The Republican Sabotage of the Vote Recounts in Michigan and Wisconsin

[Coyotl]

Last edited Mon Dec 19, 2016, 12:39 PM - Edit history (1)

The Republican Sabotage of the Vote Recounts in Michigan and Wisconsin
Saturday, 17 December 2016 | Greg Palast, Truthout | Report

Michigan officials declared in late November that Trump won the state's count by 10,704 votes. But hold on -- a record 75,355 ballots were not counted.

The uncounted ballots came mostly from Detroit and Flint, majority-Black cities that vote Democratic.

According to the machines that read their ballots, these voters waited in line, sometimes for hours, yet did not choose a president. Really?

This week, I drove through a snowstorm to Lansing to hear the official explanation from Ruth Johnson, the Republican secretary of state. I was directed to official flack-catcher Fred Woodhams who told me, "You know, I think when you look at the unfavorability ratings that were reported for both major-party candidates, it's probably not that surprising."

Sleuthing about in Detroit, I found another explanation: bubbles.

Bubbles?

Michigan votes on paper ballots. If you don't fill the bubble completely, the machine records that you didn't vote for president. ....................

[MichMan]

1. I saw reports that there were quite a few Bernie write ins

Michigan also only counts write in votes for candidates that were pre certified as write in candidates.

There were several from fringe candidates, but from reports I saw from recount observers, there were a sizable number of write in votes for Bernie that were counted as no votes. That also meant that votes for Elvis, Mickey Mouse, Oprah, Kim Kardashian, or Beyoncé were also not recorded as voting for president either.

While not filling in the bubble correctly could be problematic, it isn't correct to say the vast majority of those came from Detroit & Flint. There would be no logical explanation why a particular area of the state would be more predisposed to fill in the ballot incorrectly.

The bigger issue in Detroit was the systemic failure of the City and County election officials. There were 59% of precincts that had errors between the poll books and the tabulated results from the scanners. There were also 95 poll books that were turned in either days later or not at all. These were supposed to be included with the ballots in sealed containers the night of the election. In most instances the numbers were only off by a couple here and there, but there were others that had ballots left in the machines and not turned in. The state is investigating and at this time the issue seems to have been caused by poorly trained and supervised election workers.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/15/records-detroit-poll-books-missing-several-days/95476742/

http://www.freep.com/story/news/columnists/rochelle-riley/2016/12/16/riley-supervisor-poll-workers-not-capable-job/95495230/

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/12/records-many-votes-detroits-precincts/95363314/

[Abouttime]

2. It's a damn tragedy

Hillary won MI, PA, FL and most likely WI but who was counting the votes mattered more than the actual votes. The exit polls were right, the popular vote was right, HRC is the rightful winner of the 2016 election.

[DK504]

3. Bubbles

Another hanging chad......yeaaaaa. Our democracy in the toilet by bubbles. Great.

[libtodeath]

4. A well planned coup

[red dog 1]

5. K&R

(From the OP)

Susan, a systems analyst who took part in the hand recount initiated by Jill Stein, told me, "I saw a lot of red ink..I saw a lot of checkmarks..We saw a lot of ballots that weren't originally counted, because those don't scan into the machine." (I can only use her first name because she's terrified of retribution from Trump followers in the white suburb where she lives)

[triron]

6. knr

[uponit7771]

7. The current FUD on DU is this election was legit enough, these are peripheral matters that would

... get people put in jail!!!

[mythology]

8. So the voters somehow filled in the bubbles on the other races correctly

but screwed it up on just the presidential race? Perhaps there's another more logical explanation as was mentioned by another poster that votes for write in candidates who aren't officially recognized aren't counted?

[triron]

9. knr

[iluvtennis]

10. Yep a tragedy and I am OUTRAGED that MI could assert their election results w/o counting 75K n/t

[Orsino]

11. It's official.

The state governments now recognize no mandate to read the intent of the voter, but only to obey the machines.

[Coyotl]

12. Orders from above.