Another Nail in the Woo Coffin

[corplinx]

Anyway, Pete tells me that the Kerry Campaign is well aware of the alleged voting irregularities, and they've got a bunch of lawyers looking into it. At this point, there simply are not enough votes for us to win this thing

From one of the peddlers of the coup woo, democratunderground

 

[Jude]

Aren't you getting tired of making these threads?

 

[corplinx]

Aren't you getting tired of making these threads?

As long as there as are non-skeptics pushing this issue based, no. These people need reality slapped upside their head like a creationist needs talk origins slipped in their bookmarks.


There _could_ be widescale voter fraud. However, there is zero evidence and yet we have apologists and even believers on this forum.

 

[Cabbage]

There _could_ be widescale voter fraud. However, there is zero evidence and yet we have apologists and even believers on this forum.

I'm not convinced of widescale voter fraud, but I am certainly curious.

I'm also curious of one other thing as well. Do you believe these irregularities should not be investigated for possible fraud? If so, why? Is it because of zero evidence? If so, then you've got yourself in a Catch-22--we will find zero evidence with no investigation, and there will be no investigation because of zero evidence. Is that really a tenable position?

My point being, I fully respect the opinion that there is no wide scale voter fraud--there is no hard evidence at this point, it's true. But I also think it's pushing it to ridicule those who choose to investigate the irregularities, with all the controversy surrounding the lack of a paper trail in many voting machines, and the glitches that have been documented.

 

[Kopji]

Maybe a small point for non US citizens who might be slightly confused by all this.

Just because you register for a certain party does not mean you need to vote for candidates of your party.

The raw voting data seems to indicate that people crossed party lines when voting: Some Democrats voted for Bush.

There were even some counties in Florida that had more Republican votes than there were Republicans. That sounds very evil and suspicious on the surface but is not.

The Republicans won due to good marketing strategy: A combination of focusing on their core competency and providing an additional issue that brought out voters (11 states offered a tasty treat of anti-gay marriage).

A voting fraud this massive would not be able to be kept a secret for long. There would be missing or dead voting company executives everywhere...

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

A voting fraud this massive would not be able to be kept a secret for long. There would be missing or dead voting company executives everywhere...

How do you figure that?

The thing about having the votes tabulated inside a black box with a modem attached to it is that it only takes one person to phone home, edit a few numbers and log off. Then it takes a wholesale audit to detect the editing, which has not yet happened.

I believe that Bev Harris demonstrated this was possible with Diebold's GEMS tabulators. It's not clear yet whether it was possible with ES&S's machines.

Ten years ago a voting fraud that massive would have indeed taken a massive conspiracy. In 2004 it would take a much smaller conspiracy. That doesn't mean it actually happened by any stretch of the imagination, but declaring it technically impossible is straining at a gnat.

 

[corplinx]

I'm not convinced of widescale voter fraud, but I am certainly curious.

Everyone is curious about possible fraud. However, people aren't satisfied when they do get answers.

Woo: we have a machine that gave bush 4k extra votes
Bright: it was caught and reconciled
Woo: and that is just part of an emerging pattern across the country

Or look at that county in Ohio where I for suggested that vote tallies were showing larger than registered voters because of government incompetency.

Today that county has come out and admitted that it was incompetency in the way they tallied the number of registered voters.

So, we keep having these isolated incidents, they get explained with mundane explanations, yet they still contribute to this sinister tapestry.

This is shotgunning incidents to create the image of the possiblility of fraud. No matter how many of these iregularities have boring explanations, even when explained away they are still a part of the conspiracy.

 

[clk]

Aren't you getting tired of making these threads?

No, seeing corplinx call others woo woos is funny and ironic, since I recently outed corplinx as a right wing conspiracy woo woo.

 

[Cabbage]

That seems to be a fair assessment of the situation, corplinx. Sorry for butting in like that, I was just a little concerned in seeing an attitude that I perceived to be antagonistic towards anyone interested in investigating any problems in the recent election. Even if all of them turn out to be random glitches, they certainly need to be rectified as well as possible; otherwise, in future elections we'll continue to have what we have here now--paranoid speculation.

Anyway, glad to see my perception was wrong.

Carry on, then!

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

So, we keep having these isolated incidents, they get explained with mundane explanations, yet they still contribute to this sinister tapestry.

This is shotgunning incidents to create the image of the possiblility of fraud. No matter how many of these iregularities have boring explanations, even when explained away they are still a part of the conspiracy.

I may be doing you an injustice corpllinx, but it looks to me like you are ducking the two strong cases for fraud, and pretending they don't exist, while ridiculing the weak case.

Strong case #1 is that the Diebold GEMS tabulators were deliberately designed by a convicted computer criminal with massive debts, hired by a republican-owned company, to facilitate untraceable election fraud. Further, the republicans in government blocked attempts to institute a paper trail and spent public money on rolling out Diebold machines. This is all out in the open, and you won't touch it.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html

http://www.ejfi.org/Voting/Voting-30.htm

Strong case #2 is that the exit polls were uniformly accurate, and if anything predicted a few too many votes for GWB, except in a relative handful of vital swing states where they predicted far, far more votes for Kerry than showed up in the tabulated votes. This too is right out in the open and you won't touch it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_controversies_and_irregularities#Map

The weak case is the variety of observations that have been uncovered in the effort to find the smoking gun that will link Strong Case #1 (means, motive, opportunity) and Strong Case #2 (circumstancial evidence a crime has occurred), to show that the guy with the means, motive and opportunity actually did it. This is the weakest case, and it's where you focus your ridicule.

Now in my book all you can possibly achieve this way is to show that firm belief that Republicans stole the election is unfounded. You're getting way ahead of yourself by declaring that belief woo, because there are solid reasons to believe that the election could have been rigged and to believe that it was rigged. Mocking the individual pieces of (so far flawed) evidence regarding the exact mechanism by which it was rigged is a strategy that can only get you so far.

Response?

 

[Kopji]

Kevin_Lowe
What you are proposing is that a political coup has occurred in the United States. The sheer quantity of 'woo' stuff out there like this makes us ask for evidence, ANY evidence that there was some kind of conspiracy to make this happen.

Maybe some ideas start way down at "woo" and need to work themselves up to credibility.

I agree there was a problem with the exit polling, but I watched this gradually grow throughout the evening as numbers diverged. This seemed gradual, not suddenly all at once. States where Kerry won over-reported Bush's performance, maybe this is a clue that people were afraid to speak their minds to the pollers. We would expect the opposite to happen in a state where Bush won.

This seems much more likely than a coup, Occam not only needs a razor he needs a meat cleaver.

Human error in polling seems likely. This election generated considerable emotion around it, and people may not want to have openly reported how they voted. This is why we have confidentiality around the voting process and it is a good thing. My private vote is a great part of this process. I hate pollers, maybe there are more people like me. That seems so much easier to believe.

The exit polling attempts to nullify that confidential process. Sometimes it is successful and sometimes it is not. If there is a time where it was not, this election was likely that time.

It would take many people, across many states, at many levels, all keeping very quiet about their role in a deception: Programmers, statisticians, secretaries, temporary staff, consultants... What would such a story be worth to the press?
If I am to believe such a wide conspiracy is possible, why not expect agents out silencing everyone now that they are found out?

I really like Wikipedia for many things but it is an open source freely edited document. Anyone could edit it. I could edit it and change it to whatever I wanted. It is just not a good source for this kind of claim.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I agree there was a problem with the exit polling, but I watched this gradually grow throughout the evening as numbers diverged. This seemed gradual, not suddenly all at once. States where Kerry won over-reported Bush's performance, maybe this is a clue that people were afraid to speak their minds to the pollers. We would expect the opposite to happen in a state where Bush won.

