Computer error at voting machine gives Bush 3,893 extra votes

[gldstwmn]

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/10103910.htm

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A computer error with a voting machine cartridge gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a Gahanna precinct.

Franklin County's unofficial results gave Bush 4,258 votes to Democratic challenger John Kerry's 260 votes in Precinct 1B. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, said Bush received 365 votes there. The other 13 voters who cast ballots either voted for other candidates or did not vote for president.

Damschroder said he received some calls Thursday from people who saw the error when reading the list of poll results on the election board's Web site.

He said the error would have been discovered when the official canvass for the election is performed later this month.

Damschroder said after Precinct 1B closed, a cartridge from one of three voting machines at the polling place generated a faulty number at a computerized reading station.

The reader also recorded zero votes in a county commissioner race.

Damschroder said the cartridge was retested Thursday and there were no problems. He couldn't explain why the computer reader malfunctioned.

Workers checked the cartridge against memory banks in the voting machine Thursday and each showed that 115 people voted for Bush on that machine. With the other machines, the total for Bush in the precinct added up to 365 votes.

Information from: The Columbus Dispatch

[dissention]

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/10103910.htm

Franklin County's unofficial results gave Bush 4,258 votes to Democratic challenger John Kerry's 260 votes in Precinct 1B. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.


They've stolen it from us. And quite masterfully, might I say.

[chiliD]

They've stolen it from us.

You forgot the "again"

And quite masterfully, might I say.

Yeah, for MONTHS the fear of voter-fraud via electronic voting machines was the focus, and yet they STILL rigged it without opposition contesting it. That's really, really sad.

[dissention]

From Bev Harris:

It's OK. You can say the "F" word: Fraud. Documents begin tonight!

Unless we are hacked out again, we will begin releasing documents this evening. It will be drip drip drip, not a knockout punch.

Very small drips, not because we are trying to stall, but because many of the problem documents beget FOIAs for additional, related documents to rule out the bull**** excuses. In many cases we need to avoid calling attention to what we are looking at until we close the exit doors entirely.

But you can expect interesting reading, though the parts we can release at this time without jeopardizing other stuff will appear nonconclusive.

Heh.

Heh heh.

Bev Harris
Black Box Voting (.ORG)
http://www.blackboxvoting.org

P.S. emergency situation in Nevada, certification at 2 p.m. while enough provisionals are uncounted that it may be able to flip the race.

[strandinthewind]

They've stolen it from us. And quite masterfully, might I say.


While I would like to agree, I just do not see how that is so. I freely admit there were errors, as I suggest there were throughout the country and errors are inherent in the process. But, W's margin in Ohio is something like 136,000+ votes and this article is talking about is a fractional percentage of that number. Moreover, no other article i have seen suggests that that gap can be closed no matter what the mistake made. So, I think W won it based on what I have seen and you know how much I hate admitting that :shrug:

[dissention]

While I would like to agree, I just do not see how that is so. I freely admit there were errors, as I suggest there were throughout the country and errors are inherent in the process. But, W's margin in Ohio is something like 136,000+ votes and this article is talking about is a fractional percentage of that number. Moreover, no other article i have seen suggests that that gap can be closed no matter what the mistake made. So, I think W won it based on what I have seen and you know how much I hate admitting that :shrug:

You don't find it odd that the only exit polls that didn't match up were the ones in Ohio and Florida, and that those two states just happened to vote with electronic boxes? C'mon, Jason, I know you're a smart guy. :p It doesn't help that the head of Diebold told Bush that he would "deliver Ohio" to him back in the summer.

Just wait, I hear that stuff will surface very soon.

[strandinthewind]

You don't find it odd that the only exit polls that didn't match up were the ones in Ohio and Florida, and that those two states just happened to vote with electronic boxes? C'mon, Jason, I know you're a smart guy. :p It doesn't help that the head of Diebold told Bush that he would "deliver Ohio" to him back in the summer.

Just wait, I hear that stuff will surface very soon.

I do not trust exit polls. I think they are fundamentally flawed. I know many who refuse to participate in them so the sampling class is flawed. Plus, they are a statistical sampling which has a margin of error.

Now, the issue of Diebold. Yes, that is alarming and I think it wrong that no paper trail exists. So, there is an issue there. But, 136,000 votes in Ohio and about 377,000 votes in Florida is a little hard to swallow without more concrete proof. Plus, the rest of the nation as a whole seemingly agrees with those results. But, I anxiously await the day when we can prove the electronic voting issue.

