Kerry Margins: Paper-ballot and Non-paper ballot states...

Truth:




Fiction:

take a moment to tell us what you used to call one state a paper trail state and another a non paper trail state. This thread is starting to fill with voters from states you say have no paper trail, who voted with a paper trail.

Without an unbiased criterion, all your number crunching will be less than useless, it will hurt our cause, not help.

Please see my post #52.

take a moment to tell us what you used to call one state a paper trail state and another a non paper trail state. This thread is starting to fill with voters from states you say have no paper trail, who voted with a paper trail.

Take Florida, for example. My precinct had touch screen voting WITH a paper trail. Many counties in Florida have optiscan. Does that count has electronic voting or are the scantron sheets themselves considered the paper trail?

And the New Hampshire result really hurts the case for the accuracy of the exit polls. New Hampshire was won by Bush in 2000. Are we really supposed to believe this time around that the exit poll showing Kerry ahead by 17 is accurate?

I am trying to find the link I had concerning exit polls vs actuals during the primary in NH. Exit polls showed Dean and Kerry neck & neck. When it was all said and done (months later) some errors were found showing that Kerry did win, but barely squeaked by Dean. The margin was small enough where Dean could have requested a recount. I was still living in NH at the time (Manchester - Ward 6 - St. Pious).

yes, i DO believe that MANY more voted for Kerry this time than in 2000-

In large part because of the fact that many people worked VERY hard to get out the vote, and that many of us tried to educate others not to listen to the 'sound bites' from the GOP and to really look at where we stand today versus 4yrs. ago-

We also succeeded in dumping the worst Rep. Gov. this state has ever seen- With a ...relative unknown- ... at least as far as politics goes, but much more palatable candidate in Lynch- Even Granny D. at 95 gave Gregg a pretty good run for his money- so, if your point is how could people who voted Bush in 2000 not want him in 2004- i guess you could say 'they' learned from experience- (i voted Gore in 2000)

Plus, there are an awful lot of National Guardsmen who have left huge holes in our towns, and hearts- they didn't 'sign on' for what they've been 'tricked' into participating in-

at least in the precinct i observed

is tia counting scanned paper as bbv? i'm confused

is full of those who left my high tax state MA for a more independent low tax environment. I cannot believe that Kerry would have a 17 point lead in NH. No pre-election poll jibes with this exit poll for NH.

Yes, we need to adopt a uniform methodology. Either all 50 states need to be used, or we can use some other criteria, for example all states that were within 8 points prior to the election.

Also, we need to adopt clear criteria on what constitutes a paper trail state. I believe that many states used a combination of black box voting and paper trails, and the chart doesn't reflect that.

However, despite the fact that only 17 states are depicted on the graph, they include virtually every swing state (except that Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii are not included). So it seems that the states were picked mostly on the basis of swing state status rather than to prove a point (assuming that the specified voting method is accurate). And I don't think that we want the safe states included in a formal analysis, because it may be that safe states with black box voting may not have been tampered with, so to include them might interfere with a reasonable analysis of the data.

reply to the above post. i will do everything i can to reverse the outcome if you can correlate the discrepancy with bbv. so far tho, i see states listed as bbv states which are reported to be paper. maybe you need county-by-county.

.......the machine that counts the marks on the ballots outputs it's results as a string of totals by race. Those totals can be altered at each machine by "accident" as has happened in previous races that were overturned when it was discovered that the "ballot positions" that candidates held were "accidentally" misreported on the tally output string thereby reversing the actual totals in a given race. It's not the most efficient way to screw up an election, but if a sufficient number of machines have been loaded with the same flawed instructions, you can easily affect the outcome of any given race.

If the outcome is more than 1 or 2 percent in favor of one candidate, the chances that anyone can or will ever hand count the ballots are nil. In some states, a difference of less than 1/4 of 1 percent of the total votes cast is required before you can request a 'recount'. Even then, depending on state laws, a recount may be nothing more than running the paper ballots back through the same flawed machines!

A far easier way to manipulate the count is to control the central tabulator. As Bev, Dr. Hugh Thompson and Baxter the Chimp have so aptly proved, there are several ways to access the audit logs on the tabulator and dramatically alter the results while leaving no proof that anything was changed. Once again, the results can't even be challenged unless they are close enough to trigger automatic recount provisions built into state law or there are sufficient other circumstances to compel a judge to call the count into question.

In states where there is a mix of voting equipment used, it can be statistically demonstrated that results were skewed proportionately to the number of voters using different voting techniques.

The requests for funding to pay the costs of processing the first 3000 FOIA document requests are a result of seeking documentation at the county level in the most obvious places where fraud seems to have occurred. Future FOIA requests may have to be made at the precinct level for documentation of changes to totals that occurred at the county levels. :(

they are less likely to attract those who wish to commit fraud.

all have ppaer ballots at lest to some extent. why do u list them as paper-less states?

You feed your inked ballot into a scanner, but it isn't destroyed, as far as I know.

The inkfed paper ballots are not destroyed afterwards. We have to take them out of the ballot machine and seal them in envelopes, several of us sign over the flap to indicate non-tampering, then the chair takes them to the secretary of state.

The tape the the tabulating machine spits out is likewise signed by several of us and goes with it.

While we're doing this, we verify that the number of ballots tallies with the number of registrations plus preregistered voters.

Also while this is going on, any member of the public can watch. I'm particularly proud that the two poll watchers/challengers told us we were doing a good job.

Our chair posted a copy of the tape so that the observers could get the results, too.

I did say that my precinct would have no funny business going on and I was right.

Yes, it is a State Law in Minnesota that all ballots have to have a paper record. Some counties have all paper, but most have optical scanners.

So regardless of the error margins of the optical scanners, there is still a paper record to hand-count in the future.

Graphs are good for helping the math impaired grok the data, though... :-)

tia

But we (you?) need to move it from DU to the so-called mainstream.

Then there's the issue of the exit polling itself (there's an op-ed piece in the NYT today that I haven't yet read). I haven't read the op-ed, but undoubtedly it will seek to prove that the exit polls themselves were unreliable indicators, etc.

In any case, you're preaching to the choir here. Get this info and any supporting data to the members of congress who just requested a GAO investigatin, to AAR, to the so-called mainstream media. It will be increasingly important to back up the obvious discrepancies with real, verifiable data.

None of this detracts from your efforts. It's what I've been saying about our situation in NH, where I understand the exit polls tracked the actual results virtually vote for vote. Well done, and keep up the good work.

It's the best exploratory data analysis I've seen.

Corporate America controls the media and we get manufactured news.
Corporate America now controls the voting machines and we get manufactured elections.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

Why isn't someone in the media going apeshit over this?

I need to go look for my credit card and support bbv right now.

I assume that's why there's an effort to recount there. Fraud could be caught!

NH electronic voting is low-tech with a complete paper trail!
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/01/28/national1609EST0710.DTL

Based on your numbers either the exit poll methodology was fairly poor, or there was some significant irregularities (or fraud).

after Ohio was called. Remember how close it was in 2000? If they had flipped, FL wouldn't have matter. They were keeping NH close all night...just in case.

The networks said he'd lost his Senatorial seat, based on the exit polls. So I got happy. He wound up winning. So I got sad and confused. New Hampshire voters came forward later, saying they'd lied to the exit pollsters, just for the hell of it. Who knows if they were telling the truth about this?

All to say, there is a history of exit polling not matching final results in New Hampshire.

That is one flaw in exit polling. It will fail if enough people are not honest for whatever reason, contrarian or otherwise.

and it was all reliable and fair -- i was positively impressed. minoritiy voters (hispanics, there) were welcomed. the officials helped with languange issues.

and it was all paper (optical scan). why does tia list nh as touchscreen? it undercuts credibility.

nh has a tradition of clean elections.

...are all the "paper trail" states universally paper trail across ALL counties and the same for the non-paper trail states? Or is a non-paper trail state one where, say 60% of the votes didn't leave a paper trail?

-Grant

thank you so much.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

When are we going to see this stuff in the papers and on TV, in the Senate or House?

I was under the impression that a lot of Ohio in 2004 used punch card based voting machines (like most of Florida in 2000). Was my impression wrong?

I read it today at Smirkingchimp, here

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/viewtopic.php?topic=49074&forum=9

see post #46,just one instance.

that ballot is read electronically by the machine, it's not like they are hand counted or anything.

http://www.verifiedvoting.org
go to maps and you can click on each county to what equip they use.

don't forget 90,000 "spoiled" ballots, when added with the pb's could change the results. Someone on here said the machines could be programmed to kick out dem ballots, and to run them on clean machines could show if there was any fraud.

You impression is not wrong. Ohio is still predominantly punch card. There are a few isolated touch screen counties - but it is a very low portion of the overall picture.

that the trick they used last time to manipulate the numbers.

Didn't OH have a butterfly ballot, too?

there were large numbers of ballots spoiled in urban areas. I haven't tracked specific numbers back to sources I trust.

I don't know about the entire state. They specifically rejected using a butterfly ballot in my township in order to avoid the Florida problems.

The alternative was not well explained. A single ballot was used sequentially in two separate voting tablets. The first voting tablet was used for everything but local matters. The second tablet was used for local matters. Voters had to insert the card right side up (as usual) in the first tablet, vote everything but the local races, remove the card, insert it in the second tablet (right side up), and vote the local races.

I did not watch the hole/column placement, but it is at least theoretically possible that if the ballot was flipped over inadvertently between tablets that the mayoral and councilperson holes would line up with the presidential (or other) columns and create a ballot spoiled by overvoting. (It is also possible for ballots to be inserted flipped over even when there is only one voting tablet, which would place the holes in the wrong columns...)

I believe our township was the only portion of the state using this arrangement - which was necessary because the township is becoming a city and we needed to elect mayor and officials (which normally are not elected in a presidential election year).

My point, however, was not whether Ohio had problems. The assertion is being made that exit polls match results in paper ballot states and do not match results in electronic ballot states (without paper trails). Ohio was placed in the electronic ballot states - which is not an accurate placement. I believe voters in two other states (MN and NH) similarly indicated their state was incorrectly categorized. That kind of error in the premise makes any conclusions questionable.

I'm starting to lose my shit here. Getting very angry. If these numbers are correct, this is huge.

tia

I'll try to find it. I was mostly at Presidential Results and Discussion and Latest Breaking News for the last couple of days.

Maybe the original poster will see this thread and answer. It may have been Sarin. It was a name I recognized from a year or so ago. I haven't been here for quite awhile.

...when I look at this, and the people apparently taking it seriously instead of looking for the real issues. Look at that bottom right-hand graph. How fucking delusional do you have to be to think that Kerry really took 60% of the vote in Pennsylvania, a state represented in the Senate by Rick Santorum? Get a grip, people. That 60-40 number came from a sample of 59% women. Do you really thinking that 50% more PA voters were women than men? This is exactly the kind of thing that the thugs and freepers want us focused on, because if we delude ourselves into thinking that the exit polls were right, which they clearly weren't, then we'll never address the real issues.

The smirking shrub got more votes than Kerry did. Period. If we want to win next time, we need to figure out why and address it. Paranoid conspiracies about how the exit polls are more accurate than the actual votes tabulated by (largely democratic) county workers are just absolutely, totally fucking counter-productive.

you have 16 posts and you're going AGAINST the full majority here who believes there is ample evidence to suggest foul play and theft of our votes!! Do you NOTTTTT comprehend that vote fraud has been around a long time, and dammit if were not going to discuss it and see if someone can come up with enough evidence to give to the media.

Even if we fail, we are trying, you are just freeping the cause, and for all we know helped in the fraud.

