Kennedy Makes The Cover Of Rolling Stone

I hope he plays an instrument, because his article and his cause aren't going to get him too far. NPR debunked it a week ago before it was even published.

via RS

Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House. BY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.

The Washington Post immediately dismissed allegations of fraud as ''conspiracy theories,''(1) and The New York Times declared that ''there is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale.''(2)

But despite the media blackout, indications continued to emerge that something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004....

The first indication that something was gravely amiss on November 2nd, 2004, was the inexplicable discrepancies between exit polls and actual vote counts. Polls in thirty states weren't just off the mark -- they deviated to an extent that cannot be accounted for by their margin of error. In all but four states, the discrepancy favored President Bush....(16)

Over the past decades, exit polling has evolved into an exact science. Indeed, among pollsters and statisticians, such surveys are thought to be the most reliable.

Now see NPR from last week:

May 22, 2006 · Marc Rosenbaum, a senior editor at NPR and one of the guys who pays lots of attention to polls, just got back into town from a conference on polling and sent this in:

One last thing: There also was a session called, "Who Really Won the Election 2004?" This was an opportunity for the cyber-active bloggers who think the Ohio vote was somehow fraudulent to present their best case. They didn't. Their presentations were confusing, if not incoherent to this listener, and they all seemed to boil down to one complaint: namely, that the vote totals didn't match the exit polls. The problem with that argument is that if you can give good reasons why the exit polls were wrong in Ohio (and there are many), their entire complaint disappears.

I have to say, though, that I did see the respondent in that panel, who gave a thoughtful and coherent critique of the vote-fraud proponents, chatting for hours one evening with one of the presenters. It's the good thing about a conference like this, even when it rains.

Another Kennedy crashes and winds up all wet.

Updated to add last two paragraphs at top. 11pm.

Comments

[Yowza]

You're throwing out the research backed RS article because some goof couldn't understand what people said at a conference.

Cool. I want you on my jury.

Yowza

[jamie]

Does this mean that NPR is now off the neocon enemies' list?

[lindadanette]

Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman who follow this story closely and wrote a book about what really went down in Ohio comment in a recent story in the Free Press published in Columbus Ohio, “there has been barely a whiff of coverage in the major media about any problems with the electronic voting machines.”

The public on the other hand not only believes that there are problems but many insist that the elections were stolen. Write Wasserman and Fitrakis: “A recent OpEdNews/Zogby People's poll of Pennsylvania residents, found that “39% said that the 2004 election was stolen. 54% said it was legitimate. But let’s look at the demographics on this question. Of the people who watch Fox news as their primary source of TV news, one half of one percent believe it was stolen and 99% believe it was legitimate. Among people who watched ANY other news source but FOX, more felt the election was stolen than legitimate. The numbers varied dramatically.”

“Here, from that poll, are the stations listed as first choice by respondents and the percentage of respondents who thought the election was stolen: CNN 70%; MSNBC 65%; CBS 64%; ABC 56%; Other 56%; NBC 49%; FOX 0.5%.

“With 99% of Fox viewers believing that the election was “legitimate,” only the constant propaganda of Rupert Murdoch’s disinformation campaign stands in the way of a majority of Americans coming to grips with the reality of two consecutive stolen elections.”

Bi-partisan Commissions have studied this problem. One led by ex-president Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker noted, “Software can be modified maliciously before being installed into individual voting machines. There is no reason to trust insiders in the election industry any more than in other industries."

A recent Wall Street Journal story revealed, "Some former backers of the technology seek return to paper ballots, citing glitches, fraud fears."

Aviel Rubin, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University, did an analysis of the security flaws in the source code for Diebold touch-screen machine. After studying the latest problems, The Times reported Rubin said: "I almost had a heart attack. The implications of this are pretty astounding."

Worse still, the Congress is burying reform measures with scant media attention. Chellie Pingree, president of Common Cause writes: “What is Congress doing? Nothing. Right now HR 550, The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act the bill, which would take care of these problems, is languishing in committee. The bill has 186 cosponsors, more support than most bills voted on in the House.”

Stories like this just dribble out with little follow up and less investigation. Isn’t the threat to democracy here self-evident and worthy of more media attention? The press has a long tradition of skepticism. Have they become skeptical about the workings of democracy itself? Why has the heart of our democratic process become such a ‘ho-hummer,”

Don’t they realize the truth expressed by one of our Mediachannel readers Donna Perlmutter who writes: “Without free, fair elections, nothing else matters.”

