BS: Was the fix in?

Subject: RE: BS: Was the fix in?
From: John Hardly
Date: 10 Nov 00 - 01:12 PM

Bartholemew,

I suppose by now you heard the clarification from MSNBC last night that the 19,000 ballots did not represent 19,000 VOTES NOT CAST. They were a pile of ballots that WERE REPLACED WHEN PEOPLE REALIZED THEIR MISTAKE. The reason they were initially brought to the public's attention was to illustrate just how confusing the ballot was--NOT TO SAY THAT 19,000 VOTES WERE NOT CAST.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Was the fix in?
From: Bert
Date: 10 Nov 00 - 12:03 PM

I spent many years checking other peoples designs and then even more years in customer support debugging peoples computer programs.

A few mistakes are due entirely to the stupidity of the person making them. But MOST mistakes are created by confusing environments and/or instructions.

In this case the mistakes were CREATED by a confusing form layout. Now I think this was much more likely due to lack of experience on the part of the designers than to any ulterior motive. (If an ulterior motive was involved the layout would have been much more subtle)

The logic used by those who punched For Buchanan in place of Gore went as follows... "I punched the FIRST hole that aligned with Al Gore's name"

The logic for those who punced twice was exactly the same - until they thought about it - Then they thought "No this hole is right in the middle of Gore's name so THIS must be the one" and they punched again.

Others who asked officials for help, received none because the officials didn't know either.

DougR, I suppose calling them 'dumbos' because they reacted differently than you would have to a confusing situation makes you feel very superior.

Bert.

Subject: RE: BS: Was the fix in?
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 10 Nov 00 - 11:57 AM

Geez, I should be ashamed of myself. I left out the part about the second-puncher being seen on the grassy knoll. . .

Actually, when I went back and re-read my post I realized that in stating the possibility that someone tampered with the ballots I made it sound like I believed that actually happened. And although it could have, it probably didn't. I heard on local public radio that around 120,000 ballots are routinely disqualified in Chicago alone each election. I don't know how many people are in Palm Beach County, but there is a good chance that 19,000 bad ballots is perfectly reaonable.

What I really wanted to point out is that there are legitimate reasons to question the results in Florida and to not rush to any conclusions. There is more to the Democrat's complaints than the whining of sore losers. Luckily for me there are some sensible heads here in the Mudcat who found substance in my post. I was trying to be provocative to draw people into the discussion and ended up sounding like Mel Gibson in that conspiracy movie with Julia Roberts (but it turned out he was more than just another goof, didn't it?).

At any rate, trying to figure out a way to avoid these kinds of dubious conclusions in the future is undoubtedly more productive than speculation (or allegation) of past fraud.

Bart, apologizing all the way

Subject: RE: BS: Was the fix in?
From: John Hardly
Date: 10 Nov 00 - 11:49 AM

Yeah, but do you think it probable that someone could think they would get away with "fixing" 19,000 ballots?

Subject: RE: BS: Was the fix in?
From: DougR
Date: 10 Nov 00 - 11:29 AM

Bart: You make some excellent points and I'm with you all the way until you get to the conspiracy theory. I think 19,000 dumbos simply screwed up their ballots, and when their man didn't win, they decided to protest in hopes of being able to vote again.

The disappointed are looking to any possible avenue to keep this thing brewing. I've seen the ballot in question. We used to use that same ballot in Arizona, but have gone to the same type Wyoming evidently uses. The folks who voted for Buchanan but did not intend to, were just careless. Arrows are very easy to see, and an arrow pointed to each name on the ballot. Carelessness should not be rewarded by allowing those folks another shot at it. If Gore had won handily, you never would have heard the word Butterfly Ballot, in my opinion.

Guest Uncle: I read your whole post, and appreciate where you are coming from. Just a suggestion, though, you will stand a much better chance of folks reading long posts if you break it up into paragraphs. It's much easier to read that way.

Best, DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Was the fix in?
From: GUEST,Uncle J.
Date: 10 Nov 00 - 10:46 AM

This is surely going down in the history books as "Clusterf^&#$ 2000"! Oh, by the way; you must be familiar with Algore's Campaign Director, Jim (i think) DALEY. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't his Daddy affectionately know around Chicago as "King" Daley, or something like that? Now there's a guy we can look up to as a role model for clean, fair, elections, no? How about the big Unions forcing employers to give Members Election day off (with pay, no doubt) so they could "volunteer" for the Party of choice; their choice, or the Union boss's choice? Which Party might THAT be, hmmmm??? Gee, our shop had to WORK Tuesday. Did yours? (You do "work", don't you?) And the "pack of smokes for your vote" trick with the derelicts of one city (where they actually got caught) was cute. Now which Party was it they were being "encouraged" to vote for? If the perps actually get prosecuted, tried and convicted of election fraud, that will be a good indication that it might have been GOP. But I don't think so. What I'm suggesting here, if you're still reading this, is that caution (is "discretion" still in the PC dictionary? I know that "Honor, "Truth" and "Responsibility" have long since been deleted) might be indicated here before we go pointing ALL of the accusitory fingers in the SAME direction, as our Komrades in the "news" and entertainment industry are so wont to do! Now I'm trying to be at least a little open-minded here, - which is admittedly a bit of a stretch for an old Yankee dissident redneck dittohead politically ATROCIOUS conservative Christian prolife NRA dinosaur (are we extinct yet?) ... but is it reasonable to ask fellow Americans, including those of alternative persuasion, to extend a reciprochal effort?
We had two "Americas" from 1861 to 1865, and I'm hearing some pundits claiming that it's shaking down to a similar polarization this week. As I stood on Little Round Top overlooking the hallowed ground of Gettysburg, I wondered; "How many gallons of blood were poured out on this place? How many gallons of tears flowed down in homes North and South as a consequence? Can we yet smell the acrid smoke from still-smouldering embers of resentment and hate wafting out from beneath that old pile of ashes remaining from the long-since Dead?". Do YOU want to go there again? Go to G-burg, or Anteitam, or Shiloh Hill, or Cold Harbor... and look for yourself; feel for yourself... THINK for YOURSELF! Walk among the silent white headstones in vast array, where fly the Battlejack and Stars & Stripes, sometimes side by side, and listen to the still, longago voices... then ask you heart. Do we really want to go stirring in that old pile of bones and ashes? I think not.

Subject: RE: BS: Was the fix in?
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Nov 00 - 10:34 AM

Kim, we use paper here in Wyoimg. We use a pencil to fill in the broken arrow which points to whomever we want to vote for. Then we feed the ballot into an electronic looking box which counts the ballots. I don't know if it also counts the votes.

I agree with you it does need to be more uniform.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Was the fix in?
From: Kim C
Date: 10 Nov 00 - 10:17 AM

I don't know about vote fixing, but why are some places still using paper ballots of any kind? Here in Davidson County in the Great State of Tennessee, we have voting machines where you push little buttons and have a chance to stand there and check and double-check before you push the big VOTE button. That is the ONLY thing I have ever voted on in the 12 years I've been voting. If the Postal Service can make all manner of laws governing the standardization of postage scales and meters, why in the sam hill can't we have standardized voting equipment? In the computer age it seems silly to use paper ballots ESPECIALLY in a Presidential election when you are talking about millions of votes.

Subject: RE: BS: Was the fix in?
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Nov 00 - 10:10 AM

Interesting points. Rog said a long time ago, they tried the butterfly ballots in New Hamshire, where he grew up. They found them to be so confusing and faulty, they trashed them and went to something else.

kat

Subject: Was the fix in?
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 10 Nov 00 - 09:58 AM

Why did they punch twice?

As I watched the news and listened to reports, this question kept coming back to me. If, as a voter, you thought you punched the wrong hole, you would ask for a new ballot. Every ballot for President that I have ever used said "Vote for One". Why would someone intentionally invalidate their own ballot by punching a second time?

I personally don't think the ballot is that confusing. We use it in Chicago without the kind of problem they're having in Florida. But I can understand someone punching the wrong hole, even when they had seen the ballot in advance (in the paper and in the mail). Someone inadvertently voting for Buchanan is impossible to prove and must be wrung up as "too damn bad".

But I cannot understand how 19,000 people, all in a single county, all tried to fix their mistake by punching again when it's pretty common knowledge that voting twice would invalidate the ballot. The contention that 16,000 votes were similarly discounted in 1996 is also hard to understand. Did the same people make the same mistake two elections in a row and then get 3,000 of their friends to do the same thing?Unless you think that the 19,000 most confused people in the country all happen to live in the same county, you have to come to the conclusion that something else happened in Palm Beach County.

There are two ways to illegally skew a vote count: Give your own candidate more votes than he/she deserved, or eliminate votes for your opponent. I am beginning to think that votes for Al Gore in Palm Beach County were punched a second time by someone trying to invalidate those ballots.

This "second punching" could have easily been done during the time that the ballot boxes were "in transit". The polls closed at 7:00 and the votes weren't in and counted until 2:30 AM. It would have had to been done by someone without breaking the seal on the boxes, which would indicate that this was worked out according to a plan that was executed in at least the last two elections.

Although I don't see the point in whining over an election that was lost fair and square, I'm beginning to think that the fix was in. I don't think what happened in predominantly Democratic Palm Beach County was "voter confusion". I think it was vote fraud. And I'm from Chicago. We have more than a little experience with this stuff.