60% in Pennsylvania??? As much as 57% could be feasible so that'd be within the margins of error, remember, Philly voted for Kerry by like 90%, and the states connecting to it on the coast voted similarly.

Before you think anyone is delusional here, you might want to check out how much better Kerry did in TEXAS than Gore did in 2000 in this state. Amazing.

So how delusional did you think we were again?

In Ohio for example, I read that 70% of the precincts were still using punch cards. I would like to know where the exit polls were taken and what type of systems were at that location. Is this data available?

they have the equipment by county, they may have even more detail, I don't have the address, but I think it is a .org, you can google.

Are locations available?

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/

-Grant

Warren county on the homepage. This is just one of many ways they screwed ud in Ohio. So many ways, mind spinning....

or VVPB, it's less ambiguous.

Everyone needs to see these. I'll start sending out e-mails tomorrow morning. Long haul at Costco; I'm beat.

I went there, but when I tried to go back it wouldn't work.

say this page not found what was it?

tia

or something.

your links? He's collecting for moveon.org

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=201x1624>

election? Remember when we looked at those and could not figure them out? It would be interesting to see if the percentages match the final percentages.

.

I think that would be more powerful.

You da man!

That would be a paper trail, right ?

The data from each chart only includes eight states each, and the first thing they're going to do is say you cherry-picked them to show a pattern. They will accuse you of hiding data in the paper ballot states that looks as bad as the non-paper ballot states, and hiding data in the non-paper ballot states that looks as bad as the paper ballot states. What do the other states look like?

they would either be wrong or right, but it still doesn't mean these states shown aren't majorly fucked up.

I agree someone needs to do an all 50 state graph. I do think one problem with us dems is that we really don't have that many people doing what you just did, thinking like they think, whereas that's ALL the repukes have.

This was early exit poll data released BEFORE the final votes where in.

1) You can't cherry pick before the data is collected no matter how hard you try.

2) I believe it was slate that released these numbers, they were just interesting states at the time for which they had exit poll data.

This one is totally clean from cherry picking.

There are only eight states on the paper ballots chart.

There are only eight states on the non-paper ballots chart.

There are fifty states, and the District of Columbia gets to vote too.

Go back and read my original message.

We didn't select the sample of states. Someone else did.

And it has to be the early "uncorrected" exit poll data.

This may be all we will ever have in terms of exit poll data.

I have been working on a database of vendor x county nationwide.

It would be worthwhile if we could get %dem,%rep breakout for the 2000 results and the 2004 results nationwide to see if those %'s changed based on the vendor supplying the voting machines. That would be a 100% sample, i.e. not a sample at all...

that was put into these graphs? I have a friend that won't believe them until she knows.

I'm speechless.

If the mainstream media had any stones at all, they would be all over this story.

I can't find any info regarding this.

As far as I know, the entire state uses paper ballots, primarily optical scan paper ballots. I do no understand why Wisconsin is on the non-paper graph. I am skeptical of these charts and want to see the results for all 50 states.

In Florida.

What someone has to do is formulate a hypothesis that is consistant about these results, and do so scientifically. Use statistics to methodologically prove that the results are out of line.

I don't know what is unreliable about optical scan ballots, and I've seen no *evidence* that the optical scan systems in FL are inaccurate, just innuendo based on reigstration numbers which, unfortunately, is not evidence. The ballots have to be examined to prove that insinuation. The trends that I have seen posted are not convincing. And these graphs appear to be outright WRONG because they misclassify at least Wisconsin as a state without a paper trail.

I've worked elections in WI for the last 4 years using optical scan ballots, and the only errors we have had were from folded ballots (absentee) and those are rejected by the machine. Otherwise the tallies have looked accurate and the machines have always passed their audits. These machines are the kind that use a special memory and program module that has to be returned to the clerk in a sealed bag. The difference between exit polls and finally tallies in WI could simply be bad exit polls - most polls before the election showed it tight here, and the conservatives came out in large numbers this year.

for determining whether a state is a "paper trail" state or a "non paper trail" state? You can see from some of the posts above that there is confusion in the case of Minnesota and New Hampshire, at least.

You've been asked this question above, but haven't replied yet. Please reply. It is of the utmost importance that your work, which could be an arrow pointing to the heart of corruption, be taken seriously by people other than DUers.

But we've got to know your criterion. The press has got to know that your criterion isn't biased. If your criterion is perceived as biased, you'll make all of us who seriously question the legitimacy of the election be perceived as tin foil hatters who can be ignored. And that would be, to say the least, counterproductive. Plus it would really piss some of us (at least me) off.

Please tell us your criterion, so we can use this.

I could also ask your criterion for choosing the states you did, but that can be corrected later, by including all states or by using only states the press was calling swing states.

to know whether the data is being manipulated by people on our side. I hate the results and believe in my gut that it was stolen. But the data being shown in graph means nothing without a description of the underlying methodology and data collection, etc.

This means we have to get SERIOUS statisticians and demographers on this stuff. I assume it's happening somewhere.

WHERE DID THIS COME FROM?

Well, I did anyway, and I voted in Colorado.

there was none. I don't like that.Although my name was checked and I signed. I guess a phone recount could be conducted of people on books?

What I hate the most about this is that Pat Buchanan, Chris Matthews, etc. are saying that America is conservative. NO IT ISN'T!!!! America isn't conservative, America is liberal. Was the liberation of women conservative? NO! Was the Civil Rights Movement conservative? NO! Was the desegregation of schools conservative. NO! Is the tolerance and acceptance for single mothers a conservative view? NO! Is helping single mothers take care of their kid a conservative issue? NO! Are the rules for sexual harassment in the workplace conservative? NO!! Are the labor groups that got us a safer and fairer workplace conservative? Is equal opportunity for all workers conservative? NO!! Is taking care of the environment a conservative view? NO! The America I know(well, at least the America I thought I knew) isn't conservative.

