On Tue, 5 Dec 2000 03:02:29 -0600, Fred Galvin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Dec 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > The message below is at:
> >
> > http://www.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/threadmsg_if.xp?AN=701156345&fmt=text
> >
> > Legal sophistry is truly amazing, especially the use of the phrase
> > "reasonable probability." This case has absolutely nothing to do
> > with statistics or with probability. It is a simple case of
> > arithmetic--look at the undervote ballots.
>
> There is nothing *wrong* with "undervote" ballots. Voters are not
> required to vote on every office and every question on the ballot.
> Probably, *most* people who vote don't fill out their ballots
> completely. Voters who choose not to vote for any of the candidates
> for president have just as much right to have their vote counted as
> anybody else, < break >
- what Fred posts is logical up to here ...
> and it is *wrong* to take their votes and donate them to
> one or another of the candidates.
- and here, it is a paranoid extension of logic.
> No doubt, many voters make mistakes,
> but there is no particular reason to think the *undervotes* are
> mistakes: < snip, rest >
Fred,
you are not reading the news, or
you are trolling, or
you really need to take a deep breath and divorce yourself from the
specious appeals of the pure liars fronting for Bush.
Undercount happens. Particularly on punch-machines.
Nationwide. George W. Bush signed a reasonable law in 1997
for recovering some of it. (But of course, not all of it is
recoverable, and nobody pretends that it is.)
There is a little more undercount when there is an
unusual rule, as in Florida, whereby the ballots are not
"groomed" before machine-counting (except in the 6
Republican-voting counties which seemingly were allowed
their own interpretation of state law, and who did that in the
first count).
Then there is the whole dimpled-chad business, where you
seem to have missed the testimony that there's often no
dispute about the intentions.
Now, as statisticians, I suppose we could support that
your implicit notion that *every* ballot should be placed into
one of two piles; but your post is the first time I have ever
seen that suggested.
--
Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
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