Computer Glitch gives Kerry an extra 8,400 votes in Florida

Orlando Sentinel ^

[BigRedState]

Sometimes the problem is that votes were miscounted. That's what happened, officials say, with precinct-by-precinct results posted on the Orange County elections office Web site showing that Democrat John Kerry beat Republican President Bush by 9,227 votes in Orange.

That was off by 8,400 votes. Officials working for Bill Cowles, the Orange elections supervisor, said the correct totals, available elsewhere on the site, showed that Kerry bested Bush in the county by only 827 votes.

[Mo1]

No thanks .. I had enough of listening to my one sister today about the election

I'm thinking on Thanksgiving, I'm going spend the day in the basement with the kids watching TV .. I'm in no mood to listen to that BS again

[StJacques]

"It clearly says that Kerry got an extra 8400 votes."

Where does it say that? In the article excerpt, not the title, which is not the title of the online article, because I have that loaded.

[BigRedState]

Democrat John Kerry beat Republican President Bush by 9,227 votes in Orange.

That was off by 8,400 votes. Officials working for Bill Cowles, the Orange elections supervisor, said the correct totals, available elsewhere on the site, showed that Kerry bested Bush in the county by only 827 votes.

9227 was reported for Kerry but he only got 827.

[Political Junkie Too]

The cause of the error, Orange officials said Thursday, was a software program that could not tabulate more than 32,767 votes in a single precinct.

This is such a basic error that it is akin to NASA losing a space probe because of conversion errors between meters and feet. 32,767 (or 32,768 minus 1) is one of those magic numbers in computers -- a power of 2, or 2^15 to be exact. Somebody didn't make their data field big enough.

What were they thinking?

-PJ

[nopardons]

Print out ALL President Bush threads from FR,gives them to your sister and tell here that THIS is your response,and then go watch T.V. with the kids. :-)

We'll be with the kids,so there will be NO nay sayers at our Thanksgiving table.

[chitownfreeper]

Let's demand a recount. Seriously. Bury the bastards once and for all.

Irony is not dead.

[BigSkyFreeper]

That's for certain! The ones complaining the loudest are the ones who wanted the system in the first place.

[StJacques]

Yes BigRedState, but the "correct" totals are that "Kerry bested Bush in the county by only 827 votes."

Given my knowledge of English that says that the Kerry lead shrunk from 9,227 votes to a "correct" margin of 827 votes. Am I reading this right or is it late and I need to go to bed?

[CFC__VRWC]

There is no substitute for clear writing and this article is one of the worst examples I've seen.

What, a poorly written article in the Orlando Slant-inel? Say it ain't so! This paper is such a joke - they really are way too busy pushing their far left agenda to bother with such niceties as using proper English when writing their stories.

[TheRedSoxWinThePennant]

I wonder if Olberman will mention this on Monday? /sarcasm

[zeebee]

Who is this Kerry person everyone keeps mentioning?

[LizardQueen]

It's too bad that our elected officials have not shown greater competence in establishing accounting standards and procedures to avoid this kind of thing. These irregularities only give the left the chance to discredit the election, our candidates, and the veracity of the entire system

I completely agree with you. I don't really care which side it's happening for, it just really bothers me that it's still happening at all, particularly after the fiasco that the 2000 election was.
It's just ridiculous - our technology is top-notch, we can put a man on the moon, but we can't count a bunch of scraps of paper accurately?

LQ

[BigSkyFreeper]

I'm thinking on Thanksgiving, I'm going spend the day in the basement with the kids watching TV ..

Or you could spend part of the day here at FR! :) Put some cartoon movie in the VCR and sneak off to the computer!

[Hazzardgate]

What did she say? That Bush stole Ohio?

[BigRedState]

Your correct. a Glitch GAVE him 8400 votes and they corrected it... Its to show the Glitches can happen on both sides. Everyone went nutz when bush got 4,000 extra in ohio that they corrected

[StJacques]

"Who is this Kerry person everyone keeps mentioning?"

zeebee, when you're older and you no longer have nightmares we'll tell you a story.

[MohawkDrums]

I agree. We really need to reform the system so that nobody can question the outcomes. If we had a competent system in place in 2000, we would not have put up with four years of people questioning Bush's legitimacy. It is disturbing to see errors of thousands of votes, regardless of who the error favored (and it's not much consolation that the errors are caught). I'm trying to step back from this a bit as a partisan and simply consider the problem itself. Why don't we have reliable counts? We won't be lucky enough in every election to have a wide margin, especially in the midterm elections when races are closer and turnout is lower.

[StJacques]

"Your correct. a Glitch GAVE him 8400 votes and they corrected it..."

So then I can still read. Whew! Thought I was losing brain cells there for a moment.

[spinestein]

Is it wrong for a man to want to count votes?

[Mo1]

Actually Ohio was the one thing that didn't come up in the screaming match we had.