Have anyone notice that the three states most likely to get hit by a terrorist attack(New York, Washington D.C., and California) overwhelmingly voted for Kerry? Oh well, I'm starting to campaign for the candidates I want to see run for president in '08.

Dean/Obama '08

If you don't force the media to report this nonsense, and allow George W. Bush to cheat democracy again, then YOU ALL ARE PUSSIES!!! YOU ALL ARE COWARDS AND DESERVE EVERY SECOND OF HELL THAT GEORGE BUSH IS GOING TO GIVE YOU! DO YA'LL THINK THAT A REPUBLICAN WOULD ALLOW JOHN KERRY TO CHEAT DEMOCRACY AND STAND BY SILENTLY! NO! RIOT! MARCH! PROTEST! DO SOMETHING BESIDES COMPLAIN ON THE INTERNET! REPUBLICANS ARE LAUGHING AT YALL! THEY ARE CALLING YALL "WEAK"!

WHAT ARE YALL WAITING FOR?!! ANOTHER MICHAEL MOORE MOVIE BEFORE YOU DO SOMETHING! I'M NOT JUST ASKING, I'M BEGGING TO YALL TO GET A BACKBONE!!!

Smelling rattier and rattier by the nano-second.

This is the state that the GOP operative Sproul invaded with his company that trashed the Dem registrations; it may account for the wider spread between exit and actual vote due to a smaller voting population to begin with. Remember that the trashed registrations were considered to be hundreds, if not thousands.

Thanks, TIA. Great work!

What makes a "paper-ballot" state a "paper-ballot" state in your analysis? Is it just because the vote count was close to the exit polling data? Does what you call a "paper-ballot" state have anything to do with whether there's a paper trail, or is it just because you want it to be?

Because if it's just because you want it to be, your analysis is bullshit. And if we spread it around now, later analyses that aren't bullshit will be tainted by your bullshit analysis.

Please don't evade this question.

Two senate races went favorably for the Dems out west in Colorado and Oklahoma(paper auditable). There the polls look sort of ok, no pun intended. If Oklahoma was avoided because they in no way wanted a recount anywhere, why would Colorado get spared(Senate victory and matching polls for the Presidential).

There certainly would have been an effort everywhere.

The exception might prove the rule again.

i haven't heard.

If you go to the Florida Dept of State Website http://enight.dos.state.fl.us/ and add up the numbers for yourself, it looks very strange.

Total Number of Voters including Absentees: 7350900

Total Number of Votes for President: 7588422

Where did they get 237,522 extra votes? It wasn't from the provisionals. There are 9,559 provisional ballots, and 7,362 have been counted so far.

We're kidding ourselves if we think we can get someone in the American media to jump right on this. Maybe we can, but probably not. However, the UK papers, the BBC, the CBC, and the Canadian papers, they'll do it. CNNInternational, they may do it. We need to contact the REAL journalists left in this world.

Having said that, anyone know where the mass media list is stored these days? I've got emailing to do. ;)

I did e-mail the Independent (newseditor@independent.co.uk) and the Guardian (politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk) back on November 4 when all this was just breaking. I believe that if we're persistent with frequent e-mails and updates they'll eventually pick up the story. My impression from the news on Iraq has been that many stories critical of the Bush administration have appeared first in British newspapers before they eventually trickle through (although often in a watered down version) to the U.S. press.

All of Nevada voted on Sequia Systems touch screen machines. The machines print a record of your vote that you can see but can't take with you. I doubt anyone will ever look at the paper and compare it to the results, which don't add up.

Unless that wasn't the case everywhere- but here in Madison we used paper ballots.

I am interested in knowing the source. My advsior's husband (a very liberal guy) was in charge of polling in Wisconsin (not sure his title exactly) but he contended that exit polls are ALWAYS inaccurate as they are influed by when people get out and vote.

Also- as I understood it, Wisconsin had a paper trail and the difference between exit polling and actual results was close to what it was in other states that had paperless-trail voting. Now, I think some of that is made incorrect by this information and I would love to pass it around.

Where does it come from? Thanks- and I DO believe this election was stolen but I have yet to see that EXIT POLLS in and of themselves are proof of this.

for the media to pick up. but before we try to get the story out, we have to make sure all of our facts are right. for instance, the argument would be more convincing if we had a graph of 50 states. it would also be more convincing if we had a couple of sources for the missing 200,000 or so votes in florida.

otherwise, the media will have the following report:

Jan: "Sour grapes or just poor losership, up next see what extremist liberal democrats are buzzing about on the internet!"

you all know how the media is about this kind of thing! brit hume and bill o'reilly would have a festival with this stuff.

You know, of course, the Repukes are playing this game too. I noticed this morning in the NYT, David Brooks, who can't see two feet in front of himself because so close to kissing *'s ass, wrote a piece on how exit polling did NOT show that this election was about values. It was about terrorism! I wonder whose polls he's looking at. I read that one of the polling firms was going to reassess how it does it's polling in light of what happened. What a bunch of idiots, this should be a tip-off that some crap really went down in Florida and Ohio.

Brooks is referring to exit polls asking people what the most important issue was to them. The #1 answer for all voters was "values", but that was only 22%. Terror and Iraq were the answers given by 15 and 18% of respondents. But if you add the 15 and 18 together, then 33% are saying terror is more the important issue--assuming that terrorism concerns and Iraq war concerns are the same thing.

Uh-huh.

Oh, keep in mind that the 22% includes people who are both pro and anti gay marriage, or for whom "values" refers to something else entirely. Also the 18% includes both pro- and anti- war people. Also the 15% includes both people fearing terrorist attacks and people who think that the Patriot Act is going too far.

The election, in other words, is really not ever about any single issue. That's not how a democracy works.

Can some one give me a link to the source?

I can share this with people I know who do polling and have connections to PBS- but I won't unless I know the source.

We have to cheat!
We have to find something, anything, and scream bloody murder about it! The more mundane the better!
We have to make asses of ourselves about it!
we have to "Think about the children."
We have to so sensationalistic that the media would HAVE to cover it!
We have to cheat!
Ignore the war.
Ignore the taxes.
Ignore the corporate scandals.
Ignore the job loss.
Ignore the enviroment.

Find something we would really say, yeah, so?" about and roast him for it.
Make something up if we have to.
Who died recently? where was Laura when it happened?
Does Laura leave GWB alone with the kids?
Does Laura leave GWB alone with the pets?
Does Laura leave GWB alone with Karl Rove?
Does Laura not let GWB party with Jacko as much as she used to?
What does Laura do with his bloody clown outfits?
What is the Secret Service hiding?
Think 1994 and amplify it!
We have to lose congressmen to gain Congress!
Senators have to switch parties in disgust over our tactics in order for us to gain the Senate.

Make examples of all of them.
Find a fringe group and exploit them. I mean REALLY exploit them.
Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Gays? Not good enough!
Emphasize Bush's attacks on school teachers.
Point out that laura was one and he beats her nightly!
Show documents of phony bruising.

Hey. we're only following their example.

In Ohio, a few of the cities had electronic voting, but I believe the majority of counties had punch card ballots.

Fill me in on how Ohio was placed in this category. This is pretty heavy hitting stuff if you can.

Do you believe this is adequate for a statistical analysis.

There are a few states that are all optical scan. Most have a mixture of optical scan, punch card, hand counted, and DRE.

Exit polls are done state by state, not county by county -- the statisticians I have spoken with don't see how you can take state-by-state exit polls and crunch numbers with mixed machines in each state.

To me, these questions have not been adquately answered.

Bev Harris
Black Box Voting
http://www.blackboxvoting.org

states and the number of people affected with each type of machine.

The other problem is, although I believe the e-voting machines were fixed, not necessarily all of them were. Nevertheless,these graphs are fishy.

Too bad our elections are not auditied and post-evaluated. This one was a real plane wreck and I do not think those in charge will (or want to) learn anything from it.

missing so much. There is no way this is going to fly with the press. I am a sociologist and I've taken stats classes and this is missing too much info to be taken seriously.

1) clearly from people's posts there are a mixture of voting methods in various states. Thus, you can't say one state is wholly one way or the other. You could do this with specific districts in states- but I don't know how you would get that data.

2) where are the exite polls from? I asked this (as did others) and no reply.

3) exit polls change. they depend on the time they were taken- when people got out to vote etc... I know someone who worked for the Wisconsin polls and they explained to me that exit polls always change during and after the election.

4) (why I am replying this to BevHarris specifically). I so very much appreciate what you are doing pulling this all together- but I really stress that this only weakens our fraud case. There is data that shows fraud- but this isn't it. Maybe if it were much more detailed.

ok. my 4 cents!

.......:)

1) The exit polls are intended to give a statistically significant 'snapshot' of the leanings of the 'whole' with a stated MOE or margin of error. A properly conducted exit poll is usually close enough to the actual results that they have been used for years as an indication of election fraud. The 2000 Presidential election was the first time in my life that I ever saw the exit poll called into question rather than the election itself.

2) In the past, exit polls were conducted by VNS (Voters News Service), now known as the NEP (National Election Pool), run by a consortium consisting of six news services, ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, Fox, and NBC. The exit polls cited here were done by NEP.


What is the National
Election Pool?

ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, Fox, and NBC, have created the National Election Pool to provide tabulated vote counts and exit poll surveys for the 2004 major presidential primaries and the November general election.

These six major news organization, in a joint decision, have appointed Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International as the sole provider of exit polls for the most important political races of 2004. The AP will tally the vote

The exit poll data is available for purchase by TV-affiliates, newspapers, internet sites and other news outlets. The polling data will be delivered through a secure web application directly to subscribers on primary and election days. Political candidates may subscribe as well, but the data is available one week past voting day.


3) That person that you know may well have participated in some form of polling, perhaps even an exit poll, but they are misguided in their perception that "exit polls always change during and after(?) the election".

Once a well conducted poll is under way, the only thing that happens is the sample size increases and the margin of error decreases for the overall trend that develops. You are measuring random events over time. Very early in the poll the swings will be dramatic, say the first person voted Bush* but the next 2 voted Kerry, you just went from 100% Bush* to 33.3%, and 66.7% for Kerry. At ten samples,the next sample can only sway the outcome by less than 10 %, at 100 samples, it's less than 1% per sample. Once the polling is completed, you can not go back and change the results at all. You can go back through the data and 'cherry pick' sub sets of data to 'restate' the results in a given fashion, but any sub set of data automatically raises the margin of error proportional to the reduction in the size of the sample.

Any questions beyond 'who did you vote for' are irrelevant other than to narrow down the demographics of the voters who made a given choice.
The only question that needs to be asked in an exit poll is who did you vote for. The more intrusive you become in the polling questions, the longer it takes per person to answer them, the fewer interviews each poll worker can conduct, the less likely someone in a hurry will be to answer the questions, the smaller the overall sample size one can achieve.

By trying to determine how many people of whatever category voted for whom, they have 'poisoned the pool' so to speak. By limiting the number of people who have the time or inclination to answer additional questions of limited value to the germane question of who won the election, they have conveniently limited the respondents to people who don't have to get to work on a Tuesday after spending much more time waiting in line to vote than they should have. Who do you think those people would vote for?

4) While I totally agree that Bev, Andy and a multitude of others are indeed hero's for doing the yeoman's work of gathering ALL of the information to build a conclusive case for a fraudulent election, I must vehemently disagree as to the value of the exit data made public. A full examination of the raw data is warranted as well as a thorough explanation for the later restatement of that data.

In eastern PA., we still use a large number of the old lever machines. They occasionally jam, but I've never heard of any corruption in the 30 years they have been in service. I don't believe there are too many Diebold or similar types of machines anywhere in PA. The few electronic machines that I am aware of in eastern PA. are about 10 years old.

