Democracy on the retreat in Florida - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

jimbob · 10-28-2004, 02:08 AM

We all know they're going to try to rig the vote again and here's yet another very suspicious turn of events in Florida:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3960679.stm

58000 ballots go missing from the county which gave Al Gore his biggest margin in Florida in 2000. All things being equal this single event will reduce Kerry's vote count relative to Bush's by about 19000.

Removing 50000 potential democratic voters from the lists last time round helped Bush win the state by only a handful of votes so this time it looks like they're taking no chances and doing it again! But you don't get to look at the list to identify the inaccuracies before the election. http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR052604.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/05/28/fla.vote/

Coupled with all these examples and the whole e-voting/no software audit/no paper trail thing, the US is winding up to be a global joke again this November.

Walden O'Dell (CEO of Ohio-based Diebold, the electronic voting corporation):
"I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year"
http://truthout.org/docs_03/120303A.shtml

Please invade my country and show us how to live by your wonderful democracy. We are but children next to you and we need to be told.

Edit: the 50000 removed from the lists in 2000 were potential FELONS, not potential Democrats. Ahem.

Irishsean · 10-28-2004, 03:43 AM

Where did I put my troll-slaying knife?

Daval · 10-28-2004, 04:29 AM

He has quoted numerous sources in his arguement - whether they be right or wrong, he is making an effort to back up some of his claims with fact.

I will allow this to continue.

Daval | Supermoderator

Irishsean · 10-28-2004, 05:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimbob

We all know they're going to try to rig the vote again

IN 4 years and numerous legal battles, nothing has ever been proven that anything was rigged in the last election.

Point 1.

Quote:

50,000 potential democratic voters

Pardon me if I'm wrong, but couldn't those also be potential republican voters?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._pr...election,_2000

Quote:

57,746 voters were listed as felons on a "scrub list" and removed from the voting rolls, but later analysis shows that many were incorrectly listed. (For instance, many had names similar to actual felons, and some erroneously listed felonies were dated years in the future.See bullet 2 on this screenshot (http://www.gregpalast.com/Harpers_img.htm)) These persons were disproportionately Democrats of African-American and Hispanic descent. In some cases, those on the scrub list were given several months to appeal, and many successfully reregistered and were allowed to vote. However, in many cases no effort was made to contact them before the election.

'"I don't think that it's up to us to tell them they're a convicted felon," [Volusia County Department of Elections spokeswoman Etta] Rosado said. "If he's on our rolls, we make a notation on there. If they show up at a polling place, we'll say, 'Wait a minute, you're a convicted felon, you can't vote. Nine out of 10 times when we repeat that to the person, they say 'Thank you' and walk away. They don't put up arguments." Rosado doesn't know how many people in Volusia were dropped from the list as a result of being identified as felons.' [2]

I believe its illegal for convicted felons to vote, and these people did have months to clear up this problem. I don't know about anyone else, but every year I go in and check my voter registration to make sure nothing has changed.

Point 2. Electronic voting

I really haven't looked into this as much, but I'll post some information here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting

Quote:

Advantages of electronic voting
People For the American Way cites as the principle advantages of electronic voting:

Each machine can easily be programmed to display ballots in different languages.
Machines can be made fully accessible for persons with disabilities. [7] (http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=14581)
The advantage with respect to ballots in different languages appears to be unique to electronic voting. For example, King County, Washington's demographics require them under U.S. federal election law to provide ballot access in Chinese, although only 24 people in the county requested Chinese ballots in the September 17, 2002 primary election. [8] (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/...nguage18.shtml). With any type of paper ballot, the county has to decide how many Chinese-language ballots to print, how many to make available at each polling place, etc. Any strategy that can assure that Chinese-language ballots will be available at all polling places is certain, at the very least, to result in a lot of wasted ballots. (The situation with lever machines would be even worse than with paper: the only apparent way to reliably meet the need would be to set up a Chinese-language lever machine at each polling place, few of which would be used at all.)

Punchcard and optical scan machines are not fully accessible for the blind or visually impaired, and lever machines can be difficult for voters with limited mobility and strength. [9] (http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=14581) Electronic machines can use headphones and other adaptive technology to provide the necessary accessibility.

[edit]
Problems with electronic voting
Diebold Election Services, Inc. president admitted security flaws and disenfranchised voters in the March 2, 2004 California presidential primary using Diebold's TSx system for DRE voting. [10] (http://www.trivalleyherald.com/Stori...100333,00.html) On April 30 California's secretary of state decertified all touch-screen machines and recommended criminal prosecution of Diebold Election Systems.[11] (http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004...e-05-03-04.asp) The California Attorney-General decided against criminal prosecution, but has joined a lawsuit against Diebold for fraudulent claims made to election officials.[12] (http://www.blackboxvoting.org/?q=node/view/484)
Diebold machine review (http://www.cs.umd.edu/~bederson/voti...dre-report.pdf)
Diebold system discussion (http://avirubin.com/vote.pdf)
Fairfax County, Virginia, November 4, 2003. Machines quit, jammed the modems in voting systems when 953 voting machines called in simultaneously to report results, leading to a denial of service attack on the election. 50% of precincts were unable to report results until the following day. Also, some voters complained that they would cast their vote for a particular candidate and the indicator of that vote would go off shortly after. Had they not noticed, their vote for that candidate would have remained uncounted; an unknown number of voters were affected by this.
Florida Primary 2002: Back to the Future (http://www.notablesoftware.com/Papers/BtF.html) -- A litany of problems with voting systems in Florida since the 2000 Presidential election
Napa County, California, March 2, 2004, an improperly calibrated mark-sense scanner overlooked 6692 absentee ballot votes. [13] (http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,62721,00.html)
Voting machine testing shrouded in secrecy (http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/biztech....ap/index.html)
The U.S. League of Women Voters, who generally favor electronic voting, nonetheless point out that "HAVA allocates $100 million to make polling places physically accessible, but there is no national definition of 'accessible' or a deadline for implementation."

10-28-2004, 02:08 AM	#1 (permalink)
jimbob Crazy Location: Liverpool UK	Democracy on the retreat in Florida We all know they're going to try to rig the vote again and here's yet another very suspicious turn of events in Florida: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3960679.stm 58000 ballots go missing from the county which gave Al Gore his biggest margin in Florida in 2000. All things being equal this single event will reduce Kerry's vote count relative to Bush's by about 19000. Removing 50000 potential democratic voters from the lists last time round helped Bush win the state by only a handful of votes so this time it looks like they're taking no chances and doing it again! But you don't get to look at the list to identify the inaccuracies before the election. http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR052604.htm http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/05/28/fla.vote/ Coupled with all these examples and the whole e-voting/no software audit/no paper trail thing, the US is winding up to be a global joke again this November. Walden O'Dell (CEO of Ohio-based Diebold, the electronic voting corporation): "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year" http://truthout.org/docs_03/120303A.shtml Please invade my country and show us how to live by your wonderful democracy. We are but children next to you and we need to be told. Edit: the 50000 removed from the lists in 2000 were potential FELONS, not potential Democrats. Ahem. Last edited by jimbob; 10-28-2004 at 02:12 AM..

10-28-2004, 03:43 AM	#2 (permalink)
Irishsean edited for content Location: Austin, TX	Where did I put my troll-slaying knife? __________________ There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances. Leon Trotsky

10-28-2004, 04:29 AM	#3 (permalink)
Daval Junkie Location: The True North Strong and Free!	He has quoted numerous sources in his arguement - whether they be right or wrong, he is making an effort to back up some of his claims with fact. I will allow this to continue. Daval \| Supermoderator __________________ "It is impossible to obtain a conviction for sodomy from an English jury. Half of them don't believe that it can physically be done, and the other half are doing it." Winston Churchill