Report Election Cheating or Shady Actions:

[samtzu]

Actually, in Chicago and parts of Florida, you can make some good money doing that....

[Isotopia]

there just aren't enough people who see it as an acceptable level of radical self-expression to kick someone squarely in the cock who who would pull that kind of shit.

Make sure you've got a sturdy heels if you're wearing pumps BTW.

I'd suggest Manolo Blahnik Kayapo Crepe stilettos ($269)

http://beniboutique.com/cgi-bin/quiksto ... detail=yes

or the Manolo Blahnik Dark Denim Kiddie ($299)

http://beniboutique.com/cgi-bin/quiksto ... detail=yes

[DVD Burner]

Jeeeezzzus,

That price is kinda hefty.

No matter....they dont come in my size anyway.

[Q_]

Canadians reporting before US networks:

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/ ... 41102.html

only by about fifteen minutes....

[regynalonglank]

did my civic duty this am with no incident, no lines at the druid hall on my little rural street, and i forced them to look at my id, whether they wanted to or not!

the one thing i did notice was that our ballots were paper, and they gave us pens to fill in the little boxes...sharpie pens. very nice, pointy, brand new sharpie pens that i covet which say "mark-a-vote" on the side.

i gotta get one...somehow...

[DVD Burner]

i gotta get one...somehow...

ya shoulda just asked.

[Alpha]

Let me just tip my hat to those who stood in line for several hours to vote, regardless of whom they voted for! I saw a news article showing people in Manhattan waiting in line for 3 hours. Good on ya!

(and quadruply so for Afghanis)

[regynalonglank]

ya shoulda just asked.

well, i kinda did...but they kinda ignored me. it was early in the morning, so i guess they didn't wanna give up the ink...i'm gonna stop by again on my way home and see if i can't wangle one out of them!

wish me luck :)

[sparkletarte]

With this talk about voting systems I thought I'd offer up what we do in Canada. Our system is completely different- we don't vote for everyone under the sun (I think that's waste of time- that's what I vote for other people to do- you know, delegation). We have separate elections, at different times, for the federal, provincial, and municipal (mayor & council) elections. The election dates are called by the party in power at the time and they must be within a certain number of years (at least once every 4 years).

For the feds, we vote for our local rep. Whoever gets the most reps elected is the party in power, and their leader automatically becomes out Prime Minister. It works the same for the provincials.

Our voter registration lists are taken from other elections I believe. No one ever asks about your party alliance- it's not as big a deal here. About a month before the election, we get a card in the mail that tells us where our voting station is. We have to bring the card and ID. Our name gets crossed of the voter list. A paper with a serial number gets torn in half- part for us to vote on, and part stays with the people running that particular voting centre. When we have voted, we place the paper into the voting box ourselves. All votes are counted by the people working the station once it's closed, with a rep from each party there to witness each vote as it is counted.

I think it works well- there is a paper trail and it's all out in the open when it's counted. We mark the paper with a pencil- there's nothing to fuck up.

[sparkletarte]

Also- we have more parties to choose from. There's at least, oh, 6-8 in each riding I'd bet...Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, Greens, Independents, Marijuana Party (that's right!), Communist, Bloc Quebecois, and more I can't think of. The main parties are the first three. The Greens have been gaining a lot of ground and I believe they got about 6% of the federal vote this year, although they didn't get an elected official. That amount of votes has given them official party status, which means they now get government money to help run their campaigns. Really the only ones to get seat are the Libs, Conservatives, and NDP, plus the Bloc in Quebec.

Okay here's more, most I've never of, but I'm amused by (I found a site with about 25 listed):

-Party of Citizens Who Have Decided To Think For Themselves And Be Their Own Politicians
-the Work Less Party (motto- "alarm clocks kill dreams")
-Citizen's Action Party
-I'm pretty sure there used to be the Dance party, a friend was involved who was big into dancing and psychadelic drugs.
-We have a Libertarian party too.

