Lou Dobbs poll on boycott of Touch Screen Elections a stroke of genius

[Land Shark]

While DUers are rushing to condemn Lou Dobbs' current online poll in this thread <http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x437024> I tend to think it's a stroke of genius to ask people if they are boycotting elections until the electronics are gone (given that 30% are currently saying "yes"). DUers, of course, are appropriately concerned about depressing the vote and, for the record, I think people should vote as a protest at least and talk to the pollworkers along the way. But, please hear me out on this:

The one and only (but highly misleading) claim to fame of DREs is that they "save votes". This claim is derived from allegedly lower "residual vote rates" (which are the sum of all overvotes plus all undervotes) relative to other voting systems. Thus, the pro-DRE community puts out studies and press releases claiming that DREs have "saved" a million votes in the last presidential election alone, for example....

That's Baloney, of course. But it's a fact that this is a big part of the pro-DRE spin.

BUt, whether he meant to or not, Dobbs' response in the latest CNN poll on boycotting elections is genius. The 30% or so of respondents (to the horror of those in DU ELection forum) that plan on boycotting elections due ot electronic voting PROVES THAT DRE'S HAVE HIGH RESIDUAL VOTES TOO. THose boycotting are "undervoting" on every single race on the ballot. All the DRE reminders in the world to vote aren't convincing these people to vote. They'd VERY MUCH LIKE TO vote and have it counted, but it just ain't being counted. These are not "true undervotes" where people simply don't have an opinion on a given race. These 30% in Dobb's unscientific poll are likely highly opinionated on some of the races on the ballot.

Perhaps our new rallying cry should be to "restore the vote" to ALL voters, drawing attention to the suppression of the vote by DREs themselves by their very nature of their technology and the distrust it appropriately engenders. Use of these DRE systems as well as Forced voting on these DRE systems in light of such high levels of boycott/nonparticipation is absurd.

First, and as always, DREs refuse to count the vote publicly

Now, DREs and their backers are also refusing to count those who refuse to use DREs in their ballyhooed "residual vote" rates, creating misleadingly low figures that are then used not only to promote DREs but TO HAVE DREs DECLARED CONSTITUTIONAL IN CIVIL RIGHTS LITIGATION LIKE STEWART V BLACKWELL

and that makes this, IMHO a big deal.

You can vote at this link for Lou's show, or connect via the DU thread above.
<http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/>

[autorank]

1. Contracting the franchise; that's their strategy-the enemies of democracy

Any means available to chase people away from the polls - intimidation, discrimination, confusion, deception, lies, filthy campaigns, targeted rhetoric regarding the futility of voting ("they're all the same," "nothing ever changes"), etc. Now it's the boycott elections because of e-voting. How absurd.

The 30% yes to that question includes people who don't vote in the first place so the significant result, actual voters who WILL boycott, is confounded.

Nevertheless, we're on a slippery slope here. The question is raised here, why pursue all this about fraud when it will just discourage voters. The answer to that is, what difference does it make if the votes are not taken and counted properly, if the people who can vote are not allowed to do so? But the question makes sense.

We need a counter campaign: SHOW UP AND DEMAND YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE AND TO KNOW THAT YOUR VOTE WAS COUNTED PROPERLY (with specific instructions like, a receipt is not enough; we want each machine examined in public, etc.).

Excellent post, R!

[Land Shark]

2. Yes, another form of suppression. Suppression/spoilage takes different

forms with different technologies. This should be obvious but perhaps is not.

[kster]

3. Landshark, Autorank at what point do we

draw the line in the sand, with these vote stealing thugs? They got rid of Funk, they got rid of Shelley, the Dems and RepuB politicians Remain silent, the ON TV thugs Remain silent, I know every voter should vote, But at what point do we stop letting these assholes get away with their sh*t? :D

[GuvWurld]

4. I have to give this some more thought

I have never advocated a boycott though I feel the temptation. Pausing to strategize, I really don't have it clearly one way or the other. All I get, and I think this is close to what autorank said, is that those consciously choosing not to vote as a boycott should couple this form of inaction with some other strategically selected proactive action. The boycott is an example of withdrawing complicity, and potentially Consent too if it is declared so. I would hope thoughts on what action to take would stem from there.

[autorank]

9. Lets think together..."group think";) & by all means ALWAYS VOTE!!!

First, I strongly believe that EVERYBODY WHO CAN REGISTER SHOULD AND THAT EVERYBODY WHO IS REGISTERED SHOULD SHOW UP IN 2006 AT THE GENERAL ELECTION AND VOTE, REGARDLESS OF POLITICAL PREFERENCE...EVERYBODY

Second, when they show up they should ask to speak to a poll worker after they vote and ask how they can know that their vote was taken properly. They should have a handout. In fact

Bright :think: Time: Activists Handouts at Polling Places :think: Bright idea time

Page 1:
You have a right to know that your vote was taken and counted properly.

You have a right to know how this is done including how any voting machines operate and how they are secured against fraud.

You have a right to know that this election actually produces and accurate result and that the person elected received the most votes and can prove that.

You have a right to withdraw your consent from anyone elected who cannot prove he/she was freely and fairly elected.

Resources listed - web pages, etc.

Page 2:

A post card addressed to the local Board of Elections

-------------
Side 1: Preaddressed: Director, Board of Elections, Happy Lane, Anywhere, USA
Side 2:

Dear Board of Elections:

I voted in the most recent election. As a citizen governed by those who are chosen by that election I have the following questions:

(then list key questions very briefly)

Please respond to me at the following address:

Name:
Address


Signature

Why wouldn't something like this work?

Wouldn't be that hard.

[JimDandy]

11. We did #1 at the polls yesterday.

My companion nearly got arrested. The poll workers called the police, but after hearing him out the police officer agreed it was lawful speech. Unfortunately, the officer didn't inform the poll workers of his decision and so they kept calling. When I advised them of his decision and explained the law to them, they did stop calling, but it was hairy there for a while. You must insist on your rights and know the law, if you choose door #1!!

[autorank]

12. You are absolutely correct!

Every state has different rules for various activities at polling places and those laws need to be
in hand if this is pursued.

JimDandy, how did the people respond to your efforts?

[JimDandy]

14. It varied--some interest, some disinterest and

one voter who actually argued the points with my companion. That voter asked the poll worker to call the police. On a hopeful note...There was a Little League baseball camp going on outside the building with hundreds of kids and parents milling about. I saw many of the parents, especially the women, reading the handout, while they were waiting for their child's picture to be taken.

I'll have to ask Larry Bergan, who accompanied me, to come on DU tomorrow and give the details, because I was inside poll watching most of the time, while he was outside in the thick of it.

[Larry Bergan]

43. Here’s a little recap of..

My experiences trying to inform people in Utah about the Diebold machines on primary day. I typed up this notice and printed three per-page and cut them with scissors:

Machines being used to count ALL votes in Utah are programmed out of state with secret computer code that even our local election officials will never see. Under Utah law passed this year, the paper printouts verified by the voter, will never be counted, even in the event of a problem.

The Utah media HAS REFUSED FOR YEARS to inform it’s people of these problems! And despite the fact that an election official of 23 years from Emery County Utah, (Bruce Funk) has caused the national media to report on the profound hack-ability of the very Diebold models we are voting on in this primary, won’t interview the most knowledgeable local scientists!

The story broken by Mr. Funks bravery to call in experts to inspect the machines, has been the catalyst for the big media corporations FINALLY covering this long ignored story!

CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, PBS, and many others have carried the story and all the Utah media will say, for the most part, is that everything’s going fine. Maybe it is, but maybe it isn’t!

The Lt. Governors office, who forced the purchase of the machines over the objections of Utah’s many computer scientists will never know. And neither will you! (web address of Lt. Governors office)



I was at the polls at 7:00 a.m. I’m a Democrat, and didn’t think I’d be able to vote, but went inside to make sure. I was wearing a “Utah Count Votes” shirt. It got some questioning looks, but it didn’t seem to cause too much alarm. I went back outside and tried to stay a pretty good distance from the building. As the cars started coming in, I could see that I was dealing with mostly older people who luckily parked somewhat away from the entrance.

I sort of milled around until they opened the door of their car and then came in to them saying “here’s some information I think all Utahan’s have the right to know”. One lady told me she could “think for herself” and didn’t take the notice, but most ranged from “Oh, I heard about that” to “I’ll take a look”. Some people were kind of skeptical, but thanked me anyway. The ones who were glad I was there talked to me for a little while. Considering everybody voting was a Republican, I didn’t get too much flak. Most of them said thanks!

After about a half hour, a couple of the poll workers came out and called out a stern “SIR, SIR!, You can’t do that”! I walked over to them and handed them my notice and said I couldn’t remember the exact distance but told them I could, providing I stayed 100 feet away from the entrance. One of them went back in and and came out saying I had to be 150 feet away. I told them I would try, but there were some really old people coming in, and I thought they had the right to get the infomation without coming all the way out to me.

I was very friendly, but serious and looked them right in the eye and told them I wasn’t getting paid and was just trying to help people know the truth. I told them that the Salt Lake Tribune article from the day before had interviewed 5 pro-diebold people and only 1 anti-diebold person along with one neutral person (the county clerk) who has said many times she would rather use the punch cards. That kind of left him with the burden of having to defend a tough stance. They went inside and didn’t bother me for the rest of the day.

A couple of city workers showed up in their truck and I handed the driver my notice. He seemed mad and grabbed it from me and threw it in his truck. He then got some tools out and went over to start cutting some weeds at the building next door. About a half hour later a police car drove in and the officer went inside for a while. When he came out, the worker met him and they started walking towards me calling out “Sir”! I said “yes sir!”, and handed him one of my notices and, as with the poll workers, gave him my serious concerns. I told him I was just trying to do my duty. The officer turned to the city worker and said there wasn’t really anything he could do because I wasn’t trying to give out information about a candidate. I hid my excitement from the worker, but it was hard!

Later in the day, after picking up authorizations to poll watch, I went back there with JimDandy. The building next door was also taking voters and Dandy went over there to observe. A couple of guys that walked over there from where I was might have tried to cause me some trouble there. They were very angry at me and walked by me saying "what do you mean by secretly programmed?" I said "they ARE secretly programmed, in Ohio". He said "what difference does that make?" I said, "it means that if they want to send their nuclear waste to Utah, they can say WE voted for it." No answer to that one. Like most nit-wits, they weren't at all interested in stopping to have a reasonable discussion.

I managed to give out about 136 of my notices at the two polling stations. I handed out some more of them at a Move-On rally against oil companies the next day.

I did a little poll watching also and took this picture of a bible one of the election workers had there. She had a conversation with someone about religious people being censored. Can I bring in my copy of “Earth in The Balance?”

[BeFree]

36. See, this is why....

....you outrank us.

What a great idea! I saw, in election offices, a "Voters Rights" poster listing a few of our rights. IOW, they are telling us what our rights are. Aren't you suggesting that WE tell THEM what our rights are?

And what about if we do it BEFORE the election? What would they do if they were presented, by hand, from hundreds of voters, a list of what our RIGHTS are? A list of our demands? A petitioning of the government?

Where do I send my hundred bucks to help kick this off? I am not kidding.

---------------------

_{Had to delete a joke here. Was a joke about how honest I am about all this. Just wouldn't have been funny.} <grin>

[Drum]

5. I'll listen to nothing that advocates Not Voting.

What an strange suggestion. Commercially it cometimes works, and a really unanimous boycott can invalidate certain things. But a pricipled boycott of an election---in times like these---which would only end up underrepresenting the non-voters and further disenfranchise folks??
I'm certainly not totally in on Lou's argument there. If it were a matter of "refuse to vote by e-machine and demand paper/absentee instead" I say "yeah" and Hell yeah!" But staying home to make your point on election day is nonsense.

Uh, maybe I mean to say that I find it incredible counterintuitive.

[JimDandy]

7. I don't think

Landshark is advocating a boycott of elections. He simply seems to be taking advantage of an already existing poll and building a useful argument around it.

I'm with you:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x437024#437076

[Drum]

13. thx for the nudge.

True true, I guess I was railing at Lou D...meant no offense.

[AndyTiedye]

6. One Machine Reduced "Undervotes" by Defaulting to BUSH!

The ballot came up with Bush pre-selected.
You had to change it to vote for anybody else.
Not sure if voting for nobody was an option.

[kster]

10. By all means vote, but if they won't allow

"checks and balances" to be put in place prior to an election, then we need to take their weapons against democracy away from them, during the election.



http://www.democrats.com/node/8796

[emlev]

17. way more than one machine did that EOM

[AndyTiedye]

22. I Meant One KIND OF Machine

[Awsi Dooger]

8. Wow, just think if we had DUed Lou's poll

And the 30% had become 50% or higher. That would have proven DREs have residual rates of more than half the voting populus. They're like a punch card with a chad for only one candidate. And the world rejoices.

