Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes

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- - An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes (https://thetfp.com/tfp/tilted-politics/75070-error-electronic-voting-system-gave-president-bush-3-893-extra-votes.html)

An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes

Quote:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said.

Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch.

State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome.

More

Well damn. I don't know if it would matter but does anyone know if there will be an investigation.

If that happened only once in every state, he would have gotten 194,650 extra votes. I'd laugh if it ended up that Kerry won.

that's all anyone has say about this?

yeah, dems got their asses handed to them

Doesn't anyone remember the fiasco with the Diebold CEO saying that he was, "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year"?

Prison Planet article

from the network that calls it like it sees it:

(a la 'asshole' *wink*)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/....ap/index.html

Quote:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said.

Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch.

State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome.

Bush won the state by more than 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results, and Kerry conceded the election on Wednesday after acknowledging that 155,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio would not change the result. (Full Ohio results)

The Secretary of State's Office said Friday it could not revise Bush's total until the county reported the error.

The Ohio glitch is among a handful of computer troubles that have emerged since Tuesday's elections. (Touchscreen voting troubles reported)

In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. And in San Francisco, a malfunction with custom voting software could delay efforts to declare the winners of four races for county supervisor.

In the Ohio precinct in question, the votes are recorded onto a cartridge. On one of the three machines at that precinct, a malfunction occurred in the recording process, Damschroder said. He could not explain how the malfunction occurred.

Damschroder said people who had seen poll results on the election board's Web site called to point out the discrepancy. The error would have been discovered when the official count for the election is performed later this month, he said.

The reader also recorded zero votes in a county commissioner race on the machine.

Workers checked the cartridge against memory banks in the voting machine and each showed that 115 people voted for Bush on that machine. With the other machines, the total for Bush in the precinct added up to 365 votes.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a glitch occurred with software designed for the city's new "ranked-choice voting," in which voters list their top three choices for municipal offices. If no candidate gets a majority of first-place votes outright, voters' second and third-place preferences are then distributed among candidates who weren't eliminated in the first round. (E-vote goes smoothly, but experts skeptical)

When the San Francisco Department of Elections tried a test run on Wednesday of the program that does the redistribution, some of the votes didn't get counted and skewed the results, director John Arntz said.

"All the information is there," Arntz said. "It's just not arriving the way it was supposed to."

A technician from the Omaha, Neb. company that designed the software, Election Systems & Software Inc., was working to diagnose and fix the problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FngKestrel

Doesn't anyone remember the fiasco with the Diebold CEO saying that he was, "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year"?

Prison Planet article

of course we remember, but then again, everyone posting so far is part of the 'loony left.'

Shenanigans seem to follow Bush around more than his shadow.

DEMOCRATS, MODERATES AND ANYBODY ELSE WHO GIVES A DAMN

Go to this site they are starting a investigation into black box voting but they need our help:
I already dontaed

blackbox voting

there are reports surfacing about this kind of stuff from many places--i am holding back a little in terms of enagaing with the issue because i want to have at least some handle of the motivations i might have for finding it compelling.

but if you assume that there is really no bottom when it comes to realpolitik, then...

the voting ....."errors" are spooky
no matter who you voted for, every voting american should be concerned!
even if your favorite won this time, ... next election?
has anyone watched the votergate video at
http://www.votergate.tv

after I watched the video I e-mailed both my senators, and my represenative
to urge them to pass legislation to require a voter verifiable paper trail on
ALL voting machines
I would urge everybody in the U.S.A. to do the same
you can do just that here
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/

is this really shocking?

I think bush/co were ingenious...first the florida debaucle to get everyone all ready for a new voting system, then implement a system that will assure that you always get what outcome you want...sure, you can't clean sweep bc that would be too suspicious, so you get a 3% victory here and there....

If you think about it, how hard would it be to write a bit of code that would shift say..1-2% of votes pressed for someone to go to someone else...it wouldn't be *that* far off from exit polling, so it wouldn't be suspicious and in a race this close, you'd see several outcomes change in your favor.

