Early voting sees reports of voter intimidation, machine malfunctions
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- synclaire
- added this
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/22/votes
Early voting has begun, and problems are already emerging at the polls. In West Virginia, voters using touchscreen machines have claimed their votes were switched from Democrat to Republican. In North Carolina, a group of McCain supporters heckled a group of mostly black supporters of Barack Obama. In Ohio, Republicans are being accused of trying to scare newly registered voters by filing lawsuits that question their eligibility. We speak to NYU professor Mark Crispin Miller, author of Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of DemocracyJust days after reports that six early voters in at least two West Virginia counties claimed their votes were switched from Democrat to Republican, a couple in Nashville, Tennessee reported similar problems with paperless voting machines. In West Virginia, one voter said, "I hit Obama, and it switched to McCain. I am really concerned about that. If McCain wins, there was something wrong with the machines.”
In Tennessee, a filmmaker couple also had difficulties casting their vote for the Democratic candidate, the Brad Blog reports. They had to hit the Obama button several times before it actually registered, and in one case it momentarily flipped from Obama to Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney. Patricia Earnhardt said, “The McKinney button was located five rows below the Obama button.” The couple in Nashville were using machines made by the same company as those in the counties in West Virginia—by Election Systems and Software.
Meanwhile, there are reports of long lines at early voting sites in several other states, including some counties in Texas, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico.
Mark Crispin Miller is a media critic who’s been focused on voter problems and election fraud in this country. He’s a professor at New York University, author of several books. Most recently he edited Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008. His previous book, Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too.
AMY GOODMAN: What are your concerns right now, Mark?
MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Well, you’ve referred to a couple of them already. We now see a burst of vote flipping by machines, electronic voting machines in a couple of states. This is something that we saw in at least eleven states in the 2004 election, hundreds and hundreds of people coming forward to say, “I pushed the button for Kerry, and the button for Bush lit up.” So, clearly, this was a systematic programming decision by the people in charge of the machines, which in that case and this one is the Republican Party. We’re also seeing systematic shortages of working voting machines in Democratic precincts only. This is also something that did not happen only in Ohio in 2004, but happened nationwide. That election was, in fact, stolen.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you know that?
MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Well, I know because there’s been an audit of the vote in eighteen counties of Ohio by a researcher named Richard Hayes Phillips, who had his team literally scrutinize every single ballot that was warehoused in eighteen Ohio counties. They took over 30,000 digital photographs. This is not speculation, Amy. This is a meticulous, careful, specific and conclusive demonstration that John Kerry actually won some 200,000 votes in those eighteen counties only that were taken away from him. Bush’s official victory margin, you may recall, was about 118,000. So there is no question about it. Ohio was stolen.
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WhiteNoise
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A Warning from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Voter suppression is real. It’s a crime. And it’s happening to YOU.
This is a deliberate strategy to keep minorities from voting, senior citizens from voting, young people from voting in an effort to suppress the vote and maintain their hold on power.
Our concern is not partisan. We need every American to vote: Democrats and Republicans. You can do all the campaigning you want in a battleground state like Ohio or New Mexico, but if your voters aren’t counted, you’re going to lose the Presidency–and our democracy.
- 4 years ago
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WhiteNoise
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WhiteNoise
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"It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people" - Gore Vidal
W.Va. Machines are switching votes to GOP
http://current.com/items/89426453_w_va_machines_are_switching_votes_to_gop20 Amazing Facts About Voting In The United States
http://www.guerrillafunk.com/thoughts/doc000023.html - 4 years ago
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WhiteNoise
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futuregen
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"This morning, Christina Tobin, Director of Free and Equal, announced an Independent/ Third Party Presidential Debate, which will take place on Thursday evening at 9:00pm EST on October 23 in Washington DC at the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel.
All six candidates who qualified for enough state ballot lines to be eligible to win the presidency on November 4th have been invited.
Help make more people aware of this Debate
thanks again for all you're help!If you are going to be in the DC area, you can purchase tickets to the debate:
http://freeandequal .org/buytickets. php
If you aren't in the DC area, thanks to Restore the Republic Radio, you can see and hear the debate live:
http://www.rtrradio .comCALL & FAX CSPAN To Cover this debate live
CALL 202.737.3220
FAX 202.737.6226 ATT: Assignment DeskCALL WASHINGTON JOURNAL IN THE AM
202.628.0205 7-10am est - 4 years ago
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futuregen
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synclaire
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http://current.com/items/89437245_radio_free_usa_steal_back_your_vote
for all those wondering what you can do, check out this link
- 4 years ago
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synclaire
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krush_productions
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it took ages to vote, with so many people voting early i wonder what the election day turn out will be?
- 4 years ago
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krush_productions
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daledrops
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AHA!
- 4 years ago
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daledrops
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uroborus8
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Don't be so sure your paper ballot is being counted correctly. Optical machines are just as hackable and unsafe as other computer driven methods.
The only way we can know the vote counts, is to do it the old fashioned way, by hand. The count would be public (put those public access channels to work). Representatives from both sides would be in the room witnessing the count.
We may not have immediate returns, but our democracy will be saved.
- 4 years ago
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uroborus8
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cantucwearebrothers
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uroborus8:
Hey, hey...let me live in my little bubble for a day or two before bursting it, please!
- 4 years ago
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cantucwearebrothers
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cantucwearebrothers
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Just voted 20 minutes ago...Love my paper ballot.
- 4 years ago
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cantucwearebrothers
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3oc
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Hacking Democracy.
