From Josh Marshall:

Just off the AP wire, the real story on Drudge's bogus Philly voter fraud story ...

An army of zealous, partisan political operatives descended on polling locations around the state Tuesday, looking for any signs of voting irregularities, and election officials planned to spend the day investigating fraud allegations.

Republican observers in Philadelphia lodged some of the earliest complaints, claiming that voting machines in the city already had thousands of votes recorded on them when the polls opened at 7 a.m.

City election officials and the district attorney rushed to some of the precincts in question, and quickly said the GOP poll watchers had gotten it wrong.

Deputy City Commissioner Ed Schulgen and Cathie Abookire, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Lynne Abraham, said the observers had pulled the numbers from an odometer that records every vote ever cast on the machine in every election - and not the counter that records how many votes will be counted for this election.

"It's absolutely ridiculous," Schulgen said.

Ridiculous or not, rumors of widespread fraud quickly made their way on to the Internet and circulated nationally.

Of course, it didn't 'make its way' onto the Internet. It was planted there as part of the Republicans' battle plan today. And how surprising that these good souls just happened to misread the machines in the heavily African-American neighborhoods in Philly. Imagine that.

Democracy starts at home.

A later entry from marshall says Fox is continuing to run this story as if it were true even though it was debunked early this afternoon. So what else is new?

Heard on the Randi Rhodes Show from West Palm Beach:

1) A caller from Ohio said that despite a court order to the contrary, Ralph Nader was on the ballot. Any ballot which shows a vote for Nader will therefore not be counted.

2) Florida e-voting machines are reported to be playing the same game we reported last week: choosing Kerry turns out to be a Bush vote if you review what's been entered on your pages. Didn't say which brand of machine it was. eSlate, anyone?

3) Other e-voting problems with a percentage, apparently small, of machine failures.

4) Waiting lines everywhere, with voters lining up an hour or more before the polls opened.

5) Republican 'poll-watchers' in Ohio are challenging anyone who has moved since they registered. One election official in Cleveland got so angry with the constant bogus challenges that he got into a screaming match with the Pub.

6) Absentee ballots in Florida didn't arrive in the mail until yesterday.

7) Minority voters were shuffled from one polling place to another in an effort to discourage them from voting. In some cases, the shifting-around meant that it took up to four hours and car or bus trips outside their districts before they were finally allowed to cast their ballots.

8) MoveOn.org had to close down some of its voter-help operations because they're being sued by the RNC for 'harrassment'.

9) What's with the internet today? I keep getting kicked off every hour or so, and I have DSL--that NEVER happens. A year I've had it and it never happened. Whassup wid dat?

11/1/04

Friends,

This is it. ONE DAY LEFT. There are many things I’d like to say. I’ve been on the road getting out the vote for 51 straight days so I haven’t had much time to write. So I’ve put together a bunch of notes to various groups all in this one letter. Please feel free to copy and send whatever portions are appropriate to your friends and family as you spend these last 24 hours trying to convince whomever you can to show up and vote for John Kerry.

Here are my final words…

To Decent Conservatives and Recovering Republicans:

In your heart of hearts you know Bush is a miserable failure. From having no plan on what to do in Iraq once he conquered Baghdad to the 380 missing tons of explosives that could be used to kill our brave young men and women, this guy doesn’t have a clue how to fight and win a war. You should see the mail I’ve been getting lately from our troops over there. They know how much the Iraqi people hate them. They are sitting ducks anytime they go out on the road. Many believe we are not that far away from a Tet-style offensive inside the Green Zone with hundreds of Americans and Brits killed.
Bush refused to go after and capture Osama bin Laden. He fought, every step of the way, the investigation into the 9/11 attacks. Who on earth would oppose such a thing? If 3,000 people died at your place of work and your boss said we don’t need to find out why or how it happened, he’d be thrown out on his ear. Bush’s behavior after this great tragedy alone is reason enough for his removal.
You already know that George W. Bush is the farthest thing from a conservative. He’s a reckless spender who has run up record-breaking deficits and the biggest debt in our history. He believes in having the government pry into everything from your library records to your bedroom. He has hit you with hidden taxes with his tax cuts for the rich.
I know many of you don’t like Bush, but are unsure of Kerry. Give the new guy a chance. He won’t raise your taxes (unless you are super-rich), he won’t take your hunting gun away, and he won’t make you visit France. He risked his life for you many years ago. He’s asking for the chance to do it again. Scott McConnell at The American Conservative magazine has endorsed him. What more do you need?

