Independent vote count confirms Bush win in northern Florida

Not surprising......vote fraud most likely wouldn't be this obvious...

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/politics/10284880.htm


Some wondered whether Florida's tally was corrupt, with one Internet site writing: "George W. Bush's vote tallies, especially in the key state of Florida, are so statistically stunning that they border on the unbelievable."

Last week, The Miami Herald went to see for itself whether Bush's steamroll through North Florida was legitimate. Picking three counties that fit the conspiracy theory profile - staunchly Democratic by registration, whoppingly GOP by voting - two reporters counted more than 17,000 ballots over three days.

The conclusion: No conspiracy.

The newspaper's count of optical scan ballots in Suwannee, Lafayette and Union counties showed Bush whipping Sen. John Kerry in a swath of Florida where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 3-1.

They cherry-picked three counties that all went heavily for Bush in 2000, Dole in '96, etc. There are something like 20 other counties with similar demographics. Where're the numbers, MSM whorebitches?

"17,000"?

...the "dixiecrat treatment" in this thread. :boring:

Remember that early on, some of the theories centered not on the electronic voting machines, but the optical scan machines. Specifically claiming that these northern counties were heavily Democratic but had voted heavily for Bush.

This was a nice check of that... though I'd like to see them do the whole state again - even if there is zero chance of any change. It would be a good "benchmarking" of the voting systems so we can better choose which one is best.

And it would give Bev her best shot at proving any fraud she finds.

what it was. Lot of talk early on about 70% democrats voting for Bush, but that really was pretty well debunked awhile back

Gore couldn't get the recounts done, but they allowed reporters to count the ballots? Does it make any sense? How is that possible?
:wtf:

Was it done by machine or by hand? Wouldn't they need a court order to open the ballot boxes to be allowed to do a hand count?

Something is wrong with this report. I don't buy it.

In 2000, the wouldn't let Gore do a recount, and now, they just allow some reporters win to do a recount, before the electors are even selected?
:argh: :argh: :argh: :argh: :argh: :argh: :argh:
HTF is that possible? Gore came within 500 votes off Bush, and they didn't let him to do a recount. But some freaking reporter just walks in and can go ahead and recount all the votes he/she wants?
What kind of crap is that?

These three counties just stepped in a pile o' do-do.

These counties just set a precedent for the 2004 election. Now we can demand that a recount be done of all counties. Also, if the Miami Herald didn't not have to pay for this service, then we don't have to either.

The poll workers flipped over ballot sheets while the reporters watched and made tick marks for each candidate.

On some machine unreadable ballots, they were able to discern the voter's intent and added some real votes that were missed in the automated runs.

Statistically, the results from these counties (and the early NH recounts) seem to indicate that any fraud in these counties was not done via the machines themselves. It would have been done with the actual ballots themselves. Perhaps dozens of shrub voters in each precinct managed to vote multiple times. But that is a somewhat wild conjecture considering that thousands of DEM lawyers and poll watchers were on the job.

just weird as hell. Man, does this election get more weird by the minute? Can't we just scratch this whole damn thing and start back over already?

But looks like we might have to move to Ukraine to get us a new election.

I believe those electronic tallies of optical scan ballots are definitely subject to tampering.

How about a WHOLE STATE recount, huh? Didn't hear about the Diebold Indiana 'glitch' which unseated a repug?

Wow, imagine the media using such a word as conspiracy. That must be, like, only about the hundred thousandth umpteenth effin' time!

How about rephrasing that to: "Their conclusion? Good coverup."

"A lot of Christians here - independent, fundamentalist Baptists - think that God interceded for Bush,"

75% registered Democrats: 3,393 votes for Bush and 1,272 for Kerry....Why the fuck do these people call themselves Democrats?

because deep down they know that Republicans are heathens

:)

edit: smilie, shmilie

When Lincoln (a Republican) freed the slaves. They all turned Democrat. Nowadays it's just a traditional thing; but more important all their local politics are Democratic. Most people are "Democrats," so most local races get decided in the primaries, so they stay Democrat to vote in them. But they vote Republican nationally, and probably statewide too.

