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| 1-4-08: Eh? Iowa Republicans STILL mi... |
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| Author |
Message |
    
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7347
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 5 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 4, 2008 - 8:31 am: | 
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It isn't even a skillful magic show.
The Republican caucuses usually take only half as long as the Democratic caucuses, due to simpler procedures. Yet the Republicans are lagging behind the Democrats now by over TEN HOURS in having all their results in. Results delays are a red flag.
Alert CSPAN watchers caught TV screen shots of Giuliani vote totals going down by a couple thousand votes midstream in, I believe it was, Linn County. That needs a confirm; screen shot images were posted on various blogs, but if anyone recorded the coverage and can corroborate those screen shots, please let us know.
As many of us know, vote totals that go DOWN during the middle of the count can be an error, but also can signal an election theft tactic whereby votes from a candidate finishing very low in the pack are skimmed off and given to a favored candidate higher in the pack. If corroborated, the vote total shift will be another red flag.
And with the Republican race, I wouldn't look first at fraud in the number one position. I'd look for it in the area of repositioning candidates in the second through sixth spot.
- The delay in results is a red flag.
- The vote totals going down during the count is a red flag.
- The failure to release county results in live time, as promised in a Republican Party press release on Jan. 2, is a red flag.
- The failure to release precinct totals at all is a corrupt procedure. Note that the day before the caucuses, after much pressure, the Republicans did (belatedly) promise to release the precinct results on election night. They didn't.
In addition: I'm trying to get information on whether the public was kicked out of the room during hand counting in all locations, or just some.
I will be publishing some reports by caucus attendees in the "Front Lines" section later today.
There is absolutely no reason to consider any of the Republican caucus results to be credible.
I'm not saying they are wrong, I am saying the breakdown in checks and balances was stunning enough to call it not a magic show, but a bad magic show.
Bev Harris |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7348
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 4, 2008 - 8:50 am: |
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The online election results are provided by an Illinois firm called Election Mall Technologies. The Illinois secretary of state site corporations Web site shows that this firm has had its corporate standing involuntarily dissolved, which usually means "papers weren't filed on time." Not a big deal, normally, but interesting in light of the fact that it had its corporate standing revoked and not reinstated a few years earlier. It reincorporated under another name.
Below are the reported Iowa results missing 65 precincts, as of 10:42 am central time Jan 4. Below that I will post screen shots of the online results provider, Election Mall Technologies. By the way, one of the key people listed with Election Mall Technologies is Democratic Party strategist Joe Trippi.
From http://www.iowagop.net
County Giuliani Huckabee Hunter McCain Paul Romney Tancredo Thompson
Adair 7 93 0 39 14 46 0 76
Adams 4 76 1 21 14 44 0 26
Allamakee 11 113 2 58 88 117 0 29
Appanoose 14 242 0 39 39 51 0 58
Audubon 5 68 1 29 13 52 0 26
Benton 47 341 2 83 109 204 0 188
Black Hawk 70 1,046 10 318 308 814 0 436
Boone 19 543 8 118 149 279 0 192
Bremer 21 271 2 117 76 266 2 129
Buchanan 26 151 5 52 58 142 0 90
Buena Vista 4 224 2 94 64 156 0 145
Butler 14 199 7 56 44 105 0 117
Calhoun 14 151 2 42 56 57 0 56
Carroll 25 155 1 134 45 139 0 88
Cass 76 188 0 89 61 146 0 112
Cedar 14 146 2 69 90 216 0 84
Cerro Gordo 77 545 1 379 163 323 0 192
Cherokee 11 179 0 86 58 148 0 68
Chickasaw 7 78 2 67 31 85 0 60
Clarke 3 161 2 21 37 69 0 44
Clay 23 217 0 79 49 119 0 102
Clayton 23 114 3 82 73 152 0 60
Clinton 29 249 1 153 93 371 0 121
Crawford 7 130 2 67 45 106 0 91
Dallas 152 1,258 18 523 292 1,262 1 464
Davis 5 149 1 16 54 13 0 26
Decatur 5 116 1 33 44 123 0 26
Delaware 12 140 1 60 50 216 0 61
Des Moines 25 431 10 118 103 304 0 162
Dickinson 32 171 1 166 57 154 0 70
Dubuque 74 349 13 444 295 989 0 215
Emmet 4 76 5 34 22 58 0 54
Fayette 10 107 3 56 45 70 0 61
Floyd 29 169 0 63 35 97 0 70
Franklin 17 160 1 54 75 111 0 78
Fremont 5 55 2 26 23 53 0 26
Greene 10 150 4 59 74 103 0 60
Grundy 17 320 1 52 79 108 0 87
Guthrie 18 178 2 52 78 121 0 131
Hamilton 25 306 5 98 66 155 0 159
Hancock 11 257 0 56 50 68 0 75
Hardin 14 424 0 110 46 120 0 130
Harrison 14 167 1 44 65 183 0 55
Henry 24 374 2 77 90 152 0 66
Howard 1 64 4 44 29 59 0 57
Humboldt 4 175 0 45 25 99 0 54
Ida 5 86 0 43 20 88 0 61
Iowa 33 199 3 36 71 150 0 106
Jackson 17 129 6 57 93 210 0 40
Jasper 12 564 5 102 77 221 0 166
Jefferson 25 263 3 38 298 132 0 80
Johnson 269 883 10 608 604 1,247 0 349
Jones 20 165 1 66 70 249 0 94
Keokuk 12 166 1 40 56 64 0 54
Kossuth 6 297 9 70 23 96 0 71
Lee 15 284 7 91 91 192 0 128
Linn 375 1,887 22 897 783 2,294 0 1,081
Louisa 5 156 1 48 22 106 0 56
Lucas 9 212 2 34 28 56 0 65
Lyon 3 214 0 113 28 101 1 49
Madison 31 395 12 96 85 146 0 139
Mahaska 11 747 8 83 77 116 1 161
Marion 8 1,000 7 141 141 276 0 240
Marshall 28 655 10 187 110 495 0 242
Mills 25 155 0 76 52 126 0 98
Mitchell 13 105 2 86 55 47 0 47
Monona 8 95 0 38 20 117 0 50
Monroe 4 142 0 14 29 35 0 37
Montgomery 14 124 0 58 45 142 0 31
Muscatine 57 292 3 134 114 303 0 95
O'Brien 3 335 3 54 48 83 0 75
Osceola 4 78 1 37 66 52 0 17
Page 13 190 0 69 56 148 0 36
Palo Alto 8 74 2 44 23 76 0 68
Plymouth 30 304 3 201 101 415 0 171
Pocahontas 2 141 2 29 80 64 0 55
Polk 912 8,039 117 3,318 1,998 5,263 0 2,846
Pottawattamie 147 560 17 337 297 828 0 338
Poweshiek 28 352 1 100 61 167 0 121
Ringgold 3 77 2 17 18 35 0 29
Sac 4 165 1 52 34 87 0 102
Scott 278 1,241 18 1,039 466 1,722 0 690
Shelby 8 199 18 44 33 88 0 56
Sioux 26 1,133 3 336 136 300 0 206
Story 135 1,848 23 511 561 1,069 0 492
Tama 19 247 10 70 46 153 0 133
Taylor 3 56 0 14 14 45 0 33
Union 14 158 0 56 47 85 0 53
Van Buren 7 108 3 32 64 55 0 32
Wapello 19 477 0 43 88 142 0 46
Warren 60 1,184 16 232 241 478 0 425
Washington 33 285 3 68 115 179 0 145
Wayne 1 160 1 22 19 31 0 24
Webster 56 453 6 178 75 269 0 188
Winnebago 8 245 2 69 40 80 0 68
Winneshiek 15 122 2 108 69 201 0 91
Woodbury 107 780 17 422 275 1,309 0 565
Worth 1 69 1 39 7 35 0 27
Wright 5 243 0 29 54 112 0 72
1716 of 1781 precincts reporting
"Designed and mainted by electionmall.com"
As an update in another area, I received a response from VOXEO today that I'll be posting over in the Front Lines - research area for the Iowa caucus cell phone tabulation system: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/73/71118.html |
Jason Reed
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jasonr54
Post Number: 3
Registered: 10-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 3, 2008 - 9:57 pm: |
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Found this but no screen shot to be found...
Massive vote fraud reported at the Iowa Caucus
img186.imageshack.us Ñ Screenshot of republican caucus totals, one shows the total after 40% reporting, the second shows 65% reporting. Interestingly, Giuliani's vote total DECREASES from 4901 to 2708, a decline of 2,193 votes. How does that happen?
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Massive_vote_fraud_reported_at_the_Iowa_Caucus
It may be nothing. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7344
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 3, 2008 - 10:14 pm: |
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Where the heck does it source back to? Since the Republican Party wasn't releasing the information (and that info doesn't match the look of their site), what is the source of the images?
If the source comes from the information used by the networks to do their magic projections, now that would be fascinating! But, step one has to be finding the source of the images and authenticating them.
This was my post last night. My morning email today has reports from various citizens saying this sources back to CSPAN. I moved this post here, and new BBV member Jason Reed's contribution of this tidbit last night, nice catch, to this section. Now I'll go fetch those screen shots alleged to be from CSPAN... |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7349
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 4, 2008 - 8:59 am: |
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screen shot - this does not look like it's taken off of CSPAN. Any guesses as to where it came from, or if it is something that should be debunked?
 |
Eric Westfall
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rewind
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 4, 2008 - 10:29 am: |
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I made that jpeg. It was made of two screen shots from this CNN web-site:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#IA
I had CNN's web page (top screen shot) up on my computer while watching the totals change on TV, and, as I refreshed the web page a few times I noticed that the totals hadn't been updated for over 20 minutes. I thought that was pretty slow (and odd), since prior to that the page had been updated much more regularly.
The web site still only showed 40% of precincts reporting, while on TV (CNN-International) over 60% of precincts were shown as having reported. That's when I started looking more closely and noticed that Giuliani's vote tally had gone down ... so I took a screen shot. A while later I refreshed the page and the totals had been updated (65% of precincts reporting), with Giuliani's tally at 2700. I took a screen shot of that as well.
I made the jpeg you that you have found and posted it over at the DailyPaul. Someone made the observation that Giuliani's total immediately before that 4900 vote figure had been much lower, and that this was likely just a glitch. Unfortunately I have already deleted the original screen shots from my computer ... I didn't think this was anything significant.
Rock on, Bev, we love you and appreciate all your hard work.  |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7354
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 4, 2008 - 11:25 am: |
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Thank you, Eric.
What we saw last night seems to corroborate the Jim Condit report from 1996, which is supported by a document from Senator Charles Grassley that Condit told me is filed with the WeThePeople lawsuit against voting machines. I have asked Jim to fax me that letter when he gets a chance, so I can post it publicly.
The Grassley letter acknowledges that the Iowa caucus results go to a small handful of guys who report it to the media and then back to the Republican Party. That was as of 1996.
What we saw last night, with CNN announcing "Huckabee wins!" at 8 pm central, many hours before even one iota of evidence or results was reported by the Republican Party, seems to support the idea that the Republicans allow men in the middle.
Why the long delay in coughing up the precinct results? Need more time to cook the stew?