To My Friends on the Left:

Okay, Kerry isn’t everything you wished he would be. You’re right. He’s not you! Or me. But we’re not on the ballot – Kerry is. Yes, Kerry was wrong to vote for authorization for war in Iraq but he was in step with 70% of the American public who was being lied to by Bush & Co. And once everyone learned the truth, the majority turned against the war. Kerry has had only one position on the war – he believed his president.
President Kerry had better bring the troops home right away. My prediction: Kerry’s roots are anti-war. He has seen the horrors of war and because of that he will avoid war unless it is absolutely necessary. Ask most vets. But don’t ask someone whose only horror was when he arrived too late for a kegger in Alabama.
There’s a reason Bush calls Kerry the Number One Liberal in the Senate – THAT’S BECAUSE HE IS THE NUMBER ONE LIBERAL IN THE SENATE! What more do you want? My friends, this is about as good as it gets when voting for the Democrat. We don’t have the #29 Liberal running or the #14 Liberal or even the #2 Liberal – we got #1! When has that ever happened?
Those of us who may be to the left of the #1 liberal Democrat should remember that this year conservative Democrats have had to make a far greater shift in their position to back Kerry than we have. We’re the ones always being asked to make the huge compromises and to always vote holding our noses. No nose holding this time. This #1 liberal is not the tweedledee to Bush’s tweedledum.

To Nader Voters:

See the above note.
Ralph’s own party, the Green Party, would not endorse his run this year. That’s because those of us who want to build a third party in this country know that the only way to do this is to build bridges with those who believe in the issues Nader believes in. But not one of those people will sacrifice the chance to remove George W. Bush from the White House on Tuesday. The choice here is clear: do we join with our friends, or do we piss on them?
After the debacle of 2000, the Democrats got smart and abandoned the conservative wing of their party. That’s why 8 of the 9 Democrats in the primaries this year were from the liberal wing. Ralph should take credit for that and declare victory. It’s so sad that he doesn’t realize the good he’s accomplished. But for reasons only known to him, he’s more angry at the Democrats than he is at Bush. He has lost his compass. I worry he has lost his mind. But he still gives a great speech!
And Lila Lipscomb, the mother from Flint who lost her son in Iraq, she still grieves -- as do the mothers of 1,120 others (not to mention the mothers of the 100,000 Iraqis who have died because of Bush’s war). That’s what this election is about. Not Ralph proving some point. Almost none of us on his 2000 advisory group are supporting him this year. His total lack of respect for his best friends should tell all of you something about what he really thinks of you, too.

To the Non-Swing States:

Stop listening to how your vote doesn’t count in this election and that your state is already decided for Kerry or Bush. It is critical that you vote because we not only need to give Kerry the electoral win, but he needs to have a HUGE mandate with an ENORMOUS popular vote victory as well. It will be impossible for him to get anything done for four years if there is no clear mandate. We must not only defeat Bush, we must put a stake in the heart of the right-wing, neo-con movement. If you live in New York, California, Illinois, Texas, the Northeast or the Deep South, you need to vote and you need to bring ten people with you to the polls. If you live in a state where we have the chance to elect the Democrat to the Senate or the House, you need to vote. Turn off the TV. Quit listening to news media that has a vested interest in repeating to you over and over that your vote does not count. It does.
If you have friends or relatives who live in the 30-plus non-swing states, call them and remind them how important it is that Kerry gets a massive popular vote victory.

To Non-Voters:

I understand why you stopped voting. Politicians suck. Nothing ever seems to change. You’re only one vote.
Yes, politicians suck. But so do car salesmen – and that hasn’t stopped you from buying a car. Politicians only respond to the threat of the angry mob also known as the voting public. If most people don’t vote, that’s good news for them ‘cause then they don’t have to answer to the majority.
Almost fifty percent of Americans don’t vote. That means you belong to the largest political party in America – the Non-Voting Party. That means you hold all the power to toss George W. Bush out of the Oval Office. How cool is that?
I believe that we are going to have the largest election turnout in our lifetime tomorrow. You don’t want to miss out on that. The lines at the polls are going to be long and raucous and fun. It is an historic election. You won’t want to say that you were the only one who wasn’t there. Promise me you’ll vote, just this one time.

To All First-Time Voters:

Welcome to the longest running, uninterrupted democracy on earth! You own it. It’s yours.
A few words about how messy it’s going to be tomorrow. The lines are going to be long. Bring your iPods. Better yet, bring a friend or two. The election officials have no clue just how many millions are going to show up at the polls. This will be the largest turnout in our lifetime. They don’t have enough machines. They are going to have to send for more ballots.
And they are going to make it difficult for you to vote. The new law says if this is your first time voting you must bring ID with you that matches the address you are registered at.
If for some reason they can’t find your name on the voting rolls, you have the right to ask for a provisional ballot, which you can fill out and then sort things out later.
If you have any problems at the polling place, please call 1-866-OUR-VOTE. The people there can tell you how to find the precinct where you should be voting, get you legal help if you are denied the right to vote, or answer any other questions you may have.
If you need any help figuring out the ballot, don’t be afraid to ask. If you screw up your ballot, you can ask for another one. In fact, the law allows you to screw up your ballot two times before you finally have to submit your final ballot! Be careful to vote on the line that says John F. Kerry/John Edwards. Don’t vote for more than one Presidential, Senate or House candidate or you ballot won’t be counted. If your polling place has a stub or a receipt from your ballot, make sure they give you one.
Thanks for joining us. Democracy is not a spectator sport. It only works when we all come off the bench and participate.

To African Americans:

First of all, let’s just acknowledge what you already know: America is a country which still has a race problem, to put it nicely. Al Gore would be president today had thousands of African Americans not had their right to vote stolen from them in Florida in 2000.
Here is my commitment: I will do everything I can to make sure that this will not happen again. And I’m not the only one making this pledge. Thousands of volunteer lawyers are flying to Florida to act as poll watchers and intervene should there be any attempts to deny anyone their right to vote. They will NOT be messing around.
For my part, I have organized an army of 1,200 professional and amateur filmmakers who will be armed with video cameras throughout the states of Florida and Ohio. At the first sign of criminality, we will dispatch a camera crew to where the vote fraud is taking place and record what is going on. We will put a big public spotlight on any wrongdoing by Republican officials in those two states. They will not get away with this as they did in 2000.
In Ohio, the Republicans are sending almost 2,000 paid “poll challengers” into the black precincts of Cleveland in an attempt to stop African Americans from voting. This action is beyond despicable. Do not let this stop you from voting. I, and thousand of others, will be there to fight for you and protect you.

To George W.:

I know it’s gotta be rough for you right now. Hey, we’ve all been there. “You’re fired” are two horrible words when put together in that order. Bin Laden surfacing this weekend to remind the American people of your total and complete failure to capture him was a cruel trick or treat. But there he was. 3,000 people were killed and he’s laughing in your face. Why did you stop our Special Forces from going after him? Why did you forget about bin Laden on the DAY AFTER 9/11 and tell your terrorism czar to concentrate on Iraq instead?
There he was, OBL, all tan and rested and on videotape (hey, did you get the feeling that he had a bootleg of my movie? Are there DVD players in those caves in Afghanistan?)
Speaking of my movie – can I ask you a personal question before we part ways for good on Tuesday? Why did you and your friends fund SIX “documentaries” trashing me -- but only ONE film against Kerry? C’mon, he was the candidate, not me. What a waste of your time and resources! Sure, I know what your pollsters told you, that the film had convinced some people to vote you out. I just want you to know that that was not my original intent. Funny things happen at the movies. Hope you get to see a few at the multiplex in Waco. It’s a great way to relax.

