Did Dubbya rig the election?

[BeFree]

Monday 29th November 2004

Michael Meacher smells something fishy in Bush's return to office. The evidence of fraud is not yet conclusive but, given the Republicans' record, it is all too plausible

The great mystery of the US presidential election was that the exit polls, which had been reliable guides in all previous elections, did not tally with the final results. Tony Blair, it is said, went to sleep on 2 November thinking John Kerry had won, but woke in the morning to find that George W Bush was the victor. Many Britons and Americans had the same experience. Nobody has advanced a satisfactory explanation. Now allegations are surfacing that the use of electronic voting systems and optical scanning devices may have had a significant influence on the result. Computer security experts insist that such systems are not secure and not tamper-proof, yet they were used to count a third of the votes across 37 states. Though the Democrats remain strangely coy about the whole subject, academics and political analysts are now drawing comparisons between areas that used paper ballots and areas that used electronic systems. Is it possible that results in the latter were rigged?

An analysis of the poll by different states points up inconsistencies that cannot be explained by random variation. In Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Michigan, Iowa, New Mexico, Maine, Nevada, Arkansas and Missouri, where a variety of different voting systems were used, including paper ballots in many cases, the four companies carrying out exit polls were almost exactly right and their results were certainly within the margin of error. In Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Minnesota, New Hampshire and North Carolina, however, where electronic or optical scanning machines were used (though not exclusively), the tracking polls were seriously discrepant from the published result.

Two aspects of this are immediately striking. One is the large size of the variance, and the other is that in every case it favoured Bush. In Wisconsin and Ohio, the discrepancy favoured Bush by 4 per cent, in Pennsylvania by 5 per cent, in Florida and Minnesota by 7 per cent, in North Carolina by 9 per cent and in New Hampshire by an astonishing 15 per cent.

For rest of the article:
http://www.newstatesman.com/site.php3?newTemplate=NSArticle_NS&newDisplayURN=200411290018



From the wayback DU:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=83843&mesg_id=83843

[ms liberty]

1. K&R n/t

[L. Coyote]

65. SOMEONE DID: OHIO 2004: 6.15% Kerry-Bush vote-switch found in probability study

OHIO 2004: 6.15% Kerry-Bush vote-switch found in probability study

Defining the vote outcome probabilities of wrong-precinct voting has revealed, in a sample of 166,953 votes (1/34th of the Ohio vote), the Kerry-Bush margin changes 6.15% when the population is sorted by probable outcomes of wrong-precinct voting.

The Kerry to Bush 6.15% vote-switch differential is seen when the large sample is sorted by probability a Kerry wrong-precinct vote counts for Bush. When the same large voter sample is sorted by the probability Kerry votes count for third-party candidates, Kerry votes are instead equal in both subsets.

Read the article with graphs of new findings:

The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election: Cuyahoga County Analysis
How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio.html

[sellitman]

2. Does a bear shit in the woods?

:shrug:

[PSPS]

3. Here's all the info you need right here

[tanyev]

9. Wow. That is damning.

And so simple. I hadn't seen that before.

[Febble]

10. Well, it would be if they were true

But they're not. Take a closer look.

[BeFree]

18. Not totally true, but

The exit-poll vs. recorded vote graphs can't be denied.

If there is any fault it is in the listing of whether the ballots were paper or electronic.

Frankly there is much misunderstanding of paper and electronic. Paper punch cards are electronically counted and op-scans - while paper - are also electronically counted. Fully 95% of the vote was run through electronics.

It would be the cherriest of cherry picking to try to devalue those graphs by describing punch cards and op-scans as non electronic.

[Febble]

26. The reason I think the graphs are so bad

is that they simply don't make a coherent case. To call Wisconsin paper and New Hampshire electronic makes no sense. If the voting methods were scrubbed from the charts they might be OK, but there are lots of better charts of state level discrepancies. TIA has some good ones. It's not cherry-picking, it's a fruit salad.

[BeFree]

28. Coherent to me

Those graphs show quite clearly the discrepancies between the exit-polls and recorded votes.

The fact that the precise amount of electronic counting may be variable does not really hurt the reporting.

Anyone can always find prettier and more detailed pictures but these graphs tell the story very well for being just one page.

[Febble]

34. Well, I suggest you download the plots

delete the voting technologies, and then link to the edited plots. These ones just make whoever posts them look as though either they are making stuff up, or haven't bothered to check their facts.

[BeFree]

60. What?

You say: "These ones just make whoever posts them look as though either they are making stuff up, or haven't bothered to check their facts."

Are you calling these people liars, and, or, fools?

Just because it isn't coherent with your agenda does not make such information unreliable.

In fact these graphs are full of factual information. Just not as detailed as can be.

Your attacks on these posters makes it look as though you are the one making stuff up. But that's what we've come to expect.

[Febble]

61. They aren't.

Check them yourself. I don't know whether the person who made them was a liar, a fool, or simply misinformed, but they are not correct. Yes, they are not "coherent with my agenda" because my agenda is getting accurate information on which to build a decent case for election reform. That agenda is not best served by plots that are wrongly labelled. They are not "full of factual information".

You may think it looks as though I am "the one making stuff up" but if you bother to check you will find that that is not the case. It isn't that they lack detail. It is that the detail is actually WRONG.

[Febble]

62. Here's a link for you:

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/verifier/index.php?topic_string=5std&year=2004&topicText=&state=&stateText=

Labelled "paper"

Illinois: Mostly optical scan and punchcard
Wisconsin: Few details given in the link but the NEP precincts were mostly optical scan, plus a few HCPBs
Maine: Shown as "mixed" in link; NEP precincts were over half optical scan, under half HCPBs

Labelled "electronic"

North Carolina: link gives a large variety, mostly optical scan. NEP precincts were mostly DREs and Optical scan, plus a few punchcards
New Mexico: Mostly DREs, some optical scan.
Florida: About half optical scan, half DRE.
Ohio: Mostly punchcard.
New Hampshire: link gives "mixed"; NEP precincts were mostly optical scan, a few HCPBs
Pennsylvania: Link gives levers,optical scanners, DREs and punchcards. NEP precincts were mostly levers, with some DREs, a few optical scanners and punchcards.

So they got Maine right. That's about it.

[BeFree]

63. Again?

Nearly all those ballots were read and tabulated using electronics.

Opscans: electronic count and tabulation
Punchcards: electronic count and tabulation

Levers: electronic tabulations.

[Febble]

64. A problem for you

the exit poll discrepancies were calculated on the precinct counts (mostly) not the tabulations.

And of the three "paper" states, two were tabulated electronically.

In other words, the plots do not tell you anything useful about the relationship between voting technology and exit poll discrepancy.

I can tell you something useful, though, which is that the technology associated with the greatest discrepancies was levers. Non-electronic.

[BeFree]

66. Again?

The problem that the exit polls describe come from the tabulations of the vote. Roughly 95% of the vote was tabulated via electronics. Even levers.

So to say that paper was not run through electronics is making up stuff. And as we see, the electronics that tabulated the vote were in control of the people who ended up winning.

What you are doing is describing a forest by looking at one tree.

