Why I seldom post at DKOS anymore

Today I posted a timely warning called Don't Vote Straight Party Ticket!!! in response to the #1 recced diary about how votes for Obama are being deleted in Philadelphia. I listed several findings by Black Box Voting and several independent studies made as well as reports about vote flipping and vote deleting already happening in the U.S.

You'd think that even if the diary weren't recced so that people could be warned, at least it would receive a favorable response.

You'd be wrong. The rabid attack dogs immediately lit into it. What? You say. Rabid attack dogs on DKOS? But that only happens over at Freeperville! DKOS is part of the "reality based" community of the progressive left.

Well isn't it?



Here are how some Kossacks instantly jumped on my diary, but first, the diary itself:

As the top recc'd diary reports: Those who vote straight party ticket are seeing their votes for Obama disappear. The diary then states

No one is quite sure why, but it's happening

But that's not true. People ARE sure why and they were warning that exactly this would happen in Pennsylvania weeks ago.

Not only did they warn you, they even told you WHO was doing it.

THE PROBLEM: "Straight party voting" on voting machines is revealing a bad pattern of miscounting and omitting your vote, especially if you are a Democrat.

Most recently (Oct. 2008), a firm called Automated Election Services was found to have mis-coded the system in heavily Democratic Santa Fe County, New Mexico such that straight party voters would not have the presidential vote counted.

Straight party voting is allowed in 15 states. Basically, it means that you can take a shortcut to actually looking at who you are voting for and instead just select a party preference. Then the voting machine makes your candidate choices, supposedly for the party you requested.

Additional details follow, but first: PROTECT THE COUNT

1) NEVER CHOOSE THE STRAIGHT PARTY VOTE OPTION, because it alerts the computer as to your party preference and allows software code to trigger whatever function the programmer has designed.

2) SEND THIS INFORMATION OUT TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN, blog it, root n' toot it out there to get the word out.

3) ESPECIALLY GET THE WORD OUT TO PEOPLE IN THE FOLLOWING STATES, which have straight party voting options:

- Alabama
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kentucky
- Michigan
- New Mexico
- North Carolina
- Oklahoma
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- Texas
- Utah
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin

Let me list those states again, because some commenters seem to be missing that point:

3) ESPECIALLY GET THE WORD OUT TO PEOPLE IN THE FOLLOWING STATES, which have straight party voting options:

- Alabama
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kentucky
- Michigan
- New Mexico
- North Carolina
- Oklahoma
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- Texas
- Utah
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin

This is the kind of thing that DKOS should have been on top of from day one. But everytime someone posts a diary about election integrity, instead of it getting rescued or rec'd, it quickly drops into oblivion.

Election fraud is literally the #1 most important issue facing Kossacks Every. Single. Day.

Not George Bush. Not Iraq. Not John McCain or the price of Palin's dress. Because without the ability to make our votes count, NOTHING ELSE MATTERS.

It isn't just Pennsylvania. Texas is also reporting strange things happening with voters who use the straight party option:

Texas Voters Urged to Avoid Straight-Party Option, After Vote-Flip Complaints
A number of voters in several Texas counties have been complaining that voting machines they used to cast early votes flipped their votes from Democratic choices to Republican ones.

Voters have reported that when they tried to vote a straight-party Democratic ticket, the machine flipped their choices to Republican candidates instead. In some cases, voters reported a problem only with the presidential race; in other cases voters reported the entire ballot being marked Republican by the machine.

The counties where the problems were reported use different kinds of voting machines from three of the top voting machine companies -- Election Systems & Software, Diebold Election Systems (now Premier Election Solutions) and Hart InterCivic.

So it would be wise, if you live in one of the above 15 named states, to take the time to fill out the entire ballot and avoid the straight party option.

This has been going on for far too long:

California citizen Judy Alter discovered a high number of undervotes in the New Mexico presidential race in 2004. She traced these back to straight party votes that skipped counting the presidential race. Here is Alter's write-up on what she found:

http://www.bbvdocs.org/US/avoid-straight-party-option.pdf
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This is the short version of Alter's study of the 2004 Presidential Election of Santa Fe, New Mexico; It shows how Alter figured out that the straight party voting option did not contain a vote for president (or defaulted to Bush). She explains that the straight party option created the huge under-vote in NM and the other states with straight party voting.

According to Alter, most of the biggest exit poll shifts occurred in the straight party states.

Alter also has a long long version of the article, with charts and graphs as well as examples of the evidence she has from the hand filled out paper ballots counted on Sequoia scanners for early voting and absentee voting and the internal memory tapes of the Sequoia pushbutton DRE.

Her study in also posted on my website: http://www.protectcaliforniaballots.org

BOTH DRE AND OPTICAL SCAN SYSTEMS HAVE BEEN CAUGHT MISCOUNTING STRAIGHT PARTY VOTES

Alter provides evidence from the absentee and early voting reports from Sequoia optical scan machines (paper ballots) that the straight party option for minor party candidates omitted votes. Two votes for straight Green party showed no votes for Cobb (the 2004 Green Party presidential candidate) next to his name.

According to articles archived on Voters Unite, straight party votes have been caught miscounting straight party votes in Wisconsin and Alabama as well.

ES&S Optical scan system: In Medford, Wisconsin, ES&S ballot scanners failed to count straight-party votes at all. About 27 percent of all votes cast in Medford during the Nov. 2004 election were not counted by voting system computers. -- http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=5061

ES&S optical scan system: In Baldwin County, Alabama, the ballot programming for straight ticket voting went awry in November 2006 by identifying one Republican as a Democrat.http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=6868

It's not just ES&S: The following overly cryptic Diebold Product Advisory does not reveal what the "issues" are that cause unexpected results from certain straight party voting programming methods: http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/Product-Advisory-Notice-straight-party-voting.pdf
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And now, the sadly expected reaction:

never post a diary like this without explaining that each state has its own procedures and rules. What's true in one state may be quite different in another. Geez, people in the same state don't even vote with the same voting machines! Voting is definitely not a "one size fits all" proposition in this country. I'm in Texas, and that's not how it works here. We were trained by the Obama campaign specifically on this issue. At least as it relates to early voting in Texas, this diary isn't accurate.

I can't speak to other states on the list.
- Elmo

To which I felt the need to point out:

So you're contending that Texas
doesn't have a straight party voting option?

Sorry, but you're full of shit:

Texas Voters Urged to Avoid Straight-Party Option, After Vote-Flip Complaints
By Kim Zetter October 29, 2008
A number of voters in several Texas counties have been complaining that voting machines they used to cast early votes flipped their votes from Democratic choices to Republican ones.

Voters have reported that when they tried to vote a straight-party Democratic ticket, the machine flipped their choices to Republican candidates instead. In some cases, voters reported a problem only with the presidential race; in other cases voters reported the entire ballot being marked Republican by the machine.
What are you Elmo? Some kind of Republican plant here to Pooh-pooh anyone that tries to keep our elections fair? Because Texas is most certainly having problems with the straight party option.

Get your facts straight.

I could post several other responses, but they were all along the same lines as Elmo's. Cries of Alarmist, "my kid could do it", etc. Scattered with a handful of recs as the most important message to get out to the electorate today quickly slipped by into oblivion.

Meanwhile, as of last count, the 3rd "How I voted" diary moves up the rec list. As if we don't already know how 99% of the people that visit DKOS already (think they)voted.

What % of those votes for Obama actually will end up being counted I wonder? And when will public awareness of this issue rise to the forefront?

Not as long as DKOS is the preeminent left wing website.