Concern about the Stolen Election is growing. Just after the election (Nov. 9-14), a Harris poll found 81% thought the election was fair, while 16% thought it was not - including 27% of Democrats.

5 weeks later, a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll reports only "77% of poll respondents indicated they thought the overall presidential election was fair. 19% said they thought incidents of fraud aided Bush's re-election." Judy Woodruff reported 33% of Democrats believe Bush won through fraud.

The growing belief Bush stole the election may be contributing to Bush's sinking polls. As Kos writes,

Since his 3-percentage-point [actually 2.5% - BF] win over Sen. John Kerry, Bush has experienced a complete lack of bounce in the polls. In fact, in at least one national survey, Fox News' Opinion Dynamics poll, conducted Dec. 14-15, Bush's approval rating has fallen five points in the last month, to 48%. In other polls, including Washington Post-ABC, NBC/Wall Street Journal, Pew Research Center, Associated Press-Ipsos, Zogby, and Gallup, Bush's already soft approval numbers have flat-lined since the election. That phenomenon stands in sharp contrast to U.S. history, when presidents voted into office for a second term, even after close elections, routinely have received robust approval ratings.

According to an analysis posted on the Gallup Web site in mid-November, Bush's current 53% approval rating "is actually the lowest of any of the last seven presidents who won a second term in the first poll conducted after their re-election." Right after securing their second terms, Bill Clinton received a 58% approval rating, Ronald Reagan 61%, Richard Nixon 62%, Lyndon Johnson 70%, Dwight Eisenhower 75%, and Harry Truman 69%.

The accumulating evidence is even breaking through the blackout at DailyKos, thanks to a county-by-county compilation by rincewind.

As doubts grow about the fairness of the Ohio vote, Ken Blackwell is coming under attack from county election supervisors. Steven Leser interviewed Tim Burke, Chair of Hamilton County's Board of Elections, and William A. Anthony, Jr., chair of Franklin County's Board of Elections - both of whom were recommended by Blackwell's spokesman.

Burke "had a lot of complaints regarding decisions made by the Secretary of State," but Anthony "went further."

'In Franklin County, we tried to set up sites specifically for provisional voting ahead of the election to make sure everyone could vote and all votes were counted...in previous years you could provisionally vote anywhere in your county. We tried to take this step because we knew the state didn't allow us enough voting machines.' Blackwell's rulings prevented them from having specific sites throughout the county for provisional ballots. 'All across this county, we didnt have enough voting machines. People are blaming us at the local level, but the real blame should be placed on Blackwell, HAVA and the Republican state legislature.' Anthony blames the legislature for part of the problems because they did not vote to authorize paper trails for Ohio's electronic voting machines until late in 2003, too late to change the machines that the counties already had purchased.

Burke and Anthony both seemed to stress the problems created by Blackwell's many directives and opinions in the days right before election day. 'Why, since Blackwell has been Secretary of State since 1998 did he wait until 37 days before election day to make this ruling [changing the way we count provisional ballots]?' Anthony wondered.

Concerns about election fraud will not be dismissed by the absurd "investigation" of the Triad "repair" in Hocking County.

Prosecutor: No evidence of election tampering from computer repair
Associated Press (anonymous, natch)

LOGAN, Ohio - Prosecutors and local police found no evidence of election tampering when they watched Monday as a technician repeated a repair to a tallying computer that led a congressman to request an FBI investigation.

No problemo, right? Not exactly! Newsclip Autopsy rips this "investigation" to shreds.

What kind of whacked out logic is this???!!! How the hell do they know he did the same thing as he did on December 10th? THERE WERE NO EXPERTS WATCHING HIM ON DECEMBER 10TH!!! In fact, Sherole Eaton had her back turned to him some of the time...

Furthermore, AP still does not address the comment made by this technician about posting "cheat sheets". Again, here is the statement made in Sherole Eaton's affidavit:

"He advised Lisa and I on how to post a "cheat sheet" on the wall so that only the board members and staff would know about it and and what the codes meant so the count would come out perfect and we wouldn't have to do a full hand recount of the county."

WHY DID HE SAY THIS???!!!

STOP_George raises all the other important points: the technician's heavy coat, the unexplained "patch" he put on the system, 3 hours to replace a battery and reset the BIOS, etc. Conclusion: "Do a proper investigation!!!!!!!!!!!"

Surprisingly, Keith Olbermann fell for this "investigation," relying on Countdown viewer David Sams, the Assistant Prosecutor in Hocking County.

