Florida is reporting more votes in the presidential election than it is reporting citizens that turned out to vote. Adding all the presidential race votes reported by the Florida Department of State here yields a total of 7,588,422 votes. The Florida Department of State reports here that voter turnout totalled only 7,350,900. That's a difference of 237,522. 3.1% of Florida's presidential votes were in excess of the number of voters in the election. 380,952 votes separate the President and John Kerry in Florida. http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~adamsb6/elections/

It's a rather interesting read, at the very least.

The marvel of Republican made election machines in a Republican controlled state. :)

Wow, and the weird thing is, people just let it slide, really I can see Bush winning *another* term and nobody making a deal about it :rolleyes:

Disturbing if true. However, what evidence is presented that the "phantom" votes went for Bush?

Sounds like another scam to me. Wouldn't be surprised if some Kerry votes were shaved off too.

Even if it turns out that all of these votes went to Bush, he still would have won the election, and it's an utterly moot point.

Not entirely. If it's true, it shows that the US elections were once again rigged. If the Florida votes are corrupted, then why shouldn't other states be guilty of foul play as well ?

The US presidential elections have become one big joke. If i were a democratic voter, i'd probably feel robbed right now. Something stinks really bad overthere.

That is true. It looks like every election up until we liberals die out is going to be a forged landslide or settled in a court of law(or both!).

Poppycock. I don't ever recall it being proven to any degree of certainty that any US election EVER was rigged, whether it be this one or the first. I don't care if the liberals in Florida in 2000 were too stupid to mark their choice down on a piece of paper, it's hardly W. Bush's fault. And if some great news article proving that George is in office because of a rigged election is floating around, I'd really like to know how I missed it.

...But that was off topic.

Here are a few crooked US elections offhand.

1.Corrupt bargain of 1824...
2.Hayes-Tilden standoff of 1876
3.Intimidation of black voters in 2000, came up in the House of Representatives, didn't reach the senate.
4.Crooked machines of 2004.?

off topic reminder,
America has no real public election until Andrew Jackson. Previous presidents were decided mysteriously or as Rednik pointed out, by bargain.

eVoting always has issues with its security. There's a couple of news sites with various voting machines on how easy it is to change votes without anyone knowing, since it's basically built like an Excel database.

My view against eVoting has to do with the lack of paper trail with the votes. How does someone really verify digital information when it can be easily altered? Governments always insist on paper trails when issuing checks and whatnot, so why not votes?

Slith, I find both your posts rather disagreeable. First of all, if 103% of the Flordia voters placed a vote for President that is a *huge* problem that must be carefully looked at. The fact that the difference between those anomolyous votes is less than the difference between Bush's and Kerry's vote totals is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if Bush won there by 25 points; if for nothing else, the problem should be identified and resolved in order to ensure the integrity of future elections. Also there is another problem with your comment. You assume that *every* ballot had a vote for president. If only 98% of the voters picked a presidential candidate, then your mathematical argument evaporates.

Secondly, your next post has quite possibly the greatest quote I've ever seen,

"I don't care if the liberals in Florida in 2000 were too stupid to mark their choice down on a piece of paper, it's hardly W. Bush's fault."

To imply the infamous butterfly ballot was properly designed is beyond dishonest. It's understandable how people would screw up an intentionally deceiving ballot.

If Gore swapped positions with Bush the exact opposite would have happened. Buchanan would of stole away Bush's votes and the conservatives would be screaming bloody murder. And, by stupid liberals, I guess you mean old jewish ladies who have trouble seeing. I guess they're stupid.

I've screwed up on similarly poorly-designed ATM screens once or twice in my life, and you'd be a liar if you said you haven't too.

Finally, you failed to address the problem with the purged voter registration rolls in Flordia, which was another major component of the 2000 election debaucle. (The vast majority of the purged voters were black... go figure.)

[ November 09, 2004, 08:03: Message edited by: Ankiseth Vanir ]

Dubyah Dubyah II

I never thought he would win again, going off of all the people I've talked to and all the talk on the radio, but that just may be that the people I talked to and the stations I listen to are Dems.

