View Full Version : “It’s not a conspiracy it’s just a machine that needs to be corrected..."
iris lily
10-29-12, 1:03pm
In the story below the voting machines are "defaulting" to Obama. It's just a "machine that needs to be corrected says the spokesperson.
Hope the Obama supporters on this site likee. Way to GO dems! Can't wait to see this spread all over the mainstream media (ha ha as if...)
http://fox4kc.com/2012/10/24/n-c-voters-say-ballot-cast-for-romney-came-up-obama-on-machine/
I am a bleeding heart liberal. And I hope that every person who has right to vote has the easy opportunity to vote and have their vote counted for the candidate they wanted.
I wonder if those machines are the ones so many people are concerned about? You know, the ones that Tagg Romney has an investment in? http://www.simplelivingforum.net/showthread.php?6238-Will-DOJ-investigate-Tagg-Rmney-s-recent-investment-in-voting-machines
Or maybe the other thread about who counts the votes (with a strong bias against former Bain Capital execs, ya know, just to highlight which side you should be concerned about) might have been eerily prescient, in an ironic sort of way. http://www.simplelivingforum.net/showthread.php?6303-In-OH-and-CO-who-counts-the-votes
I'm sure the Department of Justice will sort it all out.
I am a bleeding heart liberal. And I hope that every person who has right to vote has the easy opportunity to vote and have their vote counted for the candidate they wanted.
+1
Why is it assumed that liberals/democrats would like cheating on either side? Lying and cheating is wrong, no matter who does it. Which is why I am so against Romney, as he embraces both. And he is pretty up front about it, too, knowing full well HIS base won't call him on it. But then, he's lying to them too. (Where oh where did 'severely conservative' Mitt go?)
iris lily
10-29-12, 4:43pm
[QUOTE=peggy;109044]+1
Why is it assumed that liberals/democrats would like cheating on either side? ...QUOTE]
Because you didn't complain about this NC irregularity or point it out?
Or, perhaps because we never heard of it.
Considering the source of your report, it's probably nothing and just some trumped up faux outrage. I am just as 'outraged' as you were about Mitts son buying up voting machines. Right?
I'm just as 'outraged' as you were about Mitt's lying, tax cheating, flip-flopping, dog abuse, 47% comment, etc...You know, those things that Willard is DIRECTLY responsible for.:~)
Peggy, I'm betting that Romney will be elected by a 5% or so majority of the popular vote and about 300 electoral college votes, in spite of some voting machines that only accept his opponent's name. If so, are you in favor of a court mandated recount until you achieve the appropriate result?
You must remember these are Republican voters and probably don't know how to spell Romney or they just pushed the wrong button. As said above this was reported on Fox news which is not a good source for factual news.
You must remember these are Republican voters and probably don't know how to spell Romney or they just pushed the wrong button. As said above this was reported on Fox news which is not a good source for factual news. LOL, I knew it was gonna go here eventually.
iris lily
10-29-12, 8:59pm
You must remember these are Republican voters and probably don't know how to spell Romney or they just pushed the wrong button. As said above this was reported on Fox news which is not a good source for factual news.
Murdoch's national Fox News is a biased news source as are all news sources. If you don't think they are biased, you are naive. The particular news story I cited was written by a Kansas City guy for the local Kansas City station.
Now free, do you believe that
*election official George Gilbert said this "problem arises every election"
* he said it's not a conspiracy
*he admitted that the machines default to a vote for Obama
Are these facts or made up items? I'd bet on them being real. If mainstream media doesn't promote this story it's because it doesn't fit their overarching narrative. That a Fox station picks it up isn't a surprise. I would think that all of the defenders of fair and open elections would be all over this.
Between you and me, I don't think there is a conspiracy. And no doubt, the machines need some sort of set up ("adjustment" if you will) and it's likely at at "every election" some doofus doesn't set up a machine like he is supposed to.
iris lily
10-29-12, 8:59pm
LOL, I knew it was gonna go here eventually.
oh, completely.
Wow, it's getting pretty snarky here. Wassup with that?
Actually, this issue of the machines potentially being tampered with (and easily so) has been a problem for years. I saw this amazing documentary on it about 5-6 years ago. I can't remember the title, though. It was really compelling.
The part that spoke to me the most was the guy who would go into the various counties and show them how vulnerable they were. He'd send in an "inspector" on a random check, who would take in a program to elect a certain person. Then, he would have the office people use the machines and vote for the other person (that way, they knew who "should" win), and the machine would spit out the person that the machine was programmed to spit out.
He said it's so easy to corrupt, that we should be very, very concerned.
And I'm not sure how the 'defaulting' works in this particular situation (what this guy said), but that it's a very scary issue indeed, really.
The outcome of that guy going around on the documentary was people being more clear about who goes near those machines and when.
I honestly believe that Obama will win, btw. Perhaps it's wishful thinking and I just need that to keep myself sane.
I did send in the vote last week, so we'll be counted. :)
The Storyteller
10-30-12, 5:56am
Zoe, I will be shocked if Obama doesn't win. It is a close race but the Romney mo has subsided and Obama's lead is steady and solid in the electoral college.
LOL, I knew it was gonna go here eventually.
Always a comfort to have a default position, aye?
Regarding conspiracies, I thought the Reps brilliant move was to schedule a hurricane to keep the Pres off the campaign trail for a few hours in the week before the election. They did such a good job covering their tracks by having one just miss their own convention that no one even suspects this was a plot. It is so well timed and so diabolical that I bet it took Grover AND Rush working behind the scenes to pull it off!
Always a comfort to have a default position, aye?
Regarding conspiracies, I thought the Reps brilliant move was to schedule a hurricane to keep the Pres off the campaign trail for a few hours in the week before the election. They did such a good job covering their tracks by having one just miss their own convention that no one even suspects this was a plot. It is so well timed and so diabolical that I bet it took Grover AND Rush working behind the scenes to pull it off!
Clearly, any mind not obnubilated by the twisted ideology of the Right will perceive the vile necromancy of the Dark Lord Rove in all this. Angered by the Liberal Lochinvar's clever purchase of Rust Belt votes at the expense of GM bondholders (take that, you plutocrats!), his uber-PAC planned a hostile takeover of the forces of nature to force the President into an unflattering FEMA windbreaker muttering Apres le deluge, moi.
LOL, I knew it was gonna go here eventually.
Well, that's what happens when you start quoting the "National Enquire on tv'.
At least The Onion doesn't try to pretend it's serious!;)
The Storyteller
10-30-12, 11:03am
I have a different take on the storm. It freezes the campaign in place with the prez in the lead.
I have a different take on the storm. It freezes the campaign in place with the prez in the lead.
Are you sure about that? The latest polling I see indicates that Romney has a national lead in early voting and the general election polling is still using a D+6 to 10 forecast model based upon 2008 turnout. I think it is a stretch to believe that D enthusiasm of that magnitude will carry over to this election. You're right about the campaign being frozen in place until this storm is over and the campaigns can return to business as usual but the momentum has already swung.
Of course, I've been surprised before but I still believe we're looking at Romney by 5% in the popular vote and nearly 300 electoral college votes.
iris lily
10-30-12, 11:36am
Zoe, I will be shocked if Obama doesn't win. It is a close race but the Romney mo has subsided and Obama's lead is steady and solid in the electoral college.
Obama will win by a landslide, in fact, the early voting states probably have that sealed. There's really no reason for any OBama supporters to go to the polls next week, he's got it in the bag. ;)
ToomuchStuff
10-30-12, 11:46am
Electronic voting machines have been problematic for some time. There was the Diebold flap a few years ago, and they weren't the only voting machines. There were discussions of hacking voting machines, hardware hacks (man in the middle attacks, with an interface chip), out of calibration machines (saw one video on Youtube where the guy calibrated it and almost immediately it went out of calibration again). etc. The best advice I saw was on that last one (don't leave the booth until who you want voted for, is counted). However that doesn't stop (you might not even be aware of the other) attacks.
JaneV2.0
10-30-12, 11:52am
A pox on liars and cheaters, period--whoever they are.
And please--let's get privatization out of the commons. Nowhere is the profit motive less appropriate than in the voting process.
The Storyteller
10-30-12, 12:22pm
Are you sure about that?
Quite sure Obama has a high probability of winning. Closest prognosticator has him with a 62 % chance of winning reelection. PEC gives him better odds at 9 to 1 probability. Nobody gives Romney anywhere near a 50% chance.
http://www.intrade.com/v4/home/
http://research.uvu.edu/DeSart/forecasting/october.html
http://election.princeton.edu/
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
http://votamatic.org/
PEC had it dead on in the electoral college split in 2004.
Nobody gives Romney anywhere near a 50% chance.
Well, some do...
http://www.examiner.com/article/polling-points-to-romney-landslide
http://www.gallup.com/poll/157817/election-2012-likely-voters-trial-heat-obama-romney.aspx
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
Pretty sure I can find a poll that says a horse will be the next president if I dig around the internet enough. It's a close race. It will be interesting to see how it plays out, but if you feel that confident in the outcome please feel free to take Iris' advice and relax at home next Tuesday.
ApatheticNoMore
10-30-12, 1:23pm
Why would anyone relax at home on Tuesday? Don't they have any state ballot iniatives they care about voting on?
Why would anyone relax at home on Tuesday? Don't they have any state ballot iniatives they care about voting on?
Living in MA, it won't make much difference if I vote for Obama or not - but there is a Senate race and ballot initiatives I want to get to the polls for.
Obama will win by a landslide, in fact, the early voting states probably have that sealed. There's really no reason for any OBama supporters to go to the polls next week, he's got it in the bag. ;)
Dang! You're probably right! I'll just skip this one then....;)
:laff::laff:
The Storyteller
10-30-12, 9:55pm
It will be interesting to see how it plays out, but if you feel that confident in the outcome please feel free to take Iris' advice and relax at home next Tuesday.
I think I want to respond about the whole election prediction thing (it isn't the same thing as polling) in its own thread, but to this, actually I don't think it matters whom I vote for in the presidential election. Oklahoma is going red, I'm quite certain, so our electors are guaranteed Romney. In fact, not only did we go red in 2008, but there wasn't a single county that went blue. We might just be the only state where that happened. I'm so confident my presidential vote is completely irrelevant, I'm seriously considering voting for Romney, just for the fun of it. I haven't voted Republican since Nixon, so it would be a hoot to do it now.
That, and I would love to see the reverse of 2000. Poetic justice to see Romney get the popular vote, but Obama walk home with the electoral prize.
My brother assures me within 10 years, Texas will be a swing state, if the GOP continues to work so hard at alienating Hispanics. Texas' population is projected to be 60% Hispanic soon. Maybe I'll move 30 miles south so my vote will actually make a difference.
Peggy, I'm betting that Romney will be elected by a 5% or so majority of the popular vote and about 300 electoral college votes, in spite of some voting machines that only accept his opponent's name. If so, are you in favor of a court mandated recount until you achieve the appropriate result?
No, because I'd expect that there would be congressional staffers creating faux outrage to stop the recount, just like in 2000. Oh wait, that was the republicans that did that... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot
No one, in a democratic republic, should stay home on election day. Or encourage others to do so (jokes aside of course!). Or take out misleading ads telling people they can stay home, or vote on the wrong day, etc. Are these shenanigans new? Old? Par for the course? I find them disrespectful, hateful even.
I lived in Guatemala in the 80's, and witnessed the first democratic election in 30 years. There were polling places in the campo where people were literally voting at gunpoint - I saw it. Every Guatemalan had to carry an election ID, like a voter reg card, and it had to be stamped, or they could have been arrested for not voting. Still, all the Guatemalans I spoke with were proud to vote, and many walked for hours to get to their polling places.
We've sunk to new depths in this horrible election. Those who yearn for suffrage around the world, who are literally dying for the rights we are so disrespectful of... what must they think? I detest the debauchery that has become elections.
We already voted -- by way of mailing in our votes as per the rules and regulations.
So, I can stay home on Tuesday. But I'll go to work instead, and do what I need to do there. So that I can stay here. :)
ApatheticNoMore
10-31-12, 2:07am
The state is solid enough (blue in case you were wondering), that I think the single most rational thing I can do since I will be at the polls anyway is vote 3rd party. To just cast my little "NO!!!!!! No to your whole stinking corrupt system! NO!!!! no to your horribly evil lessers of two evils! do better next time!" into the ballot box. :)
No one, in a democratic republic, should stay home on election day. Or encourage others to do so (jokes aside of course!).
Freedom from politics is a freedom too :). Freedom not to worry about it, of course if that's most of society it becomes problematic, but just voting doesn't solve that free-rider problem much either (that problem being lack of real broad ranging social concern).
Or take out misleading ads telling people they can stay home, or vote on the wrong day, etc.
That's sleezy, immoral, and probably should be illegal and not even in the same category as just making an argument against voting (ie "don't vote, it only encourages them!" and "if voting could change anything, they'd make it illegal" etc. - most arguments against voting being variants of these). The former is a deliberate attempt to deprive people who want to vote of that ability.
Those who yearn for suffrage around the world, who are literally dying for the rights we are so disrespectful of... what must they think?
