Saw this over on LBN. WE GOT A "GATE"! We're VOTERGATE!

[crispini]

I thought this needed its own thread. C'mon, y'all, we just got a GATE!

http://www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=10385

Votergate 2004; We Don't Need Paper to Prove Fraud, But We Do Need Money and Leadership, NOW.
Since last Tuesday there has been a justifiable uproar about the major differences between the exit polls in Ohio and Florida and the actual results. Democrats and Republicans, who both saw the same exit polls that showed an electoral landslide in favor of Kerry, have confirmed this. Investigative reporter Bob Parry confirmed from his sources that the Bush campaign was convinced they were going to lose. George H. W. Bush also confirmed this in an interview with The Today Show. So why have the exit polls been so wrong in the last two elections? It is clear that there must have been manipulation in the voting machines. While there's been a lot of talk of problems with not having paper trails, computer fraud is uncovered most of the time without paper trails.

...

There's a huge difference between polling what WILL happen and polling something that has already happened. The reliability of polling something that has already happened is highly reliable vs. predictive polls, like Gallup or Zogby, which is very risky. The reliability can be, not plus or minus 4 percent as we see with predictive poplls, but rather a much more reliable plus or minus one half or one tenth of one percent with exit polls, because those are based on asking people who already voted. I would even say that if the exit polling were done in the key precincts of Florida and Ohio, which it was, then these results should be practically “bullet proof.”

Sheldon Drobny is CPA and Venture Capitalist and co-founder of Air America Radio.

...
(11/9/2004)
- By Sheldon Drobny, Op-Ed News

[zoeb]

1. DU is a gated community!!! wooooohoooooo n/t

[krkaufman]

2. Eh, it's a self-proclaimed "gate"...

... kinda like giving yourself a nickname.

You try to get everybody to call ya T-Bone... and end up with Koko. :)

[Amy6627]

26. That was very funny!

[krkaufman]

35. Happy to induce a smile, but can't claim the credit....

The T-bone/Koko bit is from a Seinfeld episode (involving George, of course).

[Amy6627]

36. I know, that's why I liked it!

[AgadorSparticus]

31. ooooooh, koko is going to get upset with you. :P

[liberal N proud]

3. I just don't understand why every scandal has to be a gate

The Watergate was the name of the office building where the DNC offices were and since then every Washington scandal is a "gate"
I am glad it offically recognized as a scandal!

[pleiku52cab]

4. I love votergate

now if we can only get the repub congress to spend 70 million on it like they did on whitewatergate.........

[Middle Finger Bush]

5. speaking of votergate

I found the documentary at votergate.tv to be very informative.

Looks like a couple losers set up votergate.org

[joeunderdog]

20. I need email addresses to send my LTE where it might get printed.

Feel free to steal and reproduce if that'll help, but I'll take any addresses. I finished writing this just as the MSNBC thing aired. It was spooky...

Conspiracy theorists are coming out of the woodwork after last Tuesday’s election results as claims of voter fraud, “glitches” and unfair practices are rampant on the Internet. Most of these theories have been summarily dismissed as the sour grapes of desperate, paranoid Democrats.

But in this election, just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean your vote wasn’t systematically eliminated.

In fact, the sheer scope of this year’s election’s problems should alarm anyone who takes the time to look. In North Carolina, Official Voter Records acknowledge that Craven County “lost” 4500 votes to a computer problem. A nearby NC county reported another 11,000 vote mistake. In Florida, Palm Beach and several other counties actually reported more votes than voters. It doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to question the validity of these results.

Also in Florida, voting in the counties of Baker, Dixie and Franklin showed a pattern completely unique to anywhere else in the country. These voters were 70% registered Democrats but voted 70% Republican. Somehow, only in these 3 counties did voters overwhelmingly cross party lines like this. Inexplicably, these same voters voted in a liberal minimum wage hike. This makes no sense.

In Ohio, one precinct tallied an impressive 4258 votes for Bush and just 260 for Kerry. What was most astonishing was that only 638 people voted. Just across the state, heavily Democratic Warren County officials inexplicably locked down a vote count from the press and witnesses, claiming they were on emergency orders from Homeland Security. Terrorism in Ohio, just during those 2 hours and just on the 2nd floor of that one building?

Ralph Nader’s recently rebuffed request for a recount in New Hampshire materialized after the vote count came in a whopping 15% different than exit polling. Exit polling has historically been very accurate, but was off in 8+ swing states by an unprecedented 4-15%, depending on the state, and all in favor of President Bush. The probability of this is less than one percent, according to statisticians. In not one state did Kerry outperform exit polls by more than a standard deviation. Interestingly, these kinds of extreme irregularities did not occur this year in any states with paper trails.

Some claim that the exit polls themselves have been manipulated, but they aren’t conducted by just Democrats. The companies who make the computer voting machines, however, are owned and operated by Republicans to the exclusion of Democrats. Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc (touchscreen voting) is openly a Bush activist and bigtime fundraiser. He said on record that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president (this) year." He just may have. As Stalin said, "Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything."

Unfortunately, the copyright concerns for the compu-voting companies’ Bottom Line take precedence over the preservation of a fair and transparent democratic process for America. This means no voter verification by impartial parties. In the meantime, Diebold and leading Republicans object to paranoid questions about election results while they flatly refuse to implement a verifiable voting system. What are they so afraid of?

