Voter turnout in 2012 US presidential elections 9% lower than 2008

PressTV

Latest figures show that 117 million Americans, less than 50 percent of the eligible voters, have taken part in the presidential polls, showing a reduction of about nine percent compared to the 2008 election turnout of 131 million.

Preliminary figures indicate only 95 percent of precincts have so far reported their results and the number could change when more votes are counted.

“By and large, people didn’t show up,” Curtis Gans, director of American University’s Center for the Study of the American Electorate said Wednesday, adding that voter turnout in most states this year was even lower than 2004.

He went on to say that the 2012 presidential race was riddled with disenfranchising campaign tactics, leaving many voters feeling turned off.

Experts also attributed low voter turnout to the devastation caused by superstorm Sandy.

Moreover, many analysts believe a lower voter turnout in the election has played favorably into the hands of Mitt Romney, though Barack Obama retained his seat in the White House by a considerable margin.

The victory made Obama the first Democrat to win a second term since Bill Clinton in 1996.

Republicans Throw Election For Obama, Blame Liberty Movement

A last word from Matt Larson suggests a likely influence for the presidential election.

State's Democrats file lawsuit to keep polling places open as voter anger grows

Guardian
Chris McGreal

People queue to vote early in Miami, Florida, where the
state's Republicans have been accused by the Democrats of
attempting to disenfranchise opponents. 

Florida Democrats have accused the swing state's Republican leadership of impinging on the fundamental rights of Americans amid growing voter anger at lengthy queues to vote, the shutting down of early voting and chaos in Miami over absentee ballots.

The state's Democratic party filed a lawsuit on Sunday to keep polling places open until election day as the Republicans stood accused of attempting to disenfranchise its opponents with new limits on early voting that contributed to waits of more than seven hours to cast ballots in Democratic strongholds such as Miami.

The Miami-Dade elections headquarters shut it doors on Sunday to people attempting to request absentee ballots because so many people showed up. Outside, would-be voters protested, shouting: "Let us vote".

Myrna Peralta, who waited with her four-year-old grandson for nearly two hours before being turned away, told the Miami Herald: "This is America, not a third-world country … They're not letting people vote."

After the outcry spread over social media, the department opened its doors again later in the afternoon. But the incident reflected deepening frustration at what are widely seen as Republican attempts to manipulate the election.

Long queues over the past week for early voting reflected a record turnout to vote early in Florida, with about 4 million people casting their ballots in advance of election day proper on Tuesday, as well as the longest ballot paper in the state's history, including complicated constitutional amendments.

But Democrats said they were also caused by Republican legislation sharply cutting the number of days for early voting from 14 to eight. That included scrapping voting on the final Sunday before election day, when large numbers of African Americans traditionally went to the polls after church.

The Florida Democratic party filed a legal action in Miami to try to keep at least some polling stations open for early voting in three key counties – Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach – which account for about one-third of the party's support in the state.

The lawsuit said "inadequate polling facilities" contributed to long waits in all three places. The last voters in Miami cast their ballots at 1am on Sunday even though the polling place official closed at 7pm on Saturday.

"The extraordinarily long lines deterred or prevented voters from waiting to vote. Some voters left the polling sites upon learning of the expected wait, and others refused to line up altogether," the legal action said. "These long lines and extreme delays unduly and unjustifiably burdened the right to vote."

The state's Republican governor, Rick Scott, who has the power to extend early voting days, declined to do so.

Rod Smith, the chairman of the Florida Democratic party, accused Republicans of impinging on people's rights.

"Voting is a fundamental right, and we all have an interest in assuring that all Americans have effective opportunities to vote," he said.

"Florida's Republican state legislature has already reduced the number of days to early vote by six days. Because of Governor Scott's refusal to follow precedent and extend early voting hours in the face of unprecedented voter turnout in south Florida, we are requesting in federal court that more Floridians have a meaningful chance to early vote."

Separately, a judge ordered an extension to early voting at an Orange County polling station after it was shut by a bomb scare on Saturday.

The US justice department has one eye on the 2000 election debacle of hanging chads and discounted votes, as well as more recent Florida election legislation struck down in federal court as discriminating against minorities, so it is monitoring the conduct of the vote in Florida to determine if the long queues are a deliberate obstacle to voting and therefore in breach of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Vote Independent or Stay Home

Global Research
Stephen Lendman

Voting for Obama or Romney is like choosing between death by hanging or firing squad. Either way you’re dead.

The same goes for choosing Republicans or Democrats. Each party replicates the other. On issues mattering most, not a dime’s worth of difference separates them.

They’re pro-corporate, pro-war, pro-Israel, anti-populist, anti-civil and human rights, and anti all values real democratic societies cherish.

Post-November 6, nothing will change. Duopoly power assures harsher times ahead. Expect direct and proxy imperial wars to continue. New ones will be launched. War on terror/existential threat deception will justify them.

Waging war on freedom rages domestically. Hypocrisy, not democracy, is policy. Dissent is endangered. Big Brother spying is endemic. Democratic values are fast eroding en route to disappearing altogether.

