Poll: Was the 2004 election rigged?

[pattylou]

Was the 2004 US election rigged?

Specifically, do you think the machines could be and were tampered with, in order to skew a result in favor of Bush.

This is not a question about other forms of vote - tampering (disenfranchisement, etc).

I am also curious for the correlation between your opinion on this, and your political leanings. So, there are four options given to choose from.

Feel free to add comments on this topic as well.

That looks like it worked (whew!)

Option 1: Left leaning, thinks the election was (at least partially) electronically rigged.

Option 2: Left leaning, thinks there was no electronic tamering of the vote.

Option 3: Right leaning, leaning, thinks the election was (at least partially) electronically rigged.

Option 4: Right leaning, thinks there was no electronic tamering of the vote.

 

[Townsend]

Just a question...

What does public opinion have to do with what is a fact and what is fiction?

 

[pattylou]

Nothing. I have been curious what the actual sentiment is among the populace and have yet to see Pew or Zogby ask about this.

Question: Why shouldn't the general populace's opinion be ascertained?

 

[Townsend]

Question: Why shouldn't the general populace's opinion be ascertained?

Because there is a risk that people will use it as evidence to establish the truth of the proposition. It is not evidence and as long as it is not used in such a manner then ascertaining that information is fine.

 

[pattylou]

It is certainly not evidence.

It may, on a larger scale, have some bearing on how important politicians (etc) feel that it is to revamp voting procedures.
If a decent percentage of the population thinks the machines are tamperable, then voter confidence is pretty low, and that's bad for morale. It affects the vote, etc etc.

 

[Townsend]

It is certainly not evidence.

It may, on a larger scale, have some bearing on how important politicians (etc) feel that it is to revamp voting procedures.
If a decent percentage of the population thinks the machines are tamperable, then voter confidence is pretty low, and that's bad for morale. It affects the vote, etc etc.

Ah..I see. Well in that case I will vote in your poll.

 

[LeonhardEuler]

Is there any evidence the vote was tampered with? I personally was very disappointed with the re-election of Bush, but to say that the results were rigged is a big accusation with what seems like no evidence. I would like to know why 56% of people said there was tampering.

 

[BobG]

I'm wondering how the left-leaning/right-leaning part figures in. Is it assumed that all right-leaning folks were pro-Bush and all left-leaning folks were pro-Kerry? Or were you looking for some completely different correlation - left-leaning people have less faith in government's ability to conduct fair elections, hence the need for more government control while right-leaning people have more faith in government's ability to conduct fair elections, hence the need for less government interference?

Actually, I think people's opinion of the fairness of an election depends more on whether their favorite candidate won or lost than overall political alliance, but that's just the cynicism of a former soccer referee.

Personally, I'm left-leaning when I'm walking to the North and right-leaning when I'm walking to the South, but I live on the side of a mountain ( :rofl: - okay, that's just plain facetious)

 

[Townsend]

( :rofl: - okay, that's just plain facetious)

:rofl: agreed...

 

[pattylou]

Is there any evidence the vote was tampered with? I personally was very disappointed with the re-election of Bush, but to say that the results were rigged is a big accusation with what seems like no evidence. I would like to know why 56% of people said there was tampering.

Have you looked at blackboxvoting.org's reports on this issue? I can point you to specific reports if you like. The most interesting one in my opinion, came out at the end of May.

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/5921.html?1122737304

(I couldn't find the PDF, sorry!)

See also here for the technical, longer report:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVreport.pdf

BBV is a consumer advocate group that opposes electronic voting. Thus they are biased. That does not necessarily negate the results that they put out.

They are not, however, partisan, and they vehemently maintain that both parties have been cashing in on Diebold's loopholes to fix votes.

 

[pattylou]

I'm wondering how the left-leaning/right-leaning part figures in. Is it assumed that all right-leaning folks were pro-Bush and all left-leaning folks were pro-Kerry? Or were you looking for some completely different correlation - left-leaning people have less faith in government's ability to conduct fair elections, hence the need for more government control while right-leaning people have more faith in government's ability to conduct fair elections, hence the need for less government interference?

Actually, I think people's opinion of the fairness of an election depends more on whether their favorite candidate won or lost than overall political alliance, but that's just the cynicism of a former soccer referee.

Personally, I'm left-leaning when I'm walking to the North and right-leaning when I'm walking to the South, but I live on the side of a mountain ( :rofl: - okay, that's just plain facetious)

Several reasons - (1) If this site is just a bunch of democrats then that part of the question will give that picture of the community. (2) Also I think I would be a lot less opinionated on the subject if Kerry had won. I would still have faith in the system and no reason to question it. So, I expect that that sort of general bias might be evident from the results.

 

[LeonhardEuler]

Here are some quotes from that website blackboxvoting.org you mentioned:

(OH) Did the GOP steal another Ohio Election?
Jeb Bush Insures Election Irregularities in Florida!
Unconfirmedsources report Florida Governor Jeb Bush has made great strides to insure the November Election will be the model of corruption and unfairness.

This is obviously a website built for the sole purpose of an anti-republican rant that only claims to be non-partisan. Do you have any sources from the mainstream media?

 

[pattylou]

Here are some quotes from that website blackboxvoting.org you mentioned:

(OH) Did the GOP steal another Ohio Election?
Jeb Bush Insures Election Irregularities in Florida!
Unconfirmedsources report Florida Governor Jeb Bush has made great strides to insure the November Election will be the model of corruption and unfairness.

This is obviously a website built for the sole purpose of an anti-republican rant that only claims to be non-partisan. Do you have any sources from the mainstream media?

There are additional quotes attacking the democrats. I can find them if you like. The admins are definitely non-partisan; many participants are angry democrats.

Feel free to dismiss it, alternatively feel free to read the admins analysis that I linked above and decide if the loopholes are of concern to you or not. THey may not be.

As far as mainstream media, Rep. John Conyers (D. MI) has been the front leading reputable source on this in the mainstream media. You could try google news searches with his name and "vote" or "diebold" or "fraud."

 

[iansmith]

Antiphon replied to pattylou earlier attempt to make a similar thread. By merging the threads, antiphon reponse became the first post of the thread. To reduce confusion, I am posting antiphon reply

Hello Pattylou.

I think there may have been voter fraud, but I think more of it existed in
favor of Kerry than Bush. While I didn't follow this as closely as I do other
affairs, I do recall some voting machines (the old mechanical type) in Philly
that had a few thousand votes on them (toward Kerry) before they should have.

Philadelphia, BTW, has the nation's hghest rate of electron fraud so this is
plausible.

Was there enough to have thrown the results of the election? I doubt it.
I give Mr. Kerry more credit than that. If his sources at the time would have
told him that he could come out on top because fraud could be uncovered,
he would not have conceded as quickly and gracefully as he did.

 

[DM]

Have you looked at blackboxvoting.org's reports on this issue? I can point you to specific reports if you like. The most interesting one in my opinion, came out at the end of May.

The trouble with those sites, and already mentioned on another thread in this forum, is its credibility. Despite my anti-Bush stance, I remain skeptic about rigged elections.

 

[BobG]

Several reasons - (1) If this site is just a bunch of democrats then that part of the question will give that picture of the community. (2) Also I think I would be a lot less opinionated on the subject if Kerry had won. I would still have faith in the system and no reason to question it. So, I expect that that sort of general bias might be evident from the results.

The bias reflected in (2) wouldn't necessarily show up in the results.

For example, I'm right-leaning, voted for Kerry, and don't feel the election was rigged (which is why I selected the fourth choice).