[Febble]

67. You missed my point

The exit poll discrepancies weren't (mostly) calculated from the tabulations. They were calculated from the precinct counts. The discrepancies in these plots may have been done from the tabulations of course, but we have the actual precinct level discrepancies in the public domain. You can check them by state. And what they don't show is any association between electronic voting technology and exit poll discrepancy.

Of course there was a discrepancy between the exit polls and the count, and TIA has lots of graphs to show it. I've posted some myself. What is wrong with these is that they are labelled, wrongly, by technology. They imply that Wisconsin was paper - and it was no more paper than New Hampshire was. So what is the point of labelling them differently? None, it's just misleading, because it implies that the large discrepancy in NH might have been because of electronic voting, and the lower discrepancy in Wisconsin was because they used paper. But actually, they used the same technologies - mostly optical scan.

[BeFree]

68. I know what your point is

But what you fail to comprehend is the behind the scenes manipulations - via electronics. A failure of comprehension that never ceases to amaze.

I guess you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.

[Febble]

11. Aaaarghh!!!!!

They just won't go away, these plots.

But they are junk. Check the labels.

Illinois, paper ballots? Well, yes, if you include optical scanners and punchcards.

But in that case, why call New Hampshire "electronic voting" it was optical scanners and actually a few actual HCPBs.

And Florida was half optical scan and half DRE, yet it's listed as "electronic voting".

Wisconsin is supposed to be paper ballots as well. I make it mostly Optical scan.

New Mexico really was mostly electronic voting, but it didn't have such a great exit poll discrepancy. Nonetheless I think Kerry won NM

The only one that looks half right is Maine - they had optical scanners and HCPBs, AND a small exit poll discrepancy.

Pennsylvania had more levers than DREs.

In other words, the plots appear to show some kind of association between exit poll discrepancy and voting method, but they don't because the voting methods given are wrong. The only correlation between voting technology and exit poll discrepancy was with levers. And that was largely driven by NY, which isn't even shown here.

I don't know where these plots came from but I WISH someone would actually correct the labels. The trouble is, if they did, they wouldn't be worth posting.


ETA: Forgot Ohio. Electronic voting? Only in Franklin county. It was mostly punchcards, some optical scanning. If there was fraud, I suspect the punchcards.

[L. Coyote]

76. GOOD POINTS. Best to get past simplifications to complex understandings

It is good to see some reasoning going into a post, instead of generalities.

Here is an Excel with the Exit Poll data and graphs:

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/xls/exit_poll.xls

This is what New Mexico looked like at the county level.
There is a huge difference in under counting by electronic voting vs. not:


New Mexico Election Data with a Statistical Summary and a Non-Voter Analysis.
http://jqjacobs.net/politics/xls/new_mexico_county.xls

[Febble]

78. And see the paper

Josh and I did together here:

http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/NM/NMAnalysis_EL_JM.pdf

[L. Coyote]

75. OHIO: Punch card voting Ohio counties equaled 72.4% of vote in 2004

There were problems in areas w/o electronic voting too. It is more complicated than these graphs would indicate. The vote theft was high in punch card areas.

[PATRICK]

4. The only stat needed

In every case everything favored Bush. Damned unlikely and damned good fraud indicating total impunity, multiple professional tweaking. ALL the highly visible vote suppression or "difficulties" favored Bush even before the invisible counting game started tweaking for George.

Add that to character and consistent behavior and you have the crook standing outside the store with money clutched in hand and a hammer covered with shards of broken glass. But he's the child of the most prominent landowner and the press and the law look the other way.

Arguments as the tabulation evidence and 100% demands on exit polling evidence of discrepancies should not be forced to take the whole burden when nothing is done to hold ANYTHING to accountability. There are legitimate questions why exit polling cannot meet the burden of evidence and unfortunately in the absence
of looking really at the real details we are left like those parsing the grassy Knoll and a single bullet trajectory.

secret counting and zero accountability for vote suppression(to name one) means there is NO legitimacy for such an elected official though the entire world bend the knee and submit to the title. He was not elected, probably ever in his life, and most certainly never fairly and honorably.

[MissWaverly]

7. also it's been poven that the recount in Ohio was rigged

and the reason was a spin reason, they didn't want to make work for themselves, baloney. The recount was rigged to hide that the
election was rigged.

[Febble]

12. Even that isn't true

At precinct level there were a lot of discrepancies well outside the two sigma confidence interval in favour of Kerry. Yes, there were more that favored Bush, but it is simply not true to say that "in every case everything favored Bush". So it is not the only stat you need. It is not a sensible stat to use to make your argument because it is wrong.



This plot shows the discrepancy, in standard errors, on the horizontal axis (and the "swing" to Bush on the vertical). As you can see, while there are far more large errors (positive) favoring Bush there are also a substantial number of large errors (negative) favoring Kerry). If we want to posit fraud as the explanation for these errors, do we also posit pro-Kerry fraud? In which case, how come Bush's gain was no better in the precincts with apparent pro-Bush fraud than in the precincts with apparent pro-Kerry fraud?

The exit poll data simply do not support the massive fraud argument. They have nothing to say about the opportunistic fraud argument, nor, of course about voter suppression, which was clearly a major factor.

[OnTheOtherHand]

13. didn't he say something different?

"ALL the highly visible vote suppression or 'difficulties' favored Bush even before the invisible counting game started tweaking for George."

I didn't think he said that all the exit poll discrepancies favored Bush.

[Febble]

14. Ah, in that case, apologies

But what I read was "everything" and the OP certainly included exit polls.

[PATRICK]

59. I was trying to avoid the polls

specifically because where there is a will there is a statistical interpretation. In conjunction with real revelations about what was really going on will we receive more definitive understandings of how the polls reflect not just the votes but odd discrepancies caused by things other than a voter correctly casting a ballot. The tea leaves could stand some real factual understanding where there is actual fraud going on. We never got that far. And it is vary hard in local races or in smaller sample to say anything at all with such certitude of "evidence". But for some it was the only smoke we had to indicate a gun we knew they were determined to use.

That discussion uncomfortably crinkled toward the tinfoil when any oddity seemed to occur as in the later votes on Ohio amendments. The statistics of polls in Mexico similarly got stonewalled from the evidence but the public added two plus two in my way as to the legitimacy issue. The search for the smoking gun should start with the guns and not the smoke. Similar too is the frustration of the invisibility of the cheat machine processes which we can see how, and why but not the actual proof- if any is possible in too many cases with our zero accountability and flawed audit system. For all Gov. Crist's supposed reforms they intend to make cheating itself LESS punished except again in cases that can be laid at the door of a few Dems in order to suppress the vote. One suspects they have a new game plan there, possibly to lure our primary candidates into another Reno-like debacle. These sudden partial conversions inspire only suspicion considering.

The viability of the e-voting myth was sacrificed to get Bush elected despite its bullying success that one night and in the submission of too many Dems with poor expertise or judgment in the machines that are built with the ingrained ability to rob them with impunity.

[glengarry]

19. You failed to normalize the data in your swing vs. red-shift scatter chart

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm#RedShiftSwing

Exit Poll Red-shift vs. Swing

They claimed that the raw exit poll data from 1250 precincts which have not been made public indicates that there was no tendency for Bush to do better in 2004 relative to 2000 (“swing”) than he did in the 2004 exit poll (“red-shift”). They presented their analysis in a swing vs. red-shift scatter chart and concluded from the flat regression line that the exit poll discrepancies had little effect and therefore fraud was unlikely.

