They are O.K. when they validate the chosen candidates of global elites like Calderon in Mexico.
They have been considered reliable for more than 80 years of elections in the United States.
That is, until the year 2000!
Historical Background
Using World War II as a starting, Franklin Delano Roosevelt won reelection for the last of his four presidential victories in 1944. He died three months after being inaugurated, putting his Vice President Harry Truman in the Oval Office. The war ended in 1945, and Truman upset Thomas Dewey in 1948 to win outright his own term as president. At the time of Truman's upset, the U.S. was the only industrialized nation relatively intact after WWII (Prosperity) and the world was exhausted from war (Peace).
In 1950, halfway through Truman's term, the Korean War began, and in 1951, the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution was adopted. The amendment restricted any individual from serving more than two elected terms in office, although an individual such as Truman (and later, Lyndon Johnson) could have served longer due to the assumption of office upon the death of the chief executive.
The Korean War led to Truman's defeat at the hands of Republican Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. Eisenhower, as promised, ended the war in 1953, and was reelected in 1956 during the "Happy Days" 50s that saw a surge of economic growth in middle-class suburbia (Peace and Prosperity).
At the same time, however, the CIA was allowed to run amok in the outside world. Beginning with the overthrow of Mossedeq in Iran in 1953 and Arbenz in Guatemala a year later, the CIA carried the template of "covert destabilization" to other places; Cuba and Vietnam being two notable examples.
Remarkably, the sitting Vice President Richard Nixon loses the 1960 presidential election to Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy during a time of Peace and Prosperity for the American people. It is a historical fact that Kennedy used Mob help in Chicago and the infamously legendary Texas district in Lyndon Johnson (Kennedy's Vice Presidential running mate) that always supplied the necessary margin of votes for victory, to steal the election. Nixon also led in the polls going into election day!
When Kennedy turned against the Establishment's plans, he was eliminated by execution. After Kennedy's death, Johnson won the 1964 election against Barry Goldwater by (ironically) portraying himself as the "peace" candidate. Johnson also benefited from his Great Society Program of 1964, the Prosperity leg of winning a presidential election. One year later, Johnson invades Vietnam with a heavy military presence.
By 1968, Vietnam and internal strife (including assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy) have so ripped apart America that Johnson is forced to withdraw from the nominating process (no Peace), and his Vice President Hubert Humphrey loses the general election to Republican Richard Nixon.
By 1972, Nixon and his cabinet (including the illustrious Henry Kissinger) have convinced America that "peace is at hand." Economic problems are masked enough so that Nixon destroys Democrat George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election; however, Nixon's "dirty tricks" political operations begin to get exposure in 1973. Nixon operatives had been busted trying to bug the Democrats' national headquarters at the Watergate hotel.
More than dirty tricks are exposed, including campaign sabotage and smear campaigns vs. Democrats. Nixon's crew manipulated the campaign to drive out the strongest Democrat (Senator Edmund Muskie), and draw the weaker McGovern.
Nixon then cuts a deal with Vice President Gerald Ford; Presidency for Pardon. Ford accepts Nixon's resignation in August 1974. The baggage of Watergate and subsequent pardon of Nixon doom Ford as he loses to Democrat Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election. Vietnam had ended in 1975, but Ford was victimized by economic inflation and the Prosperity factor.
Carter was a one-term president because he had neither Peace nor Prosperity. Inflation shot through the roof, and gas lines were long due to the 1979 oil embargo. Carter lectures Americans on their "malaise," then finds his Peace angle gone when Iran seizes American hostages. Adding to the war woes, the Soviets invade Afghanistan in 1980, causing Carter to declare Persian Gulf oil tantamount to U.S. National Security.
What is forgotten is that U.S. covert ops in Afghanistan began under Carter. Zbignew Brzezinski, the former Carter National Security Adviser, is actually proud of the fact that they used Islamic jihadists to bring down the Soviet Empire. Brzezinski claims there is no comparison between the destruction of an empire and a few "wound-up" Muslim. In his book "The Grand Chessboard," Zbig even goes so far as to outline the Project for the New American Century -- without the inflammatory "catalyzing" and "catastrophic" terminology -- by referring to American resistance to empire and the need to overcome it with some type of "external threat" that would manifest itself as a "Pearl-Harbor-type" event. Strange how a few "wound-up" Muslims that defeated the Soviets would boomerang on us to cause the exact event (9/11) that Zbig said we needed, and that the Neo-Cons called for in "Rebuilding America's Defenses" a year earlier.
With Iran holding the hostages until after the 1980 elections, Carter is doomed to an electoral rout at the hands of Republican Ronald Reagan.
