Latest Ohio Recount Tally

86/88 Counties completed Kerry + 242

but I did not post the link because it requires a membership

Is this the additional 3% total before they run them through, or the whole machine recount total? I though I read somewhere that it would take until New Years or so. Also, didn't the Glibs pay for a total hand recount in addition to the machine count that the law says must happen? Also, if I'm not mistaken, there's still an outstanding case with regards to the disqualified absentee and provisionals and the 93K spoiled, no?

I've lost track...

them did. The payment was just for a standard recount, 3% then count the rest on the machines if they matched. I never heard that about New Yeras Eve.

Thanks for the info.

I never thought there would be a real difference in the machine counts, but I had heard it was all about the hand recounts, the suits regarding the disqualified ballots and the spoiled ballots.

I did read on the votecobb.org site that at least one didn't match, but they wouldn't do a manual recount, even though it was legally required.

"Fairfield County: When the hand recount of the 3% test sample did not match the official vote totals, a full recount should have been ordered for all county ballots. Instead, the recount was "suspended" by county officials who said that Secretary Blackwell recommended that the recount should begin again "from scratch." The Green recount observers then were told that it was 4:00 PM, the building was closed, and all had to leave. The Republican contingent, however was allowed to stay in a conference room for an additional ten minutes or so for a private discussion."

Anywho, recount or not, if (and that's a big "if") it was rigged it's going to take more to discover it.

Seattle PI: "Under Ohio law, workers must hand-count 3 percent of ballots. If the results match the certified results exactly, all other ballots can be recounted by machine. If the totals are off, all ballots must be counted by hand, adding days or weeks to the process."

If I find that article, I'll certainly post it. I've been reading way too many things and the info is swirling in my brain. :)

Meanwhile the Ohio recount will continue well into January. As of this writing, results are not in, but we expect full recounts in many counties.

http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1316&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Still googling...

Under Ohio law, a "recount" consists of hand-counting 3% of the votes (in complete precincts) and comparing the totals to the same precincts run through the machines. This establishes the reliability of the machines. If the count matches, the machines are deemed reliable and the remaining 97% of the ballots are then run through the machines.

If the count doesn't match then a hand recount of the entire county is required. I do not know if the counts must be EXACT or if there is some acceptable margin of error (+/- 3 to 4 votes, for example). In any case, the 3% are supposed to be randomly selected (although the exact method is not specified in Ohio law).

So far as I understand, all the hand recounts have matched well enough to not require counting the entire counties. If hand recounts of all ballots would be required, then I expect it would take weeks longer.

The Greens/Libs paid for the standard recount (no total hand recount is optional in Ohio law unless the criteria above is met). The results are showing that there really was no fraud in Ohio.

Some people will undoubtedly claim that the recount was rigged, but I have a real hard time buying that. The amount of effort required (and the number of people that would have to be involved) to successfully rig the process doesn't make that argument credible.

It's tough keeping a few people quiet let alone hundreds, if there were any significant fraud, there would be whistleblowers all over the place

With the number of people that would have to be involved, ther'd be smoking guns EVERYWHERE. All we've got are some silly spreadsheets, and the even more ridiculous Triad story. There's literally no chance that massive fraud occurred and is being kept secret.

And barring that, there's literally no chance of any outcome other than Bush being president for the next 4 years.

Still, it's comforting to some to have someone to blame, and Bush makes a fun and easy target. That's also easier than admitting we got beat.

Two Words: Deep Throat.

That was only one person talking, many, many involved. Perhaps that's bad logic on your part. Perhaps you're right. Who the hell knows?

And how would that compare to the hundreds, if not thousands, of people who would be involved in fixing the election in state after state after state...... Including a large number of Democratic officials.

Oh yeah, it was just a couple of Triad guys. :crazy:

The Cubans that broke in (5), Liddy, Dean, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Hunt, Nixon, Kissinger... That's off the top of my head.

If you've been reading these threads, you know it would only take a guy with a spreadsheet and a laptop. Go ahead and call be crazy. I'm not saying it did happen, I'm saying it wouldn't take an army.

http://www.watergate.info/burglary/burglars.shtml

that's a far cry from everybody from company execs to technicians to a large number of precint level people. Hundreds of people at least. Large scale fraud just does not make sense, unless you are bound and determined to rationalize it to make sense. The long lines and too few voting machines in places caused problems but there was nothing insidious there, Dems and Pugs were the ones who ordered them together.

Not even sure it happened. It's just plain wrong, however, to assume that there had to be an army of people -- heck, you could have done it if you had the modem and the number. That's the only thing I'm saying. Not screaming fraud. Also, long lines and too few voting machines is indeed insidious; no matter who ordered what.

"Literally no chance" is a little strong. All it takes is one person from Triad in combination with a bunch of people who don't buy in to the idea of fraud. If I think that the election was honest, and I'm counting 3% of the votes (selected by the BOE), if the numbers don't match the machine count exactly, I know that I'm going to be counting for weeks, and I don't want to. I don't know how close the count is supposed to be to avoid the hand re-count, but the counters have a lot of incentive to make the numbers match. They aren't in on any conspiracy, they just want to stop counting. If the machines or the software were fixed on November 2, there is no reason to suppose that they are not now.

"There's literally no chance that massive fraud occurred and is being kept secret."

Unhuh. Just like there was "literally no chance" that millions of people were being gassed and incinerated in Germany and good people either denied it, kept quiet, or didn't "see it."

This simplistic argument of yours does not take into account many factors of group psychology, let alone the mechanics of how massive fraud could and did occur.

However, your objections are welcome because identifying and responding to them simply make the case stronger.

and the anology to the holocaust is completely specious.

since you have NO IDEA what happened here, you can't say anything about whether there was fraud or not.

The facts are that in this HEAVILY MANIPULATED BUT SUPPOSEDLY RANDOM 3% recount, Kerry gained about 240 votes. Why did that happen? Extrapolate across the state, and hand count all the ballots, including the 93,000+ that were considered "over" or "under" votes. That is the only way we'll know for sure.

The same principles could be applied to "fixing" the vote, and no more than a handful of people would be in the know about any particular action. A broad spectrum of strategies could be applied, from supression to intimidation to misinformation to bending a punch card here or there to assigning the number and type of machines to particular precincts...

In fact, I can easily envision a way in which the machine counts could be fixed and NO ONE at the county level would even realize it.

The county people submit their true tallies (which had previously been skewed by the pre-election tactics anyway), and by the time they appear on the official SoS website, well, they're a little different. But they're not going to kick about it, since mistakes happen all the time. These mistakes, like the 4K in Gahanna---eh, they happen. We'll catch them eventually, say the county people. There can't be any systematic fraud here, that just doesn't happen here, the convince themselves. I, for one, can't account for 281 votes in Union County. Eh, probably just a clerical error (I was too sick to take part in the recount, BTW). And only a handful would be involved in the actual dirty work.

That's probably why a three percent recount was, while symbolically important, probably not actually important. And just to be sure, there was almost no county that chose to choose the precincts at random.

I believe Blackwell was complicit, and when the recounts threatened to undermine his authoriteye, he put it around that the recount effort was a waste of taxpayers' money, the employees' time, that it was sour grapes, etc., etc., etc. He made it clear that the counties could do whatever they wanted, basically, and he created the air of hostility in which the recount would take place. At that point, the county people didn't have to know there had been any fixing...they just wanted to do anything they could to piss off the Glibs.

Meanwhile, those ballots sat for weeks...

Say, why does Blackwell refuse to testify under oath about the election? Hey, if it works for GWB, why not JKB?

I read that the 3% sample is hand counted and then compared to the totals obtained by running the cards through the machine. But is the hand count also compared to the certified count published by the SOS?

I don't know if it is "officially" looked at. I have no doubt, however, that many interested parties are watching and checking those figures. If some anomaly had arisen I would expect to hear people yelling very loudly...

the counties were given leeway to interpret the law how they saw fit. Generally, the three percent was not chosen at random. Further, the actual ballots to be recounted were up for grabs (i.e., absentee? some, yes, some, no; "spoiled" ballots? eh, probably not. provisional? maybe).

On top of that, the circumstances in which the recounts were allowed to take place varied considerably. In one county, for instance, the observers were not allowed to speak at all, so they couldn't say if they hadn't been able to see a ballot properly or voice any objection to the way the ballot was counted. In other instances, observers couldn't even be in the same ROOM as the ballots. In still other cases, ballots were run through machines repeatedly, trying to make the tallies "match."

This was a concerted effort to piss off the Glibs, if nothing else. But essentially, the message was that it didn't matter what the actual laws were. Laws? Piffle!

"But is the hand count also compared to the certified count published by the SOS?"

