# Election Problems: If it doesn't alter the outcome, it doesn't matter? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 21, 2004, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968 "2004-11-21T18:35:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/41 "2004-11-22T20:56:11Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, but when the OP’s supporting data consists of a list whose first three problems are nonsense, my attitude is not going to be sympathetic. Share what you personally saw and believe to be serious: I’m absolutely willing to listen. I’m thinking of the bigger umbrella of “glitches, fiascos, fraud, and vote suppression.” I didn’t seen any of the former two myself (although I am sure a few voters felt “suppressed” by election staff upholding election laws, which can’t be helped; it would be nice of more voters knew the laws). Let me preface this by saying I worked in a township with an awesome clerk with a huge commitment to solving voter problems. Thanks to their dedication, we never turned a voter away without finding out their registration status (on the statewide system, if necessary). I was also working with an election staff that cared deeply about doing things right. Our polling place was large and was set up to maximize traffic flow. I know we prevented a lot of glitches because of the way we handled things, because the election workers were able to bring laptops and cell phones, and, believe it or not, because the partisan challengers were able to help us with knowledge during some real confusing times. I had assistance from both the Democratic and Republican challengers, which I was grateful for. My list would have been longer without this stuff, and I wondered what was going on at other precincts. One of my poll workers was telling voters they had to get rid of all their voting guides before going into the polling place. Not true–they simply had to conceal them. Heaven knows how many voters threw stuff out on his command before I realized what he was doing. Not a huge issue, but it’s misinformation and shouldn’t have happened; some people might have been relying on those guides for the less-well-publicized and non-partisan races. This was a training issue with the election workers, I think. In at least two instances, voter’s registration appeared to have been cancelled in error. THAT’s a problem. My own registration was cancelled in error this year and I only knew because my clerk noticed it and asked me what happened. So yeah, that DOES happen, and it’s very jarring to the voter who finds that out after waiting in line, when it’s too late to fix it. We had a number of voters come to the wrong polling place because their voter registration cards list two separate polling places without being very clear which was for school elections and which was for general elections. That’s not malevolence on the part of the county or state, it’s just something in the card design that needs to be improved upon (based on my experience sending at least 100 voters elsewhere based on this confusion). Some of them had waited for an hour or more, and I worry that some number of them could not or would not wait in line a second time. We finally sent a staff member out up and down the line trying to weed these people out, but that pulled a worker away from the polls. The voter card needs to be fixed, and/or signage needs to be produced helping voters understand. That was probably the biggest problem. We had a problem with our voting machine that was probably unavoidable, but we had a long wait to fix it because the clerk staff were spread thin. Lines built up in the interim, and several first-time voters expressed concern that their ballot might not get counted (some of them had just seen a video which emphasized the importance of seeing the voter-count change so you knew yours had been counted. Sigh). This may not be fixable–hire more staff for something that happens only periodically? that’s a hard sell–but it was a glitch I wouldn’t want repeated. We didn’t have enough voting booths, but they eventually brought us more, so I can’t really complain about that. Frankly it was a flow problem–everyone came in the morning, fearing long lines later. So that’s my basic list coming from a pretty well-run precinct. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/42 "2004-11-22T21:26:36Z")
ElvisL1ves: > [@](#): > > Stop right there - the concern concern isn’t over screwups, but outright fraud and disenfranchisement. For which there are already laws in existence. > [@](#): > > Screwups cancel out, election-rigging does not. Implying, of course, that only one side of the political system is corrupt. No doubt that’s how you see the world. However, i’d like to see a…cite. > [@](#): > > You might not have noticed, but there wasn’t any outcry over finding a way to correct the Palm Beach problem after the fact. Clearly _you_ didn’t notice all the outcry, at the time, about uniform voting standards and outdated equipment. Somehow you did notice, in past threads, a whole lot of Diebold election machines being purchased by various states and municipalities, but surely such an expenditure was for some problem that had no outcry associated with it? Or maybe it was soime way to address the issue of fraud and disenfranchisement? Or more likely, knowing your views, it was a big, unsolicited, money gift to a big-money Republican donor with a hidden bias toward aiding and abetting Republican-favoring vote fraud? > [@](#): > > The voters were allowed to vote, and vote they did. And complained loudly about the mistakes they weren’t prevented from making afterward. > [@](#): > > The “biggest” problem in Florida before the closing of the polls was the removal