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Berkeley Researchers Analyze Florida Voting Patterns
empraptor writes "Researchers at UC Berkeley have crunched numbers and determined that 130,000-260,000 excess votes went to Bush in Florida. They have held a conference and posted their findings online. You can find articles on their research from CNet, Wired News, and many other sources. While the research used statistical analysis based on past elections and demographics, how else do you verify that a paperless voting system is working properly?"
"Without a paper trail, statistical comparisons of jurisdictions that used e-voting are the only tool available to diagnose problems with the new technology," the researchers stated in the report.
WHY WERE THERE NO PAPER TRAILS? Why are we allowing voting to go on in a system that has NOT been proven safe? We aren't allowed to view the code, we aren't allowed to audit our vote except via what is shown to us on the screen, and we have to invest an enormous amount of trust in two large entities that have proven they are NOT worthy of our trust.
Were people permitted to use paper and pencil/pen or more trusted/tried solutions instead of these machines? I certainly would have opted against using one of the e-voting machines knowing what I know and being the paranoid individual I am.
Until the voting machines and their code are open to the public for audit and there is a paper trail I will refuse to use them. This MUST be an option for everyone. I don't see why it can't be the case.
Some places are requiring a paper audit trail by 2006 but that doesn't help the fact that there could have been some hanky panky going on right here in THIS election.
So they used demographics and past elections to show that Bush got too many votes? Wouldn't counting the actual votes be the way to tell if he got too many votes? Perhaps it should say that Bush got 130-260k more votes than expected?
that mainstream media won't cover this, or make a big deal out of it.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
Berkeley has a fine school and all, but don't you think that it's liberal reputation (deserved or not) might provide the argument that the research is partisan?
Making people realise that paper audit trails are necessary is a lot more important than having your choice of Kerry or Bush for the next 4 years.
The problem is that if a voting machine is programmed to cheat, it is easy enough to fake a paper receipt. I could cast a vote for A, have the screen verify that I am voting for A, receive a printed receipt that tells me I voted for A, and STILL have that vote count for B within the black box.
The paper trail is a red herring, if you ask me. What is really needed is publicly-available source code that anyone can view.
but I _can't_, because there's no way to do so. Because of paperless voting, we have no way short of standard polling techniques to tell if these machines were even close to accurate.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
"The Berkeley analysis uses voting patterns by county from 2000 and 1996, income by county, total population, and Hispanic population to try to explain voting patterns in 2004"
Hispanics are largely Catholics. Catholicism says that abortion and gay marriage are wrong. President Bush believes that same thing. A major issue in this election is values, which these get lumped into.
Did the Berkeley analysis take into account Hispanics voting Republican because they have compatible values? It may explain the discrepancy that Berkeley claims to have uncovered.
Bush and the GOP appear to have used Diebold voting machines to steal yet another election--and Democrats have such a history in promoting lower tech vote fraud they are too cowed to say anything.
When there are open source voting systems around(one was actually used in Australian elections) there is no reason to allow corporate control of voting software.
Now, what is needed is creating a system that has better hard encryptian and authentication. Paper ballots are subject to various forms of tampering--but hard encryption can make any tampering very easy to detect.
The Diebold system was designed with really only one thing in mind: allowing fraud by making recounts impossible.
Considering the way you name him John Fraud Kerry, I rather imagine you would.
Such obvious biasedness betrays your inability to take a step back and realise the facts (whatever they may be).
Any possible fraud should be investigated, no matter how numerically insignificant. (For the record, I dispise both Bush and Kerry, so I'm not on the "Kerry Really Won!" bandwagon).
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
It wasn't in 2000.
We shouldn't stop investigating e-voting just because the elections are "finished for now" - if theres controversy over it now theres a significant chance it'll happen again next time, whoever the voting machines decide wins then.
Linux Wireless Hardware in the UK
So why not just stay home and let the computers decide?
Personally, I'm inclined to believe that mathematically predicting the decisions of human beings is at least as far off as artificial intelligence.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
If it came from a less biased source I might believe it.
And if electronic voting came from a less biased source I might believe it.
I think some people are terribly missing the point with their counter arguments to the findings. Consider the following from the summary of findings:
Compared to counties with paper ballots, counties with electronic voting machines were significantly more likely to show increases in support for President Bush between 2000 and 2004. This effect cannot be explained by differences between counties in income, number of voters, change in voter turnout, or size of Hispanic/Latino population.
Has anyone got an explanation for this?
What unnerves me more than anything is the simple fact that election officials are so adamantly against paper receipts. There is simply no rational explanation for not wanting them. I've heard it said that cost is a factor. But, really now, how much more can a simple tape register add to the cost of a probably already over-priced voting machine with a CRT, a networked computer, and proprietary software inside? Isn't safeguarding democracy and people's faith in it worth spending a few bucks?
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
I'm not karma whoring; I'm trying to get this important information in response to each ignorant post that gets modded up to +5 that doesn't mention there is a BILL ON THE TABLE THAT WILL FIX ALL THE PROBLEMS, i.e., give us a paper trail AND open source code on the systems themselves. Why no one mentions this, and insists on acting like nothing is being done and we're just hopelessly going down this paperless, proprietary road so that evil Republicans can steal all the elections, instead of simply working to fix the problems and supporting the bills that will, is beyond me.
But thanks for your input.
I've said it before, so I'll probably be called redundant, but criticism of a government during wartime is only treasonous in a totalitarian state. In a democracy, criticism of the government during war is patriotic.
