IMPORTANT BREAKING NEWS: Analysis of Curtis-Feeney U.S. House Race in Florida Supports Curtis

[helderheid]

Analysis of Curtis-Feeney U.S. House Race in Florida Supports Curtis
Election Challenge

National Election Data Archive
January 2, 2007

Analysis of Curtis-Feeney race in Florida District 24 shows that the
official Diebold reports of vote counts in the Curtis-Feeney U.S.
Congressional District 24 2006 election significantly misreport the
number of voters who voted and the number of under-votes. The pattern
of votes counted in Florida's US Congressional District 24 is unusual
and consistent with a pattern that would be caused by vote fraud or
innocent miscount. Further investigation is warranted.

http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/FL/2006/Analysis-FL-CD24-ElectionResults-2006.pdf

Curtis has filed an election challenge in the U.S. House of Representatives.
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/FL/2006/CCURTISHOUSECongressionalcontestFINAL.doc

The National Election Data Archive is urging people to contact their
U.S. House Representative and ask them to investigate Florida's U.S.
Congressional Elections!
http://www.house.gov/

On Tuesday, January 4, the U.S. Senate and House will be swearing in
new members. Several of the nation's foremost election integrity
experts have spent the last several months grappling with some of
these issues and have come up with 14 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FEDERAL
LEGISLATION TO ENSURE THE INTEGRITY OF OUR DEMOCRACY.

In light of the continuing problem of questionable election outcomes
in jurisdictions all over the country, where tens of thousands of
votes appear not to have been recorded correctly, these
recommendations are crucial to reestablishing trust in U.S. elections.
Just five of these recommendations would prevent the wrong candidate
being sworn into office as it appears may be happening in Florida's
House District 13 election. Due to the untimely release of complete
vote count data, investigators are just now turning up statistically
improbable vote outcomes and election challenges are still underway.
Those five recommendations, with just the briefest of definitions,
are:

• Manual Audits, enough votes have to be manually hand counted to
ensure that the machine counts are not outcome-altering;

• Auditable Voting Systems, the system must provide a voter-verified
permanent paper copy of the vote that is sturdy enough for handling in
recounts and/or storage;

• Public Election Records, rapid access to paper and electronic
election records, and detailed vote counts in all vote types to ensure
that over or under votes in different vote types don't cancel each
other out and thereby obscure vote irregularities, before a race is
called;

• Public Right to Observe, genuine observation, not just presence in
the room is vital to the maintenance of fairness and transparency;

• Teeth in the Legislation, civil and/or criminal penalties or a
reduction of funding for failure to live up to the standards of a fair
and open election process, do not swear in new members until election
contests are satisfied.

To read the recommendations with details in full go to
http://electionarchive.org/ucvInfo/US/EI-FederalLegislationProposal.pdf

This highly qualified group of election integrity authorities is
comprised of attorneys, election law specialists, state election
officials, computer scientists, mathematicians, a designer of systems
for people with disabilities, and a public administration and election
policy expert. The complete list of experts, including their
qualifications, is available at
http://electionarchive.org/ucvInfo/US/ExpertsList.pdf

Best Regards,

Kathy Dopp
http://electionarchive.org
National Election Data Archive
Dedicated to Accurately Counting Elections

"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body
and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day," wrote
Thomas Jefferson in 1816

[texpatriot2004]

1. Is it just the people from FL or can everyone contact them to

encourage investigations?

[porphyrian]

2. This needs more eyes on it. - n/t

[mod mom]

3. FYI for newbies, this is the same Clint Cutis that gave this testimony after '04 theft:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8112825559202389150

(This was at a hearing held by John Conyers in Columbus, OH in Dec of '04. It had to be held in Columbus City Council Chambers because the OH Repukes who control the state legislature wouldn't allow it to be held at the Ohio Statehouse.)

[badgerpup]

4. K & R

Reccs are good, but kicks help too...


:kick:

[helderheid]

5. thanks for both!

:yourock:

[stillcool]

6. Please...anyone stumbling upon this thread...

take one moment and join me in asking your representative to investigate Floria's U.S. Congressional Elections...it will only take a minute, and it might save the world...

The National Election Data Archive is urging people to contact their
U.S. House Representative and ask them to investigate Florida's U.S.
Congressional Elections!
http://www.house.gov /

[stillcool]

8. see...I'm already done.. n/t

[cui bono]

18. Me too. :) n/t

[originalpckelly]

7. Isn't Tuesday today, and isn't it the 2nd?

Or am I missing something?

[helderheid]

9. good catch - I'll email her

[cui bono]

17. haha... noticed your sig line... I call my dog Ruga Buga Muga Wuga.

Her name is Ruga and every time I call her that she wags her tail and gives me a kiss.

[bleever]

10. K&R.

[malaise]

11. K & R n/t

[demobabe]

12. I agree completely with Kathy Dopp's recommendations here

...but reading the Curtis document was completely screwy. Yes, of course there were problems on election day, but there is no way for Curtis to prove vote fraud on some 30,000 votes. This is a lark and is a waste of time.

I'd really prefer to focus on the points made in Kathy's letter by getting Congress to make new law regarding voting and accountability.

Let's get rid of those awful electronic voting machines!

[RiverStone]

13. Thanks! Good news and a question.....?

Would a ruling to re-do the election ultimately need to come from the FLA Supreme Ct?

[eomer]

21. The final ruling will be by the House by a simple majority vote.

Curtis has filed a contest of the election in the House under the FCEA. The House Administration Committee will do an investigation and vote a resolution out and then the full House will vote on it.

The House can choose either to let the state proceedings play out (there is a lawsuit in progress) or to preempt the state proceedings. If they let the state proceedings play out then they can choose either to defer to them or to decide that they were flawed and declare their own findings and result.

The House is the final authority but they have a tradition of deferring to state proceedings unless they find them to be flawed.

[Spiffarino]

14. To the top with you

:kick:

Thanks, helderheid.

Let's keep it hovering. This is important news.

[Bitwit1234]

15. Starting with bush's questionable election

total from Florida, it seems that half of the votes cast have not been recorded, and it seems that it is usually the democratic votes that 'disappear'.

[jarnocan]

16. He is such a hero- how wrong for him to loose by fraud! nt

[Kurovski]

19. K&R.(nt)

[Stevepol]

20. K&R!!

[eomer]

22. Something is seriously wrong in Brevard County.

The "Total #Votes Counted" is greater than the "Total #People who Voted" in almost all precincts. Are we sure of these numbers or is it possible that the votes for some category were added in but the voters weren't?

http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/FL/2006/Analysis-FL-CD24-ElectionResults-2006.pdf

[eomer]

23. Kathy Dopp seems to have temporarily withdrawn this paper

with this statement:

NOTICE: The previous analysis of Florida's Curtis-Feeney U.S. Congressional
District 24 race has been temporarily withdrawn to allow the consistency of the data
we were asked to analyze verified (i.e. were apples [polling + early votes] being
compared to apples [polling + early voters] to calculate number of under-votes?).
Information will be released as soon as it becomes available.

http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/FL/2006/Analysis-FL-CD24-ElectionResults-2006.pdf

_{Edit: fix square brackets that were being interpreted as html tags}

[helderheid]

24. more:

NOTICE: NEDA may have made a "faux pas".

The previous analysis of Florida's Curtis-Feeney U.S. Congressional
District 24 race has been temporarily withdrawn to verify the
consistency of the data we were asked to analyze (i.e. were apples <[br />polling + early votes] being compared to apples voters] to calculate number of under-votes?). Information will be
released as soon as it becomes available.