I don't care at all who won, lost, placed second, third, fourth, fifth. If the citizens of this nation allows such a system to stand, kiss your freedom good-bye. |
Chuck Davis
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Watchman08
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 4, 2008 - 11:55 am: |
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Is there any indication wether or not they stole any votes from Ron Paul? I personnally couldn't
care less about Giuliani. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7355
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 4, 2008 - 12:04 pm: |
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What is and is not evidence
I received a phone call from a citizen in Oregon who was not sure how to capture a screen shot, so she was printing out copies of the Iowa Republican Party county results as they were being posted. She says she thought she noticed counties that initially had "100% of precincts in" go down to less than 100% in during the middle of the flow.
She says she didn't keep the copies.
I am having a problem, and the great investigative citizen watchdog Kathleen Wynne will know exactly what it is. I'm getting "stories" in my emails but no one followed our advice to take photos or video. Some citizens got screen shots or printouts, but say they discarded them.
Okay Eric, go to your recycle bin and retrieve those screen shots.
And to my caller: Go to your wastebasket and get those printouts.
Screen shots aren't adequate evidence for a courtroom, but are helpful, but if you discarded them from your computer...??? Since the information could be important, surely there is someone in America who recorded CNN last night. It's time to put an all points bulletin out to the groups you know to get that recording of CNN coverage that would corroborate Eric's screen shots.
Say I again and again I say: Telling stories don't do diddly. The scent of an important story is here, but it needs hard evidence, not anecdotes.
The still speculative backstory
For anyone new to the issue, there is a contingent of voting machine opponents who have taken a somewhat different approach over the years, and some of them unfortunately lace their research with conclusions about zionism, etc. etc. which can polarize and taint the whole body of work.
BUT: The Jim Condit report from 1996 is very interesting.
Jim Condit - eyewitness report, 1996 Dubuque County Republican caucus
He was an eye witness in Dubuque County, Iowa in 1996. All the Republican caucuses were in one building at the time. They came out and wrote all the precinct results on a chalkboard. Condit states, and says he has affidavits from precinct officials, that results announced by Voter News Service were entirely different for Dubuque County than those reported on that chalkboard.
This led to more questioning, and Senator Grassley reportedly responded to a letter from one of his constituents with an admission that the results were going to Voter News Service rather than the Republican Party.
The Grassley letter is evidence, and depending on exactly what it says, could be very interesting evidence.
Lynn Landes
Voter News Service at that time claimed an address in New York. Lynn Landes, an online researcher who broke the story of the Avi Rubin stock ownership in VoteHere, went to visit the address claimed by Voter News Service. It was an empty warehouse.
Landes attempted to interview the claimed head of the small group of guys who interpret the data. She was told the person was named "Bill Headline." (? Nice name for a news guy).
Landes also obtained some of the forms Voter News Service was sending out for its process. Very interesting, because they asked for the brand and model of voting machine used. She faxed me those forms; they do exist.
Those forms are evidence. Of what, I am not sure.
Voter News Service no longer exists, but has a new iteration called Network Election Pool. Part of this process is Edison Media Research, located in New Jersey.
The Collier Brothers and "Votescam"
A book called Votescam was written by the Collier brothers, and it has quite a following. It preceded the Black Box Voting book by nearly a decade. I believe it was published in 1994, and the research in it goes back to the 1970s. I found the book to be inadequately sourced; we should remember that back then, we didn't have the Internet to upload documents. Things were much tougher for the Collier brothers.
Black Box Voting has never gone down the path of investigating how vote data gets processed by Edison and VNS, now NEP. The Votescam book contains a theory that election manipulation contains a small group of middlemen tasked with feeding disinformation to the public through the media, and they pin the blame on VNS.
To simplify this and take it out of the realm of massive black ops and into the realm of old fashioned sleaze combined with power politics, I am looking at the places where the pipe narrows. At what point in the transfer of vote data does it get out of public view and at which points do the fewest people have the most control?
If there are, say, a handful of 10 or so people who get the first direct feeds of vote data, analyze it, and report it to the media and back to political parties, that's a narrow spot in an unlit pipeline.
Common threads?
It may be that the Black Box Voting approach to research, which is based on citizen involvement in obtaining and analyzing documents and hard evidence, is approaching points of conversion with some of the older research. |
John Lee
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Piratenews
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 4, 2008 - 12:13 pm: |
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CNN announced the "winners" in Iowa, when only 30% of the precincts had been counted:
http://piratenews.org/iowa-caucus-votescam-10-20pm-cst.jpg
Israeli contractor "counts" all votes in Iowa Caucuses:
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/piratenewsrss/message/389
 |
Eric Westfall
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rewind
Post Number: 2
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 4, 2008 - 12:25 pm: |
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"Okay Eric, go to your recycle bin and retrieve those screen shots."
Sorry, Bev, I'm on a mac. No recycle bin. Poked around for some way to retrieve, but was unsuccessful. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7356
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 4, 2008 - 12:50 pm: |
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Chuck, welcome to Black Box Voting. You write:
quote:Is there any indication wether or not they stole any votes from Ron Paul? I personnally couldn't care less about Giuliani.
It's good that your interest is piqued in this issue. Loyalty to a candidate has caused many citizens to question the process, and when they learn more about the process, they quickly realize that the problem is bigger than any candidate.
When checks and balances are missing, it can hide the truth. Checks and balances are designed to allow people to examine the evidence, so if a candidate has been cheated, it will show up. When you remove the checks and balances, you're basically saying "trust me. You can't find out if your candidate was cheated or not, just trust me, nothing to see here."
That's not freedom.
Now let's do a hypothetical example with your candidate, Ron Paul, and Giuliani, the candidate you say you don't care about.
