Talk:2004 United States election voting controversies/Archive 9

Dispute tag

I have added a dispute tag to this article and all of its sub-articles, on the grounds that they read like the collective waste product of a sea of blogs, which, coincidentally, they are. Feel free to remove it when all nine pages are merged to a single page that is not so long it sets off a length warning. Snowspinner 04:52, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Your dispute tag is unwarranted and will, undoubtedly, be reverted. If you object to the length or the quality of writing, the tag you chose is utterly inappropriate. -- RyanFreisling @ 05:07, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

It is ridiculously POV to suggest that there are 60,000 accurate words worth saying about this topic. Snowspinner 05:10, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

No, it is ridiculous to conclude that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about your action (applying the tag) - which is unjustifiable and likely to be quite temporary. If you want to improve the article, you are as welcome as always.... but your use of the tag is incorrect. You might have been better served only tagging this article, and getting feedback first - because you've introduced a dozen or more improper tags on your own whim, without regard for the community. -- RyanFreisling @

No. I'm not welcome, and you know it. If I try to give any of these articles the enema they so desperately need, I will be reverted, continually. Snowspinner 05:19, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Lovely (and telling) imagery. -- RyanFreisling @ 05:55, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Have a look below. The sources on this article are appallingly bad. Snowspinner 06:11, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

The use of the tag is correct. This article is utter horseshit. I don't like Bush, but I don't like crappy encyclopedias filled with original research and blog-sewage either. --Delirium 00:08, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

A quick tour of the citations in this article

Going purely through the numbered citations here...

1 is an article from the "Election Incident Reporting Service," an election monitoring group so important it has no article on Wikipedia. Its phone number now sends you to the "Lawyer's Commision for Civil Rights" 2 is an advocacy group against electronic voting. 3 is "news4Jax.com," which I assume serves the good people of Jacksonville. No national news carried this story? Odd. 4 is a site that's "Breaking News and Views for the Progressive Community." 5 claims "wealthy and powerful interests" control U.S. elections - wonder if they have any bias. 6 is a "voice for the progressive south" 7 briefly looked to me like it would be a CNN article, but no, it's a random blog. 8, same blog. 9, at last, a Washington Post article! Well, OK, a Washington Post editorial. But at least it's an editorial from a mainstream publication. 10, a scholarly article that went through peer review so fast it got to version 2 within a week of the election, and had no authors attached to it. Man, that sure puts my scholarship to shame. 11, tough to tell since the article is no longer available, being behind a registration screen. 12, good show, good show. 13, liberal advocacy group, quoting a Latino think tank that hasn't updated its webpage in 2005. Oddly, neither of these are the Associated Press citation mentioned in the article though. 14, again, not a bad citation. 15 is admitted by the article as "a group called US Count Votes," which is about all that's clear about them. They investigate the accuracy of elections. No qualifications about their use as a source, but they're good enough for three citations in a row, apparently. 16 and 17 are also US Count Votes 18, ah, 18 is good. 18 plunges into that age-old source of good journalism, the random geocities page. 19 is indeed by Dennis Kucinich, writing in that great and unbiased newspaper "Common Dreams" 20 brings a smile to my heart, being well acquainted with Marion County, Ohio, but again, national news sources not picking this up? Wonder why. 21, a notable newspaper. I'm sure that mean old state legislator really did say it. I do wonder about how NPOV the paragraph its cited in is, though. I mean, I don't think "Political parties generally pay lip service to the ideal of encouraging turnout." is going to win any NPOV prizes. So, sure, good source, terrible usage. 22, San Francisco Chronicle, a good newspaper, if a totally random little bit oftrivia. 23, also a lovely source. Pity it's about the 2000 election. 24, the NAACP. Completely unbiased group, not known for their political advocacy. 25, progressive news site 26, MSNBC rehosted to the NAACP? Odd, if not actually a bad citation 27, blog 28, legitimate newspaper (Third good source that's actually on the topic of the 2004 election?) 29, anti-war group 30, Michael Moore! Lovely! 31, Michael Moore again! 32, we're up to four good sources. 33, again, we're dealing with those important national news sources. 34, we're drawing from the Guerilla News Network. Can we not actually cite the International Herald Tribune where the article comes from? 35, No, we can, we just like double citing things so we can get our liberal news networks in. (Five good sources) 36, an explanation of why all the other sources suck. Well, that's something. Of course, it does lend credence to the claim that this is all original research, if its based on the l33t s33krit sources that the real media has been hiding. And it begs the question of why, if there's a media coverup, the Boston Globe is reporting it. 37, another one of those news stories that just didn't fit into any of the national news broadcasts. Too bad, so sad. 38 doesn't seem to exist. 39, another local news source 40, same local news source. 41, Truth OUt again 42, Project Censored: News that Didn't Make the News. 43, Truth Out 44, "How the Christian right is on track to overthrow secular America." Nope, no bias there. 45, from the Free Press again. 46, doesn't the HoR publish their own transcripts we could link to instead of an advocacy group? 47, this is good source number 5, right? 48, Wired News. Good source. Except, well, not so much a political news source. 49 and 50, both good, though why it's so important to mention the bad voting machines that weren't used I'm not sure. Again, good source for a wholly irrelevent argument. 51, not a major news source at all. 52, a web forum thread! 53, minor news source. Progressive biased? I'm too tired to check. 54, one of the leading journalists in the country. So leading, she's not affiliated with any newspaper! 55, it's the same article again! 56, Wired. Accurate, yes. That notable election expert Ben Cohen really did say that. Of course, his qualifications as an election expert are, what, administering Ben and Jerry's new flavor polls? 57, Good. (6) 58, Good (7) 59, registration page for a news site 60, The Green Party press release. (Must have gotten a lot of coverage) 61, again, Green Party press releases. 62, Nader press release this time. 63, Nader again 64, What is this a source for? That Conyers is actually a congressman? 65, What is this supporting? 66, Michael Moore 67, Green Party 68, All right, you can have this one too.

68 sources, 8 of them are things where, if one of my students uesd them to support the claim in question, I would let it go without making them find a better source. Many of them are repeats, partisan press, or non-existant.

I should put an unverified tag on the article too, shouldn't I? Snowspinner 06:11, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Blog posts and other 'non-noteworthy' sources and content can, and should, be removed if the information claimed is uncorroborated. That has been the process all along. However, in this instance it is important to mention that advocacy groups, election research groups and independent media WERE leading the investigations and in some instances BECAME noteworthy in the process.

No one is prohibiting anyone from editing these articles, if their edits improve them. However, your critique of many of those sources (Green party, some of the elections groups, EIRS, 'Liberal papers', etc. is POV in it's own right. Make your edits - edit! Just do so wihtout the hostility and the presumption of POV-pushing - and ensure that your edits are such that they improve the article, not one that better suits your POV.

No one wants false or unverifiable information on Wikipedia here to be cloaked as fact, and your critique of the sources, while valid, is only an indirect way of uncovering fact. Why not concentrate on the issues and assertions for which those sources are cited? -- RyanFreisling @ 16:41, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not asserting that the sources aren't noteworthy. I'm asserting that they're biased sources, read entirely within their own limited field, being cited without qualification. I'm asserting that no notability or consequence came from any of this - there remains no significant mainstream media coverage, a year after the elections, of the alleged voter fraud. The whole thing turned out to be a non-issue, and the blogs' investigation fizzled. If you want to assert that these groups lead an investigation that is in any way notable, successful, or worth covering as anything other than what some leftist groups were busy doing for a few months, you can't cite the blogs - you need to cite CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, the NYT, the WSJ, Fox News, USA Today, the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune - some nationally recognized media source in which these incidents got substantially picked up. A blog is a primary source - reporting its claims verbatim is original research. If what happened in a blog spawned some worthwhile investigation the secondary sources - the mainstream media that picked up on it - is where we need to turn. Snowspinner 17:19, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with your policy of an across-the-board sanction on using blogs as sources. There are a few blogs such as MysteryPollster and Andrew Sullivan that are notable, verifiable, and most definetely reputable news sources. I'd agree with you on about 99% of blogs, but there are some such as MP (which is germane to the topic at hand) that I believe merit inclusion. As for your criteria of bias, I don't see how you can justify including anything from editorials in these nationally-recognized news sources, which are always biased, but exclude highly-recognized blogs such as Sullivan and MP. Remember, reputable, verifiable, and notable, not impartial. --kizzle 18:28, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

If I was not clear, I don't think editorials are good sources either. I will grant that an editorial in the WP is better than an editorial in Common Dreams - but not by a lot. And I can accept that Mystery Pollster and Andrew Sullivan are notable subjects. I still think, however, that if their stories do not get picked up by a single major news source, that's mitigates heavily against them being credible on a given fact. Snowspinner 18:35, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

