Support the Petition of Appeal at http://www.AlbertHoward.org

I cited Rep. Kucinich’s belief in UFOs because it seems he is more suggestible than some.

As to the 2000 presidential election in Florida, the winner depends on which votes you decide to count (military absentee ballots after the deadline; hanging chad ballots; overwritten votes; spoiled ballots, etc.).

The Miami Herald did a recount and Al Gore would be the winner under the most permissive standards (Bush won under several other scenarios where doubtful ballots were excluded). I think it is fair to say that the bungled butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County cost Gore several thousand votes. (Bush supporters will point to the network’s prematurely declaring Gore the winner before the polls closed in the Florida Panhandle as cutting into GOP turnout and state totals).

The facts do not support voter fraud conspiracy theories for Florida 2000, Ohio 2004 or New Hampshire 2008.

And where are the calls today for a recount of the South Carolina Democratic primary? Senator Obama’s vote totals were much greater than the pre-vote polls suggested! And South Carolina uses touch screen technology!

The answer is that the conspiracy theorists focus only on elections they think they should have won…

JF

I will agree that is VERY TRUE in some case, specifically electronic machines that do not have a paper trail. But New Hampshire does not use such machines. They were outlawed in 1994.

We have been told that the optical scanner machines, machines that use voter marked paper ballots, have been stealing elections all the way back to Florida 2000. But EVERY TIME those machines are recounted, the allegations turn out to be false.

The claim was Gore was shorted 16022 votes in Volusia County. He filed a for a recount under Fla. Stat. 102.166. The recount completed on 11/14/2000 did not find such an error.

In Florida 2004, again, the claim was that these voter marked paper ballots stole the election from Kerry. The conspiracy theory claimed that counties where registered Democrats were the great majority of votes, that there was no way that Bush would run away with those counties. The problem with the theory is that no matter the registration, Southern fundamentalist Christians generally do not vote for a pro-choice candidate.

The Miami Herald conducted a full recount of two counties (Union and Lafayette), and a partial of a third (Suwannee). Again, no sign of fraud from the machines that counted these voter marked paper ballots.

In New Hampshire 2004, recounts were conducted, and again, the allegations were found to be false.

Again, we have a recount of two counties in New Hampshire. The results didn’t show large error because of the machines, they found that the GREAT MAJORITY of errors were caused by either the voter or those who were reporting the totals.

The fact is, there is no such thing as a perfect election. Machines are not perfect, the voter is not perfect, nor are the election workers. So far in this recount, machines are proven to be much more reliable than humans.

Voting with paper ballots, ballots that can be recounted is the way to go. These recounts over that last several years prove it.

The point is not to insult people and talk about someone’s belief in UFO’s
(apparently Bush believes in some all seeing all powerful diety whose existence can never be proven). There doesn’t have to be a conspiracy to be a problem, alot of these voting machines are unreliable and easy to tamper.

Contrary to your views, the evidence continues to show that the New Hampshire primary vote was aboveboard.

From Wired’s Kim Zetter (http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/01/nh-recount-unco.html)

…a group of academics examined the data in New Hampshire and found no evidence that the choice of voting technology in certain counties played a role in favoring one candidate over another, based on what is known about voter make-up in New Hampshire counties and past election performance.

“Our results,” they write, “are consistent with the differences being due entirely to the fact that New Hampshire wards that use Accuvote optical scan machines typically have voters with different political preferences than wards that use hand counted paper ballots.”

Michael Herron, professor of government at Dartmouth College, Walter Mebane, Jr., professor of political science and statistics at the University of Michigan and Jonathan Wand, professor of political science at Stanford University, authored the report, which you can read here (PDF) http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/NH2008HMW.pdf

Mebane and Wand, by the way, were part of a team that conducted extensive analysis of the 2000 presidential election, from which they concluded that Al Gore should have won the presidential race. I mention this only to point out that they have no problem disputing official election results when they see evidence to back such claims

Hard to explain that away with the Shy Tory THeory.

Your readers can go to http://blackboxvoting.org/ to see the real truth, not your BS “analysis” based on your “feelings.”