This has been percolating in the blogosphere since the election (and I didn't disbelieve it then), but the only evidence there was someone reporting a phone call here or sending an email to a few people there. In other words, not what many of you would consider to be reputable evidence. However, today the story has broken on the AP - Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes.


So I think that it is now high time we discussed this here on AD. Note: I want everyone to know that I have accepted the loss, and that isn't the reason for this topic. When I saw this it greatly disturbed me and I think we are obligated to explore the issue if we are to call ourselves the model democracy.

Questions for debate:
1. Given that electronic voting failed in several instances in Ohio and throughout the country, can the results of the election really be trusted? Are there other instances of this not reported in this story supported by evidence?

2. What if anything will the fallout be here? Will the election be contested by the Democrats or will everyone just sweep this under the rug and move on?

3. What needs to be done to ensure this never happens again?

1. Given that electronic voting failed in several instances in Ohio and throughout the country, can the results of the election really be trusted? Are there other instances of this not reported in this story supported by evidence?

There is always going to be "voting irregularities" in any election. Elections are human contraptions, run by humans, and involve the counting (by humans) of votes cast by humans. Any part of this process could be faulty, due to good old human error.

Can we trust the outcome? I think we need to discern the level of any "irregularities". If they are significant (over maybe half a percent) or within the margin of victory, then a full investigation is needed.

For the Most Part, Voting Goes Smoothly



Since this election was probably the most scrutinized in history (what did Michael Moore's crews in Ohio and Florida uncover? Apparently nothing, since the vocal film maker has been silent. That alone should lend credibility to the election.

2. What if anything will the fallout be here? Will the election be contested by the Democrats or will everyone just sweep this under the rug and move on?

Given the fact that the irregularities were caught, in a state run by Republicans, I don't think there is any fallout. There were incident on both sides, allegations on both sides. At this point, the argument may be moot.

3. What needs to be done to ensure this never happens again?

Human error can never be eliminated. If it is deliberate, however, aggressive prosecution is needed. I haven't seen evidence yet of rampant voter fraud or "disenfranchisement".

[QUOTE]Thanks CJ,

As some may have noted from my signature, as well as my recent posts, such as those in Eliminating the electoral college system and Defending the indefensible, I am not yet willing to gracefully watch and concede.

I spent Election Day in an interesting fashion. I will be remarking on it from time to time, but at the moment I am trying to craft a readable story out of this year's personal experiences with the campaign and the election.

Questions for debate:
1. Given that electronic voting failed in several instances in Ohio and throughout the country, can the results of the election really be trusted? Are there other instances of this not reported in this story supported by evidence?

After being kept away from one campaign headquarters by a police escort on election day, I phoned a couple of others and eventually got a ride. I left a motel with an open can of pop in my hand. I was given a ride, assigned a job, started to train my replacement, and was then taken to the local government building, where I discovered I was still holding the same can of pop when they told me I could not set it on the table before raising my right hand.

I was a Democratic Party volunteer challenger for the absentee vote count in what shall be "an undisclosed location." I watched and learned as 2212 Absentee Ballot envelopes were read, discussed, opened, removed of any identifying marks, and processed through a scanner. As each envelope was read, comments were made by at least one of the election officials as to why the person was voting absentee. It was never necessary for them to refer to an application. At least one of the election officials had reviewed each name at some point in the past. All of the actual challenges came from the Election Officials.A handful of ballots, less than 40, had to be examined carefully to determine the intent of the voter and create a duplicate ballot which could be scanned. It was 58% more absentee ballots than the last Presidential election. That pleased all of them, and surprised no one.

At one point in mid afternoon, the hand count and the machine's count were off by 1. They stopped, cleared the record, and started from zero as they recounted all the ballots to get an accurate count. When a second ballot came up missing, they searched for and found it. At the end of the night, the number of ballots sent out, the number received, and the number of ballots counted were reconciled.

2. What if anything will the fallout be here? Will the election be contested by the Democrats or will everyone just sweep this under the rug and move on?

There are still many Democrats who feel that W stole the 2000 election with help from his brother. "Have a glass of Bush Wah to wash this down. George W. Bush averaged better than 6 2/3 votes from every voter in the precinct." Sweep it under the rug and move on?! This was not a tad bit of larceny, this was a major system failure. When I went to bed at 4:00 AM on the 3rd, Ohio was asking for 11 more days to certify their vote! When I got home late on the 3rd, it was over.

3. What needs to be done to ensure this never happens again?

Three things:
1. An accountable paper trail.
2. An accountable paper trail.
3. An accountable paper trail.

As my wife is fond of saying, the faintest pencil is better than the best memory. Paper ballots in some form can be examined to determine the intent of the voter, recounted, and the results examined to see if they are reasonable.

I have proposed "Franking" privileges be allowed the average voter in order to return absentee ballots without fear of insufficient postage, Please see my arguments, and add your own remarks, in another thread. Thank you.

My questions concerning Electronic Voting is this:

1. Were all machines CERTIFIED by an independent company? In the 2002 election in Georgia, when asked this question no one in authority would give a answer and no one could deliver a document of certification.

2. If machines aren't certified then ESS&S(not sure of the extra S) and Diebold programmers can alter counts anyway they desire.

3. Until there is a paper trail to back up the electronic vote, I will not trust the votes. There is too much room for fraud. There is no way for us (the voting public) to really know what if the count is true or false. And no recount is possible.

4. At least with the old manual type votes you have one person from each party checking on the other. With the electronic vote who is checking on who?

Two articles by Greg Palast:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-36.htm



http://www.tompaine.com/articles/an_electi...iled_rotten.php
(this one written before the election)



To sound like a sore loser and a conspiracy theorist, I dont trust the election results. Sadly, I have come to accept that most people just dont care.

Would you have trusted them if Kerry won?

I think the Democrats are doing a grave injustice to the system, and to their own party by implying, once again, that the election results are not valid.

Crying and pointing fingers, after defeat is exactly why I left the Party of my Father.

Until the Democrats learn to lose with dignity, and to take responsibility for their own failures, instead of always searching for "the black ops helicopter" they will continue to lose ground to the Republicans.

The results, although perhaps not perfect, are what they are.

You know, I never gave a thought to the validity of national elections until 2000, when I saw so many disenfranchised Floridians.

