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Roadglide - Kerry has the second highest popular vote total in US history!

Bush 2004 - 59,106,230 Kerry 2004 - 55,546,066 Reagan 1984 - 54,451,521

The numbers for Bush and Kerry will go up just a little bit, but obviously, there were more votes cast in this election then ever before.

"Note to Mikey Mooron: Pot-smoking slacker losers, no matter how much you try to cajole them into voting, are still nothing but pot-smoking slacker losers.Enjoy your MTV"

LOL! It does appear that Kerry would have been a lot better off ditching Mr. Springsteen and featuring a Hee Haw reunion tour instead.

As much as I can't stand Bush the moron, I hope to HELL that he doesn't get shot or something. Having Cheney in the big chair would be 100X worse, although for all I know he may be calling the shots already. Fucker's first move would probably be to make Ralph Reed VP or something...

The folks concerned about morals and values will certainly do more harm for the hobby than a bunch of pot smoking slacker losers.

Life abroad will be just a little more interesting for us through 2008 at the very least.

(Message edited by pendejo on November 03, 2004)

I am loath to quote anything from Matt Drudge, but he says Ashcroft will resign in the next few days.

If this does indeed pan out, my money would be on Giuliani for the next attorney general.

If Bush really wants to reach across the aisle and appoint some Democrats to cabinet positions, he may want to consider Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer is The New York AG. I don’t know how likely that is though.

Xeno,

Or maybe the Republicans will run Condaleeza and we will have a Black woman as president all in once. The party of Lincoln might well pull it off.

Xeno,

Is spitzer Democrat. Not sure he would be good for the post. He is doing well in his current pit bull role, but he is more agressive in his hunting down of corporate abuse than the US was in its pursuit of Saddam. Is it only me, or do you think that his name bears a resemblance to elliot Ness who hunted down Capone on Tax Evasion charges?

Pendejos comment about the irony of morals and values being the cause of a bush win in this forum is right on point. This is a pick and choose conservative america that wants to tell you what is right and wrong with america and you. And my only other additional comments to expound on pendejos comment is that the only terrorist attack that occurred over the past years in the red states was committed by some white military veterans (okc), and the the terrorists received their aviation training (florida and arizona) also in red states. How ironic.

Beachman: Pass me the crack pipe when you're done...

You guys need to wake up and reconize that there is more to the United States than just the liberal Northeast and the Left Coast of out there! You and the Democrats are out of touch with the majority of Americans.

And it is not going to get any better for you......the migration from the Northeast and upper Midwest to the South is accelerating and with the baby boomers starting to retire and moving to the South it is only going to shift more Electoral Votes to the Red States!

When your party struts out and embraces people like Michael Moore, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson George Sorros and your canidate tells the country that the Hollywood elite is the heart and soul of Ammerica.....the real heart and soul of America spoke out!

You say there is a no mandate! If you take the 10 states with the closest vote that each canidate won.....the vote was much closer in the States Bush won than in where Kerry won!

You throw out the popular vote from Califorina, Texas, New york and Illinois and Bush's popular vote margin nationally increases considerablly!

The vote in Pennsylvania was closer than the vote a was Ohio!

Kennedy's popular vote nationally againt Nixon was less than Bush's margin of victory in Ohio!

Has Terry McCulliffe resigned or been fired

yet?

Actually Beachman has many valid points.

The problem is this: the political power is shifting to the middle part of the country, but most of the intellectual and financial firepower remains in the northeast (and some on the west coast, but not as much, after all we're talking about movie stars, LOL :-).

The NY Times had an interesting article a week and a half ago. It pointed out that if the tri-state region (NY, NJ, CT - all "blue" states) were to form it's own country it would be second only to the rest of the U.S. in many key economic and tax revenue figures. The "knowledge worker" class that lives in these 3 states generate the greatest amount of wealth in the world.

What remains to be seen is if resentment builds up in the richer blue states about where their tax dollars are going. After all, it's a well known fact that the citizens of these states get significantly less back from the federal govt. than what they give in tax revenue. What rankles even more is when that revenue goes to fund tax incentives for businesses in the heartland. If in addition to that, they have to eat the moral and cultural agenda of the red states. . . well, let's just say people here in NYC where I live are not exactly happy campers, LOL :-)

>>>Or maybe the Republicans will run Condaleeza and we will have a Black woman as president all in once.

