Very interesting... I am sorry that you had trouble performing your civic duty today, but I am likewise glad that poll-workers are on the ball and at least doing their job and hopefully your vote will be counted in the end.
While I am by no means accusing your of any wrongdoing, I understand how even what seems like such a minor detail or error on someones part (transcribing a 0 to a 1) may be used for vote fraud:
Consider an unscrupulous individual who wishes commit fraud. That person could register to vote using 10 differnt permutations on his legitimate address. Thus to anyone cross-checking the registration rolls, it might slip by in that the names are the same but the addresses are all different. On election day, this idividual might be able to go to each of the different precincts that he registered in, pull out a perfectly form of ID and and in each case make the argument that there must have been a mistake. I don't think this would be easy to pull-off, and it isn't exactly what you describe (your address was correct on your voter registration card) but it is at least conceivable...
Well, election day exit polling is a hell of a lot more accurate than the crap leading up to an election. Most of the pre-election polls have sample sizes of about 500-1500 or so yielding margin of errors from about 5%-3%. Sample size is what drives the margin of error. Exit polls have significantly larger sample sizes, so the margin of error can become quite small even when looking at comparatively small numbers.
If other countries even dare to think about developing a similar jammer to "neutralize" US's satellite communication and its space-based capabilities, it's likely that US will simply launch another pre-emptive attack to destroy those jammers in these countries.
Right... just like the US pre-emptively attacked Russia because they build GPS jammers. Now if a country started using (rather than just developing) such a system, I would agree with your position.
The bigger question (and I don't know the answer) is how does the wireless-only demographic compare with similar demographic that is polled... namely the young voter. Assuming that most of these (wireless) voters are younger... how do they compare with the non-wireless younger voters (who were reached in the polls)? My hunch is that there is significant overlap between them; thus wireless attitudes are implicitly contained within the poll results and there will not be a signficant difference come tomorrow... but that is just my hunch.
From a motivation point of view, I don't see much difference between the creationists and the debunkers... why is it that creationists feel the need to use science to "prove" an aspect of their faith... and why do some scientists feel it necessray to use science to "disprove" something that is clearly a matter of faith. Why can't they just ignore one another?
I've heard this quite a bit. It always seems to me that this is a way to salvage creationism, so one can acknowledge the scientific evidence and still not have to concede that maybe they were mistaken in their belief...
I don't see it as a way of salvaging creationism... I see it as way of putting the barrier back in place that belongs between spirituality and science. I am a scientist (BS in Physics) and engineer (multiple graduate degrees) who also holds deep religions views. I have yet to find any aspect of evolutionary theory that I disagree with, although I clearly see the gaping holes in most of the arguments made by creationists. For me, science has told us the mechanism, the "how" - and religion answers (or ponders) the "why". Intelligent design allows the motivation and the mechanism to be nicely seperated... in effect separating the science from the spiritual.
My views are much closer to those of the determinists although they were at somewhat of a disadvantage. They could not concieve of a god that was outside of space-time.. thus they could only imagine a god whose interactions occurred at specific instances of time througout history. Thus a clock-work universe had "no room" for God. On the contrary, I personally believe that God exists outside the limits of our universe, thus the very concept of "God's interaction" becomes something that we can not even comprehend. More importantly, matters of god are purely un-provable matters of faith (or opinion) and matters of science, well,... are tenable and provable.
The bottom line is, I am almost agnostic about creation from a religions point of view because I don't see why it matters. Assuming God does exist, I doubt he/she would really want the fundamentalists "wasting" so much time and energy on the issue... why can't some parts of the religion be based in faith?
Actually it contained thousands of hispanics,...almost all were (correctly) listed as "white" since "hispanic" is an ethnicity not a race... but why believe me? Check out a screenshot of the list refrenced on Greg Palast's website (I assume he is the author of the Guardian author you cite since your link doesn't work and he is the only one I have seen quote these incorrect numbers.)