Will this November be a repeat of previous elections? - 4 years ago
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3oc
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WhiteNoise
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Just a hint : Before you export democracy, try having it at home !
- 4 years ago
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WhiteNoise
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WhiteNoise
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One precinct heavy with black voters recorded zero votes for Obama !
Black voters are heavily represented in the 94th Election District in Harlem’s 70th Assembly District. Yet according to the unofficial results from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single vote in the district was cast for Senator Barack Obama.
That anomaly was not unique. In fact, a review by The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city’s 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/nyregion/16vote.html?_r=1&oref=slogin - 4 years ago
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WhiteNoise
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missionaryhunter
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Obama will not go out like Kerry, he ain't skull and bones!
- 4 years ago
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missionaryhunter
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crob80227
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Obama should refuse to concede the election until ALL the votes have been counter and VERIFIED!
The game McCain is playing is to get in Office while the investigation into the (inevitable) fraud are conducted...and by then its too late!
Don't concede Obama!
- 4 years ago
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crob80227
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DeliaTheArtist
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I have a feeling this is going to be a LONG election, even after Nov 4 is over...
- 4 years ago
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DeliaTheArtist
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missionaryhunter
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vote this to the top!
- 4 years ago
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missionaryhunter
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sperritt
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Well folks it is really simple. In the constitution it says that at any time you believe your gov is not working properly or believed to be doing harm to the pursuit of life , liberty , and the pursuit of happiness then it is your civic duty to throw out the old and start a new. If MCbush steals a third term BRING ON THE REVOLUTION OF THE 21ST CENTURY . CALL IT THE PROJECT FOR A REAL AMERICAN CENTURY WITH NO REPRESSION ONLY FREEDOM.
- 4 years ago
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sperritt
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DeliaTheArtist
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sperritt:
How do you suppose we start the revolution?
- 4 years ago
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DeliaTheArtist
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IMMININT
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Figures... It's not like Dubya didn't win the same way...
- 4 years ago
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IMMININT
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Argon18
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That is exactly why "Video your Vote" is so important in order to document any irregularities and provide evidence.
So let's put those camera phones to good use!
- 4 years ago
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Argon18
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BarackMarley
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This intimidation is coming from the Rush Limbaugh inspired, McCain condoned, hate filled racist wing of the GOP.
McCain's accptance of the hatred of the party is starting to look like a civil war
- 4 years ago
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BarackMarley
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pokesmot
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MERCI!
- 4 years ago
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pokesmot
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goldenways
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Here we go again....
- 4 years ago
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goldenways
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synclaire
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AMY GOODMAN: When they—OK, so they have the pictures of all these—
MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Pictures, there’s a CD with this book that you can—
AMY GOODMAN: But they have the pictures of the ballots.
MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Of the variously altered, mutilated ballots, yes. Ballots with stickers placed over the square that people had blacked in for Kerry/Edwards; somebody else blacks in Bush/Cheney. Thousands and thousands of ballots that were pre-marked before they were distributed, so that people would mark different boxes on them, and then they would be invalidated.
Even more chilling is the fact that after Phillips did his research, the boards of elections in fifty-five Ohio counties destroyed all or some of their ballots in defiance of a court order. So we have criminal behavior here of a kind of grand and systematic kind. But the point is—not to engage in what Sarah Palin calls finger-pointing backwards, the point here is to note that we’re dealing with a consistent pattern of subversive behavior by the Republican Party since 2000 and extending all the way up to the present. What we’re seeing now is an especially brazen and diverse range of dirty tricks and tactics that are being used both to suppress the vote and also to enable election fraud.
AMY GOODMAN: Ohio has been very much in the news this past week, not around the issue of voter suppression, but around the issue of fraudulent registration forms, the concern about them being handed in by the organization ACORN.
MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Yeah, the whole ACORN thing is a first-class propaganda drive. ACORN has done nothing wrong. ACORN has, however, been guilty of trying to register low-income citizens to vote. Because they’ve been in the sights of the Republican Party for several years now, they’ve always been extremely scrupulous about checking the registration forms that they garner from their volunteers.
You know, they pay people, basically, to register other voters. So, naturally, from time to time, some volunteer who wants the money will fill out a registration form, you know, with Mickey Mouse or the names of the Dallas Cowboys, something like that. Precisely because that is an ever-present possibility, the people at ACORN have always scrupulously checked the forms before submitting them.
And ten days ago, what they did was, in Las Vegas, their office in Las Vegas, they found a number of these suspicious forms, handed them over directly to the Secretary of State in Nevada, and his response was to turn around and say, “Aha! Here is evidence that you’re conspiring to commit voter fraud.” Now, that effort, that drive went from Nevada to Missouri to Ohio, and now we hear that the FBI is investigating ACORN.
The important point here, Amy, is that voter fraud is practically nonexistent. Several studies have taken a close look at this and found that there really is no voter fraud of this kind. - 4 years ago
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synclaire
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emarston
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synclaire:
We all know this. I ask you this what can be done? Because I have not herd as much as "BOO" in the way of action. I know if this happens again I will march on the White House.
- 4 years ago
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emarston
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sperritt
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synclaire:
"Fuck N' A Wally"
- 4 years ago
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sperritt
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Argon18
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synclaire:
I guess you didn't read down a little further. Some action was suggested.
Get out there with video cameras or even camera phones and get some evidence that can prove Voter Intimidation and Machine Malfunctions.
As it has been wisely said through the ages "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed."
They can't steal the election if their deeds are exposed since it all depends on keeping them out of the public eye.
- 4 years ago
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Argon18