Reagan struggled with the economy early in his first; however, by 1984 it was "Morning in America," and the economy was roaring ahead. Despite fears of Reagan's militarism, Peace reigned in America. Reagan had returned to the 1950s model of covert warfare, escalating the war in Afghanistan, ravaging Latin America (particularly Nicaragua and El Salvador), and arming both sides in the Iran-Iraq conflict (with Kissinger famously saying "Too bad they both can't lose. Well, they both did, to the tune of about ONE MILLION DEAD)!!
With Prosperity and Peace, however, Reagan flattened Democrat Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential contest and won a second term. By the late 1980s, the bankrupt Soviets were suing for Peace, and in 1988, Peace and Prosperity carried Reagan's Vice President George H.W. Bush to an easy election victory over Democrat Michael Dukakis.
Bush the elder would get the bounce after only one term, however. Despite the ending of the Cold War, the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1991, and the lightning-quick victory of Iraq later that year in the first Persian Gulf War, Bush lost the pillar of Prosperity with his need to confront massive budget deficits while showing indifference to the economic suffering of Americans. Bush lost the election in 1992 to Democrat Bill Clinton, whose campaign theme was "It's the economy, stupid."
Under Clinton, the economy took off in the 1990s. The fraudulent dot.com and accounting bubbles would begin leaking in 2000; however, Clinton's time in office was marked by the ever-expanding U.S. economy and no substantial military action to speak of (in terms of U.S casualties, the only factor in American war politics). Clinton managed to extricate himself from the Somalia trap left by Bush early in his first term, and actions in the Balkans did not bring significant U.S. casualties. And hardly anyone had heard of Osama bin Laden.
Thus, Clinton clobbered Republican Bob Dole in the 1996 presidential election, and in the process, won a second term in office.
2000
Heading into the 2000 presidential campaign, political history favored Vice President Al Gore. While the dot.com bubble had burst, the full effects of the financial manipulations and egregious accounting encapsulated by scandals such as Enron had not yet been felt. The bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in October was a provocative act of terrorism; however, it registered as only a blip as America was at Peace.
So what happened?
Gore won the nationwide popular vote by over half-a-million votes, an accurate reflection of American sentiment. Due to the Electoral College, however, the uncertain fate of Florida delayed a decision on election night. By December, the U.S. Supreme Court had decided that election tallies should end, and Republican candidate George W. Bush was declared victor of Florida (by 537 votes), was awarded its electoral votes, and claimed the Presidency. Controversy surrounded the disputed results, with reports of voter intimidation, purging of voter rolls, confusing "butterfly" ballots and the infamous "hanging chads." All in a state governed by George W. bush's brother Jeb! Subsequent news reports and analysis made it clear that had all the votes in Florida been tabulated, Al Gore would have been declared the winner.
After the 2000 debacle, the Help America Vote Act was adopted, converting most election tallies to easily-tampered with machines (hackable in under two minutes) with no paper receipt. We get a receipt for everything in this country, except for the one thing we are supposed to cherish above all else -- the VOTE! This is when the real trouble started, reader.
2002
The first election to entirely use machines -- and have the votes counted entirely by private, not public, officials -- was the state of Georgia. The results were strange and contradictory. Popular Democratic Governor Roy Barnes held an 11-point lead in polls just days before the election, yet lost to Republican Sonny Perdue by 5% (a 16-point swing). Incumbent Democratic Senator Max Cleeland (the Vietnam vet who lost three limbs diving on a grenade to save his buddies, and who resigned from the 9/11 Commission because he didn't want to be part of a "whitewash") led by 5 points over Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss in polls taken just before the election, yet lost by 7% on election day.
And those were not the only strange results:
In Minnesota, former Vice President and favorite son, Democrat Walter Mondale (replacing deceased incumbent Paul Wellstone, who died in a mysterious plane crash), lost to Republican challenger Norm Coleman in a strange, last-minute, 11-point swing in the polls.
In Florida, popular former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno lost the Democratic primary to the weaker Bill McBride, who in turn lost the general election to sitting governor Jeb Bush.
In Massachusetts, Utah Mormon and Republican Mitt Romney defeated popular Democrat Shannon O'Brien in a 75% Democratic state.
2003
Further anomalies were detected in 2003 in the California recall election of Governor Gray Davis. "Black Box" machines helped actor Arnold Schwarzenegger (who had offended -- and continues to offend -- female, Latino, and Jewish voters) beat the popular Latino Democrat Cruz-Bustamente (who held a 5-point lead in polls prior to election day) in a heavily-Democratic state.
