Ballot Tampering, Diebold and its GOP connections (long)

[Hamel]

Even if you can reasonably prove that there is fraud taking place here, this is still small-fry comparing to what Democratic city machines have done in the past and probably still do in some locations. This is just a pissass local election, not a national one.

The republicans did a bigger one in 2000, with Choicepoint denying thousands of black floridian democrats their right to vote, but whatever.

I'm hearing lots of excuses and poor attempts at explaining this away, and I've yet to see anyone make excuses for the democrats' dirty hands so far. Republicans have over 80% of the country's voting mechanisms at their fingertips now.

[MKSheppard]

The republicans did a bigger one in 2000, with Choicepoint denying thousands of black floridian democrats their right to vote, but whatever.

Stupid Hamel, I can't vote - is it because they discriminate against
my disability - NO! It's because I'm a convicted felon....like most
black males today

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Occam's Razor? blehhh

Don't con yourself into thinking you're providing a simpler explanation. In reality, you're providing something incredibly shallow and lamebrained. The odds for such an event, 3 republicans getting the exact same votes, is mind boggling. You give me statistics supporting your warped conclusion.

And for you to say I have an extreme bias (and to use bias as an argument in the first place) is laughable coming from you. It's a sad day when someone like me (in America no less) is considered an ultra leftist.

You are an ultra-leftist, Hamel. Even by this board's standards there are only one or two people further to the left than you are, who are U.S. citizens.

Not so much Occam's Razor than the idea of avoiding ascribing to malice, what can be ascribed to stupidity--a rather old maxim. Well, in this case, the stupidity is that of the reactionary holdout of reconstruction-era policies in Texas, and other southern states, which creates a block-voting mentality. Nothing more.

[Stormbringer]

Hamel: If all you want to do is stick your fingers in your ears and ignore Marina's point while spouting red-herrings this thread will be closed in short order. You aren't making a point or even debating, you're just repeating yourself.

[Stormbringer]

Also something I found that's really interesting:

"Isn't that the weirdest thing?" County Clerk Joy Streater asked. "We noticed it right away, but it is just a big coincidence. I checked the precincts and the numbers are all different in every precinct for each of them. They just coincidentally all add up to 18,181."

[Joe]

Even if you can reasonably prove that there is fraud taking place here, this is still small-fry comparing to what Democratic city machines have done in the past and probably still do in some locations. This is just a pissass local election, not a national one.

The republicans did a bigger one in 2000, with Choicepoint denying thousands of black floridian democrats their right to vote, but whatever.

I'm hearing lots of excuses and poor attempts at explaining this away, and I've yet to see anyone make excuses for the democrats' dirty hands so far. Republicans have over 80% of the country's voting mechanisms at their fingertips now.

Evidence, evidence! The democratic whiners who just would not give up on an election they lost fair and square couldn't produce any evidence whatsoever for this other than a bunch of caterwauling from the race warlord Jesse Jackson and his ilk, and I doubt they can produce any credible evidence for it now.

[Hamel]

Evidence, evidence! The democratic whiners who just would not give up on an election they lost fair and square couldn't produce any evidence whatsoever for this other than a bunch of caterwauling from the race warlord Jesse Jackson and his ilk, and I doubt they can produce any credible evidence for it now.

Choicepoint falsly identifying thousands as felonds

Especially if that president is named "Bush." ChoicePoint's board and executive roster are packed with Republican stars, including billionaire Ken Langone, a company director who was chairman of the fund-raising committee for New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's aborted run against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Langone is joined at ChoicePoint by another Giuliani associate, former New York Police Commissioner Howard Safir. And Republican power lobbyist and former congressman Vin Weber lobbies for ChoicePoint in Washington. Just before his death in 1998, Rick Rozar, president of a Choicepoint company, CDB Infotek, donated $100,000 to the Republican Party.

ChoicePoint's list included 8,000 people the group said were convicted of felonies and therefore ineligible to vote. But as it turned out, those people had only been convicted of misdemeanors, and should have been able to cast votes in Florida. The mistakes on that list, Democrats argue, disproportionately penalized African-American voters in Florida, more than 90 percent of whom voted for Al Gore.

"The horror stories about perfectly innocent black voters being turned away from the polls because they had been targeted as convicted felons started coming in early on the morning of Nov. 7, Election Day. And they're still coming in," wrote New York Times columnist Bob Herbert. "Blacks turned out to vote in record numbers in Florida this year, but huge numbers were systematically turned away for one specious reason or another."

