Talk:2004 United States election voting controversies/Archive 3

For a previous debate over the deletion of this article see Votes for deletion/2004 U.S. presidential election controversy.

For archived discussion of this page, please see:


 * Archive1 - November 5 2004 - November 9 2004
 * Archive2 - November 9 2004 - November 12 2004
 * Archive3 - November 12 2004 - November 17 2004

Done! I have re-organized much of this page into subcategories that we can use in the future in order to bring some order to this tangled talk page. If everyone likes this, we should stick with proposing new info and discussing current stuff in their separate categories. If I forgot to relocate any discussion that is current, please move it to the appropriate place or simply directly below the first 5 categories. Also, if everyone likes this, most all the rest of the page should be either archived or organized into the new format. --kizzle 08:39, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Also, if stuff under new has been added please add "- Added" to the title", same with any current passages that have been removed, "- Removed" in the title.

Template (Do not edit)
Passage
 * " Bush so should have lost the election because there totally was voter fraud!"

Remedy: Remove / Change (Paste new like below if needed)

New Passage
 * " There are some who say there were data irregularities in the election results."

Discussion

Blah. --kizzle 20:59, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Dubious sources
(please do not archive this section off the talk page)

This is a list of sources which should not be used in this article, as they cannot provide verifiable information.
 * They can be used, just not in an absolute context. We can say that people from those sources are making the claims they are making, we just can't report those claims as gospel truth. Shane King 03:55, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)


 * http://www.ustogether.org (AKA TruthisBetter.org)
 * It is trivally easy for anyone to write content for that website, and no verification of identity is required. Take a look at this if you need proof - http://www.ustogether.org/database/ObjSubPg.php?article_id=296&info_category=CHALLENGE .  -- Netoholic @ 00:06, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)
 * Who would ever trust a website that can be edited by anyone? Rhobite 00:19, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)
 * The distinction is that Wikipedia can also be edited and verified by everyone. The ustogether data is just some unknown person's handywork. -- Netoholic @ 00:29, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)
 * Well, looks like my page got removed (shocker) and my "account" revoked. Anyway, anyone can go here, register, and see how easy to get "published". -- Netoholic @ 09:17, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)


 * http://www.buzzflash.com
 * Indy media/mailing list which takes submissions from anyone. One current citation in our article refers to a "news analysis" written by "Tony" containing screenshots which have no timestamps and cannot be verified. -- Netoholic @ 07:34, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)


 * http://www.democraticunderground.com
 * Highly partisan, this site allows anonymous posting of opinion and information in its open forums. It itself should not be used as a primary source, nor linked cirectly from our main article page. -- Netoholic @ 02:40, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)


 * http://michiganimc.org
 * Anyone can post an article to this website, without normal source requirements. Wanna take a look at my article . -- Netoholic @ 23:00, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)


 * ImageShack
 * One image (Image:Exit poll small.jpg) is sourced as coming from http://img103.exs.cx/img103/4526/exit_poll.gif, an ImageShack location.  ImageShack is a free image hosting website. and requires nor provides any source information.  -- Netoholic @ 00:18, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

Template (Do not edit)
Link: http://www.blah.com

Description: Cites conclusively there was no fraud.

Discussion

We need to add this as soon as possible! --kizzle 20:59, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Commentary about exit poll accuracy
A good part of the suspicions of fraud in the election seems to hinge on the accuracy of the exit poll data. Doing a google search I came across this commentary by Howard Fienberg and Iain Murray. Quote: Historically, exit polls have been more reliable than regular polls and the news media treat them as gospel. But if the poll result is close, anyone who tells you that they know who has won is lying - November 7, 2000

(veryfied with wayback machine: this page was up august 2002) Besides being definitely unbiased concerning the current election, it mentions several cases of exit polls that were quite of. Those might be worth investigating to get an idea of the circumstances under which exit polls can yield inaccurate results. --Icekiss 14:04, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * When I said "evidence", thats exactly what I meant. Nice one!
 * Wariness of exit poll reliability is also why I asked for a similar comparison of exit poll / popular vote for other recent or parallel elections too, to indicate how well they track in other elections for comparison. FT2 18:30, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Please see dnamining.com/exit for another analysis. I disagree with your characterization of the Caltech/MIT paper, although I agree it is not a good paper. -wjb(newbie)

