David ([info]juliandrago) wrote in [info]ann_arbor_ypsi,
@ 2004-10-01 13:28:00
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Current music:la quiete

I'm posting this because I feel it should be seen, and because I know many people here are going to vote absentee for this upcoming election.

Here is a picture of Presidential Candidate section of the Michigan Absentee ballot, and if you take a look, you might notice something VERY wrong.



Now, if you look at that, notice how the arrows on the presidential candidates are not aligned....an arrow is left over at the end (pointing to the "Congressional" header), and Bush's name has no arrow. It would appear that the arrows are misaligned by having been moved too far downward.

Provided that you vote for the first arrow (next to Kerry), could this potentially mean that, because the arrows seem to be moved downward, that the arrow next to Kerry's name would actually be a vote for Bush? That someone who doesn't notice this and votes for Kerry would have their vote counted for Bush/Cheney?

To anyone else who has gotten an absentee ballot, is yours the same? Because if it is, this is very serious, and needs to be reported to the County Clerk's/whatever office. Just though I'd share.

Cross-posted all over the fuckin' place.


(33 comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]hillabee
2004-10-01 10:34 am UTC (link)
Dude. That is scary. Please contact the County Clerk anyway, and please follow up with what you find.

(Reply to this)


[info]crankyasanoldma
2004-10-01 11:05 am UTC (link)
WTF? I'll be seeing our township clerk this weekend--I'll have to ask her.

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[info]hokie4life
2004-10-01 11:10 am UTC (link)
That is very strange. If you do not get a satisfactory response from the clerk you may want to contact the Michigan Secretary of State office and maybe even the local (Detroit) press as well. I'm sure they would love to get their hands on one of these stories. Definitely keep us posted.

(Reply to this)


[info]qmrf
2004-10-01 11:27 am UTC (link)
(Cross-posted to ArborUpdate.)

(Reply to this)


[info]crankyasanoldma
2004-10-01 11:35 am UTC (link)
I just heard that it was a ballot sent to residents of Alma. So it's limited in scope (I hope) and maybe they can reach most of the affected people with reprinted ballots.

I mean, it's still troubling, but at least it wasn't EVERY absentee ballot sent out.

I hope my sources are correct.

(Reply to this)

Reprints have been sent
(Anonymous)
2004-10-01 11:36 am UTC (link)
According to comments at DailyKos, reprints have been sent:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/1/135446/991

(thanks to Rob: http://goodspeedupdate.com/ )

(Reply to this)


[info]wisn
2004-10-01 11:42 am UTC (link)
Did you receive this ballot recently in Washtenaw County? Apparently other counties have the same error and new absentee ballots had been printed.

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[info]windswept
2004-10-01 12:25 pm UTC (link)
I sent this to the editor of the Ann Arbor News - they responded, they're checking into it.

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afiliation
(Anonymous)
2004-10-01 12:54 pm UTC (link)
Nice proof reading, as well.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: afiliation
(Anonymous)
2004-10-03 11:49 am UTC (link)
Seriously, what the hell is going on with these people? I understand it's alma, but I'm pretty sure they have spell checkers and dictionaries throughout most of the northern United States. They can't spell << Afiliation >>, they can't line up a simple ballot, who are these people and what idiot republican hired them?

I just have two comments to make:

Lobotomies for Republicans: It's the law.

&

Friends don't let friends vote republican (or for Ralph Nader - the stupid bastard)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: afiliation
(Anonymous)
2004-10-04 06:28 am UTC (link)
Why don't you join the military and actually contribute to this country, instead of whining about some socialist candidate for president!!
Semper Fi.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: afiliation
[info]1conquests
2004-10-06 08:07 am UTC (link)
Sad to hear you are so intimidated by Republicans.......
Sounds like you endorse those who like to interpret the truth with ambiguity as their shield and platform. May you always walk in truth.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: afiliation
[info]unnamed525
2004-12-09 06:50 am UTC (link)
How about Jeb Bush saying that "truth doesn't matter"? How about Bush lying about the reasons for going into Iraq and letting the Taliban come back into power in Afghanistan and bin Laden get away? How about Bush giving no-bid contracts to corporations that don't even do the work they're supposed to do, but get paid for it anyway? Or are all those facts false?

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Anonymous)
2004-10-01 02:17 pm UTC (link)
...mayhap the people of Michigan don't want people voting for Bush? Would that be as bad?

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Proud to be Canadian...
(Anonymous)
2004-10-01 02:56 pm UTC (link)
Ah, the ubiquitous complex American ballot. That's the scariest misprint I've ever seen! Glad to here they're fixing it. Also bugs me that the most popular guys just got lumped at the top of the ballot. A lot of people go don't care either way, just vote for the first thing they see.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Proud to be Canadian...
(Anonymous)
2004-10-01 06:20 pm UTC (link)
Incumbents are always (at least what I've always seen) placed first. Now, do you still hear the sound of helicopters (black to be exact)? No conspiracy here...

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Proud to be Canadian...
(Anonymous)
2004-10-01 10:16 pm UTC (link)
Um, no, it's actually ordered randomly through a drawing of the alphabet. Go cry conspiracy elsewhere. Or at least look into your facts before trying to insinuate something...

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Proud to be Canadian...
(Anonymous)
2004-10-02 07:00 am UTC (link)
It's not the ordering of the candidates that's the problem, it's the misaligned arrows. It's not some "conspiracy" that's disturbing, it's the verifiable incompetence. A lackadaisical approach to the most important function of a democracy is not acceptable. Everyone from rock-ribbed, dour conservatives to radical, redistributionist liberals needs to be sure their votes go to whom they choose.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: Proud to be Canadian...
(Anonymous)
2004-10-02 09:16 pm UTC (link)
In Michigan, the order of candidates on the ballot is based on the Secretary of State vote from the most recent election. The current Secretary of State is Rebublican, so Republican candidates are first. The Democratic candidate finished second, so Democrats are second. Floowed by Greens, Libertarians, etc. This is mandated by MCL 168.703 (http://www.michiganlegislature.org/mileg.asp?page=getObject&objName=mcl-168-703&highlight =).

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Calm
(Anonymous)
2004-10-01 04:35 pm UTC (link)
This ballot is from one precinct in Alma, MI. 69 (that's not a joke) absentee ballots were mailed out before the error was brought to the clerk's attention. Replacement ballots have been ordered and will be mailed to the voters who received misprinted ballots.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Calm
(Anonymous)
2004-10-02 03:49 pm UTC (link)
what a bunch of assclowns.
they should all be fired.
or sent to an "occupied" country.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]clouddrakken
2004-10-02 12:02 pm UTC (link)
looks like democracy to me.

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That's my ballot
[info]loki_iscariot
2004-10-02 01:18 pm UTC (link)
Hi, I have an LJ account, but I'm not really involved in the community. A friend posted this in LJ somewhere. I'm originally from Gratiot Co. and am registered to vote there, but I live in AA. That's the ballot I received on September 29th. I called the company as soon as I saw the error, and received a call from Barbara Gager (city clerk) early the next morning. Apparently, it only affects a small number of ballots, but evenso, it's a fairly grievous error.

Moral of the story: Check your ballot closely when you vote this November.

(Reply to this)

makes me cry
(Anonymous)
2004-10-02 03:46 pm UTC (link)
mistakes, makes me cry.
a river of tears.

(Reply to this)

Write not my comment here
[info]bailzzararco
2004-10-03 11:22 am UTC (link)
I had to re-read the "Vote for NOT more than one" at the top. It would sound a lot better if they wrote "Do not vote for more than one."

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juliandrago -- GOOD JOB
[info]chessdev
2004-10-03 07:46 pm UTC (link)
Whether this was a big problem or a small problem -- the fact that this didn't receive any press at all until you took the initiative means someone is willing to play games with people's votes.

This should have been reported -- whether is was 10 or 10,000 just so people can be SURE at we avoid another 2000 election fiasco.

Excellent job for caring enough to scan it in AND to shout loud enough to grab people's attention.

(Reply to this)


[info]xyverz
2004-10-04 10:22 am UTC (link)
Ya know, this seems like a good ballot to me... as long as nobody votes for Bush, we'll all be in a much better place next time this year. :) Just my 2c worth.

But yes, it's a screwed up ballot and I certainly hope they get new ones out immediately.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
A vote for Bush looks like a vote for Kerry
(Anonymous)
2004-10-04 02:31 pm UTC (link)
But if everybody who thinks they are voting for Kerry puts a mark next to Kerry's name (rather than the arrow one spot below his name), all the votes that would go to Kerry would instead be given to Bush! However, there would be no confusion about intended Bush, because any Bush voters would say "Hey, where is the arrow for Bush?" and realize what is going on.

The overall effect: Democrats would be accidently casting votes for Bush!

I do think it's interesting the number of errors on that ballot -- misspelt Affiliation (as mentioned by someone else), "Vote for NOT more than one" ambiguous grammar, Petrouka is actually a member of the Constitution Party (not "U.S. Taxpayers"), and Ralph Nader is the candidate for the Independent Party, which is *not* the same as "No Party".

Re: "No Party" -- When you register to vote, if you do not have any party affiliation you are supposed to put "No Party" instead of the formerly-used "Independent" to avoid confusion with the party called the Independents (before the Independent Party, "independent" simply meant neither Donkey nor Elephant). And although Ralph Nader has in the past run as a candidate for the Greens, he most definitely is a candidate for a specific party in this election.