To my knowledge, this election was fair and valid.

And to redlliner: I can understand how your father's actions as a Democrat prompted you to leave the party and turn Republican. And you can probably understand my turning away from any intention of becoming a Republican after watching the likes of Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott, and most recently Tom DeLay.

All of this goes to show that there are stinkers aplenty in both parties.

Wait a minute, you obviously misinterpreted my posting. My Father did not whine or point fingers after a loss, he was not that kind of a Man. I referred to the leaders of the Party that brought this shame to the party that he so desperately tried to support.

I first registered as a Democrat, then switched to the Republican Party due to the the failings of Carter and the Strength of Reagan, then when George Bush Sr. allowed himself to be used by the Democrats and broke his "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge I quit them also.

I am now, and plan on staying an Independent although I long to place the moniker of "Democrat" after my name. Under the current conditions of "the party" though, I can't see that ever happening again.

1. Given that electronic voting failed in several instances in Ohio and throughout the country, can the results of the election really be trusted? Are there other instances of this not reported in this story supported by evidence?

No, the results can't be trusted. yes, there are plenty of other instances, from early voters in Texas who ended up with their straight democratic ticket switched to Bush, to reports on Diebold secrecy over its voting machine problems, to the fact that the chief exec of Diebold said he was going to deliver Ohio to Bush (if you don't believe me, check out Diebold's own website).


2. What if anything will the fallout be here? Will the election be contested by the Democrats or will everyone just sweep this under the rug and move on?

There is only one hope for Democracy in America: Independent verification of all election results from now on.

There's only one way to get the winning party to consent to it:

It is up to the Democratic Party to do so. The Democratic Party has four years to change the voting machines in every state it controls to machines made by a company with avowedly Democratic executives. These executives should publicly promise to deliver votes to the Democratic Party. There must be no paper trail, the machines must have known glitches that favor Democratic candidates (such as ‘sensitive’ screens that change votes from Republican to Democratic candidates), and the machines must lose or add votes from time to time. They must be widely known to be subject to tampering, reprogramming, and must refuse to cough up logs.
The rightwing scream will be heard nationwide, on Fox News, on talk radio, from Republican office holders and Republican voters. When the screamers stop to take a breath, the two parties can come to terms. Those terms should include:
• Streaming, public exit polls, updated every hour on the half hour, from at least four independent sources working at polls nationwide. Exit polls should also be done by several partisan groups, Democrat, Republican, and Third Party. If the stock market has a nervous breakdown every Election Day from now on, that’s not too high a price to pay for the preservation of democracy.
• A paper trail should be required, and the paper ballots counted by independent verifiers. If the paper doesn’t match the machines in any district, and if the mistake cannot be found and corrected to the satisfaction of all parties, voters will recast their ballots in that district.
• National and international observers should have at least the same access to polling places as they do in Kazakhstan.




3. What needs to be done to ensure this never happens again?

See above.

Red, That's the best decision you can make. Why corner yourself into the ideologies of one group.

1. Given that electronic voting failed in several instances in Ohio and
throughout the country, can the results of the election really be trusted? Are there
other instances of this not reported in this story supported by evidence?

I do not think that the election results can be trusted, nor can Jeb Bush in Florida,
or any other hell-bent Republican.

2. What if anything will the fallout be here? Will the election be contested by
the Democrats or will everyone just sweep this under the rug and move on?

The best thing to do is let it go. Let Bush and his guys dig their hole deeper and
deeper. It's only a matter of time before the real truth, about them and the lies they have told, will come out.

3. What needs to be done to ensure this never happens again?

A fool-proof system that is implemented across the boards - the same voting
machines and procedure in every state, with several different organizations
monitoring the system.

The problem is that as long as "fools" (humans) develop them, they can never be "fool proof".

Additionally, there has never been a single organization that has ever been able to remain "fair" for very long.

It is a great idea that you posted DP, but the reality is, that in a political system that we have, a federal election system is nearly impossible. The "system" is 50 independent elections (electing electors).

I fear any time the Federal Government attempts to "fix problems". If it is a solution came up by the Democrats, the Republicans would dismiss it. If the solution was given by a Republican, the Democrats would demonize it.

The real problem is not allowing the "system" to work.

Thank you.

Part of the problem is that we, the voters, are not completely aware of how the
system works, once we've cast our ballots. There should be, before each election,
public sevice announcements in each state. They would go over the voting
procedure itself, step-by-step. They would also explain exactly what happens
after the votes are cast. How they are safe-guarded from tampering, etc. If the
public were more aware of how the complete system works, we'd have more
control over safe-guarding it.

My distrust comes from personal experience , and that of others, like this from another thread:


On my "vacation" on election day, it took until 2:30 AM for an initial count of the absentee ballots. There were 58% more than were anticipated. Local turnout at the polls there was about 70%, much higher than anticipated. At 2:30 AM, results had been reported from one precinct out of about 8. Around 11:30 PM, they had reported to us that Polls were still open for those still in line at at least one precinct. (And we are on Eastern Standard Time) At 3:30 AM, reports were that over 99% of the votes had been counted.

They don't get counted that fast, and locally, the certification of the vote has just begun. The news media, in an attempt to rush to judgement and be the first with the news is doing both themselves as a credible source of news, and us as voters a disservice.

I have read that the Electoral College votes will be opened and read on January 6. I have been looking for a second source for the date, but I have had a few other things going as well... I will accept those results as final and not rely on a projected winner who was named while the polls were still open in Michigan!

This is the attitude I am sick of. And Im not a Democrat, so quit assuming. In fact, if says so on my little profile that I am Independant. This is not a partisan issue to me, its a deep flaw in American culture.

The 2000 election was riddled with suspiscion, and because people dont want a repeat of that year, no one is willing to question the results of this election. Not only that, Kerry is a hero because he conceded!? Ive come to notice that Americans are much happier just rolling over dead than actually questioning anything. What if this keeps happening every election? Is it honestly that Americans prefer conservatives, or is it election fraud? Instead of just telling Dems that they are sore losers, and praising them when they "accept" the results, why isnt there an investigation into whether or not there was fraud? Why is it up to the losers to just deal with the results, even if they may be illegtimate? I guess we should just start accepting all things like that ("I didnt order hamburger, I ordered chicken" "No you didnt"), so we dont sound like "sore losers". Why should I accept the results of this election are valid, when in fact they might not be? Would you, if the situation was reversed? it makes me sad to see that most people are simply willing to deal with possible fraud, because they dont want to look like losers, or cause too much a fuss.

