Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked

gozmo writes:


You're quite right of course. Prior to the election, the New Mexico GOP strenuously attempted to initiate a Voter ID policy - you had to show positive ID to vote. The Democrats fought that tooth and nail on the pretext that it would disenfranchise people to have to identify themselves to vote. Now considering you can't write a check, get on an airplane, shop in some membership stores or drive a car without some form of positive ID, can you think of any reason NOT to have voters identify themselves other than that it makes it more difficult to fiddle with the vote?

The issue of positive voter identification indeed is key to the prevention of voter fraud, and I find it telling in the extreme that the opponents of rigorous proactive remediative address of the issue at once comprise the largest body of those asserting disadvantage due to fraud and preponderantly share affilliation with or sympathy for a political party continually and increasingly unrewarded by The Electorate.

Well New Mexico has a lot more registered Democrats than Republicans and a Democrat heavy legislature so we had no voter ID in this or any other election. And sure enough, dead people still vote in New Mexico.

Published on Thursday, November 18, 2004 by Inter Press Service
US Election: Democracy in Question
by Ritt Goldstein

STOCKHOLM - John Zogby, president of the polling firm Zogby International, told IPS he has been calling it "the Armageddon election" for about a year. Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader believes the Republican Party was able to "steal it before election day."

Facts suggest something went very wrong on Nov. 2.

Speculation focuses upon a number of questions -- purposeful miscounts, anomalies surrounding electronic voting (e-voting) machines, particularly the optical scan types; and numerous reports of voting "irregularities" in heavily Democratic areas.

"What they 'do' is minorities," Nader said, highlighting the thrust of Republican efforts, "and make sure that there aren't enough voting machines for the minority areas. They have to wait in line ... for hours, and most of them don't. There are all kinds of ways, and that's why I was quoted as saying, "this election was hijacked from A to Z," Nader told IPS.

Zogby was concerned about the difference between some of the exit polls (surveys of individuals who have just cast ballots) and the official vote counts. "We're talking about the Free World here," he pointedly noted.

On Nov. 10, University of Pennsylvania Professor Steven F Freeman, whose expertise includes "research methods," compiled an analysis entitled 'The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy'. The document was prepared in view of the unusually large differences between what exit polls had predicted and the recorded vote tallies.

His findings suggest Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry should have received far more votes than he did.

In three of the key battleground states -- Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- Freeman's analysis states the odds of Kerry receiving the percentage of votes recorded, given the exit poll findings, were less than three in one thousand, per state.

Freeman also determined that the odds of any two of these states simultaneously reaching their stated vote tallies were "on the order of one-in-a-million," and the odds of all three states arriving at the vote counts they did "are 250 million to one."

"Something is definitely wrong," said Zogby.

Highlighting both the expected accuracy of exit polls and the significant disparity that Kerry's defeat illustrated, Republican consultant, commentator and Fox-TV News regular Dick Morris wrote an article, 'Those Faulty Exit Polls Were Sabotage', suggesting a pollster conspiracy to swing the election for Kerry.

In doing so he, perhaps inadvertently, provided ammunition for arguments from the opposite side -- that the exit polls were correct but the final results were fudged. "Exit polls are almost never wrong," argued Morris, and in 10 of the 11 key states they had predicted significantly fewer votes for Republican President George W Bush than he was eventually credited with.

In New Hampshire, Bush tallied a surprising 9.5 percent more votes than predicted, the most significant difference in any of the key states.

Morris observed that outside the United States, exit polls are often used to provide a check on official vote counts, in his words, "to foreclose the possibility of finagling with the returns."

Among the most cited exit polls were those conducted by Mitofsky International, whose founder, Warren Mitofsky, is widely credited with having invented exit polling. Zogby, whose firm was not among those that provided network TV coverage of the Nov. 2 election, described the possibility of either incompetence or fraud causing the controversial deviation as "impossible."

According to Zogby, it would have required "wrong sampling in wrong areas throughout the country," or the purposeful manipulation of data to obtain exit poll results so significantly different from the official totals. He viewed neither as a possibility.

When asked what exactly had happened then, Zogby replied, "a problem, but I don't know where it is ... something's wrong here, though."

On Nov. 5, Nader requested a hand recount of New Hampshire ballots, subsequently telling IPS he had "reports of irregularities there, and we have the cooperation of the state government ... the state attorney-general and secretary of state."

Nader also said his headquarters had been flooded with requests for assistance from a number of states.

On Thursday, five of the 11 New Hampshire voting wards where Nader requested a recount will undertake new tallies. According to his staff, all 11 wards had their votes counted with optical scan machines, primarily the AccuVote models made by Diebold.

"If there are irregularities, it may have broader applications in other states," Nader said, adding that the current recount -- a 45,000-vote sample -- is expected to be completed within a week.

Allegations regarding optical scan machines' potentially allowing the manipulation of Florida's vote have been widely reported. In Ohio, the Green and Libertarian parties are pursuing a recount, numerous instances of voting irregularities having been reported there.

