Blackboxvoting.org Raises Vote-Audit FOIA Request 1023
aacool writes "Blackboxvoting.org has raised the largest Freedom of Information request in history. At 8:30 p.m. Election Night, Black Box Voting blanketed the U.S. with the first in a series of public records requests, to obtain internal computer logs and other documents from 3,000 individual counties and townships. Networks called the election before anyone bothered to perform even the most rudimentary audit. Among the first requests sent to counties (with all kinds of voting systems -- optical scan, touch-screen, and punch card) is a formal records request for internal audit logs, polling place results slips, modem transmission logs, and computer trouble slips."
Ohio and Florida (Score:5, Interesting)
This is it, folks. Donate! (Score:5, Interesting)
What are the possible consequences? (Score:5, Interesting)
The biggest can of worms in the world (Score:5, Interesting)
In the aftermath, I am afraid that, if the audit indicates there are irregularities or foul play involved in the elections, reply might simply be 'It is counting error on your end, you don't have capacities for competently performing an audit of this size.' Besides, I just might think not enough of Americans will actually care.
Bottom line... I sure do hope the audit works out. I sure do hope it proves elections were rigged (being from a former communist eastern european state myself, I saw a number of those
We failed America (Score:4, Interesting)
There is no accountability, no log, no going back. And it's OUR fault. We knew, and we didn't take action. We KNEW this would come.
It's not about who votes. It's about who counts them.
Favourite quote (Score:5, Interesting)
And so it begins... (Score:2, Interesting)
Interestingly, they showed footage on NBC's TODAY show of some of the polling places using electronic equipment in Ohio; some polling places had waits of over 9 hours with the last people voting at shortly before 4AM local time. Voting officials offered the alternative of paper ballots to move people through more quickly. Ironically, students and other members of the line were yelling "Do not use the paper ballots! Wait to use the machines!" explaining later that they felt their votes wouldn't be counted if they voted on paper...
And no, the exit polls [cnn.com] didn't indicate a different winner.
Fishy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What are the possible consequences? (Score:4, Interesting)
What should happen, if there was fraud, is to invalidate the election and schedule another one. In the new election, throw out (or make illegal) whatever machines were used to create the fraud. Plug the holes and do it right. You can't declare anyone a winner if any fraud was involved without holding a new election. Yeah, it would be a pain in the ass, but it would be the right way to go about fixing it.
Touch Screen Voting (Score:5, Interesting)
After tapping my choices with a stylus -not really that easy for a left-handed-choice-tapper on a right-handed machine, I had to re-do a lot of them- I pressed the vote button. And the screen flashed something like "vote recorded" and then it went blank.
There was nothing to drop in a ballot box, nothing to show me that the machine was really hooked to anything, and of course, nothing that anybody could re-count if there was a question of fraud.
The friendly octogenarian on duty assured my that the it was all run by computer and that we didn't need a paper trail, since they could recount the computer records if they needed to do a recount. And since it is impossible for hard drives to die and memory chips to fail...
Yeah, it probably worked this time but the empty feeling I had as I walked out of the polling station left me strangly envious of those days when I could look at my punch card to make sure that none of the chads were hanging.
national security (Score:5, Interesting)
The radical right now control the White House, the Senate and the House. Some of the senators voted in last night make Barry Goldwater look like Ted Kennedy. This faction will not allow anyone to look behind the curtain.
pollsters said their exit polls favored Kerry.... (Score:2, Interesting)
The exit polls favored Kerry by 1-3 percentage points but the "votes" favored Bush.
If the elections were rigged, those unexpected gaps between polls and votes are what you would expect in a well rigged election.
I don't know that the elections were rigged. How many of you have played Tropico (where you get to rig elections and so forth)?
It wouldn't be the first fraudulent US election (Lyndon Johnson rigged the vote in Texas).
Take a look at Miami-Dade (Score:2, Interesting)
IIRC, they are using touch-screens there.
Miami-Dade was supposed to be incredibly Democratic and they only got a 54-46 margin.
Very suspect.
Strapping on tinfoil beanie now... (Score:2, Interesting)
Not to sound like too much of a conspiracy freak, but I have to say that some of the numbers sound kinda flaky -- e.g. there was supposedly no change in turnout of young voters, but the news was *full* of anecdotal evidence of massive youth voter turnout... Also, the numbers from Florida just look a little... weird.