It might be convenient for the Miama Herald to count ballots in 3 small northern Florida counties, but they show absolutely nothing one way or another about the Dopp/Liddle analysis (which shows unexpectedly high "crossover" voting for Bush among Democrats in some Florida counting using Optiscan voting technology).
http://ustogether.org/election04/Liddle_Analysis.html

Their analysis may or may not hold up in the end. But from the beginning Liddle only used medium-sized counties (80,000 -500,000 registered voters), so as to compare them to electronic voting counties. These 3 counties - Suwannee, Lafayette, and Union - range from about 4,300-22,000 registered voters. Plus their analysis so far does hold up, even when they excluded all of the northern so-called "Dixie-crat" counties.

The MSM has been trying to discredit this study on the basis of these northern Dixiecrat counties from Day 1, and it never applied.

But this recount verification, of course, will be cited ad nauseum by MSM as more "evidence" that we're crazy. It's totally irrelevant.

This is just to support the dixiecrat thesis. Exit polling or E-voting problems are completely ignored.

.......Can anyone else see what's wrong with this picture? :shrug:

The Herald counted almost 60 percent of the votes in Suwannee County, where nearly 64 percent of the voters are registered Democrats.

The newspaper's total from those precincts: 6,140 votes for Bush and 2,984 for Kerry, which nearly matched the county's official tally.

Now perhaps I'm just a little suspicious or maybe even (dare I say it?) PARANOID, but if I were trying to allay fears of some form of fraud, I would 'stack the deck' so to speak, and sort the ballots in such a way as to get results which nearly match the county's official tally. I would then enlist the help of a friendly member of the press to do a recount of those sorted ballots, stopping short of a full recount because my point has already been proved.

But that's just me. :evilgrin:

I'm sure despite what the 'liberal' media says, all Florida voting officials are as honest as the day is long. :)

Somehow I'd still feel better knowing what a recount of all the ballots in that County would show.

for Kerry, which nearly matched the county's official tally...

What does that mean? How much is nearly?

In the other two cases (Layfeyette and Union counties)Bush's total tally by the county was more than in the "recount" and Kerry tally by the county was less than in "the recount." Maybe that's why they wouldn't give the figures for 60% of Suwannee county because they didn't want to leave the impression that in all three cases Bush lost votes and Kerry gained? (We know that happened in two of the three but because of the ommission of the numbers in Swannee, we don't know.

Another interesting factoid from the article is that in Lafayette County the "Miami Herold's" hand recount turned up 5 less total votes for Bush/Kerry combined than the official tally. This is interesting because earlier in the article they claim that recounting by hand often turns up "extra" votes that the machine can't read but that can be discerned by looking. Where did the missing 5 votes go?

At any rate, I took the net Kerry gain from Lafeyette (11 votes) and added it to the net Kerry gain from Union (24 votes)for a Kerry net of 35 votes in the two counties combined. I then added the Kerry/Bush vote totals (reporters "recount" Union 4665 + Lafeyette 3300)= 7965 and divided into 7,525,408 which is the combined Statewide total of Kerry/Bush votes and then muliplied that by the 35 net Kerry votes and came up with a theoretical net of 33,000 + votes for Kerry state wide or about 9% of his deficit. (7,525,408/7965)x35= 33,068.

Our votes don't count and we the people don't get to count the votes.

Simple.

As the Berkeley study showed, the problem is not based on the Northern Florida counties. In fact, the Republicans manipulated results right in the Democratic Florida strongholds. In that way, the numbers wouldn't look "suspicious."

Is the "Rovian strategy" at its best, "attack your opponent's strengths..."

Is just so blatant and criminal that I can't believe the American media still trying to lie about it!

I'm going to look into what it will take to get a hand recount here.

If anyone else is working on this in FL please let me know?

Take the 37 votes that were picked up just by this simple recount and multiply it across the 7.5 million or so State voters. See what happens. You get, oh I don't know, maybe 35,000 more votes.

There were 7,952 votes counted (in the two cases where new and old totals were given) according to the story, and the margin changed to favor Kerry by 37 total votes.
37/7952 * 7.5 Mil = 35,000

No, it won't chage the election. But, come on, why does every thing that gets re-examined go to Kerry's favor? Every "irregularity", every discrepancy, they all favor Bush. And a new total that is so "small" of a difference that it is ignored by a reporter can change everything. What if Ohio's margin was 35,000 votes closer? Would Kerry have conceded? Would everyone be paying a little more attention to the provisionals? And what about the other recount in the article, where the totals "nearly matched the county's official tally"?

EVERY SINGLE VOTE COUNTS!! How many times does it have to be said?

Count every vote. That's what matters. Count it correctly and fairly and transparently. If * won, then bad, but tell me I can be sure my vote counted.

Being able to do an independant vote count like that. Where do we sign up for such an endeavor? I mean, if we can just do it, let's just go do it.

While Bev Harris was blocked. Gee I wonder why they were ALLOWED to do a recount and not her?

so that election fraud CAN'T be proven . . . a voting system of Republicans, by Repbulicans, and for Republicans . . . no conspiracy, my ass . . .

So they're obfuscating with "selected recounts".

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
- Gandhi

why Kerry didn't win those heavily Democratic counties in N. Florida. As many people have said all along, those are "dixie-crat" counties. Now let's all please concentrate on the anomalies that are important.

It’s just a front to downplay and trivialize our larger efforts and to counter the perception that counties are blocking access.

I'm not aware of a "debunking". Those were counties that have been reliably Republican for years. The "debunking" was the silly idea that you could take voter registrations (some decades old) and discern how a county would vote.

Gadsden
6,253/Bush
14,629/Kerry

Jefferson
3,298/Bush
4,134/Kerry

Leon
51,594/Bush
83,830/Kerry

plus Madison was very close

Madison
4,196/Bush
4,048/Kerry

All four counties are in North Central FL on the FL/GA border.

I mean... duh?

Leon county is hardly "Dixiecrat". 30% of the county population is African American. Gadsden county is "majority-minority" county (57% African American).

This hardly "debunks" the dixiecrat theory.

What is the total population of those so-called 'Dixiecrat Counties'? Certainly not enough to swing an election. Especially, since Bush lost so much of the Latin vote.

A "Dixiecrat" is someone who is registered as a Democrat, but hasn't voted for a Democrat (at least in national elections) for years (usually over 20 years).

Most of the panhandle falls in to this category, going for every Republican presidential candidate back to Reagan (or earlier), despite having registration advantages for Democrats.

How much is "enough to swing an election"??? Last time it was a pretty small number.

I have no idea whether they "made the difference" in Florida this election, but the point was merely to evaluate the Olberman theory that there was evidence of fraud in a few of these counties because they were overwhelmingly Democratic, but voted heavily for Bush.

All we had to do was look at how they had voted in 2000 and remember that they had largely been recounted by hand in THAT election (and ALL recounted by hand by the media consortium). Just looking at THOSE numbers would have made it clear that... if the election was stolen, it wasn't done by the counting software in the scan-ballot counties.

is very flawed. Since they didn't count all of Suwannee County you can't assume anything without good data, so scratch that one.

In the two counties that they actually completed the hand counts, the data is troubling to say the lest.

First of all we only have 7952 votes that have been verified. In the hand recount Bush lost 8 votes and Kerry gained 24 votes. That is a major discrepancy for two small counties. Especially since they used paper ballots that were scanned. That's over a 1% rate of error.


There should be zero errors with such a system. Especially since they are programmed to reject your ballot if you overvote and you are allowed to correct it at that time. There is no good reason why these electronic systems can't ever get the same number twice. This is simply unacceptable.

I don't even want to imagine what happened in the touch screen systems.

Especially is those 8 votes that Bush lost are part of the 24 Kerry gained (not sure how he "lost" them any other way).

It's less than 1/3% which is the lowest of any automated voting method I'm aware of. There's no such thing as "zero errors". And we didn't get exact figures for Suwannee, the percentage may have been much lower.

Second. Again, there isn't anything wrong with the Suwannee count. If I pull half of the precincts and count JUST those, I still know exactly how many votes each candidate got in each precinct and can compare the hand count. I haven't "validated" the election any more than three counties out of the state proves that nothing went wrong anywhere else. But I HAVE demonstrated that there wasn't a problem with the scan counting machines in the dixicrat counties. That isn't the only allegation of a rigged election - it's merely one of them. Now we know that isn't what happened. Many thougt it was a red herring anyway.

If you're going to fake a net of 400,000 votes, you've got to do it all across the state, you can't pull it off in just a couple counties without it showing up clearly.

if a solid case for fraud and voter disenfranchisement is proved. Then no matter what the final count come out to it will be election will be invalid anyway.

The big problem we are going to run into is that it is not possible to count vapor votes. That's when the constitutional crisis will hit the fan.

I thought the original work (was it Dopp's?) of optical scanner statistical anamolies showed mid sized counties, many of them in central Florida and suburban. That the number of panhandle counties showing this deviation was small because small population counties were excluded from the study.

