Debunking the 2000 election theft CT

[Caustic Logic]

Alright, it would appear I have given this thread teh plagues.

There is at least one good counter-point that I've run across vis-a-vis the effects of the scrub lists in the actual voting. Found a site with a decent summation
http://www.davekopel.org/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm#2000_Election_Night

The overbreadth of the purge was well-known in Florida before the election. As a result, election officials in 20 of Florida's counties ignored the purge list entirely. In these counties, convicted felons were allowed to vote. Also according to the Post, thousands of felons were improperly allowed to vote in the 20 non-purging counties. Analysis by Abigail Thernstrom and Russell G. Redenbaugh, dissenting from a report by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, suggests that about 5,600 felons voted illegally in Florida. (The Thernstrom/Redenbaugh dissent explains why little credit should be given to the majority report, which was produced by flagrantly ignoring data.)

When allowed to vote, felons vote approximately 69 percent Democratic, according to a study in the American Sociological Review. Therefore, if the thousands of felons in the non-purging 20 counties had not been illegally allowed to vote, it is likely that Bush's statewide margin would have been substantially larger.

For the record, failing to purge the vote lists is illegal. There were real felons on each list, at least two, wrongly registered and voting D. 20 counties out of 67 let the net down altogether. Only one I'm aware of, Valusia, did the opposite and used the list intact with no efforts to alert anyone or correct anything.

Does anyone know if the state pressed charges against any of the count election supervisors?

I still haven't read the Thernstrom/Redenbaugh dissent, but it is interesting, as Brainster noted, it's not at the USCCR site.

 

[Kritikos]

I've been following your posts; I just have no new information to add.

This stuff from Dave Kopel certainly complicates the picture. Now I suppose we have to check his facts too. . . .

 

[Caustic Logic]

I've been following your posts; I just have no new information to add.

This stuff from Dave Kopel certainly complicates the picture. Now I suppose we have to check his facts too. . . .

Word, thanks. It's a decent source too - he had a shot at debunking the overall voter purge list and came up with this:

There were two major problems with the purge. First, several states allow felons to vote once they have completed their sentences. Some of these ex-felons moved to Florida and were, according to a court decision, eligible to vote. Florida improperly purged these immigrant felons.

Second, the comprehensive effort to identify all convicted felons led to a large number of false positives, in which persons with, for example, the same name as a convicted felon, were improperly purged. Purged voters were, in most cases, notified months before the election and given an opportunity to appeal, but the necessity to file an appeal was in itself a barrier which probably discouraged some legitimate, non-felon citizens from voting. According to the Palm Beach Post, at least 1,100 people were improperly purged.

That's a pretty low number he settled on there. Not sure of thee Post's methods, but at least he doesn't danca around the evident fact that these were improper decisions. And he's TRYING to shoot down Moore's points.

Now what this affects really is the outcome of the vote, and NOT the intent behind the scrub list construction. It's possible officials at dept of Elections conspired to drop voters, and this ignoring of the lists in 20 counties was just backlash from that effort.

Even if there were only, say, 2,000 non-felons barred, that's about 1200 Gore votes down and 800 less for Bush. If as the dissent found 5600 felons voted illegally, that maybe 3360 plus for Gore to 2240 up for Bush. Either way the end result we know is the one that comes out 500+ for Bush by some counting methods and for Gore by others. IF these two scenarios are true, Bush just barely beat a backlash fraud surge that nearly cost him Florida.

And even if these are true, the patterns up until now STILL indicate a conspiracy going into election season.

 

[Klimax]

Crickets. Alright, something fresh then, a well-documented example of scrub-list error I haven't even mentioned yet.

DBT's first list in January 2000 featured app. 65,700 names of felons to purge, and app 8000 of these were quickly found to be in error. It was probably the systemic nature of this block that tippped off county officials processing complaints - all were convicted of misdemeanors in Texas.
DBT double-checked their sources and found they made a mistake - in trusting the data supplied to them by officials in Texas. DBT announced the error and the fix in May, and by June had a new list out to the counties with 57,700ish felons rather than 65,700. Thus one single block error had provided 11% of the original "deadwood" list to clear out, but that one was also caught.

Now, mis-categorizing misdemeanors as felonies can happen by mistake. It can't do so with 8,000 cases one-at-a-time but only if it's done at the data-block level - one error repeated on all files. That this block error was made just as a company was specifically asking Texas about felons who needed to be barred from voting in the upcoming election is troubling. The worst of all of course is that the Governor of Texas was one of the candidates, and this "accidental" boost was being handed to his brother's people, perhaps well-prepared to maximize the edge.

My question is: can anyone here honestly tell me this is not a suspicious pattern worth considering a conspiracy over? I'm willing to consider Democrat counter-measures, like Slosberg's machine theft or the dead vote as it worked in 2000, or whatever. I suspect when we compare scale, however, the State has the advantage and they leaned Bush.

Could be simple yet bad mistake in SQL select-update command can screw data very easly as one of administrators of Einstein@home discovered.(marking some units as cancelled he made one character error causing slect satement taking (nearly)all units.
And if there was sort of batching operation for more tables(files) and no subsequent check for correctness(not suprising...) it could explaing this type of error.

Just adding a possibility. (But then why manual update in cyclus? Or critical missed bug in software??? ...)

 

[Caustic Logic]

Thanks Klimax. I appreciate any and all feedback on this. It's a complex issue, I'm finding to my surprise. LOL.

Adding to the above about Ms. lePore, election supervisor for Palm Beach county - she's also of course the designer/appprover of design for the famous butterfly ballot that erased quite a few Gore votes. That also didn't match the sample ballot they sent to people to practice and by law it's supposed to. You aren't supposed to confuse people at the last minute. She's lso the person who decided to stay with the votomatic and to not press charges against the Slosberg guy. So she also had polling places closing early, phone lines jammed all day as elsewhere with calls to correct problems, a misspelled name, several voters turned away for not being on the rolls, and LePore shut down the office and went home early.

However I'm no original genius for being suspicious - the Miami Herald Report book I'm reading explains she's already been harassed plenty, lost weight from stress and threats, mostly about the ballot design and lack of guidance/warning. You don't get mad like that if you think it was an accident. Also the vicious rumors about her being a stewardess on Adnan Kashoggi's airplane were untrue - the Herald found she was just a friend of Kashoggi's who dated one of his pilots. So anyway, sorry for bringing it up.

 

[Caustic Logic]

I didn't want to leave it on quite that note, and I'm not arguing anything against LePore, it's just these weird things pop out and I can't ignore them. When it starts tying into Kashoggi and from there to Iran-Contra and then to... I have to recognize a rabbit hole and say no thanks.

Anyway, this issue is proving hopelessly complicated and impossible to verify all around. Election systems sucked, especially in Florida in 2001. People will cheat when they think they can get away with it. I feel I've made a sloppy but compelling case for stateside fraud to snag those 25 electoral votes, while a counter-force of pro-Gore fraud (presumably more decentralized) worked the other way. So nothing proven but I hope with all this at least someone out there will be less flippant in stating that Bush won fair and square and the 2000 election CT is debunked.

 

[zaphod2016]

Could be simple yet bad mistake in SQL select-update command can screw data very easly

Very true, however, wouldn't they hold a back-up copy (copies)?

And wouldn't they notice the "XXX,XXX records changed" message, and think: "whooops- that can't be right..."

Of course, this assumes a competent IT staff, and due dilligence on the part of everyone who had access to the data.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Very true, however, wouldn't they hold a back-up copy (copies)?

And wouldn't they notice the "XXX,XXX records changed" message, and think: "whooops- that can't be right..."

Of course, this assumes a competent IT staff, and due dilligence on the part of everyone who had access to the data.

Oh man, what are you, the plausibility police? We can't know what was purposeful or accidental. [/JREF fundamentalist]

 

[Caustic Logic]

Apologies

to the forum: above should be [/anti-CT fundamentalist]

to Zaphod and Klimax for sarcasm and/or failing to delve into this possible mass error and its details. It just seems too absurd to me, but I'm glad someone else is here to think about the things I can't be bothered with.

to Joey Donuts for glossing right past your post on page 1. Oh, we're only on page 2? Feels longer to me.

I'm sure that this was investigated thoroughly by the DNC. If it was, in fact, stolen - go back to one of the litmus tests for conspiracy theories.

How many people would it take to pull this off? How many people would have to keep quiet about it? The Bush Administration wasn't good about keeping any of their misdeeds and blunders under wraps - wiretapping, Valerie Plame, GITMO, etc.

