New Thread - Vermont Does Hand Counts! Please READ

[TennisGuy2004]

Here is an excerpt from that "Common Dreams" article from Nov. 6th:

---On the CNBC TV show "Topic A With Tina Brown," several months ago, Howard Dean had filled in for Tina Brown as guest host. His guest was Bev Harris, the Seattle grandmother who started www.blackboxvoting.org from her living room. Bev pointed out that regardless of how votes were tabulated (other than hand counts, only done in odd places like small towns in Vermont), the real "counting" is done by computers. Be they Diebold Opti-Scan machines, which read paper ballots filled in by pencil or ink in the voter's hand, or the scanners that read punch cards, or the machines that simply record a touch of the screen, in all cases the final tally is sent to a "central tabulator" machine.---

VERMONT DOES HAND COUNTS. VERMONT IS THE STATE WITH BY FAR THE LARGEST SHIFT TOWARDS JOHN KERRY FROM THE 2000 ELECTION - OVER 10%!

AM I ONTO SOMETHING HERE????

[GetTheRightVote]

1. Well I am not surprised

I have always know that John Kerry won the election but how to prove it is the problem. The Bush crime family is stealing this one as well. We need to go back to hand counts again for sure. I am a programmer and there is no way I would entrust my vote to a machine.

[ahyums]

2. not on the face of it - Vermont is after all one of the most

liberal/progressive states in the country, and one where a lot of political energy was generated by the Dean candidacy. There was also once a tradition of New England Republicanism which seems to be dying down somewhat because it was linked to moderates, and as the Republican party becomes ever more ideologically rigidly conservative the region becomes increasingly Democratic. - Pretty much in reverse to what happened in the South, which became Republican due to a dearth of conservative Democrats.
Having said all that though there might be something in it, I just think it's explainable in other ways.

[KnowerOfLogic]

3. They hand count the whole state?

[TennisGuy2004]

5. Hand Counts

They don't hand count the whole state, but the VAST majority of precincts still use paper ballots and are not touch screen or opti-scan ballots and there are many small towns that do hand counts. It's one of the only states that has a significant number of hand counts.

New Hampshire was another state that had a rather strong "Deaniac" movement and the actual result was off about 10% from the exit poll that showed Kerry winning easily there.

[Eloriel]

27. The state has less than 1/2 million people total --

I think it's something like 360,000 TOTAL population (including children unable to vote), so it wouldn't be that burdensome a task.

And yes, Vermont is considerably more liberal/progressive than a lot of other states, which is why Vermont "liberals" (VERY liberal by most states' standards) were always so angry with the sensible and pragmatic, though extremely progressive, Governor Dean.

[Mike Nelson]

4. You interest ME!

Obviously, the comparison of how votes are counted is there, which you saw.

I thought it was also VERY INTERESTING that HOWARD DEAN fills in as host and has BEV HARRIS as his guest for the day.

More dots to connect...

[drm604]

6. It's certainly interesting

and it is consistent with the idea that computer tabulations are suspect, but I doubt that it would be accepted as proof of anything. Do you know if Vermont's exit polls were accurate? Did Vermont even have exit polls?

[Straight Shooter]

7. How did Vermont exit polls compare to the final tally, do you know?

I'm in Oregon, mail-in ballots. The exit polls (taken at drop-off locations, I presume) were almost dead-on exact with the final results.

How about Vermont? Do you have those stats available?

Edit: Holy smokes! I just checked Oregon. In 2000, Gore won Oregon by beating bush with 7,000 more votes, but he and bush had 47% each of the votes. In 2004, Kerry beat bush with by 67,000 more votes, 52% to 48%.

1,713,908 votes cast for Kerry and bush in 2004, and 1,433,919 votes cast for Gore and bush in 2000.

[sandnsea]

17. Nader

We kept our Dem & Nader vote. That's how we got to 52%. You've got to factor that in. But that also leads to the question for some other strong 2000 Nader states, where the hell did the Nader vote go?

