Hand counts differ significantly from Diebold counts in NH

[JMDEM]

More Questions About Diebold Voting Machines
Did Hillary Really Win New Hampshire?
By DAVE LINDORFF

Could someone have messed with the vote in New Hampshire?

That is what some people are wondering, after looking closely at the totals in the votes for surprise Democratic primary victor Hillary Clinton, and for Barack Obama, who placed instead of winning as all the polls had predicted he would. And thanks to candidate Dennis Kucinich, we are likely to find out. Kucinich today filed a request, and a required $2000 fee, to order up a manual recount of the machine ballots cast in the state.

Polls taken as late as the day before the Tuesday vote showed Obama up by 10 to 15 points over Clinton, whom he had just beaten the week before in Iowa, but when the votes were counted, Clinton ended up beating Obama in New Hampshire 39.4 per cent to 36.8 per cent. In a replay of what happened in Ohio in 2004, exit polling reportedly also showed Obama to be winning the New Hampshire primary.

When that's not what happened, shocked polling firms and surprised pundits, all of whom had been expecting a big Obama win, were left stumbling for explanations for the Hillary comeback from an 8 per cent drubbing in Iowa (even the Clinton campaign, whose own internal polling had predicted her defeat, were at a loss). Explanations ranged from her teary eyed final public appearance before primary day and some sexist heckling she had received, to dark talk about a wave of hidden racism in the voting booth.

But there were anomalies in the numbers that have some people suggesting something else: vote fraud.

What has had eyebrows raised is a significant discrepancy between the vote counts done by voting machine, and the ones done by hand.

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff01112008.html

[Bonobo]

1. IBTM.

[aquart]

2. Count away.

I'd love to have been in on the discussions about this between Kucinich and Obama's campaign.

[Radical Activist]

3. That headline is a little misleading.

I thought they were claiming a hand recount showed a different result than the machine count. But its really saying that different areas voted differently, which is true in every election. When a hand recount of machine ballots shows a discrepancy then let us know.

[JMDEM]

6. Read the full article. NT.

[Radical Activist]

9. I did.

The headline is misleading.

[SoxFan]

4. Yes, there are differences, but...

The discrepancies have to do with the political and demographic nature of the towns that use hand counts. The Democrats in hand count towns tend to be wealthier, more educated, and waspier than Democrats in the larger communities.

I will guarantee you that when the scanner ballots are hand counted, there will be no indication that the vote was rigged.

The people who are yapping about the discrepancy are people with no understanding of new Hampshire election procedures or the state's political demography.

[JMDEM]

8. The full article disputes these premises

"The discrepancies have to do with the political and demographic nature of the towns that use hand counts. The Democrats in hand count towns tend to be wealthier, more educated, and waspier than Democrats in the larger communities."

the article disputes these premises.

[DLnyc]

59. So you're saying "wealthier, more educated, and waspier" voters favor Obama?

'Cuz the article says Obama did better in the hand-count areas. I would think "wealthier, more educated, and waspier" voters would tend to favor Clinton, not Obama. Do you know if college towns (Dartmouth and ??) were hand-count or machine?

[SoxFan]

60. College towns

The academic towns themselves are all quite large and use scanners. Durham (UNH), Hanover (Dartmouth), Keene (Keene St.), Plymouth (Plymouth St.), Henniker (New England College), Rindge (Franklin Pierce), and Exeter (Phillips Exeter Academy) all use a machine count.

Obama carried all these communities except for Rindge, which Clinton carried narrowly.

The voting patterns in most of the hand count towns have historically tracked closely with those in the college towns. Obama, Howard Dean, Bill Bradley, Mark Fernald, and John Rauh, reformist, anti-party establishment candidates, all did far better here.

[ixion]

5. these things always work in one direction-in favor of the more conservative candidate

imagine that.

[Bluerthanblue]

7. Hand counts are mainly from small towns- like mine- Machine counts

are typically from the cities.

Exit polling shows that the voters tended to vote as the counts say they are.

I wouldn't mind being wrong- but I don't think it will show that I am.

:hi:

[JMDEM]

12. And the article explains...

That historically, the reverse of what was observed should have happened. The larger demographic areas that used the optical scanners has a higher percentage of Obama supporters than the rural areas -- younger people, minorities, etc. Yet it was these larger demographic areas that went for Hillary. ??????

[doublethink]

19. Thank you for saying what I was looking into ......

and was researching these county's where Hillary won in the machine vote. Is there such a thing as polls broken down by 'County' .... before the vote took place. I have yet to find that information. Interesting stuff. Peace.

[Bluerthanblue]

21. and the exit polls show that the metropolitan areas voted for

Hillary in larger #'s.

I don't think we can rely on "historical" data to understand what is happening in the US today. Especially when "poll"s are concerned.

The "exit-polls" ask people what they have already done- It isn't a "judgment" call. Nothing can sway their vote after it has been cast- sure people could intentionally lie, but I don't hold much truck with that.

I have a REAL problem with all the 'media' polls that are being blasted all over. I'm convinced that they can manipulate people- even on "subliminal levels"-

Look at our society. People are followers by nature. Not to say that we aren't capable of independent thought- but I do know many people who get their "facts" from news bites on radio and TV which quite often are skewed to present a biased perspective, without appearing to.

Like I said, I have no problem with the concept that maybe the machine counts were wrong- I'm VERY glad that DK asked for a recount and admire his willingness to challenge it for the peace of mind and necessary trust that voters need to have in the process.

It's just that the rural vs. metro vote splits pretty accurately with how I have heard people say they have voted.

Thanks for the good article though- :hi:

[bonito]

10. Blackbox voting has a good article

here http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

[Stewie]

11. Jesus Christ, there's no "discrepancy."

Every vote in New Hampshire is cast on paper ballots. About 80% of the state counts them using optical scanners. Those tend to be in the more urbanized areas, which supported "establishment" candidates John Kerry in 2004 and Hillary Clinton in 2008. The other 20%, usually rural precincts that went for "anti-establishment" candidates Howard Dean in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008, count them by hand.

There's no "discrepancy." Precincts that tend to like centrist candidates tended to vote for the centrist candidate and precincts that tend to like the more liberal candidate tended to vote for the more liberal candidate. It just so happens they also tend to use two different devices to tally their paper ballots.

You can see the same thing with any voting technology. The more expensive technology tends to be used where they can afford it, and the less expensive technology tends to be used where funds are limited. Why then would there be any surprise that those two places vote differently? It's like comparing optical scan counts in Waco with hand-counted ballots in Austin, and then claiming there must be thousands of liberal activists at the Bible college in Waco having their votes switched to Republican.

I swear threads like these make me want national mental health care.

[jaysunb]

14. Did you read the article ?

n/t

[Stewie]

23. Yes I read the article. Three times now.

There's nothing in it that refutes anything I stated, other than the author's disbelief that the more urbanized precincts would support Clinton over Obama, which demonstrates a complete ignorance of New Hampshire.

Unlike Texas or California, rural New Hampshire vs. urban New Hampshire isn't tobacco-chewing guys on tractors vs. minorities and young professionals. The rural precincts in New Hampshire tend to be the long-time residents who are anti-establishment. They supported Dean in 2004, and stuck with the anti-establishment candidate by supporting Obama in 2008. The more urban precincts tend to be transplants from New York and Massachusetts who tend to support the establishment candidate, Kerry in 2004 and Clinton in 2008.

[JMDEM]

15. Typical --- calling those who disagree with you mentally incompetent. Typical.

Did you actually read the article? It disputes your claims pretty well.

As far as the "paper ballots" -- well, if Kucinich hadn't challenged the election, then NOBODY would have EVER seen those. NOBODY. You call that fair?

[Stewie]

18. Yes, I did read the article. Twice.

And I stick by my statement. You have to be mentally defective to have watched the election and think it was "fraud." I grew up on the Texas/Louisiana border and have watched voter fraud take place. I've helped run elections with optical scanners.

There's no voter fraud, just a small band of Internet folks with a loose grip on reality and an unwillingness to admit they lost an election. The polling was flawed, Clinton got favorable media coverage after her Iowa defeat and her crying, New Hampshire voters don't like the media telling them who to vote for and independents turned out in droves to stick it to the conventional wisdom.

[annabanana]

22. Do you know the difference between "voter fraud" and

"election fraud"?

[Stewie]

25. I'm using the term "voter fraud" because that's what everyone else is using.

I'm VERY familiar with both, as I've seen both. Neither one happened here. The establishment candidate beat the anti-establishment candidate because she was the beneficiary of a "sympathy vote" in a state that doesn't like being told by the media whom to vote for.

