DudeWheresMyBallot

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Dude, Where’s my Ballot? What Every American should know about the 2004 election… Last Updated: January 13, 2005 This presentation was prepared by Peter Drekmeier, Amy Adams, Marc Baber and others. You may contact us with comments and questions by sending email to: info@ElectionFraud2004.org and/or info@TruthInVoting.org

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1 Paperless Electronic Voting Machines

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Concerns about Electronic Voting Machines are subject to programming error, equipment malfunction and malicious tampering. Programs are proprietary information and are not open to inspection. There is no paper trail and thus no ability to conduct a recount.

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On national television, Bev Harris, Executive Director of Black Box Voting, quickly hacked into a computer used for electronic voting to show how easily the results can be changed. Electronic Machines Can Be Hacked

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Who Controls the Electronic Machines?

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In 1996 Chuck Hagel became the first Republican in 24 years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska. He won virtually every demo-graphic group, including many largely African-American communities that had never before voted Republican. Hagel previously headed the company that installed, programmed, and ran the voting machines used in the election. Chuck Hagel’s Surprise Victory

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And Max Cleland’s Surprise Loss

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“I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.” - Walden O’Dell On September 26, 2003, Walden O’Dell, Chief Executive of Diebold, hosted an Ohio Republican Party fundraiser for Bush. His letter urged those attending to “Donate or raise $10,000 for the Ohio Republican Party.” Conflict of Interest

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In April 2004, California Secretary of State, Kevin Shelley banned more than 14,000 Diebold electronic voting machines because the company had installed uncertified software that had not been tested, and then lied to state officials about the machines. California Bans Diebold Machines “Their performance, their behavior, is despicable…if that's the kind of deceitful behavior they're going to engage in, they can't do business in California.” - Kevin Shelley

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From Bad to Worse

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2 Experts on International Standards for Fair Elections

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“Some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida. The most significant of these requirements are: A nonpartisan electoral commission or a trusted and nonpartisan official. Uniformity in voting procedures, so that all citizens…have equal assurance that their votes are cast in the same way and will be tabulated with equal accuracy.” Carter’s Concerns about Florida

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“We cannot accept this result as legitimate because it does not meet international standards. We call for a full review of the conduct of the election and the tallying.” - Colin Powell Powell Comments on the Election… Back in the U.S. / Back in the U.S. …

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…in Ukraine “These polls don't work. We will win by between 3 to 5 percent. And remember, if Americans believed exit polls, and not the actual count, John Kerry would be president.” - Gennady Korzh, Yanukovych spokesman …Back in the U.S.S.R! (former)

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3 November 2nd, 2004: Day-for-night

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"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." -- Wendell Phillips, (1811-1884), abolitionist, orator and columnist for The Liberator ,  in a speech before the Massachusetts Antislavery Society in 1852, according to The Dictionary of Quotations edited by Bergen Evans

National Election Pool (NEP) Exit Polls: 

National Election Pool (NEP) Exit Polls Funded by private companies (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox and AP) Raw data not intended for publication. Only obtained because Jonathan Simon downloaded unpolluted data on 13,000 voters nationwide at 12:30 am election night. Polls are normally “adjusted” to match official results before publication. The adjustment function did not kick in until about 1:05 a.m. Mitofsky/NEP refuses to release actual data to Rep. Conyers.

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Undecided voters primarily break for the challenger. An incumbent with less than 50% approval will most likely lose the election. Voter registration favored the Democrats. A Zogby poll at 5pm on election day called Ohio and Florida for Kerry. Indicators Pointed to a Kerry Victory

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4 The Exit Polls

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Because there is no potential of conducting a true recount with electronic voting machines, exit polls are one of the few ways to independently verify the validity of an election. Electronic Voting Prohibits Recounts

Exit Polls are Reliable: 

Exit Polls are Reliable Thom Hartmann of CommonDreams.org relates that in his native Germany: “…people fill in hand-marked ballots, which are hand-counted by civil servants, watched over by volunteer representatives of the political parties. … even though it takes a week or more to count the vote … the German people know the election results the night the polls close because the news media’s exit polls, for two generations, have never been more than a tenth of a percent off.”

