Florida E-Vote Fraud? Unlikely

[Kelvin Mace]

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65665,00.html

Since the election, liberal blogs and discussion sites have been raising a ruckus over an analysis of Florida voting results that's been spreading on the internet, which shows President Bush received a much higher number of votes than the number of registered Republicans in many counties.

The analysis has led lawyers for the Democratic Party to look into allegations of fraud, and was cited in a letter sent by Democrats in the House of Representatives last week to the Government Accountability Office requesting an election investigation.

But academics at several universities, who received a flood of e-mail urging them to look into the matter, say the results are due to high numbers of Democrats in rural areas voting across party lines, and to independent voters who chose Bush in higher proportions to Sen. John Kerry.

The academics say the intense scrutiny has been good for democracy and has highlighted the need for instituting mandatory election audits that would help catch anomalies with voting machines and restore voter confidence in results. But Stanford University professor of government Jonathan Wand said the analysis can be harmful if done improperly.

Ohio is the state to watch. If anything changes, it will be in Ohio.
David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[yardwork]

1. The issue of the three counties is not the major issue in Florida

This is a sort of straw man argument. Just because the three counties' votes were probably legit, it doesn't mean that other documented problems in Florida don't exist. There are serious questions about a bunch of counties in southern Florida, for example.

Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Indiana - there are dozens of states around the country that had serious questionable issues on election day. To dismiss them all as "internet rumors" is wrong.

[AP]

3. The Dixiecrat vote was cool, probably. The FL e-vote counties

however, were not, according to the Berkeley team.

[ParanoidPat]

2. Time and the documents will tell.

We all know they would never ever cheat in Florida. :evilgrin:

[floridadem30]

4. I live in a paperless county and one of my family members watched her vote

change on the screen from Kerry to Bush and it took 2 attempts to fix it. The next thing that bothers me in my county was the fact that many citizens received phone calls saying their precinct was changed, and two of my close friends that happen to be african american and hispanic were both told they were not on the voter registration list so they couldn't vote. They ended up voting at the same precinct they were originally told they couldn't after they provided their voter registration cards. Funny thing is their names were on the list.

[Straight Shooter]

5. Oh, well, if they say so, then it must be true.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Notice how they always cherry-pick their arguments and present cases that they know they have a chance of proving. :eyes:

[lovuian]

6. Ok what colleges and universties??? whats their names???

This is a Rove job!!! If anything they have to defend Jeb!!!

[American Tragedy]

7. OK, I understand that the Dixiecrats voted Bush

But the latter point kind of bugs me.

"independent voters who chose Bush in higher proportions to Sen. John Kerry."

I thought independent voters markedly broke for the opposition this time around. Was I mistaken?

[WCGreen]

8. Could it be that the Hurricanes played into Bush's hand

I mean, he was down there, handing our water and pop, rolling up sleves sleeves and acting like a compassionate leader....

Kerry tried, but he didn't have the gravitas of office to outshine the president...

Now this is the unspoken value of being the incumbent....

Still, I don't like the idea of paperless voting anywhere in the US.......