You can dismiss the fraud using the Washington Post Logic "Ultimately, none of the most popular theories holds up to close scrutiny. And the people who most stand to benefit from the conspiracy theories - the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee - are not biting."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41106-2004Nov... Latest Conspiracy Theory -- Kerry Won -- Hits the Ether
By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Dan Keating
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 11, 2004; Page A02
MIAMI, Nov. 10 -- The e-mail subject lines couldn't be any bigger and bolder: "Another Stolen Election," "Presidential election was hacked," "Ohio Fraud."
Even as Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign is steadfastly refusing to challenge the results of the presidential election, the bloggers and the mortally wounded party loyalists and the spreadsheet-wielding conspiracy theorists are filling the Internet with head-turning allegations. There is the one about more ballots cast than registered voters in the big Ohio county anchored by Cleveland. There are claims that a suspicious number of Florida counties ended up with Bush vote totals that were far larger than the number of registered Republican voters. And then there is the one that might be the most popular of all: the exit polls that showed Kerry winning big weren't wrong -- they were right.
Each of the claims is buoyed by enough statistics and analysis to sound plausible. In some instances, the theories are coming from respected sources -- college engineering professors fascinated by voting technology, Internet journalists, election reform activists. Ultimately, none of the most popular theories holds up to close scrutiny. And the people who most stand to benefit from the conspiracy theories -- the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee -- are not biting.<snip>
The disparities were spotted, and urgent mass mailings began: "Ohio precincts report up to 1,586% turnout . . . 30 Precincts in Ohio's Cuyahoga County report 'over' 100% turnout!" Later, the county added a disclaimer to its Web site in an attempt to explain the numbers.
<snip>
(the Wash Po tries to confuse by saying rural counties use paper ballots - but in general the WaPo is refering to BBV via optical scan - which while auditable - is not going to be audited)...It is does not account for thousands of independents or for voters who do not list party affiliation. It is also common for Florida Democrats, particularly the "Dixiecrats" in the northern reaches of the state and the Panhandle, to vote for Republicans, a pattern that is repeated in much of the Deep South.<snip>
Many voting experts say the theory that the exit polls were correct is deeply flawed because the polls oversampled women. MIT political scientist Charles Stewart III also has said focusing solely on the early polls favoring Kerry in Ohio and Florida is the wrong approach because exit polls in some Democratic-leaning states tilted toward Bush, evening out the national picture.<snip>
But here are some other tidbits on voting fraud
A former MIT math professor David Anick concluded that the odds of Bush making an average gain of 4.15 percent among all 16 states included in the media’s 4 p.m. exit polling is 1 in 50,000, or .002 percent.
In general - but not in particular - states using optical scan technology to read paper ballots were not more likely to have exit poll variance than other states.
Exit poll 6 pm results did not have an update for New Hampshire and New York from the 4 pm numbers.
Many of the states(e.g., Florida, Ohio and New Hampshire) use optical scan technology which “counts” the paper ballots, use Windows machines and a simple database (many of which are connected by modems to a central tabulator), and are subject to hacking.
National Election Pool refuses to release any of their exit polling, or to break it down by county, without being paid - so the States listed in the 4 pm Slate exit polling report has the largest number of states available for analysis.
On average, Bush made a gain of 4.15 percent when the reported vote was tallied in all sixteen states included in the reported 4 p.m. exit polling conducted by the National Election Pool. The gain was calculated by taking the difference between Kerry and Bush in the exit poll and comparing it with the difference between Kerry and Bush in the reported vote.
GOP and media are suggesting (1) Significantly greater lying or refusal to speak to pollsters in Bush voters versus Kerry voters; (2) Consistent/systematic errors in weighting demographic groups; (3) A surge of Bush voters after 4 p.m., in all states; (4) Systematic tampering/hacking of reported vote totals, in Bush’s favor. BUT THIS IS BULLSHIT! The idea that women were oversampled in the exit polling and they favored Kerry by a slight margin, causing the problem, dies when one realizes that women would have had to have been significantly oversampled in all 16 states and that the largest oversampling seen in any state, 54-46 women-men, in one Florida exit poll, can not make the math work. That poll suggested a Kerry victory in the state 51-49 percent.
In no state did Bush have a loss. Bush’s support in the reported vote tallies went up in every single state compared with the exit polling.
