2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumNew Post on Palmer Report...Wisconsin (another update on Waukesha County)
New post on Palmer Report
Wisconsin recount: Waukesha County officials caught illegally hiding ballots from observers
by Bill Palmer
Four days into the Wisconsin statewide recount, one county in particular has emerged as the epicenter of controversy and corruption. Donald Trump won Waukesha County by a total of 66,320 votes, a margin three times as large as he won Wisconsin by overall. The county is refusing to do a hand recount, instead relying on the same machines which produced the original totals. Earlier today we reported that one recount observer had outright accused Waukesha officials of double-counting Trump's votes. And now Jill Stein is expanding on the Waukesha scandal.
Jill Stein, the third party candidate who initiated the recount effort in Wisconsin and two other states, sent out the following message to her recount observers. Palmer Report has obtained a verified copy of the email in question. In it, Stein formally accuses Waukesha County officials of violating the law by purposely hiding ballots from the observers:
While most counties are conducting their recounts in clear and transparent fashion, we have gotten reports of observers not being allowed near the recount tables or not being allowed to view the ballots. For instance, in Waukesha County, officials are entering the ballots in to the machine face down. Remember, we have a legal right to see the ballots.
Wisconsin law reads in part: Each party to a recount must be given an opportunity to object and provide offers of evidence on: the procedures followed, any ballot cast at the election, any other issues presented to the board of canvassers during the recount.
Notably, Waukesha County is just one of twelve Wisconsin counties, out of seventy-two counties overall, which are refusing to a hand recount. The increasing level of fraud and illegal activity on the part of Waukesha recount observers may give Stein sufficient cause to convince the judge in question to order the county to do a hand recount.
AgadorSparticus
(7,963 posts)lastlib
(24,936 posts)They stole the recall for Snotty Walker, and now this. It smells.
MaeScott
(901 posts)Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)lastlib
(24,936 posts)...in the Walker recall & re-election campaigns. Don't have links off-hand, but seems she was a real nasty in covering snotty--er, Scotty's arse-side. Yeah, you could call her corrupt in polite company, but politesse notwithstanding, I wouldn't hesitate to call her a crooked conniving B---h and anything else I could think of.
LisaM
(28,621 posts)....how reliable a source is this Palmer Report? I don't think he rises to the level of fake news, but it seems pretty slanted.
shraby
(21,946 posts)LisaM
(28,621 posts)who comes up with thousands of ballots at the last second. My question is less about them than the Palmer Report.
NBachers
(18,143 posts)Kathy "Oh look I found more votes" Nickolouse is still up to her old tricks. I thought she'd be driven out in disgrace, but she's still there in Waukesha County.
http://www.politicususa.com/2012/06/05/kathy-nickolaus-found-votes-charge-waukesha-wi.html
Aimee in OKC
(160 posts)WAUKESHA: Election Systems & Software = DS200 Optical Scan
KNOWN SECURITY CONCERNS:
*SECURITY SEALS = Ideally, the DS200s exposed ports, memory card access areas, ballot box doors and case seams would be covered with tamper-evident security seals. The integrity of these seals should be maintained at all times, and only breached under controlled, explained circumstances. Seals should be logged to maintain chain of custody of sensitive materials.
*THE MEMORY CARD IS SENSITIVE = Corrupt memory cards may be able to introduce viruses, cause the main election server to crash and falsify votes. Access to the memory card should be controlled, monitored and logged at all times.
*BALLOT BOX ACCESS = Optical scan systems have at least one and possible more ballot boxes. Each ballot box should be inspected by a voter at the beginning of voting to make sure that they are empty. These ballot boxes should locked and/or be sealed with tamper-evident tape.
*UNRESPONSIVE TOUCHSCREENS = During EAC testing on the Unity 3.2.1.0 voting system, some DS200s stopped responding to interactions with the user interface. The anomaly presented itself at random times during the testing process. ES&S informed the EAC that the root cause of touch screen unresponsiveness is linked to an improperly implemented internal system log. This log is only accessible to ES&S technicians when troubleshooting errors with the fielded system. {... .}
*CORRECT INKS = Some Optical Scan systems have trouble reading red inks or inks with red in them. Voters should use the writing instrument provided at the polling place or, if voting at home, black ballpoint pen that does not bleed through paper.
