TruthIsAll
01-07-2011, 03:26 PM
http://richardcharnin.com/NYLeverShills.htm
Calling Out the NY Lever Shills
Richard Charnin (TruthIsAll)
Jan. 12, 2011
Democratic Underground Posters "Bill Bored" and "Wilms" have been shilling non-stop for years as advocates for NY lever voting machines. The levers were replaced by optical scanners in 2010.
They want the levers back and constantly repeat that they are nearly foolproof from miscounts, unlike DREs and optical scanners. Their bogus argument is that the mechanical levers cannot be rigged through software. Yet they have never coherently addressed the fact that the votes CAST on levers were COUNTED on UNVERIFIABLE central tabulators.
They might as well be writing for the mainstream media; they assume readers don’t do their homework and oblivious to the facts. Instead of focusing on the real problem (corrupt NY judges, politicians and election officials who refuse to do robust hand-counts of the paper ballots) they continue their non-stop campaign for the levers.
And they mislead readers by claiming that no one can explain how votes could be switched on levers. It has been pointed out to them numerous times, but they continue to ignore the facts:
1. NY votes were cast on levers
2. The votes were counted on central tabulators
3, Central tabulators are computers
4. There were no paper ballots to verify the machine counts
5. The lever voting system was never transparent!
Bored calls the 2004 exit polls “crap” because they showed a massive 12% discrepancy in Kerry's NY margin. The exit poll timeline indicated that Kerry led the state by a constant 64-35%. But the recorded vote was 58-40% (the exit poll margin of error was less than 2%).
Nationwide, the average exit poll discrepancy for all voting machine types was 7.4%. Kerry won the aggregate state exit polls poll by 52-47% but lost the RECORDED vote by 50.7-48.3%.
The discrepancy (WPE) was 11.6% for lever precincts and 7% for DREs and optical scanners - but just 2% for paper ballots. I wrote about it here: http://www.richardcharnin.com/NewYorkLeverFraud.htm
I provided EIRS data showing that in heavily Democratic NYC, long lines and faulty machines disenfranchised voters: http://www.richardcharnin.com/NY2004EIRS.htm
Kerry’s New York margin was reduced by nearly 1.0 million votes due to election fraud. In California, his margin was cut by approximately 1.4 million. Bush won the recorded vote by just 3.0 million, so approximately 80% of his “mandate” came from the two biggest Democratic states.
This graph depicts the implausible NY 2004 Bush gains over 2000 in the 15 largest New York counties.
'http://www.richardcharnin.com/TIACountyVoteDatabase_24111_image001.png'
In 2004, there was a 17% increase over 2000 in the national recorded vote (105 to 122 million). Kerry captured 57-59% of new voters! So how are we expected to believe the implausible recorded vote changes in these heavily Democratic counties?
1. Kings (Brooklyn): Bush’s recorded vote increased by 75% and Kerry’s increased by only 5%!
2. Bronx: Bush’s recorded vote increased by 59% and Kerry’s increased by only 10%!
3. Queens:, Bush’s recorded vote increased by 36% and Kerry’s increased by only 5%!
4. Nassau: Bush’s recorded vote increased by 30% and Kerry’s declined by 2%!
But now they have gone too far. They resort to outright slander.
________________________________________________________________
Wilms posted this lie:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x517188
Wilms (1000+ posts)
Sun Jan-02-11 11:01 AM
Response to Reply #2
9. Exit Poll TIA thinks lever machines cause chads! More think HAVA requires their retirement.
________________________________________________________________
The other memmer of the tag-team, Bill Bored, replied with this canard:
Bill Bored (1000+ posts)
Sun Jan-02-11 01:45 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. He also thinks they cause vote switching. I don't know which is further from the truth. nt
________________________________________________________________
Pure nonsense! This is typical misdirection on the part of relentless Lever advocates. I never claimed votes can be switched on levers or that levers cause chads. I stated that NY Central Tabulators, which tally votes cast on levers, can be programmed to miscount the votes.
Bored recently linked to a post on FireDogLake.com:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x517162
I replied on FDL (I was banned from posting on DU in 2005).
http://my.firedoglake.com/jmlagain/2010/12/28/vote-count-not-a-factor-in-ny-election-outcome
Lever advocates who claim that the former unverifiable NY lever/central tabulator system is superior to the new verifiable Optical scanner/central tabulator system are just blowing smoke. It should now be obvious to anyone who has a brain the size of a pea: the NY voting system (as in virtually all the other states) is anti- democratic. It is DESIGNED to enable miscounts. If it’s not the election officials and/or the politicians fighting against hand-counts, it’s the judiciary.
Why don’t lever machine advocates focus their efforts on the source of the corruption? How can they be so blind as to not see what they are up against? Election fraud is systemic. The only solution is a government mandate to implement a robust chain of custody and hand-count the paper ballots. Isn’t THAT why the scanners were installed in the first place: to verify the machine counts? Follow the money.
If NY election officials really wanted fair elections, they would check out a near-foolproof system that works:
http://richardcharnin.com/OregonVsNYVoting.htm
Why don’t the Lever advocates focus on the root cause of the NY scam: corrupt election officials who did not have to worry about hand-counting paper ballots using the 100 year-old Levers. Now that paper ballots are available, they refuse to count them. AND THEY STILL BLAME THE MACHINES!
Levers are non-transparent. And that is just what those who want to see them brought back want: business as usual. They are opposed to transparency at all costs. It’s no different than the PTB trying to shut down Wikileaks by any means necessary.
To (mis)quote Shakespeare: The fault is not in our machines, but in ourselves.
Posters saras and UnitedVoters also called Bored out.
________________________________________________________________
saras (308 posts)
Sun Jan-02-11 02:08 AM
Response to Original message
7. Utterly silly
What's really pathetic is there are ways of registering and counting the votes that would require gigantic conspiracies to effectively cheat, and would allow the public to watch the vote totals rise as votes come in and are counted, which makes statistical analysis much easier, to the point where problems are literally visible to the public in real-time.
And we waste our time debating the subtleties minor tweaks to horribly, fatally flawed systems instead.
________________________________________________________________
Bill Bored (1000+ posts)
Sun Jan-02-11 02:31 AM
Response to Reply #7
8. Looking forward to hearing about even ONE such method that also guarantees a secret ballot. nt
________________________________________________________________
Bill Bored (1000+ posts)
Thu Jan-06-11 01:53 AM
Response to Reply #8
11. Crickets.
Also see: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...
________________________________________________________________
UnitedVoters (48 posts)
Thu Jan-06-11 06:49 PM
Response to Reply #11
12. Crickets. What else do you expect?
You and one or two other posters have driven everyone to lurking or completely off this board. I'm surprised the crickets are even still around. You've been starting most of the recent threads, and attacking anyone who doesn't agree with you. And 95% of recent threads that aren't Voting News have been about New York and its Quixotic quest to hang on to Direct Recording Mechanical lever machines.
There is a wonderful line, originated by Ethel Merman in the musical 'Gypsy': "New York is the center of New York."
That is all.
________________________________________________________________
Bored responds with this tripe about “leverless elections”, as if mechanical levers are the Holy Grail of transparent voting sytems.
________________________________________________________________
Bill Bored (1000+ posts)
Thu Jan-06-11 11:46 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. Are you going to answer my question or not?
It's amazing that when asked for a plan to verify leverless elections, all you guys can do is crawl out of the woodwork and revert to your lever-bashing position as if that's a cogent response to the question.
I've been doing this far too long to be bullshitted like that. You've got nothin'. Admit it. You don't have a clue how to verify computer-counted election results, do you?
You only know what a few advocates have told you about how it's better to have computers count paper ballots than not count paper ballots.
You've got nothin'! So either come up with the goods or think of a better comeback than "Mechanical DREs." That's a specious analogy if I ever heard one. It shows a complete lack of understanding about the risks inherent in allowing software to handle critical functions such our democratic process.
If you can't explain to me how you're going to verify election results with your computerized voting system, sorry but I'll take a lever voting system that can't switch votes during elections by design.
The reason there are crickets here is because you and some others can't answer the question. So cut the crap and have a nice day.
________________________________________________________________
Message from TIA to Bill Bored:
Hey Bill, admit it: YOU have nuthin’ - just an open agenda to shill for Levers that you must feed daily. When are you going to write a post demanding that NY get rid of the central tabulators when it goes back to the levers? I won’t hold my breath. Mechanical Levers and computers are a powerful combination when it comes to casting and miscounting votes. No paper – no transparency.
You keep telling us that computers should never be used in any voting system. And yet you still have the gall to constantly shill for those mechanical relics. Give it up already. Your act has been a stale one for years now.
________________________________________________________________
Consider that…
1) Oregon votes by mail and NY by lever machines.
2) In the last three elections, late NY Democratic (paper) vote shares were 7% higher than Election Day (lever) shares.
3) In 2004, the New York exit poll had a massive 12% average Within Precinct Discrepancy (WPE), cutting Kerry’s margin by 900k votes!
By contrast, the National WPE was 7% and Paper ballot precincts had a 2% WPE.
