BBV 2010: Massachusetts - Watch for Pre-Emptive Maneuver Thru "Calling the Race"

SHINING A BRIGHT LIGHT ON AN UNDEMOCRATIC TACTIC

For 10 years, I've been watching a trend to manipulate elections through premature "call" of the race by a media outlet. See below for predictions on what may follow a media call for either candidate in Massachusetts.

The media "call" can be manipulated because the public doesn't know that projected winners come from a system that is not even a governmental source! In fact, the media "calls" elections based on data from just one media outlet -- usually a quiet little division of the Associated Press that occupies a little corner somewhere and answers very few questions. Volunteers call in result reports to the corporation. The reports are often inaccurate (see below for examples). The names of these volunteers are not part of the public record. We will never get the list of names for those who will call in the 351 numbers which will result in "calling the election" for Tuesday's Massachusetts election.

HOW THE MEDIA "CALL" MAY ULTIMATELY CONTROL POLICY

If Tuesday's Massachusetts special senate election is "called" for Democrat Martha Coakley, expect to see a rush to install her, copying a Republican tactic in 2006 whereby San Diego's Brian Bilbray was seated by the US House of Representatives before tens of thousands of votes were even counted. Yes, the Senate can override the actual election results, or pre-empt the real results, and pre-emptively install a candidate based on a media prediction, or a bunch of unofficial tallies, or whatever they want. It can be done. It has been done. And if the media calls the race for Coakley, expect to see it done again.

If the race is "called" for Republican Scott Brown, expect to see a rush from Republican lawyers to claim that Brown has the right to vote immediately, instead of Paul Kirk who is current interim successor to Ted Kennedy. If that fails, look for an attempt to force abstention on the Massachusetts vote while stall tactics play out.

Sixty votes are needed. If Coakley is called and installed, they've got the 60. If Brown is called and stalled, they've got 59. Either way, the media "call" on Massachusetts is going to be under exceptional political pressure.

No matter where you stand on the controversial healthcare bill, be aware that what you see reported on Election Night is not only not "official" or "final", but is not even real, and may not even be the numbers written down by poll workers or printed out by the voting machine.

ISSUING FALSE NUMBERS TO THE MEDIA TO CREATE A FALSE "CALL"

In the recent controversial NY-23 race, volunteers in multiple wards called in zeroes instead of votes for Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman. There WERE votes, but they called in zero and later said oops. This was not a plausible oops, because the zeroes were not called in randomly for various races, nor did the zeroes spread themselves among different candidates. Doug Hoffman had false zeroes reported while votes were called in for the others. Incorrect figures provided to the media resulted in a margin which appeared thousands of votes larger than it actually was, goading Hoffman to concede prematurely.

In the Florida 2000 presidential election, impossible numbers were provided to the media producing exactly the margin needed to "call" the race for George W. Bush. Minus 16,000 votes were reported for Al Gore, and (not knowing the margin was false), Gore conceded privately to Bush and nearly conceded to the nation.

In New York City's 2008 presidential primary, more than 50 wards falsely reported "zero" votes for Obama (but not for Hillary), creating a superficially low result on Election Night.

In Maine's 2009 election, the media reported called-in results for Lewiston and Augusta, two of Maine's largest cities, for seven ballot questions each with two possible choices (7x2=14 results per city), a total of 28 vote results for the two cities. Not a single one of the 28 results was correct, and eight were off by large margins.

In New England, even preliminary governmental results from each municipality are not compiled for a day or so. Results are typically sent by courier or brought by the police to the secretary of state. The results you see on the news are therefore not government results at all, but results generated by unnamed volunteers (or sometimes paid part timers) working for a corporation.

The media "call game" is a political game that can be played dirty, and in Massachusetts, the media "call" could ultimately control national healthcare policy.

Usually, these premature calls can be unraveled if they are incorrect because elections aren't certified for several days and winning candidates aren't installed into office for a month or more. But in Massachusetts, because of the special situation with an imminent vote on a controversial bill combined with a temporary senator, the media call can create an undemocratic mess.

JOURNALISTIC MALPRACTICE

When the media calls an election based on non-governmental verbal information from unnamed volunteers, it displaces legitimate election procedures. Media volunteers can -- and HAVE -- issued false numbers in order to get the media to call an election for a candidate. The US Congress can -- and HAS -- installed new voting members of congress before the votes are counted or the contest is determined.

If a media outlet calls the Massachusetts race based on verbal reports from names that are never disclosed, we need to call this what it is: Journalistic malpractice, and a danger to democracy.

If what you see Tuesday night ain't right, be prepared to speak up. Or shout loudly. It's our duty.

"It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." - Samuel Adams (1722-1803)

* * * * *

Black Box Voting
Support our 2010 work!
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html
or mail
330 SW 43rd St Suite K
PMB 547
Renton WA 98057
This message was sent by: Black Box Voting, Inc., 330 SW 43rd St Suite K - PMB 547, Renton, WA 98057

Carville's an Ass, Rahm's a Donkey

News and Commentary by David Caputo of Positronic Design.