In PA, each county makes their own decisions. Most PA. counties will be buying new systems next year to comply with the Federal law. I wrote my County Commissioners to urge them to select a system with a paper trail. I urge everyone else to do the same thing.

I have no doubt that bush and his cronies stole the election. I need a list of unbiased links of where the numbers came from. If I want to convice a non-Democratic-leaning voter of the truth, I need unbiased evidence.

So far as I can glean, NV has electronic voting that produces a paper trail. New Hampshire, based on Nader's request for a recount, is the same? Why is NH in one category and NV in the other? I want to send this info out - but I need to do some of my own research. If anyone could clarify this point, I would appreciate it.

see my other posts as well as a link poseted by someone else for proof. nh seems to have a tradition of clean elections.

i have not heard of touch-screens in nh. have you? in the precinct i worked there were definitley optical-scan hand-marked paper ballots.

.......machines counted the ballots. Machines tabulated the results. If a candidate challenges the results with sufficient reason, a court may compel a hand count of the paper ballots. If that hand count deviates from the machine totals by a significant amount, it provides enough evidence to compel recounts in other jurisdictions that used the same or similar hardware and software to conduct their counts.

Bush* lost NH but 'won' the election so I don't think he'll challenge the results. Kerry won NH so he has no reason to challenge the results. Nader, OTOH, lost both the state and the election and he has the legal standing to ask for a challenge of the results in New Hampshire.

The real question is can he be trusted due to his history and involvement with Sproul and Associates. Remember they not only systematically accepted and destroyed democratic registration forms in a number of states, they also submitted fraudulent signatures in an attempt to get Nader on the ballot in several states.

whatever the problems optiscan may have, it still counts as paper. shoul not be lumped with others (non-paper states) on graph.

The impressiveness of TIA's graph rests on the fact that there is a real difference between his categories of paper v. non-paper states. While I acknowledge that optical scan machines can rig elections in states with paper ballots, at least this type of fraud is detectable with a hand recount of ballots. This is not the scenario TIA is implying. I am not disrupting and I apologize if this type of (what I would call critical) thinking is not appreciated here. People want to distribute this data, but right now I don't think there is a REAL difference between TIA's categories of paper v. non-paper states. NH, WI, and MN all seem to have paper ballots. OH uses mostly paper ballots with a few counties using unauditable touchscreen voting. If I am wrong about the voting methods in these states, I will be thrilled.

Possibly change it so that both graphs are on the same scale? It might appear to be intended to mislead.

The graphs are absolutely compelling. I have been looking at the paper ballot differential in a different way on Common Ground and this information may help bolster the case. As posted to Common Ground:

Using Amendment Vote Correlation to Determine Presidential Vote Discrepancy

There is a substantive discrepancy between states voting manually and on paper ballots to those using primarily e-Voting and optical scan technology in the correlation between totals of votes on amendments and totals of votes for president. The correlative results can amount to hundreds of thousands of votes difference between states and calls for a close examination of why computerized counts seem weighted on the presidential side. A smoking gun pointing to an exploit?

For this illustration, I'm using Oregon as the paper ballot mean. Oregon shows 1,754,873 total votes for president and 1,736,463 total votes for Measure 36 (anti-gay marriage). The correlation is very close at .9895092. People do not ignore controversial ballot issues. Both sides want to push their agenda and have a say in the outcome. Next, I compared Oregon's correlation to three states that have issues of alleged vote tampering: Ohio, Florida, and Kentucky.

Ohio's results show 5,574,476 total votes cast but only 5,481,804 actual votes for president raising the question if there are some 92,672 spoiled ballots? Ohioans voted a total of 5,260,325 on their anti-gay marriage amendment, meaning that somehow 221,479 people in Ohio didn't care about the amendment. The Ohio correlation is just .9595974. This means with e-Voting, Ohio is statistically much worse than paper-balloted Oregon in its voters voting for both president and on the gay marriage controversy. The question is how does this small fraction of difference figure into votes? Multiplying Oregon's correlation of .9895092 by Ohio's Presidential votes of 5,481,804 gives us the number 5,424,295. 5,424,295 is the number of total votes that Ohio would have cast on gay marriage if they had been recorded at the same correlation as Oregon. Follow? If we then subtract the 5,260,325 that Ohio actually cast on the amendment, we find there is a difference of 163,970 votes. Bush won Ohio over Kerry by just 136,483 votes.

In Florida, there was no gay marriage amendment, but there was the equally controversial parental notification amendment on teen abortion as well as an amendment on minimum wage (Amendment 5). The minimum wage amendment drew slightly more votes, so I'm using that in my comparison to get the top figure. At least 310,504 less votes were recorded in Florida on either parental notification or minimum wage than for president. In fact, the figure is probably higher as I determined their presidential vote by simply adding up the totals for all candidates and does not include write-in votes -- their official elections website does not provide an overall tally. Applying the same Oregon paper ballot standard above, Florida would have recorded 7,508,813 amendment votes instead of their actual 7,277,918, a difference of 230,895 votes.

In Kentucky, the senate race was also down-to-the-wire with Republican loon Jim Bunning just squeaking by with a victory. Kentucky has the worst presidential to amendment vote correlation I could find in the country. Their number of votes cast for senator and for president are nearly identical, but there were 161,422 votes less on their anti-gay marriage amendment than on President, a differential of .9100145. This means in Kentucky of all places, one in ten voters didn't care anything about gay marriage! Again applying the Oregon standard, it shows that Kentucky should have voted 142,603 more times on the amendment, not effecting the presidential race in and of itself, but it would have prevented the Democrats from gaining a Senate seat where Bunning just slivered past Mongiardo by 22,725 votes.

