Who thinks the 2004 election was "stolen" ?

Pro: Several articles and at least one book claim that, yes, indeed, rigged voting machines helped tip the balance.

Con: Well...the results of the 2004 election and the fact that this would be extraordinarily difficult to pull off. Perhaps not impossible but extremely difficult.

What do you think ? I'd LIKE to believe that this could never happen in our *cough* wonderful land of the free.

there is always a margin of error in elections, however in the last couple Presidential elections the margin of error was larger than the difference it votes, so there are bound to be theories on both sides.

What election? If you are referring to the dog catcher election in my home town it was rigged for sure and I demanded a recount!

although by the Constitution, the Electoral College elects the President. Sure 99% of ya'll already knew that

Little doubt in my mind that it was rigged. It's well established fact that those electronic voting machines can easily be set to output any desired results, and they're deliberatley designed not to record any physical evidence of the counting or data entry procedures. That combined with the fact that the head of the company that makes them promised to "deliver" the election to Bush, and the fact that the exit polls were almost completely opposite of the "results" in many key states, leaves almost no room for doubt as far as I'm concerned.

If anything, the last election shows our system works even when faced with extreme circumstances.

Agreed. Also, even independent groups were not allowed to test, study or in anyway confirm that the voting machines were setup correctly and fairly.

So, if you have voting machines, made by a company owned by an outspoken Bush supporter, that in no way can can be checked for accuracy. You have exit polls that are pretty much a perfect indicator of who is winning the election, yet for some odd reason go way against the results in this one. You have other voter/election misshaps in the key states. You have proven voter fraud, election tampering and foul play in certain key states through other means.

The election wasn't fair, nor democratic. And unless we see some REAL election reforms, instead of just lip service, this next one will be bogus as well.

Hell, they had the one in 2000 to practice, and then 2004 to hone their techniques. It's an ugly state of affairs these days.

This is kind of an old issue, and it's been known for a while by rational researchers that the vote is a farce.

Here's one of the many articles written on the subject over the years:

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/020801Collier/020801collier.html

The number one question: who counts your vote? As the article indicates, you don't know. I know you don't know because you cannot know. You are not allowed to. You have no way to review the process.

You can only take it on faith -- the same kind of faith that is the only recourse of the religious. The same kind of faith that is meaningless and irrational because there's no justification for it whatsoever. The same kind of faith that is hopelessly naive.

The election wasn't stolen. It was left out on a park bench overnight and then wasn't there the next morning.

If the Democrats go through another election cycle with no strategy other than trying to offend as few people as possible, I'm going to find a new party to support.

Psh. The Democrats (save a precious few) aren't going to "save" us anyway. Clinton, the man who gave us NAFTA, who continued our violence overseas, who was not the slightest bit interested in being honest with the American people about CIA involvement in the drug trade or the looming energy crisis? I suppose you could say "well, at least he was better than Bush," but mostly, he was just smarter. And that's okay because Bush isn't running the country anyway -- more, Cheney is.

I'd vote for Cynthia McKinney for president (if I thought voting did anything useful), but she would never, ever, ever be allowed to become the Democratic presidential nominee. Hillary? Sure. She's a good, safe member of the elite.

Cynthia McKinney is a whack job idiot.She's bad for the party and I'm glad she's out, along with Leiberman.

I don't know anything about McKinney, but I'm with you on Lieberman. I was never a fan of his, and I was glad to hear he's finally out. As soon as Gore chose him for his VP, I knew it was all over for Gore.

Granted, I never expected the Florida shady thing, and you certainly can't blame that on anyone except the powers that be in that state (Bush's brother), but if Gore should have been so far ahead, Florida wouldn't have mattered anyway. Despite the fact that he ran a piss poor campaign, had he simply picked a more likable running mate, I'm sure the last 6 years would have been very different.

Amen brother. And as far as his distancing himself from Clinton during the campaign, again, stupid. All he had to was promise 8 more years just like the last 8 and it would have been a lock.

Oh, and whether or not the election was stolen at this point I think is irrelevent. Bush has been a lame duck since 04, Kerry would have been the same. Iraq is an unwinable situation that has a strangle hold on American foreign policy and politics. The damage was done in '03 when we attacked.

I was no fan of Kerry's. I was quite pissed at my fellow dem's for nominating him to begin with. I hope we wise up by '08. Wesley Clarke is my man yet again this time around, a decorated war veteran, 5 star general, Rhoades Scholar, former supreme commander of NATO who once repelled down a 300 foot cliff with nothing more than a rope tied around his waist in an attempt to save a man from a burning car in Bosnia, how can he lose?

He doesn't have 20 years of congressional voting that can be spun into whatever his opponents want to make him look like, he's not a washington insider, and he's a consumate diplomat who's not afraid to use force when needed.

Clarke/Obama in '08!!

How so? Because she's honest? Where was Hillary Clinton when Cynthia McKinney had the (proverbial) balls to call Bush out March 25, 2002, on KPFA, on the foreknowledge we're seeing more and more the administration had to have had with respect to 9/11, given the numerous and obvious warnings, on his actions in taking away our civil liberties, on the obvious conflict of interest in Dubyah's daddy sitting on the board of the Carlyle Group ...?

I ask again: how is she a whackjob?

Becuase when she was stopped for not carrying the proper credentials at the capitol building by a security gaurd, she assaulted him and claimed it was because she was black. That's why she's a whackjob.

Oh, this?

http://www.11alive.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=77991

"Members of Congress are not required to pass through metal detectors."

I love the claim that the officer didn't recognize her due to her recently changed hairstyle. That's cute. I also love how he went up behind her and grabbed her arm. If someone came up behind me and grabbed my arm, I'd defend myself, too. I nearly broke a friend's wrist that way, and it was pure reflex.

Anyway, regardless of what stance you take on this, how does the incident invalidate the very real fact that McKinney was virtually alone in stepping up to ask the really hard questions?

I didn't know it. I hate to say it but the entire world doesn't revolve around the USA elections. Call me a secular humanist if you want.

a little bedtime reading on your favorite politician

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/8343403/detail.html
http://www.11alive.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=83191
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASUS_12/4869_12.htm

theres alot about her that yall don't see that our local news covers

Actually, it very nearly does. And that's disturbing.

I've had the pleasure of listening live to a couple of her diatribes. What disturbed me was the look on her face and her mannerisms as she spun through the talking points and tried to answer questions. A constant flip-flop between false arrogance and deer-caught-in-the-headlights panic. She reminded me of... George W. Bush.

we all know Bush has a short attention span, he's like

"our economy is oh look at the kitty"

of course it was stolen, and while you all look at Bush (he's a ceremonial distraction at best) The real President is busy fucking the USA up the ass.

am I the only one that sees a resemblance?

This is closer: