Counting is about the simplest scientific procedure that one can imagine, and so one might think it that could not possibly be much entangled with the social processes and difficulties that so often appear in more complex situations. Yet the ballot counting going on in Florida is an fortuitious reminder that even the simplest scientific procedures cannot be separated from their social context. There is an amazingly complex dance between seemingly social and seemingly technical issues, with an extremely high public visibility. This webpage collects some material out of a vast repository that is available on the recount, most of it forwarded by Phil Agre. The content goes far beyond what has appeared in our local newspaper, or even in the national newspapers.

Phil Agre has compiled a large master list of Florida recount URLs; much more information and many more details are available through the websites that are linked there. However, it does seem to me that there is some pro-Gore bias here, and I would have preferred to have some similar quality documentation of problems in the Gore side.

The first message below concerns some user interface design issues for the much disputed Palm Beach ballot; in that connection, here is a link to a copy of the ballot. The second message provides much information on voting machine technology. Both of these originated in the computer science community. Next is some material on statistical analyses of the Palm Beach vote, and then an affadavit concerning that vote, which describes what some voters actually experienced. After that are some essays, mostly by Phil Agre, in more or less inverse chronological order, and finally a lot of URLs.

In an effort to make this page more user friendly, I have tried to place the most objective and scientific gmaterial at the front, and to move URLs that are not closely tied to some text to the end. See Phil Agre's master list of Florida recount URLs for many more URLs - but note that both this issue and the web are highly volatile, so that many of these URLs are likely to be outdated pretty rapidly.

Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 18:06:11 -0800
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From: Phil Agre <pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu>
To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" <rre@lists.gseis.ucla.edu>
Subject: [RRE]Visual perception of document images 
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[Eric Saund is a research scientist at Xerox PARC.  I have known
him for many years.  He is an authority on the architecture of human
visual perception and its consequences for the design of documents.
Here he analyzes the claims that the disputed presidential election
ballot in Palm Beach County, Florida is misleading and ambiguous.
You can see images of the disputed ballot in many places on the net,
including these:

  http://www.sun-sentinel.com/elections/palmbeachballot.htm
  http://cnews.tribune.com/news/image/0,1119,sunsentinel-nation-82373,00.html

Here is another analysis by Dan Bricklin:

  http://www.bricklin.com/log/ballotusability.htm

I have reformatted Eric's message to 70 columns.]

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Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 20:00:26 PST
From: Eric Saund <saund@parc.xerox.com>
Subject: Visual perception of document images 

  Controversy has arisen over a ballot in Palm Beach County, Florida
that many people have claimed is misleading and ambiguous in its
design.  By at least one news report, the local election commissioner
claims "There is nothing wrong with this ballot".  Clay Roberts,
director of Florida Department of Elections, is quoted to have said,
"The ballot is very straightforward.  You follow the arrow, you punch
the location".

  I am a visual perception scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research
Center.  I study visual perception of document images: How do people's
brains connect the image on their retinas to the meaning formed in
their minds.

  Spatial layout is critical.

  In my judgement, this ballot is visually ambiguous.  There are two
valid ways of parsing this image.  One way is by following the arrows
from candidates names to punch holes.

  The arrows are rather small and not clearly shaped, and they have
little numbers next to them that add to the visual clutter.  It would
be perfectly natural for your visual system to treat the arrows as
visual texture, and just filter it out.

  A second valid way of parsing this image is by reading order.
When we open a book we don't take it in all at once.  We direct our
attention first to the left page, then move our eyes left to right,
top to bottom. Then we look at the right page.

  It would be perfectly natural for a person to read down the left
page, see the candidate they want to vote for, then stop reading.
Now they switch tasks, to finding which hole to punch.  One way of
doing this is by noticing and following the arrow.  Another way is
by keeping a mental count.  If you want to vote for the second entry,
count down two holes.  You probably couldn't vote for the sixth ballot
entry this way, but the second, sure.

  Why didn't they catch this before?

  If you're inspecting the ballot to proofread it, making sure no
one's name is spelled wrong, then you might not notice the layout
problem.

  When you know the intent of the ballot layout, then your top-down
processing can influence your perception and resolve the ambiguity
automatically so it all looks like it makes sense.  But to someone
seeing this image for the first time, in the polling booth, they have
to figure it out in the moment.  It takes a different kind of looking
to notice the layout problem.  It's something that good graphic
designers do intuitively.

  Seeing is an automatic, unconscious process.  We are not aware of
all the assumptions our minds make when we view a scene.

  It is perfectly plausible that a visually ambiguous ballot could get
through the inspection process.  I would not fault anyone for punching
the wrong hole on this ballot.  This ballot is poorly designed.

-Eric Saund

--------------------

Eric Saund, Ph.D.
Xerox PARC
3333 Coyote Hill Rd.
Palo Alto, CA  94304

(650) 812-4474
(650) 812-4334 (fax)
saund@parc.xerox.com
http://www.parc.xerox.com/saund

Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 23:25:45 -0800
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From: Phil Agre <pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu>
To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" 
Subject: [RRE]CPSR Answers Computer-Based Voting Technology Questions
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[I've enclosed a statement from Computer Professionals for Social
Responsibility (CPSR) about the faulty voting technology that is
causing problems in Florida.  I've reformatted it to 70 columns.

Here are some related URL's:

Problem "Chads" Likelier in Democratic Areas
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36760-2000Nov16.html

Furiouser and Furiouser
http://www.dailyhowler.com/h111500_1.shtml

11th Circuit Gets Voter Suit on Hand Count in Florida
http://www.law.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=law/View&c=Article&cid=ZZZRWEUPLFC&cst=1

Questions and Answers About the 2000 Presidential Election
http://www.brennancenter.org/programs/programs_vrep_election2000.html

Miami-Dade Considers Full Recount
http://www.salon.com/politics/wire/2000/11/16/miami_dade/

search page for Texas State Code (use simple/Boolean search)
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/statutes.html

Texas State Code, chapters on vote recounting
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/el/el021200.html#el005.212.005
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/el/el012700.html#el046.127.130
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/el/el021400.html#el011.214.042

Texas Republican Wins Hand Recount in State Race
http://news.excite.com/news/r/001115/11/politics-election-texas-dc

Laws on Manual Counts Vary Widely Around US
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7134-2000Nov12.html

Order Denying Emergency Petition
http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/election2000/harrisvjudgesorder.pdf

Textbook Case of Self-Censorship
http://www.freedomforum.org/first/outrage.asp

Palm Cards Misled Haitian Voters into Voting for Bush, Activist Charges
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/daily/detail/0,1136,36000000000126886,00.html

180,000 Votes for President Were Invalidated in Florida Due to Errors
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/daily/detail/0,1136,36000000000127419,00.html 

Court TV Online -- Decision 2000
http://www.courttv.com/national/decision_2000/

Comparison of Precinct Return Data between Duval County and Lee County
http://www.netrinsics.com/DuvalVsLee/

Lost Votes?
http://orlandosentinel.com/elections/lost.htm

Nannies and Professors Giving Gore Civics Lessons
http://www.observer.com/pages/frontpage5.asp

Suit Questions Bush-Cheney Claim to TX Votes
http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/tuesday/news_16.html

Thanks to everyone who contributed.]

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Date: 15 Nov 2000 20:43:17 -0000
From: sevoy@quark.cpsr.org
To: cpsr-announce@cpsr.org
Subject: CPSR Answers Computer-Based Voting Technology Questions

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR), a public
interest organization that focuses on the benefits and risks to
society of computer technology, offers the following answers to
frequently asked questions about computer-based voting technology.

Q: Why do vote counting systems produce different totals when the
ballots are recounted?  Shouldn't machine counts and recounts of
ballots produce repeatable, reliable results?

A: Many people have wondered why a computerized vote-counting
system would have any significant inaccuracies.  Some have publicly
speculated that such variation must be the result of deliberate human
action.  Some people believe that computerized counts will always be
more accurate than human counts, because of inevitable "human error".

However, computerized vote-counting systems are complex, prone to
several kinds of error.  Well-designed vote-counting systems minimize
these errors.  Some systems, particularly older systems, are not
so well-designed, and are more prone to error.  To illustrate this
problem, we will describe some reliability problems with the oldest
type of computerized ballot still in use, the Vote-O-Matic(tm).
This system was once very popular and is still used in many places,
including 15 Florida counties: Broward, Collier, Dade, Duval,
Highlands, Hillsborough, Indian River, Lee, Marion, Osceola, Palm
Beach, Pasco, Pinellas, Sarasota, and Sumpter.

The following describes reliability problems associated with one phase
of the elections process: gathering ballots and running them through
readers.  Problems may occur in other phases, included materials
design and printing, polling place administration, voter education,
and vote tally software.  By focusing on this one phase, we do not
imply that the other phases are trivial.  Conducting elections is
demanding work, in all phases.  Also, this paper focuses on errors.
Elections frauds certainly have arisen in the history of American
politics, but to our knowledge no fraud has been alleged in the ballot
counting process for this election.  Some level of error is inevitable
when counting Vote-O-Matic ballots, however.

CPSR has been studying Vote-O-Matic-type vote counting systems for
over ten years.  Experts, including CPSR's own project personnel,
have concluded that the Vote-O-Matic system has inherent accuracy
limitations.  Furthermore, careful manual counting of Vote-O-Matic
ballots should always be more accurate than machine counts.

The Vote-O-Matic system uses as a ballot the Hollerith punch card,
also known as a "computer card." This once-common card is roughly 3"
by 7", with small rectangular holes.  For Vote-O-Matic cards, each
hole in the card represents a vote for one candidate (or in favor
or against a ballot measure).  The ballot is counted by feeding it,
short-side first, into a reader.  (The card is made with one corner
clipped, so that the correct end of the card is fed in first.) The
reader has lights and sensors.  When a hole passes over the sensor,
light shines through, and the hole is read as a vote.

Hollerith cards were used for the 1890 census, and millions and
millions of critical activities between then and the 1970's.  Thus,
one might expect the Vote-O-Matic system to be extremely reliable.
But important differences between the standard Hollerith card and the
Vote-O-Matic card make the Vote-O-Matic far less stable and reliable.
There are three main problem areas:

 - ballots
 - ballot reader machines
 - what happens when a ballot reader reads a ballot

* Ballots

The ballots use essentially the same card size and hole positions
that IBM adopted in 1924 soon after they bought Hollerith's company.
However, the cards are not the same.  Hollerith's approach was
to punch a hole in a solid piece of paper.  Vote-O-Matic cards are
pre-punched.  Each square "chad" is held in place by a small wad of
paper fibers at each corner.  The vote then makes a hole by pushing
the chad out with a round stylus.  However, sometimes a chad will
be partly punched out or will snag on something and be pulled out,
creating what is known as "hanging chad."

Hanging chad can be attached at one, two, or three corners.  Chad
attached at one corner are usually torn off by the card reader or
in handling.  Chad attached at two corners are also often torn off,
unless the two corners are on the side of the chad that is fed first
into the card reader.  Then, often, the chad will be forced back
into the hole, only to flap open again later.  chad attached at three
corners are also usually forced closed by the card reader.  Handling
the cards can also change the status of hanging chad.  Some studies
have been done on chad, but there are many independent variable and
complicating situations, so the preceding is a generalization.

These pre-punched cards are also reportedly sensitive to changes
humidity.  The reasons have not, to our knowledge, been studied, but
it is likely because the chad loses and gains moisture faster than
the bulk material.  Thus taking a box of Vote-O-Matic cards from an
air-conditioned room to a humid evening to another air-conditioned
room will have unpredictable effects.  It may take the cards some time
to settle down after the ordeal.

The pre-punches also make the cards less rigid than a normal Hollerith
card, and thus more prone to bending.  Bent cards often cause problems
during reading.  The trailing edge of the card is uneven, because of
tabs from where the write-in tab was detached.  The faces of the card
are not as smooth as a regular card, again due to the pre-punches.


* Ballot Reader Machines

So far as we know, there are no longer any manufacturers of Hollerith
card readers.  High-speed card readers have a lot of precision parts.
Existing readers must be periodically rebuilt, but many companies no
longer exist and the remaining manufacturers, so far as we know, no
longer offer maintenance contracts on the units.  Elections is about
the last market left for Hollerith card readers.  Elections companies
buy up equipment from counties as they move away from Vote-O-Matic
systems, and sell it jurisdictions still using Vote-O-Matic.

