#Ballot discrepancies

[usavotey]

US Democrats Challenge Georgia Election Rules in Trial

Georgia Judge to Review New Election Rules Amid Controversy A legal battle is brewing in Georgia over newly implemented election rules, as a state judge prepares to review a challenge from the Democratic Party. The dispute centers on changes made by the Republican-controlled Georgia Election Board, which Democrats argue were designed to undermine public trust in the upcoming presidential election…

[jayblanc]

Further news on the Chengdu 2023 Worldcon Scandal

The more we know, the less honest the Hugo results look. And there's some questions about how the Chendgu 2023 Worldcon was organised.

First of all, the Numbers Don't Add Up. Literally.

Second, it appears that the Chendgu 2023 Worldcon might have been coopted by Chinese Publishing companies. And that their corporate promotion lists might have been used as voting slates. This comes after a game of musical chairs, relocation and alterations from the original winning bid organisation to a new holding company. I have asked Kevin Standlee, chair of the WSFS Marks Protecttion Committee, to clarify what due diligence was taken to protect the Worldcon and Hugo trademarks. (Information via Arthur Lia and other commenters.)

Third, Chinese fandom is also upset over this. Using carefully selected phrasing to express their displeasure at "unspeakable factors". (Via Ersatz Culture at File 770)

Finally Hugo Administrator Dave McCarty categorically declares that the Ballot was conducted properly. He also declines to explain any of the discrepancies, or explain the precise reason for the unexplained disqualifications. He also stated that those who had any further questions "can't understand plain English" and "are slow".

This all strengthens my concerns, and widens them to the possibility that the name of the Hugo Awards and the Worldcon was deliberately coopted by a publishing business group in China. There's the strong possibility that this means that an unfettered licence to the trademarks that protect the Hugo Awards might have slipped into the hands of people willing to abuse them.

I note that Saudi Arabia, Tel Aviv, and Uganda all have bids for future Worldcons.

[reality-detective]

Significant ballot discrepancies have been uncovered in Orange County, California, raising doubts about the integrity of multiple U.S. House races.

In the 2024 election, the number of ballots counted exceeded those returned by an alarming 309,116.

While there were 1,861,450 registered voters, a staggering 1,417,397 ballots were tallied in the presidential race, leading to an unusually high 76.1% voter turnout.

The situation worsened when it was revealed that over 325,000 more ballots were sent out than there are registered voters in the county.

Gavin Newsom in this clip bashed Republican claims of voter fraud in 2021. 🤔

[contemplatingoutlander]

Three months after the 2024 election, three major news sources STILL don't agree on the final presidential popular vote count.

Given that it is now January 2025, I figured all the states must have finally finished counting their 2024 presidential votes--including some of the slower Western states. (I'm looking at you 😒 California.)

So I thought I'd check in with three major sources of voting information: The New York Times, The Cook Political Report, and CNN Politics, to see what the final presidential popular vote tallies were.

The Numbers Are STILL Slightly Different

What surprised me is that these three major sources of election information are still not in full agreement about the presidential vote counts.

Granted, the small difference between the highest (NY Times) and lowest (Cook Report) vote tallies for each candidate are small and not significant: 1,631 votes for Harris, and 1,576 votes for Trump.

Nevertheless, given that some states were won by laser-thin margins, it is still concerning that these three election news sources have three different tallies for both Harris and Trump.

Sources Please

Unfortunately, neither The Cook Political Report nor CNN listed the source of their vote tallies nor when they last updated their figures. At least the Times listed their source: the Associated Press, and noted that they had last updated their figures on Dec. 30th. It would be helpful if all major election information sources did the same.

No Logical Consistency in the Tallies

Given that the Times reported higher tallies for both Harris and Trump than were reported by The Cook Report and CNN, one might think that the latter two sources stopped updating their vote counts sooner than the Times.

The problem with that hypothesis though is that The Cook Political Report's tallies were actually higher for the TOTAL popular vote than were the Times' tallies: 155.2 million vs. 154.9 million, a difference of 0.3 million (or 300,000) votes. (Unfortunately, CNN Politics didn't report the total popular vote count.)

And if that was not confusing enough, the Times indicated that 100% of the votes in all the states had been counted (even California)--and yet, they also noted that their total popular presidential vote count of 154.9 million represented > 99% of the vote--NOT 100%.

Imagine If All Votes Were Hand Counted😳

Consider that these relatively minor discrepancies in the vote tallies occurred with electronic ballot counting.

Could you imagine how inconsistent the vote tallies would be if those hundreds of millions of votes were counted by hand--like Trump and some of the GOP want?

Pure chaos!

______________________ Note: All images were modified from their original sources. "Where are the results?" gif source, "Numbers" gif video clip source, "Check source" gif video clip source, "Winona Ryder confused" gif source, "Counting votes 1" source, "Counting votes 2" source, "Pure chaos" gif video clip source

[bluejay73ffs]

What we can still do

So, back in 2020, Trump did everything he could to contest the results of the election when he had zero real evidence, so what's to stop us from doing so when we have actual better evidence?

Here's the link where you can contact the president & vice president and share your concerns: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

If you're not good at figuring out what to say, you can simply copy/pasted what I put into the box:

I urge you to recount the election and investigate election interference. Bomb threats have been called into multiple polling locations. Domestic terrorists have burned ballot boxes. Ballots are being discarded. An investigation and recount for this election is urgently needed. As a concerned citizen, I believe that ensuring the accuracy and integrity of our electoral process is paramount to maintaining public trust in our democratic institutions. Given the close margin of the results and reports of potential discrepancies, I respectfully urge you to authorize a thorough and transparent recount.

We can stand our ground. We can still choose to fight against fascism. Never give up, not without a fight.

[catboybiologist]

Voting post for Californians, but let's not talk about the president.

Alright. California people. I'd love to hear opinions and discussion about whatever else is on the ballot, other than just the presidency. I have some quick takes about each of them as I'm prepping my ballot, and I'd love to hear further discussion of each one. But here's me just casually rattling stuff off:

Prop 33: If you rent in California, passing prop 33 is fucking essential. It's one of those fairly confusing "repeal of a ban of a restriction" type laws, and landlords are using that to their advantage. But the tl;dr: passing this proposition is beneficial to renters or anyone else in need of housing. It allows local city governments to establish more rent control, allowing them to create more affordable rent opportunities. This would be a huge relief to the California housing crisis.

The ONLY possible logic that I've heard for it supporting renters is a bullshit "trickledown" adjacent one: that more restrictions on rent means that less wealthy people are "motivated" to build housing. Of course that's bullshit- we have enough empty housing now to get people homed, we just need to get people to afford them. And prop 33 does that.

Prop 3: a no-brainer yes, but honestly seems mostly for show. California still technically has a ban on gay marriage on the books, its just invalidated by Obergefell. This rectifies that discrepancy.

Prop 4: land protection and environmental bond proposition. Honestly kind of a no brainer. We get a lot of these on the ballot, and each of them is massively impactful. I've seen the effect of these measures within the course of my lifetime- bleak areas restored to amazing health, and oftentimes opened as gorgeous recreational third spaces.

There's an education bond initiative as well, seems fairly straightforward on both.

Prop 32: minimum wage increase. In California? Necessary.

Prop 36: ho boy, this one is a mess. It's a "tough on crime" prop that SEEMS straightforward to vote No on. But, this is a fucking classic "unseen interactions with past propositions in an intentionally confusing way" thing. It's an amendment to a past proposition that reduces sentencing.

So yeah. No from me. I'm comfortable being aligned with the ACLU on this kind of thing.

Prop 6: no brainer Yes. Ending slavery in our state should not be controversial.

5, 34, and 35 I haven't looked at aside from my initial read and don't really wanna comment on, but would love to hear any opinions in that regard.

[jackmedwn]

Joe Hoft on X: "BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: HUGE Ballot Discrepancies Uncovered in Orange County, CA that Could Flip Multiple US House Seats https://t.co/JbGyEQYWf0" / X

[1americanconservative]

@AtlRey

Here’s a quick recap of what just happened in AZ in case you missed it:

- Trump won Arizona by 6 points

- Gallego had 127k more votes than there are registered Democrats in AZ.

