A Liberal Conspiracy Theory?

[achilleus]

Article.

[Epee_Pox]

The AP reports that the Democratic Party is planning an investigation of "voting problems" in Ohio. Not just a few outliers in the party. Don't know if that's accurate or not. But according to the article, chairman Terry McAuliffe said "it's too early to tell if Republicans were behind any fraud that may have influenced the outcome in Ohio." But then again "McAuliffe said the party is not seeking to overturn the result" -- so it appears they accept the outcome as legitimate.

So why have the Democratic Party, the Green Party and the Libertarian Party joined up now to demand a statewide recount in Ohio -- despite the fact that Ohio has already certified Bush's victory by a margin of well over a hundred thousand votes?

If you're a conspiracy theorist, there's plenty of reasons for it. You just have to somehow believe that the party is actually (1) organized enough, (2) smart enough, and (3) devious enough to think it through in such a conspiratorial way. I don't think ANY political party has the smarts to do that, but let's pretend they're truly Machiavellian. Why on earth would they be demanding a recount after the victory has been certified? It's just... pointless, without some sinister reason.

Forget about just appeasing the hardliners who make up the core of the party base. Yes, they're bitter and angry, and demanding a recount would at least satisfy them that the party did everything it could to overturn the election. But that's so... so... boring. Forget that.

But a secret plan to steal the election? Now that's juicy. That's a conspiracy you can sink your teeth in!

Or how about going through the motions in order to set precedents for future, more contested results. Their position is groundless now, so the thinking would be that any decisionmaking would be a little sloppy, with less of an eye to how such decisions might be applied to somewhat different circumstances. That's devious.

Or how about the racist conspiracy? Democrats are out to get every prominent Black who isn't a member of their party. Sic the dogs on Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Justice Thomas, and oh yeah Ohio's top elections official Mr. Blackwell. Because they's gone off the plantation, massa! Yeah, that's a great conspiracy theory too.

(Okay, you got me, I think it's probably the boring answer.)

[noodle]

i think the idea is this:
- they won't argue the election no matter what, kerry conceded and rightfully so
- there were a lot of voting problems in ohio and other places as well, but ohio is the one that will attract the most attention if things get done there
- if there is a problem with corruption/cheating/whatever, they don't want it to continue to happen next time, so they're going to investigate the hell out of it. republicans shouldn't be so defensive/touchy if there isn't anything to be afraid of.

[Inquartata]

There's such a thing as wasting time and money. Elvis has left the building.

Other than that, if the activists on the left want to fritter away their time and energy pursuing chimaera like this, I but shrug and lift my palms.

[telkanuru]

I'd hardly catagorize the Kerry campaign or the DNC as "activists on the left"...

[telkanuru]

I don't think ANY political party has the smarts to do that, but let's pretend they're truly Machiavellian.

This from the guy with Karl Rove running his party?

[sabreur]

There's such a thing as wasting time and money. Elvis has left the building.

Other than that, if the activists on the left want to fritter away their time and energy pursuing chimaera like this, I but shrug and lift my palms.

Ah but Quart, one of the things they do with actions like this is RAISE money--they appeal to the faithful to contribute to support the effort (or revive the dead in this particular example). Fund-raising appears to have become a constant effort--the DNC has barely slowed down since the election and I am sure the Republicans (from whom I am much less likely to get email) are also continuing to drive the money train as hard as they can.

MR

[Soldier]

Okay, so with fund-raising, they're wasting time and our money.

[scrapinpeg]

I agree with Epee Pox. Appealing to the fundraising core constituency is the boring answer.

I'm going with the most sinister-sounding of his proposed conspiracy theories, the "Democrats are Really Racists" one. That's perfect! You take the idealogically conformist attitude of the Left (ignoring the fact that the Right is just as conformist) and then apply it to Black nonconformists, and slap the Racist label on top of it all!

That would make liberals want to bend over backwards to deny any racism, of course, and then AHA! It IS a conspiracy! See, they doth protest too much! So you get more accusations, which engender more denials, and next thing you know, everyone just KNOWS it's true!

Pox, you are EVIL.

Bwa hahahaha

[mrbiggs]

I don't think it's a conspiracy. I think that a couple of jerks aren't willing to accept the fact that they lost. It happens in almost every close election, and many that aren't so close. We just have to stick it through and wait until everyone gets tired of talking about it.

[achilleus]

LA Times Article.

[Soldier]

I don't think it's a conspiracy. I think that a couple of jerks aren't willing to accept the fact that they lost. It happens in almost every close election, and many that aren't so close. We just have to stick it through and wait until everyone gets tired of talking about it.

Considering that people still talk about the 2000 election, when do you really think they'll get sick of this one?

[Inquartata]

I'd hardly catagorize the Kerry campaign or the DNC as "activists on the left"...

I didn't read the article. I assumed it was the same group some of whose leading lights I heard on a radio program last night, talking about THEIR efforts to force recounts. They went on about how the results were so different from the exit polls, about how exit polls were never wrong and therefore there must have been fraud, and hey Diebold is run by a Republican, isn't it obvious what was going on, and we have got to make sure it's exposed, but not in the blue states because clearly everything worked properly wherever Kerry prevailed, blah, blah, blah. I don't know whether they were affiliated with "the Kerry campaign or the DNC" or not, but they were certainly liberal activists and more than a little bit "out there"....

