Voting Fraud

Anna Gregoline | November 9, 2004
I kind of hope this doesn't go anywhere, as it won't do much good and will only prolong the agony for all of us, but...

Metafilter link including three links to voting fraud in the 2004 election.

(link)

Scott Horowitz | November 9, 2004
Everyone said "Kerry was weak" in conceding so soon. But, I think he did it in the best interests of the country and party. If he fought again, like Gore, did all the country would think that the democrats are sore losers, and hurt the party's reputation even more. I say, let Bush and congress fuck up the country over the next 4 years. That way, we can get good people in there who know what they're doing.

Anna Gregoline | November 9, 2004
I totally agree, Scott. I do want people to be aware of voting fraud too, though, even if nothing is done about it this time.

Jackie Mason | November 9, 2004
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Anna Gregoline | November 9, 2004
Yeah, to me this has little to do with who won, like the last election. It has to do with accuracy, and if it's not accurate/someone is cheating, than what's the point?

If this is considered ok, then our elections will become a complete sham.

Anna Gregoline | November 9, 2004
I also don't think Kerry was weak - he did the right thing, he knew he didn't have the votes to win.

Scott Horowitz | November 9, 2004
Kerry took the higher ground, trying to work with the president to unite the country. Seeing how divided it is, he made the right decision. Hopefully, the President will as well.

John E Gunter | November 9, 2004
One can hope that the whole government will take that approach!

John

Scott Horowitz | November 9, 2004
The problem with the election is that there need to be national standards on how voting is done. Some of these "touch screen" vote counters used a Microsoft Access database, which is entirely too easy to alter. They should have used something secure like Oracle or MS SQL Server for security. And printed a hard ballot for each one. If a recount was needed, count the printed ballots instead of the computerized.

Jackie Mason | November 10, 2004
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David Mitzman | November 10, 2004
I'm "fortunate" enough to live in a swing state and we even had those touch-screen machines (the ones in my county [Palm Beach, yep the one that fucked up the 2000 elections] are made by Sequoia). I don't trust them at all. I would only trust them if they did print out a paper trail (which I can't imagine is such a terrible thing). Back in NY, they still use those machines where you pull a lever and the curtain closes, then you simply flip a switch for the candidtate you want. When you want to register your vote into the machine, just pull the lever back and the curtain opens. Is that such a horrible thing? I do think advanced computing technology doesn't belong in areas like national elections.

Todd Brotsch | November 10, 2004
Let's also add that you needed help to vote, cause you fucked up voting this time.

For the Record.

I of course had no problem voting at all.

Maybe it's because I'm a Gentile.

David Mitzman | November 10, 2004
Yes, well, that maybe true. For the other record, yes you are a gentile.

Scott Hardie | November 11, 2004
People have brought up "vote receipts" and I don't see why it's such a bad idea. If you were given a printed receipt of your votes with some kind of unique identifier on them, like a bar code or serial number that was tied to your identity, that would help post-electoral investigations of fraud and miscounting. This would require the polling place to have a matching copy of the receipt, of course. Come to think of it, why stop there? With every vote, give a printed copy to the voter and the officials at the polling place, but send one electronically to the department of elections in the county, and send one electronically to each of the major political parties, and send one electronically to the major news organizations. If everybody was working with the same numbers at the same time, there would be a lot less confusion and ambiguity. (To protect anonymity, the distributed electronic versions would only have the bar code or identification number, while the printed versions would have one's voter registration number, name and address, or other personally identifying information.)

Anna Gregoline | November 11, 2004
I'm all for personal anonymity, but as for myself, I don't really understand why people keep something like who they voted for a secret. I mean, maybe I get some of why in this election, but would the world really come to a stop if that info was out there?

Erik Bates | November 11, 2004
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Lori Lancaster | November 11, 2004
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Jackie Mason | November 11, 2004
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Erik Bates | November 11, 2004
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Anna Gregoline | November 11, 2004
Cause I think we're all advocating that a written record is best.

Scott Horowitz | November 11, 2004
How about they come up with a device that scan's people's brain waves and determines how they're going to vote? Or anal probing? Or, I know, JUST RECORD THE FUCKING THING CORRECTLY!!!

Lori Lancaster | November 11, 2004
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Erik Bates | November 11, 2004
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John E Gunter | November 11, 2004
I agree Erik, it is very important to me for a truly secret ballot as well. Course, even if you get a completely accurate count, you will always have someone who will complain that the votes were miscounted, or forged, etc.

But, if that were found out to be true, and there was evidence to support those claims, it would be nice if the proper course of action were taken to correct that problem.

John

Scott Hardie | November 12, 2004
I also support a secret ballot, because I don't know what you people would do to me if you found out I voted for Bush.

Amy Austin | November 12, 2004
Amen, Scott!

Jackie, were you being serious?!! Did no one during the time of this election ever approach you and try to convince you why you should vote for Bush or Kerry? Did you find it easy or difficult to escape that "death trap"?

Here's a more modern example of lack of anonymity for you: a picket line of loud, obnoxious protesters outside of an All Women's Clinic who verbally attack patients seeking abortions as they are escorted inside by volunteers who cover the women's ears and sing whatever songs they can think of as loudly as they can manage so that the poor women don't have to hear/deal with them. Without anonymity, I can *easily* see such a thing happening at the polls, even today.

Steve Dunn | November 12, 2004
Paper receipts have all sorts of problems. They virtually invite vote buying (secret ballot is a wonderful disincentive for vote buying because you never really know if you got what you paid for) and they also could encourage voter intimidation, like, "Hey show me that receipt and then I'll decide whether to beat the shit out of you."

Plus, they really wouldn't guarantee an accurate count. People are already speculating that hackers have altered the vote totals - there's no real evidence of it in this election, but sure, it COULD happen. Well, a hacker could very easily program a machine to print the correct receipt yet record the wrong vote electronically.

I'm not against paper receipts - I just don't think they're a panacea, or even a particularly good idea.

I like Scott's idea of emailing every vote to every interested party so they can all confirm they came up with the same totals.

I think all vote machine software should be open source. I'm no computer guy, but it doesn't strike me as a huge technical challenge to program a machine to count votes. I'm amazed how many glitches and errors there have been, even with the electronic machines. I think the code needs to be a public record, and standardized across the board.

I like the idea of printed audit trails - like internal receipts, not given to voters. That's basically what we have in my county in NC, and it's a good thing because the vote totals got ALL screwed up here this year. They just TODAY figured out who won the county commission races.

Anthony Lewis | November 13, 2004
Electronic voting should be banned. All votes should be submitted on paper.

It's shame that because one party feels like they can't win an election without some sort of duplicity...that the whole process has been tainted. Think about all the new voters who WON'T vote in the next election because of all the BS.

Make no mistake. Bush did not "win" this election because of the evangelicals. He did not "win" because the youth vote did not turn out (BECAUSE THEY DID). Bush "won" because this election was stolen just like the one in 2000.

There was nothing wqrong with the exit polls. Exit polls have accurately predicted election winners for decades. All of a sudden, people coming out of the polls are "lying"? BULLSHIT!!! Funny how exit polls in places where they used traditional forms of voting (paper, lever machines) were accurate, yet all the places where electronic voting took place were wrong. Is this a "coinkydink"? If you want to think it is, go right on ahead. But this thing STINKS to high heaven. I mean, there were counties in Ohio that had more votes cast than voters registered?!

Increased registration, yet no increase in voting machines? Only 25 provisional ballots in one location? At one polling place the sprinkler system "magically" turned on. People standing on line for HOURS? People DO NOT stand on line for eight hours in the rain and cold to keep the status quo.

