New Mexico Was Blue: 18,659 Missing E-Votes

[ignatzmouse]

In New Mexico, the election was very close. The official canvas at http://www.sos.state.nm.us/PDF/Gensumm_04.pdf shows just a 5988 vote win for Bush over Kerry. But also in the canvas is evidence of 18,997 missing votes. If one takes the 775,301 total voters at the top of the canvas and subtracts the presidential totals of all candidates (Kerry 370,942; Bush 376,930; Cobb 1226; Peroutka 771; Badnarik 2382; Nader 4053), one will find a nearly 19,000 vote discrepancy. It has been known. The question is from where and how did the discrepancy occur.

The good thing about New Mexico is that Democrats are running the show and have nothing to hide. They are likely as perplexed by the data as anyone else. Try getting some of these numbers from Ohio and Florida, for example, and you will get a royal runaround. I know -- I've asked. But here in New Mexico we have a full canvass posted with county figures broken down by absentee, early voting, and election day precincts. It's a simple matter to simply take a county's total voters and subtract the presidential votes cast to discover exactly how many votes are missing in each county. My first guess was that it would be fairly uniform and undecipherable, just another dead-end.

I was wrong, and I was startled. There was a discrepancy, a big discrepancy, and it lay flatly at the feet of the counties using electronic voting technology. There are only 33 counties in New Mexico. In the eleven optical scan counties there were a total of only 338 missing votes, a miniscule percentage of 0.47 of the total voters. But in 22 the e-voting counties, there were an astonishing 18,659 missing votes, a 2.65 missing vote percentage. What is more, there is a strong correlation of missing votes to how strongly a county voted for Kerry. In general, the more people voted for Kerry, the more missing votes added up.

Only Danaher and Sequoia have e-voting contracts in the state and both faired poorly. Counties with predominant Sequoia e-voting returned a 3.09% missing vote rate, while predominant Danaher Controls counties came in at 2.55%. DeBaca is the lone optical scan county out of place. It only had just over 1000 votes, so either there is misplaced batch or one of their three scanners needs repair. Only two predominately e-voting counties rated below a 2% missing rate, Lea County with the highest percentage (79%) of Bush voters in the state and Valencia who went Bush (56%) and who se primary system is Sequoia's Edge rather than the AVC Advantage that dominates other e-voting counties.

Here are the full results ranked by percentage of missing votes:

County:......Kerry%:.no.miss:..%miss:..Voting System
DeBaca:......28%:.....91:......8.39%:..OpScan ES&S (3)
McKinley:....63%:.....1600:....7.20%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (115) & Edge (33), ES&S Optech (2)
Cibola:......52%:.....516:.....6.45%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (53), Sequoia AVC Edge (23)
Mora:........66%:.....175:.....5.83%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (20)
San Miguel:..72%:.....716:.....5.58%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (55)
Colfax:......47%:.....291:.....4.65%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (25), ES&S Optech (2) & Eagle (2)
Taos:........74%:.....647:.....4.18%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (52)
Rio Arriba:..65%:.....614:.....3.93%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (60)
Socorro:.....51%:.....307:.....3.76%:..E-Voting Danaher Shouptronic (45)
Guadalupe:...59%:.....87:......3.70%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (18)
Torrance:....37%:.....208:.....3.10%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (23), Seq. Edge (1), ES&S Optech (2)
Sandoval:....48%:.....1322:....2.88%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (150), Sequoia AVC Edge (25)
Dona Ana:....51%:.....1817:....2.85%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (200), Sequoia Edge (75)
Lincoln:.....31%:.....259:.....2.79%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (55), Sequoia Edge (1)
Otero:.......31%:.....562:.....2.64%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (100)
Grant:.......53%:.....359:.....2.61%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (64), Sequoia AVC Edge (26)
Sierra:......37%:.....129:.....2.44%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (20)
Santa Fe:....71%:.....1582:....2.33%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (238)
Bernalillo:..51%:.....5806:....2.21%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shoup. (1098), Seq. Edge (300), ES&S Op-Tech (16)
Chaves:......31%:.....451:.....2.04%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (120), ES&S Optech (5)
San Juan:....33%:.....932:.....2.03%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (188), ES&S I-Votronic (25) & OpTech (1)
Harding:.....40%:.....5:.......0.77%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (3)
Lea:.........20%:.....136:.....0.74%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (100), ES&S Optech (2)
Union:.......22%:.....13:......0.69%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (20)
Catron:......28%:.....13:......0.65%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (6)
Hidalgo:.....44%:.....11:......0.56%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (10)
Valencia:....43%:.....143:.....0.55%:..E-Voting: Sequoia Edge (115); Danaher Shoup. (97), ES&S Optech (6)
Luna:........44%:.....32:......0.42%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (16)
Eddy:........34%:.....70:......0.34%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (50)
Los Alamos:..46%:.....35:......0.31%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (18)
Quay:........35%:.....12:......0.29%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (15)
Roosevelt:...29%:.....19:......0.27%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (23)
Curry:.......25%:.....37:......0.26%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (42)


Quite obviously, with the lone exception of DeBaca, we find all the op-scan counties (with a paper trail) bunched at the bottom with very few missing votes and correspondingly small missing percentage. All but two of the e-voting counties break well above them with the strongest Kerry counties generally settling near the top and the strongest Bush counties dropping near the bottom. If we break the e-voting counties down into county groups according to how strongly they voted Kerry, indeed we find a sliding scale:

Strong Kerry: (7 counties): 3.89% missing votes
Favor Kerry: (5 counties): 2.47% missing votes
Favor Bush: (3 counties): 2.24% missing votes
Strong Bush: (7 counties): 2.08% missing votes


The seven counties that were Strong Kerry look like this:

Taos: 74% Kerry 4.18% missing votes
San Miguel: 72% Kerry 5.58% missing votes
Santa Fe: 71% Kerry 2.33% missing votes
Mora: 66% Kerry 5.83% missing votes
Rio Arriba: 65% Kerry 3.93% missing votes
McKinley: 63% Kerry 7.20% missing votes
Guadalupe: 59% Kerry 3.70% missing votes

All but Santa Fe had an absurd amount of missing votes even for e-voting counties. Six of the seven round to a percentage of 4% or higher missing votes.

Now, here are the seven e-voting counties that were Strong Bush followed by the
amount of Bush's vote and the percentage of missing votes:

Torrance: 62% Bush 3.10% missing votes
Sierra: 61% Bush 2.44% missing votes
San Juan: 66% Bush 2.03% missing votes
Lincoln: 67% Bush 2.79% missing votes
Otero: 68% Bush 2.64% missing votes
Chaves: 68% Bush 2.04% missing votes
Lea: 79% Bush 0.74% missing votes

It's night and day. It is absolute proof that the higher the percentage of Bush votes, the fewer missing votes we find. I can only conclude that this is because there were fewer Kerry voters. If there is another explanation, I would like to hear it. I even thought perhaps it is an anomaly of high absentee votes that are counted differently, so I subtracted the absentee votes and recalculated the missing percentage without them. The results rank nearly identical except of course with higher values. Santa Fe, for instance, jumped to a 3.30%. Here is the breakdown of missing vote percentage for the same counties with the absentee vote subtracted:

Strong Kerry: 4.86% missing votes
Favor Kerry: 3.11% missing votes
Favor Bush: 2.84% missing votes
Strong Bush: 2.57% missing votes

Overall Kerry counties: 3.60%
Overall Bush counties: 2.67%

These results demand an explanation. The discrepancy between e-voting counties and op-scan counties is too great for it to be an aberration. The correlation of missing vote percentage to Kerry support is glaring. It strongly suggests a New Mexico win for Kerry if the votes hadn't vanished. If it is in New Mexico, county by county by county, it will doubtless be in other states as well.

[McCamy Taylor]

1. Damn! And no one was supposed to notice this?

[berniew1]

14. All states have missing votes; they are usually minorities and most Kerry

There is a way to check for likely fraud or irregularites in touch screen counties. there was a huge amount of absentee votes and provisional votes this year. All absentee votes are auditable and in most cases so are provisionals. So they represent a very big sample that can be compared to total votes, both to see how the percent votes by candidate match and also by demogrphics to see how representative the sample is. In most cases are found to be a good match but give good indication either way. This can be used to narrow down to counties to follow up on. Note that although the state supervisor is Dem, some counties are Repub, and counties are where the rubber meets the road.

an example of a good study doing this is following:

Unofficial Audit of NC Election: Comprehensive Case for Fraud
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&top
ic_id=45003&mesg_id=45003
This is a pretty good case for fraud in North Carolina.

