Does PolitiFact Have A Sibling, Dr. PolitiScience?
The Internets are clogged with postings questioning that Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus' technical explanation for her failure to record and publish Brookfield's votes.
She said the save function on MicroSoft Access, her election data program, wouldn't record and save the Brookfield data.
"Nickolaus explained that when she got Brookfield's results the second time in the correct format, she failed to save it. So when she totaled the results for the unofficial final report Tuesday, Brookfield's total was not included and she didn't realize it"But Internet skeptics are claiming that MS Access automatically saves data.
Some of the Internet posters are above my pay grade when it comes to computer software.
Anyone without a dog in this hunt care to take this on?
4 comments:
There is no definitive answer. As proven by Microsoft Access Help and eHow, both of whom presumably do not have dogs in this hunt.
http://www.ehow.com/how_4707789_autosave-microsoft-office-documents-seconds.html
http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=50337
It is up to the programmer/user, completely dependent on how her own system was set up. Whether it was set to Autosave at the default 10 minute intervals, or much more frequently, or not at all (requiring manual Save all the time)
We don't know, and she can easily lie.
A real answer to this situation will require successful forensic analysis of her very Naughty Computer by Hunters Without Dogs.
I'm an engineering student, actually from brookfield (currently studying elsewhere in WI). In my engineering programe we're required to take a computer literacy class. You never have to save your work in Access after the original file, if you enter something it stays. This is actually something they warn you about, that you should save redundant files, because if you screw up and enter junk, it stays. That is more likely what happened, she mixed up the redundant with the original, or she's a lier. Either incompetent or corrupt, she should be fired either way after this.
Thanks very much.
This is what I have heard about Access from day one, that its Auto-Save function shows that she lies. And this is why there must be a high-level investigation with the resources to call on computer pros.
Now, I also wondered: Is it possible that both files became "redundant" and that Brookfield could have been double-counted? I'm not sure how, but any idiocy seems possible with Nickolaus -- including that this could be a way to deliberately do a double-count.
And that doing so would be nothing new, explaining the incredible turnout levels claimed in Waukesha County. Impossible turnout, actually, for -- say -- only three percent of eligible voters ill, out of town, etc.? I'd like to know if ANY other county in the entire country ever has had turnout at the 97% level, and I wonder why no media have checked on that.
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