-Caveat Lector- from: http://thenewamerican.com/tna//1996/vo12no21/vo12no21_vote.htm <A HREF="http://thenewamerican.com/tna//1996/vo12no21/vo12no21_vote.htm">The New American - Does Your Vote Really Count? </A> ----- Vol. 12, No. 21 October 14, 1996 Table of Contents Does Your Vote Really Count? by Robert W. Lee There are many reasons why eligible voters opt to forego visits to the polls on election day. Apathy is one. Distaste for (or, perhaps, satisfaction with) all candidates on the electoral menu is another. Some of anarchistic bent conclude that it is improper to participate in a governmental process when government is the enemy. Perhaps most disturbing, however, is the notion, presently circulating in some conservative circles, that the results of key elections are determined in advance by sinister forces willing and able to steal votes through fraud. Why bother to vote, ask proponents of this theory, if your ballot is to be neutralized by such chicanery? It is a dangerous and seriously flawed notion, especially when combined with the added claim, also circulating, that the Constitution has been suspended.* * See "Is the Constitution Suspended?" in our February 5, 1996 issue. It can lead to a sense of hopelessness that causes one to "drop out" of the system in despair -- or, worse yet, reach a level of frustration that entices one to become associated with extremist movements that utilize extra-legal means to achieve their supposedly anti-government ends. While there are indeed serious flaws in the ground rules by which our elections are presently conducted, and the potential for vote fraud is disturbingly high (and enhanced by mechanical and computerized voting devices that leave no paper trail by which controversial elections can be authenticated), it is important to keep matters in perspective. It makes no sense for otherwise patriotic Americans to allow themselves to be driven from the polls (thereby helping to assure the election of collectivists) or enticed into law-breaking fringe movements (which provide the excuse for government to expand its police-state power in the guise of coping with such "right-wing extremists"). Vote fraud and rigged elections are neither new nor peculiar to the United States, but are an unfortunate attribute of any political system in which the governed are authorized to vote. There is little reason to believe that the votes we cast today are any less meaningful than those cast by our forebears in earlier eras. Now, as then, the vast majority of winners are those who actually do receive the most votes. Then, as now, there were notable exceptions that are familiar because they are exceptions. Consider the 1876 presidential contest between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, which was arguably the most unscrupulous presidential election in our history. Tilden received 261,035 more popular votes than did Hayes (out of more than 8.3 million cast) and held an undisputed lead in states with 184 electoral votes, one short of the 185 required for victory. "However," write University of Virginia professor of government Larry J. Sabato and journalist Glenn R. Simpson in Dirty Little Secrets (1996), "twenty electoral votes in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon were in dispute. Tilden had actually carried the first three of these states, but GOP-controlled election boards disqualified enough Democratic votes, for dubious reasons, to potentially tip the states to Hayes." In January 1877, Congress passed legislation establishing a 15-member Electoral Commission to settle the dispute between Hayes and Tilden. The panel was supposed to be non-partisan, but when the dust cleared it was comprised of eight Republicans and seven Democrats. By strict party-line votes of eight to seven, the commission gave each disputed vote -- and the election by a single-vote margin -- to Hayes. The Hayes-Tilden episode brings to mind the arrogant question posed by Tammany Hall boss William Marcy Tweed in 1871: "As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it?" In similar spirit, Soviet despot Josef Stalin once observed that it does not matter who votes, but rather who counts the votes. Daley Delivery? The 1960 presidential contest between Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard M. Nixon also raised the specter of vote fraud in the key states of Illinois (27 electoral votes) and Texas (24 votes), both of which JFK is said to have narrowly won. Kennedy bested Nixon in the nationwide popular vote by a razor-thin margin of 118,574 (out of more than 68.8 million cast). In the all-important Electoral College, he received 303 votes to Nixon's 219, with 269 required to win. Had Nixon carried both Illinois and Texas, he would have eked out a 270-vote Electoral College victory. Sabato and Simpson write, "Strong suspicions exist that the Illinois electoral votes were stolen for Kennedy by Mayor Richard J. Daley, who late on election night magically produced just enough of a massive margin in Chicago to overcome Nixon's large lead in the rest of the state." That 319,000-vote advantage in Chicago enabled Kennedy to win statewide by a vote of 8,858 out of more than 4.7 million cast. Likewise, in Texas "substantial voter fraud may well have occurred, though it is impossible to say whether fraud accounted for Kennedy's entire 46,242-vote majority out of over 2.3 million votes cast." A dozen years earlier, Texas was the venue for one of the most notorious election "steals" in U.S. history. The 1948 Democratic Senate primary run-off pitted Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson, a devotee of the socialistic New Deal agenda, against former Governor Coke R. Stevenson, a staunch conservative and student of