To John Kerry:

Thank you.
And don’t worry – none of us are going away after you are inaugurated. We’ll be there to hold your hand and keep you honest. Don’t let us down. We’re betting you won’t. So is the rest of the world.

That’s it. See you at the polls – and at the victory party tomorrow night.

Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
MMFlint@aol.com

     

The Progessive Blog Alliance has grown so fast that a lot of us don't know each other's blogs very well. As a way to remedy that, somebody (I don't remember who it was, I'm sorry) suggested we each make one of them our Blog-of-the-Week to call attention to a good blog that might get overlooked in the shuffle. I was going to pick myself first (naturally) but then on second thought figured it was probably a good idea to overlook me if you're short on spare time, so I picked somebody I think it's a bad idea to overlook any time.

I've watched Karlo's Swerve Left go in the last, oh, 6-8 months, from a sketchy, sometime blog where he seemed to be spending most of his time figuring out what he wanted to do with it, to a focused, steady, interestingly-written blog that took a slightly different view of all the standard stuff every other blog was covering, to what it is today: a Must-Read-Daily filled with brilliant analysis, cutting if understated satire, trenchant commentary, and links you won't find anywhere else. It's been an absolute gas to watch this development take place. It isn't often you get to see a first-rate talent grow right before your very eyes.

It is therefore an honor to present to Karlo of Swerve Left the Alley's First 'Awesome Blog of the Week Award'.



Check him out. By next week, you'll be reading him every day.

You have to see this. It will take a while to download, but stick with it. It's worth it, believe me.

(Via, of course, Julie Beth)

Some short notes early in the morning:

# Julie Beth (ill-sorted ephemera) who called my attention to the eSlate problem, has already voted in her home town, Austin TX (what is it with all these Austin blogs? do they have a club or something? and they're all lefties, too--something in the water, perhaps), and reports no problem with her Kerry vote. She adds that that may have been because she didn't vote a straight ticket. There was quite a crowd and she was there quite a while.

i was just in line for TWO HOURS to vote in northern travis county...but damn, it felt good. was standing in line with the *nicest* proud-wife-of-a-promise-keeper republican woman. we had a pretty cool conversation, actually, bemoaning the closeness of the last presidential race that had FLA scrambling for a president for weeks after the election, both of us hoping that woudln't happen again. she talked a little bit about how unhappy about the 'gay agenda' she is, and how that's one reason she woudln't no-way, no-how, vote for kerry. which was kinda odd, considering she was white and her husband black, and if the masses had had their way way-back-when, she wouldn't ever have gotten to marry the ultra-friendly fella. but ya know. i didn't preach.

A lot of them are very nice, one-on-one, Julie Beth; it's when they gather into a mob that you gotta watch your ass.

# Jon Stewart and The Daily Show are going to be covering the election live starting at 10p EST, and for the first time in almost 15 years I am truly bummed that I don't have a tv. I'll probably be at work, anyway, but still.

# I know we've all been consumed by the attempt to elect the Junior Demon to the presidency by hook or--preferably--crook, but once the madness settles into Rove's perpetual legal challenges to Kerry's win, you really ought to make some time to visit eRobin at Fact-esque, who in addition to doing her usual superb job of burning the feet off the bizzarro NYT spin-meisters has put together a brilliant series on the recent draft report of the US Commission on Civil Rights. Not to be missed. The final report is being held back until after the election but there's plenty in the draft report that should be of concern, and Rob's pungent, spot-on commentary doesn't miss any of it. For instance, in a discussion of the BA's immigration policy, she notes:

[T]he report mentions the outrage of community leaders regarding Ashcroft's policy of linking Haitian immigrants to terrorist activities via "unsubstantiated and highly dubious allegations." (Well, that's not fair; those are the only kinds of allegations that Ashcroft's got.)

