WIS. Supreme Court Recount 60% Tallied -- (P) 421,801 -- (K) 384,255 -- **Kloppenburg** +148

[Ellipsis]

As of @6:07 p.m. 5/2/11

Prossser---Kloppenburg---Total votes for both Prosser and Kloppenburg
421,801--------384,255--------------------806,888
Gain ------------ Gain --------------------- Gain
+212 ---------- +360-------------------- +762

Kloppeng has gained 148 Votes. Diminishing Prosser lead to 7,168 votes.


Of some interest:

This reflects 71,555 votes from Dane county, 23,624 from Milwaukee and 10,073 votes from Waukesha.

http://gab.wi.gov/node/1735

[yourout]

1. So they are on pace to find almost 1500 total votes. Why?

Throw the frickin machines in Lake Michigan and hand count elections.

[TheWraith]

3. There is no such thing as a perfect count.

Yes, we could hand count all elections, if we didn't mind waiting months for the results. But even hand counts are subject to error. And any sort of automated count is periodically going to have votes which weren't read accurately, or weren't read at all. But 1500 votes, out of a million cast, isn't a statistically meaningful level of error. It's like getting being off by 3 cents on a $200 bill, and the instances in which such a margin would influence the outcome of an election are rare. And for those cases, we have hand counts.

[Ellipsis]

8. It wouldn't take months if more people got involved during the process.

And in the presidential or congressional races who cares? They don't take office the next day. This ain't a Big Mac at McDonalds. This race is for the balance of the Wisconsin supreme court for years to come.

Accuracy rate by hand or machine will have a certain amount of error. In most cases error rates don't matter, the margin of error is acceptable.

But trust in a machine counts CAN be an issue where potentially just a few people could manipulate and change the vote through programming. The presidential election in Florida 2000 where we know Gore won or Ohio in 2004 comes to mind.

Look what that got us.

[TheWraith]

18. More people means greater chance for error.

Both accidental error due to untrained counters, and intentional error by people looking to push their opinion into the process.

As far as auditing machine counts, that can be done easily enough using small batch hand counts. Take a precinct with, say, 1000 ballots, count them all up, and see if they vary from the machine count in a statistically significant way.

[Doremus]

24. Baloney.

More people means greater transparency, not less. Greater transparency means less opportunity to play games with the count, not more.

If election counts were conducted by hand by precinct it wouldn't take much longer than the current system and the results would be much more trustworthy.

[TheWraith]

27. How, exactly, do you vet the credentials of 1,000 counters? 2,000? 5,000?

How do you supervise them all? How do you check for plants? How do you recruit that many volunteers, when usually there's a hard time finding enough election workers to man the tables?

Hand recounts don't scale up.

[Ellipsis]

29. Sure hand counts scale up.

You're just not thinking it through. Do you know what the maintenance contract is on voting equipment by the way? How about the failure ratio? Storage fees (heated)? Replacement costs? Training? Transportaion?


In Wisconsin You'd want to start here and rethink some things.

1. In any city in which the population is at least 150,000, each ward shall contain not less than 1,000 nor more than 4,000 inhabitants.

5.15(2)(b)2. 2. In any city in which the population is at least 39,000 but less than 150,000, each ward shall contain not less than 800 nor more than 3,200 inhabitants.

5.15(2)(b)3. 3. In any city, village or town in which the population is at least 10,000 but less than 39,000, each ward shall contain not less than 600 nor more than 2,100 inhabitants.

5.15(2)(b)4. 4. In any city, village or town in which the population is less than 10,000, each ward shall contain not less than 300 nor more than 1,000 inhabitants.

[TheWraith]

32. Maintenance on a machine is far less effort than a human doing the same labor.

That's the entire premise of the industrial revolution.

Let's do some simple numbers here. Let's assume that an average ballot has six races on it. Now, you have two election counters at each table. Let's also assume that it takes them seven and a half seconds each to both record the results of each race to their satisfaction. 7.5 seconds per person, times two people, times six races... that's a ballot every 90 seconds. Now, scale that up to, say, 250,000 votes. At two people to a table, that's 12,500 person-hours to count all those votes. To get the election results in, say, three hours, you would need to employ a team of 4,125 people. Do you imagine you're going to recruit that many volunteers? You won't. You might be able to get that many by paying them. Let's say, $15 per hour. That equates to $187,500 for the counting alone--not counting supervisors, training, recruiting, weeding out attempts at fraud, food, a location to do the counting...

How about if it takes more than 7.5 seconds to record the results of a race? Suppose it's hotly contested and there's a lot of arguments over voter intent? Or maybe the counters are mostly older folks who need a few extra seconds to read each result and write it down? If you're talking about allowing just 15 seconds for each race, then you're talking about 25,000 person-hours, a group of 8,500 workers, and $375,000 to pay them.

