Off to a Southern State to Investigate Election Fraud; Why Dems Don't....

[Land Shark]

Well, I'm off Off to a Southern State to Investigate Election Fraud. I wish OTOH would go with me so he could see some of the evidence he craves up close and personal-like. Cuz, I probably won't share every bit of it here, you know?

As a parting comment, I thought I'd throw out my opinion as to why Dems and Kerry don't get behind this stuff more (in a public fashion).

The answer is: (in the form of a question) How many Dem donors will decide that they don't want to "bet" or "invest" in political races if the election is rigged? Answer: All of them who are paying for "access" plus some significant percentage of others.

Moral of the story: The official position of the Dems is not a fair litmus test of the strength of the movements facts or arguments. I'll leave to others whether or to what extent the above consideration is a good one or not. I do think it exists as a consideration, don't you?

I think this explains the otherwise organized and persistent/dedicated yet often baseless statements of people who rigorously attempt to attack people like RFK while still claiming RFK 'damages' some unspecified and otherwise "serious" attempts to work on election issues, for which there's no public evidence of said work at all. It's either a made-up statement, or a reference to behind the scenes work on stuff so as not to upset potential donors.

Still, when balancing donor happiness for an election cycle or two against the integrity of democracy, I contend some sacrifices can and must be made.

[eridani]

1. I think that a lot of Dems prioritize administrative convenience--

--outranking election transparency.

[IndyOp]

2. Who's THE SHARK ?!?!

YOU DA SHARK !?!?

Go LAND SHARK... :applause:

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[IndyOp]

3. Weighing in regarding big money donors and election fraud...

I had not thought of this angle - that Dems are reticent to discuss/deal with election fraud because they are worried donors won't give to a candidate with a low chance of "winning" as a result of GOP fraud.

I think you have a very interesting and important point.

When does this - politics - stop being a freakin' game?

When does bizness stop being a freakin' game?

When do moral adults with money start making decisions for the good of society as opposed to personal enrichment (access to legislators who can write laws that favor them)?

When Bill Bradley ran for President -- way back -- he said that the two biggest problems in the US were materialism and racism. IMO that just about sums it ALL up and it explains why the corporate media destroyed his chance of running & winning -- remember the hullabaloo about his heart murmer? :thumbsdown:

[Kurovski]

4. K&R.

Best of luck to you, Land Shark, and happy hunting! :thumbsup:

[AnarchoFreeThinker]

5. How many more would contribute if they knew the fix was NOT in?

[glitch]

45. or if the fix was being investigated? fighting would get them a lot more $

imo. but no doubt their advisors disagree.

[mod mom]

6. OTOH is welcome to come to Ohio and shift through the boxes of evidence,

including affidavits, copied ballots , video tapes, etc that he and others such as Farhad Manjoo, Dan Tokaji and Kerry's lawyers never bothered to review. Funny, the MSM calls theirs (ie Manjoo, "spent a year exhaustively studying the Ohio election"). an exhaustive study. He took an entire year and DIDN'T BOTHER TO REVIEW THE AFFIDAVITS ETC? Hmmh...my definition of an exhaustive study differs significantly.

[Febble]

13. How about

actually reading OTOH's posts before you imply that he has any problem with the kind of evidence you refer to?

Where has OTOH dismissed that evidence? Cite? Funny, I've read quite a few of his posts in which he showed quite a bit of interest, for example in the ballot rotation issue in Cuyahoga. It is actually possible to look at evidence and conclude that some of it holds water and some of it doesn't. The evidence that OTOH has most strongly rejected is the exit poll evidence, and, of course I agree with him.

What the heck has that got to do with "affadavits, copied ballots, and video tapes"?

[Land Shark]

15. the problem arises as exit pol critics overstate their case (or allow

others to overstate it) so that the overall impression if not outright conclusion is that there's 'no case' for 'stolen election 2004'.

This is most clearly apparent when reviews like Hertsgaard's come out in Mother Jones, or Manjoo in Salon, and the scope of the debate goes well beyond exit polls. In those cases, you and OTOH are quoted with approval and cited for in support of broad statements that there was no stolen election at all. While the conclusions of those articles are not yours or OTOH's per se, at the same time there's not any attempt to distance one's self from those conclusions either. In some particulars outside exit polls, the conclusions of the articles are supported. So what is a reader supposed to conclude from all of this? I'm not sure that reference to a single post regarding ballot rotation in Cuyahoga changes the overall pattern.

Notable exception is our recent exchange of letters in Salon which is notable, but it felt like pulling teeth to me to get you to state some areas of agreement with activists. But I'm glad we got something accomplished there. OTOH seems too angry to do something like that, but maybe he'll prove me wrong.

[Febble]

23. Well, I'm afraid

I don't think it's overstating my case to say that the exit polls, far from providing evidence of multi-million vote theft, actually contra-indicate it, and given that the only evidence for vote theft on anything like that scale is the exit poll discrepancy, I think the case fails.

Similarly I think there is no evidence in the exit poll data that vote-switching swung Ohio to Bush, although voter suppression just might have.

In short: I think a dispassionate reading of the exit poll evidence says the popular vote was not stolen, and that if Ohio was stolen it wasn't stolen by vote switching. I realise this is not a popular reading of the evidence on DU, but it is nonetheless a well-supported reading.

I never said there was a case for a "stolen election". I said there was a case for a corrupt election, and for widespread electoral injustice, and systematic disenfranchisement of minorities. I also think there is a strong case against digital voting technology on reliability and security grounds. I also think that in principle, voting methods must be transparent, secure and auditable.

But no amount of pulling of my teeth will induce me to support the conclusion that the election was stolen by digital vote switching when the evidence is against it in Ohio, and against it nationwide, and I think to continue to assert this in the face of evidence to the contrary is, as I've said elsewhere, serious misdirection.

And I dispute your implication that getting me to state my areas of agreement was "like pulling teeth". I have posted on numerous occasions the areas in which I agree with activists. But they do not include agreement with the case that the popular vote, or even the Ohio vote, was stolen by digital fraud.

Kerry did not lose the popular vote because of digital vote theft. Democrats need to know that.

[Land Shark]

27. Febble, you know NOTHING of the sort

all you know is what you think the data tell you. Exit poll data could prove a problem but they can not rule out "digital vote theft".

By the way, who were the voices that initially said the exit polls couldn't be used to prove fraud one way or the other, in part because they were not 'designed' to detect fraud? I'm not saying it was you, but who were those people?

[Febble]

39. Yes I do.

And I did not say that the exit poll data could rule out "digital vote theft". I said there is no evidence for multi-million digital vote theft.

