Guess what? Recounts for Sale in FLORIDA!

[DoYouEverWonder]

Now that the vote is certified, the ballots from the 2004 General Election are now available to the public.

Last week the Miami Herald went to North FL and did recounts in 3 Counties.

In Suwannee County, the MH was charged $35.00/hr and it took 8 hours to count about 2/3's of the votes.

Rough guess is about $500 to do the whole thing. You could probably do Volusia for about $7000.

Maybe Michael Moore can come down and count a few counties?

Or maybe Kerry could loan us a few Mil? I heard he had a bunch of money left over. What the heck, he's got nothing better to spend it on at this point.

Maybe some of us should give them a call and ask them to come on down to Sunny Florida for some counting?

What the heck, at least we would know who really won.

[sweetladybug]

1. I think maybe Kerry and Edwards are doing some behind the scene

work. I voted for them and I trust them (they both are attorneys and very smart men). I think we might be hearing something out of them before long after they get their ducks in a row and get their proof on voting fraud by the Republicans.

[Carolab]

6. I think it is dangerous to say things like this

just assume it is up to us because I firmly believe that it really is.

Nader is right. This IS a one-party nation and this thing is all rigged from A to Z.

Get out there and work on it. If you live in Florida, start up a collection on DU to get a recount. Or contact Hedda Foil at www.helpamericarecount.org--she is collecting for recounts. Find out where Bev is doing recounts in Florida and volunteer to help.

[berniew1]

20. Miami Herald hand recount of 3 Fla. counties: big Kerry gain>> Kerry win

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

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/20021...

Here are the tallies for Union County:

Bush original: 3396 Bush hand count: 3393 (-3)

Kerry original: 1251 Kerry hand count: 1272 (+21)

Net change: Kerry +24

Here are the tallies for Lafayette County:

Bush original: 2460 Bush hand count: 2452 (-8)

Kerry original: 845 Kerry hand count: 848 (+3)

Net change: Kerry +11

It's a bit more complicated for the third county they looked at, Suwannee County, because they only report the totals for a hand

count of "almost 60%" of the ballots. Here is the result of their 60% hand count:

Bush 60% hand count: 6140

Kerry 60% hand count: 2984

Which gives us the following tally for Suwannee County:

Bush original: 11153 Extrapolation of Bush 100% hand count: 10549

Kerry original: 4522 Extrapolation of Kerry 100% hand count: 5126

Net change: Kerry +1208

In the original count, 71.2% of the votes cast for Bush or Kerry (n=15675) went to Bush. In the hand count, this drops to 67.3%. That

is a significant drop. Let's translate that into numbers. If you take the percentages from the hand count and extrapolate, here's

what you get:

Bush = 15675 x .673 = 10549 (loss of 604)

Kerry = 15675 x .327 = 5126 (gain of 604)

Net change: Kerry +1208

A switch of 1208 votes in a county with less than 16K votes cast is obviously huge. Now maybe there's a very large percentage of Bush votes in that remaining 40% that they didn't count, but we can't know that because they didn't count them. Which begs the question...why did they stop counting in Suwannee County when their tabulation of 60% of the ballots deviated so much from the original total? And without actually counting those remaining ballots, how can they possibly report that nothing is amiss when the data they have so far suggests a possible problem?

What I see is a possible gain of 1243 votes for Kerry from three small counties in which only 23627 ballots were cast. That

represents about 0.3% of the ballots cast for Bush and Kerry statewide. If Kerry gained votes at the same rate statewide, he picks up nearly 400,000 votes and wins Florida.

another source:

http://ap.indystar.com/dynamic/stories/F/FLORIDA_VOTING?SITE=ININS&SECTION=POLITICS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[theboss]

22. This is still awful math

Extrapolations don't work like that.

[Clarissa]

2. I Live in Gainesville also,

and there are several precincts with interesting numbers right here in Alachua County that I would like to see recounted.

If you would be interested in this project, please PM me since I can't contact anyone or do much of anything right now.

[newyawker99]

3. Hi Clarissa!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. Only if you have an extra $3500 in your pocket?

That's my guess for the approximate cost to recount Alachua Co.

That's why we need someone with more resources then we might have, to pick up the ball on this one.

However, if sweetladybug is right, then we might not have to worry.

BTW: Welcome to DU, neighbor :hi:

[floridadem30]

5. If you have some numbers, ask someone to post for you.

Welcome to DU

[floridadem30]

7. Here's a link for alachua cnty results from their website

http://www.elections.alachua.fl.us/results.html

[Clarissa]

12. Thanks for the Link, but

the precinct totals are more revealing than the county summaries. I got the precinct numbers from the Gainesville Sun.

I have many, many pages of numbers but don't know what to do with them. They might be helpful, but again maybe not.

Here is an example of a possible anomoly in ONE precinct in Alachua County: In the 2002 governor's race (which I consider the trial run for the current election),McBride outpolled J.Bush 324-249. However, in the current election, G. Bush outpolled Kerry 345-340. Castor outpolled Kerry (and Bush) 373-340.

This is a recurring pattern in 50 of the 71 precincts: Castor outpolls Kerry and republican votes increase while democratic votes decrease compared with the 2002 numbers.

Does this suggest that votes are being shifted from Kerry to Bush thereby leaving the discrepancy with the Kerry/Castor votes?

I sure would like to look at the ballots in a few selected precincts.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

15. Is ANYBODY doing anything down there? Any protests going on?

Demands or requests for recounts? It is so frustrating to be in a northern blue state, sometimes...

[MarcelP]

8. Recount many counties at once--with as much surprise as possible

It would make sense to get a lot of people together to do a number of Florida counties at the same time--and not give the counties too much warning. That way there would be less time for any interested party to fix any potential problems. Better to do it sooner than later. It wouldn't overturn the election, but it might catch fraud--and that would be a PR disaster for Repubs.

[floridadem30]

9. Welcome to Du MarcelP

:)

[Democrat Dragon]

10. Doncha think they might have...

thrown away a few ballots before any recounts? This is yet another reason why we should look in the trash!

[DoYouEverWonder]

11. The Miami Herald already found discrepancies

in the counties that they looked at. There was enough of a difference even in these small counties to warrant major concerns about the bigger counties, especially the ones with the vapor votes.

I think most of the hacking was done by the programmers and techs from the companies that make the machines. I don't think there were very many SOE's involved at all. That's why more recounts will most like turn up even more discrepancies.

[pointsoflight]

13. I think it would be excellent to do this...

...and right now. Don't wait until later--do it now when Ohio is still in the balance, and when the voting issues are in the public eye.

It'd be best, though, for one of the voting protections groups to do this, because we could donate and they could get volunteers.

[berniew1]

14. Miami Herald hand count of 3 Florida counties- signficant Kerry gain

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

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/20021...
Here are the tallies for Union County:
Bush original: 3396 Bush hand count: 3393 (-3)
Kerry original: 1251 Kerry hand count: 1272 (+21)
Net change: Kerry +24
Here are the tallies for Lafayette County:
Bush original: 2460 Bush hand count: 2452 (-8)
Kerry original: 845 Kerry hand count: 848 (+3)
Net change: Kerry +11
It's a bit more complicated for the third county they looked at, Suwannee County, because they only report the totals for a hand
count of "almost 60%" of the ballots. Here is the result of their 60% hand count:
Bush 60% hand count: 6140
Kerry 60% hand count: 2984
Which gives us the following tally for Suwannee County:
Bush original: 11153 Extrapolation of Bush 100% hand count: 10549
Kerry original: 4522 Extrapolation of Kerry 100% hand count: 5126
Net change: Kerry +1208
In the original count, 71.2% of the votes cast for Bush or Kerry (n=15675) went to Bush. In the
hand count, this drops to 67.3%. That
is a significant drop. Let's translate that into numbers. If you take the percentages from the hand
count and extrapolate, here's
what you get:
Bush = 15675 x .673 = 10549 (loss of 604)
Kerry = 15675 x .327 = 5126 (gain of 604)
Net change: Kerry +1208
A switch of 1208 votes in a county with less than 16K votes cast is obviously huge. Which begs the question...why did they stop
counting in Suwannee County when their tabulation of 60% of the ballots deviated so much from the original total? And without actually counting those remaining ballots, how can they possibly report that nothing is amiss when the data they have so far suggests a possible problem?

What I see is a possible gain of 1243 votes for Kerry from three small counties in which only 23627 ballots were cast. That
represents about 0.3% of the ballots cast for Bush and Kerry statewide. If Kerry gained votes at the same rate statewide, he picks up nearly 400,000 votes and wins Florida.
Thanks Miami Herald, you just revealed to us in your hand counts that there's a possibility that Kerry won Florida.

[floridadem30]

16. kick

[pauldp]

17. kick!

[pointsoflight]

18. kick

[Clarissa]

19. Instead of "Recounts" perhaps we should call them

'Quality Control Checks", and they shouldn't cost anything because the state and counties should provide them.

Think about it -- we turned all of our vote counting over to machines and made absolutely no provisions for checking their accuracy.

Machines malfunction -- no one would claim they don't. Our lawmakers should have provided for quality control checks in every county by hand counting some precincts, but they didn't.

Why would anyone of either party object to making certain the machines function properly by providing for random hand counts? This was a great oversight on the part of our lawmakers and lobbying for checks and balances in election laws should be a top priority of every citizen.

I don't have an extra $3500 to pay for a recount, but perhaps presenting compelling numbers and arguments might get some help in doing a "Quality Control Check." I think I am going to try.

[mackdaddy]

21. How about a video of the ballots as they are turned by hand

I saw someone suggest this to Bev Harris on one of the discussions. They have those video copy stands for use with presentations with a video camera and lights. Just take a stack of ballots and turn them one by one as they are being video taped. Then anyone can go through the tape and do a recount by just watching the video.

Another approach which comes to mind is to use a sheet fed image scanners used for document storage. It would be possible to digitize all of the ballots in a county and store them on a DVD-R in a matter of minutes.
You could even do scans of other public records and add other documents such as images the tapes of each machine from every precinct.

These could then be sold to pay for the "recount" time. I know that disks of images of documents are sold by police departments after high profile trials.

Are there any document image experts or companies out there interested? I know these are public records, but don't know about all of the legalities involved. If nothing else, it makes it easy to retain copies of the election records.