Talk:2004 United States presidential election controversy and irregularities

For a previous debate over the deletion of this article see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/2004 U.S. presidential election controversy.

For archived discussion of this page, please see:

• Archive1 - November 5 2004 - November 9 2004
• Archive2 - November 9 2004 - November 12 2004
• Archive3 - November 12 2004 - November 17 2004

If stuff under new has been added please add "- Added" to the title", same with any current passages that have been removed, "- Removed" in the title.

Last thing we need to do, let us aim to archive all entries that already have been added both in New Passages and Possible Passages for Inclusion within the next few days, if you see something that is already on the page, please help out by putting " - Added" to the end of the title of the section. --kizzle 21:50, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Discussions of current passages

Template (Do not edit)

Passage

" Bush so should have lost the election because there totally was voter fraud!"

Remedy: Remove / Change (Paste new like below if needed)

New Passage

" There are some who say there were data irregularities in the election results."

Discussion

Blah. --kizzle 20:59, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

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Editing the introduction

I've rewritten the first paragraph (now two). I thought it important to distinguish two broad classes of controversy: Even some sources that dismiss the idea that Kerry really won, like the New York Times, have been critical of many aspects of the process (inconsistent rules from one state to another, the difficulties many people encountered in registering and voting, etc.). Another change is that "the 2004 election" isn't the same as "the 2004 presidential election". The rewrite includes wikilinks to the articles on the Congressional elections as well. For example, the charges based on analysis of the absentee ballots in North Carolina referred to the votes for the Senate seat as well as the presidential race.

What's now the third paragraph consists of opposing quotations about exit polls, with the context not well explained. Exit polls are only one issue here. To help get the reader into the overall picture more quickly, I think those quotations should be moved down to where exit polls are discussed in more detail. The rest of the introduction should list the major issues. I think the current narrative style is too pokey ("There were reports.... There were also reports.... There may have been.... Another issue is...."). It would work better to use the bullet style. The best way to give the reader a quick overview would be to combine the current paragraph with the "Examples of issues" section but to list issues without all the detail. That would come in the body of the article as each subject was developed. For example, the first sentence ("There were reports of problems with and controversy over electronic and optical-scan voting machines.") and the first two bullet points under "Examples" could all be replaced with the single bullet point "Accuracy and reliability of voting machines, especially those employing electronic voting methods".

The way it stands now, I think the article starts right out bombarding the reader with too much detail. People who've been deeply involved in editing this article, and who have immersed themselves in the torrent of what's been in the media on this subject, have to keep in mind the problem of making the material accessible to people who don't have that background. JamesMLane 06:40, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I edited it as well, a bit more detail describing the groups involved in the issues. Thanks! -- RyanFreisling @ 06:53, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm leery of more detail in the intro -- my first impulse in writing was to name the presidential candidates who've raised questions (Nader, Badnarik and Cobb, AFAIK), but I decided that should come later on. Nevertheless, the only one of your edits I take serious exception to is the phrase "It has been likewise asserted that...." This blurs the distinction between, on the one hand, the people saying that Kerry was robbed, and, on the other hand, the larger number who think Bush won legitimately but that there's a lot about elections that needs improving. As I mentioned, the New York Times is in the latter category; see [1] for a listing of the Times articles and editorials on the subject (may require free registration). It's not POV to characterize people as "critics" if they say that election problems gave the Presidency to the wrong guy. That's a criticism, and a significantly sharper one than saying that lines were too long or different states' standards too disparate. JamesMLane 07:50, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I disagree that Democrats are the complainants because that's an assumption as to the political beliefs of the range of individuals involved. The Green and Libertarian candidates are about to request a recount, for example. Those who question the irregularities are not Democrats 1:1. Lemme think about 'critics'.

Okay, I know what I think about 'critics'. The outcome of the election is not the only motivating factor for those 'pressing the issue' (as i think it reads). If these irregularities include violations of the Law, they are not critics of the outcome, but whistleblowers, investigators, etc. etc. Critics implies a value judgement about the 'proper' outcome of the election. If truly objective, the objections could be on an incident-by-incident basis.-- RyanFreisling @ 08:18, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand your point about "critics". It doesn't say anything about their motivation. Some critics are in the first category described in the text: They think there were screwups (irregularities, illegalities, whatever) that should be exposed. They may think that even exposing all those points wouldn't shift the election to Kerry. Some of them may even prefer Bush, but feel duty-bound to work for fair elections, let the chips fall where they may. But I used "critics" for the second category, the people who think that the official counts produced the wrong result -- not wrong in the sense that re-(s)electing Bush will be disastrous for the country, but wrong in the sense that Bush didn't legitimately win. I don't see a problem with calling those people "critics". JamesMLane

(Hope you don't mind me inserting this here between your comments) I think it's that there are (as an example) those who are concerned about possible wrongdoing, and who are working to prosecute those incidents. They aren't 'critics'. They're not criticizing the process. They're working to determine if laws were broken. I think 'critics' is therefore incomplete. -- RyanFreisling @ 08:18, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC) RyanFreisling

You're right that some people are concerned about possible wrongdoing. The sentence refers, however, to other people, who've gone beyond that. At this point there's a significant body of opinion that says there definitely was wrongdoing (which, for the more charitable among them, might include foulups arising from incompetence as well as thefts arising from dishonesty). The NPOV policy permits (in fact, requires) the reporting of that POV. People holding that view qualify as "critics". Still, if you have a problem with the word, we can avoid it. What about "More controversial was the charge that these issues might have affected the reported outcome...."? The key, to my mind, is to make clear that there are some people calling for improvements who don't sign on to the view that Kerry really won. JamesMLane 11:45, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't agree that the idea that an election can be overturned if vote counts are revised due to irregularity is more controversial than any other issue around the irregularities. It's a consequence of the rules of the election. Are you saying that the idea that there were some irregularities, etc. is one thing, but the idea that they would impact the election is more controversial? If so, that seems like unnecessary gymnastics. Did I understand you correctly? -- RyanFreisling @ 12:20, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As for the concession, upon reflection, I think that, instead of "Democrats", I should have written "Some of Kerry's supporters criticized him for doing so...." You're right that some Greens, Libertarians, etc. think there were improprieties. The specific point I had in mind here, though, was that some people who supported Kerry felt let down by his concession. Anyway, the generic "Some", without elaboration, isn't inaccurate, so perhaps that's the best way to go, at least for now. JamesMLane 08:07, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I do not like the introduction in its current form, especially the added text. The version after I created the introduction section header was better than current in my opinion, it's all over the place now and clarity is rather poor. May clean up or mostly revert now. Zen Master 09:51, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Having reread what you reverted to, I still think it's less accurate and less less clear, especially to a reader coming to this subject with no background. You said in one of your edit summaries that the "irregularities" is the essence of the issue. In the context of the text you reverted to, where it's "data irregularities", the term has for me the connotation of referring primarily to discrepancies between exit poll results and the official counts. If people are improperly prevented from registering, that doesn't seem like a "data irregularity". In terms of the effects of the controversy arising from this election, though, I think changes in voter registration rules are a quite possible outcome.

Right now the parts of this article dealing with electronic voting, and the reasons to suspect it, have received extensive attention compared with all the other issues. I don't blame people for working on what interests them. I just don't think that the phrase "data irregularities" has to be trotted out in the very first sentence. We need to give more recognition to the substantial body of opinion that dismisses all these maps and alleged statistical analyses with a snort of derision, but says that, for example, many of the states have completely messed up their conduct of elections, and the federal government should take over, or at least assume a much more active role in setting and enforcing uniform national standards. This argument arises from concerns about registration, absentee ballots, long lines, etc., as well as about the secret software for the machines. JamesMLane 11:45, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The introduction that Zen Master reverted to, along with the "Examples of issues" section, has these problems, IMO:

1. Not setting the overall context of the controversies (too much focus on the EVM issue).

2. Jumping right into giving detailed evidence, which should be deferred to the appropriate sections of the article.

3. Not NPOV because of the heavy preponderance of evidence for one side in this initial portion. Of course, balancing it with countervailing evidence would only exacerbate the first two problems.

See generally Wikipedia:Lead section and Wikipedia:Establish context about how an article should begin.

Along the lines of this comment and those I made earlier, I've written a proposed new lead. It would replace the current "Introduction" and "Examples of issues" section. As the lead section, it wouldn't need a heading. The major change is to set the context by identifying the issues, without trying to elaborate on the supporting (or opposing) evidence. I did the first part of this change, but Zen Master reverted. Rather than get into an edit war, I'm putting the full version at User:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead. Changes to this draft that are consistent with its overall approach can be made directly at User:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead and/or discussed at User talk:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead. Comments about which of the two overall approaches is better should go here (i.e., the main article's talk page), where they'll be more accessible to everyone. JamesMLane 12:29, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The current version reads much better, has less POV problems, and is less sloppy than before but there is definitely more work that needs doing. We mention in the introduction the best counter analysis there is against the entire article, I don't see how we can any more POV balanced than that?? I agree with you about the examples of issues section, that needs major overhauling. I combined the list of complaints into that list of issues section to eliminate redundancy, now we need to make a pass at POV cleanup there.

The way I look at the page is the entire article is a counter criticism of official election results, this article is the balance of POV that the other election aticles lack. Though, having said that, there are definitely some areas that need clean up. The article jumps right in and gives evidence so people are not quick to say "this article does not belong on wikipedia", remember most of the people that edit the page have also had to spend much effort just keeping the page alive and defending its existence. Because of that such a tone is to be expected in the article and is certainly not a violation of wikipedia policy (if it is please reference the violation).

Also, please list specific problems you have with the article, referring to guidelines without citing specific problems on the page as you did was not helpful. We should focus on the specifics. Zen Master 14:47, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Update: I made some detailed comments about James' proposed intro text below it here User:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead Zen Master 15:12, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've found it more helpful in other articles to have the main "sandbox" page consist only of the specific article text that's being considered, while the normal process of discussion occurs on the sandbox's talk page. Therefore, I've moved Zen Master's detailed comments to User talk:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead and will answer them there. JamesMLane 17:39, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Response to Zen Master's more general comments above:

• I agree that your combination of the "Examples of issues" and "List of complaints" sections was a good idea. We need to go further and have one quick introductory list that gives the overview of the scope of the entire post-election controversy.
• I definitely do not agree with the idea that this article should somehow balance a POV in other articles. If other articles are biased, they should be fixed. Not every reader will come here as well. Unfortunately, though, the officially reported results are the operative ones unless and until they're reversed (administratively or by a court). It's not bias for the articles on the elections to report those results in detail, while giving only a quick summary and wikilink to the criticisms.
• It follows from the foregoing that this article should be as NPOV as possible. It should fairly present the different criticisms, with their supporting evidence, but should also fairly present the opposing positions, with their supporting evidence.
• Let's not overreact to the VfD listing. I've described the listing as "foolish". I understand the tendency you mention to edit the article so as to resist such attacks on it. Remember, though, that most people who read this article won't be hard-core Wikipedians approaching it from the standpoint of whether it belongs here. Most readers will be people who've seen some stuff in the media about election issues and want our help in getting a handle on the controversy.
• The most important policy here is from Wikipedia:Lead section: "The lead should briefly summarize the article. It is even more important here than for the rest of the article that the text is accessible, and some consideration should be given to creating interest in reading the whole article (see Wikipedia:Summary style and Wikipedia:News style)." That page goes on to mention making the material "absolutely clear to the nonspecialist". The version you've reverted to doesn't mention some of the controversies that will interest readers, like absentee ballot problems. It's pitched more toward readers who already have some knowledge of the dispute. An example is the use of the term "data irregularities" in the first sentence. My proposal is that the lead section should be at a more introductory level. "Imagine yourself as a high school student in the country farthest away from your own, but who has managed to learn English reasonably well." (Wikipedia:Establish context)
• My proposal for the lead (see User:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead) omits the specific evidence, but obviously that shouldn't be omitted from the article. Any of the details that I removed that aren't also covered later in the article should be added in their respective sections. JamesMLane 18:47, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• Listing the page on VfD was just one hurdle we've had to overcome.
• You have not commented yet on my specific comments against that text? Kerry conceding should not mentioned, massive fraud should not be limited in scope because of margin, more than Ohio should be mentioned and data irrgularity needs to be mentioned the most often including exit polls as that is the master key to the article without which it would not be relevant. Also, the tone I don't like and can be improved.
• Voting machines have to be mentioned in detail
• Would you like me to just massively fix your proposed text?
• The article is all about evidence, more of it should be in the introduction
• The list of examples section is below the introduction, let's focus our effects there as we seem to be in agreement about its quality.
• The size of the introduction is likely to be in direct proportion to the size of the article, the current 3 paragraph introduction is brief (I think your introduction is longer than current actually).
• Introductory tone for newbies is fine but you've failed to capture the important parts that follow in the article, I strongly do not agree with that text in its current form.
• Some attempt should be given to following the order of contents as far as introducing what will follow.
• You are doing more than removing evidence from the lead, you've limited the article's scope in some areas and increased it in others (wrongly so).
• Note the "current event in progress" header at the top, I think that alone allays many of your concerns about what the introduction should be like.
• The introduction is too bland.
• You can say that senate, house and local races were questioned without out saying "there was generally less attention paid to", that is simply bad style.
• "More controversial was the charge that these issues might have affected the reported outcome" This is the main point of the article, not the secondary, should not be the second sentence.
• "improperties" --> "irregularities"
• needs to mention blackboxvoting.org
• You've gutted all mentioning of statisticians from the intro, that is a travesty and I can't agree. Again, the main argument of the controversy is from statistical analysis.
• Please note that "among the issues raised were" does not list 75% of what the article is about (exit polls, registration, statistical analysis, charts and graphs, voting machines). Compare your list with the TOC. My list there are the key issues in the article, not long lines and voter suppression.
• If you had read the talk page discussions of old you would have noticed we agreed to focus the article's scope on exactly the kind of allegations that had the potential to affect the outcome of the election (statistical analysis that shows exit poll data was correct in non-swing states yet inexplicably wrong elsewhere, for one thing). We should not get bogged down by he said she said accusations of election day impropriety, we should encourage and report on independent statistical analysis.
• Zen Master 19:37, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As far as I know, I've read all the "talk page discussions of old". I don't have time to answer each of your specific comments right now, but most of them would be covered by what I just wrote at User talk:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead: that you and I have two completely different articles in mind. I'd like to know what would be your ideal title for the article that would focus on what you see as the key issues, i.e., for the article you described in your sandbox comment: "the article strives to be just a mathematical analysis...." For my part, I think there definitely needs to be an article in which long lines, voter suppression, registration issues, absentee ballots etc. are key issues. The article I want would, as I mentioned, give considerable attention to points that are being raised that aren't claimed to have affected the Bush versus Kerry outcome but that are cited by some critics as matters of election procedure that need to be changed. The article you want is reflected more closely in the current TOC of this one -- a TOC that, as I said on the talk page, I don't agree with. That leads me to think more strongly that we should just have two articles. For the one I envision, "2004 U.S. election voting controversies" is a good title, with maybe "2004 U.S. election data irregularities" for the other one? Obviously, they'd need to be cross-linked, and each of them linked from U.S. presidential election, 2004. JamesMLane 19:50, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The reference to Cameron Kerry has been there a while, but there is still no link to affirm that he is investigating any claims - shouldn't this part of the sentence be either verified or removed?

Dubious sources

(please do not archive this section off the talk page)

This is a list of sources which should not be used in this article, as they cannot provide verifiable information.

They can be used, just not in an absolute context. We can say that people from those sources are making the claims they are making, we just can't report those claims as gospel truth. Shane King 03:55, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

http://www.ustogether.org (AKA TruthisBetter.org)

• It is trivally easy for anyone to write content for that website, and no verification of identity is required. Take a look at this if you need proof - http://www.ustogether.org/database/ObjSubPg.php?article_id=296&info_category=CHALLENGE . -- Netoholic @ 00:06, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)
  • Who would ever trust a website that can be edited by anyone? Rhobite 00:19, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)
    • The distinction is that Wikipedia can also be edited and verified by everyone. The ustogether data is just some unknown person's handywork. -- Netoholic @ 00:29, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)
      • The pages at ustogether.org are being relocated to http://uscountvotes.org, which is sole property of the sponsoring organization.
  • Well, looks like my page got removed (shocker) and my "account" revoked. Anyway, anyone can go here, register, and see how easy to get "published". -- Netoholic @ 09:17, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

http://www.buzzflash.com

• Indy media/mailing list which takes submissions from anyone. One current citation in our article refers to a "news analysis" written by "Tony" containing screenshots which have no timestamps and cannot be verified. -- Netoholic @ 07:34, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

http://www.democraticunderground.com

• Highly partisan, this site allows anonymous posting of opinion and information in its open forums. It itself should not be used as a primary source, nor linked cirectly from our main article page. -- Netoholic @ 02:40, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

http://michiganimc.org

Anyone can post an article to this website, without normal source requirements. Wanna take a look at my article [2]. -- Netoholic @ 23:00, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

ImageShack

• One image (Image:Exit poll small.jpg) is sourced as coming from http://img103.exs.cx/img103/4526/exit_poll.gif, an ImageShack location. ImageShack is a free image hosting website. and requires nor provides any source information. -- Netoholic @ 00:18, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

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NPOV Tag

What exactly in the page is factually disputed, so we can remove the tag as quickly as possible? Please paste here in the discussion of current passages so as to resolve this dispute. --kizzle 11:06, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

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New information to be added/reviewed

Template (Do not edit)

Link: http://www.blah.com

Description: Cites conclusively there was no fraud.

Discussion

We need to add this as soon as possible! --kizzle 20:59, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

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Commentary about exit poll accuracy

A good part of the suspicions of fraud in the election seems to hinge on the accuracy of the exit poll data. Doing a google search I came across this commentary by Howard Fienberg and Iain Murray. Quote:

Historically, exit polls have been more reliable
than regular polls and the news media treat them as gospel.
But if the poll result is close, anyone who tells you
that they know who has won is lying - November 7, 2000

(veryfied with wayback machine: this page was up august 2002) Besides being definitely unbiased concerning the current election, it mentions several cases of exit polls that were quite of. Those might be worth investigating to get an idea of the circumstances under which exit polls can yield inaccurate results. --Icekiss 14:04, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

When I said "evidence", thats exactly what I meant. Nice one!

Wariness of exit poll reliability is also why I asked for a similar comparison of exit poll / popular vote for other recent or parallel elections too, to indicate how well they track in other elections for comparison. FT2 18:30, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Please see dnamining.com/exit for another analysis. I disagree with your characterization of the Caltech/MIT paper, although I agree it is not a good paper. -wjb(newbie)

Here is a relatively thorough explanation of how exit polls work and an evaluation of their reliability: http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/11/exit_polls_what.html Quote:

Despite the occasional controversies,
exit polls remain among the most sophisticated
and reliable political surveys available.
They will offer an unparalleled look at today's
voters in a way that would be impossible
without quality survey data. Having said that,
they are still just random sample surveys,
possessing the usual limitations plus some
that are unique to exit polling 

(anon, 18:00 Nov 15, 2004 PST)

Detailed NC election result irregularities analysis

Just ran across this, we should add some of it to the page somehow, sorry it's so big: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=45003&mesg_id=45003

(full text removed. Copyright status indicates this should not be copied here verbatim)

Netoholic, you must take great pleasure in messing with what other people post, and frankly in total your behavior is unacceptable by a member of the wikipedia community even though this specific incident isn't that big of a deal. Someone publically requesting comment and dissemination of their public research can not possibly be a copyvio, and I suspect the threshold for copyvio's on talk pages is much much much higher. Do you even have a partial understanding of copyright law? What about wikipedia's guidelines you love to errantly refer to? You are by far the most trollish user I've seen in my admittedly relatively short time here on wikipedia (this is not an insult, if you disagree then by all means request arbitration, I dare you).

I would appreciate it if in the future you would post your issues first and wait for responses, rather than acting unilaterally, especially in regard to other user's posts on talk pages. I would likely have removed the content myself if you asked nicely, I won't add the content back for now only because it is huge (if that was your real reason for removing it then you should have stated that reason from the beginning, in fact, you should always give your real reason for doing whatever you are doing [and you need more verbose, accurate checkin comments] rather than hide, as you do, behind obviously false accusations of wikipedia guideline violation). Zen Master 00:23, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Long Lines

I have this image:

from the Associated Press, published 2 November in an article on 'The Louisville Channel' web site. Are there PD objections to using the image, since it was published in mainstream press? File:2004longvoterlines.jpg

Now that I think about it, I believe AP only allows use for personal or non-commercial use, otherwise by permission only. Anyone with any other definitive info if Wikipedia is considered non-commercial for the purposes of AP content? -- RyanFreisling @ 20:16, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm not one of the copyright mavens, but my understanding is that a "non-commercial" license isn't good enough. Wikipedia itself isn't commercial but all its contents must be available under the GFDL. That means that someone who wanted to could print it all out and sell it as a book. If AP would balk at that, we can't use the photo unless it's fair use, an issue to be strenuously avoided IMO. In real life, of course, no one will try to sell a book of this stuff. There are, however, online mirror sites that use Wikipedia's content for commercial purposes. JamesMLane 21:12, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia does allow non-GFDL material to be included. (How else would one responsibly present various POV expressed more recently than 1924?) However in the case of images, their copyright status must be documented -- in this case, it should be noted that this imsage is used under fair use, and that people interested in re-use should consult the creator for permission. -- llywrch 17:18, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If permission is explicitly required for reuse, fair use is not a legal resort (otherwise, non-commercial-use-only images wouldn't have been banned). Johnleemk | Talk 17:29, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

John, I am not aware of the restriction you mention. I took a look at Wikipedia:Copyrights, & it fails to mention that restriciton either -- although it does mention our preference for libre images over encumbered ones. My point of consulting the original creator in this -- or any -- case was intended simply as a courtesy to that person. If that step alone would otherwise fobid the inclusion of an image in Wikipedia, then I guess we must needs be discourteous. -- llywrch 17:57, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copyright problems. Apparently fair use is permissible, though, so my original point is moot. Johnleemk | Talk 18:20, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Incorporating a copyrighted image under "fair use" rationale is considered to be problematic because that doctrine from U.S. law doesn't apply everywhere. As a practical matter, we can get away with a certain amount of infringement while we're just online, but every time we do that, we add to the obstacles facing an eventual expansion to other media. (See User:Jimbo Wales/Pushing To 1.0 for discussion of expansion ideas.) Furthermore, even under U.S. law, whether something actually is "fair use" is often not clear-cut. I think that one factor is how much of the original work is being used. In this instance an entire photograph is being used. Finally, as to this particular image, I don't know if it's very enlightening. There are reports of people waiting several hours to vote. Readers will have seen long lines before and can readily envision a couple dozen people standing along a sidewalk. If someone got up on top of a building and took a photo of a line looping once around the polling place and then stretching as far as one could see down the street, that might be a useful addition. JamesMLane 18:27, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This photo displays a line of people down the block, outside a polling place. I think it does adequately display a long line on Election day. Longer line? Aerial view? Those seem to be matters of degree. Folks? -- RyanFreisling @ 20:51, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by the meaning of the term "effectively disenfranchised." What does this signify? How does one go about "effectively disenfranchising" voters? Long lines are a problem but as I understand it most states require polling places to stay open until all voters who were in line at the closing time, have voted. The word "effectively" implies equivalence, something that we don't have here. Rhobite 20:48, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

It is also hypothesized that long lines at urban polling places would negatively effect turnout for Kerry voters. Kevin implied that this is an irrefutable logical proof and deleted the word "hypothesized," but there are a few hidden premises in that argument. This is someone's opinion, and it shouldn't be presented as fact. Rhobite 20:52, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

What is the maximum gain (among the blue state according to this map) of exit poll discrepancy in kerry's favor? Are there pre election day polls that agree or disagree with blue state (according to this map) discrepancies? What are the odds of all the irregularity being for kerry? Zen Master 22:57, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

max. kerry gain (kerry higher in vote than poll): kerry, 2.31% max. bush:vermount, 5.07% Kevin Baas | talk 23:09, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

Also you can grab the excel file and look at it yourself. (if you do, could you double check the vote-count?) Kevin Baas | talk 23:11, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

- *it is more likely that more people left the line throughout the day than were in the line when the polls close. lower voter turnout numbers correlate with counties with a higher rate of machine shortages and long lines. + - *a implies b implies c (not "is hypothesized") see logic. Kevin Baas | talk 22:56, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

"see logic," how snide. Kevin, your cocktail-napkin reasoning and shoddy Excel work are not a substitute for real research. You have no idea whether long lines caused Democrats and Republicans to leave in equal numbers. You don't know what was going through voters' heads, you don't know how many people left, and you don't know what their party affiliation was. Rhobite 23:01, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

All but the last you said is correct, and i am not making any assumptions but the last: if you would stop deleting high population=high democratic-republican ratio, high population + machine shortage = long lines, therefore, highly democratic long lines. Logic, yes. I'm sorry for being so snide. I'm expecting you to try to argue against this, which is, in my personal "opinion", yes (separate from the logic and the empirical facts), quite ridiculous. Kevin Baas | talk 23:05, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

First off, a higher proportion of registered Republicans vote than Democrats. Second, more Democrats cross party lines than vice versa. Third, you're assuming that the same percentage of Democrats and Republicans left long lines. It could be the case that one group or the other was more motivated to vote. And there is no way to tell how many intended voters left. Any one of these observations is enough to show that it is not logically proven that long lines affected the Kerry vote negatively. I accept your apology. Rhobite 23:13, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Now you're "hypothesizing" and throwing out irrelevant, ambiguous, and unsubstantiated statements. It doesn't appear like this a discussion is going anywhere. Kevin Baas | talk 23:47, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

Please help me understand, why were a number of new content and source just deleted by Rhobite in the main page? -- RyanFreisling

New Discrepencies Map

This page has requires using the history to read it, I've never encountered that before. Anyways, I have a new map, of discrepancies as of nov.3 12:22am, from this source (and the updated excel file is uploaded too, if anyone wants it)

Kevin Baas | talk 22:40, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

What is the maximum gain (among the blue states according to this map) of exit poll discrepancy in kerry's favor? Are there pre election day polls that agree or disagree with blue state (according to this map) discrepancies? What are the odds of all the irregularities in kerry's favor? Is this based off of final exit poll data or non "weighted"? Zen Master 23:06, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Kizzle, this isn't how talk pages are normally used and this kind of break from the norm should be discussed first. I feel people should be free to create threads here as they wish, and you shouldn't archive discussions that were started literally minutes ago. I moved all of today's discussions back to this main talk page, where they belong. Rhobite 22:55, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Kevin, please stop using sources which anyone can post an article to? Wanna take a look at my article [3]. -- Netoholic @ 22:56, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

If you don't think like wikis or forums, don't write in them. Kevin Baas | talk 23:01, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a discussion forum, nor does it use source which can not be independantly verified by our readers. It seems I am not the one who is writing in the wrong place. -- Netoholic @ 23:34, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

I agree with you on all but the last point. Kevin Baas | talk 23:44, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

Actually Netoholic, that is the essence of your misunderstanding, wikipedia IS a discussion formum for resolving article dispute, please learn. Zen Master 00:29, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Greg Palast Info

With all of this alleged dependence on weblogs, & unverifiable internet sources (I'm using weasel words here because I haven't taken the time to trace every source quoted in the article), why hasn't anyone bothered to quote or cite Greg Palast, an investigative reporter who writes for the BBC & the Guardian? AFAIK, he's the prime source for material on this topic -- & I remember hearing him on Air America Radio not only set forth the evidence for incidents in both states on 3 November, but he also claimed that there were irregularities in New Mexico that were suppressed by the "So-Called Liberal Media". Some of his writings can be found on his website. -- llywrch 18:07, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Good info, it should be added. We've gotten bogged down just trying to keep the page alive. There was a systematic effort to damage and delay improvement of the page by people uniterested in debate through: removing links to the page, listing images for deletion, claiming parts/all of it violate wikipedia policy but not debating detailed counter arguements (acting unilaterally in the belief the page is "all wrong"), listing custom header for deletion, vandalism attacks, revert wars and the VfD which is hopefully the last trick in the people that are against the article's bag. Not to mention the more standard: lengthy talk page discussions, added text POV [in both direction] problems, structure and organizational disagreements, title disagreement and changes, etc. Zen Master 18:22, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Franklin County Machine Problems

• Machine problems lead to recount in Franklin county[4]

Ohio county-level historical turnout

I have gathered historical ohio country turnout levels for presidential election years for 2004, 2000, 1996 & 1992, and put it in an excel file. However, I couldn't find the data for registration by county for 1992, so I had to infer by the formula { x[n] = r1996[n] - (r2004[n] - r1996[n]) / 2; mult = r1192_total / sum(x, 1...n); r1992[n] = x[n] * mult }. I noticed, however, that the registered voters in the county-level voter turnout files disagree with those in the voter turnout history file. In any case, i did a few calculations and found that counties with long lines had lower voter turnout this year than the normally do. Kevin Baas | talk 20:11, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

In cuyahoga county, county vs. state voter turnout, cuyahoga stayed near it's avg. of 4% worse than state for 04,00,96, & 92.

Franklin county, in 92 (remember, inferred voter reg this year.), did 7.24% better than avg, then in 96 did 3.37% worse than avg, 00 did 2.6% worse, but in 04 did 9.96% worse. This is 9.32% worse than Franklin's average. Kevin Baas | talk 20:43, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

Ya, doing some more spreadsheat calculations, franklin county is looking more suspicious than cuyahoga. Kevin Baas | talk 22:14, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

I just read that franklin had a slew of new registrations this year, looked at the spreadsheet, and decided to re-infer the '92 figures for franklin without using the '04 figures for franklin. The multiplier factor shifted closer to one (which means the results are more expected), and the stats for franklin make more sense now: in '92, franklin had only 0.6% worse voter turnout than the state, and the avg. of '92, '96, & '00 is 2.18%. (franklin is 10.6% of the electorate in Ohio, which has 7,979,639 registered voters.)Kevin Baas | talk 22:35, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

Sequoia Gives Away E Vote Machines in Swing State

We should add this info but I am not certain how and where. Basically an electronic vote machine company gave 4 years free to Reno Nevada just prior to the election in August: http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/11/con04490.html

Zen Master 10:17, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Voter turnout findings

I looked at voter turnout as a ratio of voters this election to registered voters last election (because of the big registration drive this year), and found for each county the %diff between its (modified) voter turnout and the rest of the state.

Then I found for each county the %diff between its (normal) avg voter turnout for 92, 96, & 00, and the rest of the state.

Looking at the difference, firstly Delaware and Warren really stand out as having much higher voter turnout. but avg. they high, and were much higher in other years, too.

Looking at Franklin and Cuyahoga, Franklin actually did good. (+4.153%) (thou it does bad if you use 04 registrations), while Cuyahoga did bad (-4.867%). Kevin Baas | talk 20:42, 2004 Nov 14 (UTC)

Added section on public hearings under 'Official Investigations'. -- RyanFreisling @ 21:00, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

On the county scale, if the voters in Ohio that turned out would have voted the way they have an avg. for the past three elections, Kerry would have won Ohio by 67,923 votes or 50.61%. Kevin Baas | talk 22:44, 2004 Nov 14 (UTC)

In the unofficial 2004 vote count, Kerry lost by 136,483 votes, with only 48.75% of the votes. Kevin Baas | talk 22:48, 2004 Nov 14 (UTC)

That difference is not statistically significant. Kevin Baas | talk 22:57, 2004 Nov 14 (UTC)

On the county scale (perhaps "resolution" is a better term"), democratic turnout was 0.90% better than the avg. of the last three pres. elections, while republican turnout was 0.78% better. Kevin Baas | talk 23:10, 2004 Nov 14 (UTC)

On the county resolution, democratic turnout was 6.37% better than last election, while republican turnout was 6.04% better. (using 00, 96, & 92 to determine dem-rep distr.) Kevin Baas | talk 19:47, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

new map:Hybrid us map

Kevin Baas | talk 21:47, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

Opps, I compensated the wrong way. Sorry. Here's the real map. According to the a variance of the discrepancy between the compensated polls and the vote counts for the non-BBV states, there is a 22.5% chance the poll is off by enough for Bush to have won Ohio (and a 50% chance that it was off in that direction), and a 47.5% chance that it was off enough for Kerry to have won Florida (and a 50% chance that it was off in that direction), giving Kerry a 91.4% chance of victory. Kevin Baas | talk 06:55, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

By the same logic, if we use instead the average of the vote count and the exit polls for the BBV states (meet halfway), Kerry is given a 55.5% chance of victory.

And if we give the vote-count a 50% chance of being perfectly accurate, and a 50% chance of being meaningless, that gives Kerry a 91.4%/2=45.7% chance of victory. Kevin Baas | talk 07:18, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

Opps, those figures are with New Hampshire in the BBW states. (I am not doing well with clerical perception lately!) Those figures are interesting as well, and with New Hampshire included in the bias compensation, the figures are pretty close. If people think any of this should be in the article, or if the data is really important to someone, I can recalculate.

Digest of News Sources

I've scraped a list of sources from here , and it currently resides at User:RyanFreisling/SourceDigest. Take a look! -- RyanFreisling @ 02:52, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Diebold's Registered Democrat

Removed Diebold’s election-systems division is run by a registered Democrat" and source URL [5], which points to an article on Diebold's site [6] which merely repeats the statement without naming the Democrat. if this passage refers to Radke, it can be re-insered and edited properly. Source? -- RyanFreisling @ 05:13, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Dixiecrat

I made a correction. The 'dixiecrat' phenomenon is not part of the Caltech study. It is a valid issue, and belongs in the document, but not in that section. -- RyanFreisling @ 11:07, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Added it to the Intro Section -- RyanFreisling @ 11:35, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

new fraud map ready

(deleted for brevity: outdated)

Links for Newshounds

Link: http://countingcoup2004.blogspot.com/ http://countingcoup2004.blogspot.com/

Description: Great resources for news, found on the BBV forum.

Discussion

More web pages to include (can someone do this?)

1. [7] affidavit Ohio Nov.25 that voters were potentially being encouraged to file votes in a way which might render them invalid.
2. [8] Other voter affidavits and testimony as to Ohio election irregularities, misrepresentations and voting machine errors
3. freepress.org General link to Ohio free press election2004 department
4. [9] article on dailykos (also worth a link in its own right as a source) covering some voting machine and election irregularities which have not yet been spotted.
5. Dr mercuri pages:

• [10] Dr Mercuri credentials and testimony of machine failure and irregularities in respect of Riverside irregularities, in the Weber vs. State of California and election official Townsend case referred to in the article:

"I have a copy of a videotape filmed at the warehouse after the election, showing numerous machines registering votes to some candidates when certain other candidates were selected. In another instance (that occurred in November 2000) brand new Sequoia DRE machines in North Brunswick, New Jersey registered zero votes for major party candidates in a local race. When the manufacturer was questioned about why their supposedly “fail-safe” system failed, the company representative indicated that votes were not “lost” - rather that votes were not “cast” - a semantic distinction that certainly has Equal Protection ramifications. Most recently, in a runoff primary election with only two candidates in Palm Beach, Florida, Sequoia machines registered no selection in 2.3% of the ballots cast (or attempted to be cast). In some precincts, the “no vote recorded” rate was as high as 10%. This matter is currently being litigated, and here again, the manufacturer has yet to provide any explanation for the failure to record votes, or the failure to detect and shut-down defective machinery (as per their own product specification claims)"

• [11] testimony regarding voting machine matters (may be worth adding to Voting machines)

Possible information for inclusion

My friend Jeff got these emailed to him, and posted them on his site. [12]

(i deleted the section i just made before, as zen pointed out that we already have that link.) Kevin Baas | talk 20:27, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

historical election data [13]

and late pre-1am exit poll listing of all states with timestamps! [14] Kevin Baas | talk 20:35, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

Votergate Movie [15], [16] -- RyanFreisling @ 04:56, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Detailed NC election result irregularities analysis

Just ran across this, we should add some of it to the page somehow, sorry it's so big: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=45003&mesg_id=45003

(full text removed. Copyright status indicates this should not be copied here verbatim)

Netoholic, you must take great pleasure in messing with what other people post, and frankly in total your behavior is unacceptable by a member of the wikipedia community even though this specific incident isn't that big of a deal. Someone publically requesting comment and dissemination of their public research can not possibly be a copyvio, and I suspect the threshold for copyvio's on talk pages is much much much higher. Do you even have a partial understanding of copyright law? What about wikipedia's guidelines you love to errantly refer to? You are by far the most trollish user I've seen in my admittedly relatively short time here on wikipedia (this is not an insult, if you disagree then by all means request arbitration, I dare you).

I would appreciate it if in the future you would post your issues first and wait for responses, rather than acting unilaterally, especially in regard to other user's posts on talk pages. I would likely have removed the content myself if you asked nicely, I won't add the content back for now only because it is huge (if that was your real reason for removing it then you should have stated that reason from the beginning, in fact, you should always give your real reason for doing whatever you are doing [and you need more verbose, accurate checkin comments] rather than hide, as you do, behind obviously false accusations of wikipedia guideline violation). Zen Master 00:23, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

still more info

• Overzealous reading list. [17]
• News, news news... [18] [19]

I don't see a problem with putting news sources like the reading list in the article. They contain lists of articles from verified sources. I'd say add them to the in the news section, or the 'other' section (since it's a digest). Thoughts? -- RyanFreisling @ 23:24, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Washington State irregularities

"6,200 votes were counted twice because of human error while transferring data to the computer reporting system"

This occured in the Governor's race, but it casts further doubt on the accuracy of the elections process, and begs the question of how many other such "irregularities" have gone undetected on the local or national levels.

Volusia County fraud allegations

Volusia now added.

Also see this report too. It has a lot of information, can someone summarise it and add it to the BBV investigation section? FT2 03:03, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Analysis of Professor Steven F Freeman's Paper

Here is a brand new (Nov 17th) analysis of Univ of Penn Professor Steven Freeman's paper The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy, where the Professor had claimed, among other things, that the odds against unusual "anomalies" in three key states -- Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio -- "are 250 million to one".

While the analysis finds much to fault in Freeman's paper, it does admit that, "If NEP were to provide the the actual [probability of exit poll sampling error]... the real odds that this happened by chance alone are still probably at least 1,000,000 to 1. In a business where we are typically "certain" when there is a 5% chance of an error (e.g. 1 in 20), one in a million is still pretty darn certain" noosphere 05:16, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

It makes other points too, lets not overlook them either. FT2 06:28, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Sure. I just isolated that particular quote because it addresses the most important point Freeman makes (the one cited in the Introduction of our wiki article). I have no objection if more of the analysis is pulled out in to the wiki article, except that I personally try to err on the side of brevity (with a citation, of course, so that those interested in more information can go to the source themselves). noosphere 06:38, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

There's a new version of Freeman's paper available. I've updated the article to reflect the new findings and text. However I deleted an out-of-date chart and didn't update it, because what I've read of Wikipedia policies suggests that copyright issues don't allow its inclusion. But I'm fairly new at this, so I won't be offended if anyone disagrees. Avenue 13:15, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Precinct-level Ohio machine shortage, Ken Blackwell

A source with some good info: [20]. I remember another one, talked about precincts, including loss of precincts, so-called "squeezing", so-called "active voters" vs. "registered voters", archiac paper thickness restriction on absentee ballots being applied, etc. Kevin Baas | talk 17:35, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC) Oh yes, here it is. Kevin Baas | talk 21:39, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

Talk about correlation!

Machine shortages in precincts with democratic voters, charts: [21] Kevin Baas | talk 20:52, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)

More details on Volusia County fiasco

'Stinking Evidence' of Possible Election Fraud Found in Florida by Thom Hartmann noosphere 22:33, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)

On voting machine shortages in Ohio

"An analysis of the Franklin County Board of Elections’ allocation of machines reveals a consistent pattern of providing fewer machines to the Democratic city of Columbus, with its Democratic mayor and uniformly Democratic city council, despite increased voter registration in the city."

"...while voters waited in lines ranging from 2-7 hours at polling places, 68 electronic voting machines remained in storage and were never used on Election Day."

"The result was an obvious disparity in machine allocations compared to the primarily Republican white affluent suburbs"

From a column by Bob Fitrakis for The Free Press noosphere 23:14, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)

Precinct squeeze

"Of Ohio’s 88 counties, 20 suffered a significant reduction — shutting at least 20 percent (or at least 30) of their precincts. Most of those counties have Republicans serving as Board of Elections director, including the four biggest: Cuyahoga, Montgomery, Summit, and Lucas.

Those 20 counties went heavily to Gore in 2000, 53 to 42 percent. The other 68 counties, which underwent little-to-no precinct consolidation, went exactly the opposite way in 2000: 53 to 42 percent to Bush."

From:(Boston Phoenix). Kevin Baas | talk 20:49, 2004 Nov 28 (UTC)

More votes for other Democratic candidate

A Democratic candidate for Ohio Chief Justice got 257,000 more votes than Kerry [22]

"Statistically, Kerry, as the Democratic presidential candidate, should have more votes than Connally. In a presidential election, most voters have the priority of casting a vote for president and the votes for president are almost always much higher than those of candidates farther down the ticket... Many voters simply don’t vote for Supreme Court justices. It is highly improbable that Connally’s vote totals would be so much higher than Kerry’s" noosphere 17:06, 2004 Nov 29 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't see any merit to this argument. There were plenty of places where a Democrat in a lower race outpolled Kerry. Democratic candidates won statewide races in "red" states like North Carolina. In Colorado, Democrats took an open U.S. Senate seat while gaining majorities in both houses of the state legislature. Connally presumably didn't face the barrage of negative advertising that hit Kerry, nor did her Republican opponent benefit from a feeling among voters that it would be imprudent to replace the Commander in Chief during wartime. As evidence of vote-rigging in the Presidential race, the voting for Chief Justice seems to me to be a very thin reed. JamesMLane 19:14, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've also been wondering how to add this info. It actually is very suspicious, the judge in question "Connelly" is an african-american woman from the clevland area who was up against a republican incumbent, she lost statewide. In the cleveland area Kerry received 200,000 more votes than she did, but in certain southern ohio counties where Connelly is presumably unknown she received 257,000! more votes than Kerry did which does not make any sense at all. Most of these votes were "extra" votes for bush, i.e. the republican judge candidate suspiciously received only half the number of votes bush did in these southern Ohio counties. A statewise analysis of this discrepancy should be performed. I suppose it's possible there was fraud for Kerry around Cleveland but there are more signs of the fraud being in bush's favor. Also note party affiliations are not listed next to judge-ship candidates on the ballot. Zen Master 19:42, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to withdraw my suggestion for including this article because upon reading the source for that article I came upon the following editorial note:

"By suspicious, Jackson is referring to the latest analysis of the Nov. 2 vote by a coalition of Ohio voting rights activists. In analyzing the still-unofficial results, the totals reveal that C. Ellen Connally, an African-American Democratic candidate from Cleveland for Ohio Chief Justice, received 257,000 more votes than Kerry. [Editor's note: Rev. Jackson was referring to Connally's margin of votes as a benchmark, not actual more votes. In Butler County, Connally the Democrat received 59,532 running against Republican Chief Justice Moyer who received 66,625 votes. Connally received 5347 more votes than Kerry. For example, in Butler County, the difference between Connally and Moyers's votes was 7093. Bush received 106,735 votes and Kerry received 54,185 votes, with a difference of 52,550. Subtracting 7093 from 52,550 equals 45,457. Statistically the margin is significant only as a place to look for votes that could have been electronically shifted from Kerry to Bush. The 52,550 difference in Butler County between Bush and Kerry, when contrasted with the 7093 vote difference between Moyer and Connally provides a place to investigate and recount. The Connally race should be seen as a Democratic benchmark in Republican counties with the sample ballot, since she is endorsed by pro-choice and civil rights groups. While the vote totals for Bush and Kerry should be higher than for Connally and Moyer, the percentage by which they won should not be so different. Moyer wins over Connally with 52.8% eliminating minimal third party votes, Bush won over Kerry with 66%. See below for details.*]"

In other words, the 257,000 number is an extrapolation, and not the actual number of votes Connally recieved. It's incredibly misleading! Were it the actual number of votes then I would continue to argue for inclusion, as it would be simply inexplicable, no matter how negatively Kerry was painted by the right wing propaganda machine. noosphere 21:27, 2004 Nov 30 (UTC)

You may be missing the point, all statistical analysis is extrapolation, if we extrapolate the exit polls Kerry won the election which is why this article exists. Let me explain as I understand it: this judge-ship discrepency is showing that not only were votes taken away from Kerry but votes were also added to Bush. The question is not just why did Kerry receive fewer votes in southern ohio counties compared with the democratic judge canidate but why did bush received double the number of votes the republican judge received in some of these same ohio counties? So I believe the point the person that wrote "extrapolation" was really trying to make was that the 257,000 figure includes both votes taken away from Kerry and votes added to Bush, why do you believe we should only look at the votes taken away from Kerry? Someone still has to do a full state wide analysis comparing presidential race results to judge-ship race results in Ohio. Zen Master 21:46, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Active polls

Naming

(archived due to name change)

Sub-pages

1. The page should be maintained as one for the time-being

1. kizzle 22:44, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)
2. Schnee 22:52, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
3. Zen Master 23:03, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
4. If the article gets too long, daughter articles are a better solution than sub-pages. JamesMLane 22:16, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
5. Well, it shouldn't be expanded, that's for sure. Oh, and merge the Ohio and Florida info back here, greatly reducing and summarizing as needed. -- Netoholic @ 18:35, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)
   • FWIW, I've refrained from "reducing and summarizing" your vote, and if someone did reduce and summarize your vote, not only would I refrain from reducing and summarizing information about such an event, I'd refrain from letting others do so. I guess that's the difference between you and me: you wouldn't do the same thing for me that I would do for not only you, but people that I don't even know, and against even the most violent opposition. Kevin Baas | talk 18:45, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

2. The page should have separate pages that go in-depth about certain states (such as 2004_U.S._Election_voting_controversies,_Florida & 2004_U.S._Election_voting_controversies,_Ohio)

1. Kevin Baas | talk 22:53, 2004 Nov 10 (UTC)
2. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] 22:54, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

3. An article should be created to deal specifically with electronic voting machine issues related to the 2004 election.

Yes. (title)?

1. Kevin Baas | talk 18:20, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC) "2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, voting machines"

No.

1. This topic is not deserving of expansion beyond its present page on our encyclopedia. -- Netoholic @ 18:35, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

4. An article should be created to deal specifically with exit poll issues related to the 2004 election.

Yes. (title)?

1. Kevin Baas | talk 18:20, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC) "2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, exit polls"

No.

1. This topic is not deserving of expansion beyond its present page on our encyclopedia. -- Netoholic @ 18:35, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

5. An article should be created to deal specifically with vote suppression issues related to the 2004 election.

Yes. (title)?

1. Kevin Baas | talk 18:20, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC) "2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, vote suppression"

No.

1. This topic is not deserving of expansion beyond its present page on our encyclopedia. -- Netoholic @ 18:35, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

6. An article should be created to deal specifically with investigations, recounts, and official positions related to the 2004 election.

Yes. (title)?

No.

1. Kevin Baas | talk 18:20, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)
2. This topic is not deserving of expansion beyond its present page on our encyclopedia. -- Netoholic @ 18:35, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

KB, I think we should have a discussion of what main categories this page should be broken up into before we vote on each one... I'm interested in some of your proposals but I think we should draft a complete organizational breakup instead. --kizzle 12:35, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)

Kizzle, discuss, but vote. There is an urgency here. This page is disastrously long, and people are not putting a lot of information in it because of that. I.e. the length of this article is impeding, if not altogether limiting progress. Kevin Baas | talk 17:58, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)

I agree that there's an urgency. Accordingly, I've created the summary article that I suggested several days ago. It's at 2004 U.S. election voting controversies. See my more detailed comments below, under the heading "New summary article".

One purpose of the new article is to provide a better framework for the whole issue. Instead of a poll and voting here, people who want to put in the time to create any of the specific daughter articles suggested above, or others along those lines, can describe a specific proposal here. If enough editors are interested (one may be enough) then the article can be created. Such specific articles can be linked to from the summary article. (Down the road, some of them might be consolidated.)

The big organizational problem is still the huge mass of information about EVM's and exit polls. One possibility that occurs to me is: Link from the summary article to an article about EVM issues in 2004; that article would link to electronic voting, which is where general material would be placed (e.g. concerns about secret software); the article about EVM issues in 2004 would also describe, in summary fashion, the argument being made based on exit polls, with highlights from the opposing academic papers; further detail about exit poll comparisons would be in a separate article, linked to from the one about EVM issues in 2004. The idea is that most readers won't want this level of detail about the statistical analysis of the exit polls and the final results. Therefore, that material shouldn't be in the first or even the second article that a reader encounters in investigating the issue. The interested readers will get to the detailed analysis through a couple of hyperlinks. JamesMLane 20:11, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Screw it, I created them. They are huge articles, which just shows how unweildly this page is. James, I noticed you don't have a section on long lines. It is actually a major issue. People don't realize the scale and precision of it. Take a look at these graphs: [23] and do some mathematical reasoning. What does it mean that "most machines were operating at their full rate"? What is the ratio of registered voters per machine to this "full rate"? Franklin county is not the most serious problem. Cuyahoga county, the most populous county, has a much higher rate per person of reported long line incidents, and voter turnout there was much lower than expected. Although a precinct-level analysis hasn't been done in regards voting machines, this precinct-level analysis has been done, and supports the same conclusion. This looks like it's in the 100k range - enough to swing the election. Kevin Baas | talk 21:11, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)

Long lines are covered in the "Practical impediments" section. Long lines would be the main such impediment but there are a few lesser issues that seemed to fit there (organizationally) better than anywhere else. For example, Republicans in Philadelphia tried to change several dozen polling places very shortly before the election. Someone who shows up to vote at a longtime polling place, only to be told to go somewhere else, might not have time to make the additional trip, so this can have the same practical effect as long lines. Another example is the allegation by someone in Florida that the police had set up roadblocks for no other purpose than to make it harder for disfavored voters to get to the polls. JamesMLane 21:30, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Discussion of article layout/organization

Radiastro's Merge Proposal

Significant portions of this article relate directly only to electronic voting and should be moved there. This would significantly reduce the size of this page, and allow the information pertaining directly to the 2004 Election controversies be covered here. Much of the background research provided here does not belong. In addition, the POV of what remains truly needs to be cleaned up. --Radioastro 22:15, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This is actually a good idea, the detailed sections on voting machines can possibly be moved to the electronic voting article, including most if not all of the expert testimony. Though many of the issues do relate to non electronic voting machines. Criticisms of Diebold and brief mentions of the potential for fraud from lack of paper trail or auditability etc are relevant and should be left in this article. Zen Master 23:32, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What do others think?

Then what would happen after 2006 or 2008? The article on electronic voting couldn't accommodate this level of detail about every election. It should be a general overview of the subject. It can refer to disputes in particular places in particular years, but only in summary fashion to illustrate a point. The better solution would be to move a lot of this detail to a new article along the lines of 2004 U.S. election electronic voting controversies. The current article would cover other kinds of voting controversies, and would include a summary of the EVM issues, with of course a link to the new article. JamesMLane 02:42, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There must have been some confusion, that is not what I meant, anything specific to a particular election would not be appropriate in the electronic voting article, I agree. Just the "expert testimony" and the specific criticisms of electrionic voting machine companies and technology sections could be mostly moved there, nothing more than that. Zen Master 17:37, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Not being a regular wiki author I don't want to presume to make any proposals, but just food for thought: another thing to consider splitting is the general interest topics of exit polls -- their history, the math and techniques used and how they have changed over time here in U.S. and abroad.

We have a general article (not keyed specifically to the 2004 election) at Exit poll. Go ahead and add to it. You don't need to be "a regular wiki author" -- just write what you know or are willing to learn about. JamesMLane 21:10, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Proposal to Split (see polls)

James proposed that we split the article into 2, one for data irregularities, one for all other election controversies, what do people think and exactly where should the dividing line be? I guess almost all of the voting machine info should stay in the irregularities article as it's related, but maybe not. There may be some overlap between the articles. Zen Master 05:49, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I definitely agree, and I think the voting machine info should go in the other one, with only data irregularities in its own article. (Of course, that article itself should only have previously-published data irregularities, not primary research.) --Delirium 07:30, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

I was assuming that the voting machine stuff would stay here, with a summary and wikilink in the new article. The point about the data irregularities is that they support a hypothesis of machine malfunction or tampering, isn't it?

Not much would be moved -- a couple of the items in the "Examples of issues" list, which, we hope, would then get amplified. I envision a less mathematical treatment of issues of long lines and discriminatory challenges, so maybe those subjects could be addressed in each article but in a different way. The main overlap would probably be in duplicating (as opposed to moving) some of the information about responses and actions. For example, Nader's request for a recount in New Hampshire might belong in both articles.

I wouldn't move any of the "In the news" section. Particular events that relate to issues other than machines can more readily be covered in context (that is, discuss all the voter registration events in the registration section). For an article that will cover multiple subjects, a day-by-day chronology of the development of the disputes isn't the right way to go, in my opinion. This is an encyclopedia article, not a newsfeed. I would also like to be very cautious about collecting external links. Trying to link to every group that's working on absentee ballots plus every group that's working on racial discrimination plus every group working on every other issue isn't practical.

In fact, as I look at this article now, I'm surprised to find that the split I have in mind won't affect it as much as I'd thought. I'm guessing that other editors have experienced what I did -- that the extensive mathematical analysis of exit polls, etc. had the practical (though unintended) effect of discouraging the additon of things like the Democratic voter registration forms in Nevada that were thrown out, or the military personnel who were supposed to cast absentee votes by fax or email, losing their secrecy. The result is that most of what should be in the new article hasn't been written yet.

And in the new article, all headings will be sentence case! JamesMLane 07:55, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I added the current New Mexico incident (a single rural county has missed the provisional ballot count deadline). I could not find evidence of it occurring before. Do others agree that validates the situation as a noteworthy Election irregularity of public record? Thanks. -- RyanFreisling @ 08:51, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Frankly, it seems pretty low-level. They're slow at counting. There's no reason to suspect something dastardly going on (no reporters excluded from the premises or anything like that). There's no reason to suspect that this particular glitch might result in undercounting any group, or in any inaccuracy in the final count, or in a benefit to any candidate. You're right that they've missed a deadline. My inclination, though, is that a mere missed deadline with no credible tie to any wider implications is below the threshold of significance for inclusion. JamesMLane 10:01, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

We need to split part of page to new article "Criticisms of electronic voting machines"

The article is getting too big, too redundant and the organization unwieldy, I propose we create a new wikipedia article to the effect of "Criticisms of voting machines" or "Criticisms of Diebold voting machines" or "Criticisms of electonic voting machines" or all of the above. With the titles to be decided by whoever actually creates those pages. Note: those articles would be general/historical criticisms and not cover the 2004 election, that stuff would still belong in this article. Zen Master 23:13, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

General material about electronic voting machines could go to the existing electronic voting. That would leave behind anything about non-electronic voting machines, but that's not a problem. What's making the article unwieldy is the huge amount of information that relates specifically to electronic voting machines in the 2004 election. I think that's what should be spun off to a daughter article. JamesMLane 23:29, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

the direction of this page

(dormant? related to split/edit discussion?)

we have successfully added 175KB in 3 days to a talk page, which is 7 times the guideline max for an article itself... this discussion is getting us nowhere, as any valid discussion is within minutes buried by new additions. we now have what looks like at least 20 active editors working on this page. Obviously the proposal for organization which I made wasn't taken too seriously, but some level of organization needs to be applied to this page, there are simply too many cooks in the kitchen for us to keep posting randomly in the manner we have been doing, IMHO. --kizzle 03:29, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

Direction? There isn't. This page has turned into a blog, not an article. Attempts to add counter-arguments which say this "panic" is unfounded are removed. This article is still as it was two days ago - a collection of links, and a few pretty graphs. Wikipedia's credibility is being injured by this article. I would feel so much better if Zen-master, Kevin bass, or FT2 showed any indication that they are willing to also include the opposite view, and give it equal consideration. No, strike that, the viewpoint that there is no over-riding controversy should be given more space in the article, since mainstream sources hold that view, and partisan websites and blogs seem to be the only ones holding the conspiracy theory.

As a community, I think we have a responsibility to balance all views. If Zen-master, Kevin bass, or FT2 don't want to write sections which put this information in perspective, then they should at least give the article a break and let some other editors get in there. I would propose that we pick one day, and for 24 hours ask those editors to take a break from the article. If, as they say, the information stands on its own, then the article will too without their ever-presence. -- Netoholic @ 07:22, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

I don't see anyone keeping valid NPOV information from being entered into the page, except those who are doing blanket wipes, etc... but there are multiple examples of varying controversies and irregularities in the election, from miscounts to missing votes, from the delays in New Mexico (counting continues, though a Bush win is considered a 'lock', etc. to the 6 Congressmen who have petitioned the GAO to investigate, to the 35000+ name petition imploring Congress to do so, to the multiple domestic and internationally-funded observation (with differing conclusions) into the integrity of the election. Netoholic, this again is spurious, and a rehash. What percent of their effort could have been put into updating the page - not into this discourse - where we could be constructing a better page in NPOV together? --RyanFreisling 07:34, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Netholic's efforts notwithstanding, the increasing (not decreasing) number of reputable reports, under ruthless NPOV application, will continue to better inform this document. What is your next approach to stifle this process? --RyanFreisling 07:34, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Responding to Netoholic: Please point out where i have violated NPOV with my contributions to the page, my edits always tend toward POV clean up. Please stop inventing non-issues just because your POV tells u the page "is all wrong". You assume I think and act like you but that is false. Zen Master 07:28, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Zen - These edits show insertion of your POV, or removal of other's information which tries to describe the opposite view. -- [24] [25] [26] [27]. Trust me, on the article, FT2 and Kevin bass do this a lot more. Your problem is a general misunderstanding of how Wikipedia works, and tendency toward knee-jerk reverts with no explanation nor consideration that others hold opposite views. -- Netoholic @ 07:52, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

• First link: me removing "highly unlikely" POV text, it definitely needed clean up, if you honestly believe some of that should have remained we can debate it here or in new talk section
• Second link: a completely justified edit, maybe you didn't notice no information was lost? Everyone approves of the new organization. Please explain your issues with this edit.
• Third link: added balance of POV between exit polling company and critics. certainly better and more informational than what was there previously. explain your problem with it.
• Fourth link: you are defending text that emphasized "conspiracy nuts"? The change I made there corresponds to the format in that section. please explain.

If you ever disagree with my edits feel free to discuss them on talk pages or chat, i never claimed i was perfect, just that I believe in NPOV. You seem to believe you are justified in doing anything and everything detrimental to a page when you are convinced it violates NPOV or you disagere with its POV (talk page exists for exactly that reason). At some point can we go over your multiple deletion without comment attempts and unilateral actions? Zen Master 08:04, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This page has indeed turned into a blog and in my eyes, as a new visitor, damages the credibility of Wikipedia as a whole. This is not an encyclopedia article.

What I actually meant was this talk page, there needs to be some organization to it, as the information being added/debated is tremendous. We don't need to use the templates, but we need to separate this talk page into "proposed passages" "current passages" and "other", or something like that, and make sure we quote verbatim the place that needs discussion, cause keeping up with the talk on this page is highly time-intensive. --kizzle 09:16, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

Analysis, methods and other math

Mathematical facts and weighting

Kevin:

Let's say we are weighting the exit poll data based on the actual vote counts (by the way, the allegation that this happens has not been sourced). But let's assume. When you weight a variable, you assign it an importance. This importance is arbitrary - it is up to the user of the data to assign weights to variables. Let's assume the exit poll data in this article are correct:

• Early result - Bush: 941 (0.4794)
• Early result - Kerry: 1022 (0.5206)

Now, let's take the actual Ohio results, according to Wikipedia, dropping third party candidates:

• Bush: 2,796,147 (0.5125)
• Kerry: 2,659,664 (0.4875)

We have our data, and we can "weight" the exit poll results. Please keep in mind these are all "mathematical facts," as you put it.

Let's place a 10% weight on the actual vote results. We can calculate a "corrected" exit poll percentage like so: Corrected = (W * ActualVote) + ((1 - W) * ExitPoll). For a 10% weight on Kerry's results: (.1 * .4875) + (.9 * .5206) = .5173, or 51.73%. Obviously this doesn't support your assertion that weighted results "matched the actual vote count" or "supported the conclusion." Similarly, a weighting of .25 or even .5 is still not enough to push Kerry's exit poll result below 50%. For your statement to be true, they would need to place more importance on the polling result than the actual exit poll, in order to come up with their published exit poll number. The only way for the results to match "perfectly," as you say, is to throw out the exit poll results and simply use the actual vote.

Also, in the article, please back up your statement about how they weighted the results. Rhobite 23:37, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

Your mathematics are correct, and so are your conclusions.

If I do recall correctly, I think I put a citation or two in the article somewhere. Here's a great source for information on exit polling: [28]

Here's a source corroborating what I said:[29] "...the weighting of exit polls to match actual results is not new, but a standard procedure used since the early days of exit polls. Second, the weighting to actual returns does not occur all at once but continuously, precinct by precinct, over the course of election night. The exit pollsters weight their sample to match incoming actual results for each sampled precinct as actual returns become available..."'' Kevin Baas | talk 19:34, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

Question on maps of electronic voting machine incidents reported to the EIRS

(dormant?) The map of the Ohio counties showing colors to indicate "electronic voting machine incidents reported to the EIRS" has Cuyahoga County, OH colored Orange. Cuyahoga County, OH used a punch card system, not electronic voting machines. Copies of the ballots for all districts are available in .pdf format from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website. http://www.cuyahoga.oh.us/BOE/ballots/ballots.htm

Correct, but an addition fwiw - Cuyahoga County uses Optical-Scan technology for absentee and provisional ballots. http://verifiedvoting.org RyanFreisling @ 08:35, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, as I've also pointed out elsewhere, the issue is not limited to electronic voting machines. We can/should fix that. Zen Master 08:19, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ahhh... Up for deletion... Go figure Cyberia23 08:32, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

(politics, i tell you!) On the EIRS, that map is listed as "Machine problems". Kevin Baas | talk 18:21, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

Margin in non-irregularities states?