Suppose candidates are more likely to get funding, and more likely to be allowed on the televised debates if they place fourth or higher statewide. Suppose your candidate, Ron Paul, was in fourth place, and let's say Thompson was in fifth place but only by a hair, say, 1,500 votes.
If someone moved 2,000 votes from Giuliani, who everyone had written off in Iowa and no one was paying any attention to, over to Thompson, he would pull ahead of Paul. Your candidate, Ron Paul would drop to fifth place.
It's one mechanism for fraud. Because a citizen happened to capture screen shots at just the right time, they noticed that votes Giuliani once had were no longer in his column. Where did those votes go?
It might be that someone made an error, or it might be that someone was shifting votes to adjust the ranking of the candidates. Because the checks and balances are missing, no one can really tell.
This is the kind of situation that moves citizens from a candidate-focused interest in election fairness to the broader issue. If procedures can cheat one candidate, they can cheat any candidate. And ultimately, that cheats the citizens themselves, because we are supposed to have the right to choose our representation, and when the checks and balances break down, we lose control of the process. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7357
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 4, 2008 - 1:09 pm: |
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For John Lee,
Welcome to Black Box Voting. You write:
quote:CNN announced the "winners" in Iowa, when only 30% of the precincts had been counted
But your screen shot says that 97% of the votes had been counted, with 30% of them going to John Edwards.
Your second screen shot, of libertybroadcastnetwork.org, is using a different system to collect results. That site invited citizens to report the results they had witnessed at the precincts. The source of data -- citizen reports -- and the amount of data available to that site was not the same as the source of data CNN used and the amount of data available to CNN. We really don't know the names of the people or vendors or programmers providing information to CNN, nor do we know which locations it got and when, nor can we verify that it has what it says it has. But the data source and amount of data differs anyway, so no conclusions can be formed by comparing libertybroadcastnetwork information with CNN information.
You write:
quote:Israeli contractor "counts" all votes in Iowa Caucuses:
That story is incorrect. It confuses two different companies, Voxeo and Elron. Elron did not purchase Voxeo, but Elron did purchase a different company called IRdg. IRdg and Voxeo were both founded by the same man, but that doesn't mean IRdg is Voxeo, or that the man, Jonathan Taylor, even stayed involved with the company after Elron bought it.
Voxeo was involved in the Iowa caucus voting counting or reporting system. IRdg was not. I have another thread here:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/73/71118.html
in which more information about Voxeo is discussed, and a representative of Voxeo presents their side of the story.
There are still a lot of questions about the cell phone tabulation process. But the statement that an Israeli firm counted the votes is not correct. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7358
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 4, 2008 - 1:11 pm: |
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Eric,
My mac has a recycle bin. Looks like a trash can. But come to think of it, what's really needed is not another copy of the screen shots, but video of the CNN broadcast. |
Chism Haworth
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Chism
Post Number: 3
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 4, 2008 - 4:05 pm: |
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Here is the same anomaly as reported by abcnews.com
I think this indicates that the actual data came from an exit poll and passed through the associated press.
Sorry please delete my first post. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7362
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 4, 2008 - 4:57 pm: |
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I have a confirm on the Giuliani vote issue from Chad Olsen of the Republican Party of Iowa. I asked quite a few questions but the "incoming" reports today have been getting more detailed, with better evidence of various things, and I'm not caught up.
Here's the Republican Party explanation of the Giuliani vote slide:
A precinct was supposed to have entered "3" but they entered "3333".
The entry was corrected.
[Sounds plausible. But since they weren't reporting the precinct results, there's no way to confirm that the explanation is correct. ]
The issue, you see, is not just having an explanation that makes sense. It is having procedural checks and balances set up so that the public can see what's going on and confirm that explanations hold water.
If they had released the precinct results as they came in (or even posted a PDF file of the precinct results every 30 minutes or so) it would be easy to confirm whether the explanation is true. |
Eric Westfall
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rewind
Post Number: 3
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 4, 2008 - 10:57 pm: |
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"Here's the Republican Party explanation of the Giuliani vote slide:
A precinct was supposed to have entered "3" but they entered "3333". "
Well, that's a B.S. story if I ever heard one, the difference is 2,193 votes, not 3,330 votes. You can't "slip" and enter a number that would increase Giuliani's vote count 2,193 votes, that's just silly. |
Fran Fleming
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Iwontbackdown
Post Number: 6
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 5, 2008 - 12:38 pm: |
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Hi Bev,
Have you gotten any word on those missing 65 precincts in Iowa? |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4276
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 5, 2008 - 3:48 pm: |
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Perhaps some people don't like the primary elections getting close scrutiny. . . Interesting that these folks show up just now. |
John Dean
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bozosforbush
Post Number: 929
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 5, 2008 - 3:55 pm: |
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I hear ya Catherine...very interesting.
BTW "Fran Fleming" is another one - "Fran" started another thread to try to snowball what "Clarence" posted, as well as trying to snowball it in this thread.
Deserter, brain is fried, no WMDs, yada yada yada. No wonder we clowns laugh.
|
Howard Randall Smith
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Tidalcreek
Post Number: 28
Registered: 2-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 5, 2008 - 4:08 pm: |
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I love it! We're so transparent here we can easily see right through those who try and mess it up! That's real community.
Howard Randall (Randy) Smith
|
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7370
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 5, 2008 - 4:42 pm: |
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To answer the question what happened to those 65 precincts:
I spoke with Chad Olsen from the Republican Party of Iowa at length yesterday. I have three pages of notes, but haven't posted a story on it yet because I'm following up on several items emailed to me.
Basically, Olsen said that the missing precincts were because no one showed up. They have volunteers and the volunteers didn't know they had to report back with something if no one showed up. They were working all day trying to track the volunteers down. Some were at work so they couldn't get them until evening.
