A few interesting articles about the election...

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5eleven

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Mar 23, 2003
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I read more of Greg Pallast's website, and I guess to say that he is partisan is an understatement. While his comments make some interesting points, I would hardly call a columnist whose entire article repertoire does nothing but bash Bush and/or conservatives in general an "unbiased view" or factual.

I also saw the 4,000 vote snafu in Ohio, where I live, and although that is clearly a serious problem, I would also think that Kerry's concession would indicate that the mathematics of the provisional ballots alone would not have lent probability in his favor, and that was hundreds of thousands of votes.

In addition, I find it interesting that only the states that "hinge" the election are the only ones focused on (Florida 2000, Ohio this year) intense scrutiny. Do you really believe, either way, that voter fraud, tabulation errors, etc, could not be found in other states that were close?

Finally, a personal account. A friend that I work with, who had voted in the primary, went to his local polling place to vote. Although his wife's name was on the rolls, his wasn't. They told him that he could not vote. After throwing a fit (and rightly so), the poll workers called the local election board and finally told him that he could cast a provisional ballot, but that it "might not count". He read the information, which indicated that he had to swear to the fact that he had changed his address, which he had not. After more telephone calls to the board of elections, he was told to cast the provisional. It was marked in two places with HIS NAME, and also sealed and marked with a round white sticker. Upset about this and after some research, he located and called a group of election attorneys who were tasked with "poll watching". He gave them the county, precinct, ballot #, etc, and was told that his vote would be tracked and checked to make sure that his vote counted......but since it wasn't in Cuyahoga County, they had to tell him honestly, that they may not follow up on it. His registered party affiliation? Republican. Obviously, the voting process regardless of party affiliation is screwed up. Democrats don't hold the rights to disenfranchisement.
 

unixman

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Apr 8, 2001
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5eleven said:
I read more of Greg Pallast's website, and I guess to say that he is partisan is an understatement. While his comments make some interesting points, I would hardly call a columnist whose entire article repertoire does nothing but bash Bush and/or conservatives in general an "unbiased view" or factual.

ad hominem

5eleven said:
I also saw the 4,000 vote snafu in Ohio, where I live, and although that is clearly a serious problem, I would also think that Kerry's concession would indicate that the mathematics of the provisional ballots alone would not have lent probability in his favor, and that was hundreds of thousands of votes.

What the article stated was that not only were provisional ballots given out like candy to minorities, but, once again, countless ballots were thrown out because of the famous punch card glitch problem. There were more than enough of these to turn the tide of the election.

5eleven said:
In addition, I find it interesting that only the states that "hinge" the election are the only ones focused on (Florida 2000, Ohio this year) intense scrutiny. Do you really believe, either way, that voter fraud, tabulation errors, etc, could not be found in other states that were close?

I think it's obvious why they would focus on key states; namely, because they are key states.
 
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Crowze

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That second article is interesting, but doesn't actually provide any facts at all. Using the exit polls as a basis for this is such a stupid idea, it is by no means a perfect representation of the population. His assumption that the TV totals 'simply subtract the spiled vote', more accurately they only include non-spoiled votes in the total. It seems to be like he's just fishing for numbers that would make the actual results match up with the exit polls.

Where he says most of the spoiled votes come from African-American voters, I see no proof. Apparently a link is provided, but I can't click where it says click here - does anyone have that link, or is there really no evidence?

Could someone explain these 'challenges' to me? It seems a very stupid thing to do to let 'party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot' - what's the reasoning behind this one? And 'But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic' - I need proof of that one as well, it's yet another jump to a conclusion with no evidence to back it up.

Anyway, using punchcards is such an archaic and error-prone way to cast votes, so why is it still being used?
 
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Arethusa

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Arethusa

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Crowze said:
Could someone explain these 'challenges' to me? It seems a very stupid thing to do to let 'party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot' - what's the reasoning behind this one? And 'But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic' - I need proof of that one as well, it's yet another jump to a conclusion with no evidence to back it up.

