Talk:2004 United States election voting controversies/Archive 4

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New summary article

Several days ago I suggested creation of an overall summary article, and I proposed specific text for a lead section that would give an idea of what I had in mind. I've now created a first draft of that article at 2004 U.S. election voting controversies.

I think it’s very important that we try to keep the new summary article free of the problems plaguing this one (the older one). The mass of detail here makes this article hard to read and even harder to edit. Specific problems, IMO, include:

• bloat - apparently attempting to list every election irregularity everywhere in the U.S., plus every published criticism thereof (or at least a lot of them), plus a day-by-day chronology, plus numerous lengthy quotations from source documents.
• excessive length - because of the foregoing, the article is currently 184 kilobytes long, with more than 200 numbered external links (and quite a few more linked by name).
• POV - there are many more allegations against the Republicans than against the Democrats, so it’s inevitable that even an article that’s fully NPOV will make the Republicans look much worse; but this article goes further, at several points, by arguing for one side.

The new article is not a blog, or a newsfeed, or a Wikisource document, or a directory of links. For example, it summarizes the whole EVM issue in a couple paragraphs, with a link back to this article. The same treatment is appropriate for other issues. I suggest that anyone who wants to pile up a list of (for example) every voter registration dispute anywhere in the country in 2004 should create a separate article for that purpose and link to it. I warn everyone that, although I’ve largely given up trying to edit this (original) article, I’m going to be aggressive in editing the new one to prevent the kind of bloat we’ve seen here. JamesMLane 19:55, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The new one's more encyclopedic for sure, and for that I'm glad and concur.

I feel the detail is needed to support it, and I'd suggest simply renaming the old article to ".../Citations" and letting it stand as a backup for the article you'vge just done. What would you think? I'm not sure of the value of two completely parallel articles as such. FT2 00:19, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for calling the new one "more encyclopedic" -- that sums up the direction I thought we needed to go. As for this article, I don't think an article of this length is ultimately much use. Kevin Baas has created new articles that each use some of this material. I assume he envisions that this article will be replaced by the others collectively. As I mentioned above, though, I think that a further intermediate level might be necessary -- an article that summarizes the charges and countercharges about what to make of the 2004 exit polls, with a link from that article to one that has the full level of detail. Another possibility, instead of quoting great slabs of analysis, would be to put the original document on Wikisource if the appropriate license is available. JamesMLane 02:19, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree with FT2 that parallel articles are something that should be avoided on wikipedia, however, I don't think that we should abandon JML's page. Let us make this page like any other page that must necessarily contain a tremendous amount of information: branch off daughter articles. The current page as it stands is horrendously long and should be broken up into chunks. I like the subsections that JML has created, why don't we simply create articles for each individual topic? The discussion of actual methodology of breaking this article apart can be discussed later, but I propose we use JML's summary article to replace the main one and break up the current article into chunks that can be used as daughter articles to JML's page, just the same as we wouldn't discuss bush's foreign policy and other lengthy sections in the same article but rather branch off new ones. --kizzle 09:11, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

I understand, but having considered both I disagree. What someone said way up above seems the key to me: in the course of time, it will become clear what is gereally known and what is generally not known of the factual material. Right now a lot of the information is at some kind of "grass roots" level, by that I mean that its collected in the web pages of many minor newspapers and organisations, off-beam court cases, emails not reported on any american daily newspaper's front page. So for now, the background information although its big, is needed. I dont think many articles are needed.

At a pinch if you wanted to split voting machine issues from exit poll controversies... but they are different in character, at heart if you read both sections, both are about evidence... the only difference is one is exit poll statistical evidence (indirect evidence), one is manufacturers and other documentary evidence (direct evidence). I'm not convinced it needs splitting multiple ways just yet - but if it was, what would the subject matter of each sub-article be? Each section has potential to grow. I dont think we've seen the last of this yet... FT2 18:57, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

Dixiecrat effect again

I notice this article still discusses the E-touch versus opscan machine voting difference in Florida. The view that it's explained by the Dixiecrat effect is mentioned with references to NYT and Wired News articles but isn't given a lot of weight. I'd just like to add that, after seeing the initial reports, I spent a boatload of time looking at the Florida by-county numbers and I concluded (sadly) that the Dixiecrat effect does indeed account for the differences. There are three points I'd like to make about it.

First, county size turns out to be a rather bad proxy for Dixiecrat population in a county. The opscan counties are not just smaller; they're also generally in the northern half of the state, while the E-touch counties are generally clustered in the southern part. Florida is highly inhomogeneous, and is stratified by latitude.

Second, I looked at the 2000 election results in Florida, and, broken down into "2004 E-touch" and "2004 op-scan" counties, they show exactly the same pattern as the 2004 results.

Finally, voting in Louisiana in 2000 showed the same strange patterns, which lends weight to the claim that it's conservative southern Democrats who are breaking the curve here. Interestingly, though Louisiana went solidly for Bush in both elections, there was not one parish in Louisiana in which more than 50% of the voters were registered as Republicans, and there was just one parish in which Republican voters constituted more than 40%. In contrast, there were a number of counties with ~70% Democrats.

If anyone's interested, details of this are on http://www.physicsinsights.org/elec04.html

--Salaw 13:48, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Similar "strange patterns" in 2000 is evidence of fraud in 2000 as well. noosphere 03:58, 2004 Nov 24 (UTC)

Yeah, sure...anybody got hard statistics from '96 so we can determine if this trend arose recently? Johnleemk | Talk 12:27, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It could be that there was fraud in 2000 too (same governor, after all). But the interesting thing about the 2004 data is that the skew split along voting machine lines, and the same machines weren't in use in 2000, so there was no reason for the results to split that way ... if the cause was games being played with the opscan vote consolidation. As to the '96 numbers, after digging through the 2000 numbers, wasting huge amounts of time looking for voter registration records broken down by party in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and South Carolina (there aren't any for those states), and finally digging out the Louisiana numbers from the stuff I found on their website, I was getting tired of the whole thing and I stalled on it. I've pulled the 1996 numbers from the Florida website, but haven't done anything with them. Maybe I'll grind them a bit next week -- no time till then, unfortunately. --Salaw 15:05, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's hard to accept alternative theories to justifying the opscan correlation when stuff like this happens. --kizzle 18:38, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

IMHO this election was crookeder than a dog's hind leg, and we may very well move to Canada to get away from the appalling mess here. But despite that, I have looked at the '96 data for Florida and it shows the same patterns the 2004 data show -- even though there was a Democratic governor at the time and Clinton carried the state in '96. Florida is heavily stratified, with the northern part resembling states of the "deep south" while the southern end is more like a piece of New York that broke off. Overall, proportion voting Democratic in each county in the 1996, 2000, and 2004 elections showed no correlation with the percentage registered as Democrats in each county. This is weird. But when the state is divided into bands by latitude, the county latitude correlates significantly with the percent voting Democratic (farther south => more liberal). The most interesting figure down there may be the ratio of votes for the Democratic candidate to the number of Democrats registered in each county. The type of machine used correlates strongly with that ratio, and that's really the original point, I think. But when the same ratio from 1996 is included in a multilinear model along with the county latitude and the county population and the machine type, the machine type loses its significance. In other words, what we're seeing is that the E-touch machines were installed disproportionately in southern urban counties. Northern rural counties disproportionately use opscan hardware, and they disproportionately vote Republican ... in some Northern counties, there are 20 times as many Democrats as Republicans, but overall they vote as Republicans in presidential elections, and have (at least) since 1996. 'Nuff said -- I'm sure everyone else is just as sick of this particular little piece of the election analysis as I am at this point. --Salaw 02:59, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I understand this to be the point of the graph. Democratic and Republican areas were allocated different voting technologies. This is a problem. Kevin Baas | talk 19:45, 2004 Dec 5 (UTC)

Dick Morris - Republican?

"Dick Morris, a career pollster (Republican), "

Dick Morris is most famous for his work under Bill Clinton, a Democrat.

While I understand that his beliefs now are more in-line with those of Republicans, is it fair to label him a "Republican?" It seems to me as if that label there is meant to disqualify his opinion, which violates NPOV. RNJBOND

Dick Morris was always at best a Dixiecrat. (See Dick_Morris#Other_work.) It is best to consider his work with Clinton, including tutoring him in triangulation, an aberration in his career of supporting center-right causes, rather than a natural arc from left to right. --Dhartung 10:31, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

<><>Here's a quick note, on subtle efforts to persuade: The parenthetical word "(Republican)" was evidently used, not to discredit what Dick Morris said, but instead to invest the statement attributed to Morris with some "against-interest" credibility. The technique here seems to have been to point out that, even though Morris was a supporter of Bush and an opponent of the Democrats (and would thus naturally have a partisan interest in arguing that the vote counts were accurate), Morris "admitted" that the discrepancy between the exit polling and the vote count was "incredible," because (in Morris' own view) exit pollling is almost always very accurate. Of course, it surely misrepresents what Morris actually was saying, to suggest that he meant to cast doubt on the vote counts in 2004. Instead, he seems to have been blasting the unprecedented incompetence of the exit-polling (apparently this was actually what he intended to say). As a general statement, I believe it would not be inaccurate to characterize Dick Morris as a Republican in recent years; Morris had a famous falling-out with the Clintons and has written many columns (and even some books) attacking the Clintons as dishonest, etc.

As the person who added that, the reasons were simply as follows:

1. When I found the quote, at least one website cited him as a republican oriented pollster
2. I looked to verify this, and found at least one other
3. A pollsters political orientation may be relevant to a neutral understanding of comments he makes
4. So to comply with wiki NPOV I thought there was a good chance it might be relevant to mention as part of the information needed to neutrally appraise the source by the reader.

However... if that info is in fact inaccurate or not relevant then delete it. Personally I wouldn't really know a republican from a democrat, not being american. No "subtle attempts" implied to do anything otherwise.

The important thing to note regardng that last comment is to separate the speculation from the political assumption. Morris basically states two things in that article: a) Exit polls are very accurate, b) the fact they differ is in fact evidence that the exit pollsters were incredibly unprofessional or did something seriously wrong. The first of those is a professional statement. The second is an assumptive statement with no evidence backing it in the article, and this is an important difference.

Morris in effect says "Thermometers are usually very accurate. To have not one but 6 thermometers all tell us this specific pan of water boils at 60 degrees is incredible. Don't you think it's amazing how badly they made these thermometers?" Thats sloppy logic. The first part (factual statements) is germane, the second (belief) is mere assumption. A proper scientist would question whether the thermometers were accurate OR whether the fluid in the pan did in fact boil at 60. Morris doesn't appear to spot this - or care. Morris surely spoke what he meant, namely that exit polls are usually accurate and in his belief any differences are the fault of the pollsters. The former is factual professional statement. The latter is a speculative assumptive "deduction" with no backing visible. In fact, at no point does Morris point out much less seek to justify this leap of belief within the article, and thats important to point out so readers are not mislead. FT2 14:45, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

Morris is assuming the conclusion in his argument, don't take it for too much just because he's the former clinton advisor. But the characterization of republican I think would be arguably correct either way, its similar to trying to find an appropriate name for Zell Miller. --kizzle 00:56, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

What organizations are in Ohio?

So now we also have the People For the American Way Foundation taking legal action in Ohio. What are all of the organizations? Should we make a list and put it in the article? Kevin Baas | talk 01:23, 2004 Nov 28 (UTC)

Splitting up this article

Kevin Baas created three new articles to break up this mass of material -- 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, voting machines; 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, exit polls; and 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, vote suppression. Since then, however, no one has edited those articles. Instead, people keep piling everything into this article. I opined several days ago that it was far too long, and it's only grown since then. Is there some purpose being served by creating a huge, unreadable article? JamesMLane 05:54, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In my opinion as long as the article is considered a current event i.e. "in progress" the core of the controversy and irregularity should remain one article. However, I strongly agree the article is way too big currently and should be reduced in size asap -- all the background information on poor voting machine quality should be moved to the voting machine article, as just one example of a potential clean up. Also, we don't need that many charts and images, an html table is much less light weight and potentially easier to read. Zen Master 06:15, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I did the split, using JamesMLane's article for topic summaries. Feel free to discuss this. Kevin Baas | talk 16:50, 2004 Nov 29 (UTC)

Just got back from a little vacation. It's looking very, very nice so far. I'm still reading, but very well done. The links seem well placed, and the summaries to-the-point! This article is really shaping up! -- RyanFreisling @ 06:53, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yup, that's about my impression too. Nice work. Only cvomment otherwise is that if you move stuff to other articles then you would need to split out very carefully, what is a general matter for that article (eg controversy over voting machines per se), and what is specific evidence of their misuse in this election. The Most of the stuff in this article isnt relevant to a general article on voting machines, which should reference this one as an example. FT2 17:49, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

Duplicate article at 2004_U.S._presidential_election_controversies

Why is this 2004_U.S._presidential_election_controversies second article (which does not point here, or to other subpages) necessary? Thanks. -- RyanFreisling @ 18:17, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Newly split lede

May I say that I'm pleased with Z-M's new split of the lede on this entry. It was getting a bit unwieldy. Baylink 22:07, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

huh, what are you trying to say? I just cleaned up the introduction, Kevin did all the super good work moving parts of the article into sub articles. Zen Master 22:28, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

New Summary Graphic

i added the Boston Globe's graphic and source. Good stuff!

Link to disputed image - Image:BostonGlobe-04ElectionIssues.gif

And Netaholic is back to his old, vandalous self. -- RyanFreisling @ 16:30, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If you continue to make personal attacks like that in the future, you'll find action being taken against you. It is not vandalism to remove an obviously stolen graphic, and prevent possible copyright problems. -- Netoholic @ 17:16, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

I am making no attack, but referring to your previous attempts to delete this article, delete images used, delete or discourage votes, etc., and your ongoing 'delete-only' contributions (sic) to this article, etc., without following proper channels. Threats of yours aside, if you felt personally attacked, I do apologize. Now, please allow this to run its' course. The image is not stolen, it is being proposed as 'fair use'. If the image is indeed deemed a copyvio in due course, I'm absolutely fine with it being deleted. -- RyanFreisling @ 17:21, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have contacted the Boston Globe regarding the use of this image. They should respond within 48 hours. In the meantime, RyanFreisling has given his rationale, which I consider reasonably sufficient, and Netoholic has made no rebuttle, so the image, per discussion and procedure, shall remain until more conclusive information is available. Kevin Baas | talk 17:31, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

I'm expected to provide rebuttal in under 10 minutes? -- Netoholic @ 17:34, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

This does not qualify as fair use, which would be apparent if you'd read the guidelines. Indeed, the Boston Globe says -"The Boston Globe does not grant permission for electronic usage and reprints. This includes bulletin boards, web sites, the Internet or anywhere material can be widely disseminated.". This image cannot be used by use until we have specifically received permission. -- Netoholic @ 17:33, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

It is an assumption on your part to say that the image cannot be used at this point. The paper has been contacted, and the image has been claimed as 'fair use'. If it should turn out to not be the case, THEN it should be deleted. And yes, I have read the guidelines previously, but I thank you for your suggestion! -- RyanFreisling @ 17:48, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Just to make sure you know...

Because of a decision by The Ohio Supreme cournt, for a recount in Ohio to happen before the deadline, Kerry, not Cobb or Badnarik, must file for it to be expediated. Kevin Baas | talk 20:59, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)

Well, the counties have all certified their results, but, as I'm sure we all predicted, Ken is taking his sweet time certifying the state results. Kevin Baas | talk 00:38, 2004 Dec 2 (UTC)

This suit has to succeed: [1] [2]

I have a theory why 1/3 (8099/24472) of the provisionals were thrown out in Cuyahoga County:

The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has botched the registrations of more than 10,000 voters , preventing them from heading to the ballot box next week, according to a lawsuit filed late Monday.

The Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections, the Alliance of Cleveland HUD Tenants and seven residents sued the board in federal court and claimed election board employees failed to enter new registrations on voter rolls, update changes sent in by voters and enter addresses correctly...

...On Sept. 17, there were more than 10,000 names on the list. As of Monday, the suit claims, few errors have been corrected. [3]

Voter turnout on avg. in Ohio ws about 70%. 70% of 10,000 is 7,000. That leaves 1099, less than 10% of 24472.

This is why I believe that the election being overturned is contingent on the above law suit succeeding. Kevin Baas | talk 19:53, 2004 Dec 2 (UTC)

House Democrats' Dec. 2 letter to Blackwell

An excellent summary of the irregularities under active investigation can be seen in the House Democrats' letterto Kenneth Blackwell, sent Dec 2. [4]. Might do well for us to put some stakes in the ground around those specific questions and possible answers to come from OH Sec. of State Blackwell. -- RyanFreisling @ 07:14, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Congressional forum? Where did you get this info?

How did you find those links? Is this significant enough to put on the current events page? Kevin Baas | talk 22:59, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. It's a pretty noteworthy item that House Dems are calling up the bigger names to participate in a public forum in the OH election irregularities investigation and inviting the public to participate as well. In light of Jesse Jackson and Cliff Arnebeck's recent statements, and the certification of the vote expected for Monday, I believe this will be a significant event in the investigation of irregularities in OH.

