Talk:2004 United States election voting controversies/Archive 3

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Analysis, methods and other math

Mathematical facts and weighting

Kevin:

Let's say we are weighting the exit poll data based on the actual vote counts (by the way, the allegation that this happens has not been sourced). But let's assume. When you weight a variable, you assign it an importance. This importance is arbitrary - it is up to the user of the data to assign weights to variables. Let's assume the exit poll data in this article are correct:

• Early result - Bush: 941 (0.4794)
• Early result - Kerry: 1022 (0.5206)

Now, let's take the actual Ohio results, according to Wikipedia, dropping third party candidates:

• Bush: 2,796,147 (0.5125)
• Kerry: 2,659,664 (0.4875)

We have our data, and we can "weight" the exit poll results. Please keep in mind these are all "mathematical facts," as you put it.

Let's place a 10% weight on the actual vote results. We can calculate a "corrected" exit poll percentage like so: Corrected = (W * ActualVote) + ((1 - W) * ExitPoll). For a 10% weight on Kerry's results: (.1 * .4875) + (.9 * .5206) = .5173, or 51.73%. Obviously this doesn't support your assertion that weighted results "matched the actual vote count" or "supported the conclusion." Similarly, a weighting of .25 or even .5 is still not enough to push Kerry's exit poll result below 50%. For your statement to be true, they would need to place more importance on the polling result than the actual exit poll, in order to come up with their published exit poll number. The only way for the results to match "perfectly," as you say, is to throw out the exit poll results and simply use the actual vote.

Also, in the article, please back up your statement about how they weighted the results. Rhobite 23:37, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

Your mathematics are correct, and so are your conclusions.

If I do recall correctly, I think I put a citation or two in the article somewhere. Here's a great source for information on exit polling: [1]

Here's a source corroborating what I said:[2] "...the weighting of exit polls to match actual results is not new, but a standard procedure used since the early days of exit polls. Second, the weighting to actual returns does not occur all at once but continuously, precinct by precinct, over the course of election night. The exit pollsters weight their sample to match incoming actual results for each sampled precinct as actual returns become available..."'' Kevin Baas | talk 19:34, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

Question on maps of electronic voting machine incidents reported to the EIRS

(dormant?) The map of the Ohio counties showing colors to indicate "electronic voting machine incidents reported to the EIRS" has Cuyahoga County, OH colored Orange. Cuyahoga County, OH used a punch card system, not electronic voting machines. Copies of the ballots for all districts are available in .pdf format from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website. http://www.cuyahoga.oh.us/BOE/ballots/ballots.htm

Correct, but an addition fwiw - Cuyahoga County uses Optical-Scan technology for absentee and provisional ballots. http://verifiedvoting.org RyanFreisling @ 08:35, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, as I've also pointed out elsewhere, the issue is not limited to electronic voting machines. We can/should fix that. Zen Master 08:19, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ahhh... Up for deletion... Go figure Cyberia23 08:32, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

(politics, i tell you!) On the EIRS, that map is listed as "Machine problems". Kevin Baas | talk 18:21, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

Margin in non-irregularities states?

(dormant?) Minus votes from the 12 or so states with data irregularities how many votes did bush and kerry each receieve? Is there evidence of smaller degree of fraud/irregularity in the other 38 states? Maybe I will perform that calculation myself. Zen Master 22:34, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Actually, what I want to do is for someone/me to create an election results chart per state that assumes the non weighted exit polls were correct (i.e. Kerry has 2% more of FL's vote than bush sp we should adjust the vote totals accordingly for this excersize). What would the final vote counts look like if the exit polls were right? Then we can compare the difference in % support for bush and kerry between the states with data irregularity and the rest (this could be interesting). I.e. it might be suspicious if this unweighted data exit poll result chart showed bush and kerry with the same percentages nationally. I.e perhaps the exit polling data will show Kerry received 52%+ in the 12 or so data irregularity states, and 52%+ everywhere else. It will also be interesting to compare with 2000, 1996 and before. Zen Master 22:50, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

using the 12:22 data for all states (ommiting the 4 no-data states), popular vote is bush:50.43%, kerry: 48.56% Kevin Baas | talk 23:06, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

Remember I have my excel file available. It has per state data from the vote count and three different exit poll sources (taken at different times). 9and if anyone wants the maps i've in vector format (i.e. you can change the colors of the states easily w/the right software), i can give them.) Kevin Baas | talk 19:40, 2004 Nov 14 (UTC)

Manipulation of Exit Poll Data

Once again, Netaholic has deleted it outright, opting for a subtractive approach instead of a dialogue here. I reverted, with corroborating sources. The issue may have an explanation, but the controversial event (change in the data on CNN) took place, and the Internet's resolving/debunking it is an important part of the story. -- RyanFreisling @ 23:05, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This data is in the form of two image files which noone has admitted ownership to, and has not been verified independantly. This is not a rumor mill, it is an encyclopedia of verifiable fact. Use other information, but that section is based on those images, which could have been faked. The "sources" RyanFreisling provided are nothing more than mirrors of the images, and commentary on them. -- Netoholic @ 02:33, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

Other sources have confirmed those numbers are the pre-weighted/non-final exit poll data. The key is that others are arguing the exit poll data weighting is justified, no one, except you, is arguing that data is fake. Zen Master 02:39, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Feel free to quote and summarize those sources, but the exact data presented here is taken from an unverifiable source. -- Netoholic @ 02:41, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

That assertion is not true. The sources are not mirrors, they are different images captured of the source data, reflecting the same time period. Multiple official sources of the poll data are cited amongst those sources and repeated here. The authors are known. That constitutes corroboration to the extent that this page is not an appeal to overturn the results, but explain the current status of inquiry into irregularities. Taking the next step and creating graphs, etc. based on that data would likely constitute original research. -- RyanFreisling @ 02:54, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Four map image - machine problems, misleading

In the image in the voting machine problems section with 2 maps of Florida & 2 of Ohio, the yellow counties in the Ohio map only have 1 incident reported a piece, and they are either really really petty, or aren't actually machine problems. I think it's misleading. I'm tempted to make a new image w/those counties grey instead of yellow. What do people think about this?

--I think the whole image needs to be removed all together. There is absolutely no reason for pointing out that such counties are traditionally Democrat other than for suggesting conspiracy theories. First, Democrat counties often times are urban areas, which tend to get electronic voting machines, while sparsely populated rural Republican counties do not. So pointing out at least one electronic voting error happened in a county while also pointing out that county leans Democratic fuels this insinuation. What a proper map should do, is point out which counties had electronic voting, point out which counties reported problems, and mention the severity of these problems.

But that's not what we have. We have a full state county map that does not show which counties have electronic voting, we have Democratic explanations thrown in for insinuation, an explanation that does not explain the severity of the problems, and we don't have any references to back any of this up to begin with!

The image and caption fails in every way of being fair, meaningful, and objective. For that reason, it should be removed or replaced by an updated version that fixes every problem listed.

-- Non-US folk may not know the normal Dem/Rep split of the US, so the map might be useful. CS Miller 17:00, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

On the contrary, the image and caption succeed in every way of being fair, meaningful, and objective. I have per-county data for Ohio pres. elections in 04, 00, 96, &92, for pres. vote, voter turnout, voter registration, number of precincts, etc, straight from the ohio elections office. I also have county-level numbers from the EIRS, all aggregated in a flexible excel file. That's the source of these stats. They don't insinuate. They simply state facts that people would and have been interested in knowing, from both parties and with both hypothesis (cynical vs. naive). The main article explains the severity of the problems. There is no room in the caption. The caption is there to describe the images. The caption gives a textual description of the distributions, whereas the images give a visual description. They complement each other that way. That's what captions are for. Anyways, you haven't answered my question. Kevin Baas | talk 18:57, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

Dormant sections (to archive)

NYT Opinion Pieces

The addition of the NYT piece is valid. It is an important piece of the story. Not for it's assertions, but for it's existence. The media reaction to the reports of irregularities has, itself, been a story. And this editorial, not merely a commentator but the Sunday editorial of the NYT itself, is seen as an important event in the media response to the irregularities reported across the country.-- RyanFreisling @ 22:33, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Archive request

Also - the talk page is getting long and numerous threads on here are resolved (some perhaps can be listed as 'dormant' or 'pending' edits (like the introduction edit, etc.). Thoughts? -- RyanFreisling @ 23:28, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Archive dormant sections soon. Mark what appears dormant, and wait for objections. When there is enough dormant sections to fill an archive, then go ahead.

How about we create categorized talk sub-pages to allleviate talk page bloat? Kevin Baas | talk 23:55, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

Either way, if you want to keep it on one page but organize, look at User_Talk:Kizzle/Newtemplate, I kept the organizational structure if you want to import it to this page. --kizzle 01:53, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

I'm glad to do the organization and cleanup, but it will be a radical change (no content will be deleted, and i'll wait to mark things 'dormant'. Okay with you folks? -- RyanFreisling @ 02:29, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fine by me. Kevin Baas | talk 06:13, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

The peanut gallery

(dormant?)

Well, someone has obviously unleashed the hordes on this article in an effort to keep it from being deleted (it clearly won't be deleted, so don't worry). I'm just curious, what site are you guys coming from? Rhobite 02:31, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

So long as they register, they can participate in voting. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:24, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

They won't count though. Wikipedia:Sock puppet. -- Netoholic @ 05:42, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

I just saw this. That is incorrect: it is actually up to the administrator who counts the votes whether they count or not (be it on his/her head if they do turn out to be sock-puppets). Sorry for the late reply. - Ta bu shi da yu 22:01, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Once again, I wish you'd try to find constructive input here. And contesting votes on an Election controversies and irregularities page is something the community would be well served by doing a bit more responsibly. Do you suspect every vote of being a sock puppet? Because that's what the page says is required to disqualify voters.Wikipedia:Sock puppet. -- User:RyanFreisling 05:49, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

I find it ironic that you are concerned that there has been fraud (or at least fishiness) in the voting to determine if an article on people's concerns about fruad (or at least fishiness) in voting should be retained. The very fact that such concerns crop up at the meta-level seems reason enough to credit them, even if you don't share them. Just so you know, I came here from Google, and no one unleashed me (I chewed through my leash thirty some years ago and haven't looked back). -- Markus J. Q. Roberts 15:58, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

Where to Vote For or Against Deletion

(dormant)

The contributions are always good to see, but people interested in voting (whether for or against deletion) should do so on the 'Votes for Deletion' page at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/2004_U.S._Election_controversies_and_irregularities

Anonymous votes are actually not counted for the purposes of votes for deletion, and it's frowned upon for new users to sign up simply to vote. For the people coming here who want to see this article kept, the best thing you can do is sign up for an account, READ Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers, and help make sure this and other articles are accurate and neutral. Rhobite 03:01, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Excellent point. My link was to avoid your 'Peanut Gallery' diminution of the new people who are obviously hitting this document. Folks - If you came here from one of the other myriad Internet sites dealing with 2004 Election Irregularities, and you want to vote and you are not yet a wikipedia user, please familiarize yourself with the WikiWay in Rhobite's link, and why not get active, familiarize yourself with the issues under discussion, before jumping in with a decided vote... but all are welcome who can contribute constructively, according to the WikiWay! (66.108.161.196, 10pm EDT)

People on both sides - not just one. the article will be judged neutrally, and those who care about the article (and not the politics) and arent just coming on request should be the ones who vote. FT2 18:30, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

overzealous archivage? dormant?

You archived a new info sub section I just posted...? Some of the other discussions were recently active... Zen Master 21:13, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

apologies for archiving current stuff... please post it using the template or under discussions... otherwise this page is going to be illegible. --kizzle 21:19, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Capitalization of name of article

(dormant/ n/a) I understand that this article name is disputed. In any case, people should note that the word "election" in the title should not be capitalized. For example, a related article is "2004 U.S. presidential election" not "2004 U.S. presidential Election". The only reason I'm not moving myself now is because of the vote on VFD and because if the article's name is going to be changed anyway, pending the resolution of the disputes about the name, the name might as well be changed then, not now. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 04:10, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

I suggested "2004 U.S. election voting controversies", fixing the capitalization and adding the word "voting" to exclude campaign matters not related to voting. This seemed to work for most people -- I don't think anyone insisted that "irregularities" had to stay in the title. (To me, including it seems POV anyway. Some people contend that there were no irregularities. Their POV must be respected.) I should've moved the page, but the page was protected before I did. Then came the VfD listing, and I held off for the reason you state. Lowellian, I don't think you weighed in before. Is "2004 U.S. election voting controversies" OK with you? JamesMLane 06:22, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sure, "2004 U.S. election voting controversies" sounds good. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 05:53, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

Editorial mandate proposal

Proposal

User:Zen-master, User:Kevin baas, User:FT2, and User:RyanFreisling have shown an inability, through their edits and comments, to work according to established community standards (such as Neutral point of view and Verifiability) on articles related to 2004 U.S. Election controversies and irregularities. It is asked that, in the best interests of the community, the users mentioned above desist from editing the related articles for as long as the majority of editors support this proposal.

This vote does not endorse any particular viewpoint on the article; rather, it is meant only to address the specific edits of the listed users. It also is not a commentary on the edits of these user outside of this subject.

Only votes by accounts with over 100 contributions as of the start time (03:27, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)) shall be considered valid for the purposes of this poll, in accordance with voting standards.

Support (excuse these editors from working on this article series)

1. As the author of this poll, I do not wish to ask something that I myself wouldn't do. I offer to join the four editors above in discontinuing my direct edits to this article, should this poll reach a majority. My case for change can be made here on the talk page, and implemented by others. -- Netoholic @ 17:36, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

Oppose (allow these editors to continue working)

1. Oppose/Refuse Netoholic would sure love it if the 4 primary defenders of the article moved on, we might see many anonymous IP edits. Netoholic also fails to realize his guerrilla tactics of a few days ago (and other issues against him) trump any possibility of taking him seriously here. He purposely ignores article history which shows much debate and progress being made on the article. Further, Netoholic has not actually presented any evidence for his case that the 4 of us did anything wrong, to date he is the only person that has been accused of multiple instances of wrong doing by third parties. I also agree with what Antaeus says below. I will be sure to help the arbitration committe see through his after the fact article complaint smokescreen. He still has not actually debated anything, he went straight from his belief in unilateral actions being justified because he thinks the article should be deleted to now trying to remove 4 users from editing an article without actually presenting his concerns in a detail and sticking around to refute counter points. It would be interesting to look at the ratio of edits made by Netoholic that were subsequently reverted over the number of edits he's made on talk pages actually engaged in debate, I suspect it would be very high. Wikipedia is not suppose to be a POV battlefield, it's meant to be a place where people can respectfully debate with the aim of conflict resolution. Consensus building is the wikipedia principle Netoholic rejects most egregiously. Zen Master 17:58, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Refuse (entirely reject this poll and any weight, importance, significance or consequence that the author may be trying to impute to it)

1. Antaeus Feldspar 07:38, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Comments

• This is not the appropriate place to issue an arbitration request! Netoholic knows perfectly well the appropriate procedure because he has had one already filed against him. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:34, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • I just had to rollback Netoholic's revert. He removed my comment from this talk page! He's been warned before not to do this. This is a blockable offense. I'll not warn him again, if it happens again then I'm getting another admin to block him for 24 hours. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:39, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • You cannot unilaterally "call off" a poll. Feel free to vote, but this is an action to fix a POV problem with this page, WITHOUT having to go to higher levels of dispute resolution. -- Netoholic @ 03:45, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)
      • And you cannot establish a arbitration poll that directly attacks several users on a talk page! - Ta bu shi da yu 08:49, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• I have no clue what this is about, but I saw the reverts in RC. Netoholic, I know you know better than this. What you have above is not a simple poll on some content issue. You're creating a de facto arbitration committee of whoever shows up here to vote. The poll's results would be neither valid nor enforceable under Wikipedia policy, and will only serve to increase bad blood. Request comment, mediate, arbitrate, do anything under WP policy but this, please. Let this one die. As I said, I have no idea who may or may not be at fault here, but settle this dispute like any other dispute here. Jwrosenzweig 03:47, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • I have bolded James's words, because they are dead on. This poll has absolutely no merit or weight to it. Disallowing particular editors from editing a particular article is a power reserved ONLY to Jimbo and the arbitration committee. →Raul654 03:53, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)
    • This poll is not suggesting any enforceable actions. It is meant only to quantify the opinions of the authors here. If the four listed editors see how many people currently disagree with their edits, then they will hopefully respect those opinions by voluntarily withdrawing. It is my hope that this will go a long way to reaching an understanding with all interested editors of this article to address the concerns mention both on this talk page, and the VfD vote. -- Netoholic @ 03:57, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)
      • I submit that this is another in a series of attempts to intimidate authors (myself included) and distract effort from correcting the POV issues. Netoholic has been unable to interact as an editor, instead acting as a 'deleter', and citing wiki rule after rule that he himself has disgraced in a false attempt to influence valid authors. I do not think he has contributed a single data point to the discussion. Tactics like this are reprehensible, it is part of the record, and should higher levels be pursued, this and other attempts he has made will be a significant example of the bad faith Netoholic continues to exhibit. -- RyanFreisling @ 03:56, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
      • Moreover, the community has a chance to see (and revise) all the edits as any wiki community member can. You have no right to attempt to supplant the natural WikiWay, instead focusing on these authors who you have thus far refused to work constructively with, and in effect, attempting to lobby the community against them in a referendum. It's unconstructive, derogatory behavior. -- RyanFreisling @ 04:01, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
        • I have documented dozens of examples of where these four editors have not only inserted their own POV, but also removed contesting information almost as soon as anyone tries to add it. This article is not improving, it's justing getting longer and incorporating more and more information from unverifiable sources. -- Netoholic @ 04:08, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)
          • Patently, predictably untrue. Dozens and dozens of documented events exist of your doings in that regard, not the opposite. I have *never* removed information from an article in the manner you describe. Your blanket assertion that somehow 'we four' did this is a disservice to us individually, and collectively. The way you have chosen to go about this (VfD, TfD, vandalism of the article and talk pages, IRC-based intimidation, etc.) without attempting a true collaborative approach is an affront to the rules as stated above, injures the valid case you may indeed be trying to make, and has the predictable, unfortunate effect of chilling development to address the very valid issues that remain with the document. In short, I stand by my record. You cannot. -- RyanFreisling @ 04:11, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• (via edit conflict) If they agree to step back voluntarily then cheers to them. If they don't, a straw poll like this carries no weight anyway, and is highly inappropriate besides. —No-One Jones ^(m) 03:50, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• Am I the only one who think that, should such a procedure be possible, a single individual that have repeatedly shown an inability, through his vandalism & grossly inappropriate editing of the article's content, through his procedure abuse (VfD) and various attempts to distract energy away from improving the article itself, through his failure to work with other editors, through his failure to bring actual content supporting his thesis instead of destroying content contributed by others, through his failure to work according to established community standards (such as Neutral point of view) on articles related to 2004 U.S. Election controversies and irregularities be (politely) asked, in the best interests of the community, to desist from editing the related articles for as long as the majority of editors do not support this actions ? (tongue in cheek, since I'm a newbie, but seriously annoyed by the actions of this individual) Eric514 05:01, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes. Even before I read this comment I have asked for a temporary injunction on Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Netoholic. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:11, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Netoholic, please list instances where you thought my edits violated NPOV, I am not saying I am perfect, but I tend towards clean up and NPOV generally I'd like to think, and when there is disagreement I debate and learn other's POV. I've already addressed 4 bogus complaints you listed on a talk page, you never responded to my specific refutations of your examples. I stand by my edit history, how do you explain your edit history of guerrilla tactics to damage all aspects of this and related articles unilaterally and in opposition of discussion? Not to mention all the issues Ta ba shi da yu points out.