Elections aren't a particularly hard life for a card reader, since
a reader is only used for a few days a year.  Still, the readers
eventually need to be rebuilt, which elections companies do with
a dwindling supply of spares, hangar queens, and whatever rebuild
protocols they devise.  Still, some parts age more on calendar time
than with use.  As the readers age, they become less reliable and more
prone to error and breakdown.


* What Happens When a Ballot Reader Reads a Ballot

Ideally, a stack of ballots is sucked one-at-a-time from the input
hopper to the output hopper of a card reader, each being counted
accurately.  However, sometimes two cards are sucked through.  This
is probably because pre-punching makes small ridges on the bottom of
the card, and an identical pattern of small troughs on the top.  The
ridges tend to get caught in the troughs.  Also, feed mechanisms have
to be engineered with consideration of the air cushion between the
cards, as one moves relative to the other.  This air cushion will not
have the same properties for Vote-O-Matic cards as for normal cards,
due to surface roughness.  For whatever reason, misfeeds happen.

Hanging chad can flip open and closed.  Detached chad can become stuck
in the feed path, increasing double feeds and misfeeds.  Detached chad
can jam two cards together, increasing misfeeds.  In some machines,
detached chad can jam over the light or sensor, causing holes to
not be read until the chad blows out of the way.  Detached chad can
migrate from one card to the next.

Chad that was not detached before, but merely buckled or only
detached on one corner (which counts as "not an open hole" in many
jurisdictions) can catch on other cards and become hanging chad or be
torn loose.

The read process can be quite traumatic to a Vote-O-Matic card.


Q: Is counting ballots by hand more or less reliable than counting
them by machine?

A: A human count of Vote-O-Matic cards should almost always produce
a significantly more accurate result than automated reading.  People
cannot count cards as quickly as a card reader, but a card reader is
much more limited than a person in how it can handle and read a card.
Any damage a card has sustained can confuse a card reader or cause
it to malfunction.  People are better able to deal with such problems.

Unfortunately, reading a Vote-O-Matic card by machine changes the
card.  Cards that have had one or more trips through a high-speed card
reader will appear different to a human reader than they would have
when freshly punched by the voter.

Erik Nilsson, an election technology analyst for CPSR, believes that
the Vote-O-Matic system should be replaced.  "For a quarter century,
election experts have been calling for the Vote-O-Matic system to be
retired.  The results of the 2000 election show that it is now time
move beyond this temperamental antique."


Q: Would Internet voting solve this problem?

A: Internet voting is often suggested as a solution to election
counting problems, but has many problems of its own, for example:

- If people voted from home, it would be very difficult, perhaps
impossible, to assure that those who vote are who they say they are.
Someone could vote for one of their family members, for example.

- If people vote from home rather than in a polling place, vote
secrecy and privacy could be compromised.  Elections in many
democratic societies, including the U.S., are based on the promise
of secret ballots, where only the voter knows who he or she voted for
(unless he or she chooses to tell others).

- A home-based Internet-based voting system would favor people who
have computers and Internet connections at home.  Such amenities are
not possessed by all citizens in the U.S.

- Purely electronic ballots leave no paper trail, so electronic
subversion of voting records could be difficult or impossible to
detect.

- Voting from home could destroy the sense of shared civic
responsibility and pride that most people clearly feel when they go to
an actual polling place to vote.

On the other hand, Internet voting could offer the following
advantages:

- Customized presentation of voting choices, for example
voter-selected font size
- Reliable vote tabulation
- Access for the disabled, and rural
- Can handle large numbers of voters

Computers, of course, can and will be used in elections.  One approach
that could provide the advantages without many of the disadvantages
would be to provide Internet terminals in polling places.  Voters
would come to the polling place and identify themselves, as they
always have.  Vote-O-Matic and other outdated, unreliable systems
would be replaced by more current technology.  Each polling place
would have a "manual" backup system on site, for when the network
connections or computers fail (as they surely will) or when a voter is
simply unable to understand how to use the computer.

A home-based Internet voting system is completely out of the question
until access to the Internet in the U.S. is universal.  Until
such a time, adopting a home-based Internet voting system would
be unconstitutional.  Today we are far from universal access.  For
example, in some urban poor districts, 14% of households lack even
basic phone service, much less Internet connections.  On some Indian
reservations, the percentage of phone-less households is even higher:
40%.
        
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility was founded in the
early 1980s by computer scientists and engineers who were concerned
about the use of computer technology in military applications,
particularly the Strategic Defense, or "Star Wars", Initiative.  In
the mid-1980s, the organization branched out to include other issues,
such as electronic privacy, freedom of speech, and the use of computer
technology in elections.

For further information, please visit CPSR's website: 
http://www.cpsr.org/issues/voting.html or contact the CPSR office 
at 650-322-3778  or   cpsr@cpsr.org to be directed to experts in the
area of Internet voting.

Susan Evoy   *   Managing Director                     
http://www.cpsr.org/
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
P.O. Box 717  *  Palo Alto  *  CA *  94302         
Phone: (650) 322-3778    *
Email: evoy@cpsr.org   

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I've copied over an ABC news item on chads, which has two very helpful images, in case you are wondering what these things really look like, how they arise, and how they were counted.

The page madison.hss.cmu.edu/ has URLs to some excellent statistical analyses of the Palm Beach election, and also contains a very nice graphical summary of some important data. Perhaps the most careful support for the claim that many people who intended to vote for Gore ended up voting for Buchanan is given in a paper by Chris Carrol. It is also well worth reading What Happened in Palm Beach county? by Henry Brady. These and many other papers provide very clear evidence that serious irregularities occurred in Palm Beach.

The following affidavit gives insight into what some voters actually experienced in Palm Beach.

Date received: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 09:34:03 -0800

From:    Richard M Yellin <yellin2@JUNO.COM>
Subject: Sworn Affidavit Made to Palm Peach DNC

Some colleagues asked, what went on here.  Here is my own sworn
testimony to the DNC -- Richard Yellin.

I came to my voting precinct at the St. Thomas More Church in Boynton
Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida, at 6 30 am on Election day 2000.
Iwas fifth in line waiting for the precinct to open.  By the time
it opened, about 30 people had already lined up, and by the time I
exited from the poll at 7:15, 100+ individuals were waiting to enter
a very crowded precinct area.  I was fully prepared to vote my choices
with my own pre-prepared list of candidate selections and referendum
choices.  I came early to vote because I had to be at my Synagogue, by
8 am to speak at a morning religious service.

When I entered the precinct I signed the voter register and received
the "computerized ballot".  I went to a cubicle on a desk that had
a "votamatic" platform which had a "butterfly brochure" fixed on
the platform, with pages of the brochure to be turned sequentially
so that candidates and referendum questions could be "hole punched",
i.e., voted for.  I followed the instructions placing the ballot into
the slot so that it could be properly fixed and aligned under the
"butterfly" so that the holes on the "butterfly" lined up over the
computerized "ballot".

At that point I started the voting process.  I wanted to vote for
Gore/Lieberman.  I searched for the Gore "butterfly hole" and could
not find it!! The arrows to the right of the candidate's name,
pointing to the proper "butterfly hole" did not align properly !!
I struggled to find the appropriate place for my vote, and tried
to figure out which one it was by looking at the Bush "hole" and the
others on the page.  By a process of elimination, I chose the hole
I thought was for Gore and Lieberman.  I took 3-4 minutes to do this.
It made me feel rather stupid, so I hid my stupidity, figuring that
I voted my choice.  I went on to all the other candidates on the next
pages of the "butterfly" and the alignments to the proper holes were
arranged neatly and to perfection, and I was out of the little cubicle
(which was not very private in the least!), and I took out my "ballot
from the "butterfly" and placed it in the ballot box upon leaving.

As I left I heard 2-5 people complaining that it was difficult to
vote for President and V.P.  I did not have time to consult with these
individuals because I had my appointments.  As I drove away, I had
a gnawing feeling that something was not right, with the blame on
me.  I had a sample mock "butterfly" that was mailed out before the
election, and I looked at it briefly while driving and I saw that it
did not look anything like the "butterfly" that was attached to the
"votamatic".  At which point I dismissed the experience and went about
driving.

At 7:45 am, when I came to my synagogue, (of which I am the Rabbi
and Spiritual Leader), Temple Emeth of Delray Beach, a 2800 member
congregation of retired senior citizens, our parking lot was a
beehive of activity.  A voting precinct is housed in our facility's
auditorium, and it had lines waiting to go into vote.  I went into
my office to prepare my sermon and at 8:10 I went out of my office
passing the voting precinct waving to many voters whom I knew.
I rushed past the auditorium and went into the Chapel and began
the service with a sermonette on the subject of voting and religious
freedom.  I told my prayers that in order to be religious, they had to
vote, because political freedom is the guarantor of religious freedom.
At exactly 8:20 am my speech was interrupted by a synagogue Staff
member who said to me in front of the 60 people in the chapel, "There
is a problem in the precinct," and he summoned me to the precinct.
My 7:15 emotions began to gnaw at me again.

I entered the precinct ahead of the lines and I was told by several
people leaving that they had trouble voting their choice for
President.  In fact one person was crying that she thought she had
mistakenly voted for Buchanan.

I summoned the supervisor of the precinct housed in our facility and
I asked her to get the butterfly ballot from one of the "votamatics"
and to look at it together with me.  Two or three other people gather
around, and it was the identical "butterfly" that I had used at
the Church.  I said to the supervisor that the arrows are completely
misaligned with the holes and therefore the ballots could not be
punched, expressing with certainty the intent of the voter.  She
agreed, and I asked her to interrupt the voting in the precinct and
I told her that the precinct should be closed until an announcement
was made to all those voting, that 'the "butterfly brochure" was
problematic, and that people should exercise great care.'  I said
to her that the supervisor of elections in Palm Beach and in Florida
should be called immediately.  She agreed.  The phone lines to the
election board were busy.  She made the announcements, and I went to
call all the media outlets in the area -- 3 TV stations and the radio
station of record.

At which point, I felt I did my duty and I went into the synagogue
office and began listening to people exiting from the precinct who
complained that it was an impossible experience, and how they think
they voted for Buchanan by mistake because of the "butterfly".  At
that point, I too put 2 and 2 together and I think I may have voted
for Buchanan, a vote that would be anathema to my whole political
disposition.  By 9:15 I had meetings in my office and duties to attend
to, and thought that others had been sufficiently apprised of the
situation and that it was in hand.  Wrong, by mid day all hell broke
loose in the media.

Addenda: On Friday night November 10, I had planned to speak about
Kritallnacht, the Rabin Assassination, and Veterans Day.  Instead,
before 500 people I asked them to shared their voting experience
during election day.  Several people got up to speak and told their
stories that they had trouble with the "butterfly" in trying to vote
for Gore, and they think they voted for Buchanan.  (It is important to
know that my congregation has well over 100 holocaust survivors, and
no one would have knowingly voted for Buchanan.  I took a referendum
on that!)

At which point several people in the congregation began to laugh at
those who expressed a problem with the vote! I asked those who were
laughing to explain their lamentable public ridicule.  They said
they voted, and it was a piece of cake.  I then asked them to explain
why it was easy for them.  They said their "butterfly" was lined
up correctly and all they had to do was follow the arrows for the
candidates and punch the holes.  In response, those who had the
problem, said publicly that they had a DIFFERENT LOOKING "BUTTERFLY"
AND THE ARROWS WERE MISPRINTED.  I then took a tabulation.  "If you
thought the votamatic was easy to use, raise your hands."  50% raised
their hands.  Then: "If you were troubled by the vote and think
you may have voted incorrectly for Gore because of your "butterfly",
raise your hands".  30% raised their hands.  20% were unsure.  The
conclusion of this "Town Hall" sermonic discussion!?  There were two
different versions of the "butterfly" or maybe even a partial misprint
of the butterflies used by many voters in various precincts of Palm
Beach County.

I tried the same experiment on Saturday morning to an even larger
crowd, dispensing with the planned sermon, asking people to share
their voting experiences.  The Saturday morning congregation is made
up of different people than the Friday night congregation.  To my
amazement the same thing happened again.  People laughed, and slowly
they came to the realization that there were 2 different versions
to the "butterfly".  The tabulation was virtually the same as the
previous night.

Conclusion: The real problem is the "butterfly" brochure.  There were
misprints in the alignment of arrows and holes, and there were bad
"butterflies" hovering within and mingling with normal "butterflies,"
and the way you could predict who received infected misprinted
"butterflies," was to scan the precincts where Buchanan received
greater numbers of votes than expected compared to all the other
50+ counties in Florida.  It just so happens that the Buchanan factor
surfaced most within Jewish and Afro-American areas and precincts.
As an Afro-American pastor friend of mine said, "there is no one
in his congregation who would for a moment think of voting for Pat
Buchanan".  Buchanan subsequently went on air saying he knew that
these exaggerated votes, close to 3500 in Palm Beach County, "should
not have gone to him".

