If an election was stolen and there's no evidence of it

[cali]

blathering on about it is pointless.

Get the evidence and present it, otherwise it's just venting and stupid posturing.

An election where someone wins by a significant margin may be a stolen election, but it's less likely than if it were a close margin.

Evidence of election fraud is a necessity if you're going to make that claim.

[Scuba]

1. Exit polls varying from election results are considered cause for investigations.

We certainly have that here.

[GarroHorus]

3. Exit polling models for recall elections do not exist

They used a standard election exit polling model for yesterday's election. It was obviously flawed given all the differences between this election and the 2010 election.

So the initial "too close to call" results of exit polling were due to a flawed model. By design, that made the election too close to call until some results could be tabulated in the key districts where exit polling occurred. After seeing those results, the model could be adjusted and a more clear picture could be seen, putting Walker over the top.

That's why NBC called it when they did. They did the math and it was obvious Walker was going to rout Barrett.

[slackmaster]

6. Oh yes there is a model for exit polling on recall elections

It's called the election results, and it's gotten by counting the votes.

[GarroHorus]

9. They counted the votes. Walker won by a huge margin.

End of story.

[Scuba]

12. Not. When the Republicans cheated every other way they could, why are you so quick...

... to assume they haven't cheated here?

[GarroHorus]

20. There was no cheating going on in Wisconsin

If you're going to claim there was, then post your evidence.

[Scuba]

26. OK...

Shortage of ballots in Milwaukee and other traditionally Dem districts, no shortages in red districts.

Phone calls to petition-signers telling them that since they signed, they don't need to vote.

Phone calls to Democrats telling them they aren't allowed to vote if they didn't vote in 2010.

Intimidation at polls in Democratic districts, including poll workers trying to require a photo ID when none is required.

Exit polls showed a very tight race, not a Walker blowout.



That's enough evidence to warrant an investigation. Why would anyone object to a manual recount of all the paper ballots?

[GarroHorus]

38. I don't care if there is or isn't a manual recount

There's no evidence of any election rigging. Dirty tricks do not indicate that there was rigging in the counting of the ballots and dirty tricks happen every election.

There are districts that run out of ballots in every election where turnout is much higher than expected.

One district that turned a few people away because they did not understand the rules does not indicate a rigged election. Those poll workers were corrected early and people voted as proscribed by the law without a photo ID after they were corrected. The misunderstanding was explainable by the fact that photo ID was required under the law until it was overturned by the Wisconsin courts.

So no, there's really no evidence to warrant an expensive investigation.

[Scuba]

43. No reason in your opinion. Others disagree.

[GarroHorus]

45. And others disagree about Obama's birth certificate

Disagreement, however, does not alter the facts. The fact is, Obama's birth certificate is legitimate and there is no legitimate reason to launch an investigation into yesterday's election.

[Scuba]

50. You're on record as stating there's "no legitimate reason to launch an investigation"...

Shortage of ballots in Milwaukee and other traditionally Dem districts, no shortages in red districts.

Phone calls to petition-signers telling them that since they signed, they don't need to vote.

Phone calls to Democrats telling them they aren't allowed to vote if they didn't vote in 2010.

Intimidation at polls in Democratic districts, including poll workers trying to require a photo ID when none is required.

Exit polls showed a very tight race, not a Walker blowout.



That's enough evidence to warrant an investigation. Why would you deny it?

[GarroHorus]

53. 200,000 votes

If it was 200, you'd have a reason.

[Scuba]

54. One could rig the scanners to steal 200,000 votes as easily as one.

[GarroHorus]

58. No, they really couldn't

It would have to be all scanners statewide or tabulators in all districts statewide. Huge conspiracy to flip that many votes and distribute it as well as it would have had to been.

Nope, no reason at all other than being sore loser to recount this election.

The simplest answer is, Barrett got thumped a second time

[We Want Peace]

61. which part of central tabulator don't you understand

you seem awfully sure of yourself for someone so ignorant

[GarroHorus]

62. Your trolling is pretty obvious

How much money do you make pushing Black Box conpsiracy theories?

[SGMRTDARMY]

153. Oooooooh Noooooooooos

this poster has left the building.

[Scuba]

65. Your ignorance is boundless....

... it could be done with the knowledge of a single engineer at the manufacturer. To suggest otherwise shows either world-class naivety or a vested interest in denial.

[GarroHorus]

68. No, it couldn't

You really have no clue how computer equipment and devices work, do you.

You also have no clue how software is tested, do you?

Embedded software in devices or code in a central tabulating computer system would be tested by a team of engineers. Even if a back door is in place, getting to that back door in the state network system requires a conspiracy by definition.

You keep digging that conspiracy hole deeper, though.

[Scuba]

71. Again, your ignorance is boundless...

... a smart and devious engineer could make a chip with a routine to flip votes that is only activated during the hours of the election. The machine would pass every test since the routine would not be active during the test period.

Such a chip could then be hidden in a solder line of every machine manufactured. It would not even appear as a chip on the circuit board.

This is not rocket science.


I was a Chief Technology Officer before the term was invented. I have more experience testing software, hardware and firmware than you can imagine.

I'm not saying that the election was rigged. I am saying that it was riggable, that the Repubs pulled a whole lot of other dirty tricks and, knowing them as I do, they would rig it if they could. There are plenty of grounds for a manual count of paper ballots.

Why would anyone object to that?

[GarroHorus]

72. I object because it is ridiculous

Had the vote been close, I would not object, but hundreds of thousands of votes requiring a conspiracy byu definition?

