FREEwilliamsburg: Conspiracy or Fraud?

From Russ Josephs:

This election had nothing to do with values or a poorly run Kerry campaign. The Democrats were victims of massive voter fraud via electronic voting machines and other methods.

1. States using e-voting gave Bush mysterious 5%
advantage

http://www.newstarget.com/002076.html

2.Electronic voting in Ohio gave bush thousands of
extra votes

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041105/ap_on_el_pr/voting_problems

3. Bizarre Florida results, county by county

http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm

4. Black Box Voting declares fraud via electronic
voting machines

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

5. Did Kerry concede too soon?

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/981

6. Why Kerry really won, by Greg Palast, contributing
editor to Harper's and the BBC, and author of "The
Best Democracy Money Can Buy."

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php

7. Was the Ohio election honest and fair?

http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR110304.htm

8. Some thoughts from Mark Crispin Miller, media
critic, professor of communications at New York
University, and author, most recently, of "Cruel and
Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order." (from
Salon.com):

First of all, this election was definitely rigged. I have no doubt about it. It's a statistical impossibility that Bush got 8 million more votes than he got last time. In 2000, he got 15 million votes from right-wing Christians, and there are approximately 19 million of them in the country. They were eager to get the other 4 million. That was pretty much Karl Rove's strategy to get Bush elected.

But given Bush's low popularity ratings and the enormous number of new voters -- who skewed Democratic -- there is no way in the world that Bush got 8 million more votes this time. I think it had a lot to do with the electronic voting machines. Those machines are completely untrustworthy, and that's why the Republicans use them. Then there's the fact that the immediate claim of Ohio was not contested by the news media -- when Andrew Card came out and claimed the state, not only were the votes in Ohio not counted, they weren't even all cast.

I would have to hear a much stronger argument for the authenticity, or I should say the veracity, of this popular vote for Bush before I'm willing to believe it. If someone can prove to me that it happened, that Bush somehow pulled 8 million magic votes out of a hat, OK, I'll accept it. I'm an independent, not a Democrat, and I'm not living in denial.

And that's not even talking about Florida, which is about as Democratic a state as Guatemala used to be. The news media is obliged to make the Republicans account for all these votes, and account for the way they were counted. Simply to embrace this result as definitive is irrational. But there is every reason to question it ... I find it beyond belief that the press in this formerly democratic country would not have made the integrity of the electoral system a front page, top-of-the-line story for the last three years. I worked and worked and worked to get that story into the media, and no one touched it until your guy did.

I actually got invited to a Kerry fundraiser so I could talk to him about it. I raised the issue directly with him and with Teresa. Teresa was really indignant and really concerned, but Kerry just looked down at me -- he's about 9 feet tall -- and I could tell it just didn't register. It set off all his conspiracy-theory alarms and he just wasn't listening.

Talk to anyone from a real democracy -- from Canada or any European country or India. They are staggered to discover that 80 percent of our touch-screen electronic voting machines have no paper trail and are manufactured by companies owned by Bush Republicans. But there is very little sense of outrage here. Americans for a host of reasons have become alienated from the spirit of the Bill of Rights and that should not be tolerated. 5. And from Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's and the BBC, and author of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy."

I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.

So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.

Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]

Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.

The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.

And not all vote spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African American and minority precincts. (To learn more, click here.)

We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely-leaving a 'hanging chad,'-or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks. (To read the report from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, click here .)

And here's the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday's election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.

So here we go again. Or, here we don't go again. Because unlike last time, Democrats aren't even asking Ohio to count these cards with the not-quite-punched holes (called "undervotes" in the voting biz).

Ohio is one of the last states in America to still use the vote-spoiling punch-card machines. And the Secretary of State of Ohio, J. Kenneth Blackwell, wrote before the election, "the possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state's primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity."

But this week, Blackwell, a rabidly partisan Republican, has warmed up to the result of sticking with machines that have a habit of eating Democratic votes. When asked if he feared being this year's Katherine Harris, Blackwell noted that Ms. Fix-it's efforts landed her a seat in Congress.

Exactly how many votes were lost to spoilage this time? Blackwell's office, notably, won't say, though the law requires it be reported. Hmm. But we know that last time, the total of Ohio votes discarded reached a democracy-damaging 1.96 percent. The machines produced their typical loss-that's 110,000 votes-overwhelmingly Democratic.

The Impact Of Challenges

First and foremost, Kerry was had by chads. But the Democrat wasn't punched out by punch cards alone. There were also the 'challenges.' That's a polite word for the Republican Party of Ohio's use of an old Ku Klux Klan technique: the attempt to block thousands of voters of color at the polls. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, the GOP laid plans for poll workers to ambush citizens under arcane laws-almost never used-allowing party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot. The Ohio courts were horrified and federal law prohibits targeting of voters where race is a factor in the challenge. But our Supreme Court was prepared to let Republicans stand in the voting booth door.