Try this article for a way more comprehensive "meta-analysis" of the Lancet story than I could ever muster.
Not knowing much about either source, I don't know their motivations (although "rushing" to release this days before the election is suspicious)... but I thought someone might want to read a coherent rebutal.
True, but this info wasn't in the original story... I stumbled across it while dutifully looking for more complete info. My original assertion stands, that the original story was too short on info to start jumping to conclusions.
I also liked how you highlighted the part about finding no criminal wrongdoing. Did I ever say anything to suggest there was? No, I didn't. In fact, the original BBC article said the same thing. But somebody screwed up, intentionally or otherwise, and should get a proper reaming for it.
agreed.
But in either case it still seems that 58,000 ballots have gone completely unaccounted for, and that's extremely unusual.
Don't know if I agree here... yes, the second article states that someone acknowledges that "up to 58,000" may not have been reached, but then also says that most just probably have not been completed and returned yet and that they expect the impact to be a lesser but still scary 20,000 remailings.
There needs to be some accountability here don't you think?
Kudos to Snipes for overnighting additional copies.
agreed and agreed.
I also liked how you highlighted the part about finding no criminal wrongdoing. Did I ever say anything to suggest there was?
You are right, you didn't but many of the other posts have. Sorry, I wans't aiming that [bold] at you.
Looks like this story is fizzling... here is a story with some helpful details that the BBC omited (or didn't have)...
From the article:
Although there are about 58,000 ballots not accounted for, Snipes said
many are actually in the hands of voters waiting to be mailed back and thus the problem will turn out to be much smaller.
She said that about 14,000 completed ballots arrived Wednesday and that others had been deposited in the office's drop-off box and at early voting locations. She estimated that she will resend no more than 20,000 ballots.
She pointed the finger at the U.S. Postal Service as the source of the mix-up. She said that all ballots are postmarked the day voters request them and that they are then are couriered to the post office's main facility in Fort Lauderdale for delivery.
But the Postal Service says it is not to blame. The agency said in a statement that special employees are assigned to handle all ballots and that those sent locally should arrive in one day.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement launched an investigation into the missing ballots Wednesday but concluded there was no criminal wrongdoing. Postal inspectors also investigated and determined there had been no delays in the agency's handling of ballots.
Again, if you RTFA - the people who were expecting the ballots in the mail are calling the election officials with complaints that they didn't get them. That's how you know something is up.
Well, I did RTFA and I don't doubt that there are people who have not gotten their ballots. The article never says where the 2,000 number comes from. Are these completed ballots or did the election officials call all 60,000 people and ask if they received their ballots or have 58,000 people independently phoned in complaints. The later two possibilities are not feasible.
It's quite clear that it's not a case of 2000 ballots being received back by the election office. It's a case of only 2000 people who asked for a ballot actually getting one.
Your reading comprehsion must be much better than mine... where in the article does it say where the 2,000 number came from?
I am not saying that this does not merit investigtion... I am just saying that we don't even know the scope of the problem and that this article is woefully inadequate on the facts. I will even consider that maybe the ballots were never mailed... but the post office is saying they never received them. This could be an honest mistake on the part of the election office. Bottom line, we need more facts before we can start blaming any one party or claiming this is a dirty trick.
No, what the article says is that 60,000 ballots were sent out to the voters, "However, only 2,000 of them have been delivered." (article quote) -- as in only 2,000 of the 60,000 recipients actually got them.
Just out of curiosity, how does anyone know how many have been delivered? Granted, my absentee ballot is from California, but there did not seem to be any reciept confrimation or anything. I hate to be skeptical, but perhaps the 2,000 number comes from how many completed absentee ballots have made it back to the election officials, and they are assuming that everyone who gets an absentee should have returned it complete by now. Maybe the other 58,000 just haven't voted yet, or have voted and it is just in the mail on the way back to the election officials.
I guess my point is, do we even know something has happened yet?
Michael Powell has the least experience in telecommunications and media of all of the board members.
