Matthew Cardinale writes: 'The McKinney Campaign says they have documented complaints of voters here in Georgia whose votes FLIPPED BEFORE THEIR VERY EYES on Diebold machines.'
McKinney: 'Just Repeating A Lie Doesn't Make It True'
By Winter Patriot on 7/19/2006, 12:37pm PT  

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

The Atlanta Progressive News has published a long article about a situation we were very interested in yesterday, which otherwise seems poised to fall off the map. How curious!

The APN piece is called Machine Vote-Flipping Claimed in McKinney Primary and I have found it on the net in a very few places. But I can't find any other news about this story on at all. Anywhere. Even the "McKinney for Congress" website is quiet --- it hasn't been updated since yesterday afternoon as far as I can tell.

In the interests of getting this story a bit more exposure, we provide not only a link to it (above) but we will also post generous excerpts below the fold.

By the way, according to the "official" results of the election, McKinney got more votes than any of the other candidates, but not a majority, and she will have to go through a run-off against her most successful opponent, Hank Johnson, to whom votes were being flipped yesterday according to the reports we have received.

ATLANTA –“You’ve got electronic voting machines. Many people called in and shared their concern. They pushed the button for Cynthia McKinney and Hank Johnson came up. It wasn’t one time, it wasn’t two times, it was many, many times,” Karen Fitzpatrick, who has been monitoring elections for US Rep. McKinney’s re-election campaign, told Atlanta Progressive News in an exclusive interview.

Let me repeat: The McKinney Campaign says they have documented complaints of voters here in Georgia whose votes FLIPPED BEFORE THEIR VERY EYES on Diebold machines.

“It started early this morning. There were well over 25 to 30 calls that came in [to the campaign office]. Many of them went to the poll manager [after this happened]. In some cases, the poll managers said there’s nothing we can do. In some cases the voter left frustrated as if their vote had been compromised, as if it had been stolen,” Fitzpatrick said.

And many voters hadn’t even selected the “cast ballot” button yet, when they were told it was already too late, Fitzpatrick said.“I believe that was their instructions. There’s no question in my mind they were following instructions,” from the Elections Division under Cathy Cox, she said.

“The zero results report didn’t come up zero on many precincts today. Whenever it doesn’t come out a zero, that means votes didn’t get counted,” Fitzpatrick said.

McKinney’s campaign showed APN a stack of affidavits from who they say are traumatized voters. APN hopes to interview some of these voters very soon and bring you the details.

...

“With automated voting, you’re entrusting what you put on a ballot will be encoded [properly],” Fitzpatrick said.

The many programming insecurities in electronic voting have been covered extensively previously, including an extensive study recently by the Brennan Center.

“It doesn’t take much to say, Every tenth voter, I want you to do this with Cynthia’s vote,” Fitzpatrick said.

McKinney’s campaign has reported a volume of elections irregularities. “We had so many failures,” she said. There are situations where people got the wrong party ballot, of Democrats who received Republican ballots.

Fitzpatrick said she is also concerned with “how the state of Georgia is trying to block the poll watchers, the only eyes and ears. They want to put elections in a black box.”

Other problems included people’s polling places having been changed without them being informed, machines going down, and the slow processing speed of electronic poll books delaying the voting process.

The Congresswoman’s “passion is to ensure the rights of everyone across all color lines, that your right of Democracy is protected, that your right to vote is yours, and that the vote you cast can be counted,” Fitzpatrick said.

“We’ve got to put the public on notice that the office that’s supposed to be ensuring the integrity of the elections process is not going their job, and is working against their interest because they are disenfranchising people. Their primary job is to administer transparent elections in the view of the public,” Fitzpatrick said.

...

McKinney received the most votes in the Primary, but [...] not enough to avoid a runoff with Hank Johnson. At the end of the night she gave a passionate speech, surrounded by supporters, and in front of every major media outlet fathomable.

“Some people think by repeating something that’s not true makes it so. Just repeating a lie doesn’t make it true,” McKinney said.

“I’m the one who tells the truth. On what George Bush knew about 9/11. I put my body against the war machine, against the wheels and the levers of the machine. And I said you’ve got to stop it.”

“We believe in the power of the people over special interests every time. I have a strong and uncompromising position against the war machine. It is outrageous [US Secretary of Defense] Rumsfeld can go before Congress and say $2,500,000,000,000 [2.5 trillion dollars] was lost and our children are suffering.”

“I have said [much] about this and so much more... The Carlyle Group... The defense contracts of Haliburton. I don’t mind speaking truth to power.”

“I’m asking the people of the 4th Congressional District to stand with me now... who think America is on the wrong track and think America can do better.”

“Quite frankly, we’ve been in this place before, but you know what? It is impossible to keep a good woman down. I intend to fight the good fight. I will continue to tell the truth. I will challenge anyone who tries to destroy anything [I’ve built]. This battle is now engaged. We intend to win.”

Is it just my opinion or would it be a good idea to send a big thank you to Matthew Cardinale? If you agree with me about this, you can tell him so right now. Just click here.

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, Election Irregularities, Georgia, Cynthia McKinney