New Florida Ballot Requested; Re-Election Neccessary
BirdTribe
Chive Mynde wrote:
>
> Due to rampant Florida Ballot fraud, the state, under bipartisan
> supervision, should conduct a re-election and settle the matter.
>
> This is the only process possible.
>
> Otherwise, the 19,000 ballots that have been thrown out due to two
> choices selected due, will negate any given presidential mandate.
>
> Re-election utilizing an easy-to-read ballot is required in Florida
> ASAP.
>
> Democracy demands it.
>
> Otherwise, there is no presidential mandate, and the constitution has
> been subverted due to a fraudulent popular vote tally.
>
> If the constitution has been subverted and nothing is done to uphold
> its legitimacy, the USA will have ceased to exist.
>
> Florida must conduct a re-election. For democracy to preavil, there is
> no other possibility.
Makes sense to me. Chive.. Except the Democracy prevail part. This is a
Constitutional Republic. That is what will cease to exist. What would
take it's place..The New World Ogre??? Keep tuned..
Yer Pal
BirdTribe
>
> - Chive
> --
> The general root of superstition is that men observe
> when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit
> to memory the one, and pass over the other
> -Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
--
* Nature is the most politically explosive issue in the world *
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Chive Mynde
supervision, should conduct a re-election and settle the matter.
This is the only process possible.
Otherwise, the 19,000 ballots that have been thrown out due to two
choices selected due, will negate any given presidential mandate.
Re-election utilizing an easy-to-read ballot is required in Florida
ASAP.
Democracy demands it.
Otherwise, there is no presidential mandate, and the constitution has
been subverted due to a fraudulent popular vote tally.
If the constitution has been subverted and nothing is done to uphold
its legitimacy, the USA will have ceased to exist.
Florida must conduct a re-election. For democracy to preavil, there is
no other possibility.
- Chive
azinnic
Chive Mynde <chyve...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> Due to rampant Florida Ballot fraud, the state, under bipartisan
> supervision, should conduct a re-election and settle the matter.
>
> This is the only process possible.
>
> Otherwise, the 19,000 ballots that have been thrown out due to two
> choices selected due, will negate any given presidential mandate.
>
> Re-election utilizing an easy-to-read ballot is required in Florida
> ASAP.
>
> Democracy demands it.
>
> Otherwise, there is no presidential mandate, and the constitution has
> been subverted due to a fraudulent popular vote tally.
>
> If the constitution has been subverted and nothing is done to uphold
> its legitimacy, the USA will have ceased to exist.
>
> Florida must conduct a re-election. For democracy to preavil, there is
> no other possibility.
>
> - Chive
If, as it seems, the majority of the spoiled ballots (Palm Beach) were
intended to be cast for Gore then I agree that a re-election should be called
for that precinct. However, only those who actually cast a vote on Tuesday
should be allowed to participate in re-balloting . How this can be
accomplished fairly (for both sides) is the difficult question. An
alternative would be to hold a new election for all Florida. Imagine the
turnout if this were to take place! If, in this latter case, Bush were to win
would you accept that result?. You advocate the removal of the Electoral
College. Is not that moving the goalposts during a game? Surely we should
accept the Constitution for this election then change it for the next
election. -- ***Ridiculing ridicule of the ridiculous is ridiculous!
(Nomynous)*** ***(EES. Univ. of MIAMI. GO CANES!!!)***
Langrrr
> supervision, should conduct a re-election and settle the matter.
>
> This is the only process possible.
>
Not legally:
The Palm Beach Legal Precedent; No cause for Dem squawking.
By Dave Kopel of the Independence Institute
According to some Florida Democrats, the particular layout of ballots
in Palm Beach was confusing to voters, and resulted in mistaken votes
for Buchanan which were actually intended for Gore. The Florida
judiciary has already addressed the issue of post-election claims about
ballot confusion, and the precedent is unfavorable to those who want
the election overturned.
In the September 10, 1974, Republican primary in Pinellas County,
several losing candidates brought a post-election suit against county
election officials. (Pinellas sits on the Gulf Coast, and includes St.
Petersburg.)
At issue was the longest ballot in Pinellas County history. To save
space so that every candidate and issue could fit on the voting
machine, the election officials had created a ballot on which the list
of candidates for some offices appeared on two lines. In a particular
race, for example, the first three candidates, listed alphabetically,
appeared on one line, and the last two candidates, alphabetically,
appeared on the next line. A lawsuit demanding a new election was
filed by candidates who appeared on the lower line and lost. The
Florida trial court agreed.
But on October 15, 1974, the Second District Court of Appeal
unanimously overturned the trial judge, and let the original election
stand. Nelson v. Robinson, 301 So.2d 508 (Fla. Ct. App. 2d Dist.,
1974).
The Florida Court of Appeal explained:
"Keeping in mind that we are talking about a claim made after an
election, and not one which may have been enforceable before, if a
candidate appears on the ballot in such a position that he can be found
by the voters upon a responsible study of the ballot, then such voters
have been afforded a full, free and open opportunity to make their
choice for or against that particular candidate; and the candidate
himself has no constitutional right to a particular spot on the ballot
which might make the voters' choice easier. His constitutional rights
in the matter end when his name is placed on the ballot. Thereafter,
the right is in the voters to have a fair and reasonable opportunity to
find it; and as to this, it has been observed that the constitution
intended that a voter search for the name of the candidate of his
choice and to express his of the candidate of his choice without regard
to others on the ballot. Furthermore, it assumes his ability to read
and his intelligence to indicate his choice with the degree of care
commensurate with the solemnity of the occasion."
The Court of Appeal also cited a U.S. Supreme Court case in which the
high Court explicitly and unanimously affirmed a Pennsylvania federal
court which had ruled that an unfavorable location on the ballot was
not a form of unconstitutional discrimination against a candidate.
Gilhool v. Chairman & Comm'rs., Philadelphia Co. Bd. of Elec., 306
F.Supp. 1202 (E.D.Pa.1969), aff'd 397 U.S. 147 (1970).
In Palm Beach this year, the ballot form was approved beforehand by
Democratic Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore. This fact relates
directly to the Florida Court of Appeal's point that: "it has often
been held that one who does not avail himself of the opportunity to
object to irregularities in the ballot prior to the election may not
object to them after."
--
Any posts by Andrew Langer are his own, written by him, for his own
enjoyment (and the education of others). Unless expressly stated,
they represent his own views, and not those of any other individuals
or entities. He is not, nor has he ever been, paid to post here.
Chive Mynde
Langrrr <Lan...@aol.com> wrote:
> In Palm Beach this year, the ballot form was approved beforehand by
> Democratic Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore. This fact relates
> directly to the Florida Court of Appeal's point that: "it has often
> been held that one who does not avail himself of the opportunity to
> object to irregularities in the ballot prior to the election may not
> object to them after."
Total bullshit.
It wasn't known that the ballot would be confusing to voters. Was any
testing required? Mandatory? I think not.
You cannot object to so-called "irregularities" if you are not aware of
them.
Langrrr
Chive Mynde <chyve...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <8uevne$c5l$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Langrrr <Lan...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > In Palm Beach this year, the ballot form was approved beforehand by
> > Democratic Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore. This fact relates
> > directly to the Florida Court of Appeal's point that: "it has often
> > been held that one who does not avail himself of the opportunity to
> > object to irregularities in the ballot prior to the election may not
> > object to them after."
>
> Total bullshit.
>
> It wasn't known that the ballot would be confusing to voters. Was any
> testing required? Mandatory? I think not.
>
> You cannot object to so-called "irregularities" if you are not aware
of
> them.
>
Ever vote, Chive? What do you think those people who stand outside of
your voting booth are there for?
- Andrew Langer
--
Any posts by Andrew Langer are his own, written by him, for his own
enjoyment (and the education of others). Unless expressly stated,
they represent his own views, and not those of any other individuals
or entities. He is not, nor has he ever been, paid to post here.
Brent Peterson
>
> In article <8uevne$c5l$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Langrrr <Lan...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > In Palm Beach this year, the ballot form was approved beforehand by
> > Democratic Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore. This fact relates
> > directly to the Florida Court of Appeal's point that: "it has often
> > been held that one who does not avail himself of the opportunity to
> > object to irregularities in the ballot prior to the election may not
> > object to them after."
>
> Total bullshit.
Such a poor response to a post that shows this issue has already
been covered in FL.
> It wasn't known that the ballot would be confusing to voters. Was any
> testing required? Mandatory? I think not.
A pic of the ballot in question for this past election was on the web.
It looks strightforward and easy to follow. There are arrows to
the correct holes.
Why is it that people in this country think that everything
needs to be 100% idiot proof? Stop catering to idiots and there
will be less of them around. (With lower standards people find
a new, lower average of compentence, hence more 'idiots')
spqr...@my-deja.com
Mandatory testing? Your incoherent ravings are getting more bizarre by
the day.
Amusing as it is that the Democrats now claim that their voters are too
stupid to read, the simple fact is that this grossly exaggerated
complaint has no basis in law. Gore's name was on the ballot. A voter
could find his name and the correct punch location with reasonable
inspection. The ballot will stand as is, and Gore is just going to have
to live with losing this election.
In article <8uf08p$cma$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
Chive Mynde <chyve...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <8uevne$c5l$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Langrrr <Lan...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > In Palm Beach this year, the ballot form was approved beforehand by
> > Democratic Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore. This fact relates
> > directly to the Florida Court of Appeal's point that: "it has often
> > been held that one who does not avail himself of the opportunity to
> > object to irregularities in the ballot prior to the election may not
> > object to them after."
>
> Total bullshit.
>
> It wasn't known that the ballot would be confusing to voters. Was any
> testing required? Mandatory? I think not.
>
> You cannot object to so-called "irregularities" if you are not aware
of
> them.
>
Scott Nudds
: Ever vote, Chive? What do you think those people who stand outside of
: your voting booth are there for?
: - Andrew Langer
Apparently in Florida many of them were Conservatives put there to
prevent blacks other "undesirables" from voting for Gore.
"Al Gore very probably won Florida and therefore won the nation and
won the presidency of the United States. I don't know, for one, what
exactly we ought to do about that." - Patrick J. Buchanan 11/9/00
http://www.usatoday.com/news/vote2000/fight.htm#readmore
http://a388.g.akamai.net/f/388/21/15m/www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/0f
Scott Nudds
: It looks strightforward and easy to follow. There are arrows to
: the correct holes.
Unfortunately the ballot is apparently illegal. Under Florida law the
boxes must be exclusively to the right or to the left of the names.
Having them run down the center in an interleved manner is a no-no.
Scott Craver
>
>A pic of the ballot in question for this past election was on the web.
>the correct holes.
If it was easy to follow, then hundreds of voters would not
have mistakenly voted for Buchanan. The most compelling
evidence for bad design is a statistically significant amount
of error.
Remember that a lot of people in that county are elderly.
This is a big part of the reason the ballot was changed,
to make the type bigger and easier to read.
>Why is it that people in this country think that everything
>needs to be 100% idiot proof?
Yeah, dammit, why can't 80-year-olds just adapt or die?
They must be idiots, right?
First of all, you're forgetting factors such as eyesight.
For instance, the ballot print was enlarged to help
people with poor eyesight, not because the voters were
stupid. Think maybe someone with difficulty reading
small text might have trouble with the ballot holes?
Secondly, someone raised in the first half of this
century has every right to balk at modern contraptions
and not be called an idiot by some young whippersnapper
that just grew up around high tech. You'll get karmic
payback when you're elderly, I'm sure.
-S
Langrrr
af...@freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Scott Nudds) wrote:
> Langrrr (Lan...@aol.com) wrote:
> : Ever vote, Chive? What do you think those people who stand outside
of
> : your voting booth are there for?
>
> : - Andrew Langer
>
> Apparently in Florida many of them were Conservatives put there to
> prevent blacks other "undesirables" from voting for Gore.
Maybe they should have folled the northern Democrats' lead, and offered
cigarettes to the homeless in order to induce them to vote.
- Andrew Langer
--
Any posts by Andrew Langer are his own, written by him, for his own
enjoyment (and the education of others). Unless expressly stated,
they represent his own views, and not those of any other individuals
or entities. He is not, nor has he ever been, paid to post here.
Langrrr
af...@freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Scott Nudds) wrote:
> Brent Peterson (ba...@my-deja.com) wrote:
> : It looks strightforward and easy to follow. There are arrows to
> : the correct holes.
>
> Unfortunately the ballot is apparently illegal. Under Florida law
the
> boxes must be exclusively to the right or to the left of the names.
> Having them run down the center in an interleved manner is a no-no.
Unfortunately, you are apparently incorrect. Under Florida Law, that
requirement only exists for paper ballots, not machine ballots as are
at issue here.
Perhaps you ought to do a little independent research and actually read
the statutes before you go spouting off.
- Andrew langer
--
Any posts by Andrew Langer are his own, written by him, for his own
enjoyment (and the education of others). Unless expressly stated,
they represent his own views, and not those of any other individuals
or entities. He is not, nor has he ever been, paid to post here.
Leonard Evens
>
>
> If, as it seems, the majority of the spoiled ballots (Palm Beach) were
> intended to be cast for Gore then I agree that a re-election should be called
> for that precinct. However, only those who actually cast a vote on Tuesday
> should be allowed to participate in re-balloting . How this can be
> accomplished fairly (for both sides) is the difficult question.
It is not at all difficult. The names of the voters who actually
voted is a matter of record. It is certainly possible to insist
that only voters who voted last Tuesday vote in the new vote.
The only difficulty would be voters who decided not to participate
the second time.
The only other issue would be that some of these voters would change
their votes, e.g., Nader voters might switch to Gore. But if
I understand the nature of the electorate in these precincts there
are probably few such voters and they might be cancelled out by
Buchanan voters who switch to Bush.
> An
> alternative would be to hold a new election for all Florida. Imagine the
> turnout if this were to take place! If, in this latter case, Bush were to win
> would you accept that result?. You advocate the removal of the Electoral
> College. Is not that moving the goalposts during a game? Surely we should
> accept the Constitution for this election then change it for the next
> election. -- ***Ridiculing ridicule of the ridiculous is ridiculous!
> (Nomynous)*** ***(EES. Univ. of MIAMI. GO CANES!!!)***
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
--
Leonard Evens l...@math.nwu.edu 847-491-5537
Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL 60208
Leonard Evens
And which argument would you be making if Bush had lost a significant
number of votes in this way?
Alan Morgan
Scott Nudds <af...@freenet.hamilton.on.ca> wrote:
>Brent Peterson (ba...@my-deja.com) wrote:
>: It looks strightforward and easy to follow. There are arrows to
>: the correct holes.
>
> Unfortunately the ballot is apparently illegal. Under Florida law the
>boxes must be exclusively to the right or to the left of the names.
>Having them run down the center in an interleved manner is a no-no.
Of course, this ballot layout was used in previous elections and there
weren't many complaints then. Plus the ballot was approved by everyone
in a position of authority.
Personally, I suspect that every election of every kind has oddities like
this. This happens to be a very sad case where it makes a huge difference.
Let me be clear
1) I voted for Gore
2) I thought that anyone who was paying attention would have had no trouble
voting for Gore
3) That's the crappiest design for a ballot that I've ever seen
4) Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence
>"Al Gore very probably won Florida and therefore won the nation and
>won the presidency of the United States. I don't know, for one, what
>exactly we ought to do about that." - Patrick J. Buchanan 11/9/00
Nor do I. It's just sad.
Alan
Dr. Don Drake
> af...@freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Scott Nudds) wrote:
> > Langrrr (Lan...@aol.com) wrote:
> > : Ever vote, Chive? What do you think those people who stand outside
> of
> > : your voting booth are there for?
> >
> > : - Andrew Langer
> >
> > Apparently in Florida many of them were Conservatives put there to
> > prevent blacks other "undesirables" from voting for Gore.
>
> Maybe they should have folled the northern Democrats' lead, and offered
> cigarettes to the homeless in order to induce them to vote.
Indeed.
That is the Democ.rat.ic modus operandi: to target low-income voters.
It is in the interest of the the Democ.rat.ic Party
for Americans to fall down to low-income levels, and stay there.
Funny how Klinton ridiculed trickle-down economics,
yet the Ark-ignoramus is now claiming credit for its fruition.
---
DDD
Scott Craver
>>
>> Amusing as it is that the Democrats now claim that their voters are too
>> stupid to read, the simple fact is that this grossly exaggerated
>> complaint has no basis in law.
Please think before you write things like this. Elderly people
(and non-elderly people) can have difficulty reading small print,
and maybe ballot holes, due to poor eyesight, and such. It
does _not_ imply stupidity.
In fact, the ballots were designed that way specifically because
they wanted larger print as an aid for the elderly voters in
Palm Beach.
>> Gore's name was on the ballot. A voter
>> could find his name and the correct punch location with reasonable
>> inspection.
If an unusual number of people messed up the ballot, it is
more indicative of a bad ballot rather than widespread stupidity.
Occam's Razor (someone had to say it, this is sci.skeptic.)
The very existence of a descrepancy is evidence that voters
could not necessarily find Gore's name and the correct punch
location.
>> The ballot will stand as is, and Gore is just going to have
>> to live with losing this election.
My main concern is what gets written in the history books.
I don't want the next presidency to be remembered as
something that was decided by mistake.
If Gore loses, he should at least lose by what we're sure
is a non-negative number of votes.
-S
[Here I was sick of pre-election polls showing no
significant lead for any candidate relative the margin
of error. Now the election is the same way.]
BirdTribe
Leonard Evens wrote:
> And which argument would you be making if Bush had lost a significant
> number of votes in this way?
The facts are that the ballot was made so that Bush could not be
mistaken but Gore could.. Therefore making the question you posed
somewhat invalid.
BT2000XL
>
> --
>
> Leonard Evens l...@math.nwu.edu 847-491-5537
> Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL 60208
--
D Kat
states that came as close as Florida did or for having a second vote in any
place that had the same percentage of error that Palm (?name)county did.
D Kat
Leonard Evens wrote in message <3A0C28AF...@math.nwu.edu>...
>spqr...@my-deja.com wrote:
>And which argument would you be making if Bush had lost a significant
>number of votes in this way?
>
Chive Mynde
result, Sununu had promised a nine point victory for Bush in his state.
Oddly enough, that turned out to be exactly right. The final result was
38% for Bush, 29% for Dole, 13% for Kemp, 10% for DuPont, and 9% for
Robertson. Was Sununu a clairvoyant? Perhaps he was, but those familiar
with the inner workings of the New Hampshire quadrennials are aware of
a very formidable ballot-box stuffing potential assembled there by the
blueblood political establishment. Some observers pointed to pervasive
vote fraud in the 1988 New Hampshire primaries, and Pat Robertson, as
we shall see, also raised this possibility. The Sununu machine
delivered exactly as promised, securing the governor the post of White
House chief of staff. Sununu soon became so self-importantly inebriated
with the trappings of the imperial presidency as reflected in his
travel habits that it was suggested that the state motto appearing on
New Hampshire license plates be changed from "Live Free or Die" to "Fly
Free or Die." In any case, for Bush the heartfelt "Thank You, New
Hampshire" he intoned after his surprising victory signalled that his
machine had weathered its worst crisis.
