Greg Palast on AM Joy yesterday

[octoberlib]

Greg Palast said on AM Joy today after just having spoke with Bob Fitrakis, one of the two lawyers leading the recount effort for Jill Stein:

It’s not about Russia’s hacking. It’s not about playing games with the software. It’s about machines that were miscalibrated. It’s about the fact that we have about a half million absentee ballots in America which is thrown out for highly technical and questionable reasons. It’s 2.7 million so-called provisional ballots when, especially African-Americans, go in and their name is missing from the voter rolls and they're given a provisional ballot which is then thrown in the dumpster. It’s about ballots that are supposedly blank but in fact have a mark on them and need to be reviewed. It’s about machines that are off by one-hundredth of an inch and don’t read a mark on a ballot. It’s about ninety-percent turnouts in rural Trump areas which is just astonishing and unreal. It’s about blank ballots which may not be blank. You have to look at…..this is a technical process, forget the hacking stuff, forget the conspiracy stuff, forget Russians, this recount...this review of the ballots and decisions about which ballots are being thrown out and disqualified by the tens of thousands swamps Trump’s plurality in several states....

http://m.dailykos.com/stories/1604397

[uponit7771]

1. Yeap, Voter suppression efforts taking full effect. FUCK GOP they can kiss my black ass till I die!!

Fuck them and they mama dog !!!

[octoberlib]

2. 1million!

[triron]

3. I did send Rachel an email about this when Joy was subbing for her.

[stopbush]

4. Wouldn't much of that effect both candidates equally?

[uponit7771]

5. It would matter WHERE it would take place, the USDA kept blacks and Hispanics from rural areas

... of the country on purpose via redlining.

[Retrograde]

8. What does the Department of Agriculture have to do with this?

And what does redlining - a (I hope) former practice of banks to deny mortgages in certain areas - have to do with a general election? Now, gerrymandering does play a big role in who gets elected to Congress and to state legislatures, but one would think its effect would not be as evident in processes that take place at county levels (like running the elections, for example) or statewide.

And surely the 40% plus of the registered voters who didn't bother to show up bear some of the blame.

[uponit7771]

9. It was former till around 2000, also if they can effect the provisionals of he urban areas more than

.. the rural they can turn votes easily

[triron]

6. Unrealistically high turnout in rural areas.

How does that affect both candidates equally?
Provisional ballots favor minority voters.

[uponit7771]

10. Yeap, I've stated it looks like the rural voting population increased by 3.5% across the board...

... and that in and of itself looks off.

I think Obama made a hedge statement on the integrity of the vote that read go full speed ahead... seeing if the vote is off and looks tampered with then he can say he's "shocked"

anyone else starting to think this could be a great trap for the people who fuck with elections in those rural areas?

I don't know... DPutin is a fuckin nightmare... I would love for him and his assholes to be put in jail

[octoberlib]

7. Ever heard of Kris Kobach's Interstate Crosscheck?

It purges Black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian voters from rolls based on their last names and is used extensively in red states. North Carolina had 6700 black voters purged through vote caging (that we know of) . If the Democrats are doing anything on this scale with say, old white people in rural areas, I haven't heard about it. Doesn't mean they haven't done it , though.

[KewlKat]

14. Palast said yesterday it could have been as many as 100,000 but no less than 35,000

that were purged in NC.

[Fast Walker 52]

17. yes, it's insane, and I'm so glad to hear this getting proper attention

[stopbush]

12. Just to be clear, I was asking about the following (and I quote):

* It’s about machines that were miscalibrated.

*It’s about the fact that we have about a half million absentee ballots in America which is thrown out for highly technical and questionable reasons.

*It’s about ballots that are supposedly blank but in fact have a mark on them and need to be reviewed.

* It’s about machines that are off by one-hundredth of an inch and don’t read a mark on a ballot.

*It’s about blank ballots which may not be blank.

How does any of that favor one candidate over the other?

[still_one]

11. Palast may have a point here, but he was saying a similar thing about California during the

primary that provisional ballots were being thrown out, and that is simply false.

California counts ALL its ballots, including the provisional ones that have been validated as to registered voter and has not voted twice.

In other words, Palast was either intentionally lying about the way California counts its ballots, or was just talking out of his ass.

I do not know what other states do, but here in California they count ALL the ballots.

[Mr.Bill]

18. This is correct.

That is why votes are still being counted in California.

[mackdaddy]

21. I do not know if this is still correct, but In the 2004 Ohio recount

I understood that if the number of provisional ballots were supposedly smaller than the difference between the candidates that they would NOT then be opened and counted because the total could not change the eventual winner. Thus supposedly saving labor hours for the BOE districts.

I always thought that they should count every ballot, and send a notice to everyone who cast a provisional ballot that was NOT found valid, which they also were not doing.

Sorry, been too many years for a source, but this is the argument Palast is putting forth."

By the way a recount was often just running the paper ballots back through the same optic scanners, or re-printing the totals from the touch screen machines. Here in SE Ohio my county uses touch screen Diebold machines with an internal "toilet paper" printout of each ballot. My understanding is that current recounts just run machine total printouts again, and that no one actually compares it to the toilet paper roll printout.

Again, my understanding, not gospel.

[dragonlady]

22. This is what the Wisconsin recount manual says about these points

The provisional ballots will be examined to find whether all voters who submitted the required information had their ballots counted.

For optical scan ballots, the board of canvassers in each county can choose to hand count or use the machine (with a different memory device). Representatives of the candidates can observe each ballot as it is hand counted or put into the machine. If they feel the ballot may not be counted correctly by the machine or have some other objection, the ballot is set aside for the board of canvassers to decide on voter intent and count separately by hand.

For direct record electronic machines, the votes on the paper tape should be recorded on two separate tally sheets that are then compared for accuracy.

[still_one]

23. California will count them regardless how close the results are. All states should

[KewlKat]

13. Here was my post on this yesterday morning.

I had recorded the show and transcribed it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=2627755

What KOS post didn't mention was - Greg also said

This is the secret, the hidden secret of American democracy, we don’t count millions of votes.

He says the reason the exit polls are off is that we tell them how we vote, but for multiple reasons, unknown to us, our vote is disqualified and that's why the exit polls didn't match the votes counted.

He also stated that -

Disqualified ballots is the real purpose of this recount.

[octoberlib]

15. I missed your post yesterday. Thanks for the link!

[Fast Walker 52]

16. I sure hope they find those votes in the recount!

[Arazi]

19. Wait, Greg Palast is on the Russian propaganda list!!11!

Lol

[bucolic_frolic]

20. I'd be very concerned about the rural ballots

Rural clans thrive for hundreds of years. They are the authority there - often
the professionals in everything - civil, legal, businesses of all types - you can't
do much without them. In some places, surely, some of these folks can make
anything happen - from rezoning to asset sales to mail diversions.

My sense is they should be looking for a replicable system of ballot box
stuffing, either for voters who never voted and didn't vote this time and
don't know it. There is a reason for all those campaign rallies in tiny towns
that are about as important as mud.

And campaigns bring the so-called 'walking around money'. Motivate the
party faithful and the populace.