As to your claim no progress has been made, I think edit history the last 24-48 hours proves you completely wrong. If you had been paying attention you would have noticed I've been discussing with rhobite and james on one issue, from that discussion sprung james' idea of splitting the article into 2, one for data irregularites and one for all other voting controversies, I tenatively support this plan. The history will show much other progress being made discussion and page clean up wise. Just because your specific deletes are reverted does not mean other progress isn't being made. We should compare the history of the article from the momment you listed it for VfD to now so as to debunk your no progress theory. Update: here is a link for doing just that [3]

Most importantly, it should be noted you are currently losing the VfD for this article (a VfD you listed only because you lost a debate here [by refusing to debate]) so how can you even claim to have a case? Your behavior is consistently unacceptable and against the spirit of wikipedia. Just because you think this article is "all wrong" does not justify your antics. One has to do nothing but look at your edit history to understand what is going on. Zen Master 05:08, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I must admit that this is ingenious on Netoholic's part. Instead of making his violation of Wikipedia:Assume good faith even more blatant than it already is, he tries to get a "straw poll" going in the hopes that he can make a mass of people violate the assume good faith policy regarding these four editors. That's what this proposal amounts to. -- Antaeus Feldspar 07:19, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think this is a natural result when one assumes good faith for nearly a week, but does not have that good faith returned in kind. If you read the history of this talk page and the VfD, you will see numberous attempts on the part of many users to communicate the factual and POV problems here. Those concerns have not been integrated into the article, and instead are summarily reverted - each time by one of these four editors. I did not want to take this situation through higher levels of dispute processes, when I thought we could perhaps come to a resolution here. I am in agreement that this sort of solution is new, but I think it has its place. I myself would respect such a poll, if there were to be one asking that I not edit an article. It's not a complete censure, more like a way of communicating awareness. Higher levels of dispute resolution tend to lead towards punitive measures. -- Netoholic @ 07:48, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

Netoholic apparently expects no one to look at his history. I am talking about his actions 3-5 days ago when he first put this article on VfD in opposition to discussion. He still has not explained how he justifies guerrilla tactics against an article for any reason? He claims to be the defender of wikipedia honor which would be a sad state of affairs indeed. I will be sure to help the arbitration committee frame the debate the correct way. Even if we assume he has debated (which is simply not true), his actions were unacceptable. Netoholic hides behind an after the fact smokescreen of focusing on article problems, rather than ever addressing the irrationality behind his deeds. Netoholic had some valid criticisms of the article but that does not justify trying to ruin it when he is aware many disagree, he ignores debate, and moves talk page comments all around (complete list of his actions is much much longer). If we look far enough back in his history I suspect he's used these tactics previously without much notice -- times have changed. Zen Master 17:35, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Apologies to Netoholic for accidently removing his comment. No apologies for being forced to do the rollback because he decided to edit the heading. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:28, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The poll won't accomplish anything. Eric514 asked about people talking -- Eric, we do have something already set up for such situations. I suggest that the editors most involved in acrimony over this article considermediation. (I don't know whether the Mediation Committee would consider the entire dispute to be subsumed under the pending Request for Arbitration.) JamesMLane 07:26, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Request for Information

Does anyone know where I can find any of the following?

1. list of counties where op-scan (or any other diebold machine) is used in Florida and Ohio
2. list of counties with democrat and republican registrations in Florida and Ohio (similar to Keith Olbermann's comparison)
   • you an get this from my overelaborate and data-packed ohio excel file. Kevin Baas | talk 22:54, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)
3. list of counties with no e-voting whatsoever
   • These, you can find on the EIRS site [4],[5], and other sources as well. -- RyanFreisling @ 22:55, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
4. examples of Kerry getting extra votes upon E-voting machine error in swing states
   • you can find this on the (EIRS), under machine problems. I know that there are a lot of these in cuyahoga, ohio, and in florida: miami-dade, broward, and palm beach. Kevin Baas | talk 22:54, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)
5. finally, untampered initial exit polling.
   • Many examples are cited under the graphs on the main page. Others exist as well (examine the sources on those graphics). I can find the exact link, but a number of the sources contain that exit poll data, in raw tabular form. -- RyanFreisling @ 22:55, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I tried going on Florida's official election page but I can't get party registration numbers per county, only total votes for each candidate per county.

One more thing, I plead with the editors here if we can add sections to this talk page at least like "Proposed new passages" and "Discussion of current passages" if we are to ever take this NPOV tag off, which cannot be explained except to general POV in the page. Please let us organize and break down the page's controversial passages so we can remove all the tags at the top as soon as possible. --kizzle 22:34, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

We're all editors. I think that's a great idea! -- RyanFreisling @ 22:55, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Editing and corrections

Intro Redux

Rhodite, made POV corrections. -- RyanFreisling @ 22:04, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

OK, I realize I didn't participate in the JamesMLane vs. Zen debate but I want to express that James' version is many times better than the previous one. We should fix any POV issues (I agree that "critics" is POV in this case) but keep the version. Rhobite 22:44, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

In the discussion on User talk:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead, Zen Master and I have been moving toward a consensus (well, an agreement between the two of us, anyway) to deal with the problem by splitting the article. Zen Master's biggest concern with my wording for the lead section was that he didn't like the comparatively short shrift it gave to the exit poll data and other components of the mathematical analysis. He sees the mathematical analysis as being the essence of the article. For my part, one of my problems with the current article is that the explosion of all these calculations and numerical averages and charts and graphs and whatnot makes it hard to do a good presentation of the other election issues. There's simply too much stuff here. What I would like to see is two separate articles. I think the split will resolve a lot of the problems about how to begin it. Introducing each article's content will be easier when that content is better defined. JamesMLane 00:30, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

News Updates

(dormant / move news items to new article?)

• Machine problems lead to recount in Franklin county[6]

POV Edits

Anon User '66.30.181.242' has just performed edits that are POV. Modifiers like 'few', 'some', etc. are inappropriate.

The other edit, changing the quote about diebold from a direct quote to hearsay, is factually untrue. Link provided. Thoughts?

Note: I took "It should be noted however that these same counties historically have voted for the Republican presidential nominee" out of the Issues section, as it has no factual corroboration in the piece. Anyone have any data so we can put that back in? If it's a fact, it's important. -- RyanFreisling @ 03:27, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

From what I've read, the history of election fraud in Florida goes way back. There's no shortage of court decisions that were re-runs of prior court decisions. Thus, even if what was said is true, that doesn't actually mean that that percentage voted republican in prior elections, and doesn't in anyway obviate or diminish the probability of fraud. Kevin Baas | talk 06:11, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

reorganization (of talk page)

if everyone is ok with the new format above, i'm going to begin deleting duplicate sections that got moved upwards (will not delete info that isn't up there already)... this should help out tremendously instead of having to scroll the entire page just to understand what is going on, and should help prevent good discussions from being buried in the talk page. --kizzle 20:38, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Deletion of comments would make me nervous. Does your phrase "deleting duplicate sections" mean that duplicative section headings would be deleted, and the comments now posted there would be copies under the heading that's left on the page? If so, I have no objection. JamesMLane 20:44, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

) ... Any comment that I would remove has already been duplicated above, thus no information will be removed from this page. --kizzle 20:46, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Also, in the process of transistion, if anyone sees any information that needs to stay but is not in the top 5 categories, please place it accordingly, and any info which is not needed on this page anymore to please archive, I didn't want to step on any toes... I think the goal should be to archive all dormant topics in the next few days and add the active ones to the appropriate section in the top headers so that this page consists of 5 main categories + 4-5 additional misc. topics max to reduce clutter.--kizzle 20:53, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Going to archive all info past 5th category on thurs. night, so please insert needed info where appropriate or just speak here if conversation needs to be kept.--kizzle 05:24, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

---

It is suggested that:

• There were no Diebold machines in Ohio, and that all Ohio machines had paper trails.
• Some Democratic counties in Florida voting for Bush could have a long record of supporting Republican Presidential candidates.
• Exit polls have been inaccurate in past election cycles, and that it is alleged NEP advised news orgs at 5pm on election day that it thought its polls were skewing toward Kerry (Note - it's not clear the basis of this other than their exit polls were not agreeing with official data).
• Cuyahoga County overvotes were more to do with how they count registered voters at the county lines, and are consistent with past elections.

Can someone verify these and if so add them into the article, in appropriate places. FT2 21:41, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

---

Moving/exporting background references

In addition the article is getting too long, and much of it is just "backing reference information". Whilst this information is necessary for now, since there are multiple perceptions and uncertainty regarding much of the detailed information needed to review this controversy, and what information is sourced and verified versus rumour, I am concerned that the sheer volume is detracting from an encyclopaedic approach. I'd like to suggest with the archiving of much of the talk page, and the end of the VfD issue, that collaborators give serious consideration to siphoning a lot of the backing information into a separate article, "2004 U.S. presidential election controversy (summary of sources)".

Stuff that could go in there = most of everything that is "source material re-repesented" as opposed to "encyclopediac summary of the issues and information known at this time".

The main article would then reference this sources article for much of its substantiation and detail.

Comments? FT2 17:54, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

agree, we can move the text of the citations,to shorten the length. We may also want to move the news sources, etc. The certification stuff is great, but also a bit deep for the article. Likewise I think the discrepancy stuff can be cited, and the remainder cleaned and scrubbed, and 'exported' . We may see that some of the subsections translate nicely into subsections. Thoughts? -- RyanFreisling @ 22:13, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I could do a good cleanuup job on it that way, and make the main article really work without losing citations and quotes. But I'd want at least something of a consensus to do so, not just 1 or 2 voices, and I'd want to check with others as well. FT2 01:12, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

---

Each Quoted Analysis Paragraph Should Have One+ Citation Link

Someone seems to have quoted large blocks of independent analysis into the article, that is ok with me but we need to be clear to the reader NPOV wise when there are headers like "Conclusion" in the article, those are not wikipedia's conclusions but are conclusions of the third party research. A header titled "Conclusion" should not be thought of as a wikipedia header in this case, it should be treated the same as the rest of quoted third party analysis text. Also, I propose that we have at least one citation link per quoted analysis paragraph so it's further clear that this is not a wikipedia conclusion, citations can be repeated. What do people think? Zen Master 22:01, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. Any areas that you can think of which we should target for review/scrub? -- RyanFreisling @ 22:09, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I consider this part of the above. With sources cited cleanly elsewhere, we can then summarise neutrally the issues, without having to quote opinions as if we are agreeing. Again the above will fix it.FT2 01:21, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Disputed tags

Netaholic is putting 'disputed' tags in sections. Do they refer to the entire section, including the discussion of all relevant studies? It is unclear and seems instead a distraction from the text. The placement of that tag there is less informative than informing the article with the details of the dispute. Thoughts? -- RyanFreisling @ 23:20, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In addition, he has marked the article 'Totally disputed'. -- RyanFreisling @ 23:23, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That is correct. Those specific sections still present information which is still contended to be unverifiable. The issues with those are documented on this talk page already. -- Netoholic @ 23:45, 2004 Nov 17 (UTC)

Ryan has a good point, we can and should just say in sentence form exactly what is "disputed" without using disputed tags. Zen Master 23:51, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I request that Netoholic place the reasons why he thinks statements are disputed here. - Ta bu shi da yu 00:36, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

#Dubious sources. -- Netoholic @ 00:47, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

Sorry, you have to do better than that, Netoholic. This is for 2 reasons:

1. ALL the policies clearly say that dubious sources can be accomodated fairly if they are cited along with information about them.
2. Most of the facts in the article are not disputed, so far as i can see.

