Uncounted

An answer to the assault on voting rights—crucial reading in light of the 2020 presidential election The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is considered one of the most effective pieces of legislation the United States has ever passed. It enfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters, particularly in the American South, and drew attention to the problem of voter suppression. Yet in recent years there has been a continuous assault on access to the ballot box in the form of stricter voter ID requirements, meritless claims of rigged elections, and baseless accusations of voter fraud. In the past these efforts were aimed at eliminating African American voters from the rolls, and today, new laws seek to eliminate voters of color, the poor, and the elderly, groups that historically vote for the Democratic Party. Uncounted examines the phenomenon of disenfranchisement through the lens of history, race, law, and the democratic process. Gilda R. Daniels, who served as Deputy Chief in the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and has more than two decades of voting rights experience, argues that voter suppression works in cycles, constantly adapting and finding new ways to hinder access for an exponentially growing minority population. She warns that a premeditated strategy of restrictive laws and deceptive practices has taken root and is eroding the very basis of American democracy—the right to vote!

What we count matters - and in a world where policies and decisions are underpinned by numbers, statistics and data, if you’re not counted, you don’t count. Alex Cobham argues that systematic gaps in economic and demographic data not only lead us to understate a wide range of damaging inequalities, but also to actively exacerbate them. He shows how, in statistics ranging from electoral registers to household surveys and census data, people from disadvantaged groups, such as indigenous populations, women, and disabled people, are consistently underrepresented. This further marginalizes them, reducing everything from their political power to their weight in public spending decisions. Meanwhile, corporations and the ultra-rich seek ever greater complexity and opacity in their financial affairs - and when their wealth goes untallied, it means they can avoid regulation and taxation. This brilliantly researched book shows how what we do and don’t count is not a neutral or ‘technical’ question: the numbers that rule our world are skewed by raw politics. Cobham forensically lays bare how these issues strike at the heart of our democracy, entrenching inequality and injustice – and outlines what we can do about it.

It humanizes high-level debates over indicators and data in development aid, showing how they are used to make life-or-death decisions.

Open Secrets contests the dominant influences of utilitarianism, expressive individualism, and imperatives to self-improvement by examining a series of texts in which "nothing happens" and arguing that these works, far from hiding from narrative demands, make an open secret of fulfilled experience and yield a revelation without insistence or rhetorical underscoring.

In 2004, John Kerry appeared to be a clear winner based on the exit polls. But the recorded vote counts deviated sharply from the polls and were too one-sided to attribute to mere chance. The political pundits claimed the polls “behaved badly”, calling the three million Bush margin a “mandate”. They failed to report the impossible late adjustments made to the National, Florida and Ohio exit polls that were necessary to force them to match the recorded vote. Spreadsheet-wielding Internet bloggers analyzed the statistical anomalies. Online election forums were aflame with debates about state and national pre-election and exit polls, Bush approval ratings, margins of error, non-response, past vote recall, correlation between vote swing from 2000 and the exit poll shift, the counter-intuitive Bush gain over his 2000 vote share in urban locations compared to the decline in rural areas (the "Urban Legend"). But the “Smoking Gun” was the Final National Exit Poll, which indicated that there were four million more returning Bush 2000 voters than were alive in 2004. This “phantom voter” anomaly has never been discussed by pundits in the media or political scientists in academia, even though similar anomalies occurred in 1988, 1992 and 2008. The media pundits still claim that the recorded vote is correct (and the exit polls wrong) despite millions of uncounted votes in every election. This book is a comprehensive resource for analyzing presidential elections from 1968 to 2008, including the 2006 midterms. It is written for readers of virtually all backgrounds. The only requirement is an inquisitive, open mind. The True Vote is estimated using basic statistical modeling that is for some reason avoided in the media and academia. Internet links to several election analysis spreadsheet models are provided in the book and are free to download.

Daughter of gold commissioner and later judge, Mary was the first woman to be educated at the University of Melbourne. She travelled widely and lived half her life in Europe, but wrote extensively about Australia, as well as travel books and many short stories and articles. Her works describe life in the goldfields, in the bush and in the squatter settlements of the colonies, particularly the lives of women. "The Uncounted Cost" is one of several works she wrote that reflected her travels and her view of cultures other than her own.

Have you ever wondered how you can bring greater depth and clarity to your Tarot readings? Have you struggled to understand just what exactly is going on in your card readings, and how the cards relate to the object of the reading?For the first time, this book shows how the professionals use secret techniques that take Tarot readings to new and exciting levels. It goes beyond the surface levels of the Tarot spread and explores the hidden depths. It explains how to decode those parts of a Tarot spread that seem to make no sense and how to break out of readings that seem to have become "stuck". Using the power of the elemental symbolism of the cards, combined with numerological techniques, this book cracks the "celtic cross" spread wide open to reveal exciting new levels of insight.Paul Hughes-Barlow is a master Tarot reader and occultist. He has previously published The Tarot and the Magus. Catherine Chapman is a Tarot reader, author, student, business woman and mother.

This cutting-edge text offers an introduction to the emerging field of media archaeology and analyses the innovative theoretical and artistic methodology used to excavate current media through its past. Written with a steampunk attitude, What is Media Archaeology? examines the theoretical challenges of studying digital culture and memory and opens up the sedimented layers of contemporary media culture. The author contextualizes media archaeology in relation to other key media studies debates including software studies, German media theory, imaginary media research, new materialism and digital humanities. What is Media Archaeology? advances an innovative theoretical position while also presenting an engaging and accessible overview for students of media, film and cultural studies. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the interdisciplinary ties between art, technology and media.