33,000 Ballots Lost In Shuffle

[RebelYell]

33,000 ballots lost in shuffle
Utah County votes fall through cracks in initial tally; race outcomes stay, but scale of error raises concerns
By Dan Harrie and Mark Eddington
The Salt Lake Tribune

Voters in Utah County had more than a one in five chance that their ballots did not get counted in the initial, unofficial tally from Election Day.

A programming glitch in the punch-card counter dropped 33,000 ballots from the totals - all of them straight-party ballots. That was more than 22 percent of the 145,769 ballots cast in the Republican stronghold.

"The card readers were fine; it was just the way it was programmed initially," Utah County elections coordinator Kristen Swensen said Friday. "It was just off by one letter."

The ballots were recounted Wednesday and the 33,000 missing votes were distributed to the candidates for whom they were cast. Despite the large amount of votes involved, the goof - and subsequent fix - did not change the outcome in any race, Swensen said.

~~~~~~~~

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_2453243

[ogradda]

1. just the way it was programmed??

gee is that all?:eyes:

[ugarte]

2. "It was just off by one letter"

One letter, one percent, one election. Whatever.

[RebelYell]

3. One little teeny, tiny letter

I'd like to slap the b....

[Zhade]

17. "This election fraud is brought to you by the letter 'R'!"

NT!

[KittyWampus]

21. Thanks For The Laugh In This Otherwise Dark Morass Of Accountability

[Cobalt Violet]

4. I so sick of glitch, glitch, glitch, glitch, glich

The only thing a little amusing about it is:



"Despite the election snafu, neither Republicans nor Democrats
were ready to utter the "C-word."

[delphine]

5. If the votes are lost

how do they know how they were cast so they can distribute them?

[daleo]

8. They had ballots to hand count

The problem was in the card reader, which dropped straight party ballots. Someone in election fix central must have figured out that Democrats were more likely to vote a straight ticket than Republicans, so there has been plenty of this shenanigan reported.

[daleo]

6. It is our old buddy "glitch" again

That rascal seems to be everywhere. But don't worry, it didn't change the outcome in any race, probably just padded Bush for the popular vote totals.

A look at the numbers involved, just at the presidential level gives:

pre "glitch" pct: 89% Bush 11% Kerry
post "glitch pct: 88% Bush 12% Kerry

The "glitch" vote was 85% Bush 15% Kerry.

So, even though this is a heavily Republican area, and the race was not close, the "glitch" does pad the Bush popular vote. Naturally, everyone (Rep and Dem) quoted in the article agrees that there was no conspiracy. Just one more case where the "glitch" goes to Bush. Funny old "glitch".

Numbers from the article:
"The recount means that when the official canvass is made Monday in Utah County, President Bush will have vacuumed up 123,752 votes in the state's second most populous county instead of the 95,039 initially reported. Democratic nominee John Kerry, meantime, picked up 16,641 votes - up nearly 5,000 from the original tally."

[SoCalDem]

7. sure..uh huh

:(

[noiretextatique]

9. shouldn't we just have another election?

since this one had so many "glitches?"

[DELUSIONAL]

10. Just a 3rd world country with NO previous experience in

running an election.

You just have to expect a few glitches here and there.


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

I wonder if in my lifetime I will see standardized ballots for Presidential elections? If the idiots in red states want to act like backward retarded jerks -- fine -- but when this is a national election let's demand (right sure -- minority party) standardized ballots and hand count of the ballots. I have absolutely no patience when I read about all these stupid glitches.

[faithfull]

11. Does Utah still even have elections?

:donut:

[FormerOstrich]

12. I do so hate it when....

I read these things and either a) I'm really getting dumb in my old age because they don't make sense or b) They throw numbers out there when they don't make sense.

Okay folks help me:

President Bush will have vacuumed up 123,752 votes in the state's second most populous county instead of the 95,039 initially reported.

123,752 - 95,039 = 28,713

Democratic nominee John Kerry, meantime, picked up 16,641 votes - up nearly 5,000 from the original tally.

Excuse me but if he picked up 16,641 votes doesn't that make him up 16,641 votes?

28,713 + 5,000 = 33,713

Well that sort of equates to 33,000 so they must have meant 5,000 of the 33,000.

28,713 + 16,641 = 45,354
45,354 - 33,000 = 12,354

So if we had an increase of 45,354 and 33,000 of them were from a "glitch" where did they discover the other 12,354. Were they part of a different glitch (like glitch A and glitch B), perhaps from under the couch? What "category" of votes would have been 100% Kerry (absentee??? unlikely).

So tell me the error of my ways. Shit like this pisses me off.

[FormerOstrich]

13. I e-mailed the reporter and asked him to please explain...

we will see if he bothers to respond....

[sandnsea]

15. Just bad writers

Bush up 28,713

Kerry up 5,000

33,713

That's all.

Bush got 123,752, he vacuumed them up.

Kerry got 16,651, he picked them up. Bush vacuumed because it's hard work.

They're bad writers in this case.

[FormerOstrich]

19. Honest...it never occured to me it meant

total number of votes was Bush 123,752 -- Kerry 16,651.

Now I realize this is Utah we are talking about. Utah Valley even but.....good grief!!! I lived in Salt Lake for 5 years (talk about an experience). I have joked about how RED utah was. My mom and I were talking about a friend of mine I haven't spoken with recently. I jokingly told her I knew they were still in SLC because I saw a vote for Kerry. Yikes..I didn't know exactly how bad it was... WOW...I love Arizona....

[ParanoidPat]

14. Note they don't say which "straight party" candidate(s) lost 33,000.......

......votes. :(

This needs to be investigated. :evilgrin:

[TXDemGal]

16. Why the f#ck is it that

the loss of THOUSANDS of ballots, "temporary" or otherwise, is being called a "glitch" by our so-called news media??? This is driving me up the fucking wall!

Janet Jackson's almost bare boob is called a wardrobe "malfunction" but heaven forbid we should call the LOSS of thousands of ballots a malfunction or fuckup or FRAUD!

[Kolesar]

18. Mr. Buttle / Mr. Tuttle

Oops, the secret police apprehended, tortured and killed the wrong man because of a typo.

[Xenus Sister]

23. Brazil reference!

That's my all-time favorite film!

The Ministry of Information controls our votes.

[aprillcm]

20. Sorry Have To Say It

Everyone morning on our News in NC new problems with the vote crop up and every morning the "News" Anchors repeat the same thing at the end of the story. My husband and I have just gotten to the point where we look at each other roll our eyes and say:

Thank God These Mistakes and Problems Did Not Affect The Presidential Election!

I Have a nice little Bridge I am selling anyone interested please contact me :(

[bin.dare]

22. this is all part of the scam

more and more we will see these "glitches" pop up that were initially unfavorable to shrub. this is to counteract the growing body of REAL glitches !

[DS1]

24. Straight ticket ballots have been rejected all over the country

Palast has documentation of such

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[daleo]

28. The lost votes actually hurt Bush a bit

Adding in the lost votes dropped Bush's vote in the overall Utah popular vote by a small amount.

[Eurobabe]

26. glitch this

[Chimpanzee]

27. yeah, riiiiiggggghhhhhttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

:eyes: