BALLOT SCAMMING: Pollsters, Media Implicated in Vote Fraud

[VTGold]

Beg pardon if this has already been posted but I couldn't find it.

This article has some stuff about alleged AP direct access to tabulators which I hadn't heard before

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/ballot_scamming.html

(article is also posted on Bellaciao: http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4934)


(snip)
“As the story develops,” Gary Beckwith, an Internet journalist with The Solar Bus, wrote, “no one has been able to explain why the media is avoiding it like the plague.”

Conyers investigation, however, has revealed why Americans are not hearing about vote fraud and the problems with exit polling data on the nightly news: the big news networks are deeply involved.

Immediately after the election, American Free Press reported that the Associated Press had direct access to the mainframe computer that tallied the votes in Chicago and Cook County—as it tallied the votes on Election Day. This provides evidence that the mainstream media consortium that replaced the disgraced Voter News Service (VNS) has remote access to the machines that count the votes.

This direct connection between AP and the vote counting computer system explains why the Associated Press repeatedly refused to answer AFP’s questions during the summer about how they got their election results on election night.

As AFP reported from Chicago, this was something that the county clerk was well aware of and actively tried to prevent from being revealed. However, if it is done in Chicago, it is probably done in a similar manner across the nation.

Remote access to the computers counting the votes—who has it and how it is being used—is a subject that is finally being addressed by members of Congress. How far Conyers’s investigation goes remains to be seen.

Conyers is interested in seeing the raw data of the exit polls. The disparity between exit polling data and election results indicate that something was seriously wrong with either the polling or the counting of votes in Ohio, Florida, and elsewhere.

Conyers has written to Warren Mitofsky, who owns the companies that provide exit poll data to the mainstream media, asking for the complete raw polling data.

“Mitofsky balked, saying that the TV Networks actually own it and he was not able to release it without their permission. Conyers then took his inquiry to the leaders of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox,” Beckwith wrote, “And they promptly laid an egg. Through a spokesperson who spoke on behalf of all the media companies together, they said they are still analyzing the data and don’t want to release it until they’re done.

“Any objective investigator, or any concerned citizen for that matter, simply cannot accept their answer to Conyers,” he wrote. “There is absolutely no precedent or moral ground for withholding this information from the American public. The bottom line is that raw data does not need to be analyzed. Conyers and the American people are not asking for the analysis. We’re asking for the data.”

[Quakerfriend]

1. Excellent! Thx for this post!

Sounds as though Conyers has got a lot of goods on them!

I have read (?source) that the VP at AP is a neocon from Dallas with VERY CLOSE ties to *co. No wonder!

[teryang]

2. The VNS debacle was engineered by BMI

A contractor in many hi tech areas, including "biological warfare defense." Their actions have gone uncommented on it the press.

[1democracy]

6. Vote patterns as smoking gun?

If the AP had direct access to tabulators, there is another possibility -- important direct ballot data to show fraud via the pattern.

It would be important to get the readouts of the vote data as it was accumulating and emerging and plot it on a timed axis on Nov 2nd. If there was a decision at one point in the day to "fix" the vote in a more robust fashion, a corresponding change in accumulating vote counts would be noticed at a specific time, which would be inconsistent with previous patterns of vote count accumulation. It might be that one could even "see" the purported last minute Republican votes ( the Phantom over votes?) appear at a specific time. Now that would be a smoking gun!

Can we get this data? If the initial incoming ballot data mirrored the exit polls and then at a specific point in time, a big divergence--THAT would be interesting.

Alternatively, analysis of the actual tabulation data could yield other hints through the patterns of specific methods being used to modify the votes. Patterns that repeated at the same time in disconnected districts, cities, states would be of interest.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. kick

[flyarm]

4. i had this story about AP from before election

sorry link doesn't work anymore...but i kept this story i found before election..had in my files...its important to read...so dems knew about this before election...don't tell me Kerry the prosecutor didnt know about it..and didnt have a fix on what was about to happen!! fly

Lynn Investigates
Could the Associated Press (AP) Rig the Election? (Check updates at bottom)



by Lynn Landes 10/22/04



The Associated Press (AP) will be the sole source of raw vote totals for the major news broadcasters on Election Night. However, AP spokesmen Jack Stokes and John Jones refused to explain to this journalist how the AP will receive that information. They refused to confirm or deny that the AP will receive direct feed from voting machines and central vote tabulating computers across the country. But, circumstantial evidence suggests that is exactly what will happen.



And what can be downloaded can also be uploaded. Computer experts say that signals can travel both to and from computerized voting machines through wireless technology, modems, and even simple electricity. Computer scientists have long warned that computer voting is an invitation to vote fraud and system failure. An examination of Diebold election software by several computer scientists, including Dr. Avi Rubin and his staff, proved that secret backdoors can be built into computer programs that allow votes to be easily manipulated without detection.



ES&S, the nation's largest voting machine company that will reportedly count 50% of all votes, describe on their webpage how "accessible" their results are, "At ES&S, we know election administrators and the public want fast and accurate election results. That is why we have developed several election management system software solutions to make the reporting process easier, more reliable, and more accessible." Diebold, the second largest voting machine company, advertises a similar service. Both ES&S and Diebold have close ties to the Republican Party.



