"Debunking another election conspiracy theory"

[TimeToGo]

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

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Still Raging Against the Machines
Debunking another election conspiracy theory.
By Josh Levin
Posted Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2004, at 2:08 PM PT

In response to my piece on election conspiracy theories, many readers have asked about supposed irregularities in Florida counties that use optical-scan voting machines. In Baker County, where 69 percent of registered voters identify as Democrats, 77 percent of voters went for Bush. Dixie County: 78 percent registered Democrats, 69 percent for Bush. Franklin County: 77 percent registered Dems, 59 percent for Bush. Holmes County: 73 percent registered Dems, 77 percent for Bush. (USTogether.org has more charts and graphs of this data here and here.)

These are just the most egregious examples. If we trust the exit polls, about 90 percent of voters nationwide vote based on party affiliation. That means that, according to USTogether's calculations, if Floridians voted according to party affiliation in the state's 52 optical-scan counties, the GOP would lose about 600,000 votes—perhaps not enough to swing the election, but a huge number nonetheless. The theory goes that since all eyes were on the counties with new touch-screen machines, it would be far easier to futz with the numbers in the less-scrutinized optical-scan counties. Optical-scan machines are used to count paper ballots, and the results are then fed into a computer. If someone could hack into the computer, they could surreptitiously change the vote count.

The big problem with this theory is that this year's results match those from 2000. (And with the exception of Dixie, which used punch cards in 2000, all of these counties used optical-scan machines four years ago.) In 2000, Baker County had 83 percent registered Democrats, and 69 percent of the county's voters went for Bush. Dixie County had 86 percent registered Democrats, and 58 percent went for Bush. Franklin County: 81 percent registered Dems, 53 percent for Bush. Holmes County: 83 percent registered Dems, 68 percent for Bush. (For complete 2000 results in Florida by county, look here. For 2000 results as compared to voter registrations, look here.)

SNIP

Read more at:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2109416/

[SmokingJacket]

1. Waaaaalll...

I didn't read the whole article, so I'm talking out my nether region, but why compare to 2000??? Talk about STOLEN elections, sheesh!

I'd get some boots on the ground and start asking about who voted how.

[RollergirlVT]

13. don't hate me but....

these are optical scanned ballots. "Ballots" being the "key" word here. Ballots can be verified by hand and we all know that in FL. they were. Those 2000 results were carefully scutinized. The dems in those counties are old "dixiecrats" they're really not dems at all. We need to look elsewhere for irregularities.

[SmokingJacket]

32. How about verifying by hand first....

since it can be done, and then look elsewhere, too.

To be honest, I just wish I trusted the system.

I don't hate you!

[Zorra]

35. Got a link? n/t

[yankeefanatic3]

2. The point is...

Kerry and his people musn't stop!

[wryter2000]

5. Welcome Yankeefanatic

:hi:

[newyawker99]

10. Hi yankeefanatic3!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[EndElectoral]

3. Why not compare to 96? Pre-Bushes....

[Eloriel]

19. Exactly -- I wouldn't trust FL 2000 numbers from anywhere

At the same time, I think I saw someone's post who'd done some comparisons of the panhandle counties versus earlier than 2000 years, and they weren't that helpful for our side. You can find it somewhere in here (under FL, probably -- I don't think it was its own thread, it was a newer DUer):

VOTE FRAUD Links - a DU Compendium
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=201&topic_id=1984#

[Zorra]

36. Does anyone know how long ballot scanners have been in use there?

Nov. 9, 2004: Last night Peter Jennings of ABC News suggested that "conspiracy theorists" have got it all wrong; that despite their registration, the voters in Lafayette County have always voted in enormous numbers for Republican presidential candidates. But how long has the county been using ballot scanners? These scanners have been around since 1964. The election results could have been routinely altered for decades, which is exactly what the late Collier brothers alleged in their book, VoteScam: The Stealing of America. The fact is that Americans don't count their own votes, they let companies owned by Republicans and foreigners do it for them. We will never know who really won the election.

http://www.ecotalk.org/Florida2004.htm
FLA. STATS page.

[Copernicus]

33. here you go..