I'll go with "Barrett got thumped". Occam's Razor and all that.

And I've been in the IT industry for more than three decades. I know how this shit works. One engineer would still require a conspiracy to put that into action. It's really not as simple as you imply.

[Scuba]

73. No conspiracy required.

Enjoy the pizza.

[GarroHorus]

74. Now you're just being obtuse

Your conspiracy theories are getting the better of you.

[Scuba]

75. You've got nothing. I haven't claimed conspiracy, only cause to manually count.

If the count is OK, fine. If not, then we start talking conspiracy.


So far you have demonstrated a total lack of understanding of computer security or the need for faith in our elections. So why do you keep commenting?

[GarroHorus]

76. I keep comenting because you've presented nothing

All you presented were suppositions and hyperbole.

Show me the evidence. IF the vote totals were within 1%, you'd have a case with nothing but that, but the vote wasn't even close. Barrett lost by a mile.

It's best to accept the loss because we lost and move on.

[Scuba]

77. The margin of victory is not in the equation. Do you think those dictators with 98% wins...

... we're all legit? You're either not too bright or have a vested interest in the use of electronic voting machines.

[GarroHorus]

78. You appear to be th one who is not too bright

and I guarantee, had you worked for me in the IT industry, I believe I'd have a case for firing due to incompetence because you do not understand how this shit works.

[HiPointDem]

158. You apparently signed up here to defend the election results.

[GarroHorus]

165. You apparently cannot decipher dates.

[HiPointDem]

168. i can decipher post counts, & you've made the highest proportion of yours in the last two days.

[GarroHorus]

169. Yes, I have

lots of batshit nuttery conspiracy crap about election fraud being posted.

[gmee2]

97. You need to put on the foil hat on

I'm a systems engineer. What you are talking about would need a major conspiracy. Considering that the secretary of state in Wisconsin is an avowed progressive and is in charge of making sure that there are the necessary number of ballots and the vote count, I doubt very much that there was any fraud or vote riggin.

[libertypirate]

177. Hahahaha, your really funny

Our entire election system is built on MS Access. It's a cluster fuck on purpose stop passing out cool aide.

[GarroHorus]

178. You're spelling you're incorrectly

That's a common teabagger trait.

[We Want Peace]

60. The easiest way would be to flip it completely

They knew Walker would lose big, so flip the numbers showing a huge win so no one will ask for a recount, then pay posters to go around the net to shut people up.

The Koch brothers could not let this be decided by the people!



Secret Koch Conference with Ominous Goals

The Koch brothers increased their wealth 43% since 2010, so their prosperity is hardly under attack as claimed (recall Hitler’s Big Lie). So what is the goal of their conference?


Our ultimate goal is not ‘fun in the sun.’ This is a gathering of doers who are willing to engage in the hard work necessary to advance our shared principles. Success in this endeavor will require all the help we can muster.


With billions of dollars at their disposal, many CEOs of major corporations, the mass media, and hundreds of politicians all ready to do their bidding, what exactly is the “hard work necessary” that will require “all the help they can muster” ?! Do you really think they’re benevolent and care about America?

[zeemike]

80. And I think that is exactly what happened.

And I am not ashamed to say it...I do not fear the CT reaper...
There is way too much money involved to let Walker be recalled.

[PatrynXX]

93. how many students are there in the UW system??

that found out by massive confusion they had to vote elsewhere..

[GarroHorus]

98. More importantly, how many students in the UW system have left for the summer...

and thus did not turn out to vote?

[gmee2]

173. They went home to their communities and

voted unless they were from out of state.
Here in Wisconsin we have same day registration. I registered yesterday and voted.

[The Wielding Truth]

79. That's enough in a democracy.

[truedelphi]

111. One other point - I can't say how it is

In Wisconsin, but in every single area I have voted in here in California, the citizens who serve as election judges tend to be over the hill seniors, of a Republican bent. These are the men and women who are inside the polling places on election day.

In Sausalito, Calif. back in early 2000's, one elderly man who was an election judge sauntered around the polling place, shouting at the top of his lungs that the initiative on the ballot to recall the local DA was a stupid initiative. Repeated this again and again. And I'll repeat it: this was inside the polling place.

This is clearly illegal according to election laws - there is to be NO Campaigning inside the polling place. Yet the County, when informed of this man's behavior, said, "Well, that's just X's personality. We sure can't get rid of him. We don't have enough people who offer to serve as election judges inside the polling places." So he is probably still there.

i have a friend who registered as a "R" - just to see how differently she would be treated from her husband, who remained registered as a Democrat. Sure enough, when she enters the polling place, she is given the royal treatment - escorted to a selection of booths, offered a pencil with warmth and affection. She is addressed by her name the whole time.

Her husband saunters in a few minutes later, and is ignored. If he needs a pencil, he can count on it being tossed toward him - too bad if it hits the floor and he has to bend over to pick it up.

If the Dems want to start winning, they need to start seeing to it that the warm bodies inside these places are younger and more "D" than "R"

Remember, in the end, an election is not at all about who votes - it is about who counts the votes!

[MineralMan]

137. The answer for that is to sign up to be an election judge.

That's what I did in a similar district where the existing judges were all old and Republican. I signed up and served as a judge for several elections. It was interesting how things changed. I wouldn't put up with partisan crap, and was outspoken about it. It stopped.

Complaining about the makeup of election judges without volunteering to serve as one doesn't cut it, I think.

[HiPointDem]

157. your disagreement doesn't alter the facts either.

