Category Archives: Politics: US: 2004 Election

New Rumors Swirl Around Ohio Vote Count

Posted on November 29, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

I have no idea what to make of this.

Allegedly, a down-ticket Democrat polled 257,000 more votes than Kerry in Ohio. If true — and the web site offers some county-by-county vote figures — that's very odd, as barring the most unusual circumstances the top of the ticket polls well ahead of candidates with very limited advertising budgets. (spotted via Cosmic Iguana)

Bush is currently believed to have carried Ohio by circa 130,000 votes, although exit polls showed a narrow Kerry win. Were Kerry to have won Ohio he would have won the electoral collage although not, on current counts, the popular vote.

The Ohio vote count has had its oddities, notably the apparently false claim that the count in Warren County had to be held behind closed doors without the usual observers due to an FBI terror warning that … didn't exist. It would be enough to make you suspect some hanky-panky were we not all in the grips of … of what exactly?

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | 8 Comments

Slashdot Does Voting Machine Post Mortem

Posted on November 8, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Slashdot collates allegations of voting machine error and/or fraud. Interesting stuff, but politically going nowhere.

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Vote Suppression, GOP Style

Posted on November 4, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Of course the GOP didn't want UM students to vote. And they made it as hard as possible. But the students out-waited them.

e-Veritas, 11-04-04—Students turned out by the hundreds on Tuesday to vote at the new campus precinct at the UM Convocation Center. The turnout apparently caught the Miami-Dade Elections Department unprepared, despite the fact that their rolls reflected that students had registered in record numbers for this election. Nevertheless, the intrepid students and area neighbors maintained their good humor and endured wait times of up to five hours — sustained by dozens of pizzas and crates of bottled water provided by the University. The total number of voters exceeded 1,000, and there were as many as 300 people in line at any given time. University staff and student leaders provided support and helped maintain order, and the last voters finally cast their ballots just after midnight.

On Wednesday, President Donna E. Shalala praised students for their “passionate commitment to our democracy.” She subsequently filed a formal complaint with the Elections Department citing “woefully inadequate provision of voting equipment and knowledgeable staffing,” as well as the department's “lack of flexibility and inability to adjust to what were extraordinary lines during the course of the day.” The president also requested that the elections supervisor come to campus to meet with student leaders and assure them of adequate preparation for the next election.

Once again Shalala seizes the moment — feeding and watering the students was a wonderful move.

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election, U.Miami | 4 Comments

Tinfoil or For Real?

Posted on November 3, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

A scary item (is it true?) submitted to Dave Farber's Interesting People mailing list by one Ken Deifik:

It occurs to me that one of the questions that could be answered without too much trouble, at least for someone with lots of access to data and a knowlege of statistics, would be: is there any difference in the Bush – Kerry percentages in precincts that used eVoting, especially Diebold but all eVoting machines, as opposed to those that used paper ballots or some other method of voting.  If this question has any meaning for you, I'd ask you to pose to the list, to see anyone with the proper skills and access could carry out such a study.

I hope in the next few days statisticians examine the issue of the exit polls.  Since the early 70's the exit polls have always been spot on.  I feel ashamed for any journalist who says the exit polls got it wrong in FLA in 2000, because it is clear they got it right.

I have to wonder how John Zogby, who predicted 312 electoral votes for Kerry at 5PM EST 11/2, could have gotten the exit polls so wrong.  Or really if he did.

One reason may be who votes at what time of day?

I just found this posting in the Democratic Underground site
…on several swing states, and EVERY STATE that has EVoting but no paper trails has an unexplained advantage for Bush of around +5% when comparing exit polls to actual results.

In EVERY STATE that has paper audit trails on their EVoting, the exit poll results match the actual results reported within the margin of error.

So we have MATCHING RESULTS for exit polls vs. voting with audits
vs.
A 5% unexplained advantage for Bush without audits.

Say it ain't so…

Posted in Politics: Tinfoil, Politics: US: 2004 Election | 17 Comments

Avi Rubin, Cryptographer, On His Day as an Election Judge

Posted on November 3, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Avi Rubin blogs My day as an election judge – take 2. Everything looks like it works, but the system has vulnerabilities…and the worst ones are not ones you could detect….

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Kerry, Castor Concede

Posted on November 3, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

I think we are in for a rough time.

Will people abroad want to hold dollars if the people running the country have a track record of deficits and talking down the dollar?

Will the weakened Senate Democrats have the guts to filibuster extreme Supreme Court nominees?

Will a more right-wing court stand up to this administration's propensity for torture and arbitrary detention?

What will happen to global warming and environmental quality generally?

I would be delighted to be wrong, but I think that all but one of these questions are going to have really lousy answers, as will many others.

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | 10 Comments