So can somebody find the original work and see if these counties were in it? Or were they eliminated because of small size??? Maybe get the Herald to do a sampling of the mid size counties that showed this phenomena that were more in central Florida and less likely to be considered Dixiecrat. Try to get the Herald to do the work since they seem to have access that the bbv doesn't.

Interesting they got access before Dec 6!
So can any newspaper get access? I know someone who has a small newspaper in another state. I wonder if he could "hire" some locals to do a hand recount for an article in his paper?

Trudyco

http://ustogether.org/election04/Liddle_Analysis.html

No, these 3 small northern counties were never part of the analysis.

Their analysis spurred a lot of early attention to voting problems, but unfortunately it back-fired. It keeps being "debunked" as "just the panhandle dixiecrat counties" but it was never just that.

It's all just a diversionary tactic. More grist for the MSM spin-machine mill. What's more important are the exit polls, the Berkeley study, and the continuing reports of "irregularities" that almost invariably favor Bush. Someone should do a statistical analysis of the odds on that!

when I said the whole "bunked, debunked, and rebunked" thing all I meant was that this was a non-issue continually beaten to death by MSM to further discredit. I was not speaking to the "dixiecrat" issue per se, but to the larger perception war for which we are all engaged.

But even the most conservative estimates give Bush 50% of the Latino vote overall in Fla. Don't forget he picked up close to 80% of the Cuban vote

Bush should have lost a fair portion of the Cuban vote this year because of the stricter travel restrictions and new sanctions that prevented people from sending their families hurricane assistance.

I see them for who they really are and nothing will change that.

I hate to use a tired cliche, but it was very Twilight Zone, and of course we know what they are hiding

look, I'll prove it...see?

What a childish game and an obvious attempt to deflect away from the fraud. Who'd the Herald endorse?

The Herald endorsed Kerry and a few other Democratic candidates, such as Betty Castro, who "lost" to Martinez. I'm surprised by this report - the Herald is usually more democrat leaning than the Ft. Laud. Sun Sentinel. By the way, the Sun Sentinel also endorsed Kerry and Castro.

In the one county where they supposedly counted all the votes, Bush lost 3 votes and Kerry gained 21 votes. This is a significant change in a small county, especially since with optical scanners there shouldn't be any change at all. Funny how whenever recounts are done, Kerry always finds more votes?

The data for Suwanee County doesn't mean shit, since they didn't recount all the votes. Counting 60% just doesn't cut it, sorry.

Then onto Lafayette County where again Bush lost 8 votes and Kerry gained 3 votes. As usual, the differences favor Kerry

Then the writers go around and only talk to right wing conservatives to fill in their anecdotal evidence. This report is just another example of the sloppy, biased reporting that is supposed to pass for journalism these days.

Now, if the Miami Herald was allowed access to the ballots, then we should be too. Maybe Monday we can call around and see if any of the other counties will offer us the same service that was given to the Herald?

This effort was a red herring. All of the serious studies documented that the big vote discrepiencies were in the big touchscreen counties.
The Univ. of Calif.(Berkely) study,
www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,10801,97614,00.html
the Princeton Univ. study, my study
www.flcv.com/fla04EAS.html

There have been big problems indicated in the big touchscreen counties in Florida, and confirmed by the massive level of voter suppression documented on other threads here. In addition to likely fraud.

this story just opened up a big can of do-do.

First of all, we can now argue for hand recounts in the rest of the State of FL. Since they allowed the Miami Herald to do it, especially since the Electoral College hasn't met yet, now they have to let us do it.

Second, a quick look at the numbers for Union and Lafayette Counties (I threw out Suwannee for incomplete data) the error rate is about 1%. I don't even want to imagine what the error rate must be on the touch screen systems.

because we'll never know. No paper trail. All we have is the statistical inference from analyses like the Berkeley study.

because some people can have their votes counted and some can't. The systems that were put in place for the 2004 election are a clear violation of everyones right of equal protection under the law.

We are talking removal from office and criminal charges.

O please. I live in Florida and the numbers don't add up. They know people are talking about election fraud, and they are trying to put a lid on it. The only way to put a lid on the story is to try and convince people that the story is false.

One more thing if the election board is going to give reporters access to the votes why are the people being denied to count the votes? I don't trust the media, so anything they say I take with a grain of salt.

