Posted on 11/22/2004 10:43:29 AM PST by b4its2late
A study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, has found that irregularities associated with electronic voting in this month's election may have awarded as much as 260,000 votes to President Bush in three Florida counties.
The study, led by sociology Professor Michael Hout, found that e-voting increased Bush's advantage over Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties to a clearer margin of victory over the edge he held in the 2000 election against Vice President Al Gore.
Depending on the method used in counting the votes, the researchers found that e-voting in the three counties gave Bush either a 130,000- or 260,000-vote advantage. Bush, the Republican incumbent, beat Kerry by more than 377,000 votes in Florida.
In essence, the researchers are saying that Bush got more votes than they would have expected, based on the study's projections, and attributed the discrepancy to "irregularities" associated with electronic voting machines.
"Compared to counties with paper ballots, counties with electronic voting machines were significantly more likely to show increases in support for President Bush between 2000 (election) and 2004," the study said.
In reaching its findings, the researchers used a statistical technique called "multiple-regression analysis," which considered a number of factors to establish an expected result in all 67 Florida counties. With the exception of the three counties, all the others followed the established patterns.
The U.C. Berkeley researchers used the same analysis on the Ohio vote, which won the election for Bush, and found nothing unusual.
The study took into account variables such as number of voters, median income, Hispanic population, change in voter turnout between the 2000 election and 2004, support for Bush in the 2000 election and support for Robert Dole, the Republican candidate in the 1996 election.
"When one controls for these factors, the association between electronic voting and increased support for President Bush is impossible to overlook," the study said of the three Florida counties. "The data show with 99.0 percent certainty that a county's use of electronic voting is associated with a disproportionate increase in votes for President Bush."
The researchers also said they could be 99.9 percent sure that the findings are not attributable to chance.
Bob Cohen, senior vice president of the Information Technology Association of America, an industry group based in Arlington, Va., that has been a major promoter of e-voting, said Friday the factors considered in the Berkeley study did not set an accurate baseline for expected voter behavior.
"We don't think that this is a case where you really can model behavior of voters in the voting booth," Cohen said. "There are all kinds of factors that cause voters to vote a particular way " the economy, the war on terrorism, and in that geographic area (heavily Jewish), Israel and U.S. relations with Israel."
Election Systems Inc. and Sequoia Voting Systems built the e-voting machines used in Florida.
Right.
I remember reading that Kerry's victories in the "Blue states" tended to be narrower than Bush's victories in the "Red states."
Maybe we should recount the Blue states too - Bush might have won all 50 states!
:)
Tell you what -- despite any bias that mey be inherent in this author or these investigators, I'll say right now that I don't trust any e-voting alternatives, especially those that don't have a paper trail tracking all the votes. I'm way too familiar with security and networking issues to trust any device out there right now. It's not at all unbelievable to me that any error isn't possible, even if you discount any deliberate effort to defraud.
Berkeley bunkum. http://americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4038
"I don't trust any e-voting alternatives, especially those that don't have a paper trail tracking all the votes. "
I agree. Just because this one came out in our favor doesnt mean it won't be a problem used against us in upcoming elections. It should be dealt with now.
(Batman-announcer voice) What's THIS? A super-leftist group of professors in an uber-leftist university, nestled in a leftist state.... has problems with the results of the election in which the left was crushed?????
Stay tuned to this Bat-channel for more Bat-groaning, more Bat-whining, and more Bat-gnashing-of-teeth!
Thanks... Now I've got more to read it and no doubt this article that I posted is just what I thought..... Smoke and mirrors.
Thanks. Good. I missed it. This was not posted before I hope, right? I did a couple searches.....
And his conclusion is.....? Does this mean Bushies are spoofing the electronic ballots or the dems are spoofing the paper ballots?
I've seen this story before, but the debunking story is new to me.
LoL! In other-words, "left still crying in major leftist University campuses while marxist professors devise way to crunch numbers so democrats get more votes"
It's amazing. Democrats tried every way possible to cheat, vote 5 times etc. and they turn around and say Republicans
"stole" the election? ahahahahaha! What a bunch of loosers.
In other words, Bush voters turned out in greater than expected numbers in 2004. No wait, that can't be it, it must be the electronic voting machines!
I was just thinking how I had just seen a thread debunking this story- then someone posts another thread supporting it...
ugh.
. . . suggesting that the measurement in the electronic system in 2004 overstated the Bush vote or that the measurement in the paper ballot system in 2000 understated the Bush vote.Given that the issue arises in a county in which the Election Officials are Democrats . . .
I agree. And don't think for a second that there aren't many people in either party who are willing to hack into a system.
And there were clear errors in favor of BOTH parties. Why give them a reason to doubt the election results?
There's no reason not to have paper receipts.
Maybe this is one issue we can work on a left-right coalition on. Unlike many on the right, I think we should try to work together on as many issues as possible (consolidation of the media, civil liberties, reducing the deficit...)
Maybe then we can work together on bigger issues.
Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics, and Berkley Statistics
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1286018/posts
....Once I correct for this shift, the "electronic voting machine effect" disappears.In response to this, I wrote a paper [html, pdf] that shows that the model used by the Berkley team is flawed. Specifically, the model fails to account for demographic shifts between 2000 and 2004. In the four years, on average (across counties), the number of registered Republicans increased by 29% whereas the number of registered Democrats increased only by 5%. In three counties (Baker, Gilchrist, and Liberty), the number of registered Republicans increased by more than 90%. Once I correct for this shift, the "electronic voting machine effect" disappears. My conclusion is that there is no statistical evidence of a relationship between the use of electronic voting machines and the change in the percentage of votes cast for Bush." .....
(excerpt)
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