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Banned
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Originally Posted by Ustwo
The problem is if there is no paper trail, how does one check the machine?
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There is a paper trail in Ohio, where 70 percent of ballots cast were of the
paper punch card variety, the same type made famous in Florida in 2000.
Quote:
November 15, 2004| 3:59 p.m. ET
Counting Ohio provisional ballots (David Shuster)
Election boards all across Ohio have started counting "provisional ballots" in the presidential election. These are the ballots that were given to voters who believed they were registered but whose names didn't appear on the precinct list on election day. The verification process may take up to two weeks. In most states, approximately 85 percent of all provisional ballots are eventually verified and counted in the final vote tally. And the early reports out of Ohio suggest the "count" list in some counties will be as high as 90 percent.
As it stands, there are approximately 155,000 provisional ballots. So, one can expect at least 130,000 ballots to be verified and "added to the final count."
There is another number that will eventually come into play in the Buckeye state... and that's the number of "spoiled ballots." The Green/Libertarian coalition, through recountohio.org, has already raised enough money to pay for a statewide recount. And the group is now raising even more cash so they can hire recount monitors. A statewide recount will include a visual examination of all 93,000 "spoiled ballots" that indicated "no" vote for President. (The "no vote" is usually a machine-tabulation problem because of chads, hanging chads, and etc.) A brilliant e-mailer named Matthew Fox has analyzed which counties reported "spoiled ballots." And it does appear that approximately 60 pecent of all the spoiled ballots come from heavily Democratic urban areas.
Can the "provisional ballots" and "spoiled ballots" change the Ohio outcome? As it stands, the difference between President Bush and John Kerry is 136,483 votes. When John Kerry decided to concede, here is some of the math his campaign looked at:
If you assume, for the sake of argument, that Kerry receives 80 percent of the 130,000 provisional ballots most observers expect will be validated... Kerry would receive 104,000 votes and President Bush would get 26,000. That's a net gain for John Kerry of 78,000. At that point, the margin between President Bush and Senator Kerry would drop to 58,000 votes.
Now, let's assume a preference can be determined on all 93,000 spoiled ballots. And let's also assume John Kerry receives 80% and President Bush receives 20%. John Kerry would receive 74,400 votes and President Bush would receive 18,600 votes. That's another net gain for John Kerry of 55,800. However, that still leaves John Kerry 3,000 votes short. And remember, the theory that Kerry is going to receive 80% of all provisional and "spoiled" ballots is not realistic. As the Kerry campaign noted on November 3, "the votes are just not going to be there."
However, there is one other number that has been the talk of the Net... and that's the number of "tallies" that might have been hacked or changed by somebody who left some nefarious "code" on the Windows systems tabulating the county by county vote. If that actually happened, it's not clear that a statewide recount would detect such a break-in as it affects "electronic voting" machines. But, given that 70% of Ohio used punch cards... most of the state does have a "paper trail." And the recount, when it happens, should settle these allegations once and for all. <a href="http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6446237/">http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6446237/</a>
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The results of the Ohio provisional ballot count should be interesting.....
Quote:
Most Ballots Pass Scrutiny, Ohio Officials Say
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 17, 2004
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Nov. 16 - The vast majority of provisional ballots cast in Ohio have been legitimate, election officials said, after spending nearly two weeks poring over thousands of disputed votes. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/politics/17ohio.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/politics/17ohio.html</a>
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