Election Reform, Fraud and Related News -->> Thursday, Jan 10 **SPECIAL NH REPORT**

[nashville_brook]

TODAY's Election Reform news thread will focus specially on issues surround the New Hampshire Primary since this is the explosive election reform issue of the day.

I want to say one thing as I compile the news from the inter-tubes: Election integrity isn't about who won and who lost in this primary. It's about the fairness and transparency of our elections in general. I'm disappointed in DU'ers throwing rhetorical bombs at the good folks working ER issues. Maybe YOUR candidate "won" this time. Maybe you personally "don't feel it" this time around -- THAT'S NOT THE POINT.

The point is that our elections are STILL determined by PROPRIETARY, TRADE SECRET machines. Just read the words of the capitalists who now run our elections:

"I feel very confident in the fact that the process itself is better left in the private venue than it is in the public venue when I see the influence that each political party can put on people and make things happen in this country, whether right or wrong...Would you like politically connected people to both parties to be in charge of running the process of creating voting machines, counting ballots, and you know, would you like that? I don’t know."

Last night on Dan Abrams show Rachael Maddow said two things that made me wonder if we were separated at birth. The first was "I'm a civics geek" (I thought I was the only one). The second, "I'm a cryer -- I cry at buskers and at the national anthem." Folks, I've wept reading the Constitution. It's a beautiful document that puts the fragility of freedom in our supposedly capable hands. The Constitution aimed to protect us from TWO basic evils: Theocracy and Oligarchy.

When "private business" runs our elections, we have already lost.

So, to all those who are satisfied with the results of THIS primary -- THERE'S 48 TO GO, AND THE GENERAL ELECTION. This isn't about whose candidate wins which race. We're playing in a much bigger field. We were given this democracy with the understanding that it's our responsibility to protect it. Evidence indicates that are doing a shitty job, and that should make us all weep.

peace, nashville_brook.


____________________________________


Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.
This is a participatory thread, so members are encouraged to jump in with story links and discussion!



This is a PARTICIPATORY thread -->>

1. Post stories, links and announcements you find on the web.

2. "Election Fraud and Reform News Sources" have been compiled here:
http://tinyurl.com/2mu3lv

3. Re-post stories and announcements you find on DU, providing a link to the original thread with thanks to the Original Poster, too.

4. Start a discussion thread by re-posting a story you see on this thread.



Please "Recommend" for the Greatest Page.

[nashville_brook]

1. Breakdown of MACHINE vs HAND COUNTED results -->>

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ron_corv_080109_new_hampshire_electi.htm

81% of New Hampshire ballots are counted in secret by a private corporation named Diebold Election Systems (now known as "Premier"). The elections run on these machines are programmed by one company, LHS Associates, based in Methuen, MA. We know nothing about the people programming these machines, and we know even less about LHS Associates. We know even less about the secret vote counting software used to tabulate 81% of our ballots.

2008 New Hampshire Democratic Primary Results
Total Democratic Votes: 286,139

Machine vs Hand
Hillary Clinton, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 39.618%
Clinton, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 34.908%

Barack Obama, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 36.309%
Obama, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 38.617%

Machine vs Hand:
Clinton: 4.709% (13,475 votes)
Obama: -2.308% (-6,604 votes)

___________________



2008 New Hampshire Republican Primary Results
Total Republican Votes: 236,378

Machine vs Hand
Mitt Romney, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 33.075%
Romney, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 25.483%
Ron Paul, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 7.109%
Paul, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 9.221%

Machine vs Hand:
Romney: 7.592% (17,946 votes)
Paul: -2.112% (-4,991 votes)

[Mountainman]

3. If the machine counted votes and the hand counted votes are not the same votes from the same place

there is no comparison that is valid. If you are saying the percentage should be the same from both counting methods and the votes counted are from different parts of the state then what you are saying is not valid.

You can only make a valid comparison of two systems if they counted the exact same votes with both methods.
I don't think that anyone who is in this argument inferring fraud or no fraud has real hard evidence either way.

Here's the thing that gets me. If there is fraud there has to be individuals involved and a methodology involved. At some point in time someone would leak information or be an informant. You would have to say that everyone other than the voter is in a conspiracy to keep the information secret.

I do believe there is voter fraud and manipulation of elections. It is what gave John Kennedy the win over Nixon. The temptation and the stakes are high and people will do anything to win.

But as yet I have not seen evidence of how it is done.

We need to pressure our representatives to get rid of electronic voting systems. We should only have paper ballots machine counted and samples verified by hand counts. Elections should take place over a number of days so charges of fraud can be checked out before the voting ends.

Systems and workers need to be rehearsed before the elections and fairness issues resolved before the actual election.

We can do a lot to limit the amount of fraud but I doubt that we will ever eliminate it.