But they did not considering the following factors: According to the 2004 National Exit Poll, Kerry won 71% of returning Nader voters compared to 21% for Bush. A similar split would have increased Gore’s margin by 1.4mm. Assuming that 75% of approximately 3 million uncounted votes were for Gore, his margin increases by another 1.5mm. When added to his recorded 540,000 vote majority, Gore’s adjusted margin becomes 3.4mm. And that does not consider the effects of vote-switching. Thanks to Ohio, we know a lot more about vote-switching than we did in 2000. It’s very likely that Gore votes were switched to Bush. If 3% (1.5 million) were switched, then his final adjusted margin is 6.4 million: 3mm switched + 1.5mm uncounted + 1.4mm Nader + 0.54mm recorded.


They never normalized the 2-party vote shares in calculating “swing”. But adjusted swing (before vote switching) exceeded red-shift in 24 of the 43 states which deviated to Bush. Adjusted national swing was 3% (51.24-48.24). Based on the NEP “Voted in 2000” demographic, red-shift was 3.15% (51.24-48.09); based on Gender, it was 2.53% (51.24-48.71). But the red-shift was just 1.75% (51.24-49.49) based on the weighted average state poll.

This clearly indicates that the naysayer swing vs. red-shift argument is just another ruse meant to divert, confuse and mislead. With 3% vote-switching, Bush’s adjusted vote swing exceeded red-shift in 34 of the 43 red-shift states. A realistic linear regression analysis of adjusted swing vs. redshift shows that for every 1% increase in swing, red-shift increased by 0.6% as opposed to the flat regression line in the naysayer scatter chart. According to the 2004 EIRS (Election Incident Reporting System), 86 of 88 incidents of touch screen vote switching were from Kerry to Bush, a 1 in 79 sextillion probability.

Here's a graph of normalized state swing vs red-shift:



The recorded 2000 vote was normalized using three factors:

1) Third-party (primarily Nader) share of 2000 voters:
According to the National Exit Poll, Kerry won returning Nader 2000 voters by 71-21% over Bush. We need to revise the 2000 vote totals accordingly by allocating the Nader vote to Gore and Bush by the same proportion.

2) Uncounted votes:
According to the 2004 Election Census, there were 125.7mm total votes cast but only 122.3mm were recorded; 3.4mm (2.74%) were uncounted. In 2000, there were 104.7mm votes recorded. Assuming the 2004 uncounted vote rate in 2000, 107.7mm total votes were cast and 3.0mm were uncounted. Since the majority of uncounted ballots are found in Democratic minority districts, a fair assumption is that 75% of the lost votes were for Gore. There were 180,000 spoiled ballots (under and over votes) in Florida.

3) Switched votes:
The True Vote Model base case scenario indicates that 7.6% of Kerry’s recorded vote (6.8% of total votes cast) was switched to Bush. An exhaustive review of the ballots in Ohio's Cuyahoga County determined that 6.15% of Kerry’s votes were switched. For this analysis, the best case assumption is that 3.0% of Gore votes were switched.

The following is an analysis of the effects of the 2000 Nader vote, uncounted and switched votes. The results contradict the naysayer argument that no relationship exists between 2004 exit poll red-shift and vote swing from 2000 to 2004.


Assumptions:

Nader Vote Allocations:
Gore: 71%; Bush: 21%; Other: 8%

Uncounted Votes:
3.0% of total votes cast
Gore: 75%; Bush: 25%
Kerry: 75%; Bush: 25%

Switched Votes:
Gore to Bush: 3.0%
Kerry to Bush: 7.6%


Key Results:

Recorded 2-party shares:
Gore recorded: 50.27; Swing 1.51
Kerry state exit poll: 50.51; Red-shift 1.75
Kerry NEP: 51.93; Red-shift 3.17

Adjusted 2-party shares:
Gore adjusted recorded: 53.15; Swing 4.39
Kerry adjusted NEP: 53.09; Red-shift 4.33

Swing vs. Red Shift –

Assumptions:
Uncounted votes (percent of total votes cast)
2000: 3.00%
2004: 2.74%

Democratic share of uncounted votes: 75%

Nader vote allocation:
Gore 71%
Bush 21%
Other 8%

Vote: recorded 2-party vote share.
Adjusted vote: 2-party vote share adjusted for Nader allocation, uncounted and switched votes.

Adjusted Swing = Bush 2004 vote – Bush 2000 Adjusted vote
Red-shift = Bush 2004 vote – Bush 2004 Exit Poll


Key Result:
Bush did better in 2004 relative to 2000 (swing) in 34 of the 43 states which red-shifted from the exit polls.

This invalidates the naysayer Swing vs. Red-shift argument.


........Swing Red-shift Diff
National 4.39 3.17 1.22
OH 2.19 3.12 -0.93
FL 5.15 2.45 2.70
PA 3.58 3.15 0.43
IA 3.33 1.01 2.32
NM 3.47 1.74 1.73

More...
View Swing vs. Red-shift calculations for all the states.

[OnTheOtherHand]

22. you call that "normalize"?

It's really rather staggering: the so-called "adjusted" red shift measure is not statistically significantly correlated with the so-called "actual" measure.

It isn't significantly correlated with the "adjusted" swing measure, either -- which substantially mitigates my curiosity about the result. But c'mon, a new red shift measure that is barely correlated with the original? That's sort of like saving astrology by discovering that all along we've been using the wrong star signs.

[glengarry]

32. You misread the analysis. It's the 2000 recorded vote that must be adjusted, not 2004 red-shift...

Read it again.

[Febble]

35. So did you

adjust the 2004 recorded vote as well?

[OnTheOtherHand]

36. so, I should just ignore the "adjusted red shift"?

While I'm asking, what are the other parts that I should just ignore?

[glengarry]

38. Yes, normalization adjustments were made to both 2000 and 2004.

But Febble did not normalize (adjust) for these factors in her scatter chart: Nader, uncounted and switched votes.

I suggest you and Febble read this:
http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm#RedShiftSwing

As usual, TIA shows ALL calculations for national and state red-shift/swing, not just a scatter diagram of dots which can't be verified. But that's ok; the premise is obviously incorrect; Febble did not account for Nader, uncounted votes and switched votes. She was comparing apples to oranges.

Febble never bothered to create a model to determine switched votes (6.8% of total votes cast for Kerry were switched to Bush; she ignored the fact that 3% of total votes cast (see Palast and 2004 Census) are uncounted, 75% of which are Democratic; she did not account for the Nader effect (71% of the vote to Gore and Kerry, based on the 2004 NEP).

Know the Truth:
Adjusted True 2000 Vote = recorded vote + Nader vote + uncounted votes + switched votes.

[OnTheOtherHand]

39. fact check

glengarry, what is the range of "adjusted swing" in the table in the text to which you link?

What is the range of swing in the scatterplot?

Before you go vouching for TIA's logic, perhaps you should check his numbers more closely. As I've said elsewhere -- in a thread that you seem strangely to have dropped -- it isn't up to me to make TIA's arguments make sense.

[glengarry]

40. Just look for them; it's all right there in the table, national and all states...

Take a look and at what the swing/red-shift numbers are.
And if you disagree with them, tell us why.

[OnTheOtherHand]

56. since you refuse to answer my questions, let me set the record straight

TIA's table presents four variables as the last four columns. I will reverse the order of the last two.

"Swing actual" (the change in Bush's two-party vote share) ranges from -4.7 to 5.5.

"Swing adjust" (what TIA thinks the swing ought to be) ranges from -1.1 to 8.6.

"Redshift actual" (what TIA thinks the redshift actually was?) ranges from -2.5 to 5.4. (Presumably this figure is based on someone's calculations from screen shots, which means that it incorporates pre-election polls.)

"Redshift adjust" (of which more below) ranges from 3.3 to 6.3.

TIA's two swing measures are highly correlated, but TIA's redshift measures are barely correlated. His "adjusted" redshift measure has a standard deviation one quarter that of the original measure. As far as anyone else in the world who has ever analyzed exit poll discrepancies is concerned, he might as well be using random numbers in his "adjusted" red shift measure. How did this happen?

TIA hasn't explained this "adjusted" red shift measure very clearly, but it is derived from Kerry's recorded two-party vote share. The assumption is, the more Democratic the state (in the returns), the larger the "adjusted" red shift: Kerry's vote share and "adjusted" red shift rise in lockstep. Ergo, "adjusted" red shift was largest in DC and smallest in Utah. If a fixed percentage of Kerry votes was changed to Bush votes in every state, this "measure" would indicate what a perfect exit poll "should have" found. The very low correlation between "adjusted" red shift and "actual" red shift should serve as a warning that something has gone wrong. The exit polls don't support the inference that vote shifting affected a fixed percentage of Kerry's votes, and neither does any other line of evidence I've ever seen.

So, "adjusted" red shift doesn't seem to have much to do with red shift, but in correlational analysis, it will give basically the same results as Kerry (or Bush) vote share.

Your response to my query in #36 appears to be that indeed I should just ignore the adjusted red shift, but maybe I am misreading. At any rate, it turns out that I can't just ignore adjusted red shift.

Anyone who wants can look along at the scatterplot to which you linked, <>. The plot purports to present "Adjusted 2000 Swing" on the X axis and "2004 Red-shift" on the Y axis. Which brings us to the questions that you refused to answer.

"glengarry, what is the range of 'adjusted swing' in the table in the text to which you link?"

Answer: adjusted swing in the table ranges from -1.1 to 8.6, as I noted above.

"What is the range of swing in the scatterplot?"

Answer: "adjusted 2000 swing" in the scatterplot ranges from 3.3 to 6.3.

In other words, "swing" in the scatterplot is actually TIA's "adjusted red shift" measure.

So, what TIA presents as a refutation of the non-correlation between swing and red-shift actually doesn't use swing at all.

Note, however, that TIA fails to report a correlation, R-squared, or P value for the relationship between "swing" in the scatterplot (which actually isn't swing) and red-shift. That relationship is not statistically significant, so even if TIA were using the right measure, his finding would be a non-finding.

Note further, however, that if one correlates either of TIA's swing measures with his actual red shift measure (as these appear in his table), the correlation is very slightly negative. Thus, TIA has replicated Febble's basic result -- an insignificant negative correlation between swing and shift -- using state-level data. This finding will be a useful confirmation of Febble's work, if he ever gets around to reporting it correctly.

[Febble]

58. Thanks OTOH

I couldn't for the life of me figure out what he'd done.

BTW, I just checked whether Nader's vote in 2000 could have been masking Bush's swing in 2004 states with fraud. I haven't checked every state, but on an initial inspection, it looks as though if anything, it was pushing the correlation in the opposite direction to that required to make TIA's argument.

Bottom line: there is absolute no evidence that redshift in the poll was correlated with advantage to Bush. This strongly suggests that it had a different cause to anything that benefitted Bush, i.e. the finding contra-indicates pro-Bush fraud as a cause of redshift.

[glengarry]

71. 4/30 Update: State Red-shift vs. Adjusted Swing

I see that TIA has updated his analysis on his site to fix some erors found in the previous OTOH post. Kudos to OTOH for finding them.

TIA produced a new barchart and table which still show that Adjusted Swing exceeded red-shift, even assuming there was no vote-switching from Gore to Bush in 2000. The assumption is that Gore's recorded total increased by 71% of Nader votes and 75% of the uncounted votes.

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm#RedShiftSwing

"Assuming 3% vote-switching from Gore to Bush, swing exceeded red-shift in 43 states. Average adjusted state swing was 4.0%; average red-shift, 1.5%. Weighted average adjusted swing was 3.74%; weighted average red-shift, 1.41%. Assuming zero vote-switching in 2000, adjusted swing exceeded red-shift in 32 states. Average adjusted swing was 2.58%; weighted average swing was 2.39%".

[Febble]

72. Well, good for TIA, for acknowledging his error

The trouble is that what he has now is completely irrelevant to my finding. It doesn't matter whether swing exceeded redshift or didn't.

What matters is whether the two are positively correlated with each other, and they aren't (as even his own numbers show). That suggests they had different causes, which is my point. The fraud theory is that they had the same cause - fraud.

[BeFree]

73. Heh

Actually your findings are pretty much irrelevant to anything.

Everybody knows there are fifty ways to lose your vote and that the crooks used all 50.

In places that used DRE's in 2004 that in 2000 used paper of some sort, the increased bush totals point to e-fraud. You might want to do a study of that.

[Febble]

74. I'd be interested in a study of that:

"In places that used DRE's in 2004 that in 2000 used paper of some sort, the increased bush totals point to e-fraud. You might want to do a study of that."

Do you have a link, or a reference? Link to data?

Thanks

Lizzie

[Febble]

43. Well, I haven't yet figured out

exactly what you've done, but if you've adjusted both 2000 and 2004 vote shares on the basis of votes you think where switched, you can't very well use the plot to demonstrate that votes were switched. It would assuming your conclusion before you start your analysis, wouldn't it?

[glengarry]

45. The 6.8% Kerry vote-switch was calculated based on several factors.

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm#UncountedAndSwitchedVotes

Here is how TIA calculated the national 6.8% Kerry to Bush vote-switch. He estimated a 3% vote-switch from Gore to Bush.

Uncounted and Switched Votes

Given the Kerry true vote of 66.1 million (based on the 12:22am NEP with feasible weights) and his recorded vote (59.0mm) we can calculate the number of votes which were switched from Kerry to Bush. If we assume that Kerry won 75% (2.6 of 3.4mm) of the uncounted votes based on the Census total of 125.7mm, then 4.5mm (6.8%) of the Kerry vote must have been switched. Furthermore, if we assume that 6.8% of the votes were switched uniformly in each state and allocate the uncounted votes to each state based on population and racial mix, the True Vote Model indicates that Kerry won 336 electoral votes (Sensitivity Analysis I). This result matched the pre-election Monte Carlo Electoral Vote Simulation base case forecast that Kerry would win 337 electoral votes (the average of 5000 election trials). The assumption was that Kerry would win 75% of the undecided vote.


