off topic...hey america, yer democracy is in the garbage...

[Guest guest]

like we have *topics* here anyways...

 

'Stinking Evidence' of Possible Election Fraud Found in Florida

By Thom Hartmann

CommonDreams.org

 

Thursday 18 November 2004

 

There was something odd about the poll tapes.

 

A " poll tape " is the phrase used to describe a printout from an optical scan

voting machine made the evening of an election, after the machine has read all

the ballots and crunched the numbers on its internal computer. It shows the

total results of the election in that location. The printout is signed by the

polling officials present in that precinct/location, and then submitted to the

county elections office as the official record of how the people in that

particular precinct had voted. (Usually each location has only one single

optical scanner/reader, and thus produces only one poll tape.)

 

Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org, the erstwhile investigator of

electronic voting machines, along with people from Florida Fair Elections,

showed up at Florida's Volusia County Elections Office on the afternoon of

Tuesday, November 16, 2004, and asked to see, under a public records request,

each of the poll tapes for the 100+ optical scanners in the precincts in that

county. The elections workers - having been notified in advance of her request -

handed her a set of printouts, oddly dated November 15 and lacking signatures.

 

Bev pointed out that the printouts given her were not the original poll

tapes and had no signatures, and thus were not what she'd requested. Obligingly,

they told her that the originals were held in another location, the Elections

Office's Warehouse, and that since it was the end of the day they should meet

Bev the following morning to show them to her.

 

Bev showed up bright and early the morning of Wednesday the 17th - well

before the scheduled meeting - and discovered three of the elections officials

in the Elections Warehouse standing over a table covered with what looked like

poll tapes. When they saw Bev and her friends, Bev told me in a telephone

interview less than an hour later, " They immediately shoved us out and slammed

the door. "

 

In a way, that was a blessing, because it led to the stinking evidence.

 

" On the porch was a garbage bag, " Bev said, " and so I looked in it and, and

lo and behold, there were public record tapes. "

 

Thrown away. Discarded. Waiting to be hauled off.

 

" It was technically stinking, in fact, " Bev added, " because what they had

done was to have thrown some of their polling tapes, which are the official

records of the election, into the garbage. These were the ones signed by the

poll workers. These are something we had done an official public records request

for. "

 

When the elections officials inside realized that the people outside were

going through the trash, they called the police and one came out to challenge

Bev.

 

Kathleen Wynne, a www.blackboxvoting.org investigator, was there.

 

" We caught the whole thing on videotape, " she said. " I don't think you'll

ever see anything like this - Bev Harris having a tug of war with an election

worker over a bag of garbage, and he held onto it and she pulled on it, and it

split right open, spilling out those poll tapes. They were throwing away our

democracy, and Bev wasn't going to let them do it. "

 

As I was interviewing Bev just moments after the tussle, she had to get off

the phone, because, " Two police cars just showed up. "

 

She told me later in the day, in an on-air interview, that when the police

arrived, " We all had a vigorous debate on the merits of my public records

request. "

 

The outcome of that debate was that they all went from the Elections

Warehouse back to the Elections Office, to compare the original, November 2

dated and signed poll tapes with the November 15 printouts the Elections Office

had submitted to the Secretary of State. A camera crew from www.votergate.tv met

them there, as well.

 

And then things got even odder.

 

" We were sitting there comparing the real [signed, original] tapes with the

[later printout] ones that were given us, " Bev said, " and finding things missing

and finding things not matching, when one of the elections employees took a bin

full of things that looked like garbage - that looked like polling tapes,

actually - and passed by and disappeared out the back of the building. "

 

This provoked investigator Ellen Brodsky to walk outside and check the

garbage of the Elections Office itself. Sure enough - more original, signed poll

tapes, freshly trashed.

 

" And I must tell you, " Bev said, " that whatever they had taken out [the back

door] just came right back in the front door and we said, 'What are these

polling place tapes doing in your dumpster?' "

 

A November 18 call to the Volusia County Elections Office found that

Elections Supervisor Deanie Lowe was unavailable and nobody was willing to speak

on the record with an out-of-state reporter. However, The Daytona Beach News (in

Volusia County), in a November 17th article by staff writer Christine Girardin,

noted, " Harris went to the Department of Elections' warehouse on State Road 44

in DeLand on Tuesday to inspect original Nov. 2 polling place tapes, after being

given a set of reprints dated Nov. 15. While there, Harris saw Nov. 2 polling

place tapes in a garbage bag, heightening her concern about the integrity of

voting records. "