Torture is official policy. It’s institutionalized at home and abroad. America’s gulag is the world’s largest. Anyone can be arrested, detained, and held uncharged indefinitely for any reason or none at all.

Obama appointed himself judge, jury and executioner. His kill list decides who lives or dies. No one is safe anywhere including US citizens. State-sponsored murder is policy. Death stalks anyone threatening Washington’s imperium.

On November 27, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt issued Proclamation 2524. He declared December 15 Bill of Rights Day. It was done to commemorate its 150th 1791 ratification.

At the time, he hailed “America(‘s) charter of personal liberty and human dignity.” He said it includes “freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and the free right to petition the Government for redress of grievances.”

American freedom always was far less than he claimed. Today it’s vanishing in plain sight. Tyranny is replacing it. Constitutional, statute and international laws don’t apply. Presidential diktats replaced them.

Obama governs that way. Romney won’t change a thing. Due process, civil protections, and judicial fairness are null and void. Police state laws destroyed them. Expect harsher ones to quash freedom entirely.

Third worldizing America is planned. Bipartisan complicity assures it. Poverty, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, inequality, and overall human deprivation are at unprecedented levels or close to them.

At the same time, $4 trillion or more in domestic spending cuts are planned. When help is badly needed, ordinary people will be hurt most. Medicare, Medicaid, and other vital programs are targeted. Ahead they’re on the chopping block for elimination along with Social Security.

Job creation remains moribund. Policies aren’t in place or planned to stimulate them. Layoffs will increase. The greatest divide between rich and poor in US history will widen.

Military spending and generous corporate handouts will rise. Corporate taxes will be cut. No matter who wins, policies Obama’s (Simpson-Bowles) deficit cutting team proposed will be instituted. They include:

•ending or capping middle class tax breaks; home mortgage interest deductions and tax-free employer provided medical insurance will be affected;

•billions of dollars in Medicare cuts;

•substantial Medicaid co-pay increases and steep cuts overall; millions will be denied vital healthcare when they most need it;

•raising the Social Security retirement age and cutting benefits by reducing or eliminating cost-of-living increases;

•cutting or eliminating welfare benefits; food stamps and other vital programs will be affected; and

•other socially destructive policies.

At issue is destroying social America. Corporate bosses and privileged elites demand it. They want it all for themselves.

Obama and Romney agree. So do congressional leaders. It has to go. Eliminating it is planned to further Washington’s imperium, increase corporate empowerment and profits, and benefit super-rich elites already with too much.

America’s ruling class wants everything its own way. Social justice isn’t in its vocabulary. It’s in the way so kill it.

In the 1970s, America began shifting right. Since the 1980s, neoliberalism dominated US politics under both parties. Bush I continued Reagan policies. Clinton hardened them. Bush II went further.

Obama outdid him. He did what supporters thought impossible. He matched Star Trek. He went where no administration went before. Imagine what he’ll do in a second term. Expect Romney to match or exceed him blow for blow. Congressional Republicans and Democrats assure it.

Money power runs America. Corporate bosses demand it. Whatever they want they get. Ordinary people suffer most. Social justice are four-letter words.

So is prosperity for millions losing out entirely. Bad as things are now, expect worse. Expect America’s great divide between rich and poor to widen.

Neoliberal/imperial priorities let essential public needs go begging. It’s baked in the cake. Party leaders are on board. Rhetoric alone differentiates one side of the isle from the other.

America’s democracy is fake. Back room deals decide who rules. Free, fair and open elections don’t exist. They don’t rise to the level of bad fiction. They mock legitimate governance.

No wonder so many people opt out. Maybe one day an election will be held and no one will show up. Something has to give to change things.

America’s duopoly offers no choice. Vote independent or stay home. Support people oriented candidates committed to real democracy of, by, and for everyone fairly and equitably.

Back peacemakers, not rogues wanting to ravage one country after another. Choose wisely for a society worth living in. Do it because it matters. Throwing out bums for new ones never solved a thing and won’t now.

Real change more than ever is needed. Great struggles are won in small steps. Take one on November 6. Boycott America’s duopoly.

Oppose the corporate driven pestilence. It’s destroying personal freedoms and social justice. Have your say. Do it wisely.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled “How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War”

http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

What happens when you can’t trust the state

Le Monde Diplomatic
Serge Halimi

There would seem to be no chance that a man who made a fortune out of financial speculation might reach the White House just four years after private banks caused a crisis and had to be bailed out by taxpayers. The uncertainty to the very last minute about the outcome of the US election was probably due to worsening distrust of the state, and everything it does.

The problem of public debt is now at the very heart of US political life, thanks to the dramatic increase in budget deficits caused by the cost of two simultaneous wars (Afghanistan and Iraq), the bank bailouts and new enormous tax cuts (1). Some people claim that “we would love to help but we can no longer afford it.” Others also look to the incestuous links between government and private enterprise, the dubious process that transforms former heads of government into lobbyists or highly paid public speakers (see Blair Inc). The old fear of bureaucratic waste, parasitic middlemen and huge projects that come to nothing, is increasingly exacerbated by suspicions of venality.

The justification that “it costs too much and it won’t work” was already a powerful deterrent against any social action by the state. But perhaps there is now also a conviction that elected representatives have become too remote, too corrupt and too closely associated with the interests of an oligarchy to serve the common good. The right, claiming to be liberal, takes advantage of this lack of confidence and suggests (as with Mitt Romney) that if you want to run a country you might as well first prove yourself by managing a company or a hedge fund.

Yet fraud and waste are rife in the private sector, too. Unknown numbers of engineers, accountants and sociologists, trained at public expense, squander their talents on perfecting the lines of a car bonnet, a new packaging material or a cigarette filter, or on designing outlandish insurance contracts and tax-free investment schemes. Financial success is almost always more important to a company than the social value of its products.
A scandal may occasionally damage or destroy the head of a corporation; it generally does so without questioning the structures on which their activities and power are based. But prevarication by a mayor or a minister, supposed government capitulation to a lobby, or doubts about the funding of an election campaign have immediate repercussions for the state. They undermine its right to raise taxes, organise the country and mobilise the nation.

Almost everywhere people are eager for change. But without the proper instruments to achieve their aims, new or old, all they can do is feel their way, mark time, and sometimes — against all their hopes — go into reverse.

Mitt Romney Has Made It Clear That He Backs Indefinite Detention Too

Business Insider
Abby Rogers

President Barack Obama has been getting slammed for his act allowing the indefinite detention of anyone, including American citizens, remotely connected to terrorist groups.

But would the Mitt Romney Administration be any better?

Earlier this year during one of the Republican presidential debates, Romney was asked point blank if he would sign the NDAA as it's currently written. "Yes I would have," he responded, causing the crowd to begin vehemently booing. "And I do believe that it's appropriate to have in our nation the capacity to detain people who are threats to this country."

Watch the full clip, first brought to our attention by the Examiner:

Has the Election already been Stolen for Romney/Ryan?

Global Research
Larry Chin

For at least the past four decades, the American election process has been controlled by corpora

tions and agents connected to the Republican Party. This year’s “contest” is no different.

Voter suppression campaigns have been underway across America, by Republican operatives. (See Black Box Voting andBrad Blog). Nothing is being done to stop it.

Mitt Romney has direct ties to voting machines (also see the report by Brad Friedman). His son, Tagg Romney (who wanted to punch Barack Obama in the face) and a cadre of former Bain Capital business partners are owners of Hart Intercivic, whose voting machines are used in all fifty states. And this is just one of the many companies with ties to the right-wing, which include Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia. In 2004, Diebold’s Walden O’Dell promised to “deliver votes” to George W. Bush. His machines did, stealing what should have been a John Kerry win.

To this day, American democracy remains privatized and hackable. Nothing has been done about it. Theft continues unabated.

Backlash and cover-up

The few investigators who keep bringing exhaustive factual evidence of vote fraud to light have been attacked as “conspiracy theorists” by corporate media gatekeepers, and ignored by officials. These same accusers have refused to lift a finger to verify any of the facts. The “progressive” establishment Left has joined in this cover-up. The Democratic Party-affiliated Center for American Progress, and its site ThinkProgress, recently attacked reporter Brad Friedman.

for raising questions about Romney’s ties to voting machines.

Why is the establishment Left dissuading their own constituents from waking up?  Going back to the days of COINTELPRO and Operation Mockingbird, the Left gate keeping apparatus has long operated as a system of controlled dissent, offering channels to express certain ideas, but smashing down factual truths that are deemed truly threatening to their agenda.  The notion that American democracy—the vote—is thoroughly corrupted is such a threat. Unfortunately, it is the fact.

Nevertheless, we find the liberal consensus still pushing illusions and naïve ideas. Obama is still portrayed as a populist hero, despite his Bush/Cheney-esque record. The Democrats continue to urge their followers to believe that turnout and early voting solve everything.

But what if those votes are not counted? If the machines counting the votes are controlled by Republicans and Romney/Ryan, the game may already be over.

With a few clicks of a keyboard of a Hart Intercivic machine (Tagg Romney could even do it himself), the White House is seized, just as it was in 2000 and 2004.

Romney/Ryan: As Teflon as Bush/Cheney

Simultaneous with a vote-rigging apparatus in place for the Republicans, the corporate media—dominated by the corporate right-wing— has gone out of its way to give Romney and Ryan a free pass in news coverage.

Corporate media is ignoring their unsavory backgrounds, and ignoring the clear dangers of their policy agenda, and also ignoring the neocon fanatics advising the campaign. Tax returns that contain the history of his dirty schemes at Bain Capital are not the focus of critical investigation.

Countless Romney/Ryan campaign blunders, embarrassing debate losses and pathological lying have not slowed down their momentum.

Many polls continue to put Romney in the lead. Some polls even put Romney ahead of Obama among women, despite his outrageous misogyny. It is impossible to believe that these numbers correlate with realities on the ground.

