Election Fraud?

[MC Habber]

It seems there is significant evidence that the results of the recent US election were illegally manipulated, possibly enough to have tipped the result in favour of Bush. Discrepancies between official results and exit polls in key states provide circumstantial evidence of this, and the media has made a considerable effort to hide these discrepancies from the public. There is allegedly also 'hard evidence' including internal memos obtained under access to information that show impropriety in the use of the voting machines.

Perhaps even more disturbingly, the voting machines are wide open to manipulation by hackers, and there is strong evidence that this has occured. The people in charge of testing the machines failed to perform key security tests and, I didn't realise this, but apparently these machines actually send their votes over the phone lines to a central vote counting machine. The result of this is that anyone who obtains the phone number of the vote counter can hack into it and manipulate the vote counts at will.


What follows are excerpts from this excellent article which actually had me laughing at the absurdity of the situation (although it's not even remotely funny if the allegations are true).

---

The "mainstream" media has fallen down on the job by failing to cover efforts since November 2 to ensure that all votes in the presidential election are accurately counted. The conclusion by John Kerry that an investigation could not possibly reverse the election may quite possibly have been premature. But the question that both activists and the media should be asking is not whether there was enough fraud and errors to decide the election, nor even whether there was more than is usual, but whether there was any fraud or errors, where the problems occurred, how they can be prevented in the future, and -- in particular -- whether new kinds of fraud were permitted by new technologies and by the privatization of our election process.

--

Back on September 28, the New York Post, in agreement with other U.S. media outlets, editorialized that the results of a recall election in Venezuela had been proven fraudulent by exit polls. "It is unconscionable," the Post quoted Jimmy Carter as saying, "to perpetuate fraudulent or biased electoral practices in any nation."

--

On October 17, the New York Times ran an article on the use of exit polls to identify and prevent election fraud in a number of countries. The article suggested that exit polls might play a similar role in the upcoming U.S. election.

A November 5 New York Times article, and the rest of the U.S. media's coverage after the election, sang a very different tune, building in as an unargued assumption that the November 2 exit polls had been proved wrong by the official vote counts. The Times' article sought to determine in a very "balanced" and "objective" manner exactly what went wrong with the exit polls, but not whether they were wrong or right.

The New York Post switched song books as well, running on November 3 in its online edition a column by Dick Morris demanding to know who had rigged the exit polls. Exit polls, according to Morris, cannot be off by as much as they were this time without intentional fraud. Morris presented no evidence of fraud in the exit polling and no evidence that it was the polls rather than the official counts that got it wrong.

As pointed out in various analyses, the exit polls were accurate within their margin of error in many states but were surprisingly far off in a number of swing states, and always off in the same direction, showing more support for Kerry than was found in the official counts. Warren Mitofsky, co-director of the National Election Pool, told the News Hour with Jim Lehrer that "Kerry was ahead in a number of states by margins that looked unreasonable to us." Mitofsky speculated that perhaps more Kerry voters were willing to participate in the exit poll, but did not suggest any reason for that speculation other than the difference between the exit polls and the final counts. He and his colleagues have since produced other speculative reasons why the exit polls could have been wrong, all grounded in circular reasoning. Mitofsky told the News Hour that on the evening of November 2 he decided to wait for the official counts and then use those to "correct" the exit polls, thus rendering the hugely expensive exit polls useless as either predictors of the election outcome or measurements of the count's accuracy. Media outlets "corrected" the exit polls on their websites early in the morning of November 3. Mitofsky promised in the future to keep exit poll results secret, thus fully rendering them useless for any stated purpose related to election outcomes (they will still be able to tell us after the fact how many voters were female or Jewish or go to church weekly or believe health care is the most important issue, etc.).

Other surprising outcomes should stimulate investigation, including the low gain in voter turnout for Kerry in Florida despite massive get-out-the-vote efforts and widely reported record lines at polls on election day and in early voting

--

Specific evidence of miscounting has been uncovered. And, despite the national media's near-blackout of the issue, local reporting has documented some of the problems. In fact, although you won't learn it from the corporate media, three members of Congress have asked the General Accounting Office to investigate irregularities with voting machines in the November 2 election.

--

More troubling than these problems and others like them is the fact that much of the electronic vote counting is in the hands of private companies, produces no auditable record, and can easily be tampered with. A leading investigator of this problem, BlackBoxVoting.org, appeared in 23 "mainstream" media articles or transcripts in the weeks leading up to the election, according to a Nexis search, but only one since then, and that was a mention by a caller to a radio show. BlackBoxVoting has not vanished from the media because it's ceased activity. Rather, it's launched the largest series of FOIA requests in history and announced that it believes fraud took place in the election.

An analysis reported on by Thom Hartmann found that in Florida, in the smaller counties in which optically scanned ballots were counted on a central computer the results were quite surprising. For example, Franklin County, with 77.3 percent registered Democrats, went 58.5 percent for Bush. Holmes County, with 72.7 percent registered Democrats, went 77.25 percent for Bush. "Yet in the larger counties," Hartmann noted, "where such anomalies would be more obvious to the news media, high percentages of registered Democrats equaled high percentages of votes for Kerry…. And, although elections officials didn't notice these anomalies, in aggregate they were enough to swing Florida from Kerry to Bush. If you simply go through the analysis of these counties and reverse the 'anomalous' numbers in those counties that appear to have been hacked, suddenly the Florida election results resemble the Florida exit poll results: Kerry won, and won big."

According to Hartmann, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 16th District, Jeff Fisher, claimed to have evidence of hacking that would explain these results, and to be turning that evidence over to the FBI. Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org explained how easy such hacking is on a CNBC talk show some months back. The "mainstream" media has not touched this story.

[IamCanadiens]

MC said:

It seems there is significant evidence that the results of the recent US election were illegally manipulated, possibly enough to have tipped the result in favour of Bush.

Sounds more like significant speculation to me. One question that comes to my mind is exactly who is David Swanson?

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Thankfully we're discovering more and more who George W Bush is.

[franko]

Conspiracy theorists unite! Just like four years ago, the Bush Republicans stole the election – and in Florida. How did they do it again?

How indeed? Is Bush not the folksy idiot? Is he not the Robert Stanfield of US politics? What is going on here? Not only did he convince the fools people of the United States to vote for him again; he rigged the election not with hanging chads but with technological know-how (and here I thought that it was Al Gore that invented the inter-net). Then, he convinced the left-leaning press (the same press that did all it could to show how dim-witted, dense, and dull Dubya is and how rotten the world is and would continue to be with a Bush regime) to ignore a story of election manipulation. Hmmm . . .

[franko]

From Michael Moore -- the real election results:



more interesting election maps . Hey Mike: keep going; pretty soon you’ll be able to prove that in fact Kerry won the election with an overwhelming majority!

And a great quote:

The only age group in which the majority voted for Kerry was young adults (Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%), proving once again that your parents are always wrong and you should never listen to them. [Michael Moore, "17 Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists," 11/05/04]

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Ah yes, Florida, home of the heir apparent. Practice makes perfect wins elections.

America, making the world safe for election fraud.

[Skilly]

I knew someone would say it was rigged again. Just didn't realize it would take 8 days to do it ...... (I had 2-3 days in the office pool ). This is a big case of Democratic Sour Grapes. If George Bush or his supporters pulled the wool over the Democrats eyes again, then they don't deserve a Democratic president. Imagine how the world would trick and fool John Kerry and his Hollywood/environmental/hypocritical bunch of nutjobs at every turn? Ol G.W is not so dumb afterall.

Exit polls Schm-exit polls. They mean squat. Maybe the Democratic (NBC/ABC/CNN) media wanted it to look like Kerry was a sure shot winner to influence the western voters? This could be done by cleverly rewording questions. All I saw on the exit polls was percentages - not numbers. How many Kerry supporters were spoken to on exit polls and how many Bush supporters. How do you know the person interviewed answered the questions honestly? A Bush supporter may have said he voted for Kerry just so the Democratic interviewer looked more favourable upon him. There is too many intangibles to give exit polls any credence.

Their whole election system down there is screwed up. With today's technology there should be a media ban until after all the votes are registered. Then they should count them. Someone in a swing state (Nevada) knows before hand how crucial his state is before they vote. And now Canada is doing the same thing.

Anyone have to results of the Florida turnout in this election? I bet it was about the same as last time. I bet that all the african americans that were given so much attention by the Democrats felt used and still never showed up at the polls. Now I could be wrong, but who knows?


It's time to forget technology and go back to the basics. Everyone get on their donkeys and travel to Bethlehem Ottawa to vote.

[Skilly]

Skilly said:

Anyone have to results of the Florida turnout in this election? I bet it was about the same as last time.