4) Kerry’s NY margin was 3.7% HIGHER than Gore’s in Oregon (a battleground state), but 6.7% LOWER in New York (a strong Democratic state).
5) Kerry exceeded Gore’s margin in Oregon’s largest county (Multnomah) by 8.9%; Gore exceeded Kerry’s by 8.6% in New York’s largest (Kings).
6) Oregon had a 1.8% vote discrepancy in a 2004 exit pollster telephone survey compared to 14 battleground states 7.5% average.
7) Oregon closely matched the 2004 aggregate exit poll after allocating returning Nader voters to Kerry and Bush.
8) Oregon paper ballots are available for hand recounts. There were no paper ballots in the NY Lever voting system.
9) Gore won NY by 60.2-35.2%. Allocating the 4.6% Nader/other vote, Kerry wins by 63-36% – assuming equal Gore/Bush defection.
10) According to the Preliminary National Exit Poll 10% of returning Bush voters defected to Kerry and 8% of returning Gore voters defected to Bush.
Assuming these defection rates, Kerry’s NY margin (64-35%) exactly matched the unadjusted, Best GEO and Composite Exit Poll timeline.
11) Gore did better than his 60.2% NY recorded share after allocating 180,000 net uncounted votes.
12) In the two elections in which Clinton was the incumbent, the NY exit polls had an average 0.6 WPD
13) In the three elections in which a Bush was the incumbent, NY exit polls had an average 8.0 WPD.
If one ignores all of the above, there is every reason for New Yorkers to “love those levers” – except for this: Even if everyone who came to the polls voted and all the lever machines performed perfectly, the fact remains that votes are counted by proprietary computer software, not open source, which can easily be programmed to switch votes that may or may not have been entered accurately. Ay, there’s the rub.
Oregon voters does not have faulty levers placed in heavy Democratic precincts, machine failures, vote counts terminating at 99, stuck levers, long lines, intimidation by poll workers or UNVERIFIABLE vote counts.
http://www.richardcharnin.com/2004NewYorkLeverExitPollDiscepancies.htm
http://www.richardcharnin.com/NewYorkVotingAnomalies.htm
http://www.richardcharnin.com/NewYorkConfirmationKerryLandslide.htm
http://richardcharnin.com/OregonVsNYVoting.htm
http://richardcharnin.com/OregonVotingSystem.htm
http://www.richardcharnin.com/StanislevicNYLevers.htm
Calling Out the NY Lever Shills
Richard Charnin (TruthIsAll)
Jan. 12, 2011
Democratic Underground Posters "Bill Bored" and "Wilms" have been shilling non-stop for years as advocates for NY lever voting machines. The levers were replaced by optical scanners in 2010.
They want the levers back and constantly repeat that they are nearly foolproof from miscounts, unlike DREs and optical scanners. Their bogus argument is that the mechanical levers cannot be rigged through software. Yet they have never coherently addressed the fact that the votes CAST on levers were COUNTED on UNVERIFIABLE central tabulators.
They might as well be writing for the mainstream media; they assume readers don’t do their homework and oblivious to the facts. Instead of focusing on the real problem (corrupt NY judges, politicians and election officials who refuse to do robust hand-counts of the paper ballots) they continue their non-stop campaign for the levers.
And they mislead readers by claiming that no one can explain how votes could be switched on levers. It has been pointed out to them numerous times, but they continue to ignore the facts:
1. NY votes were cast on levers
2. The votes were counted on central tabulators
3, Central tabulators are computers
4. There were no paper ballots to verify the machine counts
5. The lever voting system was never transparent!
Bored calls the 2004 exit polls “crap” because they showed a massive 12% discrepancy in Kerry's NY margin. The exit poll timeline indicated that Kerry led the state by a constant 64-35%. But the recorded vote was 58-40% (the exit poll margin of error was less than 2%).
Nationwide, the average exit poll discrepancy for all voting machine types was 7.4%. Kerry won the aggregate state exit polls poll by 52-47% but lost the RECORDED vote by 50.7-48.3%.
The discrepancy (WPE) was 11.6% for lever precincts and 7% for DREs and optical scanners - but just 2% for paper ballots. I wrote about it here: http://www.richardcharnin.com/NewYorkLeverFraud.htm
I provided EIRS data showing that in heavily Democratic NYC, long lines and faulty machines disenfranchised voters: http://www.richardcharnin.com/NY2004EIRS.htm
Kerry’s New York margin was reduced by nearly 1.0 million votes due to election fraud. In California, his margin was cut by approximately 1.4 million. Bush won the recorded vote by just 3.0 million, so approximately 80% of his “mandate” came from the two biggest Democratic states.