The real question for these 3500 suspected votes: Why doesn't the
government impound all the "butterflies" and search for the misprinted
ones.

The media is totally confused by this, and it is no wonder that the
former Secretary of State, The Honorable James Baker, could hold up
a normal "butterfly," and unconscionably imply, that elderly, Jewish,
Afro-Ameircans, and Palm Beach County citizens, were "confused"
(implying 'stupid').  Mr. Baker, in this case, was really "holier
than thou", meaning, of course Bush voters were not confused because
their candidate was the first on the list, and you could not mistake
punching the Bush "butterfly" hole because it was at the top of the
column of holes, i.e., "holier than thou".

I do not believe in conspiracies! I am a registered independent voter
who learned as a child: "It is not who won or lost, but how we played
the game".  In this election, the voting machinery was flawed, not the
electorate!

Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 16:30:29 -0800
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Further details are emerging about the riot in Miami on Wednesday
that preceded the Miami-Dade County election commission's decision
to give up recounting the votes in the presidential election.  As
election workers sat counting votes, a mob screamed outside, pounded
on furniture, tried to force its way into the building, surrounded
a Democratic Party official, knocked two television cameramen to the
ground, and kicked and punched several people, including a Democratic
spokesman as he attempted to hold a news conference (New York Times
11/23/00 and 11/24/00).

The Republicans initially asserted that the riot was nothing but a
spontaneous outburst, but it soon became evident that this was not
true.  In a report that is almost too bizarre to believe, ABC News
(11/24/00) reports that the riot in Miami "was an organized Republican
Party protest, run by 75 party operatives out of a headquarters in a
motor home".  One operative claimed that they were there to help the
media.  But, ABC News reports, "they also got directly involved in
leading demonstrations, and were even willing to dress up in seasonal
outfits to provide so-called protester color for local news reports".

The protests were clearly organized in some depth.  Some participants
had heard about them from a Republican phone bank, and others in the
Cuban-American community had heard about them from radio interviews
with Republican members of Congress.  A lawyer for the Republican
Party incited the rioters by asserting that the election commission
would not be counting predominantly Hispanic districts (New York Times
11/24/00).

Now, one might imagine that the Republicans had organized a crowd of
protesters that had simply gotten out of control.  Some of them even
claimed as much.  But an op-ed column by Paul Gigot in the 11/24/00
Wall Street Journal column, which openly supports the riots, gives
this account of how they started:

  Then the Three Counting Sages repaired to semi-isolation, forcing
  TV cameras to watch through a window and keeping reporters 25
  feet away.  That did it.  Street-smart New York Rep. John Sweeney,
  a visiting GOP monitor, told an aide to "Shut it down", and semi-
  spontaneous combustion took over.

This is the most astonishing thing that I have ever read.  The
Wall Street Journal is reporting that a United States Congressman
explicitly ordered a gang to attack the offices of an election
commission with the express purpose of shutting down the counting
of votes in a presidential election.

What is going on in these people's minds?  Some Republicans tried
to justify the violence by comparing it to protests that have been
organized by the Democrats.  The same lawyer who had helped incite
the crowd in Miami asserted that "[i]t's the same type of democracy
in action when Jesse Jackson parachutes in and starts a protest in
the black community.  People have a right to express their opinions"
(New York Times 11/24/00).  But this is over the top.  Jesse Jackson
organized peaceful protests in Florida until he was heckled off
the stage by Republican counterprotesters.  The NAACP organized a
civilized public hearing and submitted a report on its findings to
the Justice Department.  That is indeed democracy.  Violence is not.

Representative Sweeney, who ordered the attack on the government
building where the votes were being counted said this: "thugs in that
building are trying to hijack this election".  This utterance is very
disturbing.  It's totally backward.  Representative Sweeney commanded
a mob that violently attacked people in the election commission's
building, yet he asserted that county workers who were counting votes
under the supervision of Republican and Democratic observers were
"thugs".  And he explicitly ordered his violent followers to shut down
the counting of votes, yet he asserted that the election commission
was "hijacking" the election.  This is called projection: attacking
people while falsely accusing them of accusing you.

Projection is also at the core of Paul Gigot's staggering column in
the Wall Street Journal.  His argument, in brief, is that the rioters
-- he uses the word "riot" explicitly -- had been provoked to their
marching and chanting by the supposed injustices of the vote count.
He does not dwell on the details of kicks and punches and tramplings
and menacings and false accusations, playing the whole thing as mild
comedy, even though Video of the riot at the ABC News Web site makes
plain what a distortion this is.  These genteel rioters, he says,
"let it be known that 1,000 local Cuban Republicans were on the way"
-- an assertion that could not have sounded very peaceable to election
commissioners who were already faced with a screaming mob.  It was
then, he says, that the commissioners "caved", and he makes clear
that, in his view, the commissioners' decision was largely a result of
the protests.  At no point does he express the slightest disapproval.

Like Sweeney, Gigot manages his equanimity through projection:
the commission proceedings, he bemusedly tells us, were "bad enough
to inspire 50-year-old white lawyers with cell phones and Hermes
ties to behave, well, like Democrats".  Like Democrats.  Perhaps
readers of the Wall Street Journal regard it as a commonplace that
the Democratic party organizes riots to shut down the counting of
votes in a presidential election.  No.  What's really going on here
is a cycle of projection that has escalated to the point of insanity.
The Republicans are delaying the vote count and complaining that it
is taking too long, disrupting it and claiming that it is chaotic,
claiming to represent the will of the voters by preventing the
many ballots which were not successfully read by the machines from
being counted, and generally accusing their opponents of everything
that they are doing.  Even if something was legally wrong with
the proceedings at the Miami Government Center, the way to resolve
the problem is not by kicking people, punching them, knocking them
over, and issuing threats.  This is a democracy.  And it should stay
that way.

References

Dana Canedy and Dexter Filkins, A Wild Day in Miami, With an End to
Recounting, and Democrats' Going to Court, New York Times, 23 November
2000.  http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/23/politics/23DADE.html

Dana Canedy and Dexter Filkins, Protest Influenced Miami-Dade's
Decision to Stop Recount, New York Times, 24 November 2000.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/24/politics/24MIAM.html

Party Operatives Start "Spontaneous" Demonstrations
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/ELECTION_protests001124.html

Paul A. Gigot, Burgher rebellion: GOP turns up Miami Heat, Wall Street
Journal, 24 November 2000, page A16.

Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 23:12:47 -0800
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Subject: [RRE]Florida recount
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It transpires that the riots that the Republican party organized in
Miami yesterday played a role in persuading the Miami election board
to stop counting the ballots in the presidential election.  Here are
the details (NY Times 11/24/00):

  The Miami-Dade County Canvassing Board's decision on Wednesday to
  shut down its hand recount of presidential election ballots followed
  a rapid campaign of public pressure that at least one of the board's
  three members says helped persuade him to vote to stop the counting.

  Republican telephone banks had urged Republican voters in Miami to
  go to the Stephen P. Clark Government Center downtown to protest the
  recount, which began there on Monday and which Democrats hoped would
  help swing Florida's 25 electoral votes to Vice President Al Gore.

  The city's most influential Spanish-language radio station, Radio
  Mambi, called on staunchly Republican Cuban-Americans to head down-
  town to demonstrate.  Republican volunteers shouted into megaphones
  urging protest.  A lawyer for the Republican Party helped stir ethnic
  passions by contending that the recount was biased against Hispanic
  voters.

  ... Upstairs in the Clark center, several people were trampled,
  punched or kicked when protesters tried to rush the doors outside
  the office of the Miami-Dade supervisor of elections. ...

  When the ruckus was over, the protesters had what they had wanted:
  a unanimous vote by the board to call off the hand counting. ...

  Republican supporters scoffed at the accusation that they had
  engaged in a scheme of intimidation, saying the protest had been
  nothing more than a spontaneous manifestation of people's anger. ...

  Evilio Cepero, a reporter for Radio Mambi ... phoned in interviews
  with two Republican lawmakers, United States Representatives Lincoln
  Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, both Cuban-Americans who also
  helped persuade people to come.

"Spontaneous manifestations of anger" that far-right political parties
organize to shut down democratic elections by means of telephone banks,
broadcast appeals, and inflammatory disinformation have a special name.
That name begins with "f", and it certainly represents a change in tone
for our country.


Protest Influenced Miami-Dade's Decision to Stop Recount
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/24/politics/24MIAM.html

Poor Handwriting and Eligibility Mix-Ups Disqualified Many Absentee Votes
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/24/politics/24ABSE.html?printpage=yes

Tempers Flare as Broward Recount Plods On
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/23/politics/24BROW.html

Gore Vows to Continue Court Action Past Sunday
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54969-2000Nov23.html

The Secretary's Discretion
http://slate.msn.com/Readme/00-11-22/Readme.asp

"Accuracy" vs. "Speed"
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20001211&s=alterman

Gore Camp Asks Rejection of Bush's Florida Appeal
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/24/politics/24SCOT.html

Gore Asks Supreme Court To Deny Bush Appeal
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20001123/el/recount_legal_209.html

Gore brief in opposition to Bush appeal to the Supreme Court
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/supremecourt/oppositions01.fdf

Result Challenges Loom in US Election
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001123/ts/election_leadall_dc_270.html

Congress Gets Ready for Its Potential Role
http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=ELECT-CONGRESS-11-21-00&cat=WW

Bush suit to get military absentee ballots undisqualified
http://199.44.225.4/courtDockets/pdf/CV-00-2799a.pdf

GOP in Legislature Seeks Way to Give Bush Electoral Votes
http://www.latimes.com/print/asection/20001123/t000112721.html

Anger at Court May Not Vanish; Legislature Wants to Jump In
http://orlandosentinel.com/automagic/news/2000-11-23/ASECfury23112300.html

Seminole Faces Charge of Double Voting
http://orlandosentinel.com/automagic/news/2000-11-23/ASECsseminole2112300.html

About 500 Absentees Didn't Correct Flaws
http://orlandosentinel.com/automagic/news/2000-11-23/ASECabsent23112300.html

Supreme Court May Dabble with Finer Points of Dimples
http://orlandosentinel.com/automagic/news/2000-11-23/ASECellegal23112300.html

Palm Beach, Broward May Have Final Say
http://orlandosentinel.com/automagic/news/2000-11-23/ASECpbroward23112300.html

Miami-Dade Backtracks, Again Halting Hand Recount
http://orlandosentinel.com/automagic/news/2000-11-23/ASECmiami23x112300.html

A Tray of Chad with Electoral Dressing, Please
http://www.startext.net/columnist/ivins2.htm

Petition by Gore
http://www.flcourts.org/pubinfo/election/EmergencyPetition-MotionofAlGore.pdf

Order of the Court
http://www.flcourts.org/pubinfo/election/Order(11-23-2000).pdf

Bush Motion to Intervene
http://www.flcourts.org/pubinfo/election/BushMotiontoIntervene.pdf

Court Won't Order Dade Recount
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20001123/el/recount_legal.html

Hand Tally No Comfort to Gore; 8,000 Disputed Votes Hold Key
http://www.miamiherald.com/content/archive/news/elect2000/decision/104765.htm

Gore Still Can Survive Recount Reversal in Dade
http://www.miamiherald.com/content/today/news/daddocs/049973.htm

Emotions Mark Day of Indecision
http://www.miamiherald.com/content/today/news/daddocs/103237.htm

Gore Picks Up Votes in Broward
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20001123/el/recount_broward_80.html

The Court Sifted Through the Issues Well
http://www.latimes.com/print/editorials/20001123/t000112523.html

Counting That Chad Is Just the Texas Way
http://www.latimes.com/print/editorials/20001123/t000112524.html

Some Possible Scenarios in the Florida Dispute
http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=ELECT-SCENARIOS-11-23-00&cat=PP

11th US Circuit Court Sets Recount Filings Timetable
http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=138511

Faced with Deadline, Board Gives Up
http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/today/news_4.html

GOP Asks Court for New Count
http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/today/news_3.html

Legal Battles
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/election/july-dec00/legal_11-22.html

Dispute Lingers After Dimples to Be Considered
http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/today/news_1.html

Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 23:25:04 -0800
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To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" <rre@lists.gseis.ucla.edu>
Subject: [RRE]Florida recount
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Something happened today that epitomizes the last decade of American
history.  As election workers in Miami sat recounting the votes in the
presidential election, a right-wing mob screamed outside, pounded on
furniture, attempted to force their way into the building, surrounded
a Democratic Party official and falsely accused him of stealing a ballot,
and kicked and punched a Democratic spokesman as he attempted to hold
a news conference.  Amidst this evil display, Republican representative
John Sweeney of New York announced that "thugs in that building are
trying to hijack this election".  Shortly afterward, the Miami election
commission abandoned its attempt to count the votes.

