ZOT! All the President's votes?

The Independent UK ^ | 14 October 2003 | Andrew Gumbel

[Ophiucus]

Several problems with this article, among them: the bias of the paper, the innate skew of the polls to the left (several criticisms have been published recently) that gave false results of Democrat leads, the media being surprised that Pres. Bush had political coattails, lastly, an unawareness of the software development process (an industry in which I was last employed).

This will be a non-issue except to the Independent.

[ambrose]

The other reason I'd be dubious of this article is that Georgia was under the iron grip of the Democrats prior to the 2002 elections. It goes without saying that it is very difficult to pull off election fraud in a jurisdiction that you do not control.

Another thing to point out is that the pollsters STUNK in 2002. That doesn't mean the elections were rigged. It means that the cliche "the only vote that counts is the vote cast on election day" is TRUE. Moreover, one polling firm (surveyusa.com) absolutely nailed most of the 2002 election results, further deflating the conspiracy theory notions.

[ambrose]

Counted at the place of polling - by hand with scrutineers - with the result publicly declared at the place of polling before being sent into the central counting center.

I wouldn't want poll workers in Chicago getting their grubby hands on those ballots. Since you're from NZ, you may not be aware of the fact that Kennedy stole the 1960 election away from Nixon.

[HitmanLV]

With any new technology, there are going to be problems. These machines may end up being too problematic for continued use, maybe they can work out the kinks in it so that it is reliable.

The perspective of the article does betray a mindset, though - it seems to have difficulty comprehending the legitimacy of a Republican win in Georgia. Far from it - it is certainly credible, and how anyone can find it incredible reveals a terrible bias and a tenuous hold on reality. Polls are often wrong, and sometimes wildly wrong.

I lived in NYC in the early 1990s, and I remember the 1994 Governors race - Cuomo and Pataki were playing 'tag' in the polls, though on election eve, most polls had Cuomo leading comfortably in the home stretch - not unexpected as NY is a heavy democratic state. The result - Pataki won convincingly, and was part of a national Republican sweet that has dominated Congress for most of the 1990s except for shared power and Democrat Senate control from 2001-2002.

Now in 1998 Pataki ran again, with sentiment high against impeachment nationally, and especially so in NYS. The result? Pataki won comfortably, though the Republican AG lost a close race, and Chuch Schumer was comfortably elected to the senate. Less sophisticated people would look at the results as incongruent, somewhat unpredictable, but there is no logical reason that the typical NY voter wouldn't vote that way.

The polls were a bit off, for sure. Was it some left wing plan to get rid of Dennis Vacco and D'Amato? Of course not - they lost, even though some didn't expect them to lose.

The Georgia situation merits some attention, just to get to the bottom of irregularities that happen everywhere, nationwide on election day. Some precintcs in Philadelphia, for example, on large elections report close to 100% turnout, which is possible, but it isn't consistent with reality in those precicnts. That is, how can an electorate so civilly minded and informed allow itself to lag behind in money, resoruces, infrastructure, etc, at the local and state level? Seems to me such a vibrant electorate would scare the heck out an an elected official - yet, the same faces keep getting elected, comfortably, and the status quo remians the same.

Impossible? Certainly not? Prima Facie evidence of chicanery? Not necessarily. Worth a closer look? No question. Same with the case of the new machines in GA.

I do see a strange reasoning in this article - just a basic unwillingness to accept that sometimes a party wins, sometimes one loses. Bush did a great job in bringing national issues to some select races nationwide - he cashed in his popularity and helped his hand-picked people win. Bush won Georgia with a comfy margin in 2000 - it's not unreasonable to think he would have clout with the voters of GA in 2002.

I don't see why you consider the story as clearly having traction though - how can you come to that conclusion when the story appears in a newspaper thousands of miles away, yet most people in Georgia haven't made much an issue about this? 'Traction' means genuine interest by the electorate, not newspaper editors and tv producers stateside. The latest bust is the CIA leak, which if you watched the news, had 'traction,' but clearly people had no interest in a complicated and convoluted situation, even though the leak as a story is legitimate.

It didn't stick on Bush and likely won't. That's not to say it won't at a later date, or some other scandal won't flare. 'Yellowcake' had traction on the talking head shows but the typical voter has no idea about it, and no interest in learning.

Over at DU I noticed similar dismay over the recall election results. To some people, the fact that a republican won the election handily was an impossibility - and evidence that the election was fixed. That's downright nutty, to be honest. If the 'fix' was indeed on, why didn't the conspiracy help Simon win just 10 months ago? If indeed the fix was in, why didn't the party GOP stall the election till they could use the new voting machines, which the suggestion is the GOP has the fix in, anyway? If that mindset is accepted, real sentiment wouldn't matter a lick. So it doesn't add up, on several levels.

In other words, a view that 'when we win, the people have spoken, when we lose, there must have been some subversion of the democratic process' is myopic and troublesome. In politics, sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. Accepting that is important in displaying emotional maturity. Denial isn't a river in Egypt, you know.

'Traction' sometimes takes time. This ain't traction. It may end up being traction, wait and see.

