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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10992
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - 12:50 pm: | 
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(Permanent archive copy, discussion on this moved from News Headlines section)
This article is about our right to know, not about Martha Coakley or Scott Brown. And lest you think something here favors a Democrat, just you wait, I'm still working on anomalies in the NY-23 election that are just plain hard to 'splain. As Richard Hayes Phillips says when people tell him to forget it, "I'm a historian, I've got all the time in the world." NY-23 still has history to be written. My public records are starting to arrive. But that's another story.
Back to Massachusetts, I think you have a right to know that Coakley won the hand counts there.
That's right.
According to preliminary media results by municipality, Democrat Martha Coakley won Massachusetts overall in its hand counted locations,* with 51.12% of the vote (32,247 hand counted votes) to Brown's 30,136, which garnered him 47.77% of hand counted votes. Margin: 3.35% lead for Coakley.
Massachusetts has 71 hand count locations, 91 ES&S locations, and 187 Diebold locations, with two I call the mystery municipalities (Northbridge and Milton) apparently using optical scanners, not sure what kind.
ES&S RESULTS
The greatest margin between the candidates was with ES&S machines -- 53.64% for Brown, 45.31% for Coakley, a margin for Brown of 8.33%. It looks like ES&S counted a total of 620,388 votes, with 332,812 going to Brown and 281,118 going to Coakley. Taken overall, the difference -- 8.33% Brown (ES&S) added to 3.35% Coakley (Hand Count) shows an 11.68% difference between the ES&S and the Hand Counts. Of course, as Mark Twain used to say, there are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics. These statistics don't prove anything, and probably shouldn't be discussed without a grain of salt handy before examining more detailed demographics.
As a point of reference, however, in the Maine gay marriage issue recently there was no significant overall difference between machine count and hand count locations.
DIEBOLD RESULTS
Diebold's results are 51.42% for Brown, with 791,272 Republican votes counted by Diebold, vs. 47.61% for Coakley, with 732,633 Democratic votes counted by Diebold, for a spread of 3.81% favoring Brown.
LATE-REPORTED RESULTS
It's always interesting to watch hand counts beat machine count results to the newspaper.
In the Massachusetts special senate election, results from six of 71 hand count locations were reported about 2 1/2 hours after the polls closed, with the remaining 65 hand count locations in right away. The slower hand count results represent 8.45% of all hand count locations.
These latecoming hand-counted results favored Coakley very heavily (she got 55.68% of these, earning 4,610 votes to Brown's 42.9%, representing 3,552, a 12.78% margin) Whether the reports came to the media late or the media posted them late is unclear.
ES&S SLOWPOKE VOTES
ES&S had 12 of its 91 locations reported at least 2 1/2 hours after polls closed, a total of 13.2% of all its locations (as compared with just 8.45% of slower reporting hand count locations). So ES&S certainly wasn't faster than hand counts, overall!
These slow-arriving votes represented 88,288 of ES&S's 620,388 votes. Overall Brown got 46,257, for 52.39% of the late-arriving ES&S votes, and Coakley got 41,238, for 46.71%, yielding a margin of 5.68% of the late-arriving votes going to Brown, for a net gain of 5,019 votes to Brown.
North Attleboro and Paxton appear to be the last locations in the state to be reported, and they are both ES&S. North Attleboro brought in 10,881
very late votes, 71.48% of them going to Brown; Paxton brought in 2,036 votes, 65.37% going to Brown.
THE SLOW BOAT FROM DIEBOLD
Yes, I know they're supposed to be called Premier machines now, and ES&S bought the company so it's now all one big monopoly family, and then the whole kit and kaboodle in New England -- Premier and ES&S -- is programmed by the juicy little LHS Associates guys. But I like to just call them Diebold, that familiar name which we all know and love.
Twenty-four of Diebold's 187 locations wandered in late, smoking cigarettes and wearing a bathrobe. That's 12.83% of all its locations. Apparently it was faster to hand count 8,497 ballots, as they did promptly in Newburyport, or 7,339 ballots, as they hand counted in public for all to see in Milton, than to push a button and wait five minutes for the machine to spit out a Diebold results report in Pelham where they had 725 votes. East Brookfield's 899 Diebold votes must have run out of gas somewhere; they weren't reported for hours.
All in all, a total of 170,594 Diebold votes took a long time to stumble in the door, These votes -- surprise! -- favored Coakley. She got 86,214 of them, for 50.54%, and Brown got 82,911 tardy Diebold votes, for 48.60%, putting Coakley on the plus side of the late arrivers by a 1.94% margin, for a net gain of 3,303 slow-moving votes.
They'd called the election by the time the 170,594 tardy Diebold votes showed up. Coakley had conceded. And of course, there are many ways to look at this if you don't trust voting machines, and why should you? It's hard to know who was fooling around, or if anybody was.
You see, the Diebold latecomers represented the strongest showing for Coakley of all and in some heavily populated areas. 32 of 33 Cambridge polling place results couldn't find their way to the media for a long time. Cambridge finally came in with 27,268 votes for Coakley -- 84.11%. Brown was only able to locate 4,921 votes from Cambridge when all was said and done.
And the media couldn't seem to rustle up any Amherst votes for any of its 10 polling places until races were called and candidates had conceded. Amherst generated 84% of its votes for Coakley with only 15% going to Brown.
