Talk:2004 United States election voting controversies/Archive 10

message: Is in [Accuracy_dispute] yes I don't see that sign here. why?
Dwarf Kirlston Feb 17
:There is no accuracy dispute: None of the article content's accuracy is disputed, nor is the title or existence of the article.  Kevin Baastalk 20:17, 2005 Feb 17 (UTC)
::Kevin, as the history section clearly shows, this article's accuracy is highly disputed. User:JMcNamera 13:06, Jan 27, 2006 (GMT)
:::Maybe that's where your mistake lies, you're looking at the history page for accuracy disputes (If I understand you correctly.)  You can't find them there, because there's no medium for them to exist there.  You should be looking on the talk page, if you're looking for an accuracy dispute. Kevin Baastalk 18:04, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

message: Hi folks. Found a new source of non-partisan video on archive.org, relating to the elections of 2004. Video of noteworthy events should be a good source for some renewed, deeply quality-oriented editing.  -- User:RyanFreisling @ 02:21, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Hey there

message: :Sept 1. 2005
:CLEVELAND -- Two Cuyahoga County Board of Elections workers were indicted Tuesday on charges of misconduct, including unlawfully obtaining possession of ballots during the 2004 presidential election recount.
:Rosie Grier and Kathleen Dreamer were indicted on six counts each, according to the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office. The charges carry a maximum prison sentence of 18 months.
:Erie County Prosecutor Kevin Baxter, who was appointed as a special prosecutor in the case, filed the charges.
:"I think the grand jury did what was supported by the evidence: That there was some problems in the way the 2004 presidential recount was conducted," Baxter told the Sandusky Register.
:{...} Bennett said they have received no indication that the county's recount isn't accurate. He said the charges are procedural and don't affect the vote totals.
:Grier and Dreamer were indicted on charges of failure to perform duties imposed upon them by law; misconduct of board of election employees; knowingly disobeying elections law; unlawfully obtaining possession of ballots/ballot boxes or pollbooks; and unlawfully opening or permitting the opening of a sealed package containing ballots. 
Another source:
:Kerger charged that elections officials failed to randomly select precincts that were supposed to be counted by hand and compared against ballots tabulated by a machine; conduct test-runs before witnesses; and investigate discrepancies between vote totals.
:Baxter would not offer details of his investigation but said he examined allegations that officials took "measures in order to all but assure that there would not be a countywide hand count."
:Cuyahoga County's four elections board members issued a statement defending their employees and the voting process.
:"These allegations are based on interpretation of procedures, not on any suggestion of fraud," they said. here
-- User:RyanFreisling @ 22:00, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: 2 Cuyahoga County BOE workers indicted in Presidential recount

message: I'm considering putting htis article up for peer review.  Feedback? Kevin Baastalk 16:07, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is your purpose for peer review? Rkevins82 20:03, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Two-fold: 1. improve the quality of this article, 2. get it to featured status. (it's certainly interesting and important) Kevin Baastalk 19:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Peer review?

message: I would like to point out that there seem to be two seperate issues the editors of this article are fighting over.  The first is an issue regarding deleted content.  The second regards added content.
It should be possible to come to consensus on these issues separately.
The issue of deleted content is that two links (to www.freep.com and to sfgate.com) along with some text was deleted from the original article without justification. (See the Content added by 148.78.243.121 section above).
Since then the deletion of the www.freep.com link has been justified (it's a broken link).  Does anyone dispute this?  If not, it should be deleted from the article.
The sfgate.com link is not as recent as the www.jsonline.com link that replaced it, and as such does not contain some of the more recent developments.  But it still serves a historical function, and is a relevant link concerning the issue that section of the article addresses.  Does anyone still believe it should be deleted?  If not, it should stay in the article.
As far as the text that was originally deleted from the article, I have yet to hear any justification whatsoever for this deletion.  If anyone has such justification please state it here so we can come to a consensus.  Otherwise, we should keep the original text.
Now, regarding the issue of added content (the allegation against the Ohio Democratic Party), it is being addressed in the imbalance in the name of 'Balance' and Vote suppression sections above.
If we can keep these issues seperate perhaps we can more easily disentangle the mess we've created and come to a consensus.  All the involved editors are encouraged to voice their views and justifications in the appropriate sections.  noosphere 22:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latest edit war 

message: Problems with the certified canvass report and poll books are mentioned in the intro, but not discussed in any amount of detail in the article.  Is information somewhere and I'm just missing it, or do we need to create a section for it? Kevin Baastalk 21:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Missing information

message: please add :Category:Controversies to the article. -- Zondor 16:20, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: no, it already has :Category:2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities. -- Zondor 18:57, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  add [[:Category:Controversies]] 

message: WikiReader on this topic, under construction.  Come join. Kevin Baastalk 20:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiReader 

message: :"This article seems to be a conclusion searching for evidence. Except for some very small stories in the mainstream press, this article takes data from unverifiable and dubious (partisan) sources, and attempts to expand the "controversy" into something much bigger than reality. Other editors have produced chartes and graphs based on this dubious data, which firmly goes against Wikipedia:No original research. All unverifiable and unreliable data or conclusions should be removed from this article and replaced with brief summaries of the concerns. -- Netoholic @ 17:55, 2004 Nov 11 (UTC)"
::Okay, done. With the exception that altough Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell is a dubious source, his data was kept in because it is official, including, for instance, the certified vote count for Ohio, which was used to determine the electors for the electoral college, and consequently the presidency.  He is certainly a parisian and dubious source (he lies alot) but to take that official election data out would cripple the article. Kevin Baastalk 17:29, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: excuse me, but please let me point out that you all asked for a mediator: perhaps this is a good topic for me to help with.  if I don't get something to do here, I'll just go back and say you case is closed because no one is responding.  :-)   Ted 01:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, since no one else is responding or seems to want to participate in debate over the original issues the mediation request was about, perhaps you could offer your opinion on them, since you had taken the time to read over what was said about the issues on the talk page.  This way we will at least have the opinion of an uninvolved party, should an edit war over these (unresolved, imo) issues come up again. -- noosphere 02:58, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Listed as a problem of factuality 

message: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2006/1832 Kevin Baastalk 01:45, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New info: Registration purge

message: http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/OH/Ohio-Exit-Polls-2004.pdf Kevin Baastalk 01:48, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  new info: ohio exit polls 

message: I changed the opening sentence to active voice because weasel words are classic in the passive voice.  There apparently was a rejection of the active voice sentence I placed and a passive voice sentence has replaced it but the weasel wording remains.  By using active voice the weasel term "Some people believe..." or "Some people say..." becomes very clear.  I would rather have the explicit weasel wording rather than try to hide hide in the current passive voice language.  THe openeing sentence should simply say "(X or group X) questioned the validity/verifiability of the Presidential election".  It's simple and direct.  We need to know who and we need to know what.   But to couch it passive voice lends authority where none exist.  This is why weasel words and passive voice are discouraged.  The current version is passive voice.  It needs to be active voice to avoid weasel word violations.  Comments?--Tbeatty 03:51, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I wrote that initial sentence, I would agree with you that "some people say" is a weasel phrase but only if it is used in the body of the article.  Since there are multiple separate groups that contest various aspects of the election, I don't think its appropriate to mention every group in the title sentence as long as who these "some people" are are revealed in the article. --kizzle 04:21, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with that.  I didn't mind the "Some people" as long as it wasn't passive voice.  There is a difference between "The world is flat according to some people" and "Some people say the world is flat."  I was okay with "Some people question the election"  but as soon as I changed it to active voices, someone objected to "some people" and hcanged the sentence back to passive voice.  --Tbeatty 06:12, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "someone" objected to "some people"? Hypocrite ;) --kizzle 06:14, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: OPening sentence