In a totalitarian state, the interests of the government are by nature not aligned with the interests of the people. So criticism of the government damages its effort, because it suggests that interests other than those of the government ought to be considered.
In a democratic state, the government is only operating correctly when it represents the interests of the people. However, it is not easy to act in the proper aggregate interest of the entire population. The only way to do so is for the portions of the populace who see the government actions as contrary to their interests to speak out. Thus the government actions can be modified so that the interests of the people are better fulfilled.
This is pretty basic civics, but for some reason it is repeatedly suggested (during Vietnam, and again recently) that the proper interests of the government are somehow disconnected from those of the people when the government decides to go to war. In my viewpoint that is incorrect, especially when it leads to a government that is eager to use war as a device to promote its own interests, thus leading toward totalitarianism.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
I would like to point some facts out:
So why do we have a system that allows a company with the Motive, Means, and Opportunity to rig the vote to use software that is unaccountable, and not to provide a backup papertrail? I would be glad to have Bush as prez if I knew for a fact that the vote was counted right, but I don't know that, and NEITHER DOES ANYONE ELSE on this thread. That is scary.
Also, do people think that voter fraud on this level is implausible? Please understand that it has happened before in this country, and if it happened before why can't it happen today?
It listed no one even remotely acceptable for president that had a snowball's chance.
But the solution to that is instant runnoff. While verification of the actual vote would be nice, we have no record at all of how many people were quite dissatisfied with both candidates. Was it a majority voting out of fear that the stupid system we have would punish them for voting for a third party candidate by giving them their worst nightmare?
the truth is americans are too ignorant to DEMAND accountability. they put their faith into megacorporations to run the country, and the put their faith in megacorporations to administrate the election. proprietary election technology - give me a break!
Researchers have found a correlation between chocolate sales and crime rate. Chocolate must be banned!
Oh, BTW, the years chocolate sales and crime were up also correlate with population.
The above is what I remember of an example of the problem with certain types of statistics. People often see a correlation and jump to the conclusion that there must be some type of causitive effect. That's often not the case and there are often underlying variables (population) that would more readily explain the correlation -if one were to take the time to look for them.
I find it amazing that when democrats question an election they get called "whiny crybabies" but when it's republicans doing it, it's their "constitutional right"! If Bush had lost under these circumstances every other word on AM radio would be "re-count". btw - It has been noted many times that a concession is not legally binding. Although I am sure Kerry will not be our next president so that should not be a concern. The whole point of this discussion is to ensure that each and every vote is counted appropriately and that no candidate gets votes they don't deserve. You may not care now but what if the next voting machines are designed by a known Democratic supporting company instead of the current Republican supporting one. Then you will wish for accountability. I hope I'm here to call you a "whiny crybaby" when the time comes.
What about letting me fill out a paper form with a pencil? No worries about crashing, system malfunctions or crackers, no setup costs, easy recounts, an interface that everyone can understand.
Why the drive for electronic voting? It's an interface that people have never seen before (and won't see again for 2-4 years), is user-unfriendly and overly sensitive and ends up being slower to use for people AND more inaccurate. I got to vote with pencil and paper; voter turnout was far, far higher than I've ever seen it before and I had next to no wait to get in and get out.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
Do you seriously think that this story won't be discredited by neo-con blowhard pundits saying that because the research came from Berkeley, it must be liberal partisanship?
You must not listen to much talk radio or Fox news. I don't blame you for that, but if you don't know what rhetoric and propaganda the opponent uses, you will never prevail.
Shooting messengers like me is why Kerry lost.
So, if it's the hurricane effect, why did this anomaly occur only in states with electronic voting machines? Wouldn't the entire state come out in greater numbers for Bush if the hurricane effect is to blame? If this wasn't voting fraud, it was at least an horrid fault in the machines.
RTFA
Only counties using electronic voting machines showed the increase. Are you claiming that electronic voting machines increase the effect of Bush's post-hurricane visits?
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
A president lying about an extramarital affair is a impeachable offense.
A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is
solid defense policy.
Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy
made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad
guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.
Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade
with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.
A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but
multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind
without regulation.
Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary
Clinton.
The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in
speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.
If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.
Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health
care to all Americans is socialism.
HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at
heart.
Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but
creationism should be taught in schools.
Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution,
which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.
Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a
conservative radio host. Then it's an illness, and you need our prayers
for your recovery.
Thanks for the reply:
WHY WERE THERE NO PAPER TRAILS? Why are we allowing voting to go on in a system that has NOT been proven safe? We aren't allowed to view the code, we aren't allowed to audit our vote except via what is shown to us on the screen, and we have to invest an enormous amount of trust in two large entities that have proven they are NOT worthy of our trust.
There were no paper trails because none were specified as a part of HAVA. Remember, HAVA, the bill that requires e-voting terminals to replace paper systems, *came into being* because of the unfairness that was alleged to have surrounded paper systems in the 2000 election in Florida, and in many other (predominantly poor) areas around the country. And Congress didn't likely ask for open source, because we don't ask for open source in so many other critical systems that we trust with things like power, money, and even our lives. Likely, they just assumed that we'd be able to make accountable systems for e-voting, and really didn't stop to think that our democracy and the voting process is possibly much more important than the other things I mentioned, not out of malice.
Were people permitted to use paper and pencil/pen or more trusted/tried solutions instead of these machines? I certainly would have opted against using one of the e-voting machines knowing what I know and being the paranoid individual I am.