[BlueCaliDem]

88. Remember the Complacent Media? "No Voting Problems"; "Despite the Huge...

...turnout, elections run smoothly thanks to e-voting, and well-prepared election officials"...and blah-blah-blah.

Too bad they misunderestimated the spirit of the American people who still believe in freedom, and are blessed with critical thinking!

Wouldn't have been easier for the Republicans, if they could get en masse the American people to follow the lead by faith-based born-agains; those who believe without question?

No wonder why Bush&Co put so much emphasis on the now debunked theory that born-agains, and moral values were the issue behind his "win".

[esvhicl]

2. Good work!

I looked at the figures in NM early on and found the same thing. When I crunched the figures I did not know which type of voting machine was used. But I did find the missing votes 3 times as high in counties where Kerry won. Why should this be? Coincidence? I think not.

[sweetladybug]

3. Thanks! Very interesting reading. New Mexico won't let this go.

n/t

[BlueDog2u]

4. Once Again, Ignatzmouse

we are indebted to your perseverance in defense of our democracy. Please get this to Conyers if you have not already done so, not to mention Palast...

[dargondogon]

5. Frankly, the repubs should be demanding an investigation

Think about it. Kerry wins in counties with the most missing votes. Just see how Fox reports that.

Thanks for your hard work on this. But man, the work still to be done looks impossible with our news media.

[Nothing Without Hope]

6. Discrepancies subtle but damningly consistent

The numbers and correlations are striking. Thank you so much for laying them out for us to see. There are votes missing in pro-Bush counties too, so the difference isn't so black-and-white as, say, a 5% "bonus" in Bush counties and a 5% "penalty" in Kerry counties. No, it's subtle, but just enough to tip the election results. Even if there was no deliberate fraud, the results are an indictment of the e-voting inaccuracies. Of course, the pollitical patterns argue for something more criminal.

This story needs to be publicized and pushed immediately.

[KoKo]

66. Kick...

[Merlot]

7. Really good work...thanks for doing this!

I suspected (even before the election) that it would be a small percentage of votes in every state, that would be tampered with enough to give bush the win.

I think there are less missing votes in bush counties because the e-vote programs are taking out a percentage of kerry votes overall. In bush counties, the percentage would be lower because there are less kerry votes to discard.

[ignatzmouse]

10. Missing Votes Diminish As Bush Votes Increase

Exactly. If the missing votes were on the Bush side, then the counties that voted 70% Bush would have a higher number of missing votes. They don't. They have a much lower percentage -- meaning that the votes were drawn from a smaller Kerry base. One also has to look at the distinction with the op-scan counties who showed very few missing votes. Why the sudden drop at 2%? It tells me that there are two correlations: 1) The difference between e-voting counties and op-scan counties. Why? 98% of the missing votes were e-votes, supposedly more accurate. 2) The missing votes diminish as Bush's percentage goes up.

[ClintCooper2003]

40. Good answer. Has someone alerted the New Mexico authorities?

[lonestarnot]

72. This also Cliff the lawyer's theory in Ohio same thing!

Solid!

[ccarter84]

78. kick

:kick:

[Nothing Without Hope]

18. That makes a lot of sense

Why have missing Bush votes? But your idea of them all being Kerry votes makes absolutely perfect sense.

[tinfoil_beret]

8. They can't hide for much longer.

It will all come to light. New Mexico, Ohio and even Florida will reveal the illegitimacy of this selection. It's ready to blow wide open! I sense it coming around the bend!

What happens after that is anybody's guess...

[bj2110]

9. Telling trend... I was looking in to a couple of small counties in FL, and

Noticed that Hardee county reported the following when the precinct totals are added up:

Registered Voters: 12306
"Cards Cast": 14569
"Votes Counted": 7289
"Total Votes": 7249

I was hugely confused until I realized that "Cards Cast" were exactly double that of "Votes Counted". I dismissed it as a clerical type error.

The one thing that always bothered me was that % turnout numbers were based on the "cards cast" column, which of course totaled to 118%, when in reality it was only 59%, which is very low, btw. In a few precincts (there were only 11), election day turnouts were around only 20%.! Now, there was a large amount of absentee & early votes, but 20% on election day?

This is a county tith a high Dem registration, but overwhelmingly voted for Bush. It is not a northern Florida "Dixiecrat" county. It's just slightly southeast of Tampa Bay, i.e. east of Sarasota and Manatee counties. Hardee uses optical scan machines.

Questions are:

How does a field of data in a database get doubled?
Why was the turnout so low?
Why did the turnout % not get changed in the official results?

Maybe, the answer to all of these questions is that it's just a small county and people make mistakes. But it casts a little doubt on just how these votes were counted.

Anyway, I thought this was a decent place to share this. And with your demonstration of missing votes in New Mexico (which is amazing and stinks of fraud), it reminded me of it.

[shraby]

12. Why are there more cards cast than registered voters?

[bj2110]

29. Why is "Cards Cast" exactly double that of "Votes Counted?" n/t

[grumpy44]

102. Multiple Cards?

When I used to vote with marker/bubble ballots in Santa Barbara I was often given 2 ballots.

One is the statewide ballot and one has local issues.

That would make sense for the double count of cards.

[berniew1]

16. You can see more detailed analysis for Hardee county & others here:

Detailed analysis of vote patterns in Florida by county, 2000 and 2004 compared to new party registrations;

Study found large irregularities in big touch screen counties but dealt with all counties.

www.flcv.com/fla04EAS.html

[trudyco]

31. Did Florida rotate candidates names like Ohio?

Did this county have coexisting precincts like in Ohio where maybe they "accidentally" sent voters to the wrong precint's machine?

One of the outcomes of that in Ohio was some counties had low turnout percentages.

trudyco

[bj2110]

76. I did read at the last minute, due to the hurricanes, Hardee combined...

... a bunch of precincts. I think there was like 5 sites for 11 precincts. There may be something to that, I'll check it out. It's just odd that it's exactly double. Sounds like it's happened in other places, too, i.e. another reply here about a diary at DailyKos about Sarpy Nebraska. I'll look into this a little now... hmmm...

[understandinglife]

32. Check Sarpy and Red Willow Counties in Nebraska...

...as we had a little discussion about these interesting 'typos' just a few days past at dKos.

http://www.co.red-willow.ne.us/content/election_results

RED WILLOW COUNTY, NEBRAS OFFICIAL RESULTS
GENERAL ELECTION
NOVEMBER 2, 2004
RUN DATE:11/09/04 03:52 PM

VOTES PERCENT

PRECINCTS COUNTED (OF 17) . . . . . 17 100.00
REGISTERED VOTERS - TOTAL . . . . . 8,092
BALLOTS CAST - GRAND TOTAL. . . . . 10,655
BALLOTS CAST - TOTAL. . . . . . . 5,329
VOTER TURNOUT - GRAND TOTAL . . . . 131.67
VOTER TURNOUT - TOTAL . . . . . . 65.86


http://www.sarpy.com/election/results/2004General.htm

SARPY COUNTY, NEBRASKA
GENERAL ELECTION
NOVEMBER 2, 2004
RUN DATE:11/17/04 03:53 PM

VOTES PERCENT

PRECINCTS COUNTED (OF 80) . . . . . 80 100.00
REGISTERED VOTERS - TOTAL . . . . . 82,607
BALLOTS CAST - GRAND TOTAL. . . . . 117,531
BALLOTS CAST - VOTER TOTAL. . . . . 58,785
BALLOTS CAST - TOTAL. . . . . . . 58,746
VOTER TURNOUT - GRAND TOTAL . . . . 142.28
VOTER TURNOUT - VOTER TOTAL . . . . 71.16
VOTER TURNOUT - TOTAL . . . . . . 71.12


Relevant comments from one participant in the discussion:

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2004/11/29/112731/31/70#70


One can only wonder what was happening at each of these county 'central tabulation centers'; just what was happening in those databases and when was it happening.

Peace.

"Did Bush Know?"

[nmoliver]

11. Has anybody reported this ...

to Conyers or Cameron Kerry, or the media?