By The Associated Press
April 26, 2002 | Filed at 10:17 p.m. ET

MIAMI (AP) -- A federal judge has approved a settlement between Leon County and civil rights groups that sued over widespread voting problems in the 2000 presidential election in Florida.

The state and six other counties remain in the case brought by the NAACP and four other groups who sued in a dispute that grew out of the long-uncertain results of Florida's vote for president.

"There was nothing they were seeking that was impossible to achieve," Ion Sancho, Leon County supervisor of elections, said Friday. "I've been a proponent of settlement from the moment the lawsuit was filed."

Thomasina Williams, one of the attorneys for voters, said settlement talks are under way with other counties, and she was optimistic that some will follow Leon's move. Trial is set for Aug. 26.

State lawmakers changed election laws in response to complaints after the 2000 election, but critics said the changes didn't go far enough.

In the biggest departure from current procedures, Leon agreed to give a written explanation to voters whose ballots are rejected. The idea to make that a state standard was discarded by the Legislature.

The groups that sued agreed that the settlement "achieves some if not all of the relief" they could have obtained at trial, according to the court order dropping Leon from the lawsuit last week.

The county agreed to address disputes over voting, voter registration and voting lists and will meet with community groups to boost registration, with special efforts targeting minorities and college students. Sancho said he was doing all of that before.

Many voters said their votes didn't count or they were turned away from polls due to mistakes on voter lists, busy telephone lines at election headquarters, punch-card voting machine foul-ups and other problems.

Statewide, the largest numbers of voting problems were found in precincts with high proportions of black and elderly voters.

Under the settlement, both sides will work to restore voters who were wrongly removed from voters lists in the 2000 election. Many law-abiding voters across the state said their names were dropped because they were mistakenly pegged as ex-cons, who generally aren't allowed to vote in Florida.

The county also agreed to improve communication and training for staffers who work on election day.

Leon County includes the state capital of Tallahassee.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/nationa ... wsuit.html

Settlement reached in vote lawsuit
Associated Press

MIAMI - A database that led to the wrongful removal of names from voter rolls in the 2000 election will be reprocessed to look for names that should be restored, under an agreement in a federal voting rights lawsuit.

The agreement reached Tuesday could restore hundreds of names to Florida's voter rolls, and it would be the first time since the disputed 2000 election that the central voter files would be corrected for errors, attorneys said.

The deal must be approved by U.S. District Judge Alan Gold.

The NAACP and four other civil rights groups sued Florida, several counties and the processing company ChoicePoint about problems that they claim disenfranchised voters. President Bush beat Al Gore in Florida by just 537 votes, giving him the presidency.

ChoicePoint bought DBT, the company that was awarded a $4.2 million state contract to compile a list of felons and dead people who should be purged from the voter rolls.

ChoicePoint spokesman James Lee said that list was compiled according to state requirements. About 58,000 names were sent to all 67 county elections supervisors, who were responsible for deciding whether to purge the names from the voter rolls.

Under Tuesday's agreement, ChoicePoint will recheck voter lists using stricter identification criteria those applied before the election, requiring a match of first and last name, Social Security number, race, gender and date of birth.

Shep: just stfu and keep the racist stuff on aim pls?
Storm: I'm the only one in this thread who brought forth evidence on anything. Durran's argument boils down to "who cares, Michigan democrats are more corrupt". Marina's argument is "they're highly partisan voters so three republicans getting the exact number of votes is unheard of", but she doesn't bring any evidence to support her claim. I seem to be the only one not sticking fingers in my ears and shouting nonsense. Your attempt at bullshit DENIED

[MKSheppard]

Shep: just stfu and keep the racist stuff on aim pls?

It's not racist if it's TRUE! Do a look at the demographics for most
black males 18-24!

[Hamel]

Shep: just stfu and keep the racist stuff on aim pls?

It's not racist if it's TRUE! Do a look at the demographics for most
black males 18-24!

And that has exactly what to do with the blacks getting screwed in florida? We're talking people who are NOT felons getting taken off the lists as if they WERE. These people had a right to vote and simply couldn't because of the bullshit.