Sams said he had Triad’s man recreate what he did to the computer tabulator that so disturbed the County’s Deputy Elections Director, Sherole Eaton. “The gentleman in question took apart the computer in front of us, and our patrolman, who has worked many computer-related crimes, assessed what he did.

“He was fixing the system,” Sams continued. “Whatever happened that day, happened today. It’s a fourteen-year old computer. We had another gentleman, a local systems analyst, who verified this information for us… We were prepared to disassemble the machine and have it dissected. But we didn’t think this was necessary. The election in our county was completely proper.”

To quote STOP_George: "How the hell do they know he did the same thing as he did on December 10th?"

Apparently Sams - and Olbermann - believe an "investigation" consists of having the suspect "re-enact" the crime exactly as they see fit. Hey Keith - try applying that kind of "investigation" to Scott Peterson... Daniel Pelosi... Michael Jackson... Kobe Bryant... O.J. Simpson.

Hello?!?!

And like the rest of the MSM, Olbermann completely ignores the as-yet-unrebutted "cheat sheet" conspiracy.

For some reason, Olbermann has concluded that Sherole Eaton reconsidered her affidavit after it was "blown up out of context" by the Greens. Olbermann has this completely backwards - Eaton filed her 12/13 affidavit to correct erroneous versions of her story that David Cobb began circulating that morning.

Eaton said that after the Green Party started spreading the information around, she decided to write the affidavit to get her account on record so that it would not be distorted or misinterpreted.

Eaton has never criticized or modified her affidavit. So why does Olbermann cite Eaton's case as evidence "a sworn deposition can be less than it seems?"

Olbermann also botched his "investigation" of the Clint Curtis story, as BradBlog will undoubtedly soon detail. (Rawstory critiqued it briefly.)

Firstly, the attorney for the firm for whom Mr. Curtis worked at the time of the purported skullduggery request, Yang Enterprises of Oviedo, Florida, insists that the company has never sold any voting software.

Curtis never said they did. He said Feeney asked him to write a prototype in December 2000 in order to win a contract with the State of Florida. After he left the company in February 2001, he doesn't know what they did with his prototype.

Its lawyer claims Curtis has previously threatened the firm and its top officers, in writing, and that they were sufficiently concerned to file a police report as a result. Though the term “disgruntled employee” is too easily thrown around (I can attest to that), if somebody has put it in writing, it’s a tough climb back to full credibility.

The "disgruntled employee" attack has been thoroughly shredded, since YEI asked Curtis to stay on for weeks after he quit, then threw him a going-away party.

There are also a couple of logical disconnects contained in Curtis’s story. As our investigator notes, if Curtis is correct, Feeney made an illegal request to a group of employees who might have tacitly committed a felony just by listening to it and not reporting it to authorities.

Curtis thought Feeney asked him to write a program to prevent voting fraud, which would have been completely legal. Curtis only discovered the truth when he delivered his prototype to Mrs. Yang, who told him they would only win the contract if they could commit voting fraud. That's when his eyes were opened to Feeney's criminal intent.

Additionally, Curtis made no reference to any of this until he had left Yang’s employ, and by the time he did tell anybody, it was four years after the fact.

In 2001, Curtis didn't think the illegal program would actually be sold. He only became concerned as reports of electronic vote tampering began circulating widely in 2004.

For his part, Congressman Feeney answered seven questions from one of our producers and in six of them made gentle hints about reporters getting legal counsel before they ran with the story (this was before the Florida paper ran what it did— one wonders what things are like in their office this week).

Yes, one does wonder! Hey Keith - how about making a follow-up call? Better yet, why not put Feeney and Curtis together on your show?

In short, Feeney says he doesn’t remember meeting Mr. Curtis;

There are no doubt several witnesses to prove Feeney is a liar.

that his only connection to Yang Enterprises was as an attorney prior to 2002;

Yes, but he was also a lobbyist trying to get state contracts for YEI. He probably even registered with the state, which would prove him a liar again.

that because Mr. Curtis had “slandered and defamed a lot of people” he would not reply to specific questions, only general ones;

Curtis gave a sworn statement to John Conyers' committee last week. If Curtis' statement was false, then Feeney should demand his prosecution for perjury. If Feeney fails to do that, that makes Feeney guilty by the standards of cable TV legalese.

and that as to the story on the whole, “I’m very amused by it. I wish I had some of the power that he suggests.”

Feeney may be laughing now, but if Curtis is telling the truth - and Feeney said nothing to disprove Curtis - Feeney will be laughing all the way to the state penitentiary.