Oregon Mail-in Ballots & Hand-Recount System vs. New York Lever System: 2000-2008 (TIA) - x

[tiptoe]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8103177">FULL ARTICLE and Tables

Oregon Mail-in Ballots & Hand-Recount System  vs.  New York Lever System: 2000-2008

TruthIsAll     source: richardcharnin.com/OregonVsNYVoting.htm

March 29, 2010

Oregon defied the many battleground and heavily Democratic states in which Bush increased recorded vote share from 2000. Oregon's 13.6% exit poll discrepancy in 1992 and 10.2% uncounted vote rate in 1996 may have had something to do with the 1998 decision to switch to mail-in ballots. Oregon’s recorded vote-count shares closely approximated the National True Vote in 2000, 2004 and 2008. Was it because the voting-and-recounts were done exclusively by mail-and-hand and not by machine?

 

2004

 

2004

 

2000

 

2004

'Battleground state' OREGON

OR PHONE SURVEY Share (±3.2% MoE)

Kerry
52.2

Bush
46.3

 
 

Margin
+5.9

 
 

 

OR VOTE-COUNT Share (%)

Kerry
51.35

Bush
47.19

 
 

Margin
+4.16

Swing
 

Gore
46.96

Bush
46.52

Nader
5.04

 
+0.44

+3.7%
 

 

 DISCREPANCY (%)

 Margin Δ

PhoneSurvey - VoteCount

+1.74%

'+' = share-margin shift to Bush

< MoE

Oregon Voting System Advantages

• Vote exclusively by mail-in ballots: '04=86.5% '08=85.7%
  
• Each general election: post-election handcount of random-selected precincts
  
• Partial/full hand-recounts check optical scanner tallies
  
• "No recount conducted in Oregon has ever turned up evidence that a tally machine failed to correctly count votes. A full recount is the ultimate test and with each election we always have at least one or two."

Oregon Facts:

• Gore 2000:
  .44% OR VoteCount margin VERY NEAR .52% National
  
• Kerry 2004:
  4.2% OR VoteCount margin was a NEAR MATCH to 5% unadjusted State Exit Poll Aggregate. Compare to Kerry -2.5% National Recorded Vote-Count margin deficit
  
• Obama 2008:
  56.7% OR VoteCount share a NEAR MATCH to 57.1% OR TrueVote model. Compare 52.9% National Recorded share vs his 58.0% National TrueVote model

 

Solid 'Democratic state' NEW YORK

NY EXIT POLL Share (± 2-3% MoE)

Kerry
64.5

Bush
34.0

 
 

Margin
+30.5

 
 

 

NY VOTE-COUNT Share (%)

Kerry
58.37

Bush
40.08

Nader
1.35

Margin
+18.29

Swing
 

Gore
60.21

Bush
35.23

Nader
3.58

 
+24.98

-6.7%
 

 

 DISCREPANCY ( WPD ) (%)

 Margin Δ

ExitPoll - VoteCount

+12.2 %

'+' = share-margin shift to Bush

>2 x MoE

New York Voting System Vulnerabilities:

• Defective levers in the most democratic precincts – undercount votes
  
• Too few levers in Democratic precincts – long lines
  
• Pre-set levers stuck on Bush – discourage voters
  
• Late provisional and absentee paper ballots not counted on Election Day
  
• Lever totals input to PROGRAMMABLE central tabulators
  
• No hand recounts – there are no paper ballots to count (except for late votes)

New York Facts:

• 2000-2008:
  Democratic late (paper ballot) vote-share 7% higher than E-Day (lever) and matched the unadjusted exit polls
  
• Gore 2000:
  25% recorded marg (60-35%)– 2% exitpoll discrepancy
  
• Kerry 2004:
  18% recorded marg (58-40%)–12% exitpoll discrepancy
  
• Obama 2008:
  27% recorded marg (63-36%)–exit polls not released

 

NATIONAL  Exit Polls  &  Recorded Vote-Counts –  Prelim NEPs  vs  Final NEPs

PRELIM NEP, 13K Random Selection  .86% MoE

Kerry
 50.8 

Bush
48.2

Nader
1.0

Margin
+2.6

 

Final NEP – IMPOSSIBLE  forced match of VoteCount

Kerry
48

Bush
51

 
 

Margin
-3.0

 

Recorded VOTE-COUNT Share (%)

Kerry
48.27

Bush
50.73

Nader
0.38

Margin
-2.46

Swing
 

Gore
48.38

Bush
47.87

Nader
2.73

 
+0.52

-3.0%
 

 

 

 DISCREPANCY (%)

 Margin Δ

 

12:22a Prelim NEP - VoteCount

+5.1 %

 

'+' = share-margin shift to Bush

3 x MoE

• If Final NEP weightings indicate a mathematically impossible number of
   returning voters, then simple logic dictates the weightings are impossible.
• Since impossible weightings were necessary to match to the official vote count,
   then the official national Recorded VOTE-COUNT must also be impossible.
• Since the vote count is impossible, then all demographic category cross tabs
   must use incorrect weights and/or vote shares to match the count.

As a battleground state, it is to be expected that Oregon closely matches the national electorate. Since it votes 100% by mail, and paper ballot precincts had the lowest (2%) exit poll discrepancies from the recorded vote-counts, we can hypothesize that Oregon closely approximates the True Vote.  This is confirmed by the following facts:

...

• Do you believe:
  
  a) 
  the 2008 Oregon vote ( 56.7% ) reflected Obama’s True national share ( 58.0% ),  or
  
  
  b) 
  the national recorded vote-count share ( 52.9% ) for Obama?
  
  
  Did fraud cut Obama’s margin by 13.0 million (from 22.5 to 9.5 million)?

...

Now consider New York.

In 2000, Gore won the state by 25% (60.2–35.2%). In 2004, Kerry’s recorded vote-count margin declined to 18.3% (58.4–40.1%). But Kerry won the unadjusted exit poll by 64.5–34.0%, a 12.2% WPD. Why the sharp reversal of fortune?

Consider the largest counties in Oregon and New York, Multnomah (OR) and Kings (NY):

Gore won Kings Cty (Brooklyn)

by 74.7–15.0%.  Kerry won it by 74.2–22.8%, an  8.3% LOWER margin.

Gore won Multnomah

by 63.5–28.2%.  Kerry won it by 71.6–27.4%, an  8.9% HIGHER margin.

It’s an Urban Legend: Bush recorded vote share increased sharply from 2000 to 2004 in heavily Democratic urban areas but declined in rural locations. Except for Oregon — the ONLY 100% mail-in paper ballot and hand-recount state.

Consider that …

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8103177">FULL ARTICLE and Tables

 

[cascadiance]

1. I spoke to Doug Jones a few years ago before 2006 election who had some concerns...

Doug Jones is a professor at Iowa where I went to school and I had a chance to talk to him about election stuff when I was visiting then. He is a known election expert and served as the technical advisor to the HBO documentary film "Hacking Democracy".

I don't know if many of these concerns have been addressed since then, but to summarize them, he was concerned about the oversight of the counting and tabulating process, since these votes are counted outside of the voters' scrutiny.

I would think that with proper chain of custody rules, etc. that these sorts of concerns could be addressed, and perhaps have since been addressed, but the big concern he had, is that Oregon's state election offices now are under leadership by Democrats (and therefore we can trust them more! :) ). If the Oregon's state administration started to come under different leadership, he seemed to be concerned that the legal rules that are in place now for mail ballot handling wouldn't be sufficient to guarantee that they won't be tampered with in the future. I think he acknowledges that they are in good hands now, and are probably very decently run, but I think it would be a good thing to review our whole ballot handling process to ensure that there are enough codified rules to prevent election fraud in case someone else were put in charge in a later date, with less than honorable agendas then.

[quakerboy]

2. No such thing

When someone with less than honorable agendas comes in, there is no amount of codified rules to prevent election fraud. That's like saying enough rules to keep a kid from eating candy if you lock him in a room with nothing but candy for 4 weeks, or enough rules to keep an addict from shooting up whatever they are addicted too.