A heavy portion of baloney, please. Talk about desperate spin.

Let's say Dobbs asks this question tomorrow, "How many of you have never voted before, but have decided to vote this year, to see if the e-voting machines are as diabolical and unreliable as we have been reporting?"

Now, I guarantee that number will be low. But it ain't zero. And I suppose I can start a thread here tomorrow night, claiming DREs and all the negativity toward them has actually encouraged a few percentage of new voters, a reverse residual.

[kster]

15. Do your time, vote and act like

The PRE SELECTED DEMS AND REPUGS will give you your treat later.

[Land Shark]

23. The OP clearly says this is an unscientific poll, however

the number of people previously not voting who would then decide to vote to see if there vote would be stolen when there's no way to track and trace one's vote is "as x approaches zero." But, as you suggest, the number is probably not zero.

To clarify:

1. I think all should vote
2. I think that this shows that there is residual voting on DREs that is not documented in any kind of paper trail or data (what else is new with DREs, eh?)
3. This can be argued, if people choose to, in order to show that DRE undervoting rates are a misleading statistic that doesn't gather all of the undervotes and report them.

[Febble]

27. People not voting aren't people "undervoting"

They are people not voting.

You can knit yourself into a silly twist with this one.

• Inadvertent overvotes and undervotes are a problem; over-votes are a particular problem on punchcards.
  
• DREs do not fix the problem, they merely make it look fixed. This is another problem
  
• People not voting is yet another problem.

These are different problems and the last one is a HUGE problem for Democrats.

Trying to conflate them, or making them philosophically equivalent is a dangerous strategy. Keep it simple:

• Demand reliable voting equipment
  
• Resist non-transparent, unauditable, insecure equipment.
  
• VOTE! And demand the right for everyone to vote!

[Awsi Dooger]

124. I'd love to wager against that 30% number from Dobbs' poll

Unscientific and then some. Let's face it, when Dobbs gets hold of a topic he abuses it. Viewers tune in knowing which topics will be covered and with what slant. As a poster lower in this thread mentioned, the question was phrased implying there was already a planned boycott of e-voting. Viewers who are passionate enough to vote in those polls after following the topic day after day are generally looking for the emotional choice, in this case anti-e-voting. The closest option they had in that particular poll was the pro-boycott position. Frankly, I'm surprised it was only 30%, given the avalanche numbers that Dobbs' polls normally reach.

You mention lower in this thread you are considering a scientific poll on DRE residual. That I would be interested in, but I would want much more than stated intention only. Big deal if people who never vote in the first place claim DREs will be the reason this time.

I'm anti over vote and unintentional under vote. Punch cards inevitably lead to high numbers in both categories, so primarily I'm anti-punch cards. They are crap, as Febble elegantly and accurately described lower in this thread. The combo of simplest/least vulnerable/affordable scanner or DRE that prevents over votes and unintentional under votes would be my choice. Don't ask me to identify.

[Bill Bored]

16. Clearly staying away from the polls is not they way to go.

It could actually be the plausibly deniable neocon plan!

Make the machines appear to be so untrustworthy (whether they are or not) that a certain percentage of the electorate will give up. This benefits the minority party, the Pukes that is, esp. if they show up because they trust the bloody machines!

The key is to make sure the flaws in the machines are revealed mainly to the Democrats. So you leave some software on an unprotected FTP site, let someone know it's there if necessary, let them download it and find all the bugs, etc., write some really SHITTY Voting System Standards, and so on. If enough of the thinking folks realize how bad the system is, the only ones left at the polls will be the non-thinkers. And we know who THEY like to vote for don't we?

As Common Cause said in their recent report: if you don't vote, you guarantee your vote won't be counted.

[emlev]

18. Falling into a framing trap?

The Dobbs poll asks, "Are you among those who say they will boycott upcoming elections to protest e-voting machines?"

Maybe I missed something, but I haven't heard of there being a boycott. Have you? By whom? Notice that this question doesn't claim that there's an organized boycott, yet plants the idea that such a thing exists. Now in this thread I see references to "the boycott," as if it existed. I think we need to pay close attention to what's happening here. I'll ask again, have any of you heard of an organized boycott of the November elections? If so, who's organized it?

I do think that as the e-voting industry crumbles there are a couple of significant dangers (at least) that could move in to replace it as electoral-disaster-of-the-moment:

1) People so discouraged that they don't vote. We need to do major publicity about the need for people to vote, because only winning big has a decent hope of overcomming rigorous rigging and hackneyed hacking.

2) That BushCorp declares a state of emergency of some sort and cancels the elections because these horrid machines can't be trusted like we thought they could. I believe we need to be prepared to fill the streets for that one.

[emlev]

37. self delete--put this in wrong place

oops

[Land Shark]

41. Yes, you say some important things

IMHO we are past the point of invalid elections: they can be challenged and invalidated either beforehand or after. This could be a scenario for Bush still president after January 2009. AFter all, his administration inflicted HAVA. There's every reason to believe that this "train wreck" will backfire into legal assaults on the validity of the future elections.

I'm writing about this right now. But it's a simple three part strategy emlev.

1. try to win the election
2. if you can't win, try to cheat
3. if you can't cheat (or perhaps even if you can) *tank the election* as horribly invalid, (perhaps even using some of your own side's cheating as evidence, though this is not at all necessary)

All of the above works through the "invisible hand" effect. That is, I'm positing no conspiracy, I'm saying that millions of people in differing states would have the incentive and the standing to file suit to restrain an election based on secret vote counting alone, and then pile on with the "train wreck". Remember, the Supreme Court already stopped ONE presidential election (in the recount phase) and that is Bush v. Gore.

It could even be a Democrat in a state race who tanks the election, but the arguments tend to invalidate all races, so a given election challenge will likely not be able to confine its effects to just one race unless the specific facts are highly focused and unusual.

To be effective we have to appreciate paradox.

For another example, Febble in this thread like many of us stresses that we should and all must vote and we shouldn't "conflate" undervoting with "total undervoting" or boycotting elections. Perhaps. But this view, standing alone, fails to wrestle with the fact that when one DOES vote, then there is an argument that you've got no gripe or complaint, having freely chosen to vote.... This is precisely what happened in an editorial in the seattle post intelligencer regarding local election activists who staged a press conference to renounce their permanent absentee ballot status in favor of preserving polling places (the county has since voted to follow oregon to all-mail voting). The P-I jumped all over them for their past absentee voting, not allowing them the dignity of being able to learn, become better informed, and changing their minds....

[autorank]

44. Are we talking about the "Plan X" version of taking?

I thought that we'd given that one up;)

"Taking" elections will be the next step as we've discussed. Thanks to Prof. Tokaji at the Mortiz
School of Law and of the ACLU's "win" over Blackwell whereby the Ohio 6th, Federal Court determined
that DRE's were a must. I'm impressed by Blackwells professionalism - he gets the job done and plays
the other Republicans like an accordion and a cheap wedding. But what I want to know is, was he able
to restrain his belly laugh upon hearing this decision, just long enough to get to the front door of
the federal court building. I think that's about the only point of interest in this case, Stewart v.
Blackwell. How unfortunate that exactly what the Republicans wanted was handed up by the ACLU.

Hey, does Manjoo write the ACLU scripts lately? :rofl:

[Febble]

47. Of course you've got a "gripe or complaint"

if you vote and your vote isn't switched or counted, or if the system you are using doesn't allow you to check that your vote was cast as you intended. You have much more "gripe or complaint" than you would have if you didn't turn up to vote at all.

I am really disturbed that there is even any argument about this. The reason I have been banging on about my exit poll data analyses, and my conclusion that it is improbable that massive vote-switching occurred in 2004 is not because I'm a rightwing shill but because I have feared for some time that if people really think that it isn't worth voting THEY WON'T VOTE. And I want Democrats to win the next election.

Even if I'm wrong, and there WAS massive vote-switching at the last election, it still won't help one jot if PEOPLE DON'T VOTE.

Well, perhaps it does matter whether I'm wrong or right - if 10,000,000 votes were stolen, as Freeman claims, maybe a boycott is your only option, although I'm pleased to see that Peace Patriot, who does believe those claims, is still campaigning for PEOPLE TO VOTE.

But if anyone is seriously contemplating advocating a boycott, they surely need to evaluate those claims pretty damn thoroughly, because I think my analysis is sounder, and if I'm right, a boycott is just about the most counter-productive thing possible.

It's possible that as usual I am not clear about what you are saying. Paradoxes, after all are paradoxes. I just don't think there is any paradox about this. If you want to win you have to vote.

[Land Shark]

56. It's interesting the febble should bring up the specter of the Noble Lie

Now, she isn't personally advocating lying or the Noble Lie, but the very considerations she mentioned above lead people to justify lying (saying the machines are more reliable than the are, or that there's "no evidence" when there's some evidence or a lot of evidence) because the consequences of the truth seem too devastating. In other words, it's a noble or useful lie to tell people the machines are better than they are, because if the election margin is big enough, it can't be stolen. (there are variations and more to this, but I trust everyone gets the point)

[Febble]

57. YOU brought up the specter, Land Shark!

Me, I don't do lying, not nohow.

I think people deserve the truth, and if the truth isn't available, they deserve an honest estimate.

If my honest estimate was that 10,000,000 votes (or even 3,000,000 votes) were stolen in 2004, I'd still be recommending that people vote, although I'd understand it if people were considering taking to the streets in protest instead.

But as my honest estimate of votes lost to machines is several orders of magnitude lower, and most of those on punchcards and levers, and that the main problem Democrats face is PEOPLE BEING PREVENTED FROM CASTING A VOTE IN THE FIRST PLACE, then the Noble Truth is:

GET OUT AND VOTE! Because otherwise your party may lose!

[Febble]

66. And you must have missed this post of mine:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=435297&mesg_id=435572

my point being precisely that the Nobel Lie is not only unethical but it doesn't work.

So don't pin that one on me, sir.

[emlev]

61. What does this part mean?

"To be effective, we have to appreciate paradox."

Thanks for your thoughts and to others who have responded. Wish I had time to respond more.

[Land Shark]

68. Explaining "to be effective, we have to appreciate paradox"

Although I'm sure you know what a paradox is, nevertheless I'll start by saying that Dictionary.com contains several definitions of paradox, and three are of interest:

1. A seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true: the paradox that standing is more tiring than walking.
2. One exhibiting inexplicable or contradictory aspects: “The silence of midnight, to speak truly, though apparently a paradox, rung in my ears” (Mary Shelley).
3. An assertion that is essentially self-contradictory, though based on a valid deduction from acceptable premises.

The type of paradox that I am referring to is not the type that must be a "perfect" paradox in order to be true -- it may be possible to slip out of the paradox by reasoning one's way out of it, and then one would be able to say it's not really a true paradox at all. I'm saying that even this kind of "false" paradox is still useful because it still points us to the contradictory tensions and opposing forces or ideas that are at war with each other in the area of (to use our example here) elections.

And the *reason* why these contradictory tensions are important is that they help reveal either the truth about a matter or at least its stickier dimensions. They often get "to the heart of the matter" in other words. So, to wrestle with paradox can be to wrestle with the heart of the issue. (the issue itself being the result of opposing ideas or forces colliding with each other) These quasi-paradoxes or actual paradoxes are where the ideas are having 'nuclear reactions' and trying to modify or destroy each other. (i.e. they are "in tension" or "in contradiction" with other ideas)

One such election quasi-paradox is this:

On the one hand, if you boycott an election due to the highly unreliable technologies and secret counts being employed, you've given yourself arguably a "zero chance" of having "your vote" counted. On the other hand, if you DO VOTE, then you are arguably ratifying and approving the system of technology being used for voting and arguably shouldn't be complaining about it! The argument is then that you're a hypocrite for complaining about what you freely take advantage of. As mentioned in another post, seattle activists were accused in a main editorial in seattle of doing PRECISELY that kind of hypocrisy, when they publicly changed their registration from absentee voting to poll voting, to support the continued existence of polling places.

But, while this one of the many places where the "tension" or the "action" is in elections, it seems to me that the above paradox is not particularly strong. FOr example, One can still drive one's own car and find it utterly faulty in many respects, and wish to replace it at the earliest opportunity. That doesn't make us a hypocrite with respect to the desire to immediately change our car for safety, mechanical or many other reasons. So, that may help us escape our paradox when we apply the analogy of our personal junky jalopy to the subject of voting machines.