So this is all very interesting, and hopefully is accurate because I'm spreadsheeting after midnight. And we're talking statistics based on premature and unofficial results which came from the media and not the government, and the Massachusetts Secretary of State doesn't officially tell us which place is using which system, so we're relying on volunteers from the VerifiedVoting Web site who hunted it down.**
** A public service announcement from Disclaimers-R-Us, a subsidiary of the US Elections Industry.
GET OVER IT, SCOTT BROWN WON
Actually, I think any intellectually honest person will see that Brown garnered financing and executed brilliantly, and that's just politics.
He probably DID win. In 71 Massachusetts locations we could watch the counting (woops, he lost those, overall). But in 277 locations, the counting was on computerized voting machines and concealed from the public.
So we can never really know who won, and that is unfair to both Scott Brown and Martha Coakley. But it's most unfair to the citizens of Massachusetts, who have an inalienable right to choose their own governance. You can't hold sovereignty over the choosing process if you can't see it.
LATE DIEBOLD LOCATIONS:
Pelham
Northfield
East Brookfield
Warren
Amherst
Wenham
Marion
Groveland
Georgetown
Littleton
Hull
Sterling
Belchertown
Weston
Boxford
Bedford
North Reading
Watertown
Wareham
Cambridge
Holden
Saugus
Plymouth
Billerica
REST OF THE DIEBOLD LOCATIONS:
Southbridge
Wilmington
Erving
Richmond
Becket
Otis
Williamsburg
Bernardston
Lanesborough
Wales
Hardwick
Great Barrington
Lenox
Williamstown
Hatfield
Lee
Oak Bluffs
Adams
Edgartown
Dalton
Deerfield
Lincoln
Hadley
Dunstable
Boxborough
North Brookfield
Barre
Sherborn
West Newbury
Boylston
Bolton
Orange
Ayer
Manchester
Granby
Southampton
Merrimac
Mendon
Dighton
Ware
Stow
Templeton
Lancaster
Dover
Winchendon
Salisbury
Monson
Nantucket
West Boylston
Newbury
Blackstone
Athol
Upton
Maynard
Halifax
West Bridgewater
Rutland
Hamilton
Cohasset
Douglas
Sturbridge
Easthampton
Dudley
Palmer
Townsend
Southborough
Clinton
Spencer
Lunenburg
Webster
Fairhaven
Oxford
Tyngsborough
Westport
Concord
Gardner
Pepperell
Swansea
Norfolk
Lawrence
South Hadley
Charlton
Ashland
Amesbury
Norwell
Raynham
Kingston
Ipswich
Medway
Uxbridge
Randolph
Whitman
Holliston
Holyoke
Everett
Pittsfield
East Bridgewater
Wrentham
Auburn
Sudbury
Bellingham
Abington
Ludlow
Longmeadow
Grafton
Belmont
Norton
Westwood
Hanover
Lexington
Duxbury
West Springfield
Pembroke
Bourne
Brookline
Winchester
Marblehead
Stoneham
Fitchburg
Salem
Canton
Dartmouth
Westford
Easton
Malden
Dedham
Melrose
Bridgewater
Reading
Danvers
Norwood
Agawam
Wakefield
Arlington
Needham
North Andover
Tewksbury
Walpole
Dracut
Marshfield
Westfield
Falmouth
Leominster
Andover
Woburn
Medford
Beverly
Waltham
Lynn
Attleboro
Franklin
Taunton
Framingham
Methuen
Braintree
Chelmsford
Brockton
Lowell
Newton
Barnstable
Weymouth
Worcester
Boston
LATE ES&S LOCATIONS:
North Attleborough
Paxton
Rowley
Topsfield
Lakeville
Groton
Hanson
Carver
Lynnfield
Somerville
Scituate
Natick
REST OF THE ES&S LOCATIONS:
Gosnold
New Salem
Stockbridge
Gill
Shelburne
Buckland
Sunderland
Tisbury
Holland
Brookfield
Nahant
West Brookfield
North Adams
Avon
Princeton
Harvard
Hubbardston
Eastham
Chelsea
Ashburnham
Berkley
Hopedale
Rochester
Mattapoisett
Orleans
Greenfield
Acushnet
Chatham
Westminster
Freetown
Holbrook
Middleton
Millis
Northampton
Plainville
Southwick
Leicester
Brewster
Wayland
Sutton
Rehoboth
Millbury
Seekonk
Swampscott
Sharon
Winthrop
Harwich
Somerset
Northborough
Westborough
Mashpee
Medfield
Acton
Hopkinton
Wilbraham
Rockland
East Longmeadow
Dennis
Foxborough
Milford
Gloucester
Stoughton
Burlington
Revere
Mansfield
Wellesley
Middleborough
Yarmouth
Sandwich
Hingham
Marlborough
Fall River
New Bedford
Shrewsbury
Chicopee
Springfield
Haverhill
Peabody
Quincy
GENTLY PACED HAND COUNT LOCATIONS:
Cummington
Chilmark
Sheffield
Berlin
Montague
Essex
REST OF THE HAND COUNT LOCATIONS:
Monroe
Mount Washington
New Ashford
Aquinnah
Hawley
Alford
Wendell
Tyringham
Rowe
Washington
Plainfield
Monterey
Savoy
Middlefield
Leyden
Hancock
Heath
Warwick
Peru
Florida
Windsor
Sandisfield
Shutesbury
Tolland
Leverett
West Stockbridge
Egremont
Charlemont
Clarksburg
Goshen
Ashfield
New Marlborough
Worthington
Provincetown
Chesterfield
Colrain
Montgomery
New Braintree
Hinsdale
Chester
Royalston
Conway
Whately
Blandford
West Tisbury
Petersham
Russell
Truro
Westhampton
Cheshire
Phillipston
Huntington
Granville
Wellfleet
Oakham
Millville
Ashby
Plympton
Brimfield
Carlisle
Hampden
Shirley
Rockport
Newburyport
Hudson
MYSTERY, PROBABLY OPTICAL SCAN LOCATIONS:
Northbridge
Milton
* Source for Massachusetts voting systems by municipality from http://www.verifiedvoting.org |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 5627
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 2:41 am: |
|
There is a post at dkos from someone whose mother is supposedly a Dem insider, describing MA politics as a rift between Western MA Dems (incl. Coakley) and Eastern MA Dems (guy who lost in the primary), and resulting loss of support from TPTB in the Dem party. (I'm passing this on, not saying anyone should believe it. It's a partisan website and there could be various agendas. It's one more factor to consider when looking at patterns of results.)
