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2004 Election Weirdness Continues
I've read dozens of submissions about election anomalies in the last week and they show no sign of slowing so I've decided to post a few of the main ones here to let you all discuss them. The first is the Common Dreams report
that shows that
optically scanned votes have a strange anomoly in florida: the Touchscreen counties roughly matched up to party registration numbers, but optically scanned paper ballot counties showed strangeness like one county where 69.3% registered democrat, but only 28% of them voted for Kerry.
Palm Beach County, Florida logged 88,000 more votes than there were voters;
that machines in LaPorte, Indiana discounted 50,000 voters;
in Columbus, Ohio voting machines gave Bush an extra 4,000 votes;
in Broward County, Florida voting machines were counting backwards;
Lastly,
precincts in New Mexico gave provisional ballots that will never be counted to as many as 10% of all their voters.
Yes, but are any of these anomalies statistically significant? If not, it's just random noise regardless of the source.
The owls are not what they seem
Can the potential difference in votes amount to a larger number than the margins by which either candidate won in a given state?
If not, the only concern should be to correct the problems and not to overturn the election right?
Blaze a trail to the New World
The Florida Election "inconsistencies" page was emailed to me earlier. Here's what I sent to my friend in reply:
Well, it's interesting, but that's not a useful study, just a dump of a bunch of numbers. There has been at least one serious documented instance of major electronic voting machine failure/fraud in Ohio (the precinct that counted 4,000 too many Bush votes), but this isn't even an analysis let alone proof of anything in Florida.
They list number of registered Republicans and Democrats, but don't show how those same countries voted in the last Presidential election, and more importantly, they don't show any exit poll results.
Exit polls, bitching aside, are probably the most important way we have of validating actual voter result numbers county-by-county and precinct-by-precinct. The best way to flag fraud is to note when the exit polls are substantially out of line with actual returns, and particularly if they are out of line in a systematic (and unpredicted) way.
Beyond that, I have several questions about these numbers shown.
While I have every reason to distrust Diebold given their atrocious history of faulty machines and rabid partisanship, it's hard to believe that a conspiracy of three vendors, all of whom sold optical scan machines to different precincts, worked together to create this fraud.
Furthermore, the most rural counties seem to be the ones that had the most radically Republican results, despite Democratic voter registrations. This just seems to be in pattern with the rest of the South - the thing about Florida as any long time resident will tell you is that southern Florida, and its urban parts in general are culturally much closer to the Northeast, while the rest of Florida is culturally much closer to the South (the accents follow the same pattern too - they speak with a Southern drawl in a lot of the rest of the state).
And registered Democrats voting Republican in a Presidential election en masse is not news to the South.
So to demonstrate anything meaningful - show me the exit poll numbers side by side, and then let's see if there is any consistent and suspicious looking discrepancy not explained by the major cultural divides within Florida, or the extensive attention paid by Republicans to the I4 corridor area in their campaigning.
what is being alleged is that the E-voting machines are buggy at best, registering obvious erros with no paper trail to offer an alternative counting method.
John Kerry's name is mentioned nowhere in the article. Its just about the quirks of the voting system, which should by and large be fixed. Stop being so defensive, not everything centers around Bush stealing an election.
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
Well, to start you can look at all the red states occupying the middle of America where religion and vales matter more than facts. It still amazes me that people are willing to cast a vote based on religious reasons. I mean, it's not like a Christian ever did anything immoral, illegal, or just plain mean; it's statistically impossible. A mans religious beliefs are a good indicator of his ability to rule justly.... Right.
Which certainly could be true. But if they are indeed this widespread, I would have to say the election couldnt have reflected accurately what the people voted. With an election as close as this, wouldnt you feel better if they did it again and found Bush still won, rather then not approaching it, and wondering for the next 4 years...?
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Who says the votes were in Kerry's favor? The link you pointed doesn't even mention it at all.
