Suwannee County: How the Miami Herald was fed with incomplete data

[Woody Box]

Thanks to DU newbie eomer from Miami we are able to shed some light onto the partial votes (60 %) of Suwannee County that were examined by the Miami Herald.

The Nov 28 printed version of the newspaper gives the official results for the selected precincts: 6138 vs. 2975 in favor of Bush. The Herald count yielded 6140 vs. 2984, roughly matching the official numbers.

The question why the BoE didn't give them all of the ballots remains.

Let's take a look onto the precinct numbers: http://www.suwanneevotes.com/new_page_3.htm

The county has 16 precincts, plus the absentee+early votes:

Prc....Bush....Kerry.....%Bush

1........336.....536.......39.6%
2........515.....257.......66.7%
3........522.....180.......74.4%
4........679.....184.......76.9%
5........429.....163.......72.5%
6........355.....120.......74.7%
7........269.....106.......71.7%
8........364.....114.......76.1%
9........558.....145.......79.3%
10......459.....156.......74.6%
11......468.....167.......73.7%
12......609.....287.......67.9%
13......734.....217.......77.1%
14......369......90........80.4%
15......359.....114.......75.9%
16......499.....165.......75.1%
ABS...3621...1512.......70.5%

Now if we select precincts 1, 2, 5, 7, 12, 15 and the absentee votes, we get exactly the numbers we're searching for:

1........336.....536.......39.6%
2........515.....257.......66.7%
5........429.....163.......72.5%
7........269.....106.......71.7%
12......609.....287.......67.9%
15......359.....114.......75.9%
ABS...3621...1512.......70.5%

SUM...6138...2975

Because the numbers match the official count exactly, it is fair to conclude that these are indeed the precincts the official count refers to. The interesting thing is that all of the strongest Kerry precincts belong to this selection - look at Bush's percentage in the last column. The only exception is precinct No. 15.

The published precincts are highly Kerry biased. This can't be happened coincidentally. Why did the BoE withhold the other precincts? Have they something to hide?

And the "research" of the Herald can't be judged as objective journalism if they rely on these biased data.

[roseBudd]

1. Great work! Contact the Herald with your data n/t

[berniew1]

31. Rural counties red herring-- studies show big problem in big touchscreen c

The "audit" in 3 small rural counties is a red herring being circulated to quell concern over possible fraud in Florida. The 3 small counties in question showed no irregularities in pattern compared to 2000 voting and recent voter registration data. They were volunteered to be counted because it was known that they had no problems. Otherwise they wouldn't have been volunteered to have the counts.
But all of the major studies on unusual voting patterns in Florida
Univ. of Calif.(Berkeley) study, Princeton Univ. study
www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,10801,97614,00.html
and FLCV study www.flcv.com/fla04EAS.html
found that the big unusual patterns in Florida were in the big touchscreen counties. This appears to be an attempt to take attention away from the touchscreen counties where anomalous patterns of votes was found by focusing instead on small optical scan counties. But it says nothing about the bigger issue, touchscreens in large counties. There were some larger optical scan counties that showed some unexpected voting patterns, but not these and not as much as the touchscreen counties.

[RubyCat]

2. Only set of precints that lead to approx 6140 vs. 2984?

Is the following the article you're referring to? It states that the official count for the selected precincts is 6140 to 2984, but the article doesn't mention that its own count was 6138 to 2975.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002102809_florida28.html

Of course it's best to simply ask the Miami Herald which precincts it recounted. The strident conservative tone that the author of the article takes, however, makes me believe they won't cooperate though.

Have you found any other combinations of precincts that lead to results close to 6140 to 2984? We need to be sure before confronting the Miami Herald.

[eomer]

3. I emailed the reporter

a couple of hours ago and asked very nicely which precincts they used and were the early and absentee votes included.

No reply yet. I'll post here if I get one.

[BlueDog2u]

13. I did the same, very politely...

Hopefully one of us will get an answer.

[newyawker99]

22. Hi eomer!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[eomer]

4. Here's the Miami Herald online version

of the article:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/front/10286349.htm (registration required).

The printed newspaper has additional information not shown in the online version. The printed version is where the 6138 vs. 2975 comes from.

[Eloriel]

5. Can you scan the printed version?

If so, I'm sure we could find someone to host it for us. Thanks, and great work.

[eomer]

12. Scan of printed version

I've scanned the printed version.

Let me what you want me to do with it.

[FloridaCrat]

6. Did you mean to say "Bush biased"?

Did you mean to say that all of the precincts except #1 were Bush biased? I don't get what you're saying... Precinct #1 is the only one where Kerry had a lead.

[TexasLawyer]

7. Woody B is saying...

that the Florida county gave the Herald reporters only those precincts with the lowest percentages of votes for Kerry. The only precinct that doesn't fit this analysis is 15.

If there was fraud, the objective here may have been building the so-called B* "mandate" in overwhelmingly pro-Bush precincts that presumably would never be subject to a recount.

[Senator]

8. Your point is still correct

The precincts were the lowest bush percentages.

But your point is still correct that they would be hiding the "bush controlled" precincts, because that's where they felt safe to pad the totals.

[TexasLawyer]

9. Thanks--

meant to say lowest percentages for Bush.

[spotbird]

10. The purpose of the first article was to give the Bush supporters

something "official" to point to, it was not to assure anyone who was concerned about the count.

There will not be an article that would allay the concerns of those who are worried.

[pointsoflight]

11. Thanks for this.

I didn't have these numbers from the print version of the article, but did do my own analysis of the precinct level data, which fits with what you present here.

My analysis of the numbers showed that the only way for Bush's numbers in the hand count to "catch up" with his official tally is if the Herald only counted the precincts that were more favorable to Kerry, and did not count the 10 or so of those that went most heavily to Bush. Well, as you show, that's apparently what they did.

Makes no sense to do it that way if they were truly looking for anomalies that padded Bush's total. If they were sincerely doing that, why would they ignore the precincts where Bush won by the biggest margin? But of course we know that that wasn't their goal.

Regardless of all of these details, their claim that there is "no flaw in Bush's state win" is still ridiculous and is obviously driven by political motives. Yeah, lets only hand count in those counties that are known to be dixiecrat counties, and that statisticians have already said aren't a big problem. And lets cherry pick the precincts so that we avoid those where Bush won by the biggest margin. And lets include a bunch of rhetoric and snide remarks from partisan election officials. And lets generalize from 0.3% of the vote in three small, dixecrat counties to the entire state. And lets ignore the counties that statisticians have pointed out to be a problem, like Miami-Dade and Broward. And lets ignore the counties where very suspicious activity has already been uncovered, a vote tallies do not match, like Volusia County.

But yeah, they're fair, non-partisan investigative reporters.

[bobbi jo2]

25. A very calculated attempt to quell the "fraud" rumors

It is obvious to me that this article from the Herald is a very well thoughtout plan to dampen our outcries about voter fraud. As we see, it has made the major newspapers around the country--suddenly they're using the word, but not in the context we wanted. Is there something like Homeland Security, maybe, going on here? Wouldn't want this to keep spreading, would THEY.

This "report" is so transparent it makes me sick. As has been noted, the partisan remarks from the "oh so friendly" officials, why, they're nothing like those Bev and crew from BBV encountered...while making sure to note the masses of v-e-r-y conservative "born again" Baptists, who are against abortion and gay marriage. When querried about the fact that Cheney has a gay daughter, the one county supervisor remarked, "We dont think that deep". Oh and the numerous people who wandered in and out of the courthouse: witnesses to the recount?... Just thought they would describe the surrounding area, with all those "Christian" signs and chicken farms(!)


Of course those reporters just dropped in, unannounced, no notice. Right! This charade was well planned in advance, and that being so, how much planning did the county officials do! I would say that no well known and respected reporter would have touched this kindergarten act, and that's why we have these un-heard-of's on the "case". But you know, I'm afraid many people will accept this story as genuine.

You all are right, there's something very strange about the partial recount in Suwannee County. They didn't stop counting because they were tired or out of time and had to leave for home, they went on to the third county and did a full count there--supposedly.

I am confused about these so-called conservative Repuplicans who register as Democrats to vote in local primaries. Can anyone explain their reasoning for this?

