SO ONE MIGHT ASK''

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SO ONE MIGHT ASK..

• WHAT IS HE THINKING?

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Nader 2012!

• Spoiler?
• see Burden article (1996, 2000, 2004, 2008...)
• Ego?
• Legitimate claims to make?
• Corporate dominance of both parties
• Where place him on the issue spectrum?
• Bloomberg?

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Obama
McCain
Nader
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?
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What effect Nader?

• Um.Nothing
• Ballot Access
• Green Party on 21 state ballots
• Cynthia McKinney seeking Green Party nomination
• Last time, Nader on 34 state ballots
• Duvergers Law
• Fear of wasted vote
• Learning since 2000?
• compare 2000 result to 2004

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What Effect Nader?

• 1996 0.7, 685,000 votes
• 235,000 in CA (2) 50,000 in OR (4), 60,000 in
  WA (3)
• 2000 2.7, 2.8 million votes
• NM 3.5 (D) IA 2.2(D) WI 3.6 (D)
• NH 4 (R by 1.5) FL 1.6 93,000 (R by 500)
• 2004 0.3 , 460,000 votes
• 2008 0.56, 738,000 votes

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Trust in Elections

• Very Honest/Somewhat honest
• Russia 38
• US 39
• Philip 44
• Bulgaria 47
• Mexico 62
• Australia 76
• Germany 83
• Denmark 97

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Do We Know who Won in 2000?

• Florida
• Bush 2,912,790 (48.85)
• Gore 2,912,253 (48.84)
• Why controversial?
• Early exit polls called for Gore
• Late exit polls changed
• Fox News first to call for Bush
• Recounting halted by US Supreme Court (5-4)

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Do We Know who Won 2000?

• Florida - 27 EC votes
• Electoral College depended on FL, NH, IA and NM
  results
• NM 5 EC votes Gore (400 votes) IA 7 EC votes
  Gore (4,000 votes) NH 4 EC votes Bush (7,000
  votes)
• Wed. night, still counting
• w/o FL 244 Bush, 266 Gore
• w/ FL 271 Bush, 266 Gore (could have won w/
  NH)

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Do We Know who Won 2000?

• Controversy
• Exit Polls
• Butterfly Ballot
• Voter suppression efforts
• Recount procedures
• flawed voting machines
• recount procedure varied by county

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Do We Know Who Won?

• Controversies
• Exit Polls Suck
• Logistic Problems
• draw sample of representative precincts
• 100 interviews per precinct
• random selection sequence
• record age, gender, race of those who refuses
• call in results 3x per day
• absentee, early voters missed
• when polls close, compare survey data to actual
  data
• build turnout data into survey estimates
• weigh data to account for oddities

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Do We Know who Won?

• Controversies
• Exit Polls
• early results posted on-line or leaked often
  wrong, unweighted
• when networks post adjusted data, conspiracy-
  theory folks go nuts.

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Do We Know Who Won?

• Butterfly Ballot
• Democratic Election administrator trying to save
  money in Palm Beach County
• Designed ballot that conserved paper/space
• 2 column Votomatic machine
• Should have been fired on the spot.

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Do We Know who Won?

• Butterfly Ballot
• Palm Beach County, Fl
• Gore 269,754 (62.27) vs 48.8
• Bush 152,964 (35.31) vs 48.8
• Nader 5,566 (1.28) vs 1.63
• Buchanan 3,411 (0.79) vs .29 (2.7x more)

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Do we know who won?
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Do We Know who Won?

• Controversies
• Voter suppression
• Fl Secretary of State hired consulting firm to
  purge registration of thousands of felons
• Directed purge at eligible African American
  voters
• voters arrived to vote, and were told they were
  not registered
• suspicion that purge was politically motivated

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Do We Know Who Won?

• Voter suppression
• FL S of State Republican Katherine Harris
• Co-Chair of Bush Election campaign
• Elected to Congress as a Republican
• (should election officials be partisan?)

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Do We Know Who Won?

• Recount Procedures
• Candidates plans differed
• on what standard to use
• under-votes (no vote counted in Presidential
  race)
• over-votes (mark name AND write name)
• what was voter intent?
• hanging chads, dimpled chads
• where to recount
• selected counties vs. statewide

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Do We Know Who Won

• Recount procedures
• Under-votes fairly common in punch ballots
• chads dont disengage
• Cheap old machines tend to be used in poor
  counties

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Do we know who won?

• This guy had to check over 6,000,000 ballots
• Before deadline for certifying election
• Electoral College deadline December 13th.

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Do We Know who won?

• Gore legal strategy
• demanded hand recount in 4 heavily Democratic
  Counties w/ lots of under-votes
• Counties procedures
• some strict, some lose (Palm Beach chad hanging
  by two corners, or dimpled vote)
• Florida Court order
• statewide recount of all undervotes not yet
  counted by hand

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Do We Know Who Won?

• Recount procedures
• Bush vs. Gore
• an Equal Protection claim by Bush that FL law
  does not have counties using consistent standards
• Court ordered that FL stop recounting
• Bush wins.
• A fair argument but...

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Do we know who won

• Recount
• Who actually would have won if recounts were
  completed?
• Depends (see NORC study)
• If Gore 4 county recount Bush won by 225
• If Palm Beach standard used statewide, Gore won
  by 42 votes
• If statewide recount per Court order, Bush won by
  493
• if over-votes counted....Gore won by 190 votes.

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How Florida Changed Elections

• Voting technology
• no more punch card ballots
• tons of money for electronic voting machines
• Provisional ballots
• Standard /statewide recount rules
• Statewide voter reg. databases
• Questions about proper role of election
  administrators

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Post Florida

• HAVA, 2000
• Help America Vote Act
• Better machines, better elections
• or not.....2004 election in Ohio raised new
  suspicions that elections are stolen.
• electronic machines

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Trust in Elections

• Thinking of the last national election in
  COUNTRY, how honest was it regarding counting
  and reporting the vote? Very honest, somewhat
  honest, neither honest or dishonest, somewhat
  dishonest, very dishonest
• Asked in 40 nations 2002-03

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Trust in Elections

• Very Dishonest
• US 23
• Ven 18
• Taiwan 16
• Mexico 13
• Philip 11
• S. Africa 8
• Bugaria 8
• Russia 5
• Germany, Canada, Australia, Norway, NZ lt 1

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Who Won the 2004 Election?

• Conspiracy Theory?
• Ownership in Voting Equipment Corp. (Dibold)
  pro-Bush
• Limited supplier marked
• Sequoia Systems, etc.
• El Diablo-Bold
• Electronic Voting Machines
• Ill help deliver the vote to George Bush

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Who Won the 2004 Election?

• Evidence?
• Exit Polls vs. Official Totals
• Exit Kerry Ahead in OH
• Final result Kerry Lost OH

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Who Won the 2004 Election?

• Evidence?
• Exit polls vs. reported vote totals
• Exit polls
• See comments above about exit polls
• Actual reported vote
• Bush 51 vs Kerry 49 (116,000 margin)

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Who Won 2004 Election?

• Evidence vs. Electoral College Weirdness
• If Kerry got OH, hed have won while losing
  national popular vote by millions
• Do you really want to go there

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Who Won the 2004 Election?

• Conspiracy Theory Assumptions.
• Someone controls the machines
• Can hack the machines?
• Co-ordinates machine count / miscount
  county-by-county
• 10,000 plus counties in US
• Local officials dupes or accomplices