If by major news source you're talking about the half-dozen highly reputable papers such as LA times, NY times, WaPo, etc., plus the cable news networks, there's a lot of stuff that goes on that they don't cover. I think it's a logical fallacy to assume that simply because an event did not appear in the few mainstream news sources, that it did not happen. For example, the complexities of the exit poll section do not warrant a segment on Hannity and Colmes or really any other TV show because they are complex and not interesting to the average viewer. However, this does not mean that there does not exist a vigorous academic debate between fraudsters and cynics as to what the meaning, if any, the exit poll discrepancy has on the possibility of fraud. I am currently writing an argument paper on the matter, and I sympathize with you Snowspinner on the lack of quality sources available that don't start out dogmatically concluding John Kerry actually won the election and that "Bushco" stole the vote. I also agree that the sources used on this page should be examined carefully, but I think that much of the info currently on these pages can remain if one simply takes the time to find the primary sources such as academic papers, government reports, legal documents, and even blogs such as BradBlog and Rawstory that post their own primary sources (such as audio interviews on Brad and scanned documents for Rawstory), rather than the low quality blogs that reference them. I had to do that for my paper and was quite successful in finding reputable sources (and believe me, I pruned the shit out of most of them). --kizzle 18:52, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I just have a lot of trouble with the idea that a large-scale national issue like this - an allegedly stolen election - didn't get national coverage. If there is something worth covering in an encyclopedia in this, there is a mainstream, verifiable source for it. If there is not, this is original research. It may well be true - hell, Kerry could well have won the election. I don't know. I do know that the verifiable sources that can be drawn on to give a summary of the situation don't get you to the point this article goes to. Snowspinner 19:00, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure this article is alleging that the election was stolen, but rather in certain cases, fraud on various levels was alleged. If it is alleging the election was stolen, than that should definetely be taken out, as there really is no credible evidence justifying such a giant and controversial conclusion. However, this does not mean that in isolated incidents, there were indications of fraud that could have happened in the tens of thousands of votes, as evidenced in the voting procedures headed by Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio. Read John Conyer's "What Went Wrong in Ohio" to gain a proper scope of what kind of disenfranchisement was indicated by Blackwell's choices. In this encyclopedia, we focus upon information that is verifiable from notable, reputable sources. Why do we need to additionally limit this to mainstream sources? The information in the official RABA report documenting the (in)security of Diebold machines is verifiable, comes from the actual company that tested the machines for the state of Maryland, but is covered barely anywhere in the media. We have satisfied notable, verifiable, and reputable (go to www.raba.com). Should we exclude information from this report simply because its not mainstream? --kizzle 19:18, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, we should exclude fringe information. There are mainstream analyses of the election; making up our own analysis is original research. The situation is similar with history articles: We should report history as historians analyze it, not dig up our own primary sources and write new historical analyses. If you wish to do that, you should first do it elsewhere, get your article published in a reputable journal, and then it will be reported in Wikipedia. Similarly, for this article, we should cite reputable analyses of the election, not conduct our own original research. --Delirium 00:13, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Quoting a report is not "producing a primary source", as per the definition of Original Research. Can you quote where it says we can only use external analysis rather than technical reports or other data? And I wouldn't exactly consider the RABA report "fringe", as it was the official security report of the company hired to evaluate Maryland's Diebold machines. Definetely not fringe. --kizzle 01:43, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

See the official policy, Wikipedia:No original research, which explicitly says that original analysis based on data is original research and not to be included. See in particular the statement from Jimbo (Wikipedia's founder): "An article that makes no new low-level claims, but nonetheless synthesizes work in a non-standard way, is effectively original research that I think we ought not to publish. This comes up most often in history, where there is a tendency by some Wikipedians to produce novel narratives and historical interpretations with citation to primary sources to back up their interpretation of events. Even if their citations are accurate, Wikipedia's poorly equipped to judge whether their particular synthesis of the available information is a reasonable one." --Delirium 08:21, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok, that's fine with me. It's not like this is a raw data output like a graph, data sheet, scatterplot, etc. that i'm interpreting, this is an analysis, go read the RABA report at www.raba.com. If we're to include a section on the security weaknesses of Diebold machines, this is the best document to reference, and it can be done so by simply quoting verbatim certain conclusions and passages from it. While it may not be mainstream, it certainly is verifiable, notable, and reputable. Please go read the RABA report before you call it raw data and not an analysis. --kizzle 17:02, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

No. You don't understand. The RABA report should be cited as the RABA report, period. If the article follows the conclusions of the RABA report, that's original research. If it states or implies that the RABA report is true, that is POV. If RABA is a partisan or advocacy group, it falls afoul of [1]. Snowspinner 17:37, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I think we're on the same page. I thought Delirium was implying that even citing the RABA report while not accepting it as truth was considered original research. BTW, RABA is not a partisan group, go to the site to see what they're about. --kizzle 18:35, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that's not what I meant to imply. I mostly object to citing primary-source data and making arguments from that, as some of the Wikipedian-produced graphs are doing. --Delirium 18:11, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Snowspinner, I think it's great that you're trying to improve the accuracy of this article and remove some of the dubious claims. I gave up on that task a while back - it's just too hard to get anything changed on this page when some editors watch it like a hawk. While I believe we share the same goal, I'd like to ask that you please be careful editing - for example, MysteryPollster is not some "random blog". The author is an expert on political polling and he makes a point not to misuse statistics. It's still up to readers to decide if they want to believe him, but my point is he's a step above the "random blog" level. Anyway, good luck getting this article changed. Rhobite 02:39, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. It's still my feeling, however, that blogs are problematic sources - they're self-published without editorial oversight, and just can't be leaned on in the same way as an edited national newspaper or a peer-reviewed journal. Since the degree to which mainstream media is reading the blogs is, at this point, well documented, I would figure that anything Mystery Pollster found that's important would get picked up somewhere else - I'm not saying "became a scandal that CNN led with every day for a week," but is there really nothing in the archives of any national news source following up on Mystery Pollster? Because if so, that speaks very badly about Mystery Pollster. Snowspinner 05:41, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Interesting use of words, i.e., that national newspapers can be "leaned on". Many believe this is exactly what is happening to most national newspapers and explains why national news sources do not follow up on blogs like MysteryPollster.

Nothing in the mainstream news has really followed up on the election irregularities, but that just reflects poorly on the news. With so little coverage of the irregularities in the news, there's not enough space, not to mention research, to cover much of anything, including the famed mystery pollster. But the choices of the mainstream newspapers, whatever they may be based on, are certainly not based on the merits of the site or its role in the controversy. Both sides of the debate found it a source of refreshingly solid information. Kevin baas 17:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Revisions

Snowspinner and Delirium, I'm glad you've taken the time to try and give this article a careful examination of the sources used and the conclusions drawn from them. However, before you both start wholesale deleting every passage that looks prima facie like it comes from a dubious source, I invite both of you along with Kevin Baas, Ryan Freisling, and anyone else who wants to discuss the matter to go over each disputed passage one by one. Start with any passage and use the template here, and lets discuss each change before it is simply removed.

Let's not. We all seem to be in agreement that the page needs work. If I make a deletion you disagree with, bring it up on talk, but I'm not going to spend time explaining every edit I want to make to this page - if there are ones you have particular problems with, please explain below. Otherwise, I'm going to continue the editing work. Snowspinner 19:12, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Please, I don't want to have to play catch-up to every single edit that you make. I don't want to have to search through each individual edit you make... how is that collaboration? I want to collaborate with you, not play referee to your edits after the fact. If you want to take the time to make this article better, you need to take the time to work with other editors. --kizzle 19:33, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

And I'm happy to. But it's ridiculous to expect me to operate as though every one of my edits is disputed before I've even made it. Snowspinner 20:11, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

See also WP:BOLD Snowspinner 20:18, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

YOu are welcome to be bold - and when your edits are not justified (as in your plastering of NPOV and disputed tags across the family of articles without specifics), they'll doubtless be as boldly reverted. -- RyanFreisling @ 21:05, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but are you saying claiming these articles are POV is unjustified? Snowspinner 21:13, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you that there is some POV in these articles, as they were initially hastily written as information became available. This, however, does not justify you from making dozens of edits and forcing us to wade through each individual one to see where we disagree. I agree in most cases, you should be bold. But you shouldn't start deleting everything you don't like, that's a little too bold. So that we can keep track of what you're deleting, just use the template, copy and paste the passage being deleted/edited, and leave a one line description as to why you did it. It's only common courtesy. --kizzle 22:32, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

That's a substantial amount of extra work, especially for the uncontroversial. I explain my reasons in my edit summaries. If you object, bring it up on talk. But it's absurd to revert changes without explanation because you insist on getting prior approval on all changes. Snowspinner 01:48, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

If you don't want to take the work to do this right, then don't do it at all. This lack of effort on your part in no way justifies your wholesale deletions of sections without discussion, thus putting the onus of discussion on multiple sections hidden within the history on us. --kizzle 01:59, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Deletion unwarranted. I object to both reversals - we have discussed the reasons above. Both are factual, corroborated incidents involving noteworthy individuals that speak directly to election irregularities. -- RyanFreisling @ 03:52, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

While I will grant that Ben Cohen is a notable figure in the world of, say, ice cream, I don't see where he's any more notable than I am on the subject of elections. As for the Michigan representative, it is a random fact in the context of the section - everything else alleges fraud in Ohio and Florida, and then this one quote supports fraud in Michigan - it's completely beside the point. Snowspinner 03:57, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Your observations do not mitigate the fact that these two sections are relevant and should not have been deleted (now multiple times) by you. Cohen has been actively involved as an election activist since before the election, and Ohio and Florida are not the sole location of the irregularities, nor the 2004 election. I am asking you to honor this as you claim to and revert your deletion. -- RyanFreisling @ 04:00, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

How loud Cohen has been as an activist is immaterial - he's simply not a subject expert by any definition. And if you want to make a claim of broad irregularities in that passage that the Detroit quote backs up, do it - but in its current form, it's a quote that is relevent to none of the claims surrounding it. So no, I don't intend to revert those changes - I stand by them. Snowspinner 04:37, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

"how loud" isn't the issue. He's a notable figure, and notable in the field of election reform issue. The quote form the Michigan Republican official is an on-the-record comment stating flatly that they must suppress voting - directly relevant to the topic! Stand by them if you must, but you're not considering my points and we'll wind up in conflict if you don't take a step back from your assertions and look at the plain facts about the relevance of these sections. Again, I ask you to return the content to the article and discuss here further BEFORE deleting. -- RyanFreisling @ 05:30, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

(Moving left) What establishes Cohen's notability on election reform? It's certainly not any credentials he has. And merely speaking about an issue does not make one particularly notable, or the George W. Bush article would be quoting Barbara Streishand and Martin Sheen left and right. Out of all the people in the world, what makes Ben Cohen's opinion an especially important one on election reform? Why should I think he knows more than other people? Because it's certainly not obvious on the face of it.

As for the Michigan Republican, yes - it is indeed an on-the-record comment. Though "state senator" isn't really an "official" - you make it sound like he's some kind of campaign coordinator. But the real problem is that that was the only place in the article where Detroit is mentioned - nor is it mentioned anywhere in the vote supression article. You have a quote supporting vote supression in an area you're not even talking about in the rest of the article. It's a complete piece of misdirection - make an argument about Ohio, and then follow it with a juicy quote on a completely different topic. If there is vote supression to be talked about in Detroit, put information in about it - but it has no bearing on anything else that's currently in the article. Snowspinner 05:39, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

You have a known, notable figure, active in election reform issues, describing his first-hand conclusions regarding the hackability of the voting system. You have an elected official admitting that they need to suppress voter turnout to win the election. Each certainly relates to the topic of the article, and to the theses of the sections in which they exist.

Both sections belong in the article, and I am now asking you for the third time to please revert your unwarranted deletion to avoid a revert war. -- RyanFreisling @ 11:35, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Ben Cohen is not an expert on polling - he's just a celebrity mouthing off, and his opinion doesn't belong here. The Detroit quote is deceptive because it's sandwiched between two Ohio paragraphs. If we don't cover Detroit elsewhere in the article, the quote should go. Seems like an unfortunate choice of words to me, not an admission of conspiracy anyway. Rhobite 12:41, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Rhobite here, and lets try to keep random celebrity mouth-offs and blog slush away from this article.Voice of All ^{@|Esperanza|E M} 15:00, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

How is a statement by the organiser of an advocacy group a "random celebrity"?

Cohen is taking his message to the annual conference of the National Association of Secretaries of State, who meet tomorrow at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in the capitol...[Cohens group] which raised $100,000 in its first two days of fundraising last week, aims to convince other states to follow the lead of California...campaign is being run by TrueMajority, an online activist organization that he launched in June 2002...nonprofit, non-partisan organization has 400,000 members...s focusing on e-voting regulations at the state level because a bill before U.S. Congress to mandate a voter-verified paper trail has stalled.

Guettarda 15:15, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm still baffled - he founded a liberal action group. His group is not comprised of election experts. He is still not an election expert. I don't doubt that he's very passionate about the issue, but founding an advocacy group - one that's not even actually related to elections as such - does not make one a credible source. If you wanted to quote him in a section describing the groups that were involved in questioning the election, that's one thing, but the quote being used is to support the claim that electronic voting was a failure - and that's not something scoping ice cream or founding an advocacy group gives you any meaningful qualification to do. Snowspinner 15:42, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Then why not delete the whole section? It talks about advocacy around the issue of computer voting machines. Since Diebold machines and the lack of a paper trail are central to the controversy, and have been covered by major media outlets (I learned about the issue first in the NYTimes), why should a statement by the leader of a group which campaigned actively against these machines not be relevant to the article? Guettarda 15:49, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I said celebrity mouth-offs, I did say that "a statement = a celebrity", so please do not try to put words into my mouth that are designed to be nonesense. Also, I was refering to the quote about the hackers, not the one you posted above.

There was an abundance of controversy, pages and pages of it. Lets keep this article to down to at least somewhat more credible sources. Plenty of studies have shown flaws in the system, and so those studies belong here much more than the Ice Cream business owner's uncited claim(which perhaps is true, who knows?).Voice of All ^{@|Esperanza|E M} 15:52, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

1. Ex-Ice-cream-business-owner.
2. I have no idea what you mean by: "I said celebrity mouth-offs, I did say that "a statement = a celebrity", so please do not try to put words into my mouth that are designed to be nonesense." You called Cohen's statement a "celebrity mouth-off", right? All I said is, the quote should not be interpreted as "Cohen-as'celebrity", it should be interpreted as "Cohen-as-leader-of-400,000-member-advocacy-group" How is a statement, that was aimed at a meeting of State Secretaries-of-State, not noteworthy?
3. Where am I putting words in your mouth?

Guettarda 16:17, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

"How is a statement by the organiser of an advocacy group a "random celebrity"?".

Those are the words you put in my mouth. Either is is semantics strawman or you just you meant "how is the organizer" instead of "how is a statement" but typed the wrong. Hopefully it is the latter.

He is random as he is not knowledgable on the topic like officials or researchers and election workers. As I already said, I was refering to the 1 minute hacking quote. If you want to add:

"Cohen is taking his message to the annual conference of the National Association of Secretaries of State, who meet tomorrow at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in the capitol...[Cohens group] which raised $100,000 in its first two days of fundraising last week, aims to convince other states to follow the lead of California...campaign is being run by TrueMajority, an online activist organization that he launched in June 2002...nonprofit, non-partisan organization has 400,000 members...s focusing on e-voting regulations at the state level because a bill before U.S. Congress to mandate a voter-verified paper trail has stalled."

Then by all means do so, as I have no problem with that. Thank you.Voice of All ^{@|Esperanza|E M}

Template (one line description of passage)

Passage: Insert passage here.

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Discussion:

This passage is whack. --kizzle 19:00, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikibreak

As a heads up, my silence on this issue for the next few weeks should not be taken as my agreeing with anything in this article. (In fact, after looking at Kevin's most recent three edits to it, I'm even more appalled - he removed a right-leaning election watchdog group from the intro as partisan, while leaving Black Box Voting, which has always been particularly obsessed with Diebold's connection to the GOP?) Frankly, the stress of trying to fix this article in the face of an overwhelming number of POV pushers who are committed to fighting every step tooth and nail has achieved its goal - I don't have the stomach to fight this out right now, and trying to do so is distracting me from more important things in my life. Snowspinner 00:24, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Just a note to Snowspinner, I believe those edits are wrongly attributed to me. Not to use a cliche in the agressive sense, but literally speaking, I don' t know what he's talking about. (i haven't looked through the page history) Not to say that i haven't mistaken one person's edits for someone else's before. I think that's a common mistake on wikipedia. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 02:31, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

recent tags removed from article

As there has been no supporting discussion here to justify the 'totallydisputed' and 'originalresearch' tags, they have been removed. The article still is far from 'ideal' or 'perfect' - please contribute to the improvement of the content. -- RyanFreisling @ 01:48, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Ryan about removing the tags, just a note to anyone wanting to re-add them, he is not alone :).Voice of All ^{@|Esperanza|E M} 01:53, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

GAO Report

We'll be updating the article to reference the latest GAO Report, which states:

The nonpartisan GAO report has now found that, "some of [the] concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes."

The United States is the only major democracy that allows private partisan corporations to secretly count and tabulate the votes with proprietary non-transparent software. Rev. Jesse Jackson, among others, has asserted that "public elections must not be conducted on privately-owned machines." The CEO of one of the most crucial suppliers of electronic voting machines, Warren O'Dell of Diebold, pledged before the 2004 campaign to deliver Ohio and thus the presidency to George W. Bush.

Bush's official margin of victory in Ohio was just 118,775 votes out of more than 5.6 million cast. Election protection advocates argue that O'Dell's statement still stands as a clear sign of an effort, apparently successful, to steal the White House.

Among other things, the GAO confirms that:

1. Some electronic voting machines "did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, and it was possible to alter both without being detected." In other words, the GAO now confirms that electronic voting machines provided an open door to flip an entire vote count. More than 800,000 votes were cast in Ohio on electronic voting machines, some seven times Bush's official margin of victory.

2. "It was possible to alter the files that define how a ballot looks and works so that the votes for one candidate could be recorded for a different candidate." Numerous sworn statements and affidavits assert that this did happen in Ohio 2004.

3. "Vendors installed uncertified versions of voting system software at the local level." Falsifying election results without leaving any evidence of such an action by using altered memory cards can easily be done, according to the GAO.

4. The GAO also confirms that access to the voting network was easily compromised because not all digital recording electronic voting systems (DREs) had supervisory functions password-protected, so access to one machine provided access to the whole network. This critical finding confirms that rigging the 2004 vote did not require a "widespread conspiracy" but rather the cooperation of a very small number of operatives with the power to tap into the networked machines and thus change large numbers of votes at will. With 800,000 votes cast on electronic machines in Ohio, flipping the number needed to give Bush 118,775 could be easily done by just one programmer.

5. Access to the voting network was also compromised by repeated use of the same user IDs combined with easily guessed passwords. So even relatively amateur hackers could have gained access to and altered the Ohio vote tallies.

6. The locks protecting access to the system were easily picked and keys were simple to copy, meaning, again, getting into the system was an easy matter.

7. One DRE model was shown to have been networked in such a rudimentary fashion that a power failure on one machine would cause the entire network to fail, re-emphasizing the fragility of the system on which the presidency of the United States was decided.

8. GAO identified further problems with the security protocols and background screening practices for vendor personnel, confirming still more easy access to the system.

