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arildno
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not at all pot-kettle; you are simply obfuscating because you love Karl Rove's close buddy so much.
Which one are they denying covering up, Cruithne or J002E3?russ_watters said:Hey, did you hear that NASA is covering up the existence of a second moon around the earth? Ask them and they'll deny it...
No, what most of the people hate about these machines is that they were made by an overt Bush supporter.russ_watters said:What most people don't like about electronic balloting is the "black box" part. The name says it all - "black box": you can't see in it, so you should fear what is going on inside. That is a human failing, not a flaw inherrent to the machine. People don't trust machines. That's gradually going away as people who can remember life without computers die, but the fact that people are afraid of machines is not an indication of a flaw in the machines.
russ_watters said:See, the thing I like about electronic balloting (in theory) is the potential for zero error for the balloting mechanism. No manual form of balloting even has the potential for zero error in the casting and counting of ballots.
What most people don't like about electronic balloting is the "black box" part. The name says it all - "black box": you can't see in it, so you should fear what is going on inside. That is a human failing, not a flaw inherrent to the machine. People don't trust machines. That's gradually going away as people who can remember life without computers die, but the fact that people are afraid of machines is not an indication of a flaw in the machines.
The study done by Berkeley (iirc) misused the exit poll data for the purpose of spreading a conspiracy theory. And bitter Democrats bought it hook-line-and-sinker.
arildno said:There IS ample evidence of fraud, russ watters.
It is you who have the burden of proof:
YOU must bring valid reasons for why exit polls have been a perfectly reliable indicator
earlier, but suddenly was wildly inaccurate.
You are simply actively choosing not to take upon your responsibilities, because it suits your own, narrow political interest.
Absent further data from NEP, you can choose to believe that an existing problem with exit polls got worse this year in the face of declining response rates and rising distrust of big media, that a slightly higher number of Bush voters than Kerry voters declined to be interviewed. Or, you can believe that a massive secret conspiracy somehow shifted roughly 2% of the vote from Kerry to Bush in every battleground state, a conspiracy that fooled everyone but the exit pollsters - and then only for a few hours - after which they deliberately suppressed evidence of the fraud and damaged their own reputations by blaming the discrepancies on weaknesses in their data.
Please.
One possibility he was able to rule out, though, is touch screen voting machines that don't leave any paper trail being used to defraud the election. To prove this, he broke down precincts based on the type of voting machine that was used and compared the voting returns from those precincts with his own exit polls. None of the precincts with touch screen computers that don't leave paper trails, or any other type of machine for that matter, had vote returns that deviated from his exit poll numbers once the average 1.9% non-response bias was taken into account.
There is a big difference between making the device that records the vote and running the centre containing the voting booths.TheStatutoryApe said:Now I want to know how you intend to find people who are impartial to make these voting machines and to run voting booths. I think that would be pretty unlikely don't you?
If we look at the 51 separate exit state polls, we see that 30 predicted more votes for Kerry than he actually got, while 21 predicted more votes for Bush than he actually got. Therefore, at the state level, the polls favored Kerry less than the sum of all the polls aggregated up to the national level. Furthermore, if we do a statistical test to see whether the differences between the exit polls and the official returns are significant, only three out of 51 are.
It was one of the fundamental problems of the 2000 voting stalemate and a focus of subsequent reforms.
. . .
In 2000, the national residual vote was 1.9 percent of ballots cast for president. The report found a significant improvement this year, with the residual vote falling to 1.1 percent. The analysis examined 37 states and the District of Columbia; figures were unavailable elsewhere.
. . .
Florida, the scene of the 2000 postelection stalemate, and Georgia had the biggest drop in residual votes. Florida went from 2.9 percent to 0.4 percent; Georgia went from 3.5 percent to 0.4 percent. Both underwent comprehensive reform, with Georgia putting in electronic voting machines statewide, Florida scrapping punch cards and both launching ambitious voter education campaigns.
Skyhunter said:Doesn't Diebold also make ATM machines?
Burnsys said:i am from argentina and some of the ATM machines (30% of them) has a Label: "Diebold"
I haven't seen that report except for your description and I'll look into it.loseyourname said:Does it not matter that both the CalTech/MIT voting project and NEP confirm that there was no greater statistical difference between predicted results and actual results in states with machines v. states without machines?
Was Cuyahoga County using ES&S by chance?Does it make no difference that many Diebold machines were withdrawn before the election and that they didn't provide the machines to the most disputed county in Ohio?
No. It was a tight race and either candidate could have theoretically swung it with only a small percentage of counties.Does it make no difference that Ohio and Pennsylvania did not even use voting machines in most parts of the state?