the Constitution. The sordid details of the election were chronicled by historian J. Evetts Haley in his best-selling critical biography of the 36th President, A Texan Looks At Lyndon (1964). Stevenson bested Johnson in the primary, but received only a plurality of the vote, so a run-off was required. Since there was no chance that a Republican could be elected statewide at the time, the winner of the primary would be assured the Senate seat. An unofficial tabulation of the run-off vote showed Stevenson in the lead by some 114 votes out of nearly one million cast. But a subsequent recount in Precinct 13 of Jim Wells County, the heart of territory controlled by pro-Johnson political boss George Parr, mysteriously turned up an additional 203 votes -- 202 for Johnson and one for Stevenson -- giving Johnson an 87-vote statewide lead. Author Haley noted that the 202 who "voted" for LBJ "had been added [to the recount list] alphabetically in blue ink, whereas the original list was in black." Sabato and Simpson add that all of the 203 names were in "the same handwriting." The Precinct 13 election judge, Luis Salas, had absolute say over the vote counts in the Hispanic South Texas precinct. In 1977, Salas, then 76, sought "peace of mind" by admitting that he had certified enough fictitious ballots to steal the election. The Toledo (Ohio) Blade for July 31, 1977 quoted Salas as saying: "Johnson did not win that election; it was stolen for him. And I know exactly how it was done." High Court Hijack Stevenson initiated a vigorous challenge to the obvious subterfuge in Precinct 13 and elsewhere. Federal Circuit Court Judge T. Whitfield Davidson, a respected constitutionalist, issued a temporary restraining order barring the Secretary of State from printing Johnson's name on the general election ballot until Stevenson's evidence could be heard. Judge Davidson also scheduled a hearing to determine further facts in the case. Before the hearing was completed, however, Johnson's forces took his case directly to Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black. As a senator from Alabama prior to his appointment to the High Court by President Roosevelt in 1937, Black had been one of the New Deal's most ardent advocates. He promptly issued a sweeping order in Johnson's favor, ending the hearing, staying Judge Davidson's injunction, precluding consideration by the full Court of Appeals (as Judge Davidson had urged), and effectively awarding the election -- and Senate seat -- to Lyndon Johnson. Haley likened Justice Black's ruling "to that of judicial bulldozer." And perhaps "most terrible of all, it sanctioned corruption as public policy. There is nothing in American history like it." To be sure, then, we have had our share of electoral hanky-panky in the past. The question before us is whether the age of computerized voting has opened the door for so much additional, virtually indiscernible, fraud that the franchise isn't worth a proverbial farthing. A book that has enjoyed a surprisingly cordial reception in some conservative circles seems to send that very message. Votescam: The Stealing of America (1992), by brothers James M. and (the late) Kenneth F. Collier, includes a preface by another brother, Barnard L. Collier, which states that the "authors assert, and back it up with daring reporting, that your vote and mine may now be a meaningless bit of energy directed by pre-programmed computers -- which can be fixed to select certain pre-ordained candidates and leave no footprints or paper trail." Barnard Collier then drops the qualifiers "can" and "may" and simply claims that "computers are covertly stealing your vote" at the behest of "a cartel of federal 'national security' bureaucrats" that include "higher-ups in the Central Intelligence Agency, political party leaders, Congressmen, co-opted journalists -- and the owners and managers of the major Establ ishment news media" who, working "in concert," determine "how and by whom votes are counted ... and how the results are verified and delivered to the public...." Expanding on this central theme, Jim and Ken Collier begin their first chapter with the assertion, "It was not 'the people' of the United States of America who did 'the speaking' on that election day [November 8, 1988], although most of them believed it was, and still believe so." Indeed, "the People did not speak at all," since the "voices most of us really heard that day were the voices of computers...." They then claim that "the public may be aware, if only vaguely, that in some unfathomable way their vote counts for little or nothing." Spotlight Spectacular The charges are sensational, to say the least, and if bolstered by credible documentation might indeed qualify the book as, in the words of a back-cover blurb, the "most astonishing non-fiction detective story you will read in the 1990s." Unfortunately, such documentation is sorely lacking. In instance after instance, the Colliers, who write from a portside perspective,* Among other things, the Colliers boast of their friendships and associations with such leftist luminaries as Tom Hayden, Jerry Rubin, and Abbie Hoffman (they helped raise funds for these and the other "Chicago Seven" revolutionaries who orchestrated rioting during the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago). * imply that major instances of vote fraud have occurred, but fall short of actually proving their case -- which may explain why their story was picked up by the Washington tabloid Spotlight (which retained them as columnists and has aggressively promoted the book) but few other media services. The Colliers presented their evidence to sources across the political spectrum (Pat Robertson, Ross Perot, CBS' Mike Wallace, ABC's