Does this theory make any sense with the geographic spread of the results you see? Are the hand-counting areas that favored Coakley in W. MA?
This doesn't explain some of the heaviest pro-Coakley urban results.
It's hard to analyze results considering local politics, national politics and different voting systems.
Was there any exit polling? |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10981
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 3:06 am: |
|
There was no exit polling.
I have a tip sheet from a political organization explaining which geographic areas "belong" to whom. Need to overlay the whole thing on a map and oh yeah, publish the spreadsheet. But I'll post the spreadsheet tomorrow after I have a change to clean up some of my scribblings. |
Karen Nelson
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Kankan
Post Number: 55
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 4:42 am: |
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Bev said "Twenty-four of Diebold's 187 locations wandered in late, smoking cigarettes and wearing a bathrobe."
Okay, that is just plain funny and RIGHT.
What is up with that? Here's a thought, what typically slows reporting from a precinct or a central counting area? (in MA case, cities)...seems to me things go slow when things don't add up right or don't work right, so you have to go back and get machine to work, or check why vote number does not much number of voters. Not a good sign. |
Karen Nelson
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Kankan
Post Number: 56
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 5:13 am: |
|
I agree that Brown looked like a winner and he had obvious, provable enthusiasm in the form of big rallies, poll trends etc and Coakley was an obvious epic fail, (unlike say Hillary's lamely attended rallies before NH primaries, polls that were trending AWAY from her, and Obama's campaign obvious professionalism-no obvious failings).
But in a 3:1 Dem state with really good turnout for a special election, (in rural, suburbs, and cities alike), even all that enthusiasm and good vs bad campaigning Brown would have a had a hard time overcoming, especially given the decent turnout at the end. Its not like the Obama/Hill near toss up between them, Brown HAD to have huge enthusiasm edge and better run campaign to even be in the game in MA but even with that he had to climb up a big hill once decent turnout there.
Also, as I saw with the Jesse Ventura unlikely win for Gov in MN, it was necessary for him to look viable before people really started to rally around him. So some early polls that showed him getting closer really helped, then enthusiasm really took off. I saw his believable support go viral when my precinct was mobbed with lots of people I had never seen before, like muddy construction worker etc, lining up to make a historic upset. (MN allows same day regist, so he got a lot of previous non-voters).
In Brown's case, what really got him going was some stunning poll results a few weeks ago. Some of those polls were total crap, as Nate at 538 pointed out. Even the more establishment polls had weird, not typical biases in their locations of their samples (greatly favor Brown's support areas) and Rasmussen apparently did not realease last poll as is typical (what trend in likely voters might it have shown once Dems got worried and mobilized more). Most of the initial polls made Brown look good based on using the assumption of very low turnout and likley voters being much more swayed to enhusiastic Brown supporters as opposed to hold-your-nose Coakley supporters, but from the turnout data I have seen both Brown and Coakley support areas came out real well...sure there was not ground swell support Obama got in pres election, but its not like heavily Dem areas had way worse turnout than Repub areas.
So you have early wacky polls creating Brown surging even more than he was, then when Dem fear starts to make it more likely they turnout, polling stops reporting and Brown wins by big enough margin to no warrant examination.
It occurs to me Brown's win is the perfect recipe for TPTB to keep status quo and resist reform from left or right. Its not like Tea Partiers could put a conservative populist up from election in Mass, Brown, a moderate Repub (read: establishment) was Repubs only hope. So his election does nothing for economic populism, despite his friendly visits to Tea Partiers, he just helps on mainstrem Repub partisan stuff like anti HCR and pro big business policies. In fact Brown nicely hijacks right wing populism into nowhere, ineffective land. It also ensures Congress will be even more dysfunctial, if possible, so no real reform on behalf of the little guy, from the left or the right will happen.
To me a real tell is Lieberman saying this means Dems have to move to center...when I think the real take away from Brown even having a pray, let alone winning, is watch out, populism is getting stronger...not centrism, status quo.
I wonder about the effects of the Hoffman loss. Hoffman's win would have enouraged a bite at Repub establisment from the right, and having an additional Dem in the House from a repub district does little to change congress dynamics...so Hoffman loss = status quo.
Not that any of my conjectures are what is really important, its just the motives and patterns of results that fit them, dovetail nicely in with questioable election results, just as Hillary's luckiest woman in the world poll busting primary wins seemed to.
The important thing is just what Bev noted. We will never know, and we can't be sure its the voters deciding.
Given all the means and motives to steal elections, it wouldn't be a stretch to even imagine competing vote count thefts and frauds by conflicting, elite interests, like two hedge funds with special high frequency trading software duking it out on manipulating markets and trying to mess with the other fund's positions while the honest, non-insider investors and businesses get slaughtered.
Once we know that we don't get to decide...any possibility is open to whomever might be deciding, and why they might decide. |
Bob Fleischer
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rjf7r
Post Number: 239
Registered: 9-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 5:58 am: |
|
The Boston Globe has a really interesting and useful interactive map by town/city -- http://www.boston.com/news/special/politics/2010/senate/results.html |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 456
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 6:41 am: |
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I suppose I good project for those of us in Massachusetts would be to update the list of system types by location. There is no way we still have that many ES&S locations, with the caveat that they might all become ES&S locations. This list was compiled, by LWV I think, well before LHS dropped support for Optech machines. That created a wave of Diebold purchases. All I can say for sure is that Haverhill has AV-OS now, although it is on the ES&S list above. |
Bob Fleischer
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rjf7r
Post Number: 240
Registered: 9-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 7:01 am: |
|
What about this list from Galvin's web site?
http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ELE/eleclk/clkidx.htm |
Bob Fleischer
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rjf7r
Post Number: 241
Registered: 9-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 7:03 am: |
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By the way, here are tapes from two of my town's three districts:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rjf7r/sets/72157623248492638/ |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 457
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 7:13 am: |
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Yes, the hand count towns in Massachusetts are mostly out west. Compare the election map pointed out by Bob with this population density map. The electoral outcome is the same thing that happens nationally; population centers go blue and the remote places go red. The lack of machines in remote places is just because they can easily hand count. It's like having just one slightly large precinct. |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 458
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 7:30 am: |
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Nice find Bob, I didn't know about that SoS page. It's missing 1 city, although I don't know which yet. The breakdown is:
222 Accu-Vote
71 Paper
56 Optech
1 M-100
Here is a CSV I made from it.
|
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 459
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 8:25 am: |
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Here is a quick and dirty map of Massachusetts voting system types made from the SoS web page. It is not quite complete because my old copy of MapPoint doesn't have all the same city and town names the SoS uses. I manually mapped the ones I could, and just skipped some.
 |
Casey Reed
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Voternm
Post Number: 8
Registered: 8-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 9:56 am: |
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Chaos favors those who control the canvass and that is corporations who make the equipment and count the votes.
Americans seem to have a mental deficit. They can't see that many methods to vote and count votes means chaos and they can't tell who voted for who, or how the election is tallied.
The existing election system removes the voter from being able to verify how their vote was counted, participate in the process, and violates the people's Constitutional right to control government power through elections.
Count paper ballots in the polls on election day or admit democracy is a myth in the US. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10982
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 10:11 am: |
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Wow - you guys were busy last night while I was sleeping! Mike, thanks so much for the map.
And you're right about prevailing wisdom, population centers usually go blue and rural go red, and hand count is more rural.
That's why it is surprising that in Massachusetts the population centers went red (most of them) and the rural hand count went blue. It's the opposite of what I expected. |
Bob Fleischer
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rjf7r
Post Number: 242
Registered: 9-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 10:14 am: |
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but remember that Coakley is from the western, rural part of the state |
Bob Fleischer
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rjf7r
Post Number: 243
Registered: 9-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 10:16 am: |
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Casey,
We figure if there is sound and fury then it must signify something! |
Brian Cady
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Briancady413
Post Number: 1
Registered: 6-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 10:43 am: |
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The comparison to Maine's referendum is very powerful - Are there more data on other races hand-counted vs machine-counted discrepancies? |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 460
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 10:57 am: |
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I oversimplified my comments about population density. Others say that the very western part of MA is Martha Coakely territory, and hence the blue. I'm just accepting that. But I'm also calling most of the eastern Scott Brown territory at least non-urban, if not exactly remote. These are the yellow and orange portions on the population density map. The red patches on the population density map are urban, and those are the ones Coakely won. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3395
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 12:18 pm: |
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Wasn't the Dem. primary regionally divisive? Was there some lingering regional hard feelings that might have somewhat depressed eastern Democratic turnout, other than hardcore ideological territory (e.g. Cambridge, P-Town).
When primaries are stacked too closely to general elections, the normal rifts of a contested primary never get the normal chance to heal.
==========================================
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
|
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 5628
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 1:30 pm: |
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Kurt, that's what the dkos poster's mother supposedly said. She said the election was about internal Dem politics more than anything else (not about Obama, not about policies). The unhealed primary rift supposedly is what led to there being no committee-level and other high-level party support for Coakley, which normally would have been there. According to this post, Coakley wasn't "supposed" to win the primary.
Take it for whatever it's worth. |
Bob Fleischer
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rjf7r
Post Number: 244
Registered: 9-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 1:57 pm: |
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I don't understand that comment: Coakley was the odds-on favorite to win the nomination from the start. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 5629
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 3:28 pm: |
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Not according to one dkos poster's mother--for whatever that's worth. This person said that the East MA candidate was presumed to be a shoe-in and everyone took this for granted and didn't GOTV.
I know nothing about any of these candidates or MA politics (either party). Just passing on something that might be true or might not. Supposedly it's inside baseball. |
Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 34
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 8:31 pm: |
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Does anyone know how Mass handles over-votes? I checked the official 2008 and there is a category for "Others" and one for "Blank". I noticed on the poll tapes above there are no over-votes, and it is possible the PBOS machines have the override ability totally off.
It isn't directly comparable to other elections with more complicated ballots but in the one case of over 3000 votes there were 4 undervotes and 0 overvotes based on those two poll tapes.
It would be interesting to see the %UV and how the different counties has the menus set up for the overvotes, especially places with reported pre-filled out bubbles.
I'm guessing pre-filled out bubbles would not be effective if the machine will always reject the double-voted ballot and give the voter a warning. That would just be a stupid way to tamper with ballots (unlike pre-punched punchcards which would go unnoticed and be effective). They might, however, bring up the press OK to accept (meaning your vote doesn't count) or CANCEL to reject (meaning give you back your ballot to redo it) |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 462
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 9:23 pm: |
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The machines are set to kick back overvoted and blank ballots, but accept undervoted ballots. We basically don't use the override; it's possible our poll workers have not even been told about that feature.
I can really only speak for Haverhill, but I've never heard of different practices anywhere else in MA. |
Karen Nelson
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Kankan
Post Number: 57
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 21, 2010 - 4:52 am: |
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I'm curious about the east/west thing given Boston, Cambridge, Lex/Arlignton etc are huge eastern population centers in that went way Coakley. Can eastern suburbs swamp both eastern liberal cities and western MA (while rural they seemed to go Coakley's way). How's that work?
How does Coakley's total vote differential compare if percentage on hand ballots was applied to whole state total voter number? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3396
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 21, 2010 - 7:41 am: |
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Karen,
Apparently, they can. The eastern suburbs are where the raw numbers are. One thing to keep in mind. Brown EVEN won the town where the Kennedy Hyannisport compound is located. The eastern non-inner-city pattern was pervasive, again, with the exception of enclaves like Provincetown.
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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
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Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 463
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 21, 2010 - 8:05 am: |
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It's hard to understand this without knowing the politics of each region. Kurt points out that Barnstable went for Brown. But that should not be a surprise, as Brown opposes the Cape Wind Project which would put the USA's first ocean wind farm within sight, in Nantucket sound. Everyone has heard the term NIMBY, but how about BANANA? Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything |
Don Ogden
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Tribalscribal
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2010
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 26, 2010 - 5:59 am: |
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Greetings from the western end of the Commonwealth. Don't get me started on the Cape Wind corporados, but it IS surprising that Hyannis went for Brown. In any case, two things:
1) why no exit polls?
2) why no progressive media attention on the possibility that Diebold may have been at it again? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3400
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 26, 2010 - 8:09 am: |
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I can't answer #2, but I can answer #1 - the media did not expect this race to be close and trained and/or hired no exit pollsters. Remember, it is ALWAYS the major news media corporations sponsoring exit polling in this country.
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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
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Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 2469
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 26, 2010 - 8:51 am: |
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It sure sucks, when the best anybody can say is "The guy that got it? He probably won." |
Don Ogden
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Tribalscribal
Post Number: 2
Registered: 1-2010
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 26, 2010 - 10:31 am: |
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Kurt, that doesn't jibe with that fact that the race in the last few weeks was projected to be a squeeker by the very media that does exit polls. Why wouldn't they poll?? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3401
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 26, 2010 - 1:22 pm: |
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Don,
I think you underestimate how long it takes to prepare to do decent (and "decent" is all we ever get here, never "good" or "awesome") exit polling. There aren't just people lying around ready to go. The training ramp-up is amazingly long and expensive. They didn't see this coming 60 days out and that's how long it takes....MINIMUM.
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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
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Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 2470
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - 9:44 am: |
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And exit polls are the only canary in the coal mines. Afterwards, there are a million explanations for whatever the surprise might be.
Face it an anonymous, untraceable ballot is a blank check. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3402
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - 10:01 am: |
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Yup it am. No argument there. The difference is that the only portion of the population that thinks that's a problem is ...... us. Most "institutions" don't see it as a problem. Why? Because in their "best judgment" they see the idea that someone on the inside would screw around with an election is HYPER-unlikely. Many here disagree. That's the key difference.
Some people here even believe that the temptation for insiders to screw around with an election certainly must be so compelling that it surely must be a nearly ubiquitous thing going on. It simply is not. There are tens of thousands of election admins who would rather do almost anything than cheat an election. You can't possibly appreciate that until you've been there.
Now... who are those people and who are the dirtbags? That's the rub, it's damned tough to know.
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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
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Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 5631
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - 5:39 pm: |
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No one here has suggested that insiders screwing around with an election is "nearly ubiquitous".
Being concerned about the possibility of errors from any number of sources (including accidental errors), with no way of knowing actual results, and no accountability when officials don't follow the laws--that is not at all the same as the words you used.
Please don't misrepresent the legitimate concerns discussed on this website. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10984
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - 6:50 pm: |
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Just what percentage of elections officials tamper is probably not possible to know, but certainly it DOES happen -- and has happened recently (Clay County, KY for example).
Kurt, I have personally witnessed elections officials screwing around; the unwillingness to prosecute is a significant problem. In Volusia County, we were given poll tapes that were not the real ones; when we went very early in the morning and surprised them at the warehouse, I saw elections workers sitting at a table with piles of poll tapes in front of them, pens in hand. Later, we found poll tapes in the trash and examined sets of poll tapes that were mismatched -- in other words, results were different for one than the other, and both were supposedly for the same machine in the same precinct.
In New Hampshire elections officials were deliberately circumventing the chain of custody during a recount.
The concept of insider control of a government that is rightfully controlled by the public is not a new one; the founders explicitly warned that insiders could never be trusted, and that only the public vigilance would prevent us from becoming a nation run by wolves.
Does this mean all, or most election officials tamper? Of course not. Just as it is illogical to say "some officials tamper, so all officials tamper" it would be illogical to say "some officials don't tamper, so no officials tamper."
But when officials don't follow procedural checks and balances -- and they often don't (hello, Detroit!), and when enforcers do not investigate or prosecute violations, the proportion of inside tampering can be counted on to increase. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3404
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 28, 2010 - 8:43 am: |
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I agree with all that, but I consider the lack of desire to prosecute as a wholly separate issue - no less disturbing, but separate. I have thought long about why it happens. It could be a lack of understanding of the importance of how the laws are written. Prosectors are no more familiar with the details of election law than other attorneys are. Or it may be an insular view of government service - the "we got your back" syndrome. Or it could be the "we've got more important things on our plates" excuse. Either way, it has to go!
Catherine, I was NOT referring to core BBV contributors in my comment. You guys know the score. I was referring to the comments of "bombthrowers" who ocassionally fly in here, leave craters and then go back where they came from. You want to read stuff from bombthrowers? They are all over the net, and they are SOMETIMES here, but get weary when the bombs don't work for long here. Maybe there's too much light for them here, and not enough heat, I dunno. They infected Brad's site, the last time I looked, like a plague of locusts. Admittedly I never even go there any more. Never!
Here's the disconnect I see. All election officials know there are SOME dirtbags. They think that THEY THEMSELVES should not be tarred with the misdeeds of the dirtbags. At the same time, the EI movement says essentially, "When we find dirtbags, it means we need EVERYBODY to verify EVERYTHING as if they were suspect."
The problem is - both views are justified emotionally.
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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
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Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 5632
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 28, 2010 - 10:58 am: |
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But "we need EVERYBODY to verify EVERYTHING as if they were suspect" even when there are no "dirtbags" found!
That is just prudent best practise. It's why banks and businesses have their accounts audited, even if there is no evidence or suspicion of "dirtbags". It's a matter of good, routine practice of independent checks & crosschecks. It's preventative as much as it is investigative, and the purpose is to demonstrate that things are, as they are claimed to be.
Requiring good audit practices throughout an organisation should NEVER be seen as casting suspicion on anyone. Auditing & requiring following procedures should be standard practice, and people who aren't willing to follow agreed procedures should not keep their jobs. Same in a business financial office or a bank or in election administration, accounting for ballots, votes, seals, etc.
The defensiveness of election officials to good auditing practise--assuming your representation of their defensiveness is accurate, and Bev has certainly encountered this routinely in FOIA requests, citizen observations etc.--is a MAJOR barrier to improving election systems. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3406
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 28, 2010 - 11:34 am: |
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Catherine,
All I can do is describe the mindset that I've both seen upfront and close up and indeed felt myself.
It is essentially, "How f-ing DARE YOU challenge my credibility? Based on what exactly? There is no reason, not one shred, to suspect anything amiss here."
I can tell you, Catherine, that I have felt that more intensely than you can possibly imagine (Vintage: 2004). I got all up in Andy Stephensen's (sp?) face over it, in fact. It comes from 1) not having been given the staff or budget to lavishly document everything you internally know you should and 2) for many long years nobody has ever availed themselves of what opportunities there are available for oversight that you have managed to keep in place despite the annual attempts of the beancounters in the fiscal offices to cut everything to the bone because their view is that Elections is not that important an office to fund properly.
No one can know in advance which election will turn out to have an issue of contention that will require the resources that are constantly being cut not just TO the bone but well into the marrow.
Banks used to understand how important auditing and re-auditing the auditors is, or was. Politicians forgot it long ago.
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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10985
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 4 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 28, 2010 - 11:39 am: |
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I would add to Catherine's astute post:
PUBLIC auditing
PUBLIC right to know and PUBLIC authentication and PUBLIC right to see.
That's the whole point of having PUBLIC elections.
And unless the elections are PUBLIC, we don't have a democratic system at all.
I do agree that people run around the Internet making wild claims of fraud that has not been proven. It's annoying. It also distracts from the main point, which is that we need to articulate the elections process in terms of rights -- that is, public right to see and authenticate each essential step. If we don't even articulate the goal, we won't get it.
I think the fraud shouts quite often come from people who care more about a particular outcome in one election than about whether the process is democratic and public. There are still a LOT of people who honestly believe that Democrats never commit election fraud. LOL. A few weeks in the field will cure you of that concept.
I talk with leaders and citizens one on one daily, and mostly, can educate them about the core issue, which is right to know, and how egregiously our current system is failing us in that regard. Then I hear "but how do we fix that?" I believe the answer to that starts with public awareness -- the public isn't even aware that they HAVE these crucial rights, and therefore there is no public pressure for rights protection to underpin political, legal, or administrative decisionmaking. So we get decisions that consistently violate our rights. The first step is to get people to understand what the rights are and learn to articulate them.
When I spoke with the plaintiff in the German case, he told me that a lot of public awareness efforts were done BEFORE the court decision in Germany, which was key. We should note that the USA is much bigger and more diverse, so our challenge is greater in the public awareness area. But we have another challenge in the US. In Germany, the computer science community agreed with the rights framework, but in the USA, the computer science community is fighting AGAINST that approach and diluting the message with calls for security, increased technology, more expert-controlled systems, open source and the like. Academia tends to have more access and voice in the media. That cannot dissuade us -- I think it has become our duty to push the rights framework to the tipping point.
I also think we need to document what's going on to rob us of our rights, and that includes identifying by name, and documenting the elitist and antidemocratic position of any leader or academic in public statements. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3407
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 28, 2010 - 12:15 pm: |
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Gems:
"the public isn't even aware that they HAVE these crucial rights"
"There are still a LOT of people who honestly believe that Democrats never commit election fraud. ... LOL"
"The first step is to get people to understand what the rights are and learn to articulate them."
"our challenge is greater in the public awareness area"
and MOST ESPECIALLY...
"the USA, the computer science community is fighting AGAINST that approach (rights) and diluting the message with calls for security, increased technology, more expert-controlled systems, open source and the like."
Sheer genius. We've been, in the USA, societally infected with a worse "computer virus" than any other - the viral (and sick) thinking that the answer to any problem is more and more high technology. EEYICHHH!
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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
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Don Ogden
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Tribalscribal
Post Number: 3
Registered: 1-2010
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 28, 2010 - 3:39 pm: |
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Kurt,
re.: "how long it takes to prepare to do decent... exit polling"
I must be laboring under the mistaken belief that the corporate media can muster forces at their will. Why does it take 60 days?? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3408
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 28, 2010 - 9:05 pm: |
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Very few actual frontline exit polling "enumerators" ever do it a second time. Most of them are students, retirees, and the unemployed, and the "pack" constantly turns over - so training has to start from scratch every time. There is no set of "ready to go" precinct enumerators out there.
Yes, the "higher ups" stay around, but the frontline questioners pretty much do not.
The process of getting the November 2010 media exit polling operation set up will begin any day now. It'll start with designing the training so that enumerators get representative samples and don't skew the sample. Sampling is soooo key. Taking even two or three easy human nature shortcuts when you're tired and cold and wet and hungry can skew a sample significantly.
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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
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V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3409
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 29, 2010 - 6:29 am: |
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I know I frequently wax verbose on the topic of sampling for exit polling. Call it a fetish. I just see so much bad technique out there, it makes me nuts. The most recent thread was one about a group that had some exit polls in Centre County, PA that were not in compliance with the official results there.
They admitted they had undersampled older voters and Republicans, so they "weighted" the sample to correct for it, which IN MOST CASES is sound technique, IF AND ONLY IF the populations of those you got and those you didn't are essentially the same pool of folks. Not there. You can't just norm the sample by "scaling up" the older voters you DID get or the Republicans you DID get and your sample is repaired. It doesn't work that way if there is something attitudinally different about the older voters or Republicans you did get vs. those you didn't. There is a covariance.
We have a significant-sized population of angry, white, male, elderly, hyper-conservative, surly, scowl-wearing voters who would rather punch an exit poller in the face than talk to one. They are Tea Partiers, birthers, Birchers, Dittoheads (Limbaugh), and while they MIGHT NOT make up a significant demographic where YOU live, they are HUGE here. They are the ones that had their Ron Paul signs up all over the Pennsylvania landscape right up through the NOVEMBER 2008 election. They are a breed apart and they are numerous in midstate PA. You can't norm a sample to account for them, you just can't.
So... when your data suggests you've undersampled elderly voters and Republicans, I suggest you've undersampled these guys (probably easy to do, they're SCARY!), and you can't adjust your sample of OTHER elderly voters or OTHER Republicans to adjust for having missed them.
I'm sorry for ranting, but this is one of my peeves - nobody thinks about how to PROPERLY adjust a sample that is not fundamentally from the same population as the whole population. There's too much sloppy social science being practiced. Statistics (e.g. exit polling) may be a pretty good science, but too many treat it like a religion. Some things just don't work as well as advertised in academia.
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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
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Lou Puls
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Loupuls
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2010
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 29, 2010 - 10:37 am: |
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@Kurt, you make excellent points on exit polling.
To me, a fundamental problem is the level of trust, in any particular demographic, of such a necessarily intrusive process. In a demographic such as Germany, where the polizei know exactly where you live at all times under force of law, there must be a mind-boggling level of acceptance and trust in such processes. Hence it is feasible that there exit polling can often be more accurate than the necessarily complex and always somewhat error-prone electoral system itself.
It is inconceivable that a demographic full of 'rugged individualists', who trust very little beyond their tightly closed and highly uneducable social circle, would ever believe an anonymous exit poll would be anything other than a plot to do them in.
Only a slow evolution can modify such a demographic, the elders (hopefully) gradually replaced by more open-minded youth. To me it is somewhat hopeful that in many rural Pennsylvania communities, an awareness is growing that polluting corporate interests are being opposed on the basis of their indefensible rights of personhood. This is still based on lack of trust, but at least responding in a positive way.
Lou |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3411
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 29, 2010 - 11:20 am: |
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Spot on, Lou. This is surely a phenomenon with a finite shelf life.
If and when the WHOLE population comes to see exit polling as a safety device for their protection, rather than the commies coming to get them, the day will be hastened.