There was MASSIVE FRAUD on November 2nd. And very few outlets are reporting it.

(link)

Scott Hardie | November 14, 2004
What I don't grasp is how voting irregularities are automatically proof that the Bush team or the Republican Party at large was cheating. In the case of Franklin County, if the report is accurate, that definitely seems like a case of a Republican in power influencing the results for his party. But most of the rest of these examples are much more likely to be coincidences than evidence of a cheating strategy in effect. Consider Drake County: Bush got more votes there than he did four years ago, and exit polls showed Kerry in the lead, so that alone is proof that Republicans must have stolen Drake County? That's flimsy reasoning.

Anthony Lewis | November 14, 2004
That's not flimsy reasoning. That sounds like a solid case to me. Exit polls have accurately predicted who would win the election for decades. All of a sudden, now the exit polls are wrong. I don't buy that this was a coincidence Scott.

Bush got more votes because the machines were giving him extra votes. This has been documented. As the article I linked to stated, Bush got 4,258 votes on a machine at the New Life Church when only 638 votes were actually cast in that entire location. How can that actually be IF it were just a coincidence.

It's no coincidence. It was plain theft, pure and simple.

Jackie Mason | November 15, 2004
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Anthony Lewis | November 15, 2004
Jackie: When you have the chairman of the company that makes the machines PUBLICALLY declare that they will "deliver" electoral votes to Bush...you know what I'm getting at.

Unfortunately, there will always be a corporate tie to any voting machine. We just have to find a company who can do it on the up and up. Machines that cannot be hacked into. Then again, I'll go to my grave saying PAPER BALLOTS.

I think you and I (and some other people here) think along the same lines. Something stinks in Ohio. Thank goodness people are starting to do something about it. Money is being raised for an Ohio recount as we speak. Hopefully, this will lead to recounts across this country. This is what I meant the day after Election Day about not taking this thing lying down and fighting back..

Denise Sawicki | November 15, 2004
Honestly, maybe someone can explain this to me, but I just don't understand why hardly anybody (besides Anthony here) seems too concerned about the voting irregularities. How tough can it be for a computer to *count*? Even if you're talking about counting in the multiple millions of votes, your home PC can do a task like that in a fraction of a second and it will be accurate unless it's intentionally designed to be inaccurate or someone has tampered with the results. I'm not just making that up or anything. :P I'm a crappy programmer but even I could make a program that could COUNT for gods sake. (The security aspect is the tough part, obviously)

"In the late 1980's you could purchase a personal computer that could process about one million calculations per second. Today, even low-cost computers can perform about one billion calculations per second." (quote from here: (link) ) Yeah, I know, nobody's questioning the speed of the calculations but I felt like throwing in an irrelevant argument... :P

Shouldn't this be investigated? It seems pretty obvious that something is wrong with this and all I'm hearing about is mistakes going in Bush's favor...

Scott Horowitz | November 15, 2004
I don't think the speed of the computer is the issue. I think the fact that the computers are insecure is the issue. What's to stop an election official from stuffing a ballot box is also an issue? I don't think there is a possible way to hold an election without tampering. I am not a good hacker by any means, but from what I read of these voting machines, they were not secure at all. Using a MS Access database???? That's like leaving the safe open when the bank manager locks up for the night.

Lori Lancaster | November 15, 2004
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Denise Sawicki | November 15, 2004
Right, I know the speed thing is irrelevant. Was tired and making stupid arguments. Just saying that counting (even to large numbers) is incredibly simple and it's obvious that the results have been tampered with in some way. I don't see how it could all be a computer glitch really...

and people should be flaming mad until it's explained. Corrupt programmers or corrupt election officials should not be allowed to even try to influence a decision that could mean the loss of thousands of lives...

Anna Gregoline | November 15, 2004
The thing is, if someone can show me a voting irregularity where the votes went in KERRY'S favor, then I'll be less suspicious and chalk it all up to dumb computer errors. But since all the ones I'm hearing about are going to Bush, I'm a tad suspicious.

Mike Eberhart | November 15, 2004
The only reason you're hearing nothing but one's going for Bush is because Bush won. If Kerry won, you'd hear more about one's going for him. It's just a fact of life. Also, this thread is funny, you are all argueing and it's the same arguement. So what are you argueing about? I'm not here debating your issues, so it's all very one-sided. Plus, this conspiracy that the election was "stolen" again, is such a joke. What happened to after this election is over we can stop talking politics? I see that didn't happen. I for one am going to stick to my new resolve and not continue with these debates. So, good luck with winning your arguement against whoever it is..... :)

Anna Gregoline | November 15, 2004
Voting irregularities aren't a joke to me, Mike. They undermine the very idea of a democratic election. It's important to make sure that our elections are fair, don't you think? Otherwise, why have them?

Mike Eberhart | November 15, 2004
The elections were fair, what's not fair is to say that the "entire" election was stolen. Creating conspiracies to try to get your candidate into office. It's ridiculous. Your guy lost, move on and look towards the next election. From everything that I read, voting irregularities were way down from 2000 and the process actually went pretty smooth. If it was really as close as it was in 2000, I really don't think Kerry would have conceded as quickly as he did. His people knew that he didn't have the votes, and forcing recounts would just make the Democrats look even worse than they did in 2000. I think what he did was smart. He was trying to help his own party out because of the poor showing the Democrats had this year. The Democrats really need to change their image and forcing recounts in a bunch of states won't help that.

Anna Gregoline | November 15, 2004
If there were voting innacuraccies, I can hardly see how the election is "fair."

Quite frankly, I'm not trying to get my candidate into office - I'm concerned that our election process is far too easy to tamper with, and if there were innaccuracies, either intentional or not, I want them to be found and addressed, regardless of who is in office. I think what Kerry did was right too, as I've expressed elsewhere.

But I fail to see why it's ridiculous to want to make sure our voting process is fair and accurate.

Anthony Lewis | November 15, 2004
Mike: Unfortunately, when you can manipulate one or two states, you CAN steal an entire election. So to say an entire election was "stolen" is totally fair. And I don't know what you've been reading, but things absolutely DID NOT go smooth that day.

You're right. The Democrats need to change their image. We need to be sneaky dirtbags like these neo-cons currently in office right now.

Anna Gregoline | November 15, 2004
One more thought -

Would you be upset, Mike, if Kerry had won and all of the same stories about voting innaccuracies were being told in Kerry's favor?

Again, I'm not so much upset about the fact that Bush won - I'm more concerned about the voting being innaccurate once again.

Mike Eberhart | November 15, 2004
Yes, I would be upset that he didn't win, but I wouldn't be trying to dig up some issue and drag it out. Also, I'm not stupid to believe that there weren't any voting irregularities, but there wasn't enough to completely change entire states like Anthony says. First of all, I don't believe that entire states were manipulated into wins. If that was the case, you'd hear a lot more about that in the news. This is just conspiracy theories going awry. And the election did go smooth. A lot smoother than 2000.

Anna Gregoline | November 15, 2004
No one is trying to "dig up some issue" and drag it out. Face it, to use your term - Kerry's team isn't fighting the election. The concern here is if the election is fair. It has nothing to do with "conspiracy theories." Votes weren't counted properly, and that's my concern.

Smoother doesn't mean it didn't have problems, perhaps even more problems than the 2000 election. We won't know unless it's investigated, and I hope it is, and thoroughly.

John E Gunter | November 15, 2004
Well, living in the state that screwed up the 2000 election, the county(ies) in question had a bunch of people who couldn't figure out a simple ballot. Granted, the ballot was not the same one that they were used to, but if you can't read a simple ballot to choose you candidate, then you shouldn't be voting.