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0519-32.htm

[Brainster]

Why is it that none of these nutbars ever notices that the Exit Polls themselves are the outlier, that almost all of the polling prior to election day showed Bush winning by 1-5 points? They want to defend the exit polls, but I remember one of them showed Kerry winning New Hampshire by 17, and the next one had Bush winning by 6. Since neither of those results were possible, the obvious conclusion is that the Exit Polls were screwy.

[Harve]

You crack me up, Dan! This bothers you so badly, and you are so afraid of this getting publicized in the media that you immediately have to enroll yourself in the inevitable spin campaign to discredit Kennedy's argumentt. Ha ha! It's not going to work!

[Robert Brunson]

Poor Robert Kennedy. He isn't sharp enough to be a real lawyer, so he indulges in this kind of thing. Maybe one day he'll find his purpose in life...

[schism]

Lemme summarize Lindanettes long and tiresome post:

1) Conservatives watch fox.
2) Liberals run the rest of the media.
3) The diebold machines sucked.
4) Nobody can prove any fraud so they 'hint darkly' about consipiracies.
5) The media doesn't bite the conspiracy trolls.

Therefore, Boooooosh! stole the election.

Libby logic. LOL

[Stella]

"Aviel Rubin, a computer science professor...did an analysis of the security flaws in the source code for Diebold touch-screen machine... After studying the latest problems,...Rubin said: "I almost had a heart attack. The implications of this are pretty astounding."

This type of melodramatic hyperbole is absurd, pointless and childish - when a statement like this is made in regard to a serious issue, I generally stop listening, no matter who is talking. Plus, he's a scientist; he should know that "almost only counts in horseshoes and..."
*******
"Of the people who watch Fox news as their primary source of TV news, one half of one percent believe it was stolen and 99% believe it was legitimate. Among people who watched ANY other news source but FOX, more felt the election was stolen than legitimate. The numbers varied dramatically.”

It's easy to screw with, and skew polling data. It's well known that Fox's viewer's are conservatives; I wonder what a poll of Air America Radio listeners would show?

[Patrick]

Dan,

I think you're probably correct about the bogusness of Bobby Jr.'s claims about Ohio. But that crack about another Kennedy crashing and getting wet was uncalled for and in stupendously bad taste. I don't know what your quarrel may have been with John Jr., but I can't imagine that it deserved this.

[inmypajamas]

Ah...OpEd News, that famously balanced and unbiased source of information. Link to the actual poll data would be nice. Aren't you even a little bit suspicious of a poll outside of Saddam's Iraq that shows 99% of people favoring anything? Oh, but we are talking about the eeevil Fox network so it must be true.

Maybe - just maybe - the media haven't picked up on the stolen election meme because there is no there there. They certainly show no hesitation to pursue any story that is even tangentially a Bush-bash so there is no way they would pass up the chance to prove the election was stolen. Olberman sure gave it the old college try.

What does it matter at this point anyway except to provide a reality-diverting fantasy for Bush haters? Who's in the White House and who isn't? Kerry isn't and thank God he had enough class (for once) to concede without dragging us through weeks of recount nonsense like Gore. Liberals need to grow up and learn how to lose gracefully and live to fight another day.

[Jim C.]

Ah, yes. Teddy's little watery difficulty has disappeared from popular memory, allowing Patrick to make the connection that offended him the most and fire the biggest gun at Dan. Oops, I've just given Patrick more ammo. Oops...

[Steve White]

Any chance that Rolling Stone and RFK Jr will do an expose of how the Dems stole the 2004 vote in Wisconsin? How the inability to ensure that people voted once and only once, and the inability to ensure that only residents of the state voted, led to Kerry winning the state?

No? Didn't think so.

[Dan]

that crack about another Kennedy crashing and getting wet was uncalled for

With all due respect, a to the manor born fop who has made American politics his play toy from the safety net of his trust fund (Teddy) and the progeny of one sadly assasinated President being allowed to infest it, when such a few of them are so qualified, as well, is what is uncalled for in my book.

To each his own.

[Ursus]

Here's some real examples of attempts to manipulate the election

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/04/16/State/Records__Democrats_to.shtml

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2005/06/guilty-verdict-in-esl-voter-fraud.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12498215/from/RSS/

There, I just outdid RK Jr

[kalel666]

Wait, wait, wait... A *Kennedy* is complaining that someone stole an election? Maybe he should investigate the voting in 1960 in Chicago...

[bandit]

I guess the irony of a Kennedy complaining about a stolen election is lost on the drug addled.

[Rick]

Let;s face it. the election was siezed, not stolen. The dems did their best, keeping the military from voting absentee, bringing in the dead and homeless, even hiding ballots and were still unable to get heir man in. It had to be siezed because the average dem is too stupid to be allowed to vote. My god, in Florida half couldn't even read and the other half were too stupid to see whether or not there was a hole in the ballot. Seriously, are these the kind of people you want running the country?

[HSD]

Rolling Stone has become as big a joke as the Kennedy family over the years, although perhaps not as accident prone. I say the government should give them all a case of Scotch, an airplane, car or fer Christ's sake, even a pair of freakin' skis and be done with them. (Out of pure kindness, I didn't include heroin.)

[embryo]

i just think it's sad that the NPR guy so poorly understands the issue as to think that it boils down to exit polls. the campaign of disenfranchisement engaged in by the RNC in Ohio and New Hampshire was disgraceful, illegal, and un-American, and completely without parallel in the entirety of American history. If we decree this acceptable by consent or silence, we are in a lot of trouble.

[What?]

embryo...Please enlighten us about the "campaign of disenfranchisement engaged in by the RNC in Ohio and New Hampshire. Thanks.

[Dan]

Embryo, Please be careful. I have Libs inside the wire and your kind may not be safe here - your choice, sorta.

[Tony]

The reason why the exit polls and actual votes didn't macth up: Ever try to tell someone that you like and voted for George W. Bush? I live in Chicago, and I can tell you that you become an instant heretic for such behavior. Lots of us have to keep our conservatism to ourselves. Now, on the other hand, go looking for someone who doesn't like Bush. I bet you aren't searching too hard for that. Note how easy and acceptable it is to call the President of the United States a monkey or Hitler, yet how much crap you have to put up with when you say that he's an alright guy. It's the vocal angry left that's the reason behind the poll/vote disparity. We'd rather just win the election and not have to put up with the angry left's constant bitching. That's the reason.

[deathtosocialism]

Robert Kennedy, like most liberals, just cannot "move on" -- a phrase they tirelessly pushed at the rest of us during the Lewinsky mess. Why? Because to a liberal they just cannot fathom how anyone could think or vote differently than they do. This is how liberals think today and it is really sad. It is this myopic view of the world (or as they call it -- the "tolerant" "diverse" view of their world) that accounts for their continued decline.

Liberals today give us speech codes in the name of free speech; race preferences in the name of anti-racism; "we support the troops" while they look for every possible way to denigrate what our troops do; socialist government welfare in the name of freedom; "more rights for terrorists!!!" in the name of fighting terrorism, etc. etc. etc. Just nauseating. And these libs wonder why so many of us former liberals walked away from the Dem party and liberalism.

Robert Kennedy is just another liberal nutjob who cannot move on.

[vero]

"Robert Kennedy is just another liberal nutjob who cannot move on. "

This is the same idiot that gets on TV and tells the rest of us about how we are bad people because we drive gas hog cars, then he gets on a private jet and flies across country. I stopped listening or caring what he said, right at the very moment. This is from an ex-registared Democrat in Ohio. Our State wasn't stolen by us old and newly registared GOp'ers it was taken by storm in a fair fight. Democrats of today are such cry babies.

[Mild Bill]

The biggest problem for the "blame-it-on-Diebold" crowd is that in the 2004 election, only 2 of Ohio's 88 counties used Diebold equipment. Lucas County (urban, Toledo, won by Kerry), and Hardin Country (rural, one of Ohio's least populous counties, won by Bush).

[moderate]

The NPR story doesnt seem to debunk any of the rolling stone arguments. Also, it doesnt seem that anyone here has read the entire article.

The article spends more time talking about acts of fraud and misdoing. it spends very little time comparing the count to exit polls.

That is one of the several comparisons. others include:

tampering with ballots, not allowing people to vote, eliminating peoples provisional ballots illigally. things go wrong all over. no one denies that. but the facts overwhelmingly favor bush in SO MANY ways.

Please read the article before you make judgement. then open up a discusion

[Clarkson]

moderate--

are you kidding? i'm not saying i agree with rfk jr. because i know that the lib spinsters will resort to the same means as the cons. but the folks on this blog are NOT the types who wade into an article open to judgement. they know what they want to believe before they go into it. not saying the daily kos types are better 'cause they are not. but the point is - no matter how compelling rfk jr.'s argument is (and truthfully, it is a mixed bag) these folks aren't going to buy any aspects of it at all.

p.s. rfk jr. spoke at the university where i am employed and he is a right arrogant prick and a hypocrite when it comes to enviro issues, even though for a politician he has a surprisingly good grasp of the science behind it.

