{"id":990,"date":"2021-04-07T00:14:29","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T14:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pbw.id.au\/blog\/?p=990"},"modified":"2021-04-22T15:14:02","modified_gmt":"2021-04-22T05:14:02","slug":"practice-makes-perfect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2021\/04\/practice-makes-perfect\/","title":{"rendered":"Practice makes Perfect"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mid-term elections of Trump\u2019s presidency were held on the 6th<\/sup><\/span> of November 2018, amid high expectations of a so-called \u201cblue wave\u201d of Democrat victories. All House of Representatives seats were on the line, but although Democrats won control of the House, they made little impact in the Senate, which remained under Republican control.<\/p>\n

Florida was particularly sensitive about election processes because the result of the 2000 Presidential election, which hinged on the result in Florida, was effectively settled in the Supreme Court of the US. Broward County has 1.2 million voters, a similar number to Miami-Dade county. Unlike Miami-Dade, however, Broward officials did not expect to complete the count by the deadline for sending preliminary totals to the State.<\/p>\n

Rick Scott, the retiring Governor of Florida, was standing for the Senate against the incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson. On Friday the 9th<\/sup><\/span>, Nelson filed a lawsuit asking that the deadline be extended past noon Saturday. Nelson\u2019s contention was that Broward officials would need more than another day and half to complete the count. The GOP response was that a difference in votes of less than half a percent would trigger an mandatory machine recount in any event. Scott\u2019s campaign said in a press release that, \u201cThey aim to disenfranchise law abiding Florida voters by producing ballots out of thin air until they have enough to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also on the Friday, Trump tweeted sarcastically<\/a>,
\nYou mean they are just now finding votes in Florida and Georgia \u2013 but the Election was on Tuesday? Let’s blame the Russians and demand and immediate apology from President Putin!<\/em><\/p>\n

The deadline for the finalised vote tally was eight days after the preliminary; Sunday 18th<\/sup><\/span> at noon. By Saturday 17th<\/sup><\/span> a machine recount had been completed, with 2,040 fewer votes being tabulated. The Supervisor of Elections, Brenda Snipes, was sure of one thing. \u201cThe ballots are in this building.\u201d<\/p>\n

Broward County had also drawn attention to itself because it recorded nearly 25,000 more votes for Governor than for the Senate race. However, the County designed its own ballots, and there was criticism that the layout was confusing, perhaps accounting for much of the discrepancy.<\/p>\n

The problems in Broward could not readily be ignored. The County Auditor, Bob Melton, was given the job of conducting an audit of the election. His draft<\/a> report<\/a> was given to the County in April 2020, a year and a half after the election. The draft was not well received, and the Auditor withdrew it for \u201cfurther review for clarification.\u201d The political leadership of the County were no doubt unhappy with the bottom line of the audit. \u201cBased on the totality of these issues, we are unable to provide assurance over the accuracy of the November 2018 election results as reported.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the issues outlined by Melton were:<\/p>\n

Voter turnout in Broward was 715,519, of which 121,599 (17%) were mail ballots. Of these, 69,902 (58%) remained to be counted at close of polls on Tuesday the 6th<\/span> of November. In Florida, mail votes can be opened and scanned before election day, with the results \u201csealed\u201d in tabulation equipment until close of polls. Over 18,000 mail ballots arrived on election day, but there were still nearly 50,000 un-tabulated ballots in officials\u2019 hands before the polls.<\/p>\n

Staff in some precincts went home on election night without transmitting results from tabulating machines. Even after that was resolved, 6,500 votes were subsequently transmitted, including 1,100 votes that staff could not explain.<\/p>\n

Snipes\u2019 office ordered 47,000 more ballots than it reported sending to precincts; neither did if have a process to confirm that nearly 650,000 unused ballots were received back safely.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

2,335 ballots misplaced. These include the \u201clost in the building\u201d ballots.<\/p>\n

