USCountVotes & Steven Freeman

Steven Freeman, Ph.D., and USCountVotes's response to the Mitofsky-Edison report can be viewed here. It is quite interesting. Basically they point out that nowhere in the report is there any evidence to support the claim that Kerry voters participated more in the exit polls, and Mitofsky & Edison have not even considered the option that the election results may have been flawed.

More information available at USCountVotes.

Global Warming

t r u t h o u t - Global Warming Approaching Point of No Return: "Global Warming Approaching Point of No Return, Warns Leading Climate Expert"

Oh boy.

The Velvet Revolution

VELVETREVOLUTION.US

Well, there you go. This organization is gathering a pretty hefty list of affiliated groups, among them PDA, the free press, the raw story, ILCA, truthout, IPPN, Cobb/Lamarche 2004, Solar Bus, CASE Ohio, Democracy Week, Tom Hayden, BandTogether, Peace Majority, the Green Party, the Aggressive Progressives, Code Pink, the National Ballot Integrity Project, the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, etc. Quite impressive!

The Conyers Report: What Went Wrong in Ohio

"We have found numerous, serious election irregularities in the Ohio presidential election, which resulted in a significant disenfranchisement of voters. Cumulatively, these irregularities, which affected hundreds of thousand of votes and voters in Ohio, raise grave doubts regarding whether it can be said the Ohio electors selected on December 13, 2004, were chosen in a manner that conforms to Ohio law, let alone federal requirements and constitutional standards."

t r u t h o u t - BREAKING | The Conyers Report: What Went Wrong in Ohio

Says the Democratic staff of Representative John Conyers, Jr.

Count votes same way we count money

Count votes same way we count money: "Why can't counting ballots be as precise and mundane as counting money in the bank? Democracy can be messy, but that doesn't mean counting our votes should be, too."

I think this column does the best I have seen at describing what exactly we need to feel secure about our votes. These few statements are paramount:

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"How have banks earned our trust? There are three key elements we are all familiar with: accurate electronic transactions, customer verification and independent audit."

... [In the system VoteHere offers], "at the time you vote you are given a private, take-home receipt that preserves your secret ballot. After the election, you can check your receipt against the election results to make sure your vote was counted properly -- just like you reconcile your ATM receipts against your monthly bank statement. At the same time, any independent organization can audit all the votes to make sure the final count is right."

Interesting...

I don't know that I entirely agree. I really think the best choice might be straight paper ballots, hand-counted. They do it other places, why not here. It really is the only way where we can seriously count them all with observers watching and counting along, as far as I can see.

Time for a revolution?

While the article below actually again brings out various facts about the election, I think the title may be true, and maybe it's time to start talking about changing our whole form of government, not just the voting method. What do you think?

CANNONFIRE: American democracy, RIP: 1789-2005.

Perhaps we should be flying this instead? 

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Thinking about writing to your Senator or House member about the electoral vote? Try this page for some useful tips.

The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy

If you haven't read Steven Freeman's paper on the exit poll discrepancy, I recommend you read it now. In particular I think the sections where he debunks various explanations of why the exit poll data is flawed are particularly important.

Election Poll Discrepancy

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Another good article is this paper in the Free Press examining the comparative validity of exit poll and vote count data. It suggests that, given a free and fair election, Kerry should have won the popular vote.

Who Won the Popular Vote?