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I did, in fact, see a media report of electronic voting machines returning "Kerry" on the confirmation screen when someone selected "Bush." The same report also had the problems going the other direction.
I saw something (I wish I remembered where) that showed that most of the electronic voting was a near dead heat, but where they used optical scanners with paper ballots it was a HUGE bush lead.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/89340977/887477) | From: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) weev
Fri, 5-Nov-2004 11:59 PM (UTC)
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It's clear that regardless of the legitimacy of this election, America is courting fascism.
Something needs to be done.
One thing I've suggested is here, though it is, of course, special-purpose.
I think there are three main problems. 1. There were a lot of people that were on the "anybody but bush" bandwagon that had a hard time getting people to vote for Kerry because the only reason they had going for them was "well, he's not bush" and that's not enough for a lot of people. 2. To much calling Bush supporters "stupid" and "dumb". That just pisses off Bush supporters and makes them want to go out and vote just to fuck with you. 3. A lot of Kerry supporters could not figure out WHY somebody would vote for bush. It's very hard to form a decent game plan when you have no idea why people are backing Bush. There's some good comments on K5 about this as well First one hereSecond one here
Scott Bateman, a political cartoonist, got a letter from a Bush supporter explaining why she was willing to vote against her own self-interest.
We know why they are backing Bush. The Democrats will never be able to get their votes. And if the Democrats do something to get their votes, I'm going to give up and leave this country, and wait for the Chinese to either bomb or bankrupt it.
I think the chart on the right shows pretty much nothing. Exit polls (like most other polls) have a margin of error -- assuming they're using the same sample size as most polls, it's +/-3% (for each candidate). That's random error, excluding any systematic error due to certain candidate's supporters being more willing to talk to pollsters than others, or lying, or other such effects. The chart on the right is well within that margin.
Check out those other links -- the weird thing is that the error is always in Bush's favor.
A simpler explanation though -- maybe Bush voters don't like to talk to CNN's exit pollsters?
I'd like to see someone other than the Democratic Underground loonies look at this.
From: sjc
Sat, 6-Nov-2004 12:08 AM (UTC)
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![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/5887295/515656) | From: jwz
Sat, 6-Nov-2004 3:28 AM (UTC)
come on, man, you weren't even trying! | (Link)
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listening to NPR on my way to vote that morning, they reported that a machine in Brooklyn was stuck on voting for the GOP candidates and was pulled from service. The machines are a crock, I'll never use one. Plus no reciept of your votes?? wtf, just add a stupid cash register tape machine, voila!
oh also, on Lehrer news hour on npr, they had the person in charge of the exit polls and some survey company, and he explained that at most of the precincts used to take the exit polls, they showed higher kerry support because almost everyone who voted Democrat was excited to take the interview, whereas bushites didn't so much. Or at least that was his excuse for exitpolls showing kerry winning early on.
"Franklin County's unofficial results gave Bush 4,258 votes to Democratic challenger John Kerry's 260 votes in Precinct 1B. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct."
NPR just moved this story. Short blurb.
Franklin County is, of course, my place of residence. I direct your attention to this thread on the Columbus LJ community. Abridged version: reports of relatively low turnout from the Secretary of State's office do not seem to be compatible with observed reality.
*sigh* Not surprising really.
I also think that the fact that they're diverse scandals geographically and methodologically also adds credence -- if it was just, say, e-voting that was fucked, it would be easier to untangle.
Ok, maybe I misunderstand your point, but... if I was going to rig an election, I'd do it one way, not five, on the theory that five would be five times as likely to be caught, yes?
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/5871422/1167223) | From: phs
Sat, 6-Nov-2004 12:25 AM (UTC)
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Regardless of whether the election was rigged or not, we MUST get this fixed in the next two years. Everybody should contact their congresscritter and demand that legislation be passed to require a human-readable paper trail for all electronic voting machines.
There's just no reason not to have a paper trail except to make the numbers easier to fool with.
Did you see the EIRS system that I worked day and night on? I think it's sad that Kerry didn't fight this shit to the bitter end. I (as well as many people I know) feel the same way about the theft of the election. It's clear to me the left wing hackers/crackers have morals and ethics, either that or the right wing has better hackers that are much more sly. Either way, I hear bush has a Man Date. Good for him.
So, I believe this vote was rigged.
So? What are you going to do about it?
| From: jwz
Sat, 6-Nov-2004 12:49 AM (UTC)
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I'm going to whine about it on my LiveJournal, how about you?
If they were going to rig it, they'd rig it so that it would LOOK like a close win. A "narrow" win. This psychologically looks "feasible" for the loser to accept, as well as makes them disheartened. They don't want martyrs, or obvious false victories.
..Leastwise that's what I did in my high school student elections.
has anyone compared this year's exit poll->votes counted skew to charts and graphs from previous elections?
Even if anyone did that it would be of questionable value because of the massive turnout this year/so many new voters etc.
I just posted this in a similar thread elsewhere: Read this. If this guy (the editor of an extremely left-leaning weekly paper in Atlanta) doesn't think there's a problem, I'd say there's not a problem. It's the single most rational, unbiased thing they've said about the election in months, if not longer, and I was really surprised to see it.
Yeah, well. Except that that article was written before the election. I'd like to hear what he is saying *now*.
Of course, after the 2000 election all you would hear from the left was that Gore won the popular vote. They were so excited about yelling this from the rooftops. And yet, he too won it by a margin below the margin of error on our voting systems.
Somehow it mattered back then, while it's apparently not even a callable victory here.
the fact that it was even close is disturbing enough.
this is pretty much my feeling. the fact that it only takes a few thousand votes here and there is much more disturbing than whether or not they were stolen.
The Mystery Pollster blog addresses this. He says the following: "...since 2000, the exit pollsters have tracked the type of voting equipment used at their sampled precincts. If the discrepancies could be explained, as some suggest, by precincts using the newer Diebold touch-screen voting machines, the exit pollsters could prove it. With their own reputations on the line, the NEP officials report no such evidence."
the "surprising pattern of Florida's election results" can be explained easily if you assume, a) Florida Dems tend to be more conservative than Dems nationwide, so they tend to vote for their local Dem candidates who are more liberal than their local Rep candidates, but they tend to vote against the national Dem candidates who are more liberal than they like. b) counties that chose touchscreen machines tend to be more liberal than counties that chose op-scan.
I looked at one of the small op-scan counties, Lafayette, which is 80% registered Dem but voted 80% for Bush. since 1988, they've consistently voted for Dem senators, Dem representatives, Rep presidents. it's plausible that much of Florida is like that, so that table doesn't necessarily show anything strange.
there are better anomalies to look at.
For those interested, I googled some other links last night. Be sure to read the articles about the Diebold CEO promising to deliver electoral votes to Bush.
I can't confirm trouble voting for the presidential office, but the voting machine (early voting in Palm Beach County) gave me trouble for one of the lesser items. It was a yes/no question, and I swear I kept selecting "no" but the checkbox for yes repeatedly lit up. My final solution was touching slightly below the no area, and then it worked. It only happened for that one question; the other 20 or so behaved fine.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/1741165/398317) | From: rzr_grl
Sat, 6-Nov-2004 7:42 AM (UTC)
lies, damn lies, and statistics | (Link)
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Counties using E-touch machines showed significantly positive percent changes in vote for both Republican and Democrat candidates, with greater mean percent changes for the Democrat. However counties using Op-scan machines showed significant positive percent change only for the Republican candidate, the mean change for the Democrat being insignificantly greater than zero.
I may be mistaken, but this quote seems to describe the opposite:
E-touch machines had positive increases for both, greater for democrat.
Op-scan had "significant positive" change only for republican.
Here in red mecca, people were calling the local talk radio show (yes, I do torture myself) with reports that their vote would "jump" to the candidate above their intention; sounded like an overly-sensitive touch screen, perhaps with poorly drawn hot zones. Since the venn overlap of "people who live here" and "people who listen to talk radio" must be approaching 100% republican, I must assume that their vote was jumping to someone other than Bush.
| From: jwz
Sat, 6-Nov-2004 9:11 AM (UTC)
more graphs | (Link)
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Chris Lightfoot says: "My take on this -- there's a little bit of evidence for fraud. Enough to justify more detailed research, not enough to cry `wolf'."
There would be no issue at all if the fucking Democrats could pick someone even half likable to run.
Kerry was very much a "hold your nose and pull the lever" person - he was greasy, evasive and lacked even the most basic of personalities. When they picked him over people like Dean or even Edwards I figured they were planning to lose anyway and didn't want to waste a good candidate against Bush.
The mistake they made in that strategy was Bush falling on his face and making it possible to actually win. I think if they'd had someone like Dean in there, the Dems would have won.
Dean lost the primary for himself, it's up to primary voters to select the candidate. | |
Ok, first of all, I recognise that I WANT TO BELIEVE that the election was rigged, because I would feel less bad about a coup than I would about the people actually voting these fundamentalists into power. (But that there was a chance of the race being even close was already profoundly disturbing.) 
bellaciao.org
