Saturday, June 02, 2007

BVBL has a "Trading Places" moment

In my previous post, I note that three precincts were overvoted.
Remember the end of the movie "Trading Places" (with Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd)? The two protagonists are on the trading floor, having just been bankrupted in the futures market:

President of Exchange:Mortimer, your brother is not well. We better call an ambulance. Mortimer Duke: him! Now, you listen to me! I want trading reopened right now. Get those brokers back in here! Turn those machines back on! Turn those machines back on!

BVBL is unhappy with the results of today's 51st district convention, and he wants them to turn the machines back on, recount the votes the way HE wants, and give the election to Lucas

Unconfirmed….
I’ve heard that there are witnesses willing to testify that {name removed} gave a ballot to someone not a delegate in the Penn precinct who cast the one over-vote in that precinct. Had that precinct not been over-voted, and the other precincts (Lake Ridge and Civic Center) been thrown out as suggested by RPV, Julie Lucas would have won the convention.

There are some problems with this.

First, if you did as BVBL suggests, Gill would still win, 178-174 (exact numbers below).

Second, just having a ballot would do someone no good, they had to have a name tag with the right precinct name on it, which would then be 'x'ed out by people from BOTH candidate's campaigns before the ballot was allowed anywhere near the box. So a Lucas campaign worker would have had to have let this non-delegate past them to the ballot box to place the ballot, without a name tag at all.

Third, a commenter says that the committee was told about this and corrected it. And also that a representative from the other campaign was also handing out ballots. Not confirmed of course.

It's very hard to understand how they let someone vote WITHOUT 'x'ing the name tag, which obviously they couldn't do if the person voting wasn't a delegate, because they wouldn't have a name tag. I don't know how the ballots were controlled, so I don't know if it is possible that a ballot WAS handed to someone who wasn't a delegate. But that wouldn't matter, unless the Lucas campaign worker for Purcell precinct failed to notice a non-delegate attempting to cast a ballot.

But more importantly, it makes no sense, even if you knew who overvoted in one precinct, to IGNORE that overvote and throw out other precincts. Instead, you should see if the overvotes mattered by counting them against the winner. If you remove one Gill vote from each of THOSE precincts, the result would be:

Unweighted: Gill 301, Lucas 292
Weighted: Gill 208.83, Lucas 203.17

But suppose we follow BVBL's advice, and throw out 1 Gill vote in Purcell, and discard the other two precincts (by zeroing their weighted vote), Gill STILL WINS.

Weighted: Gill: 178.02, Lucas 174.98

Note the totals don't add up to 412 anymore. But it wouldn't matter if you increased the weighting of the rest equally to make up the difference.

Here's the totals you get if you take 3 votes from Gill, remove the two precincts BVBL suggest, or remove all three precincts. All are weighted:

Take One Vote Away: Gill 208.83, Lucas 203.17
Take Two Precincts Away: Gill 178.02, Lucas 174.98
Take Three Precincts Away: Gill 162.94, Lucas 162.06


When facts looked at in ANY method, including the most reasonable, all point to the same result, it's time to drop the argument and realise that, like it or not, the winner IS the winner.

Remember Sore/Loserman, and their "let's recount just the counties where we have lots of votes, and stop counting as soon as we get ahead"? Let's not repeat that sad fiasco here.

UPDATE 11pm: Someone has suggested there were 5 overvotes in Lake Ridge. I'm saving my comments about this process for a later time when I have more information. But assuming there were 5, and they were all Gill ballots (only because Gill won -- obviously they could be Lucas ballots, but if they were eliminating them doesn't help her), I re-ran the numbers. The result? Gill STILL wins, Gill 207.98, Lucas 204.02.

And to make sure everybody understands: I am NOT stating as fact how many overvotes existed, or where they were, or who they were voted for. I'm just analyzing the results based on rumors I am hearing, ASSUMING they were true and were all Gill votes. It's just so I can do the analysis.

UPDATE: 6/3: The Potomac News says there were 5 overvotes total, not 5 in Lake Ridge. Not knowing which were in which precincts, I ran the numbers several ways and got the same results. Further, NLS reports in comment the committee did what I suggested here, and got a 208-204 result. Glad to here the committee used common sense, and sorry that my post might have suggested otherwise.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This little Gill went to market...!!!

This little Lucas went home....!!!

And...BVBL,GBK,VV and Joe Butt-in-ski...went weee...weee...weee, all the way home..

BaaaHaaaHaaaHaaa.

Anonymous said...

Chales, your numbers on the overvotes are correct becuse they announced that at the convention. Even if they excluded those overvotes and assumed they were all Faisal- it moves the election from 210-202 (rounded) to 208-204 (rounded).

I think the better question is the overall ballot security- if there were overvotes, how did they happen and does it draw any other votes into question.

Anonymous said...

Charles,
SCANDAL, SCANDAL, SCANDAL!!!
Over at BVBL, AKA:Greg/scandalman/soreloserboy and his pack of sycophantic, malcontent, scandal jackels are in FULL CRY.

" It's a crime. It's a conspiracy. Call the police, Call the State Police, Call Bob MacDonald, Call the FBI, Call the DEA, Call the CIA, Call the RPV, Call Interpol, Call the UN, Call Scotland Yard, Call Congressional hearings"...WHEW!

Hey...SORELOSER FOLKS over at BVBL, GET OVER IT. Didn't this just happen months ago at the 50th Convention. Carol Weimer lost to Greg/Loserboy's man Jackson Miller by just a few "weighted votes". Weimer actually won the popular vote but lost to Miller anyway. What did Weimer do? He sucked up the loss, congratulated Miller and helped a fellow Republican in the general election. In short, Weimer acted like any honorable candidate should.

It remains to be seen what Lucas will do. Will she listen to Greg/Soreloserboy and his pack of sycophantic, malcontent,scandal jackels? Or. Will she do the right thing and gracefully concede?

Anonymous said...

Charles,
Purely as an aside to the real issues... Soreloserboy was reportedly seen strutting around at the 51st Convention like Mr.Rooster with his little video camera. How cute. Soreloserboy should spend more time at his computer doing "Fact Checks" and maybe he wouldn't have to make redactions like the recent "Junaid Bashir" Blog Post. Maybe Soreloserboy wouldn't get sued quite so much either.

Anonymous said...

Charles,

UUUHHH....OOOHHH..!!! Former Woodbridge, Virginia Blogger Leslie Sachs has been found guilty of liabling Patricia Cornwell in Richmond Fed. Court, when he blogged that, among other things, she was under Federal investigation. The Judge found actual malice. Bye..Bye NYT v. Sullivan. Does this false allegation sound familar to anyone who reads BVBL? Should BVBL be sweating the Chapman/Gill lawsuit? Stay...Tuned...Kids. Google "Patricia Cornwell+Moon" for the scoop.