[understandinglife]

19. Forwarded the URL to Rep Conyers, Mr Arnebeck,....

.....Alliance for Democracy and Brad Blog. Will cross post to the open thread at dKos.

Outstanding analysis as always, Ignatzmouse.

Peace.

"Did Bush Know?"

[Quakerfriend]

13. Thanks once again ignatzmouse

I always enjoy reading your posts! I always knew NM was blue!:9

[americanwhothinks]

15. you go, ignatzmouse!! wow and gratitude is what i feel!!

[Nothing Without Hope]

17. I just emailed Keith Olbermann about this

This story needs to GET OUT THERE.

[Nothing Without Hope]

20. Are there exit poll data for comparison?

Does anyone know whether there are any exit poll data on the county level that can be correlated with these voting results? It would be lovely if it could be shown that the exit polls tracked with what would have been Kerry vote totals with the "lost vote discrepancies" added back.

[Straight Shooter]

21. Wasn't Richardson on NPR talking about "we lost the election"?

This is hearsay, what someone told me, that Bill Richardson was on NPR and was agreeing wholeheartedly that bush had "won" the election. (Yeah, and someone who picks my pocket has "won" my money.)

Why is it all these people are "conceding" when the facts keep rolling on out that dispute what they're saying?

It seems to me the media keeps stuffing itself and hiding the facts, like Lucille Ball on the candy line, to cover up its incompetence to get the job done.

[ClintCooper2003]

41. Richardson and many of these folks aren't computer-savvy.

Additionally, Richardson probably feels that Ohio is out of reach and adding New Mexico to Kerry's tally won't change anything.

[Peace Patriot]

51. Embarassment?

Straight Shooter wrote:

"Why is it all these people are 'conceding' when the facts keep rolling on out that dispute what they're saying?"

My guess. Primarily it's embarassment at their colossal failure of leadership. Think about it. They let highly partisan, rightwing Republicans gain ownership of our voting system, permitted them to assert proprietary rights over the SECRET source code for tabulating our votes (NO PUBLIC REVIEW--not even by elections officials), and further permitted no paper trail in one third of the country--without screaming bloody murder and burning the Capitol to the ground to get this changed--or, at the very least, raising it as a campaign issue to WARN voters AND voting activists (their volunteers)!

They let elderly black people stand in line for 10 hours in the freezing rain to vote for them--and didn't give them a clue that their sacrfice would be wasted.

They let thousands of volunteers abandon jobs and families and work like dogs to get them elected--and didn't warn them that the election could EASILY be stolen. One hacker, a couple of minutes.

They let people donate millions and millions of dollars--much of it small donations from poor people who could ill afford it--and promised, time and again, that "every vote would be counted"--and gave not a hint that, with partisan Republicans owning and controlling the electronic voting machines, we might as well have been pouring our money down a rat hole. They even collected money on Election Night, for a recount legal fund, upon Edwards' promise that night that "every vote would be counted."

I am not so angry at their failure to prevent an obviously, blatantly fraudulent voting system (I know what Tom Delay did to them on this issue); I'm not even angry at the porkbarrel money, and the corruption, that might have gone into this set-up; what I'm angry at--and I am very angry--is their failure to warn the voters.

And I'm sorry, ignorance is no excuse--if that's what they plead. There were numerous studies (Johns Hopkins, for one), articles and whistleblowers on this matter. The Democratic leadership SHOULD HAVE KNOWN. It's THEIR responsibility to know this! That's what they DO for a living--get votes!

So that's what I'm thinking: embarassment. (It can't be collusion--that's too fantastic, that the Democratic leadership would collude with Warren O'Dell and H. Ahmanson to kill their own chances to ever regain power.)

And I think the remedy is a apology. They need to apologize to us and to all the people who voted for them, for letting this happen--and then stand up and fight like Hell to overturn this election, and to restore democracy in this country!

Because, if they don't, they are never going to see a voter turnout like this again. People like me--40 years of voting for Democrats--are never going to vote for them again. I imagine there are others like me--as well as all the new voters, and the students and young people who worked so hard. Why should they ever vote again--for Democrats or anyone else?

That's how it is. But beyond self-interest, they need to finally see what WE, on the Left, see: That the Democratic leadership has steadily been abandoning its principles and its base for some time, and now, they're even seem to be abandoning our right to vote, and don't even seem moved by the outrage of vote suppression against black voters, who suffered so much, in recent history, to gain the right to vote.

The Democratic leadership can redeem themselves completely--in my view, anyway--if they show some spine NOW, battle this fraudulent election, and help us get back our right to vote. I hope they do. But my actions don't and won't depend on them.

I have hesitated to make any criticism whatsoever of the K/E campaign, or anyone involved in it, because I think the evidence of a fraudulent election, and the wrong winner, is overwhelming. And the last thing I want to see is the Left tearing itself to pieces. It was a grand coalition of the Left and the grass roots with the Democratic leadership that won this stunning victory--that was stolen right out from under us.

But on the matter of our votes not counting, and the fraudulent set-up, the blame is very clear, and it must be redressed. There are the criminals themselves who did this, and they deserve jail. But there are also those who knew what was going on with this voting system, and did little or nothing to stop it, and nothing whatever to warn people. The DNC and our elected represenatives. The Democratic leadership.

It must be a worm of gall in their hearts. So...apologize, and get on with it! Come on!

[Merlot]

64. I like your analysis

and it covers a lot of how I've been feeling about this situation.

thanks!

[RageKage]

71. You hit the nail on the head.

I am calling on you all to pressure the democratic leadership to do exactly as called for and apologize!!!

Not only would it re-energize and please their base, it would be a perfect way to jump into the issue of this stolen election!!!



And, ignatzmouse, your original posting on the absentee/election day shift in NC was the info that first convinved me the election was stolen. (I joined shortly before you posted it).

I see you are keeping up the good work!!!! DON'T STOP!!!

AND THANK YOU!

[IndyPriest]

91. But what if it was a set up?

Peace, I get your point entirely. And I would feel exactly the same, except for one possibility. The Dems knew this was coming and wanted it to play out IN ORDER to have the fraud exposed that we are seeing now. Give the repubs enough rope and they will hang themselves, or rather, we will help them hang themselves. I'm not saying this happened. But it seems a possibility to me. If, after 2000, they were not trying to lay a trap for these guys, then I'm absolutely with you.

[rdmccur]

22. Again very good analysis!

Your hypothesis certainly should be checked out (re:other states).
Have you sent this to anyone? NM Sec. of State, Richardson's office (he's a democrat), Atty. Arnebeck, maybe even Wayne Madsen should see it.

[Kralizec]

23. We need to get this circulated to the New Mexico people. Ideas? I

am ready to lead any media front here in New Mexico.

[rdmccur]

25. I'm in NM as well (Albuq)

I know there's the organization with the website www.DemocracyForNewMexico.com who could be contacted
(I can do it if I have Ignatzmouse' permission.)

Ron

[ignatzmouse]

26. Yes, Certainly...

Please feel free to pass it along.

[rdmccur]

27. Done.

Did you use EXCEL to do this?

[ignatzmouse]

28. Yes (n/t)

[Liberty Belle]

36. Ask these organizations to send it to their members:

Moveon.org, Alliance for Democracy, Voters Unite (votersunite.org or .com, don't remember which), Democracy for America (Dean's group), Common Cause (very fast at getting word out). Find the New Mexico Democratic Party and the local Democratic clubs for major cities in New Mexico-Albequerque, Taos, Las Cruces, etc.

Send a copy to any newspapers in Albequerque, and TV/radio.

Contact Air America Radio.

Anyone know someone at the colleges and universities in NM? You should get copies posted and distributed on all the campuses.

[Kralizec]

38. I'm working on getting these in newspapers, even if it means buying

space...

I am a Univ. student at the main Univ. in NM. I have good contacts of the main paper. We need to get word out to the students!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[skids]

53. Sent to an employee of Election Protection Coalition in NM n/t

[skids]

104. They liked it, BTW. n/t

[karlrschneider]

24. Thanks and a kick

:kick:

[Hobbes199]

30. Thanks for the info!

Kick.

[bleever]

33. More great work, ignatz...

no wonder Krazy Kat loves you!

[Liberty Belle]

34. kick! kick! kick!

[Liberty Belle]

35. Send this to Conyers, Common Cause, & Alliance for Democracy. kick!

The last two groups have been filing lawsuits over voting fraud in Ohio. Sounds like they should consider some new action in New Mexico and possibly elsewhere.