Source-wise: I scour the political sites, government and private, Left- and Right-wing, and come up with a lot of stuff, but we can talk about some of my faves sometime! -- RyanFreisling @ 23:03, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You got it at [5]. Kevin Baas | talk 23:11, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

I have one question about the recount...if electronic machines have no paper trail, how exactly is a recount performed? --kizzle 23:13, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

Most (if not all) OH votes are paper ballots, with optical machines having been used to scan and tabulate the physical marks on paper. A hand recount uses far older technology :)

Hence the problem (for those seeking transparency of the vote) with a no-paper-trail e-voting system. -- RyanFreisling @ 23:27, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC).

Nice, it seems like if they were going to mess with the vote they would have picked e-touch machines instead. --kizzle 02:19, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

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.

Last thing we need to do, let us aim to archive all entries that already have been added both in New Passages and Possible Passages for Inclusion within the next few days, if you see something that is already on the page, please help out by putting " - Added" to the end of the title of the section. --kizzle 21:50, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Anon IPs that have mildly trolled this talk page: 68.107.102.129 05:36, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC) [unsigned]

Cleanup Preliminary Discussion

Seeing as this recent absurdity about deletion has brought to light the convoluted nature of this article, we need to seriously discuss how we can make this article better, cleaner, more concise, whatever... So please state here (hopefully in bulletform, short sentences right to the point) what needs to be done to clean this article up. --kizzle 23:40, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

• Honestly? The first step is to write it like a newspaper article instead of a wild political rant. Use inverted pyramid style, with absolute most important info at top written objectively, less important as you go down. Then stop writing at a reasonable cut off point, like, say, 10% of the length you currently have. Ruthlessly chop out everything that doesn't fit. That's how real encyclopdias do it. DreamGuy 10:08, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

• How do we account for new information then? --kizzle 10:23, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

• The same way editors of encyclopedias, magazines, newspapers, etc. add new information: Anything you add means something less important gets taken out. It serves as a check to see if it's actually important or just new if adding it means cutting something of the same length. DreamGuy 22:11, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

That's not how editors do it. They make intelligent decisions on copy length based on complexity, interest and available running space. An addition does not come at the expense of another element of the story by default. Of course the act of reconsidering one's content helps one validate its' true value to the story but it does not serve in the simplistic way you describe. And this article doesn't read as a 'wild political rant' to an editor or reader unless one has a deep political bias against it. I do agree that generally, reduction is the right approach in this instance, but informed reduction, not bias. -- RyanFreisling @ 02:27, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, kizzle, I couldn't put my suggestion in bulleted short sentences. Instead, I wrote it up below, in its own section, Need for a concise generalized summary article (except I'm not sure that such internal anchors work on talk pages). JamesMLane 19:44, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Discussions of current passages

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)

---

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 [6] 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 Wikipedia:Lead section and Wikipedia: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 Wikipedia: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 Wikipedia:Summary style and Wikipedia: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." (Wikipedia: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)

The reference to Cameron Kerry has been there a while, but there is still no link to affirm that he is investigating any claims - shouldn't this part of the sentence be either verified or removed?

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)
      • The pages at ustogether.org are being relocated to http://uscountvotes.org, which is sole property of the sponsoring organization.
  • 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 [7]. -- 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)

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NPOV Tag

What exactly in the page is factually disputed, so we can remove the tag as quickly as possible? Please paste here in the discussion of current passages so as to resolve this dispute. --kizzle 11:06, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

---

Current (early December) NPOV tag was placed as result of claims of bias in the VfD, the idea being that the bias is obvious if the two sides don't agree. If you can write something so the other side can look at it and say, "ok, that was treated fairly, that'll work" then you are good -- which is how Wikipedia policy explained things should be handled. Now, specifically, from my quick glance at it as a writer, someone who believes objectivity is essential, and who generally thinks their probably were problems in voting and the wrong man one, I think this (and especially all the offshoot articles) are horribly biased toward the idea that there were rampant irregularities. It starts out with a chart with big blatant red colors proclaiming "election day problems" and, after looking at the numbers, we discover that only 0.003% of the total votes were reported as problematic in the states colored red and even fewer elsewhere?! You have got to be kidding me! That's a statistic blip, not even worth noting, that's NOWHERE near anything that would change the election results. The graph is misleading and highly biased and shouldn't even be here. And it just gets worse from there. The article goes through and names everyyyyyyyything any person with a blog can throw at a wall to see if it sticks. You need real sources that are encyclopedia-level sources and you need to limit yourself to a tiny fraction of the total length of this article in order to have a NPOV article that accurately represents its current noteworthiness in the news and the real world. Wikipedia isn't here to advance your political cause, and it's clear that most of the people working on this article don't get that. DreamGuy 10:24, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

I think DreamGuy's interpretation of the map is indicative of his particular aptitude in concerns critical thinking and/or his predispositions, esp. the statement "0.003% of the total votes were reported as problematic...". Kevin Baas | talk 20:50, 2004 Dec 8 (UTC)

Do you think maybe you could have a rational discussion on this? Attacking someone instead of trying to discuss it shows rather inappropriate behavior for a collaborative project. I apparently slipped by typing an extra zero, so it should be 0.03% (or less than 1/30th of one percent), but the point is that these reports are way way way below anything that could have changed the results of the election even if you simply decide to handle every reported problem over to Kerry and assume it was originally a vote for Bush. The inclusion of this map as it exists now is a highly partisan act that violates NPOV. Please try to respond with a logical reply to this criticism if you can find one instead of simply lashing out. DreamGuy 22:25, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

I want to make you think about it, instead of telling you the answer, because it is more pedagogical. The problematic phrase is: "votes were reported as problematic". Kevin Baas | talk 22:39, 2004 Dec 8 (UTC)

DreamGuy, the vote discrepency over the total amount of votes cast in the election is not really what this is about. By the way, I do welcome your input on this, you do have some good ideas about it, I just disagree :). In the 2000 Election, 537 votes (completely statistically invisible) would have swung the election either way, thus counting the vote discrepency against the total vote count is an incorrect understanding of voting theory, as it only matters in the margin in a few states... the amount of possible discrepencies due to e-voting machines in Ohio and Florida is above the margin that Bush carried, thus it does make a difference. Each one of these discrepencies is sourced, if you can find ones on Kerry PLEASE put them in. I welcome your constructive criticism, if you can provide specific links or passages (use quotes) that are incorrect, it would be greatly appreciated.--kizzle 23:04, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

New information to be added/reviewed

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)

---

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[8]

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)

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 [9], which points to an article on Diebold's site [10] 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)

Links for Newshounds

Link: http://countingcoup2004.blogspot.com/ http://countingcoup2004.blogspot.com/

Description: Great resources for news, found on the BBV forum.

Discussion

More web pages to include (can someone do this?)

1. [11] affidavit Ohio Nov.25 that voters were potentially being encouraged to file votes in a way which might render them invalid.
2. [12] Other voter affidavits and testimony as to Ohio election irregularities, misrepresentations and voting machine errors
3. freepress.org General link to Ohio free press election2004 department
4. [13] article on dailykos (also worth a link in its own right as a source) covering some voting machine and election irregularities which have not yet been spotted.
5. Dr mercuri pages:

• [14] testimony regarding voting machine matters (may be worth adding to Voting machines)

Possible information for inclusion

My friend Jeff got these emailed to him, and posted them on his site. [15]

(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 [16]

and late pre-1am exit poll listing of all states with timestamps! [17] Kevin Baas | talk 20:35, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

Votergate Movie [18], [19] -- RyanFreisling @ 04:56, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

still more info

• Overzealous reading list. [20]
• News, news news... [21] [22]

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)

Washington State irregularities

"6,200 votes were counted twice because of human error while transferring data to the computer reporting system"

This occured in the Governor's race, but it casts further doubt on the accuracy of the elections process, and begs the question of how many other such "irregularities" have gone undetected on the local or national levels.

Volusia County fraud allegations

Volusia now added.

Also see this report too. It has a lot of information, can someone summarise it and add it to the BBV investigation section? FT2 03:03, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Analysis of Professor Steven F Freeman's Paper

Here is a brand new (Nov 17th) analysis of Univ of Penn Professor Steven Freeman's paper The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy, where the Professor had claimed, among other things, that the odds against unusual "anomalies" in three key states -- Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio -- "are 250 million to one".