 

The Daytona Beach News further noted that, " [Elections Supervisor] Lowe

confirmed Wednesday some backup copies of tapes from the Nov. 2 election were

destined for the shredder, " but pointed out that, according to Lowe, that was

simply because there were two sets of tapes produced on election night, each

signed. " One tape is delivered in one car along with the ballots and a memory

card, " the News reported. " The backup tape is delivered to the elections office

in a second car. "

 

Suggesting that duplicates don't need to be kept, Lowe claims that Harris

didn't want to hear an explanation of why some signed poll tapes would be in the

garbage. " She's not wanting to listen to an explanation, " Lowe told the News of

Harris. " She has her own ideas. "

 

But the Ollie North action in two locations on two days was only half of the

surprise that awaited Bev and her associates. When they compared the discarded,

signed, original tapes with the recent printouts submitted to the state and used

to tabulate the Florida election winners, Harris says a disturbing pattern

emerged.

 

" The difference was hundreds of votes in each of the different places we

examined, " said Bev, " and most of those were in minority areas. "

 

When I asked Bev if the errors they were finding in precinct after precinct

were random, as one would expect from technical, clerical, or computer errors,

she became uncomfortable.

 

" You have to understand that we are non-partisan, " she said. " We're not

trying to change the outcome of an election, just to find out if there was any

voting fraud. "

 

That said, Bev added: " The pattern was very clear. The anomalies favored

George W. Bush. Every single time. "

 

Of course finding possible voting " anomalies " in one Florida county doesn't

mean they'll show up in all counties. It's even conceivable there are innocent

explanations for both the mismatched counts and trashed original records; this

story undoubtedly will continue to play out. And, unless further investigation

demonstrates a pervasive and statewide trend toward " anomalous " election results

in many of Florida's counties, odds are none of this will change the outcome of

the election (which exit polls showed John Kerry winning in Florida).

 

Nonetheless, Bev and her merry band are off to hit another county.

 

As she told me on her cell phone while driving toward their next

destination, " We just put Volusia County and their lawyers on notice that they

need to continue to keep a number of documents under seal, including all of the

memory cards to the ballot boxes, and all of the signed poll tapes. "

 

Why?

 

" Simple, " she said. " Because we found anomalies indicative of fraud. "

 

 

--

 

Thom Hartmann is a Project Censored Award-winning and best-selling author

and host of a nationally-syndicated daily progressive talk show. His website is

thomhartmann.com and his most recent books include " The Last Hours of Ancient

Sunlight, " " Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of

Human Rights, " " We The People: A Call to Take Back America " and " What Would

Jefferson Do?: A Return to Democracy. "

[Guest guest]

Hi Fraggle

 

> 'Stinking Evidence' of Possible Election Fraud Found in Florida

 

Yet another one! I've been hearing loads about various dodgy election things

in America. Apparently there have been several boroughs in Ohio where Bush's

majority was larger than the whole electorate - one was something like 600

voters, and Bush won by over 3000 votes!

 

BB

Peter

[Guest guest]

yup yup yup...

not like i voted fer kerry...but...

and its not even talked about in the major media much

 

just like the mad cow case that just turned up..the news folks were fallin all

over themselves tryin to tell us that " this is unsubstantiated, tests are

inconclusive, so, worry, but don't stop eating that hamburger..quick, go get one

now before we have to leak out the bad news... "

*rolls eyes*

 

did someone switch planets on me while i was napping?

invasion of the planet snatchers???

 

 

Peter <metalscarab

Nov 20, 2004 11:40 AM

 

Re: off topic...hey america, yer democracy is in the

garbage...

 

 

<html><body>

 

 

<tt>

Hi Fraggle<BR>

<BR>

> 'Stinking Evidence' of Possible Election Fraud Found in Florida<BR>

<BR>

Yet another one! I've been hearing loads about various dodgy election things<BR>

in America. Apparently there have been several boroughs in Ohio where Bush's<BR>

majority was larger than the whole electorate - one was something like 600<BR>

voters, and Bush won by over 3000 votes!<BR>

<BR>

BB<BR>

Peter<BR>

<BR>

</tt>

 

<br><br>

<tt>

To send an email to - </tt>

<br><br>

 

<br>

 

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[Guest guest]

Hi Fraggle

 

> did someone switch planets on me while i was napping?

 

Damn - you spotted my cunning plan. And I thought I'd covered my tracks so

well!

 

BB

Peter