293 of 577 precincts \u2013 over half \u2013 reported a combined total of 885 more ballots than voters. As various reports noted, this is a minuscule fraction of the total vote. The auditors nonetheless wrote that this \u201ccompromises voter confidence.\u201d There is no mention of whether any of the other precincts reported fewer ballots than voters.<\/p>\n

Much of this sounds familiar. There are many lessons here for the professional campaign advisor. One of the most important is that it took eighteen months to audit the election in a single, though populous, county. Given that the time frame for resolving issues in a Presidential election is a mere two months, what lessons might such an advisor take?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The mid-term elections of Trump\u2019s presidency were held on the 6th of November 2018, amid high expectations of a so-called \u201cblue wave\u201d of Democrat victories. All House of Representatives seats were on the line, but although Democrats won control of the House, they made little impact in the Senate, which remained under Republican control. Florida … Continue reading “Practice makes Perfect”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-culture"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8SCfl-fY","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":993,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2021\/04\/debunking-dr-shiva\/","url_meta":{"origin":990,"position":0},"title":"Debunking Dr Shiva","author":"admin","date":"Wed 7th Apr '21","format":false,"excerpt":"This document was prepared some time ago, but could not find a home. Ever since I first saw the analysis by Evans, Smith and Shiva of vote leakage in the big Michigan counties, I have thought of it as the single most compelling evidence of electoral fraud, and one with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/culture\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Shiva, Smith, Evans graph","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Kent-County-300x273.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":675,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2018\/09\/restoration-as-revolution\/","url_meta":{"origin":990,"position":1},"title":"Restoration as revolution","author":"admin","date":"Sat 15th Sep '18","format":false,"excerpt":"[This item was first published at Catallaxy Files. The version here is slightly modified.] About a week ago, Steve posted the article Jordan Peterson trashes the left once again. He quoted from an article by Joy Pullman, called (big breath) The Left Is Actually Afraid Of Jordan Peterson Because He\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Catallaxy Files"","block_context":{"text":"Catallaxy Files","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/publications\/catallaxy-files\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1202,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2024\/01\/priorities\/","url_meta":{"origin":990,"position":2},"title":"Priorities","author":"Me","date":"Wed 31st Jan '24","format":false,"excerpt":"First published on NewCatallaxy.blog on 26th January, 2024 For most of 2022, and until the great counter-offensive broke on the Russian defence lines of Zaporozhzhia on mid-2023, it seemed that the greatest priority of the Biden administration, and most of Congress, was promoting and resourcing Ukraine\u2019s proxy war against Russia.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Gaza"","block_context":{"text":"Gaza","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/geopolitics\/gaza\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":103,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2007\/12\/a-tale-of-two-parties\/","url_meta":{"origin":990,"position":3},"title":"A Tale of Two Parties","author":"pbw","date":"Fri 21st Dec '07","format":false,"excerpt":"The election-night convention is that the losing leader first concedes defeat, and when these formalities are out of the way the victor claims the spoils. In each case, these speeches, replete with the necessary acknowledgments and thank-yous, are delivered to a gathering of the hard-core faithful. I recall some vivid\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/culture\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1005,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2021\/04\/the-urgent-need-for-quotas\/","url_meta":{"origin":990,"position":4},"title":"The Urgent Need For Quotas","author":"admin","date":"Wed 7th Apr '21","format":false,"excerpt":"Published at Catallaxy Files on 30\/03\/2021 I was always opposed to the idea of quotas for women in Parliament. I operated under the delusion, not so much that selection on merit was a better idea, but that selection on merit could actually occur. Given the selection processes for the major\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Catallaxy Files"","block_context":{"text":"Catallaxy Files","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/publications\/catallaxy-files\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":735,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2019\/05\/the-willing-suspension-of-disbelief\/","url_meta":{"origin":990,"position":5},"title":"The Willing Suspension of Disbelief","author":"admin","date":"Tue 7th May '19","format":false,"excerpt":"[Published in Quadrant April 2019, and on Quadrant Online as Memoirs of an Abused Altar Boy, which included links to various documents.] \u2026so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/belief\/faith\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=990"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":992,"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions\/992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}