Mighty Tasty!
Posted on 11/04/2004 11:50:51 PM PST by Ol' Sparky
Kerry Won
by Greg Palast
Kerry won. Here's the facts.
I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.
Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.
So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.
Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]
Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.
The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.
And not all vote spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African American and minority precincts. (To learn more, click here.)
We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely—leaving a 'hanging chad,'—or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks. (To read the report from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, click here .)
And here's the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday's election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.
So here we go again. Or, here we don't go again. Because unlike last time, Democrats aren't even asking Ohio to count these cards with the not-quite-punched holes (called "undervotes" in the voting biz).
Ohio is one of the last states in America to still use the vote-spoiling punch-card machines. And the Secretary of State of Ohio, J. Kenneth Blackwell, wrote before the election, “the possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state’s primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity.”
But this week, Blackwell, a rabidly partisan Republican, has warmed up to the result of sticking with machines that have a habit of eating Democratic votes. When asked if he feared being this year's Katherine Harris, Blackwell noted that Ms. Fix-it's efforts landed her a seat in Congress.
Exactly how many votes were lost to spoilage this time? Blackwell's office, notably, won't say, though the law requires it be reported. Hmm. But we know that last time, the total of Ohio votes discarded reached a democracy-damaging 1.96 percent. The machines produced their typical loss—that's 110,000 votes—overwhelmingly Democratic.
The Impact Of Challenges
First and foremost, Kerry was had by chads. But the Democrat wasn't punched out by punch cards alone. There were also the 'challenges.' That's a polite word for the Republican Party of Ohio's use of an old Ku Klux Klan technique: the attempt to block thousands of voters of color at the polls. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, the GOP laid plans for poll workers to ambush citizens under arcane laws—almost never used—allowing party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot. The Ohio courts were horrified and federal law prohibits targeting of voters where race is a factor in the challenge. But our Supreme Court was prepared to let Republicans stand in the voting booth door.
In the end, the challenges were not overwhelming, but they were there. Many apparently resulted in voters getting these funky "provisional" ballots—a kind of voting placebo—which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic. Count them up, add in the spoiled punch cards (easy to tally with the human eye in a recount), and the totals begin to match the exit polls; and, golly, you've got yourself a new president. Remember, Bush won by 136,483 votes in Ohio.
Enchanted State's Enchanted Vote
Now, on to New Mexico, where a Kerry plurality—if all votes are counted—is more obvious still. Before the election, in TomPaine.com, I wrote, "John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted."
How did that happen? It's the spoilage, stupid; and the provisional ballots.
CNN said George Bush took New Mexico by 11,620 votes. Again, the network total added up to that miraculous, and non-existent, '100 percent' of ballots cast.
New Mexico reported in the last race a spoilage rate of 2.68 percent, votes lost almost entirely in Hispanic, Native American and poor precincts—Democratic turf. From Tuesday's vote, assuming the same ballot-loss rate, we can expect to see 18,000 ballots in the spoilage bin.
Spoilage has a very Democratic look in New Mexico. Hispanic voters in the Enchanted State, who voted more than two to one for Kerry, are five times as likely to have their vote spoil as a white voter. Counting these uncounted votes would easily overtake the Bush 'plurality.'
Already, the election-bending effects of spoilage are popping up in the election stats, exactly where we'd expect them: in heavily Hispanic areas controlled by Republican elections officials. Chaves County, in the "Little Texas" area of New Mexico, has a 44 percent Hispanic population, plus African Americans and Native Americans, yet George Bush "won" there 68 percent to 31 percent.
I spoke with Chaves' Republican county clerk before the election, and he told me that this huge spoilage rate among Hispanics simply indicated that such people simply can't make up their minds on the choice of candidate for president. Oddly, these brown people drive across the desert to register their indecision in a voting booth.
Now, let's add in the effect on the New Mexico tally of provisional ballots.
"They were handing them out like candy," Albuquerque journalist Renee Blake reported of provisional ballots. About 20,000 were given out. Who got them?
