Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] [POLITICS] Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Sat, 3 Jun 2006, Vern Green wrote:

> So we have the people who conducted the exit poll writing a report on 
> how they got it wrong, and that is still not good enough for you. Some 
> how Robert F Kennedy knows more than the people who actually did the 
> work? Talk about standard operating procedure.

Again, Vern, "got it wrong" means what?  What is the "it" in that 
statement?  If you mean that their prediction of the outcome was 
incorrect, of course that is true, but I read what you sent from their 
paper and it was hardly a definitive explanation.  In fact, I couldn't 
quite understand the point of it (e.g., what did the bit about Hispanic 
voters have to do with the outcome in Ohio?).  Maybe I should read the 
whole thing one of these days to see if I can figure it out.  I am not 
confident that you have the expertise to understand it.  I also don't 
trust your opinion because you seem unable to see evidence that 
contradicts your long-held view on this issue.


> So how about a little more information to debunk Kennedy's article. At 
> Salon.com there is an article by Farhad Majoo. Not exactly the bastion 
> of conservatism over there at Salon, but his article is pretty 
> interesting.
>
> http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/03/kennedy/

Did you see any of the user comments?  They hate him.


> A couple of key things in the article that debunk Kennedy,
>
> "Scrubbing the voting rolls of people who hadn't voted in prior 
> elections isn't an arbitrary move. It's the law. Here's the relevant 
> section of the Ohio code, 3503.19, which states that a person who "fails 
> to vote in any election during the period of two federal elections" 
> shall have his registration "canceled." To be sure, people who intended 
> to vote and weren't aware of this rule could have been cut from the 
> rolls, and you might say that's unfair. But that's an argument for a 
> better election law, and not proof that the purges were part of a 
> Republican election-theft plot."

That's an important point.  There are a lot of laws that work against 
people who relocate or are poor or, well, are Democrats.  Every law 
restricting voters righs or opportunity to vote are promoted by 
Republicans to reduce the number of Democrat voters.  I have never seen 
any legislation or proposed legislation that works in the opposite 
direction.  So there is a bias against Democrats (really against younger 
and poorer voters) in our voting system.


> "....You can see the data on page 37 of Mitofsky's report. There, 
> Mitofsky indeed shows that in precincts where Bush got 80 percent or 
> more of the vote, an average of 56 percent of people who were approached 
> volunteered to take part in the poll, while in precincts where Kerry got 
> 80 percent or more of the vote, a lower average of 53 percent of people 
> were willing to be surveyed. But these numbers don't reveal how Bush 
> voters or Kerry voters behaved, they only show how all voters, taken 
> together in average, responded in certain precincts. They are irrelevant 
> to the question of whether fraud occurred."

I don't get his logic.  Those data are highly relevant to the question of 
whether fraud occurred.  They contradict the idea that Bush voters are 
less likely than Kerry voters to participate in the poll.  This is an 
extremely important issue -- key to understanding what happened.  How 
Majoo comes to dismiss it is beyond me.  What is he thinking?

Well, he only had a few hours to come up with his spew, so I guess I can't 
expect him to make any sense.  His article will be widely noted because it 
was one of the first ones, not because it was any good.  He knows this and 
is working to promote himself.


> Majoo makes a pretty good case dispelling a lot of Kennedy's article. 
> Kennedy of course, only has to throw the allegations out there and see 
> what sticks, he can claim all of this was a republican conspiracy and 
> everyone who is still upset from the 2000 election will drink it up like 
> Kool-Aid.

Instead of saying that Kennedy is "throwing things out there" I would say 
that he is reviewing the literature and findings on electoral fraud in the 
2004 presidential election.  There's nothing wrong with that.  People 
should know about it.

Mike

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