Sludge Report #164 - Vote Fraud 2004 - WTF!!!

Tuesday, 9 November 2004, 8:38 pm
Column: C.D. Sludge

NOTE: Authors of this report will be anonymous and wide ranging, and occasionally finely balanced. Indeed you are invited to contribute: The format is as a reporters notebook. It will be published as and when material is available. C.D. Sludge can be contacted at sludge@scoop.co.nz. The Sludge Report is available as a free email service..Click HERE - http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/myscoop/ to subscribe...

In This Edition:
Today Was Stolen Election Action Day
Ground Zero For Election Fraud 2004 Investigations
Karl Rove - Acclaimed Architect Of Election Fraud 2004
Show Me The Votes or Where Did George Suddenly Get 11 Million New Friends?
Thinking The Unthinkable – If We Vote Fraud Theorists Are Correct
According to The BBC – There May Be More Truth In This Than Intended
Spot The Difference – Exit Poll Variations Swing States Vs Non-Swing States
To Believe That Bush Won The Election, You Must Also Believe...
Why Did CNN Change Their Exit Poll Data for Ohio After 1:00 AM?
Hillsborough County FLA - Oddities + Undervotes
Bush Increased His Minority Turnout by 69%
Florida Projection vs Actual Data In A Graphical Form
Still Don't Believe They Stole It? Look Here

COVERING NOTE: At this point the investigation into Vote Fraud 2004 is at a very early stage. There is new evidence being found all the time, much of which this compiler has not had time to read yet. Several organised investigations are underway which will probably take quite a long time to report back. The following therefore is not meant to be the final word in terms of proof of vote fraud. Indeed this collection of posts is not meant to "proove" anything. It is very much just a tentative beginning providing an overview of the gnarly unanswered questions that the media as a whole ought to be asking, but aren't. - C.D. Sludge

For more background and the latest news links on this news subject see also Scoop's A Very American Coup Special Feature

Today Was Stolen Election Action Day - It Ain't Over Yet

While conventional wisdom holds that the U.S. Election is all over rover, so far the fat lady has not actually sung, even if John Kerry has gone on vacation. The consensus of legal opinion seems to hold that his concession speech, while very disappointing, holds no legal force.

In New Hampshire Ralph Nader has decided to seek a recount of votes and is seeking $80,000 to make it happen (as this goes to press the NH Secretary Of State has announced the recount will proceed.) Ralph has the support of Bev Harris and her organisation at blackboxvoting.org.

In Ohio election officials are presently supposed to be counting the provisional ballots. Only after these have been counted can the final results be certified. Technically the Kerry Edwards campaign - with its $45 million in unspent campaign contributions available to be spent on recounts - has approximately one more week to decide whether to actually seek a recount. (Meanwhile there are a few thousand angry Americans trying their best to help him to want a recount by fax and email.). And if that does not work grassroots efforts to force a recount are also underway.

Legally speaking the next step after this will be the Electoral College which is not expected to meet before December, and which can presumably be held up from meeting through a legal challenge in any one of several jurisdictions in 50 states.

Then the Congress – both the House of Representatives and the Senate - have to certify the results, (recall the opening scenes from Fahrenheit 9/11 – when Al Gore presided over the rubber stamping of the 2000 election). There are some who are putting their hope in newly elected Democratic golden boy Barack Obama making this final legal step more of a hurdle this year than it was in 2000.

Finally there will be the inauguration itself – 73 days away - which may be host to huge protests again.

Ground Zero For Election Fraud 2004 Investigations

The Democratic Underground (a.k.a. DU) has long been a sort of clubhouse for anti-vote fraud activism in the United States. Many of the posters from the forum are credited with discoveries in Bev Harris's seminal book "Black Box Voting In The 21st Century".

Since the election the heat has come on the issue of vote fraud hotter than ever before in DU. A new forum created to Report Voting Problems has now become ground zero for a lot of activism efforts.

Check it out!

(NOTE: The reason this is an overly long Sludge Report is due in large part to the inclusion of several gems from the DU forums. For much much more analysis and discussion the best place to start is probably… VOTE FRAUD Links - a DU Compendium.)

http://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/0411/67362bb4b478a0748be3.jpeg
Karl Rove - Acclaimed Architect Of Election Fraud 2004

Which brings me to my own views on this election…Firstly…
Show Me The Votes
or
Where Did George Suddenly Get 11 Million New Friends?

I think this election was stolen. And here's why.

We now know that in 2004 John Kerry received six million more votes than Gore received in 2000 (thanks in large part to a huge Get Out The Vote - GOTV = campaign). According to Greg Palast's research there was at least another 1 or 2 million votes lost due to vote suppression in poor minority heavy neighbourhoods. In anyone's book achieving such a huge number of votes is a major achievement.

However according to the poll on the day – the only one that counts (so far) – Bush received around 10 million new votes. And according to the exit polls – pretty much across the board - Independent voters voted more for Kerry than for Bush.

So where then did Bush get 11 million extra votes from? In fact - since there is anecdotal evidence of lots of 2000 Bush voters voting for John Kerry this time round - lets call it 11 million new votes?

In short the most confusing aspect of this poll is the popular vote. History teaches us that a high vote turnout helps the Democrats. But this time it helped Bush.

In the lead-up to the election there was no obvious evidence of a huge Republican mobilisation to register new voters – though there are now claims from Karl Rove that one was somehow conducted under the radar .

What there was in the lead-up to this election was mounting evidence of republican dirty tricks. There were reported cases of RNC connected companies signing up Democratic voters and then destroying and spoiling their registration forms. After that came the planned Florida and Ohio vote suppression operation - reported in the New York Times – and the 3000+ vote challengers. Then there was Greg Palast's expose of republican caging lists.

But remarkably (as one of the items later in this column details) according to the poll on the day – the only one that counts (so far) – Bush actually recorded a massive 69% increase in his minority vote!

Somewhere in the election statistics was the answer to a simple question. Where were Bush's 11 million new voters? Find these we postulated and you find where this election was stolen.

So we started looking.

Curiously the rather peculiar 69% statistic (which presumably comes from the exit polls – the data of which was doctored at 1am on Nov. 3rd) is in fact supported by a close look at some of the results.

These are the results that show a huge number of Bush's new voters did not come from - as you would expect - rural America and white suburbia - but actually from large urban, minority heavy, Democrat held counties.

http://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/0411/6725c34617d6cada0c7e.jpeg
Click for big version
SOURCE - WHERE THE SOUTH EAST WAS WON - lostnfound

And surprise surprise in Florida seven of the top 10 Bush vote gaining counties used Touch screens. Between them these Touch Screen (read as unauditable) counties account for nearly 500k of Bush's total vote increase in the sunshine state, more than enough to cover his 380,000 vote majority. In Florida Bush achieved and incredible 38%+ growth in his vote over 2000 levels, and remember even the 2000 levels are questionable.

Meanwhile across the nation in California, another sunshine state, the Bush vote actually declined. But that was certainly not the case in all the "liberal" blue states.

Looking more widely nearly 60% of all Bush's new vote was gained in just 11 states, in order of sheer numbers of new Bush voters these GOP growth states are Florida, Texas, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvannia, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, Tennessee, North Carolina and Illinois. Of these New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey and Illinois are blue states, and Florida and Ohio are swing states.

Meanwhile in those states where you might have expected Bush to do well he didn't do particularly well at all. While Utah just exceeded the national average Bush vote gain at 19% and Texas just matched it at 18%, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming actually produced below average results for Karl Rove's GOTV team.

All of which makes me suspicious. Especially when considered alongside some of the other evidence on this page.

Which all brings me to my question for Karl Rove. Show me the voters!

- C.D. Sludge 09 November 2004

http://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/0411/e1e677288a8cd1f0b7b3.jpeg
The Daily Mirror's Election Results Cover Image

and Secondly….

Thinking The Unthinkable – If We Vote Fraud Theorists Are Correct

Vote Fraud 2004 at first glance was infinitely more widespread than anything that has happened before. It is theorised that if you want to steal an election it makes sense to steal big. And that is what appears to have happened.

This time – if the vote fraud theorists are correct – the thieves did not simply confine themselves to stealing a few important races – as they arguably did in 2000. This time the fraud may have taken place in 20 states or more.

Perhaps learning from 2000 and the problems caused by not winning the popular vote, this time Bush has an apparently clear advantage in the popular vote as well as in the two key state races.

The implications of such widespread vote fraud are huge. In 2004 only 30% of votes were counted electronically. In 2006 60% probably will.

If we vote fraud theorists are right then the Democrats can no longer select their own candidates to run for office without interference, let alone elect them into office. There is suspicion already that the primary race for the governorship ballot in Florida in 2002 between Janet Reno and Bill McBride was fixed so that Reno would not be running against Jeb Bush.

Secondly, if we vote fraud theorists are right, then consider the implications of this defeat for a moment in terms of political reality.

To the activists and liberal media the 2004 result is like a kick in the guts from an elephant. Countless thousands of politically motivated Americans – many of them not even Democrats - swallowed their concerns about Kerry, and worked tirelessly to raise awareness, to tell the truth, to rock the vote and to get out the vote this year.

Along the way Bush made things seemingly spectacularly easy by running the most corrupt administration in history. He lied the American nation into a bitter and seemingly never-ending war in Iraq and committed more and more serious PR blunders than any politician in living memory.

In the end a spectacular popular mobilisation occurred. By anybody's measure Nov. the 2nd was a golden day in American Democracy in terms of the number of voters who turned out and in many cases waited hours to express their democratic rights.

But then Kerry lost.

Psychologically speaking the activists and the independent media bods can probably deal with this. If anything the experience may motivate some to try even harder. But what about the impact on the general voting public?

I am now all but convinced that what I call "tailored vote shaving" took place in many Touch Screen counties. That is, some of the millions of extra Bush voters recorded in the final tallies were not Bush voters at all, they were Kerry voters who were flip-flopped inside the black boxes.

First of all, if we vote fraud theorists are right, then these voters were effectively led to the slaughter by the Democratic GOTV campaign. I am not certain how this will make the new Kerry voters who made it to the polls feel, but I do not think it will encourage them to participate again.

Equally important is the effect this has on the plausibility of election results. If people can swallow this result then I suspect they can swallow anything. And in the process a new benchmark has been set for the GOP vote. Next time 60 million republican's turn up on election day who will be able to say boo?

David Allen - a BBV activist and someone I respect greatly - made the observation to me last week that he is willing to believe there are "59 million bush loving fascists" in America. He can believe this because he says he "meets them everyday".

Now admittedly I am not an American, and I do not live in Georgia like David dows. But I can't believe that. I have more faith in humanity.

If democratic activists start to believe this then they will have already lost the battle. They will have started to fear the very people whose hearts and minds they most need to reach.

Today here at Scoop we published a remarkable first person account from an Ex-Southern Conservative (sourced via Sam Smith's fantastic Undernews newsletter):

" Today [my mom] wrote me, and this is a part of what she said:

'I just wanted to drop you a note to say hello and hope you are surviving the day. I know you are very disappointed about the election, and I wish I were there to comfort you, though I'd probably wind up just upsetting you more. . . All I can say about what you wrote the other day and about the vote is this. George W is not the first one to lie, cheat, or whatever. Politics has been a crooked, shady business since it began. Republicans are not worse than Democrats in any way. . . As for Granny fussing about Bush and how much she doesn't like him, she has said the same thing about every president that has ever held office. She may be right, but it just shows not many of them are better than the last or the next one. Any way, try not to live your life devastated by what goes on in Washington. I don't have your eloquence with words and I never learned how to argue, so I can't say much more on the subject. I guess the best way to put it is get over it and get on with your life. I need to go. I will be back in touch with you later in the week. Watch your mail box! Bye! I Love You! MMMMMMNNNNNNHHH!!!!!!!!!! Love, Mom'

That's my mom. That's my conservative right-wing republican mom. Who thinks my best friend Chris is a great guy and doesn't want him to get married to his boyfriend. Who is distressed by my political views but still tries to support me through an experience she knows is heartbreaking."

And so long as I keep reading material like this on the internet I will remain hard to convince that the United States really does have 59 million people that are that dumb.

If we vote fraud theorists are right then the fight over vote fraud is one that the Democratic Party simply cannot afford to ignore. Nor is it one that it can choose to fight later.

If we vote fraud theorists are right it is a fight that the Democratic Party owes to the 56 million people whose votes were recorded for John Kerry and who placed their trust in him.

And if we vote fraud theorists are wrong then what harm will have been done through the party sticking up for the most fundamental and important right that any American citizens can exercise. The right to have one's vote counted.

- C.D. Sludge 09 November 2004

http://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/0411/bb4fe8acf28ed21cec0e.jpeg
Counting The Vote Rove Style

According to The BBC– There May Be More Truth In This Than Intended
Credit: ElementaryPenguin

"By the time election night came around, Mr Rove was in the White House, where, unusually for a political adviser, he has an office.

He set up computers in the Old Family Dining Room and started tabulating results. He had set up a massive network of contacts, not just in state capitals, but individual districts and precincts to monitor turnout and support.

Early exit polls quoted by media seemed to give Mr Kerry the edge, but colleagues said Mr Rove indicated right away that they did not tally with his information.

He used his own data to put Ohio and Florida in the Bush column - bringing cheers from the president and his family when he went into the Roosevelt Room and told them. "

Spot The Difference – Exit Poll Variations Swing States Vs Non Swing States
Source: TruthIsAll

To Believe That Bush Won The Election, You Must Also Believe...
By TruthIsAll

To believe that Bush won the election, you must also believe:

1- That the exit polls were WRONG...

2- That Zogby's 5pm election day calls for Kerry winning OH, FL were WRONG. He was exactly RIGHT in his 2000 final poll.

3- That Harris last minute polling for Kerry was WRONG. He was exactly RIGHT in his 2000 final poll.

4- The Incumbent Rule I (that undecideds break for the challenger)was WRONG.

5- The 50% Rule was WRONG (that an incumbent doesn't do better than his final polling)

6- The Approval Rating Rule was WRONG (that an incumbent with less than 50% approval will most likely lose the election)

7- That Greg Palast was WRONG when he said that even before the election, 1 million votes were stolen from Kerry. He was the ONLY reporter to break the fact that 90,000 Florida blacks were disnfranchised in 2000.

8- That it was just a COINCIDENCE that the exit polls were CORRECT where there WAS a PAPER TRAIL and INCORRECT (+5% for Bush) where there was NO PAPER TRAIL.

9- That the surge in new young voters had NO positive effect for Kerry.

10- That Bush BEAT 99-1 mathematical odds in winning the election.

11- That Kerry did WORSE than Gore agains an opponent who LOST the support of SCORES of Republican newspapers who were for Bush in 2000.

12- That Bush did better than an 18 national poll average which showed him tied with Kerry at 47. In other words, Bush got 80% of the undecided vote to end up with a 51-48 majority - when ALL professional pollsters agree that the undecided vote ALWAYS goes to the challenger.

13- That Voting machines made by Republicans with no paper trail and with no software publication, which have been proven by thousands of computer scientists to be vulnerable in scores of ways, were NOT tampered with in this election

Why Did CNN Change Their Exit Poll Data for Ohio After 1:00 AM?
Post by tuvor

http://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/0411/8fd83677ad5aea779010.jpeg

http://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/0411/733458c72001ad74b6d8.jpeg

Hillsborough County FLA - Oddities + Undervotes
HarmonyGuy

Looking at the two top-of-ticket races, President and US Senator and comparing them with some of the lesser races.

----------------------- -REP ---- DEM
President ----------- 243,816 - 212,749
Senator ------------- 205,869 - 228,948 16199 more than President
Pub Defdr. --------- 193,153 - 234,459 21710 more than President
Clerk Cir Court ---205,997 - 225,515 12766 more than President
Cty Comm Dist 6 - 216,430 - 214,062 1313 more than President
Sup of Elect. ------- 244,713 - 190,711 897

Are there REALLY 16199 people who voted for a DEM Senator, but DIDN'T vote for a DEM President?

