On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Barry Sussman of Nieman Watchdog was quoted as saying of the Berkeley Media Group research:
> Bush is credited with about 350,000 more votes than John Kerry in Florida.
> If the Berkeley study is correct and all 130,000 extra Bush votes were
> really cast for Kerry, that would be a swing of 260,000. A big number but
> not enough to change the result.
Am I right in thinking that the Berkely study only applied to touch-screen voting? Because if so, to those numbers would need to be added all fraud that Bev Harris says she seems to be in the process of turning up for the entirely separate optical scan machines (which produce poll tapes that can be used for auditing)
URL: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1118-22.htm
If her account as related here is true -- and the poll tapes provide physical evidence to adjudicate that, in addition to her claimed videotapes -- this seems to be every bit as serious as the Berkely study. And her investigation is ongoing. There are lot of counties to visited, and there seems to be no legal deadline to her public records requests demands for the poll tapes.
So theoretically, if you combine the two, it seems perfectly possible that there was sufficient fraud to swing the election.
In addition, even if that threshhold isn't reached, if either of these claims hold up, it means it would be possible to prove that there was a large political scale crime committed. And could have legs and consequences.
Because remember: the Watergate break-in wasn't necessary to get Nixon re-elected either. He won in a real landslide.
Michael