[sabrina 1]

147. That's your opinion. You have a lot of faith in the Republicans not cheating. History shows that

you are wrong in your belief in their integrity.

[GarroHorus]

149. What you are saying is you doubt the integrity of Ray La Follette

Ray La Follette is the DEMOCRATIC secretary of state for Wisconsin. That means he is the man responsible for the integrity of Wisconsin elections.

[sabrina 1]

151. I am saying that to deny that Republicans cheat is like denying that grass is green.

[GarroHorus]

152. And I am saying that for the REpublicans to cheat on the scale you are suggesting...

would require collusion from multiple Democratic elections officials on a statewide basis.

I simply do not see this massive conspiracy happening.

[sabrina 1]

166. But it was not I who suggested anything, I have no idea if they tried, or even succeeded this

time. I was simply pointing out why it is so normal at this point, to assume the worst of them, and be pleasantly surprised, rather than to assume they did not have it covered, as always, and be very disappointed.

Republicans rarely disappoint me.

[GarroHorus]

167. But it is abnormal to think that

It's every bit as abnormal to think that as it is abnormal for Republicans to think that Democrats send illegal aliens to the polls in massive numbers to commit voter fraud.

And the exact same amount of evidence is there to support either contention, which is to say none.

It's batshit nuttery on the right or left regardless. It simply does not happen.

[sabrina 1]

176. Uh, you could not be more wrong.

There is tons of evidence of Republicans cheating in elections year after year after year. In fact a few of them, although nowhere near enough, have been caught and sent to prison.

You are correct that Fox's paranoid claims about hoards of Illegal Immigrants being bused into polling booths is a complete fantasy without a shred of evidence to even point to.

But it's strange that you are unaware of the massive amounts of fraud by Republicans that has been uncovered over the past number of years, including some that has been prosecuted.

[GarroHorus]

179. Then present the damned evidence

Don't give me bullshit blog posts and Bev Harris nonsense.

Give me hard data.

You can't because none exists. It's as much a boondoggle as the Republican "voter fraud" screed.

Idiocy about election tampering from both sides infuriates me.

[gmee2]

174. Face it

The republicans had a much better ground game. In May 2011 there were 68000 union workers today there is less than 30000 here in Wisconsin. Those 38000 seem to have voted for Walker.

[Thegonagle]

130. More ballots were delivered to precincts that ran short. Printers were on standby all day.

Precincts that ran short had MUCH higher turnout than predicted (other precincts didn't).

The robo-calls were dirty, but they are not evidence of tampering in the counting process.

I.D. may be required for election day registration, but it is not and was not required of pre-registered voters. (I'm most familiar with MN, but showing a current ID is the easiest way to register on election day in that state.)

Exit pollsters may have chosen their samples poorly, or they extrapolated the limited data in a way that did not reflect reality. Early exit polling was "too close to call." Later exit polling did indicate that Walker was ahead.

The WI canvassing board is the first line in an "investigation." They double and triple check the reported results before they're certified, and that hasn't happened yet. If they find anomalies, their duty is to report them.

It wasn't evil right wing hackers breaking into Wisconsin's election reporting system. It was a 10:1 spending ratio by Walker vs. Barrett.

If you want to investigate something, investigate Citizens United; for they made this possible.

[Scuba]

143. "Precincts that ran short had MUCH higher turnout than predicted (other precincts didn't). "

Wanna bet? My local township had > 200% turnout and did not run out of ballots. But then it's very red here. Very, very red.

I know of at least two other red municipalities that had 150%-plus turnout that also did NOT run out of ballots.



I agree the money had a lot to do with this.

I also feel strongly the People deserve to know the true results, not just the results the right-wing sourced electronic machines provided.

[Scuba]

11. Thanks, now I don't have to respond to the, er, other poster.

[Seeking Serenity]

5. Doesn't that presume, though, that

people are always and at all times telling the truth about whom they voted for to the exit pollers?

It is not at all inconceivable to me that voters could do one thing in the privacy and secrecy of the voting booth and tell pollters something different after the fact.

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

[Scuba]

67. Exit poll variance is not proof of anything, but a good indicator and cause for audit.

[oldhippie]

108. It could be a good indicator that ...

...... voters lie to exit pollsters. I always do, just on principle. I pretty much lie to all pollsters that manage to get through to me. I think many others do the same.

[HiPointDem]

159. if that's the case, funny how exit polls have historically been used to predict elections, with

a pretty good result.

[jeff47]

13. Then present your evidence. Show those polls that varied. (nt)

[Shrek]

39. Exit polls are inherently unreliable

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/what-happened-with-the-wisconsin-exit-poll/2012/06/06/gJQA3GYfIV_blog.html

Another, easily forgotten aspect of early numbers is that they are preliminary. The exit poll includes several rounds of interviews with randomly selected voters as they leave polling places (sometimes augmented with telephone polls of early and absentee voters). Different types of people vote at different times of day, with results from morning interviews varying from those at other times.

As it happens, the first round of interviews had Walker way up, the second round had Barrett at 50 percent and Walker at 49 and the third had Walker up again.

When actual precinct level results start to come in, exit polls are adjusted accordingly.

One way to avoid Election Day confusion is to focus on what exit polls are good for — the tally of how different groups voted in an election, and their relative size in the overall electorate — not what they’re not: predicting results.