Santiago Juarez who ran the "Faithful Citizenship" program for the Catholic Archdiocese in New Mexico, told me that "his" voters, poor Hispanics, whom he identified as solid Kerry supporters, were handed the iffy provisional ballots. Hispanics were given provisional ballots, rather than the countable kind "almost religiously," he said, at polling stations when there was the least question about a voter's identification. Some voters, Santiago said, were simply turned away.
Your Kerry Victory Party
So we can call Ohio and New Mexico for John Kerry—if we count all the votes.
But that won't happen. Despite the Democratic Party's pledge, the leadership this time gave in to racial disenfranchisement once again. Why? No doubt, the Democrats know darn well that counting all the spoiled and provisional ballots will require the cooperation of Ohio's Secretary of State, Blackwell. He will ultimately decide which spoiled and provisional ballots get tallied. Blackwell, hankering to step into Kate Harris' political pumps, is unlikely to permit anything close to a full count. Also, Democratic leadership knows darn well the media would punish the party for demanding a full count.
What now? Kerry won, so hold your victory party. But make sure the shades are down: it may be become illegal to demand a full vote count under PATRIOT Act III.
I used to write a column for the Guardian papers in London. Several friends have asked me if I will again leave the country. In light of the failure—a second time—to count all the votes, that won't be necessary. My country has left me.
Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight. The documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has been released this month on DVD .
and now ... the rest of the story:
all of the districts involved are heavily minority; viz., democrat machines. consequently, all elections therein are rigidly controlled by the organized crime family known as the democrats. including matters such as custody and possession of the ballots during elections.
what is happening during elections is that 'someone' is periodically 'spiking' ballots; viz., a bunch are neatly gathered up (tap-tap on the corners) and a metal rod driven down the kerry hole (in the case of the last election).
the result? all ballots previously marked for kerry are untouched (a vote for kerry), and all ballots previously marked for bush are now punched for bush AND kerry (a double punch, and, thus, no vote).
oh ... the beauty of it. you get to nullify votes for bush AND scream racism. (and, if i might be so bold, even actually flame some real racism in the process ["what a bunch of dumb n*********s; can't even punch a hole in a piece of paper].)
what a bonanza; the holy grail of democrat politics. they get it all.
i mentioned "basic research," supra. many articles have been written on the subject, and many posted here at freerepublic. they are all persuasive, if not dispositive.
the next time someone tells you that minorities are being systematically disenfranchised, don't argue with them. they are correct: conservative minorities by democrats.
instead, agree with that person, and try to come up with a solution to the problem. perhaps dispatching armed u.s. marshalls to guard the ballots during elections?
then watch the backpedalling. now that ... that would be fun.
funny that the minorities can't figure out who's destroying their ballots: the democrats with physical possession of them, or the republicans with their evil mind rays?
like living with a roommate and being clueless about who might've eaten the pizza you put in the refrigerator last night; "hmm ... must've been the evil republican next door broke into the apartment while i was taking a shower ... ."
ugh.
we're going to have to be a little smarter than this, folks. the enemy is smart. and evil. and does not sleep. and will never, ever give up.
in the last election, i heard george bush compared to hitler. never really could understand the connection they were trying to make. but one thing's for sure: when a party systematically destroys ballots and then blames the other side (after all, WHO ELSE would destroy minority votes?), to me comes to mind the reichstag (sp?) fire, poland's border incursions, etc.
Exactly
My wife and I had predetermined that if we were asked how we voted we would say Nader.
and now ... the rest of the story:
all of the districts involved are heavily minority; viz., democrat machines. consequently, all elections therein are rigidly controlled by the organized crime family known as the democrats. including matters such as custody and possession of the ballots during elections.
what is happening during elections is that 'someone' is periodically 'spiking' ballots; viz., a bunch are neatly gathered up (tap-tap on the corners) and a metal rod driven down the kerry hole (in the case of the last election).
the result? all ballots previously marked for kerry are untouched (a vote for kerry), and all ballots previously marked for bush are now punched for bush AND kerry (a double punch, and, thus, no vote).
oh ... the beauty of it. you get to nullify votes for bush AND scream racism. (and, if i might be so bold, even actually flame some real racism in the process ["what a bunch of dumb n*********s; can't even punch a hole in a piece of paper].)
what a bonanza; the holy grail of democrat politics. they get it all.
i mentioned "basic research," supra. many articles have been written on the subject, and many posted here at freerepublic. they are all persuasive, if not dispositive.
the next time someone tells you that minorities are being systematically disenfranchised, don't argue with them. they are correct: conservative minorities by democrats.
instead, agree with that person, and try to come up with a solution to the problem. perhaps dispatching armed u.s. marshalls to guard the ballots during elections?
then watch the backpedalling. now that ... that would be fun.
funny that the minorities can't figure out who's destroying their ballots: the democrats with physical possession of them, or the republicans with their evil mind rays?
like living with a roommate and being clueless about who might've eaten the pizza you put in the refrigerator last night; "hmm ... must've been the evil republican next door broke into the apartment while i was taking a shower ... ."
ugh.
we're going to have to be a little smarter than this, folks. the enemy is smart. and evil. and does not sleep. and will never, ever give up.
in the last election, i heard george bush compared to hitler. never really could understand the connection they were trying to make. but one thing's for sure: when a party systematically destroys ballots and then blames the other side (after all, WHO ELSE would destroy minority votes?), to me comes to mind the reichstag (sp?) fire, poland's border incursions, etc
p.s. here's one such thread.
So it begins.
So, an ex-CBS hack skews the exit polls, purposefully.
Then, leftists claim that exit polls are more accurate then voting results. Apparently, based on the fact that the exit polls said Kerry won - because they were designed to do so.
Amazing. Simply amazing.
"..Katherine Harris calls Greg Palast, 'twisted and maniacle.' But Michael Moore calls his reporting for BBC television 'courageous.' And Noam Chomsky says: Greg Palast "upsets all the right people.".."
Anybody who starts their "about" page like that sends a crystal clear signal "about" who he is.
Greg Palast???????????????
-when will this 'journalist' be discovered for the delusional fiction writer that he is???? Are his employers really that unaware?
Hey Greg, He won, get over it.
I don't have time in my current situation to do a lot of "basic research."
I do, however, make time to "yuck it up." I reserve the right to "yuck it up."
;-)
Spoilage has a very Democratic look in New Mexico.
I guess that means Democrats are too stupid to vote.
I find it amazing that the Dem's DO NOT recognize that they lost the election for supporting the EXTREME LEFT's agenda and are completely out of touch with "normal" Americans. You would think that after continually losing seats since 2000, someone in the Left had the "grey matter" upstairs to see that ::: If we continue, we're going to lose more seats in the future!!! Obviously, no one in the Dem party has that capacity. GO GOP !! More seats are a-comin !!
LOL....I want to be the round peg...
Palast is a known nut and Dem zealot. He purports to be an investigative reporter, but he has a partisan agenda.
LOL
Forget counting the actual ballots. Exit polls that have been manipulated by the dem machine are the way "democracy" works.
There's a story going around---rumor at this point---that the DNC knew where exit polls were taking place and contacted their voters to be at their polling place at certain times and to be sure to participate in the exit polling.
Before I heard that, I had heard that some exit polls were set up with voters self-selecting participation by approaching the pollster, not the pollster approaching them.
And now we've got yon genius informing us this is more "exact" (he is officially in the Twilight Zone. That or he's just evil) than counting ballots and assuming the outrageous position that there actually would be enough spoiled ballots to account for a Kerry loss. Ridiculous. Or as I said, he's evil and is deliberately stirring up the moonbats, as some have reported the DUmmies are swallowing this swill by the bucket.
That's what I've been thinking as I hear the twittering over "morality". I sure that people meant simple truth telling, just for starters.
Interesting to hear you were approached by the pollster. I have no doubt that's the usual way. I've heard stories that at some polling places where the exit pollster set up, they had their table and just let voters approach them.
you know,, it's sad,, not matter how SIMPLE we could make it for some people to vote, some will still get it messed up.
You know ? if we can devise a way,, were ? what ever method we use to make it FRAUD PROOF and ERROR PROOF ,, the DEMOCRATS will never win a election until they change their ways, convert to our values, and be honest.
GET OVER IT! KERRY IS A LOSER!
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