I don’t know that there’s any particular standard required to start an investigation. Someone merely has to be suspicious.
“Probable cause” would be the level necessary for a grand jury to indict someone on fraud. We have nowhere near sufficient evidence to do that.
Again, I certainly support an investigation. I simply object to the statements that indicate vote fraud was definitely committed, when there’s no evidence of that.
I never said there was a crime comitted, Bricker. I simply said there was a considerable difference between your hypothetical and the previously described situation.
As far as crimes comitted… I’m not sure there hasn’t been one, thanks to the slipshod work done by Diebold. I’m not sure what crime it would be. However, judging from the reports on the matter, if this were a physical building, it would not match code. The materials would be substandard, the wiring would be shoddy, and it would not have proper handicap access.
Assuming that it is as illegal to defraud by coding poorly as it is to build a building poorly, I think some sort of charge is warranted.
I don’t like it when I can’t trust what happens to my vote. It goes to the very heart of the social contract of this country.
I don’t like it when people who should know better try to replace things with things that do not provide the previous deliverables the older system had.
Point 1: Bricker has more than once said go ahead and investigate. Well before numerous posts by ElvisL1ves castigating him for not wanting to investigate. Read and then post, don’t jerk knees.
Point 2: The GAO report in question provides zero evidence that anything untoward happened in Ohio.
Point 3: Given the fact that the state of Ohio is firmly grasped by Republicans, given that the Republicans in control had given money to a fund-raiser for the party through the somewhat less-than-intelligent manner of letting him control $50 million in state workers’ compensation funds invested in (gotta love this one) rare coins, given that said fund-raiser is now under federal indictment for having laundered money into the campaign by paying people to show up at a fund-raiser, thereby circumventing the limits on individual contributions, given the the Secretary of State had amply opportunity to screw around with the situation, and, indeed, caused quite a bit of trouble with his pre-election decisions (made while he was simultaneously the head of the re-election effort in Ohio), I’d have to say that worrying about fraudulent vote tallies in electronic vote machines is kinda like complaining about the black cat if you are a Cubs fan.
Ahem. To your point 1, **Bricker ** has said once, well into this thread, that he’s okay with a grand jury investigation. To that add the total of everything *else * he’s said here, and one can only conclude that your strange obsession with me has drawn you off the mark once again.
To your point 2, you do the investigation to see if there’s evidence. :rolleyes:
To your point 3, it’s about the importance of democracy itself. Stop and think about that for a moment. Yes, there are many other problems in Ohio government, but none that affect all the rest of us too. Dismiss it if you like, but do so much more carefully.
So why aren’t we investigating Ted Kennedy to see if he’s sexually harrassing his staff?
So why aren’t we investigating George Soros to see if he directly bribed people to vote for Kerry?
So why aren’t we investigating Harry Reid to see if he has ever been involved in the white slave trade?
We may not have any evidence whatsoever that these things are occuring, but that’s why we need investigations- to see if there’s evidence!
Lack of probable cause to believe there’s reason to investigate. That is a lower standard than evidence.
Sheesh.
Uh, right. :rolleyes:
Sure, and I’ll bet he wakes up every morning thankful that he doesn’t have to clean up the messes Bush has made.
Umm, the Pubbies were willing to undertake an investigation of Clinton … eager, even … on the claims of some careerist wackadoodle. They were willing to investigate Clinton for anything and everything. And yet … other crimes they betray a stunning, I say a STUNNING lack of curiousity about.
Actually, horse, dried out riverbed that you claim is actually a raging torrent.
By your standards, yes, I have already provided just as strong a case for voter fraud by George Soros.
So why aren’t you calling for an investigation of him? Why does the standard change so abruptly?
Well, I did say Senators, so you can’t object to that. Do you doubt that the House generates more than its share of blather?
If he wasn’t a typical power-hungry politician, I might agree with you.
That was post #14.
That was post #46.
[quote=Again, I certainly support an investigation. I simply object to the statements that indicate vote fraud was definitely committed, when there’s no evidence of that.[/quote]
Post #61.
And, as I noted, Post#14 came before you began to claim he wasn’t willing to have an investigation; post #46 was followed by further posts on your part claiming he wasn’t willing to have an investigation.
Again, you are wrong factually, not that it seems to matter to you, ever.
Speaking of which, I’ve noticed something while perusing these posts: Rick never bothers to respond to you; I remind myself of why. I think I’ll adopt the same silence; your posts having no value, you become a nullity. :smack:
Where’s Ken Starr when ya need 'im. 
Posts #14, #46 and again in #61.
So what voting machine manufacturing company is Soros head of? What states did he specifically promise to deliver to John Kerry? Which of those states had narrowly decided elections with widespread allegations of vote fraud, which were critical to the 2004 election?
You need to understand what “standards” means, Shodan.
There was no cheat involved to make Bush the winner of Ohio’s EVs. Here is why:
Nationwide, Bush gained about 3 points in popular votes against Kerry 2004 than he did against Gore 2000. Therefore, states’ popolar votes would typically hover around that 3 point margin.
For example:
CA … Bush gains 1.4
TX … Bush gains 1.6
GA … Bush gains 4.9
NH … Bush loses 2.6
In Ohio, Bush lost 1.1 … if he were cheating, he did it the wrong way! In order for there to be chating in OH, one of the following must be true:
Bush was also cheating nationwide.
Bush also cheated in Ohio in 2000.
Ohio was such an anomaly where Kerry gained a lot more on Bush since Gore 2000 (he would have needed to gain 3.6 to win).
So which one is it?
For some of the numbers: http://www.electoral-vote.com/
I’d like to ask something, and I’d like to ask it without hurting feelings or causing rancor. I truly don’t understand this.
Reeder would post the obnoxious OP’s claiming to prove some egregious wrongdoing with regularity. You’d read into the OP, see what was cited and realize that the “proof” was simply wishful thinking.
Similarly, I don’t see how you make the logical jump.
Starting from: A: Security Weakness there is a long span of logic to arrive at the conclusion: ** B: Bush stole the election**.
We can look at it like this:
A_____________________________________________________B
I don’t understand how a rational person can conclude that A demonstrates B. I don’t understand how a rational person can conclude that A suggests B.
I have to believe the OP knows this. I have to beleive Reeder knew it.
Why then the compulsion to post an obvious falsehood?
Why would you say that this “upholds” fraud claims. It clearly does know such thing.
To misrepresent facts and state a false conclusion is to lie, pure and simple. It’s an obvious lie. Provably false. Either that, or people really do beleive A demonstrates B. How can you beleive that and not be stupid? How can you beleive it and be intelligent on other subjects?
I don’t understand what the lie serves either. This is a potentially important piece of information, this report.
It deserves to be discussed with honesty and integrity.
Why lie so openly and obviously?
Diebold Voting Machine Owner Committed To Give Votes To Bush in 2004
This is fundamentally identical as if, before the start of Super Bowl XXXIX, the head referee pledged to do everything he could to help the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the New England Patriots. By Shodan logic, there’s no problem here, except from those whiny Patriots fans…
I don’t think this reasoning holds, due to its reliance on statewide and national averages. As is commonly cited, only something like 118,000 votes needed to “switch”. Furthermore, it would have been fairly easy to determine which districts to tweak, as there is a pretty clear break in R/D voting patterns according to rural/urban lines (per my memory, which may be wrong; the electoral vote website seems to have removed the district by district breakdown).
Note that I’m not claiming anything about whether there was monkey business or not, just that reliance on national averages misses the mark.
[QUOTE=rjungThis is fundamentally identical as if, before the start of Super Bowl XXXIX, the head referee pledged to do everything he could to help the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the New England Patriots. By Shodan logic, there’s no problem here, except from those whiny Patriots fans…[/QUOTE]
Except even in that case, you’d have to have more. You have to be able to point to calls made that, on replay, were obviously wrong.
That’s the part you’re missing here.
But then it wouldn’t be a conspiracy with a cover-up.
I think it would help if you would read more carefully. For instance, I am not Shodan.
For second instance, nowhere in that story does O’dell intimate or suggest that he is going to tamper with the machines to alter the election results.
If he was, it would be pretty stupid for him to talk about it in public, wouldn’t it?
What he clearly meant from context is that he is a supporter of the President. He is allowed to be a supporter of the President. He is allowed to voice his support. He has that right, and he has that freedom.
Once again you are making a logical leap akin to that of the OP.
AOdell is Ceo of a company that makes voting machines and is a supporter of the President, all the way to Odell will tamper with the machines and software to fraudulently deliver Bush the Ohio vote
Once again B does not follow, nor is it suggestive, nor can it be inferred from A.
There is a great logical leap
A____________________________________________B
You offer nothing to fill this logical gap.
You should know this. You should understand that support of the Pesident does not imply fraudulent manipulation. Election volunteers also can be supporters of candidates. This does not imply or suggest that they are fraudulently altering the results.
It is exactly the same thing as the OP. A rational and honest person cannot deduce B from A.
So many times in this type of OP we have a chain of suppositions pasted together with this sort of lazy dishonest logic. I’m not picking on liberals. It works both ways.
If we’re supposed to be fighting ignorance, we shouldn’t be posting sloppy dishonest bullshit.
It doesn’t serve anybody’s purpose.
The facts themselves are interesting and worthy of debate without adding fabrications.
The fact that the CEO of Diebold is strongly partisan is a fact worthy of concern. The fact that Diebold machines have security holes is a fact worthy of concern.
A rational and honest person would not conclude from these facts that Bush stole the election, and state such. To do so is irrational, dishonest, or both.