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Exclusive - Inside Orca: How the Romney Campaign Suppressed Its Own Vote
Breitbart.com ^ | 11/8/12 | Joel B. Pollak

Posted on 11/08/2012 10:30:53 PM PST by stillonaroll

As Republicans try to explain their Election Day losses in terms of policy, tactics, and strategy, one factor is emerging as the essential difference between the Obama and Romney campaigns on November 6: the absolute failure of Romney’s get-out-the-vote effort, which underperformed even John McCain’s lackluster 2008 turnout. One culprit appears to be “Orca,” the Romney’s massive technology effort, which failed completely.

...

Likewise, Twitchy recorded widespread real-time complaints and criticisms on Twitter by Project Orca volunteers. At one point during Election Day, the system had malfunctioned so badly that desperate volunteers wondered if the program had been hacked.

...

Before the election, there was much fear-mongering on the Democratic side about the Republicans’ supposed plans to suppress turnout among Obama voters. After the election, GOP strategist Karl Rove accused the Obama campaign of “suppressing the vote” by running a negative campaign against Romney that kept voters at home.

The truth is much worse. There was, in fact, massive suppression of the Republican vote--by the Romney campaign, through the diversion of nearly 40,000 volunteers to a failing computer program.

There was no Plan B; there was only confusion, and silence.

(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: app; election; fail; it; orca; projectorca; romney
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This would explain a few things.
1 posted on 11/08/2012 10:31:01 PM PST by stillonaroll
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To: stillonaroll

Any Freepers have first hand experience with the app?


2 posted on 11/08/2012 10:35:08 PM PST by Wayne07
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To: stillonaroll

Holy Crap!! EPIC FAIL!!!!! So sad!!!!


3 posted on 11/08/2012 10:38:38 PM PST by Anti-Hillary (Soon everything in America will be "free", except it's people.)
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To: stillonaroll

GOP elites vs. tea party

Bitter internal fighting cost too much money, time and the election.


4 posted on 11/08/2012 10:40:58 PM PST by granada
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To: jeffo; BCR #226; Twotone; Dinah Lord; Brandonmark; jeeperz; No Socialist; 1010RD; 95Theses; ...
Y’all had posted on another thread about Orca. Any comments on this Breitbart article?
5 posted on 11/08/2012 10:43:46 PM PST by stillonaroll
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To: stillonaroll

Having experienced computer sabotage every time I have something critical I’m working on - and seeing the same thing with multiple others who have also worked on critical eligibility issues - I question where the problems came from. I know nothing about this particular situation but I can smell the same crap that I’ve experienced, from a mile away. If it acted like it had been hacked, a logical question is whether it HAD been hacked.

When thugs run the NSA, DHS, DOD, and all the czar-ships that control every aspect of life, nothing is impossible to them. Nothing. The sooner everybody realizes that, the better.


6 posted on 11/08/2012 10:45:27 PM PST by butterdezillion
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To: stillonaroll

I could definitely see a conspiracy theory here, where liberals get hired to work on the program, and intentionally bug it up.


7 posted on 11/08/2012 10:46:42 PM PST by JediJones (Newt Gingrich warned us that the "King of Bain" was unelectable. Did you listen?)
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To: stillonaroll

I’ll never forget in 2008, when the teleprompter at the Republican convention “failed” just as Sarah was starting to give her speech.

Winds up that the Republicans had hired a FLAMING LIBERAL to operate the device. Republican leaders seem to think that none of the “little people” have political thoughts and could sabotage their efforts. They just cannot comprehend that. Remember one of Bush’s top guys for debate prep, likewise, we working both sides...and Kerry’s (I think) people knew EVERYTHING that Bush had done to prepare.

When the Republicans hire people, their first question should be to ask them what party they support. The second question should be for them to PROVE it. Then hit them up with a few questions that only Republicans could understand, such as “What is an amortization schedule”?

There are ways to screen, but you MUST do that, when you give people that much power over your effort - you just don’t hand the keys to some bearded dope smoker with a Grateful Dead shirt and expect him to be on your side.

(by the way, Sarah did just fine without the teleprompter)


8 posted on 11/08/2012 10:48:47 PM PST by BobL (You can live each day only once. You can waste a few, but don't waste too many.)
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To: stillonaroll

Smells like sabotage. Or the GOP-e types in the campaign telling Tea Party volunteers “take a hike, we know better”.


9 posted on 11/08/2012 10:48:47 PM PST by rfp1234 (Arguing with a liberal is like playing chess with a pigeon.)
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To: stillonaroll

Here is a case where there needs to be some serious finger pointing. This election was no different than any other, you must identify your voters and get them out to vote. This is Politics 101, every successful campaign must have a GOTV program. This time ORCA was all hype and chance rather than proven and tested, so it was either incompetence or sabotage and ORCA was a major contributing factor in the failure of this election!


10 posted on 11/08/2012 10:53:26 PM PST by Brandonmark (OWCM is The new American Minority!)
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To: MrShoop; Anti-Hillary; granada; butterdezillion; JediJones; BobL; rfp1234
Here's a similar thread, with a number of comments by FReepers with firsthand experience with Orca-fail:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2957089/posts

11 posted on 11/08/2012 10:54:03 PM PST by stillonaroll
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To: stillonaroll

The program is all good and fine.

Did the Republicans have a back-up that used cell phones, with pencils and paper? Did it EVER occur to them that their was NO SECOND CHANCE if the program crashed, for ANY REASON.

Of course not- when has a computer program ever crashed? - THEY ARE IDIOTS!!!


12 posted on 11/08/2012 10:57:26 PM PST by BobL (You can live each day only once. You can waste a few, but don't waste too many.)
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To: Brandonmark
It’s been years since I’ve done GOTV. Back in the day, we got lists of registered R’s, went to one or more polling stations, crossed off the names of those who had voted, and called those who had not.

Technology has made that process much more efficient—for the Rats. The Republicans are decades behind the times.

13 posted on 11/08/2012 10:58:12 PM PST by stillonaroll
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To: butterdezillion
If it acted like it had been hacked, a logical question is whether it HAD been hacked.

I have ALOT of experience in the area of designing highly available and scalable IT systems across a variety of platforms (20+ years) across a variety of industries including banking, advertising, finance, legal and automotive industries.

When a system underperforms to the point of becoming UN-USABLE, there are a number of questions to ask, including:

1. Was it designed to perform at a defined, acceptable level under anticipated peak loads? If you know you're going to have a maximum of 40,000 people using a system at peak load, you design the system to be scalable so that if 40,000 or more users are using it, it has available capacity. That means either that capacity is online all the time, or can be brought to bear quickly during peak utilization periods, thus the next question.

2. Have all single points of failure been eliminated, and can additional capacity to bear quickly if needed to maintain performance? (And then, how will that capacity be brought online quickly?)

If questions 1 and 2 (and their related questions) above were not properly addressed, it can certainly appear that a system has been compromised because it largely has - by its own flawed design. It's really only after eliminating these two questions that one can reasonably ask "has the system been compromised/hacked?"

I wasn't a user of the system, my best guess with the information available is that it simply became un-usable due to peak demand and the Romney Campaign's IT Staff didn't have a plan to bring additional capacity online quickly enough to maintain a proper service level for the users of the system.

14 posted on 11/08/2012 11:03:15 PM PST by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: stillonaroll
It’s been years since I’ve done GOTV. Back in the day, we got lists of registered R’s, went to one or more polling stations, crossed off the names of those who had voted, and called those who had not.

Technology has made that process much more efficient—for the Rats. The Republicans are decades behind the times.

BINGO!

15 posted on 11/08/2012 11:03:53 PM PST by Brandonmark (OWCM is The new American Minority!)
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To: usconservative
I've no IT experience, but I say it was hacked.

As reporters sometimes say, "the story is too good to check."

16 posted on 11/08/2012 11:07:42 PM PST by stillonaroll
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To: stillonaroll

Thanks, very informative thread!


17 posted on 11/08/2012 11:09:21 PM PST by Wayne07
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To: BobL

Agreed. People hired by the GOP to oversee critical technology must be reliably conservative. It’s too important to allow some long-haired, maggot-infested, dope-smoking FM type to infiltrate the system.


18 posted on 11/08/2012 11:10:13 PM PST by stillonaroll
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To: JediJones

My thought as well. Told not to bring their credentials???

Also, the whole plan sounds wrong. I don’t think people are supposed to have access to the names of people who have not voted yet.


19 posted on 11/08/2012 11:16:20 PM PST by firebrand
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To: JediJones
Denial of service, or intentional bugs, are plausible.

As another poster pointed out, perhaps the system did not have adequate capacity for peak usage. That could have been intentional.

20 posted on 11/08/2012 11:18:10 PM PST by stillonaroll
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