Some precincts did allow the use of paper ballots. Some didn't. But the PAPER BALLOTS, and their associated problems, are what is being blamed, among other things, for some of the problems in the 2000 election! HAVA is trying to make voting consistent and fair for all voters in all jurisdictions, so we should work to fix it! And the bills that are already out there will do just that, adding BOTH a paper trail for each and every vote cast, verified by the voter, PLUS open source code on all e-voting equipment.
Until the voting machines and their code are open to the public for audit and there is a paper trail I will refuse to use them. This MUST be an option for everyone. I don't see why it can't be the case.
Because having multiple systems that have to be administered by local election authorities will complicate matters even more than they are now. We simply must DEMAND that there be a paper trail at a very minimum, and that the code that runs these systems be open for public inspection via some mechanism, period.
Some places are requiring a paper audit trail by 2006 but that doesn't help the fact that there could have been some hanky panky going on right here in THIS election.
Okay, agreed. Let's just say there WAS some malicious hanky panky. Kerry's 3600 lawyers, and all of the major media organizations who searched high and low for a big story (remember how big of a deal Florida 2000 was), didn't think there was ENOUGH hanky panky (or errors) to warrant doing anything about it, since it is universally agreed by these same people that it wasn't enough to change the outcome of the election.
So, given that, let's make sure it's fixed by the NEXT election, yes?
Unless those trails are voter verified, nobody has any way to determine if the trail matches the actual votes cast by the voters.
This is the core problem with electronic voting.
We either need to put the actual vote on paper, or make sure the machine printed votes match voter intent, or the election cannot be trusted.
Blogging because I can...
I'm surprised at all of the partisan comments. After all, if there really is a problem with the electronic voting machines, how do we know that the programming will always favor a republican? Maybe the programming will always favor the incumbant! (Hillary wins next two terms!) Maybe it will always favor the candidate who comes first in the alphabet! (Bart Simpson beats Spongebob Squarepants -- whoda guessed.) Maybe the program will always favor a president named George! We just don't know. For this reason, all of you who think that scientists at Berkeley are challenging George Bush's presidency, forget about it! The real issue here is not whether Bush is president. There is no way he will be removed due to election problems, that just won't happen. So focus on the big picture: If electronic voting doesn't work, it needs to be fixed. For everyone.
Uh, run a test? Before the election, vote for Kerry 50 times. Vote for Bush 50 times. Tally the results. If it's not 50 and 50, something is jacked up. It doesn't seem to be rocket science to me.
That would be an improvement, but still is not in any way proof that the system works. Currently they usually put the system in "test mode" where it puts the test "testing" on the screen, sits idle for a minute, then issues the all ok. But even with testing such as you describe, who is to say the computer won't change the 1000th vote, or the 100-200th votes? Who is to say it won't just look at the totals, then change them in the end? Who is to say there is not a easter egg in the system where you select both candidates simultaneously, then draw your finger along the bottom of the screen and select the candidate you want to win? Without the code, there is no way to know. I'm afraid your solution is not viable.
Let the scientific method work this out.
Peer review is not the scientific method!!
Peer review is supposed to make sure scientific methods get followed.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
While I find the lack of paper trail alarming, I find the failure to get exact results for elections mind-boggling. Calculating election results isn't brain surgery, IT'S COUNTING FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!! The talent you learned in early elementary school! The thing computers are best at! I can see how some ballots might not register correctly, and god knows there are some shitty ballot designs and systems out there, but there should never be errors made in the actual calculating. Ever.
US elections positively reek of either concerted fraud or extreme stupidity, and it's totally unacceptable. Let me point out the glaringly obvious:
1) Not only must there be a paper trail, it should also be hand counted to verify the results from the more rapid machine counting.
2) Makers of "faulty" electronic systems should be indited for treason or fined into poverty.
As for balloting, it's a toss-up between optically counted paper ballots and receipt-printing computer balloting. Paper ballots are cheap and scalable, but can be tampered with (turning a valid ballot into an overvote is as simple as a surreptitious mark/punch from someone handling the ballots in most designs). On the other hand, computer systems are more flexible, prevent under/overvoting, and their paper reciepts are resistant to post-casting fraud and verifiable against the machine tally, but they are expensive and high-maintenance and not scalable at all (though they could have been made a lot cheaper and lower-maintenance - or just used ATMs instead).
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Whenever I see someone attack the credibility of an institution or individual who has published an academic or scientific paper I immediately look to see if the paper is complete and has all the numbers and methodologies included. If it does, as in this case, I wonder, "why are they attacking the source and not the hypothesis? Is it because they looked at the paper and could not find any flaws? Is it because they are an idiot and cannot understand the paper? Are they lazy, and unwilling to even consider the work of others?"
Basically, you just posted a reminder to any critical thinker that most people are stupid, unreasoning, and lazy so I should pay attention to whomever you are attacking instead of you.
Less biased? How so? They publish the source of all of their numbers. They are sources that are readily available to anyone with a web browser and a library card. If you think they cheated, go check the numbers. They publish the raw data on the site and tell you the tests they used. If you think they're cheating, do the calculations yourself. As far as the "large gap for a statistical study," again, how so? According to CNN there were 7,507,727 votes cast in FL. The difference between 130,000 and 260,000 gives us a gap of 130,000. Relative to the data set that we have here, that would be a gap of less than 2% (1.73 to be more precise) of the numbers we're talking about. In what sense is that a "large gap for a statistical study?" If you've got a specific criticism - great! let's hear it.
Personally I think the news article you posted is tripe. There's more than just statistical evidence of fraud (see blackboxvoting.org's report on what they found in Volusia County's garbage.)
:-)
The major media is exhibiting ostrich-like behavior here.
But I do agree with you that activism on the issue of verified voting is lagging a bit, and that in the end a unifying effort to clean up elections is better than a partisan war.
At the risk of saturating my home link, I have prepared a writeup of my observations as I attempted to become more active after the election. It's interesting both as a resource for people working for accountability, whether to question the 2004 results or build public interest in verifiable voting in general, and also as a general look at the way Internet organising is actually a pretty disorganized process.
It's at http://abrij.org/~bri/rants/2004elec.html.
I'll try to keep my cable modem from seizing up too much
Someone had to do it.
How come more people cannot see this simple fact?
Personally, I would prefer we just do what Oregon currently does. Mail out the ballots, everybody marks them and returns them.
We get a paper record of the vote. Actual voting is distributed in both time and space, making large scale fraud very tough. Counting is centralized and observed.
Plus, the actual election happens over the course of a couple weeks, making the last minute smear tactics far less effective, or at the least very expensive to run.
I think your machine would work however.
Blogging because I can...
FTFA:
After they removed the effects of all of those factors they ended up with 99.0% confidence that e-voting corrolated to extra bush-votes.
Do you get it yet? Could it be something else that they didn't include as a variabe? Sure, but only if it was somehow specifically different in e-voting areas.
Of course 99% isn't 100%, but lets get real for a minute ok?
Exactly what meaning is that supposed to have?
We were all taught in 3rd grade that "democracy" meant the citizens voted on everything and that is what they did in Athens or something and that this country was a "democratic republic", but this sort of distinction has nothing to do with anything I said. If you ask President Bush if the USA is a democracy, he will tell you that it is; if you ask Senator Kerry if the USA is a democracy, he will also tell you that it is.
Words evolve over time, and in this case, I am referring to the meaning of "democracy" as a government whose institutions of power are controlled by the citizens. If you look in a modern dictionary, you will find that my usage is not considered incorrect.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Plain and simple, repeat after me: Exit polls showed Bush winning .
The only exit polls which showed Kerry winning were early results from the National Exit Pool, and were only reported on sites like DrudgeReport. The problem was that taking a sliver of the NEP is completely inaccurate. There's a reason major news organizations are very conservative with the data. It's just not 100% accurate. Less so early in the day.
Of course someone will say that late at night Bush's exit poll numbers suddenly jumped up. This too, was caused by a server failure in the NEP which hadn't updated the exit poll information.
Bush did not win by mass conspiracy. There is no cover up.
Either way, the system needs to be changed.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Despite claims that they took many variables into account, a quick glance at the paper shows they took very few variables into account.
For example, they did not account for: population growth between elections, the demographic makeup of such growth, median income change since the previous election, voter registration stats for each party and their changes since the previous election, reversals of traditional voting patterns (better-educated going Democratic, older going Republican), local issues that would draw certain voters to the polls, the involvement of and relative successes of get-out-the-vote organizations (the parties, unions, churches, etc), and the list goes on...
Of course, they never bother to look at which counties went electronic and why. They act as if it's a random variable or as if it would be somehow tied to who voted for Bush in 2000 or something silly like that. Far more likely to be tied to a county's population size, how much trouble it had last election, how much money it has, who were its governing officials, etc. How much trouble they had with butterfly ballots is in turn tied to the age and education level of those in the county, etc.
Sheesh, it's like when a high school student first gets a graphing stats calculator and proceeds to "prove" all kinds of things are correlated.
The simple fact is that many of the comments already made were clearly made by those who haven't bothered to read the actual report or even it's summary of findings (well linked). The simplest summary is that given a wide variety of independent variables (i.e. data that might have some causal relationship with the outcome) and one independent variable (namely the shift in support from Dem to GOP in the presidential race between 2000 and 2004), the only significant movement occurred in predominantly Democratic counties with electronic touch-screen voting machines. The statistical tests reject virtually any possibility that these shifts were related to number of voters, income, Hispanic population, or voter turnout.
The question, of course. is what does this mean? Well, in isolation, not much. It is likely that some other factors not included in the independent variables were very significant. Unfortunately, when these results are combined with the discrepancies between the early exit polls and the vote counts. And contrary to a lot of analysis, past history has these exit polls much more accurate than they seem to have been this year.
Was there fraud then? We don't know. Evidence suggests that there may have been something going on (and the spread from 130K-260K has to do with uncertainty as to what kind of error might have taken place since misassigned votes are worth twice the difference of phantom votes). And the reality is that the rush to unauditable e-voting has made it more difficult to determine what kind of errors may have taken place.
We've got a basic problem here: the best correlation for doing well for Bush is the presence of e-voting machines. The only way to debunk this is to come up with a variable that correlates even more strongly for Bush AND ALSO correlates independently with the presence of e-voting machines. Merely throwing variables up in the air, as I've seen throughout this ./ discussion, isn't going to help you do that most efficiently.
No, but Republican apologist snowjobs aren't intended to explain the results, or debunk the growing evidence that widespread election fraud via voting machines and Diebold tabulators have resulted in the second stolen presidential election in four years.
They are intended to befuddle the public into remaining quiescent and submissive. And they succeed beautifully in achieving that objective.
