CODE RED – Computerized Election Theft and the New American Century

[brooklynite]

7. Want to know who I believe? -- the people involved

I have a direct link to many people in Ohio politics, and because this story never goes away, I've actually asked about this. NOT ONE PERSON says it happened. Not the head of the Ohio Democratic Party; not the US Congressman I knew who lost in 2010; not Senator Kerry; not any candidate, campaign manager or Party leader; not any elected Democrat who assumed responsibility for the election process in 2006 and 2008. Not one.

The argument seems to be "compare the 2004 exit polls to the final result". Well, why should we look at exit polls? They can be informative, but they can also be unreliable, because they're self-selecting. Perhaps Republicans didn't participate as much after being told not to trust the "mainstream media".

The second argument tends to be: "look at this story where someone voted for 'candidate A' and 'candidate B' showed up instead". Well, if you've convinced yourself that the Republicans have the ability to rig the outcome, don't you think they would have been smart enough to do it in the back ground and not alert the voter? Electronic voting machines are like ATMs (which, amazingly enough, everyone seems to trust), and occasionally their displays become miscalibrated, so the touch area for B is partly within the visual display for A. And given the type of people tasked with managing voting equipment, it's not surprising that they're not all working perfectly on Election Day.

More importantly, think about the implications of believing this story. You need a massive conspiracy of political people to develop the scheme and decide who gets the stolen votes. You need business people to build the equipment and financiers to pay for it while hiding the money. You need engineers and programmers. And you need to keep every one of those thousands of people quiet for years.

You also need to explain why this brilliant system worked in 2004; failed in 2006 and 2008; worked in 2010; failed in 2012 and worked in 2014.

Bottom line: do Republicans steal votes? Of course they do -- the old fashioned way. They make it difficult to register; they make it difficult to vote; and they gin up wedge issue referenda to bring their angry voters to the polls.