Ted Koppel, columnist Jack Anderson, National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg, former governors Jerry Brown and Mario Cuomo, etc.), but got no takers. They imply a cover-up, but a more likely explanation is the lack of credible documentation. The Colliers contend: "Among the wickedest recent examples of possible computerized vote fraud, of the sort that has disillusioned millions of Americans, is the 1988 New Hampshire primary that saved George Bush from getting knocked out of the race to the White House." Virtually all television and newspaper polls, they note, "had Bush losing by up to eight points just hours before the balloting." Yet Bush won handily, besting chief rival Bob Dole in the multi-candidate field by a margin of 37.7 percent to 28.5 percent. Ignoring the possibility that the polls were simply wrong, the Colliers claim: "It is likely that a notoriously riggable collection of 'Shouptronic' computers 'preordained' voting results to give George Bush his 'Hail Mary' victory." They add, "Nobody save a small group of computer engineers, like John Sununu, the state's Republican governor, would be the wiser." The brothers further imply that Sununu, in exchange for a key post in the Bush Administration (he became the President's chief of staff), conspired to rig the election in Bush's favor. "A source close to Gov. Sununu," the Colliers write, "insists that Sununu knew from his perspective as a politician, and his expertise as a computer engineer, that the Shouptronic was prime for tampering." They ask: "How could such an offense against the United States electoral process have been carried out under the gaze of professionals from the nation's TV networks, newspapers and wire services?" In a later chapter, they refer to a possible methodology "used by computer wizard Sununu in New Hampshire to assure that the final results would agree with the exit polls." Despite the serious implications of such charges, the Colliers fail to produce any hard evidence that Sununu or anyone else conspired to rig the election. The most telling evidence to the contrary can be found in a breakdown of the election results. The Colliers conveniently neglect to mention, for instance, that George Bush received a lower percentage of the vote in the supposedly rigged computer-machine precincts than throughout the state as a whole, and that if Dole had received every computer-generated vote he would still have lost the primary. One computer professional, Kurt Hyde, a certified data processor who lived in New Hampshire at the time, carefully scrutinized the election results and categorized precincts according to the type of voting procedure used: paper ballots, mechanical lever machines, punch cards, or the Shouptronic computer devices targeted by the Colliers. Shouptronic machines were used only in Manchester, where Bush received 3,292 votes (32.0 percent), Dole received 2,341 (22.8 percent), and the other candidates collectively gleaned 4,639 (45.2 percent). Note that Bush's percentage in Manchester was substantially lower than his statewide 37.7 percent average. Had Bob Dole received every vote in Manchester, his overall total statewide would have risen to 52,728 (33.5 percent of the 157,386 votes cast), but would still have fallen short of Bush's 59,290 total after deducting the Manchester votes (37.7 percent -- which would have matched his actual statewide average). In its April 8, 1996 issue, Spotlight boasted that it "was the first national publication to bring vote fraud or 'Votescam' to the attention of the American people by running an explosive series on Votescam by the investigative reporters Ken and Jim Collier, starting in 1984." The tabloid then referred to the 1988 New Hampshire primary, "where Dole went up against the plutocracy's choice, George Bush. Dole won the precincts that used paper ballots, and Bush took the computerized ones." To the contrary, Kurt Hyde's meticulously precise figures confirm that Bush "took" the paper ballot precincts by a significantly higher percentage of the vote than he did the computerized precincts. Of the 103,860 votes cast in paper-ballot areas, he received 39,362 votes (37.9 percent) to Dole's 29,517 (28.4 percent). The Colliers write that in the autumn of 1985 they traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio at the behest of a group that wanted them to videotape and evaluate the Hamilton County election system. A judge authorized them to observe vote-count proceedings on election night, but barred the use of a camera. Disobeying the judge's order, Ken Collier disconnected the video camera's light and "proceeded to shoot videotape pretty much as he pleased." The videotape, the authors claim, "revealed a battery of League of Women Voters volunteers using 98-cent tweezers to pluck out tiny tabs of chad from punch card ballots." They imply, but provide no convincing evidence, that the cards being "tweezed" had been punched earlier using an IBM device called a "Port-o-punch" that could punch identical holes in a pad of 50 cards. As recounted in Votescam, "Ken focused the unlit camera on a card which showed about seven little 'pocks' on the back. They were in the exact same spot on every card." Readers are asked to believe that the brothers scrutinized every card! "The women were tweezing these pocks off each card because the blister prevented the card from passing through the counting machine." Elsewhere in the book, Jim Collier is quoted as claiming that the alleged schemers were, instead of simply cleaning up pre-punched cards, "pluck[ing] tabs out of the ballots, creating illegal votes...." The pair explain: "It appeared [note the uncertainty] that the Port-o-punch had been used to quickly punch a slate of seven candidates. Since the cards were stacked, the pieces of chad could not fall freely, so League women were hired to remove them." Later that night, the Colliers' videotape of the "tweezing" was shown on a local television station and the following morning a story in the Cincinnati Enquirer mentioned it. Later that day the brothers appeared on a talk radio program and discussed the videotape. "The response from the public kept the lines lit up for hours," they write. "They [callers] unanimously expressed their outrage, with the net effect that within 24 hours, Elvera Radford, the local elections officer, resigned the post she had held for more than a decade." Significantly, they add: "No other action ensued." In other words, no fraud was proved, no charges were filed, and no one was prosecuted for ballot tampering. Truly remarkable, if the videotape actually "documented" the illegalities they allege. Rational Explanation The Colliers' account begs the question of why someone would use a Port-o-punch device to punch 50-card packets in private, then arrange to have the chad removed in full view of election officials and other observers (including the Colliers) at the courthouse where the count took place. Also, a large number of identically voted cards would be a sure tip-off that something was wrong, yet, as already noted, in the wake of the election no fraud was documented and no one was prosecuted for tampering with the punch cards. What then, if not fraud, was going on? Chad (the small rectangular pieces that a voter punches out when selecting a candidate) are supposed to fall free of the ballot, but sometimes do not. They may hang by a corner and have to be removed manually to avoid jamming the counting machines. Usually, merely tapping a card loosens the chad, but in some instances tweezers are necessary. There is simply no credible evidence that the persons removing chad were engaged in anything other than that tedious task. The Colliers claim or imply in several instances that elections official Elvera Radford quit her job in the wake of publicity about the videotape. For example, they claim the tape "got on local television and caused the Elections Supervisor, Elvera Radford, to quit her post and resign the very next day." And in another instance, "Elvera Radford, the Cincinnati election chief, quit her long-held post the day after we videotaped the LWV using tweezers that corrupted the vote cards." Mrs. Radford recently recalled to THE NEW AMERICAN that the individuals wielding tweezers had indeed merely cleaned off chad that had stuck to the backs of ballots. She adamantly denied the Colliers' claim that League of Women Voters volunteers were involved. "These were not League of Women Voters people," she insisted. "They were employees of the Board of Elections." There may have been League Women present, she acknowledged, but what they "would have been doing was observing the election," as were "representatives of the political parties, candidates, and many other interested parties." League personnel "never sat down and did any work on the chad." Regarding the Colliers' claim that she had resigned due to the controversial videotape, Mrs. Radford told THE NEW AMERICAN that she first entered the appointed office in March 1980 and served until the end of 1985 (less than six years, not "more than a decade" as alleged by the Colliers). At the time of her retirement on December 31, 1985, she was 69 years old. She had considered retiring for a year or two, but opted to stay on the job long enough to secure a better pension. By waiting until the end of the year, her pension was enhanced, and she began receiving pension checks in January. Her retirement was hardly unexpected, she recalled to THE NEW AMERICAN. "What I had told various people in whom I confided that entire year was that it was going to be the year that I was going to retire." One member of the Board of Elections in particular wished to (and eventually did) succeed her. Mrs. Radford had told her in the summer of 1985 -- months prior to the election -- about her plans to retire at year's end, and recalls confirming it for certain during a conversation on election day. Mrs. Radford did not "resign" in the circumstances alleged by the Colliers. She stayed on the job until December 23rd, then used accrued vacation time to spend the holidays with loved ones out of state. She told THE NEW AMERICAN that its interview with her was the first she had heard of Votescam, and expressed both surprise and dismay at the attempt to sully her reputation. A five-line notice on the final page of Votescam asserts: "The U.S. Constitution specifies that only the United States Senate may count the vote for President of the United States. Why the Senate gave up that power, and to whom they gave it, will be the subject of our next book." We await its publication with anticipation, since the only constitutionally authorized presidential vote-count involving the Senate is the tally of votes cast by the Electors who comprise the Electoral College. As stipulated in the 12th Amendment, lists of their votes for President and Vice President are sent under seal "to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate" who, "in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives," is instructed to "open all the certificates." The Constitution also stipulates that "the votes shall then be counted," presumably (but not certainly) by the President of the Senate. The Constitution does not specify that only "the Senate" may count the vote, and the constitutional procedure for doing the count remains intact. The Colliers close the main text of Votescam by reiterating that elections are being stolen by fraud on a massive scale at all