Hell, even the spineless "mainstream" American media won't touch this story with a 20 meter cattle prod, despite the mountain of evidence available, and the many voices trying to raise public awareness of what has happened. They're too busy curry favor with the president-elect's administration.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I've read the article. I'll assume for the four students correctly conducted the analysis they've described. The results are compelling: Essentially, net of other effects, electronic voting had the greatest positive effect on change in percent voting for Bush from 2000 to 2004 in democratic counties.
But, the unanswered question is, is there a causal relationship between the presence of e-voting and the "unexpected" change in Bush voting percentage?
A few additional facts:
Of the 67 counties in Florida, 15 used electronic touchscreen voting. (map here)
Of these 15 counties, exactly three (Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach) were democratic counties. (map here)
The outlying data points, on which the students base their conclusion, consists of three counties. Which happened to have been the focus of the 2000 election irregularities. And which happened to have been heavily campaigned, by both candidates. One could argue that there are a couple of causal relationships here:
a) because the elections in these counties did not go smoothly in 2000, there was pressure to reform the process, and e-voting was installed.
b) because the 2000 election hinged on these counties, the campaigning was extremely heavy there in 2004.
One stimulus (2000 election debacle/recount) may have caused both the e-voting implementation, and the Bush shift.
The authors of the paper go on to say that a similar analysis of Ohio e-voting returns showed no relationship between voting method and change in Bush percentage. Why would the relationship be causal in Florida, but not in Ohio -- or anywhere else that we're aware of?
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
Any form of Government ID that holds information is a bad idea. It would start out just being used to verify your voting ID, but the next thing you know you'll need it to open a bank account or get a credit card (ie Social Security).
When you get to hell -- tell 'em Itchy sent ya!
.
What if the machines really were significantly out?
What if there really was no audit trail?
What if university studies like this one really are the only way to spot a discrepancy?
What then??
Government psychiatrists call it nostalgia.
Ok, here is a question from me, a Russian, to my American friends.
While not calling this undisputed evidence, this is a pretty fucking good evidence (as good as you can get without a paper trail) that there was not just "election fraud", but that the very basis of your society was fucking hijacked. That Bush guy basically showed that he doesn't give a flying fuck about what you guys, the so called "people", think. He showed that he is the boss, and you are his bitches. That this is his country, and that he will do what he wants. It doesn't matter right now whether he was the evil genius, or some other guys standing behind him, the puppeteers, so to speak, who cares...
What matters is that the line has been crossed. You can't just say "Oh, I hope, it will get better", or "I don't think we are as bad as Nazi Germany yet", or "They have worse elections in Uzbekistan" or any other feel-good shit excuses.
People in other countries learned to stand for their rights, though they don't do it very well. There are people like that in the US too, you managed to achieve some great successes in the past and achieve some small victories every day. But it is suddenly not enough.
This is the point of no return. When you destroy the main check you have - the ability to decide that the president doesn't do his job well, then you will gradually lose everything else. It won't happen overnight, but it's the road with no return - democracy placed Hitler at the helm, but democracy could not remove him in 1938 even if people wanted. You can't easily take your freedoms back. Especially now, when the governments are so much more powerful than in the past and the oppression mechanisms are so strong.
Now you have only one choice, the one that guy in Guardian wrote about, the one which is obvious to many people, but which is illegal to speak about. You need to oust the bastard from the White House and since there is no other way, you must do it by force. Kill the fucker, prove that the weapons you still have are not useless and that it's still you, the people, who have the power.
Don't think that it may change to the better. Don't hold illusions that whatever Bush does till 2008 will only make it easier for the Democrats to win. Don't be idiots, it doesn't work this way. In 15 years my own country changed from the one of two world superpowers, with the world's best science, with some of the best free education, with free universal health care, with everything that makes quality of life better, albeit without McDonalds restaurants, without Coca-Cola and without Hollywood movies, into a country, which is as fucking pathetic as it gets. With economy still 30% down from 1989, with tens of millions of people living below poverty line, with science funded less every year, with disfunctional army, with destroyed education, healthcare and social security, with little international influence and a bunch of theives in charge of this giant bordello. That's what you get for being stupid. Don't magically expect things to work differently just because you live in America.
So the question - what you gonna do now? Will anything change? Do you have the power to do anything, other than talk about how you want things to be better? Can you march with a million people to Washington and get the traitor out of the White House? Can you still get rid of him? Or do you value your illusions "that the system works" more?
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
However in *"Free Speech Berkeley" , that observation might be considered a thought crime.
* Free speech in Berkeley Ca. is reserved for specific local interpretations of free.
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.
The right way to do this is:
1. You prove who you are and are handed a paper ballot.
2. You go to a electronic vote machine and insert your ballot.
3. You vote.
4. You get a summary screen at the end. When you agree it prints the vote on the ballot.
5. You get to check if the ballot and the screen are the same. If you are happy, you deposit the ballot in the box, and the electronic vote is added.
On the ballot are both a simple listing of who you voted for as well as a optical method for a computer to scan.
Also when the ballot is printed it is assigned a number that is tied to the electronic vote.
When it comes time to count, you get a fast tally of the electronic vote, and a slower conformation of the paper vote. You would know in one night who won, and be able to confirm it a day or two later.
Any person who questions the electronic vote can pull up the vote of each paper ballot by entering the number on the ballot and checking they are the same, as well as make sure the names of the people voted for are the same as the results of the computer scan.
All 3 would have to be the same. The electronic vote, the printed names, and the optical scan method.
Further more, no one company can make all the hardware. If company A makes the voting machines, company B has to make the counters.