While the analysis finds much to fault in Freeman's paper, it does admit that, "If NEP were to provide the the actual [probability of exit poll sampling error]... the real odds that this happened by chance alone are still probably at least 1,000,000 to 1. In a business where we are typically "certain" when there is a 5% chance of an error (e.g. 1 in 20), one in a million is still pretty darn certain" noosphere 05:16, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

It makes other points too, lets not overlook them either. FT2 06:28, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Sure. I just isolated that particular quote because it addresses the most important point Freeman makes (the one cited in the Introduction of our wiki article). I have no objection if more of the analysis is pulled out in to the wiki article, except that I personally try to err on the side of brevity (with a citation, of course, so that those interested in more information can go to the source themselves). noosphere 06:38, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

There's a new version of Freeman's paper available. I've updated the article to reflect the new findings and text. However I deleted an out-of-date chart and didn't update it, because what I've read of Wikipedia policies suggests that copyright issues don't allow its inclusion. But I'm fairly new at this, so I won't be offended if anyone disagrees. Avenue 13:15, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

More votes for other Democratic candidate

A Democratic candidate for Ohio Chief Justice got 257,000 more votes than Kerry [23]

"Statistically, Kerry, as the Democratic presidential candidate, should have more votes than Connally. In a presidential election, most voters have the priority of casting a vote for president and the votes for president are almost always much higher than those of candidates farther down the ticket... Many voters simply don’t vote for Supreme Court justices. It is highly improbable that Connally’s vote totals would be so much higher than Kerry’s" noosphere 17:06, 2004 Nov 29 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't see any merit to this argument. There were plenty of places where a Democrat in a lower race outpolled Kerry. Democratic candidates won statewide races in "red" states like North Carolina. In Colorado, Democrats took an open U.S. Senate seat while gaining majorities in both houses of the state legislature. Connally presumably didn't face the barrage of negative advertising that hit Kerry, nor did her Republican opponent benefit from a feeling among voters that it would be imprudent to replace the Commander in Chief during wartime. As evidence of vote-rigging in the Presidential race, the voting for Chief Justice seems to me to be a very thin reed. JamesMLane 19:14, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've also been wondering how to add this info. It actually is very suspicious, the judge in question "Connelly" is an african-american woman from the clevland area who was up against a republican incumbent, she lost statewide. In the cleveland area Kerry received 200,000 more votes than she did, but in certain southern ohio counties where Connelly is presumably unknown she received 257,000! more votes than Kerry did which does not make any sense at all. Most of these votes were "extra" votes for bush, i.e. the republican judge candidate suspiciously received only half the number of votes bush did in these southern Ohio counties. A statewise analysis of this discrepancy should be performed. I suppose it's possible there was fraud for Kerry around Cleveland but there are more signs of the fraud being in bush's favor. Also note party affiliations are not listed next to judge-ship candidates on the ballot. Zen Master 19:42, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to withdraw my suggestion for including this article because upon reading the source for that article I came upon the following editorial note:

"By suspicious, Jackson is referring to the latest analysis of the Nov. 2 vote by a coalition of Ohio voting rights activists. In analyzing the still-unofficial results, the totals reveal that C. Ellen Connally, an African-American Democratic candidate from Cleveland for Ohio Chief Justice, received 257,000 more votes than Kerry. [Editor's note: Rev. Jackson was referring to Connally's margin of votes as a benchmark, not actual more votes. In Butler County, Connally the Democrat received 59,532 running against Republican Chief Justice Moyer who received 66,625 votes. Connally received 5347 more votes than Kerry. For example, in Butler County, the difference between Connally and Moyers's votes was 7093. Bush received 106,735 votes and Kerry received 54,185 votes, with a difference of 52,550. Subtracting 7093 from 52,550 equals 45,457. Statistically the margin is significant only as a place to look for votes that could have been electronically shifted from Kerry to Bush. The 52,550 difference in Butler County between Bush and Kerry, when contrasted with the 7093 vote difference between Moyer and Connally provides a place to investigate and recount. The Connally race should be seen as a Democratic benchmark in Republican counties with the sample ballot, since she is endorsed by pro-choice and civil rights groups. While the vote totals for Bush and Kerry should be higher than for Connally and Moyer, the percentage by which they won should not be so different. Moyer wins over Connally with 52.8% eliminating minimal third party votes, Bush won over Kerry with 66%. See below for details.*]"

In other words, the 257,000 number is an extrapolation, and not the actual number of votes Connally recieved. It's incredibly misleading! Were it the actual number of votes then I would continue to argue for inclusion, as it would be simply inexplicable, no matter how negatively Kerry was painted by the right wing propaganda machine. noosphere 21:27, 2004 Nov 30 (UTC)

You may be missing the point, all statistical analysis is extrapolation, if we extrapolate the exit polls Kerry won the election which is why this article exists. Let me explain as I understand it: this judge-ship discrepency is showing that not only were votes taken away from Kerry but votes were also added to Bush. The question is not just why did Kerry receive fewer votes in southern ohio counties compared with the democratic judge canidate but why did bush received double the number of votes the republican judge received in some of these same ohio counties? So I believe the point the person that wrote "extrapolation" was really trying to make was that the 257,000 figure includes both votes taken away from Kerry and votes added to Bush, why do you believe we should only look at the votes taken away from Kerry? Someone still has to do a full state wide analysis comparing presidential race results to judge-ship race results in Ohio. Zen Master 21:46, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The sense I was using "extrapolate" was not as a synonym for "statistical analysis". I meant it in the sense of "to infer or estimate by extending or projecting known information". So, for example, if 100 people vote, and you ask 10 people how they voted, and then multiply their answers by 10 to get an estimate of the total vote your multiplication and final estimate is an extrapolation. This is what I understood to have occured with the 257,000 number. I thought it was not the actual difference in the number of people who voted for Connally vs those who voted for Kerry (ie. Connally did not actually get that many more votes). Instead, the I thought the author took the actual number of people who voted for Connally and multiplied it by some factor (to make it proportionate to the Bush vs Kerry vote) and then came up with the 257,000 number. However, upon a more careful reading I see it has to do with the differences in margin and not the difference in actual vote. I now think the article could be explained a lot clearer, but I no longer object to posting it, as I don't see it as a distortion, as long as there's a note that we're talking about the margin and not the actual vote. noosphere 04:46, 2004 Dec 2 (UTC)

okay... this margin of 257,000 votes is just the difference between what kerry received and what he should have received (net gain of kerry's increase and bush's decrease) if you use the judge-ship race as a baseline. Clearly bush receiving nearly twice the vote of the republican judge in some counties is extremely suspicious. Bush only won Ohio by 130,000 votes, if this 257,000 is true Kerry is president. There are tons of other Ohio discrepancies. How much more time does the FBI need before arresting all the fraudsters? I can't wait much longer. Zen Master 06:27, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Uh-huh, and in Pennsylvania, if you take the U.S. Senate race as a baseline, you find Kerry receiving more votes than the Democratic candidate for Senate in many districts. Does that mean that Pennsylvania, with a Democratic governor, engaged in vote fraud on behalf of Kerry? or does it mean that, over the last few decades, party loyalty has diminished in the U.S., and more voters are more likely to split their tickets? I'd say the latter. You just can't reliably use one race as a "baseline" for a different race for a much different office. JamesMLane 07:16, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

No. As this quote explains, Kerry, as a Democratic Presidential candidate, under normal circumstances would get many more votes than Democratic candidates for lower offices: "Statistically, Kerry, as the Democratic presidential candidate, should have more votes than Connally. In a presidential election, most voters have the priority of casting a vote for president and the votes for president are almost always much higher than those of candidates farther down the ticket... Many voters simply don’t vote for Supreme Court justices. It is highly improbable that Connally’s vote totals would be so much higher than Kerry’s". So, it's not at all anamolous that a Democratic Presidential candidate would get more votes than a Democratic candidate for Senate. But it is suspicious when it's the other way around, as it is in Ohio with Connally. noosphere 17:27, 2004 Dec 2 (UTC)

The question of stats that indicate fraud is one of both scale and irregularity, generally the Presidential race gets 10% more votes on average than under-races, in this Ohio case Kerry has significantly less than the democratic judge candidate but only in certain counties in the part of the state where the judge is unknown. It's not just the difference between the judge-ship race and presidential, it is the fact this discrepancy only shows up in certain counties is what is very suspicious. Also, Bush supposedly received nearly twice what the republican judge canidate received in the state which is also suspicious. Zen Master 18:51, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Former Bush campaign official indicted

James Tobin, who was the top Bush campaign official for New England and formerly the Republican National Committee's regional director, is being accused of ...attempting to "disrupt communications" by clogging the Democrats' phones on Election Day [2002] through repeated hang-up calls. [24] noosphere 17:35, 2004 Dec 2 (UTC)

Active polls

Naming

(archived due to name change)

Sub-pages

(archived due to sub page creations)

Discussion of article layout/organization

Statistics for exit poll/actual result discrepencies

The article tries to point out that the discrepancies between exit polls and actual results were greater at e-voting places, but the cited reference [25] does not give a mathematical calculation of this (1 in 50,000 refers to the chance that Bush did better than exit-polls preedicted over-all). Does anyone have a reference for the e-voting discrepancies? If not, it could be fairly easy to calculate given the raw data (by performing a chi-squared test or similar - I assume that someone, somewhere, has done this). The article says that the discrepancies at e-voting booths are significantly greater, but this is a precise statistical term and should be backed up with numbers. — Asbestos | Talk 23:23, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What Happened to the Graphs on Irregularities by Machine Type In Florida, Elsewhere?

Shouldn't that information be in the "...controversies, voting machines" article? It wasn't there when I just checked, where did it go? If the images are too big we can put much of it in tables. Zen Master 22:20, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I moved an image from "...controversy, voting machines" to the talk page of that article because I couldn't find an appopriate place for it. Is this what you are refering to? Kevin Baas | talk 23:14, 2004 Dec 2 (UTC)

No I mean the charts that plotted support for kerry and bush by machine type in FL I believe. There was a diagonal line that indicated the baseline or expected result, it showed wild discrepancies for a certain type of machine in Florida, sequoia or ES&S I believe. I will keep trying to find the link in the page history, I may have a copy saved onto my box. Zen Master 23:55, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I remember those as well. Their source is here, but the images ain't. Check the 'vote suppression' subpage. -- RyanFreisling @ 07:14, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Official viewpoints, investigations and legal actions

This section is out-of-date and lacking a lot of important information. This may be due to size considerations.

I think that this section should include a chronological description of legal developments with links to specific legal documents such as those on http://www.votecobb.org/.

Does this merit a new article?

In any case, I think that this is currently the weakest part of the article, and should be addressed. Kevin Baas | talk 17:40, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

Problems with GWB intro

On the George W. Bush article there is a dispute that you might be interested in. Kevin Baas | talk 18:48, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

NBC's massive Exit Poll revision for Latino support of Bush

I added a news source, but it should be mentioned in the exit poll tome somewhere... [26]. Basically:

"18-point Margin of Victory for Democrat Kerry Among Hispanics Doubles Previous NBC Estimates; Numbers Affirm WCVI Criticism of National Exit Poll Figures

"In a stunning admission, an elections manager for NBC News said national news organizations overestimated President George W. Bush's support among Latino voters, downwardly revising its estimated support for President Bush to 40 percent from 44 percent among Hispanics, and increasing challenger John Kerry's support among Hispanics to 58 percent from 53 percent. The revision doubles Kerry's margin of victory among Hispanic voters from 9 to 18 percent. Ana Maria Arumi, the NBC elections manager also revised NBC's estimate for Hispanic support for Bush in Texas, revising a reported 18-point lead for Bush to a 2-point win for Kerry among Hispanics, a remarkable 20-point turnaround from figures reported on election night."

Data mining

Google news queries:

• (fraud OR irregularities OR controversy) (voting OR election) -ukraine -romania -romanian -canada -africa -iraqi

Google web queries:

• testimony voting (fraud OR diebold OR sequoia)

Specific pages:

• David Cobb daily legal updates
• U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, press releases
• U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, letters

Another VfD

A new VfD has been added, as well as another not-NPOV tag. What gives? Was one attempt to delete this article and mark it as not NPOV enough? Can the 'other side' (whatever that means) actually contribute TO the article, rather than attempt to delete or suppress it?

The neutrality tag points here, but those who have marked it so have not commented here. Make your opinions and thoughts known, and put them under discussion, or those tags are coming off. -- RyanFreisling @ 17:05, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In particular, I'd like (duh :-) to call folks' attention to my modets proposal concerning the whole VfD issue. Baylink 23:34, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The second VfD and the VfDs of all of the subarticles have been defeated. But will there be another? And another? Am I the only one who's frustrated at having to expend time and energy defending the very existence of these articles rather than focussing on improving them? Can any action be taken to make sure this past set of VfDs is the last? Or are we going to be bickering about this until the end of time? noosphere 10:35, 2004 Dec 12 (UTC)

Snowspinner's Stripped Links

Snowspinner stripped a link out, what do folks think? I personally think it's a bad idea, as we edit and reduce the content we can removelinks as we remove any unneeded content, but to remove links outright without discussion here, seems a bad idea. -- RyanFreisling @ 18:06, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I actually think it's mostly ok, but the non redundant links should be moved to a more relevant section at the bottom perhaps. How about an "External citations" section? Though, I am concerned the article will then be claimed to be without citations after the links are removed. Doesn't such an article need massive citations for its claims? Snowspinner's reason for removing the links (wikipedia not a research paper) may be less supported than the need to cite all claims in an article like this, so in that regard the links should stay. What is the real wikipedia policy on need for citations vs need for non-research? zen master 18:13, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I do too, but as Snowspinner says 'if someone disputes a fact they can be directed towards the links'... as the article is up for VfD, with Snowspinner in essence disputing ALL the facts in his VfD motion, I think the sources must remain as a crucial part of the article until the VfD is again voted down or cancelled. Removing footnotes is not exactly an act of contribution. Snowspinner, others, your thoughts, rationale? -- RyanFreisling @ 18:06, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That's a bit of a mischaracterization of the VfD nomination. I think that this isn't notable. I think that right now this article is necessarily a bunch of speculation. But even still, there is no reason, speculation or not, to write the article in a manner inconsistent with Wikipedia's usual style. I can think of no other article that comes close to 250 external links. I can certainly think of no encyclopedia articles in any print encyclopedias that cite sources every sentence. Right now, this reads less like an encyclopedia article than a research paper. When we're attributing historical facts, we don't need to cite at all. When, as in the next section, we're attributing papers and other opinions, we attribute, but again, we don't generally link. (Another part of this is that the goal of Wikipedia is to provide GFDL information - continually linking to unfree sites compromises that goal.) Snowspinner 18:33, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

I agree with what you said, except that in my opinion:

1. the article contains no first-person speculation (it may report on speculation by noteworthy figures in the investigation, but I can't recall as it's so sprawling).
2. It reads much more like a (grossly obese) in-progress encyclopedia entry than a research paper.
3. The number of links is sizable indeed, caused largely by the extensive 'chronological' and 'sources' sections etc., and as the paragraphs and sections get edited further, I bet that number will drop significantly. Inline sources shouldn't be removed right now, though, while the facts are disputed. I think we should let that reduction happen as part of editing, by consensus, not picking out the links and leaving the text unsupported in the current form.

In any case, we should not remove any sources until the VfD is once again cleared. It will not clarify the facts for VfD evaluation if the sources are deleted. -- RyanFreisling @ 19:11, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I concur with RyanFreisling. Kevin Baas | talk 19:42, 2004 Dec 5 (UTC)

However we handle reference style in most articles, I think that frequent references with hyperlinks are appropriate for controversial subjects (including most political subjects). Snowspinner is right that a printed encyclopedia wouldn't do it. A printed encyclopedia would also have an editorial staff and an established credibility. Someone who reads something surprising on Wikipedia shouldn't have to consult the page history to see if it was added ten minutes ago by a POV warrior, or search the talk page to see if there was a long argument about it that finally ended when everyone agreed that the sentence should stay in based on the support found at thus-and-such site. If there's an online link that backs up and/or amplifies the point, it's valuable to the reader for the link to be included right there. If the support is a printed book or article not available online, citation is still useful. JamesMLane 01:06, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This is a controversial and complex article. Its neutral information is in odd refeernces across a thousand documents. When people come to read it, and learn what the topic covers, they will not and should not be expected to read every source. A part of an encyclopedias role is not just to summarise but to inform. When that encyclopedias subject matter is complex, controversial and yet substantial and substantiated, then it is appropriate to give rather more detail than otherwise. I am not aware that giving much source material is listed on the deletion policy page as a reason for deletion. It *may* be a reason for cleanup, but excess information (in some people's eyes) neither changes if the matter is significant, sourced, capable of ebing represented encyclopediacally, or other issues.

As time goes on it will doubtless be streamlined. That there are people who feel it is "anti Bush complainers" is a reason to provide extracts of source material to support the article - it seems hypocritical to state the issue is a fantasy, then complain at the length needed to include reputable source evidence it isn't. FT2 05:38, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

The article links to no unfree sites. Kevin Baas | talk 00:08, 2004 Dec 8 (UTC)

I don't like the Examples of issues section

I think the time has come, because we now have sub pages and a much better page organization, to do away with the "Examples of issues" section. Any non redundant content should be moved to the appropriate section or sub page. What do people think? zen master 09:23, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I also thought this, on my last pass thru the doc. It's redundant and many of the example listings are each an excellent intro to a subsequent section, so I'd like to see those deleted or filtered into appropriate places - cause there's lots of good, concise verbiage and citations in there. -- RyanFreisling @ 16:15, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've thought this for a while. Kevin Baas | talk 17:24, 2004 Dec 6 (UTC)

I made the edit - now, the next logical one - merge 'introduction' and 'controversial', etc... -- RyanFreisling @ 21:42, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Done - a bit of a hackjob (need to read again for tone, reduce if possible). Also, maybe make the pointers anchors to sections. Thoughts? -- RyanFreisling @ 22:01, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Looks good to me from what I've seen so far, my browser was caching my watch list history page for some reason and didn't notice your changes until just now. What do you mean merge introduction and controversial? I think the current organization is good, overview with links to sub articles underneath TOC is perfect. Side question: If there is an announced official law enforcement investigation (in the future) of (massive) election fraud is it then ok to title a new article "2004 U.S. election fraud" or "2004 U.S. election fraud investigations" or something like that? zen master 22:21, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I would think that no other title would be more appropriate. I expect there to be people who would attempt to diminish the truth, saying that calling an apple an apple and an orange an orange is POV. They might prefer something like "2004 allegedly U.S. election, alleged audits of alleged irregularities by extreme left-wing radicals". But really, aside from the numerous pathetically failing VfD attempts they will make on the article, it will stand.

I think that in such an article there should be a section on the hard evidence of fraud found in Voluisia County. And if a "centrist" says that tampering with vote totals and destroying evidence is not hard evidence of fraud, we have merely to ask them what harder evidence could possibly be, and wait, wait, wait, until we hear back a rather creative answer involving ridiculously impossible scenarios. Kevin Baas | talk 00:15, 2004 Dec 7 (UTC)

Need for a concise generalized summary article

My idea for cleanup, several weeks ago, was to rewrite the lead section in what I considered a much more summary and neutral fashion. That rewritten section was multiply reverted with the argument that it downplayed the statistical analysis that was said to be the heart of this article. My reaction was, OK, I'm not trying to eliminate that detailed statistical analysis, but there needs to be an article that does not have statistical analysis at its heart. Therefore, I created one: 2004 U.S. election voting controversies. It was my impression that there was consensus for having the more general/summary article, while this one focused on statistics about "irregularities".

The latest edits seem to be creating a hybrid. This article retains its old "Introduction", which I didn't like, one using the unexplained phrase "data irregularities" in its very first sentence. In fact, it makes it less like what I think a lead section should be, by inserting a list of numbers of incidents by state. Then, after the ToC, it copies the more generalized lead section that I'd written, and which, after it didn't find favor here, I'd used in 2004 U.S. election voting controversies. The result is that this article now repeats some information that was already contained in its "Introduction". Even in using that more general list of issues, though, this article reflects the heavy focus on data about EVM-related issues, the focus that led some editors to revert my earlier edits that substituted this passage as the lead section. That's reflected in that the bulleted list of issues that I wrote now has appended, as a separate bullet point, a quotation about the source code in EVM's. This quotation is obviously one fact under the point concerning EVM's, not its own separate issue.

I created the more general article because, frankly, I gave up any hope that issues other than exit poll discrepancies/EVM/statistical analysis could be dealt with adequately in this article. There's just too much data on those subjects that people insist on including and including prominently. As noted above, the current status of the "Introduction" and the bulleted list of issues reflect that problem.

So here's my prescription: Any material from this article that's not already in one of the daughter articles should be moved there, with the creation of new daughter articles if necessary to accommodate it all. (Someone may VfD a new daughter article but it seems like most VfD voters will reject such attempts.) Eventually, this article would be phased out or become a redirect. What's now at 2004 U.S. election voting controversies would remain a generalized, summary, encyclopedic article, not buried in data, and not giving such heavy emphasis to one issue area that all others are crowded out. It will include links to all the daughter articles. One or more of the daughter articles would allow people to tabulate incidents by county and to quote software engineers to their heart's content, but the summary article would be kept rigorously clear of that level of detail. As to the question of how to deal with ongoing developments, the summary article should also be kept ruthlessly free of another problem that's afflicted this one, namely turning it into a newsfeed instead of an encyclopedia article. There would be no day-by-day chronology as there is here. People who want to maintain a day-by-day chrono can include it in the existing U.S. presidential election, 2004 timeline article, or include specific events in the daughter article to which they relate, or start a new article on the "controversies timeline", or whatever. The summary article wouldn't try to report each day's developments.

I'm not trying to stop people from developing the statistical analysis in great detail. I just think it's not appropriate for the article that would serve as the gateway to the election controversy for most readers, many of whom will just want a general overview of the issues that have been raised concerning the election. JamesMLane 19:33, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Summaries are good, there is much verbosity on wikipedia. And I agree with your points about introduction clean up, though I had seperate problems with your version. However, I do not believe at all that the main article should be phased out eventually, the primary reason the daughter articles were created was because of article size and to aid page organization. If you meant that this article can be phased out after january 20th, then I would perhaps agree to that, but as long as this subject is still a current event and may change rapidly there should be be one main article. The data is the heart of the matter, with out all the data there would be no need to have these articles? I think the article, and the subject of the article, has changed greatly since you first formed your opinion about it, there is increasingly an overload of information coming out from congressional hearings and further statistical analysis etc. The point of having a generalized parent article is to give an overview of all the issues which includes both controversies and data irregularities (hence the title), if something doesn't have a daughter article then it should be given the normal full breadth in the parent article, right? Much of the exit poll analysis was moved to a daughter article so can you please be more specific about the statistical analysis that you don't like/think should be moved, do you just mean the third party analysis? One of the reasons we've used for justifying the existance of this article is the presence of third party election results analysis, to date, Professor Freeman's paper is probably the most formal thing that has come out as far as election results criticisms goes, so we should at least co-focus the parent article on that I believe. zen master 20:14, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Let's remember that "parent article" and "daughter article" aren't formal categories. They're just slang terms that we use in discussing article organization. (In fact, one change that should be made is that the daughter articles shouldn't begin with an italicized line referring to a "Parent article". The link to the broader article should simply be worked into the article in a way that lets the reader understand the context, with something like, "The concerns about this subject were only one of the issues raised in connection with the election; see ___ for further information.") Therefore, we certainly shouldn't get into an argument about which article deserves to be designated as "the parent article" and which ones are somehow of lesser status.

So, in response to your statement that "we should at least co-focus the parent article on" Freeman's paper, my response is that I have no objection to the existence of an article that's focused on the issues addressed by Freeman's paper. I just think that there should be an article that gives the broader picture. They should link to each other. You say "The data is the heart of the matter, with out all the data there would be no need to have these articles?" Let me clarify that I'm not saying the data should be eliminated. Some trimming and NPOVing would improve the presentation, but certainly data about exit poll discrepancies belong on Wikipedia. The question is whether the same article should try to focus (or "co-focus") on Freeman's paper, and list and describe every organization working on the issue, and present a comprehensive chronology of every event relating to the dispute, and provide a basic orientation to readers who may come to this article with virtually no background in the subject. For example, the summary text from 2004 U.S. election voting controversies#Voter suppression has been copied verbatim into this article. Regardless of how much of it stays here (or is expanded, or whatever), I think that there should be a short article that gives the reader that kind of summary text without having all the other stuff that's still in this article. If you and the others who are keen on the information in this article think that an article with (currently) 95kb and 268 numbered external links is the way you want to present it, I'll leave you to fight with Snowspinner et al. over that, but I hope you'll recognize that some readers will want only the type of summary information that's currently in 2004 U.S. election voting controversies. JamesMLane 00:00, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I once again state my agreement with the summary proposal. There needs to be a central article which provides a broad picture which lists each of the current sub-page's content with a paragraph or two plus a Main Article link. It would not only orient the reader much more efficiently, it would create a framework for future edits rather than piling it on all in one page. --kizzle 05:56, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

Can someone else do the news today?

There's some stuff at [27] and I'm sure there's lots in the google news query. Kevin Baas | talk 19:46, 2004 Dec 9 (UTC)

Theers also a page here and here to look at. FT2 15:10, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Should we have a section on "outright fraud"?

Seeing as there has been outright fraud, such as Volusia county, if and when there is enough material, it might help to disillusion some people. But I'm concerned that the ultra-right-wings will have a fit. What is the balance between being informative and relinquishing to people's POV for the sake of peace? Kevin Baas | talk 19:57, 2004 Dec 9 (UTC)

Well, innocent until proven guilty applies. It may take the FBI announcing massive fraud arrests before certain people wake up and before we can use the F word. zen master 21:24, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Indeed: one of the major problems here is that 'fraud', as an offense, requires scienter, which can be devilishly difficult to do when you get into questions as metaphysical as "were there attempts to disenfranchise black voters from voting (typically Democrat) by failing to ship their precincts enough voting machines?" How do you *prove* criminal intent? Baylink 23:31, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

No, bur 95% wrong voter felony lists aimed at black voters is a good indicator. --kizzle 03:31, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

We shouldn't jump to scream "fraud" (and I can't imagine a context in which we should use a phrase like "outright fraud"), but we also shouldn't suppress information for fear of the reaction from right-wingers or anyone else. We avoid the problem by sticking to the facts. We aren't called upon to evaluate whether any particular fact "is a good indicator". We wouldn't say, "That the list was fraudulent is evident from the fact that it was 95% wrong and always in the case of black voters." Instead, we just report known facts, or, where there's controversy, attribute them: "The state initially announced its intention to purge voters using a list of felons. It later conceded, however [or the local newspaper later reported, or whatever], that 95% of the names on the list were not felons." And, of course, if there's something from the other side, for example undercutting the implication of scienter that Baylink mentioned, then we report that: "Col. Jefferson Legree, the Chair of the State Board of Elections, said that an intern in his office had inadvertently transposed the actual felon list with a list of people being screened for sickle-cell anemia." We can ring in "fraud" in an attributed quotation, such as the link to the Volusia article. JamesMLane 03:53, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree with above. Let others call fraud, as long as we highlight the issues correctly and cite the sources, others will draw such conclusions as they feel right. We dont have to rush that line. Even if there are convictions we can just say "convictions/legal action". Save the "F" word for if the whole thing starts to go nuclear at a different level. FT2 10:18, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

new breaking news/irregularity investigations article/split proposal

This aricle is very unwiedly. There may be a lot of important information in it but not everything needs to be included, as anything can be posted in another location linked to the page. You guys definitely need to consolodate or split or whatever can make this article appropriately concise. I say this as someone who wants good digestable information about the election problems. Please, this is a big mess. ~

The paragraph above was added by DeanoNightRider. I think this criticism can be partly addressed by directing readers to the summary article if they want less detail. I have added a note to this effect in the Introduction. Avenue 10:51, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think we should split, or be prepared to split, the in the news and future investiations info into a true election irregularity breaking news/fraud investigation/arrests article. When the House Judiciary committee hearing starts next wednesday things could start hitting the fan very rapidly. The current article would be too unweildy to handle in such a situation and too daunting for new people to parse. This new ", official irregulations investigations" article (we can come up with a better title) perhaps should only report on official election fraud investigations and include brief explanations of the investigation evidence but with links of course to all the other election controversy articles. The key point to the article would be to keep the most recent information at the top, keeping everyone up to date. What do people think? Zen Master 23:30, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I can see the sense in that. Remember election night when there was an article on the actual election, plus a second article on the progress of the election as it came in? SOmething like that? FT2 17:33, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

I think that the "Official viewpoints, investigations and legal actions" and "In the news" sections are approaching "unweildly" status, and am for doing something about it. I give my consent to the leading option in this regard. Kevin Baas | talk 19:57, 2004 Dec 4 (UTC)

I agree. I think these sections are causing the article to become unnecessarily bloated and unwieldy. I would support the creation of two new articles. Avenue 00:00, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

NPOV header is ok

I am ok if the NPOV header stays, it's really not a big deal, it may restrain some vandals (on both sides_ from making impuslive edits when they know we've already flagged this article as a controversial/disputed subject. However, when the VfD header had beeon there for exactly 5 days in a few hours I expect a speedy removal of that one. zen master 02:39, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't really care either way for similar reasons, but I'm not sure folks realize this is the second time the NPOV tag has been arbitrarily assigned by a 'non-editor', and discussed until it was removed... how many times does this happen before folks roll up their sleeves and contribute? If the existence of the article itself isn't NPOV (it isn't, it's factual), then the context of those facts and their presentation is the real issue - and that's up for everyone's input. -- RyanFreisling @ 05:54, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I am fine with the NPOV tag being on the article, provided there is a (non-blanket) NPOV dispute on the corresponding talk page. Kevin Baas | talk 06:23, 2004 Dec 10 (UTC)

An accurate header may reassure some, and deter hasty misguided editing. FT2 10:20, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

The tag has not being "arbitrarily" assigned. The article, per the guidelines on the NPOV policy, can easily be shown to have POV problems simply from the fact that there are major complaints, as expressed in the VfD. Another obvious indication is that even though you ask for input, when it is given, people like User:Kevin baas respond by attacking another editor's intelligence instead of responding to the issue and others completely ignore other comments pointing out the bias. The chart at the top is biased in that it is made in such a way to indicate that these "problems" (which should be worded "alleged problems" to meet NPOV) were critical and had a huge impact, when running the numbers shows that even if every single allegation were true and ended up with a vote being taken from Kerry unfairly and given to Bush, the results of the election still would have been exactly the same. The length of the article (with daily "news" updates... this isn;t a blog, people, it's supposed to be an article) is way too long and needs to be condensed. Even the title of the article is biased. This article is a complete mess. Since the NPOV was added by myself as a result of the VfD last week, the article has not been improved in anyway. I'd take the time to make edits myself, but it seems clear from reactions on the discussion page and the history of the article that if I attempt to do so, the changes will just be reverted anyway. Those of you complaining that the NPOV tag should be taken off either need to make a good faith effort to improve the article in response to the frequent complaints or you need to agree to step away from it and let other people take a stab at it for a while without having to worry that a team of you will just undo all of it again right away. DreamGuy 13:42, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Which translates as "I'm not going to do anything except complaint and assume bad faith because 'I know' you'd delete what I do." Hmmmm......

No, its not a blog. But if people find it hard to handle when every last item is sourced and shown, how much harder would it be to comprehend it was a genuine controversy if it was summarised into just a couple of paragraphs and soundbites? It can't be done both ways. The consensus seems to be, give it in full, and over time as matters come clear it will either be a valuable resource, or become condensed, of its own accord. Right now its all a confused mess, for wikipedians and the outside world alike. I take your point about the blog aspect, I think thats one of the things that will clean up over time. Right now its just best as nobody knows 100%, to do as we're doing and list whats known, which seems on balance to win a fair degree more approval than disapproval judging by both votes.

As for "if every problem was a vote", the concern I think some people are seeing is that many sources out there, which include a huge range of people professionals and bodies, seem to feel the visible problems could be tiny compared to the invisible ones. FT2 15:06, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Now that you made some specific POV complaints on the talk page, there should be a NPOV tag on the article. Oh, I see you already put one up! Good.

Now let me respond to the issues:

• Notice the map at the top says "Reported election incidents", not just "election incidents". I think "allegedly reported election incidents" would be going a bit far, as would "reported alleged incidents". In any case, these incidents, whether they actually happened or not, were reported to the Election Incident Reported System (EIRS). Everyone can judge for themselves what proportion of these reports were fabricated, based on how often they think people lie about such things. The article states no opinion on the matter.
• Notice also that it says "incidents", not "problems" on the map. "Reported incidents per 100,000 votes"
• Nowhere in the article is it suggested that these or any problems were critical or had a "huge impact".
• The most serious problems, as stated in the article, and can be reasonably inferred, are the ones that we don't know about, which, depending on the a priori probability one gives to noticing a problem, (be it, for instance, less than 505) may be more numerous than the ones we do. Indeed, in recounts for local elections were there no known problems, the recounted results sometimes differed from the initial counts by over a thousand votes.
• The number of misallocated/uncounted/overcounted/fradulant/what have you votes cannot be assumed to be directly proportional to the number of reported incidents. That is, one incident may generate multiple vote errors, or vice-versa.
• The map is intended to show the distribution of incidents, not the overall quantity. And indeed, the map shows that in the majority of states, everything went smoothly.
  • One thing the map shows you is that when Kenneth Blackwell said that Ohio elections went more smoothly than most other states, he was lying.
• The subject of the article is "2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities". What? Where? When? Why? How? Hence the map. What do you propose we put there? A map of where chicken farms are in the U.S.?
• Again (we have said this so many times, please remember the answer and don't bring it up again. I promise you will get the exact same answer each time.), whether or not a recount would change the result of the election is completely irrelevant. This subject of this article is not "whether or not a recount would change the result of the election", but "2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities" which exist regardless of how people voted.