[philly_bob]

9. Link: Pollsters discussing what went wrong.

From ElectionIntegrity email list:

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/new_hampshire_so_what_happened.php

Discussion of different explanations for NH anomalies:

1. Last minute shift
2. Too many independents
3. Wrong likely voters
4. Bradley/Wilder effect (pollees say they will vote for black when they really won't)
5. Non-response bias
6. Ballot placement
7. Weekend interviewing
8. Fraud

To my mind, the key quote in the comments is one from Mark Blumenthal, who wrote the original message:

"The network exit poll results that we see online are always weighted to bring the overall result into line with the actual count. That's standard practice, and something I explained in detail here. The one and only place that the results are not similarly reweighted is for the Iowa Caucuses."

(The "here" links to http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/11/the_difference_.html)

To me, this means that all arguments regarding fraud based on weighted exit polls are invalid.

Edit: Should have linked to OP.

[nashville_brook]

2. Chris Matthews on exit poll data -->>

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5535

Chris Matthews: Raw EXIT POLL Data 'Indicated Significant Victory' for Obama in NH
'Was Ahead an Average of 8 Points, Even in Our Own Exit Polls'


Even the Exit Polls showed that Obama should have won, according to Chris Matthews on Hardball today. It's the first specific indication that we've seen that the raw, unadjusted Exit Poll data, which only corporate mainstream media folks, not mere mortals, are allowed to see, confirmed all of the pre-election polling which predicted an Obama win.

(snip)

The 600 lb. canary in the virtual living room...the fact that no human being has bothered to check what was actually on NH's vast majority of ballots (80%) which were "counted" by error-prone, hackable Diebold optical-scan machines, all controlled by one bad, horribly irresponsible private company, who has no business being anywhere near a public election.

We've yet to see that raw Exit data ourselves, as mentioned. But we're working on it. Even while we're still working on getting the never-released raw data from 2004, when the Exit Polls were done then, as now, by Mitofsky/Edison.

(snip)

Did anything go wrong in New Hampshire? Who knows? The Pre-Election Polling indicates it did. The unadjusted Exit Polling, at least according to Matthews, indicates it did. But until we realize we need to actually count ballots --- openly and transparently --- in our American elections, we expect these same questions and nightmares will continue, over and over and over, for a very long time to come...

[nashville_brook]

4. NH Diebold exec convicted of NARCOTICS TRAFFICKING

(this is one of the BradBlog articles that cites BBV. I'm posting it because it's posted as "fact" that can be checked. If true, this is shocking. I'll be looking for secondary sources on this, but don't let me stand in your way -- if you have any info on this claim, please post -- brook)


http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5537

New Docs: Exec at NH's Diebold Vote Counting Firm Convicted of Narcotics Trafficking
Ken Hajjar, Director of Diebold's Exclusive Sales & Service Provider in New England Pled Guilty to Criminal Charges in 90's
Does the Sec. of State of NH --- or CT or MA or VT or ME --- Even Know About It?...

Does the Secretary of State of New Hampshire have any idea that a key executive in the private firm that programs and "counts" 80% of the state's ballots on hackable, error-prone Diebold voting machines is a convicted narcotics trafficker?

In 1990, Ken Hajjar, the Director of Sales and Marketing for LHS Associates, and childhood friend of company owner John Silvestro, was arrested and pled guilty to charges which earned him a 12 month sentence, according to documents received via a public records request and posted this evening at BlackBoxVoting.org.

LHS Associates ...programs "every single voting machine in New Hampshire, Connecticut, almost all of Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine."

SNIP)

[nashville_brook]

5. Long lines and scarce (democratic) ballots in NH primary

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=The+scene%3A+Lines+were+long%2C+ballots+ran+short&articleId=c1cc38b9-7d39-46d5-b177-b071f306bd16

The scene: Lines were long, ballots ran short

By JOHN WHITSON
New Hampshire Union Leader Staff
Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008

Lines formed early, remained solid throughout the warm, sunny day, and late arrivals had to be turned away. It was an historic presidential primary vote in New Hampshire, as a record number of residents - nearly 500,000 - cast ballots.

(snip)

When polls opened at 6 a.m. in Manchester, there was already a long line and a 20-minute wait outside Brookside Congregational Church in Ward 1.

Anyone in place by 7 p.m., said clerk Dianne Beaton, was allowed to vote, but an election official stepped in line to mark the endpoint and turn away late arrivals.
(snip)

Some city and town clerks were running low on Democratic ballots by mid-afternoon.

(snip)

[nashville_brook]

6. Slashdot Firehose reporting the BBV story

here:
http://politics.slashdot.org/politics/08/01/10/1635225.shtml

"Multiple indications of vote fraud are beginning to pop up regarding the New Hampshire primary elections. Roughly 80% of New Hampshire precincts use Diebold machines, while the remaining 20% are hand counted. A Black Box Voting contributor has compiled a chart of results from hand counted precincts vs. results from machine counted precincts. In machine counted precincts, Clinton beat Obama by almost 5%. In hand counted precincts, Obama beat Clinton by over 4%, which closely matches the scientific polls that were conducted leading up to the election. Another issue is the Republican results from Sutton precinct. The final results showed Ron Paul with 0 votes in Sutton. The next day a Ron Paul supporter came forward claiming that both she and several of her family members had voted for Ron Paul in Sutton. Black Box Voting reports that after being asked about the discrepancy Sutton officials decided that Ron Paul actually received 31 votes in Sutton, but they were left off of the tally sheet due to 'human error.'"

