My take on the TIA probability of so many errors favoring Bush threads....

[Land Shark]

Proposition One: If the events of election irregularities were independent and random, the odds are impossibly high that these would occur to disporportionately affect one party or candidate. (TIA)

Counter to Proposition One: The events are not random, so these TIA calculations are based on false assumptions (see, in part, posts of foobar, mgr) and lead to self serving high probabilities.

Comment on the counter to Proposition One: I detect no fundamental denial of the data presented by TIA being heavily skewed to one candidate.

As a consequence of this comment on Prop One, if the events are not independent but instead are linked as alleged by mgr (such as due to programmer incompetence, etc.) there is one unavoidable conclusion: *computers have followed coded instrutions* to disproportionately and systematically impact one candidate over the other.

In discrimination law, such disproportionate impact (on a protected class) is often itself actionable regardless of a seeming lack of intent to actually discriminate. Surely on at least a moral level we would agree that candidates and the public are both entitled to fair elections and are impacted by the lack of fairness present when even "glitches" favor one side over the other.

Though as mgr points out one should never underestimate the power of negligence, IT DOES NOT MATTER IF THE ELECTION RESULT IS INACCURATE BECAUSE OF NEGLIGENCE OR BECAUSE OF FRAUD, in both cases the wrong candidate was announced the winner. It needs to be corrected, in either case.

Fraud v. negligence matters basically only on the moral level, the level of criminal law, and the political-blame level.

But fraud vs. negligence matters not on the level of reversing whatever it is that corrupts our system of elections.

As I'm now repeating regularly, since elections officials never give us ballots (data) or analysis (trade secret vote counting software) without the most strongly worded court orders (and even then they will try to make the disclosure subject to an order not to disclose to anyone else) we have NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS FOR CONFIDENCE IN ANY ELECTION RESULT. We are provided only with naked conclusions.

i.e. It is not possible to form a rational independent belief that the election results reported (which are merely conclusions) are in fact the correct resuts, because nobody gets the data or analysis to check for themselves who is in an independent position.

Election officials and vendors, like all human beings, are very reluctant to fall on their swords. and nobody else can check. The elimination of checks and balances and the secrecy of the data and the analysis supporting reports of election results creates a situation where a lot of unnecessary debates develop.

Given that, based simply on nondisclosure of data and analysis we can confidently conclude that there is NO BASIS FOR CONFIDENCE IN ELECTION RESULTS

What
on
Earth
More
Do
We
Really
Need
to
call
for
election system
CHANGES??

Granted statisticians can do wonders with statistical analyses of even mere conclusory election result data, but even if we had none of that, we still have this:

1. No basis for confidence in results because of secrecy, and
2. Either coordinated or independent anomalies heavily favoring one side over the other that provide ample reason to believe that things have gone wrong because these computers only act based upon the instructions given to them by their source code as it interacts with voters.

Now those who would defend these inappropriate walls of election secrecy invite us to fight with each other based on very educated opinions of probabilities and so forth combined with all known relevant facts about the election. But the battle's already over, we have only to wake up, realize we've won, and tell the squatters on our democracy purporting to count votes in secret to get the hell out with the same assurance with which we would invite an undesired stranger to leave our homes.

you can not call an expert witness in even the simplest most relatively inconsequential court case and have them testify simply to conclusions. Data and analysis MUST be subject to cross examination in order to satisfy MINIMAL DUE PROCESS concerns.

After we get our disclosure of ballots and counting methods, I'll be happy to attend a debate (electronic or otherwise) between TIA and mgr and whoever else that's based on DISCLOSURE OF DATA.

Until that happens, however, internal debates are not the be-all and end-all because it is not our job to prove a fair election occurred, or to prove anything at all, it is the job of elections officials and vendors to prove that any confidence is merited and they can do that legitimately only through disclosure. Propaganda designed to artificially create "confidence" is another method, but it is not legitimate.

Whatever you do in law or anything else, don't let the burden of proof get shifted onto you when it shouldn't be. The public doesn't need to prove squat, it is others that have some 'splainin' to do.

Strike that, they can't possibly even explain their way out of it, because the very *wish or desire* to perpetuate a situation where data and analysis remain undisclosed via secret vote counting is a corrupt act or desire. To desire to be the one to count votes in secret is to wish to oneself a tyrannical power, immunity and privilege that no one gets or deserves in a real democracy actually pledged to serve the public.

P-u-b-l-i-c S-e-r-v-a-n-t-s, PLEASE.

[Bill Bored]

1. And besides, maybe the Republicans didn't have the EIRS 800 #!

I agree that it's much more important to fix this thing than to prove exactly how badly it's broken.

[TruthIsAll]

67. Shark, you have it exactly right. Here is my take.

The naysayers claim these are not "independent" events. In so doing, they hoist themselves on their own petard.

FACT I: The reason that the EVENTS themselves are not "independent" of each other is that they represent persistent PROGRAMMING HACKS to switch votes from Kerry to Bush.

FACT II: The documented OBSERVATIONS are independent - the precincts are in DISTINCT physical locations. Of course, the fact that the most of the incidents occurred in FL and OH, two states Bush HAD to win, is just another coincidence. Sure.

FACT III: This is NOT a POLL. This is NOT a sample. We are computing the binomial probability that 86 of these 88 documented incidents switched Kerry votes to Bush.

WE HAVE THE FULL SET OF DOCUMENTED INCIDENTS - NOT JUST A SAMPLE. THIS IS BETTER THAN ANY SAMPLE. IT'S THE EIRS UNIVERSE OF DOCUMENTED VOTE SWITCHES.

This example is a cliche, but I will repeat it for all those naysayers who still believe in intelligent design:

Flip a coin 88 times. If 86 come up heads, then the probability is 1 in 79 sextillion that this was a FAIR coin AND just a RANDOM anomaly.

The SAME logic applies to the touch screens. Eighty-eight incidents were reported - in diverse physical locations. Eighty-six switching to Bush was NOT a random occurrence. It was NOT caused by the random dropping of data bits or from electrical failures. It was November. Humidity was NOT a problem. If that were the case, the results would have been close to 50-50. Naysayers, when was the last time your computer failed to add 1+1?

The machines WERE fixed. The odds are BEYOND astronomical. That was the whole point of doing the probability calculation. And if the naysayers don't like the odds, that's just too damn bad. Let them do their own calculations.

Naysayers, get over it.

Your guy cheated.

Big time.

[autorank]

2. Shark, This is a remarkable post, "the final word" on quibbling.

Let Freedom Ring

I'm sick to death of the endless debate here on minutiae regarding election fraud initiated when people actually do the hard work and take a stand for free and fair elections, e.g., TIA's work. The protests start and go on predictably and seemingly without end. It is, quite frankly, tedious and counter productive.

There is more than enough evidence to prompt multiple investigations of voting equipment and networking procedures.

There is more than enough evidence to prompt an investigation of vendor bias.

There is more than enough evidence to prompt an investigation of bias by Secretaries of State that have the net effect of promoting voter suppression.

There is more than enough evidence to prompt an investigation of the final vote counts of the 2004 electing in enough key states to change the results; and, as a corollary, more than enough evidence to force the networks to release the verifiable raw data from the national and state election polls.

If you disagree with these propositions, you are not paying sufficient attention or you're pushing the Republican line. As far as our august party leaders who sit on the sidelines and our DNC, State and Local Committees who deliberately ignore and, thus allow election fraud to take place, shame on them. We'll get new leaders. (And keep in mind, our Democratic leaders have allowed de facto fraud to take place for decades in Presidential and other elections through the old trick of "ballot spoilage").

New Leaders for a New Democratic Party

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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

[TruthIsAll]

6. To you, a sample is NEVER random if it shows Bushco fraud

To you, voters (especially Gore voters) FORGET who they voted for.

To you, voters (especially Gore voters) LIE to the exit pollsters.

To you, voters (especially Bush voters) avoid the exit pollsters.

To you, Mitofsky was right about the final numbers and AT THE SAME TIME wrong about state/national exit poll design and execution.

To you, any statistical analysis which confirms the documented evidence is worthless.

To you, any excuse to naysay the documented evidence is priceless.

To you, Bush was the winner - by Intelligent Design.

Welcome back.

[OnTheOtherHand]

8. if you have the chops to talk facts, not people, go for it. n/t

[autorank]

9. You talking "people" above: "I know you are capable of getting this right"

Consistency is often a virtue. It's always a virtue on the same thread and within a few posts. You ask TIA to talk facts after showing up on my post and making a sarcastic remark about me. You "know" I'm "capable." Haha professor, you are not being asked to judge me.

I didn't name you in the post to which you responded. If you resemble the criticisms, go ahead and take credit.

This is just the "same old" "same old." We're used to it by now.

Don't take offense for general comments and then feel singled out. It's a bit histrionic.

[OnTheOtherHand]

12. well, I thought a positive comment was probably allowable

so what do I do now? Should I apologize to TIA for opining that he was capable of getting it right? Yeesh. These rampant compliments really have to stop, they are poisoning the tone.

"I didn't name you in the post to which you responded" -- are you referring to the one that was a response to my post, and which was titled, "Oh yes you are, that's your job. How's Ken Mehlman?"? and to which my response was, in full, "huh? n/t"? If this was an instance of my showing up on your post and making a sarcastic remark about you, in response to a "general comment" not singling me out on your part, then you will have to explain that to me. Or better yet, don't bother. If there is some other post that you regard as a sarcastic remark about you, then I am equally puzzled yet incurious.

[tommcintyre]

26. Why do you insist on baiting people around here?

"Should I apologize to TIA for opining that he was capable of getting it right? Yeesh. These rampant compliments really have to stop, they are poisoning the tone."

C'mon. Do you think ANYBODY here could possibly miss the true intent of the above remark?

Looks like you are picking up with your contentious baiting right where you left off. It's like you never missed a beat (although, IMO, it's even more obvious now).

Very sad - it really sticks out like a sore thumb in this forum now.

:(

[OnTheOtherHand]

27. OK, let me back up -- I mostly agree with 'rank (and 'shark)

The P value debates don't matter much -- there is more than enough to investigate without them. We agree about that.

But I haven't found that Autorank is especially even-handed in his criticisms of "quibbling." No doubt my reading of this post was colored by the fact that he had essentially called me a Republican within the preceding 24 hours. There was also TIA's nifty opening to the latest touch screen thread: "You can be sure they ("naysayers") will be back to throw more smoke on this very clear-cut, documented proof of fraud." I read that as an attempt to preempt any critical comment whatsoever, and I criticize it as such.

I take it as common sense that we can disagree about specific arguments without being on opposite teams. I hope that you agree, and will behave accordingly.

[autorank]

76. You know OTOH, it's not always about YOU...

OTOH: "There was also TIA's nifty opening to the latest touch screen thread: "You can be sure they ("naysayers") will be back to throw more smoke on this very clear-cut, documented proof of fraud." I read that as an attempt to preempt any critical comment whatsoever, and I criticize it as such."

You came and posted after my initial post (now deleted) and made it about you. You're now saying TIA was talking about you. These ideas of everyone referencing you are out of hand. If it's about you, you will be named. If you're not named, you can always ask but why assume that the use of "naysayers" and "quibblers" generically is about OTOH. There are a lot of critics of election fraud work out there. It's not always about you.

[OnTheOtherHand]

77. actually, I thought that remark was more likely about mgr

since it's my impression that it is mgr who has pressed TIA hardest on the specifics of that calculation. And while to portray me as a "naysayer" would kind of make sense, to portray mgr as a naysayer just seems bizarre.

But it doesn't really matter whom, if anyone, TIA had in mind. The statement is a rhetorical attempt to insinuate that anyone who criticizes his argument is "throw(ing) smoke." That is inherently lame. And several of the reports quoted in that post clearly weren't about touch screens. He should go back and clean it up -- or maybe he already has.

[Name removed]

78. Deleted message

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

[OnTheOtherHand]

81. why is it up to the reader to count the relevant reports?

This trope about my having been "exposed" is really offensive. But let's set that aside, or try.

You apparently have a story in your head in which I have set out to argue that the touchscreen reports mean nothing. That story is, ummm, complicated by the fact that I have never argued that -- so you are left to assert that nonetheless, that must be what I really intend to do.

Actually, I contend that if you get less hung up on dubious P value calculations, you will get a lot more love from the stats cops, and that might just be a good thing.

(I have also contended that the reports, by themselves, come nowhere near proving massive touchscreen fraud. But that's just what most people believe. The fact that I have the temerity to state it doesn't make me a troublemaker. And it isn't a statement that massive fraud didn't happen, nor a statement that I oppose investigation. I can hardly believe that I have to explain this sort of thing. Doesn't everyone with any statistical training know the difference between failing to reject the null hypothesis, and lobbying for the null hypothesis? It doesn't seem very subtle.)

Autorank is quite right that it isn't about me. If you want to believe that I am a Republican operative, go for it. But at least tighten up the arguments, too. If you think us nasty naysayers can wreak havoc on DU (which I think is wrong from beginning to end, but let's stipulate it), then imagine what the nasty naysayers do in the outside world. Why don't you think of this as practice for reality?

At some point why don't you go back, winnow the reports, sort them, count them, and report the results? Just a thought.

[Name removed]

90. Deleted message

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

[autorank]

96. "...and report the results? Just a thought."

And report the results. Well that's been happening all along.

How about this result and analysis:

"PREDICTION THIS WILL BECOME AN HISTORIC DOCUMENT" + much much more (see below)

From the Post:
---------------------------------------------------------------
TruthIsAll Donating Member
Fri Jan-07-05 04:50 PM
Original message
PREDICTION: THIS WILL BECOME AN HISTORIC DOCUMENT

Edited on Fri Jan-07-05 05:15 PM by TruthIsAll

NOVEMBER 3, 2004
12:23 AM

LONG AFTER THE POLLS CLOSED.

THIS IS THE SMOKING GUN.
EASY TO UNDERSTAND.
CLEAR.
UNAMBIGUOUS.

THIS WILL BECOME THE MOST FAMOUS EXIT POLL IN HISTORY.
IT WILL EDUCATE MILLIONS WHO NEVER KNEW ABOUT EXIT POLLS.
IT WILL ASTOUND MILLIONS WHO KNEW ALL ABOUT THEM.

IT IS THE TRUTH.

13,047 RANDOMLY-SELECTED VOTERS
1.0% MARGIN OF ERROR

KERRY WON THE FEMALE VOTE BY A HIGHER PERCENTAGE THAN BUSH WON THE MALE VOTE.

******* AND MORE WOMEN (54%) VOTED THAN MEN (46%) *********

Kerry = .54*.54+ .47*.46 = 50.78%
Bush = .45*.54+ .52*.46 = 48.22%

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A ROCKET SCIENTIST.
IT'S SIMPLE ARITHMETIC.

IT'S 1 IN 547 MILLION ODDS THAT BUSH WOULD GET 51.23% OF THE VOTE.
------------------------------------------------------------------

What a strange statement this is to anybody who has been around DU at all. The results get reported here on a regular basis, day in and day out and TIA's results are a consistent part of that.

You're free to start your own thread, say whatever you want and be part of the reporting process. But to tell people here, particularly TIA, to report the results...amazing.

A comprehensive explanation of election fraud--text and key links

or try…

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0507/S00238.htm

[OnTheOtherHand]

124. not responsive to the thread

My suggestion was that instead of copying-and-pasting a core dump of reports, many irrelevant to his claim, he could have winnowed and sorted the results. But you are right that others have done this sort of work. One such post I had never seen is linked to by foo_bar in #101 in this thread.

I don't know that this work supports "independence." On the contrary, it probably makes some of us think that something was very, very wrong in (at least) certain Florida counties -- which gives us some idea of where to focus.

I am of course well aware that TIA has posted many results on DU. The post you quote here is just one among many examples of TIA's arithmetically correct posts based on faulty and/or unproven assumptions. The statement that "Kerry won the female vote by a higher proportion than Bush won the male vote" assumes that the raw results are unbiased. If we can assume that, then dividing the results into male and female vote doesn't strengthen the argument. But as far as I can tell, the vast majority of survey researchers do believe that the exit poll results were biased. And TIA offers them pretty thin gruel. If there are better arguments for assuming that the raw results were unbiased, then we had jolly well better find them.

I will ask you, as I asked TIA: am I supposed to take the content of these arguments seriously? or are they intended to rally the troops?

[Febble]

82. Land Shark makes a really good fundamental point

that in the end the numbers don't matter. I agree with him. OTOH has also expressed agreement. So have many other posters on this thread.

But there is a quite absurd division on this forum within the group of us ("quants" for want of a better word) who care about numbers. If the numbers are going to be used to make a case, it's worth getting the numbers right, as I think all we "quants" would agree, even if we disagree as to the right way of crunching the numbers. I see no evidence in any of the "quant" posts I have read on this forum (including my own) that any of us is interested in anything other than advancing the case for fair, secure, auditable elections in America. All I have seen are arguments as to whether one piece of mathematical evidence is, or is not, good evidence in support of that case. Such arguments tend to be a feature of any debate involving inferential statistics, as anyone who has ever submitted a scientific paper for peer-review will know only too well. It doesn't mean anyone has a hidden agenda. It means everyone cares about the truth.

But in this case, whether one set of numbers is right or wrong, ultimately doesn't matter. Just as justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done, so elections must not only be won, but be seen to be won.

And this one wasn't. Which was Land Shark's point:

...based simply on nondisclosure of data and analysis, we can confidently conclude that there is NO BASIS FOR CONFIDENCE IN ELECTION RESULTS

[autorank]

79. Relentles...now triangulation, bringing in others as victims too.

Misery loves company, as my grandmother used to say. Don't look to be a victim or volunteer others for that role.

[OnTheOtherHand]

80. it is lame with or without "victims" -- defend it, or don't. n/t

[tommcintyre]

25. Why don't you stop talking in circles and baiting people?

"I know you are capable of getting this right"

If that isn't baiting, well...

Hey, look around you here - notice the general lack of contention. Are you here just to stir up trouble, or help solve the problem of a stolen election? Sadly, I suspect it is primarily the former.

So, once again, I ask you:

How about less "politics", and more "science", or do you just like to fight?

:rolleyes:

[TruthIsAll]

7. I know you are capable of getting this right.

Does 1 in 79 sextillion bother you?
Why is that?

But just saying 86 of 88 is OK?
Why is that?

Do you agree that 86 of 88 is a clear indicator of SOMETHING?

OTOH, HOW WOULD YOU ATTEMPT TO MODEL THE PROBABILITY OF THIS OCCURENCE?
WHERE WOULD YOU START?
OR WOULD YOU NOT EVEN TRY?

IF NOT, WHY NOT?

MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE YOU DON'T LIKE THE ODDS.
MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE TOO MANY PEOPLE MIGHT THINK THAT THEY SHOW THE MACHINES WERE FIXED - JUST LIKE THE INTELLIGENCE WAS FIXED FOR IRAQ.

MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE YOU MUST NAYSAY EVERY DAMN CHANCE YOU GET.

MASTER OBFUSCATOR.

To you, ALL statistical analysis which confirms the documented evidence is worthless.

To you, any excuse to naysay ANY statistical analysis which confirms the documented evidence is priceless.

To you, Bush must be the winner - because there is nothing wrong with Intelligent Design and Manipulation of the final 613 (of 13660) Exit Poll respondents to match the corrupt recorded vote.

To you, Kerry must be the loser - because a pro-Kerry/ reluctant Bush bias and faulty polling procedures in the first 13047 Exit Poll respondents invalidates the results which show Kerry WON - across ALL demographics.

[OnTheOtherHand]

10. ok, let's try to strip away the disingenuous ad hominems

I won't comment on "1 in 79 sextillion" out of context, but we can see whether we disagree about it.

Yeah, 86 of 88 is a clear indicator of something -- or maybe that is inherently oxymoronic, if we aren't clear what the "something" is. But it certainly supports the need for further investigation.

In this case, I probably wouldn't try to calculate the P value, because I see no purpose. The 88 reports are not a random sample, and no amount of calculation and hypothesis will make them into one. We need actual investigation, not further speculation.

Based on the text of your message, you apparently believe that I want Bush to have won, because -- well, because I dare to disagree with you. I think that speaks for itself.

Your comment about manipulation of the "final 613 Exit Poll respondents" seems bizarrely willfully misinformed, nine months after the election. E/M have stated openly that they reweighted the exit poll results to match official returns as the returns came in. Surely you have the intelligence to understand that, whether or not you agree with that reweighting (and whether or not it is accurate), it does not entail manipulating the final 613 responses in particular.

Such statements, which have no bearing on the accuracy of the 2004 election poll, serve essentially to scream to anyone with knowledge of exit polling: "Watch out, this guy is clueless!" Assuming that that isn't your intent, I would urge you to improve your signal-to-noise ratio. Frankly, you make it difficult for me to take you seriously -- not only because you don't seem very serious, but because your loud mistakes and groundless abuse cast a shadow on the movement.

You need more of your allies to tell you off, more often. I will try to be an ally.

[TruthIsAll]

16. I don't need you to take me seriously. I don't take you seriously.

.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

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

[TruthIsAll]

28. Damage the election reform movement? By calling you out?

"I do take you seriously in the important respect that your ability to damage the election reform movement is possibly unequaled among DU members. As is your ability to benefit the election reform movement, if you stop (1) making willful and avoidable errors and (2) abusing people who are on your side".

Who are you kidding? Your hypocrisy and disingenuousness are astounding.

OTOH, I must admit you have done quite a bit for the election reform movement, by giving us the opportunity to expose all your fog-making. You invariably show up with professorial pronouncements which NEVER VOICE OUTRAGE AT THE ELECTION SCAM.

You always take the same position: to undermine the data. And you have never refuted a thing. Please stop the preaching; you will never get me to shut up. The fact that you show up every time I post is a clear indication that you don't like what I have to say.

Why don't you talk to Donna Brazille? She will welcome you with open arms. May even ask you to lunch with her and her buddy Rove.

Spare us the clap-trap about concern for the election reform movement. I was concerned on Nov. 4, long before you came here. That day I posted "to believe Bush won the election...".

I have done more for election reform than you will ever know. I was the first DUer to post repetitive warnings about election fraud - long before the 2002 stolen senate elections.

SHOW US ONE SINGLE, SOLITARY, LONELY POST IN WHICH YOU CONTRIBUTED TO EXPOSING THE FRAUD.

A SIMPLE SEARCH OF ALL OF YOUR POSTS SHOWS THAT YOU HAVE BEEN VERY CONSISTENT - YOU ATTEMPT TO DEBUNK THE DATA ANALYSIS EVERY CHANCE YOU CAN. AS FAR AS MANY DUERS ARE CONCERNED, YOU HAVE FAILED TOTALLY IN DOING SO.

THE CASE FOR FRAUD HAS ALREADY BEEN PROVEN - AND THE EXIT POLLS WERE THE CATALYST IN GETTING THE ATTENTION OF THOSE WHO WERE OPEN-MINDED ENOUGH TO LISTEN. IF IT WERE UP TO YOU, WE WOULD ALL BE WALLOWING IN IGNORANCE.

[OnTheOtherHand]

30. I don't "attempt to debunk the data analysis"

I attempt to do QA/QC. Since you tend to overstate the case for fraud, I generally weigh in on the other side, but that doesn't mean that I am out to undermine all arguments for fraud, and in fact I don't. Folks can wander through my 300+ postings and judge for themselves whether I am the knee-jerk "naysayer" that you want them to believe I am.

If you can justify your egregious claim that E/M 'manipulated' the final 613 exit poll responses, go for it -- otherwise, correct your facts and move on. It would be more accurate to argue that they 'manipulated' _all_ the responses (that is more or less what a reweighting to the official returns would entail), so why aren't you arguing that?

I'm not keeping score of your contributions to election reform, which are considerable. I am pointing out that your mistakes and your misguided personal attacks reduce those contributions. Good luck.

[TruthIsAll]

32. There you go again. The big LIE.

"If you can justify your egregious claim that E/M 'manipulated' the final 613 exit poll responses, go for it -- otherwise, correct your facts and move on. It would be more accurate to argue that they 'manipulated' _all_ the responses (that is more or less what a reweighting to the official returns would entail), so why aren't you arguing that?"

I have always stated that the full set of weightings and percentages for all the demographics were changed to match the Bush vote.

Example_

1. Party_id weights
2. Gender percentage
3. How voted weights and percentages.

Citing the last 613 is a strawan. I have mentioned because it is a
graphic illustration of how unbelieveable the national exit poll timeline was:

8349 - Kerry leading 51-48
11027 - Kerry leading 51-48
13047 Kerry leading 52-47

13660- Bush wins 51-48

It's not the final 613, its the fact that the demographic weights and percentages had to be changed to MATCH THE BUSH VOTE.

Stop with the BS.
Take a look at my timeline post..


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x363938

Tell me, OTOH, would you have posted this timeline to DU if no one else did?

[OnTheOtherHand]

35. not a lie, certainly not the big lie -- and I hope you don't intend

the allusion to Hitler. Are you familiar with Godwin's Law?

I guess we agree that citing the last 613 is a strawman, although it seemed to me that it was yours, not mine. You keep citing the respondent totals as if they prove something, although you apparently admit that they don't. What is that about?

Actually, I think it is worse than that. In the post you linked to, you say, "For respondents 13048-13660 it was all RBR." I don't see how you could have stated any more clearly, or wrongly, that the "manipulation" applied to the last 613 respondents rather than to all the respondents. At best it is confusing rhetoric. Don't you think?

As for the timeline, you seem to think that you have blown the lid off something, but what you are describing is simply how E/M's exit poll system works. Yes, they reweighted to match the Bush vote. That is what they do -- they reweight their results in light of the official returns. That is what they say they will do, and they did it. They subsequently release their data (except for the precinct identifiers), as they have in past years -- and we can easily verify that in fact, in the national survey, 7064 respondents said they voted for Kerry and only 6414 said they voted for Bush. (And if we aggregate all the state surveys, the numbers are of course much larger.) There is nothing secret about any of this. I have no clue why you think the timeline post shows anything interesting about the weighting.

In case anyone here is unfamiliar with my views, I'm not assuming that the Bush vote is correct. I certainly don't think the timeline proves any hanky-panky, but it obviously doesn't prove that the official returns are accurate, either.

It might be of interest to you to know that I was one of the participants in the AAPORNET discussion, during election week, about when CNN.com withdrew its initial exit poll results and posted the "corrected" ones that showed Bush winning. I didn't think it proved fraud, but I did want clarity on what had happened when. You are not the only person who has been asking questions about the exit polls since election night, even if our questions are often different ones.

[TruthIsAll]

46. Keefer, Fitrakis, Freeman, Baiman, Simon, Mealy...where is your analysis?

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KEE501A.html
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1065
http://www.freepress.org/images/departments/PopularVotePaper181_1.pdf
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1970/
http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/exit-polls/USCV_exit_poll_analysis.pdf
http://www.selftest.net/redshift.htm

http://organikrecords.com/corporatenewslies/2004efraudsummarytrifold.pdf

[OnTheOtherHand]

74. sorry, I missed this question

and I don't actually understand it. Where is my analysis of what?

You presumably noticed my exchange of views with Ron Baiman a few months ago. I am happy to answer any specific (or even fairly general) questions you have -- probably another thread would be better.

[TruthIsAll]

87. I'll tell you what, OTOH..

Here are my threads. Go ahead, debunk them one at a time.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x383839

I'll go through your analysis and debunk yours...

Oops, I forgot.
You haven't posted any analysis.

You just show up to bait.

[OnTheOtherHand]

91. reality check

I've posted on your threads before, and in fact I have helped you to improve your work. How many DUers have you had opportunity to credit for correcting your calculations?

My analysis of exit poll issues is all over DU, but if you would like a five-page precis, I can write one up. One reason I haven't done this is that my opinion remains that Bush probably won the popular vote -- but I am not especially interested in advocating that position. In fact, I hope I am wrong. But even if I'm right, I don't see how arguing about whether Bush won the popular vote is helpful. I have focused my efforts on trying to stave off exaggerations of the fraud arguments that might, by extension, undermine the credibility of the entire electoral reform movement.

