Common Cause Florida has started limited audits/recounts in Florida

[berniew1]

CC-Florida has had over 150 members volunteer for the recount/audit effort in big touchscreen counties. But they haven't raised any money yet to cover cost of paying the counties cost as required by Florida as in other states. CC needs more volunteers and if they get enough volunteers and money they will also do some selective recounts in some of the big optical scan counties that had unusual vote patterns not inconsistent with past vote and new registrations data.

Florida had voter suppression of minority voters both in registration and vote process that was well documented in counties such as Broward, Palm Beach, Sarasota, Hillsboro,etc. That has been posted before. They also had problems with absentee ballots and provisionals similar to Ohio- very similar. And the big touchscreen counties had big Repub. vote swings inconsistent with past vote and new registrations data- where the Dems had big advantages that didn't carry over to the official vote count. Thats why the first audit efforts are focusing on those counties vote log books, absentees, provisionals, etc.

704 W.Madison St. Tallahassee, Florida 32304 phone - [phone] fax - [phone]
e-mail - [e-mail]

[berniew1]

1. Results of first 2 precincts recounted in Orange County- Kerry gains 32

On 12/08/04 a request for a ballot inspection was sent to the Orange County Supervisor of Elections. There was a prompt response and an appointment set a few days later. We wanted to schedule earlier but the SOE needed time to allow notification to all candidates.

Letter template: http://www.recountflorida.com/volunteer.php

Upon arrival to our appointment on 12/14/2004, they greeted us along with their county attorney. They seemed very nice and helpful. They walked us to a large table and gave instructions on what to expect. Basic instructions like not touching the ballots and notifying the clerk on proceeding to the next one.

The ballots were brought in separate boxes sealed with tape. Each precinct had a few boxes. We ended up counting precincts #101, #102 and a half of #108 for 4.5 hours straight with about 2500 ballots.

After leaving for the day, we reviewed each other’s count. Surprisingly, the difference in our totals from the official results showed fewer votes for almost all candidates.

PRECINCT 101:

Bush –26
Kerry –21

[berniew1]

2. Miami Herald hand recount of 3 Florida counties- Kerry has big gain

Miami Herald hand recount of 3 Florida counties indicates signficant Kerry gain and possible Kerry win in Florida

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/20021...
Here are the tallies for Union County:
Bush original: 3396 Bush hand count: 3393 (-3)
Kerry original: 1251 Kerry hand count: 1272 (+21)
Net change: Kerry +24
Here are the tallies for Lafayette County:
Bush original: 2460 Bush hand count: 2452 (-8)
Kerry original: 845 Kerry hand count: 848 (+3)
Net change: Kerry +11
It's a bit more complicated for the third county they looked at, Suwannee County, because they only report the totals for a hand
count of "almost 60%" of the ballots. Here is the result of their 60% hand count:
Bush 60% hand count: 6140
Kerry 60% hand count: 2984
Which gives us the following tally for Suwannee County:
Bush original: 11153 Extrapolation of Bush 100% hand count: 10549
Kerry original: 4522 Extrapolation of Kerry 100% hand count: 5126
Net change: Kerry +1208
In the original count, 71.2% of the votes cast for Bush or Kerry (n=15675) went to Bush. In the hand count, this drops to 67.3%. That
is a significant drop. Let's translate that into numbers. If you take the percentages from the hand count and extrapolate, here's
what you get:
Bush = 15675 x .673 = 10549 (loss of 604)
Kerry = 15675 x .327 = 5126 (gain of 604)
Net change: Kerry +1208
A switch of 1208 votes in a county with less than 16K votes cast is obviously huge. Now maybe there's a very large percentage of Bush votes in that remaining 40% that they didn't count, but we can't know that because they didn't count them. Which begs the question...why did they stop counting in Suwannee County when their tabulation of 60% of the ballots deviated so much from the original total? And without actually counting those
remaining ballots, how can they possibly report that nothing is amiss when the data they have so far suggests a possible problem?
What I see is a possible gain of 1243 votes for Kerry from three small counties in which only 23627 ballots were cast. That
represents about 0.3% of the ballots cast for Bush and Kerry statewide. If Kerry gained votes at the same rate statewide, he picks up nearly 400,000 votes and wins Florida.

[politicasista]

3. Isn't this old information?

[berniew1]

5. The Miami Herald one has been posted before; Orange Co. is new

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[gulogulo]

8. This has been discussed before

and your calculations are based on wrong information. The "60%" that was counted in that county were not random 60% - from all precincts.

It was 60% of precincts - that is, full precincts were counted, which constituted 60% of the whole. Miami Herald reported that after comparing the results of THOSE precincts with the recounts of THOSE precincts, no significant difference was detected.

You cannot extrapolate from 60% of the precincts to the whole county. Some precincts trend R, some trend D. If you take one precinct that trends D and extrapolate its results to the whole county, you will find that the numbers do not match - of course. It's a pointless exercise.

[berniew1]

10. Not my calculations; but Miami Herald doesn't seem to have given numbers

Other than what was in the Seattle Times article.
Maybe they have more detail somewhere but why didn't they post it.
And why didn't they finish the count, since Kerry was gaining.