As another independent, I totally agree with you. A legitimate issue that every
American should be concerned with becomes clouded with rhetoric
about "whining, sore loser democrats." Well, what do you say to us independents
who were (and are) equally troubled by 2000 and 2004 election tampering
suspicions? Perhaps, we are just blues in disguise!

The political environment is becoming more a more Orwellian by the day.

The 2000 election? Riddled with suspicion? How so?

There were so many Congressional hearings and investigations on this it made your head spin, and the result, a bigger win by the Republican party.

Geez, get over it. In every Competition One side wins, and the other loses. That is the nature of the beast. The losing side ONLY gets stronger by admitting the defeat, adjusting to it, and changing what needs to be changed. I DO NOT HEAR THAT HAPPENING HERE!

Is this a joke? Do you even know what happened? Suspected voter fraud, disenfranchisement, perhaps some other shagy dealings with K. Harris and J. Bush. Not to mention the voting machine problem. And regardless of the Congressional hearings, that doesnt mean there was NO suspicious dealings. Also there was not a bigger win by the Republican party, Ive read too many articles that have said after NINE recounts, sometimes Bush won and sometimes Gore won. It all depended on what counting method was used (unfortuantley, I cant remember where I read that....Perhaps the NYT....) And Greg Palast wrote an excellent series of articles about the voter fraud during the 2000 election, that hardly saw any print in the US (because apparently, the US was just supposed to "get over it"...It did get printed in the Guardian first and later on salon.com and in the Washington Post)

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=55&row=2



etc.




Ill accept the loss if there is a serious investigation into the problem. Otherwise, why should I? Again, if there was a suspected voting problem that disenfranchised conservatives, would you just shut up and get over it?

You know, you are sounding an awful lot like a person who does not wish to grant
other individuals their right to ask questions. We are a democracy, and as such,
we each have the right to believe or NOT believe as we so desire.

The last election was terribly corrupt, on the part of the Bush clan. If you
were (and/or) are an avid Bush-supporter, then maybe you do not care if
there was tampering or not, since the end result is what you hoped for.

For those of us who feel that George Bush is (and was) a liar and an opportunist,
who utilized his brother's governor-ship to elicit much-needed "help" with
garnering and/or impeding votes, then you would see things very differently.

And, it doesn't really matter which side a person is on, we must all exercise our
freedom to question, and until that freedom is snatched away, it would
behoove even you, Redliner, to start questioning your leaders!

WIth Diebold as a major Republican contributor who refuses to make it open source code, there are bound to be "irregularities".

Why are we privatizing voting any way? That leaves us all open to voter fraud. Those with the most money can control the elections.

Here are some links for more information:

Voting Fraud

Evidence Mounts That The Vote Was Hacked
by Thom Hartmann
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1106-30.htm



Machine Error Gives Bush Thousands of Extra Ohio Votes
by John McCarthy
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1105-23.htm


Group Finds Voting Irregularities in South
by Doug Gross
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1105-25.htm


Citizen and Immigration Canada
http://www.cic.gc.ca/

Exit Polls Right, Tallies Wrong?
http://www.alternet.org/election04/20416/

Votes Lost in Cyberspace
http://www.wnct.com/servlet/Satellite?page...778939157&path=


Exit Polls and Actual Results don’t match
http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=388

Questioning is of course a right of all. But the 2000 election is over, and all investigations have been completed.

It is now time to move on. Of course many will not accept defeat and demand even more AS THOUGH IT WILL SOMEHOW CHANGE HISTORY.

If any investigation is called for it is the need to investigate the relationship between the medias needs for advertising base, and polling companies.

To answer your question red, Yes I would be questioning the results if kerry had won and stories started surfacing about attempts to throw out votes, electronic voting problems and attempts to keep voters away from the polls. The fact that you aren't questioning the results makes me wonder where your loyalty lies - with the Republican party or with Democracy and America. I side with the latter and will every time, it appears you side with the former and I find that disappointing.

You needn't worry CJ, my loyalties lay completely with the Good ol US of A. I do wonder where those that CONTINUALLY question the will of the people every time their candidate loses lies though.

"When stories started surfacing"? Who's stories CJ?

Lawyers everywhere, and just like in 2000 the stories ended just as they began, as stories. Fairy tales for the losing side to help them sleep at night.

Hey, what ever gets you through the night.

Given that electronic voting failed in several instances in Ohio and throughout the country, can the results of the election really be trusted?

No, they cannot.

Are there other instances of this not reported in this story supported by evidence?

I have come across dozens of instances on "the internets" and loads of articles detailing all kinds of chicanery. Most of the "problems" were in place well before the election - in the programming of the machines themselves (though, of course, there have been many cases of problems with missing votes, a few thousand too many votes, faulty voting machines, votes being electronically recorded for the wrong candidate, etc., etc., etc. - all of "errors" curiously favoring George W Bush and other Republican candidates). But what is the point of posting any of them here? Those who know anything about this administration don't need to be told what they're capable of. Those who support this administration will deny and deny and deny and deny. It's a familiar and tiresome pattern.

The best evidence - and I mean evidence - of fraud in this election is the disparity between exit polls and the actual voting "results". Everywhere else in the world - especially where there are questionable governments launching questionable elections - exit polls are used to confirm the the election results. Here in the US of A, it seems, election results are used to debunk the exit polls. This election stinks to high heaven. But who cares? Many Bush supporters wouldn't give a damn if they personally witnessed election supervisors burning Democratic votes - and most of the rest would not be convinced that anything was amiss unless the votes were burned in their laps. Those who oppose the Bush administration and deign to question the election will simply be dismissed as whiners, sore losers, wearers of tin-foil hats, partisan fools, conspiracy theorists, black helicopter spotters, liberal liars... "Get over it" - "Accept it" - "You're beating a dead horse". Too damned right. And the dead horse is American democracy.