Are there REALLY 21710 people who voted for a DEM Public Defender, but DIDN'T vote for a DEM President?

Are there REALLY 12766 people who voted for a DEM Court Clerk, but DIDN'T vote for a DEM President?

Are there REALLY 1313 people who voted for a DEM County Commissioner, but DIDN'T vote for a DEM President?

Were there REALLY 897 more people who voted for an apppointed incumbent Republican Supervisor of Elections, than who voted for an apppointed incumbent Republican President?

I would think that one would normally expect a drop in votes from the first question to the second, NOT an increase. Assuming most people voted along party lines, that sure looks like a LOT of DEM Presidential undervotes.

And really now, more votes for a Supervisor of Elections than for a President - c'mon!

Original data from link (last updated at 03:28 AM)

Bush Increased His Minority Turnout by 69%
Posted by CAcyclist

Data based on CBC (canadian broadcast company) , CNN and census bureau numbers
From 2000-2004 , increase in overall population is 4.5%

Of the 59.6 million that Bush got, 52.1 million of them are white. That's an 87.5% white vote, so Michael Moore is right after all. (I had initially read CNN's 58% whites for Bush as a straight 58%, but it's actually a 58% of the 77% of total people who voted who were white) Also, Bush had a 91% white vote in 2000. Of the 50.5 m he got, 46 m were white. 52.1 - 46.= 6.1 m white people or a 13% increase in overall white people and a 4% decrease as a % of the races that he got. Also, that means Bush had 12% non white or 7.6 million vote for him. In 2000, he had 9%, or 4.5 m vote for him. Gain of 3.1 m So that means that his percent gain of non- white people voting for him was 69% Where did he get that minority vote?

Florida Projection vs Actual Data In A Graphical Form

Compiled from Kathy Dopp's data first presented…
http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm

Still Don't Believe They Stole It? Look Here
By Tkmorris

This chart shows a breakdown by county of Florida, listing the voters in each broken down by party affiliation, and comparing expected vote totals to the reported results. It is further arranged by seperating the results into two sections, one for "touch-screen" counties and the other for optical scan counties.

http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm

Surprisingly, the results reported by touch-screen counties seem fairly accurate overall especially if you take into account the GOTV effort by Dems that was occuring on the ground here. Let me tell you, by dinnertime on Tuesday we KNEW we were getting huge Dem turnout and the Repubs looked demoralized in their efforts. In most areas there simply WAS no organized Repub effort. But all of that is anecdotal and will be tossed aside by skeptics.

Now look at the optical scan counties. Again and again and again, the expected results there based upon party registration were off. In fact they were not even close. In Liberty County for example, the registered voters there are fully 88.3% Democrats versus a mere 7.9% Republican. However the results reported there indicate that fully 65% of the votes cast for President went to Bush. In heavily populated Duval County Democrats outnumber Republicans on the voter rolls by a good 7% and yet Bush won there by over 60,000 votes, winning the actual vote count by around 60/40. In Baker county there are only about 3200 voters registered as Republicans in the whole county, yet on election day Bush garnered over 7700 votes there. These are just examples, the trend was universal in all the optiscreen counties. Don't believe me, look for yourself. And note this: In those Optiscan counties Bush received just over 600,000 votes more than other data suggest he should have. This by itself is far more than his margin of victory in Florida.

Please note that these counties, touch-screen and optical scan, are intermingled all over the state. Some counties reported results more or less as expected and others posted results that are simply eyepopping for Bush and the only difference in them is the method of voting (and thus counting) used.

These results are just not possible. They aren't. Anyone out there who has taken a basic statistics course will recognize right away upon viewing this that it cannot possibly be a true representation of what happened on Tuesday. I believed there was fraud by 10 PM Tuesday but I didn't really KNOW it in my heart and soul until I saw this.

Anti©opyright Sludge 2004

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Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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