Not bloggers, but old media "screwed up"

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Thursday June 09, 2005 19:35

by Dr. Coilín Oscar ÓhAiseadha - Spider Force

aat2004 at mail dot dk

21 Rockfield Green, Maynooth, Co. Kildare

01-5054592

Village media analyst blames bloggers for same crimes old media committed re Bush and Iraq

For the sake of those who have not read Village magazine this week (3-9 June), I am posting a copy of a letter I've had published, in which I point out that the old media, in their coverage of the appointment of George Bush and the invasion of Iraq, have committed all the crimes that the magazine's media analyst, Conor Brady, in last week's issue accused bloggers of committing.

Fight vote fraud bloggers

Conor Brady is correct to point out the dangers of new media (Village 27 May) for which there are “no mechanisms for the validation of content, for the screening out of material that is inaccurate, dangerous or likely to spread hatred, panic or fear.” Brady points out that “there are no effective sanctions if the blogger screws up, gets it wrong or spreads disinformation that results in people being hurt – or worse.”

But these dangerous deficiencies also apply to the old media’s coverage of the appointment of George W. Bush as president and the invasion of Iraq.

Fox declared Bush the winner of the 2000 presidential election before it was possible to call, and the other networks jumped on, with no validation of content, to make this spurious news item a fact.

Similarly, the traditional media published the lies about Iraq’s (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaeda that justified the invasion.

The traditional media failed to screen out material that was inaccurate and dangerous, and spread hatred, panic and fear. The traditional media screwed up, got it wrong and spread disinformation that resulted in tens of thousands of Iraqis being hurt so they will never hurt any more.

The market knows that the traditional media screwed up. A Harris Poll published by NewsMax in January revealed that 62 percent of Americans distrusted the newspapers, 58 percent distrusted television, and only 43 percent trusted the radio. This helps to explain the growth of the blogs.

Again now, the traditional media are failing to cover the controversy about vote fraud in last year’s US presidential election that is raging in the new media.

Progressive blogs quote an analysis conducted for US Count Votes by an array of university-based statisticians who find that they cannot reject the hypothesis that discrepancies between exit polls and vote tallies were due to “errors” in the vote tallies that gave Bush a majority.

Conservative blogs denounce this hypothesis as a spurious conspiracy theory.

While Conor O’Clery has mentioned this controversy in his column in The Irish Times on 16 April, the rest of the traditional media in Ireland have been dozing.

But the traditional media cannot afford to doze while the evidence is being debated and validated elsewhere. They must fight to hold on to punters – i.e. customers – who would much prefer to follow the debate in the comfort afforded by the paper, TV or radio.

Dr. Coilín Oscar ÓhAiseadha
21 Rockfield Green, Maynooth, Co. Kildare.

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Comments (3 of 3)

They don't cover it...

by toneore

Fri Jun 10, 2005 07:08

... because there was NO vote fraud in the last election. This kind of paranoia actually helps get Bush elected.

Then how do you explain this?

by Coilín ÓhAiseadha - Spider Force

Fri Jun 10, 2005 19:20

From a recent "Bush Fraud 2004" newsletter:

Statisticians suspect vote fraud, demand investigation of exit poll discrepancies

A statistical analysis published 31 March indicates that the official vote tallies in the presidential election of November 2004 may have been altered in favour of George Bush. The authors of the analysis demand a thorough investigation of the discrepancies between exit polls, which predicted that John Kerry would win by a margin of 3% of the popular vote, and official vote tallies, which awarded Bush the victory by a margin of 2.5%.

The findings of the analysis are telling and thought-provoking:
In 40 states, the actual election results turned out to be more favourable to Mr. Bush than the exit polls. The probability of such discrepancies occurring by chance is less than one in 10 million.

Large discrepancies between exit polls and election results were observed in precincts using any technology except paper ballots to register votes. Discrepancies for optical scan systems, touch-screen computers, punch cards and mechanical voting machines ranged from 5.5 to 10.3%, while the discrepancy associated with paper ballots was only 0.9%. We might speculate that the newer technologies are more susceptible to fraud and less susceptible to audit. Fear of detection may have deterred fraudsters from altering tallies in precincts with paper ballots.

The discrepancies can hardly be explained by problems with the design or conduct of the exit polls.
The consortium that conducted the exit polls, Edison/Mitofsky, issued a report in January suggesting that the discrepancies occurred because Bush voters were more reticent than Kerry voters in response to pollsters, but this study rejects that hypothesis, as response rates were actually higher in election precincts where support for Bush was strongest.
Also, the exit polls were significantly more accurate in predicting the results of elections to the Senate held on the same day, even though the same responders were used for both elections.

Discrepancies observed in Bush strongholds are consistent with large-scale vote count corruption in a small proportion of precincts.
In precincts with at least 80% support for Bush, the mean discrepancy departed significantly from the median (10.0% vs. 5.8%). It is easy to imagine that the temptation to distort the count for Bush advantage is greatest in precincts dominated by Bush supporters, because here the risk of detection and punishment is least. Another study found that the statistically significant discrepancies were concentrated in five states, of which four were important swing states.

This scientific analysis has been prepared in a context where there are many indications that Republicans would, could and did perpetrate election fraud in association with the election of November 2004:

A Florida computer programmer, Clint Curtis, has signed a sworn affidavit in which he states that a Republican politician in 2000 commissioned his employer to develop a vote-rigging programme with a “back door” mechanism to undetectably alter vote tallies.

The recent proliferation of sophisticated computerised vote recording and tallying equipment, much of it unverifiable, dramatically augments opportunities for vote-rigging. The lion’s share of this equipment is developed, provided, and serviced by private corporations with loyalties to the Republican Party.
Reports of irregularities indicating actual vote fraud in the elections of November 2004 include:
- touch-screen machines that registered “Bush” when voters pressed “Kerry”;
- ballots counted and recounted in secret;
- precincts in which the reported participation rate was less than 10%;
- precincts in which there were more votes recorded than registered voters.

As the new analysis concludes: “The fact that, in the 2004 election, all voting equipment technologies except paper ballots were associated with large unexplained exit poll discrepancies, all favoring the same party, warrants further inquiry.”

The analysis was written or endorsed by a group of PhD-qualified experts at universities around the United States, including the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The academic community has failed to find fault with a preliminary study, published in January, which reached similar conclusions.

Analysis of the 2004 Presidential Election Exit Poll Discrepancies:
http://tinyurl.com/5cf6h
Executive summary by Josh Mitteldorf, PhD: http://tinyurl.com/5umwu

Americans organise to combat election fraud

All across the United States, grassroots activists are organising teach-ins and conferences to break the media silence and build the pro-democracy movement.

Who Got Glitched? - a compilation of video clips from the election reform teach-in held in Los Angeles on 27 February is now available on DVD.
90 minutes. $15.
See sample in streaming video and order the DVD here:
http://citizensact.org/paypal.html

Further documentation

Geomorphologist Richard Hayes Phillips, PhD, has documented irregularities indicating electoral fraud in Ohio:
Another Stolen Election
http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/alpage.htm

Avi Rubin, of Johns Hopkins University, has documented the many security holes in Diebold's e-voting software:
Analysis of an Electronic Voting System
http://avirubin.com/vote/

Voters Unite provides background information and breaking news:
Myth Breakers: Facts about Electronic Elections
http://www.votersunite.org/MB2.pdf
Voting Equipment Malfunctions
http://www.votersunite.org/info/previousmessups.asp
Lehto and Wells v. Sequoia and Snohomish County
http://www.votersunite.org/info/lehtolawsuit.asp
Voters Unite Voting News
http://www.votersunite.org/news.asp

The editor of the Columbus Free Press, Bob Fitrakis, is a lawyer and professor of political science, who has been watching and fighting fraud in Ohio at close hand:
The Columbus Free Press, Election 2004:
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19

Take action!
Please make a copy of this newsletter and send it to Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern, Iveagh House, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, or to your favourite journalist or foreign editor, with a cover note requesting their comments.

BTW, please see my comments about Conor O'Clery's coverage

Fri Jun 10, 2005 19:24

Irish Times breaks silence about Bush fraud 2004
by Coilín ÓhAiseadha - Spider Force Saturday, Apr 16 2005, 5:21pm
...
O'Clery column breaks taboo, but persists in hints of excess scepticism

...

Read more:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69427&topic=elections
http://tinyurl.com/c8gwx

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Not bloggers, but old media "screwed up"

Comments (3 of 3)