Fraud?

[ElNono]

Diebold Voter Fraud Rumors in New Hampshire Primaries

"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.""

LINK (http://politics.slashdot.org/politics/08/01/10/1635225.shtml)

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I actually doubt that's the case without further evidence.
I just thought it was interesting to discuss.

[boutons_]

Effectively, nobody cares, nobody's embarrassed that vote counts are unreliable in The Greatest Democracy in the World.

I read that the NH Diebold machines (I think Diebold has changed its name, Diebold being now associated with intentional incompetence and corruption) have not been upgraded to lastest "most secure" firmware.

Why hasn't the election punditry used possible vote count errors to explaing the huge discrepancy between the pre-votes polls and the count?

And it sounds like SCOTUS is going to allow voter photo ID stand, disenfranchising to the Repugs' advantage.

http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2006/09/14/election-can-be-stolen-in-under-a-minute-with-diebold-machines/

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

And it sounds like SCOTUS is going to allow voter photo ID stand, disenfranchising to the Repugs' advantage.

How does it benefit the Republicans more than the Democrats?

[George Gervin's Afro]

Let's do away with touch screen balloting all together.. EVERY election there will be questions concerning fraud..

[fyatuk]

How does it benefit the Republicans more than the Democrats?

I'm guessing it's because the only eligible voters that might not have photo ID are the very poor, which are people who vote democrat...

That and there's a lot of illegal votes for Democrats that woudl be eliminated by requiring photo id...

[fyatuk]

Let's do away with touch screen balloting all together.. EVERY election there will be questions concerning fraud..

I think the touch screen methods makes the ballots a lot easier to understand, thereby increasing the amount of voters who are comfortable casting votes and lessening voter error.

But they should be required to print out a paper vote that people can verify, then drop in a box. They can be optically scanned later for quick tallying and still have a valid paper trail when irregularities occur.

[boutons_]

"there's a lot of illegal votes for Democrats that woudl be eliminated by requiring photo id..."

Election the Rove/Reugs/neo-cunts have been screaming about has not been proven to b significant. So where's your evidence? If fact, Rove pushed hard for all "his" US attorney to go after voter fraud, rather than Repug criminals. If you refused, you got fired.

Voter photo ID is Repug tactic to disnefranchise poor, marginal people.

[Yonivore]

Gary Langer at ABC blogs (http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenumbers/2008/01/new-hampshires.html) struggles with trying to explain Hillary Clinton's victory -- in defiance of the polling results -- in New Hampshire. Langer's approach is to examine every possible technical reason for the election results without resorting to conspiracy theories.


In the end there may be no smoking gun. Those polls may have been accurate, but done in by a superior get-out-the-vote effort, or by very late deciders whose motivations may or may not ever be known. They may have been inaccurate because of bad modeling, compromised sampling, or simply an overabundance of enthusiasm for Obama on the heels of his Iowa victory that led his would-be supporters to overstate their propensity to turn out. (A function, perhaps, of youth.)
One academic has an interesting hypothesis, the slight bias created by the alphabetical listing on the ballot ("Clinton" comes before "Obama") may have been enough to nudge Hillary upward in a close contest.


Prof. Jon Krosnick of Stanford University has another argument: That the order of names on the New Hampshire ballot - in which, by random draw, Clinton was toward the top, Obama at the bottom - netted her about 3 percentage points more than she'd have gotten otherwise. That's not enough to explain the gap in some of the polls, which presumably randomized candidate names, but it might hold part of the answer.
Without advancing any conspiracy theories of my own, the question that springs to mind is why we should eliminate such theories from the reckoning. What kind of evidence would cause an investigator looking into statistical shocker to discount the possibility of fraud? Mere improbability would not be enough. Improbable events happen without the intervention of conspiracies. For example, an Czechoslovakian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovi%C4%87) airline stewardess survived a free-fall from 33,000 feet after her aircraft was blown up by a terrorist bomb in mid-air. No one suspects that someone conspired to make her survive.