Also this tweet last night from Nate Silver:

Exit polls have been highly accurate in every recent election except 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010.

http://twitter.com/#!/fivethirtyeight

[We Want Peace]

56. Manufactured consent- exit polls work in other countries

With electronic tabulatiing 'It's not who votes that matter, it's who counts the vote'

[HiPointDem]

160. exit polls have been around a long time. but suddenly in the 90s they became highly inaccurate?

[lumberjack_jeff]

55. Funny thing about exit polls...

... the exit polling models are derived by tweaking the questionnaire results by a factor determined from comparing the exit questionnaire for the last election to the last "actual" vote.

Thus the exit poll predicts the difference between how people say they are voting and what the central tabulator spits out.

It's not a mechanism to validate the results of the election, it's a moving target intended to eliminate the deviation between what people intended to do and what the machines said they did.

[fasttense]

83. The powers that be can't prove the election was fair and equitable either.

I agree with you Scuba. The election was done but prove it was done fairly. You can't, the equipment used to count our votes uses secret programming that we mere mortals are not allowed to look at. So how can anyone say it was fair when there is absolutely NO proof that the polls are actually counting your vote? Why should there be the assumption of fairness for RepubliCONS who don't want fairness in anything?

Besides Wisconsin RepubliCONS have a history of cheating on elections. Remember the CON in RepubliCON really means something.

This post sounds like the ones here on DU in 2000 who claimed that Florida was a fair election too.

All the excuses are the same excuses used back in 2000 in Florida. Seems they are digging up all the old worthless lies and "poor loser" slogans they used back when the bushes stole elections for the presidency in 2000.

More people got upset about the vote rigging on American Idol then they do about their votes being stolen in political elections.

Political vote rigging is happening regularly and methodically but we can't talk about it without being labeled a sore loser.

[coalition_unwilling]

129. Um, Florida 2000 was a 'fair election.' The Supreme Court's

decision to stop counting the votes was not fair and was, in fact, a bloodless coup d'etat.

[GarroHorus]

2. Rec'd n/t

[NightWatcher]

4. claiming fraud where there is none is just being a sore loser.

The Unions picked a fight with Walker and Big Money and they lost. It's that simple.

[Scuba]

14. The Unions picked the fight? Care to explain that perspective?

[NightWatcher]

21. didnt the Unions start the recall effort?

[Scuba]

34. The fight started long before the recall started. And no, the recall wasn't started by the unions.

Since you obviously have no idea what you're talking about I have to ask why you're posting?

[PeaceNikki]

19. Far worse, it's damaging. How many people said, "fuck it, it's all rigged anyway" and didn't bother?

We could have used those people yesterday. I am very suspicious of those who scream fraud with no evidence.

We should have a healthy mix of trust and distrust in the system and be careful/responsible about how we investigate, monitor and communicate such things.

[Scuba]

46. PeaceNikki, I'm also very suspicious of those who scream "no fraud" when there are good ....

... reasons to be suspicious.

Maybe I'm cynical by nature, but the Republicans have pulled every dirty trick in the book, and there are some disparities in polling that are highly unusual. Collectively these make a strong case for certification.

I'm for certifying the election to make sure everyone knows it was legit, or not. Leaving everyone wondering has the effect of turning off potential voters, while increasing confidence in the results has the opposite effect.

[PeaceNikki]

48. I've never screamed any such thing. I've said no EVIDENCE of fraud, which is different.

And I have enough cynicism to be on an election integrity committee to very carefully watch for it.

Rigging an election here would be very very difficult and involve a lot of people. It's even harder if you have people watching. I am participating to try to keep it at bay.

[Scuba]

52. I did not mean to imply that you are screaming anything, but disagree about the degree of difficulty

... in rigging an election. It could be done within the optical scanners we use here and no one outside of an engineer at the manufacturer might ever know if we don't audit the results.

[truckin]

69. Serious questions. Would it be difficult for a programmer from the voting machine

company to insert a couple of lines of code into the ballot definition software that would skew the election? If this happened how would you detect it in WI under current law? Thanks.

[jeff47]

124. Yes

Because the ballots aren't only counted once.

In WI, they vote on paper ballots that are then run through an optical scanner. While it would be possible for a programmer to tweak the code in the scanner or tabulator, that runs into another check - manual counting.

In all places I'm aware of that use optical scanners, a small number of wards are randomly chosen and the paper ballots from those wards are counted by hand. That hand count is compared to the machine count. If the evil programmer changed the results, the hand count won't match, indicating a problem. (I admit I do not now WI law on this subject, they may not do this. I know several other states use this system, so I'm assuming WI does too.)

As a result, the only feasible way for the evil programmer to alter votes is to alter a small number of them. Altering a ton of votes is going to increase the chances that the manual count will find the hacking. Which means the evil programmer can't provide anywhere close to the margin of victory from last night.

[truckin]

135. There are no manual counts in Wisconsin unless it is close enough for a recount or

court ordered. That is the problem. Most people would have a lot more belief in the system if what you described was happening.

[4th law of robotics]

90. The mantra seems to be: any results I support are fair and just

any I oppose were the result of fraud.

I guess there's no concept that other people might vote differently. Even a majority of them.

[truedelphi]

141. Well the Democratic Leadership

Doesn't care about whether there are fair elections or not. And they choose deliberately a contender to oppose Walker who was not all that different from Walker. So I won't lose sleep over it.

But it has been said again and again - if the exit polls show one situation as the outcome, and the counted ballots show a far different result, something is rotten, and it ain't in Denmark!

[HiPointDem]

161. The fight was picked by walker, but nice revision of history.

[slackmaster]

7. There are several obvious trolls operating on DU this morning

Trying to whip up a frenzy when none is really called for.

[Scuba]

16. And there are several others telling members to "move along, nothing to see here".

[GarroHorus]

22. That might have something to do with the fact that there is nothing to see here. n/t

[SGMRTDARMY]

24. If there is something to see

then by all means, lets see it.

[Scuba]

28. Here...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=775136

[SGMRTDARMY]

36. Thats not proof that the election was stolen.

[Scuba]

42. Nope, just cause for an investigation.

[SGMRTDARMY]

47. I agree that there should be an investigation

of dirty tricks but there is one poster here who is claiming election fraud w/o any proof.

[bongbong]

140. Same folks

Some of the same people who post gun-religionist posts are now posting "move along, nothing to see here" posts on this thread.

Interesting. I guess the Rendon Group takes DU seriously!

[SGMRTDARMY]

154. Wow

same dung from you as in the gungeon.
If you have proof of election fraud, post it.

[bongbong]

156. Relax

You get paid whether or not you attack me.

[SGMRTDARMY]

163. Paid?

By whom? The only one who pays me is the U.S. Govt. for 35 years of military service.

[bongbong]

170. So relax!

You're the beneficiary of socialism. Must be nice.

[SGMRTDARMY]

171. So why would you post

a derogatory statement aimed at me?
Yes it is nice, and I earned it the hard way.

[bongbong]

172. You got an imagination, I'll say that for ya

You call any post of mine an insult to you. Funny stuff!

[truedelphi]

114. It sure is "deja vu" - ain't it.

been here, done this. A majority here didn't want to even consider how the election was thrown in 2004.

And it took David Cobb, and Ralph Nader to offer up the money to do the recounts in Ohio back then. That sure tells a person an awful lot about our "two party system."

[RZM]

35. I noticed that too n/t

[glinda]

91. Seems to be an uptick in number readying for elections.

[RZM]

122. Yeah and they were obvious

Trying to blame the recall on fraud in order to make Dems look like sore losers.

[HiPointDem]

162. yes.

[truckin]

8. The election may not have been stolen but the election process is flawed

and very susceptible to hijinks that cannot be detected. Are you comfortable with that?

[WilliamPitt]

10. Ah.

Sanity.

[SGMRTDARMY]

15. Don't you know

because there is no evidence of a stolen election, that's the evidence.

[coalition_unwilling]

131. The reasoning in support of election fraud or even the need for

an investigation is based on some flawed thinking. I can't quite put it into words but there's something like a faulty syllogism at play here.

Basically, the suppositition is that if the declared results don't mesh with exit polling, there had to be fraud. Aside from the indisputable fact that the declared results match fairly closely the pre-election polling (that showed Walker winning by 4-6%), the fact that discrepancies exist between declared results and exit polling need not necessarily suggest fraud. It can be as simple as Repigs have a documented propensity for not approving of exit polling and so avoiding exit polling or even lieing about their votes. Thus exit polls may tend to skew Democratic, not because voters actually preferred Dems, but rather because Repigs dislike and distrust exit polls.

Even if there were a manual recount of paper ballots, would the doubters be satisfied if the results were substantially the same as they are now? Or would they make that manual recount itself evidence of an even larger conspiracy? For their fraud theories to hold up, there needs to be some evidence the fraud theorists would accept that would prove those theories wrong (the principle of 'falsifiability'). But no such evidence exists. All possible outcomes that don't make Barrett the winner become part of an ever-larger conspiracy.

I do not mean to cast any aspersions on their character and recognize that 'conspiracy theorist' is often used even here as a perjorative ad hominem to squelch legitimate questions. But if the best proof they can muster is discrepancy between exit poll and actual result, then that's a flimsy foundation upon which to build a dwelling.

[Douglas Carpenter]

17. your right on this, of course - crazy talk does not help prepare for all the battles to come

[Capt. Obvious]

18. Oh come on

It's more fun to start multiple threads making baseless accusations of voter fraud.

The more delusional the thread, the more fun.

There's an amazing thread I just came from where one user asked another for proof of the voter fraud - the response: "do you have proof that it was a fair election?"

Checkmate

[truckin]

23. I wouldn't ask for proof; very little is absolute. But to those who are so confident in the outcome,

what gives you this confidence? What is it about the voting process in WI that makes you so sure the results are accurate? I am curious to hear from the supporters of the current election process in WI.

[Capt. Obvious]

32. Because it was a rout

A rout that matched the polling average. There were 2 outliers for polling (one had Walker +12, the other Walker within in the MOE) - the rest were Walker +6.

Guess which poll people are latching onto here

[truckin]

40. Forget the exit polls. What does it being a rout have anything to do with it?

What if a programmer from the voting machine company put in a couple of lines of code to predetermine the 7 point win by Walker? How would you detect that?

[Capt. Obvious]

41. Checkmate!

And I didn't mention the exit polls

[jeff47]

125. A random sample of wards are manually counted

And compared to the electronic result. If the programmer hacked the code, the counts wouldn't match.

(I do not know for certain WI does this. There's several other states that use optical scanners that I know does this, so I'm assuming WI does too)

[truckin]

138. No, they are not.

[truckin]

44. After rereading you post I agree that the polls were evidence that the election

went the way it should have. That is a good point. I am not saying that the election was stolen but that the election process is flawed and until it is transparent, it will be hard for many to trust it. There is a good chance that the outcome was correct but that doesn't change the fact that the system is broken.

[Capt. Obvious]

51. How flawed could it be?

If there was that much of an issue the Senate would not have flipped last night.