While that site is definitely biased (and, to my shame, biased towards many of my political views), that much is legitimate. Why would you want to intimidate black voters in Florida? Because the black vote demographic in Florida has traditionally voted Democratic. This has been an issue for many months and reported on by many legitimate news organizations, but no one seemed to really mind, as intimidating voters in the single most important election in America is apparently not that bad. Worse, it happened all over the country. I don't know if I believe that it necessarily decided the election, but it does speak volumes both about the character of Republican half of this country and social divide that exists between the people who won the civil war and the red states— something I, personally, though had begun to heal 150 years ago, and, at the very least, come a long way since 50 years ago. Apparently not.
 

5eleven

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ad hominem, my ass.

Although I can clearly see where you would say that........I guess Greg Pallast's assumptions are now certainly fact?

If I read the article correctly, and you examine it closely, he asserts that exit polls were spoiled by the actual vote? And again, comparing Florida 2000 to Ohio 2004, regarding hanging chads, pregnant chads, and discerning a voters intent from overvotes.

There were also the 'challenges.' That's a polite word for the Republican Party of Ohio's use of an old Ku Klux Klan technique: the attempt to block thousands of voters of color at the polls. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, the GOP laid plans for poll workers to ambush citizens under arcane laws—almost never used—allowing party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot
In the end, the challenges were not overwhelming, but they were there. Many apparently resulted in voters getting these funky "provisional" ballots—a kind of voting placebo—which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic.

Yeah, that's not partisan. Pick your number, but it's surely democratic. Back up the minority numbers, with, I don't know, a "for example". Cut the racial crap. I have another friend who is a lawyer, huge democrat, volunteered and was assigned as a democratic poll watcher in a precinct in Columbus. No voter challenges, no minority discrimination, but he was upset about a pollworker trying to encourage people to leave because the polls were about to close, even though people were still in line past 7:30. My friend that had to cast a provisional? White Republican. Kenneth Blackwell? Not caucasian.

There is nothing that I see as factual in Greg Pallasts report. He surmises that "spoiled" and provisional ballots, if all counted, would automatically go to Kerry, specifically based on his assertion that all spoiled and provisional ballots were cast by non-caucasians.

My point about key states, is that if other states.....namely those with close races, that went either way, were scrutinized in the way that Ohio's votes are now, we might find that some of these states might swing the other way.

Here's the deal, in my view:

Kerry conceded, Bush won. By every piece of news reporting that I've seen, Bush won the popular vote and Bush won the electoral vote. Let's move on, please. If you didn't agree with the election, and no, I don't either......then let's move to boost a third party that can compete, like the Libertarian Party. Or, let's push for a change in the voting process, eliminate the electoral college, I dunno, something, other than second guessing, whining, and crabbing because we didn't want Bush for another term, and we'll pull anything out of our arses to prove that we were really right. Spend the next four years changing something, not bitching about what is over and done with. :D
 

Philophobos

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The Ariticle's Title said:
Kerry Won. Here are the Facts

What facts would those be? All I saw in that article was some guy I have never heard of saying some things. I can say some things too. For instance, I can say, "All those people in Ohio and, in fact, all of America, voted for me." Unless I have some facts with which to back up that statement, you should ignore me. Most of this article doesn't even attempt to offer sources less dubious than exit polls for its figures and the two attempts made to provide some outside information failed (the links are broken). Clearly, Mr. Bush had better step down immediately, because Some Journalist has said that the election wasn't fair.

I'm on this guy's side; I didn't want Bush to win either. I voted for Kerry. It surprised me just as much as anybody that Bush came out of this election the winner. It would be super-great if Bush had to step down because it turned out that Kerry really won. But I'm not seeing evidence of that in this article.
 

TheShiningWizard

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It's a heck of a lot more interesting than the whining about who did or didn't win and why they did or didn't, according to Some Guy.