|
Rob Zaleski: Voting glitches haunt statistician
By Rob Zaleski
March 4, 2005
Retired UW-Madison statistics professor and Ohio recount volunteer
Brian Joiner.
About Rob
Rob Zaleski is a 32-year veteran of the news business. His columns
appear every Monday and Wednesday in the Communities section.
Brian Joiner wishes he could "just get over it."
He wishes he could ignore the thousands of reported voting
irregularities that occurred in the Nov. 2 election, accept the fact
that George W. is going to be around another four years and just hope
that we haven't created even more enemies or fallen even deeper into
debt by the time 2008 rolls around.
"I'm sure the Republicans would like me to forget all that stuff, just
like they wanted everyone to forget all the strange things that
happened in the 2000 election," the retired 67-year-old UW-Madison
statistics professor said this week.
Well, sorry guys, but he can't.
There were, Joiner says, too many things that occurred on Nov. 2 that
"still don't smell right." He can't just pretend everything is rosy,
he says, when he reads that Steven Freeman, a respected University of
Pennsylvania professor, says the odds of the exit polls in the
critical states of Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania all being so far off
were about 662,000 to 1.
And since no one in the mainstream media has yet to provide a
plausible explanation for such discrepancies - "investigative
reporting essentially is just dead in this country," he groans -
Joiner and many of his colleagues are going to continue to speak out
and demand that government leaders provide some answers.
So that, at the very least, we don't find ourselves in the same
situation in 2008.
But if the irregularities are as suspicious and troubling as he
claims, why aren't John Kerry and other top Democrats making similar
demands?
"Boy, I wish I knew," says Joiner, who was a volunteer observer for
the Ohio recount in early December. Because you can sure as heck bet
that Republicans would be screaming and demanding an investigation if
Kerry had won under similar circumstances, he says.
"I think the Democrats read the tea leaves and think that people don't
want to make a big fuss over this stuff. They'd just rather be
quitters and move on."
Joiner knows full well some people will roll their eyes while reading
this and dismiss him as yet another shoot-from-the-hip conspiracy nut.
Not quite.
In fact, he's among a group of prominent statisticians and
academicians who contributed to a recent study that refutes a report
by exit pollsters Edison and Mitofsky that exit poll errors on Nov. 2
were responsible for the unprecedented 5.5 percent discrepancy between
the exit polls and the official results.
The study, done on behalf of US Count Votes, a volunteer scientific
research project, not only disagrees with the Edison/Mitofsky findings
but concludes that "the possibility that the overall vote was
substantially corrupted must be taken seriously" and urges a thorough
investigation.
Does Joiner personally believe the election was stolen?
"I don't know, that's a very tough question," he says. "But it's not
clear to me that it wasn't, so it's a question of where the burden of
proof is."
At the same time, Joiner says, he does believe the country's making a
big mistake by relying so heavily on electronic voting machines.
"It's just too easy to hack those machines," he says. "And if they are
hacked, how would we ever know?"
Joiner, incidentally, isn't the least bit surprised that the study -
which was released Jan. 28 - has been virtually ignored by the media.
Neither is Bruce O'Dell, vice president of US Count Votes.
"I think the mainstream media - like most Americans brought up to be
proud of our Democratic traditions - simply assume that elections are
honestly counted in the United States," O'Dell says. "They discount
anecdotal reports of election irregularities and refuse to believe
that systematic corruption could occur - even though serious,
systematic vulnerabilities both in voting equipment and in counting
procedures have been well-documented."
He notes that when reports of widespread voting problems occurred in
Ukraine last year, both local and international observers quickly
concluded the election had been stolen.
"But when precisely the same scenario occurred here, not only were
mainstream journalists not alarmed, they quickly labeled those who
questioned the results as conspiracy theorists."
O'Dell says US Count Votes wants to develop "a single database of
nation-wide precinct-level election results, along with matching U.S.
Census demographic information and the type of voting equipment in
use."
Its ultimate goal "is to be able to gather and analyze data as it
comes in on election night, and to spot vote counting problems in time
for candidates to request an investigation or recount - before they
concede."
And it hopes to have such a system in place by 2006.
Kjell Doksum, another UW-Madison statistician, says that if US Count
Votes accomplishes just one thing, it's that there's a "paper trail"
for every vote cast in 2008.
"This is easy to achieve," he suggested in an e-mail.
"Start a rumor that the Democrats have the world's best hackers and
are going to fix the machines the next time."
E-mail: rzaleski@madison.com
Published: 9:42 AM 3/4/05
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2005 The Capital Times
Freelance writers retain the copyright for their work that appears on this site.
and:
People's Legislature reform movement slates next meeting in Cable
By Anita Weier
March 4, 2005
The People's Legislature, a group of citizens from around Wisconsin
who are striving to return power to the people through govenmental
reform, is continuing regional meetings following its initial
statewide session in Madison in January.
One regional meeting has been held in La Crosse and another is set for
Cable in northern Wisconsin on March 19. Milwaukee residents are also
planning a meeting, though no firm date has been set.
Madison attorney Ed Garvey, who edits fightingbob.com and was a major
organizer of the first People's Legislature, said the regional
meetings are mainly focused on continuing the agenda developed during
the Madison session.
At that session, the more than 1,000 people present agreed on a
platform that included:
• Comprehensive campaign finance reform with public financing of state
election campaigns and prompt disclosure of campaign contributions
that restores the state's ban on corporate campaign donations.
• Independent ethics enforcement through reform that combines the
state Elections Board and Ethics Board into one agency under the
direction of a politically independent board; and more rigorous
ethical standards for all people in government.
• Competitive elections through reform of the way legislative
redistricting is done, modeled after a system used in Iowa, to end
partisan gerrymandering and create competitive voting districts.
• Preservation of local control to prevent arbitrary and centralized
budgetary limits on local units of government.
• More openness and more citizen input in how laws are debated and
more openness in regard to public records.
• Restoration of the state public intervenor, an attorney who
represented citizens in environmental matters.
Garvey said the next meeting will continue work on those issues, but
another issue may very well come up - whether the Public Service
Commission, which is appointed by the governor, should be an elected
body.
"People in northern Wisconsin have been fighting transmission lines
for years," Garvey said. "They are concerned about the Public Service
Commission."
Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign
and a leader of the People's Legislature, said that he has given
presentations about the group's efforts at about a dozen events around
the state, and attended the regional meeting in La Crosse where 300
people gathered.
"People are very comfortable with the reform agenda that has been
endorsed," McCabe said.
He agreed with Garvey, however, that residents of northern Wisconsin
have some regional issues that will definitely be discussed.
Details of the March 19 meeting at the Telemark Resort are still being
set, and will be available on fightingbob.com and the Wisconsin
Democracy Campaign (wiswdc.com) Internet site. Those who wish to
attend future events should register for the People's Legislature on
fightingbob.com.
"People in Milwaukee are looking around for a location where they
could accommodate 800 to 1,000 people for a regional forum that could
surpass the statewide meeting in Madison," McCabe said. "They have
tentatively focused on April 30, but that is not certain."
Another statewide session may be convened later this year, he added.
The organization also is circulating "We want our democracy back"
petitions that call for their major reform planks. People can obtain
copies of the petition or sign it online at www.wisdc.org.
E-mail: aweier@madison.com
Published: 9:42 AM 3/4/05
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(297 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