Did I miss anything? Kevin Baas | talk 17:43, 2004 Dec 10 (UTC)

In my view, the tag has been arbitrarily assigned. It was put on once, then taken off after long debate, then as edits continued, it was placed back on, with NO correlation to alleged POV in the actual narrative, 'talk' page discussions to bring them to light, or good faith attempts to edit them. The existence of a VfD on an article doesn't warrant the addition of an NPOV tag. If the VfD is created due to allegations of violations of NPOV, but the tag has to be added to the page subsequently, then I think those bringing the VfD have circumvented the step most crucial to Wiki... participation in good faith as editors.

So, adding the tag is arbitrary to me. Your feelings and opinions aren't arbitrary, you're welcome to them. But applying the tag in the current context was.

As an example of the importance of adequately describing the context, Zogby's representative at the Congressional Forum admitted that there were 'unprecedented irregularities' in the election process this year. This is yet another organization which is at least acknowledging the scope and nature of the controversy of this election. Their statement was not 'only one in 30000 people complained about the poll errors'. The existence of irregularities is not diminished by the existence of other, smoothly-conducted votes.

As to your interpretation of the chart. The chart lists only how many complaints per voter were reported and their ratio. Your own discomfort with the graph is evident in your own conclusion that it:

"is made in such a way as to indicate that these 'problems' were critical, a huge impact, when in fact [...] the results of the election still would have been exactly the same"

That is your own POV, not the chart's. The chart says nothing of the sort, and the outcome of the election is NOT THE ISSUE. The chart (modeled after a chart published in the Boston Globe and based on non-partisan election report data) is merely an indicator of how many issues were reported and the 'proportion of the varying kinds of issues within the total set of allegations'.

And your protestations that people need to 'step away from it' and allow others, who have not even begun to participate as good faith editors, to take over, is counter to everything Wikipedia stands for. There is no reason we cannot edit it all together, especially as this issue is becoming more (not less) active in the media and governmental circles. I hope your edits are a shining example of NPOV, but I will agree with you that your edits may indeed be re-edited by others for POV (as is the Wiki way), based only on your 'chart' observation, as in that instance I'm not sure you fully recognized fact, narrative, POV and NPOV objectively. I'm probably wrong and I welcome you to contribute.

Your own prejudice, not the article, causes the POV. You can change and improve the article, etc., to provide a different, more accurate, more complete impression, but blaming that graph as an example of POV merely illustrates my point. -- RyanFreisling @ 18:21, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I was about to take Dreamguy's complaints seriously, but as Kevin dissected, DG's complaints don't seem to hold any water. However, I still think we should keep the NPOV tag on the page just because there are people that will fanatically believe the article is POV just because it exists, without reading it objectively. We should add that quotation and citation to the republican statistician/academic that agreed the exit polls were suspicious (he also hinted maybe the demos conspired to make the exit polls look bad for bush, a possibility everyone should consider). Compared to all other controversial articles on wikipedi the election controversies articles do a very good job at NPOV in my opinion. We should be on the lookout for anon IPs adding POV etc (from either side) editing the article just to make it seem like the pro-deleter's arguments that there are POV problems is valid, at least one of them (Netoholic) has seemingly used similar tactics previously. zen master 18:45, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

WP:NPOVD "marking an article as having an NPOV dispute is a temporary measure, and should be followed up by actual contributions to the article..."

If no such contributions are made then I cant see that it can be justified in being left as it is. At the least it should be switched for a "controversial" header. FT2 21:29, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

Move day-by-day chronology to timeline article

One factor that's causing the bloat in this article is the newsfeed aspect. This overemphasis on an extremely detailed chronology is most evident in the "In the news" section but shows up elsewhere as well. For example, the current content under 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities#Green Party includes a long chronology. I suggest that everything in "In the news", plus similar material elsewhere (like the Green Party chronology), should be moved to U.S. presidential election, 2004 timeline, which is the appropriate place for the day-by-day stuff. This article should summarize the key information. The summary would have to be updated as events occur, of course, but that doesn't mean using a chronological format. For example, with regard to the Volusia County lawsuit, whatever article reaches that level of detail (if any does) should just present the status: "A lawsuit that sought to overturn the results in Volusia County, Florida was dismissed as having been untimely filed." As it is, a reader who wants to know about that subject finds the suit mentioned in the separate chronology under "Blackboxvoting.ORG", then much later finds it mentioned again in the "In the news" listing for November 24, then finds the dismissal mentioned in the "In the news" listing for December 5. If this suit is worth reporting, which I'm inclined to doubt, then the information about it shouldn't be fragmented that way. JamesMLane 19:46, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I disagree with the split, but if there is something (or a lot of things) that are in the current timeline that are too specific or too verbose we should just remove it. The timeline in the parent/main article can be much much smaller, there is no need for 50-75% of that stuff, I agree. I think of it as place to put new info before we figure out where to put it in the rest of the article, once the info is no longer new we should trim the In the News section to be just significant events and/or just stuff from the last week or so. zen master 20:31, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Remember there is no other source for an interested researcher to get a list of newspaper articles related to the election controversy. I am concerned about length, too. I just think that 10 years down the road this may be very useful to someone writting a report for their sociology course or something of the sorts. Kevin Baas | talk 22:08, 2004 Dec 10 (UTC)

If this timeline is incorporated into the main election timeline, it will lose probably 90% of it's content and all of it's value. I'm not against a split (I in fact recommended it way back when), but I disagree with integrating/demolishing this timeline against the main election timeline.The vast majority of these news articles are irrelevant to 99% of election readers, but relevant to nearly all election controversy readers... -- RyanFreisling @ 22:22, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The article itself shouldn't be used as a temporary holding area for new information that someone hopes at some point to insert somewhere else. If the purpose is to assemble a bibliography, organized chronologically, of newspaper articles on this subject, for the benefit of researchers ten years from now, then it should all go into some new article like List of newspaper articles about 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy. Note also that these two rationales are inconsistent. If zen master gets around to removing "In the news" entries that are incorporated elsewhere in the article, then it won't be the comprehensive bibliography that Kevin Baas wants. Finally, I don't agree that this section has much value to the "election controversy readers". They'd be better served by a topical presentation, rather than, as we have now, a topical presentation with a day-by-day chronology attached. JamesMLane 23:48, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I am completely against another new article being created for the in the news section. Your points will be more valid after the {current} header is removed from the article in a few weeks. Until then an in progress current event article should certainly be allowed to include many different issues and aspects, shouldn't it? And I reject the notion it's all that different. Kevin and I certainly can disagree on what In the News should be without the "compromise" be move it to a new article, my suggestions were counter suggestions against your proposal. The in the news section is very relevant, it's the best way to find the most recent statistical analysis when new ones come out which includes research on debunking/reverse debunking. We can change the "In the news" section to a "Latest information and upcomming events" section or two, which would chronicle when data became available, when hearings were and will be held, when protests were and will be held, when the electoral college will meet, the inauguration date etc etc. The in the news section is relatively small, why do you want to create so many tiny daughter articles? We can perhaps start pruning stuff from November first if size is your main concern. zen master 01:10, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think me and zen-master are mostly in agreement. As regards trimming, I am not against it in principle. I have intentionally been a little ovrerzealous in the news updates: "better too much than too little", thinking that it can always be trimmed but it is much harder to go back and find old articles. (which is the research point) As time went on, I feel I got better at assessing news-worthiness and article uniqueness, so there should be more "fat" at the top than at the bottom. I just don't want any trimming to be overzealous.

I am also in agreement with james that the news items would be well served by a topical presentation. It doesn't seem to me like the new info is really making it into the article. Perhaps we should make a list of relevant issues, this being one of them. I started a list below, listing everything as a question. Kevin Baas | talk 20:31, 2004 Dec 12 (UTC)

I am actually not particularly concerned about the length of the main article so much as its readability. The news doesn't hamper the article's readability (it's well organized by date, and is concise at the item level). However, I do believe that lumping everything on one page is a poor way of organizing information when the wiki makes it so easy to seperate it out. I really don't see a problem with creating "yet another page", as long as there's a very obvious link somewhere near the top (right before/after the intro) of the main article telling you where you could go to for further developments. noosphere 09:50, 2004 Dec 14 (UTC)

internal, reductive

• selective criteria for news?
• trimming of news?

internal, constructive

• separate article/section for upcoming (vs. past)?
• news should get topical presentation?

external

• separate article for news?
• main election timeline, incorporation of this news info into?
• involvement of wikinews?

qualitative

• what are the "purposes"/"benefits" of in the news; what is it there for?
• how does the "ongoing events" status factor in?

I've thought about a news article too. I know, "one more bloody page". But the news articles relate to all of the pages really. What about putting the news section on Wikinews though, with a permanent link from the articles to it for readers of wikipedia to catch their daily updates? Would that make sense? FT2 21:29, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)