I remember during the first few months after the election, some were saying there was strong evidence that it was stolen. But I haven’t heard anything about it in a while.
Your opinions, please, on the credibility of such theories w.r.t. election 2004?
The OP links to nothing but a rehash of the ‘We need to trust the exit polls more than the votes’ argument. The argument was just as dumb when it was first shrieked out back in November.
My thoughts now are what they where then. There is no proof that the election was stolen, but due to fact that the new voting machines were made the way they where, there is no way to tell it wasn’t either, and anything the least bit suspicious has the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
Yeah, everyone knows exit polls are useless; that’s why the Republicans didn’t bother to support exit polls for the recent Afghanistan elections, and why the Bush Administration dismissed their early predictions of victory for Hamid Karzai. </sarcasm>
Or are exit polls only “dumb” when they give results you dislike?
I realize that ‘Afghanistan’ and ‘America’ both start with the same letter, but you know that circumstances in the two countries are different, right? Exit polls are certainly fine to get the gist of an election that isn’t going to come down the wire, but crying because it was off in some battleground states is just silly. Not that I expect better, but you guys need a new schtick; for how many more elections is OMG STOLENZ3D!! going to be your rallying cry?
As many as take place without an independently verifiable paper trail. That’s enough to raise justifiable objections all by itself, even without the electronic voting machines being supplied by a major Republican contributor.
Gee Brutus, it’s so paranoid of us to not trust the results of elections tabulated by voting machines which leave no paper trail, and made by a company (Diebold, Inc.) whose president pledged to deliver a state (just happened to be the state that turned the election) to Dubya.
Bless you, BrainGlutton, for the link to that excellent article. The most foolproof method of voting is paper ballots marked and counted by hand. Any technological advances from that improve speed of counting at the expense of accuracy and the ability to audit and validate the result. I think enough is enough, let’s go back to old fashioned paper ballots. If we have to wait till the next day for results, tough.
I don’t think there’s any question that the 2004 election was rigged. From voter intimidation in Ohio and Florida to the insecure PCs that tallied the votes in precincts there was way too much room for fraud. We can expect some variance between exit polls and the final result. However, to see the results consistently skewed and in non-normal patterns such as stated in the article leaves no logical alternative than to admit the election was fraudulent.
No one apart from the cadre at commondreams.org and their ilk, anyway. Seriously - if the case is so compelling now, what do you imagine would have to happen to get the general populace stirred up about it? The man that had the most to lose conceded the election without bringing up these points. What could be done to motivate people if Senator Kerry himself chose not to contest the results?
Or, to turn away from the historical – assuming you’re right, and that the Election of 2004 was stolen, and that the method of stealing it was so effective that the mainstream press and general public regard the idea with either disbelief or languorous disinterest … what’s to stop it from being done again, and again?
You are aware, aren’t you, that without the paper trail there was no way for Kerry to effectively challenge a damn thing, right? Convenient, huh?
What’s to stop it from being done again? Well, for starters, we - all of us - could start to give a damn - we might not make statements like “Yes, by legally lobbying for the President” in response to anyone actually interesting in finding out what happened and stopping it from being done again. But, as usual for you, IOKIYAR, right?
Good question! The “Count Every Vote Act,” sponsored in the Senate last month by Senators Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton, just might stop it from being done again! At any rate, the Act would mandate a paper trail. See this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=307833&highlight=hillary
Horseshit, as usual. What stopped Kerry from challenging the election was: [list=A][li]The fact that there is no credible evidence of widespread fraud and []Kerry is apparently not a hysterically dishonest partisan moron []Hi Opal![/list][/li]
Hold on there, cowboy - you don’t get to say “again” until you have established that it was done once.
Let’s see you come up with something more than the usual “grassy knoll” bullshit from the Sore-Loserman wing of the Democratic party.
By “voter fraud,” I assume you mean noncitizens voting, as opposed to the vote-counting fraud at issue in this thread? Well, the Count Every Vote Act does allow for election-day registration, and it does provide for provisional ballots for voters whose voting qualifications are in doubt. That would not “open up the floodgates to outright voter fraud” – at most, it would raise the possibility that some votes might slip through the cracks and be counted without the voter’s credentials being properly verified. And since the bill also “enacts fair and uniform voter registration and identification,” there probably would be less voter fraud overall than there has been (and how much has there been, really?) under the present system. In any case, those provisions are severable from the paper-trail provision – either part could be enacted without the other.
It looks to me like the Republicans will be able to successfuly oppose that bill, and claim it’s because of the flaws identified in the linked thread. That is, the bill goes beyond fixing the problems you’ve identified.
So - still in the mode of assuming fraud allegations are true - I would say that the Republicans have essentially completed the perfect coup d’etat. They can steal elections at will, and the majority of the country and the press are blissfully unconcerned.
The “Count Every Vote Act,” sponsored in the Senate last month by Senators Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton, just might stop it from being done again! At any rate, the Act would mandate a paper trail. See this thread: