From Greg Palast

[Buttercup McToots]

"http://www.gregpalast.com/section/articles/"
by Greg Palast
for The Guardian (UK), Comment is Free
Monday November 6, 2006
Here’s how the 2006 mid-term election was stolen.
Note the past tense. And I’m not kidding.
And shoot me for saying this, but it won’t be stolen by jerking with the touch-screen machines (though they’ll do their nasty part). While progressives panic over the viral spread of suspect computer black boxes, the Karl Rove-bots have been tunneling into the vote vaults through entirely different means.
For six years now, our investigations team, at first on assignment for BBC TV and the Guardian, has been digging into the nitty-gritty of the gaming of US elections. We’ve found that November 7, 2006 is a day that will live in infamy. Four and a half million votes have been shoplifted. Here’s how they’ll do it, in three easy steps:
Theft #1: Registrations gone with the wind
On January 1, 2006, while America slept off New Year’s Eve hangovers, a new federal law crept out of the swamps that has devoured 1.9 million votes, overwhelmingly those of African-Americans and Hispanics. The vote-snatching statute is a cankerous codicil slipped into the 2002 Help America Vote Act — strategically timed to go into effect in this mid-term year. It requires every state to reject new would-be voters whose identity can’t be verified against a state verification database.
Sounds arcane and not too threatening. But look at the numbers and you won’t feel so fine. About 24.3 million Americans attempt to register or re-register each year. The New York University Law School’s Brennan Center told me that, under the new law, Republican Secretaries of State began the year by blocking about one in three new voters.
How? To begin with, Mr. Bush’s Social Security Administration has failed to verify 47% of registrants. After appeals and new attempts to register, US Elections Assistance Agency statistics indicate 1.9 million would-be voters will still find themselves barred from the ballot on Tuesday.

Follow the link above

[oldtime dfl_er]

1. A sobering reminder

of what we're up against.
Recommended.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. We have to get these tactics out-lawed and stopped. It makes me so

angry!!

[Hugin]

3. Should he turn out to be wrong...

I don't think he'd mind. ;)

[tuvor]

4. Make sure to read his follow-up: Steal Back Your Vote

A lot of advice we’re getting from our progressive friends is to take photos of your ballot and silly stuff like that. Well, that’s all about how to complain after they steal it. I have a better idea: Win, don’t whine.

The regime’s sneak attack via vote suppression will only net them about 4.5 million votes. You should be able to beat that blindfolded. As that will cost about 5% of the vote. That means you can’t win with 51% of the vote anymore. So just get over it. If you can’t get the 55% you need for regime change, then you’re just a bunch of crybaby pussycats who don’t deserve to take charge.

#1: Vote Early, Vote Often

Vote today — at early voting stations — so you can spend tomorrow bringing out others to vote. Also, if you’re challenged, you’ve got another day to bring in more ID or scream bloody murder to your county elections board about your missing registration.

#2: Gang Vote

Arrive with five! Never go bowling, make love or vote alone. And volunteer at get-out-the-vote operations. It’s worth it just for the stale donuts, cold coffee and hot democracy.

#3: Tell Them to Take Their Provisional Ballot and …

If they try to hand you a “provisional ballot,” scream bloody murder. If there’s a problem with your ID or registration, demand adjudication from a poll monitor, come back with proper ID, or demand appeal to the county supervisor of elections.

But don’t just walk away. If it’s provisional or nothing, take it — then return for the count to defend it.

More at...

http://www.gregpalast.com/steal-back-your-vote

[KeepItReal]

5. People will not be "Barred" from the ballots...they get PROVISIONAL BALLOTS

...which will *not* be counted.

Therefore, you "feel" like you voted, but only actually filled out a worthless piece of paper.

[The Count]

6. In 2004 he gave the list of states that will be stolen - on AAR, the morning

of the election (I do remember Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, Arizona being on the list). He also predicted kerry won't have the stomach to fight.I remember hoping he'd be wrong.:cry:

[truedelphi]

7. Kerry is a robo-candidate for the Republicans

Let me repeat that - Kerry is a robo candidate for the Republicans.

I just watched Hacking Democracy, the HBO documentary on the voting machinery and the 2004 election. The thing that shocked me the most was Kerry's concession speech - a speech that of course I had heard way back on Nov 3rd 2004.

But the first time I heard it, I was deeply grieving and in shock over the theft of the Presidential election. Although I tuned in to Kerry, I did not really hear him say the words.

However, with the distance of two years behind me, I hear every word of his concession speech.
it is very carefully crafted - and it is dis-information plan plain and simple.

the speechis double talk.

He begins by mentioning that he had pledged to count every vote. But then he segues into this contradictory statement that legal processes should not be considered part of an election process... WTF??

How can an individual with Kerry's savy (and a million and multi-million dollar team of election lawyers to boot?) say that the legal processes have no part in an election or in the counting of votes? If that was true, then why had he ever assembled a legal team to begin with?

Second point - although so much of what Kerry says is non-understandable - as we were made to understand if we did not understand it before last week - this concession speech is delivered in a very smooth and most listenable manner. It is as though all of Kerry's speech writers up to then have been the GateKeepers keeping the Democratic Party line as mumble jumble as possible - and now, in his final moment, the GateKeepers can relax and go for clarity because they will be illustrating not a Democratic but a Republican point - that in an election, it is only the counting of the votes that count - not the legal guarantees as promised to us by United States Federal Code. (Was it not Stalin wh had said that it si not the votes but who counts them that counts?) So the concession speech razzle dazzles in its simplicity - although it takes the cool head of someone who has waited two years before analyzing it to realize the speech for what it is.

Does Kerry even know that he is a Robo Candidate?

Counld not tell ya. He might be the most sincere and honorable man in the world - but with his "handlers" directing him, as they did during the 2004 campaign and on Nov 3rd, 2004 he doesn't need to agree to work with the Forces of Darkness, as he is gently "massaged" into doing that.

[in_cog_ni_to]

8. I love Greg Palast and I hope he's wrong this time.

:(

[G_j]

9. k & r

[CountessMZaleska]

10. was someone actually expecting honesty

from Repugs this time?