Don't Shoot the Messenger - - - - But Be Aware

[TNOE]

This is from an e-mail I received - I leave it to you guys.

_______________________________________________________________
I found the data I needed and ran the numbers. In New Hampshire, Kerry beat Dean by 15% where Diebold did the counting and 1.5% where it was done by hand. You may have heard about the problems with Diebold. Details of this are on the blog (www.livejournal.com/users/explodedview). Maybe people here will start to take this issue seriously now. There *is* a paper trail in this case - if it hasn't been destroyed - so a recount is possible. I realize there are political risks involved in pursuing this, but fear of "sore loser" accusations are a lot of what crippled Gore.
As I said on this blog before: had the Dems been more "paranoid" they could have preventing the purging of black from the Florida voting rolls (see www.gregpalast.com)



Kerry is the media straw man.

The media built his campaign image out
of bits of straw and twine.

Like the old Welsh custom, when harvest time comes Rove will hand them a torch and they will
burn him to the ground.

[indigo32]

1. shhhh

we aren't supposed to talk about this.

[PretzelWarrior]

2. I have a suspicion WH LOVES the voter paranoia. keep 'em guessing

they will take a genuine issue about verifiable voting and allow it to fester in voters' minds because they want to keep the bulk of moderate voters home. They want to disenfranchise Dem activists before the voting even starts.

I believe we should have a twin approach which is to keep up the pressure on making the voting system as tamper proof as possible and as efficient as possible. (Look at B2B software) it is very possible and quite achievable right away.

Second, get out the vote. Get people realizing that in the meantime, they need to vote and vote often (not meant as a joke on voting corruption) but keep being there for all the voting and get some groups to track exit polls against final numbers to see the deltas.

We don't want to frighten people away because of the Black Box Voting issue.

[RobertSeattle]

14. Thanks - great comments

The voting paranoia activists who are convinced the next Prez election will be stolen are self defeating. (Why bother to vote then?).

[Meldread]

3. Wait...

Okay let me get this straight. The voting machines said that Dean lost by 15% but a hand counted vote said he only lost by 1.5%?

[dsc]

12. I don't think that is exactly what was said

What they did say was that NH can be divided into to pieces, one where Diebold counted the votes and another where the votes were hand counted. In the diebold areas he lost by 15% in the rest he lost by 1.5%. That isn't the exact same thing.

[bearfartinthewoods]

23. i'd be interested in knowing if the hand counts happened in

rural areas and machine counts in the cities since a rural/semi urban split has already been established.

[dsc]

25. that may well be the case

I have no idea. I just was restating what the email said. Though in Ohio the rural counties have tended to be ahead of the game in getting the machines chosen (our state has frozen buying).

[Emillereid]

42. Read the whole article --

that's what the analysis did find -- but it doesn't make sense. If anything one would expect Dean's demographic support to be young and urban, not rural. The other significant thing is the discrepancy between the exit polls that indicated a very tight race and the end result. I've had to do a lot of statistics in my life and exit polls should be (and historically have been) very accurate. The same kind of discrepancy popped up in the 2000 presidential data in Florida -- the exit polls indicated a clear win for Gore (more people thought they had voted for Gore, but alas the people who did the counting gave it to Bush.

[Taeger]

54. Dibold areas ...

I do find that statistic interesting. Please keep tracking this.

But remember that there may be a bias of more affluent voters for Kerry. Those machines aren't cheap. The poorer sections are more likely to be using punch-cards. Of course, small towns are probably just using paper that they xeroxed by hand. You have to admire the "common sense" of folks in small towns ;-)

[Malikshah]

4. Yes indeed, ssshh.

We must all take our medicine. Keep happy thoughts.

Truth will out in the end.

I must admit, though--it did throw me to see a "close race" as called by the commentators and then have a double-digit split.

There WAS a disconnect there w/ just 13% reporting...

Sorry--we need to have this addressed now.

[xultar]

5. Puhleezzzzzzzz you don't wanna post anything contrary to FAUX

Drudge, Newsday, National Review and CNN here.

There's nothing happening here...move along people...move along.

[Democat]

6. More Kerry bashing, give it a break

If Kerry gets the nomination, it will be interesting to see how many of you leave DU and go join the "Nader 2004, We Want to Help Bush Underground".

