election fraud

[defaultdotxbe]

this comes up in passing a lot but i never see much in-depth discussion, hopefully this thread can serve as a place for that

personally i have a few questions for those who beleive fraud occurred (this is all those who feel bush/republicans are guilty, and pomeroo who feels kerry/democrats are guilty)

1) how many in the opposing party(s) must be ignoring evidence for this not to be a major talking point in congress?


2) if this conspiracy extends from the municipal level all the way up to the presidential candidate how many within the part must be covering it up?

3) how many "operatives" must exist in various municipalities for this to be effective? by the time swing states are identified i would think its too late to get someone in a position to get rid of ballots, and how many counties must they be ready to try to commit fraud in to assure it will swing the results?



it seems to me that election fraud conspiracy theories suffer from the same problem as all others, too many people on both sides would have to keep quiet about it

[leftysergeant]

There is no conspiracy of silence in regard to what happened in Ohio. The Democrats were complaining about Blackwell's manipulations and arbitrary rulings long before the election of 2004.

There is still legal action in progress regarding the disenfranchisement of supposed felons in Florida in 2000.

The Democrats simply do not have the numbers in congress or access to the programming of the electronic devices.

Plus, very few people have access to all the information that has been brought to light because of right-wing control of the media, nor have most people the technical savvy to understand how easily the electronic devices can be manipulated.

[Liszt]

There is still legal action in progress regarding the disenfranchisement of supposed felons in Florida in 2000.



really? Do you have a link?

Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy has a pretty detailed analysis of the 2000 Florida stuff

[David Wong]

The Democrats simply do not have the numbers in congress or access to the programming of the electronic devices.


If only they could get the majority. Oh, wait...


Plus, very few people have access to all the information that has been brought to light because of right-wing control of the media, nor have most people the technical savvy to understand how easily the electronic devices can be manipulated.

The "right wing" control of the media? That's sarcasm, right? Every single survey ever done on the subject has over 80% of the news media leaning democrat.

[pomeroo]

really? Do you have a link?

Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy has a pretty detailed analysis of the 2000 Florida stuff


John Fund's book Stealing Elections is an invaluable resource for understanding how election fraud takes place. Greg Palast is an outright liar. Six thousand felons voted illegally in Florida in 2000 and black turnout was up by more than 300,000 as compared to 1996.

[Architect]

Interestingly, I was at a talk on Monday evening by the Returning Officer (i.e. the chap running the election count locally) for the Cunningham North ward which was crucial in delivering the new SNP administration at the last Scottish national election in May. There had been considerable suggestions in the press at the time regarding the effectiveness of the electronic vote counting equipment.

In Scotland (but not the rest of the UK) we still use paper ballots, because of concerns about fraud, but they are now counted digitally. The unclear votes are flagged up by the computer onto overhead screens, which are then assessed by the Returning Officer (and his staff) in full view of the agents for the main political parties. If they object to the assessment, they can do so there and then.

Apparently the coutning was considerably more accurate than traditional hand-sorting, and the public were less concerned about electoral fraud because the ballot papers were (as normal practice in the UK) stored in the event that a recount was required.

I mention this only because it seems to me that the retention of the papers does indeed put paid to conspiracy theories, other than accusations of false voters or missing ballot boxes (which presumably would apply to most electoral systems).

[leftysergeant]

Six thousand felons voted illegally in Florida in 2000 and black turnout was up by more than 300,000 as compared to 1996.

Is that verifiable with social security numbers and dates of birth? I know that the Secretary of State in Florida did not bother to do the research or provide any readily available means of appealing or correcting the record, despite warnings that such further efforts were required or desireable.

The fact that she was involved in any way with the Bush campaign further brings her integrity into question.

[Architect]

As Gerry Adams always said when campaining for Sinn Fein, "Vote, and Vote Often".....

[Pardalis]

What are the news about Palast's caging list? The Democratic party hasn't picked up on it yet?

[pomeroo]

There is no conspiracy of silence in regard to what happened in Ohio. The Democrats were complaining about Blackwell's manipulations and arbitrary rulings long before the election of 2004.

There is still legal action in progress regarding the disenfranchisement of supposed felons in Florida in 2000.

The Democrats simply do not have the numbers in congress or access to the programming of the electronic devices.

