Finally and explanation that makes sense, from a friend:
-------- Original Message --------
FYI . . . .
On *Tue, 9/21/10, Mark Crispin Miller /<markcrispinmiller@gmail.com>/*
wrote:
Apparently, Christine O'Donnell's "stunning upset victory" in Delaware
was yet
another stroke of electronic magic--just like Scott Brown's "stunning upset
victory" in Massachusetts in February.
There, as the Election Defense Alliance has reported, it turns out that
Martha Coakley
/won/ the hand-counted paper ballot vote by 2.8%, while Brown "won" his
5-point
"victory"/ only/ where the "votes" were "counted" electronically (with
no spot-checks
of that "count," no systematic audit and no exit polls).
[The EDA's report, and my summary, are at
http://markcrispinmiller.com/2010/09/did-scott-brown-really-win-in-massachusetts-must-read/.]
And now it turns out that Christine O'Donnell's "win" in Delaware was
just as iffy; or
even iffier, since she "beat" Mike Castle--/electronically/, which is to
say,/ unverifiably/
/--/by 6+ points, while Mike Castle actually beat/ her/, according to
the/ paper-based/
/absentee ballots,/ by over 10 points. (Brad Friedman goes into the
details below.)
It's all quite weird, of course. But what's far weirder is the total
silence on such matters
by both parties and the media. Somehow the doubtfulness of Brown's
"win," and now
O'Donnell's, hasn't raised the faintest question as to whether the
Tea-Baggers/ really/
represent electoral majorities. And so the Standard Narrative we all
keep hearing now
--the Tea-Party's booming, the GOP is badly split, the Democrats are in big
trouble, blah blah blah--is just about as useful as the horoscope in
this morning's
/New York Post./
/
/
I'd like to know what it would take to get the press to pay attention to
these wild
anomalies--not just the two I've noted here, but also Alvin Greene's
preposterous
"win" in South Carolina, and all the many others of this campaign
season/ and/ the
last ten years.
It's starting to appear as if there's/ nothing/ that will make the penny
drop inside the
heads of all those jounalists and pundits, who couldn't any longer
blather on about
the game of "politics" (as they imagine it) if they allowed themselves
to look into the
by-now-overwhelming evidence that this whole game is rigged--and will/ stay/
rigged until we, as a nation, finally stop ignoring all the signs of
fraud, and start
discussing what to do about it.
MCM
p.s. Publicly, Karl Rove's been lobbing many spitballs at O'Donnell,
thereby creating
yet another tasty "story" for the press, about the "rift" between the
GOP's "insiders"
and the "insurgent" Tea-Baggers, etc., etc.
I'd say we all should be a wee bit skeptical about Rove's noisy putdowns
of his party's
nominee. For one thing, we can generally tell that Karl Rove's lying
when his lips are
moving; and, secondly, it's not so easy to believe that Rove would have
much problem
with a candidate who, however "nutty" he may claim to find her, has the
same good
shot at "victory" on Election Day that she enjoyed last week., since
Team Rove will
no doubt themselves be running the election apparatus.
Perhaps I'm being too cynical. So let's just say that, if Rove is/
genuinely/ put off by
O'Donnell's victory over Mike Castle, he should stand up, right now, and
demand
a thorough probe of her election. (Certainly no Democrat will do it.)
*CASTLE DEFEATS O'DONNELL IN DELAWARE*
by Brad Friedman
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8073
Last Tuesday's hotly contested race for the GOP's U.S. Senate nomination
in Delaware ended in victory for
the state's moderate, much-beloved former Governor and nine-term U.S.
Congressman Mike Castle --- at least according to the tabulation of
ballots cast in the race which can actually be verified by anybody as having
been recorded accurately as per the voters' intent.
From the State of Delaware's Elections website with 100% reporting:
/Verifiable Paper-Based Absentee Results/:
*CASTLE: 54.7%* - O'DONNELL: 45.3%
_/Unverifiable Election Day E-Voting Machine Results/_:
CASTLE: 46.7% -* O'DONNELL: 53.3%*
Nonetheless, the Tea-Party/Palin/DeMint-endorsed Christine O'Donnell,
who was getting trounced by the popular Castle in pre-election polls
until only recently after losing twice before in her quest for a U.S.
Senate seat, was declared the "winner" of yesterday's race and --- as
The BRAD BLOG detailed yesterday
--- nobody can prove whether the voters of Delaware actually selected
her or not.
Appropriately enough for the far Rightwinger, the "victory" was 100%
faith-based, since it's strictly impossible to know if/ even one/
citizen's vote cast yesterday on the 100% unverifiable e-voting machines
Delware forces voters to use on Election Day was recorded accurately...
That said, while we've seen examples of similar disparities between
paper-based absentee results and electronically cast results before (the
unknown Alvin Greene's "victory" over Judge Vic Rawl in South Carolina's
recent Democratic U.S. Senate primary comes to mind) there are
logical-ish reasons --- as there always are, in every election --- to
justify O'Donnell's computer-reported "victory" yesterday.
As we noted in response to a reader in comments on yesterday's Delaware
item, O'Donnell received a late endorsement from Sarah Palin on
September 9th, just 5 days before the election. That brought with it a
surge of last-minute support from the "Tea Party" and others.
Moreover, the number of absentee ballots cast as a percentage of the
total votes was quite small (1,499 absentee ballots, versus 56,083 cast
on Election Day), so one should be careful of reading too much into
those numbers as the bulk of absentee ballots were likely cast prior to
O'Donnell's endorsements surge.
Those factors, and certainly others,/ could/ certainly explain the
nearly-reversed percentages as reportedly cast on Election Day on the
e-voting systems, versus those seen on the paper-based, human-countable,
absentee ballots.
But the point here is: Who knows? Absolutely nobody does. I don't. You
don't. O'Donnell doesn't. Castle doesn't. The State of Delaware doesn't.
Even the manufacturer of the e-voting system, Danaher/Guardian, would be
unable to prove who/ actually/ won or lost the race one way or another.
As we've spent years detailing, this continues to be no way to run a
representative democracy based on/ self-governance/. But we continue to
do it anyway despite years of documented, scientific evidence proving
beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's both insane and antithetical to the
representative democracy and self-governance we pretend to have. It's
also a disgrace and a horrible example for the rest of the world, which
used to look to this nation as a beacon of democracy.
While the Republican establishment is beside itself after last night's
reported results (Castle, whom they'd supported, was thought to be an
easy win over Democratic nominee Chris Coons, while polls currently show
O'Donnell getting trounced by him), the same 100% unverifiable e-voting
systems will be used again in Delaware (and 20% of the rest of the
nation) on Election Day on November 2nd this year. If O'Donnell loses
the general election --- or wins --- there will be no way to prove that
she did --- or didn't.
"Tea Partiers" who support O'Donnell, and who claim to give a damn about
representative democracy and self-governance, would be wise to finally
start taking notice of the/ real/ threats to our supposedly inalienable
right of self-rule. HINT: The threat ain't ACORN.
--
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