<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2523" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY
style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; BORDER-TOP: medium none; FONT: 10pt verdana; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none"
bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Michigan uses electronic voting
machines but have a paper backup and I believe they use the same machines
statewide. Michigan has lost thousands of jobs and Kerry won in Michigan. Ohio
has lost many more jobs than Michigan but Ohio doesn't have paper backup on
their voting machines. This causes a very credible concern for the accuracy of
the vote in Ohio that caused Bush to win. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Dick Schmidt</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=auntiestablishment@hotmail.com
href="mailto:auntiestablishment@hotmail.com">Joan Opyr</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">Vision2020 Moscow</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, November 06, 2004 9:13
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Vision2020]
Conspiracy?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Scott writes:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"Bush's margin of victory was around 4 million in the<BR>popular vote
which puts the issue of voter fraud<BR>affecting the outcome to rest.
The losing side has a<BR>nasty habit of accusing the other side of stealing
the<BR>election."</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I don't know that this is necessarily true. Mr. Bush clearly
won the popular vote, but that was largely due to his overwhelming margins in
the uncontested red states. Where the discrepancy between the accuracy
of voter exit polls and paper versus electronic ballots is being questioned
(and ought to be investigated) is in the swing states like Ohio and Florida,
which, popular vote be damned, determined the winner. We
know from 2000 that the popular vote is constitutionally meaningless.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>We also knew before November 2nd that Mr. Bush would win most of the
the center of the country and that Mr. Kerry would win the Northeast, the
Great Lakes, and the Western coast. The election hinged on a couple of
electoral roller coasters -- Disney World and Cedar Point. As close as
those states were likely to be -- and as inconclusive as the results were
four years ago -- all sides should have insisted that a paper trail be
generated.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Voter fraud on both sides might well be inevitable, but
why should We the People enable it? We need to insist on a
verifiable vote, on the possibility and feasibility of recounts, and
on our democratic will being recorded on something
more sophisticated than Diebold's version of Atari Pong. Why,
in other words, have we outsourced the vote to private
corporations? The old paper ballots were generated, counted, and
verified by elected public officials. No matter the propensity for human
error, both honest and dishonest, I could live with that because we could
(barring Supreme Court interference) investigate it What I can't live
with are electronic voting machines supplied by private companies
and separated from the oversight of the body politic. This is a
case, I think, where the Luddites are correct. My electronic vote might
vanish without a trace, but if Katharine Harris burns my ballot, I can
call "CSI: Miami" and get them to swab her wicked fingers for
traces of burnt chads and lighter fluid. How, exactly, do I
check up on Diebold? How do I know that the votes in their machines
aren't hacked, front-loaded, or otherwise hijacked? There's no paper
trail to match against voter registrations. This is a problem. A
big one. But until it bites a Republican or two on the ass, I
suspect that nothing will be done. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>PS: If Kennedy really did win in 1960 thanks to the vote of the
Chicago dead, then what was the result other than to postpone the
inevitable? We'd only have had to impeach Nixon a decade earlier, thus
missing some truly great comedy on "All in the
Family." </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><BR><BR> </DIV><BR clear=all>
<HR>
Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : <A
href="http://explorer.msn.com">http://explorer.msn.com</A><BR>
<P></P>
<P>
<HR>
<P></P>_____________________________________________________<BR> List
services made available by First Step Internet, <BR> serving the
communities of the Palouse since 1994.
<BR>
http://www.fsr.net
<BR>
mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<BR>/////////////////////////////////////////////////////<BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>