Great work!

[mulethree]

37. How do you figure it swings blue though?

    County Kerry% no miss    %missMissed KerryMissed Bush
Bernalillo    51%    5806    2.21%        2961       2845
Catron        28%      13    0.65%           4          9
Chaves        31%     451    2.04%         140        311
Cibola        52%     516    6.45%         268        248
Colfax        47%     291    4.65%         137        154
Curry         25%      37    0.26%           9         28
DeBaca        28%      91    8.39%          25         66
Dona Ana      51%    1817    2.85%         927        890
Eddy          34%      70    0.34%          24         46
Grant         53%     359    2.61%         190        169
Guadalupe     59%      87    3.70%          51         36
Harding       40%       5    0.77%           2          3
Hidalgo       44%      11    0.56%           5          6
Lea           20%     136    0.74%          27        109
Lincoln       31%     259    2.79%          80        179
Los Alamos    46%      35    0.31%          16         19
Luna          44%      32    0.42%          14         18
McKinley      63%    1600    7.20%        1008        592
Mora          66%     175    5.83%         116         60
Otero         31%     562    2.64%         174        388
Quay          35%      12    0.29%           4          8
Rio Arriba    65%     614    3.93%         399        215
Roosevelt     29%      19    0.27%           6         13
San Juan      33%     932    2.03%         308        624
San Miguel    72%     716    5.58%         516        200
Sandoval      48%    1322    2.88%         635        687
Santa Fe      71%    1582    2.33%        1123        459
Sierra        37%     129    2.44%          48         81
Socorro       51%     307    3.76%         157        150
Taos          74%     647    4.18%         479        168
Torrance      37%     208    3.10%          77        131
Union         22%      13    0.69%           3         10
Valencia      43%     143    0.55%          61         82
                                          9993       9004

If you assume the missed votes would have voted the same
percentage
as your kerry% column, then Kerry picks up almost 1,000 votes.


But, Bush won by nearly 6,000 votes. So after a correction
Bush wins by 5,000 instead of 6,000? 

[ramblin_dave]

45. If fraud is the explanation for this then

it's possible that most of the non-votes (above the normal amount) were originally votes for Kerry.

[mulethree]

55. Sounds like - a cry of 'WOLF'

Sending this to media and politicos, You have to present a theory along with it and show how the evidence fits the theory.

This doesn't show evidence of fraud, just that 'something' is causing a disparity of wasted votes. It supports that the disparity is correlated to the technology used.

So absent evidence of fraud, I think the assumption that wasted votes would go the same way as non-wasted votes, is a logical assumption.

By that assumption, you can declare that Kerry's margin was hurt, but you can't declare a Kerry win.

If this is presented as evidence of a reversed result, without any fraud evidence, then it is false and will hurt credibility.

[ignatzmouse]

89. Red Flags in Blue States

Also answered here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=114995&mesg_id=117448&page=

Quite simply, in the seven strongest Kerry counties (going 59% or greater for Kerry) there were a total of 139,287 votes cast. In the seven strongest Bush counties, there were 129,011 votes cast. They are very similarly sized samples. And yet in the strong Kerry counties there was almost twice the number of miscast/under-voted/not voted ballots than in the strong Bush counties. 3.89% in the Kerry counties to 2.08% in the Bush counties. Subtracting absentees (with a paper trail and often tabulated differently) from the mix, the missing vote rate goes up to 4.86% in the strong Kerry counties against 2.57% in the strong Bush counties. That differential between them of 2.29% is GREATER than the differential between e-voting and optical scan results. It is a strong indication that when there are fewer Kerry votes to drawn upon the missing rate goes down dramatically. It's a big red flag, and I'll say again that it demands explanation.

[ClintCooper2003]

39. Excellent work. However...

isn't it possible that some voters chose not to register a vote for President. I know that in Nevada over three thousand voters actually chose "none of the above." (Nevada is the only state that offers this designation)

[ramblin_dave]

42. The percentage of voters who chose no candidate

should be independent of the voting equipment used.

[ClintCooper2003]

46. Send it to Bill and Richardson and the Sec of State! n/t

[Igel]

50. But spoilage is very much

technology related. It's just easier to mess up with some technologies, all fraud aside.

"Spoilage" can mean lots of things: no vote cast, no vote discernible by the machine, or overvotes. "No vote discernible" has been things like circling the bubble on an optiscan form, writing in the candidate's name on the form, or circling something on the punch card instead of punching the appropriate cell.

Voting should be idiotproof. (The usual comeback: Make something idiotproof and they'll make a better idiot.)

[Truman01]

43. If we are right and fraud occurred, this is the perfect opportunity

to find it. Our goal should be to 1. Find the fraud if we can, 2. Make an audit trail mandatory for BBV. 3. Use what we find to discredit this administration and even the whole Repuke party.

Many of you believe, that because I'm pessimistic about overturning the election that I want us to just move on. This is certainly NOT so. While I don't believe we can do anything to change the results of the election, we should certainly LOOK where we think there are problems.

An audit trail is just a no brainer. Fraud or not, computers without an audit trail are silly. Ether, is where your vote is stored. That just isn't smart.

Arizona is the perfect place to start. It won't change the election, but we have friendly people in the government there who will be more open and helpful in the search. If we find anything, or want to do a fishing trip, there is the place to start.

Then, once we have learned how the fraud possibly worked, we can use that knowledge to bring suits and have specific discovery in other states that aren't so friendly.

Please understand, I am not happy about the way things turned out, and I don't want us to move on and do nothing. I want us to work smart, have good attainable goals and not build ourselves up for overturning an election just to have an incredible let down when it doesn't happen.

Does this make any sense to anyone?

TC

[Peace Patriot]

63. Well...

...trying to overturn an election is similar to trying to win an election in the first place. Of course you get your hopes up! You have to. You have to think it's possible--even if you know it's a Quixotic effort (as sometimes is the case when people run for office who don't have much chance, but do it for the issues, or for next time). It's just human nature to need to think, well, maybe...

Also, you have to keep the main goal or principle in mind: overturning THIS obviously fraudulent election because it's WRONG. We have the wrong man in the White House. Because if you don't keep that goal or principle in mind, you can become too Machiavellian (or what is meant by Machiavellian)(poor misinterpreted fellow that he is!)--too manipulative, too DNC-ish, too compromising, too opportunistic, etc.

But you need to do a sort of Zen trick: Go for it, and not go for it! Go for it, but be prepared for ANY outcome.

You never know anyway, when you turn over a hornet's nest like this one, what the outcome will be.

Remain clear: Bush lost this election. Kerry won. (It couldn't be clearer.)

Work to restore justice (Kerry in the White House). And work to restore PEOPLE--to help Kerry voters understand what happened, to support the investigators and activists, to help the Democratic leadership know what they must do --to restore people's hearts and minds, and dreams.

And create secondary or later goals--for after this fight is over (but still very related to this fight). One doable one is: a) A paper trail for every vote; and b) open source code--and figure out how that can be accomplished. Aim at restoring our right to vote in time for the '06 Congressional election. (If we are right about Kerry's majority, and the REAL political tenor of the country--and I think we are--then we CAN elect a progressive Congress in '06. We HAVE the votes. We just have to get them counted.) (It would sure help this later goal if the Democratic leadership would stand up NOW and challenge this fraudulent election. But even if they don't, we MUST go for this somewhat later goal--after January--of getting our voting system out of the hands of rightwing Bush supporters.)

Another goal which has been spoken of is corporate media product boycotts--which I think is a really good idea.

I agree that we should try not to be fooled--try not to get carried away with false hopes. But it's a balancing act. If you DON'T see clearly where justice is, and what its accompishment should look like, then either you won't act at all, or you will get side-tracked or settle for less than you should.

[rdmccur]

69. It won't happen unless we believe it!

[ClintCooper2003]

44. Hey any chance you can look at the Nevada data as well? n/t

[ignatzmouse]

87. A Look at Nevada

I did a cursory look at Nevada, though I wish more information were available. I think I posted the info before, but it's worth repeating as I think it again raises some e-voting questions as well as questions about registration>absentee fraud that I think could be taken further.

Two things really limit a more revealing view of Nevada -- 1) the entire state uses the same Sequoia e-voting system and makes a comparative analysis of vendors and types impossible 2) I don't have a breakdown of the early/absentee vote by candidate. Other pertinent data is also lacking.