Here is a relatively thorough explanation of how exit polls work and an evaluation of their reliability: http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/11/exit_polls_what.html Quote: Despite the occasional controversies, exit polls remain among the most sophisticated and reliable political surveys available. They will offer an unparalleled look at today's voters in a way that would be impossible without quality survey data. Having said that, they are still just random sample surveys, possessing the usual limitations plus some that are unique to exit polling (anon, 18:00 Nov 15, 2004 PST)

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?
 * 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 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

New Discrepencies Map
This page has requires using the history to read it, I've never encountered that before. Anyways, I have a new map, of discrepancies as of nov.3 12:22am, from this source (and the updated excel file is uploaded too, if anyone wants it)

Kevin Baas | talk 22:40, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)


 * What is the maximum gain (among the blue states 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 irregularities in kerry's favor?  Is this based off of final exit poll data or non "weighted"? Zen Master 23:06, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Kizzle, this isn't how talk pages are normally used and this kind of break from the norm should be discussed first. I feel people should be free to create threads here as they wish, and you shouldn't archive discussions that were started literally minutes ago. I moved all of today's discussions back to this main talk page, where they belong. Rhobite 22:55, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)


 * Kevin, please stop using sources which anyone can post an article to? Wanna take a look at my article . -- Netoholic @ 22:56, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)


 * If you don't think like wikis or forums, don't write in them. Kevin Baas | talk 23:01, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not a discussion forum, nor does it use source which can not be independantly verified by our readers. It seems I am not the one who is writing in the wrong place. -- Netoholic @ 23:34, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)


 * I agree with you on all but the last point. Kevin Baas | talk 23:44, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)


 * Actually Netoholic, that is the essence of your misunderstanding, wikipedia IS a discussion formum for resolving article dispute, please learn. Zen Master 00:29, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Greg Palast Info
With all of this alleged dependence on weblogs, & unverifiable internet sources (I'm using weasel words here because I haven't taken the time to trace every source quoted in the article), why hasn't anyone bothered to quote or cite Greg Palast, an investigative reporter who writes for the BBC & the Guardian? AFAIK, he's the prime source for material on this topic -- & I remember hearing him on Air America Radio not only set forth the evidence for incidents in both states on 3 November, but he also claimed that there were irregularities in New Mexico that were suppressed by the "So-Called Liberal Media". Some of his writings can be found on his website. -- llywrch 18:07, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Good info, it should be added. We've gotten bogged down just trying to keep the page alive.  There was a systematic effort to damage and delay improvement of the page by people uniterested in debate through: removing links to the page, listing images for deletion, claiming parts/all of it violate wikipedia policy but not debating detailed counter arguements (acting unilaterally in the belief the page is "all wrong"), listing custom header for deletion, vandalism attacks, revert wars and the VfD which is hopefully the last trick in the people that are against the article's bag.  Not to mention the more standard: lengthy talk page discussions, added text POV [in both direction] problems, structure and organizational disagreements, title disagreement and changes, etc. Zen Master 18:22, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Franklin County Machine Problems

 * Machine problems lead to recount in Franklin county

Ohio county-level historical turnout
I have gathered historical ohio country turnout levels for presidential election years for 2004, 2000, 1996 & 1992, and put it in an excel file. However, I couldn't find the data for registration by county for 1992, so I had to infer by the formula { x[n] = r1996[n] - (r2004[n] - r1996[n]) / 2; mult = r1192_total / sum(x, 1...n); r1992[n] = x[n] * mult }. I noticed, however, that the registered voters in the county-level voter turnout files disagree with those in the voter turnout history file. In any case, i did a few calculations and found that counties with long lines had lower voter turnout this year than the normally do. Kevin Baas | talk 20:11, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

In cuyahoga county, county vs. state voter turnout, cuyahoga stayed near it's avg. of 4% worse than state for 04,00,96, & 92.