This graph depicts the implausible NY 2004 Bush gains over 2000 in the 15 largest New York counties.
'http://www.richardcharnin.com/TIACountyVoteDatabase_24111_image001.png'
In 2004, there was a 17% increase over 2000 in the national recorded vote (105 to 122 million). Kerry captured 57-59% of new voters! So how are we expected to believe the implausible recorded vote changes in these heavily Democratic counties?
1. Kings (Brooklyn): Bush’s recorded vote increased by 75% and Kerry’s increased by only 5%!
2. Bronx: Bush’s recorded vote increased by 59% and Kerry’s increased by only 10%!
3. Queens:, Bush’s recorded vote increased by 36% and Kerry’s increased by only 5%!
4. Nassau: Bush’s recorded vote increased by 30% and Kerry’s declined by 2%!
But now they have gone too far. They resort to outright slander.
________________________________________________________________
Wilms posted this lie:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x517188
Wilms (1000+ posts)
Sun Jan-02-11 11:01 AM
Response to Reply #2
9. Exit Poll TIA thinks lever machines cause chads! More think HAVA requires their retirement.
________________________________________________________________
The other memmer of the tag-team, Bill Bored, replied with this canard:
Bill Bored (1000+ posts)
Sun Jan-02-11 01:45 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. He also thinks they cause vote switching. I don't know which is further from the truth. nt
________________________________________________________________
Pure nonsense! This is typical misdirection on the part of relentless Lever advocates. I never claimed votes can be switched on levers or that levers cause chads. I stated that NY Central Tabulators, which tally votes cast on levers, can be programmed to miscount the votes.
Bored recently linked to a post on FireDogLake.com:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x517162
I replied on FDL (I was banned from posting on DU in 2005).
http://my.firedoglake.com/jmlagain/2010/12/28/vote-count-not-a-factor-in-ny-election-outcome
Lever advocates who claim that the former unverifiable NY lever/central tabulator system is superior to the new verifiable Optical scanner/central tabulator system are just blowing smoke. It should now be obvious to anyone who has a brain the size of a pea: the NY voting system (as in virtually all the other states) is anti- democratic. It is DESIGNED to enable miscounts. If it’s not the election officials and/or the politicians fighting against hand-counts, it’s the judiciary.
Why don’t lever machine advocates focus their efforts on the source of the corruption? How can they be so blind as to not see what they are up against? Election fraud is systemic. The only solution is a government mandate to implement a robust chain of custody and hand-count the paper ballots. Isn’t THAT why the scanners were installed in the first place: to verify the machine counts? Follow the money.
If NY election officials really wanted fair elections, they would check out a near-foolproof system that works:
http://richardcharnin.com/OregonVsNYVoting.htm
Why don’t the Lever advocates focus on the root cause of the NY scam: corrupt election officials who did not have to worry about hand-counting paper ballots using the 100 year-old Levers. Now that paper ballots are available, they refuse to count them. AND THEY STILL BLAME THE MACHINES!
Levers are non-transparent. And that is just what those who want to see them brought back want: business as usual. They are opposed to transparency at all costs. It’s no different than the PTB trying to shut down Wikileaks by any means necessary.
To (mis)quote Shakespeare: The fault is not in our machines, but in ourselves.
Posters saras and UnitedVoters also called Bored out.
________________________________________________________________
saras (308 posts)
Sun Jan-02-11 02:08 AM
Response to Original message
7. Utterly silly
What's really pathetic is there are ways of registering and counting the votes that would require gigantic conspiracies to effectively cheat, and would allow the public to watch the vote totals rise as votes come in and are counted, which makes statistical analysis much easier, to the point where problems are literally visible to the public in real-time.
And we waste our time debating the subtleties minor tweaks to horribly, fatally flawed systems instead.
________________________________________________________________
Bill Bored (1000+ posts)
Sun Jan-02-11 02:31 AM
Response to Reply #7
8. Looking forward to hearing about even ONE such method that also guarantees a secret ballot. nt
________________________________________________________________
Bill Bored (1000+ posts)
Thu Jan-06-11 01:53 AM
Response to Reply #8
11. Crickets.
Also see: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...
________________________________________________________________
UnitedVoters (48 posts)
Thu Jan-06-11 06:49 PM
Response to Reply #11
12. Crickets. What else do you expect?
You and one or two other posters have driven everyone to lurking or completely off this board. I'm surprised the crickets are even still around. You've been starting most of the recent threads, and attacking anyone who doesn't agree with you. And 95% of recent threads that aren't Voting News have been about New York and its Quixotic quest to hang on to Direct Recording Mechanical lever machines.