There are links at the bottom of each post to all the others, so you can catch up on whatever you missed while you were lost in a fog of outrage over another stolen election.

# David Scott Anderson (In Search of Utopia) has been doing heroic work on right-wing blogs, trying to bring The Word to Benighted Souls adrift in Bush/Cheney LaLaLand (or LieLieLand, as we like to call it in the Alley), particularly concentrating on trying to get them to respond to the 19th century tricks the GOP has dragged out of the closet to suppress minority votes (which they deny is happening, of course--it's all a trick of the 'liberal media'). First he points to a Must-Read column at WaPo by Courtland Milloy:

George W. Bush had been named president with the help of a U.S. Supreme Court that his father, former president George H.W. Bush, helped to shape. In the aftermath of 9/11, the selected one took the nation to war -- citing first one reason, then changing to another and still another before coming up with the latest one: to show the world the wonders of democracy.

One certainly has to wonder about the model on display.

"For example, in recent days, Wisconsin Republicans have announced plans to initiate 'background' checks on newly registered voters," said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Council on Civil Rights, at a news conference Thursday in front of the Republican National Committee's headquarters in Washington. "This is an intimidation technique, designed to induce fear on the part of newly registered voters, particularly in minority communities."

The situation is just as bad in other battleground states, such as Florida, Ohio and Colorado.

After the LCCR news conference, two Republican National Committee staff members -- both young African Americans -- were sent out to issue a rebuttal. Their efforts got off to a bad start, however, when one of them made what might be called a Freudian slip by introducing the other as "director of voter suppression." The spokesmen tried to recover, contending that their party poll-watchers were only going to weed out ineligible voters; not intimidate others.

As an example, one of them cited registered voters whose addresses had been tracked back to hotels and vacant lots. A woman in a wheelchair shot back, saying she lives in a single-occupancy hotel room and that many homeless people do, too, as well as in church basements and vacant lots.

"Since when does being poor mean losing your right to vote?" she asked.

Even the young Republicans had to wonder about that.

Milloy thinks that on the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the 40th anniversary of the deaths of Goodman, Schwerner and Cheney, we ought to be celebrating progress, not bemoaning regress.

I'd imagined that this would be a time for honoring our martyrs and celebrating the progress they helped bring about. Instead, I have been awakened to the reality of a backward drift into a century gone by, when suppressing the black vote was all the rage.

Republicans appear to be back to their notorious black-voter intimidation tactics, which were exposed and condemned by the courts in the 1980s. Meanwhile, the IRS is threatening to revoke the NAACP's tax-exempt status and has targeted the nation's oldest civil rights organization for an audit for criticizing Bush administration policies.

David wants to know when the otherwise intelligent right-wingers he debates with are going to get around to acknowledging the obvious.

[M]y question is a simple one... When do my friends on the right stop pooh poohing this and express some outrage. When do they stop calling ridiculously for proof, and start asking questions of their own leadership.

When do they suspend disbelief and start accepting the fact that this is going on?

Yes, it is hard to stomach. It is hard to acknowledge that the leaders you respect, the people you plan to vote for could participate in such a filthy corruption of our electoral and constitutional processes. But it has to be equally clear to any person of logic that the sheer volume of these dirty tricks would tend to support the conclusions we have made.

What troubles me most is that people who I have come to respect as logical, intelligent people seek to attack me for questioning this, rather than questioning the tactic itself.

But David, that's how they've been trained to think over the past 25 years. It's a belief-based reality, not a fact-based reality. Facts won't change it. They won't even cause doubt. First you need to undermine the belief that 'Bush Is God Good' so therefore everything he does is ipso facto Good and everything done in His name is Good. Until you attack that core belief and shake it, you can cite all the facts you want until you're blue in the face and it won't put a dent in their rock-bound faith-based 'reality'.

