gilbert and Sullivan no less. Impossible means impossible. That which is 'almost impossible' is of course, possible. Such turns of phrase are used when the writer wants to use a word they know does not apply but has great impact. Rather than say 'I sometimes do this' they say ' I almost never do this' which of course means they sometimes do.
Why, it's almost impossible! A totally meaningless phrase. It means 'it is possible'.

[MineralMan]

77. There are few absolutes that can be stated.

Almost impossible means that there exists a possibility. That's why I chose to include that word. It means that the possibility is unlikely.

If I said it was impossible that would be a false statement. I don't think the election was rigged, but I could still be shown to be wrong. The reality is that this election will not result in the kind of recount that would prove it either way, so it doesn't really matter at this point.

We still have to move on to the November election. And there it is.

I doubt that there has ever been an election where the possibility of rigging could be completely ruled out. After a recount like the ones we had in Minnesota in 2008 and 2010, it was clear that no "rigging" had taken place. But, we can't recount every election. That would delay elections terribly, and nobody would get seated in time. That happened with Al Franken. Recounts are time-consuming, and only appropriate when the results are very close or if there is actual evidence of tampering with the election.

Is there such evidence in Wisconsin? Not as far as I've seen. I consider it almost impossible that this election was tampered with to the extent that it produced the margins that occurred. Almost impossible. Not absolutely impossible. I'm not in any position to state absolutes about it.

[Rex]

75. Not really, everyone knew the 2000 and probably the 2004 elections

were rigged by the BFEE and yet in 2008 Obama won! So no, not really.

[kudzu22]

84. Maybe they forgot to rig the machines for McCain

Or maybe they hated McCain even more than Obama.

[Rex]

89. Dunno about that, but they sure did hate McSame.

True.

[EFerrari]

107. There are endless reasons why they wouldn't try in 2008.

Like maybe they didn't want to have the depression hung around their necks where it belongs.

That's no measure of election integrity.

[progress2k12nbynd]

96. I think it's a little bit of both...

I think there is always at least a bit of fraud/ineptitude in elections given the enormous multitude of races/votes. But I agree with some of the other posters that based on a lot of posts I saw leading up to Tuesday there seems to be a lot of folks who don't step out of a very small isolated world. Of course you're going to be convinced that "noone will vote for Walker" or "Shrub will be gone by January 2005" if
the only people in your world are fellow liberals and progressives. There's a whole other 50% of the world out there.

[Prometheus Bound]

97. So you think the election could have been rigged. I agree.

[EFerrari]

108. Myself, I want to cooperate with the Thought Police

but my education won't let me.

[Prometheus Bound]

123. There seem to be an awful lot of threads encouraging us to conform and cooperate.

Trust the authorities. They would never conspire to do you harm. It's kind of creepy.

[TNLib]

99. I agree and I think recall politics is a losing game.

nt

[HiPointDem]

106. yeah, forget about any tools citizens have outside the regular rigged elections.

[ibegurpard]

118. and to those who won't let go of the rigged election argument...

what is the alternative? do nothing? stay home? are you going to be able to shut your brain off and tune it all out?
Not likely. You keep fighting or you die. That's life.

[truckin]

124. Of course you keep fighting. But you also acknowledge that there are major problems

with our election system and work to improve that as well.

[EFerrari]

126. The alternative you don't name is cleaning up our election systems.

Which is the obvious answer to elections that stink but, oh, well.