A call to investigate the 2004 election

soulsinging

polaris wrote:

right ... but how do you ensure it doesn't happen in the future if you don't find out what the heck happened just now? ...

obviously, your level of evidence is subjective but i think there is enough to warrant an investigation from a legitimate 3rd party ...

fair enough. but that would be rather expensive and when it's phrased as a partisan thing EVERY time, it really weakens the support for the cause. you have to convince moderates and republicans that the discrepancies are worth looking into.

polaris

soulsinging wrote:

fair enough. but that would be rather expensive and when it's phrased as a partisan thing EVERY time, it really weakens the support for the cause. you have to convince moderates and republicans that the discrepancies are worth looking into.

well ... that is where the media comes in ... hence articles like the original ... until people from both sides demand some integrity - no one will get any ...

so ... demand an independent inquiry - no democrats, no republicans ... but, if we allow for this to just slide - everyone loses ...

floyd1975

polaris wrote:

well ... that is where the media comes in ... hence articles like the original ... until people from both sides demand some integrity - no one will get any ...

so ... demand an independent inquiry - no democrats, no republicans ... but, if we allow for this to just slide - everyone loses ...

This article does not call for an independent inquiry. It does not call for the investigation of alleged voting irregularities that supposedly helped Kerry in Wisconsin. It does not call for an investigation into illegal voting practices in California that defeated Dornan. It calls solely for the investigation into the perceived irregularities in Ohio. It starts off with the question "Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?" This is not the way to start an independent inquiry and would be nothing more than a million dollar partisan endeavor. A better question, and one that would actually get the independent and honest answers that these authors pretend to seek, would be "have voting irregularities existed in recent elections, what effect do they have and what can be done to ensure that these problems are fixed?" The sample elections would have to be over a longer period of time and would have to be conducted in all states rather than picking one state because the researchers did not like the outcome of one election.

my2hands

know1 wrote:

Has there ever been any voting irregularities pointed out by Republicans when a Democrat won? If so, did it mean those were true?

jfk over nixon

polaris

zstillings wrote:

This article does not call for an independent inquiry. It does not call for the investigation of alleged voting irregularities that supposedly helped Kerry in Wisconsin. It does not call for an investigation into illegal voting practices in California that defeated Dornan. It calls solely for the investigation into the perceived irregularities in Ohio. It starts off with the question "Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?" This is not the way to start an independent inquiry and would be nothing more than a million dollar partisan endeavor. A better question, and one that would actually get the independent and honest answers that these authors pretend to seek, would be "have voting irregularities existed in recent elections, what effect do they have and what can be done to ensure that these problems are fixed?" The sample elections would have to be over a longer period of time and would have to be conducted in all states rather than picking one state because the researchers did not like the outcome of one election.

you have every right to call for investigation in all those cases ... but its gotta start somewhere ... picking out things like the headline and stuff really isn't productive either ...

my2hands

remeber that day in 2004... the 5 hour lines in ohio? i was amazed when i saw those lines... and i predicted a land slide...for the simple fact that people dont wait in a 5 hour line for the status quo, they wait 5 hours for change...

the election was stolen in plain daylight...but americans would never believe it...especially when Kerry succedes so quickly... always remeber that these guys might be on differnt teams, but they play in the same league...in other words the eagles hate the cowboys...but they both need the NFL to prosper to be succesful themselves

floyd1975

polaris wrote:

you have every right to call for investigation in all those cases ... but its gotta start somewhere ... picking out things like the headline and stuff really isn't productive either ...

I picked that line from the conclusion. I am only pointing this out because I do not believe that any of these calls are being honest. Many of those making the calls for investigations are trying to participate in voter fraud of their own. This endeavor can not be undertaken in pieces like this without becoming part of the problem.

El_Kabong

soulsinging wrote:

key word being "could." where is the evidence that they did allow such abuse? cos ive seen no real hard evidence to indicate there was this sort of epidemic.

im sorry, but exit polls not being spot on with voter tallies is NOT convincing evidence to me. you poll 100,000 people and then insist that obviously there was cheating becos the 100,000,000 other voters didnt fit the exact same pattern? if exit polls are so accurate, why vote at all? from now on, let's just do representative polls and pick our president based on those, since they're just as valid and accurate right? save us all a lot of time and money.

shit, we invaded iraq on more convincing evidence than this.

it's mroe than exit polls..it's the voting machines in NC that 'accidentally' erased a couple thousand votes, it's about the ppl who say they voted for another option but the confirmation screen kept saying bush/cheney, it's about the programmer who worked for the company that said they developed a backdoor and a porgram to switch votes, it's about one county testing one of the machines and finding it was easy to hack into the system and change votes thru a backdoor, it's about a republican rep (peter king) saying at a party that it's already over, they already won, it all comes down to the counting and they have that...

RainDog

zstillings wrote:

This article does not call for an independent inquiry. It does not call for the investigation of alleged voting irregularities that supposedly helped Kerry in Wisconsin. It does not call for an investigation into illegal voting practices in California that defeated Dornan. It calls solely for the investigation into the perceived irregularities in Ohio. It starts off with the question "Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?" This is not the way to start an independent inquiry and would be nothing more than a million dollar partisan endeavor. A better question, and one that would actually get the independent and honest answers that these authors pretend to seek, would be "have voting irregularities existed in recent elections, what effect do they have and what can be done to ensure that these problems are fixed?" The sample elections would have to be over a longer period of time and would have to be conducted in all states rather than picking one state because the researchers did not like the outcome of one election.