There is no point. In what way could you compare a random 3% to the 100% total? Remember, the precints are chosen at random, NOT the individual votes. If you had 3000 randomly selected votes then you could expect their percentages to roughly match those of the county as a whole, but when you look at 3% from one precint you no longer have this expectation.

If the machines weren't altered between the "count" and the recount then we have to figure out how it can be possible that the exit polls were SO wrong (and apparently wrong more in some key places than others.)

If the machines WERE altered between the count and the recount, then the recount is meaningless and only a total hand count has a chance of exposing possible fraud.

I don't follow you. An entire precinct is counted by hand. That total can be compared to the total for that precinct certified by the SOS.

Seems pretty simple.

"Ohio recount rules require that only 3 percent of a county's votes be tallied by hand, and typically one or more whole precincts are selected and combined to get the 3 percent sample. After the hand count, the sample is fed into the tabulator. If there is no discrepancy, the remaining ballots can be counted by the machine. Otherwise, a hand recount must be done for the whole county."

Well if it's true that they are following this procedure then you are correct. If they don't count entire precints then it won't work.

It was certainly not my intent to create misinformation before, thanks for catching it.

The recount procedures were not followed accurately.
The rules specifically stated random precincts, which to my knowledge was not followed in the majority of counties.
Can make any number of facile shrug-off arguments as to 'what difference would it make', but fact remains the selection of precincts was not random.
While participants in rigging the recount may not have been aware of the fraudelent nature of their actions, I don't believe it requires all that much effort.
I'm satisfied to believe that most workers would be happy to fudge the recount (just to match up the 3%) in order to avoid hand-counting ballots through the new year, when they have other work to do, and would prefer to spend time with their families.
It is clear in counties like Fairfield that the workers, in collusion with the Sec of State, are doing everything in their power to avoid a hand count.

the way. Election officials have refused to show poll books. They preselected the precincts rather than pick them at random. Triad dialed into tabulators before the recount to adjust software. Miami county shows all but 10 registered voters voted, yet canvassers easily found more than 10 registered voters who say they did not vote. How much do you need? If you're waiting for Blackwell to stand up and admit the fraud, it's not going to happen.
All we should have to show is probable cause. This is America, remember?

You're claiming that all but 10 registered voters in Miami county voted? That's ridiculous.

This is the link to the voter turnout page for the OH SOS. It shows that more than 20,000 registered voters did NOT vote.

Edited to include link:

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/results/11-02-04.htm

"You caught me repeating something I read but didn't check out".

shrugging your shoulders when he says "no...now bend over."

I have never heard any (credible) source make that claim about Miami county. In fact, you are the ONLY source I have heard it from. The numbers of the page I linked to have not changed since the vote certification on Dec 6.

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/results/11-02-04.htm

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/10...

Ohio electoral fight becomes 'biggest deal since Selma' as GOP stonewalls
by By Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
December 22, 2004

COLUMBUS -- As Republican officials stonewall subpoenas and subvert the recount process, Rev. Jesse Jackson has pronounced Ohio's vote fraud fiasco "the biggest deal since Selma" and has called for a national rally at "the scene of the crime" in Columbus January 3.

Another major national demonstration will follow in Washington on January 6, as Congress evaluates the Electoral College. Should at least one US Representative and one Senator challenge the electors' votes, a Constitutional crisis could ensue....


<snip>
On December 21, notice of depositions were sent to President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to appear and give testimony regarding the legal challenge of Ohio's elections results in the case Moss v Bush et al.,,,


<snip>
In a December 21 conference call with activists from the around the US, Jackson said he has urged Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) to stand with US Representatives who intend to challenge the Electoral College's expected approval of George W. Bush for a second term. A challenge by US Representatives in 2000 failed because no Senators would join their motion...

<snip>
In the Miami County town of Concord, certified returns show that all but 10 registered voters cast ballots on Election Day. But the election challenge team has already identified more than 10 registered Concord citizens who did not vote, an incongruity that points to election fraud...


Many, many, other good (and new to me) pieces of information. Apologize if dupe.

So you buy the 250 million to one scenario that Bushler defeated all of the exit polls, huh? Bush was even told by Karen Hughes that he had lost. He was given the option of working on a concession speech. Blackwell has not even masked his partisan approach to every aspect of this fraudulent election and equally fraudulent recount - and YOU are trying to characterize it as credible??? Who the f*ck are you kidding?

