DIEBOLD

[Fairweather]

Fairweather: slow down. Read. Think. Try again.

 

You do understand anecdote versus empirical data? The parses that you chose to fish out of the story are all "might" and "could have", whereas the thesis paragraph(s) of the story contains hard data. I'll post it again in its entirety and unpicked:

 

"A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward.

 

Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore. A close examination of the ballots found that Mr. Bush would have retained a slender margin over Mr. Gore if the Florida court's order to recount more than 43,000 ballots had not been reversed by the United States Supreme Court.

 

Even under the strategy that Mr. Gore pursued at the beginning of the Florida standoff — filing suit to force hand recounts in four predominantly Democratic counties — Mr. Bush would have kept his lead, according to the ballot review conducted for a consortium of news organizations."

 

You clearly claim in the earlier parts of this thread that Gore won the election of 2000, but there is NO unbiased data anywhere to support your contention. Since the Supreme Court essentially declared the election "over", the onus falls upon you and yours to validate your claims of a Gore victory. And you cannot.

 

 

[Fairweather]

Fairweather: slow down. Read. Think. Try again.

 

Fuck you.

[mattp]

Whatever, Fairweather. The article that you referred me to clearly states that there IS an unbiased standard - indeed just about ANY unbiased standard would have done so - whereby Gore would have won. The article provides the "data." You either cannot read, refuse to think about what you read, or simply don't want to converse. Under any of these three scenarios, this discussion will not come out any different no matter how many times we rehash.

 

Intelliglent discussion is the clear loser on cc.com.

[tvashtarkatena]

Fairweather: slow down. Read. Think. Try again.

 

Sir: Please pull forward to the window.

 

Shuddup, Tvash!

[Fairweather]

 

Intelliglent discussion is the clear loser on cc.com.

 

Clearly. I agree. You are still too deeply entrenched in you own Bushrage and political bias to carry on a reasonable conversation. Fortunately, you have Tvashtarketena to help you validate your world view.

[tvashtarkatena]

 

Intelliglent discussion is the clear loser on cc.com.

 

Clearly. I agree. You are still too deeply entrenched in you own Bushrage and political bias to carry on a reasonable conversation. Fortunately, you have Tvashtarketena to help validate your world view.

 

Hugh believe whatever hugh want there, FW.

[Hugh Conway]

 

Intelliglent discussion is the clear loser on cc.com.

 

Clearly. I agree. You are still too deeply entrenched in you own Bushrage and political bias to carry on a reasonable conversation. Fortunately, you have Tvashtarketena to help validate your world view.

 

Hugh believe whatever hugh want there, FW.

 

tvashtalking twat

[dmuja]

its funny how i can make a thread about diebold, an issue we can probably all agree on, but the thread still is all about our differences and demonizing each other...

 

It has been claimed by some that this all started in the nineties when the repubs just couldn't accept that B Clinton became prez. Maybe so, probably not though, I can't say for sure myself. But however/whenever the deep partisanship actually started it is troubling at times I agree, and is frustrating to me too. Corrupted elections in the middle of the supposed premier example of democracy in the world aught to be so shocking an unacceptable to people that they utterly (and in complete unity) shut down the damned system until safeguards are mandated and in place. "Red state", "blue state", "neocon", "liberal", "repub", "demicracks", whatever the koolaid youve drunk, ALL OF US lose big time in a corrupted system feigning fairness and democracy.

 

All should be pissed off about this.

 

 

[mattp]

I agree dmuja, yet sadly not even the Democrats who were cheated have been willing to say much about it. I can see why those who support the Republican party wouldn't be so concerned about it, because at least for now it seems to be serving them, but I'm not sure exactly what the Democrats' problem is. It seems they do political calculations and decide, over and over again, that they can't afford to stand for anything or they might not get elected. We all know our electoral system has real problems, yet there are scarcely even any fringe politicians who seem able to speak about it.

 

Whether it is voter suppression, voter fraud, or programmable voting machines, you can't defend it. Our elections are not fair and Diebold voting machines are one part of that package that would be relatively easy to fix. Whether you believe that the owner of the company did what he more or less said he would do (fix the vote) or not, you can't credibly argue that these machines should not be secure or that they should not produce a receipt.

[mattp]

You should not be allowed within 100 meters of a polling center on election day - except to cast your vote. (And neither should I.)

 

If people who are passionate about politics should not be allowed near a polling center as an observer, should their company be chosen as the provider of voting machines (unsecured and unverifiable) for counting the vote?

 

COLUMBUS - The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

[Bug]

On a totally different subject, there were several precincts with road blocks. We've hashed it out before but since the last time, I have talked to a few family members of my girlfriend who live in various parts of Florida. They all agree that it definately happened. A couple of them are pure racist and that has nothing to do with Bush. It is just the way it has been there since whitey showed up. But the precincts that were blocked were predominantly black and throughout the rest of the south, predominantly black precincts carried Gore by 68%. Free access to those precincts in Florida would have carried Florida for Gore.

But again, this is just the standard practice in Florida according to my "sources". It is not a Bush conspiracy.

[joblo7]

fuckin' banana republic crap!! no not us , not here, we're civilised... yaaaaaaa

[tvashtarkatena]

Over 90% of blacks vote Democrat, so impeding the voting process in any majority black precinct is an effective way to bias the election for the GOP. This type of interference was widespread in Fl in both 2000 and 2004, and confirmed to be present in OH as well.

[Hugh Conway]

Fairweather: slow down. Read. Think. Try again.

 

Fuck you.

 

Changes at 9pm big boy!

[mattp]

Does anybody know the status of discussions about using DIEBOLD equipment in King County this year?

 

Seatle Times Article

[olyclimber]

Hopefully there wasn't some error made here that will undermine the results (not hoping because I like the results or not, but because of the danger to the election process):

 

http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/new_hampshire_2008_primary_analysis

[Hugh Conway]

Hopefully there wasn't some error made here that will undermine the results (not hoping because I like the results or not, but because of the danger to the election process):

 

http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/new_hampshire_2008_primary_analysis

 

I love you.

[Crux]

PSeA_0ZW14M

[Off_White]

I'm going to cherry pick my own quote from that NYt article:

 

Thus the most thorough examination of Florida's uncounted ballots provides ammunition for both sides in what remains the most disputed and mystifying presidential election in modern times.

 

Anyone want to argue with that conclusion?

[AlpineK]

I don't want to argue about elections. All I have to say is thanks for posting the video Crux.

[mattp]

Thus the most thorough examination of Florida's uncounted ballots provides ammunition for both sides in what remains the most disputed and mystifying presidential election in modern times.

 

Clearly, if you read the above-noted discussion, you can't argue with that conclusion.

 

My point was that that article, and indeed the broader coverage of the Florida election or the one four years later in Ohio that tipped things for Bush, un-disputably show that our elections are subject to manipulation. In Florida, despite greater issues of voter suppression not mentioned in the article, a full and fair recount would have awarded the win to Gore. Fairweather was focussed on the Supreme Court intervention, and the article did support his premise that the Dems had already lost because, as I had already pointed out, they did not request a full and fair recount.

 

As Fairweather pointed out with his reference to ACORN, however, it is not just one party that will try to do this. While I believe it is clear that both the 2000 and 2004 elections were manipulated by those favoring Bush, I'm not arguing that the Dem's would never try something similar if they had the same kind of power. Just to be snide, though, I'll say they aren't quite the crooks that the Republicans have shown themselves to be in recent years.

 

All of us should seek to make sure our elections are fair and are perceived as fair. Without serious effort here, the whole process will continue to deteriorate. A belief that the process is rigged only supports continued withdrawal from political discussion by Americans already prone to ignoring their responsibility to pay attention, keep themselves informed, and at least vote if not get more actively involved in the affairs of the day.

[mattp]

I'm going to cherry pick my own quote from that NYt article: ... Anyone want to argue with that conclusion?

 

By the way: I'll argue that it is not "cherry picking" to talk about what the article actually said. Fairweather asserted, repeatedly, that he had read the article carefully and that it did not indicate a full and fair recount would have given the election to Gore - yet that is in fact what the article DID say - more than once.

[Jim]

Here's a comprehensive article in the NYT magazine from a couple weeks ago that should make anyone unconfortable with the touch screen Diebolds. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/magazine/06Vote-t.html

 

While no system is perfect it seems that the pencil-in ballots with scanners is the most accurate, and provides a paper back-up.

 

Some of the stats on the Diebolds are alarming; switching of votes, up to 13% errors in actual elections, lost memory cards. From this article I get the sense that the problem with these machines is less that they are prone to hacking (which they are) but that they don't work well and there is no orginal paper trail to verify that the electronic data are correct.

 

Most of the problem counties in OH and FL have gone back to pencil-scan ballots. PA, because of a bizzare state law, is still going with Diebold. Could be interesting especially for close state elections.

[dmuja]

Dave Ross (KIRO 710 am) has a guest on right now who wrote a book called "How to rigg an Election"

 

[olyclimber]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kirsten-anderson/request-for-nh-recount-gr_b_81306.html