The voter registration rate seems to be the strangest thing. In January, the Democrats began behind the number of registered Republican voters by 13,227. By July, the Democrats had nearly caught them, adding 36,598 Democratic registrations to the Republicans only 24,871 in the same period -- the Democrats were exactly 1500 registered voters behind the Republican totals. By the end of the registrations for the primaries, Democrats had PASSED the number of Republican registered voters 383,651 to 382,630.

Suddenly, though, there was a dramatic shift. The Democratic numbers continued to increase, rising another 46,157 voters until the end of registration for the General Election, but the Republicans went haywire adding 51,609 to end up 4,431 ahead of Democratic registrations. To put that in perspective, of the Democrats' 90,305 registrations since January, 51% came after the end of the Primary registration deadline, but of the Republicans' 81,509 registrations since January, 63% came after the deadline. Too add to that, seventy percent of the Republicans' post primary deadline registrations, 36,181, came from Las Vegas' Clark County, not exactly the values capitol of the world, where they beat the final Democratic registrations. It must have been realized that if the Democrats continued to push their lead in the Democratic stronghold of Clark County that it would swamp the rest of the lightly populated state. It must be noted that Bush won Nevada 50% to Kerry's 48% via a difference 21,500 votes, and the only county that Kerry won was Clark, 52% to 47%. One percent of Clark's votes is roughly 6,000 votes (or 12,000 in differential).

I've always wandered about the Republican efforts to undermine the Democrats' GOTV campaign -- how they registered Mickey Mouse as a Democrat and fed the story to the media to try to paint the high Democratic registrations as fraudulent -- and the mass mailings of campaign literature to newly registered Democratic voters in an effort to get people with returned mail removed from the rolls. Could this have been just a smokescreen to avoid having their own new registrants examined? Has anyone taken the steps to look at new Republican registrations not only in Nevada but everywhere else? Has anyone tried their little mailing trick to see how many get returned? Or conversely, if they were using an alias at a valid address, how many of the new registrants voted absentee? Absentees counted for 11% of the total Nevada vote. Subtracting 21,500 votes would only change the absentee rate 2% to 9% -- nearly invisible.

The strange registration trail brought me to White Pine County where in January the registrations ran 55% Democratic but declined by the end of the general election period while the Republican registrations increased by 8%. White Pine is fairly small with just over 4700 total registered voters. They also seemed to have voted for Bush 68% to 28%, similar in percentage to the most heavily Republican counties. But in the Senate Democrat race, White Pine reversed itself and voted for the Democrat 57% to 36%, nearly along party lines. Comparing how other counties voted in the Senate race, it is closest in margin to Washoe (58% to 38%) which incidentally gave Bush only a slim victory 51% to 47%. So why is White Pine, with a much higher percentage of registered Democrats going for Bush by 68% to 28% and more Republican counties reflecting a tighter Presidential race? The answer may be that in smaller counties, funny numbers may have a more dramatic implication. Indeed, White Pine had the highest absentee rate in the state (as a percentage of their total turnout) at 21%. The state absentee average was 11%.

All of which led me to likely the most telling funny turnout numbers. Washoe County, home of Reno and the second most populated county in the state, had outside of tiny Esmeralda (with just 736 registered voters) the lowest turnout of any county in state. Washoe had a turnout of 68% compared to the state average of 78% and Clark's 80% turnout. The low number between election day, the early vote, and the absentee vote is their glaringly small early vote. Just 21% of their total voters cast ballots in the early vote compared to the state average of 42% and Clark's 50%. And yet Washoe had a relatively high 16% absentee rate. What might this be saying? Isn't Washoe more of a Republican county, 43% of the registrations to 36% for the Democrats? Perhaps it's telling us that Republicans were less interested in voting. No, that can't be. How could Bush have won the state otherwise. Or perhaps it's telling us that there was something about the early vote in Washoe that needed to be suppressed? The Democratic early GOTV campaign? It certainly is odd to see that 21% early vote in Washoe against the state average of 42%. It's even more odd considering that Bush won Washoe by 51% to 47%. Perhaps with a normal early vote turnout that would have been smartly reversed. Additionally, the Democratic senator took 58% of the vote in Washoe compared to just 38% for the Republican. By the Senate race, Washoe seemed to be trending heavily Democratic. Hmmmm. Let's think about this. The difference between 21% early vote and 42% in real votes is roughly 33,000 votes. 33,000 votes would have brought Washoe's turnout up to 82%, from almost dead last to right in the middle of the pack in county turnout. Bush won the state by 21,500 votes...

[m.standridge]

99. There's BEEN something fishy in NV

See the 1987 _World Almanac's_ tally figures for the 1984 election for example:
compare page 275 with 291 under "Nevada".
Reagan: 188,770 (p. 275)
Reagan: 108,770 (p. 291)
This error continues in every issue of _World Alamac_ from 1985 through 1991, on various pages, under "Presidential Election Results". Compare the overall listings (which appear first) with the broken down state listings, which appear last. It was a cool 80,000 Reagan votes, in a state that has long used Sequoia voting, a company in which Sr. Bush has long been a stockholder and sometime employee, even before computers.
A judge Breen was responsible for the recent rejection of a case asking that Judge Clark's ruling allowing disenfranchised voters from the bogus voter-registration drive, to vote, be expanded to the whole state. I've posted elsewhere at DU that perhaps he needs to be apprised of this quick pickup of Reagan votes in NV in '84.
This kind of thing, probably helped keep the media from looking more strongly at the Western states in '84. The Demos subsequently won a lawsuit averring they'd been cost votes by too-early network projections for Reagan nationwide. Such could have cost them western MI (and thereby MI), possibly IL and PA (where there were still long lines), and, who knows, maybe OH (given what we've learned acbout lines there lately). Dukakis' people thought he'd probably carried MD on a recount in '88, but didn't ask for it.
NV has a sizable Italian-American pop for a small Western state.
All this, just to point out, NV probably bears looking at.
It was Plurality for Bush last time, in the official results.
The Greens and Libertarians couldn't afford the recount effort there, so they've given up on it. Too bad the Dems didn't jump in. It's not like the money's not there.

[skids]

47. Excellent work.

This is one of the most convincing statewide analysis to date.

In fact, this is so good, you should try to get some people
with letters after their names to sign on to it.

[skids]

49. Backing anecdotal evidence.

... a clip of my EIRS wlakthrough that shows New Mexico as
a stand-out in e-vting complaints.

Number of EIRS reports for New Mexico, Bernalillo County:

Kerry votes changed:
to Perotka: 1 (035436)
to Badnarik: 3 (033853,042006,045322)
to undisclosed: 1 (035228)
Undisclosed presidential votes changed to undervote: 2 (035864,044706)
Straight Republican ticket changed to some Democrat votes, undisclosed seats: 1 (046108)
Undisclosed straight ticket changed to other straight ticket: 1 (047355)
Baca vote changed to Taylor: 1 (043662)
Wilson vote changed to Romero: 1 (043662)
Romero vote changed to Wilson: 1 (018132)
Undisclosed ballot question votes changed to undervote: 2 (036750,036946)
Democratic votes changed to Republican, unknown seat: 1 (047570)
Undisclosed votes changed to undervote, unknown seat: 1 (034353)
Undervote changed to Republican, unkwown seat: 1 (036563)
Votes changed but no other info: 8 (032895,042338,042703,043872,047522,047678,048599,049286)

Number of EIRS reports for New Mexico, other counties:

Votes changed, no other info, in Santa Fe: 3 (052341,052219,017395)
Votes changed, no other info, in Dona Ana: 1 (047596)
Undisclosed votes changed to Republican, unknown seat, Otero: 1 (014203)

[Igel]

48. I'll play devil's advocate.

And claim that the correlation is derivative. On the one hand, there's an obvious correlation between voting machine type and spoilage rate. The 2000 Florida election noted that counties with greater per capita budgets had newer equipment that prevented overvotes and even prompted the voter when an undervote was detected; these trended repub. SES vs. machine type was the real correlation there.

It may be the case that less accurate technology's all recently been phased out in New Mexico; but that leads to another problem.