[gldstwmn]

While I would like to agree, I just do not see how that is so. I freely admit there were errors, as I suggest there were throughout the country and errors are inherent in the process. But, W's margin in Ohio is something like 136,000+ votes and this article is talking about is a fractional percentage of that number. Moreover, no other article i have seen suggests that that gap can be closed no matter what the mistake made. So, I think W won it based on what I have seen and you know how much I hate admitting that :shrug:

Just wait. There will be more.

[strandinthewind]

Just wait. There will be more.


I hope so!!!!!!!!!

For the record, I am not poo pooing this theory. I am basing my opinion of what I see are the current facts. Now and as we have discussed, the conspiracy theorist in me, of course, agrees 100% with y'all :cool:

[gldstwmn]

http://www.newbernsj.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=18297&Section=Local

Election problems due to a software glitch
November 05,2004
Sue Book
Sun Journal

A systems software glitch in Craven County's electronic voting equipment is being blamed for a vote miscount that, when corrected, changed the outcome of at least one race in Tuesday's election.

Then, in the rush to make right the miscalculation that swelled the number of votes for president here by 11,283 more votes than the total number cast, a human mistake further delayed accurate totals for the 40,534 who voted.

The glitch occurred Tuesday night as absentee ballot totals for one-stop early voting at three Craven County locations and ballots mailed-in were being entered, said Tiffiney Miller, Craven County Board of Elections director.

The Elections Systems and Software equipment had downloaded voting information from nine of the county's 26 precincts and as the absentee ballots were added, the precinct totals were added a second time. Precincts affected were Havelock East, Havelock West, River Bend, Cove City, Ernul, Fort Totten, Grover C. Fields, Glenburnie and West New Bern.

An override, like those occurring when one attempts to save a computer file that already exists, is supposed to prevent double counting, but did not function correctly, Miller said.

"I have redone every (personal electronic ballot) completely and am adding the absentees," she said early Thursday. "Every precinct was redone."

The second set of incorrect numbers came when the total for one of the batches of absentee ballots was not included in the first manual recount.

"That's why we have a week before the votes are official, so if we do find problems we can get them straight before the votes are certified," said Miller, who was in her office before 8 a.m. Thursday, hand-crunching the numbers retrieved from the voting machines.

New numbers put incumbent Commissioner Leon Staton in front of Republican challenger Tony Michalek for the Craven County Board of Commissioners District 5 seat. It does not appear that any other local races will be affected as a result of the malfunction, even with the results of about 1,000 provisional votes still to be entered Nov. 9.

Joined by her staff when the Craven County Administration Building opened, Miller already had been discussing the problem and remedies with Craven County Board of Elections Chairman Gloria Stanley, Electronic Systems and Software local representative Owen Andrews and North Carolina State Board of Elections Director Gary Bartlett.

Other than the cranking sound of numbers adding and an occasional ring of the phone, the office was dead quiet as they scrutinized the emerging tapes and hand-posted them on notebooks to be added by hand.

Craven County Commissioner Renee Sisk, a Republican who would be in the new majority on the board with Michalek's election, came by to assess the situation, followed by Craven County Manager Harold Blizzard, then Craven County Republican Party Chairman Steve Tyson, who both came in to inquire about the problem and possible solution. Then a national Republican political consultant who had watched the returns and had some concern that other precincts were involved in the problem entered the office.

Andrews arrived and made contact with the ESS home office in Omaha, Neb.

"What she is dong now is the failsafe way to make sure we get it right," said Andrews, of Owen G. Dunn in New Bern.

"When a voter casts the vote, it stays in the memory of the machine, which has redundancy as a safeguard," he said.

While there is no paper ballot, Andrews said "(Miller) has a paper trail. She can print as many paper vote tallies out of the machine as she'd like."

That information remains in the voting machine until the election is decided and it is deliberately removed.

Andrews will work with the manufacturer, Miller and the elections board to correct the problem to ensure it will not happen again, but said "it really has nothing to do with the integrity of the vote as cast or counted."

"We will produce an honest outcome by the time we canvass Tuesday," said Craven County Board of Elections member Walter Leake, who was one of the last to stop by the elections office Thursday. "The poll books will match the machine."

Election difficulties also were reported in a number of other North Carolina counties, including nearby Carteret, where 4,530 early votes were irretrievably lost.