- Lake had 200k fewer votes than there are registered Republicans in AZ.

- Gallego received more votes than Kamala Harris did in AZ.

- Lake received 140k fewer votes than Trump did in AZ.

- Uncounted ballots increased days after the deadline.

-Mitch McConnell withheld campaign funds from Lake.

- No GOP members are speaking out about these discrepancies.

Overall, something about this election between Lake and Gallego doesn’t add up.

Thoughts?

[bighermie]

HUGE Ballot Discrepancies Uncovered in Orange County, CA that Could Affect the Results in Multiple US House Seats | The Gateway Pundit | by Guest Contributor

[eugenedebs1920]

Politicians have always bent the truth, spun their views, even exaggerated stories. There has never, & I mean NEVER been the amount of falsehoods & flat out lies like there are today. When Vance and Trump stipulate in their agreements to get interviews that they don’t want fact checking, that tells you they want to broadcast lies and deception internationally. It’s absurd! Both sides of the aisle have their moments, don’t get me wrong, but. In a recent book by the owner of Politifact, established in 2007, he states a huge rise in falsities over the years. From 2022 to mid 2024 he found that Democrats lied, or weren’t telling the whole truth 17% of the time. On the Republican side it is a whopping 63%! That means over HALF of what you hear from the GOP is not true. Trump plays a significant roll in this seeing that he lies as he breathes, but still. It’s time for the American people to show the GOP that this is not acceptable. That we demand a higher level of honesty & integrity. To show these politicians who seem to forget who they work for. They don’t work for corporations and the most wealthy individuals. THEY WORK FOR US! The American people. When someone lies to you over & over again , it shows the lack of respect they have for you. If you had an employee who disrespected over half the time would you keep them in your employ? Get out there & Vote, make your voice heard! Get your friend’s, family, neighbors, colleagues, that weird guy who always sits at the end of the bar by himself (me 😆) people you meet, people you hardly know, to get out there and make a difference for good! So please, this November 5th (or earlier, I prefer early or mail in voting, less of a crowd. Plus, if you forget anything or there’s any discrepancies, you can hopefully get them wrapped & fixedUp before Election Day)go out and Vote! Vote blue down ballot. Vote like women’s rights depend on it. Vote like the environments health and protection depends on it. Vote like the continuation of democracy as we know it depends on it. Vote like equal rights for all, LGBTQ rights, not living in fear of a mass shooting, voting rights, social security, Medicare, Medicaid & the ACA, public education, freedom of religion, labor rights & collective bargaining, antitrust & predatory lending, fair housing, and your personal freedom depends on it. Because it does.

[mc-posts]

Orange County ballot counting. HUGE Ballot Discrepancies. You make the call.

Orange County ballot counting. HUGE Ballot Discrepancies. You make the call. A reprint from GP. Guest post by Joe Hoft at JoeHoft.com The 2024 Election results in Orange County, CA make no sense. The first indication that something was up in Orange County was on Thursday, November 7, two days after the 2024 Election. Concerned citizens warned that Newsom had sent people to Orange County and that…

[tanadrin]

Regarding supposed election interference conspiracy theories: I highly recommend checking out this thread over on threads. https://www.threads. .net/@billt801/post/DCIIRcrRhmD?xmt=AQGzlJnE3HBQjvsKoquyz4nfjpFtc0aTm2Ph5PwnIRCznQ

Sorry, same anon, but this spoutible post by the same guy. https://spoutible(dot) com/thread/37937176 from today is analyzing discrepancies between the exit polls and the final results. and the disproportionately large number of trump voters who voted nothing down ballot. And these counties were ones that had bomb threats called in on election day. No, it's probably not going to make a difference. But it's worth doing due diligence by investigating and doing hand counts, right?