But that's too difficult to process for some people whose grip on reality is already shaky, so they concoct wild conspiracy theories.

[JMDEM]

31. Face it -- your candidate "Won", so you don't want to look at it. NT.

[Stewie]

33. No, my candidate was Richardson.

I don't care for Hillary and won't be supporting her now that he's out.

[FogerRox]

58. Then you should know that voter fraud is an extremely rare thing compared to election fraud

[percussivemadness]

27. Those tend to be in the more urbanized areas, which supported "establishment" candidates John Kerry

Yes....go figure huh?

You are starting with the assumption that Kerry won fairly and squarely, despite the fact Dean was way ahead in the polls.

I know this may be difficult, but try thinking outside the box... What if Kerry didn`t win fairly and squarely? Wouldn`t that explain his reluctance to challenge the obvious voter fraud in Ohio that cost the Dems the election and the country 4 more years of hell? I know its sacrilege to ask this simple question on this board.....

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me...

Thank God for Dennis Kucinich, thats all I can say.

Peace

[Stewie]

35. Just goes to prove what I always say...

..confront a conspiracy nut with irrefutable facts, and they change their conspiracy theory to make THAT part of the conspiracy.

[percussivemadness]

37. so....apart from the fact this has been written about for 4 years

why exactly did John Kerry walk from challenging the Ohio result? There is no doubt this was a fraudulent result. Why were the opinion polls so wrong? BTW Don`t quote me any studies that show why the polls were wrong, that start on the basis that it was the polling and not the fraud that was the problem.

just because the facts don`t fit into your little reality bubble, doesn`t make me the "conspiracy nut".

peace

[Stewie]

46. So Internet nuts writing stuff on the Internet "proves" things?

Polls have been off for years and getting worse. Pollsters are tearing their hair out trying to hone their methods.

Do you have any actual evidence that the vote was "stolen" other than a fourth-hand story from someone who claims the machine "switched" her vote, when actually she just touched the wrong button on a touch screen? I do it all the time at the ATM.

Here's a conspiracy for you. All this "the vote was stolen!" stuff that pops up every time we lose an election is being started by the Republicans to make us look like mentally ill wackos who can't be trusted to be in office.

[percussivemadness]

48. Do you have any actual evidence that the vote was "stolen"

are you on crack? I think you are the Republican....

Try this link for starters - http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4266- "CLEVELAND (AP) - Two county election workers were sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in prison for rigging a recount of 2004 presidential election ballots so they could avoid a longer, detailed review." - So even the recount was rigged..... But I`m the conspiracy nut eh?

Alternatively, try doing the following google search "vote fraud + 2004 US election"

see you next year some time...

or as is more likely, you will put ur fingers in ur ears and go "lalalalalalalalalalal, I`m not listening"

peace

[SoCalDem]

45. New Hampshire is a small state, and since the ballots are all paper

this is an EXCELLENT state to hand recount..if for no other reason, than to prove the results were correct.,.

Bravo dennis.

[Stewie]

50. Which blows another hole in the bat-shit nuttery.

Why "hack" an election when there are paper ballots with the actual votes, and in a small state where the number isn't too big to count.

But I'm sure when the recount backs us the actual results the conspiracy nuts will cook up a story about how the recount is hacked too. Anything that refutes their conspiracy is clearly fake and must be part of the conspiracy too.

You can't win an argument with people who've invented their own reality and change it from minute to minute to avoid facing the real world.

[percussivemadness]

53. lalalalalalalalala - the world is fine and no facts will prove otherwise

CLEVELAND (AP) - Two county election workers were sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in prison for rigging a recount of 2004 presidential election ballots so they could avoid a longer, detailed review.

peace

[SoCalDem]

54. Which only re-inforces the fact that this is a good idea

Counts & outcome match.....no harm no foul
they don't..........and we KNOW then that the optiscan machines "can" be monkeyed with, and ONLY paper ballots..hand counted should be allowed..

that gives people time to spilt large precincts into smaller (easier to count) and or to import some Canadians, who have a good record at counting ballots.. :evilgrin:

[doublethink]

56. Who's 'us' ?

:shrug:

[AzDar]

13. Goddamn. Is it singularly falling upon Dennis K. to save this country?

Maybe he SHOULD be President.

[Desertrose]

51. Seems more & more that if he was, we'd get some truth & action. n/t

[dkofos]

16. Never underestimate the power of the dlc

[Stewie]

17. The ballot order was also randomized from precinct to precinct.

You would need to "hack" every machine in every precinct across the state to steal the election, since Clinton's name is in a different place on the ballot. The machine doesn't have the magical power to read text and know to give all the votes to "Clinton." It just reads where the oval is filled in and credits a vote to whatever candidate is on that line.

You can't just turn a key and steal all the votes when every precinct has a different ballot order.

Could it just possibly be that the pre-election polls were off because they only interviewed what they determined to be "likely" voters, and turnout saw and explosive showing by unlikely voters? That may be why the exit polls closely matched the results but the pre-election polls didn't.

That, and the fact people are dropping their landline phones for cell, and use call-blocking and caller ID to avoid calls from pollsters that the results are skewed? Especially since polling has been getting worse and the pollsters themselves openly gripe about it?

I love the people on here who claim a flawed method of selecting a few people from a bad sample is a more accurate indicator of election results than the actual paper ballots the votes are cast on.

[JMDEM]

24. I've explained this before...

It's not a matter of where the candidate's name appears on a ballot. It has to do with the programming of the insertable program cards.

Each card is "burned" for a given election with code to handle that election. No matter WHERE a candidate's name appears, the code can EASILY be modified to "flip" a certain percentage of the vote. And the same code can be burned into every card VERY EASILY.

And not very many votes have to be flipped. Each vote flip represents a 2-vote swing. So to create a 10% vote change, you actually only need to change 5% of the vote. 1 out of every 20.

Here's how you do it. Let's say Obama's name gets registered as the vote (no matter where it appears on the ballot). The machine sees "Obama" regardless of ballot order. If Obama has received 4 votes up to that point, you flip the 5th vote. It goes to Clinton.

If (voteString.equals("Obama"))
{
ObamaTempCount = ObamaTempCount + 1;
if (ObamaTempCount == 5)
{
ClintonCount = ClintonCount + 1;
// no addition to ObamaCount
ObamaTempCount = 0;
}
}

On edit -- sorry for the lack of indentation of the code. I put it in, but then it won't appear in the posted message.

[Stewie]

32. Have you ever run an election with optical scanners?

The machine DOES NOT "see" the name "Obama." It "sees" a filled-in oval and credits a vote to the line next to that oval, and that line is for a different candidate in every precinct. The machine tallies up the votes assigned to each line and prints what to it is just random alphabetical characters, but reads as the candidate's name to us. You can't just magically tell the machine to read the name "Obama" and take away all his votes.

I suggest you spend less time getting your information from Internet websites that ask you for donations by making up wild stories and trying to impress people with "computer code" and mathematical equations that don't reflect reality.

[JMDEM]

36. And exactly how do you know that this is the way it is done?

Did you write the code?

Face it, you have no idea what is going on with that code. No idea. You just speculate. Somewhere in that code, the machine has to know which candidate is assigned to which line.

And as far as impressing people, too bad you are failing so miserably. At least I try to explain things. Why don't you try to explain things objectively, instead of insulting those that disagree with you?

Exactly why are you so opposed at really figuring out what is going on? Because your favorite candidate won? You are no better than a Kool-aid drinking Republican then.

[Stewie]

41. Ugh.

There is are names assigned to the lines, but the machine is not a sentient being that can read English and can be told to steal votes for alphabetical characters. It reads the ovals and assigns them to the lines. You can hack the machine to assign more or less votes to each line, but when Clinton's or Obama's name is on a different line in each precinct and programmed in by the people working that precinct you'd have to hire an army of thousands to do it.

Who do you think knows more about these machines? Someone who's been working elections for 12 years or someone who just reads Internet websites run by people who make money by terrorizing people with election fraud conspiracies.

The machines CAN be hacked, which is why I prefer hand-counted paper ballots, but they weren't hacked in this election.

[foo_bar]

47. is that the Hursti Hack or Hello World?

If (voteString.equals("Obama"))
{
ObamaTempCount = ObamaTempCount + 1;
if (ObamaTempCount == 5)
{
ClintonCount = ClintonCount + 1;
// no addition to ObamaCount
ObamaTempCount = 0;
}
}

You should see the ++ operator.