Computers are not the only reason many votes don’t count. “Spoilage” of votes occurs when provisional ballots or ballots with errors on them are simply discounted. In counties with minorities (who vote heavily Democratic) and in states with a Republican Secretary of State, the rate of spoilage is disproportionately higher. It’s blatant political profiling. Like Florida’s 180,000 spoiled votes in 2000, Ohio and New Mexico have spoilage rates higher than Bush’s 2004 margin of victory in their respective states.

Tens of thousands of extra votes, lost votes, spoiled votes and inexplicable voter swings are not “glitches,” so let’s stop minimizing this. Official Election Results indicate that thousands of votes were unquestionably lost and/or stolen in this year’s election. These injustices are at best unacceptable, systemic flaws and at worst, fraudulent practices in an unfair system. They are serious threats not only to Democrats, but democracy.

[Generator]

6. Frankly it sounds better than Fraud

People love gates. Because they love a scandal. Because in their hearts they know how corrupt it all is.

[tandem5]

9. heh... sadly its a packaging issue n/t

[Kurovski]

13. Fraud sounds uglier.

adding "Gate " to something lumps it in with everything else, and the public has a little switch that turns off when it's invoked. After all these decades, it has a jokish quality to it.

"Votergate" sounds like the name of a suburban sub-division. Possibly German. And Vote-countgate would be more accurate, if linguistically awkward.

"Vote fraud" is a perfectly ugly phrase. Perfect.

[Straight Shooter]

17. That's why I use "vote tampering" in local conversation

People hate it when you tamper with their stuff. They hate it worse when you diddle with their votes :)

[Kurovski]

22. Actually, you are right

It is less accusatory than fraud.

I like that one.

It's like "You better stay out of daddy's sock drawer!" More personnel.

[LisaL]

7. YEY! Votergate!

And here I thought we got nothing.
:crazy:

[intelle]

8. Contacted the Kerry Team and Moveon.org

I am new here, but have been following this debacle since Tuesday night. I was outraged early Wednesday,and waited to hear if anyone else felt the same way. I wish I had known about this website then, because I am sure that other's here noticed right away.

Anyway, I wrote to the Kerry team (not sure if anyone will read it since it appears that the website is pretty much abandoned), and I wrote to Moveon about the unlikelihood of many supporting Kerry in 2008 if he fails to stand up for us now.

I know Kerry is very intelligent, and I can't believe he would make such a tactical error as to believe that we will overlook his lack of action in 2004 when 2008 rolls around.

[shelley806]

28. Welcoome to DU! Yes, without this website I would have gone

crazy. And we were on it since we caught CNN changing exit polls!
You raise a very good point about Kerry 2008.

[NVMojo]

33. Welcome! You made a good point!!!

"I know Kerry is very intelligent, and I can't believe he would make such a tactical error as to believe that we will overlook his lack of action in 2004 when 2008 rolls around."

[tandem5]

10. oh wait we forgot the year - VoteGate '04

now we're cookin'.

[Starlight]

11. to differentiate it from votergate 2000 & votergate 2002

:evilgrin:

[tandem5]

14. yes exactly! like what the news does with storms and fires n/t

[txindy]

25. Now, there you go

Votergate 2000, The Phantom Chad

Votergate 2002, The Cabal Strikes Back

Votergate 2004, Attack of the Clowns

Oh, yeah, that'll work. :evilgrin:

[Jasper 91]

34. Lol , I hope you're a writer .

Very quick witted .:)

[Starlight]

12. did anyone send this to Bev Harris?

their site is down again or I would do it now. :(

[robbedvoter]

15. I had posted it here as well

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x34585

[Kurt Remarque]

16. Rovergate?

[Straight Shooter]

18. Red Rover, Red Rover, send bush votes right over

:silly:

[pbartch]

19. Rovergate is a scandal

What Rove has done to this country through his PUPPET George Bush is a scandal and horrible.

[Sparkly]

21. I don't like it because it sounds like something's wrong with the VOTERS!

It's not "Voter Fraud," it's not "Voter Gate," it's not "Voter" anything.

Election Fraud, okay. Tabulator Fraud, whatever. Theftgate, Chimpgate, Countgate, go right ahead.

But right away, the media started calling it "Voter Fraud." So now it's just that the voters have a problem, or did something wrong. (That's what they said about Florida in 2000 also, as you'll all recall!)

[SmallFatCat]

23. How about...?

Pseudo Vote 2004

[vetwife]

24. Come on ya'll there was nothing wrong with The Watergatehotel either lol

Votergate is fine..I mean it fits..Its not fine ! It is a contituional crisis !

[Amy6627]

27. How 'bout

Virtual Voting, it's like voting but it doesn't count!

[vetwife]

29. VirtualVoter Gate..Has a ring to it ! LOL

[nolabels]

32. There was something wrong with them voters

They didn't even exist. Either there were a whole lot of little frauds or one great big one

Votergate!!!
Votergate!!!
Votergate!!!
Votergate!!!
Votergate!!!
Votergate!!!
Votergate!!!
Votergate!!!
Votergate!!!
Votergate!!!
Votergate!!!
Votergate!!!
Votergate!!!

[BernieBear]

30. Weeeee

That is actually f(%king progress. We've made "gate status"!!!! Way to go guys!!!!!!!!!!!

:bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce:

Bernie the Gate Bear