I think it's important to know and identify the tensions that are inherent in the above quasi-paradox, even though we can "escape" from it quite readily. The forces "underlying" the paradox also act in other areas to shape the political terrain so we should not wish to escape the paradox and immediately forget about it, because those same forces will rear their heads elsewhere.

Keats, I think, wrote that intelligence is negative capability, which one might define was the ability to understand the interplay of multiple forces simultaneously, or the ability to entertain an opposing idea in one's mind without dismissing the original idea. Perhaps we could further simplify by saying that intelligence is the ability to appreciate multiple causation.

Certainly in elections we have multiple causation as the normal rule. There is no one single explanation like "vote switching" that will explain it all.

This is where Febble gets to be misleading, in effect. Let's assume her work is correct and there's no massive vote switching. That's perfectly consistent with many multiple causation theories. Febble would agree that vote suppression is a very big and election-damaging "phenomenon" so in the larger scheme of things, she's not necessarily that far away at all from many on this board in stating her ultimate opinion that elections are not producing reliable results that mimic the actual will of the people attempting to or wishing to vote. But her emphasis and insistence on the micro-view of her work (in my opinion) constantly causes her to be understood differently than she might like and particularly causes her to be cited in support of overall propositions of which she is not necessarily in complete agreement. To some extent that may be unavoidable because she will defend her work, once done, as do we all. My own pet issue with Febble (or unsolicited advice) is that she should avoid at all costs taking the micro view -- at least if she wants to avoid feeling that she's misunderstood. One can't expect to be perfectly understood at all times, so reminders about context become regularly required and necessary.

It's kind of like defending civil rights in unpopular contexts. Everyone's civil rights are or should be equal, but defending those principles in unpopular contexts like defending free speech in the context of the flag burning issue, is tougher. One, to some extent, wishes to have a more favorable context to defend free speech.

The fact that febble's work is what it is causes her to be constantly defending her principles under unfavorable circumstances in which she's highly likely to be misunderstood. This is the most charitable construction I can put on it, anyway.

I've also been misunderstood right above by Febble herself. On another issue, Febble above suggests i've accused her of advocating the noble lie, but I intended no such claim. I specifically suggested she wasn't saying that but she still seemed to think I was. I gather the reason she got that idea was that (for me) her response in a prior post brought the *specter* of the noble lie up for me (she was dancing close to it without advocating it), and it's interesting (to me) for Febble to have that effect (on me). That may have been too fine or subjective a point to make. Sigh.

[Febble]

74. Micro view

LS: it is not a micro view to state the conclusion that digital vote theft was several orders of magnitude less that popular-vote swinging, and less then the effect of differential residual vote rates on older technologies.

And if you have a less "charitable" construction to put on my advocacy for my work, spit it out man. Otherwise it's simply a smear.

And read your subject header if you want to know why I was keen to establish unambiguously that I will have nothing to do with any Noble Lie. Indeed, it has been suggested to me on this board that even if I'm right that digital vote theft was not a major factor in Kerry's loss, I should maybe shut up about it lest I weaken the cause. In fact, LS, did you not make a very similar point on Salon, no less?

It is not a MICRO VIEW to argue that Kerry probably lost the election due to a combination of failing to convince the electorate that he was the best guy for the job, and a large campaign of voter suppression. If I'm right, it's damned important.

It doesn't make the arguments against unauditible DREs any less strong, for all the reasons you give. But adding to that argument the allegation that millions of votes were stolen in DREs in 2004 is not only likely to increase your "undervotes" to the detriment of the Democratic party's chances, but, IMO, likely to damage the argument itself, given that my conclusions are perfectly justifiable, whether correct or not, and they are highly likely to be correct.

And if my work is being cited in support of positions I do not support - PLEASE PROVIDE EVIDENCE. I frequently see this alleged, but I never see a link. If you provide a link, I shall do something about it. Put up or shut up.

Look, I know it would suit the anti-DRE argument if it could be demonstrated that massive digital theft occurred in 2004. But it probably (and that is a statistical understatment) didn't. The inference that it didn't is not a "micro-view" but a very important one, with implications for all sorts of things including Democratic strategy, and including prioritising strategies for election reform. It won't go away because it doesn't suit your argument, it doesn't invalidate your argument anyway, and if people misinterpret it, well, it's not for want of me explaining it in detail often enough.


edited for clarity and accuracy

[Land Shark]

75. The way you are SPINNING your statistics is not "micro" to be sure

but the statistical work itself is a micro view, IMO. Exit polls are only one of many takes on elections (and therefore more micro), albeit an important take on elections.

My uncharitable view is this: You take your statistical work and explode it into very unscientific categorical claims about the 2004 election as a whole that render your opinions suspect. You can (1) stick to the science with its carefully probabilistic conclusions, or (2) make political claims as broadly as you wish, acting on the citizen level.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I'd apply a different standard if one is attempting to prove the election fraud position, for the following reason: You will scoff perhaps, but I think there's a basic difference between proving a positive proposition and proving or attempting to prove a negative. So, while the exit polls can not (it seems to me) prove that an election wasn't stolen, the reverse however COULD BE true: exit polls *could* prove a stolen election all by themselves. As I understand Febble's work it stands for the proposition that the election wasn't stolen VIA MASSIVE VOTE SWITCHING. Which is only one of varous possible methods.

Because election fraud is typically a "totality of the evidence" analysis, the alleged ABSENCE of proof on any single point (such as exit polls) is not fatal to the overall effort to prove a stolen election, which can still be proven by a combination of factors, or even by one very compelling factor, if it's the right compelling factor.

While you may well find this an impermissible double standard, I think it is permissible for Steven F. Freeman to make broad claims about the election as a whole if he honestly believes the exit polls support them, but I don't think the contrary position can be similarly expanded with the same level of justification. To over-simplify, *not* finding one's keys on the table doesn't mean the keys don't exist anywhere, while finding the keys in any specific place is sure and definite proof that they do in fact exist.

Let's say I had an even more "uncharitable" opinion. I'd be well advised to "shut up" about it, at least if I wanted to talk to you in the future since you, Febble, are clearly becoming angry. I'd be well advised to hold my tongue. I'm sorry that such advice seems to offend you Febble, I don't know whether I've unintentionally gotten you goat or whether you want to bait me into some kind of fight.

I'm just being honest and telling the truth, surely you can have no problem with that? I seem to be on the horns of a dilemma: either I must impermissibly "shut up" in order to be polite, or else i must say the truth as I see it and risk offense.

[Febble]

76. No I am not spinning. It is your spin, not mine.

Of course the exit polls can't prove the election wasn't stolen, any more than they can prove that they were. What they can do is put probabilities on the case, one way or the other.

And you are wrong when you say my argument is not scientific. In any case, I do not argue that the election couldn't have been stolen (as I've said many times, I'm not convinced by the case that Kerry won Ohio, but I could be, given a bit more evidence in favour).

What I argue is that the popular vote almost certainly wasn't stolen, and I have good statistical evidence for that.

You may dispute that it is good, but I claim that it is.

If someone wants to argue that it was stolen by voter suppression, I have yet to see that argument made. Or other methods. The only claim I have seen for popular vote stealing is via vote-switching.

Yes, you have made me angry, Paul. You take my views out of context and then blame me for the fact that people misinterpret my views.

I happen to think that it is important that people are aware that massive digital vote theft is an extremely unlikely (statistically and scientifically speaking) reason for Kerry's popular vote loss.

Sure, if I have been interpreted as ruling out massive vote theft "by other means" then let me put people right. For all I know, alien abduction might be responsible for Kerry's deficit in the popular vote.

But as far as I can see, the case for popular vote loss is levelled at vote-switching via digitala vote counting methods and the exit poll evidence renders that extremely improbable. Not just unsupported but improbable. Low p value. One in very-large-number-chance of it happening.

And by "put up or shut up" I mean if you are going to allege that anyone has justified a position you think I would dispute on the basis of my work, please cite it, or stop alleging it.

[BeFree]

79. There is that saying, again:

One in very-large-number-chance of it happening.

As a layman I find it curious. The chance of the exit polls coming out with the final numbers that it did were described as "One in very-large-number-chance of it happening."

And now we find that the opposite is claimed to also be true.

So, all one can do is figure that the numbers that came out early, numbers that were run through the Miscountski models forming the estimates which the media paid $10 million for, are the only unadulterated numbers that one should use as a basis of opinion forming. The election was stolen.

Then we have two opposing camps of analysis of those numbers. What's a layman too do with that conflict?

The one side, independent and non-partisan, comes to a conclusion which sides with the earliest, big money numbers. That "One in very-large-number-chance of it happening" scenario which indicates that the election was stolen. 1 and 1 makes 2. That's easy to understand.

The other argument goes against the grain by saying that their singular, un-reviewed, non-renewable, privately held, partisan and highly speculative finding is also something that is "One in very-large-number-chance of it happening." But that equation is: 1 minus 1 equals zero.

2 is greater than zero.... so that's where the layman sides. It all adds up and sums up the numbers quite well: the election numbers show the election was stolen - big time.

Besides, what is that old saying?::: There are lies, and then there are damned lies.... and then there are statistics.

Fortunately, we layman had good, uncorrupted numbers before the corrupter's could corrupt those numbers and screw them up using their statistical anal-izings.

This court finds the election was stolen using the maxim: "One in very-large-number-chance of it happening." It happened.

[Febble]

80. Exactly

There are lies, damn lies, and faulty statistical inference.

It has nothing to do with which numbers are used. I am using the "unadulterated numbers".

And yes, I claim the opposite to Freeman. That is because a) all Freeman has demonstrated is that the discrepancy was not due to chance and b) I have had the opportunity to analyse the data in detail, and to demonstrate that it is extremely unlikely (low p value) to have been due to vote-miscounting on any substantial scale and very likely to have been due to to bias in the poll.

Yes, there is a real conflict here, but it has nothing to do with the numbers being "adjusted" to the vote count.

And I am only partisan in the sense that I earnestly wish Kerry had one, and I am a member of the British Labour party. I am not partisan in any other sense. As I explained to you on that other thread.

Feel free to disbelieve it. But the analysis is in the public domain, in the form of a scatterplot that anyone can review.

[BeFree]

81. A Scatterplot?

Are you really asking this layman to change his mind from 1 and 1 makes two, and accept 1 and 1 makes nothing because of a computerized image?

I liken this whole thing to used car salesmanship.... let us frame it this way: we are going by 'Honest Fred's' used car lot and ol' Fred calls out to us saying "look at this beauty".

I ain't buying.

[Febble]

82. I'm not asking you to buy

What I'm trying to do is explain. I'm not selling you anything as I keep telling you.

I am not motivated by anything other than a desire for Democrats - or indeed any American citizen - to have the best possible information when it comes to making decisions about how they should vote, and whether it is even worth it - and, indeed, what is the best approach to effecting Election Reform. So, here it is:




And here is what it tells you:

Each blue cross represents a precinct. There are 1240 precincts in the dataset. The crosses above the horizontal zero line are precincts in which Bush did a lot better in 2004 than in 2000, and the crosses below the zero line are precincts where he did worse. The further above the line a cross is, the more Bush improved on his 2000 voteshare in that precinct. The further below the line a cross is, the worse Bush did relative to 2000. Precincts on the horizontal zero line are precincts where he did the same in 2004 as in 2000.

As you can see, there are more crosses above the line than below. This is because, as we know, Bush's counted vote share in general was higher in 2004 than in 2000. The big question is: "why?"

Did he really get more people to vote for him? Or did he steal Kerry votes?

Well, one way to address that question is via the exit poll. If he stole Kerry votes, then in places where he stole them we should see an discrepancy - a "redshift" - in the exit poll. Where he didn't, we should see less of a redshift, or a blue shift, because, as we know, exit polls can be a bit off in either direction.

So now consider where each blue cross - each precinct - is relative to the vertical line. The vertical line represents precincts with no shift in the exit poll all - precincts in which, in other words, the exit polls were exactly right. To the left of that line are precincts in which there was some "blue shift" - Bush did worse in the count than in the poll. And to the right of that line are precincts in which there was "redshift" - Bush did better in the count than in the poll. And again, we can see that there are more precincts to the right of the line than the left - there are more "redshifted" precincts than "blue shifted" precincts.

And we also know that polls can be biased. So the big question here is - are there more redshifted precincts than blue shifted ones because

• the polls tended to be biased?
  
• or because Bush stole votes?

And the answer is in the red line.

If Bush's good precincts were due to fraud (in other words if the high blue precincts were high because of fraud) - then they should also be more "redshifted" - in other words they should congregate at top right hand corner of the plot. And the way we measure that pattern is by fitting a line through the crosses. That red line is the "best fit" line. if there is a tendency for crosses to congregate in the top right hand corner, the line will tend to slope upwards towards that top right corner where the fraudulent precincts should tend to gather. And it doesn't. It actually slopes very slightly downwards.