Maybe they just think we have lousy choices, heaven knows that's what enough people in the U.S. think! Maybe they are naive, and don't realize democracy, when fueled by billions of dollars in campaign contributions, can be a pretty rigged game. The U.S. is starting to become a warning sign to the rest of the world, against just such a "democracy". Maybe when turning out to vote for Chavez or whomever (and I'm not making any strong defense of the guy or anything) people think something is actually at stake and here they see two money bloated sell-outs. Maybe people dont' vote because the choices are bad. But there are 3rd party choices and state iniatives in some states to vote on. Yes I know that.
loosechickens
10-31-12, 4:26pm
Many countries, the Netherlands and Germany come to mind, have barred electronic voting machines because of the ease of hacking them or tampering with their counts. Software is proprietary and there is no paper record. Why would any in EITHER party want to trust them?
This country depends on trust in the system. Once lost, possibilities of election chaos multiply, and using those machines with their ease of tampering seems both unwise and with a potential of disaster just not worth it.
If they could get the machines to default to Jill Stein, we'd be good to go.
Edited to add: I'm expecting Obama to win easily, so I'm prevaricating between voting for him -- though I thought he fell far short of what I expected -- and voting for Ms. Stein, who I find easier to support.
I'm surprised at the people who think Romney will win.
And yet, I'm betting the republicans won't be fighting to ban these machines, in the interest of preventing voter fraud. Cause, why go after real vote tampering when there are lots of students and grandmothers to disenfranchise. There apparently is much more political gain to be made from denying grannie her vote cause she can't find her birth certificate.
Which is why I kind of think this whole story is bogus. if these machines were actually breaking in Obama's favor, the republicans would be in the streets demanding they be banned. I think it's a diversionary tactic to fall back on when these Romney owned machines skew the votes in favor of Romney.
Isn't that a tried and true tactic? Identify your own weakness then try to tar your opponent with it.
If they could get the machines to default to Jill Stein, we'd be good to go.
She's got spunk, but I'm not sure the Constitution would allow the inauguration to take place in a Texas jail.
...when these Romney owned machines skew the votes in favor of Romney.
You've got spunk, too, peggy.
iris lily
10-31-12, 5:12pm
...
I'm surprised at the people who think Romney will win.
This reminds me of Bernie Goldberg's observation of his colleagues in the mainstream media. They were truly flabergasted when GW Bush won the election because they wouldn't vote for him and no one in their circle would vote for him. How could he win? It was a complete revelation to them when he did win.
This reminds me of Bernie Goldberg's observation of his colleagues in the mainstream media. They were truly flabergasted when GW Bush won the election because they wouldn't vote for him and no one in their circle would vote for him. How could he win? It was a complete revelation to them when he did win.
That reminds me. The week after the 2004 elections my wife and I were in England and did a day trip out of London to Greenwich to visit the Royal Observatory (I'd always wanted to stand on the Prime Meridian). On the train, in the seat just in front of us, was an American woman from New York who was seated with a local commuter. The American was going on and on with the trapped young woman, telling her that the election had to have been rigged since neither she nor any of her friends had voted for Bush. She continued that she had never even met anyone who voted for Bush!
My wife finally spoke up and said "You should get out more, I voted for Bush and I know lots of people who did." The woman seemed a bit confused upon hearing that and finally said "You must be from the Midwest.", as if in her mind that explained it all. The local commuter then said "Thank Goodness! Not all Americans are daft."
I think of both women often and always smile. Thanks for the memory.
Was she saying that the woman was daft because she didn't vote for bush, or because she didn't believe bush was legally elected?
Anyway, I did vote for bush -- the first time, but not the second. I tend to vote on the judiciary. Fat lot of good that got me considering the way the bush administration ran things. I was very unhappy with the decisions of that administration. Seriously. So, I voted against him in the second election, and then against McCain becasue -- quite honestly -- I did believe the rhetoric of wanting to bridge the gap.
Unfortunately, it takes two, and apparently even though Obama seems interested, I'm not sure either the Dems or Repubs in congress had any interest therein. And, there's only so much a president can do.
That being said, I think that the administration has done a lot of things that I wanted him to get through, and unlike a lot of people (in my circles), I did not expect a full recovery of the economy by now because i'm a tad more realistic about such things. But what the hey? lol
End of the day, I mostly vote for the way that I want the country to go, with no express expectation that it's going to go that way. Overall, I prefer traditional republican values and ideologies (pre-1980s, and possibly pre-1965), but since they aren't doing those anymore, I really can't vote for them.
iris lily
10-31-12, 8:54pm
... American woman from New York who was seated with a local commuter. The American was going on and on with the trapped young woman, telling her that the election had to have been rigged since neither she nor any of her friends had voted for Bush. She continued that she had never even met anyone who voted for Bush!
....
Yep, that was Goldberg's neighbor, one of the east coast faux-intelligensia. Wasn't it about that time that the distainful term "flyover country" was coined?
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