Gore’s claim that Palm Beach (with the butterfly ballot) needed a recount was credible, but thrown out in court. His claim that punch-card ballots were error-prone, however, was a pretty transparent excuse. If he were truly concerned about punch-card ballots, why didn’t he ask for a recount of all counties that used punch-card ballots? Really, he asked for the recount, and found an excuse later.

• the initial count of ballots said Bush won Florida, so did the automated recount;
• Gore asked for a manual recount in only the four most liberal counties of Florida (out of 60+ counties), intentionally ignoring the votes of nearly all Floridians, he then started talking about counting every vote (some votes are more equal than others?);
• Gore failed to convince a court that the butterfly ballot was illegal — disarming the only legal argument for a recount in a single county (compared to a statewide recount);
• Gore failed to explain why he hadn’t asked for a statewide recount, when the election was essentially statewide, he also never explained how a manual recount could be more acurate than an automated recount (think thousands of different people in different counties with different standards);
• the US Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 that Gore’s recount requests in only four out of 60+ counties were unconstitutional, the Court sent the case back to the Floridian Supreme Court;
• a different aspect of the case reached the US Supreme Court, this time five justices decided that the recount requests were unconstitutional;
• the 5-4 majority refused to give the Floridian Supreme Court another bite at the apple;
• five members of the court explained that the Constitution prohibits anything less than a statewide recount for a statewide election;
• three of those same members of the court also claimed that the Floridian Supreme Court had “interpreted” the law to mean something that wasn’t ever in the law;
• the remaining justices of the Supreme Court wrote opinions about how the Supreme Court shouldn’t get involved in politics, etc. but never explained how a “partial recount” in a statewide election could be Constitutional;
• people started claiming that Bush stole the election, even though Gore was the one who requested an error-prone manual recount that intentionally would not count votes in conservative counties.

Your analysis of the discrepencies between Exit Polls and the actual vote count fails to address the most relevent points of the controversy. Although I agree with you that the polling data should be made public to discount your theory that it was incompetence that caused the disecrepencies, other facts that we already do know make this possability highly unlikely. First, Edison/Mitofsky has a long track record of polling results that are dead on; they know what they are doing. Second, in non-swing states, their polling was within the expected margin of error .5%. Third, it is not in their interest to falsify the data since their business depends on their polling results proving accurate. Fourth, they have no record of partinship to suggest that they would falsify the data. Fifth, Bush not only has a strong motive to commit election fraud (to stay in power), he also has a proven history of commiting voter fraud (Florida in 2000). Sixth, with computerized vote tallying (not the voting machines but the vote counting machines themselves) it is now very easily possible to commit voter fraud on a massive scale. For your analysis to be convincing, you must address these issues.

Sincerely,
Jon Spitz
Laytonville, CA

“In fact, I now agree with Lessig that the raw exit poll data should be released so that intelligent statisticians can take a look at it. …”

Teach me to skip the Preview stage. …

In fact, I now agree with Lessig that the raw exit poll data should be released so that intelligent”>intelligent”>http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/10/wo_muller101504.asp”>intelligent statisticians can take a look at it. I don’t expect anything to be found, but I do understand the concept of auditing even without proof of dishonesty or fraud. I signed a Moveon.org petition for an independent investigation of Abu Ghraib for the same reason. And while I’m not holding my breath, I’m interested in BlackBox Voting’s FOIA requests and the Green Ohio recount request.

Can the electronic voting machines be compromised? I believe so. Is there a better way? Yes. Should we take it? Yes. Were the machines compromised on a wide scale on Nov 2? I doubt it.

They use exit polls that have been revised to MATCH the election results. They seem not to realize that per standard exit poll methodology, CNN.com, their exit poll source, is now reporting exit polls that have been reweighed to match election results.

It is quite surprising, and I imagine will be somewhat embarrasing once they realize their error. Obviously, if they want to compare exit polls to election results, they would need to analyze exit polls that are not revised to match the election results.

Explanation of exit poll methodology:
http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/11/exit_polls_what.html

Exit poll study that recognizes exit poll methodologies:
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/The_unexplained_exit_poll_discrepancy_v00k.pdf

I’ve come to respect you tremendously over the last year, but your telling us that you that these claims are bunk is equally bunk. Why? Because neither you, nor any of us have any idea what the actual vote count was, or if it was manipulated or not. Unless you are psychic, and you have never claimed to be, then you can’t claim these suspicions are unfounded. Nobody knows, and that is the problem. If you do the math, these numbers don’t add up. There IS definitely a SIGNIFICANT statistical descrepancy here. To deny this is silly. So any wise and judicial person would want to investigate this descrepancy and get to the bottom of it at all costs. This is our democracy that is at stake. Playing it down as you do, only furthers the problem.

Right now we should all be fighting to have open-source elections and accountability (and re-countability) at every level of the electorate. Anything less and it’s a stab our democracy.