Plus, very few people have access to all the information that has been brought to light because of


right-wing control of the media,



How can an intelligent man use this phrase? The right has Fox News and talk radio; the left has everything else. Survey after survey has shown a pronounced media bias to the left.




nor have most people the technical savvy to understand how easily the electronic devices can be manipulated.


Most people lack the intellectual curiosity to learn that exactly TWO counties in Ohio used Diebold machines in 2004 and Kerry won the larger of them. Democratic pollster Mark Blumenthal has utterly demolished the innumerate claims of Bob Fitrakis and Steven Freeman (see pollster.com, specifically the four-part series, "Was RFK, Jr. Right About the Exit Polls?")

[Brainster]

There is a lot of conspiracy theory nonsense about election fraud, but unfortunately the partisans for each side only recognize the nuttiness of the claims from the other side. So it boils down to politics, which is where this thread really belongs despite the fact that much of it is "woo".

[dudalb]

As Gerry Adams always said when campaining for Sinn Fein, "Vote, and Vote Often".....

Or as a Campaign Worker for Boss Tweed said in "Gangs Of New York",
"You Only Voted Once? You Call That Doing Your Civic Duty?".

[dudalb]

There is a lot of conspiracy theory nonsense about election fraud, but unfortunately the partisans for each side only recognize the nuttiness of the claims from the other side. So it boils down to politics, which is where this thread really belongs despite the fact that much of it is "woo".


I so agree. I want some evidence from somebody who does not have a Ax to grind about the 2004 election before I buy into any conspiracy theories.

[leftysergeant]

If only they could get the majority. Oh, wait...



The "right wing" control of the media? That's sarcasm, right? Every single survey ever done on the subject has over 80% of the news media leaning democrat.

The owners of the major news outlets exercise control over what stories get pushed off the front pages. They pick the editorial staff. Electing a Democratic majority is hardly a high priority of entrepreneurs who wish to see the ownership of news outlets further consolidated.

It doesn't matter how liberal the writers and repporters are if the editors are Friedmanites.

[David Wong]

There is a lot of conspiracy theory nonsense about election fraud, but unfortunately the partisans for each side only recognize the nuttiness of the claims from the other side. So it boils down to politics, which is where this thread really belongs despite the fact that much of it is "woo".

That, and the fact that there has likely never been a completely fraud-free election in the history of democracy. The system is imperfect, and nobody cares when one side wins 80-20. But when you have a razor-close election you can theorize until the end of time about a thousand votes here and five thousand voters there. If the electronic machines are set to create a paper trail, the accusation will simply shift to claim the paper trail has been faked.

We'll have this every time an election is close, regardless of the voting method.

[Architect]

And those of us who are in countries employing single transferable voting are always guaranteed to have close elections....

[defaultdotxbe]

thank you to leftysergeant for trying to answer at least one of my questions, however it seems to boil down to conspiracy mad-libs

"people are speaking out, but we dont hear about it because of the <group of bad guys>-controlled media"

is there evidence of liberal writers having their stories suppressed? do people talk of hard-hitting leftist articles that never seem to get published? (im honestly asking here)

i was the editor-in-chief of my college newspaper for one and a half semesters, and im quite familiar with pressures to print the "proper" type of articles (in my case it was local fluff and national news, they didnt want us running anything critical of the school or school board, but we did anyway, so i wonder if such pressures are more successful on the professional level)

i honestly hope the answer isnt that other conspiracy staple "they are afraid of losing their jobs"

[rwguinn]

The owners of the major news outlets exercise control over what stories get pushed off the front pages. They pick the editorial staff. Electing a Democratic majority is hardly a high priority of entrepreneurs who wish to see the ownership of news outlets further consolidated.

It doesn't matter how liberal the writers and repporters are if the editors are Friedmanites.
Take it to politics!
We all know that the Republicans control the media and conspire to keep the Democrats disenfranchised, except when the Democrats are in the White House, when it's the other way around.

[pomeroo]

The owners of the major news outlets exercise control over what stories get pushed off the front pages. They pick the editorial staff. Electing a Democratic majority is hardly a high priority of entrepreneurs who wish to see the ownership of news outlets further consolidated.

It doesn't matter how liberal the writers and repporters are if the editors are Friedmanites.