How about for a race that gets one million votes? Quadruple all those numbers. A presidential race, where 100 million votes can be reasonably expected? Multiply by 100. Can you imagine trying to employ 2,550,000 people counting votes?

Seriously--I know what I'm talking about here. Hand counting everything does not scale. It is useful for auditing, but trying to apply it across the board is ludicrously impractical.

[Ellipsis]

34. I'll answer the question for you $3.00 to $7.00 per vote under the current system

Even if that's inflated by 50% that's a lot of Jing.

Hardware, Failure ratio 10% to 15%, on a good day when humidity conditions are constant. I've been working with scanners since day one. when a one bit 11"X 17", 300 ppi, flatbed scanner (reflective only mind you) cost twelve grand with a motherboard board populated with nothing but a myriad of TTL's.

Segue:

Never speak in absolutes.

"Do you imagine you're going to recruit that many volunteers? You won't".

Under the current system I'd tend to agree. But you have to rethink things from the bottom up including ballot design... meant to be read by people not machines. I know the math as you paint it. I get the metrics, not that I agree with ALL your numbers, I'm just more creative in the rethink.

Think from the bottom up in organization... and for ballot design from the top down. It needs to incorporate the community at every level, in the curriculum as an introduction to civics, include the local organizations and the wisdom of seniors. The vote needs to be spread out over the course of more then one day.... and counting it after that.

This won't get settled this in this thread but feel free to keep it coming.

[Ellipsis]

26. Two words "Hursti Hack"

That's just for starters... don't go there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hursti_Hack


Actually do. It will help keep it kicked.:*

[elocs]

4. Sure, ballots are getting counted in a recount where the process is watched by both sides

but what reason is there to believe that the ones who are outright morons or crooks are going to do any better when they are originally counted when they appear to treat ballots like they are junk mail.

[Ellipsis]

11. Lets hope there's a lot more errors then that.

Waukesha, Dane and Milwaukee have long way to go. Lets see how this round of recounting shakes out.

[Drale]

2. Can you imagine the screaming fit Prosser is going to throw

when Kloppenburg wins?

[Recovered Repug]

5. Is it me or do none of the numbers add up?

By those numbers: the lead is 37k+ plus the votes for both and the gain for both don't add up to the totals.

[LiberalAndProud]

7. There's nothing wrong with your math.

What are we missing?

[Ellipsis]

15. We know the outcome. Prosser was ahead by 7316 votes

So you compare the totals of the original WARD numbers to the new recount WARD numbers and you can see if there is a loss or gain to each particular ward as it is counted.

The fact that Kloppenburg has gained 148 votes but is still 37K behind is not great news but it is good news. She needs to make up 7168 votes yet, a rather daunting number. Dane county is heavily democratic. Waukesha has had anomalies and a cynic would think there may be fraud there. They have 191 total wards (I think 191) only 34 have reported... and that is only townships. No cities in Waukesha have yet to report. So fraud still may pop up. Milwaukee, being a cynic, may have some issues.

So we just have to wait and see.

But I try and post these numbers as they become available from the state to court interest in the recount. This is the first time Kloppenburg has gone ahead since the recount started.

[gkhouston]

20. I'm not so sure you'd have to be cynical to suspect fraud in Waukesha county.

There seem to be one hell of a lot of "oopsies" there.

[Ellipsis]

25. Indeed ...way too many.

The one that gets me the most is the disparity in the Van Hollen vs Falk Attorney General race of 2006. Which they are looking into.


Here's a collection of data and funky things collected because of Waukesha since April 5th.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=517493&mesg_id=517493

[LiberalAndProud]

22. When you say fraud may still pop up, do you have any idea by what avenue?

It's been disheartening to watch Prosser's lead creep up during the recount. And the objections raised seem to have gotten little hearing.

[Ellipsis]

28. Ideas? Sure.... but the fact that the removable cartridges on the optec Eagles Op scans

couldn't be erased allows us a rare opportunity to get a hand count done in some interesting areas. We'll just have to wait and see.


Compare these bad boys to your flash drives of today

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23417112@N03/4369613063/in/photostream

[Ellipsis]

10. Recount votes for scattering --- 832. Does that make your math happy now?

These ARE the states numbers. And they ARE an accurate transcription of their spreadsheet.:hi:

[LiberalAndProud]

17. I feel really stupid, but I don't understand what you just said.

I'm not doubting that this is accurate reporting of state numbers. What are "recount votes for scattering"? And I'm not kidding about feeling stupid.

[Ellipsis]

19. Don't feel stupid. I was just being a little defensive. I had to look it up.

Votes, which cannot be allowed by the canvassers.

Also read my reply to liberal and proud. You may find that helpful as well. I've just been staring at a spread sheet for the last hour and a half deleting rows to get the numbers. It makes me cranky.

[Recovered Repug]

31. Actually, the part I was really confused about

was how a 37k lead was called only a 7k lead. It's clear now.

[Earth_First]

6. How is this only +2?!

Rate this up folks!

[Kurovski]

9. Okay! Okay!

:) K&R

[Ellipsis]

12. Surrender Kurvoski... is still my favorite post it add of all time

Thanks for the Rec.

[Kurovski]

13. Uh-oh I don't remember that.

Was it related to the Wetzelbill/Kurovski presidential campaign? :D

[Ellipsis]

14. It may just have been... somebody posted it. You may have been away doing work

...or something mundane like that. It was a couple years back. It was done ala The Wicked Witch sky-writing from the "Wizard of Oz" it cracked me up, so perfectly DU.

[Kurovski]

16. I saw some of those, but I would have responded to that with a sticky saying

"NEVAH!" :D Those stickies moved across the board pretty fast.

Our press secretary Laurab should have captured it. I will have to call her on the carpet. :crazy: :hi:

[defendandprotect]

21. k/r

[senseandsensibility]

23. KICK! Keep up the good fight, people.

I'm reading and trying to understand what this means. So far, it's beyond me....but I've been at work all day and not at my most alert. I will keep reading and trying to understand, so anything that anyone can add will be greatly appreciated.

[Ellipsis]

30. None of the City of Milwaukee votes have been listed yet as per GAB...

"There is no Milwaukee city data reported in the spreadsheet yet because the city has not yet completed the recount of absentee ballots, which are normally counted in a central location".

[Kurovski]

33. Kick. (nt)

[Ellipsis]

35. 50 + recounted wards are currently "under review" by GAB.

Most wards under review were submitted today... so no biggie, but some go back to April 29th.

Just sayin'

[gkhouston]

36. I wondered about that, too. Do you know if the live-stream from Waukesha is being recorded? n/t

[Ellipsis]

37. I ...don't quite know what you mean, but Peace Nikki most likely could answer that.

She's been at the recount in Waukesha every day.

You should know, none of the under review wards are from Waukesha.

[gkhouston]

38. I do know that. Sorry; the relationship between the two thoughts was not geographic.

The "under review" makes me wonder if something odd came up, which in turn reminded me of this dkos diary, where the author wondered if the streams were being recorded. He thought he heard a remark pass between two Republicans that would apparently indicate something dire, but he'd like to hear a recording to be sure he heard what he thought he did.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/02/972337/-Wisconsin-Recount,-Day-6:-JoKlo-Gains,-but-This-is-not-pretty

on edit: I'll send PeaceNikki a PM if I don't see her floating through GD tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestion.

[PeaceNikki]

39. You mean is the video of the stream being recorded?

I'm not sure, I can ask this afternoon when I go back.

If you're asking whether the tallies of municipalities are bring added to the GAB totals, yes.

On edit: I read that diary. While I don't know the specifics discussed in the diary regarding DRE, we were told that the reprinting of tapes would be fine. As is noted, the tapes include several reporting units which results in the "hunt and peck" method discussed to find the votes for the wards being counted. They explained to me and another observer how they find the votes for the unit being counted. As Barb said, it's ugly... HOWEVER, these units have VERY few DRE votes. The Genesee unit we counted while I was there had 2. Literally... 2. Some of the other units that had up to 120 DRE votes were different machines with different tapes that were easier to read. I imagine that's what the clarification was about.

[gkhouston]

40. Yes, I wondered whether video of the stream is being recorded.

Thanks for finding out. I've no idea what the diarist at dkos thinks he might have heard, so I have no idea whether or not it's about the reprinting of tapes.

[PeaceNikki]

41. One thing I can confirm is that Pat Karcher (the R lady) has an amazing

And very deadpan sense of humor that can easily be misunderstood until one "gets it". I really like her.

[PeaceNikki]

42. I am told that it is not being recorded.

If you know that diary author, I may be able to help them get on touch with an attorney who may take a statement.

[gkhouston]

43. I don't know him; sorry.

He apparently heard something or other on the livestream that he thought was damning, but says it's not related to the recount. He's been watching the livestream but appears to live in Wisconsin.

"Regarding some "bombshell" comments I might have overheard on the livestream and that I referred to previously, I haven't been able to verify anything. The comments were not about this race or this recount, but would be very embarrassing for the Republican members of the Waukesha County canvass board. That's all I can say. Since I can't verify, I will leave it at that for now."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/03/972814/-Wisconsin-Recount,-Day-7:-Hump-Day

[PeaceNikki]

44. hmm, weird. I honestly think it was likely Pat Karcher's deadpan sense of humor

She's pretty easily misunderstood as being a seriously crazy old bat unless and until you understand her. Then you realize she's a hilariously funny and sharp lady.

[gkhouston]

45. Could be. I've certainly been taking seriously by people who should

have known better.