I think Condaleeza becoming president would be a real stretch. I'll bet Colin Powell could pull it off though. He's been the most moderate, sensible voice in this administration, and I think a lot of people respect him for that. Kind of a shame he doesn't seem to want the position.

Just wondering - anybody else think Kerry's wife might have cost him some votes? I don't think that loud-mouth European did anything good for him, especially when she badmouthed Ms Bush. Half the country dislikes GW, but I don't know anyone that dislikes the first lady.

Xen & Peter--

Spitzer is a D with eyes on Pataki's seat. Nice sentiment, but no way in hell will he give up the power and notoriety he's earned as New York's Attorney General.

He's singlehandedly done more to police corporate malfeasances using NY state laws than the Bush/Ashcroft Justice Department. I doubt Bush will seriously attempt to bridge the partisan divide. He simply does not have the credibility, nor do his advisors have such inclination.

Remember, this is a guy that has never been a legislator. Good, bad, or otherwise, the reason Kerry (and most other Senators, for that matter) looked like he waffled was because the legislative process is a politically complex one, requiring compromise and conciliation. The executive, whether in the private or public sector, does not have to deal with that kind of bullshit on a daily basis. Hence, Bush can afford to talk about governing on principle without suffering any consequences--even more so because he has strengthened his support within the Congress. If Bush were serious about bipartisanship, he ought to read Robert Caro's biography of LBJ, especially Master of the Senate.

FWIW, I remain resolute in my opinion that McCain will be the R candidate in 2008. Even if he runs against Hillary, his numbers and bipartisan credentials are such that he will be the overwhelming favorite, should he elect to run. He is the only national political figure that has a demonstrably bipartisan record, and is highly regarded across the political spectrum.



(Message edited by pendejo on November 04, 2004)

Hello Roadglide, I'm touched you've missed me. I was so frustrated yesterday that I tuned off the radio and TV and focused on a bunch of slave labor I've been putting off. I must say that I was not looking forward to the gloating I knew I would have to put up with from some on this site. It's surprising that I'm oddly comforted by someone enjoying themselves over this historic tragedy, everyone I've spoken too has been crushed,
There no reason for everyone to be miserable I guess,
It looks like you'll be our little ray of sunshine for a while.
What can I say guys, There no way to speculate on how far things will go in the next four years. On top of the wild spin into oblivion this represents for the country and the world half the population in America has NO
effective representation in government and the ruling thugs couldn't care less. I posted the articles and links on this site to establish a credible pattern of behavior.
After many capable voices here expressed there opinions and slugged out the details the facts really should have the last word. The facts still stand, we are still dealing with incompetence and venom on an unprecedented scale. There still has been no forward
motion anywhere on the political landscape, nothing
to be proud of. The only reason Bush is back is that Rove, very effectively, got out the entire misinformed republican base, Including the zealots form the religious right. I'm sure at least half of you know we are moving toward government that is Feudal and Medieval. I will admit this though, he kicked some ass.

I tend to vote Democrat but I would definitely vote for McCain, in an instant. In fact, I kind of admire him, unlike Bush. He also has the sympathy factor from me; he was BRUTALIZED by Bush's propaganda team in the 2000 primary campaign. I almost felt sorry to see him have to hug the very man who destroyed his 2000 run back in Sept. Still, a good pol knows there are soul-selling moments in one's career in order to live and fight another day. I think McCain will be getting kind of old though once 2008 comes around. . . too bad :-(

Pendejo also makes some very excellent points about the differences between executive pols and legislator pols. Which is why I should have realized that a legislator, from the "liberal" northeast to boot, like Dukakis, is not going to cut it for a huge chunk of the nation. But hope and a C-student president have a way of distorting one's perception of reality, LOL

I guess we will all just have to sit back and see what happens in the future.

I think that the economy is on it's way back. Today the market closed with the DOW over 10,300 the NASDAQ over 2023.

A news report said that in October the rail roads did great they had their highest tons per mile carried in years.

On a web site called Browncafe.com they said that FedEx is going to increase it's capacity to Europe by 20%

These are all significant because air cargo is a leading indicator of overall economic growth.

For those of you that are investors, you may want to talk to your brokers about FedEx, UPS, or DHL.

Very fair of you roadglide, of coarse we will see. Those are some good numbers to be sure but I'm not sure if it adds up to a change in the way the wind blows. Remember also that due to all the tax cuts bush gave his pals the moneyed class should be expected to excel. And shareholders only get there's after upper management executives take what they want and report what they will.

