READER COMMENTS ON

"'AWOL' Obama/DNC Attorneys Found! Turns Out They Were Working in Secret, Reports Alternet"

(35 Responses so far...)





COMMENT #1 [Permalink]

... Mike said on 10/26/2008 @ 8:30 pm PT...





Give 'em hell, Brad. I don't care if they have every lawyer in the country lined up, we all know that Election Day is too late to do anything.

COMMENT #2 [Permalink]

... Anthony Look said on 10/26/2008 @ 9:35 pm PT...





In the meantime..........

http://www.writeslikeshe...ast-provisional-ballots/

COMMENT #3 [Permalink]

... Lisa said on 10/26/2008 @ 9:47 pm PT...





Why isn't the mainstream media reporting this voter fraud that's happening now. Also: Watch the Documentary "Uncounted" they show how the election was stolen for Bush in 2004 against Kerry. We cannot allow this to happen. https://bradblog.com/?cat=166 McCain made a statement today saying that he "Guarantee" you he's going to win this election and he don't believe the polls. He said that because the exit polls numbers, he know they are rigging this election for him. He also said the count will go on over into the night. How does he know already the vote count will go into the night. This is the same thing that happened in the Documentary "Uncounted" they kept saying the race was too close to call and the exit polls numbers were totally different from the machine count and they didn't know why. McCain keep saying the race is closer than we think. America we can't keep letting them rig these elections. Where is the Democracy in all this. The Diebold voting machines are owned by the Republican party. Let's put a stop to this right now. A friend of mine went to early vote the other day, she was using the Diebold machine, she voted for Obama, when she pressed the VOTE button John McCain's name came up on the screen. This is FRAUD and something should be done about it now.

COMMENT #4 [Permalink]

... TiaL said on 10/26/2008 @ 10:38 pm PT...





Brad, I have been reading your blog, the velvet revolution site , the wiki site , and others. But I didn't think that this sort of thing would actually happen to someone I know. My sister called me yesterday to tell me that she registered to vote in Nevada but her name is not on the rolls. I gave her the phone number to the Election Protection Center and we sent a complaint to Obamas website. She plans to make a phone call to Election Protection Monday. If anyone on this blog has any suggestions or advice it would be appreciated. Thanks.

COMMENT #5 [Permalink]

... Brad Friedman said on 10/26/2008 @ 10:51 pm PT...





TiaL - In addition to notifying and sending written complaints to the folks you mention, be sure to do same with the NV SoS, the county registrar, 866-MYVOTE1, 866-OUR-VOTE and as many local media folks as you can contact!

COMMENT #6 [Permalink]

... Larry Bergan said on 10/27/2008 @ 12:07 am PT...





"We've been monitoring voting machines to ensure that they record the vote accurately." That is a ridiculous statement. Since that part of the strategy isn't secret, they should be able to tell us everything about how they are "monitoring" the machines. The people whose job it is to test the machines don't even do that. It's an insulting statement. Just got my copy of "Murder Spies and Voting Lies." Very nice! Interestingly put together and very gutsy! Edward Murrow gutsy!

COMMENT #7 [Permalink]

... Adam Fulford said on 10/27/2008 @ 1:16 am PT...





What is wrong with them. Why are they being so dense?! Twilight Zone dense.

COMMENT #8 [Permalink]

... TEDEGER said on 10/27/2008 @ 1:39 am PT...





In 2004, my daughter in Georgia voted for Kerry and the machine told her she voted for Bush. She cancelled it, and another flip. Twice. She is NOT one to take this sort of thing tamely. She left the cubicle and confronted the officials in charge. LOUDLY. They tried to "Shush" her, but she doesn't "Shush." Finally, they agreed to take the offending machine off line and allow her to vote on a different machine, which did, indeed, apparently register the vote as she cast it. After it was all over, she asked me, "How do I know that they did take the crooked machine off line, and how do I know that my vote was actually cast the way I wanted?" I replied, "You don't. The odds are that your suspicions are well-grounded; it was Georgia, after all!"

COMMENT #9 [Permalink]

... Floridiot said on 10/27/2008 @ 2:05 am PT...





