89% believe Election Fraud Should be #1 Issue on Kos

[freedomfries]

Do you believe that election fraud by the GOP...

is a myth 8 votes - 1 %
happens sometimes, but the Dems do it too 20 votes - 4 %
isn't widespread enough to change national election results 15 votes - 3 %
stole the '04 election and will steal '06 and '08 if we don't do something about it

383 votes - 89 %

426 Total Votes
View Comments | 91 comments
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/25/10338/456

[yurbud]

1. kick and rec--vote this one up!

[In Truth We Trust]

24. Paper ballots NOW!!! Hand counts NOW!!! k&r

[nashville_brook]

2. we *still* want answers -- it's not going away -- MUST SEE

k 'n r and all that.

[JohnnyCougar]

3. Biased poll

It's in a diary about election fraud, so the majority of people reading it are likely concerned about election fraud. The respondents are not randomly chosen, and therefore that is not a representative sample.

Nevertheless, we do need to improve the election process in this country drastically. I'm not discounting the fact that it is important. But I doubt the statement "89% believe Election Fraud Should be #1 Issue on Kos" is a true statement.

[freedomfries]

4. results are stunning

I beg to disagree Johnny! Considering the fact that the topic has been declared a non issue by kos and users discussing it threatened from banishment, these results are quite stunning. They bring to light the wide gap between the general level of awareness of the problem and people's fears to openly express their views. How many dare call 2004 stolen? Notice that many more people voted than commented openly on the tabu issue.

[freedomfries]

5. 89% = now 549 out of 612 participants

[JohnnyCougar]

6. But the poll is still not representative.

The people who don't care about the issue simply won't click on the diary and vote in the poll.

I'm sorry, but part of my future career is in the correct interpretation of statistics and surveys. It is not scientifically grounded to report that 89% of Kos thinks it is the most important issue, since the poll respondents have not been randomly sampled. Respondents have self-selected themselves into the sample, thereby discrediting the results of the poll. The only interperetable number in that poll is the sheer number of responses, and not the percentage, because it can be assumed that people who would vote "it is not important" wouldn't even want to read the diary in the first place.

[Awsi Dooger]

17. Very true

My job is in statistics, albeit sports statistics. This is akin to walking into a casino, polling the people on whether they gamble, and then presenting that percentage as representative of the populous. The only political threads I basically ignore on DU are the conspiracy threads, so any poll included in those would not have my vote. Also, there should be another option in that Kos poll, whether the GOP fraud is machine-oriented or limited to traditional theft like registration suppression and vote suppression. That's how I'd vote.

[buddysmellgood]

7. Done

[IndyOp]

8. I am suprised - Kos has completely dissed all election fraud

'conspiracy theorists' - which explains why I do not go there.

On edit: Johnny Cougar is right - if posted in election fraud forum on Kos, then it is biased.

I think you should run the exact same poll in GD here at DU --

:(

[wakemewhenitsover]

14. Kos was tin-foil hat accuser. Total turn-off. Haven't gone there since.

[yurbud]

25. name-calling isn't evidence

If you heard about this stuff going on somewhere else, you would think it was at least possibly true, and in fact the Bush administration made these kind of charges of vote manipulation in the Ukraine, going as far as to compare the vote count and exit polls, exactly the evidence people were discussing here.

[wakemewhenitsover]

32. I think Repubs planted "tin-foil" charges -- what's Kos's excuse?

[goforit]

9. Quite frankly I believe Wag the dog of the World trade Center is #1.

[pat_k]

10. A couple "to do" items not included in the KOS post

A couple "to do" items not included in the KOS post.

Item 1
Help to get "Trustworthy Elections" on EVERY issues list. Tragically, a vast majority of the organizations like the Center for American Progress or the National Priorities Project fail to include trustworthy elections as a priority. I don't recall ever seeing trustworthy elections or election reform on any of those "What is most important to you" polls.

This is insanity. Until it is on every list, right up there with "health care" or "the environment," suspect elections will continue to destroy our ability to find solutions to ANY of our common problems.

If we make enough noise, the organizations fighting for us on other fronts will make the fight for Trustworthy Elections a top priority. The ACLU now includes "voting rights" on it's list (amazingly, it was not there a few months ago), but this is about our right to have Confidence in the results of our elections; our right to Trustworthy Elections. Our right to vote is meaningless if we do not enforce our right to have confidence.