No. THe paper trail isn't used to count the votes, except in a recount, and may not even be seen (I'm not sure) by the voter. I believe it is stored (of course) by the machine. Paper trails are very necessary. The recount in Ohio had some shady stuff goiung on, according to 'conspiracy' websites---Does it make no difference that the most hotly disputed state in question - Ohio - had paper trail legislation and that lack of a paper trail is mostly what everyone is complaining about?
As I mentioned earlier, you allow both parties access to the counting process at any time. Like in the good old days. It's fine to have a GOP friendly manufacturer, as long as dems can look at the code, the tabulator, the memory cards, ---- before, during, and after the election.TheStatutoryApe said:INow I want to know how you intend to find people who are impartial to make these voting machines and to run voting booths. I think that would be pretty unlikely don't you?
pattylou said:ES&S is the other major vendor of vote machines. ES&S is also partisan to the GOP.
Chuck Hagel was CEO of ES&S until two weeks before he announced his candidacy for Senator. He won the election in an pset victory over the incumbent, and the votes were counted on ES&S machines. I haven't dug around much on these machines, and I am just stating information here, not accusing Hagel of cheating.
Was Cuyahoga County using ES&S by chance?
No. It was a tight race and either candidate could have theoretically swung it with only a small percentage of counties.
No. THe paper trail isn't used to count the votes, except in a recount, and may not even be seen (I'm not sure) by the voter. I believe it is stored (of course) by the machine. Paper trails are very necessary. The recount in Ohio had some shady stuff goiung on, according to 'conspiracy' websites---
I expect to have my vote counted. I expect I live in a democracy.
Diebold refuses to have open source code, they are a black box not because they are a machine, but because they cloak themselves in secrecy (no opne source code, instructing employees to lie --- and when the memory card hack was demonstrated they didn't say "We'll get right on that," but instead they *sued* the people who demonstrated the hack for exposing the weakness of their system!)
Distrust of the current process is fueling scrutiny into how these machines work. I had a brief email correspondence with a guy who testifies on these machines to Senate panels and whatnot. (He's been involved in over a hundred field observations of these sorts of machines.) He agrees there are insecure machines (in use) that should not be used. He maintains electronic voting *can* be secure.
I agree.
I honestly don't get how you can hold both of those opinions at the same time, pattylou - they are mutually exlusive. Ie:pattylou said:Me too.
Not me.
But didn't you just agree with me above that manual counting is a bad thing, not a good thing!??A very important aspect of voting has been lost with these machines.
With hand counted ballots, you have members of both parties involved with the counting process. I don't know specifics, but I recall the Ohio recount had three people from each party present.
That simply doesn't follow. A counting method cannot be partisan. Again, there is the example of the "chads" from the 2000 election. Whether you count only a "pregnant chad" a "hanging chad" or a "partially detatched chad" does not make the counting process biased in one way or another.With machine counted ballots, you have a Secretary of State (partisan appointment) certify a vote counting method. If this method is a machine, then the method is partisan as well in our present situation.
Good God, no! The entire point of using automatic/electronic ballots is to remove humans from the process. The more people who have access, the more potential there is for error and fraud! The machines should be thoroughly checked both before and after the election to ensure they are/were working correctly, but during the election, there should be no human intervention whatsoever.I'd be far more comfortable if members of each party could acces the code and memory cards of the machines at any point to make sure the count was going as it should. This would be far more analogous to hand counted ballots than what is presently used, in terms of safeguards, and would still allow the superiority of machine counting to ---- reduce costs, time, and errors, etc.
It is an opinion. It is based on the tone of the report (which doesn't seem to be available online anymore) and the disposition of the authors. The quick jump to the conclusion of fruad without really considering the possibility of error is indicative of the desire to see fraud.Your quote sounds like an opinion. If you have a reputable source ("evidence?") showing that the motives are to spread a conspiracy theory -- ("evidence" might be something like an admission by one of the authors, or some such) I'd appreciate it.
russ_watters said:I'm still waiting for someone to post the details of the crime. If I have time tonight and no one has provided any details, I'll invent a story of my own. Right now I'm considering several separate story-lines:
-Diebold programmers under the direction of Bush pre-program the machines to multiply every Bush vote by 1.1, thus giving him 10% more votes than he should have gotten.
-Several thousand members of a vast conspiracy tamper with machines in polling places in Florida.
-Several dozen election officials in offices somewhere go into the Access databases of polling results and change the results before they are submitted to the state.
If anyone has any preference on which story I should fabricate, I'll take requests. Better yet, if I got lucky and hit on what actually happened, please feel free to provide the evidence to support the appropriate story. Or if it happened another way, please feel free to explain exactly how it happened (preferrably with evidence...)
Just to clarify my position, I think people who believe there was electronic tampering that led to the "wrong" guy winning the election are buying into conspiracy theory. But the poll doesn't ask that.pattylou said:But are you really trying to imply that 59% of the PF participants in this poll are card-carrying members of the tin foil hat brigade? (That's how it sounds when one side starts calling names like "sore loser.") Isn't it *more* likely that the very significant distrust (59%) of the electronic systems, among PF members that participated in the poll, represents discomfort with electronic voting which should be addressed in a level headed manner and not "shut up?"
Whether Bush or Kerry or both cheated, and who should have won, is also beside the point. I would hope if Kerry had won, and I saw the irregularities that were reported, that I would still be as invested in voicing my concern for fair elections.
If I ever thought you were female posting under a male name, you have removed all doubt with this post!russ_watters said:I honestly don't get how you can hold both of those opinions at the same time, pattylou - they are mutually exlusive. Ie: But didn't you just agree with me above that manual counting is a bad thing, not a good thing!??
Any time you have people using their judgement, there exists the potential for error. That was the whole issue with the Florida "pregnant chad" fun in 2000: error cannot be completely removed from manual balloting. It doesn't matter if 3 people from each party were present (were there 3 people from the Green party?) or if 50 people from each party were present - its still humans making a judgment call instead of the unequivocal, unbaised recording of a machine. That simply doesn't follow. A counting method cannot be partisan. Again, there is the example of the "chads" from the 2000 election. Whether you count only a "pregnant chad" a "hanging chad" or a "partially detatched chad" does not make the counting process biased in one way or another.
The reason there was debate in 2000 was the accuracy of these counting methods: ie, a more accurate count in a pro-Gore district provides additional votes to Gore. Such an issue would not exist, however, if every district had the same voting method.
With electronic balloting, it would work a lot like an ATM. Hit the button for your candidate and the vote is recorded. Such a machine either works or it doesn't - there cannot possibly be any bias in it. Good God, no! The entire point of using automatic/electronic ballots is to remove humans from the process. The more people who have access, the more potential there is for error and fraud! The machines should be thoroughly checked both before and after the election to ensure they are/were working correctly, but during the election, there should be no human intervention whatsoever.
For those who are wondering why electronic voting machines have issues, there it is: government bueracracy causes these errors. What you end up with is an electronic copy of paper balloting where you get all the problems of both paper and electronic balloting. It is an opinion. It is based on the tone of the report (which doesn't seem to be available online anymore) and the disposition of the authors. The quick jump to the conclusion of fruad without really considering the possibility of error is indicative of the desire to see fraud.
Further, the results of the study were, 130,000-260,000 ("or more" ) extra votes for Bush. I'm not sure if those were "swing" votes or just extra votes. Bush won the election by 381,000 votes. If those votes were "swing" votes, that's a difference of 160,000 to 510,000. So wait - that data does not allow for the positive conclusion that the election went the wrong way! It isn't accurate enough! Saying that this data shows that the election went the wrong way is exactly the same as what crackpots are doing when they say the Michelson-Morley experiment succeeded in measuring an ether drift!
And if these votes were not swing votes, just "extra" votes, then they support the positive conclusion that Bush was the rightful winner of the election.
Noo. no conspiracy. is just they found that if they get a place in the congress they can pass laws who help their corporations to make more profits...loseyourname said:You're digging is what you're doing. Name me a major manufacturer of anything and I'd guess there's a 90% the CEO is a Republican. That doesn't mean he's part of a conspiracy.
Burnsys said:Noo. no conspiracy. is just they found that if they get a place in the congress they can pass laws who help their corporations to make more profits...
All I could find on John Conyers was a letter detailing several (about a dozen) specific "irregularities" (his word, not mine). He does not assert that there was any fraud (in fact, he says explicitly that he doesn't know) and none of those "irregularities" were anywhere big enough to cause the election to have turned the wrong direction. Sorry, there isn't even the framework from which to build a good fictional story there.pattylou said:John Conyers (D-MI) and Gore Vidal have both outlined scenarios containing "details of the crime." I suggest you start with their bare bone stories. A google on 'vote fraud' and their names might get you started.
? Huh?pattylou said:If I ever thought you were female posting under a male name, you have removed all doubt with this post!
No aggrivation, just incredulity. Trust me on this: I don't get aggravated. My friends make fun of me for it all the time.I'm happy to go through this if you want - but you sound considerably aggravated.
Your manner of communication is very "masculine." i.e. in this case, you seem more interested in expounding your views than dialog.russ_watters said:? Huh?