The Problems with a Diebold conspiracy to steal the 2004 Election Posted by: Jon Henke
on Thursday, November 11, 2004
The WaPo dives into the fevered swamp of the people who Just. Can't. Give. Up. Not Yet. Maybe Not Ever. The WaPo's bit of sanity....
Ultimately, none of the most popular theories holds up to close scrutiny. And the people who most stand to benefit from the conspiracy theories -- the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee -- are not biting. ... The Ohio vote-fraud theory appears to stem from the curious ways of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. During even-numbered years the county's canvassing board posts vote totals that include the results from outside the county from congressional districts that spill over Cuyahoga's borders. The quirk made it look as if the county had 90,000 more votes than voters.
1. A series of claims have been made in recent days alleging that discrepancies between exit poll results and the presidential vote in certain states provides evidence of malfeasance in those states. These claims seem to be concentrated on states using electronic voting systems.
2. Exit polls predicted a significantly greater vote for Kerry nationwide than the official returns confirmed, but there is not any apparent systematic bias when we take this same analysis to the state level.
3. Analysis of deviations between the exit polls and the official returns show no particular patterns for states using electronic voting; nor does this analysis reveal any patterns for states using other forms of voting systems.
4. We conclude that there is no evidence, based on exit polls, that electronic voting machines were used to steal the 2004 election for President Bush.
As a pure matter of probability, let me point something out: if there were a Diebold scheme to steal the election, we'd see one of two things:
A very targetted voting anomaly, sufficient to swing the election.
A broad voting-pattern discrepancy between counties that used Diebold machines, and counties that used paper ballots.
The problem with the "broad voter fraud" theory is that the voting pattern held in both Diebold areas and paper ballot areas. Any conspiracy to steal votes under those circumstances runs into two problems....
It would require the participation, flawless execution, and total silence of thousands of people, - officials in every county in which voter fraud was attempted. And not just the ones who pulled off this nationwide fraud, but also those who were "approached" to do so, and refused. Not one of them could make a mistake, get caught, or speak out. Not one.
It would require the non-involved local officials be completely unaware of fraud going on under their nose.
By the end of the day, the exit polls ended up being very close to the actual election outcome. In addition, most polls prior to the election showed Bush winning by between 1-5 points. A vast voter fraud effort would require we believe the pre-election polls, exit polls and election outcome were all wrong...despite being almost exactly the same.
Finally, there is one more thing that needs pointed out. DieBold is not a Republican organization. Certainly, some board members may be Republicans, but others are Democrats. For example:
This theorizing parallels the other "racism" theory that somehow "blacks are being disenfranchised."
With all due respect to someone who may believe in such a tale, I'd have to ask, "Do we live in a totalitarian regime in which 'they' know who votes how?"
Thanks for reiterating the excellent point that for any conspiracy theory to be fact, all members have to abide by the lie.
These allegations of voter fraud remind me of the Web sites which argue that the Moon landings never happened. That particular hoax, if true, would have required that thousands of people remain silent for more than 30 years. It fails the "Occam's Razor" test, and so do these allegations of electoral fraud.
Occam's Razor says, "Pick the simplest explanation that fits the facts". Simplest explanation: Bush won.
I looked at that data MDP showed, and did a quick consistency check in Excel. If there were shennigans going on in a couple of countys, then you'd expect they should stand out statistically from the rest of the state's results. When you look at the percent of votes Bush got, and look at the change in the percent of votes he got (which increased, overall as a % of votes cast), you see that ON AVERAGE, his vote % increased by 0.38%. If you look at the county totals, and compare Bush's increase against the state average, there are only three counties whose increase/ decrease percentage of votes for Bush exceed a 95% (2 sigma) variance from the state average. With around 90 counties, this isn't really unusual statistically.. And I note of the three counties,two went Kerry's way (Athens Co. where Bush's percentage of total dropped by over 14%, voted by punch card; and Franklin CO, Bush % down by 7.2%). Only one county exceeded a 95% probability increase in Bush votes cast, and that was Shelby Co. where Bush's vote percentage increased by 9.1% (from 65% of the votes cast in Shelby to 71%).
Statistically, I'd say there is little or no evidence of a skewed voting pattern. And if I had to look at a county, I'd look at Athens county for potential fraud in favor of Kerry.
This post and all the other attempts to pour cold water on this issue have certainly put my mind at ease.
I'm no longer concerned about Warren County blocking reporters from watching their vote counting, claiming to have received a terrorist warning that the FBI says they never gave.
I'm not worried about those voting machines that count backwards. The fact that this was apparently caused by a 2-year-old bug doesn't worry me one bit.
I'm no longer worried about people having unauthorized or unobserved access to eVoting machines.
I'm no longer concerned with the idea that even just one hacker could have taken control of one or thousands of voting machines or tabulators that have modems.
In fact, there are literally thousands of things that I'm no longer concerned about.
(There doesn't have to have been fraudulent intent for thousands of errors to have occurred. And, if there was fraud and it was performed well, I guess we wouldn't know about it.)
You may want to note that I *do* think there is reason to be concerned about electronic voting, and I freely concede that elections will have problems. You may recall another Presidential election in 1960 which suffered from something similar....only, without the benefit of Diebold.
My points were entirely related to the main criticisms being levied against this particular election.
You completely miss the point. You advance logical arguments. You present facts. No of this matters.
If you are right, then the leftists must face the awful notion that their IDEAS lost. This is smoething they will never do. Therefore, you must be wrong.
I know a Democrat who still believes that Bush stole the 2000 election. He says that the GOP designed the ballots to be confusing. When I pointed out that the woman who designed the ballots was a Democrat, he called me a liar. I had to show him multiple sources to prove it (and I'm told he still maintains that the GOP designed the ballots when I'm not around.) He now says that she was supervised by a Republican and that this is how the evil Republicans rigged the ballots.
He also insists that the GOP suppressed the black vote -- even though I have shown him that 11% of the elegible voters were black and 15% of the actual voters were black. He insists that the statistics are wrong and that even if they are right, they cannot be trusted. "Lies, damned lies, and Statistics."
Every fact that goes against his argument is ignored. Why? Because he refuses to face the fact that his ideas are not overwhelmingly popular.
He even says that the press is overwhelmingly pro-Republican. He has never been able to produce any evidence of this bias, but he argues that all companies are run by Republicans, the reporters work for companies, therefore, all reporters must have a pro-Republican bias in order to stay employed. He even says CBS is pro-Republican.
So your attempt to use logic and reason with this bunch of idiots is bound to fail.