All other rules of open source and code checks by the public apply.
This is the only fair way to do this.
daveschroeder wrote:
"Conspiracy theorists" are always getting beaten up on issues like this, but I'm not sure it's strictly fair... In addition to proposing a hypothetical scenario about Republican corruption, I'm *also* supposed to be a mind-reader, and be able to explain away why John Kerry did what he did? The whole "motives" issue, seems like a lose-lose proposition. On the one hand, if you don't speculate on why so-and-so did such-and-such people will regard the theory as incomplete, too far-fetched. If you do speculate on it, you seem like you're over-reaching, claiming knowledge of things you can't possibly know about. A lot of us have a lot less faith in the good old "muck-raking journalist", having had to listen to a rather uncritical, monotonous drum-beat during the Iraq war run-up. Uh huh... let's roll the clock back, and consider the WMD issue during the Iraq war build-up. Isn't it ridiculous to suggest that the *entire* media could be asleep at the switch for some reason? Certainly if there was some reason to be critical of the administration's claims on this issue, *someone* in the media would be all over it, wouldn't they? I mean, the New York Times is hardly a Republican strong-hold, is it? Are you trying to tell me that Judith Miller has been bought by the Other Side? Oh, please. And of course, you'd expect that an *actual* conspiracy would be a really clumsy affair, with lots of leaks (Diebold memos, anyone?), lots of funny statistical discrepancies, etc.Of course it helps that many people will *immediately* reject any suggestion of corruption, tossing it in the "conspriacy theory" bin.
Your faith is touching, but why is it supposed to touch me?Anyway, in the long run, whether or not this election was "stolen" is small beans compared improving the integrity of the voting system to make sure that they can't ever be stolen... there I think we're in agreement.
At my polling place, they ask me my name and look it up in a book with photocopies of voter registration cards. They cover the side of the book with the photocopy and have me sign my name. If what I sign and the photocopy match, I'm good to go. Thus I have demonstrated that I am eligible to vote and that I am who I say I am. There's no need to resort to additional requirements like a state ID so I can exercise my Constitutional right.
We use mechanical voting booths so even though they write down each voter's name in a little book, I'm pretty sure there's no way to tie a specific vote to a specific voter.
Could someone claim to be me and forge my name? Yes, and that would suck for me but that kind of fraud doesn't scale. I'd rather have a little ad hoc fraud than a additional burdens on people just trying to vote.
The worst thing about the method described above is it only works if I go to the correct polling place. For too many people, making it to the proper polling place is too much of a burden. But then, I think Election Day should be a national holiday.
I still believe that, even though voting is done by each state, what's needed is a consistent set of standards for voting machines. It should be treated like a set of accounting books: subject to audit, verifiable audit trail, and a report signed off by a person in charge that the system works according to the guidelines. We demand so much from accounting standards (Sarbanes-Oxley). Why can't we apply it to voting?
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
Dude, there are many variables not considered - age, religion, population density, total minority, unemployment rate, and urban/suburban/rural distribution quickly come to mind.
I looked at the data in the spreadsheet. The top 5 counties in population ALL use electronic voting (Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Hillsborough, and Pinellas). NONE of the 29 smallest population counties use electronic voting. It is impossible to separate factors that correlate this closely. Did X happen because of electronic voting, or did X happen because of the influence of county population or population density (which could also be expressed as urban%, minority%, age%).
114,000 of the 133,000 "extra" votes that Bush received came from 3 counties - Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward. These are 3 heavily Democratic counties. The results of the study can be almost completely explained by a small percentage of 1996 Clinton and 2000 Gore voters switching to Bush in 2004.
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
Look back over the last year of articles about Diebold (for example) and their voting machines. They mislead the local election boards. They would change the software to versions that hadn't been verified by the officials. Their CEO, in a memo, said to make any changes to the system, such as printed receipts, prohibitively expensive as add-ons.
The vendors weren't building what the municipalities were asking for. They built what they wanted to build and told the municipalities "this is how it is. buy it or not, but the laws you just passed say you have to buy something before the next election, so you probably ought to buy it."
And I'm sure the massive lobbying and contributions (and inappropriate promises to deliver certain states to certain incumbent presidents) had nothing to do with the choices the local boards made.
Any computer-based system can trivially add a printed receipt. Its not like printers are some new technology. They've been on cash registers and calculators for decades.
Voting, and particularly accuracy in counting the votes, is very important. Why wouldn't the vendors, or more importantly the election boards, want a backup? Why wouldn't they want to be able to verify and demonstrate that the machines are accurate and correct? Why resist a method to prove how much better the new technology is than the old? Are they concerned that John Henry could count a mountain of votes faster and more accurately than their machines? Why not silence the skeptics by proving them wrong?
