Voting glitches haunt statistician who can't "just get over it."

[Amaryllis]

From The Capital Times

Rob Zaleski: Voting glitches haunt statistician

By Rob Zaleski
March 6, 2005

Brian Joiner wishes he could "just get over it."

He wishes he could ignore the thousands of reported voting irregularities that occurred in the Nov. 2 election, accept the fact that George W. is going to be around another four years and just hope that we haven't created even more enemies or fallen even deeper into debt by the time 2008 rolls around.

"I'm sure the Republicans would like me to forget all that stuff, just like they wanted everyone to forget all the strange things that happened in the 2000 election," the retired 67-year-old UW-Madison statistics professor said this week.

Well, sorry guys, but he can't.

There were, Joiner says, too many things that occurred on Nov. 2 that "still don't smell right." He can't just pretend everything is rosy, he says, when he reads that Steven Freeman, a respected University of Pennsylvania professor, says the odds of the exit polls in the critical states of Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania all being so far off were about 662,000 to 1.

More:
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/index.php?ntid=30826&ntpid=1

[Peace Patriot]

1. Duplicate post, but it's okay. I don't mind duplicate posts. Important..

...items like this often get lost here. For previous post and discussion (and a letter I wrote thanking The Capital Times), go to

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x338478

I think it's REALLY REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT to support news organizations and journalists who cover this issue--it's so rare!--and especially when it's fair and decent coverage, such as this, with no blatant or hidden agendas. A good piece of reporting! My God, it's enough to make you weep!

It's also a very quotable article--and with a human interest focus that will move some people whose eyes may glaze over at statistics.

[berniew1]

2. Programming errors can be random or intentional; question is which were wh

which? Since they mostly had results in one direction, its extremely likely most weren't random;
that leaves intentional- and the question then is who was responsible
(not very hard to determine)
and what to do about it?

Doing nothing is something, but has implications.
Documentation of cases in 25 states
http://www.flcv.com/ussumall.html