Face it, you have no idea what is going on with that code. No idea. You just speculate.

Fortunately, there's no need:

Each candidate and race has a unique identifier. The candidates for each race are
encoded together with an (x,y) coordinate (cf. Figure 6), which corresponds to the bubble on the paper ballot
sheet that the voters mark in order to vote for that particular candidate.

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:Zq96YkKeeiUJ:voter.engr.uconn.edu/voter/Report-OS_files/uconn_report-os.pdf

[RC]

40. The machine has to know where each and every candidate is on the ballot,

otherwise how would it know who to give the vote to?
It is easy to hack the machines through the memory card, regardless of the order of the candidates on the ballot. Computers only understand numbers, not names. Each item on the ballot has a number assorted with it, then just shuffle the candidate's numbers for a different order at each polling place, the names and data will follow. The programing can and is the same for all voting machines. For the hack, just have the computer apply its secret formula to the data for the candidate's number that you want to influence. It is that simple. Too simple really.

[Stewie]

44. The machine does not "know" candidates.

It knows lines, and whomever working that precinct who programs the ballot in assigns each line to a candidate. Since the ballot order is different in every precinct the formula is different in every precinct.

You can hack it, but you would have to hack every single precinct. And I still have yet to see someone present actual evidence it actually happened, other than far-off assumptions based on media polls that have a history of being wrong.

This kind of bat-shit conspiracy nuttery is going to drag down the Democratic Party the same way it's killing Ron Paul's campaign. People won't vote for candidates who are surrounded by mental cases.

[RC]

49. Have you ever done any programing?

Doesn't sound like it.
The computer knows lines and also knows variables and $trings. One hacked computer program can influance every similar voting machine in the state.

[Stewie]

52. Yes I have. I run elections using optical scan ballots.

You would have to hack every precinct.

And I still have YET to see someone present any actual evidence election fraud happened, other than temper tantrums and conspiracy theories.

[doublethink]

57. Who do you run elections for?

Just curious? :shrug:

[Brentos]

55. I thought...

I thought I saw an article that this was their first election where the candidates were not randomized, and that Clinton was 2nd, I believe and Obama was about last on the list on every ballot. Did anyone else read this? (I don't have time to hunt it down).

[Rockholm]

20. Love the "some people" are wondering line.

I'm not wondering.

[JMDEM]

26. About half the people on DU apparently are... nt.

[Rockholm]

30. I want a recount of your assumption.

[JMDEM]

39. Take a poll then. Nt.

[Rockholm]

42. Who pays for it?

[blogslut]

28. From the article

The machine tally was Clinton 39.6 per cent, Obama 36.3 per cent - fairly close to the final outcome. But the hand-counted ballot count broke significantly differently: Clinton 34.9 per cent, Obama 38.6 per cent.

The rural areas voted for Obama while the urban areas broke for Clinton. That is interesting.

[Stewie]

38. Again, assumptions are wrong.

Rural New Hamphire isn't guys with Confederate flags and NASCAR stickers, and urban New Hampshire isn't immigrants and minorities. It's pretty much all white and it's not exactly "urban," it's just that what are called the "rural" areas tend to be the anti-establishment long-time residents, while what are called the "urban" areas tend to be transplants from New York and Massachusetts who like the DLC types.

"Rural" areas don't trust those already in power, while "urban" areas tend to be working moms and such.

[peacetalksforall]

29. What would really help this problem of machines is if Oprah or

someone like Oprah gets involved. Maybe she has. I don't get to watch her and since she is being paid by ABC - she might not be the one to bring it up - since ABC is not the worst one, but is one of the five Republoican networks.

We need to solve our machine problem in this country and too many citizens are oblivious.

Maybe some good can come from the NH experience with the help of supporters (and celebrity supporters) of all our candidates.

[madokie]

34. bill, poppy and blackbox voting machines

whats does all that have in common, the selling of a soul, maybe. A desire so strong as to go to any and all ends, maybe
I don't trust them anymore, that is all

[creeksneakers2]

43. Misleading

The article claims that Obama was ahead in exit polls. What they don't admit is that Obama was only ahead by 1%. The final result was well within the poll's margin of error.

The hand count/machine count comparisons are apples to oranges. Several researches have checked equivalent populations with and without machine scanners. The comparison there is a close match to the final result. I didn't see any mention of that research.