Brad, I'm hoping that this is a 'hand in the cookie jar' moment this round as they haven't quite figured out how they're doing it yet for certain and don't want to reduce turnout with everyone thinking its already a foregone conclusion who has won...no?

COMMENT #10 [Permalink]

... molly said on 10/27/2008 @ 5:06 am PT...





#8...When my 84 year old Mother was dying of cancer in the hosp...the Dr. and nurses really did not care if she had adequate pain meds. I am a nurse myself so knew it was simply laziness. I got results when I started screaming and cursing. If I had it to do over...I would scream and curse from the gitgo. It goes against my nature...I'm a big fan of the Buddha.Some things are too important to quietly stand by and watch.I've noticed in taking on "those" people ...they can not stand attn. brought to them.

COMMENT #11 [Permalink]

... kglorePA said on 10/27/2008 @ 6:31 am PT...





Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but maybe the DNC does not want to reveal their monitoring tactics for fear that the republicans might circumvent it and steal the election. Never let the enemy know what you are going to do and keep them guessing. I hope that the DNC does have a sound strategy to ensure every vote is counted correctly and there will be no come-from-behind miracle surprise victories for McCain on election day in all of those swing states including Pennsylvania, which has Obama up in the polls by double digits. If McCain does win, which goes against all of the polling data, including Nate Silver's 538.com's 10,000 computer simulations, my fear is that the "Bradley Effect" will be used to explain the disparity between the tracking polls, exit polls, and the actual vote count. At that point, I can only hope all of the electronic voting machines will be impounded and forensic computer experts will be able to see if any of the machines were rigged to flip votes from democrat to republican.

COMMENT #12 [Permalink]

... CambridgeKnitter said on 10/27/2008 @ 6:35 am PT...





The first hour of On Point this morning, from 10:00 to 11:00 Eastern time, will be about election integrity and voter suppression. It might even get into the real issues, as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is one of the guests, along with extreme Brad fan John Fund and Nathaniel Persily, a professor at Columbia Law School who is (supposedly; I have no idea myself) an expert on election law. On Point is a call-in talk show that originates at one of my local NPR stations, WBUR. The website is www.onpointradio.com . There are already comments posted, so feel free to go over there and get your two cents in before the show starts. You can listen online at http://www.wbur.org/listen/ and call in at (800) 423-TALK. It would delightful to hear from 6 or 7 of you.

COMMENT #13 [Permalink]

... ECS said on 10/27/2008 @ 7:05 am PT...





Hey Brad! You're wrong about the Repug motive in their motion to intervene. They are not attempting to help voters here. What they're in fact doing is attempting to piggyback themselves into the suit brought by the NAACP/Dems that challenges voter suprression tactics (crappy e-vote machines, i.e.) and trying to gum it up by improperly inserting specious claims of voter fraud. Go back and read their motion. Also discuss it with an attorney, and then pleae make updates to your post. I don't think you understood understood what you were reading, and because of your misunderstanding, your blog readers are currently misinformed. The only way someone can legitimate sue and not be booted from court is if the party has "standing" and suffered "actual harm" The Dems and NAACP can prove that their voters have suffered harm and that voters are being harmed by the crappy equipment, etc. The repugs can't prove or show instances of actual voter fraud because it isn't there. So they're looking for any available avenue to cast doubt on the election.

COMMENT #14 [Permalink]

... Jim CT said on 10/27/2008 @ 8:09 am PT...





In 2004, my daughter in Georgia voted for Kerry and the machine told her she voted for Bush. She cancelled it, and another flip. Twice. She is NOT one to take this sort of thing tamely. She left the cubicle and confronted the officials in charge. LOUDLY. They tried to "Shush" her, but she doesn't "Shush." Finally, they agreed to take the offending machine off line and allow her to vote on a different machine, which did, indeed, apparently register the vote as she cast it. I've been thinking about this touchscreen mess and the obvious visual evidence that votes are being flipped. As a neophite computer tinkerer, the only thing I can equate this to is when you remove or replace hardware such as a video card. If you don't remove all of the old drivers a conflict occurs with unpredictable results. In this case I believe it's a failure to fully remove the legitimate code when installing the malicious code over it. In other words, this is just an example of poor installation of the theft program. It would seem that when the installation is performed correctly, you wouldn't see your vote flip at all, and that it's likely that is the majority of the cases. If so, this is the tip of the iceberg.