12:22am National Exit Poll


Voted in 2000
........Weight Votes Kerry Bush Other
DNV 21.49% 27.02 57% 41% 2%
Gore 38.23% 48.08 91% 8% 1%
Bush 37.83% 47.56 10% 90% 0%
Nader 2.46% 3.09 71% 21% 8%

Total 100% 52.57% 46.43% 1.00%
Votes 125.74 66.10 58.38 1.26

Given:
125.74 million votes cast (2004 Census)
122.295 million votes recorded
3.445 million votes uncounted

Assume:
2.584 million (75%) uncounted votes for Kerry
95% turnout of Gore and Bush 2000 voters

Calculate:
The number of votes cast for Kerry switched to Bush.

Solution:
True Vote (T) = Recorded (R) + Uncounted (U) + Switched (S)
S = T - R - U = 66.097 - 59.027 - 2.582 = 4.488mm

Switched vote rate:
SVR = S / T = 4.488 / 66.097 = 6.79%




SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS I:
Various effects of incremental switched vote rates (SVR)
(75% Kerry share of uncounted votes)


...............Kerry Bush Kerry Bush Margin KerryEV BushEV Flipped to Bush
Recorded 48.27% 50.73% 59027 62040 -3013 252 286
SVR
6.8% 52.57% 46.43% 66097 58383 7714 336 202 CO FL IA MO NV NM OH
6.5% 52.42% 46.58% 65906 58570 7336 325 213 CO FL IA NV NM OH
6.0% 52.15% 46.84% 65575 58901 6675 325 213
5.0% 51.63% 47.37% 64914 59562 5353 325 213

4.0% 51.10% 47.90% 64253 60223 4031 325 213
3.0% 50.58% 48.42% 63592 60883 2709 289 249 IA NV NM
2.0% 50.05% 48.95% 62931 61544 1387 289 249
1.0% 49.52% 49.47% 62270 62205 65 264 274 IA NM
0.0% 49.00% 50.00% 61609 62866 -1257 264 274


SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS II:
Effect of incremental uncounted and switched votes on electoral vote


Kerry Electoral Vote

Uncounted Vote Share
SVR 50% 55% 60% 65% 70% 75% 80%

6.8% 325 325 325 325 325 336 336
6.5% 325 325 325 325 325 325 336
6.0% 325 325 325 325 325 325 325
5.0% 298 298 325 325 325 325 325

4.0% 289 289 289 289 289 325 325
3.0% 289 289 289 289 289 289 289
2.0% 264 284 284 284 289 289 289
1.0% 264 264 264 264 264 264 284
0.0% 252 252 252 252 259 264 264



SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS III:
Effect of incremental uncounted and switched votes on Kerry vote share

Kerry Vote Share

Uncounted Vote Share
SVR 50% 55% 60% 65% 70% 75% 80%

6.8% 51.89% 52.03% 52.16% 52.30% 52.44% 52.57% 52.71%
6.5% 51.73% 51.87% 52.00% 52.14% 52.28% 52.42% 52.55%
6.0% 51.47% 51.60% 51.74% 51.88% 52.02% 52.15% 52.29%
5.0% 50.94% 51.08% 51.22% 51.35% 51.49% 51.63% 51.76%

4.0% 50.42% 50.55% 50.69% 50.83% 50.96% 51.10% 51.24%
3.0% 49.89% 50.03% 50.16% 50.30% 50.44% 50.58% 50.71%
2.0% 49.36% 49.50% 49.64% 49.78% 49.91% 50.05% 50.19%
1.0% 48.84% 48.98% 49.11% 49.25% 49.39% 49.52% 49.66%
0.0% 48.31% 48.45% 48.59% 48.72% 48.86% 49.00% 49.14%



SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS IV:
Effect of incremental uncounted and switched votes on margin


Margin (in thousands)

Uncounted Vote Share
SVR 50% 55% 60% 65% 70% 75% 80%

6.8% 6011 6355 6699 7044 7388 7732 8077
6.5% 5614 5958 6303 6647 6991 7336 7680
6.0% 4953 5297 5642 5986 6330 6675 7019
5.0% 3631 3975 4320 4664 5008 5353 5697

4.0% 2309 2654 2998 3342 3686 4031 4375
3.0% 987 1332 1676 2020 2365 2709 3053
2.0% -335 10 354 698 1043 1387 1731
1.0% -1657 -1312 -968 -624 -279 65 409
0.0% -2979 -2634 -2290 -1946 -1601 -1257 -913

[Febble]

30. "Normalize" appears to mean

"massage until the regression slope goes the way I want it". The last time I checked on your "normalized" numbers, the slope was going the other way.

What the hell did you do with those numbers?

And aren't you supposed to be tombstoned anyway?

[glengarry]

37. I am not TIA. I am glengarry. It just so happens that I believe..

that Truth Is All and follow all of his logic. Apparently, you don't.

Apparently, you disbelieve his Election Fraud Analysis.

Why don't you try to refute every point he makes in the Introduction:
http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm

TIA projected the 2004 election for Kerry. And Kerry won.
TIA projected in 2006 that the Democrats would regain the House and Senate but that they would be cheated out of 10-20 seats. They did and they were.

What have you contributed?
Where are your models?

His Response to the Truth Is All Faq speaks for itself.
He has rebutted every naysayer argument. What are you left with? False recall?

Kerry won. TIA proves it statistically in a hundred different ways. The pre-election and exit polls were right - until they were forced to match the vote count.

Apparently, you believe the final national and state exit polls which were all forced to match the recorded vote. Yet you disbelieve the earlier polls which were not matched to the vote and which Kerry won.

Ergo, you must believe that Bush won.
This is 2007. That you still believe it is unbelievable.

[OnTheOtherHand]

41. let's rock!

"It just so happens that I believe that Truth Is All and follow all of his logic."

Right behind you, I see the millions.
On you, I see the glory.
From you, I get opinions.
From you, I get the story.

You are certainly welcome to "believe that Truth Is All and follow all of his logic," but some of us do need to assess the arguments. You may believe that TIA has rebutted all of his critics, but this would come as news to his critics -- and not only to me.

Since you mention 2006, I will just invite people again to see what happened when TIA's arguments about 2006 were subjected to scrutiny here on DU: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=2775205#2775205

Some excerpts from various posters:

"NO! NO! No, that's completely and utterly wrong, twice over!"

"Oh, Dear. Still pushing that 76 Billion to 1 hogwash. It does incacluable (sic) harm to efforts to get clean elections."

"so he admits he's cherry-picking. But thinks I'm doing likewise by pointing it out. Almost a Rumsfeldian explanation for why he dropped data points that didn't fit the conclusion he wanted...."

"It's obvious some people have never taken Statistics. These posts are just embarrassing."

(referring to 2004) "My friend then forwarded the presentation to a colleague whose life is statistical analysis. His conclusion? I'm paraphrasing here, but it boiled down to something similar to what Skinner said regarding this presentation, 'The underlying assumptions are false. This is a case of a conclusion being sought and the methods and assumptions fixed to surround what is sought. This is the kind of thing that makes people distrust statistical analysis.'... The worthy goal of exposing election fraud is not aided by bad statistical analysis and in fact works exactly in the opposite direction."

"Without acquiring the whole data set and doing a more supportable analysis, i would estimate the final conclusion to be off by a factor of AT LEAST 100,000."

"TIA is like Fox News, only for the left.... Will say anything to make his 'math' work."

