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143 Comments
- oddmanout, on 10/12/2007, -28/+204They got 6 to 18 months for this crime and we got 4 more years of Bush? They should at least suffer for as long as we suffer.
- strangerzero, on 10/12/2007, -19/+75America has never been a democracy it is a republic. "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands".
But any way, yeah both the 2000 and 2004 elections were most likely rigged in favor of Bush and didn't represent the will of the people. - seenthefuture, on 10/12/2007, -1/+54"Maiden and Dreamer, WHO STILL WORK FOR THE ELECTIONS BOARD..." They didn't even lose their jobs, wtf.
- kaje, on 10/12/2007, -5/+52Isn't it sad that we have to pick between two or three people for the President of the United States, but pick between 50 people for Miss America?
- khag7, on 10/12/2007, -26/+63Bush should go to jail with them for those 6 to 18 months.
- masgrada, on 10/12/2007, -8/+35@thebenchase
if you had, in fact paid attention to how vote rigging works, they were merely mimicking the vote tally that was already artificial.
1st round the numbers were altered and the recount they hand picked those ballots to 'prove' the initial vote result was correct. - Vermifax, on 10/12/2007, -11/+34Are we.........still a democracy?
- dagobah77, on 10/12/2007, -7/+23"Special prosecutor Kevin Baxter did not claim the workers’ actions affected the outcome of the election - Kerry gained 17 votes and Bush lost six in the county’s recount."
- dtd00d, on 10/12/2007, -11/+26We're a government of some type anyway. This corruption proves it.
And we're definitely Americans-- let's face it, we're not the brightest ones on the planet, intellectually, anyway.
Don't worry,we still have a shot at the Biggest Ego award. - Groovemaster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16"America has never been a democracy it is a republic."
America is supposedly a representative democratic republic, which means the people elect politicians to serve them ("by the people and for the people") by catering to their interests.
So actually, America is supposed to be a democracy.
In reality though, America is not a democracy, in the same way that pro wrestling is not spontaneous. - ScornForSega, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14"Maybe because the workers were following procedures as they understood them, and their actions had no effect on the outcome of the election."
*****.
The process for a recount in Ohio involves pulling a small (1%ish) random sample and statistically, that sample should coincide with the distributions of ballots across the district. If the sample distribution and population distribution coincide, no hand recount is called for. If there are discrepancies, then a hand recount is initiated.
(or at least that's as best as I can remember it at the moment.)
Short version: "They worked behind closed doors for three days to pick ballots they knew would not cause discrepancies" != "Maybe because the workers were following procedures as they understood them" - rasterbator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12The problem with the system is that only the rich can run. It doesn't matter if they are republicrats or demicans. They all suck, and we do not have millions of dollars to run a campaign that could beat them.
For once I would like there to be a campaign where they declare the one who SPENDS the LEAST amount of money to get elected is the front runner. This would force them to come up with legitimate solutions for our problems, and keep all of the rich people from grabbing all the power. - kooft, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12We don't know if they're actions had an effect on the outcome of the election or not. Only that the preliminary recount that was tainted by their actions produced an increase of 17 votes for Kerry and -6 for Bush. The pertinent question is, what would a full recount have shown?
- sideshowRAHEEM, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13I'm sure this goes further up the chain than just the people listed in this article but I'm also sure that we will never find out who was really behind all of this meaning who ordered it. You gotta love this free country we live in, rig an election that effects everyone in this country you get 18 months, get caught buy in or selling drugs in some states and its a felony and you'll get allot more time than that. AMERICA ***** YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11As Republicans, they are up for promotion once they do their suspended sentences. It's like how in the Mafia you get "made" by killing somebody, in the GOP you get "made" by being convicted.
- axel2k1, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14This, on top of freakin' Diebold Systems' voting machines. Geez, they can't even develop a web site that doesn't have ASP server tags all over it: http://www.diebold.com/dieboldes/
... you won't see them in IE, but ffox shows them nicely. Someone should tell their developers what the difference between a standard HTML file and an ASP file is... - catbeller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9The point is, THEY didn't know if the recount would change he vote; what they did was to arrange it so that no recount would be performed, thus freezing the votes in Bush's favor.
