Ukraine Election Hypocrisy

From CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/11/24/powell.ukraine/index.html

"If the Ukrainian government does not act immediately and responsibly there will be consequences for our relationship, for Ukraine's hopes for a Euro-Atlantic integration and for individuals responsible for perpetrating fraud," Powell said in a briefing at the State Department.

Kind of hypocritical that the US is threatening the Ukraine over fraud in an election decided by a few percentage points, when there have been many reports of voting irregularity in both Ohio and Florida. The US is in no position to comment on the validity of any country's elections at this stage. God, I wish some nations would have the nerve to say this to the US.

I agree completely Cris! Not to mention the fact that we (the US) needs to mind our own business (literally). Don't we have enough crap to deal with here in the US??

As far as the other countries telling us to focus on our own country, would be like talking to a wall. Like we would listen. pfft.

Cristiano,

Yes, the irony didn't escape me either.

We would have the nerve to say it, if you hadn't made us your bitch

You guys DO realize that a board at MIT and CIT both concluded that there was no fraud in the 2004 election right? A board consisting of 80% democrats and 20% republicans, right? From liberal Institutes of Technology in California and Massachusettes, right?

You do realize there was no fraud in the U.S., right?

Or is that the only reason democrats can come up with for why they lost?

More importantly, this is not just the opposition party/losers challenging the results, 3rd parties aren't supportive of the results either (not just the US).

"Canada also said it did not accept the results, and European Commission (news - web sites) President Jose Manuel Barroso warned of "consequences" for the European Union's political and trade relations with Ukraine."

Saying that the US doesn't have the "right" (or whatever) to do the right thing here because there were recent similar problems for the US defies logic... of course we should protest the results if there's REAL evidence of major tampering.

Ooh a board certified it, then it must be true! Funny thing, Aaron, do a bit more research and you will find that "certification" not very rock solid. First, some background on fraud allegations:

http://vevo.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5315
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/news/epaper/2004/11/05/a29a_BROWVOTE_1105.html
http://uscountvotes.org/
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041105/D865R1DO0.html

Here is the Caltech/MIT study you are referring to:
http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Election2004.html

And the rebuttals to the reports:
http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/11/exit_polls_calt.html
http://fullerton.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/14/03617/399

Also, in regards to the Caltech/MIT study:

Some sources also draw a connection between influential figures in the CalTech/MIT Voter Technology Project, namely David Baltimore and Howard Ahmanson Jr, and the unsigned unprofessional rebuttal of exit poll suspicions. These people note that Baltimore has been the subject of an investigation by a congressional enquiry into scientific fraud and the Ahmanson family are involved in hard right politics and the ownership and funding of major voting machine companies, and has made large donations to CalTech.

You may not see it as hypocritical, but I certainly do. There is evidence of major unexplained discrepancies in two states where electronic voting machines were used by Diebold, a company whose CEO promised to deliver the election to Bush, and whose machines have no paper trail to verify votes. I am sorry this doesn't bother you, but it bothers me significantly. It would bother me equally if it has gone the other way and favored Kerry. Democracy is not served by a process that can be tampered with in any way.

Ok, let's try thinking about it from a simpler perspective...

Let's say those machines really do have something in them that gave Bush extra votes. (?)

-Why wasn't this discovered? There's federal standards they have to meet. They must have some very interesting programming/design if they cheat...

-From the perspective of the companies making these machines: Tampering with the voting results, if it ever became known, would ruin your life. This isn't just including the owners of the business, it includes the development team working on it--they all, or most, have to be in on it. If you were such a dishonest person that you were willing to rig such a device, how can you be sure that the rest of your coworkers won't blow the whistle and destroy your life? Is that really worth it? What are the chances it would NEVER be discovered until you died (or left the country, heh)? Would you be willing to take such a risk, even for millions of dollars? Have the company employees/leaders fled the country yet? If they have, maybe there's something to this...

-If it's unintentional screwups, it could have helped Kerry just as much as Bush anyway; there's no way to know.

-As a politician, bribing or otherwise getting a company to cheat for you in an election, should it ever be discovered.... well, duh. Pretty big risk you're trusting people you don't even know with.

-There's reasons to be skeptical of certain studies claiming to find electronic voting errors...

Some here?

The people doing studies (often from predominantly liberal-supportive schools, of course) may have their own agendas and bias as well... Dunno. There's no way we can, at least yet, conclude that the election was "stolen" given the "evidence" we have that I've seen so far. Not by a long shot...

Irrelevant but interesting other comments:
Pennsylvania, which Kerry won, had a smaller margin than Ohio...I don't hear anything about problems there. And again, if Kerry had gotten Ohio, he'd have won with a much greater loss in the popular vote anyway. (So anyone who's saying the popular vote should be what we use, I don't wanna hear any complaints outta ya! )

I'm not dismissing any and all claims of mistakes, but I'm highly skeptical of mistakes or schemes of a certain proportion. Instead of freaking out and panicing we should just take our time and put the pieces together...but I don't think that's what's happening. I think many people are just looking for something to go "AHA!" and scream "Told ya so".

Actually, I still don't think it's hypocritical. For it to be hypocritical we'd have to hold the Bush administration accountable for the mistakes, or whatever, of state-run voting systems...but is that reasonable? What Ukraine's government is being accused of, based on the little I've heard so far, seems to be actual interference of the candidate/party in the voting process. I think there's a big difference.

Unless we believe the Bush administration rigged the election as well, but that's a whole different story. (And sounds much more like fiction.)

Perhaps you can shed some light on the CEO who "promised" to deliver the election to Bush, I'm not familiar with that tidbit, but I'm doubting that it'll prove anything.

why not look at it this way

- none of the international observers challenged the american election.
- all of the international observeres object to the ukranian election.

there is no way that sucker is staying in power. if he does, this would be a disaster for the whole world.

Garoad, here is the quote that Christiano was referring to:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.htm

He actually said that he promised to deliver Ohio's electoral votes to the president but I seem to recall that ohio was considered to be a critical swing state.

Right on, Chris! I was feeling the same all weekend. During our (U.S.) elections the idea came up a few times to allow U.N. observers track the election, and many many people cried 'foul' citing that it was an American election...and none of the World's business. Now we have Colin Powell on the news reading prepared statements regarding another country's election...
I'll admit, that election in the Ukraine was a shame...but IMHO, it became one when one candidate began being labeled "The candidate favored by Russia" and the other as "the candidate favored by the Western powers". The Ukrainian people will decide, as it should be...if violence breaks out large scale, then maybe the U.N. might step in to keep the blood bath to a minimum...

Well, if large scale violence DOES break out: after the UN has finished voting on it half a year later, they go in, and things start to get too tough for them--they can count on the US military to bail them out. I guess that's one way to do it.

Wow, interpreting that quote to say his machines are rigged (or something) is Bush opponents really grasping at straws... All it means for certain is that he's a Bush supporter. Any court that looked at that would probably throw it right out if it was presented as evidence of criminal intent or wrongdoing. You could probably find Kerry supporting voting-machine company CEO's, too. I don't see a problem there... maybe some shady political fund raising or something, but what else is new?

I think this link was overlooked in all of this.

I'd also like to mention that in many states, especially Florida, it is state-law that a paper-audit trail of every vote be kept -- this is one of those checks and balances that is supposed to make the US version of democracy so great.

Not one electronic voting machine even makes a paper slip to verify your vote. So really -- what does this mean?

In regards to the main topic of the post -- I agree Christiano; and it made me laugh when I saw it on the cover of a respected paper here in Canada not long ago. I doubt any US politicians will see the parallels though if all those Ukraines overthrow their administration.

It's the Cold War all over again. Communism has got its grip on Russia once more, I think we all see that. Except this time, Ukraine is the center of attention instead of Germany.

It's not the Cold War again because even with the steps backwards Russia has taken, we're not pointing missiles at each other (like we used to anyway), nor are we indirectly working against one another. (Well, not any more than France is working against the US anyway.)

That blackbox site has some interesting stuff on there. Nothing I didn't know when I skimmed, but the database/program they supposedly have there look interesting. Maybe I'll take a look at it some time. I agree with them that there should be (as some laws say) a paper trail for the things. But I have to question their sensationalism and the obvious conclusion they've already drawn...