*SKEWED BALLOTS= During testing on the Unity 3.2.1.0, a DS200 did not count a valid mark for a race. The anomaly was discovered when county testers reviewed the printed election summary report for the DS200 unit. The count for a single contest did not match the expected results. The test was performed to verify that ES&S had corrected a previous anomaly with similar symptoms. The county testers were using a 17 ballot with contests concentrated in the lower sections of the ballot. {. . .} In the course of the review, the EAC found various degrees of ballot image distortion; with the 17 ballot having the largest degree of skew. The EAC is working with jurisdictions, VSTLs and the manufacturer to understand and resolve this issue.
During the EAC Certification process it was revealed that a DS200 coded for Election Day counting will not support more than 18 precincts, ...
https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/voting-equipment/ess/ds200/
Aimee in OKC
(160 posts)A lot of what he blogs on is 'good news' we'd all want to get.
We just have to be cautious, since the plague of 'fake news' is rampant on the right-wing side, but by no means confined there.
An opinion from a paralegal=
http://www.jensalittleloopy.com/palmer-report-not-credible-source/
EL34x4
(2,003 posts)I figured as much. I've had my suspicions about the Palmer Report.
uponit7771
(91,801 posts)FBaggins
(27,740 posts)It's fake news that asks for donations.
The fact that the stories are what we would like to see in reality... just makes it easier to get us to donate.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)has actually reported something false? You won't be able to.
FBaggins
(27,740 posts)The story out of Pennsylvania the day after the 2016 election was that Donald Trump had won the state in a shocking upset by a mere 70,638 votes. Those totals, which were supposedly final and came directly from the Pennsylvania precincts themselves, were widely reporting including in this USA Today article. But after major voluntary revisions by various precincts, Trumps already tiny lead has now shrunk considerably and this is all before the impending state recount.
The revisions are in no sense "voluntary" since counting absentee ballots and reviewing provisional ballots are actually required by law. Nor would the earlier counts be "supposedly final" (for exactly the same reason).
Then there's the misleading (http://www.palmerreport.com/news/despite-judges-ruling-most-wisconsin-counties-voluntarily-agree-to-hand-recounts/312/)
The reality here is very different from Palmer's spin. Nobody argued that the recount should be limited to machine counting... nor is there any "despite". State law says that each county gets to decide on their own which method is most appropriate for their situation. In the majority of cases, hand counting is preferred, but not in all. Stein wanted the court to ignore the law and order 100% hand counting... and lost. There is no "despite" since all of the counts are pressing forward exactly as they would have if the case was never attempted. The counties didn't "voluntarily agree" to Stein's request... they did just what they were already going to do.
More falsehood here:
http://www.palmerreport.com/politics/ahead-of-recounts-erred-trump-favor/306/
This yet again deceives the reader into thinking that the normal counting/canvassing/etc process is actually an "admission" of "error".
Then there's the lie about the "Wisconsin votes uncovered by the hand recount that the machines missed" (which were just mock-ups on sample ballots)
http://www.palmerreport.com/news/wisconsin-votes-uncovered-recount-counting-machines-missed/329/
This ridiculous claim despite the fact that the sample ballot clearly shows those directions.
radius777
(3,814 posts)that all of these totals are changing in mainly one direction, whereas it should be more random.
And if Trump/GOP thought this was "just normal election stuff" they wouldn't be fighting tooth and nail to stop the recount.
Palmer (and others who support the recount) have said repeatedly that it while it is unlikely Hillary would become president on the basis of recounts, it is important at exposing potential vote stuffing/suppression/rigging/machine issues etc. IOW, about voting reform and activism.
About the WI ballots. He had a source on the ground there who saw that many ballots were not filled out correctly (due to confusing wording on the ballot) but the voting intention was clear as votes for Clinton/Kaine (circled, written in, etc), which the machines didn't count, but a hand count would likely count. His source obviously couldn't take a picture of the actual ballots, so simply made a mock-up (which Palmer clearly stated they were simply examples) to show the readers of the site what the ballots she saw looked like.
FBaggins
(27,740 posts)Here Palmer displays ignorance of the Electoral College. Claiming that the House can pick anyone it pleases as President if nobody reaches 270 and (similarly) that the single Trump elector talking about voting for Kasich would need 269 friends in order to make a difference.
Now... I'm not saying that it's at all likely, but the "Hamilton Electors" theory is that enough would join him to drop Trump below 270 and give the decision to the House (where they can only pick from the top three EV winners).
