Government watchdog to investigate election

[R.A. Hettinga]

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 Government watchdog to investigate election

 By Robert Lemos
http://news.com.com/Government+watchdog+to+investigate+election/2100-1028_3-5464969.html


 Story last modified Tue Nov 23 13:47:00 PST 2004


The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the U.S.
Congress, will investigate anomalies in the November election at the
request of five Democratic representatives.

 In two letters, sent Nov. 5 and Nov. 8, Reps. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich.,
Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Robert Wexler, D-Fla., asked that the GAO
investigate various complaints about election machine technology and
procedural issues preventing some votes from being counted. Two other
members of the House of Representatives, Robert Scott, D-Va., and Rush
Holt, D-N.J., signed the Nov. 8 letter.

 "On its own authority, the GAO will examine the security and accuracy of
voting technologies, distribution and allocation of voting machines, and
counting of provisional ballots," the five members of the House said in
statement Tuesday. "We are hopeful that GAO's nonpartisan and expert
analysis will get to the bottom of the flaws uncovered in the 2004
election."

 The lawmakers provided to the GAO some 57,000 incident reports that had
been received by the House Judiciary Committee.

 While most observers have concluded that election technology performed
reasonably well in the last election, a variety of anomalies have cropped
up. In Ohio, President Bush received a boost of some 4,000 votes in the
preliminary tallies due to a transmission error. Data from Florida has
raised eyebrows and led to at least one analysis that claimed the result of
voting there is statistically implausible.


 The congressmen asked the GAO to move quickly while there was still
evidence from the election to analyze.

 "There is substantial concern that much of the primary evidence needed to
evaluate these allegations will not be preserved without immediate action,"
the representatives argued in the Nov. 8 letter.

 Eight other members of the House of Representatives gave their support to
the GAO request as well, the congressmen said in their statement.

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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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