# 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:** 9
**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 12, 2005, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/161 "2005-04-12T19:08:25Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Because looking for malfeasance where there’s none to be found just raises suspicion and mistrust, and causes people to doubt the result. And people need to trust the result unless there’s clear reason not to, since democracy depends on there being a winner who everyone regards as legitimate. > > By your theory, all of my suspicions and distrusts about Hillary Clinton ought to be investigated right away. After all, if she’s innocent, it wouldn’t do any harm. And, really, what right does she, or you, have to object? But what REALLY helps is if the winner is, in fact, legitimate. That’s the problem we’re having here. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/162 "2005-04-12T19:13:06Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Because looking for malfeasance where there’s none to be found just raises suspicion and mistrust And that’s the story of the Clinton Administration investigations. Conversely, \*refusing \* to look for malfeasance where’s there is reason to believe there is some to be found raises suspicion and mistrust of its own, doesn’t it? > [@](#): > > By your theory, all of my suspicions and distrusts about Hillary Clinton ought to be investigated right away. Which ones haven’t been already? ---
**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 12, 2005, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/163 "2005-04-12T19:17:08Z")
> [@annaplurabelle](#): > > Altering millions of votes were not necessary to win the EC vote. If Kerry had won Ohio it would have been enough to change the outcome. It takes a certain kind of arrogance to fight the EC results when you haven’t won the popular vote. Bush obviously possessed that type of arrogance in 2000, but perhaps Kerry did not in 2004. You would need foreknowledge that Ohio was going to be THE decisive swing state…otherwise you’d need to hedge your bets and go for other states too. That WOULD take millions of potentially altered votes. Your whole house of cards rests on retrospective looking at how the election went, then attempting to fit your theory into it. Looked at BEFORE the election, no one knew precisely which were going to be the swing states…and which were going to be easily won/lost by Bush/Kerry. Certainly Ohio was on the list…but so were many other states. > [@annaplurabelle](#): > > There certainly was/is direct evidence showing that votes were changed - the discrepancies that were caught and corrected. From these examples, it is not so far-fetched to speculate that there were other discrepancies that were not caught - not hard evidence of fraud, but certainly enough to warrant a full investigation. You posted in the threads where evidence was presented so you should know better than to make a claim like that. I’ve seen no evidence that the votes changes…‘caught and corrected’ as you put it…were on a scale that could have come close to effecting the election. More like a few hundred votes here, a few hundred there. The mere fact that they WERE ‘caught and corrected’ seems to mitigate any real substantial numbers of altered votes making it through the system unchecked. You are, however, positing tens or even hundreds of thousands of votes (in multiple states) that some how slipped through without anyone noticing…including those actually in power or striving for said power (and of course who had a huge stake in the results) lifting a finger. I find that very difficult to believe…and with no actual evidence except dark mutterings, its not hard for me to see why its dismissed so easily. > [@annaplurabelle](#): > > It is too early to assume that silence = no conspiracy: I disagree. If there has been nothing solid yet I have serious doubts there ever will be at this point. Even assuming for a moment that your theory is correct and there is a massive conspiricy out there that rigged the election for Bush, if no one has squeeled yet I doubt they ever will…Bush and his henchmen will see to keeping them silent. 😉 The only think I predict is that, like the 2000 election, the die hards will continue to gnash their teeth over this for long years to come…and GW will still be president. The real question is…if the Dems lose again in '08 will we have to go through all this again? -XT ---
**Author:** ![annaplurabelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@annaplurabelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/annaplurabelle)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/164 "2005-04-12T19:47:35Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > You would need foreknowledge that Ohio was going to be THE decisive swing state…otherwise you’d need to hedge your bets and go for other states too. That WOULD take millions of potentially altered votes. Your whole house of cards rests on retrospective looking at how the election went, then attempting to fit your theory into it. Looked at BEFORE the election, no one knew precisely which were going to be the swing states…and which were going to be easily won/lost by Bush/Kerry. Certainly Ohio was on the list…but so were many other states. Don’t be silly. No potential crime comes with a guarantee. Everyone was aware that Ohio would be key. _Calculated risks_ as opposed to your _hedging of bets_… > [@](#): > > I’ve seen no evidence that the votes changes…‘caught and corrected’ as you put it…were on a scale that could have come close to effecting the election. More like a few hundred votes here, a few hundred there. More like thousands, but I don’t feel like re-educating you to the facts right now. I know you know better, because you were present in the earlier threads as well. > [@](#): > > I disagree. If there has been nothing solid yet I have serious doubts there ever will be at this point. You forgot to include your reasoning here. Why is 6 months the cut-off? > [@](#): > > Even assuming for a moment that your theory is correct and there is a massive conspiricy out there that rigged the election for Bush, if no one has squeeled yet I doubt they ever will…Bush and his henchmen will see to keeping them silent. 😉 I posited no theory in particular. There are numerous possibilities, but I’ll say yet again that it’s too soon to argue any one of the particulars. Perhaps you will answer my question about Watergate, and why there is a set time frame for exposure? > [@](#): > > The real question is…if the Dems lose again in '08 will we have to go through all this again? That’s not the _real_ question, but I envy your optimism (or is it your ability to maintain a state of denial?). ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/165 "2005-04-12T19:55:03Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > if the Dems lose again in '08 will we have to go through all this again? If we don’t go through all this _now_, the '08 results will lack credibility no matter who wins. Isn’t that corrosive to democracy itself? ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/166 "2005-04-12T19:59:23Z")
> [@annaplurabelle](#): > > This is incorrect on a few points: > > - Altering _millions_ of votes were not necessary to win the EC vote. If Kerry had won Ohio it would have been enough to change the outcome. It takes a certain kind of arrogance to fight the EC results when you haven’t won the popular vote. Bush obviously possessed that type of arrogance in 2000, but perhaps Kerry did not in 2004. > > - There certainly was/is direct evidence showing that votes were changed - the discrepancies that were caught and corrected. From these examples, it is not so far-fetched to speculate that there were other discrepancies that were not caught - not hard evidence of fraud, but certainly enough to warrant a full investigation. You posted in the threads where evidence was presented so you should know better than to make a claim like that. Second item first. If someone deliberately altered the vote to throw a state to Bush, and was caught, were they arrested and charged with a crime? Or, were these discrepancies just typical errors you will have in a huge election like this one. There will always be errors in elections, always. The existance of errors is not proof of criminal activity. On the first point, I agree with you 100%, you did not have to change the vote nationwide to push the election one way or the other. If I were organizing an attempt to steal the election, I’d focus on Ohio, Florida and Penn. Close races, big Electoral Vote. However, look at Appendix C of the article. Nationwide, there was a 2.7% “red shift”. Nationwide. Our critical states had red shifts barely any higher than the national average. Ohio, 3.1%, Florida 2.5%, Penn 3.4%. Where did the 2.7% national red shift come from if there was no national effort to alter the tally, and why don’t the critical states have significantly higher red shift if there was an attempt to steal the vote specifically in those states? If there was an effort to steal the vote in those states, and not others, why do 7 non critical states have a red shift of 3.4%+? VT, NH, DE, SC, AL, RI, and CT all had high red shifts, but of them, only NH was a close race and who gives a crap about NH anyway? You don’t get to pick and choose which pieces of data you get to look at. If the red shift in Ohio has you concerned, you MUST examine the red shifts in all these other places as well, and your explanation must cover them as well. Pretending that red shifts didn’t occur in unlikely states, and leaving them unexplained is crap. What is really pissing me off about this article is that they claim it is a 1/300,000 chance that big discrepencies occur in the 3 most critical states, as if there was no national red shift. With a big national shift, it’s no big surprise that 3 important states got caught up in it too. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/167 "2005-04-12T20:07:00Z")
> [@annaplurabelle](#): > > Don’t be silly. No potential crime comes with a guarantee. No, but evidence is necessary before you can claim a crime has been committed. > [@annaplurabelle](#): > > Everyone was aware that Ohio would be key. Cite? > [@annaplurabelle](#): > > _Calculated risks_ as opposed to your _hedging of bets_…More like thousands, but I don’t feel like re-educating you to the facts right now. It has already been mentioned that the exit polls did not agree with the final tallies **even in states where Kerry won**. For your insinuations to be credible, the fix would have to have been in in many, many states - even ones where Bush stood no chance of winning, and there were ravening herds of liberals eager to expose some kind of scandal. And yet, nothing. > [@annaplurabelle](#): > > I posited no theory in particular. Oh, are we playing this game again? Too bad, it has an unfortunate effect on your credibility. > [@annaplurabelle](#): > > Perhaps you will answer my question about Watergate, and why there is a set time frame for exposure? Well, the Watergate burglars were caught in the act of trying to bug the Watergate hotel. So if things were going to play out that way, the election fixers would be in jail already. And the newspapers reported the cashier’s check from the Nixon re-election campaign in the bank account of one of the burglars within six weeks. The Washington Post reported on the slush fund a month or so after that.[Cite.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/chronology.htm) If you folks are on the same schedule as you were for Nixon, you better get cracking. Six months since the elections and what you suggest is one of the largest conspiracies in American electoral history, and you still got bupkiss. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![annaplurabelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@annaplurabelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/annaplurabelle)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/168 "2005-04-12T20:46:14Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Second item first. If someone deliberately altered the vote to throw a state to Bush, and was caught, were they arrested and charged with a crime? Or, were these discrepancies just typical errors you will have in a huge election like this one. There will always be errors in elections, always. The existance of errors is not proof of criminal activity. I didn’t think we were arguing proof of a crime - just discrepancies that exceeded the MOE expected, which would warrant suspicion, and the need for further investigation. Is that wrong? > [@](#): > > On the first point, I agree with you 100%, you did not have to change the vote nationwide to push the election one way or the other. If I were organizing an attempt to steal the election, I’d focus on Ohio, Florida and Penn. Close races, big Electoral Vote. That was the point I was trying to convey to **xtisme**. > [@](#): > > However, look at Appendix C of the article. (snip) I haven’t read the pdf cited in the OP, if that’s what you’re referring to. As I’ve said, the exit poll studies can only be inconclusive because the raw data is still unavailable. I really don’t see the point of arguing with anyone on that basis. > [@](#): > > You don’t get to pick and choose which pieces of data you get to look at. If the red shift in Ohio has you concerned, you MUST examine the red shifts in all these other places as well, and your explanation must cover them as well. I agree, and that’s why I’m not concerning myself with the exit poll studies at this time. But Ohio is still a concern because it was a known key state with other known irregularities _apart from_ the exit poll studies. \BTW, the application of Benford’s Law to the actual results seems more promising as hard evidence (AFAIK indictments and convictions of fraud were procured on the weight of this type of evidence). I was surprised that there was nothing on SDMB about Benford’s Law in general and was thinking about asking in GQ. Are you familiar with it, and its application? Anyone?\ ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/169 "2005-04-12T21:41:00Z")
> [@annaplurabelle](#): > > I didn’t think we were arguing proof of a crime - just discrepancies that exceeded the MOE expected, which would warrant suspicion, and the need for further investigation. Is that wrong? If you’re focusing on Ohio alone, I think it is wrong. There was a big unexplained discrepancy nationwide. Ohio had a slightly higher discrepancy. That alone does not suggest that anything unusual happened in Ohio, they could have been following along with a nationwide trend. > [@](#): > > But Ohio is still a concern because it was a known key state with other known irregularities _apart from_ the exit poll studies. We can discuss those irregularities, but the OP and most everyone is focusing on the polls as proof that something fishy happened. That is where I think the arguments fall flat. [Benford’s Law](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/BenfordsLaw.html) is neat, basically it shows that random data will result in a fairly consistent pattern of first digits. People who commit fraud, and don’t account for the law, have a tendency to pick first digits randomly, which will not follow Benford’s pattern. It is a positive test though, it can’t prove that data is good, only that it is bad. ---
**Author:** ![annaplurabelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@annaplurabelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/annaplurabelle)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/170 "2005-04-12T21:42:51Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Well, the Watergate burglars were caught in the act of trying to bug the Watergate hotel. So if things were going to play out that way, the election fixers would be in jail already. And the newspapers reported the cashier’s check from the Nixon re-election campaign in the bank account of one of the burglars within six weeks. > > The Washington Post reported on the slush fund a month or so after that.[Cite.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/chronology.htm) > > If you folks are on the same schedule as you were for Nixon, you better get cracking. Six months since the elections and what you suggest is one of the largest conspiracies in American electoral history, and you still got bupkiss. > > Regards, > Shodan I’m too young to remember first-hand, but according to your very own cite, preliminary evidence was available _months before the election_ and yet Nixon was reelected (in a “landslide”, no less). How long before Haldeman and Erlichman were compelled to resign? When did the hearings begin? How long before congress considered steps to impeach? And what does this say about the “reasonable” citizens of the US, re their predictive value of something being amiss? I leave these semi-rhetorical questions as an exercise for the “big boys” at the SDMB. ---
**Author:** ![annaplurabelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@annaplurabelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/annaplurabelle)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/171 "2005-04-12T22:00:26Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > If you’re focusing on Ohio alone, I think it is wrong. There was a big unexplained discrepancy nationwide. Ohio had a slightly higher discrepancy. That alone does not suggest that anything unusual happened in Ohio, they could have been following along with a nationwide trend.We can discuss those irregularities, but the OP and most everyone is focusing on the polls as proof that something fishy happened. That is where I think the arguments fall flat. I basically agree with you on this. But yet again, I am not focusing on Ohio alone, nor am I basing my concern on the exit polls. Unlike the OP (and some others), I wouldn’t base my primary argument on the exit polls at this time, and more and more, I think of it as a red herring when this topic comes up. We simply don’t have enough data to prove anything on that basis. > [@](#): > > [Benford’s Law](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/BenfordsLaw.html) is neat, basically it shows that random data will result in a fairly consistent pattern of first digits. People who commit fraud, and don’t account for the law, have a tendency to pick first digits randomly, which will not follow Benford’s pattern. It is a positive test though, it can’t prove that data is good, only that it is bad. Neat is an understatement. AFAIK, the problem with applying it to the US elections is establishing the correct parameters for analysis. I wrote to the Profs who developed the software for the IRS, but he apparently had no time for a maths feeb/neophyte such as myself. ☹ Still, I look forward to the results should they ever agree on the appropriate formula for application. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/172 "2005-04-13T13:09:37Z")
> [@annaplurabelle](#): > > I’m too young to remember first-hand, but according to your very own cite, preliminary evidence was available _months before the election_ and yet Nixon was reelected (in a “landslide”, no less). Yes, it was. **Evidence** was available. Got any of that? Here it is, months after the election and, as I mentioned, you got bupkiss. I notice you have produced nothing to back up your assertion that “everyone knew Ohio would be key”. Or, come to think of it, anything else you stated or implied. > [@annaplurabelle](#): > > I leave these semi-rhetorical questions as an exercise for the “big boys” at the SDMB. That’s probably wise. They require rational debate, so you can run along now. Regards, Big Boy Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/173 "2005-04-14T04:40:04Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > (snip) > > A nationwide consipiracy to fix the election in multiple states, altering millions of votes, with not a single shred of direct evidence showing even a single vote was changed. The idea that a big consipiracy like this would stay 100% silent is far more improbable than #2, IMHO. I do not think that there was a big conspiracy. I do not think there was a nationwide conspiracy. I think that whatever fraud occured, occured in the battleground states only, and was carried out by individuals and small groups, each acting independently, none having any knowledge of anything but their own activites. Also, I do not think that anyone in the White House, or in the Republican Party leadership, issued any orders to anyone. I think they just hoped that their supporters in the battleground states would do whatever it took to win. ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/174 "2005-04-14T04:46:48Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Because looking for malfeasance where there’s none to be found just raises suspicion and mistrust, and causes people to doubt the result. And people need to trust the result unless there’s clear reason not to, since democracy depends on there being a winner who everyone regards as legitimate. > > By your theory, all of my suspicions and distrusts about Hillary Clinton ought to be investigated right away. After all, if she’s innocent, it wouldn’t do any harm. And, really, what right does she, or you, have to object? “None to be found”? In your opinion. I side with the group of experts now calling for an investigation. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/175 "2005-04-14T05:24:30Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Right, but not just noncitizens voting. It would be people voting who had no legal right to (legal disenfranchisment, nonresidents, voting in multiple jurisdictions, and fictional persons). And the goal would be to increase the number of provisional ballots, both to increase the chance that the ballots are counted improperly and **to stoke the flames of disenfranchisement rhetoric if the votes are properly rejected.** But that (the bolded part) would be a **perfectly legitimate** political goal, **Moto!** ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/176 "2005-04-14T05:37:04Z")
> [@zev\_steinhardt](#): > > After all, we all _know_ that Reagan couldn’t have won 49 states back in 1984, that had to be fixed… Har har har de, indeed, har. Nevertheless . . . it is almost inconceivable that, in the 2002 election in Georgia, Saxby Chambliss really and honestly defeated Max Cleland for the Senate seat, nor that Sonny Perdue really and honestly defeated Roy Barnes for the governorship. From [http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040816&c=7&s=dugger:](http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040816&c=7&s=dugger:) > [@](#): > > In 2000 five out of six Georgians cast a paper ballot that could be recounted on ES&S systems. In January 2001, in a speech to the Democratic-controlled legislature, Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox, a Democrat who is expected to run for governor in 2006, declared that considering all the recent problems down in Florida, Georgia should adopt one “uniform electronic voting system by November 2004.” Upon Cox’s fervent recommendation of the just-born Diebold Election Systems, in May 2002 Georgia agreed to pay Diebold $54 million for 19,000 DRE voting systems. The counties and cities of Georgia had chosen their own voting machines for the last time, and, less obviously, Georgians had lost their ability to recount their votes in contested elections. > > At once Diebold set to manufacturing 282 of its AccuVote TS voting systems a day. Some of the earliest ones arriving in Georgia, sent out for use in the training of election workers, were left in a hotel conference room overnight, stolen and never recovered. Late that June the secret vote-counting codes inside nine to fourteen more of the Diebold machines were stolen. Diebold made an uncounted number of apparently illegal changes in the election-conducting code between June and November. The memory cards on which the votes on each of the computers were recorded on election day all over Georgia had no encryption. According to Rob Behler, who served as Diebold’s production deployment manager in Georgia during the first half of that summer, those cards could be used to change the results manually, precinct by precinct. > > Incumbent US Senator Max Cleland and incumbent Governor Roy Barnes, both Democrats, were odds-on favorites to win re-election. A week before the voting an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll showed Cleland ahead by five points, 49-44, but on election day he lost to his Republican opponent, Saxby Chambliss, by seven points, 53-46, a twelve-point swing. The loss of Governor Barnes to Sonny Perdue was even more remarkable: a one-week switch of fourteen percentage points. These were suspicious anomalies, and subsequently in a Peach State Poll one in eight Georgia voters were “not very confident” or “not at all confident” that the DREs had produced accurate results; another 32 percent were only “somewhat confident.” > > In his front parlor at home in Georgia, Rob Behler told me that just before or just as he took over the Atlanta warehouse for Diebold, some of the voting machines had been sent out to “do demos,” and in one southern county “somebody broke in and stole…[nine or] fourteen of the machines and, I think, one of the servers.” He says the vote-counting programs in the stolen computers could have been completely reconstructed by reverse engineering and employed to jimmy the election. > > “Quality-checking” the AccuVote machines as they arrived from Diebold at a warehouse in Atlanta, Behler and his crew found problems, he says, with “every single one” of them and about a fifth of them were shoved aside as unusable. When Diebold’s programmers wanted “patches,” that is, changes, inserted into the voting-system software, Behler says, they sent them to him via the company’s open, insecure File Transfer Protocol (FTP) site in cyberspace. On his own unsecured laptop (resting on his desk as he spoke), Behler made twenty-two or twenty-three of the cards that were used to change the programs in the machines. > > The night of the November 2002 election, sixty-seven of the memory cards used in Fulton County (Atlanta) disappeared. Running his laptop with a dual battery, Behler says, in six or seven hours he could have changed the totals on those sixty-seven cards. “There’s no technical problem. There was absolutely zero protection on the card itself. You throw the card in, you just drill down into its files.” > > Brit Williams, a computer consultant at Kennesaw State University who runs Georgia’s testing of voting systems, confirmed to me that the memory cards were not encrypted and all had the same password (1111), but each one, he contended, was “unique to its machine.” He snapped, “We had 22,000 voting stations. How would you like to be in charge of 22,000 passwords?” Williams said the sixty-seven missing memory cards in Atlanta had been left in the machines by forgetful workers and were recovered. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/177 "2005-04-14T11:48:29Z")
> [@Hazel](#): > > I do not think that there was a big conspiracy. I do not think there was a nationwide conspiracy. I think that whatever fraud occured, occured in the battleground states only, and was carried out by individuals and small groups, each acting independently, none having any knowledge of anything but their own activites. > > Also, I do not think that anyone in the White House, or in the Republican Party leadership, issued any orders to anyone. I think they just hoped that their supporters in the battleground states would do whatever it took to win. What are you basing this on? Because, if it’s the poll data, it contradicts the available information. ---
**Author:** ![annaplurabelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@annaplurabelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/annaplurabelle)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/178 "2005-04-15T00:41:18Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I notice you have produced nothing to back up your assertion that “everyone knew Ohio would be key”. Or, come to think of it, anything else you stated or implied. This is ridiculous, even for you. It was and is common knowledge that Ohio was key. If you google “Ohio _and_ Bush _and_ key” there are hundreds, if not thousands, of cites - usually the title of the news article alone makes that clear. Is this topic that troubling to you, that you feel the need to distract from it with this nonsense? I knew you were an extreme partisan, but this is bordering on mental health scary. Let go of whatever petty gripe you’ve got against me personally, and try to contribute something to a thread that a rational person can reply to. Not for my sake, but for your own. > [@](#): > > Regards, > Big Boy Shodan I almost feel sorry for you. Perhaps someday, when or if the current political nightmare is in the past, I will be generous enough to muster the pity necessary for you. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2005, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/179 "2005-04-15T03:05:41Z")
Well let’s see…from the first page: Chicago Tribune: “Race tight in key midwest states.” In other words, not just key states, but key _midwestern_ states. And they identified four. If there are four key states just in the midwest, how many were there in the whole country? Newsday: “Bush leads Kerry in three key states.” This article says (bolding mine) “President Bush has moved past Sen. John F. Kerry in **three of the most** hotly contested **Midwestern** battleground states. . .” Three of the most means there were more than three, and again we see the “Midwestern” qualifier. I’m sensing a pattern. CNN at least breaks the Midwest pattern, but identifies SIX states. That’s more than one-tenth of the entire country. For you to say that “everyone knew Ohio would be key” is incorrect. Everyone knew Ohio was one of the states that MIGHT be key, along with five or six or seven others, dppending on whichever media outlet you happened to be listening to at the time. After all, “Everyone knew that Wisconsin would be key,” “Everyone knew that Missouri would be key,” “Everyone knew that Minnesota would be key,” “Everyone knew that Iowa would be key,” “Everyone knew that Pennsylvania would be key” and “Everyone knew that Florida would be key.” Right? ---
**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 15, 2005, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/180 "2005-04-15T13:35:45Z")
> [@Hazel](#): > > I do not think that there was a big conspiracy. I do not think there was a nationwide conspiracy. I think that whatever fraud occured, occured in the battleground states only, and was carried out by individuals and small groups, each acting independently, none having any knowledge of anything but their own activites. > > Also, I do not think that anyone in the White House, or in the Republican Party leadership, issued any orders to anyone. I think they just hoped that their supporters in the battleground states would do whatever it took to win. Karl Rove has a long history of using political dirty tricks against opponents by using third parties he can’t be connected to. The man in pure scum. If he knew of a way to fix the vote, I am sure he’d use it, because on the evidence he doesn’t respect the democratic process at all. If there were votes fixed in battleground states in favor of Republicans, I’d be looking rather hard at Rove as the mastermind behind it all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039.md?page=10)