In all states, the figures are compelling. The states only with manual and paper balloting all ranked at the top in correlation of amendment and presidential voting. The mixed, e-voting, and optical scanning states were mostly at or below .960 with particularly bad results in Michigan, Arizona, Colorado, and Kentucky. One more question: How close does the discrepancy mirror the exit poll data?


OREGON
http://egov.sos.state.or.us/results/
OR President: 1,754,873
OR Measure 36: 1,736,463 (gay marriage)
Difference/President: -18,410 .9895092
(Paper Ballots http://www.uhavavote.org/votingguide/instructions.html)

OHIO
http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/results/11-02-04.htm
OH President: 5,481,804
Gay Marriage Amendment: 5,260,325
Difference/President: -221,479 .9595974
Oregon Standard: 163,970 (potentially missing votes)
(Total Votes Cast: 5,574,476 : 92,672 spoiled ballots?)

FLORIDA (as of 11-7-2004)
http://enight.dos.state.fl.us/
Florida President: 7,588,422
Amendment 5: 7,277,918 (min. wage)
Difference/President: -310,504 .9590818
Oregon Standard: 230,895 (potentially missing votes)

KENTUCKY
http://electionresults.ky.gov/KyElectWeb/kes?AC=1&L=1999
Total Votes President: 1,793,867
Total Votes Senate: 1,723,981
Gay Marriage Amendment: 1,632,445
Difference/President: -161,422 .9100145
Oregon Standard: 142,603 (potentially missing votes)

Wow. Thanks. Can I ask a favor? I have the numbers from North Carolina, do you think you could crunch them, like you did these other states? In the NC forum, I posted some funny numbers taken from the NC BOE website. I have more, let me know. Thanks

IMHO it really doesn't make a difference. The exit polls show that shrub had huge support not shown by the accurate exit polling in the SWING STATES.

the exit polls were right - but not in the swing states. That is our jumping off point. TIA if you read this please consider including information of the MOE for each poll. Exit polls have a low MOE because folks have just voted and so the LV/RV does not factor in. They are also at the polls and get an idea of turnout. If these shrub gains are outside of the MOE it makes your evidence stronger.

The nader recount in NH is the first battle. If the paper ballots are hand counted or accurately counted and show that Kerry actually had a much larger percentage of the vote, then the door is flung open in each of these states for closer examination.

Whether the truth can be found before the electors vote is questionable. However we must keep after this because it will taint shrubs 2nd term and the GOP with voter fraud, and we may be able to push for reform.

It is a joke that every two bit hamlet in the US makes their own election laws. We should have a unified and verified voting system. This is America. We can make an accurate count of money withdrawn or burgers sold, but can't count the votes? For shame.

I'm so proud of the blogosphere for finding this and pushing it. Modern day patriots one and all!

Now let's go get those bush bastards!!

but paper ballots" every time we go grocery shopping.

"Plastic bags but paper ballots".

I'd be happy to look at the NC numbers. Most likely, it will be late in the evening before I can start if it's okay.

Tell me where you want them posted. I can do it in the North Carolina State Forum. I have a few numbers there already. More on my comp. Thanks!

I don't believe that we can use the correlation from OH to estimate lost ballots elsewhere. Aside from a *belief* that there should be a high correlation between the Presidential race and the amendments, there is no evidence that it must be true.

No, the comparitive uses Oregon's correlation as the standard as they are a paper ballot state. Secondly, I did a closer study after preliminary results showed a direct correlation of non-e-voting states having a much higher percentage of amendment voters than e-voting, optical, and mixed states. This proved true regardless of whether the states were red or blue and regardless of geography.

MONTANA
.991 (no e-voting)

OREGON
.9895092 (no e-voting)

UTAH
.986 (no e-voting)

ND
.976 (no e-voting)

MAINE
.975 (no e-voting)

OKLAHOMA
.972 (no e-voting)

NEVADA
.965 (statewide e-voting with paper trail: Sequoia AVC Edge)

WYOMING
.961 (widely varies by county/includes Diebold e-voting in 1 county)

OHIO
.960 (various methods including e-voting: ES&S iVotronic, Sequoia AVC Advantage, Danaher, MicroVote MV 464)

FLORIDA
.959 (11/5/2004 12:19 AM update)
(various methods including e-voting w/no paper trail: ES&S iVotronic, Sequoia AVC Edge)

ARKANSAS
.954
(various methods including e-voting w/no paper trail: Shouptronic 1242, Microvote)

MISSISSIPPI
.952
(various methods including e-voting w/no paper trail: Shouptronic 1242, ES&S iVotronic)

MICHIGAN
.951
(various though largely Diebold optical scan/including at least one e-voting w/no paper trail: MicroVote MV-464)

COLORADO
.945
(various including e-voting w/no paper trail: Hart Intercivic eSlate, Sequoia AVC Advantage, Diebold AccuVote-TS, ES&S iVotronic)

ARIZONA
.933
(Diebold Optical Scan)

KENTUCKY
.911
(113/120 counties e-voting w/no paper trail: Danaher ELECTronic 1242, MicroVote MV-464)

I stress, these are just the quick-look initial numbers and need to be refined with the most current data. The strongest case must be Kentucky where in order to hold Bunning's Senate seat, it appears the numbers had to be "pushed" the furthest.

I've asked this already, but I didn't get a response, so I'll ask again. Does anybody have a source?

........I'll try one more time. :evilgrin:

http://www.exit-poll.net

What is the National Election Pool (NEP)?
The National Election Pool is a consortium of ABC News, Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, Fox News and NBC News. It was formed in 2003 in order to provide information on Election Night about the vote count, election analysis and election projections. NEP retained the Associated Press to conduct a tabulation of the vote. NEP also contracted with Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International (Edison/Mitofsky) to make projections and provide exit poll analysis.

Okay, I've spent the better part of the night with the NC voter numbers, and I've reached the conclusion that there is a stunning case for tampering. Let's start with one sample county. I pulled their election data that lists number of registered voters by county and breaks it down into party affiliation, race, and gender. I chose a predominately black county to give a sharper idea and get free of the crossover voter charge. Here are the demographics for Bertie County, North carolina as of 10-31-2004.

