Another stolen election imminent?

[ailsagirl]

Hello, all. I've been a DU member since 2001, but I'm new to this group (and I'm happy to be here).
My question is, what would any of you say is the possibility/probability that this election will be stolen? Some websites (e.g., BradBlog) are adamant that it will be and I wanted to find out if that's really the case. Or at least get a feel for it. I know about Rove's "tech guru" Mike Connell, what Connell did to perpetrate election fraud in 2004 (under Rove's direction), and what happened to him in 2008, and so I've been really obsessing about slimy Rove pulling something. Since he is heavily involved in this election, I can't help feeling deeply apprehensive about its outcome. Would he try it again, or might he desist because others are onto his previous machinations and too much danger of discovery would be involved?
I do wonder, given the neocons' hatred of all things Dem, how Barack Obama won in 2008. I'm guessing Rove was not involved, since our guy won the race.
Comments/ideas?

[elleng]

1. I'm very concerned too,

and doubt that rover is deterred by possibility of discovery. He's a master at hiding.

Inertia SINCE '04, and concentration on States' voter registration games, might have so detoured any efforts to hunt out theft that the game is lost. And, of course, status pretty much quo with electronic voting machines and tampering.

[Warpy]

2. I think the numbers were a lot less close than what we saw in 2008

While it was an EC landslide, it wasn't a popular vote landslide, and it should have been.

I don't think they can cheat more than 2% of the vote without courting what happened here in NM: the video voting machines were discarded and we got 100% Optiscan ballots statewide less than a year later.

Now we all know Optiscan readers can be hacked. However, with paper ballots hanging around to be spot checked, they won't be quite as greedy with those.

[brush]

3. I have a feeling as well

I share your trepidation about what Rove and his operatives are up to. I myself think that there is a connection hidden under many, many layers with Rove and the funding for the anti-muslim film that was online for weeks but translated only into Arabic just before 911 (Arab media was then alerted) and seemed to spark all the demonstrations right on cue? And then how does that film tie in with the anti-muslim posters posted in the NYC subway and now the DC Metro? I don't think those are coincidences. It seems like a campaign designed to incite violence in the Middle East. And who's campaign would that benefit most? Can we say "Romney's." I just learned that the posters, which call Muslims "savages", are set to run this week in DC. Sounds too October surprise-like for these thing to be just non-connected incidents. And now Romney is chomping at the bit to give a foreign policy speech to bash the President on the lack of security. Remember he rushed out smirking to criticize Hillary and the President for an embassy missive sent out to calm the situation before the demonstrations even began last month. That seemed to me at the time a little too rushed, like he got the word and was told to "Go." Give me a break. Don't tell me these things aren't connected. IMO there is coordination behind all these acts, the timing of them all falling in line at this late stage of the presidential campaign is just too perfect to be coincidences, too Rovian. I'm betting the funding for the film and the posters are from right wing sources. These people play very dirty.

[OSPREYXIV]

4. One and one makes...how much?

Amazed it's taken this long for these questions to surface.
1) Stealing elections. The US has been hijacking elections since 1947.
Does anyone think the same people would be reluctant to do it here?
The fact that Nixon, Creep, et. al. got caught and served time doesn't
inhibit these low-lifes. They get off on it.
2) The YouTube incident. Transparent. Romney jumped the gun. Too cute.

The same old same old. We really have got to come to grips with a huge problem.
Internet discourse is fine but we're preaching to the choir. We will vote and with
any luck, Romney will become a footnote. That leaves us where we started. IMHO,
nothing will happen unless there is fundamental reform. The last time anything
happened due to popular outrage, the war in Viet Nam wound down. Nixon had
to be evicted and it took forever for due process to run its course.
Now an entire Congress of kleptocrats has to be dealt with ( Sunday's Washngton
Post article re: Congressial Democrats achieving financial parity with the GOP.)
The internet won't cut it. The Senate and Congress have been corrupted by the
one per cent. They bankers brag about beong able to buy both sides.p
There's an earlier post with a short clip featuring FDR. Any of you haven't heard FDR
on the "malefactors of great wealth" and "economic royalism," you need to see it.
Transparency is critical. Get !The Hill" app. Read up on the House Committes so you
can follow the money. We have got a lot of work to do.

