My take on the TIA probability of so many errors favoring Bush threads.... [View All]

[Land Shark]

Proposition One: If the events of election irregularities were independent and random, the odds are impossibly high that these would occur to disporportionately affect one party or candidate. (TIA)

Counter to Proposition One: The events are not random, so these TIA calculations are based on false assumptions (see, in part, posts of foobar, mgr) and lead to self serving high probabilities.

Comment on the counter to Proposition One: I detect no fundamental denial of the data presented by TIA being heavily skewed to one candidate.

As a consequence of this comment on Prop One, if the events are not independent but instead are linked as alleged by mgr (such as due to programmer incompetence, etc.) there is one unavoidable conclusion: *computers have followed coded instrutions* to disproportionately and systematically impact one candidate over the other.

In discrimination law, such disproportionate impact (on a protected class) is often itself actionable regardless of a seeming lack of intent to actually discriminate. Surely on at least a moral level we would agree that candidates and the public are both entitled to fair elections and are impacted by the lack of fairness present when even "glitches" favor one side over the other.

Though as mgr points out one should never underestimate the power of negligence, IT DOES NOT MATTER IF THE ELECTION RESULT IS INACCURATE BECAUSE OF NEGLIGENCE OR BECAUSE OF FRAUD, in both cases the wrong candidate was announced the winner. It needs to be corrected, in either case.

Fraud v. negligence matters basically only on the moral level, the level of criminal law, and the political-blame level.

But fraud vs. negligence matters not on the level of reversing whatever it is that corrupts our system of elections.

As I'm now repeating regularly, since elections officials never give us ballots (data) or analysis (trade secret vote counting software) without the most strongly worded court orders (and even then they will try to make the disclosure subject to an order not to disclose to anyone else) we have NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS FOR CONFIDENCE IN ANY ELECTION RESULT. We are provided only with naked conclusions.

i.e. It is not possible to form a rational independent belief that the election results reported (which are merely conclusions) are in fact the correct resuts, because nobody gets the data or analysis to check for themselves who is in an independent position.

Election officials and vendors, like all human beings, are very reluctant to fall on their swords. and nobody else can check. The elimination of checks and balances and the secrecy of the data and the analysis supporting reports of election results creates a situation where a lot of unnecessary debates develop.

Given that, based simply on nondisclosure of data and analysis we can confidently conclude that there is NO BASIS FOR CONFIDENCE IN ELECTION RESULTS

What
on
Earth
More
Do
We
Really
Need
to
call
for
election system
CHANGES??

Granted statisticians can do wonders with statistical analyses of even mere conclusory election result data, but even if we had none of that, we still have this:

1. No basis for confidence in results because of secrecy, and
2. Either coordinated or independent anomalies heavily favoring one side over the other that provide ample reason to believe that things have gone wrong because these computers only act based upon the instructions given to them by their source code as it interacts with voters.

Now those who would defend these inappropriate walls of election secrecy invite us to fight with each other based on very educated opinions of probabilities and so forth combined with all known relevant facts about the election. But the battle's already over, we have only to wake up, realize we've won, and tell the squatters on our democracy purporting to count votes in secret to get the hell out with the same assurance with which we would invite an undesired stranger to leave our homes.

you can not call an expert witness in even the simplest most relatively inconsequential court case and have them testify simply to conclusions. Data and analysis MUST be subject to cross examination in order to satisfy MINIMAL DUE PROCESS concerns.

After we get our disclosure of ballots and counting methods, I'll be happy to attend a debate (electronic or otherwise) between TIA and mgr and whoever else that's based on DISCLOSURE OF DATA.

Until that happens, however, internal debates are not the be-all and end-all because it is not our job to prove a fair election occurred, or to prove anything at all, it is the job of elections officials and vendors to prove that any confidence is merited and they can do that legitimately only through disclosure. Propaganda designed to artificially create "confidence" is another method, but it is not legitimate.

Whatever you do in law or anything else, don't let the burden of proof get shifted onto you when it shouldn't be. The public doesn't need to prove squat, it is others that have some 'splainin' to do.

Strike that, they can't possibly even explain their way out of it, because the very *wish or desire* to perpetuate a situation where data and analysis remain undisclosed via secret vote counting is a corrupt act or desire. To desire to be the one to count votes in secret is to wish to oneself a tyrannical power, immunity and privilege that no one gets or deserves in a real democracy actually pledged to serve the public.

P-u-b-l-i-c S-e-r-v-a-n-t-s, PLEASE.