November 5, 2004

Some Seriously Fuzzy Math. Last Tuesday's election was crooked. Read Greg Palast and Mark Crispin Miller.

There were numerous problems in Ohio. ... AP (or here): "A computer error with a voting machine cartridge gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a Gahanna [Ohio] precinct. Franklin County's unofficial results gave Bush 4,258 votes to Democratic challenger John Kerry's 260 votes in Precinct 1B. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct."

Yahoo: "More than 4,500 votes may be lost in one North Carolina county because officials believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. ... Local officials said UniLect Corp., the maker of the county's electronic voting system, told them that each storage unit could handle 10,500 votes, but the limit was actually 3,005 votes."

More UniLect trouble in North Carolina: "After candidates and voters awaited Tuesday's election results for more than five hours after polls closed, the County Board of Elections announced a major computer problem that wiped out 4,530 of the 7,537 early votes cast at the elections office, an error admitted by the system's manufacturer."

Bush also got an extra 11,283 votes in North Carolina: "A systems software glitch in Craven County's electronic voting equipment is being blamed for a vote miscount that, when corrected, changed the outcome of at least one race in Tuesday's election. Then, in the rush to make right the miscalculation that swelled the number of votes for president here by 11,283 more votes than the total number cast ..." (Also)

If you want to read about the work being done across the country, check out Democratic Underground. Click "Discussion Forums" and then "Report Voting Problems."

One poster looks at Florida: "Of the 36 counties which have a majority of registered Democrats only 8 of them voted Kerry. 28 went Bush. ... When you look at voter registrations in the various Florida counties and then look at the "actual" results, there is simply NO WAY that something didnt go wrong.

One example: Calhoun County - 8,350 registered voters
82.4% registered Democrats (6,880)
11.9% registered Republicans (933)
Actual results:
Kerry - 2,116
Bush - 3,780
(See here)

Other examples of Democratic Counties with E-Voting Going For Bush:
Franklin County: 77.3% Dems; 15.9% Reps -- 58.5% of all votes for Bush
Holmes County: 72.7% Dems; 21.3% Reps -- 77% of all votes for Bush
Calhoun County: 82.4% Dems; 11.9% Reps -- 63.4% of all votes for Bush

Another DU poster -- Stryguy -- is looking at possible fraud in Ohio. State vote totals can be found here.

Page 23 -- Gahanna 1-B
Bush - 4,258
Kerry - 260

Stryguy says these 4,000 voters appear nowhere else. "Not on page 23 with the senate race; not on page 90 for county commissioner; not on page 129 for Sheriff, County Recorder, Treasurer, Engineer, Corner, Board of Ed, or supreme court justice; not on page 168; not on page 207. Drum roll please!!! Prop 1 on page 285. Gay Unions. The wonderful hate clause that every Bush zombie is voting for. WOW! Those 4,000 voters didn't vote for this either? Crazy crazy!"

And from SoCalDemocrat: "I've been crunching the statistics for several hours. Every state that has EVoting and no audit trails has a 5% unexplained bump for Bush that does not match with exit polls taken. This is not true in states without EVoting or the States that EVote and have audit paper trails. Those states match almost exactly with the exit poll data. As I worked this story, my data source CNN changed out from under me. They altered their site to cover up the exit polling discrepancies." [See "Why Did CNN Change Their Exit Poll Data for Ohio After 1:00 AM?"]

***

What does all this mean? Beats me, but it certainly deserves investigation.

If Republicans are convinced that everything was above board, and any claims otherwise are just silly, then they should be more than willing to allow a full investigation into these strange numbers. If they have nothing to hide, what's the big deal? Show us everything we want to see. Prove to the world that we are simply tinfoil-wearing wackos. I would love to be proven wrong -- to be exposed as a loony.

If the honest numbers confirm that Bush won, then Bush won. I'll still be dismayed at how many votes he got, but I'll accept it as legit.

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