Reply #35: Maybe they had trouble with "clumped" ballots again. [View All]

[eomer]

That's what they called it in '04:

-snip-

In Webb County, which includes Mr. Cuellar's hometown of Laredo, a puzzling outcome: The total number of ballots increased by 115 - all of which went to Mr. Cuellar. He also gained 62 ballots that previously had been counted by machine as blank, while Mr. Rodriguez picked up no such votes.

Mr. Rodriguez's lawyers said there could be no explanation other than fraud and tampering, noting the Webb County disparity and that the new Cuellar votes all came out of a segregated pool of early votes. They plan to ask a judge as early as next week to toss the election results.

Several university experts said that mechanical failings and corrections usually harm or benefit both sides randomly - in the same proportion as the overall vote - and that statistically, Mr. Rodriguez should have gotten at least some of the late-added votes since he won one-sixth of the initial Webb County tally.

Mr. Cuellar's attorneys attributed the new votes to the recount team's separation of "clumped" ballots that were stuck together and not counted by the optical scanning machine on election night.

-snip-

http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/press/pres20040403.html