Besides New Hampshire and New York, Bush also made sizable gains in Florida, 7.0 percent, Pennsylvania, 4.8 percent, and Colorado, 4.6 percent.
Exit polling is used in many foreign countries to determine the legitimacy of the reported results; some note that in the American situation, however, the variance is not of the size at which foreign observers would question an election.
The National Election Pool’s spokesman, at CBS News, refuses to return repeated calls for comment.
Exit Polling Reported Vote
State Kerry Bush Diff. Kerry Bush Diff. Bush Gain
AR 45 54 -9 45 54 -9.8 0.8
CO 49 50 -1 47 52 -5.6 4.6
FL 51 49 2 47 52 -5.0 7.0
IA 50 49 1 49 50 -0.9 1.9
MI 52 46 6 51 48 3.4 2.6
MN 52 46 6 51 48 3.5 2.5
MO 47 52 -5 46 53 -7.3 2.3
NH 54 44 10 50 49 1.4 8.6
NJ 54 44 10 53 46 6.2 3.8
NM 50 48 2 49 50 -1.1 3.1
NV 49 48 1 48 50 -2.6 3.6
NY 62 36 26 58 40 17.3 8.7
OH 51 49 2 49 51 -2.5 4.5
PA 53 46 7 51 49 2.2 4.8
WI 51 48 3 50 49 0.4 2.6
WV 45 54 -9 43 56 -13.0 4.0
New Hampshire uses optical scan technology, which in some sense is an electronic voting machine, but the media is pretending optical scan is paper ballot. Non-optical scan e-voting states are listed here.
http://www.thestandard.com/movabletype/datadigest/archi... interesting optical scan results - see Florida
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~adamsb6/elections /
On 11/4 FINAL FORIDA there are 138,567 MORE votes for President than people who turned out to vote. - On 11/8 a new FINAL FLORIDA has found a coupe of hundred thousand more that had signed in to vote - but just did not make the first Final report.
http://election.dos.state.fl.us /
Why exit polling was near flawless in places NOT using e-voting is not addressed by media. The media accepts the GOP assertion that folks who lie to pollesters always buy e-voting equipement.
Exit polling has been considered accurate enough to determine outcomes in many years; why is it suddenly not so in the last 2 elections, and always in the Republicans’ favor? Do the electronic scanners in those states produce a receipt that voters can see? Is it recountable? Just a few of the questions the mediawhores refuse to discuss.
The Rove comment that he "wanted" a large margin nationwide for Bush seems to not connect in the media's mind to the idea that cheating in states that are already strong for one candidate is needed to create a large margin of victory in the national popular vote- and with a large margin, fewer people are willing to consider the possibility that the election was won through fraud.
http://enight.dos.state.fl.us / on 11/4 final had 7,527,130 votes(Other candidates got roughly 50,000 votes total), with ‘County Reporting’, listing voter turnout as 7,446,659 ("fixed" on 11/8 after email blasts for 4 days by the tin foil hat crowd)
Many report that PAPERLESS touch screen machine, when you hit ‘review ballot’ if you couldn't see the “VOTE” button on the screen - and then hit “back".. the ballot comes up with Betty Castor hreplaced by Mel Martinez, etc. But the media sees no problem.
the press that won’t cover election fraud.
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~sanjay/florida.html 1. “Countinghouse Blues” - WOWT 6 (TV Station’s website) Omaha.
* 10.000 votes “glitch”
2. “Florida Happens - even in North Carolina” - “The Daily News", Local newspaper.
* 4.500 votes “glitch”
3. “Wallacy County Election Figures Corrected” - “The Brownsville Herald” (TX)
* 2.900 votes “glitch”
4. “Three Council of State races remain undecided” - WRAL.COM - NC
* 17.000 to 31.000 votes “glitch”
5. “6.900 ballots - out of 26.000 mostly early votes - did not register choice for president” - “Times Record News” - local newspaper - Wichita County (TX)
* 6.900 votes “glitch”
6. “Election Problems due to a software “glitch” - “The New Bern Sun Journal” - local newspaper - Craven County (NC)
* 11.283 votes “glitch”
7. “Ammendment 4 Broward County (FL) - machines do not count votes properly - They stop at 32.000
* 80.000 - 88.000 votes “glitch”
8. “3.893 extra votes for Bush” - AP, CNN - Gahanna Precinct -Franklin County (OH)
* 3.893 votes “glitch”
9. “Democrat’s Leader Decries Voting Glitches” - VINDY.COM - Mercer County (PA)
* 4.000 votes “glitch”
10. “Early Voting Site didn’t count 13.200 ballots” - FOX5 News - Las Vegas TV station - Volussia County (FL)
* 13.200 votes “glitch”
Forida Vote
Presidential Total : 7588422
Turn Out 6/11 : 7426700
Turn Out 8/11 Morning : 7522491
Turn Out Now : 7622037
More of 95% of counties with more votes for president then turn out use the DRE touch screen system.
“Computer Glitch still baffles County Clerk” - “Michigan City News Dispatch Online” - LaPorte County (MI)
The precincts of the area only registered/accepted/counted 22.200 votes the night of the elction. The first reports showed only 300 registered voters in those precincts. The truth is that in the area they have 79.000 registered voters!
County Clerk requested a “patch” to the Chicago machine vendor to “fix” problem. Patch doesn’t work. Unknown outcome through today.
* 30.000 - 40.000 votes “glitch”
Can we assume that, worst case, Florida/Ohio are creating ghost votes via fraud, or, best case, there are election officers that CAN’T ADD COLUMNS OR CORRECTLY INPUT DATA.
The evoting machines were mostly installed in swing states, and since the exit polling was more intensive in those states, you would expect a lower variance and a corresponding higher variance in the non swing states, a priori. And the result is the opposite!
http://www.votersunite.org/electionproblems.asp?offset=... video of Ohio “young” republicans on election day
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/11/06/electionday_footag... What was the late surge for Bush.you ask - well everything can be explaned if the after 4 pm voters, everywhere where there was e-voting, but not where there is not e-voting, suddenly had 60% of post 4 pm voters going for Bush.
These figures were summarized from data posted at ustogether.org. They show the the percent gain over what would be expected if voter turnout were equal for each party and everyone voted along party lines. We’d expect small differences due to unequal turnout, independents voting Rep or Dem, and some voters changing parties. But look how op-scan counties in Florida stand out, compared to e-touch counties, and non-electronic voting in Pennsylvania.
Reps Dems
Penn
Punch card 25.15% 5.35%
Lever 23.01% 7.99%
Op-Scan 21.55% -2.99%
Florida
E-Touch 27.93% 23.80%
Op-Scan 134.79% -22.29%
While it is true that optical scan machines are not “electronic BALLOTING,” they most certainly are electronic voting systems. In fact, esp. in the case of Diebold (which was actually built/based on ES&S software which implicates them as well), some of the very same software is used in the optical scan systems as their touchscreen systems. Further, optical scan systems are vulnerable to the very same problems that touchscreen machines are - external hacking, internal fraud and manipulation, errors and bugs, etc. There is no substantive difference, with the sole exception that optical scan voting systems at least START with a voter-verified paper ballot that could, conceivably, be used in a manual recount whereas the touchscreens don’t even offer that small protection.
Nut note that the “mysterious changes” to the networks’ exit poll numbers based on final turnout figures to correct the demographics is routine and not part of the GOP fraud. Say you expected, going into the exit polling process, that for every ten voters, three would be female. So you sample three hundred female voters and seven hundred males; fine. Then, from the election turnout results (here being merged with the questionable vote results, but hopefully somewhat extricable), you find out that actually, 40% of voters this year were female. Your poll numbers accurately represent a 30/70 gender split population… they do NOT accurately represent who showed up. BUT if you cannot obtain reliable demographics of the voter turnout, NOT based on the recorded (and questioned) vote totals, then you cannot properly defend the exit polling discrepancy. Simply put - you can only correct your 30/70 split based on true data… and if that true data is only available through your suspect source, then it has to be handled with tongs.
Why has the media not had do the math on what it would take for the polls to be wrong. Prove the result ok - rather than hiding behind glib comments? Show us the math on options #1 (skewed willingness to talk to pollsters) and #2 (skewed demographics, see above). How large would each skew have to be? How wrong would they have to get those numbers? If you can’t get independent demographics, this might still mean you have one number to show, if not two.
In Europe they have several different firms doing exit polls so if one is wrong the others can predicte the result correctly. Is that of interest to the media?
Why do bells not go off when every voting descrepency in the country accidentally favored Bush.
How much could it cost the media to get a simple nation-wide -done at the county level - statistical analysis and see if e-voting machines are a “significant predictor” of exit poll - vote count discrepancy?
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