Associated Press Reports on UC Berkeley Report - Decent Article

Associated Press reporting on this is a good sign, even though it's a more neutral report.


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http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/articles/2004/11/19/academia_still_fixated_on_john_kerry/

Academia still fixated on John Kerry
By Rachel Konrad, AP Technology Writer | November 19, 2004

SAN FRANCISCO -- John Kerry conceded defeat more than two weeks ago, and President Bush has already revamped his Cabinet. But as states certify final election returns, an academic debate over their accuracy is heating up.

None of the experts examining the returns has discovered voting anomalies significant enough to have swung the election.

Despite Internet-circulated speculation that Bush's victory was somehow stolen or rigged, the incumbent's clear margin in the popular vote count is much wider than any of the problems reported to date -- be they voting technology failures, problems with provisional ballots or partisan shenanigans.

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Internet buzz that perhaps the exit polls were correct and the actual returns might be flawed grew louder this week when sociology graduate students at the University of California at Berkeley went public with an analysis arguing that Florida results in counties using electronic ballots differed from historical voting patterns.

These counties delivered 130,000 to 260,000 more votes for Bush than the group expected, based on a statistical model that factored in population trends, income levels and other predictors of voting behavior.


Still, the Berkeley group hopes Florida officials will take a closer look at the vote in light of their study to rule out fears that the vote was somehow manipulated in the crucial swing state.

"We view this as a smoke alarm that we need to tell the fire department about," said Berkeley sociology professor Michael Hout. "It's up to local officials to figure out what actually happened in their jurisdictions."

Florida published certified returns Sunday, and some counties across the nation are still counting provisional ballots. As more data is released, further scrutiny is expected from academia and from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. But the pace of such research is slow.

Michael Alvarez, a CalTech political science professor, didn't publish his analysis of 2000 election data until the spring of 2001.

"I don't anticipate us being any quicker this time," he said.

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Neutral coverage is better than no coverage at all.

I believe Kerry won. I believe his victory was illegitimately taken from him as it was from Gore. Let's not forget the horrendous voter suppression of minorities in both elections.

I think the greatest poetic justice, the irony of ironies, would be if bush maintained the popular vote lead and Kerry won the electoral vote.

Karma can be such a bite in the butt sometimes.

time! Better than nothing.

Of course the exit polls were correct. They have always been an alarm to warn us of fraud. But rather than screaming "fraud," the powers that be decide to change the exiting polling. Aaaarrrrggghh!

I still would like to know why this isn't blasting into the mainstream. Is it possible this important developing story will be ignored regardless?

All we need is Ohio or Florida and we're in like flynn. Why do people always forget that?

The Buffalo news put this on the front page? NICE.