But, can't the AP be trusted? Isn't it an objective non-partisan news organization? Some say no. The AP is batting for a Bush presidency.



In Online Journal, Stephen Crockett and Al Lawrence, the hosts of Democratic Talk Radio, wrote, "...the Associated Press ran a story that was widely published in newspapers and on the Internet, headlined "Bush Leads Kerry In Electoral Votes," that could have been written by the Bush campaign. The assignment of states to candidates, the headline and the conclusions were all simply wrong. The Associated Press should print a retraction and work to see that it is widely published."



And on WBAY TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin ran an AP article reporting that Bush has won the election, weeks before the election is to take place. The AP reported, "At this hour, President Bush has won re-election as president by a 47 percent to 43 percent margin in the popular vote nationwide. Ralph Nader has 1 percent of the vote nationwide. That's with 51 percent of the precincts reporting." According to reports, the AP is now saying the article was a "test article," a never-heard-before journalistic practice.



Who is the AP? The Associated Press was founded in 1848. It is a not-for-profit news cooperative, some would say ‘monopoly’, that rakes in about $500 million dollars a year. The AP is owned by its 1,500 U.S. daily newspaper members. Their board of directors is elected by voting ‘bonds’. However, it is not clear who controls the bonds. AP spokespeople would not give out information on who sits on their board, however AP leadership appears quite conservative.



Burl Osborne, chairman of the AP board of directors, is also publisher emeritus of the conservative The Dallas Morning News, a newspaper that endorsed George W. Bush in the last election. Kathleen Carroll, senior vice president and executive editor of AP, was a reporter at The Dallas Morning News before joining AP. Carroll is also on the Associated Press Managing Editors (APME)’s 7-member executive committee. The APME "works in partnership with AP to improve the wire service's performance," according to their website. APME vice president, Deanna Sands, is managing editor of the ultra conservative Omaha World Herald newspaper, whose parent company owns the largest voting machine company in the nation, Election Systems and Software (ES&S).



Many Americans believe that polling organizations and the broadcasters will raise the red flag on any election shenanigans. But others have their doubts.



The Collier brothers, authors of the book, VoteScam: The Stealing of America, wrote about vote fraud and the role the news media and polls played. In 1970, Channel 7 in Miami projected with 100% accuracy (a virtual impossibility) the final vote totals on election day. When asked where they got their exit poll data, both Channel 3 & Channel 7 claimed that the League of Women Voters sent it in from the precincts. But, the League's local president tearfully denied it, saying, "I don't want to get caught up in this thing." The broadcasters then told the Colliers that a private contractor used the data from a single voting machine to project the winners, but the contractor said he got the data from a University of Miami professor, who in turn denied this. In the end, the news broadcasters appeared to have got the polling numbers out of thin air.



One thing is clear. The air will be thick with distrust and doubt on Election Night 2004.

UPDATES:


Nov 1 - The AP announces results BEFORE the election AGAIN - http://election.rockymountainnews.com/results_races.cfm) Sorry, folks, but I grabbed this page without getting the date and who sent me this info. I'll try to find it.
Nov 4 - Votes Downloaded to AP - Confirmation that the Association Press gets direct feed from voting tabulating computers - read Christopher Bollyn's article. (For more on the AP: http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=97&contentid=1624)
____________________________________



Lynn Landes is one of the nation's leading journalists on voting technology and democracy issues. Readers can find her articles at EcoTalk.org. Lynn is a former news reporter for DUTV and commentator for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Contact info: [e-mail] / [phone]

[pauldp]

5. Thank You! The Corporate MSM = Propaganda arm of ShrubCO.

People are still hoping CNN or MSNBC are going to wake up one day and cover the fraud story in a real way. FORGET IT!! The other seemingly unsurmountable task facing us (aside from providing what I guess will have to be 10,000 f*cking smoking guns in addition to the ones we already have pointing to election fraud) is EXPOSING THE CRIMINAL COMPLICITY OF THE MEDIA! - this is just as, if not MORE important than election reform.

Of course there are independent minded journalists in the MSM. That's how they create the illusion of real journalism! Y'all know this but let me remind you that GE, the third largest military contractor in the world, owns NBC. Whether he really knows it or not, KO is their cover. Board members of all the other big media outlets sit on boards of other huge war contractors.

Saying the Democratic Party should "move on" is like saying we should get in the car drive to Miami, except we have no gas and the wheels are stolen. Expecting the corporate media to really report election fraud is like expecting the small town cop to turn in his brother for stealing your wheels.

(on edit typos)

[Vinca]

7. We need to go back to little, old ladies

who happily count hand marked, paper ballots as a civic duty. When the access code to the voting machines is posted on the Internet prior to the election, the vote is worthless. AP might have logged on, Turdblossom might have logged on, Kurt the pimple faced teenager down the street might have logged on.

[VTGold]

8. You know what the scariest thing is.....

...they are exporting these machines to other countries.....

Brilliant way to conquer the world.