There is a wonderful line, originated by Ethel Merman in the musical 'Gypsy': "New York is the center of New York."
That is all.
________________________________________________________________
Bored responds with this tripe about “leverless elections”, as if mechanical levers are the Holy Grail of transparent voting sytems.
________________________________________________________________
Bill Bored (1000+ posts)
Thu Jan-06-11 11:46 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. Are you going to answer my question or not?
It's amazing that when asked for a plan to verify leverless elections, all you guys can do is crawl out of the woodwork and revert to your lever-bashing position as if that's a cogent response to the question.
I've been doing this far too long to be bullshitted like that. You've got nothin'. Admit it. You don't have a clue how to verify computer-counted election results, do you?
You only know what a few advocates have told you about how it's better to have computers count paper ballots than not count paper ballots.
You've got nothin'! So either come up with the goods or think of a better comeback than "Mechanical DREs." That's a specious analogy if I ever heard one. It shows a complete lack of understanding about the risks inherent in allowing software to handle critical functions such our democratic process.
If you can't explain to me how you're going to verify election results with your computerized voting system, sorry but I'll take a lever voting system that can't switch votes during elections by design.
The reason there are crickets here is because you and some others can't answer the question. So cut the crap and have a nice day.
________________________________________________________________
Message from TIA to Bill Bored:
Hey Bill, admit it: YOU have nuthin’ - just an open agenda to shill for Levers that you must feed daily. When are you going to write a post demanding that NY get rid of the central tabulators when it goes back to the levers? I won’t hold my breath. Mechanical Levers and computers are a powerful combination when it comes to casting and miscounting votes. No paper – no transparency.
You keep telling us that computers should never be used in any voting system. And yet you still have the gall to constantly shill for those mechanical relics. Give it up already. Your act has been a stale one for years now.
________________________________________________________________
Consider that…
1) Oregon votes by mail and NY by lever machines.
2) In the last three elections, late NY Democratic (paper) vote shares were 7% higher than Election Day (lever) shares.
3) In 2004, the New York exit poll had a massive 12% average Within Precinct Discrepancy (WPE), cutting Kerry’s margin by 900k votes!
By contrast, the National WPE was 7% and Paper ballot precincts had a 2% WPE.
4) Kerry’s NY margin was 3.7% HIGHER than Gore’s in Oregon (a battleground state), but 6.7% LOWER in New York (a strong Democratic state).
5) Kerry exceeded Gore’s margin in Oregon’s largest county (Multnomah) by 8.9%; Gore exceeded Kerry’s by 8.6% in New York’s largest (Kings).
6) Oregon had a 1.8% vote discrepancy in a 2004 exit pollster telephone survey compared to 14 battleground states 7.5% average.
7) Oregon closely matched the 2004 aggregate exit poll after allocating returning Nader voters to Kerry and Bush.
8) Oregon paper ballots are available for hand recounts. There were no paper ballots in the NY Lever voting system.
9) Gore won NY by 60.2-35.2%. Allocating the 4.6% Nader/other vote, Kerry wins by 63-36% – assuming equal Gore/Bush defection.
10) According to the Preliminary National Exit Poll 10% of returning Bush voters defected to Kerry and 8% of returning Gore voters defected to Bush.
Assuming these defection rates, Kerry’s NY margin (64-35%) exactly matched the unadjusted, Best GEO and Composite Exit Poll timeline.
11) Gore did better than his 60.2% NY recorded share after allocating 180,000 net uncounted votes.
12) In the two elections in which Clinton was the incumbent, the NY exit polls had an average 0.6 WPD
13) In the three elections in which a Bush was the incumbent, NY exit polls had an average 8.0 WPD.
If one ignores all of the above, there is every reason for New Yorkers to “love those levers” – except for this: Even if everyone who came to the polls voted and all the lever machines performed perfectly, the fact remains that votes are counted by proprietary computer software, not open source, which can easily be programmed to switch votes that may or may not have been entered accurately. Ay, there’s the rub.
Oregon voters does not have faulty levers placed in heavy Democratic precincts, machine failures, vote counts terminating at 99, stuck levers, long lines, intimidation by poll workers or UNVERIFIABLE vote counts.
http://www.richardcharnin.com/2004NewYorkLeverExitPollDiscepancies.htm
http://www.richardcharnin.com/NewYorkVotingAnomalies.htm
http://www.richardcharnin.com/NewYorkConfirmationKerryLandslide.htm
http://richardcharnin.com/OregonVsNYVoting.htm
http://richardcharnin.com/OregonVotingSystem.htm
http://www.richardcharnin.com/StanislevicNYLevers.htm