Refresher: they hand picked the "random" districts for error checking by eliminating any with discrepencies, thus intentionally hiding that some districts were suspiciously totalled and needed to be recounted.
So, QED, they rigged the election by preventing us from 1) having a recount, and 2) hiding the fact that there were discrepancies in the vote counting in some districts. They were either criminally negligent, or intentionally breaking the election in Bush's favor.
In either case, it's a conspiracy, since it took more than one person to agree to do this. And we need to know who asked that this be done. Election officials don't just decide to not count votes properly, en masse. Someone started this. It would be lovely to find out who, and who that person's boss was, and so on, following the trail to the top. - masgrada, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Listen, if these two got caught theres more going on. They were obviously covering up others actions. Otherwise they would have no need to sort the ballots to begin with.
- loup, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9"America is supposedly a representative democratic republic, which means the people elect politicians to serve them ("by the people and for the people") by catering to their interests."
Ooh, ooh, ooh, lets add another word.
America is a constitutional representative democratic republic, which means the people elect representatives who are constrained in their power by a constitution.
Do I win? - toppgun, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13strangerzero
a republic is a form of democracy - DIGGerPhelpsND, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13America is a representative democracy. We have representatives that are democratically elected.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy - jetsetgo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8"Maybe because the workers were following procedures as they understood them,"
Following procedures as they understood them? Thats even more of a reason to fire those people. If you have people at a job who don't understand what they are supposed to do and their actions cause the complete opposite outcome it was supposed to, you fire them. AND, if you have people working at a state or federal position and they GO TO JAIL, you fire them even faster. - MalachiConstant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8After seeing HBO's Documentary Hacking Democracy on how to cheat in an election, none of this surprises me.
If anyone else saw it, you might recall the angry employees that blocked any investigations into the fact that the voting machine receipts had been thrown in the garbage within weeks of the election.
What's sad is that your country's foreign policy makes like it's defending freedom and democracy, when really it's got the worst record at home. - hambend, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7The correct term for America is "bureaucracy".
- shoelace414, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Kerry only gained 17 in a rigged recount. how many would he have gained in a real recount, will we ever know?
- toasty168, on 10/12/2007, -13/+19We're a banana republic.
- paperhat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8@kaje
We get to pick Miss America? - catbeller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Who cares what he thinks. The election was rigged, done, finished. No recount was performed in districts that shennanigans were happening in, because these bastards rigged the random error checking so that no discrepencies would be found. That means, logically, that these bastards knew where the cheating/errors were, and are therefore conspirators in hiding election fraud, whether they knew it for sure or not Bush would lose if it were done.
What the prosecutor thinks is irrelevant. He's under heavy pressure not to state the obvious -- saying outright that these people rigged the election for Bush. Whether or not they knew exactly how many votes could have been swung one way or another doesn't matter, because *they knew if the count were frozen as-is*, Bush would keep his lead and win. That county in Ohio tipped it for Bush, no question. This is massive, vile election rigging. - bishop, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6The article is MISLEADING.
It's written in a way to make people think that the votes were in favor of Bush but the people involved were democrats and the vote changed in Kerry's favor.
Another example of how slanted the media can be. - kylesellers, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Wow, this article doesn't even mention that the people involved are registered Democrats (which they were). Now, if they were Republicans, it would have been mentioned in the first sentance...
- ThisIsBob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5You see one cockroach, you ain't seen them all.
- plncrzy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@DIGGerPhelpsND
>We have representatives that are democratically elected.
Well.. that's the idea anyway. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8yes you still get to choose between a turd sandwich and a giant douche.
- TroubleInMind, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I beg to differ, sir, but I believe our record of screwing people in overseas entanglements is significantly worse than our record in screwing our own citizens. We are far better at messing up your lives than we are at messing up our own. Domestically, we're only good at screwing with poor people, minorities, and gay folk.
- gwolf, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11If it were up to me they would get 6 to 18 bullets each. I have to wonder how much this goes on and we never hear about it.
- geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The man who invented the exit poll and a team of statisticians concluded that massive fraud probably happened in Ohio so this goes along with their mathematical studies. The next question is: is this isolated? Everything points to a resounding "Probably not."
I just want fair elections and a representative democracy, is that too much to ask for? - shootdashit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3if only they had been black and had teenage sex, then they could have received 10 years.
