Florida 2000 and Washington 2004

3)   There is absolutely no basis for screaming that there were "14,000 erroneous votes!"

There is considerable basis for doing so. Based on historical trends in both overall presidential abstention and overall residual vote rates for these systems, 6,600 to 7,000 erroneous votes for the presidential election is a conservative estimate. The total residual rate for the senatorial election was more than 54,000 votes higher, and the gubernatorial rate was higher still. With an overall statewide residual rate of 0.73 percent, if the most hotly contested presidential and gubernatorial elections in the state's history lowered the intentional abstention rate by a mere 0.27 percent in either election we would in fact have 14,000 erroneous votes. Once again, Sharkansky misses all of this because he confuses variations in victory margin with tabulation error, and fails to understand how either relate to overall unintended ballot spoilage.

4)   The election is not a tie, statistical or otherwise.

In fact, it is one of the clearest and most indisputable examples of a tie in our nation's history. At a bare minimum the outcomes of the base count and both recounts are statistically insignificant at the 92 percent level based on a proportional t-test--the correct analysis for this situation. Sharkansky concludes otherwise because his analysis was botched at virtually every point. After setting it up incorrectly, he failed to properly enumerate unintended ballot spoilage and even made basic math errors in his final result. With the math errors corrected, even his own flawed methods show a 98 percent likelihood of statistical insignificance for both of Rossi's "victory" margins.

Some may protest that unintended residual vote is itself difficult to evaluate. It is true that estimates of technology related error are based largely on estimates of intentional abstention that are themselves far from certain. But even so, the problems with Sharkansky's analysis remain. Apart from intentional abstention, variations in residual vote attributable to different technologies are still much larger than his estimated ballot spoilage rate. These cannot be attributed to intentional abstention. Neither can the observed spread in county level residual rates which is larger than the statewide average. From Figure 5 it can be seen that statewide, overvotes alone account for 0.16 percent of all ballots cast in the presidential race which he based his residual vote figures on (WA Sec. of State, 2005). Even if there wasn't a single unintentionally undervoted ballot in the gubernatorial race this leads to a T of 0.018 and a corresponding probability of 98.8 percent probability of statistical insignificance using his method. For the senatorial race, the statewide overvote rate was 0.048 percent which leads to a T of 0.059 and a statistical insignificance probability of 96 percent. Sharkansky himself admits to an unintended residual vote rate of at least 0.08 percent for King County, which led the state in residual vote performance. If he wants to avoid the conclusions these figures demand he must demonstrate that a majority of the state's overvotes were intentional--a tall order to say the least. The overwhelming majority of those who don't want to vote for any candidate in a particular race do exactly that--they don't vote for one.

Before leaving this subject one last point is worth noting. Based on the student's t-test method Sharkansky appears to have used, his T of 1.36 implies an assumed standard error of 0.00207 percent. The corresponding 2-sigma confidence interval would then be 0.00828 percent--very close to the actual change in Rossi’s victory margin between the base count and the machine recount. So if we assume Sharkansky’s margin based definition of tabulation error, the two machine counts would have straddled the full range of the 95 percent confidence interval for his assumed error rate. It follows that there is only one chance in twenty that another recount would fall outside of the range bordered by these counts. Not only did the manual recount do so, it did so by over three fourths of the original discrepancy!

To someone more versed in statistics than Sharkansky appears to be, this would have thrown up a huge red flag followed by an investigation of the assumptions behind the analysis. Yet based on what was at his blog after the manual recount, all of this went right past him. It is true that manual recounts are a different "technology" and cannot be directly compared to the previous machine counts. But from the standpoint of residual votes (the correct metric for evaluating ballot spoilage) manual counts and optical scan methods show similar performance in senatorial and gubernatorial elections, and better performance in presidential ones (Ansolabehere & Stewart, 2005) so we would not expect a significant difference with a manual count. Nor can Sharkansky play the "fraud" card to explain the difference. As of this writing, the Rossi campaign and the WSRP have had over nine months to come up with evidence for it. To date they have failed to produce even one properly documented instance anywhere in the state—only allegations. Ansolabehere and Reeves' New Hampshire study did show higher tabulation error for manual methods compared to optical scan, but that study evaluated each technology on a sole basis and did not examine the performance of manual paper recounts against machine base counts. Their work also places Sharkansky on the horns of a dilemma. He cannot cite them for his case without conceding their observed tabulation invalidation rate of 0.56 percent, which would be even harder on his claim of a statistically significant Rossi “victory” than the figures given above.

The bottom line is that Goldstein's four claims were verifiably correct at every point. Both machine counts and the manual count were in fact statistical ties, and for that matter so was the manual recount. Sharkansky's critique fails because he misunderstands virtually every aspect of unintended ballot spoilage and its impact on tabulations, residual vote, and outcomes. These subjects are clearly explained in the sources he linked from his commentary as well as numerous other easily available studies--none of which he appears to have either read or understood.

Disenfranchised Washington Voters

         Rossi and the WSRP claimed that significant numbers of voters were disenfranchised in the 2004 election. Rossi in particular claimed to have suffered most from this. Overseas military voters alleged to have been particularly hard hit by being denied a reasonable opportunity to vote or by having their votes unfairly thrown out on technicalities (Seattle PI, Dec. 23, 2004). Estimates varied widely as to how many voters were impacted with totals varying on almost a daily basis for months after Election Day. By the May trial date a total of 3,109 ballots (not including the total felon voter count) were alleged by Republicans and Democrats to have been mishandled in one way or another statewide, including the 1,091 voter/ballot discrepancy in King County (Postman, 2005b). None of these were ever shown to have favored either candidate.

The Rossi campaign also claimed to have heard from some 260 absentee voters, military and non-military who they claimed never received ballots and would likely have voted Republican if they had. It was also claimed that there were "affidavits" for these cases but to the best of my knowledge, none were ever made public. Only a handful of anecdotal stories were offered as proof. None were independently verified. Military officials stated that they had no evidence of any problems with overseas military absentee ballots (Shane, 2005). After repeated searches of the Internet, I was only able to find 4 reports of voters who claim they did not receive absentee ballots by voting deadlines. All but one were anecdotal.

The one case that wasn't, and that the Rossi campaign offered as proof of disenfranchisement, was Tyler Farmer, a Snohomish country Marine who was stationed in Iraq at the time and claims he did not receive a ballot in time to vote. After a few public appearances he quickly became the focus of the Rossi campaign's case for voter disenfranchisement. Snohomish county records show that Farmer's ballot had been mailed on October 8, 2004 giving him over 5 weeks to sign and return it before the November 17, 2004 deadline. County rules permitted him to return his vote by fax or email provided that he could snail mail his signature with a postmark prior to the deadline. Farmer did none of these things. Military units overseas have voter information officers to assist soldiers with obtaining, preparing, and returning absentee ballots prior to election deadlines. Farmer appears not to have contacted his. Had he done so he could easily have been informed of the options available to him weeks in advance. As an added irony, Snohomish County already favored Rossi in both recounts by factors of 50 to 150 times the final margins indicating that Farmer's vote didn't help Rossi much anyway. Beyond the early cases of vote mishandling and illegal felon voters--neither of which were ever demonstrated to have been harmful to Rossi anyway--this single questionable case is as close as Rossi and the WSRP ever got to demonstrating voter disenfranchisement in Washington 2004.

Once again, let's compare this to Florida 2000.

Right from the beginning it was obvious that this election was riddled with problems for voters. We've already seen the problems voters encountered with confusing ballots in Palm Beach. Confusing ballots led thousands of Palm Beach and Broward County voters to misrepresent their wishes, as numerous independent studies of ballot usability have confirmed (Resnick, 2000; Fox, 2000; Keating, 2002; Wand et al., 2001).

Overwhelmingly, the voting irregularities occurred in predominantly Democratic and/or minority counties. Of the 25 Florida precincts with the most rejected ballots, 21 were predominately black and virtually all were over 50 percent Democratic (NORC, 2001). Independent investigations concluded that the mishandling of votes and counting irregularities did in fact fall disproportionately on minority communities at statistically significant levels (Lantigua, 2001; Lichtman, 2001; 2001b; Stuart, 2004). Problems with methods, equipment, and on-site voter help resources were widespread. Many counties used paper and pencil ballots. Of these, some sent their ballots to the county seat for tabulation while others tallied votes at the polling place. In the former case, voters were not given a chance to revote if they had cast an overvote or undervote. It was later determined that in these counties African-Americans were four times as likely as whites to have their ballots thrown out (Keating & Mintz, 2001). In the tally-on-site counties, voters were told immediately if they had made a mistake and were given a second chance to vote. In these cases, African-Americans were just under two times as likely as whites to have ballots tossed out (Keating & Mintz, 2001). Over 90 percent of African-American Floridians voted Democrat in 2000 while some two-thirds of whites voted Republican. Poor ballot design and a lack of on-site voter support cost Gore at least 2,000 votes in Palm Beach County alone (Hansen, 2000).

Far-Right forums didn't dispute any of this--they dismissed it as little more than proof of voter stupidity--if Democrats and liberals can't even follow directions or figure out a ballot, they deserve to have their votes disenfranchised (Noe, 2000; Mostert, 2002). Apart from the callousness of such a stance, even if it were true it's beside the point. "Stupid" or not, those voters were American citizens who have as much Constitutional right to their vote as any of their condescending critics. Federal and Florida State law requires that disenfranchisement of this sort be investigated. Furthermore, at the risk of being blunt it's a dangerous argument for the Far-Right to be using. If national surveys of voter literacy are any indication, accusations of stupidity on the part of Democrats and "liberals" could easily come back to haunt them (PIPA, 2004). In any event, no comparable issues turned up in the Washington 2004 election.

The Florida 2000 Felon List

Washington Republicans complained bitterly about felon voters during the Gregoire/Rossi runoff. In fact, Washington's felon voter issues pale in comparison to Florida's in 2000. A grand total of 1,677 Washington felons were identified as having voted in fall 2004 (Seattle Times, 2005, 2005b). Another 199 voters were wrongly identified as felons, yet were still allowed to vote on Election Day. By contrast, an estimated 5,400 to 7,800 felons are likely to have voted in Florida 2000--over twice the Washington 2004 rate as factored by total ballot count--and this figure may go as high as 12,000. Another 12,000 and possibly as many as 55,000 Florida citizens were wrongly listed as felons jeopardizing their voting rights. Of these, it is likely that 5,500 to 6,300 were actually denied their voting rights on Election Day, at least two thirds of which were Gore voters (USCCR, 2001; Kissell, 2002; Stuart, 2004; Smith, 2003). Post-election investigations revealed that this was the direct result of policies implemented by Katherine Harris and the Florida Division of Elections after having been informed that doing so would significantly increase false positives (Kissell, 2002; Lantigua, 2001; Pierre, 2001; Nickens, 2001; Karlan, 2001; Palast, 2000; 2001; 2002; Lewis, 2004). Prior to the election the Florida Division of Elections (FDE) and Harris' office hired a consulting firm called Database Technologies, Inc. (DBT, now ChoicePoint Corporation) to sweep Florida's list of legal voters of all felons. DBT compared Florida's January 2000 Central Voter File (CVF), the state's record of all registered Florida voters, with criminal records provided by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), driver's license records, their own independent data and other information to generate a year 2000 felon list for the state. Comparisons were made by name, date of birth, social security number (SSN) and other records. The resulting list contained a total of 42,332 suspected felons for year 2000, of which 56 percent were duplicates of records in the 1999 list for a total of 57,656 suspected felons (Stuart, 2004). The year 2000 list was provided to FDE prior to Election Day 2000 and was used to screen voters for felon status at polling places statewide. This is legal of course. Florida law forbids convicted felons to vote. Most states do also though they vary in the stringency of their clemency policies and how whether they continue to deny voting rights to those who are on parole or whose sentences have been served. Florida is one of a small handful of states that permanently denies voting rights for life to anyone who has ever been convicted of a felony.

Needless to say, it's legal provided that those listed are in fact currently felons and this has been properly verified. But as it turned out, Florida's list was riddled with errors. Many of the "felons" listed had long since been pardoned within Florida state law and had their voting rights restored. Others had finished their sentences or been granted clemency in other states prior to moving to Florida but had not been credited with either. Thousands were ordinary law-abiding American citizens with no criminal records of any kind. Original background checks had been done using exact name and birthdate matches, but the FDE and Katherine Harris' office ordered DBT to relax their standards for the fall 2000 list, which at their request was generated using only rough name matches (80 percent by character string) and approximate birth date matches (Wikipedia, 2005; Stuart, 2004). Under these standards a "Richard Williams" would have been denied his right to vote if there was a Richard Williams, or even a "Richard Williamton", with a felony record and common birth month anywhere in the state (Kissell, 2002; Lewis, 2004; Merzer, 2001; Wikipedia, 2005; Palast, 2001; USCCR, 2001). In 2001 FDE Assistant General Counsel Emmett Mitchell IV (who oversaw the felon list effort for the state) also admitted that the FDLE records provided to DBT were known to have errors, including the names of people who had records but only misdemeanor charges (Lantigua, 2001). These later turned out to be significant (USCCR, 2001; Stuart, 2004). When asked to relax their match standards, DBT protested and informed the FDE and Harris' office that this would significantly increase false positives. They were told to do so anyway and informed that responsibility for catching the resulting errors would be left to county election supervisors (Wikipedia, 2005; USCCR, 2001). Standards for such checks varied widely by county and resources were for doing the needed checks were often limited, creating significant logistic problems. Some sent letters to prospective felons requiring them to jump through a number of administrative hoops to prove their innocence--a difficult task for people who had no criminal records in the first place and could not provide proof of having been pardoned of any crime without pursuing a long legal pathway to obtain the state and federal records necessary.

The list's problems were well known and many counties chose not to use it at all rather than risk widespread voter disenfranchisement (USCCR, 2001; Stuart, 2004). Elections supervisors often worked with the Florida Executive Board of Clemency to verify names on the list as they were provided by county workers. But many reported that the office was understaffed and without the needed technical equipment for proper checks (USCCR, 2001). County elections workers needed voter education and election personnel training, particularly training in DBT's screening and name-match methods to properly check felon lists. FDE and DBT provided several such training sessions in fall of 1999, but by spring of 2000 FDE officials had decided that this training was not “really necessary" (USCCR, 2001). Essentially, the FDE and Harris chose knowingly to increase the rate of false positive felon attribution and leave screening of the resulting errors to county level workers swamped with other election related tasks--many of whom were then left with inadequate training.

A "felon" purge like this can victimize virtually anyone. For instance, at the age of 48 I've never had a felony conviction of any kind. Despite having grown up during the 70's I've never even smoked pot, and as of this writing it's been 11 years since I've managed to get a traffic ticket making me certifiably the world's most boring person. But a check of the Internet reveals numerous Scott Churches nationwide. If I were a Florida resident, and any one of these "Scott Churches" had moved to Florida with any felony conviction on his record--even a 30 year old sentence for stealing hubcaps off the neighbor's Ford--I would likely have been denied the right to vote.

This did in fact happen to thousands of law-abiding Florida citizens.

One individual was denied voting rights because of a 1959 arrest for sleeping on a public bench (USCCR, 2001; Borger & Palast, 2001). Another was turned away because of a 1971 concealed weapons charge he incurred while carrying a pistol under his clothing in a public restaurant (Hiaasen et al., 2001)--which incidentally, many of my conservative friends and family members also do and stridently defend as being within their Constitutional and God-given rights. At the time he was fined, but never told by the arresting officer or any magistrate that he'd violated a felony rather than a misdemeanor statute. Other choice examples of listed "felons" include;

• A 33-year-old Tampa businessman and Gore supporter who was listed because his name happened to match an alias used by a credit card thief (Smith, 2003). Even the thief's name had been listed incorrectly.
• A St. Petersburg woman who had been the victim of a 1986 purse thief but was listed because the thief who had stolen her purse used her credit card before she could cancel it. She had dutifully notified FDLE at the time and been told, falsely, that the mix-up had been taken care of (Smith, 2003).



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