🚀 go-pugleaf

On 20 Nov 2004 00:19:36 -0800, fountaingrove@hotmail.com (Barney Lyon)
wrote:

>November 18, 2004 by Inter Press Service 
>US Election: Democracy in Question 
>by Ritt Goldstein
> 
>STOCKHOLM - John Zogby, president of the polling firm Zogby
>International, told IPS he has been calling it "the Armageddon
>election" for about a year. Independent presidential candidate Ralph
>Nader believes the Republican Party was able to "steal it before
>election day."
>
>Facts suggest something went very wrong on Nov. 2. 
>
>Speculation focuses upon a number of questions -- purposeful
>miscounts, anomalies surrounding electronic voting (e-voting)
>machines, particularly the optical scan types; and numerous reports of
>voting "irregularities" in heavily Democratic areas.
>
>"What they 'do' is minorities," Nader said, highlighting the thrust of
>Republican efforts, "and make sure that there aren't enough voting
>machines for the minority areas. They have to wait in line ... for
>hours, and most of them don't. There are all kinds of ways, and that's
>why I was quoted as saying, "this election was hijacked from A to Z,"
>Nader told IPS.
>
>Zogby was concerned about the difference between some of the exit
>polls (surveys of individuals who have just cast ballots) and the
>official vote counts. "We're talking about the Free World here," he
>pointedly noted.
>
>On Nov. 10, University of Pennsylvania Professor Steven F Freeman,
>whose expertise includes "research methods," compiled an analysis
>entitled 'The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy'. The document was
>prepared in view of the unusually large differences between what exit
>polls had predicted and the recorded vote tallies.
>
>His findings suggest Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry should
>have received far more votes than he did.
>
>In three of the key battleground states -- Florida, Ohio and
>Pennsylvania -- Freeman's analysis states the odds of Kerry receiving
>the percentage of votes recorded, given the exit poll findings, were
>less than three in one thousand, per state.
>
>Freeman also determined that the odds of any two of these states
>simultaneously reaching their stated vote tallies were "on the order
>of one-in-a-million," and the odds of all three states arriving at the
>vote counts they did "are 250 million to one."
>
>"Something is definitely wrong," said Zogby. 
>
>Highlighting both the expected accuracy of exit polls and the
>significant disparity that Kerry's defeat illustrated, Republican
>consultant, commentator and Fox-TV News regular Dick Morris wrote an
>article, 'Those Faulty Exit Polls Were Sabotage', suggesting a
>pollster conspiracy to swing the election for Kerry.
>
>In doing so he, perhaps inadvertently, provided ammunition for
>arguments from the opposite side -- that the exit polls were correct
>but the final results were fudged. "Exit polls are almost never
>wrong," argued Morris, and in 10 of the 11 key states they had
>predicted significantly fewer votes for Republican President George W
>Bush than he was eventually credited with.
>
>In New Hampshire, Bush tallied a surprising 9.5 percent more votes
>than predicted, the most significant difference in any of the key
>states.
>
>Morris observed that outside the United States, exit polls are often
>used to provide a check on official vote counts, in his words, "to
>foreclose the possibility of finagling with the returns."
>
>Among the most cited exit polls were those conducted by Mitofsky
>International, whose founder, Warren Mitofsky, is widely credited with
>having invented exit polling. Zogby, whose firm was not among those
>that provided network TV coverage of the Nov. 2 election, described
>the possibility of either incompetence or fraud causing the
>controversial deviation as "impossible."
>
>According to Zogby, it would have required "wrong sampling in wrong
>areas throughout the country," or the purposeful manipulation of data
>to obtain exit poll results so significantly different from the
>official totals. He viewed neither as a possibility.
>
>When asked what exactly had happened then, Zogby replied, "a problem,
>but I don't know where it is ... something's wrong here, though."
>
>On Nov. 5, Nader requested a hand recount of New Hampshire ballots,
>subsequently telling IPS he had "reports of irregularities there, and
>we have the cooperation of the state government ... the state
>attorney-general and secretary of state."
>
>Nader also said his headquarters had been flooded with requests for
>assistance from a number of states.
>
>On Thursday, five of the 11 New Hampshire voting wards where Nader
>requested a recount will undertake new tallies. According to his
>staff, all 11 wards had their votes counted with optical scan
>machines, primarily the AccuVote models made by Diebold.
>
>"If there are irregularities, it may have broader applications in
>other states," Nader said, adding that the current recount -- a
>45,000-vote sample -- is expected to be completed within a week.
>
>Allegations regarding optical scan machines' potentially allowing the
>manipulation of Florida's vote have been widely reported. In Ohio, the
>Green and Libertarian parties are pursuing a recount, numerous
>instances of voting irregularities having been reported there.
>
>"As far as I'm concerned, this election was clearly stolen. What they
>did in Ohio was systematically deny thousands of African Americans,
>and other suspected Democrats, the vote," charged progressive author,
>commentator and activist Harvey Wasserman of Franklin County, Ohio.
>
>"It was like Mississippi in the fifties, and it was deliberate ... had
>there been enough (voting) machines, and had people equal access to
>the polls with a reliable vote count, there is no doubt that John
>Kerry would have carried Ohio," he told IPS.
>
>The Nov. 14 'Cleveland Plain Dealer', one of the country's top 50
>broadsheets, reported a Nov. 13 voter hearing where: "For three hours,
>burdened voters, one after another, offered sworn testimony about
>election day voter suppression and irregularities that they believe
>are threatening democracy."
>
>"People are deeply concerned that this is the end of American
>democracy, that we cannot get a fair election," Wasserman said,
>poignantly adding, "there was no question of apathy in this election
>-- we had more volunteers than could be used ... thousands and
>thousands of grass-roots volunteers."
>
>If Kerry had taken Ohio, he would have taken the presidency. 
>
>"In the end, what Nader is doing in New Hampshire is the best answer.
>And if there's a recount in Ohio," that is also important, said
>Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political
>scientist who specializes in statistical methods, elections and public
>opinion.
>
>Somewhat concerned about the possible manipulation of e-voting
>machines, Franklin was more concerned over "the ordinary
>administration of elections," citing the simple logistical problems
>that had plagued voters.
>
>He pointedly noted that the last two presidential elections
>highlighted "how the decisions of local people (officials) ... can
>have a considerable influence over who gets to vote, what rules
>govern."
>
>When asked if he was aware of any parallels to the present election,
>Zogby replied, "I'm certainly aware of the election of 1960."
>
>"It's been discussed, overtly, the roll that Richard Daley, and the
>roll that Lyndon Johnson played, separately," Zogby said, referring to
>an episode where the John F Kennedy campaign had supposedly asked,
>"How many votes do you have?", the reply allegedly being, "How many
>votes do you need?"
>
>Of course, such examples also serve to highlight the influence "local
>people" can exert on an election's outcome.
>
>In the end, many people speculated that the 1960 incidents were not
>part of a grand conspiracy per se, but the cumulative effects of the
>actions of a number of individuals who shared a similar perspective,
>acted semi-independently, and did whatever it took to win.
>
>Political "dirty tricks" culminated in the Watergate scandal, forcing
>then President Richard Nixon (1969-1974) to resign, ushering in a long
>era without similar illicit activity, until questions raised by the
>election of 2000.
>
>With American democracy, until now, providing an effective model for
>many, as Zogby said, "we're talking about the Free World here."
>
>http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1118-11.htm