from the voting rolls of some tens of thousands of black voters, and the “biggest” problem afterward was the refusal of the Bush campaign / FL state officers (same organization, in effect) to complete counting the votes that were cast. Maybe you heard about that stuff? Of course I did. But those weren’t the problems that had gotten the most air-play, and those problems didn’t have any genuine numbers attached to them that would have changed the result of the 2000 election. You claim numbers in the five-digit range for the “disenfranchisement” problem, but where do those numbers come from and what does that number represent? As for the issue of “completing the counting”, spare me. Two complete counts of all valid ballots were done, and the hand-counts had serious problems. The media recounts afterward, despite the claims (or at least the insinuations) of such left-leaning partisans as Michael Moore, found that differing standards would have resulted in differing results, some in Bush’s favor and some in Gore’s. The Palm Beach Butterfly ballot, on the other hand, represented a concrete number of votes that seemed to be in error, and which, if voting trends were what they could be reasonably expected to have been, most likely would have made Gore president. > [@](#): > > That’s only possible if the reports of error or fraud result in roughly-balanced alterations in the totals, What’s only possible, that the populace at large will accept the result? I don’t think that makes a difference there. > [@](#): > > and if “sporadic” is defined as “of insufficient magnitude to affect the identity of the winner”. Or as “seldom and inconsistently occurring”, which would indicate that they are isolated incidents that do not point to inherent flaws in the overall system. > [@](#): > > If you believe that both of those conditions were satisfied in FL in 2000, I’m disappointed in you. Fortunately, I do not live my life in search of your approval. > [@](#): > > And why, for instance, do you lump fraud in with error? Do you suggest that we should accept fraud with the same indifference with which we accept error? No, I lump them together because they are the two things that could stand in the way of a 100% accurate count. And we should not accept fraud, we should prosecute it…but there’s a difference between thinking that it should be punished and thinking it can be 100% prevented. Murder is illegal too. Still happens, though, or haven’t you noticed? That’s what we have police and courts and judges and prisons for. But people don’t have an expectation that the city or town they move to will have no murder at all. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/43 "2004-11-22T21:49:59Z")
> [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](#): > > I’m thinking of the bigger umbrella of “glitches, fiascos, fraud, and vote suppression.” I didn’t seen any of the former two myself (although I am sure a few voters felt “suppressed” by election staff upholding election laws, which can’t be helped; it would be nice of more voters knew the laws). I hope you mean you didn’t see any of the latter two, since your examples below all seem free of fraud or vote suppression. > [@](#): > > One of my poll workers was telling voters they had to get rid of all their voting guides before going into the polling place. Not true–they simply had to conceal them. Heaven knows how many voters threw stuff out on his command before I realized what he was doing. Not a huge issue, but it’s misinformation and shouldn’t have happened; some people might have been relying on those guides for the less-well-publicized and non-partisan races. This was a training issue with the election workers, I think. Agreed. It’s irritating, but not fatal, and more importantly, I cannot imagine anyone forgetting whether it was Bush or Kerry they were voting for between the time they had to throw out the sample voting guide and the time they entered the booth. Local races may have suffered a bit, I grant, but one worker, making an error until corrected, that didn’t cost anyone their ability to vote. > [@](#): > > In at least two instances, voter’s registration appeared to have been cancelled in error. THAT’s a problem. My own registration was cancelled in error this year and I only knew because my clerk noticed it and asked me what happened. So yeah, that DOES happen, and it’s very jarring to the voter who finds that out after waiting in line, when it’s too late to fix it. My undertstanding is that this is precisely the problem that provisional ballots were designed to fix. > [@](#): > > We had a number of voters come to the wrong polling place because their voter registration cards list two separate polling places without being very clear which was for school elections and which was for general elections. That’s not malevolence on the part of the county or state, it’s just something in the card design that needs to be improved upon (based on my experience sending at least 100 voters elsewhere based on this confusion). Some of them had waited for an hour or more, and I worry that some number of them could not or would not wait in line a second time. We finally sent a staff member out up and down the line trying to weed these people out, but that pulled a worker away from the polls. The voter card needs to be fixed, and/or signage needs to be produced helping voters understand. That was probably the biggest problem. That’s a problem, but as you yourself acknowledge, it’s not one that was malevolent or fraudulently based at all. I certainly agree that cards should be clear… but if the vast majority of voters were not confused, I’d say the problem was small. > [@](#): > > We had a problem with our voting machine