# I Remember some were saying Election 2004 was stolen... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 6, 2005, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039 "2005-04-06T14:47:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/81 "2005-04-08T14:02:39Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Where are the cries for investigation from anywhere other than fringe-left sources, if this is enough for any reasonable person to accept? You’re wrapped in a tight, small circle once again - a “reasonable person” is one who does not suspect tampering, while one who does is “fringe left” - by your own convenient definition. :rolleyes: > [@zakalwe](#): > > The possible insertion of large numbers of fraudulent votes is one of the things that makes a single vote potentially meaningless. Only if randomly distributed. Virtually all identifiable statistical variation is in one direction, though. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/82 "2005-04-08T14:16:48Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Only if randomly distributed. Virtually all identifiable statistical variation is in one direction, though. Huh? I’m espousing the “why should I vote, they’re just going to rig the election anyway” argument. Not making any specific claim about the 2004 election. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/83 "2005-04-08T14:31:20Z")
> [@Evil One](#): > > If this has already been answered, forgive me…but who “knew” about these flaws? Well, as a reader of[slashdot,](http://slashdot.org), and try to get independant confirmation in order to get friends concerned. But first, a [Quicktime Cartoon](http://www.boomchicago.nl/images/Voting_Machine.mov) from [Boom Chicago](http://www.boomchicago.nl/Section/Videos)! Now, an independent site: [Diebold to Pay $2.6M Due to Insecure Voting Machines](http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3449691) Next, slashdot: [2004 Election Weirdness Continues](http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/08/1910250&tid=103&tid=219) That was just a few I have seen. Some might be unproven, but my hackles are still raised. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/84 "2005-04-08T14:39:47Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > I’m espousing the “why should I vote, they’re just going to rig the election anyway” argument. Oh, _dayum_. Truly the terrorists have won. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/85 "2005-04-08T15:45:48Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > You are conflating “reasonable man” with “average man.” The reason you don’t hear more cries of alarm over our voting system is that most people have no idea what’s going on, because the conservative-dominated media isn’t telling them. If we had the equivalent of the conservative media for the left, there would be a LOT of alarmed reasonable people, because the news would spill over into the mainstream media to a much greater extent than it has. Please look at the editorial pages of the LA Times for the past year, and identify ONE positions the paper has espoused that you believe is fairly characterized as “conservative.” I can identify many that I believe are fairly characterized as “liberal.” Do you believe the LA Times editorial page is conservative, or liberal, or is best described some other way? ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/86 "2005-04-08T16:18:30Z")
> [@Evil One](#): > > …Ah, the exit polls. How about this…I think I’ll accuse the people who conducted the exit polls of being involved in a conspiracy to get Kerry elected. Perhaps they thought that if the early numbers were discouraging enough to Republicans, they could supress the vote in the western states and swing a close election to Kerry. That’s why the numbers didn’t match the result. I don’t intend to prove it, however. The mere accusation should be enough. If you did say that, then that would put you squarely in the camp that’s saying that there may have been a conspiracy to manipulate the election (which of course merits investigation). The whole point is that the statistics seem to show that something was going on that was beyond random chance or inaccurate polling. What was going on and who was responsible (if anyone) is the question that needs to be answered. I don’t hold out much hope that it _will_ be answered, but it _should_ be. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/87 "2005-04-08T16:23:56Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Oh, _dayum_. Truly the terrorists have won. I’m hoping you were kidding, but it does point out that I misused the word. I should have said that I was enunciating the position not that I espouse it. Whoops! ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/88 "2005-04-08T16:30:28Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Please look at the editorial pages of the LA Times for the past year, and identify ONE positions the paper has espoused that you believe is fairly characterized as “conservative.” > > I can identify many that I believe are fairly characterized as “liberal.” > > Do you believe the LA Times editorial page is conservative, or liberal, or is best described some other way? Your notion that you would have some kind of point if the LA Times could be identified as a liberal media outlet is an interesting one. There have been some reports of election rigging inthe mainstream media, but not very many. Nothing compared to the kind of reportage that Florida got. There are probably some alarmed reasonable people, too. Just not enough. Yet. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/89 "2005-04-08T16:47:45Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > Your notion that you would have some kind of point if the LA Times could be identified as a liberal media outlet is an interesting one. There have been some reports of election rigging inthe mainstream media, but not very many. Nothing compared to the kind of reportage that Florida got. There are probably some alarmed reasonable people, too. Just not enough. Yet. You said: > [@Evil Captor](#): > > The reason you don’t hear more cries of alarm over our voting system is that most people have no idea what’s going on, because the conservative-dominated media isn’t telling them. If we had the equivalent of the conservative media for the left, there would be a LOT of alarmed reasonable people, because the news would spill over into the mainstream media to a much greater extent than it has. I sought to examine this position by pointing out that the LA Times is a large, widely read, liberal newspaper. If your theory is correct, what is stopping the LA Times from publishing these cries of alarm? They are clearly not part of the vast conservative array of media. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/90 "2005-04-08T17:00:47Z")
**Bricker** : Good luck. I tried to make the exact same argument, even down to a reference to the LA Times, in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=310355) started by **E.C.** in the Pit. It doesn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/91 "2005-04-08T17:13:00Z")
Everyone knows that the LA Times (and other so called ‘mainstream media’) isn’t running stories on the stolen 2004 election constantly for the same reason that the major media don’t run stories on the Roswell alien invasion…because the government is surpressing the story!! Lack of solid evidence doesn’t even come into it. 😛 -XT ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/92 "2005-04-08T17:14:44Z")
Er, thats ‘suppressing’…no idea what ‘surpressing’ is. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/93 "2005-04-08T17:16:08Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > THAT is the voice of a reasonable person, I think. Will you at least concede (1) _If_ voting fraud happened or will happen, there’s no way to tell. (2) This is a Bad Thing. (3) Something should be done to make votes more easily verifiable (a paper trail) ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/94 "2005-04-08T17:26:26Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Er, thats ‘suppressing’…no idea what ‘surpressing’ is. Surpressing is when you plan a big 40th birthday party for your wife but when everyone jumps out from behind the furniture and yells she insists that she’s only 34. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/95 "2005-04-08T17:52:35Z")
> [@manhattan](#): > > Surpressing is when you plan a big 40th birthday party for your wife but when everyone jumps out from behind the furniture and yells she insists that she’s only 34. And since next week is your 20th wedding anniversary people now assume that you are a pervert who married a 14-year old. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/96 "2005-04-08T17:54:58Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > Will you at least concede > > (1) _If_ voting fraud happened or will happen, there’s no way to tell. No. Well, maybe. If voting fraud happened on the scale of the margin of the 2000 election (less than 1,000 votes in one state tipping the scales) then YES. If were’re talking the 2004 election, then NO. > [@](#): > > (2) This is a Bad Thing. If (1) is true, then (2) is true. > [@](#): > > (3) Something should be done to make votes more easily verifiable (a paper trail) Assuming (3) doesn’t create more problems than it solves, yes. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/97 "2005-04-08T18:11:30Z")
At the risk of seeming obnoxiously reasonable 😉 : I would offer that the problem is not that the media as a whole has a bias one way or the other (specific outlets, of course, are demonstrably biased), it’s that conservative organizations (in general) are better organized and more focused on creating “momentum” in public opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/98 "2005-04-08T19:04:54Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > …it’s that conservative organizations (in general) are better organized and more focused on creating “momentum” in public opinion. True. But they are not monolithic in this ability. If Trent Lott makes a comment about how a Strom Thurmond presidency might have been a good thing, the tide quickly turns the other way. I’ll concede that conservatives have an edge on organization and presentation, but it’s an edge, not an overwhelming, lock-down control. And if there were any substantial evidence of massive (election-altering) vote tampering, there’d be no question it would see the light of day. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/45deac/32.png) [@Evil\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_One)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/99 "2005-04-08T19:13:06Z")
Additionally, there are enough media types out there that would take a story on voter fraud electing a president and run with it for as long as they could. It would rival Watergate in scope. It would give them star status and make thier organizations tons of money as ratings and circulation go up. The cable networks would cover it almost 24 hours a day. It is naive and unrealistic to believe that there is some sort of story like this out there and nobody cares. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/100 "2005-04-08T19:17:54Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Well, maybe. If voting fraud happened on the scale of the margin of the 2000 election (less than 1,000 votes in one state tipping the scales) then YES. If were’re talking the 2004 election, then NO. Is it really that hard to believe that a hacker could have fiddled with the results? When votes are tabulated on a computer, all it takes is a few keystrokes and _voila_! I’m not saying it was hacked. I have no proof of this. What I am saying is that the possibility is disturbing enough to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! All I’m asking for is a show of intellectual integrity here. Something beyond blind partisanship. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039.md?page=6)