This explains one item from my emailed reports --in some locations when counties went from, say, 90% in to 100% in the vote total remained the same.
Except I now do have a screen shot from one of counties with missing precincts which has vote totals moving around, some up, some down.
I've also pulled those Democratic Party time slice files into a database so I can put them up against each other for a quick look. I am not quick with that, and it took me a little while to have a "duh" moment and realize how to do it.
As for the Giuliani wandering votes, as mentioned before the Republican Party stated that in Linn County someone had keyed in "3333" instead of "3" and it was a correction.
It is true, as one of our alert participants point out last night, that 3333 minus 3 = a difference of 3330 votes, not the number of votes that fluctuated. However, the overall number of votes had also changed and since they did not release precinct results timely, there was no way to see whether the 3333 explanation matched the data or not.
I'm not gone, just busy at the moment... |
Fran Fleming
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Iwontbackdown
Post Number: 7
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 6, 2008 - 7:58 am: |
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Hey, John Dean, I did not realize this was an exclusive little "club". I have posted genuine and "rational" concerns about questionable and relevant voting issues previous to this VERY important 2008 showdown with the Iowa caucus. Forgive me if I was trying to find out if a VERY disturbing post was true or not. I was not getting a response so I decided to start a new thread to illicit a quicker response. I will know better next time. But, I'm afraid there will not be a next time. I resent your malicious remarks and feel I should bide my time somewhere else where my sincere efforts to fair voting procedures will be more appreciated!
No offense to you, Bev. You have given me hope that citizens can make a difference if they just take action for change. I truly apologize if I have disrupted your forum. It is never my intention to be part of the problem.
Take care. |
Jason Reed
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jasonr54
Post Number: 6
Registered: 10-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 6, 2008 - 8:34 am: |
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Clear this up for me, please. Don't the republicans have to have a certified method of reporting votes? The secrecy is disturbing. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7378
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 6, 2008 - 9:07 am: |
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Fran,
John may have been quick on the trigger. There is a history at this site of very serious disruption, to the point that the site had to be shut down altogether, much information was lost, and we had to recreate a new site using a new database with new administration on a new server. John Dean, John Howard, and some others helped identify some of the perpetrators, who conduct organized disinformation campaigns on the net.
I think we need to be aware that there is a difference between honest citizens, new to the issue, who may be emailed or somehow come across disinformation and not know how to evaluate it, or how to vet out the source, vs. the disinformation people themselves.
As far as I'm concerned, Fran, you check out. You appear to have provided your real name and your real contact information (which is never shared without permission). I welcome you here and please feel free to ask or post information.
We're a small organization, and I moderate the forums (along with great little nudges and private emails, sometimes calls, from long time participants).
Occasionally things get a little rowdy. Unfortunately, at the time I may be asleep, on a plane, writing up a story or doing an interview so I may not moderate quickly enough.
That said, no need to get mad at John Dean just yet - he may have jumped the gun a little, but his work has been important. Here's a report showing how the disinfo in one case was thoroughly documented and traced back to a disruptor who, it turns out, was a highly placed employee at Diebold Election Systems:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/diebold-PRmachine.pdf
Hope we can sort this out. Fran, I answered your follow up question about the 65 precincts. The post referring to "Gunderson" is something I'll be glad to address, but that name has been associated with some issues in the past, so if you could summarize the issue there I'll look into it. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7379
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 6, 2008 - 10:05 am: |
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Jason,
The Republicans do have a certified method of reporting votes. The problem is that they do it in such a way that the public cannot compare input to output.
INPUT
"Input" is the public counting phase that takes place at the Republican Party Iowa caucuses. The public can see that, but can't easily get a RECORD of it. And telling stories of what you saw won't do diddly if you see someone cheat. Just ask John Brakey of Pima County, Arizona about that. Seeing -- is only believable for others -- if you have a document, a photo, an audio recording or a video.
The solution to that is to publicly post a copy of the official results sheet AT THE CAUCUS and leave it up for 24 hours -- sometimes it doesn't last that long, but the idea is, "yes, that is the ORIGINAL record of the result we just saw and yes, it never left public view before it was posted."
OUTPUT
The output is the precinct results reported by the state Republican party and the media.
"The public" -- not just candidates or party hacks -- must be able to compare input to output.
BOTH INPUT AND OUTPUT NEED TO PROVIDE 100 PERCENT OF THE DATA
In order to avoid the "find the pea under the walnut" game, the public needs to be able to go look at an original record of the results that never left public view at any local caucus location in the state of Iowa ("input"), and compare it PROMPTLY with a complete listing of the "output" from the Iowa Republican Party. The state party needs to release 100 percent so the public can check that all the pieces add up to the total.
IMPORTANCE OF IMMEDIACY
When there are delays, or when the information goes elsewhere before it is posted, that's almost as bad as not posting it at all. Information can wander into the wrong bin when it goes home in people's car trunk, gets consulted over by the local county political machine, etc. This is what we mean by "chain of custody".
Think OJ trial. You didn't want the vials of blood being toted all over town in some guy's pocket. Just saying "oh, that guy was honest!" is not an answer, and as we saw, whatever your opinion was on the trial, I think everyone agrees that it hurt the prosecution when they could not prove chain of custody. Lawyers made hay with that business of sticking a vial of blood in one's pocket and driving around town all day with it.
Same thing goes for precinct results. The original record needs to be publicly posted BEFORE it leaves public view.
Same thing goes for ballots, though the ballot-counting in the Iowa Republican caucus did this mostly right. By contrast, we went seriously wrong in election administration when we started toting ballots (or memory cards, or cartridges) to a central location for counting. When that happens, chain of custody leaves public view. That's why properly administered elections count at the precinct and produce a results report at the precinct and post the precinct results before anything leaves public view.
CHAIN OF CUSTODY FOR THE INPUT RECORD BROKE FOR BOTH REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS
Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats consistently posted public original copies of the precinct results document before removing them from public view. Instead, both parties "toted them around town in their pockets" in many locations.
MORE ON REPUBLICAN PROCEDURES
ORIGINAL RECORDS OF THE "INPUT" - The Republicans took the local results home with them and then met up a day or two later to arrange for the distribution of local results to the authorities.
ORIGINAL RECORDS OF THE "OUTPUT" - The Republicans did not release the precinct results as received by the state party, and there is no excuse for this. At first the Republican Party spokesman blamed it on Google. I asked many questions about what data they had; he said they had it in an Excel spreadsheet. I asked why not just make a PDF and stick the PDF on the Web at regular intervals? He admitted they could have done that.
I know. Things are crazy and busy on election night. But I pointed out in my Dec. 31 story that these techno-extravaganza live real-time web-based reporting systems were coming front-loaded with excuses that should not be accepted. The backup plan is simple and obvious: If the techno-extravaganza breaks down, just mke a PDF document from your Excel file (or whatever format you have) and stick the PDF on your Web site. Update that every 30 minutes. Obviously this needs to include the precinct results, and YOU NEED THEM TO GENERATE THE COUNTY TOTALS, so there's no earthly reason not to include them in whatever it is you upload.
The Republicans didn't release county results at all until hours after the caucuses, and as of last night, 48 hours after the caucuses, still had not released the precinct data that I could find.
It's not like they didn't know people would want this information. Failure to release the output details in a timely manner breached the integrity of the process by effectively removing public oversight.
PUBLIC RECORDS
One good bit of news -- although the timeline is a problem and the chain of custody involved toting things around town out of public view -- Chris Olsen, who was one of the caucus organizers for the state of Iowa, told me there is a triplicate form used for the local precinct results document.
One copy goes to the state Republican party, one to the county Republican committee, and one to the county auditor. [After it leaves the caucus location, up to two weeks later but usually a day or two later].
The county auditor component of this is good because this when a document goes to a government official, it triggers Freedom of Information laws, which citizens can invoke through "public records requests." Because this third copy goes to a government official, in Iowa, any citizen can request a copy of the Republican caucus results from each county auditor.
Chris Olsen also told me it will all go into a book and anyone can come to the state Republican office and see it, or to their local county Republican committee. That's good too, though it relies on the good will and cooperation of the party official because they aren't required by law to show it to you.
The problem for the Republicans will boil down to chain of custody and time delays. I'll be publishing a formal report on both the Democrat and Republican procedures; it will contain some new information. |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 6, 2008 - 10:22 am: |
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re: 'missing' Giuliani votes
comparing 25% to 40% (precincts counted) #s:
all #s nearly but not quite double, except Giuliani's, which go up by multiple of approx 5.25
if one subtracts the 'missing' votes from Giuliani's 40% total, his total goes up by multiple of approx 3.3 from 25% count to 40% count
comparing the 25% totals to 60% totals,
all candidates' #s go up by similar multiples, all of which are between 3 and 4
P.S. This being a first post, I must say:
My utmost thanks & compliments to everyone (real) here for the enormous amount of time, effort, heart, patience invested herein. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7380
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 6, 2008 - 11:00 am: |
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Joel,
Thanks very much for that analysis - I'm no statistician, and wasn't even sure how to structure the problem for analysis. So am I understanding this right:
- The 3330 vote Giuliani discrepancy claimed by the Republican Party (which appeared at 40% precincts count and was corrected at 60% precincts counted) would not match the change in Giulinani totals, because new votes are in the mix...(correct?)
- So to analyze whether the Republican explanation is plausible, since they failed to release timely precinct details necessary for transparency on this, you structured the problem this way:
1. Examine what the expected increase in votes would be from 25% precincts counted to 40% precincts counted, and from 40% to 60%, and from 25% to 60%...(did I get this right?)
2. Subtract out the Republican Party's figure for the incorrect Giuliani votes, then see if his votes are consistent with the overall increases in votes using the 25%, 40%, and 60% intervals...(did I get this right?)
3. Based on this analysis, the figure quoted by the Republican Party is plausible...(did I get this right?)
Thank you very much for posting a way to structure the analysis and welcome to Black Box Voting!
If any statistical types would like to weigh in on Joel's analysis, that would be great.
And as a final note: Had the Republican Party posted a copy of the precinct results document locally, before removing it from public view, and had they posted precinct results on their iowagop.net site every 30 minutes, this would not have required statistical interpolation. Instead, we'd have the actual data instead of derived probabilities.
Thanks again, Joel.
Detectives needed with current Republican procedures in Iowa:
1. Citizens to take snapshots every few minutes of TV coverage
2. Citizens to analyze those for math errors
3. Watchdog groups to interview authorities about discrepancies
4. Statisticians to analyze whether the reasons given for discrepancies are plausible
That's a lot of running in circles for what, in the end, amounts to a guesstimate of whether results are correct. Wouldn't it be easier, cheaper, and more sensible for those that run the caucus to just post originals of the input and prompt copies of the output?
It would cost...I dunno, 25 cents per precinct for carbon copies and 5 minutes of staff time to make a PDF every 30 minutes and stick it on the Web site.
Instead we went for the forms-in-triplicate-toted-around-in-cars-out-of-public-view and the Google-maps-extravaganza-that-didn't-work.