that was probably unavoidable, but we had a long wait to fix it because the clerk staff were spread thin. Lines built up in the interim, and several first-time voters expressed concern that their ballot might not get counted (some of them had just seen a video which emphasized the importance of seeing the voter-count change so you knew yours had been counted. Sigh). This may not be fixable–hire more staff for something that happens only periodically? that’s a hard sell–but it was a glitch I wouldn’t want repeated. As you acknowledge – how do you fix it? Machines break. It happens. > [@](#): > > We didn’t have enough voting booths, but they eventually brought us more, so I can’t really complain about that. Frankly it was a flow problem–everyone came in the morning, fearing long lines later. > > So that’s my basic list coming from a pretty well-run precinct. OK. Your list strikes me as very honest… and not remotely indicative of any terrible problems. Lessons learned, thing to be improved next time, sure. But no one stole any elections, based upon these events. Right? - Rick ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2004, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/44 "2004-11-22T21:50:15Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > For which there are already laws in existence. Which mean nothing if the persons in charge of enforcing them are parties to the election. > [@](#): > > Implying, of course, that only one side of the political system is corrupt. No doubt that’s how you see the world. However, i’d like to see a…cite. No implication there at all; simply the most obvious inference from the discrepancies favoring one party. No doubt you can point to examples to the contrary? No doubt? > [@](#): > > Clearly _you_ didn’t notice all the outcry, at the time, about uniform voting standards and outdated equipment. I certainly did, in the context of things that had to be fixed before the next election (and haven’t been, you’ll notice). > [@](#): > > Somehow you did notice, in past threads, a whole lot of Diebold election machines being purchased by various states and municipalities, but surely such an expenditure was for some problem that had no outcry associated with it? You’re going to have to be a little more coherent if you expect a response. > [@](#): > > And complained loudly about the mistakes they weren’t prevented from making afterward. See above. Even they, with perhaps a few individual exceptions, weren’t asking for their votes to be “corrected”, or even proposing how that might be done. There was no way after the fact. > [@](#): > > Of course I did. But those weren’t the problems that had gotten the most air-play, What air media do you confine your listening to? > [@](#): > > You claim numbers in the five-digit range for the “disenfranchisement” problem, but where do those numbers come from and what does that number represent? You claim to know what problems had serious air-play and this is news to you? The list created by ChoicePoint had about 8000 names on it. Numbers of blacks turned away at the polls in Jacksonville alone push it into the 5-digit range. What does it represent, you ask? What the hell do you _think_? > [@](#): > > As for the issue of “completing the counting”, spare me. Two complete counts of all valid ballots were done Spare _me_. You don’t know if a ballot is valid until you look at it, do you? You judge validity by the state law standard, “the clear intent of the voter”. > [@](#): > > media recounts afterward, despite the claims (or at least the insinuations) of such left-leaning partisans as Michael Moore, found that differing standards would have resulted in differing results, some in Bush’s favor and some in Gore’s. You think adding Moore’s name strengthens your argument somehow? You also imply that all scenarios are fundamentally equivalent, or that this muddled tie you imply somehow (despited it being 3-2 for Gore) was properly resolved by giving it to your guy? No. The full statewide hand count, that the SCOTUS Five saw about to happen and had to take emergency action to stop, made Gore the winner. Wasn’t that the most accurate approach, the one that truly reflected both the letter of the law and the spirit behind it? No? Why not? > [@](#): > > The Palm Beach Butterfly ballot, on the other hand, represented a concrete number of votes that seemed to be in error, and which, if voting trends were what they could be reasonably expected to have been, most likely would have made Gore president. Yes, they were in error. Uncorrectible error. Already agreed. But that, again, wasn’t what the real problem for democracy was, was it? > [@](#): > > What’s only possible, that the populace at large will accept the result? I don’t think that makes a difference there. Gotta explain that. The point was that the populace will accept a result reached at the limit of human good will, but will not accept being cheated, or a system that allows cheating. > [@](#): > > Or as “seldom and inconsistently occurring”, which would indicate that they are isolated incidents that do not point to inherent flaws in the overall system. The test of that is their effect on the results. If the errors are random, they’ll cancel out. This time, they didn’t. > [@](#): > > Fortunately, I do not live my life in search of your approval. It isn’t just mine that matters. The approval of all your fellow citizens should matter to you. > [@](#): > > And we should not accept fraud, we should prosecute it…but there’s a difference between thinking that it should be punished and thinking it can be 100% prevented. Murder is illegal too. Still happens, though, or haven’t you noticed? That’s what we have police and courts and judges and prisons for. But people don’t have an expectation that the city or town they move to will have no murder at all. Another _argumentum ad absurdam_. Because we can’t do everything, we can accept doing nothing. That’s about as silly a thing as I’ve seen on this board. ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/45 "2004-11-23T06:19:07Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Hazel, > > I agree totally that elections must be as free from problems as possible and run by the letter of the law. > > Of course, when I mentioned this as a problem, I was immediately challenged by one of the leading liberal lights of the board. > > You said before that you were “mystified by the widespread assumption that ‘whatever may have gone wrong cannot possibly have effected the outcome’ and I am mystified by the twin assumption that therefore, ‘whatever may have happened doesn’t matter; it should just be ignored’”. > > Well, the widespread assumption you refer to has at least some adherants on your side. Perhaps you should work on them. Unfortunately, terms that mean different things are being used by some as though they were synonyms. “Voter fraud” means fraud committed by _individual voters,_ such as voting twice. Examples: Someone with residences in two states votes in both states. Someone vote by absentee ballot and then a 2nd time, in person. Also, someone who votes dispite not being entitled to. In most cases, all an individual committing voter fraud can do is vote twice instead of once. In advance of the recent Presidential election, Republicans were reported to be planning to send people to polling places to challenge people they suspected might not be entitled to vote. OTOH, the term “election fraud” refers to things like partisan election officals “losing” votes for the other party, discarding registration forms filled out by people in the other party, adding fictional votes for their guy, using manipulation of black box voting and/or optical scanners to add extra votes for their guy or cause to vanish votes for the other guy. People comitting election fraud can add hundreds of votes to their guy’s total, and/or subtract hundreds of votes from the other guy’s total. Using these terms interchangably creates confusion as to what one is talking about. I think Diogenes was talking about voter fraud, not election fraud. (If I’m wrong, I expect he’ll speak up.) In Ohio, hearings are beng held; hundreds of people are giving sworn testimony about a something different from the problems described above: vote supression. This is where, through what I can only describe as dirty tricks, partisan election officials work to reduce the number of votes cast for the candidate they opose. ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/46 "2004-11-23T06:38:20Z")
> [@bup](#): > > OK, and the part where I said [http://www.truthout.org/docs\_04/111304A.shmtl](http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111304A.shmtl) doesn’t work? Try [http://www.truthout.org/docs\_04/111304Y.shtml](http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111304Y.shtml) I don’t know if I got it wrong, or if the “A” was changed to “Y”. ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/47 "2004-11-23T06:52:57Z")
> [@pantom](#): > > [It’s just a wee bit more than that idiotic op-ed piece alleged.](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/) > > But, you’re a reasonable fellow, that’s true. Thanks for the link! Amazing… ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/48 "2004-11-23T06:56:03Z")
> [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](#): > > Maybe that would make an interesting–have people report real problems they saw, not just things they read about on a website, or things that were misreported by activists breathlessly filling out incident reports. > > I’ve got a few, being as I was at the polls all day, but it seems something of a hijack to put them here, as the original thread was about the general attitude towards problems. Go ahead! Post them! Inquiring minds want to know. ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/49 "2004-11-23T07:19:09Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Hazel, I think that most people believe some level of error - intentional or unintentional - is unavoidable in any human endeavor, and that any attempt which sets perfect accuracy as its benchmark is necessarily doomed to failure. It’s human nature…if one loophole is closed, sneaky people find others. If actual laws are broken, the perpetrators should be prosecuted, but that doesn’t require more laws. If there’s a 99.99 % level of confidence in a system, attempts to address the other 1% will not only fall short (it’ll leave you with a 99.999 % level of confidence or something) but will also be costly. > > I mean, let’s examine the biggest screw-up of the 2000 election - the “Butterfly Ballots” in Palm Beach County. By all accounts, it would seem that reasonable precautions had been taken for people to understand the ballot. The “Butterfly” design was necessary to allow for large printing to accommodate the vision-impaired, it was published in the local newspapers with invitation for comment. Yet no one could force people to not ignore those printed previews of the ballot. No one could predict that arrows would be hard to follow…and I’m not accusing those voters of necessarily being stupid, I’ll allow for whatever excuse they’d give, it’s still not something anyone would have predicted. No one can even be 100% certain how many ballots were punched wrongly. People’s memory, affected by post-election publicity resulted in more Palm Beach County residents claiming they mistakenly punched Buchanan than the actual number of Buchanan votes! The problem, while quite likely present, was definitely inflated. Was this really a reason to think “the system is broken”? > > Is it important to have as accurate a count as possible? No one will argue against this. However, many people can accept a good-faith attempt at as accurate a count as possible, and assume that sporadic reports of error or fraud are unavoidable and do not represent a driving need for systemic overhaul. 