COMMENT #15 [Permalink]

... Brad Friedman said on 10/27/2008 @ 10:02 am PT...





ECS - I'll take the blame for, perhaps, wording it sloppily in my article above (as usual right around now, working really quickly on too many things at once.) But I did not say that Republicans "attempting to help voters here." I said the opposite. Or at least tried to. In other words, I agree with you that the Repubs are trying to block voters ability to cast a vote. Unfortunately, they are on the side of state Dems in this matter. While Obama and the DNC did nothing to oppose the state Dems and finally the NAACP had to come in with a (fairly tame) lawsuit to oppose state Dems. For an attempt at clarity: + A month ago, the PA SoS (a Dem) issued a directive saying no paper ballots need to be given out unless all machines in a precinct break down.

+ Obama/DNC did nothing to oppose.

+ Finally, NAACP and a local Election Protection coalition filed suit to demand paper ballots be given out if a "majority" of machines break down (that, even though state law allows paper ballots to be given out if just one machine in a precinct breaks down! Nonetheless, at least some action was taken by somebody.)

+ The Republicans filed to intervene, essentially taking the side of the state Dems against the NAACP, to say paper ballots should not be given out. Hope that clarifies what I was trying to write in the original article

COMMENT #16 [Permalink]

... SandyD said on 10/27/2008 @ 10:45 am PT...





# 4 TiaL and # 5 Brad My son lives in Las Vegas and sent in a registration to vote. He later checked on line to make sure he was registered. He was not listed. He called the elections office and was told that his registration was invalid because there were more than three days between the date on his application [which he admits sat on his desk for a week] and the post mark date! My son then asked for a provisional ballot and was told that they would have to see if he was entitled to one. They have never gotten back to him. Yes, he's a Democrat. I couldn't believe there was such a law - or, if there is such a law, it is yet another voter suppression "gotcha" slipped into the Nevada Law. After reviewing the law, I concluded that the elections clerk interpreted the law improperly (see below). The statute - NRS 293.5235 - says: 7. The applicant shall be deemed to be registered or to have corrected the information in the register: (a) If the application is received by the county clerk or postmarked not more than 3 working days after the applicant completed the application, on the date the applicant completed the application; or (b) If the application is received by the county clerk or postmarked more than 3 working days after the applicant completed the application, on the date the application is received by the county clerk. This is the analysis of the statute that I made and which my husband agreed with (we are both Oregon lawyers): I read that to mean that the “date of registration” is the date RECEIVED by the registrar if the date of the application is more than three days prior to the postmark; i.e. Greg IS registered to vote in NV as of the date it was received by the elections office (which I recall was about a week before the deadline). This law does NOT reject voter registrations with more than 3 days between the date on the voter registration and the post mark date. Greg needs to call his county Elections Director and tell him/her about this faulty interpretation. If he can’t get satisfaction there, he needs to call the Secretary of State who directs the counties on election matters. I will pass on the other contact information to my son provided by Brad. He will definitely follow up. It is one thing to pass on these "anecdotes" and say there is a real problem, and it is a whole other thing to be the voter trying to register and trying to vote and being told you can't. This is where your constitutional right to vote is tested. Is it worth fighting for? Damn right!

COMMENT #17 [Permalink]

... anonymous said on 10/27/2008 @ 11:13 am PT...





TO ANYONE WHO thought they were registered and are told they are not. Go to your county registrar or board of elections.

Demand to see your voter file and the original voter registration card. Get copies. Tell them you will sue them for violating NVRA and have illegally disenfranchised you. Don't believe them if they tell you to vote provisionally. They don't have to count your provisional application.

COMMENT #18 [Permalink]

... Shannon Williford said on 10/27/2008 @ 11:25 am PT...