It sounds like the people making that ballot were very confused. There are too many other stupid, *stupid* mistakes for the arrows to be intentionally confusing. This seems clear evidence that alcoholic beverages should be banned from all county clerks' offices :)

-Jacius

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: A vote for Bush looks like a vote for Kerry
(Anonymous)
2004-10-05 06:31 pm UTC (link)
Here we go...

You've got to remember how an optical scan reader works. It is looking for a mark at a particular spot on the ballot, it is not counting arrows from the top. So if one of these misprinted ballots were fed into a tabulator, a vote on an arrow next to Kerry would still be in the spot where the tabulator is expecting the Kerry arrow, thus recording a vote for Kerry.

Yes, affiliation is spelled wrong. However, in Michigan Nader is running without party affiliation. He filed petitions to run without party affiliation as proscribed by MCL 168.590 (http://www.michiganlegislature.org/mileg.asp?page=getObject&objName=mcl-168-590&queryid=8048756&highlight=qualifying%20petition) and described in the Detroit News article available here (http://www.detnews.com/2004/politics/0409/04/politics-263301.htm).

The Constitution Party (http://www.constitutionparty.com/) does not have ballot access in Michigan. The US Taxpayers Party of Michigan (http://ustaxpayerspartyofmichigan.com/) does have ballot access. As the both of the parties' websites indicate, the US Taxpayers Party of Michigan is affiliated with the Constitution Party.

The "Vote for NOT more than one" wording is mandated by MCL 168.570 (http://www.michiganlegislature.org/mileg.asp?page=getObject&objName=mcl-168-570). This isn't the sort of thing that the clerks just make up.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: A vote for Bush looks like a vote for Kerry
(Anonymous)
2004-10-07 12:02 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for the correction. I was not aware that the parties were correct, or that the horrible wording of "Vote for NOT more than one" was mandated. I assume also that Walt Brown is actually registered in Michigan as a candidate for the Natural Law party, rather than Socialist (as on www.waltbrownforpresident.org).

The issue with the arrow alignment still stands, although perhaps slightly modified. An optical scan reader doesn't count arrows, but human voters might. And if the printed ballot has the arrows in particular spots, mightn't the scan reader be calibrated to check for marks in the places where the arrows actually are?

Hopefully a corrected version of the ballot will get to all the absentee voters, and the misaligned ballots will not be counted. After all, how could a machine, or anyone just by looking at the ballot marks, tell if the voter really wanted to vote for Kerry, or saw that the arrows were not correctly aligned, and thus thought that a mark for Bush *should* go on the top arrow?

If there's something we don't need in our election process, it's more confusion.

-Jacius

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: A vote for Bush looks like a vote for Kerry
(Anonymous)
2004-10-08 01:38 pm UTC (link)
An optical tabulator doesn't count arrows or care where the arrow is geographically on the ballot (that is, next to any particular candidate's name). The only thing it counts is the number of selections for each position. If it associates the count with a candidate's name at all it is because a template form has been fed through the machine to calibrate it.

So, it will read the first arrow as a vote for candidate one. Second for two and so on. What most likely will happen is the machine spits out the totals at night's end in the form of 1=1358 2=1739 3=234 and so on and it's up to a human being to assign the numbers to the cadidates. Or, if the machine was fed a template ballot you can be sure that that particular ballot assigned the names to the positions correctly. That is, arrow 1 to GWB arrow 2 to Kerry, etc. In both cases the arrow next to Kerry's name goes to Bush.

And, I agree that the misalignment is not immediately obvious to a Kerry voter but is much more obvious to a Bush voter. I would expect the Kerry votes to be more greatly misappropriated.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
False Alarm
[info]leftychick
2004-10-08 03:15 pm UTC (link)
This is a non-story. Check out Mike Wendland's weblog -- he has a conversation with the girl who originally posted the misprinted ballot.

http://www.freep.com/money/tech/pcmike_20010414.htm

Clearly this is not a conspiracy and, as Wendland wisely notes, calls into question the credibility of the blog world as whistleblower.

Steve Harmon also has a great story in yesterday's Grand Rapids Press.

http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1097160391216110.xml

There's nothing more to blame here than simple human error. We should do a little more investigating before issuing such wild claims and accusations -- or our online communities really will lose credibility.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: False Alarm
[info]juliandrago
2004-10-08 05:35 pm UTC (link)
Get over yourself:

-I made no "wild claims and accusations"
-This post WAS my form of investigating whether or not this was widespread
-Nowhere in my post do I claim that the ballot was mine
-Nowhere do I claim this to be a "conspiracy"
-Since when do internet communities have "credibility"? I don't know about you, but I, nor anyone else I know, signs up to these communities for their daily news. You have some sort of expectation that a lousy Livejournal weblog is going to be a credible news source? If you do, that's pretty sad.

Thanks for the links, they are interesting, and I'm glad this was an isolated incident. But honestly, a lot of things you said were just downright ridiculous.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(33 comments) - (Post a new comment)

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