When irregularities are present, vote fraud investigations are always going to be called for by the losing side - why would the winning side risk their win? It's the traction these allegations get in the general population after the call for investigation has been put in that could lead to something more than partisian grievences.

And the voting practices in the Dornan/Sanchez election have been investigated. The investigation found that there was fraud - only Sanchez herself wasn't found to be personally involved, and was allowed to keep her seat. As for the 2004 election, no one believes that if fraud is found, Bush will be removed and Kerry appointed president (O.K., maybe not "no one" - but you get my drift). It's too late for that. What it would do is show that yes we have problems with our voting system, yes they can be exploited, and yes it actually affected the outcome of a presidential election. Fraud becomes more difficult when voters know how it's done.

cinredzfan47

The Illinoisemakers wrote:

I think dems should be more focused on the elections ahead instead of the ones that are beind us.

Exactly. It doesn't matter how much people bring this subject up, the results are in, and even then it doesn't matter if you agree with them or not, there's nothing anyone can do. A lot more will be accomplished if everyone looks to FUTURE elections and not past ones.

Abookamongstthemany

cinredzfan47 wrote:

Exactly. It doesn't matter how much people bring this subject up, the results are in, and even then it doesn't matter if you agree with them or not, there's nothing anyone can do. A lot more will be accomplished if everyone looks to FUTURE elections and not past ones.

excellent plan, perfect example of the democratic party's way of doing things, also. Keep losing, don't try to fix anything, stick with what we are good at...losing. If you don't fix the problem, it's gonna keep happening folks.

mtilden

I don't get why we can't vote by social security number where afterwards each voter can go online to verify and say, "Wait, my vote is fucked up."

El_Kabong

cinredzfan47 wrote:

Exactly. It doesn't matter how much people bring this subject up, the results are in, and even then it doesn't matter if you agree with them or not, there's nothing anyone can do. A lot more will be accomplished if everyone looks to FUTURE elections and not past ones.

yeah, we should tell the police to stop investigating PAST crimes and just focus on stopping FUTURE crimes, what a great idea!

El_Kabong

RainDog wrote:

When irregularities are present, vote fraud investigations are always going to be called for by the losing side - why would the winning side risk their win? It's the traction these allegations get in the general population after the call for investigation has been put in that could lead to something more than partisian grievences.

And the voting practices in the Dornan/Sanchez election have been investigated. The investigation found that there was fraud - only Sanchez herself wasn't found to be personally involved, and was allowed to keep her seat. As for the 2004 election, no one believes that if fraud is found, Bush will be removed and Kerry appointed president (O.K., maybe not "no one" - but you get my drift). It's too late for that. What it would do is show that yes we have problems with our voting system, yes they can be exploited, and yes it actually affected the outcome of a presidential election. Fraud becomes more difficult when voters know how it's done.

............................

i don't understand why ppl don't care if someone is in power (and looting our treasury) by fradulent means? you'd think no matter what party they belong to ppl would see it as wrong.

i doubt any here would tell the police to stop investigating a crime that happened in the past and just focus on stopping a future crime. fuck, just suck up your partisan loyalties and see everyone ends up losing like this

floyd1975

El_Kabong wrote:

yeah, we should tell the police to stop investigating PAST crimes and just focus on stopping FUTURE crimes, what a great idea!

This isn't even close to that...unless you are talking about police only investigating past allegations against minorities while turning a blind eye to the crimes committed by white people.

Abuskedti

zstillings wrote:

This isn't even close to that...unless you are talking about police only investigating past allegations against minorities while turning a blind eye to the crimes committed by white people.

Ah, it doesn't matter who did it anymore.. we know they are all criminals.. If we can prove this one - its a start.

floyd1975

Abuskedti wrote:

Ah, it doesn't matter who did it anymore.. we know they are all criminals.. If we can prove this one - its a start.

It cannot be viewed as an independent investigation with only one side under the microscope. Corruption in the investigation will be impossible to avoid.

Commy

zstillings wrote:

It cannot be viewed as an independent investigation with only one side under the microscope. Corruption in the investigation will be impossible to avoid.

We should be trying to make sure that it doesn't happen again...and again...


doesn't anyone care about freedom anymore?

floyd1975

Commy wrote:

We should be trying to make sure that it doesn't happen again...and again...


doesn't anyone care about freedom anymore?

I agree with you but the corruption caused by allowing one side who is guilty to investigate another side is nothing more than education on how to shut opponents down. With all of the reports this year, we still haven't fixed the alleged problems from 1960 and any investigation that would take place here has no interest in that. One-sided investigations are useless and do nothing but create a bigger problem.

cinredzfan47

El_Kabong wrote:

yeah, we should tell the police to stop investigating PAST crimes and just focus on stopping FUTURE crimes, what a great idea!

You're making a comparison that I believe is pretty weak. Tell me how investigating the past election in order to prove that there was funny business will help the Democratic party win the next election. The way I see it, there is something that can be learned from the 2000 and 2004 elections, but one should only investigate it so far. To me, it's gotten to the point where the Democratic party is paying TOO MUCH attention on what's already happened, and unlike a case where there's a murderer on the loose, I don't really see how it will help the party win the netx election if they continue to pay so much attention to something in the past that CANNOT be reversed.