#11,

I'm probably dreaming, but I'm hoping that the Dems are doing a "keep the powder dry" maneuver, watching and staying prepared to do their own flipping, if need be, when they see the Pubs trying to flip to a win. Howard Dean knows about the flips and rigs of '04 and '06. Surely many other Dems in places of power know this, too. Obama has been seen hanging around with Pub Senator Chuck Hagel, he of questionable election fame, as Hagel was an owner of the voting machine company that counted votes for his own "miracle upset" election. See: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0301/S00166.htm If Hagel is an Obama man, maybe he's giving advice on counter-rigs, which of course would have to be kept secret in order to be activated at the last minute to win... Either way, it's insane, and Dem flipping and hacking and rigging would be just as terrible as Pub hacking and flipping and rigging. Our hackers vs. your hackers... Our riggers vs. your riggers...

Democracy down for the count... shw

COMMENT #19 [Permalink]

... Carol said on 10/27/2008 @ 2:03 pm PT...





THANK YOU BRAD. IS there ANYTHING any of US can DO to help???

COMMENT #20 [Permalink]

... cyn said on 10/27/2008 @ 3:30 pm PT...





Yes Brad! What can we do to help out????

COMMENT #21 [Permalink]

... Lora said on 10/27/2008 @ 4:50 pm PT...





Go Brad!

COMMENT #22 [Permalink]

... TiaL said on 10/27/2008 @ 5:44 pm PT...





Thank you Brad, Sandy, & Anonymous. I will pass that information on to my sister.

COMMENT #23 [Permalink]

... Unhappy Camper said on 10/27/2008 @ 5:45 pm PT...





I suspect that Kerry took a dive (boxing term). During the time between the convention and the general election, Kerry ran a miserable campaign, while raising millions of dollars for legal challenges after the election AND promissing that he wouldn't give up like Gore ("until all the votes are counted"). BUT after the election, he immediately CAVED. No legal challenge, no support for the Green Party recount or the Cong. K. recount. Where the hell did the millions of dollars he raised for legal challenges go? I'd like to know. Hopefully I'm wrong, but I smell a big black rat named OBama. I sure haven't seen him do anything about voter suppression and at this point in time, I have no confidence in the DNC. Everyone is scratching their heads wondering why McCain is pulling resources from Red states and moving them into Pennsylvania. Well, I have a one-word explanation: DRE(s). Doesn't most of PA use DRE(s) with no paper audit trail? Computer generated voting that cannot be "recounted"??? If McCain wins a suprise vicory in PA and NC (I think NC also uses DRE Machines), Every MSN outlet will proclaim: "BRADLEY EFFECT!" "BRADLEY EFFECT!" "All those white racist votes in PA and NC lied to the pollsters, they just couldn't stomach a black man in the White House." What do we do if this scenario plays out and Obama pulls another Kerry? What do we do then??? Just curious, is there a list of which states use unverifiable voting machines?

COMMENT #24 [Permalink]

... Perfidius said on 10/27/2008 @ 7:32 pm PT...





It is not out of bounds to suggest Democrats taking a fall. They've been doing it repeatedly in almost every skirmish with Bush since taking Congress. And Obama's "transition team" is headed up by bankers. I don't see any change so far. Just the biggest heist in history, likely to continue rolling along, signed sealed and delivered by the Democratic leadership.

COMMENT #25 [Permalink]

... Rosencrantz said on 10/27/2008 @ 7:55 pm PT...





It sounds like they are being just as serious and diligent about ensuring every vote gets cast as Kerry was 4 years ago. Just like Kerry, they talk loud about the importance of ensuring every vote gets counted. Except when the media announced Kerry lost, despite TONS of voting machine problems, voter disenfranchisement, not to mention problems and corruption in Ohio...Kerry set a record time for folding and then did NOTHING.

COMMENT #26 [Permalink]

... Lottakatz said on 10/27/2008 @ 8:53 pm PT...





I just saw this:

"CNN: 50,000 purged from voter rolls in Georgia" RAW STORY W/video: http://rawstory.com/news...om_voter_rolls_1027.html Where is the DNC?

