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This topic contains controversial issues, some of which have reached a consensus for approach and neutrality, and some of which may be disputed. Before making any potentially controversial changes to the article, please carefully read the discussion-page dialogue to see if the issue has been raised before, and ensure that your edit meets all of Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines. Please also ensure you use an accurate and concise edit summary.

This article was listed twice on votes for deletion. Peter O. (Talk, automation script) 05:25, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

For a December 2004 deletion debate over this article see Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities. For a November 2004 deletion debate over the deletion of this article see Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/2004 U.S. presidential election controversy.

Is in yes I don't see that sign here. why? Dwarf Kirlston Feb 17

There is no accuracy dispute: None of the article content's accuracy is disputed, nor is the title or existence of the article. Kevin Baas 20:17, 2005 Feb 17 (UTC)

Anon IPs that have mildly trolled this talk page: 68.107.102.129 05:36, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If stuff under new has been added please add "- Added" to the title", same with any current passages that have been removed, "- Removed" in the title.

Last thing we need to do, let us aim to archive all entries that already have been added both in New Passages and Possible Passages for Inclusion within the next few days, if you see something that is already on the page, please help out by putting " - Added" to the end of the title of the section. --kizzle 21:50, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

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 Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages. 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, Misplaced Pages: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 (Misplaced Pages'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, Misplaced Pages'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 . 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)

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 15:00, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

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