Richardson and 2004 election...

[elizm]

I am wondering if any Richardson supporters have come to terms with Richardson's lack of response to the vote count problem in New Mexico in 2004. Has he explained it in any way that has made you comfortable with it? Call me strange, but I could never support/trust him because of it. Maybe I have missed his explanation to the voters?

Vigil-Giron, along with Governor Bill Richardson, not only stopped any attempt at a recount directly following the election, but demanded that all the machines be wiped clean. This not only concealed evidence of potential fraud but destroyed it. In 2006, New Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled the Secretary of State’s machine-cleaning job illegal — too late to change the outcome of the election, of course.

http://www.gregpalast.com/recipe-for-a-cooked-election/

[rubystar]

1. Richardson and the 2004 election

Ive never seen an apology or even explanation and there are also serious considerations about his appointments, including a judge for our county who drove a DWI offender home from court and then got him off of the offense.

[rox63]

2. This is the main thing that's keeping me from supporting him

He's got one of the best resumes of all the current candidates, with years of experience in both foreign and domestic policy. He's been successful at negotiating between intractable international opponents. But I'm having trouble getting past his inaction on protecting the presidential votes in 2004.

[GregD]

3. Him and HRC as well

While he eventually did the right thing, I was directly in contact with Ellen @ Voters Unite who was involved wiht the challenge in NM. I know exactly how exasperated she and Warren were when he blocked their efforts.

And earlier, I was directly involved in the voting machne fight when Hillary screwed our movement every way possible.

Anyone who cannot be trusted on matters of election integrity has no business being in office, particularly as POTUS.

[Peace Patriot]

4. This is a question that every candidate needs to be asked, repeatedly, until we get

an answer: Do you support rightwing Bushite corporations 'counting' all our votes under a veil of "trade secret," proprietary programming code, or do you support vote counting that everyone can see and understand?

Subsidiary questions: If you voted for, or signed bills in favor of, rightwing Bushite corporations 'counting' all our votes under a veil of "trade secret," proprietary code, please explain your vote or other support. And if you do not support vote counting that everyone can see and understand, how can you call yourself a democrat--small d or big D?

Most Democratic Senators* voted FOR the "Help America Vote for Bush Act" of 2002, and none can have been unaware of the lavish lobbying that Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia were engaged in, to reap the benefit of that $3.9 boondoggle. Also, about half the Democrats in the House voted FOR it. Here's my resume for those corporations:

DIEBOLD: Until recently, headed by Wally O'Dell, a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser (a Bush "Pioneer," right up there with Ken Lay), who promised in writing to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush-Cheney in 2004"; and

ES&S: A spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture), initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation (which touts the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things). Diebold and ES&S have an incestuous relationship; they were run by two brothers, Bob and Tod Urosevich.

These are the people who "counted" 80% of the nation's votes in 2004, under a veil of corporate secrecy.

Also, SEQUOIA: The third major election theft industry player, which hired former Calif Secretary of State Republican Bill Jones, and his chief aide, Alfie Charles, to peddle their machines--an example of the highly corrupt practice of "revolving door" employment. Jones and Charles laid the ground work for the corporate takeover of California elections, then went to work for the industry (direct salary arrangement, as opposed to future salary arrangement).

-----------------------------------------------------------

*(You will be amazed at the two exceptions--Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer voted against HAVA--the ONLY two Democratic Senators who did so. The most probable explanation is not that Clinton and Schumer have any more regard for democracy that the others, but that they were responding to New Yorkers' attachment to their old, reliable and virtually unriggable lever voting machines. One other name to be aware of, in the filthy rotten HAVA story, is Christopher Dodd, who colluded with felons Tom Delay and Bob Ney to push HAVA through the Anthrax Congress. How they got Democrats to vote for this--and in such numbers--and how these lethal voting machines got sold to county election officials and state legislators all over the country, in such a fast-moving coup, is probably the corruption story of the century, bar none.)

[Peace Patriot]

5. As for Richardson, I will never forgive it. Never!

Richardson's behavior around the 2004 recount effort was utterly reprehensible. US soldiers are dead because of him. Our Constitution is in grave peril because of him. He colluded in keeping Bush/Cheney in power, as did every Democratic leader who supported HAVA. But his actions specifically prevented voters from uncovering the heist of the 2004 election in time to do anything about it.

I couldn't fathom his actions at the time. Why would a Democrat want to protect Bush/Cheney's election theft? I remember thinking at the time: well, he's concluded that the country has gone to hell in a fascist coup, and so he's circling the wagons around his little western fiefdom, hoping to retain control there, like some medieval baron. Now he's running for president--as is Christopher Dodd, another key player in the Diebold/ES&S coup. Are they expecting a return favor from Diebold/ES&S?

Let me be clear about this: We may have no choice as to who our presidential candidate is. Diebold/ES&S control the vote "counting" in primaries as well as general elections. Add their "thumb on the scales" for Bushites, warmongers and corporatists to the tremendously filthy campaign money game, and the power of the out-of-control war profiteering corporate news monopolies to write election narratives, and you have a situation in which the voters have scant power--nothing comparable to what they used to have. They can outvote the machines in some cases--as I believe they did in 2006--but if they end up with a choice between a War/Corporate Democrat like Hillary Clinton or a Bilderberg Group stealth candidate like Christopher Dodd, or a sneakier traitor to democracy like Bill Richardson--and some rotter from the Republican Reich, they are NOT going to achieve the national change of course, and the reform, that they so clearly want. And those of us who are leftist (majorityist) activists, and whose beliefs reflect not only the overwhelming majority of the Democratic Party membership, but also the majority of the country, are going to have to decide what to do. Can we/should we work with the Baroness of Arkansas, or the Duke of New Mexico, or the Count of Connecticut, to improve our lot--with the goal of long term work on transparent elections--and to spare the country the kind of left/center fracture that gave rise to Hitler?

It is a difficult problem. I don't have the answer to it. But I do think that answer must include a realistic assessment of our situation, eyes wide open.

[elizm]

6. Wow...thanks for your input...

...Now you have me sufficiently worried/depressed! I have pretty much known/believed all of this about the voting machines, but was hoping at least it wasn't as bad in the primaries...although the 2004 primaries STILL haunt me. Unless the Democrats nominate someone who is ahead by a very LARGE margin in the presidential matchup polls, we will have NO chance of proving that it was stolen....again.

[Peace Patriot]

7. Please don't allow yourself to be depressed by the truth! Our strategies for

recovering our country and our democracy must be based on the truth and the facts. This is most likely a long term project. Our democracy wasn't lost in a day, and likely won't be recovered in a day. But it CAN be recovered. Look what is happening in South America, after decades and centuries of brutal (and often US-backed) oppression: Leftist (majorityist) governments elected in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Also Nicaragua. The keys to those victories...

1. Transparent elections (!)
2. Grass roots organization.
3. Think big.

I would also add patience. Democracy is built from the bottom up. Our leaders to some extent reflect our own negligence and malfeasance as citizens. And when we rise to the challenge of restoring our democracy, we will produce the leaders that we need. In other words, don't depend on some "knight in shining armor" to save us. I fall prey to this myself--hoping this one or that one can succeed in the vicious game of presidential politics. Someone I see the spark of greatness in--like Al Gore. The new FDR. The "who would I vote for?" game (or "who would I vote for enthusiastically"?). But we really have much work to do before those choices are improved. And we must--we really MUST--deal with the corruption in our own Party--starting with the Diebold/ES&S coup--to be able to change the country's course. This may have to happen in an organic, diffused, grass roots sort of way: citizen movements in counties and states, to put max pressure on local election officials, or to force them somehow to COUNT THE VOTES even if we can't loosen their corrupt grip on their shiny new election theft machines. A ballot for every vote; handcount the ballots and post the results BEFORE any electronics are involved. We might start with the Absentee Ballots--and get them counted for real, as a check against the machine totals. (There was huge surge in AB voting in '06--a voters' revolt, really. Up to 50% in some places. This is a big constituency for transparent vote counting.)

Always think practically. How can we get our democracy back? What should we do? What are our levers of power? Don't think: depression, disempowerment, demoralization, disenfranchisement. Think Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King. Think long term. Think of our STURDY TRADITION OF DEMOCRACY. And think about the American people, and that 75% who want the war ended. What can we do to help this great peace-minded, progressive people understand what has happened, and reverse it?

If the South Americans can do it--with all that they have suffered--so can we!

[elizm]

8. Question....

Why do you think Kerry gave up so easily and didn't fight for Ohio?

