"Loser Take All: Election Fraud and The Subversion of Democracy, 2000 - 2008"
Mark Crispin Miller (Ed.), Ig Publishing, Brooklyn, NY

(The Intelligence Daily) -- Mark Crispin Miller's new book, "Loser Take All," identifies and analyzes election fraud, the foundation of extremist power in the United States since 2000. Manipulated elections have enabled everything we've experienced from the Iraq war to the current economic meltdown. None of that would have been possible without the ongoing series of "surprise" wins for extremists and their enablers following the outright theft of the 2000 presidential election.

Miller illustrates his overarching analysis with a collection of carefully chosen essays. They map the rise of what key figures on the right and left refer to as tyrannical rule by the Bush - Cheney administration. Through a sequence of critical elections from 2000 on, Miller shows the particular outrages in each that enabled the retention and expansion of power. In doing so, he defines the basis for our current troubles.

A Sequence of Outrages

"Loser Take All" is organized sequentially beginning with the critical election of 2000 through 2006. In addition, we're given predictions of anticipated problems in 2008. Just part of what we learn is how: Gore lost Florida 2000 even before election day; key Georgia voting machines were modified before the stunning losses by Gov. Barnes and Sen. Cleland in 2002; and, Bush won 2004 in the big cities, if you believe the national exit poll. Part 1 of this series covers the 2000, 2002, and 2004 federal elections.

2000 Air and Land Assault

Florida 2000

The Bush ascendancy and the tragedies that followed began with the "shock and awe" of a combined air and land assault worthy of our greatest generals. There were no weapons or troops involved just public officials, various bureaucracies, party operatives, and "the machines."

Lance Dehaven-Smith outlines the cooperation between Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Catherine Harris and the national Republican campaign starting well before the election. A database vendor, DBT, was charged with purging felons from the rolls of Florida voters. Like many states, Florida felons were effectively denied the vote for life. The task consisted of matching felon lists from Florida and other states, most prominently Texas, with names on Florida's registration rolls.

The standards used to match registered voters with the combined list of felons were so loose nearly 91,000 legitimate voters were wrongly eliminated as registered voters. When they showed up to vote, they were told to go home. Before and during the process, the Florida Department of Elections was warned by DBT that the criteria was producing "false positives" - voters tagged as felons who were not true matches with the felons on the lists used.

After the lists were distributed to county boards of elections, several election administrators offered serious warnings about inaccuracies. Nothing was done to correct the errors.

The removal of tens of thousands of legitimate voters from Florida's election rolls before the election sealed candidate Al Gore's fate. More than half of those excluded were minority voters, predominantly black. Given the turnout rates and Gore's huge advantage with black voters, nearly 9 to 1 in Florida, a clean election would have given Al Gore the presidency in 2000.

David B. Moore describes the "air" war against democracy in 2000. The critical moment in the public perception of the campaign came when Fox News called the election in Gore's favor. It didn't matter that Gore won the popular vote. That was not "hot news." What did matter was that Fox declared Bush the winner prematurely.

Wasn't there some sophisticated polling analysis to justify this call? Only if you consider this phrase science: "Jebbie says we got it. Jebbie says we got it." That's what John Ellis, head of the Fox decision team, told his crew shortly after 2:00 am. Why would Fox be getting such an odd message from the Governor of Florida, Jeb ("Jebbie") Bush? Because Ellis was his first cousin. Fox made the call based on Gov. "Jebbie" and created a perceived advantage for Bush that remained unchanged even after Fox withdrew its irresponsible election call two hours later.

For the entire election, Gore had been on the defensive as a result of a media tear down that betrayed news reader and network loyalties to their corporate pay masters. It was the perfect lie to accompany the imperfect crime.

Moore and Dehaven-Smith offer much more in their well written essays, required reading for anyone who wants to know how election 2000 began the process of mindless war and torture and domestic neglect.

2002 Surprise Attack

Barnes, Cleland and Their Stunning "Losses"

Robert Kennedy Jr. tells the compelling story of the 2002 Georgia election where two popular incumbents, with solid leads four days before the election, lost in stunning reversals.

Atlanta Journal Constitution - WSB TV Poll, Nov. 1, 2002
Change from Nov. 1 poll to Election Day.
Atlanta Journal Constitution - WSB TV Poll, Nov. 1, 2002
Change from Nov. 1 poll to Election Day.

How could two popular incumbents, in the same state, with leads like these, both experience rarely seen reversals?

Under pressure due to uncounted votes in the 2000 election, the Georgia Secretary of State virtually turned over the election to the state's touch screen e-voting vendor, Diebold. Chris Hood was a Diebold technical consultant who bravely reported that he and others applied a software "patch" to Diebold voting machines just before the election.

This patch was so important that the president of Diebold, Bob Urosevich delivered it in person to Diebold technical personnel in Georgia. State law required that any changes to e-voting machines be cleared by the state. This was not done. When questions were raised after these highly improbable election results, Urosevich claimed the patch simply changed the clock on the voting machines, a claim deemed not serious by whistle blower Hood. The state failed to mount a thorough investigation and the Democrats were largely silent.

This bold move in the Georgia elections was a major alarm that was ignored and dismissed by the press and Democratic leadership.

The Beginning of the End for Don Siegelman

There was another 2002 outrage that also failed to gain the attention of the national media and federal authorities. Larisa Alexandrovna and James H. Gundlach provide the narrative and analytic proof that incumbent Democratic Governor Don Siegelman's 2002 election night win was, in fact, just that. On election eve, state wide results showed that Siegelman taking a narrow victory in a hard fought campaign.

