aaaaaaaaaugh!

[chanaleh]

Bunch o' links from my friend Ben in Oklahoma: E-voting fraud rampant in states without paper trails. (Duh! Yes, I know, but here:)

http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=388
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/2004votefraud.html
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1699421,00.asp
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0310/S00211.htm
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65535,00.html?tw=wn_story_mailer

Kerry let us all down with his poor excuse for a campaign, and now he's letting us all down by passively stepping back when he should be fighting this into the ground. How can he? How?

Comments

[halleyscomet.livejournal.com]

You didn't think Kerry lost honestly, did you?

Stalin was right. "He who casts the vote decides nothing, he who counts the vote decides everything."

Diebold picked our President.

Corporate rule is getting more and more transparent all the time.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

This just in, and might interest you: http://www.helpamericarecount.org/

See also http://www.ballotintegrity.org/

[ceo]

A couple of reasons, I think:

First and foremost, unlike 2000, Kerry was running against an incumbent, and that make it much more difficult to challenge his opponent's legitimacy. Unfortunately, the voting machine fraud issue has never gained any traction in the mainstream press, where it's seen as verging on tinfoil-hat territory. So mounting a challenge on this issue would be political suicide, with almost no chance of success.

And of course, this isn't helped by the fact that most of the voting machines leave no paper trail.

The 2004 election is over, and, fairly or not, we lost. The important things now are to keep the Republicans in check as much as possible, and lay the groundwork for the 2006 and 2008 elections.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

I'm as angry as you are, but what good would fighting it be?

Suppose you could prove the results were tampered with? What then? Without any kind of paper trail, how do you know what the votes should have been--by the exit polls? Even the most liberal court in the country wouldn't accept that. Hold the vote again? Never going to happen. So what could you do?

Let's face it: Even if Diebold stole the election for Bush, we're stuck with it.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Maybe there were some problems, but a 3.5 million vote plurality nationwide is too big to challenge on that basis.

I'm sad, but we (and the exit pollsters) were beaten, I think.

[sethg]

The final exit polls, as opposed to the interim ones released over the day, are more consistent with the official results. I agree that paperless voting machines are a horrible horrible idea even if they worked honestly this time, and it pains me to see Kerry reverting to mainstream-Democrat type, but remember...

Kerry no longer matters.

This election, as a goal in and of itself, no longer matters.

From now on, it's the infrastructure, stupid. If we build the infrastructure, we'll be able to kick out the stupid voting machines. If we don't build the infrastructure, we'll keep losing elections no matter how the votes are counted.

[halleyscomet.livejournal.com]

So, how do we get the electronic voting machines to AT LEAST have a paper trail?

[xdaemon.livejournal.com]

Some states are already doing this, and more will most likely follow.

[navrins]

Push for full investigation of the discrepancies between exit polling and official election tallies in places with paperless voting machines. (See http://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/ for "the case for fraud.") But do it WITHOUT implying that this election should be contested. Maybe it should, maybe it shouldn't - but the call will be more effective if we accept the result this time regardless of fraud. If we can prove that there WAS fraud - not just might have maybe been, but actually WAS - then maybe we can push through changes to make sure it doesn't happen next time.

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

I'm busy doing some number-crunching. Looking at the counties in Ohio and Florida with electronic voting machines vs. the ones without, and checking the difference between their support for Bush in 2000 versus their support for him in 2004.

It would be even better to map the difference between exit polls and final results in those counties vs. others, but I don't think the exit poll data exists in that granularity.

Kerry rolled over WAY too easily. Democrats are too nice. Republicans are relentless bastards who will stop at nothing to win, and I bet they're proud of it, too.

[mixedborder.livejournal.com]

>Republicans are relentless bastards who will stop at nothing to win

That's why they win.

And they're not spending any of their mental or physical energy on trying to make things better for less fortunate people--they can use it all on their own goals! No liberal guilt dragging them down...lucky bastards.

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

Looks like Kerry is as weak as people suspected. That is how Bush won.

[besamim.livejournal.com]

Listen, I wanted Kerry to win too. But with respect, do any of you really want the country to go through a second consecutive election-via-judicial-fiat? That would do even more damage to public confidence in the electoral process. And, let's face it, Bush's lead is so big this time that a recount wouldn't make a difference.

Kerry may not have been the best candidate for the Democrats, but he worked hard. He did the best he knew how to do. I suspect that for the moment he wants to rest, recuperate, move on, and let the public try to do the same. I realize fully it won't be easy for the bitterly divided public to do so, but happen it must.