He made the same error in his previous post:
Again - this isn't factual. A real journalist would look things up rather than assume that he knows.
radius777
(3,814 posts)Palmer is a very pro-Hillary/Obama guy and was smeared in the primaries by the alt-left (berniebots, etc) and alt-right (trumpbots) as being a "fake news site", and he had to fight to get his name off such lists, which were themselves exposed to be fake news designed to smear independent sites like his that were critical of Bernie/Trump campaigns, who had the most fanatical supporters that would do anything to silence the truth.
I've been reading Palmer's sites for the past six months or so, and he's an opinion journalist who definitely comes at a slanted angle, but doesn't hide that fact, and most of what he writes is accurate, at least by the standards of modern-day, click-baity, internet journalism.
FBaggins
(27,740 posts)A blogger with no journalistic experience who just picked up the hobby a year or two ago is not somebody the "alt-left" (whoever that is) is going to even know about.
He's just an attention shill preying on the suckers who buy into conspiracy theories. His "donate now" button on every past makes that perfectly clear.
He wasn't "smeared" as a fake news site... he is a fake news site.
A journalist would have checked the facts before making allegations.
triron
(22,240 posts)VisceralM
(5 posts)This is starting to look like fantasy. Almost all of these reports are coming from one blog and not being reported anywhere else. We criticize the republicans for fake news and not having the common sense to sort out fact from fiction and yet everyone descends on anything this guy reports on like it's *real* news. Hardly anyone else is reporting this..and it's not because of a conspiracy.
Firebrand Gary
(5,044 posts)LovingA2andMI
(7,006 posts)Putting out fake news on WAY TOO MANY Progressive/Liberal Blogs/Forums and Sites on Facebook/The Web/Google + and ANYWHERE else they can receive a page view.
Earlier, in a Progressive Group we administrate on Facebook, guess what link magically appears there? You guess it, the "Palmer Report" from a person that had only posted in the group ONCE. We deleted the post and informed our Group Members we will NOT accept postings from the "Palmer Report" or "Daily News Bin". In other words, only legitimate, non-click bait and verifiable resources are accepted in the group.
If folks on the left think that fake or click-bait "news" only is a Right-Wing issue, they better wake up quick and smell the coffee. It's both sides and everywhere.
Glimmer of Hope
(5,823 posts)confirmed that this report does not contain accurate information.
stevebreeze
(1,882 posts)numbers is not a surprise to anyone with a brain. By the way I used to live there.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)C Moon
(12,565 posts)And they know that.
If they are having difficulty living in our society, then they need to be reminded of the consequences.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)uponit7771
(91,801 posts)... on voter fraud and election fraud these fucks wouldn't be pulling this shit.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)uponit7771
(91,801 posts)LisaM
(28,621 posts)The problem is that it's a moving target. With the Voting Rights Act gone, states are creating obstacles to voting everywhere.
uponit7771
(91,801 posts)... list cause it spotlights GOP assholeness and makes elections fair.
MaeScott
(901 posts)...made a big deal policy for/from the DNC ?
Where is the leadership?
LisaM
(28,621 posts)They've addressed gerrymandering in Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina. They've addressed voter ID issues in NC and Wisconsin. I'm pretty sure there are more efforts going on in other places.
The problem is that we're playing whack-a-mole. At some point it seems to me that a better tactic would be to try to find ways to automatically register everyone when they're 18 - instead of only chasing after the disenfranchisement efforts, start enfranchising everyone. There are more of us than there are of them.
uponit7771
(91,801 posts)UCmeNdc
(9,650 posts)Demand a transparent hand recount!
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Who has no problem making stuff up.
radius777
(3,814 posts)people for many months now (especially during the primaries) who maliciously put his site on fake news list. He fought it and it was taken off of such lists, which were proven themselves to be unverified 'fake news' designed to delegitimize independent sites.
His analysis is pretty accurate, if not click-baity and sensational, but that is the reality of internet journalism in this day and age.
He doesn't think Hillary can win the election based on the recount or any other factor, has said numerous times that it is unlikely one state will flip much less all three.
But if voter suppression, vote stuffing, machine tampering etc could be revealed in a recount, it could help prevent similar issues in elections going forward, and so supports Stein's activism on that basis.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)I was mixing him up with another blogger.
I have no problem with him posting analysis, but his site is not actually a real news outlet as some seem to think it is.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)His was one of the most ridiculously over-the-top Hillary sites all year long.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)I was mixing up my bloggers.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)another, but Clinton lost. It hurts, but looking for a replay to change things just makes us look like the GOPers' "Birthers."