That's been tossed around as an explanation, and I'm unconvinced for two reasons. Firstly because this effect was noticed in both pro-Bush (North Carolina) and pro-Kerry (New Hampshire) states. Secondly because it would have to be a really big effect, with a significant chunk of the population lying to the pollsters in a way that would be quite unexpected.

This seems much more likely than a coup, Occam not only needs a razor he needs a meat cleaver.

I'm not sure Occam is going to guide us well at the moment. I could argue that a few phone calls to unsecured tabulating machines is a much simpler explanation than flawed exit poll procedures plus lying voters plus senior citizens on the march plus an unprecedented turnout of fundies plus sunspots plus Democrat poll-slamming squads plus more sunspots. I don't think I would convince anyone though.

Human error in polling seems likely. This election generated considerable emotion around it, and people may not want to have openly reported how they voted. This is why we have confidentiality around the voting process and it is a good thing. My private vote is a great part of this process. I hate pollers, maybe there are more people like me. That seems so much easier to believe.

It's easy to believe, if you can find reason to believe that hatred for pollsters swelled up hugely just in the swing states and mostly amongst Bush voters. I'm not sure why it would be such a geographically and politically localised phenomenon, though.

It would take many people, across many states, at many levels, all keeping very quiet about their role in a deception: Programmers, statisticians, secretaries, temporary staff, consultants... What would such a story be worth to the press?
If I am to believe such a wide conspiracy is possible, why not expect agents out silencing everyone now that they are found out?

As a point for discussion, I'll advance a fairy story.

Most programmers don't have the whole code in front of them at any time. Besides which, the source code for an earlier iteration of GEMS got leaked and it was described by keenos who looked at it as "spaghetti code" - poorly structured programming without annotation to keep it all straight. So there's no need for Jane Programmer or Joe Secretary to know anything, and in fact they probably worked on totally legit coding and filing.

The only person who really needs to be in on the action is the head programmer, a convicted crook, the owner of the company that hired said crook, and a few mates in the Republican party who can be trusted to keep silent. Probably ones who have been up to their neck in dodgy practises for years, like Karl Rove. The crook cooks the program a bit, tests the resulting code, and rolls it out.

Then the insiders sit in a room with a television and a laptop on polling night. When they have a good idea from the polls and the early results how much of a swing they need to keep the Presidency, they make a few calls with their modem and help themselves to a sufficient majority in a few vital states so that their boy wins, with enough of a lead that there will not be a recount. Since it was all done electronically there is practically no evidence anything ever happened.

No need for Hollywood assassins to go around rubbing out insiders. Now if Jeffrey Dean falls down a lift shaft and lands on some bullets you bet that I'll point it out as suspicious, but I don't think that kind of melodrama is necessary or likely. After all, vote fraud has been going on in the USA as long as there have been elections, and there isn't a bloodbath every time it comes out.

Heck, Bush is the President. He could pardon everyone and that would be case closed. It's not like Bush senior and Clinton didn't use the Presidential pardon just as egregiously and get away with it.

I really like Wikipedia for many things but it is an open source freely edited document. Anyone could edit it. I could edit it and change it to whatever I wanted. It is just not a good source for this kind of claim.

I get the feeling that I could grow a beard and walk down off a mountain with evidence on stone tablets and people would still want to find alternative explanations. I can't blame them either.

It's good though. Situations like this should be torn apart with utmost thoroughness, by both sides. If it turns out that the election was totally legit, that would be a damn good thing and we could all relax. My gut feeling is that's not how this is going to end, but my gut has been wrong before.

 

[AlH]

As a point for discussion, I'll advance a fairy story.

Most programmers don't have the whole code in front of them at any time. Besides which, the source code for an earlier iteration of GEMS got leaked and it was described by keenos who looked at it as "spaghetti code" - poorly structured programming without annotation to keep it all straight. So there's no need for Jane Programmer or Joe Secretary to know anything, and in fact they probably worked on totally legit coding and filing.