Considering the state of affairs, assuming Democrats voted for Kerry while Republicans voted for Bush isn't necessarily a valid assumption. The 'don't change presidents in the middle of a war' folks would vote for Bush whether they were liberal or conservative, especially if they bought into the WMD in Iraq theme. Some Republicans might find the Bush administration's actions so scarily incompetent that they would have voted for Kucinich ... uh, well, for Dean ... geez ... well, maybe for Al Sharpton then, before they'd vote for Bush.

 

[Burnsys]

The trouble with those sites, and already mentioned on another thread in this forum, is its credibility. Despite my anti-Bush stance, I remain skeptic about rigged elections.

Beside bias, credibility and anti bush stance, in those site was the OPEN SOURCE CODE of the diebold voting system, and screenshots of all the steps to hack the software and change the results of the elections..

 

[DM]

Beside bias, credibility and anti bush stance, in those site was the OPEN SOURCE CODE of the diebold voting system, and screenshots of all the steps to hack the software and change the results of the elections..

Yes, quite ludicrous to learn that such people expose the weaknesses and flaws to hack the system. Isn't it time for 'intellegence' to eliminate such website contents?

 

[Burnsys]

Yes, quite ludicrous to learn that such people expose the weaknesses and flaws to hack the system. Isn't it time for 'intellegence' to eliminate such website contents?

I don't understand you.. what do you mean?? that the cia should take down the site?? or that this people showing the weaknesses of the system are promoting vote tampering? or somenthing like that?

 

[Informal Logic]

I'm wondering how the left-leaning/right-leaning part figures in. Is it assumed that all right-leaning folks were pro-Bush and all left-leaning folks were pro-Kerry? Or were you looking for some completely different correlation - left-leaning people have less faith in government's ability to conduct fair elections, hence the need for more government control while right-leaning people have more faith in government's ability to conduct fair elections, hence the need for less government interference?

Actually, I think people's opinion of the fairness of an election depends more on whether their favorite candidate won or lost than overall political alliance, but that's just the cynicism of a former soccer referee.

Personally, I'm left-leaning when I'm walking to the North and right-leaning when I'm walking to the South, but I live on the side of a mountain ( :rofl: - okay, that's just plain facetious)

Personally, after the 2000 election and what happened in Florida (good old Jeb's state), I have not had faith in the electoral system. Also, I find the resistance to reforms, such as paper documentation, to be suspect. There is only one reason why individuals/groups would not favor having a paper trail.

I see some similarity between this and the filibuster. The Republicans in the 'Gang of 14' realize that there will likely be a Democrat majority again in the future, and if the right to filibuster is not preserved, they may suffer the consequences as well.

If we really believe in our republic and the preservation of democracy, Americans of all parties should be concerned about unfair elections (and that includes dirty politics).

 

[The Reverend BigBoa]

Perhaps things were rigged for Kerry, and he STILL LOST!

AH HAHAHAHAHA!

Just like the fraudulent campaign the libs just tried to run in Ohio, and THEY still lost.

In summary,

YOU LOST! GET OVER IT!

 

[pattylou]

A bit touchy, eh Reverend?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Old news...

Today the University of California's Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team released a statistical study - the sole method available to monitor the accuracy of e-voting - reporting irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The study shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods - what the team says can be deemed a "smoke alarm." Discrepancies this large or larger rarely arise by chance - the probability is less than 0.1 percent. The research team formally disclosed results of the study at a press conference today at the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center, where they called on Florida voting officials to investigate...

http://www.yubanet.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/6/15415

"As much as we can say in social science that something is impossible, it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and actual vote counts in the three critical battleground states [Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania] of the 2004 election could have been due to chance or random error...the odds of this occurence are 250 million to one. ...Remember this has now happened twice with the exit polling and this "anomaly" cannot be dismissed. Given the history of voter fraud and shenanigans in this country are we witnessing the new voter fraud of the 21st century?"

http://truthout.org/unexplainedexitpoll.pdf

 

[Astronuc]

There were irregularities on the part of both parties. :grumpy:

Kerry did a poor job of talking and listening to the people. He often sounded unsure or otherwise unconvincing. He also by-passed states which the Dems had written off. So in that sense, Kerry lost.

