Their plan to steal the election is simple.

[K. F. Gibbons]

Remember the Florida Legislature. They threatened to give the electoral votes to Bush regardless of the recount.

How many of the battleground states have republican legislatures?
I would suspect most. The Bush campaign will cry fowl in November and prompt the Republican legislatures in the battleground states to certify the vote for Bush regardless of the actual vote tally.

The only question is what will be their excuse.

[cthrumatrix]

1. add computer voting to that....

[Philostopher]

2. I admit I don't know what the electoral rules are in Ohio.

But you may have a good point. They've pretty much given up on electronic voting here -- only a few counties will have EV machines in place November 2, and they're not Diebold machines -- but Republicans have a 2:1 margin in the state legislature. There's a reason Republicans aren't worried about Ohio -- it (very likely -- I don't know this for sure) wouldn't matter.

[Chichiri]

3. Here's my prediction:

Nader will be allowed into the debates, thanks to Bush's campaigning on his behalf; he will then suffer a horrible accident hours before the first debate begins.

Fill in the blanks.

[LisaL]

5. I don't get it.

What would be the point? There is no way Bush and Co would do anything to Nader, he is helping them.

[Chichiri]

10. There would be an outcry by Dems that Bush is being unfair

...then, when Nader suffers his accident, everyone would blame Kerry. He would be completely neutralized in the debates.

[MazeRat7]

4. See thread on GD Forum on Diabold GEMS system

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2353603

MZr7

[Dhalgren]

6. Their excuse will be (and here's the evil beauty of it)

that all the freaks were right, the computer voting was a fuck up. Yes, yes, the President agrees with all of you good, patriotic BBV Cassandras out there and he has no confidence in these infernal machines! Why it was a huge mistake to let the Democrats talk us into using those damned computer voting machines! The only thing to do is throw the vote to the legislatures (in carefully selected states - where the machines really fucked up, of course)!

We will be hoisted on our own petard, as it were...

[MazeRat7]

9. Partially right anyway

The mistake is allowing proprietary software (eg Diabold, Microsoft, etc) to run our voting machines. The code needs to be open sourced so it can be inspected by all of us....

MZr7

[Dhalgren]

13. The point is that the Bush Crime Family will use the

established unease with computer voting to say certain contests were not trustworthy and must be turned over to the state legislatures. They don't give a damn whether the things actually work or are fair or tamper-proof; they only care about whether they can be "used" or not. We'll just wait and see...

[Strelnikov_]

12. I Agree, They Are Counting On The BBV Machines To Cause Electoral

chaos. Send the issue to the courts in a few key states and they will win the election 'fair and square'.

[damntexdem]

7. If they tried that, they might as well perform an all-out coup.

I don't think they have the ability to pull it off.

Besides, they may yet 'win' by keeping the electorate away from the issues, focused on nonissue distractions.

[Dhalgren]

11. The Bush crime family has already pulled a partial coup (2000)

so they may be ready for the "real" thing this time. And there is no way in heaven or hell that Bush could win a fair election. None, nada, can't happen. I don't know whether you noticed or not, but there were close to half a million people showed up in NY City to protest the RNC (Republican Nuremberg Convention). That represents a huge number of people who support that half million - the Repubs couldn't get half a million people into the streets if they were giving away Anne Coulter inflatable dolls (which, I think, she may actually be one).

[cheshire]

8. I'm CA and I worry about things here, those machines came from SF

here and polls show weak at times. Everyone knows we are true blue but * has been trying to get us here. I would not be surised that florida is not the target just the diversion this year.