How Bush Backers Stole 2004 Election
by Sherwood Ross
from SmirkingChimp
President Bush carried Ohio, Iowa, and New Mexico in 2004 because vast numbers of ballots cast by minorities for John Kerry in those states were never counted, an investigative reporter says.
In New Mexico, which Bush won by 5,988 votes, 33,981 ballots were not counted; in Iowa, which Bush won by 10,059 votes, 36,811 ballots were not counted; and in Ohio, which Bush won by 118,599 votes, a whopping 239,127 ballots were not counted.
According to reporter Greg Palast, (a former fraud investigator before turning reporter for BBC-TV) exit polls of voters leaving the voting booths revealed all three states had gone for Kerry by margins of two to four percent. Yet the official count later gave them all to Bush by one or two percent.
Q: So what happened? A: Nationally, a total of 3-million votes were never counted --- a high percentage of them cast by African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and other minorities. Palast spells out how it was done in his new book, "Armed Madhouse"(Plume):
2004 saw the introduction of the new "provisional ballot." The Black Caucus wanted them so that a voter could get a ballot even if the voter's name did not appear on the rolls. In theory, the "provisional" would be marked, then kept aside and reviewed after the polls closed.
Under the "Help America Vote" Act of 2002, signed by President Bush, States were required to give out provisional ballots to those who wanted them.
But, Palast says, the law "does not require states to count them." Thus, of 3,107,490 provisional ballots handed out on election day, 2004, 1,090,729 were trashed. "..the provisional voters who were rejected had a dark hue," the Palast says, and there were enough of them to swing the three States to Bush.
(The rest is here.)
from SmirkingChimp
President Bush carried Ohio, Iowa, and New Mexico in 2004 because vast numbers of ballots cast by minorities for John Kerry in those states were never counted, an investigative reporter says.
In New Mexico, which Bush won by 5,988 votes, 33,981 ballots were not counted; in Iowa, which Bush won by 10,059 votes, 36,811 ballots were not counted; and in Ohio, which Bush won by 118,599 votes, a whopping 239,127 ballots were not counted.
According to reporter Greg Palast, (a former fraud investigator before turning reporter for BBC-TV) exit polls of voters leaving the voting booths revealed all three states had gone for Kerry by margins of two to four percent. Yet the official count later gave them all to Bush by one or two percent.
Q: So what happened? A: Nationally, a total of 3-million votes were never counted --- a high percentage of them cast by African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and other minorities. Palast spells out how it was done in his new book, "Armed Madhouse"(Plume):
2004 saw the introduction of the new "provisional ballot." The Black Caucus wanted them so that a voter could get a ballot even if the voter's name did not appear on the rolls. In theory, the "provisional" would be marked, then kept aside and reviewed after the polls closed.
Under the "Help America Vote" Act of 2002, signed by President Bush, States were required to give out provisional ballots to those who wanted them.
But, Palast says, the law "does not require states to count them." Thus, of 3,107,490 provisional ballots handed out on election day, 2004, 1,090,729 were trashed. "..the provisional voters who were rejected had a dark hue," the Palast says, and there were enough of them to swing the three States to Bush.
(The rest is here.)
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3 Comments:
This piece begs two questions:
1) how did Bush Backers know to not count these provisional votes in Iowa, New Mexico and Ohio before the elction? They must have known ahead of time that these three states would have been key to victory, and would have had to marshall enough forces in these states and get them on county election boards and in polling places in order to expidite such a massive fraud. To put together such a massive nationwide effort would be, for all intents and purposes, impossible. The logistics of marshalling this many people to be election judges and on county elections boards in such a short amount of time simply isn't possible considering that most polling judges and county elections personnel have been in their positions long before Bush became President.
2) OK, for fun, let's assume the Bush Backers were in place in 2004. So, why weren't they in place in 2006 when the Democrats washed away nearly 80% of incumbent Republicans across the country and won a majority of state legislatures, governoships and all of Congress? It stands to reason that if the power grab was in place in 2004, it most certainly would have been in place in 2006. Does the book explain this contradiction? Probably not.
This is just another sour grapes whiny liberal who is mad that Bush instead of Gore became president in 2000. We have bigger things to worry about in this than reliving history. If there are mistakes, let's work to correct them instead of making tenuous claims of voter fraud on such a scale that the logistics involved in pulling it off don't even come close to reality.
I have no personal knowledge of New Mexico or Iowa, but my first election that I participated in was in Cuyahoga County. A lot may have changed from the 70’s, so I have to rely on news stories and what people have told me.
First, did you know that felony convictions have resulted in 18-month prison sentences for two employees of the Cuyahoga (Cleveland) Board of Elections as a result of what the county prosecutor in the case calls the “rigging” of the outcome in the recount following the 2004 presidential election. Also, three of four members of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections have resigned since the 2004 election and potential illegalities are being investigated in Hocking County?
Second, I talked with my sister, who still lives in Ohio, on the 2004 Election Day. Her experience attests to the “discriminatory” application of equipment. Her assigned voting facility was a local school … the school actually housed two precincts. As she waited in the rain for over an hour with many other senior citizens, she watched people quickly being processed through the other precincts … the reason … the other precinct had been assigned more electronic voting machines. The situation begs the question, how many people decided not to bother waiting in the cold and rain?
To Patrick Dempsey’s comment about “sour grapes” and “mistakes”, I don’t know if that is the case. Instead it may be planned actions that we should be concerned about. The Federal Attorney situation and the type of people that Bush has put on the courts cause me concern. The Bush Administration’s efforts to affect the election process are a valid issue of fairness.
Why is it that both parties had attorneys on standby to challenge voting practices in 2004 ... it was only to affect the outcome.
You make good points about what happened in Cuyahoga County. As an election judge myself, it is the responsibility of the precinct judge to make the voting process easy and efficient. My precinct has been lauded as an example of efficiency and ease-of-voting by the Secretary of State, several St Paul legislators and the Ramsey County Elections Board. Everyone should run their precinct like I do! Now, if the elections employees in Ohio were rigging the recount, hell yeah, throw 'em jail! But, the question is is this case and other illegalities result of White House sanctioned circumstance? The book probably claims so, but I am skeptical because there have been voting irregularities long before Bush became president. They only came to light because the 2000 and 2004 elections were so close. I find it extremely hard to believe that voter irregularities are run by a centralized command and control center such as the White House. And the logistics of a centralized command and control center is just so massive I cannot even fathom what it would take to put that many people in place in order effect the outcome of an election. What is more likely is that people who serve as election judges do not take their oaths seriously and take matters in to their own hands to somehow effect the outcome to help their candidate win. Now, were these people Bush Backers? Possibly. But, did the book also explore Kerry Backers who might have been doing the same thing? Probably not. And that is my point.
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