The only reason to resist a mechanism for independant verification in something as important to this country as voting is that someone wants to hide something, or at least have the ability to hide something. "Trust me" as a business model went out with Joe Isuzu.
blog
I for one grew up on the idea that the government operates fairly by utilzing a transparent balance between three branches. At least thats how the theory was supposed to work. So why do we sell away this balance to one company? Specificly when the man in charge of said company made biased statements like "I will deliver the election to GW,"? Please, don't jump on this statement and misread it. I am not trying to undermine the winner of the election. However I am calling foul on man in charge of a voting medium. To take it a step further, why are we eliminating the transparency on a process that clearly needs to be done in the sunshine? I understand that a electronic voting machine, even with a paper trail, can still manifest maliciously biased code. With that in mind, why not create a voting method where both the creation, maintinence, and supervision are maintained by more than one group. Say perhaps three groups/companies who colaborate on the said processes and commit to oversighting each other in the effort to limit any potential problems. I realize such a concept costs vastly more than the current contract and method. However this is one of our essential constructs as a republic. Is it not our own responsibility, both fiscally and morally, to make sure we get it done as accurately and as fairly as possible? Every vote should count damn it. Margins of error, even due to glitches/bugs are not execeptable in this circumstances. The post I make has nothing to do with the winner, but everything to do with the process and type of government we not only run, but encourage others to run. How can we honestly nation shape in our own image when our own government constructs operate in such a large margin of question? Or are we pitching the idea that its ok to talk out of both sides of your mouth?
Like the topic says: Canadians vote by writing an "X" in a box on a piece of paper next to a party's name and sticking the piece of paper in a cardboard box.
...
All I have to ask America is: what's the fucking problem?
Why is electronic voting neccesary? That's a rhetorical question - it's NOT neccesary. I'm more wondering why people tolerate whatever the morons in power dictate. Wake up, you're getting fucked with.
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ - Visit the site.. it's dedicated to revealing any truth behind possible (woops I mean 99% likely) election fraud.
"Black Box Voting has launched a fraud audit into Florida."
"Black Box Voting is also launching a fraud audit in Ohio."
"Black Box Voting is implementing fraud diagnostics on the state of New Mexico. Information we recently received is indicative of widespread vote manipulation."
"Black Box Voting is requesting legal assistance for a specific county in Georgia. Indications of corrupt voting processes, with possible criminal actions by local officials."
"Multiple irregularities. Need people to take affidavits from election workers, statewide."
Just view the page, and read it. Yup, democracy is still strong in the U.S.
But hey, don't take my word for it that fraud occured in the US... http://www.votewatch.us/ee/view_observations Just listen to what these thousands of others have to say about their voting experiences... There are some more fun stories here as well: http://www.michaelmoore.com/electionwatch/
This is as dumb as saying because the exit polls showed Kerry winning, the voting was rigged. That is thinking backward. The vote tally proves the analysis is wrong, not the other way around. The fact remains that even if 130,000 votes were changed for Bush...bush still won by over 100,000 votes. It's time for the democrats to realized that they lost. More people voted for Bush than Kerry. Move on and try and figure out why America rejected your ideas.
Actually, If you want to see what's going on in Iraq I suggest you go there. I did. You sir, have no clue what the realities are. Do you think the hospitals in Falluja were open to the general public? You're wrong if you do. They were not and have not been for several months. They were, in fact, taken over and in use by the "rebels" - who are really just a bunch of opportunistic thugs not interested in "freeing" anyone. They want to create their own little thugocracy and kill Americans - they don't care if they have to kill locals to do so either. In fact they prefer it since they know that the press will pin it on the US everytime. We know that too.... and yes, sometimes it is our fault. Absolutely no doubt about it. It also almost always a mistake on our part. On their part it's a strategy. I've also seen the looks in the eyes and even the tears on the faces of the troops who discovered that they just killed people who did not deserve it - people who in all likelyhood were just looking for a way to get home or for our protection. I've also seen and heard the defiant captive terrorist who laughs at the dead civilians they caused (throwing greandes at a patrol in a market) and tells us that we will be blamed. I've also seen the headless bodies of hostages whose only offense was driving a water truck.
But please remember that it is the US who is evil here. After all, the "rebels" take time to tend to the wounds of civilains, they rebuild their homes after having to destroy them to remove the evil Americans, they provide their own personal rations to them, they sacrifice their lives trying to remove the roadside IED's left behind by the cowardly American soldiers... that was sarcasm by the way. I felt it neccesary to point that out as I figured you'd likely miss it.
The US soldiers are not saints. They are soldiers. That means that they are trained to kill first and everything else second. They are rough around the edges - as all soldiers are. They are also, by and large, honorable people. Fathers, brothers, sons, mothers, wives and sisters. They hold life dear - more dear than you can imagine as it's fraility is more real to them that it ever will be to you. They hold peace even dearer. They do not get up in the morning hoping to kill. They get up in the morning hoping to not have to. They sleep poorly - the weights of their actions heavy on their hearts. Not guilt, but sorrow that some would rather fight and die to hold power than prosper and live in an open society. They try their best to protect civilains and their fellow troops - sometimes they fail. They cry when they do - whether it's for their fallen friends or the family in the wrong place at the wrong time. They are not perfect - far from it... but they are a damn site better than the thugs who use holy places as fortresses and civilian lives as propoganda and shields.
What's happening in Fallujah? Death. What was happening before we went in? Death. It was slower - starvation, intimidation, and torture - but it was happening nonetheless. What will be happening there when we are finished? Peace and rebuilding as long our politicians let our soldiers complete the task given to them.
You assert that attacking hospitals, water systems, electric plants, and ambulances is a war crime. Of course using hospitals as military bases and transporting combatants and explosives in ambulances is also a war crime...but you seem to conveniently forget that fact. Not to mention the use of Mosques as military strongholds and the taking of civilian hostages to use as shields. Let's just forget those things shall we?
You sicken me.
What's with this post being scored as a 4? It's not even informative. I am very aware that /. readers are overwhelmingly a liberal bunch, but why not stick to discussing the facts instead of espousing "vast right wing conspiracy" theories that are running rampant with the Hollywood crowd?