This means that it is extremely unlikely that redshift (how far right the precincts are on the plot) and swing (how high they are) had the same cause, i.e. fraud.

And that is the reason I conclude that it is extremely unlikely that massive vote-switching fraud occurred in the 2004 election.

The data is real - it is not "adulterated" data. "Redshift" is calculated from the raw poll tallies and the precinct vote counts. "Swing" is calculated from Bush's share of the Bush+Gore vote in 2000, and from Bush's share of the Bush+Kerry counted vote in 2004.

You don't have to believe it, because I am not trying to sell it to you. I am simply telling you - by showing you the actual data - what I found. It is important information.

Feel free to ask any questions.

[BeFree]

111. Yes, thank you

This builds on my case that your analysis is incomplete. It is like saying: "Yes, there are keys on the table, so I no longer need to find my keys."

But, the keys you have will not unlock the lock that is needed to be unlocked. There are other keys around that will do the job, but they are not seen on 'your' table.

Witness that your scatterplot has only rudimentary data. IOW, just one narrow set of data; the exits and results.

What is needed is inclusion of other data. What is needed is data showing the TYPES of vote collecting and counting apparatus used in each precinct.

What you have presented is only a thimblefull of a complete analysis. Far more data needs to be included in any REAL, complete scientific analysis of the reasons for any shift.

Now do you see why I am not buying?

[Febble]

112. Well, you make an interesting point

all that is shown here is the zero-order correlation, which is slightly, but insignificantly, negative.

Certainly it would be possible to plot that data by vote-counting method, and indeed I have done so. Statistically, what I'd be looking for is interactions - is the slope of the red line more positive for some vote-count methodologies than others? And the answer is no. There is no tendency for precincts with a particular counting methodology to be more prevalent in the top right hand corner.

There are many other interactions you could test for, and I have done so. The only effect of machine I have found is that the redshift is greater in urban precincts using punchcards or levers, than precincts using optical scanners or DREs, which may well reflect greater spoilage of Democratic votes than Republican votes in those precincts. But as we know this has been a problem for many years, it wouldn't show up in the swing-shift plot. It remains a serious problem, and one that needs to be tackled. Although I agree with Landshark that DREs merely replace that problem with another, and are therefore not the solution.

Other things can also be done (and were done) to increase the statistical power. One thing, for instance, I checked, was that postulated that fraud might be of greater magnitute where Gore's vote share was larger. If, for instance, machines were programmed to flip 1 in 10 votes to Kerry (or even 1 in a larger number), then you'd tend to get larger redshift in precincts where Gore's vote was larger (as there is an extremely strong correlation between Gore's vote in 2000 and Kerry's in 2004). But there isn't. Swing is larger in strongly Gore precincts, which is what you'd expect (Bush has more room for improvement in those precincts than in precincts where he already had, say 90% of the vote in 2000). In other words, Bush does better where there are more potential voters to persuade. But there is no commensurate increase in redshift in those precincts. The swing, in other words looks like genuine swing (of opinion) not digital (or other) vote-shifting.

But even the zero-order plot is more powerful than you might think. The point is that if there is any variability in the distribution of fraud - even if fraud was concentrated not in precincts with particular voting methods, but in precincts with votes counted by a particularly tabulation method (and only a minority of the precincts here have vote counts plotted by county tabulation method), or in precincts with equipment supplied by a particular vendor, then you'd still expect the fraudulent precincts to end up in the top right hand corner of the plot, and tilt the regression line (the red fit line) upwards.

But keep thinking about this, BeFree. It's the kind of thinking that is needed.

[BeFree]

115. "I have done so"?!?!?

"Certainly it would be possible to plot that data by vote-counting method, and indeed I have done so."

So, where is that plot/image?

If you have a list of the machines used in each of the 1200+ precincts, it would be nice to share, eh? Ya know, part of having your stuff reviewed by others.

"..tend to get larger redshift in precincts where Gore's vote was larger (in 2000).... "

Like Pasco county Fla? It had a very large shift to bush (in 2004), and it was machine counted, so there you have it. Your theory matches Pasco to a tee. The swing in Pasco, in other words looks like genuine swing of digital vote-shifting.

Your plot looks at just polled precincts, is exclusive of certain data, and there is a lot of data outside of those few precincts that you can't/won't/don't include in your analysis.

The lack of outside review and completeness of data included in your plot makes your argument less and less credible.

[OnTheOtherHand]

116. think about what you are saying

If you want to analyze 2000 vs. 2004 results from county to county (or at some other level of analysis) to see whether DREs (or some other kind of machine) yield larger swings favoring Bush -- you don't need exit poll data. You can actually do that work. You, BeFree, yourself. Assuming that you know how.

Or you can just complain about exit polls, which spares you the trouble of ever thinking or working.

[BeFree]

118. Yes, I have done that

Just look at Pasco county Fla. Looked at Lehto's work on Shonomish county. Looked at the New Mexico fiasco. Looked at the early vote swings. Looked at the Ohio fiasco. There just tons of things to look at, like MCM did. Looked at the exit-polls. Looked closely at whatever came my way. Looked at Febble's stuff.

I am not complaining about exit-polls, I am complaining that Febble's anlysis of the polls is incomplete and lacking basic scientific credentials.

[OnTheOtherHand]

120. well, then, you actually have to make some arguments

Your posts on this issue rarely read as if you have looked at anything. I mean, OK, that's a choice, but I don't understand why you aren't embarrassed to express such strong opinions with so little substance to back them up.

[BeFree]

121. Give me one example...

...of what you are so angry about, and I will back it up.

on edit: and when you do, if you do, be prepared to get a new thread started on what you say.

[OnTheOtherHand]

122. OK, how about you go back and fix the New York mess?

You tried to argue that the New York exit poll was flawed because its sample size was smaller proportional to the population than the North Carolina exit poll.

BeFree, what is your best estimate of the statistical margin of error of the New York exit poll? Based on that estimate, and if we assume that the New York poll was unbiased, what is the smallest statistical margin that Kerry could have won by? Do you think that Kerry won by that much? If so, why?

You can take it from there. Express a coherent opinion about the New York exit poll.

I don't care -- that's just one possibility. I don't remember the last time you expressed a coherent opinion about any subject we discussed. You just seem to make it up as you go, with the only common thread being that we must be wrong. It's odd.

[BeFree]

123. Not that again....

.... is that the best you can do? Heck, when we discussed NY you pretty much admitted you only had a theory on why it was wrong. If you want to do it all over again, start a new thread, and I'll try to reply.

Anyway: I thought you were talking about this thread, so that's what I am going with: what did I say on this thread that you are so angry about?

[OnTheOtherHand]

126. see, you apparently don't know the first thing about science

Evolution is "only a theory." When we are trying to explain stuff that happened in the past, no one has perfect information, no one has perfect answers. If you come back at me with "you only had a theory," then you are spouting creationism, plain and simple. You have to be willing to examine specific hypotheses and evidence.

You have some gall inventing people's positions and then calling them unscientific.

[BeFree]

128. So

You would be willing to release ALL the Miscountski data from the exit-polls so that we can get beyond theory and use evidence to help you find out why the NY e/p was miscountski'd?

I am willing to examine that data, bring it. That way we can scientifically test the hypotheses presented here.

Since we can't test the Febble hypotheses presented here due to the holding back of the e/p data on which they are supposedly based, I ain't buying. I don't imagine any scientist would.

Evolve, or die, eh?

[Febble]

129. Translation:

I think Febble is lying.

Gee, thanks.

[BeFree]

130. No.

What I am saying is that your hypotheses is not tested. Until it is thoroughly tested by others, ya know, like peer-reviewed, I ain't buying. Just like I wouldn't buy a used car without testing it.

Among the reasons we want it tested is the fact that we know the machines are capable of stealing votes. And previous theories hold that the machines did, indeed, steal a lot of votes. Hell, it ain't theory, it's fact that machines stole votes.

But here you are saying that the machines didn't steal votes. If you didn't post your hundreds of posts claiming that the machines didn't steal votes, we wouldn't have this disagreement, eh?

Added to all that is that someone besides yourself holds the cards to testing. Now, they have dealt you a set of cards from their deck and you played with them. You say you have aces high, but you can't lay the cards down so that we can see, because the dealer won't let you.

That matter is not your fault, so you are excused. But the whole game is not to be trusted. In fact, yes, we believe the game to be a big lie, and you, Febble, are just a minor player; just a pawn in their game.

Feel better?

[Febble]

131. Well, think through what you are saying

and what I am saying.

Peer-review is good. I am all for peer-review. But when work is peer-reviewed, the reviewers don't usually recalculate the results, or even review the data. What they do is consider whether the right questions have been asked, and tested by the right statistical tests.

You are free to do that here. It's what I am asking you - anybody - to do. I have told you what tests I did, and what the results were. You made a good suggestion - that I need also to test by machine type. And I told you the results of that test as well.

You can be more specific if you like. Eomer came up with a very challenging test, and it took me quite a while to check it out. I am still checking it out.

You can do the same. It's true, you can't check my math, but, as I said, that's not, generally, what reviewers do. You also can't check my data - but nor, for that matter, can I. But you can suggest - demand - what questions you would ask of that data.

And consider also: I am NOT, repeat NOT, as you well know, arguing that DREs or any kind of machine voting, are a good thing. I think that voting systems HAVE to be secure, auditable, reliable and transparent (and not even paper systems are necessarily all those things unless the protocol is good). And yours are not.

What I am trying to ascertain is WHETHER in FACT there was MASSIVE theft in 2004. Not WHETHER there COULD have been MASSIVE theft in 2004.

As far as election reform is concerned, it doesn't matter what size the theft was. As far as prosecutions are concerned it doesn't matter whether it turned out to be necessary or not.

But as far as the Democratic party is concerned it matters a HECK OF A LOT, whether Kerry won the popular vote by 3+ million votes, as Freeman considers possible, or whether he lost by 3 or so million votes, as I consider, on the basis of my analyses, far more probable.

But I state here and now: I think Kerry would have done a heck of a lot better than his counted result had the playing field been level. Except, of course, he wouldn't even have been a candidate if the playing field had been level. Gore would have been the Democratic incumbent.

[Febble]

132. PS

You wrote:

"But here you are saying that the machines didn't steal votes. If you didn't post your hundreds of posts claiming that the machines didn't steal votes, we wouldn't have this disagreement, eh?"

BeFree, please read my posts? Pretty please?

I didn't say the machines didn't steal votes. I think they did. I think there is evidence that, as usual, older technologies probably led to votes cast for Kerry not being counted. I think it is likely that pushbutton DREs in New Mexico caused Kerry votes to lose votes due to undervotes. I think it is perfectly possible that votes were actually digitally stolen on DREs or other digital vote-counting systems.

My calculations simply tell you the limits on the size of vote loss/theft that is statistically probable. And all I am saying is that it is extremely unlikely to be millions. In other words, it is extremely unlikely to have made up Bush's popular vote margin.

[BeFree]

133. And I think you are wrong, for the hundreth time

Really, it is getting quite tiresome. Give it a rest. Realize you are just a pawn in the whole scheme of things. Realize that it's not your duty to prove anything.

Take your own advice and work to make sure nothing like it can ever happen again. IOW, stop living in the past and move on.

[Febble]

134. Yes, I know you do.

So just ignore it, if you find it tiresome.

[BeFree]

135. Ignore?

No way. It must be refuted at every opportunity. Not that you, Febble, are the enemy, no, you are but a pawn.

It is the criminal syndicate that must be opposed. Anytime there appears to be an excuse made for their actions or intents, freedom of thought must ring like a hammer upon their steely helmets.

[Febble]

136. OK, if you don't want to ignore it

then engage the issue.

I have presented a very important analysis. I invite you to critique it.

The first thing it tells you is that there is no relationship between swing to Bush and redshift in the exit poll. This strongly implies that, in general, bush's swing (improvement from 2000) was unrelated to anything that would have produced redshift in the exit poll.

And vote-switching fraud would tend to produce redshift. Indeed, it is because there is redshift in the poll that people suspect fraud.

So if you can think of a way in which multi-million vote theft could have occurred, and not shown up as a correlation between swing and shift in the exit poll, then I'd be delighted to hear it.

[BeFree]

137. Again?

Have you not read one thing I have written? It seems you have just ignored my questions and responses because you keep saying the same thing over and over again without anything new to say. But it always comes down to the fact that I am not privvy to your foundational data. IOW, I can't look under the hood.

Without me being able to access that data, your science is not ever going to be accepted. Never. Not ever. Without a thorough testing of your science (read: used car) I ain't buying.

