Posted on 11/11/2004 5:59:38 PM PST by StJacques
Like so many others here, I have been watching the post-election meltdown among the Democrats with fascination. Some of it I find understandable. I knew that when John Kerry decided in September to cease speaking to voters about who he is and what he planned to do as President -- not that he ever really discussed who he is -- and to instead pursue a strategy for victory that would rely upon raising public anger over Iraq, lost jobs, and whatever else the media produced for his benefit, that an election loss would be difficult for a group of supporters driven by rage alone. I also expected that we would see this anger vented at Bush supporters in the press and by the press, though I could not have predicted the full extent and intensity, and I should add "idiocy," with which it would be expressed. But what I have found to be truly surprising is the way in which charges of vote fraud have been circulating among Democratic activists since November 2, because it not only represents a complete reversal of their pre-election focus upon "voter suppression" -- vote fraud was and continues to remain a Republican issue -- it also is being presented in a format that is almost entirely devoid of demonstrable argument and is instead founded upon a symbolic form of communication among the most hardened Democratic activists that presents itself as a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I want to post some comments on this because I see real dangers for our domestic social and political peace arising out of this development which could lead our country into a new era of internal conflict that will be far worse than what we have known over the past several years.
Note: All web links in this post are "pop up" links which you can open without leaving this page.
The first argument: "Kerry wins Ohio if all the votes are counted."
The first important charge that Kerry was robbed of victory was put forth by Greg Palast at TomPaine.com who pointedly wrote that Kerry won. Palast focused on Ohio and presented the number of total ballots not yet counted which, as the sum of provisional ballots and "spoiled" punch card votes, came to 247,672 and compared that against the 136,483 margin of victory for George Bush and argued that Kerry had actually carried the state. But the evidence Palast used to make his argument was that early exit polls showed Kerry had won among both men and women and, according to Palast, this made his victory certain "unless a third gender voted in Ohio" and the difference between Bush and Kerry would be reversed in the latter's favor if all the provisional and uncounted punch card ballots could be included in the final totals. Palast went to great pains to argue the acceptability of the exit polls, of which he says that later adjustments were "contaminated by -- the tabulated results." As a rant for the Democratic faithful Palast's arguments struck a chord, his article became the subject of numerous forum discussion threads at the Democratic Underground web site, where there was nearly unanimous agreement that Bush had "stolen another election." But as an exercise in critical thinking and sound analysis Palast failed the test since his arguments relied almost entirely upon "external" evidence outside of the actual uncounted votes and contained no examination of the uncounted votes in their own right nor did he attempt to mathematically weight their supposed impact on the final vote totals.
The first thing to examine is the reliability of the exit poll data. Almost every major news network has found problems with the election day exit polls, but Palast insists that they are "accurate." The simple fact of the matter is that, even if we ignore the historical problems of using exit poll data from recent elections, exit polls are not votes. With a six point advantage among women and a two point advantage among men in the exit poll results, Kerry's margin of victory should have been in the eight or nine point range in Ohio, given that women outvote men. Even if you include all 247,672 outstanding votes in Ohio for Kerry, which is a ridiculous assumption of course, he would still be six or seven points outside the predicted spread from the exit polls, which is beyond their margin of error. And these facts can be gleaned from the figures Palast himself presents in his article, though he never analyzes them in such a comparison, which establishes that the "external" evidence, i.e. evidence presented outside of the counted votes themselves, fails the test of believability.
Palast does even worse when you go to the internal evidence, which means that we look at the votes themselves; where and how they were cast, who cast them, what are the numbers revealed from their tabulation, and how all of the above relate to the final vote totals. Palast makes only one observation that can be described as reviewing internal evidence, when he writes that most of the uncounted punch card ballots "come from African-American and minority precincts." I suspect this is true, but Palast neither examines the likely percentages of those votes that would go to each of the two candidates nor does he weight their overall impact on the final vote totals, which is what really matters since he is arguing that Kerry actually won Ohio. One of the things we all learned from the Florida recount in 2000 is that the recounting of ballots, even under the most liberalized counting methods and in the most heavily-Democratic areas, do not entirely favor one candidate and, unless one wants to argue that the future will not resemble the past, this should hold true in Ohio. But one must also look at the distribution of uncounted punch card ballots to provisional ballots, because the real issue is how much of an impact they would have on the total vote. The 92,672 "discarded" punch card ballots account for only 37.4% of the total uncounted ballots in Ohio, but Palast's argument seems to suggest that knowing that those votes would be "overwhelmingly Democratic" means that Kerry would win if they were all counted. But Palast does not discuss the provisional ballots at all, and I would suggest for good reason, since this is where the mathematics of counting votes is really stacked against him. Let's put some of that simple arithmetic up for examination. With a current margin of 136,483 votes in Bush's favor in Ohio and 247,672 total uncounted ballots outstanding, John Kerry would have to win the remainder by a minimum margin of 192,078 to 55,594 or 77.6% to 22.4%. When you realize that 62.6% of all the outstanding votes are provisional ballots and you examine the official statistics of their distribution, which is still incomplete in some areas but nonetheless shows that in many of the counties Bush carried there are a significant number of provisional ballots to be counted, it becomes painfully evident for Kerry supporters that the Bush lead is out of reach. And none of this takes into account the fact that some of these provisional ballots will be ruled invalid, which only raises the percentage of the remainder Kerry would have to win to even more unreasonable levels. These must be the facts that stared the Kerry campaign in the face on November 3 when they owned up to reality and conceded the election. Palast's piece was not only misleading, it was irresponsible and divisive and if TomPaine.com wants to retain any credibility they should disavow its content.
The second argument: "The electronic voting machines in Florida were deliberately rigged in Bush's favor."
As far removed from reality as this charge sounds, Democratic activists are making it with a fury. One web site has posted an examination of the results for counties in Florida highlighting precincts which used optical scanners to count votes, and has suggested that those scanners may have been "fixed" in Bush's favor. The following table is taken from that web site. Please pay attention to the "Percent Change" figures in the two columns at the far right, representing the difference between "Expected" and "Actual" votes by party affiliation. Positive numbers in those columns suggest percentages above what is expected, negative numbers suggest percentages below, and there is no control for Independent voters, which can lead to instances where both parties receive percentages above the expected vote:
