This is, after all, the rules under which we've been operating for about 20 years. Liberals do anything wrong, they're vilified; conservatives do anything right, they're applauded.

Almost no liberals I know in any way bought any claims about electoral shenanigans in 2004, incidentally.

As for liberals being wimps...well, actually you're probably mistaking *thinking* for wimpiness. Just because liberals tend to look before they leap...or think before they fight...doesn't make them wimps.

Incidentally, you'll note that conservatives tend to make the wimp charge from a safe distance...

Just sayin'...

Look it up, then. See pages 16-33 of this PDF file: http://www.ac4vr.com/reports/032405/R-U.pdf Very interesting. The first judge had to recuse himself from the case, because he himself had received one of the deceptive phone calls from the Democratic Party. Then there's an affidavit from a Democratic Party official, ADMITTING that such calls were made on at least three occasions, but stating that she told the guy to stop. See pages 17-18 of the file.

So no, it's not as if the incident never happened. Documentary proof is right in front of your eyes, including a Democratic official who admitted that it happened.

First off... any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here. Die spambots, die! And now... the winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are Abolish the "N" Word by ShrinkWr...

Also, rather than respond to someone who claims no proof, check out sites I have given above where there IS documented proof.

First off... any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here. Die spambots, die! And now... here are all the links submitted by members of the Watcher's Council for this week's vote. Council li...

Perhaps I should also apologise for the long comment, because I think this one is going to be nearly as long as yours.

From your rebuttal : "As for the charges they make, they’re clearly spinning some minor items into big items."   I haven't read the ACVR report, but I'm quite willing to take your word for it.   My experience is that when politicians open their mouths or sit down at their keyboards, a lot of spin is generated.

Unfortunately, once accusations of spin start to fly, it's all too easy for bystanders to get splashed. (Sorry for that clumsy metaphor.) Even you are not immune.

For example --
You start your rebuttal with the Milwaukee tire-slashing incident, which you are at pains to characterise as "a stupid prank", "five idiots with too much time and too little brains", "low-level campaign workers who did something totally stupid", "stupid punk kids who don’t know any better", "this minor prank".

I don't dispute your charge that the "ACVR is clearly being deceptive for suggesting that these were "paid operatives" who were somehow colluding with the DNC." but you lay yourself open to a similar charge of being deceptive because you neglect to mention that these weren't just five random idiots -- they were the son of Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-Wis), the son of former Milwaukee Acting Mayor Marvin Pratt, and three other Kerry-campaign workers. Also, they weren't "kids" in the usual sense of "teenagers or younger". Their ages were 20, 25, 28, 32 & 35.

In fact, the more we learn about it, the less it looks like a kid's prank, and the more it looks like a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise the voters who depended on those vehicles.

(P.S.: the 20-year old was found not-guilty; the other four got jail terms.)

However, the thing which really amazed me was your final paragraph.

First you refer to Democrats accusing Republicans of "a concerted effort by the Republican Party to suppress votes." Next you admit a lack of proof and that "maybe it didn't happen." And finally you try to use this unproven and maybe non-existent "effort" to support a contention that "... to suggest that the Democrats are the election-fraudsters is entirely whack."

No ! What is entirely whack is the way this smoke-and-mirrors accusation against Republicans can mysteriously be transmogrified into Democrat innocence.

Is that just spin ? To me it looks like something worse.

This is really something. Salon is, by most accounts, a left-leaning website. How far left is a matter of debate, but I will say that I've had links come in from that site in the past, and the comments were all from foaming-at-the-mouth liberals.
...

also:

http://www.iwantmyvote.com/

Hat tip Allah for two great links. Click here and...

I looked at your site on ACVR and Iâ??ll grant you they lean to the right, but so what?

Lean to the right? The guy already said they were started by the Bush/Cheney lawyer. Or as Brad's website says:
"Hearne is listed on the site as "National Election Counsel to Bush-Cheney â??04 and Missouri counsel to Bush-Cheney â??00" amongst other very Republican credentials."

An election legal counsel for a presidential campaign doesn't just lean right. They're outright partisan. But it looks like lots of folks were fooled by this. A quick search on rightwing websites tells us that they're "a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that neither supports nor endorses any political party or candidate." Right.

And if you clicked through another link at Bradblog, you'd see that their publicist was Jim Dyke, who had recently been the RNC's Communications Director. As his bio says: "Dyke worked on three Presidential campaigns, managed a congressional campaign, served in the Bush Administration and worked in the private sector." According to his bio, he's also responsible for several other rightwing astroturf organizations.

Again, this isn't just that the guys are Republicans. It's that they're important Republicans who have a long history of holding top positions in the Republican Party and George Bush. And the reason why this is important is that they shouldn't be believed when they tell us that Republicans were innocent of any voter-shannigans. Or in your words, that "the 2004 election fraud was on the DEMOCRAT side of things." Nor should we take their sinister tone as proof of evil Democrat shannigans. This isn't a non-partisan group, as they pretended. This is an RNC spin effort. It apparently worked.

The Rebuttal

As for the charges they make, they're clearly spinning some minor items into big items. For example, the whole Milwaukee tire-slashing thing was clearly a stupid prank. This wasn't a concerted effort to stop Republicans from voting. This was five idiots with too much time and too little brains. They didn't even suppress any votes, as all the vans were replaced in time. And ACVR is clearly being deceptive for suggesting that these were "paid operatives" who were somehow colluding with the DNC. They were low-level campaign workers who did something totally stupid, probably because they're stupid punk kids who don't know any better. I mean honestly, if the Democratic Party wanted to commit a felony, would it really be slashing tires; an effort that didn't suppress any votes at all? And this is the first example that ACVR came up with. Similarly, this minor prank is usually the first incident Republicans cite of Democrat election theft. Pathetic.

The only serious accusation involved a temporary restraining order placed on Kerry-Edwards people in Ohio who were supposedly lying to Republicans about polling places and whatnot. But oddly, I tried to research how this turned out and can't find anything about it. My search was far from exhaustive, but the only results I get are regarding the ACVR's reference to this, as well as rightwingers mentioning the restraining order. I see almost nothing else. It's as if it disappeared after election day. Needless to say, a temporary restraining order is NOT a conviction; so I have no idea if this incident really happened.

And the rest of that list is just a bunch of minor incidents; most of which aren't even connected to the DNC at all. Some Moveon.org guys were rude to Republicans. Some union guys attacked some Republicans. These were random incidents which happened to be done by Democrats. And Republicans were responsible for the same kind of stuff; though the "non-partisan" ACVR insists otherwise. And when Dems accuse Repubs of voter supression, this isn't the stuff we're referring to. We're talking about knocking legal voters off of the voter rolls.

The only items which can be associated with the Democratic Party involved some flyers that were sent to Republican poll-watchers, warning them to not supress votes. A court told them they couldn't do that, and they stopped. They also had a tape-recorded message from Clinton warning Republican poll-watchers to not supress votes. Nothing was done about this. And finally, some Democrats wore armbands that they shouldn't have. They were told to remove them and they did. Wow. Talk about intimidation. Those blasted Democrats are stealing elections!

Now compare this with the 10 months of prison time former regional RNC Director James Tobin got for his New Hampshire election day shannigans in 2002. As of April 14 2006 (the day he got sentenced), the RNC had paid his entire $2.8 million legal bill. But please focus on five idiots slashing a few tires or wearing bad armbands. That's really important.

And something to remember is that even ACVR didn't claim that Republicans were innocent. If you read their page on Republican shannigans, they cite several real incidents of voter fraud against Dems, but because nobody got caught, it dismisses them because they weren't tied to "paid operatives". But without a doubt, these things really happened and Republicans did use fraud on Election Day 2004. But ACVR let them off the hook because nobody was caught.

Overall, there were election day shannigans on both sides; despite the ACVR's dismissal of rightwing deeds. And to use an astroturf GOP-led group as proof that "the 2004 election fraud was on the DEMOCRAT side of things," is simply absurd. Heck, if these were the only election problems, I don't see how election reform would be necessary. We already have laws against slashing tires, vandalism, and violence; and the Democratic Party stopped with the flyers and armbands when they were told to stop. If these were the only problems, it looks like everything's taken care of.

But when Democrats accuse Republicans of election fraud in 2004, they don't mean random acts of violence and mischief; but a concerted effort by the Republican Party to suppress votes. I haven't seen enough proof of this, but the accusations are at an entirely different level. Maybe the proof will come-out, or maybe it will stay hidden. Or maybe it didn't happen. But to suggest that the Democrats are the election-fraudsters is entirely whack.

Thanks for the reply and the info.

BradBlog :

Thanks for your info and link too. I haven't had time to read all of your approx thirty blog posts about the ACVR, but it certainly appears that you have devoted a lot of time and effort to this matter.

In your above comment, you say --
The ACVR "was created by two high-level GOP operatives (one is Mark F. "Thor" Hearne, the national general counsel for Bush/Cheney ‘04 Inc., the other is Jim Dyke, communications director for the RNC)."

If that's true (and I have no reason to doubt) it might imply partisanship and/or bias. However, the jump from "These guys work for a political party that I don't agree with" to "Therefore what they say is false" is simply not logical. In fact, it's pretty close to the textbook definition of an ad hominem argument.

Assuming (purely for purposes of discussion) that these guys are extremely biased, they would probably be motivated to highlight election fraud by the opposing party, and downplay or ignore election fraud by their own party. The unavoidable conclusion from that assumption is that the total amount of election fraud is far greater than they say, and therefore the need for reform is far greater than they say it is.

Yet you present this alledged bias as if it were reason to ignore their report, and thereby ignore the need for reform !

So I repeat my original question --
If the Republicans are perpetating election fraud to the alledged extent, then WHY are the Democrats so strongly opposed to election reform ?

If WJ's answer is wrong, please give us the correct answer.

After all the time and effort you have devoted to this for over a year, I'm sure you have an irrefutably logical and utterly compelling explanation. So, Come on, Hit me with it! Please!

I looked at your site on ACVR and I'll grant you they lean to the right, but so what? Beyond you calling them names like "liars" and "hucksters", how does that discredit the fraud on the side of the Democrats.

By your logic, since RFK Jr leans strongly to the left and people call him names, we can categorically dismiss his article without looking at the information.

If you have a link that point by point discredits their info, without kindergarten name-calling, I'd like to read it.

On Warren County, I saw follow-ups to this that there were Democrat representatives counting the ballots. Yes there was a lock-down, but both sides were in the building counting.

An anecdote. I live in Tucson, AZ, and I haven't moved in 4 years. I recently received a new voter registration card and found that my precint had been changed from 373 to 356. I tried to find out why from the Registrar and the Board of Elections but I did not recieve an answer.

BTW, I was able to vote in a special referendum we had in May.