What if anything will the fallout be here? Will the election be contested by the Democrats or will everyone just sweep this under the rug and move on?

There will be no fallout - apart from the further destruction of American values, morality, justice, fair play, and faith in the system as a result of this election. Enough people - including the "liberal media" - will sweep this under the rug. Most have already moved on. As a friend of mine said the other night, "People are treating this as though we were voting on a homecoming queen. Well, they've got their homecoming queen - but this prom is gonna end like Carrie." Too right.

What needs to be done to ensure this never happens again?

We need a return to hand-counted paper ballots on which citizens mark an X in a box next to a candidates name in indelible ink. Nothing else will ever guarantee a fair election in this country. Sadly, that is not going to happen. Those in power enjoy their power far too much to ever even attempt to ensure anything like a fair election.

Amlord blithely suggested that there will always be human error in the process - and he's right up to a point. I wish that's all we were contending with. This election compounded human error with machine error (Diebold machines tally votes using using Microsoft Access, for God's sake, and the GEMS system - which my company used to use for our payroll until they abandoned it altogether because it was so flawed and open to tampering that they felt it was safe for issuing accurate patchecks) - and very probably deliberate fraud through propriety software programmed by partisan vendors accountable to no one (though promising to "deliver Ohio"). As the international observers pointed out, there's more accountable voting in Kazakhstan.

Bottom line: Can anyone tell me why the Republican-dominated Congress passed legislation which demanded - demanded - that no voting technology be approved unless every vote could be verified, then went on to spend $3.9 billion on machines which deliberately violated the law they had just enacted? The answer seems pretty straightforward to me. There was a problem with counting votes in 2000? Okay, we'll make sure votes can never again be counted. Could this be because they know the system is fraudulent and don't want to be caught a second time?

I think Congressman Peter King (R-NY) summed it up perfectly on the White House lawn with President Bush on the evening of November 2, 2004, well before the polls had closed (you can see the footage here): "It's already over. The election's over. We won." Asked, "How do you know that?" he replied, "It's all over but the counting - and we'll take care of the counting." He wasn't joking.

LOL - I thought you had evidence

The media is going full blast to find out why the exit polls where so far off. So far I've heard that their "models" of voter turnout of the youth vote were way off. I heard that many would not answer the questions possed by the pollsters, but this is a new bit of "quasi evidence" that has yet to come up in the news programs.

Oh, well, we will place this one in the "conspirators hall of fame" with Roswell and the gunman on the grassy knoll.

Just a question. Is the Kerry campaign questioning the validity of the election?

To answer your question Hugo, as far as I know - no they are not. Kerry made his concession speech and that has been the end of it. If the campaign is questioning the election I certainly haven't seen anything about it in the media or the blogosphere and I would imagine that after 2000 something like that would make a huge ruckus, especially in the blogosphere.

I've read a bit on Diebold and Black Box Voting, and while I'm not at all opposed to auditing the election results, I haven't seen enough that makes me scream conspiracy. that, and I'm no expert on E-voting code.
But I would disagree with Wertz on hie point of exit polls are used to confirm the the election results. I don't believe that that was ever the intent of exit polling. Media sources have latched on to those poll results because they are, quite obviously the first indication of who may be ahead. But they can hardly be considered scientifically accurate. Exit polling was designed to take a snapshot of how voters thought of the issues on that given day, right after they voted. But we don't know the skew of whether Dems or Reps voted en masse earlier or later in the day, and I haven't seen the spread of which precincts were polled and the demographics of them.

I think that because of the Dem’s suspicions of touch screens, many have opted to avoid E-voting by casting early and absentee ballots. Many of our left leaning AD members have admitted to doing so.


WSJ

Here's an interesting page I found from 16 Sep 04:
Economist

Questions for debate:
1. Given that electronic voting failed in several instances in Ohio and throughout the country, can the results of the election really be trusted? Are there other instances of this not reported in this story supported by evidence?

Someone at church on Sunday mentioned that he had drawn the short straw and observed the counting of the absentee ballots for Muskegon County. The number of ballots he mentioned seeing counted seemed a bit on the high side. I tried to locate election results in the Muskegon Chronicle on line. I couldn't, so I ended up at Muskegon County,Michigan 2004 General Election Results, a web page of the County Clerk's office.

Had I found a total vote count, I might have been satisfied to go on to search for the county population. (Off the top of my head, I would have said 60 - 70,000 people in this area.) What I discovered was that I could only find the election results listed by precinct...

I built a spreadsheet, transcribing the results only for voters for Bush and Kerry. As absentee voters were recorded separately, I was able to do a sort of how absentee voters voted. (Bush vs. Kerry) I found that about 1 in 5, (14,513 of 75650) voters who voted for Bush or Kerry, voted by absentee ballots. I expected, with that high a percentage of the voters, to find the same ratio of votes for Bush:Kerry among absentee voters, as among those who voted on Election Day. What I did find was:

Header.......................Bush......Kerry......Total
Total in Precincts.......26477.....34660.....61137
Percent Precincts.......43.31%...56.69%

Total absentee............6933.......7580.....14513
Percent of Absentee....47.77%...52.23%

Nearly 4-1/2 % more of the absentee votes cast (On paper, counted by optical scanner) were counted for Bush in the absentee ballots election, than in the precincts on Election Day. To my mind, it is a statistical anomaly. (Not to mention 75,650 votes cast... I need a better population count than the data from a 5 year old road map.)

With nearly 20% of the area voters voting by absentee ballot, Muskegon Heights which voted 3911votes for Kerry to 312 votes for Bush recorded Zero absentee ballots...

(Please note, the only data I tabulated was Bush & Kerry Presidential votes. The actual voter turnout was higher.)

2. What if anything will the fallout be here? Will the election be contested by the Democrats or will everyone just sweep this under the rug and move on?


George W. Bush feels that he has a clear mandate... Most Democrats reaction to that is, "Say What!?

One Democrat I know, delivered a sermon yesterday on "There are worse things than losing an election."

Others that I know are grieving.

Some of us will continue to lower our helmets and tilt at the windmills. I personally have neither the broom, the rug, not the energy to waste, to "sweep this under the rug."

IMHO, this election cycle did absolutely nothing to unite the country.

