Burnt Orange Report
News, Politics, and Fun From Deep in the Heart of Texas
|
|
Burnt Orange ReportNews, Politics, and Fun From Deep in the Heart of Texas |
|
 |
 |
April 01, 2004Cuellar up by 203 Votes with Completed RecountBy Byron LaMastersThe San Antonio Express-News reports:
So, pending a lawsuit, Cuellar will be the next congressman from TX-28. Posted by Byron LaMasters at April 1, 2004 08:40 PM | TrackBack
Comments
Just a note on something that i think is not well known by the general public. I was working as an investigative reporter during the 2000 election debacle. Before the thing turned ugly, I had been invited to observe the county clerk's certification of vote totals. I've been around a long time but that night i learned something new, and to me a bit unsettling. When the clerk certifies, she (in this case) must take random sample boxes and recount (with help and observers) the ballots and compare them to totals reported by the official ballot counters. Her comment was that there always was/had been nearly 100% of the random recounts that turned up an error of one or more votes. I watched this happen as box after box had different point totals -- not by much mind you, but in every sampled box the totals changed. The difference is not retabulated into the posted totals, but the difference is audited and sent to the secretary of state. At some pre-determined threshhold (and i can't remember where this decision is made, or what the threshhold is, a percentage i think), a recount is triggered, but the mistake has to be rather large to do so, meaning a lot of errors are made and not corrected. Presumably this is a statistical wash -- but in politics-as-usual Texas, this seems to open a window for shenanigans. The point is that the totals are never right, when errors are discovered they are not corrected (absent a trigger or a requested recount), and that any recount is going to change the totals if not the result. The SAEN story didn't seem to bear this out when it made the point that the Cuellar vote total was upped by three and Rodriguez's by one in Guadalupe (as an example), but that is only the statistical wash part of it -- there is no mention of how many votes were actually affected, only the net results. The clerk made the point to me that in any really tight race, you have a decent chance of reversing results by simply challenging the totals (a 50-50 balance of recounted votes in an election with a hundred thousand votes still leaves much room for altering results in races where 200 votes determines a winner). In fact, it might be best for democracy if recounts were automatic in any race that is under a threshhold, simply to prevent overzealous counters with an agenda from padding totals (while remaining below the recount trigger). The real issue of course in this race is the "mysterious" Zapata County "missing" ballots -- and in that regard it's easy to speculate that anyone with a hankering for hanky-panky knew they not only might have to "provide" some votes to boost a candidate, but also might have to counter inevitable natural tally changes. Thus 300 "magic" votes, and perhaps a little too obvious and heavy-handed "mistake". Just a thought. . . There was a great editorial cartoon in the San Antonio Express with a reporter declaring Lyndon Johnson the winner of the district 28 race. Posted by: Jacob M. at April 2, 2004 02:28 PM
Post a comment
|
|
About Us
About/Contact
Advertising Policies
Donate
Archives
March 2005
February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003
Recent Entries
HoustonDemocrats.com
Tom DeLay and Foreign Money Blogging and Pro-Wrestling Pete Sessions Helps Major Donor in Divorce Case "Do You Write For..." Kansas Yes, Colorado No HB 2 Passes, Close Call on Final Vote Firefox 1.0.1 Austin City Council Endorsements Roll in... Playing Hardball Learning from Kansas Bloghorns ATTN: Election Junkies HB 2 Liveblogged Republicans Pass Tax Increase, Cut In School Funds Legislative Budget Board Reveals Tax Increase in HB 3 CWA Local Head Says Sergeant-at-Arms not Authorized to Shut Down Dallas Meeting More Reaction on Perry Attacking Bloggers Changes to HB 3, Debate Begins on HB 2 Rick Perry Attacks Blogs Again
Categories
2004: Dem Convention (79)
2004: Presidential Election (569) 2008: Presidential Election (8) About Burnt Orange (113) Around Campus (109) Austin City Limits (100) Axis of Idiots (28) Blogs and Blogging (123) BOR Humor (60) BOR Sports (56) Budget (16) Burnt Orange Endorsements (12) Congress (16) Dallas City Limits (75) Elsewhere in Texas (5) Get into the Action! (5) GLBT (141) Houston City Limits (28) International (87) Intraparty (34) National Politics (467) Oh, you know, other stuff. (23) Politics for Dummies (11) Pop Culture (60) Redistricting (255) Social Security (29) Texas Lege (68) Texas Politics (637) That Liberal Media (1) The Economy, Stupid (13)
BOR Edu.
University of Texas
University Democrats
BOR News
The Daily Texan
The Statesman The Chronicle
BOR Politics
DNC
DNC Blog: Kicking Ass DSCC DSCC Blog: From the Roots DCCC DCCC Blog: The Stakeholder Texas Dems Travis County Dems U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett State Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos State Rep. Dawnna Dukes State Rep. Elliott Naishtat State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez State Rep. Mark Strama
Linked to BOR!