The projection here is staggering.  This has been the pattern for ten
years: preternaturally aggressive people who falsely accuse others of
doing what they are doing themselves.  They project their aggression
into the objects of their aggression, so that as they attack others
they experience themselves as the objects of the attack.  This makes
them even angrier and intensifies their displays of aggression.  This
positive feedback loop is not just a personality problem, but is abetted
and encouraged by irrational rhetoric that is mass-produced by right-
wing think tanks and recirculated without question by the mainstream
media.  Thus, for example, the mass-produced lies and exaggerations to
the effect that Al Gore lies and exaggerates.  And it has escalated to
the level of physical violence and an attempted coup d'etat.  Listen to
one of the most extreme of the propagandists for the coup:

  Republicans are convinced, and for good reason, that Bill Daley,
  who learned at his father's knee, and Al Gore, who learned at
  Bill Clinton's, are fraudulently attempting to carry out an
  anti-democratic strategy that is a classic of vote stealing: Keep
  counting until you win, and the minute you "win" announce that the
  American people are tired of waiting for an answer and deserve to
  know who won.

  Peggy Noonan on the op-ed page of the 11/17/00 Wall Street Journal

This is surreal: the "strategy" she is describing is precisely what the
Republicans have done.  That "the American people are tired of waiting
for an answer and deserve to know who won" is virtually word-for-word
the Republican talking point that the media has been iterating since the
first count of ballots on election night.  The Republicans' own campaign
co-chair illegally halted the hand counts that are provided by Florida
law, and ever since then they have engaged in a vast range of tactics
to sabotage the vote-voting: frivolous lawsuits, spurious challenges
of unambiguous ballots, deliberately bad legal advice to county election
officials, false claims that institutional stability and popular opinion
both require an abrupt end to the count, a propaganda campaign organized
by the same operatives who destroyed John McCain in South Carolina, and
now physical threats and violence.  Meanwhile, Republican legislators in
Tallahassee and Washington talk openly of overturning the vote if their
candidate does not win.

This is what it's like when the far right is taking over your country.
This is a coup.  That's what it's called.  It is entirely clear that Al
Gore won the election, and that is why the votes aren't being counted.
Our nation is being abolished before our eyes.  It lasted for 225 years
and very soon, barring a miracle, it will be gone.  It wasn't perfect,
but it was good -- precisely because of its commitment to get better.
And it will get better in the fullness of time.  But for now a dark age
is upon us, and we must learn to confront it and nonviolently resist it.


I enclose URL's for news reports etc with details.  Thanks to everyone
who contributed.


A Wild Day in Miami
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/23/politics/23DADE.html

"I'm Going to Win", Bush Says
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53375-2000Nov22.html

GOP Expresses Rancor Over Ruling
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/23/politics/23CONG.html

Flurry of Activity in Cheney Case Left Bush Struggling to Keep Up
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/23/politics/23BUSH.html

GOP Leaders Back Plan to Block Gore
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52946-2000Nov22.html

For Texas and Other States, a Bump Is Sometimes a Vote
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/23/politics/23DIMP.html

Florida Legislators Consider Options to Aid Bush
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/23/politics/23LEGI.html

Bush Campaign's "Talking Points"
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/22/talking

Recount Halts in Miami-Dade Over Deadline
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/23/politics/23ELEC.html

Bush Takes Appeal to US Supreme Court
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/23/politics/23SCOT.html

It's Not as Easy as 1-2-3
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42416-2000Nov19.html

The Republicans' Type-A Politics
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/22/cheney/

Florida Legislature Mulls Electoral Coup
http://www.salon.com/politics/wire/2000/11/22/coup/

A Few Good Conservatives
http://www.prospect.org/webarchives/00-11/mooney-c1121.html

The Unexamined Man
http://www.monitor.net/monitor/0011a/default.html

Gore's Florida "Victory"
http://www.consortiumnews.com/112200a.html

Bush petitions to US Supreme Court in Palm Beach County cases
http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/election2000/bushptn11th.pdf
http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/election2000/bushptnflsc.pdf

Elections Director Doubts Fraud, Defends City Vote
http://www.jsonline.com:80/news/metro/nov00/vote21112000a.asp

Wisconsin Governor: Bush Doesn't Want Recount
http://www2.startribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisStory=82991121

Marquette U. Freshman Retracts Claim of Voter Fraud
http://news.excite.com:80/news/uw/001117/politics-31

GOP Threatens Electoral Challenge
http://www.salon.com/politics/wire/2000/11/22/gop_electoral/

Law Offers Two Paths to US Supreme Court
http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/11/22/supremecourt.guidance.pol/

Leahy Statement on Florida High Court Ruling
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/1122-114.html

Burning the Village in Order to Save It
http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2000/11/20/

Request that Florida S.Ct. Consider Constitutionality of the Recount Statute
http://www.firn.edu/supct/pubinfo/election/ButlerRequest.pdf

documents from the Presidential election cases filed in Palm Beach County
http://www.pbcountyclerk.com/courtdocuments/ballot.pdf

In Reversal, Bush Uses Gore Playbook
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Recount-Legal-Duel.html

Spinning the Supreme Court
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/22/points/index.html

David Corn: Popping Dimples
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=corn1211

George W. Bush -- Concede Now!
http://207.228.234.134/elandslide/petition.cfm?campaign=trustthepeople

Tensions Escalating Over Recount
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Recount-Escalation.html

Poisonous Rhetoric Shows Bush Is Dividing  the Nation 
http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/story.asp?ID=3489

Judge: Dimples Must Be Considered
http://www.gopbi.com/shared/news/ap/ap_story.html/Elections/AP.V0408.AP-Recount-Palm-Be.html

The Angry-Men May Sweep Us Away
http://www.dailyhowler.com/h112200_1.shtml

more screaming insanity
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49846-2000Nov21.html

basic US Supreme Court sites
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/docket.html
http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/resources.html
http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/orders/index.html

Bush OK's US Supreme Court Appeal, Sources Say, Also Seeks Florida Suit 
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/vote2000/decision/main1122c.html

Bush OKs Lawyers To File Appeal
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20001122/el/recount_legal_184.html

Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2000 15:02:40 -0800
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Subject: [RRE]NAACP Public Hearing on Florida Ballot Irregularities
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[This message is forwarded by permission and reformatted to 70 columns.
The hearings that she is talking about can be viewed at the C-SPAN web
site: http://video.c-span.org:8080/ramgen/ldrive/c2k111100_naacp.rm

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From: Susan Guberman-Garcia 

11/15/00

I spent several hours this morning watching the NAACP public hearing
on the Florida vote on C-SPAN.  Having done so, it is very clear
to me that there was a systematic and calculated effort to lessen the
Gore vote by denying the franchise to as many African Americans as
possible.

The hearing was orderly, well run, and transcribed by a court reporter
and was presided over by NAACP President (and former Congressional
Black Caucus chairman) Kweisi Mfumi.  The hearing was much like a
Congressional hearing (but without the wordwaste and puffery that
usually dominates Congressional hearings), there were several panels
of witnesses, 2 to 4 people per panel.  The witnesses included voters
who were denied the right to vote, NAACP activists who worked the
get-out-the-vote effort all day, NAACP phone-standby volunteers who
worked the phones fielding election-day complaints, poll workers and
news media people.  The witnesses were all credible and impressive,
their information detailed and often accompanied by notes with names,
dates, places.  I would not hesitate to call any of these people as
witnesses if I were handling a lawsuit on their behalf.  Witnesses
testified that they (and family members and others in their presence)
were denied the right to vote because they "were not on the rolls"
even though some of them had their voter registration cards as well
as identification showing their names and addresses.  This violates
Florida law.  In many cases, the poll workers who refused them
declined to make any effort to validate their status and told them
to "come back later." Some poll workers were sympathetic and attempted
to get approval for the voters to go ahead and vote but were denied by
"headquarters."

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: Two poll workers testified that they had been
instructed by "headquarters" that they should apply "qualification"
procedures VERY STRICTLY and if there is the slightest doubt, DENY
THE REQUEST TO VOTE.  They were also told to refrain from giving out
any written verification of the refused voters' requests, including
affidavits (this is illegal the law REQUIRES that any voter whose
attempt is challenged be given an affidavit of challenge signed under
oath by the poll worker).  And in fact, many of the denied voters
asked for an affidavit or something in writing to prove they had
attempted to vote and ALL such requests were refused.  NONE were given
the chance to cast a "challenge ballot" (which I gather is similar to
the "provisional ballot" that is used in California when there is a
dispute as to whether someone is entitled to vote or not).  Witnesses
testified that they and others who were African American (but not
white) voters were asked to provide BOTH photo ID and a current voter
registration card and many who could not do so were denied the right
to vote even though the law does not require that the voters present
both ID and voter registration cards.  A newswoman who spent all day
at various polling places witnessed the above time and time again.
When she tried to intervene, she was threatened with arrest.
This newswoman (who happens to be white and a former policewoman)
accompanied one black voter to SIX polling places as she was turned
away time after time because, despite her having a voter card and ID,
she was told "this is not your polling place.  Finally, she returned
to her original polling place and was allowed, finally, to vote.

The newswoman testified that at one polling place in Healdsberg
County, there were numerous police cars who were stopping African
American voters and asking for ID and "what are you doing here?"  She
saw them stop one elderly man after he left the polls, order him to
"assume the position" and question him, as he tried to explain he had
just voted (and was wearing a button that said "I voted").  When she
tried to intervene, she was told to move on or she would be arrested,
and when she did so out of fear for her safety, she was followed
for several miles by a police car.  This newswoman, who is white and
a former policewoman, broke town in tears because she was ashamed
that she left the scene.  The newswoman testified that she was leaked
a list of over a thousand absentee voters by an election official.
This was a list of absentee voters who were disqualified for being
"felons" (their votes were not counted but they were not informed
of the rejection of their vote or the opportunity to challenge it
the Republican commissioner who leaked the list told the newswoman
that the instructions were to NOT notify the rejected absentee
voters of their disqualification.  The newswoman happened to know one
of the people on the list and it is someone she knows has never been
convicted of a crime, let alone a felony.

Many witnesses testified that people who came in to vote were required
to answer a litany of questions even though they were on the rolls and
had ID, the questions had to do with whether they had been convicted
of a felony since the last time they voted, was their address correct,
etc.  Only African Americans appeared to be asked these questions.
A police lieutenant testified that a box of ballots was sitting in
the police station.  Someone called in that it had not been picked up.
The police department claimed that they had tried to call the election
commission on Friday but nobody answered because it was a holiday.
As of now (actually, the hearing was Saturday but C-SPAN aired it this
morning), the box is still sitting in the police evidence room, sealed
with evidence tape.  A minister testified that nobody ever came to
pick up the box at his church (a polling place for his precinct) and
STILL HAS NOT DONE SO!!

The president of Haitian Women of Miami testified that she was
threatened with arrest for attempting to enter the polling booth
to help first time Haitian voters who needed translation assistance,
and even though she presented a copy of the statute that permits such
assistance inside the booth she was told that she would be arrested
if she did not leave and the police were actually called.  None of
the Creole speakers who asked for Creole ballots (which were printed
for the first time this election) were given them and although there
were Creole speaking volunteers present to assist those voters, they
were denied the right to do so.  Handicapped people were able to get
into some polling places but the polling booths were not acceptable to
them and requests for special ballots or other assistance was denied
in African American precincts, according to the witnesses.

Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 15:19:04 -0800
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To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" <rre@lists.gseis.ucla.edu>
Subject: [RRE]Florida recount
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[People have been sending me a flood of material about the Florida
vote, so much that I can hardly keep up with it as I'm typing here.
The situation is a mess, and it just gets worse.  I've gathered URL's
for a great deal of relevant information, and I urge you to pass
it along to everyone who can use it.  I'm getting so much material,
the situation is evolving so fast, and the relevant Web sites are so
overloaded, that I cannot guarantee that I have summarized everything
100% accurately, or that the URL's all still work.  I've done my best.