The only evidence for multi-million vote theft is the exit poll discrepancy, and examination of the exit poll data indicates that the exit poll discrepancy was not caused by multi-million vote theft. It arose from a biased sample. Biased samples are not uncommon - they are in fact usual, and the art of polling is to try to predict those biases and, where possible allow for them. But in the end, it is an art not a science, as you can never conduct the same poll twice.

However, post hoc, you can analyse your data to see whether the same bias was occurring under the same kinds of circumstances as you have had bias before, and, in 2004, it was. Moreover, there is no correlation between discrepancy and benefit to Bush. Moreover there is no correlation between discrepancy and deviation from pre-election expectations.

There is, in short, no evidence that the exit poll discrepancy was due to fraud, and plenty of evidence that it was due to a biased sample.

That does not rule out fraud on a much smaller order of magnitude. But it does rule out vote-switching fraud on the scale of theft of the popular vote. Kerry did not lose the popular vote because of digital vote switching.

It is true that I do not "know" this in the sense that I do not "know" a number of things about you that I nonetheless assume are true (that you are human, for example, not a cyberbot). But "inasmuch as it is possible to know anything in statistics" I know that Kerry did not win the popular vote.

I do not think it is possible to prove fraud with exit polls - they are too prone to bias. However, I do think it is possible rule out the possibility that any more than a small fraction of the exit poll discrepancy was due to fraud, and I consider it ruled out. And as that discrepancy is the evidence cited for the case that fraud was on a scale of millions, then yes, I think that the exit polls can rule that out.

• Because polling bias can be shown to account for the discrepancy
  
• Because there is no association between the discrepancy and benefit to Bush.

BUT NONE OF THIS MEANS THAT THE ELECTION WAS FAIR, TRANSPARENT, AUDITABLE OR SECURE.

It wasn't. This matters.

[flyarm]

47. FEEBLE..YOU SURE DIDN'T DO THE TEST ON SEQUOIA

that i did!!

1st vote for kerry took 3 times for bush not to show up on screen

2nd vote for kerry..took ..5 ..times for bush not to show up on screen

3rd vote for kerry took ...9 ... times for bush not to show up on the screen!!

so tell me which of those votes would have registered and counted???????????

you do not no neither do i!!

and neither would the voter have known!

fly

[Febble]

59. I think it is high likely

that such things occurred. What I am saying is that it didn't happen millions of times.

What is your estimate of the scale of the problem?

What is your evidence for your estimate?

[flyarm]

64. MY FEELING IS YOU ONLY NEED A COUPLE MACHINES DOING THIS IN EACH PRECINCT.

AND HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF VOTES GO IN FOR ONE PARTICULAR CANDIDATE AND NOT THE OTHER!!

THINK ABOUT IT..

IF ONE MACHINE ALONE registers 3 +5 + 9 votes incorrectly..and those counts go into the machine..and in each case say they are for *..as they were on the machine i tested...

and 1 vote each time for say kerry...that means there are
17 votes to 3..registered by the machine..

and thats just one machine...

you do the math!!

fly

[Febble]

66. No, I'm asking you to do the math

How many precincts, nationwide, do you think could have had precincts with machines doing this?

And how do you think it was programmed? Online? Preprogrammed into the machine?

And how many extra votes do you think Bush got that way? You say hundreds of thousands - that wouldn't give Kerry the popular vote. Do you think Kerry won the popular vote?

[kster]

67. Yes I do, AND I know you will fight

for our right tO have all this discussed and debated ON TV, Not just C-span or a comedy show but, real cable news channel, that Americans watch, and also believe to be Real News. If you can help us achieve getting this discussion and debate ON TV it would be appreciated. Are you in?

[Febble]

68. I wouldn't know were to start

but I certainly wish you had decent TV in America.

Yes, I think it should be discussed and debated on TV.

[kster]

69. Thank you, Febble................n t

[BeFree]

70. The expert won't do the math?

Whats up with that?

There goes the expert, who has all the info at their fingertips, refusing to even consider forming a simple equation!

Since the expert won't do it, I will take a stab at it:

I don't have any numbers handy, but off the top of my head, here goes:

Machines used = 300,000

Votes needed to swing the election = 1.5 million

1.5 million votes divided by 300,000 machines = 5 votes average per machine.

[Febble]

71. I didn't ask how many machines

would it take to swing the election. I asked how many machines fly thought had been tampered with.

I want to know how many votes were stolen. That's what I don't know.

[BeFree]

72. The first question then should be...

.. how many machines were used?

[Febble]

74. Well, a possibly more useful question would be

how many precincts?

There were about 120,000,000 voters, so if we say on average 1000 voters per precinct that gives us 120,000 precincts. If you want to find enough switched votes to swing the popular vote you need to find about 1.5 million switched votes, which would mean 13 stolen votes per precinct, as long as you could steal votes in all precincts.

This is where it gets tricky. How many precincts do you think had the kind of technology were you could steal 13 votes? If we say 50% (I'm just playing with some numbers here) you have to steal 26 votes in each of those 60,000 precincts, without getting caught.

OK, in precincts where there are, say 80% Bush voters, you will have about 200 Kerry voters. That means you would have to steal about 13% of the Kerry vote, which might look rather obvious. However, in a precinct with 80% Kerry voters (800 Kerry votes) you only need to steal 3% of the Kerry vote, which people might be less inclined to notice.

Alternatively, instead of stealing 26 votes in 50% of precincts, you could steal a certain percentage of Kerry votes. You won't net many extra votes in highly Republican precincts, but you will do a lot better in highly Democratic precincts, so you might want to target your theft there, and it may just look as though you had a lot of Gore defectors.

But the trouble with all these methods is that in precincts where you are stealing votes, especially a lot of votes, are not only going to have greater "swing" - greater apparent Gore defection - you are also going to have greater "redshift" in the exit polls. In the rest of the precincts - where you aren't stealing votes, "swing" will be less, AND "redshift" will be less. So "swing" and "redshift" will tend to be correlated, which, of course they aren't.

This is the problem with the numbers. It is extraordinarily difficult to see how anything like 1,500,000 votes could be stolen, and not produce a correlation between "shift" and "swing". One way would be to go back to stealing 13 votes per precinct throughout the nation, but in that case, although the exit polls will certainly be off by several points overall (as indeed they were) - we should also see uniform redshift. No blueshifted states; no blueshifted precincts. No particular jurisdiction more suspiciously redshifted than any other. And of course we don't see that. We see massive redshift in places like New York and New Hampshire, and blueshift in places like Tennessee.

Of course that could be because of bias in the poll. But wait - exit polls are supposed to be accurate, right?

Do you see the problem? There really is a problem here for the case that millions of votes were stolen - even 1.5 million, which would just make the candidates even. If we want to account for enough stolen votes to reverse the margins, as in the close-of-poll exit polls, we need to find twice as many as that. And I cannot find any way, after fairly extensive modelling, of accounting for even 1.5 million votes without producing a swing-shift correlation, but still producing that much variability between exit poll discrepancies in different states.

But to make it perfectly clear - I am not saying that no votes were stolen. I have no reason to think they weren't, given the insecurity of the machines. But I don't think you can use the exit poll evidence to figure out how many - more than a relatively small number and I do think that the exit poll evidence puts serious constraints on how many. Which is why I don't think that Bush stole the popular vote - not by vote-switching anyway.

Though I remain open to the possibility that Ohio may have been stolen by voter suppression, and possibly other means.

(PS you might like to check my numbers - I'm just using the back of an envelope here).

[BeFree]

75. Thanks for the math

Anyway, 26 counted votes in 50% of the 120,000 precincts = 26 times 60,000 =1,560,000. Now we are swinging.

And that is just 13 votes out of 1,000. Because as you take 13 away and give to the other, it makes for 26 total altered votes.

Easy to hide .013 of the vote and confound the exit pollers, eh?

But then, we have a recent evidence of machine theft where 33% + of the votes were stolen by machine in just one county.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=432294&mesg_id=432294

And what about the red-shift in Pasco county? It meets your excuse to the Tee.

Nah, they wouldn't do that.

Besides, as you've said, using exit-polls to audit elections is absurd.... so why do you continue to use exit-polls for any accounting purpose? The polls, as you said, are a 'crock'.

[Febble]

76. Actually, not so easy to hide from the exit pollers

which is your problem.

Fraud will show up as an exit poll discrepancy, just as biased polling will.

The trouble is that fraud will also show up as greater swing to Bush. So if you were to find that the exit poll discrepancy correlated with greater swing to Bush, you'd have a good case for fraud as the cause of the discrepancy. But the trouble is that the discrepancy is NOT correlated with greater swing to Bush. Not at all. This is a problem for the argument that the discrepancy was caused by fraud. Fraud isn't showing up as extra votes for Bush in precincts where the discrepancy was greatest.

And switching 13 Kerry votes doesn't make 26 altered votes. It makes 13 altered votes. I simply told you how many Kerry votes per precinct you would have to convert to Bush votes to bring Bush up far enough and Kerry down far enough to meet in the middle.

BeFree, I said the exit polls were a crock for trying to show that Kerry won the election - the reason being that they don't show Kerry won the election. What they show is that he probably didn't.

Go through my post again, and see if you can figure out what I am saying.

[BeFree]

77. If you take 13 from Kerry...

...and give them to bush, bush has 26 more votes than Kerry.

IOW, say both have 26 votes even. You take 13 from Kerry and give them to bush, Kerry now has 13 votes and bush 39. 26 vote difference.

[Febble]

78. Exactly.

That's what I did - to eradicate a 3,000,0000 vote margin you need to switch 1,500,000 Kerry votes to Bush.

We do actually agree here, BeFree! Let's celebrate. :toast:

edited for clarity

[BeFree]

81. 1 out of 80

There is no way the exit poll could find 1 out of 80 votes being miscounted, so the idea that the exit-polls could not prove Kerry was robbed is bunk.

However, as the exit-polls did show, the theft was more like 1 of every 40 votes being changed.

[mod mom]

30. It hasn't been with just exit polls, which as I have said before is not my

area, but I do highly respect the opinions of Ron Baiman and Steven Freeman (and of course TIA). It has been regarding comments on disenfranchisement, but since I have used the ignore button, I cann not perform searches on the subject. Sorry, but it isn't worth the aggravation to contend with an individual who has made up his mind w/o viewing what practicing attorneys ( and not academic non-attorneys) have deemed sufficient to bring to court.

I don't use the button lightly (only one other time), but it well serves the situation.

[OnTheOtherHand]

35. yes, you were ignoring me anyway n/t

[Febble]

41. Of course the ignore button is useful

on occasions, but it does remove your right to make any inference as to whether an ignored poster has, or has not, covered an issue "exhaustively".

I believe OTOH shares my view (and that of Walter Mebane) that the data unambigously confirm that Democratic precincts in Franklin county were systematically allocated fewer voting machines per active voter than Republican precincts. The only area of disagreement, I believe, is the extent to which this can be inferred to have been deliberate on the part of who.

As for exit polls, you are of course entitled to respect the opinions of Baiman and Freeman. OTOH and I are also entitled to point out, from positions, it has to be said, of considerable expertise, that they have made fundamental statistical errors in their analyses. Ditto with TIA.

If you have OTOH on ignore, you will have to be content with my critiques only. And if you have both of us on ignore - well, I post this for the sake of other posters who may benefit from the critique:

• Baiman's conclusion that the exit polls for Ohio provide "virtually irrefutable" evidence of miscounts is faulty on so many levels, it is hard to know where to start, but the bottom line is that the only slightly valid finding is not statistically significant, and the statistically significant findings are based on faulty assumptions regarding the data.
  
  
• Freeman's conclusions that the state-level exit poll data indicate widespread fraud are based on a misunderstanding of the nature of the data, a misunderstanding of the error variance in the data, on at least two simple mathematical fallacies, and cannot account for the major finding that redshift was not correlated with benefit to Bush, a finding that, ironically could only be theoretically reconciled with massive fraud at the cost the evidence he finds to support it.

Mod Mom - I respect your on-the-ground knowledge of the abuses in Ohio. I would like to see them centre-stage. I resent that they are upstaged by the hyperbolic claims based on fallacious inferences from the exit polls. There is no evidence of multi-million vote digital theft in 2004.

If the election was stolen, it was not stolen by methods that resulted in the exit poll discrepancy.*

*edited to add: which pretty well rules out widespread, massive, digital fraud

[mod mom]

43. Don't you see that your critiques add fuel to the fire to those who

dismiss our allegations? Baiman and Freeman are highly credentialed experts. The dismissal of their contentions is being used to discount what occurred in Ohio. Again, I invite any expert to come to Ohio, I would be willing to set it up w Freepress and review the evidence.

It makes my blood boil for those to use their opinions to dismiss our case when they haven't taken the time to review the evidence. I will guarantee you that us Ohioans (and I believe I can safely say a few others from out side the state) have no intention of dropping the subject until we get our fair day in court.

[Febble]

44. I can understand the argument

although I don't agree with it, that criticising the inferences of those whose views are cited in support of your allegations may "add fuel to the fire to those who dismiss" them. But the reason I disagree with it is that I think that citing flawed evidence in support of a good case is actually an invitation to "those who dismiss" your allegations to point to those flaws in justifying their dismissal.

Which would be less serious were the flaws less serious. Baiman's "credentials" are in economics, not survey research, but more the the point, the flaws in his analysis are actually pretty obvious. Whatever credentials he has has clearly given not him the capacity to analyse the data correctly because he simply has not analysed the data correctly. This is objectively true. His point, re Ohio, seems to be that there are "patterns" in the data that can only be explained by miscounts. But the reason we do statistical tests on "patterns" is to distinguish them from random patterns. Baiman asserts that the patterns he observes are not random, but he does not do the statistical tests that might demonstrate this. I have done them, and they are not statistically significant. Whatever Baiman's credentials are, they do not appear to ensure that he actually does the work properly.

Freeman's credentials are also only obliquely related to anything relevant to exit poll research. He appears to be primarily a qualititive researcher in business organisation. I see nothing in his CV that qualifies him as a data analyst, and, as with Baiman, I see plenty in his analysis that reveals a naivete about statistics that I would expect of an undergraduate.

TIA, on the other hand, IS a data analyst. Unfortunately, his expertise is not in social science data, and, again, it shows.

OK, now for me (seeing as I am asking you to have some trust in me): I do not have a PhD, although I hope to defend my dissertation as soon as my defence is rescheduled (I submitted on the 14th Feb, and my defence was scheduled for the 24th April, but was cancelled due to a strike. The strike is now suspended, and I hope for a new date shortly. I will let you know when I get my PhD. But more to the point: my training and experience are in data analysis, specifically in multivariate data analyses, and as a cognitive psychologist, my data includes human variables. I am also a good mathematician, I was appointed to my present research post on the basis of my quantitative, data analytical skills. Indeed, that is why, presumably, Mitofsky contracted me as well. However, my working background is not in survey research (though I have a social science training) which is one of the reasons have worked so closely with Mark Lindeman, whose credentials are not only in quantitative public opinion research, but actually in political science.

Together we have developed an approach to exit poll analysis which I certainly would not have been able to do alone, although I do claim credit for the original insight that led to Mitofsky's re-visitation of his data. The paper we wrote together, in response to an invitation to present at the American Statistical Associate, is downloadable here, although I should warn you that it is fairly technical.

http://inside.bard.edu/~lindeman/ASApaper_060409.pdf

Now, I accept that all this is just my say-so, and no doubt Baiman and Freeman will have a rather different view of the validity of my analysis (although Freeman did not dispute them when I spoke to him recently). But up till now I have been reluctant to back my critiques with any kind of CV because I hoped my arguments would simply be assessed on their merits.

I realise now that that is naive. Data analysis is a complex business, and I think people do have a right to know something of the credentials of those who are making claims about the data, if they themselves do not have the background to weigh up the claims themselves. In my sig (which I may now change) I state that I do not claim any particularly authority for my views, and that has been true. However, I do now claim some authority for my views, by virtue of having worked extensively with Mark Lindeman on the mathematics of within-precinct discrepancy, which turn out to be complex, and by virtue of being in the unique position of having applied those mathematical insights to the exit poll data.

I do not, however, ask you to accept that authority without question, although I could probably cite a few people whose view of my work you might respect, and yet is favorable. But I will, as a human being, ask you to consider the possibility that my critiques of Baiman and Freeman may actually be valid, and that my conclusions regarding the implications for widespread digital vote theft on a scale to have won Bush the popular vote (that it didn't happen) are correct.

Because it strikes me that that is an extremely important conclusion. If digital vote theft was , at most, sporadic, and if the corruption of the election lies primarily in the kinds of abuses that you have evidence for, then that, as I said, needs to be centre stage. If Democrats want to win the next elections, all the evidence suggests that one major Elephant in the Room that needs to be removed, is voter, and vote suppression (provisional votes; residual votes), not vote-switching, and to ignore the Elephant in favor of a mythical beast seems to me to be damaging not only to the cause of election reform, but to your chances of a day in court.

And the other Elephant in the Room is that Kerry simply didn't persuade a majority of Americans to vote for him, even if he persuaded rather more of those who were subsequently prevented from voting than Bush did.

But thanks for responding. I am glad I am not on ignore.

[JimDandy]

48. If Edison/Mitofsky

had any government contracts, RFK Jr. could expand his whistleblower search there too -- and also to the Election Science Institute. It definately had government contracts. Have you contacted RFK Jr. about reviewing any new evidence you have uncovered?

[mod mom]

63. I have been working w Fitrakis ( Freepress.org) who worked on the RFK Jr

article supplying a lot of the information. Bobby had access to this evidence, and it was this evidence and other put forward that lead Kennedy, an attorney to the conclusion that the election was stolen.

Manjoo did not review it, neither did the DNC team and the many Ohio papers (most who support Republican candidates) wh are so quick to dismiss it. I have recently invited the Columbus Dispatch staff who recently denounced the Kennedy article to review and they of course are not interested.

[roseBudd]

33. He laso thinks it makes sense for Bush voters to choose a name they've

never heard for chief justice instead of a name they've heard/seen - Thomas Moyer

[OnTheOtherHand]

42. look at the data! look at the data!

Once you get done explaining away all the elections that don't fit your theory, is anything left? Please advise.

Reality check: it is hard to convince social scientists that a result is "anomalous" if you haven't documented an empirical regularity for it to diverge from. Go ahead and shoot the messenger, but if you don't document the empirical regularity, it won't do you any good.

Bonus questions: (1) What is your data source on Thomas Moyer's name recognition? (2) How do you think Connally managed to get almost 47% of the vote?

[roseBudd]

49. I live in SW OH, I saw the ads, I've seen the editorials, the endorsements

the yard signs with Moyers name on them in Warren County in the same yards as the Bush/Cheney signs. I know the woman who ran the Kerry volunteer campaign out of Warren County who was also monitoring the polls on Nov. 2, who told me about the GOPers clutching their straight party cheat sheets. She had so many volunteers offering to help with the Kerry GOTV they could not accomodate them all. I have been to the Warren County BoE examining poll books, I have seen missing and nonmatching signatures in the books. Warren County, Clermont County and Butler County all have the single highest Connaly anomaly and they are contiguous. Must be the water. Seems Hamilton County has been selling water to Clermont and Warren.


There was no Gore campaign in OH in 2000. As Warren County DUer lizzieforkerry said, no way Kerry did no better than Gore. No way. They lied.

As Doug Jones of the University of Iowa said, if they barred independent observation of the tabulation they could DO ANYTHING at that point including manipulating the ballots.

I call it street smarts. Republican government officials lieing, conniving, preplanning their lies and stickers on optiscan ballots and I call it a very smelly rat.

What is your personal experience with awareness of Moyer vs. Connaly?

[Awsi Dooger]

50. Who says Kerry didn't do better than Gore in Ohio?

Gore lost by 177,000 votes. Kerry lost by 118,000.

Keep in mind, that's also in a national preference mode with Gore winning the popular vote by .51% while Kerry lost by 2.46%, nearly a 3 point swing toward Bush.

Here is Ohio, in relation to the national popular vote margin:

Ohio:
'88: Bush (55.00 - 44.15) = + 3.13% Republican
'92: Clinton (40.18 - 38.35) = + 3.73% Republican
'96: Clinton (47.38 - 41.02) = + 2.17% Republican
'00: Bush (49.97 - 46.46) = + 4.02% Republican
'04: Bush (50.81 - 48.71) = + 0.36% Democratic

So the emphasis on Ohio in 2004 did have an impact. Major impact. The state always swayed at least 2 points Republican compared to the nation itself, but in '04 was slightly Democratic. Now, I attribute that to the lousy state sconomy under Bush as much, and probably more, than any partisan turn in our direction.

If Kerry had won the national popular vote, or even come close, let's say within 1%, he would have won Ohio and therefore the election. That's always the missing analysis from 2004. We were so damn close to winning an election we had no business winning, based on how the nation voted as a whole.

Now, here's something I've wanted to do since late 2004 but have not. Let's transfer Steven Freeman's exit poll claim for Ohio 2004, based on his specific numbers from the recent response to the Salon article, into that partisan index chart, and see what it looks like:

Ohio:
'88: Bush (55.00 - 44.15) = + 3.13% Republican
'92: Clinton (40.18 - 38.35) = + 3.73% Republican
'96: Clinton (47.38 - 41.02) = + 2.17% Republican
'00: Bush (49.97 - 46.46) = + 4.02% Republican
'04: Kerry (54.16 - 45.36) = + 12.26% Democratic

So there's Steven Freeman's remarkable new partisan index for Ohio, a state leaning more than 12 points Democratic.

To be fair, the alteration would be somewhat less dramatic. Changing Ohio's net that dramatically but leaving Bush's +2.46% nationally is not what Freeman believes. He'd rather amend one state after another, apparently those without electronic voting, until Kerry's national popular vote margin matches or exceeds what Bush was credited with.

Just for the hell of it, let's go along. Kerry wins the nation by exactly Bush's official figure, 2.46%. Using that, let's look at Ohio's adjusted partisan index:

Ohio:
'88: Bush (55.00 - 44.15) = + 3.13% Republican
'92: Clinton (40.18 - 38.35) = + 3.73% Republican
'96: Clinton (47.38 - 41.02) = + 2.17% Republican
'00: Bush (49.97 - 46.46) = + 4.02% Republican
'04: Kerry (54.16 - 45.36) = + 7.34% Democratic

That demonstrates how preposterous the exit polls numbers are. Using the actual vote count, you get a very logical partisan shift of 4.38% toward the Democrat in Ohio. That was basically what was predicted, due to Kerry emphasis throughout the general election, compared to Gore conceding the state a month early in '00, plus the terrible state economy under Bush and a Republican governor. For more than a year prior to 2004 I predicted on DU the Ohio partisan index would shift from 4 points Republican in '00 to within 1 point either side of the national margin in '04.

Steven Freeman takes it a bit further. Based on his exit poll claims, Ohio is now more of a Democratic stronghold than Oregon or Minnesota or Michigan. Frankly, I could do the same with one Freeman statewide exit poll after another. The proposed new partisan indexes are simply laughable.

[kster]

51. So laughable that the Dem and Repug Politicians are afraid to go ON TV !!

And explain this small discrepancy away. Why are the Dem and Repug Politicians so afraid to explain this away ON TV?

[Awsi Dooger]

54. I'd like to see Steven Freeman explain it

He ignored me when I asked via his "Contact Me."

Maybe my stuff is too simplistic for him. I'd like to see a list of how he thinks all 50 states actually voted, or as many as he can estimate. Then let's see how that looks in historical terms. Maybe I'll have to relearn everything.

[kster]

56. As long as the two of you, have the debate ON TV

and both parties agree, I will fight for You and Freemans right to be heard ON TV.

[OnTheOtherHand]

60. actually, you can download that (sort of)

Freeman tries to avoid being too explicit about what he believes; he lets his audience fill stuff in. He will tell you that exit polls are generally accurate, and he will tell you what the exit polls "indicate," and he will deride the folks who say there was bias in the polls. But whether he actually believes his own numbers, who can say?

http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/Documents/2004ElectionOutcomeExitPolls.pdf

based on a statistic (he calls it PLD; the exit pollsters call it Within Precinct Error) that he describes as "the difference between how people said they voted in confidential questionnaires as they walked out of the polling booth, and the way those votes were officially recorded." That's wrong, of course: exit polls are samples, and we have no way of knowing how "those votes" were officially recorded.

Since these numbers are drawn from the E/M report of January 2005, there is no reason for them to have changed unless he caught a typo in the last eight months.

[Awsi Dooger]

65. Thanks OTOH

Wow. Kerry "won" by significantly more than my reverse 2.46%. It was 4.6%, according to the bottom line exit poll numbers from that PDF. I rounded the numbers state to state, but it looks like Freeman is claiming a 8,700,000 vote theft, exit poll to actual.

OK, here are the partisan indexes of Ohio and New Hampshire, using Freeman's numbers from that PDF:

Ohio:
'88: Bush (55.00 - 44.15) = + 3.13% Republican
'92: Clinton (40.18 - 38.35) = + 3.73% Republican
'96: Clinton (47.38 - 41.02) = + 2.17% Republican
'00: Bush (49.97 - 46.46) = + 4.02% Republican
'04: Kerry (54.16 - 45.36) = + 4.20% Democratic

New Hampshire:
'88: Bush (62.41 - 36.29) = + 18.40% Republican
'92: Clinton (38.86 - 37.64) = + 4.34% Republican
'96: Clinton (49.32 - 39.37) = + 1.42% Democratic
'00: Bush (48.07 - 46.80) = + 1.78% Republican
'04: Kerry (57.00 - 42.10) = + 10.30% Democratic

[OnTheOtherHand]

73. it's sort of ironic

As I said, it's hard to be sure what Freeman is claiming, but I don't think he has ever bluntly conceded any likelihood of non-sampling error in the exit poll. In October he said that "the numbers indicate... a discrepancy on the order of 10 million votes." Hey, a million here, a million there....

The irony is that one encounters fraudsters who claim that E/M has tried to conceal and to downplay the exit poll discrepancy. But if E/M had never released these mean WPEs by state, the fraudsters would still be working with much smaller discrepancy figures. (Not only would they be using model estimates -- well, actually, crude approximations of the model estimates -- but those model estimates would incorporate pre-election polling or vote counts. Just referring to the math on exitpollz.org and taking the average margin, it would be Kerry +4.1 in Ohio instead of +8.8. New Hampshire, Kerry +11.5 instead of +15.0. In California, I think Kerry +11.4 instead of +20.8.)

Or think of the trees that might have been saved if E/M had just fudged the completion rates in the precinct-by-partisanship table, to spare themselves the "higher rates in Bush strongholds" shtick. But really, I'm surprised that anyone ever took that argument seriously, and amazed that anyone still does. I guess out of 300 million people, you can find someone to argue just about anything.

[Land Shark]

79. Is this really what Febble's claim is grounded on?

it's a cut and paste (and do you agree with it?)

If the election was stolen, it was not stolen by methods that resulted in the exit poll discrepancy.*

*edited to add: which pretty well rules out widespread, massive, digital fraud

I don't think the second sentence follows from the first one.

[OnTheOtherHand]

82. to answer your questions

No, Febble's claim is not based on Freeman's vote estimates (or whatever they are). I was answering Awsi Dooger's question.

Yes, I think that the lack of correlation between red shift and change 2000-04 -- in combination with other results -- "pretty well" rules out "widespread, massive, digital fraud." We have been here for months trying to get someone who believes in widespread, massive, digital fraud to make a serious argument to the contrary, but the pickings have been pretty slim. We have tried to come up with our own arguments to the contrary, too; they seem pretty labored. Febble in particular has addressed this subject at length, and it would be presumptuous of me to attempt to restate her arguments from scratch.

[roseBudd]

62. Kerry did no better than Gore in Warren County the county that locked out

the press.

Clermont a contiguous county to Warren was seen to have white stickers on the optiscan ballots by Green Party recount volunteers. The stickers covered Kerry's bubble and Bush's bubble was filled in. Kerry votes converted? Overvotes "fixed" to credit Bush? Who knows, but the Clermont BoE's behavior is suspicous.

Three contiguous GOP controlled counties in SW OH have the highest C. Ellen Connaly anomaly.

Like I said it's a rat and it's very smelly.

[OnTheOtherHand]

61. you are mostly ignoring me

which is OK, but a waste of everyone's time.

To repeat: if you don't demonstrate an empirical regularity, then it is meaningless to talk about a "Connally anomaly." (EDIT TO ADD: I was going to leave this out because it ought to be redundant, but... I am not saying that there isn't, or is, a Connally anomaly; I'm saying that AFAIK no one has demonstrated an anomaly, because the "more votes than Kerry" hasn't been demonstrated to diverge from an empirical regularity. I don't think this is a subtle or nitpicking point; it's basically what "anomaly" means.)

Your anecdotes do not constitute data on Moyer or Connally name recognition, nor do they explain how Connally got almost 47% of the vote.

[Bill Bored]

7. I think you are right but this doesn't account for the Dems who

have been complicit in inflicting this on us in the first place.

People like Lamone of MD and her allies in their legislature, the whole frickin' state of Penn., and everyone else who has intentionally misread HAVA, advocated for DREs with no means of verifying vote totals, privatized elections, etc. NJ is another Blue-state example.

Those are the ones who should be worried abut losing donations!

Oh, and Cox of Georgia goes without saying.

[FogerRox]

8. DAmn straight about NJ, .......crooked DEMS here........

[Bill Bored]

9. Yeah, that's too bad. Do you think they're also responsible for that

Fake BBV site that's been getting so much attention here on DU lately?:popcorn:

Because I'm REALLY UPSET about THAT!:boring:

[kster]

52. Yes, thats what they are responsible for

why don't you go investigate that! And get back to us. I know I will be intersested in your findings. :sarcasm:

[midnight]

10. Thank you landshark.

Hopefully paid access to our Republic will be adjusted. I hope the sacrifices you speak of are more on the side of big coorporations. Good luck with your work.

[JimDandy]

11. If you're correct, wouldn't the Dem Party

publicly oppose election fraud, if the U.S. had publicly funded campaigns, since it would no longer have to worry about loss of Big Money Donors? If that holds true, then the state democratic parties in states where campaigns already are publicly funded would be free to discuss/deal with election fraud. So the Dem parties in Maine and Arizona, where campaigns are publicly financed, should be raising hell about election fraud RIGHT NOW. Why aren't they?


Thanks for going south! :thumbsup: The more boots on the ground the better--especially your boots!

[Febble]

12. Well, good luck

but are you deliberately misrepresenting OTOH's position, or have you really not read his posts?

[Land Shark]

14. Febble, you were cc'd on emails after I asked OTOH if he'd help

with this project but he never responded with any kind of commitment, though there was plenty of traffic about other stuff.

Contrast: The gist of the exit poll position is that there's "no evidence" there, and yet my responses and/or invitations geared toward reviewing or developing affirmative evidence don't go anywhere. It gets buried in favor of sarcasm toward exit poll opponents. That creates a level of fatigue with me, to be sure. So, in the OP I'm reiterating that investigations like these could help reveal the hard evidence OTOH craves by his own admission -- but which i've been personally unable to get him to pursue. If I missed the post where OTOH offered to help develop evidence or has developed the same, please point it out to me.

I suppose you have some links handy to support your statements above, and if they were copious in number it might even make it seem that I'd not read OTOH's posts (truth is i am SURE i've not read them all, but I've read many). So here's your chance.

[BeFree]

18. Yeah where's the beef?

They mutter that we need to do something but where is the beef? What new item have they ever posted that helps us solve the problem?

Heck, we get newbies in here all the time posting an item or asking an honest question, but here we have a couple of quoted 'experts' who are nothing but one trick ponies, and their trick is now known as "exit polls are a crock" and "exit polls were wrong". That's it, that's all they have to offer.

Even the greenest election reform poster has more to offer than those two 'experts'.

[OnTheOtherHand]

21. the BeFree two-step

1) Ask questions
2) Complain about the answers

[BeFree]

22. That's how sceince works, duh!

Ask questions and examine the answers. You are a scientist, right? I wonder.

But you think everything is just fine. Except the polls are all messed up, maybe even "a crock"?

Yet you accept the election results on faith. Is that faith not a fundamental belief that they wouldn't do that?

Incredible, simply incredible.

[Febble]

24. If you can find one post

where OTOH, or I, said that everything about the 2004 election was "just fine", please link to it.

Otherwise, stop making unsupported assertions.

[Land Shark]

28. The net effect of all of your posts is to negate ACTION

the net effect is to inspire nothing, to inspire others to do nothing. You can point to what amounts to fine print that points the other way, but that doesn't matter nor does it change the net effect.

Your net effect is to kill off any investigation or widespread media debate. And, you specifically refuse to join your exit poll opinions with any kind of contextual call for an investigation, or reminder of your own opinion that there's "no basis for confidence" in electronic elections. You are therefore quite happy, it seems to me, to be used by other people to make sure there never is a national investigation or a national media debate on elections. How you could possibly be comfortable being cited the way you are and in the articles you are cited escapes me, given that you say you care a great deal about democracy.

[OnTheOtherHand]

32. can we ever learn from history?

Calls for "ACTION" unmoored from reason rarely end well.

In what sense does debating Kennedy in the media kill off widespread media debate? Does this actually make any sense to you as you write it? What is this "debate" you seek in which you dictate the acceptable positions? In what manner is battering Farhad Manjoo likely to lead to better national media debate on elections?

Speaking of Manjoo, let's look once more at what he wrote:

One has to wonder what, after all of this, Kennedy might have brought to the debate. There could have been an earnest exploration of the issues in order to finally shed some light on the problems we face in elections, and a call to urgently begin repairing our electoral machinery. Voting reforms are forever on the backburner in Congress; even the 2000 election did little to prompt improvements. If only someone with Kennedy's stature would outline this need.

Try some intellectual risk-taking: consider the possibility that he actually meant it. OK, then, if RFK's approach evokes this response from one of our most sympathetic reporters, mightn't it be time for a course adjustment? or should we just shoot the messenger?

If a "contextual call for an investigation" means anything, it should lead to investigating something in particular. (Indeed, I have investigated quite a few particulars of the 2004 election.) If you believe the exit polls, then you should be calling for an investigation in New York. In part because you actually aren't calling for an investigation in New York, I doubt that you actually do believe the exit polls. But apparently you would never venture to say so, because that might undermine the call for an investigation. This makes no sense to me. If we don't try to sort out what is believable, how can we know or say what to investigate? and why would we expect anyone else to believe us, if we don't even believe ourselves? and how would any of this doublethink serve "democracy"?

Hey, I won't speak for Febble, but looking for truth is pretty much all I've got. Like it or leave it, I don't care. That said, my challenge to you is to try to learn something from my reactions. For every one of us who openly disagrees, there are many more who tactfully remain silent. And so they get psychoanalyzed: 'Oh, all those smart liberals! why are they so timid? why are they silent? why are they in denial? are they afraid of the truth? are they afraid of a fight? are they afraid of fundraising problems?' Yeesh.

Sir, I still await your apology for post #14.

[Febble]

37. This is simply untrue

"you specifically refuse to join your exit poll opinions with any kind of contextual call for an investigation, or reminder of your own opinion that there's "no basis for confidence" in electronic elections."

Where do I so refuse? I have lost track of the number of times I have prefaced or concluded a post with a statement to the effect that your democracy is broken both because of systematic disenfranchisement "of those who have most to gain from a Democratic administration" (my fingers can type that phrase on its own) and because the consent of the governed is jeopardized unless voting systems are transparent, auditable and secure (another well-typed set of phrases of mine), which they aren't.

Land Shark, you do not know the "net effect" of my posts. It may be as you say. It may not be. I happen to think that it is just as likely that the "net effect" of all the assertions that the exit polls indicate that millions of votes were transferred digitally to Bush is to "negate action" on the principle that election reform activists are delusional. I don't say they are - I think they have been misled by some very poor analysis by analysts who ought either to know better, or to know that they do not have the relevant skills on which to reach their conclusions. But I allege that it is highly likely that this is the consequence. Moreover, I think it is all too likely that another "net effect" of this myth - and myth it is - will be to discourage Democratic voters from voting at all.

I think both these effects are serious. I think a possible net effect of my posts may be to encourage people to realise that underneath the myth is a real and substantiated case struggling to be heard. I hope so. But that net effect is not going to be enhanced by the kinds of attack launched at Manjoo, Lindeman, Blumenthal, or myself, all of whom are desperate to see a rational argument made for election reform.

[OnTheOtherHand]

31. no, I don't; you made that up, and you won't let go of it n/t

[Land Shark]

29. There is a negativity that is not matched by substantive contributions

at least not anymore. Febble did a paper or two that contributed but has now shifted mode.

We seek an investigation. Those who would avoid one cite Febble and OTOH. And they seem to be OK with that, and have never specifically published any discomfort with it. Every election should be investigated

Why they won't be more clear in this regard and with each interview they do or thing they publish demand an investigation to confirm the validity of the election with substantive proof, i don't understand. A real actual investigation would perhaps make Febble famous for having "known all along." OTOH too. So they should be pushing for this, not supporting articles that trash requests for an investigation and being mystified by the reaction they get.

It's looking more and more like they are having the effect of creating a "paper trail" of accusations of misquotes and keeping the noise level up here on DU that has the effect of scaring other people away. Intent doesn't matter, this is becoming the net effect because precious little is being provided in terms of anything that would inspire anybody (or inform them) in a way to better protect democracy.

[OnTheOtherHand]

36. it's not that I'm surprised

It's just that I'm embarrassed for you.

Manjoo's article says pretty much the opposite of what you attribute to it. You just refuse to see it. You refuse to see that bad arguments have bad consequences. Febble and I don't create those consequences. We have only tried to explain them.

[Febble]

38. Please provide

a citation to support the allegation that "those who would avoid {an investigation} cite Febble and OTOH".

I have read this allegation many times, but never with a link.

Moreover, I don't believe that "every election should be investigated". I do believe that every election should conducted with the kind of transparency (including random audits, and recounts if nececessary) that makes it clear that the results represent the will of the people, and that all cases of voter suppression should be vigorously pursued. And until your elections have that kind of transparency (which at present they don't) and until voter suppression is at an end (it isn't) then, yes, investigation is called for.

But the idea that OTOH and I are "keeping the noise level up here on DU" strikes me as very strange. Do you mean that what we are posting is disinformation? In which case you are wrong. Or do you mean that it is information that you do not want? In which case, I suggest that is the position of an ostrich.

[OnTheOtherHand]

20. huh??

My words (6/5/06) were: "As to the data analysis, sure, any time." What kind of commitment were you looking for???

Paul, are you actually ramping up a campaign against me here, or have you just temporarily lost track of your in-box?

[Febble]

40. As I can confirm

seeing as I was indeed cc'd into the email exchange.

And I'd add: if you want any help with data analysis, just send me the data.

Being a data analyst, I do not "shift mode". I analyse data. The voter suppression data from Franklin county supported the inference that more Kerry than Bush votes were suppressed by inequitable distribution of voting machines. The exit poll data supports the inference that the exit poll discrepancy was due to a biased sample, and contra-indicates the inference that it was due to widespread and massive digital vote-switching.

These conclusions do not arise from a "shift" in my "mode". They arise from the data.