A very good article appeared on Raw Story about James Carville's campaign to oust Howard Dean from the DNC Chairmanship, and how that contrasted with Rahm Emmanuel's decision to bury the hatchet WITH Howard Dean instead of in the middle of his forehead.

The article inspired me to leave behind the following comment. More on this subject will be coming soon...

It seems to me that the real story here is that Rahm woke up and smelled the Vermont-roasted coffee and realized that to avoid too much discussion of how he and his fellow strategists SCREWED UP virtually all their calls during the campaign, he'd have to make nice and be magnanimous and essentially join the winning team.

Emmanuel virulently opposed Dean's 50-state strategy and systematically picked LOSERS like the combat-disabled-yet-still-pro-war Tammy Duckworth (who's mixed messages on the war earned her only an ultimately-fatal lukewarm response from the voters) instead of genuine progressive candidates with legitimate grassroots (and netroots) support.

Time after time, pro-war, republican-lite, socially conservative candidates were showered with money and support, many times only to fail miserably in the Democratic primaries. Undaunted by this rebuff of their preference, Rham then (often with Dean's capitulation, sadly) totally froze out the victorious grassroots candidates. Despite this, many of these candidates actually won, while Rham-supported conservative primary victors were almost universally swept in district after district.

Dean's strategy is an excellent start, and the perfect example of party-building strategies that have a long-term likelihood of success. Progressive activists need to continiously pressure the Democratic party to get it's collective heads out of their Carville-minded posteriors. Such behavior only keeps them from being able to see what's really going on, plus it make their hair smell terrible...

Add to Technorati Favorites

Only an overwhelming tide...

News and Commentary by David Caputo of Positronic Design.

Despite the recent Democratic victory, the problems of paperless (i.e. unverifiable) balloting procedures are only growing. Activists should not be lulled into a false sense of security because the "worst" was avoided this go-around. Such tweakings (fraud/theft/vote-switching) are done at the margins, so an overwhelming tide of public sentiment was, in my opinion, just too much of a landslide to overcome. But you can be sure they are working on it...

I reprint below an excellent article that I found posted on 911Truth.org.

I recommend everyone read it and help publicize its findings. The democracy you save may be your own.

Wednesday, November

Widespread Vote-Switching Detected by EDA Data Analysis

The movement to uncover vote fraud may ironically have been dealt a blow in the euphoria following Democrats’ victory last week. We have not heard much at all about voting problems since the election. Yet the problems are still there, as the article below makes clear.

While the Neocon Express may finally be derailing, we should not let any satisfaction from the coming train wreck slow the momentum for exposing vote fraud and demanding accountable voting systems. That's more important than the results of a single election.

We await further information from the Election Defense Alliance, and we’ll post any newsworthy information in this space.

— Ed.

Widespread Vote-Switching Detected by EDA Data Analysis Update from Jonathan Simon, on EDA Data Analysis findings

To Everyone Keeping Score At Home--

My apologies for being out-of-touch over much of the past two very eventful days. I have been holed-up with Bruce O'Dell and a few others crunching numbers, lots of numbers, including historical data, pre-election polling trends, authentic(!) and adjusted official exit polls, independent exit polls and Election Day canvasses, and of course the reported returns. The analysis will go on for quite some time. But I want to give a very brief preliminary impression of what we see so far.

It is simply this: there are, venue for venue, plenty of "anomalies" and vote-shifting patterns to go around. So far, once again, the "glitch" pattern and the shift patterns do not appear to be random. Without pursuing a detailed analysis, it would be easy to overlook this while oohing and ahhiing at the overall results.

The danger here in our view is that E2006, because the Democrats "won," will be spun as a triumph for electoral honesty and security--when in fact it appears that the combination of massive public revulsion and heightened public scrutiny may simply have made this one too high and risky a mountain for the prospective manipulators to climb to the top. There are numerous signs emerging that the climbing party brought its gear and tackled the slopes, reaching a good way up this Everest before meeting the howling winds and bitter cold that kept them from reaching the summit, as they had in prior expeditions up less lofty and forbidding peaks.

We will continue assembling the data and analyzing the patterns, reporting our findings along with supporting data as they emerge. For now, those inclined to celebrate the apparently unthwarted triumph of the public will, by all means feel free to go out and paint the town red, or blue. But, although E2006 should certainly confirm for us the value of our work and of the heightened scrutiny our hard labor engendered, it should in no way seduce us into any prolonged sense of satisfaction or, dare I say it, mission accomplished. We have as much work before us as behind us, in fact more. The system is no less vulnerable this week than it was last week, and the numbers we have crunched thus far appear to confirm that vulnerability.

We've all made sacrifices and worked very hard. The warm bath beckons and we've surely earned it. But make it a very short one.

All the best--Jonathan Simon

Add to Technorati Favorites