(Message edited by TJUncle on November 04, 2004)

(Message edited by TJUncle on November 04, 2004)

I can't wait for the dollar crash in 8-12 months, as debt continues to grow and the current account deficit shoots even higher. Lock in those long-term interest rates now, guys. 30-year mortgages will be well over 8% in a year, not overly high historically but compared to the last five years, massively high.

SF Hombre-

Since you seem to like that crack..... it leads me to believe you might have been one illegitimate voters who went Milwaukee, Wisconsin with the lure of free crack from the Democrats who were offering crack in exchange for promising to vote for Kerry!

Here is the fact on Edwards.....the Kerry/Edwards ticket loss by the same percentage 13% in Edwards home state of North Carolina as Gore did in 2000. All his Gomer Pyle smiling and laughing and slick lawyering did not fool the people of North Carolina the second time around he ran for elected office.......he is finish as far as politics are concern!

On a sad note....his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer today....I hope they they found it at an early stage where it is treatable!

Would you want to be the doctor who is treating her though.....talk about setting yourself up for a lawsuit!

Phoenixguy, They tried running Powell thru the opinion polls in 1996,and although he stood the best chance to beat Clinton he couldn't get the support in his own party because he was so moderate on social issues.I have to say that in 2008 will be a another hard right-winger who the Christian fanatics will support.

Cat; As far as I am concerned interest rates have been too low for too long. It's a good thing if you want to borrow but for those that want to invest in CD's, or even to put a little cash in a savings account it's been a killer.

I'll be licking bush in the Zona for the next 4 years, and the following four years.

I will probably be losing my company in the USA this year because of cheap imports. Try as I might to bring costs down and be competitive, the American market will fuck you to save $100.00. Quality is not an issue, money is. So some of our citizens will lose jobs, benefits etc. but nobody (except us of course) gives a shit.

Americans stopped supporting the economy a long time ago and expect Bush to pull a rabbit out of the hat. Good luck. I doublt Kerry could or would have done anything to improve the situation.

After hundreds of thousands of dollars invested to develope a 100% "Made In The USA" product for the construction industry, I'll lose everything because of a few hundred bucks difference between me and the chinese guys.

Gave it a good shot though and maybe one day instead of spending all day listening to talk radio we can get back on board and buy American. That's the key.

Country John

What! You mean all those tax incentives and tax breaks didn't help your business, countryjohn??

Say it isn't so, LOL!

TJuncle-

What happen to that landslide you said Kerry would win back on October 30?

I think it may have gone right here Beachman

Check out this EXIT POLL Graphic:

www.therandyrhodesshow.com/todays_show.html

N.C. Computer Loses More Than 4,500 Votes


JACKSONVILLE, N.C. - More than 4,500 votes have been lost in one North Carolina county because officials believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. Scattered other problems may change results in races around the state.

Local officials said UniLect Corp., the maker of the county's electronic voting system, told them that each storage unit could handle 10,500 votes, but the limit was actually 3,005 votes.

Expecting the greater capacity, the county used only one unit during the early voting period. "If we had known, we would have had the units to handle the votes," said Sue Verdon, secretary of the county election board.

Officials said 3,005 early votes were stored, but 4,530 were lost.

Jack Gerbel, president and owner of Dublin, Calif.-based UniLect, said Thursday that the county's elections board was given incorrect information. There is no way to retrieve the missing data, he said.

"That is the situation and it's definitely terrible," he said.

In a letter to county officials, he blamed the mistake on confusion over which model of the voting machines was in use in Carteret County. But he also noted that the machines flash a warning message when there is no more room for storing ballots.

"Evidently, this message was either ignored or overlooked," he wrote.

County election officials were meeting with State Board of Elections Executive Director Gary Bartlett on Thursday and did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

The loss of the votes didn't appear to change the outcome of county races, and President Bush (news - web sites) won the state by about 430,000 votes in unofficial returns. But that wasn't the issue for Alecia Williams, who voted on one of the final days of the early voting period.

"The point is not whether the votes would have changed things, it's that they didn't get counted at all," Williams said.

Two statewide races remained undecided Thursday, for superintendent of public instruction, where the two candidates are about 6,700 votes apart, and agriculture commissioner, where they are only hundreds of votes apart.

How those two races might be affected by problems in individual counties was uncertain. The state still must tally more than 73,000 provisional ballots, plus those from four counties that have not yet submitted their provisionals, said Johnnie McLean, deputy director of the state elections board.