3. What needs to be done to ensure this never happens again?

I compiled some data, some links, and some questions. I e-mailed my Senators. I got an echo back of what I had sent. It made no sense to me, and I had written it, as every space, carriage return, and punctuation mark had been deleted. I looked for a snail mail address, and got a message that due to anthrax fears, mail sent to the U.S. Senate can take 4 - 6 weeks...

That is why I sent a copy of my letter outlining my concerns with the way paper ballots are being counted to the FBI. They will likely check my files, consider the source, and direct the letter to the nearest "File 13."

If you have some positive ideas, and more credibility than I do, please try to implement them.

Personally, I would at least like a statistically valid sample of any paper ballots used to be recounted by hand and compared to what the optical scanners recorded. That would be the function of the various canvassing boards, I guess, and they are in the process of certifying the votes. I have not a clue as to what methods they use.

I have also come across dozens of instances on the internet that there are aliens, ghosts, spontaneous combustion, and that the CIA killed JFK.... none of which can be proven.

All of the errors curiously favoring GW? Interesting. If this was such a conspiracy, why doesn't CBS discuss it? Lord knows they're as anti-Bush as they come. How come Kerry conceded so quickly? The truth is that he knew that this election was on the "up and up". That there was no conspiracy and that he'd lost. He lost the popular vote and the electoral votes as well. Point blank.

Exit polls are just like the ones that were published just prior to the election; rubbish. There was such a sincere disparity that it was obvious and apparent that these polls have seemed to become partisan tolls as opposed objective sources of information. Even Zogby apologized. There's a reason that more people turned out for this election than ever, and that's simply that most of America would like to return to "grass-roots" values and the idealisms that make us all Americans regardless of origin. Polls are a statistical analysis of information completely subjective to the sources, polling processes, and people surveyed. America's dependance on technology, new voters, and ability to screen calls (etc) would automatically make someone apprehensive about polling validity. Why were all the polls so different?

The election stinks to high heaven??? Why.. because your candidate didn't get elected???? That's interesting. I hate that you have some odd consipiracy theory, but the rest of America has decided to be objective about this and realize that this is over and even the Kerry campaign realized this... nearly a week ago.

Yeah...there's probably fraud. After all, all three major evoting companies (Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S) are run by Bush supporters. In fact, the CEO of Diebold said his company would bring the votes from Ohio to Bush.

This of course means that all three of these companies have invested 100's of millions of dollars into these machines to facilitate treasonous felonies.

But to make this conspiracy work, nobody but evil republicans can be in on it. So, there's this super-secret handshake you have to know to be able to work on the actual product when you're hired. But if you don't know it, they assume you're a democrat too stupid to figure out the nefarious behavior of all three companies.

So, they design the machines and software so that regardless of who's names are on the ballots in any given precinct in any given election, it can figure out who the republicans are and give them extra votes. But not only that, it is smart enough to figure out which votes are the audit votes and make sure they are recorded properly.

Of course, we have a few areas where people demand a paper trail. So, to make them feel better, they print out a paper receipt - as if what's on the paper is actually recorded inside the computer.

The evoting machines have no keyboards, mouse, or internet/network connection, so the election official uses a flash disk to get the results. He takes it to a back room, uploads it to the central tabulator.

Now, the central tabulator machine has Microsoft Office installed in case they want to check his Outlook email - oops...can't do that - there's no internet or network connection. Only a dial-up modem. But maybe he/she needs Microsoft Office installed to update his resume or something, so I'm sure election officials allow something other than what is required to be present on the central tabulator so if you need to open an Access database or run VBA scripts, you can.

So, the person opens up the database using Microsoft Access - pre-loaded onto a voting machine - makes some edits, and records those results. And apparently works on a spreadsheet when done. And election officials - both democrat and republican - allow this person alone in a room with a database and database editor. Probably with a monkey by his side if he wanted one.

So, this person just got away with a grand felony of epic proportions. And to make him feel better, there are people just like him all over the continent ready to go to jail for life to do the same thing.

Do you see how completely nutty this idea is?

Here are the assumptions you'd have to make for this to happen:

1. Republicans are smart enough to pull this off.
2. Democrats are too stupid to figure it out and stop it.
3. All three evoting companies invest 100's of millions of dollars not to screw over their competitors, but screw themselves over when they get caught.
4. All the controls present in the current system magically disappear in evoting districts. For example, Bev Harris - Americas leading evoting fear monger - does a demo that shows a chimp deleting a log file to prove how easy it is to alter an election. But what she can't show, is how to get a monkey next to a keyboard to do it. In other words, if there were not strict controls to protect the election process (there reason election places are brimming with both republican and democrat poll workers), we'd just get 8 year olds to stuff ballot boxes all day. It'd be tough to send a bunch of 8 year olds to prison and it takes that much lower skill level to pull it off.
5. The capability to manually modify a password protected database would be present on the machine. And if not, the controls in place on election day would allow someone to sneak in and install the Microsoft Office Suite so you can run scripts and modify databases.
6. You can find highly skilled technicians and programmers willing to go to jail for many, many years in perpetrating this crime.

I'm as disappointed in the election results as anybody, but I'm not in the "we wuz robbed!" crowd. And that's the reason Kerry and Edwards correctly avoided the litigation. The democrat party has been getting their hats handed to them for over a decade. Litigating every election would only make them look worse over the long term. Who would have faith in party that can only win with lawyers?

The democratic underground is abuzz with the "we wuz robbed" rhetoric. They have every reason to be significantly disappointed, but it is irresponsible for the hysteria nutjobs to be feeding a non-existent monster while not providing one shred of evidence of malfeasance. Mistakes? I'm sure there were plenty as would happen with any type voting system. But fraud? Please...

Bev Harris has lots to gain in finding fraud. She filed a Qui Tam lawsuit against California that could potentially net her $30 million dollars (given the right conditions). But go to www.democraticunderground.com and look for BBV: threads. Everybody is believing what they want to believe and everybody is contributing what else? MONEY. Go figger. She's playing them for the biggest group of suckers in history and it's spilled right over here into Americas Debate.

Bev Harris and her evoting cynic followers have chosen to be part of the problem versus part of the solution. They are looking for the worst in people when scientific evidence does not exist. They think democrats are too stupid to prevent this fraud before it happens. In fact, they have never (and this is a big never), EVER proven one instance where an evoting machine has made a factual error. None. Plenty of mistakes, but never a falsely recorded vote. But these same mistakes happen all over the place whether it's evoting or not.

