"DELAND, Fla., Nov. 11 - Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters." - Washington Post Sunday , November 12, 2000 ; Page A22 Yes. Something very strange happened in Volusia County on election night November 2000, the night that first Gore won Florida, then Bush, and then as everybody can so well remember there was a tie. Something strange indeed. But what exactly? In the above report ( click for full version), written days after the election, hotshot Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank goes on to attribute the strange 16,022 negative vote tally from Volusia's precinct 216 to an apparently innocent cause. "…. faulty 'memory cards' in the machines caused the 16,000-vote disappearance on election night. The glitch was soon fixed," he wrote. But thanks to recent investigations into Black Box Voting by Washington State writer Bev Harris we now know this explanation is not correct. In fact it is not even in the ballpark. According to recently discovered internal Diebold Election Systems memos, Global Election Systems' (which was later purchased by Diebold) own technical staff were also stumped by the events in Volusia County/ In Chapter 11 of her new book "Black Box Voting In the 21st Century" released early today in .PDF format at Blackboxvoting.com and here at Scoop Ms Harris observes. "If you strip away the partisan rancor over the 2000 election, you are left with the undeniable fact that a presidential candidate conceded the election to his opponent based on [results from] a second card that mysteriously appears, subtracts 16,022 votes, then just as mysteriously disappears." Working in parallel with Ms Harris Scoop has also been inquiring into the events on election night in Volusia county. Much of the material that follows is similar to that which appears in Chapter 11 of her book. The starting point in this shocking discovery about election 2000 came in a series of internal Diebold ES technical support memos. The following is an abbreviated version of the exchange concerning the peculiar events in Volusia county. For the purposes of research the exchange is included in full as an Appendix to this report (APPENDIX TWO). The discussion took place in early 2001 as an audit was underway in Volusia county into the events. ********** For the entire text, go to http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0310/S00211.htm
The hiring of companies who have strong campaign contribution ties to the Bush administration to run electronic voting systems could be the poltical scandal of all time. We need to have these systems run by the government with strong oversight by both the Republicans and Democrats in Congress. We cannot afford to have even the appearance of fraud in our elections. Hoepfully conservatives and liberals can at least agree on this.
I would agree, but I wouldn't even trust the Repubs and Dems in Congress. I mean, talk about having the incumbent advantage!!! But yes, a nonpartisan and independent mechanism needs to be in place.
TJ, While the votes were recounted and I have some degree of confidence that the count was correct, that does not diminish the fact that there is at least the appearance of impropriety when the company that counts the votes has ties to one party or the other. Wouldn't you agree that, at least in the future, the voting process should be as far removed from partisan hands as possible?
my thought exactly...we had the actual ballots, right?? even if this group did something funky...the ballots themselves were still the issue.
That appearance of impropriety was removed when the votes were hand counted. We checked the votes manually, thereby removing any potential bugs from the electronic system. We have no knowledge that misconduct occured. As you know, electronic machinery is subject to error/correction/revision at any time. Sadly, it appears that one of these blips is being used in the latest liberal propaganda against the United States government. The angry hate machine rolls on as liberals advance their negative agenda for all Americans.
well i meant in general but in this case we're talking about the 16,022 negative vote tally on the faulty memory cards that the memo acknowledges.
It looks to me like there's two issues here: 1) The 2000 election. The warning bells going off in my head at the start of that fiasco have been largely put to rest. From what I understand, the vote miscount cited in this article does have a paper trail, so I don't have a lot of misgivings about believing that the 2000 election didn't have any sinister problems behind it. I think the will of the people was reflected, +/- the error that was in EVERY election previous. 2) Future elections. If we go to an electronic ballot, and companies with ties to politicians are counting these votes, we have a big problem. There will not be paper trails of any sort, just manipulatable (sp?) databases. Surely, TJ, you can see (and hopefully share) the concerns that many have about possible fraud in the future.
I used one of these methods during the latest vote in Austin. It made me very uncomfortable. The same thought occured to me. Is there a system like this that can't be hacked? I much prefer the paper ballots with the penciled-in voting. You have something to check if it looks suspicious. If it takes longer to count, so what? A fair vote without a hint of corruption is far better. I don't even want to get started about Florida. Let's try to get a fair count next time... if that's possible.
gawd! it is my fondest wish that those of you on the left continue to rehash the flordia 2000 vote right on through november 2004. please, please, please re-fight the 2000 election as often as possible in the coming months. the rest of the country has moved on and accepts the result. your continued obsession w/ florida only works to ensure that dubya will be re-elected. go for it!
It was not stolen at all. The whole "Hail to the Thief" was nothing more than DNC propaganda that portends a new strategy for the Democrats. It goes like this: A. Do whatever ridiculous fradulent methods we can get away with (like handing out cigarettes to the homeless to vote for Democratic candidates, etc.) to get as many of our uneducated, unregistered, ignorant voters to vote once, twice, thrice for our socialist candidates by keeping the polling places in our precincts open until midnight. B. If the vote is very close, we will gin up some kind of b.s. problem, cry foul, obsfucate, tie the results up in mindless legal proceedings, talk about "undervotes," "hanging chads," and all things that never existed until we invented them, cry racism, agism and all the other boogeymen isms that dwell in our psyche constantly until we can either disqualify enough of the wrong votes so we win....or C. we turn the results of the election around using our fraud-riddled Democratic precincts that can find 10,000 more Democrats in the obituaries and history books (as in Chicago, South Dakota on the Indian reservations, St. Louis) and maybe we can allow a couple of dogs (of course yellow-dog democrats) to vote for us as well. D. But if the election isn't close and our usual frauds weren't enough, we can just say the electorate isn't truly a mandate, that the Republican has to be "bypartisan" which means go along with whatever we say, or we'll find a way to tar and feather you with one of our famous labels like "racist," homophobe," "sexist," "neo-con," "right-winger," and others that our parrots in the media will make sure never wash off. Get over it libs, you lost!
