News item: Hoping your vote counts

[DrSmellThis]

http://www.indystar.com/articles/3/193880-4433-102.h

tml

Nine percent of the vote was counted as Libertarian in Indiana. I don't know what Bush won by in that

state, but it wasn't anywhere near nine percent.

Doesn't it seem that the pile of suspicious irregularities is

starting to get pretty high?

It's like the Mount St. Helens lava dome, which is growing at the rate of one

dumptruck full per second.

Only more explosive.

[DrSmellThis]

Now almost all the candidates except Kerry and Bush are demanding

recounts; and none of them have much personal at stake.

Yesterday (Thursday) Green Party candidate David Cobb

and Libertarian Michael Bednarik filed a demand for an Ohio recount. Someone apparently discovered an obscure law on

the Ohio books, that provides the right to demand a recount, given certain easily met conditions (like 5 complaints

or something). They expect to raise the required $110,000 to pay for it within the next 48 hours. So it won't be

official for a couple days.

They are also calling on Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, the official who

administered voting in Ohio, to disqualify himself from the process.

Blackwell was also Ohio Chair of the

Bush/Cheney reelection campaign. (Could someone explain to me why this is allowed in America?)

Readers of

earlier posts in this thread may recall that Blackwell had spearheaded two controversial efforts that effectively

made it more difficult to vote in Ohio.



http://blog.democrats.com/ohio-recount

[bjf]

well spaced and easily readable.

[DrSmellThis]

Um, you had to be there.

[DrSmellThis]

This site

seems to be pretty up to date with things...just trying to have all the major sources of information on this in one

place.

http://derelection2004.org/

Mission statement from the

Cursor, Inc. site:

"Cursor, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity that educates the public on the

relationship between media and society through two free Web sites, Cursor.org, and MediaTransparency.org. These

sites are useful to media practitioners, students, researchers, and the general public -- adding context to the

mainstream media's output by illuminating the structures and methods employed, as well as by providing an ongoing

library of links to the best media education, research and commentary available on the Internet. We supplement this

with our own original research and commentary."

[koolking1]

"and none of them have much

personal at stake". But, do they? Maybe. What if it's determined that Bush did not win due to fraud (not him of

course, just well-meaning underlings) and since Kerry has already conceded - just a nice thought on my part! Go

Nader!!!!

[bjf]

election>>><<<

[bjf]

The report on fox news was similar to

this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/12/po...oref=login&8br

[DrSmellThis]

The report on fox

news was similar to this:



http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/12/p

olitics/12theory.html?oref=login&8br

Login was required. How was it?

[DrSmellThis]

"and none of

them have much personal at stake". But, do they? Maybe. What if it's determined that Bush did not win due to fraud

(not him of course, just well-meaning underlings) and since Kerry has already conceded - just a nice thought on my

part! Go Nader!!!!

Maybe the internet can play a bigger role in keeping candidates both more independent and

viable, sometime in the not too distant future. It almost worked for Howard Dean, I guess, though he's not exactly

indy. Oops, didn't mean to get us off track there.

[DrSmellThis]

Here is a

progress report and a clear encapsulation from one of the attorneys

involved:

[url="http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111304V.shtml"]http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111304V.shtml[/url

]

At this point it's just a matter of raising an additional $80,000. Upon recount, if Kerry wins Ohio, he is

president. It is unclear whether that is a likelihood.

In further news, Ohio Secretary of State, voting czar,

and Republican chairman, Blackwell, just introduced an initiative to disqualify ballots where registration

birthdates are missing.

[bjf]

Login was

required. How was it?

By TOM ZELLER Jr.

Published: November 12, 2004


The e-mail

messages and Web postings had all the twitchy cloak-and-dagger thrust of a Hollywood blockbuster. "Evidence mounts

that the vote may have been hacked," trumpeted a headline on the Web site CommonDreams.org. "Fraud took place in the

2004 election through electronic voting machines," declared BlackBoxVoting.org.

In the space of seven days,

an online market of dark ideas surrounding last week's presidential election took root and multiplied.