I also know from experience that voters new to a technology take longer and make more mistakes. I nearly did it the first time I voted in Oregon, in LA, and in Houston. Staffing precinct tables in NY I saw a lot of very young and very new voters screw up. New voters make more mistakes. Notice that a fair number of errors reported were of the sort "voter accidentally touched touchscreen and changed vote" or "circled optiscan bubble"; experienced voters would make the mistakes less often.

It would be also be interesting (as a devil's advocate not interested in crunching these particular numbers) to see two other correlations: the spoilage rate vs. acquisition date of the voting technology; and spoilage rate vs. percent of new voters, for precincts retaining older technology.

[Faun Otter]

52. A cautious further analysis

First of all, thank you for this excellent and well researched report. Your raw figures are very valuable. I have taken them and done a further analysis which (unfortunately) seems to indicate that machine type changes alone would not have swung the state to the Democratic column. This assumes (silly me) that there was no other jiggery pokkery with the ballot process.

I came to this conclusion by calculating the effect of giving all counties Op-Scan machines OR giving all counties Touch Screen machines. For giggles, I also checked what would happen if the counties with crappy touch screens were given OpScans and vice versa.

The formulae are simple excel stuff and I have put them in a footnote.

Results:

If all NM counties used Touch Screen machines, Kerry would have a net gain of 481 votes

If all NM counties used Op Scan machines, Kerry would have a net gain of 1076 votes

If the machines were placed in opposite counties (that is Op Scan counties were using Touch Screens and vice versa) Kerry would have had a net gain of 1557 votes.

I do draw one very strong conclusion from your set of figures and that is that the residents of different counties in New Mexico were deprived of their fourteenth amendment rights, Viz.:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Equal protection includes having voting machines that are no more nor less likely to dump your vote than the machines given to other residents of the state. Touch Screens suck compared with Op Scans. Why should someone's vote be worth 0.9735 of a vote in one county and worth 0.9947 of a vote in others? Multiplied over the whole state, it makes a darned big difference; a bigger difference than the margin of victory in some races.

Since it is obviously in the best interest of the counties of New Mexico to:

1) Ensure the least spoilage or other loss of ballots due to machine failures
2) Use the least costly machines that get the job done
3) Use machines which cause the least increase in waiting time at polling places

It must be concluded that Op Scan systems should be adopted across the whole of new Mexico and the Touch screen systems should be discarded.

This would have the added benefit that the paper ballots could be recounted by hand if there was a dispute and that random hand count audits can be employed to check the vote count and vote tabulation software is not 'malfunctioning,' as the Janet Jackson wardrobe department might term certain events.

Faun


Math stuff:
Take the average percentage ballots lost on the alternative system and divide by reported percentage loss in the county. Multiply by the actual lost votes to find out how many total votes would have been lost if the alternative method had been used. Multiply this by the proportion of the recorded vote for each candidate. This assumes (haahaa!) that there was no other source of error in the reported vote totals.

As an example, I'll use the biggest county to show why this machine change doesn't swing the state quite far enough for it to go blue:

Bernalillo Uses Touch Screens
Kerry had 0.51 (51%) and Bush 0.49 (49%) of the vote
The machines failed to count 5806 votes which represent 2.21% of the votes cast
This cost Kerry 2961 and Bush 2844 of the votes cast

If Bernalillo had used Op Scans with 0.47% spoilage rates, Kerry would only have lost 630 and Bush 605 votes with a net gain for Kerry of 91 votes.

[KoKo]

54. Excellent both Ignatz Mouse and Faun Otter.......A good comparison for

all of us to keep a copy of. Particularly those of us involved in our State Precincts who will have a chance to cast votes about further purchases of the "Touch Screens." Here in NC this is going to be up for a vote this Spring. So, I'm compiling evidence to show that the "Touch Screens" we already have in some counties, (which seriously malfunctioned in 2002 and 2004) should be "deep sixed" and if we have to have electronic stay with the "Opti-scans" but make sure that they have a reliable way of tabulating and reporting the numbers to the State.

Thanks..

[mulethree]

57. do you have any presumption on service life?

Many of the touch screen machines are built with 1990 technology - or at least with 1990-era processors.

1990 PC's have been obsolete for 5 years and replacement parts are only available via salvage.

Meanwhile I vote on a 55 year old mechanical lever machine.

Do you know how long the touchscreen companies claim their machines will be supported?

[Faun Otter]

58. Op scans - something to check

The discard rate on op scan machines is comparable with the rates in Touch screens (about 2-3 %) IF they are not used with what is called "precinct level pre-scan." This is where each ballot is fed into a scanner before being put in the ballot box. The scanner does not count the votes but reports if there are any under or over votes and thus gives the voter a chance to correct any errors, such as circling a bubble that should have been filled.

On an interesting historic note, it was the abuse of this aspect of some machines in Florida 2000 that made me into such a pissed off activist. My background in market research includes some expertise in optical scan type readers (data collation from questionnaires used to gather market research data in the field) and I was due to drive to Florida on December 12 2000 to check some machines when the Supremes decided to install Bush minor. Some of my colleagues were already there and they told me that the pre-scan function appeared to have been selectively turned off or not used in the most Democratic leaning precincts.

It sounds like nerd talk but that was the most red of red flags I had ever seen of someone trying to tilt the ballot playing field. At least up until that time. Now I have looked more closely, I can report some far worse examples of the America electoral system being weighted to one side.

Faun

[KoKo]

60. Faun, if you have any info "links" or such about "precinct level pre-scan"

please PM me. This is very important because we have folks working on this, but computer code and Opti-scan" procedures cause their eyes to "glaze over" and we don't really have enough info about the "Opti-Scans" to show the problems with them.

I've tried to read as much as I can about the Touch Screens but everyone seems to love the Opti-Scans because "Poll Monitors" can match up the signatures from the Precinct Poll Books with the number of ballots fed through the machines and so folks think they are safe, i.e. "paper trail." BUT, we don't have enough info on how the "scanner can be set" to read the pen markings and whether the scans will read pencil or other pens if the Polling place has heavy turn out and folks need to use their own writing implements in the rush, and we don't have enough info on how the "starting count" is done. Who knows what's inside the machines?

Most folks I've talked to think they are "simple counting machines." They don't expect that something can go wrong because the paper ballot matches the signatures from the polling books.

I need some links and more info.. I think they were manipulated here in NC...but there's no way to explain it to folks so I sound "tinfoilhat."

BTW: We used the ES&S Opti-Scans here in NC.

[skids]

61. Correlations need to be calculated before saying either way.

Before determining that touchscreens discarded Kerry and Bush votes with equal prejudice, we need to figure out whether the machine type is more closely correlated to total spoilage, or to democratic spoilage.

This sounds like a job for Elizabeth Liddle. Anyone who can forward her this?

[Faun Otter]

62. Correct

I did my calculations based on the premise that machines would not introduce any bias based on the vote cast (Rep or Dem) Even this level of 'conservatism' in assumptions showed that of the machines used in NM, Op Scans were five times better than Touch-screens in terms of not trashing people's ballots.

I certainly don't claim that my premise is true but at the same time, I can't see anything in the data that can be used to show if the machines were skimming votes from one side to the other.

I still come back to my position stated elsewhere that the burden of proof is on those who believe in the current voting system to prove that there is no fraud or error. It is not up to us to show that there is a problem. I believe that the data shows there is a large enough probability of fraud or error that the system needs to be revised and audit trails added. This is not a partisan issue since the reliability of our elections is the root of legitimacy for any and every elected official in our nation.


Faun

[rdmccur]

68. Your results (and your math)

assume that there is nothing systemic in the e-vote results with the smell of fraud on it (of which I have no doubt you're aware).
I believe that the biggest implication of this analysis is that the hypothesis of election fraud has been made more plausible (especially in light of the early exit poll data).

Ignatzmouse, have you looked at the NC data from the perspective of e-vote counties and the distribution of undervotes? Suddenly it strikes me that someone should send this to Arnebeck with the query whether anything similar was observed in Ohio.

[ignatzmouse]

82. Strong Kerry Counties Missing 3.89% to Strong Bush 2.08%

I appreciate your input, but I believe the assumption that e-voting counties would cast missing ballots at the same rate for each candidate is wrong. The most suggestive evidence to the contrary are the counties that went strongest for either candidate. The seven counties that went strongest for Kerry had a cumulative missing rate of 3.89%. Contrast that to the seven counties that went strongest for Bush -- the missing rate was just 2.08%. If I subtract the absentees (which have a paper trail and might be counted differently) the rate increases to 4.86% in the strong Kerry counties and 2.57% in the strong Bush counties, a difference of 2.29%! It makes a strong argument that there were simply diminishing Kerry votes to miscast.