/end conspiracy theorist

seriously, now that this major error has been uncovered they need to look over and count all the paper backups because the machines cannot be trusted...oh wait...no paper backups exist...nice one diebold!

even a monkey can hack them....

Those Diebold machines are fucking shit. The thing in NC where 4K votes were lost because the machines could only hold 3K votes...what kind of hunk of garbage machine can only hold three thousand votes? An array for the 100(extremely generous) candidates on the ballot, all with a single float(again, generous) variable that increments each time they get a vote. My 32MB keychain flashdrive I got for free from a vendor could hold that info. I don't know (or really have the energy to care) if there was deliberate fraud; we are taking ridiculous risks with our voting process.

It should be noted the Black Box Voting is *not* looking into the voting systems because they think the election was won unfairly. Their Freedom of Information request was filed BEFORE the election took place.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=128331&cid=10718612

Quote:

Speaking as a board member for Blackboxvoting.org:

We were going to do this no matter WHO won. Because it's not just about the top of the ticket: more money gets tied up in local bond measures, construction projects and the like than in the "top of ticket campaigns" in many states. Check out how much money went into the California propositions, for starters.

It's also not just about the races themselves: folks, there are legal standards for the use of electronic voting machines at both the Fed and State levels. The garbage put out by Deibold for sure and probably ES&S, Sequoia and others DO NOT meet those legal standards!

But we have to prove it. For that, we need data.

We've gotten one KEY piece already: proof that King County hacked into their audit log and destroyed three hours worth of records on election night during the WA state primaries.

The fact that they COULD (on a Diebold box) proves that the gear doesn't meet legal security standards. The remaining question is "why did they hack the log?". Two possible answers:

1) It's possible the vote tally box went massively wonky, it took 'em three hours to clean up, and they didn't want to admit it had puked so they edited the log. Still an illegal-as-hell destruction of records and the fact that it's even possible is a gross condemnation of the gear in question...

2) They actually rigged the race with some crude clueless technique that left an audit trail item - so they scrubbed the log.

------

Speaking generally, this sort of "broad net" approach to FOIAs that BBV.org is undertaking is a pain, but it's how you scoop up killer documents that blow the lid off. Go watch the mostly factual movie "Erin Brokavich" for a real-world example of this.

We have a new advantage in California - Prop59 just "supercharged" our version of the FOIA (California Public Records Act) by establishing a constitutional right to public records. That will have a positive effect on the California requests.

--------

Speaking personally, I'm pretty sure Bush won it fair overall. If I'm eventually proven wrong, I don't think it'll be in Ohio, it'll be in Florida.

Full disclosure: I'm a Libertarian-leaning Republican who supported Bush over Kerry despite reservations. But I'm also a flat-out enemy of concealed-source, zero-paper-trail voting systems.

Jim March

Anyway, yes, what Black Box Voting is doing is a good thing and if you can support them in any way I recommend that you do.

That there were voting irregularities does not surprise me.

That we should be concerned about it and try to minimize it as much as possible, I agree.

But the level of paranoia in this thread is approaching Democratic Underground proportions.

A couple of thousand votes either way will not matter as Bush took the state with over 100,000 votes.

If someone can show me fraud on this level, then I'll begin to listen.

Until then, this thread seems better suited for "Tilted Paranoia", not "Tilted Politics".

Let's not move it just yet. Remember when we thought that there were WMDs in Iraq? Remember when we thought that Nixon was a saint? Remember when we thought that Clinton wasen't getting a little action via a cigar? Sometimes these things just happen to be true. Sometimes the conspiracy theory becomes a fact. This one already has some serious evidence behind it. People are always skeptical going into the 'Paranoia' section, which I think hurts a lot of serious issues brought fourth on that page. Let's try to keep this open minded as long as possible, lest it end up like the theories about how 9/11 was carried out by someone other than Isslamic terrorists.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebell

"

If someone can show me fraud on this level, then I'll begin to listen.