[Anwen]

13. Kerry bashing?

We should ALL be concerned about this, for the sake of whoever becomes the Dem nominee.

[indigo32]

18. This has nothing to do with bashing Kerry

and everything to do with vote manipulation.

[Emillereid]

44. Absolutely -- I for one wouldn't suggest that Kerry had anything to do

with the weird numbers. Wouldn't doubt it isn't the diebold guys doing some trial runs before next November. BTW, didn't someone find some discrepancies in the counts depending on the voting method used during the recall vote -- as if someone was experimenting??

I would hope that all the candidates will be equally outraged if these number prove to point to manipulation.

[Forkboy]

20. With such love emanating from certain quarters

it could be a higher number than you realize.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

7. so what did Diebold do in Iowa?

seems NH just confirmed Iowa's picks.

[Democat]

9. Anywhere Dean doesn't win is fixed, anywhere he wins is legit

Don't you follow?

[Cheswick2.0]

19. Diebold didn't do anything in Iowa, the Kerry campaign pulled the scam

push polling, robo calling at 4 in the morning... republicans regegistering to caucus as democrats. Diebold/republicans for Kerry it's the same scam.

[Cocoa]

32. the BBV spectre was raised after Iowa too

believe it or not.

[in_cog_ni_to]

8. Hmmmm.....

This may give us some idea about WHY the Democrats didn't SCREAM about Diebold when we first learned about the fraud going on. THEY wanted to use the flaws in the Electronic Voting Machines in this primary to get THEIR guy in. I bet they start screaming after we have a nominee. Wanna bet?

[John_H]

10. Diebold would have reversed those trends.

since Dean was the GOP's first choice.

[Jack_Dawson]

15. I agree - the GOP wanted Dean, not Kerry

[Malikshah]

28. Ok, sure...they wanted Dean...

Just like Jeb ran all the ads attacking McBride and ignoring Reno...

They knew they could take McBride hands down...

in other words-- it's playing to folks' superficial responses.

Relax
Breathe
Think.

Kerry's easy to beat in the GE. He's an insider and will be cast as such by the BFEE. It'll be a hard road to the White House with someone w/ so much baggage.

Whoever wins the nomination will get me support, but

Jeez folks--think instead of reacting when Rove pushes the buttons.

[Cheswick2.0]

21. no way

Sorry but Dean was not their first choice.

[Uzybone]

11. How about some proof

I already see some of the more gullible have already swallowed this hook line and sinker. if there is proof this has to be picked up by the Dean campaign NOW!

[creativelcro]

37. Here are the raw data for anyone who wants to check

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=215244

Go down the thread for link to the Excel worksheet.

[oasis]

16. Kerry spoke out against Diebold recently. He's going after them when

he becomes the nominee.

[AntiCoup2K4]

31. Kinda like he's gone after the BCE so many times (or so I keep hearing)?

...Maybe somebody else should go after Diebold?

[oasis]

41. I'm sure Kerry's campaign would be open to advice on how to operate.

Before e-mailing them, please keep in mind that you may be required to agree with them on at least a few points. Let's begin working at it.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

17. I have a big fat problem with a blog being used as a newssource

Is there a link that contains these actual numbers in the graph?

[Maddy McCall]

65. Yep....anyone can go post any bullshit, link to it, and call it a source

[cid]

22. My question is this..

If as many say on here, the WH wants Dean cuz he can be beat so easily then why are they not rigging the vote machines to show Dean the winner?

On the other hand, if they really are manipulating the voting machines, then its Kerry they want to win the primaries?

If you feel that the voting machines are going to be used in the GE to make sure Bush is elected, then obviously they must be using them now also to get the person they feel they could beat. Correct or incorrect?

Just a thought :)

[Anwen]

26. Correct --

They want Kerry.

[Uzybone]

30. Duh

if they can manipulate the voting machines in the GE why the hell would they bother doing it now? Let the dems choose who they want and then they will steal it in the GE. People really need to think before they let stupid conspiracy theories mangle their brains.

[Skip Intro]

39. You presume the right wing is controlling the voting machines

I don't know what to think, but I wouldn't be so quick to presume the right wing is the only entity capable of this.

