...verifiable, concrete reality (human beings, paper, watchful eyes) intervening between the vote cast and its ultimate fate in the central tabulator. A watched over count at each precinct and immediate posting at a local or town web site--and also a paper posting outside the polling place--would do it, in some voting systems. But it would have to be a hand count of voter verified paper ballots. (With some machines, there is NOTHING to count--no paper--and the votes are already long gone into Wonderland.)
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The following bothered me, too, in the main post:
"Basically, as the exit polls were being taken, the local precincts were able to add up the number of votes for each candidate and at that point the exit polls and the results agreed. It wasn't until the individual precincts sent their results to be tallied by the Central TABULATOR that a descrepency occurred between the results and the exit polls."
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If the precinct vote counts were different from the end result in the central tabulator--and one set of numbers (precinct) parallels the exit polls, and the other set (central tabulator) does not--then it would be all too easy to cry fraud. We would then have had THREE sets of numbers, two of them agreeing and one not (the central tabulator).
I was going to ask you for documentation on this, but I think it may just be a slip of the pen. (Or am I not connecting the dots here? Is this what UScountvotes has been talking about, when they say they are going to check the entire election down to the precinct level? In other words, do records currently exist of what may be the correct results of the election, but no one is checking them--maybe because people don't have the resources?)
What happened to the CORRECT precinct data? Was it altered by the central tabulators in a back-assing covering loop?
Or does it exist--and is just sort of gathering dust in some gov't office? (Of course, with the paperless sytems, it doesn't exist in any concrete form--I mean other kinds of voting.)
There have been a number of studies of paper ballots vs. electronic voting studies, showing a distinct skew to Bush in electronic voting.
Here are the three I know of:
Nine Ph.D's from leading universities call for investigation of 2004 Election--found 1 in 10 million odds against Bush win, on exit poll data; and a skew to Bush in electronic at the precinct level (5 pg. report):
http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdfFlorida: 130,000 to 230,000 phantom votes for Bush--paper vs. electronic voting:
Dr. Michael Haut & UC Berkeley statistics team:
http://ucdata.berkeley.eduDemocratic Underground (ignatzmouse):
(North Carolina: absentee ballot vs. electronic, inexplicable 9% edge to Bush in electronic:)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x45003(also at:)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/12/233831/06And, of course, TruthIsAll's studies here at DU: (not a comphrehensive list)
Part 1
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1316010Part 2
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1358806Part 3
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x197878Democratic Underground (TruthIsAll): The Time Zone Discrepancy
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x318693-----
I don't know the answer to the question: Can the feds force central tabulators on us? I think the BushCons think they can do anything they please.