But

while the widely read universe of Web logs was often blamed for the swift propagation of faulty analyses, the

blogosphere, as it has come to be known, spread the rumors so fast that experts were soon able to debunk them,

rather than allowing them to linger and feed conspiracy theories. Within days of the first rumors of a stolen

election, in fact, the most popular theories were being proved wrong - though many were still reluctant to let them

go.

Much of the controversy, called Votergate 2004 by some, involved real voting anomalies in Florida and

Ohio, the two states on which victory hinged. But ground zero in the online rumor mill, it seems, was Utah.



"I love the process of democracy, and I think it's more important than the outcome," said Kathy Dopp, an

Internet enthusiast living near Salt Lake City. It was Ms. Dopp's analysis of the vote in Florida (she has a

master's degree in mathematics) that set off a flurry of post-election theorizing by disheartened Democrats who

were certain, given early surveys of voters leaving the polls that were leaked, showing Senator John Kerry winning

handily, that something was amiss.

The day after the election, Ms. Dopp posted to her Web site,

www.ustogether.org, a table comparing party registrations in each of Florida's 67 counties, the method of voting

used and the number of votes cast for each presidential candidate. Ms. Dopp, along with other statisticians

contributing to the site, suggested a "surprising pattern" in Florida's results showing inexplicable gains for

President Bush in Democratic counties that used optical-scan voting systems.

The zeal and sophistication of

Ms. Dopp's number crunching was hard to dismiss out of hand, and other Web users began creating their own bar

charts and regression models in support of other theories. In a breathless cycle of hey-check-this-out, the theories

- along with their visual aids - were distributed by e-mail messages containing links to popular Web sites and Web

logs, or blogs, where other eager readers diligently passed them along.

Within one day, the number of visits

to Ms. Dopp's site jumped from 50 to more than 500, according to site logs. On Nov. 4, that number tipped 17,000.

Her findings were noted on popular left-leaning Web logs like DailyKos.com and FreePress.org. Last Friday, three

Democratic members of Congress - John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Robert Wexler of

Florida - sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office seeking an investigation of voting machines. A link

to Ms. Dopp's site was included in the letter.

But rebuttals to the Florida fraud hypothesis were just as

quick. Three political scientists, from Cornell, Harvard and Stanford, pointed out, in an e-mail message to a Web

site that carried the news of Ms. Dopp's findings, that many of those Democratic counties in Florida have a long

tradition of voting Republican in presidential elections. And while Ms. Dopp says that she and dozens of other

researchers will continue to analyze the Florida vote, the suggestion of a link between certain types of voting

machines and the vote split in Florida has, at least for now, little concrete support.

Still, as visitors to

Ms. Dopp's site approached 70,000 early this week, other election anomalies were gaining traction on the Internet.

The elections department in Cleveland, for instance, set off a round of Web log hysteria when it posted turnout

figures on its site that seemed to show more votes being cast in some communities than there were registered voters.

That turned out to be an error in how the votes were reported by the department, not in the counting.

And

the early Election Day polls, conducted for a consortium of television networks and The Associated Press, which

proved largely inaccurate in showing Mr. Kerry leading in Florida and Ohio, continued to be offered as evidence that

the Bush team somehow cheated.

But while authorities acknowledge that there were real problems on Election

Day, including troubles with some electronic machines and intolerably long lines in some places, few have suggested

that any of these could have changed the outcome.

"There are real problems to be addressed," said Doug

Chapin of Electionline.org, a clearinghouse of election reform information, "and I'd hate for them to get lost in

second-guessing of the result."

It is that second-guessing, however, that has largely characterized the

blog-to-e-mail-to-blog continuum. Some election officials have become frustrated by the rumor mill.

(Page 2

of 2)



"It becomes a snowball of hearsay," said Matthew Damschroder, the director of elections in

Columbus, Ohio, where an electronic voting machine malfunctioned in one precinct and allotted some 4,000 votes to

President Bush, kicking off its own flurry of Web speculation. That particular problem was unusual and remains

unexplained, but it was caught and corrected, Mr. Damschroder said.

"Some from the traditional media have

called for an explanation," he said, "but no one from these blogs has called and said, 'We want to know what really

happened.' "

Whether that is the role of bloggers, Web posters and online pundits, however, is a matter of

debate.

Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor in the interactive telecommunications program at New York

University, suggests that the online fact-finding machine has come unmoored, and that some bloggers simply "can't

imagine any universe in which a fair count of the votes would result in George Bush being re-elected president."



But some denizens of the Web see it differently.

Jake White, the owner of the Web log

primordium.org, argues that he and other election-monitoring Web posters are not motivated solely by partisan

politics. "While there are no doubt large segments of this movement that are being driven by that," he said in an

e-mail message, "I prefer to think of it as discontent over the way the election was held."

Mr. White also

quickly withdrew his own analysis of voting systems in Ohio when he realized the data he had used was

inaccurate.

John Byrne, editor of an alternative news site, BlueLemur.com, says it is too easy to condemn

blogs and freelance Web sites for being inaccurate. The more important point, he said, is that they offer an

alternative to a mainstream news media that has become too timid. "Of course you can say blogs are wrong," he said.

"Blogs are wrong all the time."

For its part, the Kerry campaign has been trying to tamp down the conspiracy

theories and to tell supporters that their mission now is to ensure that every vote is counted, not that the

election be overturned.

"We know this was an emotional election, and the losing side is very upset," said

Daniel Hoffheimer, the lead lawyer for the Kerry campaign in Ohio. But, he said, "I have not seen anything to

indicate intentional fraud or tampering."

A preliminary study produced by the Voting Technology Project, a

cooperative effort between the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

came to a similar conclusion. Its study found "no particular patterns" relating to voting systems and the final

results of the election.

"The 'facts' that are being circulated on the Internet," the study concluded,

"appear to be selectively chosen to make the point."

Whether that will ever convince everyone is an open

question.

"I'd give my right arm for Internet rumors of a stolen election to be true," said David Wade, a

spokesman for the Kerry campaign, "but blogging it doesn't make it so. We can change the future; we can't rewrite

the past."


Ford Fessenden and John Schwartz contributed reporting for this article.

For the

Record: Nov. 13, 2004, Saturday

A front-page article yesterday about the rise of conspiracy theories on the

Internet regarding the presidential election referred incorrectly to FreePress.org, which carried some of them. It

is the Web site for The Free Press, a community newspaper in Columbus, Ohio; it is not a blog.

[DrSmellThis]

Thanks for the post.



That's a mediocre representation of the "other side" on this issue. I can also see how Fox would carry something

like that. Most all of the "debunking" in that article was pretty vague, along the lines of "that's all just

wishful thinking with little basis in fact," or "those theories have been proven wrong". I consider that sort of

thing "scoffing" rather than rational argument, and this issue deserves better, even from a newpaper article. All

that scoffing shows is that there are some people who don't believe the criticisms of the voting process. No

suprise or new information there! Obviously, Ohio election officials are going to scoff. And it's probable that the

Kerry people think they can't touch this if he wants to remain a commercially viable candidate. So it's hard to

come away from that reading with my critical thinking enhanced. The "caveat" issue of "dixiecrat" (Democrats

traditionally voting Republican) Florida counties they mentioned was introduced earlier in this thread too, with

regard to one county, but it is unclear, to say the least, whether this factor could possibly account for the very

high number of overwhelmingly Democratic counties overwhelmingly voting for Bush. I thought that was their strongest

argument, however. Their point that it was a matter of misreporting rather than miscounting in Ohio is confusing,

and may be irrelevant, if the mistakes affected final results. At this point there are 6 congressmen, one major news

network, and three former presidential candidates (with no chance to win, regardless) who are taking these

irregularities seriously. We will see how NH, Ohio, and the GAO respond in the near future.

The article made a

good point in that it's important to not focus on overturning the election as the primary issue, when at this point

it's mostly about ensuring that we can all live in a Democracy where the right to vote is taken seriously. The fact

that most of the irregularities identified would benefit Republicans can be put on the back burner if the audits and

recounts happen. On the other hand, if the Ohio recount favors Kerry, he's in. Otherwise we can reform the system

to benefit all sides of the political spectrum.

On the other hand, here is the link to the Voting Technology

Project report referenced in the article. I am at least happy that it is detailed. I intend to look at it more

closely.



http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Election2004.html

[koolking1]

We should take the high

road for sure. If people ask why you are questioning the voting practices in the last election your answer should

have nothing to do with your candidate losing but only to do with wanting to be sure that there are free and fair

elections in this country. That's our way, if someone wins fair and square, so be it. If not, well, we'll see.

[koolking1]

from the Bev Harris

site:

"You may have seen recent stories in the media (ABC News, Salon.com), and at other voting integrity Web

sites like VerifiedVoting.org, telling you there is no reason to believe suspicions of fraud in the 2004 election.

In fact, no member of the media nor any organization has done any real forensic auditing to determine whether there

was or was not fraud. Trust in our electoral process is critical to our democracy. We need the right kind of

investigation into anomalies, using appropriate methods.

"Feel-good" statements, dismissive of real concerns

into voting integrity, are not responsible. The truth is what it is. We might see something very uncomfortable

unfold during these investigations. Or, maybe not. It's still too early to tell, but the evidence is mounting."

[DrSmellThis]

A prelimentary read of the first section of the Voter Technology Project, the one that considers

exit poll discrepancies, suggests a suprising misunderstanding of statistics on their part.

It's hard to

believe that comes from a university.

You can't have overall statististical significance based on a large

population difference, and then go back and argue against that by splitting the population apart; to show failure of

statistical significance in sub-groups, as they tried to do!

That appears to be bad math. Here's how you're

supposed to do it:

The first step is to demonstrate overall statistical significance difference in a population,

which demonstrates that there must be statistical significance somewhere in the micro portions of it. Then you

"probe" the results to find out where, with special tests. You must do it this way; in order to conclude that

any differences you find in sub populations were not just due to a "sampling error" of sorts.

So if there's

not a difference in the whole population, you can say nothing about your sub-population results. If there is a

population difference, then there must be differences within some of the sub populations.

I hope this is making

sense to you stats laypeople.

It's mathematically impossible that the micro groups -- in this case, the states

-- would all turn out insignificant. I learned this in the second of my 7 graduate courses in stats.

So

mathematically, they were looking at it backwards, and in fact demonstrated an overall statistically significant

difference between exit polling and vote tallies in favor of Bush. They then effectively left out of their

"analysis" the sources of the difference.

Even though they mentioned three states with the largest differences,

it is doubtful they used the correct statistical tests to comment on the statistical significance of State results,

since they were mathematically wrongheaded to begin with. They weren't recognizing the issue that would have

allowed them to pick the correct subtests. You would have to pick a different allowance for sampling error than they

did, given preexisting information about a population difference, which would give you greater confidence in state

differences.

Translation: So chances are good that more of the differences in state exit polls versus vote

tallies would be more meaningful than they calculated, given that we already know the national difference is

meaningful. In other words, the national population difference is more like the "true difference", the knowledge of

which gives you much greater confidence in any differences you observe in the states, than you would have

otherwise.

But hardly anyone in the public who read that report would pick that out, I guess. I wonder who

their statistician was.

[koolking1]

I've heard informally that

Gillespie, RNC, wants exit polls banned from here on out "not accurate".

[DrSmellThis]

The Zogby post in this thread

addressed that fallacious assertion.

[DrSmellThis]

Blackboxvoting.org has been

extremely busy initiating fraud investigations all over the U.S., including Nevada, Ohio, Florida, Arizona, New

Hampshire, New Mexico, and Georgia. These are separate from the recounts that seem likely to happen in at least

three states. You can find updates here:



http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

Unfortunately, since the

investigations are in progress, the flow of information has slowed. I'm willing to wait if it helps the truth come

out.

[DrSmellThis]

From blackboxvoting.org:

SUNDAY Nov. 7 2004: We’re awaiting independent analysis on some

pretty crooked-looking elections. In the mean time, here’s something to chew on.