[truckin]

57. Any system where the votes are counted secretly, by a private corporation, with no

citizen oversight, is flawed and cannot be trusted.

[Thegonagle]

134. True. Fortunately, WI doesn't have such a closed system.

They let people watch. One of the posters in this thread is a citizen observer.

[truckin]

136. How do you watch a machine count a vote? nt

[Junkdrawer]

25. On one given election, perhaps....

but I believe it should be a constitutional right that election authorities PROVE TO THE ELECTORATE that elections are auditable and audited. It's the centerpiece of the voter-verified paper audit trail movement.

As of now, in all too many instances (if not the overwhelming majority of cases), there are audit holes everywhere you can drive trucks through - and many of them seem to this observer to have been designed-in holes.

[Jackpine Radical]

27. First question--Can WI elections be Diebolded? If so, in which counties?

I think we're still required to use machines that leave a paper trail. I know that I mark paper that is then read by a machine in my poling place, and it's obvious that Waukesha Co. uses paper. (Those weren't half-open bags of electrons Nicklaus left lying around in the SC Election last year.)

The swamping was statewide, including counties I know for sure do not use any sort of central tabulator. My little county has 40 polling places, each with a standalone ballot reading machine. How would you even begin to rig all those machines?

We need to get our heads out of our asses & figure out what really went wrong rather than looking for handy excuses about election theft.

Scuba & other Cheeseheads, what kind of technology do you have in your voting place?

[Scuba]

30. Rigging the scanners would be a very simple trick.

We have scanners here. Any tech worth his salt knows that you could put undetectable routines into these systems to have them flip votes. The machines could pass test after test without error but have the routine kick in during election hours only. This is NOT complicated and can be done in several ways that are virtually impossible to detect.

Why not count the paper ballots, in public, with cameras rolling?

[truckin]

33. This is the optimal solution. nt

[jeff47]

126. It's also very simple to catch.

In the states where I'm familiar with the law, a few wards are randomly chosen and their ballots are counted by hand. That hand-count is compared to the machine-count.

If someone had hacked the scanners as you claim, the counts will differ and the hack will be exposed.

[Thegonagle]

132. Absolutely true in my state. Does WI have this? I hope so.

Still, I don't think hackers did this.

If they did, wouldn't pre-election polls indicate Barrett was ahead? Polls indicated Walker was ahead all along.

[truckin]

139. They do not do manual counts in WI to check the machines.

[truckin]

31. You fill out a paper ballot but the machine, programmed by a machine company employee,

counts your vote. There are ano random handcounts to check the accuracy of the machines. In Connecticut, we use the same system but we do random counts after the election to check the accuracy of the machines. It is not a perfect system but it is much better than just trusting the scanners.

[RC]

64. Each of those machines have to be programmed, every time, for each election.

So it would be fairly easy to "Fix".
We didn't used to have wide spread questionable elections till we started using electronic voting equipment. Me thinks there may be a connection, especially since it is the Right wing, Conservatives, Republicans that own and service those very same machines.

[We Want Peace]

29. Who set up this system and why? THINK!

"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."

[planetc]

37. "If an election was stolen and there's no evidence of it"...

Then we ought to be demanding, and I mean demanding, an election system that is transparent and accurate.

I have no, zero, zip, and zilch confidence in current election technologies in the US. Apparently it is not even difficult for a competent programmer to alter vote counts that are lodged in computers. Until we install a national voting system we can a) understand, and b) trust, I will believe very little that's reported to me about election results by the media.

You also say: "An election where someone wins by a significant margin may be a stolen election, but it's less likely than if it were a close margin." And that is the kind of argument that I read after the general election of 2000. Then, the talking point was that the actual margins of victory were sometimes, or often, not of "statistically significant" size. To both your assertion and the 2000 pundits, I say that the Republicans have grasped one point better that we have. That point is that what does matter is: Who Won The Election, and not the size of the margin of victory. We have just finished observing George W. Bush reign in Washington for 8 years on an initial victory margin of 537. He ruled, of course, as though he had won in a landslide.

And you say that "Evidence of election fraud is a necessity if you're going to make that claim." One of the main weaknesses of the current voting system is that election supervisors and the public *can't* be sure that vote count manipulation *didn't* take place. We appear to have accepted a system where we have to accept the voting machine manufacturers' word for the accuracy of the results.

This sounds to me more like a con game that an election system fit for a democracy.

[Scuba]

84. Excellent post, thanks.

[HopeHoops]

49. Did it make a noise?

[grantcart]

59. Thank you for a dose of rationality.

I assume that in Wisconsin there are members of each party prreaent at each stage of the process.

I assume that the robocall was illegal andshould be put before a grand jury.

[yodermon]

63. "Get the evidence and present it"

Yeah all us keyboard warriors with subpoena power and investigative authority have to "get evidence" and "present" it for purposes of discussion on an internet message board.

What a lovely bar you've set.

"Only DA's and Grand Juries may post about the possibilities of election fraud on DU" is what your OP reduces to.

[Scuba]

85. Excellent counter, thanks.

[pacalo]

164. +1. Thanks for a realist's view.

Mr. Scott "Private Computer System For Campaigning On the Taxpayers' Backs" Walker would surely not engage in election fraud, so let's move along & have faith that this was not the case. There is no evidence!

[ManyShadesOf]

66. and even when there's a lot of evidence

like 2000 and 2004, it doesn't matter.