"As far as I'm concerned, this election was clearly stolen. What they did in Ohio was systematically deny thousands of African Americans, and other suspected Democrats, the vote," charged progressive author, commentator and activist Harvey Wasserman of Franklin County, Ohio.

"It was like Mississippi in the fifties, and it was deliberate ... had there been enough (voting) machines, and had people equal access to the polls with a reliable vote count, there is no doubt that John Kerry would have carried Ohio," he told IPS.

The Nov. 14 'Cleveland Plain Dealer', one of the country's top 50 broadsheets, reported a Nov. 13 voter hearing where: "For three hours, burdened voters, one after another, offered sworn testimony about election day voter suppression and irregularities that they believe are threatening democracy."

"People are deeply concerned that this is the end of American democracy, that we cannot get a fair election," Wasserman said, poignantly adding, "there was no question of apathy in this election -- we had more volunteers than could be used ... thousands and thousands of grass-roots volunteers."

If Kerry had taken Ohio, he would have taken the presidency.

"In the end, what Nader is doing in New Hampshire is the best answer. And if there's a recount in Ohio," that is also important, said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist who specializes in statistical methods, elections and public opinion.

Somewhat concerned about the possible manipulation of e-voting machines, Franklin was more concerned over "the ordinary administration of elections," citing the simple logistical problems that had plagued voters.

He pointedly noted that the last two presidential elections highlighted "how the decisions of local people (officials) ... can have a considerable influence over who gets to vote, what rules govern."

When asked if he was aware of any parallels to the present election, Zogby replied, "I'm certainly aware of the election of 1960."

"It's been discussed, overtly, the roll that Richard Daley, and the roll that Lyndon Johnson played, separately," Zogby said, referring to an episode where the John F Kennedy campaign had supposedly asked, "How many votes do you have?", the reply allegedly being, "How many votes do you need?"

Of course, such examples also serve to highlight the influence "local people" can exert on an election's outcome.

In the end, many people speculated that the 1960 incidents were not part of a grand conspiracy per se, but the cumulative effects of the actions of a number of individuals who shared a similar perspective, acted semi-independently, and did whatever it took to win.

Political "dirty tricks" culminated in the Watergate scandal, forcing then President Richard Nixon (1969-1974) to resign, ushering in a long era without similar illicit activity, until questions raised by the election of 2000.

With American democracy, until now, providing an effective model for many, as Zogby said, "we're talking about the Free World here."

Information about the Verified Voting Foundation
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/

Information about the Verified Voting Foundation:

Mission and Team

The Verified Voting Foundation and VerifiedVoting.org champion transparent, reliable, and publicly verifiable elections in the United States. The purpose of the website is threefold:

To inform the public of the problems with relying on electronic voting machines to record and count our votes, without the backup of a voter-verifiable audit trail.

To point to reasonable solutions that are within reach.

To provide a list of actions voters can take, and to encourage them to act on their own behalf to ensure that all their votes count accurately in future elections.

The core Verified Voting team consists of the following people:

David L. Dill, Founder and Board Director
Will Doherty, Executive Director
Robert Kibrick, Legislative Analyst
Pamela Smith, Nationwide Coordinator

Team Biographies

David L. Dill founded the organization and set the tone, which is objective, well-researched, and non-partisan. He provides academic expertise on the subject of voting machines and computer science and is primary public spokesman for the group.

He is a Professor of Computer Science and, by courtesy, Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. He has been on the faculty at Stanford since 1987. He has an S.B. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1979), and an M.S and Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon University (1982 and 1987).

His primary research interests relate to the theory and application of formal verification techniques to system designs, including hardware, protocols, and software. He has also done research in asynchronous circuit verification and synthesis, and in verification methods for hard real-time systems. He was the Chair of the Computer-Aided Verification Conference held at Stanford University in 1994. From July 1995 to September 1996, he was the Chief Scientist at 0-In Design Automation.

Prof. Dill's Ph.D. thesis, "Trace Theory for Automatic Hierarchical Verification of Speed Independent Circuits" was named as a Distinguished Dissertation by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and published as such by M.I.T. Press in 1988. He was the recipient of an Presidential Young Investigator award from the National Science Foundation in 1988, and a Young Investigator award from the Office of Naval Research in 1991. He has received Best Paper awards at International Conference on Computer Design in 1991 and the Design Automation Conference in 1993 and 1998. He was named a Fellow of the IEEE in 2001 for his contributions to verification of circuits and systems.

Since becoming involved in the electronic voting controversy, Prof. Dill has served on the California Secretary of State's Ad Hoc Task Force on Touch-Screen Voting and currently serves on the IEEE P1583 Committee and Santa Clara County's Citizen's DRE Oversight Board. In December of 2003, Prof. Dill was one of a select group of presenters at the Symposium on Building Trust and Confidence in Voting Systems sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Will Doherty is the Executive Director of the Verified Voting Foundation and VerifiedVoting.org.