This list taken from an article by Fitrakis and Wasserman]. -- RyanFreisling @ 19:14, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Good info, we should tie it in with statistical evidence too (from Ohio specifically and the Judge vote count disparity controversy etc). zen master T 19:34, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Let's try not to confuse the GAO report with left-wing editorials. Nowhere does the GAO report mention the Diebold CEO's offhand remark, nor does the report state that any actual fraud occurred in the 2004 election, immaterial or material. Rhobite 18:26, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Are you disputing that Diebold's CEO's comment actually happened? --kizzle 20:25, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

No, but RyanFriesling said above that he was quoting the GAO report when he was actually quoting an editorial article. Grazon added content to this article taken directly from an editorial article, and he also claimed that the GAO report proved that there was fraud in the 2004 election. I'm just responding to incorrect statements about the GAO report, which are finding their way into the article. Rhobite 20:31, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Ok, then I think I'm on the same page. As it stands, it can only be proved that there existed a widespread easy untraceable way to commit fraud, no actual fraud has yet been proved or probably ever will be. --kizzle 20:35, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I did not misrepresent the quoted sections. Everything in quotes is a quote from the GAO report, taken whole from within an excerpt of the editorial. I am sorry that wasn't clear. -- RyanFreisling [[User talk:RyanFreisling|@]] 01:40, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Kevin baas plagiarism

Congrats, User:Kevin baas succeeded in adding cut and paste text from a Wired News article on 11/25/2004 and passing it off as his own words. [2] It remained in the article for almost a year. I applaud your journalistic integrity. Rhobite 18:33, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I repeat my conviction that this article is a cesspool. I should really file a RFAr on the continual POV-pushing edit warring that has locked this article as one of the worst Wikipedia has to offer. In fact, I think I will. Phil Sandifer 18:41, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

If you have a valid concern, just state it rather than being a sarcastic dick person. --kizzle 19:26, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

No personal attacks, please. If you read this talk page, you'll notice many attempts by Snowspinner to have his concerns addressed. If you read the archives you'll find many more users who've tried in vain to improve these articles. Carbonite | Talk 19:32, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Please. "I applaud your journalistic integrity"? "Congrats"? How does that follow Wikipedia:Civility?--kizzle 20:22, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I notice you're avoiding the topic of plagiarism in this article. Rhobite 20:24, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

1. Yes, you have a point. Please make changes accordingly without removing info, as in keeping essential quotes and summarizing the rest unless it is redundant.
2. Try and make your point without being sarcastic next time. --kizzle 20:28, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Try not to call me a dick next time. Thanks. You're saying it's my duty to go around handholding and rewriting information which is plagiarized from opinionated articles? I'd rather just remove it. The people who want to add content to this article have a duty to write their own words. Rhobite 20:32, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I apologize for calling you a dick. I notice you haven't responded to the sarcasm part. --kizzle 20:40, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

As for the Wired article, which do you believe:

1. The information is plagiarised, but not important to the content of the page
2. The information is plagiarised, but still important to the content of the page

If you believe 1, then I think you're wrong. If you believe 2, then how can you in good faith delete content you know is important to the page but was improperly added by another user? --kizzle 20:42, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

If User A adds something improperly, and User B notices the text and removes it, it's not up to User B to rework the text. This really gets to the heart of what's wrong with these election controversy articles: Everything was just thrown into the article and any removal gets a huge amount of resistance. The addition of most information was rarely justified, but demands are made for all removals to have strong consensus. Carbonite | Talk 20:53, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Carbonite's assessment. It's just not workable if people write a sloppy article and then insist that other editors have no right to remove the sloppy parts. I also don't think that the old Wired stuff is relevant since it just discusses the initial intent of the GAO report. Now that the report is out we should discuss its findings. Rhobite 21:01, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

See, this is the problem. I completely agree with you that these articles were written in haste and thrown together in a failed attempt to help educate the public while there still was something that could have been done. Now, we're left with an article and several subarticles that are put together in a frankenstein manner with admittedly somewhere around 20% of sources (percentage we will clearly differ on) that need to be replaced with another more reliable source or be pruned altogether. However, what you and the rest of the deletionists here propose is to simply go through, take any passage that has a prima facie dubious link and remove it, thinking that if it was really true, someone will come along and replace it. The problem is, all of you together are going to hack the shit out of this article through many minor removals which is going to be next to impossible for those who actually care about this subject. Yes, there are bad sources. Yes, certain passages should be reworked. No, it is not your job to "handhold" previous editors. But if your answer is to simply remove info without doing a bit of work to see if there is a truth behind the dubious source that can be attributed to another, more reliable source, then I honestly can't see how you're trying to build a better encylopedia. I have no objections to what snowspinner or anyone else had before, all I asked is that we go through each change and see if a better source can be found. I am even willing to do the work to backup sources, but its hard for me to wade through the dozens of entries in the page history to try and backup each claim you guys blindly dismiss. This isn't resistance just like your attempts to remove info isn't censorship, either characterization is missing the point. --kizzle 21:10, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd prefer if you didn't turn this into a larger issue. All I did was remove and summarize two sections which were cut and paste copies from other articles. Rhobite 21:38, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

This is the issue, unless you, snowspinner, et al. aren't going to remove any more info. I see an apology for being sarcastic is still absent. --kizzle 21:59, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I would find your professed support for finding better sources more believable if, in the last few months, you had made any effort to do so. The fact of the matter is this - badly sourced material needs to go. Look at the history of John Byrne - plenty of true things got yanked from that article as unsourced, and only put back in later when people could be bothered to find sources. Phil Sandifer 02:45, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Which is why I'm offering to do half the work, you put up the disputed passages on talk, and I'll find a source if I can or we'll remove/rewrite the info. Last time I proposed that you weren't willing to put forth the effort and gave up. --kizzle 03:06, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Scroll up - every fact I said had a lousy source? I dispute those ones. Phil Sandifer 03:17, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Has Mediation Been Attempted?

I see that a Request for Arbitration has been filed and is in the process of being rejected. Has mediation been attempted? Robert McClenon 17:26, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure who the parties for mediation would be - I could be, but it would be a process of my continuing to have to do the research to catch up to what POV advocates already know. And I'm not sure which of the many people who support the article in its current form would be most appropriate to mediate with. Phil Sandifer 17:43, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

NPOV

The fact that an RfAr has been filed (and is being rejected as not ripe) illustrates that there are serious issues about the neutrality of this article (regardless of whether it is the opinion of the majority of editors that there are no such problems). I have posted an NPOV banner, and it should not be removed until neutrality and content issues are addressed. Robert McClenon 17:29, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

wow

Wow, I've been away for a while and things have become very acrimonious. It looks like some bad faith contributors have joined us and started discussion off on a sour foot. Let's not keep things there. We've had some very skeptical editors come here before, and they left much less skeptical and we thanked them for their positive contributions. These articles developed very fast with only a few major contributors, and we would like to have some more eyes and hands on it - provided we can all work together and be understanding, because anything else is arrogance and ignorance, and rather than making the article better actually makes it worse. Though it is reasonable for us to be wary of revisionist history since it has been so long since these events have passed, we welcome our belated co-authors.

Robert, we all know that (all the major contributors here, that is), and it's actually a little insulted that you stated it. RFAr is not relevant to dispute tags, and is in fact not even a content issue. But there is clearly much discussion on this page unrelated to the RFAr, and issues and questions raised, in accordance with the policy of dispute tags.

In any case, let's tone it down a bit. Kevin baas 21:34, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

If you want to establish some good faith, consider not removing the dispute tags this time - the articles are rightly tagged as POV, and should bear the factualyl disputed and original research tags as well - there is a clear and well-documented dispute on all of these fronts, and your insistence that it is not so does not constitute an end of the dispute. In fact, if you want to come off as the benevolent and open-minded contributor you're acting like, you might consider restoring the tags that you and Ryan fought so hard to remove. Otherwise, I have to say, it seems more than a little hypocritical for you to come out of the gates crying "bad faith." Phil Sandifer 21:40, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Umm... the tag is still there. (and btw, they are tagged as POV dispute, not to be confused with "x person is neccessarily right." Kevin baas 21:54, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

There is also, in the sections above, a well-documented accuracy and original research dispute. Phil Sandifer 22:04, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

You are suggesting, Snowspinner, that there is a "factual dispute" as well? If you could, briefly, what fact or facts are disputed? Kevin baas 22:11, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I dispute the accuracy of every piece of information that comes from partisan and unreliable sources, and further dispute that its sum-total points towards a "controversy" or to anything "irregular." Phil Sandifer 22:15, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

That is a POV. That is not a (or multiple) dispute(s) of the veracity of a specific empirical statement or statements. It is a POV. A general dismissal. If that is the best you got, then it should be clear to you why that does not warrant a factual dispute tag on this article. Kevin baas 22:27, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Ummmm... what? Phil Sandifer 22:30, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

So you and Kizzle and Zen-Master are "major contributors", and everyone else is either a "bad faith contributor" or a "skeptic" who eventually joins your crusade? OK. Rhobite 21:42, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

It appears that you misunderstood me (or at least are pretending to in order to be acrimonious). I think everyone can reasonably agree that, quantitatively - that is, in terms of edits and content - me, kizzle, zen-master, and a few other, have together written the majority of the article, as has been pointed out rhetorically on the RFAr. Regarding bad faith contributors or skeptics, I said nothing to imply that everyone else is either one or the other. I never made that statement. Nor did I state or imply that there was any sort of crusade to join. I hope this clears things up. Kevin baas 21:54, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

And what I meant by "skeptical" was skeptical of the way they would be treated by others when they came to try to improve this article. I hope you are not offended by me undestanding your (and Snowspinner's) position as "skeptical", it is not meant pejoratively. I meant by that statement only to say that those contributors who were "skeptical" at first about how they would be recieved by other editors, left much less so - and I only said this to reassure you. Kevin baas 22:21, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not offended to be labelled a skeptic - I am skeptical of election conspiracy theories, along with the vast majority of Americans. I'm just annoyed at your suggestion that people can't possibly hold a good faith belief that the election wasn't stolen. Rhobite 22:31, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I think we still aren't understanding each other. I do not mean to say that your are skeptical that there can be problems in an election or that the 2004 election was particularly notable for irregularities and controveries (for instance, the historical electoral vote objection). By my last paragraph, I was trying to clear this up. I meant that I gathered from how you have spoken here that you are skeptical of the way you would be treated by other editors - which you see is an entirely different issue.

And regarding bad faith, again you made the same confusion: from personal interaction and communication to a prejudge. good faith is about dealing with other people, starting with the belief that their intentions are good, that they are being honest, and that they don't have an agenda. It is not about believing something before any examining the facts and evidence and sticking obstinately to that belief, nor is it about which particular belief that is. It is not even a matter of belief, save to the effect that another person is trying to engage honestly and even-handedly with you. I get the impression that you do not believe that I, or kizzle, are trying to engage honestly and even-handedly with you. Good faith is important because without it, noone can get anywhere. Kevin baas 22:45, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Loonies

Please cite these claims: In the section titled "The 2004 Electoral Vote Challenge in Congress":

• "Numerous Democratic members of Congress spoke on the importance of election reform, announced initiatives for constitutional protection of the vote, and called for election integrity protection against conflicts of interest, listing problems with the process of the vote in Ohio and other states." - how many Democratic members of congress? What were their names?
• "Numerous Republican members of Congress called the objection "frivolous" and the objectors "loonies". House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX)'s aggressive denunciation of the proceedings was noteworthy for his attack on what he called the "X-Files Wing" of the Democratic Party." - how many Republicans used the words "frivolous" and "loonies"? Were these words used by DeLay? Links would be great here. I found DeLay's "X-Files" comment on Thomas but I wasn't able to find the word "loony".

From the detail article 2004 U.S. presidential election recounts and legal challenges, the "arguments for" and "arguments against" sections are essentially straw men because they cite no sources. We need to cite which Democrat quoted Thomas Paine. Who claimed that election officials gave illegal orders? Which Republicans used the word "frivolous"? "loonies" and "conspiracy theorists"? "sore losers"? "sour grapes"? Rhobite 22:29, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

The videos and the transcripts are there, and they are cited. Watch them / read them. Kevin baas 22:46, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

You have presumably already watched and read them - why don't you take the responsibility and do the work properly? Phil Sandifer 22:49, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I did. Feel free to check my work. Watch them / read them. Kevin baas 22:51, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I searched the congressional record and as I said the word "loony" is nowhere to be found. I also think it's a double standard to speak of the Democrats' words generally (they "spoke on the importance of election reform") while focusing on single words said by Republicans such as "X-Files Wing", "frivolous", etc. I've changed the article and I actually cited my source. Please indicate who exactly said the word "loonies". Rhobite 22:53, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

You most certainly did not - crediting phrases to "Republicans" is not crediting - they are not a hive mind. Which Republicans? Phil Sandifer 22:55, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Well that's a minor point. You certainly can't say i wrongly attributed them. And if you want to be more specific, you can go ahead and cite the particular republicans. While you're at it, you can cite the particular democrats, too. Go ahead! That's a change that we can both agree on! (And regarding the "hive mind", i think you should take a look at their voting record prior to tom delay's stepping down - it's pretty much in lockstep.) Regarding changes that you said you made, I'm presuming you watched the videos and have done some background research? Kevin baas 23:06, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

This is infuriating. I searched through the congressional record for 1/6/2005, the day of Boxer's objection. I could not find the word "loonies". Stop telling me to do my background research when I have clearly done so. I'm not even going to address the fact that you just reverted the article, erasing 2 days of improvements and re-inserting two sections which are copyright violations along with grammatical errors and broken links. I will also suggest that people who believe there is such a word as "violatility" should not edit encyclopedias. Rhobite 23:12, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

i'm a fan of research. I really don't think I would have put a quote in there if it wasn't there. There are two records by the way, one for the house and one for the senate. And just watching the videos is easier than reading, and a more direct source. I believe my edits improved the article. I responded on my talk page re what should be done with the potential copyvios. I'm not aware of any grammatical errors, and i noticed one link (as opposed to links) went back in, i din't know why it was removed. I was going to check on whether it was broken. As regards the word "volatility", what do you have against it? and if so, what would you propose as a better word? Kevin baas 23:39, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but are you really suggesting that one needs to watch the video over the transcript? What purpose does that serve other than wasting time? Phil Sandifer 23:49, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Kevin I know that there is a House and a Senate, and I searched the Record for both of them. Do you know what the Congressional Record is? It is the official transcript of all argument and evidence presented in Congress. I am not going to watch the video. The exact same argument is in the text Record. If the word "loonies" is not in the CR it was not said. If you can't be bothered to cite useful sources, your contributions here are worthless. About the copyvios, quoting five paragraphs of Wired verbatim is far past the limits of fair use. We also have a duty to write our own words here. There is nothing particularly special about the Wired article - it's just an outdated news article. We should cover the actual results of the GAO report, not some Wired news article from November 2004. And please stop replacing the broken links to Cobb's website - they no longer work. Rhobite 23:51, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

The C-Span videos don't even work anymore, they are broken links. I tried opening them in RealPlayer and WMP. They are linked from 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities in case anyone else wants to try. Rhobite 00:05, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

"They are really just trying to stir up their loony left," John Feehery, a spokesman for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, said of the Democrats. NYTimes (Jan. 6, 2005)

So the quote doesn't actually call the Democrats loonies, isn't from where it's supposed to be, and wasn't from a Congressman but from a spokesman? Phil Sandifer 00:41, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

That's the only quote I was able to find of Jan. 6, 2005 relating the word 'loony' to those pursuing an investigation/objection on the grounds of election irregularities. Does the article state that the word 'loony' was used during the actual debate? And equivocating about whether the Rep. Hastert himself, or his office, issued the statement is splitting hairs. An official spokesman for a Congressman is exactly that. -- RyanFreisling [[User talk:RyanFreisling|@]] 00:48, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

This is par for the course when you're dealing with Kevin Baas. Notice that the original quote said numerous Republican lawmakers used this word.. instead we get one Hastert spokesman. Thanks for the link, Ryan. I don't think this quote should be mentioned in the article. We can't quote every lawmaker's spokesperson every time they say something silly. Please don't make me start digging up all the stupid things that have been said by Ted Kennedy and his staff and inserting them into this article at random places. Rhobite 00:52, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Rhobite, I think you know the policies, no character attacks, not only is it against policy, not only is it uncivil, not only does it reflect poorly on the attitude and mental and emotional disposition of the speaker, not only does it reflect and encourage uncritical thinking, it's also bad rhetoric. You kow the policy, Rhobite, and I hope you understand the reasoning as I have articulated. Excercise some self-constraint. Kevin baas 18:07, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

So it's not OK for me to point out false statements which you've added to articles, but it's OK for you to comment on my "emotional disposition"? It is not a personal attack to make an observation about the poor quality of another user's edits. Especially when that user has a political agenda and a penchant for stretching the truth. Rhobite 03:03, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

"If the word 'loonies' is not in the CR it was not said." I don't think that generalization is accurate. Members can "revise and extend" their remarks. It's certain that many things appear in the Record that weren't said. I think (though I'm not sure) that a speaker who committed a gaffe and then repented of it would be able to edit it out. I agree with Kevin that the video is the direct source, if it's available. Note that I'm commenting on Rhobite's generalization, not this specific quotation; I haven't examined any sources about "loonies". JamesMLane 20:31, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

From [3]: "Asking to Revise and Extend allows a member to add to or edit his/her floor remarks in the Congressional Record. Making changes to the words actually spoken on the floor requires the consent of the entire House. Revisions are limited to those that make technical or grammatical corrections. Extensions are usually the text of articles, letters, or reports to accompany the floor statement." I think it's very unlikely that multiple Republicans used the word "loonies" on the floor of the House and then they all gained the consent of the entire House to edit out the word from the Record. Anyway the video links are broken so there is no way to verify that it was said. It's more likely that Kevin Baas (who is a "fan of research") saw that Hastert's aide used the word and added it to the article, suggesting that multiple Republican members of Congress used the word. Hey I'm done responding about this. Unless anyone is seriously suggesting we replace the word "loonies" in this article let's move on. Rhobite 02:58, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

intro

let me know if there are concerns as to my major re-write of the intro. --kizzle 02:43, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I think that you have just written the article more or less as it should appear. Much of the rest of the article is a hopeless collection of original research, trivia, and, as is becoming increasingly clear with the GAO plagiarism and the "loonies" quote, outright inaccuracy. The subject neither needs nor deserves more than this excellently written introduction. Phil Sandifer 02:53, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I will continue re-writing and restructuring, though it's going to take a while. I have an original paper of about 60 pages of info which I will not be putting in verbatim, as that would constitute original research, but I have carefully pruned sources in it which I will be inserting into the article. I think once you become familliar with the less-fringe aspects of this that shroud the actual legitimate case for electoral reform, you will differ in your opinion that this subject merely deserves a 2 page summary. --kizzle 03:01, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Far from it - I'm actually an advocate for election reform, and strongly disagree with electronic voting. And though I've not actually looked, I would hope our article on the Diebold machines is thorough. I would hope our article on the Black Box Voting site is thorough. I think there are lots of places for articles on the case for election reform. However I don't think that the 2004 U.S. presidential election as it actually happened provides a particularly important or notable instance in election reform. And I think that the issues are best discussed in articles in the context of the specific issues - black box voting being far and away the most important - and used as examples there. Phil Sandifer 03:16, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

In my mind, its purely the combination of such a massive exit poll discrepancy combined with essentially a beta test of a new insecure voting technology manufactured by highly partisan individuals, some of whom have a criminal record. The voting machines coupled with partisan ownership make this a notable instance in electoral reform, for as long as we don't have voter-verified paper ballots (and not audit trails), we never really will be sure who we voted for. It's just too easy. --kizzle 03:25, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I still wonder, though, if the really notable stuff couldn't be migrated into election reform articles more effectively - if nothing else, I think it's doomed to look like conspiracy theory here, instead of what I think is its most sober and persuasive form, which is as a clear warning of what could happen. Phil Sandifer 03:35, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

We'll see as pruning continues. I think that what you propose should happen anyway, we should be fleshing out Diebold along with Diebold Election Systems, Voter-Verified Paper Ballots, Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trails, HAVA, etc. We'll see how it turns out and I expect you and Rhobite to keep me honest. --kizzle 03:40, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I like the new intro. My only concern is that it is too long - typically lead sections should be 3-5 normal sized paragraphs. This one has seven paragraphs, some of them very hefty. We should move some detail into the proper sections. See Wikipedia:Lead section. Also the picture seems to be plopped down between the cleanup and POV tags. Maybe it's just my browser. Rhobite 02:57, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

K, just give me some time. --kizzle 03:01, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

As w/Rhobite, I think the intro has gotten too long. I also must add that it has changed in the proportion of its content: It has more analysis and less information. Generally analysis is considered harmful and information is considered good. This is a weakness that has been introduced into the new intro, though it reads well and I think that notwithstanding this aspect of it's direction, it is an improvement. Kevin baas 18:03, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about the analysis part, as I tried to source most everything in the intro paragraphs...either way, this is a wiki, so I guess I'll see what changes you guys come up with. I think right now it is as small as its going to get, intro sentence, 3 paragraphs covering the essential aspects: exit polls, voting machines, ohio voter suppression, then democrat allegations, and final results. You can all bite me if you don't like it. Just kidding, trying to share the thanksgiving love. --kizzle 03:07, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

"Some People

the phrase "some people" is used four times in the opening paragraphs of the article. "some people" is a classic example of 'weasel words'. its a means of leveling a charge with no citation or attribution. these need to be removed. alternatively, there should be notations of 'some people' who dispute the charges of the 'some people' who level the charges. as it stands, it's not at all balanced. a controversy implicitly has advocates on BOTH sides of the issue. Anastrophe 20:47, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

For the body of the article, I would agree with you. For the lead section, however, the purpose is to give the reader a quick idea of what the article's about and why he or she might want to read it. In this instance, the subject arises because there's a controversy. There's a controversy because some people have raised objections. That's what's appropriate for the lead section. Who they were, and who said what in opposition to their views, should be in the body of the article. For example, I think that the specific criticism attributed to the DNC is more detail than the lead section needs.

My idea of an appropriate lead section is the one I wrote for the summary article (2004 U.S. election voting controversies), some of which was then incorporated into the body of this one. In general, people editing this article have been comfortable with getting into more detail right away. That's one reason I thought we needed the summary article, for the benefit of the reader who comes to the subject with little or no background and just wants to know the essence of the disputes. JamesMLane 20:49, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Your lead section for the summary article is nice and concise. I think it could serve as a great model for this article's intro. Instead of diving in to the nitty-gritty of the HEVA act, various minor players (ie. Avi Hopkins, Georgianne Pitts of Toledo, etc), numerous dates, and other details the intro to this article should brief and easy to read. As it stands the reader is forced to get bogged down in detail that really belongs in the article's body.

As to the use of "some people" in the intro, I am also uncomfortable with it being there. I don't see why we can't just call a spade a spade and say that it's primarily voter advocacy groups and Bush opponents who are disputing the fairness and results of the election and alledging mismanagement, disenfranchisement and fraud, while Bush supporters deny the charges. noosphere 16:33, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Keep in mind, my original intro could be almost as concise as James' version if I didn't have to provide sources or specifics. It's kind of hard to please those who want a more condensed version yet cry POV if any specifics are replaced with "some people" or such unspecific generalizations for sake of space. My only problem (despite my hurt pride) with the current version is that it really needs to frame the controversies as consisting of three major points (exit polls, voting machines, and voter suppression) rather than a list of various issues like voter registration, as that falls under voter suppression. If we frame it in such a way, and give a short description for each of these three main aspects of the controversy, then I'll be happy. --kizzle 20:01, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

You shouldn't have to cite sources and specifics in the introduction if the introduction makes no claims that aren't sourced and cited in the body of the article. noosphere 19:54, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Ok, well as this article gets re-written, we'll slowly make it closer to what it was before, just without as many specifics as they will already have been backed up within the text. --kizzle 21:34, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Canary in a Coalmine

An amazing article detailing a Diebold whistleblower's dissatisfaction with dishonesty and illegality has just broken on Raw Story. Yes, they're fringy, but they've been right on a number of important breaking stories in the past few months. Working for corroboration as we speak. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 22:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

“In California, they got in trouble and tried to doubletalk. They used a patch that was not certified,” the Diebold insider said. “They’ve done this many times. They just got caught in Georgia and California.”

The whistleblower is also skeptical of results from the November 2005 Ohio election, in which 88 percent of voters used touch screens and the outcome on some propositions changed as much as 40 percent from pre-election exit polls.

“Amazing,” the Diebold insider said.

Diebold is headquartered in Ohio. Its chairman Wally O’Dell, a key fundraiser for President Bush, once promised in an invitation to a Republican fundraising dinner to deliver Ohio’s electoral votes for Bush. The staffer said the company has a deep conservative culture.

“My feeling having been really deep inside the company is that initially Diebold, being a very conservative and Republican company, felt that if they controlled an election company, they could have great influence over the outcome,” the source, a registered independent, said.

“Does that mean fixing elections? Not necessarily, but if your people are in election departments and they are biased toward Republicans, you will have an influence…I think this is what they were buying, the positioning. Obviously screwing with the software would be a homerun—and I do think that was part of their recipe for getting into the election business. But the public got involved and said 'Hey, what’s going on?' That pulled the sheet off what their plan was with these paperless voting machines.”

What the

What exactly is this section suppose to mean, refer to, who said it, why is it here: "In addition, there were many concerns regarding the percentage of registered voters who voted, for example:

" In order to believe that George Bush won the November 2, 2004 presidential election, you must also believe {...} The fact that Bush far exceeded the 85% of registered Florida Republicans’ votes that he got in 2000, receiving in 2004 more than 100% of the registered Republican votes in 47 out of 67 Florida counties, 200% of registered Republicans in 15 counties, and over 300% of registered Republicans in 4 counties, merely shows Floridians’ enthusiasm for Bush. He managed to do this despite the fact that his share of the crossover votes by registered Democrats in Florida did not increase over 2000 and he lost ground among registered Independents, dropping 15 points. {...} The fact that Bush got more votes than registered voters, and the fact that by stark contrast participation rates in many Democratic strongholds in Ohio and Florida fell to as low as 8%, do not indicate a rigged election."'[42]"

This is about as random a thing as I've ever read in an article. Arkon 05:55, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

it's random because the quote is lifted without context from the original article. it's presented as irony in the original, with this opening sentence: "In order to believe that George Bush won the November 2, 2004 presidential election, you must also believe all of the following extremely improbable or outright impossible things". it really has no place in a wikipedia article. in the original article that's quoted, no source is provided for the figures presented. we're just supposed to take the author's word for it. it has a footnote referenced, but that footnote provides no source for the data either. it's garbage.Anastrophe 08:14, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely agreed. The level of 'snark' is certainly not NPOV. That blurb has made the rounds since the election and doesn't belong in an encyclopedia article (and certainly not uncited). Please feel free to annihilate at will. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 13:41, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Dennis Loo, Ph.D. is a respected doctor, but not widely known. Assertions made on his part are meaningless to most of the people reading this article because they cannot judge the reliability of the source. That is not, however, an excuse to "annihilate" the useful information that Doctor Loo presented along with his assertions. Loo's article should be referenced and summarized without the POV. --Peter McConaughey 14:30, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

No doubt, but Arkon's right to object to the section taken whole, without proper citation and 'rewriting' for the public domain. Peter, would you like to take a crack at it? I may as well as time permits. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 16:04, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I was just headed out to Aspen, but I'll have a look when I get back. Until then, I don't think we can use poor formatting as an excuse to delete large chunks. Some of the information is useful, so deleting it would not be an improvement for the article. The only other reason to delete whole sections is for culpability reasons which do not apply since the source is cited. --Peter McConaughey 16:29, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but it's only useful information if there is some reasonable probability that it's true. In particular, I would be happier with a more well-known and reliable source---if we go to quoting anyone with a PhD, we could have literally any point of view in this article, and it would degenerate into a giant mess of improbable but referenced assertions. Instead, we should stick to some of the more major ones---for example, if MoveOn.org made an assertion, that's more interesting than "some guy" making one. --Delirium 16:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

From a relevance standpoint, if a more reliable source can convey the same information, we should use it, but Dr. Loo brings up some information that isn't covered anywhere else. We can either suppress that information, improve its format, or do nothing. The idea behind Wikipedia is that constant improvement makes for superior articles, while censorship leads to biased POV. --Peter McConaughey 17:08, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

'censorship' is a red herring. if information presented can't be corroborated from a secondary source, it's no better than fiction. suggesting that removing unreliable, uncorroborated, anecdotal comments is 'suppression' is biased in itself. the information should be removed, until it can be proved. Anastrophe 17:59, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree that information, if represented as fact, should be corroborated. If allegations are included in an article, the maker of the allegation and the context of the allegation should be included to provide the reader with an understanding of the nature (and contestuousness, if appropriate) of the allegation. With some basic factchecking and Lexis-Nexis work, these things can and should be verified. As Wikipedia policy says, content must be based on verifiable sources.

I have a problem with the section above because it represents the allegation as fact, in essence, without proper context. Also, that the 'what you have to believe' was blogfodder (which is not itself bad), without corroboration, which plainly doesn't constitute fact.-- User:RyanFreisling @ 18:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

(back left) i emailed the author of that article. he pointed me to the footnotes. the footnotes cite two websites, one a political commentary/news site, and the other a blog on a 'zine' site. both sites are activist, and base their conclusions on results that are expected from statistical modeling. both sites cite yet other activist cites with individual/personal analyses of the votes, but nothing of a formal, verifiable nature. the actual florida under/over vote count pages are referenced, and of course being a chunk of raw data, it's hard for a non-statistician such as myself to make heads or tails of it - besides seeing columns listing the under/over vote percentages, which are in the fractions of a percent, not hundreds of percent as stated in the article. but i digress. the fundamental problem: Mr. Loo's article is a tertiary source, citing secondary sources, and a primary source - well, perhaps someone with a few days to follow the maze of links out there can find one besides that official vote tallies. but as citable information for this article, it's pure opinion, with no counterbalancing opinion provided, rendering it POV. it needs to go. Anastrophe 20:43, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles must be NPOV because they represent all of us. When an article is cited, the author is "Wikipedia contributors." Therefore, the article itself must convey only the truth. As you pointed out, we are in no position to assess the "truth" about the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Therefore, the article itself cannot proclaim the truth about that. The article can only report the truth about who said what. It is true that Loo said the quote that was attributed to him. Nobody disputes that Loo said that. Therefore, the article is reporting an undisputed fact when it asserts that Loo said those things. Since nobody disputes that part of the article, it must be NPOV. The only question regarding Loo becomes, "Is the Loo quote relevant to the article?"