(dormant?) Minus votes from the 12 or so states with data irregularities how many votes did bush and kerry each receieve? Is there evidence of smaller degree of fraud/irregularity in the other 38 states? Maybe I will perform that calculation myself. Zen Master 22:34, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Actually, what I want to do is for someone/me to create an election results chart per state that assumes the non weighted exit polls were correct (i.e. Kerry has 2% more of FL's vote than bush sp we should adjust the vote totals accordingly for this excersize). What would the final vote counts look like if the exit polls were right? Then we can compare the difference in % support for bush and kerry between the states with data irregularity and the rest (this could be interesting). I.e. it might be suspicious if this unweighted data exit poll result chart showed bush and kerry with the same percentages nationally. I.e perhaps the exit polling data will show Kerry received 52%+ in the 12 or so data irregularity states, and 52%+ everywhere else. It will also be interesting to compare with 2000, 1996 and before. Zen Master 22:50, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

using the 12:22 data for all states (ommiting the 4 no-data states), popular vote is bush:50.43%, kerry: 48.56% Kevin Baas | talk 23:06, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

Remember I have my excel file available. It has per state data from the vote count and three different exit poll sources (taken at different times). 9and if anyone wants the maps i've in vector format (i.e. you can change the colors of the states easily w/the right software), i can give them.) Kevin Baas | talk 19:40, 2004 Nov 14 (UTC)

Manipulation of Exit Poll Data

Once again, Netaholic has deleted it outright, opting for a subtractive approach instead of a dialogue here. I reverted, with corroborating sources. The issue may have an explanation, but the controversial event (change in the data on CNN) took place, and the Internet's resolving/debunking it is an important part of the story. -- RyanFreisling @ 23:05, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This data is in the form of two image files which noone has admitted ownership to, and has not been verified independantly. This is not a rumor mill, it is an encyclopedia of verifiable fact. Use other information, but that section is based on those images, which could have been faked. The "sources" RyanFreisling provided are nothing more than mirrors of the images, and commentary on them. -- Netoholic @ 02:33, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

Other sources have confirmed those numbers are the pre-weighted/non-final exit poll data. The key is that others are arguing the exit poll data weighting is justified, no one, except you, is arguing that data is fake. Zen Master 02:39, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Feel free to quote and summarize those sources, but the exact data presented here is taken from an unverifiable source. -- Netoholic @ 02:41, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

That assertion is not true. The sources are not mirrors, they are different images captured of the source data, reflecting the same time period. Multiple official sources of the poll data are cited amongst those sources and repeated here. The authors are known. That constitutes corroboration to the extent that this page is not an appeal to overturn the results, but explain the current status of inquiry into irregularities. Taking the next step and creating graphs, etc. based on that data would likely constitute original research. -- RyanFreisling @ 02:54, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Those sources in effect say "I can't vouch for them, but based on the screenshots, I conclude..." - No way. Find me two independent sources that prove ownership of those screenshots, or any statement from CNN about their website screw-up, and I will drop this. -- Netoholic @ 18:40, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

Here again, we will point out your cognitive gap. Those screenshots are not official CNN screenshots, of course. Because the controversy surrounds why CNN changed their data, and the difference that change made in the course of the elections. The screenshots are not original content, they are from current sources discussing this controversy in detail. Do they belong in the article? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on the NPOV description of this controversial aspect of the election. Does what happened, and the controversy surrounding it, not warrant inclusion or discussion?Are you suggesting that the event did not, in fact, take place? Either way, put your caveats or corresponding information in the article, in an informative way. These back-channel debates of yours are often maddeningly circular. -- RyanFreisling @ 20:02, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Four map image - machine problems, misleading

In the image in the voting machine problems section with 2 maps of Florida & 2 of Ohio, the yellow counties in the Ohio map only have 1 incident reported a piece, and they are either really really petty, or aren't actually machine problems. I think it's misleading. I'm tempted to make a new image w/those counties grey instead of yellow. What do people think about this?

--I think the whole image needs to be removed all together. There is absolutely no reason for pointing out that such counties are traditionally Democrat other than for suggesting conspiracy theories. First, Democrat counties often times are urban areas, which tend to get electronic voting machines, while sparsely populated rural Republican counties do not. So pointing out at least one electronic voting error happened in a county while also pointing out that county leans Democratic fuels this insinuation. What a proper map should do, is point out which counties had electronic voting, point out which counties reported problems, and mention the severity of these problems.

But that's not what we have. We have a full state county map that does not show which counties have electronic voting, we have Democratic explanations thrown in for insinuation, an explanation that does not explain the severity of the problems, and we don't have any references to back any of this up to begin with!

The image and caption fails in every way of being fair, meaningful, and objective. For that reason, it should be removed or replaced by an updated version that fixes every problem listed.

-- Non-US folk may not know the normal Dem/Rep split of the US, so the map might be useful. CS Miller 17:00, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

On the contrary, the image and caption succeed in every way of being fair, meaningful, and objective. I have per-county data for Ohio pres. elections in 04, 00, 96, &92, for pres. vote, voter turnout, voter registration, number of precincts, etc, straight from the ohio elections office. I also have county-level numbers from the EIRS, all aggregated in a flexible excel file. That's the source of these stats. They don't insinuate. They simply state facts that people would and have been interested in knowing, from both parties and with both hypothesis (cynical vs. naive). The main article explains the severity of the problems. There is no room in the caption. The caption is there to describe the images. The caption gives a textual description of the distributions, whereas the images give a visual description. They complement each other that way. That's what captions are for. Anyways, you haven't answered my question. Kevin Baas | talk 18:57, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

Statistics for exit poll/actual result discrepencies

The article tries to point out that the discrepancies between exit polls and actual results were greater at e-voting places, but the cited reference [30] does not give a mathematical calculation of this (1 in 50,000 refers to the chance that Bush did better than exit-polls preedicted over-all). Does anyone have a reference for the e-voting discrepancies? If not, it could be fairly easy to calculate given the raw data (by performing a chi-squared test or similar - I assume that someone, somewhere, has done this). The article says that the discrepancies at e-voting booths are significantly greater, but this is a precise statistical term and should be backed up with numbers. — Asbestos | Talk 23:23, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Editing and corrections

Intro Redux

Rhodite, made POV corrections. -- RyanFreisling @ 22:04, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

OK, I realize I didn't participate in the JamesMLane vs. Zen debate but I want to express that James' version is many times better than the previous one. We should fix any POV issues (I agree that "critics" is POV in this case) but keep the version. Rhobite 22:44, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

In the discussion on User talk:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead, Zen Master and I have been moving toward a consensus (well, an agreement between the two of us, anyway) to deal with the problem by splitting the article. Zen Master's biggest concern with my wording for the lead section was that he didn't like the comparatively short shrift it gave to the exit poll data and other components of the mathematical analysis. He sees the mathematical analysis as being the essence of the article. For my part, one of my problems with the current article is that the explosion of all these calculations and numerical averages and charts and graphs and whatnot makes it hard to do a good presentation of the other election issues. There's simply too much stuff here. What I would like to see is two separate articles. I think the split will resolve a lot of the problems about how to begin it. Introducing each article's content will be easier when that content is better defined. JamesMLane 00:30, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

News Updates

(dormant / move news items to new article?)

• Machine problems lead to recount in Franklin county[31]

POV Edits

Anon User '66.30.181.242' has just performed edits that are POV. Modifiers like 'few', 'some', etc. are inappropriate.

The other edit, changing the quote about diebold from a direct quote to hearsay, is factually untrue. Link provided. Thoughts?

Note: I took "It should be noted however that these same counties historically have voted for the Republican presidential nominee" out of the Issues section, as it has no factual corroboration in the piece. Anyone have any data so we can put that back in? If it's a fact, it's important. -- RyanFreisling @ 03:27, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

From what I've read, the history of election fraud in Florida goes way back. There's no shortage of court decisions that were re-runs of prior court decisions. Thus, even if what was said is true, that doesn't actually mean that that percentage voted republican in prior elections, and doesn't in anyway obviate or diminish the probability of fraud. Kevin Baas | talk 06:11, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

reorganization (of talk page)

if everyone is ok with the new format above, i'm going to begin deleting duplicate sections that got moved upwards (will not delete info that isn't up there already)... this should help out tremendously instead of having to scroll the entire page just to understand what is going on, and should help prevent good discussions from being buried in the talk page. --kizzle 20:38, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Deletion of comments would make me nervous. Does your phrase "deleting duplicate sections" mean that duplicative section headings would be deleted, and the comments now posted there would be copies under the heading that's left on the page? If so, I have no objection. JamesMLane 20:44, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

) ... Any comment that I would remove has already been duplicated above, thus no information will be removed from this page. --kizzle 20:46, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Also, in the process of transistion, if anyone sees any information that needs to stay but is not in the top 5 categories, please place it accordingly, and any info which is not needed on this page anymore to please archive, I didn't want to step on any toes... I think the goal should be to archive all dormant topics in the next few days and add the active ones to the appropriate section in the top headers so that this page consists of 5 main categories + 4-5 additional misc. topics max to reduce clutter.--kizzle 20:53, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Going to archive all info past 5th category on thurs. night, so please insert needed info where appropriate or just speak here if conversation needs to be kept.--kizzle 05:24, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

---

It is suggested that:

• There were no Diebold machines in Ohio, and that all Ohio machines had paper trails.
• Some Democratic counties in Florida voting for Bush could have a long record of supporting Republican Presidential candidates.
• Exit polls have been inaccurate in past election cycles, and that it is alleged NEP advised news orgs at 5pm on election day that it thought its polls were skewing toward Kerry (Note - it's not clear the basis of this other than their exit polls were not agreeing with official data).
• Cuyahoga County overvotes were more to do with how they count registered voters at the county lines, and are consistent with past elections.

Can someone verify these and if so add them into the article, in appropriate places. FT2 21:41, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

---

Moving/exporting background references

In addition the article is getting too long, and much of it is just "backing reference information". Whilst this information is necessary for now, since there are multiple perceptions and uncertainty regarding much of the detailed information needed to review this controversy, and what information is sourced and verified versus rumour, I am concerned that the sheer volume is detracting from an encyclopaedic approach. I'd like to suggest with the archiving of much of the talk page, and the end of the VfD issue, that collaborators give serious consideration to siphoning a lot of the backing information into a separate article, "2004 U.S. presidential election controversy (summary of sources)".

Stuff that could go in there = most of everything that is "source material re-repesented" as opposed to "encyclopediac summary of the issues and information known at this time".

The main article would then reference this sources article for much of its substantiation and detail.

Comments? FT2 17:54, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

agree, we can move the text of the citations,to shorten the length. We may also want to move the news sources, etc. The certification stuff is great, but also a bit deep for the article. Likewise I think the discrepancy stuff can be cited, and the remainder cleaned and scrubbed, and 'exported' . We may see that some of the subsections translate nicely into subsections. Thoughts? -- RyanFreisling @ 22:13, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I could do a good cleanuup job on it that way, and make the main article really work without losing citations and quotes. But I'd want at least something of a consensus to do so, not just 1 or 2 voices, and I'd want to check with others as well. FT2 01:12, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

I agree that this article is very unsuitable for the reader who wants a quick, summary overview of all the issues and problems that have been raised about the election. It's far too long for that purpose; it gives almost all its emphasis to one aspect. Nevertheless, I agree with the VfD consensus not to delete it, because there should be an article of this type. Why not just leave it as it is? I prefer the solution I suggested earlier, namely, creating a separate article to address the broader issues -- tersely, without 100+ external links, without cataloging every minor glitch anywhere in the country, and without attempting a day-by-day chronology of what's been "In the news" on the subject. Of course, that article would link here for anyone who wants to follow up by reading this level of detail.

The article would use a lead section along the lines of User:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead. I inserted that section here but Zen Master reverted, finding it not a good summary of this article as it is now. I see his point. I like that lead section, though, so maybe the solution is to create the article that it would properly introduce. The new article's organization would largely follow the list of bullet points in the lead section: a section on voter registration issues, a section on purges of lists, a section on voter suppression, etc.

One problem that concerned me was that some editors would just continue the elaboration of detail on a new article, and it would quickly suffer the same problems as this one. Is there any objection to the creation of an article using the referenced draft lead section, that would be ruthlessly pruned to keep it an overview rather than a comprehensive recounting? I had earlier suggested "2004 U.S. election voting controversies" but maybe "2004 U.S. election voting controversies overview" would be a more accurate description, although that's getting a little cumbersome. JamesMLane 06:39, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I second the suggestion to ruthlessly prune this article. IMO, there is no need to extensively quote portions of cited sources. Summaries with a brief quote or two from each significant source should suffice instead of these extened quotations. If readers are interested in the details they could always go to the source itself. noosphere 06:45, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

I also think the article is gigantic. We should make a rule - each quoted paragraph, where-ever possible, should be replaced with a well-crafted sentence. What do you folks think? -- RyanFreisling @ 08:10, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ryan, I don't know if it has to be mechanical like that, but it could serve as a good rule of thumb. Another rule of thumb could be to try to express the essence of the quoted source as economically as possible. If it can be pruned down to a sentence, then great. But if it takes a bit more to express the point the source is trying to convey I think that's fine too. Above all, however, I think we should avoid needlessly quoting paragraph after paragraph from the original source, when a brief summary would do just as well. We should not be afraid to quote when we must, but I think even then we should strive for brevity. noosphere 08:57, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that we ruthlessly prune this article. Some people will want this level of detail. There's no reason not to make it available to them, when we already have it. Besides, some editors would just start adding back in one little bit here, another little bit there (because different people are attached to different items as being worth including), and before you know it we're back where we started.

That's why I suggest pretty much leaving this article alone, to accommodate those readers and those editors. The creation of a separate article will be easier. We won't have to remove anything, just prevent it from getting too big. JamesMLane 08:46, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

James, I think it makes for a better article when it concisely states the central thesis of each of its sources rather than quotes huge blocks of text from the original. Quotes can be beneficial, when used in moderation. But the giant block-quoting in this article is completely out of hand, IMO... it makes for an unreadable article. Again, if the reader wants the detail, he's welcome to go to the sources, which are just a click away. Just my 2c noosphere 08:57, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

I'm not against a summary or overview article, btw, where we "build up" rather than prune. Though I'm new to Wikipedia, so I don't know what its policy on something like that is. Would it be considered too redundant? Though I do kind of like the idea of having an concise central overview article, with mini-articles split off from the main page. That gives a bit better heirarchical structure, and the overview article shouldn't be as overwhelming as the current monstrosity is. noosphere 09:23, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

Well this is basically where I'd got to. There needs to be a main article, which is concise, easy to read, one sentence per point. Thats easy. There also needs to be somewhere people can add the more detailed evidence, because some will want that and with a controversial topic like this it will help avoid allegations of one-sidedness to have a way to point to specific material, not just surce articles. I'd go for one split-off (not many) to list source material and big quotes, and the main article much shorter and kept that way. Why not all in one article? Too much to be a good encyclopedia right now while its all being argued. Why not many articles? Ease of use. Why requote citations at all? Because to understand the implications of many of these things you do need snips, the source articles are long and cumbersome, as the whole field itself is developing as we speak. In a year we may not need the citations, as it will be commonly agreed. But right now we need those snips too, and I'll stand by that strongly. Right now with this whole topic disputed both ways by many people "out there", a quote that shows what (say) some company's internal email said, in the article, or reviews a source's analysis in depth, is far more meaningful than a link I may open or may not. The reality is, theres so many important sources, like it or not we need for now to provide those snips too. Would folks be OK having a 2nd article of "(sources)" that was just the raw snips, used as references in the main article which would then be kept deliberately briefer.

Two examples how I think of it:

• Raw snips = diebold and other manufacturer political or criminal activity.

Summary article - " All of the major manufacturers have strong Republican ties, and are major fundraisers or elected officials for the republicans. Some such as ES&S are partially or wholely owned and controlled by companies or individuals which have a long history of criminal charges for bid rigging and similar offences, and have been banned from several state and military tenders. This has raised concerns in some quarters about the votes of the nation being run on unauditable machines supplied by companies which are strongly tied to one side or the other. Sources [sources article#diebold], [sources article#ES&S], [sources article#Wyle].

• Raw snips - the full analysis of exit polls and the like, source data, reports etc.

Summary article - a few lines on the reason some people want to test exit vs final polls, the issues with exit polling data, and the accuracy of exit polls, and a conclusion.

Like it? FT2 09:34, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

You should note that the overwhelming majority of the details concern one point: the relationship between exit polls and officially reported results for electronic voting machines. My idea was that this article (or some article) should be the repository for that detail on that subject. The more general article that's needed would summarize that issue along with the other issues listed in User:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead. We could consign all supporting detail on all subjects to another article (perhaps this one), but then the specific point about exit polls wouldn't have its own article, and any elaboration of the other points would be somewhat overwhelmed by that one. My concern arises because Zen Master's reversion of my earlier effort was based on his commitment to the exit poll analysis as being the essence of this article. I'm content to let that continue to be the essence of it, as long as the general reader also has available a more conventional encyclopedia article about the controversies. JamesMLane 17:36, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A lot is as you say to do with these differences - but a lot isn't. Some is evidence of security issues from specialists and hearings, some is internal memos of manufacturers knowledge of fraudulent claims, some is industry report summaries, some is political and corporate information relevnat to the matter, some is raw data sources used in maps, or tables, or non-core links, or news references. I think a single split between "summary" and "backing material" could benefit the main article. I'd be minded to title the other article something like "2004 U.S. presidential election controversy/Sources" or "/Supporting material" FT2 21:50, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

The key point is that all of the "other" material you refer is still aspects of one specific issue: reliability of electronic voting machines. My concern is that we need to be able to present all the other issues -- the officials who obstructed people from registering to vote, the military personnel whose right to secrecy in their vote was threatened, etc. There's just such a mass of material about electronic voting machines in this article that it's effectively impossible to do a good job on anything besides EVM's. JamesMLane 23:09, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• nods* yes, I see what you mean now. Do you think that if we offload the backing info, there will be enough room to let that stuff breathe? FT2 03:15, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

I'm dubious. Given the interests of the editors participating here, it's just inevitable that the EVM material will get the attention. Anyway, I don't see anything wrong with having a very detailed article about EVM's, linked to a separate article that gives a broader overview. JamesMLane 04:08, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think we should devise an overview article like JML suggested which then links to the current article broken into chunks. I'm sure we can come up with 3-5 main topics which merit daughter articles in themselves, whether it mirrors the top-level categories of the page itself or some other format. But definetely not shorten or revise the article, in such heavily scrutnized and "dismissed" claims that we have here, the more detail and direct quoting from sourcing the stronger it will hold up to such counter-claims. --kizzle 08:01, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Agree. Have an EVM controversies main article and make the entry shorter, being carefull not to exclude debunks of common "debunks", and soon. How about "2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, voting machines"? Kevin Baas | talk 17:57, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

Each Quoted Analysis Paragraph Should Have One+ Citation Link

Someone seems to have quoted large blocks of independent analysis into the article, that is ok with me but we need to be clear to the reader NPOV wise when there are headers like "Conclusion" in the article, those are not wikipedia's conclusions but are conclusions of the third party research. A header titled "Conclusion" should not be thought of as a wikipedia header in this case, it should be treated the same as the rest of quoted third party analysis text. Also, I propose that we have at least one citation link per quoted analysis paragraph so it's further clear that this is not a wikipedia conclusion, citations can be repeated. What do people think? Zen Master 22:01, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. Any areas that you can think of which we should target for review/scrub? -- RyanFreisling @ 22:09, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I consider this part of the above. With sources cited cleanly elsewhere, we can then summarise neutrally the issues, without having to quote opinions as if we are agreeing. Again the above will fix it.FT2 01:21, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Caltech rebuttal

I removed the following from the exit poll discrepancy section. CalTech/MIT have identified these are no different from normal, challenging this are analyses which contend CalTech/MIT made methodological errors, including comparing not native exit polls, but exit polls adjusted to match the official figures, and it is therefor no surprise that they found no evidence of significant difference. See below for CalTech/MIT's analysis.

I'm not sure of the facts being asserted, so I'm not sure. But at the very least, that sentence needs a restructuring. It's POV, makes characterization and conclusion and is grammatically damaged. Anyone want to take a crack at it, so we can get this on the article page? -- RyanFreisling @ 04:12, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Its not difficult. This is what the two views say, in simple terms:

• Group #1 (Caltech/MIT) study the exit polls versus the final votes, and state they are very close so its all okay.

• Group #2 peer review Group #1's work, and state that they suspect group #1 made a really significant mistake in assumptions, namely the exit poll data Caltech/MIT used was not in fact the genuine appropriate exit poll data for many states. It was exit poll data massaged to agree with final voting. (We already have sources stating that exit polls were massaged to do this, c.f. article). So naturally the two would agree. But it may not prove anything, because their methodology included an error - they had not checked whether they were in fact genuinely comparing what they thought they were.

Hope that explains - reinstate that bit? Or re-word it better? Sorry if it was poorly worded. FT2 04:37, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

By the way, there's been a reply from the CalTech/MIT people (in a private email reported in the comments on the analysis page, of Group #2 as FT2 calls them). To me it sounds like CalTech/MIT people are saying that even when they use the early, unweighted, exit poll data their original conclusions hold (ie. they find "there is no relationship between the type of voting machine used and the size or direction of the discrepancy"). noosphere 09:35, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

Regarding CalTech/MIT report

I've re-read that page (including their email) very carefully. All the CalTech/MIT follow-up email says is "We used the same data as the rest of the public, and we'll update the report when final voting results are in". No comment at all about the appropriateness of exit data used. It says they did some "preliminary" work on the "data that some on the web claim were posted on the cnn web site earlier in the evening", but we know from other sources cited that CNN was already presenting adjusted figures from 1.30 am.

1.30am Nov 3rd? Because "earlier in the evening" sounds like a reference to Nov 2nd. noosphere 05:36, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the CNN data began to be modified well before caltech started grabbing data.n. But as its 6 am now I dont plabn to check ! Can you? FT2 06:00, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

There is also substantial comment that the CalTech report was flawed and (perhaps) politically inclined on various websites:

• [32] "The CNN exit poll data it is based upon were edited post facto which brings them into question. Controversial data at best ... It uses flawed 2000 results that were called into question ... the VTP report is anything but "systematic". It is itself very thin on evidence and reads more like a blog than a carefully written report. The authors chose to disregard exit poll error margins without offering any justification for doing so ... assumes that fraud must be widespread and uniformly random ... hastily thrown together and presents, at best, a straw man debunking of the exit poll worries"
• [33] MIT staff on the VTP project are also connected with a right-wing thinktank that "Forg[e] strong ties between right-wing ideologues, right-wing think tanks and right-wing policy makers; many of its scholars have worked for various Republican Presidential Administrations - Nixon, Ford, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and the current President W. Bush"
• [34] private web page with sourced links to CalTech/MIT work from the 90's, concluding "I thought it odd that the November 11, 2004 Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project (VTP) report entitled 'Voting Machines and the Underestimate of the Bush Vote' would focus so narrowly on justifying the discrepancy between the exit polls and the actual vote without ever mentioning that the openness to fraud of the electronic vote tabulation that they themselves delineated in the July 2001 95 page report from the Caltech/ MIT VTP entitled 'Voting: What Is, What Could Be' ... I began wondering why they stopped acting like a disinterested watchdog and instead began sounding like a shill for the Bush administration in their Nov. 9 report titled 'Voting Machines and the Underestimate of the Bush' [Link] I find it totally baffling that an alleged impartial scientist investigation would end their report with a citation that would be more appropriately used by a political spindoctor."
• The same report goes on to document political ties to "right-wing evangelical Christian and Republican circles" and "the highly secretive far-Right Council for National Policy", to the Urosevich brothers, alleged scientific fraud, and similar.
• The same article comments that "I read this week's Cal-Tech MIT paper. While I have some issues with the specific magnitude of Freeman's odds, and therefore some of his interpretation, The Techs' paper left me looking for the beef. The one set of numbers they had that had any value was their p.3 table of proportion of voting systems by state discussed in the (tantalizing) Blue Lemur chart. That table put some context on that chart that diminished some of its power, imho. But that was all they had. Their other support, scatter plots, were of no interest, and added nothing to either side of the argument. Freeman's paper laid out a lot of data, dissected its own assumptions and asked for peer review. The Techs' schools paper, otoh, seemed like an overloaded tray at an Olde Country Kitchen buffet: overstuffed with random, vapid this-n-that, mostly empty calories."
• It also comments: "It got me thinking about how incredibly sloppy the Cal-Tech MIT paper 'Voting Machines and the Underestimate of the Bush Vote' was for a panel of such esteemed scientists so I went to the Caltech website to look over the report again. The funny thing here is that unlike all the other Caltech/MIT VTP reports I've seen, there are no names cited as authors for either of the two reports there. Isn't that peculiar ..."
• The November 11, 2004 Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project (VTP) report entitled Voting Machines and the Underestimate of the Bush Vote has several very serious flaws:
  • The single academic argument in favor of the voting-results-as-is harkens from the Cal-Tech/MIT Electronic Voting Project.
  • The leaders of both schools' efforts in this consortium are men with strong ties to the radical-right movement.
  • The arguments they make in this unsigned paper run counter to the core positions they've taken before on electronic voting.
  • For a full explanation [Link]

Whilst some of the above are obviously personal POV, the key points appear to be well sourced and capable of verification, namely:

• CalTech appear to have used questionable source data adjusted ex-post facto (by their own statement they did not have access to any special data)
• The heads of the Voter Technology Project (VTP) have a variety of documented strong political ties to right wing thinktanks, voting machine companies and their owners, and the like (not all listed above)
• They have already been implicated in scientific fraud elsewhere.
• The paper is unsigned, unlike other CalTech papers, which is not in accordance with any usual professional scientific standard.
• Behind the graphs, the paper is in fact quite thin on genuine analytic value, attention to data issues, self-questioning, and the like, which a stats paper should be. (By contrast the paper by Dr Freeman is strong on these areas).
• The methodology is believed flawed by some other statistical and analytical professionals.
• The arguments in this unsigned paper conflict with core positions they've taken before on electronic voting, but no strong explanation or justification is given.
• The paper ends with what some describe as spin quotes, as opposed to formal conclusions.

