Home > Vote Fraud Theorists Battle Over Plausibility

Vote Fraud Theorists Battle Over Plausibility

by Open-Publishing - Monday 25 April 2005
36 comments

Edito Elections-Elected USA

By Terry M. Neal

After my recent column on President Bush’s popularity woes, a torrent of e-mail flooded in from angry Democrats insisting that Bush’s relative lack of popularity only reinforced their belief that the 2004 election was stolen.

Regular readers are well aware that I’m not a conspiracy theorist. My natural journalistic skepticism applies not just to politicians and people in power, but to wild-eyed theories as well. The Talking Points column that followed the polling piece debunked the idea that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was the victim of a vast left-wing conspiracy.

Similarly, it strains credulity to think that there was some sort of massive, coordinated effort to steal an election. Such a conspiracy would have had to cross state lines, involve hundreds or thousands of people and trickle down from the heights of power to the lowest precinct worker.

Yet there’s lots of chatter in the blogosphere, but little coverage in the mainstream media, of a study that suggests the early exit polls that showed Kerry beating Bush may have been accurate after all. The study, conducted on behalf of U.S. Count Votes, a non-partisan but left-leaning non-profit organization.

The statisticians who performed the analysis for U.S. Count Votes, led by the University of Pennsylvania’s Steven F. Freeman and Temple University’s Josh Mittledorf, have not been eager to use the word conspiracy. After all, they’re scientists. Their job is dispassionate, quantitative analysis. But in some ways they seem to be playing a game, too, because the study clearly leaves the impression that the authors believe there was wholesale fraud in the 2004 presidential election.

The methodology and math of the study are far too complicated to get into in detail here. But here is a link to the entire study for your reading pleasure.

Among other things, the study reports that some of the largest discrepancies between exit polls and final vote tallies occurred inexplicably in battleground states.

"This discrepancy between exit polls and the official election results has triggered a controversy which has yet to be resolved," according the report.

Last year’s exit poll was conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and the Associated Press, and many reports, including one from Edison and Mitofsky, have found flaws in the poll.

The U.S. Count Votes analysis noted that Edison-Mitofsky’s "national poll results projected a Kerry victory by 3.0 percent, whereas the official count had Bush winning by 2.5 percent. Several methods have been used to estimate the probability that the national exit poll results would be as different as they were from the national popular vote by random chance. These estimates range from 1 in 16.5 million to 1 in 1,240. No matter how one calculates it, the discrepancy cannot be attributed to chance."

Even Edison and Mitofsky have acknowledged that the problem between exit polls and the vote count could not be explained simply by statistical error. One of their primary explanations: Kerry voters were more likely than Bush voters to participate in the exit poll.

But the U.S. Vote Counts analysis refutes that point and suggests that Bush voters actually participated at a higher rate than Kerry voters.

"We conclude that the hypothesis that the voters’ intent was not accurately recorded or counted cannot be ruled out and needs further investigation," the U.S. Count Votes report suggests.

I called the exit poll coalition to get its take on the U.S. Count Votes analysis, and was called back by none other than Warren Mitofsky, the president of Mitofsky International and a pioneer of the art and science of exit polling.

Until now, Mitofsky has not spoken publicly about the USCV study. He thinks it’s bunk.

But it’s not a comfortable case for him to make. "I think they’re wasting everybody’s time, frankly," Mitofsky said. "I know they’re very serious about believing that there was fraud, but I don’t happen to share their view. I find myself in the awkward position of having to argue that the exit polls were wrong.

"This is not the first election with errors — and the simplest explanation is probably the right one. I think fraud on a massive scale that their conclusion essentially requires is totally implausible. To make it plausible it would have a lot of people working together, and you know from being in the news business how hard it is to keep something secret. I just think their whole explanation is implausible."

I called Mitteldorf for an explanation, and he said he only knows the "what," not the "why." The "what" is that the unprecedented discrepancy between exit poll and vote counts cannot be explained merely by statistical error. It is possible though, he said, that there was widespread fraud — particularly in key battleground states — without a conspiracy.

"It doesn’t necessarily take a conspiracy," he said. "It could just be that there was an atmosphere [from Republican leaders] of ’Hey, we really need to win this election, wink, wink. Whatever you do, we’ll stand behind you. There will be no investigation because Republicans control the courts and everything, especially in places like Ohio.’

"It could just be that there are thousands of people working independently but with the knowledge that they are being protected and will never be prosecuted for this crime. . . . But I don’t know. That’s not my area of expertise."

Polling, Mitosfky argues, is not Mitteldorf’s area of expertise. He and others have taken the USCV statisticians to task for shoddy work.

"The trouble is they make their case very passionately and not very scholarly," Mitofsky says. "I don’t get the impression that any of these people have conducted surveys on a large scale."