Adam Fulford: "What is wrong with them. Why are they being so dense?! Twilight Zone dense" I have a hateful and cynical theory about that. Who benefits if the status quo is maintained? Who benefits now? Is there a doubt that the DNC is not controlled by entrenched special interests and IMO as terrified of 'transformational change' as the RNC? What does it matter to a political power structure who the President is as long as they have enough votes in Congress to benefit their own interest's which may well be different than the interest's of the voter? In what substantive way have the Democrats distinguished themselves from the Republicans over the last two years? Do we have one party or two in America? I believe that the Democrats came into the majority in 2006 with a plan. In a negotiation (And all of politics is a negotiation for power, current and future power to advance a political faction's aims, whatever they may be.) any basic book on the topic will tell you that the most risky, potentially damaging (to your side) and potentially effective tactic is to work against both your own and your opposers best interest. I think that the Democrats made a decision that the country's voters needed to suffer more as a spur to vote for Democrats in 2008. The aim was for a Democratic majority in Congress and with luck a Democratic President. They set about facilitating the Republican agenda to achieve just that end. All they had to do was hold a lot of hearings and stay in the news as the party of reform while the Republicans brought the country to its knees. It looks to me to have been a successful position to take. It worked. Here's the problem: Barack Obama, while hardly a liberal, is the contemporary Jimmy Carter. Voters were so desperate to exorcise the Nixon/Republican demon that they voted for a virtually unknown Governor in response. Carter ran a masterful two year campaign energizing the working class (Obama's campaign has been/is very similar.) and once he got in office he was such an outsider the Democrats wouldn't work with him. He couldn't get any domestic legislation he wanted passed. Obama is not the Party choice, he is the peoples choice. The Party would have been ecstatic with Clinton as the nominee; a long-time pol that knows where the bodies are buried and how the job get done but that's not who they have as their presidential nominee. An outsider on the wrong side of the class line (or he gives that appearance anyway)is who they have. If the major political thrust of the last 28 years is class warfare with the wealth and power of the nation moving upward and being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands a 'reformer' that pledges to halt or reverse that trend is the last person either political party wants to see. How does the party eat its cake and have it too: Make the race close. Even if their guy wins there would be no clear mandate. Inaction on election fraud could do that and all the Republicans have left is election fraud at this point, they won't win on merit. This puts Obama in the same position Carter was in when he took office but with less of a popular majority. With a Democratic majority in Congress (and there will be a lot of Republicans that cozy up to them) that can withstand a Republican filibuster or a President's veto the PARTY retains power and can maintain whatever level of the status quo that benefits them. Even if Obama were to lose there will in all likelihood still be a Democratic majority in Congress. The same ends could be achieved. I think the Democrats have been learning from the Republicans. This is a way to allow the Republicans to, in essence, 'steal' the election for the Democratic PARTY (and ownership class) which allows the Democratic Party to become the more powerful faction of what has become essentially the same political party. I am totally cynical (downright nihilistic in fact) when it comes to politics in America but not even I believe the Democrats are so stupid and inept as to let a Presidential election be stolen THREE times using the same tactics without being in on it. This race isn't being stolen, it's been fixed. I sure hope I'm just plain foolish and wrong.

COMMENT #27 [Permalink]

... bruce sims said on 10/27/2008 @ 10:59 pm PT...





It's really pretty simple (at least to me). When the probabilities are high that you (meaning Obama and the Dems)will win the elections, why would you want to call into question the very machines that elected you?

Cynical? I don't think so as the problems with these machines have been known for quite awhile but NO national figure has called for replacement.

Sorta like saying 'I haven't seen any evidence of illegal actions by the Bush Administration'(quoting Obama and Pelosi).

COMMENT #28 [Permalink]

... capt said on 10/28/2008 @ 10:43 am PT...





bruce sims You are more wise and reasonable than even Brad on this one. We need to WIN the election and Barack's attoney's are not there to FIX a broken system nor are they dumb enough to spend resources on vote problems in a solidly red state. Casting doubts about the system could be exactly what the RW's wish for at this point in time because they know their arse is being handed to them. Furthermore - When Barack wins is that suppose to mean the election wasn't fixed? As if an Obama win could mean - all voting problems have been addressed? That is an additional risk for the perceptions of LIV's and RW's. Maybe it's just me.