Your local elections officials

trusted a group called NASED -- the National Association of State Election Directors -- to certify that your voting

system is safe.

This trust was breached.

NASED certified the systems based on the recommendation of an

“Independent Testing Authority” (ITA).

The ITA reports are considered so secret that even the California

Secretary of State’s office had trouble getting its hands on one. The ITA refused to answer any questions about what

it does. Imagine our surprise when, due to Freedom of Information requests, a couple of them showed up in our

mailbox.

The most important test on the ITA report is called the “penetration analysis.” This test is supposed

to tell us whether anyone can break into the system to tamper with the votes.

“Not applicable,” wrote Shawn

Southworth, of Ciber Labs, the ITA that tested the Diebold GEMS central tabulator software. “Did not test.”



</FONT>This is Shawn Southworth, in his office in Huntsville, Alabama.
He is the man who

carefully examines our voting software.


Shawn

Southworth “tested” whether every candidate on the ballot has a name. But we were shocked to find out that, when

asked the most important question -- about vulnerable entry points -- Southworth’s report says “not reviewed.”





Ciber “tested”whether the manual gives a description of the voting system. But when asked to

identify methods of attack (which we think the American voter would consider pretty important), the top-secret

report says “not applicable.”

Ciber “tested” whether ballots comply with local regulations, but when Bev Harris

asked Shawn Southworth what he thinks about Diebold tabulators accepting large numbers of “minus” votes, he said he

didn’t mention that in his report because “the vendors don’t like him to put anything negative” in his report. After

all, he said, he is paid by the vendors.

Shawn Southworth didn’t do the penetration analysis, but check out

what he wrote:

“Ciber

recommends to the NASED committee that GEMS software version 1.18.15 be certified and assigned NASED

certification number N03060011815.”

Was this just a one-time oversight?

Nope. It appears to be more

like a habit. Here is the same Ciber

certification section for VoteHere; as you can see, the critical security test, the “penetration

analysis” was again marked “not applicable” and was not done.

Maybe another ITA did the penetration

analysis?

Apparently not. We discovered an even more bizarre Wyle Laboratories report. In it, the lab

admits the Sequoia voting system has problems, but says that since they were not corrected earlier, Sequoia could

continue with the same flaws. At one point the Wyle report omits its testing altogether, hoping the vendor will do

the test.

Computer Guys: Be your own ITA certifier.

Here is a copy of the full Ciber report (part

1,

2,

3,

4) on GEMS 1.18.15. Here

is a zip file download for the GEMS 1.18.15

program. Here is a real live

Diebold vote

database. Compare your findings against the official testing lab and see if you agree with what Ciber

says. E-mail us your findings.

</FONT>TIPS: The password for the vote database is

“password” and you should place it in the “LocalDB” directory in the GEMS folder, which you’ll find in “program

files.”

Who the heck is NASED?

They are the people who certified this stuff.

You’ve

gotta ask yourself: Are they nuts? Some of them are computer experts. Well, it seems that several of these people

suddenly want to retire, and the whole NASED voting systems board is becoming somewhat defunct, but these are the

people responsible for today's shoddy voting systems.

If the security of the U.S. electoral system depends on

you to certify a voting system, and you get a report that plainly states that security was “not tested” and “not

applicable” -- what would you do?

Perhaps we should ask them. Go ahead. Let's hold them accountable for the

election we just had. (Please, e-mail us their answers) They don't make it very easy to get their e-mail and fax

information; when you find it, let us know and we'll

post it here.

NASED VOTING SYSTEMS/ITA ACCREDITATION BOARD

(You can find some contact info at

this site)



Thomas R. Wilkey, Executive Director, New York State Board of Elections;

twilkey@elections.state.ny.us, phone 518 474-8100, fax 518 473-8315



David Elliott, (former) Asst. Director of Elections, Washington State -- (note from Black Box Voting: he has

left and we have been unable to find his home number. We are very interested in David Elliott, for a number of

reasons. If you can locate his addess, e-mail it to us privately.)