If you look at p. 12 of the latest version of the USCV report (revised July something-or-other), you'll find a passage that reads like this:

"Much work must be done to secure American democracy. USCV's continuing investigation of the 2004 election, including the construction of a national election data archive will contribute to that work. We welcome the efforts of all who share the goal of protecting and strengthening U.S. democratic processes, despite inevitable disagreements. The persistence of credible hypotheses of vote embezzlement and unexplained irregularities in the exit poll data, seven months after the election, underscores the fragility of U.S. elections system. Our country can and must do better."

I drafted most of those words on behalf of USCV, and they certainly speak my mind. (However, I take no responsibility for the missing comma.)

[TruthIsAll]

93. So why did you leave? And why were you there in the first place?

/

[OnTheOtherHand]

98. why did I join/leave USCV?

Presumably that subject suffices to warn off all the people who aren't especially interested in that topic, which is probably all of us. But since you asked:

I can't remember exactly how I first crossed paths with Kathy Dopp of USCV, but it must have been soon after the election. Kathy recruited me for the election_stats list, so I guess you would have to ask her why I was there. But, for my part, I thought it was obviously important to be part of the discussion, especially because many of my students were asking me about evidence of fraud. At several points I was pretty intensely involved in the drafting specifics, although I didn't fundamentally agree with some of the conclusions -- but I thought it was good to have an organization raising the questions as clearly and accurately as possible. (The part of their March paper where they briefly discuss the _range_ of P values that has been assigned to the exit polls is a neat example of how to finesse that sort of issue: if all the P values are extreme, does it really matter which one is right?)

I wouldn't say that I "left" USCV -- I suppose that at some point Kathy summarily removed me from the list -- but certainly there was a point beyond which I couldn't really contribute to the discussions. It is hard to tell from the outside who is participating in USCV discussions these days; the latest revision of the May report seems only to have two signers. I argued vehemently in May that the draft report was placing way too much evidence on purported anomalies in "Bush strongholds" that I didn't think would hold up statistically, and I think that events have borne me out. The paper eventually distributed at the AAPOR conference made an argument about a vote fraud "signature" that I thought was untenable -- and worse, it was added very late and without extensive review. It was in the midst of the run-up to AAPOR that I circulated my own idea of appropriate talking points, and several of them found their way into the paper even though I had no direct hand in its content.

After that, I thought about writing a detailed critique of the May paper, and even started one, but it seemed like bouncing the rubble. I helped Bruce O'Dell to sharpen his own critique, which he eventually made public. (Bruce was in an especially awkward position, since he was USCV's vice president and some of his results were used in the May paper, which he didn't sign.)

Last week I was at the Joint Statistical Meetings in Minneapolis, presenting some exit poll work (mostly Febble's), and got to talk a bit about the vulnerabilities in the system and why we need to reform it. It now seems inevitable that I will spend a lot of my sabbatical writing about these issues. Rather few of my colleagues in political science and public opinion research (rightly or wrongly) consider the claim that Kerry won the popular vote even plausible, much less proven -- and they haven't thought about the systemic problems as much as they ought.

[jwmealy]

134. My analytical efforts stopped when I no longer had hope of raw data

Early this year I had lots of analytical ideas, which I discussed with the UCSV stats team and some local PhD statistician friends of mine, all of which ideas were stymied when E/M refused to publish their database. They could have done lots of things that would have made the vast majority of the data available without the slightest risk of breaching confidentiality. But they didn't. Whether there was a pistol, or just a whisper, behind someone's ear, I don't really care. E/M have decided to protect their establishment position by obscuring the prima facie case for electronic fraud, and by burying the exact evidence that would definitively show whether or not the election was electronically rigged.

A number of statistician PhDs I trusted told me that, without that greater level of detail, it's all going to resolve to a shouting match. And there seem to me to be a number of hired guns shouting very loudly and confusingly whenever anything interesting gets said. And I also assume that more will be hired as necessary.

I have also taken note of the fact that we are totally losing the battle around electronic voting, and that what counts (since 2000, not 2004) is not who gets more votes, but who actually gets his butt into the musical chair in the oval office. So I have given up on analysis for the moment, and have busied myself with other forms of activism.

I will offer you one thing, however. If I were writing the E/M Feb. 20 report, and I knew the evidence in my own database pointed pretty strongly to electronic fraud, and I were trying to craft it so that it would not antagonize Karl Rove, while not actually saying anything provably false, I might come up with the following formulation: "The value of the WPE for the different types of equipment may be more a function of where the equipment is located than of the equipment itself" (p. 40). Parse this like the statement "I did not have sexual relations with that woman", and you realize that it is totally compatible with the statement, "The value of the WPE for the different types of equipment is a function of the equipment itself".

When and if someone does a Daniel Ellsberg with the database (blessings be upon him or her), I may get into the act again, but all in all the horse has bolted.

Webb Mealy

[GuvWurld]

136. Welcome to DU, Webb Mealy!

I like what you said in post #133 about nothing is surprising. And I like what you said here about the loud confusing shouting match. Just as we are subjected to myriad intentionally divisive issues; and presented with contradictory policy rationales that amount to Orwellian paradoxes; so too should we expect that this election system will perpetually generate inconclusive outcomes. Thus again we arrive at what must become the self-evident truth of the situation: there is no basis for confidence in the results reported from U.S. federal elections.

Please don't anybody forget that we have arrived at this place through the joint political stewardship of the Republicans and Democrats. That is, the way they work together got us here. Not the way they compete, but the way they cooperate. Any imagined solution involving the Democratic party is a false alternative that will prevent a true People Power movement. The peaceful revolution is now and calls for rejection of the government's claim to legitimacy. This is how We The People find our common voice and avoid the ongoing intentional divisiveness required for either party to be in power.

[jwmealy]

140. Thanks for your thoughts! n/t

[Name removed]

34. Deleted message

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

[OnTheOtherHand]

44. certainly I will try to create "doubt" about wrong arguments

I believe that wrong arguments hurt the cause. And I observe that you rarely defend the arguments I criticize. Aspersions about my motives seem to be your main contribution. Your choice.

How am I attempting to "disrupt and distract others from pursuing Democratic and progressive ideals"? That is silly.

I would not say that I am being singled out -- on the contrary, I think several good people's motives have been unfairly criticized because they challenged what they believed to be weak arguments.

It seems to me that you assume that I am lying. Try assuming that I am telling the truth, and see if anything changes.

[tommcintyre]

59. What you DO "speaks" so loud, it's hard to "hear" you

The tenor of your first post in this thread (now deleted) spoke volumes of what you "DO", didn't it?

"Aspersions about <your> motive<s>..."? Well... I don't think you need any help - you seem to be doing that just fine on your own.

"several good people's motives have been unfairly criticized..." Hmm... there are certainly differences of opinions expressed by others even in this thread - no problem - since their overall intent (positive ) is clear, just as (IMO - sadly - in contrast), yours also is.

"Try assuming that I am telling the truth..." To do that, I would have to disregard both past and current history (this thread). That is never a wise idea.

[OnTheOtherHand]

60. I guess I won't ask you for a character reference

(EDIT: ) It's OK that my original post was deleted -- it really was off-topic. As I said before, I read Autorank's post here in the context of his Mehlman gibe elsewhere.

Just in case anyone is wondering: I am not a Republican, I am not a Republican agent, I am not a Republican employee, and whatever else tom thinks I am, I'm probably not that either.

[Land Shark]

63. And what if Tom thinks you're a prof of American and environmental studies

from Bard college?

[OnTheOtherHand]

66. well, he's got me there! (grin)

Anyway, you nailed the main point -- "NO BASIS FOR CONFIDENCE IN ELECTION RESULTS."

[TruthIsAll]

86. OTOH, I want you to go through each of my posts and

try to debunk them one by one.

[OnTheOtherHand]

99. a couple of confusions here

One is this. Suppose that I spend several hours explaining to you why NES and GSS results undermine your arguments about recalled 2000 vote, and your response -- as best I can reconstruct it from memory -- is, "forget the polls." And suppose that some folks (I think I was one of them, but I'm not even sure) try to explain the concept of "design effect" to you, and why it invalidates your margin-of-error calculations, and your response is something like, "I call it an obfuscation effect." (It might be time for me to send cash to DU just so I can find and quote these verbatim, but I think I'm in the right ballpark. Feel free to correct the details.) How many times do we need to repeat that sort of exercise before I get to complain that you are not especially attentive to rebuttals? Or, and please forgive me if this is the case, did you get around to conceding those points while I was away?

The other is this. I am not trying to debunk every argument you make, or better put, I am not trying to refute every argument you make. I'm not even trying to talk you out of your belief that Kerry won the popular vote (although your _certainty_ about it may lead you to make bad judgments about people who disagree with you). I want you to make the best possible arguments about why Kerry won or may have won the popular vote. I want this because (1) I want to know if it's true, (2) arguing about this may help us refine forensic techniques for auditing future elections, and (3) even to have a serious debate about the 2004 election strikes me as a compelling argument for systemic reform.

[OnTheOtherHand]

106. so, now...

should I post my rebuttals to your "return of the clincher" and "WTF" threads on those threads?

Or should I write them up and post them as their own threads, or as FAQs elsewhere, or what? What do you think is an appropriate way to ensure that my comments get fully vetted?

Or does it not really matter whether they get vetted, because in the end, any criticism of your specific arguments amounts to "quibbling" or even "baiting"?

I suspect that at this point, everyone on the forum either gives your posts very great credence or takes them heavily salted. So it is an interesting question: is there any point in explaining why I think you are wrong, and if so, what is the appropriate target audience?

[Bill Bored]

17. Having investigated some of this "programming"

I can say that it's possible to set it up in various ways.

Some, such as those that exploit straight party controlling races, will show up on the screens, and others that simply reverse the names on the e-ballot would not.

In general, I think this sort of thing is the strongest evidence that something could have been done, and it needs to be publicized more.

And of course there is the screen calibration thing, which would show up, but is probably not such a good one unless it can be "programmed" on lots of machines at once, which I doubt.

Bev Harris et al taking apart an Op Scanner and rebuilding it more or less from scratch and making it switch votes is not really very helpful, IMO. There are probably people in this world who could take apart a refrigerator and make it do pretty much the same thing.

It's more important to show what can be done using the off-the-shelf products and the answer is PLENTY.

[OnTheOtherHand]

48. that all makes sense to me

I compared notes with Tfc on this general point elsewhere. Yeah, it makes sense that fraud could be implemented in multiple ways with various manifestations.

I don't see the voter reports as the compelling evidence of actual and widespread fraud that some do (which doesn't mean that I'm convinced there wasn't actual and widespread fraud -- it's an occupational hazard that I am very stubborn about not pretending to be convinced of things I'm not convinced of). But it almost doesn't matter. As you put it, "something could have been done," and that is unacceptable.

(Maybe a cleaner example is the 3900 votes in Gahanna. I don't think anyone argues that the 2004 election was stolen in blocks of 4000 votes per precinct -- if that was a fraud attempt, it was pretty much destined to be uncovered. But at the very least, it proves all by itself that the equipment isn't trustworthy. And at this point we know in many different ways that it is vulnerable.)

Even if we can never prove that 2004 was stolen (and whether or not it was), we know more than enough to make reliance on DREs indefensible.

Bill, half my brain is still in Europe, but it seems that the fight in NY is gonna proceed for now at both state and county levels, do I understand that right?

[Bill Bored]

70. Mostly at the County BoE level.

Feel free to email me about this. And remember, the MONEY comes from the county legislatures (HAVA being an unfunded mandate and all), so they can influence their BoEs!

If you want to read the latest bills that have become law, go here:

http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A08969&sh=t

and here:

http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A08931&sh=t

[FogerRox]

150. Additionally

DREs are built to be "hacked" from the corporate end-- not the user end. DREs Have a front end and a back end-- each reproducing results-- by reconciling these 2 results you prove accuracy-- thats total BS

If you had an accountant with 2 sets of books you would call the cops-- well, DREs have 2 sets of books---

[Dynasty_At_Passes]

139. As a coincidence theorist, what is your take on this? n/t

http://www.answers.com/topic/2004-u-s-presidential-election-controversy-voting-machines

[yowzayowzayowza]

3. If I may, the problem is...

too many public servants on both sides of the aisle from local election administrators to SoSs to the state & federal courts, legislatures and executives who deem their righteous avarice superior to the most basic elements of our democracy. These voting issues are yet another symptom of the dissolution of our commons which defies not only statistics, but even the most blatantly obvious evidence. With all due respect, the "greatest generation" has left us a task more daunting than defeating global fascism on the battlefield; conquering the "avarice state" within ourselves.

If this doesn't seem too far afield, perhaps I can make a meme suggestion:

Why can't we have free and fair elections? The avarice state.
Why must Grandpa shepherd Walmart shopping carts for want of a fistful of pills? The avarice state.
Why did we have a Constitutional crisis over an immaterial fellatio fib? The avarice state.
How did we start a war over a pack of lies? The avarice state.
Why have we created an ecologically unsustainable society? The avarice state.

As a google of the term "avarice state" returns zero hits, perhaps it could be a retort to the reich wing "welfare state" meme?

[Land Shark]

4. yes, but all too often it is the god of convenience rather than avarice

to whom we sacrifice the intregrity of our democracy.

Someone proposes a concern that quick results would be nice, SIMPLE, sacrifice the integrity of our democracy....

someone proposes that long ballots make hand counting more challenging in the US than in Canada, SIMPLE, let's sacrifice the integrity of our democracy.

Perhaps more generally than the role of avarice, those who are sworm to uphold our elections' integrity too often find almost anything to be sufficient reason to sacrifice the integrity of democracy.

the charge: failure to uphold the integrity of democracy as a servant of the public (public servant), often in express or implicit violation of their oath of office. Avarice is one major reason for this, though not the only one.

