Weren't Dems told that "Hundreds of Lawyers" would Observe Election '04?

[KoKo]

They would catalogue and document "irregularities" and NOTHING would EVER BE like "Selection 2000?"

Here's a quote from John Kerry in Bobby Kennedy's "Rolling Stone" article about was "Election 2004 Stolen?"

---------------------

Sen. John Kerry -- in a wide-ranging discussion of ROLLING STONE's investigation -- expressed concern about Republican tactics in 2004, but stopped short of saying the election was stolen. ''Can I draw a conclusion that they played tough games and clearly had an intent to reduce the level of our vote? Yes, absolutely. Can I tell you to a certainty that it made the difference in the election? I can't. There's no way for me to do that. If I could have done that, then obviously I would have found some legal recourse.''

Kerry conceded, however, that the widespread irregularities make it impossible to know for certain that the outcome reflected the will of the voters. ''I think there are clearly states where it is questionable whether everybody's vote is being counted, whether everybody is being given the opportunity to register and to vote,'' he said. ''There are clearly barriers in too many places to the ability of people to exercise their full franchise. For that to be happening in the United States of America today is disgraceful.''

Kerry's comments were echoed by Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. ''I'm not confident that the election in Ohio was fairly decided,'' Dean says. ''We know that there was substantial voter suppression, and the machines were not reliable. It should not be a surprise that the Republicans are willing to do things that are unethical to manipulate elections. That's what we suspect has happened, and we'd like to safeguard our elections so that democracy can still be counted on to work.''

To help prevent a repeat of 2004, Kerry has co-sponsored a package of election reforms called the Count Every Vote Act. The measure would increase turnout by allowing voters to register at the polls on Election Day, provide provisional ballots to voters who inadvertently show up at the wrong precinct, require electronic voting machines to produce paper receipts verified by voters, and force election officials like Blackwell to step down if they want to join a campaign. (205) But Kerry says his fellow Democrats have been reluctant to push the reforms, fearing that Republicans would use their majority in Congress to create even more obstacles to voting. ''The real reason there is no appetite up here is that people are afraid the Republicans will amend HAVA and shove something far worse down our throats,'' he told me

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen/4

[madaboutharry]

1. No way around it,

I really think Kerry let us down. Edwards wanted to fight.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. I hope Edwards runs again.

[PWRinNY]

9. Me too :-)

[blm]

20. What evidence did Edwards have that he was going to fight with?

Why would you all believe that Edwards had some evidence to fight with that Kerry chose to ignore?

I have yet to read any explanation for this sentiment.

[Big Kahuna]

4. Don't get me started

:mad: :grr: :banghead:

[blm]

8. Sez who? I don't recall any evidence that Edwards had to make the case

needed. If he did have it and wanted to fight with it, why didn't Kerry use it?

And YES they had Gore's election team of lawyers working in 2004 - the problem with that is they were all looking for the problems of 2000. No one at the DNC or on any of the election boards believed in machine fraud.

The machines need securing BEFORE the vote. After is too late. There is no evidence after in the machines - the only way a case could be made is if a WHISTLEBLOWER came forward to say they participated in the rigging.

THAT. DID. NOT. HAPPEN. No one has come forth.

And where is the outrage for the ones ACTUALLY RESPONSIBLE for the Dem infrastructure and in the perparation of the Democrats on the election boards? THEY are the ones responsible.

Kerry didn't ask them to take responsibility for his debates and campaign speeches and they can't be allowed to skate while all outrage is directed at Kerry as if he were responsible for doing THEIR job. What was Terry MacAuliffe doing?

[madaboutharry]

22. This was reported by Mark Crispin Miller

Check out this site: http://prairieweather.typepad.com/big_blue_stem/2005/11/did_kerry_sell_.html

Miller says Edwards "vehemently" fought with Kerry about conceding.

[blm]

29. Allegedly - so, what EVIDENCE did Edwards have to make the case?

I ask, because I never heard of it.

I heard that the ONLY way a case could be made was if a person involved in the rigging stepped forward and spilled. There was no evidence to be obtained on rigged machines set up for onetime use with no traces of tampering left behind.

[Nitrogenica]

3. I thought it was more than 2,000 lawyers. Wonder if that was just

right wing deceitful bullshit. I did hear that many times though Summer 2004.

[EFerrari]

5. So, if :"Kerry conceded, however, that the widespread irregularities

make it impossible to know for certain that the outcome reflected the will of the voters" then, we have no basis to believe Junior is a duly elected president.

We held an election, not a faith healing. Either we know who won or we don't know.

:kick:

[IndyOp]

11. That's It!

We need a faith-healing of the GOP party of corruption and the voting machines!

:D

[pocoloco]

6. No, it was "thousands"!

[KoKo]

12. I had "thousands" in my "OP" but thought I must be mistaken as to the

number. Yet, two posters verify my "original thought" that it was "thousands."

Right after another "Slection" the numbers seemed to change and Kerry backed off his original statement.

Reports are that Edwards urged Kerry to "HOLD OFF" and "WAIT" before declaring the "Selection to Bush" but that Kerry didn't want to make an "ISSUE OF IT." :shrug:

Who knows the truth of it...but AL GORE fought for longer than John Kerry and that's not in dispute...I think. :shrug:

[fedupinBushcountry]

13. 35,000 on the ground across the country

3,000 in Ohio alone.

[KoKo]

15. Maybe the "lawyers" weren't looking in the right places?

they didn't realize Voting Machines could be corrupted and they were looking for "polling place" violations ...when the REAL VIOLATIONS had ALREADY OCCURRED? They took place with the corrupted "Elections Officials" already installed in all our states and the Repug Ops who had been working for years with Rove?

In other words...it was all "DONE" ahead of the "hundreds or thousands" of Dem Lawyers who were "put in place to observe?"

:shrug:

[fedupinBushcountry]

16. You can't get into the machines

without a court order. The problem Republican control by Blackwell and the judges.

Some things were handled that day, but Blackwell was playing tricks right to the last minute. This is what has to change.

[babylonsister]

7. No, thousands of lawyers. Please listen to Stephanie Miller's

interview w/Kerry:

http://www.kerrysupport.com/media/stephanie_miller_john_kerry-051706.mp3

[El Supremo]

10. It should have been thousands of techs and programmers.

I wanted my county to train the poll watchers on the ins and outs of the electronic voting machines. But noooo!

[fedupinBushcountry]

17. Really

Well then you need to complain to your county.

[KoKo]

18. Good point....not many "tech savvy" folks in Kerry Campaign it seems......

but he was 62 years old...yet we have many DU'ers who go up into their 80's who seem to manage to function in the "Internet World" so maybe he could have hired some "consultants" to clue him in? Was Theresa more savvy than him?

Seems Elizabeth Edwards was tech savvy enough to post here on DU so one wonders about their "Hubbies" that no one seemed to understand the POWER. Only Dean and he was TRASHED by the "Dem Powers that Control." :shrug:

[blm]

21. And Dean led WHAT FIGHT to secure the voting machines in 2004 that

you are so certain he understood?

Dean did not really GRASP machine fraud in 2004, KoKo, not like you think. If he did, wouldn't you be mad that he didn't work his ass off to make it an issue and school Kerry on his concerns? You make statements like Dean would have.... but, the truth is, if Dean actually got it, he WOULD HAVE led that fight that summer before the election. He would have really given the media a scream if he thought those machines would be rigged. He wouldn't LET ANYONE STOP HIM if he "got it" they way you think. He and Kerry talked continuously during that time - he had Kerry's ear.

[KoKo]

23. Where was it Dean's job as the "failed Scream Candidate" to Educate

Kerry/Edwards in their campaign? Huh.........???

[blm]

25. In the general election they all became a TEAM - Dean was repping Kerry

and standing in for him at times.

There is no competition after the nominee is chosen.

It wasn't a matter about Kerry at that point - the machines are about THE VOTERS - THE PEOPLE - AND DEMOCRACY. Do you really want to posit that Dean knew about the machine fraud but chose to stay silent knowing that millions of VOTERS would be disenfranchised?

Do you really understand that is what you are saying when you submit that Dean had no cause to discuss machine fraud with Kerry, the DNC, or make it known to the public?

He DOESN'T get it to the extent that others do - he still thinks that optical scan machines are just fine. He said so when I saw him last month in person.

[blm]

19. This is actually the right answer - but Dem party heads did not BELIEVE in

machine fraud and did nothing to prepare Dems on election boards in crucial states to deal with it. NO MACHINE WAS SECURED BEFORE THE VOTE. And after is too damn late.

Those focusing on Kerry need to shift their focus to those who bear the responsibility for the JOB that WASN'T done by those put in charge to do them.

[KoKo]

24. But.....But....Kerry/Edwards SWORE to their Activists..."COUNT EVERY VOTE!

They said that to us who went out there and knocked on doors and cold called and had signs in our yards and on our cars.

And, here in our Red States we were told when we canvassed: "I'd like to support Kerry/Edwards but "I'm worried about my clients seeing the sign in my yard or finding out I'm a Democrat."

I'm in a RED STATE...this is what we were told. Folks afraid...to declare their Democratic support because they could lose their job.

What does that have to do with Kerry? Think about it....:-(

[blm]

28. If you have access to the whistleblower they need to make the case, then

hand him over.

Because everything else doesn't make the case that you all THINK is there. The machines have no evidence AFTER THE VOTE.