In order to answer the relevance question, we must ask if Loo adds any information to the subject. After establishing that he does, we must ask if Loo is the best source for the information he conveys. If we can think of a better source for his information, we can replace Loo with that source, but deleting the relevant and fully cited information that Loo conveys on the subject without any replacement is censorship.

By citing Loo, we aren't adding undue weight to his argument. The reader can decide how much of an authoritative source Loo is. It is not our place to reach conclusions for the reader. Our job is to concisely convey information on the subject and cite its source without losing data. On this particular subject, Loo may be the best source, or a summary of what Loo asserts may be more concise while still being informative. People reading this subject would find the information that Loo conveys to be relevant, however, and citing who said it means the article itself is still NPOV. It is still conveying the information that some guy named Loo has some specific questions and assertions that need to be looked into. If someone looks into these, they may find a more definitive source that conveys that information better, but deleting Loo precludes the possibility of that happening through Wikipedia and is therefore not serving the needs of someone who is researching this term. --Peter McConaughey 03:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

it is not censorship; i don't know where that idea is coming from, unless you're using it with some unconventional meaning. loo is a *tertiary* source. find a primary source, then post it. wikipedia articles aren't research springboards. you don't add a tertiary source to the article, and insist it be left there until someone verifies it from a primary source. loo's claims are unsubstantiated. he cites *secondary* sources as his sources. it has no credibility. the link to loo's article is available in the history of the article; you or anyone else is welcome to do the research to determine the veracity of his claims. until it has been corroborated, it has no business being in the 'public' article. again - tertiary source. three degrees of separation from any ostensible fact. that's not an encyclopedic source. Anastrophe 05:57, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I looked up tertiary source, and it said this:

Encyclopaedias and textbooks are examples of materials that typically embrace both secondary and tertiary sources, presenting on the one hand commentary and analysis, while on the other attempting to provide a synoptic overview of the material available on the topic. For instance, the long articles of the Encyclopædia Britannica certainly constitute the kind of analytical material characteristic of secondary sources, whilst they also attempt to provide the kind of comprehensive coverage associated with tertiary sources.

--Peter McConaughey 00:02, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

i would recommend reading the discussion page that goes along with that article. this is deeply self-referential. for that matter, the article itself says nothing about _using_ tertiary sources within an encyclopedia, it simply describes the characteristic that encyclopedias have of straddling the line between *being* a secondary and tertiary source. Anastrophe 00:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Cite?

The following looks to be missing a cite:

"There are suggestions that websites and newsgroups related to fair voting groups or other interested parties may have been visibly hacked and disrupted."

Also, if we get a cite for this, how is this a situation of 'may have been'. Isn't it demonstrable either way if something was hacked? If it is demonstrable, how do we relate this to this article. Are we assigning motives to the hackers? Arkon 06:47, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I remember this... I think what they must be referring to may have been blackboxvoting.org's announcement that it was hacked around the time of the election. I remember looking at the blackboxvoting site one day and seeing a big red "We've been hacked!" message. However, I can't seem to find it now. Perhaps someone who's registered with the blackboxvoting.org site can post a message to their forum asking for some documentation. Otherwise, all I can find are some references to the site being hacked in google's cache of some of the forum messages:

"I see that there has still been talk about having an alternate site. I think we need to in case this one gets hacked again. What if we loose everything on here?" from Nov 6,2004

"We're not ignoring you its just everyone is scattered right now, and this site was hacked repeatedly in the last 2 weeks and alot of info has been lost." from Nov 9, 2004

"One of the things that is affecting BBV BIGTIME is that it never had a chance to get organized. That is because this site was hacked constantly during October" from Nov 28, 2004

I know google cached pages aren't useable as citations in the main article, but I wanted to put them up as evidence here in the discussion so that you know I'm not just making this up. Not that anyone involved in editing this article would ever be so untrusting.  ;)

And again, this brings up the issue that I'd brought up last year about how the documentation linked to from the main article is gradually disappearing as websites delete their stories or re-arrange links. It would be nice if we could somehow archive the articles themselves.

It's only been one year and already I'm sure there are plenty of broken links (well, at least in the timeline article, which is pretty much all links). But imagine this article five years from now. Is any documentation going to be left at all? What about ten years from now? Of course, major news sites like the NYT will probably have some (paid subscriber) archives, but what about less well-endowed sites?

I could just see five years from now revisionists claiming there was no controversy about the 2004 election at all, or if it was it was minor, since much of the mainstream media really dropped the ball on this issue but they'll be the only ones with easily accessible archives. Right now at least there is still a lot of non-mainstream media documentation, but will it still be there years from now? noosphere 18:20, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I suppose that works, though I'm not highly keen on just linking to a website that was supposedly hacked with the section in question. Perhaps that section needs rewording if what you are referencing is what it was referring to. Something like "One website (link to BBV) claims to have been hacked." As is it seems rather broad unless there are more than just BBV. Of course the motives of the hackers would come into play at some point, since it seems to be written to convey that these hacks/disruptions occurred due to the websites activities/views. Arkon 19:22, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

there is, in the simplest of terms, absolutely NOTHING noteworthy about a site being hacked. nothing. zero. nada. zilch. tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of sites have been hacked. some political. some porn. some art. some manufacturing. oh, i don't doubt that some political site may have been hacked around the time of the election. i don't doubt it was nefarious. but again, so what? the implication is that there are enemies of this particular POV. this is not noteworthy. it made the news when the republican national committee site was hacked back in the 2000 election, i believe. sites can be hacked for any number of reasons. again - so what? here, think of it this way. this very article has been 'hacked' (vandalized) numerous times. so has virtually every other article on wikipedia. if not for the ban on self-referential content, i'm sure someone would love to make a note of that in the article too 'this very article on the controversy over the 2004 election has been vandalized numerous times' (cue sinister music). let's get a grip, and keep focused on *the controversy itself*. Anastrophe 21:33, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, I agree 100%. Arkon 21:56, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I disagree 100%. BBV getting hacked is as relevant as news regarding this controversy gets. BBV is not just "a site" that got hacked. They were arguably one of the most important sites at the heart of this controversy itself. And they got hacked right in the middle of their revelations and investigations regarding vote tampering and possible fraud. So yeah, "some political site" (which, as I said, BBV was not just "some political site") may get hacked "for any number of reasons". And there's no hard evidence, afaik, as to why BBV was hacked. But the fact that it, and not just "some site", was hacked exactly in the heat of the controversy is more than a little suspicious.

It's like the missing minutes from the Nixon tapes. Yeah, you could argue that these were just "some tapes" and that "tapes get erased for any number of reasons", but having those tapes get erased just at the moment when what was on them might have been most embarrasing to Nixon is mighty suspicious.

Reporting relevant suspicious activity, when properly documented and cited, is well within wikipedia's scope. It's not like we have to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that whoever hacked BBV did it to coverup fraud in the Bush election for it to be relevant and worth putting in the article. The mere fact that an organization at the heart of the controversy claims to have been hacked is more than enough to make it newsworthy. And as long as the report of their claim has a proper citation within the main article, it has a place on wikipedia.

Now, if you can cite a counterclaim by another relevant organization or individual please do so and place it along BBV's claim. That way we can maintain NPOV. But trying to censor the mere mention that BBV claims they got hacked seems completely inappropriate to me.

I have no problem, btw, with properly attributing this as a **claim** by BBV itself, nor to changing "voting groups or other interested parties" to "blackboxvoting.com" until such a time when someone can collaborate that it was more than just BBV that alleges to have been hacked at this critical time. noosphere 00:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Both the claims that this was 'suspicious' and that BBV is 'at the heart of the controversy' are POV. I still agree with Anastrophe. Arkon 02:45, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Alright, it is debatable whether BBV was "at the heart of the controversy", but you must admit that they were regularly and deeply involved in the controversy (see pretty much anything involved with electronic voting machines). So they are an organization that is very relevant to this article.

And even if not "suspicious", them claiming that they were hacked in to right when they were in the midst of making their revelations and investigations in to vote tampering and election fraud is relevant, since were their claim to be true such an intrusion in to their systems may have destroyed any evidence they may have kept on their servers, and it would have impaired their ability to report what they found regarding election fraud, etc, (since their website was a major source of news regardiing this controversy).

It's like Al Jazeera's offices getting blown up during the Iraq War. Maybe it could be argued that Al Jazeera was not "at the heart of" reporting news re: the Iraq War, or maybe you could argue that their offices getting blown up "wasn't suspicious". But I don't think you could make a case that it wasn't relevant. Of course, BBV getting hacked isn't deadly, nor quite as dramatic... but the parallel is there: they're both organizations heavily involved in reporting on a conflict getting attacked in the midst of that conflict. I don't see how this is not relevant. noosphere 22:45, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. And there is indeed a body of available corroboration to the claim that BBV was hacked during the heat of the controversy, making it (imho) both relevant and substantiated (the claim, not the alleged political motivation or whether it was only 'excess use consuming bandwidth'). For example, the not-exactly-mainstream BradBlog posted an article on the alleged DDos. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 22:55, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually I don't know how useful the BradBlog post is in backing up BBV's claims. What BradBlog's posts really boils down to is that there were some "Bandwidth Exceeded" messages from the site and then the author couldn't reach the site. The rest is pure speculation. At best this just confirms that something was wrong at the site around the time BBV said it was hacked. It is evidence of a DDOS or hacking attempt, but not proof. After all, sites do regularly go down for all sorts of reasons (like naturally exceeding their bandwidth, which happens a lot to small, suddenly popular sites).

Much better evidence would be BBV's server logs, an independent forensic audit or the like... but I don't think that's going to happen. So we're probably just going to have to live with this simply remaining a **claim** by BBV. However, my point is that this is a **relevant** claim by a relevant organization, and as such is worthy of being included in the main article. noosphere 23:41, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

(back left) in order to keep the POV balanced then, it should be cited at the same time that six republican websites were defaced 'in protest' of bush's innauguration shortly thereafter. http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/01/308328.shtml that's as relevant to the controversy as BBV's site being hacked. Anastrophe 23:54, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I don't think it's quite as relevant, for a number of reasons. First, there is no indication that the "republican websites" had anything to do with the 2004 election (unlike BBV, which was heavily involved in reporting on and investigating election fraud, etc). In fact the Indymedia article doesn't even mention which websites were allegedly defaced. Second, the group doing the defacing was protesting Bush's inaguration, which also does not have anything to do with the article's topic, which isn't about people's opinions of Bush getting elected, but about documenting allegations of fraud, voter intimidation, procedural irregularities, etc that may have impacted the outcome of the election itself.

Now, while BBV's own claim that they were hacked is not one of providing such documentation, the claim does document that BBV's function as an investigator and reporter of election irregularities was adversly affected. Now, you may not believe or may dispute their evidence, but BBV's claim itself is quite relevant because of BBV's function (as stated above), and because it happened virtually in the middle of the election (before all the votes were counted, anyway... and certainly before BBV's investigation in to the election regularities was complete). Again, it is BBV's function as a very active and prominent investigator in to and reporter of election irregularities that makes them not "just some political organization" (unlike the mysterious "websites" that the indymedia article referred to), and that makes their claim of having been hacked relevant.

However, having said all that, I'm not adamantly against including the indymedia claim, because it does have to do with the "controversy" surrounding the election, broadly defined. I personally see a very concerted attempt, presumably by Bush supporters, in censoring and brushing anything to do with this controversy under the rug (as can be seen from the multiple attempts at deleting this entire article, and a lot of revisionist editing going on, not to mention partisan "real world" actions and statements). So if the price of documenting an alleged attack on an organization directly, frequently, and prominently involved in investigating and reporting on election irregularities is to also include some allegations of an attack on some unnamed "republican websites" well after the election results were set in stone (ie. after the vote was completely "counted", electoral college votes were in, etc), then I don't have a problem huge problem with it. It will water down the content a bit, but it's not a huge deal.

Finally, if you can find claims of some Republican Party offices being broken in to, or their websites hacked during, immediately prior to, or immediately after the election then that would be perfectly relevant and important to document. The same can be said about any other organization involved in the election, or in the investigating or reporting the election irregularities. Unnamed "republican websites" do not count. noosphere 00:44, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

question: has blackboxvoting closed up shop? are their investigations complete, and the matter is now closed? if not (and clearly, it is not), then it would seem that the matter is still open. if the matter is still open, nearly a year after the inauguration, that would suggest that if their _continuing investigations_ are still open, then you can't restrict the 'window of relevance' to 'during, immediatly prior to, or immediately after the election'. that would include defacing of republican websites in protest of bush's inauguration, since his inauguration is ostensibly directly due to the election having been stolen. Anastrophe 01:41, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

They are still active, but I don't know if they're still investigating the 2004 election. Clearly if they are then an attack on them now would still be relevant. However, there is no indication that the "republican websites" were conducting similar investigations in to the 2004 election irregularities, or even that they were involved in the election in any way, or which websites they were, for that matter. So their getting defaced wouldn't be relevant even if it happened on the day of the election.

Second, yes, Bush's inaguration was due to him getting elected, but I really don't see what that has to do with the issue at hand. Even if the Internet Liberation Front was protesting Bush's election itself the alleged defacement of unnamed "republican websites" did not impact the election (simply because the election was well over by that point), nor did it (as far as we know) affect the reporting or investigation of election irregularities. So this is just not a very good example. However, I'm sure there must have been some relevant Republican Party or Republican activist website defaced around the time of the 2004 election. Wasn't there? So a reference to it can't be all that hard to find. If you find one I don't forsee any objections to including it in the article along side with BBV's claim that it was hacked.

And, as I said, I'm not even going to have a cow over including the Indymedia claim as it is. It is peripherally relevant in that it documents a "controversy" (in the broad sense) regarding whether Bush should have been elected. Of course, if we go down that road we might as well include all the other protests surrounding that election.

But whether or not the Indymedia claim gets included I do think the BBV claim should be, because they were very involved in investigating and reporting on the irregularities surrounding the election, and the event happened right when the results of their investigation and revelations may have made the most difference. noosphere 02:07, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't believe this matters all that much, but I just have a hard time accepting the section due to a) not knowing if anything was "hacked" or not for certain b) if it was hacked then assigning motives to this hacker by saying its relevent (ie including it in this article). That just seems beyond our scope as editors. Arkon 03:38, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Not knowing if anything was "hacked" or not for certain would certainly be a problem if we said that BBV was hacked. However, no one is proposing that. What is proposed is that we instead say something along the lines of "BBV claims it was hacked" and cite the appropriate source, of course.

I am not suggesting that it's relevant because I've somehow divined the motives of the hackers (though I don't think you'd be going out on a limb if you guessed that such an attack, if it did occur, was done to inhibit BBV from performing its function as an election process watchdog, to cover up election fraud, or to keep BBV from reporting what it knew at a critical time in the election process).

BBV itself is relevant because it is an organization that was heavily involved in investigating and reporting on election irregularities. A relevant organization alleging it was attacked during the time when its investigation or what it was about to reveal may have made the most difference is completely relevant.

Finally, I also don't think that this "matters all that much" (when measured against everything else in the article)... however, I do believe the content of this article is gradually being eroded for what I think are partisan reasons, and every relevant and informative bit we salvage is for the better. noosphere 04:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Not to really drag this out, as I've said my piece on the matter, but I think I need to clarify one thing. I believe that by including the claim in this article, we are by default assigning motives to the purported hackers. If BBV was hacked and the page was replaced with a message explaining that they did it because they enjoy disrupting suddenly popular websites, I can't believe it would be included in this article. Hope that clarifies my position a little. Arkon 04:26, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that does help me to understand where you're coming from. However, the fact is that a relevant organization claims that its work was purposefully disrupted at the time when it may have made the most difference. I think we could include that claim without ascribing any sort of motive to the hackers. If Bush or Kerry claimed their offices were burglarized during the election that would be very relevant, even if we didn't know for certain if it was done, who did it, or why. noosphere 04:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Yesterday I asked BBV to describe the attack on their website and Bev Harris, the person who runs BBV responded:

This site was under attack around the time of the 2004 election, repeatedly, using various methods, very aggressively. It became impossible to use it. It was not random. It was clearly a targeted attack using a variety of methods, which included DNS poisoning, corruption of the blog database, and penetration of the forum software. We did not regain control of all functions until January 2005 when we junked our forum software, junked our blog software (two entirely different and non-integrated programs at the time), we switched webmasters, switched hosts, nuked most of the files that had been uploaded to the server -- in short, altering the fundamentals on every attack point.

We then put in controls that make it easier to identify hacks and we put in measures to help track the trail of bread crumbs left by would-be penetrators.

We have placed a higher priority on setting up methods to learn as many details as possible about those who attempt pentration than on preventing attacks.

I'm not going into any more of the gory details. We now turn over all suspicious circumstances to the FBI immediately.

So from this it's pretty clear this was a deliberate attack. That it happened is still just an allegation on the part of BBV, but at least now we have something more than just inferences from google cached messages and guesses from a blog author to go on.

Now the allegation that BBV was attacked can be placed in the main article (making clear that it is an allegation and not settled fact, of course) and Bev Harris' description of the attack can be linked to as a reference. Are there any further disagreements on this issue? noosphere 15:52, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

My objection regarding the relevence is still my main point of contention. I have no doubt that she feels/thinks she was hacked or DOS'ed. While I applaud the work you put into trying to get to the bottom of the situation, I don't feel its relevence is spoken to by her words. But, as I said above, its inclusion or exclusion isn't a big deal to me. I just feel that I need to at least voice my opinion. Arkon 21:53, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree that what Bev Harris said does not address the question of whether the claim that BBV was hacked was relevant. However, it wasn't intended to address that point. It was intended to describe the claim in detail from a source that can be referenced in the main article (as opposed to the google cached pages or guesses from a blog, which wouldn't be quite as definitive). In Bev Harris' message we see the claim made from the horse's mouth, as it were.... and the claim itself is described in detail.

Now, as to the relevance question I have repeatedly said why I think it is relevant: 1 - BBV is a relevant oragnization (they were very involved in investigating and reporting the election irregularities that the article is about), 2 - a relevant organization claiming it was attacked just when its investigations and reporting could have made the most difference is relevant whether or not that claim has been substantiated.

I have not heard you dispute point 1. If I understand you correctly, you are disputing point 2, because you do not believe such a claim is relevant. Could you elaborate as to why you think it is not relevant? And why you don't agree with my 2nd point?

Also, I have made an analogy to Bush or Kerry claiming their office was burglarized around the time of the election. I think this would be relevant to the controversy because it would be evidence (though uncorroborated evidence) of something that may have impacted the election.

You have not indicated if you think this is a fair analogy, nor whether you think in Bush or Kerry reporting their office was burglarized around the time of the election would be relevant. Earlier in the discussion I also made the analogy of Al Jazeera claiming to have been attacked, and the gap in the Nixon tapes... neither analogy was addressed. It would be great if you or someone else who objects could address these points.

If you don't wish do discuss this any further and are content to just include the BBV claim in the main article then I'm happy to drop this line of discussion here as it is. noosphere 00:55, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, since I'm not hearing any more (substantiated) objections I'm going to go ahead and add a reference to the BBV hacking allegations. noosphere 22:16, 22 December 2005 (UTC)