[Joe]

Oh, please, if the Republicans were going to engage in voter fraud, they'd make sure to do it right rather than hoping a few thousand votes (which is a drop in the bucket) would do the trick. That number is probably made even lower by the fact only around 50% of the people incorrectly labeled would have voted, anyway. And this still doesn't fit in with the various horror stories about cops with dogs trying to prevent blacks from voting. And did you ever consider the possibility that this may have been an actual mistake? Democracy is messy, elections are messy.

[Hamel]

Oh, please, if the Republicans were going to engage in voter fraud, they'd make sure to do it right rather than hoping a few thousand votes (which is a drop in the bucket) would do the trick. That number is probably made even lower by the fact only around 50% of the people incorrectly labeled would have voted, anyway.

Head in the sand bullshit. What a magical coincidence that over 8000 black voters (with blacks turning out 91% for Gore) lost their voting rights due to an "accident" by a Texan company with republicans running the show.

Oh, and please tell us how they would "do it right".

And this still doesn't fit in with the various horror stories about cops with dogs trying to prevent blacks from voting. And did you ever consider the possibility that this may have been an actual mistake? Democracy is messy, elections are messy.

It doesn't conflict with stories of officers turning away. You show me a similar "mistake" happening to white voters in another incident.

[EmperorChrostas the Cruel]

There are more black males in prison than in college. Was that a racist statement?
Blacks have a disproportionate number of felons. Higher than any other "race."
Asians are more law abiding than whites, in both absolute, and proportional terms. As defined by prison population.
Were any of these truthful statements racist?
Culture, culture, CULTURE!
Blacks imigrants have virtual parity with whites in earned income, adjusted for education.
Black vote predominantly Democrat.
Any racism yet?

Since more buisness owners are Republican than Democrat, it stands to reason that more businesses that deal with voting machineswould be owned, or controled by Republicans. They own or controle the majority of ALL businesses, so not having the voting machine ones would be an anomaly.

Given the left turn the Democrats have made in the last 10 years, why is a conservative domination of Texas legislator so far beyond your ken?
Is a leftist liberal domination of San Francisco a sign of fraud or skullduggery?
Demographics, I say.
Big city liberals just don't GET how unpopular they are outside of big cities.
(Everyone I know is a Democrat, so how could Bush have POSSIBLY won the election fairly?)

[EmperorChrostas the Cruel]

I understand how you want to limit the college/prison statistic to the 18-24 demographic, but in absolute numbers, it is true.

[Hamel]

I understand how you want to limit the college/prison statistic to the 18-24 demographic, but in absolute numbers, it is true.

Whoop de fucking do. It has nothing to do with black people wrongfully denied the right to vote.

[Iceberg]

Big city liberals just don't GET how unpopular they are outside of big cities.

And?

That can be generally chalked up to either envy or xenophobia.

[Joe]

Big city liberals just don't GET how unpopular they are outside of big cities.

And?

That can be generally chalked up to either envy or xenophobia.

Or it can be chalked up to the fact that big city liberals love to talk about how much they care about average Americans, but when it comes to white middle Americans they think we're a bunch of inbred racist hicks who are incapable of democratically electing a candidate which they approve of.

[Joe]

Head in the sand bullshit. What a magical coincidence that over 8000 black voters (with blacks turning out 91% for Gore) lost their voting rights due to an "accident" by a Texan company with republicans running the show.

You have produced no evidence to prove that this could not possibly be a coincidence other than the presence of Republicans at ChoicePoint. This is a dumbass argument; the election offices of the various states are absolutely loaded with Democrats, some more than others, but you don't see me going around suggesting that states the Republican party lost in were obviously fradulently taken by Democrats.

And by the way, Ham, why don't you actually read this bullshit that you post rather than blindly shoving it in my face? Of the 8,000 voters in this situation only 54 percent of them were black, not 8,000, according to this article.

It doesn't conflict with stories of officers turning away. You show me a similar "mistake" happening to white voters in another incident.

Please, these were cops doing their jobs (even though they had been falsely lead to believe that the voters in question were felons), not Republican trying to disenfranchise black voters. And I would be willing to bet that at least some of the 46 percent of non black voters unfairly removed from the voting rolls were white, and that they too were told that they would not be able to vote.