Earlier I passed on a report that a locked ballot box had been discovered
in a Democratic area.  Now the cnn.com Web site reports that, according
to "Miami-Dade County election officials", this box contained no ballots:

  http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/08/ballotbox.found/

There is a lot of vague talk about other missing ballot boxes, but this
is the only one that has been formally reported to my knowledge.

But the missing ballot box was hardly the only problem, or the worst.
For example, there are the misleading "butterfly ballots".  Here is an
article from the Sun-Sentinel newspaper in Palm Beach County:

  http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/daily/detail/0,1136,36000000000123102,00.html

This article is being continually updated.  The Sun-Sentinel Web site is
overwhelmed, so keep trying.

You can see an image of the misleading ballot on these pages:

  http://www.sun-sentinel.com/elections/palmbeachballot.htm
  http://cnews.tribune.com/news/image/0,1119,sunsentinel-nation-82373,00.html

The Democrats are asserting that this ballot design was illegal under
Florida law:

  http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-ELN-Florida-Ballot-Confusion.html

Bob Kerrey is calling for a new vote in Florida:

  http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/07/results/

The problem has two aspects.  First, statistical arguments and massive
anecdotal evidence suggest that the misleading ballot produced easily
enough bad votes to throw the election.  Second, one of the authors of
the Sun-Sentinel article just said on public radio that something like
20,000 more ballots than one would statistically expect were discarded
in the strongly Democratic areas where the misleading ballots were used.

There is a brief statistical discussion of the issue here:

  http://cuwu.editthispage.com/2000/11/08

This page should include a dramatic plot of the voting data, but it only
seems to appear under certain browsers.  Here's another URL for the plot:

  http://madison.hss.cmu.edu/palm-beach.pdf

Here are some more articles on the subject:

  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20001108/el/eln_ballot_confusion_1.html
  http://www.time.com/time/campaign2000/story/0,7243,60132,00.html

I have enclosed another statistical discussion by Jeff Harris, a former
official at the Office of Management and Budget now working a public
policy consultant in Los Angeles.  I have also enclosed a message by a
friend, also in Los Angeles, who was involved in an investigation of a
rigged election out here.  He knew about the 1988 case in Florida, and
I found his message interesting.  People have made further claims about
the 1988 election that they aren't willing to put their names on, so I
won't repeat them.

Nobody to my knowledge is arguing that the ballots were consciously
designed to bias the election.  They are only arguing that the ballots
were badly designed, illegal, and very likely had the effect of changing
the outcome on the national level.

Enough about the butterfly ballots.  Here are some other subjects...

For a while last night, the cnn.com Web site said that CNN was trying
to investigate an apparent discrepancy between the Florida voting figures
that were reported to the press and the actual count.  If I understood
the sequence of events correctly, these discrepancies may have had an
impact on the bizarre sequence of events last night, possibly motivating
Al Gore's premature concession call to George W. Bush.  I was watching
the numbers minute-by-minute until about 5am EST, and there certainly did
seem to be a discrepancy.  But I have not heard anything further about the
matter on cnn.com or elsewhere.

The Wall Street Journal mentions complaints of voter intimidation
(or fraud or something) based on claims that at least one conservative
radio host in Florida broadcast an assertion that, due to high turnout,
Democrats should vote on Wednesday.  In the few days before the election
I saw just that claim, framed as a joke, in messages circulating on
the Internet.  But then other messages said that it was Republicans
who should vote on Wednesday.  In any case as I say these messages were
clearly jokes.  If a radio host made such assertions in anything but a
clearly joking way then that would be a serious matter as well.

The police have locked the elections office of Volusia County, Florida
(which Gore won) after they caught an employee removing bags from it.

  http://orlandosentinel.com/news/1108guard.htm
  http://cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,247897-412,00.shtml

You can get county-by-county numbers at cnn.com.  The numbers do look
strange for the down-ballot candidates compared to other counties.

It is worth remembering that Dade and Broward counties in south Florida
have big-time histories of voter fraud.  For a story on one recent
episode, see today's issue of Feed:

  http://www.feedmag.com/templates/daily_master.php3?a_id=1389

One Florida journalist mentioned on public radio that the whole Miami
area is full of ex-CIA people including right-wing anti-Castro activists
and many of the major figures of the Watergate scandal, and that people
in Florida are not surprised to hear of strange goings-on in that area.

I also recommend the concise analysis at http://www.orvetti.com/.

My conservative friends are telling me what a pissy loser Al Gore is
for contesting this problematic vote in Florida.  So it's worth noting
that the Bush campaign was quite prepared to contest an election if
(as widely predicted) he won the popular vote but not the electoral:

  http://www.nydailynews.com/2000-11-01/News_and_Views/Beyond_the_City/a-86769.asp

On a different and flakier subject, Consortium News reports that a voter
has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission that the
New York Times made improper in-kind contributions to the Bush campaign
by repeating large numbers of false statements about Al Gore from Bush
press releases:

  http://www.consortiumnews.com/110700a.html

The complaint probably won't (and shouldn't) succeed, but it does point
to a real and serious problem:

  http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/2000/RRE.The.New.Science.of.C.html

I've been told of all sorts of scenarios involving compromises between
the Gore and Bush campaigns, but I see no evidence that these things are
really happening.

I have also received all sorts of unsubstantiated reports of problems
with the vote in Florida, including rumors about suspicious turnout
levels and the handling of write-ins (and not just in the southern part
of the state).  But I don't want to report any of these reports until
someone can document them.  The only reason I'm mentioning them is
because people (who I don't know) claim to have heard about them in the
Florida media, which is something but not very much.  At the same time,
I would encourage students of Florida politics to study the numbers all
across the state very carefully.  You can start at cnn.com.

I am also hearing unsubstantiated reports of street protests.  Have
you noticed the widespread pattern of inadequate provision for voters
in African-American communities?  These include Miami and New York.
In St. Louis, large numbers of voters who had been waiting in line
were sent home by an appeals court after a day of chaos; according
to cnn.com, George W. Bush won Missouri by fewer than 80,000 votes.

Finally, for a critical discussion of proposed online voting schemes
that takes its point of departure from today's problems, see this
statement by Lauren Weinstein:

  http://www.vortex.com/reality/2000-11-08

If anybody else has any real documentation of issues relating to the
Florida recount and the larger controversy about the legitimacy of
the election, please send it to me.  If you just have rumors, please
please take a few minutes and try to document them.]

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Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 16:17:14 EST
From: HRMG@aol.com

The result of the US Presidential election comes down to who wins
Florida.  One of the issues of the recount concerns the ballot in Palm
Beach County.  Because of the number of candidates running, the names
of the candidates were placed on two side-by side pages of the voting
booklet in the ballot booth.  Voters were instructed to find the name
of the candidate they wanted to vote for and punch a hole opposite the
name in the underlying card.

As it turned out, the first name on the left-hand page of the
Presidential ballot was Republican Party candidate George W. Bush;
the second name was Al Gore.  The first name on the right hand side
page was Pat Buchanan, the Reform Party candidate.  As a result, those
who wanted to vote for Gore needed to find the THIRD HOLE on the page
to have their vote properly recorded; many later complained that they
mistakenly punched the SECOND HOLE because the Gore name appeared
as the SECOND name on the page.  If they punched the second hole
inadvertently, their vote would have been recorded for Pat Buchanan.

Here are the facts about the vote in Florida and Palm Beach County.
There were 5,972,319 total votes cast in Florida with Bush having
2,909,199 and Gore 2,907,544...a difference of 1,655 votes.  (Since
these numbers were posted on the MyFlorida.com site earlier this
morning, additional results have been tabulated and have been reported
in the press.)  For the record, Ralph Nader won 96,896 total votes
in Florida and Pat Buchanan received 20,294...1.62% and .34% of the
total, respectively.  (Nationally, Nader got 2.6% and Buchanan .44%.)

The results in Palm Beach County were quite different.  Here Gore
won 62.21% of the vote (268,945) to Bush's 35.36% (152,846).  Nader
received 5,564 votes (1.29%) and Pat Buchanan, 3,407 votes (.79%).
With only 1,655 votes now separating the two principal candidates
in Florida and the difference between one party winning the U.S.
Presidency and the other losing it, Buchanan's vote count seems highly
significant.  By my calculation, he received 132% more votes in Palm
Beach County than he won in the State overall.  Looked at this another
way: Palm Beach County represented 7.24% of the State's total vote;
but it contributed 17% of the total votes received by Pat Buchanan.

In short, I think some of the voters were in fact confused and that
some of the Buchanan vote in Palm Beach County was in fact intended
for Al Gore.  There were a total of 432,286 votes cast in Palm Beach
County; had Buchanan received the same proportion of votes that
he received Statewide, he would have gotten only 1,469 votes.  Put
another way, it suggests that some of the "extra" 1,938 votes that
went to Buchanan might actually have been meant for Gore.  A change
of only 828 votes in the Bush/Gore contest would have reversed the
result and given Gore the 25 electoral votes.  Conclusion: It is quite
plausible to me to suppose that the ballot did in fact confuse enough
voters to have had a role in the outcome.  The bottom line question is
should that be sufficient grounds to try to change the final Florida
result if the recount itself leaves the results stand as we know them
today?

Godfrey (Jeff) Harris
Harris/Ragan Management Group
Pulbic Policy Consultants Since 1968
9200 Sunset Blvd., Suite 404
Los Angeles, CA 90069 USA
Tel: (1) 310 278 8037
Fax: (1) 310 271 3649
hrmg@aol.com 



Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 11:54:09 -0800
From: "Paul H. Rosenberg" <rad@gte.net>
To: Phil Agre <pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu>
Subject: Re: [RRE]Florida recount

Phil,

I was involved in an investigation into irregularities in the 1992
LA Supervisors race.  Since it's a non-partisan post & both candidate
were Democrats, there was NO instutional support for the challenge.
In the course of that investigation, I learned of the Buddy Mackay
case, which seems like such a blatant case of electoral fraud that
I literally couldn't believe I'd never even heard of it at the time.
It was open-and-shut compared to our investigation, but we found
substantial evidence as well.

We found significant statistical evidence of irregularities that
pointed to misalignment of cards either in the voting or counting
process -- things like massive voting levels in down-ballot races for
water district combined with low levels of voting in hotly-contested
down-ballot races. We cross-checked by doing pairwise comparisons of
demographically similar precincts.

There was overwhelming prima facia statistical evidence of voting
irregularities -- and the statistics involved were pretty elementary.
I even used an off-the-shelf statistical package to generate graphs &
illustrations for our report to the DA.  But the DA's office (Garcetti
had just been elected, but his oppenent had withdrawn months before
after being forced into a run-off) had NO ONE who was qualified to
review the material we presented.  They didn't even have someone to
retain as a consultant, AND they had no interest in going out and
finding someone (say, by picking up the phone and calling UCLA or
USC).  So nothing came of the case, except that I made some lasting
friendships.  I called on of them this morning as I learned of the
irregularities in Florida this morning.

I strongly urge you to do more on this.  I talked to the executive
director of the Palm Beach County Democratic Party this morning &
offered him what little advice I could, given the differences between
the two sitautions.  There's definitely no way of telling which way
this will go (but the record to date is not good).  I'm including
an article from a local Florida paper I downloaded about an hour ago.
It's pretty sketchy, but better than nothing.  (I'm forwarding your
email to the reporter whose email is listed at the end of the story.)

-- 
Paul Rosenberg
Reason and Democracy
rad@gte.net
 
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"

Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 18:41:22 -0800
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Subject: [RRE]pointers
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I enclose a batch of URL's relating to the US election irregularities.
........

