Brad,
Please keep up with this information. I would love to see the results and if need be have a congressional hearing to get to the bottom of this matter.

Brad, why do you hate freedom?

I am skeptical, but nowadays all information is suspect. Keep digging, and continue to be rational about this.

Thank you, Bryan and Henry...Believe me, I *hate* doing this reporting. I know full well that the tidal wave of the Mainstream Media has already moved on to sexier stories like "Who will be in Bush's new cabinet?!"

I also realize that I'll be receiving my share of hate mail from the right (as usual) and exasperation from some on the left.

Too bad. There's serious info worth investigating here and while I plan to keep a skeptical head about me when looking at, it needs to be looked into nonetheless.

Trust me, I report much less than I am actually finding out there. I'm trying to concentrate on only the verifiable/investigatable stuff.

Thanks for your support and for PAYING ATTENTION.

I'd like to know, too. I know that we all had the same thoughts.

Matt, Please DON'T stop. As a person who works in network design, I couldn't believe there wouldn't be more who would cry foul with a far too easy to manipulate system such as Diebold's. I have found it to be far too difficult to attain information. Do you have means to distibute this information to the massemedia? Perhaps the UK papers first? When truth like this is so blatently ignored by mainstram US media, there is still hope that whistle blowers and foreign press may see the value in reporting on this.
THANKS! Ariel

If my memory serves me correctly wasn't there a comment made by this CEO to the effect that he guaranteed that he would bring Ohio and Florida in for Bush? This should not be hard to verify it was made about a year ago. If this is true and this information is also correct that should be enough to bring about an inviestigation by an independent counsel or committee. Raise hell and do it loudly so we can make sure that something is done here.

No matter what evidence comes up, an iindependent counsel investigation may not be a political reality until after midterms. Remember, the Republicans control both House and Senate, and would have iron clad party discipline on this matter. And yes, the Diebold CEO was chair or vice-chair of the Ohio Republican party or of the 2004 Bush Ohio campaign committee, and ex officio he did state that he would deliver Ohio for Bush. This is a pretty standard statement from a state party chair - harmless from a tire manufacturer - highly alarming from a voting machine manufacturer.

I just went over and glanced at the raw numbers, and the counties affected all seem to be quite small. The turnout for optical counties seems higher as well, even for comparable size counties (there are no tiny e-screen counties, but there are medium-sized e-screen and optical counties, and although the 5 largest counties are e-screen, 5/10 counties with over 200,000 votes are optical. Turnout for smaller counties is generally higher than turnout for the top 10 counties, by about 2 to 5 % points.

Forgive me if this all comes out a little incoherent, but I'm just trying to make sense of the past few days.

We're two days post election, and as expected, there were some inconsistencies with voting in certain areas. We KNEW that something shady would happen with Electronic voting in Ohio, but what's been uncovered in NC is somewhat of a surprise. Can I ask the obvious question?

What is it that we can hope to accomplish by highlighting these inconsistencies? Are we asking for a new vote? A congressional inquiry? Are we asking the president-elect to suddenly say "Sorry, we cheated. Let me step down now."

My intent is not to criticize the efforts of our gracious host here, I only want to open the conversation up to ask where do we go from here.

How long do we focus on a battle that has been lost, and when do we begin the process of planning for the battles to come?

Vance, just a very quick answer to a question that deserves a longer one.

But for the moment, the difference in OH was roughly 136,000 votes. Which means that if appx. 63,000 votes (out of 5.5 million cast) in OH had been recorded for Kerry instead of Bush, Kerry would have won the Presidency.

I'm just gathering info right now, trying to get it out there for others to investiage and/or report on before the preferred-Bush storyline of a "mandate" hardens for good.

A recount of Ohio's ballots, however, for a start would do nicely. And an audit of their EVoting logs.

As I say, don't know yet, but I know the GOP Congress won't be investigating this. Not unless enough heat is created by the Mainstream Media. And to get *their* attention, folks like us need to make some noise!

