FWD: Re: [atlarge-discuss] Election SOddities and DanIrregularities (was something...

["Micheal Sherrill" <micheal@beethoven.com>]

>From Danny Younger:

Michael, 

You may forward my comments if you wish.  Perhaps those with a greater degree 
of technical acumen can correct whatever mistakes I may have conveyed.   

I also have a few thoughts with regard to Joanna's recent comment: 

"I believe there is one person who nobody knows, that nobody has ever met, 
with no URL reference for a CV, or even an email address to contact (although I 
fail to understand how they can have accepted their nomination without one). 
Who voted for this person is also questionable. Were the "members" also frauds? 
One has to be mindful that it was entirely possible for 1 person to join 45 
times from 45 different email addresses and vote themselves into the panel." 

I also find it highly unusual that there were eight ballots that were cast 
for Sebastian Klein that contained only one vote (#0140, #0151, #0152, #0158, 
#0213, #0246, #0247, #0318).  I smell a rat. 

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "Micheal Sherrill" <micheal@beethoven.com>
Reply-To: <micheal@beethoven.com>
Date:  Fri,  6 Jun 2003 16:40:04 -0400

Hello Danny:

Thank you for your detailed explanation.  You replied to me offlist.  May I 
forward your comments to the rest of the organization?

Regards,


Micheal Sherrill


---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: DannyYounger@cs.com
Date:  Fri, 6 Jun 2003 16:23:26 EDT

When an email message gets sent (such as the returned email ballots), each 
email contains a message-ID -- The message-ID in your last email to me was:  
<200306061541.AA21496100@mail.beethoven.com>  Oftentimes it is coded to indicate 
the date that the message was sent.  In your case it was 2003-06-06.

If the ballot information was properly recorded, then every ballot would have 
a message ID in addition to the ballot code generated by Jefsey.

Far too many ballots that contained votes did not have a message-ID  (only 
19% contained this identifier).  This is rather unusual when balanced against 
the fact that 96% of the blank returns contained a message-ID (most all of them 
in fact had two message IDs).

For an example, consider ballot #0034  -- it had two message-IDs: 
<20030530062844.A51C7E3B7
<20030525055620.8317AE205

This tells us that the ballot was sent twice -- 
once on 2003-05-30, and earlier on 2003-05-25
That it should be sent twice with no recorded vote on both occasions is a 
signal that something is wrong somewhere.  This is not an isolated example.  

That we should have 53 consecutive ballots all with no vote recorded (ballots 
6 through 58) is a statistical improbability, especially when the coding on 
several of these indicates that multiple ballots were sent on different days 
(for reference see ballots 31-35 and 45-49).

When one person only has access to the raw results, is in a position to strip 
the ballots of identifiers, and then forwards the stripped and possibly 
altered votes to a set of "watchdogs", one does not have an integrity of process.


--
Micheal Sherrill
micheal@beethoven.com

The owner of this signature has been authenticated by www.thawte.com as 
a Real Person.  The owner is also a Notary of the Web of Trust for 
www.thawte.com which is a third party verifier of high level 
certification.  Please go to their Web of Trust page at
https://www.thawte.com/html/SUPPORT/wot/general.html for information.


--

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