Walt Chappell’s contention that votes were miscounted in his race against state Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita, never seemed very credible. But the good thing about his requested recount was that it tested the accuracy of Sedgwick County’s new electronic voting machines. The recount showed that the votes were accurately counted, which is reassuring to voters, especially given voting machine problems in other states — such as the almost 18,400 people in Sarasota, Fla., who apparently didn’t get their votes recorded in a hotly contested congressional race. The recount also proved the wisdom of Election Commissioner Bill Gale’s decision to purchase machines that produced a printed audit tape.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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25 Comments
They should all be required to do that.
The Election Commissioner’s wisdom in obtaining electronic voting machines with paper back-up has always been appreciated. The issue with Bill Gale has always been his unilateral decision to sharply reduce the number of voting places and to eliminate schools as voting sites. Whatever was your experience in November at your voting site, in 2008 with a high turnout for a presidential election, there will need to be many more voting sites. Wichitans proved this election that they are reluctant in large numbers to vote in advance.
Kelly! He was forced to reduce the amount of voting sites. He had to comply with the HAVA Act of 2002, which states that a voting site must comply with ADA and many of them didn’t. He was forced to consolidate to all the voting sites that were ADA compliant.
But on the recount issue, it’s only Democrats that cry foul on this. They believe if a Republican wins, it must be because of voter fraud, because Republicans aren’t meant to win.
Joe- Have you ever met a fact you couldn’t distort?
I would be curious to know whether the numbers changed at all. With as large a difference as there was between the two candidates it would have taken wholesale changes to effect the outcome - quite evidently there were no such issues. My interest is to know just what the margin of ‘counting error’ is so that when we have a race decided by a few votes we know when to call for an automatic recount. I think there is another race up in NE KS somewhere with a very small margin (reverse direction of this one) - perhaps that would be a candidate for recount.
To Bill Gale and the paper trail - I salute you.
Perhaps all those military members who didn’t get their absentees ballots in the Presidential races because Democratic Election Officials were being selfish buttheads.
Just another crooked dumocrat.I’m sure he’s on crack.
What are you spoutin off about you inbred hick bastard!? Everybody knows that King George stole the elections in Florida, and everybody knows that’s the only way Republicans can win elections! Everybody knows that the majority of Americans are Democrats, and that the few braindead country backwater bumpkins like you are all unintelligent easily lead sheep! It’s religious nuts like you who are turning America back to the stone age, Tracy! Get a life ya dumb redneck!
Why are there abortion clinics? The government should build clinics with tax payer dollars and perform the abortions for free. I mean it is for the betterment of society right?
Just to show ‘em, I going to vote for either Newt or Rudy. I need to find out which one has been married more often. To the most married goes my vote!!!
Ooopps, wrong thread.
Joe - HAVA was not the reason for dumping schools as voting sites - as governmental entities, most schools became ADA compliant quite some time ago. And as for Democrats challenging votes, don’t you know about the Johnson Cty Kansas House race won by the Democrat - even after official recount - that is being challenged in the courts by the Kansas Repub. Party? What are they up there to you - outa sight outa mind?
I think you should become better acquainted with the facts.
Ben Said: “To Bill Gale and the paper trail - I salute you.”
Ben, That papertrail isn’t very long… I still do not trust the new technology behind our voting system. There are too many ways in too many places to manipulate the results.
We trust too much in Bill Gales office to make sure its right. They did that in Florida and look what happened, we got a moron for president…
I think there are too many loopholes in the current systems. I agree its less than before, but they could go so much farther.
kelly - You know that Joe Williams never lets facts get in the way of an opportunity to blast Democrats!
Walt Chappell is a whiney little, little, man. He got is butt kicked by almost 400 votes and he calls that close?
The race in Johnson County is actually close. It is within 3 votes the last I heard. There is merit in looking at that. Several years ago there was a race in Arkansas City that was very, very, close and during the recounts (yes plural) the winner of that race went back and forth from the D to the R etc. Finally the count came up a tie between the two. The Republican controlled Kansas house of representatives could have just seated the republican (the house has the final say after the judge). Instead the D and R decided to flip a coin. There was a lot of time spent trying to figure out what went wrong but they could never get to the bottom of it.
With Walt Chappell on the other hand he was convinced that if you win with the advance ballot you should be declared the winner. He wanted to discount the people that voted on election day.
How many times is this guy going to run before he get’s it. They did not want him in Chanute in 1990 and they did not want him in Wichita in 2006. Thankfully people figured out that he is a liar that makes up false accusations without anything to back up his facts.I may not agree with Brenda Landwehr a lot but I have not known her to be a liar at all. If anything she is probably to honest for her own good some times. I have a lot of respect for a person that will standup and say it like it is. You cannot trust a person that says one thing and then does the opposite. With Landwehr you know where she stands. I would rather have that then a person that is all over the place so that you cannot figure out what they stand for.