[ancianita]

70. Election thieves have had since 2000 to learn how to do it!

[felix_numinous]

81. It is just mind boggling

after such massive demonstrations in WI that Scott Walker would win. I am personally in shock. I don't think it is being a 'sore loser' to double check if the machines were hackable or hacked. It is our responsibility.

If the future of this country depends upon machines--then they better work. No I don't have any proof but I hope that people are looking VERY closely at the whole process--because these people do not have a record of being above the board.

[Scuba]

86. +1

[leftstreet]

100. Who were the demonstrators?

Did they include a wide cross section of workers, both public and private, union and nonunion?

[hue]

82. Reprogramming Diebold voting machines is a plausible, probable option.

It is inexpensive, $26.00 for radio frequency remote capability, easy to do and it LEAVES NO EVIDENCE.

http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/16960-Researchers-Demonstrate-Diebold-Voting-Machine-Hack.html


"Unlike other methods of voter machine tampering, the exploit identified by Argonne researchers leave no evidence that the machines or vote counts have been tampered with.

"The really nice thing about this attack, the man-in-the-middle, is that there's no soldering or destruction of the circuit board of any kind. You can remove this attack and leave no forensic evidence that we've been there," said Warner."

It is reasonable that we would explore this as a possibility for this outcome.

[Scuba]

87. Great post, thank you.

[fasttense]

88. Thanks hue for that link.

We need to go back to paper ballots counted in front of cameras and witnesses.

This presumption that RepubliCONS are acting fairly when counting our votes when they never want fairness in anything else is like trusting the devil to tell you the truth.

[4th law of robotics]

89. If there's no evidence of it why do you assume it was stolen?

[fasttense]

95. Because it is not transparent and RepubliCONS are cheats.

There are many indications that it may be stolen.

1. The exit polls differ.

2. Wisconsin RepubliCONS and RepubliCONS in general have a history of rigging elections. Suddenly finding missing votes and bags of uncounted ballots and the whole bush 2000 fiasco clearly shows a history and inclination to cheat and cheat big.

3. Counting with machines with no cameras or people observing the final compilations.

3. No real audit trail

4. RepubliCONS are busily purging voter rolls, making robo calls with disinformation, spewing propaganda and lies regularly, yet we are to assume they count votes fairly. They want to prevent people from voting yet we can trust them to count the votes of the people who actually got to vote?

As I said, you can't trust the devil to tell you the truth.

[4th law of robotics]

104. There is historical evidence of cheating on both sides

exist polls often differ from polls taken before the election.

There would be no question that it was a fair election if the results were reversed. Admit it.

And this wasn't a case of "oops we found these 30 ballots after the fact and hey, our guy won by exactly 30 votes!"

It was pretty much a blowout.

[Blue Owl]

148. +1

My thoughts exactly -- where else have the Repukes demonstrated any form of moral or ethical honesty or integrity?

[hue]

99. Your reply does not follow logic. I did not "assume it was stolen".

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But as sentient and intelligent beings we have the responsibility to explore all possible avenues of probabilities.
Please do not put words in my mouth unless you quote me. This is one way in which you expect me to argue with one of YOUR lies.

[4th law of robotics]

103. "Please do not put words in my mouth unless you quote me." Hah, wow

I wasn't even responding to you.

[hue]

117. where did cali "assume it was stolen" if that's who you were responding to...

I could not find anyone with that phrase.

[4th law of robotics]

142. I was responding to the gist of the OP

and to all those people who have made the assumption it was stolen and are lamenting the fact.

[PatrynXX]

92. well it was likely stolen but on the basis of last minute law changes for students

other than that, the major card I was waiting for that I figured we'd have in the bag came in late or early this morning with the Dems/ People winning the Senate back. So I'm happy.

[Stevepol]

94. Evidence impossible to obtain

When electronic voting machines are used and there's no auditing requirement as there is in Brazil or Costa Rica, it's impossible to know what the actual vote is. It's a form of faith-based voting.

That's not to say this election was rigged. It's just to say that THERE'S NO WAY TO KNOW.

When the vote is counted in secret with no verification of the vote, it's impossible to have a democracy. And of course as a corollary of that, it's impossible to know for sure who won any election.

[fasttense]

101. Well said Stevepol

And when there is a proven record of one side cheating and that side is the one doing the counting well...

It's NOT who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes.

[bleever]

105. Right. The election is unverifiable. We take their word for it, and shut up, or else get ridiculed

for pointing this out.

As long as the votes are fed into an opaque counting mechanism, nobody CAN know who won. We're just taking their word for it.

Because, really, who would take advantage of an intrinsically flawed system?

[polichick]

115. U.S. citizens could learn something from Brazil and Costa Rica...

If they weren't so sure that our "democracy" was the greatest system on earth.

[taught_me_patience]

96. To cry stolen when it was a wipeout

reeks of sore loserdom and sets up a "boy who cried wolf" scenario.

[hue]

106. that scenario exists probably only in your mind. I never had that impression.

As is shown above the Diebold machines are quite easily and inexpensively hacked.

[taught_me_patience]

112. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

please provide evidence that the Diebold machines were hacked in the recall election.

[hue]

118. from response #82 hacking Diebolds does NOT leave evidence...

It is inexpensive, $26.00 for radio frequency remote capability, easy to do and it LEAVES NO EVIDENCE.

http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/16960-Researchers-Demonstrate-Diebold-Voting-Machine-Hack.html


"Unlike other methods of voter machine tampering, the exploit identified by Argonne researchers leave no evidence that the machines or vote counts have been tampered with.