Bertie County has 14,460 registered voters:

Party Affiliation
12052 DEM 83%
1403 REP 10%
1005 UNA/LIB 7%

Ethnicity
8685 BLACK 60%
5633 WHITE 39%
18 AM.INDIAN
12 HISPANIC
34 OTHER

GENDER
8370 FEMALE 58%
6017 MALE 42%

So you can see in every category, this is a Democratic lock.

This is how the vote was recorded:

4801 Kerry/Edwards 61%
3027 Bush/Cheney 38%
35 Badnarik 1%
2 Nader -
7865 Total (a turnout of 54%)

On the face, it's shocking to see a 22% drop in the Democratic vote and a 28% gain in the Republican vote of registered voters. But, we have to be careful in the rural South even in a county that is mostly black. As a reference, let's also look at how the county voted in 2000.

DEM - A. Gore-J. Lieberman 4,660 65%
REP - G. W. Bush-D. Cheney 2,488 35%
LIB - H. Browne-A. Olivier 11 0%
RFM - P. Buchanan-E. Foster 17 0%
7,176

Hmmmm. Well, that shows a 7% swing from 2000 to 2004 for Bush/Cheney. A little hard to believe, but not totally impossible I guess given the possibility that this might be an overwhelmingly democratic black county filled with big Rush Limbaugh fans. Let's look at some further numbers from Bertie and see if they can shed some light.

Senate
Bowles (D) 5089 66%
Burr (R) 2614 34%
Bailey 51 >1%
Total 7754

Governor
Easley (D) 5592 73%
Ballantine (R) 2036 27%
Howe 66 .009%
Total 7694

Secretary of State
Marshall (D) 5,624 77%
Rao (R) 1,650 23%
Total 7274

Notice the Senate race also appears supressed for the Democrats. All other races in Bertie County ran roughly in the range of 73-78% Democrat to 22-27% Republican except for President and Senator. Recall that it was also vitally important for Bush to enter his second term with a substantive majority in the Senate. The same Republican Senate bulge can also be seen in Kentucky for Bunning and likely other states as well. My guess is that they got greedy in states with potential Senate seats and gave them an additional bump to help their majority -- probably making those results even further divergent from the exit polls. It also mirrors the previous data I posted on amendment vote correlation to presidential votes. The bigger the swing necessary, the larger the disparity with amendment votes. (See below for more.)

Now after many hours of going over these figures, I began to ask myself a few questions. If I were to set out to rig the election, how would I go about it? I would have to be smart. There couldn't be a paper trail for them to catch me. The fewer people in on the fix, the better - a programmer or two perhaps but anyone more could create too many loose ends that couldn't be controlled. It would have to be either in the touchscreen machine programming, an entry point in the tabulating computer, or in the main computer's software. Nothing with a paper trail. As we've seen systems with a paper trail came very close to matching the exit polls. Systems without paper trails were often well off the exit polls. BUT THERE'S ANOTHER PAPER TRAIL: ABSENTEE BALLOTS.

With that in mind, I decided to have a look at North Carolina's absentee ballots. It was hidden in the precinct data, so it took me a while to download it and go through it county by county. Incidentally, Lee and Catawba counties reported no absentees, so I don't know if they are missing or recorded elsewhere. But for the other 100 counties, the results are:

BUSH KERRY OTHER TOTAL
529755 469522 2749 1002026
53% 47% >1%

Interestingly, that's amazingly close to the exit polls, a 6% difference bewtween Bush and Kerry. The official statewide results, however, show a full 12% difference:

BUSH KERRY OTHER TOTAL
1,926,186 1,492,058 12630 3,430,874
56% 44% >1%

And worst, if one subtracts the absentees, to see how the "vote" actually occurred at the polls, we see a 16% difference -- even further away from the reality of the exit polls -- and this is what they actually sampled!

BUSH KERRY OTHER TOTAL
1396431 1022536 9881 2428848
58% 42% >1%

Holy crap, Batman! The absentees are loudly pointing out the tampering, and I have a strong suspicion that they will prove similar in other states. Absentees are the largest real sample we have (more than a million in NC). Why else would they be SO FAR FROM THE POLL VOTE? THERE IS CONCERTED AND DIRECTED ELECTION TAMPERING!!! CHECK THE ABSENTEES and see how close they come to the exit polls in the states that are out of whack.

One final note...

The other benchmark I used previously was the amendment vote disparity: what percentage of voters voted on both the presidential election and on the state's amendments? Tellingly, North Carolina like Kentucky with a close and necessary Senate race had a horrible percentage. It leads me to believe that whatever fix they were using dropped off the amendment votes (i.e. if it didn't have an R or a D, it didn't register on the change). Just 86% of North Carolina voters seemed to have voted on their top amendment. Using Oregon's paper ballot standard of amendment-presidential vote correlation, it reveals a potential 439,066 missing amendment votes in NC. Dividing that number by the total votes cast gives a percentage of 13%. The figure must be considered a very rough estimate due to uncertainty, but again it is revealingly very close to the exit poll differential.

In general, exit polls don't match vote counts (a red flag) except in states with a paper trail (another red flag).

Support for the accuracy of exit polls comes from their consistency with both absentee ballots (where there is a paper trail) and with votes on amendments.

There is thus far no evidence whatsoever for exit polls being inaccurate; opinions from polling organizations and pundits are simply that - opinions - and are not based on any objective data.

Vote counts (in non-paper trail states) are inconsistent with both absentee ballots and votes on amendments.

Together with this, a host of specific problems are emerging in non-paper trail states, for example the "glitches" in Ohio, the paper votes with optical scan in Florida, inconsistencies in voting between senatorial and gubernatorial races, and on and on...

Is this pretty much correct?