Skinner: "This analysis is an embarrassment.... The problem is not in the mathematics (although I have not checked the math, so it's possible that there are errors there, too). The problem is in the assumptions he used before he even started. TIA assumes that the 'generic poll' should match the recorded votes. This is, quite simply, WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG..... Think, people. THINK."

[glengarry]

50. Why don't you tear apart TIA's latest response to the "Truth Is All FAQ"

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm

What are the credentials of the posters you cite? Is this the extent of their work: "Hogwash", "cherry-picking", "embarrassing" , "Rumsfeldian", "bad statistical analysis", "Fox News", "wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong"?

Exactly what part of TIA's analysis have they attempted to debunk? Do any of them provide specific analysis or is it all just handwaving?

Why don't you also quote Landshark, Autorank, Palast, Miller, Baiman, Freeman, RFK Jr., Fitrakis, Simon, Richard Hayes Phillips, etc. and the other 99% of DUers who believe that the pre-election and exit polls are compelling evidence that the election was stolen?

Have you read the latest version of TIA's Response to your "Truth Is All FAQ"? You should tear right through the Introduction, paragraph by paragraph, point by point. You probably have already. Then you can link to his supporting data and analysis. Go right ahead. It's all out there - all his data, assumptions and calculations. Rip it apart. And could you find just one expert besides Febble to confirm your analysis?

It's time to update your FAQ and refute TIA's 30+ detailed rebuttals. Take it to the next step. Rebut his data with your data. Rebut his analysis with your analysis. And be sure to provide the same level of detail he does. After all, you must have spent many days putting the original together. Might as well finish the job and finally put TIA out of his misery.

Let's see your arguments side by side with his, so that DUers and other interested parties can decide who has put forth the best case.

I realize you are starting from far behind. But maybe you can still win the hearts and minds of the 99% of DUers who believe Bush stole both elections. You haven't yet made the case that the polls were wrong and the vote count was right. How long have you been trying? Two years? Maybe, just maybe, you can still convince us. But I doubt it.

And then, if you are successful, you can write the next great American tome: "No Lie: How Bush Won Re-election Fair and Square"

That should keep you busy for a while.

[OnTheOtherHand]

53. what do you think I've been doing?

Do I need to point again to all the objections and questions that you have left unanswered? If there is any point of TIA's analysis that you still think is convincing, I dare you to explain and defend it without copying and pasting the stuff that I have already rebutted. But first, why don't you go back and respond to the rebuttals I have already posted? Otherwise you are just talking to yourself.

For instance, you might go back here, where I actually presented TIA's "rebuttals" in full so that everyone can see there is nothing there. Whereupon you fled the thread, and came over here, still claiming victory. Sort of like you disappeared after I pointed out TIA's made-up facts about the 1988 New Hampshire primary polls, and then came back in another branch without correcting the mistakes. That's how this seems to go.

[Febble]

15. PATRICK: apologies

shot from the hip.

I quite agree that "exit polling cannot meet the burden of evidence". But in the circs, I think it's a damaging argument to mention it at all, and the statement that "everything favored Bush" certainly doesn't apply to that portion of the evidence.

[BeFree]

16. We know, we know

You'd like it if the exit-poll argument just went away... that you, Feeble, have been the lone ranger for proving that the exit-polls are no good to technically prove the election was stolen. We know that.

But when you lump together the reported glitches, the people behind the voting machines and the machines error prone ways; and the way in which the election was conducted, with the exit-poll shenanigans, one simply has to conclude that bushco stole the election.

I find it strange that I have to tell you this again, and again.

[blm]

17. Yes - what ever happened to preponderance of the evidence?

It's like people want to pick at a tree or two instead of seeing the entire forest.

[BeFree]

20. Yeah

Just like British did with the evidence in Iraq, using one little part of the big picture to try and describe the whole situation. Remember bush placing the credibilty of the Niger uranium on the British intelligence?

Well, people know the whole story now.

[Febble]

23. The reason I'd like it

if the exit poll argument went away is because it's a bloody terrible argument. It doesn't support your case.

But nice to talk to you - you seem to be back in communication!

Cheers

Lizzie

[BeFree]

27. Doesn't support?

Look around you, there are but a few people who support your case. After all these years just minutiae.

And besides, as we've discussed, your evidence is proprietary and closely held while our evidence can be found anywhere.

[Febble]

31. Well, if you want to use a bad argument

feel free. But in my experience it usually amounts to shooting yourself in the foot.

[FogerRox]

49. Febble.. try this.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x471730

IMHO this is as close as we have gotten in 2 years. This one is smokin hot.

[Febble]

54. I just don't know how to evaluate this

You think it's smokin hot?

I have a lot of respect for Josh. On the other hand, he's not always right.

But thanks :)

[glengarry]

29. Exit polls don't support the case that the election was stolen?

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm#SmokingGun


The Final National and Ohio Exit Polls were forced to match the vote count. Are you saying that this is the basis of your argument that the exit polls don't support all the other hard evidence that the election was stolen?

And what about the 12:22am National and Ohio Exit polls which indicate that Kerry won? Are you saying that this is the basis of your argument that the exit polls don't support all the other hard evidence that the election was stolen?

Which one is it?

Two questions, Febble:
1. Do you believe that the 2000 election was stolen?
2. Do you believe that the 2004 election was stolen?

[Febble]

33. No, I don't think the exit polls

support the other hard evidence. Actually, I think they detract from it. For example, the exit polls would suggest that the greatest vote theft occurred in places like New York, but most of the interesting evidence has turned up in Ohio. Or New Mexico, where the exit polls were not that far out.

And they also suggest that if fraud was responsible for the exit poll discrepancy, the fraud must have been widespread and uniform. The other evidence suggests that it was concentrated and non-uniform.

As for your other questions, see my response to baldyman.

[glengarry]

44. Let's take a close look at Ohio and NY

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm#Ohio

Kerry won the Ohio exit poll: 52.1-47.9%
Bush won the vote: 51.06-48.94
That's a 3.16% discrepancy; the MoE was 2.21%

In New York, Bush couldn't steal the state, but he sure could pad his popular vote share (Kerry 58.5- Bush 40.2%) without raising flags. After all, Kerry won big-time.

But...Kerry did much better than 58.5% and the NY Exit Poll (63-35) was close to the True vote. Here's why:

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm#Introduction

They cited the final NY pre-election poll which Kerry won by 59-40 (closely matching the 58.5-40.2 recorded vote) to support their argument that the pre-election polls did not match the exits (the NY exit poll was 62.8-35.4)....

They implied that the NY pre-election poll was accurate since it matched the recorded vote. But this is not plausible since the 2000 recorded vote was Gore 60.5-Bush 35.4-Nader 4.1 and the 2004 NEP reported that 10% of Bush2000 voters defected to Kerry while just 8% of Gore voters defected to Bush.

Assuming conservatively that the Bush/Gore defection rates were equal, the 59-40 recorded vote implies that 100% of returning Nader 2000 voters defected to Bush as did 2.5% of Gore voters - an absolute impossibility.

The NEP indicated that Kerry won Nader voters by 71-21. Allocating 71% of the Nader2000 votes to Kerry and 21% to Bush and assuming equal defection rates, the vote split is Kerry 63.4-Bush 36.3, which closely matched the exit poll. After allocation of the approximate 3% of total NY votes which were cast but not counted (75% Kerry; 25% Bush) the vote split becomes Kerry 64-Bush 35.