Doherty previously held a position as Media Relations Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

He founded the Online Policy Group (OPG), a free speech Internet Service Provider (ISP) that initiated a lawsuit against election systems manufacturer Diebold Systems, Inc., to prevent the company's attempt to stifle discussion of an email archive demonstrating flaws with Diebold election equipment and potential problems with use of uncertified portions of Diebold election machines in actual elections.

Doherty has twenty years of experience in for-profit and nonprofit management, consulting, and activism. He served as Globalization Operations Manager at Sybase, Inc., Localization Program Manager and Technical Writer for Sun Microsystems, Inc., and Director of Online Community Development at the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). He has designed and implemented Internet strategies and websites for dozens of nonprofit community and advocacy organizations. Doherty holds an M.B.A. from Golden Gate University and a B.S. in Computer Science and Writing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Robert Kibrick, Legislative Analyst, researches current events, official meeting transcripts, and election regulations and procedures and prepares rebuttals to propound the positions of the Verified Voting Foundation and VerifiedVoting.org. He is also working to build relationships with other organizations, including university groups and organizations promoting electoral reform and integrity. He is helping others to organize public forums on electronic voting and will help with efforts to establish local chapters of the Verified Voting Foundation and VerifiedVoting.org.

Mr. Kibrick is a research astronomer at the University of California Observatories / Lick Observatory, where he has worked since 1976. For the last 6 years, he has served as its Director of Scientific Computing and is currently responsible for overseeing the development of computer software and hardware for scientific instrumentation and control systems employed in the Observatory's astronomy research programs.

From March 1998 through 2003, he served on a national advisory council of the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID). Mr. Kibrick has a B.A. in Information and Computer Science from the University of California and is the principal inventor for three U.S. patents involving optical position encoding systems and bar code technology. He has also served on a voting systems review panel for the City of Santa Cruz, California.

Those who wanted a fair and legitimate election have looked at all the evidence and of course there will be irregularities here and there because there are dishonest people here and there. But if anybody thinks all those machines that were tested and retested and retested by the election officials across the country were all somehow reprogrammed to generate more than 3 million extra votes for George Bush, they have not the slightest comprehension of how the system works. To date, not one of those machines has been shown to have had its programming altered in any way and many have checked them out.

There were problems with the exit polling yes--the early polling was put out there without the proper checks and balances and/or expert analysis--and all the media sources, including those who supported Kerry, have agreed with that.

Again the attempts to again claim the election was stolen despite NO DIFFERENCE between results in precincts using the Diebold machines and those using other voting methods is seen as the strawman it is and amplifies the sore loser image.

Professor Freeman's CV and accredidations are singularly absent of indication of qualification, let alone expertise, in the fields of statistical analysis or socio-political studies. I am unaware of any relavantly accredited academician who is in support of Freeman's hypothesis in this matter, while a number of suitably qualified academicians outright reject both Freeman's methodology and his assertions.

In answer to Foxfyre's earlier question, of course if Kerry won it would have been fair and square, as far as I know. He doesn't have a history of surrounding himself with scum who would shoot their own mother to win, like Bush has, as far as I know.

ROTFLMAO:

Oh, kicky! Don't tell the truth. They are still in denial.

Re: Information about the Verified Voting Foundation



Bush had 4 million more votes than Kerry!

Boo hoo hoo hoo :wink:

There is a conclusion to be drawn from the simple facts that as time has passed, provisional and absentee ballots have been added, and recounts have been conducted, the percentage of total vote accruing to both candidates has remained constant to within 3 decimal points while each candidate has increased vote total, that despite the armada of lawyers marshalled for such purpose, neither The Democratic Party nor its defeated candidate are participants in the dispute, that arrests or other legal proceedings relating to vote fraud are unevidenced, and that in a large number of supposedly "suspect" precincts, historical data relating to past electoral performance is consistent with the most recently evidenced outcome.

It is my impression the proponents of the "We wuz robbed" meme have selected a dead horse for their war charger.

And, obviously, neither do you.

Who is accusing you and the other good people of fiddling with the vote? How do you people come up with such nonsense?

I was responding to Kicky's comment that Bush could not have won otherwise, Harper.

And I'm willing to be educated. Could you please explain how the GOP and/or the Diebold people were able to reprogram all those voting machines to show a majority for George Bush as well as rig all the other voting methods used in this election?

Fox, no one is claiming that the GOP reprogrammed all the machines. Read the information I and others have posted on this threadthen get back to me. Otherwiise, you have nothing to contribute but an opinon based on ignorance.

Name them and links to quotes, please. Or is this just a case of when you can't argue the message, attack the messenger?

I took statistics. I must have passed, but I can't dredge through the UC or Freeman studies without getting sleepy. They sort of make sense but:

The conspiracy needed to make this amount of vote fraud work makes combined alternate theories of the Kennedy assassination pale in comparison.

The next part of this story will be statistically anomalous deaths showing up among election machine programmers and techs, the little people who have to be sacrificed for the greater good.

I think I just wrote Olbermann's next show for him!