[Johonebesus]

Typical. Several articles amounting to little more than suggestion and suspicion, and then disgustingly partisan responses. As someone else said, even if most of the rhetoric is BS, if only the basic facts are true, it is worrisome. The numerous reports of votes disappearing, both soft and hard copies, is very troubling. It doesn't matter if it is Republicans or Democrats winning, when you have votes disappearing in the middle of the counting process, there is a real problem. If there have been major discrepancies between surveys and votes, and such discrepancies were rare until recently, there may be a real problem. There are enough simple facts listed in the articles to raise a reasonable concern. Of course, that was so much to wade through that I have a hard time keeping the facts straight, and I would need to do a fair bit of independent research before I got too upset. None-the-less, I think it's pretty sad that the immediate response is, "Oh the Democrats in Chicago and Detroit are so terrible so just shut up."

Of course, voter fraud is a secondary problem when only half the people actually vote.

[Iceberg]

Big city liberals just don't GET how unpopular they are outside of big cities.

And?

That can be generally chalked up to either envy or xenophobia.

Or it can be chalked up to the fact that big city liberals love to talk about how much they care about average Americans, but when it comes to white middle Americans they think we're a bunch of inbred racist hicks who are incapable of democratically electing a candidate which they approve of.

I hate small-townies in the way that only a person who has small-townie relatives and has lived in a small town for the past several years can. They're clannish to a fault and xenophobic as hell, especially where concerns anything related to the Big City(tm). Having seen a small-town candidate win an election on promises to fight "big Twin Cities interests" in the State Senate, I guarantee you that xenophobia is in fact a major problem in small towns.

[MKSheppard]

Whoop de fucking do. It has nothing to do with black people wrongfully denied the right to vote.

Don't do the crime if you want to vote, bitch.

[Knife]

I hate small-townies in the way that only a person who has small-townie relatives and has lived in a small town for the past several years can. They're clannish to a fault and xenophobic as hell, especially where concerns anything related to the Big City(tm). Having seen a small-town candidate win an election on promises to fight "big Twin Cities interests" in the State Senate, I guarantee you that xenophobia is in fact a major problem in small towns.

Oh please, most people are clickish regardless of their geographical location. People in small towns hang out with people like them, and people in big cities hang out with people like them.

You said a couple times that small town people are xenophobic, yet it seems that you are xenophobic against small town folk yourself. Its just as easy to say that big city folk are a bunch of elitist pigs as it is to say small town folk are a bunch of ignorent pigs.

[EmperorChrostas the Cruel]

When I say big city leftist don't get it, they still aren't.
OK Slowly now.

Not everyone agrees with you, even though everyone you KNOW does.
That's it, end of fucking story.
The idea is, there are places you go to, where everyone agrees with everyone THEY know, and they don't agree with YOU!
So don't be astonished, or claim voter fraud, when large areas monolithicly vote against your candidate/party/issue.
Just because they disagree with you, doesn't make them racist, bigotted, or stupid, as the left constantly claims.

By the way, I don't like the computer voting system at all. To easy to fiddle with, and no ultimate physical backup, like paper ballots. I agree with you in so far as the potential for fraud is worrysome.

I don't care which party the majority of stockholders/owners belong to. I don't assume fraud is the goal, from the get go. I do assume there will be fraud, because people are involved. Both sides will try. When either side gets the passwords, or physical access to the machines, fiddling will happen.
This is not a Vast Right Wing Conspirecy. Just money making, by Republican enterprisers. Immagine that, Republicans with jobs trying to make lots of money selling something to the government!
You know Democrats and Republical comptuer geeks will be examining the software for ways to tamper, prevent, and DETECT tampering. Just to counter the OTHER side.

I just don't like the idea of hacking the election. The possibility of a program that changes the outcome, and erases itself, leaving no evidence, is bad. To jigger a mechanical system takes mechanical jiggering, which leaves proof of foul play behind.
This is one case of more advanced technology not being better.
Mechanicaly physical ballots and counting.

[Stormbringer]

Storm: I'm the only one in this thread who brought forth evidence on anything. Durran's argument boils down to "who cares, Michigan democrats are more corrupt". Marina's argument is "they're highly partisan voters so three republicans getting the exact number of votes is unheard of", but she doesn't bring any evidence to support her claim. I seem to be the only one not sticking fingers in my ears and shouting nonsense. Your attempt at bullshit DENIED

Hamel: your own evidence in the first article contradicts you. You're a fucking moron if you think what you posted constitutes anything close to proof. And when any one challenges the slim thread of reasoning you simply hare off on another tangent or repeat that what you have is proof. It's not.