We need to start asking how these reporter got the privilege to count these votes when we can't even get the privilege?

What's with all the Bushites chiming in with their fluff? Was their bias OPINIONS really necessary for this article? I mean really! I guess ROVE thought so. :eyes:

The way they glossed over the FACT Kerry picked up votes, is a disturbing trend in the media. How can they call themselves journalist when don't ask questions that represent every angle?

Not legit count!

Just noise. Nothing to see here. :boring:

-Laelth

Earth is round!

This just in ....

New method for auditing voting results. Auditing 7,591,783 votes used to take highly educated specialists. Now you only have to be able count to 17,000, less than the price of a new truck. The method reduces the percentage necessary to confirm results to 0.223926316% or less.

developing ....
Professors let go for over using math in auditing voting data. People upset because the reports were hard to read and contained to many complex formulas.

buisness....
Auditing for dummies 19.99 .tp://ebay.

Did Bush camp err on ballot papers?
Democrats say the president may have missed Florida's filing deadline, but say they don't plan a challenge.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/09/11/Decision2004/Did_Bush_camp_err_on_.shtml

If you're pissed off at the deflecting tactic and sloppy journalism, tell the editor of the paper. They need to hear from us. I'm working on my letter and will post it here when I'm done.

Letters to the Editor

HeraldEd@herald.com
FAX: (305) 376-8950
MAIL: The Readers' Forum
The Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Fl 33132-1693

This is written with a strong slant to the freeper point of view. That doesn't mean that the reporter is a liar, only that the reporter set out to prove his guy one, and achieved his goal.

They may have blown it by opening the door to recounting every county.

baking election officials and their relatives kept popping in, Kerry gained votes and Bush lost votes. Seems that every irregularity that happened in this election favored Bush.
Bush is one lucky son of a dog, I guess.
:eyes:

Was there any indication of whether the newspaper actually counted the original hand-written opti-scan paper ballots or if they counted the reprints of the ballot 'images' provided by the system - you know, to suppposedly preserve the integrity of the originals?
(In prior elections, some jurisdictions have offered the so-called ballot 'images' for such independent re-count attempts.)

Anyone know the reporters well enough to be able to ask the question?

The answer to this question could make or break the credibility of the re-count.

For those that are unaware, the ballot 'images' are simply a re-print of the machine's interpretation of the markings on the original ballot, formatted to appear as if it were an original paper ballot. The machine interpretation can differ substantially from the voter's intent, hence the ballot 'images' should not be considered to be a reasonable facsimile.

HG
"I think the definition of truth is the willingness of the regime to allow for verification"

democrat counties still choosing a dem senator if they are voting for a rep president?

They pick a small sampling of counties where the evidence of fraud is the weakest and, as they are working to dissprove the "conspiracy theories," Jeb allows them to do a recount there. When they find 1% more Kerry votes, they declaire that there was "No Conspiracy." Brialliant!

Any deviation from the tallied result with optical scan should raise a lot of red flags, not lower them, the fact that all the votes went to Kerry should make it even more of an issue.

I wonder if they could get permission to do a recount in one of those high democratic registration, high * vote, Optical-Scan counties that isn't right the fuck next to Alabama. Now THAT might disprove the alligagtion of fraud. Does the Herald ahve the balls to do that?


BTW: where do they get off talking about "conspiracies" anyway? There are a lot of ways vote fraud can go down without co-ordination, and there are a lot of things people can conpire about other than vote fraud. Are * and Colon Powell conspiracy nuts when they talk about vote fraud in Ukrain? WTF?!? Yellow Journalists should go where * is going!

34% of the economy is military. South Florida is where I have a hard time. They are most always Democrat.

I did an Excel spreadsheet with Florida election results by county from 1996 to 2004. (also by vendor of voting machines in 2004)
http://bushspeak.free.fr/Downloads/Florida_1996-2000_by_vendor.zip

You can play with the results as you wish.

The general trend in the so-called Dixiecrat counties shows shows a steady trend since 1996 toward the Republicans. Many of the infamous counties have a 25-30% shift. One has a 39% shift. (You will have to consider that all Perrot's votes went to Bush 7-10%).

The funny thing is that the shift seems rather artificial and equally divided between 96-00 and 00-04. 12-15% each election.

I'll leave the analysis to the Florida people that know the territory.

PS The 2004 results were the unofficial ones released just after the election so you might want to update them.