Aloha

I wait for questions, right?

Welcome, Mark.

OK, shoot. (Not really!)

What is the most important issue facing our country today?

We saw what happened in 2000. There were some mysteries in Ohio in 2004.
What are the odds of the election being stolen this year and why?

Take them as they come Mark, it can get overwhelming answering 5 questions at once...hehe

Hello Mr. Miller,

Do you think that Karl Rove will ever be held accountable for any of his broad list of offenses against the government? He always seems to have the ability to walk between the raindrops, and be literally untouchable under the guise of executive privilege.

How about an easy one to start: Ginger or Maryann?

Would you speculate as to what form(s) "Martial Law" will take if it happens ...?
(What about things like self-censorship ...kind of like Corporate Media has been doing for the past 5 yrs? ... )

thanks!

There have been quite a few such laws passed the states—laws requiring voters to bring photo ID's to the polls. Indiana's law was the most stringent in the nation, as it requires that voters have STATE-ISSUED ID's with them when they vote, and, if they don't, that can only cast provisional ballots, which will be counted only if said voters can get to the county seat within (I think) 12 days.

Not everyone in Indiana can afford to get such ID's, or to travel to the county seat (which in some cases represents a long bus-ride). Thus the law immediately disenfranchised thousands of Indianans. Such disenfranchisement meant nothing to those SCOTUS justices who recently upheld the law. As far as they could see, it's simply no big deal to acquire those ID's or to make such trips. After all, the Justices themselves would have no problem meeting those requirements, so why should anybody else?

That's bad enough, but what's even worse is the law's completely groundless rationale. Proponents of the law——which included the US Department of Justice——argued that such legislation is necessitated by the epidemic "voter fraud" whereby Bad People (i.e., Democrats) subvert elections. In fact, there is no evidence of ANY "voter fraud" having been perpetrated EVER in the state of Indiana. This doesn't mean that there has never been such crime committed, but it does mean that that so-called "epidemic" is entirely non-existent——and, therefore, that the law is needless.

Its only purpose, actually, is to disenfranchise as many Democrats as possible. In this it is consistent with the MANY other methods whereby Bush's party has been getting ready to subvert the next election, too.

I think there's a study that says the Indiana Law could, if implemented nation wide would cut out 3% of the entire Democratic voter block. Thanks Mark.

Mark,

What do you suggest that the average citizen do locally to affect real change in our voting system and voting machines?

A bit of background to my question: I live in Bloomington, Indiana and I am vehemently opposed to electronic voting machines that do not provide a re-countable paper trail. When I went to vote in our primary on May 6th I asked the nice old ladies in my polling location (an Apostolic church, no less) if there was an option for a paper ballot. Everyone looked at each other like I had just threatened to blow up the place with a waist-wrap of C4 and then all looked to the one guy there who was under 65. He picked up a manila envelope and said, "it says here I need to first contact the commissioner of elections" (or some similarly official title that I can't remember specifically). I realized that this would likely be more of a pain than it was worth, and that my vote might not ever be counted anyway, so I voted on the machine, and I felt as if my vote had just been sucked into one of Winston's pneumatic tubes...

Cameron
Graduate student, Department of Anthropology/Archaeology
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana

Hi, MCM, I'm in Siegelman county, and I'm wondering about Rove, too.

I'll second Atrox's question just to keep it alive in the thread:

Do you think that Karl Rove will ever be held accountable for any of his broad list of offenses against the government? He always seems to have the ability to walk between the raindrops, and be literally untouchable under the guise of executive privilege.

How will the GOP try to steal the 2008 election? Will it be through the stealth implementation of caging lists, like in Florida 2000? Through false voting machine returns?

Note: In the video Mr Miller goes into a few basic techniques for avoiding fraud ...

Yikes.

OK, let's start with Florida. The GOP stole Florida, and they did it through conspiratorial means far more numerous, and nefarious, than RECOUNT even started to suggest. I urge you all to read the first two essays in LOSER TAKE ALL, by David W. Moore and Lance DeHaven-Smith, about Bush/Cheney's machinations, which started long BEFORE Election Day. The movie was, unfortunately, based on several books that all take the consensus view of what went down in Florida: i.e., that it was merely an impromptu clash between two parties, one of which was just more ruthless and more agile than the other. That view blinds us to that these facts: that the GOP was already busy stealing the contest BEFORE E-Day; and that their actions weren't just ruthless and/or "dirty" but ILLEGAL.

More important still, the movie actually leaves out the crucial fact that Gore WON the election in Florida——something that we didn't learn until November, 2001, when the official recount was completed and its findings were announced. Contrary to the way the MSM covered those findings, there was no ambiguity about it:
Gore won. If all the ballots cast in Florida were counted, Gore won. Period. The fact that RECOUNT failed to mention that fact in an epilogue, over the film's final shot, is staggering——especially considering the big dramatic scene with Ron Klain (Kevin Spacey) shouting earnestly, "I just want to know WHO WON THIS ELECTION!" That was a powerful moment, so why didn't the film itself tell us who won?

On to Ohio in my next...

So, there WILL be fraud... How much to the democrats ( i.e. me ) have to win by to overcome this fraud? 3%, 10%, or more?

I can see it now if the voter ID law passed--the Republicans trying to thwart efforts by activists to assist transporting people so they can get their IDs, the way the Motor Voter act was resisted...

And now... for something completely different.

If you've ever had to introduce a new kitten into the house, you'll find this pretty amusing:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=lEBIb15p3fw

I agree with mark.........they can't give up their power. If they do there may be public hangings. They will steal this election just like 2000 and 2004. They will divide the country with nonsense. The public is foolish and feeds off tabloid politics.......it sickens me.

Thanks Mark..

Mark Crispin Miller @ 43:

Will the Democratic Party do this? I rather doubt it, since I've seen no evidence that they care much, or at all, about democracy, since they are answerable not to us but to their giant donors. But it's possible that they can't win, or be allowed to win, without our help; and that means that they have to face what's really going on, and talk about it in the open.

Are you saying that the Democrats are being bought off? That is why they don't pursue a line of investigation on these issues? Is our government simply a sock puppet play put on by large monied interests to placate the populous?

Why the spinelessness? That's not only a good question——it's THE question.

As I've said before (about a thousand times, it feels like!), the best way to understand that blindness and paralysis is to go back and take a look at how the Social Democrats in Germany responded to the rise of Hitler. It was exactly the same: the refusal to perceive what was really happening; the idiotic rationales whereby they kept themselves from doing anything about it ("He only says those things, to appeal to his base!" "Big business won't let him go too far!" "We need him as a bulwark against Stalin" and so on). That incredible complacency arises from an inability to face a very painful set of truths. It's really not much different from the way, say, battered wives, or the kids of alcoholics, deal (or don't deal) with their plights. The Democrats I've spoken to about all this——Kerry, Jerry Nadler, et al.——show symptoms of the same profound denial. They just cannot, will not, go there.

This is not to say that there are not some Democrats who are complicit with the GOP, and/or who are in the pockets of the e-voting machine companies. But it's the spinelessness of those who aren't complicit or corrupt that is the biggest problem here.

BTW, I go into this very question in detail both in the afterword to the paperback edition of FOOLED AGAIN, and in my introduction to LOSER TAKE ALL.

Mark Crispin Miller @ 37:

Ohio too was stolen [...] The fact is that, while 2000 certainly was stolen, 2004 was stolen
no less clearly——and on a far larger scale than the election four years earlier.

I thought I was fairly well informed, but I'm learning a lot from you.

Thanks!!

Of course the GOP did not invent election fraud. As I've said and written many, many times, we've had election fraud forever in this country, and it's hardly been unique to any single party. (I'm from Chicago, dude, so please don't lecture me about the crimes of Democrats.) Also, purists of democracy would argue, and many have argued, that election fraud or various kinds predates 1877. Ask the ghosts of both John Adams and Andrew Jackson for their views on the subject.

What BushCo has done, however, IS quite new, as there has never been election fraud (a) on such a scale, (b) carried out with such technological sophistication, or (c) motivated by so intense a hatred of democracy itself. Search the histories of Cook County, or of LBJ's rise in Texas, or any other time and place in the US, and you will not find anything approaching what's been happening since 2000.

As for the Democrats, I want to make it clear that I am not one. I'm an Independent. I think that our election system cannot really be reformed unless we loosen the control of both the parties on the process.

Mark Crispin Miller @ 52:

Of course the GOP did not invent election fraud. As I've said and written many, many times, we've had election fraud forever in this country, and it's hardly been unique to any single party. (I'm from Chicago, dude, so please don't lecture me about the crimes of Democrats.) Also, purists of democracy would argue, and many have argued, that election fraud or various kinds predates 1877. Ask the ghosts of both John Adams and Andrew Jackson for their views on the subject.

