What's the bottom line on possible election fraud, the recounts, and voter suppression stories?

[Fast Walker 52]

Has anyone tried to sum up what happened particularly in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania?

I assume the recounts, to the extent they could go forward, didn't change anything significant, but also couldn't detect machine manipulation?

What about stories of AA vote suppression in Detroit and Greg Palast's cross-check story ? Is he the only one really talking about that?

[ucrdem]

1. Bottom line: US elections are a joke and the system is rigged so they stay that way.

What did the recounts accomplish? Basically they notarized the bottom line by showing that US elections are unverifiable kabuki and currently there's no effective remedy. Which is something.

[Fast Walker 52]

2. I suppose... do you know if there's been any write up for all the post-election investigations?

It just seems like it faded away. Granted there's a lot of other stuff to cover, and major news with Russian hacking, but still, a lot of big issues like voter suppression seemingly went uncovered with the post-election news cycle.

[TheFrenchRazor]

5. precisely.. nt

[uponit7771]

3. That they're true to any degree means this election should be redone yesterday, anything else

... is treason... period

[mythology]

4. There wasn't any of that based on the evidence

Greg Palast is a hack who reports suppositions as facts and leaves out important details. For example all his talk about undervotes for President in Michigan leaves out the minor detail that write-in candidates who aren't official candidates don't get counted. So if Democrats/liberals in Michigan wrote in say Bernie Sanders, that would be reported as no-vote for President.

There's a reason all of these sort of stories come out right after the election and fade. Because it's easy to sell clicks when people are caught up in the outcome, but the lack of actual substance behind it means there is no good follow up. The people like Palast can't follow up and say "oops there was nothing there" because then they look like frauds. The real media already disregarded it because it wasn't a real story.

[TheFrenchRazor]

6. absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; and besides, there was plenty of evidence that

1. there was "interference" in the election by russians, and quite possibly their american stooges, and 2. american election officials subverted any meaningful hand/eye recount. you are free to conclude that this means the election was totally legit; other people may disagree.

[Fast Walker 52]

9. thanks-- I've always been a bit leery about Palast. But still, isn't there evidence of voter

suppression?

[think]

19. The Interstate Cross Check system is very real and created by Kris Kobach. Florida quit ICC due to

it being faulty:

Florida quits controversial voter ‘purge’ program

04/15/14 10:35 AM—UPDATED 04/15/14 06:21 PM
By Zachary Roth

Florida has ditched a controversial GOP-backed program aimed at catching voters who are registered in multiple states, which some voting-rights advocates say can make it easier for eligible voters to be wrongly purged from the rolls.

It’s the same program whose data were used for an eye-catching recent report suggesting that more than 35,000 people may have voted in North Carolina and another state in 2012—a conclusion that was quickly debunked by numerous experts.

Florida’s decision to leave the Interstate Crosscheck system, created by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican, was first reported Friday by the Miami Herald.

“The Department of State and Supervisors of Elections currently work with elections officials in other states to update registrations regarding residency, and we are always exploring options to improve the elections process,” Brittany Lesser, a spokeswoman for Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, told msnbc in a statement.

The state’s move is striking because, under Republican Gov. Rick Scott, Florida has led the way in aggressively removing voters from the rolls. A 2012 effort that aimed to find non-citizens purged numerous eligible voters, including a 91-year old World War II vet. A court recently declared the move illegal. Last month, Detzner announced that a new bid to cut voters from the rolls would be delayed until next year.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/florida-quits-crosscheck

It's all about provisional ballots ans whether they get counted or tossed if one's name appears on Cross Check.

Interstate Cross check is used in over 30 states mostly Republican.

Representatives Alcee Hastings & Keith Ellison, along with civil rights leaders sent a letter to Loretta Lynch and helped get 50,000 signatures to her to ask that Cross Check be investigated. Other state level Democrats have done so also.

A PETITION TO RELEASE THE NAMES OF VOTERS ON THE “INTERSTATE CROSSCHECK” PURGE LIST

To: Office of the Attorney General, Loretta E. Lynch
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001

In his Rolling Stone investigation Greg Palast revealed that a program to prevent alleged voter fraud, “Interstate Crosscheck,” has wrongly tagged voters listing them as registering in two states or voting in two states, a felony crime. The suspect list of potential criminals contains an astonishing SEVEN MILLION NAMES—naming ONE IN SEVEN voters of color in the Crosscheck states.
While partisan officials have kept the list confidential, Rolling Stone investigative reporter Greg Palast obtained over one million of the accused.

The ONLY evidence that you have voted or registered in two states is that you share a first name and last name with another voter. A typical example: Maria ISABEL Hernandez of Virginia is supposedly the same voter as Maria CRISTINA Hernandez of Louisiana.

As many as one million may have lost their right to vote in the election.

Experts have stated the Crosscheck system, directed for 30 states by the highly partisan Secretary of State of Kansas, is “dangerously biased against minorities.” As the great civil rights leader Rev. Joseph Lowery said of Crosscheck, “This is Jim Crow all over again.”

From:
We, the undersigned. The American public demand an investigation of Crosscheck’s racially-biased purge operation — and the release of the entire list of the seven million Americans suspected of voting or registering in two states..
Upon reaching 50,000 co-signers our team at the Palast Investigative Fund will hand deliver the names to your office – and demand that your Civil Rights division do a full investigation into the Interstate Crosscheck program.
Signed,

Congressman Alcee Hastings, Congressional Black Caucus
Hon. Keith Ellison, US Congressman
Martin Luther King III
Santiago Juarez, AMPARO Legal Services
Dr. Wilmer Leon, Sirius FM
Bill Gallegos, Climate Justice, Communities for a Better Environment
Taz Ahmed, 18 Million Rising
Mimi Kennedy, People Demanding Action
Medea Benjamin, Code Pink


http://thebestdemocracymoneycanbuy.com/petition/

[dionysus]

21. Palast has the same story every election. If he had the scoop, i can't see the entire media laying

off the story. they are in it for the money and if this stuff was proven, it'd be pure headline gold for months.