Bush's real thank you to New Hampshire would come gradually, in the
form of an accelerated economic depression. Soon after the 1988 vote,
the bottom fell out of the state's real estate boom, banks began
failing, and the unemployment rate spiked upward. During 1991, food
stamp usage there went up 51%.-an object lesson of what happens to
those who fail to resist George Bush.
[...]
It is also to be hoped that 1988 will prove in retrospect to have
represented the high-water mark of hired gun media and campaign
consultants in presidential elections. Atwater at one time boasted that
his staff contained at least 28 media experts and political operatives
who had worked in at least three previous presidential elections, many
of which were also winning efforts for the GOP. These men were drawn
from New York's Madison Avenue and from Washington's Connecticut
Avenue "Power Alley," where many of the best-connected political
consulting firms have their offices. It is clear that men like Atwater,
Ailes, Spencer, Deaver and others have performed a function in the
consoldation of a modern American leviathan state that is exactly
analagous to the vital services rendered to the Third Reich by
Propaganda Minister Dr. Josef Goebbels between 1933 and 1945. There is
a crime of menticide which consists in the deliberate destruction of
the cognitive powers of another human being, and the campaigns
organized by these consultants have represented menticide on a mass
scale. Further: if the international economic policies inflicted on the
world by the Reagan-Bush and Bush regimes have exacted a yearly global
death toll of upwards of 50 million needless deaths, primarily in the
developing sector, it has been the image mongers and public relations
men who have organized the US domestic electoral consensus that has
permitted those genocidal policies to go forward. For all of these
reasons, the media and campaign consultants are fascists. They are
virulent fascists typical of the American totalitarian state of the
late twentieth century, and this is true even if these consultants lack
the bombastic trappings of the central European fascists of more than a
half century ago.
George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography
by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin
Bob Myers
"D Kat" <dk...@ms.cc.sunysb.edu> wrote in message
news:3a0c7...@dilbert.ic.sunysb.edu...
> I for one have absolutely no problem with Bush asking for recounts in
those
> states that came as close as Florida did or for having a second vote in
any
> place that had the same percentage of error that Palm (?name)county did.
Were there any? Florida, overall (and without the absentee ballots
yet to be counted) appears to be "decided" by a margin of about
300 votes, out of approx. 6 million cast - a margin of 0.005%.
Were this not a political process (and therefore we "must" have a
"winner"), but instead were some form of research or other
exercise in data-collecting, an honest researcher would no doubt
declare the result to be absolutely indeterminant, WAY within the
expected margin of error. Did that happen anywhere else in the
country?
The honest answer, in the absence of rules which force a
winner to be declared, is that we really have no idea who "won"
Florida. Even with a re-vote, we may not EVER really know.
Bob M.
Brent Peterson
>
> Brent Peterson (ba...@my-deja.com) wrote:
> : It looks strightforward and easy to follow. There are arrows to
> : the correct holes.
>
> Unfortunately the ballot is apparently illegal. Under Florida law the
> boxes must be exclusively to the right or to the left of the names.
> Having them run down the center in an interleved manner is a no-no.
That is only for non-machine tabulated ballots.
Please note the following FL law as posted to chi.general:
--> Newsgroups: chi.general
--> Subject: Re: 19K can't be wrong
--> Date: 10 Nov 2000 16:12:03 GMT
--> Message-ID: <8uh6oj$7qa$0...@pita.alt.net>
<Snippage>
--> They're citing Section 101.151, but it says in the first paragraph:
-->
--> 101.151 Specifications for general election ballot.--In counties in which
--> voting machines are not used, and in other counties for use as absentee
--> ballots NOT DESIGNED FOR TABULATION BY AN ELECTRONIC OR ELECTROMECHANICAL
--> VOTING SYSTEM, the general election ballot shall conform to the following
--> specifications:
<SNIP>
--> Section 101.27:
-->
--> (1) All ballots for voting machines shall be printed on strips of white
--> cardboard, paper, or other material of such size as will fill the ballot
--> frames of the machine, in plain black type as large as the space will
--> permit, so as to show the name of the candidate, statement of the proposed
--> constitutional amendment, or other question or proposition submitted to the
--> electorate at any election.
-->
--> (2) The captions on the ballots for voting machines shall be placed so as
--> to indicate to the elector what push knob, key, lever, or other device is
--> used or operated in order to cast his or her vote for or against a
--> candidate, proposed constitutional amendment, or other question or
--> proposition submitted to the electorate at any election.
-->
--> (3) The order in which the voting machine ballot is arranged shall as
--> nearly as practicable conform to the requirements of the form of the paper
--> ballot for that election. The names of the unopposed candidates shall not
--> appear on the general election ballot; each unopposed candidate shall be
--> deemed to have voted for himself or herself. If two or more write-in
--> candidates are seeking election for one office, only one blank space shall
--> be provided.
<SNIP>
See the orginal post, header is included above if you wish to
see what I snipped out.
Brent Peterson
>
> Brent Peterson <ba...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >
> >A pic of the ballot in question for this past election was on the web.
> >the correct holes.
>
> have mistakenly voted for Buchanan. The most compelling
> evidence for bad design is a statistically significant amount
> of error.
If they made a mistake it is there fault and their fault alone.
This continual blaming of someone else and making everything
idiot proof sickens me.
Also what is statistically significant compared to previous
elections? Yes, the raw numbers are large, but the reported
numbers of previous elections, double punched ballots, the
number of Buchanan votes, etc show that nothing out of the
ordinary occured.
> Remember that a lot of people in that county are elderly.
> This is a big part of the reason the ballot was changed,
> to make the type bigger and easier to read.
With a nice big arrow.
> >Why is it that people in this country think that everything
> >needs to be 100% idiot proof?
>
> Yeah, dammit, why can't 80-year-olds just adapt or die?
> They must be idiots, right?
This ballot stucture has been used for something like 30 years.
Most of those senior citizens come from northern places like
chicago. There is hardly any need to adapt.
> First of all, you're forgetting factors such as eyesight.
> For instance, the ballot print was enlarged to help
> people with poor eyesight, not because the voters were
> stupid. Think maybe someone with difficulty reading
> small text might have trouble with the ballot holes?
If they do, they should ask for help. If their vision is that
impared, they should ask for help. Seriously, next you'll argue
that newspapers should be type set in print so the not-quite
blind can read them without the aid of any person or device.
The fact of the matter is, lowest common demonator thinking
is bad in all its forms. Because the bar can never be set low
enough and always needs to be lower next year.
> Secondly, someone raised in the first half of this
> century has every right to balk at modern contraptions
> and not be called an idiot by some young whippersnapper
> that just grew up around high tech. You'll get karmic
> payback when you're elderly, I'm sure.
Since when is this sort of ballot a new device or 'high tech'?
Ballots like these are old technology. They shouldn't be new to
anyone who has voted in the last 3 decades.
John B
Leonard Evens wrote in message <3A0C2808...@math.nwu.edu>...
>azinnic wrote:
>>
>
>>
>> If, as it seems, the majority of the spoiled ballots (Palm Beach) were
>> intended to be cast for Gore then I agree that a re-election should be
called
>> for that precinct. However, only those who actually cast a vote on
Tuesday
>> should be allowed to participate in re-balloting . How this can be
>> accomplished fairly (for both sides) is the difficult question.
>
>It is not at all difficult. The names of the voters who actually
>voted is a matter of record. It is certainly possible to insist
>that only voters who voted last Tuesday vote in the new vote.
>The only difficulty would be voters who decided not to participate
>the second time.
>
IT GETS MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT .
TURNS OUT THERE WERE NOT 19000 PEOPLE WHO had their vote cast out,
there were 19000 people who made mistakes on their ballot, realized it,
requested new ones and got them.
this of course has only been mentioned about once on the major media, the
democratic parties lie about it has of course been harped endlessly.
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----
Scott Craver
>Scott Craver wrote:
>>
>> If it was easy to follow, then hundreds of voters would not
>> have mistakenly voted for Buchanan. The most compelling
>> evidence for bad design is a statistically significant amount
>> of error.
>
>If they made a mistake it is there fault and their fault alone.
>This continual blaming of someone else and making everything
>idiot proof sickens me.
Sorry, but when enough people make the same mistake,
one must consider the possibility that it's a design
flaw.
It's not "there[sic] fault alone" because a good 3,000
people did the same thing. If a significantly smaller
group made the mistake it would be different.
>Also what is statistically significant compared to previous
>elections? Yes, the raw numbers are large, but the reported
>numbers of previous elections, double punched ballots, the
>number of Buchanan votes, etc show that nothing out of the
>ordinary occured.
Cite? Even Buchanan states something out of the ordinary
occurred. The # of votes for Buchanan is quite an anomaly,
and I'd like to see your data suggesting that it is not.
>> >Why is it that people in this country think that everything
>> >needs to be 100% idiot proof?
>>
>> Yeah, dammit, why can't 80-year-olds just adapt or die?
>> They must be idiots, right?
>
>This ballot stucture has been used for something like 30 years.
This ballot was designed recently. In fact, a big
deal has been made of the fact that it was recently
approved by numerous people, and published without any
complaints until the day of the election.
Not that this somehow makes it fair: bugs can surface
at any time, unexpectedly, and the fact that someone
doesn't catch a bug 'til it bites him in the ass doesn't
disqualify the bug as a bug.
>> First of all, you're forgetting factors such as eyesight.
>> For instance, the ballot print was enlarged to help
>> people with poor eyesight, not because the voters were
>> stupid. Think maybe someone with difficulty reading
>> small text might have trouble with the ballot holes?
>
>If they do, they should ask for help. If their vision is that
>impared[sic], they should ask for help. Seriously, next you'll
>argue that newspapers should be type set in print so the not-quite
>blind can read them without the aid of any person or device.
Newspapers clearly aren't the same thing. We're talking
about a ballot for a presidential election. People go
to great lengths to make it as usable as possible, as they
should. They have to be very failsafe. Any possibility
for confusion can result in what is happening right now,
i.e. disputes that undermine confidence in the electoral
process.
Note that people _did_ go to the trouble to make the
ballot easier to read by printing it with a larger
typeface. That's what caused the problem in the first
place, in fact.
>The fact of the matter is, lowest common demonator thinking
>is bad in all its forms. Because the bar can never be set low
>enough and always needs to be lower next year.
That you consider this "lowest common demonator[sic]
thinking" is insulting to seniors. The whole notion
that screwing up the ballot implies stupidity is insulting
to seniors. It's easy to call a mistake stupid if it
wasn't yours.
It is interesting that we are discussing this on the
Internet. We are presently witnessing the end of the
Old Software Culture, in which software companies
swapped Stupid User Stories, and generally blamed
widespread user screwups on the users rather than on their
own stupidly designed interfaces (when I'm done with this
article I will save it by typing ZZ. 2 capital Zs for
`save and quit.' Pretty intuitive, huh?) The new
industry, the survivors, will consist of companies that
offer actual warranties and actual quality tech support,
who realize that it is not catering to a least common
deNOmInator to make things intuitable.
-S
Ibis
Ibis
Scott Nudds
: Yeah, dammit, why can't 80-year-olds just adapt or die?
: They must be idiots, right?
Exactly. That's why they don't deserve medicare or assistance in paying
for overpriced perscription medicines.
I have repeatedly been told by conservatives that in this world the
weak and the infirm deserve nothing but death. Crumbs from the wealthy
elite at best.
Now we see that they have no right to have their voting preferences
respected either.
Welcome to the Neo-Conservative American Ideal.
Scott Nudds
: > prevent blacks other "undesirables" from voting for Gore.
Langrrr (Lan...@aol.com) wrote:
: Maybe they should have folled the northern Democrats' lead, and offered
: cigarettes to the homeless in order to induce them to vote.
As a counter agent, absolutely. In this instance there is a moral
highground to be had in enticing someone to act upon their most important
constitutional rights. Rights that good evidence indicates were denied
minority voters in California by your brothers in the corrupt conservative
party.
Of course Langrrr's Libertarian party is entirely supportive of vote
buying as it is an example of free enterprise.
You see, Langrrr is not only a proven perpetual liar, but also a proven
perpetual hypocrite.
Scott Nudds
: If they made a mistake it is there fault and their fault alone.
: This continual blaming of someone else and making everything
: idiot proof sickens me.
: Also what is statistically significant compared to previous
: elections? Yes, the raw numbers are large, but the reported
: numbers of previous elections, double punched ballots, the
: number of Buchanan votes, etc show that nothing out of the
: ordinary occured.
Quite untrue. THe total number of under and over cast ballots was
14,000 in the previous election, 38,000 in this case. The 19,000 are just
a portion of the ballots that were disqualified. In this case due to the
problem with the ballot.
When 19,000 people make the same mistake, you know there is a problem
with the method.
Source: Carnegie Mellon University ([46]http://www.cmu.edu/)
Date: Posted 11/10/2000
Carnegie Mellon Statistical Study Shows With Extreme Confidence That
Ballot Cost Gore Votes
According to several news accounts, many voters in Palm Beach,
Florida, have claimed that they were confused by the ballot structure
and may have inadvertently voted for Patrick J. Buchanan when in fact
they intended to vote for Democratic Presidential candidate Al Gore.
Doing a statistical analysis, county by county for Florida, Carnegie
Mellon University Social and Decision Sciences Professor Greg Adams
says he can say with "extreme confidence" that the ballot structure
cost the vice president at least 2,000 votes.
Adams reasoned that if enough voters in Palm Beach were confused and
voted for Buchanan, it should be statistically detectable by examining
the vote for Buchanan relative to the votes for Gore and Bush for all
of the counties in Florida.
"As a first cut, I did three simple plots: one of Buchanan's votes vs.
Bush's votes, one of Buchanan's votes vs. Gore's votes, and one of
Buchanan's votes vs. the total votes cast in a county (see graphs
below). For all of the plots, all of the counties except one (Palm
Beach) follow a pretty regular pattern. The more votes Bush got in a
county, the more votes Buchanan got, and the number of votes that
Buchanan got increases with Bush's vote by a fairly predictable amount
-- except for Palm Beach, which has many, many more votes for Buchanan
than would be reasonably expected, given all of the other Florida
counties," Adams reports.
Similar results hold for the plots for Buchanan's votes versus Gore's
votes or the total votes cast. "Again, Palm Beach sticks out as an
outlier from all of the other Florida counties," Adams added.
Adams has posted complete results of his analysis at
http://madison.hss.cmu.edu
Scott Nudds
: Funny how Klinton ridiculed trickle-down economics,
: yet the Ark-ignoramus is now claiming credit for its fruition.
I wasn't aware that Clinton claimed credit for America's multi trilllion
dollar debt. Everyone knows it is clearly Reagan's legacy.
"Borrowing a trillion plus dollars may have been the smartest thing we
ever did..." - Martin Anderson - White House Policy Adviser to Ronald
Reagan - 1998
Snicker...
Langrrr
af...@freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Scott Nudds) wrote:
> : > Apparently in Florida many of them were Conservatives put there
to
> : > prevent blacks other "undesirables" from voting for Gore.
>
> Langrrr (Lan...@aol.com) wrote:
> : Maybe they should have folled the northern Democrats' lead, and
offered
> : cigarettes to the homeless in order to induce them to vote.
>
> As a counter agent, absolutely. In this instance there is a moral
> highground to be had in enticing someone to act upon their most
important
> constitutional rights.
I see, so Scott Nudds believes that feeding their addictions in order
to induce them to act is moral.
Should they have offered them crack, too? How about offering small
children to pedophiles, too, as your acquaintances might want?
> Rights that good evidence indicates were denied
> minority voters in California by your brothers in the corrupt
conservative
> party.
>
Which corrupt conservative party would that be?
> Of course Langrrr's Libertarian party is entirely supportive of vote
> buying as it is an example of free enterprise.
>
Of course, you just said that it was moral for them to do so, so your
own hypocrisies are made manifest.
> You see, Langrrr is not only a proven perpetual liar, but also a
proven
> perpetual hypocrite.
>
Not as much as those who contradict themselves in a post, or offer an
addictive substance to people in order to induce them to act, an
addictive substance whose manufacture and selling they have been
fighting against, and against whose manufacturers they are extracting
billions of dollars.
- Andrew Langer
--
Any posts by Andrew Langer are his own, written by him, for his own
enjoyment (and the education of others). Unless expressly stated,
they represent his own views, and not those of any other individuals
or entities. He is not, nor has he ever been, paid to post here.
John C. Randolph
Chive Mynde wrote:
>
> Due to rampant Florida Ballot fraud, the state, under bipartisan
> supervision, should conduct a re-election and settle the matter.
I suppose you consider it necessary to keep holding election after
election until your guy wins, no?
> This is the only process possible.
Why, because you say so?
> Otherwise, the 19,000 ballots that have been thrown out due to two
> choices selected due, will negate any given presidential mandate.
Who says a president needs a mandate? Kennedy seemed to do okay despite
having stolen the election from Nixon on the Chicago graveyard vote.
Your guy lost. Grow up and cope with it.
-jcr
D Kat
adequate support/monitoring so that voters were not turned away, then I
believe we would have a vote we could trust to represent the population.
Whether the vote would be significant in statistical terms is another
matter. How about we throw out all electoral votes where there is not a
significant difference between candidates!! DK
Bob Myers wrote in message <8uhuv3$qu2$1...@fcnews.fc.hp.com>...
Scott Nudds
: > highground to be had in enticing someone to act upon their most
: important
: > constitutional rights.
Langrrr (Lan...@aol.com) wrote:
: I see, so Scott Nudds believes that feeding their addictions in order
: to induce them to act is moral.
I see, so Langrrr's earlier tact was a lie. He wasn't really concerned
about vote manipulation at all, he was concerned for the health and
welfare of people that his own Libertarian policies have dumped onto the
street.
Langrrr jabbers:
: Should they have offered them crack, too?
You are the Libertarian who wishes to make the sale and consumption of
crack cocaine legal. Your Libertarian party is the party with the one
dollar one vote policy. Certainly if your political ideology is
supportive of a free and unrestricted market in ballots then the
Libertarian ideology can have no complaint about purchasing votes with
viles of crack cocaine.
After all, your chosen partyh has no objection to children prostituting
themselves.
Andrew Langer writes:
: How about offering small children to pedophiles, too, as your
: acquaintances might want?
I am happy to see you so readily confirming that these Libertarian
brothers of yours that I have been watching are quite happy that your
chosen party has no objection to child prostitution. It is after all, just
another form of child labour in the eyes of a Libertarian. And all people
must have the right to work - well according to the Libertarian party
platform and gaggles of Libertarian dittoheads who parrot the party line.
: > Rights that good evidence indicates were denied
: > minority voters in California by your brothers in the corrupt
: > conservative party.
Langrrr jabbers:
: Which corrupt conservative party would that be?
That would be the one that you voted for. The one that selected a three
times arrested Quayleite as their presidential candidate. The one that
has gone to court to try to prevent an accurate vote count from being
tallied in your presidential election. The one that has spent the last
couple of decades praising the benefits of states rights, and who has now
gone to court to deny Florida it's rights to a fair ballot. The one that
spent the election uttering the refrain "trust the people", and who now
are insisting that the people can't be trusted to perform a simple ballot
count.
I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea.
: > Of course Langrrr's Libertarian party is entirely supportive of vote
: > buying as it is an example of free enterprise.
Andrew Langer wrote:
: Of course, you just said that it was moral for them to do so, so your
: own hypocrisies are made manifest.
No. You are lying. I said it was more moral than denying minorities
the right to vote as your Republican co-conspirators have done.
: > You see, Langrrr is not only a proven perpetual liar, but also a
: > proven perpetual hypocrite.
Andrew Langer jabbers:
: Not as much as those who contradict themselves in a post, or offer an
: addictive substance to people in order to induce them to act,....
I would have to agree if the persons in question had a history of
behaviour as hypocritical and deceitful as yours. But I don't know those
two individuals. Do you Hypocrite?
Bob Myers
"John C. Randolph" <jcr.r...@this.phrase.idiom.com> wrote in message
news:3A0E6965...@this.phrase.idiom.com...
> I suppose you consider it necessary to keep holding election after
> election until your guy wins, no?
This "redo it until your guy wins" notion is getting a little tiresome,
given the implication that it's the "loser of the election" trying to
change things.
At this point, you have to realize that NO ONE has won, despite
an early (premature) and very unofficial call by the networks in
favor of Bush. NO ONE has won yet, and the election remains
too tight to call with any confidence.
This is NOT a case of a "loser" trying to change things. We
do not have, and have not had to this point, anyone who was
either a "winner" OR a "loser".
It CAN be said, at this point, that Gore has the majority
of the popular vote AT THIS TIME. But the popular vote
doesn't determine the president. It could also be said
that Gore is leading in the PRESUMED electoral vote
in those states which have been declared "for sure" (at
least as sure as anything is this year), but that is without
all of the official results in, several states extremely close,
and with the note that this IS just a presumption, since the
electoral college has not met or voted at this point.
Clear?
Bob M.
Brent Peterson
>
> Brent Peterson <ba...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >Scott Craver wrote:
> >>
> >> If it was easy to follow, then hundreds of voters would not
> >> have mistakenly voted for Buchanan. The most compelling
> >> evidence for bad design is a statistically significant amount
> >> of error.
> >
> >If they made a mistake it is there fault and their fault alone.
> >This continual blaming of someone else and making everything
> >idiot proof sickens me.
>
> Sorry, but when enough people make the same mistake,
> one must consider the possibility that it's a design
> flaw.
How many people made mistakes in comparison to previous
elections?
> It's not "there[sic] fault alone" because a good 3,000
> people did the same thing. If a significantly smaller
> group made the mistake it would be different.
3,000 is a tiny percentage of the votes cast. That is a very
small error rate. Nothing can be 100% idiot proof.
> >Also what is statistically significant compared to previous
> >elections? Yes, the raw numbers are large, but the reported
> >numbers of previous elections, double punched ballots, the
> >number of Buchanan votes, etc show that nothing out of the
> >ordinary occured.
>
> Cite? Even Buchanan states something out of the ordinary
> occurred. The # of votes for Buchanan is quite an anomaly,
> and I'd like to see your data suggesting that it is not.
It's been posted here as well as other newsgroups. As well
as various media sources. I don't have the time to search
out a particular post/cite atm, if you wish to dis-regard it
so be it.
> >> >Why is it that people in this country think that everything
> >> >needs to be 100% idiot proof?
> >> Yeah, dammit, why can't 80-year-olds just adapt or die?
> >> They must be idiots, right?
> >This ballot stucture has been used for something like 30 years.
>
> This ballot was designed recently. In fact, a big
> deal has been made of the fact that it was recently
> approved by numerous people, and published without any
> complaints until the day of the election.
This type of ballot has been in use for DECADES. I grew up in
cook county IL, I remember this ballot type being used as far back as
early grade school where they showed us how to vote as some kind
of election day lesson. And as I saw my parents go through the ballot.
Names on both sides, punch in the middle. I understood it as a 6
year old. It's not rocket science.
> Not that this somehow makes it fair: bugs can surface
> at any time, unexpectedly, and the fact that someone
> doesn't catch a bug 'til it bites him in the ass doesn't
> disqualify the bug as a bug.
> >> First of all, you're forgetting factors such as eyesight.
> >> For instance, the ballot print was enlarged to help
> >> people with poor eyesight, not because the voters were
> >> stupid. Think maybe someone with difficulty reading
> >> small text might have trouble with the ballot holes?
> >If they do, they should ask for help. If their vision is that
> >impared[sic], they should ask for help. Seriously, next you'll
> >argue that newspapers should be type set in print so the not-quite
> >blind can read them without the aid of any person or device.
> Newspapers clearly aren't the same thing. We're talking
> about a ballot for a presidential election. People go
> to great lengths to make it as usable as possible, as they
> should. They have to be very failsafe. Any possibility
> for confusion can result in what is happening right now,
> i.e. disputes that undermine confidence in the electoral
> process.
That ballot had so many fail safe layers that anyone who voted
wrong can only blame themselves.
1) Arrow
2) number
3) personal help and instruction availible
4) checking ballot afterwards. if wrong get another.
Sorry. the world cannot be idiot-proofed. Try to do so and all you'll
get are better idiots.
> Note that people _did_ go to the trouble to make the
> ballot easier to read by printing it with a larger
> typeface. That's what caused the problem in the first
> place, in fact.
Take a look at a cook county ballot. names on both sides, small
print. People still manage to figure it out.
> >The fact of the matter is, lowest common demonator thinking
> >is bad in all its forms. Because the bar can never be set low
> >enough and always needs to be lower next year.
> That you consider this "lowest common demonator[sic]
> thinking" is insulting to seniors. The whole notion
> that screwing up the ballot implies stupidity is insulting
> to seniors. It's easy to call a mistake stupid if it
> wasn't yours.
Oh BS. It isn't just seniors whining about it. In fact, the
people the media have been showing aren't seniors. More
experienced people have even less excuse imo. Everything possible
was done. If a voter fails to use the help availible that's
just too bad. It is the voter's responsibility to ensure
he cast his vote correctly. If he is unsure, there is help
availible AND he can start over with a fresh ballot.
> It is interesting that we are discussing this on the
> Internet. We are presently witnessing the end of the
> Old Software Culture, in which software companies
> swapped Stupid User Stories, and generally blamed
> widespread user screwups on the users rather than on their
> own stupidly designed interfaces (when I'm done with this
> article I will save it by typing ZZ. 2 capital Zs for
> `save and quit.' Pretty intuitive, huh?)
Nobody forces you to use vi.
Z is intutive if you think about its location on the keyboard
rather than as a letter of the alphabet. In fact, it is the ONLY
vi command I still remember.
Brent Peterson
> Quite untrue. THe total number of under and over cast ballots was
> 14,000 in the previous election, 38,000 in this case. The 19,000 are just
> a portion of the ballots that were disqualified. In this case due to the
> problem with the ballot.
I have not heard this 14/38K from anyone other than scott nudds.
Does somebody have a less biased source?
> When 19,000 people make the same mistake, you know there is a problem
> with the method.
Not when it from millions of users.
Scott Craver
>
>> people did the same thing. If a significantly smaller
>> group made the mistake it would be different.
>
>3,000 is a tiny percentage of the votes cast. That is a very
>small error rate. Nothing can be 100% idiot proof.
Of course it is not a tiny percentage. In fact,
3,000 is at least three times the margin by which Bush
is ahead. Three times the margin by which someone
wins the entire election.
Or, let's put it this way: if you think it is a
tiny meaningless percentage, why object to letting those
3,000 people revote? Answer: Gore would be president
instead of Bush.
>> and I'd like to see your data suggesting that it is not.
>
>It's been posted here as well as other newsgroups. As well
>as various media sources. I don't have the time to search
>out a particular post/cite atm, if you wish to dis-regard it
>so be it.
Don't try to frame this as me disregarding the data.
You have not posted any data.
>This type of ballot has been in use for DECADES. I grew up in
>cook county IL, I remember this ballot type being used as far back as
>early grade school where they showed us how to vote as some kind
>of election day lesson. And as I saw my parents go through the ballot.
>Names on both sides, punch in the middle. I understood it as a 6
>year old. It's not rocket science.
Again you jump to the conclusion that a voting mistake is
due to stupidity. Poor eyesight can also be a factor.
And no, it's not always the case where someone who can't
see the holes knows to ask for assistance. This is
a fallacy based on the a priori knowledge that a mistake
is being made.
>> Note that people _did_ go to the trouble to make the
>> ballot easier to read by printing it with a larger
>> typeface. That's what caused the problem in the first
>> place, in fact.
>
>Take a look at a cook county ballot. names on both sides, small
>print. People still manage to figure it out.
Well, for all you know. Maybe if the election hinged on
Illinois, it would come to attention that some people
did make mistakes. But this is just speculation.
Regardless of whether you think people should have
figured it out, they miscast their votes. They did
so in a large number, and in a manner consistent with
the ballot's design. If you think they don't deserve
a revote then fine; I personally think a revote would
make the election uglier than it presently is, but if
it is more fair to count those people's opinions then
we should.
I don't think, however, that we should push a revote
because we don't like the idea of Bush winning, or
adopt a your-own-stupid-fault attitude because we
don't want Gore to win.
-S
Langrrr
af...@freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Scott Nudds) wrote:
> : > As a counter agent, absolutely. In this instance there is a
moral
> : > highground to be had in enticing someone to act upon their most
> : important
> : > constitutional rights.
>
> Langrrr (Lan...@aol.com) wrote:
> : I see, so Scott Nudds believes that feeding their addictions in
order
> : to induce them to act is moral.
>
> I see, so Langrrr's earlier tact was a lie. He wasn't really
concerned
> about vote manipulation at all, he was concerned for the health and
> welfare of people that his own Libertarian policies have dumped onto
the
> street.
>
I see - so one can't be concerned about both?
I am.
> Langrrr jabbers:
> : Should they have offered them crack, too?
>
> You are the Libertarian who wishes to make the sale and consumption
of
> crack cocaine legal.
And your compadres have made it clear they want to see cigarette sales
curtailed substantially (if not eliminated) as well.
> Your Libertarian party is the party with the one
> dollar one vote policy. Certainly if your political ideology is
> supportive of a free and unrestricted market in ballots then the
> Libertarian ideology can have no complaint about purchasing votes with
> viles of crack cocaine.
>
Strawman there. Please point out wherein the Libertarian party is the
party with the "one dollar one vote policy."
Further, it is not the Libertarians we are talking about here - it is
the anti-tobacco, "fair election" seeking Democrats.
> After all, your chosen partyh has no objection to children
prostituting
> themselves.
>
It absolutely does. It is only your wild fantasization and uncited
personal sources which buttress your position.
> Andrew Langer writes:
> : How about offering small children to pedophiles, too, as your
> : acquaintances might want?
>
> I am happy to see you so readily confirming that these Libertarian
> brothers of yours that I have been watching are quite happy that your
> chosen party has no objection to child prostitution. It is after all,
just
> another form of child labour in the eyes of a Libertarian. And all
people
> must have the right to work - well according to the Libertarian party
> platform and gaggles of Libertarian dittoheads who parrot the party
line.
>
Note, these were Democrats. They were not Libertarians, they were not
Republicans. They were certainly not Brothers of Mine. They were most
assuredly political and ideological compadres of you.
And I obviously object to pedophilia and child prostitution - and my
condemnation was obvious in my statement.
> : > Rights that good evidence indicates were denied
> : > minority voters in California by your brothers in the corrupt
> : > conservative party.
>
> Langrrr jabbers:
> : Which corrupt conservative party would that be?
>
> That would be the one that you voted for.
Which one would that be? (Note - your correct answer will undercut
your continued assignment to me of the Libertarian party)
> The one that selected a three
> times arrested Quayleite as their presidential candidate. The one
that
> has gone to court to try to prevent an accurate vote count from being
> tallied in your presidential election. The one that has spent the
last
> couple of decades praising the benefits of states rights, and who has
now
> gone to court to deny Florida it's rights to a fair ballot. The one
that
> spent the election uttering the refrain "trust the people", and who
now
> are insisting that the people can't be trusted to perform a simple
ballot
> count.
>
> I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea.
>
And I fail to see any indication as to anything the GOP might have done
in California. Thank you for proving my point, despite your childish
rambling.
> : > Of course Langrrr's Libertarian party is entirely supportive of
vote
> : > buying as it is an example of free enterprise.
>
> Andrew Langer wrote:
> : Of course, you just said that it was moral for them to do so, so
your
> : own hypocrisies are made manifest.
>
> No. You are lying. I said it was more moral than denying
minorities
> the right to vote as your Republican co-conspirators have done.
>
No, sorry, it is you who are lying. You said, "In this instance there
is a moral highground to be had in enticing someone to act upon their
most important constitutional rights."
Not "more moral" - but simply the "moral highground" to do so.
Lying hypocrite!
> : > You see, Langrrr is not only a proven perpetual liar, but also a
> : > proven perpetual hypocrite.
>
> Andrew Langer jabbers:
> : Not as much as those who contradict themselves in a post, or offer
an
> : addictive substance to people in order to induce them to act,....
>
> I would have to agree if the persons in question had a history of
> behaviour as hypocritical and deceitful as yours. But I don't know
those
> two individuals. Do you Hypocrite?
>
I don't particularly care to know anyone who would try to buy the vote
of someone with a substance known to cause that person harm.
But apparently, you see it as the moral highground for them to do so.
Scott Nudds
: > Quite untrue. THe total number of under and over cast ballots was
: > 14,000 in the previous election, 38,000 in this case. The 19,000 are just
: > a portion of the ballots that were disqualified. In this case due to the
: > problem with the ballot.
Brent Peterson (ba...@my-deja.com) wrote:
: I have not heard this 14/38K from anyone other than scott nudds.
: Does somebody have a less biased source?
Try reading a newspaper.
: > When 19,000 people make the same mistake, you know there is a problem
: > with the method.
Peterson yammers:
: Not when it from millions of users.
Out of 450,000. That's a 5% error rate. If the popular vote differs by
less than .5%, do you really expect to resolve the winner with a 5% error
rate in the vote count?
It could be done of course, but you would have to revote a couple of
hundred times.
But the Republican vote riggers are opposing a revote as well.
How do you spell corruption. R.E.P.U.B.L.I.C.A.N.
Scott Nudds
Bob Myers (nomail...@address.invalid) wrote:
: This "redo it until your guy wins" notion is getting a little tiresome,
: given the implication that it's the "loser of the election" trying to
: change things.
It appears to me that counting the number of red smarties in a box of
smarties does not alter the number of red smarties that are in the box.
Recounting the smarties simply increases the confidence that the count
is correct.
Conservatives are arguing that recounting somehow alters the number of
red smarties.
I suggest they return to school grade 1, to upgrade their thinking
skills.
Scott Nudds
: > people did the same thing. If a significantly smaller
: > group made the mistake it would be different.
Brent Peterson (ba...@my-deja.com) wrote:
: 3,000 is a tiny percentage of the votes cast. That is a very
: small error rate. Nothing can be 100% idiot proof.
Indeed if nothing is idiot proof then you must agree that recounting
will improve the ballot counting error rate.
Also 3,000 ballots is indeed a small percentage. Given that Bush's lead
in Florida is only 1/10 of that, you must also agree that extreme care
must me taken to ensure that the counting error rate must be <smaller>
than the ballot difference between the two parties.
: It's been posted here as well as other newsgroups. As well
: as various media sources. I don't have the time to search
: out a particular post/cite atm, if you wish to dis-regard it
: so be it.
Yes the total number of spoiled ballots in that one florida precinct is
38,000 this election. 14,000 in the last election.
: This type of ballot has been in use for DECADES. I grew up in
: cook county IL, I remember this ballot type being used as far back as
: early grade school where they showed us how to vote as some kind
: of election day lesson. And as I saw my parents go through the ballot.
: Names on both sides, punch in the middle. I understood it as a 6
: year old. It's not rocket science.
Yet the error rate was greater than 5%.
: 1) Arrow
: 2) number
: 3) personal help and instruction availible
: 4) checking ballot afterwards. if wrong get another.
Reports are that instruction was denied to many people who requested it.
The error's occurred because people use the number. They punched the
second hole for the second person on the ballot. THe problem is the
second hole was for Buchannan, and the second person on the ballot was
Gore.
Sure, yo can check the balot after you vote. But if you made a mistake
in the first place, you probably won't catch it on the second pass
through.
Further, there are also complaints that people were not provided with
replacement cards.
Brent Peterson
>
> : > It's not "there[sic] fault alone" because a good 3,000
> : > people did the same thing. If a significantly smaller
> : > group made the mistake it would be different.
>
> : 3,000 is a tiny percentage of the votes cast. That is a very
> : small error rate. Nothing can be 100% idiot proof.
> Indeed if nothing is idiot proof then you must agree that recounting
> will improve the ballot counting error rate.
They don't average the results of the counts mr. Nudds. They
pick a count. Thusly the 5th recount will have the same margin
of error as the 1st provided the method was the same and the
ballots condition did not change.
> Also 3,000 ballots is indeed a small percentage. Given that Bush's lead
> in Florida is only 1/10 of that, you must also agree that extreme care
> must me taken to ensure that the counting error rate must be <smaller>
> than the ballot difference between the two parties.
But that is not only in FL. And if they really cared about the
error rate, then the ENTIRE state, in fact a few states should
be carefully recounted. Not a couple select counties in FL.
> Yes the total number of spoiled ballots in that one florida precinct is
> 38,000 this election. 14,000 in the last election.
Now many more people voted this time out?
> : This type of ballot has been in use for DECADES. I grew up in
> : cook county IL, I remember this ballot type being used as far back as
> : early grade school where they showed us how to vote as some kind
> : of election day lesson. And as I saw my parents go through the ballot.
> : Names on both sides, punch in the middle. I understood it as a 6
> : year old. It's not rocket science.
> Yet the error rate was greater than 5%.
Haven't seen any such reports.
> : 1) Arrow
> : 2) number
> : 3) personal help and instruction availible
> : 4) checking ballot afterwards. if wrong get another.
> Reports are that instruction was denied to many people who requested it.
Haven't seen any such reports.
> The error's occurred because people use the number. They punched the
> second hole for the second person on the ballot. THe problem is the
> second hole was for Buchannan, and the second person on the ballot was
> Gore.
The second person on the ballot was buchannan. Bush was hole #3. Holes
numer 1 and 2 were unused.
> Sure, yo can check the balot after you vote. But if you made a mistake
> in the first place, you probably won't catch it on the second pass
> through.
So you are saying democrats are fools who can't check what they are
doing?
> Further, there are also complaints that people were not provided with
> replacement cards.
Haven't seen it reported anywhere.
Brent Peterson
>
> : Scott Nudds wrote:
> : > Quite untrue. THe total number of under and over cast ballots was
> : > 14,000 in the previous election, 38,000 in this case. The 19,000 are just
> : > a portion of the ballots that were disqualified. In this case due to the
> : > problem with the ballot.
> Brent Peterson (ba...@my-deja.com) wrote:
> : I have not heard this 14/38K from anyone other than scott nudds.
> : Does somebody have a less biased source?
> Try reading a newspaper.
Typical response from mr. nudds when asked to support his
claim.
> : > When 19,000 people make the same mistake, you know there is a problem
> : > with the method.
> : Not when it from millions of users.
> Out of 450,000. That's a 5% error rate. If the popular vote differs by
> less than .5%, do you really expect to resolve the winner with a 5% error
> rate in the vote count?
Can you show that is far and beyond any other county?
Btw, 5% of 450K is 22,500. Another number. It's hard to hit a moving
target.
