Alaska: More Diebold Questions
Posted by on December 20, 2005 at 09:12 AM
Anchorage Daily News:
The official vote results from the 2004 general election are riddled with mistakes and discrepancies, are impossible for the public to make sense of, and should be corrected as soon as possible, the Alaska Democratic Party says.
To most Alaskans, the election may seem like a long-done deal, something that concerns only political junkies, candidates and analysts. But questions have been swirling ever since the polls closed about how the results were tabulated and the reliability of the electronic voting machines, said Kay Brown, spokeswoman for the Democratic Party.
For instance, when district-by-district vote counts are totaled, President Bush received 292,267 votes, according to an analysis by the Democrats. But his official total was 190,889, a difference of more than 100,000 votes, according to the state Web site.
Everyone agrees you cannot figure out how many votes a statewide candidate got in a particular district with the present system.
"The numbers just do not add up, and we'd like to get to the bottom of why," Brown said.
The story goes on to note how in some districts, more than 200% of registered voters cast ballots. This comes on the heels of news from Florida that an elections chief, Ion Sancho, was able to hack into Diebold-made electronic voting machines and alter vote totals.
The Democrats are not asserting that anyone hacked into the computers or that anyone who lost a race really should have won, Brown said.
"We are trying to determine how many votes each candidate got in each district, and we can't tell that from the public data," she said.
As in Florida, this isn't about trying to overturn elections--this is about having an electoral process where everyone can be confident that every ballot cast will be counted and that there is no foul play. It's regrettable that even the appearance of impropriety hangs above one of the most basic tenets of our democracy...the right vote.
Comments (4) «
We've got similar problems in Virginia right now with the recount for Attorney General. The Republicans are trying to manipulate the votes to ensure a Republican win. They've got a battle plan in place that practically guarantees a Republican victory no matter how many votes were cast for the Democrat. We should get some nation attention that battle.
If your state has no excuse absentee, please request and cast a paper absentee vote.
So how can we all, nationwide, DEMAND a return to the old system fair and square, and a paper trail? This is really serious and even with the old system, many suspect older cases even with the paper votes, an example would be Nixon's close scores in CA and national. (Mind you, there were many gullible folks out there back then that didn't know about what Nixon did to the California economy before his race for the Whitehouse.)
By the way, I watched C-span last night, thanks to Kerry, Lautenberg, Leiberman and Feinstein for making a stand on ANWAR.
Oh do we Californians remember the oil spill, get oil out, the petitions, and then the measure we were presented with to vote on...the choice? Okay, basically it posed a question...Do you want to remove onshore drilling (we never did get the derricks out but were able to keep them offshore at a distance, still there they are all a sparkle, as Jim Morrison called them, the Crystal Ships), on the Pacific coast and if so, put an LNG plant at Point Conception? Dah!
Point Conception, not far from Avilla Beach and the Diablo Nuclear Power Plant, has huge waves and high winds most of the year. LNG would be shipped into dock there, sure, LNG explodes at a certain temperature somewhere around freezing or just above as I recall and entire towns have been blown up from trains that have derailed containing it, I recall one case in Spain that I read about some years ago in a book entitled "Silent Spring".
Obviously, the measure never passed...same ol, same ol MO.
So now look at this...are the Sundance and Moonbeam Kids watching this? Yeah!!! Told ya so America for the last 30 years! But then, who would want to believe a bunch of old LIBRARY LOVING HARDWORKING SCHOLARLY SCIENTIST PH.D. LIBERALS??? They carted you off to jail back then and as it turned out, they would rather have a repeat with the EXXON VALDEZE a few years later, it seems. No respect for ...The American Citizens who got to clean up the slime onshore or the wildlife that died onshore.
Ship of fools, radioactive tuna, mercury in your trout, uranium in your pocket, stick in your thumb and pull out a plumb, maybe you'll get a volcano, a hurricane eye and an ice age next Christmas if you are a good boy...could this be Alzheimers, Autism, and Social Amnesia? Meanwhile, Sunoco gives less than 1% of it's billion profits to charity, no more student loans, slashed medicare, no childcare for working families, over 37 million Americans living in poverty, tax breaks for the rich....Ex Pat Pirates, International cartells, and the deficit grows. That is a strange way to love the American People. Some people are strange.
Anyone remember the movie Dr. Strangelove?
These days are getting very strange indeed.
Thanks Hilary for reminding us just how much so.
It is a sad day for congress and a sad day for all of us across this once and perhaps future United States of America. WE can do better than this.
Here in Florida, Diebold has a lock-in with the GOP. This state has not had a clean election nationally since 1998.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel hopefully. The state DEMs are really putting it together with Karen Thurman.
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