The only person who really needs to be in on the action is the head programmer, a convicted crook, the owner of the company that hired said crook, and a few mates in the Republican party who can be trusted to keep silent. Probably ones who have been up to their neck in dodgy practises for years, like Karl Rove. The crook cooks the program a bit, tests the resulting code, and rolls it out.

Then the insiders sit in a room with a television and a laptop on polling night. When they have a good idea from the polls and the early results how much of a swing they need to keep the Presidency, they make a few calls with their modem and help themselves to a sufficient majority in a few vital states so that their boy wins, with enough of a lead that there will not be a recount. Since it was all done electronically there is practically no evidence anything ever happened.

No need for Hollywood assassins to go around rubbing out insiders. Now if Jeffrey Dean falls down a lift shaft and lands on some bullets you bet that I'll point it out as suspicious, but I don't think that kind of melodrama is necessary or likely. After all, vote fraud has been going on in the USA as long as there have been elections, and there isn't a bloodbath every time it comes out.

Why go that far, keep your single programmer, alter the routine to tabulate votes to check if it is the first time they report them and if so, plus if number of voters > than some threshold - say 500, take 2.5 percent of the democrat president votes and give them to the republican total. Save the new totals. Toss in a check if # democratic votes > say 50, so as not to completely eliminate them. Simple, include in a last minute update to fix other minor bugs. Toss in a check for date and don't do unless it is Nov 2 or 3 so tests before and after seem to work correctly. No spurious network traffic to be traced, a 4-5% swing towards the republicans. In a race that was essentially even, that should be more than enough. Even with open source and code review, a simple change like this could be made at the last minute to a previously "blessed" system. You could also even limit it to a lone programmer who feels it is his duty to bias the election at no one's command but his own. So yes, it is possible.

The only way to detect fraud would be to do a recount. With no paper trail there will never be 100% certainty that the reported votes are correct. Exit polls may be close but aren't guaranteed to match actual voting. What you need to do is get one or more of the machines, make sure the software is what was used in the election and reverse engineer it. Beyond that I don't see how else you can prove that it happened (if it did).

Was there any monitoring of unexplained network traffic? Packet captures of commands to change the votes? Were the machines even connected up to the internet? Not every computer in the world is, unlike their portrayal by Hollywood.

 

[corplinx]

Strong case #1 is that the Diebold GEMS tabulators were deliberately designed by a convicted computer criminal with massive debts, hired by a republican-owned company, to facilitate untraceable election fraud.


Strong case #2 is that the exit polls were uniformly accurate, and if anything predicted a few too many votes for GWB, except in a relative handful of vital swing states where they predicted far, far more votes for Kerry than showed up in the tabulated votes. This too is right out in the open and you won't touch it.

Case number 1 is woo in its purest form.

Case number 2 is help up by the myth that exit polls are reliable.

Let me tell you a few things about "exit polls" as one who was there from the time they were invented and then watched them develop through the nine presidential campaigns I covered. Experienced journalists treat exit polls like hand grenades with the pin pulled; they are unstable and dangerous

Source, Bush Unfriendly CBS

Furthermore, these weren't the same as previous elections:

The NEP replaced the Voter News Service, which incorrectly predicted in 2000 that Al Gore had won Florida, leading some major networks to call the state for the former vice president, then later retract that call in favor of George W. Bush, and even later to say it was too close to call.

News media began using exit polls in 1990. The surveys are designed to identify trends and issues of importance to voters, not to predict election outcomes, according to pollsters and analysts interviewed Wednesday by the Los Angeles Times.

Source Herald Tribune

Perhaps you should read this article by the company that ran the early exit polling data to begin with:
You Don't How to Read Exit Polls from Slate

Mind you, I have addressed the exit polling data before. You claim I have not. I don't see much in addressing exit polls. The national polls by and large showed a toss up election leaning towards Bush by 2 points going into the election (source: realclearpolitics).

Perhaps you are confusing the exit polls with the gallup poll which hasn't been wrong since Truman. By the way, gallup showed a Bush win.

I order you to cease and desist all woo practices.

 

[BPSCG]

I order you to cease and desist all woo practices.

All hail, King Corplinx.

DENNIS: ...but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major--
ARTHUR: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN: Order, eh? Who does he think he is? Heh.
ARTHUR: I am your king!
WOMAN: Well, I didn't vote for you.
ARTHUR: You don't vote for kings.
WOMAN: Well, how did you become King, then?
ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake,...
[angels sing]
...her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur.
[singing stops]
That is why I am your king!
DENNIS: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: Well, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
ARTHUR: Shut up, will you? Shut up!
DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
ARTHUR: Shut up!

 

[BPSCG]

Also from Slate: A perfectly boring, but Occam's Razor-friendly explanation of those supposedly weird results in predominantly Democratic Florida counties.

I know, I said I was going to stay out of this and let the woos prove their case, if they could. So shoot me.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Case number 1 is woo in its purest form.

That was a bit quick. There are a number of factual claims there, all of which should be perfectly amenable to testing and checking. Jeffrey Dean and Wally O'Dell are real people. GEMS exists and one version of the source code has been leaked. The double book system has been publicly demonstrated. The fact that GEMS runs on MS Access is no secret. The Help America Vote Act is a real piece of legislation. What exactly are you claiming is woo? Where are your facts?

Case number 2 is help up by the myth that exit polls are reliable.

They're as good as any poll and better than most. That's why the Republicans are floating the idea of banning them.

Mind you, I have addressed the exit polling data before. You claim I have not. I don't see much in addressing exit polls. The national polls by and large showed a toss up election leaning towards Bush by 2 points going into the election (source: realclearpolitics).

Yes. They have a smaller sample size and a worse population to sample from than the exit polls, as well as having every other problem exit polls do. The exit polls are statistically superior, and showed Kerry ahead with just over 52% of the popular vote as of midnight on polling day when the polls were complete according to CNN's web page at the time.

A 4% deviation from that figure is quite startling.

Perhaps you are confusing the exit polls with the gallup poll which hasn't been wrong since Truman. By the way, gallup showed a Bush win.

Yes, and before the election many people commented that the Gallup poll was giving results far more pro-Bush than any other major pollster. I don't know what was up with that, but it's a bit rich calling small Gallup polls the gold standard with no real justification while writing off the much larger exit polls. Sauce for the goose and all. You're begging the question if you hold the fraud case up to much higher standards of evidence than your own case.

[Edited for lack of apostrophe]

 

[Ion]

I disagree with corplinx.

The night before the election, I looked up and www.electoral-vote,com and Gallup were giving Kerry the victory.

The next day, election day, I looked at 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time the exit polls, and they were showing Kerry leading in 8 states, Iowa tied, and trailing Bush in 3 states.

Florida was then 52% to 48% Kerry, and Ohio was 60% to 40% Kerry.

I posted in another thread, 'Woo something' by corplinx, that the odds of Bush rebounding from these exit polls to victory in vote counts were calculated at 2 per 100,000 by a MIT mathematician.

Irregularities favoring only Bush by Diebold and ES&S are documented.

 

[corplinx]

They're as good as any poll and better than most. That's why the Republicans are floating the idea of banning them.

And what do you base that on? Certainly not on the many experts that have come out and said otherwise. Certainly not on the baseline of the group who did the polls since this is the first presidential election this group has polled.

Are you psychic? Do you know this is the reason they want them banned?

 

[Ion]

And what do you base that on?
...

Gee, corpse do you think that your brain should be trusted enough to vote?

Because your question was answered before by me:

exit polls before the voting stations closed are corroborated by vote counts after the voting stations closed in states using paper ballots.