[Febble]

138. Well, that is probably because

as you don't seem to have read mine, I've tended to repeat myself.

So, as I said, you might as well ignore what I've written.

[Febble]

117. As I've said

the data is not public. I've explained why.

All I can do is tell you what I found.

And what I found was that in the nationwide data, there is no generalised trend for swing to be correlated with shift. Swing may have been caused by shift in Pasco, and indeed elsewhere, but the reason we do statistical analysis is to find out whether there was a general trend, and there is no such trend. That means that Pasco is unlikely to be typical of the nation, which means that vote theft is unlikely to be in the scale of millions.

And obviously I can't look at precincts outside the NEP data, because the NEP data is what I have. But given that the NEP precincts were a large representative sample of precincts nationwide, there is a lot of statistical power to detect trends.

As I keep saying, feel free not to believe me, or feel free to disagree. But you seem unable to decide whether I am telling lies or nonsense.

[Febble]

78. Part II

While you may well find this an impermissible double standard, I think it is permissible for Steven F. Freeman to make broad claims about the election as a whole if he honestly believes the exit polls support them, but I don't think the contrary position can be similarly expanded with the same level of justification. To over-simplify, *not* finding one's keys on the table doesn't mean the keys don't exist anywhere, while finding the keys in any specific place is sure and definite proof that they do in fact exist.

Yes, that is double standard, because it appears you still don't get the statistical arguments.

The inference from my findings is not simply the weak inference that vote-switching is not supported. There is enough statistical power in that analysis to make an effect size estimate, which allows you to make a strong inference regarding the maximum likely size of the effect. That is the point. And it is small. If large-scale vote-switching occurred, then it would, with a high degree of probability, produce a pattern in the data that is not there. If my keys are not on the table they are not on the table. With a high degree of probability.

It is not completely straightforward, as it depends on assumptions regarding the likely proportion of fraudulent precincts, which is why I have spent some time on a fairly extensive sensitivity analysis, and other things. But the upshot of all of this is that even on generous assumptions (ironically, assumptions that would negate Steve's "neglected correlations") the probability of major fraud resulting in the observed pattern is extremely small. And in statistics, probabilities are all we have. Mine are no different from Steve's in that regard.

Except that Steve's arguments are themselves flawed. I won't enumerate the flaws here, but they are legion, and are quite simple statistical errors, and I suspect arise from the fact that he is not a very experienced data analyst. Or at any rate, if he is, he shouldn't have made those errors.

[Land Shark]

84. Flying to Vegas soon? I'll bet you 1000 Euros I can show you're wrong

on this argument I cut and paste from your post 2 above this one:

If Bush's good precincts were due to fraud (in other words if the high blue precincts were high because of fraud) - then they should also be more "redshifted" - in other words they should congregate at top right hand corner of the plot. And the way we measure that pattern is by fitting a line through the crosses. That red line is the "best fit" line. if there is a tendency for crosses to congregate in the top right hand corner, the line will tend to slope upwards towards that top right corner where the fraudulent precincts should tend to gather. And it doesn't. It actually slopes very slightly downwards.

This means that it is extremely unlikely that redshift (how far right the precincts are on the plot) and swing (how high they are) had the same cause, i.e. fraud.

And that is the reason I conclude that it is extremely unlikely that massive vote-switching fraud occurred in the 2004 election.

We can have a 30 person "jury" to decide who wins the bet. You get to pick ten as biased as you want, and so do I. Then the two "captains" from each of these camps have to agree on ten neutrals to round out our 30 person jury. Majority rules. Loser pays $1000, which should cover your flight cost if I lose.

Want to meet in Vegas to settle this bet?

[Febble]

87. No. I don't bet on science.

If I'm wrong, I'd like it demonstrated. We don't decide things in science by a majority vote. We decide it by evidence and argument, and peer-review.

If you want to show I am wrong, show me now.

edited to add:

If you can convince me, I shall be delighted to revise my views, in public, of course.

[Land Shark]

89. How about if somebody else makes the bet and you just make arguments?

[Land Shark]

90. I'm open to any other device to make it a serious debate....

certainly doesn't have to involve money.

However, I've often stated that the format of DU and most of the internet generally is conversational in nature, more informal, less prone to dispassioned debate or even impassionated DEBATE. The nature of email and the internet is to allow people to go off on tangents that would not occur in spoken conversation because someone would interrupt at an earlier point with a correction.

So, I seek a forum with more room for interaction as well as a somewhat longer attention span (thus the jury idea) so it's more than just a knee jerk straw poll of some kind.

On edit: although serious ideas are occasionally thrown out here by me and by others, I don't intend that every post made here (whether in 30 seconds time, or 30 minutes) is necessarily my "final answer" or my "finest moment". To me, this forum is a chance to work on some ideas and beta test ideas. For example, I've come around to agreeing with Febble's (and others) advice not to use the term "undervoting" to refer to boycotters. I wasn't planning on doing that in some kind of big way anyway, I just wanted to point to a rough similarity between boycotting and "total undervoting"

[Febble]

94. Try this one:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/forumdisplay.php?f=17

But wait till I do my PhD defence (Wednesday). If you register today, you will be ready to propose a debate by the time I am through. Alternatively you can start a thread in Science and Skepticism.

But bets are off. It's logic, evidence and argument or nothing.

[Land Shark]

96. That's fine - no bets. But how about the jury device?

I think there needs to be "serious listeners" not just serious debaters. Plus, that adds a more reliable mechanism than self-admissions as to who, if anyone, had the better of the argument.

[Febble]

102. At IIDB

they set up a "peanut gallery" for interested readers to post comments, but not partake in the debate (debaters likewise aren't allowed to post in in the peanut gallery until the debate is over).

But it could just be a regular thread, with free for all as on DU. There are some good mathematicians on that forum.

But to be honest, if you have serious issues with that analysis, I'm only too willing to hear them, and all you need do is email me and we can thrash them out.

Not that I mind doing it in public, but I don't think the adversarial approach is the most appropriate here (science is inquisatorial rather than adversarial), and I'm a bit alarmed, as I think about it, at the potential implications of the format we seem to be proposing. I'd like an opportunity to get to the bottom of the issue, as I think I did with eomer, rather than try to defend an entrenched position, which I think leads to bad science.

But whatever. What I really want to know is what your arguments are - that is not a taunt, it is an honest enquiry, and so far you haven't even given me a clue.

[Land Shark]

104. It's very true that there is much tension between science and politics

I've tried to note that in your own postings, and I'm sure you could turn that around on me if you wanted to.

But even though science is highly relevant here, the DECISIONS on elections that are binding are going to be POLITICAL and LEGAL decisions, and not at all necessarily a group of scientists or mathematicians neutrally pursuing their doctrinal truths.

on edit, i made a comment about the peanut gallery just as you did above, at about the same time.

PS Is it possible for you to further define what "wrong" means, where being "wrong" is sufficient for you to change your views? That may be a hard question, but to the extent you can shed light on what you would consider proof that you were wrong, that would be helpful to a fair debate.

[Febble]

106. Well, my most conservative conclusion

is that I cannot see any remotely probable way in which Kerry could have won the popular vote (or even broken even with Bush) but have had it stolen by vote-switching, without it showing up as a swing-shift correlation at precinct level, or, indeed, as a positive correlation between state-level redshift and deviation of results from pre-election expectations, which it doesn't (again, it's actually negative).

I make no claim about voter suppression on popular vote-switching scale, although I have heard no claim that voter suppression alone could account for Bush's popular vote win. Residual vote rates differentially affecting Kerry votes wouldn't show up as redshift if they affected all votes in largely Kerry precincts, but would if they affected Kerry votes only. However they wouldn't show up in a swing-shift correlation necessarily, if they contributed to redshift in the past. However, there are tight limits on the amount of historical redshift that be accounted for by residuals, as we know historical residual vote rates.

The two main loopholes for fraud in that plot are uniform fraud, which I have already discussed, and fraud targetted only at precincts where Bush was doing badly. Both those suggest further testable hypotheses, and both I have checked out and found nothing.

It remains possible, in a Bayesian sense, that I am wrong - that there is a trick that might have been tried but which I haven't thought of. Frankly, I think I have thought harder about this than Rove, but you (and I) should put a probability value on the likelihood that there is something staring me in the face that I have missed. I think it is low, but I'm always willing to consider it - which is why I am posting on this thread instead of preparing for my sodding defence...

OK, let's make a date for next week?

[Land Shark]

108. yes, let's make a date. I also have a book chapter this wkend to finalize

and some traveling toward the end of the week. Actually July 14 or later would work best for me, that gives two weeks to take care of some other obligations, and I'd hope to work in 1/2 day of prep in that 2 week time frame.

I could check and see if electiondefensealliance.org could sponsor the debate online, I think they have a webmaster that could set something up fairly readily.

Prior to July 14, however, we should each submit a "FAIR STATEMENT OF POSITION" If you point me to yours (perhaps it's just a link to a post already in this thread) and the background (your paper) then I will within 2-3 days provide you with my FAIR statement of response. In order to disprove you, i first have to fairly understand your position so i'm not wasting time on straw men.

Then, after we have each other's fair statements, we can develop the more detailed arguments, supports and counterarguments that get exchanged in the context of the debate on July 14 or later.

[Land Shark]

103. The link you gave has some interesting ideas

for example the debate on 'pascal's wager' set's forth rules of debate that have some interesting conventions, including provision for a "peanut gallery" which is like a jury but without any apparent authority to vote as far as I can see.

What i'd like to know is if Febble would lend her good name to publicize this debate in some minor way since we all agree that there are very serious and important issues that need attention in election reform along with the fact that she can better (or, again) explain her own work should be an easy "yes" to this proposition. At least, I hope so. Febble you won't have to do any work at all in terms of promotion unless you want to, I'll just see if I can get some people to help out with that in a fair-minded way to promote an interesting debate....

[Febble]

91. Land Shark, you just said you could

show me that I was wrong.

Well, show me. I'm not interested in betting. If you think I am wrong, make the argument. I want to know the truth, and I am quite prepared to believe that there are things I have not checked out (though I've checked out a heck of a lot).

Or are you just gambling here?

Because I'm not. If you have an argument, give me the argument. Otherwise, wait until you have one before you imply that you have.

[Land Shark]

92. If you read posts 89 and 90 as edited you will see my view on this

This forum, as great as it is in some ways, is simply not conducive to extended serious detailed debate. For example, it's too easy for someone not so committed to jump in and distract the debate simply by nature of the fact that they haven't invested the time and yet need to post in "real time" right now so they skip over the intermediate steps.

Those intermediate steps deserve attention.... Thus the different format I'm suggesting.

[Land Shark]

95. In addition, I'm not *completely* ready to do my own arguments

full justice, (i'd want to further prepare, edit, etc.) and there's also a process for each of us to go through in order to be ready to listen and (perhaps) learn on both sides.

I don't think I'm extremely ready to listen myself at the moment because I've got to get back to work soon, and when you are almost seeming to taunt me with "where's the argument?" posting I don't have confidence that you are ready *at this moment* to listen either. BUT i do give you credit and confidence that you are fully capable of that listening.

We're posting in such rapid order right now, for example, that to some extent the old saying that "one can't learn when one's talking" comes to mind to both of us.

If you don't agree with that, then oh well, let's just say I'm not ready at this moment to settle things (or try to) once and for all. It's Saturday morning here, before 9 a.m. for goodness' sake! : )

[Febble]

98. Well, thanks.

in that case take my post below with a pinch of salt.

But my demand was not a taunt - yours was more of a taunt. You bet you could show me I was wrong, which strongly implies that you can see a problem with my argument. All I have done is ask you to say what that problem is.

But sure, I'll listen. I always listen, actually. I wake up in cold sweats at night with counter-arguments to my own arguments, and have been known to creep downstairs to check them out.

But remember - I am actually not spinning. I want to know what happened. It's all I ever wanted to know, because a lot hangs on what actually did, not least the strategies Democrats need to adopt to win next time.

See you later then.

[Febble]

97. I read your view of the debate you'd like

I read nothing of your views on my argument.

Look here, it's a bit off to bet you can win an argument without actually advancing the argument. It makes people think you've got one. Ditto to challenge me to a debate without actually demonstrating that you have a counter-case. It's called posturing. Being a mere gal, I don't do that strutting thing.

If you've got an argument against my case, you can advance it here, now, or start a new thread. Otherwise, as I said, wait till you've figured it out before claiming you've got one.

[Land Shark]

100. I am posturing a bit FOR AN AUDIENCE. i could start a thread

and see if there's interest in anyone watching. Otherwise it's a futile exercise. This is about democracy so if the "community" doesn't deem it interesting and of relevance, it's not worth the time.