message: The reason why there is a dearth of sources to cite which can explain the drop off in polling accuracy is the same reason that polls are becoming less accurate: People are not participating in polls as much anymore.  And for this very reason, those same people are not available to be verified as past poll participants. Think about this:
: Did you cast a vote in 2004? (if yes, continue)
: Did you cast your vote at a polling place on 11.02.04? (if yes, continue)
: Were you queried by an exit poller on 11.02.04? (if yes, continue)
: Did you agree to be polled? (if yes, continue)
: Who did you tell the pollster you voted for? VoteA:____________
: Who did you vote for? VoteB: _____________
Only if we get to VoteA = VoteB, was that person was an accurate data sample on 11.02.04
Now if we wanted to verify the speculated cultural phenomenon of voters not agreeing to be polled as often, easily or uniformly across voter classes, how could we do that without establishing our base pool? We can't. And regarding people who did make themselves unavailable for polling in 2004, how could we get the to agree to be verified now? Again, we can't. The point of all this is that the common sense explanation here is the right one:
:a) The 2004 polls may have been inaccurate, but this is hard to verify
:b) So far, no proof that the election was stolen has been found, this is easy to show via  where's the beef?. In other words, if there is proof, let's see it. And why no arrests so far?
Combining these two points, we can eliminate nefarious Bush theft as a premise to the supposition that the polls actually were accurate, but Bush "stole" the election via rigged tallies. Why? Because for almost two years, a very motivated group of very smart lawyer types have looked into this in great detail and have come up dry. What that leaves us with is that the polls were not accurate.
So why does this matter? Valid inferences that "polls prove Bush stole", are the only rational reason why complaints about the polls could be notable to this article, but insane inferences are not notable. And it is insane to keep inferring after two years of no proof. Perhaps I am merely thinking out loud here about what's bothering me. Let me say it this way: The name of this article is 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities and to me , this says that the "irregularities" and "controversies" relate to the election itself. But the controversy about the polls is related to polling accuracy, not election accuracy. And it has to be, because if it's not, then we are presuming that election results were inaccurate and we are doing that based on unverified polling data. It's the election results which are our benchmark for articles that relate to "2004 U.S. presidential election".  However, for this page to be accurately titled, as currently comprised, it should be called 2004 U.S. presidential election - controversies, allegations and complaints.
Suffice it to say, this dialog has been very helpful to me. I now have a better idea of what's bugging me about this article, it's "irregularities". That word, used this way, presumes that what's being compared to is "regular" and what we are comparing is "irregular". I have a real problem with that. There is nothing whatsoever factually proven that 2004 election was itself, "irregular", stolen or otherwise unsually bad. 
Anyway,  as you can see, I've not edited this article much anyway as I think it's a bunch of silly bunk and won't bother with it much, not at least unless a few editors here came around to my way of thinking here. And since that does not seem likely at this point, it's probably best that we drop this thread. If and when I edit this article, I'll be careful to do so in small chunks. And if I edit, let me know on this page what, if any, issues you guys have with my edits. Thanks for a nice chat. Merecat 20:41, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The sanity of a claim is not criteria for its inclusion in an article, otherwise Heaven's Gate would be deleted (see, I used something else besides ID, though they are comparable).  It is the public impact that merits inclusion, not a rational assessment of a claim.  I don't know how many times I can say this before you'll understand.  Hopefully that was the last time. And if you weren't being sarcastic in your title, I've enjoyed myself in this thread too, so no problem :) --kizzle 21:13, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sanity is not a criteria but it's acceptance in the scientific community is a criteria.  There is a very small, distinct minority that thinks that the polling discrepancies were not adequately explained my Mitofsky.  They deserve a very small and distinct paragraph.  --Tbeatty 23:53, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "There is a very small, distinct minority that thinks that the polling discrepancies were not adequately explained my Mitofsky."  Have you got a verifiable source for that claim?  If so we'll be sure to include it in the article.  ;) -- noosphere 00:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

text: To conform with WP:NPOV.  ;)  -- noosphere 00:04, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merecat replies to Kevin, Kizzle & Ryan - thanks for pleasant dialog