“I’m an old computer nerd,” Diener said. “I can do anything with computers. Nothing’s wrong with computers. But this is the worst way to run an election.” NYTMag piece on electronic voting, voter confidence, and the impact of old-fashioned problems like printer jams, befuddled voters and volunteers, and interface design flaws. By Clive Thompson.
posted by Miko on Jan 5, 2008 - 46 comments

Proof of Ohio Election Fraud Exposed. Move over "election irregularities", say hello to "recount irregularites". Hot on the heels of Blackwell's about face on his promise to let the recount proceed unmolested, and a Karen-Silkwood-esque attack on the "recount activist" who broke that story, comes even more damaging allegations concerning the central tabulators. The Kerry-Edwards campaign is nominally on the case, and the NY Times is finally picking up the story. Is American democracy hanging by a thread?
posted by dinsdale on Dec 17, 2004 - 69 comments

No need to actually vote, folks: the Election result has already been written by the AP: At this hour, President Bush has won re-election as president by a 47 percent to 43 percent margin in the popular vote nationwide. Ralph Nader has 1 percent of the vote nationwide. That's with 51 percent of the precincts reporting. (they say it's a test article, but who ever heard of an election results article being pre-written?)
posted by amberglow on Oct 7, 2004 - 32 comments

At the risk of reopening this recount thread - The Economist is running this rather sarcastic correction in their current edition, along with this strange little 'What if Gore Was President' article. Does this signal that the Age of Irony is not, in fact, dead - or did someone at The Economist just not get the memo?
posted by anastasiav on Nov 16, 2001 - 10 comments

President Gore? The recount results are in. Will this only serve to undermine Bush's authority in a time of crisis? Should the media have sat on this until the current situation becomes more stable?
posted by Bezuhin on Nov 11, 2001 - 62 comments

Buy your own election! Complete with hanging chad!
posted by Steven Den Beste on Nov 9, 2001 - 4 comments

Florida recount abandoned by major news organizations in the wake of terrorist attacks. I know it's all academic now, but wouldn't this fall under "letting them win"? And did any other news org. report this?
posted by Ty Webb on Oct 12, 2001 - 38 comments

In fact, 18 of the state's 67 counties never recounted the ballots at all. They simply checked their original results. To this day, more than 1.58 million votes have not been counted a second time. Via New York's WEVD's Bill Mazer
posted by ParisParamus on Jun 1, 2001 - 103 comments

Red v. Blue v. . . . Purple? Was America really so divided in the 2000 election? A map created as a retort to Salon's "Red v. Blue" map tells the real story. Any and all Prince references/jokes permitted.
posted by raysmj on Mar 10, 2001 - 22 comments

The Election Story Never Told On it’s face, this article is about corruption in Florida before the election. It is still basically an known story in the US, but it is very popular in Britain. Also of note is the continued record of a lazy corporate media refusing to do any sort of journalistic legwork.
posted by capt.crackpipe on Feb 28, 2001 - 8 comments

George W. Bush is elected President of the United States. Affirmed by no less than Al Gore himself. The electoral votes have been tallied and certified. It. Is. Over.
posted by aaron on Jan 6, 2001 - 30 comments

"the new director of the Environment Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman, has proposed that the Florida ballots be sealed for 10 years. " Fuck the Christmas ceasefire. While the Anglo-Saxon world stuffs itself comatose, the forces of conservatism are busy mobilising. Yum.
posted by holgate on Dec 24, 2000 - 15 comments

FLASH: Gore Concedes. Ok, I guess *now* it's over. Bye, Alec...
posted by baylink on Dec 13, 2000 - 35 comments

Bush apparently wins... and the New York Times is apparently speechless. 54k
(The original page has already changed; please forgive the link to the image on my site.)
posted by Mo Nickels on Dec 13, 2000 - 15 comments

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to reverse the Fla. high court's decision to allow manual recounts on disputed ballots. This essentially closes off Gore's last challenges. Now why can't I find a non-PDF format copy of the decision on the Web????
posted by rschram on Dec 12, 2000 - 10 comments

"If they are, I am..." Bush in an extraordinary display of independant thought.
posted by jyoung on Dec 11, 2000 - 14 comments

Send a Telegram to the Supreme Court Michael Moore has come up with another good idea. let the Supreme Court know your opinion through a hand delivered telegram. For only $31.90 your message will arrive hand-delivered by Western Union. Stop stopping the count. Mike suggests you call, but Western Union lets you do it online.
posted by DragonBoy on Dec 11, 2000 - 19 comments

Supreme Court II: Election Boogaloo. Programs, getcher programs here! Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, you can get your grubby hands on the Bush and Gore briefs right now. Fascinating reading. PDF files, of course.
posted by aaron on Dec 10, 2000 - 2 comments

Rent-A-Riot, or, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mob"... Taking my cue from the Repubs themselves I say, "Where's the outrage?!"
posted by m.polo on Nov 29, 2000 - 1 comment

How the Grinch Stole Election Day The Grinch hated voting! He thought it a bore. Now, please don't ask why. Could be Bush, could be Gore.
posted by fleener on Nov 26, 2000 - 1 comment

The Greenwood Position. Partisan perhaps, but will Peggy Noonan's latest OpEd in the WSJ be a rallying cry for frustrated conservatives? She offers compelling arguments and solid suggestions for proactive redress. Talk amongst yourselves.
posted by netbros on Nov 25, 2000 - 6 comments

The "War on Drugs" cost Gore the election. "In a stroke of divine justice, it turns out he [Gore] might have easily won Florida had it not been for the felony disenfranchisement laws that disproportionately strip the vote from African-American men," said Sanho Tree, director of the drug policy project of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. "Let's hope he ponders this long and hard while he waits for the recount."
posted by lagado on Nov 13, 2000 - 18 comments

13 Myths About the Results of the 2000 Election. I know, I know. We're all tired of election stuff. But for anyone who's not, this is well worth reading. [via rewired]
posted by fraying on Nov 13, 2000 - 19 comments

Not very clever. Florida's Secretary of State (the BBC reports her being described as "a bit of an airhead") manages to make her position look even more ridiculous. Anyone get the disturbing feeling that this may be resolved, not in the courts, but on the streets?
posted by holgate on Nov 13, 2000 - 16 comments

"If Dubya steals the White House, American democracy will be a joke." A vehemently liberal polemic from the UK, which I don't necessarily agree with, but still: "President Dubya will be barren of legitimacy at home and devoid of moral authority abroad. The Saddam Husseins of the planet, every petty, vicious dictator around the world, will scoff in the face of America."
posted by holgate on Nov 11, 2000 - 9 comments

Other countries are looking at us and giggling about our democratic process. It's rather enlightening to see what they think, provided the attitude the US newsmedia takes when other countries' elections appear "fixed", "inefficient," or "ineffective."
posted by tatochip on Nov 10, 2000 - 6 comments

Porter Glendinning on a weblist noted: "According to http://www.tcpalm.com/_special/pres_returns.shtml, David McReynolds, the Socialist candidate who had the hole beneath Gore's on the ballot, got no more than 36 votes in any county in Florida except Palm Beach, where he got 302. Seems questionable to me." So we've definitely got a problem with the ballot. Is it do over time yet?
posted by mathowie on Nov 9, 2000 - 26 comments

Linear regression analysis adds approximately 2700 votes to Gore's tally -- "If Palm Beach county were like the other counties, according to estimates with Bush's votes Buchanan would have gotten around 600 votes in that county instead of 3407 votes he actually got. If we used Gore's votes to predict Buchanan's vote, we would have predicted Buchanan to get somewhere around 792 votes. ...[in any case] it can be claimed with a high degree of statistical confidence that the mistakes cost Gore somewhere between 2000 and 3000 votes. If Bush wins Florida by an amount smaller than this, such as 1700 votes, a strong claim can be made that the confusion over the unique ballot structure in Palm Beach cost Gore the presidency...."
posted by johnb on Nov 9, 2000 - 25 comments