Your snotty attacks on Kerry do NOTHING to help - they just DISTRACT from the real issue and the REAL PROBLEM that the Dem PARTY infrastructure had made NO PREPARATION for machine fraud because they DIDN'T BELIEVE IT and it was THEIR job to be covering that area and securing the voting mechanisms FOR Kerry and every Dem on the ballot and every Dem VOTER.

And try answering the actual post that was written - your focus on Kerry is weird when it's a fact that securing the machines should have been a FOUR YEAR TASK of the Dem party heads since 2000. Kerry didn't ask others to do his job, but you all want to make him the only one responsible for the jobs that others in the party had for four years and did not come through for US - Democratic voters who have a party structure PRESUMABLY to secure our votes.

[BeFree]

26. What about that DNC report on Ohio elections...

... that whitewashed the whole scam? They had pretty much the same evidence as we have today, yet they failed to come to the correct conclusion.

Can you imagine Kerry fighting hard when the party just says: "Get over it, and move along." Kerry is no fool. He knew he'd get no support.

It is the party's obligation to see that the votes are counted correctly, not the candidates'. The party utterly failed John Kerry.

Lets fix it so it don't happen no' mo'. We need the party of JFK to take up the work of RFK, and get 'er done.

[Gabi Hayes]

14. if this is true...I'm absolutely beyond disgust:

not new, but RFK said it on Tuckhead....

about 80 THOUSAND votes for Kerry were REVERSED, and went to Bush, somewhere in Ohio....one place, right?

that's a hundred and sixty thousand votes

how much did Bush "win" Ohio by?

didn't RFK say 118K?

did I hear it wrong? I saw the Crooks and Liars clip...it's here someplace

if that's provable, well.....

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

27. Most people were still very clueless at that point about what the

real threat to evoting was.

So yes, we wanted to believe all those lawyers would protect the vote.

But honestly I didn't expect it.

I'd made a point of learning about this, since I now have Masters in Computer Science. And I and a lot of others felt like we were beating our heads against the wall to draw attention to this, to no or very little avail.

We, our nation, our society, our underground media etc have come a very long way since that terrible day in November of 2004.

I only hope it is far enough to save the midterm election this year, which it may be.

Now attorneys going out or others going out to observe will have a much better idea what the potential problems are.

[KittyWampus]

30. Scarb Picking DU'ers are sickening. Proving Fraud was a Catch 22

to get physical proff you needed to get into the machines. To get into the machines you needed physical proof.

That this many DU'ers can't grasp this... and that Kerry would have needed months and months of investigations is pathetic.

This is really just a thead to pick scabs and trash Kerry. And it's typical of the opening poseter.

:puke:

[emulatorloo]

31. DU loves any excuse to SPEW ACID at Kerry - but WHAT ABOUT BUSH?

Bush stole the election, Rove stole the election. No vitriol for them?

And what major Dems stood with Kerry the way they should have, thru the election, thru the swiftboats, thru the rigged Ohio recounts?

[Lady President]

32. There were lawyers in Ohio

I've read through the article which I found very impressive, but I don't see where it said that lawyers weren't on the ground in Ohio. We worked hard in Ohio. Sometimes I think because Ohio didn't end up colored blue on the map that people think we didn't worked hard enough.

As an Ohio lawyer who spent countless hours working on the Kerry campaign and for the Ohio Dem. Party, I don't know what we could have done. In my opinion, the real issue was that there wasn't one problem that was large enough to attack to make a difference, especially considering the time constraints. There were thousands of little problems and many of them weren't expected:

For example, there were monitors at precincts where trouble was expected, but no one anticipated that polling places in slightly left-leaning or split suburbs wouldn't have enough voting machines. And, there was nothing that could be done by Dems. once this issue was discovered. We could write down the problem, but we couldn't build machines. We know the lack of voting machines occurred in areas that favored Kerry, but you can't prove how many people left-- and how many of those supported Kerry. There isn't a number to quantify what was happening.

Another problem was how do you prove that the irregularities changed the results. Added together, it seems obvious, but how could we show it in 2004? One thing that broke my heart was that people who filled-out voter registration forms weren't allowed to vote. Some were on the wrong paper and some were just thrown away. How many? Don't know. We don't declare a Party when we register in Ohio, so we can't assume they would have voted for Kerry. Logic says that if I registered someone at a college, an arts fest, or gay pride parade, they were going to vote Kerry. How can you prove it? You can't. Did we have time to re-register people? No.

Florida had one advantage that there were visible problems (the "hanging chad") and it was limited to a county. The mess in Ohio was timed perfectly and the cause-and-effect can't be measured easily.

I do wish Kerry would have fought, but just because I was ready to let go. I don't think we could have proved that Kerry really won in time. Blackwell out-foxed us. :(

[Sydnie]

33. I happen to know for a fact that my own personal lawyer was

in Ohio for this election. She also was the campaign manager for Gore for PA in 2000.

There were lots of lawyers in Ohio both guiding the volunteers and responding to issues on the ground.