# Finally, speaking of 'faith-based reality', Michael Berube has a question about an NYT Sunday magazine story about American evangelicals establishing 'Xtian businesses', which you can pretty much assume has nothing to do with being kind to their fellow man and everything to do with imagining that Christ approves of large profits.

I just have an innocent question about the inspirational painting on the office wall of Riverview Community Bank president Duane Kropuenske, which is reproduced on the Magazine‘s front cover. The painting is titled “Unending Riches” (you can check it out here for a better view) and it’s a portrait of Jesus standing with two businessmen in what is clearly an executive office. In the background is a generic cityscape, framed in a large window. The businessman on the right seems to be introducing the businessman on the left to Christ, who’s shaking hands and wearing white robes.

Moloch Visits the Bowels of Hell Disguised as Christ

OK, so check out what’s on the wall behind the shoulder of the guy on the left. It’s another inspirational painting of some kind! Have you ever seen anything like this before? A piece of inspirational workplace art that includes, in a mise en abyme, another piece of inspirational workplace art? It’s too weird. And more important, why would this particular office need an inspirational painting in the first place? I mean, Jesus Christ Himself works for them!! They’ve already got the power of the Almighty right there, standing behind the desk with the laptop-- what more do they need?? Are you trying to tell me that even the firm that employs the Son of God has to festoon its office walls with “motivational” posters?

I just think that’s blasphemous.

He's got a point, but the kicker to me was that if you hit the link for the picture, you find this scriptural quote directly under it:

Unending riches, honor, and success are Mine to give… My paths are those of justice and truth. Those who love and follow Me are indeed wealthy, and I will fill their treasuries. - Proverbs 8:18-21

This is what's most dangerous about fundies: THEY DON'T GET METAPHOR. It's just, like, beyond their capacities. They think he meant that literally: that if they follow him, he'll make them rich. I have no idea how they explain the episode of the temple and the money-lenders. Maybe they think Christ was pissed off because he wasn't getting a piece of the action. Or maybe they think Jesus was an investor and their profit margin wasn't high enough to kick his stock portfolio into overdrive, earnings-wise, so he kicked their butts to get them off the stick, usury-wise. But you have to admit, it's quite a trick, interpretation-wise, to turn the guy who believed it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven, into a guy who's, like, Tony Robbins in a robe.

Although, maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way. Maybe Christ, who can, after all (they brag about it themselves) see into the hearts of these corporate greedheads, just wants to help them get rich so he'll never have to deal with their presence in heaven. I'd like to think so, anyway. It makes more sense than their version.

(More on this anon. Undoubtedly.)

In a BuzzFlash interview with Greg Palast (via Working for Change via ratboy's anvil), he talks about his documentation of the disenfranchisement efforts by the GOP in 2000 that resulted in almost 2 million votes going uncounted, half of which were minority.

I've been working with the statisticians from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and Harvard Law School. In the year 2000, 1.9 million votes were cast and not counted across this country –- 1.9 million votes. And of those 1.9 million votes, about a million were cast by African-Americans. This investigation was conducted by Harvard and the Civil Rights Commission, and I grabbed the material. There's a 1965 Voting Rights Act that gave black people the right to vote, but not the right to have their votes counted.

All this came out of my first investigation in Florida. I brought it to the attention of the Civil Rights Commission that the so-called "spoilage rate" seemed to be different among black people than with white people. What that means is that, if you make a mistake on a ballot, or if there's some problem with reading your ballot, your vote doesn't count.

In Florida, the researchers went precinct by precinct and determined that if you are a black person, you are 10 times more likely to have your vote marked spoiled and voided than if you're a white voter –- 10 times! And what's disgusting is that that is the national average. So we basically have a big black thumbprint on the electoral scale in our election, and it's going to be worse in 2004.