[BeFree]

53. The data

Your one sided look at the data is as unfair as can be. We have already discussed this and you agreed.

Tell OTOH, if you will, why NY exit polls were messed up, he really is searching for the answer to that question.

Oh wait! Its the biased to Kerry sampling, again! That's it isn't it? Maybe that is why you called the exit polls a crock?

After all these years of big money, expert polling, they still can't get it right because they ask the wrong people? Hahaha

Over and over again the reason given for the polls being a crock is that it was biased. And that is the totality of your argument. But since the data won't be released so that others can look at it, your argument is seen by common sense people as unsound science.

Then there is a history of giving lip service to corrupted elections. You say that we need audits, paper trails, etc. But why do you think we need these things? Is it because we should never rely on just one set of eyes, or one group, for the basis of decision making? That more people looking at how the numbers were obtained makes for a better overall product?

The lip service goes so far as to say that we need these external controls on elections, yet all control over your evidence is under your's and Miscountski's sole control, so therein lies a great contradiction in your words and approach to the science.

And when have you ever produced a link to an article about machine malfunctions, miscounts, or security lapses? Where are your posts in replies to threads about such matters? It seems you are so narrowly focused on just one item - exit polls - and give nothing but lip service to the rest of the menagerie of election reform.

It is all quite tiresome, and results in a discrimination against your arguments, across the board.

What has been presented here by the Miscountski 'experts' is seen as nothing but a CYA operation by the corporation and it's interests.

Don't believe me? There is a feature here that allows a polling of the members, why don't you ask the members what we think of your presentations?

We'll even let you decide the margin of error. What could be more fair than that?

[kster]

55. Factor in, Politicians from both parties are afraid to go ON TV

to try and explain this all away, is just one more bit of evidence that they (politicians) Dem's and Repugs are either in this vote rigging scam all together, or one party fears the other.

I don't know which, but as long as they all stay silent, their time is dwindling!

[BeFree]

57. They are in it up to...

....their bankrolls. They fear letting the cat out of the bag because the claws on that cat will bloody each and everyone of them. It's time for a new congress - save a few Dems - an impeachment of the administration, and recall of the SCOTUS.

But first we bag the voting machines!

Gee, kster, where'd you come up with that ON TV argument? <grin> Its a good one, and since it is where America gets it's news. So as it begins to play ON TV, we'll know we are on a roll. Good night and good luck, my friend.

[Febble]

58. I never said it was fair, BeFree

If you want life to be fair, you are in the wrong life.

And if I'm focussed on exit polls, it's because it's what I know about. But I have also posted about machine problems in New Mexico, and about machine rationing in Franklin county. I actually did direct analysis of data on both those issues.

Yes, it would be better if everyone had access to the data, and you could all analyse it yourselves. But for reasons I have given, this is not possible, so you are stuck in the position of having to decide whether to trust me. And frankly, I wouldn't, without some kind of verification. Fortunately, what I say is corroborated by publicly available data, and OTOH has done analyses that you can verify yourself that corroborate what I say.

And the reason I go on about the exit poll findings is that I think that one big story - that millions of votes were digitally stolen in 2004 is actually wrong. I think it's important to know that because it a) means Democrats have more work to do and b) it means it is worth voting next time and c) it means that the biggest problem in 2004, was probably, as always, voter suppression and high residual vote rates in Democratic precincts. Defining a problem tends to help solve it.

None of this means that your digital voting machines are transparent, auditable or secure, and this is a big problem. And indeed I have posted on this, a number of times. But it probably means they are not quite as easy to hack on a huge scale as you fear.

THIS DOES NOT MAKE THEM OK. The problem needs to be fixed, urgently.

But the voter suppression problem, in 2004, was almost certainly a far bigger problem, and will remain so until that gets fixed too.

[kster]

16. Good luck to you on the investigation

As you probably already know, I don't agree with you on this partcular thread which is pretty rare, but best of luck on your journey South.

[Land Shark]

17. Well perhaps we agree, though for different reasons, that

whether or not Kerry is on Board, or the Democratic party officially "on board" is not the best or even a fair indication of the merits or demerits of this particular movement. there are other reasons that go well beyond the above "dem donor" idea why this is the case, IMHO.

[kster]

19. With these types of numbers the only reason to fear going ON TV

and speaking out about the election theft machines, and/or banning them altogether, would be if you where up to your ears involved in the use of these election theft machines.

With these types of numbers the first politician who spoke publicly and then pursued the machines wouldn't need to fear losing donations, He/she would be a hero.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2682337

I don't blame just Kerry, I'm just a little disappointed with him, I always thought he would be waiting for us on the other side. In other words if we could keep the theft story alive and get the word out to enough people, that he would eventually pick up the ball and run with it, I figured that Kerry didn't want to be a lone soldier in all of this, but that if he had enough people behind him that knew about the theft machines that he would come out Fighting for and with us. BUT SILENCE!

[Land Shark]

26. there's probably a calculation, wouldn't you think, that the puzzle

would have to be solved BEFORE the next election. If you can't "kill the prince" prior to the next election, you're arguably in trouble. One doesn't want to "wound" the prince, now. I think that once one accepts that a party is controlling elections, then one may wonder if a quick decisive victory is possible or not. There will not only be the defenders of the machines but also certain folks who will claim "no evidence.

[kster]

34. I can go back and for with my Republican and Democratic family and friends

the one thing that both sides agree with me on, 100% of the time is that we (election reformers) deserve discussion ON TV about what we believe to be true.

Why drop the one thing (ON TV) that both sides Dems and Repugs can agree on?

Even if they do not fully believe what I am telling them about the machines they will ALWAYS, ALWAYS AGREE THAT WE DESERVE DISCUSSION ON TV.

Thats why I keep driving that home.

[Land Shark]

80. You are absolutely correct we deserve discussion ON TV

Part of the american way is "non-absolutism". Partly in reaction to King George, the First Amendment means the govt can't dictate the truth, separation of church and state means that we can't dictate the superior religion, and the requirement of warrants means that government prosecutors aren't perfect and need a check and a balance.

Simply checking in with non-absolutism and thinking of the election debate, it becomes 100% clear that we deserve debate ON TV.

Thanks Kster.

[Raksha]

25. This makes more sense than ANYTHING I've read yet

on the mysterious silence of the Democratic Party and John Kerry on the subject of election fraud. And the idea never even crossed my mind until I read your post.

Ever since November 3, 2004 that reluctance to speak out has been the proverbial elephant in the room. Like everyone else, I thought about collusion and blackmail and threats as possible explanations, but I figured SOME Democrat somewhere would find the courage to break silence.

Fear of scaring off the big donors...now that makes more sense than anything!

[glitch]

46. Yes good luck and report when/what you can! ;) nt