The "establishment" could be the controllers. In which case, stopping Dean would make sense. And there haven't been a lot of Dem's jumping on the bbv issue, have there?

Don't forget the exit polls that had CNN calling the race neck and neck, and the buzz on Zogby and ARG about Dean's late surge.

[fishnfla]

24. This explains why * didnt poll 100% in NH right?

is there a breakdown of the GOP primary?

[cindyw]

27. Hello. Kerry won in the areas with more people. It is less likely

that towns with fewer people would have electronic voting machines. It just means Dean did better in less populated areas.

[On the Road]

29. I Examined the Precinct Numbers

I didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

The reason Dean won did better in the hand-counted states is that they were smaller rural counties in the West -- close to the Vermont border, in other words. Kerry did well in Manchester and the more populated southeast, which tend to have larger precincts, more money, and are more likely to automate vote-counting.

Paper ballots do not have the problems of touch-screen, but cheating with paper ballots goes back hundreds of years. Any method can be abused.

[Eloriel]

66. Ribofunk

I'm unclear what the data is you've got and examined. You have precinct results for all of VT? Will you share that data with me? Check your inbox.

[HawkerHurricane]

33. Let's see if I have this straight...

In New Hampshire, Diebold, which is owned by a known Republican Partisan, says that Kerry won by 15% in the areas where the machines were used, while hand counts (in other areas) show him winning by only 1.5%...
Implication: Diebold wants Kerry to win.

In other news, Kerry is (currently) the only Democratic candidate running that beats Bush in a head to head match up.
Implication: Right now, Kerry has the best chance to beat Bush.

So, Diebold wants the Democratic candidate with the best chance to beat Bush wo win the nomination.
Implication: Diebold is insane.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

35. logic matters

[GumboYaYa]

43. Logic is only as good as the vaildity of your premises.

You assume that Kerry is the one most likely to beat Bush based on current opinion polls. I, for one, do not place as much faith in these polls as others do. I remember similar polls showing Gore leading the race at various times. I also remember polls showing Bush the senior destroying any Dem contenders at about the same point in the election cycle.

[cthrumatrix]

49. wrong ...it means that didn't want Dean.....give me a break

[HawkerHurricane]

63. Take a break yourself.

Is it possible that Kerry actually won?

"No, my candidate didn't win, therefore it's the fault of the media/DLC/Diebold conspiracy that prevented it!"

[Eloriel]

67. Yes, it's absolutely possible Kerry won -- and also possible

that Dean didn't do nearly as badly in NH as the "results" showed.

Does it really matter? Are Kerry supporters so partisan that they would willingly take possibly rigged election results over the truth? Do they not want the truth?

When the FL recount started, what I wanted more than a Gore win was the REAL winner to be identified. I wanted legitimcacy to the process. That's still what I want. I don't care who won NH (or even IA, or any of the rest) nearly so much as I care about the legitimacy of our vote. And that's by no means assured wherever you have computerized voting systems, whether optical scan or touchscreens or internet voting.

[HawkerHurricane]

74. Since I'm not a Kerry supporter

ABB is my motto...

I also want the true results of the elections. IF Bush had won Florida, I would have swallowed my gorge and taken it. But there is multiple evidence sources that says that he didn't; and multiple cases reported of Republican dirty tricks. What we have here is one piece of evidence, easily refuted (districts near Vermont used hand counting and favored Kerry by a small margin; disticts nearer Massachussets had machines and favored Kerry by a larger margin).

[shance]

34. Great post. Why does this surprise us? How long have we been talking

about electronic voting?

I read the article and whoever wrote it seems to know what they are talking about.

We have a serious problem on our hands. People better wake the hell up.

[creativelcro]

36. Original post with detailed raw data on this.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=215244

You can download the Excel spreadsheet with all the data you need to replicate this calculation. Peace.

[Skip Intro]

38. CNN said, as polls closed, that exit polls showed neck and neck race

less than an hour later, Kerry had "won" by a wide margin.

And now this?

Am I the only one who feels like a certain candidate is being shoved down our throats?

This is not an anti-Kerry post.

[Cocoa]

40. I don't remember that

do you have a link for that discrepancy b/w the exit polls and the results?