Others have questioned the methodology and conclusions of the USCV report as well — and not just Republicans. Democratic pollster Mark Blumenthal, who writes the mysterypollster.com blog, accuses USCV of blithely ignoring crucial parts of the Edison-Mitofsky report that attempted to explain the reasons for statistical error — particularly the failure of polltakers to follow crucial directions.

"The Edison-Mitofsky report includes overwhelming evidence that the error rates were worse when interviewers were younger, relatively less experienced, less well educated or faced bigger challenges in selecting voters at random," Blumenthal writes . "The USCV report makes no mention of the effects of interviewer experience or characteristics and blithely dismisses the other factors as ’irrelevant’ because any one considered alone fails to explain all [statistical error]. Collectively, these various interviewer characteristics are an indicator of an underlying factor that we cannot measure: How truly ’random’ was the selection of voters at each precinct? It is a bit odd — to say the least — that the USCV did not consider the possibility that the cumulative impact of these factors might explain more error than any one individually."Ultimately, the USCV report is interesting. But is it anything more than that? Given the statistical complexity of the information, I don’t feel qualified to answer that question after a few days of investigation. Scientists and statisticians will continue to debate these issues for months, if not years to come. And certainly some mainstream media journalists will keep digging — although investigating something does not guarantee an outcome.

People on the right will cry bias because I even acknowledged this report. People on the left will cry bias because I didn’t endorse it. Rather than tell people what to believe, I prefer to let people decide for themselves. And some people on both sides will say I’m the one who’s weasely because I don’t take a position.

The bigger question to me is what Democrats have to gain from focusing on the past. Anger over the 2000 election didn’t help the party in 2002 or 2004. And even though Kerry has claimed that voter intimidation did occur in some places, not even Kerry or his top aides and advisers have glommed onto the USCV report.

Blumenthal, who has worked for Democrats for two decades, said in an interview that it is unfortunate that the debate over an implausible conspiracy might overshadow the real debate over things like voter suppression, intimidation and disenfranchisement. Blumenthal says his disbelief in the mass conspiracy theory doesn’t diminish his belief that Republicans have attempted to suppress votes, at times.

"In order to advocate for a change you shouldn’t have to buy into [the theory] that five million votes were stolen," Blumenthal said. "I’m not saying that there is no possibility that there wasn’t a vote stolen here and there. But do the exit polls present a case for fraud. I don’t think so."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...

publisher’s note: Strangely exit polls did indicate election fraud in the overturned election in Ukraine. Also strange, the exit poll discrepancy in Ukraine recieved far more US media coverage than the election result/exit poll discrepancy in the US.

Forum posts

  • Mr. Neal asks what Democrats have to gain if there was fraud in the 2004 election...I ask him what has our Democracy, gained or lost if there was fraud left unchallenged?

  • What in this administration has validated that they work from a perspective of a open and honest government. If there is a reason and need to lie, cheat , corrupt, and misinform, they have done it. Please people this is not rocket science, when the election was looking grime for Bush, Rove disappeared into a room filled with phone and computers.

  • There are three questionable elections...2000...2002...2004. Conspiracy or not this should not be acceptable in a democracy. In order, to get attention this has to be mentioned over and over again until the public wakes up. It is impossible to believe that the errors all favor the Republican candidate.
    There is a systemic problem with our elections that need to be addressed. We don’t want to have the Democrats find a way to fix the system in their favor because we never hold anyone accountable.
    We run the risk of losing our only tool against bad government.

  • You won’t put to rest concerns over the validity of our election results by shooting at straw dogs.
    The fraud didn’t have to envolve but a very small number of people. The program that counts the votes was written by a few people, so it wouldn’t take a vast conspiracy to steal the election. All you need do is to make sure the counting of election results is PRIVATIZED. With a private company in charge of the counting, it would be easy to determine who wins. This critical point wasn’t even mentioned in Terry Neal’s article.

  • The election fraud did NOT need to involve thousands of people at all levels. A few well-placed people with access to the central tabulation machine (in the case of the e-votes) could have done wonders on their own. Add to that a few governors and elections supervisors who control the distribution of voting machines. Stir in a few Republican front groups who lose Dem registrations and mislead voters in a number of ways. Top it off with a few "challengers" to scare away minority voters in the precints that really matter. This recipe has been refined for decades, and gets closer to perfection with each passing "election".

    Anybody who claims there was no conspiracy to commit vote fraud either (1) can’t handle the truth or (2) is another government shill working to conceal it.

  • Articles like this make me want to scream.

    It’s well known that there was vote fraud of certain types in this election. Just look at the Conyers report to get some idea of what was happening. Many other reports of both legal and illegal attempts at disenfranchisement were commonplace.

    So the exit poll discrepancies are not presented in some vacuum in which we have to assume some sort of unlikely vast vote fraud conspiracy. Anyone looking past the mainstream media accounts knows that vote fraud occured, and that the Republicans were trying to use every possible mechanism they could to win the election. So in all likelyhood, the exit polls just indicate the extent of the vote fraud, and raise the distinct possibility that it may include vote machine fixing.