And for a user based issue, 5% is still small. This isn't the
error of a machine or a measurement, but rather of human beings
using a device. 5% would be within expectations I would think,
on the high side, but within reason. Convince me otherwise nudds,
show us studies on the error rate using various common devices.
> But the Republican vote riggers are opposing a revote as well.
>
> How do you spell corruption. R.E.P.U.B.L.I.C.A.N.
In Chicago we spell it D.E.M.O.C.R.A.T. Or more importantly, vote
fraud is spelled D.A.L.E.Y. Bush has rank amateurs, Gore has a
second generation professional.
Brent Peterson
>
> Brent Peterson <ba...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >
> >> people did the same thing. If a significantly smaller
> >> group made the mistake it would be different.
> >
> >3,000 is a tiny percentage of the votes cast. That is a very
> >small error rate. Nothing can be 100% idiot proof.
>
> 3,000 is at least three times the margin by which Bush
> is ahead. Three times the margin by which someone
> wins the entire election.
The entire election is less than the margin of error. This
is true of more states than just FL.
Count, count and recount, it is less than the margin of error. Keep
counting until it randomly comes up gore? Best two out of three?
Four out of seven? Five of Nine? Maybe just flip a coin? Put bush
and gore in the thunderdome?
> Or, let's put it this way: if you think it is a
> tiny meaningless percentage, why object to letting those
> 3,000 people revote? Answer: Gore would be president
> instead of Bush.
Why object, because it is unfair not to give anyone else the
chance to re-vote. Care to have people who made mistakes
against bush revote?
Personally, I see bush and gore as different roads to the
same ends. So don't try to play partisian crap.
> >> and I'd like to see your data suggesting that it is not.
> >It's been posted here as well as other newsgroups. As well
> >as various media sources. I don't have the time to search
> >out a particular post/cite atm, if you wish to dis-regard it
> >so be it.
> Don't try to frame this as me disregarding the data.
> You have not posted any data.
I conceeded it cause I don't feel like looking it up, quit while
you are ahead don't rub it in... gesse.
> >This type of ballot has been in use for DECADES. I grew up in
> >cook county IL, I remember this ballot type being used as far back as
> >early grade school where they showed us how to vote as some kind
> >of election day lesson. And as I saw my parents go through the ballot.
> >Names on both sides, punch in the middle. I understood it as a 6
> >year old. It's not rocket science.
>
> Again you jump to the conclusion that a voting mistake is
> due to stupidity. Poor eyesight can also be a factor.
> And no, it's not always the case where someone who can't
> see the holes knows to ask for assistance. This is
> a fallacy based on the a priori knowledge that a mistake
> is being made.
And old repbulican voters were perfect? Only democratic voters
made mistakes? Come on now. FL residents are becoming the
butt of jokes now because of all this.
BTW they told everyone going through the line where I voted
that if they need help, to ask. I've never known it to be
different at other polling places.
> >> Note that people _did_ go to the trouble to make the
> >> ballot easier to read by printing it with a larger
> >> typeface. That's what caused the problem in the first
> >> place, in fact.
> >Take a look at a cook county ballot. names on both sides, small
> >print. People still manage to figure it out.
> Well, for all you know. Maybe if the election hinged on
> Illinois, it would come to attention that some people
> did make mistakes. But this is just speculation.
For all I know it was like that in 1960. I only personally
know its been this way since about 1977.
> Regardless of whether you think people should have
> figured it out, they miscast their votes. They did
> so in a large number, and in a manner consistent with
> the ballot's design. If you think they don't deserve
> a revote then fine; I personally think a revote would
> make the election uglier than it presently is, but if
> it is more fair to count those people's opinions then
> we should.
Everyone got the same chance. Why should democrats who claim
to have made a mistake get a second chance? How do we even know
who it was that made a mistake? If they thought they made the
proper punch, then obviously they didn't realize it. The ballots
are not serial numbered to people.... One cannot just re-vote
select counties in FL. It is the ENTIRE country or nothing.
> I don't think, however, that we should push a revote
> because we don't like the idea of Bush winning, or
> adopt a your-own-stupid-fault attitude because we
> don't want Gore to win.
I don't care who they declare president. To me, bush or gore
gore or bush, it simply doesn't matter. People just need to
suck it up and deal with the fact they screwed up and not
blame ballot design or repbulican conspiries or anything else.
Scott Craver
>> 3,000 is at least three times the margin by which Bush
>> is ahead. Three times the margin by which someone
>> wins the entire election.
>
>The entire election is less than the margin of error. This
>is true of more states than just FL.
I agree that, overall, any difference between the two
candidates appears to have fallen within the perfectly
normal margin of error for state elections.
However, the disputed votes are a number seemingly
larger than "the margin of error" (well, not right now,
seeing as how those votes are considered errors.)
19,000 is a huge number, for instance, as is 3,000,
compared to the present margins or even the margins
by which the recounts change.
If it turns out that there is a chunk of votes big
enough to pull us out of the uncertainty margin towards
one candidate, that would be great.
>Why object, because it is unfair not to give anyone else the
>chance to re-vote. Care to have people who made mistakes
>against bush revote?
Of course, if any county or precinct shows a large
anomaly, whether revoting would help Bush or Gore
is immaterial. The question is how to address the
anomaly, by revote, recount, or just kicking oneself
and improving the ballot system for next time.
Calling a revote unfair to other counties is simplistic.
Any revote would probably be called in a region where
there are sufficiently many ballot disputes. Why is
that unfair to people in Wyoming, say, who had no
voting disputes, whose counties made no mistakes at all?
One might as well suggest that it is unfair to only
re-count in certain states. Unfair to victims of
mistakes in the other states.
>Personally, I see bush and gore as different roads to the
>same ends. So don't try to play partisian crap.
I find that hard to believe. You seem very adamant
in your view that I must be a Gore supporter for
disagreeing with you. I have to suspect that maybe
you want to see Bush elected.
I couldn't vote for Gore because of some of the
Clinton's administrations oppressive policies towards
technology (signing the CDA, pushing for crypto
regulation.) I couldn't vote for Bush because
with Bush in the White House the MS trial could be
derailed.
>> I don't think, however, that we should push a revote
>> because we don't like the idea of Bush winning, or
>> adopt a your-own-stupid-fault attitude because we
>> don't want Gore to win.
>
>I don't care who they declare president. To me, bush or gore
>gore or bush, it simply doesn't matter. People just need to
>suck it up and deal with the fact they screwed up and not
>blame ballot design or repbulican conspiries or anything else.
-S
Scott Nudds
: > 3,000 is at least three times the margin by which Bush
: > is ahead. Three times the margin by which someone
: > wins the entire election.
Brent Peterson (ba...@my-deja.com) wrote:
: The entire election is less than the margin of error. This
: is true of more states than just FL.
Then you are admitting that the election count is invalid and recounts
are required to determine who the "real" winner is.
Yet the Corrupt Republican party is taking every underhanded step in
order to prevent a fair count of the ballots.
Peterson yammers:
: Count, count and recount, it is less than the margin of error. Keep
: counting until it randomly comes up gore? Best two out of three?
: Four out of seven? Five of Nine? Maybe just flip a coin? Put bush
: and gore in the thunderdome?
I wasn't aware that the simple act of counting alters the percentage of
ballots cast for a particular person. I am however, aware that recounting
can be and is used to detect errors in the original count.
<IF> the margin of error can not be reduced to a value that is lower
than the ballot difference between the two, then I would indeed suggest a
coin toss, or a new convention that when such a situation occurs, the tie
goes to the person with the greatest number of total ballots. Gore in
this case.
: > Or, let's put it this way: if you think it is a
: > tiny meaningless percentage, why object to letting those
: > 3,000 people revote? Answer: Gore would be president
: > instead of Bush.
Peterson yammers.
: Why object, because it is unfair not to give anyone else the
: chance to re-vote.
Why is the correction of error "unfair". Clearly because you know it
your chosen dog would lose the election. Hence your objection is not on
the basis of fairness, but a result of political corruption.
Peterson yammers:
: Care to have people who made mistakes against bush revote?
Of course, why not? This is an issue of fairness, honesty and
practicality. Concepts that Republicans are making every effort to
oppose.
Peterson yammers:
: Personally, I see bush and gore as different roads to the
: same ends. So don't try to play partisian crap.
On the other hand, I am defending honesty, fairness and the Canadian
way.
: > Don't try to frame this as me disregarding the data.
: > You have not posted any data.
Peterson yammers:
: I conceeded it cause I don't feel like looking it up, quit while
: you are ahead don't rub it in... gesse.
It was good that you didn't challenge me.
"Four years ago, 14,872 Palm Beach County ballots were thrown out either
because they lacked a vote for a presidential candidate or because they
had two such votes.
On Tuesday, about 30,000 faulty ballots halted the selection of the
nation's 43rd president and brought heavily Democratic Palm Beach County
to the world's attention." - Marcy Gordon - AP - Nov 11, 2000
Peterson wrote:
: And old repbulican voters were perfect?
In their case 1=1. To vote for the first person on the list you punch
the first hole. In the other case, to vote for the second person on the
list you punch the third hole.
Peterson yammers:
: Only democratic voters made mistakes?
First person, first hole (republican vote)
Second Person, third hole (democrat vote)
That's the difference John Boy.
Peterson yammers:
: Come on now. FL residents are becoming the
: butt of jokes now because of all this.
Yes, and don't think that the elderly won't remember being so insulted
by the Republican party.
Scott Craver
>
>They don't average the results of the counts mr. Nudds. They
>pick a count. Thusly the 5th recount will have the same margin
>of error as the 1st provided the method was the same and the
>ballots condition did not change.
Indeed, it is dangerous to assume that, if we just kept recounting,
we'd converge to the right answer (well, okay, the average might,
but each individual ballot count would always vary.)
HOWEVER, the ballots' condition does change! Hanging chad falls
off, which can make ballots machine-readable which wasn't earlier.
More insidiously, mistreated ballots with perforated holes can
become corrupt with the addition of new holes.
But that's a problem for a machine count. Once you have a
hand-recount, those hanging chad problems are pretty much avoided,
and more hand-recounts are not going to help.
>But that is not only in FL. And if they really cared about the
>error rate, then the ENTIRE state, in fact a few states should
>be carefully recounted. Not a couple select counties in FL.
If they really cared about the error rate they'd force the
candidates to release an official, concrete stance on all the
issues, and put them in a booklet available in the line for
the voting booth. I have a feeling the election would be less
close if the candidates didn't avoid quite so much the issues
that divide the voting population.
-S
Scott Nudds
: > Indeed if nothing is idiot proof then you must agree that recounting
: > will improve the ballot counting error rate.
Brent Peterson (ba...@my-deja.com) wrote:
: They don't average the results of the counts mr. Nudds. They
: pick a count. Thusly the 5th recount will have the same margin
: of error as the 1st provided the method was the same and the
: ballots condition did not change.
But that's not the case is it John Boy. The first count, the second
count, and the third count (still pending) have used increasinly more
reliable methods and have produced increasingly more accurate counts.
Counts that show that there was a consistant bias for Bush in the
election. A bias that could only be the result of Republican vote
tampering combined with systemic errors in the voting process.
Repubilicans have denied there is any systemic error. Hence they damn
themselves with the alternate conclusion that they were responsible for
the observed vote fraud.
On the other hand, if there are systemic errors in the voting process,
then those errrs need to be corrected if the election is to be a true
reflection of the will of the people.
: > Also 3,000 ballots is indeed a small percentage. Given that Bush's lead
: > in Florida is only 1/10 of that, you must also agree that extreme care
: > must me taken to ensure that the counting error rate must be <smaller>
: > than the ballot difference between the two parties.
Peterson writes:
: But that is not only in FL. And if they really cared about the
: error rate, then the ENTIRE state, in fact a few states should
: be carefully recounted. Not a couple select counties in FL.
Fine. I'm all for that. The corrupt Republican party has gone to court
to stop all recounts. If they were interested in fairness they would
request a recount of the entire state.
Why hasn't it been requested Peterson? Why have they tried every method
at their disposal to thwart any attempt to determine what the true will of
the people was?
: > Yes the total number of spoiled ballots in that one florida precinct is
: > 38,000 this election. 14,000 in the last election.
Peterson wrote:
: Now many more people voted this time out?
No. The numbers are essentially the same compared to the previous
election. Yet the total number of ballots in which the presidential
selection was spoiled was about 30,000, this time through rather than
14,000 in the last election.
Why is the error rate double the last election Mr. Peterson?
: > Yet the error rate was greater than 5%.
Peterson yammers:
: Haven't seen any such reports.
You can divide can't you?
: > Reports are that instruction was denied to many people who requested it.
Peterson yammers:
: Haven't seen any such reports.
You can read can't you?
: > The error's occurred because people use the number. They punched the
: > second hole for the second person on the ballot. THe problem is the
: > second hole was for Buchannan, and the second person on the ballot was
: > Gore.
: The second person on the ballot was buchannan. Bush was hole #3. Holes
: numer 1 and 2 were unused.
The hole is labeled number three but it is the first selectable hole
that can be punched, and the selection at the top of the list.
Gore is second in the list, and his is the third selectable hole that
can be punched, and the selection is third from the top of the list.
: > Sure, yo can check the balot after you vote. But if you made a mistake
: > in the first place, you probably won't catch it on the second pass
: > through.
Peterson wrote:
: So you are saying democrats are fools who can't check what they are
: doing?
It is a matter of human nature that a oversite made once, will typically
be made again by the same person since they will use the same reasoning
and come to the same conclusion the second time through.
Learning is a process of positive and negative reinforcement that
requires external checks. In this instance there are none, hence there is
no learning experience between the first time the ballot is marked and
when (if) it is checked.
: > Further, there are also complaints that people were not provided with
: > replacement cards.
Peterson Yammers:
: Haven't seen it reported anywhere.
THen obviously you can't read. If you live in Florida you probably
can't count either.
Scott Nudds
: Typical response from mr. nudds when asked to support his
: claim.
Typical claptrap from Peterson who proves he formulates opinions without
knowing what he is talking about.
Unfortunately for him. I always do.
"Four years ago, 14,872 Palm Beach County ballots were thrown out either
because they lacked a vote for a presidential candidate or because they
had two such votes.
On Tuesday, about 30,000 faulty ballots halted the selection of the
nation's 43rd president and brought heavily Democratic Palm Beach County
to the world's attention." - Marcy Gordon - AP - Nov 11, 2000
: > Out of 450,000. That's a 5% error rate. If the popular vote differs by
: > less than .5%, do you really expect to resolve the winner with a 5% error
: > rate in the vote count?
Peterson Yammers:
: Can you show that is far and beyond any other county?
: Btw, 5% of 450K is 22,500. Another number. It's hard to hit a moving
: target.
I need not do so. It is sufficient to show that is far larger than the
error rate needed to establish a winner. Hence the determining the will
of the people requires reducing the error rate, and this means performing
a recount.
Peterson yammers:
: And for a user based issue, 5% is still small.
It is far larger than the difference that separates the two contenders.
Hence recounts are essential.
: This isn't the
: error of a machine or a measurement, but rather of human beings
: using a device. 5% would be within expectations I would think,
: on the high side, but within reason. Convince me otherwise nudds,
: show us studies on the error rate using various common devices.
Convincing analysis have already been performed that show that from
simply the votes for Buchanan, in Palm beach, there is a statistical
anomoly so large that when corrected for the faulty ballot process, the
result gives Gore more votes than needed to put him in the lead.
Of the other 19,000, only a manual recount can determine their fate.
: > But the Republican vote riggers are opposing a revote as well.
: >
: > How do you spell corruption. R.E.P.U.B.L.I.C.A.N.
Peterson wrote:
: In Chicago we spell it D.E.M.O.C.R.A.T. Or more importantly, vote
: fraud is spelled D.A.L.E.Y. Bush has rank amateurs, Gore has a
: second generation professional.
Where is your evidence that the sone of daley is involved in vote
rigging in the case of this election Peterson?
Are you following the old biblical edict that the son must be stoned for
the crimes of his father?
Is your reasoning here simply idiotic, or is it simply corrupt?
Brent Peterson
> >> 3,000 is at least three times the margin by which Bush
> >> is ahead. Three times the margin by which someone
> >> wins the entire election.
> >
> >is true of more states than just FL.
>
> candidates appears to have fallen within the perfectly
> normal margin of error for state elections.
> However, the disputed votes are a number seemingly
> larger than "the margin of error" (well, not right now,
> seeing as how those votes are considered errors.)
> 19,000 is a huge number, for instance, as is 3,000,
> compared to the present margins or even the margins
> by which the recounts change.
But there are disputed or disqualified ballots in every
country in the nation, in other close states. New Mexico
has bush with another factor of 10 smaller lead than FL.
Yet, these two counties in FL are considered most important?
Why?
> If it turns out that there is a chunk of votes big
> enough to pull us out of the uncertainty margin towards
> one candidate, that would be great.
How does one bring certainly to an uncertain vote
is highly debatable. It best to simply disqualify them, as
any other answer will be nothing more than an interpetation.
> >Why object, because it is unfair not to give anyone else the
> >chance to re-vote. Care to have people who made mistakes
> >against bush revote?
> Of course, if any county or precinct shows a large
> anomaly, whether revoting would help Bush or Gore
> is immaterial. The question is how to address the
> anomaly, by revote, recount, or just kicking oneself
> and improving the ballot system for next time.
In a system where the ballot was approved by the parties ahead
of time, only the last option is open. (note: I see recount
as hand recount with interpetation)
> Calling a revote unfair to other counties is simplistic.
> Any revote would probably be called in a region where
> there are sufficiently many ballot disputes. Why is
> that unfair to people in Wyoming, say, who had no
> voting disputes, whose counties made no mistakes at all?
It is unfair because now, it is known how close the results
are. People who didn't vote that office before may choose to. There
are a number of ballots where people found all candiates so repugant
they did not vote for the office of president. Some people may
choose to change their vote as well. No one should have that
oppertunity or everyone should. Maybe a run-off election, nation
wide. But to say, these two counties, because they screwed up so
badly the first time now get to have a deciding election for
a national office, is just silly.
> One might as well suggest that it is unfair to only
> re-count in certain states. Unfair to victims of
> mistakes in the other states.
No, its not. See above.
> >Personally, I see bush and gore as different roads to the
> >same ends. So don't try to play partisian crap.
> I find that hard to believe. You seem very adamant
> in your view that I must be a Gore supporter for
> disagreeing with you. I have to suspect that maybe
> you want to see Bush elected.
How have I been 'adamant' or even mentioned you as a gore
supporter? You came across casting me as bush supporter
for disagreeing with gore's count and count again and then
interpet until he wins. I wrote to leave it out the partisian
stuff because frankly, I dislike both of them.
> I couldn't vote for Gore because of some of the
> Clinton's administrations oppressive policies towards
> technology (signing the CDA, pushing for crypto
> regulation.) I couldn't vote for Bush because
> with Bush in the White House the MS trial could be
> derailed.
I couldn't vote for either of them. The election was the moron
vs. the liar IMO. I voted for neither. I nearly skipped voting
for president entirely.
Brent Peterson
>
> : > Of course it is not a tiny percentage. In fact,
> : > 3,000 is at least three times the margin by which Bush
> : > is ahead. Three times the margin by which someone
> : > wins the entire election.
>
> : The entire election is less than the margin of error. This
> : is true of more states than just FL.
> Then you are admitting that the election count is invalid and recounts
> are required to determine who the "real" winner is.