Note that Kerry got a signficant gain in Union County also.
24 votes in a county with 3390 votes. Project that up to state gives Kerry win.

[DoYouEverWonder]

11. Since the Miami Herald never reported their numbers for Suwannee CO

there is no way to know if they actually found differences or not. The writers definitely had an agenda to prove Bush won, so I do not trust them when they say 'no significant' difference and then don't report their numbers.

[gulogulo]

13. In previous discussion on DU

the authors of the article have emailed someone who asked them that they counted complete precincts, and that the recounts matched the precinct election day numbers.

It is Occam's razor - it is a lot easier to recount 60% of precincts than actually take a 60% sample out of each and every precinct. Which do you think the article authors did?

[berniew1]

14. I'm sure they took 60% of precincts. But why didn't they give numbers?

And why didn't they finish the recount. They had already gotten significant gain for Kerry in Union County.

[gulogulo]

15. They seemed to be responsive to emails

Why don't you email Miami Herald and ask them for the numbers. Either that or search DU for previous discussion of that recount, because the numbers were posted on DU AFAIR.

Edited-added: also, if you agree that they recounted 60% of precincts and not a 60% sample of every precinct, then you have to agree that your extrapolation is not something that can reasonably be applied to the numbers they reported, considering that some precincts are bound to be R-leaning and some D-leaning.

[eomer]

17. I emailed the reporter

and she replied back with the precincts that were counted. If I remember correctly they were 1, 2, 5, 7, 10, 12, absentee and early.

The net gain for Kerry was something like 38 votes.

[gulogulo]

19. That's what I remember seeing too.

It seems that the pickup for Kerry per county is in the range of 30-50 votes. All power to the people who recount, it will be interesting to see how many votes Kerry will pick up Florida-wide, but it really does not seem, from the recounts that were done, that it will be more than a couple of thousand votes at most. If anyone knows of any recount that showed otherwise, please tell.

[berniew1]

20. Recounts aren't the whole story. Studies showed major discrepiencies in

Big touchscreen counties. Such as Univ. of Calif. study, etc.
www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00072.htm
www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,10801,97614,00.html
www.votersunite.org/electionproblems.asp?sort=date&selectstate=FL&selectproblemtype=ALL

and www.flcv.com/fla04EAS.html

[berniew1]

22. There was also a lot of voter suppression of minorities in big counties

But how do you count votes that were prevented from being recorded?
I hear there might be a suit filed regarding the voter suppression re: minority rights- by a civil rights group.

Voter Suppression
www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/10032557.htm
www.newtimesbpb.com/issues/2004-11-04/news/norman.html
www.legitgov.org/essay_front_lines_in_florida_110704.html
http://simplyappalling.blogspot.com/2004/10/broward-co-florida-once-again-descends.html
www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/10099198.htm?1c

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.election26nov26,1,4103824.story?coll=bal-oped-h

www.votersunite.org/electionproblems.asp?sort=date&selectstate=FL&selectproblemtype=ALL
I have a lot more detailed info on the voter suppression in
Broward, Palm Beach, Hillsboro, and Sarasota counties.

[berniew1]

21. Do you know how to contact them? I'd like the details.

Also did you ask why they didn't finish?

24 in one county and 38 in partial precincts of another small county aren't insignificant.

[gulogulo]

23. Delete

delete

[berniew1]

25. Do you remember who the reporter was??

[gulogulo]

9. In their web page, they say:

http://www.recountflorida.com/reports/report1.htm

"Absentee ballots are held separately. This was everything we were given access to. We are checking the location for provisionals."

That means that the undercounts they are reporting are because they did not count the absentee ballots and the provisional ballots.

[adolfo]

4. Link

Is there a website?

[berniew1]

6. There are 2 recounts going on: Common Cause and Recount Florida

Actually 3 if you count the Miami Herald recount.
The others started sooner. But the CC one will likely be the biggest.
If they can raise the needed money. They have over 150 volunteers already.

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. This is great news

I am convinced that some of the padding was done with the absentee ballots and the inactive registered voters. My SOE told me the Repugs were very interested in those lists and kept coming back for updates. I am so glad someone is finally going to look at those.

Also, this is the first I've heard of someone trying to audit the touch screen systems. LOL, that will be fun, to say the least.

[berniew1]

16. They will be looking at voter log books, absentees, provisionals, etc.

And according to another thread, it appears that Touchscreen counties do have a auditable trail. The memory of computer compilers can be decifered by experts.

[DoYouEverWonder]

18. How do you know it's the same complier?

or even the same machine anymore? Do they have go inventory tracking and security for this equipment?

[trudyco]

24. That's great, maybe they can coordinate with other group!

So People for the American Way and Common Cause are doing something but ACT has faded away and MoveOn is only doing a petition? I haven't heard if the Interfaith Alliance (Walter Cronkite) or Southern Poverty Law Center are doing anything.

Any other groups doing recounts?
I was really disappointed about ACT and MoveOn. They had so much momentum going into the election and they'd have information that could be used in canvassing bbv precincts.

Any newspapers besides Miami-Herald doing any recounts? Who did the full Florida one for Gore in 2000?

trudyco