  • "it strains credulity to think that there was some sort of massive, coordinated effort to steal an election. "

    Not when you consider who comprises the Bush/PNAC Regime, their criminal pasts, what they’re attempting to do ("Rebuilding America’s Defenses" www.newamericancentury.org), and what’s at stake.

    Not when just such a precedent was set in 2000, when Junior (but more seriously, PNAC ...) was initially installed into the White House.

    Not when you also consider the myriad International Conspiracies these men have taken part in during the past four years, such as the illegal invasion of Iraq, and the LIES that created the drive for their long-planned war, not to mention the individual careers of each of the key players, which would be nothing today without Conspiracies.

    The use of easily-rigged electronic voting machines continued, even after the districts in question were informed that EVERY SINGLE study done on the units proved that they were easily rigged. The two companies - Diebold and ES&S - which make and operate the machines are owned by hardcore GOP supporters, and were also the two companies charged with counting the votes on ’election’ day.

    Exit Polling numbers simply cannot be explained in any other fashion, and that is the sentiment expressed by the pollsters themselves, whose reputations are highly-regarded.

    Also, while the media saturated the airwaves with International Observers citing vote fraud in the Ukraine (as the CIA-sponsored ’liberation’ groups carried out their ’Orange Revolution’, ten years in the making), the same Observers, who cited "systemic fraud" in regards to the US ’election’, went completely ignored.

    I understand that there is a legion of "conspiracy nuts" out there. Many of them are put there on purpose, in order to sully all theorists. But simply dismissing an issue with the label is Disinformation, especially on issues where so much evidence exists.

    Don’t forget that when scientists and detectives investigate anything, they first look at the evidence, then they develop theories, and then they investigate further, in order to arrive at the Truth. There’s nothing wrong with being a "theorist", so long as your theories are built upon a sound foundation of evidence.

    In this case, as in the case of several others currently (911, Gannon/Guckert, the LIES Which Led To War, etc ...), the foundation is solid enough to warrant a serious investigation. The leading, corporately-sponsored Dems’ willingness to quash requests from fellow Dems for an in-depth investigation prove that both parties are different sides of the same RepubliCrat coin, and until the American People realize this, they shall remain Mice, lorded over by the Cats.

    Jordan Thornton

    Canadian Journalist and proud "Theorist"

  • "... Such a conspiracy would have had to cross state lines, involve hundreds or thousands of people and trickle down from the heights of power to the lowest precinct worker. ..."

    I don’t think so.

    The beauty of cyber elections is that is incredibly easy to diddle the software used in any given machine prior to balloting, _or_ manipulate the data after the fact.

    Child’s play.

  • Mr. Terry M. Neal

    Washington Post

    Dear Mr. Neal:

    I had been following the polls up to the 2004 election, so I had watched states flip-flop between Senator Kerry and President Bush in the weeks leading up to the election. I agreed with President Putin’s assessment that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was “a big political mistake.” The time to oppose a war, however, is before it begins—not once it is under way—and I have a lot of respect for Congressmen, such as Dr. Ron Paul and Senator Kennedy who opposed the war when it mattered. I have no respect for many Democrats who opposed the war only once it was too late to make a difference. The foreign policy of Senator Kerry and President Bush seemed identical, and I disagreed with it, but I preferred the President’s advocacy of lower taxes, a more open border (before September 11, 2001) and the right to life, so I voted to elect and reelect him. Just after the election, William F. Buckley, Jr. posted this column.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/buckley/wfb200411031315.asp

    The column’s title is “We Didn’t Tell You So.” Notable excerpts include the following:

    "Kerry wins electoral vote 291-247."

    "Bulletin #2 came under extraordinary auspices."

    "the evening of Election Day a call came in from . . . the CIA . . . ."

    "Fiat Bush."

    "I will not be bent by any secret communication, from however august a source."

    The electoral vote total in Mr. Buckley’s column differs from the official results by three states, which flip-flopped in the polls leading up to the election: Florida, New Mexico and Ohio. Mr. Buckley’s comments got me to wondering, so I looked around on the Internet to see if anyone else thought Senator Kerry should have won these three states. Sure enough, there was the beginning of the vote fraud controversy that has festered since.

    Both Senator Kerry and President Bush have fathers who are leaders in the CIA. They went to the same college. Since their respective positions on foreign policy are indistinguishable, why would the government bother to rig an election, when the outcome is almost the same either way? Yet, the suspicion remains.

    Many predict an economic downturn. Ongoing invasion in the Middle East is likely to result in setbacks. As a result, some Democrats rightfully foresee victory in the next two elections, but they fear Republicans will somehow rig the election in 2006 and 2008. It would not surprise me in the least if the next two elections are clean as a whistle and if Senator Clinton wins the White House in 2008 by a landslide. Then again, it would not surprise me if her foreign policy turns out exactly the same as that of Senator Kerry and President Bush.

    It is a mistake to identify too closely with the Republican Party or the Democratic Party and to look to it for salvation. Democrats who fear an invasion of Iran tend to forget President Clinton’s assault on the religious fanatics at Waco, Texas. It is the same thing on a different scale. Would the U.S. behave any differently if a Democrat were now in the White House? The Republican Party has come to embrace an odd sort of absolutism that includes torture, imprisonment without charge, prison camps, invasion of one country after another, and the reckless use of depleted uranium—unbalanced policies to keep up with unbalanced budgets. The absolutism is odd because, back at home, children run wild in the schools. The West has somehow become convinced that children and the government are never wrong. Each election, both parties inch closer and closer to the fringe.

    Sincerely,

    Tom Zavist

  • WHy is it that when exit polls don’t match results in all other countries (Ukraine,Venuzula, etc) there has been vote fraud, but when it happens in the US it must be something wrong with the polls? Wake up and smell the coffee. Exit polls are used in every country to determine the validity of the election and when they don’t match the election is automatically thrown out and redone, simple. Americans, get with it. THis is getting really sad

  • "Such a conspiracy would have had to cross state lines, involve hundreds or thousands of people and trickle down from the heights of power to the lowest precinct worker..."

    You obviously don’t know much about current voting techniques or current voting technologies. While I am not totally convinced that such manipulation occurred (stealing the election), it is utterly possible—requiring a relatively small group of participants. In the "conspiracy theory’s" favor, the evidence is mounting—some of which is screaming for explanation—that the last election was, in fact, stolen.

    The way to dispel these conspiracy theories is to investigate them. So why aren’t we?

  • Let me ponder the question "what Democrats have to gain from focusing on the past".

    Hmmm. Death of Democracy. Permanent one-party REPUBLICAN government. Death of Democracy. Corporate interests choose politicians, not citizens. Death of Democracy. A government that attacks non-hostile nations. Death of Democracy.

    Any politician or citizen who says they have nothing to gain "from focusing on the past" ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT A COMPLETELY FRAUDULENT US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION would probably keep repeating that same line over and over again up until they watched their family shipped off in some barb-wired boxcar on its way to the incinerators.

    Even if it means we "officially" lose every single election of every single race in the country and the democratic party is made an illegal organization, we must do absolutely everything we can to return the government to one where the people determine the politicians through voting, and not the politicians and corporations determining the politicians through corruption.

    If you honestly think the 2000 and 2004 elections is "the past", just how on earth do you expect to move forward? Steal the election BACK by having democrats try and corrupt it this time? Change party affiliation to republican? OH OH I KNOW! Become a political figure-head to give the impression that people’s votes still count, while providing cover to allow the corruption to continue unabated.

  • Great ending....

    Blumenthal said. "I’m not saying that there is no possibility that there wasn’t a vote stolen here and there. But do the exit polls present a case for fraud. I don’t think so."

    The implication is - See- he’s a Democrat- and he doesn’t believe there was fraud, so that’s it, end of story- there was no fraud.

    Kerry called himself a Democrat too.

    If there was no fraud, then why doesn’t Dateline NBC do a two hour live studio special with mitosfsky, rove, freeman, fitrakis .... and a bunch more. Not just pre-produced and (NBC edited) clips, but live national tv- a real debate where the facts were presented to the nation.

    If there was no fraud, then why can’t we have that dialogue on our ’public airwaves’?

    I am 100% positive that Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman, Bev Harris, Greg Palast, Maxine Waters, David Cobb, etc would gladly clear their schedules to appear on this live tv program- will their republican counterparts do the same? Can’t they send at least few spokespeople...?

    Lets have it out- a live debate on national tv- Election Fraud 2004: Was the Vote Stolen?

  • Blumenthal/Mitofsky sidestep the situation of the discrepancies, and whatever contributed to them, being especially wide only in the swing states. Neither offer explanations as to why interviewers made errors, errors invariably skewed in the same direction, in these states and no others. The Democrats, no doubt, believe we still have a Republic, a country, a nation which needs to be saved from being torn apart by a charge and exposure of such a massive election fraud/crime. The fact is our democracy, our precious Republic, was abolished last Nov. 2. No need for further journalistic digging to bring this out. Just a need to dig it.

  • You should spend less time investigating the exit polls and more time investigating Diebolt and other manufacturers of electronic voting equipment; much of which left no paper trail.

    Instead of thousands upon thousands of conspirators, you are left with a ’few’ corrupt corporate executives, a few politicians (all of them are corrupt) and a corrupt programmer.

    Thousands upon thousands; not required.

  • The electoral system - key to honest government - is corrupt from top to bottom. Until we have hand counted paper ballots (absolutely no receiptless touch screen or machine counted ballots), and open access to getting on the ballot for those of all political persuasions, nothing will change. We will continue to get the same stream of puppet gangsters.