"Low information voters vote for president and leave other ballot lines blank" is not a new phenomenon! Look, a lot of election security advocates say the gold standard is paper ballots and hand counting, and I'm not gonna dispute that necessarily as a general policy prescription, but this is still plainly cope. Referencing 2004 conspiracy theories about Ohio (which were based on inaccurate exit polls that dropped right after the election) convinces me this guy is an idiot.

And, once again, why would they hack the race for president and not give themselves more wiggle room in House races? "People did not vote the way I expected them to" is not good evidence of a conspiracy. Especially since voting behavior was largely in line with polls. What, were they rigging every poll in the country besides Anne Selzer for the last twelve months, too?

[mariacallous]

Tom O’Donnell had never really been that interested in how elections worked until former president Donald Trump lost in 2020. Then, everything changed.

Like hundreds of thousands of people across the US, O’Donnell joined so-called election integrity groups that posted baseless conspiracies about the 2020 election. His group was called Idaho First Audit, and members flooded election offices across the state with requests for voting data. They weren’t alone: Other organizations like right-wing activist group True the Vote inundated election offices across the country as part of a broader effort they believed would uncover systemic fraud within the election process.

Election workers in Ada County, Idaho, home to the state capital of Boise, were pretty amenable to questions about the election process from O’Donnell’s group. O’Donnell even organized a tour of the Ada County election offices “to learn more about the process of voting,” and struck up a relationship with Trent Tripple, then the deputy county clerk.

But Tripple, who became county clerk last year, was one of the officials struggling to cope with the barrage of records requests and threats that the majority of election offices were receiving at the time. After the records requests overwhelmed the election office’s employees, Tripple and Ada County’s director of election, Saul Seyler, decided they needed to change things up.

So after years of work, they’ve now given election deniers exactly what they’ve been asking for: Last week, Tripple and Seyler launched Ballot Verifier, a first-of-its-kind tool that gives anyone with an internet connection direct access to every single ballot that has been cast in all Ada County elections since 2022, meaning that those in the election denial movement can no longer say that they don’t have access to the information they want.

“We just decided there’s got to be a way that we can push back against this a little bit but also achieve that perfect marriage between technology and government records so that citizens, candidates, parties, everybody has access to all the information that we have,” says Tripple.

The tool provides sleek graphics of all election races, and allows users to filter by type of ballot and even drill right down to precinct level to see an image of every single one of the ballots counted. Crucially, the ballot images are presented alongside what is known as the cast vote record, which is the record of how the ballot tallying machine counted the vote on election day. By showing these side-by-side, anyone can instantly see whether there are any discrepancies.

“I can’t even dream up how we can be more transparent than this,” says Tripple. “There isn’t anything else that we have that the public cannot see.”

Ballot images and cast vote records, both details about elections barely ever mentioned prior to 2020, have become a focus for election conspiracists trying to prove widespread voter fraud conspiracies.

In some cases, election conspiracists have even built programs to look at ballot images. Well-funded groups like True the Vote have built online tools based on voter rolls, previously reported on by WIRED, which they are urging their tens of thousands of supporters to use and then erroneously claim voters should be struck off the voter rolls.

“It's very different if [an online tool] is coming from an independent group, like True the Vote, that obviously has certain political leanings, and information that they're providing is through a lens,” says Seyler, as opposed to “something like [Ballot Verifier], which is available to everybody and truly transparent.” The data, the team says, is also private. “There is nothing that is printed on this ballot other than the individual markings, [nothing] that would tie it to a particular voter,” says Tripple. “The ballot is completely private.”

Still, some election experts have voiced concerns about the potential for systems like Ballot Verifier to pose privacy risks for voters, particularly in small precincts or in cases where voters leave notes on the ballots that could identify them.

“Despite the clear benefits to transparency of releasing cast vote records and ballot images, making these records public comes with trade-offs,” researchers from the Bipartisan Policy Center wrote in August. ��Voters’ privacy might be compromised, and vote buying becomes feasible when ballot secrecy is violated—an extreme, if less likely, potential ramification of making ballot images public.”

There have also been some prior efforts to give voters access to ballot images, such as in Pueblo County in Colorado in 2021, but these efforts were not as comprehensive or technically proficient as Ballot Verifier.