:shrug:

tommorrow if you model it correctly. Exit polls have been very wrong in the past as well as being very on. It is not an exact science. Is it easier to believe that the exit polls were correct and that this huge nationwide conspiracy fraud took place involving thousands of people and methods that cannot be proven. The day prior presidential polls would be wrong too RCP avearage of all polls had Bush up 2% nationwide and that average has been every bit as accurate over the last 3 election cycles as anything. Mason Dixon polling had 7 of 8 battleground states dead on. Mason Dixon by the way is the gold standard of state polls. 10 of 10 in 2000. 12 of 13 in 1996. They are super accurate.

Triad modified all the counting machines. Probably other stuff was done too, either with pre-arranged software, hacking in, or blatant machine accesss that nobody happened to report.

tabulator. I asked the director of the board of elections when was the last time the tabulator was serviced. She said Triad dialed into the tabulator the Friday before the recount to adjust software. It's in my report. I believe Van Wert County did everything they could to run a fair election. They were very open and answered all our questions, but allowing a partisan company like triad to modify the tabulator before the recount casts a HUGE cloud over everything. No one should be allowed to modify anything before the recount.

or deal with known errors in the vote caused by official malfeasance.
And it isn't a real recount if you can't look at the voter logs, because thats where most of the fraud would be found. As soon as fraud started being uncovered Blackwell denied access to recounters of the elections information and logs.
He'll let us know the results of his recount.

:wtf:

until we get physical access to the machines. We have witnesses to the post-election machine tampering. Yeah, the Repugnican election officials asked one tamperer if he did anything wrong, and he said "no" but I don't think that is good enough. Let people who know what they're doing inspect the machines. All of them. Now.

The Beacon Journal

Posted on Wed, Dec. 22, 2004

Elections officials stand by e-voting

Critics unconvinced even as recount only changes presidential results slightly

By Thomas J. Sheeran

Associated Press

CLEVELAND - With Ohio inching toward a final recount that trimmed a few hundred votes from President Bush's six-figure margin, elections officials said electronic voting systems worked as promised. But critics were unconvinced.

With recount results reported in 86 of 88 counties Tuesday, President Bush picked up 438 votes and Sen. John Kerry got an extra 680, narrowing Bush's 119,000-vote lead by 242 votes, according to an Associated Press survey of the counties. Both sides agreed last month that the recount wouldn't change the outcome.

But Kerry's concession and Bush's claim of victory didn't deter those who felt that alleged voting irregularities in Ohio called the outcome into question. Most notably, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and backers sued in Columbus to overturn the Ohio election.

Jackson and the Massachusetts-based Alliance for Democracy accused the Bush campaign of ``high-tech vote stealing.''

Among Ohio's seven electronic-voting counties, the coalition questioned pre-election procedures in Auglaize County and Election Day problems in Mahoning County. The other e-voting counties are Franklin, Lake, Pickaway, Ross and Knox.

An AP review of electronic voting found few reports of widespread problems. Elections officials of both parties were confident the election was fair and done properly, experience that could be handy in the future in Ohio, where more counties are expected to move to e-voting.

But that confidence doesn't stop some people from worrying.

``We are so threatened by hackers. I can't see how we can keep machines safe,'' said Yoshiko Ikuta, 75, of Lakewood.

The retiree and Democrat who worked as a poll worker in the city's punch-card election last month said Tuesday she distrusts any voting system that relies on computers.

Carlo LoParo, spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who oversees elections in Ohio, said the e-voting counties did a good job. ``By and large, electronic voting went well in Ohio,'' he said.

``Issues we did experience in electronic voting counties had to do with the number of machines available.''

Tanya Clay, deputy director of People for the American Way Foundation, said the national watchdog group received complaints about broken machines and machines which flipped votes to another candidate.

``We have a lot of concerns about that,'' she said. Clay said the problem of broken machines was worsened by inadequately trained poll workers.

Clay said her group wasn't disputing the election outcome but ``the methodology by which the votes were counted. We're not confident all votes were counted.''

One e-voting problem this election that became a lightning rod for critics happened in Gahanna near Columbus in Franklin County, where an electronic voting system gave Bush nearly 4,000 extra votes. Officials said the malfunction occurred when one machine's cartridge was plugged into a laptop computer and generated faulty numbers in several races.

In Lake County, east of Cleveland, it's a matter of pride for the board that it reported election night results first in Ohio, at 9:17 p.m.