Mc Mike
(9,171 posts)1) dRump's lead dropped from 70,000 to 46,000 in PA, on a voluntary recount in Philadelphia county, alone.
2) So maybe we didn't lose, period.
3) Being worried about looking like the GOP birthers is a strange worry, because they don't care how they look, they tell us ridiculously untrue things about how we look anyway, and they used those silly looking tactics to obstruct our side for 8 years and to "win" this election.
FBaggins
(27,740 posts)Nope. That was the adjustment for the final statewide count from oversees absentee ballots and provisional ballots were added (which is in no sense unusual or related to a recount). The voluntary recount in the Philly area has not resulted in any substantial change.
Palmer played the same game of "fast and loose with the facts" when normal canvassing caught the math/reporting errors that it's supposed to catch.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)There was an unofficial vote total and then a day or two later, the vote total was adjusted. There is absolutely nothing unusual about that and certain organizations are obfuscating the facts and getting people all stirred up and hopeful.
FBaggins
(27,740 posts)It was more than a couple days later, but it was part of the normal vote canvassing process. It was nutty to assume that an election hacker would think that he could game the system by transposing numbers or claiming more votes than voters. That's the kind of error that happens hundreds of times in every election cycle and it picked up quickly. That's why results aren't official until post-canvassing.
Mc Mike
(9,171 posts)Last edited Fri Dec 9, 2016, 09:35 AM - Edit history (1)
for manipulation of the '04 recount. Felony convictions, 18 months in jail:
" Prosecutors accused Maiden and Dreamer of secretly reviewing preselected ballots before a public recount on Dec. 16, 2004. They worked behind closed doors for three days to pick ballots they knew would not cause discrepancies when checked by hand, prosecutors said.
...
But Cuyahoga's precinct-by-precinct vote counts and turnout numbers varied wildly and improbably. Several predominantly black precincts showed turnouts of less than 30% in a county where overall turnout was around 60%. One ward showed a 7% turnout as compared to surrounding precincts with turnouts nearly ten times as high.
Further prosecutions may now hinge on what Maiden and Dreamer might tell prosecutors about the role played by higher-ups. The assumption is widespread that the decision to consciously designate test precincts, rather than choose them at random, must have been at least tacitly approved by Secretary of State Blackwell.
In Cleveland, Robert Bennett, chair of the state's s Republican Party, also served as chair of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. Cuyahoga BOE Executive Director Michael Vu was chosen by the county Democratic Party. Under Vu's direction, the county's elections have been rife with chaos, irregularities and apparent fraud. When the Democrats recently tried to remove him from his post, Vu was supported by Bennett and the Republican Party. He kept his job when Blackwell strategically abstained from a key removal vote. "
http://rangevoting.org/OhioConvictns.html
The reason a recount manipulation was necessary was because li'l bush "won" the '04 election by "winning" in Ohio. The official margin of his victory was 118,000 votes. But Professor Dennis Loo from CSU Pomona reported on the Cuyahoga County results from 29 conservative white districts that reported 93,136 more votes than voters. Those districts had 249,200 registered voters, and reported 342,336 votes. White repuglican ghost voters.
There's your "more votes than voters", FBaggins.
And at the same time, Prof Mark C. Miller from NYU reported that in the same election, in OH Dem stronghold city precincts, there were an inexplicable 97,000 ballots that recorded "no preference" for a presidential candidate, or recorded "too many preferences". (Fooled Again, page 299, hardbound). 97,000 more voters than votes. Dems of all races who's votes were ghosted.
So, in Ohio alone, in '04, in Dem cities and a heavily populated county around a Dem stronghold city, those 190,000 votes -- taken from Dems or added to R s -- were 72,000 votes more than the total margin of "victory" that gave our country the last disastrously sucky and nazi repug prez as a leader.
Here's an excerpt from an analytical piece by journalist Michael Collins on how li'l bush's '04 win was officially attributed to a 153% increase in support nationwide from big city white voters, despite no targeted outreach to big city voters of any kind, and no pro-city policies enacted by his admin first term. So his big city voter backing in '04 was 253% of his '00 support:
" FIGURE 3. We are expected to believe that after doing poorly in the rural area and small towns, Bush attracted several million new big city voters and pulled off a last minute victory. In the small towns he was well below his 2000 performance for total votes. In the red zone, rural America, he got fewer votes in 2004 than he did in 2000 while turnout was up across the nation.