One good thing about him winning is that HE NEEDS TO FINISH WHAT HE STARTED

His attack on Iraq to finish what daddy started has backfired in his face and our poor troops are the ones who have to suffer with unarmored vehicles

I have to agree with Ankiseth here. I'm not saying that Kerry should have won Florida, but I am saying that there is a problem with the number of votes received. While I doubt any investigation would lead to a reversal of an election, and I have even further doubt that the Republicans in general or George W. Bush in particular had anything to do with the screw up, it still needs to be looked at. Even if everything turns out OK in 2004, if problems are not addressed and corrected, these same problems will no doubt re-surface in the future.

Regardless of whether you are Democrat or Republican, I think we can all agree that having elections being as accurate as possible is in the best interest to everyone within the United States.

Given that this isn't front page news, I'd guess that it's either 1) not credible (yet), or 2) under investigation by alot of news organizations, who wouldn't dare break something like this unless they were damn sure.

Or 3) The American media is too afraid to speak up, for various reasons. One thing they have noticed in the last years is that critising the current regime doesnt pay off.

The american media is spineless, they should know they can attack politicians without attacking a specific party, and can remain legitmately non-partisan.

1 - The Corrupt Bargain in 1824 was never proven.

2 - The Hayes-Tilden standoff was legitimately agreed upon by a commitee in the House (or Senate, I cannot recall which), bipartisanly, and was therefore not rigged by either party. History shows that both parties got precisely what they wanted from the president. The end of Reconstruction, for instance.

3 - I can't find any stories on any legitimate sites on the reported intimidation in 2000, and I don't have any newspapers from back then to leaf through. This is the first I've heard of it.

4 - The machines might have thrown it off and, yes, this is worth investigating a great deal, but it could not have thrown it off enough to actuall change the results of the electiom, or throw it into the house.

I've heard much about the "butterfly ballot," and I've seen the thing. I didn't find it really confusing. It had a box, with punch holes down the center. There was a hole next to each party's box, with an arrow in said box pointing to the hole appropriate. Look it up on Google Image search. It would take someone with such poor eyesight that they wouldn't be capable of reading the names of the candidates to misunderstand it. "Intentionally deceiving?" Hah.

I investigated the purged voter registration rolls on Google. It's a very interesting story, and I had not heard of it up until this point. It's possible, but not likely, that Bush had something to do with the problem. However, one must look at it from another standpoint: Most felons in the United States are in a minority group. It makes sense that members of minorities would be more likely to be affected by these botches than caucasians, simply because of the lower number of caucasian felons in the state. Also, the thing one must realize is this: While some of their immediate family could not, the felons themselves had the opportunity to go out and vote due to the mess-up. And do you think they'd be likely to vote for Bush?

[ November 10, 2004, 00:28: Message edited by: Slith ]

1. True, never proven, but the fact of the matter was that Henry Clay was an influential member of the house. As the speaker of the House, he could influence the votes of the House, convincing the congress to vote for the candidate with who he was more similarly aligned. Thus, in exchange for convincing the congress, he recieved a cushy spot as Secretary of State, the gateway to the presidency in those days.

2. The fact of the matter is that the man with less votes got the presidency. However, he won by one electoral vote(Similar to 2000, eh?) and there were numerous problems with the returns. There were two sets, one of which had 20 of Hayes' electoral votes going to Tilden. The political haggling involved got Hayes into the presidency, but forever damaged the South, and defied the constitution. This wasn't settled in the Supreme Court(a commission having 5 justices was used.). The comission ended up being completely partisan, voting in favor of Hayes. So I would say this is a big deal in terms of corruption.

3. Blacks purged from the records, and some showed up only to find that they were ineligible to vote because they were "convicted felons", AKA they had a similar name to one. Also, the butterfly ballot problems alone could have put Gore ahead, due to their crappy design. However, any lee-way that way was shot down by Bush spokesman, Ari Fleischer, who said "Palm Beach County is a Pat Buchanan stronghold and that's why Pat Buchanan received 3,407 votes there". That's a complete farce, and even Pat Buchanan claimed those extra votes weren't for him.

4. At least we agree, eh?

The Butterfly Ballot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Voterseyeview.jpg)

Better picture of the Butterfly Ballot: http://shd.ton.tut.fi/pics/florida-voting/link.butterfly.ballot.ap.jpg

And why is the ballot in a single county such a big deal, anyway? Why would someone go out of their way to try to deceive a single county? If they wanted to make a confusing ballot to rig the election, they would make it more confusing, and put it statewide.

Again with 2 - The commission wouldn't have had any effect if the House at large hadn't voted for the suggestions of it. There would have been another commission, and another, until a similar decision was reached. Either way, it would have been a compromise mandating some action or other from the president in order for him to take office. So everyone won, basically. Except the guy who lost.

The Butterfly Ballot:
The point of my picture was to demonstrate the view that the voter got in 2000. That nice overhead view means little. Actually, the ballot was designed by a registered democrat, but the point is that the Bush team fought the butterfly ballot even when Pat Buchanan admitted that those votes from Jewish Democratic retirees couldn't possibly be for him. In an election "decided" by 537 votes, this descrepancy means a lot.

#2)Remember, the house at large was still dominated by republicans. The south was only just getting on its feet. There actually had to be a filibuster in the senate by the Democrats to prevent the comission from reporting its results.

I don't mind some discussion of past ballots, since they're somewhat connected to the original topic. But please don't let it take over the rest of the thread entire.

I have one reason for the difference, Absentee balots. It may be that the Voter turn out number does not include those who voted by mail but the total number of votes does.
Ok, who wants to put a big hole in that theory.

And why is the ballot in a single county such a big deal, anyway? Why would someone go out of their way to try to deceive a single county? The butterfly ballot was not just in one county but many counties. The reason that Palm Beach County gets so much ink is because of the people who live there. There is a large Jewish retirement community there, and certainly wouldn't be voting for Pat Buchannan, who is essentially one step away from being a Nazi. As an aside, in a state decided by 537, Palm Beach County alone may have been enough to swing Florida, and thus the entire election in Gore's favor.

You see, that's what I don't get. There were still butterfly ballots being used in 2004 as well. After the snafu of 2000, you would think that they would have been replaced. The fact that this inaccurate reporting comes from Florida yet again shows that Florida still doesn't have it's act together. And inaccurate results will eventually come back to bite both parties on their respective asses eventually, so both parties should be in favor of using more accurate voting machines.

I wonder why everyone is only pouncing on the number of votes - and not on the fact 67% of the excess votes were given on December 24th, 2005 ... ;)

Seriously - it's a marvel indeed -- the country that sent a man on the moon is seemingly unable to hold clean elections. Every state has it's own electoral rules -- reportedly Texas alone has 5 different counting methods - that is complicated, and errors are guaranteed - while abuse is invited. But nevermind, Americans love their anachronisms. Just think about the difficulties off a common sense approach to gun ownership ...

Republican politicians in republican controlled states go as far as they can get away with in trying to ensure a "proper outcome" - that is without *technically* violating the law (as for circumventing it, or contradicting the spirit, that's another thing). All that while preaching democracy overseas. Ridiculous.

Just to follow up here....

Rechecking the links at the top of the page you'll find the numbers are a lot closer and well within the victory margin (it looks as if some of the votes at the polls were not counted -- as there usually are, Chicago politics has taught us a lot about ballot stuffing and how to catch it).

I think the absentee vote may have been the discrepancy. Once again, statistics can lie in the hands of the deceitful....

Okay, that's news to me, and I live in Florida. So, my first reaction is that it's not credible.

Now, there were some serious snafu's in voter registration in Florida before the election, and I'm sure that did cause discrepancies. Due to those discrepancies, some Florida counties still have not certified their election results because they're having to authenticate provisional ballots. If for any reason you did not show up on the voter rolls at your polling station, you could ask for a provisional ballot. Unlike other ballots, you had to put your name, address, Social Security number, etc, on the ballot. Those ballots were then checked against the master voter rolls, and if the person was a registered voter anywhere in Florida, the vote was then tallied and certified.

As for butterfly ballots, I've never seen one of the things. My county ditched them for scantron style ballots due to the inaccuracies inherint in the butterfly ballots.