Posted on 11/11/2004 4:35:30 PM PST by ambrose
November 12, 2004
Losers in denial over Bush
From Roland Watson in Washington
JOHN KERRY has preached unity and Tony Blair told the world to get over it, but some Americans simply refuse to believe that President Bush won a second term fairly. Cyberspace is humming with tales of ballot irregularities, secret counts and missing votes, allowing conspiracy theorists to assert that Mr Bush, for the second time, “stole” the presidential election. There is the story of the Ohio county where more ballots were cast than there were registered voters. Or the Florida counties where Mr Bush’s votes were substantially larger than the number of registered Republicans. Or the electronic machines that added thousands of Republican votes, counted backwards or lost hundreds of other votes.
The complaints are not confined to the internet. Six Democratic members of Congress have written to the nonpartisan General Accountability Office demanding an urgent review into the efficiency of the touch-screen voting machines.
Ralph Nader, the independent candidate, has also asked for recounts in Florida, Ohio and New Hampshire because of “striking inconsistencies”.
Many of the concerns are driven by the legacy of the Florida 2000 debacle, when thousands of black voters were wrongly disenfranchised, hundreds of Democratic supporters were confused by the infamous chad-producing butterfly ballots into voting for Pat Buchanan rather than Al Gore, and Mr Bush won by 537 votes.
A frequent point of reference of disenchanted Democrats is Walden O’Dell, the man behind many of the electronic voting machines used around the country. Mr O’Dell is a Bush campaign contributor who supplied machines to county election authorities. He is on record as saying that he was “committed to delivering Ohio’s electoral votes for the President”.
As a result, apparent irregularities are being fanned into giant conspiracies by visitors to websites such as AboveTopSecret.com, BlackBoxVoting.com and ustogether.org to discuss issues such as “Another Stolen Election” and “Ohio Fraud”.
However, officials have answers to some of the anomalies. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, voter turnout numbers suggested that there had been 90,000 more votes than registered voters. But officials said that in even-numbered years, when there are congressional elections, votes from congressional districts that spill over the county borders are included, hence the discrepancy.
Election officials have been inundated with calls from Kerry supporters. Kimberly Bartlett, spokeswoman for the county elections board, said: “They desperately want to believe, and I try to set them straight. It takes about three times before it clicks.”
Many charges of fraud were based on criticisms of electronic voting machines, although Cuyahoga County still uses punch cards. Also, awkwardly for many of the complainants, Cuyahoga County, which includes much of Cleveland, backed Mr Kerry by 217,638 votes.
In Florida, local officials said that the apparently suspicious voting patterns of counties in the Florida panhandle, in which Mr Bush’s total was much higher than the number of registered voters, mirrored his vote in 2000. Voters in the panhandle, the so-called “Redneck Riviera”, still tend to register overwhelmingly as Democrats while increasingly voting Republican.
But there are other discrepancies which the congressmen still want answers to. They include 21 voting machines in Broward County, Florida, which malfunctioned on voting day and were taken away, even though countless people had already voted on them.
In Guilford County, North Carolina, totals were so large that the tabulation computer allegedly threw numbers away. Recounting changed the outcomes in two areas and awarded an extra 22,000 votes to Mr Kerry. In Sarper County, Nebraska, a computer problem doubled the votes in half the county’s precincts, adding 3,000 phantom votes to totals.
John Fund suggested on Fox tonight that they should go ahead and let them recount Ohio (if the Libertarians and Greens want to shell out the 110,000 bucks).
He said, it would put the whole issue to rest, because no matter how you manipulate the numbers, even supposing all the irregularities, provisionals and absentees go overwhelmingly to Kerry, that Bush still wins.
But I don't think any recount in any state will put the matter to rest. Delusional people will not give up their delusions just because one state gets counted.
On DU right now there's a thread that says all 50 states should be recounted...so counting one or two states will not silence them.
So, IMHO, what's the point of any recounts. Gore spent six weeks trying to get 1000 votes, in Ohio they need 133,000. It's absolutely ridiculous and somebody needs to tell them to grow up (unfortunately Kerry and the Dems have tried, but now they're mad at Kerry because he won't fight, LOL.)
This is the only "sarper COunty" I can find referenced on google:
(other than this phony news story)
"...Logan County Arkansas-
Originally called Sarper County when formed in 1871, Logan County was renamed in 1875 in honor of early pioneer James Logan..."
LOL!!!...he also invented losing, i mean REALLY losing.
This is a dangerous trend in American Politics. And it needs to be stopped. When the left loses an election they claim fraus. It borders on the line of sedition and even crosses it in many cases.
I hate to admit this but Kerry, Clinton and Carville have been voices of reason when compared to the seditionist.
Everyone knows that but for them cheating Republicans, North Carolina and Nebraska would have gone Democratic. While, he's at it, this British reporter might also want to throw those well-known Democratic enclaves of Oklahoma and Alaska into the mix.
Basically what this shows is that leftist British reporters know more about the far side of the Moon than they do about the United States.
some of them would make goebels blush.
fraud not fraus
The losers are going to get what they asked for. The truth. And everyone knows the truth always HURTS.
Yes, it's remarkable. But the reporter doesn't know any better. The MSM, and certainly the American TV channel available in the UK, CNN all pushed that line.
bwahahahahahahaha, too funny, does nader really think the outcome will be any different by having all these recounts? does he think he can actually win? does he think gigilo won? bwahahahahaha, oh man, the next fours years are going to be a freakin' BLAST!
Must mean Sarpy.
you are correct. frankly, it is better for the GOP to leave the Dems howling at the moon the way they are. Guys like Clintoon and Carville know this, and are trying to steer their party back to reality so they have a shot at '06 and '08.
but the nut jobs won't listen.
They may have meant Sarpy County, NE. What they didn't say, if they were referring to Sarpy County, was that election officials ruled out the 'double count' theory almost immediately, decided there was a problem with the disk used to transfer the tallies from the ballot-reading machines to the central computer, but conducted a full recount, just in case.
I liked that line too.
Self-Ping
Case in point from 2000 (most current census data):
32,619 residents 18 and older
32,086 registered voters
Talk about gettin' everyone registered!!
Or are the dead still on the rolls?
other thing is I believe the votes are being recounted in the official canvassing. So they'd basically be asking for a third count.
Sorry, that was for the 17th ward, most heavily Dem ward in the city. Mostly (99%) ethnic.
:-)
...and now for the weather. A freeze warning has been issued for the lowest 6 levels of Hell tonight, with snow flurries and temperatures in the mid-teens.
Of course. Like it or not nationally the Republican party has less members then the Democrat party. For any Republican to win on a purely Republican vote is not possible.
So you have Bush Democrats as you had Reagen Democrats. And that is what infuriates the DNC so much. Their base is soft and can be swayed to vote Republican by an honest candidate who is willing to connect with them.
So of course they ran Kerry who couldn't connect with super glue and had....honesty issues. For these blessings we are truly grateful
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