James Hendrix, Executive Director, State

Election Commission, South Carolina;

Jreynold@scsec.state.sc.us, phone, 803 734-9060;

FAX 803 734-9363

Denise Lamb, Director, State Bureau of Elections, New Mexico; phone (505) 827-3620 FAX (505)

827-8403 FAX (505) 827-3634

denise.lamb@state.nm.us



Sandy Steinbach, Director of Elections, Iowa; phone, (515) 281-5823 FAX (515) 281-7142

sandy@sos.state.ia.us

Donetta Davidson, Secretary

of State, Colorado;

donetta.davidson@state.co.us; phone, 303

894-2680 x301 - Fax 303 894-7732

Connie Schmidt, Commissioner, Johnson County Election Commission, Kansas; Fax:

913.791.1753 schmidt@jocoks.com

(the late) Robert

Naegele, President Granite Creek Technology, Pacific Grove, California

Brit Williams, Professor, CSIS Dept,

Kennesaw State College, Georgia; brit@kennesaw.edu

770)423-6422

Paul Craft, Computer Audit Analyst, Florida State Division of Elections Florida

pcraft@mail.dos.state.fl.us

Steve Freeman,

Software Consultant, League City, Texas;

svfreemn@ix.netcom.com

Jay W. Nispel, Senior

Principal Engineer, Computer Sciences Corporation Annapolis Junction, Maryland

Yvonne Smith (Member Emeritus),

Former Assistant to the Executive Director Illinois State Board of Elections, Illinois; phone (312) 814-6468 FAX

(312) 814-6485 ysmith@elections.state.il.us



Penelope Bonsall, Director, Office of Election Administration, Federal Election Commission, Washington, D.C.;

"pbonsall@fec.gov Committee Secretariat: The Election

Center, R. Doug Lewis, Executive Director Houston, Texas, Tele: 281-293-0101

electioncent@pdq.net Cell 713

516-2875 - Fax 281-293-0453

[a.k.a.]

Well... So far it’s pretty obvious

that there was widespread voter supression in Ohio, there’s growing evidence of fraud in Florida, and there’s

reasonable cause for doubt in New Hampshire.

So the next logical question is, where the hell are John

“reporting for duty” Kerry and his sidekick, “every vote will be counted” Edwards?
Isn’t it ironic that the

battle for democracy is now being waged by independent candidates (in Ohio and New Hampshire) and independent

journalists in Florida. Not to mention that they’ve had to scramble for donations while Kerry’s sitting on $51

million unspent campaign donations.

If this isn’t an object lesson in what’s wrong with our two party

system, I don’t know what is.

In a perfect world, Kerry’s already conceded, Bush should be disqualified

and there should be a run-off between the Greens, the Libertarians and Ralph Nader.
Now THAT’s an election I

could get excited about.

[belgareth]

In a perfect

world, Kerry’s already conceded, Bush should be disqualified and there should be a run-off between the Greens, the

Libertarians and Ralph Nader.
Now THAT’s an election I could get excited about.

That would be

interesting, wouldn't it?

[Pancho1188]

Well... So far

it’s pretty obvious that there was widespread voter supression in Ohio, there’s growing evidence of fraud in

Florida, and there’s reasonable cause for doubt in New Hampshire.

So the next logical question is, where the

hell are John “reporting for duty” Kerry and his sidekick, “every vote will be counted” Edwards?
Isn’t it

ironic that the battle for democracy is now being waged by independent candidates (in Ohio and New Hampshire) and

independent journalists in Florida. Not to mention that they’ve had to scramble for donations while Kerry’s sitting

on $51 million unspent campaign donations.

If this isn’t an object lesson in what’s wrong with our two party

system, I don’t know what is.

In a perfect world, Kerry’s already conceded, Bush should be disqualified and

there should be a run-off between the Greens, the Libertarians and Ralph Nader.
Now THAT’s an election I could

get excited about.

If you concede an election and it turns out you actually won, wouldn't you still win?

Who cares what he said if the voters really said he won...right? I don't know politics that well, though, so maybe

conceding means even if you somehow won you'd still lose.

