And the news keeps rolling in about shady dealings within our government...

http://www.alternet.org/story/58328/

In 56 of Ohio's 88 counties, ballots and election records from 2004 have been "accidentally" destroyed, despite a federal order to preserve them -- it was crucial evidence which would have revealed whether the election was stolen.

"The missing records reveal where the fraud occurred," said Arnebeck. "You take as an example, Warren County. It is well documented that there was a phony homeland security alert and that was the excuse for excluding the public and the press from observing what was going on during Election Day. So the missing unused ballots would suggest that ballots were remade to fit the desired result."

"The same situation occurred in Clermont County," he said. "We have sworn affidavits from people who saw white stickers placed over the Kerry-Edward ovals in this optical scan county," he said, referring to one way of masking a would-be Kerry vote, because optical-scan machines read ink marks on paper ballots. "So the missing unused ballots would suggest they were used to remake ballots to reflect the desired vote for Bush."

Another big category of votes that will never be explained are the nearly 129,000 ballots that were rejected by voting machines and not counted. Many of these 2004 ballots -- a mix of computer punch cards, paper ballots to be marked by ink and electronic votes -- are among the incomplete 2004 election records. One post-election analysis found 94,000 of these ballots come from Democratic-majority precincts, and estimated these that ballots could have cost Kerry an additional 26,000 votes.

spreading Freedom and Democracy around the world!

Well, spreading something, anyhow....

sworn affidavits?? Anyone with even the most elementary knowledge of legal issues knows that an affidavit is basically worth about as much as toilet paper, unless the person who originally made the statement makes himself available in person as well. Otherwise, it generally falls under hearsay, and for good reason.

psst--by the way, are those affidavits from the same Democrats that were caught vandalizing Republican campaign offices around the country, attacking Republican campaign workers, and slashing tires on Republican-rented and owned cars?? Just curious....

"Our staff unintentionally discarded boxes containing Ballot Pages as requested in (Brunner's) Directive 2007-07 due to unclear and misinterpreted instructions," wrote Butler County Board of Election Director Betty McGary and Deputy Director Lynn Kinkaid in a May 9 memo. "Several boxes containing all the wire-bound ballot pages were discarded into a Rumpke dumpster. The dumpster would have been emptied into the local landfill."

"The Hamilton County (Cincinnati) Board of Elections was unable to transfer the unvoted precinct ballots and soiled precinct ballots," wrote John Williams, Hamilton County Director of Elections on May 16, 2007. "To the best if my knowledge, the above ballots were inadvertently shredded between January 19th and 26th of '06 in an effort to make room for the new Hart voting system."

Now, before everyone starts screaming about what them darn republicans did, think about this. Does it sound fishy? Sure, I can see that. however, look at what I quoted above. In at least these two cases, the staff members that were tasked with securing those records did not even seem to know the law that governed what their job entailed. The first one says they were destroyed because of unclear instructions?? What about the FEDERAL LAW? See what I mean? Before we all start shouting conspiracy, let's think about the fact that those people, even if they were told to do so by a republican, should definitely have known better than to do so, due to the law that governs this matter. But they did it anyways.

The second case sounds basically like the first, where it was "inadvertently done", but for a specific reason. They seem to have known what they were throwing away.....they should have known the law...and they threw them away anyways. I would really like to know exactly who did the shredding and where their loyalty lies. Then, if we find that republican-supporting people did that shredding, then we need to know what the fuck is happening.

OK, also, before any of you try to jump on me about this, let's get this clear--I am NOT saying that this isnt screwy, because it sure is. I am saying that there is not enough information to do anything more than make this issue look suspicious enough to, well, require more information. Sworn affidavits are not enough, especially when, to be honest, we are talking about the party that lost two elections and cried all over creation about it. One possibility that Dems dont seem to want to come to grips with is the notion that Kerry as president would in fact have been bad enough to make most people want to vote for anyone except for him.

spreading Freedom and Democracy around the world!

Well, spreading something, anyhow....

Dissent?