But earlier you had just said:
In short, Bush picked all of them (Powell was simply retained; the others were newly appointed - all but Adelstein in 2001, with Adelstein being in 2002), and he *had* to have at least 2 Democrats on there - so naturally, he picked Democrats with a strong interest in opposing regulation of media mergers and with strong opposition to "indecency". Clinton *had* to pick some Republicans, and hence, Powell.
and you point out that Powell was in fact appointed by Clinton. Combine these facts and you get that Powell was the commision member with the most job experience (on the commission)... why wouldn't he be the chairman... do you suggest it should have gone to the someone else who has never been on the commission?
Classic slashdot moderation... I get slammed with two troll moderations for debunking the Florida disenfranchisment myth. Are the moderators brave enough to point out exactly what was trollish in the parent?
What's the probability that out of a random sampling of 26,000 non-black ex-felons, 4745 (18.25%) of which you'd expect to be Hispanic, you'll find exactly 61 Hispanics?
Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the list... does anyone know where it is available? However, Greg Palast has this screenshot on his website of a segment of the list. (Ignore for the moment that he apparently uses Windows, AOL, and has 16 non-standard icons in his system tray.) While I don't dispute that ChoicePoint used poor methods to determine matches, what else can we glean from the spreadsheet? For one thing, there are no "Hispanics" in the race column, despite there being two names that appear to be hispanic in origin. One is listed as unknown, and one as white. So, the argument that "hispanics have been removed because they tend to vote Republican" is probably bunk. Much more likely, ChoicePoint correctly identified Hispanics as an "ethinic group" and not a race. This would very reasonably explain why there are no "hispanics" on the list.
Hey, I respect your opinion, but you probably won't like this other post I just made about Palast. I'll be honest, I have read very little of his work, but what little I have read has some serious problems in reasoning. I have seen nothing that matches your statement "He finds out about bad stuff, then comes up with the evidence, carefully researched and coherently presented." Is he an investigative reporter? It doesn't seem to me that he is looking for "truth" but just what can hurt his enemies. If he were a scientist, he would be a bad one.
He did uncover some interesting shenanigans last time
Greg Palast claims that in the last election, the GOP's efforts to *gasp* enforce the law and prevent felons from voting cost the democrats 22,000 votes. While I think that any vote denied is a tragedy and don't want to trivialize it, lets look at this 22,000 figure and some of the other "disenfranchisement" claims.
I will use this Wikipedia entry as my source. Let go through the various "disenfranchisement" claims.
From the article, 57,700 "felons" were struck from the voter list. These people were all contacted (although I assume it is reasonable that many of these people were not reached), of which 4,874 appealed. Of the 4,874 appeals, 2,430 were re-instated. Now, lacking an additional info, I assume that someone compared these two numbers, and figured that 50% of the listed names were incorrect, where in reality, it is only 50% of those on the list who came forward to dispute the error. Granted, anyone being denied a vote is tragic, but 2,430 (all of whom were reinstated) is a far cry from 22,000. Why didn't the other 53,000 people on the list appeal? More likely, most didn't appeal because outside of the 2,430, nearly all were convicted felons. Which brings us to...List Demographics:
Voter demographics authority David Bositis, a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, DC, reviewed The Nation's findings and concluded that the purge-and-block program was "a patently obvious technique to discriminate against black voters." He noted that based on nationwide conviction rates, African-Americans would account for 46% of the ex-felon group wrongly disfranchised.
Breakdown of the distribution for 3 major counties:
Miami-Dade, 20% voters are Black, 66% names on list were Black (3,794)
Leon County, 29% voters are Black, 55% names on list were Black
None of the names on the list were Hispanic.