I can see that you badly want me to state the argument in weaker form so that you (perhaps) can knock it down early.

The fault in your argument lies in your argument that fraud is evidenced by redshift.

On edit: ...or rather that lack of sufficient redshift means that there was no massive vote switching (or that there couldn't be...)

[Febble]

105. Jeez, Land Shark

How can I say this more clearly?

I believe my argument because I think it is correct. If you can demonstrate that it is wrong, I won't believe it!

If I myself find a flaw in it I won't believe it! What part of "impartial" is so hard to understand!

I think it is important to find out what happened in the 2004 election. I spent far too much time over the last year trying to figure it out, precisely because I think it is important. I wouldn't want to defend a position I thought was likely to be wrong. As I said, I lose sleep at nights wondering if I am, precisely because I think it is so important!

Right: fraud is evidenced by redshift.

OK, as I have said on many occasions: not all fraud will show up as redshift. Fraud that merely destroys both Kerry and Bush votes, but is concentrated in Kerry strongholds will damage Kerry more than Bush, but won't show up as redshift. So that's one. However, it will show up as high residual vote rates, or a mismatch between poll-books and total counts.

But it's a good one - TimeForChange advanced that one a while back. I don't think you could get away with stealing millions of votes that way, though because of its ease of detection.

Good start though, Evil Twin. Keep going.

RE your edit: How do you propose you could stop vote-switching showing up as redshift?

[Land Shark]

107. Part of this discussion we've had before, so you can research that

if you wish.

OK, I will accept your pledge of impartiality in terms of willingness to change your mind.

Can you send me a link to your paper(s)? I'll want to address my ideas to my "audience" of one to the extent I am able, and will try not to confuse or conflate terms based on the way you use language in your own papers. (slightly differing vocabularies could get us into a heap of trouble from the get go in terms of potential misunderstanding)

Having accepted your impartiality, do you accept some method of PROMOTING this debate, even if only online??

[IndyOp]

110. Febble - Do your analyses 'control for' provisional votes that were

not counted? Because people who voted provisionally would have been included in the polls, but not in the vote counts...

:shrug:

[Febble]

113. No, you are right people who cast

provisional votes that weren't counted would contribute to redshift in the poll. And if it is a historical problem (tends to happen in the same precincts, year after year) it wouldn't show up in the swing shift plot either. If it was a new problem in a given precinct 2004, then it would indeed tend to tilt the regression line upwards - the fact that the regression line does not tilt upwards suggests that it was either a small effect, or that it happened in the same precincts in 2000 as well (probably a bit of both).

However, the mean precinct-level discrepancy in 2000 was small relative to 2004, and in any case I controlled for mean state 2000 exit poll discrepancy. So although both the residual vote effect and the provisional ballot effect may have contributed to redshift in 2000, the combined effects cannot have been very large, overall, in 2000, and it cannot have increased very much in 2004. They were nonetheless critical of course, and the residual vote effect cost Gore the election.

And in any case, together with voter suppression, they are a civil rights issue, whether or not they cost Kerry the election. Magnitude of effect only matters to the result - it does not make any difference to the injustice.

[Land Shark]

101. this is a clever "put up or shut up" argument. That's fine!!

I'm not bluffing, and I don't bluff generally. But there is, in this case, a need for the noumenological to become phenomenological. (which, if I recall correctly, would mean a need for the mental to become physical/transfixed to paper for example).

[JimDandy]

42. Haven't heard of any actual boycott being organized

Your right on #1, but I'd combine the GOTV publicity with a push to vote on a paper ballot, where that's still possible.

#2 seems too far-fetched. Since I have only so much time and energy, I know I wouldn't even put this on my list of things for which we should prepare. Maybe I just don't have the vision. What exactly do you espouse doing to prepare for a canceled election?

[Febble]

48. I agree with (1)

I am really worried about discouragement, and fear it could be an electoral disaster, not least because the corollary of my conclusion that rigging in 2004 was no more than a small effect is that Democrats have a genuine 3 point margin to climb.

[mod mom]

63. I still get out to the street at every opportunity. Moveon held a protest

across the street from the Ohio Republican HQ a BP Station) last monday and we moved it to the Republican side. It was a "no blood for oil" theme but we included election reform (because of course if ther wasn't an election theft, there would be no war, or deficit, or children left behind, or great disparity in wages, or worsening of global warming, or massive corruption scandals, or torture, or disregard for the constitution, or Katrina failure to respond or.....

IT ALL STARTED WITH A THEFT OF THE ELECTION-FOLKS!

[Peace Patriot]

19. Bumper sticker: "Help Us Beat the Machines--VOTE!"

I've been saying this for a lo-o-o-o-o-ong time! You've got to--WE'VE got to--election reformists, and the Dem Party leadership, and candidates, and political operatives and activists, have got to TELL THE TRUTH TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!

We MUST proceed on a basis of truth and reality. The country is sick and dying from untruth and lack of reality! The truth is very bad, but IT IS THE TRUTH. And people NEED to know it. And they need to know ALL OF IT. If they are given half-truths--that all that these electronic voting systems need is a "paper trail," for instance, or that the electronic voting systems are "insecure" but our government is "working on it" (trying to make it "more" secure)--the upshot, in most peoples' minds works something like a RUMOR. The rumor is, "It's all rigged"--so, why vote? And these half-assed "reports"--like the recent one from Common Cause, and from the Brennan institute--which describe dire insecurities, and ignore the deliberate evil that has been done, and then propose a "fix" for this FATALLY FLAWED election system, may well be feeding CYNICISM and not doing any good at all!

The American people need the WHOLE TRUTH. And they need to be ENGAGED in the struggle for the best solution. Otherwise, who can blame them for being depressed and demoralized, and feeling disempowered and DISENFRANCHISED?! The Democratic Party leadership, in particular, is treating voters like idiots!

People need to know the biggest--and most hidden--truth about this election system: ALL votes are now (as of 2004) being "tabulated" by two Bushite corporations using TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code with virtually no audit/recount controls. This was DELIBERATELY done--via a bill engineered by the two biggest crooks in Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney (and abetted by Bilderberg 'Democrat' Christopher Dodd)--the "Help America Vote Act" (HAVA) of 2002. They created a $4 billion electronic voting boondoggle to pad the pockets of these Bushite electronics corporations, and to bribe, bully and entice election officials across the country into precipitous purchase of expensive, untested, insecure, extremely insider-hackable, secretly programmed voting systems. In this high-speed, opaque environment, millions of votes can be changed, in a matter of seconds, with a few lines of code, leaving no trace. It is the height of NON-TRANSPARENCY. And paper ballot backups are perfectly useless if the paper ballots are not counted--which they almost never are. Many states have NO auditing requirement at all. Those that do have entirely inadequate auditing. DREs. Optiscan votes. Absentee Ballot votes. ALL end up as mere electrons controlled by the secret programming.

And people need to know PRACTICAL things, like

1. The machines CAN be beaten by big turnout, in some cases.

2. Absentee Ballot voting is a good emergency measure. It is a peoples' protest against the machines. And if enough people do it (and many are), the machines will be made obsolete; then we can work on getting rid of the central electronic vote tabulators.

3. There will be no federal solution. Congress is worse than useless. The Bushites in Congress DON'T WANT transparent elections! THEY designed this system to BE non-transparent, and they are not going to legislate transparency any time soon. Ergo, we must take this fight to our state/local election officials--where the decisions about voting systems are made, and where ordinary people still have some influence. You want your country back? Head on down to your local board of elections and country registrar and demand transparent vote counting!

This is going to be a long term, difficult, messy, multi-jurisdictional struggle that we MUST WIN. Non-transparent elections are NOT elections. They are tyranny! We MUST change this--or our democracy is over.

The psychology of hope is an interesting and tricky business. If you're in jail and you KNOW what you're there for, and especially HOW LONG you will be there--WHEN you will be able to get out--you have hope. You gear your thoughts to that date. Left in indefinite detention, you despair. Even a long sentence is better than INDEFINITE detention. In fact, indefinite detention is considered to be a form of torture.

It's the same with this fraudulent voting system. If you don't KNOW what's wrong, if you can't pinpoint it, then you can't even fantasize a solution. You are stuck in a hopeless fog. Why do bad people keep getting elected? Why do we have such idiots and criminals in office?

Well, the answer is in truth ve-e-e-ery simple--AND solvable. After decades of corporation corruption of our elections, they've finally just TAKEN OVER the actual vote counting, with rightwing Republican corporations "counting" all the votes with secret programming, sold as "efficient" electronic voting. It's a total scam.

We have to stop THAT before we can fix anything else! And, once we DO that--once we get rid of these election theft machines, and begin electing true representatives--THEY will help us further clean up the election system, and begin other reforms (busting the corporate news monopolies, and the oil companies, for instance).

These Bushite fascists have thrown us back to square one--they've taken away our right to vote--and we have to START THERE, with restoring the basic condition of democracy: TRANSPARENT ELECTIONS!

The American people CANNOT fix this if they DON'T KNOW what's wrong!

We must NOT go along with this game of pretending that all the Democrats have to do is "get their message out" or get some Colberts! It's important that they do--that's what big turnouts are made of--but the critically important matter of WHO is counting the votes, and HOW they are counting them, has to be THE FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS. If people don't know what's going on, they will feel hopeless when the good people lose, and we will never reach critical mass on the people power needed to restore transparent, verifiable elections.

[Febble]

25. Yes!!!! PP, it's not often I agree with you

but this is really important.

Your vote certainly won't be counted if you don't vote.

Where I disagree with you is in your pessimism. My calculations tell me there is an excellent chance that as long as you vote, your vote will be counted. And once you win, then you can get the reform you need to ensure that in future it won't be up to chance.

[OnTheOtherHand]

26. please let me quibble

I'm sure it's edifying for people to see us disagree, even subtly. ;) Actually, I think this was just a slip of the keyboard.

I think what your calculations tell you is, more or less, that people who voted in 2004 had an excellent chance of having their votes counted. I think that is a very important finding. I also think it's true that people who vote in 2006 have an excellent chance of having their votes counted. But it probably doesn't follow directly from the calculations.

People have a hard enough time distinguishing the 2004 debate from debates about future prospects, so I am trying to keep that line very bright.

[Febble]

29. No, slip of the brain

you are right - all my calculations tell me is that precedent is in your favour.

[Land Shark]

39. You are presuming that votes are immutable things that are either

"counted" or "not counted". This type of assumption would be ok with an indelible medium such as paper and indelible ink, but with electrons it is either meaningless or nearly meaningless to say one's vote was "counted" or had a "high chance of being counted."

I mean, c'mon. Let's say they "only" shaved 1% in order to change the result of a given election from 50-49 to 49-50. (or shaved one half of one percent, depending on point of view).

In the above case, should we all be happy that the "winners"of the election had a 100% chance of having "their vote counted" and the "losers" of the changed election had about a 98% chance of having their vote counted?

I think you guys are abusing something here.

[Febble]

45. three things can happen to a vote that is cast

1. Counted
   
2. Not counted
   
3. Switched.

None of these things can happen to it if it isn't cast. If you don't cast a vote, you are not voting.

My point is not to get into an unnessarily wrangle with you, simply to make the absolutely vital point that if you don't vote you don't have a hope in hell of having your vote counted at all.

Anything that discourages Democrats from voting is going to result in fewer votes for Democrats, even if a proportion of cast Democratic votes are switched to Republican.

Voter suppression is a serious issue for Democrats. The last thing Democrats need is for people to think that they shouldn't even attempt to cast a vote.

I repeat: someone who doesn't vote is someone who doesn't vote, period.

We want people to vote!

That's why I like Peace Patriot's bumper sticker.


On edit: see also my post #23
On edit 2: I see you read it

[OnTheOtherHand]

51. I'm reminded of the old (U.S.) football coach Woody Hayes

Woody coached the Ohio State (University) Buckeyes, of Columbus, Ohio, for many years. Woody liked the running game -- "three yards and a cloud of dust" -- really liked it. He liked to say (more or less), "There are only three things that can happen when you pass the ball, and two of them are bad."

The three things he meant were, of course, that the ball can be caught by someone on your team, not caught at all, or "intercepted" by someone on the other team.

As an argument for never passing the ball, I suppose this was my introduction to junk statistics.

[Febble]

52. LOL

Coke on keyboard.

OK, I do realise Land Shark is not actually advocating this boycott thingy, but the best start to a search for a solution to a problem is to define the problem accurately, and defining refusal to pass as a form of bad passing, while philosophically legitimate, doesn't seem calculated to lead to a solution to the problem of bad passing.