Clearly the illusion of a close election is being created, in order to provide political cover for vote theft on November 6th. As demonstrated in 2000, close elections are easier to steal.

Bush/Cheney on steroids

The parallels with the stolen election of 2000 that installed Bush/Cheney in the White House are clear, and palpable. The larger political situation is also eerily similar.

Coming off of a period of neoliberal place-holding under Clinton, it was time to hand the controls over to Washington’s most hawkish right-wing enforcers, in order to start the war for oil (9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq) in earnest.

A Romney/Ryan administration will deliver a return to neoconservative rule—this time for the wars in Iran and Syria, and to impose austerity programs domestically—with militant messianic fervor.

The arrogant and malleable Mitt Romney, a suit as empty as George W. Bush, is the perfect man for the job. Ryan, a peevish and sadistic ideologue is also an ideal “enforcer”.

Democracy at risk: Voting machines might be hacked

Iowa warns international observers of arrest

Politico
Bobby Cervantes

We don't need your oversight.  That's what the machines are for.

Iowa has joined Texas in warning international election observers of possible criminal prosecution if they violate state laws and get near polling places on Election Day.

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz — like Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott last week — on Tuesday threatened Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe election observers with arrest if they came within 300 feet of a polling place’s entrance, in violation of state law. (In Texas, it’s 100 feet.)

“My office met with two delegation representatives last week to discuss Iowa’s election process, and it was explained to them that they are not permitted at the polls,” Schultz said in a statement. “Iowa law is very specific about who is permitted at polling places, and there is no exception for members of this group.”

The OSCE — comprised of 56 countries, including the United States — is chiefly a crisis mediation and conflict resolution group in Europe, Asia and North America. Since 2002, the organization’s poll watchers have observed six U.S. elections, without incident, said Janez Lenari, the OSCE’s director for the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Lenari wrote, “The threat of criminal sanctions against OSCE/ODIHR observers is unacceptable. The United States, like all countries in the OSCE, has an obligation to invite ODIHR observers to observe its elections.”

Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokesman, said last week the group assured Texas authorities and the State Department that observers will respect Texas laws.

“To my knowledge, [Texas] is the only state that came forward and said ‘please reassure us that you’re going to follow our state electoral law.’ And they have now been reassured,” Nuland said.

Part II: Rigged Elections for Romney?

The Money Party
Michael Collins

Part I of this series suggested that there may well have been massive vote flipping for candidate Mitt Romney in the Republican primaries (Rigged Elections for Romney (10/22/12)  The article and the initial research analysis were received broadly.  In addition, highly motivated citizens across the country and a team of high school students contacted the authors for help replicating the research in their states.  The researchers, Francois et al., point out that this can be done with their open source techniques.

The basic argument is straightforward.  If you look at precinct level voting data arranged from the smallest to the largest precincts, you will see Romney’s gains increasing substantially as the cumulative vote increases.  For example, Ohio and Wisconsin show this clearly as do eleven other states presented here.  This extraordinary vote gain from smallest to largest precincts is so out of line, that the probability that this would happen by chance alone is often less than 1 out of a number represented by 1 preceded by 100 zeros and a decimal point, a value beneath the statistical package’s lower limits.  As a result, the researchers termed the suspected vote flipping for Romney the “amazing anomaly.” (The Amazing Statistical Anomaly)

The research team’s observation of Romney gains based on precinct size is not unique.   The anomaly was raised  previously concerning the Republican presidential primaries by a commenter on a political discussion forum.

Richard Charnin, posting as TruthIsAll, first noted the pattern with an analysis of the 2005 special election for a vacated seat for Ohio’s 2nd district, in the House of Representatives.  The candidates were the liberal-populist Democrat Paul Hackett versus a right-wing Republican, Jean Schmidt.  Charnin noticed that Schmidt’s votes and percentages increased substantially from the smallest to largest precincts in that district.  This was a patently absurd pattern of vote accumulation since the liberal Hackett wins were in highly conservative counties that rarely voted for any Democrat. (See Precincts with the most votes favored Schmidt at nearly 100%)

Vote flipping is a form of election fraud that occurs “when votes are changed [without the voter’s knowledge or consent] from one candidate to another or several others during electronic voting and vote tabulation.”  County election officials conduct computerized vote tabulation as precincts submit their voting results, but cannot detect the fraud because only the total number of votes is checked and vote flipping does not affect the total votes.  The activity is suspected in many of the critical Republican primaries in 2012.

In each case, Mitt Romney was the beneficiary.  For example, without vote flipping, Romney would have lost the Wisconsin, and Ohio, and Illinois primaries as well as primaries in other states.  A comprehensive review will appear in Part III of this series.

Critics of the analysis presented in the first article claim that there is a perfectly logical expectation: that Romney would be more popular in suburbs.  Hence the votes increase as precinct size increases, indicating a move to supposedly Romney favorable urban areas.  Part I of this series mentioned that the research group anticipated that criticism and had factored out urban density from the analysis.  The article linked to a fairly complex research analysis from the team.  Here is a much simpler explanation, via example.

Mitt Romney was a candidate in the 2008 Maryland Republican primary.  The race shows no statistical anomalies in vote accumulation from smallest to largest precincts for Romney.

 

In particular, you can see that Romney’s flat lined in the 2008 Maryland primary.  There is no indication that precinct size played any role in his accumulation of votes.  The demographic criticism fails on the basis of extensive statistical analysis presented by the research team and linked in the first article illustrated by the graphic representation above.

What is the Likely Explanation for the Amazing Anomaly?

Which step in the vote counting process best explains suspected vote flipping?

The researchers, Francois et al., maintain that the likely culprits are central tabulators used by county election departments.  Typically, election precincts submit their individual results to a county-run central tabulator.  The central tabulator combines the precinct totals for a county total for every candidate on the ballot.  That information is then transmitted to state election officials.  The candidate vote count produced by the central tabulators is the critical element in the election process.

The central tabulators are computing devices owned or serviced by private companies such as Dominion, ES&S, and Hart Intercivic.  The operational details and software engineering are almost always the exclusive knowledge and intellectual property of the private companies.  As a result, public officials and citizens lack the type of access necessary to monitor the vote process.

In addition the intermediate data between the precinct machines and the central tabulators is stored in a proprietary obfuscated binary format unavailable to even the county registrar of voters.  That represents a loss of the “electronic chain of custody” of the votes.

Their evidence from Francois et al. is straightforward and powerful.

The researchers asked two questions:  Did a county vote distribution violate the laws of probability in terms of increased vote totals for one or more candidates based on precinct size (an amazing anomaly)?  And was the county using a central tabulator or not?  The answer the second question moves us in the direction of isolating a locus for the process.

Fortunately, Wisconsin has a number of counties that do not use central tabulators.  One of those counties, Outagamie, is the sixth largest county in the state.

Tabulator versus No-Tabulator Counties in Wisconsin – Milwaukee Compared to Outagamie

The entire state of Wisconsin displayed the amazing anomaly of Romney gains as precinct size increased.  Central tabulator counties make up the vast majority of votes and voting precincts in the state.  This graph below, from Part I, displays that phenomenon. It is worth reviewing briefly.  The slope of Romney’s line is an amazing anomaly. As you can see with the red oval, the anomaly produces a trend that leads to victory for Romney.  Without the amazing anomaly, Romney would have lost Wisconsin by 53,991 votes: Romney 34.29%, Santorum 41.14%.

 

The graphs below show candidate vote accumulations from the smallest to largest precincts in the county. The graphic representation of the vote accumulation in Outagamie (left) is well within the realm of statistical probability. The graph of Milwaukee County, below right, shows the amazing anomaly for Romney, as seen above, for the entire state. These two graphs represent the same election, same day, same state.

(Note:  An outside volunteer independently downloaded the data from Wisconsin’s counties and came up with the exact same results.  (Click for larger images)
(Click here for Excel of Wisconsin by precinct with amazing anomaly calculations)

In Outagamie County, WI Santorum won with 10,673 votes to Romney’s 9,750.  Romney won Milwaukee County48,424 to Santorum’s 28,491. Several other no-tabulator counties in Wisconsin fail to show an amazing anomaly increase for any candidate from smallest to largest precincts.

Milwaukee County, on the other hand, used ES&S electronic voting machines and an ES&S Unity Server central tabulator as part of the county elections division.  In Milwaukee County Romney’s vote totals and percentage for precincts increased at a highly improbable rate from the largest to the smallest precincts.

Wouldn't It Be Nice

Wouldn't it be nice if there actually was a band of technically savvy, ideologically committed, intellectually honest students of the harsh discipline of objectivity sporting Guy Fawkes masks and willing to play the role of vigilante superheroes to wage a fierce, personal battle against war criminals and treasonous banksters?

Unfortunately, it is probably the war criminals and treasonous banksters behind these vague messages from Anonymous serving as the last ditch effort to console an unknown percentage of those who know enough to be dangerous.

Let's be even more dangerous and acknowledge that no matter how many soothing mono-toned, Guy Fawkes YouTubes promising justice, regardless of what eventually drips out as public record from the likes of Wikileaks and no matter what moving concession goes viral from the next ineffectual liberal du jour, there will be no change.

Not until we are able to look into the mirror with our own unmasked faces and believe one simple thing: "I like what I see."

Here is anonymous putting our fears to rest about Karl Rove's work to disenfranchise voters in this upcoming election.  It shouldn't be enough for any of us.

The Cost of Stupidity

The absurdity of voting for a war criminal.

Mickey Duniho: Evidence of Vote Counting Fraud in Pima County?

Editor's Note: With the analysis is a full video of the Election Integrity Commission's emergency meeting held on October 26th to hear retired NSA analyst Michael Duniho's explanation of how his study of local elections support nationwide trends found in a paper published by Francois Choquette and James Johnson. Commission member Dr. Tom Ryan has a PhD in computer programming and agrees with what Duniho has discovered.