[Broadside Joe]

I really don't like that either. As was stated in another post here, I would much rather have paper than a system that could be hacked. All that being said, I still want to know why these votes were thrown out and nobody even made a big deal out of it. (I bet I know the answer)

[ambrose]

What sort of identification do you need to vote in NZ?

In California, absolutely no identification is required to vote. In fact, it is AGAINST THE LAW for a poll worker to ask for identification. You simply say "I am John Doe", and they find your name on the list and hand you a ballot.

Similarly, no identification is required to register. In CA, we simply put our names/addresses on a postcard. No identification is required. People have been known to register their dogs and cats to vote.

The worst abuse is illegal alien voting.

[HitmanLV]

The reason the polls in GA were off is they used faulty voter turnout information. They underestimated, as they often do, Republican turn out and underestimated 'rat apathy...especially the extremely anemic black turnout.

This is very true and can't be stressed enough. When the results don't jive with the polls, it's not the results that are immediately suspect, it's the polls that are discredited. To give the polls too much credit is tricky at best, and troublesome at worst.

Indeed, this mindset gives the polls to much credit (since after all it accepts that the actual election results are suspect, not the poll). If the underlying premise is suspiction in vote tallying, it almost completely ignores something naturally more suspect and not more easily prone to innacuracy and even fraud: the pre-election polls.

[Fledermaus]

So you admit Gore's lawyers got almost 1,100 LEGAL military votes thrown out in Florida in 2000?

His laywers intimidated county Democratic hacks to illegally declare those votes invalid by threatening them with their pitiful county jobs. And what was their reason? That they "weren't postmarked" by the due date. But military votes are exempt from postmarks since they DON'T GO TO POST OFFICES and as long as those absentee ballots arrive in those offices before election day, if not a few days after, they are valid.

Can you admit that as a matter of fact? In a court of law that's called stipulating to the evidence. But since Bush won Florida (after more than 3 recounts), those votes were never added back into his total which would increase his win from 579 to over 2,000 votes.

[ambrose]

why do you keep banning this guy?

[MEG33]

Perhaps they found his ISP matched a disruptor that keeps signing in with a different name?

[ThirstyMan]

What is this article suggesting? That pollsters are always right? If this premise were accepted as an operational truism, we could eliminate the need for our entire voting system! Why should we bother with voting? Let's just have the liberal media pollsters tell us who won.
Obviously research based on the false circuitous premise that their research is always right, will come to even more false conclusions! Puh-lese!

The integrity of any voting system needs more than a bunch of red-faced pollsters to legitimately conclude that the election was rigged.
You've never noticed the bias of a pollster?
You've never suspected poll results?
I've seen polls used to shape political opinion plenty!
I would never trust their flexible art as a basis for crying foul.
This is one more of what has become an expected but tiring refrain from the Democrat losers.

[ambrose]

Well, next time don't tell them you're from the DU.

To be fair, the DU would ban anyone admitting to be a Freeper.

[sandpit]

My mom and stepdad live just outside of Atlanta in Conyers, GA. Previously in discussing politics, my union truck driver stepdad would be railing about big greedy companies, preserving union jobs, etc. My mom would be saying something about uninsured poor people, evil rich people, etc.

This year she said "I don't think the rich people should be paying all the taxes". My stepdad said "These unions are getting crookeder all the time". I about fell out of my chair. I guarantee you they aren't the only folks in GA that have started thinking that way before the 2002 elections.


They are seeing their towns overrun by illegals from Mexico. Theft, burglary, DUI deaths, and other things like that have gone through the roof since the illegals moved into the Atlanta area.

THAT'S why GA went Republican this time.

[AHerald]

Exit polling data in these races mirrored the final election results. Unless the voting software can also generate flesh and blood voters who walk out of voting booths and then tell pollsters that they just voted for a Republican candidate, there is no story here.

The Left can't simply accept the fact that voters might actually vote for a Republican over a Democrat; so they latch on to nutty conspiracy theories instead of confronting the growing reality that they are a political movement in decline, bereft of new ideas and increasingly unable to connect with the average voter.

[Coral Snake]

ZZZZOOOOOTTTTT!!!!!

"Midguard Serpent" of the VIKING KITTIES!!!"

[dawn53]

IMHO, the swing toward Republicans candidates can easily be explained. Don't blame the voting machines, or the methods, blame September 11th, 2001.

[Coral Snake]

I'm sorry but haven't you seen my post? The DU troll's been ZOTED.

[sweetliberty]

The author obviously doesn't have the knowledge (or is choosing to ignore it) of the serious problems that exist in this country with voter fraud, which incidentally is perpetrated by 99.9% democRATs.

Opinion polls reflect the opinions of those chosen to respond (often carefully chosen) so are not a good indicator in many cases of the opinion of the larger populous.

Admittedly, I haven't read the entire thing. I don't have time at the moment. I will finish it later.

[Prodigal Son]

By way of declaration of interest I am the editor of the Scoop.co.nz website in New Zealand and was involved in breaking this story. I also confess to being a regular poster over at DU (but I hope that my being a Kiwi - neutral territory presumably - might allow me the liberty of participating here too... I guess that will be up to the mods.)

Posting that bit wasn't your best move.