Memo to the Republican Party of Iowa: Next time, put The People's needs first. |
Fran Fleming
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Iwontbackdown
Post Number: 8
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 9:37 am: |
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Thanks, Bev, for the gracious response. I can be a little quick on the "trigger" with my Irish temper, but it doesn't take me long to cool off. A word to the wise for John Dean; if his sarcastic comments can 'tic off a non-troll person like me, wouldn't it just add fuel to the fire for a legitmate troll to continue with mischief? May I suggest discreetly removing "questionable" posts and not even acknowledge them. Just my two cents.
Anyway, thanks for answering question about the 65 precincts. I am still confused by the 'withholding' of results, but maybe it will all become clear as time unfolds. On to the New Hampshire primary. Have you any suggestions for the GOP on what would ensure transparency? How can I help if I am out of state? It boggles my mind that we seem to be one of the few countries who "tolerate" a tabulation of counts out of public view. I read a comment from someone in Australia; it is 100% paper ballots and the public looks over the shoulders the entire time while the count is taking place and challenges to descrepencies are rare.
As far as the alarming "Gunderson" post is concerned, it apparently has been removed from this thread, along with my comment to 'Clarence' asking "if this was for real". I am not familiar with Gunderson, so if you say his name is associated with 'nusiances' in the past, then I'll take your word for it. No need to waste precious time, you are busy enough with our so called election process in full swing!
Thanks for your dedication and sacrifice. Let me know how I can be of help. |
Kathleen Wynne
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Kathleen_wynne
Post Number: 344
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 9:51 am: |
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Fran,
Quote:
It boggles my mind that we seem to be one of the few countries who "tolerate" a tabulation of counts out of public view. I read a comment from someone in Australia; it is 100% paper ballots and the public looks over the shoulders the entire time while the count is taking place and challenges to descrepencies are rare.
So true, Fran! Election reform advocates who favor hand counts have been grappling with this reality for years now. It boggles my mind that despite the overwhelming evidence painstakingly collected by BBV, other election reform groups and individual citizens throughout the country against the continued use of these machines, we still cannot break the wall of obstructionism that exists between election officials and citizens. It seems as if election officials have a "vested interest" in maintaining these machines no matter what the evidence shows or the citizens want.
I was recently told by one citizen activist in Missouri that each time election officials were challenged by citizens requesting that they allow them more access and participation in the elections process, the election officials became angry and indignant that a citizen should even suggest such a thing! They also would state "we are professionals, this is our job and we know what we are doing, and you don't..." When did citizens become the red headed stepchild at the local elections office?
I believe this mindset has developed further into a bunker mentality amongst election officials against citizens because they have come to enjoy the "power" they've obtained as an election officials. Believe me, with the vendors wining and dining them at every turn, it's not hard to understand how this could have evolved. As a result, this power has clouded their understanding of what it means to be a "public servant" so much so, that they literally have turned things totally around and now view citizens as some sort of "servant" to them and that means citizens must never, never question their authority.
Kathleen
(Message edited by Kathleen_Wynne on January 7, 2008) |
Andrea L. Mascher
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Amascher
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 1:44 pm: |
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Hi all,
Sorry for the late posting, I've had an upper respiratory infection since Caucus night. I observed the Republican's Coralville, Iowa "super" caucus (all six precincts in one location) and was able to document the entire process from vote casting to counting and calling the centralized phone bank with video and a standard digital camera. The photos can be found here: http://iowa.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2219712&id=14834500 and the video will be up YouTube once it's been transferred off the camcorder.
These are the votes that I was able to record as they were counted:
Coralville 01:
Giuliani - 3
Huckabee - 10
Hunter - 0
Keyes - 1
McCain - 7
Paul - 12
Romney - 13
Thompson - 1
Undecided - 0
| Coralville 02:
Giuliani - 6
Huckabee - 61
Hunter - 1
Keyes - 1
McCain - 22
Paul - 20
Romney - 27
Thompson - 7
Undecided - 1
| Coralville 03:
Giuliani - 0
Huckabee - 4
Hunter - 0
Keyes - 0
McCain - 1
Paul - 3
Romney - 9
Thompson - 5
Undecided - 0
| Coralville 04:
Giuliani - 2
Huckabee - 18
Hunter - 0
Keyes - 0
McCain - 3
Paul - 16
Romney - 23
Thompson - 9
Undecided - 0
| Coralville 05:
Giuliani - 6
Huckabee - 22
Hunter - 0
Keyes - 0
McCain - 14
Paul - 7
Romney - 58
Thompson - 4
Undecided - 0
| Coralville 06:
Giuliani - 15
Huckabee - 67
Hunter - 1
Keyes - 0
McCain - 54
Paul - 19
Romney - 92
Thompson -13
Undecided - 0
| |
The Coralville location was where all ballots and tally sheets for Johnson County congregated at the end of the evening. I was able to get the photo of one other precinct in Iowa City, IA, but they were starting to get suspicious of me (something about asking questions like "Why are you using an old amazon.com box to cast ballots?" and "Why don't you have a standardized counting procedure for all six precincts since they are all in the same room?") and would not let me see additional Reporting Sheets.
Iowa City 01:
Giuliani - 2
Huckabee - 15
Hunter - 0
McCain - 11
Paul - 26
Romney - 18
Thompson -6
(Note: when I photographed this reporting sheet, I was told that Paul won at least one other precinct in Iowa City, but was given no numbers to back that up)
I stuck around well after the press had left trying to get the county chair to tell me a time when precinct level results would be available and if I could take quick snapshots of the other tally sheets now since they were all here and easily available (piled on a table in the corner). At first they were very nice and saying "We'll see what we can do for you, but not right now, let's wait a bit." but around the time that the last few precincts were dropped off in Coralville, the county chair went away somewhere and then came back, then was very irritable at me, said that they (the various county officials) needed to take care of some "bureaucratic paperwork" alone and kicked me out.