Election Day problems were largely limited to three machines that showed low-battery signals, according to Janet F. Clair, board director. She said the board doesn't make Election Day repairs, so the machines were taken out of service.

Clair wouldn't be drawn into specific criticism of vote system skeptics, instead mentioning that critical records are kept under locks that require two keys -- one held by a Democrat and one by a Republican. ``Everything we do is under lock and key,'' she said.

Elections officials, mindful of quick-response Internet devotees, sound hesitant to dismiss out of hand even outlandish fraud claims, instead patiently restating the process is supervised in each county by an elections board that, by law, must have two Democrats and two Republicans.

In Auglaize County in rural western Ohio, board Director Jean Burklo, a Democrat, also cited the statutory bipartisan nature of elections work as evidence that any fraud would require Democrats and Republicans to collaborate.

``We have a great election system. I know the election people in Ohio,'' she said.

A single voting machine in Auglaize County malfunctioned on Election Day. Burklo said a replacement was installed by midday and no votes were affected.

A key issue for electronic system critics involves ``recalibration,'' or a repair of a machine that might be recording a vote for candidate ``A'' when the voter is pushing the button for candidate ``B.'' The light alongside the wrong candidate goes on, warning the voter.

The lawsuit pending in Columbus by Jackson and allies claimed as many as 30 machines in the Youngstown area had to be recalibrated. Another dozen machines froze up and needed to be reset, according to the lawsuit.

Another concern among voter advocates involved the rotation of candidates to the top of the list in Mahoning County's Youngstown. Political wisdom suggests the top of the ballot is preferable because some uninformed voters might choose the candidate listed first.

State law requires candidates to be rotated by precinct. In other words, Bush's name might be listed first in one precinct, and Kerry's would be first in the next precinct. But Mahoning County machines rotated names for each voter: a man might vote and see Bush's name first and his wife could go next and see the Kerry name listed first on the same machine.

``I don't think we see a problem with that,'' LoParo said.

Though some critics cried foul, there wasn't much evidence that the outcome was affected by the rotation: election night returns gave Kerry 62 percent of the vote to Al Gore's 63 percent in 2000 in Mahoning County. The recount added 76 votes to Kerry's total, and that matched Gore's 63 percent.

Messages left at the Mahoning board were not immediately returned.

As this recount has moved along, and is now near completion, I'm feeling less "paranoid" about the fix being in. There is so much focus and attention on the recount, between the media and witnesses in each county - plus the thousands monitoring developments via the Internet - it has amounted to me feeling better about how people actually did vote on election day.

However, no recount is going to justify the shortage of machine, lack of poll workers, long lines, etc.. etc..

But as far as the actual cast ballots go - I have no doubt, now, that Ohio did, unfortunately, go for Bush.

Shame on those Ohio Smirky supporters, they (and unfortunately us) should get exactly what they deserve.:puke:

They've stonewalled every step of the way. Triad reps have tampered with and re-programmed computers for the recount. Election officials haven't followed the required process that precincts be selected randomly for the 3% recount--in numerous cases, precincts were pre-selected without observers even being present. In some cases, election officials went to a private room to compare the hand counts to the machine counts, declared that the counts matched, yet wouldn't let the observers see the printouts. In other cases, the the 3% handcount did not match the machine count, yet election officials refused to do a full handcount as required by Ohio law. Election officials in many counties also won't give access to poll books, absentee ballots, and provisional ballots as required by Ohio law. To this day, we've still not seen any investigation of why an ES&S official was on a tabulator before election day. We've also not seen any investigation or reasonable explanation for the lockdown in Warren county. Other election officials have been caught in boldfaced lies (e.g., claiming under oath that all machines were distributed on election day when we now know that 81 sat in a warehouse). Blackwell himself won't answer the 36 questions posed to him by congressman Conyers, and now says he refuses to go under oath and considers the request "harassment."

And what about all of the indisputable problems with the vote count itself? In Cuyohoga County, we know for a fact that the vote counts in many precincts are screwed up because they show as many votes for third party candidates as for Kerry. These have not be fixed. In other counties/precincts, official election results are showing over 90% turnout. Uh, no way. In one county with hundreds of thousands of eligible voters, the results claim that only TEN didn't vote. Give me a fucking break, there's no way that's possible.

There are HUGE problems with the count in Ohio. But the only thing you have to ask yourself is this. If there's nothing to hide, then why the stonewalling at every step of the process? If everything is on the up and up, wouldn't you want to give people access to the voting records to get them off your back and counter any and all concerns? Election officials all the way up to the top don't every remotely act like people who have nothing to hide.

In addition, even if you don't think there were big anomalies in Ohio, I don't know how any one can come away "feeling better" about the process. If anything, this recount has shown just how horrible the process is and how corrupt election officials are. They have no problem whatsover in violating Ohio law time and time again. And when people call them on their ILLEGAL activities, the response is that they're being "harassed."

I guess all those who died defending it did so so that it would survive for only a few decades more. No problem. Who cares about living in a totalitarian state as long as you've got cable TVm, microwavable pizza, and pretty colored cell phones, huh?

Or...um...something like that.

They rigged the machines for the recount. The selected 3% were known in advance and given to the machine tamperers. We have a witness to that. They modified the machines to look accurate in the hand count, then switch back to the original fraud mode for the other 97% to match the first count.

or insightful or keyed in, it just tends to mean your paranoid

when he's named in an affadavit and publicly announced simply means that I'm paying attention.

How can you trust the outcome of the recount when they are using the same questionable machines they counted with in the first place.

Unless a hand count is done and they prove to me that this country is really full of that many stupid people, I'm not accepting Bush as my president

It's my feeling that the people doing the re-count assume that everything was on the up and up and are therefore calling the 3% hand count matching the machine count because they don't want to hand count every vote. It's Christmas, and they want to take time off, not stare at punch cards hour after hour. I am fairly sure that the people doing the actual counting are not supposing that they are doing anything wrong. Remember that the Triad guy was for telling them what their answer ought to be to avoid the hand count. Their priority is not "count every vote" so much as it is "I'll be home for Christmas". Blackwell said all along that if "they" want a recount, "we'll" give it to them. I'm not surprised the difference is small. Unless a complete hand count is done, the machines are going to tell essentially the same story they did the first time.

that around right now! No?

I want a FULL and TOTAL hand count in every county in Ohio. Period. If these elections officials thought they could steal our Democracy in time to be home for Christmas, then f*** 'em! And I want a FULL investigation into the disenfranchisement of thousands of Ohio voters.


:kick::kick:

every county in Ohio, I am sure you can arrange it. After the "canvassing period" is done, the voting records, such as poll books and ballots, become accessible to public. All you will need is pay each county their fees (I believe in FL it was something like $10/hr), then sit with their personnel (since you will not be allowed to touch the ballots) and count. In fact, some people in Florida have done so in a few counties. No significant discrepancies were found.

They chose random precincts only if they picked the precincts (which was not random). Cobb's will tell you, it was more important they got a match in count than having to do a hand count. He will also say the recount is not over.

Who knows what happened in Fairfield county. They suspended the recount on the 15th to meet again Sat. Dec 18th. But I don't see any updates about this. This is the county where the hand recount of the 3% test sample did not match the official vote totals and they postponed everything until Sat, to get another machine.

i feel democracy slipping away. their is no one left to trust. hate to be a downer but how did it come to this? sigh.

in 1984. If Bush** screws up in the next 4 years, and I expect he
will screw up the economy, 2008 will have a change of regime. On the
other hand if economy happens to be good in 2008, we could lose again.

The 3rd quqrter 2004 GDP revised figures released today show a 4% gain.
I believe that was the main reason Bush** got many votes.

righteous: hey bemis, do you smell anything fishy here?

bemis: no, righteous, everything smells just fine to me.

righteous: so you're saying that the fact that they rigged the 3% recount to avoid anyone looking at the ballots and they also locked down the poll books to avoid anyone looking at those doesn't make you want to see what's in there?

bemis: right you are, righteous. I'm thinking we don't need to look in there at all. I'm thinking we should just "get over it" and "move on", what do you think?

righteous: thanks, bemis, I couldn't have said it better myself.

to consider the possibility that we just got beat, but all the hard evidence (i.e. recounting) points very strongly to that fact.

I wish it weren't so, but that's where all the evidence that's not merely anecdotal leads an honest person.

That doesn't mean we haven't learned some things that should lead to better and more accurate elections in the future. There are a myriad of problem areas that need addressed.

I don't even discount that it's possible that the long lines in certain precincts may have led to the Bush victory. Unfortunately, there's no way to prove this effect, and there's nothing that can be done about it now. It can't realistically be used to overturn the election results.