How about this one:

The GOAL of the "ANNEXATION PARTY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA" is the annexation of the Province of British Columbia (BC) into the United States of America (US), thus making BC the 51st state of the Union.

hahaha!

So it's not like these parties get many votes, if any, but it's kind of cool that they can make parties and work their own brand of democracy.

[geekster]

That is EXACTLY what we used to do. Our primary elections were where we would vote for a delegate that would attend the party convention where the candidate was chosen. One by one the states have changed their laws where the people vote directly for the candidate. In our presidential elections we are actually voting for electors who will then travel to Washington and elect the president.

We also didn't vote for our Senators originally, they were elected by our state legislatures and I think they should be today.

[stuart]

not really,

canada has a parliamentary system. We have never had anything like it.

[Badger]

We also didn't vote for our Senators originally, they were elected by our state legislatures and I think they should be today.

You're kidding. Right?

If that were the case then Willie Brown would have bullied California legislators for years to appoint ass-licking, puppets as Senators. The only role they'd have served would be as lap dogs to one of the vilest, self-absorbed political hacks in contemporary California history.

No thanks.

[Isotopia]

The only role they'd have served would be as lap dogs to one of the vilest, self-absorbed political hacks in contemporary California history.

Yeah, but that SOB knows how to dress.

[sparkletarte]

Actually Geeky, that's not what I mean, that's not what we do here.

The leader of the party is chosen by the members of the party. It has nothing to do with me as an individual voting for anybody. If I was a member of the party, I could participate in helping to select the leader of the party. The party leader can be so for years and years if they and the party so chooses.

When we vote for a representative, the winner of each riding (region) becomes a Member of Parliament (MP). The party with the most MP's wins- period. There's no further voting for leaders or whatever. The MP's all move to Ottawa (our capital). They then vote on various bills, make fun of each other, pound their desks, that sort of thing.

Provincially, the same thing happens except in BC they go to Victoria (provincial capital), so we have provincial MP's and federal MP's. The provincial and federal elections have nothing to do with each other and don't always get along, and they are elected in different elections. For example, in BC we have the Liberals in power, and the Liberals are also in power federally (over the whole country). However they are quite different- our provincial Liberals are more, uh, let's see, hated, than the federal ones, even though they are the same party. They have very different ways of doing things.

Our senators are appointed, mostly by the old boys club patronage deal. A lot of people want to change them to elected. In BC, our government is looking at completely overhauling how the election system works, with a citizen's assembly of about 100 regular people who are examining a bunch of different options and ways to count votes related to who ends up getting the seat. We need it.

[Simply Joel]

November 3, 2004
With Echoes of 2000 Vote, Ohio Count Is at Issue
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

President Bush swept to an apparent popular-vote victory over Senator John Kerry last night, and seemed headed toward winning enough Electoral College votes to assure his re-election.

But in what was shaping up as a Midwest replay of 2000, Mr. Kerry's campaign challenged the results in Ohio and said it would not abandon the campaign until all the votes in that critical state were counted.

Mr. Bush's aides said early this morning that they were convinced that he had won Ohio which, combined with his victory in Florida, would guarantee him a second term. But at 2:30 this morning, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, Mr. Kerry's running mate, made a brief and dramatic appearance in front of a huge crowd of supporters at Copley Square in Boston to announce that he and Mr. Kerry would not concede.

"It's been a long time - but we've waited four years for this victory,'' he said to thousands of people who earlier had been expecting Mr. Kerry to be delivering a victory speech on that very spot. "We can wait one more night."

In what sounded like a hint of concerted legal action ahead, Mr. Edwards added tersely: "John Kerry and I made a promise to the American people that in this election, every vote would count and every vote would be counted. Tonight, we are keeping our word."

As of 2 a.m. this morning, Mr. Bush had 2,685,059 votes, compared with 2,564,047 for Mr. Kerry, or an edge of 121,012 votes. Mr. Kerry's aides said that they believed the vote could be turned around once provisional ballots - those submitted by people who were unable to vote because their names not on registration rolls - had been tallied.