---

As it turns out in Florida, 90,000 mostly African-American voters -- which is the latest official number from the courts -- were illegally targeted for removal from the voter rolls. Those people were not allowed to even register to vote and therefore didn't cast a ballot in the election.

But for those African-Americans who did get to vote, their votes were far more likely not to be counted than other votes. I saw this in Florida, and it is deliberate. When it's 10 to 1, as any statistician told me, unless lightning strikes seven times in one spot, how can it not be deliberate?

For example, in black counties in Florida where paper ballots were used, if you made a mistake on a ballot -– a single wrong mark –- your ballot was thrown out and your vote wasn't counted. If you voted in predominantly white counties, and you made a wrong mark, your ballot was handed back to you. You were given a fresh ballot, and told to vote again and told how to correct your mistake. How about that?
(emphasis added)

What we're seeing this year is worse, a ratcheting up with the bold use of political operatives in positions of power (state Secs of State, Atty's Gen, county election officials, Govs) changing the rules to, as that Detroit Republican put it, 'suppress the vote.' Palast says changing the rules is SOP for the GOP.

[T]he trick of this apartheid "spoilage rate" -- that's the technical term -- the trick to lose a million votes or make them disappear is to keep radically changing the system. Because what happens is that technicians fix the systems. In Florida, they fixed the problem with the paper ballots, and, therefore, they had to throw out the paper ballots. For example, the blackest county in Florida is Gadston. One in eight voters -– one in eight voters! -– had their ballots thrown out in the blackest county in Florida. It had the worst spoilage rating, and they knew it. They knew that there was going to be this problem with their ballots in advance.

Democrats had warned election officials and warned Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush that this was going to happen, in advance of the election, and nothing was done. After the election, it was fixed. And in 2002, there were basically no spoiled ballots in Gadston. So now that black people have their votes counted in Gadston, they've now been ordered to switch them over to computers. Because the system currently works -– it's been fixed -– and that can't stand.

And as we reported, e-voting machines are already showing signs of tampering in Texas and New Mexico that turn a choice for Kerry into a vote for Bush--'accidentally', or because of 'voter error'. As usual, none of this is being reported by the mainstream press. Palast has given up thinking it ever will be.

I can't tell you how many progressive reporters say, well, in Florida, all these thousands of black people -– the state said that it's all fixed now, and they've all been returned to the polls and are eligible. I said, "Name five people who have been returned to the polls out of the 90,000 who lost their vote." I just went down to Florida and I found the missing voters. And I asked, "Can you vote now?" "No." "Have you tried to register?" "No, can't do it." It's still the same game and the same con. And the last thing that the media chieftains are going to do is say that the American elections are fixed.

You know what's amazing to me? The Los Angeles Times ran a profile of Greg Palast -– you know, the great international investigative reporter born in Los Angeles yada yada -- a nice profile, right? So I went to the editor, and I said, "If I'm the great international investigative reporter, why don't you actually run one of my reports?" I said, "You know, there's a million black votes missing in America."

They weren't interested.

Kathy at RANDOM THOUGHTS on Politics has compiled a fairly complete list of Republican attempts to squelch the Democratic vote, particularly in minority areas. She has a bevy of links you can check so you know what's going on.

Ohio seems to be the central battleground for Republican dirty tricks. Jerome Armstrong at My DD reports that the latest scam involves sending registered mail to voters and then challenging any that don't respond by picking it up.

The details about "Caging" and what the Republicans have planned to do are coming into view. The Republicans have been compiling lists (probably in the tens of thousands) of voters whom they have culled from lists of those newly registered, mailing registered mail to them, preparing lists of those who did not accept the Republican Party mailing, and then challenging their right to vote.

ELECTION BOARD THROWS OUT 976 CHALLENGES BY REPUBLICAN PARTY

GOP Challenger Barbara Miller Could be Indicted on Felony Charges


AKRON, Ohio - The Summit County Board of Elections abruptly threw out 976 challenges of voter eligibility by the Republican Party today after Barbara Miller, the challenger, revealed that she did not have any personal information about the eligibility of any of the challenged voters.