".

Whether or not fraud was comitted is a matter of personal opinion!
And That is the biggest problem.
with no verifiable paper trail "fraud" or "errors" cannot be proven or disproven

The Republicans were able to rig the vote enough to give Bush a 4 million vote majority.

But stupid enough to have 4000 more votes then could be possible and have the error detected the night of the election while voting was still going on.

This reminds me of some of the Arab propaganda about how stupid the jews are and how diabolicly clever at the same time.

I am NOT in favor of black box voting, not in the least, but trying to base your case on something like this isn't going to help you.

why is it there has been flaws only when Bush is running? Hmmm......

Quote:

Originally Posted by :::OshnSoul:::

why is it there has been flaws only when Bush is running? Hmmm......

There have been flaws every election.

How many elections have you been around for?

the arguments presented below are interesting.
i remain agnostic on the matter as a function of not having yet been sure why i find these stories to be compelling.
but it seems pretty clear that this is not simply a matter for paranoids.

apologies for the length.

Quote:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/4/224812/643

Ohio Provisional Ballots, Recounts, and Fraud [UPDATED]
by Hunter
Fri Nov 5th, 2004 at 00:13:22 PST

(Elevated from the Diaries - MB)
All right. Everyone, take a breath. Stop freaking out. Stop
accusing everyone of ignoring the issue; it isn't being ignored.

There are two states in which questions of "fraud" have been raised:
Ohio, and Florida. Close counts are also present in Iowa and New
Mexico; quite frankly, however, without OH or FL those results are
largely meaningless. First off, a summary of where we are in Ohio.

Ohio

The Ohio numbers are regarded by many with great suspicion because
the GOP launched, in the weeks before the election, an organized
effort to intimidate minority voters, fund push-polls and other
robocalls, and generally depress turnout in Democratic precincts.
Anecdotal evidence is that it did not work -- turnout was high, and
there were very few reports on election day of Republican
intimidation at the polls.

Diaries :: Hunter's diary ::

Set aside the possibility of fraud, for the moment. We will return
to it.

Currently, the margin of difference between Kerry and Bush is 136,483
votes.

The provisional ballots are being counted now. "Provisional" ballots
are ballots cast by people who the polling officials couldn't find on
the voting rolls, or who had some other reason why they were denied
the right to vote along with the rest of the populous. We can expect
90% or more of these votes to be valid, but it takes a long time --
up to ten days -- to correctly validate each and every one to
determine that the voter is indeed eligible to vote.

There are 155,337 provisional ballots (from MyDD). These ballots are
going to be counted, whether Kerry asks for it or not. They are
legally (potential) votes, and Ohio is counting them now.

Assume they break 80% for Kerry, which is being very generous -- but
we'll know the precise numbers soon, no matter what. That means
Kerry gains an additional 124,269 votes, and Bush gains 31,067 -- so
Kerry gains +93,200 votes.

Repeating, these votes will be counted. We will know the totals
soon. But note that that still isn't enough, best case scenario, to
gain a Kerry victory. Again, the margin of difference is currently
136,483 votes: shrinking that by 93,000 "gained" Kerry votes from
provisional ballots means that a recount would have to net Kerry over
+43,200 votes in order to actually affect the election.

Ohio primarily uses punchcard voting. Right now, with a difference
of over 130,000 votes between Kerry and Bush, nobody wants to touch a
hand-recount of those ballots with a ten-foot pole. Memories of
Florida are still omnipresent, and the national Democrats aren't
going to go down that road unless it would credibly make a
difference. When you are down by more than a hundred thousand votes,
and you only have 92,000 "spoiled" ballots, there is no possible way
that it would make a difference. However, it is likely that a
recount would favor Kerry, because poor/minority areas historically
have a greater rate of "spoiled" ballots -- ballots which cannot be
read by the machine -- than other areas.

According to MyDD, there are 92,672 ballots in which no vote for
president was recorded. Even assuming that these ballots leaned 70%
for Kerry, which is a very, very remote best-case scenario, that's
64,870 for Kerry, and 27,801 for Bush -- gaining +37,000 votes for
Kerry, if all the planets lined up precisely right.

If the margin between Bush and Kerry after counting the provisional
ballots is greater than 40,000, there simply isn't any credible way
those votes will make the difference. In reality, it is unlikely
that Kerry would gain more than 10k-20k votes from it.

If it would potentially make a difference -- that is, if Kerry gained
so many provisional ballots as to be within striking range, Ohio law
allows for a recount of the ballots. It is a decidedly better system
than in Florida 2000.

Only after the provisional and absentee/military votes have been
completely counted, election officials will "certify" the results of
the election. The candidate (or his electors, or the voters -- it is
unclear, but certainly at minimum, the candidate) may contest the
results of the election (e.g. ask for a recount) at any point within
five days from the day of the election, or at any point until the
official "certification" of the results. Note that this means there
is at least an eleven-day window here, and possibly more, depending
on how "certification" works in Ohio. Note also that this would be a
full "hanging-chad" manual recount -- the standards for what is and
isn't a vote in Ohio, chad-wise, are spelled out clearly, and so Bush
v. Gore wouldn't enter into it.

Also, Kerry "conceding" doesn't enter into it. "Conceding" is a
political concept, not a legal one. If Ohio looked like it had some
possibility of turning blue, you can bet that Kerry would "un-
concede" pretty damn quickly.

Issues of Fraud?

The possibility of fraud has been raised primarily because the
results from Ohio are not what people were expecting to see.
Republican turnout was very large, and Democrats seemed to vote for
Bush in surprising numbers. That is indeed curious, and needs to be
analyzed.

Note, however, that it may be entirely explainable. It is entirely
probable that Republicans came out in record numbers; it is also not
outside the realm of logic that many Midwestern Democrats, swayed by
the We Hate Gays initiative on the Ohio ballot or by "values"
or "terrorism" or other factors, really did vote for Bush in
surprising numbers. It is possible. Keep in mind that rural
Democrats and urban Democrats are, in some ways, not exactly the same
species -- we tend to forget that, sometimes.

Again, to repeat: Unusual numbers in individual counties in Florida
and Ohio are potentially explainable by demographic and other
factors; they do not, in and of themselves, constitute "proof" of
fraud. (If there are egregious mistakes in some precincts, please
post or link to them below, in comments.)

But it is also possible to explain the discrepancies from fraud or
error. Intentional fraud, or unintentional error, would in this case
consist of misreporting of the numbers from each precinct. Note that
few of these Ohio precincts use anything other than the punch-card
systems; fraud would be present in the central machines that sum the
votes, not from in-precinct shenanigans. Nationwide, these machines
are manufactured by Diebold and other vendors; longtime readers will
remember Diebold as the heavily-Republican-leaning company (Diebold
executives are heavy Bush contributers) whose chief officer announced
in a Republican fund-raising letter that the company was "committed
to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next
year."

Bad fucking move, Walden. Really, really bad.

Let's explain what these "central vote-counting" machines are.
Basically, it's a machine running Microsoft Windows with a Microsoft
Access database attached. (Note to the computer-savvy among you:
Yes, I shit you not. MS Access. Jeez.) The database keeps track of
the votes in each precinct, county, etc., much like an Excel
spreadsheet. The software is deemed secret and proprietary; previous
lawsuits to examine the code that tabulates the votes have been
denied.

Sizable mistakes have been found before in Diebold-run elections.
More notably, the machines are easily hacked in such a way as to
change the vote totals in not-readily-detectable ways. There is
a "second set of books" built in to Diebold machines, which can be
accessed remotely if necessary. Note that there is some evidence
that this has actually happened:

MONDAY Nov 1 2004: New information indicates that hackers may be
targeting the central computers counting our votes tomorrow. All
county elections officials who use modems to transfer votes from
polling places to the central vote-counting server should disconnect
the modems now.
There is no down side to removing the modems. Simply drive the vote
cartridges from each polling place in to the central vote-counting
location by car, instead of transmitting by modem. "Turning off" the
modems may not be sufficient. Disconnect the central vote counting
server from all modems, INCLUDING PHONE LINES, not just Internet.

In a very large county, this will add at most one hour to the vote-
counting time, while offering significant protection from outside
intrusion.

It appears that such an attack may already have taken place, in a
primary election 6 weeks ago in King County, Washington -- a large
jurisdiction with over one million registered voters. Documents,
including internal audit logs for the central vote-counting computer,
along with modem "trouble slips" consistent with hacker activity,
show that the system may have been hacked on Sept. 14, 2004. Three
hours is now missing from the vote-counting computer's "audit log,"
an automatically generated record, similar to the black box in an
airplane, which registers certain kinds of events.

Voting "solutions" by other companies have similar reported problems;
look at blackboxvoting.org for horror stories about known miscounted
election results in actual elections across the country. These
machines, both touchscreen and optical-scan, are already proven [PDF]
to be prone to errors:

In the 2002 general election, a computer miscount overturned the
House District 11 result in Wayne County, North Carolina. Incorrect
programming caused machines to skip several thousand partyline votes,
both Republican and Democratic. Fixing the error turned up 5,500 more
votes and reversed the election for state representative.
...

Voting machines failed to tally "yes" votes on the 2002 school bond
issue in Gretna, Nebraska. This error gave the false impression that
the measure had failed miserably, but it actually passed by a 2 to 1
margin. Responsibility for the errors was attributed to ES&S, the
Omaha company that had provided the ballots and the machines.

...

An Orange County, California, election computer made a 100 percent
error during the April 1998 school bond referendum. The Registrar of
Voters Office initially announced that the bond issue had lost by a
wide margin; in fact, it was supported by a majority of the ballots
cast. The error was attributed to a programmer's reversing the "yes"
and "no" answers in the software used to count the votes.

...

Software programming errors, sorry. Oh, and reverse that election, we
announced the wrong winner. In the 2002 Clay County, Kansas,
commissioner primary, voting machines said Jerry Mayo ran a close
race but lost, garnering 48 percent of the vote, but a hand recount
revealed Mayo had won by a landslide, receiving 76 percent of the
vote.

...

In the November 2002 general election in Scurry County, Texas, poll
workers got suspicious about a landslide victory for two Republican
commissioner candidates. Told that a "bad chip" was to blame, they
had a new computer chip flown in and also counted the votes by hand --
and found out that Democrats actually had won by wide margins,
overturning the election.

...

In 1986 the wrong candidate was declared the winner in Georgia.
Incumbent Democrat Donn Peevy was running for state senator in
District 48. The machines said he lost the election. After an
investigation revealed that a Republican elections official had kept
uncounted ballots in the trunk of his car, officials also admitted
that a computerized voting program had miscounted. Peevy insisted on
a recount. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "When the
count finished around 1 a.m., they [the elections board] walked into
a room and shut the door," recalls Peevy. "When they came out, they
said, `Mr. Peevy, you won.' That was it. They never apologized. They
never explained."

...

A software programming error gave the election to the wrong candidate
in November 1999 in Onondaga County, New York. Bob Faulkner, a
political newcomer, went to bed on election night confident he had
helped complete a Republican sweep of three open council seats. But
after Onondaga County Board of Elections staffers rechecked the
totals, Faulkner had lost to Democratic incumbent Elaine Lytel. Just
a few hours later, election officials discovered that a software
programming error had given too many absentee ballot votes to Lytel.
Faulkner took the lead.

...

In a 1998 Salt Lake City election, 1,413 votes never showed up in the
total. A programming error caused a batch of ballots not to count,
though they had been run through the machine like all the others.
When the 1,413 missing votes were counted, they reversed the election.

