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The Naysayers Weigh In

by Open-Publishing - Friday 12 November 2004
4 comments

Elections-Elected USA

Originally posted on Downtown Magazine

The Naysayers Weigh In
Rick Gagliano | 11/12/04

ABC, NBC give internet theorists short shrift


Instead of conducting investigations and research with an open, unbiased mind, the mainstream media has chosen instead to take the path of least resistance in reporting on the various allegations of voting fraud in the the 2004 election.

On Wednesday, ABC news saw to it that internet "conspiracy" theories were sufficiently debunked so that they could focus on the "real" stories going into the weekend - the death of Yassir Arafat and the war in Iraq.

While the evening news show hosted by Peter Jennings managed to calm some of the claims made on the internet (how much debunking can one do in 60 seconds?), they managed to do so without serious inquiry.

In much the same vein, Chip Reed took the internet bloggers and controversial web sites to task in a piece for NBC’s Nightly News, though the material managed to include a clip of a feisty Ralph Nader saying, "This election was hijacked from A to Z."

At the same time, the controversy continues to swell. Newspapers across Ohio report that lawyers for defeated Democratic candidate John Kerry are on the ground in the state on a "fact finding" mission, checking for irregularities and inconsistencies.

Nader, earlier in the day called for a recount of the New Hampshire vote at the behest of some 2000 ardent supporters. Green Party candidate David Cobb and Libertarian candidate Michael Bednarik are seeking a recount of the election in Ohio.

Activist Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org is reportedly seeking a recount in Ohio under a law that grants the privilege to any group of five or more voters. Harris has already begun filing a massive Freedom of Information Act request for volumes of information relating to the election nationwide and has activated a corps of researchers and common citizens in a "Help America Audit" effort.

All of this seemingly has fallen beneath the radar of corporate media, who seemingly are content to accept the results from November 2nd without a second look or even so much as an audit.

The controversy begins with the wide discrepancies between exit poll numbers which were circulating during the day of the election that showed John Kerry ahead or close in several key states but soon changed as the vote swung mysteriously in Mr. Bush’s direction as the evening progressed. The arguments continue through destruction of registrations, allegations of intimidation and unusual behavior by workers at polling places, odd counts in various locales and the overall implications of electronic voting, which many detractors say is easily rigged, easy to hack, and more likely than not to be inaccurate.

Overnight, a study of the key "battleground" states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida surfaced on the popular website bellaciao collective. The report, entitled "The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy," by Steven F. Freeman, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania, examines, with scientific rigor, the differences between the exit poll data and final vote count in the three key states. One conclusion made in the report is that the probability of the anomalies occurring together in all three states is a statistical impossibility of 250 million to 1.

Dr. Freeman’s report has yet to undergo peer review or critical analysis, though he openly welcomes and encourages any such analysis or challenge to his findings.

We may not have to wait long for challenges or a salutary "debunking" as CBS has yet to weigh in on the entire voting matter. Since ABC and NBC have run stories on consecutive evenings, it’s a good guess that CBS will make some kind of effort on their Friday night news broadcast. Naturally, FOX, the fourth rail in the third estate, is expected to not even mention any question on the validity of the vote, as the network of the neocons is too busy waving the flag over the military battle in Fallujah.

Obviously, more effort has to be taken on the part of the mainstream media to dispel the doubts cast upon the election process, or they too will be cast into the role of coconspirators by much of the suspecting public.

Over 30,000 have signed an online petition calling for a Congressional investigation into voting irregularities in the recent election and the numbers climb with each passing minute.

Forum posts

  • The mainstrem media is strying hard to push this off as internet loonies crying foul but we the internet people who brought this up in the first place need to keep raising the alarm and focusing on the points that hold water. 1) The optical ballots vs other ballot data in Florida. 2) The exit polls being off by so much. 3) The media changing thier exit poll data to match what Karl Rove told them. 4) Bush’s mysterious extra votes in Ohio and The false Homeland security situation.5)Machines favoring Bush with programming mistakes.6) Repub challengers only in key swing states and heavy Dem areas. 6)Ohio’s sec of state saying ballots were on the wrong kind of paper. 7) The media deciding not to ask the necessary questions on the story of the century. Instead of debunking us why aren’t they asking "Did the Republicans hack the election?" I mean how do they know they didn’t? The exit polls and opti scan vs other is the key to that question.

  • Peter Jennings is a sell-out Canadian who sold his soul to his U.S. gov’t Propaganda Puppet Masters.

  • It’s more likely that the mainstream media couldn’t find any concrete evidence of voter tampering that they are ignoring it. Besides if the voter tampering stuff was true, they would love to break the news first, not suppress it.