[Peace Patriot]

11. Yup, I've begun to realize that the silence of our Dem Party leaders on

Bushite companies counting our votes in secret (a truly mind-boggling silence!) is due mostly to plain old, venal corruption. Our election systems have become billion dollar business deals, with the coming of electronic voting systems. Election officials of both parties have succumbed to future job offers, lavish lobbying perks (like this outrage that just took place at the Beverly Hilton, sponsored by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia--see link below), and the heady power of brokering big business deals, and maybe also lording and ladying it as "professionals" and "experts" over the dumb voters, who haven't a clue any more how their votes are counted.

(I've got a Connie McCormack quote on the latter--utter contempt for the voters and their advocates--"not expert.")

I think we've really got to realize that billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars are at stake, within our election system itself (not to mention corporate campaign contributions, and political ad money to the war profiteering news monopolies), and also as to WHO GETS POWER. Can't have an unjust war (with all of its benefits to Halliburton & brethren) if people like Max Cleland and John Kerry get elected. People who have SEEN war.

Follow the money, as someone said.

-----

See Amaryllis' post on Diebold/ES&S/Sequoia lobbying of election officials at the Beverly Hilton this August--it will burn your eyeballs!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

[autorank]

14. "billions and billions" but in truth, it's trillions. We're talking about

the ability to use the entire authority of the state to make policy, including war, to serve particular interests. Whatever the costs, it's worth it. That's why I'm so impatient with anything that undermines a movement, free and fair elections, which has such staggering opposition and such limited membership and resources. The good news is that our membership is actually legion, there are few if any Americans who oppose voting rights. That is our struggle, voting rights; and the term needs to be used again and again.

[yowzayowzayowza]

39. Oh puhleeze!

The "god of convenience" made our public servants forget their obligations... :eyes:

Cheap shot. Try again.

[Land Shark]

50. the phraseology is borrowed from the prior post, let me instead say

that seeking convenience is often a major and even THE major reason cited by elections officials for purchasing electronic machines. as such, convenience/efficiency is the seeminly neutral basis upon which these negative changes to our elections occur.

I withdraw the phrase "god of convenience" and stand by the underlying factual assertion of convenience as playing as large or an even larger role in elections than "greed" or avarice.

[yowzayowzayowza]

58. Your description is of ...

incompetence, not merely misguided implementations of "conveniences" or alleged "efficiencies."

How many elections has incompetence stolen? Hmmm... lemme think.

Sorry, I am far more afraid of avarice than incompetence, especially avarice preying on incompetence.

Neither of which, however, alters the fact that utilizing well designed mechanization to maximize deployment of finite resources is desirable in any process from banking to manufacturing to elections.

[Peace Patriot]

13. Land Shark, this has been my thought exactly...

The Bushite "pod people" in Congress thought to advantage themselves in the context of public outrage at their 2000 election theft, by pouring $4 billion into the states for electronic voting machines manufactured by major Bush donors and supporters, by blocking a "paper trail" requirement for electronic voting equipment, and by permitting the states to sign contracts with these companies in which the formulae for counting the votes is a "trade secret." (har, har)

The companies--mostly Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia--proceeded to thoroughly corrupt our election system and our election officials, and got everything they wanted from them, including not even a "paper trail" (let alone a paper ballot backup) in one third of the country.

Two of the companies got control of 80% of the vote count...and...

AND!

...Kerry won the exit polls.

The conditions for an honest election were not present...and...

AND!

...Kerry won the exit polls.

The order in which these things are stated is every important.

---------

In addition, the true result of the exit polls was falsified by the corporate news monopolies, to HIDE strong evidence that the "official result" derived by secret computer code controlled by Bushite companies was not accurate, and produced the wrong winner.

We had a controversial new election system being tested out nationwide for the first time. We had Bushites controlling the vote count--information that was also hidden away from the public by the news monopolies. And then we had them tweaking the exit polls that Kerry won to fit the "official" Bushite result that Bush won.

And now...NOW...they won't even cough up the raw exit poll data--not even to a senior Congressman, nor to reputable experts, who have requested it.

Kerry won the exit polls...and...

AND!

...the news monopolies, acting in concert, FALSIFIED STRONG EVIDENCE of a wrong outcome in the "official result."

The foundation of every discussion of any and all election evidence must be the fraudulent election SYSTEM. And then...

AND THEN!

...you talk about the exit polls, the illegal recounts, the totally inadequate auditing everywhere, the extreme insecurity and hackability of electronic voting machines, the Democrats' blowout success in new voter registration in 2004, and the crimes of Republican election officials in Ohio and Florida.

If Bushites are counting the votes in secret, you DON'T NEED any evidence of fraud in the election itself. The fraud occurred long BEFORE the election. And...

AND!

... we have a whole lot of evidence of fraud in the election itself--a mountain of it, in fact.

[GuvWurld]

15. The squabbling in this thread is proving Land Shark's point

TIA and OTOH, you guys need to re-read what Land Shark wrote. Your quarrel is counterproductive in its existence. There is no end to it other than for you both to realize you can achieve more, and make a more significant contribution to the greater good, by emphasizing the higher-order argument on which you must already surely agree: there is no basis for confidence in the results reported from U.S. federal elections.

On the assumption that we do all agree on the logic and accuracy of the "basis" argument:

--we can discuss what it will take to create a basis for confidence, meaning a discussion of election reforms required to produce such conditions

--we can discuss how to organize in as effective a manner as possible to result in these changes

Fortunately, we're doing pretty well on these points already with the Voter Confidence Resolution. See the latest thread on that here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x388444

If you've been feeling frustrated by your number crunching not moving us closer to real reform, it is because your number crunching does not directly target real reform as its goal through an actionable step. If you haven't been experiencing this frustration, I would likewise encourage you to contemplate exactly what goal you have been pursuing. I respectfully submit it is time for a different one.

[TruthIsAll]

18. You mean like the Brazille OH report? Or the Carter/Baker commission?

Sorry.
I won't stop crunching.
Because without numerical smoking guns, we have nothing.

So far, only obfuscators, deniars and naysayers have kept the truth from coming out. And that includes your favorite democrats.

[GuvWurld]

19. Give me a break.

I have no favorite Dems or Reps. They're all collaborators, not competitors, and I've never said a single good word about any of them.

I'm not saying number crunching is bad. We all value what you have done. I have quoted your work myself. I'm saying at this point your persistence is counterproductive since it causes rifts between you and others in the community and it is not working directly on creating tangible change.

Please understand that I'm not attacking you or your work. Put your work in context and put yourself in a role on the team. If you were to draw only one conclusion from all of your work, why would it NOT be "there is no basis for confidence in the results reported"? If you could bring yourself to embrace that message, many others will hear it and rally behind it. This is valuable in much larger ways than yet another proof of something we're already convinced of (thanks to your many different calculations, among other things).

Again, that you would take a challenging tone in response to my message suggests you have completely missed the point of Land Shark's initial post.

[TruthIsAll]

22. Forgive me if I don't buy it. Why do my posts bother you?

Just go on and do your thing.

I'll do mine.

Thanks.

[TruthIsAll]

29. Be specific. Rifts with who?

With you?

I have only had "rifts" with the naysayers.

Do your homework.

[Fly by night]

31. As valuable as your work is, it would be more valuable ...

... if you would footnote your "Things you must believe if you believe Bush won" lists. As we have discussed in a PM, those lists could be very useful for suggesting the host of improbable "coincidences" that occurred in the last election, every one of which strains credibility. But most Americans (and most journalists) are not DUers and many I have shared your lists with have asked me -- "what are the bases for these statements? What are the primary sources?" and I can't tell them.

It is clear that some of the statements come out of Freeman et al's research (as well as your own) on the exit polls. But the statements are not all exit poll driven. So your number crunching (and your collection of summary statements) would have much more value to the election reform movement if you could simply list the original sources for your statements and footnote them accordingly (e.g., exit polls, pre-election polls, etc.). That way, your lists will gain many more audiences and will stand on their own two feet in meeting accepted research standards. Then, those of us who want to share your good work are not left with using the same answer as the election officials have used when asked if the election was on the up-and-up -- namely, "trust us". Because (in our case) we trust an anonymous poster on DU.

I accept your desire for anonymity as the reason we cannot simply list you (the real you) as the source for your statements. That is everyone's choice on this forum, though I have never cared who knows who I really am. But in the absence of being willing to take visible credit for your work, it would be very helpful for you to share the primary sources used for your work. Absent doing one or the other (and again, this is for the naive members of the general public or the press), your "Things You Must Believe ..." lists have had much less value in the "reality-based" world for those of us who are working in our states to accomplish election reform. Telling our legislators that the source for our information is some anonymous poster on DU is the quickest way to lose their attention. Being able to tell them the primary sources for your statements is a very acceptable substitute for revealing who you are.

To be clear, I don't want you to stop anything you are doing. I just want you to identify your sources, as any qualified and experienced researcher should be accustomed to doing. And I make this request as neither "an obfuscater, a denier or a naysayer".

One final point -- it is not true that without "numerical smoking guns", we have nothing. The EIRS collection of machine "glitches" you have provided in this thread is impressive and suggests widespread fraud, whether or not anyone calculates the probability of these occurrences or not. Likewise, the EIRS reports of systematic dirty tricks and suppression of minority voters in state after state has meaning and salience on their own, without any statistical analysis (which I haven't seen anyway). Likewise, Clint Curtis' sworn statements that he was hired to write "vote-stealing" software, Sherole Eaton's statements regarding the rigging of the Ohio recount, the affidavits out of Clermont regarding tampered-with ballots, the analyses of Thiesen and Stewart regarding the differential prevalence of New Mexico undervotes by voting equipment, Brakey and Griscom's work documenting multiple fraud practices in a single Arizona precinct, reports from Maryland and Georgia regarding much higher numbers of undervotes than has been reported, recorded statements by drunk Republican Congressmen and voting machine company executives that the "fix" was in, the recent testing of Diebold equipment in California (with its 33% "glitch" rate) -- all of this evidence is clear-cut and easier to understand and to explain to legislators, the press and the public than the detailed exit poll analyses with all their complexity and nuance. Thank God we have much, much more to work with -- evidence that is much easier to explain -- than the "numerical smoking guns" available from the exit poll analyses.

Thanks kindly for what you do, and have done. What I am asking is that you do a little more, in order to make your good work even more valuable. The work that you and other analysts do here on DU is important, though very, very far from sufficient to help us accomplish election reform. I just want your work to be even more valuable to us while we are in the policymaking and public education trenches, not just while we are here on DU. Thanks for listening and considering what I am requesting (and this request is for everyone here, not just TIA).

[TruthIsAll]

38. Sources? I've been showing them for 6 months now..

Every time I run an update of my threads, my pre-election and exit poll links to their sources are there right at the top.

And as for the sources in the "to believe Bush won", googles will give you oodles of info. I have always shown all of the data AND the calculations. I suggest you browse my posts.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x383839

[Fly by night]

45. Here is a link to your latest list of "Things You Must Believe"

None of the statements contains any citation that a naive reader (media, legislator, member of the general public) could track down to verify the accuracy of your statements. Again, we use these lists among ourselves but we have been asked too many times by people we are trying to convince of election fraud (not those already convinced) to provide cursory documentation for them and we can't. Because you don't.

In order for our work here on DU to have maximum impact, we must be able to source our statements. And in my earlier list of evidence that is persuasive to the uninformed without being a "numerical smoking gun", I neglected to mention Land Shark's arguments in the OP, which require no numerical analysis to present or to buttress. His logic is also a powerful tool in our efforts to reform elections.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=368702

[Bill Bored]

36. Hey, there's lots of anti-DRE, pro-transparent-election stuff

in the Brazile report. Try reading it and using it with (or AGAINST!!!) your elected officials, BoEs, etc. It's the official party line now, and we should be thanking her for that, regardless of how we feel about Ohio. When you condemn this report, you condemn the only mainstream call to ban DREs. You give the Dems, who've insisted on allowing them, the edge they need to keep going. They should be marginalized now and the party may be ready to do it. What's wrong with that?

We have been handed a gift from the DNC! They are calling for the end of DREs. If you don't believe me, read the report. It's right there in the introduction, and later on too if you can get past all those Ohio scatter plots.

This reminds me a bit of the Aug 6 PDB. All these 9/11 conspiracy theories when all it should have taken to unseat Shrub was his admitted negligence after having read that PDB which was for his eyes only. Yet the Dems didn't use it in the campaign, and the conspiracy theorists always want MORE! And Bush goes merrily on.

We don't need any more evidence than either the Aug 6 PDB, a GEMS user manual, or the Brazile report, each of which clearly shows that both Bush and his DREs have to go!

Anyone who wants to take the time to develop additional evidence is free to do so, but if you want to FIX the problem, the above, and Land Shark's work, is all we need.

And Ohio needs to fix Ohio! And they might just do it too!
http://reformohionow.org/

For God's sake, even the DNC says to get rid of these machines. How much more mainstream can you get? Now, it's up to us to DO IT!

On edit: I should also have mentioned the Conyers report, but that's just a bit less mainstream and it was already used as the basis for the Jan 6 challenge to no avail because of the Repukes in Congress, and some Democrats as well. But I did not mean to downplay the significance of that work in any way. It was awesome!

[Fly by night]

37. BB, can you cite chapter and verse from Brazile on this issue?

I'm not being flippant -- it would really help to have your recommendations for the best sections of the report. I have gotten the Chairman of our state Democratic Party to agree to write all Democratic members of our 95 county election commissions (3 of 5 commissioners in each county are Dems) about supporting VVPB and MRMR. Your recommendations for the best statements from the Brazile report would sure make my task easier (and be informative to everyone here.)

I don't imagine the DNC would mind at all if you quoted liberally from the report. Thanks.

[Bill Bored]

42. Absolutely! (See, this guy Bernie really gets it!)

First from the introduction:

"Our team has analyzed the effectiveness of the various voting machines
used in Ohio and has strong recommendations favoring precinct-count
optical scan machines, assuming they can be improved to accommodate
disabled voters."

(I'd insert something about the Automark at this point.)

"Current DRE voting systems, in addition to being extremely expensive to
procure and maintain, are vulnerable to fraud. Existing standards and
practices for certification of voting systems are insufficient to
provide security for existing DRE systems, and significant effort will
be required to remedy these deficiencies in the future."