99.99% confidence? I have NO confidance! I’m sure things proceed as they should in many localities, but I’m also sure that things are badly botched or fraudulent in other localities. If I thought there were only problems in 1% pf districts, I wouldn’t think it was worth bothering about. I don’t know what the percentage is, but I suspect it is enough above 1 to matter. “Good faith attempt”? What about all the states where the people in charge of the election are partisan? Where the Secretary of State (who is in charge of the election) is also the chairperson of the Bush campaign in that state? (Katherine Harris, FL, 2000; Ken Blackwell, OH, 2004) Re the butterfly ballot. It was very counter-intuitive. Gore was listed 2nd on the first page, yet one had to punch the 3rd hole to vote for him. People normally read the lefthand page, then the righthand page. They don’t expect things to be organized the way the butterfly ballot was. The arrows were delicate, fillagree things – just the sort of thing one’s eye will glide past without seeing. And I’ve seen reports that the ballot sample published before the election did not match the one actually used. Many of the voters in WPB were elderly. The poll workers rushed them. There were long lines; people were being urged to “hurry up and let someone else have a chance”. Anyone might get flustered and make mistakes – especially people in their 70s and 80s. Many people did realize almost immediately that they’d made a mistake, and asked for a new ballot. FL law says they were entitled to not only a 2nd, but even a 3rd ballot. But the WPB poll workers, knowing they did not have enough ballots on hand (and/or not knowing the rules [shouldn’t they have known the rules?] [shouldn’t they have had plenty of ballots?]), refused to give people a 2nd ballot. Some voters reported that they were told, “just circle the punch you really mean”. Bad advice. Such ballots were not counted. ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/50 "2004-11-23T07:38:27Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > **cmkeller** ’s example is a good one. If someone brought up the Butterfly Ballot as an example of fraud, I’d laugh. It was designed by a Democrat and published ahead of time. No one complained about the design then. > > Now, if you brought it up in the lessons-learned category, as an example of an unforeseen problem that should be kept in mind for the future, I’d absolutely agree. Two possible explanations. If it was not deliberate, it was incompetence. Why incompetence? A new ballot design should never be used without first doing one or both of these things: Consult an expert in ballot design, and/or test the design; see if it works; see if people understand it. If you come up with what you think is a great idea for a better ballot on the eve of the election, if you’re competent, if you even have some common sence, you’ll accept the plain fact that it’s too late to change. If you don’t have time to consult experts, or test the new idea, it’s too late. If you’ve already published a design in the newspapers, it’s too late. I don’t know. It may have just been incompetence. But it was, IMHO, perhaps implausibly stupid. It seems possible that it was a deliberate plan to confuse people into failing in their attempt to vote for Gore. Questions: why didn’t they have 1/2 the ballots put Bush in the spot Gore was given? Why didn’t poll workers know that people were entitled to a 2nd or 3rd ballot? Why didn’t they have enough ballots? ---
**Author:** ![Bromley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4da419/32.png) [@Bromley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bromley)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/51 "2004-11-23T10:51:19Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > What I saw was voter intimidation in the form of city employees that were sent in to stop illegal parking. Now, in Driving Park Rec Center there are less than 50 legal parking spots, and there were literally hundreds and hundreds of voters there, and I estimated at least 70 percent of the people were illegally parked in the grass around the perimeter of the Driving Park Rec Center, and two city employees drove up in a city truck and said that they had been sent there to stop illegal parking, and they went so far as to harass at least a couple of voters that I saw, and when they were talking to us, they were kind. But when they didn’t realize we were overhearing them talking to voters, they were trying to keep people from parking where they were parking. They went so far as to set up some cones, trying to block people from getting into a grassy area…” > > Voter intimidation – because city workers are trying to stop people from parking on the grass. > > And so forth and so on. > > If you, or anyone, would like to compile a list of actual problems that should be taken seriously, I’m all ears. I am unwilling to wade through complaints such as the above on the chance that there will be a meritorious one hidden in there like a pearl in an oyster. I would classify this as something to be taken seriously. Not the fact that the city is preventing people from parking where they shouldn’t (which can’t fairly be called “voter intimidation”), but rather that a situation such as this exists. It doesn’t really matter if the city workers were sent to target districts that were expected to vote one way or the other. Even if it happened that way (which I’m not saying it did - that’d just be the worst case scenario), that’s politics. What does matter is that the system isn’t working if (a) people are queuing for a long time, (b) they all drive to the polling station and (c) there is inadequate parking available. Plenty of ways to fix the situation by fixing one or all of those three points. Last time I voted over here (UK) I didn’t queue at all, walked there and there was a multi-storey carpark within 200m of the station. ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2004, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/52 "2004-11-23T14:14:47Z")
Hope you don’t mind I numbered your paragraphs to make this easier on me. > [@Bricker](#): > > 1. I hope you mean you didn’t see any of the latter two, since your examples below all seem free of fraud or vote suppression. > > 2. Agreed. It’s irritating, but not fatal, and more importantly, I cannot imagine anyone forgetting whether it was Bush or Kerry they were voting for between the time they had to throw out the sample voting guide and the time they entered the booth. Local races may have suffered a bit, I grant, but one worker, making an error until corrected, that didn’t cost anyone their ability to vote. > > 3. My undertstanding is that this is precisely the problem that provisional ballots were designed to fix. > > 4. That’s a problem, but as you yourself acknowledge, it’s not one that was malevolent or fraudulently based at all. I certainly agree that cards should be clear… but if the vast majority of voters were not confused, I’d say the problem was small. > > 5. As you acknowledge – how do you fix it? Machines break. It happens. > > 6. OK. Your list strikes me as very honest… and not remotely indicative of any terrible problems. Lessons learned, thing to be improved next time, sure. But no one stole any elections, based upon these events. Right? > > - Rick Let me preface this by saying I did not type these problems in an attempt to say the election was “thrown” or fraudulent. I’m not providing ammo for the people who said the election was stolen. I’m describing real problems that impacted voters. Whether or not these problems have any bearing on Kerry or Bush votes makes little difference to me. I happen to believe they need fixing, because voting needs to go smoothly, and voters need to feel like the system works. 1. Yep. Typed the wrong word 2. Like you, I am certain everyone knew which presidential candidate they were planning to vote for. But I think all races are important. It is just as important to me as an election inspector and as a citizen that people can vote in every race they care about. From the standpoint of the voter, being told to get rid of all your papers, when that’s not actually a rule, is a negative experience at the polls. It’s a glitch. It’s one that needs fixing. 3. Yes, this is what provisional ballots are for. But the better solution is to add more safeguards and checks so this effects fewer voters. I don’t know how the provisional ballot is handled in other states, but in my state it is a somewhat lengthy process that tied up the voter and the election workers. I’m glad we have it, but it’s a frustrating solution. 4. It was not a small problem when you’re on the ground fixing it. Lines were longer for others while we tracked down where these voters belonged (not all of them had their cards with them). It takes time to look people up, to find their polling place on the map, to direct them and make absolutely sure they knew where they were supposed to go next. I don’t know how many voters did not vote after being redirected. As I said above, some of them had already waited for an hour at our precinct. I have no idea what the lines were like at other precincts or what they faced there. 5. Yep. Sh\*t happens. But if someone could have gotten there earlier, it would have made a difference to voters both in the time they had to wait and in the confidence they had in the process. 6. This strikes me as a little pedantic and I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make with it. I never claimed these problems are evidence of a stolen election. They’re just real voter problems experienced 11/2/04 at one little well-run precinct. We’re back to the OP–the fact that these don’t change the outcome of the election means what? That they don’t matter? Maybe to some people. I’m just in the other camp. I apologize if I haven’t been clear about that. ---
**Author:** ![annaplurabelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@annaplurabelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/annaplurabelle)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/53 "2004-11-24T06:13:12Z")
Well, the GAO has agreed to investigate, as per the request of 14 House Reps. I assume at least one House Rep. will contest the election results. The odds of a Senator signing on is still questionable (as in slim to none). The ACLU has an ongoing lawsuit (from 2000) based on disenfranchisement (de facto discrimination) due to inequitable distribution of voting machines. Lawsuits originated in 2004 are going forward. I’m not expecting an overturn, or even anything more than a whitewash of the problems documented for this past election. But that doesn’t mean anyone should give up the fight for electoral reform (or that I’m giving up). As for what is legally actionable, AFAIK, most of it is as yet untested. It _would_ make for an interesting debate, but I wouldn’t count on it happening here at this time. **Hazel** , don’t expect affirmation of your concerns on this messageboard. Don’t