Recounts just change the randomness of the error. Next time it
could come up bush or gore. Flip a coin.
> Yet the Corrupt Republican party is taking every underhanded step in
> order to prevent a fair count of the ballots.
Fair count? Hardly a fair count. It's a partical recount. Two counties
and then its interpeting the ballots. A fair recount would be to
recount the entire state. Not just where Al Gore has greatest chance
of gaining votes.
> : Count, count and recount, it is less than the margin of error. Keep
> : counting until it randomly comes up gore? Best two out of three?
> : Four out of seven? Five of Nine? Maybe just flip a coin? Put bush
> : and gore in the thunderdome?
> I wasn't aware that the simple act of counting alters the percentage of
> ballots cast for a particular person. I am however, aware that recounting
> can be and is used to detect errors in the original count.
Please read the above again. The full recount was done by simply
putting the ballots through the machine again. You know as well as
I do, that this does nothing without averaging the results with regard
to random counting errors by the machines.
> <IF> the margin of error can not be reduced to a value that is lower
> than the ballot difference between the two, then I would indeed suggest a
> coin toss, or a new convention that when such a situation occurs, the tie
> goes to the person with the greatest number of total ballots. Gore in
> this case.
Run the ballots through the machines several times and take an
average, find the standard devation and so forth and then it might
improve. Try an improved method statewide, but just picking another
count simply because it was more recent, if it was by the same methods,
has no less random error than the first time. You know this scott.
> : > Or, let's put it this way: if you think it is a
> : > tiny meaningless percentage, why object to letting those
> : > 3,000 people revote? Answer: Gore would be president
> : > instead of Bush.
> : Why object, because it is unfair not to give anyone else the
> : chance to re-vote.
> Why is the correction of error "unfair". Clearly because you know it
> your chosen dog would lose the election. Hence your objection is not on
> the basis of fairness, but a result of political corruption.
Who is my chosen dog nudds? I disliked all the canidates. The
one I disliked the least didn't have a snow balls chance in
hell of winning.
It is unfair because now, it is known how close the results
are. People who didn't vote that office before may choose to. There
are a number of ballots where people found all candiates so repugant
they did not vote for the office of president. Some people may
choose to change their vote as well. No one should have that
oppertunity or everyone should. Maybe a run-off election, nation
wide. But to say, these two counties, because they screwed up so
badly the first time now get to have a deciding election for
a national office, is just silly.
> : Care to have people who made mistakes against bush revote?
> Of course, why not? This is an issue of fairness, honesty and
> practicality. Concepts that Republicans are making every effort to
> oppose.
Too bad Al Gore and his party disagree with you. They only want
the counties where they are strong to get special treatment.
Anyone should be able to see why that should be opposed.
> : Personally, I see bush and gore as different roads to the
> : same ends. So don't try to play partisian crap.
> On the other hand, I am defending honesty, fairness and the Canadian
> way.
Babbling nudds?
> "Four years ago, 14,872 Palm Beach County ballots were thrown out either
> because they lacked a vote for a presidential candidate or because they
> had two such votes.
> On Tuesday, about 30,000 faulty ballots halted the selection of the
> nation's 43rd president and brought heavily Democratic Palm Beach County
> to the world's attention." - Marcy Gordon - AP - Nov 11, 2000
How many more people voted this year than 4 years ago? If the answer
is 2X or more you don't have a point. Also, you need to put aside
the people who didn't vote at all for president from both numbers
considering the poor choices in canidates.
> : And old repbulican voters were perfect?
> In their case 1=1. To vote for the first person on the list you punch
> the first hole. In the other case, to vote for the second person on the
> list you punch the third hole.
The bottom line of the square for bush lined up with the buncanan hole.
A bush vote could have been mis-cast as well.
> : Only democratic voters made mistakes?
> First person, first hole (republican vote)
> Second Person, third hole (democrat vote)
> That's the difference John Boy.
Insults aside. Third person Third hole. Read the list vertically.
No Person punch One
punch two No Person
First Person punch three
punch four Second Person
Third Person punch five.
It isn't rocket science.
> : Come on now. FL residents are becoming the
> : butt of jokes now because of all this.
> Yes, and don't think that the elderly won't remember being so insulted
> by the Republican party.
It isn't the elderly on TV complaining. Yet to see anyone elderly complain.
Seems their generation knows how to take responsibility for their own errors
unlike younger ones that are out in the streets and on TV complaining.
Brent Peterson
> Brent Peterson <ba...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >They don't average the results of the counts mr. Nudds. They
> >pick a count. Thusly the 5th recount will have the same margin
> >of error as the 1st provided the method was the same and the
> >ballots condition did not change.
> Indeed, it is dangerous to assume that, if we just kept recounting,
> we'd converge to the right answer (well, okay, the average might,
> but each individual ballot count would always vary.)
Yes the average does converge.
> HOWEVER, the ballots' condition does change! Hanging chad falls
> off, which can make ballots machine-readable which wasn't earlier.
> More insidiously, mistreated ballots with perforated holes can
> become corrupt with the addition of new holes.
Yep. Each count brings about the chance for greater human tampering
as well has helping not so well punched ones.
>
> But that's a problem for a machine count. Once you have a
> hand-recount, those hanging chad problems are pretty much avoided,
> and more hand-recounts are not going to help.
Hand counting introduces even more chance for the mistreated
ballots described above. And human interpetation varies. The
machine while not perfect would be more consistant, even machine
to machine than one person is to another. Even with a written
critera.
Try having parts hand sorted by quality by multiple people. The
results are inconsistant at best. The same is true with trying
to sort partically punched ballots.
Brent Peterson
>
> : Scott Nudds wrote:
> : > Indeed if nothing is idiot proof then you must agree that recounting
> : > will improve the ballot counting error rate.
>
> : They don't average the results of the counts mr. Nudds. They
> : pick a count. Thusly the 5th recount will have the same margin
> : of error as the 1st provided the method was the same and the
> : ballots condition did not change.
> But that's not the case is it John Boy.
More name calling. Still haven't changed a bit eh nudds?
Go crawl back into your hole.
> The first count, the second
> count, and the third count (still pending) have used increasinly more
> reliable methods and have produced increasingly more accurate counts.
The second cound was done the same as the first.
The third count is debatable with regards to it's reliability and
is a partical count of a select portion of the state. So even if
it were 100% reliable it is useless.
> Counts that show that there was a consistant bias for Bush in the
> election. A bias that could only be the result of Republican vote
> tampering combined with systemic errors in the voting process.
That may be your opinion. However, I have heard just as many reports
about the gore camp.
> Repubilicans have denied there is any systemic error. Hence they damn
> themselves with the alternate conclusion that they were responsible for
> the observed vote fraud.
*YAWN*
> On the other hand, if there are systemic errors in the voting process,
> then those errrs need to be corrected if the election is to be a true
> reflection of the will of the people.
By noble unbiased people like yourself no doubt. Because as everyone
in sci.environment knows, only democratic supporters can be unbiased.
> : > Also 3,000 ballots is indeed a small percentage. Given that Bush's lead
> : > in Florida is only 1/10 of that, you must also agree that extreme care
> : > must me taken to ensure that the counting error rate must be <smaller>
> : > than the ballot difference between the two parties.
> : But that is not only in FL. And if they really cared about the
> : error rate, then the ENTIRE state, in fact a few states should
> : be carefully recounted. Not a couple select counties in FL.
> Fine. I'm all for that. The corrupt Republican party has gone to court
> to stop all recounts. If they were interested in fairness they would
> request a recount of the entire state.
If they were losing the roles would be 100% reversed. And if you
think democrats are clean and lilly white your one naive canadian.
> Why hasn't it been requested Peterson? Why have they tried every method
> at their disposal to thwart any attempt to determine what the true will of
> the people was?
Probably for the same reason democrats would block re-counts if the
counts favored them. There is no difference between these parties
and how they function.
> : > Yes the total number of spoiled ballots in that one florida precinct is
> : > 38,000 this election. 14,000 in the last election.
> : Now many more people voted this time out?
> No. The numbers are essentially the same compared to the previous
> election. Yet the total number of ballots in which the presidential
> selection was spoiled was about 30,000, this time through rather than
> 14,000 in the last election.
You count not voting for president 'spoiled' I don't. Especially
when the choices were as poor as they were this year.
> Why is the error rate double the last election Mr. Peterson?
We don't know what the rate of just doubled punched ballots is Mr. Nudds.
We only know that double + zero punched ballots is greater.
A huge increase of people voting for everything but president
this year should not be surprising considering the poor quality
of the canidates.
> : > Reports are that instruction was denied to many people who requested it.
> : Haven't seen any such reports.
> You can read can't you?
But I know better to trust you.
> : > The error's occurred because people use the number. They punched the
> : > second hole for the second person on the ballot. THe problem is the
> : > second hole was for Buchannan, and the second person on the ballot was
> : > Gore.
> : The second person on the ballot was buchannan. Bush was hole #3. Holes
> : numer 1 and 2 were unused.
>
> The hole is labeled number three but it is the first selectable hole
> that can be punched, and the selection at the top of the list.
If one or two weren't blocked out you would complain about that.
> Gore is second in the list, and his is the third selectable hole that
> can be punched, and the selection is third from the top of the list.
He is third on the list. Third from the top. Third hole from the top.
> : > Sure, yo can check the balot after you vote. But if you made a mistake
> : > in the first place, you probably won't catch it on the second pass
> : > through.
> : So you are saying democrats are fools who can't check what they are
> : doing?
> It is a matter of human nature that a oversite made once, will typically
> be made again by the same person since they will use the same reasoning
> and come to the same conclusion the second time through.
> Learning is a process of positive and negative reinforcement that
> requires external checks. In this instance there are none, hence there is
> no learning experience between the first time the ballot is marked and
> when (if) it is checked.
You make it sounds as if 99% got it wrong.
> : > Further, there are also complaints that people were not provided with
> : > replacement cards.
> : Haven't seen it reported anywhere.
> THen obviously you can't read.
You don't count Mr. Nudds. We know better than to trust you.
> If you live in Florida
You already know I don't that is if you could read.
> you probably can't count either.
Yet, you and/or craver think it unfair to make fun Florida residents.
Bob Casanova
in sci.skeptic, posted by Brent Peterson <ba...@my-deja.com>:
<snip>
> Put bush
>and gore in the thunderdome?
Dammit, that was *my* idea! Ask anyone where I work; I
suggested trial by combat *last week*.
;-)
<snip>
--
(Note followups, if any)
Bob C.
Reply to Bob-Casanova @ worldnet.att.net
(without the spaces, of course)
"Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness
to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."
--H. L. Mencken
Brent Peterson
>
<nuddly's trolling and insults deleted>
> : > Out of 450,000. That's a 5% error rate. If the popular vote differs by
> : > less than .5%, do you really expect to resolve the winner with a 5% error
> : > rate in the vote count?
> : Can you show that is far and beyond any other county?
> : Btw, 5% of 450K is 22,500. Another number. It's hard to hit a moving
> : target.
> I need not do so. It is sufficient to show that is far larger than the
> error rate needed to establish a winner. Hence the determining the will
> of the people requires reducing the error rate, and this means performing
> a recount.
In other words, you can't prove your claims of election fraud and
keep changing the numbers. Try to be more consistant next time.
> : And for a user based issue, 5% is still small.
> It is far larger than the difference that separates the two contenders.
> Hence recounts are essential.
I didn't say they weren't. Only that they must be done fairly and
in such a way that it simply doesn't give another random error.
(Averaging of several counts of the same method for instance)
> : This isn't the
> : error of a machine or a measurement, but rather of human beings
> : using a device. 5% would be within expectations I would think,
> : on the high side, but within reason. Convince me otherwise nudds,
> : show us studies on the error rate using various common devices.
> Convincing analysis have already been performed that show that from
> simply the votes for Buchanan, in Palm beach, there is a statistical
> anomoly so large that when corrected for the faulty ballot process, the
> result gives Gore more votes than needed to put him in the lead.
Democrats approved that ballot. Just as republicans did. Posistions
are assigned by random methods as far as I know. All objections
should have been placed then. Many things can effect such an analysis
like you posted. Such as shifts in the population, changes in
intrest in 3rd parties. And so forth.
> : > But the Republican vote riggers are opposing a revote as well.
> : >
> : > How do you spell corruption. R.E.P.U.B.L.I.C.A.N.
> : In Chicago we spell it D.E.M.O.C.R.A.T. Or more importantly, vote
> : fraud is spelled D.A.L.E.Y. Bush has rank amateurs, Gore has a
> : second generation professional.
> Where is your evidence that the sone of daley is involved in vote
> rigging in the case of this election Peterson?
It's a J-O-K-E Nudds. I thought yours was as well. I should have
known that nonsense was serious coming from you.
> Are you following the old biblical edict that the son must be stoned for
> the crimes of his father?
King Richard I
King Richard II
That's a joke too since you are humor impared.
> Is your reasoning here simply idiotic, or is it simply corrupt?
You are simply humor impared.
Scott Craver
>> we'd converge to the right answer (well, okay, the average might,
>> but each individual ballot count would always vary.)
>
>Yes the average does converge.
Well, no, not necessarily. If, over time, ballots become
corrupt by holes falling out, subsequent recounts could vary
in their statistical properties. Averages only converge
under good conditions.
>Yep. Each count brings about the chance for greater human tampering
>as well has helping not so well punched ones.
Well, no, each count may bring about more errors in certain
kinds of fragile ballots, but certainly not "greater human
tampering." Presumably, any fraud per trial in the system
will not increase with the number of trials.
>Hand counting introduces even more chance for the mistreated
>ballots described above.
More than machine error? That is definitely your opinion.
Machines are very unlikely to make errors on ballots that
are in sufficiently good shape (no chad problems) but
all but guaranteed to make errors in exceptional situations
by rejecting them.
Human beings are masters of exceptional situations.
That's why administrative systems are still run by people.
>And human interpetation varies.
This appears to be the Bush campaign line, that election
workers are "interpreting" ballots, and reading in human
subjectivity. I consider this a confusing exaggeration.
These people are not looking at Rorschach cards here;
If the ballot has more than one hole clearly punched,
say for both Bush and Gore, or has no modifications at
all, the ballot will be rejected just as in the case of
a machine.
Only in the case of partially punched ballots will the
human judge differently. These are ballots which the
computer "interprets" as invalid.
>Try having parts hand sorted by quality by multiple people. The
>results are inconsistant at best. The same is true with trying
>to sort partically punched ballots.
This is quite a red herring. "Quality" is a very
subjective criterion, whereas "which hole was punched"
is much less so.
-S
Scott Nudds
: But there are disputed or disqualified ballots in every
: country in the nation, in other close states. New Mexico
: has bush with another factor of 10 smaller lead than FL.
: Yet, these two counties in FL are considered most important?
: Why?
Because under the U.S. electoral system, if that state were to turn over
to Bush or Gore it would only alter the amount by which either party would
win the election. Florida has sufficient electoral votes to allow either
party to win.
You really don't have a clue do you Peterson?
: > If it turns out that there is a chunk of votes big
: > enough to pull us out of the uncertainty margin towards
: > one candidate, that would be great.
Peterson wrote:
: How does one bring certainly to an uncertain vote
: is highly debatable.
Implicit in your question is the <assumpiton> that there is sufficient
uncertainty that things can not be made certain.
If this is indeed the case, then teh proper course of action would be to
take the party that won the largest share of the popular vote.
Republicans are opposing all reasonable options including any process
that will improve the accuracy of the vote counting.
: > Calling a revote unfair to other counties is simplistic.
: > Any revote would probably be called in a region where
: > there are sufficiently many ballot disputes. Why is
: > that unfair to people in Wyoming, say, who had no
: > voting disputes, whose counties made no mistakes at all?
Peterson writes:
: It is unfair because now, it is known how close the results
: are. People who didn't vote that office before may choose to.
And through what illogic do you conclude that anthing in the above
sentence is unfair. Both parties are <as defined by the situation> almost
exactly represented equally in the state. A new election will not alter
this situation damatically but would almost certainly produce a more
accurate result since more care could be taken in collecting and
processing the ballots.
Peterson wrote:
: There
: are a number of ballots where people found all candiates so repugant
: they did not vote for the office of president. Some people may
: choose to change their vote as well.
And how will they change their vote? Nadar? Buchannan? Will they elect
to spoil their ballot again?
You don't know. Hence your claim that the process is unfair is nonsense.
These people have the option of voting for any party they choose. Ther is
no bias, hence there is absolute fairness.
Scott Nudds
: > are required to determine who the "real" winner is.
Brent Peterson (ba...@my-deja.com) wrote:
: Recounts just change the randomness of the error. Next time it
: could come up bush or gore. Flip a coin.
Everyday common sense indicates that your statement is just a childish
lie so childish that it must be a politically motivated distortion for
even a child knows that if they count their marbles and make a mistake,
recounting will produce a more accuate result.
Are we to conclude Peterson that you aren't as smart as a 5 year old?
: > Yet the Corrupt Republican party is taking every underhanded step in
: > order to prevent a fair count of the ballots.
Peterson yammers:
: Fair count? Hardly a fair count. It's a partical recount.
And in those ridings where the recounts are performed, there is greater
accuracy.
If your argument is that there must be a state wide recount, then you
have a bone to pick with the conservative party who opposes any such
recount.
Peterson wrote:
: A fair recount would be to
: recount the entire state. Not just where Al Gore has greatest chance
: of gaining votes.
I have no objection to that. You don't see democrats objecting to that.
What you see are corrupt republicans using every trick in the book to
prevent it.
: > I wasn't aware that the simple act of counting alters the percentage of
: > ballots cast for a particular person. I am however, aware that recounting
: > can be and is used to detect errors in the original count.
Peterson wrote:
: Please read the above again. The full recount was done by simply
: putting the ballots through the machine again. You know as well as
: I do, that this does nothing without averaging the results with regard
: to random counting errors by the machines.
I would have to see the cards. Simply running the cards through again
may actually <increase> the error rate. Some cards are undoubtedly
destroyed, and some will by physically altered through handling.
Peterson wrote:
: Run the ballots through the machines several times and take an
: average, find the standard devation and so forth and then it might
: improve.
You have obviously never used punch card readers have you Peterson?
I have. And they are the most vile machines. Pieces of fluff can block
holes, holes can be misaligned during the reading process, the cards can
be bent and eaten by the reader itself.
It is my experience that card readers destroy about .1% of the cards
that you run through them. Perhaps more depending on how many times they
are run through the machines.
To make matters worse, card readers rely on simple single element
photodetectors which are entirely incapable of determining if a hole is
partially closed, covered by fluff, if the card is misaligned etc. People
however can easily determine such things.
And that John Boy is why hand counts can be performed with greater
precision than machine counts.
Peterson wrote:
: It is unfair because now, it is known how close the results
: are. People who didn't vote that office before may choose to. There
: are a number of ballots where people found all candiates so repugant
: they did not vote for the office of president.
And these people remain free to select any of the parties they could
have selected earlier.
Nothing unfair with that.
What are you smoking Peterson?
Brent Peterson
>
> Brent Peterson (ba...@my-deja.com) wrote:
> : But there are disputed or disqualified ballots in every
> : country in the nation, in other close states. New Mexico
> : has bush with another factor of 10 smaller lead than FL.
> : Yet, these two counties in FL are considered most important?
> : Why?
> Because under the U.S. electoral system, if that state were to turn over
> to Bush or Gore it would only alter the amount by which either party would
> win the election. Florida has sufficient electoral votes to allow either
> party to win.
Yes, New Mexico alone has less.... but add in the other close states
such as Iowa and WI and it gets messy. If EVERY vote counts, and
the will of the people is to be seen, then these states should be
recounted as well. These states still count, and can decide the
election as well.
Also, you only answered why FL is important. The question is
why are TWO COUNTIES in FL most important? There are other
counties in FL. There are counties where bush would likely
pick up votes in a recount. Why are only the strong gore
counties worthy of recount? The same counties that in a past
election denied a republican a recount after losing by 14 votes
and 13 votes in the machine recount. According to the radio
report this morning, the ruling judge on the case, by chance the
same democrat judges that support a recount for gore ruled that
the difference had to be in the single digits to justify a
recount.
> You really don't have a clue do you Peterson?
Trying to be insulting Nudds?
You really need to stop that....
> : > If it turns out that there is a chunk of votes big
> : > enough to pull us out of the uncertainty margin towards
> : > one candidate, that would be great.
> : How does one bring certainly to an uncertain vote
> : is highly debatable.
> Implicit in your question is the <assumpiton> that there is sufficient
> uncertainty that things can not be made certain.
Mr. Nudds now makes up 'hidden' impiled meanings in order
to make a reply. Typical Nudds 'honesty'. No Mr. Nudds it
means exactly what it says, the methods of recounting are
highly debatable. If they weren't there would be no debate
on how it should be done.
> : > Calling a revote unfair to other counties is simplistic.
> : > Any revote would probably be called in a region where
> : > there are sufficiently many ballot disputes. Why is
> : > that unfair to people in Wyoming, say, who had no
> : > voting disputes, whose counties made no mistakes at all?
> : It is unfair because now, it is known how close the results
> : are. People who didn't vote that office before may choose to.
> And through what illogic do you conclude that anthing in the above
> sentence is unfair. Both parties are <as defined by the situation> almost
> exactly represented equally in the state. A new election will not alter
> this situation damatically but would almost certainly produce a more
> accurate result since more care could be taken in collecting and
> processing the ballots.
Nudds neglects the fact that a re-vote has only been called for
by democrats in the two counties where Mr. Gore has the most support.
That is unfair in and of itself.
This goes on to the further unfairness of giving FL residents the
ability to have two chances to vote. To make a decision with more
information and 20/20 hindsight.
> : There
> : are a number of ballots where people found all candiates so repugant
> : they did not vote for the office of president. Some people may
> : choose to change their vote as well.
> And how will they change their vote? Nadar? Buchannan? Will they elect
> to spoil their ballot again?
> You don't know. Hence your claim that the process is unfair is nonsense.
> These people have the option of voting for any party they choose. Ther is
> no bias, hence there is absolute fairness.
Nudds, the nonsense above shows you to be desperate to find anything
for counter point. The fact of the matter is, FL voters going to the
polls for a second time will now find it more important to make a choice.
Those who did not choose anyone before may choose bush or gore. They
have all the information of the past week to go on. Events which
may have made one or the other canidate more repugant than the other.
This combined with knowing that a small number of votes can decide
the office. This is having more insight than they did for their first
chance. Every voter in the nation should have this opportunity. Or
at least in all the close states, if the slim margin is to be used
to justify it.
The fact is Mr. Nudds, we all know that your complaints and view would
be just the opposite should Mr. Gore have the slim lead.
Brent Peterson
>
> : > Then you are admitting that the election count is invalid and recounts
> : > are required to determine who the "real" winner is.
>
> : Recounts just change the randomness of the error. Next time it
> : could come up bush or gore. Flip a coin.
> Everyday common sense indicates that your statement is just a childish
> lie so childish that it must be a politically motivated distortion for
> even a child knows that if they count their marbles and make a mistake,
> recounting will produce a more accuate result.
If he averages the counts mr. nudds. You know better Mr. Nudds. You
know that just taking another individual measurement alone does nothing
to change the error. It may confirm the orginal count should the result
be the same or very close to the re-count. However, something needs to
be done differently to improve the error or many counts need to be taken
to find an average to reduce the counting error.
> Are we to conclude Peterson that you aren't as smart as a 5 year old?
More insults nudds.... pathetic. You should know by now I am
not going to waste time with your pathetic trolling.
> Peterson yammers:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Do you feel such things as the above help your post Mr. Nudds?
Why is nudds resorting to such childish tatics?
> : > Yet the Corrupt Republican party is taking every underhanded step in
> : > order to prevent a fair count of the ballots.
> : Fair count? Hardly a fair count. It's a partical recount.
> And in those ridings where the recounts are performed, there is greater
> accuracy.
>
> If your argument is that there must be a state wide recount, then you
> have a bone to pick with the conservative party who opposes any such
> recount.
There should be no hand recount or a state wide hand recount.
To hand recount only where Mr. Gore is likely to gain more votes
from machine uncountable ballots is unfair. It is only fair to
support a full hand recount or none at all.
> : A fair recount would be to
> : recount the entire state. Not just where Al Gore has greatest chance
> : of gaining votes.
> I have no objection to that. You don't see democrats objecting to that.
> What you see are corrupt republicans using every trick in the book to
> prevent it.
Democrats certainly are not pushing a hand count except where they
personally have the most to gain. If they were in the lead they
would oppose hand recounts as they have in the past in those counties.
The only ones using every-trick-in-book here is the party that is behind.
Which is typical. Should the roles be reversed so would the actions of
the two parties.
> : > I wasn't aware that the simple act of counting alters the percentage of
> : > ballots cast for a particular person. I am however, aware that recounting
> : > can be and is used to detect errors in the original count.
> : Please read the above again. The full recount was done by simply
> : putting the ballots through the machine again. You know as well as
> : I do, that this does nothing without averaging the results with regard
> : to random counting errors by the machines.
> I would have to see the cards. Simply running the cards through again
> may actually <increase> the error rate. Some cards are undoubtedly
> destroyed, and some will by physically altered through handling.
I had considered ballot condition a constant. What you have written
above is an arguement against recounting to improve the error rate.
It is an interesting idea, one that I had not thought up. Yes, a recount
introduces more chance for a ballot to become mangled in the machine
and other damage to occur.
What is curious Mr. Nudds is your argument that recounting always
gives an improved result. It's at the start of this post, something
about every 5 year old knowing this fact. So Mr. Nudds you have
contradicted yourself. Were you lieing before or lieing now? Or
do you simply take whatever view point is convient for you
for the topic at hand?
> Peterson wrote:
> : Run the ballots through the machines several times and take an
> : average, find the standard devation and so forth and then it might
> : improve.
> You have obviously never used punch card readers have you Peterson?
Yes I have Mr. Nudds, however, its been about 20 years.
> I have. And they are the most vile machines. Pieces of fluff can block
> holes, holes can be misaligned during the reading process, the cards can
> be bent and eaten by the reader itself.
More arguments against recounting. Very good mr. nudds.
> It is my experience that card readers destroy about .1% of the cards
> that you run through them. Perhaps more depending on how many times they
> are run through the machines.
Again, wear and tear on the cards is something to consider.
> To make matters worse, card readers rely on simple single element
> photodetectors which are entirely incapable of determining if a hole is
> partially closed, covered by fluff, if the card is misaligned etc. People
> however can easily determine such things.
People cannot determine it consistantly the same way from person to
person however. It is my experience from having people sort parts
for defects or damage, even with instructions and critera that their
judgement varries. The same would be true with ballots of partically
punched holes etc and so forth.
> And that John Boy is why hand counts can be performed with greater
> precision than machine counts.
Nudds cannot resist another insult.
> : It is unfair because now, it is known how close the results
> : are. People who didn't vote that office before may choose to. There
> : are a number of ballots where people found all candiates so repugant
> : they did not vote for the office of president.
> And these people remain free to select any of the parties they could
> have selected earlier.
>
> Nothing unfair with that.
If you truely think people will make the same exact choices knowing the slim
margin between bush and gore you really need to think about human nature
for awhile. In such a re-vote only a vote for bush or gore matters.
Nader doesn't matter and none of the third parties. Their only goal was
to get 5% of the vote to get election funds. Their day is done. It would
be a run off between gore and bush and practically everyone would know it.
Then again, you think FL voters are hopelessly confused by a simple ballot
so at least the idea that they wouldn't be able to figure out that a
re-vote is nothing more than a bush-gore run off is consistant.
> What are you smoking Peterson?
The question is more appropiately asked to your mirror Nudds.
Brent Peterson
>
> On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 11:01:41 -0600, the following appeared
> in sci.skeptic, posted by Brent Peterson <ba...@my-deja.com>:
>
> <snip>
>
> > Put bush
> >and gore in the thunderdome?
>
> Dammit, that was *my* idea! Ask anyone where I work; I
> suggested trial by combat *last week*.
> ;-)
So did I :)
TWO MEN ENTER! ONE MAN LEAVES!
Gore is bigger and stronger, but probably slower than bush.
Bush probably has greater chance at getting to the weapons,
but would get hammered in the hand to hand.... It would be
an even match :)
Brent Peterson
>
> Brent Peterson <ba...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >Scott Craver wrote:
> >
> >> Indeed, it is dangerous to assume that, if we just kept recounting,
> >> we'd converge to the right answer (well, okay, the average might,
> >> but each individual ballot count would always vary.)
> >Yes the average does converge.
> Well, no, not necessarily. If, over time, ballots become
> corrupt by holes falling out, subsequent recounts could vary
> in their statistical properties. Averages only converge
> under good conditions.
That is something I had held constant. Before you argued that it
may improve due to partically punched holes becoming fully punched,
correct?
Of course one could choose a different method for recounting
until an average is reached.
> >Yep. Each count brings about the chance for greater human tampering
> >as well has helping not so well punched ones.
> Well, no, each count may bring about more errors in certain
> kinds of fragile ballots, but certainly not "greater human
> tampering." Presumably, any fraud per trial in the system
> will not increase with the number of trials.
Each time individuals handle the ballots there is a chance that
individual MAY tamper with the ballots. That is a fact. That chance
may be lessened to a tiny one but it is never zero.
> >Hand counting introduces even more chance for the mistreated
> >ballots described above.
> More than machine error? That is definitely your opinion.
> Machines are very unlikely to make errors on ballots that
> are in sufficiently good shape (no chad problems) but
> all but guaranteed to make errors in exceptional situations
> by rejecting them.
Rejected ballots could be counted by hand, getting the best of
both worlds as it were.
> >And human interpetation varies.
> This appears to be the Bush campaign line, that election
> workers are "interpreting" ballots, and reading in human
> subjectivity. I consider this a confusing exaggeration.
> These people are not looking at Rorschach cards here;
> If the ballot has more than one hole clearly punched,
> say for both Bush and Gore, or has no modifications at
> all, the ballot will be rejected just as in the case of
> a machine.
>
> Only in the case of partially punched ballots will the
> human judge differently. These are ballots which the
> computer "interprets" as invalid.
It would appear to be a simple task that one person to another
would do the same way. However I have had experience with people
sorting parts for quality defects. Interpetation varried. It is
human nature.
> >Try having parts hand sorted by quality by multiple people. The
> >results are inconsistant at best. The same is true with trying
> >to sort partically punched ballots.
> This is quite a red herring. "Quality" is a very
> subjective criterion, whereas "which hole was punched"
> is much less so.
These were matters as simple as does it have a hole at times.
Or incompletely formed features on the part. Specs of dirt, etc.
Designing such inspection has to be a go or no go binary judgement
and still, there is variation between people.
Scott Craver
>> larger than "the margin of error" (well, not right now,
>> seeing as how those votes are considered errors.)
>> 19,000 is a huge number, for instance, as is 3,000,
>> compared to the present margins or even the margins
>> by which the recounts change.
>
>country in the nation, in other close states.
If the # of disputed votes is larger than or comparable
to the candidate's margin of victory, a recount would
probably be a good idea in those states as well.
>Yet, these two counties in FL are considered most important?
>Why?
Why? You don't know why? Florida contributes 25
electoral votes! If New Mexico's result is reversed
it has no effect, by itself, on who becomes president.
Florida pretty much decides who's the next president,
and our goal is to find out who's the next president.
>How does one bring certainly to an uncertain vote
>is highly debatable. It best to simply disqualify them, as
>any other answer will be nothing more than an interpetation.
You're assuming that "disqualified" isn't an
interpretation itself. If a ballot is clearly cast
for Bush (say) but for some reason won't go through
the machine, is that a vote for bush or an invalid
vote?
The Bush camp is presently pushing this viewpoint,
perhaps with a little exaggeration, that a manual
recount amounts to some kind of "interpretation,"
whereas disqualifying a ballot where the chad is
still attached is some concrete correct answer.
>In a system where the ballot was approved by the parties ahead
>of time, only the last option is open.
You mean legally? It appears that the state of
Florida might have the power to order a recount in
a county. Or do you mean it is your opinion that
this is the only fair option?
But I don't think the approval by everyone ahead
of time somehow disallows people from declaring it
bad. Lots of disasters occur with systems that are
approved by everyone in advance---we're just
stupid enough not to forsee some subtle problem.
>It is unfair because now, it is known how close the results
>are. People who didn't vote that office before may choose to.
People who voted, but did not vote for president?!
Ah. And that would introduce a bias of how many
votes, in your opinion?
> Some people may
>choose to change their vote as well.
This is the biggest problem: Nader supporters may
switch to Gore, while Buchanan supporters may switch
to Bush. Even if all the Buchanan votes were really
for Buchanan, the Nader supporters could swing the
election for Gore.
This is the real reason why a revote is not a good
idea. Not because it is unfair to people in Wyoming,
not because of some caveat voter matter of principle,
but because people can change their candidate, so
the revote will not more accurately assess what
people asked for the first time.
-S
Scott Craver
Scott Nudds <af...@freenet.hamilton.on.ca> wrote:
>
> Everyday common sense indicates that your statement is just a childish
>lie so childish that it must be a politically motivated distortion for
>even a child knows that if they count their marbles and make a mistake,
>recounting will produce a more accuate result.
Not when you're recounting about 6 million marbles, and you
want the exact number.
You only get a more accurate result by combining the results
from multiple trials, e.g. averaging the counts together.
But there is a probability of error in each trial that does
not decrease.
> It is my experience that card readers destroy about .1% of the cards
>that you run through them. Perhaps more depending on how many times they
>are run through the machines.
Your experience is based on different machines. Ballot readers
presumably have better error rates than 0.1%, due to the more
important intended use for the technology.
> To make matters worse, card readers rely on simple single element
>photodetectors which are entirely incapable of determining if a hole is
>partially closed, covered by fluff, if the card is misaligned etc. People
>however can easily determine such things.
Beats the good old days, when the cards slid over a pool of
mercury and metal brushes felt for a little current.
-S
Scott Craver
>
>TWO MEN ENTER! ONE MAN LEAVES!
>
>Gore is bigger and stronger, but probably slower than bush.
>Bush probably has greater chance at getting to the weapons,
>but would get hammered in the hand to hand.... It would be
>an even match :)
Something tells me Bush's fighting stance would
look like Cap'n Kirk's crouched wrestling stance
from the old Star Trek shows.
-S
Scott Craver
>> corrupt by holes falling out, subsequent recounts could vary
>> in their statistical properties. Averages only converge
>> under good conditions.
>
>That is something I had held constant. Before you argued that it
>may improve due to partically punched holes becoming fully punched,
>correct?
It could improve on a second or third count, but then
over time begin to diverge from the intended results by
chad falling out. That could take much more time than
the initial improvement by hanging chad falling out.
>> Well, no, each count may bring about more errors in certain
>> kinds of fragile ballots, but certainly not "greater human
>> tampering." Presumably, any fraud per trial in the system
>> will not increase with the number of trials.
>
>Each time individuals handle the ballots there is a chance that
>individual MAY tamper with the ballots. That is a fact. That chance
>may be lessened to a tiny one but it is never zero.
But that's not what you said. You said "greater human
tampering." I agree that the opportunity for human tampering
will not decrease per trial, but it won't increase either.
There should not be a greater opportunity per recount.
>Rejected ballots could be counted by hand, getting the best of
>both worlds as it were.
Yes, under the assumption that chad problems only result
in machines declaring invalid. That isn't all that
unreasonable an assumption, actually.
Presently, 19,000 votes stand disqualified, and a
hand-count of those votes is opposed by the Bush camp.
They could easily have tabulated just those votes in
time for the Tuesday deadline, IF you had the 19,000
ballots in a separate pile somewhere. If the machines
only count disqualifications but do not separate them,
you have a problem.
>> Only in the case of partially punched ballots will the
>> human judge differently. These are ballots which the
>> computer "interprets" as invalid.
>
>It would appear to be a simple task that one person to another
>would do the same way. However I have had experience with people
>sorting parts for quality defects. Interpetation varried. It is
>human nature.
Again, quality is much more subjective than determining
which hole was punched. Here it's a discrete multiple-
choice question.
>These were matters as simple as does it have a hole at times.
>Or incompletely formed features on the part. Specs of dirt, etc.
That is considerably more subjective than determining
which of two holes was punched. Presumably these people
have to inspect an entire part, rather than look in just
one place for where the hole always is or is not.
"Incompletely formed features" also suggests a more
continuous range.
Of course, even if you had a group of people counting
$60,000 in pennies, you'd have error. But for people
to suggest that there is not mere error but subjectivity
introduced is a slight exaggeration.
-S
Chive Mynde
The technology exists to cast votes from home, over the internet. If
you can make a secure, credit-card payment over the internet, you can
vote for a President.
- Chive
--
The general root of superstition is that men observe
when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit
to memory the one, and pass over the other
-Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Bob Casanova
in sci.skeptic, posted by Brent Peterson <ba...@my-deja.com>:
>Bob Casanova wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 11:01:41 -0600, the following appeared
>> in sci.skeptic, posted by Brent Peterson <ba...@my-deja.com>:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> > Put bush
>> >and gore in the thunderdome?
>>
>> Dammit, that was *my* idea! Ask anyone where I work; I
>> suggested trial by combat *last week*.
>> ;-)
>
>So did I :)
>
>
>TWO MEN ENTER! ONE MAN LEAVES!
>
>Gore is bigger and stronger, but probably slower than bush.
>Bush probably has greater chance at getting to the weapons,
>but would get hammered in the hand to hand.... It would be
>an even match :)
Sounds good to me.
Let the games...BEGIN!
Brent Peterson
> Brent Peterson <ba...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >Scott Craver wrote:
> >Yet, these two counties in FL are considered most important?
> >Why?
> Why? You don't know why? Florida contributes 25
> electoral votes! If New Mexico's result is reversed
> it has no effect, by itself, on who becomes president.
> Florida pretty much decides who's the next president,
> and our goal is to find out who's the next president.
Again Like Mr. Nudds, you have said WHY FLORIDA is more
important. However, that is not the question. The question
is why TWO COUNTIES in FL are most important.
As I stated before, to be fair one has to re count the
entire state, not just a select area.
The balance of all the close states is important, yet
no focus on them at all.
> >How does one bring certainly to an uncertain vote
> >is highly debatable. It best to simply disqualify them, as
> >any other answer will be nothing more than an interpetation.