If there was proof the election was "stolen" I'm fairly sure Democratic Party officials would have found it and raised the roof right off the Supreme Court. They were chomping at the bit to get their man in.

No links for ya, sorry - only my two cents on the matter.

It's past my bedtime.

It's a good couple of questions - broad-brush but worthy of addressing. On numbers of those involved, we have to consider not just quantity but quality of involvement. The Governors Bush, some loyal key lackeys, FL SoS Harris, DoE Roberts, DBT's passive willingness to make bad lists for big bucks - from there all that's needed is a little luck and too little time to correct the errors all, and a few county election supervisors willing to play their parts would sure help but not be necessary.

Then, the 'conspiracy of silence...' I don't want to go right to the old 'there's only one party with two wings' simplification, but... you could say 'well, they didn't make a stink because the claims aren't true.' But think - why should that stop them? There's a confusing but compelling case to be made, as I've done here, and they could have too but didn't.

What does anyone else say? Why did Gore and the Democrats not push harder on the election when things were so close it was down to Florida of all places and that barely and with allegations all over?

 

[Klimax]

Very true, however, wouldn't they hold a back-up copy (copies)?

And wouldn't they notice the "XXX,XXX records changed" message, and think: "whooops- that can't be right..."

Of course, this assumes a competent IT staff, and due dilligence on the part of everyone who had access to the data.

If manual then you don't have to notice that. However in case of application itself then it would be bad bug and then they don't have to get number of updated records.

However we are talkin about human factor and we all know how reliable it is...

Apologies
to Zaphod and Klimax for sarcasm and/or failing to delve into this possible mass error and its details. It just seems too absurd to me, but I'm glad someone else is here to think about the things I can't be bothered with.

Not absud and since it happend already at least once,then why admins for state system should be immune?(Or programmers...)

As for sarcasm,why not? I like it. (Even if I am target...)

What does anyone else say? Why did Gore and the Democrats not push harder on the election when things were so close it was down to Florida of all places and that barely and with allegations all over?

Maybe they were afraid of revealing their own secrets?

 

[fezzic]

What does anyone else say? Why did Gore and the Democrats not push harder on the election when things were so close it was down to Florida of all places and that barely and with allegations all over?

I thought they tried plenty hard. They fought for recount after recount with (to my understanding) changed criteria for what constituted a valid vote for each recount to try and get more votes counted. Until they were shutdown by the SCOTUS, they seemed bent on continuing the recounts until they got the result they wanted or the electoral college vote date arrived or the Florida SC decided that enough was enough (or that continuing the recounts would make Florida and the SC the laughing stock of the country). There was not a lot more they would have done.

 

[Kritikos]

I thought they tried plenty hard. They fought for recount after recount with (to my understanding) changed criteria for what constituted a valid vote for each recount to try and get more votes counted. Until they were shutdown by the SCOTUS, they seemed bent on continuing the recounts until they got the result they wanted or the electoral college vote date arrived or the Florida SC decided that enough was enough (or that continuing the recounts would make Florida and the SC the laughing stock of the country). There was not a lot more they would have done.

I'm sure that someone will correct me if I am mistaken, but it is my understanding that the standards for the counting of votes were set by the counties; that presidential campaigns had no say whatever on those standards; and that Gore's lawyers never attempted -- what would have been a legal absurdity -- to change them. The delays in the counting of votes were the result of Republican obstruction, not of any attempt on the part of Gore's lawyers to prolong the counting process. If you have evidence to support your claims, I will accept correction; but as far as I know, your version of events is very far from the facts.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Not absud and since it happend already at least once,then why admins for state system should be immune?(Or programmers...)

Well, as soon as you can ID the system they used and common errors to that system, we could discuss plausibility. But speaking generally, they should have had checks against whatever error was likely. Absurd might be a strong word here, but it's the right side to err on I think.

As for sarcasm,why not? I like it. (Even if I am target...)

You're alright dude.

Maybe they were afraid of revealing their own secrets?

That appeals to my cynicism. Could be they had their own organized fraud going on too.

[/QUOTE]

I thought they tried plenty hard. They fought for recount after recount with (to my understanding) changed criteria for what constituted a valid vote for each recount to try and get more votes counted. Until they were shutdown by the SCOTUS, they seemed bent on continuing the recounts until they got the result they wanted or the electoral college vote date arrived or the Florida SC decided that enough was enough (or that continuing the recounts would make Florida and the SC the laughing stock of the country). There was not a lot more they would have done.

In terms of the re-count, yes they did push that, more awkwardly than hard, so it seems like they tried harder than they did. However, I was referring to the possible mass disenfranchisement of voters. I don't even know if there's a way to charge that and get the State's entire vote tossed out, or what other options there'd be. But the Democrats never did push on THIS issue at the time, it was all about counting votes cast.

And there are plenty of issues there too. I'm not up on all the particulars, but different counting methods really do matter. I'm not sure what standards were agreed for hand counts, but AFAIC whatever method of deciding voter intent you must accept the most different chad. If there's one dimpled and hanging but still connected, and nothing else, guess who they voted for? To toss that is to read voter intent as leaving that page (President?) blank, and just bumping the Gore spot by accident. If there's two punched... well maybe you could dismiss Buchanan, but that's a little trickier. Who's to say he didn't just get 1000times more votes here... This isn't my focus here but that was my .02 on it.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Very true, however, wouldn't they hold a back-up copy (copies)?

And wouldn't they notice the "XXX,XXX records changed" message, and think: "whooops- that can't be right..."

Of course, this assumes a competent IT staff, and due dilligence on the part of everyone who had access to the data.

Hey Zaphod, don't you live in Florida? I was wondering if you had any special thoughts on this subject from your own experience?

 

[Kestrel]

I thought they tried plenty hard. They fought for recount after recount with (to my understanding) changed criteria for what constituted a valid vote for each recount to try and get more votes counted. Until they were shutdown by the SCOTUS, they seemed bent on continuing the recounts until they got the result they wanted or the electoral college vote date arrived or the Florida SC decided that enough was enough (or that continuing the recounts would make Florida and the SC the laughing stock of the country). There was not a lot more they would have done.

Gore never asked for recount after recount. He asked for a hand recount of ballots as specified under Florida law.

Florida law specified that a vote shall be counted as long as the "intent of the voter" was clear. The standard was not "readable by machine" or "fully punched chad" as some election officials seemed to think.

Recounts are a standard feature in elections. When the result within the margin of error for machine counting, the only proper way to determine the outcome is to count the ballots by hand.

 

[Kritikos]

Just to remind everyone of the findings of the Media Consortium Florida ballot project (link to PDF; cited above by Caustic), here is a text version of the summary table that appears on p. 8 of the document:

Candidate Outcomes Based on Potential Recounts in Florida Presidential Election 2000

Review of All Ballots Statewide (Never Undertaken)

Review Method -- Winner -- Margin of Victory

Standard as set by each county Canvassing Board during their survey -- Gore -- 171 votes

Fully punched chads and limited marks on optical ballots -- Gore -- 115 votes

Any dimples or optical mark -- Gore -- 107 votes

One corner of chad detached or optical mark -- Gore -- 60 votes


Review of Limited Sets of Ballots (Initiated But Never Completed)

Review Method -- Winner -- Margin of Victory

Gore request for recounts of all ballots in Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Volusia counties -- Bush -- 225 votes

Florida Supreme Court of all undervotes statewide -- Bush -- 430 votes

Florida Supreme Court as being implemented by the counties, some of whom refused and some counted overvotes as well as undervotes -- Bush -- 493 votes

Certified Result (Official Final Count)

Recounts included from Volusia and Broward only -- Bush -- 537 votes

As Keating says in the report (pp. 7-8):

When uncounted ballots were reviewed for potential votes, two critical findings emerged: The recount outcome did not hinge on whether dimples or other incomplete marks were counted as votes. And, because of misjudgments about what was likely on the ballots, both candidates pursued strategies that were diametrically opposite to their best interests during the recount. Any discussion of recount outcomes must note that the media consortium ballot analysis used impartial, multiple reviews of ballots and computerized application of standards, none of which would have happened in an actual hand recount. For that reason, the ballot review is a best approximation of what was on the ballots, but not a firm prediction of what would have happened in a recount.

Rather than dimples or not-dimples, the deciding factor in the recount was inclusion of all ballots or only a subset of ballots. And the deciding line was very simple — if all of the ballots were counted there were enough potential Al Gore votes to give him a victory, but any smaller subset of ballots would retain or even enlarge George W. Bush’s margin.

Another way to summarize the findings of the consortium would be this:

(1) If the Gore team had succeeded in getting hand recounts completed in the counties that it selected, the final count would have been in favor of Bush. Therefore, given the Gore team's strategy, the efforts by the Bush team to stop the manual recounts, and the ultimate decision of the supreme court in favor of those efforts, did not affect the outcome of the election.

(2) However, if there had been a manual recount of all ballots in Florida, the result would have been in favor of Gore. Under any of the contending standards of counting, Bush failed to win a plurality of votes in Florida.

So (just to relate these findings to the original topic of the thread) anyone who wants to make a case that the election was "stolen" from Gore cannot do so on the basis of the (ultimately successful) efforts of the Bush team to block the manual recounts ordered by the Gore team. Certainly one could plausibly claim that if Gore had sought a statewide manual recount, Bush's lawyers would have worked as hard to block it as they did to block the recount in selected counties; and in such a case, the success of those blocking efforts would have made the difference between a victory for Gore and a victory for Bush. Similarly, if the vote count in Broward, Miami-Dade, Volusia, and Palm Beach counties had been in favor of Gore, then the efforts of the Bush team to block those recounts would have amounted to changing the outcome of the election. But one can't convict someone of actual misconduct for what he would have done had circumstances been different.

Damned complicated business.

 

[fezzic]

snip

In terms of the re-count, yes they did push that, more awkwardly than hard, so it seems like they tried harder than they did. However, I was referring to the possible mass disenfranchisement of voters. I don't even know if there's a way to charge that and get the State's entire vote tossed out, or what other options there'd be. But the Democrats never did push on THIS issue at the time, it was all about counting votes cast.

snip

CL, I wasn't quite sure whether you were referring to the recount effort or the larger disenfrancisement issue.

I think it was much easier to try for recounts, however many or few there actually were, than to try to have the entire State vote thrown out. Recounts can be ordered because of the closeness of the voting. I think most election experts said that the voting process always has a margin of error and the election fell within that margin.

Throwing out the whole election would be a much more serious and substantial measure and the democrats would likely have been loathed to go that route -- assuming it could be implemented in a timely manner since there was a specific deadline that would moot the tremendous effort as far as the Presidential race was concerned.

I think I'll stop now.

 

[Caustic Logic]

CL, I wasn't quite sure whether you were referring to the recount effort or the larger disenfrancisement issue.

I've been focussing on the latter this whole time.

I think it was much easier to try for recounts, however many or few there actually were, than to try to have the entire State vote thrown out. Recounts can be ordered because of the closeness of the voting. I think most election experts said that the voting process always has a margin of error and the election fell within that margin.

Throwing out the whole election would be a much more serious and substantial measure and the democrats would likely have been loathed to go that route -- assuming it could be implemented in a timely manner since there was a specific deadline that would moot the tremendous effort as far as the Presidential race was concerned.

Indeed, I think they might've been looking at it like that. I don't think there is any precedent or procedure for dismissing a fraudeulent statewide vote. I guess they could order it re-done, but with that much pressure, that could get weird too. Sucky. They should have something, in case some state ever just deletes all of one pay's votes or something. But there'd be no good answer aside from counting the votes cast.

Which brings us to the stuff Kritikos posted:
Excellent job digging into that "damned complicated business."

because of misjudgments about what was likely on the ballots, both candidates pursued strategies that were diametrically opposite to their best interests during the recount.

Interesting irony, that. Much of it went over my head though.

I think I'll stop now.

Lol. I think I'm at about my brain limit myself, barring some re-charge. Feel free to keep on if you like though.

 

[Klimax]

Well, as soon as you can ID the system they used and common errors to that system, we could discuss plausibility. But speaking generally, they should have had checks against whatever error was likely. Absurd might be a strong word here, but it's the right side to err on I think.

And was it likely? There are all kinds of corner-case bug which are unkown until they happen. As for ID,how can I get to it? I am not USAian and I live in Europe,so how? As for plausibility it is so far same as any other,since it cannot be preemtivly ruled out...
(Why? How can you know there is no such bug? )

That appeals to my cynicism. Could be they had their own organized fraud going on too.

Take a look at my own country and you'll see why neither system fail nor fraud and corruption doesn't suprise.And why I take sometimes this view...

 

[Kritikos]

Interesting irony, that. Much of it went over my head though.

How so? Keating's point was just that the Gore team was seeking, and the Bush team trying to prevent, manual recounts in selected counties, while the result of those recounts would have been to confirm Bush's victory.