more on Lynn Landes' analysis of the 2002 Elections from RISKS

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Robert M. McClure" <rmm () unidot com>
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 10:02:07 -0700
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: <[IP]> Lynn Landes' analysis of the 2002 Elections from RISKS

I'm afraid I just have to regard Lynn Landes article as just another
rant.  This is one of the more obviously biased articles I have seen
in recent times.  It is clear that Lynn wants to put all bad things at
the feet of the Republican right with such words as:

> What
> Congress really did was to throw $2.65 billion dollars at the states, so
> that they could lavish it on a handful of private companies that are
> controlled by ultra-conservative Republicans, foreigners, and felons.

There is no mistaken the implication that ultra-conservative Republicans,
foreigners, and felons are somehow of the same class.

It is improbable that any single party has a monopoly on mischief.
I seem to recall that Lyndon Johnson won his 1948 Senatorial seat
by 87 votes and that the last 200 votes from Duval county were cast
by voters in alphabetical order.  I seem to recall that John F. Kennedy
won the electoral votes in Illinois and thus the country with the help
of a little chicanery from Mayor Daley.  And *all* of these ballots were
cast before computers came along.

Yes, it is true that computerized voting is open to tampering.  But it
is not necessary to resort to pre- and exit-polling to detect this.  Any
responsible voting official can easily run a test sample to see if the
reported tally conforms to the "known" votes.  But it does take diligence
and we seem to have very little of that.

In any election that is essentially 50-50, an absolutely precise vote
count is not going to be had.  Must be some like Heisenberg at work
here.  The best that we can do is try as hard as we can to get it right.

I, for one, am tied of hearing that the election of 2000 or of 2002 or of
any other year was rigged and the worst election ever when even a
slight review of presidential elections show that irregularities have
actually been the norm.

Bob McClure



------ End of Forwarded Message

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