[Skip Intro]

45. Others here were talking about it as well

Wolf was saying for about fifteen minutes after the polls closed that indications were that the race was very tight, suprising close, and other such things. Even when CNN called the race for Kerry, he said something like "despite what the exit polls were showing...

I don't have a link, I saw a lot of info. posted from the exit polls, but no vote numbers, mostly issues and that type of thing, but I have yet to see the numbers from the exit polls. (did we ever see them from Fla in 2000?)

I assume you can scan ARG and Zogby for what was being said a day or two before the vote. And you should be able to turn up talk of the "neck and neck" race that ended in a Kerry blowout in the DU archives.

Hope that helps.

[cthrumatrix]

51. I heard the same...at 6pm est when Dean was on Hannity's radio show

he was told it was a "dead heat"...those were the exact words.

[Cocoa]

55. since you made the assertion...

maybe YOU could find those DU threads and scan ARG and Zogby?

[Skip Intro]

57. Not to be disrespectful

But its not an assertion, its a fact. If you look at the post right above yours, you'll see another DUer verifying a similar report.

If your interest in fact does not motivate you to visit the ARG and Zogby sites and/or search the DU archives, then I doubt my doing it for you would make any difference.

Did you expore the issue of hand-count vs. machine count raised in this thread? Just curious.

[Cocoa]

59. it's actually a DU rule

8. If you make a factual assertion about a candidate that is not generally accepted to be true, you must provide a link to a reputable source to back up your claim. Allegedly "innocent" questions which are actually an underhanded effort to spread rumors are not allowed. If you really need to know the answer to your question, try Google.

I'm not going to alert on this, it's not worth it, but I don't accept that as a fact without a link, no matter how many people say they remember it that way. I know I don't remember any irregularities in NH.

And I'll add it's a common tactic among, forgive me, conspiracy theorists to make a claim and then when asked for evidence, they say "Google it." No offense, but that's basically what you're doing in this case.

[Skip Intro]

61. Well, I wouldn't want to break any rules

:eyes:

Since the CNN commentary was on television, I am not able to document it other than to point to some posts from here on DU talking aobut it. There is a wealth of threads on NH, and I will sift thru them at some point to ammend this post (if time allows) to include them. For now, here is one:

-------
CNN, close between Kerry and Dean
http://www.democraticunderground.com//discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=208494
-------
Btw, if I heard correctly, one of the twits on CNN just referred to the NH exit polls indicating a very tight race. No, I can't prove that, I guess you had to see or hear it for yourself, since I might be making the whole thing up.

Here's a thread re: Zogby from a just before the NH vote:
------
Latest Zogby Kerry 31 Dean 28
http://www.democraticunderground.com//discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=194610
-------

And here's Zogby on the Kerry/Dean, 31-28 poll.

------
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=793
-------

Here's a thread re: ARG just before the NH vote:

--------
Brand New ARG Poll Kerry 35 Dean 25 Edwards 15 Clark 13 Lieberman 6
(this is a three day tracking poll, read the individual posts, especially #s 5,8,11 to get a better impression of the Dean surge talk that was prevalent just before the NH race).
http://www.democraticunderground.com//discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=200696#200790
-------
And here's the reults from ARG tracking, Jan 25-26. The commentary that, unless I imagined it, spoke about Dean's surging, is gone, but you can see a 5pt. bump for Dean just one day. (You'll see talk of this in other DU threads should you feel inclined to visit the arhives)
http://americanresearchgroup.com/nhpoll/demtrack/demtrack04-30s.html
--------------

I would like to thank you ever so much for "not alerting" on my "assertions" You're a peach.

And I might add that it is a common tactic among certain Kerry supporters to divert attention from the serious issues at hand by questioning the sincerity of those raising the issues, thereby never addressing the true issue at hand. No offense.

[Eloriel]

68. And remember, exit polls are used

in 3rd World countries to help ensure against election fraud.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

70. We must make EXIT POLLS vs BBV a BIG STORY for ALL ELECTIONS n/t

[Taeger]

58. This is interesting

This is very interesting considering that a Diebold machine in Florida had delivered the Florida election to Gore. This is why Voter News Service called the state for Gore. Then the machine was discovered to have an "error". The flash card was "faulty". Poof, 18,000 votes disappeared for Al Gore along with the "faulty" flash card.


Diebold has already stole one election. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that election officials in Republican counties are manually changing the databases (it's easy to do, check out www.blackboxvoting.com) to support the Bonesman Kerry. We already know how fond Faux news is of Kerry and how much they HATE Clark.


This of course is all conjecture. But the thing is, the validity of Diebold vote counts is conjecture as well. There are ZERO controls on the authenticity of the vote. There is no PROCESS that is undertaken which shows that Diebold machines are producing correct results. As cumbersome as paper is, it's harder to fake it because so many eyes are involved in a fairly obvious process.


BTW, what is John Kerry's stance on electronic voting machines???? If he supports them at all, he's working for Bones. Paper "receipts" are a red herring. No recount could ever be conducted using them.

Any voting machine must produce A PAPER BALLOT. The ballot must not include bar codes or other computer encodings that are unreadable to the human eye. All votes must be recorded in human language. The resulting ballot would be read using OCR software. This has the added benefit of providing an instant photo trail of the ballots.

[Skip Intro]

60. I hope you're ready to be called a conspiracy theory kook/sore loser

Because, by simply pointing out what you have and wondering aloud, given the data in this thread, if something might possibly be suspicious, you will be labeled as such.

Weclome!

:D

[Eloriel]

71. Oops. You were doing great until you got to

"OCR software"

As soon as you've got software doing any tabulating of votes, you've got potential problems.

Otherwise, great post.

[sistersofmercy]

46. Ok, so it's Trippi, the media, dirty tricks and now voting fraud?

WOW! It's a conspiracy! Always somebody or something else to blame.

[jansu]

47. 50 point difference

I wondered how someone lost 30 points and someone else won 20 points in such a short period of time. I just have to wonder.... the Republicans and the White House have been saying all along, that they would love run against Dean and would hate to run against Kerry. Do they ever lie? And, why would you believe them?

"May you live in interesting times"! ancient chinese curse! Well, we do!

[cthrumatrix]

48. when and how will we get to the bottom of these numbers...?

[Zynx]

50. 15 points is exagerated. It was 12.

It was still bad, but people shouldn't exagerate.

[progressivebydesign]

52. I remember this info.

Someone posted a very compelling statistical layout of the voting. It was kinda creepy. No one has yet given me any info that would suggest geographical or socioeconomic reasons for this disparity.

[cthrumatrix]

53. I hope the Dean team demands a recount in a few counties vs the machines

[BruinAlum]

56. If the Republicans wanted to skew the results to pick their competition

they's rather run against Dean because they know they can beat him. It's Kerry and Edwards they are most afraid of.

[KYDEM]

64. Can you explain

Why you believe Bush would beat Dean? What would be the talking points for the repugs?

[markus]

73. Wrong. Dean is an unkown and scary quantify

I think they believe they can beat Kerry, just by replaying '84 and '88. I'm not suggesting it's going to replay that way, but that's clearly the current talking point.

I'm not suggesting anything weird went down, I just wanted to answer the "who's most beatable."

I've suggested before the Kerry is comfort food for uncertain Democrats, and I stand by that explanation for his surge. But he is an equally appealing candidate for the GOP, which thinks they know how to right this war.

What is interesting about the machine/urban v. paper/rural disparity: it's the opposite of what I saw in North Dakota last night. Dean did well in the urbanized Red River Valley (Fargo / Grand Forks), and poorly in rural areas and the more conservative west.

[Skip Intro]

62. A big kick for Cocoa, post 38 down thru 61 (list form) and the Doctor

hope this doesn't break any rules

:D

[Cocoa]

69. so has Dean demanded this be investigated?

if anyone is going to get those ballots counted, it would be Dean, right?

If Dean isn't calling for this to be looked into, does that mean that he doesn't care about democracy? Or does it mean that he's in on it? Is he a BFEE/PNAC/DLC plant to neutralize Kucinich?

[Eloriel]

72. It means he doesn't yet understand the threat

But we're working on that.

Dean supporters who are concerned, I urge you to post your concerns, along with any appropriate links, to the blog. Thanks.