The video begins with Benny White refusing to participate because of his ardent support for Pima County. He mistakenly assumes that the board meeting is discussing the simple lawsuit that was filed to get Pima County to comply with Arizona State statutes. Arnold Urken is a commission member tied to the county with his role of County Administrator. The chair, Charles Geoffrion, is assigned by Pima County and the meeting itself is also attended by John Moffatt, the Pima County employee previously involved with election data shenanigans.



Mickey Duniho
Analysis in PDF

Former NSA analyst, Michael "Mickey" Duniho

A paper published by Francois Choquette (Aerospace Engineer, Statistics, California) and James Johnson (Senior Quantitative Financial Analyst, California) outlined anomalies found throughout the United States in the Republican Presidential Primary that always favored Mitt Romney. The favoritism correlated strongly with precinct size, and did not correlate with any other logical choices (such as population density, income levels, race, etc). The paper asked readers to confirm their analysis and report on findings.

I analyzed the 2012 Presidential Preference Primary in Pima County and confirmed their analysis. I also analyzed two 2012 Board of Supervisors Republican primaries and found no apparent anomalies. I analyzed many 2010 races and found anomalies in all statewide races, always apparently favoring Republicans (except for propositions). I found no anomalies in the LD28 State Senate race.

The correlation of Republican (or in the case of the Republican Presidential Primary, with Mitt Romney) strongly suggests vote count fraud, which would occur in larger precincts because it is easier to hide it there.

Pima County has persistently refused my requests to sort early ballots before doing the state-required hand-count audit because they say it is too much trouble. These statistics suggest another reason: they may be hiding vote-counting fraud.

We need to re-examine early ballots for the 2010 election, if they are still available, to confirm the hypothesis of vote-count fraud or to certify that there was none. This would involve removing the ballots from the vault under a court order, sorting them by precinct, and then hand counting some of the larger precincts. It appears from the data that we might discover vote-count fraud in every state-wide race in that election. We need to re-examine the Republican Presidential primary early ballots in the same way, sorting them by precinct and then hand counting some of the larger precincts.

If the contention of vote-counting fraud is correct, we could be victimized by vote-continuing fraud in the November election, affecting not just the Presidential race but also state-wide races and possibly county-wide races. Anomalies in the 2010 general election appeared to show about ten percentage points taken from the Democratic candidate and added to the Republican candidate’s total. This changes the outcome of any race that is closer than 20 percentage points.

Here are some charts showing apparent vote flipping and others confirming no fraud in a race. Each chart shows a different race. Lines that move up from left to right represent votes added through fraud. Lines that move down from left to right represent votes taken away from a victim through fraud.

The first chart shows a race that was clearly not flipped, the LD28 State Senate race. It is not a county-wide race, so there were fewer precincts to analyze. The wiggles on the left of the chart represent small precincts with so few votes as to render statistical analysis less useful.

In the larger precincts, the lines are flat, showing no votes transferred from one candidate to another.

The second chart is another race that apparently had no evidence of fraud. This is the 2012 Pima County Board of Supervisors race between the incumbent Ray Carroll and challenger Sean Collins. This race had even fewer precincts (62) than the LD28 State Senate race (92 precincts), so the lines are not perfectly flat, but they do not show any significant slope, leading me to believe there is no evidence of fraud.

The next chart is another Board of Supervisors primary race (District 1, Republican) that shows no evidence of fraud. The small number of precincts (65) causes what would be flat lines in a larger data set to appear wiggly, but again there is no discernible slope for any candidates.

The next chart is the 2010 Giffords-Kelly race, showing an apparent shift of ten percent of the votes from Giffords to Kelly. Unfortunately for Kelly, Giffords appears to have run more than 20 percent better than Kelly so that even with the shift she still won the election by a small percentage. Making an assumption of fraud, this suggests that it might have been programmed into the computer before the counting begins and could not easily be changed during the election process. [Note: I have been advised by the author of the report I was following that I need to account for relative party registration numbers in this chart, which might lessen the steepness of the slopes if Democrats tend to be found in larger numbers in smaller precincts and Republicans in larger numbers in larger precincts. I am working on getting precinct-level voter registration data for 2010 so that I can recalculate this chart to more accurately reflect the anomaly.]

Arizona Citizens' Election Integrity Lawsuit Explained by Attorney Brad Roach and Republican Candidate Bill Beard

From left to right:  Attorney Brad Roach,  John Brakey,
Bill Beard, Chris DeSimone 

KVOA Wakeup Tucson at 7:00 AM Mountain Time on 1030 AM radio

Stay tuned for the final clip containing Pima County shill Benny White refusing to
participate in the Elections Integrity Board's emergency meeting scheduled to discuss former NSA employee Mickey Duniho's analysis of past elections. White mistakenly assumed that the meeting was going to discuss the pending lawsuit requiring Pima County to follow existing election laws. One can assume he is also mistaken in thinking he can be a co-defendant in that case because he ultimately would be acting against significant members within Pima County's Republican Party who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit.




NSA Analyst Mickey Duniho's presentation to the Pima County's Election Integrity Board will be posted later this evening.