COMMENT #29 [Permalink]

... catbeller said on 10/28/2008 @ 2:51 pm PT...





Former programmer. Comment:

Any coder writing vote stealing code should not be so stupid - utterly incompetent - as to not make sure the screen displayed the voter's choice, even tho the recorded vote be opposite. Ditto paper. I think what you see with the flipping is just really bad programming, which is perhaps even worse than cheating. The problem with viewing a gross error such as what is happening now as cheating is this: when they fix the glitch, everyone will consider the voting machines "fixed". The machines cannot be fixed, cannot be trusted, as one never knows what code actually runs from microsecond to microsecond. We can't have a meme start that equates a lack of screen errors = problem solved. I do deduce that real cheating is going to happen, esp. in close congressional races that they simply cannot afford to lose, else the Demos will have supermajority. The cheating, I think, will be in certain locations in specific districts that they need to win, as they did in Ohio in 2004.

COMMENT #30 [Permalink]

... Lora said on 10/28/2008 @ 6:33 pm PT...





Bruce and Capt, The probabilites appear to be high that Obama will win. I surely hope so. They may not be, however, due to the great number of dirty trick the Repubs are certain to pull. And, to my mind, keeping quiet about likely disenfranchisement and fraud because you think you are gonna win by shutting up about it is nearly as bad as the neocon dirty tricks. It's an insult to all voters, and really arrogantly stupid, IMO. Catbeller, Maybe it's bad cheating

COMMENT #31 [Permalink]

... Mark A. Adams JD/MBA said on 10/29/2008 @ 10:33 am PT...





I was on a conference call concerning election protection with one of these "election protection" attorneys yesterday. She improperly informed the activists who were being asked to gather news reports from the polls that they had to stay beyond the 100 foot boundary which Florida and many states have established. However, that boundary has been held to violate freedom of the press which even citizen journalists enjoy. See the letter to the election officers that Project Vote Count used in Ohio and Texas and the injunction in the CBS case. Of course, the "election protection" attorney also refused to answer a question which I asked twice and which drew laughs from many on the call who follow my work and know the truth. This unanswerable question was "is it unconstitutional to count votes in secret?" The answer is YES!!! See, for examples Virginia’s Elections Are UNCONSTITUTIONAL?!?! and South Carolina Elections Are UNCONSTITUTIONAL!?! Apparently, if you are working on "election protection" for one of those big well funded organizations, you are really just trying to help keep people in the dark. How better to do that than operate in secret.

COMMENT #32 [Permalink]

... Rocco said on 10/29/2008 @ 10:37 am PT...





I think I know why the dems are not going after this. It's not that they don't want to win elections. They do. But they do not want to win in a landslide. This may be even more important than winning. A landslide victory would mean that Nader like contenders have a chance of being competitive with the repugs and that washes away excuses to keep them out of the debates and media discussions. This would be a threat to the ruling class which is comprised of both dems and repugs, just as Nader says. The ruling class strategy is always divide and conquer, and now they have it down to 1 supreme court vote in 2000 and a few stolen votes in Ohio in '04. Statistically very unlikely. The dems risk losing the election but they keep the the big money coming in from bankers, big oil, and multinationals. Unpopular repugs need all the help they can get. Ultimately the puppeteers of this vote rigging is not just the Republican party, it's the ruling class. The dem's strategy is to win, just barely.

COMMENT #33 [Permalink]

... Jon said on 10/30/2008 @ 3:58 am PT...





I am a lawyer and I have handled some election fraud issues. How can I help?

COMMENT #34 [Permalink]

... Chella Ann said on 10/31/2008 @ 2:12 pm PT...





The Democrat's strategy for protecting your vote HAS to be super-secret, dummies, or else the GOP will move to counteract them on election day. There's no doubt that Obama is a great General, he has an army of enthusiastic young people, ready & waiting to be deployed. You want the whole battle strategy to be made public, you silly whining bunch of gits??? Yeah I'll bet you do. That's why YOU aren't a General of any army.

COMMENT #35 [Permalink]

... Clif West said on 11/2/2008 @ 9:23 pm PT...