More Irregularities Alleged
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/ELECTION_WatchdogPart5001108.html.html

Palm Beach Ballot Illegal, Demo Lawyers Say
http://www.miamiherald.com/content/archive/news/elect2000/digdocs/095052.htm

Broward on National TV in Report of Missing Boxes
http://www.herald.com/content/archive/news/elocal/digdocs/072105.htm

Florida Recounts Votes County by County as Candidates Wait
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/08/election.president/

Cries of Foul Play Cloud the Picture in the Sunshine State
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/US_election_race/Story/0,2763,394837,00.html

Jesse Jackson Questions Florida Voting
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/08/jackson/

radio feed from Palm Beach
http://www.wjno.com/listenlive.html

online discussion of the Florida recount
http://www.publicus.net/florida.html

locations for protests of the election on Saturday
http://geocities.com/countercoup/

military voting experiment in Florida
http://www.egroups.com/message/florida-recount-announce/13
http://www.egroups.com/message/florida-recount-announce/14

a sometimes scurrilous anti-Bush site, caveat emptor
http://www.bushwatch.org/

Florida county-level results
http://cbsnews.com/campaign2000results/county/county_flop-0.html

Florida Department of State
http://www.dos.state.fl.us/

Unofficial and Preliminary Results
http://enight.dos.state.fl.us/SummaryRpt.asp?ElectionDate=11/7/00&RACE=PRE

Conducting Elections and Ascertaining the Results
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=Ch0102/ch0102.htm

Frequently Asked Questions on the Electoral College
http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/faq.html

Exit Polls, Enter Questionable News
http://www.thestandard.com/newsletters/NLlatestIssue/0,2936,100,00.html

Internet Had Chance to Shine, but Faced Same Pitfalls as TV
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/039420.htm

Ready, Aim, Blame You Know Who
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20127-2000Nov5.html

Sam and Cokie, This Weak
http://www.thenewrepublic.com/110600/cohn110600.html

How the Press Covered the Final Stages of the Presidential Campaign
http://www.journalism.org/publ_research/campaign1.html

ACLU Asks Court to Keep Vote-Swapping Sites Open
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/local/docs/statebrfs03.htm

Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 11:05:57 -0600
To: chapman@lists.cc.utexas.edu
From: Gary Chapman 
Subject: L.A. Times Column -- Computers and Elections
Reply-To: gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu
X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.2.09/990901/11:28 -- ListProc(tm) by CREN

Friends,

Below is my Los Angeles Times column for yesterday, Monday, November 
13, 2000. As always, please feel free to pass this on, but please 
retain the copyright notice.

Best,

-- Gary

gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu

    ------------------------------------------

DIGITAL NATION

Online Voting, Even if Secure, Won't Solve Election Troubles

By Gary Chapman

Copyright 2000, The Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved

The uproar over last week's election results, particularly the 
controversy over the vote in Florida, has fueled calls for online 
voting. Some experts think the problems of last week could be solved 
by computerized voting, while others insist that is fraught with 
insecurity.

Controversy about how computers handle votes has been around for a 
while. It was an issue championed for years by longtime Los Angeles 
civil-liberties activist Mae Churchill, who died in 1996 at age 84. 
Churchill was the founder of Pacific Palisades-based Election Watch, 
and 15 years ago she convinced many technical experts that there are 
serious problems when computers are introduced into the voting 
process.

"Mae Churchill got me into this issue," said Peter Neumann, a 
researcher at SRI International in Menlo Park, Calif., and an 
internationally known authority on computer security. Now, he said, 
"I would not trust a computerized voting system even if I had written 
itmyself, because of the many ways in which such systems can be 
subverted."

"It's so easy to rig an election," Neumann said. He cited the fact 
that "punch card" ballots -- the cardboard ballots that use a punched 
hole to read a vote -- can be invalidated simply by running a needle 
through a stack of the cards. That can make it look like a vote for 
two candidates for the same office. Florida election officials threw 
out more than 19,000 ballots last week because of the appearance of 
voters selecting two candidates in the presidential election.

In Boston in 1993, Neumann said, a local election's results were 
reversed after authorities discovered errors caused by "hanging 
chad," the tiny paper remnant of a punched hole that can hang off the 
back side of the card ballot and then reclose the hole when the 
ballot is run through a light scanner for tabulation. This problem 
reportedly caused some of the vote tallies to change in last week's 
recounts in Florida.

Also in 1993 in Florida, a St. Petersburg precinct that had no 
registered voters because it was an industrial area showed 1,429 
votes for an incumbent mayor, who won by 1,425 votes.

Another Florida case happened in 1988, when there were 200,000 fewer 
votes in the Senate race than for the presidential candidates, and 
most of the missing votes came from four counties that used the same 
computer vote-tallying vendor.

"If it was built by man, it can be broken by man," said Doug Lewis, 
director of the Election Center in Houston, an organization that does 
training and consulting for election officials nationwide. "People 
asking for [online voting] don't understand the electoral process and 
the incredible safety and security problems that go into that."

"I do worry that computer elections systems are large and complex 
systems," said David Jefferson, the technical director of the 
California Internet Voting Task Force and a researcher at Compaq 
Systems Research Center in Palo Alto. "The main worry is not bugs in 
the software or in communications, but each time they are used they 
have to be configured rather elaborately. Ballot choices have to fit 
a voter's residence, which can often be a complicated task. If they 
are misconfigured they can produce erroneous results."

The California secretary of state's task force on Internet voting 
recommended against remote online voting earlier this year.

"We have to understand that the security problems for allowing that 
are so severe that we can't recommend that solution at all. These 
problems are inherent in the architecture of the personal computer," 
Jefferson said.

Instead, some online voting proponents are supporting an interim 
solution: polling-place computer voting. "That kind of Internet 
voting can be fielded now, and the security problems are manageable," 
Jefferson noted.

Polling-place electronic voting involves using a networked computer 
to vote at a conventional polling site. This method has the added 
security of controlling the machines and identifying each voter in 
person.

Some argued last week that polling-place electronic voting would have 
solved some of the problems Florida encountered. "Spoiling a ballot 
would be prevented by computer," Jefferson said. The computer program 
could prevent a confused or deliberate vote for two candidates in the 
same race. Another benefit might be that counties could report 
real-time vote counts, which could help prevent television networks 
or Web sites from inaccurately guessing at how a state's electoral 
college vote might turn out. Vote totals also could be reported 
instantly after the polls closed.

But Jefferson said the alleged confusion last week in Palm Beach 
County, Fla., where some people claim to have voted for Pat Buchanan 
when they meant to vote for Al Gore, still could be a problem in 
electronic voting, Jefferson said.

"Someone with a good design sense has to be in charge of the design 
of a screen, just like a paper ballot," he said. Even so, the 
obstacles to adopting polling-place electronic voting are daunting. 
Aside from the expense of providing every polling place with multiple 
computer systems, there are still significant security issues and a 
dearth of trained personnel in our election system.

"Most of us who have been in elections a long time are uncomfortable 
with the idea of turning over elections to a private, for-profit 
company," said Lewis of the Election Center. Although private 
companies do run election systems, they are supervised by public 
officials, usually at the county level. Few counties in the U.S. can 
afford to pay for technical experts who can evaluate and monitor 
sophisticated networked computer systems with multiple redundancies, 
encryption, complex backup and security measures, and 
state-of-the-art equipment.

Moreover, Lewis said, fraud in U.S. elections is low because the 
systems we use are so decentralized and cumbersome. Centralized and 
computerized data would be a tempting target for hackers, subversives 
and perhaps foreign governments, he said.

"Even companies with tens of millions of dollars for protecting their 
systems are penetrated," Lewis said. "How many counties have that 
kind of money?"

"Electronic voting is not going to solve our problems," Neumann said.

Lewis added: "Everyone wants instant Internet gratification. We've 
been conditioned to expect this now. The truth is we're not going to 
have instantaneous Internet voting. We're not going to be doing this 
in 'Internet time.' "

Gary Chapman is director of the 21st Century Project at the 
University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at 
gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu.

    ------------------------------------------

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Questions should be directed to Gary Chapman at gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu.

Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 22:59:28 -0800
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From: Phil Agre <pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu>
To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" <rre@lists.gseis.ucla.edu>
Subject: [RRE]Florida recount
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This may not have been the most important day in recent history, or the
strangest, but it has surely been the most complicated.  The articles in
tomorrow's papers about Florida alone are overwhelming, and that doesn't
include the action in several other states, never mind everything else
that the world's people managed to do today when they weren't watching
the spectacle on television.

Yet I am struck by the contrast between the American populace, which
doesn't seem particularly bothered by these events, and the elites, who
are treating them as an institutional crisis to be resolved as quickly as
possible by any means at all, no matter how artificial.  I am particularly
disturbed by the argument that the legitimacy of American political
institutions depends on obtaining an outcome, any outcome at all, as
quickly as possible -- as opposed to obtaining an outcome that is just,
fair, and accurate.  This argument is clearly the opposite of the truth.

I am particularly indignant about this rhetoric of "a biased system of
selective recounts that go on and on until one side gets the outcome it
wants".  I cannot find language strong enough to express my contempt for
this sophistry.  The facts are plain: (a) the law provides for a definite
and finite series of recounts under specified conditions and procedures,
(b) the first two counts were both automatic and were not something that
either party caused to happen, (c) both parties had the power to ask for
whatever hand-counts they wanted, (d) the voting process that we are being
asked to rubber-stamp was grossly defective on literally dozens of fronts,
(e) the official who is attempting to apply the rubber stamp has the most
egregious conflict of interest that could possibly be imagined, and (f)
if the rubber stamp is rejected then the endpoint to the process is most
definitely in sight, namely the vote of the Electoral College in December.

Thus continues a by-now entrenched pattern: the use of disinformation
and twisted language to subvert the rule of law by pretending that it
is really one's opponent who is doing the subverting.  This is the very
definition of insanity, and it must not succeed.

Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 15:04:51 -0800
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Subject: [RRE]Florida recount
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"We're ahead, so stop the counting!" is the cry, and the operatives are
in full fury.  You can see how it works.  The leadership selects what the
PR people call a "message" and political people call a "strategy": a vague
but emotionally charged theme that can be expressed in simple language.
Examples might include "Gore exaggerates his record" or "the hand counts
are out of control".  The call then goes out to find factoids that support
the message.  It doesn't matter if they are true or not, or whether they
are exaggerated or trivial, taken out of context, or otherwise misleading.
The idea is to accumulate enough of these carefully chosen factoids that
attempts to refute them singly will seem futile.  It is then the job of
the pundits to repeat the message over and over, lovingly reiterating each
supporting factoid until it becomes ingrained in the culture.  This works
best if the message is paraphrased in as many ways as possible -- some of
the pundits even explicitly said that they were working their way through
the thesaurus to come up with new and different ways to say "exaggerate".
The message should also be interwoven in every possible way with the other
messaages that constitute the party line at a given time.  None of this is
subtle or complicated: the messages go out by fax and e-mail at least daily.

The striking thing is that the American public isn't buying the messages
of their elite betters.  The public is sitting calmly waiting for the votes
to get counted.  This shouldn't be surprising.  After all, the pundits are
trying to portray as strange and corrupt a practice that goes back hundreds
of years and is written into the law in many states: when the vote is close,
look at all the ballots and count the ones where it is reasonably possible
to discern voter's intent.  This is plain common sense, and normal Americans
know that it is.  But if the public can't be swayed then the clock can be
run out, and that's the real danger now.  With enough spurious protests and
other legal shenanigans, the constitutional deadlines will creep up.  That's
clearly what the Florida Supreme Court is worried about.  The bottom line is
to stop the counting.  Everyone's falling over backwards to change the rules
for military people, even though as the Wall Street Journal observes this is
entirely improper, and even though the same Florida Republican who fabricated
large numbers of absentee ballots in the last election was participating in
preparing Republican absentee ballots in this one.  The sheer backwardness of
it all is stunning: falsely denouncing as "selective" a process in which every
party had the right to ask for recounts, trying to change the rules while
accusing others of the same, denouncing lawyers while hiring twice as many as
anyone else, generally engaging in a campaign of disinformation and doubletalk
while falsely accusing your opponent of exaggerating, and above all trying
to steal an election while issuing the same accusation against others.  The
punditry is happy with all this, whether through malice or mindlessness, and
they may even succeed for now.  But in the long term it's not going to wash.

Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2000 23:20:44 -0800
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Subject: [RRE]13 Myths About the Results of the 2000 Election
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Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2000 01:49:16 -0500
From: Rich Cowan <rcowan@lesley.edu>


13 MYTHS ABOUT THE RESULTS OF THE 2000 ELECTION  (please forward!!)

Millions of dollars are now being raised for a public relations
war between the Democrats and the Republicans to determine the next
president of the United States.  Will the outcome of the election
be determined by ratings in the polls?  Will the present standoff
be resolved by escalation and threats?  Or will the intention of the
voters on election day and the right of the states to choose their
own electors actually matter?

Our involvement this week is essential in order to uphold the
principles of democracy.  Propaganda is flying left and right.
To combat this barrage, we present a point by point analysis of
some key myths in the media today, substantiated with footnotes.
Please read, copy, and forward to friends, relatives and colleagues!
Thanks!

[This draft #4 was prepared by Rich Cowan (rcowan@lesley.edu) with
help from Paul Rosenberg, Dan Kohn, Jonathan Prince, Marc Sobel,
subscribers to the Red Rock Eater News Service and the electronic
mail discussion florida-recount-discuss@egroups.com, and the Yale
Law School Student Campaign for a Legal Election, 127 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511 -- spin@pantheon.yale.edu]


 1) Myth: Al Gore has a responsibility to concede the election.

    Fact: A 330 vote margin out of 6 million votes cast in Florida is
    incredibly close!  It is roughly equivalent to a 1-vote margin in
    a city with 40,000 people and 18,000 voters.

    It is extremely rare for an election this close NOT to be
    contested for several weeks until a manual recount can take place,
    with observers from both sides taking part and inspecting ballots.
    This kind of detailed recount has not yet taken place.

    According to the US Constitution and the Laws of Florida, it is
    the responsibility of officials in Florida to certify the election
    results.  November 17 is the deadline for absentee ballots sent
    from overseas to arrive.  Since the election is close enough
    in Florida, Oregon, and New Mexico to be affected by absentee
    ballots, the results in those states cannot be certified before
    that date.


 2) Myth: the number of "spoiled ballots" in Palm Beach County was
    typical.  In a press briefing televised live on all networks
    on 11/9/00, Karl Rove of the Bush campaign compared the 14,872
    invalidated ballots in the 1996 Presidential race to 19,120
    ballots for President that were spoiled in this election.

    Fact: the Bush campaign was comparing apples and oranges.  There
    were actually 29,702 invalidated ballots this year in Palm Beach
    County.  This is almost twice the number in 1996.  "19,120" refers
    to only those 2000 ballots which were thrown out for voting for
    two Presidential candidates.  The remaining 10,582 ballots had no
    choice recorded for President

    According to the Palm Beach County elections office
    (www.pbcelections.org), voters this year were not confused at
    all by the rest of the ballot.  For example, less than 1% of
    U.S. Senate votes were invalidated because of multiple punches,
    compared with over 4% in the Presidential contest.


 3) Myth: The Palm Beach ballot is definitely illegal due to the
    presence of punch holes to the left of some of the candidates.

    Fact: According to the Secretary of State's office, there is a
    loophole in Florida law that may allow ballots used for voting
    machines to deviate from the rules governing paper ballots.  This
    view has been contested by hundreds of Florida voters.  The final
    decision on the legality of the ballot is likely to be made in
    court, as long as this issue could have an effect on the election.

    It is possible that the ballot could be ruled illegal on other
    grounds, such as the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and
    Handicapped Act or the Americans With Disabilities Act.


 4) Myth: "The more often ballots are recounted, especially by hand,
    the more likely it is that human errors, like lost ballots and
    other risks, will be introduced. This frustrates the very reason
    why we have moved from hand counting to machine counting." --
    Former Sec. of State James Baker, speaking on behalf of the
    Bush campaign at a press briefing televised by all networks on
    11/10/00.

    Fact: In 1997, George W. Bush signed into law a bill stating that
    hand recounts were the preferred method in a close election in
    Texas.  The bill, "HB 330", mandated that representatives of all
    parties be present to prevent fraud.

    Laws establishing rights and procedures for hand recounts also
    exist in Florida (see Title IX, Chapter 102).  In fact, the
    Orlando Sentinel, (orlandosentinel.com) reported that a partial
    hand count of Presidential ballots this year was ordered by
    Republicans in Seminole County, where Bush led Gore.  This count
    took place on 11/9 and 11/10, widening Bush's lead by 98 votes.
    The Bush campaign did not complain about this hand count; nor
    did it complain about the hand count on 11/11/00 which put Bush
    slightly ahead of Gore in New Mexico.

    There do exist machine voting systems which are fairly accurate,
    but antiquated punch card systems are notoriously inaccurate.
    They were outlawed in Massachusetts in 1997 by Secretary of State
    William Galvin after a Congressional primary that was also "too
    close to call".  The problem is that if the punched-out pieces
    of cardboard are not completely removed from the punch card, they
    can obstruct the card reader and the votes will not be counted.
    A manual recount of such cards can clearly reveal the voter's
    intentions.


 5) Myth: The process is unfair because hand recounts were held only
    in liberal areas of Florida, where Gore stands to pick up the most
    votes.

    Fact: It is true that a statewide recount would be more fair, and
    the Bush campaign has every right to request one.  According to
    Florida law, hand recount requests must come from the campaigns,
    not from the state.  To fail to request what is commonly referred
    to as a "defensive recount" in conservative areas of Florida, they
    may be making a tactical blunder that will cost them the election.

    It is also true that there were voting irregularities in the
    counties where the Gore campaign requested recounts.


 6) Myth: "Palm Beach County is a Pat Buchanan stronghold and that's
    why Pat Buchanan received 3407 votes there.  According to the
    Florida Department of State, 16,695 voters in Palm Beach County
    are registered to the Independent Party, the Reform Party, or
    the American Reform Party, an increase of 110% since the 1996
    presidential election" -- Ari Fleischer of the Bush Campaign,
    11/9/00.  The 2,000 votes received by the Reform party candidate
    for Congress indicate that party's strength in Palm Beach County
    (James Baker on Meet the Press, 11/12/00).

    Fact: Of those 16,695 voters, only 337 (2 percent) are in the
    Reform Party according to Florida state records.  The Reform
    party candidate for Congress, John McGuire, is connected to a
    more centrist wing of the Reform Party, predating Buchanan's
    involvement.  An analysis of his support indicates that it came
    largely from reform-minded Ralph Nader voters.

    Regarding Buchanan's vote total, the Washington Post reported that
    his vote percentage in Palm Beach county was four times as high at
    the polls as in absentee voting.  Even Buchanan himself admitted
    on 11/8/00 on the Today Show that many of his votes actually
    "belonged to Al Gore".  So did his campaign manager, Bay Buchanan.


 7) Myth: If Gore (or Bush) ends up winning the popular vote, he
    really should win the election even if he loses Florida and other
    states.

    Fact: This is not the way the U.S. Constitution is written. 
    The Electoral College decision, imperfect as it may be, is the
    only one that matters.  It may be possible to reform or eliminate
    the electoral college in the future, so that small states would
    no longer receive extra electoral votes out of proportion to
    their population. But until this change is made by Constitutional
    amendment, the Electoral College is still the law of the land.


 8) Myth: The Cook County, Illinois ballot from the home district of
    Gore campaign chair Richard Daley is similar to the "butterfly"
    ballot used in Palm Beach County (reported by Don Evans, 11/8/00)

    Fact: According to the Chicago Daily Herald on 11/10/00, the
    ballots in Chicago which had "facing pages" were referendum
    questions which only had two punch holes, Yes and No.


 9) Myth: The election process in Florida outside of Palm Beach County
    was fair.

    Fact: Actually, thousands of irregularities in over a half-dozen
    categories have already been reported:

     -Ballots ran out in certain precincts according to the LA Times
      on 11/10/00.

     -Carpools of African-American voters were stopped by police,
      according to the Los Angeles Times (11/10/00).  In some cases,
      officers demanded to see a "taxi license".

     -Polls closed with people still in line in Tampa, according to
      the Associated Press.

     -In Osceola County, ballots did not line up properly, possibly
      causing Gore voters to have their ballots cast for Harry Browne.
      Also, Hispanic voters were required to produce two forms of ID
      when only one is required.  (source: Associated Press)

     -Dozens, and possibly hundreds, of voters in Broward County were
      unable to vote because the Supervisor of Elections did not have
      enough staff to verify changes of address.

     -Voters were mistakenly removed from voter rolls because their
      names were similar to those of ex-cons, according to Mother
      Jones magazine.

     -According to Reuters news service (11/8/00), many voters
      received pencils rather than pens when they voted, in violation
      of state law.

     -According to the Miami Herald, many Haitian-American voters were
      turned away from precincts where they were voting for the first
      time (11/10/00)

     -According to Feed Magazine (www.feedmag.com), the mayoral
      candidate whose election in Miami was overturned due to voter
      fraud, Xavier Suarez, said he was involved in preparing absentee
      ballots for George W. Bush. (11/9/00)

     -According to tompaine.com, CBS's Dan Rather reported a possible
      computer error in Volusia County, Florida, where James Harris, a
      Socialist Workers Party candidate, won 9,888 votes.  He won 583
      in the rest of the state.  [11/9/00] County-level results for
      Florida are available at cnn.com.

     -Many African-American first-time voters who registered at motor
      vehicles offices or in campus voter registration drives did not
      appear on the voting rolls, according to a hearing conducted by
      the NAACP and televised on C-SPAN on 11/12/00.


10) Myth: "No evidence of vote fraud, either in the original vote or
    in the recount, has been presented." -- James Baker, representing
    the Bush campaign on 11/10/00, in a Florida briefing.

    Fact: The election was held just last week, so of course many
    instances of fraud have not yet been substantiated.  Even so,
    authorities have already uncovered clear evidence of voter fraud
    involving absentee ballots.

    In Pensacola, Florida, Bush supporter Todd Vinson never received
    the absentee ballot he requested.  According to the Associated
    Press on 11/9/00, it was determined after an investigation that
    this ballot was received by a third party, filled out with a
    forged signature, and then sent in.  Assistant State Attorney
    Russell Edgar, when asked if other absentee ballots might had been
    intercepted, said, "I agree there may well be many more than just
    this one".

    Much media attention on the issue of voter fraud has been focused
    on Wisconsin where cigarettes were offered to homeless people
    who were casting absentee ballots, presumably for Gore.  The
    Gore campaign claims the cigarettes were not used to "buy" votes.
    On Monday 10/13, the London Times reported a suspected pro-Bush
    vote fraud operation in Miami involving over 10,000 ballots.


11) Myth: It is highly unusual for judges to intervene after an
    election.  Since the designer of a disputed ballot in Florida is
    a member of the party contesting the election, a legal challenge
    is impossible.

    Fact: The most fundamental right of a democratic society is
    the the right to vote, and to have one's vote correctly counted.
    The legal system exists to ensure that people's rights are not
    violated.  Whether the person committing a violation is a Democrat
    or a Republican does not affect how that violation should be
    treated.

    Elections are ultimately struggles for political power so it
    should not be surprising that disputes are often resolved in
    court.  Of course judges can be biased.  That is why they must
    explain their decisions and why bad arguments can be overturned
    on appeal.

    The Florida Supreme Court ruled in 1998, in connection with a
    disputed Volusia County election, that if there is "substantial
    noncompliance" with election laws and a "reasonable doubt" about
    whether election results "expressed the will of the voters" then
    a judge must "void the contested election, even in the absence
    of fraud or intentional wrongdoing." (source: Wall St. Journal,
    10/10/00).  The Journal indicated that there was little legal
    precedent for a revote in just one area where an election
    occurred.  It would be more likely for a court to order a new
    election or to overturn the result.

    These issues have arisen in other states as well.  In a
    Massachusetts Democratic primary in 1996 for the US House, the
    election was so close after recounts that a judge had to make
    the final decision after examining some of the ballots that were
    incompletely punched, to determine the intention of the voter.
    The law clearly dictated that it was the will of the voter that
    mattered, and the candidate who was behind, William Delahunt, went
    on to win the final election.  Call the Capitol Switchboard if you
    have any doubts at 202-225-3121.


12) Myth: Richard Nixon's party in 1960 did the honorable thing in not
    contesting the results of the election.

    Fact: According to a column in the Los Angeles Times, 11/10/00,
    "on Nov. 11, three days after the election, Thurston B. Morton,
    a Kentucky senator and the Republican Party's national chairman,
    launched bids for recounts or investigations in not just Illinois
    and Texas but also Delaware, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,
    New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. 
    A few days later, Robert H. Finch and Leonard W. Hall, two
    Nixon intimates, sent agents to conduct what they called "field
    checks" in eight of those 11 battlegrounds.  In New Jersey, local
    Republicans obtained court orders for recounts; Texans brought
    suit in federal court.  Illinois witnessed the most vigorous
    crusade. Nixon aide Peter Flanigan encouraged the creation
    of a Chicago-area Nixon Recount Committee.  As late as Nov. 23,
    Republican National Committee general counsel H. Meade Alcorn
    Jr. was still predicting Nixon would take Illinois."  Recounts
    continued into December, but did not succeed in overturning the
    result of the election.


13) Myth: "Governor Bush is still the winner, subject only to counting
    the overseas ballots, which traditionally have favored the
    Republican candidates" -- James Baker, Press Briefing, 11/10/00

    Fact: The number of yet-to-be-counted overseas military ballots
    is likely to be in the range of 500 to 2000, based on the 1996
    election in which there were 2,300 oversees absentee ballots
    overall, with roughly 60% of them coming from people enlisted in
    the military.  According to CNN [11/10/00], the military overseas
    ballots that arrived before the election were already counted.