So the question of whether the machines in Ohio are working properly
is hardly a "tinfoil-hat" concern. It is a legitimate question.
Note, however, that as of yet evidence of miscounts or tampering is
speculative; the only available evidence is statistical analysis of
the counties which points to "unusual" results in certain precincts
and counties.

Florida, perhaps, is the bigger question. Voting there is almost
entirely electronic now, through a combination of touchscreen and
optical-scan systems. And, to be quite honest, the vote totals there
are far more suspicious than in Ohio. While both states are
exhibiting results that are reasonable, they are also exhibiting, in
some counties, results that are highly unusual, though not outside
the realms of possibility, compared to past elections.

Bottom Line

So the question becomes, are the curious numbers in Ohio (and
Florida) due to the way the electorate voted, or due to the way those
votes were summed up in the central office? It is entirely possible
that errors might exist which do not affect the outcome of the
election, but which are still serious enough to require a serious
review.

This is why I, for one believe it is our national interests to have a
manual recount of some of the Ohio counties with the most unusual
results. But this is not a Kerry issue; this is a democracy issue.
Can these machines be trusted? Recounts in selected counties would
resolve this: it needs to be done.

Bev Harris and other activists are filing Freedom of Information Act
requests and taking other steps to start analyzing the data. What we
can do is put weight behind their efforts, without looking like
tinfoil-hat loonies. We have to understand, the possibility that a
miscount, even if discovered, will be great enough to change the
outcome of the election is remote. These FOIA requests and other
investigations are happening so that these machines can be validated,
not because any of the parties have any actual evidence of willful
fraud.

Please put additional information, action requests, and links to good
related diaries in comments below, as well as any questions that you
think someone here might be able to answer.

Update [2004-11-5 2:57:13 by Hunter]:

From this diary, we find at least one county with a very egregious
vote counting error.

Franklin County, OH: Gahanna 1-B Precinct
638 TOTAL BALLOTS CAST

US Senator:
Fingerhut (D) - 167 votes
Voinovich (R) - 300 votes

US President:
Kerry (D) - 260 votes
Bush (R) - 4,258 votes

You don't have to be the Ohio Secretary of State to figure out the
problem there. Let's see if he does.

So we do have some concrete evidence of actual machine malfunction or
egregious human error. Four thousand votes is not enough to swing the
election. But it proves that the vote totals in Ohio are currently
not accurate. The question is, how inaccurate are they.

Keep in mind, from above, the kind of errors these machines are
capable of:

In the 2002 Clay County, Kansas, commissioner primary, voting
machines said Jerry Mayo ran a close race but lost, garnering 48
percent of the vote, but a hand recount revealed Mayo had won by a
landslide, receiving 76 percent of the vote.
I'm not a tinfoil hat person. But if the election authorities cannot
explain the vote discrepency cited above -- and give a damn good
reason why they expect that error to be unique, among all precincts
and counties -- it's time for at least a partial recount.

Not for Kerry, but for the good of the country. Democrats,
Republicans, all of us -- we need to know whether these machines
actually worked

too funny. So I guess all the whiny loser Democrats will say that EVERY malfunction would have gone Bush's way, and that Kerry wouldn't have ALSO picked up some extra votes. Its just plain funny.

Bush is back. Kerry is over. Edwards is unemployed. Whoop!

Quote:

Originally Posted by FngKestrel

Doesn't anyone remember the fiasco with the Diebold CEO saying that he was, "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year"?