As long as Republicans have the majority in the congress, a large scale investigation of the 2004 elections will never happen and we will not switch to open source electronics voting systems with mandatory paper trail. Unless we have open source electronic voting systems will paper trail, Republicans will keep their majority in the congress.
I'm repeating the AC's reply, but..
The machine tallys should always be reconciled with a paper count. The electronic counts are to provide fast initial results and to draw attention to erroneous manual counts. The manual paper counts provide credibility to the electronic count, just as the electronic count gives credibility to the manual count. If there is no manual count, the electronic count has no credibility.
-jim
I think you're missing the point that the counties that were using electronic voting were predominantly Democrat 'controlled' counties and as such would have democrat-leaning elections supervisor (they're elected in FL). Therefore the decision to use electronic voting and control of the machines would have been in the hands of Democrats. If the machines were tampered with, the logical beneficiary would be Kerry.
You are all wrong. The solution is not necessarily more technology. It's more accountability--Everyone gets a secret number at the poll. They can match this to their vote in the database, through a gov't website or shared through many private websites or share it with vote checking organisations or throw it away and forget about it.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I think you're missing the point that the counties that were using electronic voting were predominantly Democrat 'controlled' counties and as such would have democrat-leaning elections supervisor (they're elected in FL). Therefore the decision to use electronic voting and control of the machines would have been in the hands of Democrats. If the machines were tampered with, the logical beneficiary would be Kerry.
Actually, the decisions on what voting machines are used, how many are assigned to each precict, where the poll locations are, and the people assigned as election supervisors all falls under the authority of the Florida Secretary of State, a Republican appointed by governer Jeb Bush (the president's Brother). The vote counting was in the hands of Republicans, that is an established fact.
As for any tampering more logically favoring Kerry... I will point out again that the 'smoking gun evidence' found so far shows just the opposite. Every single precinct that was examined in Volusia county revealed that votes had been added for Bush. This was discovered by comparing the signed and dated Nov 2nd poll tapes that the election supervisors were caught red handed trying to throw away. This was caught on video tape with police present.
Good grief, what does it take before people acknowlege that we should at least investigate further!
The Bolachek Journals
While that's true, it doesn't change the math...
Not to mention, that one of the things that happened in this election was a shift in demographic voting trends. They should be asking why those voters shifter, not pretending that there is no shift. Previous elections are not full perdictors of future elections: while there may be correlation, there is no hard relationship.
... is a bastion of biased bullshit.
Leave it alone already. The election is over. Bush is our President. Rather than try to undermine the authority rightfully granted during the election process, why not try to use the ethical, legal and accepted tools available our Democratic Republic to make lawful, meaningful changes?
Rhetorical, of course: let me answer. UC Berkeley isn't interested in knowledge or change, they're interested in the free notoriety that comes from publishing a 'study', no matter how pie-in-the-sky full-of-guesswork, that comes to a conclusion that appeals to a small, select, cognitively challenged group of people who might actually feel at home at UC Berkeley.
It really is appalling that not-quite-fictional-but-clearly-wrong crap like this gets posted to the Politics section of Slashdot, when meaningful news stories are rejected. Items like this have me visiting all areas of Slashdot less and less.
My affinity for hyperbole knows no bounds
Erwos, R-Squared of 0.5 means that half the variation is attributable to whether electronic voting machines were used, leaving only half the variation attributable to all other factors such as who voters wanted to vote for.
The R-Squared should be precisely Zero - Any significant difference for that is cause for alarm. (And if and election cannot change the government surely you are obliged to exercise your rights under the 2nd amendment, and hold an armed uprising) :-p
As the article says that 0.5 is more that 99% certain to be different from 0.
that the US has a giant legitimacy gap. That's the reason why mainstream won't pick up this story or anyother of the dozens flying around and take them as parts of ONE picture, but isolated incidents. Partisan here, partisan there - but both parties form the very system which legitimacy is shaken and all the mainstream media are major profiteers of it, too. This is completely independent from concrete implemetations of the voting process, be it machines of whatever kind or pen and paper; hanging chads in 2000, evoting in 2004 - nothing but symptoms to the same illness.
As a result the US is building an international reputations for being the largest banana republic alive. Now think of Iraq's upcoming elections in january, do you really think an election under US occupation is going to generate any trust in its results? (rhetorical)
Instead of exporting democracy the US is just about to export it's systemic problems. And maybe, if what I suspect to be bush's calculation works out, that is exactly what it takes to delay the real question for another term.
Just to fit things into a larger scale...
Slightly OT: Quote from a ukrainian friend: We got widespread election fraud too, but as least we agree on that.
Life has become the ideology of its absence - T.W. Adorno
"The R-Squared should be precisely Zero"
I'm not sure this is true - I think you misunderstand R-square. R-square is a measurement of the ENTIRE model R-square of 0 means that the predictions _don't fit the model at all_.
The researchers included (in the models) a number of other independent variables which were _supposed_ to have tried to encompass who the people were trying to vote for (Bush 2000, Dole 96, income). What we were hoping for was the coefficients of the electronic voting variables to be statistically insignificant (ie, electronic voting makes no difference on votes). A zero value of R-square would seem to imply that previous voting records have no predictive value, ie that previous voting records don't explain any variation.
Finally, I have no idea what "0.5 is more that 99% certain to be different from 0" means. You realize that R-Square isn't affected in any way by the confidence level, right? SSE/SST isn't affected by any alpha.
Or am I misunderstanding you on this?
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.