There continues to be such talk about changing tactics in the Democratic party in order to have it appeal to more people, and I assume the reasoning for that is to win the next elections.
First, I don't want the Dems to change, and certainly don't want them to be more like the Republicans just to win more votes.
Secondly, that is not the reason why a the current administration was elected to the presidency twice. And if one ever wants a non-Bush non-neocon Republican to be president again, the voting situation MUST BE REPAIRED.
I was iffy on the 2000 election, but that iffy-ness was confirmed in 2004. There is just too much evidence, and it must be repaired if anyone ever wants something besides an administration of organized crime. How many rotations will it take before people take to the streets and shut down this country. In the Ukraine, they stopped everything because they knew the majority had not elected the person of choice. In Kyrgystan, same thing, and in a relatively gentle manner said - "Excuse me, we'll take the keys, thank you..."
Already the institution of filibuster has been threatened. What makes you think they are above trying to rescind the 22nd amendment of the constitution.
We currently have a president that was never elected. This is not a matter of simply not getting a majority of the popular votes -- it is fraud, deception and theft. This isn't news to many. Now the issue is a matter of the need to repair things before the next election.
Shortly after the November 2 '04 elections, Steven Freeman, a senior statistical researcher at the U of Penn did a study on the odds of exit polls in two states (Floriday and Ohio) being so far out of whack with the norm and out of context with a exit poll findings in all the other states. That study indicates that the odds of exit polls in those two states being that divergent from the historical reliability of exit polls, and with consideration that the exit polls in the other 48 states were inline with historical statistical accuracy of the past, were way off base. In fact the odds of that likelihood ended up being 250 million to 1.
Well columnist Russ Baker refuted this by questioning Freemans' work. Of course it is in the realm of many columnists to dub themselves experts in subjects upon which they comment - Cosmo has to be careful here - but there is a difference in saying "so-and-so says something" or "this event happened here" and actually taking on an expert in a different field.
Freeman countered the claim with a legitimate repudiation of Baker's espoused ignorance in the field of statistical research. Baker's interpretation of the study appeared to just be an effort to make it fit his columns needs. Freeman's reply included a concern many are facing when he said, "Baker's critique begins with a sloppy attempt to shoot the messenger, questioning my credentials."
Let's face it, guys who work with numbers and who make a statement about a study only have to wait a matter of minutes before there are a gazillion other guys who work with numbers out there with their calculators ready to confirm or dispute those findings. You see, unlike Diebold voting machines, these guys have to show their work...
Freeman, who originally played down his credentials and this study, backed up his authority and the substance of this work in that repudiation, including the value and accuracy of exit polls and polling practices. But he also counters the situation and phenomena of information aversion that has riddled our country's mentality of late by stating, "Scrutiny of an election with many unanswered questions does not damage public confidence in the democracy; absence of scrutiny does."
Well as it happened, many of the people who checked his work decided to jump on board the study, if for no other reason than to get their name attached to it.
Another study looked at the accuracy or possible anomalies of the 2004 exit polls.
They concluded that they couldn't find a statistical reason why Ohio and Florida's exit polls were inaccurate, but did note that they were basically messed up due to outside influences.
Another study headed up by John Simon agrees with the initial concerns of the Freeman study. The executive summary states:
• There is a substantial discrepancy—well outside the margin of error and outcomedeterminative— between the national exit poll and the popular vote count.
• The possible causes of the discrepancy would be random error, a skewed exit poll, or breakdown in the fairness of the voting process and accuracy of the vote count.
• Analysis shows that the discrepancy cannot reasonably be accounted for by chance or random error.
• Evidence does not support hypotheses that the discrepancy was produced by problems with the exit poll.
• Widespread breakdown in the fairness of the voting process and accuracy of the vote count are the most likely explanations for the discrepancy.
• In an accurate count of a free and fair election, the strong likelihood is that Kerry would have been the winner of the popular vote.
Reports of statistical studies on this matter have either confirmed Freeman's first assertions or gone even further in narrowing potential reasons why these polls didn't reflect reality (and with reference to the Bush administration, the word 'reality' should give everyone a clue). But these experts are not just interested in political outcomes, they want to know if systems previously proven correct or accurate weren't, or if they weren't, they want to know why. So they checked the formulae against the controls and they all say, either the stars lined up in a special way that day (ahem...) or somebody purposely influenced these numbers...
They have done their job, but the public must now do it's job! People must SCREAM that the emperor has no clothes. They must point to the elephant standing in the middle of the room, and they must insist that the voting process is safe. Harry Truman said that the voting booth is the most valuable piece of real estate in the nation and that if anyone sells it, the nation will cease to exist.
Almost prohetically Truman also said:
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
- August 8, 1950
So it appears to come down to "fix it/save it or lose it." We ramble on and spend untold amounts on potential terrorist threats with concern over potential physical harm, when the potential for harm both physical and to the existence of this nation sits in our ability to make voting results in this country accurate, to make each person's vote count and to be able to depend on the results.
Right now elections have degraded to a "Super Bowl" mentality, and half of the morons who voted for the current administration just wanted to be on the winning side. Duh!
Come on people! We have lived through presidents we didn't necessarily vote for, but we all agreed that whoever it was was legitimately elected by a majority of the people. And so we lived together. And if it was an awful administration or simply didn't fit the nation's needs, no matter how slick the marketing prior to the next election, at the next election we knew we could simply vote the person out of office. But the current situation negates the wishes of the electorate and that capability.
The greatest irony here, even though they don't realize it, is that even the votes of the so called winners were rendered of no value in this situation. They just think they are the winners, and this satisfies that group. But tampered ballot counts render all votes cast invalid.
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Bye for now,
Cosmo
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