[ontheEdgeof17]

I don't see why we can't stay with a good 'ole pen and paper. X marks the spot with those. My state still uses them and every vote is counted properly and we have had no problems.....except for the Bush winning the state part.

[gldstwmn]

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=ne-main-9-l1&flok=FF-APO-1110&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20041105%2F1517861083.htm&sc=1110

Voting Group Finds Irregularities in South

By DOUG GROSS

ATLANTA (AP) - A national voting rights group says it documented hundreds of voting irregularities affecting poor and minority voters in seven Southern states - from long lines and faulty equipment to deliberate voter intimidation.

``While the United States of America is a strong democracy, it is also a flawed democracy,'' said Keith Jennings, director of Count Every Vote 2004, formed after the 2000 election to assure voting rights for ``underrepresented and marginalized sectors of the population.''

The group sent monitors on Tuesday to 700 precincts in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina. Their goal was to observe such issues as the timely opening of polls, the presence of correct ballots and functioning machines, and the impartiality of elections officials.

Among their preliminary findings, the group listed a shortage of early voting locations in Duval County, Fla., one of the nation's largest counties in area and voting-age population, the failure of electronic voting machines in three South Carolina counties, and the loss of votes at a North Carolina precinct when too much information was stored on a computer unit.

The group plans to issue its more detailed, final report in about two weeks.

[gldstwmn]

Broward Ballot Blunder Changes Amendment Result

Fri Nov 5, 8:13 AM ET Local - WPLG Click10.com

The Broward County Elections Department has egg on its face after a computer glitch misreported a key amendment race, according to Local 10 political reporter Michael Putney.

Amendment 4, which would allow Miami-Dade and Broward counties to hold a future election to decide if slot machines should be allowed at racetracks, was thought to be tied. But now that a computer glitch for machines counting absentee ballots has been exposed, it turns out the amendment passed.

"The software is not geared to count more than 32,000 votes in a precinct. So what happens when it gets to 32,000 is the software starts counting backward," said Broward County Mayor Ilene Lieberman.

That means that Amendment 4 passed in Broward County by more than 240,000 votes rather than the 166,000-vote margin reported Wednesday night. That increase changes the overall statewide results in what had been a neck-and-neck race, one for which recounts had been going on today. But with news of Broward's error, it's clear Amendment 4 passed.

The glitch did not affect the outcome of any other races. The vote-counting error did affect totals for amendments 4 through 8. But amendment 4 was the only race for which the corrected numbers changed the result.

Lieberman admits that the error is an embarrassing mistake.

"I think the people have a right to expect that when the numbers come up on screen that those numbers in fact the actual total numbers at each step of the process and not just after the final vote has been certified," Lieberman said.

Putney said there is a lot of finger-pointing going on in the elections department. Lieberman blames ES&S Systems, which manufactures the software in question. She says they've known about the problem for at least two years because there was a Broward County mayoral race in which the same thing happened. She said nothing was done about it.

Miami-Dade County also uses ES&S Systems. That county did not have the same problem Broward did because it uses different software, according to Putney.

[SuzeQuze]

Do these systems get tested before they are used? This is rediculous. I'm really upset that states did not fix their voting machine issues before this election. I'm proud of MA for using the reliable paper ballot that gets scanned, the whole state has them as I understand it. All states should have reliable machines. It seems so common sense and elementary. Unless you're trying to steal an election.

~Susan

Broward Ballot Blunder Changes Amendment Result

Fri Nov 5, 8:13 AM ET Local - WPLG Click10.com

The Broward County Elections Department has egg on its face after a computer glitch misreported a key amendment race, according to Local 10 political reporter Michael Putney.

Amendment 4, which would allow Miami-Dade and Broward counties to hold a future election to decide if slot machines should be allowed at racetracks, was thought to be tied. But now that a computer glitch for machines counting absentee ballots has been exposed, it turns out the amendment passed.

"The software is not geared to count more than 32,000 votes in a precinct. So what happens when it gets to 32,000 is the software starts counting backward," said Broward County Mayor Ilene Lieberman.

That means that Amendment 4 passed in Broward County by more than 240,000 votes rather than the 166,000-vote margin reported Wednesday night. That increase changes the overall statewide results in what had been a neck-and-neck race, one for which recounts had been going on today. But with news of Broward's error, it's clear Amendment 4 passed.

The glitch did not affect the outcome of any other races. The vote-counting error did affect totals for amendments 4 through 8. But amendment 4 was the only race for which the corrected numbers changed the result.

Lieberman admits that the error is an embarrassing mistake.

"I think the people have a right to expect that when the numbers come up on screen that those numbers in fact the actual total numbers at each step of the process and not just after the final vote has been certified," Lieberman said.

Putney said there is a lot of finger-pointing going on in the elections department. Lieberman blames ES&S Systems, which manufactures the software in question. She says they've known about the problem for at least two years because there was a Broward County mayoral race in which the same thing happened. She said nothing was done about it.

Miami-Dade County also uses ES&S Systems. That county did not have the same problem Broward did because it uses different software, according to Putney.

[gldstwmn]

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/11/05/loc_warrenvote05.html

Warren's vote tally walled off


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alone in Ohio, officials cited homeland security

By Erica Solvig
Enquirer staff writer


LEBANON - Citing concerns about potential terrorism, Warren County officials locked down the county administration building on election night and blocked anyone from observing the vote count as the nation awaited Ohio's returns.

County officials say they took the action Tuesday night for homeland security, although state elections officials said they didn't know of any other Ohio county that closed off its elections board. Media organizations protested, saying it violated the law and the public's rights. The Warren results, delayed for hours because of long lines that extended voting past the scheduled close of polls, were part of the last tallies that helped clinch President Bush's re-election.

"The media should have been permitted into the area where there was counting," Enquirer attorney Jack Greiner said. "This is a process that should be done in complete transparency and it wasn't."

Warren County Emergency Services Director Frank Young said he had recommended increased security based on information received from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in recent weeks.

Commissioners made the security decisions in a closed-door meeting last week, but didn't publicize the restrictions that were made until after polls closed.

"If we were going to make a judgment, we wanted to err on the side of caution," Commissioner Pat South said Thursday. "... Hindsight is 20-20. There was never any intent to exclude the press.

"We were trying to protect security."

WCPO-TV (Channel 9) News Director Bob Morford said he's "never seen anything like it." When he first heard about Warren County's building restrictions, he said he understood concerns that too many people could make the counting process "a circus." But he said it's never been a problem in the past, and that the county could have set up a security checkpoint and had people show identification.

"Frankly, we consider that a red herring," Morford said of the county's "homeland security" reason. "That's something that's put up when you don't know what else to put up to keep us out."

James Lee, spokesman with the Ohio Secretary of State's Office in Columbus, said Thursday he hasn't heard of any situations similar to Warren County's building restrictions. He said general security concerns are decided at the local levels.

Other counties, such as Butler County, let people watch ballot checkers through a window.

Typically, the Warren County commissioners' room is set up as a gathering place for people to watch the votes come in. But that wasn't done this year.

And despite being told that there would be an area with telephones set up for the media, those who tried to get into the building on Justice Drive were stopped by a county employee who stood guard outside. After journalists challenged the restriction, reporters were allowed into the building's lobby - two floors below the elections office.

A representative of The Associated Press, which had stringers at every Ohio board of elections site, said no such election-night access problems were reported outside of Warren County.

County Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel said commissioners "were within their rights" to restrict building access.

Having reporters and photographers around could have interfered with the count, she said.

[gldstwmn]

Surprising Pattern of Florida's Election Results

http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm

[gldstwmn]

I do not trust exit polls. I think they are fundamentally flawed.


But yet they were correct from 1966-2000. How do you account for that?

http://www.exit-poll.net/faq.html#a18

[gldstwmn]

While I would like to agree, I just do not see how that is so.

I am going to bring you around to "see" it even if I have to drag you. But you probably already know that. :laugh:

[Hawkeye]

If it's found that Kerry actually won Ohio could he still become President, or did is he disqualified from conceding on Wednesday.

[EnchantedSLN]

If it's found that Kerry actually won Ohio could he still become President, or did is he disqualified from conceding on Wednesday.

He could still become president. A concession is not legally binding. It just has to be found before the election is certified, I believe. I'm sure someone here knows more about the law than me.

[dissention]

He could still become president. A concession is not legally binding. It just has to be found before the election is certified, I believe. I'm sure someone here knows more about the law than me.

You're right. :nod:

Maybe Kerry conceded early so that BUsh could make a cocky fool out of himself and show the people just what they "elected," which could only help him if he became president.