- baalzebub, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5i think they should be hanged in public for treason!
- JCSaint, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3What's really sad is that things like this no longer shock me. I expect them.
- totorototoro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Defense attorney Roger Synenberg has said the workers were following procedures as they understood them."
Ah, the old "we were just following orders" tactic. - TroubleInMind, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Nobody liked Kerry. That election was between Bush, and "Not Bush". Unfortunately, the Dems couldn't come up with a candidate that people would actually want to vote for, and the stiff they put up there almost beat Rove & co.
- mulling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Our democracy depends on fair elections. Election rigging should be classified as high treason. I don't give a ***** which party benefits, the perps should swing from the gallows.
- EntropyMan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4It's been almost six since 9/11. By your logic, we should let that go too? Yeah, it's ancient history. Let Bin Laden go already! Forget justice.
Moron. - sancho, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5The problem isn't that they were trying to swing the election one way or the other, but that they were subverting the recount process.
From another article ( http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/000607.php ) : while there is no evidence of vote fraud, the prosecutor said their efforts were aimed at avoiding an expensive - and very public - hand recount of all votes cast. Three top county elections officials have been indicted, and Erie County Prosecutor Kevin Baxter says more indictments are possible.
Election workers in each county are supposed to count 3 percent of the ballots by hand and by machine, randomly choosing precincts for that count.
If the hand and machine counts match, the other 97 percent of the votes are recounted by machine. If the numbers don't match, workers repeat the effort. If they still don't match exactly, the workers must complete the recount by hand, a tedious process that could take weeks and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Days before the Dec. 16 recount, workers opened the ballots and hand-counted enough votes to identify precincts where the machine count matched.
"If it didn't balance, they excluded those precincts," Baxter said.
"The preselection process was done outside of any witnesses, without anyone's knowledge except for [people at] the Board of Elections."
On the official recount day, employees pretended to pick precincts randomly, Baxter says. Dozens of Cuyahoga County election workers sat at 20 folding tables in front of dozens of witnesses and reporters.
----end quotes
Now the fact is, we don't know how a real recount would have affected the election. The people involved in this case are intentionally avoiding the subject. In fact, several Diggers have vehemently denied that it affected the election by quoting this bit: "Special prosecutor Kevin Baxter did not claim the workers’ actions affected the outcome of the election - Kerry gained 17 votes and Bush lost six in the county’s recount." In reality, this phrasing indicates exactly what it says--they aren't saying that it affected the election--but they aren't saying that it didn't, either. We'll never know. They chose not to perform a real recount, instead selecting counties they knew would result in a standard machine recount rather than a hand recount. This guaranteed Bush the votes, whereas had a real recount occurred, that might have changed.
But again, it's not a partisan issue. The issue is that they broke the law, subverted the election process, and made it impossible to know who the true winner was. Their intentions (whether it was an attempt to hand the election over to Bush, as some claim, or more simply, an effort to save taxpayer dollars) are irrelevant.
Full disclosure: I tend to lean towards the left. I'm pretty moderate, overall, but if I was forced (at gunpoint) to pick a side, it would probably be the dems. These guys were also dems, allegedly. And I think they are getting off light for ***** with the election. - jhshukla, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@evil test:
... being DUG down how ... - Gtitian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Legally it's not treason, it's voter fraud. Their different crimes and it would be a stretch to turn this into treason, however 18 months is kind of a joke... 20 years would be expected I think.
- catbeller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2And if they were Democrats, get a rope. We need a little instant population control here. If they were just lazy, as the verdict implies, then perhaps, not a rope, but an instant trip to a lovely life in uniform in Iraq for the duration. Do enjoy the lack of body armor, you putzes.
- pedro101, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8Oddmanout, nowhere in the article does it mention that these people were conservatives.
- drmobutu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2They were Convicted of Felonies. They must be held accountable, and we should all insist that they receive (and actually serve) the maximum sentence available.
Anything less would be an insult to the American people, and everything we stand for. - iancgi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Put the real crooks in prison, like the owners of the election systems who fund the politicians. Its all a big ***** club and your not invited. The people that run our country are the rich pompous ***** who do not give a ***** about you. Just like the rich person on the hill dont give a ***** about you.
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