But sure, arguing that DREs are good because they reduce the problem of residuals is like arguing that going bald is good because it saves you having to have your hair cut. That's not a good argument either.

But finding a cure for baldness will still leave you with the problem of having to get your hair cut. And I'd like to repeat what I've said elsewhere, which is that I am now in a position to clarify something from the Edison-Mitofsky report: in urban precincts (particularly black and hispanic urban precincts) the exit poll discrepancy was significantly greater where levers and punchcards were used than where DREs or optical scanners were used. This may suggest that lower differential residual vote rates on DREs and scanners may have benefited Kerry (although of course older push-button DREs probably cost Kerry votes in New Mexico, because of undervotes).

Residual votes are a problem, especially for Democrats. Not the only problem but a real one.

Now, I must go and get my hair cut...

[Awsi Dooger]

125. Ah, but there's plenty of basic truth behind those junk statistics

In college football, 75-78% of all games over the course of a season are won by the team with most number of rushing attempts. In the NFL it's even more decisive, 79-85% and generally in the 82-83% range. In college the personnel level varies much more than in the NFL so teams with a pantyhose passing approach can rely on talent to overcome the strategic arrogance.

You won't find the mainstream media mention those figures. They prefer rushing yardage, which is more glamorous but much less meaningful. The mainstream media in general does a horrific job identifying the most significant football stats. Of course, when I mention these numbers on sports sites there is the inevitable, "So why don't they run the ball EVERY TIME?" A swing pass is not the same as drive blocking, which has late game positive residue. The lazy teams that try to pretend otherwise will pay in the long run. You should see the chart of Andy Reid's number of rushing attempts at Philly. He literally declined 50 or 60 attempts per year steady, so naturally he finally reaches the point where the team is pushed around in the trenches.

I can't imagine watching an NFL game without charting the number of rushing attempts. And it's hardly a matter of the team with the lead piling up rushing attempts in the 4th quarter, skewing the stat. That is a lazy man's guesswork fallacy. If a game is tied at halftime but one team leads let's say 18 rushing attempts to 10, you'd be shocked how often that team wins the game. It's an invaluable betting tool for halftime wagering. Unfortunately, I blabbed it on a radio talk show in the '90s so now it's incorporated into the second half line to some degree. My friend on that show whacked me on the leg the first time I said it on the air and he was correct. But I was new and wanted to make an impression that I knew what I was talking about.

The two most significant independent NFL stats are number of rushing attempts and yards per pass attempt (YPPA). You generally need 7+ yards per attempt to be a factor deep into the NFL postseason. Last season, despite being the #6 seed, Pittsburgh led the league in both categories. In fact, Roethlisberger at 8.9 YPPA in each of his first two seasons has BY FAR the best start of any NFL QB his first two seasons, much better than Marino. So you can guess I used those figures to have a nice NFL postseason.

The best NFL stat to use in the post season is Yards Per Pass Attempt Differential, which is offensive YPPA minus defensive YPPA. Indy led the league last year at +2.4 but Pittsburgh was only a tick behind at +2.3. That looked like the real Super Bowl going into the game and probably turned out that way. No one else was higher than Carolina at +1.7 with Seattle next at +1.4. So the teams high in this category found their rightful place deep into the playoffs. The teams with at least a half yard advantage over their opponent in Yards Per Pass Attempt Differential during the playoffs went 7-0 straight up and against the spread last season.

Sorry for the long detour. I realize it doesn't fit this forum but at least it's something I'm confident talking about, unlike red shift and stuff like that. Successful American football can be summarized as; "Run the ball often, pass the ball well."

[Febble]

49. Further thought from one of "we guys":

You are not, surely, seriously inferring that either of us is suggesting that "we all be happy that the "winners"of the election had a 100% chance of having "their vote counted" and the "losers" of the changed election had about a 98% chance of having their vote counted"?

Do I need to spell this out?

Take a precinct with 500 potential Democratic voters and 400 potential Republican voters. If all voters vote and all votes are counted fairly, Dems will win the precinct by 55.5% : 44.4%

If a malefactor sets up the voting machine so that 1% of Dem votes are switched to Rep, as long as all 500 Dem voters still vote the machine will switch 50 Dem votes to Rep, registering 450 Dem votes and 450 Rep votes, and the result will be 50% : 50%.

If 50 Dem voters don't vote at all, there will be 405 Dem votes registered (450 cast,45 switched) and 445 Rep votes registered, and Dems will lose by 48% : 52%.

There is nothing to make me happy about the prospect of 50 Dem votes being switched to Bush. But there is a heck of a lot more to make make me unhappier about 45 Dem votes being switched to Bush AND 50 Dem votes not being cast at all.

edited for grammar and clarity

[OnTheOtherHand]

53. I think you meant 10% -- and, no, I don't think he's serious

(I.e., in your scenario, 10% of the 500 Dem votes were switched to Rep votes.)

Board regulars are pretty familiar with your beliefs about the 2004 election and DREs, and I know that you have explained them to Land Shark at length.

Dunno, I'm still scratching my head over this: "This type of assumption would be ok with an indelible medium such as paper and indelible ink, but with electrons it is either meaningless or nearly meaningless to say one's vote was 'counted' or had a 'high chance of being counted.'" Well, no, it isn't. I suppose we are wandering into metaphysics here, but whether I cast my vote on a lever machine, a paper ballot, or a DRE, I want to know that it was counted as I intended to cast it. (There is no indelible record of my individual lever-machine vote -- but I'm not at all sure that a vote on paper would be more likely to be counted.) It's perfectly appropriate to question whether DRE votes (and votes by other methods) are accurately counted. I don't understand why someone would insist that, on the contrary, the question is "either meaningless or nearly meaningless."

[Febble]

54. Yes, I meant

10%. My proof-reading skills were never great and are getting worse.

Agree with all the rest.

If people don't trust machines to count their votes, then they may not vote. But punchcard machines can't be trusted to count votes either, and presumably in addition to their already too-high residual vote rate, there are LS-type "undervotes" associated with those machines as well.

I just can't see any point in pretending that people who don't vote because they don't trust the election system to count their votes are some kind of special "undervoter". What we do have to worry about is people not voting on any machine in 2006 because of the belief that 2004 was rigged to the tune of millions of votes.

Would LS call those "undervoters"? And could we blame them entirely on DREs?

No - we could blame them on the general distrust of your electoral system engendered by all sorts of things, and it's the reason your electoral system has to be fixed.

[Land Shark]

58. I'm not "pretending" that there are people who refuse to vote electronic

I'm simply going to MEASURE it. With a scientific poll, done by experts I will hire. I'm not trying to encourage this, I'm just trying to measure it. I trust you understand the difference.

Whatever this small percentage of people is, that's a cost of electronic elections, and it's higher than the number of people, if any, who refuse to vote because of levers or paper ballots of some type. That's just a claim on my part, but it's not a particularly risky one, in my opinion. Whatever the number is, boycotters of touch screens exceed boycotters of other machines.

We can refuse to "conflate" the "LS-type undervotes" and other more usual types of undervotes. I understand your reasons. But unless the residual vote test gets BROADENED OUT in some fashion, the test applied in litigation are far more rigged than any election could be, because the residual vote test forces us to look at DREs with a microscope that blocks the view of many of their bad qualities and gives us a slanted view in that area we are allowed to view....

Paul

[Febble]

59. Sorry - provocative word

but you missed my point. There is no difference between a person who doesn't vote on a DRE because they think the DRE will miscount their vote, and a person who doesn't vote on a punchcard machine because they think the punchcard will miscount their vote (and there is plenty of evidence that they do) or, indeed, a person who doesn't vote on an optical scanner, or even a paper ballot, because they think that the county tabulator will miscount their vote, or the ballot box will be stuffed.

Or the person who doesn't vote because they fear intimidation by challengers at the polling place.

If you want to measure something, Paul, the first thing you have to do is define it. How do you determine the reason a voter who isn't there isn't there? And how do you figure out how many of them there are?

OK - I know, you said - polls. But in that case, why stick with DREs? Why not just get your polling firm to figure out the proportion people are reluctant to vote because they don't trust the voting system at all? And then you'd stand a chance of figuring out whether people are or are not more willing to vote on DREs than on other methods, and perhaps, what the reasons are for people's mistrust in your election system. It sounds like a great project.

But I don't see the point in calling it an investigation into virtual undervotes on DREs.

[salvorhardin]

55. Fear of the unseen?

After all, at least with lever machines we have tactile, visual and auditory confirmation of our vote. I've often noticed that people working with computers perceive either a tenuous or no connection between their actions (input) and the results (output). I think there's a disconnect because people don't really understand what's happening inside the computer (even at the most basic level). Also, the computer adds a layer of abstraction to the voting process that many people are uncomfortable with.

Of course, I prefer my voting technology unplugged too but in a country of almost 300,000,000 people it's a natural question to ask... "Can technology improve the voting process?" And obviously it can. That's one reason why the mechanical lever machines were so popular, even though they were hackable too. So I think it's reasonable that we begin looking toward equipment like DREs. And I think it's possible to produce a reasonably secure, robust and reliable DRE voting machine. The problems occur in that districts are not generally able to adequately evaluate claims by voting machine manufacturers or their products (plus corruption in a few districts). In a way it's similar to the purchase of technology by school districts (especially computers). It'd also help if the voting machine companies didn't produce utter crap for a product.

Anyway, that's my two cents for this afternoon. And if any of you stooges for the VRWC are going to be at the homeoffice today, could you stop by Payroll for me. I still haven't gotten last month's check.

[Febble]

60. I agree

I think the "unseen" part is crucial. Even if DREs were as secure and reliable as bank ATMs there would be no way of telling, because unlike a bank you can't check your statement. That's why a voter-verified paper record has to have the legal status of a ballot in the event of a recount.

I don't know about levers (not being a Brit) but it's interesting that urban precincts with levers had the highest exit poll discrepancies (slightly higher than punchcards, and significantly higher than DREs or optical scanners).

But then people are scared of flying, yet happily cross busy roads on foot. Risk perception is not always related to even conscious knowledge of the actual risks.

I'm against DREs, unless they provide a legal paper ballot, because people won't (and shouldn't) trust them even though they may be trustworthy (and of course at present they are not). But I'm also against any voting technology that mangles votes, and residual votes are a serious problem. People shouldn't trust technology with high residual vote rates either.

People shouldn't trust anything, including hand-counted paper ballots, unless the whole process is transparent, auditable, reliable and secure! And of course, freely accessible to everyone who wants to vote.

[salvorhardin]

65. Absolutely

We're not going to change human nature to fit the technology (transhumanist fantasies aside), so if we agree that DREs can be beneficial (although I'm far from convinced that they necessarily are) then there should be some standards applied. Voter-verified paper receipts with legal status as ballots would be a good start. I also think there should be some way of adequately verifying that the DREs (this includes application software, userland environment, operating system and hardware) perform as specified, etc. I understand a company's desire to maintain proprietary status on its' work, but that really should be subservient to the public interest (doubly so given that the work is being used to gage the public interest).

[Land Shark]

70. "counted or not counted" in DRE context presumes that a vote

exists at all in the first place in any kind of physical or electronic form that is so stable and unchanging it is just waiting around to be counted properly. That assumption doesn't apply with computers.

to analogize, maybe DRE votes are like chameleons that can change color unpredictably. To vote by DRE is like using these unpredictably changing chameleons to represent one's vote (green for Kerry, brown for Bush) but when you drop your chameleon-vote into the box, it may have changed color before it hits the bottom of the ballot box. So what does it mean then to "count" my chameleon-ballot "correctly"? One can count the subjective voter intent correctly (to the extent one can determine it through mind reading or exit polls) but the objective form of that intent (the ballot) is easily changeable and not any kind of stable "thing"

Given electrons are like chameleons that follow the orders of anyone willing to give them, the notion that my chameleon vote should be "counted correctly" approaches meaninglessness.

As I already said, there is still the subjective intent of the voter if we can determine it, but as far as the actual chameleon-ballot goes we simply have no idea if it is "counted" nor do we know when it is counted what it's color was at that particular moment of counting.

This is why I say that statements that one has an "excellent chance of having their vote counted" on DREs approaches meaninglessness. The exit poll may even match up with the result but that would only be the coincidence or lack of interest anybody had in that particular election with changing that match up.

[Febble]

73. Well, that's why I changed to using

the word "registered". "Tallied" would perhaps have been better. Although that's just a fancy word for count. "Included in final vote totals" is what I meant, which to my mind is closer to "counted" than "undervotes" is to "votes not cast by people who didn't trust DREs".

But of course I take your point - absolutely. That's why I am opposed to electronic voting unless there is a voter-verified paper record with the status of a ballot in the case of an audit or recount.