[amber]

You're right. :nod:

Maybe Kerry conceded early so that BUsh could make a cocky fool out of himself and show the people just what they "elected," which could only help him if he became president.
:laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol:
If he had done that on purpose, he'd be the most brilliant bastard ever :thumbsup:

[DeeGeMe]

Go read Keith Olbermann (of MSNBC's Countdown)'s blog today--it's about the e-voting mess and the discrepency between the exit polls and the actual vote! http://www.bloggermann.com/

On edit--screw it--I'll just post the entire article:


George, John, and Warren (Keith Olbermann) 10/7/04 6:55pm

NEW YORK - Here’s an interesting little sidebar of our system of government confirmed recently by the crack Countdown research staff: no Presidential candidate’s concession speech is legally binding. The only determinants of the outcome of election are the reports of the state returns boards and the vote of the Electoral College.

That’s right. Richard Nixon may have phoned John Kennedy in November, 1960, and congratulated him through clenched teeth. But if the FBI had burst into Kennedy headquarters in Chicago a week later and walked out with all the file cabinets and a bunch of employees with their raincoats drawn up over their heads, nothing Nixon had said would’ve prevented him, and not JFK, from taking the oath of office the following January.

This is mentioned because there is a small but blood-curdling set of news stories that right now exists somewhere between the world of investigative journalism, and the world of the Reynolds Wrap Hat. And while the group’s ultimate home remains unclear - so might our election of just a week ago.

Stories like these have filled the web since the tide turned against John Kerry late Tuesday night. But not until Friday did they begin to spill into the more conventional news media. That’s when the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that officials in Warren County, Ohio, had “locked down” its administration building to prevent anybody from observing the vote count there.

Suspicious enough on the face of it, the decision got more dubious still when County Commissioners confirmed that they were acting on the advice of their Emergency Services Director, Frank Young. Mr. Young had explained that he had been advised by the federal government to implement the measures for the sake of Homeland Security.

Gotcha. Tom Ridge thought Osama Bin Laden was planning to hit Caesar Creek State Park in Waynesville. During the vote count in Lebanon. Or maybe it was Kings Island Amusement Park that had gone Code-Orange without telling anybody. Al-Qaeda had selected Turtlecreek Township for its first foray into a Red State.

The State of Ohio confirms that of all of its 88 Counties, Warren alone decided such Homeland Security measures were necessary. Even in Butler County, reports the Enquirer, the media and others were permitted to watch through a window as ballot-checkers performed their duties. In Warren, the media was finally admitted to the lobby of the administration building, which may have been slightly less incommodious for the reporters, but which still managed to keep them two floors away from the venue of the actual count.

Nobody in Warren County seems to think they’ve done anything wrong. The newspaper quotes County Prosecutor Rachel Hurtzel as saying the Commissioners “were within their rights” to lock the building down, because having photographers or reporters present could have interfered with the count.

You bet, Rachel.

As I suggested, this is the first time one of the Fix stories has moved fully into the mainstream media. In so saying, I’m not dismissing the blogosphere. Hell, I’m in the blogosphere now, and there have been nights when I’ve gotten far more web hits than television viewers (thank you, Debate Scorecard readers). Even the overt partisanship of blogs don’t bother me - Tom Paine was a pretty partisan guy, and ultimately that served truth a lot better than a ship full of neutral reporters would have. I was just reading last night of the struggles Edward R. Murrow and William L. Shirer had during their early reporting from Europe in ’38 and ’39, because CBS thought them too anti-Nazi.

The only reason I differentiate between the blogs and the newspapers is that in the latter, a certain bar of ascertainable, reasonably neutral, fact has to be passed, and has to be approved by a consensus of reporters and editors. The process isn’t flawless (ask Dan Rather) but the next time you read a blog where bald-faced lies are accepted as fact, ask yourself whether we here in cyberspace have yet achieved the reliability of even the mainstream media. In short, a lot gets left out of newspapers, radio, and tv - but what’s left in tends to be, in the words of my old CNN Sports colleague Nick Charles, a lead-pipe cinch.

Thus the majority of the media has yet to touch the other stories of Ohio (the amazing Bush Times Ten voting machine in Gahanna) or the sagas of Ohio South: huge margins for Bush in Florida counties in which registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 2-1, places where the optical scanning of precinct totals seems to have turned results from perfect matches for the pro-Kerry exit poll data, to Bush sweeps.

