Undervotes, phantom votes and defaults

[Dancing_Dave]

In any particular race there are at least a few "undervotes". A few people might not have wanted to vote for any of the canidates for President, but nevertheless turned up to vote because of their interest in some other race, such as Senator, etc.

Of course, the percentage of voter-intentional undervotes in a Presidential race is always tiny.

A strange thing that was noted in the New Mexico election was that there was a very unusally high level of undervotes in the most strongly democratic areas--Hispanic and Native American. This also correlated with the kind of voting machines used there, so it seems that some firm had a contract to take some of these voters out. Meanwhile, in many other precincts there was the equally incredible situation of absolutely 0 undervotes. These are the districts where "Default to Bush" could be in operation.

Even one Phantom vote is always a big red flag and a dead canary in the coal mine. Phantom votes occur where there were more votes for President than people who signed in to vote. We've all heard about the outrageous case in Ohio where Bush got thousands of votes from a precinct with under one thousand registered voters total.

Any firm with a contract to rig an election would want phantom votes to be cancelled out by undervotes. Thus, it would not be in their interest to rig ALL voting machines to "Default to Bush" because such a machine simply CANNOT produce any undervotes.

One computer science explanation of phantom votes is that they occur when there is a glitch in vote switching software.

The Republican explanation of phantom votes is that these are votes that Santa gave to Dubya for Christmas. Ho, ho, ho on you, all American suckers!

:headbang: :yourock: :nopity:

[Dancing_Dave]

1. But don't let the Republican Grinch steal your Christmas!

:hippie:

[Dancing_Dave]

2. Moderator, move this if you like!

Merry Christmas.

[laura888]

3. thanks for this explanation

its their first year for riggin' the election - they haven't worked out the kinks yet?

[Dancing_Dave]

4. We better catch and prosecute vote riggers this time!

'Cause next time they'll just be more slick!

The version 1.0 "switch every tenth Kerry vote to Bush program" may have had a glitch on some machines that turned out some phantom votes outa nowhere, but they'll have that kind of thing fixed in the versions for the next election.

You get the picture.
:hippie: