I have been working with Brad on this since last week. I hope to have some updated numbers soon. Even more disturbing than the numbers below is the fact that the poll workers were allowed to take the Diebold machines home with them days, even weeks, before the election. All of BradBlog's Busby/Bilbray articles regarding this election can be found here: http://www.bradblog.com/?cat=2
--Bill
Busby/Bilbray Election In Doubt
By Brad Friedman,
BradBlog.com Uncounted ballots reported by Registrar is decreased by 2000, but number of votes in Busby/Bilbray race increases by 8000!
I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for this. There always is.
As ever, it underscores the need for verifiable elections, and begins to remind us that the folks who give a damn about this down there in San Diego County better damned well be keeping an eye on the chain of custody for those paper ballots and "paper trails" as they are being theoretically "counted" by the SD County Registrar of Voters.
According to this web page from the SD County's Registrar of Voters office, as of 5pm last night, the number of uncounted absentee and provisional ballots in the entire county of SD has decreased by 2,000 from the reported 68,500 that were announced as "still to be counted" on election night.
The number of votes in the now-questionable Busby/Bilbray US House (CA-50) special election, however, has been increased by 8,000 votes.
Since the number of votes in the CA-50 race is a smaller subset of the total votes within SD County, one would think that if 2,000 absentee or provisionals were counted for the entire county, the number of votes in CA-50 might go up by a fraction of that number. Instead, they've gone up by 8,000, according to the county's website!
So far, I've been unable to get any comments from "quotable sources" at the Registrar's office on the reported updates. Very few in the office, apparently, are allowed to speak on record to the press for some reason.
As mentioned, no doubt there's a perfectly good explanation for all of this. Right? It's just that you and I may never know it. And, if we do, the election officials will likely never have to prove that their explanation - or the veracity of their reported vote counts - is valid. To anybody.
