This from a second thread over at BartCop...
http://bartcopnation.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=2&topic_id=249977Faun_OtterAll the President's Voting Machines - Part 2
Wed Oct-08-03 08:04 PM
I ran a number crunch of CA counties that use Diebold machines to cast/count votes and found some weird figures that suggest a skim of votes from top candidates to people who were unlikely to affect the outcome. I don't have the facilities or time to spread sheet all the candidates by county. Such a spread sheet would allow a lot of interesting weightings to further illustrate evidence of Diebold messing with the vote.
I did my hand calculator work on the California election results (from the secretary of state's site) when 96% of precincts had reported. The website also showed:
Counties using Diebold Touchscreens:
Alemeda, Plumas
Counties using Diebold Optiscan:
Fresno, Humboldt, Kern, Lassen, Marin, Placer, San Joaquin, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Trinity, Tulare.
There were a total of 1,403,375 votes cast in these counties combined. The CA total was 7,842,630 at this stage of the count. Thus 17.89% of all the state votes were cast on Diebold equipment.
I had earlier developed an hypothesis that some lower order candidates (ones who couldn't affect the result) appeared to be getting unusually large numbers of votes in Tulare county. I decided to test to see if the these and other 'fringe' candidates might be used to receive skimmed votes in other Diebold counties.
Method:
I added all the votes cast/counted on Diebold equipment for each candidate and expressed it as a percentage of their total votes cast state wide. The following table lists: Candidate name, votes counted for them in Diebold counties, CA state total votes counted for that candidate and what percentage of that candidate's total votes were counted in Diebold counties.
It looks like, as one might expect, there is a slight variance from an even state wide distribution but many 'lower ticket' candidates have vote totals that ONLY correlate with the use of Diebold equipment! I have included some names chosen at random from the result list that show that not all lower order candidates were used for the receiving skimmed votes. Note that Diebold's counties are spread geographically over the whole of California.
I have checked background on the skewed result candidates and they are not residents of the counties where they got very high percentage results. In one case, Palmieri, the candidate was surprised to hear about Tulare county (I emailed him) and had not been there nor had family or friends there. In fact, his platform was "Don't vote for me." He described this vote pattern as "strange."
State total 7,842,630.
Cast in Diebold counties 1,403,375
17.89% of the total votes cast.
Swarzenegger 581,145 3,552,787 16.36%
Bustamante 447,008 2,379,740 18.78%
McLintock 186,923 979,234 19.08%
Camejo 39,199 207,270 18.9%
Huffington 7,498 42,131 17.79%
Ueberoth 3365 21378 15.74%
Flynt 2384 15010 15.88%
Coleman 1869 12443 15.02%
Simon 1351 7648 17.66%
Palmieri 2542 3717 68.3%
Louie 598 3198 18.7%
Kunzman 1957 2133 91.75%
Roscoe 325 1941 16.7%
Sprague 1026 1576 65.10%
Macaluso 592 1504 39.36%
Price 477 1011 47.18%
Quinn 220 433 50.8%
Martorana 165 420 39.28%
Gosse 60 419 14.3%
Conclusion
Based on the impossible distribution of votes for some candidates (a meteor hit my car twice this week sort of odds) a hand count of the affected counties to compare with the machines should be done. This would show if the machines had been tampered with to alter the results. As we already know, it is not possible to audit touchscreen machines because Diebold refuse to allow printing of a ballot to be placed in a box as a back up for use in just such an apparent tampering with votes.
For those who are unsure of figures:
California is huge and has a population similar to many European nations. Lower order candidates have little or no ability to spread any sort of message to parts of the state beyond their own home and/or where they have previously lived. One would expect some of the 'fringe' candidates to do well in their home county and then to have a very even distribution across the rest of the state. That is not the case. In Diebold counties (those who use vote casting/counting machines made by Diebold, a corporation that supports George Bush) the results are skewed towards low scoring candidates by unbelievably large amounts.
The probability of scoring twice the expected average county % could charitably be construed as the upper limit of the possible. Some candidates exceed that figure in Diebold counties by a four or five fold margin. If you have done statistics, you know that is so far beyond what might be expected that you would reject it as defective data. If it happened to one candidate in this election, I would be surprised but might accept it. There are a large number of candidates who show this same systematic pattern of receiving skimmed votes.
The California recall shows Diebold trying to affect the election outcome by moving votes from high ranked candidates to low ranked candidates.
By doing this, Diebold keep the total number of votes cast constant but rob some candidate of their votes. Before anyone makes this a partisan issue - it could be Republican victim next time.
I've been working on this for nearly twenty hours now. Please pass this on and make sure it is sent to some county elections officials, the CA secretary of state (a Dem) and so on.
Best regards,
Faun
DemgirlPls put it up on Eschaton
Thu Oct-09-03 06:36 AM
If either you or Bart put up Faun's latest analysis, I'll start posting it around in mixed forums. When ready, lets put it on Kicking Ass.
samelaOne last thing to check ....
Wed Oct-08-03 08:47 PM
Is it possible that Palmieri, for example, appeared at top of the ballot in Tulare county? (Remembering the name-shifting from county to county: "The first shall be last and the last shall be first.") Only non-mendacious thing I can think of to explain his huge popularity there would be people who voted no on recall and not caring to cast a vote for any of the main candidates simply checking the first name on the ballot, as a sort of eff-you gesture toward the whole thing.
I realize this is a remote possibility, but it would probably be good to check the placement of the candidate in question on the ballot used in the particular location where they received a large number of votes. Just to rule it out as an influencing factor.
samelaAnswered own question: Palmieri's name not easy to find
Wed Oct-08-03 08:53 PM
on Tulare County ballot. Bottom of 2nd column.
Here's the official ballot:
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:9F3L3AJdpi4J:www.tularecoauditor.org/elections/recall/root1007/ballots/bt000001.pdf+ballot+tulare+county&hl=en&ie=UTF-8NotBannedYetPossibly it was the ballot position after all.
Wed Oct-08-03 09:26 PM
Possibly it was the position on the ballot after all:
Democratic candidate Ronald J. Palmieri, Independent candidate Jerry Kunzman and Republican Randall D. Sprague each tallied a significant number of votes.
But the vote totals for the three candidates may have come at the expense of confused voters who intended on selecting either Schwarzenegger, Bustamante or McClintock.
The names of Palmieri, Kunzman and Sprague were placed next to those of the three front-runners on ballots. Statewide voting results did not show the same trend. (Thanks wp).
Tulare Advance Register
Faun_OtterDiebold diversity
Thu Oct-09-03 04:58 AM
Kunzman received 91% of all his votes in "Diebold" counties. As in the other cases cited, that is the total over all counties with their equipment. Look at a map and you will see that these are geographically and demographically diverse. Since the names were rotated, this also shows that it was NOT name placement that caused the effect.
Secondly, if this was a genuine effect, it would happen for each candidate in each county when their name was opposite a 'main contender.' It does not occur and is therefore not the underlying cause.
Faun
samelaNo, he may have a case, Faun
Thu Oct-09-03 06:41 AM
Diebold Counties mean opti-scan counties, right?
First thing I noticed when I saw a sample of an opti-scan ballot in NYT before the election was that the fill-in bubbles were to the left of candidate names, and, of course, everything quite squeezed due to number of candidates. I've been voting on opti-scans for 18 years, and the mark is always to the right of a candidate's name.
On the Tulare ballot, indeed, Palmieri's name is directly to the right of Arnold's (didn't see that at first). Someone filling in the bubble to the right of Arnold's name is actually voting for Palmieri.
Faun_OtterYes but........
Thu Oct-09-03 06:58 AM
They had a different layout for each county and the same thing did not happen in other counties. In Diebold counties without this layout, Palmieri and Kunzman got extra votes.
Since Diebold got the ballot prior to the election for programing their machines, they knew that they could shift votes to these people and have some sort of story for why it happened. All we need to do is audit the ballots versus what the machines show and the truth of Diebold's position will become apparent.
In any case - it shows that the Diebold Optiscan machines are too confusing and Diebold should be decertified. They can't win: Either they cheated or their machines can't do the job. In either case they should take their partisan vote hacking ways and get out the business.
Faun
felix19You're doing a lot of work here that may
Wed Oct-08-03 09:43 PM
help prove the flaws in black box voting... I'm impressed.
One thing I noticed, just idly going through the voting machine list by county: we were bombarded with pre-election news on the teevee about the "six counties" using punchcards... all about their unreliability, and all the stuff about Florida, and all the stuff about the ACLU lawsuits. If I recall correctly, there was only one story on the NewsHour about the Diebold touchscreen machines, and it was a glowing endorsement of them by the election chief in Contra Costa County who insisted there had never been a problem with them.
Well, I looked at the county machine list and what did I find:
TWENTY counties used punchcard voting systems, not SIX, and maybe, just maybe that is the real story.
Alpine
Calaveras
Del Norte
El Dorado
Glenn
Imperial
Inyo
Los Angeles
Mendocino
Monterey
Sacramento
San Benito
San Diego
Santa Clara
Sierra
Solano
Tehama
Ventura
Yolo
Yuba
I did see an on the street test of the machines on a news show, and the error rate was enormous because people routinely put the cards in the holder wrong -- and didn't know it.
So.
Dunno what to say.
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