Prison Planet article

From what I read about this, it was not a Diebold machine, and was only used in one county. It was apparently an error with some type of cartridge. Dunno tho.

guys...the major problem with these machines is that the machines are designed with no paper backup, insecure software, easily to remove audit logs, and closed source programing. If any of these things were fixed then the elections would run much smoother...
I'm thinking Freebsd that writes the audit log to a tape drive that can't rewrite (erase)

Wait, so instead of winning by 3,500,000 votes, Bush only won by 3,496,000 votes? This is an outrage!

like i said, i am watching such information on this as surfaces and remain at this point agnostic on the matter.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbr9racr

It isn't about partisanship for me. Even if the error had occured in Kerry's favor, I'd be upset about this. It's about accountability and fairness for everyone involved.

see this time you don't have simultaneously a problem with voting and a problem with television's coverage of the voting as you did in florida last time out.
so there is not the same kind of focus on voting irregularities this time.
since it seems that concern from the right is a strict function on how television understands and frame what is and is not a crisis, of course these irregularities are not a problem.
noting them is therefore "whining"

yes.
of course it is.

No its just whining.

Unwilling to accept defeat, the radical left would rather blame corruption caused their loss rather then the fact that America didn't want them.

3% difference.
of the 40% of the electorate that voted, a 3% margin.
hardly a mandate, hardly anything overwhelming.
from which is follows, obviously, that"america" did not say one thing.
i know that the right would prefer to pretend otherwise.
but as usual, the facts are a problem in this.

I did not vote for Bush.
Bush has won the election.
Life goes on, and voting irregularities are par for the course.
Bush is the President of the United States, and it seems rightfully so.
This is NOT a repeat of 2000.

For those of us who decided not to vote for Bush.....we must now decide to make the best of this situation, which to me means accepting it in the first place, and only then, making any dissatisfaction with policy known.

I for one, know when and where to pick my battles, and this one is lost. fairly.
Perhaps it is time to pay attention to the present choices before us (as in policy and legislation) rather than beat this horse.....which obviously died some time ago.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tecoyah

OMG, a rational post? Stay out of politics Tecoyah, your gonna give it a good name! :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonjon42

Exactly. I cant beleive we are using these Diebold machines. Dare I say i read slashdot, but for the past 3 or 4 years, I can't think of a week going by without hearing about a new security hole found in these diebold machines. Rediculously susceptible to voter fraud, software/design bugs in general. We CANT rely on these things AT ALL for accurate election results.

Ok, I'm seriously starting to wonder about some things here. I can't believe how many people are going off on Diebold in this post when it WAS NOT EVEN DIEBOLD MACHINES THAT CAUSED THIS ERROR!

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/c...list=cleveland

Quote:

Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Bush's total should have been recorded as 365.

Franklin is the only Ohio county to use Danaher Controls Inc.'s ELECTronic 1242, an older-style touchscreen voting system. Danaher did not immediately return a message for comment.

I agree, the head of Diebold said some stuff that makes you wonder, but lets at least make sure it can even be tied to them before we start crucifying people.

Fair enough. I had the impression these were diebold machines based on the comments in this thread. I wasnt trying to attribute any deceibt or purposeful bias by diebold for any candidate, I was just pointing out their e-voting machines have had serious issues.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sprocket

I completely agree with that Sprocket. Definetely need the paper trail, definetely need to make sure they are a lot more secure than they are currently. I just want to see this head down a constructive path rather than degenerate into partisan name calling.

While I agree that it is very doubtful anything about this could actually turn the election, it troubles me that the bush supporters here dont seem to care about the problems and simply blame everything on the whiny democracts refusing to give up. These are serious problems with these machines and should be taken as such. The attitudes of the bush supporters on this page only support any claims about them by "lefties".

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Wait, so instead of winning by 3,500,000 votes, Bush only won by 3,496,000 votes? This is an outrage!

You should realise that the popular vote is not important as you seem to think it is. Seeing as Gore won the popular by about 500,000 votes and still lost the election. It seems like it would be more accurate to say Bush won by whatever his lead in Ohio/Florida and any other of the states that were up in the air at one point.

And I dont think it really matters what machines they were. Errors were made, period.

My post wasn't completely on track, and I decided to give it its own thread.

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...85#post1520285

You would think Republicans would be MORE concerned than anyone over voting irregularities. If the raison du jour for the preemptive invasion of Iraq was to install a democratic system it doesn't look so good if we can't manage our own democracy.