Ooooh. I hope this means the doo-doo is hitting the fan.
From: Tammy Ballard -Impeach Bush
Date: Thu Nov 18, 2004 10:38 am
Subject: Breaking, Bush Got 130,000 Excess Votes in Florida. Evoting
System Challenged
Thursday, November 18, 2004
NH/Ohio/Florida: Where to begin? Good day sunshine!
The big news, of course, is this. But some other goodies/developments:
Vote Recount to Settle Doubts? by Kim Zetter of Wired News - everything
you wanted to know about the New Hampshire recount. Plus more that you didn't
necessarily want to know, but will gladly skim!
Wait, maybe this is the big news. From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:
"Seeming to brush aside John Kerry's concession speech, the Ohio
Democratic Party has launched a federal court fight over nearly 155,000
provisional ballots by contending a proper accounting of those votes might
decide who really won... County officials across the state began tabulating
provisional ballots Friday. "Given the closeness of the presidential and other
elections," Ohio's provisional ballots "may prove determinative of the
outcome," Democrats argue in a legal filing made public Wednesday by the U.S.
District Court.
The lawsuit asked U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson to order Ohio
Secretary of State Ken Blackwell to impose uniform standards for counting
provisional votes on all 88 counties. Democrats want the judge to take action
quickly - before the results of the election are certified.
Watson, who was appointed by Bush, has not set a hearing. Don McTigue,
a Columbus lawyer who filed the lawsuit for the Ohio Democratic Party, said the
Democrats have concerns that different standards are being applied from county
to county.
"Our action is not tied to some hope of changing the outcome of the
election. We're being consistent with the Kerry campaign, and the Democratic
Party's interest in seeing all eligible ballots are counted," McTigue said.
Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Blackwell, defended Ohio's rules for
handling provisional ballots as explicit. He said Blackwell, a Republican, is
adamant that every valid vote will be counted.
In court papers, the Democrats cite Bush v. Gore - the Supreme Court
ruling after Florida's contested election that awarded Bush the White House in
2000 - as a legal precedent for the Ohio lawsuit. That case was decided by a
majority of five justices.
"In Bush v. Gore, the United States Supreme Court held that the failure
to provide specific standards for counting of ballots that are sufficient to
assure a uniform count statewide violates the Equal Protection Clause of the
United States Constitution," their court filing said.
In Ohio, Democrats argue, the state lacks clear statewide rules that
guarantee provisional ballots are processed consistently from county to county.
First we have Nader pushing for recounts to Democrats' potential benefit,
and now we have Democrats citing Bush v. Gore as precedent. Let's buy our irony
in bulk!
And, finally, things seem to be percolating in Volusia County in Florida,
where Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org fame might be on the verge of having
evidence of fraud. Maybe. ""We began to compare the special printouts given to
us with the signed polling tapes from election night. Lo and behold, some were
missing. We also found some that didn't match. In fact, in one location,
precinct 215, an African-American precinct, the votes were off by hundreds, in
favor of George W. Bush and other Republicans. Hmm. Which was right? Our
polling tape, specially printed on Nov. 15, without signatures, or theirs,
printed on Nov. 2, with up to 8 signatures per tape?" I linked to DailyKos'
story about it, because the comments box is truly beautiful. "This COULD BE
IT!!!" etc.
posted by Anon. at 7:03 AM | 0 comments
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
BREAKING: Bush Got 130,000 Excess Votes in Florida, Evoting System
Challenged, says UC Berkeley Study
This press release was just forwarded to Denmark from a friend in the
Venetian Provinces...
Hello,
This is an invitation to a press conference taking place tomorrow,
11/18 at 10am PST/1pm EST about a UC Berkeley report that's challenging
e-voting in Florida.
Here's the story: A research team at UC Berkeley will report that
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. This is the first
time that an academic institution has formally challenged the e-voting system,
and the University is calling on local voting officials in Florida to
investigate. The research team - which comprises some of the top minds in voter
research - will disclose full results of the study and the raw data at the
press conference tomorrow.
Details about the press conference are included below. It will take
place on the UC Berkeley campus, but you can participate via a dial-in number -
please let me know if you are interested and I can provide you with that
information.
*** MEDIA ALERT ***
UC BERKELEY STUDY QUESTIONS
FLORIDA E-VOTE COUNT
RESEARCH TEAM CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE INVESTIGATION
When: Thursday, November 18, 2004, 10:00 am Pacific
Where: UC Berkeley campus, Survey Research Center Conference Room-2538
Channing Way (intersection of Channing/Bowditch). Parking on Durant near
Telegraph.
What: A research team at UC Berkeley will report that 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. Discrepancies this large or
larger rarely arise by chance - the probability is less than 0.1 percent. The
research team, led by Professor Michael Hout, will formally disclose results of
the study at the press conference.
To attend the conference or request dial-in information, contact:
Erin Reasoner
Eastwick Communications
650-480-4031
Erica Pereira
Eastwick Communications
640-480-4024
Noel Gallagher
UC Berkeley Media Relations
510-643-7944
I have no other details yet.
But this could be -- well, big. You can read about the Survey Research
Center here. It looks like they've been studying and comparing voting
technologies a bit this year: "In response to national concerns about voting
systems, the Survey Research Center and the Institute of Governmental Studies
at the University of California, Berkeley have worked together to determine
which voting systems do the best job of recording and tabulating votes. The
survey compares five voting systems: direct record electronic (DRE), lever
machine, optical scan, paper ballot, and punchcard." (This is NOT the survey
that's being released tomorrow, but instead another recent one dealing with
similar interests.)
A study from, bar none, the finest public insitution of higher learning
in the country, by people who have been studying voting technologies,
displaying a large discrepancy between counties with electronic voting and
those without.
This is big, big stuff. Godzilla big.
A reminder: in the most recent tallies, Bush won Florida by less than
400,000 votes.
The presence on the email press release of a contact number for
Berkeley's media relations guy makes it clear: this is not some hobby or side
project by someone who happens to be a professor. This is a University
sanctioned study by people whose training lies in such surveys and subject
matter.
Did we mention earlier that the Electoral College isn't meeting until
December 13?
http://rottendenmark.blogspot.com/
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you
win."
- -Mahatma Ghandi
"If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They'll have
enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to
preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his
neck to any dictatorial government."
- - Dwight D. Eisenhower
"I'd rather be Don Quixote than another statistic." - -Douglas L. Wilson
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are
to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile,
but is morally treasonable to the American public."
-- Theodore Roosevelt
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