On all of the samples of the ballots that I saw that were the ones in question, it was very easy for me to figure out which Chad I had to select to vote for each candidate. This election has not had any of those complaints that I'm aware of, but it has still had people calling fowl.

But all of those claims have been disappearing after a few days. At least I haven't seen anything in the news to the contrary. If there is an issue of incorrect vote counting or recording, I hope that there is an investigation. But if it's found that those claims of the vote being inaccurate are proven false, someone will still claim that there was some kind of conspiracy and that's why Kerry lost.

John

Anna Gregoline | November 15, 2004
I'm sure someone will - just wanted to make clear I'm not in the camp with the conspiracy theorists - my primary concern is with accurate tallys of any election.

But it doesn't surprise me that Bush won, and it wouldn't surprise me to find out he manipulated the results again.

Mike Eberhart | November 15, 2004
I also do not believe he manipulated anything in 2000 either. I don't remember which newspaper it was, but it was a major one, went down to Florida and did an independent count of all the votes, even the discarded ones, and Bush still won the state.

Denise Sawicki | November 15, 2004
I'm not saying that the "irregularities" changed the outcome of the election either, just that nobody should be allowed to get away with trying to do so.

edit: also, yeah, I'm referring to the cases where there are more votes cast than the number of registered voters. those are the ones that seem obviously malicious.

Anna Gregoline | November 15, 2004
Exactly. It still needs to be investigated.

Jackie Mason | November 15, 2004
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Mike Eberhart | November 15, 2004
What I meant by discarded votes is ballots that the person screwed up somehow and requested a new ballot. The newspaper investigated on their own, and counted every ballot, absentee, spoiled ballots, and actual ballots. The outcome wouldn't have changed according to what they found out. That is all that I was saying. Plus, wasn't it the Supreme court that finally decided that the official recount in florida didn't need to happen. I think they made that decision, and they were in place well before Bush thought about running for office.

Scott Horowitz | November 15, 2004
Yes, Mike, you are right. The Supreme Court elected Bush into office 4 years ago.

Jackie Mason | November 15, 2004
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Mike Eberhart | November 15, 2004
That's not what I said Scott, and you know it. They decided to end that debacle in 2000 to get the country moving. They didn't elect anybody. And I love that no one is acknowledging that this newspaper did an independent investigation and proved that he would have won even if the recount was ordered. I'll try to find out which paper it was, but I do remember reading about it.

Anna Gregoline | November 15, 2004
I'll acknowledge it, Mike, as soon as I see what you're talking about.

Mike Eberhart | November 15, 2004
Ok, here's one link that I found, this isn't the one that I remember reading awhile back, but it basically covers the same thing. I'll add more links to this post when I find them.

(link)

Another link talking about the study that was done:
(link)
Also, the link to the actual organization is on that webpage. The NORC project was funded by numerous newspaper organizations including The Associated Press, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, CNN, The Palm Beach Post, St. Petersburg Times, The Tribune Co., and The Washington Post. I'd say that's some pretty good sources...

And yet, another link... (link)
This one is the one that I remember, the study was done by the Miami Hearld. They counted the ballots in every concievable way and Bush still won. So, there you have it.

Scott Horowitz | November 15, 2004
Personally, I felt that the Supreme Court overstepped their authority ending the Supreme Court. This was a state matter, and should have been handled by the state.

John E Gunter | November 15, 2004
Unless the State's inability to handle the problem interfered with the Federal Government's authority, which it exactly what was happening, so the Supreme Court stepped in.

John

Scott Hardie | November 16, 2004
Forgive me, my friends, but the reason why I have differed from most of you over the 2000 results and why I differ with most of you today is simple: One draws a conclusion only when there is real evidence. "His brother was the governor" does nothing to prove that Bush cheated to win Florida in 2000. Most of the charges against him were stories of people being tricked into leaving the polls — it sucks, but it happens in damn near every election, and besides, it's hearsay and could easily be a hoax or an urban legend. You know what else? In recount after recount after recount, by any number of governmental and independent agencies, Bush always came out on top. That's trustworthy evidence.

When somebody makes a logically sound argument, based on verified facts, that Bush or other operatives of the Republican Party stole this election or the previous one, I will agree with it. I've been waiting four years, and I will keep waiting.

(Disclaimer: In the 2004 election, the approximately 10% of the evidence that is both relevant and apparently trustworthy is indeed troubling. I look forward to the results of any investigations and will study them with an open mind.)

Denise Sawicki | November 16, 2004
Actually I agree that Florida appears to have gone to Bush fair and square in 2000. I heard about those recounts at the time. But the fact that there were so many different ways to count the hanging chads shows that they needed a more unambiguous voting system... Electronic?? Only if they do it a lot more securely than they have...

I'm normally really very quiet and non-argumentative, I don't know why I was acting so nuts today...

Anthony Lewis | November 16, 2004
Mike: It hasn't been on the news because the suits in charge don't want it reported.

The notion of the Liberal media, is frankly BS. The media is CORPORATE, and they will only report what they want you to know.

Mike Eberhart | November 16, 2004
I would think that they don't want it reported because it's a Non-story...

Anna Gregoline | November 16, 2004
I don't consider election innacuraccies a non-story.

But then again, I stopped trusting the media long ago. You're right, Anthony, they're corporate, and corporate only knows money.

Anthony Lewis | November 16, 2004
Well, Ohio is about to be re-counted. The application for the re-count was filed. The money to pay for it was raised.

That's a story. Let's see who reports it.

Mike Eberhart | November 16, 2004
If you could, please post links to these articles that your information is coming from Anthony. Instead of saying Ohio is about to be re-counted, post a link. I'm interested in reading about it. But until I see something about it, I'm not going to discuss it any longer. I posted plenty of supporting links about the 2000 election, which of course I still didn't get any acknowledgement on. But that's what I expected.

Anthony Lewis | November 16, 2004
I mean, people waited on lines for HOURS...

They waited on line in Ohio in the cold and rain, and in Florida in the heat...FOR HOURS

JUST TO VOTE!!!

I would think that's news, but it wasn't reported on TV anywhere to my knowledge. Didn't see one news item, nor one picture, nor one piece of video.

When the hurricanes hit Florida, if people waited on line for TWO hours for water and plywwod, it was news, and it was all over the TV.

Anthony Lewis | November 16, 2004
As requested:

(link)

That is the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and not some blog. And for your info, I'm not concerned with 2000. That's four LOST years. I'm worred about what happened on November 2nd, 2004.

I also understand (and I don't have real proof of this...I will admit to that) there was an email sent out by an ABC News employee to people on this person's email list that there is indeed a news blackout on these stories. I can't say that it's true, because I didn't see the email for myself, but it wouldn't suprise me if it is indeed true.

Mike Eberhart | November 16, 2004
According to that article, this isn't going to make a difference anyway. They aren't going to do the recount until after the election results are certified. Plus, do you really think that a 136,000 vote gap is going to be closed and overtaken. The florida recounts that were conducted in 2000 were significantly closer to each other and it still didn't matter.

Mike Eberhart | November 16, 2004
As for the news blackout, that would be something that I need to see hard evidence on before I would believe that.

Scott Horowitz | November 16, 2004
I read what you said Mike about the 2000 election. I also remembering reading stories that said Gore would have won if the recount proceeded. The point is that it wasn't done. If it wouldn't have mattered or if it would have, there should have been a statewide recount with all the problems that occurred during that election. What happened was not unconstitutional and the Supreme Court should never have been involved.

Mike Eberhart | November 16, 2004
Obviously you didn't read the articles that all say that the independent recount they conducted all led to Bush still winning.

Anthony Lewis | November 16, 2004
Mike, nowhere in any post did I say that the recount would make a difference in election results. I am more concerned about voter suppression, so-called "glitches, and possible voter rights violations (a civil right, I might add). I didn't say anything about hoping the election results would be overturned. Although THAT would be a MOST-EXCELLENT by-product of the recount.

You wanted a news article about a recount. I gave it to you.

Scott Horowitz | November 16, 2004
Obviously, you don't read what I'm saying. The recount should have been done, regardless of the outcome. It most likely would have been Bush, but it was halted unjustly.

Anthony Lewis | November 16, 2004
And by the way...voter suppression and voter rights violations go WAY BEYOND just being an "irregularity".

Anna Gregoline | November 16, 2004
I find it odd that Mike is still arguing that a recount won't make a difference when we're not arguing that it will! - but that it will at least be fair, and turn up any innaccuracies that need to be corrected for the next election. What's wrong with making sure the process is fair?

And yes - even if Bush would have won in a FAIR and NORMAL way in the 2000 election, the election was far from normal. Don't we want a better process? I personally don't want to go through all this every election, but I will put up with it if it helps to make the process more honest and accurate.

Mike Eberhart | November 16, 2004
Scott, it was halted because it was dragging on, and it was making the country look bad. They needed to end it to fix the way we were coming across to the rest of the world.

My only problem with this argument is, you all are saying Bush stole the election, he didn't win it fairly, he didn't do this, he didn't do that. Well, you may have got your recount. Now, what happens when they do that, and it still comes out with Bush ahead. You'll all still say it was unjust. You see my point, it just doesn't matter if you get your recount or not. As long as Bush in in office, none of you will accept the fact that he won. That's just all there is too it.

If the recount fixes innaccuracies, great. This should have been taken care of before this election happened in the first place. I also believe that a lot of the problems with people being denied to vote is that they didn't take care of their own business before the election. i.e. getting themselves registered correctly. They decided to wait and show up just to cause problems. NOTE: this is just my opinion on what could have happened. I did not read this anywhere.

Oh, I also just topped 300 posts... :)

Anna Gregoline | November 16, 2004
Mike, you may be talking about others, but you're not talking about me, and certainly haven't been reading my posts, so I'm going to stop arguing about it.

Anthony Lewis | November 16, 2004
If Bush won fair and square (Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha), then I'd have no choice to accept it. But I'll NEVER like it.

Never ever.

Congrats on your 300 posts.

Mike Eberhart | November 16, 2004
Yes Anna, I was not talking about you when I was refering to "stolen" election talk. I was referring to other people here and on other boards that I read. Plus I've heard people say this on the radio too. Everytime I hear that it just makes me cringe. I know you've stuck to just investigating election problems, and I have no problem with that.

Anna Gregoline | November 16, 2004
Cool.

I'm still a little freaked out that Mike and I are copesectic now, but it's nice. =)

Scott Horowitz | November 16, 2004
If the recount was conducted accurately, and Bush came out the winner, I would have accepted it. As I am now. I am not happy with it. Nor am I happy with how this country is turning. But, there needs to be some serious election reform going on. I'm still a big supporter of Internet voting, if it can become secure.

John E Gunter | November 16, 2004
But you'll still need to be able to vote beyond the Internet method, whether that is by paper or machine at a polling place. Plus, you will still get people complaining that it was rigged or unfair one way or the other. Why, because people will always complain when things don't turn out the way they think they should have.

Someone will always cry foul, which of course is a good thing, because that makes people want to check for accuracy and what not. My only problem with recounts is you sometimes get people interpreting the vote. By that I mean, if you have a ballot that has some kind of dual vote or an improperly produced vote.

By it being either two votes for the one office or a hanging Chad. As far as I'm concerned with those kinds of ballots is to throw them out. If I can't be responsible enough to make sure my vote was recorded correctly, assuming there was not tampering with the actual voting record, then I shouldn't have my vote counted.