Either way it is a misrepresentation to state "the article" is "factually incorrect". You need to let others put a more accurate tag on it, and not revert. And you need to read the quotes you claim exist and check them out with a sysop. Do you understand? FT2 01:18, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

The factual basis of more than a few sections is highly dubious, so long as the analysis is based on a dubious source and/or the original work of User:Kevin baas. -- Netoholic @ 01:30, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

Detailed NC election result irregularities analysis

Just ran across this, we should add some of it to the page somehow, sorry it's so big: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=45003&mesg_id=45003

(full text removed. Copyright status indicates this should not be copied here verbatim)

Netoholic, you must take great pleasure in messing with what other people post, and frankly in total your behavior is unacceptable by a member of the wikipedia community even though this specific incident isn't that big of a deal. Someone publically requesting comment and dissemination of their public research can not possibly be a copyvio, and I suspect the threshold for copyvio's on talk pages is much much much higher. Do you even have a partial understanding of copyright law? What about wikipedia's guidelines you love to errantly refer to? You are by far the most trollish user I've seen in my admittedly relatively short time here on wikipedia (this is not an insult, if you disagree then by all means request arbitration, I dare you).

I would appreciate it if in the future you would post your issues first and wait for responses, rather than acting unilaterally, especially in regard to other user's posts on talk pages. I would likely have removed the content myself if you asked nicely, I won't add the content back for now only because it is huge (if that was your real reason for removing it then you should have stated that reason from the beginning, in fact, you should always give your real reason for doing whatever you are doing [and you need more verbose, accurate checkin comments] rather than hide, as you do, behind obviously false accusations of wikipedia guideline violation). Zen Master 00:23, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Long Lines

I have this image:

from the Associated Press, published 2 November in an article on 'The Louisville Channel' web site. Are there PD objections to using the image, since it was published in mainstream press? File:2004longvoterlines.jpg

Now that I think about it, I believe AP only allows use for personal or non-commercial use, otherwise by permission only. Anyone with any other definitive info if Wikipedia is considered non-commercial for the purposes of AP content? -- RyanFreisling @ 20:16, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm not one of the copyright mavens, but my understanding is that a "non-commercial" license isn't good enough. Wikipedia itself isn't commercial but all its contents must be available under the GFDL. That means that someone who wanted to could print it all out and sell it as a book. If AP would balk at that, we can't use the photo unless it's fair use, an issue to be strenuously avoided IMO. In real life, of course, no one will try to sell a book of this stuff. There are, however, online mirror sites that use Wikipedia's content for commercial purposes. JamesMLane 21:12, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia does allow non-GFDL material to be included. (How else would one responsibly present various POV expressed more recently than 1924?) However in the case of images, their copyright status must be documented -- in this case, it should be noted that this imsage is used under fair use, and that people interested in re-use should consult the creator for permission. -- llywrch 17:18, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If permission is explicitly required for reuse, fair use is not a legal resort (otherwise, non-commercial-use-only images wouldn't have been banned). Johnleemk | Talk 17:29, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

John, I am not aware of the restriction you mention. I took a look at Wikipedia:Copyrights, & it fails to mention that restriciton either -- although it does mention our preference for libre images over encumbered ones. My point of consulting the original creator in this -- or any -- case was intended simply as a courtesy to that person. If that step alone would otherwise fobid the inclusion of an image in Wikipedia, then I guess we must needs be discourteous. -- llywrch 17:57, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copyright problems. Apparently fair use is permissible, though, so my original point is moot. Johnleemk | Talk 18:20, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Incorporating a copyrighted image under "fair use" rationale is considered to be problematic because that doctrine from U.S. law doesn't apply everywhere. As a practical matter, we can get away with a certain amount of infringement while we're just online, but every time we do that, we add to the obstacles facing an eventual expansion to other media. (See User:Jimbo Wales/Pushing To 1.0 for discussion of expansion ideas.) Furthermore, even under U.S. law, whether something actually is "fair use" is often not clear-cut. I think that one factor is how much of the original work is being used. In this instance an entire photograph is being used. Finally, as to this particular image, I don't know if it's very enlightening. There are reports of people waiting several hours to vote. Readers will have seen long lines before and can readily envision a couple dozen people standing along a sidewalk. If someone got up on top of a building and took a photo of a line looping once around the polling place and then stretching as far as one could see down the street, that might be a useful addition. JamesMLane 18:27, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This photo displays a line of people down the block, outside a polling place. I think it does adequately display a long line on Election day. Longer line? Aerial view? Those seem to be matters of degree. Folks? -- RyanFreisling @ 20:51, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by the meaning of the term "effectively disenfranchised." What does this signify? How does one go about "effectively disenfranchising" voters? Long lines are a problem but as I understand it most states require polling places to stay open until all voters who were in line at the closing time, have voted. The word "effectively" implies equivalence, something that we don't have here. Rhobite 20:48, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

It is also hypothesized that long lines at urban polling places would negatively effect turnout for Kerry voters. Kevin implied that this is an irrefutable logical proof and deleted the word "hypothesized," but there are a few hidden premises in that argument. This is someone's opinion, and it shouldn't be presented as fact. Rhobite 20:52, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

What is the maximum gain (among the blue state according to this map) of exit poll discrepancy in kerry's favor? Are there pre election day polls that agree or disagree with blue state (according to this map) discrepancies? What are the odds of all the irregularity being for kerry? Zen Master 22:57, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

max. kerry gain (kerry higher in vote than poll): kerry, 2.31% max. bush:vermount, 5.07% Kevin Baas | talk 23:09, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

Also you can grab the excel file and look at it yourself. (if you do, could you double check the vote-count?) Kevin Baas | talk 23:11, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

- *it is more likely that more people left the line throughout the day than were in the line when the polls close. lower voter turnout numbers correlate with counties with a higher rate of machine shortages and long lines. + - *a implies b implies c (not "is hypothesized") see logic. Kevin Baas | talk 22:56, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

"see logic," how snide. Kevin, your cocktail-napkin reasoning and shoddy Excel work are not a substitute for real research. You have no idea whether long lines caused Democrats and Republicans to leave in equal numbers. You don't know what was going through voters' heads, you don't know how many people left, and you don't know what their party affiliation was. Rhobite 23:01, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

All but the last you said is correct, and i am not making any assumptions but the last: if you would stop deleting high population=high democratic-republican ratio, high population + machine shortage = long lines, therefore, highly democratic long lines. Logic, yes. I'm sorry for being so snide. I'm expecting you to try to argue against this, which is, in my personal "opinion", yes (separate from the logic and the empirical facts), quite ridiculous. Kevin Baas | talk 23:05, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

First off, a higher proportion of registered Republicans vote than Democrats. Second, more Democrats cross party lines than vice versa. Third, you're assuming that the same percentage of Democrats and Republicans left long lines. It could be the case that one group or the other was more motivated to vote. And there is no way to tell how many intended voters left. Any one of these observations is enough to show that it is not logically proven that long lines affected the Kerry vote negatively. I accept your apology. Rhobite 23:13, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Now you're "hypothesizing" and throwing out irrelevant, ambiguous, and unsubstantiated statements. It doesn't appear like this a discussion is going anywhere. Kevin Baas | talk 23:47, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

Please help me understand, why were a number of new content and source just deleted by Rhobite in the main page? -- RyanFreisling

Dixiecrat

I made a correction. The 'dixiecrat' phenomenon is not part of the Caltech study. It is a valid issue, and belongs in the document, but not in that section. -- RyanFreisling @ 11:07, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Added it to the Intro Section -- RyanFreisling @ 11:35, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

new fraud map ready

(deleted for brevity: outdated)

Detailed NC election result irregularities analysis

Just ran across this, we should add some of it to the page somehow, sorry it's so big: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=45003&mesg_id=45003

(full text removed. Copyright status indicates this should not be copied here verbatim)

Netoholic, you must take great pleasure in messing with what other people post, and frankly in total your behavior is unacceptable by a member of the wikipedia community even though this specific incident isn't that big of a deal. Someone publically requesting comment and dissemination of their public research can not possibly be a copyvio, and I suspect the threshold for copyvio's on talk pages is much much much higher. Do you even have a partial understanding of copyright law? What about wikipedia's guidelines you love to errantly refer to? You are by far the most trollish user I've seen in my admittedly relatively short time here on wikipedia (this is not an insult, if you disagree then by all means request arbitration, I dare you).

I would appreciate it if in the future you would post your issues first and wait for responses, rather than acting unilaterally, especially in regard to other user's posts on talk pages. I would likely have removed the content myself if you asked nicely, I won't add the content back for now only because it is huge (if that was your real reason for removing it then you should have stated that reason from the beginning, in fact, you should always give your real reason for doing whatever you are doing [and you need more verbose, accurate checkin comments] rather than hide, as you do, behind obviously false accusations of wikipedia guideline violation). Zen Master 00:23, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Talk about correlation!

Machine shortages in precincts with democratic voters, charts: [7] Kevin Baas | talk 20:52, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)

More details on Volusia County fiasco

'Stinking Evidence' of Possible Election Fraud Found in Florida by Thom Hartmann noosphere 22:33, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)

1. The page should be maintained as one for the time-being

1. kizzle 22:44, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)
2. Schnee 22:52, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
3. Zen Master 23:03, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
4. If the article gets too long, daughter articles are a better solution than sub-pages. JamesMLane 22:16, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
5. Well, it shouldn't be expanded, that's for sure. Oh, and merge the Ohio and Florida info back here, greatly reducing and summarizing as needed. -- Netoholic @ 18:35, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)
   • FWIW, I've refrained from "reducing and summarizing" your vote, and if someone did reduce and summarize your vote, not only would I refrain from reducing and summarizing information about such an event, I'd refrain from letting others do so. I guess that's the difference between you and me: you wouldn't do the same thing for me that I would do for not only you, but people that I don't even know, and against even the most violent opposition. Kevin Baas | talk 18:45, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

2. The page should have separate pages that go in-depth about certain states (such as 2004_U.S._Election_voting_controversies,_Florida & 2004_U.S._Election_voting_controversies,_Ohio)

1. Kevin Baas | talk 22:53, 2004 Nov 10 (UTC)
2. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] 22:54, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

3. An article should be created to deal specifically with electronic voting machine issues related to the 2004 election.

Yes. (title)?

1. Kevin Baas | talk 18:20, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC) "2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, voting machines"

No.

1. This topic is not deserving of expansion beyond its present page on our encyclopedia. -- Netoholic @ 18:35, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

4. An article should be created to deal specifically with exit poll issues related to the 2004 election.

Yes. (title)?

1. Kevin Baas | talk 18:20, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC) "2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, exit polls"

No.