  • And like , don’t forget maybe Republicans were hiding inside the machines, and like, the poll workers only counted Bushes votes and threw out Kerry’s.

    These guy’s need to get a life.

    • well they did exactly that, threw out voter registration cards of those that stated they were democrat so that when they showed up at polls to vote were told they couldn’t because they had not registered. hope you enjoy living a lie...

  • Anybody who had the keen sense to observe the polling at one polling place and collate the results aftewards knows full well that the last and the previous elections were stolen by George Bush. If these phony computers are used in the next election, it will also be stolen. The problem with the George Bush crowd is that they KNOW that they are RIGHT, and they do not consider the stealing of election a crime or even WRONG. They simply dismiss it as "WE KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR AMERICA".

  • So we shouldn’t focus on the past? How about the 2000 election, in which there was no doubt that thousands of votes were stolen - Greg Palast demonstrated it clearly. AND the trail of guilt led directly to Katherine Harris, who is now Congresswoman Harris. Don’t focus on the past? Let criminals get away with their crimes? Sorry. I won’t forget the PROVEN crimes of this administration. I don’t need to worry about whether the last election was stolen because there are so many other obvious lies, manipulations - "conspiracies", if you will - that have been proven in the last few years.

  • I thought that one of the most important findings of the study was that the polls were only wrong where there were electronic voting machines. They were right on everywhere there was a paper trail. In that case there would not be many people involved in voting fraud. Am I wrong?

  • Whether its the naivete of the writer or a monumental misunderstanding of the vote counting process is unclear. What is clear is that stealing an election would demonstrably NOT require lots of people or a massive conspiracy. The companies and groups counting the votes are all vocal supporters of the Bush Administration. It doesn’t matter what happens in the polls. Results are then transferred digitally to central computers that tabulate them. This is where votes can be changed. The vote counting process is all done in secret by private companies and there is absolutely no government or independent oversight. And if the author and the producers of the poll claim that characteristics of pollers were responsible for the alleged bogus poll outcome, then again they do not understand events. If this was the case, then roughly half the time, poller errors would result in a benefit to one candidate, and roughly half the time the poller errors would result in a benefit to the other candidate. But that is not the case. In each and every case, the result worked to the benefit of only one side. That is not possible. To believe all errors worked only against one side would be to believe in a massive conspiracy. You a conspiracy theorist? Please inform yourself and your readers Mr. Neal.

    • In many cases it was volunteers or paid staff for the Bush re-election committee that were "appointed" to count the votes. These same re-election staff members many of whom went on to rewarding jobs for the GOP. The money trail is always so telling when it comes to the dirty dealings in our government.

  • On Nov 2nd 2004, I was a Democratic Cluster Captain in a minority area of Tucson, Arizona. By 3:30 PM that day, I knew that the election was stolen; that’s why I started my investigation. After being met with threats and overt hostility at the polling stations, I knew in my gut that pious poll workers in 3 of my 4 precincts were stealing the election with a trick and switch scam before ballots went into optical-scanners. Now after months of investigating, micro-auditing one precinct, I have solid proof that confirms how they did election fraud. Others and I now clearly see that this scheme is part of a bigger monstrous plan.

    Excerpt of report turn in:

    Below is one example, used for interviews with electors with an “E” next to their name, 49 voted in pct 324, (E = Early Ballot issued to elector by mail or voted at early voting station. Must ONLY vote by Provisional) At least 39 went into optical-scanners ballot box.

    Maria, a 27- year-old Democrat, was the 435th voter on Election Day Nov 2nd. Maria ordered an early ballot from the Recorders Office. Like many Americans she procrastinated too long to mail the ballot; and to make sure her vote counted, she went to her precinct to vote. When she got there she had to vote a Provisional ballot, rightfully so. So she signed all documents necessary as per the request of poll workers, put her vote in an envelope and left.

    Maria didn’t know that she had become a victim of voter identity theft and disenfranchisement. Right after she voted and left, the poll workers re-entered Maria’s name on the Consecutive Number Register (CNR) as voter #444 and wrote "spoiled" next to her name at position #435, indicating that she made a mistake and needed a replacement ballot – which absolutely was not the case according to Maria. The poll workers’ were then able to turn Maria’s validly cast vote for Kerry into an ersatz spoiled ballot and then re-cast an illegal vote for Bush, alleging it to be Maria’s "spoil replacement."

    In any event, when Maria signed the “regular" Signature Roster as instructed by the poll workers, she unknowingly rendered her Provisional ballot, if it had been turned in, null and void. The Recorder could not have accepted it, because it would have been regarded as a double vote. (Note this was just one scam used.)

    Could this be why Nader found nothing in NH on the recount he did? NH had optical-scanners. Could a trick and switch have also been done?