Franklin county, in 92 (remember, inferred voter reg this year.), did 7.24% better than avg, then in 96 did 3.37% worse than avg, 00 did 2.6% worse, but in 04 did 9.96% worse. This is 9.32% worse than Franklin's average. Kevin Baas | talk 20:43, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

Ya, doing some more spreadsheat calculations, franklin county is looking more suspicious than cuyahoga. Kevin Baas | talk 22:14, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

I just read that franklin had a slew of new registrations this year, looked at the spreadsheet, and decided to re-infer the '92 figures for franklin without using the '04 figures for franklin. The multiplier factor shifted closer to one (which means the results are more expected), and the stats for franklin make more sense now: in '92, franklin had only 0.6% worse voter turnout than the state, and the avg. of '92, '96, & '00 is 2.18%. (franklin is 10.6% of the electorate in Ohio, which has 7,979,639 registered voters.)Kevin Baas | talk 22:35, 2004 Nov 13 (UTC)

Sequoia Gives Away E Vote Machines in Swing State
We should add this info but I am not certain how and where. Basically an electronic vote machine company gave 4 years free to Reno Nevada just prior to the election in August: http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/11/con04490.html

Zen Master 10:17, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Voter turnout findings
I looked at voter turnout as a ratio of voters this election to registered voters last election (because of the big registration drive this year), and found for each county the %diff between its (modified) voter turnout and the rest of the state.

Then I found for each county the %diff between its (normal) avg voter turnout for 92, 96, & 00, and the rest of the state.

Looking at the difference, firstly Delaware and Warren really stand out as having much higher voter turnout. but avg. they high, and were much higher in other years, too.

Looking at Franklin and Cuyahoga, Franklin actually did good. (+4.153%) (thou it does bad if you use 04 registrations), while Cuyahoga did bad (-4.867%). Kevin Baas | talk 20:42, 2004 Nov 14 (UTC)

Added section on public hearings under 'Official Investigations'. -- RyanFreisling @ 21:00, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * On the county scale, if the voters in Ohio that turned out would have voted the way they have an avg. for the past three elections, Kerry would have won Ohio by 67,923 votes or 50.61%. Kevin Baas | talk 22:44, 2004 Nov 14 (UTC)


 * In the unofficial 2004 vote count, Kerry lost by 136,483 votes, with only 48.75% of the votes. Kevin Baas | talk 22:48, 2004 Nov 14 (UTC)


 * That difference is not statistically significant. Kevin Baas | talk 22:57, 2004 Nov 14 (UTC)


 * On the county scale (perhaps "resolution" is a better term"), democratic turnout was 0.90% better than the avg. of the last three pres. elections, while republican turnout was 0.78% better. Kevin Baas | talk 23:10, 2004 Nov 14 (UTC)


 * On the county resolution, democratic turnout was 6.37% better than last election, while republican turnout was 6.04% better. (using 00, 96, & 92 to determine dem-rep distr.) Kevin Baas | talk 19:47, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

new map:Hybrid us map
Kevin Baas | talk 21:47, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

Opps, I compensated the wrong way. Sorry. Here's the real map. According to the a variance of the discrepancy between the compensated polls and the vote counts for the non-BBV states, there is a 22.5% chance the poll is off by enough for Bush to have won Ohio (and a 50% chance that it was off in that direction), and a 47.5% chance that it was off enough for Kerry to have won Florida (and a 50% chance that it was off in that direction), giving Kerry a 91.4% chance of victory. Kevin Baas | talk 06:55, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

By the same logic, if we use instead the average of the vote count and the exit polls for the BBV states (meet halfway), Kerry is given a 55.5% chance of victory.

And if we give the vote-count a 50% chance of being perfectly accurate, and a 50% chance of being meaningless, that gives Kerry a 91.4%/2=45.7% chance of victory. Kevin Baas | talk 07:18, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

Opps, those figures are with New Hampshire in the BBW states. (I am not doing well with clerical perception lately!) Those figures are interesting as well, and with New Hampshire included in the bias compensation, the figures are pretty close. If people think any of this should be in the article, or if the data is really important to someone, I can recalculate.

Digest of News Sources
I've scraped a list of sources from here, and it currently resides at User:RyanFreisling/SourceDigest. Take a look! -- RyanFreisling @ 02:52, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Diebold's Registered Democrat
Removed ''Diebold’s election-systems division is run by a registered Democrat" and source URL, which points to an article on Diebold's site which merely repeats the statement without naming the Democrat. if this passage refers to Radke, it can be re-insered and edited properly. Source? -- RyanFreisling @ 05:13, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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)

Possible information for inclusion
My friend Jeff got these emailed to him, and posted them on his site. 