I respect anyone with an honest opinion, yourself included. But I have less respect for those who are COMPLETELY unable to fathom the possibility that we lost, and dishonestly ignore any information that points to the contrary.

I hope this clears it up for you.

I would have to disagree with you on that one. That kind of mentality only leads to history repeating itself...

:shrug: we obviously didn't listen to you the first time :shrug:

that agree with yours are the only ones that are valid but this is an open forum and untill you buy the forum and turn it into your own private fascist site for the politically single minded, I will continue to express mine, thank you

"to consider the possibility that we just got beat, but all the hard evidence (i.e. recounting) points very strongly to that fact."


The recount is not hard evidence. It is a recount performed by unknown software programmed by a partisan company against ballots that have suspiciously been sorted and where we're not allowed to see the software, to see the ballots, to see the poll books and where there are numerous instances of more votes than voters.

It's not hard evidence. What we need (and hopefully will get through litigation) is a chance to examine the hard evidence.

of what's wrong in Ohio, alright.
The question would be, how far can the Dems actually get with litigation, given we've still got the same Rehnquist Court we had last time?
Rehnquist is saying he'll be back on the Court in January.
We have until Jan. 6--will he be back before then?
If not, the Court WOULD be TIED--and possibly more passive and uninvolved, therefore, than previous (2000) election (i.e.,"Bush v. Gore" ruling).
Could it be that litigation over Ohio won't suffer the same fate as the Florida did?
Or would lower level GOP Justice agree to "hear" the case?
And what about the Congressional scenario--you know, the one Senator, one Representative objection thing?
On balance, in a way, I'm slightly more hopeful this time, than I would have thought I'd be. Mainly because of this about Rehnquist being out. And the fact there seems more inclination in the Congress to object. The one thing working against us more this time, than last time, is the "surface" numbers--you know, what's out there "officially" and in the media.
And the media seems more "hostile" (or, is it, more scared of the GOP?) this time.

casino bouncers guarding the high-roller tables

"move along, keep moving, nothing to see here, move along"

No... there were no WMD's in Iraq.

No... there was no connection to Saddam and 9/11.

No... Saddam had no connections with al Qaeda.

And as this election has and is revealing, as has all the previous screw-ups. This election was stolen. It just takes Repubs a little longer to figure this out. And as David Lytel said yesterday. We don't have that time for them to come around this time.

Um, dont know but unless you live in Ohio or happen to catch an episode of Keith O's countdown on "how the vote turns" you will have no idea that there was even a question of voter fraud.

not talked about! no one knows. big secret. blogger thing. ya know. not everyone hangs out on the web. many are out holiday shopping and dont have time for any news anyway. and even if they did no one is talking about it.

so just the fact that 19% actually are aware of it from a random sample of Americana is saying something.

NBC, not to mentiion numerous articles from AP, Slate,etc. The MSM has not been hyping this, but this has been in front of people

only 3% of votes were counted and the counting was tainted. This "recount" proves nothing.

Why the F--- can't we just manually recount every ballot cast in Ohio???

what is Blackwell hiding?

sooner or later. The truth always comes out in the end, although before Jan. 6 would be nice...

only thing is the cost would be well over 1 million to hand count 5.5 million votes I would think. Probably take the better part of 1.5 months

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x186961

as you can see, that didn't generate much interest. I can only conclude that people are not really interested in finding fraud - but only in changing the results of the election.

would end up being for a full hand recount?

see http://www.recountflorida.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=6&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

The guy says that the recounts that they did took 5 hours.

From their results

http://www.recountflorida.com/reports/report1.htm

you can see that the total # of votes counted was about 2100. This comes to the cost of around $0.03 per ballot. Let's say it's $0.05 because 5 hours seems low.

Extrapolating this to the state of Ohio, for example, so for the 6 million ballots in Ohio (I think) the cost would be $300,000. Seems a bit low but there it is.

I wouldn't pay any attention to it. This is why they delayed it so long, in order to rig it properly.

I thought that's why they were stalling, then the machine tampering, samples that were not random, etc. What about Sherole Eaton who testified about the tampering, and then in the news she says she's mad at the Green Party for exaggerating what she said. Didn't she say these people actually showed her how to make the sample totals match in order to avoid doing a full recount? How can they possibly just throw that bit of information out as if it doesn't matter?

Go here:

http://www.votecobb.org/recount/ohio_reports/