[Stella]

Ever try to tell someone that you like and voted for George W. Bush?
Posted by: Tony | Friday, June 02, 2006 at 02:49 PM

HA! I was raised in a home where two of the significant rules were: you don't go in your mom's purse, and who you vote for is very private information. My kids lost the message about mom's purse, but the privacy of my vote has always stuck with me. Unlike me, most people talk freely about who they vote for, but to my knowledge, I only know one person who voted for Bush - and the election was fairly close here!

The state I reside in was considered somewhat critical to the election at one point; one candidate almost took it - the other ultimately did. Exit polls were all over the place - and didn't reflect the vote. I also KNOW of a huge problem with the ballots in a large city - thousands simply vanished prior to the election. LSS - the "rumors" of voter fraud in that city mesh perfectly with tidbit of information.

Clarkson - I appreciate your willingness to speak on my behalf; however - you have no clue WTF I believe.

[GeoBandy]

Geez, here we go again. The "case" cited by Kennedy happens to be an order issued by a district court judge allowing people who were not on the voter rolls to cast provisional ballots anywhere instead of the precinct where they live. Blackwell maintained you could cast a provisional ballot because you weren't on the voter rolls in your precinct of residence only. The Democrats and unions argued you could cast AND HAVE COUNTED a provisional ballot anywhere. On appeal, the 6th circuit reversed the order Kennedy cited in most particulars, and held you could CAST a provisional ballot anywhere, as the Dems wanted, but it would count as a VOTE only if cast in the precinct where you live, as Blackwell argued and as Ohio law has always stated. Thus the only "voters" “disenfranchised” were those who 1)did not appear on the voter rolls and/or were not registered and 2)did not live in the precinct where they were trying to vote. In other words, people who WEREN'T ELIGIBLE to vote were permitted to cast provisional ballots, which did not later count as votes if the person wasn't eligible.(See the actual opinion of the appellate court in West's Federal Reports, 387 F. 3d 565, instead of a PDF of the partially-overturned, partially-affirmed district court order). The real argument was whether a federal law enacted after 2000 required poll workers to give provisional ballots to people who weren’t on the voter registration list and couldn’t (or wouldn’t) show that they lived in the precinct where they were trying to vote.

As for purging the rolls of registered voters who had not voted in the last two presidential elections, that has been the rule in Ohio for as long as I can remember (at least 40 years). Also, the County Boards of Election in Ohio are bi-partisan (as required), with board employees hired locally by the majority party. So the purging carried out in overwhelmingly Democrat Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) was carried out by a bi-partisan board, chaired by a Democrat, with majority Democrat members, and the work was done by the mostly Democrat employees.

But hey, don't let a few facts get in the way of the great "stolen election" myth. And if you'll go do a little research for yourself, you'll find that these are facts.

Speaking of stealing elections, maybe we should discuss the fact that overwhelmingly Democrat Cleveland, in 2004, had more "registered voters" than it had live inhabitants over 18. Or the fact that as of two weeks before the election over 40,000 voter registration confirmation cards were returned as “undeliverable” in the four large, overwhelmingly Democrat counties. Those cards are sent by regular mail, so the only way they get returned is if the address doesn’t exist or a person who actually lives at the address takes the time to return it. If over 40,000 were returned, how many fraudulent registrations were there statewide? 200,000? 500,000? Maybe they were all submitted by the guy ACORN was paying with crack to sign up voters. (Yes, there was a conviction on THAT one).

[SETHLEVINETHEJEW]

He must be running out of money. Get a job, will ya!!! Go help your cousin Joe pump oil and make yourself 6 or 700K. Another do gooder!!! Although he's full of crap, I kind of like Joe.

[danascully]

Posted by: Yowza | Thursday, June 01, 2006 at 05:26 PM
**************
Hi, Yowza...you sound familiar...MrsLevy is that you?!?

[Kate]

Rolling Stone is french owned, that explains a lot.

[tas]

I hardly call this NPR "debunking" RFK Jr's story, especially since exit polls only make up a small part of that story. Even on that front, NPR didn't debunk the specific facts and amazing statistical anomalies that RFK Jr reported about the 2004 exit polls.

You guys should really read RFK Jr's article before trying to discredit it.

[crik]

No smoke without fire.

The best bits come at the end.