Nationwide, only scattered problems were reported in electronic voting, though roughly 40 million people cast digital ballots, voting equipment company executives had said.

Black box voting
Ballot-tampering in the 21st century

www.blackboxvoting.com

E-voting irregularities raise eyebrows, blood pressure

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's VerifiedVoting.org, which has been monitoring the implementation of e-voting machines in the U.S., warned on Monday that over 20 percent of the machines tested by observers around the country failed to record votes properly. The organization recommended that voters choosing to use touchscreen voting methods be sure to double-check the summary screen to confirm that their votes had been properly registered.

BlackBoxVoting.org, the site organized by e-voting activist Bev Harris, announced early Wednesday that it plans to conduct what the site describes as the largest Freedom of Information Act request in history, requesting internal computer logs and other documents from 3,000 individual counties and townships using electronic voting machines.

www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2004-11-03-evote-trouble_x.htm

BlackboxVoting.org Claims Election Fraud
From BlackBoxVoting.org

If you are concerned about what happened Tuesday, Nov. 2, you have found a home with our organization. Help America Audit.

Black Box Voting has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems. What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud. We are working now to compile the proof, based not on soft evidence -- red flags, exit polls -- but core documents obtained by Black Box Voting in the most massive Freedom of Information action in history.

We need: Lawyers to enforce public records laws. Some counties have already notified us that they plan to stonewall by delaying delivery of the records. We need citizen volunteers for a number of specific actions. We need computer security professionals willing to GO PUBLIC with formal opinions on the evidence we provide, whether or not it involves DMCA complications. We need funds to pay for copies of the evidence.

http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=924&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

I think it's useless to speculate on conspiracy theories. It's more likely this is what happened:

Exit polls were accurate for the most part but were focused on early morning voters. It appears Kerry supporters are early risers, probably because they have important jobs to go to, LOL ;-)

Republican groups panicked when they saw the early poll results and made thousands of calls, especially in Pensacola area where polls closed later because western Florida panhandle is on central time.

You've got to give these people credit. They make organizations like Moveon.org look like lazy bums :-) Then again, most of these people probably don't have real important jobs, LOL! But they know how to get votes. Hell, they even DROVE people to the voting areas!

Look the fact of the matter is this.

Bush and his folks TELL the people what they want to hear. The economy is "strong and getting stronger." Freedom and democracy is on the rise in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When Bush talks, he makes people feel good about themselves. His ordinariness contributes to that. He doesn't intimidate people; on the contrary, he makes them think, heck, my son could be pres one day too!

Of course, they forget he's in reality the ultimate legacy or silver spoon elite but he's learned to hide that very well. Read up on how he was defeated by a Texas democrat in his first stab at politics and how that was a bitter lesson he learned. . .

Now when Kerry talks, he DOESN'T make people feel good about ANYTHING. The economy is a mess, it was "wrong to start a war in Iraq," etc.

Lesson: the candidate who LIES and BULLSHITS the best wins!!

Especially in a country filled with stupid, overweight rednecks who drive around in big ugly SUVs and the only book they've ever read is the Bible and just the "Jesus parts" at that. ;-)

Deal with it. Get over it. Move on. Go to Canada where the sane and smart people live!

Normally I would agree that "dealing with it" and "get on with your life" is excellent advice. We all knew though that this paperless ballot was a slippery slop. When you add the discrepancies with the exit polling, which is usally pretty reliable, you gotta be concerned. It may well be that there is nothing to it or there is nothing anyone can prove. If, however, enough credible doubts are raised about the validity of the final count sometime over the next week I really think we owe it to ourselves to look into it. Remember that the last election left a bad cloud over everthing. It would be in Bush's and his supporter best interests to look into and dispel anything that smells fishy.

.

http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?article=100408&list=/home.php



Friday 5th November 2004 :
Kerry Won. Here are the Facts.
49 comment(s).


Kerry Won. Here are the Facts.

Thursday, November 4, 2004

Bush won Ohio by 136,483 votes. Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of votes cast are voided-known as “spoilage” in election jargon-because the ballots cast are inconclusive. Drawing on what happened in Florida and studies of elections past, Palast argues that if Ohio’s discarded ballots were counted, Kerry would have won the state. Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports there are a total of 247,672 votes not counted in Ohio, if you add the 92,672 discarded votes plus the 155,000 provisional ballots. So far there’s no indication that Palast’s hypothesis will be tested because only the provisional ballots are being counted.