 

[pattylou]

Thanks IvanSeeking. I had forgotten those statistical analyses.

Personally, after the 2000 election and what happened in Florida (good old Jeb's state), I have not had faith in the electoral system. Also, I find the resistance to reforms, such as paper documentation, to be suspect. There is only one reason why individuals/groups would not favor having a paper trail.

I think I read today, that the Sec of State (Harris) during the 2000 Florida debacle is now *running for Senate.*

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Also, the owner of the company that built the voting machines is a strong supporter of Bush. I remember some memo that was suggestive of foul play.. I'll try to find it later.

 

[solutions in a box]

was the election rigged? Does a bear live in the woods?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Curtis

Big business and big oil had to much at stake to risk losing.

 

[pattylou]

Also, the owner of the company that built the voting machines is a strong supporter of Bush. I remember some memo that was suggestive of foul play.. I'll try to find it later.

The CEO of Diebold offered to "Deliver Ohio's electoral votes" to Bush.

He later claimed that he had chosen his words poorly. I'd say so!

In August 2003, Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold, announced that he had been a top fund-raiser for President George W. Bush and had sent a get-out-the-funds letter to Ohio Republicans. In the letters he says he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

http://www.answers.com/topic/diebold-election-systems

 

[Ivan Seeking]

No conflict of interests there...

 

[DM]

I don't understand you.. what do you mean?? that the cia should take down the site?? or that this people showing the weaknesses of the system are promoting vote tampering? or somenthing like that?

Talk about obscurity...

What's the point of writing:

Beside bias, credibility and anti bush stance, in those site was the OPEN SOURCE CODE of the diebold voting system, and screenshots of all the steps to hack the software and change the results of the elections..

I thought you were chastising the site contents! What's the matter with you?! You actually agree with neglecting websites that administer 'hacks'?

 

[alexandra]

Specifically, do you think the machines could be and were tampered with, in order to skew a result in favor of Bush.

I have voted that the machines could have facilitated tampering, and have based my opinion on what I have read about this issue in expert reports such as an IEEE paper (accessed online at http://avirubin.com/vote.pdf ) that appeared in IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 2004[/], and that had previously been presented as Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute Technical Report TR-2003-19, July 23, 2003. Here is a copy of the abstract from the online report:

Abstract
With significant U.S. federal funds now available to replace outdated punch-card and mechanical voting systems, municipalities and states throughout the U.S. are adopting paperless electronic voting systems from a number of different vendors. We present a security analysis of the source code to one such machine used in a significant share of the market. Our analysis shows that this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts. We identify several problems including unauthorized privilege escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, ulnerabilities to network threats, and poor software development processes. We show that voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal software. Furthermore, we show that even the most serious of our outsider attacks could have been discovered and executed without access to the source code. In the face of such attacks, the usual worries about insider threats are not the only concerns; outsiders can do the damage. That said, we emonstrate that the insider threat is also quite considerable, showing that not only can an insider, such as a poll worker, modify the votes, but that insiders can also violate voter privacy and match votes with the voters who
cast them. We conclude that this voting system is unsuitable for use in a general election. Any paperless electronic voting system might suffer similar flaws, despite any “certification” it could have otherwise received. We suggest that the best solutions are voting systems having a “voter-verifiable audit trail,” where a computerized voting system might print a paper ballot that can be read and verified by the voter.

Reference: http://avirubin.com/vote.pdf

 

[SOS2008]

A bit touchy, eh Reverend?

So-called "Christian cults" are totalitarian or engage in "thought reform" tactics, so don't bother... Speaking of thought reform tactics and Bush/Rove repetition, if I keep repeating my earlier posts, will it sink in?

2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities
After the 2004 U.S. Presidential election there were allegations of massive fraud, including but not limited to forging vote totals, miscounting votes for Kerry as votes for Bush, widespread voter intimidation and depriving neighborhoods likely to vote for Kerry of voting machines.