You are simply wrong. The major dailies in this country, with the exception of the Wall Street Journal are liberal-left. The shamelessness of the N.Y. Times, the Washington Post, and the L.A. Times in blacking-out all good news from Iraq, while shouting bad news from the rooftops, serves the national interest very poorly.

[Brainster]

this comes up in passing a lot but i never see much in-depth discussion, hopefully this thread can serve as a place for that

personally i have a few questions for those who beleive fraud occurred (this is all those who feel bush/republicans are guilty, and pomeroo who feels kerry/democrats are guilty)

1) how many in the opposing party(s) must be ignoring evidence for this not to be a major talking point in congress?

2) if this conspiracy extends from the municipal level all the way up to the presidential candidate how many within the part must be covering it up?

3) how many "operatives" must exist in various municipalities for this to be effective? by the time swing states are identified i would think its too late to get someone in a position to get rid of ballots, and how many counties must they be ready to try to commit fraud in to assure it will swing the results?

it seems to me that election fraud conspiracy theories suffer from the same problem as all others, too many people on both sides would have to keep quiet about it

Election fraud is probably generally only done on a local, even individual basis. Even if the Diebold machines were set to change a fixed percentage of votes to the Republicans from the Democrats, how many people would know about it? If they're sensible only a very, very few. This is the flip side of the argument that too many people would know and one would blab; if you're trying to arrange a conspiracy like this, you make darn sure that only a very select few know about it.

Of course, in machine politics (like Boss Tweed in NY or Papa Daley in Chicago) things can be different because there is such pervasive control of the levers of power.

[Derwoods]

You are simply wrong. The major dailies in this country, with the exception of the Wall Street Journal are liberal-left. The shamelessness of the N.Y. Times, the Washington Post, and the L.A. Times in blacking-out all good news from Iraq, while shouting bad news from the rooftops, serves the national interest very poorly.

So who is behind this liberal bias? Why is it that people who deal with information be it reporters or educators tend to lean left while people who deal with money and power tend to lean right? Have conservative newspapers been illegally crushed by liberal forces or were they just not popular?

[rwguinn]

You are simply wrong. The major dailies in this country, with the exception of the Wall Street Journal are liberal-left. The shamelessness of the N.Y. Times, the Washington Post, and the L.A. Times in blacking-out all good news from Iraq, while shouting bad news from the rooftops, serves the national interest very poorly.
Take
It
To

POLITICS!

[defaultdotxbe]

Election fraud is probably generally only done on a local, even individual basis. Even if the Diebold machines were set to change a fixed percentage of votes to the Republicans from the Democrats, how many people would know about it? If they're sensible only a very, very few. This is the flip side of the argument that too many people would know and one would blab; if you're trying to arrange a conspiracy like this, you make darn sure that only a very select few know about it.

Of course, in machine politics (like Boss Tweed in NY or Papa Daley in Chicago) things can be different because there is such pervasive control of the levers of power.
the most prevalent theories ive heard are simply that ballots from registered democrats were thrown in the garbage in florida and ohio, so we should impeach bush

now throwing ballots away i can see as an action taken by an individual or small group of individuals, but then you want to charge bush with the crime would mean the instructions to dispose of the ballots must have come from him, since i dont think he was communicating directly with people down the municipal level this automatically involves many more people, plus if it goes than high theres probably plans in place to be able to swing more than 1 or 2 counties, which leads to my questions in the OP

even with diebold machines, i work in a software company and we have over a hundred programmers that have access to our source code, since diebold is a larger company im sure they have more developers, how many would have to be in on it to keep it a secret?

if a bit of malicious code was inserted when the source reached the supervior level for approval how could it be certain this wouldnt cause unforseen problems? (surely the test department would notice if the machines were swinging to the right, so any modification must have been made above this level as well)

and when the software comes back for a bug fix, this mmalicious bit of code would have to removed before it goes back to the developers, then put back in afterward (with the same concerns as before)


its easy to say "if i were going to pull off this conspiracy id make sure only a handful of people are involved" but actually being able to pull something off with just a few people is very different

[dudalb]

This Thread needs to go to politics immediately.

[Brainster]

its easy to say "if i were going to pull off this conspiracy id make sure only a handful of people are involved" but actually being able to pull something off with just a few people is very different

Yep. Just like rigging the Twin Towers for demolition.

