Is there such a thing as free will? Or, when considered as a group, do individual choices cancel each other out leaving a core behavior - sort of like a flock of sheep. That's how the talk of voter fraud strikes me. Statistitions look at the number of registered Republicans and Democrats in a county and make statements on the maximum number of votes that Bush could get vs. the number he actually got. If the actual count is higher than the projected maximum then something must be wrong with the way the votes are counted. After all, Bush couldn't have persuaded more Democrats to vote for him in 2004 than voted for him in 2000. Who you will vote for is fixed. The only variable is how well each side does at turning out the vote. No free will or voter choice involved at all, just organizational efforts by the parties.

Here is one example of this thinking:

The paper was authored by Michael Hout, a professor of sociology at U.C. Berkeley, and three other researchers. The analysis found a statistical relationship between electronic voting machines and votes for President Bush, which seems to have accounted for anywhere from 130,000 votes to 260,000 votes. Hout was not immediately available for comment.

Here's another:

Most people would have expected John Kerry's performance at the polls this year to be similar to Al Gore's in 2000. And in 229 out of 300 voting districts, or wards as they're called in New Hampshire, that was the case. Kerry either matched the percentage of votes that Gore received in 2000 in those wards or did better than Gore. But in 71 wards, Briggs found, Bush did better in 2004 than he did in 2000.

Interestingly, most of the allegations center around optical scan voting which leaves a paper trail. This is an exception. These researchers are looking at touch screen voting. Keith Olbermann (who is flogging this horse even while on vacation) says:

Hout and his research team consistently insisted they were not alleging that voting was rigged, nor even that what they’ve found actually affected the direction of Florida’s 27 Electoral Votes. They point out that in a worst-case scenario, they see 260,000 “excessives” - and Bush took the state by 350,000 votes. But they insist that based on Florida’s voting patterns in 1996 and 2000, the margin cannot be explained by successful get-out-the-vote campaigns, or income variables, or anything but something rotten in the touch screens.

Note that they only factored in two prior elections and failed to factor in the increase that Bush naturally gets as a sitting war president.

So, is there a problem. No, not according to the people doing a recount in New Hampshire.

The New Hampshire vote recount requested by independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader is still in progress, but preliminary results show no significant changes in the numbers.

So what's really going on with optical scan voting? The common points are rural, relatively poor counties that use optical scan voting. Analysis of the Florida counties showed that they have a high percentage of registered Democrats but they tend to vote Republican.

Maybe, instead of finding fraud, these statisticians are discovering two related facts:

1. Poor, rural counties register Democrat by tradition but vote Republican.
2. Poor rural counties often buy optical scan voting machines because they are cheaper than other alternatives.

Of course, statements like this from Nader's spokesman doesn't help.

Zeese said that ruling out voting machines as the problem in New Hampshire's results means "the problem was probably the Democrats."

"If we rule out the scapegoat of the machines, it just means more soul-searching on the part of the Democrats to figure out why they lost to the worst president in history," Zeese said. "You cannot assume that inconsistencies between exit polls and trends in voting or registration are going to turn out to show machine fraud. The Democrats really can be (just) as bad as they look."

Let's get over that "worst president in history" fixation. If Nader really believed this then he would have campaigned for Kerry himself.

Speaking of worst presidents.. the Clinton library opening gives us a chance to look back at Slick Willies record. After near-misses with Kerry and Gore, Clinton is looking better all the time. I don't think that I would call him a bad president. In 1999 he admitted that he was a "C" president and hoped to elevate himself to "B" status. His big initiative in 2000 was to try to establish a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine. Had he succeeded he would have gotten a Nobel Peace Prize. Arafat had other ideas so, failing to bring his grade up on the final, Clinton finished his term with a "C" average.

At best, Clinton's accomplishments were mixed. His assault weapon ban was meaningless. He provided extra finding to police although this mainly went for equipment, not extra manpower (also, he counted 10,000 cops for ten years each is not 100,000 cops). His welfare reforms seem to have worked pretty well.

Yes, he did balance the budget but that required an over-heated economy and cutbacks that left our military too small to properly occupy Iraq.

Yes, he did preside over a huge economic expansion but much of this was caused by Internet startups and a stock market that was way too high. The dot-coms are gone taking a lot of venture capital with them and the stoke market had its inevitable correction. Also, companies like Enron did most of their growth in the Clinton regulatory environment.

Foreign intervention was at a high point but Clinton was too risk-averse. The government that we placed in Haiti has already been overthrown. Bosnia and Kosovo are a mess, still a long way from fair democratic elections. Somalia is worse. Clinton's efforts to force a peace between Israel and the Palestinians provoked an intefada that is just now winding down. Clinton's weak reaction to terrorism encouraged Osama bin Laden to attack us in our homeland.

On a personal level, many of Clinton's associates in Arkansas were jailed over Whitewater. There might have been more to it but Clinton's people stonewalled to an amazing degree.

Clinton's personal life left much to be desired. In 1992 he pretty much admitted that he had played around but promised that those days were behind him. When he got caught with his pants down he lied to his wife, lied to the American people, and lied, under oath, to a grand jury.

His last acts in office were to pardon friends and benefactors and to loot the White House of furniture.

Maybe we should make that a "C-".