    In Ohio during the 3% recount “Raw Story” reports that stickers were placed over the Kerry/ Edwards oval and the Bush oval was penciled in. “A Republican board member said the stickers were put on election night”…

    Vision America founder Pastor Rick Scarborough who coordinated the April 7-8 “Confronting the Judicial War on Faith Conference” which led up to last Sunday’s attack on the filibuster has rallied Patriot Pastors to get themselves involved actively in politics. He said "We can pray all we want…” "But the fact is men pass laws, and the only ones who will ever vote a righteous man in office are righteous people."

    As Scarborough’s Patriot Pastors make even more strident calls to impeach and impale judges, Senator John Cornyn of Texas says this rhetoric is “understandable.” A large number of members of Congress who serve the religious right wing of the Republican Party have already introduced legislation to defund and limit the jurisdiction of the courts. The threat to checks and balances, the very foundation of democratic government, is imminent. Senator Frist put the stamp of approval of the Republican Party squarely behind the right-wing agenda to destroy the independence of the judicial branch of government when he appeared on videotape at a church political rally. His disingenuous words called for respect for judges and their independence, while dispensing a distorted view of reality that inflamed and incited the “righteous” political evangelists dedicated to reconstructing the constitution by tearing down the wall of separation between church and state.

    This scenario is described in the article Christian evangelicals are plotting to remake America in their own image? Rolling Stone (Apr 07, 2005)The Crusaders;

    Our founders recognized that when men seek power to advance an agenda, they must be checked, questioned and debated, so they built into the Constitution a system of checks and balances. Our second President John Adams recognized in his inaugural address "Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws."

    As President, however, John Adams seemed blind to his own warning. Riding a wave of patriotic fury, Adams enforced Alien and Sedition Acts that put people in prison for dissent. The eternal vigilance by the American citizenry, removed Adams from power and resulted in the election of Thomas Jefferson who restored the protection of freedom of speech and the press and pardoned the jailed political protestors.

    Once again, vigilant Americans must wake up, recognize that distortions are being used to hide the truth and hold antidemocratic elected representatives accountable as did their forebears many times since the founding of our country. The people must exercise the power of their citizenship, comprehend the threat that “Injustice Sunday” represents to our constitutional democracy and act to demand that the media hold the actors in this staged political drama accountable. Good things happen when brave citizen sound the warning, get the facts reported and take action to enforce their first amendment rights See below:

    The Los Angeles Times received audiotapes from a conference confirming how much power the theocratic right exerts in our government. Americans United for Separation of Church and State secretly taped the Washington D.C conference. Christian evangelical leaders James Dobson from Focus on the Family and Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council met behind closed doors with House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to make detailed plans that will help you achieve a judiciary that sides with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, we can see the radical right is ready to launch an assault on the courts aimed at removing constitutional barriers aims to bring about a sweeping antidemocratic reconstruction of government and imposition of Old Testament orthodoxy throughout society.

    Abraham Lincoln said; “I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts”
    .
    JUSTICE SUNDAY, a move by extreme right wing of a hijacked Republican Party run by an unholy alliance of Neo-cons, Corporate-cons and Theo-cons, who want to take away more then the Senate Filibuster.

    VERY IMPORTANT - WATCH THIS FILM: “The Rise of Dominionism” Download video from; http://theocracywatch.org/ by Joan Bokaer founder of Theocracy Watch, a project of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy at Cornell University. The film (44 minutes) identifies who and what were battling.” Shows how Theo-cons working with Neocons took over the Republican Party."

    Also important play this, about W’s Corporate-con Media - Flash Animation - Flash 1 » or link http://www.wmdthefilm.com/flash.html

    Barry Goldwater: “Now those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth, and let me remind you they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyranny:”

    So if you want proof PLEASE contact me. However, I bet it will not come out in major newspaper. This will explain why, http://www.wmdthefilm.com/flash.html We sent out, well over 100 press releases and we got nothing back. We have HARD PROOF, documents, experts, have many wittiness. We know who did it; the Rev and his wife were FIRED. We’re just missing the media.

    In fact, placing ad here; WANTED JOURNALIST, who believes in what Bill Moyers states, he or she must, "Moyers believe democracy requires ’A SACRED CONTRACT’ between journalists and those who put their trust in us to tell them what we can about how the world really works." I do too! “From Journalism Under Fire” View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/19918/

    Hope, Peace & Democracy, John Brakey Tucson, Arizona AUDITAZ@comcast.net

  • Rove & his gang of insurgents are ALL liars and thieves!!
    We MUST keep this Election Fraud Issue alive!!

  • Mr. Neal,

    At no point in the USVC report do they claim a proof of fraud. They simply demonstrate that the polls were not biased in favoring Kerry. In fact they do a great job of debunking the "shy Bush voter" hypothesis for the polls being so wrong. Counter to your statements this was indeed the reason put forth for the least accurate election polls in over 40 years. I’m a bit surprised you focus on a claim of vote fraud where there is none.

    The members of the uscountvotes group are not "Vote Fraud Theorists" as your article claims. They are a group of concerned citizens, scientists and statisticians. Is calling them names a fair way to deal with their scientific analysis?

    I suggest you read the report and their statements before judging them. http://www.uscountvotes.org

    Not scholarly? 10 PhDs signed on to this report after months of work. Yet the typical response is they must all be conspiracy theroists. Time to get over your own prejudices and consider the simple conclusion of the report. The results of the study indicate there should be an investigation of the 2004 election results.

  • Good grief — somebody educate this journalist! As the president of a computer services
    company, I’ve been appalled at the continued seemingly willful ignorance of the mainstream
    media in for not "getting" what is wrong with the use of computers for voting.

    Did you say it would take "Thousands of people" to commit vote fraud.
    Please — do some research on this, our democracy is at stake! You should
    know by now that all it would take is one or two persons at the end of the data
    stream! What is this nonsense about a massive, coordinated effort to steal an election."?

    Like many journalists that scratch the surface of this topic — this writer is stuck in
    the past. He is thinking about paper ballots, or the old lever machines — not
    computerized voting machines! But he has a good point in illustrating that back
    in the good ole days — at least back then it WOULD take thousands of people,
    whereas now the votes can be stolen easily by one or two people. At least in
    the old days fraud was not only more difficult, but it was more equitable — spread
    out between all the parties. Now it can be done at the end of the data stream,
    and/or through the the secret, proprietary software that tabulates vote counts
    of all types, and can easily be rigged to never, ever, be discovered.

    Opportunity. Motive. Don’t you know that machine companies are owned and
    controlled by Republicans, defense contractor interests, the Saudis — and even
    candidates!? (See Sen. Chuck Hagel’s wrist slapping at the Senate Ethics
    Committee here): —

    http://www.thehill.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx

    Below is an encyclopedic link that documents how easily massive vote theft
    could be by control of the tabulation software. It describes how two brothers
    have virtual control of the tabulation software that counts nearly 80%
    of the votes in the U.S.

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

    and

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

    Included below are links to websites where you can find statements by two
    computer scientists who are adamantly opposed to the use of computers and vote tabulation
    software who intelligently describe the problems. There are many other scientists and technologists
    who feel similarly.... and these are very bright people who have deep knowledge of the massive
    security issues.

    See— positions by computer scientists, who increasingly warn about
    the use of computers and software:

    Testimony by Rebecca Mercuri, Ph.D.
    Presented to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science
    Subcommittee on Environment, Technology, & Standards
    Tuesday, May 22, 2001, Room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building

    http://www.house.gov/science/full/may22/mercuri.htm

    Solutions: Here’s a specific, excellent strategy offered by irreverent security
    systems engineer Chuck Herrin on how to make voting secure — and I concur
    with his position.

    http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevotedemo.htm

    In a recent email — Herrin said this about the argument against the use of
    all paper ballots, no computer, no software:

    "What’s so frustrating is when people say things about "200 years of paper
    failing" - I’ve been saying, NO, that’s 200 years demonstrating the
    pervasiveness of election fraud! If you can’t control a locked box, do you
    really think that implementing a system of networked windows pcs will make
    it better?"

    Herrin also said,

    "David Allen forwarded me a couple of good sound bites yesterday: ’ The fact
    that fraud has occurred on occasion with paper ballots does not invalidate
    the use of paper ballots any more than occasional counterfeiting invalidates
    the use of paper money.’ "

    "And as a kicker: " ’ According to the Justice Department, thieves and
    robbers made off with $45 million in paper money in 2003. According to the
    American Banking Association, computer thieves made off with $500 million in
    digital cash that same year.’ "Explain to me again how paper is the
    problem?"

    “The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected.
    To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery...” Thomas Paine

    “He who casts the vote decides nothing. He who counts the vote decides everything." Stalin

    Regards,
    Ashley Hotz, President OnSite Technology Services, Inc.
    d/b/a Country Mile Computers (Florida & Georgia)
    FL: 850 / 997 6500 GA: 229 / 227 6611

  • There are probably 200 different ways that vote fraud can be accomplished. The point in keeping the issue of vote fraud alive is to fight the implementation of paperless, computerized voting systems.

    A computer should be nothing more than a tool to produce a voter-verifiable paper ballot. The paper ballot can then be read by automated scan - separate system. There is no way to secure the votes in a computerized system because what one programmer can write, another programmer can overcome. NOTHING will secure it... not open source, not certification of the machines, not certification of the code, not standards set by some stupid committee like the Carter-Baker commission.

    Anybody in the computer business who says that paperless computerized voting systems are secure is either a liar or an idiot. Anybody who is not in the computer business should just keep their mouths shut about the issue because they don’t know what they are talking about.

  • Wow, that’s a major load of deceptions, meant to distract us from basic truths.