    The biggest difference from 1996 is that Clinton -- who avoided
    the draft -- was running against Dole, a decorated military
    veteran.

    In 2000 George W. Bush -- who avoided service in Vietnam and
    actually lost flying privileges in the Texas Air National Guard
    -- is running against Al Gore, a veteran who served in Vietnam.

    It is just as possible that Gore will gain a few hundred votes
    from veterans as the other way around.  It is also possible that
    the Gore ticket will pick up votes from Democratic diplomatic
    appointees, or temporary residents and dual citizens of Israel.


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Additional Footnotes, References
(the web links may change; please report errors)

Myth 1: Time to Concede the Election
330 votes out of 6 million is 0.00550% of the vote.
1 vote out of 18 thousand is  0.00555% of the vote.
A margin of 0.500000% of the vote is the Florida recount threshold.


Myth 2: Number of Spoiled Ballots.
Article giving counts for invalidated ballots in 2000:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20001110/el/eln_florida_recount_63.html

Odd ballot prompts allegations of widespread mistaken voting
by MITCH LIPKA, Orlando Sun-Sentinel, 11/9/00.

See Also:
http://www.herald.com/thispage.htm?content/archive/news/yahoo/digdocs/058333


Myth 3: Ballot Definitely Illegal
Those Florida Ballots Were Clearly Illegal
http://www.latimes.com/news/comment/20001110/t000107677.html

Some Florida Ballots Illegal, Dems Say
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/07/results/

Palm Beach Ballot Illegal, Demo Lawyers Say
http://www.miamiherald.com/content/archive/news/elect2000/digdocs/095052.htm

United Press International Story:  Eye doctors say palm beach ballot
confused voters, 11/9/00, filed from Ft. Lauderdale at 4:11:44 PM EDT.

Access to Voting for Disabled and Elderly Citizens
http://www.bazelon.org/expandvote.html#ADA


Myth 4: Hand Recounts Introduce Errors
Seminole County delivers edge to Bush in recount
http://orlandosentinel.com/elections/1110sem.htm

Election Workers' Nightmare
http://www.latimes.com/print/asection/20001110/t000107857.html

William Galvin, interviewed on CNN, 11/8/00.

Texas State Law, HB 331 (also § 212.005(d), Texas Election Code)
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlo/75R/billtext/HB00331F.HTM

Hand recounts used in New Mexico, overturn Gore lead
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/12/politics/12RESU.html

Bush Signed Recount Rule in Texas
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-ELN-Bush-Texas-Recounts.html


Myth 5: Selective Recounts are Unfair
Bush Team Prepares 'Scorched-Earth Plan'
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2830-2000Nov11.html

Volusia Elections Votes for Manual Recount
http://orlandosentinel.com/news/1109vol.htm

Votes may be missed in Broward County
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/daily/detail/0,1136,36000000000124832,00.html


Myth 6: Palm Beach a Pat Buchanan Stronghold
Numbers Add Up to More Dispute
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64175-2000Nov10.html

State of Florida Party Registration
http://election.dos.state.fl.us/pdf/2000voterreg/2000genparty.pdf

Buchanan Says Disputed Florida Votes Are Gore's
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001109/pl/election_buchanan_dc_1.html

Bay Buchanan strongly denounced the Republican spin:
http://www.latimes.com/print/asection/20001110/t000107856.html

Precinct-level Correlations Between Reform Party Candidate for Congress
John McGuire and all presidential candidates, analysis by
Paul H. Rosenberg" <rad@gte.net> based on Palm Beach County data.


Myth 7: Candidate Should Win Without Electoral Majority
see the US Constitution.


Myth 8: Butterfly Ballots in Chicago Too
Cook ballot designer says his ballots are not like Florida's
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/cdh/20001110/lo/orr_cook_s_ballots_not_like_florida_s_1.html


Myth 9: Florida Respects Voting Rights
Jesse Jackson Questions Florida Voting
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/08/jackson/

On Pencils Vs. Pens
NAACP Alleges Voter Suppression in Florida, Reuters, Wednesday November 8
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001108/pl/election_naacp_dc_2.html

Broward County
Problems at Polls Prevent Hundreds from Casting Votes (Miami Herald)
http://www.herald.com/content/today/docs/067127.htm

Ballots Ran Out According to St. Petersburg Times
http://www.sptimes.com/News/110900/Election2000/Voters_statewide_say_.shtml

More Irregularities Alleged
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/ELECTION_WatchdogPart5001108.html.html

Voting Scrutinized All Over Florida
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/elect2000/pres/wire2/20001110/tCB00V0495.html

Florida Ballot Quirks Scrutinized
http://cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,247897-412,00.shtml

Florida Cops Accused of Harassing Black Voters
http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/breakingnews/2000/11/08/vote1108_01.html

Election Day Allegations Could Form Basis for Legal Challenges, Experts Say
http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/11/08/recount.challenges.pol/index.html

Moving Toward a Lawsuit
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/ELECTION_WatchdogPart6
001108.html

Many Mistakenly Removed from Voter Rolls
http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/floridavote.html

Xavier Suarez Involvement in Absentee Drive
http://www.feedmag.com/templates/daily.php3?a_id=1389

Florida Recount Continues As Lawsuit Threats Rise
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001109/pl/election_florida_dc_15.html

NAACP Says Fraudulent Calls Surface in Florida (before election)
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001106/pl/election_naacp_dc_1.html

NAACP Alleges Voter Suppression in Florida
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001108/pl/election_naacp_dc_2.html

Voting Irregularities, Chaos Reported in Florida
http://cnews.tribune.com/news/story/0,1162,oso-nation-82375,00.html
http://cnews.tribune.com/news/story/0,1162,sunsentinel-elections2000-82375,00.html

Voters Statewide Say They Had Poll Troubles
http://www.sptimes.com/News/110900/Election2000/Voters_statewide_say_.shtml

Widespread Voting Irregularities Marred Presidential Results in S. Florida
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/daily/detail/0,1136,36000000000124144,00.html

After Bizarre Vote, Experts Question Whether Election Process Is Fair
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/daily/detail/0,1136,36000000000123968,00.html

Dade's Ballot System Delays Tally
http://www.herald.com/content/today/docs/098048.htm

New York Times, "African Americans Demand Revote"
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/11/politics/11BLAC.html

Registered Voters' Names Failed to Appear on Voting Rolls
http://cnews.tribune.com/news/story/0,1162,oso-nation-82375,00.html


Myth 10: No Vote Fraud in Florida
Transcript: James A. Baker III on Fla. Recount, Nov. 10, 2000
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61032-2000Nov10.html

Associated Press story was available as of 11/9 at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/vote2000/pensacola.htm

Wall St. Journal Article
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB973813954697912953.htm

NAACP hears testimony of Florida voting irregularities
Breed, Allen G, Associated Press Wire, 11/11/00.
(Hearings Televised on CSPAN, 11/12/00)

Pensacola Ballot Prompts Fraud Investigation
http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/news/110900/Local/ST001.shtml

Cigarettes Distributed for Gore Vote
http://www.themilwaukeechannel.com/mil/election2000/itsyourvote/stories/-20001105-134550.html

Gore camp demands FBI inquiry
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,34812,00.html



Myth 11: Judges Stay Out of Elections
PHIL KUNTZ and DAVID S. CLOUD, "Neverending Election Draws Questions
About Electoral Process, Constitution," WALL STREET JOURNAL, 10/11/00
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB97386780919735330.htm)

Yale Law Students CAMPAIGN FOR A LEGAL ELECTION
http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/2000/RRE.Florida.Common.Law.a.html


Myth 12: Nixon Didn't Fight in 1960
It's a Myth That Nixon Acquiesced in 1960
http://www.latimes.com/news/comment/20001110/t000107675.html

The Fallacy of Nixon's Graceful Exit
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/10/nixon/

Was Nixon Robbed? (October 16 article)
http://slate.msn.com/HistoryLesson/00-10-16/HistoryLesson.asp

Senate History Interview (1987): The "Good Old Days" Were Not
http://www.senate.gov/learning/learn_history_oralhist_shuman4.html

"Illinois Republicans Lose",  New York Times, Dec. 13, 1960, p. 23.
"Texas Recount Denied", New York Times, Dec. 13, 1960, p. 23.


Myth 13: Republican Absentee Advantage
Texas Air National Guard
http://www.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=172

See also:
London Sunday Times, June 18, 2000, "Bush flies into an air force cocaine
cloud," online at http://www.sunday-times.co.uk

Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 16:41:59 -0800
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From: Phil Agre <pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu>
To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" <rre@lists.gseis.ucla.edu>
Subject: [RRE]Sanity in the Election Process
Precedence: Bulk
List-Software: LetterRip Pro 3.0.7 by Fog City Software, Inc.
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[I have enclosed two messages relating to the ongoing recount of
presidential ballots in Florida.  The first explains why (among other
things) the manual count should be expected to be more accurate than
the machine count (even if it won't be perfect).  I have reformatted
it.  The second points to an odd pattern in the recount in Velousia
County.  If you look at the recount numbers by county, it really seems
like some of the "recounts" were nothing of the sort -- the numbers in
those cases aren't changing at all, which is not very likely.

Also, everyone needs to be aware of a bad argument: 

  Recount 'Em All, or None at All
  http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=65000587

The argument is that Gore is trying an "old statistician's trick",
namely massaging the outcome by cleaning up selected data points and
leaving others alone.  Even if this makes the selected points more
accurate, the argument goes, the overall result does not become more
accurate, since errors in the other direction aren't affected.  The
consequence, it is argued, is that you can't recount any ballots in
Florida without recounting the whole country.  You will probably hear
this argument in the coming days, so it helps to know the fallacies:

(1) Because a national revote is impossible, the suggested consequence
    would make it impossible to redress any election irregularity, no
    matter how extreme.  And the problems with the Florida elections
    were clearly not just routine glitches but a complete farce, with
    chaos and worse reported in several counties.

(2) The Gore people have asked for much broader recounts than they have
    been granted.  In particular they have been compelled to pick and
    choose particular areas for the recount by hand when they would
    clearly prefer a complete recount.

(3) The Bush people have the same legal rights to ask for recounts as
    the Gore people, and in fact the Republicans have asked for recounts
    in many past elections.

(4) Recounts were done throughout Florida, and even though some of
    them were apparently empty exercises, Gore has gained (according
    to the unofficial AP survey) something like 1000 votes.  This is
    not supposed to happen, and we were told that it wouldn't happen, so
    clearly something is wrong, and because the recounts were statewide,
    the result favoring Gore cannot be a result of the Gore campaign's
    picking and choosing.  (Why do the recount advantages to Gore argue
    for a flawed initial ballot and not a flawed recount?  Because the
    recount is being carefully monitored by lawyers from both parties.)

On another point, the message by Ben Austin that I sent out last night
turns out to be legitimate.  This is the guy whose mother was a precinct
worker in Palm Beach County.  The New York Times has a long article on
the situation this morning.  I sent it out earlier without flagging it:

  Local Officials Say System Fell Apart on Election Day
  http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/11/politics/11PALM.html

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This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE).
You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use
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for (un)subscribing, see http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html
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Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 14:42:40 -0800 (PST)
From: PRIVACY Forum <privacy@vortex.com>
To: PRIVACY-Forum-List@vortex.com
Subject: PRIVACY Forum Digest V09 #24

PRIVACY Forum Digest     Saturday, 11 November 2000     Volume 09 : Issue 24

	        (http://www.vortex.com/privacy/priv.09.24)

            Moderated by Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com)         
              Vortex Technology, Woodland Hills, CA, U.S.A.
	                 http://www.vortex.com 
	
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CONTENTS 
	Sanity in the Election Process
	   (Lauren Weinstein and Peter Neumann)


 *** Please include a RELEVANT "Subject:" line on all submissions! ***
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:    Sat, 11 Nov 2000 13:29:47 PST
From:    lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator)
Subject: Sanity in the Election Process

	      Lauren Weinstein
	      Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility 
	      Moderator, PRIVACY Forum 
	      Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy

	      Peter G. Neumann
	      Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility
	      Moderator, RISKS Forum 
	      Chairman, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"Sanity in the Election Process"

November 11, 2000

The continuing controversies over the results of the recent U.S.
Presidential election, particularly concerning the vote in Florida,