[defaultdotxbe]

This Thread needs to go to politics immediately.
is organized election fraud that extends from the municipal level (where it would have to be comitted) to the office for the president (whom people want to punish over it) not a conspiracy theory?

i agree it has political implications, and im sure there are posts here that would be better off in politics, but my OP pertains to the conspiracy theories of the event

[JAStewart]

You are simply wrong. The major dailies in this country, with the exception of the Wall Street Journal are liberal-left. The shamelessness of the N.Y. Times, the Washington Post, and the L.A. Times in blacking-out all good news from Iraq, while shouting bad news from the rooftops, serves the national interest very poorly.
One thing to say on it: These newspapers wouldn't be popular is people didn't buy them, and people who buy them obviously enjoy how it is written, so is it fair to say that Righties assume the left-wing bias because left-wing media is more widly read? If people didn't like the left and liberalism, Fox's ratings would be through the roof, and the NYTimes would flop.

Arg sorry for the politics post.

[chillzero]

Please keep on topic in this thread to the subject of conspiracies to adjust election results. If you don't, it will be moved to Politics.

[Brainster]

One thing to say on it: These newspapers wouldn't be popular is people didn't buy them, and people who buy them obviously enjoy how it is written, so is it fair to say that Righties assume the left-wing bias because left-wing media is more widly read? If people didn't like the left and liberalism, Fox's ratings would be through the roof, and the NYTimes would flop.

Fox ratings through the roof? Check (http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4236).

NY Times flopping? Check (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003667950).

[Gravy]

this comes up in passing a lot but i never see much in-depth discussion, hopefully this thread can serve as a place for thatThere is an extensive thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=82360) on that in this subforum, and others in the politics subforum.

[JimBenArm]

Please keep on topic in this thread to the subject of conspiracies to adjust election results. If you don't, it will be moved to Politics.
Is this a promise? Can I hold you to that?

[LastChild]

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen

[Disbelief]

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen

Did you note the author? I have trouble thinking that he could be unbiased. I have no opinion one way or the other on the matter, especially since there is zero we can do about who is in the White House at this point.

[LastChild]

Did you note the author? I have trouble thinking that he could be unbiased. I have no opinion one way or the other on the matter, especially since there is zero we can do about who is in the White House at this point.

I read it when it first came out and thought it was interesting.

For the other side here's a critique of his article...

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

And Kennedy's response to the critique (I haven't read these yet)...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/06/06/rfk_responds/

[Disbelief]

I read it when it first came out and thought it was interesting.

For the other side here's a critique of his article...

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

And Kennedy's response to the critique (I haven't read these yet)...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/06/06/rfk_responds/

Thank you. Hopefully, I will get a chance to read them later.

[PixyMisa]

This thread needs three cc's of laughing dog, stat!

[JimBenArm]

:dl::dl::dl:

There you go, Dr.!

[Brainster]

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen

Kennedy's article is really a classic of conspiracy theorizing. Manjoo does an excellent job (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/03/kennedy/) of providing a point-by-point analysis of the claims, so I thought I might take a step back and look at the flaws that fit with the other conspiracy theories.

1. Ignoring the experts. Kennedy's section on the exit polls notes that:

In fact, the exit poll created for the 2004 election was designed to be the most reliable voter survey in history. The six news organizations -- running the ideological gamut from CBS to Fox News -- retained Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International,(22) whose principal, Warren Mitofsky, pioneered the exit poll for CBS in 1967(23) and is widely credited with assuring the credibility of Mexico's elections in 1994.

But when it comes time to examine what went wrong with the exit polling, Kennedy discounts Mitofsky's explanation:

According to Mitofsky, Bush partisans were simply disinclined to talk to exit pollsters on November 2nd(34) -- displaying a heretofore unknown and undocumented aversion that skewed the polls in Kerry's favor by a margin of 6.5 percent nationwide.(35)

In fact, as Manjoo notes, the exit polls over the last few elections have consistently overstated the Democratic percentage.

2. Calculation of the impossible odds. We've seen this type of claim in the conspiracy theory section quite often:

According to Steven F. Freeman, a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in research methodology, the odds against all three of those shifts occurring in concert are one in 660,000.

