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Did it happen the way you think?

REMEMBER THE ELECTION CENTER TESTIMONY BEFORE FLORIDA TASK FORCE??

Los Angeles Times
A Place in Politics for Salesmen and Wares
Monday, December 11, 2000

...Bribes and kickbacks are extreme examples of what can go wrong. But the market is heating up. In the wake of Florida's election problems, federal and state lawmakers are suggesting special funds to help localities upgrade their equipment. This month alone, counties in Washington, Indiana and Ohio began discussing replacing their voting systems.

Next year, companies think, the rush will begin in earnest.

"I think this [confusion] is absolutely terrible for the country," said Tom Eschberger, vice president of national accounts for Election Systems & Software Inc., the leading distributor.

...Four hundred convention guests dined aboard a Hornblower yacht cruising San Francisco Bay, partly financed by $10,000 from the Sequoia Pacific vote supply firm.

The meeting was organized by the Election Center, a nonprofit information resource for states, counties and cities. R. Doug Lewis, the executive director, said the businesses contribute for the exposure, not to curry favor.

A Place in Politics for Salesmen and WaresLos Angeles Times Monday, December 11, 2000

REMEMBER THE FLORIDA FELONS WHO MAY HAVE VOTED

343 were cast by Democrats and 62 by Republicans
Guess what, none of them were challenged or contested!
452 Broward felons voted
Hundreds of other ballots in doubt
BY LISA ARTHUR, GEOFF DOUGHERTY AND WILLIAM YARDLEY
Miami Herald
Friday, January 19, 2001
larthur@herald.com
Friday, January 19, 2001Miami Herald

MEANWHILE MORE SKULLDUGGERY...

Friday, January 19, 2001
Miami Herald
Many voted illegally in Palm Beach, report states
As many as 150 voters may have voted illegally in Palm Beach County, a preliminary review shows. Many voted illegally in Palm Beach, report states Friday, January 19, 2001 Miami Herald

MIAMI HERALD STUDIES CONTINUE TOO

Friday, December 22, 2000
Machines didn't pass polling test
But all were in use on Election Day
December 22, 2000ANDREA ROBINSON

 


Real People some with assumed names Chat about these issues we're there


PALM BEACH POST SERIES

Election Recap: Did PB County's butterfly ballot decide the presidency?
37 Days That Changed History
http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/news/election2000_pbcvote.html


WE STILL DON'T HAVE ACTUAL NUMBERS CONCERNING HOW MANY REGISTERED FLORIDA VOTERS CAST A BALLOT ON ELECTION DAY, AND HOW MANY DISCARDED BALLOTS, AND HOW MANY REPLACEMENT BALLOTS!

Saturday, January 27, 2001

Fla. 'Overvotes' Hit Democrats The Hardest Gore 3 Times as Likely as Bush To Be Listed on Tossed Ballots Dan Keating Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 27, 2001

Report: Tax Dollars Unevenly Doled Out
By SHANNON McCAFFREY
Associated Press Writer
24th annual report Kennedy School of Government: www.ksg.harvard.edu/fisc99



 


IF THE VOTE WERE FLAWLESS

Dec. 8, 2000 Miami herald study



Who Lost Florida?

By Jacob Weisberg

Posted Monday, Dec. 4, 2000

Last weekend the Miami Herald ran a fascinating story about what might have happened in a "flawless" Florida election. The article highlights a study done for the paper by Stephen Doig, a journalist-turned-academic who specializes in computer-assisted research. Based on Doig's precinct-by-precinct analysis of 185,000 uncounted Florida votes, Al Gore would have defeated George W. Bush in Florida by 23,468 votes if ...

Thus the Herald article may have answered the question of which candidate should have won the presidency in an ideal world of perfect elections. But it fails to answer the more immediately relevant question of which candidate might win the election in the increasingly unlikely event of all legally valid votes being counted.

To try to answer this question, you have to do pretty much the opposite of what the Herald study does. You have to start by tossing overboard the overvotes, which represent approximately two-thirds of the 185,000 uncounted ballots. Then you must focus on the undervotes, which may or may not contain a legally valid vote for president.

Who Lost Florida?Monday, Dec. 4, 2000



JACOB RETRACTS HIS OWN ANALYSIS AFTER EMAILS POINT OUT HIS ERRORS

Recount!

By Jacob Weisberg

Posted Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2000

...

And I think it also explains something that yesterday's erroneous prediction didn't, namely why the Gore side was so insistent on employing Broward County's dimpled-chad rules for the recount. Using that standard statewide, there's good reason to think Gore would win the election. Using any other standard, there's reason to think he would lose.

RecountTuesday, Dec. 5, 2000



Tuesday, December 12, 2000
Justices strike down hand-recounts in Florida
In a historic opinion, a majority of the justices said the recount violated the Constitution's equal protection clause and that it was too late to find a uniform standard under which the ballots could be fairly counted.

The justices noted the Dec. 12 deadline-which expired just two hours after the high court issued its own ruling-for states to certify their electors.

Tuesday, December 12, 2000 Justices strike down hand-recounts in Florida

postnet.com

postnet.com's series Election 2000


Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
One Nation Divided
Sunday, December 17, 2000
One Nation Divided Sunday,
 December 17, 2000



Voters using Data Punch machines were three times more likely to cast an invalid vote, a Palm Beach Post study showed.



Countywide, voters in black precincts were 130 percent more likely to have their ballots thrown out for double punched ballots or under-votes, a Palm Beach Post study showed.


Black voters angered by hurdles
By Joel Engelhardt,
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 10, 2000
http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/sunday/news_2.html
...
Voters in that precinct used a different kind of punch-card voting machine. Instead of Votomatics, the larger, more costly machines, they voted on Data Punch machines.

That meant no lights built into the machine. Data Punch machines often are used in big precincts with a lot of voters because they don't need to be plugged in. No plugs means no electric lines running back and forth.

But in the dark cathedral of Greater Bethel Church, that made it difficult for voters to see.

The Data Punch machines are smaller. They hold fewer chads -- the tiny perforations that voters punch out of the ballot to record their vote, said precinct worker Grace Minns-Atkins.

As she set up the machines that morning, Minns-Atkins saw chads falling out the side. They fill up fast during the day, she said. That, some experts say, promotes under-votes, where the ballot is not punched.

"That stuff does jam up and once they jam up you cannot get your stylus in there," Minns-Atkins said, repeating an argument Democratic lawyers introduced to the nation in a Tallahassee courtroom.

Voters using Data Punch machines were three times more likely to cast an invalid vote, a Palm Beach Post study showed.

...They show, stunningly, that 15 percent of the people who cast their vote in the race for president at Greater Bethel Church in Riviera Beach -- 240 proud voters -- threw out their suffrage by punching two holes on the slim computer card. Another 4 percent, 60 more voters, cast no vote for president.

Four years ago, only 47 people voted for two or more presidential candidates and only 44 for no candidate at all in Precinct 66.

And even though the numbers show that 222 more people voted at Greater Bethel in 2000 than in 1996 and about 2,000 more voters showed up at the county's 38 largest black precincts, they also show the horrible truth: 2,562 voters in those 38 precincts -- 12 percent -- cast votes for two or more presidential candidates. Those votes were thrown out.

Countywide, voters in black precincts were 130 percent more likely to have their ballots thrown out for double punched ballots or under-votes, a Palm Beach Post study showed.

Why? What happened?

Gwen Johnson of Wellington said that in the weeks before the election, she used an absentee ballot to show hundreds how to vote. She warned them it would be confusing because the 10 presidential candidates were spread over two pages. But the pages didn't face one another on the absentee ballot as they did on the ballot in the polling places.

She told them at churches and meetings of community groups to punch the second hole on the ballot -- the hole for Gore. But on Election Day, that hole would count for Buchanan.

And Mikel Jones knows that many black voters believed they had to vote for both Gore and Lieberman. Thus, they voted twice and spoiled their ballot.

Some undoubtedly will become disillusioned and give up, black leaders admit. But most, they say, will be ready to fight. They'll remember the slights of November 2000. They will keep the newly rekindled coalitions with organized labor and the Jewish community. And they'll focus their anger on Republicans.

"Two years from now we're going to knock on the same doors. We're going to do it again," Jones said...