We have learned that Florida's election data reporting practices make
it impossible to compare its voter history files directly with its
official precinct vote count reports because:

1. the two files aggregate different vote types (eg. one combines
early Optical Scan and DRE votes by precinct, the other file separates
early DRE votes by precinct and combines all early Optical Scan votes
in one number for the entire county), and

2. several types of votes are not broken out by precinct in
Florida's official precinct vote count reports, but they are broken
out by precinct in the voter history file!

Arduous examination of paper records or additional open records
requests must be performed to obtain basic vote count comparisons!

There is an urgent need for election reform legislation requiring
counties to release detailed vote count data like that the experts in
its voter history and official vote count files. (See press release
below). Without timely data release, it is impossible for the public
to exercise oversight over the election integrity until AFTER election
results have been certified and "winners" sworn into office. And even
that only if resources and time are available. This is unacceptable!

Preliminary examination of Volusia county summary data only shows that
there are at least 1,000 phantom votes in the Diebold official vote
count files for which no voters are recorded in the voter history
file, in addition to at least 1000 under-votes. Obtaining the vote
counts needed to thoroughly uncover how many voters were
disenfranchised or how many phantom votes exist in FL US House
district #24 may take weeks.

Please help us pass these recommendations so that citizens can have
effective timely oversight over elections:

PRESS RELEASE:

ELECTION INTEGRITY EXPERTS OFFER 14 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FEDERAL LEGISLATION
National Election Data Archive

January 3, 2007

The question of ensuring an accurate, transparent count of the
people's vote has been at the forefront of concerns of many
individuals and groups, both private and governmental. How can we
guarantee that the actual will of the people is carried out? This
week the U.S. Senate and House will be meeting and voting on
recommendations to improve the voting system. Several of the nation's
foremost election integrity experts have spent the last several months
grappling with some of these issues and have come up with 14
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FEDERAL LEGISLATION TO ENSURE THE INTEGRITY OF OUR
DEMOCRACY.

In light of the continuing problem of questionable election outcomes
in jurisdictions all over the country, where tens of thousands of
votes appear not to have been recorded correctly, these
recommendations are crucial to reestablishing trust in U.S. elections.

Just five of these recommendations would prevent the wrong candidate
being sworn into office as it appears may be happening in Florida's
House District 13 election. Due to the untimely release of complete
vote count data, investigators are just now turning up statistically
improbable vote outcomes and election challenges are still underway.

Those five recommendations, with just the briefest of definitions, are:

• Manual Audits, enough votes have to be manually hand counted to
ensure that the machine counts are not outcome-altering;

• Auditable Voting Systems, the system must provide a voter-verified
permanent paper copy of the vote that is sturdy enough for handling in
recounts and/or storage;

• Public Election Records, rapid access to paper and electronic
election records, and detailed vote counts in all vote types to ensure
that over or under votes in different vote types don't cancel each
other out and thereby obscure vote irregularities, before a race is
called;

• Public Right to Observe, genuine observation, not just presence in
the room is vital to the maintenance of fairness and transparency;

• Teeth in the Legislation, civil and/or criminal penalties or a
reduction of funding for failure to live up to the standards of a fair
and open election process, do not swear in until election contests are
satisfied.


To read the recommendations with details in full go to
http://electionarchive.org/ucvInfo/US/EI-FederalLegislationProposal.pdf

This highly qualified group of election integrity authorities is
comprised of attorneys, election law specialists, state election
officials, computer scientists, mathematicians, a designer of systems
for people with disabilities, and a public administration and election
policy expert. The complete list of experts, including their
qualifications, is available at
http://electionarchive.org/ucvInfo/US/ExpertsList.pdf

Congressional members and their staffs may go over any or all of their
concerns on the recommended legislation with these experts and their
associates.

This group of experts feels that enacting these recommendations will
help to ensure the integrity of our democracy. They urge you to
contact your US Senators and Representatives to encourage them to vote
for these recommendations.

Sincerely,

Kathy Dopp
http://electionarchive.org
Dedicated to Accurately Counted Elections

[pberq]

25. Kick & Nominated