So what do they want? Their own agenda obviously.

They want a paper trail. They want a printed receipt of their vote. Which is ok if you want to believe the print-out matches the recorded vote (or if you're in the thermal printer business). If you can't trust the machine to record your vote properly, why would you trust the receipt? How hard do you think that would be to give you a good receipt, but bogus results (if you believe in the grand conspiracy).

Or, they want hand-printed "make a X here" ballots so we can end up in courts again. Is that an X or a check mark? That's not a complete X. Did the person really "mean" to mark this or is it the other? Then, back to the overvotes/undervotes problems where we throw out 7% of the votes. The whole purpose of machines (optical, punch card, evoting, etc) is to leave the objectiveness out of the process. The evoting cynics want to put it back in.

Or stay with punch cards so the election can be decided on hanging dimpled pregnant chads. Sheesh...

Nobody has anything to gain by allowing evoting machines to fail. Nothing - neither democrat or republican - because it offers the best chance of counting ALL ballots and maintaining better quality than in the past (no more over and undervoting, easier for the disabled to vote, etc). Businesses are a lot of things, but felonies actions relying on a huge network of people willing to perpetrate treason is not one of them. How long do you think Diebold, Sequoia, or ES&S would be in business if they got caught rigging elections?

Bev Harris could single-handedly make the election process WORSE by pulling out evoting machines. And make no mistake, that's what she's doing. Instead of being a strict watchdog group (which would be actually helpful), she takes pride in precincts foregoing evoting equipment in lieu of the other crappy ways that still exist. She considers these "wins".

The exit poll/evoting graphs spinning around the internet are fairly convincing and even give me pause. But then, I started to use my brain. Are the exit poll numbers even correct? Are the discrepencies just Diebold, or all three companies? Why are they only showing Bush and Kerry versus a third party getting a zillion votes? How about other candidates/issues on the tickets? Nope...you won't find that. The 4 seats gained in the house must have been another accident of nature. The graphs show you what you are looking for regardless of their accuracy. And everytime somebody sees one, they send Bev Harris a fat check.

Bush didn't only win by 3 million votes. The republicans picked up 4 new seats in the house. THAT is a mandate. And those who lost (which includes me) need to get over it already. Find something constructive to do. Figure out how to win instead of looking for monsters.

Well how does the following strike you? The following was pruned from several news sources.











Mahoning and Mercer counties record NEGATIVE 25 million votes.

So Amlord, would you say that we have some serious irregularities here worthy of a full investigation and recount?

When you add these all up and consider which states they were in you'll plainly see that they could have potentially altered the election results. Many of the stories were written specifically because a Democratic candidate won some local office and the voting irregularities changed the race.

I'd also say that it is blatantly obvious that these voting machines are complete and total garbage and should never again be used in an election until some serious design flaws, bugs, or attempts at fraud are eliminated.

Does this rise to the level of coordinated fraud that could have changed the election? I don't know, but I think we owe it to ourselves to find out.

Edited to add: Wikipedia has a very good page up on 2004 Election controversies and irregularities which contains much more information than I have time to go through right now. The color coded map in the middle of the page highlighting number of reported incidents by state is very good as well. When some of the closest states have 100+ incidents, we have a big problem

It would appear that in the cases that I read in CJ's above post, that the officials had caught the errors, reported the errors, and are working on verifying the actual vote totals.

How many precints are there in the United States. There will always be a few problems when you have to count more then 100 million votes.

It is good to see that it was the people in charge that caught most of these and are working on repairs and verification.

Hardly seems that anyone is trying to hide anything. Seems most are good, hardworking people who want to "get it right"

The problem with electronic voting Redliner, is that if your vote is lost it is gone, there is no recount. They aren't going to go track down people and ask them to vote again, your vote is just "lost".

Now in cases where the race wasn't close maybe you can just shrug this off (although I still see it as a problem), but in cases where winning a few more counties could have meant carrying the state that is a significant problem.

I don't accept the explanation that when you count a 100 million votes you are going to make mistakes, and if you are being non-partisan neither should you. How can we go on preaching about the good of Democracy to the rest of the world when we can't even get it right at home?

I don't know how you can accept something like - 289K more votes than voters in Florida for example. 289K is almost (if not exactly... just can't remember) the difference in votes between Bush and Kerry in Florida.

The evidence mounting here about irregularities is staggering and it is building as people start to dive into the voting results in more depth. If you take a look at the wikipedia article you'll see that in Florida and Ohio, the biggest problem counties with electronic voting are coincidentally the ones that went Blue in the election. Make of that what you will, but I for one think we need to launch some serious investigations here.

That is not true. Period.

You're repeating the same myths that never seem to go away. First, they said that the software wasn't qualified in election mode. Not true. Then they said you couldn't do recounts. Not true. There is more than one copy of your vote - and another reason it is very difficult to modify the database directly or otherwise.

You may not like the idea of not having a piece of paper in your hand and that's fine. But an image of your vote is etched digitally in stone and is far, far more safe than paper means. Paper votes can be altered/destroyed by the elements - digital can't.

And as pointed out by Redliner, almost all incidents of voting irregularities have been accounted for because good, honest, hardworking poll workers, both democrat and republican, are making sure it's right.

If you don't want to take my word for it, that is fine with me DR. Go ahead and read through those articles I linked, especially the ones having to do with e-voting machines and please refute the points made there. I'll be interested in reading your take on the matter.

It is very easy to sit there and refute my claims based on how things should theoretically work, but I have supplied you with real live election day problems, please provide answers if you insist on defending these machines.

It is disheartening to think of the magnitude that an "election conspiracy" would require to be true. Most of these workers are simply there to make sure things are done right, not to produce fraudulent results, and I for one thank them for doing a great job.

Surely you will accept that there is an error rate in everything? That 1 in 10,000 babies has a given malady. That 1 in 20 speeding tickets, the radar was wrong or the car mis-identified? That 1 in 50 people on the 'no fly list' are there incorrectly? Fixing voting problems and improving the process is healthy discourse, but conspiracy theories and lawsuits following every election is not good for our country. When one side says that "Gore should have had the decency of Nixon" and the other side says "Bush stole the election" we are not in a good place nationally speaking.