What BushCo has done, however, IS quite new, as there has never been election fraud (a) on such a scale, (b) carried out with such technological sophistication, or (c) motivated by so intense a hatred of democracy itself. Search the histories of Cook County, or of LBJ's rise in Texas, or any other time and place in the US, and you will not find anything approaching what's been happening since 2000.

As for the Democrats, I want to make it clear that I am not one. I'm an Independent. I think that our election system cannot really be reformed unless we loosen the control of both the parties on the process.

Thank you, a very well thought-out answer.

I wouldn't lecture on the crimes of Democrats, because I live in Louisiana where every politician is a crook and every crook a politician. I empathize with the Chicago situation.

I also agree that the two-party system is in deep need of an overhaul, and we need to find a suitably moderate third-party to vote for, perhaps (not something like the Constitution Party or the Revolutionary Communist Party).

Again, thanks for the well reasoned response.

I know this will be a unpopular off-topic change of subject. Has anyone else thought the time of civility with Republicans must come to an immediate end? We should learn from Rove's insidiously political heavy-handed machinations, and articulate a way to evolve his methods for our own use.

I’m sure that the election fraud now and the scale is made so much easier because of technology. If LBJ and the scoundrels of Cook County and the jokers of Adams’ and Jackson’s time had computers and the tolls that are available now they would have laughed at the way they did it then. That is the main reason why we have to go back to the future with paper ballots. Of course I am stating the obvious here but apparently it cannot be stated often enough.

tools

Atrox @ 56:

I know this will be a unpopular off-topic change of subject. Has anyone else thought the time of civility with Republicans must come to an immediate end? We should learn from Rove's insidiously political heavy-handed machinations, and articulate a way to evolve his methods for our own use.

I appreciate the thoughtful question, Atrox, but let's try and keep this focused on Mr. Miller. I would definitely urge you to take it to an open thread or wait 'til our guest leaves, though. It's a great topic for discussion, just not in this thread.

Thanks -- SP

Would the fastest semi-solution to election fraud be the break-up of corporate media, so that we can return to the days of true investigative reporting?

On 2006, there are a couple of superb essays by Jonathan Simon and Bruce O'Dell of the Election Defense Alliance. One of them, "Landslide Denied," is in LOSER TAKE ALL. The other, "Fingerprints of a Stolen Election" (or something like that) is on the EDA WEbsite. Also, see Jean Kaczmarek's essay in LOSER, about the theft of Tammy Duckworth's victory in DuPage County, IL, in 2006.

Also, the story of Clint Curtis in Florida, along with the related stories of John Russell and Frank Gonzalez, is crucial to an understanding of the rampant fraud in 2006. I tell that story in the afterword to FA. (And there's a ton of great stuff about Clint on bradblog.com, which I also recommend on all this other stuff as well.)

Basically, the Democrats won, or would have won, at least 50 House seats in '06. They were, of course, pathetically grateful for the 29 seats that they were ALLOWED to take.

I'm glad you asked about Tennessee in 2000. There's a woman named Catherine Danielson who wrote a bit about this at the time; and my own informal inquiries, concerning folks I knew who taught at Vanderbilt and tried to vote in that election, also lead me to believe that that contest was stolen, too. After all, why wouldn't Bush & Co. steal Tennessee? The psychological advantages of having Gore appear to lose his own home state were surely worth the effort.

If we had a functioning press system in this country——and, let me add, if the left press cared about this issue, which they mostly don't——we'd certainly know more about this matter.

Orangutan. @ 69:

What do you consider to be the worst crime of the bush administration?

What is the worst scenario you see us facing in the months leading up to the elections?

Who are you supporting for President?

Question hog ;-}

In light of all the evidence you and others have amassed over the years, do you think it would be possible to successfully prosecute in a court of law the perpetrators of these crimes? How would you even know who to charge?

It seems to me that a big show trial is the only way to get the public informed/interested in this serious problem.

Cleo, there are things that we can and must do to reform the system. One of them is to GET RID of the computerized machines: all of them, and not just the DRE's. (Op-scans can be, and have been, rigged just as easily; and, crucially, they too entail secret vote-counts, which simply can't be tolerated in democracies.) The fact is that you can't be sure about those gadgets. So we must just get rid of them, and also BAN the participation of all private companies in our electoral process.

LOSER TAKE ALL, BTW, ends with a bit called "12 Steps to Save US Democracy." It offers what I think is a sound manifesto, laying out the various things we need in order to ensure legitimate elections. (It deals only with the mechanics of elections, and not with deeper issues like the need for proportional representation, or campaign finance.)

Lollimom @ 73:

Your last comment in the YouTube video is chilling: The martial law one.

When I say this to anybody, they react as if I were from Mars.

Would Congress sit idly by in the event martial law is declared? Would Americans sit idly by? I am thinking we're all getting real tired of the corruption.

I would like to hear a response to this question!

These are definitely crimes that can and should be prosecuted. But it won't happen on the proper scale until the people push for it; and they won't push for it unless and until they know the facts about what's really happened. Once they know those facts, they WILL push for it.

We need a special prosecutor, or maybe six or seven, to begin to plumb the depths of this abyss. Congress has to take the lead here (driven by popular insistence), and they certainly have every reason to do so, because the biggest scandals that they HAVE begun to study are directly linked to the subversion of our democratic system. The Abramoff scandal is a part of this, as all his money-laundering, etc., had as its MAIN PURPOSE the financing of election fraud. (His accomplice, Bob Ney, WROTE the Help America Vote Act, fer chrissake!) And the US Attorney scandal was ALL ABOUT the deliberation concoction of that bogus "voter fraud" epidemic, so as to justify strong anti-democratic counter-measures, and also to cloud the issue of exactly who was stealing votes from whom.

As for the worst crimes of the Bush regime, I don't know where to start. Actually, I do: One starts with the theft of the 2000 election, because without that move they wouldn't be in power; and without their subsequent strokes of election fraud and vote suppression, they would not have stayed in power.

And that, of course, is just the start.

If all of this evidence is available, why isn't it in a court of law?

Cameron @ 77:

Mark,

posting again b/c I'm an impatient question hog:

As a riposte to your repost, that makes you more a redundant Russian...haha

;-}

Vic @ 76:

Lollimom @ 73:

Your last comment in the YouTube video is chilling: The martial law one.

When I say this to anybody, they react as if I were from Mars.

Would Congress sit idly by in the event martial law is declared? Would Americans sit idly by? I am thinking we're all getting real tired of the corruption.

I would like to hear a response to this question!

Me too!! ...I asked back at #20 .... :)

Is there anything retroactive we can do re: election theft - such as convicting the criminals involved?

Thank you so much for doing this! Gotta get your book!

Thank you so much for your time and sharing your knowledge of this frightening subject.

I just don't understand how we are going to get Congress to investigate this when many of them may well be the recipients of what would be investigated.

EliteLemming @ 91:

I think that "states rights" need to be reiterated into public debate instead of passed off as segregationist code speak.

Rightly stated, my L337 friend ;-}

Many thanks Mark. Best of luck. Gotta go to animate.

thanks to John Amato and SilentPatriot

Mark Crispin Miller @ 74:

Cleo, there are things that we can and must do to reform the system. One of them is to GET RID of the computerized machines: all of them, and not just the DRE's. (Op-scans can be, and have been, rigged just as easily; and, crucially, they too entail secret vote-counts, which simply can't be tolerated in democracies.) The fact is that you can't be sure about those gadgets.

I think the optical vote counters would be ok, if -- all the parties have their own (different,
independently designed and manufactured) counting machines, then they all meet in a room,
together, all watching one another and keeping an eye on all the ballots, and each group runs
their own set of tallys, which must match exactly to decide any election.

Mark Crispin Miller was recently on the Mike Malloy Show. Here is the interview for anyone interested.

Mr. Miller,

I don't know how much you know about the 2006 vote between Christine Jennings and Vern Buchanan here in Sarasota County, but in the lead up to the election, she had a very solid lead against him and then, boom, she loses on election day. I have always felt that that was a stolen election.

Found this really good enlightening video linked to in Mark Crispin Miller's blog:

Indict Karl Rove
Save the 2008 election

McCain has already been elected
I wonder how many people understand the profound significance of the recent subpoena of Karl Rove by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Let me lay it out for you.

If what Karl Rove did to the election rolls is not corrected, John McCain has already been elected president.
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/327.html

I thought i was keping up with this subject but all I seem to be finding is dandruff from scratching my head (bald).

109 Bill W.

Oh... I seriously thought that C&L was promoting the National Polytechnic College for Subjugation of the Masses...

Whew!

EliteLemming @ 111:

Wonder what I did to peak their interest?

I don't know, but they seem to be piqued ;-}

Regarding the 2006 elections, here's a link to the article that was mentioned -- "Fingerprints of Election Theft":

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Time%20for%20change/269

Another comment -- although the specter of martial law raised at the end of the video is indeed very chilling, it is something I have been aware of for some time. Should Obama win I am actually more worried about assassination, perhaps a convenient airplane crash taking down our new President and VP or some other such tragic "accident". Given the motivations that you outlined, these folks would stop at nothing to retain power. They have far too much invested at this point, including as you said, staying out of prison.

Cleo, you're right. The people——a/k/a WE——have to take this bull by the horns.

It would help immensely if we had a central clearinghouse of information re: election fraud and vote suppression——i.e., firsthand accounts of
problems voters, or would-be voters, have encountered——especially on Election Day, but also through the last few months (at least) of the campaign.
Right now there are lots of hotlines, which, of course, is great, but the fact that there are many of them means that the data are dispersed; and they're not adequately funded to facilitate the quick release of all that data, or a lucid synthesis thereof.

So what we need is ONE clearinghouse, to which all those hotlines, etc., would give all their information; and it must be adequately staffed, so that all
the data can be properly transcribed and organized. In other words, it can't be a mere giant data dump, through which you're free to sift if you have time.
We have to know, ASAP, about the problems people have encountered on the ground.

The lack of information is a major problem. Right now, for example, we have no idea how many people TRIED to vote and were turned away, as neither
the exit polls nor (obviously) the official vote-count tells us about that. We also have no clear idea as to how many people couldn't register, for whatever
reasons. We need to push for mechanisms that will give us such essential information.

Here's a pertinent fact: The Bush regime has, for years, refused to update the national census. They've been criticized for this——the NYTIMES has editorialized against it——but no-one has pointed out that it's far easier to steal elections when there is not clear and up-to-date accounting of the national population. That's why the chaos post-Katrina served the regime's electoral purposes, as hundreds of thousands of Louisianans were either dispersed or detained. Without an accurate census, the entire population lies enshrouded in a similar confusion.

Mark Crispin Miller @ 52:

I would say we've never seen nation wide election fraud. There has always been machine politics but usually on the limited scale of a city, perhaps a state, but not over all 50 states.

I agree completely, ysbaddadden.

The counting of ballots is, of course, always subject to corruption. Oregon has an admirable system, but it works well because the people running it believe in it
and are themselves reliable. If that system were to be co-opted by a partisan machine, it would be corrupted just like any other system.

So I don't believe that we can treat it as a model for national use. Under this regime, the post office is no more trustworthy than any other extension of the government.

Mark Crispin Miller @ 119:

I laid out that whole argument in my two-part vlog, "Endgame," which is on YouTube, and which is also on my blog at markcrispinmiller.com.
(The two parts are over on the right, at the top of that vlog column.)

The only rational response to that possibility is to spread the word about it now, and get the likelihood into as many minds as possible. If people
are blind-sided by it, they'll be wholly paralyzed. If, on the other hand, they are aware that it IS possible, they're likelier to keep their heads.

Other than that, I have no idea whatsoever how to deal with it, and it represents uncharted territory, and, if it happens, it will be so big that no
one person can explain how to contend with it.

The plutocraps running the game have so many layers of middlemen tools and mediapropaganda front men between us and them that they feel untouchable...we may need to change that.

Definitely Mark. You are one of the respected people speaking out about such issues. As you've noted. The Nation, Chomsky, Amy Goodman, Etc etc. Aren't touching these topics for some reason. Please come back often and speak clearly about the threats we are facing. It is much appreciated. Thanks.

Mark,

I read in an interview with you in Harpers that you felt there were problems the New Hampshire Democratic primary earlier this year. Could you elaborate some?

crap, I didn't read that Mark has again left the building.

Maybe next time.

I wonder if those (who claim ) to care, are keeping track of all the fraud and strong arming going on by the obama camp at caucuses around the country, very well documented, one biggy being texas with all the laws they broke all the way to the point of locked doors and not letting Hillary supporters vote.

anyone bothering with all the corruption and fraud that IS the obama campaign?

just curious