That's why I make sure to go over the ballot at least 1 more time after I have voted to review my votes to make sure I made the choices I wanted to. If you don't review the ballot and therefore, don't find your own mistake, then you need to get your vote thrown out.

Sorry if that is a rather harsh position to take, but do you really want someone interpreting what vote you or someone else wanted, or do you want him or her counting the vote correctly?

John

Scott Horowitz | November 16, 2004
Yeah, you do make sense John. It amazes me though, that people still get punch-card ballots in this day and age. For NY, I walked into a little booth. There were all these little levers. You have them arranged by election (columns) and parties (rows). So you just choose who you want, by flicking the lever. After you have made all your selections, you pull the big handle which records your vote, and opens the curtain for you. It's really easy to use. I always thought the entire country voted in this manner, I never realized how backwater parts are.

Mike Eberhart | November 16, 2004
I really liked the ballots we used. It was like using a scantron sheet that we used in college. Only everything was clearly spelled out with a bubble next to it. If you wanted to vote that person, you filled in the bubble next to their name. It's incredibly easy. And John, I did exactly the same thing, I reviewed my ballot a couple of times before turning it in. I wanted to make sure everything was correct so it would be counted.

John E Gunter | November 16, 2004
We are now using a computer touch screen for our voting machines. You get a card that goes into a slot and that's where your vote is recorded. Each item is displayed on the screen with a round circle that you are supposed to press to enter your vote.

When you have finished your selections for that particular screen, you press the next arrow at the bottom. The process continues until you are finished. After you have left the first screen, there is a back arrow that appears so you can go back and forth as you please.

Once you are finished voting, you get a screen(s) that display(s) a review of what you voted for and then you either cast your vote or go back to change a vote if you decide you want to vote another way. Once you have completed your vote, the machine ejects the card back out to you. You take the card and drop it in the ballot box before leaving.

The one thing in my personal voting experience that I really enjoyed was that there was a man in a motorized wheel chair right in front of me. When it was his turn to vote, one of the workers made sure to help him to a machine and when he asked for help, she then got another election worker to help him while he voted. That was one of the best experiences I've had at a voting place.

John

Scott Horowitz | November 16, 2004
What kind of card is it John? Like a disk? or like an index card?

John E Gunter | November 16, 2004
Like a credit card, only a little thicker. Not exactly sure the complete technology for it, but it has a strip on one side that must be put into the voting machine the correct way for the machine to let you start voting.

I would imagine that by the size of it, there is some internal recording device that takes info from the strip, but I dont know for sure. Course, it really doesn't matter how it works, so long as it works correctly and accurately! ;-)

John

Scott Horowitz | November 16, 2004
I was just curious. Do you know if the machine records the votes to the HD as well, or does it just do it onto the card?

John E Gunter | November 16, 2004
Sorry, not sure. I understand your curiosity. In my opinion, the best way to do it would be to have a central hard drive that all the voting machines would be linked to. As each person casts their vote, it gets recorded on the hard drive. At the end of the day, the hard drive gets shipped to whatever location is responsible for tallying the votes. But the cards also get shipped as well, but I would ship them in two different vehicles, in case one had an accident.

But that's just me. Course, you could also have a link that connected the voting precienct to the central office as well, which would transmit all votes as they are cast. That type of link could be made secure after all.

John

Scott Horowitz | November 16, 2004
I agree. I heard (as I've said previously) that these machines were very unsecure, using MS Access as a backend. I find it humerous that they try to make it better with the touch screen, and then make you insert and remove a stupid card. (sigh)

Anthony Lewis | November 25, 2004
It's funny how the same exact thing that happened here in THIS country has happened in the Ukraine, yet no one (politicians and media alike) speaks about the fraud in this country. And yet, the media and politicians are speaking out about possible fraud in the Ukraine.

The nerve of these fuckin' people. This is the very HEIGHT of hypocrisy!

Jackie Mason | November 29, 2004
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