December 10, 2000Black voters angered by hurdles  

Reproduction:Monday, December 10, 2000

reproduction Black voters angered by hurdles

Reproduction:Monday, December 17, 2000

reproduction Black voters

 

No Black Voter Denial Found
NewsMax.com
Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2000
No Black Voter Denial FoundWednesday, Dec. 20, 2000

December 20, 2000
Florida probe finding no evidence of black disenfranchisement
Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/default-20001220225948.htm

Florida probe finding no evidence of black disenfranchisement December 20, 2000 washingtontimes.com



Salon Politics

In the Salon Politics article "Eliminating Fraud or Democrats?" it was incorrectly stated that the Voting Integrity Project sent in a team of investigators to Robert Dornan's election contest in 1996. Those investigators were actually sent by Dornan, not VIP. The story also said that Helen Blackwell was the founder of the group. She is actually the chairwoman of the board. Salon regrets the errors. [Corrections made 12/11/00]



TRACK WHO IS INVESTIGATING WHOM



Anthony York Dec. 8, 2000Eliminating Fraud or Democrats

Anthony York Dec. 8, 2000Eliminating Fraud or Democrats part 2

Anthony York Dec. 8, 2000Eliminating Fraud or Democrats part 3

Anthony York Dec. 8, 2000Eliminating Fraud or Democrats part 4



Credibility of voter purging questioned
By Robert P. King and Joel Engelhardt,
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 6, 2000
...
In June, Database Technologies handed the state a list 173,142 registered voters suspected of having died, moved away or been convicted of felonies. That included 57,770 possible felons...

Credibility of voter purging questionedDecember 6, 2000

Reproduction: December 6, 2000Credibility of voter purging questioned



Hunt for fraudulent voters triggered anger
By Robert P. King, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 11, 2000

Two years ago, the state began a computerized hunt for felons and corpses on its voting rolls. But the search for fraudulent voters also:...

Those in charge of the search say they or local election officials caught those errors before any damage occurred.

But as the glitches mounted, tempers grew short among state officials, election supervisors in several counties, and Database Technologies, the Boca Raton company being paid $4 million to compare Florida's voter rolls with myriad other databases throughout the country...

A spokesman for ChoicePoint, an Atlanta-area company that bought Database Technologies in May, said last week that it had done exactly what its contract required: The company identified people who might be ineligible to vote. Then, it was the counties' job to verify the information and give voters a chance to challenge the data.

The most publicized glitch was the company's admission last summer that it had identified nearly 8,000 people as felons when they had been convicted of misdemeanors. The company blamed inaccurate data from Texas and said it quickly corrected the error...

Reproduction:Monday, December 11, 2000Hunt for fraudulent voters triggered anger 

 
December 20, 2000
Florida probe finding no evidence of black disenfranchisement
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Accusations that Florida blacks were denied access to polling places as part of what the Rev. Jesse Jackson called "a systematic plan to disenfranchise black voters" remain under investigation, although no evidence so far has surfaced to support the charges. ...

But in the two specific cases cited as part of the suspected conspiracy, both involving the presence of police near black polling sites, so far there is no evidence to support the accusations.

Joe Bizzaro, spokesman for Florida Attorney General Robert A. Butterworth, said the State Highway Patrol dismissed accusations that a police roadblock set up near a predominantly black precinct near Tallahassee, was aimed at intimidating blacks. He said an internal investigation determined that the roadblock had been set up in the same spot a month earlier and was routinely designed to conduct inspections...

In the second incident, a Florida radio station reported that black voters had been denied access by police to a predominantly black polling site near Tampa, but it was later determined that law enforcement officers had moved into the area as part of an ongoing robbery investigation.

A roadblock set up near the site detained only one man. In addition to those incidents, the Associated Press reported last week it erred when it said in an earlier story that a company hired by Florida officials to compile a database of potentially ineligible voters was only required to match a person's name with the name of a felon. The state required Database Technologies of Boca Raton to use a person's name as well as address, date of birth and Social Security number, if available, to determine who would be on the list.

Mr. Jackson had charged that black voters were mistakenly labeled as felons and taken off the voter rolls because of the firm's selective database...

A roadblock set up near the site detained only one man.

In addition to those incidents, the Associated Press reported last week it erred when it said in an earlier story that a company hired by Florida officials to compile a database of potentially ineligible voters was only required to match a person's name with the name of a felon. The state required Database Technologies of Boca Raton to use a person's name as well as address, date of birth and Social Security number, if available, to determine who would be on the list.

Mr. Jackson had charged that black voters were mistakenly labeled as felons and taken off the voter rolls because of the firm's selective database.

Several Florida officials, community leaders and law enforcement authorities said that while voting problems did occur, accusations that blacks and others were illegally denied access to polling sites as part of a coordinated scheme were unfounded.

They said logistical problems caused by an unexpectedly large turnout of black voters were to blame for most of the controversies, along with flawed registration lists, faulty ballots and voting equipment, and a flood of telephone calls to precinct offices that clogged many of the available lines.

Florida probe finding no evidence of black disenfranchisement washingtontimes.com



Protections Against Fraud Should Be Detailed and Tough
How to Make 'Every Vote Count'
By Phyllis Schlafly
We want to count only one vote per person. We want to count only votes cast by citizens eligible to vote. We want to count only ballots containing votes that can be objectively read, not votes that permit election officials to speculate about or "discern" (in David Boies’ word) what may have been in the voter’s mind.

We do not want to count phantom votes or re-created votes. And, of course, we want a scrupulously honest count monitored by observers from both political parties.

Phyllis Schlafly How to Make 'Every Vote Count



BEWARE STUDY AUTHORED BY KIMBALL BRACE, REMEMBER HIM?

Thousands of ineligible voters still are registered
By THOMAS HARGROVE
Scripps Howard News Service
December 14, 2000
http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=BADLISTS-12-14-00&cat=PP

Official registration lists in the United States have become so faulty that scores of counties claim to have more voters than actual adult population.

Sloppy bookkeeping led 190 counties and the state of Maine to appear to be more than 100 percent registered in the 1996 presidential election, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study of election records in 3,189 counties and voting districts.

The study found that at least 167,968 people in these areas were still eligible to cast ballots even though they had died or moved away....

Election experts agree that any county with an apparent voter registration rate of 90 percent or greater almost certainly has ineligible voters on their rolls. (In 1996 the national registration rate was 74.6 percent, or 146.5 million registered voters out of a voting-age population of 196.5 million.)

This means there are at least 681 counties and voting districts with suspiciously large voter rolls.

"A bad list can cover up any sort of fraud that could be going on," said Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services, which advises election supervisors nationwide. His group assembled the data used in the Scripps Howard study. "And a bad list can be indicative of sloppy procedures."

Scripps Howard News Service Thousands of ineligible voters still are registered



Punch cards down, not out
By Jeff Ostrowski,
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 15, 2000
http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/friday/news_13.html

Punch-card ballots might be on the endangered list, but they won't be extinct in time for a round of municipal elections early next year in Palm Beach County.

November's disputed presidential election raised tough questions about the reliability of punch cards and brought calls for a better system.

But there are no plans to replace the county's Votomatic machines before residents go to the polls again, as soon as January in South Palm Beach...

Elections officials say a flood of media reports about dimpled, hanging and swinging chads will leave voters better-educated about the arcane punch cards.

"Hopefully they'll know how to vote now and check the back of the card," said Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore....

Some say punch cards are unreliable whether the ballot is simple or not. Herb Asher, a political science professor at Ohio State University, argues that a hand recount is the only way to ensure the accuracy of any punch-card balloting.

"Punch-card voting inherently has problems that don't exist in other voting systems," Asher said.

Asher prefers high-tech touch screen systems or lower-tech optical scan systems, where voters fill in circles with a pencil, exam-style.

Others say the problems lie not in faulty machines but in overworked and understaffed elections supervisors.

Elections supervisors lack the resources to do their jobs, said Gary MacIntosh, state elections director for Washington and president of the National Association of State Elections Directors. Many need more workers and better training.

"In my opinion, there has been far too much discussion about systems and not enough about management of the systems," MacIntosh said....

Next year's voting will be done on old-fashioned Votomatics. The county brings out its Data Punch machines only for elections with heavy turnouts, such as last month's presidential balloting.

County workers will make sure to empty old chads from the machines, said Tony Enos, Palm Beach County's voting systems manager. But, he added, chad buildup was not a problem in the presidential voting, in spite of media reports that said chads lodged in machines prevented proper voting.

Replacing punch-card voting won't be cheap. A computer touch-screen system for Palm Beach County would cost $15 million to $25 million, Enos said...

Punch cards down, not out December 15, 2000

 

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