It's very, very good that these guys are doing this -- it's just too easy to imagine "election hacking" scenarios.
FYR: Some very good analysis of the problem, with resources, from Bruce Schneier: http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0312.html#9 [schneier.com]
Re:Ohio and Florida (Score:3, Interesting)
What I don't get... (Score:5, Interesting)
I also find it surprising that Florida was so clearly for Bush given how tight it was last time. (Maybe retirees care more about terrorism and Iraq than I thought?)
Much of Ohio uses Diebold voting machines, which leave no paper trail. Early in the campaign, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell, a GOP fundraiser, promised [commondreams.org] to deliver [newshounds.us] Ohio to Bush. :(
Question: If someone committed fraud, would it be better to make it a decisive victory in order to avoid scrutiny?
These guys should start with the big counties in states such as Florida and Ohio that seemed to turn out contrary to prediction.
Re:Fishy? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Illegal! (Score:2, Interesting)
An elector in Colorado already has stated that even if Bush does win, he is going to vote for Kerry. He has the right to do so. This may yet turn out to be interesting.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
They only mirror the results because CNN adjusted them to remove this little embarrassment.
If you saw the exit polls when the polls actually closed (9-10 oclock or so) they favored John Kerry by a significant (2-4%) margin. Only later (around 1:00 am) did the exit polls start to drift towards the actual numbers reported by the polls.
Where did these numbers come from? Were there more exit poll results reported at 1:00 AM? It seems odd that this little discrepency was silently corrected once it was determined who would "win". I'm not a conspiracy thorist, but presumably the exit polls that were inaccurate at 10:00 when the polls closed should still be inaccurate this morning, but that is not the case.
Something odd happened here, don't accept cnn's exit poll numbers.
So this is how you do it? (Score:2, Interesting)
No, actually, I was up until 5AM ET.
And, uh, the networks didn't "revise" anything. The problem was that pre-election polling in states like Ohio made some people, like Zogby, pretty damned sure Ohio was a gimme for Kerry. But they were wrong. And the exit polling showed that.
Now let me get this straight: you're alleging that the major networks changed their exit polling figures, i.e., purposely falsified results, to make the exit poll numbers match the election outcome?
Wow. Do you use Reynolds or a generic brand for your hat?
I hate to tell you this, but I watched the AP returns on Ohio from the poll close to 100% precincts reporting, and the exit polls more or less mirrored the results the whole time.
But now people like Zogby are having to are having to eat their hats [zogby.com]:
"We feel strongly that our pre-election polls were accurate on virtually every state. Our predictions on many of the key battleground states like Ohio and Florida were within the margin of error. I thought we captured a trend, but apparently that result didn't materialize."
Re:Ohio and Florida (Score:4, Interesting)
MSN.com Pro Open Source, b/c of this? (Score:2, Interesting)
I did a couple of searches on my own, and found this (old) article: http://slate.msn.com/id/2086455/ [msn.com].
It's basically about Diebold machines being flaky pieces of crap, but most notably, there's this quote:
Anyhow, I find it amusing that a pro OpenSource article is on a Microsoft site (kind of like finding a supremely pro Microsoft article on Slashdot..
Re:They do? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've highlighted the really important bit. It's the giant pink elephant no media organization wanted to touch, and there's no logical explanation for it except to enable vote tampering.
No, I already knew about this. (Fuck, do I have to write a goddamned novel with each slashdot post to prove I'm aware of the facts so I don't get accosted by people who assume that the only way you can have an opinion in opposition to theirs is if you don't have all the "facts"...and their version of the "facts" at that?)
Why?
Because you say so? Because blackboxvoting.org says so?
And then you use the good ol' "the media won't touch it" excuse? Well then your assertions must be true! Convenient.
Or might it be that you don't have any idea what elements might be used for in proprietary software. Note: I DO NOT think it should be proprietary, and I think that the source code of all operational components of such a system be available for public inspection, including all subsequent patches and updates, and overseen by a government custodian.
I know this [securityfocus.com] will mean nothing to you, but:
Diebold strongly refutes the existence of any "back doors" or "hidden codes" in its GEMS software. These inaccurate allegations appear to stem from those not familiar with the product, misunderstanding the purpose of legitimate structures in the database. These structures are well documented and have been reviewed (including at a source code level) by independent testing authorities as required by federal election regulations.
In addition to the facts stated above, a paper and an electronic record of all cast ballots are retrieved from each individual voting machine following an election. The results from each individual machine are then tabulated, and thoroughly audited during the standard election canvass process. Once the audit is complete, the official winners are announced. Any alleged changes to a vote count in the election management software would be immediately discovered during this audit process, as this total would not match the true official total tabulated from each machine.
So yeah, consider the source and all that. The operative word here being consider.
Additionally, do you think a multi-hundred-million dollar campaign (i.e. Kerry/Edwards) is just ignoring this? That no one on their staff is INTIMATELY aware of these situations and allegations. Quite the contrary. And rest assured that if there was anything substantial to do or prove, they'd be doing or proving it.
good luck (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Fishy? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why the Pilgrims left the Netherlands where they were obviously free to practice religion as they chose. They left because they didn't want their children influenced by the progressive Dutch mentality of the time.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not so sure about this. I've heard enough stories about people hitting kerry on one of these touchscreens only to see it say bush when it asked them to confirm their votes. And I've heard them from a variety of places and states. Of course even a paper trail wouldn't help us in this case unless the voter took the time to look over the choices made by the machine. It's possible that these stories are the exceptions rather than the rule, but they still make me wonder.
Personally I liked the ballots that we used here in Boulder, Colorado. Big printed paper ballots with a square next to each option. You fill in the square with a blue or black pen. It's about as easy as you can make it, and I know exactly how my votes got counted. On the downside, they take longer to count (as of noon today only about 5% of Boulder's precincts had reported in) but personally, I would be perfectly happy to wait until the Friday after election day to see the results if it meant I wouldn't have to worry about whether my vote counted.
Re:And so it begins... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have seen dozens and dozens of Republicans claiming "the democrats are going crazy". Almost every single democrat response has been "we should audit the machines anyway even though it will not make a difference in the election" and things like "I'm glad it was a clear win though I hate the person who won". Yes there were a few idiots saying "if there was an error the election should be re-held" but maybe you should see the responses and try to judge peoples feeling fairly.
Stop trying to put words in peoples mouths. It is your side that is making up this crap.
I supported Kerry. HE LOST. However no intelligent person here should think that is a reason to not investigate these machines. Perhaps it will be shown that some Democrat fixed them to vote for Kerry. You would love that, wouldn't you. Be changing your tune real quick.
Re: Illegal! (Score:4, Interesting)
As far as taking a lot of work, while Ohio has a lot of punchcard ballots (70%?!?) they do have a uniform criteria in place to determine whether a "hanging chad" is valid or not, unlike Florida 2000.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny; I've already seen a lot online discussing the inaccuracies in the exit polls. NPR had a program on the topic a couple hours back, where the exit-poll reps admitted that they overestimated the Kerry vote by 5% or more. They seemed especially bothered by the fact that so many polls were off by roughly the same amount.
They didn't quite say it, but one obvious suspicion was a systematic 5% (roughly) error in counting the votes.
The other obvious suspicion is a systematic bias in all the polls. But it's more difficult to see how this might happen, given the wide range in political stances of the polling organizations.
One, uh, "interesting" thing I ran across a few weeks ago was a discussion of a growing difficulty that pollsters have in the US: There are a lot of states now using proprietary electronic voting equipment that can't be audited or examined by outsiders. It's essentially impossible for a pollster to estimate the bias introduced by such equipment and add it to the poll estimates. And, of course, if a poll turns out different from the final vote tally, it's a huge embarrassment to the polling company.
It was interesting hearing them discuss this problem openly. It was as if they just accepted the bias of the equipment as a given that we all know about. Their problem is that they couldn't poll the machines and determine their biases, which makes for a large unknown in their calculations.
Well, it'll be interesting to see what blackboxvoting discovers, if anything.
Re:Decision criteria for voting lost on me... (Score:2, Interesting)
You see, a huge portion of the US's population is religous and thus conservative when it comes to morality. That's the way it's always been, period. (Remember how the first immigrants to the colonies were looking for religious freedom?). There are even theories that argue that one of the reasons why the US became such an overwhelming economic powerhouse is precisely because of religion. The theory is called the Protestan Ethic. You can google a bit about it if you're interested. The rough gist of it is that if you have a population that has a tendency to be religous and value hard, honest work, economic prosperity is bound to follow (sort of a socioeconomic version of good karma).
The United States is not nor will ever be Europe. The mindset of large urban centers such as New York, LA and San Francisco is not the mindset of the rest of the country by a long shot. Failing to recognize these simple facts about the US means lost elections, and confused foreigners.
We've All Lost the Right to Vote (Score:5, Interesting)
Others have already said the obvious: the exit polls don't match up to the Diebold tabulations. The record number of new voters all casting ballots for an embattled incumbent seems incredibly unlikely. In my mind, this portents a new era in American politics: the most cunning cheater always wins. And with the Republicans gaining more and more ground thanks to Diebold and other dirty tricks, they'll be the ones in the best position to cheat.
We can be certain that the Republican's new electronic apparatus will entrench itself further and grow in sophistication--unless it is stopped right now. Diebold will be emboldened by this victory, and the people Diebold put in power won't lift a finger to stop it. In few short years, even the Supreme Court will probably be stacked with men who essentially owe their jobs to Diebold.
The media is filled with cowards will we now shift to the right in response to the wind. If the Diebold story doesn't make huge headlines now, then it never will.
What difference does it make it you can get record number of people to the polls if an evil nazi-nerd can push a button and erase all those votes?
Reform of the election process should become everyone's #1 issue. Protests of epic proportions are needed, because as of right now, all the suffrage gained since the dawn of the Union is in peril.
Right now, no one aside from Diebold has the right to vote. Not even the white landowners.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank you (Score:3, Interesting)
I voted for Kerry. HE LOST! And I know it.
I serioulsly distrust these machines because I have rudimentary knowledge of how computers work and are designed and programmed. Not because I think Kerry could have won, or that I want the election challenged, or because I am a terrorist bent on starting a civil war, or because I am a "bitter sore loser".
Unfortunately too many people are trying to squash any investigation of these machines by saying it is "sore loser Democrats who don't know when to give up" doing it. And it does not help that there are a some Democrats who are acting exactly this way. Reading some of the responses to this article, I count at least 25 (browing at +2) where Republicans are basically saying "this is sore-losers and conspiracy theorists" and 8 actual rabid Democrats saying "it was a conspiracy and the election should be challenged". Counter this with about maybe 1 Democrat agreeing with me (not counting responses) and your post which is the first Republican one that questions the machines. This is not good, the loud and illogical extremists on both sides are going to kill any support for real investigation of these machines, which incidentally can be fixed just as easily by a Democrat to deliver a Democrat victory as by a Republican. Maybe even easier, if Slashdot is any indication the people with the necessary knowledge to work for these companies and sneak in code seems to slant pretty far left!
I am hoping that there can be bi-partisan support of people who all agree "Kerry lost the election but that does not mean these machines work". Any idea how to get sensible claims out above all the noise?
Public vote database? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems to me we could fairly easily do a pretty good job of verifying the vote. Here's how we'd handle a single vote for a single community of voters (whether a precinct or the whole country):
Here are some consequences:
There are a few problems with this; for one thing I don't know if whether a given person has voted is supposed to be public information; for another it would be hard to look for illegal voters. But I think this is a big improvement over the black box we have now!
ATMs give me a receipt, why can't a voting machine (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:They do? (Score:3, Interesting)
I was wondering if you could articulate five concrete, lasting things that Bill Clinton did for blacks?
A single hacker could have fixed the election. (Score:5, Interesting)
As for fraud, it wouldn't have to be a conspiracy at all. A conspiracy means a group of more than one. Yet in a case like this, a single coder with access to the voting machines, say, someone working for Diebold, could throw an entire national election.
If the code were self modifying and obfuscated it could be very difficult to detect. Especially as the Diebold code used in this election has never been publicly scrutinized and may never be. And as the system is running Windows, it will have nearly endless areas in which an illicit bit of code could be inserted.
This single hacker could write a very small bit of code with any number of tests and checks to insure it only ran during an actual election. It could also have tests to insure it only skewed votes in districts with little oversight. I've only given it a moment's thought, but I've come up with a few good tests, I'm sure a bit of thought and intimate knowledge of voting procedures could devise even better ones.
Most obviously, these systems certainly have clocks, so the illicit code could wait until November 2nd. Then it could check for very complex schedules of events that only occur during an actual election. For example, the machine being turned on for many hours, yet only being asked to record a vote once a minute or less, on average.
A simple test like that could get past most quality assurance testing efforts. Most tests would fail to activate the hidden application because QA testers usually run through a testing process much faster than actual users (voters) use the machines. The hidden application could combine those tests with a bunch of other tests.
The illicit code could be designed to only skew the voting when the votes for a certain candidate (Bush) were overwhelming. Meaning it would never skew results in the districts strongly the other way, or districts with close finishes. So the districts with most of the monitoring would never have their votes altered.
But in each strongly republican district, this sort of check would change the tally to give Bush just a slightly larger percentage of votes than were actually cast.. I suspect few people would give a moment's thought to Bush winning a strongly republican district by 65% instead of 60%.
Yet skewing results exclusively in strongly republican districts could shift state-wide election totals by a percentage point or more. A close election such as those seen in any number of states this year could be stolen by just such an effort.
The system could have further checks to insure it was never activated when being tested or monitored. It could wait to skew results until it was uploading data back to the source. That source machine could have an otherwise innocuous vendor setting that the illicit application would recognize as the trigger to skew results.
Such a system could even potentially print extra paper receipts to cover its tracks in the case of a cursory audit. But that would probably not even be necessary. Because recounts cost candidates a lot of money. And I can't imagine a democratic candidate paying for a recount in an uncontested, heavily republican district.
This is not some nightmare scenario, if it hasn't happened yet, it is bound to happen sometime. Only by returning to some sort of user fulfilled ballot can we prevent a single hacker from fixing a national election.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I have serious issues with any election method that does not admit the possibility of a human readable ballot that can be recounted in the case of a mistake. In other words, as far as I'm concerned, if there isn't a paper ballot involved, I am unsatisfied with that method.
All that said, shouldn't we be waiting until *after* the audit to argue? Personally, I think that auditing the machines is a *good* thing. I just wouldn't hold out high hopes that it will say anything that Kerry supporters want to hear.
I suspect that the Kerry/Edwards campaign will wait until after the audit as well. They have until December 13th to protest the vote results. If the audit confirms the original results, that will be a good time for Kerry to renew his call for reconciliation and unity.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Which is strange, considering that Kerry was and is against legalizing gay marriage. Ah, hey, were you one of those Republican trolls who stood outside Democratic precinct polling places, falsely claiming Kerry wanted to legalize gay marriage [nypost.com]?
Republicans taught us more ways to lie and cheat this past election season.
Re:Morality and its Importance (Score:1, Interesting)
Every single one of the dead in Iraq is his responsibility as he lied to justify the invasion.
It's sad that these pukes are so ingorant of any sort of marality that they think it's right and moral to force people at gunpoint to have children they can not support and it's also good to murder thousands of innocent people on a basis of lies.
And they have the audacity to claim that they would even know a moral if it bit them on the ass.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Manuel Noriega is still rotting in a Federal prison. The story [nwu.edu] of his unprecedented trial of a head of state on drug trafficking charges.
Saddam is of course sitting in an Iraqi jail under U.S. authority.
The U.S. pretty much grabbed the president of Haiti and put him on a plane to Africa, against his will, while he was still Haiti's President while U.S. backed rebels were closing in on him. Its most books it might be called kidnapping a sovereign head of state.
I don't remember the exact sequencing but I think war crimes charges were laid against Milsoevic while he was still Serbia's head of state.
It is kind of sweet being America since you can have a double standard on everything.
Re:-1, Who Needs Facts (Score:2, Interesting)
"Dehumanising the victim makes things simpler, It's like breathing through a respirator. It eases the conscience of even the most conscious and calculating violator."
