Electronic Writer

It appears as if CalTech has examined the relationship between the exit polls discrepency and the use of Electronic Voting polls. They have a report that claims that there is not a correlation between the two.

You can find the report and a summary of the article on Al Franken’s blog: http://www.ofrankenfactor.com/

The entry is titled: EXIT POLLS AS EVIDENCE OF VOTER FRAUD? EXPERTS WEIGH IN…

I know that I have added a link to Right Wing News earlier today, and I posted this tonight. It does not mean that I am not Liberal. I am still forwarding a progressive-thinking agenda. But, I have been mixing news releases within my own opinion posts. I do not have the time, and it is not my calling to be a source of News. It is, however, my place and desire to post my opinions. All along, I have been asking for someone to confirm or deny the news allegations that the vote count had been tampered.

I have heard rumors (please recognize that these are separate from FACTS) that Major media was ordered to be silent about the process. I have not heard this corroborated anywhere else. It also appears that BlackBoxVoting.Org has exceeded their bandwidth allocation–which could be a good thing or a bad thing.

In all fairness, I refuse to jump to conclusions. We need to keep asking tough questions, and we need to be prepared for answers that we don’t want to hear. Just keep asking the questions.

Last night, I did some research. I wandered the Internet for quite some time–skipping from Blog to Blog and reading random thoughts and ideas. I discovered a really interesting collective batch of people, thoughts, and writing. I stumbled across a handful of personal Websites, a nice collection of Liberal blogs, and a few college collectives.

The most notable of all fo the Websites that I discovered in my short journey was the Website: www.rightwingnews.com. First, and most importantly, the writing was good. It was focused, succinct, and had a very specific audience. The language was clear, and the author employed language in a powerful and exemplary manner.

In addition to the writing and the structure itself, the content was actually quite noteworthy. It is extremely conservative, but it exemplifies the constituency that we (the Democratic party) supposedly could not reach. In addition, they actually have several entries (including one on the homepage) addressed specifically to Progressive thinkers. It is a recipe (from their perspective) for how to reach middle America. Of course, their analogies are filled with stereotypes, but whenever you use persuasion in your writing, you SHOULD have some bias embedded within your language.

The other thing that impressed me about the writing was that they addressed the President directly. The authors are distinctly aware of their position as the power base of President Bush, and they demand that he address their specific wants–which are not altogether too far from my own desires for government. They, in fact, demand that he align his policies with their ideals: get the spending under control, diminish the size of the government (not increase it), and control the influx of immigrants. All three of their points are good in my opinion.

Although some people may not agree, I have added them as a link on the blog. Diversity of opinion, viewpoint, and beliefs are important to the Democracy that I support and love. So, I am going to practice that right here in my teensy, little corner of the Blog-o-sphere.

This is a high-level look at the Data. There is a lengthly link list at the end.

Electoral College Meta-Analysis (election.princeton.edu)

From Prof. Sam Wang of Princeton University.

http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/pollcalc.html

This is a great article! Avi Rubin is a Computer Science Professor at Johns Hopkins Univeristy who worked at a Precinct during this years 2004 Presidential Election. He re-tells his experiences, voices his concerns, and speculates about the implications of the voting machines.

This is a spectacular article!

http://www.avirubin.com/judge2.html

The Bible belt called, and Lord answered. He performed a miracle right here in the USA! To be more specific, there is this little article . . . .

Palm Beach County Logs 88,000 More Votes Than Voters

November 5, 2004, in the Washington Dispatch

http://www.washingtondispatch.com/spectrum/archives/000715.html

What a touching story . . . .

November 7, 2004

George, John, and Warren (by Keith Olbermann)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240

Keith Olbermann for MSNBC reported yesterday that the telephone call made by John Kerry to concede the election does not represent anything binding or legal. He also recognized the Warren County, OH instance where they cited Homeland Security concerns and counted the votes behind locked doors.

I hope that this hits the mainstream and someone puts it to rest, or validates this.

There is an a letter that was sent and posted on www.bushflash.com/ supposedly from a DC Lawyer. She said that Kerry can un-concede the election as long as it is before the final counting of the votes in Ohio. She also asked that if you have any evidence of someone intimidating you, or having to wait more that 4 hours to vote, or anything else (there were allegations that in some neighborhoods populated mostly with African-Americans, that there were as few as 2 voting machines for an entire district, and that some voters were told to return on Wednesday to vote–that the deadline had been extended that long), that you should send an e-mail to a specific lawyer.

Please read it for yourself–it is on the homepage of www.bushflash.com (including the e-mail address). The writer behind BushFlash is verifying the validity of that e-mail.

In case you were wondering what the UK thinks of the Election, here is an editorial from a legitimate news source in the UK.

GOD HELP AMERICA

Published on November 5th in Mirror.Co.Uk

Warning: This editorial is not for the squeamish-of-heart . . . .

I feel bad for the conservatives that I know. They are (in general, there are exceptions, of course) inflicted with a terrible disease. I call it apathy. Often times, they call it the “if-it-ain’t-broke, don’t fix it” way. Like that mantra is a life choice, or a biological pre-disposition that characterizes your mental space, or perhaps a path that one chooses and cannot return.