levels of government. They further indicate their own personal political bent by stating, "Suddenly you find property decisions going against nature; land and water needed for the perpetuation of life on our earth, suddenly disappear. A handful of developers get richer while the land and the quality of life gets poorer." But when you try "voting the b[*******] out," they "get reelected, and reelected, [and] the press tells you that it was your fault ... you voted for them....'" "You know that you didn't. "Who did?" The Shadow, perhaps? Speculation that fraud may have been a factor this year in Arizona's first-ever presidential primary on February 27th were fueled when early exit-poll projections by CNN, CBS, ABC, the Associated Press, and other news sources indicated that conservative Pat Buchanan was locked in a virtual dead heat with Steve Forbes for first place, while Bob Dole would finish third. Some projections pegged Buchanan as the likely winner, which led Senator John McCain's (R-AZ) office to prematurely issue a press release congratulating Buchanan on his victory. The release stated in part: "Today, Pat Buchanan deserves our congratulations for winning a plurality of support from Arizona Republicans." McCain's press secretary later explained that she had prepared and released the statement "after calling CNN to get early results." Similarly, Arizona Governor Fife Symington called Buchanan state coordinator Karen Johnson at about 2:00 p.m. on election day to say, as Mrs. Johnson recalled to THE NEW AMERICAN, something like, "Karen, I just wanted to pass along some information to you that you would find heartening. I just got some inside information from a CBS poll out of New York and it appears that Pat is doing very well. He is leading, and we will see you tonight ... at your celebration. It looks like you're going to have a winner." But Buchanan did not win. Forbes finished first, Dole second, and Buchanan a disappointing third. Was Buchanan Robbed? Was the election stolen from Buchanan through fraud, as some of his supporters have contended? It is not inconceivable, but neither is it likely, and Buchanan has himself said that he believes the vote count was fair. The poll discrepancies and resulting widespread misreporting of the outcome appear to have resulted from the bizarre voting procedure adopted in Maricopa County, the state's population center.* Voter identification cards were printed and mailed to all registered voters in Maricopa County prior to the election, but any voter not having a card was allowed to vote if his or her registration could be confirmed at the polling place. A glitch by the identification card vendor led to the printing of thousands of duplicate cards, which were mailed by election officials before the error was discovered. A post-election report by the county recorder and elections director acknowledged, "During the mailing of the voter I.D. cards, 60,000 duplicate cards were sent," and a "review of the situation reveals error on our part and that of the vendor." There is, however, no credible evidence that the duplicate cards resulted in multiple voting. * The number of polling places throughout the county was drastically reduced from 953 to 123, then voters were allowed to vote wherever they wished rather than within their own precincts. The February 29th Los Angeles Times reported that television network executives were claiming "that they had not taken into account a new procedure that allowed voters from the most populous county in Arizona -- Maricopa, which includes Phoenix -- to vote outside their county, throwing off expected voter trends from specific areas." Lane Venardos, a vice president of CBS News, was quoted as saying, "Data was coming in from places where we thought people would vote one way, and in reality, people were voting there who didn't live there." The result was what some analysts described as the worst network stumble ever in reporting early exit-poll results. While there was no hard evidence of fraud, University of Virginia government professor Larry Sabato told reporters, "It's pretty outrageous. I know it wasn't intentional, but how many more warnings about the kinds of things that can happen with this are we going to need? They ought to wait for real votes. Otherwise, it just leads to serious mistakes like the ones Tuesday. Exit polls have been wrong bef ore and they will be wrong again. How many more times do they have to be wrong before there is more caution about them?" Vote fraud, especially when computer-oriented, can be very difficult to detect, and even harder to prove. The efforts of those activists who are striving to uncover and document such shenanigans in a responsible and factual manner are to be commended. It is important to note, however, that a major overhaul of our electoral procedures is imperative whether or not another case of fraud is ever confirmed. The mere potential for electoral hanky-panky assures that in close elections the specter of fraud will likely be raised, even when none actually occurs. It is in that sense that the mere possibility of a fraudulent election can be as corrosive of public confidence as documented instances of swindle. Some critics of the status quo insist that a crucial first step in fraud-proofing the franchise is a return to old-style paper ballots. We have no problem with that, though there are ways to combine computer technology with paper balloting to allow the prompt reporting of election results while maintaining a meaningful, secure paper trail when trustworthy recounts are required. � Copyright 1999 American Opinion Publishing Incorporated ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. 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