Thanks for listening, I just needed to rage on about this--I've read all your posts

[eomer]

14. Reporter confirms precincts used

Meg Laughlin responded to my query and gave the same list of precincts that woody b had backed into.

Here's her email:

These are the Suwannee precincts we checked: 01, 02, 05, 07, 12,15, absentee
and early ballots. We chose these precincts randomly.
Best,
Meg Laughlin
-----Original Message-----
From: (redacted)
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 10:34 AM
To: Laughlin, Margaret
Subject: Suwannee recount


I am trying to understand the numbers you gave in Sunday's article.
Specifically, your Suwannee totals:

County for Bush 6,138
Herald for Bush 6,140
County for Kerry 2,975
Herald for Kerry 2,984

Can you tell me which precincts these totals are for?

Also, do they include the the early and absentee votes for all precincts,
for no precincts, or for only the ones where you counted the election day
votes?

I would greatly appreciate this info and any other details about the count
that you could provide.

Thanks,
(redacted)

[passy]

15. now aren't numbers a funny thing! aha ah ah

they really let you find out the weirdest thing. Lets not start talking about exit polls again then.

[Woody Box]

19. What's your point?

Don't you see that the vote fraud has left many numerical traces worth to pursue?

And where you're coming from, anyway?

[passy]

20. Sorry if I came across as laughing at you!

I was reading through the post and seeing that you thought that you knew which precincts they had chosen and the reporter confirms it.
What made me laugh was that numbers are amazing things and that they can help you solve the mysteries of the universe as well as flawed election results.
My comment about exit polls is that they should have been enough to contest this election, without having to look at numbers for insignificant Florida counties.
I don't think the tens of thousands of Ukrainians in the streets of Kiev had access to a thousandth of the information we have and yet they knew things had gone terribly wrong.

[Woody Box]

18. Chose the precincts RANDOMLY?

You and a friend of yours make a little experiment. You put 16 balls, numbered from 1 to 16, in a bag.

While the friend looks away, you draw six balls out of the bag (honestly, without cheating).

You draw No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8. Your friend turns his head to you again, you show him the numbers.

You tell him that you've chosen the balls randomly, you didn't cheat. Will your friend believe you?

Do you believe the reporter?

[DoYouEverWonder]

16. Guess who picked the precincts to count?

The Miami Herald!

The SOE just told me they only counted the precincts that the Miami Herald wanted to count.

BTW: For $35/hr they'll count the whole county for you.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x93769

[3 DanO]

33. Could the ballots be optically scanned and put up as a video

One ballot per frame and compressed shouldn't take too much bandwidth. Then we could all count the votes and argue about the frame numbers where we don't agree.

[passy]

17. another weird thing

here: http://www.suwanneevotes.com/new_page_3.htm
Kerry gets 4513 votes and Bush 11145
here in the first table: http://ustogether.org/election04/FloridaDataStats.htm
Kerry gets 4521 votes and Bush 11153
that's an extra 8 votes each.
I'm not sure what the unofficial results are compared with the ones in the table with all the counties, but why do they differ exactly with 8 votes for each candidates?

[DoYouEverWonder]

37. The same thing happened in a few other counties

The following counties changed their votes total from Nov 3rd's Unofficial Results to the Final Official Results that were certified on Nov. 14 by the same number for both candidates:

Dixie Bush +1 Kerry +1

Hardee Bush +2 Kerry +2

Martin Bush +59 Kerry +59

Monroe Bush +5 Kerry +5

Okeechobee Bush +3 Kerry +3

Odd, don't you think? Especially, Martin County.

[wiggs]

21. kick. nt

[TexasLawyer]

23. Kick n/t

[coolcat]

24. 558 More Stolen Votes in Suwannee

It's even simpler than extrapolation. The stealing of votes is going on right before our very eyes. People aren't noticing the OBVIOUS, that is what is scary.

Look at the precinct totals from Suwannee County and sum them up on this page:

http://www.suwanneevotes.com/new_page_3.htm

336
515
522
679
429
355
269
364
558
459
468
609
734
369
359
499
3621
-----
10587 Bush Votes (558 LESS than reported 11145 !!)
Curiously 11145-10587 = 558 whoops, I must've glitched and added Precinct 9 twice.

Same summation for Kerry

536
257
180
184
163
120
106
114
145
156
167
287
217
90
114
165
1512
-----
4513 (as reported)

[trudyco]

26. WHOA - they did add it twice - "oops"

Is this the official, certified count?
Can we make them correct it?

Good eye.
trudyco

[Roger_Otip]

27. add it up again

i think the bush votes do come to 11145 - maybe you missed out precinct 9?

[trudyco]

28. You're right - must not be getting enough sleep

Could have sworn the data on the website originally added to coolcat's number. I did it in my head, so no excel glitch for me.

So the 2.6 precincts came up with a 42 vote swing to Kerry after the hand recount. I still think these "safe" counties are where Bush got his mandate - just a little bit of padding (so that it could be called a computer error) spread all over the place.

I think these precincts were picked by M-H because of their high Dem registered voters so it's not surprising they were better for Kerry than others. They wanted to show the Dixiecrat was alive and well.

I'd really like to know why the tabulators gave Bush extra votes that didn't pan out when the hand recount was done.

[Smirking_Chimp]

29. Look at Castor vote vs Kerry vote

Strange how Kerry gets less votes in every pct. than Castor...

[Smirking_Chimp]

30. And Boyd gets way more votes as well. n/t

[DoYouEverWonder]

34. Castor got more votes that Kerry not just in Suwannee

but in almost every other county in FL.

Kerry received a total of 3,583,544 votes

Castor received a total of 3,590,201 votes

Castor received 6,657 more votes than Kerry.


In the race for President - 61,774 votes went to other candidates

In the Senate race - 166,829 votes went to other candidates, with the majority going to Dennis Bradley.

So in the Senate race 105,055 more votes went to other candidates than in the race for President.


Also, the total votes cast for President = 7,609,810

The total votes cast for Senate = 7,429,894

That means there were 179,916 more under votes in the Senate race than the Presidential race.


So Castor lost 105,055 votes to other candidates over Kerry. Plus 179,916 more people didn't pick anyone for Senate but did pick someone for President. Yet Castor still beat Kerry by 6,657 votes.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=65690

[coolcat]

36. Retraction of 558 missed votes

Sorry folks,

My cut and paste of the data into excel did something funny to the 9th precinct, and even though the cell was selected it did not get included in the summation.

tail between legs.

[eomer]

38. Argument for transparency in e-voting

Actually, you just made a very important argument why e-voting must be transparent and verifiable.

You (like many honest poll workers) trusted that the computer added the votes correctly. What saved you when it didn't is that there were many eyes watching and one of them caught the error.

[berniew1]

32. The studies documented the big problem in Florida was touchscreens

The "audit" in 3 small rural counties is a red herring being circulated to quell concern over possible fraud in Florida. The 3 small counties in question showed no irregularities in pattern compared to 2000 voting and recent voter registration data. They were volunteered to be counted because it was known that they had no problems. Otherwise they wouldn't have been volunteered to have the counts.
But all of the major studies on unusual voting patterns in Florida
Univ. of Calif.(Berkeley) study, Princeton Univ. study
www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,10801,97614,00.html
and FLCV study www.flcv.com/fla04EAS.html
found that the big unusual patterns in Florida were in the big touchscreen counties. This appears to be an attempt to take attention away from the touchscreen counties where anomalous patterns of votes was found by focusing instead on small optical scan counties. But it says nothing about the bigger issue, touchscreens in large counties. There were some larger optical scan counties that showed some unexpected voting patterns, but not these and not as much as the touchscreen counties.

[goldengreek]

35. Outstanding work.

You've taken the one weakness of the original DU posting and made it into a powerful case against the competition, making it even stronger. The original posting is here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=91921&mesg_id=91921

The mistake was pointed out by mostly_lurking here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=91921&mesg_id=92332&page=

Brilliant!

This is what happens when a bunch of different -- and HONEST -- people get together and cover each other's backs. We've all got blind spots, and we've all only got so much time in the day.

We've busted the media again.

[truehawk]

39. kick

[truehawk]

40. kick