# I Remember some were saying Election 2004 was stolen... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 6, 2005, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039 "2005-04-06T14:47:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2005, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/121 "2005-04-09T19:49:53Z")
> [@manhattan](#): > > I believe, and have stated on many occasions, that our election system is poorly equipped to handle close races and that it needs to be improved. Do you know that they found _another_ 90 ballots in the Washington governor’s race just the other day? Or that Milwaukee counted 7,000 more ballots than it had voters show up? A fair-minded person might conclude that instead of Kerry “winning” Ohio Bush might have won Wisconsin! When you get within the margin of error I think our election officials should just be able to flip a coin. It’d be a hell of a lot easier than endless recounts and court challenges and probably just as likely to get an equitable result. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2005, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/122 "2005-04-09T19:50:46Z")
> [@ITR champion](#): > > 1. That Diebold and voting officials in both Ohio and Florida have repeatedly stonewalled lawsuits and investigations that are attempting to clarify whether cheating occurred on election day. > > And yet still you say that there’s no serious evidence of anything going wrong on election day. Who is suing Diebold in Ohio?? No Ohio counties USED Diebold machines. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2005, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/123 "2005-04-09T20:05:57Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. That a computer programmer was hired with specific instructions to create voting machine software with a back door that would allow for tampering with vote totals. Can you point me to where this was verified? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2005, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/124 "2005-04-10T04:24:41Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > When you get within the margin of error I think our election officials should just be able to flip a coin. It’d be a hell of a lot easier than endless recounts and court challenges and probably just as likely to get an equitable result. Heh. I’m something of a radical here. My proposal is to find what the actual margin of electoral error is, and any race that is outside the margin has to be re-run in a quick-turnaround special election. If an analysis of past elections found that 1/2 percent is “too close to call,” then anyone not “winning” by more than that would have to go again. Some places apparently have discrepancies which indicate that even a 5% margin of victory is too small to be sure the “right guy” “won.” Fine – anyone winning by less than 5% didn’t really win and has to do a run-off – and with **all** candidates, so it couldn’t be a strategy to pick off the minor-party guys in the first round and get their voters in the next one. As major parties (and municipalities, for that matter) found themselves spending umpteen gazillion dollars on special elections everyone would be incentivized to reform the system to reduce the margin of error. I realize the above is a short couple of sentences encapsulating a HUGE undertaking, not the smallest part of which is finding that margin of error for each election geography. But generally I like the idea of putting the parties’ financial incentives on the same side as electoral accuracy. ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2005, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/125 "2005-04-10T17:47:19Z")
The problem is that it doesn’t matter if there was absolutely no evidence of electoral irregularities or if Dick Cheney personally voted six times; the conversation would be exactly the same. Lefty: Hey, this looks fishy! Perhaps we should change things to make it easier to verify vote totals. Righty: Oh, quit yer whining, hippie! Why don’t you go back to your commune and play your bongos while you read [commondreams.org](http://commondreams.org)! Yes, as long as the liberals are barely losing elections, they will raise questions about voting irregularities even when few to none exist. This is understandable, and I can’t argue with it because I do think that every irregularity should be thoroughly investigated in a close election. But it doesn’t matter how much merit the charges have; the conservatives will dismiss them as whining. What evidence do I have for this? The 2000 election. There really is no question whatsoever that there were massive irregularities in the counting of the Florida ballots, and still people who are intelligent enough to find the SDMB and compose complete sentences make cracks about “Sore-Loserman”. If you want to argue that the opposite would be true if it were the Democrats just barely winning elections, I wouldn’t disagree. But it hasn’t been that way lately, at least not in the big-name elections, so discussing why Democrats _would_ do it is secondary to asking why Republicans _are_ doing it. ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/126 "2005-04-11T04:07:58Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > Sure you can. You pull the pieces of paper out and count them manually. You could use a similar method for electronic voting as has been mentioned here a number of times. The key is to produce a paper trail that the voter sees and verifies. When e-voting is used: WHAT pieces of paper!? The trouble with black box voting is that there ARE no pieces of paper – no way to check the validity of the reported results. And, in this case, good reason to doubt the reported results. When paper ballots are used, then counted by optical scanners: It would indeed be possible to do a hand count – IF the ballots are saved, and IF we are sure that ALL of the ballots are still there when we get around to doing the hand count. But parisan or head-in-the-sand officials scoff at the idea that there is any NEED for a recount. > [@Zakalwe](#): > > I’d like to offer that much of this problem stems from the need for election night drama. Why do we have to know who won no later than 1a EST? Why can’t we make it a deliberate process? The votes are cast on Tuesday. Quality Assurance checks (vote audits), absentee verification, same-day registered verification, and other checks and balances occur Wednesday and Thursday. Leaking vote totals prior to Friday is a felony offense with stiff penalties. Friday is “count-the-vote-day”! Fun for kids and adults alike. I agree that this election night drama is childish. It’s media hype. LET it take a few days or a week to get the official result. What’s the rush? Of course, we would know the result by the morning after the election. It might take days to get an offical result, but the exit polls will give us the answer by the next morning. Exit polls are, in the rest of the world, regarded as highly reliable. We so regarded them as well – until they inconveniently provided us with very good reason to suspect the validity of the 2004 Presidential election. Then, suddenly, we came up with (implausible, IMO) explanations for why the exit polls just couldn’t possibly be valid. ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/127 "2005-04-11T04:14:32Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Who is suing Diebold in Ohio?? > > No Ohio counties USED Diebold machines. Bricker and Cheesestake both say that Ohio did not use e-voting machines manufactored by one or another of the several Republican-friendly companies that manufactor such machines. But what about the optical scanners used to count paper ballots? Were they used in Ohio? The optical scanners are made by the very same companies that make the black box voting machines. ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/128 "2005-04-11T04:27:58Z")
I like manhattan’s idea (post 124). In FL in 2000, the official results were, IMO, not valid. Naturally, the Repubs deny their invalidity. What really, really cannot be denied is that the official results were a statistical tie: the margin between the official Gore total and the offical Bush total was less than the margin of error in the voting/counting methods used. A tie. A runoff between Bush and Gore should have occured. If the rules did not allow that, then there was something very wrong with the rules. Good rules wouldn’t just have allowed a runoff – they’d have required one. We’ve done absolutely nothing about this major, glaring, problem with our election methods. For that matter, good rules would require a runoff any time the candidate with the most votes has less than 51% of the votes. (Money- and trouble-saving alternative: Instant Runoff Voting.) ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/129 "2005-04-11T04:34:25Z")
> [@DoctorJ](#): > > Righty: Oh, quit yer whining, hippie! Why don’t you go back to your commune and play your bongos while you read [commondreams.org](http://commondreams.org)! I like the cut of your jib, **DoctorJ**. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/130 "2005-04-11T12:58:29Z")
> [@Hazel](#): > > Bricker and Cheesestake both say that Ohio did not use e-voting machines manufactored by one or another of the several Republican-friendly companies that manufactor such machines. But what about the optical scanners used to count paper ballots? Were they used in Ohio? The optical scanners are made by the very same companies that make the black box voting machines. Now it’s not just Diebold? Now ANY corporate entity is suspect? The vast majority of Ohio counties - 69 - used punch-card ballots. I’m sure they are counted by machine, and I’m sure a company made that machine. Are they suspect as well? Why or why not? ---
**Author:** ![GomiBoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@GomiBoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GomiBoy)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/131 "2005-04-11T13:15:56Z")
At risk of keeping this idiotic thread alive… the 2004 election wasn’t stolen. Voter inconsistencies in Florida and Ohio have both been sorted out post-election to the great satisfaction of all reasonable people. I am about as far from a Republican as one can be. Voted Clinton twice, Gore once, and Kerry, and even contributed money to the guys I voted for and for other politicians running I knew of who just happened to be not Republican. This was a fair election, and the reason why I know that is that nobody ‘in the know’ is complaining and I really believe people like John Kerry and Howard Dean would do so if there was any reasonable justification. Instead, they are doing their jobs, and trying to strengthen the Democratic party to beat the suckers next time! That’s all. I don’t expect anyone to listen. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/132 "2005-04-11T13:28:05Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I don’t think I have a problem with that. Then why have you been so reluctant, even dismissive, of proposals to do just that? BTW, the election could have been turned in many places other than Ohio, many of which did use Diebold equipment. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/133 "2005-04-11T13:42:33Z")
All apologies to both GomiBoy and foolsguinea, but I have found a relevant anaswer to Bricker, in of all places, foolsguinea’s post 91 of [Why is the Catholic Church against Freemasonry? Can there be peace?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=304616&page=1&pp=50) > [@Bricker](#): > > Now it’s not just Diebold? Now ANY corporate entity is suspect? > [@foolsguinea](#): > > People in the Freemasons make a lot of noise about how the principles of Freemasonry are so good. Well, that’s nice. Unfortunately, the entry into Freemasonry involves swearing an oath of secrecy, which accepts some disproportionate repercussions for breaking that secrecy. This sort of thing is rather seriously prohibited by the teachings of Christ, not to mention reason, human decency, etc. > > If Masons are so awfully interested in building a finer world, why aren’t they behaving like responsible citizens, & advocating their principles openly? > > A kind assessment would be that Masonry’s secrecy appeals to the sensibilities of a nine-year-old boy. > A cynical assessment would be that the Masons are up to some bad nastiness under the surface. > > In this case, I think the RCC has a point. In other words, shadowy groups invite suspicion. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/134 "2005-04-11T14:44:35Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Then why have you been so reluctant, even dismissive, of proposals to do just that? Have I? Where? To my recollection, I’ve been dismissive of suggestions the election was stolen, not of any suggestion to make electronic voting machines independently verifiable. I don’t have any heartburn with that. > [@](#): > > BTW, the election could have been turned in many places other than Ohio, many of which did use Diebold equipment. Yes, it could have. And Kerry could have been planning to ban the Bible and send federal troops in to destroy Christian churches if he was elected. Problem with either of those claims is the lack of evidence for them. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/135 "2005-04-11T15:14:53Z")
> [@Hazel](#): > > When e-voting is used: > WHAT pieces of paper!? The trouble with black box voting is that there ARE no pieces of paper – no way to check the validity of the reported results. And, in this case, good reason to doubt the reported results. I think we’re talking about different situations here. An electronic voting machine is black-box only if it’s built that way. It is possible to build them to print a receipt (actually I think there are models available that do this). My point was that it’s not electronic voting that’s a bad idea, it’s the lack of accountability/verifiability. > [@Hazel](#): > > When paper ballots are used, then counted by optical scanners: > It would indeed be possible to do a hand count – IF the ballots are saved, and IF we are sure that ALL of the ballots are still there when we get around to doing the hand count. We would know if the ballots were all there or not by matching the original scan count and the follow-on scan/manual count. I don’t get your objection here. Are there states where it’s permissable to throw away the ballots before the protest/recount period has ended? As I’ve said above, this isn’t a pie-in-the-sky hypothetical. The county I live in did this successfully in 2000. Original optical count and hand-recount matched perfectly. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/136 "2005-04-11T15:23:56Z")
To continue the hijack, has a system been studied that would meld the paper and electronic ballots? You’d fill out a Scan-tron, then feed it into the system, which would then show you on the screen who you planned to vote for. If you agreed with that, you’d be able to then enter your vote, and leave the paper somewhere where there is a paper trail. If it was inaccurate, you’d have to start the process over (at some point where there is enough security to make sure you weren’t double-voting.) It would take more time, but if it takes too MUCH time due to bad marks showing up, it’s evidence electronically-scanned paper ballots were never that good in the first place. But it would avoid the downfalls of both the electronic counting and paper counting, providing a paper trail along with preventing errors in tabulation. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/137 "2005-04-11T18:35:02Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Evil Captor. You have a dead body. You also have a person with motive and opportunity to kill the deceased. However, you do NOT have evidence that the deceased was murdered, only that they are dead. > > Should you perform an autopsy? Of course, but if you don’t turn anything up, you can’t just accuse the person of murder because he had motive and opportunity. > > A lot of people have looked at this, and nothing concrete has shown up to suggest even a single vote was changed. Thus far, you have no proof that a crime was even committed. I would argue that the sharp disparity between the exit polls in some states and the vote count constitutes a form of hard evidence, certainly hard enough to justify an investigation. Especially worrying is the fact that almost all the disparities in the Ohio election were in favor of Bush. You would think randomly fucked up election results would tend to favor both candidates about evenly. Or perhaps slightly in favor of one. But overwhelmingly in favor of one candidate? Time to call out the Grand Jury. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/138 "2005-04-11T18:43:46Z")
An impassioned plea from the mother of a dead soldier: [Murderous Thugs](http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8502.htm) > [@](#): > > Our country has been overtaken by murderous thugs…gangsters who lust after fortunes and power; never caring that their addictions are at the expense of our loved ones, and the blood of innocent people near and far. We’ve watched these thugs parade themselves before the whole world as if they are courageous advocates for Christian moral values…and for the spread of democracy. Yet we all know that they are now putting in place, all across this country, a system of voting that provides no way to validate the accuracy of the counting of the votes. Our loved ones have been buried in early graves even as these arrogant thugs parade themselves before the entire world, insisting that democracy is worth dying for, killing for, and destroying entire cities for, all the while they are busy here at home overseeing the emplacement of an electronic voting system that invites fraud at every turn, an electronic vote-counting system that provides no way to validate the votes cast, and that, by it’s very design, prohibits recounting the votes. > > For these men to not see to it that our own system of voting and vote-counting is accurate, understandable and verifiable…all the while sending our loved ones to kill and to die so as to establish a democracy in some far away place…this is just one more staggering piece of evidence that the US government is now ruled by murderous hypocrites…criminals who should be arrested, charged appropriately, confined behind bars, and then tried in a court of law…not only here in our own country, but also in all the other countries which have suffered their incomprehensible greed. In their secret hiding places, while celebrating newly won fortunes with their fellow brass, these men must surely congratulate themselves with orgies of carnal pleasure as they mock the dwindling multitudes who are yet so blind as to mistake them for God’s devoted servants. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/139 "2005-04-11T19:07:08Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > I would argue that the sharp disparity between the exit polls in some states and the vote count constitutes a form of hard evidence, certainly hard enough to justify an investigation. > . > . > . > Time to call out the Grand Jury. The problem is that no one who can convene a grand jury - Democrat or Republican - buys your argument. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039/140 "2005-04-11T19:09:37Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > An impassioned plea from the mother of a dead soldier: > > [Murderous Thugs](http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8502.htm) Impassioned is a good description. While I sympathize with her for her loss, “passion” is not a substitute for reason in debate. How specifically is this relavent to whether or not the last election was stolen? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-remember-some-were-saying-election-2004-was-stolen/298039.md?page=8)