Bush’s ’Incredible’ Vote Tallies
George W. Bush’s vote tallies, especially in the key state of Florida, are so statistically stunning that they border on the unbelievable.

by Sam Parry

While it’s extraordinary for a candidate to get a vote total that exceeds his party’s registration in any voting jurisdiction - because of non-voters - Bush racked up more votes than registered Republicans in 47 out of 67 counties in Florida. In 15 of those counties, his vote total more than doubled the number of registered Republicans and in four counties, Bush more than tripled the number.

Statewide, Bush earned about 20,000 more votes than registered Republicans.

By comparison, in 2000, Bush’s Florida total represented about 85 percent of the total number of registered Republicans, about 2.9 million votes compared with 3.4 million registered Republicans.

Bush achieved these totals although exit polls showed him winning only about 14 percent of the Democratic vote statewide - statistically the same as in 2000 when he won 13 percent of the Democratic vote - and losing Florida’s independent voters to Kerry by a 57 percent to 41 percent margin. In 2000, Gore won the independent vote by a much narrower margin of 47 to 46 percent.



So he wins one more percentage point of Democratic result, and the independent vote sways his way. Sounds to me like a legitimate win. Just becuase you aren't registered doesn't mean you vote Democrat.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

I've got some prime Everglades swamp land available for an excellent price. It's been held by a stable Saudi family for the past couple of decades. Has been used only occasionally for exercises of an unknown but presumably safe nature. Guaranteed WMD free. Jeb will be glad to help you out with any particulars regarding the purchase. Best hurry though, this sort of deal may not be available too much longer; though we are doing our darndest to maintain continuity in the operation.

[Habs_fan_in_LA]

Two choices; a man who stands like an oak, for his principles and stays firm on his promises or a man who checks to see which way the wind is blowing and bends in the wind.

Problem the man who bends with the wind didn't know which way the wind was blowing.

Choices:

Monumental conspiracy to rig the election without leaving traces a la OJ murder or Kennedy assasination.
Middle America is stupid, uninformed and didn't understand Kerry's logic in the closely watched debates while the elite intellectuals on both coasts knew what is best for everyone.
Not enough young people turned out, Bon Jovi didn't convince people he knows best, the economy is going great and 100% employment is a reality.

Maybe Kerry spent so much time telling what is wrong with George, he forgot to tell what is right about John; and what his plan is to win a war he does/doesn't support and save the economy by taxing the top 1%.
If you can't defeat "W" when his popularity is low, the US is hurting, soldiers are dying, the deficit is up and the economy is down, you don't deserve to be president.

Bush has done a good job in very difficult times and the people want to stick with him to see it through.

Fraud is the so called intellectuals who think the common people don't care about moral values, aren't concerned with public safety, and want to see brothers marrying their brothers in Alabama instead of brothers marrying their sisters.

I was hoping the election was over and we could concentrate on fixing the problems we're facing instead of devising reasons why the results couldn't possibly have happened.

You don't see the Cardinals asking for a recount of the runs scored in the world series.

[seventeen]

The guy in charge is an idiot to whom I wouldn't trust the care of my cat for a weekend. So why are Americans so blinded to the fact he is a twit and shouldn't be in charge of anything? I've yet to hear of his success at anything other than winning elections. Oh, excuse me. He's very good at executing.

I don't believe the theories that he won due to fear, or due to rigging (thought that's a more likely explanation). I truly believe too many Americans are foolish or uneducated and can't think for themselves. That's probably true of many people in general, but I suspect there's a plurality of these in the US. Easily swayed by arguments such as the oak tree that doesn't bend. Nothing personal HFLA, but things that don't bend tend to snap, and the engineers on our board can confirm that. It's so easy to think that life is black and white, and so wrong. Bush is a foolish, uneducated, poorly read, and fundamentalist person. Ya gets what ya pays for. Be prepared to pay the price. (Unfortunately, other people often have to pay the price without any benefits accruing....usually Canadians).

I used an analogy for a friend the other day. He owns a successful manufacturing business. I explained that if his company were being run by a nincompoop, it wouldn't help enough to have a smart efficient operations manager and an excellent financial officer. The company would eventually be run into the ground, because the twit would make poor decisions and his staff could only cover for him so often.

That's my rant for today.

[MC Habber]

Skilly said:

Anyone have to results of the Florida turnout in this election? I bet it was about the same as last time. I bet that all the african americans that were given so much attention by the Democrats felt used and still never showed up at the polls. Now I could be wrong, but who knows?

Interestingly enough, the voter turnout was the same, despite universal agreement that the lines at polling stations were much longer than ever before. Of course, the long lines could easily have been caused by broken voting machines and not have been the result of the giant Democratic get-out-the-vote campaign, but we'll never know, because the only record that exists is a computer-generated one.

Habs_fan_in_LA said:

You don't see the Cardinals asking for a recount of the runs scored in the world series.

Don't you think they might if the umpires had promised before the series to make sure that the Sox won?


The issue is not just exit polls. If I had known about this a few weeks ago, and were I inclined to illegally interfere in the election, the president-elect right now would be Ralph Nader!!

This has nothing to do with who won the election, and little to do with whether they deliberately cheated. It has to do with the with the FACT that Bush (or Kerry, or anyone with an internet connection and a small amount of know-how) could have easily altered the results and we would most likely never know about it. It is fairly certain that this did in fact happen in a by-election a few months ago (where computer logs show a 3 hour gap in voting during peak times). Furthermore, the "left-wing media," who pretended before the election that they cared about fairness, democracy, and preventing election fraud, have flip-flopped on the issue since election day, as they are now completely ignoring it.

The voting machines in the US are extremely insecure (based on analysis of the source code which was accidently leaked) and are made by 3 companies that all support the Republicans. If you voted in this election you should be very concerned about this, whoever you voted for, and you should wonder why you bothered to stand in line for hours when some 2-bit hacker (whether working for one of the candidates or not) could have easily erased your vote or made it count for the other guy in a matter of minutes. To borrow an analogy from someone else: electronic voting machines that leave no paper trail are equivalent to an election in which you tell a man behind a curtain who you want to vote for and he marks your ballot for you and deposits it in the box without you ever being able to see which way he marked it. And in this case, the man behind the curtain is a stringent supporter of the Republican party and has promised to "deliver the election" for Bush.

[Skilly]

On the news I watched on "Election Day" it was mentioned that many of the long lines were caused because people refused to use the electronic voting machines. Not sure what percent of people in each state actually used them, (someone with some time on their hands might be able to find that data).

In fact, I believe it was in Ohio where someone who was frustrated with the long line-up went to the courts and got a judge to permit whoever wanted to write who he was voting for on a piece of paper (not sure if it was a specific piece or any ol piece) and submit it the ol fashioned way. The arguement used I heard (through CNN) was he did not trust the machines, when in fact all he was trying to do was avoid the line-up.

I also believe there was a similar case in another state. I believe it was Florida, but unsure, because it could have been Nevada - it was one of the "swing states".

[PTH]

Skilly said:

Exit polls Schm-exit polls. They mean squat. Maybe the Democratic (NBC/ABC/CNN) media wanted it to look like Kerry was a sure shot winner to influence the western voters? This could be done by cleverly rewording questions. All I saw on the exit polls was percentages - not numbers. How many Kerry supporters were spoken to on exit polls and how many Bush supporters. How do you know the person interviewed answered the questions honestly? A Bush supporter may have said he voted for Kerry just so the Democratic interviewer looked more favourable upon him. There is too many intangibles to give exit polls any credence.

Exit polls are probably the best polls around - I'm going to assume they were conducted professionnaly enough, add that to the fact that you're polling people who are actually voting - that radically reduces the error margin, if the sample is of any decent size.

We're using exit polls all over the world to evaluate the validity of elections all over the place; if they aren't giving the right results in the US I find that extremely disturbing; either the rest of the world is being tested using a bad system, or the US system isn't world-class - I suspect the latter myself.

[Skilly]

PTH said:

Exit polls are probably the best polls around - I'm going to assume they were conducted professionnaly enough, add that to the fact that you're polling people who are actually voting - that radically reduces the error margin, if the sample is of any decent size.

Only if the questions are answered honestly. They can be conducted as professionally as you want, but if you ask me who I voted for (which I don't like revealing myself - alot of people don't) and I tell an obtrusive media person Kerry, when I really voted Bush, how accurate are your polls?

Remember Michael Moore in Farenheit 9-11. He boldly stated that you can tell a Democrat in Florida very easily - by the colour of his skin. Now it is true there are some African American Republicans, but he generalized.