First off, David Bositis is expecting a 46% rate of black names on the ex-felon group list. What is his criteria? national averages. African Americans comprise 12.6% of the US population, but make up 46% of the ex-felon group (according to Bositis). Florida has slightly more aftican-americans than the national average at 14.6%. Lets look at Miami-Dade and Leon counties that the Bositis cites: Both counties have significantly higher (about double) the national average of African-Americans. Wouldn't it make some sense that the they would appear on the felon list with greater frequency than the national African-American breakdown of ex-felons? (46%)
Now lets go after that last bullet: None of the names on the list were Hispanic. Greg Palast has this screenshot on his website of a segment of the list. (Ignore for the moment that he apparently uses Windows, AOL, and has 16 non-standard icons in his system tray.) While I don't dispute that ChoicePoint used poor methods to determine matches, what else can we glean from the spreadsheet? For one thing, there are no "Hispanics" in the race column, despite there being two names that appear to be hispanic in origin. One is listed as unknown, and one as white. So, the argument that "hispanics have been removed because they tend to vote Republican" is probably bunk. Much more likely, ChoicePoint correctly identified Hispanics as an "ethinic group" and not a race. This would very reasonably explain why there are no "hispanics" on the list.
Bottom line, while I don't doubt that some African-American voters were disenfranchised, maybe even enough to change the outcome, I seriously doubt it was 22,000.
Slashdot Mirror
While I am by no means accusing your of any wrongdoing, I understand how even what seems like such a minor detail or error on someones part (transcribing a 0 to a 1) may be used for vote fraud:
Consider an unscrupulous individual who wishes commit fraud. That person could register to vote using 10 differnt permutations on his legitimate address. Thus to anyone cross-checking the registration rolls, it might slip by in that the names are the same but the addresses are all different. On election day, this idividual might be able to go to each of the different precincts that he registered in, pull out a perfectly form of ID and and in each case make the argument that there must have been a mistake. I don't think this would be easy to pull-off, and it isn't exactly what you describe (your address was correct on your voter registration card) but it is at least conceivable...
Well, election day exit polling is a hell of a lot more accurate than the crap leading up to an election. Most of the pre-election polls have sample sizes of about 500-1500 or so yielding margin of errors from about 5%-3%. Sample size is what drives the margin of error. Exit polls have significantly larger sample sizes, so the margin of error can become quite small even when looking at comparatively small numbers.
Right... just like the US pre-emptively attacked Russia because they build GPS jammers. Now if a country started using (rather than just developing) such a system, I would agree with your position.
The bigger question (and I don't know the answer) is how does the wireless-only demographic compare with similar demographic that is polled ... namely the young voter. Assuming that most of these (wireless) voters are younger... how do they compare with the non-wireless younger voters (who were reached in the polls)? My hunch is that there is significant overlap between them; thus wireless attitudes are implicitly contained within the poll results and there will not be a signficant difference come tomorrow... but that is just my hunch.
From a motivation point of view, I don't see much difference between the creationists and the debunkers... why is it that creationists feel the need to use science to "prove" an aspect of their faith... and why do some scientists feel it necessray to use science to "disprove" something that is clearly a matter of faith. Why can't they just ignore one another?
I've heard this quite a bit. It always seems to me that this is a way to salvage creationism, so one can acknowledge the scientific evidence and still not have to concede that maybe they were mistaken in their belief...
I don't see it as a way of salvaging creationism... I see it as way of putting the barrier back in place that belongs between spirituality and science. I am a scientist (BS in Physics) and engineer (multiple graduate degrees) who also holds deep religions views. I have yet to find any aspect of evolutionary theory that I disagree with, although I clearly see the gaping holes in most of the arguments made by creationists. For me, science has told us the mechanism, the "how" - and religion answers (or ponders) the "why". Intelligent design allows the motivation and the mechanism to be nicely seperated... in effect separating the science from the spiritual.
My views are much closer to those of the determinists although they were at somewhat of a disadvantage. They could not concieve of a god that was outside of space-time.. thus they could only imagine a god whose interactions occurred at specific instances of time througout history. Thus a clock-work universe had "no room" for God. On the contrary, I personally believe that God exists outside the limits of our universe, thus the very concept of "God's interaction" becomes something that we can not even comprehend. More importantly, matters of god are purely un-provable matters of faith (or opinion) and matters of science, well,... are tenable and provable.