This is a non-issue that Drudge invented, anyway. The machines hadn't been reset from the year previous; so someone reset them that morning as they were setting up which is why they check the things in the first place. Drudge reported this as "Machine reports extra votes!!!" and implied that it must have been a boon to Kerry, but there's no evidence that was the case.
Nothing to see here. Go look at the results from 2000 and they show the same thing:
http://www.duke.edu/~mth6/florida2000.xls
I bet that if you took the time to look at 96, 92, etc, you'd see the same trend. For some reason a bunch of voters in those precincts register as Democrats, but always vote for Republicans.
-Matt
Duke '05
That was the error in a single precinct.
However, if just one such error occured in each of Ohio's counties (88) then Bush would have 350K extra votes.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Ah the vote count is irrelevant. It's virtually all noise with no signal.
And it's all because of the multiple choice ballot. People go in there and pick red or blue. So when someone with no real clue goes in, he does eenie-meenie-miney-moe, and chalks up another in the Kerry or Bush column. Pure noise. All the "get out the vote" drives just serve to amplify the noise. People who think they have to vote "the lesser of two evils" just amplify the noise. Not liking Bush is not the same as supporting Kerry. Polls seemed to show that most of Americans didn't like either of them.
So now I'm supposed to believe 52% of Americans want Bush as president? I don't. I believe he won, but his mandate isn't that strong. The fact that most ballots present you with two choices makes the result pure noise.
With a write-in ballot, like the country used to use, we would see some numbers that accurately reflect the american voters. When someone clueless goes in and doesn't take it seriously, he writes in "Pee Wee Herman", and we can easily identify it as noise, and ignore it.
Then we'd see some meaningful stats as the result of the election. We'd probably see GWB at 20%, Kerry at maybe 15%, and all of these third partie guys at 10% or lower. Bush still goes to the White House, but there's no "52% of America is behind him" falsities behind it. Those numbers are completely made up, but I'm sure thats how an election would look. That's how they look in every other democracy that doesn't buy into this two-party crap.
What I'm getting at is, it's not a two party system, but you combine the multiple choice ballot with rules to make it nigh-impossible for anyone else to get on the ballot, mix it up with the current debate formats - which are openly set up to exclude any third parties, and you have a recipe for meaningless bullshit joke of an election.
So who cares if the machines work or not. Flipping a fucking coin would just as adequately represent the will of the american people. Bush/Kerry/Clinton whatever. Many, if not most, are sick of the same old party lines and stump speeches.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Did any of you catch the open letter to Republicans? I noticed it on The Register today. Sure, the letter is flamebait, but it's funny flamebait. :)
Get your own free personal location tracker
So, you're a Canadian too, eh?
Mark your ballot.
Election worker takes said ballot and scans it electronically, in front of you while you watch.
Election worker folds said ballot in 1/2 and hands you back said ballot.
You deposit said ballot in ballot box.
Done.
Paper ballots ALWAYS have precidence over electronic tabulation.
Not too hard at all.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Great post, and since you're capped as far as moderation goes, I'll reply.
I agree with you 100%. People may say "well even if the voting wasn't skewed he would have won" there should BE NO IF! I don't see why they can't get it right... I'm thinking why can't there be a central database in each state with a list of all of the registered SS#s. You could then allow people to vote from their computer if you wanted to. You'd just use a standard PC at the polls and have people click their votes. It would be hard to fraud since you'd have to know someone's SS# and district. Hell, you could lock SS#s to districts to prevent brute forcing votes through via scripting. I'm sure there's some security issues i'm missing, but even this idea seems more secure than what we've got right now. I do think this is probably the way voting is going, though. But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Let me know if you think so.
-matt
Nothing to see here. Go look at the results from 2000 and they show the same thing:
The effect was notably more extreme in these areas this time around. This explaination is the City/Rural arguement, where the Dixiecrats tend to vote Dem in local elections, but vote Rep for national elections. This is disprovable because the Op-scan machines even show this skew in non-rural precincts.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
Which decisions would that be?
Dude, you have some strange interests if Bush has them in mind. You are not doing an intern in Halburtan by any chance?