[Inquartata]

Okay, so with fund-raising, they're wasting time and our money.

Come now, it's better that politicians have the money than that it be spent by "the rich" on yachts and trips to Gstaad for themselves...

[Inquartata]

LA Times Article.

This part explains a great deal:

Arnebeck, who has made two unsuccessful runs for Congress and was an Ohio coordinator for Ross Perot

What a maroon.

[jeff]

Notwithstanding whether or not this effort is warranted (or ever destined to produce any useful result), here's something disquieting to read. I just received this and pass it on without comment. I haven't reviewed the references in it myself yet:

Subject: ELECTION- EVIDENCE- 18 AMAZING FACTS-

18 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA

Did you know....?

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting...804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting...804landes.html
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/htm...e_company.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting...804landes.html

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886
5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator in a surprise upset, with votes counted by ES&S machines.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentar...03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting...4fitrakis.html
6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/module...article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm
http://theindependent.com/stories/05...w_hagel27.html
8. Kenneth Blackwell co-chaired George Bush's Ohio election campaign. As Ohio secretary of state, he left no stone unturned to surpress the democratic vote.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004Y.shtml#1
http://www.freepress.org/departments...ay/19/2004/894
http://67.15.90.110/article.pl?sid=04/10/29/1414219
9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041...s/pfindex.html

10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm

11. Exit polls are usually excellent predictors of election results. Reputable analyses could not find and explanation of the discrepancy between exit polls and results of the 2004 presidential election.
http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/1...screp_v00l.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/in...a3c24b7e64fe49

12. A Diebold subsidiary employed 5 convicted felons as senior managers and developers. These people helped write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml

13. Jeff Dean, senior programmer on Diebold's central compiler code, was convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree.

http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
14. Jeff Dean was served jail time for planting back doors in his client's accounting software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/200...oc_elexoh.html
16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it!
(See the movie here with the chimp<http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov>.)
http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190

17. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html
http://www.yuricareport.com/Election...sBushIsOut.htm
http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html
http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.ph...rticle&sid=950
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm

18. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.
http://www.yuricareport.com/Election...sBushIsOut.htm
http://www.computerworld.com/governm...,97614,00.html
http://www.americanfreepress.net/htm...thousands.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/1...ountvotes.org/


Based on a list compiled by Angry Girl http://nightweed.com/usavotefacts.html
______________________________________________
Were American's votes were deliberately miscounted?

If this was done, it means, quite literally, that we are no longer living in a democracy.

When I read the list a few days ago, some of the allegations just seemed too preposterous to believe. Like:

"Jeff Dean, senior programmer on Diebold's central compiler code...served jail time for planting back doors in his client's accounting software and using a 'high degree of sophistication' to evade detection over a period of 2 years."

I tracked down the author of the list, who graciously responded with a list of references for each allegation. I checked out this Jeff Dean thing in particular. It didn't take long to get to this:

According to the findings of fact in case no. 89-1-04034-1 (Washington State):
"...Defendant's thefts occurred over a 2 1/2 year period of time, there were multiple incidents, more than the standard range can account for, the actual monetary loss was substantially greater than typical for the offense, the crimes and their cover-up involved a high degree of sophistication and planning in the use and alteration of records in the computerized accounting system that defendant maintained for the victim, and the defendant used his position of trust and fiduciary responsibility as a computer systems and accounting consultant for the victim to facilitate the commission of the offenses."

Another one of the references led to a detailed account of the double database technique pioneered by Mr. Dean to enable electronically tabulated votes give a false total while still presenting accurate details in case of spot audits.

In combination with the constellation of undisputed circumstantial evidence and open conflicts of interest, these last details are just too damning to ignore.

A cloud over the validity of the American electoral process is not acceptable.

(end of quoted material - Jeff)

[Inquartata]

Like all compilations of coincidental factoids, evidence of an obvious conspiracy!

[telkanuru]

Like all compilations of coincidental factoids, evidence of an obvious conspiracy!

Correct. You show insight.

[sabreur]

Like all compilations of coincidental factoids, evidence of an obvious conspiracy!

More problematic is the reliability of most of the sources, I'm afraid. And the fact that if this was supposed to be a conspiracy, it was handled quite clumsily (witness the comment of the Diebolt CEO that he would "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush"--as dubious as I am about the current state of electronic voting, this is hardly the kind of statement that would be made by a member of a Dark Chamber dedicated to manipulating the vote.)

However, a cornerstone of most theories about ethics is that the appearance of wrong-doing can be as grievious as actual wrong-doing. A lot of hot air has been expended on the subject of ethics in the last several years--in most cases (ENRON is a particularly potent example), what actually was at issue was illegal behavior, not unethical behavior. I'm afraid that public life in the United States is tormented by least common denominator behavior by members of all factions, and I'm both horrified by it and at a complete loss as to what could happen to correct the situation. The electoral process needs to be above reproach if citizens are to have faith and participate in our democracy. Every shadow cast on the process weakens it. I would very much welcome a move by all responsible people on all sides to discuss substantive issues and to abjure innuendo and allegations of conspiracy.

Not that it appears at all likely, unfortunately.

MR