"The vote count in Ohio has not been completed,'' said Mary Beth Cahill, Mr. Kerry's campaign manager. "There are more than 250,000 remaining votes to be counted. We believe when they are, John Kerry will win Ohio."

The dispute provided a chaotic conclusion to a long gyrating night of counting that vividly recalled the turmoil of four years ago. In addition to the problem in Ohio, Iowa officials said that they would do a recount in that state, where Mr. Bush had a lead of 11,000 with 94 percent of the vote counted.

An evening of confusion - and deflation for Mr. Kerry's aides and Democrats across the country - caused in no small part by surveys of voters leaving the polls, which showed Mr. Kerry leading Mr. Bush by as much as 3 percentage points nationally. With 86 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Bush was leading Mr. Kerry 51 percent to 48 percent.

Americans turned out in big numbers to vote, according to officials from both parties, lining up at polling places across the country - from Ohio to Florida, from New York to Minnesota - in an evocative conclusion to one of the most emotionally charged campaigns in a century.

Polls taken up to the eve of the election showed Mr. Bush tied with Mr. Kerry, and party officials suggested that the turnout in this hard-fought election could match the modern-day record of 63 percent set in 1960. In Ohio, lines were so long that some polling places stayed open past the 7:30 p.m. closing time.

One in seven people who voted yesterday did not participate in the 2000 election, and 60 percent of those voters said they supported Mr. Kerry, according to surveys of voters leaving the polls. And throughout the day, Republicans appeared concerned by the images of long lines of Americans waiting to vote, particularly in cities and in areas with large numbers of minority voters. A survey of voters leaving the polls suggested that the turnout was at least partly inspired by anger among Democrats lingering from Mr. Bush's disputed victory in 2000.

But White House officials said they remained confident that the Republicans' own turnout effort - aimed at evangelical Christians who Mr. Bush's advisers believed had failed to vote in 2000 - would counter the opposition to Mr. Bush, and prevent him from facing the fate of his father, who lost re-election to Bill Clinton in 1992.

Mr. Bush won Florida, seizing one of the big three states that have become the focus of both parties for much of the year and the state that was at the emotional fulcrum of the battle of 2000. Mr. Kerry won the second of those three states, Pennsylvania, and the two men were engaged in what could well prove to be a climactic fight in Ohio.

For all the concern before the voting about irregularities at the polls, there were few reports of problems as night fell across the country, even in states where Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush had dispatched squads of lawyers, all briefed up but with no courts to go to. Late last night - even before the polls had closed in Nevada and Iowa, two particularly competitive states - Mr. Bush summoned reporters and photographers to White House residence where he was watching election results with his family, including his father, the former president.

"We're very upbeat, thank you," Mr. Bush said. "I believe I will win."

A little while later, a senior Kerry adviser, Joe Lockhart, appeared before reporters to say much the same thing. "The first state that we believe will flip is New Hampshire," Mr. Lockhart said, referring to a state that Mr. Bush won in 2000 and that Democrats are confident of winning this time.

But as the night churned on, facing excruciatingly close tallies in Ohio, Wisconsin, New Mexico and Iowa, aides to Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry were contemplating another inconclusive election night, though none suggested they were facing a repeat of the 36-day count of 2000.

"We're counting all the votes,'' said Mike McCurry, Mr. Kerry's chief spokesman. "At the end of the day, we win. I'm not sure what day, but we win."

Ralph Nader, the independent candidate who many Democrats believe effectively handed the White House to Mr. Bush in 2000 by drawing votes from Al Gore, was winning a minimal number of votes and did not appear to be a factor in the outcome of the race.