[nashville_brook]

7. Editor and Publisher reports that an MSM columnist in on NH Diebold story

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/departments/syndicates/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003694987

Columnist: Was There Electoral Fraud in New Hampshire?

By E&P Staff

Published: January 10, 2008 11:40 AM ET

NEW YORK Bob Koehler, one of the few mainstream-media commentators to often discuss possibly tainted voting results, is addressing the issue once again in his column of today.

In most cases since 2000, Republicans have been the ones suspected of computer hacking, voter suppression, and the like. But Koehler's column addresses the results of Tuesday's Democratic primary in New Hampshire, where Hillary Rodham Clinton was a surprise winner over Barack Obama.

"Before we get too enthusiastic about feminist solidarity or wax knowingly about New Hampshire Democrats' traditional soft-heartedness toward the Clinton family," wrote Koehler, "let's ponder yet again the possibility of tainted results...."

(snip)

"So when she emerged from the Tuesday primary with an 8,000-vote and three-percentage-point victory over Obama, perhaps -- considering the notorious unreliability, not to mention hackability, of Diebold machines -- the media might have hoisted a few red flags in the coverage, rather than immediately chalk the results up to Clinton’s tears and voter unpredictability."

[nashville_brook]

8. Chicago Tribune columnist picks up BBV story

http://www.commonwonders.com/

Primary Concerns
Hoisting a few red flags about the elections

By ROBERT C. KOEHLER
Tribune Media Services

January 10, 2008


(SNIP)

So when she emerged from the Tuesday primary with an 8,000-vote and 3-percentage-point victory over Obama, perhaps — considering the notorious unreliability, not to mention hackability, of Diebold machines — the media might have hoisted a few red flags in the coverage, rather than immediately chalk the results up to Clinton’s tears and voter unpredictability. (Oh, if only more reporters considered red flags patriotic.)

The fact is, whatever actually happened in New Hampshire voting booths on Tuesday, our elections are horrifically insecure. For instance, Bev Harris, of the highly respected voting watchdog organization Black Box Voting, recently wrote that the Diebold 1.94w optical scan machines used in some 55 percent of New Hampshire precincts (representing more than 80 percent of the state’s voters) are “the exact same make, model and version hacked in the Black Box Voting project in Leon County (Florida)” a few years ago. They haven’t been upgraded; the security problems haven’t been fixed.

National, or at least media, denial about this situation doesn’t say much for the strength of our democracy.

(snip)

[nashville_brook]

10. Boston NOW reporting "major allegations of fraud"

http://www.bostonnow.com/blogs/boston911truthorg/2008/01/09/major-allegations-of-vote-fraud-in-new-hampshire

Major allegations of vote fraud in New Hampshire are circulating after Hillary Clinton reversed a mammoth pre-polling deficit to defeat Barack Obama with the aid of Diebold electronic voting machines, while confirmed votes for Ron Paul in the Sutton district were not even counted.

According to a voter in Sutton, New Hampshire, three of her family members voted for Ron Paul, yet when she checked the voting map on the Politico website, the total votes for Ron Paul were zero. With 100% of precincts now reporting, the map still says zero votes for Ron Paul as you can see below.




It's not as if Sutton had a handful of voters like some other districts - a total of 386 people voted yet we are led to believe that not one voted for Ron Paul? Judging by the Iowa results, around 10% of residents would be expected to vote for the Congressman, returning a total of around 38 votes in this district. Let's be ultra-conservative and say just 5% support Paul - he'd still get 19 votes - but he got absolutely none whatsoever. Is there something wrong with this picture?

(snip)

[helderheid]

11. WOW! No Ron Paul votes? No Gravel votes? not 1?

Looks like more than one person there!

[nashville_brook]

12. reminds me of the race in 04 where zero votes were tabulated for a mayoral

candidate who insists he voted for himself.

i really hate Ron Paul and i have zero respect for his cult -- but -- if people say they voted for the nut and there's zero votes for him, something isn't right.

[Mnemosyne]

13. I believe it was done by the neocons to induce more voter apathy. jmo.

Thanks for the great thread NB! :hi:

:kick:

Was reading elsewhere on DU, an account of three known votes for Paul never counted. How many more are unknown?!

Freakin crooks.

[Kurovski]

14. Kick to the top!

Hoo-boy. I had a hard time finding you! Thanks :thumbsup:

[Wilms]

15. Kick n/t

[Kurovski]

16. Kick. (nt)

[Samantha]

17. I am a civics geek originally from TN -- surprised I have not

bumped into you before. We posted some similar thoughts on Thursday night around 10:00 pm; so needless to say, I appreciate your thread and agree with everything you say.

Sam