Another just as true generalization is: that you can tell a Democrat another way - if he speaks eloquantly in front of a camera (ie. new media, actors, celebrities) Now it is true you have some Republican celebrities as well but during the election when Kerry was coming out to Dixie Chicks, Bruce Springsteen, Ashton Kucher, and the Hollywood red carpet was rolled out, Bush was seen with only a few (Arnold Swartzenagger (not very eloquent) and John Elway).

So when a news man is conducting his exit polls a Bush supporter could (to avoid more questions and debate) say he voted for Kerry to have the news man be a tad more tolerable. (Did it happen? - who knows - all I am saying is that I would lie to them so maybe others would also)

[Habs_fan_in_LA]

Of course John Kerry could have insisted on a recount and inspection of the voting machines but he feared for his life as he was threatened by organized business and the wealthiest 1% of America. The billionaires threatened to sever and put his wifes head in his bed.
Conspiracy theorists abound, but unless you believe there are little green men buried in area 51, nobody really ever landed on the moon, the earth is really flat, and 6 million people were never gassed in WW II;

1. The election was fair.

2. George Bush is not a moron. He also isn't a charter member of mensa or an articulate speaker. He is a simple man with conviction and dedication. He is surrounded with intelligent advisors, but the bottom line is he calls the shots.
We don't like everything he says.
Some people don't like 99% of what he says but for the next four years he told us what he would do if he is reelected and he will keep his promises.
I don't like mixing church and state, banning abortions, a special amendment to the constitution to stop gays from marrying or allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens, but I agree with his policies about defense and security.

Defending America is more important than pleasing Koffee Anan, France or Germany.

Too bad the lockout isn't over the way the election is over and we can have 4 years of labor peace and hockey!

[seventeen]

Habs_fan_in_LA said:

2. George Bush is not a moron. He also isn't a charter member of mensa or an articulate speaker. He is a simple man with conviction and dedication. He is surrounded with intelligent advisors, but the bottom line is he calls the shots.
We don't like everything he says.
Some people don't like 99% of what he says but for the next four years he told us what he would do if he is reelected and he will keep his promises.
I don't like mixing church and state, banning abortions, a special amendment to the constitution to stop gays from marrying or allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens, but I agree with his policies about defense and security.

Defending America is more important than pleasing Koffee Anan, France or Germany.

Too bad the lockout isn't over the way the election is over and we can have 4 years of labor peace and hockey!

No, he's not technically a moron, but on the intelligence scale of leaders of industrialized nations, (and probably most emerging nations), he'd be in the 5th percentile.

If you don't like mixing church and state, why do you like the guy?

And I think you're sadly mistaken on his ability to defend America. He's good at defending oil interests and at bullying. But a guy on dialysis is evading him and making him look like a fool (which isn't hard as I've mentioned before), and now many of the intelligent people in his cabinet are leaving because they know they've been played and will never have any influence in this fundamentalist government. Wonder what's coming down the pipe that's precipitated the resignations? The true mystery is how he managed to con enough voters into believing he's the only hope for American safety. Before it's all over, that belief will be turned on its head.

[MC Habber]

Habs_fan_in_LA said:

1. The election was fair.

You're right.

The fact that the Republicans hired goons to prevent people of colour from voting doesn't matter.

The fact that the voting machines are made by companies that support the Republican party and which also happen to be incompetent doesn't matter.

The fact that most of the machines leave no paper trail and hence no way of verifying that the counts are not being manipulated doesn't matter.

The fact that a former employee of Diebold was allowed access to one of the central vote counting machines in Florida on election day, a clear violation of protocol, doesn't matter because he would never spare the 30 seconds required to alter the count in favour of his preferred candidate.

The fact that the machines in some county erroneously gave Bush 4000 extra votes doesn't matter because some bright people noticed the "mysterious error" and corrected it.

The fact that the US government spent over $1 billion on voting machines that are extremely insecure and fundamentally flawed in their design is not something to be concerned about.

The exclusion of 3rd party candidates from the debates is not an affront to democracy.

That fact that I could set up a polling station in my home with equipment available on E-Bay is irrelevant.

Why? Because George W. Bush is a dedicated leader and a man of principal, thereby rendering all of the above moot in a stunning defeat for logic and reason.

BTW, there's a difference between 'conspiracy' and organized stupidity, though in some cases the results are the same.

