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Mystery of missing votes deepens as Congress investigates Georgia:
To find a clue about what might have gone wrong with Georgia's election last fall, look no further than voting machine No. 3 at the Winterville Train Depot outside Athens.
On machine No. 3, Republicans won every race. On each of the other six machines in that precinct, Democrats won every race.The odds of an anomaly that large are less than 1 in 1 million, according to a statistician's analysis in court documents. The strange results would disappear if votes for Democratic and Republican candidates were flipped on machine No. 3.
It just so happens that this occurred in Republican Brian Kemp's home precinct, where he initially had a problem voting when his yellow voter access card didn't work because a poll worker forgot to activate it. At the time, Kemp was secretary of state — Georgia's top election official — and running for governor in a tight contest with Democrat Stacey Abrams.
The suspicious results in Winterville are evidence in the ongoing mystery of whether errors with voting machines contributed to a stark drop-off in votes recorded in the race for Georgia lieutenant governor between Republican Geoff Duncan, who ended up winning, and Democrat Sarah Riggs Amico.
Even though it was the second race on the ballot, fewer votes were counted for lieutenant governor than for labor commissioner, insurance commissioner and every other statewide contest lower on the ballot. Roughly 80,000 fewer votes were counted for lieutenant governor than in other down-ballot elections.
The potential voting irregularities were included among 15,500 pages of documents obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that have also been turned over to the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee, which is looking into Georgia's elections. The documents, provided under the Georgia Open Records Act, offer details of alleged voting irregularities but no answers.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office has refused to open an investigation. State election officials say the low number of votes could have been caused by low interest in the lieutenant governor's race or where that contest appeared on the ballot.
'It is not letting me vote for who I want': Video shows electronic machine changing ballot in Mississippi (Paywalled and/or Javascript required):
Over and over again, the man touches a box on an electronic voting machine to cast his ballot for Mississippi gubernatorial candidate Bill Waller Jr. And over and over again, the machine instead checks off a vote for Waller's opponent in Tuesday's GOP runoff, Mississippi Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves.
"How would that happen?" a woman exclaims in the background.
"It is not letting me vote for who I want to vote for," the man says.
The moment, captured on a video uploaded to Facebook and Twitter, where it's gotten nearly 750,000 views as of early Wednesday, shows one of at least three malfunctioning voting machines reported in two counties in Mississippi, state elections officials confirmed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 29 2019, @07:15PM (11 children)
To tell these goddamn people to give us paper ballots?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday August 29 2019, @07:30PM (9 children)
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that it's the goal of American election officials to have a secure system that properly records and counts every vote.
It isn't. The goal is to have it look like a democracy, but always choose the "right" candidate.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Thursday August 29 2019, @07:42PM (4 children)
Correct, whenever we find actual election shenanigans it always benefits the right!
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday August 29 2019, @07:44PM (1 child)
For example:
North Carolina GOP Operative Faces New Felony Charges That Allege Ballot Fraud [npr.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @10:17PM
Oh cool now do California...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday August 29 2019, @11:29PM (1 child)
In a lot of governments, this phenomenon benefits entrenched corrupt incumbents at the expense challengers, not because of any kind of right-wing left-wing thing, but because the corrupt incumbents want to keep their corruption going as long as possible. In general, you should not assume that $YOUR_PARTY is pure-as-snow while $THEIR_PARTY is the source of all the corruption and bad governance.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by meustrus on Friday August 30 2019, @01:05AM
Fair point. Usually, though, the "entrenched corrupt incumbents" don't get away with painting the challengers as the ones who benefit exclusively from voting shenanigans.
Whoever thought of voter ID as a major policy position was an evil genius.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 29 2019, @07:57PM (2 children)
The expressed purpose of the Electoral College, as set forth by the founding fathers. Too bad they never needed the balls to ignore their electorate until 2016, by which time they had atrophied into worthlessness.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by rylyeh on Friday August 30 2019, @02:54AM (1 child)
- Alexander Hamilton
You can't seriously be proposing that the co-opted small population states lose their power to - the common folk?
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 30 2019, @04:50AM
I've proposed a compromise multiple times, but almost every time I bring it up people hate it in lieu of keeping what we have or doing straight popular vote. My suggestion is that each congressional district gets one vote, which goes to the winner of a Condorcet, STV, IRV, etc. vote (to allow third parties a chance to break in or send a signal). The first Senator vote goes to whomever wins the vote across the entire state and the second goes to whomever won the most districts (or popular vote if districts tie).
This would protect both big and small districts and big and small states and make the election more sensitive to the popular vote at both the states and federal level. Sure, it is more complicated, but seems to satisfy the constraints of each interested group.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 30 2019, @06:17AM
Let's not kid ourselves, that's the goal of all elections, that's why there are always hurddles for running for office.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 30 2019, @12:13AM
This is America. It takes 1000's of pages and 100's of lawyers to get a paper ballot.