Instead, Miller said that her challenges were based on a list of "undeliverable mail" given to her by the Republican Party. The list was based on a GOP mailing sent to registered voters throughout the state of Ohio.


After Miller presented this as her evidence, Russell Pry, Summit County Election Board member, told her that she could be indicted for signing a sworn challenge without any personal knowledge about the eligibility of the voters. Miller's reaction was to plead the Fifth Amendment.


Catherine Herold, the first voter challenged at the hearing, told the board that she believes that she was on the undeliverable list because she "refused the letter when she saw that it came from the Republican Party." She and many others expressed anger that their eligibility had been challenged - which could force them to vote by provisional ballot on Nov. 2.


"This is an outrage," Herold said. "I feel as if I am being called a liar for claiming to live at my address."


The Summit County Board of Elections has indicated that they plan to call in the Department of Justice to conduct a criminal investigation of the challenges.

John Williams at Thudfactor, which is where I found the link, lays out the beauty of the way this slimy, undemocratic, sleazeball attempt at fraud works.

Registered mail must be signed for. If you are not home when registered mail arrives, you have to go to the Post Office and pick it up. If you do not it gets sent back as “undeliverable.”

Now, imagine you don’t like the Republican party and you get a notice that mail from the RNC is waiting for you at the post office and you have to come in and stand in line to pick it up. If you’re like me, you say “I’m not voting for their man, and I’m certainly not going to the Post Office to pick up more campaign junk mail.” Hell. If the DNC sent me something registered mail without warning me, I probably wouldn’t pick it up.

Almost sounds like this mail test was designed in bad faith, doesn’t it? Almost as though they wanted false positives.

'Almost'. A short round-up of some of these illegal and/or unethical scams made its way into the NYT today but with one crucial detail missing. See if you can guess what it is.

Reckless voting-roll purges are still throwing eligible voters off the rolls. And this year has produced new outrages, such as Glenda Hood, the Florida secretary of state, ordering election officials to throw out voter registrations when applicants fail to check a box saying they are citizens - even though they swear they are elsewhere on the form.

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[I]t's hard to avoid the conclusion that at least some of these officials are intentionally trying to stop eligible people from voting. Ohio's secretary of state recently issued an order, which he rescinded in the face of loud protests, that voter registrations submitted on insufficiently thick paper would be thrown out. Last week, Missouri's secretary of state said there was nothing wrong with groups that run registration drives throwing out registrations that they promised to hand in.

Did you catch the glaring omission? Yes, that's right, boys and girls, he didn't mention the party these three officials belong to. They are, needless to say, all three of them, Republicans. In its ever-increasing determination not to piss off the party in power, the NYT is loading its coverage of GOP dirty tricks with language meant to make it sound like 'everybody's doing it'. Except 'everybody' isn't doing it. The Republicans are doing it, exclusively and everywhere there's a chance it could make a difference.

They're not even bothering to hide it effectively; it's as if they don't really care whether they get caught or not. And why should they? Their core constituency has been so brainwashed and is so inured at this point to degradation and slime that they actually defend these tactics using the excuse that the Dems are setting up phony voter drives. That there is ZERO evidence of this doesn't phase them a bit. They know it's happening and therefore they're simply acting in self-defense.

But of course the Dems are rigging votes. They're traitors, scum, liars, and thieves. They don't have ethics and scruples like the GOP. They would do anything to win whereas the poor Republicans are always at a disadvantage because they're trying to play by the rules. And the SCLM in the person of the NYT obligingly gives them cover by pretending that 'everybody does it.'

Go to the My DD link and read the transcript of the hearing. Ms. Miller may wind up going to jail for being the GOP's down-home patsy on this. And remember--they're challenging 35,000 votes. As of today, only a thousand of them are safe.