That's... weird. I would think the Optical Scan counties would be more reliable than Diebold machines; in many districts you could request an OS ballot if you didn't want to use the Diebolds. Here in CA, the Diebolds were so mistrusted and flawed in the last election that the Sec State made us all switch to OS or butterflies in this election. And if you're gonna rig an election, why be so blatant about it; there would be more stealthy ways to do this, surely? Though to be sure, it would be *very* difficult to prove malfeasance if ballots were simply distroyed, or misfed, or something...

Question: are there enough potential vote swaps there to have swung the Fla results (and therefore the election)?

or, possibly these counties are populated with African-American Zell Millers...

The Florida count is just one of the oddities, redys. Please see some of the other articles I've posted over the last two days as they related specifically to Ohio as well! (Where only 63,000 votes swapped from Bush to Kerry out of 5.5 million would have changed the result for the entire nation).

Something's just not right here...connect. the. dots.

The chart you link to is both more complex and more revealing...at first, it seems as though the optical county results are "dirtier" than the e-vote counties. But on closer view, it becomes clear that percent change is more extreme in very small counties.

Even so, in both categories you find counties where the Dem vote is far below what you would expect. And in this election, I cannot believe that there were so many defections.

Look at Hillsborough and Nassau counties in the evote category. In the optical vote category, Baker is the most obviously outrageous, but there is also De Soto (which voted heavily for Bush, even though mostly Dems live there) , Lafayette, Holmes, Jackson...

Jackson is a special case. Lot of black people there; they had but one polling place, with no parking nearby! I can NOT believe that so many black Floridians would switch to Bush! Look at the numbers: Dems are 71 %, yet Bush won the county 12,092 to 7,529. It JUST IS NOT POSSIBLE.

Fortunately this chart gives us a way to prove fraud. These small counties can be polled. (Call it a late exit poll.) If results drastically counter the numbers on this chart --- and they will --- then you have hard proof.

The chart you link to is both more complex and more revealing...at first, it seems as though the optical county results are "dirtier" than the e-vote counties. But on closer view, it becomes clear that percent change is more extreme in very small counties.

Even so, in both categories you find counties where the Dem vote is far below what you would expect. And in this election, I cannot believe that there were so many defections.

Look at Hillsborough and Nassau counties in the evote category. In the optical vote category, Baker is the most obviously outrageous, but there is also De Soto (which voted heavily for Bush, even though mostly Dems live there) , Lafayette, Holmes, Jackson...

Jackson is a special case. Lot of black people there; they had but one polling place, with no parking nearby! I can NOT believe that so many black Floridians would switch to Bush! Look at the numbers: Dems are 71 %, yet Bush won the county 12,092 to 7,529. It JUST IS NOT POSSIBLE.

Fortunately this chart gives us a way to prove fraud. These small counties can be polled. (Call it a late exit poll.) If results drastically counter the numbers on this chart --- and they will --- then you have hard proof.

It would be helpful to also have the numbers for the Senate race. I would think that the numbers should track parallel to the presidential. Do they?

Vance asked, "What is it that we can hope to accomplish by highlighting these inconsistencies?"

Simple answer: In a democracy, every vote must be accurately counted to reflect the will of the people. Inconsistencies in the vote tally throw into doubt the announced results of the election.

This is not a left vs right issue. It's about doing the right thing.

Brad, Howard, thank you for clarifying and giving more direction to the fact finding.

http://img103.exs.cx/img103/4526/exit_poll.gif

"This chart makes the trend obvious. In states with paper ballots and
audit trails, the exit polls accurately predicted the vote results. In
states using electronic machines, the vote results were distorted in
favor of Bush."

source - http://www.whatreallyhappened.com

Brad, Good job publicizing Kathy's numbers. I went to the source data and found some other ways to present the same issue. Here's a highlight:

What Wrong with Liberty, Florida?

Liberty County in Florida has 320 registered Republicans and 3,597 registered Democrats, and 158 voters registered to other parties or "No Party".

On November 2nd, 2004, Liberty country delivered 1,927 votes for Bush, 1,070 votes for Kerry, and 24 for other candidates. Yes those numbers are correct, straight from official postings of the Florida Secretary of State's office as of yesterday.

A county with only 320 Republicans gave Bush 1,927 votes. That is 6 times more votes for Bush than there are registered Republicans (602% to be exact).

For that to happen, based on the voter turnout rate of 74% in Liberty county, about 1600 Democrats had to switch sides to vote for Bush. That's 60% of all the Democrats who voted there.

Sorry, that strikes me as impossible. Exit polls in Florida showed 11% of Democrats voting for Bush, nowhere near 60%.

Was this a temporary madness limited to isolated people in one small county? It doesn't look like it. Here are the numbers from a few other Florida counties:

Baker County: Registered REP: 3,126 Bush Votes: 7,738 248%
Calhoun County: Registered REP: 993 Bush Votes: 3,780 381%
Franklin County: Registered REP: 1,212 Bush Votes: 3,472 286%
Gadsden County: Registered REP: 3,012 Bush Votes: 6,253 208%
Hamilton County: Registered REP: 1,140 Bush Votes: 2,792 245%
Holmes County: Registered REP: 2,344 Bush Votes: 6,410 273%
Lafayette County: Registered REP: 570 Bush Votes: 2,460 432%
Liberty County: Registered REP: 320 Bush Votes: 1,927 602%
Jackson County: Registered REP: 5,962 Bush Votes: 12,115 203%

Click to my website link or go to http://www.rantworld.com for more info.

Someone needs to look into this now!

I live in Miami, and voted for Kerry, and when I saw this today, I too was very upset. It certainly seems fishy. I showed the table to a friend of mine, who also voted for Kerry, and he immediately had a simple explanation. Almost all of those counties that showed Democrats voting overwhelmingly for Bush are small, rural counties in the middle and northern part of the state, and are very conservative. Historically, voters in those counties were registered Democrats, as most of the south used to be, and probably never changed their party affiliation, but they still vote, as a rule, for the conservative candidate. I don't know if this explanation holds up, but I can tell you, living here in Florida, that my friend is certainly correct about the differences in political philosphy between south Florida, which is liberal, and central and northern Florida, which are more like Georgia and Alabama. To really know if the results show some kind of vote counting problem, I suggest somebody try to compare the results in those counties with those cast in the 2000 election. You may find those counties went overwhelmingly for Bush in 2000 as well. Like the rest of you, I'm prone to suspect the worst in a state run by the President's brother, but in fairness, there may be a simple explantion that makes sense. Let's find out.

Hello,
I just want to know what we are going to do about all of this ? and when ? With each passing day
the Bush presidency becomes more legitimate in the eyes of the media. They even say he has a mandate!!! Maybe we should gather all evidence and send it to Dan Rather - although I doubt he will want to expose it after what happened last time,
maybe we can ask who does he think would be willing to expose this fraud. When the investigation shows there was fraud, I think that the decision then goes to congress -who will just hand the presidency back to Bush -BUT at least this can be used to MAKE SURE THIS NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN!!!
and file a lawsuit against the voting machine companies and revamp the whole election process so that there is NO chance of election fraud.
Also I contributed $ to the Kerry campaign and some of it was supposed to go towards the predicted lawsuits after the election, maybe we can ask for some of that money go help fund this effort??
Please someone answer my question at the beginning of this post -What are we going to do about this??? and When??
I am willing to help in any way possible.
Sheila

Sheila,

You are correct about "each passing day", which is why I've been working so vigorously on this.

But there is good news to report! The Mainstream Media has begun to pick up on all of this, and has been reporting various bits and pieces throughout the day.

At the end of the day, Dems on the House Judiciary Committee submitted an urgent letter requesting the Governmental Accounting Office (GAO) begin an immediate investigation.
Please see this item for more details on that.

If there is action to be taken in regards to that investigation, I will let you guys know here on the BRAD BLOG.

Beyond that, what you can do is a) Let everyone you know hear about these matters before conventional wisdom of a "Bush Win" becomes to well hardened b) Keep an eye on this blog, where I'll try to keep you all updated with the latest info c) Stop by BlackBoxVoting.org and contribute to their urgent "Freedom of Information Act" requests and d) Write letters to your local newspapers, TV Stations and Congressmen requesting that they immediately investigate these troubling matters.

I hope to post a nice and neat "Executive Summary" of the main points, concerns and issues of "What We Know So Far" shortly. Hopefully by tomorrow morning/afternoon.

Thom Hartmann posted an article at commondreams.org today with information that a candidate for the US House from district 16 in Florida Jeff Fisher says that he has evidence of who & how the election was hacked.

Why isn't the FBI looking into this? For over four years there has been clear evidence of vote fraud using voting machines, so where's our law enforcement when we need them?

I too as many many americans feel betrayed and cheated....However its time to put it to rest....WE lostttttttttttt

The best evidence of a rigged election comes from studies of exit polls vs paperless e-voting machines with no paper trail. preciincts with this combiation consistently reward Bush with about 6% more votes than the exit polls show.

Exit polls have always been our best measure of voter preferance. Note that when paper trails were required, the exit poll percentages and the reported outcomes generally matched to within the expected % error (I'm not just talking about Florida now.)

Agreed, Dan.

More on that right here.

Jeff here again. There have been a few other posts after mine, but nobody has addressed what I said. Again, while I'm extremely disappointed that Bush got reelected, we'll do the cause more harm than good by jumping on a conspiracy theory bandwagon that may have little basis in realty. As I speculated, apparently the counties in question did vote heavily for Bush in 2000 as well. Please see http://www.battlebunny.o...11/was_the_florida_1.php. There may be may other examples of fraud throughout the country in the 2004 election, but I doubt this is one of them. Anybody want to respond?

I'll respond, Jeff. You are correct about the correlation to the 2000 numbers. Which was also, as you may recall, not the cleanest of counts either.

That said, I've been trying to look back at 1996 for a better comparison, and I've found a few, so far anecdotal, but interesting things.

Trying to look into too many things at once here, but will continue reporting the notable items that I find.

For the record, official Florida Election Totals going back many elections can be found right here if others of you would like to study some of the data.

I CAN NOT BELIEVE ABC NEWS JUST DISCOUNTED THIS WHOLE ISSUE AS CONSPIRACY THEORIES!!!!
THEY DID NOT EVEN MENTION THE OPTICAL SCANNERS IN FLORIDA!!!!
DO NOT LET UP ON THE PRESSURE!!!

Im from florida and im a stupid idiot, i cant drive, nobody here can either, also so i blend in pretty well, maybe its because i brake every 5 seconds, or cut people off without using blinker, Man i forgot i had one of those thingies, or maybe its cause i am on my cell phone half the time im driving and being a stupid idiot, its hard to do 1 much less 2 things at the same time. I live in a state that has 100% humidity, and rains everyday, in orlando, there is no privacy, no mountains or hills,or any kind of retreat area whatsoever, and the cops always pull my friends over for stuff they didnt do. But hey its florida. I also like to stare at people for no reason, like a lot of floridians, its the thing to do, you will notice that if you live here, its pretty popular. Im also part puerto rican, like most ricans in orlando, and miami, we like to flood the area with our kind, bring in our relatives from colombia or mexico and stik them in our home illegally so they can take over more white american jobs. We like take over what used to be cheap decent apartment complexes, and neighborhoods and turn them into little havana. In florida, everything is always ALWAYS in spanish and english, sometimes just in spanish, my family was going to take a english course but they figured, WHY, if everything is translated for you here anyways. ALso in florida the roads are ALWAYS undergoing construction, and it makes it harder for us that cant drive right, to drive. Ive been in a few accidents, those are pretty common around here, especially when the snowbirds from NJ and NY come down, ithought i was a bad driver, man they are worse. When they cut you off they give you the finger, then tell u to go to hell, somtimes they follow you to give you more grief. Good O'l Florida!

Thank you Brad..as long as we have you and helen we will be alright..I worked in the election in ohio, and of course you didnt hear it in mainstream media,but in one county alone Bush got 93.000 more votes than were registered voters..Diebold is hacking for republicans and until we all insist on paper ballot trail, dems cannot win....Make noises people.....This has to stop..