And that does not include the votes which were switched from Kerry to Bush. So Kerry probably did even better than 64%.

[OnTheOtherHand]

46. oh, goodness

If you really aren't TIA, you will have to start thinking for yourself. Try it in your own words.

"They cited the final NY pre-election poll which Kerry won by 59-40...."

Nope, wrong. Not only have I never cited that poll, I've actually never seen that poll.

Why don't you check the NY polls for the last week before the election and let us and TIA know what they said? That would be adding value, not just copying and pasting.

"...the 2004 NEP reported that 10% of Bush2000 voters defected to Kerry while just 8% of Gore voters defected to Bush."

Wow. Just, wow. See, if you can't defend that argument over on the other thread, it's pretty unpersuasive to quote it over here.

But worse, even if those percentages applied to the entire country, how would you know that they applied to New York?

"So Kerry probably did even better than 64%."

:eyes:

What would be cool would be if TIA predicted in advance of the election that Kerry would get more than 64% in New York. Weird, but cool.

[glengarry]

47. Regarding the NY pre-election polls, I quote from your "Truth Is All FAQ"

"Nope, wrong. Not only have I never cited that poll, I've actually never seen that poll".

Oh, yes you did.
Otherwise, how would you know that "the official result is very close to pre-election predictions" unless you knew of the final NY pre-election polls?

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm#_Explaining_the_Exit

4.10. Aren't you offering a lot of unproven speculation?

You could call it that, or you could call it scientific reasoning on the basis of incomplete evidence. William Jennings Bryan once said that "Darwinism... is only a guess and was never anything more" -- but Bryan made no systematic attempt to consider how well "Darwinism" explained a broad variety of evidence, compared with the explanatory power of alternative theories. Attributing outcomes to the unfathomable will of God "explains" them by eschewing any attempt to understand them. In practice, attributing exit poll outcomes to fraud often suffers the same limitation. People who insist that the exit polls evince fraud have made little or no attempt to explain, for instance, why the exit poll discrepancies vary with interviewer age and education,

********************
or why the exit polls point to double-digit fraud in New York, a lever-machine state where Bush had no chance of winning, and where the official result is very close to pre-election predictions.
**********************

Given all the respects in which participation bias fits the data, and in which massive fraud does not, it is hard to understand how anyone can argue straightfaced that participation bias is the more speculative theory.

TIA:

The exit polls point to double-digit fraud in NY? That’s misleading. According to the exit poll, Kerry won NY by 63-36%. The recorded vote was 58.5- 40.1%, a 4.5% discrepancy. In 2000, Gore won NY by 61-35% with 4% of the vote going to Nader. According to the NEP, 71% of Nader 2000 voters voted for Kerry in 2004; just 21% voted for Bush, a better than 3-1 ratio. Let’s assume that Kerry matched Gore's 61% and won 75% of Nader 2000 voters. Then Kerry won by 63-36%, matching the Exit Poll. And yes, there is evidence that Lever machines are vulnerable to miscounts at the voting machine and central tabulator.

[OnTheOtherHand]

57. hello?

I didn't say that I didn't know of the final NY pre-election polls. The question at hand is whether you know of the final NY pre-election polls. Apparently not.

And my invitation to add value, instead of copying and pasting, sailed over your head. So be it.

[L. Coyote]

77. The focus should be on specific state exit polls with anomolous disparities

outside of a reasonable margin of error. After all, polling is inferential statistics, unlike analysis of the voting results (descriptive statistics without a margin of error).


From: http://jqjacobs.net/politics/xls/exit_poll.xls

[MasonJar]

5. We need to send more people to jail; that will put the hiatus to some of this

cheating. Harris should go and so should Blackwell...just for starters.

[Kurovski]

6. Can we expect our ER "poll experts" to weigh in anytime soon?

Gotta defend Bush's win, by default of course. ;-)

[Febble]

8. Defend?

DEFEND????

I think it was appalling.

[TheBaldyMan]

21. could you make a couple of things clear for me please?

In your opinion did Bush steal the 2000 election?

In your opinion did Bush steal the 2004 election?

[Febble]

24. In my opinion

Gore won the 2000 election, and should have been inaugurated as president. I still fail to see why he wasn't. Bush v. Gore makes no sense to me at all, in fact it seems to me to be completely contradictory, but I'm no lawyer.

I consider it highly probable that in 2004 Bush won more of the votes cast, nationally. I think it probable that he won more of the votes cast in Ohio. I think it is probable that had the playing field been level, Kerry would have won a great many more votes than he did, and possibly (but not probably) won Ohio. I don't think it is probable that he would have won the popular vote.

As for whether this amounts to direct theft by Bush, or by his minions (e.g. Blackwell), I don't know. I think your election system is lax, probably corrupt, and certainly unjust. I think it needs radical reform. I think mandatory random manual audits would be a good start. But my hunch is that by far the biggest electoral injustice in both years lies in voter suppression and disenfranchisment, and that this differentially affects the Democratic vote. So the reform needs to tackle votes not cast as well as votes not counted.

I also think that paperless DREs should be outlawed, because not only are they corruptible, they are both unreliable and unauditable, and that is completely unacceptable.

[TheBaldyMan]

51. We're almost in complete agreement then.

IMO Bush lost 2004 as well, as to the US electoral system - I think it's different from my native one (I'm British) and far more complex.

There is a thread from around the time of the 2006 election that discussed possible reforms. The US system seems to be necessarily complex because Americans can vote for so many of their public officials, i.e. Judges and police chiefs, as well as local plebiscites and not forgetting county, state and federal level politicians. That means a very complex single ballot form or lots of individual ballots having to be used. In the UK the worst case scenario is a local, regional, national and euro-election held at the same time. Four paper ballots maximum all of them counted within 48 hours most within a few hours.

The electoral college makes it possible for a minority vote to carry the result but widespread cases of voter suppression (a felony in the US) especially in marginal states where the Republicans controlled the State's electoral machinery makes it clear in my view that Bush stole 2004 as well. In 2006 so many were voting Democratic that even the usual attempts to suppress the vote failed.

I agree that a verifiable paper receipt of how one cast one's vote is long overdue.

[Febble]

55. Sorry, didn't know you were a Brit!

So am I. Actually, you seem to be a Scot - in which case we have that in common too.

What do you think of the new Scottish electoral system?

Cheers

Lizzie

[TheBaldyMan]

69. I have to plead almost complete ignorance

I've been resident in England for 20 years.

[Febble]

70. I've been an expat

for 40. But my family are still north of the border.

[Peace Patriot]

25. You put rightwing Bushite corporations in charge of vote counting, and give them

"trade secret," proprietary programming code--code so secret not even our secretaries of state are permitted to review it--virtually no audit/recount controls, secret industry "testing" of the machines, unregulated lavish lobbying, and $3.9 billion in boondoggle funding, and WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?

They're not going to USE this open door to four more years of war and fascist policy?

We know that Republicans are crooks, liars, fascists and war profiteers. But I think what we have to deal with is the mind-boggling silence of the entire Democratic Party leadership as this fascist coup of Bushite-controlled electronic voting occurred. What does it signify that they have done nothing about it? It should have been their first act in the new Congress. What does it mean for the future that the best they can do--if that--is to slap a bandaid on this fundamental, democracy-killing problem--NON-TRANSPARENT vote counting by private, highly partisan corporations? (A "paper trail" and a 2% audit. Give me a break!).