1. This topic is not deserving of expansion beyond its present page on our encyclopedia. -- Netoholic @ 18:35, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

5. An article should be created to deal specifically with vote suppression issues related to the 2004 election.

Yes. (title)?

1. Kevin Baas | talk 18:20, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC) "2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, vote suppression"

No.

1. This topic is not deserving of expansion beyond its present page on our encyclopedia. -- Netoholic @ 18:35, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

6. An article should be created to deal specifically with investigations, recounts, and official positions related to the 2004 election.

Yes. (title)?

No.

1. Kevin Baas | talk 18:20, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)
2. This topic is not deserving of expansion beyond its present page on our encyclopedia. -- Netoholic @ 18:35, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

KB, I think we should have a discussion of what main categories this page should be broken up into before we vote on each one... I'm interested in some of your proposals but I think we should draft a complete organizational breakup instead. --kizzle 12:35, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)

Kizzle, discuss, but vote. There is an urgency here. This page is disastrously long, and people are not putting a lot of information in it because of that. I.e. the length of this article is impeding, if not altogether limiting progress. Kevin Baas | talk 17:58, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)

I agree that there's an urgency. Accordingly, I've created the summary article that I suggested several days ago. It's at 2004 U.S. election voting controversies. See my more detailed comments below, under the heading "New summary article".

One purpose of the new article is to provide a better framework for the whole issue. Instead of a poll and voting here, people who want to put in the time to create any of the specific daughter articles suggested above, or others along those lines, can describe a specific proposal here. If enough editors are interested (one may be enough) then the article can be created. Such specific articles can be linked to from the summary article. (Down the road, some of them might be consolidated.)

The big organizational problem is still the huge mass of information about EVM's and exit polls. One possibility that occurs to me is: Link from the summary article to an article about EVM issues in 2004; that article would link to electronic voting, which is where general material would be placed (e.g. concerns about secret software); the article about EVM issues in 2004 would also describe, in summary fashion, the argument being made based on exit polls, with highlights from the opposing academic papers; further detail about exit poll comparisons would be in a separate article, linked to from the one about EVM issues in 2004. The idea is that most readers won't want this level of detail about the statistical analysis of the exit polls and the final results. Therefore, that material shouldn't be in the first or even the second article that a reader encounters in investigating the issue. The interested readers will get to the detailed analysis through a couple of hyperlinks. JamesMLane 20:11, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Screw it, I created them. They are huge articles, which just shows how unweildly this page is. James, I noticed you don't have a section on long lines. It is actually a major issue. People don't realize the scale and precision of it. Take a look at these graphs: [8] and do some mathematical reasoning. What does it mean that "most machines were operating at their full rate"? What is the ratio of registered voters per machine to this "full rate"? Franklin county is not the most serious problem. Cuyahoga county, the most populous county, has a much higher rate per person of reported long line incidents, and voter turnout there was much lower than expected. Although a precinct-level analysis hasn't been done in regards voting machines, this precinct-level analysis has been done, and supports the same conclusion. This looks like it's in the 100k range - enough to swing the election. Kevin Baas | talk 21:11, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)

Long lines are covered in the "Practical impediments" section. Long lines would be the main such impediment but there are a few lesser issues that seemed to fit there (organizationally) better than anywhere else. For example, Republicans in Philadelphia tried to change several dozen polling places very shortly before the election. Someone who shows up to vote at a longtime polling place, only to be told to go somewhere else, might not have time to make the additional trip, so this can have the same practical effect as long lines. Another example is the allegation by someone in Florida that the police had set up roadblocks for no other purpose than to make it harder for disfavored voters to get to the polls. JamesMLane 21:30, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Radiastro's Merge Proposal

Significant portions of this article relate directly only to electronic voting and should be moved there. This would significantly reduce the size of this page, and allow the information pertaining directly to the 2004 Election controversies be covered here. Much of the background research provided here does not belong. In addition, the POV of what remains truly needs to be cleaned up. --Radioastro 22:15, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This is actually a good idea, the detailed sections on voting machines can possibly be moved to the electronic voting article, including most if not all of the expert testimony. Though many of the issues do relate to non electronic voting machines. Criticisms of Diebold and brief mentions of the potential for fraud from lack of paper trail or auditability etc are relevant and should be left in this article. Zen Master 23:32, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What do others think?

Then what would happen after 2006 or 2008? The article on electronic voting couldn't accommodate this level of detail about every election. It should be a general overview of the subject. It can refer to disputes in particular places in particular years, but only in summary fashion to illustrate a point. The better solution would be to move a lot of this detail to a new article along the lines of 2004 U.S. election electronic voting controversies. The current article would cover other kinds of voting controversies, and would include a summary of the EVM issues, with of course a link to the new article. JamesMLane 02:42, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There must have been some confusion, that is not what I meant, anything specific to a particular election would not be appropriate in the electronic voting article, I agree. Just the "expert testimony" and the specific criticisms of electrionic voting machine companies and technology sections could be mostly moved there, nothing more than that. Zen Master 17:37, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Not being a regular wiki author I don't want to presume to make any proposals, but just food for thought: another thing to consider splitting is the general interest topics of exit polls -- their history, the math and techniques used and how they have changed over time here in U.S. and abroad.

We have a general article (not keyed specifically to the 2004 election) at Exit poll. Go ahead and add to it. You don't need to be "a regular wiki author" -- just write what you know or are willing to learn about. JamesMLane 21:10, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Proposal to Split (see polls)

James proposed that we split the article into 2, one for data irregularities, one for all other election controversies, what do people think and exactly where should the dividing line be? I guess almost all of the voting machine info should stay in the irregularities article as it's related, but maybe not. There may be some overlap between the articles. Zen Master 05:49, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I definitely agree, and I think the voting machine info should go in the other one, with only data irregularities in its own article. (Of course, that article itself should only have previously-published data irregularities, not primary research.) --Delirium 07:30, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

I was assuming that the voting machine stuff would stay here, with a summary and wikilink in the new article. The point about the data irregularities is that they support a hypothesis of machine malfunction or tampering, isn't it?

Not much would be moved -- a couple of the items in the "Examples of issues" list, which, we hope, would then get amplified. I envision a less mathematical treatment of issues of long lines and discriminatory challenges, so maybe those subjects could be addressed in each article but in a different way. The main overlap would probably be in duplicating (as opposed to moving) some of the information about responses and actions. For example, Nader's request for a recount in New Hampshire might belong in both articles.

I wouldn't move any of the "In the news" section. Particular events that relate to issues other than machines can more readily be covered in context (that is, discuss all the voter registration events in the registration section). For an article that will cover multiple subjects, a day-by-day chronology of the development of the disputes isn't the right way to go, in my opinion. This is an encyclopedia article, not a newsfeed. I would also like to be very cautious about collecting external links. Trying to link to every group that's working on absentee ballots plus every group that's working on racial discrimination plus every group working on every other issue isn't practical.

In fact, as I look at this article now, I'm surprised to find that the split I have in mind won't affect it as much as I'd thought. I'm guessing that other editors have experienced what I did -- that the extensive mathematical analysis of exit polls, etc. had the practical (though unintended) effect of discouraging the additon of things like the Democratic voter registration forms in Nevada that were thrown out, or the military personnel who were supposed to cast absentee votes by fax or email, losing their secrecy. The result is that most of what should be in the new article hasn't been written yet.

And in the new article, all headings will be sentence case! JamesMLane 07:55, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I added the current New Mexico incident (a single rural county has missed the provisional ballot count deadline). I could not find evidence of it occurring before. Do others agree that validates the situation as a noteworthy Election irregularity of public record? Thanks. -- RyanFreisling @ 08:51, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Frankly, it seems pretty low-level. They're slow at counting. There's no reason to suspect something dastardly going on (no reporters excluded from the premises or anything like that). There's no reason to suspect that this particular glitch might result in undercounting any group, or in any inaccuracy in the final count, or in a benefit to any candidate. You're right that they've missed a deadline. My inclination, though, is that a mere missed deadline with no credible tie to any wider implications is below the threshold of significance for inclusion. JamesMLane 10:01, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

We need to split part of page to new article "Criticisms of electronic voting machines"

The article is getting too big, too redundant and the organization unwieldy, I propose we create a new wikipedia article to the effect of "Criticisms of voting machines" or "Criticisms of Diebold voting machines" or "Criticisms of electonic voting machines" or all of the above. With the titles to be decided by whoever actually creates those pages. Note: those articles would be general/historical criticisms and not cover the 2004 election, that stuff would still belong in this article. Zen Master 23:13, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

General material about electronic voting machines could go to the existing electronic voting. That would leave behind anything about non-electronic voting machines, but that's not a problem. What's making the article unwieldy is the huge amount of information that relates specifically to electronic voting machines in the 2004 election. I think that's what should be spun off to a daughter article. JamesMLane 23:29, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

the direction of this page

(dormant? related to split/edit discussion?)

we have successfully added 175KB in 3 days to a talk page, which is 7 times the guideline max for an article itself... this discussion is getting us nowhere, as any valid discussion is within minutes buried by new additions. we now have what looks like at least 20 active editors working on this page. Obviously the proposal for organization which I made wasn't taken too seriously, but some level of organization needs to be applied to this page, there are simply too many cooks in the kitchen for us to keep posting randomly in the manner we have been doing, IMHO. --kizzle 03:29, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

Direction? There isn't. This page has turned into a blog, not an article. Attempts to add counter-arguments which say this "panic" is unfounded are removed. This article is still as it was two days ago - a collection of links, and a few pretty graphs. Wikipedia's credibility is being injured by this article. I would feel so much better if Zen-master, Kevin bass, or FT2 showed any indication that they are willing to also include the opposite view, and give it equal consideration. No, strike that, the viewpoint that there is no over-riding controversy should be given more space in the article, since mainstream sources hold that view, and partisan websites and blogs seem to be the only ones holding the conspiracy theory.

