Changleen
11-18-2004, 08:16 PM
http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/1118-14.htm
BERKELEY, CA -- November 18 -- Today the University of California's Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team released a statistical study - the sole method available to monitor the accuracy of e- voting - reporting irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The study shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods - what the team says can be deemed a "smoke alarm." Discrepancies this large or larger rarely arise by chance - the probability is less than 0.1 percent. The research team formally disclosed results of the study at a press conference today at the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center, where they called on Florida voting officials to investigate.
The other thing that came out of the election results was the idea that Exit poles had 'finally been discredited'. This always seemed wierd to me. In the past in many many countries in thousands of elections, even very tight ones, exit poles have painted a very accurate picture of the actual results.
Suddenly after this election, the media presents this idea that exit poles cannot be trusted, based on the fact the election results did not tally with the exit poles. People seem to accept this idea without questioning (or even bringing up) the massive pile of historical evidence. Articles such as this would go a long way towards describing the reasons for this sudden failure of an age old and formerly highly reliable methodology.
Prizes for the first people to claim "It doesn't matter - Bush won, get over it."
BERKELEY, CA -- November 18 -- Today the University of California's Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team released a statistical study - the sole method available to monitor the accuracy of e- voting - reporting irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The study shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods - what the team says can be deemed a "smoke alarm." Discrepancies this large or larger rarely arise by chance - the probability is less than 0.1 percent. The research team formally disclosed results of the study at a press conference today at the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center, where they called on Florida voting officials to investigate.
The other thing that came out of the election results was the idea that Exit poles had 'finally been discredited'. This always seemed wierd to me. In the past in many many countries in thousands of elections, even very tight ones, exit poles have painted a very accurate picture of the actual results.
Suddenly after this election, the media presents this idea that exit poles cannot be trusted, based on the fact the election results did not tally with the exit poles. People seem to accept this idea without questioning (or even bringing up) the massive pile of historical evidence. Articles such as this would go a long way towards describing the reasons for this sudden failure of an age old and formerly highly reliable methodology.
Prizes for the first people to claim "It doesn't matter - Bush won, get over it."