Yes, New Mexico's five electoral votes -- which went to Bush -- would not have sufficed to make Kerry the winner. But, obviously, proof that the system was gamed in one part of the country indicates huggermugger elsewhere. If anyone denies that such proof exists, show 'em this chart.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Need more proof of election fraud in 2004?
Brad Friedman reports that when New Mexico switched from touch-screen voting to paper ballots, the undervotes in minority precincts -- that is, the places where Native Americans vote -- plummeted 85%. Do we really need more proof that someone had his finger on the scale when the votes were weighed in 2004?
Yes, New Mexico's five electoral votes -- which went to Bush -- would not have sufficed to make Kerry the winner. But, obviously, proof that the system was gamed in one part of the country indicates huggermugger elsewhere. If anyone denies that such proof exists, show 'em this chart.
Yes, New Mexico's five electoral votes -- which went to Bush -- would not have sufficed to make Kerry the winner. But, obviously, proof that the system was gamed in one part of the country indicates huggermugger elsewhere. If anyone denies that such proof exists, show 'em this chart.
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3 comments:
Uh, how does that chart prove much of anything? I'd like to see:
1) How whoever made that chart decided whether a district is "Native American", "Hispanic", or "Anglo"? The map of New Mexico provided just shows a constant gradient from west to east - I'm not too familiar with the demographics of New Mexico but I doubt that's what the ethnic distribution looks like. I also remember charts floating around immediately after the 2004 election where paper voting vs. computerized voting systems had clearly been chosen arbitrarily in order to produce the desired result, so I'm a little skeptical of these classifications.
2) How about considering the possibility that Native Americans simply screwed up while voting more than Hispanics did, while Hispanics screwed up more than Anglos did? Lots of plausible reasons why this might be the case. Anglos might have more exposure to computers than Hispanics, who might in turn have more exposure than NAs. Maybe look at things like rates of computer ownership among different ethnic groups, etc., and see if there's a correlation with undervote rates.
Anonymous 3:18 - regarding your second point. Exactly! Some people may be more likely to be disenfranchised than others. That's part of the problem. And it's our job to not let that happen.
Regarding your first point, it doesn't matter how a district is described as long as it was described the same way in each measure (before, during, and after). Whatever specific group the charts are describing can be ignored if you want to ignore it. But the manipulation is the same. Exactly WHO was manipulated is your only question.
So, the point remains the same in that people were clearly disenfrachised when electronic voting is used. AND those groups appear to be Native American and Hispanic.
Miss P.
Anonymous 3:18 - regarding your second point. Exactly! Some people may be more likely to be disenfranchised than others.
Well, the allegation being made here is that these minority votes were intentionally thrown out, by Diebold or whomever. I think that's unlikely and in any case, far from proven by this simple chart.
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