In the end, the challenges were not overwhelming, but they were there. Many apparently resulted in voters getting these funky "provisional" ballots-a kind of voting placebo-which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic. Count them up, add in the spoiled punch cards (easy to tally with the human eye in a recount), and the totals begin to match the exit polls; and, golly, you've got yourself a new president. Remember, Bush won by 136,483 votes in Ohio.

Enchanted State's Enchanted Vote

Now, on to New Mexico, where a Kerry plurality-if all votes are counted-is more obvious still. Before the election, in TomPaine.com, I wrote, "John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted."

How did that happen? It's the spoilage, stupid; and the provisional ballots.

CNN said George Bush took New Mexico by 11,620 votes. Again, the network total added up to that miraculous, and non-existent, '100 percent' of ballots cast.

New Mexico reported in the last race a spoilage rate of 2.68 percent, votes lost almost entirely in Hispanic, Native American and poor precincts-Democratic turf. From Tuesday's vote, assuming the same ballot-loss rate, we can expect to see 18,000 ballots in the spoilage bin.

Spoilage has a very Democratic look in New Mexico. Hispanic voters in the Enchanted State, who voted more than two to one for Kerry, are five times as likely to have their vote spoil as a white voter. Counting these uncounted votes would easily overtake the Bush 'plurality.'

Already, the election-bending effects of spoilage are popping up in the election stats, exactly where we'd expect them: in heavily Hispanic areas controlled by Republican elections officials. Chaves County, in the "Little Texas" area of New Mexico, has a 44 percent Hispanic population, plus African Americans and Native Americans, yet George Bush "won" there 68 percent to 31 percent.

I spoke with Chaves' Republican county clerk before the election, and he told me that this huge spoilage rate among Hispanics simply indicated that such people simply can't make up their minds on the choice of candidate for president. Oddly, these brown people drive across the desert to register their indecision in a voting booth.

Now, let's add in the effect on the New Mexico tally of provisional ballots.

"They were handing them out like candy," Albuquerque journalist Renee Blake reported of provisional ballots. About 20,000 were given out. Who got them?

Santiago Juarez who ran the "Faithful Citizenship" program for the Catholic Archdiocese in New Mexico, told me that "his" voters, poor Hispanics, whom he identified as solid Kerry supporters, were handed the iffy provisional ballots. Hispanics were given provisional ballots, rather than the countable kind "almost religiously," he said, at polling stations when there was the least question about a voter's identification. Some voters, Santiago said, were simply turned away.

Your Kerry Victory Party

So we can call Ohio and New Mexico for John Kerry-if we count all the votes.

But that won't happen. Despite the Democratic Party's pledge, the leadership this time gave in to racial disenfranchisement once again. Why? No doubt, the Democrats know darn well that counting all the spoiled and provisional ballots will require the cooperation of Ohio's Secretary of State, Blackwell. He will ultimately decide which spoiled and provisional ballots get tallied. Blackwell, hankering to step into Kate Harris' political pumps, is unlikely to permit anything close to a full count. Also, Democratic leadership knows darn well the media would punish the party for demanding a full count.

What now? Kerry won, so hold your victory party. But make sure the shades are down: it may be become illegal to demand a full vote count under PATRIOT Act III.

I used to write a column for the Guardian papers in London. Several friends have asked me if I will again leave the country. In light of the failure-a second time-to count all the votes, that won't be necessary. My country has left me.

Comments

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Posted by: louis vuitton | March 4, 2010 03:24 AM

There's been a lot of talk about the election being "rigged" and this is coming mostly from Democrats (naturally) since they lost it. I personally don't think it's rigged. I'm not happy with the results but that's just the way it was. I'm sure if Kerry won, the Republicans would be saying the same thing. The mere fact that there are now more Republicans in the congress tells me that the conservatives really got out there and voted this time. There has been recent reports about how the 18-24 year olds didn't come out to vote anymore than they did in 2000 (No matter what Michael Moore says). I just think there is a change in the wind here. Yes, there are still about 60 Million people who want to see Bush out of there (I'm one of them) but I don't see any conspiracies here or any questions that one may have had in 2000. I just think that the evangelical base that the Republicans have really went all out to ensure that their boy won this time. If more young people, more than actually did, turned out, things MAY have been different.

Nevertheless, I still feel that a Kerry victory would not have made that much of a difference in the power structure in this country. He showed no evidence that he would have pulled out of Iraq (in fact he talked about how he would "win" it and "fight it better"); he spoke of nothing about the poor. He only talked about the "Middle Class"; He offered no specific plans or solutions to the culture's major problems; and most incumbents in congress were reelected, despite the fact that a lot of Americans feel that the system is owned by the corporations and is corrupt. What should that tell someone? That most Americans want the status quo. They are happy with the way things are. Yes, there are millions who are very unhappy with the way things are. Then why not throw them all out and get some new blood? Why are there the same faces in congress?

I think the solution to that is to allow third party candidates have more of a voice to offer a real alternative. The Democrats went all out to kick Nader off the ballot in a lot of states (despite their mantra about letting the people vote and have their vote, all the votes, counted) and the election commission (which is corrupt on its face) didn't allow any other candidate to participate in the debates. That's democratic? Why not allow other candidates participate and offer an alternative? Because BOTH the dems and repubs want a strangle hold on your vote and OWN your vote. So people are forced to vote for either one of them (if they decide to vote) therefore, continuing the two-party monopoly (which differes only on certain social issues and not much else).

So that's why I feel that no matter who won this election, we all lose...

Posted by: Anonymous | November 9, 2004 06:32 AM

Um, Hispanics voted more for Kerry than Bush. And as to these being "conspiracy theories," coupled with all the anger from the Bushies, I think I've struck a nerve. Face it: there were serious, serious problems with this election, none of which anyone is willing to investigate or examine. The fact is that Kerry actually won, major vote fraud took place, and all the Bush supporters can do is accuse of us whining. You want to know the facts? Look at these links. If not, bury your head in the sand and see where it gets you.

1. Evidence mounts that the vote was hacked
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm

2. Glitch found in Ohio counting
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/politics/campaign/06ohio.html

3.Electronic voting in Ohio gave Bush thousands of extra votes
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041105/ap_on_el_pr/voting_problems

4. Ohio officials block public from observing vote count
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/11/05/loc_warrenvote05.html

5. Voting machines in Florida count backward
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/news/epaper/2004/11/05/a29a_BROWVOTE_1105.html

6. Bizarre Florida results, county by county
http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm

7. Black Box Voting declares fraud via electronic voting machines
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

8. Exit polls and actual results don’t match; E-voting states show greater discrepancy
http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=388

9. States using e-voting gave Bush mysterious 5% advantage
http://www.newstarget.com/002076.html

10. Did Kerry concede too soon?
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/981

11. Why Kerry really won, by Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's and the BBC, and author of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.”
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php

12. Was the Ohio election honest and fair?
http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR110304.htm

13. Why the election was stolen, by Mark Crispin Miller, media critic, professor of communications at New York University, and author, most recently, of "Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order." (from Salon.com)

Posted by: Russ | November 9, 2004 03:42 AM

Oh, I agree...both the right and the left do exactly the same thing. That's the trouble with American political discourse these days. There was a recent survey which showed that Conservatives tend to read only conservative publications and liberals do the same. It seems that people in this country only want to validate what they already believe and make no room at all for critical thinking.

My post is not trying to criticize liberals as much as it is trying to explain the reason why so many seem to be so suprised with the results. I'm finding in my travels that liberals are utterly amazed that Kerry lost the election. All I'm saying is that the reason for this utter amazement is because I don't see many liberals in NYC conversing with too many conservatives much less reading conservative publications as well as the liberal ones. And vice versa. Using Coulter, Limbaugh, etc are, to me at least, no different than using Franken, Moore, etc as examples of this problem. Each of these people are ideologues, both right and left. If liberals were really serious about what they believe, why did they all vote for a candidate who also represents the worst aspects of American politics? Because all they wanted to do was get Bush out of office, no matter what the consequences. If he would have won, yes, Bush would be gone but you would still have a candidate beholden to corporate interests.

Why didn't the progressives rally around Ralph Nader? "Beacause he couldn't win", they will say. "It's a wasted vote" they would say. If everyone stopped thinking like this and voted for a candidate that truly represented the progressive point of view, then maybe..maybe...there was a chance to at the very least, send a message to Washington and to America that enough was enough.

But no. Most progressives voted for a blue blood, millionaire, windsurfer, Beacon Hill dwelling, skull & bones member for president as if he would have made one bit of difference to the system. How progressive is that? How progressive is voting for John Kerry, really?

To me, and this is only my personal opinion, both conservatives and liberals are just opposite sides of the same coin. There really are the same in a lot of ways. Oh, they may differ on some of the peripheral issues but essentially they are the same. The Democratic party largely abandoned their base and shifted their appeal to the middle class, SUV driving, "soccer moms" and said absolutely nothing about the poor. It's always "middle class this, middle class that".

The question is: Why do progressives in this country support a candidate that isn't truly progressive? John Kerry is NOT a progressive.

Liberals are getting kicked in the teeth...but voting for a man like John Kerry....well, I don't see that as being progressive at all.

I voted for Nader. I voted my conscience. I knew he had no shot in winning but at least my vote, in some small way, said "Fuck You" to both establishment candidates. My vote said, in essence, "None of the above". Did it make any real difference? No. But the way I see it, a Kerry victory would have made no REAL difference in the end. The corporations would still own Washington and the poor (which no one ever talked about in this campaign) would still be fucked.

I didn't vote for a candidate just to feel as if I had "won". I voted for someone who concerned himself with the real issues this country needs to face. A Kerry victory would have been just more of the same.

Posted by: Julian | November 8, 2004 06:22 AM

"When you surround yourself with like-minded people all the time, then patronize those who don't think like you, it's no wonder a lot of people are so surprised."

So can someone explain to me how Hannity, El Rushbo, Ann Coulter and all of the rightwing blogs out there aren't guilty of the same fucking thing? The liberals have been getting kicked in the teeth for years now, but we should just buck up and really understand the deeply moving, homophobic, jesus-freaky, warm-apple-pie goodness of the conservatives in the red states. Why in the hell do *we* have to be the understanding, timid, non-hive-minded ones? WTF are you people talking about?

Posted by: Tooney | November 7, 2004 03:40 PM

"Condescending motherfuckers!"

What this guy clearly needs is a good, old-fashioned ass fucking.

Posted by: Tooney | November 7, 2004 03:33 PM

Yes, funny...considering that a good number of Williamsburg residents are from places like Texas or Kansas originally...I've yet to meet one person who lives there who was actually born and raised in NYC, but that's neither here nor there. The fact that typically liberals tend to be very insular and therefore always preach to the choir. Then when something like this happens, they are shocked...oh, so shocked. The results of this election didn't surprise me in the least. I knew Kerry was going to lose. When you surround yourself with like-minded people all the time, then patronize those who don't think like you, it's no wonder a lot of people are so surprised. There is no conspiracy theory here. This election perfectly reflects the country and culture as it currently is. Is this a good thing? I don't think so...but that's the reality of it.

Posted by: Julian | November 6, 2004 09:14 AM

"One way ticket to Kansas". That's brilliant!

Posted by: EM | November 5, 2004 11:56 PM

because i dont subscribe to idiotic, unfounded conspiracy theories, i should move to kansas? what are you talking about? and i thought all you liberal elitists were all about tolerance? im from williamsburg, and i find it just as narrowminded and hiveminded, perhaps more so, than your average city in middle america, and yes, ive lived in middle america.

Posted by: ringo | November 5, 2004 02:15 PM

it sounds as if some of the above posters could use a one way ticket to kansas, or better yet TEXAS. they wouldn't be missed here in the city.

Posted by: things | November 5, 2004 12:57 PM

its sad that your posting unfounded conspiracy theories, making the democrats look like paranoid sore losers. your only evidence is that you lost. why dont you bring up how before the polls opened in pennsylvania, john kerry had been credited with over 20,000 votes in one county? and the idea that the exit polls should stand as proof is ridiculous...they were obviously completely wrong, how else would you explain them having bush and kerry basically tied in mississippi! the fact is that bush won fair and square. whether you like that or not is another story completely.

Posted by: ringo | November 5, 2004 10:16 AM

It was only a matter of time before all the conspiracy theories began to arise. Face it. The American public WANTS things to remain as they are. As to why is open to debate. The fact that both houses in congress are now even MORE Republican further indicates this. Do I like that fact? Hell no. But the way I see it, what the hell difference does it make? Whoever won, the same powers that be would have been running things, the same corporate money would still be influencing their decisions, the same old shit---as always. Americans like to say how corrupt their politicians are yet voted nearly all incumbants back in. The way I see it this elections wasn't a referendum on the Bush presidency. It was a referendum on the stupidity of the American PEOPLE. No conspiracy theories needed here. Our leaders are a mirror of the public at large. If that makes everyone uncomfortable, then America as a nation and a culture better look at ITSELF in the mirror. These guys don't just assume power. The public PUTS them there.

Posted by: Julian | November 5, 2004 09:29 AM

Jesus! Do you guys spend all your time whipping up excuses for losing.The majority of hispanics voted for Bush because they share his religious beliefs. As painful as it must be for you liberals to admit most hispanics do not believe in gay marriage and abortion. These hot button issues played a huge part in the turnout. Accept that you do not have all the "poor brown hispanics" in your camp. Condescending motherfuckers!

Posted by: EM | November 5, 2004 02:17 AM

Thanks for sharing this. Great article Russ. Disturbing

Posted by: milky | November 4, 2004 09:52 PM