Election day mistakes aren't random

Red State Zombie ^ | November 7, 2010 | Red State Zombie

[Gum Shoe]

As of late, I have been impressed with the number of electoral irregularities that have been reported during the past several election cycles. By electoral irregularities, I mean all these lost-and-found ballot boxes and bags, miscalibrated voting machines, judicial interventions, etc. Please understand, I am no mathematician or statistician, but I would think the very nature of any series of errors leading to those irregularities would be random, i.e. those errors would favor democrats and republicans equally. In fact, a decent dictionary definition of the word random could be a process of selection in which each item of a set has an equal probability of being chosen. So, my argument would be it is mathematically impossible, over the long run, for either democrats or republicans to have the majority of electoral irregularities cause benefit to their candidate. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the case.

I have conducted a non-scientific study of all the news reports I can find addressing voting irregularities since the Bush v. Gore Florida debacle. I looked at reports from local, state, and national elections. I am not including any of the reports listed on Fox's voter fraud report web page because anyone can call in a report for inclusion, substantiated or not. I'm only including reports that turned out to be headline material. I’ll admit, the sample data is flawed since I cannot guarantee I have found all relevant reports. With that said, I have found fourteen reports of voting irregularities benefiting democratic candidates, and only two where republican candidates have been the beneficiaries. I’m including the Supreme Court ruling resulting in the Bush Presidency among the two republican scenarios. I am not including the Murkowski thing in Alaska. I do not consider Murkowski to be a republican, nor can I count her as a democrat – yet.

I do not want to believe the democrats are manipulating the American electoral process as it seems they are. Democrats are Americans too, aren’t they? Tampering with the electoral process violates the law and the core beliefs most of America shares. Why would someone cheat the nation by illegal manipulation of the sacred voting process? So, this is an appeal. Please feel free to post any example of voting irregularities benefiting republicans. I’ve already counted the Bush/Gore problem in Florida. Bring me something else. I need at least twelve examples for the math to work out for me and make things right in my world.

[Gum Shoe]

“Thus, your analysis as is contains a significant bias in favor of the Democrats.”

I think the author cited the Bush/Gore recount in Florida to preempt any trolls who wanted to whine about it. I don’t get the feeling that the article is pro-democrat at all.

[ballplayer]

Its the same reason Democrats ahve to lie to get elected

[weezel]

No they dont, at least not the high up in the party. They want to make people of lesser intelligence BELIEVE that it was stolen.

[skookum55]

I agree that his post is not offered with the goal of benefitting Democrats, but his mischaracterization of the Florida 2000 fiasco imparts a bias in favor of Democrats by assuming the fiasco was slanted toward Republicans. The shenanigans were intended to harm Republicans, and the SCOTUS put a stop to it.

In short, the author has provided no examples of potential Republican misconduct. I assume that is because examples of such are hard to come by — i.e., the Republican game plan does not, at least routinely, include fraud. It is easier for Democrats to incorporate fraud into their game plan, because they tend to control the population centers, where a few rotten apples have the ability to alter or fabricate many votes.

[Gum Shoe]

Well,we all get something different from what we read. I’ve read alot of RSZ stuff, and I don’t get the impression that anything RSZ writes favors democrats, which he simply calls “liberal socialists” in most of his posts. Maybe he was feeling cuddly the day he wrote this piece.