"Public elections – if they are to work, must be transparent. Private
secrets have no place in public elections and, in fact, engender a
system that is vulnerable to tampering, covert manipulation and fraud.
Voting machine vendors should be required by law to disclose equipment
designs to the public. Paper trail audits offer an improvement over
current DRE systems that provide no paper trail but they do not guard
against tampering, improper equipment calibration and faulty aggregation
of the votes cast. The only way to ensure every vote cast is properly
registered and counted is through a transparent system that is
verifiable by the public (not just the vendor) at every stage of the
voting process."

"...The use of existing DRE machines must be discontinued unless or
until they are perfected. A transparent system for aggregating votes
cast at the precinct, county, state and national level must be developed
in order to ensure that every vote cast is counted."

And that's just the introduction! Maybe it could have been written by Land Shark, but I don't want to put words in his jaws!

Then read sections VII and VIII and especially her conclusions in section XII.

http://www.democrats.org/a/2005/06/democracy_at_ri.php

There is plenty of meat in here for party loyalists and even Republicans who want free and fair elections. I think we should take the tack that all Dems should at least sign on to this. If not, then THEY and not WE are out of the mainstream!

The NAYSAYERS will just complain that she didn't say Ohio was STOLEN. But as I said in another thread, we have to use the cards we've been dealt and this puts the issues into the mainstream where they belong!

[Bill Bored]

43. For your convenience, here are the conclusions:

Lots of anti-DRE stuff in here:

1. The Democratic Party must continue its efforts to monitor election law reform in all fifty states, the District of Columbia and territories.

2. States should be encouraged to codify into law all required election practices, including requirements for the adequate training of official poll workers.

3. States should adopt uniform and clear published standards for the distribution of voting equipment and the assignment of official pollworkers among precincts, to ensure adequate and nondiscriminatory access. These standards should be based on set ratios of numbers of machines and pollworkers per number of voters expected to turn out, and should be made available for public comment before being adopting.

4. States should adopt legislation to make clear and uniform the rules on voter registration.

5. The Democratic Party should monitor the processing of voter registrations by local election authorities on an ongoing basis to ensure the timely processing of registrations and changes, including both newly registered voters and voters who move within a jurisdiction or the state, and the Party should ask state Attorneys General to take action where necessary to force the timely updating of voter lists.

6. States should be urged to implement statewide voter lists in accordance with the Help America Vote Act (“HAVA”), the election reform law enacted by Congress in 2002 following the Florida debacle.

7. State and local jurisdictions should adopt clear and uniform rules
on the use of, and the counting of, provisional ballots, and distribute them for public comment well in advance of each election day.

8. The Democratic Party should monitor the purging and updating of registered voter lists by local officials, and the Party should challenge, and ask state Attorneys General to challenge, unlawful purges and other improper list maintenance practices.

9. States should not adopt requirements that voters show identification at the polls, beyond those already required by federal law (requiring that identification be shown only by first time voters who did not show identification when registering.)

10. State Attorneys General and local authorities should vigorously enforce, to the full extent permitted by state law, a voter’s right to vote without showing identification.

11. Jurisdictions should be encouraged to use precinct-tabulated optical scan systems with a computer assisted device at each precinct, in preference to touchscreen (“direct recording equipment” or “DRE”) machines.

12. Touchscreen (DRE) machines should not be used until a reliable voter verifiable audit feature can be uniformly incorporated into these systems. In the event of a recount, the paper or other auditable record should be considered the official record.

(OK, she hedged on the "other auditable record" bit. That must have been from her lunch date with Rove!)

13. Remaining punchcard systems should be discontinued.

14. States should ask state Attorneys General to challenge unfair or discriminatory distribution of equipment and resources where necessary, and the Democratic Party should bring litigation as necessary.

15. Voting equipment vendors should be required to disclose their source code so that it can be examined by third parties. No voting machine should have wireless connections or be able to connect to the Internet.

16. Any equipment used by voters to vote or by officials to tabulate the votes should be used exclusively for that purpose. That is particularly important for tabulating/aggregating computers.

17. States should adopt “no excuse required” standards for absentee voting.

18. States should make it easier for college students to vote in the jurisdiction in which their school is located.

19. States should develop procedures to ensure that voting is facilitated, without compromising security or privacy, for all eligible voters living overseas.

20. States should make voter suppression a criminal offense at the state level, in all states.

21. States should improve the training of pollworkers.

22. States should expend significantly more resources in educating voters on where, when and how to vote.

23. Partisan officials who volunteer to work for a candidate should not oversee or administer any elections.

[autorank]

40. The people will speak in Ohio. I think that the ballot proposition

will will by such a huge margin, evein Mr. Diebold himself and all his felons can't put Humptey back together again.

btw, Did you notice the firs thing the winner of the special election in Ohio said -- she wants to hold the blogs responsible for anything they say (in other words, nobody would host a blog because they'd be sued all the time). These electoins have huge implications.

Go Ohio.

[FogerRox]

52. TIA I think in addition to your work

Let me add this
During the run up to the election and thru the recount SOS Blackwell violated federal LAW---

let me say it again VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW----

We know the recount was not a recount- If Bush won-
why the Iron fist recount-

The known body of info concerning Ohio-- makes it clear that Kerry won Ohio by as many as a few hundred thousand votes--

I meet many folks who ar enot conversant on the details of Ohio-- but say that Keery won-- just by sheer gut feeling-

Those people dont need TIAs work or any other study.

[Bill Bored]

41. I agree.

Since Kerry didn't fight, the number crunching has limited utility now.

It is not the strongest of the evidence either. For one thing, it doesn't suggest a methodology for HOW the theft was done or HOW it can be prevented in the future. It's also actually very easy to dispute by simply suggesting that the numbers, whatever they are, were biased in some way.

What we need is transparency in the process and the right to question the results and a means to independently verify them.

This means forcing the vendors to waive their intellectual property rights, if not immediately, certainly in the event of any contest of election.

Also, the independently auditable paper trail. Whether it's a paper ballot (RIP Andy) or a voter-verified paper record, it would have to be made of paper until such time as there is another human-readable medium that can't be manipulated electronically. Chris Dodd doesn't get this but many other Democrats and some well-meaning Republicans do.

And the last thing is recount laws that make it easy to count this paper by hand whenever there is doubt about the outcome.

Then we need candidates who will be willing to use these laws and a media that won't chastise them for doing so.

The other alternative is counting all the paper all the time by hand. I'm not quite there yet but I wouldn't object to it if it happened.

But getting back to the number crunching, I'd hate to think what would happen if we had an election with exactly the same infrastructure, obfuscation, lack of auditing, and outcomes, in which the exit polls were all within their margins of error! What would the EPTBs (Exit Poll True Believers) do for fun then?

[autorank]

100. Numbers crunching...essential to make the key point...dirty, rotten BoE's!

You only have one chance to make a first impression and you can do that best when you have a concise case. That case is made quickly when you point out things like the absurdity of exit polls (which have a paper trail) not conforming to vote tallies (which lack a paper trail).

I for one and many others first noticed the ridiculousness of the election outcome through this post. Read it, it's great. We knew that there were many more registrations in Ohio and that we had momentum but you can't quantify that quickly. This post did it for a lot of people. Don't make the mistake of equating an ongoing 10K plus poster with a paper trail with a critic. They're simply not comparable. Now read this post and tell me it's not a stunner.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=265121

That's how you grab the attention of the audience.

And the point is indisputable.

[GuvWurld]

102. This still ignores the point of Land Shark's initial post

I'm still not seeing much of anything in this entire thread that is acknowledging Land Shark's premise. To say "there is no basis for confidence in the results reported from U.S. federal elections" does not just mean the numbers used at the very end to enter into history books. It also means all the subsets of numbers used for every calculation ever discussed on this site.

See, this isn't a challenge to anybody's ability to do math. It is a higher-order argument that says we don't need to bother fooling with junk tallies based on nothing we can consider reliable or verifiable.

This is why it is appropriate, and the truest and strongest statement, to reject IN ADVANCE the results from any future elections held under current conditions. For an example of how this might come off, see this press release issued by the Voter Confidence Committee of Humboldt County, CA when Arnold announced his special initiatives election for this November.

Then take another look at the Voter Confidence Resolution which is even stronger. This goes beyond rejection and refusal to recognize a specific election. The VCR goes all the way to challenging the legitimacy of the government's claim to power. Let your opponents try to counter that, not another shrill session about bogus numbers.

[autorank]

103. The only reason they're "shrill" is because hecklers show up.

This is the only place this happens on all of DU. There are a number of vectors that cross the center of illigitimate government. Thinking the government lacks legitimacy is not enough; the arguments are multiple. As to shrill, when you get poked, you poke back.

[GuvWurld]

104. Or...

Calling the government illegitimate may in itself sound shrill if I'm the only one saying it. When entire communities are putting such a sentiment into official resolutions, now we're talking about a powerful form of civil disobedience. Refuse to recognize elections and you also have non-compliance.

We need these things on a mass scale, yesterday. I don't think a poke is even a noticeable response in the face of this position. The poke could be ignored, not met in kind, because it is desperation. Don't our government and its apologists seem desperate to you?

Also consider, what is the best case scenario for engaging in a no-win race to the bottom argument with anybody not interested in taking immediate tangible steps to organize toward concrete reforms? It is too easy to allow ourselves to be distracted, to respond to ego-challenges and baiting. We need the discipline to avoid this as it simply can't help us.

Back to Land Shark's point, our strongest argument is one where we control the frame, de-fanging the opposition whose only potential reply would be to argue for the existence of a basis for confidence. We can't lose that argument. In fact, I've been soliciting for someone to have that argument with me for 16 months and I've never had a taker. There is no basis for confidence in the results reported from U.S. federal elections and not one single coherent human will successfully argue otherwise.

Why would we want to stand behind any other argument but this?

"This is where the faith-based and reality-based communities intersect. Ronald Reagan said 'Trust, but verify.' If only we could. Thirty percent of the votes cast last November could not be recounted. All votes must be verifiable or there is no basis for confidence in the results reported." - GuvWurld

[Pooka Fey]

20. Brilliant post. Calm, cool, clear and concise. Nominated.

Thank you Land Shark, for being a part of this forum and this struggle.

[bleever]

23. The analogy to discrimination law is excellent. If a class is

discriminated against in an empirically demonstrable way, it doesn't matter if one can nail down specific "intent" on anyone's part.

This is the same fallacious argument being put forward regarding the Plame leak, that it's only prosecutable if you can prove the perpetrator(s) had full and complete knowledge of the law and purposely set about violating each provision. But the fact is, as Snoopy would say, that ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Thank you for putting this so clearly into context, Land Shark.


:thumbsup:

[Jackpine Radical]

24. You're overlooking one other possible explanation

for non-random, Bush-loaded results.

Divine intervention.

God intended Bush to be President, and hadn't gotten around to enlightening the electorate about Her will, so She had to fix the results as a quick patch-job.

That God seems to be like this is one of my major arguments in favor of Unintelligent Design. The poor Deity just doesn't seem to be very bright.

[Land Shark]

49. Divine intervention: would constitute a non or supra-rational basis for

confidence in elections. As such, this possibility does not fall under the "rational basis for confidence in elections" category because (though catholic and other philosophers have for centuries tried to rationally prove the existence of God) we have, at the very least, too narrowly focused a "microscope" in our minds to see the big picture of God with the requisite clarity.

In all seriousness, we know not God's "data" or methods. Therefore the conclusion (our lives and our world) remains a miracle and mystery from our perspective.

But there's no reason for us to have faith-based elections, where miraculous conclusions are accepted on their face without disclosure of any data or analysis sufficient to confirm them.

But since faith is so much part of our system of elections now, those HERETICS who question the faith are often burned at the stake. The current charge of favor for inquisitors defending elections is "tinfoil" and "undermining confidence" and legislators talk of "restoring confidence" in elections without any action that would constitute a full fledged basis for that desired confidence.

Even various denominations in the election integrity movement prepare to burn each other at the stake for minor heresies of belief. Have we witnessed any of this recently? It's like Christians fighting Christians in Northern Ireland.

Anyway, one fundamental belief of progressivism is the importance of diversity and tolerance, in juxtaposition to internecine struggle. Nevertheless, attacks perceived to be or actually which are personal in nature clearly test and exceed the limits of one's commit to tolerance.

If one of the perceived naysayers launched fundamental attacks on MY work above (which hasn't occurred) then all of the above statements no longer apply and Land Shark will move into attack mode! ; )

[adolfo]

33. Well Spoken Land Shark

Solid logic and requires no amount of aluminum. :tinfoilhat:

[BeFree]

47. All the proof needed...

...is in the fact that paper ballots of one kind or another are being required in new legislation that is making its way out of state legislatures across the country.

They know the DREs can't be trusted. And all this is happening despite the lobbying of the lazy election supervisors and e-voting companies. If there were nothing wrong with DREs none of this new legislation would have had seen the light of day.

So, we know, they know. Change is happening. What is the next step? We need to find a way of voting that is completely acceptable. Paper ballots - hand counted, is totally acceptable to us, but surely there is an acceptable e-voting machine somewhere that we can support, eh? Or am I dreaming?

[Bill Bored]

51. Next step is auditing and recount laws.

Not just BoE or SoS regulations, but state laws on how to do it and when.

The law may not be able to anticipate every contingency, but can be made sufficiently vague to apply to them all. All the candidates will need is a statistician, and worst case, a judge, to be able to get a full hand recount of the paper audit records or ballots if there's a chance the outcome can be reversed. This is where number crunching CAN be helpful!

A 3% random audit can catch a lot of fraud. If the election is close, you have to audit more to be sure the outcome is correct. And if ANY discrepancies are found, they should automatically trigger more auditing until there is no doubt who won the race. This should not be left strictly up to BoEs or SoSs to decide -- it should be codified into law.

And if the DRE VVPATs are too hard to hand count, it might lead to more voter-verified paper ballots!

One more thing: the candidates and the voters must demand this instead of being concerned about being called sore losers. It needs to become the norm rather than the exception.

[BeFree]

53. Good points, Bill

It is those 3% audits that need to be codified and written out so that an average citizen can easily understand how the audit is done.

Bill, how about you starting a new thread on this next step? We have a few good laws passed which gives us some breathing room, eh? Knowing that forces are looking to choke us all over again, it behooves us to get a step ahead of them if we can. At the very least we can keep up if we are forearmed.

There's work to be done, bring it on.

[FogerRox]

54. "There's work to be done, bring it on."

right on

[BeFree]

55. Yep

And furthermore.... it needs to be said again: They have NO CONFIDENCE in the election's outcome, otherwise, why would they go through the trouble of re-writing all those laws?

We won this battle. We beat them back. But the war has new fronts developing. Let's arm ourselves, and pass the ammo.

[kiwi_expat]

97. AUTOMATIC 3% random "manual recount"

I completely agree with all you say here, Bill.

I only want to be sure we emphasize that the 3% random "manual recount" (more precise than "audit") is ***automatic*** - as you have shown us is true in New York.

There should be no requirement that the 3% manual recount be initiated by candidates or voters. The manual recount should start as soon as the regular-ballots have been counted.

[Land Shark]

56. You might be dreaming. One study says voters catch only 8% of paper error

after voting on touch screens. But people like yourself will breathe a sigh of relief when paper trails or ballots are instituted, when in fact it may well make the system MORE riggable, and enhance public and even activist gullibility and "confidence" enormously.

Even now, an unknown but very significant percentage of people don't catch errors on summary screens provided by touch screen voting companies as an alleged "safety" feature, and the paper trail is effectively another version of a summary sheet.

A paper BALLOT in which the voter knows the paper is what counts the first time and all other times can be a different story. But why in the world would we ALL need assistance in filling out our ballots by creating expensive bottlenecks formed by electronic machines that the blackwells of the world can be distribution games with, giving friendly precincts lots of machines and shorting unfriendly precincts?

[Bill Bored]

57. This is fine but it means DREs must be banned.

We are still trying to do it, but the legislature has not cooperated, even though I think we have some of the better laws for auditing and recounts. But there may be other ways...

I just found a rather onerous testing requirement in our laws which makes it extremely difficult to run elections on DREs. I'm trying to find out if I'm interpreting it correctly and if anyone actually is aware of it! If the true cost of purchase, maintenance and proper independent testing of DREs were accounted for, then paper ballots would probably be cheaper to print and scan or even count by hand. They are already cheaper up front because you don't need as many scanners as you do DREs statewide. It shouldn't be about money, but like petroleum, if the true cost were factored into the decision to buy, DREs would not be an attractive alternative financially. And there are people in and out of government who can understand that, even if they don't give a hoot about verifiable elections!

[BeFree]

72. I may be a dreamer, but I'm not the only one, LandShark

"... people like yourself will breathe a sigh of relief when paper trails or ballots are instituted, when in fact it may well make the system MORE riggable, and enhance public and even activist gullibility and "confidence" enormously".

People like myself are working with what has been dished out. People like myself will be working to find a way to make lemonade from the lemons we are served.

People like myself will continue to educate and inform not only fellow citizens but the BoEs, and will keep working to ensure the vote is counted as cast.

" But why in the world would we ALL need assistance in filling out our ballots..."

We don't. But like the fellow who runs my local BoE says "Evoting makes it so easy to count." And that is what we are up against. That and the lackadasial attitude of the general public. People like myself will work to make the BoEs of this world eat their words and try to change the attitudes of our fellow citizens. But for now, all we can do is make lemonade.

[jwmealy]

133. And if I were writing a vote switching program, I'd keep that in mind

I just have to say that I think the only reasonable system is 100% paper ballots. I don't care if it costs $10 per voter per year.

Let's say I am a designer of DREs with under-glass receipts, and I have this little compulsion to write programs that switch votes. What will I do?

I think I'll maybe write a bit of code that records how rapid, and how close to the center of the choice indication targets on the touch screen, each of the voters' choice indications are. I'll use that information to make a surmise as to the 10% of the voters on this machine that are most likely (1) to be in a great hurry, (2) to have poor eyesight and/or to have forgotten their glasses, and/or (3) not to be in an attentive frame of mind.

Among those 10%, I'll then swap the votes of all those who vote for the "wrong" candidate to the "right" candidate. That way, the great majority of them won't even notice that their vote has been swapped, either because they're in too much of a hurry to check their work, or because they literaly can't read the receipt. Those few who do catch the "error" will tend to assume that it was their sloppiness and haste, or their poor eyesight, that created the "error", and they will fix it without ever suspecting that the "error" is not an error on their part at all. The best part is that the receipt has the vote I want. Any receipt recount supports the electronic version with the swapped votes.

I totally agree with the theme on this thread that convenience and inexpensiveness are grifter's wares when it comes to democracy. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Strike that--it obviously is. If it seems puzzling that no uproar is happening on a large scale in America about this, I recommend reading Chomsky's institutional analysis of the media democracy in America. It's upsetting, it's distressing, but, when all's said and done, what's going on here is not really surprising.

Webb Mealy

[autorank]

135. This is a pretty amazing post.

I generally find ERD posts useful but occasionally they're quite something. This is one of those times. What a perfect explanation. How clever they are, not really because their little option is on the internet. But they don't care, they don't have to. I have not read Chompsky's piece on media democracy but I will. "grifter's wares" -- just remember how they snuck in the back door, by using handicapped voters as an excuse for elaborate machines with mystery software (oh, I mean "proprietary"). The cruelest irony is that the handicapped excuse is used to elect people who, all things being equal, will be less inclined to support programs for the handicapped. Paper ballots plus open source software machines for the handicapped: all we needed to learn that was a ruinous war, the sacrifice of our civil liberties, a terrorist attack, hatred directed us from around the globe, and the opportunity cost of doing nothing about eco catastrophes for five years (the list goes on but it's too depressing).

Great post. It's a classic.

[jwmealy]

141. Thank you--glad you enjoyed my ramblings. n/t

[mgr]

61. Good post, one quibble (Isn't that how it goes)

Hi Landshark:

It is good to see that some of us are coming to consensus. I have followed and support the work you are pursuing in Washington. However, I must quibble with your third statement.

I do take exception to TIA's numbers--the better breaking out of the DRE switch data was done by Time For A Change, and contained a larger number of switches from Bush to Kerry--still not a significant amount; but with what Bill Bored states above, the EIRS may not have been known to all republicans who were ripped off, and suggests the database may be partisan. Repeated reports may not, within the context of the database, be indicative of the actual number observed, it may be greater or less; and may not include all incidents. But, we can make the relatively unwarranted but safe assumption that it approximates completeness (e.g. although not all republican encounters are reported, a single report for a democrat vote switch should occur within the same location). But what I was proposing was an analysis to determine if the pattern has meaning.

This would not be an 86:88 ratio or the 89:95 ratio, but comparison of the number of counties that the reports originated from to the number of counties with DRE for all election day tallying. What I would then recommend is that comparison be made between the so called battleground states and those that were not battleground. I think then we can either accept or reject whether DRE vote switching was the sine qua non fraud of the election. Otherwise, we are left with the DNC's report for Ohio, that well encompasses these possibilities due to long lines and failure to anticipate turnout.

My attitude towards TIA's work approximates that of Lyell's and Hutton's when they considered Bishop's Ussher's calculation of the earth's age based upon the genealogies in Numbers. Yeah it may be 6,000 years old according to the Bible, but uniformitarianism suggests millions if not billions of years in age. One is a strict calculation, the other an approximation based upon what we observe at present. Obviously, based upon uniformitarianism, Methuselah's (and several others') age would be well outside the observed patterns; and not consistent with current patterns where the average contemporary life span is increasing. One can always multiply, divide, add and subtract with precision, but it is the underlying logic and reasoning that matter.

I agree, in that I think the incompetence was intentional, and is suggestive of fraud, if the patterns hold up (e.g. the pattern of machine errors, vote switching, long lines hold up in the battleground states, or alternatively, in democrat majority counties).

Something needs to be done to get these machines out, and I am glad its being done. Once this election is behind us, the next discussion should be what are the alternatives, which you have sketched out. I am not sure that hand counting is the way to go, the potential for human error or perfidy is just as high, nor are punch cards or scanners the answer--unless one does duplicative ballots, where an original goes one way to be counted, copies goes to each partisan or non partisan election watch commissions, and the one stays with the voter.

Mike

Mike

[Land Shark]

62. Two responses to your quibbles

First, in the local county that I personally studied, (completely outside the EIRS system) there is a nonpartisan Auditor in charge of elections, and there were zero reports on election day of switching away from Republican votes; all reports involved Democratic votes switching to Republican or Libertarian votes. (around two weeks after the election and after substantial local listserv publicity, a single report of republican switching to Dem was reported, but only to EIRS). This is fully consistent with the "vast majority" claims being made here, and as a nonpartisan office seems to transcend the potential objection that EIRS was not as well publicized with Republicans.

Second, as far as humans being fallible, 'tis true they are. But humans, when arranged in certain formations become highly accurate. This is why the final and most accurate count in most legislative schemes for recounts is the hand count. Simply put, if two or more people hand counting are NOT ALLOWED TO MOVE FORWARD WITH THE COUNT until they all agree there are X number of ballots in pile Y, that is an extremely accurate method of counting, so long as the humans are truly adversarial (one rep for each competing candidate for example).

Banks use a triple counting procedure, once by the teller, and again by the teller in front of the customer for the second and third. Though there are still the occasional bank errors, the COUNTING errors are typically caught by this process.

Anyway, humans are fallible, but certain clever ways of arranging humans transcends this. Even drug dealers and kids with candy bars know the "you cut, I choose" method of dividing something in half: when there's no incentive to do anything other than a straight 50/50 split, you tend to get accurate results.

[TruthIsAll]

65. Touche. The Land Shark always devours its prey.

/

[mgr]

89. Another natural theology observation by Bishop Ussher. n/t

[Bill Bored]

71. Also saw a study of something somewhere

that said the average assessment of a large number of people is very close to the objectively measured truth. I forget if they removed the outliers and used medians instead of the average or what, but you get the drift.

What is so ironic about all this is that intuitively it seems that the machines should be objective and this is why it's so hard to change people's attitudes about them.

How many of us would take the word of a carpenter or carpenters over a measurement by a ruler? But if you can show that the ruler was designed by a building contractor wanting to cut corners, then you might have something!

[mgr]

84. Not so sure of that

One of the issues detracting my attention from this issue is the Kansas Board of Education decision on teaching evolution. Scientifically, the 'objective truth' is only the truth limited to perceptions at that time, one only needs to consider Einstein's paper on Brownian motion, or the discovery of life at the bottom of deep ocean trenchs, or Darwin's "Origin". By this measure you cite, teaching intelligent design would the appropriate venue in a classroom.

As a scientist (and with most humans that stop and reflect), I am trained to see that a tool provides no objective truth, except in the hands of the tool user. There is a reason why the adage measure twice, cut once is so apt. I not really sure that it is accurate to intuit that they represent 'objectivity', much as it is that Methuselah's age (and other nine hundread year old patriarchs in Numbers) was characteristic of life spans after the Jews first entered the wilderness, and somehow with all our medical advances, exceeded all known lifespans.

It is this reason I take exception to TIA. Math is a tool, it provides no objectivity, it is only a language. There is elegance and there is GIGO.

Mike

[mgr]

83. My interest is purely partisan

I always try to limit my scope. I got a little carried away addressing what method of vote tallying is superior, and recalling what my stepfather had to say about the 1960 election.

Snohomish is outside the EIRS, I grant you it is an exception, but the county was on the radar before 2004, right? These other places were not. It would almost suggest that Snohomish has a proclivity that other BOEs might not--Washington, like the Bay area (and other places I am not familiar with), may have BOE personnel more computer savvy than elsewhere, and possibly a little less than honest. My interpretation has a lot to do with Foo Bar's reconciliation project, and Skid's early work that I never bookmarked but reviewed EIRS in response to (thank you Foo Bar for the memory prompt)

If one were to review the EIRS reports, the patterning is more highly complex with movements in all different directions, that discernible directionality with intent is impossible if all you are looking at is vote switching.

Until I can see that addressing the matter of who won the presidential contest is moot, I am not inclined to debate the merits of what the best alternative vote counting approach is feasible here on DU--I only have so much fight in me. My general take is that I think hand counts may be feasible in Podunk, population 40,000, but I would see it as a nightmare in megalopolis (population 10,000,000); and playing havoc with our 'need it now' culture. But I am not set in concrete on this.

Mike

[Land Shark]

95. I'm not aware of any sense of snohomish being on the radar pre-2004

snohomish is a dem county in a dem state that has only two counties with DREs (Yakima and Snohomish) and Yakima has since dumped their DREs, so we have only snohomish left, and that I'm the plaintiff in litigation against.

the reason we studied snohomish is because it formed a natural experiment with paper ballots and DRE voting in parallel formation, precinct by precinct. The paper ballots were optically scanned, so the unique historical even of a hand recount in the governor's race removed most of the sources of possible error on the paper side (besides ballot box stuffing and illegal voting) and the risks that were not minimized or eliminated by the hand recount were litigated in the election contest that followed the hand recount. Millions of dollars in investigations turned up extremely small fractions of illegal voting by felons or illegal aliens or dead people voting (usually by spouses). Consequently, we have about as good a paper v. touch screen comparison as we are likely to get in the real world, and I wanted to test the objections to Kathy Dopp's work on Florida (where different counties' results were subject to an "apples and oranges" defense) by seeing how voting technologies compared in the same county, the same races and the same precincts.

www.votersunite.org/info/SnohomishElectionFraudInvestigation.pdf

Perhaps of interest is when we tracked machines BY SERIAL NUMBER that actually malfunctioned such that they were taken out of service, either by vote switching that was not seemingly cured by screen recalibrations or by freezing up. Nineteen of these malfunctioning machines (the total countywide) had totals of 155 for the Republican gubernatorial candidate and 101 for the Democratic candidate (in a Dem county in the closest gubernatorial race in the nation's history)

Only late night comics can posit that Republicans are disproportionately attracted to superficially identical (but dysfunctional) voting machines. No theories of "late surge" or such political "explanations" will work. This is direct evidence that malfunctions are not party-neutral or candidate-neutral.