Bush didnt win the cities. He didnt have to, he was already winning. Ultimately he had to achieve a better split in the big cities than he had in 2000. Looking at the chart above, you see the increase in Bush votes in the five location categories.
According to the vote totals, the real kill shot for the Bush victory came from large urban areas, big cities, defined as those with a population of half a million or more, e.g., New York, Chicago, Detroit, etc. These cities had been the strongest base for Democrats since the Great Depression. There had been variations in turnout from presidential election to election, but the margins had always remained strong.
...
Figure 5. Unprecedented! Thats the only word necessary to show the dichotomy of 2004 Bush losing actual votes in his base, rural America, while gaining an exponential increase in big cities.
But something happened. The Urban Legend appeared in the form of a tidal wave of increased Bush support. While his rural, conservative, white, Christian voters were staying home or changing candidates, it seemed that his appeal to urban voters went off the charts. He increased from 26% to 39% of the big city vote total, from a 2.7 million total in 2000 to 5.9 million total votes in 2004. "
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0706/S00165.htm
radius777
(3,814 posts)that most of these "adjustments" to the vote totals have all seemed to go in one direction, when it should be more random.
If Trump/GOP thought this was "just normal election stuff" they themselves wouldn't be fighting tooth and nail against a recount.
If only one state flips, such as MI, it could expose vote stuffing/suppression/machine issues, and make the electoral gap closer, which further delegitimizes Trump, who as it is lost the popular vote.
FBaggins
(27,740 posts)Except that isn't true. It's just all of the cases that his source (himself) chose to report on. There have been scores of adjustments... and not just in one direction. In the Wisconsin recount, they actually have been slightly in the other direction.
The changes in MI/PA were the results of provisional and/or absentee ballots - which we would normally expect to lean blue. Nothing unusual there either (despite his attempts at spin).
If Trump/GOP thought this was "just normal election stuff" they themselves wouldn't be fighting tooth and nail against a recount.
Also incorrect. They believe (and they're probably right) that Stein doesn't think that there's any chance that a recount will change anything... but that if they can stretch them out past the 13th, they will remove up to three states from the "safe haven" period and force the Republicans in Congress to act in order for Trump to win (further legitimizing him). He needs them to end by the 13th... and MI/PA would be very unlikely to finish by that point (let alone NC and FL).
If only one state flips, such as MI, it could expose vote stuffing/suppression/machine issues, and make the electoral gap closer, which further delegitimizes Trump, who as it is lost the popular vote.
That's not a "point". That's a simple statement of fact. The problem for Palmer is that he acts as though such issues have been discovered/exposed (and that he's the one doing it). Neither is true.
The WI recount is about 42% complete...and so far there isn't a single smoking gun. Both candidates have picked up a few dozen votes and lost a few dozen votes... with a net gap that is almost entirely unchanged.
Mc Mike
(9,171 posts)The 2011 Waukesha recount issue showing the Kathy Nickolaus team's blatant poll count manipulations, that I posted in # 27 below, has zero to do with Palmer, though.
PeaceNikki
(27,985 posts)She omitted an entire community.
There were no "blatant poll count manipulations" identified in the recount.
Mc Mike
(9,171 posts)Last edited Mon Dec 12, 2016, 10:34 AM - Edit history (1)
The fact that they separated the registered voter poll books, the "who signed in to vote" documentation, and the ballots at separate tables, and showed no chain of custody for ballots after the ballots were counted, in Waukesha, showed blatant poll count manipulation.
The fact that Barb With took pictures of very unusual time and date stamped poll count tapes, which had vote totals on them used to "prove" the Waukesha count was correct -- and the fact that it was sworn by elections officials (3 times) that the tape was an accurate report of votes cast April 5th, (though it was date/time stamped March 30, at 1:48) -- and the fact that the inclusion of the totals from those tapes was necessary for the Waukesha vote count to officially add up -- all of those facts are blatant evidence of OVERT POLL COUNT MANIPULATIONS.
And then she was told the next day that there WERE no touch screen tapes from Pewaukee. Because they'd served their purpose, and now their existence could only cause trouble, because it looks kind of like they just ran some machines early, made them reflect whatever result they wanted them to reflect, and then included them in the official balloting returns record.
Unfortunately for them, she'd taken photos of the tapes. Unfortunately for us, the pig repugs in Wisconsin got away with their "blatant poll count manipulations" in that recount, after they got away with their original felony election manipulations. And therefore WI got to keep Judge "Strangler" Prosser, who Waukesha's top election official had worked for previously.