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~adamsb6/elections/
New: Florida is reporting more votes in the presidential election than it is reporting citizens that turned out to vote. Adding all the presidential race votes reported by the Florida Department of State here yields a total of 7,588,422 votes. The Florida Department of State reports here that voter turnout totalled only 7,350,900. That's a difference of 237,522. 3.1% of Florida's presidential votes were in excess of the number of voters in the election. 380,952 votes separate the President and John Kerry in Florida.
A lot of people have been trying to dismiss this as a statistical anomoly. Let me throw a couple of numbers at you to show how unlikely this explanation is.
.9% (that's less than one percent) more Democrats than expected.
In the touchscreen counties, there were roughly 29% more Republicans voting than expected and 26% more Democrats than expected
In the optical scan counties, there were roughly 46% more Republicans than expected and
Read the common dreams report on that one - it's pretty thorough. This, along with the unprecedented inaccuracy of the exit polls should make everyone suspicious. Don't let them get away with it just because your side won.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
Ah, that is a rather damning piece of information that I was not aware of. Looking at these numbers in light of that information gives a somewhat different perspective on them, and certainly removes some of my incredulity about fraud collaboration.
There is still a big question about how much of this is explained by geography and cultural differences between parts of Florida, but I'm willing to admit that there is at least a possibility that this could indicate large scale biases intentionally inserted into some of the voting systems used in key swing states.
I fail to see what values have to do with voting for a man that has so much contempt for the middle class American. I mean, as long as you don't work for a government contractor, own stock, or belong to the religious majority, there is little most people have in common with him. Then again, it's not like many people have much in common with Kerry either.
Can anyone really say, with a straight face, that they were satisfied with the two choices the system provided us with? Was there a good reason that the race was Bush v. Kerry instead of McCain V. Dean other than the bullshit notion of primaries? It disgusts me to no end that petty political difference can so blind the public that they forget that hedonistic political parties exist to serve themselves above all else.
~ - Not to suggest that counting the votes by hand is perfectly adequate, but while the politicians are out to waste money, they might as well waste it well.
PS - an even simpler solution to tied results would of course be to get rid of the two party system and electoral voting crap and go with a parliamentary system like Canada's, but everyone knows they're a bunch of no-good commies.
In the great CONS chain of life, you can either be the CAR or be in the CDR.
Nova Express is an example of the "cut-up method" where Burroughs litterally cut up works he had writen and put them back together in an attempt to break away from internal forumlas. So if its hard to follow don't be suprised.
An interesting note, Burrough uncle is credited with inventing modern P.R. for the Standard Oil Company after a massacre of workers. I tired to argue in a paper that Burroughs was attempting to create ways to deprogram people as a reaction to his Uncle's invention.
With dozens of glaring, huge irregularities who could possibly get arrested if some subtle irregularities voted red but were only noticed a month after the election? Among how many individuals could the blame be potentially spread so no one gets as much as a slap on the wrists for it? The government would just say "Diebold will do better next time" and leave it at that??
...but some oil companies, some giant software company who contributed red and not blue, and some defense contractors could decide to rig a few machines. If only to be well-prepared to rig more and not get caught next time.
There will be more irregularities noticed. It's that way with software. And many of those irregularities won't be fixed for the next election, either (as proven by Diebold versions over time after bugs were known).
By the way no need to fix ALL an election to rig it. Just say 3% of machines. Or get all Diebold to turn a Kerry vote into a Bush vote 3% of the time. Swap a few memory cards at the point where they're in the hand of one individual per county.
Memory cards aren't all there when you ask them for recount, either. If you are in power you can get the FBI all over it or to ignore it completely, while if you're NOT in power it's better to concede so you don't look like a whiner in front of the people that don't understand software and engineering bugs or centuries of voting fraud VS countermesures.
What we needed is decades of a pilot program in a small number of counties to get the technology and process right. Not a widespread "32767 is enough for everybody" mess!!
And to top it off, I think Bush would still have gotten elected on paper because he's so incredibly good at manipulating emotions rather than intellect. Monkey see, monkey do!
