Missing numbers in Alabama
Dec 16, 2017 19:31:06 #
A friend, an engineer, sent the following message:
I heard some folks talking yesterday (on talk radio) about how the special senate election was rigged. they compared republican votes for Trump versus Moore in four of the largest counties and it looked like there was a shortfall of 100,000! The democrats votes were about same as Hillary.
I decided to do some calculations and I have attached the results comparing the special senate election with the last few senate elections and several past presidential elections. The results seem to indicate the democrat Jones had about same number of votes as Hillary. Moore had about 600,000 fewer votes than Trump.
Was Moore that unpopular? Did 600,000 republicans choose not to vote?
2016 Presidential
Republican Democrat TOTAL
1,318,255 729,547 2,047,802
2017 Special Election
Moore - Jones
650,436 671,151 1,321,587
Then we have a new controversy revolving around preserving the digital ballots:
https://www.alternet.org/activism/alabama-voters-sue-state-preserve-ballot-images-special-us-senate-election
The filing for a Republican, Democrat, Independent and a minister came after lawyers for the voters were rebuffed by statewide Alabama election officials, who they urged not only to preserve all election records (as required under federal law), but to ensure the electronic scanners that will read and count the ink-marked paper ballots are properly programmed to capture the paper ballot images.
“Defendants [Secretary of State] John Merrill and [State Elections Director] Ed Packard are failing to carry out their duties to instruct county election officials to preserve all election materials as required by law,” the suit filed in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County said. “Specifically, Defendants, according to information provided by them, indicate they do not and will not instruct election officials in each of the Alabama counties to preserve digital ballot images created by digital voting machines used throughout the state even though they are instructing such county officials to preserve ‘write-in’ digital ballots.”
“Defendants have confirmed that in previous elections and in the December 12, 2017, special election, they have instructed and are instructing election officials of all Alabama counties using the ES&S DS200 or similar digital ballot scanning devices to preserve ‘Processed Write-in Images’ only,” the suit said. “As a result, county election officials or workers under their supervision automatically destroy all other digital ballots following the election.”
The suit cited Alabama law requiring election records be preserved for six months and federal law that all election records be preserved for 22 months.
“Defendants violate Alabama’s public records law and Plaintiffs’ right to a fair and accurate election by failing to instruct county election officials to preserve all ballot images,” the suit concluded. “Without the preservation of these digital ballot images, Defendants’ rights to a fair and accurate election could be denied.”
I heard some folks talking yesterday (on talk radio) about how the special senate election was rigged. they compared republican votes for Trump versus Moore in four of the largest counties and it looked like there was a shortfall of 100,000! The democrats votes were about same as Hillary.
I decided to do some calculations and I have attached the results comparing the special senate election with the last few senate elections and several past presidential elections. The results seem to indicate the democrat Jones had about same number of votes as Hillary. Moore had about 600,000 fewer votes than Trump.
Was Moore that unpopular? Did 600,000 republicans choose not to vote?
2016 Presidential
Republican Democrat TOTAL
1,318,255 729,547 2,047,802
2017 Special Election
Moore - Jones
650,436 671,151 1,321,587
Then we have a new controversy revolving around preserving the digital ballots:
https://www.alternet.org/activism/alabama-voters-sue-state-preserve-ballot-images-special-us-senate-election
The filing for a Republican, Democrat, Independent and a minister came after lawyers for the voters were rebuffed by statewide Alabama election officials, who they urged not only to preserve all election records (as required under federal law), but to ensure the electronic scanners that will read and count the ink-marked paper ballots are properly programmed to capture the paper ballot images.
“Defendants [Secretary of State] John Merrill and [State Elections Director] Ed Packard are failing to carry out their duties to instruct county election officials to preserve all election materials as required by law,” the suit filed in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County said. “Specifically, Defendants, according to information provided by them, indicate they do not and will not instruct election officials in each of the Alabama counties to preserve digital ballot images created by digital voting machines used throughout the state even though they are instructing such county officials to preserve ‘write-in’ digital ballots.”
“Defendants have confirmed that in previous elections and in the December 12, 2017, special election, they have instructed and are instructing election officials of all Alabama counties using the ES&S DS200 or similar digital ballot scanning devices to preserve ‘Processed Write-in Images’ only,” the suit said. “As a result, county election officials or workers under their supervision automatically destroy all other digital ballots following the election.”
The suit cited Alabama law requiring election records be preserved for six months and federal law that all election records be preserved for 22 months.
“Defendants violate Alabama’s public records law and Plaintiffs’ right to a fair and accurate election by failing to instruct county election officials to preserve all ballot images,” the suit concluded. “Without the preservation of these digital ballot images, Defendants’ rights to a fair and accurate election could be denied.”
Dec 17, 2017 06:20:04 #
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