(i deleted the section i just made before, as zen pointed out that we already have that link.) Kevin Baas | talk 20:27, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

historical election data

and late pre-1am exit poll listing of all states with timestamps! Kevin Baas | talk 20:35, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

Votergate Movie, -- RyanFreisling @ 04:56, 15 Nov 2004 (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)

still more info

 * Overzealous reading list.
 * News, news news...


 * I don't see a problem with putting news sources like the reading list in the article. They contain lists of articles from verified sources. I'd say add them to the in the news section, or the 'other' section (since it's a digest). Thoughts? -- RyanFreisling @ 23:24, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Naming
(archived due to name change)

Sub-pages

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


 * kizzle 22:44, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)
 * Schnee 22:52, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Zen Master 23:03, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * If the article gets too long, daughter articles are a better solution than sub-pages. JamesMLane 22:16, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * 2. The page should have separate pages that go in-depth about certain states (such as 2004_U.S._Election_voting_controversies%2C_Florida & 2004_U.S._Election_voting_controversies%2C_Ohio)


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

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. --   .  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)

Editing the introduction
I've rewritten the first paragraph (now two). I thought it important to distinguish two broad classes of controversy: Even some sources that dismiss the idea that Kerry really won, like the New York Times, have been critical of many aspects of the process (inconsistent rules from one state to another, the difficulties many people encountered in registering and voting, etc.). Another change is that "the 2004 election" isn't the same as "the 2004 presidential election". The rewrite includes wikilinks to the articles on the Congressional elections as well. For example, the charges based on analysis of the absentee ballots in North Carolina referred to the votes for the Senate seat as well as the presidential race.

What's now the third paragraph consists of opposing quotations about exit polls, with the context not well explained. Exit polls are only one issue here. To help get the reader into the overall picture more quickly, I think those quotations should be moved down to where exit polls are discussed in more detail. The rest of the introduction should list the major issues. I think the current narrative style is too pokey ("There were reports.... There were also reports.... There may have been.... Another issue is...."). It would work better to use the bullet style. The best way to give the reader a quick overview would be to combine the current paragraph with the "Examples of issues" section but to list issues without all the detail. That would come in the body of the article as each subject was developed. For example, the first sentence ("There were reports of problems with and controversy over electronic and optical-scan voting machines.") and the first two bullet points under "Examples" could all be replaced with the single bullet point "Accuracy and reliability of voting machines, especially those employing electronic voting methods".

The way it stands now, I think the article starts right out bombarding the reader with too much detail. People who've been deeply involved in editing this article, and who have immersed themselves in the torrent of what's been in the media on this subject, have to keep in mind the problem of making the material accessible to people who don't have that background. JamesMLane 06:40, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I edited it as well, a bit more detail describing the groups involved in the issues. Thanks! -- RyanFreisling @ 06:53, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm leery of more detail in the intro -- my first impulse in writing was to name the presidential candidates who've raised questions (Nader, Badnarik and Cobb, AFAIK), but I decided that should come later on. Nevertheless, the only one of your edits I take serious exception to is the phrase "It has been likewise asserted that...."  This blurs the distinction between, on the one hand, the people saying that Kerry was robbed, and, on the other hand, the larger number who think Bush won legitimately but that there's a lot about elections that needs improving.  As I mentioned, the New York Times is in the latter category; see  for a listing of the Times articles and editorials on the subject (may require free registration).  It's not POV to characterize people as "critics" if they say that election problems gave the Presidency to the wrong guy.  That's a criticism, and a significantly sharper one than saying that lines were too long or different states' standards too disparate.  JamesMLane 07:50, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I disagree that Democrats are the complainants because that's an assumption as to the political beliefs of the range of individuals involved. The Green and Libertarian candidates are about to request a recount, for example. Those who question the irregularities are not Democrats 1:1. Lemme think about 'critics'.