[mgr]

107. I recall BBV.org issues on county, FWIW

Given my current attitude to the organization, it's a factoid that would require additional verification. I'm glad you posted the paper's URL, at the time I accepted it without criticism, but with the caveats I address below.

"Thanks to mathematician Arlene Ash, we calculate that the chances that above 2/3 of the vote that is paper balloting would show a Democratic lead of 97044 to 95228 votes, while the remaining 1/3 of the vote on touch screens would show a Republican lead of almost 5% (50,400 Republican to 42,145 Democratic) resulting in an overall
Republican win of over 6000 votes in Snohomish county as a result of voters randomly choosing whether to vote by paper ballot or by touch screen is one in 1,000 trillion! A true impossibility."

Let me say if I were the opposing attorney this is where I would try to hammer you. The only thing I can say about the nineteen machines with the overabundance of republican votes to democratic votes, is that one does not get any indication of the precinct(s) it represents-- the odds calculation presumes uniform distribution of D:R throughout the county, which may not be true. The issue can be argued that patterns of greater republican voting may reflect spatial autocorrelation--it is unclear from the report that DREs were distributed equally through out the county. Given the predilection to provide the newest technology to the upper class areas first, be it schools or voting precincts, I don't find this unlikely.

These statistical odds are descriptive rather than inferential, this is the center of why exception is taken to TIA's analysis and calculations, and why one cannot stop there. Further analysis needs to be conducted to determine what produced the pattern. If there is a strong association, republican majority precinct to DRE, this calculation of the odds becomes invalid.

Your entire argument (within the paper) seems to be built around this observation and its underlying assumptions, but the one thing missing from the report is the mapping of the distribution of DREs that show there was equal opportunity for democratic majority precinct to have voted on these machines, as well as republican, or that association with a median household income within the range of the county's overall median household income is present for the DRE distribution.

Please understand that I am not trying to say anyone has it wrong, but to be conservative in your claims, vet them carefully, and know what it is that you are investigating. Calculation of odds provides no additional value to an argument, when the pattern is prima facie impossible. That is the case with reports from EIRS. But one has the obligation to understand the limitations of the dataset or the patterns postulated as being significant, if one is to argue it has merit.

Without the pattern or paper, the argument that DREs are unacceptable should have legal standing and merit, if one can establish that even with reasonable safeguards in place, corruption of the vote is feasible--the daisy chain and history during the 2004 election that you cite. That is why I took no issue with the paper.

However, if I may offer the lame analogy--What is the meat of your argument is what I summarized in the above paragraph, and the calculation of odds done properly is the parsley on the plate. But if the parsley is wilted or spoiled, one would return the plate to the kitchen.

Mike

[andym]

64. Good point about multiple redundant copies

You make a good point about multiple redundant copies of each cast ballot. It would be especially useful to segregate these copies so that neither traditional, nor electronic vote manipulation schemes could access all of them. At least one copy (if not all) should be a hard copy. If the ballots are processed so that multiple copies exist, and the counting mandates that at least two copies (perhaps using different formats, using different counting methodologies -- if machines are used then the same company should not be allowed to implement more than one modality) be counted before the election is made official, then the chance of fraud is reduced significantly. I think this is the key to tamper-resistant elections.

[Land Shark]

94. keep in mind usually only one of the redundant copies is secured

in a chain of custody "evidence bag" and the voting machines themselves are not the subject of any continued security (typically) after results cartridges are removed.

[Time for change]

68. One point about swing states

I don't have time to go into detail now, but can say this about the 87 switches that I found that favored Bush: About half of them were from Florida, 8 were from Mahoning County, Ohio, and I believe 4 were from Philadelphia, PA.

[mgr]

85. Well that accounts for three of the ten or so. n/t

[Time for change]

110. Only 3 swing states, but well over half of the vote switching incidents

Also, I forgot New Mexico, which also had a decent number. I'll get some more details on this when I return from vacation. I don't have my files with me now, and the links to the table and appendix that I provided in my thread don't work any more. My guess is that, per population that used touch screens for voting, the rate of these reports was much greater in the swing states, but I can't confirm that until I do the analysis.

[Bill Bored]

112. NM had enough unvervotes in ethnic precincts using DREs

to swing the outcome there.

[autorank]

132. Don't confuse us with the facts. Does any one know why Richardson

and the two others on the decision making board chose a $1.5 million figure for the recount in NM. Even Ohio doesn't do things like that. I'd love to know the answer to this. When I was at the 1/6/05 Rally/March, I met an activist from NM who was reallyi worked up about what happened there. Of course ESI which has received Mitofsky data was there and dismissed any problems in the area they focused on, Bernalillo County. This is contraxt to the reports in the Albequerque Journal and the local CBS affiliate which had stories about "phantom votes" -- machines failing, incorrect choices (when selecting Kerry).

E.G. From the Albequerque Journal (all quoted on Eriposte:
http://vote2004.eriposte.com/swingstates/newmexico.htm

"A Democratic attorney and an election volunteer for the party said workers disqualified hundreds of provisional ballots cast in Bernalillo County because of names that had a missing middle initial or some other minor discrepancy. They urged commissioners to reconsider the rejection of those ballots, if they could.
The commissioners, however, said they didn't have authority to question the qualification of provisional ballots. They voted 3-0 in favor of certifying the Nov. 2 election results, which were sent to the Secretary of State's Office.
Roughly half of those ballots were disqualified in the canvassing process. The most common reason was that the person wasn't registered to vote anywhere in the county.
But Democratic attorney Jim Noel said his party's observers had seen at least 330 provisional ballots rejected due to minor discrepancies. Those were cases where voters had to show identification but the ID didn't exactly match the name on the voter registration." http://www.abqjournal.com/elex/257849elex11-13-04.htm (requires registration)

More from the Albuquerque Journal:

"Herrera's staff had been combing through 2,000 "questionable" ballots, which led to the certification of 1,400 of them.

Those that weren't certified bothered her staff. The main reason for disqualifying them, she said, was because an affidavit testifying to the voter's identity, which is supposed to be signed by a presiding judge, was not in the outer of two envelopes that are supposed to be turned in to election workers. That rule was prescribed by New Mexico Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron.

Today Herrera said a Republican presiding judge in one particular precinct was in charge of several hundred bad ballots. The problem, Herrera said, was that the bad ballots, with affidavits inside, were largely Democrats. The good ones were for Republican voters.

"It made us kind of sick," Herrera said. "It was too obvious." "

Guess ESI/Votewatch missed this data in their final report

More problems reported to the Albuquerque Journal:

Kim Griffith voted on Thursday— over and over and over.
She's among the people in Bernalillo and Sandoval counties who say they have had trouble with early voting equipment. When they have tried to vote for a particular candidate, the touch-screen system has said they voted for somebody else.
It's a problem that can be fixed by the voters themselves— people can alter the selections on their ballots, up to the point when they indicate they are finished and officially cast the ballot.
For Griffith, it took a lot of altering.

So nothing like the facts. People had problems voting in more places than would considered reasonable and, when they did in Bernilillo County NM, even the watch dogs didn't spot it.

[mgr]

126. Link and data for Nevada and Colorado

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5331

Machine problems (Nevada)
https://voteprotect.org/epc/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Nevada&county=Clark&cat=02&tab=ALL
https://voteprotect.org/epc/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Nevada&county=Washoe&cat=02&tab=ALL

Longlines (Nevada)
https://voteprotect.org/epc/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&tab=ALL&state=Nevada&county=Washoe&cat=12&start_time=&start_date=&end_time=&end_date=&search=
https://voteprotect.org/epc/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Nevada&county=Clark&cat=12&tab=ALL

Machine problems (Colorado--two ballot switches reported)
https://voteprotect.org/epc/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Colorado&county=Denver&cat=02&tab=ALL
https://voteprotect.org/epc/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Colorado&county=Larimer&cat=02&tab=ALL
https://voteprotect.org/epc/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Colorado&county=Jefferson&cat=02&tab=ALL (one report of possible vote switching)
https://voteprotect.org/epc/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Colorado&county=Boulder&cat=02&tab=ALL
https://voteprotect.org/epc/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Colorado&county=Weld&cat=02&tab=ALL (report of Kerry vote possibly not registered)
https://voteprotect.org/epc/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Colorado&county=Adams&cat=02&tab=ALL
https://voteprotect.org/epc/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Colorado&county=El%20Paso&cat=02&tab=ALL
https://voteprotect.org/epc/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Colorado&county=Teller&cat=02&tab=ALL
https://voteprotect.org/epc/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Colorado&county=Pueblo&cat=02&tab=ALL

Colorado (long lines)
https://voteprotect.org/epc/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Colorado&county=Denver&cat=12&tab=ALL
https://voteprotect.org/epc/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Colorado&county=Adams&cat=12&tab=ALL
https://voteprotect.org/epc/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Colorado&county=El%20Paso&cat=12&tab=ALL

[autorank]

75. Surely you jest...

You say "Once this election is behind us, the next discussion should be what are the alternatives,..." Which election might that be, 2006 where we get creamed again because of the stinking machines, network vulnerabilities, the 80% of votes counted by extremist controlled election firms. The time is now. We won't stand a chance of reforming unless there is a big ruckus before 2006.

[mgr]

88. yeah, let's make a lot of noise and look like idiots.

Great strategy for the living in the real world party. Or is that to party in the real world, dude?

Our party has a reform blueprint, like it or not, and that is the DNC report on Ohio. You cannot address that by making a ruckus, unless you have the cannibalistic urge to eat your young. I will say it again, there is nothing from Ohio that is more persuasive than what is documented in the report. One can argue with its completeness in reporting what happened, but I would liken that to a favorite author's anthology missing the short story you liked best. I think there is something up in Lucas County, and TFC may be on to something with the registration numbers. The report does not address Florida, or New Mexico--these are other stories.

It jives with what happened in Florida in 2000, it links to current history. Get over the report.

Mike

[autorank]

92. Weirdest image yet: "cannibalistic urge to eat your young."

That's your response to me saying that we need to be diligent and shine a bright light on all the identified sources of fraud for 2006. Is this going to be "The mgr Diet" coming to a Barnes and Noble near you. How do you think we got the voting rights act, through a DNC report. The DNC report was about 200 pages. 100 of those pages was statistical drivel about why we lost Ohio. There was about 20 pages of fluff. So, let me get it right, in the 80 remaining double spaced, uncoordinated, poorly written by consultants pages, we have the most persuasive evidence on Ohio.

I've read the report. It's weak because, well, it's weak. Of course I agree with their points on voter suppression. This is not original and cannot be avoided when you look at 2004. How about their stupid conclusion supporting optiscans because Democrats did better in those areas. Look at the pasting we took in Florida in optiscan counties. The report was written by rank amateurs.

Sure, give up on 2006, lay back and get walked on. That's the "surrender monkey" spirit of the DNC.

Have you heard about the ice formation the size of France floating away from the polar cap? Have you heard about the CO2 gasses that will come up from the Russian tundra, which is thawing? I'm sure you heard about the death, destruction, and $200 billion Iraq war. Those things are all due to people laying back and not doing anything.

Our party does not have a 'reform' strategy when it comes to election fraud. It has no strategy, none. It is complacent and weak, insincere and cynical, vapid and vile at the same time. Dean organized DFA for what? to cave in to the Mandarins on the key issues.

My vote, the votes of everyone in this country are not yours to give away in 2006.

[freedomfries]

105. check MCM, Harper's Magazine, p. 46

Autorank is speaking the truth here, and the truth is always uncomfortable.
"Those who say we should "move on" from that suspicious race and work instead on "bigger issues" -- like electoral reform -- are urging the impossible; for there has never been a great reform that was not driven by some major scandal." Mark Crispin Miller, None Dare Call it Stolen, Harper's Magazine, August 2002, p. 46.

[mgr]

108. And what is in the DNC report is not the scandal?

Please note that I am not moving on to electoral reform, in fact I stated just the opposite upstream. Those without partisan interest may move on, but I will be playing in this field for a while.

The point is that the DNC is the starting point, it builds from Conyers, and you continue to build from it, not tear it down. The essence is that voter repression, (fraudulent or innocent) is what occurred in Ohio. I believe it was fraudulent, but have an intellectual standard to fulfil in order to know that it was fraudulent. If the voter registrations were deliberately not confirmed by election day; or that Lucas County was corrupt rather than incompetent, further attention is needed. Missing over 200,000 voter registrations from democratic leaning counties, would be sufficient to cast serious doubt on the election outcome.

Mike

[autorank]

115. 1/2 of the report is election scanda; 1/2 in DNC scandal

{link:democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3915770|MY General Discussion Thread Supporting the Anticipated DNC Report]

I went on record on the DNC Report and got an excellent response (See link and screenshot).

1/2 the report was on the scandal of voter suppression and problems with machines--that was excellent

1/2 of the report was devoted to an obtuse disection of the Ohio vote to prove we lost. That was pathetic.

The 1/2 that was actionable is doing what? I don't know. They don't talk about it. They're not notifying the troops. We don't have a long time before the electoin.

The 1/2 proving we lost Ohio should have been dumped and replaced with:

--"all the evidence herein raises serious questions about the election in Ohio and, worse, serious questions about the outcome."

--a check list for Democratic committees to implement to prevent, spot, and act on election fraud.

Here's the opening post:
======================================================
autorank Donating Member (1000+ posts)
Original message

Let’s Get Ready to RUMBLE!!! DEAN to Focus on Election Fraud: OH & FL


Edited on Tue Jun-21-05 11:35 PM by autorank

Let’s Get Ready to RUMBLE!!!DEAN to Focus on Election Fraud: OH & FL.!!!

Mainline Democrats haven’t talked about election fraud. There’s been a self-imposed black out on the issue. Things changed in a big way, at last weeks DNC meeting, June 13, 2005. Howard Dean spent considerable time talking about voting rights issues – voter suppression, problems with machines, and the general right to vote denied to many Democrats..