We will be endeavoring to pull those stories, along with the Warren County farce, into the mainstream Monday and/or Tuesday nights on Countdown. That is, if we can wedge them in there among the news media’s main concerns since last Tuesday:

--- Who fixed the Exit Polls? Yes - you could deliberately skew a national series of post-vote questionnaires in favor of Kerry to discourage people from voting out west, where everything but New Mexico had been ceded to Kerry anyway, but you couldn’t alter key precinct votes in Ohio and/or Florida; and,

--- What will Bush do with his Mandate and his Political Capital? He got the highest vote total for a presidential candidate, you know. Did anybody notice who’s second on the list? A Mr. Kerry. Since when was the term “mandate” applied when 56 million people voted against a guy? And by the way, how about that Karl Rove and his Freudian slip on “Fox News Sunday”? Rove was asked if the electoral triumph would be as impactful on the balance of power between the parties as William McKinley’s in 1896 and he forgot his own talking points. The victories were “similarly narrow,” Rove began, and then, seemingly aghast at his forthrightness, corrected himself. “Not narrow; similarly structured.”

Gotta dash now. Some of us have to get to work on the Warren and Florida stories.

In the interim, Senator Kerry, kindly don’t leave the country.

Thoughts? Let me know at [email protected]

[strandinthewind]

But yet they were correct from 1966-2000. How do you account for that?

http://www.exit-poll.net/faq.html#a18

Because the results can be manipulated - they are not a true statistical sample :shrug: - and I know this is going to go over like a lead ballon :laugh: - but the D's are not above manipulating the exit polls to show whatever the hell they want them to show (I am now ducking for cover :laugh: ) Thus, only a controlled statistical sample can be relied upon IMO and exit polls are not that.

AND - I know I avoid them when I and many others I know leave the polls.

Plus, Kerry had a team if not FLEET of lawyers working for him to investigate this. If they could have proved anything, I think they would have not hesitated to do so :shrug: Moreover, I personally think they knew the fraud was there but that the numbers did not give the election to Bush. I mean the combined total of the numbers revealed so far cannot overcome the 136,000+ votes in Ohio and the 377,000+ votes in Florida :shrug:

Of course, as the facts come into play, we shall see :shrug:

P.S. I wish Kerry had won!!!!!! :cool:

[strandinthewind]

I am going to bring you around to "see" it even if I have to drag you. But you probably already know that. :laugh:

Lord Child Yes :laugh:

Do not get me wrong, the evidence clearly dictates there were problems with the machines in many counties of many states and the statement from the head of Diebold is highly suspect if not damning. I am just saying I do not like exit polls, esp. in one of the closer elections ever. I think relying on them is relying on a non-controlled and non-scientific survey like the daily poll at www.cnn.com.

[gldstwmn]

377,000+ votes in Florida :shrug:

:

There is some unverified evidence that more voters voted in Florida than are actually registered. :eek:

[strandinthewind]

There is some unverified evidence that more voters voted in Florida than are actually registered. :eek:

I know - but that is not necess. dispositive of voter fraud against Kerry.

Did all of these people vote for W?

They have to reconcile the actual votes with the official roster of eligible voters and see what the error is. It could be the official roster is wrong :shrug:

Finally, did 378,000 (or whatever the difference winds up being) more eligible people vote for Kerry.

If not, it is a horrible thing that fraud (assuming no genuine mistake) occurred and I think it needs to be investigated, heads need to roll, etc. But, it is a distinction without a difference as far as the result of the election is concerned :shrug:

Again, I am all for stopping any fraud that occurs - period. But, I think Kerry's flotilla of lawyers and politcos must have considered all of this before he conceded.

[estranged4life]

MSNBC they showed some numbers from FLA counties which were Democratic stronghold and "W" won each of these counties by large numbers??? And each of these counties are using optical scanned paper results??? Hmmm...Something doesnt sound right in the land of the braindead (aka Flori-DUH!)

Brian j.

[gldstwmn]

MSNBC they showed some numbers from FLA counties which were Democratic stronghold and "W" won each of these counties by large numbers??? And each of these counties are using optical scanned paper results??? Hmmm...Something doesnt sound right in the land of the braindead (aka Flori-DUH!)

Brian j.

You got it. Did you just watch Countdown with Keith Olbermann?
The totals from these machines were then fed into a Dell desktop computer via a remote access. I ALL 29 counties where these machine were used, the percentage of registered Democratic and Republican voters versus votes cast were completely opposite. For example, in counties where there were 80% Dem voters and 20% Repub, the votes came out 80% Repub and 20% Dem. This occured in ALL 29 counties. They could've been hacked by any computer in this world. Or possibly there is one bad line of code in the black boxes themselves.
Anyone who has ever had a webpage knows how easy it would be to do this. It is shocking.

