How many Presidential Elections were stolen?

[Badger]

1876 and 2000.

We need to drop the myth of 1960. For the umpteenth time, even if we assume that the Cook County machine "stole" at least 110,000 votes (or more accurately, 110k more votes than any downstate GOP machines may've "stolen" for Nixon) to flip Illinois, Kennedy still would've won a majority in the Electoral College without Illinois.

[Badger]

1876 and 2000.

We need to drop the myth of 1960. For the umpteenth time, even if we assume that the Cook County machine "stole" at least 110,000 votes (or more accurately, 110k more votes than any downstate GOP machines may've "stolen" for Nixon) to flip Illinois, Kennedy still would've won a majority in the Electoral College without Illinois.

Not you, too?  

Indeed. Very disappointing, I didn't expect him to be that much of a hack....

Well, I don't view Badger as a hack at all, TC.  He has to have some reason to say it, which I'd love to hear.  I'm sure he just differs with the Supreme Court ruling, but we'll see.

I vehemently disagree with the Supreme Court's ruling. Yet another piece of evidence that Scalia's "originalist construction" pose is pure bs. He votes an almost consistently conservative line regardless of stare decsis or founder intent, and his vote to stop the 2000 recount is a prime example.

Gore also won the popular vote by over half a million votes, I consider any election determined by the anti-democratic anachronism that is the Electoral College to be "stolen"

Regarding the recount which never happened as it was stopped by the Supremes, it strongly appears the judge in charge of the terminated recount, Terry Lewis, was going to require a recount of overvotes as well as undervotes as originally requested by the Gore team. Under the standards of vote tabulation most likely to be applied in the recount, Gore won Florida by a few hundred votes.

http://www.newsweek.com/2001/11/18/the-final-word.html

This was not accidental or solely due to 5 conservative supreme court justices. The Bush team used every conceivable opportunity to delay and stall at every turn. The most memorable, though FAR from only, example was the "Brooks Brothers riot" where a bunch of paid GOP staffers physically disrupted and successfully intimidated the Miami-Dade County election canvassing board into stopping recount proceedings even after sheriffs deputies restored order.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot#cite_note-5
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/24/us/counting-vote-miami-dade-county-protest-influenced-miami-dade-s-decision-stop.html

These kind of strong arm tactics would make the Corleone Family proud. This was only the most visible of their campaign's heavy handed tactics employed to kill the clock throughout the process. Florida Sec. of State/Bush Campaign state co-chair Katherine Harris worked hard to ram through her "official" tabulation and slam the door on any/all attempts for recount.

Again, none of this was accidental. The 5 member majority in Bush v. Gore held that no constitutionally permissible recount meeting equal protection standards could be held by the December 12 deadline for recounts under Florida law (the Supreme's decision was issued on December 12, 3 days after staying the Florida Supreme Court's decision ordering a statewide manual recount). Without getting into the many questionable basises for that decision under both the US Constitution and Florida state law, both campaigns' legal beagles were obviously aware of that December 12 date, and the Bush campaign's clear 'Plan A' strategy was to run the clock without a recount occurring, so they could then argue "sorry, whether the recount would've changed the election's outcome or not it can't be done now".

And it worked. Perfectly. By a 5-4 margin. Hail to the Chief.

No discussion here would be complete without mentioning the very aggressive--and error riddled--steps Harris's office took in the year leading up to the election to scrub state voter rolls of ineligible felons. Suffice to say the process is shown to have wrongly deregistered many individuals--overwhelmingly African-Americans--by a combination of legal and clerical errors that were so pervasive it strains credulity to write it off as mere bureaucratic mismanagement, but rather a calculated attempt to weed out likely Democratic voters. That isn't an accusation of a "conspiracy theory", but rather simply dirty politics.

http://dir.salon.com/story/politics/feature/2000/12/04/voter_file/index.html

Given the extent of errors in the system and African-Americans and the poor being very disproportionately targeted, I can't fathom that the number of wrongly disenfranchised voters turned away at the polls throughout the entire state of Florida wouldn't have erased Bush's "official" 537 vote lead--out of almost 6 million votes counted statewide.

[Badger]

From a Republican perspective, 1884 and 1960.

In 1884, the Democrats won New York by 1,047 votes which turned the election from Blaine to Cleveland.  Tammany Hall did a better job padding New York City results than did upstate Republicans.  

In 1960, the Dailey machine stole Illinois (9,142 votes), Johnson's cronies easily came up with enough fictious votes in Texas (46,257 votes, not a tall order in Texas), and Missouri (9,980 votes), where the St Louis machine produced the needed margin.

That 46k+ votes in 1960 Texas constituted a full 2.0% margin of victory. Yes, "Landslide Lyndon's" familiarity with ballot box stuffing wasn't unknown, but enough for a full 2% statewide shift? Let's not get crazy here.

