Category: Election ’04

Did you think the 2004 election was over? Think again.

A judge gave Washington state Republicans a victory on Monday that kept alive their legal challenge to last November’s razor-thin election win by Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire.

Gregoire took office in January following a 129-vote margin of victory — the closest in a governor’s race in state history.

Republican candidate Dino Rossi has refused to concede the race, which he won narrowly in the first count only to lose in a later, final recount.

Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges has ruled Republicans can use what is known as “proportional analysis” in their legal argument to potentially take votes away from Gregoire.

“That was a very good day in court for us,” said Mary Lane, Rossi’s spokeswoman. “If we had lost this, it would have been impossible to continue.”

The trial in the Republicans’ lawsuit is scheduled for May 23.

With the slim margin out of a total of 2.9 million votes, proportional analysis could tip the vote in either direction, since illegal votes, mostly from felons, would be subtracted from each candidate in the same proportion that votes were cast for them in each precinct.

In the count after the election, illegal votes were disallowed in a way that took an equal number from each candidate.

But in an example of proportional analysis used in court, if 10 improper votes in a precinct were found that went 60 percent for Gregoire and 40 percent for Rossi, she would lose six votes and he would lose four, instead of the votes being subtracted equally.

Paul Berendt, the Democratic Party’s state chairman, said the ruling also helped Democrats, who will be allowed to present evidence in the trial of illegal voting that helped Rossi.

Although I am extremely suspicious of Gregoire’s victory, I think it’s very safe to say that this matter is a long way from over.

Hey, guess what? Are you sitting down? Good. It seems some folks at UC-Berkeley apparently have issues with the presidential election results.

Voting irregularities in three Florida counties that used electronic voting machines in this month’s election may have awarded as many as 260,000 votes more to President George W. Bush than were expected, according to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

The Berkeley researchers claimed on Thursday that their findings raise questions about the accuracy of voting results in Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade counties, all of which have more voters registered as Democrats than Republicans. According to statistical models, voters in those three counties delivered between 130,000 and 260,000 more votes to Bush than were expected by a post-election analysis, the researchers maintain.

“Something went awry with electronic voting in Florida,” says Michael Hout, a sociology professor, who led the research effort.

Hout says that the odds of the Florida irregularities happening by chance were less than 1 in 1000, and he calls for an examination of the results. “It’s like a smoke alarm and it’s beeping,” he says. “We call upon the voting officials in Florida to determine whether there’s a fire.”

The irregularities do not account for enough votes to give the state to Democratic challenger John F. Kerry, who lost to Bush in Florida by more than 377,000 votes.

The possibility of problems with e-voting was a topic much discussed before the November 2 election.

To obtain their results, the Berkeley researchers analyzed publicly available voting data from all of Florida’s counties using a technique called multiple-regression analysis, which accurately identified butterfly ballot problems in Palm Beach County during the 2000 election, Hout says.

The technique involves building a statistical model to predict voting patterns based on a number of factors, including history of voting, median family income, age, and race. Hout’s team conducted its study using data compiled from the November 2 election.

“We noticed that three counties stood out from those expectations,” Hout says. “These were counties that had a significant departure from what we would expect, statistically, given the patterns in all those other counties.”

Using their statistical model, Hout’s team forecast that Bush should have received 28,000 fewer votes in Broward County than he received there in 2000. However, Bush received 51,000 more votes than he did four years ago. In Palm Beach County, where Bush gained 41,000 votes, the Berkeley research suggested a loss of 8900 votes. For Miami-Dade County the research showed Bush should have gained 18,400 votes. In fact, he gained 37,000 votes.

The counties in question used e-voting machines manufactured by Election Systems & Software and Sequoia Voting Systems.

It seems that the factors the study was based on left out a series of intangibles that the Berkeleyites either couldn’t measure or didn’t want to face, such as 9/11 and Bush’s steady leadership since in the war against Islamist terror, an inept campaign by an irresolute Democratic candidate, and all-too-transparent media hatchet jobs, for starters.

Would their models have me, an atheist who voted for the Libertarian candidate in each of the four general elections I’ve previously been of age to vote in, now casting a ballot for President Bush? I doubt it, and it seems I’m not the only one with questions about this academic piece of work.