[estranged4life]

You got it. Did you just watch Countdown with Keith Olbermann?

The totals from these machines were then fed into a Dell desktop computer via a remote access. IN ALL 29 counties where these machine were used, the percentage of registered Democratic and Republican voters versus votes cast were completely opposite. For example, in counties where there were 80% Dem voters and 20% Repub, the votes came out 80% Repub and 20% Dem. This occured in ALL 29 counties. They could've been hacked by any computer in this world. Or possibly there is one bad line of code in the black boxes themselves.
Anyone who has ever had a webpage knows how easy it would be to do this. It is shocking.

that is exactly where I saw that at...

The figures they showed were so off that I couldnt believe the figures were the accurate amount that Olbermann stated...Something fishy is up down there.

Brian j.

[gldstwmn]

http://www.local6.com/news/3883420/detail.html

Wet Ballots Found, Rejected By Voting Machines

SANFORD, Fla. -- Several hundred ballots in Seminole County, Fla., mysteriously got wet and were rejected by voting machines Tuesday, according to Local 6 News.

The wet ballots were apparently discovered unmarked Tuesday at the Community United Methodist Church in Casselberry, Fla.

The Supervisor of Elections, Dennis Joyner, said he does not know how the ballots became wet, Local 6 News reported. He said ballots were dry when the boxes were shipped out of the office, according to the report.

Also, the region has not seen rain this week.

"Some of the ballots were wet when they opened them this morning," witness Beth Anker said. "They were a little wet from something and were not going into the machine correctly."

Joyner told Local 6 News that anyone whose wet ballot was rejected by a voting machine was allowed to fill in a new ballot.

Complaints of voter intimidation were also reported at the same voting precinct, Local 6 News reported.

[gldstwmn]

http://www.legitgov.org/essay_front_lines_in_florida_110704.html

On The Front Lines in Florida



Spurred by the unwillingness of the broadcast media to report voting problems during the 2004 election race, we want to alert our friends, family and colleagues to the widespread voter suppression and disenfranchisement that occurred in Broward County, Florida. We staffed the emergency hotline for the Kerry Campaign Headquarters in Broward County from late October through the election. All of us were devastated by the margin of Bush's win in Florida, particularly since polls predicted the race would be extremely close.

Many of the calls to our hotline were from voters who had pressed the "Kerry" button on their electronic voting screen, only to have "Bush" light up as the candidate they had chosen. In some cases, this would happen repeatedly until about the 5th or 6th time the voter pressed "Kerry" and eventually his name would light up. In other cases, the voters pushed "Kerry" but were later asked to confirm their "Bush" vote.

We had calls about a road block, put up by the police at 7am on November 2, which blocked road access to two precinct locations in majority black districts. There was no justification for the road block -- no accident or crime scene or construction.

Many of our calls dealt with voter suppression, or manipulation, of the Haitian population -- occurrences which seem too numerous, and their targets too indefensible as primarily poor first-time-voter Creole-speaking refugees, to be anything but systemic. In one example, a voter whose hands were bandaged could not press the touch-screen himself; he asked the nonpartisan election official to press "Kerry" for him, but the election official pressed "Bush" and sent his vote immediately into the machine. Many, many others were denied the right to vote and were not given provisional ballots, while others were refused assistance at the polls, even though provisional ballots and voter assistance are legal rights. Others were told they had already voted and were turned away, although they had never voted previously. This latter experience was a complaint not isolated to Haitians but also included other surprised voters with no recourse except their word against that of the Supervisor of Elections.

We spoke with hundreds of voters who were certain they had registered to vote in the past 6 months, well before the October 18 deadline, but were not on the rolls. And those were just the people who had the information to contact us.

The local paper, citing the Supervisor of Elections office as its source, told all people voting by absentee ballot that they could turn in ballots by hand to any of its seven offices by 5pm on Tuesday, November 2. Every single one of those offices except one was closed on Tuesday.

We had numerous calls from voters on November 2 whose precincts had closed, yet the Supervisor of Elections office had given voters no notification of the closure, and no notification of where to go to vote. Thousands of people were likely disenfranchised because of inexcusable mishaps such as this.