[Peace Patriot]

9. Because the DNC (Terry McAuliffe) didn't have his back, and had in fact sold out

whoever the nominee would be in 2004, and the voters and the American people, by its mind-boggling silence--and collusion--in the cancerous spread of Diebold/ES&S "trade secret" voting systems during the 2002 to 2004 period. Kerry was facing a Diebold (s)elected, Bush "pod people" Congress. What hope did he have of winning such a challenge--against a Bush "pod people" Congress AND a very hostile corporate media--without strong backing by other Democrats? McAuliffe & Co. advised him to concede, as I think was planned (in order to keep the war going). Another name to remember in this utter betrayal of American democracy is Christopher Dodd, who helped felons Tom Delay and Bob Ney to engineer the electronic voting coup (the "Help America Vote for Bush Act" of 2002). Dodd also advised Kerry that the new voting machines were reliable. Dodd is now running for president. And don't be surprised if this "dark horse"--with no visible constituency for a presidential run--does well in some early primaries, or even ends up as "our" candidate (or as Hillary's VP).

Also, I believe that James Carvelle called Karl Rove (or did so through Mary Matelin, his Bushite wife) to alert Rove to Kerry's inclination to challenge the Ohio vote, and Rove then likely called the Bushite Sec of State, Kenneth Blackwell, to revise the probable outcome of the Provisional ballot count. This was the Bushites' ace-in-the-hole. They had unfairly challenged thousands of black and other Democratic voters at the polling place and forced them to vote on easily tossable Provisional ballots. Sorry, don't have a cite for this. Read it here at DU. I believe it's a pretty solid story. Kerry then said there weren't enough votes at issue in Ohio. But that was not the truth. It depended entirely on what criteria were used to count them.

But I think the most important thing was that the Democratic leadership was not behind him. I think the McAuliffe DNC threw the 2004 election--by their support for electronic voting, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, and their failure to lift one goddamned finger to stop the massive vote suppression in Ohio, Florida and other places. You may recall that it was Democrat Bill Richardson who stopped the recount in New Mexico. This was "the word" from on high. They drew an "Iron Curtain" over any talk of election fraud--though the 2004 election was massively fraudulent, everywhere you look.

You might call Kerry cowardly for not fighting on anyway, or you might call him a realist, depending on how you feel about Kerry. I'm not sure what to think of Kerry. I don't think he is personally corrupt. And I have always thought him intelligent. Why then didn't he look into Diebold/ES&S's "trade secret" coup for himself? He voted FOR it. I don't know if he knew they were throwing the election. I do think he was conscious of the role he was supposed to play, after Dean was eliminated by the phony "scream" tape (they edited out the background noise that he was trying to shout over, to his supporters). Dean was very antiwar, was also going to attack the bloated military budget, and came out for busting up the corporate news monopolies just before they did him in. Kerry's role, I think, was to downplay the war, torture and military budget policies, to insure that, if he were elected, the US military would remain ensconced in the Middle East. Remember, Kerry basically said he was for a more efficient war. He didn't say it was wrong, unjust, based on lies, unconstitutional and a heinous war crime(the truth). He said the Bushites were blowing it. He played his role, but I don't know if he knew that he was slated for defeat. You see, whatever Kerry said, the voters (most of them) were actually voting to end the war. 56% of the American people opposed the war FROM THE BEGINNING (Feb. '03). And people were flocking to the Democratic Party in 2004, to end the war (and the torture, which was exposed in May '04--when polls were showing 63% of the American people opposed to torture "under any circumstances"). The Democrats--or, rather, the grass roots Democrats--blew the Republicans away in new voter registration in 2004, nearly 60/40. Why? Only big issues move people in such numbers. Unjust war. Vast corruption. They wanted Bush out, and the war ended. And if they had been permitted to elect Kerry, Kerry would have been beholden to THEM--to the People--as much as to the power brokers and war profiteers. Can't have that.

So, when it came down it--on 11/3/04--and Kerry saw the Democratic Party leadership crumbling behind him, and the power of the Bushite machine in Ohio, and maybe had only just begun to think about the Diebold/ES&S coup (if his wife's remarks are any guide), he gave up. He had been something of a tool to dampen the antiwar sentiment in the country anyway. He was no "knight in shining armor"--willing to sacrifice any future prospects in a bloody and doomed street battle for democracy. He failed us. But we probably should not have expected a champion from this very corrupt political system. It was not entirely one man's fault. Never is. He was embedded in a system that wanted war, no matter the cost to our country, our Constitution and our democracy.

[AtomicKitten]

10. If your theory is true (edited)

... will you blame Howard Dean if EVM fraud isn't dealt with before 2008?

"Serving as chairman of the party when you don't have the White House, and you don't have the House, and you don't have the Senate, is the toughest job in the country," Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) told The Washington Post. "Thanks to Terry McAuliffe, we are ready to lead this country, we're ready to change this nation and I thank him for his leadership."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14038-2004Jul25.html

I don't think it is reasonable to blame one person for EVM fraud. It is a pervasive problem that can only be solved legislatively. I think McAullife did a good job by making the party solvent for the first time in decades and by modernizing and computerizing the party that really gave Dean something to build on. I know it's unheard of here at DU, but I think both men have done a great job as DNC Chair.

Again I ask, will you blame Dean if there is rampant election fraud in 2008?

on edit:

There was tension between Kerry and McAullife, as an example Kerry being po'd at McAullife for accusing Bush of being AWOL. McAullife is the bare knuckles kind of guy in elections, and Kerry's strategy was playing nice, not fighting back against the Swift Boat Liars, and scrubbing speeches at the 2004 Dem National Convention to include only happy talk and no Bush-bashing.

There is much, much more to why Kerry isn't in the White House than people let on here at DU.

WOODRUFF: But as you know, reporters are being told anonymously, but by people right there on the Kerry staff that they're not happy with Terry McAuliffe, that he shouldn't have accused President Bush of having been AWOL in the National Guard and so forth. I mean, those comments are being made to reporters.

SHAHEEN: Well, those are not comments that I've heard. And you know, there's a lot that appears in print in an election year, that appears on television, and we're -- we're interested in working closely with the Democratic National Committee, and with all of the Democrats who are going to be appearing on the ticket.

WOODRUFF: So you expect Terry McAuliffe will stay where he is?

SHAHEEN: I would expect Terry McAuliffe to stay where he is.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0403/04/ip.00.html

[elizm]

11. Wow, again...

I came to Democratic Underground right after the 2004 elections, because I knew it had been stolen and found the Election Reform board (called something else then) and spent hours there...So I know what you say is true. I do find it hard to believe that Kerry was naive enough to believe Dodd when he told him the machines were okay when EVEN I knew they weren't. I can't tell you how many times the Democratic Party emailed me asking for money and I told them I would send money as soon as they did something about the voting machines...which of course they never did. And I also wonder if there was more to Dean's elimination than just the scream. I guess you and I are part of the group called tinfoil hatters back then...but there was just too much out there, with so many players...and the dots never got connected. Karl Rove just underestimated the size of the tsunami in 2006...but he won't let that happen next time.

[Orangepeel]

12. I'm supporting Edwards. BUT, I like Richardson and this doesn't bother me

I suppose that, theoretically, Richardson could have tried to order the SOS not to put the machines away. But I don't understand what possible good that would have done.

The problem with the machines is that THEY DON'T KEEP A RECORD! Auditing them would have produced exactly the same result as the audit in Florida in Christine Jennings' race. A confirmation of the fact that a lot of votes seemed to disappear. But yeah. We know that. The original vote tally showed that clearly. (and, based on that evidence, New Mexico reformed its voting process).

Preserving the integrity of the vote is worth time and lots of money (even if it is unclear who would pay for it, which it was in New Mexico's case), but I fail to see how this would have done anything for the integrity of the vote. Because there was no paper trail, there were no votes to count. I understand that New Mexico officials didn't want to spend taxpayer money for the realization that, "yep. the machines fucked up!" when it was already clear that the machines fucked up. An audit of nothing would not have been able to prove fraud vs fuckup, just like it wasn't able to in Florida.

What DOES do something are the reforms that Richardson put in place since then. New Mexico is now a model and Richardson has done more to protect the vote than any other elected official in the country. So, I give him credit for that.

[snowbear]

13. It doesn't bother me because Senator Kerry did NOT request a recount .. AND...

.. every time this is brought up on here, as it was last night (same allegation, different poster) DU'ers that know a lot more about the election in NM than I'll ever know, come along and explain exactly what happened.

Last night both Seasat and Skipos both elequently explained (again ) the entire story of the NM election and the fact that Senator Kerry did not request a recount.

If Senator Kerry had asked and had been denied.. then I'd be pissed too!

But that's not what happened.

I agree with you orangepeel ~

[seasat]

14. Thanks for the props larissa, that post is now in my journal.

Here's a link to it.

Another point is that they didn't stop the recount. They required the Green and Libertarian parties to put up a bond to cover the cost of the recount before they proceeded with it. This bond requirement was upheld by all the NM courts.

[AtomicKitten]

15. thanks for this clarification

there is too much unsubstantiated lore and blaming at DU