Kerry won. Here’s the facts.

I know you don’t want to hear it. You can’t face one more hung chad. But I don’t have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it’s my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN’s exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio’s male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.

So what’s going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don’t ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don’t know.

Here’s why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/an_election_spoiled_rotten.php

Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I’m sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.

The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don’t you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.

Whose Votes Are Discarded?

And not all votes spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African-American and minority precincts. (To learn more, click here.)

http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/electoral_reform/residual_ballot.php

We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn’t match the official count. That’s because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn’t punched through completely-leaving a ’hanging chad,’-or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks. (To read the report from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, click here.)

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2004/ready/ready04.pdf

Ten Reasons Not to Move to Canada
by Sarah Anderson
 
Ready to say screw this country and buy a one-way ticket north? Here are some reasons to stay in the belly of the beast.

1. The Rest of the World. After the February 2003 antiwar protests, the New York Times described the global peace movement as the world's second superpower. Their actions didn't prevent the war, but protesters in nine countries have succeeded in pressuring their governments to pull their troops from Iraq and/or withdraw from the so-called "coalition of the willing."Antiwar Americans owe it to the majority of the people on this planet who agree with them to stay and do what they can to end the suffering in Iraq and prevent future pre-emptive wars.

2. People Power Can Trump Presidential Power. The strength of social movements can be more important than whoever is in the White House. Example: In 1970, President Nixon supported the Occupational Safety and Health Act, widely considered the most important pro-worker legislation of the last 50 years. It didn't happen because Nixon loved labor unions, but because union power was strong. Stay and help build the peace, economic justice, environmental and other social movements that can make change.

3. The great strides made in voter registration and youth mobilization must be built on rather than abandoned.

4. Like Nicaraguans in the 1980s, Iraqis Need U.S. Allies. After Ronald Reagan was re-elected in 1984, progressives resisted the urge to flee northwards and instead stayed to fight the U.S. governments secret war of arming the contras in Nicaragua and supporting human rights atrocities throughout Central America. Iraq is a different scenario, but we can still learn from the U.S.-Central America solidarity work that exposed illegal U.S. activities and their brutal consequences and ultimately prevailed by forcing a change in policy.

5. We Can't Let up on the 'Free Trade' Front Activists have held the Bush administration at bay on some issues. On trade, opposition in the United States and in developing countries has largely blocked the Bush administrations corporate-driven trade agenda for four years. The President is expected to soon appoint a new top trade negotiator to break the impasse. Whoever he picks would love to see a progressive exodus to Canada.

6. Barack Obama. His victory to become the only African-American in the U.S. Senate was one of the few bright spots of the election. An early opponent of the Iraq war, Obama trounced his primary and general election opponents, even in white rural districts, showing he could teach other progressives a few things about broadening their base. As David Moberg of In These Times puts it, 'Obama demonstrates how a progressive politician can redefine mainstream political symbols to expand support for liberal policies and politicians rather than engage in creeping capitulation to the right.'

7. Say so long to the DLC. Barry Goldwater suffered a resounding defeat when he ran for president against Lyndon Johnson in 1964, but his campaign spawned a conservative movement that eventually gained control of the Republican Party and elected Ronald Reagan in 1980. Progressives should see the excitement surrounding Dean, Kucinich, Moseley Braun, and Sharpton during the primary season as the foundation for a similar takeover of the Democratic Party.

8. 2008. President Bush is entering his second term facing an escalating casualty rate in Iraq, a record trade deficit, a staggering budget deficit, sky-high oil prices, and a deeply divided nation. As the Republicans face likely failure, progressives need to start preparing for regime change in 2008 or sooner. Remember that Nixon was reelected with a bigger margin than Bush, but faced impeachment within a year.

9. Americans are Not All Yahoos. Although I wouldn't attempt to convince a Frenchman of it right now, many surveys indicate that Americans are more internationalist than the election results suggest. In a September poll by the University of Maryland, majorities of Bush supporters expressed support for multilateral approaches to security, including the United States being part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (68%), the International Criminal Court (75%), the treaty banning land mines (66%), and the Kyoto Treaty on climate change (54%). The problem is that most of these Bush supporters weren't aware that Bush opposed these positions. Stay and help turn progressive instincts into political power.

10. Winter. Average January temperature in Ottawa: 12.2°F.

www.commondreams.org/views04/1103-28.htm

Interesting, but when the ship has leaks and the captain doesn't know or care, YOU BAIL OUT!!

Oh, well, a couple of hundred thousand votes go the other way, and Kerry is President. But, they didn't, so now we have to deal with the consequences.

My motto from now on will be: "Don't blame me, I voted for Kerry".

Tax breaks have helped my company. That is not the problem. I don't look tot he white house to bail me out, that's not why I got into business. I'm not looking for hand-outs from the government. At least Bush is TRYING.

the problem is the unwillingness of the the American consumer to invest in America by buying American. They'll drive 30 miles to save $5.00 at Walmart. Thats the bottom line.

Since I don't sell at the retail level (I sell to the construction industry) I'm not as affected by retail and I bash Walmart as an example because the same shit goes on in comercial traffic.

It's "LOW BID" sons. Not Quality. LOW BID wins the day and the end user is left to sort the shit out when it breaks. quality doesn't matter anymore and people would rather save a buck than safe their own jobs.

All the ranting and raving by the "know it alls" doesn't amount to a cup of cold water at the end of the day. Everyone seems to have the scene all figured out - groovy. All foreground - no background. Thank goodness talk is cheap or else we'd ALL be speaking Chinese (no disrespect to my Chinese hombres.)

The only thing getting in the way of politics in this country is politics itself. The "FACTS" are nothing more than a reason for the conspiricy theory seminar junkies to continue arguing and fill talk radio with advertising revenue. It's a wonder anything gets done.

With the focus on education, the best we can hope for is that our kids won't be so fucking stupid as to fall into the same rut but instead make intelligent decisions about who will lead the country and then get behind him (or her).

We've turned the process into the laughing stock of the world.

If we spent less time reading between the lines and more time reading the lines we might be capable of making a more meaningful contribution as citizens. If you count this election as a failure then you have only yourself to blame.

California elected a Republican Gov., but it's supposed to be a democratic state. Someone explain that one to this stupid Canadian. Or wait, maybe he wasn't really "elected" at all. Maybe it was the special interest insiders who funnel money up is ass....yeah, that's the ticket.

Maybe was can meet at Walmart and talk about it while we stand in line with our carts full of offshore junk.

>>>Progressives should see the excitement surrounding Dean, Kucinich, Moseley Braun, and Sharpton during the primary season as the foundation for a similar takeover of the Democratic Party. <<<

I wasn't seriously thinking about leaving the United Northern and Coastal States for Canada, until I read the above.

Tjuncle; Glad that your back but how about something ORIGINAL from you.....It seem's that all you know how to do is cut and paste.

As far as any voter fraud this year it looks like the supporters of the Democratic party have their hands dirty.

Nothing like trying to keep voters out of the polls by slashing the tires of vans that were going to be used by the Republicans to bring rural Wisconsin voters to the polls.

I wonder where Michael Moore and his 1000 cameras were for that one.

Roadglide I just can't tell you how touched I am over your continuing interest in my opinion. After the disappointment this last Tuesday your concern is all that is getting me through. As too to the issue of slashing tires I say it's bad, very bad. Not only is it potentially robbing someone of there right to vote, tires are expensive. No, no I just can't sign off on that kind of vandalism.
That being said I'm a little more concerned over this kind of thing
www.therandyrhodesshow.com/todays_show.html
According to the official election results posted on the Palm Beach County election website, 542,835 ballots were cast for a presidential candidate while only 454,427 voters turned out for the election (including absentee). This leaves a discrepancy of 88,408 votes cast for the presidential candidates.

Palm Beach County's supervisor of elections is Theresa LePore who is known for the 2000 Presidential Election and the notorious "butterfly ballot" that caused confusion among seniors and other Floridians.

Other election oddities occurred throughout Florida with some counties registering a 400% increase in expected voter turnout among Republicans while Democrats supposedly experienced a -60% decline in expected support within certain counties. The 50+ counties experiencing the high percentage fluctuations in expected turnout used optical scan voting machines on November 2nd.

Vote discrepancies were also found in Gahanna, Ohio which gave an extra 4,000 votes to President Bush. The error was explained away by Franklin County administrators as a "glitch" in the electronic voting system.