As a community, I think we have a responsibility to balance all views. If Zen-master, Kevin bass, or FT2 don't want to write sections which put this information in perspective, then they should at least give the article a break and let some other editors get in there. I would propose that we pick one day, and for 24 hours ask those editors to take a break from the article. If, as they say, the information stands on its own, then the article will too without their ever-presence. -- Netoholic @ 07:22, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

I don't see anyone keeping valid NPOV information from being entered into the page, except those who are doing blanket wipes, etc... but there are multiple examples of varying controversies and irregularities in the election, from miscounts to missing votes, from the delays in New Mexico (counting continues, though a Bush win is considered a 'lock', etc. to the 6 Congressmen who have petitioned the GAO to investigate, to the 35000+ name petition imploring Congress to do so, to the multiple domestic and internationally-funded observation (with differing conclusions) into the integrity of the election. Netoholic, this again is spurious, and a rehash. What percent of their effort could have been put into updating the page - not into this discourse - where we could be constructing a better page in NPOV together? --RyanFreisling 07:34, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Netholic's efforts notwithstanding, the increasing (not decreasing) number of reputable reports, under ruthless NPOV application, will continue to better inform this document. What is your next approach to stifle this process? --RyanFreisling 07:34, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Responding to Netoholic: Please point out where i have violated NPOV with my contributions to the page, my edits always tend toward POV clean up. Please stop inventing non-issues just because your POV tells u the page "is all wrong". You assume I think and act like you but that is false. Zen Master 07:28, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Zen - These edits show insertion of your POV, or removal of other's information which tries to describe the opposite view. -- [9] [10] [11] [12]. Trust me, on the article, FT2 and Kevin bass do this a lot more. Your problem is a general misunderstanding of how Wikipedia works, and tendency toward knee-jerk reverts with no explanation nor consideration that others hold opposite views. -- Netoholic @ 07:52, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

• First link: me removing "highly unlikely" POV text, it definitely needed clean up, if you honestly believe some of that should have remained we can debate it here or in new talk section
• Second link: a completely justified edit, maybe you didn't notice no information was lost? Everyone approves of the new organization. Please explain your issues with this edit.
• Third link: added balance of POV between exit polling company and critics. certainly better and more informational than what was there previously. explain your problem with it.
• Fourth link: you are defending text that emphasized "conspiracy nuts"? The change I made there corresponds to the format in that section. please explain.

If you ever disagree with my edits feel free to discuss them on talk pages or chat, i never claimed i was perfect, just that I believe in NPOV. You seem to believe you are justified in doing anything and everything detrimental to a page when you are convinced it violates NPOV or you disagere with its POV (talk page exists for exactly that reason). At some point can we go over your multiple deletion without comment attempts and unilateral actions? Zen Master 08:04, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This page has indeed turned into a blog and in my eyes, as a new visitor, damages the credibility of Wikipedia as a whole. This is not an encyclopedia article.

What I actually meant was this talk page, there needs to be some organization to it, as the information being added/debated is tremendous. We don't need to use the templates, but we need to separate this talk page into "proposed passages" "current passages" and "other", or something like that, and make sure we quote verbatim the place that needs discussion, cause keeping up with the talk on this page is highly time-intensive. --kizzle 09:16, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

Mathematical facts and weighting

Kevin:

Let's say we are weighting the exit poll data based on the actual vote counts (by the way, the allegation that this happens has not been sourced). But let's assume. When you weight a variable, you assign it an importance. This importance is arbitrary - it is up to the user of the data to assign weights to variables. Let's assume the exit poll data in this article are correct:

• Early result - Bush: 941 (0.4794)
• Early result - Kerry: 1022 (0.5206)

Now, let's take the actual Ohio results, according to Wikipedia, dropping third party candidates:

• Bush: 2,796,147 (0.5125)
• Kerry: 2,659,664 (0.4875)

We have our data, and we can "weight" the exit poll results. Please keep in mind these are all "mathematical facts," as you put it.

Let's place a 10% weight on the actual vote results. We can calculate a "corrected" exit poll percentage like so: Corrected = (W * ActualVote) + ((1 - W) * ExitPoll). For a 10% weight on Kerry's results: (.1 * .4875) + (.9 * .5206) = .5173, or 51.73%. Obviously this doesn't support your assertion that weighted results "matched the actual vote count" or "supported the conclusion." Similarly, a weighting of .25 or even .5 is still not enough to push Kerry's exit poll result below 50%. For your statement to be true, they would need to place more importance on the polling result than the actual exit poll, in order to come up with their published exit poll number. The only way for the results to match "perfectly," as you say, is to throw out the exit poll results and simply use the actual vote.

Also, in the article, please back up your statement about how they weighted the results. Rhobite 23:37, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

Your mathematics are correct, and so are your conclusions.

If I do recall correctly, I think I put a citation or two in the article somewhere. Here's a great source for information on exit polling: [13]

Here's a source corroborating what I said:[14] "...the weighting of exit polls to match actual results is not new, but a standard procedure used since the early days of exit polls. Second, the weighting to actual returns does not occur all at once but continuously, precinct by precinct, over the course of election night. The exit pollsters weight their sample to match incoming actual results for each sampled precinct as actual returns become available..."'' Kevin Baas | talk 19:34, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

Question on maps of electronic voting machine incidents reported to the EIRS

(dormant?) The map of the Ohio counties showing colors to indicate "electronic voting machine incidents reported to the EIRS" has Cuyahoga County, OH colored Orange. Cuyahoga County, OH used a punch card system, not electronic voting machines. Copies of the ballots for all districts are available in .pdf format from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website. http://www.cuyahoga.oh.us/BOE/ballots/ballots.htm

Correct, but an addition fwiw - Cuyahoga County uses Optical-Scan technology for absentee and provisional ballots. http://verifiedvoting.org RyanFreisling @ 08:35, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, as I've also pointed out elsewhere, the issue is not limited to electronic voting machines. We can/should fix that. Zen Master 08:19, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ahhh... Up for deletion... Go figure Cyberia23 08:32, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

(politics, i tell you!) On the EIRS, that map is listed as "Machine problems". Kevin Baas | talk 18:21, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

Manipulation of Exit Poll Data

Once again, Netaholic has deleted it outright, opting for a subtractive approach instead of a dialogue here. I reverted, with corroborating sources. The issue may have an explanation, but the controversial event (change in the data on CNN) took place, and the Internet's resolving/debunking it is an important part of the story. -- RyanFreisling @ 23:05, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This data is in the form of two image files which noone has admitted ownership to, and has not been verified independantly. This is not a rumor mill, it is an encyclopedia of verifiable fact. Use other information, but that section is based on those images, which could have been faked. The "sources" RyanFreisling provided are nothing more than mirrors of the images, and commentary on them. -- Netoholic @ 02:33, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

Other sources have confirmed those numbers are the pre-weighted/non-final exit poll data. The key is that others are arguing the exit poll data weighting is justified, no one, except you, is arguing that data is fake. Zen Master 02:39, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Feel free to quote and summarize those sources, but the exact data presented here is taken from an unverifiable source. -- Netoholic @ 02:41, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

That assertion is not true. The sources are not mirrors, they are different images captured of the source data, reflecting the same time period. Multiple official sources of the poll data are cited amongst those sources and repeated here. The authors are known. That constitutes corroboration to the extent that this page is not an appeal to overturn the results, but explain the current status of inquiry into irregularities. Taking the next step and creating graphs, etc. based on that data would likely constitute original research. -- RyanFreisling @ 02:54, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Those sources in effect say "I can't vouch for them, but based on the screenshots, I conclude..." - No way. Find me two independent sources that prove ownership of those screenshots, or any statement from CNN about their website screw-up, and I will drop this. -- Netoholic @ 18:40, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

Here again, we will point out your cognitive gap. Those screenshots are not official CNN screenshots, of course. Because the controversy surrounds why CNN changed their data, and the difference that change made in the course of the elections. The screenshots are not original content, they are from current sources discussing this controversy in detail. Do they belong in the article? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on the NPOV description of this controversial aspect of the election. Does what happened, and the controversy surrounding it, not warrant inclusion or discussion?Are you suggesting that the event did not, in fact, take place? Either way, put your caveats or corresponding information in the article, in an informative way. These back-channel debates of yours are often maddeningly circular. -- RyanFreisling @ 20:02, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Four map image - machine problems, misleading

In the image in the voting machine problems section with 2 maps of Florida & 2 of Ohio, the yellow counties in the Ohio map only have 1 incident reported a piece, and they are either really really petty, or aren't actually machine problems. I think it's misleading. I'm tempted to make a new image w/those counties grey instead of yellow. What do people think about this?

--I think the whole image needs to be removed all together. There is absolutely no reason for pointing out that such counties are traditionally Democrat other than for suggesting conspiracy theories. First, Democrat counties often times are urban areas, which tend to get electronic voting machines, while sparsely populated rural Republican counties do not. So pointing out at least one electronic voting error happened in a county while also pointing out that county leans Democratic fuels this insinuation. What a proper map should do, is point out which counties had electronic voting, point out which counties reported problems, and mention the severity of these problems.

But that's not what we have. We have a full state county map that does not show which counties have electronic voting, we have Democratic explanations thrown in for insinuation, an explanation that does not explain the severity of the problems, and we don't have any references to back any of this up to begin with!

The image and caption fails in every way of being fair, meaningful, and objective. For that reason, it should be removed or replaced by an updated version that fixes every problem listed.

-- Non-US folk may not know the normal Dem/Rep split of the US, so the map might be useful. CS Miller 17:00, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

On the contrary, the image and caption succeed in every way of being fair, meaningful, and objective. I have per-county data for Ohio pres. elections in 04, 00, 96, &92, for pres. vote, voter turnout, voter registration, number of precincts, etc, straight from the ohio elections office. I also have county-level numbers from the EIRS, all aggregated in a flexible excel file. That's the source of these stats. They don't insinuate. They simply state facts that people would and have been interested in knowing, from both parties and with both hypothesis (cynical vs. naive). The main article explains the severity of the problems. There is no room in the caption. The caption is there to describe the images. The caption gives a textual description of the distributions, whereas the images give a visual description. They complement each other that way. That's what captions are for. Anyways, you haven't answered my question. Kevin Baas | talk 18:57, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

Margin in non-irregularities states?