    It is true, this is not the first election in this country where exit polls were wrong. The others were 2000, and 2002. It is pretty widely accepted that vast fraud and disenfranchisement helped select Bush, and then 2 years later, his lapdogs.

    Exit polls are not wrong. Elections have been wrong.

    Think about this:

    I watched all of the pre-primary debates among democrats and Kerry NEVER should have been the "obvious" choice. He only became so after the MSM began paying attention and began trying to convince us he was the "only one who could defeat Bush." I call Bushit on that one!!

    It is no coincidence, I think, that we had a pro-war democrat running and that he was not chosen by democrats either. He was selected by the media and, therefore, republicans. Of course Kerry is not challenging. It would not have mattered if he had won except that there may have been some minor improvements socially, domestically. Look how quickly he caved!!

    Exit polls should be trusted. There should be an investigation.

    We need to look past the possible motivations of those who wish to undermine that which should make every American very concerned; we need to have a clear and open investigation.

    Beyond the polls, there is enough evidence that this past election and those which preceeded are being brushed aside, as if to say "please pay no attention to the election tamperer behind the screen."

    There is a discrepency. This is a legitimate concern. A legitimate investigation needs to take place, and given that we challenged the election in the Ukraine based on exit poll discrepencies, we need to all step back and have all election information released, made public, and publicly investigated.

    We also need to remind people that it is essential to vote in huge, over-whelming numbers.

    We can take back what the rich have taken away. It is in our hands, but we need to overwhelm even their cheating. We need to make voting day a National Holiday.

  • BESIDES!! BEV HARRIS PROVED THAT A SINGLE INDIVIDUAL CAN ALTER AN ELECTION’S OUTCOME WITHOUT LEAVING A TRAIL. THE BETTER ARGUMENT IS THAT INVESTIGATIONS MAY TURN UP NO PROOF, AND THAT IT IS STILL NOT REASON TO ACCEPT WHAT HAS HAPPENED. ON THE CONTRARY, WE SHOULD BE DEMANDING IMPEACHEMENT. MANY MANY REASONS FOR IMPEACHEMENT.

    WE HAVE SUFFERED A BLOODLESS, SILENT COUP. WELL, MAYBE NOT BLOODLESS...

  • The elections were stolen in 2000 and 2004 in parts of Ohio, Florida, New Mexico etc. via computer programs. No conspiracy of the masses... just a few highly paid key executives, corrupt politicians, TV evangelists and a programmer. Plus millions of dumb, gullible Christians, Prolifers and Republican voters.

    It’s all about elitism, Bush Fascism, Religious Right Theocracy and our disappearing democracy.

    Americans are asleep at the wheel and were in for a ruff ride. A very long depression, periods of hyperinflation followed by disinflation coming arround the bend.

    Americans you’ve been had......................

    • Don’t be fooled again....DON’T VOTE, just show up at your polling place with a sign that says I refuse to participate in rigged elections, if enough of us do just that one thing we will get the ball rolling and get some accountability if nothing more. After the 2000 election was STOLEN, the government put its collective tail between its legs and promised to FIX the problems.....the only thing they FIXED was the next election. That was no mistake, that was all planned.

  • For many of us it’s a given that George W. Bush stole the 2000 election outright. We let him get away with it. And anybody who thinks that gang, now in power and misleading the public about every one of their policy initiatives from the tax cut to social security, would stoop to any less in 2004 should be forced to wear a sign that says "I’ve been asleep for a long time. What’s going on?"

    Freeman invited peer review of his work. What Edison-Mitofsky offered was hypothetical explanations that didn’t make sense given the data. Although "the simplest explanation is probably the right one," it still has to be consistent with what we know.

    For some reason, Edison-Mitofsky don’t want their data used to validate the vote count in the way the exit polls were used in the Ukraine last year or are used in Germany routinely. Is there a scientific explanation for that position? Is it safe to assume Mitofsky hasn’t offered one?

    So maybe what we need is for the consortium to fire Edison-Mitofsky and contract for exit polling that not only serves media clients but can be used to validate the vote count.

    • Much is made of the disparity between exit polls and poll results. Little is made of the endless polls run in the six-month period before the election. In almost all of these polls, Bush had a narrow lead. Kerry hardly ever had a larger lead than the margin of error (except for the bounce he received after the Democrat convention). ???????

    • "Little is made of the endless polls run in the six-month period before the election. In almost all of these polls, Bush had a narrow lead. Kerry hardly ever had a larger lead than the margin of error"

      There’s little to be made of it. My understanding is that the narrowness of the margin leading up to the election put Bush in the historical category of incumbents who lose. Why? Because of the way undecideds usually vote. So the pre-election polls were consistent with the exit polls but not decisively.

  • just as is the case with Iraq - America was amBushed. Thanks Dumbsfeind, Asscroc & "Loathe" Rove.