Update: Palm Beach County has updated their numbers and added 91,802 absentee ballots and 1,041 provisional ballots. The vote totals for president increased by 1,543. To view an archived copy of the previous report, click here. While Palm Beach County appears to have accounted for the discrepancy, this underscores the flaws in the system and data compilation.
www.pbcelections.org/ElectionResults/2004/General/Gen04_dtl.htm
Election Oddities
www.ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm
www.washingtondispatch.com/spectrum/archives/000715.html




(Message edited by TJUncle on November 08, 2004)

Here's most of the data in one place,

www.stolenelection2004.com/

I know this title sounds especially conspiratorial, it is really well written and has a lot of good history.

The Consolidation of Fascism, American Style

www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/11/09/2842379

also

www.blackboxvoting.com and www.blackboxvoting.org

Incredible As It May Seem, MSNBC Covers Voting Problems

www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/11/con04492.html

Just watched Keith Olbermann on MSNBC in which he did a story on election problems. He said that there were 90,000 more votes cast in Ohio than registered voters (he went through a list of counties and said how many voters were registered in each and how many extra thousands of votes were recorded).

He reported how in Florida counties, heavily-leaning dem counties went overwhelmingly for Bush -- the first time these counties have ever voted Repub. He showed charts with numbers, etc., it was very compelling.

He said that all the irregularities in Florida and Ohio have happened in counties using non-paper-trail e-voting from the companies run by Bush's friends.

He interviewed a reporter from the Cincinnati paper who discussed how homeland security barred reporters from witnessing the voting in some of the major minority areas in town, that this was the first time the press was ever kept out of and barred from witnessing the voting. The Sec of State in Ohio says that it was under orders from Bush's Homeland Security chief, who said that these cities in Ohio were under a highly increased threat of terrorism during the election. For this reason, only one entrance was open for the voting in these (largely democratic) areas, and the press was barred from coming in to see the voting, or to have the usual offices in the building they have had in every past year.

Olbermann then had Rep. John Conyers on and there are a dozen or so representatives demanding an investigation from the GAO. So it's Chicago-style voting taken to a national level -- the GOP dead vote, the GOP takes away votes from Dems and turned them into Bush votes, and they just add extra votes (for pres, not on the other issues or candidates) to the totals.

In Florida where Bush scored big, on the same ballots Democratic measures scored big, such as making a Florida minimum wage $1 above the federal level. In other words, all these people voted for Bush AND voted to pass these Democratic measures, which the GOP had tried to defeat. So this indicates that only the presidential election voting was rigged, they didn't rig the rest of the voting form.

Looks like maybe we're going to get some sort of investigation into the fraud that's gone down after all, even if Kerry caved in.

Also, some counties in Ohio where the press has always been allowed to inspect figures from voting -- have been taken away and they're not allowed to view them. They're filing something in court to force the Sec of State to release them for public review.

Also, one heavily-Dem county in Florida discovered a huge stack of absentee ballots that had not been counted and told the Sec of State's office about the ballots and said they would count them -- and the Sec of State told them to hold on, and then came and took the ballots away, so the officials in that county were never able to count them.

There was no significant voter fraud in Ohio, there are just people with too much time on their hands, and insufficient knowledge of the electoral process.

Fellow Democrats should enjoy the following article. It acknowledges a simple fact of more of them than us.

...But if militant Christianist Republicans from inland backwaters believe that secular liberal Democrats from the big coastal cities look upon them with disdain, there's a reason. We do, and all the more so after this election...

...Every day in America, hundreds of our most talented young men and women flee the suburbs and rural communities for big cities, especially those on the West and East Coasts. Their youthful vigor fuels these metropolises--the cultural capitals of the blue states. These oases of liberal thinking--New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Boston--are homes to our best-educated people, most vibrant popular culture and most innovative and productive businesses. There are exceptions--some smart people move from cities to the countryside--but the best and brightest gravitate to places where liberalism rules...

...So our guy lost the election. Why shouldn't those of us on the coasts feel superior? We eat better, travel more, dress better, watch cooler movies, earn better salaries, meet more interesting people, listen to better music and know more about what's going on in the world. If you voted for Bush, we accept that we have to share the country with you. We're adjusting to the possibility that there may be more of you than there are of us. But don't demand our respect. You lost it on November 2.

CONFESSIONS OF A CULTURAL ELITIST, Ted Rall. UPS. 11/9/04

I think it's too early to say that for sure explorer. There is more than enough questions to be concerned especially after 2000, this may all be the tip of the iceberg. You might be right though and I may be paranoid. When you think about who we're dealing with though I feel assuming the worst is not over reacting. If this election was ripped there will never be another fair one again if we let them get away with it. I don't mind being labeled a whiner considering what's at stake. I will say again, there may be nothing there but enough stinks that we should double and triple check everything. It's pretty clear these guys will do anything to win so until every "glitch" is catalogued and explained I'm going to blow my little trumpet and I appreciate everyone's patience.

This will be the last thing about voter fraud I'll post until next week and only then if there is anything really new

Questions are swirling around whether the election was conducted honestly or not. We need to know -- was it or wasn't it?

If people were wrongly prevented from voting, or if legitimate votes were mis-counted or not counted at all, we need to know so the wrongdoers can be held accountable, and so we can prevent this from happening again.

Members of Congress are demanding an investigation to answer this question. The decision on whether or not there will be an investigation could come as soon as Monday. Join us in supporting the call for one now, at:

http://www.moveon.org/investigatethevote/

Then please invite your friends and colleagues to sign, as well. We need to show Congress that hundreds of thousands of Americans are serious about protecting the integrity of the vote.

We're all hearing the stories and wondering what's true and what isn't. But at least two cases of serious problems are accepted beyond doubt:

* In Broward County, Florida, electronic voting machines counted backwards: as more people voted, the official vote count went down. [1]

* In one Columbus, Ohio suburb, election officials have acknowledged that electronic voting machines credited Bush with winning 4,258 votes, even though only 638 people voted there. [2]

These are just cases where we know something went wrong. There were also lots of reports of people being denied ballots on Election Day. So far, these reports remain anecdotal, but they must be compiled and examined. And the Internet is abuzz with theories about why the official counts were so different from the exit polls.

Do you have a story? Were you prevented from voting? Tell us, at:

http://www.moveon.org/investigatethevote/

Six prominent members of Congress have called for an investigation. Representatives Conyers (D-MI), Holt (D-NJ), Nadler (D-NY), Scott (D-VA), Watt (D-NC) and Wexler (D-FL), have demanded that the U.S. General Accounting Office:

immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered, and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration. [3]

We've got to support their call by asking our own Representatives and Senators to join them.

If you have a personal story of disenfranchisement, tell us. These members of Congress have agreed to include our stories and comments in their call for an investigation. Please sign now -- we'll deliver our compiled statements to them on Friday.

Even if you don't have a personal story, your signature on our petition will still help build support for an investigation.

To keep our faith in democracy, we need to know the facts. Your signature, and your story if you have one, will help.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

--Carrie, Joan, Lee, Marika, Noah, Peter, Rosalyn, and Wes
The MoveOn.org Team
November 11th, 2004

Footnotes:

1. Broward Machines Count Backward, Palm Beach Post, November 5, 2004
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/news/epaper/2004/11/05/a29a_BROWVOTE_1105.html

2. Glitch Gave Bush Extra Votes in Ohio, AP carried on CNN, November 5, 2004
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/05/voting.problems.ap/

3. Letters from members of Congress to David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, demanding an investigation of the election: November 5th, 2004 & November 8th, 2004
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/gaoinvestvote2004ltr11804.pdf
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/gaoinvestvote2004ltr11804.pdf

>>>Officials found the software used in Broward can handle only 32,000 votes per precinct. After that, the system starts counting backward.

Speaking as a professional programmer, that would essentially mean someone used a 16-bit signed integer datatype, which has a maximum positive value of 32,767. Add 1 to that, and suddenly it's a negative value, because the leftmost bit is used to indicate sign - 0 for positive, 1 for negative. Why anyone would use such a datatype for software of this nature is completely beyond me, when they could just as easily use a 32-bit integer, which can represent positive values up to 2,147,483,648. Since that would safely represent the vote of everyone in the USA (many times over, and for the forseeable future), that would be a much more robust way of coding this.

This does imply a serious flaw with the software in this particular machine. It does not necessarily imply any nefarious activity or purpose. It's often amazing to me how stupid programmers can be in pursuit of "efficient code", which is often a waste of time, energy, and especially money with the speed and capacity of today's machines.

PS - I once saw the same mistake made in some software my teammates had written for a national bank you're all familiar with. I mentioned the issue to my teammates several times, and no one seemed to take the issue seriously. That mindset changed when I entered 32,767 into the system, and efforts to do further testing began failing miserably throughout the application. In this case, the problem was primarily due to my teammates' ignorance of the limitations of the datatypes they had chosen to use in their code.