That wasn't good enough for heavily Republican Baldwin County. Election officials there recounted the votes in the very early morning after Election Day. The wee hours recount reduced Siegelman's Baldwin County total from 19,000 to 12, 000 votes, just enough to give the Republican challenger a 3,000 vote victory. Gundlach efficiently deconstructs the improbable election and turns it into a case study of high probability election fraud.

2004 Sealing our Fate

Bush Wins it in the Big Cities

Miller reveals a more sophisticated election theft in 2004 I wrote the chapter, "Election 2004: The Urban Legend" (by Michael Collins, see disclosure*) based on research by Internet poster " anaxarchos " who discovered some remarkable anomalies in the final exit poll for 2004: Bush won reelection in the nation's "big cities" (500,000 > pop.).

The national exit poll is sponsored by the Media Consortium consisting of the Associated Press ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, and CNN. It provides the acknowledged source of national data on who voted, where, and why. There was great controversy generated by the unintentional release of a late Election Day exit poll showing Kerry winning by 3%. The official version, released the day after the election had Bush winning by 3%.

We examined the official exit poll and discovered data that casts serious doubt on the claimed vote totals. According to the official version of the exit poll:

2004 was not a red versus blue election, as reported. The rural sector in 2000 was 23% of the total vote but in 2004, it was just 16%. Bush total votes were down by two million in 2004 compared to 2000 in that segment. Bush lost significant ground in red states in 2004 and started the election in the hole.

Bush made spectacular gains in "big cities" (pop. 500,000 or greater) going from 26% to 39% of the total votes in that segment. According to the official exit poll, he picked up these gains largely with the help of four million white big city voters, ghosts so to speak, who rose from their graves and other hiding places to hand the election to Bush.

According to the official exit poll, the Bush big city magic took place amidst a 66% increase in big city voter turnout compared to a more modest 16% national turnout increase using reported vote totals.

There was no 66% increase in big city turnout. Actual big city vote totals, available election eve or shortly thereafter, show big city turnout slightly below the national average. The exit poll's 66% turnout increase and the four million white ghosts were the only way to make the poll agree with the election results, neither of which was accurate.

According to the official exits, Bush became the first president to be re-elected while both losing significant ground in his base and, at the same time, making it up in hostile territory, the nation's big cities. The same people who gave us this mess did the exit polling for the 2008 primaries and will conduct the 2008 national exit poll in November.

Electronic Ballot Box Stuffing

On a more pragmatic level, Miller includes two chapters that define how things were done at the state and local level. Activist John R. Brakey was so shocked at what he saw on Election Day 2004, he began gathering extensive data. The more he saw, the more he was convinced that there was systematic election manipulation in Arizona's Legislative District 27 located in Pima County, Arizona.

When the distinguished research physicist David L. Griscom came on the scene, he had more than enough data to demonstrate the specific techniques that switched votes from Kerry to Bush. The model on "how to stuff an electronic ballot box" is sufficiently detailed for application across the nation in case anyone in the government is interested. Credence for The Griscom-Brakey findings was just provided by recent events in Pima County.

Making Nevada Safe for Touch Screens

2004 also featured the state of Nevada as a demonstration project to legitimize the now totally discredited touch screen voting devices. Brad Friedman and Michael Richardson tell us how touch screens were introduced to Nevada with claims of accuracy and federal certification, when neither claim applied. This is a cautionary tale repeated across the country in the era of elections out sourced to vendors and unelected bureaucrats. Ironically, in the gaming capitol of the world, the voting machines were not nearly as secure as the slots.

Bush drive-by at the Jan 20, 2005 inauguration Image

"Mission Accomplished"

By Nov. 2, 2004, the mission of returning the extremists to power and retaining their agenda was complete. The process of distortions began with the smears of Kerry by the "swift boaters," Bush partisans who mounted a relentless campaign against Sen. John F. Kerry. This wasn't new. Marginal groups attacking candidates are common in our elections.

Full cooperation by the mainstream media with the vicious attacks was a first. The worst elements of partisan politics were willingly incorporated into the national dialog by the network talking heads and the shouting cable clones. And they treated it as business as usual instead of an unfair but devastating attack on the core character issue of Sen. Kerry's campaign, his service to the nation.

At the same time, the 2004 reporting of the networks and press consistently ignored the obvious signs of looming election disasters around the country. Coverage of the partisan set up in Ohio for an Election Day melt down was inadequate. Little attention was paid to the biased Department of Justice handling of voting and civil rights violations. And, of course, there had been no correction whatsoever of the problems of Florida 2000, which were characterized by 175,000 spoiled ballots, largely in minority precincts.

When it came time to vote on Nov. 2, 2004, the forces working for a perpetuation of illegitimate power swung into action and sealed our fate without even bothering to consult us. We were guaranteed four more years of decline and debasement, all enabled through election fraud on a scale never seen. It became the new business as usual with a bonus of more war, more torture, and a yet to be delivered economic melt down that would affect us all.

Miller's latest effort bears witness to his ability to inspire others to investigation and action after looking into the abyss of extremist corruption that he has observed so well in the past.

He provides an elegant framework for the collection of essays with his ongoing commentary forming the articles into a persuasive whole. If you want to understand how the tragedy of the last eight years began and developed into the current crisis, this book is one of your key resources.

In part 2 of this series, we'll see how "Loser Take All" unmasks the real surprise of the 2006 elections and provides a cogent warning about what awaits us in 2008.

Permission granted to reproduce in whole or part with attribution of authorship, a link to this article, and acknowledgement of images.

* Disclosure: I received no payment for the use of "Urban Legend: The 2004 Election" in "Loser Take All" and I do not receive any financial benefit from book sales or other uses of the material provided.