misunderstand me: This is one of the greatest messageboards for general knowledge. But too many dopers are heavily invested in the status quo, blindly partisan, and/or concerned about their personal credibility/popularity as dopers. Nothing will “break” here. It will, however, be discussed (and/or denied) _to death_ once it becomes common knowledge… > [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](#): > > This strikes me as a little pedantic and I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make with it. **Bricker** _pedantic_? Say it ain’t so! :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/54 "2004-11-24T06:45:22Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Voter intimidation – because city workers are trying to stop people from parking on the grass. This is precisely why voting by mail is such a great idea. No long lines. Democracy belongs to the people, even the people who can’t find a parking spot. Since you’re seemingly an advocate of majority rule having absolute power in all circumstances, it seems like you’d be in favor of making voting easier for everyone. Am I right? ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/55 "2004-11-24T08:43:28Z")
> [@annaplurabelle](#): > > **Hazel** , don’t expect affirmation of your concerns on this messageboard. Don’t misunderstand me: This is one of the greatest messageboards for general knowledge. But too many dopers are heavily invested in the status quo, blindly partisan, and/or concerned about their personal credibility/popularity as dopers. Nothing will “break” here. Yep, it’s blind partisanship that, errr, blinds us. It has nothing to do with the humorous nature of the ‘cites’. :rolleyes: I suppose we will get one of these ridiculous threads every few weeks from now until the sun goes red giant. Of course, you’d be better served by trying to figure out how to appeal more to middle America, and how to turn out more voters, but if trying to keep the ‘Bush stole teh elections!@#!!’ idea is what floats the lefty boat, by all means, go for it. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/56 "2004-11-24T15:15:18Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > I suppose we will get one of these ridiculous threads every few weeks from now until the sun goes red giant. Of course, you’d be better served by trying to figure out how to appeal more to middle America, and how to turn out more voters, but if trying to keep the ‘Bush stole teh elections!@#!!’ idea is what floats the lefty boat, by all means, go for it. ## This thread isn’t about the electoral problems themselves. It’s about the relevance and treatment of evidence of electoral problems. From the responses here it seems “what floats the lefty boat” is continuing to try to find out what happened while the “righty ship” seems to be trying to discredit that quest for information. Given that the thread is posted on a websight dedicated to fighting ignorance one wonders how you conservatives can justify your irresponsible behavior. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/57 "2004-11-25T08:15:02Z")
ElvisL1ves: Sheesh, I didn’t even _mean_ to get into an argument over what was the biggest problem with Florida 2000. I certainly can’t _prove_ it got the most publicity (what would prove it, a Nexis search?) It just always seemed to me that in the aftermath of the 2000 Election Floridians got a humorously-intended reputation for stupidity based on the butterfly ballot flap. In addition, there has been a major push to upgrade voting technology in this election cycle (something I tried to highlight by referring to the many debates over Diebold voting machines this board has hosted recently, but my sarcasm apparently came out sounding a bit incomprehensible), which would be addressing a problem of unclear coting apparatus (e.g., butterfly ballot), but has nothing to do with voters wrongly dropped from the rolls or otherwise disenfranchised. In any case, just to address a few other of your statements: > [@](#): > > No implication there at all; simply the most obvious inference from the discrepancies favoring one party. No doubt you can point to examples to the contrary? No doubt? Democrats have plenty of vote fraud in their history, going back to the voting dead in Chicago, up to Democrat-affiliated electioneers registering fictional characters this year. > [@](#): > > You claim to know what problems had serious air-play and this is news to you? The list created by ChoicePoint had about 8000 names on it. Numbers of blacks turned away at the polls in Jacksonville alone push it into the 5-digit range. What does it represent, you ask? What the hell do you think? What I meant by my question was, do you know for a fact that that ChoicePoint list of 8000 were, in fact, _wrongly_ disenfranchised, or were most pf them perhaps actual felons who were being properly weeded out of the voter rolls, as the ChoicePoint thing was meant to do? As to people who were turned away at the polls, is there an accurate demographic analysis that would indicate who the “disenfranchised” would have voted for? That’s what I mean by what do those numbers represent. Are the numbers you’re citing a count of VALID voters who were turned away for some reason or another, in percentages that would have indicated a Gore victory had they actually voted? And, not to confuse the issue here - I am NOT saying that that disenfranchisement was not a serious problem. My whole point earlier had merely been that I saw the butterfly ballot, rather than the disenfranchisement issue, as having become the icon of Florida 2000 screw-ups. Not that both weren’t important. > [@](#): > > Spare me. You don’t know if a ballot is valid until you look at