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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
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Jeff Spellerberg
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Happyfeller
Post Number: 1
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, February 1, 2010 - 12:36 pm: |
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We have become serfs, and the very foundation of our slavery is because the whole world has had the “democratic vote” stolen by electronic voting machines controlled by private corporations. Bev points out that in the recent Massachusetts election, Scott Brown lost every precinct which was counted by hand, and won virtually all the precincts counted by electronic voting machines. What does that tell us? Shall be connect the dots for Bev? Bev also points out that electronic machines were slower to count than the hand tallies! How could this possibly be? From my point of view, it appears that only when our corporate masters knew how many votes Mr. Brown needed to win, only then did the corporate masters push the buttons to tally the vote, and viola! The electronic votes did come in and did decide the game.
Maybe Mr. Brown really did win, maybe not, but we will never know who really won that election, or ANY election run by private corporate voting machines. PRIVATE MACHINES COUNTING THE PUBLIC VOTE! HOW INSANE IS THAT? I also believe that the polls are rigged, have been rigged for years. Voting is also rigged by the hidden electronic machines, but never obviously. Almost always you will see the “surprise winner” somehow win at about 51% to 49%. This happens over and over and over again, all around the world.
Of course, maybe the last minute, post concession "Coakley Surge" was the manipulators trying hard to fix their error of allowing Mr. Brown to win 53% 5o 47%... Can't look too good while your pulling off an "upset".
We’ve seen what kind of “public servants” the corporations put in power, both democrat and republicans, working hard for their corporate masters. Look at every decision in the last 15 years, and show me where a single congressman made decision which showed his fear of being voted from office by PEOPLE. If congress represented PEOPLE, and not corporations, we would have a much much different country today.
I cringe, I recoil at any argument that claims that computerized voting has any place in deciding elections. I reject the notion that any private corporation should be allowed to have a role at any point in the chain between the people and the determination of the voter's decisions in elections. The only way for “we to the people” to return to any semblance of a democracy would be for the people to seize all the electronic voting machines owned by that single company, Diebold (now called Premier Voting Systems), and (not unlike the Luddites) smash them with bats or (not unlike the Boston Tea Party) throw every damn last one of them into the Boston harbor. Then we should create a constitutional amendment, from the people up, to have a national voting holiday – where everybody must not only vote via paper ballots, but must also work the polls to count those paper ballots, openly and under the direct supervision of the other citizens. Only citizens should count, and only citizens should certified the totals. Not computers. Not machines, not officials. Openly and transparently. To not do this, NOW, IMMEDIATELY, is for each of us to choose to remain slaves.
The second constitutional amendment should state that corporations are not “people” and specifically deny corporations the protections of the bill of rights, and further, require that each corporation first serve the public good (there goes the pollution, the poisonous products, etc.), and secondly serve profits.
Is this crazy? What crazy ideas we slaves have, here in the bottom of the boat, chained to the oars and rowing so our masters can stroll the deck, as they listen to lutes, and imagine great wars…
I have shown you the way to revolution from your own servitude. We, the people, can do it with pens and paper and never fire a shot… Its time to call the PEOPLE together for a constitutional convention, and to NOT invite the corporations. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10988
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, February 1, 2010 - 3:34 pm: |
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Hi Jeff, and welcome to Black Box Voting!
I have to clarify one misconception about the statistics. This is important: Overall, Coakley won the hand counts and overall, Brown won the machine counts. But within those overall totals, there were some hand counted jurisdictions where Brown won, and some machine counted jurisdictions where Coakley won.
There is a concept for refusing to allow corporations to control vote counting, and it is in place in some other areas of governmental structure. It is called "nondelegability" and it means that there are certain functions that the government cannot outsource. Counting the vote should be one of those.
Now, as to holding a constitutional convention, I have seen the push growing for that but it is a perilous course of action in today's climate. Even if corporations are not allowed to participate in the convention, be assured that both corporations and political power structures could participate in organizing and mobilizing, and could overrun the constitutional congress to take control through organized real person proxies, and such a situation would allow some very dangerous alterations in our system of government.
Not that it isn't already perilous, but I think that on balance, rushing off to form a constitutional convention by the little guys, if it looks like it will succeed, will very quickly turn into the big guys controlling it. |
Brian Cady
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Briancady413
Post Number: 3
Registered: 6-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, February 15, 2010 - 6:41 am: |
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I'll attempt to post a graph showing Mass towns percent for Brown, colored by voting method and plotted by first, the natural log of the turnout, and second, by the median income of the town.
I could use some help calculating p-values and confidence intervals for the different voting methods and such. Also, I would like to compare this to other recent US Senate races in other states, and would appreciate access to data of such states. |
Brian Cady
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Briancady413
Post Number: 4
Registered: 6-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, February 22, 2010 - 9:09 am: |
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Here's a similar graph for the 2008 presidential election:
 |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3449
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, February 22, 2010 - 1:33 pm: |
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Brian,
I don't know what you see when you look at those four graphs taken together, but I see an almost electorate-wide shift of 18 or so points to Brown from Obama, without much else of a change. That, and small districts are more prone to be hand counts in both elections.
You?
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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
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Brian Cady
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Briancady413
Post Number: 5
Registered: 6-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, February 25, 2010 - 6:29 am: |
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Hi Kurt,
I think you are right, but plan to check with some statistical tools (to practice statistics). I will also look at earlier Mass elections. I could look at other states, too, I guess. Do you have any suggestions on statistical approaches or other elections to look at?
Brian |
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Massachusetts voting systems