"Language of Violence"
The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprosy
and
"They're not a part of the same human race that the rest of us are." - Unknown American Military Personnel (Gulf War I)
Re:Decision criteria for voting lost on me... (Score:2, Interesting)
Yep, all the "urban centers" is where everyone who works for Microsoft, Dow, GM, Ford, IBM etc were born right?
None of those people were born or raised outside of an "urban center".
Well golly gee whiz mister we don't got the technical stuff you all got but if you don't shut yer trap we'll stop growin yer FOOD you stupid fuck! oh that's right, I'm sure it can be grown on a skyscraper some where. You've got all the answers.
Election stolen via electronic voting (Score:2, Interesting)
In EVERY STATE that has paper audit trails on their EVoting, the exit poll results match the actual results reported within the margin of error.
So, we have MATCHING RESULTS for exit polls vs. voting with audits
vs.
A 5% unexplained advantage for Bush without audits.
For full report , see link
http://www.rense.com/general59/steI.HTM/ [rense.com]
Re:They do? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They do? (Score:3, Interesting)
57 people cant make that big a difference (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They do? (Score:2, Interesting)
Your point about white people developing might makes right, isn't quite right. The single most unique contribution that Western Civilization has made to the world is it's legal system, which has stated that might doesn't make right among your own society. The West has grown it's ideas that might doesn't make right to a global scale. The current situation is a deviation from this ideal, and I would argue, a regression.
I also haven't claimed that white people are evil. It's simply a matter of fact that as long as black and white folks have been living in this country together, the white folks have had the advantage. Since we've decided to place both black and whites (and everyone else) on a level playing field, we need to insure that that level playing field exists. In fact, this argument applies just as much to Native Americans.
The disadvantage that black folks have experienced has been due to historical injustice. That justice will be corrected when the statistics I mentioned earlier are far more equal between white and black Americans. That's really all black people want, just the same access to opportunity that your average white person has access to in America. It's simply the realization of the principle of equality under the law. As long as life is, by default, disproportionately harder for black Americans than white Americans as a legacy of past injustices, the principle of equality for all citizens has not been achieved.
I'm simply calling a spade a spade by using the terms reparations or compensation in describing the solution here. It's going to cost money to make sure the principle of equality under the law is achieved and since the white people have more of the money, it's going to disproportionately come out of their pocket. Rather than seeing it as a judgment against an offence, you should look at it as an investment for peace and justice. After all, either we can deal with the fact that some portion of the population has a harder time succeeding and correct it, or we can continuously deal with the drag on all of society created by an underperforming group. I'm simply saying the underperformance is due to injustice and that should be corrected, which will cost money.
In conjunction with your post, there's also a long history of North African Muslims who conducted slave raids on the Irish and British, which played a part in attitudes over African slavery in America. Many African slaves were sold as criminals who been sentenced to slavery for crimes in their homeland. Of course, these were largely cover stories for the wholesale kidnap and enslavement of people.
Re:Christ...how could you support bush? (Score:3, Interesting)
California Field Rep and state lobbyist for the Citizen's Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (yeah, I know, long org name - see also www.ccrkba.org).
I happen to believe there's such a thing as a personal civil right to self defense. So does Bush. Kerry doesn't.
*Dean* supports that civil right - he proved it as Vermont's governor same as Bush proved it as the governor in TX. And amazingly enough, so does John Edwards, or at least that's what he claimed back when he was trying for the Dem primaries - along with hunting and sporting, he listed "self defense" as a legitimate reason for gun ownership, the only Dem to do so outright.
I would have considered voting for either Dean or Edwards. But once Kerry got the nomination, the Bush bumper stickers went on my helmet, I volunteered at the Bush phone bank, etc.
Because Kerry is an absolute enemy of the entire concept of self defense, and has proven it going back 20+ years.
Jim
Re:Christ...how could you support bush? (Score:3, Interesting)
I know enough about unconventional warfare to want NO part of that.
Christ, that's why I got involved in this whole Diebold/voting situation: given 15+ years of corporate-hosed elections, it'll mean civil war. Inevitably.
The good news is, we can win this electronic voting issue and we can win the self defense issue too!
