Where did all the votes go?

[EarlG]

With 93% reporting, CNN puts the vote totals at 107,905,858.

In 2000, the final totals added up to 105,326,325.

It's going to come down to a difference of about 4-5 million new votes between 2000 and 2004.

But polling places have been reporting massively increased turnout all day, there was a huge increase in early voting. How come, after all the reports we've seen today of people waiting in 3 hour long lines, only 5 million more people ended up voting today than in 2000?

Where did all the votes go?

[Ducks In A Row]

1. down the rabbit hole?

and the media doesn't give a shit

[shance]

2. A very valid question Earl, and a great observation.

I wish I could help you with that one, but of course, I cant.

[mazzarro]

3. It seemed like someone had gamed the system - IMHO

Quite a lot of questions to seek answers to in this election.

[high density]

4. I agree

I think this is the most important question of them all. Something here does not compute.

[neomonkey]

5. I think you bring up a great point

For 2 or 3 weeks, I heard nothing from the media but the massive numbers of voters coming out today. I was excited.

It seems a lot is happening here and we just don't see it.

[shelley806]

6. To the machines

Published on Thursday, August 28, 2003 by the Cleveland Plain Dealer

Voting Machine Controversy

by Julie Carr Smyth


COLUMBUS - The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.
O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.
The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.
Blackwell's announcement is still in limbo because of a court challenge over the fairness of the selection process by a disqualified bidder, Sequoia Voting Systems.
In his invitation letter, O'Dell asked guests to consider donating or raising up to $10,000 each for the federal account that the state GOP will use to help Bush and other federal candidates - money that legislative Democratic leaders charged could come back to benefit Blackwell.
They urged Blackwell to remove Diebold from the field of voting-machine companies eligible to sell to Ohio counties.
This is the second such request in as many months. State Sen. Jeff Jacobson, a Dayton-area Republican, asked Blackwell in July to disqualify Diebold after security concerns arose over its equipment.
"Ordinary Ohioans may infer that Blackwell's office is looking past Diebold's security issues because its CEO is seeking $10,000 donations for Blackwell's party - donations that could be made with statewide elected officials right there in the same room," said Senate Democratic Leader Greg DiDonato.
Diebold spokeswoman Michelle Griggy said O'Dell - who was unavailable to comment personally - has held fund-raisers in his home for many causes, including the Columbus Zoo, Op era Columbus, Catholic Social Services and Ohio State University.
Ohio GOP spokesman Jason Mauk said the party approached O'Dell about hosting the event at his home, the historic Cotswold Manor, and not the other way around. Mauk said that under federal campaign finance rules, the party cannot use any money from its federal account for state- level candidates.
"To think that Diebold is somehow tainted because they have a couple folks on their board who support the president is just unfair," Mauk said.
Griggy said in an e-mail statement that Diebold could not comment on the political contributions of individual company employees.
Blackwell said Diebold is not the only company with political connections - noting that lobbyists for voting-machine makers read like a who's who of Columbus' powerful and politically connected.
"Let me put it to you this way: If there was one person uniquely involved in the political process, that might be troubling," he said. "But there's no one that hasn't used every legitimate avenue and bit of leverage that they could legally use to get their product looked at. Believe me, if there is a political lever to be pulled, all of them have pulled it."
Blackwell said he stands by the process used for selecting voting machine vendors as fair, thorough and impartial.
As of yesterday, however, that determination lay with Ohio Court of Claims Judge Fred Shoemaker.
He heard closing arguments yesterday over whether Sequoia was unfairly eliminated by Blackwell midway through the final phase of negotiations.
Shoemaker extended a temporary restraining order in the case for 14 days, but said he hopes to issue his opinion sooner than that.
© 2003 The Plain Dealer

[Zuni]

7. I asked the same thing several times

if voter turnout was not much bigger and less than expected, why did people wait in lines for 5-6 hours in heavily Democratic districts?

[oasis]

8. Another theft. Plain and simple.

[TahitiNut]

9. How many 'provisional' ballots?

If there're 175,000 provisional ballots in Ohio, is it not possible that there're another 2,000,000 votes out there?

[Susang]

10. What an excellent topic for a media blitz!

Think there's a chance of anyone listening with all of the extraneous noise?

[Atman]

44. HAW HAW! That's a good one!

That would assume the media had any interest in helping "us" out. Ain't gonna happen. The media won big, and will work to secure their victory, not overturn it.

THE MEDIA IS THE PROBLEM.

[SoCalDemocrat]

11. Lets do some analysis EarlG

I've calculated that in EVote states without audit trials, Bush picked up a mystery 5% gain not matched by Exit Polls.

I wonder if that factors in to the missing vote picture?

[EarlG]

14. I posted your analysis on the home page

The mystery 5% is very odd. I think, once again, the exit polls are correct and the vote totals are fucked.

And I say again - an increase of only 5 million voters between 2000 and 2004 does not compute when you take into account all the evidence of huge voter turnout today. I think a lot of Democrats didn't get their votes counted.

[SeanQ]

57. Concur. Watching local news from MA, NH voting was WAY up this year,

what's the final % increase there?

[RememberTheCoup]

54. But don't you also believe that CNN messed with the exit polls?

So how can we even trust them? I looked at your screen caps and it's clear as day to me. Is Ohio the only screen cap you got before the exit polls started changing? Are the rest cached somewhere on the Internet?

[w13rd0]

12. 2000, 2002, 2004...

...all FUCKED BEYOND REPAIR. The "grand experiment" is dead. One side of the equation has concentrated far too much power in the hands of a few. The flow of information is controlled, all the branches of government, the judiciary. The "loyal opposition" is in name only.

And bin Laden will win. Bush will bankrupt this country, allow "blue states" to be attacked...again...and we're fucked for at least a generation.

[neomonkey]

13. I guess California is next, huh?

[Dora]

43. How long is a "generation"?

I ask because I'm pregnant and I want to know how militant of a mother I'm going to have to be.

[dennis4868]

15. Where did all the votes go?

Rove used it as toilet paper tonight.....he needs it...he is full of shit!

[in_cog_ni_to]

16. We'll never know, will we?

THIS is why they didn't want a paper trail. No evidence.

[grace0418]

17. That's what I would like

to FUCKING KNOW.

[Carni]

18. I am so sick of this shit

You know I wondered the same thing myself earlier.

Those fucking computers were obviously hacked.

[RaleighNCDUer]

50. They didn't need to be hacked. Just pre-programmed (much

easier and more reliable).

[Birthmark]

19. "Baleeted!"

Can we check the number of evotes in precincts against the number of people who voted to find out if votes were omitted by BBV? I know in my part of the world we have to sign the voter book. I think that *millions* of votes were simply deleted from these machines, hence the 5% boost for Bush in these places.

Sound reasonable?

[juajen]

40. They wouldn't eliminate those votes, they

would just move them into Bush's column, hence the weighted popular vote.

[davepc]

20. Hard core Christians who stayed home in 2000

came out to vote for bush and against gay marriage.

political scientists are going to call that one of the most brilliant political moves ever in a few years.

Take an issue thats meaningless to most Americans except a narrow core constituency and hype the hell out of it so they go vote for it, and for the president who brought it up.

While the rest us stand around mouths agape going 'why the fuck are we talking about THIS....NOW".

They knew there would never be a gay marriage amendment, wouldn't get past congress, but they knew it would get the fundies who were luke warm in 2000 to the polls in 2004.


We need better chess players. Terry McCaullif IS NOT GETTING IT DONE.

[regnaD kciN]

25. The only problem with that analysis...

...is that "hard-core Christians" (i.e. fundamentalists, which isn't the same thing) didn't exactly stay home in 2000, either. Bush was their baby back then -- the "born-again" reformed sinner who claimed "Jesus is my favorite philosopher" and who espoused the whole fundy agenda.

They turned out in force then, no less than now.

:shrug:

[davepc]

26. 3 million of them DIDNT VOTE in 2000

[SharonAnn]

52. Not here. In our county less than 20,000 voters, around 2,000

of the new voters were ones who had never voted before and were part of the registration drives of the fundie churches.

[davhill]

28. The Greatest Political Manipulation of Religion

Since the crusades.

[RaleighNCDUer]

51. I have to wonder if that is true. They've been saying it is, but they've

said a lot of things. The fundies are *'s base. Have been, ever since he was his daddy's liaison with the Xtian right in the '80s, leading up to the '88 election.

I think they knew they were going to have to cheat this time around, and set it up 4 years ago by saying the fundies didn't come out then. Their 'coming out' now would provide a plausible excuse for the much wider (than FL) disparity in the exit poll/final count numbers. But we saw the new registrations providing hundreds of thousands of new Dem voters. The fundies didn't come out powerfully enough to counter them all.

Repeated polls have shown (app.) 25% favor gay marriage, 35% favor civil unions, 35% against either, and 5% undecided. That 'anti' 35% is *'s base, and even if the 35% moderates might, but not necessarily, vote for the anti-marriage initiatives, they wouldn't necessarily go for *.

Unless I see 10-12 million more votes cast this year than in 2000, I can't believe this line.

[RememberTheCoup]

56. and you don't think blacks had a reason to vote?

You don't think they had something to be passionate about? There are more black voters than fundamentalist voters, I'd bet anything.

[d_b]

21. No shit

[Tom Rinaldo]

22. Yes. And all forms of "pre voting" were way up this time also

So in theory a lot of strain should have been off the polling booths this year as many used absentee or early voting instead of going to the polls on Tuesday, and still reports were flooding in of never before seen crowds of voters lining up at poling stations from the crack of dawn.

[0rganism]

23. Into the back of a bush/cheney pickup truck

This is panning out pretty much according to my worst-case scenario.

[GingerSnaps]

24. Look at this link and please forward it to Kerry

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1296759

[slor]

27. "Another theft. Plain and simple."...

We will not let this pass in my backyard! We riot in Cincinnati.

[spooked911]

31. good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope you got lots of people with you.

[KoKo]

29. Something was wrong in NC with Presidential vote....I'm hoping that

I will hear this morning from our campaign folks from GOTV/Action for America...and the others who were out there. They called the vote for Bush with only the rural counties reporting...and they called it too early. We will have to wait and see but I don't think it was just Ohio where there were shenanigans...just my gut and observation of what I saw
here on the ground and the reports of Dem voting in early voting.

[spooked911]

30. I was wondering the same damn thing.

Something very fishy happened here, especially in Ohio!

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

[Selwynn]

32. 5 Million is a lot or new people

[nolabels]

36. Yea but in real simple terms 5 is only about 5%

Polls saw incresses of a lot larger percentages. When I get people in my state showing and stating how big the turn out was. This when California was supposed to be tame compared to rest which means somthing very fishy going on. Kerry / Edwards are conceding nothing so get a clue

[tlcandie]

33. EarlG...add to that the Repubs who switched and voted Kerry...

I'm simply dazed. Something isn't adding up.

[Bozita]

34. If 108 mil votes = 93% of votes cast, 100% would be 116.13 mil

Still sounds low.

[PATRICK]

35. Here is what I think

As if they care. ALL methods have assaulted the system. We knew those would not be enough. So did they.

As some point they went to the ultimate line of defense, BBV, and gamed it to a daring amount. That decision had been prepared for but not made, I believe until all else failed. They crossed every line including the last one. But still they fell just short at the goal line. Now they keep butting ahead till they run it in. Do we deserve these mocking last chances? These brief times of the nick of time rescue that will never reveal or heal the crime?

Cheney goes to Hawaii. Other trips to other states. The decision had been made I think sometime shortly before then. The Bush coward, of course, was falling apart. Suddenly, with some relief and a burst of confidence the digital Rubicon was crossed. Steal what was necessary no matter what.

Done with impunity because for the main part BBV had been blown off as a clear front issue. The arrogant slip of the Diebold President in Ohio, more than any other revelation or activism has cast us onto the razor's edge rather than what would have easily been a done deal.

We are teetering- again- on the edge of hopeless slim chance. Again reality is not being addressed. Don't talk to me about the media. Look at them. They are buffoons who can't conceive of the job they can't perform.

As far as facing the black truth, our own professional politicians similarly never got the noise of the truck coming down the road. Same to for scientists and advocates and other guardians of simple facts.

The headlights have been flicked on at the last moment.

I am writing a letter to someone who does know and could do something.
And I have absolutely no hope that anything will come of it as determined imperfection plunges deeper into crime. But I had the shame of standing as an idiot survivor of the Vietnam days who did nothing in any way to address that deadly mass deception and loss of soul, alongside real veterans who were uselessly petitioning a doomed Democratic candidate for help against betrayal on the relatively simple issue of one VA hospital.

Maybe this is the coward Bush's way of avoiding killing more of us to influence the election. Maybe this stealing of our souls is his version of Texas mercy.

We knew in our hearts what came down on 9/11 could be laid at the feet of this fraudulent gang. But we couldn't say it.

This time we can say it. We are all betrayed. America is robbed of all meaning, all honor, all faith. I have watched the arrows of despair easily plunged into the hearts of my children. I know why and pretty much how. And my actions, as trivial as typing a few simple keys on a vote tabulation program, do not weigh against the
success of this evil, openly advancing in our sight for the past few years.