(dormant?) Minus votes from the 12 or so states with data irregularities how many votes did bush and kerry each receieve? Is there evidence of smaller degree of fraud/irregularity in the other 38 states? Maybe I will perform that calculation myself. Zen Master 22:34, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Actually, what I want to do is for someone/me to create an election results chart per state that assumes the non weighted exit polls were correct (i.e. Kerry has 2% more of FL's vote than bush sp we should adjust the vote totals accordingly for this excersize). What would the final vote counts look like if the exit polls were right? Then we can compare the difference in % support for bush and kerry between the states with data irregularity and the rest (this could be interesting). I.e. it might be suspicious if this unweighted data exit poll result chart showed bush and kerry with the same percentages nationally. I.e perhaps the exit polling data will show Kerry received 52%+ in the 12 or so data irregularity states, and 52%+ everywhere else. It will also be interesting to compare with 2000, 1996 and before. Zen Master 22:50, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

using the 12:22 data for all states (ommiting the 4 no-data states), popular vote is bush:50.43%, kerry: 48.56% Kevin Baas | talk 23:06, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

Remember I have my excel file available. It has per state data from the vote count and three different exit poll sources (taken at different times). 9and if anyone wants the maps i've in vector format (i.e. you can change the colors of the states easily w/the right software), i can give them.) Kevin Baas | talk 19:40, 2004 Nov 14 (UTC)

Intro Redux

Rhodite, made POV corrections. -- RyanFreisling @ 22:04, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

OK, I realize I didn't participate in the JamesMLane vs. Zen debate but I want to express that James' version is many times better than the previous one. We should fix any POV issues (I agree that "critics" is POV in this case) but keep the version. Rhobite 22:44, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

In the discussion on User talk:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead, Zen Master and I have been moving toward a consensus (well, an agreement between the two of us, anyway) to deal with the problem by splitting the article. Zen Master's biggest concern with my wording for the lead section was that he didn't like the comparatively short shrift it gave to the exit poll data and other components of the mathematical analysis. He sees the mathematical analysis as being the essence of the article. For my part, one of my problems with the current article is that the explosion of all these calculations and numerical averages and charts and graphs and whatnot makes it hard to do a good presentation of the other election issues. There's simply too much stuff here. What I would like to see is two separate articles. I think the split will resolve a lot of the problems about how to begin it. Introducing each article's content will be easier when that content is better defined. JamesMLane 00:30, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

News Updates

(dormant / move news items to new article?)

• Machine problems lead to recount in Franklin county[15]

POV Edits

Anon User '66.30.181.242' has just performed edits that are POV. Modifiers like 'few', 'some', etc. are inappropriate.

The other edit, changing the quote about diebold from a direct quote to hearsay, is factually untrue. Link provided. Thoughts?

Note: I took "It should be noted however that these same counties historically have voted for the Republican presidential nominee" out of the Issues section, as it has no factual corroboration in the piece. Anyone have any data so we can put that back in? If it's a fact, it's important. -- RyanFreisling @ 03:27, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

From what I've read, the history of election fraud in Florida goes way back. There's no shortage of court decisions that were re-runs of prior court decisions. Thus, even if what was said is true, that doesn't actually mean that that percentage voted republican in prior elections, and doesn't in anyway obviate or diminish the probability of fraud. Kevin Baas | talk 06:11, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

reorganization (of talk page)

if everyone is ok with the new format above, i'm going to begin deleting duplicate sections that got moved upwards (will not delete info that isn't up there already)... this should help out tremendously instead of having to scroll the entire page just to understand what is going on, and should help prevent good discussions from being buried in the talk page. --kizzle 20:38, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Deletion of comments would make me nervous. Does your phrase "deleting duplicate sections" mean that duplicative section headings would be deleted, and the comments now posted there would be copies under the heading that's left on the page? If so, I have no objection. JamesMLane 20:44, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

) ... Any comment that I would remove has already been duplicated above, thus no information will be removed from this page. --kizzle 20:46, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Also, in the process of transistion, if anyone sees any information that needs to stay but is not in the top 5 categories, please place it accordingly, and any info which is not needed on this page anymore to please archive, I didn't want to step on any toes... I think the goal should be to archive all dormant topics in the next few days and add the active ones to the appropriate section in the top headers so that this page consists of 5 main categories + 4-5 additional misc. topics max to reduce clutter.--kizzle 20:53, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Going to archive all info past 5th category on thurs. night, so please insert needed info where appropriate or just speak here if conversation needs to be kept.--kizzle 05:24, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

---

It is suggested that:

• There were no Diebold machines in Ohio, and that all Ohio machines had paper trails.
• Some Democratic counties in Florida voting for Bush could have a long record of supporting Republican Presidential candidates.
• Exit polls have been inaccurate in past election cycles, and that it is alleged NEP advised news orgs at 5pm on election day that it thought its polls were skewing toward Kerry (Note - it's not clear the basis of this other than their exit polls were not agreeing with official data).
• Cuyahoga County overvotes were more to do with how they count registered voters at the county lines, and are consistent with past elections.

Can someone verify these and if so add them into the article, in appropriate places. FT2 21:41, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

---

Moving/exporting background references

In addition the article is getting too long, and much of it is just "backing reference information". Whilst this information is necessary for now, since there are multiple perceptions and uncertainty regarding much of the detailed information needed to review this controversy, and what information is sourced and verified versus rumour, I am concerned that the sheer volume is detracting from an encyclopaedic approach. I'd like to suggest with the archiving of much of the talk page, and the end of the VfD issue, that collaborators give serious consideration to siphoning a lot of the backing information into a separate article, "2004 U.S. presidential election controversy (summary of sources)".

Stuff that could go in there = most of everything that is "source material re-repesented" as opposed to "encyclopediac summary of the issues and information known at this time".

The main article would then reference this sources article for much of its substantiation and detail.

Comments? FT2 17:54, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

agree, we can move the text of the citations,to shorten the length. We may also want to move the news sources, etc. The certification stuff is great, but also a bit deep for the article. Likewise I think the discrepancy stuff can be cited, and the remainder cleaned and scrubbed, and 'exported' . We may see that some of the subsections translate nicely into subsections. Thoughts? -- RyanFreisling @ 22:13, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I could do a good cleanuup job on it that way, and make the main article really work without losing citations and quotes. But I'd want at least something of a consensus to do so, not just 1 or 2 voices, and I'd want to check with others as well. FT2 01:12, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

I agree that this article is very unsuitable for the reader who wants a quick, summary overview of all the issues and problems that have been raised about the election. It's far too long for that purpose; it gives almost all its emphasis to one aspect. Nevertheless, I agree with the VfD consensus not to delete it, because there should be an article of this type. Why not just leave it as it is? I prefer the solution I suggested earlier, namely, creating a separate article to address the broader issues -- tersely, without 100+ external links, without cataloging every minor glitch anywhere in the country, and without attempting a day-by-day chronology of what's been "In the news" on the subject. Of course, that article would link here for anyone who wants to follow up by reading this level of detail.

The article would use a lead section along the lines of User:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead. I inserted that section here but Zen Master reverted, finding it not a good summary of this article as it is now. I see his point. I like that lead section, though, so maybe the solution is to create the article that it would properly introduce. The new article's organization would largely follow the list of bullet points in the lead section: a section on voter registration issues, a section on purges of lists, a section on voter suppression, etc.

One problem that concerned me was that some editors would just continue the elaboration of detail on a new article, and it would quickly suffer the same problems as this one. Is there any objection to the creation of an article using the referenced draft lead section, that would be ruthlessly pruned to keep it an overview rather than a comprehensive recounting? I had earlier suggested "2004 U.S. election voting controversies" but maybe "2004 U.S. election voting controversies overview" would be a more accurate description, although that's getting a little cumbersome. JamesMLane 06:39, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I second the suggestion to ruthlessly prune this article. IMO, there is no need to extensively quote portions of cited sources. Summaries with a brief quote or two from each significant source should suffice instead of these extened quotations. If readers are interested in the details they could always go to the source itself. noosphere 06:45, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

I also think the article is gigantic. We should make a rule - each quoted paragraph, where-ever possible, should be replaced with a well-crafted sentence. What do you folks think? -- RyanFreisling @ 08:10, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ryan, I don't know if it has to be mechanical like that, but it could serve as a good rule of thumb. Another rule of thumb could be to try to express the essence of the quoted source as economically as possible. If it can be pruned down to a sentence, then great. But if it takes a bit more to express the point the source is trying to convey I think that's fine too. Above all, however, I think we should avoid needlessly quoting paragraph after paragraph from the original source, when a brief summary would do just as well. We should not be afraid to quote when we must, but I think even then we should strive for brevity. noosphere 08:57, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that we ruthlessly prune this article. Some people will want this level of detail. There's no reason not to make it available to them, when we already have it. Besides, some editors would just start adding back in one little bit here, another little bit there (because different people are attached to different items as being worth including), and before you know it we're back where we started.

That's why I suggest pretty much leaving this article alone, to accommodate those readers and those editors. The creation of a separate article will be easier. We won't have to remove anything, just prevent it from getting too big. JamesMLane 08:46, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

James, I think it makes for a better article when it concisely states the central thesis of each of its sources rather than quotes huge blocks of text from the original. Quotes can be beneficial, when used in moderation. But the giant block-quoting in this article is completely out of hand, IMO... it makes for an unreadable article. Again, if the reader wants the detail, he's welcome to go to the sources, which are just a click away. Just my 2c noosphere 08:57, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

I'm not against a summary or overview article, btw, where we "build up" rather than prune. Though I'm new to Wikipedia, so I don't know what its policy on something like that is. Would it be considered too redundant? Though I do kind of like the idea of having an concise central overview article, with mini-articles split off from the main page. That gives a bit better heirarchical structure, and the overview article shouldn't be as overwhelming as the current monstrosity is. noosphere 09:23, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

Well this is basically where I'd got to. There needs to be a main article, which is concise, easy to read, one sentence per point. Thats easy. There also needs to be somewhere people can add the more detailed evidence, because some will want that and with a controversial topic like this it will help avoid allegations of one-sidedness to have a way to point to specific material, not just surce articles. I'd go for one split-off (not many) to list source material and big quotes, and the main article much shorter and kept that way. Why not all in one article? Too much to be a good encyclopedia right now while its all being argued. Why not many articles? Ease of use. Why requote citations at all? Because to understand the implications of many of these things you do need snips, the source articles are long and cumbersome, as the whole field itself is developing as we speak. In a year we may not need the citations, as it will be commonly agreed. But right now we need those snips too, and I'll stand by that strongly. Right now with this whole topic disputed both ways by many people "out there", a quote that shows what (say) some company's internal email said, in the article, or reviews a source's analysis in depth, is far more meaningful than a link I may open or may not. The reality is, theres so many important sources, like it or not we need for now to provide those snips too. Would folks be OK having a 2nd article of "(sources)" that was just the raw snips, used as references in the main article which would then be kept deliberately briefer.

Two examples how I think of it:

• Raw snips = diebold and other manufacturer political or criminal activity.

Summary article - " All of the major manufacturers have strong Republican ties, and are major fundraisers or elected officials for the republicans. Some such as ES&S are partially or wholely owned and controlled by companies or individuals which have a long history of criminal charges for bid rigging and similar offences, and have been banned from several state and military tenders. This has raised concerns in some quarters about the votes of the nation being run on unauditable machines supplied by companies which are strongly tied to one side or the other. Sources [sources article#diebold], [sources article#ES&S], [sources article#Wyle].

• Raw snips - the full analysis of exit polls and the like, source data, reports etc.