This Walt Chappell guy should be charged with slander for the illegal things he accused her of. Free speech only goes so far. So Walt just crawl back under the rock from which you crawled out from under.
But on the recount issue, it’s only Democrats that cry foul on this. They believe if a Republican wins, it must be because of voter fraud, because Republicans aren’t meant to win.Posted by: Joe Williams | December 22, 2006 at 05:30 AM
Did you not read about Bonnie Huy filing a complaint about Rep. Elect Goyle? Her supporters started a fight at a polling site and then blamed Goyle people. The republican poll judge even said it was the Huy people who were out of line, yet they could not accept that a moderate democrat won!!!!
Betcha the guy who tried to cause the riot was Paul F Rossell!
Mark said:”I may not agree with Brenda Landwehr a lot but I have not known her to be a liar at all. If anything she is probably to honest for her own good some times. I have a lot of respect for a person that will standup and say it like it is. You cannot trust a person that says one thing and then does the opposite. With Landwehr you know where she stands. I would rather have that then a person that is all over the place so that you cannot figure out what they stand for.”
I say “HA HA HA!”
You raise a valid point Tony - we need a better paper trail. I hava long liked the idea of filling out a ‘bubble sheet’ like we do when taking an exam. That would then be scanned ‘real-time’ in the voter’s presence to varify that everything reads OK. If there are ‘double-votes’ the ballot would be kicked back to de-do. If there are offices left blank the voter would be asked to verify that he chose to not vote for dog-catcher. Then, after verification, the ballot would be stored in the machine.
The disk can then be downloaded for ‘instant’ counting election eve’ the ballots kept with each machine until the case is closed.
From what I have known about Bill Gale (and Marilyn Chapman before him) he will do everything he possibly can to insure a straight count. Although he obviously has political feelings and I am certain candidates he would like to see win I believe he places integrity ahead of that.
There are Republicans that do challange election results. Bonnie Huy complaint wasn’t about voter fraud, it was campaign violations (this will not overturn an election if it were remotely true). And for a matter of information, I campaign on behalf of Raj Goyle. We are friends!
Walt on the other hand claimed voter fraud. I’m was specific to say Democrats and voter fraud.
Ok smarty pants! Tell me the reason why Bill Gale decided to reduce the number of polling places. All you guys did was complained. I explained the real reason, which was complying with the HAVA Act. If you don’t think that’s fact, I suggest you call Bill Gale himself and ask.
*shakes head*
You guys really need to be better at this. Amatures I tell you!
About the Johnson County election. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Can you tell me which house seat and candidate?
Joe - I don’t know much about the NE KS race. From what I read somewhere it is very close and, in my opinion, SHOULD be recounted. As I mentioned above, I wonder how much (if any) the actual count changed here. Obviously not enough to change anything; I am simply curious for statistical reasons.
Suppose (for the sake of arguement) that it changed by 50 votes. If, then, we have a race decided by FEWER votes then that should be an automatic audit. (I have simplified the numbers, they would of course be a function of total votes) In other words, my question to professional vote counter Bill Gale is “what do you estimate counting error to be?”
I stand by my comments above about Gale - everything I know about him tells me we get an honest count.
There should never be a recount!We should have complete and absolute faith in the machines we vote with!
Ben there was no difference in the numbers reported and the numbers counted.
Walt Chappell is just a sore loser.
Mark– Speaking of whiny, dude . . .
The recount took 8 hours involving five or six people. It seems a small price to pay to make sure that the election machines are actually counting the votes they are supposed to cast.
This is a good thing. It should be done routinely by an independent group after every election as an audit of the system.
Banks do it, corporations do it, the government does it to taxpayers.
Why can’t we do it to the voting machines?
It doesn’t cause a problem. It helps ensure that problems aren’t happening.
Another good thing about our electronic machines is that they are not hooked to centrally located GEMS (vote counting tabulator).
But still, someone has to program the computers so that the names match the buttons pushed. If that can be programmed, then other calculations could be programmed, and that’s why they need to be audited.
If you want a recount of the machines than you should at least do it honestly. This guy figured he could work the advance ballots (that’s probably where the fraud was because he did not want those counted and they were not re-counted) and ignore the people going to the polls on election day. If the machines need tested then at least do it in a race that is close. Almost 400 votes are not close. There was a race with 50 vote’s difference that could have been recounted.
This guy did not even receive help from the Democrat party (like the other candidates around town) because he was such a kook. Sure he showed up to their events and they were polite but he was calling all of them crooks including the Governor because all the Democrat candidates were taking money from lobbyists. He made accusations against his opponent without any proof to back it up about the same money that his Democrat candidates around town were taking from the same lobbyists as his opponent was. This guy ate food at dinners and receptions held by lobbyists but seemed to think that was ok (guess he needed a free meal paid for by a lobbyist). He even sent fundraising letters to lobbyists. Yet he said he was not taking any money from lobbyists. He took money from the Democrat party and thought that was ok. Didn’t he know that money came from lobbyists?