Flaw, class? That's right, you cannot calculate the odds against a past event occurring and think you have proven the event could not have occurred. In addition, Freeman's calculation makes a core assumption that the exit polls must have been right. If you assume that the expert, Mitofsky, is right, the odds calculation is meaningless.

3. Claims of bias on the part of officials. This is of course not as ridiculous as it is in the conspiracy theories, but Kenneth Blackwell does perform something of the same role as Philip Zelikow for the Ohio vote conspiracy theorist. I also found this part particularly amusing. Talking about the "caging" claim:

Not that anyone was given a chance to actually show up and defend their right to vote: Notices to challenged voters were not only sent out impossibly late in the process, they were mailed to the very addresses that the Republicans contended were faulty. (italics in original)

Given that these were the supposed mailing addresses that the people had used when registering to vote, it hardly seems ridiculous to send the notices there; is there some alternative address that Kennedy would suggest?

4. Mysterious doings highlighted that essentially mean nothing, but they add to the "cumulative argument" so beloved by David Ray Griffin. We may not have a small amount of good evidence for our theory, but we have a lot of very poor evidence!

The most transparently crooked incident took place in Warren County. In the leadup to the election, Blackwell had illegally sought to keep reporters and election observers at least 100 feet away from the polls. (190) The Sixth Circuit, ruling that the decree represented an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment, noted ominously that ''democracies die behind closed doors.'' But the decision didn't stop officials in Warren County from devising a way to count the vote in secret. Immediately after the polls closed on Election Day, GOP officials -- citing the FBI -- declared that the county was facing a terrorist threat that ranked ten on a scale of one to ten. The county administration building was hastily locked down, allowing election officials to tabulate the results without any reporters present.

Cue spooky music. But regardless of how the vote was tallied in Warren County, any skullduggery would appear to be minimal. In 2000, Bush got 71.6% of the vote in Warren County (ignoring third party candidates) while in 2004 he got 72.3% of the vote (again, ignoring third party candidates) If we arbitrarily say that Bush should not have gotten a higher percentage in 2004 than in 2000 and we decrease Bush's vote count and increase Kerry's the result is a 1300-vote swing, about 1% of what Kerry would have needed to win the state.

6. More suspect "evidence". Kennedy claims that Kerry should have gotten 80,000 more votes and Bush 80,000 fewer in 12 rural counties. This is his "smoking gun" because almost all of the evidence he's come up with so far can't be quantified; a 160,000 vote swing would undeniably have resulted in Bush winning fraudulently. How does Kennedy arrive at this result?

One key indicator of fraud is to look at counties where the presidential vote departs radically from other races on the ballot. By this measure, John Kerry's numbers were suspiciously low in each of the twelve counties -- and George Bush's were unusually high.

Take the case of Ellen Connally, a Democrat who lost her race for chief justice of the state Supreme Court. When the ballots were counted, Kerry should have drawn far more votes than Connally -- a liberal black judge who supports gay rights and campaigned on a shoestring budget. And that's exactly what happened statewide: Kerry tallied 667,000 more votes for president than Connally did for chief justice, outpolling her by a margin of thirty-two percent. Yet in these twelve off-the-radar counties, Connally somehow managed to outperform the best-funded Democrat in history, thumping Kerry by a grand total of 19,621 votes -- a margin of ten percent.(181) The Conyers report -- recognizing that thousands of rural Bush voters were unlikely to have backed a gay-friendly black judge roundly rejected in Democratic precincts -- suggests that ''thousands of votes for Senator Kerry were lost.''(182)

Statewide, the president outpolled Thomas Moyer, the Republican judge who defeated Connally, by twenty-one percent. Yet in the twelve questionable counties, Bush's margin over Moyer was fifty percent -- a strong indication that the president's certified vote total was inflated. If Kerry had maintained his statewide margin over Connally in the twelve suspect counties, as he almost assuredly would have done in a clean election, he would have bested her by 81,260 ballots. That's a swing of 162,520 votes from Kerry to Bush -- more than enough to alter the outcome. (183)

All very interesting and very indirect. But Manjoo points out one flaw; that down-ticket candidates often do outperform the presidential candidates. Kerry was very well-known to voters; Connally, despite being black and "gay-friendly" may have been completely unknown to these people.

