Election "results"
So we here at Scoop were having a leisurely morning drinking coffee, reading the papers and mocking the Sunday morning news shows before we decided to check on our e-mail and the blogsphere. And then: holy RSS-reader Batman!
It seems certain parts of the blogspher - namely Cone and Hoggard and Capo (Update: Cone didn't like the honorific used originally in this sentence, so I took it out.) - were all in a tizzy over this link, which doesn't seem to be working any more but has been preserved by Cone here. Google captured the page in early October, though there were fewer votes counted then.
We at Scoop have seen this page before. In fact, it pops up (and disappears) on a fairly regular basis in advance of elections. You can argue with the technological savvy at work here or whether the following explanation should/does hold water. But in the past, the explanation we've gotten from the folks who run the BOE web pages goes something like this:
The Board of Elections wants to make sure everything is going to run nice and smooth election night so they test out their results posting system. They do so with numbers that are way below normal so they won't be mistaken for real results and they don't post a link to the summary pages, so only someone really hunting for them would find them. Obviously, people do find them from time to time.
Scoop will re-inquire on Monday and ask whether a week in advance of an election like this one it's such a good thing to risk getting folks all upset and brewing the conspiracy coffee.
Comments (9)
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Nobody I read is in a "tizzy" because a test page was posted. The issue that you don't address is that the test numbers were all dummied up to show a GOP blowout. As I noted at my blog, that could be joke -- it doesn't have to be anything sinister -- but it's the kind of thing that could open the elections board for criticism and skepticism.
BTW, "Masters Cone and Hoggard and Capo" would refer to the male offspring of our respective families -- but you can call me Mr. Cone if you're nasty.
Posted on October 24, 2004 12:57 PM
Ed: I didn't address the all-Republican issue because I don't know why all the races are slanted that way. My guess: whoever was doing the test was mindless plunking in the same numbers over and over again to get through 100-odd precints. But I don't know, and will ask (or rather, Matt will probably ask since I'm off on editing assignment Monday) and find out.
No one is being nasty here, but Hoggard definitely qualifies for a tizzy.
--mark
Posted on October 24, 2004 1:44 PM
I read Cone before Scoop. Sorry, it's an alphabet thing, and I made the same comment there.
SOME STUFF (I used the word "stuff" instead of another "S" word) IS NOT FUNNY!
Haven't read Hoggard yet, but it's always a fun read when he's in a tizzy!
Posted on October 24, 2004 4:32 PM
Guilford elections director George Gilbert has an explanation at my blog
http://radio.weblogs.com/0107946/2004/10/24.html#a2565
Posted on October 24, 2004 5:39 PM
Great, thanks Ed. We're probably going to do our own checking anyway, just to get a complete answer. Thanks. --mark
Posted on October 24, 2004 6:46 PM
sad... so sad
Posted on October 24, 2004 9:34 PM
Tizzy, who's in a tizzy? Not me, no by gosh - it's a damn consiracy theory sans the theory.... full of lies and innuendo. It's a vast right, I mean Libertarian wing conspiracy. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to let up on this....
Can't you SEEEE!!!
Oh, you say George G. has an explanation that makes sense, you say... what party is HE with? Unaffiliated? Show me his file...
Warning to all. DO NOT send me juicy stuff early on a Sunday morning - I might just go off next time.
**********
Truth is, George Gilbert is one of the finest public servants in this state. The mistake his department made was actually posting the test to the net. If they had NOT tested the system, and it failed on election day because of some preventable bug... they would be accused of incompetence.
I still don't like it though. It proves to me that someone can go in to the voting system, and make stuff up and it will show up in the final tally.
Posted on October 24, 2004 10:07 PM
David: I think it's crystal clear at this point that it would be much better if their test wasn't posted on the web for all the world to see. And for what it's worth, I'm pretty sure the hoof-beats that we hear in the distance there are horses and not zebras, if you catch my meaning.
But we'll check on it...'cause that's what we do here at the N+R.
Posted on October 24, 2004 10:11 PM
Hoggard is right, Gilbert is a fine public servant..which makes his stance on paper receipts for electronic voting all the more puzzling...that really is a scandal for Scoop to get working on...
http://radio.weblogs.com/0107946/stories/2003/12/01/votingMachinesNeedPaperTrail.html
Posted on October 25, 2004 7:35 AM