Procrastinet

Oh Dear God

filed under: Stuff to be pissed off about

We have no idea how wide spread this will turn out to be. This kind of thing could, sure, could be an actual isolated glitch.

But this chills my heart for everything it could possibly mean:

Presidential Elections - AP

Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes

COLUMBUS, Ohio - An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush (news - web sites) 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said.

Details here. And, soon, probably everywhere else.

This from one precinct in Gahanna, a Columbus suburb, where only 638 people voted.

[UPDATE: This is why I'm chilled: those almost-4,000 votes were from ONE malfunctioned machine in ONE precinct in ONE of Ohio's 88 counties.

How many times would this error need to have been repeated, in all of those machines in all of those precincts in those 88 counties, to change the outcome of the election? I mean, it would have to be pretty widespread, right?

Nope. 36.

The precinct in question, where only 638 people voted, had 3 machines. So if fewer than half of Ohio's counties had one machine in one precint go bad...

That said: it could still be just the one in Gahanna.]

[UPDATE UPDATE: There are 11,360 precincts in Ohio. Which means this error would have to have been replicated in 0.326% of the precincts. That's right - less than one third of one percent of all precincts would have had to have one bum machine to change the election.

That said: it could STILL be just the one in Gahanna.]

[UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE: Of course, I just realized that this glitch was easily discovered, just by comparing the number of votes cast to the number reported, so if it were going to be intentional vote fraud, it would be a pretty damn lame version thereof.

SO: probably just the one in Gahanna.]

ps: Hat tip to Sanpete for sending this one in.

Posted by rjt at November 5, 2004 12:44 PM