A spokesperson for the Information Technology Association of America, an IT vendor group, dismissed the Berkeley results, saying that the study appeared to ignore the political, social, and economic factors that affected the vote. “It is unclear to us that the technology, which is the one factor the authors appear to have focused on for this study, should be viewed as causal above the many other factors that could affect a voter’s decision,” said Charles Greenwald, an ITAA spokesperson, in an e-mail interview.

Greenwald also criticized the study for not being peer reviewed.

The Berkeley research has already been informally reviewed by academics at Harvard University, and will no doubt be scrutinized now that the results are posted on Berkeley’s Web site, Hout says. He declines to provide the names of researchers outside of Berkeley who are familiar with the results, saying they asked not to be identified.

Because there is no paper audit trail for the e-voting machines used in Florida, it may be difficult to ultimately explain the irregularities. “Our statistical approach is just about the only way we have to uncover what went on in Florida or in any other state that uses e-voting as it exists today, except Nevada where there is a paper trail,” Hout says.

The model found an even larger discrepancy when certain factors weighing the data in Bush’s favor were removed, bringing the total possible discrepancy to 260,000 votes, Hout says.

The team did not, however, find this level of irregularity in 12 other Florida counties that used e-voting machines, he says.

Hout is unable to explain why some e-voting counties would experience irregularities while others did not, but he says that the irregularities were more likely to occur in counties that voted for Democratic candidate Al Gore in 2000. “This becomes an important clue that investigators who know something about both the software and the hardware can use,” he says.

Hmmmmm … can’t explain why Bush made gains in Democratic areas? See my above comment.

The Berkeley study also appeared to debunk speculation about voting irregularities in several heavily Democratic counties that voted Republican in the 2004 election. After applying the statistical model to Dixie County and Baker County, both of which bucked party affiliations and voted overwhelmingly for Bush, Hout’s team found nothing amiss. These counties, which used paper ballots that were optically scanned, have historically voted Republican in national elections, Hout says.

Hout’s researchers also examined the election results in the hotly contested state of Ohio and found no irregularities there. “Our results do indicate that Ohio probably did get it right,” Hout says.

Look, they can’t argue the state was stolen, as their study’s questionable numbers are insufficient to alter the Florida vote. They can’t support previous allegations in Ohio. They have no evidence other than their own projections and expectations. In short, they ain’t got diddley.

This is just only another in a series of attempts to try to create an air of illegitimacy over the election, the sanctity of our republic be damned.

Fox News is reporting that a man has offed himself at the site of the WTC, possibly because of George Bush’s re-election.

A 25-year-old university worker from Georgia shot and killed himself at ground zero Saturday morning, authorities said.

The man, Andrew Veal, of Athens, Ga., was found atop the structure housing the 1 and 9 subway lines after a hotel worker spotted what he believed was somebody sleeping inside the site around 8 a.m., said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. A shotgun was found near the body, Coleman said. No suicide note was found, he said.

Veal apparently was distraught over President Bush’s re-election, Newsday reported Saturday on its Web site edition, citing an unnamed police source. The newspaper also said the man was a registered Democrat who opposed the war in Iraq.

Coleman said he could not confirm Newsday’s account.

Police were investigating how Veal entered the former World Trade Center site, which is protected by high fences and owned by the Port Authority.

Veal worked in a computer lab at the University of Georgia and was planning to marry, friends said Saturday.

Not meaning to make light of this but, if Veal did indeed take his own life over Tuesday’s decisive election, it seems a wee bit of an over-reaction. At least he didn’t pack on an explosive belt and go for a more serious statement.

They’re not taking this loss sitting down. No, they’re standing up. With very stupid signs. And firecrackers. Enjoy the lunacy.

It was a banner day for the Bush-Cheney administration and the GOP. Bush is the first since his father in 1988 to capture a majority of the popular vote. It looks like a probable 286-252 electoral victory, with Iowa and New Mexico currently leaning to the administration narrowly.

In his concession speech, John Kerry was emotional, something to be expected in a man who had aimed for this election his whole life. His speech was dignified and conciliatory, but his running mate John Edwards struck a poor note when he again spoke of two Americas during his own concession and Kerry introduction.

In declaring his victory, the president reached out Kerry supporters and vowed to reach out to those who opposed him. Some may question his claim of a mandate, but I agree, given his popular majority and Republican gains in both houses of Congress.

Now, let’s go take care of Fallujah.

CBS gives Nevada to Bush but restrains on Ohio. The nets all seem to be battling on which state to hedge.

Up all their asses. Dubya wins.