There were 100 million plus votes cast. They were cast in 50 states, 3000 counties, and tens of thousands of wards or precincts. Each ballot, even down the precinct level, was unique in some way, depending on local initiatives on the ballot. The rule of large numbers would seem to indicate that Bush was up 2 or 3 points in most polls, and he won by 2 or 3 points, the people largely were right on this. Your detailed points on various counties are certainly legitimate and should be pursued, but I don't believe there is a chance it would change the outcome. Frankly, I was worried about this before the election, when I read that Milwaukee and Philadelphia asked for more ballots than there are people. (let alone registered voters)

We should pursue all of the irregularities you cited and get to the bottom of things. But, as DaytonRocker notes, the 'black box voter' conspiracy theory is probably not the best way to go about it.

Separately, reading the articles, I couldn't find anywhere where they sourced their turnout figures. In one article it was "turnout was anecdotally noted at around 70%." How can you measure turnout without counting ballots?

Do you know what Bev Harris (the leading evoting fear monger) is doing right now as we speak?

She is telling everyone that the major media is in "lockdown" mode and not allowed to discuss the voting fraud they are aware of either in print or in private.

They are sending her cash by the buckets because she's the one feeding this frenzy. And people right here are repeating it.

If you want to beleive in something, you'll find the evidence to support it. And Bev Harris is well on her way to perfecting it.

I would agree Carlito, except the underlying assumption for your line of thought is that the election was some kind of blow out, it wasn't. If John Kerry had literally gotten a few thousand to a few hundred thousand votes in some counties, he would have won the election, even if he lost the popular vote (that's the electoral college that everyone seems to love so much.)

Now take into account where these problems are being reported and we have a serious problem. A good number of them took place in high EC Vote states which would have turned the election like Ohio and Florida. This isn't conspiracy theory time, this information is flooding the media. The whole "conspiracy theory" accusation is precisely why I waited to post anything on this topic until it left the blogosphere and entered the mainstream media. Drudge is the king of gossip and conspiracy theories, respectable outlets like local news stations and CNN don't generally engage in promoting conspiracies. If you think it is a conspiracy fine, disprove it. I have presented my evidence, where is yours?

I have no problems with saying Bush won, because in a lot of respects he just ran a better campaign and in the aftermath I have analyzed things and realized that. But if there was any kind of cheating or fraud, even if it wouldn't have changed the results overall, that is completely unacceptable and I would be saying the exact same thing if Kerry was now president. The fact that this doesn't at least worry you a bit when your candidate was the winner says just a little bit about the differences between us.


And I still believe that he is wrong, and he knows that. There is another thread here that discusses electronic voting specifically and we have been having this debate for months. It isn't simply "conspiracy theory", I have pointed out some very valid weaknesses with the system, but for some reason my position seems to be discounted simply because of who I voted for. Why does that matter exactly? My interest is in making sure the votes are all counted and NO ONE cheats, I care for the process more than the candidates. For numerous reasons, all of which I discussed in that thread and will be happy to continue discussing, electronic voting is and will be flawed until they take a step back and re-examine the design and build in some very strict controls.


So what is that supposed to mean DR? That I can't think for myself? I actually find that rather insulting. I have no idea who Beverly Harris is, nor do I care what she is saying, or how much money people are giving her. I have analyzed what is out there and this is my opinion. Do not try and attribute the motives of others (especially those I dont even know) to me. I also feel that I am fairly qualified to have an educated opinion on eVoting considering my background and the industry I work in.

Edited to add: Just as an FYI, three house democrats have lodged a formal request to the general accountability office to investigate irregularities in voting machines. Please NOTE that they aren't begging we give the election to Kerry. Also NOTE that documented problems with voting machines are once again cited for those that think these machines are perfect and everyone criticizing them is a conspiracy theorist.

Just to clarify, I'm not dismissing anything. Just trying to bring some big-number analysis to the argument. I work with millions of dollars in my budget at work. At the end of the year, I'll mis-spend, over or under by six figures. But $250,000 on a $25,000,000 budget is only 1% - even the auditors call this 'rounding.' It's no big deal. It doesn't surprise me that Sarasota doesn't know if they have 634 or 633 precincts, or that over / undervotes get treated differently in different places.

Many states other than Ohio were narrow, and there are less complaints... I'm wondering why there aren't more complaints in WI, OR, NM, wherever. I just read Susan Sarandon complaining about New Hampshire irregularities...does this mean that she's questioning Kerry's narrow victory there?

As you point out, the real media has gotten hold of this, so hope someone can do some constructive digging.

My perspective is only slightly warped by my personal experience, where my wife had the fortunate experience of working as an election judge in our precinct. The other judge that she worked with, that had done the judge thing for years, kept wanting to give everyone a provisional ballot. Even if all they had to do was walk one block to the correct precinct. Even if they weren't a citizen. It's no wonder that Chicago has the most spoiled ballots every year. We stink. If I thought it was malicious, like it was in the old days, I'd say so, but it really seems to be incompetence and apathy.

And, while I'm not as up on this as Dayton Rocker or yourself, I've done some reading. I still have yet to see how someone can hack into a computer that doesn't have an internet connection, or how the bi-partisan judges would stand by and let it happen. But I'm going to head over to the e-vote thread, so don't skewer my ignorance just yet. I'll read up.

I'll say this again so it is crystal clear. For me this isn't about George Bush winning the election or John Kerry losing. For me it is about whether Democracy won or lost on Nov 2nd. If we cannot trust the process then regardless of who is elected the American people lose. This is the second election where the results have been questionable, I would say it is high time for serious reform.

The wikipedia listing I linked shows that there were a large number of voting discrepancies reported in almost every state including the ones you mentioned. Just because I didn't list them doesn't mean they are not being reported somewhere, it just means that I didn't find an article on it.

The problem with this argument, along with most of your your others, is it's not because of who you voted for because (now here's a heckuva news flash) I VOTED FOR KERRY.

There is no secret of my disdain for Bush. I voted a straight democratic ticket (voted against any republican) and didn't vote for republicans running unopposed. The republican party is being run by idiots who wouldn't know who a conservative is if it fell on their foot. Their record speaks for itself, which is why they had to run on attack ads and why I tried to boot them.

I have/had as much to lose in this election and the thought of Bush in office almost makes me want to puke.

But the fraud aspect of the election is too preposterous for words. The conspiracy, the prospect for jail time, and investment losses in staggering. And election workers, both democrat and republican, are overwhelmingly, good people who wouldn't let it happen.

I am a software engineer at a security firm. I program in MSVC++, VB6/.net, and a lot of sql scripting. I develop applications using smart card technology. I use Microsoft Access a great deal in my side business, but mostly use SQL Server 2000. Does that make me an expert? Doubtful - it wouldn't take much to know more than me - but I know crackpot theories when I see them because I'm paid to prevent nefarious behavior when it comes to software technology. Any secure system needs controls. That's why we have server rooms. We don't leave servers out where anybody can gain access. And voting equipment is no different.

Here are the 3 possible scenarios that exist:
1. A conspiracy of incredible magnitude just happened, but it's still secret.
2. The election is so riddled with mistakes and incompetence that our voting system is unusable.
3. The election results are correct, but not perfect.

Using evoting to rig elections make no logical sense. Contrary to popular belief (and another myth), millions of votes are NOT counted at individual precincts. Hell, some STATES don't record a million votes. So, even if someone were to figure out how to rig an election, it would be limited to a precinct.

I can't fathom how anybody with any technical skill would risk a life in jail for attempting to rig an election when the end result would not be enough to sway it. Again, what is easier? Find skilled programmers and technicians to rig an election, or get kids to stuff ballot boxes? The fraud aspect of evoting defies logical common sense, but it's the one most widely disputed. No company would risk the life of the company, it's workers, and it's officers who face jail time to try to get "their guy" in for one term.

And for the record, the CEO who said he'd bring the votes to Ohio? He didn't.

Let's look at the information we have:
- In the months leading up to the election, these machines failed in numerous elections at the local level and it was fairly widely reported. Some of that is covered in the "Electronic Voting" thread.
- Several of the electronic voting companies have pending lawsuits against them lodged by states and counties
- There are irregularities popping up all over the place in this election.

So, based on that information I would have to say that number 2 is the scenario we are running. You have argued theory with me for a long time DR, but now we have facts. I'd really like to see you explain the stories we are seeing and how scenario 2 isn't in effect.

Scenario 3 isn't even a valid one as far as I am concerned, especially considering how close the election was (looking at it from an EC perspective and what it would have taken to swing EC votes).

The time for debating theory is over. We have seen these things in action, reports are coming in about their failures despite the theory and I don't see anyone offering any explanations. I am willing to support this technology, but only after it has been proven, it can be audited and it has been subjected to review by an independant panel of experts.

It is looking like alot of people won't think an election is valid unless a Democrat wins the presidency

I am wondering, are all of these lost votes or miscounted votes supposed to have been for Kerry?

I am glad that this isn't coming from the Kerry campaign directly, but it seems to be coming from the left almost as bad as it was in 2000.

Edit to add: Instead of posting again, I will just mirror what DR said above, as his post made the most sense so far, and we generally disagree.

I don't think people are suggesting that at all sleeper.


Please do tell me how we are furthering Democracy if a machine can just "lose" several thousand votes in a closely contested race or "add" more votes than there are voters in a county regardless of who benefits.

I agree with everything you have said,CJ, and anyone that isn't interested in finding out what happened in this election, just had their head in the sand.

It is a sad day in American when people aren't concerned with correcting a bad election situtation.

I guess this makes me a disgruntled KOOK too

I was simply trying to determine how our county had voted. It was apparently a vote of 42,240 for Kerry and a vote of 33,410 for Bush. So far I have met one person who claims to have voted for Bush. 14,513 of those ballots were absentee. In a city within the County that reported 4266 votes for President in the precincts on Election Day, I would assume it was reasonable to expect better than 1.000 absentee ballots to have been counted with votes for President. A total of zero absentee ballots counted in Muskegon Heights seemed a real irregularity. I decided to submit that as a tip to the FBI...

I had to call customer service in order to get reconnected to the Internet...

Right at the moment, I am not at all certain that I am trusting the system.

1. Given that electronic voting failed in several instances in Ohio and throughout the country, can the results of the election really be trusted? Are there other instances of this not reported in this story supported by evidence?

Given the problems, they where probably running a source code from microsoft.

I dont get it. CC touchscreen's do the same thing everytime I use them. They are used 24/7 and I have yet to see one fail.

Use the source code from CC touchscreens and apply it to voting. After the vote is confirmed by the voter, spit out a paper reciept into a locked ballot box.

Yes they need to be modified though I do not believe they should be tossed aside.

2. What if anything will the fallout be here? Will the election be contested by the Democrats or will everyone just sweep this under the rug and move on?

It wont be swept under the rug. Hopefully they will address the problem, but I doubt the vote will be contested given the problems where not on a mass scale to effect the outcome.

3. What needs to be done to ensure this never happens again?

Explained above.

BTW thanks for the post's Curmudgeon. Voter problems are an issue for all Americans and it should be reformed in a way that the result's are fair no matter who wins.

Ohh and about your sig that's another thing. The electoral vote's should goto the person they are intended to goto by the people. Anything else is just ridiculous.

Then allow me to show you an instance of it. Take a gander at this article.

Meanwhile, the county clerk is blaming this on the voters, not the machines:


I personally am not suggesting that electronic voting should be thrown out the window, but we certainly need to have quite a few discussions before it is ever used again.

Yeah, I read that article before. Ridiculous... though im glad the issue was resolved with that certian voter and she took the time to make sure her vote was correct. Also the "safeguard" of confirming who you wanted to vote for is a must. As in this instance it saved a vote for Kerry instead of reporting an improper vote. It should spit out a paper trail as well.



I completely agree. Obviously there are "bugs" in the system source code currently. The "clerk" should know that computers are not perfect nor are humans, to pin it on the human is just an assumption.

I read an article about the touch screen "calibration", that seems the most likely cause of what happened. If it is not calibrated correctly then the vote can easily be miscounted because they will touch Kerry and it will think they touched Bush and visa versa.