We had many calls from people who had been harassed by poll workers, who were turned away without being allowed the right to vote provisionally (another breech of voter rights). Other people were turned away because the address on their drivers license did not match the address on their voter registration card; again, this is in direct violation of election law.

All of these problems do not even take into account the 58,000 absentee ballots that had been "lost" by the Supervisor of Elections, in perhaps the most Democratic county in the state, disenfranchising thousands of people who were disabled, out of the country, or elderly and unable get to the polls. These events, and many others, have been documented and also reported to lawyers, but we fear they will not get the attention they deserve. This is what we witnessed in just one county. We believe that these "voting irregularities" raise serious concerns about the legitimacy of the results in Florida, and more broadly, about the health of democracy in this country.

Please circulate this widely.

[amber]

Thank, GDW. Will the creepy fascist horror never end? seriously, I feel that i'm now a part of some country where giant crowds of people will be killed and buried in mass graves, because they "don't support the gov't" :mad:

[gldstwmn]

Thank, GDW. Will the creepy fascist horror never end? seriously, I feel that i'm now a part of some country where giant crowds of people will be killed and buried in mass graves, because they "don't support the gov't" :mad:

It won't end unless we put a stop to it-we the people that is. It's up to us to do the heavy lifting now. How bad do you want it, America?

[gldstwmn]

http://homepage.mac.com/duffyb/nobush/iMovieTheater256.html

[heyjupiter678]

http://homepage.mac.com/duffyb/nobush/iMovieTheater256.html
:shocked: :distress:

[DeeGeMe]

Holy ****! I hadn't seen that!

So please tell me why the mainstream media won't go near this story? ABC News did a story on it tonight but of course, they called us conspiracy theorists. Only Keith Olbermann has covered the story and he's really flogging away at it but he's the only one. The LA Times did do a small story today about Ohio but it wasn't page one news or anything.
Media whores.

[gldstwmn]

Holy ****! I hadn't seen that!

So please tell me why the mainstream media won't go near this story? ABC News did a story on it tonight but of course, they called us conspiracy theorists. Only Keith Olbermann has covered the story and he's really flogging away at it but he's the only one. The LA Times did do a small story today about Ohio but it wasn't page one news or anything.
Media whores.

I don't know. I don't think their corporate masters will allow it. The concession didn't help matters.

[gldstwmn]

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/10133265.htm?1c

Glitch could force state to vote again

[amber]

Holy ****! I hadn't seen that!

So please tell me why the mainstream media won't go near this story? ABC News did a story on it tonight but of course, they called us conspiracy theorists. Only Keith Olbermann has covered the story and he's really flogging away at it but he's the only one. The LA Times did do a small story today about Ohio but it wasn't page one news or anything.
Media whores.
Ha! too me that's like asking why you shouldn't sh** where you eat. Of course they won't go near it. media in this country has a long, long history of ignoring and censoring things. Politics is about money and resources, little else. oh, and power, power over money and resources. :D

[gldstwmn]

http://www.indystar.com/articles/3/193880-4433-093.html

Glitch causes Franklin Co. recount


Star report
November 11, 2004


BROOKVILLE, Ind. - Election equipment counted straight-party votes for Democratic candidates as Libertarian votes, an error that could affect election outcomes in as many as nine counties, the Richmond Palladium-Item reported today.

Democrats discovered the error in Franklin County, where ballots will be counted again tonight.

The county's election equipment vendor, Fidlar, notified officials Wednesday of the error.

Libertarian candidates received 7 to 8 percent of the votes in Franklin County, which is about 30 miles south of Richmond.

Franklin County Democratic Chairman Jim Sauerland questioned Clerk Marlene Flashpohler on Tuesday about the results after seeing information on the final tally he couldn't decipher, Flashpohler said. That's when Flashpohler contacted Fidlar, who agreed Wednesday there was an error.

The Franklin County Election Board agreed at an emergency meeting today to recanvass the ballots tonight. Noon Friday is the deadline to contest the election results.

Republican Chairman Bob Jewell said he has concerns about the procedures used when the error was discovered. He's hoping the deadline for contesting the election can be extended because of the Veterans Day holiday today. No party or state election officials can be contacted today for advice, he said.

"Hopefully (the recanvassing) won't change the outcome of the election," Jewell said.

Fidlar has optical scan machines in nine Indiana counties, including two in the 9th Congressional District, where Democrat Baron Hill was narrowly defeated.

Flashpohler said Fidlar officials have said Franklin County is the only county where a database error occurred.