The time has come for an Election Revolt (reform is far too weak). If you care about preserving the consent of the governed – our founding principle – please call, write, and fax the organizations that still don't get it. Take a look and see if the organizations you support have joined the fight. If they haven't, make some noise.

Related Post: Post #2576 on TableTalk’s Grand Theft Presidency Discussion.

Item 2
Check out the FREE PUBLIC SERVICE VERSION of "Votergate: The Presidential Election Special Edition" (Movie Links). Host showings for others. Visit www.votergatethemovie.com or votergate.org (alternate links to the same promotional site)

Watch for the upcoming DVD/Theatrical release and help promote it.

Status as of October 2005:

Recently completed additional shoots in Washington DC, New York, Ohio, Florida, and California. Editing on the 90 minute feature version moves into high gear.

[Peace Patriot]

12. There is one basic fact that needs to be stressed again and again, and

that is that two Bushite corporations--Diebold and ES&S--tabulated 80% of the votes in 2004 using "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, with not even a paper trail in one third of the country (let alone a real paper ballot backup), and woefully inadequate audit/recount procedures everywhere.

Our election system is not just untrustworthy, it is NON-TRANSPARENT. There is no basis for confidence or trust. Trust shouldn't enter into it anyway. Either the votes are counted in a public manner in a way that every voter can understand, or they are not. And if they are not, then it is a fraudulent election SYSTEM. And, without a transparent election system, we do not have a democracy.

[pat_k]

30. Absolutely! Not open to scrutiny = NO CONFIDENCE

Absolutely!

Perhaps I should have included one of my standard blurbs on confidence. Here it is (derived from our Declaration of Intent):

The voting systems and practices used in the conduct of our elections are so flawed that the results in every state are wide open to corruption by systematic vote suppression, data manipulation, human and machine error, and consequently, willful fraud. Demonstrable errors and anomalous patterns of result in this past election rendered all "official" tallies suspect. More tragically, systems and processes implemented by "experts" have made it impossible for us to rule out corruption.

We have the right to have confidence that we are being afforded free and fair elections for our government officials. This is a right that no other consideration can supersede. A free and fair election is one in which all citizens have been afforded equal access and opportunity to cast their vote and have that vote accurately counted. A free and fair election is conducted in a manner that instills confidence in the results.

Transparency of the count is mandatory, but there is more to a trustworthy election than open and accurate tabulation (e.g., Our elections must afford all citizens equal access and opportunity to cast their vote -- and that includes simple, accurate, and verifiable means to qualify or register. You can't count votes that are not cast.)

For more thoughts on "what we require" see:

Burden of Proof in an Election (also available in MS Word format)

Restoring Sanity, Point-by-Point (also in (MS Word format)

Declaration of Intent at http://thedeanpeople.com

A Final Recommendation

Anther item I would add to the two in my orginal post

Whenever you communicate with office holders, office seekers, or their staff on this, ALWAYS make the point that our broken elections activate people like no other issue. It's a problem of circularity. Because it is not on the list of "standard issues," the level of concern goes unmeasured. This leads to the mistaken belief that people are not concerned. When the topic is raised, it becomes clear how mistaken this belief is. In nearly any group, any reference to our broken elections elicits a powerful response.

Although it continues to be a taboo subject, the Stolen Election of 2000 has been by far the primary source of renewed energy on the left for the past 5 years. Any politician who stands and fights for a revolution in how we conduct our elections will tap into this "mother lode" of energy and support. There is NO down side to taking the lead in the fight to preserve the consent of the governed -- our founding principle. Incremental reform be damned. Any leader who fights for our right to have confidence in our elections, no if's ands or buts, will have activists coming out of the woodwork to support them. Standing on principle always inures to the benefit of the leader who does so. As President Clinton says, people will always choose "strong and wrong" over "weak and right."

[pat_k]

31. With 26 votes, why isn't this topic showing up on the greatest page?

This topic is not displayed on the Greatest page. I don't have any threads hidden. Do others see it (i.e., it this just an anamoly on my machine?)

[pat_k]

11. 822 votes -- 90% (recommended n/t)

[WilliamPitt]

13. Can't even get 400 people to vote?

Meh.

[IndyOp]

20. Actually, 859 people have voted, and it is still biased...

And, if anyone is wondering how biased 'bias can be' I like to send my statistics students off to look at this nice summary on MSNBC --

How 1,000 people can be more representative than 200,000

One week in the middle of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, more than 200,000 people took part in an MSNBC Live Vote that asked whether President Clinton should leave office. Seventy-three percent said yes. That same week, an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll found that only 34 percent of about 2,000 people who were surveyed thought so. To explain the vast gap in the numbers in this and other similar cases, it is necessary to look at the difference in the two kinds of surveys.