It was an appropriately chaotic end - or near-end - of the 2004 campaign in many ways began the night in December 2000 when the United States Supreme Court effectively declared Mr. Bush the nation's 43rd president. It took place during one of the most difficult periods of the nation's history, framed by the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that took place less than one year into Mr. Bush's term. The attacks shaped not only Mr. Bush's first term as president, but also his re-election campaign against Mr. Kerry.

In a sign of the intensity of the contest, both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry took the unusual step of campaigning right through Election Day. Mr. Kerry began his day visiting a campaign office in LaCrosse, Wis., while Mr. Bush brought Air Force One into Columbus, Ohio, for one last visit to a state he won in 2000, but where he was struggling for victory again. No Republican has won the presidency without winning Ohio.

Mr. Bush flew to Ohio from Texas, and he dropped in on the state's Bush-Cheney headquarters in Columbus to thank campaign workers.

At one point Mr. Bush took the phone from a volunteer, Mick Turner, who was making calls urging voters to get to the polls, and said: "Julie. This is President Bush calling. How are you? No, I promise you it's me."

Mr. Bush then put one finger in his other ear to hear her better and said: "I'm proud to have your support. I appreciate you taking my phone call. Thank you so very much." Mr. Bush then hung up and said to reporters, "1 to 0."

Mr. Bush voted in Crawford, Tex., at 8 a.m. with his wife and twin daughters. The president's eyes were puffy from a 19-hour, seven-stop, six-state campaign swing the day before, and he appeared calm if wistful as he talked to reporters.

"This election is in the hands of the people, and I feel very comfortable about that," he said. "The people know where I stand. I've enjoyed this campaign. It's been a fantastic experience traveling our country, talking about what I believe and where I'm going to lead this country for four more years."

Asked if he had any words for Mr. Kerry, the president responded: "I wish him all the best. You know, he and I are in the exact same position. We've given it our all and I'm - I'm sure he is happy, like I am, that the campaign has come to a conclusion."

In Wisconsin, which Al Gore won in 2000, Mr. Kerry went to an office to pump up supporters before heading home to Boston, where he cast his ballot with his daughters before lunching, as he has every Election Day he has run for office since his first victory in 1982, at the Union Oyster House.

"This campaign has been an amazing journey, a wonderful journey," he told reporters after emerging from the polling place at the historic Statehouse downtown. "The American people have put their homes, their hearts to us."

Mr. Kerry, at once nostalgic and exuberant, said that he was "very confident that we made the case for change," but that "what's really important is that the president and I both love this country."

"Whatever the outcome tonight," he added, "I know one thing that is already an outcome - our country will be stronger, our country will be united, and we will move forward, no matter what, because that's who we are as Americans. And that's what we need to do."

This campaign came to a conclusion - even an uncertain one - shaped by the three forces that had formed it from the beginning: the attacks of Sept. 11, the disputed election of 2000 and the war in Iraq.

From the start of this contest, Mr. Kerry presented himself as the Democrat best able to take on Mr. Bush because of his record as a Vietnam veteran which, he said, would allow him to hold his own with the president on security issues, and turn the campaign to what he argued would be strong ground for Democrats: domestic issues.

With the economy struggling and the war in Iraq going off course, Mr. Bush increasingly built his campaign around the threat of terrorism, invoking the symbols of the attack on the World Trade Center and portraying Mr. Kerry as not having the strength to stand up to terrorist attacks.

The survey of voters leaving the polls found that Mr. Bush did indeed enjoy a big advantage over Mr. Kerry on the issue of terrorism. But it also showed that a majority now believed that the war had gone badly off course, and had jeopardized the long-term security of the United States.

And while Mr. Bush was seen as much better able to protect the nation from terrorist attacks than Mr. Kerry was, the survey suggested that in the end, domestic issues - like health care and job creation - were critical factors in the choices of many Americans, and many of those voters were going to Mr. Kerry.

Both parties had identified get-out-the-vote efforts as critical to victory in an election where poll after poll showed Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush evenly matched. For Democrats, it was a matter of building on the anger still burning from 2000.

For Mr. Bush's chief strategist, Karl Rove, it was a matter of motivating what he said was four million evangelicals who had not been there for Mr. Bush in 2000, and who would respond to a campaign appeal that was built to a large extent by trying to paint cultural differences with Mr. Kerry on such issues as gay marriage and abortion rights.

Mr. Rove appears to have had at least some success on that count. The surveys found that voters cited three issues as central in making their decision: the economy, terrorism and moral issues, and Mr. Bush won among voters who cited moral issues.


Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Q_]

Really fair, do you think that this is an isolated incident, I think not.....

Voting Machine in Ohio give Bush extra votes.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/ ... index.html

[TheMuse]

http://notmypresident.tribe.net/

[Force]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/11/03/elec ... index.html

I predict it will be about 4 years before someone methodically tallies up all the discrepancies in this election and writes a book that shows that Kerry actually won by a wide margin.

Until then, we can probably expect isolated reports of "minor" incidents that by themselves the sheepish masses will shrug at and turn the channel to wrestling.

And am I the only one that wonders about the strangely conflicting and almost totally uncommented on (by major media) difference between the reports of so many people voting that they had to wait HOURS in line and the reports that voter turnout was pretty much the same as it has been in previous years?

[Simply Joel]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/11/03/elec ... index.html

I predict it will be about 4 years before someone methodically tallies up all the discrepancies in this election and writes a book that shows that Kerry actually won by a wide margin.

Until then, we can probably expect isolated reports of "minor" incidents that by themselves the sheepish masses will shrug at and turn the channel to wrestling.

And am I the only one that wonders about the strangely conflicting and almost totally uncommented on (by major media) difference between the reports of so many people voting that they had to wait HOURS in line and the reports that voter turnout was pretty much the same as it has been in previous years?

[Force]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/11/03/elec ... index.html

I predict it will be about 4 years before someone methodically tallies up all the discrepancies in this election and writes a book that shows that Kerry actually won by a wide margin.

Until then, we can probably expect isolated reports of "minor" incidents that by themselves the sheepish masses will shrug at and turn the channel to wrestling.

And am I the only one that wonders about the strangely conflicting and almost totally uncommented on (by major media) difference between the reports of so many people voting that they had to wait HOURS in line and the reports that voter turnout was pretty much the same as it has been in previous years?

Ok, so maybe it won't take 4 years.

http://www.solarbus.org/stealyourelection

http://nuclearfree.lynx.co.nz/stealing.htm

http://www.ejfi.org/Voting/Voting-25.htm#rig

http://www.bandsagainstbush.org/cgi-bin ... t_poll.gif

http://openvotingconsortium.org

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHI411B.html

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

http://votergate.tv/votergate/votergate ... e_64kb.mov

[tonytohono]

Posted this elsewhere, but after seeing this thread thought it may actually belong here. Please forgive if you have already read it. It was a segment on Countdown I saw right before exiting my work. I'm not taking it too seriously as I think Keith Overblown is kind of a knucklehead for the most part, but it was interesting all the same. Got my boss good and fired up, the serious liberal that he is - makes me look pretty damn conservative.

The jest is the same although it is via my memory and therefore may include minor discrepancies...

Saw this last night on MSNBC

There are serious talks of possible voting fraud in Ohio. Both sides are now bringing out the professors and some claim that for exit polls to have been that far off (Kerry was supposedly winning in many precincts he actually ended up losing in) the professors said that odds of this many incorrect numbers in all of the precincts simultaneously, would amount to a 1 in 2,500,000 chance of being accurate. IE, the obvious hypothesis is fraud.

Kerry who originally insisted on waiting until every vote was counted, shortly thereafter conceded, but now, reports have it he is flipping and flopping and considering supporting a full investigation.

According to some (libertarians in particular), this election ain't quite over.

PS- a couple of mispelled words I missed were corrected, so the quote is actually a misquote, or would that be a fixquote. Does anyone care? I didn't think so.