[Straight Shooter]

25. Good point. Nader got 5% of Oregon votes in 2000

That would bump up Gore's 47% in 2000 to the 52% Kerry got in 2004.

If we can show a pattern across the states where Kerry absorbed the Nader voters, so to speak, then it casts doubt on bush picking up so many "new" votes.

The odd thing is, IIRC, the pre-election polls showed that Nader supporters were taking votes from bush, too, although in not as many numbers as taking votes from Kerry. I don't remember the relative percentages. Of course, it stands to reason that since putting Nader on the ballot was actively being promoted and supported by the GOP, they had the internal polls to suggest that Nader's presence would hurt Kerry.

Maybe Nader's camp has the answer: Where did the Nader votes go?

[mdb]

8. Right here. Exit polls

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/VT/P/00/index.html

[ahyums]

9. wouldn't those be post "modification" exit polls though?

[mdb]

10. I was just thinking that. Yeah, probably need the unmodified.

[TennisGuy2004]

11. Vermont Exit Poll

The original "unmodified" exit poll showed Kerry leading 65 to 35. The final result was Kerry 59 to 39. Very odd. One of those "10% shift to Bush" states.

[BlueDog2u]

20. I hate to say it...

But if Vermont uses paper ballots, and the exit polls were off by 10%, then to me that suggests that in fact there is something wrong with the exit poll data. Notice also that in TIA's most recent post calculating the likelihood of the discrepancies between exit polls and official tabulations, this discrepancy means that Vermont is one of those states for which the chance approaches zero.

Now, given that a) Vermont would never have gone to Bush anyway, without massive fraud and b) Vermont has paper ballots, isn't this grounds to question the accuracy of the exit polling?

[ahyums]

22. if he's right about the original exit poll that is of course true, but I

suspect there's been some confusion here. I seem to remember seeing Vermont in a list where of states where the exit polls were basically proved accurate. It is true that if the exit polls were wrong in Vermont it would more than likely undermine exit polls themselves fairly considerably.

[BlueDog2u]

24. TIAs Analysis

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=67560&mesg_id=67560


And the data quoted on this thread don't support that. If there is other exit poll data on Vermont then that would be interesting, but the numbers currently being discussed here show a wide discrepancy. And if exit polls are so accurate, how can they vary that much?

Sorry to be a pain in the ass. Its my hobby.

[ahyums]

26. no you're absolutely right, and if there was a large discrepancy, then I

think a large part of the exit poll argument is undermined, especially if there were mostly hand counts. I would say though that because Vermont has a relatively small population there might be sample size issues or something which would make polls less reliable than in bigger states, but to be honest I have absolutely no idea if that's the case.

[mdb]

12. Here are the 2000 results.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/results/

[Straight Shooter]

13. Gore 51%, bush 41%, Nader 7%, Buchanan 1% in Vermont

148,166 to President Gore, 119,273 to the Thief

[sandnsea]

18. See, there's the Nader vote

If the Vermont 2004 vote was 59% K 40% B, that fits with the 2000 vote. That's one thing I haven't understood in these other states, where is the Nader vote.

[Carolab]

14. So, are you in Vermont?

Could you do some checking?

[Karenca]

15. KICK

I THINK THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT POST!

[spooked]

16. Also amazing is exit polls showing 10% of Republicans voted for Kerry!

In other states they would have us believe that EVERY REPUBLICAN PLUS THOUSANDS of DEMOCRATS Voted for Bush*!!

[loupe-garou]

23. I love your graphic!!!

[Straight Shooter]

28. The premise that bush got 100% of Republican votes is my major pet peeve

No way. There were too many high-level Republicans speaking out against him, people with a great deal of influence.

To assume 100% Repub loyalty is to accept without question another Rovian tactic: inflate perception of bush's support.

The other side of the coin is that 100% loyalty implies a Pavlov's dog response to voting. Not very flattering as an image of "personal responsibility," is it?

[JennC]

19. kick

[jdog]

21. kick