I'm most definitively in favor of some hacker adding exactly 30000 votes to every third party loon on some machines and putting a sticker on the machine notifying everyone of how easy it was.
If Windows were so secure on a Diebold, I'd like to see that Windows on the shelves. It takes only 5 minutes for my 12 year old to disable any kind of password, filters, chat logging, or game-time-limiting software I made or bought. But at least one day he MAY BE PRESIDENT! (-;
Microsoft is pure dog-ma. FreeBSD is pure cat-ma.
Never said that. And I'm sure there are plenty of Bush voters who know exactly what's going on, but they're just sick fucks if you ask me.
when in fact many people simply do not agree with liberals and Democrats. It's this disconnect with reality and mainstream America that cost the liberals the election.
Hey, it's cool if you're not into the welfare state and higher taxes.
But remember, you still voted for a guy who illegally invaded a sovereign country on false pretenses and couldn't even do that right.
Worst of all, its impact on making Americans safer from terrorism has been completely negative, serving only to speed up the process of breeding new terror cells. So I might be arrogant, but at least I'm not short-sighted or confused.
As long as you--and people like you--continue to engage in this arrogance and deny the reality that your political preferences are in the minority you will continue to lose elections.
Yeah, sorry about that. I realize that my desire to see people happy, healthy and protected seems like just so much hippie crap to you, but I just can't stand the 'law of the jungle' rationale that so many conservatives use as the bedrock of their principles. We don't live in caves any more, you know.
Oh, and I've been in the minority all my life and I'm quite happy, thank you. But it doesn't mean I'm not right.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
You're living in a fucking Horatio Algers dream world.
I suppose you're the same person who thinks the estate tax (now so eagerly termed the death tax by Bush and his corporate hacks) should be removed? The estate tax basically taxes rich people when they die, thus not allowing all the riches from one generation to flow to another. You think that kid who just inherited daddy's fortune deserved it? You think he worked hard for it? Not likely. And now all that inherited income comes to him tax-free. Imagine if you just inherited 10 million dollars. If you had won a lottery, you'd get maybe 6 million after taxes. If your dad had 10 million, now you'd keep the whole lot, tax free.
This 'work hard' crap is a bunch of drivel. It in fact reminds me of the rich Lebowski. It's easy to get up on a high horse when you probably grew up in an upper middle class environment. Yes, there are plenty of slackers out there. But it goes both ways. I'd say probably about 90%-95% of the country fits into a slacker attitude. Not that they don't work, but that they don't work hard regularly. They don't plan in advance, they don't spend 60 hrs at the office every week for that next promotion, they fit into the attitude of regular joe. There are rich slackers and poor slackers. My guess is the rich slackers still make more than the poor slackers. But you give the poor slackers grief for living off the fruits of other peoples' labors. They probably lived in much worse living conditions. They probably never had someone to mentor them, they probably had a single parent who was never around. They grew up in bad schools and had bad teachers and bad influences on all ends. Environment has a lot to do with how one turns out.
I'm also going to guess you're a guy, who probably has no clue what it would be like to be a woman and try to raise a baby kid and go to school at the same time. Hard work? Try nigh impossible. The women who manage to do this, on their own, probably still won't manage to get a great job out of college because they have no connections, and even if they do, their child would suffer.
So don't give me any of this black and white bullshit. It's a grey world.
See, women do have control over their own bodies-- they can choose to not have sex. Abortion as a method of birth control is murder. Abortion for rape/incest victims or those where the life of the mother is threatened, that's fine. But just getting abortions because "Oops, hehe, I got pregnant again!", that's BS.
Oh yeah? So you would support the right of a rape victim to kill her newborn, as I am sure often happened in old times? If not, you are recognizing there is a difference between a fetus and a child.
Also, the risk of a childbirth is close to one of donating a kidney. Would you forcibly drag his/her mother into surgery to donate one if needed for child's survival? Then why force her to risk a similar chance of death for a far less developed organism that is by every measure less sentinent than a cat?