Diebold's error rate ranges from 1% to 4.4% (Remember the difference in '00 and '04 was less than one-half of one percent) The federally-required standard is something like .000001 percent - thousands of times less than Diebold's admitted failure rate.
The Rolling Stone gives a wonderful summation of the Republican efforts to block the vote.
But what about the ongoing ACORN/Obama 'scandal'?
Thus far, The GOP has claimed ACORN is committing massive voter fraud...but there is NO EVIDENCE that ACORN has done so. ACORN did receive fraudulent voter registration forms ('Donald Duck registered, I guess), but ACORN, just like the GOP voter registration drive in CA in 2006 is required by federal law to turn in those registration forms, no matter how fraudulent...and ACORN flagged the forms pointed them out to the election commissions!
YES, some of ACORN's foot soldiers committed voter registration (but NOT voter fraud, because 'Donald Duck' hasn't VOTED yet)...but foot soldiers of EVERY organization does the wrong thing sometime. The key fact is that ACORN flagged the suspect registrations and pointed them out...and are getting hammered for it in Nevada, in Missouri, in Florida, in Ohio, and in New Mexico.
Back in 2004, conservative pundit Michelle Malkin and NewsMax accused ACORN (falsely) of registering a terrorist to vote.
Stephen Rosenfeld at AlterNet filed a report that puts things in proper perspective:
"Faked names on voter registration forms. Error rates as high as 60 percent. Firing the people responsible for these errors. Investigations launched by local and state police. Sound familiar? This is not ACORN in the 2008 election's final days.
"This is the California Republican Party and its contractors in 2006, when the same problems that are now dogging ACORN and providing political fodder for GOP attacks plagued an effort by California Republicans to register 750,000 people. ...But let's put ACORN's errors in perspective. More than 120 million Americans may vote in November. ACORN, which hired 13,000 workers to register 1.3 million voters, had a few bad hires - like any big company.
But unlike the California GOP in its 2006 voter drive, ACORN has a policy of telling local election officials when it believes it has fraudulent registrations. It is required by states to submit all voter applications and urges election officials to prosecute knowing mistakes. The current case against ACORN comes from its own disclosures.
Remember, there's a BIG difference between voter registration fraud and actual voter fraud. In the past two years, there's been absolutely ZERO cases of voter fraud - or even evidence of any such 'voter fraud' - by either ACORN or any of the 1.3 million voters registered by ACORN over the past two years. But that fact means little to McCain, Palin, and the Republican proxies who cry loud and long about ACORN 'voter fraud'. It seems they're every bit as familiar with what constitutes 'voter fraud' as Sarah Palin is with the job description of the vice president.
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
You missed some links, Glenn:
Democrats buy votes in WV
Summary of 2004 voter fraud prosecutions in Missouri
And vote buying in Louisiana.
And some more democrats buying votes in Michigan.
And some democrats got caught on video buying votes in Wisconsin.
And more vote buying in Kentucky.
And we've got bogus absentee ballots in Oklahoma.
And voting machines switched votes in NJ.
And yet another vote buying case from Kentucky.
Finally this story is just bizarre.
I could go on and on with this.
With this history, what we see with the pending ACORN situation is an old pattern being raised to a national level. We can't let it happen.
Dave
2 - Dr Dreadful
This article and Dave's response just proves four things:
1. You Yanks can't organize an election to save your lives.
2. Electronic voting machines just shouldn't be allowed. They just shouldn't.
3. Electoral fraud is nonpartisan.
4. You guys shouldn't be allowed to hold an election without UN observers. I mean, seriously. Just look at yourselves.
3 - moon
I would like to massage Doc's comments just a bit:
1. Gringos can organize FRAUDULENT elections just fine. So far only Mexico has them beat.
2. Electronic voting machines that print out a paper receipt so that the voting can be AUDITED are fine.
3. Electoral fraud is part and parcel of any SIMULATED democracy.
4. Observers don't mean squat. Elections need to be audited and certified. The OAS, EU and Carter Center have done a pretty good job when PERMITTED to do so. The problem in Gringolandia is that Gringos don't need no stinkin' audits. they are above all laws, be they international, doemstic of natural.
4 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave -
In my post I stated that the Democrats are not completely innocent either...but - and you cannot deny this - what fraud has been committed by Democrats is small potatoes indeed compared to what the Republicans have done. It truly is a matter of degree. To wit:
In WV - FOUR voters who voted fraudulently.
In MO - Out of the mishmash of the obviously partisan reporting, certainly less than a hundred.
In LA - There's NO evidence, simply an unidentified woman's voice. That's NOT proof, Dave.