Ive added the key ones to the article to firm up the "methodological errors". FT2 18:44, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

nice. --kizzle 21:53, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

It looks like the 'partisan ties' section is now glutted with duplicative content, pasted in front of previous content that covered the same points. There's good stuff there, but lots of redundancy. I'm going to take a few passes at it. -- RyanFreisling @ 00:52, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

---

Had a skim and a history check. Looks pretty good. FT2 03:17, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

New summary article

Several days ago I suggested creation of an overall summary article, and I proposed specific text for a lead section that would give an idea of what I had in mind. I've now created a first draft of that article at 2004 U.S. election voting controversies.

I think it’s very important that we try to keep the new summary article free of the problems plaguing this one (the older one). The mass of detail here makes this article hard to read and even harder to edit. Specific problems, IMO, include:

• bloat - apparently attempting to list every election irregularity everywhere in the U.S., plus every published criticism thereof (or at least a lot of them), plus a day-by-day chronology, plus numerous lengthy quotations from source documents.
• excessive length - because of the foregoing, the article is currently 184 kilobytes long, with more than 200 numbered external links (and quite a few more linked by name).
• POV - there are many more allegations against the Republicans than against the Democrats, so it’s inevitable that even an article that’s fully NPOV will make the Republicans look much worse; but this article goes further, at several points, by arguing for one side.

The new article is not a blog, or a newsfeed, or a Wikisource document, or a directory of links. For example, it summarizes the whole EVM issue in a couple paragraphs, with a link back to this article. The same treatment is appropriate for other issues. I suggest that anyone who wants to pile up a list of (for example) every voter registration dispute anywhere in the country in 2004 should create a separate article for that purpose and link to it. I warn everyone that, although I’ve largely given up trying to edit this (original) article, I’m going to be aggressive in editing the new one to prevent the kind of bloat we’ve seen here. JamesMLane 19:55, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The new one's more encyclopedic for sure, and for that I'm glad and concur.

I feel the detail is needed to support it, and I'd suggest simply renaming the old article to ".../Citations" and letting it stand as a backup for the article you'vge just done. What would you think? I'm not sure of the value of two completely parallel articles as such. FT2 00:19, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for calling the new one "more encyclopedic" -- that sums up the direction I thought we needed to go. As for this article, I don't think an article of this length is ultimately much use. Kevin Baas has created new articles that each use some of this material. I assume he envisions that this article will be replaced by the others collectively. As I mentioned above, though, I think that a further intermediate level might be necessary -- an article that summarizes the charges and countercharges about what to make of the 2004 exit polls, with a link from that article to one that has the full level of detail. Another possibility, instead of quoting great slabs of analysis, would be to put the original document on Wikisource if the appropriate license is available. JamesMLane 02:19, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree with FT2 that parallel articles are something that should be avoided on wikipedia, however, I don't think that we should abandon JML's page. Let us make this page like any other page that must necessarily contain a tremendous amount of information: branch off daughter articles. The current page as it stands is horrendously long and should be broken up into chunks. I like the subsections that JML has created, why don't we simply create articles for each individual topic? The discussion of actual methodology of breaking this article apart can be discussed later, but I propose we use JML's summary article to replace the main one and break up the current article into chunks that can be used as daughter articles to JML's page, just the same as we wouldn't discuss bush's foreign policy and other lengthy sections in the same article but rather branch off new ones. --kizzle 09:11, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

I understand, but having considered both I disagree. What someone said way up above seems the key to me: in the course of time, it will become clear what is gereally known and what is generally not known of the factual material. Right now a lot of the information is at some kind of "grass roots" level, by that I mean that its collected in the web pages of many minor newspapers and organisations, off-beam court cases, emails not reported on any american daily newspaper's front page. So for now, the background information although its big, is needed. I dont think many articles are needed.

At a pinch if you wanted to split voting machine issues from exit poll controversies... but they are different in character, at heart if you read both sections, both are about evidence... the only difference is one is exit poll statistical evidence (indirect evidence), one is manufacturers and other documentary evidence (direct evidence). I'm not convinced it needs splitting multiple ways just yet - but if it was, what would the subject matter of each sub-article be? Each section has potential to grow. I dont think we've seen the last of this yet... FT2 18:57, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

Dixiecrat effect again

I notice this article still discusses the E-touch versus opscan machine voting difference in Florida. The view that it's explained by the Dixiecrat effect is mentioned with references to NYT and Wired News articles but isn't given a lot of weight. I'd just like to add that, after seeing the initial reports, I spent a boatload of time looking at the Florida by-county numbers and I concluded (sadly) that the Dixiecrat effect does indeed account for the differences. There are three points I'd like to make about it.

First, county size turns out to be a rather bad proxy for Dixiecrat population in a county. The opscan counties are not just smaller; they're also generally in the northern half of the state, while the E-touch counties are generally clustered in the southern part. Florida is highly inhomogeneous, and is stratified by latitude.

Second, I looked at the 2000 election results in Florida, and, broken down into "2004 E-touch" and "2004 op-scan" counties, they show exactly the same pattern as the 2004 results.

Finally, voting in Louisiana in 2000 showed the same strange patterns, which lends weight to the claim that it's conservative southern Democrats who are breaking the curve here. Interestingly, though Louisiana went solidly for Bush in both elections, there was not one parish in Louisiana in which more than 50% of the voters were registered as Republicans, and there was just one parish in which Republican voters constituted more than 40%. In contrast, there were a number of counties with ~70% Democrats.

If anyone's interested, details of this are on http://www.physicsinsights.org/elec04.html

--Salaw 13:48, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Similar "strange patterns" in 2000 is evidence of fraud in 2000 as well. noosphere 03:58, 2004 Nov 24 (UTC)

Yeah, sure...anybody got hard statistics from '96 so we can determine if this trend arose recently? Johnleemk | Talk 12:27, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It could be that there was fraud in 2000 too (same governor, after all). But the interesting thing about the 2004 data is that the skew split along voting machine lines, and the same machines weren't in use in 2000, so there was no reason for the results to split that way ... if the cause was games being played with the opscan vote consolidation. As to the '96 numbers, after digging through the 2000 numbers, wasting huge amounts of time looking for voter registration records broken down by party in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and South Carolina (there aren't any for those states), and finally digging out the Louisiana numbers from the stuff I found on their website, I was getting tired of the whole thing and I stalled on it. I've pulled the 1996 numbers from the Florida website, but haven't done anything with them. Maybe I'll grind them a bit next week -- no time till then, unfortunately. --Salaw 15:05, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's hard to accept alternative theories to justifying the opscan correlation when stuff like this happens. --kizzle 18:38, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

Dick Morris - Republican?

"Dick Morris, a career pollster (Republican), "

Dick Morris is most famous for his work under Bill Clinton, a Democrat.

While I understand that his beliefs now are more in-line with those of Republicans, is it fair to label him a "Republican?" It seems to me as if that label there is meant to disqualify his opinion, which violates NPOV. RNJBOND

Dick Morris was always at best a Dixiecrat. (See Dick_Morris#Other_work.) It is best to consider his work with Clinton, including tutoring him in triangulation, an aberration in his career of supporting center-right causes, rather than a natural arc from left to right. --Dhartung 10:31, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

<><>Here's a quick note, on subtle efforts to persuade: The parenthetical word "(Republican)" was evidently used, not to discredit what Dick Morris said, but instead to invest the statement attributed to Morris with some "against-interest" credibility. The technique here seems to have been to point out that, even though Morris was a supporter of Bush and an opponent of the Democrats (and would thus naturally have a partisan interest in arguing that the vote counts were accurate), Morris "admitted" that the discrepancy between the exit polling and the vote count was "incredible," because (in Morris' own view) exit pollling is almost always very accurate. Of course, it surely misrepresents what Morris actually was saying, to suggest that he meant to cast doubt on the vote counts in 2004. Instead, he seems to have been blasting the unprecedented incompetence of the exit-polling (apparently this was actually what he intended to say). As a general statement, I believe it would not be inaccurate to characterize Dick Morris as a Republican in recent years; Morris had a famous falling-out with the Clintons and has written many columns (and even some books) attacking the Clintons as dishonest, etc.

As the person who added that, the reasons were simply as follows:

1. When I found the quote, at least one website cited him as a republican oriented pollster
2. I looked to verify this, and found at least one other
3. A pollsters political orientation may be relevant to a neutral understanding of comments he makes
4. So to comply with wiki NPOV I thought there was a good chance it might be relevant to mention as part of the information needed to neutrally appraise the source by the reader.

However... if that info is in fact inaccurate or not relevant then delete it. Personally I wouldn't really know a republican from a democrat, not being american. No "subtle attempts" implied to do anything otherwise.

The important thing to note regardng that last comment is to separate the speculation from the political assumption. Morris basically states two things in that article: a) Exit polls are very accurate, b) the fact they differ is in fact evidence that the exit pollsters were incredibly unprofessional or did something seriously wrong. The first of those is a professional statement. The second is an assumptive statement with no evidence backing it in the article, and this is an important difference.

Morris in effect says "Thermometers are usually very accurate. To have not one but 6 thermometers all tell us this specific pan of water boils at 60 degrees is incredible. Don't you think it's amazing how badly they made these thermometers?" Thats sloppy logic. The first part (factual statements) is germane, the second (belief) is mere assumption. A proper scientist would question whether the thermometers were accurate OR whether the fluid in the pan did in fact boil at 60. Morris doesn't appear to spot this - or care. Morris surely spoke what he meant, namely that exit polls are usually accurate and in his belief any differences are the fault of the pollsters. The former is factual professional statement. The latter is a speculative assumptive "deduction" with no backing visible. In fact, at no point does Morris point out much less seek to justify this leap of belief within the article, and thats important to point out so readers are not mislead. FT2 14:45, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

Morris is assuming the conclusion in his argument, don't take it for too much just because he's the former clinton advisor. But the characterization of republican I think would be arguably correct either way, its similar to trying to find an appropriate name for Zell Miller. --kizzle 00:56, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

What organizations are in Ohio?

So now we also have the People For the American Way Foundation taking legal action in Ohio. What are all of the organizations? Should we make a list and put it in the article? Kevin Baas | talk 01:23, 2004 Nov 28 (UTC)

Splitting up this article

Kevin Baas created three new articles to break up this mass of material -- 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, voting machines; 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, exit polls; and 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, vote suppression. Since then, however, no one has edited those articles. Instead, people keep piling everything into this article. I opined several days ago that it was far too long, and it's only grown since then. Is there some purpose being served by creating a huge, unreadable article? JamesMLane 05:54, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In my opinion as long as the article is considered a current event i.e. "in progress" the core of the controversy and irregularity should remain one article. However, I strongly agree the article is way too big currently and should be reduced in size asap -- all the background information on poor voting machine quality should be moved to the voting machine article, as just one example of a potential clean up. Also, we don't need that many charts and images, an html table is much less light weight and potentially easier to read. Zen Master 06:15, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I did the split, using JamesMLane's article for topic summaries. Feel free to discuss this. Kevin Baas | talk 16:50, 2004 Nov 29 (UTC)

Just got back from a little vacation. It's looking very, very nice so far. I'm still reading, but very well done. The links seem well placed, and the summaries to-the-point! This article is really shaping up! -- RyanFreisling @ 06:53, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yup, that's about my impression too. Nice work. Only cvomment otherwise is that if you move stuff to other articles then you would need to split out very carefully, what is a general matter for that article (eg controversy over voting machines per se), and what is specific evidence of their misuse in this election. The Most of the stuff in this article isnt relevant to a general article on voting machines, which should reference this one as an example. FT2 17:49, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

Newly split lede

May I say that I'm pleased with Z-M's new split of the lede on this entry. It was getting a bit unwieldy. Baylink 22:07, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

huh, what are you trying to say? I just cleaned up the introduction, Kevin did all the super good work moving parts of the article into sub articles. Zen Master 22:28, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)