How many people are needed to steal an election?

[FerrisBueller86]

Reports of suspicious irregularities (like counties with more votes for Bush than total number of voters) have been strengthening the case that there was hanky-panky going on. If there really was hanky-panky at work (even if Bush would have won without it), this needs to be exposed.

If the Bush campaign really did steal the election, how many people would be in on the secret?

I'm trying to imagine myself as George W. Bush or Karl Rove. If I wanted to steal an election, I'd want it to involve as FEW people as possible. The more people you try to recruit, the greater the risk that someone will go public or play along and then ensnare you. The more people you have in on the conspiracy, the more likely it is one of them will either turn against you or (perhaps more likely) let a minor thing slip and thus risk exposing the scheme. And the more time passes, the greater the risk that SOME little thing will eventually slip out. Most of the people in the Bush-Cheney campaign would be oblivious. If they knew that they had to cheat in order to win, it might lower the morale of a few people. It's even conceivable that Bush knows nothing. If I were Rove and were out to steal the election for Bush, I'd prefer that he NOT know and just let him falsely think he has a mandate.

I don't know much about election procedures. But given the suspect sources of the electronic voting machines, I'm guessing that the vote could be stolen by just 10 people. Perhaps 3 people at Diebold, Karl Rove, the secretary of state of Ohio, the secretary of state of Florida, and the secretary of states in a few other states.

Given the reports of irregularities in North Carolina and the talk about "mandates", I'm now thinking that there might have been EVEN MORE hanky-panky in the non-battleground states, where there would have been less scrutiny. I think this might be especially true for the solid Bush states. Bush winning by a wider than expected margin in a state already expected to go solidly for Bush wouldn't arouse much suspicion (since there would be ZERO chance of changing the results), but it would pad the popular vote total and create a false mandate.

What do you think?

[J. J.]

I think this a bizarre conspiracy theory. 

There were allegations  of irregularities in Phila, this time supposedly by the Democrats.  It came to nothing.

[A18]

A TON. There are different people in each precinct that count the votes, and there are both a few Republicans and a few Democrats in each precinct.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

A TON. There are different people in each precinct that count the votes, and there are both a few Republicans and a few Democrats in each precinct.

Paper trail free electronic voting machines make it a lot easier than that.

[J. J.]

A TON. There are different people in each precinct that count the votes, and there are both a few Republicans and a few Democrats in each precinct.

Paper trail free electronic voting machines make it a lot easier than that.

People still have to sign in on the voting district books.  It's not very easy.

[??????????]

YES !!!!!!!!!!! THEY STOLE IT ALL THOSE B@ST@RDS1!!!!!! I can't believe those Repugnants stole UTAH!! UTAH!! As we all know that was definately a Kerry leaning state.

[??????????]

Blue was stolen. This is how the map should have really looked.

[Will F.D. People]

I think it would take a lot more than 10 people to steal even one state if you are trying to do it with crooked vote-counting machines. I think the OPs original idea is that if you rig the machines, only a few people need to be in on it and then everyone else will go along merrily, not knowing that they are participating in stealing the election.

In every state I have lived in, elections are administered by the county. Within a single county, there are several different ballot setups due to different races in different parts of the county. If you have a crooked ballot counter, this counter has to be smart enough to understand each ballot setup in order to steal votes from the right place. I think to steal the election across the board, you would necessarily need co-operation in each county.

In Ohio it is harder to steal. As reported elsewhere in this forum, Ohio varies the order that the Presidential candidates are listed from precinct to precinct. Let's say there are 5 different orders that the candidates are listed; this means each county now has 5 times the number of ballot setups that the crooked machines have to comprehend. In some precincts Bush is listed on line 1, in others on line 2, etc. If the allegation is that the company who made the vote tabulator somehow built into the code of the tabulator a bias for one candidate, the nefarious code would have to be smart enough to be able to figure out which ballot line to add votes to in each precinct.

In Florida 2000 we heard how terrible, awful, disgusting, and disenfranchising punch card ballots are. They do have a paper trail, however, as do optical scan ballots. Before the election it was reported that Ohio is 80% punch card ballots. I believe the rest are optical scan. The allegations in Ohio that the machines that tabulate the votes have a bias can be easily checked, and this is going on with the Ohio recount. It seems to me if you are going to steal the election, you would choose a method that could not be so easily detected as merely reporting the wrong totals.

I think the easiset way to steal an election if it is close would be to manufacture absentee ballots. Consider a hypothetical Governor's election where the margin of victory for the Republican was 42 votes after the post-election state-mandated recount. Suppose the Democrat was strongest in the largest county in the state, and this county had a crooked election worker who wanted to throw the election to the Democrat. One stategy the crooked worker could use would be to find a bunch of Democrats who had not voted in the election and get them to fill out a fraudulent absentee ballot, dating it before the election. Or perhaps the election worker could just forge a bunch of ballots on behalf of people who did not vote. You could take a couple hundred of these absentee ballots and stash them somewhere like behind the Swiss Miss in the break room. And then you could make sure that the missing ballots were "discovered" and include them in the count.

I am not saying that my scenario has happened; I am just saying this it seems much more plausible that it COULD happen versus somehow rigging the vote counting machines for a bunch of ballots that can easily be counted by hand.

[minionofmidas]

Five, as long as they're all on the Supreme Court.

No, just joking really.

[Andrew]

The allegations in Ohio that the machines that tabulate the votes have a bias can be easily checked, and this is going on with the Ohio recount.

Actually, no.  In many counties, the elections director is cherry-picking the sample precincts to hand-count to check the machines, rather than choosing them randomly, as required by law.

They are supposed to recount by hand if the hand- and machine-counts don't match in these precincts.  In practice, counties are replacing the machines and trying again until they get a match, then doing the entire recount by machine.

[A18]

Five, as long as they're all on the Supreme Court.

LOL. The Supreme Court can do anything in this country. It really has gotten out of hand.

[Will F.D. People]

The allegations in Ohio that the machines that tabulate the votes have a bias can be easily checked, and this is going on with the Ohio recount.

Actually, no.  In many counties, the elections director is cherry-picking the sample precincts to hand-count to check the machines, rather than choosing them randomly, as required by law.

They are supposed to recount by hand if the hand- and machine-counts don't match in these precincts.  In practice, counties are replacing the machines and trying again until they get a match, then doing the entire recount by machine.

If the machine is crooked, it is going to have a biased result if the precinct is cherry-picked or not.

And even if cherry picking was evidence of fraud (which I do not accept), this means that it would take many people to be in on it. The OP was wondering how many or few people it took to steal an election. If it takes elections directors in many counties to cherry pick precincts in order to subvert a recount, this is evidence for the "many people" position.

[Andrew]

My point isn't that this is evidence of fraud.

My point is that the recounts in Ohio are not providing the check on the system that they should, because the required procedures are not being followed.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

No, this is very legit.  The Republicans did an incredible job of getting their people out.  I will say this tho about the PV.  In 2000, Gore won, but I think Bush was the overall more popular person if there was 100% turnout.  It propbably wouldn't have been close.  This year, I think Kerry was more popular than Bush, but once again, we got left at the alter by the young voters.