And a quantitative look at the numbers reveals that Kennedy's mistake here is very similar to his mistake in Warren County; the numbers just aren't there.

Let's take a look at the 12 "suspect" counties. First, in 2000, those counties voted for Bush by a large margin. Ignoring the third party candidates, Bush got 67.4% of the vote while Gore only managed 32.6%. In 2004, Bush upped that to 69.5% to Kerry's 30.5%. Very suspicious indeed. But looking at the big picture, what would it take to swing 80,000 votes to Kerry in those twelve "suspect" counties?

And that's where Kennedy's claim is exposed for the nonsense that it is. You see, these really are rural counties so the idea of shaking an 80,000 vote swing out of them is contrived. Bush got 382,000 votes in those counties, so we reduce that to 302,000. And we up Kerry's 168,000 to 248,000. So Bush got 54.9% in those twelve counties, as compared to his 67.4% the prior election a 12.5 percentage point decline in Bush's share of the major party vote in those twelve counties between 2000 and 2004. How does that stack up with the rest of Ohio? Well, actually Bush didn't lose 12.5 percentage points compared to 2000 in any other county. His worst performance was about a 5 percentage point drop.

7. Selective quoting. Manjoo points out that Kennedy's article draws heavily on a report prepared by the Democratic Party. But as Manjoo gleefully points out, Kennedy ignores the conclusion of that report:

And that same source -- the Democratic Party's report once again -- notes conclusively: "Despite the problems on Election Day, there is no evidence from our survey that John Kerry won the state of Ohio." But Kennedy doesn't tell you that.

Another terrific example provided by Manjoo:

The first salient omission comes in paragraph 5, when Kennedy writes, "In what may be the single most astounding fact from the election, one in every four Ohio citizens who registered to vote in 2004 showed up at the polls only to discover that they were not listed on the rolls, thanks to GOP efforts to stem the unprecedented flood of Democrats eager to cast ballots." To back up that assertion, Kennedy cites "Democracy at Risk," the report the Democrats released last June.

That report does indeed point out that many people -- 26 percent -- who first registered in 2004 did not find their names on the voter rolls at polling places. What Kennedy doesn't say, though, is that the same study found no significant difference in the share of Kerry voters and Bush voters who came to the polls and didn't find their names listed. The Democrats' report says that 4.2 percent of Kerry voters were forced to cast a "provisional" ballot and that 4.1 percent of Bush voters were made to do the same -- a stat that lowers the heat on Kennedy's claim of "astounding" partisanship.

8. Backwards logic. As we never tire of pointing out with conspiracy theorists, Kennedy starts with a conclusion and sifts backwards looking for evidence to support that conclusion.

9. The media (including segments that seem unlikely to be Republican supporters) are in on it:

Republicans derided anyone who expressed doubts about Bush's victory as nut cases in ''tinfoil hats,'' while the national media, with few exceptions, did little to question the validity of the election. The Washington Post immediately dismissed allegations of fraud as ''conspiracy theories,''(1) and The New York Times declared that ''there is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale.''(2)

[dudalb]

is organized election fraud that extends from the municipal level (where it would have to be comitted) to the office for the president (whom people want to punish over it) not a conspiracy theory?

i agree it has political implications, and im sure there are posts here that would be better off in politics, but my OP pertains to the conspiracy theories of the event

Yes election fraud can be a legititmate conspriacy dicussion,but this particular discusion has deterioted into a political yelling match.

[GreNME]

If only they could get the majority. Oh, wait...

51% isn't much of a majority when it takes 60% to over-ride the Executive.

Besides, it was SCOTUS who made the final decision in 2000, not Congress.

[fezzic]

It takes 2/3 in both chambers to override a veto. 3/5 in a given chamber to ensure cloture. 50%+1 to pass legislation in either chamber or choose a President (House) or Vice President (Senate) in the event that the States really screw up.

[dudalb]

It takes 2/3 in both chambers to override a veto. 3/5 in a given chamber to ensure cloture. 50%+1 to pass legislation in either chamber or choose a President (House) or Vice President (Senate) in the event that the States really screw up.
Correct except that some legislation..Constitutional Amendments for instance...takes two thirds to pass. And then it has to go to the states for ratification.