[MC Habber]

Skilly said:

Only if the questions are answered honestly. They can be conducted as professionally as you want, but if you ask me who I voted for (which I don't like revealing myself - alot of people don't) and I tell an obtrusive media person Kerry, when I really voted Bush, how accurate are your polls?

The exit polls were in agreement with the official results in all but a few states, which happened to be swing states, and in those states they all showed Kerry doing significantly better than the official results. Unless there was a fundamental difference in the way the polls were conducted in those states, it's statistically highly unlikely that the exit polls just happened to be wrong in the same direction. Why would you just assume it is the polls that are wrong and not the official count?

Another point to note, and this is verifiable fact, is that the major media outlets 'fudged' the results of exit polls during the night following the election to bring them in line with the true results. In other words, the exit polls that appeared on their web sites and on tv the next day were fabricated and therefore meaningless. I'd really love to see you explain that as anything other than a coverup of the discrepancy.

Edit: I could be wrong on this, but I don't think the exit polls are even conducted by members of the media. They are conducted by the National Election Pool, so your theory of Bush supporters lying to left-wing media pollsters doesn't hold up.

[franko]

As clueless as I may be about US politics (and as opinionated as I am about everything whether I have a clue or not . . .

Habs_fan_in_LA said:

2. George Bush is not a moron. He also isn't a charter member of mensa or an articulate speaker. He is a simple man with conviction and dedication. He is surrounded with intelligent advisors, but the bottom line is he calls the shots.

a. He isn’t.
b. He isn’t.
c. He is . . . and some say that he should be convicted.
d. Somewhat.
e. He doesn’t. No president does. Those who elected the man (in 2008, woman?) call the shots by telling him what to think and how to act. For the most part, the president is a puppet -- right now of defence contractors and big business. Lobbying works.

seventeen said:

many of the intelligent people in his cabinet are leaving because they know they've been played and will never have any influence in this fundamentalist government.

Naw, many of the intelligent people in his cabinet are leaving so that they can distance themselves from this current administration for their own run at the White House in 2008 (Colin Powell, for instance).

Habs_fan_in_LA said:

Too bad the lockout isn't over the way the election is over and we can have 4 years of labour peace and hockey!

That’s the most important thing!

[duster]

Habs_fan_in_LA said:

Defending America is more important than pleasing Koffee Anan, France or Germany.

It is clearly understood that the U.S. is defending itself. In the process, the Bush Administration has:

- made their closest ally look like a fool with utter disregard of the consequences. Blair's position is precarious at best and he likely won't be re-elected. The Brits are a pragmatic lot.

- blatantly and unabashedly lied consistently to their own citizenry, Secretary of State, the Arab world and NATO.

- embarked on economic warfare with their main trade partners (Canada with lumber and fish in clear violation of NAFTA, European Union with steel etc...)

- substantially weakened the power of U.N., and successfully deconstructed 50 years of foreign and economic policy in order to invade Iraq under false pretenses.

I also suspect press censorship since some things are being kept from the U.S. public at large. Most Americans that I work with have no clue why the U.N, the French, Canadians, Germans etc...are not "cooperating". Who would have thought this from the "land of the free"?

You get a lot more flies with honey than with vinegar. You don't have to be a member of Mensa to figure that out.

[franko]

duster said:

- embarked on economic warfare with their main trade partners (Canada with lumber and fish in clear violation of NAFTA, European Union with steel etc...)

Let's not blame Bush for everything. These are long-time problems, carry-overs from the Clinton regime, carry-overs from . . .

duster said:

- substantially weakened the power of U.N., and successfully deconstructed 50 years of foreign and economic policy in order to invade Iraq under false pretenses.

The UN wasn't all that strong to begin with . . . and let's not forget that the UN has a built-in anti-US bias (deserved in some cases, though not in others).

[MC Habber]

franko said:

Let's not blame Bush for everything. These are long-time problems, carry-overs from the Clinton regime, carry-overs from . . .

True, but it IS since Bush came in that the US has tried to ignore NAFTA, just like they've ignored every other international agreement.

[franko]

MC said:

True, but it IS since Bush came in that the US has tried to ignore NAFTA, just like they've ignored every other international agreement.

No, they've ignored (not just tried to ignore) NAFTA since its inception, unless, of course, decisions favoured them.

Not sticking up for the Bush-man; just ensuring there is no revisionist history (there's enough of that already).