 * Okay, I know what I think about 'critics'. The outcome of the election is not the only motivating factor for those 'pressing the issue' (as i think it reads). If these irregularities include violations of the Law, they are not critics of the outcome, but whistleblowers, investigators, etc. etc. Critics implies a value judgement about the 'proper' outcome of the election. If truly objective, the objections could be on an incident-by-incident basis.-- RyanFreisling @ 08:18, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I don't understand your point about "critics". It doesn't say anything about their motivation.  Some critics are in the first category described in the text: They think there were screwups (irregularities, illegalities, whatever) that should be exposed.  They may think that even exposing all those points wouldn't shift the election to Kerry.  Some of them may even prefer Bush, but feel duty-bound to work for fair elections, let the chips fall where they may.  But I used "critics" for the second category, the people who think that the official counts produced the wrong result -- not wrong in the sense that re-(s)electing Bush will be disastrous for the country, but wrong in the sense that Bush didn't legitimately win.  I don't see a problem with calling those people "critics".  JamesMLane


 * (Hope you don't mind me inserting this here between your comments) I think it's that there are (as an example) those who are concerned about possible wrongdoing, and who are working to prosecute those incidents. They aren't 'critics'. They're not criticizing the process. They're working to determine if laws were broken. I think 'critics' is therefore incomplete. -- RyanFreisling @ 08:18, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC) RyanFreisling


 * You're right that some people are concerned about possible wrongdoing. The sentence refers, however, to other people, who've gone beyond that.  At this point there's a significant body of opinion that says there definitely was wrongdoing (which, for the more charitable among them, might include foulups arising from incompetence as well as thefts arising from dishonesty).  The NPOV policy permits (in fact, requires) the reporting of that POV.  People holding that view qualify as "critics".  Still, if you have a problem with the word, we can avoid it.  What about "More controversial was the charge that these issues might have affected the reported outcome...."?  The key, to my mind, is to make clear that there are some people calling for improvements who don't sign on to the view that Kerry really won.  JamesMLane 11:45, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't agree that the idea that an election can be overturned if vote counts are revised due to irregularity is more controversial than any other issue around the irregularities. It's a consequence of the rules of the election. Are you saying that the idea that there were some irregularities, etc. is one thing, but the idea that they would impact the election is more controversial? If so, that seems like unnecessary gymnastics. Did I understand you correctly? -- RyanFreisling @ 12:20, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * As for the concession, upon reflection, I think that, instead of "Democrats", I should have written "Some of Kerry's supporters criticized him for doing so...." You're right that some Greens, Libertarians, etc. think there were improprieties.  The specific point I had in mind here, though, was that some people who supported Kerry felt let down by his concession.  Anyway, the generic "Some", without elaboration, isn't inaccurate, so perhaps that's the best way to go, at least for now. JamesMLane 08:07, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I do not like the introduction in its current form, especially the added text. The version after I created the introduction section header was better than current in my opinion, it's all over the place now and clarity is rather poor. May clean up or mostly revert now. Zen Master 09:51, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Having reread what you reverted to, I still think it's less accurate and less less clear, especially to a reader coming to this subject with no background. You said in one of your edit summaries that the "irregularities" is the essence of the issue.  In the context of the text you reverted to, where it's "data irregularities", the term has for me the connotation of referring primarily to discrepancies between exit poll results and the official counts.  If people are improperly prevented from registering, that doesn't seem like a "data irregularity".  In terms of the effects of the controversy arising from this election, though, I think changes in voter registration rules are a quite possible outcome.


 * Right now the parts of this article dealing with electronic voting, and the reasons to suspect it, have received extensive attention compared with all the other issues. I don't blame people for working on what interests them.  I just don't think that the phrase "data irregularities" has to be trotted out in the very first sentence.  We need to give more recognition to the substantial body of opinion that dismisses all these maps and alleged statistical analyses with a snort of derision, but says that, for example, many of the states have completely messed up their conduct of elections, and the federal government should take over, or at least assume a much more active role in setting and enforcing uniform national standards.  This argument arises from concerns about registration, absentee ballots, long lines, etc., as well as about the secret software for the machines. JamesMLane 11:45, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * The introduction that Zen Master reverted to, along with the "Examples of issues" section, has these problems, IMO:
 * 1. Not setting the overall context of the controversies (too much focus on the EVM issue).
 * 2. Jumping right into giving detailed evidence, which should be deferred to the appropriate sections of the article.
 * 3. Not NPOV because of the heavy preponderance of evidence for one side in this initial portion. Of course, balancing it with countervailing evidence would only exacerbate the first two problems.
 * See generally Lead section and Establish context about how an article should begin.


 * Along the lines of this comment and those I made earlier, I've written a proposed new lead. It would replace the current "Introduction" and "Examples of issues" section. As the lead section, it wouldn't need a heading.  The major change is to set the context by identifying the issues, without trying to elaborate on the supporting (or opposing) evidence.  I did the first part of this change, but Zen Master reverted.  Rather than get into an edit war, I'm putting the full version at User:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead.  Changes to this draft that are consistent with its overall approach can be made directly at User:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead and/or discussed at User talk:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead.  Comments about which of the two overall approaches is better should go here (i.e., the main article's talk page), where they'll be more accessible to everyone. JamesMLane 12:29, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * The current version reads much better, has less POV problems, and is less sloppy than before but there is definitely more work that needs doing. We mention in the introduction the best counter analysis there is against the entire article, I don't see how we can any more POV balanced than that??  I agree with you about the examples of issues section, that needs major overhauling.  I combined the list of complaints into that list of issues section to eliminate redundancy, now we need to make a pass at POV cleanup there.


 * The way I look at the page is the entire article is a counter criticism of official election results, this article is the balance of POV that the other election aticles lack. Though, having said that, there are definitely some areas that need clean up.  The article jumps right in and gives evidence so people are not quick to say "this article does not belong on wikipedia", remember most of the people that edit the page have also had to spend much effort just keeping the page alive and defending its existence.  Because of that such a tone is to be expected in the article and is certainly not a violation of wikipedia policy (if it is please reference the violation).


 * Also, please list specific problems you have with the article, referring to guidelines without citing specific problems on the page as you did was not helpful. We should focus on the specifics.  Zen Master 14:47, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Update: I made some detailed comments about James' proposed intro text below it here User:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead Zen Master 15:12, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I've found it more helpful in other articles to have the main "sandbox" page consist only of the specific article text that's being considered, while the normal process of discussion occurs on the sandbox's talk page. Therefore, I've moved Zen Master's detailed comments to User talk:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead and will answer them there. JamesMLane 17:39, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Response to Zen Master's more general comments above:
 * I agree that your combination of the "Examples of issues" and "List of complaints" sections was a good idea. We need to go further and have one quick introductory list that gives the overview of the scope of the entire post-election controversy.
 * I definitely do not agree with the idea that this article should somehow balance a POV in other articles. If other articles are biased, they should be fixed.  Not every reader will come here as well.  Unfortunately, though, the officially reported results are the operative ones unless and until they're reversed (administratively or by a court).  It's not bias for the articles on the elections to report those results in detail, while giving only a quick summary and wikilink to the criticisms.
 * It follows from the foregoing that this article should be as NPOV as possible. It should fairly present the different criticisms, with their supporting evidence, but should also fairly present the opposing positions, with their supporting evidence.
 * Let's not overreact to the VfD listing. I've described the listing as "foolish".  I understand the tendency you mention to edit the article so as to resist such attacks on it.  Remember, though, that most people who read this article won't be hard-core Wikipedians approaching it from the standpoint of whether it belongs here.  Most readers will be people who've seen some stuff in the media about election issues and want our help in getting a handle on the controversy.
 * The most important policy here is from Lead section: "The lead should briefly summarize the article. It is even more important here than for the rest of the article that the text is accessible, and some consideration should be given to creating interest in reading the whole article (see Summary style and News style)." That page goes on to mention making the material "absolutely clear to the nonspecialist".  The version you've reverted to doesn't mention some of the controversies that will interest readers, like absentee ballot problems.  It's pitched more toward readers who already have some knowledge of the dispute.  An example is the use of the term "data irregularities" in the first sentence.  My proposal is that the lead section should be at a more introductory level.  "Imagine yourself as a high school student in the country farthest away from your own, but who has managed to learn English reasonably well."  (Establish context)
 * My proposal for the lead (see User:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead) omits the specific evidence, but obviously that shouldn't be omitted from the article. Any of the details that I removed that aren't also covered later in the article should be added in their respective sections. JamesMLane 18:47, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Listing the page on VfD was just one hurdle we've had to overcome.
 * You have not commented yet on my specific comments against that text? Kerry conceding should not mentioned, massive fraud should not be limited in scope because of margin, more than Ohio should be mentioned and data irrgularity needs to be mentioned the most often including exit polls as that is the master key to the article without which it would not be relevant.  Also, the tone I don't like and can be improved.
 * Voting machines have to be mentioned in detail
 * Would you like me to just massively fix your proposed text?
 * The article is all about evidence, more of it should be in the introduction
 * The list of examples section is below the introduction, let's focus our effects there as we seem to be in agreement about its quality.
 * The size of the introduction is likely to be in direct proportion to the size of the article, the current 3 paragraph introduction is brief (I think your introduction is longer than current actually).
 * Introductory tone for newbies is fine but you've failed to capture the important parts that follow in the article, I strongly do not agree with that text in its current form.
 * Some attempt should be given to following the order of contents as far as introducing what will follow.
 * You are doing more than removing evidence from the lead, you've limited the article's scope in some areas and increased it in others (wrongly so).
 * Note the "current event in progress" header at the top, I think that alone allays many of your concerns about what the introduction should be like.
 * The introduction is too bland.
 * You can say that senate, house and local races were questioned without out saying "there was generally less attention paid to", that is simply bad style.
 * "More controversial was the charge that these issues might have affected the reported outcome" This is the main point of the article, not the secondary, should not be the second sentence.
 * "improperties" --> "irregularities"
 * needs to mention blackboxvoting.org
 * You've gutted all mentioning of statisticians from the intro, that is a travesty and I can't agree. Again, the main argument of the controversy is from statistical analysis.
 * Please note that "among the issues raised were" does not list 75% of what the article is about (exit polls, registration, statistical analysis, charts and graphs, voting machines). Compare your list with the TOC.  My list there are the key issues in the article, not long lines and voter suppression.
 * If you had read the talk page discussions of old you would have noticed we agreed to focus the article's scope on exactly the kind of allegations that had the potential to affect the outcome of the election (statistical analysis that shows exit poll data was correct in non-swing states yet inexplicably wrong elsewhere, for one thing). We should not get bogged down by he said she said accusations of election day impropriety, we should encourage and report on independent statistical analysis.
 * Zen Master 19:37, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * As far as I know, I've read all the "talk page discussions of old". I don't have time to answer each of your specific comments right now, but most of them would be covered by what I just wrote at User talk:JamesMLane/2004 U.S. election voting controversies - lead: that you and I have two completely different articles in mind.  I'd like to know what would be your ideal title for the article that would focus on what you see as the key issues, i.e., for the article you described in your sandbox comment: "the article strives to be just a mathematical analysis...."  For my part, I think there definitely needs to be an article in which long lines, voter suppression, registration issues, absentee ballots etc. are key issues.  The article I want would, as I mentioned, give considerable attention to points that are being raised that aren't claimed to have affected the Bush versus Kerry outcome but that are cited by some critics as matters of election procedure that need to be changed.  The article you want is reflected more closely in the current TOC of this one -- a TOC that, as I said on the talk page, I don't agree with.  That leads me to think more strongly that we should just have two articles.  For the one I envision, "2004 U.S. election voting controversies" is a good title, with maybe "2004 U.S. election data irregularities" for the other one?  Obviously, they'd need to be cross-linked, and each of them linked from U.S. presidential election, 2004. JamesMLane 19:50, 14 Nov 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:

Here's a source corroborating what I said: "...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)

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. 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.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 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. &mdash;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.  &mdash;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. &rarr;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. &#8212;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

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 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)
 * 3) *you an get this from my overelaborate and data-packed ohio excel file. Kevin Baas | talk 22:54, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)
 * 4) list of counties with no e-voting whatsoever
 * 5) *These, you can find on the EIRS site ,, and other sources as well. -- RyanFreisling @ 22:55, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * 6) examples of Kerry getting extra votes upon E-voting machine error in swing states
 * 7) *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)
 * 8) finally, untampered initial exit polling.
 * 9) *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)

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

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)


 * . -- Netoholic @ 00:47, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)


 * Sorry, you have to do better than that, Netoholic. This is for 2 reasons:
 * ALL the policies clearly say that dubious sources can be accomodated fairly if they are cited along with information about them.
 * 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)