A few quick issues with how the six precincts held their caucuses:
- There was no official posting of results at the caucus location: the bulletin board was "missing"
- Ballots were on common, colored (by precinct) cardstock paper with no markings or other method to verify that any given ballot was legitimate. When precincts ran out of ballots, colors from other precincts (with the correct precinct number written on it) or other non-standard papers were used.
- The ballot boxes were used cardboard boxes passed through the room "collection plate" style. It would have been easy to add or remove ballots as it moved through the crowd. (In fact, one of the vote tabulators mentioned that he could not find his own hand-written ballot, which was quite noticeable, since there were only 22 votes cast in that precinct)
- Additional votes were accepted after the polls had closed and counting had been completed (but not yet called in) on very non-standard ballots (grocery store receipts)
- There was no validation at the time of counting to assure that the number of votes cast matched the number of caucus goers that signed in.
- There was no standardized method to count and verify the count of the votes. Only one person per precinct was responsible for counting the votes (although often candidates' observers helped with the count).
(Message edited by amascher on January 7, 2008)
(Message edited by amascher on January 7, 2008) |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4281
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 2:06 pm: |
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Andrea, this is absolutely brilliant work! Thanks so much for all these observations.
They certainly raise lots of questions. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4282
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 2:09 pm: |
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I found it particularly disturbing that one tabulator could not find his own ballot as one of only 22. Also that observers were kicked out for the important administrative work.
There are so many things "wrong with this picture". |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7386
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 5:06 pm: |
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Wow -- I've been away from the site and email for a few hours -- and what a treasure of a post Andrea has just done. I can hardly wait to read it in detail -- this is just exactly what citizen oversight is all about.
I'm not sure I understand what the justification is for saying a person can't get copies of the results, whatever the annoyance or suspicion factors may be. |
Fran Fleming
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Iwontbackdown
Post Number: 11
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 5:39 pm: |
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Just an FYI that an emergency injunction was filed on Jan. 2 by the We The People Foundation:
THE URGENCY
The Iowa Caucus Election for President of the United States will be
held on the evening of January 3, 2008, beginning at 7 pm.
Unless the requested injunctive relief is granted, the Iowa Caucus
election for President of the United States will be constitutionally deficient,
and will result in confusion and frustration at best.
http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/PROJECTS/NCEL/PACER/0-Misc/2ndCircCOA-IA-Em erAppeal.pdf |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4284
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 5:57 pm: |
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quote:and will result in confusion and frustration at best
Well there's an understatement if I ever heard one. |
Eric Westfall
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rewind
Post Number: 4
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 3:43 am: |
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Michael Rivero of "WhatReallyHappened.com" posted a link to an article on his site today. Below it, he wrote:
"I received numerous emails from Iowans who had participated in the Caucus, and they were reporting Ron Paul wins in the rooms they voted in."
I shot off an email to Mike Rivero, asking him if he wouldn't post more info about those emails here in this thread btw. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1702
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 5:43 am: |
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quote:When did citizens become the red headed stepchild at the local elections office?
Right after the first election held where a citizen questioned the results, where there was a local elections office. |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 7
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 9, 2008 - 3:48 am: |
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The need for transparency is obviously a theme and purpose here (on this site) ... with good reason.
It's a big site, with a lot of content. I trust I'm not the only newcomer who'd appreciate a link from here to wherever the news here is re: legal efforts to guarantee our right to videotape election night processes.
As we see in Andrea's experience, and so many others, there is a big difference between de jure and de facto law.
De jure law is a fig leaf that lets folk who want to feel 'it's been taken care of' while 'letting stealing dogs lie'. Examples are infinite, but the anti-discrimination legislation in the 60s (still unenforced well into the 70s), or agencies like the FDA, SEC, etc are well-known examples.
De facto law is our JustUsSystem's designated operatives behaving in criminal ways with full knowledge and abundant visible (moreso to the operatives than to outsiders) precedent that even when they are caught, their own criminal system will protect them. Breaking the law as needed is what they've been chosen for. A key element of this is the all-purpose get-out-of-jail-free-card that folk who work in all but the lowest levels of the system have, even for personal crimes that aren't part of larger system-purposes.
If, as does occasionally happen, they get convicted, the penalties will be minimal (if any); and typically followed by rewards down the line, after the spotlight is gone.
Building the kind of direct person-to-person communications network that this is was a key aspect of what succeeded about the 70s anti-war organizations. |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 8
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 3 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 9, 2008 - 4:04 am: |
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I'd like to second Fran Fleming's remark re: sarcastic comment. I've spent little time on the internet, but on one site I used to spend time on because it had such interesting and informative current events and history discussions, the discussion was side-tracked for weeks by a troll making outrageous religious statements. The regular participants got so side-tracked responding to the troll, in spite of many urgings to just ignore it, and then arguing with each other abt what each had done and said in response, that the real discussion was voided for a matter of weeks.
It would be consonant with what has gone on before, consider Cointelpro or Phillip Agee's CIA diary, if a large chunk of Homeland Security money pays for such bomb-throwing trolls to be well-paid to hang out on the internet disrupting and distracting any effectively informative site.
I don't know that handling it administratively would be as effective as all of us making the effort to self-manage our own tone. The tone of John's response to Fran, however one chooses to characterize it, very often is a sign of someone who has seriously invested a lot of effort and emotion to positive purpose and seen it frustrated again and again. Anger itself isn't bad; but showing it makes us susceptible to cool, cynical people pushing our buttons, and over-reaction offers an escape hatch to folk looking for an excuse to dismiss the dialogue. |
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