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

seventeen said:

And I think you're sadly mistaken on his ability to defend America. He's good at defending oil interests and at bullying. But a guy on dialysis is evading him and making him look like a fool (which isn't hard as I've mentioned before), and now many of the intelligent people in his cabinet are leaving because they know they've been played and will never have any influence in this fundamentalist government. Wonder what's coming down the pipe that's precipitated the resignations? The true mystery is how he managed to con enough voters into believing he's the only hope for American safety. Before it's all over, that belief will be turned on its head.

Hmmm, I wonder if we can look forward to a more inciteful foreign policy?

[MC Habber]

franko said:

No, they've ignored (not just tried to ignore) NAFTA since its inception, unless, of course, decisions favoured them.

Not sticking up for the Bush-man; just ensuring there is no revisionist history (there's enough of that already).

I believe you are correct. I was thinking in terms of specific actions which actually fit in to a longstanding pattern.

[seventeen]

M. said:

Hmmm, I wonder if we can look forward to a more inciteful foreign policy?

We better start beefing up our borders. We should have a lot of cattle standing around doing nothing that we can use. And a spare log or two.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

seventeen said:

We better start beefing up our borders. We should have a lot of cattle standing around doing nothing that we can use. And a spare log or two.

Good old NAFTA: they've got a beef with us and we're at loggerheads with them.

[Skilly]

MC said:

The exit polls were in agreement with the official results in all but a few states, which happened to be swing states, and in those states they all showed Kerry doing significantly better than the official results. Unless there was a fundamental difference in the way the polls were conducted in those states, it's statistically highly unlikely that the exit polls just happened to be wrong in the same direction. Why would you just assume it is the polls that are wrong and not the official count?

Another point to note, and this is verifiable fact, is that the major media outlets 'fudged' the results of exit polls during the night following the election to bring them in line with the true results. In other words, the exit polls that appeared on their web sites and on tv the next day were fabricated and therefore meaningless. I'd really love to see you explain that as anything other than a coverup of the discrepancy.

Edit: I could be wrong on this, but I don't think the exit polls are even conducted by members of the media. They are conducted by the National Election Pool, so your theory of Bush supporters lying to left-wing media pollsters doesn't hold up.

Statistically highly unlikely still means is it statistically possible. If you happen to have a sample pool of 1000 and in that pool there was 900 registered democrats and 100 registered republicans then you could predict a 90% popular vote for Kerry. However, the sample pool did not accurately account for the undecided vote, nor did it interview the other 4 million voters in that state. Statistically it is possible for the final vote to be 3,999,100 - 900 for the Republicans. Just as it is statistically possible to score 3 goals in 10 seconds. Unlikely, but possible.

As for the fudging. I really can't speak on it. One I do not know it to be verifiable fact, but I do know one thing. I watched the election on CNN. I remember saying to myself when they were showing the exit poll results that some of the things were the same thing. Iraq, terrorism, home security ..... ecomony, jobs, how america is viewed internationally, and the like. The next day on CNN they did an analysis of the exit polls and attempted to explain the error of the exit polls. It was shown (and I admit I did not jot down the numbers from the night before , so I can't really say if they were changed) that if you combined certain issues together they closely correlated with the actually voting results.

They seemed to be amazed at one thing , that seemed obvious to me. During the election debates it seemed that America favoured Kerry's stance on Iraq more so than Bush's. The media expected that the Iraq issue would be an issue against Iraq (for Kerry), but the Iraq issue was a pro-Iraq stance and when lumped with Terrorism and home security it gave a different impression of the exit polls. That's what i mean when I say that exit polls are good, but they have to be analyzed correctly and the questions phrased correctly.

[MC Habber]

Skilly said:

Statistically highly unlikely still means is it statistically possible. If you happen to have a sample pool of 1000 and in that pool there was 900 registered democrats and 100 registered republicans then you could predict a 90% popular vote for Kerry. However, the sample pool did not accurately account for the undecided vote, nor did it interview the other 4 million voters in that state. Statistically it is possible for the final vote to be 3,999,100 - 900 for the Republicans. Just as it is statistically possible to score 3 goals in 10 seconds. Unlikely, but possible.

But the odds of the exit polls being wrong are probably smaller than the odds of the official result being wrong, in this case. The exit polls and the official results are two different attempts to determine how people voted, and when they disagree there is a problem, and we ought not to just assume that it is the exit polls that are at fault, especially when the official results could be so easily tampered with.