There appear to be two different situations here.
With respect to Plumas County, the county web site clearly shows that there
were 96 abstentions on the recall question. So, this is simply a
mistabulation by the Secretary of State.
In Alameda County, the sum of yeses and nos on recall equals exactly the sum
of yes, no, and not cast on the propositions (422269).
In Kern County, the sum of yeses, nos, and not cast on each of the
propositions (160345) also exactly equals the sum of yeses and nos on
recall.
In Kern and Alameda, this leaves open (among other possibilities) (1) that
absolutely no one abstained on the recall question (highly improbable), (2)
that the votes of abstainers were not counted or included as "not cast" on
any question (a real problem), (3) that the SoS worked backwards to
calculate "votes not cast" as the difference between a total number of
voters and the sum or yeses and nos - and incorrectly used the sum of yeses
and nos on the recall as the total number of voters. The difference between
a number and the same number is always zero.
I'm betting on option number 3.
Scott Rafferty
2439 Alvin Street
Mountain View CA 94043 650-969-5463
mobile 650-814-2257
rafferty@alumni.princeton.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
[mailto:owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Hasen
Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2003 7:37 PM
To: Eugene Volokh
Cc: election-law@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: Re: Potential problem with California vote-tallying?
I've posted some additional observations on the problem here:
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/000253.html
Rick
Eugene Volokh wrote:
Very interesting apparent problem: "Perusing the results by county,
<http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/sov/2003_special/recall_question.pdf> one
notices something odd: Alameda, Kern, and Plumas county report 0 voters not
voting on the recall question. *Zero*."
Eugene
-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony [mailto:anthony@danceslut.net]
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 8:53 PM
To: pundit@instapundit.com
Cc: Clayton E. Cramer; Volokh, Eugene; jsanchez@reason.com;
dweintraub@sacbee.com
Subject: Diebold voting systems
Posted to my blog at http://blog.danceslut.net/archives/000273.html
Anthony Argyriou
***************************************
Diebold's new voting technology has come under fire.
<http://www.reason.com/links/links111103.shtml> Here's some more fuel for
the fire.
Dan Wientraub reports
<http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/insider/archives/000918.html> that
the
California Secretary of State has released the official results of the
recall election.
<http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/sov/2003_special/contents.htm> Perusing the
results by county,
<http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/sov/2003_special/recall_question.pdf> one
notices something odd: Alameda, Kern, and Plumas county report 0 voters not
voting on the recall question. *Zero*. In every other county, the rate goes
>from 0.5% in Yolo County (representing 271 voters out of 56005 total) and
0.7% in Alpine County (representing 4 voters out of 575) to 10.3% in
Sierra
County (168 out of 1632), with Los Angeles County recording the second
highest rate, at 8.9% (195 thousand out of 2.2 million)
The official results include voting systems used by each county.
<http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/sov/2003_special/vs.pdf> Los Angeles County
and Sierra County use the Votomatic punch card. Four of the five counties
with the next highest rates of not voting on the recall question, Amador,
Kings, Mariposa, and Mono, all use the Optech Eagle Mark Sense Ballot Card.
Mendocino, San Diego, and Solano Counties all used the Votomatic also, and
experienced high rates of not voting on the recall.
Kern County uses the Dibold AccuVote OS Mark Sense Ballot Card, and Alameda
and Plumas use the Diebold Accuvote Touch Screen.
The high end results suggest that voters are prone to error with the
Votomatic punch cards and the Optech Eagle ballot card. The
non-participation rate in Alameda County in the Gubenatorial vote was 8.8%,
slightly higher than the statewide rate of 8.0%. It's not believable that
all 422,269 votes in Alameda County actually voted on the recall, unless
the
machine forced them to. The zero results with the Diebold systems suggest
something more sinister: the Diebold machines discarded the votes of anyone
who didn't vote in the recall, or assumed votes for them.
--
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day;
teach him to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks.