LETTER
David, we not only have the corporate media pre-selecting our candidates for us, we have powers behind the scenes that will steal votes for Kerry just as surely as Bush stole them in 2000. See two examples below. M.
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Note that the results for WA last night were stuck at 92% reporting for several hours...LONG after MI had reported 100%. Further note that WA results have been and still are stuck at 99% reporting: 6,497 of 6,552 precincts have reported (i.e., 55 precincts have *not* yet reported).
See: customwire.ap
and
What's up with those 55 precincts? Which ones are they? How many delegates do these 55 precincts have?
Here is the Dean for America blog entry:
===BEGIN BLOG ENTRY=== blog.deanforamerica.com
MAJOR PROBLEM IN 36TH DISTRICT CAUCUS - SEATTLE, WA. AT OUR CAUCUS IT WAS Dean 3 or 4 to Kerry 1 and we were shocked when Dean didn't win. SHOCKED!
Here is what happened in my precinct. We won 4 delegates for DEAN because none of the other candidates were viable. In our precinct Dean had over 71% of the votes...
BUT
When I went to the 36th district HQ's to find out what the caucus numbers were for the whole district and I looked on the computer that A. was entering data on - I discovered she had completely reallocated the delegate allocation for my precinct! She had entered only 1 DELEGATE FOR DEAN (instead of 4) and gave 1 delegate to Clark (note - we did not have a single Clark supporter at our precinct caucus), 1 to Edwards, and 1 to Kerry in my precinct - The precinct that went 71.1% for DEAN with no other candidate being viable or receiving a delegate. That single error affected Dean's delegate count by 1% at the Congressional District level. Looking further into the available paperwork, I found another error in another precinct that was next to mine at the caucus. Of the twelve precincts I had time to look at, I found two errors that gave delegates to Kerry that were not his. I also noticed that the head count in our district said we had 13 people signed in, when it was actually 21!!! That effects the percentage for viability and the delegate allocation!
This woman (A.) got unbelievably angry (defensive) with me as soon as I pointed out the mistake. She immediately started berating me and started a big argument. We had quite an unpleasant shouting match. Then, she and another 36th District Official named P. started a vicious passive aggressive game, blaming me for keeping them there to late, calling me a jack-ass, on and on and on. Eventually, they won the battle with the District Chair to stop the recount that we had in progress. I made them all stay as long as I could and we started recounting precincts to make sure that the sign-in (head count) numbers were accurate. We found that the majority of the precinct head counts (from the sign-in sheets) were under counted by one or two people and in some cases by as much as 5 to 10 people!!! A couple of the precincts were over counted.
Then P. (last name unknown) told the Chair that no copies of the minutes needed to be made and he would keep them at his house. He started loading the Caucus Minutes into his car to take to his house and AMY was taking out tons of paperwork (I don't know what, exactly) while we were discussing when to start the recount again... the few people on my side who were trying to get the re-count done gave up as Pete and Amy talked the Chair into counting tomorrow and then she let them take all the minutes and delegates papers out the door... UNBELIEVABLE... I could not have made this up if I had tried my best! Truth IS stranger than fiction.
THE DEMOCRATS ARE F&^%ED in this District and, quite possibly, this state! I was treated so horribly for finding that first mistake and only wanted to look for more problems. Based on my initial findings this woman named AMY was either (1) inept or lazy and didn't care that she entered the data wrong or (2) she was stealing delegates from DEAN. Either way, it was wrong. When she was asked to correct her error and to look for others - she lost it and BLEW UP! She and her cohort Pete had absolutely no interest in accuracy... they kept repeating to me - "The election is over... Kerry won". They weren't accountable to anyone! This is not about who won - at least not now, anyway. This is about all of the votes at the caucus getting accurately counted so that the delegate allocation is correct. People like AMY and PETE need to be banned from doing this kind political work. I felt like I was a REPUBLICAN 'hanging chad' Party in Florida - or at least what I imagined it to have been like...
I'M WRITING "DEAN" ON MY BALLOT IN 2004.
Oh, I reported all of this to the KING COUNTY DEMOCRATS CHAIR, and he told me that I was only one of many who reported the same types of problem in other area districts. KERRY PEOPLE ARE MOST LIKELY STEALING OUR DELEGATES. I GUESS KERRY LEARNED A LOT FROM BUSH IN FLORIDA!!
We also reported this to some local campaign contacts and the State Democratic Party - pretty much were told by the state party that there was nothing we could do until Monday... UGH! We need the delegates TODAY! This has been an unbelievably UGLY day.
Posted by danny at February 8, 2004 12:37 AM [danny's email is danny_burns@comcast.net]
===END BLOG ENTRY===
At yesterday's Vashon caucuses, one of Dean people reported this: after the vote count for her precinct was announced, she was skeptical of the results and went to check them herself. Sure enough, votes that had in fact been cast for Dean had been counted for Kerry. No other candidates' votes were in error; it was just moving Dean votes into the Kerry camp. Mistake or ?????
So, does Washington 2004 = Florida 2000?
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Go to the link to see the charts in legible form:
Date: 2004-02-03 12:39 Subject: Kerry Beat Dean in New Hampshire by Only 1.5% When Computers Weren’t Doing the Counting Security: Public
Kerry Beat Dean in New Hampshire by Only 1.5% When Computers Were Not Doing the Counting
In the New Hampshire Democratic Primary, exit polls, which are seldom far wrong, indicated a very close race. The final vote was not close. A close race would have constituted a win for Dean, given expectations. There is serious reason to be dubious of computerized vote counting systems (see Verified Voting or Black Box Voting for details). Such systems were used in New Hampshire, especially those of Diebold, the company that has attracted the most controversy, so I decided to analyze the New Hampshire Democratic primary vote in terms of who was doing the tabulation. According to the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s office there are three possibilities:
Some ballots are counted by Diebold machines.
Some ballots are counted by ES&S machines.
Some ballots are counted by hand.
Let me note that neither the Diebold nor the ES&S ballots lack a paper trail in this case. These are optical-scan systems, where the voter marks a paper ballot that is subsequently counted by computer. There is, then, the possibility of a recount, but only if the issue is forced, since the election was not considered close enough to mandate an automatic recount. Given the problems demonstrated with Diebold systems and the serious allegations made against ES&S, perhaps such a recount should be pursued. In any case, here are the vote totals and percentages for the big five candidates, grouped by vote tallying method (percentages are percentages of the big five vote, i.e., it does not include the minor candidates)).
VotingTechUsed Kerry Kperc Dean Dperc Edwards Eperc Clark Cperc Lieberman Lperc
Diebold 59421 40.1% 37589 25.4% 18334 12.4% 19119 12.9% 13549 9.2%
ES&S 5952 37.6% 4415 27.9% 1877 11.8% 2076 13.1% 1516 9.6%
Hand 19004 34.9% 18148 33.3% 6276 11.5% 7217 13.2% 3846 7.1%
To bring the matter into sharper focus, here are the percentages by which Kerry’s vote exceeded Dean’s, grouped by tallying method.
VotingTechUsed % Margin
Diebold 58.1%
ES&S 35.0%
Hand 4.7%
Given that Kerry won by all accounts, does this matter? Yes it does. Had Dean gotten close to winning, as low as he had been the week before, he would have gotten the momentum to remain competitive, but instead New Hampshire seems to have doomed him. This may therefore go down as the pivotal election of this primary. Also, the election is not winner-take-all; delegates are assigned proportionally.
Is there any other explanation for the discrepancy? Well, the computerized systems are mostly used in the larger towns in New Hampshire. Can this be attributed to a rural preference for Dean? If the sample is limited to towns with fewer than 20,000 voters, the results are but slightly different.
VotingTechUsed Kerry Kperc Dean Dperc Edwards Eperc Clark Cperc Lieberman Lperc
Diebold 43428 39.4% 29456 26.8% 13283 12.1% 14632 13.3% 9289 8.44%
ES&S 5952 37.6% 4415 27.9% 1877 11.9% 2076 13.1% 1516 9.57%
Hand 19004 34.9% 18148 33.3% 6276 11.5% 7217 13.2% 3846 7.05%
A dramatic rural preference for Dean would be odd, given that his primary demographic is youth, but odd or not, such is not present in the figures, at least not to the extent necessary to explain the data.
The Dean campaign has cause for a recount, in my opinion. Whether they have a legal case, I don’t know. I think it would be better if a suit demanding recount were brought by a third party, however,rather than the Dean campaign, even though they are the (possibly) offended party.
At the very least, the possibility should be investigated. Someone with access to lawyers should inquire whether the ballots are still available for recount and how long they should remain available, according to law.