Pima commission to discuss chance of election fraud in larger precincts

Arizona Daily Star
Carli Brosseau

The Pima County Election Integrity Commission is holding a special meeting today to talk about whether one member's statistical analysis of votes in recent elections shows evidence of fraud.

Under the group's bylaws, an emergency meeting can be held if at least five of the nine members call for one.

Michael "Mickey" Duniho
His presentation to the Election Integrity Board
will be posted on The Intercept today.

Mickey Duniho, a retired National Security Agency computer programmer, requested the meeting two days ago after he began plotting cumulative votes by precinct and noticing that outcomes seemed to differ by precinct size.

He was replicating earlier studies done by California researchers Francois Choquette and James Johnson, an aerospace engineer and a financial analyst. The researchers argue that their analysis of the recent Republican primary shows Mitt Romney making strange vote gains in most states' large precincts.

Duniho - formerly a Republican election observer in Maryland, a supporter of Democrat-backed lawsuits against Pima County's Elections Department and now a registered independent - said that his results seem to parallel those of Choquette and Johnson, who tried to account for their findings using demographics.

He is now collecting demographic data by precinct to try to explain his results with other factors, such as whether a precinct is rural or the affluence of the precinct's residents.

Duniho suspects that the patterns he found show a 10 percent flip of votes in favor of the Republican candidate in the 2010 race between Raúl Grijalva and Ruth McClung and the race between Gabrielle Giffords and Jesse Kelly the same year, as well as votes switched to benefit Romney in the Republican primary.

"The problem is figuring out what the statistical evidence does mean," Duniho said. "The computer is a black box. It is very easy for the guy who wrote the program to do just about anything."

At today's meeting, Duniho hopes to persuade the county Elections Department to sort early ballots by precinct before doing the hand-count audit required by law.

He has been advocating for that sorting, as well as for upping the percentage of ballots hand-counted, for about six years, arguing that his method boosts the chances of revealing fraud if it were to occur.

By law, Arizona counties must do a hand-count audit of 1 percent of early ballots and 2 percent of precincts in at least one federal and one state race. Pima County already audits more than required - 4 percent of precinct-cast ballots and 1 percent of early ballots. No local races are audited.

Some of the commission's members have argued strongly against holding the meeting and worry that it could unnecesarily increase fears about the vote count.

Benny White providing false testimony
to the Pima County Board of Supervisors.
about John Brakey's arrest while monitoring
elections in the Fall of 2008.

Benny White, a Republican election observer, responded to news of the meeting request with a sharply worded email.

"After reviewing the academic research involved with the links in the message, I conclude that the allegations being made are absolute nonsense," he wrote. "These academics don't take into account the fact that election results are the response by voters to campaigns and candidates. …

"I think there is a greater probability that fluctuations in the electrical voltage of the lines serving the election department have more to do with variations in election results than these alleged anomalies."

The county's technical consultant on election matters, John Moffatt, agrees that the data do not seem to show a vote flip in Pima County, but he does think the California researchers may be on to something with their findings in some other states.

Pima County employee John Moffatt speaks of
"witch hunts" in the past, but is responsible
for the incoherent rationale that required a suit
to obtain electronic public records. 

"It's worth paying attention to, and we took it seriously," he said. "My personal opinion is that it's another witch hunt, but our responsibility is to check this stuff out, not just blow it off."

He adamantly rejects allegations that county elections staff somehow tampered with any results.

The county's elections director, Brad Nelson, will not be at the meeting to approve a change of audit procedures because of family issues, but county workers involved in those processes caution that while it's theoretically possible to make Duniho's suggested change, it would be logistically difficult.

"That's a monumental task," Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez said. "It's kind of late to be changing the procedures in the middle of a major election."

The sorting machine needed to do the job efficiently would cost at least $125,000, said Chris Roads, deputy recorder and registrar of voters.

To do the sorting by hand would likely take two days, Moffatt said.

The window to challenge a vote count after an election in Arizona is five days after the canvass.

Karl Rove's Electronic Empire Of Fraud

Jim March
Jill Simpson

Jill Simpson and Jim March are election integrity researchers who have traveled the country documenting the various elements of Rove's electronic election fraud network, guided by Ms. Simpson's past as a volunteer GOP operative directly under Karl Rove.

Jim March is a specialist in electronic voting systems and one of Bev Harris' supporters at BlackBoxVoting.org.

Together they have produced the first “big picture” outline of what the total election fraud network looks like, at least as connected to Karl Rove (which is most of it).

They are particularly concerned due to the passage of something called the “MOVE Act” in 2009. This new federal law for Military Overseas Voting Enhancement purported to make voting more “efficient” for this surprisingly large class of voters consisting of military, various “contractors” overseas, consulate staff and the usual mix of US business people overseas.

The act specified new federal funds for new systems to support the MOVE Act, which requires that these voters have the option to both register to vote and vote electronically over the Internet. No security provisions were put in – at all. And worst of all, states are not allowed to put in security provisions more strict than the MOVE Act specifies if it slows down the “efficiency goals” of the MOVE Act in any way.

Scytl, an up-and-coming voting system vendor out of Barcelona Spain set up a series of sham US offices but in reality ran these critical functions out of Spain.

To fully implement “MOVE Act” election fraud, data mining companies would be needed to identify which overseas voters to impersonate – we have identified two including one with a notorious past as a cocaine dealer. Political strategists would be needed to identify races and counties to target – we have located those as well. Corruptable county election officials would be a boon to this scheme and we know how that works too.

We will be taking questions and doing a brief intro today at high noon, National Press Club

ElectionProtectionAction.org Press Contact 614-361-9434

The following audio clip contains key excerpts from last Monday's radio broadcast with Jim March,  Jill Simpson, Craig Unger and Mark Crispin Miller. Jim March identifies the MOVE act as containing the likely path for how the upcoming 2012 Presidential race can be rigged through Karl Rove and his operatives. Towards the end of the clip, he lends his expertise about what to specifically watch for this election season.

For larger view, click here.

About that Voting Machine Company Tied to Mitt Romney and Bain Capital…

Global Research
Brad Friedman

Late last month, Gerry Bello and Bob Fitrakis at FreePress.org broke the story of the Mitt Romney/Bain Capital investment team involved in H.I.G. Capital which, in July of 2011, completed a “strategic investment” to take over a fair share of the Austin-based e-voting machine company Hart Intercivic.


“Several tanker trucks full of political ink have been spilled on Mitt Romney’s tenure as a vulture capitalist at Bain Capital,” Bello and Fitrakis wrote. “A more important story, however, is the fact that Bain alumni, now raising big money as Romney bundlers are also in the electronic voting machine business. This appears to be a repeat of the infamous former CEO of Diebold Wally O’Dell, who raised money for Bush while his company supplied voting machines and election management software in the 2004 election.”

Lee Fang at The Nation recently confirmed the FreePress reporting in a story of his own on the “crony capitalism” of Tagg Romney, whose father’s money and high-profile connections present a number of troubling corporate conflicts of interest should Mitt Romney become President. The Daily Dolt also followed up with a very well-documented article on the H.I.G. group, their connections to Bain, and their takeover of Hart Intercivic.

Hart’s announcement of the deal describes H.I.G.’s role as as “co-investors”, though the financial services firm which brokered the deal described it in their own announcement as a full-fledged acquisition: “Hart Intercivic was acquired by HIG Capital late last week. The deal caps off a 2+ year relationship with Hart! Congrats to both Hart and the HIG team….its going to be a great partnership!”

Also this week, in a video that has gone a bit viral, The David Pakman Show expressed understandable concerns about Romney’s close business partners having this type of corporate control over a large e-voting company whose, extremely vulnerable and insecure [PDF] — and often 100% unverifiable — voting and tabulation systems are now used, according to VerifiedVoting.org’s database, in all or parts of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington. [Pakman's video is embedded below.]

When the story initially broke, I spoke about it on the radio with Fitrakis, but didn’t comment on it at The BRAD BLOG for a number of reasons. One being the time we’ve been spending, during the same period, consumed by the continuing breaking story of the RNC/Romney consultant Nathan Sproul and his companies at the center of the national GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal which we’ve been covering in detail since it first broke several weeks ago. Secondly, and not to downplay this story, because it’s a very good and important one, the fact is that, though the names of the corporate titans and companies are different, it is essentially the same story that we have been telling here, over and over again — and warning about with hair afire — at The BRAD BLOG for nearly a decade.

Moreover, I’ve been on the road all this week for a conference, with much less time online than usual. But since so many folks have picked up on the Romney/Bain/H.I.G./Hart Intercivic stories and have sent email and Twitter queries to me about it, allow me to very quickly share a few thoughts, on this, some of which I sent to a reporter who also raised this issue with me late this week…

First, my statement that I sent to the reporter about this story…

Once again, we’re reminded of the dangers of the privatization of our once-public electoral system. The company’s ties to Romney aren’t the only disturbing ones we’ve seen with similar companies over the years. The fact is, that nobody other than the public should have any sort of control of our elections. The proprietary voting systems now in use in all 50 states, whether owned by Romney associates, a George W. Bush associate (as with Diebold in 2004) or even a company tied to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez (as with Sequoia Voting Systems which blatantly lied about that tie to public officials, and the Canadian firm Dominion which purchased Sequoia and also immediately lied about the fact that Intellectual Property of their voting systems used all across the U.S. is still owned by the Venezuelan firm), continue to be a grave threat to American democracy and confidence in U.S. Elections.

One other point I should add, for now, particularly since I suspect folks from the Right are also likely to ask about it. There has been a false Rightwing story that’s been bubbling around this cycle, charging, inaccurately, that perennial Republican target George Soros owns or controls a company which will count 25% of U.S. votes in this year’s election. While the story, spread first by public airwaves clown and radio host Michael Savage and, naturally, Fox “News,” is completely false, the general concern at the heart of it is not. Indeed, it underscores, yet again, the very point we’ve been making on this topic here for years.