Republic of Georgia 2003: 

Republic of Georgia 2003 “Last fall, international foundations sponsored an exit poll in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia during a parliamentary election. On Election Day, the pollsters projected a victory for the main opposition party. When the sitting government counted the votes, however, it announced that its own slate of candidates had won. Supporters of the opposition stormed the Parliament, and the president, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, resigned under pressure from the United States and Russia.” -- Martin Plissner, “Exit Polls to Protect the Vote”, New York Times 10/17/04.

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Material for this chart comes from Jonathan Simon, a former exit poll analyst, who collected and tabulated data from the CNN web-site before the data was changed during the morning of 11/3/04. Exit Polls Showed Kerry Leading

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“Exit polls are almost never wrong…So reliable are the surveys that actually tap voters as they leave polling places that they are used as guides to the relative honesty of elections in Third World countries.” November 4, 2004 Those Faulty Exit Polls Were Sabotage Note: Dick Morris is a Republican consultant

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Statistical Prediction of Kerry’s True Percentage of the Vote in Ohio From “The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy” – Steven F. Freeman, PhD, University of Pennsylvania Blue area = relative probability Kerry won Ohio (Pin the tail on the Donkey) Red area = relative probability Bush won Ohio (Elephant)

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“The likelihood of any two of these statistical anomalies occurring together is on the order of one-in-a-million. The odds against all three occurring together are 250 million to one.” -Steven F. Freeman Bush Kerry Bush Kerry Tallied vs. State Predicted Predicted Tallied Tallied Predicted FL 49.8% 49.7% 52.1% 47.1% Bush 4.9% OH 47.9% 52.1% 51.0% 48.5% Bush 6.7% PA 45.4% 54.1% 48.6% 50.8% Bush 6.5% Predicted vs. Actual Percentages in the Three Critical Battleground States

One chance in 250 million?What does that mean?: 

One chance in 250 million? What does that mean? “If the U.S. chose its President by lottery and every U.S. citizen got a ballot/lottery ticket, the chance that YOU would win the lottery and become the next President is about the same as the chance that the deviations of official vote results from exit polls in OH, FL and PA occurred fairly. In other words, you’d have to be an extreme coincidence theorist to believe the official results are honest. How do you define ‘reasonable doubt’?” -- Marc Baber, TruthInVoting.org

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A study by UC Berkeley’s Quantitative Methods Research Team reported that irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000 - 260,000 or more excess votes to Bush in Florida. “For the sake of future elections involving electronic voting – someone must investigate and explain the statistical anomalies in Florida.” - Professor Michael Hout UC Report Sounds “Smoke Alarm” http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111904W.shtml

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“In Florida's counties using optically scanned paper ballots – fed into a central tabulator PC and thus vulnerable to hacking – the results seem to contain substantial anomalies.” -Thom Hartmann, Reporter

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Rick Walker - www.omnisterra.com/vote/index.html Anomalies Were Especially Noticeable in Smaller Counties

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Paper Ballot Voting Matched Exit Polls Paper Ballots Electronic Machines

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Electoral College Map if Official Tallies Were Correct Bush = 286 Kerry = 252

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Electoral College Map if Exit Polls Were Correct Kerry = 289 Bush = 249

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“Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” -- Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, aka Josef Stalin

A Marxist Analysis: 

A Marxist Analysis Election results should be a mirror to the Electorate– a faithful reflection of the body politic. But when they aren’t… how will we know?

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5 Still a few bugs in the system…

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Electronic Voting Problems in 2004 Errors were almost always in Bush’s favor In Gahanna, Ohio, where only 638 ballots were cast, Bush received 4,258 votes to Kerry's 260. On a referendum in Broward County, Florida, software subtracted votes rather than added them. In North Carolina, a Craven County district logged 11,283 more votes than voters and actually overturned the results of a regional race. Some people reported machines switching their votes from one candidate to another.

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6 Disenfranchisement: Jim Crow in Ohio…

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“The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery.” -- Thomas Paine

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“A study found that in the 2000 election voters in predominantly African-American precincts in Ohio – which mostly use punch-card machines – had their ballots discarded at three times the rate of voters in predominantly white precincts, where newer voting equipment is often available.” - Ralph Neas, President, People For the American Way

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Voter Disenfranchisement More than 57,000 irregularities were reported to the GAO. Fewer voting machines were available in low-income precincts, creating long lines. Some people never received their absentee ballots. Some polling places were moved at the last minute, and voters were sent to the wrong polling places. Many people had been removed from voter lists and had to fill out provisional ballots.

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According to the Free Press, a group of 25 men calling themselves the “Texas Strike Force” made intimidating phone calls to likely Democratic voters from a hotel across the street from the Republican Party headquarters in Franklin County, Ohio. A hotel worker heard one caller threaten a likely voter with being reported to the FBI and returned to jail if he voted. Voter Intimidation The Texans’ hotel rooms were reportedly paid for by the Ohio Republican Party.

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Blackwell is Ohio’s Secretary of State. He also Co-Chaired the Bush/Cheney Re-election Campaign. He reversed a rule allowing voters to cast provisional ballots anywhere in their county. He prevented any public inspection of poll books prior to vote certification. Ohio’s Ken Blackwell is 2004’s Katherine Harris

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In Columbus, Ohio – where voters waited 2-7 hours to vote – turnout was 52.7%. In Cincinnati, Ohio – where more voting machines were available and lines were shorter – 66.3% of registered voters went to the polls. Fewer Voting Machines Were Available in Low-Income Precincts Voting machines were strategically moved from Democratic to Republican precincts.

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“We call for a constitutional amendment to guarantee the right to vote for all U.S. citizens and to empower Congress to establish federal standards and non-partisan administration of elections.” - Jesse Jackson Jesse Jackson Visits Ohio

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Officials in Warren County, Ohio excluded members of the press from observing vote counting on election night, claiming an FBI agent had warned of a terrorist threat. County employees had been warned about the lockdown a week earlier. The FBI denied issuing such a warning.

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Ohio Recount Official tallies show Bush winning Ohio by 119,000 votes. However, Green Party Candidate, David Cobb and Libertarian Candidate, Michael Badnarik have filed for a recount. The Ohio numbers are suspect because of disparities in vote totals for different Democrats on the same ballot; the disqualification of more than 90,000 presidential votes on punch-card ballots; the election night lock-down in Warren County; and computer malfunctions.

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Sherole Eaton, a Deputy Director of Elections in Hocking County, Ohio, reported that prior to the recount, a representative from Triad Election Systems modified her computer tabulator, learned which precinct would be the subject of the initial test recount, and advised her how to manipulate the machinery so that the hand recount matched the machine count. Triad’s owner, Tod Rapp, has donated money to the Republican Party and George W. Bush. Possible Tampering by Election Firm

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7 Florida

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The Bush strategy in 2004 was based on turning out the 4 million Evangelical voters nationwide who stayed home in 2000. But Bush received 9 million new votes nationally, leaving 5 million unaccounted for. In Florida, Bush somehow came up with 1 million new votes – 11 percent of his nationwide increase. Florida Vote Count Is Suspicious

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“51 percent of the voters gave Bush a negative approval rating; 51 percent voted for him.” -Pollster John Zogby re: Florida

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8 Ongoing Efforts– The Quest for Fair Elections

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“The core principle of any democracy is the consent of the governed. All Americans, no matter how they voted, need to have confidence that when they cast their ballot, their voice is heard.” - Congressmen John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler, Robert Wexler, Robert Scott, and Rush Holt November 23, 2004

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Freedom of Information Act Request “Fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard evidence, documents, inside information and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems.” - Bev Harris, BBV

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… GAO Election Investigation

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On May 22, 2003, Congress-man Rush Holt introduced H.R. 2239, requiring all voting machines to produce a paper record by 2004. His legislation has been tied up in Republican-controlled committees ever since. The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003

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Take Action 1. Join ElectionFraud2004.org and TruthInVoting.org email lists to receive updates and action alerts on election fraud and reform. Call your elected representatives in Congress and encourage them to support the GAO investigation of the election – 1-800-839-5276 or 1-202-224-3121. Participate in the America’s Calling project - http://www.usvip.org/article.asp?id=42 4. Write a letter to the editor expressing your concerns about election irregularities and the need for a thorough investigation. Forward these website URL to all your friends – www.ElectionFraud2004.org, www.TruthInVoting.org 6. Repeat as often as desired.

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9 Finis

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The Electoral Count Act of 1887 allows a presidential election to be contested if at least one Representative and one US Senator step forward prior to the inauguration. 14 Representatives are ready to do so, but we still need one Senator. You can call your Senators at 1-800-839-5276.