> You're assuming that "disqualified" isn't an
> interpretation itself. If a ballot is clearly cast
> for Bush (say) but for some reason won't go through
> the machine, is that a vote for bush or an invalid
> vote?
I was speaking of the double punched votes. Votes with
partial puncheS that make it uncertain.
> >In a system where the ballot was approved by the parties ahead
> >of time, only the last option is open.
> You mean legally? It appears that the state of
> Florida might have the power to order a recount in
> a county. Or do you mean it is your opinion that
> this is the only fair option?
Actually, when this matter was taken up in the FL courts
in previous elections, the judge has the same opinion as
I do. If a party approves of the ballot before the election,
they cannot complain about it afterwards.
> But I don't think the approval by everyone ahead
> of time somehow disallows people from declaring it
> bad. Lots of disasters occur with systems that are
> approved by everyone in advance---we're just
> stupid enough not to forsee some subtle problem.
Which leaves the course as to try and do better better
next time, as stated previously.
> >It is unfair because now, it is known how close the results
> >are. People who didn't vote that office before may choose to.
> People who voted, but did not vote for president?!
> Ah. And that would introduce a bias of how many
> votes, in your opinion?
My understanding was that it is the thousands of ballots.
considerably more than in previous elections.
> > Some people may
> >choose to change their vote as well.
> This is the biggest problem: Nader supporters may
> switch to Gore, while Buchanan supporters may switch
> to Bush. Even if all the Buchanan votes were really
> for Buchanan, the Nader supporters could swing the
> election for Gore.
As I stated in my response to Nudds.
> This is the real reason why a revote is not a good
> idea. Not because it is unfair to people in Wyoming,
> not because of some caveat voter matter of principle,
> but because people can change their candidate, so
> the revote will not more accurately assess what
> people asked for the first time.
Um, that is exactly why a revote is unfair to people in other
states. People in other states do not get the opportunity to
change their votes with 20/20 hindsight.
Brent Peterson
> >
> >Gore is bigger and stronger, but probably slower than bush.
> >Bush probably has greater chance at getting to the weapons,
> >but would get hammered in the hand to hand.... It would be
> >an even match :)
>
> look like Cap'n Kirk's crouched wrestling stance
> from the old Star Trek shows.
But do we really want to see him without a shirt ? :)
It's a star trek joke, Capt kirk almost always lost or
ripped his shirt in fights.
Brent Peterson
> >> Well, no, each count may bring about more errors in certain
> >> kinds of fragile ballots, but certainly not "greater human
> >> tampering." Presumably, any fraud per trial in the system
> >> will not increase with the number of trials.
> >Each time individuals handle the ballots there is a chance that
> >individual MAY tamper with the ballots. That is a fact. That chance
> >may be lessened to a tiny one but it is never zero.
>
> But that's not what you said. You said "greater human
> tampering." I agree that the opportunity for human tampering
> will not decrease per trial, but it won't increase either.
> There should not be a greater opportunity per recount.
I see no difference in the meaning of the two statements.
Each handling of the votes adds greater chance of tampering.
Hence a greater chance as the amount of handling and people
handling the ballots increases. In any case it is resolved.
> >Rejected ballots could be counted by hand, getting the best of
> >both worlds as it were.
> Yes, under the assumption that chad problems only result
> in machines declaring invalid. That isn't all that
> unreasonable an assumption, actually.
>
> Presently, 19,000 votes stand disqualified, and a
> hand-count of those votes is opposed by the Bush camp.
> They could easily have tabulated just those votes in
> time for the Tuesday deadline, IF you had the 19,000
> ballots in a separate pile somewhere. If the machines
> only count disqualifications but do not separate them,
> you have a problem.
It was my understanding that those 19,000 votes were disqualified
because they were double punched or had no vote for the office.
Of the double punched ballots one has to try and decide the more
meaningful hole. The no-vote ballots are either obvious problems
if a vote was cast or true no-vote ballots.
The first group gives the counters alot of interpetation, the
second group is probably doable.
However, in an all or nothing decision which is far from ideal,
it is probably better to have all of them put aside.
> >> Only in the case of partially punched ballots will the
> >> human judge differently. These are ballots which the
> >> computer "interprets" as invalid.
> >
> >It would appear to be a simple task that one person to another
> >would do the same way. However I have had experience with people
> >sorting parts for quality defects. Interpetation varried. It is
> >human nature.
> Again, quality is much more subjective than determining
> which hole was punched. Here it's a discrete multiple-
> choice question.
Again, I have had people do go/no-go inspections and get varried
results. This will be true for the very reasons you state the
hand count will solve. Hanging bits of chad, etc....
One may find it amazing, I did, but it is the reality of the
situation. There will be variation on where people draw the line.
> >These were matters as simple as does it have a hole at times.
> >Or incompletely formed features on the part. Specs of dirt, etc.
>
> That is considerably more subjective than determining
> which of two holes was punched. Presumably these people
> have to inspect an entire part, rather than look in just
> one place for where the hole always is or is not.
> "Incompletely formed features" also suggests a more
> continuous range.
No. Look at one region for a very specific defect. Sort by
its presence or lack there of. Say it is a paint defect.
One guy will see a small dot, say that's good enough because
the instructions had a much larger defect pictured and
puts it in the good pile. The next person sees the same dot,
says a defect is a defect and puts in the bad pile.
Same in this case. One person sees the start of the punch as it
cut the hole... that's the vote, it was pressed in. It's counted.
Next person see's a similar ballot thinks the piece just was becoming
un-attached from handling, puts it in the no-vote pile.
It's subjective. The machine is the most consistant judge, even
if it rejects otherwise clear votes to a human.
Scott Craver
>> electoral votes! If New Mexico's result is reversed
>> it has no effect, by itself, on who becomes president.
>> Florida pretty much decides who's the next president,
>> and our goal is to find out who's the next president.
>
>Again Like Mr. Nudds, you have said WHY FLORIDA is more
>important. However, that is not the question. The question
>is why TWO COUNTIES in FL are most important.
Because that's where the disputed votes appear to be.
If other counties discovered a large number of disputed
ballots, we'd be looking there too.
Palm Beach is one of the prime suspects. Is it "fair"
to investigate a prime suspect while not investigating
everyone else quite so much?
>The balance of all the close states is important, yet
>no focus on them at all.
Are you kidding? Quite a bit of focus was put on the
other states. New Mexico and Oregon are both still
not called, at least listed as such on CNN. Republicans
suggested that, if people were going to recount Florida,
why not recount New Mexico, which Gore initially won by
a small margin? New Mexico is recounting.
>I was speaking of the double punched votes. Votes with
>partial puncheS that make it uncertain.
The problem is that the machine will disqualify these
uncertian ballots (that's good) but also disqualify those
other ballots you weren't talking about (that's bad.)
Also, machines might accidentally count double-punched
ballots. A ballot with one hole punched for a candidate,
and one hole sort-of-punched is not clearly a vote for
a candidate. Should it be disqualified? Probably.
Will the machine disqualify it? Sometimes and sometimes
not. It depends on the way the sort-of-punched hole
swings its chad when it goes into the machine. So
even in those cases you can't rely on a machine to be
more consistent.
>> You mean legally? It appears that the state of
>> Florida might have the power to order a recount in
>> a county. Or do you mean it is your opinion that
>> this is the only fair option?
>
>Actually, when this matter was taken up in the FL courts
>in previous elections, the judge has the same opinion as
>I do. If a party approves of the ballot before the election,
>they cannot complain about it afterwards.
Maybe that's a restatement of what the judge said.
Of course people are allowed to complain.
More seriously, the approval beforehand may stand
against the argument for a re-vote. But it does
not mean complaints about the ballot were invalid.
It does not mean there was no problem with it.
It means that, if there was a problem with it,
people didn't catch it in time.
Everyone approved of the Tacoma Narrows bridge,
and of the O-rings on the Challenger. Only a
crazy person would therefore conclude that there
wasn't a problem with them, or people could not
change their minds after the disaster that maybe
there was an unforseen problem.
Sorry to use such extreme examples.
>Which leaves the course as to try and do better better
>next time, as stated previously.
Right. This might be the best option.
>> People who voted, but did not vote for president?!
>> Ah. And that would introduce a bias of how many
>> votes, in your opinion?
>
>My understanding was that it is the thousands of ballots.
>considerably more than in previous elections.
I would love to see data on this. I know that
the number of people who vote for president but
not for senators is on that order of magnitude.
Do you have a web site or reference?
-S
Scott Craver
>
>The technology exists to cast votes from home, over the internet. If
>you can make a secure, credit-card payment over the internet, you can
>vote for a President.
No, the technology does not yet exist. There is one major
problem with remote voting that appears insoluble.
With remote voting, someone can threaten you with physical
violence to vote for his candidate. He can stand right
next to you as you vote, with a gun to your head, and make
sure you do it. With a voting booth, there is no real way
to prove whom you voted for, so threats and bribes are
impossible to stick.
This is part of the reason for Hitler's rise to power, by
the way: in German elections privacy was optional, allowing
people to vote either secretly, or publicly to show their
support. This allowed the Nazi party to intimidate people,
since anyone voting secretly was a suspected dissenter.
>- Chive
-S
Alan Morgan
Scott Craver <sacr...@ivy.ee.princeton.edu> wrote:
>Chive Mynde <chyve...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>
>>The technology exists to cast votes from home, over the internet. If
>>you can make a secure, credit-card payment over the internet, you can
>>vote for a President.
>
> No, the technology does not yet exist. There is one major
> problem with remote voting that appears insoluble.
>
> With remote voting, someone can threaten you with physical
> violence to vote for his candidate. He can stand right
> next to you as you vote, with a gun to your head, and make
> sure you do it. With a voting booth, there is no real way
> to prove whom you voted for, so threats and bribes are
> impossible to stick.
You could avoid that with electronic votes by giving you the ability
to withdraw your vote and make a new one. Then the madman with the
gun would have to stand over you 24 hours a day until the election
is over to be sure that you didn't revoke your vote and make a new
one. That scheme requires one madman per voter, which seems a little
impractical.
Alan
Scott Craver
>> tampering." I agree that the opportunity for human tampering
>> will not decrease per trial, but it won't increase either.
>> There should not be a greater opportunity per recount.
>
>I see no difference in the meaning of the two statements.
There is greater chance of tampering overall, but for each
trial the chance does not become greater. It stays the same.
Just like the chance of getting heads on a coin does not
become greater with each flip.
Are you instead talking about permanent altering of the
ballots themselves, rather than tampering with the results
of a count?
>It was my understanding that those 19,000 votes were disqualified
>because they were double punched or had no vote for the office.
>Of the double punched ballots one has to try and decide the more
>meaningful hole.
This is an exaggeration. In the case of a double-punched
ballot one is not required to choose one hole or the other.
This kind of ballot would be still categorized as invalid.
The whole idea that humans will be looking at invalid
ballots and trying to "read voters minds" is a spin by
those who wanted to discredit the process. Where it is
not clear the ballot would still be discarded.
> The no-vote ballots are either obvious problems
>if a vote was cast or true no-vote ballots.
>
>The first group gives the counters alot of interpetation, the
>second group is probably doable.
If the the first group are "obvious" problems then where
does alot of interpretation come from? What scenarios
are you thinking of?
>> Again, quality is much more subjective than determining
>> which hole was punched. Here it's a discrete multiple-
>> choice question.
>
>Again, I have had people do go/no-go inspections and get varried
>results. This will be true for the very reasons you state the
>hand count will solve. Hanging bits of chad, etc....
Just because something is a binary choice doesn't mean
it's not subjective. The varied results from a quality
inspection of machine parts is not going to match
looking at a ballot to see which hole was punched.
Even a partial punch doesn't fall into a continuous
gradation of punched-ness, since it's pre-perffed.
>It's subjective. The machine is the most consistant judge, even
>if it rejects otherwise clear votes to a human.
Uh, if it rejects otherwise clear votes (and then only
some of the time,) then it is not the most consistent
judge. Again, a vote where the punch chad is still
hanging can sometimes be considered valid, sometimes
invalid, by the same machine. It depends on whether
the chad is swung over the hole at the moment it is
sucked into the machine.
-S
Scott Craver
>
>You could avoid that with electronic votes by giving you the ability
>to withdraw your vote and make a new one. Then the madman with the
>gun would have to stand over you 24 hours a day until the election
>is over to be sure that you didn't revoke your vote and make a new
>one.
This is an interesting possibility. But then, what's to
stop me from dropping by an hour before the deadline,
putting a gun to your head then, and making you revote
for my candidate? Then I need only watch you til the
deadline.
This is not a screwy special case, either. As long as
people are in situations where small-scale intimidation
can work (husband wants to make sure wife isn't electing
that commie pro-choice guy) these things can be leveraged
into a real force.
Of course, it's a great improvement over the example I
gave with the Nazi party: there, the public votes were
in one public place, so voter intimidation was very
much easier. OTOH, there is also to be considered the
buying and selling of votes.
Another possibility, tho, is to have registration earlier
that allows a secret to be set up. For instance, some
ATM cards have a failsafe PIN. There are two working
PINs, but one of them alerts the bank that fraud is taking
place, just in case someone puts a gun to your head.
Like a silent alarm. If voting required a password
handed out in some in-person registration earlier, an
alternate password could appear to cast a vote that is
not actually valid.
>Alan
-S
Dr. Don Drake
> important. However, that is not the question. The question
> is why TWO COUNTIES in FL are most important.
Those pipskweek counties are of no national importance in themselves.
Think about what's really happening.
Al Gore is effectively staging a coup d'tat against our President-Elect,
George W.
George W. has won the electoral votes. It is over.
It is time for Gore/Lebermann to realize they're losers,
and stand aside as America returns triumphantly to conservative values.
America has voted to reject liberalism, environmentalism, and Judaism.
---
DDD
Alan Morgan
Scott Craver <sacr...@ivy.ee.princeton.edu> wrote:
>Alan Morgan <amo...@Xenon.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>>
>>You could avoid that with electronic votes by giving you the ability
>>to withdraw your vote and make a new one. Then the madman with the
>>gun would have to stand over you 24 hours a day until the election
>>is over to be sure that you didn't revoke your vote and make a new
>>one.
>
> This is an interesting possibility. But then, what's to
> stop me from dropping by an hour before the deadline,
> putting a gun to your head then, and making you revote
> for my candidate? Then I need only watch you til the
> deadline.
True. I was assuming large scale intimidation (i.e. I use my
para-military force to get the oppressed masses to vote for
me). Vote repudiation at least forces you to have as many
GWG (Goons With Guns) as IW (Impoverished Workers) and if you
have that then you probably run the government anyway, so what
are you worried about?
> This is not a screwy special case, either. As long as
> people are in situations where small-scale intimidation
> can work (husband wants to make sure wife isn't electing
> that commie pro-choice guy) these things can be leveraged
> into a real force.
Yeah... but emotional intimidation exists with or without electronic
voting. If you have someone with that sort of emotional control
over you then you'll do what they ask even if they have no way of
verifying it.
> Of course, it's a great improvement over the example I
> gave with the Nazi party: there, the public votes were
> in one public place, so voter intimidation was very
> much easier. OTOH, there is also to be considered the
> buying and selling of votes.
What about it? Are you for it or against it? How about vote
trading?
> Another possibility, tho, is to have registration earlier
> that allows a secret to be set up. For instance, some
> ATM cards have a failsafe PIN. There are two working
> PINs, but one of them alerts the bank that fraud is taking
> place, just in case someone puts a gun to your head.
> Like a silent alarm. If voting required a password
> handed out in some in-person registration earlier, an
> alternate password could appear to cast a vote that is
> not actually valid.
But then the non-commie pro-life husband just makes sure that he
goes to the in person registration with the little woman and sees
which pin is which.
Or you could have electronic voting at specified locations, so the
NCPL husband can't lean over the wife's shoulder.
Alan
David Ball
wrote:
Fact: usenet is world-wide. It is not restricted to discussing
US issues.
Fact: This has nothing to do with environmental science.
I know you have a difficult time Dr. Nick (er, Drake)
understanding simple concepts, but I'll try one more time: why are you
posting this crap to sci.environment given the two facts above? Better
yet, what the hell does it have to do with wicca? What did wiccan's
ever do to deserve your attention? Are you attempting to get *ALL* of
usenet to realise that you don't have two brain cells to rub together?
--
Dave.
Brent Peterson
> >Again Like Mr. Nudds, you have said WHY FLORIDA is more
> >important. However, that is not the question. The question
> >is why TWO COUNTIES in FL are most important.
> Because that's where the disputed votes appear to be.
> If other counties discovered a large number of disputed
> ballots, we'd be looking there too.
There are a 'large' number of similar ballots in many places
across the nation.
> Palm Beach is one of the prime suspects. Is it "fair"
> to investigate a prime suspect while not investigating
> everyone else quite so much?
Why not the panhandle where people were still at the polls
when the election was called by the national news media?
The fact of the matter is it is nothing but straegy. The
Gore camp knows these are the best places to pick up votes
and have made it the center of attention so they can pick
up votes. If one wishes to view it from the other side
similar irregularities can be found.
What is most amazing is democrats are claiming the election
is unfair to them in the counties they control. It's just
about the stupidest place for republicans to even attempt
any kind of vote fraud. Vote fraud occurs in places where
the party doing it is strongest because that's where it
is most difficult to get caught. I know republicans aren't
too bright, but they are as smart as democrats ;)
> >The balance of all the close states is important, yet
> >no focus on them at all.
> Are you kidding? Quite a bit of focus was put on the
> other states. New Mexico and Oregon are both still
> not called, at least listed as such on CNN.
Listed is not focus. Yes they are listed and mentioned.
Someone like Jesse Jackson will go anywhere cameras can be
found. Where did he go? FL. Where are the live reports on the
scene coming from FL. Who's debated the law of any other state
than FL on national TV? Now those are the things focus is
made of.
> Also, machines might accidentally count double-punched
> ballots. A ballot with one hole punched for a candidate,
> and one hole sort-of-punched is not clearly a vote for
> a candidate. Should it be disqualified? Probably.
> Will the machine disqualify it? Sometimes and sometimes
> not. It depends on the way the sort-of-punched hole
> swings its chad when it goes into the machine. So
> even in those cases you can't rely on a machine to be
> more consistent.
The fact of the matter is machines are very consistant. Give
it two ballots that are indentical, and they will be counted
the same. Give two different people indentical ballots and
they may be counted differently. While a machine may count
ballots differently than a particular human may (your point
above) it is more consistant in itself that an army of humans
counting ballots.
> >> You mean legally? It appears that the state of
> >> Florida might have the power to order a recount in
> >> a county. Or do you mean it is your opinion that
> >> this is the only fair option?
> >Actually, when this matter was taken up in the FL courts
> >in previous elections, the judge has the same opinion as
> >I do. If a party approves of the ballot before the election,
> >they cannot complain about it afterwards.
>
> Maybe that's a restatement of what the judge said.
> Of course people are allowed to complain.
> More seriously, the approval beforehand may stand
> against the argument for a re-vote. But it does
> not mean complaints about the ballot were invalid.
> It does not mean there was no problem with it.
> It means that, if there was a problem with it,
> people didn't catch it in time.
The only reason anyone is complaining about the ballot
is to try to get Al Gore to win the state. To the rest
of the country, FL voters have become the butt of jokes.
As I heard on the radio this morning, a very good point.
That the people spending all this energy complaining
and protesting the ballot design should have, if they
thought it this important, to have taken the time and
looked at the sample ballot and saw what was going on
in the first place.
