This has probably been diaried already today, but I didn't see it (granted I was out most of the day).
But here ya go:
In the 2004 presidential election, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) "almost certainly would have won Ohio if all of his votes had been counted, and if all of the eligible voters who tried to vote for him had been allowed to cast their ballots," writes columnist Bob Herbert for Monday's edition of The New York Times.
Here are more snippets from the column, which I culled from
this link at RawStory.com
Republicans, and even a surprising number of Democrats, have been anxious to leave the 2004 Ohio election debacle behind. But Kennedy, in his long, heavily footnoted article ("Was the 2004 Election Stolen?"), leaves no doubt that the democratic process was trampled and left for dead in the Buckeye State. Kerry almost certainly would have won Ohio if all of his votes had been counted, and if all of the eligible voters who tried to vote for him had been allowed to cast their ballots.
(snip)
No one has been able to prove that the election in Ohio was hijacked. But whenever it is closely scrutinized, the range of problems and dirty tricks that come to light is shocking. What's not shocking, of course, is that every glitch and every foul-up in Ohio, every arbitrary new rule and regulation, somehow favored Bush.
(snip)
Walter Mebane Jr., a professor of government at Cornell University, did a statistical analysis of the vote in Franklin County, which includes the city of Columbus. He told Kennedy, "The allocation of voting machines in Franklin County was clearly biased against voters in precincts with high proportions of African-Americans."
Mebane told me that he compared the distribution of voting machines in Ohio's 2004 presidential election with the distribution of machines for a primary election held the previous spring. For the primary, he said, "There was no sign of racial bias in the distribution of the machines." But for the general election in November, "there was substantial bias, with fewer voting machines per voter in areas that were heavily African-American."
And in some really shocking news (to me at least), it turns out that poll workers in San Diego County were allowed to keep the Diebold voting machines AT THEIR HOMES before the elections.
Here's a link to the story.
And here are some of the e-mails that Brad received from poll workers confirming that this happened:
Yes, the machines had sleepovers. I was interviewed on our local news station about it prior to the election.
The procedure is that certain pollworkers are assigned equipment to take home with them upon receiving their training. They then bring it to the polling place on election morning early, and set up. Depending when they have training the machines could be at their homes for more than a week or two.
...
Best,
Pam
Pamela Smith, Nationwide Coordinator
VerifiedVoting.org and Verified Voting Foundation
And here's another:
Enjoyed reading the Busby/Bilbray article on BradBlog and the questionable election equipment used, since I was working the election as an Assistant Precinct Inspector - Equipment. This is the person responsible for setting up and tearing down the Diebold Touch Screen Voting Stations. I understand that all but 7 CA counties will be using these systems as their main way of voting in November! I don't trust them, and the team that I trained with a week before the election didn't trust them either.
BTW, since I was trained a WEEK before the election, that means I got my two voting stations, 2 printers and cardboard privacy screen right after my training. All this equipment was sitting in my garage for nearly a week, but it was a rule that you couldn't leave the equipment at the poll site if you set up the night before. My neighbors were quite surprised when I showed them one of the touch screen systems from my garage. My Mom was also very surprised that the registrar of voters allowed us to take election equipment home with us.
...
Brian C Baer
And another:
I volunteered to be a poll worker in the 49th. I took a short course on Sunday morning, loaded up the machine, and had it Sunday and all day and night Monday. I couldn't believe it! Folks, get in the polling places to watch for funny business.
Terry Olson
So ..... volunteer poll workers, who could frankly be just about anybody, are allowed to take the machines HOME???!!
This just blows my mind.
Consider the response to this by Bruce Funk, the 23-year former Emery County, Utah county clerk, a whistle-blower who uncovered a severe security problem in Diebold's machines.
You just don't let these machines go outside established security procedures. Inappropriate access [to the Diebold touch-screen systems] for example; loading on a macro program can happen within minutes and will go undetected on the machine. You can access the machines as I recall even if the front doors are sealed. These security seals, that they talk about as the answer, will probably be taken off by these same poll workers and so who will even notice?
I would worry at every stage of the deployment of the machines even by those who might transport or set them up at polling locations.
I believe that people need to keep the security issues of these machines on the front burner and talk it up with everyone. My worry is that when we as people give up and get tired of the fight, then they have won. Corporate America needs to come clean about the vulnerabilities, clean them up, and let an independent group verify it. If these machines are so great why didn't they use them in the Iraq Elections?
I just can't believe San Diego would permit such a thing in such an important election. Or any election for that matter!
What does Diebold say about this massive vulnerability:
Well their answer is quite simple, really:
"It's only a vulnerability to those who would commit a felony"
"It's only a vulnerability to those who would commit a felony"
"It's only a vulnerability to those who would commit a felony"
"It's only a vulnerability to those who would commit a felony"
"It's only a vulnerability to those who would commit a felony"
"It's only a vulnerability to those who would commit a felony"
Oops! Something happened to my computer and it typed that line over and over! Sorry! Didn't mean to! I'm sure you understand! Computers, sheeeeesh!
UPDATE: For those who say we need absolute "proof" that votes are stolen electronically, I disagree wholeheartedly. Why would I wait for "proof" that someone stole my valuables from my home IF I LEFT MY FRONT DOOR UNLOCKED WHILE I WENT ON VACATION? After all, maybe I just misplaced them, or maybe I sold them and am committing insurance fraud.
It seems abundantly clear that these machines are simply unacceptable. We cannot accept anything other than the most foolproof methods POSSIBLE to elect our leaders. Otherwise, Democracy itself is a sham.
We do not need proof that past elections were stolen. We only need proof that the machines are NOT acceptable, which we have in abundance.