Summary article - a few lines on the reason some people want to test exit vs final polls, the issues with exit polling data, and the accuracy of exit polls, and a conclusion.

Like it? FT2 09:34, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

You should note that the overwhelming majority of the details concern one point: the relationship between exit polls and officially reported results for electronic voting machines. My idea was that this article (or some article) should be the repository for that detail on that subject. The more general article that's needed would summarize that issue along with the other issues listed in User:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead. We could consign all supporting detail on all subjects to another article (perhaps this one), but then the specific point about exit polls wouldn't have its own article, and any elaboration of the other points would be somewhat overwhelmed by that one. My concern arises because Zen Master's reversion of my earlier effort was based on his commitment to the exit poll analysis as being the essence of this article. I'm content to let that continue to be the essence of it, as long as the general reader also has available a more conventional encyclopedia article about the controversies. JamesMLane 17:36, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A lot is as you say to do with these differences - but a lot isn't. Some is evidence of security issues from specialists and hearings, some is internal memos of manufacturers knowledge of fraudulent claims, some is industry report summaries, some is political and corporate information relevnat to the matter, some is raw data sources used in maps, or tables, or non-core links, or news references. I think a single split between "summary" and "backing material" could benefit the main article. I'd be minded to title the other article something like "2004 U.S. presidential election controversy/Sources" or "/Supporting material" FT2 21:50, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

The key point is that all of the "other" material you refer is still aspects of one specific issue: reliability of electronic voting machines. My concern is that we need to be able to present all the other issues -- the officials who obstructed people from registering to vote, the military personnel whose right to secrecy in their vote was threatened, etc. There's just such a mass of material about electronic voting machines in this article that it's effectively impossible to do a good job on anything besides EVM's. JamesMLane 23:09, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• nods* yes, I see what you mean now. Do you think that if we offload the backing info, there will be enough room to let that stuff breathe? FT2 03:15, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

I'm dubious. Given the interests of the editors participating here, it's just inevitable that the EVM material will get the attention. Anyway, I don't see anything wrong with having a very detailed article about EVM's, linked to a separate article that gives a broader overview. JamesMLane 04:08, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think we should devise an overview article like JML suggested which then links to the current article broken into chunks. I'm sure we can come up with 3-5 main topics which merit daughter articles in themselves, whether it mirrors the top-level categories of the page itself or some other format. But definetely not shorten or revise the article, in such heavily scrutnized and "dismissed" claims that we have here, the more detail and direct quoting from sourcing the stronger it will hold up to such counter-claims. --kizzle 08:01, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Agree. Have an EVM controversies main article and make the entry shorter, being carefull not to exclude debunks of common "debunks", and soon. How about "2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, voting machines"? Kevin Baas | talk 17:57, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

Each Quoted Analysis Paragraph Should Have One+ Citation Link

Someone seems to have quoted large blocks of independent analysis into the article, that is ok with me but we need to be clear to the reader NPOV wise when there are headers like "Conclusion" in the article, those are not wikipedia's conclusions but are conclusions of the third party research. A header titled "Conclusion" should not be thought of as a wikipedia header in this case, it should be treated the same as the rest of quoted third party analysis text. Also, I propose that we have at least one citation link per quoted analysis paragraph so it's further clear that this is not a wikipedia conclusion, citations can be repeated. What do people think? Zen Master 22:01, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. Any areas that you can think of which we should target for review/scrub? -- RyanFreisling @ 22:09, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I consider this part of the above. With sources cited cleanly elsewhere, we can then summarise neutrally the issues, without having to quote opinions as if we are agreeing. Again the above will fix it.FT2 01:21, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Caltech rebuttal

I removed the following from the exit poll discrepancy section. CalTech/MIT have identified these are no different from normal, challenging this are analyses which contend CalTech/MIT made methodological errors, including comparing not native exit polls, but exit polls adjusted to match the official figures, and it is therefor no surprise that they found no evidence of significant difference. See below for CalTech/MIT's analysis.

I'm not sure of the facts being asserted, so I'm not sure. But at the very least, that sentence needs a restructuring. It's POV, makes characterization and conclusion and is grammatically damaged. Anyone want to take a crack at it, so we can get this on the article page? -- RyanFreisling @ 04:12, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Its not difficult. This is what the two views say, in simple terms:

• Group #1 (Caltech/MIT) study the exit polls versus the final votes, and state they are very close so its all okay.

• Group #2 peer review Group #1's work, and state that they suspect group #1 made a really significant mistake in assumptions, namely the exit poll data Caltech/MIT used was not in fact the genuine appropriate exit poll data for many states. It was exit poll data massaged to agree with final voting. (We already have sources stating that exit polls were massaged to do this, c.f. article). So naturally the two would agree. But it may not prove anything, because their methodology included an error - they had not checked whether they were in fact genuinely comparing what they thought they were.

Hope that explains - reinstate that bit? Or re-word it better? Sorry if it was poorly worded. FT2 04:37, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

By the way, there's been a reply from the CalTech/MIT people (in a private email reported in the comments on the analysis page, of Group #2 as FT2 calls them). To me it sounds like CalTech/MIT people are saying that even when they use the early, unweighted, exit poll data their original conclusions hold (ie. they find "there is no relationship between the type of voting machine used and the size or direction of the discrepancy"). noosphere 09:35, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

Regarding CalTech/MIT report

I've re-read that page (including their email) very carefully. All the CalTech/MIT follow-up email says is "We used the same data as the rest of the public, and we'll update the report when final voting results are in". No comment at all about the appropriateness of exit data used. It says they did some "preliminary" work on the "data that some on the web claim were posted on the cnn web site earlier in the evening", but we know from other sources cited that CNN was already presenting adjusted figures from 1.30 am.

1.30am Nov 3rd? Because "earlier in the evening" sounds like a reference to Nov 2nd. noosphere 05:36, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the CNN data began to be modified well before caltech started grabbing data.n. But as its 6 am now I dont plabn to check ! Can you? FT2 06:00, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

There is also substantial comment that the CalTech report was flawed and (perhaps) politically inclined on various websites:

• [16] "The CNN exit poll data it is based upon were edited post facto which brings them into question. Controversial data at best ... It uses flawed 2000 results that were called into question ... the VTP report is anything but "systematic". It is itself very thin on evidence and reads more like a blog than a carefully written report. The authors chose to disregard exit poll error margins without offering any justification for doing so ... assumes that fraud must be widespread and uniformly random ... hastily thrown together and presents, at best, a straw man debunking of the exit poll worries"
• [17] MIT staff on the VTP project are also connected with a right-wing thinktank that "Forg[e] strong ties between right-wing ideologues, right-wing think tanks and right-wing policy makers; many of its scholars have worked for various Republican Presidential Administrations - Nixon, Ford, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and the current President W. Bush"
• [18] private web page with sourced links to CalTech/MIT work from the 90's, concluding "I thought it odd that the November 11, 2004 Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project (VTP) report entitled 'Voting Machines and the Underestimate of the Bush Vote' would focus so narrowly on justifying the discrepancy between the exit polls and the actual vote without ever mentioning that the openness to fraud of the electronic vote tabulation that they themselves delineated in the July 2001 95 page report from the Caltech/ MIT VTP entitled 'Voting: What Is, What Could Be' ... I began wondering why they stopped acting like a disinterested watchdog and instead began sounding like a shill for the Bush administration in their Nov. 9 report titled 'Voting Machines and the Underestimate of the Bush' [Link] I find it totally baffling that an alleged impartial scientist investigation would end their report with a citation that would be more appropriately used by a political spindoctor."
• The same report goes on to document political ties to "right-wing evangelical Christian and Republican circles" and "the highly secretive far-Right Council for National Policy", to the Urosevich brothers, alleged scientific fraud, and similar.
• The same article comments that "I read this week's Cal-Tech MIT paper. While I have some issues with the specific magnitude of Freeman's odds, and therefore some of his interpretation, The Techs' paper left me looking for the beef. The one set of numbers they had that had any value was their p.3 table of proportion of voting systems by state discussed in the (tantalizing) Blue Lemur chart. That table put some context on that chart that diminished some of its power, imho. But that was all they had. Their other support, scatter plots, were of no interest, and added nothing to either side of the argument. Freeman's paper laid out a lot of data, dissected its own assumptions and asked for peer review. The Techs' schools paper, otoh, seemed like an overloaded tray at an Olde Country Kitchen buffet: overstuffed with random, vapid this-n-that, mostly empty calories."
• It also comments: "It got me thinking about how incredibly sloppy the Cal-Tech MIT paper 'Voting Machines and the Underestimate of the Bush Vote' was for a panel of such esteemed scientists so I went to the Caltech website to look over the report again. The funny thing here is that unlike all the other Caltech/MIT VTP reports I've seen, there are no names cited as authors for either of the two reports there. Isn't that peculiar ..."
• The November 11, 2004 Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project (VTP) report entitled Voting Machines and the Underestimate of the Bush Vote has several very serious flaws:
  • The single academic argument in favor of the voting-results-as-is harkens from the Cal-Tech/MIT Electronic Voting Project.
  • The leaders of both schools' efforts in this consortium are men with strong ties to the radical-right movement.
  • The arguments they make in this unsigned paper run counter to the core positions they've taken before on electronic voting.
  • For a full explanation [Link]

Whilst some of the above are obviously personal POV, the key points appear to be well sourced and capable of verification, namely:

• CalTech appear to have used questionable source data adjusted ex-post facto (by their own statement they did not have access to any special data)
• The heads of the Voter Technology Project (VTP) have a variety of documented strong political ties to right wing thinktanks, voting machine companies and their owners, and the like (not all listed above)
• They have already been implicated in scientific fraud elsewhere.
• The paper is unsigned, unlike other CalTech papers, which is not in accordance with any usual professional scientific standard.
• Behind the graphs, the paper is in fact quite thin on genuine analytic value, attention to data issues, self-questioning, and the like, which a stats paper should be. (By contrast the paper by Dr Freeman is strong on these areas).
• The methodology is believed flawed by some other statistical and analytical professionals.
• The arguments in this unsigned paper conflict with core positions they've taken before on electronic voting, but no strong explanation or justification is given.
• The paper ends with what some describe as spin quotes, as opposed to formal conclusions.

Ive added the key ones to the article to firm up the "methodological errors". FT2 18:44, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

nice. --kizzle 21:53, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

It looks like the 'partisan ties' section is now glutted with duplicative content, pasted in front of previous content that covered the same points. There's good stuff there, but lots of redundancy. I'm going to take a few passes at it. -- RyanFreisling @ 00:52, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

---

Had a skim and a history check. Looks pretty good. FT2 03:17, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)