Can someone explain this "18181"

[EnfantTerrible]

I'm no mathematician... I'm not even suer what a prime number is... but I can tell that this stinks.

2PV.org: Email #1
In the Texas elections of 2002, one county where electronic machines were used to count the vote, a very interesting thing happened. In 3 of the 30 races, the Republican candidate received the same exact number of votes 18,181.
Bryan Hayes, of Dartmouth University, did a statistical analysis to see what the chances of this happening (see http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/chance_news/recent_news/chance_news_12.03.html). What are the odds of this happening? About 2500 to 1, according to the study.
What is mentioned in the article is that the number is a palindrome. What is not mentioned is that it is a prime number. Fine, there are plenty of palindromic numbers that are prime. For example there is 101, 191, 383 etc. What makes this one so special? After the obvious 11, it is the first palindrome that the front of the part of the palindrome equals the back end (a paired palindrome prime).
101 > 10 | 01 > False
191 > 19 | 91 > False
18181 > 181 | 181 > TRUE
What are the other numbers that have this property? Not that many under 1,000,000:
11
18181
32323
35353
72727
74747
78787
94949
95959
18181 is a test number, a signal number.
No vote audit was ever done. And on the official results page? They posthumously CHANGED the vote to 18183 FOR ALL THE THREE CANDIDATES THAT TIED!!! Don't believe me? Look at the Texas website: http://www.co.comal.tx.us/Election_Results2002.htm
More on the Texas vote: http://www.badelephant.com/?tab=3&art=3&pg=3

[ixion]

1. it also happened in CA

bart cop had something on it, if I recall.

[EnfantTerrible]

2. Where is the coverage on this?

Shouldn't someone be reporting this kind of stuff? (I know, stupid question)

[ixion]

24. voting irregularities are dismissed by the MSM as 'not news'

There have been incidents of bogus figures, and they're explained away and forgotten, despite the fact that they ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS favor the GOP candidate.

[Jose Diablo]

3. a ha ha

asci

[kliljedahl]

7. You're right

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/18181


Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Jose Diablo]

9. I don't think it was some programmers election hack

like mentioned in Demopedia. I think the program screwed-up through a bug and read some data file that happened to contain nibble structured data of 0108010801 which will translate to ahaha if read as asci character format or 18181 if read as decimal formated bytes. JMHO.

It could have been a joke from a hacker though I guess, but it happened in several locations in different states which indicates to me it was a bug that caused the election results to be read from the wrong location, but something about the local elections were the same to the program, thus the bug happened.

Thats why I hate these new computer voting machines. We just don't know whats really in there. I prefer a ballot box, paper ballot and pencil. The old way, even if it takes longer to count them. To me accurate voting is more important than quick voting.

Democracy depends on the peoples ability to vote and make their collective voice heard during an election. Should we jeopardize democracy just to have a fancy voting machine? I say no.

[EnfantTerrible]

10. You lost me at "nibble structured data"

don't bother clarifying... I will never get it.

[CrispyQ]

25. What you said about the bug makes sense, but who can tell for sure?

Our society is hooked on gagets & instant results. It appeals to them more than a secure voting system. :eyes:

[drm604]

27. ASCII

It's true that "A" and "H" are, respectively, the first and eigth letters of the alphabet. But alphabetical position is not the same as ASCII code. The ASCII codes in decimal for A and H are as follows:

• a = 097
• A = 065
• h = 104
• H = 072

?null">ASCII Chart

[Jose Diablo]

28. Yes, it's true what you say but

the value of bit 5 and bit 6 when added together equals 32 plus 64 or a total of 96.

Now subtract 96 from 97 (the 'standard' asci code for lower a) and viola, we have 1.

Do the same with 104 (lower h) and we end up with 8.

Asci is very difficult to work with. But the numerical position of the alpha characters does correspond to the letter positions in the alphabet in the 3rd and 4th quadrant (64-127). In its most earliest forms of data communications, the American Standard for transmitting data over open wire was closed and open contacts to operate or release a relay thus count the pulses and the underlaying letter position in the alphabet was represented.

'Modern' versions of the American Standard added all kinds of non-printing control characters, thus the difficulty in really seeing what the code really corresponds to, in numeric values.

The output printing 'programs' in most cases will do the drudgery of providing the 'proper' display of letters by adding values needed for bit 5 and 6 if it thinks we want letters displayed.

[drm604]

29. Yes but

that's not the same as saying that 1 and 8 are ASCII for a and h. 01 is the SOH (start of heading) character and 08 is the backspace.

A minor nitpick, not a big deal but it's "ASCII" not "ASCI". Two I's not one. I've noticed people making that mistake several times in this thread.

[Jose Diablo]

30. I rest my case

I said:

"Thats why I hate these new computer voting machines. We just don't know whats really in there. I prefer a ballot box, paper ballot and pencil. The old way, even if it takes longer to count them. To me accurate voting is more important than quick voting.

Democracy depends on the peoples ability to vote and make their collective voice heard during an election. Should we jeopardize democracy just to have a fancy voting machine? I say no."

And here we see the results of what exactly does 18181 mean in an election results ending up discussing if Asci is ASCII.

As for those that love these computers to count our votes, here is an example of exactly what happens if we trust our votes to a machine we cannot look into and we trust those that program that machine to count our wishes for this country.

Again I say, we need to lose these computer voting machines. It's really a bad idea.

[drm604]

32. I absolutely agree

that we should not be using machines for voting. But I don't see how that relates to "Asci" versus "ASCII".

American
Standard
Code for
Information
Interchange

But it's not worth arguing about.

[Jose Diablo]

33. I think I see what the voting machines were saying

when they gave the results of those elections as 18181.

After much deliberation on what the machines were really saying, I have concluded they are telling us this:

The number 18181 is code for capital letters AHAHA. Now if we blow these letters up real big like this:

A H A H A

Do you see the tong shaped letters?

We can then see the computer was really telling us that the politician that had the most outdoor barbecues, thus the tong shape letters for pulling cooked hot dogs from the grill, was the one that won. So all we need to do is count the outdoor barbecues held by each politician during the campaign to determine who had won.

Simple, huh.

[BiggNife]

34. Or, they're just laughing at us.

[Gman]

4. That happened in New Braunfels (Comal County)

While New Braunfels is home to former U.S. Senator Bob Krueger (Dem), New Braunfels is, except for maybe Fredericksburg, Tx, the most closed, clannish, biggoted citizens I have ever run across. That is, the white people there meet this description. To this day, anyone other than anglo is looked down on.

NBR is also home to Der Schliterbahn water park. (You figure it out.)

[mod mom]

5. It's called election fraud, and if the machines stay you'll be seeing alot

more of it with more faux administrations!

[IN THE GAWDA]

6. 181

It may be just a coincidence but, U.N. resolution 181
provided for the partition of Palestine, hence the formation
of Israel in 1947. Google U.N. resolution 181.

[Al-CIAda]

8. Just another one of those 'glitches' that happen with amazing

regularity...otherwise known as election tampering/fraud.

[helderheid]

11. 18181

=

stolen elections

[spindoctor]

12. See also...

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/18181

[helderheid]

13. yep

[helderheid]

14. recommended

[ConsAreLiars]

15. according to the URLs you give, the number is 18183 for the three..

Does this change you view? You'll notice that all the races were within the 1700-2000 range. A DUer named Pobeka ran the odds on a 3-way match in vote totals occurring in some district and found it to be rather likely. All that said, unless there is a real opportunity to actually count real hand-made ballots, trusting the machines is foolish at best.

[EnfantTerrible]

16. Did you read the OP?

Down near the bottom it is stated that those numbers were changed later... from 18181 to 18183

This is not my work BTW... I received this in an email today and shared it with y'all.

[ConsAreLiars]

18. As I said. the odds of a 3-way match somewhere is not unusual.

Maybe these numbers were bogus, maybe not. In any case, without voter-verified paper ballots as a check, there is little reason to believe any of them.

(edit to replace "tie," which it was not, to "match.")

[EnfantTerrible]

19. 2500 to 1

those are the odds calculated here.

I agree with paper ballots... I've wanted them all along. I wanted them six months before the elections when I read a piece on Daibold in the Atlantic Monthly...

I was hoping that this info here would help make a case for the outlawing of electronic voting machines.


on edit: typo

[ConsAreLiars]

20. Agreed

The odds I saw took into account the number of districts and were smaller, so I think the 18181 (or 18183) thing would be stronger if it the numbers were outside the normal range of tallies for that county. But the main point is that without some way to check on the numbers some machine or agency reports, there can be no reason to trust them.

[GiovanniC]

17. If I Understand Correctly

Those numbers were inexplicably changed two years after the election. From 18181 to 18183.

[MazeRat7]

21. Looks like a possible code bug to me...

Specifically, it looks like the kind of value that would be returned from an initialized memory heap if you were to read the wrong memory location when looking for a 4 byte integer. Other common values are 0000, 5555, AAAA, FFFF to mention some of the more common ones.

I am just guessing, but I have seen similar results in other programs. The code goes to read a location for some value and, due to bad code, reads some unused (but initialized) location somewhere else.

Just my $.02 after a lot of years of chasing these kinds of problems......


MZr7

[Maraya1969]

22. Maybe they used this prime number in case someone started

multiplying or dividing to see if there was election fraud. How brilliant of them, (end sarcasm). :hide:

[TWiley]

23. Neo-Nazi's use 88 as an abbreviation for "Heil Hitler"

as "H" is the 8th letter of the alphabet. Also, some have used 111 as an abbreviation for KKK as "K" is the 11th letter of the alphabet.

The reference to 88 came from a Southern Poverty Law Center mailing, and the reference to 111 came from a Skin Head that I know.

[DeepModem Mom]

26. kick

[EnfantTerrible]

31. Kick

I'll kick, too... this is important.

[EnfantTerrible]

35. kick

For the last time...