Diebold/ES&S and Sequoia

We'll have to wait and see

It is looking terribly close, and since the Democrats are hanging on to the last vote, it does seem like a recount is coming.

Which will probably mean lawyers coming out of the woodwork everywhere. Oh, joy.

Sorry, but I think Bush will just about squeak through. The laughable thing is that this time the Republicans are claiming they've won on the popular vote, when in 2000 they hadn't meas madra on it re: Gore.

At least this election has seen a huge voter turnout, which means people were interested and involved. Just a pity it's four more years of the same - but hey, why change horses mid-Apocalypse?

Oh, well: looking semi-reasonable on the job front for you, P@L, at least. So do you like the place and do they seem not loony? Hard to tell from one day's probation, I know, but they asked you back, which is a good sign. So whatever you did or do, it couldn't be as bad as the classmate of mine who did his six months' work experience in a factory and, with one press of the wrong button, sent £20,000 worth of a batch literally down the drain (and this was back in the 80s, when £20,000 was A Lot Of Money).

Good luck and continuing to pray for you

Deiseach

I agree that I'm not going to concede until every last vote has been counted and litigated (and perhaps not even then), but I have to admit the possibility that the Republicans just did a better job pulling their base in FL/OH to the polls.

Has anyone broken the exit polls down by county, and checked to see if the counties with electronic voting machines have a significantly higher Bush margin, compared with exit polls from the same county, than counties with other methods?

I've told people on dKos to do what you said

circa 4 am I posted it, I don't know how many listened, but there is a strong rising] RECOUNT movement with that kind of detailed focus, plus local insights and breakdowns.

What I have done, for my own state, is to do town by town that way, and it's shockingly clear that the rural poor and the urban poor in NH voted in their own best interest - along with just enough of the enlightened wealthy to make the difference.

But the expat Meocons, the Massholes, and other outsiders with their lake homes, and commutes to Boston in their SUVS - they all voted Republican. And there are a *lot* of them, who have moved up in the past 15 years especially, displacing the original inhabitants.

This is, btw, EXACTLY the opposite of what people were anticipating on dKos, they were saying that NH was growing more blue due to all the 'liberals" from MA moving up here.

I am coloring the chart, in photoshop. I don't know how long it will take me, but it is DRAMATICALLY CLEAR this is the case.

Never again

Irrespective of how this turns out, it is going to be absolutely necessary to make sure that it can never happen again. If your state is going to permit electronic voting machines at all, please send a letter to your state representatives asking for voter verified paper audit trails on the machines. We managed to successfully lobby for this in California with SB 1438 (http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_1401-1450/sb_1438_bill_20040927_chaptered.html), and it is essential to have in the entire nation if we're going to trust our future elections.

In the event that Kerry did, in fact, lose, we have a very long road ahead. We need to teach people to think for themselves and defuse the hatred that Republicans have learned to use as a wedge.

silence

Impeachment... now there's a delicious thought. Though the problem with that is of course who is next in line for power...

I hope, I truly hope, that Kerry can pull through, but I'm not at all sanguine about the prospect.

Some people are more equal that others ... or some people think that's how it should be

As a white homeowner member-of-the-privileged-class, I'm sure my vote got counted.

As for the browns and the reds and the poor and the otherwise undesirables ... I wonder what their voting ratio is? Way back When, a slave = 0.60 of a person (though the slave didn't get to vote).

*headdesk*

Not necessarily

I think that Diebold does it by proportions, not race of voter, and that's how it's looking, in terms of hacking or shifting the votes, it's going to hinge on the electronic machines. Did you have e-voting? That's what is in Ohio and Florida.

Re: Not necessarily

We have punchcard, possibly Diebold, and I made sure I had no hanging chads ... and I compared the hole numbers on the card with the numbers in the booklet.

And most of who I voted for won: town & county went Democratic. The House seat went to the entrenched Rethuglican (talks about the "sancity of marriage", doesn't agree with gay rights, has married and divorced 3 times), and Senate when to Obama (handily) and President went to Kerry.

Remember Joe Hill:
"Don't mourn for me -- Organize!
Joe Hill's last words before his execution, Nov. 19, 1915
and also:
"Tomorrow I expect to make a trip to the planet Mars and, if so, will immediately commence to organize the Mars canal workers into the I.W.W. and we will sing the good old songs so loud that the learned star-gazers will once and for all get positive proof that the planet Mars is really inhabited....I have nothing to say for myself, only that I have always tried to make this earth a little bit better. "

Joe Hill to Solidarity editor Ben Williams (written while awaiting his execution)

courtesy of Red Robin

I can't speak to Ohio, as I don't live there...but I DO live in Florida. I went out, did my civic duty, and voted. I never saw an exit poller. Never saw one at any of the other precincts that I drove past on my way to/from work. What I *DID* get was blitzkrieged by the GOP in the weeks leading up to the election as they tried desparately to get me to go out and vote.

Exit polls are all well and good, but they're only an accurate measurement of results if EVERYONE is polled. Older people (a signifigant portion of the FL population) don't tend to discuss how they voted with strangers.

There's also the disproportionately large number of absentee balloting done here (a number made larger lately by various early voting drives such as True Majority's 'The Computer Ate My Vote' campaign). Couple that with the fact that for some reason, people tend to forget that the state continues west of Tallahassee (and is predominately Republican there, to boot).

While there MAY have been tampering/malfunctions/screwups involved, for the moment, I'm going to choose to apply Occam's Razor until better evidence comes to light.

As for Ohio? Eh, who the hell knows? From the rather muddled reports I've heard so far, the whole damn state's election was so fubared that I fear it'll be months before we find out ANYTHING meaningful.

But why no paper backup?

If having a papertrail will reassure voters who are sceptical, why would Florida officials pick a system that doesn't? Unless the officials have a different priority.

It's the past history *in addition* to the mismatch of exit polls vs results that makes me question the honesty of the system. Which is my "Occam's Razor". Considering past events I believe it's the officials that have to prove to the public that the count is honest, not the other way around.

Re: But why no paper backup?

Sorry for taking so long to reply, work issues have been heavy this week.

What past history are we talking about, here? If you're referring to the 2000 debacle, then I don't see the justification for laying the blame on Fla voting officials. They had a hell of a lot less to do with the massively FUBARed 2000 election than most people think.

As for the touch-screen voting machines...well, I honestly don't trust them all that much myself. However, since we have intelligent voting machines on this end of the state that actually do leave a paper trail, it's not so much an issue for me.