They dared because they had to and could. As criminals they had burned their bridges to God and man.

What are our choices? Or do we march meekly with our families and posterity into the Emperor's loud arena?

[Chescher]

37. I started asking this question last night, too, Earl

And I'm so amazingly disgusted. I vote on one of those fucking machines. All the lights are lit, you press your choices, you hit a cast ballot button and the machine goes black, then regroups lighting for the next guy. I have no fucking clue if my vote even counted. And I suspect that it was counted incorrectly.

These guys are truly the most crooked bastards.

[gasperc]

38. thinking same thing, where the fuck are the 120million

long lines everywhere, was it for show, give Democrats the "appearance" of a big turnout and then Bush try and grab a "big" win and a mandate???????????????

it all sounds fucked

[Tom Rinaldo]

39. This should be easily provable, one way or another...

We had a huge team on the ground working the precincts. Poll watchers have numbers on registered voters who had voted by 2:00 p.m., 5:00 pm, 7:00 pm etc. Those numbers are compiled at precincts by crossing off the names of registered voters who signed in to vote. It isn't taken off the machines. If the machines consistently tabulate less votes than the precinct lists show had voted, we have our smoking gun.

[BurtWorm]

41. kick

[democrat_patriot]

42. All we heard all week, early voting huuuuge turnouts.

Polls had to stay open later.

WTF!?!?!?!?!

[H3Dakota]

45. They do NOT add up, check this out...

1996
Total of Age: 196,511,000
Total Registered: 146,211,960
Total Votes: 96,456,345
Turnout %: 49%

2000
Total of Age: 205,815,000
Total Registered: 156,421,311
Total Votes: 105,586,274
Turnout %: 51%

2004 (Estimated)
Total of Age: 216,105,750 -- Calculated as a 5% increase over 2000
Total Registered: 173,600,000 -- Gleaned from online articles
Total Votes: 113,430,819 -- Total votes showing as of 8am-ish 11/3
Turnout %: 52%

Roughly 8 million more votes in 2004 over 2000 nationwide? Does that kind of increase merit the long lines & long into the night voting that we saw yesterday? I don't think so. If anyone knows of better numbers to use, put them up here! I just went with what I could find.

What happened to a 61-64% voter turnout and the 121 million projected votes?? Combine these numbers with the exit poll numbers? Yikes!

[RememberTheCoup]

58. where did you get these numbers?

I've been looking for data like this.

[Raster]

46. Truly, where did all the votes go? All we heard for the past week was...

...massive new voter turnout. What happened or maybe the better question is "where are those votes?"

[wysiwyg]

47. Fewer Electronic voting stations than they had punch card stations?

Could the reason for the long lines be because new electronic voting machines had to be purchased and there are now fewer voting stations in the precincts with long lines?

I'd expect fewer machines per voter in Democratic districts with Republicans controlling the budgets.

[highplainsdem]

48. The Lucas County OH thread last night showed disappearing/shifting votes

in screen saves from the official Ohio results. Lucas County showed several thousand votes for the Green Party candidate, Cobb, but 0 for Kerry, at the same time that Hamilton County showed exactly equal vote totals for Cobb and Kerry (as if every other Kerry vote had gone to Cobb). Cobb had no votes in any of the other counties. Some time after this was brought up here, those results were suddenly corrected on the Ohio state website, with the Cobb votes in Lucas County being given to Kerry, but with the 30,000+ Cobb votes in Hamilton County simply disappearing from the total. There were apparently no glitches giving Bush votes to Cobb.

I haven't been able to locate that thread this morning. It should be in the archives. But for some odd reason it isn't showing up when I check the "My Posts" feature, which should show my reply in that thread. None of my other replies posted last night are showing up under "My Posts" either, though my posts from earlier yesterday and from this morning are listed there. I hope that thread about Lucas County hasn't disappeared completely.

[Straight Shooter]

53. I saved that web page. PM me when that option is available.

It shows Cobb, 4,685, *1917, and Kerry 0.

Not one vote? I call fraud.

[TexasThoughtCriminal]

49. Long lines do not mean high turnout

It means the system is jammed, the votes cast are actually a trickle, and many frustrated people are giving up. I wonder how much of this slowdown was deliberate, as may of these long lines have been reported in OH and FL. Hmmmmmmm.....

[SeanQ]

55. Will we ever know? How can we make sure we do!?

[RememberTheCoup]

59. paper trails

but I'm not willing to wait till we get those. We need a revote in areas that can't do paper recounts.