At the same time that Tripple and Seyler were trying to think about a better solution, Idaho had been using a tool called ElectionStats to give voters access to statistics around election results. That tool was created by Civera Software, a civic technology company that ended up working alongside Ada County election officials to build out the new Ballot Verifier tool.

And even before the system went live, Tripple invited O’Donnell and other skeptics to be among the first to test it out.

“I think it's really good. It's more than I thought would have happened, because when we request our images now, we just get a data dump of files,” O’Donnell tells WIRED, adding that the Telegram group has responded positively to the launch of Ballot Verifier.

WIRED also tested the Ballot Verifier tool, looking at specific precincts and races, filtering votes by type (mail-in ballot, absentee ballot, etc.) and found that the system worked smoothly and instantly displayed images of every ballot cast.

US elections have never been safer, and the 2020 election was declared the “most secure” by Trump’s own officials. But a lot of people still believe unfounded conspiracies about elections, and the roll out of this tool in one county in one state is not necessarily going to change that overnight. Indeed, a review of O’Donnell’s 400-person Telegram channel by WIRED this week shows that many within the election integrity group are still regularly sharing widely debunked conspiracies about voting.

Adam Friedman, Civera’s founder, believes part of the reason for this is a lack of transparency, something which Ballot Verifier can address.

“A lot of the conspiracy theories and divisiveness and toxic rhetoric and mistrust around elections in America goes hand-in-hand with people not being able to see enough and people perceiving voting as being a black box experience,” says Friedman. “Ballot Verifier is really a way to turn a black box into a glass box.”

Friedman says that Civera had already signed a contract with several counties in Texas to provide the tool to them, and was in discussions with counties in multiple other states. The tool is also of interest to academics, and Friedman says the company is in preliminary conversations with two prominent universities and a number of political scientists who study cast vote records.

But Ballot Verifier is not cheap. Friedman and Civera provided a “large discount” on the research and development costs for this tool, but it still cost Ada County $40,000. While there are no current plans to roll the tool out nationally, Seyler says that while every county could benefit from using a system like it, election budgets have been historically underfunded. While all the backend work to upload new election data is handled by the company’s employees, the company is also currently building tools to allow local election officials to do this themselves, and go even faster.

The next big test for the Ballot Verifier tool comes later this month with the statewide primaries in Idaho on May 21. This will be the first time the officials will be working with recent election data rather than historical data, and they know there will be pressure to get that information online as soon as possible. Seyler says the current projection for getting the data uploaded is four to six weeks, though it could be quicker if Civera can finish some additional tools they are working on to improve efficiencies.

Looking further ahead, Tripple even foresees a point when data is available in Ballot Verifier so quickly after a vote that it could be used by candidates or parties to decide whether a recount is necessary, potentially avoiding the expensive and drawn-out recount process.

“That's not going to be possible now because of the speed at which we're uploading this data, but I think that's something that could be happening in the future,” says Tripple.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Judd Legum at Popular Information:

In an effort to overturn the results of November's election, Jefferson Griffin, a Republican candidate for the North Carolina Supreme Court, is asking state election officials to throw out more than 60,000 ballots. Among the voters being targeted by Griffin's protest are the parents of his Democratic opponent, Allison Riggs.

The contest between Griffin and Riggs was very close. The initial count showed Riggs with a lead of 734 votes out of 5.5 million cast. Griffin then exercised his legal right to request a machine recount of all ballots. After that recount, Riggs was still ahead by the same margin. Griffin has now requested a second recount of the ballots, this time by hand. Under North Carolina's procedures, there will first be a hand recount of 3% of the ballots cast. If the North Carolina Election Board determines that the partial hand recount revealed a sufficient number of discrepancies to suggest the outcome could change, a full hand recount will take place. There is nothing particularly unusual about requesting recounts in close elections. But Griffin is also taking a page out of President-elect Donald Trump's playbook and claiming that tens of thousands of votes were cast illegally. Griffin's campaign sent postcards to the voters whose ballots it is seeking to invalidate, alerting them of the protest. [...]

Riggs' campaign says the "postcards have sowed confusion, anger, and frustration among voters who cast their ballots in good faith to make their voices heard." Among those receiving a postcard notifying them that their vote was under protest were Riggs' parents. Most of the challenges, including the challenges to the votes cast by Riggs' parents, are related to claims that voter registrations are invalid because they do not contain a driver's license or partial Social Security number. A federal law enacted in 2002 required this information to be collected on voter registration forms. But some North Carolina voters may have registered before the law went into effect. The lack of that information in a North Carolina voter database does not invalidate a ballot.

There are many other reasons a North Carolina voter's record may lack this information, including "clerical error from a county election official who did not enter that information in the system even though it was included on the physical form." Further, one form used in the state, which has since been updated, did not make it clear that voters should provide the information when registering. Regardless, registered voters in North Carolina were required to provide identification before voting. A federal judge appointed by Trump rejected a similar effort to kick these voters off the rolls before Election Day. Now, Griffin's campaign is recycling these arguments after the election is complete to overturn the results. Many eligible North Carolina voters have been caught in Griffin's dragnet and had their votes questioned. 

This is just a pathetic Republican effort to invalidate a Democrat who won her race fair and square.

[sawkinator]

I'm gonna be honest kitten I do not think nearly enough people here on Tumblr are talking about shit like gerrymandering and voter suppression wrt the election. I've seen like two popular posts about 'missing' ballots and election interference but that's kind of it?

Like yes there were multiple factors at play here but Republicans have been attacking basic voting rights for fucking forever especially in red and swing states, and they have absolutely ramped up their efforts over the last 4 years. It can't explain all of the discrepancy between the raw numbers but surely it is not an insignificant amount??

[darkmaga-returns]

We should be so thankful for vigilant election officials that are trying to do a great job of protecting the integrity of our system.  The incidents that I am about to share with you are deeply disturbing, but it is also encouraging that these crimes are being caught.  We should all be able to agree that the American people should be able to choose who they want in 2024.  No matter which side wins or which side loses, the will of the American people should be respected.  Sadly, there are those that wish to interfere in that process, and those people are committing crimes against all of us.

In Colorado, some ballots that were “intercepted” before reaching voters were filled out and mailed in.  The following comes from the Colorado Secretary of State’s official website…

The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office is monitoring a developing situation in Mesa County, Colorado regarding intercepted ballots. On Tuesday, October 23, the Department of State learned that at least 12 ballots appear to have been intercepted before reaching voters. Those ballots were voted and then returned to the Mesa County Clerk and Recorder via USPS mailboxes. This issue was flagged during Colorado’s secure signature verification process. Several of the affected voters contacted the Mesa County Clerk’s office after receiving communication that their ballot required curing due to a discrepant signature. One affected voter notified the Mesa County Clerk after they received notification through BallotTrax that their ballots had been received for processing by the Mesa County Clerk. BallotTrax is Colorado’s statewide tracking and notification system that lets voters who’ve signed up know where their ballot is.

If 12 of these ballots were caught, how many others slipped through without notice?

Colorado is a state that could play a significant role in the outcome of this election.  In early voting, Democrats have a lead of less than 3 percent in votes cast so far, and so the state could still go either way.

On Friday, I shared a story with my core supporters about a crime that is far, far worse than what is being reported in Colorado.

Pennsylvania is the most important swing state in this election, and the Lancaster Board of Elections has announced that “thousands of suspected fraudulent voter registrations” have been caught in that county alone…

A criminal investigation has been launched after thousands of suspected fraudulent voter registrations were discovered in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania. The Lancaster County Board of Elections announced Friday that staff members identified 2,500 suspected fraudulent voter registration applications, which had been dropped off at the election office. Some had false names, suspicious handwriting, questionable signatures, incorrect addresses or other problematic details.

Whoever is behind this scheme should be put in prison for the rest of their lives.

Unfortunately, it appears that this isn’t just happening in Lancaster County.

In fact, it is being reported that “similar applications” have been received by two other counties in Pennsylvania…