Regarding MO (and NJ, before anyone mentions it), is there any evidence of widespread voter fraud by Democratic machines, or are we just assuming this occurred enough to flip every close Kennedy state in the country? For that matter, don't we expect that GOP political organizations in heavily GOP areas of these states stole votes for Nixon? (Possibly not Texas though as IIRC most of the local machines still were Democratic controlled, even in heavily GOP voting Houston and Dallas) Isn't there an equal (lacking) basis to assume GOP operatives in Nixon's southern California base stole enough votes to barely steal the state away from Kennedy? Or are Republican politicians overwhelmingly too noble and pure of heart--particularly Nixon--to engage in such skulduggery?

[Badger]

1824, 1876, 1960,2000, 2004. 2004 There was probably as much voter fraud there than in other election. There are reports that Kerry had as many as 5 million votes taken from him. There were large discrapencies in Ohio. Bush was reported as getting more votes in some counties than there were that people actually voted. There were reports of voting machines in heavily democratic areas actually going in reverse. Thats why I will always refer to him as Governor Bush because thats the only office he legally won lol.

Don't bet on 2004, Cpeeks, especially re: Ohio. I've actually read several of the reports and statistical studies claiming the GOP stole Ohio in 2004---Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s Rolling Stone article being the most famous--and they're just plain wrong. The reasons are varied, but well summarized in this article in the liberal on-line magazine, Salon.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/03/kennedy

A little bit of local perspective: The analysis of RFK's claim Kerry "couldn't possibly" have run so far behind Democratic down ticket votes in several rural west OH counties (including mine) that voted overwhelmingly for Bush is spot on. Not only did the Democratic Supreme Court candidates Kennedy compares to Kerry run without their party label listed (as in all OH state judicial races) but I assure you candidates running as "generic Democrat" were infinitely more palatable to voters here than the vilified "flip flopping, baby killing, cafeteria Catholic, faux war hero, tax and spend Massachusetts liberal" that Kerry was perceived as in November 2004.

[Badger]

1824, 1876, 1960,2000, 2004. 2004 There was probably as much voter fraud there than in other election. There are reports that Kerry had as many as 5 million votes taken from him. There were large discrapencies in Ohio. Bush was reported as getting more votes in some counties than there were that people actually voted. There were reports of voting machines in heavily democratic areas actually going in reverse. Thats why I will always refer to him as Governor Bush because thats the only office he legally won lol.

Don't bet on 2004, Cpeeks, especially re: Ohio. I've actually read several of the reports and statistical studies claiming the GOP stole Ohio in 2004---Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s Rolling Stone article being the most famous--and they're just plain wrong. The reasons are varied, but well summarized in this article in the liberal on-line magazine, Salon.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/03/kennedy

A little bit of local perspective: The analysis of RFK's claim Kerry "couldn't possibly" have run so far behind Democratic down ticket votes in several rural west OH counties (including mine) that voted overwhelmingly for Bush is spot on. Not only did the Democratic Supreme Court candidates Kennedy compares to Kerry run without their party label listed (as in all OH state judicial races) but I assure you candidates running as "generic Democrat" were infinitely more palatable to voters here than the vilified "flip flopping, baby killing, cafeteria Catholic, faux war hero, tax and spend Massachusetts liberal" that Kerry was perceived as in November 2004.

Maybe cpeeks is referencing the movie Hacking Democracy.

Could be, but its still wrong. As much as I dislike it, Bush won reelection fair and square (within the bounds of doing a hatchet job on a war veteran's genuinely heroic service which was both slimy and, considering W.'s activities and whereabouts during Vietnam, shamelessly hypocritical as hell, but whatever).

[Badger]

From a Republican perspective, 1884 and 1960.

In 1884, the Democrats won New York by 1,047 votes which turned the election from Blaine to Cleveland.  Tammany Hall did a better job padding New York City results than did upstate Republicans. 

In 1960, the Dailey machine stole Illinois (9,142 votes), Johnson's cronies easily came up with enough fictious votes in Texas (46,257 votes, not a tall order in Texas), and Missouri (9,980 votes), where the St Louis machine produced the needed margin.

That 46k+ votes in 1960 Texas constituted a full 2.0% margin of victory. Yes, "Landslide Lyndon's" familiarity with ballot box stuffing wasn't unknown, but enough for a full 2% statewide shift? Let's not get crazy here.

Regarding MO (and NJ, before anyone mentions it), is there any evidence of widespread voter fraud by Democratic machines, or are we just assuming this occurred enough to flip every close Kennedy state in the country? For that matter, don't we expect that GOP political organizations in heavily GOP areas of these states stole votes for Nixon? (Possibly not Texas though as IIRC most of the local machines still were Democratic controlled, even in heavily GOP voting Houston and Dallas) Isn't there an equal (lacking) basis to assume GOP operatives in Nixon's southern California base stole enough votes to barely steal the state away from Kennedy? Or are Republican politicians overwhelmingly too noble and pure of heart--particularly Nixon--to engage in such skulduggery?