Over 40,000 alleged incidents were reported in the 2004 election, ranging from minor errors to direct voter intimidation, mishandled absentee and provisional ballots, malfunctioning or inaccurate machines and/or apparent hacking and vote tampering.

...Among the issues raised in 2004 were allegations or complaints regarding obstacles to voter registration, improper purges of voter lists, voter suppression, accuracy and reliability of voting machines, especially electronic voting, problems with absentee ballots and provisional ballots, impossible voter turnout and possible partisan interference by voting machine company and election officials. Although a recount was conducted in Ohio, many of the alleged improprieties like long lines or tampering cannot be addressed by a recount.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._presidential_election_controversy_and_irregularities

...The election was fought primarily on the issue of the conduct of the War on Terror. Bush defended the actions of his administration, while Kerry contended that the war had been fought incompetently, and that the Iraq War was a distraction from the War on Terror, not a part of it.

The popular vote election took place on Election Day, November 2. The results were extremely close, and it was not until the next day that the election was finally decided. According to the preliminary results, Bush had been reelected with 286 electoral votes. Kerry received 252 electoral votes.

The election hinged on Ohio, a controversial battleground state, but at midday the day after the election, Kerry conceded he had lost the Buckeye State, and the election along with it. Bush then declared victory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Presidential_election

Aside from the results being extremely close again, and knowing now that indeed the "the war had been fought incompetently, and that the Iraq War was a distraction from the War on Terror, not a part of it" and based on "fixed" intelligence, here is the update on Ohio:

"Coingate" the scandal that has rocked Ohio over recent revelations of corrupt politicians, big-money fundraisers, partisan gerrymandering, and most importantly a broken election system.

 

[solutions in a box]

Both 2000 and 2004 elections rigged

If anyone concludes that there was a defiite possibility that the 2004 election was rigged, it would only be reasonable to assume that 2000 was rigged as well.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0310/S00211.htm

 

[SOS2008]

Voter Rights Act of 1965

In view of the anniversary of such legislation, thoughts have turned back to election reform and related issues. Should election day be moved to Saturday, should convicts or immigrants awaiting citizenship have the right to vote, etc. Here is an example of a bill, which is a result of the 2000 and 2004 election problems:

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oId=18049

Count Every Vote Act 2005 -
...People For the American Way and the Election Protection coalition advised the bill's authors after spending weeks and months poring over the incident reports and voter testimonials which EP volunteers helped gather.

Here is a summary of the reforms proposed in the Count Every Vote Act:
More Accountable and Accessible Voting Systems
More Opportunities for Citizens to Register to Vote and Cast Their Ballots
Discourage Partisan Manipulation and Deceptive Practices in Elections
Expand the Right to Vote
Ensure That All Votes Are Counted

Personally I feel voting should be consistent nationally, so should not be left to the states. I believe moving election day to Saturday will result in lower turn-out. If there is to be a change, it needs to become a national holiday. This way it is not during people's personal time, but rather a day set aside for a clear purpose, therefore removing excuses. As for who should vote, I believe this right should be reserved for citizens, and for citizens who abide by the laws of the land.

 

[The Reverend BigBoa]

So-called "Christian cults" are totalitarian or engage in "thought reform" tactics, so don't bother... Speaking of thought reform tactics and Bush/Rove repetition, if I keep repeating my earlier posts, will it sink in?

What a hoot. Now I "lead" a "cult"?? The Church of the Mighty Python is no cult.

And PattyLou thinks I'm the one who's being "touchy" because I suggested a liberal step out of the past, accept reality and move along?

If the liberal Democratic wing wants to continue to court every loony, wacko and psychotic special interest group there is, I'm all for it. The longer they're out of power the better.

I just think it's hysterical that somehow they still think they're the majority and will stop at nothing in trying to keep convincing themselves of it. Go right ahead.