Dean’s key points were:

The DNC is taking voting rights very seriously;
DNC will start by focusing on 2004 Ohio and Florida where the worst abuses took place;
Dean mentioned key DNC staff working on voting rights/election fraud issues (Eric Holder, Arlene Meyerson, Rolanda Rios, & Paul Iasaki); and,
He announced a lawyer’s steering committee on voting issues as well.

Please note Eric Holder, in charge of this issue for Dean at the DNC is a former highly placed Clinton DOJ attorney and regarded as a legal heavyweight.

Dean made related remarks at aJune 12th Rainbow PUSH Town Hall Meeting on Re authoring the 1965 Voting Rights Act. DUer GettysbergII was at the meeting and reports:

“The most important statement I believe Dean made was to tell us to be prepared for a bombshell of a report the Democrats should be releasing in the next 10 days or so that documents the widespread voter suppression and fraud last November in Ohio particularly and the country in general. … Dean assured everyone that the Democrats will be ready for a serious legal tussle if necesary in 2006.”


It's time that they follow through.

[mgr]

125. The thread and initial post reflect your a priori assumptions.

I'm sorry that the DNC Ohio report did not live up to them.

Apparently, the criticisms of the exit polling disparity were not considered bullshit by the authors and experts associated with the report. I might point out that saying any position is bullshit is beside the point in an argument, and that a statistical analysis that indicates that Kerry did not win everywhere in Ohio, would in light of other observations regarding whether Kerry won the popular vote, suggest otherwise.

As to the debate, the criticisms of those who felt the exit polls were not an indicator of widespread fraud were never adequately refuted, but ignored by ad hominen arguments and dubious appeals to authority. Even the Hobson's choice thread was flawed, in that there were no necessary causal connections between the RBR and and the exit poll's overestimate of Bush 2000 voters when reweighted.

Science and statistics are not democratic, just because a majority of those without expertise feel an argument is won, but those with some expertise do not, it is not open to further debate. The same would apply to global warming. To approach it otherwise is to provide the meta-justification for teaching Intelligent Design as an alternative explanation to the Theory of Natural Selection, and the Evolutionary Synthesis. It is the challenge that all democracies that are truly egalitarian face--when does popular opinion matter, and when does it not.

It is important to know when and how far to defer to experts, and the voices of experts on the exit polls were late to appear, and were initially drowned out in the general blather of the ignorant and the partisan. It is a challenge that all science faces during post modernism, and the exit polling issue is how we have experienced it first hand. The choice all of us face is navigating the difference between science and sophistry, and learning to detect the difference.

Mike

[autorank]

128. "general blather of the ignorant and the partisan." Is that science?

Your lament on post-modern environments for science is belied by your nasty reference to those you disagree with. Now, is that the voice of "science?" I think not.

[mgr]

130. I thought the characterization apt.

I find that ad hominens are the attack of the partisan when one questions their presumptions. Calling someone out, making references that they may be republican (notice no one accuses me of being a democrat or a progressive), so those classes of response I would call partisan.

It is ignorant when so many without any background in statistics support methodologies, suppositions, and arguments that they cannot evaluate.

Thus, "Kick" and such, without critical non partisan comment, is blather.

Truth can hurt. Now, can you explain how you find this "nasty"?

Mike

[autorank]

131. Not nasty, just grandiose...when there is a coherrent sentence.

Generally, I have no idea what you're saying, which is probably for the best. But here you're being an attack dog because the ignorance of those with whom you disagree justifies it. That I do understand. I really don't care.

[mgr]

147. If you don't understand, say so.

Only a fool speaks as if they understand, and questions another's motives. To do so supports my contention.

Mike

[Chi]

144. Quick question.....

Heya Mike

"Missing over 200,000 voter registrations from democratic leaning counties, would be sufficient to cast serious doubt on the election outcome."

Got anything I can read on this?

I know about the 20,000 in Lucas County, I just haven't seen a 200,000 number referenced before.

(edit-typo)

[mgr]

151. No reference, number crunching by TFC n/t

[mgr]

109. "weak because it is weak"--powerful argument there

Who can disprove a tautology like that. 100 pages of statistical drivel? 20 pages of fluff? From your past posting patterns, I doubt that you have means to address what the statistical analysis implies, or what it weaknesses are, but take your cues from others. But your ad hominen arguments are right up there with everyone elses'.

The DNC report is about Ohio, not Florida, however it reverberates with what was wrong in Florida in 2000, and 2004. And we were not beaten in the op scan counties in Florida, but by the long lines in the DRE counties turning people away--Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade. Get the story right. The optiscan issue died long ago due to lack of historical precedence, and BBV's inability to show that the central tabulators could be hacked outside the BOE's network.

Now I am not a naysayer, but a member of the DNC, I'm going up in your opprobrium. I guess I will have to discuss that with Mehlman's drone, OTOH.

I may suggest that if the party leadership offends you, may be it is you that does not belong.

Mike

[Name removed]

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[Bill Bored]

111. More persuasive?

"there is nothing from Ohio that is more persuasive than what is documented in the report."

mgr,

First of all, I like the report because as I've previously stated, it calls for the end of DREs and a number of other important reforms and it puts them all in the mainstream. We should marginalize any Democrat who won't sign on to this now. So I'm glad this report is out there! If we don't take advantage of it, we are squandering the opportunity to move election reform into the mainstream of the party and beyond.

It is therefore disruptive and counterproductive to deride the negative aspects of this report without acknowledging the positives and those who are engaged in the former without the latter really need to grow up now, if they are in fact old enough to vote in the first place.

See posts 36, 42 and 43.

THAT SAID, tell me if this is in the report and how persuasive you think it is:

Ohio punch card ballots have no precinct identifiers on them.

Ohio rotates ballot orders in general elections by precinct.

The ballot order of candidates Kerry and Bush was frequently aligned in collocated precincts such that even a random shifting of ballots from one card counter to another within a polling place would favor Bush if this were done in heavily Democratic precincts.

If ballots were shifted in this manner, there is no way to detect this because of the lack of precinct codes.

Even a properly performed hand recount of all punch card ballots in Ohio would not necessarily correctly determine voters' intent or the election outcome.

Since this has been the practice for many years in Ohio, any assumptions about the validity of previous elections, such as 2000, used as a baseline for analysis of 2004 may be invalid, because previous election results may be invalid.

In short, I am convinced that there is no basis for confidence in the results of Ohio elections.

Now I would say that if these practices were not mentioned in the Brazile report, they should have been, along with recommendations for changing them. I don't think they were mentioned but I'm still happy that the report calls for the end of DREs and other needed reforms.

[mgr]

113. I'm glad to agree with you

Hopefully no one else calls on me to defend the report's specific omissions. I'd save that for an e-mail to the authors.

The ballot rotation problem in multi precinct voting locations is an issue that's been already discussed at DU, and I would not necessarily agree that it should be within the report more than a mention. The problem was that the magnitude of the problem was never very great (at best it might explain a swing at 1,000's of votes), and a coherent pattern of that this was the case rather than the way individuals actually voted, was never substantiated, since using ballots printed for one precinct in another precinct's punch slots would also have down ballot patterns similar to those of the presidential election. That was work to perform, that to my knowledge was never done. I think your historic analysis strongly suggests that it did happen, but that would clinch it.

The other problem that this presents, is that to an observer it may have been little more than an oddity--there were votes running in both directions that were a negative feedback to whichever candidate was the more popular in the precincts-- that is not easy to grasp as democratic voters leaving the polls before voting.

Should it have been mentioned in passing, sure. A lot of the anomalies should have been documented somewhere in the report, if only for completeness. Just because, putting myself into the shoes of the report's editors and authors, stating it does not characterize what the significant election event is, does not mean it could not develop significance later.

I don't mean to disparage the issue, it is a real problem when it comes to having one's vote counted, and it is unacceptable. It is something Ohio needs to fix, and it is simple to fix (probably the most galling aspect of it).

Mike

[Bill Bored]

127. It may be a lot bigger than that.

This system allows thousands of votes to be switched without detection. The random scenario above may only be the tip of the iceberg. If it were done deliberately, it could swing many thousands of votes.

Also, the fact that this situation has been in existence for a long time means that nearly all the statistical "evidence" comparing 2004 to prior years (ESI, DNC, E-M, etc.) which is perhaps the ONLY evidence by which it's claimed that there was no widespread fraud, may be MOOT.

Your point about down-ticket races may be valid, but there are also reasons why they would not be affected as much: Not as many votes down ticket, non-partisan judicial races were closer in party strongholds than partisan races, etc.

Unless this potential is investigated, and not just mentioned in passing, we will never know.

[mgr]

129. However,

the calculations done by DAKnapp put Cleveland in the 80,000 range for people not staying in line to vote. With numbers similar to that in Toledo and Columbus, possibly Akron, there is the margin and more. Knapp's work was present on the site in December, and he has not, to my knowledge, posted since. However, I think he may have moved on to work with the legal case. (Its a supposition, but his manner here was mild and cautious, and his work is known to others I would not suspect of being familiar with it, most on this site don't recall it)

If it were done deliberately, you would detect far more votes for third party candidates, and undervotes. With the data at hand, I assume a projection is in the offing that estimates this? The other limitation is the number of multiple precinct polling places with predominantly democratic leaning voters.

It is detectable, that is the other thing, otherwise how did you find it out? If deliberately done, it would only require switching on the order of 5 to 10% of the total precinct population to be detected by many in the precinct (yes, they are likely to compare votes).

The thing to realize is that to go at it too hard, may also hurt your candidate, as they will also lose potential votes.

It is not that I am convinced this is not a factor, there is no reason yet for me to think it is the primary factor, and no one has offered the impact it may have beyond an approximation that does not even approach a back of the envelope calculation. I am open to the manner that the election was stolen approximates a multiple regression analysis (I think most are); and without having to think it through, the ballot position switching is a strong second variable.

You have a little more work to do to convince me. I would suggest beginning by tallying the number of multiprecinct polling locations that are predominantly democrat in Cuyahoga (80% to D say), and extrapolate (it would overestimate, but so what). Play with what percent of the ballots switched to third parties starts to get unwieldy, and determine how it may affect B votes as well. See if it reaches the values Knapp estimates.

Mike

[Bill Bored]

137. Iceburg and Minvis have both done a lot of work on this already.

There were a fair amount of 3rd party votes in Cuyohoga.
But if the switching were confined to the Bush-Kerry conjunctions, 3rd party votes aren't an issue. On the other hand, there could have been some of both.

[Time for change]

69. Well said, Land Shark

I think that one thing that we can probably all agree upon is that the evidence for fraud is at least convincing enough that there should have been MUCH more investigation into this issue than has occurred -- most especially including a full and honest recount of the Ohio vote.

I do find it disappointing that, given the fact that we all agree on that very important issue which you brought up in this thread, that there has been such animosity directed against certain people for expressing various technical disagreements on related issues.

[Bill Bored]

73. Yes, it's very counter-productive. nt

[foo_bar]

101. I hate "me too" posts, but I agree 99.44%

Comment on the counter to Proposition One: I detect no fundamental denial of the data presented by TIA being heavily skewed to one candidate.

Agreed, if "the data presented by TIA" means the data collected for EIRS. The subset of data presented by TIA is literally a text search for "Kerry", which has the statistical force of a Google search. DUer skids provided a more complete subset of the data (i.e., all machine switching incidents with corresponding EIRS id #s, not just the low-hanging fruit) a few weeks after the election:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=201x5879

To desire to be the one to count votes in secret is to wish to oneself a tyrannical power, immunity and privilege that no one gets or deserves in a real democracy actually pledged to serve the public.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Dynasty_At_Passes]

138. On The Other Hand, you might want to look at this....

I understand you are a polling scientist. You agree there was systematic fraud in this election, but disagree with TruthIsAll vehemently on the way it was carried out.

I think this paper right here is going to clarify alot....

http://www.answers.com/topic/2004-u-s-presidential-election-controversy-voting-machines

This document has been surpressed by the corporate media, and unlike other claims has every single allegation backed up and recorded. This document covers the whole spectrum and has made even the most cynical scientists take up issue and see 2004 and before were virtual sham elections.

How long have we let this scam take up the voting Landshark?

[OnTheOtherHand]

142. hi, DAP

For best results in flagging me down, try PMing me also -- I definitely don't monitor all threads at all times, by a long shot.

I personally am not convinced that there was systematic fraud, although I think the opportunity was there. There was plenty of vote suppression -- I can't put a number on that. Many of the points on which I disagree with TIA wouldn't have to change one's mind about whether there was fraud or how it was conducted, although they might. For instance (although I haven't been so embroiled in this debate), TIA seems to want to emphasize the "independence" of reports of touchscreen vote switches, while I find more interesting the fact that they seem to be clustered disproportionately in a few areas.

I don't know whether the corporate media has "suppressed" information about electronic voting machines, but it certainly isn't common knowledge.

There's a lot of disagreement and uncertainty about what went on with these machines in 2004 and in past elections. But everyone has to wonder: When you cast your vote on a machine like that, who knows where it goes? Even if we trusted the CEO of Diebold, can we afford to trust everyone who works for him?

[Dynasty_At_Passes]

146. In your eyes, what would it take to be convinced of systematic fraud?

Systematic fraud if unearthed would exhibit a specific pattern, would it not?

What type of pattern would this be-and how would you know for certain the pattern is based on machine fraud?

What levels of analysis is required to uncover such a pattern, like which was recently discovered in San Diego california? And would it in turn require lawsuits to get the board of elections to hand over their "proprietary" results which show of all those who voted, what the votes amounted to?

[Land Shark]

148. Can be a useful question to ask: what would you consider a "smoking gun"

some elections officials can't even think of what would be. Hard to say you're looking for smoking guns if you don't have a clear and comprehensive idea of what they would look like: in an electronic environment....

in fact i think i'll start a new thread on this.

[autorank]

143. Need more people like you on DU Dynasty_At_Passes!

:yourock:

[Amaryllis]

145. EVERYONE go here to listen to Land Shark's presentation in Porltand where

he laid out the above arguements!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=388978

[althecat]

149. Just been told about TIA....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=user_profiles&u_id=106042

Would be keen on a few links to relevant threads... or explanation via PM.