An example of just one county that has overwhelming majority of registered Demograts but votred Republican in 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=239735&page=1

"In regard to Lafayette County, FL one of the counties in question, it is true that there are far more registered Democrats in that county than Republicans (3,570 to 570, respectively), and that the county elected Bush in this year's election, but the county elected Bush in the last election, too. Four years before that, the Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole, won in Lafayette County as well, as did the first President Bush four years before that."

[demodonkey]

4. How do they compare to 1996 and 1992? nt

[pk_du]

6. The more I see the its clear

"Diabolical Diebold" was a head-fake......its ES&S and the Opti-Scans that are as big if not bigger problem.

[Old and In the Way]

7. Solution: Canvass the electorate and get signed affidavits on

who they voted for. Include Republicans who voted for Kerry...if they choose. We need to know that our vote counted, even if we can prove we lost. The worst thing is not trusting the system.

I think secret ballots and unsecure voting systems make stealing an election an easy thing to do when you have criminals willing to kill democracy to keep their sorry asses off death row.

[progressivebydesign]

12. I suggested that earlier.. it would work to use a small county..

.. just as an example. There are counties in Florida that have little over 3,300 people voting in this last election. One that I researched, showed Bush getting 469% increase in expected votes.. or.. 845 votes for Kerry, in an 82% Democratic County. I know that many people talk about the Dixiecrats, who never bothered to change their registration, but that assumes that all but 845 voters are that old.. I don't buy that part. Why can't someone just go to one of those counties and TALK to the people there?

[futurecitizen]

25. Exactly.

I'll go, if we collectively can choose a county that looks like it went horribly off the exit polls. We need that exit poll data by county. I've left a message with the exit polling company, and I think we ought to buy it if necessary and then go walk that county.

Progressive, it's an excellent idea. Feel free to contact me directly. I'm completely serious. I'll meet you in Florida.

[dbonds]

8. 2000 results is not exactly the Rosetta Stone of demographics

I still consider 2000 flawed. But while I wouldn't dismiss the results being in line with 2000 as irrelevant, it still leaves questions like:

This year Baker County 69 percent of registered voters identify as Democrats (31 percent republican?) , 77 percent of voters went for Bush (giving 46 percent non republican voting for bush).
In 2000, Baker County 83 percent registered Democrats (17 percent republican?) , and 69 percent of the county's voters went for Bush (giving 52 percent non republican voting for bush).

So the democrat percentage dropped 83 to 69 , 14% which you would think would be out of that 52 percent that voted for bush in 2000, so now we have 38% left that are democrat but voted for bush , but we get 46 percent in this election.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[progressivebydesign]

11. I researched one small county in Florida..

one that people keep saying are "dixiecrats", and have 82% of people registered as Democrats, yet showed a 469% fluctuation of expected Democratic votes, going to Bush, instead. The local congressional race showed a DEMOCRAT winning handily against a republican challenger... yet Bush was favored by the majority of Democrats?

Okay.. the other point about those small counties that everyone keeps saying are really Dixiecrats, or republicans, but never bothered to change their registration. Ummm... they saying that All but 845 Democrats who voted in the county of 3,300 voters are THAT OLD? I mean.. I understand the Dixicrat mentality.. but that means that almost 3,000 of the voters were that old.. to be of that Dixiecrat ilk. Does that sound right?

[springhill]

17. It is a matter of how much these counties are voting .......

for republicans. Yes, as I have stated over and over again, these county's, though overwhelmingly democratic vote mostly republican, but to what degree? As I have posted before, which I will post some more below the difference from 2000 to 2004 is startling. I just now got done figuring out the difference in votes cast for Gore and Bush in 2000 compared to the votes cast for Kerry and Bush in 2000. In the highly registered democratic counties using optical scan machines, where the anomalies really stand out, here is what I found.

In 2004 Kerry received 53,875 votes more than Gore did in 2000. However, Bush received an extra 147,922 votes than he got in 2000. So he almost tripled the increase of Kerry.

Kerry actually got less votes than Gore in 7 of the countys while Bush increased his votes in every single one of the same countys.

I am working on getting more data on voter turnout and also doing the remaining countys, but I'm not very good at it, so it is taking me awhile. But just from this sample, well, I don't know, I will let you draw your own conclusions.

[nikraye]

14. 2000 was rigged, too.

I've gone back through the FL counties in question (those using op-scan ES&S machines) and these overwhelmingly dem counties DID NOT used to vote by majority republican, as has been observed in the 2000 pres gen election. If you look at prior gen elections, including midterms, the votes in the years pre-Bush Sr./Reagan being elected, for governor/cabinet, senators, etc. were by MAJORITY DEM.

IMPORTANT: the computer manipulation of US elections began as early as 1964; Lyndon Johnson did same in his election wrt TX polling places. Repub Sen. Chuck Hagel did EXACTLY the same using the SAME ES&S machines in 1996 AND even more egregiously so in 2000 in his Nebraska Senatorial race wherein he received 80% or higher vote percentages in strongly Black/Democratic precincts.

I'm working on a comprehensive data set for FL and NB, dating back to 1978 (FL) and 1996 (NE) which shows the voting flip-flopping discussed above

[Jackpine Radical]

16. Yes, exactly. While digging for evidence of the 2004 crime,

the investigators appear to have unearthed some previously unknown bodies from 2000. The Gore theft may have been a much more systematic and pre-planned operation than anybody suspected at the time.

[maryallen]

29. Well, good! Let's retroactively uninstall Bush and ...

Put Gore in his rightful place.

[onenote]

15. the same pattern going back several elections

Several posts suggested comparisons with 2000 are suspect. So I went back and looked at earlier elections. In Baker County (one of the counties mentioned in the original post), voters have been supporting GOP presidential candidates over Dems for years, despite the overwhelming Dem majority in registered voters. For example

Bush I/Dukakis == 3414/1353
Bush I/Clinton == 3417/1974
Dole/Clinton == 3684/2773
Bush II/Gore == 5610/2392
(keep in mind that the GOP totals in a couple of these years probably were held down by votes going to Perot).

here's a link that you can use to check, county by county, election results going back to the 1980's

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/elections/resultsarchiv...

onenote

[distantearlywarning]

18. Dixiecrats...

...overwhelmingly voted for a $1/hr minimum wage increase?

I've seen the statistical analysis which compared the moderately sized op-scan counties with the moderately sized E-touch counties, and it's pretty convincing.

If all these voters in the moderately sized op-scan counties are Dixiecrats, why aren't there Dixiecrats in the same-sized E-touch counties going Republican???? Why is there statistical significance (p<.01, even with low power) when you compare the type of voting machine to voter turnout and not when you compare county size, etc...?

Did all the Dixiecrats decide in the last eight years that it was more important to move en-masse to an Op-Scan county than change their voter registration to Republican?

Oh, wait, I know! All the Dixiecrats in Florida refused to change their voter registrations to Republican, moved to Op-Scan counties between the years 1996-2004, THEN thought that it would be a good plan to vote Democratic for state tickets, approve a very liberal minimum wage increase, AND made sure to defend their very important "Republican-ness" by voting overwhelmingly for George Bush .

Yeah. That's it.

Occam's Razor. That's all I have to say.

[demgrrrll]

20. Damn good post. eom.

.

[txindy]

28. Terrific analysis

Welcome to DU! :toast:

[tandem5]

21. whatever the case may be...

This site and others have discussed this very issue. Olbermann's report made me nervous because he just put those figures out there without any background. It makes it easy for the media to jump all over it and then blame it as just another crack conspiracy theory from the internet. It's damaging because it shuts the door on other investigations trying to reach a mass audience. This is a PR game and major media organizations consider the internet their enemy.

[MominTN]

22. The mainstream media wouldn't help us any

The media would just get some Repub to give his explanation and then replay the soundbite over and over.
I completely agree with you because they blamed the early exit pole leak on internet bloggers, and said the word blogger like it was a dirty word.
I think there may have been the same problem in Florida with counting the vote in 2000. Were the same machines used in the same counties?
The only way to ever know if these democrats voted for Bush is to ask them. Seems to me the Fla Democrat Party could organize a telephone pole in one of the counties, maybe even more than one, and get this matter known for sure. I heard some other posters somewhere say they didn't think it would cost that much. After spending all this money, what's a few dollars more. Can someone find out if they will consider it?

[tandem5]

23. yeah...

We do need our own polling agency to help us with this election and with future events.

[crispini]

24. Straight out of Olbermann's blog

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/

...
There, 52 counties tallied their votes using paper ballots that were then optically scanned by machines produced by Diebold, Sequoia, or Election Systems and Software. 29 of those Florida counties had large Democratic majorities among registered voters (as high a ratio as Liberty County— Bristol, Florida and environs— where it’s 88 percent Democrats, 8 percent Republicans) but produced landslides for President Bush. On Countdown, we cited the five biggest surprises (Liberty ended Bush: 1,927; Kerry: 1,070), but did not mention the other 24.

Those protesting e-mailers pointed out that four of the five counties we mentioned also went for Bush in 2000, and were in Florida’s panhandle or near the Georgia border. Many of them have long “Dixiecrat” histories and the swing to Bush, while remarkably large, isn’t of itself suggestive of voting fraud.


That the other 24 counties were scattered across the state, and that they had nothing in common except the optical scanning method, I didn’t mention. My bad. I used the most eye-popping numbers, and should have used a better regional mix instead.

[futurecitizen]

26. Reality check

The fact is it's possible that the 'dixiecrat solution' is a real one. Historically it appears to be valid, but we are all aware that 'history' is happening right now, and is subject to question. So lets admit to ourselves that it's possible that they actually were overwhelmingly registered democratic and that they overwhelmingly voted republican. We should look at the other numbers as well. We should ask Olberman for his numbers and investigate them. We should post them in a public forum and discuss them. We should discuss the likelihood that elections have been compromised for a long time in that area. We should measure the election results against applicable exit polls and use *that* as a good metric of what should have been expected from final results. Finally, if there is a *reasonable doubt* that the figures are correct, we should figure out how to find out, whether it's by going there, setting up phone polling, or whatever.

We're all angry, but it doesn't serve us to not recognize the facts. The fact is that we don't know, and we need to find out. Spend your energy trying to figure out how to answer the question, not infighting about whether it's a question at all. If it's a question in our minds, it's a question, and that's all we need to know. Lets move on to how we answer it.

[txindy]

30. Point taken

Honestly, if it is accurate to say that these counties are overwhelmingly 'Dixiecratic' and, therefore, vote republican, it shouldn't be tremendously difficult to determine. There are enough of us here to pursue many avenues of questioning. In fact, it may be preferable, so that we don't inadvertently duplicate work or step in each other's paths. Those people who have questions about particular counties in Florida and have the interest and drive to research those questions, should go ahead and determine what they can. That is just one part of the whole investigation. It's not as if we're abandoning anything else to cover it. We should cover everything we can.

Excellent plan of attack, futurecitizen. Glad you're here with us. :toast:

[BeFree]

27. Florida politics

Politics is as bad as it gets, in rural Florida.

The vote stealing needed a place to work out the kinks and what better place than rural Florida to do it? For years the votes have been counted by machine. Remember the punch cards? Counted by machine.

It's nothing to replace a few thousand punch cards here and there. Just a small box-full at a time and pretty soon you've got a paper back up of the selection of your choice.

I remember a bond referendum, once upon a time in Florida. No one knew anyone who voted for it, but the damn thing passed anyway.

Put nothing past the Florida crackers, they invented dirty politics.

[Revolutionary Mama]

31. First challenge Josh Levin's claims...

He could be basing his argument of misinformation and might also be lying. The best bet is to make rounds to compare his claims to what is being presented in argument. I sense, Mr. Levin could either have deliberately delivered disinfo, or he's just repeating a counter argument that he believes, but never bothered to check out before basing his speculations on it. (BTW: I recall the Levin surname on the list of Skull & Bones society members and I will check to see if one of them is Josh, or someone closely related to him.)

First, the fact that reports of more votes than there are voters in parts of Florida this election need to be checked for verification.

Also, Ralph Nader had more support in Florida in 2000 than he got this year. By the time I returned home from the polls, about the time they closed to anyone not already in line, Nader had zero votes counted and reported at that moment. At least, this is what I heard after 7:30 my time on election night when I tuned into the NPR radio broadcast on the WUWF - FM (University of West Florida) station.

[sandboxface]

34. In FL 2000, THOUSANDS of votes were NEVER COUNTED!

How can anyone compare FL 2004 to 2000???

[govteacher]

37. FL is a closed primary state

Florida is a "closed primary" state -Only voters who are registered members of the two major political parties may vote for their respective party’s candidates in a primary election. The south has been a repug area for many years now and I would think that they would want to vote in the primary for their party. Why would they remain registered as Dems and have to vote in our primary? Data on primary turnout may tell.