In MI - "Barklage acknowledges the videotapes did not capture any actual vote-buying." But apparently the accusation is enough to convict?
In WI - Okay, it was done at a home for mentally-disadvantaged. ONE home. Let's be REAL generous and call it maybe another hundred.
In OK - Hey, another FIFTEEN!
In KY - INDICTED, Dave - there's a difference between 'indicted' and 'guilty', y'know - and this appears to be in a MAYORAL race. ZERO on this one.
And in NJ - That's a voting MACHINE problem...and thanks to the REPUBLICAN Bush administration, we are not allowed to have a paper trail at all. In Diebold we trust, huh?
Okay, Dave - is that all you've got? Dude - what you were able to bring against the Democrats was even in its worst case LESS THAN THREE HUNDRED nationwide...whereas the links I gave indicated a FAR greater extent in EVERY case.
Dave, it's a matter of degree. You can't compare a jaywalker to a bank robber...and you cannot get around what the founder of the Heritage Foundation said. Do you really think those 15,000 Baptist preachers and Jerry Falwell and Ronald Reagan weren't listening?
5 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave - just to do a quick follow-up. If we give you the maximum numbers of possible votes fraudulently cast according to your list, that's maybe three hundred votes for the Dems.
The links I posted show a very real possibility that the Republicans' efforts resulted in voter suppression of well over one hundred times that.
That's why I said you're comparing a jaywalker to a bank robber...but maybe that's not an accurate metaphor. How about a shoplifter and a bank robber? Does the shoplifter's crimes justify the bank robber's crime? No? Then why are you justifying the Republicans' crimes by pointing out the Democrats' crimes?
As I said, it truly is a matter of degree.
6 - Dr Dreadful
Moon,
The US has made such strenuous and vocal (and often a lot more than vocal) efforts to promote itself as the shining beacon of democracy and to encourage it in other parts of the world that there's no way any team of outside observers would ever be allowed near an American election. It would just be too humiliating.
In the UK, we've resisted the lure of electronic voter machines, and at the time I emigrated all voting was done in a reassuringly old-fashioned way, with a ballot and pencil in a little wooden booth at the local church hall. I don't recall ever having heard of an incidence of electoral fraud that anyone took at all seriously.
(Although I still think that Major's last-minute comeback to win the 1992 general was more than a bit fishy!)
Recently, they've been experimenting with more high-tech solutions such as text messaging and e-mails in an attempt to increase voter turnout. I hope we're not going to go the way of the shambles that is the US.
7 - moon
Probably the perpetrators of the various fraudulent elections in Gringolandia would tell you that there are too many people there to do it the old way.
I have a feeling that in the not-so-distant future those folks left on the planet who participate in elections--if the elections even exist--will be voting with a show of hands.
8 - Clavos
500000000
9 - Dan(Miller)
According to this article, predominately Democratic party Fairfax County, Virginia (where I lived for a long time) has decided to disenfranchise 98% of the military absentee voters.
Oh well. Dogs and soldiers stay off the grass. Fight if you must, but your vote does not count.
Dan(Miller)
10 - Clavos
Who cares, Dan(Miller)? They're just cannon fodder, and our children aren't among them...
11 - pablo
Clavy, Thats exactly what Henry Kissinger said! Nice one :)
12 - Franco
LOL, it's worth repeating......
#2 â€" Dr Dreadful
This article and Dave's response just proves four things:
1. You Yanks can't organize an election to save your lives.
2. Electronic voting machines just shouldn't be allowed. They just shouldn't.
3. Electoral fraud is nonpartisan.
4. You guys shouldn't be allowed to hold an election without UN observers. I mean, seriously. Just look at yourselves.
All true Doc and I could'nt agree more with the exception of the UN observers. Keep those disfuntional 'Oil for Food" guys and gals out of it!
It's really pretty simple. (1) Current photo ID with proof of current residence. You can't do anything else in life in the US without at least one of these, and voting sould be no different. Having both in current standing which are fully varifiavble pretty much settles it and with an election that can be audited. Start thowing violaters in jail with some accural time to have to due, this will send a stronge message. (2) Get rid of the electoral collage and go with the popular vote.
But there are powerful forces at work to keep both these two things from happening.
But Doc, how well to you really think that the EU with all its 360,000,000 citizes in all it many diverse states could carry out a vote on this scale without just as many problems, if not more, then the US? You can'r really compare the UK to the US. It really should be copaired to the whole EU for a fair comparistion.
In any event, what you said was funny as all get out, and sadly true. The the sadist part to me is we should be setting the example to others. Maybe if enough consevitives find themselves out of work from the ressioin they can find the time to organize some non-profit activiests groups and push such laws through.
