[reality101] Bush Got 130,000 Excess Votes in Florida. Evoting System Challenged by Dems in FL

Thursday, November 18, 2004

NH/Ohio/Florida: Where to begin? Good day sunshine!

The big news, of course, is this. But some other goodies/developments:

Vote Recount to Settle Doubts? by Kim Zetter of Wired News - everything you wanted to know about the New Hampshire recount. Plus more that you didn't necessarily want to know, but will gladly skim!

Wait, maybe this is the big news. From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

"Seeming to brush aside John Kerry's concession speech, the Ohio Democratic Party has launched a federal court fight over nearly 155,000 provisional ballots by contending a proper accounting of those votes might decide who really won... County officials across the state began tabulating provisional ballots Friday. "Given the closeness of the presidential and other elections," Ohio's provisional ballots "may prove determinative of the outcome," Democrats argue in a legal filing made public Wednesday by the U.S. District Court.

The lawsuit asked U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson to order Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell to impose uniform standards for counting provisional votes on all 88 counties. Democrats want the judge to take action quickly - before the results of the election are certified.

Watson, who was appointed by Bush, has not set a hearing. Don McTigue, a Columbus lawyer who filed the lawsuit for the Ohio Democratic Party, said the Democrats have concerns that different standards are being applied from county to county.

"Our action is not tied to some hope of changing the outcome of the election. We're being consistent with the Kerry campaign, and the Democratic Party's interest in seeing all eligible ballots are counted," McTigue said.

Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Blackwell, defended Ohio's rules for handling provisional ballots as explicit. He said Blackwell, a Republican, is adamant that every valid vote will be counted.

In court papers, the Democrats cite Bush v. Gore - the Supreme Court ruling after Florida's contested election that awarded Bush the White House in 2000 - as a legal precedent for the Ohio lawsuit. That case was decided by a majority of five justices.

"In Bush v. Gore, the United States Supreme Court held that the failure to provide specific standards for counting of ballots that are sufficient to assure a uniform count statewide violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution," their court filing said.

In Ohio, Democrats argue, the state lacks clear statewide rules that guarantee provisional ballots are processed consistently from county to county.

First we have Nader pushing for recounts to Democrats' potential benefit, and now we have Democrats citing Bush v. Gore as precedent. Let's buy our irony in bulk!

And, finally, things seem to be percolating in Volusia County in Florida, where Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org fame might be on the verge of having evidence of fraud. Maybe. ""We began to compare the special printouts given to us with the signed polling tapes from election night. Lo and behold, some were missing. We also found some that didn't match. In fact, in one location, precinct 215, an African-American precinct, the votes were off by hundreds, in favor of George W. Bush and other Republicans. Hmm. Which was right? Our polling tape, specially printed on Nov. 15, without signatures, or theirs, printed on Nov. 2, with up to 8 signatures per tape?" I linked to DailyKos' story about it, because the comments box is truly beautiful. "This COULD BE IT!!!" etc.

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

BREAKING: Bush Got 130,000 Excess Votes in Florida, Evoting System Challenged, says UC Berkeley Study

This press release was just forwarded to Denmark from a friend in the Venetian Provinces...

Hello,

This is an invitation to a press conference taking place tomorrow, 11/18 at 10am PST/1pm EST about a UC Berkeley report thatÂ’s challenging e-voting in Florida.

Here's the story: A research team at UC Berkeley will report that irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The study shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods. This is the first time that an academic institution has formally challenged the e-voting system, and the University is calling on local voting officials in Florida to investigate. The research team Â– which comprises some of the top minds in voter research Â– will disclose full results of the study and the raw data at the press conference tomorrow.

Details about the press conference are included below. It will take place on the UC Berkeley campus, but you can participate via a dial-in number Â– please let me know if you are interested and I can provide you with that information.

*** MEDIA ALERT ***

UC BERKELEY STUDY QUESTIONS

FLORIDA E-VOTE COUNT

RESEARCH TEAM CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE INVESTIGATION

When: Thursday, November 18, 2004, 10:00 am Pacific

Where: UC Berkeley campus, Survey Research Center Conference RoomÂ—2538 Channing Way (intersection of Channing/Bowditch). Parking on Durant near Telegraph.

What: A research team at UC Berkeley will report that irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The study shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods. Discrepancies this large or larger rarely arise by chance Â– the probability is less than 0.1 percent. The research team, led by Professor Michael Hout, will formally disclose results of the study at the press conference.

To attend the conference or request dial-in information, contact:

Erin Reasoner
Eastwick Communications
650-480-4031

Erica Pereira
Eastwick Communications
640-480-4024

Noel Gallagher
UC Berkeley Media Relations
510-643-7944

I have no other details yet.

But this could be -- well, big. You can read about the Survey Research Center here. It looks like they've been studying and comparing voting technologies a bit this year: "In response to national concerns about voting systems, the Survey Research Center and the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley have worked together to determine which voting systems do the best job of recording and tabulating votes. The survey compares five voting systems: direct record electronic (DRE), lever machine, optical scan, paper ballot, and punchcard." (This is NOT the survey that's being released tomorrow, but instead another recent one dealing with similar interests.)

A study from, bar none, the finest public insitution of higher learning in the country, by people who have been studying voting technologies, displaying a large discrepancy between counties with electronic voting and those without.

This is big, big stuff. Godzilla big.

A reminder: in the most recent tallies, Bush won Florida by less than 400,000 votes.

The presence on the email press release of a contact number for Berkeley's media relations guy makes it clear: this is not some hobby or side project by someone who happens to be a professor. This is a University sanctioned study by people whose training lies in such surveys and subject matter.

Did we mention earlier that the Electoral College isn't meeting until December 13?

http://rottendenmark.blogspot.com/