POLLS
Journalists use polls to gauge what the public is thinking. The most statistically accurate picture is captured by using a randomly selected sample of individuals within the group that is being targeted, typically adult Americans.

ONLINE SURVEYS
In contrast, MSNBC's online surveys (Live Votes) may reflect the views of far more individuals, but they are not necessarily representative of the general population.

To begin with, the people who respond choose to do so — they are not randomly selected and asked to participate, but instead make the choice to read a story about a certain topic and then vote on a related question. <snip>

[dutchdemocrat]

15. Daily Kos is anti-Chavez by proxy

Armando, main front pager, uses Kos as a tool against Chavez

Fair enough - freedom of speech and all but that pisses me right off.

Join a real democratic version of daily kos from some of the most popular diarists from Kos at

http://www.politicalcortex.com/

Members vote the diaries up to the front page - rather than a small group at the top of the pecking order - which is more Democratic in nature.

[dutchdemocrat]

16. Just to make a point.

http://www.politicalcortex.com

Vision

What if there was a place you could go where you were the star of the show -- where the voice of the community shared the front page with the site’s full-time writers?

What if you there was a place where you could not only contribute your own views but also help to determine the content produced by the community as a whole? What if this place ran like a Democracy?

What if there was a place where higher thought and mutual respect combined with a culture of independent, investigative journalism to present a new paradigm in online netroots media?

And what if there was a place that put together a talented group of core bloggers – and then nudged them to the side to make room for the voice of the community within which they gathered?

These are the questions we asked ourselves. And this site is our response.

We hope Political Cortex can be that place.



Originality

The first thought that probably pops into many people’s heads is, “What makes Political Cortex any different form all the rest?” That’s a valid question, and one we considered when putting this site together.

That’s why we strove to remove the community from the periphery and placed it center stage on the front page.

That’s why we implemented a Blog Democracy via a special community editing and voting process unique to the political blogosphere.

That’s why we’ve incorporated new and original features such as Keyword Tags, advanced diary voting, and “Quick Posting”.

And that’s why we hope to foster a culture of journalistic Independence that inspires a new generation of bold truth-seekers.



People

Although Political Cortex will be driven by the powerful voice of the Cortex community, it will also have the benefit of a remarkably talented group of core writers to set the journalistic standard and provide structure to the Cortex’s otherwise free-form environment.

The founders, whose vision has guided the creation of Political Cortex, include:
Devilstower ColdFusion04 Hermod Sdf
Bill Hare Drew Johnston mcjoan SusanG
Bob Kendall Frederick Clarkson NYBri Tom Ball
Btyarbro Georgia10 S. M. Dixon

[bpilgrim]

18. i thought that topic was FORBIDDEN as CT on kos ;-)

:shrug:

peace

[NMMNG]

19. 857 votes - 90% yes

Do you believe that election fraud by the GOP...

is a myth 21 votes - 2 %
happens sometimes, but the Dems do it too 36 votes - 4 %
isn't widespread enough to change national election results 25 votes - 2 %
stole the '04 election and will steal '06 and '08 if we don't do something about it 775 votes - 90 %

[AuntiBush]

21. Election Fraud should be Nu 1 Issue Everywhere

Note to Congress & MSN: Investigate widespread voting fraud, please.

[freedomfries]

22. kick

775 truthsayers on kos - a mutiny!

[Stevepol]

23. I suspect the poll is a pretty good reflection of Dem sentiment.

Polls I've heard cited supposedly say that about 35-40% of Americans believe that the results of elections cannot be trusted, that there is likely fraud in other words. Haven't seen the polls so I don't know the exact wording of the poll.

If this is true, then that would translate into about the right percentage of Dems. Dems = about 50% of Americans so that would mean that abouut 70% or higher of Dems believe that elections are untrustworthy and being stolen. This is the sub-group accessing Kos, even knowing that Kos had dissed those who claim fraud for the 04 election. The 89% might be slightly high, but it's not beyond what you might reasonably expect.

[yurbud]

26. 90% 885 votes

[Independent_Liberal]

27. Done and kick!

[sagesnow]

28. Done. n/t

[farmbo]

29. Final results from Ohio SOS Office: only 8%of Kossaks fear election fraud.

:shrug: