This is IMPORTANT: VotersUnite! Analysis of ESI's Ohio Diebold Findings

[Bill Bored]

How about a big hand for VotersUnite! and VoteTrustUSA for this important work! :applause:

Kick and recommend!

So far all we've heard from the MSM, vendor shills and anti-paper-ballot advocates is that some voter-verified paper records were missing in Cleveland. But here is the REAL STORY!:

<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1703&Itemid=51>

The Real Threat
By VotersUnite.org
August 23, 2006

A Deeper Look at ESI’s Report of the Discrepancy-Ridden Vote Counts In Diebold Touchscreen Voting Machines

In August 2006, Election Science Institute (ESI) released a report entitled, “DRE Analysis of May 2006 Primary; Cuyahoga County, Ohio”. Election Science Institute is a non-partisan, non-profit election science organization, which was commissioned by Cuyahoga County to review how the county’s new election system performed in the early stages of use.

What ESI found was internally inconsistent, unreliable vote totals on every level.

Several reviewers of the ESI report, including Don Seligson, Michael Alvarez, and Dan Tokaji, have focused almost exclusively on the problems with the VVPAT, to the extent that the titles of their articles suggest the report is only about the VVPAT failures.

We believe these reviewers are missing the point of the data that surfaced during ESI’s investigation. Certainly, Diebold’s implementation of the VVPAT was deplorable. But worse than that, the investigation discovered that all the machine vote counts in the May 2006 primary were internally inconsistent and therefore thoroughly unreliable.

-snip-

Download the full report here:
<http://www.votersunite.org/info/ADeeperLook-ESI.pdf>
Or here:
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/pdfs/VotersUnite/ADeeperLook-ESI.pdf>

(Actually Lou Dobbs got the story right too!)

PILGRIM: The report found the machine's four sources of vote totals, individual ballots, paper trail summary, election archives, and the memory cards, did not all match up. The totals were all different.

<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1684&Itemid=113>

[TayTay]

1. Excellent report!

Thanks for posting this. I will forward it to a lot of people I know.

[BeFree]

2. There they go again

Several reviewers of the ESI report, including Don Seligson, Michael Alvarez, and Dan Tokaji, have focused almost exclusively on the problems with the VVPAT, to the extent that the titles of their articles suggest the report is only about the VVPAT failures.

These 'experts' mentioned - Don, Michael, and Dan - are pretty damn sorry, eh? All these years of raking in the dough and making a big name for themselves and they miss the point of the biggest story? Cripes, they all ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Shoot, even the greenest of election reform folks know to look squarely at the machine count and question that electronic authority to it's core.

[kster]

11. Yep, you see what they are trying to doing

:thumbsup: make the problem look like it is only with the DRE machines, NOPE, won't wOrk, the people want to see the votes --BEING--counted (PERIOD)

Kinda reminds me of the: "Won't Get Fooled Again"

Lyrics from "THE WHO":

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

Do ya?

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the party on the left
Is now the party on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

[roseBudd]

15. DREs are not the problem any computer tabulated system is a

system that cannot be trusted.

If it tabulates ballots at 36,000 per hour there is no way to know if it is tabulating correctly, fraudulently or mistakenly.

[Melissa G]

3. K&R! Great Post! Bookmarking for later when i have time to study it!

[Time for change]

4. Wow -- this is huge!!

If this isn't fixed before the fall elections Blackwell is going to mysteriously pull out a magic victory -- along with DeWine.

And what are the chances that he would allow a fair recount?

[OnTheOtherHand]

5. based on the report, there is no telling what a "fair recount" would be

Four different methods, four different results. And it's sort of a good news-bad news joke. The good news is, it doesn't especially look as if anyone was trying to mess up the results, in this case. The bad news is, if the results are this bad when the races aren't even close, fuhgeddaboutit if things are actually competitive.

Diebold seems to be arguing that (1) the results were accurate and (2) besides, it's all the pollworkers' fault. Hmm.

[Time for change]

6. That would indeed be good news if no one was trying to mess up the results

But that's just very hard for me to believe, especially when Blackwell is anywhere within 2 thousand miles of the scene.

[Bill Bored]

7. Well it was only a primary.

And perhaps they knew there would be an audit? Could that have been a deterrent?

[OnTheOtherHand]

9. that's why we're doomed

Hey, I can't rule out that someone messed around with the results just to establish the principle of Who Knows?

It doesn't really matter. I don't think Blackwell needed any help to beat Petro in that primary, but setting that aside, the principle of Who Knows? has been established whether anyone intended it or not. (Not a total novelty, just a particular twist.)

[OnTheOtherHand]

10. BTW I didn't mean that quite so apocalyptically

"We're doomed" in the sense that the DRE/VVPAT results are unreliable even without fraud, but then again, this is not the exact publicity that Diebold was looking for.

[Time for change]

12. Yeah, you may be right

Don't mind my ranting. Everytime I think of Blackwell my blood boils so badly that I can't think straight.

They ought to put him and Katherine Harris in the solitary confinement wing of hell and just leave them there for eternity :rant:

[OnTheOtherHand]

13. yes, we all know the Bad Blackwell Blood Boil!

For what it's worth, according to pdf page 124 (numbered page 119) of the ESI report, Blackwell's vote share in the audited portion of Cuya ranged from 42.9% on the DRE archives and memory cards (different counts, but indistinguishable in % terms) to 43.2% on VVPAT ballots.

Incidentally, Petro is from Cuyahoga County, while Blackwell is from the other corner of the state (Hamilton County / Cincinnati). Petro won in Cuya, but Blackwell romped in Hamilton, with about three-quarters of the vote. AFAICT all this was pretty much in keeping with expectations.

I don't intend any of this to sound soothing -- I see no possible way that getting four different results from four supposedly redundant methods could be a good thing. In this case the differences weren't substantively important, but next time?

[livvy]

8. Great report. Those kinds of results are unacceptable.

Like the report says, how can any election results be considered legitimate with those types of discrepancies?

[drfresh]

14. Kick -nt