Exit polls versus actual election results

I came across this on another site and found it very disquieting with its implications: http://rense.com/general59/steI.HTM

Is there anything to this or do I need to get a new ribbon for my tinfoil hat?

[Happy Monkey]

Whether or not there was fraud on the E-voting machines, they need to be fraudproofed. Short of a whistleblower in the company, there's no way to detect whether fraud occurred, so it's probably not really worth the tinfoil hat label for the meager results you may get. But fraudproofing future elections is a goal that should in theory be able to get broad support.

[glatt]

There's no way to know if there was fraud with the electronic voting. I do know that I am less confident now than I ever have been that my vote is actually being counted. I would rather have paper. Optically scanned ballots, where you fill in the oval with a number two pencil, can be tallied quickly and re-visited if there are questions later.

[iamthewalrus109]

Its really sad to think that some of the only things that came out of the 2000 election was provisional balloting and the destruction of the VNS. I remember Tauzin from Louisanna trying to get reform through, of course nothing happened. Of course there should never be federal control of election processes, but there needs to be a federally mandated system, possibly subsidized by the federal government that will trickle down to the states, county by county. Each County Clerk in the state should hold the county in compliance with these standards period. 2004 is over, now there needs to be reform by the likes of Ralph Nader and others to ensure a more cohesive voting system exists in this country.

-Walrus

[Happy Monkey]

tw had a good start on what should be national standards for electronic voting.

I was given a provisional ballot, and when I called in to check its status, I was told my vote would not be counted until January! I was also told that the county was that far behind in keying in voter registration records. That's 3 months! They said I was listed as a Colorado voter, but my address change hadn't taken effect and wouldn't until January. That just seems plain wrong to me, especially since many other newly registered voters must be in the same predicament (or those like me with adress changes).

[Happy Monkey]

An article on e-voting.

Thanks for the site, HM. It would seem there are potential problems, but as you noted, who can say for sure unless someone were to come forward with actual proof? I continue to feel unsettled about the three month delay my county has admitted to in the keying in of voter registrations. I don't know if it's worth lodging an official complaint over or not.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by marichiko

Is there anything to this or do I need to get a new ribbon for my tinfoil hat?

Check his homepage before you go adding ribbons. The whole site is tinfoil hat territory. (That I happen to enjoy immensely).

Think of him as being kind of like Art Bell Lite.

[wolf]

Let me add to that ... Art Bell Lite with an anti-semitic flair, holocaust revisionism included.

Kind of unusual for the Crop Circle and Mysticism crowd, actually.

[glatt]

First known e-voting glitch. This one mysteriously gave Bush a few thousand extra votes from one machine.

Did this happen elsewhere, but was only discovered in one place?
Computer glitch give Bush extra votes

In one precinct, Bush’s tally was supersized by a computer glitch
Friday, November 05, 2004
Jim Woods
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

A computer error involving one voting-machine cartridge gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a Gahanna precinct.

Franklin County’s unofficial results gave Bush 4,258 votes to Democratic challenger John Kerry’s 260 votes in Precinct 1B, which votes at New Life Church on Stygler Road. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, said Bush received 365 votes there.

The remaining 13 voters who cast ballots either voted for other candidates or did not vote for president.

Damschroder said he received some calls yesterday from people who saw the error when reading the list of poll results on the election board’s Web site.

"It’s why the results on election night are unofficial," Damschroder said.

The error would have been discovered when the official canvass for the election is performed, he said.

Election workers will start certifying the official election results later this month. The final, official tally will be available by the end of the month.

This is what happened, Damschroder said:

Gahanna Precinct 1B has three voting machines. After the polling station closed, the cartridges were taken to a computerized reading station.

When one of the cartridges from the precinct was plugged into a reader, it generated the faulty number.

The reader also recorded zero votes in the race between Arlene Shoemaker and Paula Brooks for county commissioner.

Damschroder said the cartridge was retested yesterday and there were no problems. He couldn’t explain why the computer reader malfunctioned.

When workers checked the cartridge against memory banks in the voting machine yesterday, each showed that 115 people voted for Bush on that machine. With the other two machines, the total for Bush in the precinct added up to 365 votes.

So far, Damschroder said, no other problems have surfaced.

When election workers do the official canvass, all cartridges from voting machines are rechecked

[tw]

Originally Posted by glatt

From the article:"So far, Damschroder said, no other problems have surfaced. "

A computer reads numbers and does not have error detection numbers? ECC should be standard. Failure should be obvious the moment it occured. This is a major problem suggesting problems may be even more widespread.

Whose machine is that defective - manufacturer and model number? No useful details provided meaning that insufficient information is available to draw conclusions. Exactly the definition of a defective newspaper article. That report only suggests something is wrong - big time - with some Ohio voting machines and that voting officials were not concerned over something that should never occur undetected. If one voting machine counts that grossly in error and is not detected when read, then other machines certainly could be doing same - undetected.

Did the voting machine manufacturer fix his problems - or just make those problems undetectable?

[russotto]

An error of 3893 is unlikely to be the type caught by ECC. 4096, yes. Not 3893.