With that in mind, the split counties in the middle are unknown as some amount of play in the actual votes may have made a close county that favored Kerry now favor Bush because of missing votes. Still, there was a distinction between the counties that favored Kerry against the counties that favored Bush: 2.47% missing in the Kerry counties, 2.24% missing in the Bush counties.

There is also the curious case of Lea County who had the strongest Bush vote in the state at 79% against just 20% for Kerry. And yet Lea returned a missing vote percentage of just 0.74%, similar to op-scan counties. It's odd to say the least. They are listed as having 100 Danaher Shouptronic machines and 2 Optical scanners -- quite typical as op-scan devices seem to be used to count absentees. Unless they switched out for all op-scans at their precincts at the last moment, we have something of a problem here. Either it's telling us that the e-voting machines in Lea are somehow all good whereas the ones in the rest of the state are really shoddy or it's telling us that something about the high percentage of Bush votes didn't trigger blank and miscast ballots...

[ignatzmouse]

83. I Have Excel Charts to illustrate if someone can host them (n/t)

[Dancing_Dave]

56. WOW--TELL THE NEW MEXICO ATTORNEY GENERAL!

So when fraud is outsourced to Republican-leaning companies, it can occur even where Democratic state officials are trying to run a fair election.

Is there any kind of a recount that can track down those missing votes? What other legal options are there?

Can Danaher and Sequoia be sued or prosecuted? New Mexico being what it is, I bet there would be plenth of popular support for such legal actions! Get this info to the New Mexico Attorney General immediately!

[Vote4Kerry]

59. Thank you for posting this!

This is a great find!

[EndElectoral]

65. Excellent...forward to Kerry...big kick

[keepthemhonest]

67. another brilliant, dedicated DUer good job n/t

[jfern]

70. We got more votes for Congress than the GOP

Obviously it was gerrymandered in favor of the GOP, since we only have 1 seat. If we re-district NM, we may be able to take all 3 seats.

[lonestarnot]

74. This Way Exciting!

Cheaters Never Win!

[ColoradoDemocrat]

73. I sent this to the governor

Thank you thank you!!

How come our trusty public servants aren't doing this? It seems like what you did was straightforward!

[ColoradoDemocrat]

75. I sent this to Bill R. and friends of mine in NM

This seems like a fairly straightforward analysis! I keep thinking I'm missing something!

How about NM ACLU??

[RaulVB]

77. Great findings

Thanks for your great work!

Have you forwarded this information to the people studying how the fraud took place?

[Ronbrynaert]

79. Great Work

But don't get sucked into this:

"The good thing about New Mexico is that Democrats are running the show and have nothing to hide"

As I am discovering in my series of articles, "50 States Mislead Their Voters"...even in states where Democrats supposedly control the election...the Republicans have managed to cause trouble.

Plus, one more thing, we need to look at this as a non-partisan issue...after all...Thereas LePore was a Democrat...and so are other election officials who have done fishy stuff...such as Alabama's Democrat Secretary of State Nancy Worley

http://whyareweback.blogspot.com/2004/11/recount-in-new-mexico.html

[regularjoe]

80. Could these "missing" votes be overvotes and undervotes?

When you said "the 775,301 total voters" is that for the whole election or just for the presidential race? Each race will have a different number of votes because some people overvote or undervote(don't vote) in some races and not in others. So their vote counts for some races and not for others. It is suspicious if this is happening much more in areas that vote democrat but I wonder if there wouldn't be an explanation like this from election officials if you asked them about it.

regularjoe

[ignatzmouse]

81. E-vote Missing Rate Was 2.65% vs 0.47% for Op-Scan

It's total voters in the NM canvas. If you look at the link, it is a cumulative total of all voters by absentee, early vote, and precinct (Nov. 2nd). Below this are the cumulative voters by county (running down) for each candidate and the cumulative totals for each candidate in all counties (running across).

If these were under-votes of people simply choosing not to vote for president, one would expect a similar result between the op-scan counties and the e-voting counties. The difference, however, is dramatic. 98% of the missing votes came in e-voting counties. The missing vote rate for op-scan counties was 0.47%. The missing vote rate in e-voting counties was 2.65%. It is a difference of 2.18%. Now one might argue that something happened to mark 2.18% of e-ballots as under-votes, but I suspect with the op-scan counties as precedent at least that many were voted. Electronic voting is billed as more accurate after all, isn't it? Again, it results in 18,659 missing e-votes against just 338 missing or unvoted op-scan votes.

[regularjoe]

86. Looks suspicious

Thanks for answering my question. If it were just that optical scan had less missing votes I would ask if optical scan was used less (and I could probably figure that out by reading the data you posted). But if the percentage of missing votes is that much worse (0.47% vs. 2.65%) for a voting method that is supposed to be better (i.e. you can't overvote on touch screen) then further investigation is certainly warranted.

[Celebration]

84. precinct info?

This all intrigues me. Would it be of benefit to take this down to the precinct level? I wouldn't mind taking one county to a spreadsheet if the information could be found.

I'm still trying to figure out a fraud angle on this of course. It would seem that anyone who could figure out how to mess with program would have just switched the vote rather than drop it. Or would this be some sort of calibration thing?

[ignatzmouse]

85. Precinct data

This guy's site is very good:

http://lnvb.westside.com/NewMexico/observations.view

It has some precinct data as well as the exit polls and lots of other information. It may be a little back-dated on the precinct figures and others are working on compiling updated info. All lot of information can also be found at the various county's BoE websites.

[Celebration]

97. Socorro County

Only tried that one because I am somewhat challenged in Excel, and a lot of the other counties had odd numbers like negative number of missing votes for president, or different types of machines within the county. I thought it was going to follow the paradigm at first, until I came across Precinct 16a, that went heavily for Bush and also had the most raw number of missing votes. I got the information from here--

http://ideamouth.com/politics/bbv/NMprecincttallies.php

Precinct 016A 726 682 44 294 383 5 43.10% 56.20%

It went for Bush by 56% to 43% and had 44 no votes out of a total cast of 726. This one precinct messed up the whole analysis. Sheesh. Still worth pursuing but I would want official totals before going to the trouble, and also what type of machine in each precinct.

[bj2110]

90. kick n/t

[Kralizec]

92. kick - n/t

[bj2110]

93. kick again

[truehawk]

94. kick

[jamboi]

95. Love that number crunchin!

[MonkeeMon]

96. kick

[bmoney07]

98. and the media says" no problems here,

just move along people"

Jeeze I think they should look at freakin county in the US.

[jmknapp]

100. I love that mouse!

Do you live in Cococino County?

[ignatzmouse]

105. Dilemma

A perfect 'brick,' a perfect 'day,' and that 'Kat' no where in sight..."

[mod mom]

101. Is it possible there were ashamed republicans but just couldn't ..

vote for Kerry, so they didn't vote for president?

[ignatzmouse]

103. EIRS Complaints Confirm NM E-Voting Problems

Some compelling evidence that we have a problem. A slate of e-voting incidents in New Mexico as reported to EIRS https://voteprotect.org/index.php?display=EIRMapNation. Candidate switching, changing selection to "no vote," misalignment, and more...

033853 11/02/04, 8:09 AM PST Machine problem Longfellow Elelemntary School -- Edith Blvd., Bernalillo County, New Mexico Reported that voters tried to vote for Kerry and Peroutka's name was recorded.

034353 11/02/04, 8:35 AM PST Machine problem Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Danaher 1242 (#010494) malfunctioning. When selection is made for one office, previous selections are unintentionally de-selected.

035228 11/02/04, 9:08 AM PST Machine problem East Gate Church,12120 Copper Ave, NE, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voter selection does not light up, other selections do. typically presidential candidaTES from Kerry to 3rd party. Voter persistence seems to help

035436 11/02/04, 9:16 AM PST Machine problem 400 Edith Blvd NE, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voting Kerry, Perotka (sp?) comes up. 2 reports made through moveon to hotline

035864 11/02/04, 9:32 AM PST Machine problem Armijo E.S., 1440 Gatewood, SW, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Machine accepts vote, but undoes it when subsequent vote is made

042006 11/02/04, 1:19 PM PST Machine problem Albuquerque, bernalillo County, New Mexico Report from Voting Protection Personnel Mariln Brown who was assisting elderly man with voting. When Democrat President candidate selected (red dot with paper system), Libetarian candidate was highlighted. Poll worker instructed on how to correct. Vote was corrected. Same irregularities reported in other area precinct during early voting with touch screens: Democratic party selected, but libertarian candidates highlighted.

042338 11/02/04, 1:29 PM PST Machine problem Alameda Elementary, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voter pressed button for one candidate; machine lit up for the other candidate. Voter had to re-press several times to get correct candidate to light up. Machine on far left in cafeteria.

042248 11/02/04, 1:35 PM PST Machine problem 412 Alameda Blvd. NW, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Light showing selection not behind voter's choice; took multiple tries.

043872 11/02/04, 2:22 PM PST Machine problem #48 Cochiti Elem, Bernalillo County, New Mexico #10355 - Machine wouldn't properly register the desired vote -- voter would make one selection but machine would register another -- voter was finally able to make desired selection but w/ difficulty

044507 11/02/04, 2:44 PM PST Machine problem 420 General Somervell St. NE, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voter tried to vote straight party ticket, all lit up except for president; poll worker said was known problem, would be OK. Machine 'C'.

044606 11/02/04, 2:48 PM PST Machine problem 420 General Somervell St. NE, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Machine reset itself after certain period of inactivity while voter thought about ballot propositions; voter revoted, believes vote counted.

044612 11/02/04, 2:47 PM PST Machine problem Hawthorn, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Had to fill out ballot twice because machine cleared all. After going through twice it accepted entries.

045322 11/02/04, 3:18 PM PST Machine problem Georgia O'Keefe Elementary School, 11701 San Victorio Ave. NE, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voter pressed name box for Kerry/Edwards, Libertarian light came on. Reproducible problem, persistence by voter allowed correct vote; probably ballot misalignment. Machine Serial No. 010154

047355 11/02/04, 4:32 PM PST Machine problem Alameda Elementary, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Machine registered full slate of votes for the wrong party. Voter had to go back and manually change each category.

047522 11/02/04, 4:37 PM PST Machine problem Alameda Elementary Gymnasium, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Problem was with the machine on the left. The voter had to press button several times before machine would register the correct candidate

047570 11/02/04, 4:42 PM PST Machine problem Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico This caller used an electronic voting machine, and after selecting a democratic candidate, noticed that the republican light actually lit up. He had to select the democratic candidate again to cancel it out, and then select it again to make the correct selection. He had to do this for almost all of the people he voted for. Worried that others won't realize the problem. THIS WAS THE SECOND TIME THAT HE CALLED (but I forgot to get the first case #, so I'm not sure what the first issue was)

047678 11/02/04, 4:55 PM PST Machine problem Los Ranchos Elementary School, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Using machine "B" my buttons that I pushed would respond in the other area. Sometimes I would push buttons once and it wouldn't light up, so I'd have to push it again or two times. One-third of the way through my lightgs just went out. I asked the monitor what happened and she didn't know. They still kept letting other people use this machine anyway.

048599 11/02/04, 5:17 PM PST Machine problem Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Pressed "party" they lit up. Then went to props. By the time she finished the whole thing began blinking. Had to go back and recheck party. She does not feel confident vote was recorded. Had to repeat "party selection.ast her vote.

049286 11/02/04, 5:42 PM PST Machine problem Alameda ES, 412 Alameda Blvd. NW, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voter tried to vote straight ticket, other party selected; voter was able to correct.

059157 11/30/04, 12:50 PM PST Machine problem ABQ, Bernalillo County, New Mexico When water hit one button another light came on. Was able to corect. Hit for Kerry and other candidate lit up (Green)

059286 12/01/04, 10:37 AM PST Machine problem Cochiti E.S.--3100 San Isidiro St. NW, 107, albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico 1 (perhaps 2?) machines broke down a total of 3 times--machine serial number 10353. Incident #1: voter had pressed button on rights side of machine but vote jumped to Nader. #2: All buttons recorded votes properly, except for one judicial race--voter needed to push 6 times. #3: inaccurately recorded vote for president--voter corrected.

059353 12/01/04, 12:33 PM PST Machine problem Bernalillo County, New Mexico One machine (B) was "touchy" and could indicate the wrong vote when a button was pushed.

059414 12/02/04, 8:40 AM PST Machine problem Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voter was not given option to vote for president on the machine. The other offices were on the ballot.

059426 12/02/04, 8:54 AM PST Machine problem Emerson Elementary (23), Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voter was not able to mark preference by touching area instructed by the machine (had to touch screen about 1/2 inch away to properly mark).

059464 12/02/04, 10:05 AM PST Machine problem San Jose Elem., Albequerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voter pushed button to cast vote and it wouldnt register. Third to struggle w/ problem

059472 12/02/04, 10:26 AM PST Machine problem Sombrillo, Sautate County, New Mexico "Sticky Machine"; assistance was sought from Judge Pres. Garcia. and machine was cleared. 4 votes had not been sent. City Clerk was called to attend to the problem.

059509 12/02/04, 11:53 AM PST Machine problem 186, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Machine indicated vote for Nader - not voter's choice. He went back several times until machine registered correct vote. Voter told judge, who shrugged and told the voter he must have done it wrong.

059515 12/02/04, 11:52 AM PST Machine problem Albequerque HS, Bernalillo County, New Mexico When buttons were pressed on machine they didnt "take." He said he had to go back and press a few times - he notified the poll workers and they said they wer going to check the machine.

059202 11/30/04, 2:42 PM PST Machine problem Site 33 Alice Hoppes - State Fairgrounds, Albquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Lost selection twice $ blinking in reselected. Twice on 2 different candidates or ballot issues. Ultimately cast ballot OK.

059430 12/02/04, 9:27 AM PST Machine problem Emerson Elementary, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Problem w/ voting booth B. Voter selected presidential candidate, continued to vote for other offices and then presidential choice changed to "something and Dr. ..."

047596 11/02/04, 4:44 PM PST Machine problem 7th Precinct, Las Cruces, Dona Ana County, New Mexico Light by one presidential candidate burned out. Not indicating votes for that candidate.

014203 10/22/04, 3:08 PM PST Machine problem Otero County, New Mexico Voter stated that friend attempted to vote today at county clerk's office in Otero County and that "extraordinary efforts" were required to get voting machine properly to reflect his intended vote; apparently would default to Republican slate

052219 11/04/04, 8:25 AM PST Machine problem Sombrillo, Espanola, SantaFe County, New Mexico When the voter went into the voting booth all the Republican lights were lit. The Presiding Judge cleared the machine and indicated that it had gotten stuck and may had missed counted the votes. The machine was cleared and the voter was allowed to vote. The clerk was notified about the problem and sent a technicain to fix the machine.

054809 11/10/04, 6:12 AM PST Machine problem Dixon, Embudo, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico Voter noticed that she had voted on all issues and candidates but prior to pushing the "cast your vote" button she noticed that some of the items idicated "no vote".

059450 12/02/04, 9:44 AM PST Machine problem Dixon Elem. School, Dixon, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico She voted and before pressing the last button, checked back to see if the votes were recorded accurately and found that in some places "No Vote" appeared. She voted again and then pressed the final button.

059087 11/30/04, 6:25 AM PST Machine problem San Juan County, New Mexico Reported via e-mail to eirhelp: I had problems voting on the touch screen voting machine. Instructed on the use of the machine, I was told that I could vote straight ticket or for individual candidates and then review ballot. But when I pressed straight ticket and reviewed there was no vote cast. thinking this might be operator error I then went through the ballot and voted for each person on the ballot which seemed to show results. I can't help but wonder what happened at the polls for myself and perhaps millions other citizens.

052341 11/04/04, 9:52 AM PST Machine problem Sombrillo, Santa Cruz, Santa Fe County, New Mexico When voter went in the machine button on the Republican ticket was stuck. She hit the button three times before it cleared. This is related to the Shik problem reported as well.

[senegal1]

106. Beautiful love this thread -- kick to the top!

[MonkeeMon]

107. suggest posting in Demopedia

likely will need a state by state compendium there. FYI Am working on updating the new mexico precinct data and will post later this afternoon, thanks for the kick ignatzmouse!

[electropop]

108. I agree demopedia for this one n/t