My point is simply that people who don't trust DREs enough to vote are no more "undervoters" on DRES than people who don't trust punchcards, or any other voting method, enough to vote. Trust is a problem for turnout. I don't think attaching it specifically to DREs and calling it "undervotes" is an especially useful notion.

Let me re-phrase that phrase of mine as: "an excellent chance of having their choice of candidate included in the vote totals for that candidate".

That is not "meaningless" at all. It "means" on the basis of the exit poll analyses I've cited the difference between the electronic theft of million electronic votes (as alleged by many, maybe you) and something very much smaller, and outweighed by differential residual vote rates on older technologies. This is a heck of a lot of "meaning".

But, as OTOH says - my estimate of your future "chance" of having your choice of candiate included in their vote total is just made on the basis of 2004, and arises from my conclusion that the evidence suggests that DREs probably did tally those choices (include them in the vote totals) reasonably even-handedly (no overall bias in favor of one candidate) if not accurately. But that doesn't make them any more trustworthy, and still raises the specter of widespread malicious tampering in the future.

[Land Shark]

77. Then you should read or re-read my study

if you believe this "DREs probably did tally those choices (include them in the vote totals) reasonably even-handedly (no overall bias in favor of one candidate) if not accurately."

it's covered in Steven F. Freeman's new book "was the 2004 presidential election stolen" on pages 75-79, and a mention briefly on p. 246.

Try doing what I did. Look specifically, and by serial number, at the machines removed from the election because of vote switching or freezeups that did not seem to be readily fixed, and see what their vote totals look like.

Here's the study, awaiting Manjoo or someone to "debunk" it. (He's moved on to 9-11 debunking lately)
www.votersunite.org/info/SnohomishElectionFraudInvestigation.pdf

[Febble]

83. OK, let me re-phrase:

I do have the odd problem with your Snohomish study, but let that pass. I am perfectly happy to accept the possibility - even the probability - that votes were hacked on DREs in some places. My claim, as I have said many times, is over the numbers. I think the numbers were several orders of magnitude less than millions. I'm not going to be more precise than that because as I explained, estimates of maximum effect size depend on assumptions, although, as I also said, the more "generous" the assumptions, the more they run counter to Freeman's own correlations advanced as evidence for vote corruption.

But sure, the machines are culpably riggable, and may have been rigged. My quarrel is with the estimates of the prevalence of rigging.

Rare diseases are still rare, even though they are diseases. And they still need to be treated.

[emlev]

28. I like the general idea of the bumpersticker, however

when you say "help us," you immediately identify the person reading it as not being a part of "us." Will you play with it some more? My first thought is: "Want to beat the machines? Vote!" but I'm not sure I like that much.

[Febble]

30. How about "Help beat the machines - VOTE!!!" n/t

[BeFree]

32. So...

....is your strategy founded on the fact that the machines are being misused to count the votes, and that we can defeat those machine miscounts by voting?

[Febble]

33. You certainly can't defeat them by not voting n/t

[BeFree]

34. Really?

Gee, I didn't know that.
:sarcasm:

Back to the strategy, if you will.

[Febble]

35. Self deleted

[Febble]

46. BeFree

I really am getting a bit sick of you stalking my posts for no other apparent reason than to discredit them.

My point is simple and uncontentious:

If you don't vote, your vote won't be counted.

The reason it is worth making that point, whatever you think about the security of the voting system is that I think there is a real danger that people may be so discouraged by the insecurity of the system that they may not vote at all.

IMO it would be a treble tragedy if Democrats were to lose votes at the next election because their distrust of the system is so great that they don't even bother to vote. Voter suppression is bad as enough as it is.

Surely we agree on this? If not, then let's agree to differ, as you yourself suggested in another thread.

[applegrove]

20. It never ends with voter suppression.

[ladjf]

21. Would you mind summarizing what you said? I missed the

"stroke of genius".

[Land Shark]

24. It might not be easy to understand the (de facto) cleverness

unless one understands the details of the residual vote debate, at least as I see it. But there's a 3 point summary here in this post above. <http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=437075&mesg_id=437174>

Basically, artificially low residual vote rates are being used to favor DREs in both studies and litigation, but this shows that there is a population of residual votes that are not being counted for DREs and for which there is no trail of paper or records of any kind. While there is such a thing as a legitimate undervote where a voter chooses to opt out of voting in a specific race due to lack of opinion or decision on that specific race, with boycotting undervoters, the boycotting undervoters are not sitting out the races (all of them) due to an inability to decide or due to lack of opinion, therefore they are not "true undervoters" they are instead having their votes lost BY AN EFFECT OF THE TECHNOLOGY which is what residual votes attempt to measure.

[BeFree]

31. Let's see...

...if citizens have a lack of faith that their votes will not be counted, or not counted correctly, because of the technology, then it can be surmised that the technology causes people to not vote, thereby causing harm to democracy.

Since democracy is harmed, and the technology is the cause of that harm, then the technology needs to be outlawed, or, at the very least, changed as rapidly as possible until a point is reached where the people as a whole have faith that their votes will be counted, and counted correctly.

The poll says that a full 30% of the people may not vote due to the technology. That is indicative of a BIG problem for democracy.

[Febble]

50. Excellent Plain English translation

from the original Shark.

Yes, lack of trust is a big problem for democracy.

Let's list the reasons that DREs are a bad idea:

1. They break down
   
2. They are (often) unauditable
   
3. They can be hacked
   
4. They can be rationed (because they are expensive) unfairly
   
5. They put people off voting.

1-5 are reasons to get rid of them
5 is a reason to encourage people to vote!

And none of the above has anything to do with high residual vote rates in Democratic precincts, which cost Gore the presidency, almost certainly cost Kerry votes, and still needs to be fixed.

I think optical scanners are your best bet, myself, seeing as Americans have problems with this:

[IndyOp]

67. Febble - I nearly got in a fist fight over whether ALL votes in the UK

are paper ballot hand counted. (Being a girl and all, I don't really fist fight, but I felt like decking the rude man who insisted that in big cities people could not possibly vote on paper and hand count the results.)

Can you give me a link to a UK voting information website? How DO you get people motivated to come count? How DO you keep it from becoming a partisan brawl?

By the way, I've used a previous snarky comment of yours to good effect on several occasions with Dems who refuse to believe that elections can be held without machines -- "Maybe Americans are just too lazy to have elections." (Paraphrased).

[Land Shark]

69. Are Americans just ooo lazy to have real elections?

Interesting comment/paraphrase, Indyop (and Febble) GOtta have that convenience, at all costs!!

[Febble]

72. That's funny, I don't remember being that snarky!

We have fist fights about election reform too, but the voting system isn't (yet) part of the argument. We are more worried about non-representation (gerrymandering; proportional representation etc)

You might be interested in this site:

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/

and I do notice there are links on electronic voting systems, which is a bit worrying.

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/links/voting.htm

but it certainly isn't a public issue right now. I think we may be sleep-walking there, however. The ERS does conduct elections for bodies like trades unions, and it looks as though they use optical scanners. But public elections are still simply done on paper and hand-counted.

To be fair on Americans, your ballots are way more complicated, and you have more elections. Getting the vote counted really isn't an issue here. The counters are usually bank tellers, as far as I know, and I don't think they are paid (but I've never managed to find that out for sure). But yes, in big cities (e.g. London) we vote on paper, and the vote are counted by hand, and the results are known in time to get the new government into Downing Street the next day.

However, I just did a bit of googling, and found that in Scotland, where the ballots are more complicated, electronic voting is looming!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/5062236.stm

So as usual, we are just behind you. Not less lazy, just slower.

[Land Shark]

85. Ireland had DREs, and then got rid of them... Of course Eire is not UK!

[Febble]

86. The biggest real threat we face in the UK right now

is theft of postal ballots.

I think the take-home message is: if people want to steal an election, no system is intrinsically immune. You have to have transparency at every point. At present, that lack of transparency is with postal votes, but DREs seem to be looming.

I shall fight both.

[Land Shark]

88. It is true that no system is completely secure

but that doesn't mean that there aren't better and worse systems, and obviously you agree with that point.

As an aside, it seems oddly apparent in "this day and age" that people seem to have lost whatever ability they had to compare things in the grey zone. Thus, the argument that "there's no perfect system for voting" seems most often to lead to a despair and a giving-up, rather than a serious attempt to find the best available system.

The best available system depends upon one's values. So ultimately that's what we should be arguing --- values. IN that regard, I have a rough agreement with Febble, since I interpret her statement that it's a "stronger argument" to point out that DREs are unauditable, insecure, non-transparent and so forth is primarily a values-based argument.

There IS no perfect car, but no one seems deterred from determining which car is best for them (or which non-car). Interesting that this comparative process doesn't get so readily and immediately triggered when people are thinking about the relative merits of voting systems....

[Febble]

93. Oh, I specialise in grey areas

That's why I like clear problem definitions.

• DREs are insecure, non-tranparent, and, without voter-verified paper records with the status of a ballot, unauditable. They are also unreliable. However, if they worked properly, they would probably be more accurate than
  
• Punchcards, which are crap, count badly, but are probably more difficult to rig, and I don't trust
  
• Levers, because my data is telling me there is something fishy going on there, which may be to do with ease of use, which leaves
  
• Optical scanners, which are probably good as long as there are good audit protocols and good custody of the ballots, and
  
• Paper, ditto

There is no perfect system, but some are better than others, and having picked the least bad, you can then set about fixing its problems as best you can. I'd go for optical scanners, I think.

[Votergater]

114. I live in the UK and the machines are coming here now...

Almost all elections in the UK are still held with hand counted paper ballots. (we don't have the large numbers of races/candidates that America often has to tabulate)

But, when I produced a 15 minute special filmed report about Diebold for the Channel 4 News (national evening TV news) here in early 2004 we had already counted a few local elections on Sequoia, ES&S and other European company's e-voting systems (as first trial system tests). More recently I learned that the London Mayoral elections have been counted by optical scan software.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's Department Of Constitutional Affairs wants to ramp up e-voting in Britain now. But they very carefully call it "E-Counting", in the hope of avoiding the controversy. They gave the green light to 16 more E-Counting pilot schemes in the May 2006 general election. Two huge London jurisdictions' votes were counted by propietary optical scan software. No testing authority examined the source code. No percentage of ballots were hand counted to check the computer's count.

ES&S has opened a UK office and refused to answer any questions about their company or their systems before our May elections.

This time, with our democracy at stake, I couldn't persuade the Channel 4 News to cover the story.

[IndyOp]

119. Keep up the good fight VG - Go to the voters, not the pols.

The pols won't do anything unless the constituency understands the nightmare that awaits them and demands retention of their pieces of paper!

:kick:

[Votergater]

127. My concern is that like the US media, the UK media is failing too....

I am a journalist and producer, but editors from both TV News and print have told me that there is no story in the new electronic voting systems the UK. They say, oh we'll cover it if the elections break down. Hmm, where have I heard that before?

The failure of the media to inform and educate is at the root of the problem in both our countries.

[Land Shark]

99. Yes, I'll have to cut and paste BeFree's summary

I can't very well cite to BeFree without a real name so I guess I can just steal that summary?? ; )

But "lack of trust" is what democracy NEEDS: It's about checks and balances (a form of distrust) not about trust....

Perhaps in referring to trust what you really mean is voter confidence in the proposition that a voting system has integrity because it proves itself worthy of that confidence with each election. (but that confidence doesn't extend forward to future elections until it is proven that the conditions for reliability (the requsite checks and balances) are indeed in place for that particular election).

[emlev]

38. Would somebody please read my earlier post, #18

and comment on it? Am I off base here? I think I said some important things and would like feedback.

[JimDandy]

40. I'm reading you--literally and figuratively...

Should have replied to let you know--sorry about that. I'm in read mode most of the time, but I'll try to remember to post more.

[emlev]

62. Thank you.

[Votergater]

64. Landshark, what do you think of boycotting all the polls with machines...

... in a campaign to encourage all voters to vote ONLY on a paper absentee ballot? My thinking is that a huge part of the problem is that election officials want computerised voting machines because they (allegedly) make their jobs easier. Election officials largely seem to hate counting and storing masses of paper ballots.

If requests for absentee ballots surged in time for more to have to be printed that could be news. If millions of people refused to turn up to the polls in person that would be news.

Empty polling places, filled with expensive controversial machines plus paper ballots arriving by the millions might cause officals to think again.

Just a thought.

[Land Shark]

71. Probably a good idea. It does have some side effects

but overall I think that where people have a choice of voting they clearly should vote with their feet.

LIke some people vote with their feet and go to Italy for a nice break. I approve of that, wish I were there! : )

[AtLiberty]

109. GO, LOU, GO!!!!

MERCI!