> Everyone approved of the Tacoma Narrows bridge,
> and of the O-rings on the Challenger. Only a
> crazy person would therefore conclude that there
> wasn't a problem with them, or people could not
> change their minds after the disaster that maybe
> there was an unforseen problem.
>
> Sorry to use such extreme examples.
The Challenger's O-ring design was a KNOWN LIMITATION.
The challenger was NOT to be launched at that temperature.
This was known. The engineers were ignored and it came
down from management on high to launch regardless. Nothing
to do with a bad design being 'approved'. It was a good design
when used within the specification. Ignoring specs like that
causes disasters such as that.
As far as the Tacoma Narrows bridge goes, I do not remember
the details. However, deflection amplitudes exeeding the limits
of the design is a far different thing than people punching the
wrong hole on a ballot. That bridge was trying some relatively
new ideas at the time if I remember correctly. This ballot
however is nothing new at all.
Brent Peterson
> There is greater chance of tampering overall, but for each
> trial the chance does not become greater.
That is what I ment. I am sorry if that was not clear.
> Are you instead talking about permanent altering of the
> ballots themselves, rather than tampering with the results
> of a count?
Each time the ballots are handled, there is a chance of the
ballots being degraded as you claim. PLUS a chance that someone
may purposely alter a vote durring handling to alter the count.
> >It was my understanding that those 19,000 votes were disqualified
> >because they were double punched or had no vote for the office.
> >Of the double punched ballots one has to try and decide the more
> >meaningful hole.
> > The no-vote ballots are either obvious problems
> >if a vote was cast or true no-vote ballots.
> >The first group gives the counters alot of interpetation, the
> >second group is probably doable.
> If the the first group are "obvious" problems then where
> does alot of interpretation come from? What scenarios
> are you thinking of?
1st Group: "because they were double punched"
2nd Group: "no vote for the office."
> >> Again, quality is much more subjective than determining
> >> which hole was punched. Here it's a discrete multiple-
> >> choice question.
> >Again, I have had people do go/no-go inspections and get varried
> >results. This will be true for the very reasons you state the
> >hand count will solve. Hanging bits of chad, etc....
>
> Just because something is a binary choice doesn't mean
> it's not subjective. The varied results from a quality
> inspection of machine parts is not going to match
> looking at a ballot to see which hole was punched.
> Even a partial punch doesn't fall into a continuous
> gradation of punched-ness, since it's pre-perffed.
A punched hole or hanging bit of 'chad' from a sheet metal part
is no different than looking for the same on a ballot. Is a rib
feature there or not? Is there a run in the paint or not? These
are the things by which parts or sorted. The same way ballots
are being sorted. Is it punched or not? Is there hanging chad
or not? and so on. They shouldn't be subjective choices, but
sorters will eventually start drawing their own conclusions
of what is 'punched enough' or doesn't count as a punch. Just
as they will start to decide what parts are meet the criteria
and which do not. The ballot is a part. It is being sorted
based upon a feature (a punch hole). No different than sorting
a part based on if it has a particular feature or not.
> >It's subjective. The machine is the most consistant judge, even
> >if it rejects otherwise clear votes to a human.
> Uh, if it rejects otherwise clear votes (and then only
> some of the time,) then it is not the most consistent
> judge. Again, a vote where the punch chad is still
> hanging can sometimes be considered valid, sometimes
> invalid, by the same machine. It depends on whether
> the chad is swung over the hole at the moment it is
> sucked into the machine.
The machine is not likely to have much random variation as
you claim. Two ballots in the same condition, punched the
same way will be counted the same way many more times than not
by a machine. That is consistancy. Consistancy does not need
to match anyones idea of 'correct'. Only that it does the same
things under the same conditions. Humans on the other hand.....
Scott Craver
>
>The fact of the matter is machines are very consistant. Give
>it two ballots that are indentical, and they will be counted
>the same.
No, they will not. I just gave you a standard example:
a ballot with a swinging door chad on the punched hole.
This is a very common kind of error, and the machine
gives inconsistent results on the same ballot.
Whether it reads the hole or sees no holes at all
depends on the way the chad is hanging at the time it is
being scanned by the machine. The exact same ballot,
read by the exact same machine, twice, can give two
different results. That is not consistency.
>> More seriously, the approval beforehand may stand
>> against the argument for a re-vote. But it does
>> not mean complaints about the ballot were invalid.
>> It does not mean there was no problem with it.
>> It means that, if there was a problem with it,
>> people didn't catch it in time.
>
>The only reason anyone is complaining about the ballot
>is to try to get Al Gore to win the state.
That's a pretty strong claim. Especially since a
lot of complaining is by the voters themselves, who
are just very upset about possibly accidentally voting
for Buchanan.
They were complaining long before the state was called,
and in fact even back when the state was called for
Gore by mistake. Long before anyone knew that the
election hinged on their votes.
>As I heard on the radio this morning, a very good point.
>That the people spending all this energy complaining
>and protesting the ballot design should have, if they
>thought it this important, to have taken the time and
>looked at the sample ballot and saw what was going on
>in the first place.
By extension, one can consider the terrible cost
of any mistake in terms of lost effort or money
or such, and wonder why people just take the time
not to make mistakes.
Certainly all the energy spent using an eraser
is significantly greater than the energy spent
just writing the correct sentence. Yet people
continue to do things the hard way.
-S
Scott Craver
>
>The machine is not likely to have much random variation as
>you claim. Two ballots in the same condition, punched the
>same way will be counted the same way many more times than not
>by a machine.
A machine is only really consistent with unexceptional
situations. In the case I described above, that being
a swinging-door chad, a machine can not read it
consistently.
It's not a problem with the machine, but with the
input: if the hole is sometimes covered and sometimes
uncovered, then the machine will output sometimes
valid and sometimes invalid. Not the same thing
under the same conditions.
Human beings of course introduce other kinds of
error---they're bad at repetitive large-scale tasks.
And this is definitely a repetitive large-scale task.
But they are more consistent than machines in
exceptional situations.
In fact, your example of humans sorting machine parts
by quality secretly reinforces this fact. Why don't
you have a _machine_ examining those machine parts
for dots of paint and possible malformed features?
-S
Chip Wood
"Let me see if you got this by now.
I trust the people.
I trust their will.
I trust their wisdom."
However, apparently not in a bi-partisan Florida state-wide hand
recount.
Chip Wood
Remember heavy Rep, Duval COUNTY with the 27000 invalidated ballots, the
example that the Reps held as them not crying about spilt milk. Well it
turns out that well over half of those invalidated ballots came from
just 4 heavily Black, heavily Dem PRECINCTS. The evidence from past
elections is that the highest percentage of invalidated ballots come
from such precincts.
However, (cue X-files music), perhaps the reason that the Reps don't
want a statewide recount is that the Rep party hacks in Duval called
Austin and said, for gawd's sake don't allow a fair bi-partisan
state-wide recount because then we all are in deep do-do.
More and more I believe that the media did call Florida right the 1st
time because it was based on exit interviews where voters told them who
they "thought" they voted for.
Brent Peterson
>
> Brent Peterson <ba...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >
> >The fact of the matter is machines are very consistant. Give
> >it two ballots that are indentical, and they will be counted
> >the same.
>
> a ballot with a swinging door chad on the punched hole.
> This is a very common kind of error, and the machine
> gives inconsistent results on the same ballot.
Do you personally run ballots through the machines or
are simply making an arguement?
> Whether it reads the hole or sees no holes at all
> depends on the way the chad is hanging at the time it is
> being scanned by the machine. The exact same ballot,
> read by the exact same machine, twice, can give two
> different results. That is not consistency.
If the two different ballots had chad hanging different ways
then they are no longer exactly the same, the condition
above.
> They were complaining long before the state was called,
> and in fact even back when the state was called for
> Gore by mistake. Long before anyone knew that the
> election hinged on their votes.
Funny. reports of the bad ballot didn't seem to surface until
after it went from gore win to unknown.
And here is the basic problem gore people argue the ballot
was unfair and cost them votes, bush people argue the election
was called early and they lost votes in the panhandle cause
people went home thinking it was all over. This is an endless
back and forth.
Brent Peterson
> However, (cue X-files music), perhaps the reason that the Reps don't
> want a statewide recount is that the Rep party hacks in Duval called
> Austin and said, for gawd's sake don't allow a fair bi-partisan
> state-wide recount because then we all are in deep do-do.
Which supports the concept that a party cheats where it is strongest.
Scott Craver
>> a ballot with a swinging door chad on the punched hole.
>> This is a very common kind of error, and the machine
>> gives inconsistent results on the same ballot.
>
>Do you personally run ballots through the machines or
>are simply making an arguement?
Are you attempting to disqualify my opinion on the grounds
that I wasn't there, personally testing that specific model
of machine? You've been claiming the machines are consistent
in ways that punch-card readers are not consistent; have
_you_ been personally using one of these devices?
>If the two different ballots had chad hanging different ways
>then they are no longer exactly the same, the condition
>above.
In my example the chad is not hanging in different ways.
The ballots are identical in how the chad is connected;
what's crucial is that it is allowed to swing like a door.
In fact, in my example it is the SAME BALLOT scanned two
times. It is identical to itself, trivially.
Maybe you might argue that when the chad swings, it
no longer is the "same" ballot it was minutes earlier.
But despite such a semantic distinction, the fact is that
one ballot can be interpreted multiple ways by a MACHINE.
The fact is that machines are considerably more consistent
than humans in the grand majority of unexceptional situations.
Human beings, however, are more consistent in exceptional
situations. 100 human beings looking at a single punched
hole with swinging-door chad would say, "that's a single
punched hole with swinging-door chad."
Note that this is long-held common sense. Corporations
universally have computer systems to handle payroll and
administrative stuff, to avoid human error in repetitive
tasks. But they always have a staff of human beings to
override the computers in rarer instances where forms are
filled out incorrectly, or deadline problems surface, or
two employees have the same first, middle, or last name.
Humans rule the exeptional situation, and always will.
>Funny. reports of the bad ballot didn't seem to surface until
>after it went from gore win to unknown.
What!? People were angrily complaining TO the election
workers about their votes before the polls even closed.
When you say "reports," do you mean reports on national
news, like CNN?
>And here is the basic problem gore people argue the ballot
>was unfair and cost them votes, bush people argue the election
>was called early and they lost votes in the panhandle cause
>people went home thinking it was all over. This is an endless
>back and forth.
Well, the olde problem of calling the election early
is brought up every election by the losing party (or
in this case, the winning party.) If someone is really
concerned about the effects of reporting exit polls,
they should collect data that proves it really makes
a difference.
The news tries to avoid reporting early now, and it
is kind of embarrassing for the country that the media
did not realize Florida was WIDE.
-S
Brent Peterson
> >> a ballot with a swinging door chad on the punched hole.
> >> This is a very common kind of error, and the machine
> >> gives inconsistent results on the same ballot.
> >Do you personally run ballots through the machines or
> >are simply making an arguement?
> Are you attempting to disqualify my opinion on the grounds
> that I wasn't there, personally testing that specific model
> of machine? You've been claiming the machines are consistent
> in ways that punch-card readers are not consistent; have
> _you_ been personally using one of these devices?
No I am asking you because you seem to be taking a posistion
of personal experience. Since you are not, then you have no
way of knowing that it would treat two identical inputs differently.
Logic would tell us that a machine, a mechanical, electronic
or otherwise will treat two INDENTICAL inputs the same way.
Provided that the machine has not broken or endured significant
wear and tear between the readings and that the inputs are
INDENTICAL.
Since your posistion is against this simple logic, I questioned
if you had personally operated the machines. Perhaps the machines
are old and their condition is no longer reliable, maybe they needed
repair / reset / alignment every few thousand votes. That would have
been the next topic had you said yes. And if the machines are in
such a condition, then the people in charge of them have alot of
explaining to do as the reason for it.
I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. Considering the
response, that likely will not occur again.
> >If the two different ballots had chad hanging different ways
> >then they are no longer exactly the same, the condition
> >above.
> In my example the chad is not hanging in different ways.
> The ballots are identical in how the chad is connected;
> what's crucial is that it is allowed to swing like a door.
If the chad is hanging a different way they are not indentical.
The input is different.
Wes Rand
Brent Peterson <ba...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> Scott Craver wrote:
> >
> > Brent Peterson <ba...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > >Scott Craver wrote:
> > >>
After hearing some recounts of first-hand experience with these
machines and reading some newspaper articles I did some quick research
and have found that these punch-card machines are notoriously
inaccurate. Given the same batch of ballots the count can come out up
to 5 percent different on each count.
There seems to be several problems with the machines:
The software is prone to error and has no error-checking capability.
The machines don't always feed the cards through correctly and often
run more than one card at once.
And, of course, there are the famous chads which not only fail to
detach but also can but pushed into the holes of other ballots.
This has nothing to do with the condition of the machines but is the
nature of the technology. Punch-card balloting has been involved in
lawsuits and several states have outlawed their use because of their
unreliability.
If you want to read more, here are a few links:
<http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/cfp93/saltman.html>
<http://www.research.att.com/~lorrie/pubs/diss/node5.html>
<http://www.aceproject.org/main/english/em/emf02/default.htm>
<http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/6.04.html#subj2>
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digest/gauchat.voting>
-Wes
Dr. Don Drake
Yo Ball! Ya homey Myndeless, he be da one who putted
alt.religion.wicca in dat subject thang.
But Dave won't criticize a fellow environ.mental.ist in public.
---
DDD
Dr. Don Drake
>
> Yo Ball! Ya homey Myndeless, he be da one who putted
> alt.religion.wicca in dat subject thang.
Me meant to say dat "newsgroup field" thang.
---
DDD
P.G. Felton
> Scott Nudds wrote:
> >
> > : > Of course it is not a tiny percentage. In fact,
> > : > 3,000 is at least three times the margin by which Bush
> > : > is ahead. Three times the margin by which someone
> > : > wins the entire election.
> >
> > Brent Peterson (ba...@my-deja.com) wrote:
> > : The entire election is less than the margin of error. This
> > : is true of more states than just FL.
>
> > Then you are admitting that the election count is invalid and recounts
> > are required to determine who the "real" winner is.
>
> Recounts just change the randomness of the error. Next time it
> could come up bush or gore. Flip a coin.
>
> > Yet the Corrupt Republican party is taking every underhanded step in
> > order to prevent a fair count of the ballots.
>
> Fair count? Hardly a fair count. It's a partical recount. Two counties
> and then its interpeting the ballots. A fair recount would be to
> recount the entire state. Not just where Al Gore has greatest chance
> of gaining votes.
You might have a point if all the counties used the same method of voting which
has the same source of error. The ability to request a recount is based on a
county
by county system, that the Republican representatives didn't call for recounts
in more
than the 6 that they did is their decision, of course they may have decided
that there was no
point in doing so because those counties used a less error prone method.
>
> > : Count, count and recount, it is less than the margin of error. Keep
> > : counting until it randomly comes up gore? Best two out of three?
> > : Four out of seven? Five of Nine? Maybe just flip a coin? Put bush
> > : and gore in the thunderdome?
>
This is the Republican spin, in the four counties concerned the Democrats
requested a single recount which has not yet taken place because of
interference
by the Republicans. Without this interference it would be over by now!
>
> > I wasn't aware that the simple act of counting alters the percentage of
> > ballots cast for a particular person. I am however, aware that recounting
> > can be and is used to detect errors in the original count.
>
> Please read the above again. The full recount was done by simply
> putting the ballots through the machine again. You know as well as
> I do, that this does nothing without averaging the results with regard
> to random counting errors by the machines.
And in particular does nothing about a systematic error i.e. undercounting.
Phil.
>
>
> > <IF> the margin of error can not be reduced to a value that is lower
> > than the ballot difference between the two, then I would indeed suggest a
> > coin toss, or a new convention that when such a situation occurs, the tie
> > goes to the person with the greatest number of total ballots. Gore in
> > this case.
>
> Run the ballots through the machines several times and take an
> average, find the standard devation and so forth and then it might
> improve. Try an improved method statewide, but just picking another
> count simply because it was more recent, if it was by the same methods,
> has no less random error than the first time. You know this scott.
>
> > : > Or, let's put it this way: if you think it is a
> > : > tiny meaningless percentage, why object to letting those
> > : > 3,000 people revote? Answer: Gore would be president
> > : > instead of Bush.
>
> > : Why object, because it is unfair not to give anyone else the
> > : chance to re-vote.
>
> > Why is the correction of error "unfair". Clearly because you know it
> > your chosen dog would lose the election. Hence your objection is not on
> > the basis of fairness, but a result of political corruption.
>
> Who is my chosen dog nudds? I disliked all the canidates. The
> one I disliked the least didn't have a snow balls chance in
> hell of winning.
>
> It is unfair because now, it is known how close the results
> are. People who didn't vote that office before may choose to. There
> are a number of ballots where people found all candiates so repugant
> they did not vote for the office of president. Some people may
> choose to change their vote as well. No one should have that
> oppertunity or everyone should. Maybe a run-off election, nation
> wide. But to say, these two counties, because they screwed up so
> badly the first time now get to have a deciding election for
> a national office, is just silly.
>
> > : Care to have people who made mistakes against bush revote?
>
> > Of course, why not? This is an issue of fairness, honesty and
> > practicality. Concepts that Republicans are making every effort to
> > oppose.
>
> Too bad Al Gore and his party disagree with you. They only want
> the counties where they are strong to get special treatment.
> Anyone should be able to see why that should be opposed.
>
> > : Personally, I see bush and gore as different roads to the
> > : same ends. So don't try to play partisian crap.
>
> > On the other hand, I am defending honesty, fairness and the Canadian
> > way.
>
> Babbling nudds?
>
> > "Four years ago, 14,872 Palm Beach County ballots were thrown out either
> > because they lacked a vote for a presidential candidate or because they
> > had two such votes.
>
> > On Tuesday, about 30,000 faulty ballots halted the selection of the
> > nation's 43rd president and brought heavily Democratic Palm Beach County
> > to the world's attention." - Marcy Gordon - AP - Nov 11, 2000
>
> How many more people voted this year than 4 years ago? If the answer
> is 2X or more you don't have a point. Also, you need to put aside
> the people who didn't vote at all for president from both numbers
> considering the poor choices in canidates.
>
> > : And old repbulican voters were perfect?
>
> > In their case 1=1. To vote for the first person on the list you punch
> > the first hole. In the other case, to vote for the second person on the
> > list you punch the third hole.
>
> The bottom line of the square for bush lined up with the buncanan hole.
> A bush vote could have been mis-cast as well.
>
> > : Only democratic voters made mistakes?
>
> > First person, first hole (republican vote)
> > Second Person, third hole (democrat vote)
>
> > That's the difference John Boy.
>
> Insults aside. Third person Third hole. Read the list vertically.
>
> No Person punch One
> punch two No Person
> First Person punch three
> punch four Second Person
> Third Person punch five.
>
> It isn't rocket science.
>
> > : Come on now. FL residents are becoming the
> > : butt of jokes now because of all this.
>
> > Yes, and don't think that the elderly won't remember being so insulted
> > by the Republican party.
>
> It isn't the elderly on TV complaining. Yet to see anyone elderly complain.
> Seems their generation knows how to take responsibility for their own errors
> unlike younger ones that are out in the streets and on TV complaining.