"The really nice thing about this attack, the man-in-the-middle, is that there's no soldering or destruction of the circuit board of any kind. You can remove this attack and leave no forensic evidence that we've been there," said Warner."

[jeff47]

127. Lemme highlight the part you missed

were hacked

Not "could be hacked".

[fasttense]

109. 6% is NOT a wipe-out

Are we back to the Florida 2000 sore loser-dom again? It seems we have regressed 12 years. Bush stole the election in 2000 and we heard the same thing over and over and over again.

And in the end when all the votes in Florida were counted as the State Supreme Court directed Gore won by 536 votes.

So now if we ever dare question an election we get to hear this idiocy "Sore Loser-dom" and "boy who cried wolf".

Why not just do transparent elections?

[Zoeisright]

102. This type of complacency is exactly what Rove and the repukes want.

They want us to accept the results without question. You're playing right into their hands. I absolutely, positively, 100% disagree.

Exit polls are used as a standard to determine election fraud around the world. EXCEPT IN THE USA!

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

107. "This type of complacency is exactly what Rove and the repukes want."

Actually, you're correct. Let's argue about the result (if we don't like it) AFTER people have voted, instead of working to get the message out before hand.

[fasttense]

110. Because after an election the cheating hurts more.

The defeat stings and talking about it after (along with before and during) may actually make a few people join the fight for transparent elections.

Pretending that our voting system is fair and accurate will accomplish nothing.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

120. Was our voting system fair and accurate in 2008? (n/m)

[polichick]

113. Looks like both parties want that kind of complacency...

I don't see Dems fighting for a better system - even after 2000 and 2004.

The current system seems to work for our "leaders."

[LanternWaste]

119. Venting is, at worst, a most benign form of releasing our frustrations.

Venting is, at worst, a most benign form of releasing our frustrations... much better than other forms of frustration-release I would think.

In an emotionally charged environment, I would hazard that criticizing the release of frustration is at it's best, counter-productive, as more often than not, our hearts (much as we may hate to admit it) have far more control over our brains than the reverse.

That criticizing it as such, is about as pointless as the venting itself.

However, I won't use the terms "blathering" or "stupid" to describe the venue of emotional release others may choose... as that would merely advertise my own lack of sympathy for a lot of people who are feeling very down about a thing many of us feel very emotionally charged about.

[gkhouston]

121. If an election can be stolen without leaving publicly obvious evidence,

we need to re-design the election system.

[apocalypsehow]

123. People don't like their "team" to lose elections, myself included. But on this board there is a bad

tendency by a small group of regular posters to blame every lost election on some nefarious vote-fraud conspiracy. They do so without a speck of proof beyond "it just happened!", and usually start questioning your motives and implying you are a troll if you continue to press them for evidence.

Either that, or they present "evidence" that is not evidence at all - just anecdotes and isolated examples of technical glitches in some polling precinct somewhere, which they present as "proof" of widespread, systemic fraud. It's absurd.

[SGMRTDARMY]

128. Ahhhhh, but don't you know that the evidence is

that there is no evidence.

[planetc]

133. Rather than "some nefarious vote-fraud conspiracy,"

I think that what we are seeing is a system whose essential elements, computerized voting machines, and computerized vote tallies, are *designed* to be unauditable. I am saying that the software in Diebold machines is "proprietary." That means no one but the manufacturer is supposed to look at it, examine it, or test it for security. And, as one computer security expert snorted, how complex can this operation be? The system only has to count accurately. And yet, it appears that ALL our shine new voting equipment was supplied without self-auditing software.

By contrast with these machines, I do much of my banking on an ATM machine manufactured by Diebold. Can the transactions of these machines be audited? You bet your sweet bippy then can. No self-respecting bank or credit union would touch an ATM with a ten foot pole if every transaction could not be checked every 24 hours at least. This machine also supplies me with a paper record of my transaction, so that, if any discrepancy appears between my records of my account and my bank's records, I will have proof of what I told the machine to do.

Now, If my local Diebold ATM IS auditable and CAN supply a paper record, why have voting districts across the country bought the Model T version of voting machines? I wonder about that, and when I contemplate the Help America Vote Act, I think I see the hint of an answer.

I do wish, apocalypsehow, that you address the question of the voting "system's" complete inability to offer evidence that their results are accurate. It's not even just that the evidence of fraud is almost unobtainable, it's that our system can't prove it IS accurate. Vote tallies can't be verified by simple, cheap recounts--they can't be verified by anything, as far as I can tell.

[brooklynite]

144. Why is it that no candidate or Party Official is willing to make such an allegation?

in Wisconsin or anywhere else?

Are they all less intelligent than the internet poster? Are they all scared of revealing the truth?

Republicans don't need to steal elections with voting machines....they do it the old fashined way.

[planetc]

146. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

So there we all were in 2000, wondering who had won the presidential election. We were told it was Mr. Bush. It wasn't.

And there we all were, in 2004, wondering who had won the election for president. We were told it was Mr. Bush again. Lots of evidence suggests that Mr. Kerry won it.

The Republicans are working exceptionally hard to suppress the vote before elections, and of course to outspend the Democrats. I personally feel that they had to steal the 2000 election and they had to steal the 2004 election, because the voter suppression wasn't enough.

[Lars39]

145. Elections should be transparent from beginning to end.

Burden of proof is on election officials.

[Cali_Democrat]

150. That problem is that the US election system has almost no credibility anymore

People are gonna be suspicious.

[HiPointDem]

155. "shut up about everything"

[Cerridwen]

175. "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"