That said, I already addressed your second paragraph

in another post. Nobody likes a sore loser, and Gore will have that stigma for life. I don't think Kerry wants to

humiliate the Democratic party again by saying there must be something wrong if he lost.

[a.k.a.]

Nobody likes a

sore loser, and Gore will have that stigma for life. I don't think Kerry wants to humiliate the Democratic party

again by saying there must be something wrong if he lost.

Hmmm. I haven't seen the polls, so I

don't know how Gore and the Democrats stand in the image wars.
In my mind, Gore will always be a wuss and the

Democrats are appearing to be more and more of a hot air Party.

But I wasn't really talking about image. I

was trying to make a point about substance.

[Pancho1188]

Hmmm. I haven't

seen the polls, so I don't know how Gore and the Democrats stand in the image wars.
In my mind, Gore will always

be a wuss and the Democrats are appearing to be more and more of a hot air Party.

But I wasn't really talking

about image. I was trying to make a point about substance.

I don't think there were polls. I'm going on

the election reports that roughly stated, "nobody wants a dragged out election decision like in 2000 when Gore

contested the election and delayed the results in a court battle that lasted for weeks."

Kerry's actions show

that he cares more about keeping the country together than winning the election. "Now we can begin the healing."

Contesting the election would cause controversy and only divide the red vs. blue sentiment further. I don't think

he wants to be the man to do it. That's why he's not saying anything, in my opinion. I'm just using image as an

example of why one wouldn't want to contest the election. I think the third parties are doing the right thing.

They know that Kerry really can't do much because he was the 'big loser' in the election so to speak, so they are

doing what they can. If Kerry and the Democrats step in, it's because they are sore losers. If third parties step

in, it looks less like a desperate effort to overturn a loss and more of a movement to seek the truth.

Image can

control and overshadow substance in some cases.

[a.k.a.]

Kerry's actions

show that he cares more about keeping the country together than winning the election. "Now we can begin the

healing." Contesting the election would cause controversy and only divide the red vs. blue sentiment

further.

What's so bad about controversy? And who is the real injured party here? Kerry or his

constituency? How is letting things slide supposed to heal the people that weren't allowed to vote or had their

votes stolen?

I don't think he wants to be the man to do it.

I don't

think he's man enough to do it if he wanted to. And that's why I regret not voting for

Nader.

Image can control and overshadow substance in some cases.

Which would you rather have? The image of fair and democratic elections, or the real deal?
And who do you have

more respect for? Candidates that project an image on national unity, while Black voters are being systematically

disenfranchised? Or people that raise a ruckus?

But if image is that important...Which would you rather see?

Four years of Bush operating on an evangelical mandate? Or four years of Bush stigmatized by illegitimacy?



By refusing to get involved Kerry and the Democratic leadership are helping to sustain the image that Bush has a

strong popular base, while concerns over voter fraud are just the ravings of a bunch of fringe crackpots.

[DrSmellThis]

That would be

interesting, wouldn't it?

I have to admit I find that idea quite attractive as well as amusing. Without Bush

in the picture, I'd love to see everybody else get a chance. Pancho was right that Kerry was thinking about the

next election and how it would look.

But when you see the all independents making a stand on this, it is

heartening. Good for them.

[DrSmellThis]

Bev Harris has been showing up

at various places to audit the voting records, under the freedom of information request; and being given falsified

ones. She's found the real ones in dumpsters a couple times, and is now reviewing them. Lots of things are

happening.

[belgareth]

I have to

admit I find that idea quite attractive as well as amusing. Without Bush in the picture, I'd love to see everybody

else get a chance. Pancho was right that Kerry was thinking about the next election and how it would look.

But

when you see the all independents making a stand on this, it is heartening. Good for them.

AKA's comment

that I was referring to took both Bush and Kerry out of it, not just Bush. Kerry left in it alone would not be any

real benefit to anybody and would not be a contest.

[DrSmellThis]

Got that. I agree. If an indy

got in that would be historic for the country, especially if the person did well. It would lend more legitimacy to

the idea of an expanded system. Oh well, never hurts to dream.