Reply #9: amazing and brings many questions to mind [View All]

[idealista]

This is fascinating, and could be damning.

Unfortunately, if the ballots were mixed up in these polling places there is maybe no way other than statistics to determine voters' intent. If 49,000 votes were taken from Bush and given back to Kerry, it is most of what would be necessary to tip the election.

I had no idea that this mixing of ballot order could amount to such a huge windfall for the Republicans! Amazing, and horrible.

BIG QUESTION: Assuming that these multipe-ballot locations do not conincide with a different demographic (i.e. locations with more real Bush voters), WHY ARE THERE NOT MORE 3RD PARTY VOTES GENERATED BY BALLOT CONFUSION?

Is it possible that the order of presidential candidates was carefully planned so that Kerry votes would slip to Bush, not to any other candidate on the ticket? Is it possible to do that within the law requiring random rotation? It seems like there would have to have been either careful ballot planning or else the handing of wrong ballots to voters was only done in specific cases, not just randomly, and involved collusion of poll workers?

Thanks for this amazing piece of analysis.