On guns: the first thing you need to know is that the courts are completely screwed up on the issue. The most blatant example is the most recent decision out of the Federal 9th Circuit in Silveira - all you need to know about THAT fiasco is here:
http://www.americanminutemen.org/reinhardt.htm [americanminutemen.org]
We need Bush to put in pro-self-defense US Supreme Court justices - several are about to croak and with lower-court decisions that bad, the USSC can't dodge the issue forever.
With the courts untrustworthy, so far we've have to work within the political process.
So we've been going to each state, getting a basic right to self defense put into law:
http://www.gun-nuttery.com/rtc.php [gun-nuttery.com]
This is a series of maps showing how we've been kicking butt state by state getting at a minimum the right to pack a self defense handgun with a background check and training ("blue states" in these maps) or in two cases since 2003, with no prior gov't permission needed to pack.
Take the blue and green states, and compare with the Bush/Kerry red/blue maps. You'll find that wherever self defense is widely allowed, the state went Bush. Usually...most of the exceptions were in the midwest.
(Note: there's a mistake on the gun-rights maps. Minnesota did indeed pass a law supporting self defense (going "blue") but their courts immedately put a temp stop to it pending a review of how it passed. So at present it's a "yellow state", not blue.)
In these various states where self defense is common and legal, gun-grabber Kerry didn't go over real well. None of these states has had a problem with their millions of armed residents. Newspaper reports from these states (often after it's been in a year or so) often remark on the lack of "wild west syndrome" or "blood in the streets", and then gun control simply stops being an issue.
http://www.equalccw.com/ccweffects.html [equalccw.com]
Gun-grabber politicians in those states are in trouble. South Dakota is one, and booted Daschle for his gun-grabber ways in the Senate this year.
We now hold at least 35 such states by anybody's count, over 50% of the US population, over 50% of the electoral college votes.
You know what that means?
We've won. OK? Long term, legal self defense will become the norm in the US in the holdout states. The sooner the Dems get a clue and quit trying to disarm those "evil rednecks" as they misunderstand us, the better.
I will never, ever support a politician who doesn't trust me with my civil right to self defense.
----------------
As to how smart Bush is? See how Texas flipped from Red to Blue in the CCW maps in 1995?
That's because Bush took office on a pro-self-defense platform.
He's a damned sight smarter than Kerry.
Jim
I think you have completely missed my point... (Score:5, Interesting)
Talk about how things are today. Talk about how they must be better tomorrow. Give numbers. Provide passion. All of that is good, and it works. You'll at least have a chance of getting your message across.
But say "300 years" and it all flys out the window, you might as well have stayed home.
This is not a "racest position" this a statement of well understood cultural bias. I am comming right out and _telling_ _you_ what that alien thing is that seems to secretly unite white men of european dissent. This is what is happening in our minds behind that inscrutable and perplexing white-man-grin. That is what is passing between us when we do that glance-around as you are speaking. It's what is happening behind-the-scenes when you get that strange feeling that you are losing your audience. Honestly and truely.
I'm a pragmatic liberal white male, a truck-driving pusdo-redneck, a homosexual, and a European mongrel of the most pervasive kind. I am a prime example of one of your greatest potential allies in the white establishment(*), and even _I_ cannot force my self to keep listening when people talk about "historical injustice". I have been pre-programmed to tune that out, and that programming runs almost impossibly deep. What chance do you think you are going to have with an old-south good-old-boy.
For two thousand years "western culture", or the men in it anyway, have been weened on "suck it up" and "take it like a man." It's _engrained_ in our cultural psyche. Take. Own. Conquer. Belittle and discard the weak. We are raised to devalue *ANYONE* who compains about past injustice. Just watch any two white boys, age 12, pick on a third and you will get the picture.
Really.
I'm just trying to tell you something here.
Watch some "hick comedy" sometime. "(She|They) are talking about *that* again" is the gal-darn _refrain_ of every white male complaining about "them" no-matter _who_ "they" happen to be this time.
Most of the glass ceiling that women and minorities run into is simply a loss of audience. Like magic, there are certian things you can say or do that turn your words to "blah blah blah" _instantly_. When you do those things that make any particular people stop listening to you, you lose the power to influence those people. If you want to get anywhere with us, you have to cut that out.
Why do you think that the white-male media always trots out King's "I have a Dream" speach? It was by no measure the most intellegent or insightful thing he said. He was much deeper and more eloquent later in his mission. But it is a powerful image and it unremittingly looks forward. We are *programed* to respect that. Read a press release some time, any press release, but especially one from a company who has "had a bad last quarter."
I'm not telling you your wrong to _feel_ the ways you feel. I'm just trying to tell you that when you *say* it you are shooting yourself in the foot.
The word "injustice" is almost enough right there, but "historical injustice"? Please. You might as well put on floppy shoes and a clown nose. There has been virtually no _historical_ _justice_. The "injustice" is just background noise. Everybody, every ethnic people, every cultural group, every political class, was screwed for "their turn" in european/western history.
You will *NEVER*, no matter how you "[call] a spade a spade", find your ideas or solutions have fallen on fertile ears when you cast your argument in terms of reparations of *ANY* sort. The very mention of the idea _salts_ _the_ _earth_ you are trying to sow.
There has never, in all of recorded history, been a conclave of white european men gathered together discussing "reparations" for the socally injured, where that conversation did _NOT_ end in a chuckle of "yea, sure, any day
OSCE (Score:5, Interesting)
Some things the observers from OSCE said:
* In some areas, they (as official observers!) had less access to the polls than during the elections in Kasachstan.
* The computer systems in many places were less secured than in Venecuela.
* A polish observer said the polls in Serbia(!) were easier to watch and more transparent.
That's a bunch of slap-down from professionals with years of experience. The US has, election-wise, officially fallen to the standards of a third-world country.
Re:Let me get this straight... (Score:3, Interesting)
However, one thing they do know is that their interpretation of the Bible says that gay sex means going to hell, and putting someone in power who allows gay marriage (by whatever name), and therefore gay sex, is tantamount to saying the entire nation approves of it - and therefore is sinful. And they'll be damned if they don't do something about it. (Literally, in this case.)
Nevermind that that's not what the original Hebrew texts say. Nevermind that the nation was founded on a separation of church and state. Nevermind that the person espousing this has other policies that may not make sense. The important thing is that 'Mer'ca isn't going to Hell by allowing the gays to have sex.
People who don't know anything about all of the other things at stake will turn out in droves to protest gays having sex. I'll cite as evidence the fact that ELEVEN states had measures on the ballot to prevent gay marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships.
"Kerry won" see www.gregpalast.com (Score:2, Interesting)
Although Palast is definitely a Bush hater he is a respected journalist and he does check his facts.
Re:I think you have completely missed my point... (Score:3, Interesting)
Your entire post can be summed up as some sort of demand that blacks ask nicely for they're Civil Rights and if the man thinks they've suffered enough, then he might give it to them. Seriously, *I'll* be ready to "kill whitey" before I accept that as justice. These people are owed their due under the Constitution.
Really? What part of the Constitution entitles you or ANYONE to money because of heritage or ethnicity?
Just how practical do you think your reparations would be anyway? Did you know that Tiger Woods is 1/4th white, 1/4th black, and half Asian and yet he is STILL considered "black"? So is he only entitled 1/4th of your proposed reparations? Or does that mean that his white heritage cancels out his black heritage and he is not required to give or receive anything? I'm 1/64th American Indian (you know, the people who black people like to forget really got shat on by the whole deal)...what do I get?
White America's relationship with black America has been funded on credit and now the debt is due.
I don't remember taking out a loan. In fact, I don't remember ever even being rude to a black person. Despite being a southerner, none of my ancestors ever owned slaves, and in case you were wondering, it was only the vast MINORITY of southerners who did.
Justice isn't something that transcends generations. Each person only is accountable for his or her own actions. Even if my ancestors HAD owned slaves (which they didn't), I have no more obligations to black people (who you falsely assume are all purely descendents of slaves) than I do to the descendants of a hypothetical person who, for instance, was murdered by one of my ancestors.
All you've managed to tell me is that you're unwilling to guarantee your fellow citizens their rights because of their race. If that's not racist, I'm not sure I know what is.
Listen, I'm for Affirmative Action, but only when it is based upon SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS, NOT RACE. Not only is SES a much more objective measure (see: Tiger Woods example) but also isn't based upon some half-assed notion of racial justice.
-Grym