This article starts off with the caveat that "The evidence of fraud is not yet conclusive...".

Gee, why is that? Could that possibly be because the system was DELIBERATELY designed to HAVE no evidence?

Preferred Corporate Voting Machine: A touchscreen, with no paper trail or ballot, in which votes can be switched to Bush, Bushites and warmongering/corporatist Democrats, without detection.

Corporate backup plan: An optiscan, in which voters vote on a ballot which is then placed in a box to gather dust, while the "vote"--now consisting of highly manipulable electrons--can easily be switched to Bush, Bushites and warmongering/corporatist Democrats, with almost no chance of detection, because, currently, 99% to 100% of the real ballots are never seen by human eyes (and proposed, 98% will never be), and because corporate-written laws so restrict recounts that they are almost impossible to obtain. A little harder than touchscreens to just outright steal the election--but not that hard.

That's where our Democratic leadership is at, about the sell-off of our right to vote: The Corporate backup plan (optiscans with a "paper trail" and a 2% audit). And who knows if they can even get THAT through this Diebold/ES&S-shaped Democratic Congress? An improvement? Yes. It would be an improvement--the way torture short of organ failure is an improvement over torture unto death.

I repeat: The problem posed by Bushites can be solved by arrests, convictions and orange jumpsuits (or--my favorite punishment for Bushites: a lifetime of community service cleaning bedpans in Veterans' hospitals). The problem posed by our Democratic leadership's complicity with "trade secret," proprietary vote counting is not so easy to see, and not so easy to solve.

My suggestion: Go after the local registrars--public pressure at the state/local level--for, a) a ballot for every vote; and b) 100% handcount and post the results BEFORE any electronics are used. It doesn't matter what machines they're using. Just COUNT THE VOTES! This strategy circumvents the vast corruption that Diebold/ES&S have infused into our election system. It delays a reckoning on who bought these machines and why. With transparent vote counting, we will then start seeing far better representation of the interests of the American people at all levels. We know that we can overwhelm and outvote the machines, in some cases. '06 showed that. But we cannot get very far with desperately needed reform as long as Diebold/ES&S can place a 5% to 10% "thumb on the scales" against the wishes of the people--or any handicap they think they can get away with. This handicap is in ADDITION to the filthy campaign contribution system, purges of black voters from the voting rolls, and other hobbles on our democracy. But we can't do much about those until we restore transparent vote counting--vote counting that everyone can see and understand--and start electing more people who are beholden to us and not to global corporate predators.

[Peace Patriot]

42. This is a very important strategic question: Exactly how Bush, Bushites and other

warmongers and corporatists are stealing elections.

Greg Palast emphasizes the massive purges of black voters from the voting rolls and other acts of vote suppression (which are now connected to the US Attorney scandal). The 4 million vote difference between Bush and Kerry might be found right there, or in some combo of that and other crimes and manipulations.

Except for this: The electronic system was rammed through the Anthrax Congress, and fast-tracked all over the country, by felons and crooks--Tom Delay and Bob Ney (abetted by snakes-in-the-grass like Christopher Dodd). The corruption it wrought throughout the system is enormous--items like the head of elections in Los Angeles and the head of elections in Georgia doing sales brochures for Diebold! And the CEO of Diebold being a major Bush/Cheney fundraiser, and campaign chair in Ohio, with its brethren corporation, ES&S, getting its initial funding from rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon foundation (which touts the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things.) These are the people who counted 80% of the nation's votes (on touchscreens, optiscans, and CENTRAL TABULATORS) in 2004. And you really cannot avoid acknowledging the outrageous non-transparency--and partisan control--of this system, and asking: What was it FOR?

Ohio was only partially converted to electronic voting machines by 2004. (There was a strong grass roots movement against it.) So, in Ohio, they needed to do compensatory vote stealing, in a different way: vote suppression (shorting black precincts on voting machines, unfair challenges against black voters, forcing them to use "provisional" ballots and then tossing their "provisional" ballots, etc.) There is also quite a lot of evidence of punchcard vote stealing. But that doesn't mean that the plan WASN'T to steal the whole thing--and the national election--electronically, if it could be done. The capability was there in OTHER states--in the egregiously non-transparent voting machines and central tabulators. And no doubt how that would occur, would be by stealing small percentages here, and small percentages there, trying to keep below the radar (the margin of error) of the exit polls, but accumulating sufficient national popular "votes," closely contested states and Electoral Votes, to "bring it all down to Ohio," where a massively corrupt Republican political machine had been put in place, headed by Kenneth Blackwell, which would do WHATEVER WAS NECESSARY to manufacture a Bush/Cheney "win."

A phony "terrorist alert," to remove reporters and the public from Warren County vote counting? Natch! Mixing up punchcards re: candidate order and precincts? Coming up! Forcing black and other minority and student voters into 4 to 10 hour voting lines? No problem.

It is a huge mistake not to see this total picture: The "trade secret," proprietary programming code plan--not yet tested out on a national basis. The naked violations of the Voting Rights Act plan (tried and true). And the war profiteering corporate news monopoly plan, including the exit poll plan (doctoring the exit polls (Kerry won) to fit the results of Diebold/ES&S's secret formulae (Bush won), to help convince Kerry to quickly concede. Even if the truth came out later--what does it matter?).

And then it's important to combine that picture--the total picture of 2004--with Bush/Cheney's complete disdain for the American people, and our democratic system, in every way imaginable, but most especially with regard to the Iraq War, and more recent revelations, such as the GOAL of the US Attorney purge (to obstruct investigation of real election fraud, and other corruption, and to replace it with the phony issue of "voter fraud"). And what have the war profiteering corporate news monopolies done for us lately--after their grand slam of Iraq warmongering, coverup of election fraud, and fiddling of the exit polls? See much sign that they have stopped being Bushite/warmonger/corporate propagandists?

It is also important to look at the behavior of our own Democratic leadership--for instance, their mind-boggling silence as this 'Stalinist" vote counting system was installed, and their remedy now: pouring more billions of dollars into Diebold/ES&S' pockets for voting machine upgrades, "paper trail" printers, etc., with not a word about the central tabulators, and no objection to the "trade secret" code.

Fascist warmongers want touchscreens. Corporate warmongers want optiscans. Neither of them wants vote counting that everybody can see and understand.

Of all of this vast corruption, it seems to me that the most strategic spot for citizen activism is on transparent vote counting, with campaigns at the state/local level. We can't begin to solve any other problem without transparent vote counting. At best--at best!--we can only expect optiscans with some kind of "paper trail" and a 2% audit, from Congress. This system will require truly extraordinary vigilance and lots of fundraising (for lawyers, for election challenges). This is nuts! It is unfair. It is undemocratic. But this is more than likely what we are facing. True transparency may only come gradually, with each local citizens' rebellions against secret corporate vote counting.

[Pachamama]

48. Absolutely no doubt in my mind that they rigged & stole the election in 2004

I was in Ohio on that fateful election day in 2004....there is no doubt that it was rigged and stolen....

[krkaufman]

52. Please be more specific. Which one are you talking about?

p.s. The answer is 'yes.'