November 2004: two rigged votes, two reactions: in the USA, Democrats suck their thumbs and say sorry, while in the Ukraine, after two weeks of protest, the Supreme Court has ruled that the vote was flawed and must be re-run.

The Ukraine made headlines around the world, while in the USA, the media is almost completely dumb on the subject of electoral abuses, even though the situation is very similar to that in the Ukraine.

The evidence is so strong, in fact, that the Greens (together with the Libertarians) have raised $150,000 by public subscription to get a recount in Ohio. The Democrats also have belatedly backed the recount.

What is the evidence of a rigged election? There is a vast literature on the web. The evidence is drawn together in a sober and professional report (Shattering the Myth: An Initial Snapshot of Voter Disenfranchisement in the 2004 Elections) by the Election Protection Coalition - a wide coalition of mainstream NGOs with an interest in electoral integrity.

They put the evidence under these headings:
o Registration Processing: quoting tens of thousands of reports
o Absentee Ballots: thousands of reports of people being denied their voting rights.
o Machine Errors: Many reports of electronic voting machines that registered a Republican vote when the democrat button was pushed.
o Voter Suppression : accounts of intimidation and misinformation
o Provisional Ballots : voters not on the register were denied the ability to vote pending confirmation of their right to vote.

The results showed a strange discrepancy between the exit polls and the official tally. Exit polls are usually so accurate that they are used to validate the vote in situations where rigging is expected or suspected. The exit polls gave victory to Kerry. There is always a variance between the exit and the tally; but the variance swung the vote to Bush in a way that is completely inconsistent with a random variation. Efforts to explain it in terms of polling bias are unconvincing. It is significant that this variance was greater when electronic voting machines were used. The design of the machines is coming under intense criticism. It may not be insignificant that Diebold, one of the manufacturers, is a big Republican Party supporter.

The result of these voting irregularities may well have been simply to give Bush a larger margin of victory than would otherwise have been the case. On the other hand, it may be that the presidency should rightfully have gone to John Kerry. Either way, the principles of democracy demand that the integrity of the vote must be upheld, and that requires a full investigation of the irregularities.

Considering that Bush is prepared to kill up to 100,000 people in what he claims is an action to bring "democracy" to Iraq, it is a dark irony that the democratic process in America should have fallen into such disrepute, and it is comforting that the Green Party of America is in the forefront of the struggle to right this great wrong. What is at issue is not so much whether George Bush or John Kerry was elected - there is little to choose between their policies, although Kerry is clearly the better man despite his "flip flops" - but whether the electoral process, which is the core of democracy, was correctly carried out.

It is to the lasting shame of the mainstream media and the statutory authorities that at the time of writing (10 Dec 04) that they have taken little interest in this matter; and it is to the everlasting credit of the volunteers and amateurs who are working on this issue that they are carrying forward the flag of true democracy.

Kathy Dopp is persisting in statistical and technical studies on the flaws in the Amereican electronic voting system. How can we ensure the accuracy of vote counts? is her latest 9July 0 2005) contribution.

US Counts Votes 31.1.2005

Detailing:
· voting machine shortages
· ballots counted and recounted in secret
· lost, discarded, and improperly rejected registration forms and absentee ballots
· touch-screen machines that registered “Bush” when voters pressed “Kerry”
· precincts in which there were more votes recorded than registered voters
· precincts in which the reported participation rate was less than 10%
· high rates of “spoiled” ballots and under-votes in which no choice for president was
· a sworn affidavit by a Florida computer programmer who claims he was hired to
voting program with a “back door” mechanism to undetectably alter vote tallies

Allegation that a Republican Congressman asked a company to create E-Vote fraud software. Dec 7

A report by the Election Protection Coalition

Greens pay $150,000 to file for recount in Ohio Nov 17 (Follow upNov 20th)

Dr Freeman, University of Pennsylvania: fraud is a possibility. Nov 10

Comprehensive analyses of the 2004 election results

The basic technical problems for e-vote software Nov 19

This from the blue lemur site:

"A statistical analysis of exit polling conducted by a former MIT mathematics professor has found the odds of Bush making an average gain of 4.15 percent among all 16 states included in the media’s 4 p.m. exit polling is 1 in 50,000, or .002 percent...."

There are a vast number of references on the American sites about the reliability or otherwise of electronic voting. Have a look at Blackboxvoting.org which is a campaigning site (not blackboxvoting.com, which is not) .

"Black Box Voting has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems. What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud. We are working now to compile the proof, based not on soft evidence -- red flags, exit polls -- but core documents obtained by Black Box Voting in the most massive Freedom of Information action in history."

Here are some other links:

A huge collection of Bush election fraud links

Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

George W. Bush’s vote tallies, especially in the key state of Florida, are so statistically stunning that they border on the unbelievable. Nov 9

Washington Post review of e-voting Nov 3

Nader challenges the result in New Hampshire.

Evidence mounts that the Vote may have been hacked Nov 6

Details of anomalous voting patterns in New Mexico

Once the voting machines counted backwards.

An academic survey of the discrepancy in Florida.

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TThe OSCE and the US elections
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe had the task of overseeing the correctness of the US Presidential election on 2nd November 2004. Their preliminary report was mildly critical of some of the access arrangements for international observers, and commented on the long queues for voters in some precincts. Reading between the lines, it looks as though they were not exactly welcomed with open arms by polling officials wherever they went:

The OSCE observers were able to assess aspects of the pre-election environment and were granted access to polling stations in a number of states, sometimes only in specific counties. The OSCE believes that in order to further enhance transparency and to meet U.S. international commitments, Congress and individual states should consider introducing legal provisions allowing unimpeded access for international observers invited by the U.S. government.

The paragraph quoted above were to be found on the OSCE website in November 2004, although repeated searches were unable to find them in March 2005. No doubt this was due to a faulty search technique.

Their final report, which should examine in detail the allegations of tampering with the electoral computers as well as other evidence of fraud, was due to come out just before Christmas - a very good time to bury bad news, as Jo Moore the New Labour spin doctor said on 9/11. However, Christmas came and went, without a sign of the final OSCE report.

I sent an email on 18th December to Urdur Gunnarsdottir ODIHR Spokesperson, Press and Public Information Adviser, Public Affairs Unit, OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, enquiring when their final report would be due out. She replied "early January". I wrote on the 9th February, pointing out that the OSCE report is now more than a month overdue. Is this normal? Urdur replied "There is an backlog in election reports from last fall. They should all be out by the end of this month".

I wrote again on 28th February, 13th march, 16th March and 18th march to the new Press officer, Richard Murphy ( richard.murphy@osce.org ). The last letter reads:

There is still no final report on the 2/11/2004 US election by the OSCE.. It is now two and a half months overdue. There is a tendency for the human imagination to fill in gaps where information is missing, and there is a tendency to suppose that the OSCE has drawn up its final report, but that the US authorities are objecting to certain passages in the report which refer to unsatisfactory practices and procedures in the election, and that the OSCE, showing exemplary regard for truth, transparency and democracy, are refusing to give way.
Am I wrong?

Nobody likes a conspiracy theory, but the best antidote to imagination is reality. The OSCE should either publish its final report on the US elections, or explain why they cannot publish.
IMHO.

Richard Lawson 11/Nov/2004November 13, 2004