it, do you? You judge validity by the state law standard, “the clear intent of the voter”. Yet somehow, no one thought a hand count was required to show that until 2000. > [@](#): > > You think adding Moore’s name strengthens your argument somehow? No, I’m merely mentioning it because one of the things he said in F 9/11 was that the media found Gore would have won in all scenarios, and I didn’t want anyone thinking of that quote as a cite to refute me, because I was stating up-front that it was a falsehood. > [@](#): > > You also imply that all scenarios are fundamentally equivalent, or that this muddled tie you imply somehow (despited it being 3-2 for Gore) 2-2 even, according to [CNN report](http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/florida.ballots/stories/main.html) on the Florida recount. Unless you can tell me where you found some fifth scenario that the media consortium examined. > [@](#): > > was properly resolved by giving it to your guy? No. The full statewide hand count, that the SCOTUS Five saw about to happen and had to take emergency action to stop, made Gore the winner. Wasn’t that the most accurate approach, the one that truly reflected both the letter of the law and the spirit behind it? No? Why not? Because a) the law had a dedline for vote count certification, which had already passed, b) the count that SCOTUS stopped did not have a single standard for determining the validity of machine-unreadable ballots, c) the count that SCOTUS stopped was only examining undervotes, not overvotes or otherwise ruined ballots. And in addition, the CNN article I linked to indicates that if SCOTUS had not stopped the recount ordered by the Florida State Supreme Court, it would have resulted in a Bush victory, not a Gore victory as you have said. > [@](#): > > The point was that the populace will accept a result reached at the limit of human good will, but will not accept being cheated, or a system that allows cheating. And here I disagree. While people certainly WANT a system that is foolproof against cheating. But if the cheating did not seem to be of a magnitude that would have caused the final result to be different, they will still accept the result, and will accept that the system works to render cheating minimal and insignificant. > [@](#): > > If the errors are random, they’ll cancel out. This time, they didn’t. Randomness doesn’t always cancel out. And I didn’t use the word “random” either. I just said inconsistent - not adhering to some form of organized structure. Even if every incidence of corruption is Republican, if those incidents are not somehow connected and coordinated, it’s still sporadic. > [@](#): > > It isn’t just mine that matters. The approval of all your fellow citizens should matter to you. “All” is pretty much impossible. However, I think that _most_ of my fellow citizens do not think that Jeb Bush plotted to remove valid voters from the rolls in order to throw the 2000 election to his brother. > [@](#): > > Because we can’t do everything, we can accept doing nothing. That’s about as silly a thing as I’ve seen on this board. But that’s not what I said. My point was that just as people don’t consider themselves safe only if they live in a town with absolutely zero murders, similarly, people do not consider an election result correct only if there was absolutely zero irregularities. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/58 "2004-11-25T09:49:06Z")
> **[Heflin wants House seat back or a new election](https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Heflin-wants-House-seat-back-or-a-new-election-1985048.php)** > > State Rep. Talmadge Heflin asked the state House of Representatives today to overturn the... BWAHAHAHAHAHAA… or not. ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/59 "2004-11-25T14:00:00Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > [http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2916692](http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2916692) > > BWAHAHAHAHAHAA… or not. Yipes. That’s a lot of illegal voters voting! Interesting case, I hope you post updates. My staff thinks we let five people vote who should not have. I never thought that would happen, but it can and did. We put it in the poll book and made sure the county clerk knew it happened. ---
**Author:** ![Iceland\_Blue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/4bbf92/32.png) [@Iceland\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iceland_Blue)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968/60 "2004-11-25T14:09:34Z")
I took a slightly different meaning from the title in that if there were voter irregularities, they were being overlooked unless they had some bearing on the outcome. IE in State A, there were 10,000 people whose vote was wrongly registered or who weren’t entitled to vote etc. etc. State A is taken by say Bush with an overwhelming majority-a good 500,000-750,000 votes or so. So the amount of errors appears relatively insignificant. It wouldn’t have affected the outcome so an attempt is made to correct them, but it isn’t consider as a big deal. If it was left like that then at the next election where the margin is down to say 5,000 votes these wrong votes could play an awfully significant part. ALL voter inaccuracies need to be checked and prevented as far as possible even if it wouldn’t have affected the overall result. It may do next time. And people’s perceptions are affected too-if they feel that the election process is riddled with mistakes and problems then confidence in it as a fair way as electing a president diminishes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-problems-if-it-doesnt-alter-the-outcome-it-doesnt-matter/275968.md?page=4)