The bottom line is, I am almost agnostic about creation from a religions point of view because I don't see why it matters. Assuming God does exist, I doubt he/she would really want the fundamentalists "wasting" so much time and energy on the issue... why can't some parts of the religion be based in faith?
Great...next someone will "prove" the Earth is more than 5,000 years old.... lunatics...
more in my journal
Not knowing much about either source, I don't know their motivations (although "rushing" to release this days before the election is suspicious)... but I thought someone might want to read a coherent rebutal.
Are you sure you don't mean unpossible ?
True, but this info wasn't in the original story... I stumbled across it while dutifully looking for more complete info. My original assertion stands, that the original story was too short on info to start jumping to conclusions.
I also liked how you highlighted the part about finding no criminal wrongdoing. Did I ever say anything to suggest there was? No, I didn't. In fact, the original BBC article said the same thing. But somebody screwed up, intentionally or otherwise, and should get a proper reaming for it.
agreed.
But in either case it still seems that 58,000 ballots have gone completely unaccounted for, and that's extremely unusual.
Don't know if I agree here... yes, the second article states that someone acknowledges that "up to 58,000" may not have been reached, but then also says that most just probably have not been completed and returned yet and that they expect the impact to be a lesser but still scary 20,000 remailings.
There needs to be some accountability here don't you think? Kudos to Snipes for overnighting additional copies.
agreed and agreed.
I also liked how you highlighted the part about finding no criminal wrongdoing. Did I ever say anything to suggest there was?
You are right, you didn't but many of the other posts have. Sorry, I wans't aiming that [bold] at you.
my mistake... that should have been first post and already slashdotted?!
5 comments and slashdotted...
From the article:
Well, I did RTFA and I don't doubt that there are people who have not gotten their ballots. The article never says where the 2,000 number comes from. Are these completed ballots or did the election officials call all 60,000 people and ask if they received their ballots or have 58,000 people independently phoned in complaints. The later two possibilities are not feasible.
It's quite clear that it's not a case of 2000 ballots being received back by the election office. It's a case of only 2000 people who asked for a ballot actually getting one.
Your reading comprehsion must be much better than mine... where in the article does it say where the 2,000 number came from?
I am not saying that this does not merit investigtion... I am just saying that we don't even know the scope of the problem and that this article is woefully inadequate on the facts. I will even consider that maybe the ballots were never mailed... but the post office is saying they never received them. This could be an honest mistake on the part of the election office. Bottom line, we need more facts before we can start blaming any one party or claiming this is a dirty trick.
Just out of curiosity, how does anyone know how many have been delivered? Granted, my absentee ballot is from California, but there did not seem to be any reciept confrimation or anything. I hate to be skeptical, but perhaps the 2,000 number comes from how many completed absentee ballots have made it back to the election officials, and they are assuming that everyone who gets an absentee should have returned it complete by now. Maybe the other 58,000 just haven't voted yet, or have voted and it is just in the mail on the way back to the election officials.
I guess my point is, do we even know something has happened yet?
Michael Powell has the least experience in telecommunications and media of all of the board members.
But earlier you had just said:
In short, Bush picked all of them (Powell was simply retained; the others were newly appointed - all but Adelstein in 2001, with Adelstein being in 2002), and he *had* to have at least 2 Democrats on there - so naturally, he picked Democrats with a strong interest in opposing regulation of media mergers and with strong opposition to "indecency". Clinton *had* to pick some Republicans, and hence, Powell.
and you point out that Powell was in fact appointed by Clinton. Combine these facts and you get that Powell was the commision member with the most job experience (on the commission)... why wouldn't he be the chairman... do you suggest it should have gone to the someone else who has never been on the commission?
Classic slashdot moderation... I get slammed with two troll moderations for debunking the Florida disenfranchisment myth. Are the moderators brave enough to point out exactly what was trollish in the parent?
Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the list... does anyone know where it is available? However, Greg Palast has this screenshot on his website of a segment of the list. (Ignore for the moment that he apparently uses Windows, AOL, and has 16 non-standard icons in his system tray.) While I don't dispute that ChoicePoint used poor methods to determine matches, what else can we glean from the spreadsheet? For one thing, there are no "Hispanics" in the race column, despite there being two names that appear to be hispanic in origin. One is listed as unknown, and one as white. So, the argument that "hispanics have been removed because they tend to vote Republican" is probably bunk. Much more likely, ChoicePoint correctly identified Hispanics as an "ethinic group" and not a race. This would very reasonably explain why there are no "hispanics" on the list.
Hey, I respect your opinion, but you probably won't like this other post I just made about Palast. I'll be honest, I have read very little of his work, but what little I have read has some serious problems in reasoning. I have seen nothing that matches your statement "He finds out about bad stuff, then comes up with the evidence, carefully researched and coherently presented." Is he an investigative reporter? It doesn't seem to me that he is looking for "truth" but just what can hurt his enemies. If he were a scientist, he would be a bad one.
Greg Palast claims that in the last election, the GOP's efforts to *gasp* enforce the law and prevent felons from voting cost the democrats 22,000 votes. While I think that any vote denied is a tragedy and don't want to trivialize it, lets look at this 22,000 figure and some of the other "disenfranchisement" claims.
I will use this Wikipedia entry as my source. Let go through the various "disenfranchisement" claims.
From the article, 57,700 "felons" were struck from the voter list. These people were all contacted (although I assume it is reasonable that many of these people were not reached), of which 4,874 appealed. Of the 4,874 appeals, 2,430 were re-instated. Now, lacking an additional info, I assume that someone compared these two numbers, and figured that 50% of the listed names were incorrect, where in reality, it is only 50% of those on the list who came forward to dispute the error. Granted, anyone being denied a vote is tragic, but 2,430 (all of whom were reinstated) is a far cry from 22,000. Why didn't the other 53,000 people on the list appeal? More likely, most didn't appeal because outside of the 2,430, nearly all were convicted felons. Which brings us to ...List Demographics:
First off, David Bositis is expecting a 46% rate of black names on the ex-felon group list. What is his criteria? national averages. African Americans comprise 12.6% of the US population, but make up 46% of the ex-felon group (according to Bositis). Florida has slightly more aftican-americans than the national average at 14.6%. Lets look at Miami-Dade and Leon counties that the Bositis cites: Both counties have significantly higher (about double) the national average of African-Americans. Wouldn't it make some sense that the they would appear on the felon list with greater frequency than the national African-American breakdown of ex-felons? (46%)
Now lets go after that last bullet: None of the names on the list were Hispanic. Greg Palast has this screenshot on his website of a segment of the list. (Ignore for the moment that he apparently uses Windows, AOL, and has 16 non-standard icons in his system tray.) While I don't dispute that ChoicePoint used poor methods to determine matches, what else can we glean from the spreadsheet? For one thing, there are no "Hispanics" in the race column, despite there being two names that appear to be hispanic in origin. One is listed as unknown, and one as white. So, the argument that "hispanics have been removed because they tend to vote Republican" is probably bunk. Much more likely, ChoicePoint correctly identified Hispanics as an "ethinic group" and not a race. This would very reasonably explain why there are no "hispanics" on the list.
Bottom line, while I don't doubt that some African-American voters were disenfranchised, maybe even enough to change the outcome, I seriously doubt it was 22,000.
Oh, I forgot my point.. my point was that I am finally glad that a site is taking this (probability of leading) into consideration.
Please consider that source. Visit his website and ask yourself if he is capable of unbiased critical thought or is this another hatchet-job.
Eureka!!!! Now I know why Schrodinger used a cat for his thought experiment!
Just looked up the Cornish, Devon and Sphynx on wikipedia, ... it goes out of its way to say that they all are not hypoallergenic.