Vote Returns in Florida from Counties Using Optical Scanners to Count Votes
Op-Scan Precinct | (%Regist)*(TotalVotes) | (Actual-Exp)/(Exp) | |||||||||
COUNTY | vendor | REGISTERED VOTERS | ACTUAL RESULTS | EXPECTED_VOTES | PERCENT CHANGE | ||||||
%REP | %DEM | TOT_REG | REP | DEM | TOT_VOTES | REP | DEM | REP | DEM | ||
Alachua | Diebold | 27.8% | 50.5% | 142,358 | 47,615 | 62,348 | 111,022 | 30,887 | 56,111 | 54.2% | 11.1% |
Baker | Sequoia | 24.3% | 69.3% | 12,887 | 7,738 | 2,180 | 9,955 | 2,415 | 6,895 | 220.4% | -68.4% |
Bay | ES&S | 44.2% | 39.2% | 101,315 | 53,305 | 21,034 | 74,890 | 33,079 | 29,351 | 61.1% | -28.3% |
Bradford | ES&S | 28.3% | 61.4% | 14,721 | 7,553 | 3,244 | 10,851 | 3,072 | 6,663 | 145.8% | -51.3% |
Brevard | Diebold | 44.8% | 36.5% | 338,195 | 152,838 | 110,153 | 265,075 | 118,772 | 96,860 | 28.7% | 13.7% |
Calhoun | Diebold | 11.9% | 82.4% | 8,350 | 3,780 | 2,116 | 5,961 | 709 | 4,911 | 433.2% | -56.9% |
Citrus | Diebold | 41.5% | 38.9% | 90,780 | 39,496 | 29,271 | 69,457 | 28,809 | 27,039 | 37.1% | 8.3% |
Clay | ES&S | 56.5% | 25.6% | 106,464 | 61,813 | 18,887 | 81,144 | 45,877 | 20,794 | 34.7% | -9.2% |
Columbia | Diebold | 31.3% | 56.5% | 34,282 | 16,753 | 8,029 | 24,984 | 7,825 | 14,119 | 114.1% | -43.1% |
DeSoto | Diebold | 25.4% | 59.3% | 14,901 | 5,510 | 3,910 | 9,493 | 2,413 | 5,630 | 128.4% | -30.6% |
Dixie | Diebold | 15.0% | 77.5% | 9,676 | 4,433 | 1,959 | 6,440 | 968 | 4,988 | 358.1% | -60.7% |
Duval | Diebold | 36.9% | 46.2% | 515,202 | 218,476 | 157,624 | 378,330 | 139,605 | 174,965 | 56.5% | -9.9% |
Escambia | ES&S | 43.8% | 40.7% | 189,833 | 93,311 | 48,207 | 142,895 | 62,602 | 58,149 | 49.1% | -17.1% |
Flagler | Diebold | 40.7% | 38.1% | 47,068 | 19,624 | 18,563 | 38,455 | 15,669 | 14,657 | 25.2% | 26.6% |
Franklin | ES&S | 15.9% | 77.3% | 7,620 | 3,472 | 2,400 | 5,930 | 943 | 4,586 | 268.1% | -47.7% |
Gadsden | ES&S | 11.2% | 82.9% | 26,884 | 6,236 | 14,610 | 20,948 | 2,347 | 17,361 | 165.7% | -15.8% |
Gilchrist | Diebold | 30.4% | 58.6% | 9,035 | 4,930 | 2,015 | 7,007 | 2,133 | 4,106 | 131.2% | -50.9% |
Glades | Diebold | 24.8% | 64.8% | 5,963 | 1,983 | 1,434 | 3,434 | 852 | 2,227 | 132.8% | -35.6% |
Gulf | ES&S | 26.6% | 67.1% | 9,627 | 4,797 | 2,398 | 7,259 | 1,928 | 4,874 | 148.8% | -50.8% |
Hamilton | ES&S | 14.9% | 78.9% | 7,645 | 2,786 | 2,252 | 5,065 | 755 | 3,994 | 268.9% | -43.6% |
Hardee | Diebold | 26.7% | 63.8% | 10,399 | 5,047 | 2,147 | 7,245 | 1,936 | 4,619 | 160.7% | -53.5% |
Hendry | ES&S | 30.8% | 56.5% | 17,144 | 5,756 | 3,960 | 9,774 | 3,010 | 5,523 | 91.3% | -28.3% |
Hernando | Diebold | 41.3% | 38.8% | 109,656 | 40,137 | 35,006 | 75,832 | 31,303 | 29,428 | 28.2% | 19.0% |
Highlands | ES&S | 44.5% | 39.8% | 60,176 | 20,475 | 12,986 | 33,687 | 14,976 | 13,401 | 36.7% | -3.1% |
Holmes | ES&S | 21.3% | 72.7% | 10,982 | 6,410 | 1,810 | 8,298 | 1,771 | 6,036 | 261.9% | -70.0% |
Jackson | ES&S | 22.0% | 71.5% | 27,138 | 12,092 | 7,529 | 19,750 | 4,339 | 14,127 | 178.7% | -46.7% |
Jefferson | Diebold | 20.7% | 72.3% | 9,300 | 3,298 | 4,134 | 7,477 | 1,551 | 5,408 | 112.7% | -23.6% |
Lafayette | ES&S | 13.2% | 82.8% | 4,309 | 2,460 | 845 | 3,325 | 440 | 2,755 | 459.3% | -69.3% |
Leon | Diebold | 26.6% | 57.1% | 171,182 | 47,902 | 79,591 | 128,316 | 34,165 | 73,214 | 40.2% | 8.7% |
Levy | Diebold | 27.6% | 59.7% | 22,617 | 10,408 | 6,073 | 16,649 | 4,594 | 9,940 | 126.5% | -38.9% |
Liberty | ES&S | 7.9% | 88.3% | 4,075 | 1,927 | 1,070 | 3,021 | 237 | 2,667 | 712.3% | -59.9% |
Madison | Diebold | 14.9% | 79.5% | 11,371 | 4,195 | 4,048 | 8,306 | 1,238 | 6,605 | 238.8% | -38.7% |
Manatee | Diebold | 44.3% | 33.0% | 191,635 | 81,237 | 61,193 | 143,469 | 63,489 | 47,394 | 28.0% | 29.1% |
Marion | ES&S | 43.2% | 39.7% | 184,257 | 81,235 | 57,225 | 139,581 | 60,279 | 55,427 | 34.8% | 3.2% |
Monroe | Diebold | 38.7% | 36.1% | 51,377 | 19,457 | 19,646 | 39,517 | 15,286 | 14,278 | 27.3% | 37.6% |
Okaloosa | Diebold | 57.2% | 24.7% | 127,455 | 69,320 | 19,276 | 89,288 | 51,059 | 22,085 | 35.8% | -12.7% |
Okeechobee | Diebold | 29.7% | 58.5% | 18,627 | 6,975 | 5,150 | 12,184 | 3,622 | 7,124 | 92.6% | -27.7% |
Orange | ES&S | 35.1% | 40.2% | 531,774 | 191,389 | 192,030 | 385,547 | 135,299 | 154,938 | 41.5% | 23.9% |
Osceola | Diebold | 32.8% | 40.2% | 129,487 | 32,812 | 30,295 | 63,440 | 20,804 | 25,508 | 57.7% | 18.8% |
Polk | Diebold | 39.0% | 42.6% | 295,742 | 123,457 | 85,923 | 210,642 | 82,059 | 89,651 | 50.4% | -4.2% |
Putnam | Diebold | 28.1% | 57.7% | 45,344 | 18,303 | 12,407 | 30,960 | 8,690 | 17,878 | 110.6% | -30.6% |
Santa Rosa | ES&S | 55.9% | 28.1% | 96,359 | 51,952 | 14,635 | 67,175 | 37,543 | 18,880 | 38.4% | -22.5% |
Seminole | Diebold | 44.6% | 32.3% | 241,230 | 107,913 | 76,802 | 185,762 | 82,869 | 60,037 | 30.2% | 27.9% |
St.Johns | Diebold | 53.3% | 28.3% | 109,635 | 58,802 | 26,215 | 85,699 | 45,678 | 24,272 | 28.7% | 8.0% |
St.Lucie | Diebold | 36.6% | 41.4% | 137,951 | 38,919 | 43,367 | 82,798 | 30,272 | 34,288 | 28.6% | 26.5% |
Suwannee | ES&S | 26.8% | 63.6% | 21,930 | 11,145 | 4,513 | 15,785 | 4,236 | 10,035 | 163.1% | -55.0% |
Taylor | Diebold | 18.9% | 75.6% | 11,481 | 5,466 | 3,049 | 8,580 | 1,622 | 6,486 | 237.1% | -53.0% |
Union | ES&S | 18.3% | 75.5% | 7,063 | 3,396 | 1,251 | 4,675 | 855 | 3,529 | 297.4% | -64.5% |
Volusia | Diebold | 35.9% | 40.8% | 309,930 | 100,209 | 106,853 | 208,410 | 74,891 | 85,000 | 33.8% | 25.7% |
Wakulla | Diebold | 24.2% | 66.9% | 15,396 | 6,777 | 4,896 | 11,763 | 2,850 | 7,864 | 137.8% | -37.7% |
Walton | Diebold | 50.1% | 36.8% | 32,777 | 17,526 | 6,205 | 23,939 | 11,987 | 8,802 | 46.2% | -29.5% |
Washington | Diebold | 25.4% | 67.0% | 14,421 | 7,367 | 2,911 | 10,363 | 2,634 | 6,947 | 179.6% | -58.1% |
4,725,026 | 1,950,213 | 1,445,675 | 3,419,852 | 1,337,242 | 1,432,425 |
Now what the above table purports to present is evidence that the actual vote totals for John Kerry returned from counties where optical scanners are used is so far below what one would "expect" to find in light of the numbers and/or percentages of registered Democrats on the rolls that there must be something wrong since these same relationships are not so pronounced in Florida counties where some system other than optical scanners are used. Let us put that explanation in terms of the logic it presents for a moment, because this is how it goes: After seeing that the disparity between actual and expected votes for Bush and Kerry recorded in counties using optical scanners is more pronounced to Bush's advantage than in those counties using some other form of vote counting, we must conclude that the disparity is evident because optical scanners were used. We only need to bring in a Logic 101 professor to address this argument because it is a classic example of the Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc informal fallacy of "False Cause," being constructed as "after the fact therefore because of the fact." On its logical format alone, this argument fails the test.
There is a second problem with the underlying logic of what is presented in the above table that relates to the use of party affiliation numbers and percentages as meaningful statistics suggesting voter preferences for one presidential candidate over another. To put this differently, it is arguable whether presenting voter registration data qualified by party affiliation represents an objective fact that is relevant to determining voter behavior in Florida in the recent election as opposed to a subjective preference that is irrelevant and indeterminate. I believe there is external evidence outside the voting statistics shown in the above table that suggests that the use of party affiliation is irrelevant and I would like to present some of that as an important part of this discussion.
The following table uses voter current voter registration data and election returns from the state of Louisiana, regarded as a nearby southern state in regional proximity to Florida, chosen because its voter registration records are both current in terms of registered voter totals and also contain comparable information on voter party affiliation. An examination was conducted for Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi that found that voter registration data from these states either did not contain party affiliation information and/or was not current to 2004. This data is presented using the same format as the preceding table and source links are available in the footnotes that follow to check the accuracy of the numbers and calculations.
Vote Returns from Louisiana Displaying Differences Between "Expected" and "Actual" Votes
(%Regist)*(TotalVotes) | (Actual-Exp)/(Exp) | ||||||||||
STATE | REGISTERED VOTERS | ACTUAL RESULTS | EXPECTED VOTES | PERCENT CHANGE | |||||||
%REP | %DEM | TOT_REG | REP | DEM | TOT_VOTES | REP | DEM | REP | DEM | ||
Louisiana | 24% | 55% | 2,921,714 | 1,102,169 | 820,299 | 1,943,106 | 466,345 | 1,068,708 | 136.3% | -232.4% |
So if the disparity between the "expected" and "actual" votes for Bush and Kerry alone is a matter that should raise a red flag for Florida counties that use optical scanners to count votes, then an immediate investigation also should be undertaken for the entire state of Louisiana. The problem with this is that almost all voting in Louisiana is done on mechanical voting machines that cannot be programmed. I submit that the above table presents relevant external evidence that the Florida counties using optical scanners to count votes are more alike unto the rest of the South than those counties employing a different method of counting votes. And it offers what I consider to be a compelling example that undermines the notion, implicit in the first table presented above, that party affiliation can be presented as an objective and meaningful fact when applied to southern voters in the recent presidential election. It is rather a subjective preference that is largely irrelevant to voter choices. And the significance of that conclusion is that the entire argument, which is fallacious as an example of "False Cause," is undermined further in that is based upon irrelevant relationships presented as assumptions. In Logic, all inferences must be drawn from truthful premises, so this argument fails a second time, and I'll skip my presentation of the Modus Ponens rule of inference that applies here.
There is other external evidence relating to the counties employing optical scanners that has been brought forth in the media to discount the argument that the machines were rigged against Kerry, in which the historical record of these counties in presidential elections is examined. In a recent article on the ABC News web site, ABC News pointed out that the historical record of one of the counties using optical scanners, Lafayette County, established it as decidedly pro-Republican. This fact is worth knowing since it identifies important evidence omitted in the presentation of the argument that the vote returns in those Florida counties using optical scanners cannot be trusted. In addition to being fallacious and flying in the face of logical inference, the evidence offered is not tested against past history, which makes the possibility of anomalies in the recent returns from these counties less likely, unless one argues that the present does not resemble the past.
Now to be completely fair to those who presented their "evidence" of untrustworthy returns from Florida counties using optical scanners, they also argued that the returns from those counties had to be compared with others using different systems for counting votes, specifically electronic counting. Regardless of the problems of logical argumentation discussed above, this comparative analysis only has validity if the fifteen counties using electronic voting are more alike unto those using optical scanners than they are different. I submit that they are not, most are in the southern portion of the state or on its eastern coast. Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Martin counties all run south to north from Miami and are only separated in this run from Indian River County by a small distance. Collier, Lee, Charolette, and Sarasota counties run in a southeast to northwest direction from Miami-Dade. Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco, Sumter, and Lake counties extend from the Tampa area northward into south central Florida. The only Florida county using electronic voting machines to count its ballots that is not in the general area of the others just mentioned is Nassau, located north of Jacksonville on the Georgia border, which interestingly enough shows the greatest disparity among all the counties using electronic voting in its "Percent Change" figures to the advantage of Bush, which reads as +48.0% Bush to -28.9% Kerry, a result not at all unlike other counties in its vicinity using optical scanners. Most of the southern and eastern Florida counties just mentioned have demographic profiles significantly different than the rest of the state, in that they have larger percentages of Hispanic, Jewish, and African-American voters. And we should naturally expect that these counties, owing to their distinct demographic profiles, would exhibit voter behavior at odds with other counties more alike unto the rest of the southern states, specifically in terms of the "relevance" of party affiliation, the key assumption in the collection of evidence by those who are making the argument that the vote in Florida is rigged.
Note: You can view a Florida county map by clicking this link.
So to sum up my analysis of the argument about the vote being rigged in Florida to Bush's advantage, it is fallacious by its very construction as a Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc argument, it is further based upon erroneous assumptions about the meaningfulness of party affiliation as an objective fact in determining voter behavior, it ignores the evidence of past voting behavior in the counties using optical scanners, and it draws a false comparison between counties using electronic voting versus optical scanners. It is a weak argument on all counts.
Some final comments on the significance of the absence of critical thinking in this controversy:
All of us understand how divisive and destructive of the political peace it can be for one side in American politics to put forth an argument that a presidential election was "stolen," whatever the reasons may be. I think it is also worthwhile to ask the question "why is such a weak argument advanced without proper scrutiny?", given that its destructive capability is so well understood. I want to suggest that this is part of the new "Age of Michael Moore," who has shown the left how to omit key evidence and ignore logical inference when presenting a damning case against the right and to overcome any opposition to it by turning up the volume in the rant it produces. Under past circumstances we should have depended upon the press to act as a referee and keep the facts in order, but that saving grace is no longer present. So we are forced to slug it out on our own. Remember that as Republicans, we never should fear to face these problems head on, because the pursuit of truth is in our nature.
Yeah Ben, I've seen Randi Rhoades [sp?] in her tin-foil garb. None of the ranting will work, no matter how hard they try.
Hey, babe, they aint the only ones having meltdowns.... there is cBS, who is planning to have a new expose by the CIA anonymous author who has just retired, to be shown on "60 planets", there is: Chris Matthews of MSNBC's Hardball, who is extremely pasty faced and keeps trying to make like we are being mean to the murdering B--td, Arafat, There is ...well I could go on and on but you get the picture...
Thanks. Good research!!
BUMP for later complete read.
Things are starting to worry me, though. (I know! I know!) I've read that a recount in OH may happen now. The Dems are trying to pull this out after the game's been called...though technically it hasn't not yet at least.
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