[longship]

5. Another hair-on-fire conspiracy theorist.

Ever since the 2000 election, when there was clearly Republican twisting in a very, very close election, and ever since 2004 when again the Presidential election came down to one state, Ohio, where there was skulduggery by a Republican Secretary of State in a very close election, us DUers have had to endure the They're gonna steal it again! screeching.

Every time a Democrat loses does not mean Republucans have stolen the election. Some of the fucking times Republicans win because there are sufficient voters who do not see things our way to elect our candidates.

When the election isn't close, like in 2008, there is no possibility for election theft. That didn't stop the Moaning Myrtles from screeching about stolen elections four years ago. We heard it for months here.

Meanwhile, many of us were ignoring the bullshit and going out on the stump and calling voters, knocking on doors, registering voters, and driving people to the polls so that nobody can game the system. The result is history, and the stolen election screechers disappeared.

The stolen election meme is nothing but a cop out. Get the fuck to work and you do not have to wring your hands about stolen elections.

Sick of this shit!

[2pooped2pop]

7. stolen elections-conspiracy theory?

Where the hell have you been. It's no fucking theory and it alone means we have no fucking democracy in the United States of America.

But hey, we shouldn't worry about anyone fucking with those tabulators, right?

[planetc]

8. You raise some interesting questions.

I have been wondering, since 2000, when I first heard the assertion, how people know it's easier to steal a close election that an election with a substantial margin? First, if you can't get an accurate vote count, how do you know it was "close"?

And what are the parameters of "close"? I would agree that 537 votes in a state with the population of Florida is "close". But 2% of the voting population of Ohio comes out to 154,000, if 100% of them vote. If 69% of them vote, we still have over 106,000 of the little devils deciding things for the country, while we still have the Electoral College in place.

We all know, I hope, how easy it is to manipulate opinion polls. So our information on how close an election will be in the run up to it is rather shaky. The MSM will, we assume, try to convince us it will be a "close" election, because if they didn't cast their stories as a breathless horse race, they would have little to fill up air time with. We know that the exit polls are the most accurate of polls, and we know they were adjusted to fit the announced election result in Ohio in 2004, despite glaring reasons to doubt the Ohio results. Given the absence of accurate polls, and the inability to get a verifiable vote count, how do we know how close an election was, or will be?

Not to put too fine a point upon it, how do we know who won? Or by what margin?

The problem with our current voting system is that once the results have been announced, it appears impossible to get an accurate recount, or sometimes any recount at all. In short, neither the winners nor the losers can prove their case. This strikes me as being the moral equivalent of trying to hit a target at 20 feet while blindfolded. The results of your shot will be announced, but the target will have disappeared by the time you take the blindfold off.

[longship]

9. Thank you for your thoughtful response

I understand your point of view. There are things which can be done to insure vote security. Poll watching is one thing. The Democratic party will have trained observers on the ground throughout the process.

One can always imagine scenerios where such efforts can be nullified, but it isn't as easy as some think it may be. That's why I consider the stolen election meme to be somewhat insidious. Why show up to vote if omnipotent opponents can twist any results to their advantage?

The Democratic party knows about the voter suppression and other techniques. I trust that the party will have people on the ground to handle things. In the past I have been an observer, too.

[mathedguy]

10. My voting machine was broken.

The place where I vote (N.Y.) had only one machine. It didn't work. We all just threw our sheets in the bottom.
It's a sore subject for me. I heard on NPR that in 2004 John Kerry was informed that in 4 southwestern states, every district which had the new voting machines went for G.W. Bush, and every other district went to Kerry.
The movie "Hacking Democracy" shows with great detail, how it is done.

[newfie11]

6. I have concerns also

God help this country if Romney steals this election. We Will truly become a 3rd world country with nukes and a party that wants to use them.