[ucrdem]

7. WaPo: U.S. elections rank worst among Western democracies

from the Washington Post, March 29, 2016:

New evidence that gives insights into this issue has been gathered by the Electoral Integrity Project. This independent research project is funded by the Australian Research Council’s Laureate award with a team of researchers based at the University of Sydney and Harvard University.

The 2015 annual Year in Election report compares the risks of flawed and failed elections, and looks at how well countries around the world meet international standards. The report gathers assessments from over 2,000 experts to evaluate the perceived integrity of all 180 national parliamentary and presidential contests held between July 1, 2012 to December 31, 2015 in 139 countries worldwide. These include 54 national elections held last year.

Forty experts were asked to assess each election by answering 49 questions The overall 100-point Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) index is constructed by summing up the responses.



This chart compares and contrasts the overall 100-point PEI index for all elections held since 2012 in the Western democracies covered in the survey. In the U.S., this covers both the 2012 presidential elections and the 2014 Congressional contests.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/03/29/u-s-elections-ranked-worst-among-western-democracies-heres-why/

And this was before we knew about the modems installed in WI voting machines.

[Fast Walker 52]

10. that's freaking shameful... and certainly won't be getting better in the next few years

[ucrdem]

20. The weird thing is that UK is the next worst after us.

In both countries there are now conservative governments and eerily close elections like Brexit which I have to be suspicious of given the proven capacity of both countries to rig elections, gin up shooting wars and generally wreak havoc.

[HoneyBadger]

8. Because of what Stein uncovered, parts of Michigan (Detroit) will be audited

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/28/stein-audit/95917714/

http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/12/michigans-elections-bureau-audit-detroit-precincts/95349562/

[Fast Walker 52]

11. Thanks! Good to see this still in the news

I wonder how much this affected the outcome:
"complaints from Detroit election officials who said 87 optical scanner voting machines failed on Election Day, along with other documented vote count and ballot handling irregularities."

[Kotya]

14. I wouldn't celebrate.

There's a reasonable chance that "ballot irregularities" in Detroit benefited Hillary Clinton as it appears that damaged optical scanners in Detroit overcounted jammed ballots that had to be re-inserted. A hand recount of paper ballots will likely cost Clinton votes as these machines were in overwhelmingly Democratic precincts.

[HoneyBadger]

15. If you want to fix problems with voting machines, the time to do it is not during an election

So whether or not anyone celebrates, it is the right time, especially if it minimizes future issues. If nothing else, it potentially demonstrates that paper ballots are no magic solution, in fact that they may be easier to hack than anyone other form of ballots, if all it takes to re-insert them. The obvious solution is a ballot reader than does not allow the same ballot to be inserted again.

[Vinca]

12. The bottom line is that for 4 years we are totally screwed.

It doesn't matter what happened at this point. No one is going to fix it and make it better. No one is going to overturn the election. We're stuck with Orange Hitler and we should get out of this postmortem swamp and start planning to overthrow the king.

[Fast Walker 52]

13. that is true, of course

[ailsagirl]

23. +100000000000000000000000000000

[TheFrenchRazor]

24. what makes you think we will have free/fair elections in 4 yrs?? quite the opposite, it is only goin

going to get worse. the repugs will do ANYTHING to beat dems, even if it means allowing russians to hack/control our elections.

[LenaBaby61]

26. What makes you think we will have free/fair elections in 4 yrs??

Totally agree with you

I don't trust a tRumputin DOJ to investigate Dem reported voter suppression or voter disenfranchisement etc. It IS going to get MUCH worse. Some of my friends disagree with me, and say I'm being negative. Some "think" that we'll get out in enough numbers to "vote the bums out" when things go off the rails in the next few years. I mean, them not even that a tRumputin DOJ wouldn't double down on voter suppression, more cross checking, voter purging, and "allow" God knows WHO else to hack into or tamper with Dem voting machines in 2018 which would make SURE that the Senate goes to a rethug 60 seat majority for their side is just--no words for it actually.

I STILL love my buddies , but they're living in La La land.

[LaydeeBug]

16. The Bottom line is the Soviet Republicans stole it, the Russians hacked it so they could

and we finally know at long last that the media is a right wing operation, and we are all better off ignoring them.

[Fast Walker 52]

17. "Soviet Republicans" -- perfect!

[planetc]

18. The bottom line is that we have no idea who was elected to the presidency, or to congress.

And the media won't be telling us about the impossibility of getting an accurate recount, should one be needed. The time to fix our election systems was in 2002, right after the current machines were installed. Without having a Democratic president, and majorities in both houses, we will not be seeing national voting standards enacted, or a Right to Vote law, to protect the favorite targets of voter suppression: African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans. Without bringing our election standards up to adequate, we will not be able to pass legislation to do much of anything we want, because Republicans now have no platform at all except to do the opposite of what Democrats want, retroactively.

We could, of course, try to take back some statehouses from Republicans, but those elections will run through the existing election system. I don't think this is a problem that technology will fix.

[TheFrenchRazor]

25. yes; we need all paper ballots, all hand-counted, all the time. nt

[ailsagirl]

22. Two words

we're screwed

[DFW]

27. We were not killed by one shot to the head

Rather, it was a hundred cuts with a Swiss Army Knife, just enough to bleed our liberty to death.