Rather than go on for another four years crying, "Bush stole the election; he's not really our president, woe, woe," progressives should work all the harder to limit the impact of Bush's domestic and foreign agenda. This can be done, even with Republican control of Congress. Look at how some (though sadly not all) of the Patriot Act's more draconian provisions have been struck down by the courts, thanks to the efforts of progressive activists. Further back in history, look at how Reagan backed away from his "evil empire" and "we can win a limited nuclear war" rhetoric, and re-opened SALT talks with the U.S.S.R., in the face of public protest and anti-nuke activism.

Remember MoveOn.org? It's time for Democrats and their supporters to take their own advice.

[xdaemon.livejournal.com]

I don't know if Kerry was the best Democrat for the job of 'candidate' or not, but I think you're really not giving him a fair shake.

He didn't run a "poor excuse for a campaign". He fought a very uphill battle. In the history of the US, the Presidency has NEVER been lost in an election during a war. The incumbent has died, not run again, hit a term limit, or WON. ONLY losing by 3% of the popular vote is an achievement. Those of us who really believed that Kerry could do it were being very optimistic.

Was there fraud? I have no doubt. Hell, there are people in custody. Did it swing the election? I don't know for certain, but the spread is too large for me to believe that it did.

[beardedone.livejournal.com]

Kerry unfortunately didn't have much to be able to stand on in the courts. His best approach would have been to request that all states finish counting the absentee and provisional ballots. Bush would have protested that, being a Republican creep. (A truly gracious statesman would side with the challenger and ask the states to complete counting all of the votes, thus making every vote truly count.)

I think that Kerry expected too much of the youngest voting generation. While there was an overall increase in young voters voting, they once again, as has happened election after election, been apathetic. Failure to register to vote for whatever reason, when you are eligible to vote, counts as apathetic in my book. People will come to your door to register you!! It may be that we fail to educate the youth as to the requirement to register in their counties in a timely fashion in order to vote, which may also be due to their parents not voting. (If your parents never voted, how could you be expected to know the drill? (Yes, you could find out, but if you didn't know that the procedure existed in the first place, would you even know to ask?))

[awfief.livejournal.com]

If Kerry can't run a campaign, why do you want him to run the country?

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Well, that's the thing. I mean, the campaign, I can kinda forgive, out of a feeling that the process, skill sets, etc., of successful campaigning are largely unrelated to those of successful governing.

But now -- I'm almost glad he hasn't handled his loss the way I would have liked, because it gives me second thoughts about his ability to do the brave and useful and right thing at any other time.

(I know, this is what people have said about Kerry since before Howard Dean dropped out of the running... but, y'know. I was hoping they were wrong.)

[laurens10.livejournal.com]

I hear your frustration. I feel the same way. It's a gut feeling I have, but today my gut and my brain are in a disconnect.

But I know this intellectually: Now's the time for starting to build our future. This is a chance to start fresh as a party, to build anew. I'm pushing myself into the grassroots. That's where it has to start.

Emotionally? I feel let down. Not so much simply that he conceded, but something about how. Though not anything I can clearly define on 4 hours sleep.

[mitchellf.livejournal.com]

The bad news is: Bush won

The good news is: He can only hold this office for 4 more years.

Now we just have to work hard to keep him from amending the *Constitution* to reflect his "Big Brother" and religious views.

Oh, and we'd better keep him from declaring Marshal Law, or amending the laws in such a way that he can maintain the office of President indefinitely (of course, if he did that, we would have to change the title to either "Supreme Leader" or "Dimwitted Dictator-soon-to-be-overthrown"--about the same really, right?).

Mrrr...but, no, I'm not bitter.... *grumble, grumble* :-{

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

M'dear, Kerry did not run a poor excuse for a campaign. No, his campaign did not win, but he did score impressively in the face of the most bitter, divisive, and flat-out dirty campaign from the other side I have ever seen..

Are there things he could have done better? Yeah. A lot better? Yeah. Did he do a poor job? I don't think so.

He was hit for responding to attacks, and hit for not responding to them.
He was hit for protesting a war, and hit for fighting a war.
He was hit for being long-winded, and the hitting went down grudgingly when he spoke concisely.

He had lots of press coverage of nasty rumors about him, started by the other side, and nowhere near as much coverage of his rebuttals.

Yes, his campaign was far from perfect. No, it was not a poor excuse of a campaign.