But, I want to properly name that dragon. Apathy is too abstract. There is not enough research and fact checking going on within the conservative circles. There is not enough independent verification. And, it is apathetic on the part of the conservatives. At least the conservatives that I know.

There used to be a time when the population could have a great deal of faith in what was being given to us by the Media, our leaders, and public figures. The Ethos that a person had just for being on Television or on the radio was great enough to allow us to believe it as a credible source. No more! As special interest money has understood the value of that implied legitimacy, they have appropriated that as a medium for distributing deceitful messages disguised as truth. And, the partisan news sources that use the medium to influence the opinions of apathetic Americans has nearly reached epic proportions.

Jon Stewart attempted to make that very point in his appearance on Crossfire, and in his book I presume (It is on my reading list–I haven’t got there, yet.). He appeared on the show for an opportunity to promote his book, and because he was a comedian (and Jon Stewart), he was by himself. His intentions for appearing on Crossfire were clear seconds after the opening statements. He attacked the hosts for providing biased information disguised as non-partisan debate. He went on to appeal to their sense of moral responsibility as journalists–that it is their ethical obligation to shift the values of their show to be more consistent with the truth than with their particular partisan politics–OR, (he gave them another option) correctly identify your show as theatre and not news.

This is just one example of the former credibility–the Ethos–that has evaporated from American politics. The closer the politics aligns itself with politics, the more that ethos is going to evaporate. When politics is related to the bottom-line of a corporation, deceptive practices will be used. Ever met a used car salesman?

My point is that the people (and news sources) vying for the conservative support are manipulating the conservatives. And, everyone that I know in that conservative boat still have a blanket faith in the credibility of the person and/or news source. It’s like Captain Ahab telling the crew that we are not looking for the white whale, and thinking, “Well, he’s the Captain–he must be telling the truth.”

There are a couple of terrible reports showing up on the radar. I do not know if they are true, or not. I hope the mainstream media does their job and researches and either dispels this myth, or affirms the truth. Each of these articles has serious implications:

1.) Published on Saturday, November 6, 2004 by CommonDreams.org

Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked by Thom Hartmann

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm

This Common Dreams article has a couple of important elements in it that raised warning signals for me. The first is that on television, the founder of BlackBoxVoting.Org had Howard Dean hack the result of a Diebold Machine in less than 90 seconds–without any traces. She provides the “How” for the conspiracy theory (or one of them). In addition, they uncover some common voting irregularities in Florida.

2.) Glitch gave Bush extra votes in Ohio

Friday, November 5, 2004 Posted: 4:15 PM EST (2115 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/05/voting.problems.ap/index.html

In this CNN article, a mainstream news organization actually provides an example of problems. Isn’t anyone else investigating this?

3.) Board awaits state followup

By ERIN MILLER

http://www.theeveningleader.com/articles/2004/11/06/news/news.01.txt

This is a smaller news source, but in The Evening Leader of St. Marys, OH, they reported that a former employee of ES&S (the company that programmed the voting machines) was working on the machines. I guess his presence on the system was prohibited by the election guidelines/policies. They are awating information about an investigation, but have not heard anything from Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell’s office.

This is another example of tampering. You cannot make a generalization from a specific example–it is a logical fallacy. As the evidence continues to stream in, however, perhaps the amount of evidence warrants an invesigation by the FBI?

4.) Black Box Voting

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

On the homepage of BlackBoxVoting.Org, they interviewed the independent company that tested the software on the voting machines. According to the report, the cosultants did not review the security or potential vulnerabilities within the systems. After the NASED (National Association of State Election Directors) received the report, they certified the machines anyway.

I wish that the group were a little more serious. The article has pictures of young adults (presumably the Web designers) embedded within their article asking silly spin-off questions. I guess they did not want to seem legitimate (one of the comments is a spin-off of the National Enquirer’s former advertisement). If the content of their article is potentially true, the implications are pretty bad.

5.) KERRY WON. HERE ARE THE FACTS. TomPaine.com

Friday Nov 5, 2004 by Greg Palast

http://www.gregpalast.com/



This article is pretty disturbing. Remember Katherine Harris? She was the famous Florida election supervisor that eliminated 179,855 votes erroneously from Florida in the 2004 elections. I guess they are called “spoiled” votes, and they are discarded for various reasons. Kenneth Blackwell’s office spoiled 1.96% (110,000) of Ohio’s votes. Greg Palast calls it a “Democracy-damaging” number. In addition, there were somewhere between 175,000 – 250,000 uncounted provisional ballots. The spoilage in New Mexico was 18,000 votes, and Bush won by 11,620. Most of the “spoiled” voters cast Democratic ballots.

6.) New Florida vote scandal feared

By Greg Palast Reporting for Newsnight

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm

Here is another article by Greg Palast published at BBC.com. This was before the election. There were some e-mails that were intercepted with a list of names, and it was possible that it would be used as a target list to intimidate voters.

The interesting thing in this article is the rebuttle and the subsequent rebuttle. Also, someone anonymously hired a private investigator to film the voters in certain areas with a high concentration of African-Americans.

We now know that voter intimidation was a factor with the Republican Party resurrecting the Ku Klux Klan laws that were passed years ago to place party-designated challengers within the polling place.

If there is anyone with the power to investigate these allegations, please do so–and confirm or deny the rumors going around. I wish transparency would return to our society.