In reply to this opinion pieces, it accounts for some serious charges againts the Republican GOP and because at this point that is all they are, charges, we have to wait and see what shakes out in inditments. If indited, they should do time.
However, it is most interesting to note that it seem to be members of the Republican GOP itself who are blowing the whistle on itself as sighted my the links about Mr. Spoonamore and Mr. Curtis, both GOP members taking the GOP to task over it. Something I am not seeing by the Democrats. If the Dems are blowing the whistle on other Dems, please point that out to me.
13 - Dr Dreadful
But Doc, how well to you really think that the EU with all its 360,000,000 citizes in all it many diverse states could carry out a vote on this scale without just as many problems, if not more, then the US? You can'r really compare the UK to the US. It really should be copaired to the whole EU for a fair comparistion.
Oh, but it does, Franco, and has done so every five years since 1979, with minimal problems. Of course the EU elections don't remotely approach the US presidential/general elections in importance - the European Parliament is little more than a talking shop. But their importance isn't really the issue. The point is that each EU nation is responsible for organizing its own part of the election - just as the various United States are responsible for overseeing the election process in their territories. It can be done.
That said, I don't really think that even the EU vs. the US is a fair comparison. There's much less at stake in the European Parliament elections, and therefore less motivation to cheat or to allege cheating.
14 - pablo
CLAVOS!
Franco needs your spelling comments badly.
I don't remember the republicans making any comments about how they disenfranchised over 57,000 Floridians in 2000 Franco, over 40,000 of those citizens denied their right to vote illegally, most of whom were African-Americans.
I don't recall any republicans making any stink about paperless voting machines with hidden source codes made by republicans at Diebold, do you Frankie?
15 - Franco
#14 â€" pablo
CLAVOS! Franco needs your spelling comments badly.
pablo, I am dyslexic and not even spell check and help me all the time. I have had it all my life and do the very best I can at spelling, which is not easy for me to do. Just be thankful you don’t have it.
Now if there was something I said that you did not understand due to my spelling in my post, then kindly point that out to me and I will be happy to further explain it.
I don't remember the republicans making any comments about how they disenfranchised over 57,000 Floridians in 2000 Franco, over 40,000 of those citizens denied their right to vote illegally, most of whom were African-Americans.
I asked what Democrats had blown the whistle on themselves. I’ll take your statement above as an ad hominem counter argument it is to simply mean you can’t find any either.
I don't recall any republicans making any stink about paperless voting machines with hidden source codes made by republicans at Diebold, do you Frankie?
Um, pablo, it was in fact a Republican GOP cyber-security expert that suggested Diebold tampered with 2002 election paperless voting machines that in fact had worked against the Democrats. The link is sighted in the opinion piece itself.
Now, have you got and more intelligent statements you would like to make?
16 - Franco
That said, I don't really think that even the EU vs. the US is a fair comparison. There's much less at stake in the European Parliament elections, and therefore less motivation to cheat or to allege cheating.
Doc, that waa my very point. so imagin if a EU election held the exact same importance as the US election now. I mean, what whould it be like with such an increase in a potelcal or motivation to cheat or allege cheating.
I know a lot would depend on who was running and what it meant to what parties and what states at the time and political enviornment. But it could be wilder then the US given the same extream events your witnessing in the US today, how would they play out under exact condtions in the EU. That is the whole of my point that maybe I did not make clear before.
17 - pablo
Franco,
You sir are correct about Stephen Spoonamore, and I apologize for not seeing that reference. I have watched a two hour video of Mr. Spoonamore a lifetime republican describing in detail on why he believes that Diebold machines were actually created to steal votes. Below is a link to this amazing video.
Stephen Spoonamore discusses why Diebold made paperless voting machines
But of course Nalle will always counter, if nobody has been caught then a crime hasn't occured. Where Nalle learned that kind of logic is beyond me, but he has said it on numerous occasions.
I have said before that the ACORN voting registration problems are NOTHING in comparison with what can be done with these bogus machines, where literally millions of votes can be changed at the push of a button. I wish Nalle would watch this video, but I suspect that he is far too closed minded and partisan to admit the obvious.
That being said Franco you would be hard pressed to come up with even ONE more example of any republicans of any note calling into question this horrible monstrosity of voting machines. However if it were let us say for the purposes of discussion that Diebold was owned by the Kennedy family for instance and Gore had won in the way that Bush did, Nalle would be all over it.
This is the fundamental reason I give Nalle no credence whatsoever on the voting issue, because he has none.