It seems it's up to bloggers to be the investigative reporters. The AP is not up to it. So let's show them how it's done right!
All the attention has been focused on Florida and Ohio in the "electronic voting angst" of 2004. I'm sure the other states have interesting finds as well. Especially New Hampshire, but 34 states (I looked and looked but couldn't find the link to this list) used electronic voting in one form or another, these include touch screen "evoting," electronic optical scanners which have a paper trail, and electronic tabulation.
Let me say that I now no longer think of this as a "tin-foil-hat" issue, if I ever did. If you continue to ignore it, you better get out your tin foil hat, as you will be needing it. There is no PROOF of FRAUD. There IS outright proof of something very, very, wrong. The importance in this is the legitimacy of future elections. I think it's a mistake to rush to the media without anything solid, however. It seems the mainstream media's focus is going to be to try and discredit anything (even if there's truth to it) and paint it in a very skeptical light. We need something that can stick.
Here are two excellent articles to wet your whistle with:
http://consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html
http://www.alternet.org/election04/20451/
Unfortunately not in the mainstream media where they belong.
The house judiciary committee wrote to the GAO demanding essentially an audit, post haste, 3 times, twice today (I can't find the second from today, perhaps it was revised.)
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/gaoinvestvote2004ltr11804.pdf
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/gaoinvestvote2004ltr11504.pdf
Keith Olbermann has been the only one to cover this in the mainstream media AFAIK. Here's a link to his transcript from yesterday:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6442857/
Here's a link to his blog, with 2 entries related:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240
To quote his recent entry: "Keep them coming... Email me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com". Let him know of your appreciation.
Here's an excellent link putting together alot of information on the 2004 election, anomolies, and electronic machines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_controversies_and_irregularities
Sites advocating paper trails: blackboxvoting.org, verifiedvoting.org, eff.org (it is my suggestion you consider donating to another site before giving more to Bev at blackboxvoting, but that's just my suggestion.)
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Here's a list of the "glitches" that have happened so far:
4,000+ votes lost in Carteret County: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/10133265.htm?1c [They re-opened voting due to this! At least one state shows some class]
[I will update this list, i'm having computer problems and need to reboot, and I need to get to sleep, work tomorrow and all. Why don't you help me out and post what we have? For now I will paste the excellent list that drummer55 put together a few days ago. Once again, this is essentially cut and paste of drummer55's hard work.]
10,000 Extra Votes Added in Nebraska County Another ES&S computer "failure". http://www.wowt.com/news/headlines/1161971.html
50,000 Votes could be LOST in Dem Indiana County! Yet another ES&S computer "failure".
http://www.michigancityin.com/articles/2004/11/04/news/news02.txt
19,000+ new ballots were added after all precincts reported for Miami county ohio
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/983
268,159 more votes than voters in florida
http://ideamouth.com/voterfraud.htm#FL
22000 votes in Guilford county NC
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/charlotte/news/special_packages/election2004/10104576.htm
11,283 votes in Craven county NC
http://www.newbernsj.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=18297&a
mp;a mp;Section=Local
[Duplicate] 4,530 votes lost in Carteret county
http://www.wcnc.com/news/politics/stories/110404ccjrwcncpolmissingvotes.264d17aa.html
4000 extra votes in Mecklenburg NC
http://www.news14charlotte.com/content/local_news/mecklenburg/?ArID=78411&SecID=3
4000 votes in Mercer County, PA
http://www.vindy.com/basic/news/288078640794824.php
3893 votes in Franklin county OH
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/05/voting.problems.ap/index.html
8000 undercounted in TX
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2004-11-05/pols_feature10.ht ml
[Once again, temporary list, thanks to drummer55. I will work on compiling confirmed glitches tomorrow. Please tell me if any of these have been debunked.]
Here's a list of other "evoting angst" related stuff:
In Florida, 29 counties with more democrats registered than republicans went to Bush. That's right, 29. This cannot all be wrote off to the "dixiecrats". Even taking the dixiecrats into account in the dixiecrat counties, here's the comparison to 2000:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/7/23951/0606
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/9/12926/8734
More Florida number crunching (highly recommended): http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/4/212931/005
Following up on that, Bush earned 20,000 more votes in Florida than registered Republicans. In 2000, he recieved 85% the vote of registered Republicans (http://consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html).
The results in Florida were virtually impossible. We need professional statisicians, I think. We need what the media has, and it sucks.
The electronic voting machines are extremely vulnerable to hacking/fraud:
http://www.alternet.org/election04/20451/
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ (she does a good job of proving that, cheezy pics notwithstanding.)
Cuyahoga County is a total mess. They have more votes than voters in many many precints. The "absentee ballot" explanation doesn't complete the picture, as one precinct reported 1160% turnout! There were numbers over 30% as well, I find that hard to believe. It could be they were evenly distributed, but that doesn't make sense, as that's clearly not true - the difference varies, and in some cases the same exact amount! This could be a mistake in the report, but then i'd like to see where they put the votes, as they are necessary to add up to the total. This is one that needs to be followed as it develops. It could very likely wind up being nothing worth noting.
http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/BOE/results/currentresults1.htm
More on Ohio: 189 Precincts in Cleveland have less than 50% turnout, one has 7.1% (6C). This is virtually impossible as far as i'm concerned. See above link.
Since Ohio has a paper trail for most of the voting, a recount is vital there. It seems within possibility this will occur. The difference between Bush and Kerry needs to be about 13,500 to trigger an automatic recount.
http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=405 - Chances from a purely statistical standpoint of Bush making the gains he did in the exit polls, assuming their validity, is 1 in 50,000 (.0002%).
Warren County was locked down due to a threat of terrorism during the vote count. This is highly unusual to say the least.
There was a bill that had enough support to pass in the House that required a paper trail across the board. The Republican leadership (Tom Delay) wouldn't let it come to a vote.
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Here's something new, from me, using high school math (i'll follow up better): The chances of all the electronic "glitches" we encounter favoring Bush, if they favor anyone, let's say there we find only 7 of them: 1.6%
And I haven't even TOUCHED the disenfranchisement that's been documented. We should pressure the media with that for now.
I saw an excellent article giving extremely frightening background information on the 3 companies that made these machines. Does anyone know what i'm talking about, I sadly didn't save the link
There are alot of trolls trying to dismiss all of our efforts, as we seem to be the source of all the info for the media. Don't quit guys! Just think how good you'll feel if you contributed to bringing to light something terrible! (There already is proof of plenty terrible, that's the sad part.)