Alexa Rating
Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem Technoranti Link Cosmos Blogstreet Blogback
Polling
American Research Group
Annenberg Election Survey Gallup Polling Report Rasmussen Reports Survey USA Zogby
Texas Stuff
A Little Pollyana
Austin Bloggers DFW Bogs DMN Blog In the Pink Texas Inside the Texas Capitol The Lasso Pol State TX Archives Quorum Report Daily Buzz George Strong Political Analysis Texas Law Blog Texas Monthly Texas Observer
TX Dem Blogs
100 Monkeys Typing
Alandwilliams.com Alt 7 Annatopia Appalachia Alumni Association Barefoot and Naked BAN News Betamax Guillotine Blue Texas Border Ass News The Daily DeLay The Daily Texican Dos Centavos Drive Democracy Easter Lemming Esoterically Get Donkey Greg's Opinion Half the Sins of Mankind Jim Hightower Houtopia Hugo Zoom Latinos for Texas Off the Kuff Ones and Zeros Panhandle Truth Squad Aaron Peña's Blog People's Republic of Seabrook Pink Dome The Red State Rhetoric & Rhythm Rio Grande Valley Politics Save Texas Reps Skeptical Notion Something's Got to Break Southpaw Stout Dem Blog The Scarlet Left Tex Prodigy ToT View From the Left Yellow Doggeral Democrat
TX GOP Blogs
Beldar Blog
Blogs of War Boots and Sabers Dallas Arena Jessica's Well Lone Star Times Publius TX Safety for Dummies The Sake of Arguement Slightly Rough
Daily Reads
&c.
ABC's The Note Atrios BOP News Daily Kos Media Matters MyDD NBC's First Read Political State Report Political Animal Political Wire Talking Points Memo CBS Washington Wrap Wonkette Matthew Yglesias
College Blogs
CDA Blog
Get More Ass (Brown) Dem Apples (Harvard) KU Dems U-Delaware Dems UNO Dems Stanford Dems
GLBT Blogs
American Blog
BlogActive Boi From Troy Margaret Cho Downtown Lad Gay Patriot Raw Story Stonewall Dems Andrew Sullivan
More Reads
Living Indefinitely
Blogroll Burnt Orange!
BOR Webrings
< ? Texas Blogs # >
<< ? austinbloggers # >> « ? MT blog # » « ? MT # » « ? Verbosity # »
Election Returns
CNN 1998 Returns
CNN 2000 Returns CNN 2002 Returns CNN 2004 Returns state elections 1992-2005 bexar county elections collin county elections dallas county elections denton county elections el paso county elections fort bend county elections galveston county elections harris county elections jefferson county elections tarrant county elections travis county elections
Texas Media
abilene
abilene reporter news alpine alpine avalanche amarillo amarillo globe news austin austin american statesman austin chronicle daily texan online keye news (cbs) kut (npr) kvue news (abc) kxan news (nbc) news 8 austin beaumont beaumont enterprise brownsville brownsville herald college station the battalion (texas a&m) corpus christi corpus christi caller times kris news (fox) kztv news (cbs) crawford crawford lone star iconoclast dallas-fort worth dallas morning news dallas observer dallas voice fort worth star-telegram kdfw news (fox) kera (npr) ktvt news (cbs) nbc5 news wfaa news (abc) del rio del rio news herald el paso el paso times kdbc news (cbs) kfox news (fox) ktsm (nbc) kvia news (abc) galveston galveston county daily news harlingen valley morning star houston houston chronicle houston press khou news (cbs) kprc news (nbc) ktrk news (abc) laredo laredo morning times lockhart lockhart post-register lubbock lubbock avalanche journal lufkin lufkin daily news marshall marshall news messenger mcallen the monitor midland - odessa midland reporter telegram odessa american san antonio san antonio express-news seguin seguin gazette-enterprise texarkana texarkana gazette tyler tyler morning telegraph victoria victoria advocate waco kxxv news (abc) kwtx news (cbs) waco tribune-herald weslaco krgv news (nbc) statewide texas cable news texas triangle
World News
ABC News All Africa News Arab News Atlanta Constitution-Journal News.com Australia BBC News Bloomberg Boston Globe CBS News Chicago Tribune Christian Science Monitor CNN Denver Post FOX News Google News The Guardian Inside China Today International Herald Tribune Japan Times LA Times Mexico Daily Miami Herald MSNBC New Orleans Times-Picayune New York Times El Pais (Spanish) Salon San Francisco Chronicle Seattle Post-Intelligencer Slate Times of India Toronto Star Wall Street Journal Washington Post
Powered by
Movable Type 3.15 |
|