Conspiracies, it seems to me, should only be considered when a sequence of suspicious events is established to have occurred. Since Barack Obama has conceded New Hampshire, it is unlikely that anyone with standing will come forward to allege fraud based on the existence of suspicious events. Thus conspiracy theories are eliminated from the reckoning at the outset. And all we have left is wondering whether the order of the names on the ballot mattered.

[ElNono]

But they should be required to print out a paper vote that people can verify, then drop in a box. They can be optically scanned later for quick tallying and still have a valid paper trail when irregularities occur.

I couldn't agree more. It would add complete transparency, and deter any kind of attempts of rigging them. Yet, here we are, in the 21st century, without being able to add a printer to a machine.
But what do we know... it's only the country's future that's at stake.

[SouthernFried]

I think the touch screen methods makes the ballots a lot easier to understand, thereby increasing the amount of voters who are comfortable casting votes and lessening voter error.

But they should be required to print out a paper vote that people can verify, then drop in a box. They can be optically scanned later for quick tallying and still have a valid paper trail when irregularities occur.

One of the better ideas I've heard.

Hell, that could even give you an option of comparing the paper ballots to the electronic vote.

[fyatuk]

"there's a lot of illegal votes for Democrats that woudl be eliminated by requiring photo id..."

Election the Rove/Reugs/neo-cunts have been screaming about has not been proven to b significant. So where's your evidence?

Voter photo ID is Repug tactic to disnefranchise poor, marginal people.

I remember several stories about dead people seeming to prefer Democrats, but since I'm too lazy, I'll retract the phrase "for democrats" from that sentence.

It's an effort to make sure the people who are voting are 1) the people the say they are and 2) are eligible TO vote.

The section of the country that can vote and can't get a photo id should be extremely small, anyway. I would expect it would chase away far more illegal votes than disenfranchised votes. Gerrymandering does more to disenfranchise voters than this.

Granted, they really should make state issued photo ids free if they are going to require it, though. At least for eligible voters.

[ChumpDumper]

This is silly.

The prevote polls all had large numbers of undecided voters and voters who said they might change their mind after answering.

[Nbadan]

This is silly.

The prevote polls all had large numbers of undecided voters and voters who said they might change their mind after answering.

This is exactly what Keith Oberman said on countdown last night....still all these undecided, and late deciding voters, breaking for Hillary -there had to be a reason....

[Holt's Cat]

I'm more disturbed by the fact that anyone voted for the Clintons. If her old bitch ass manages to beat Obama something is seriously wrong with this country.

[xrayzebra]

"there's a lot of illegal votes for Democrats that woudl be eliminated by requiring photo id..."

Election the Rove/Reugs/neo-cunts have been screaming about has not been proven to b significant. So where's your evidence?

Voter photo ID is Repug tactic to disnefranchise poor, marginal people.

They don't seem to have a problem with getting the
right ID to cash those welfare checks, do they?

[ChumpDumper]

This is exactly what Keith Oberman said on countdown last night....still all these undecided, and late deciding voters, breaking for Hillary -there had to be a reason....She's a murderer!

[DarkReign]

I am by no means saying there was some sort of fraud in NH.

But, to be as objective as one can in a free society that allows the people to vote, with time and technology reigning supreme over our everyday lives, why is it even a debate that there should be a print out stating your vote?

Ask yourself why, when Diebold/whothefuckever made these electronic voting machines didnt think to add such a feature out of spirit?

I mean, if you were tasked with digitizing the voting process, wouldnt this argument have come up in the design and redundancy phase? Common sense is either uncommon, or the system knows where it failed on purpose.

[Holt's Cat]

I am by no means saying there was some sort of fraud in NH.

But, to be as objective as one can in a free society that allows the people to vote, with time and technology reigning supreme over our everyday lives, why is it even a debate that there should be a print out stating your vote?

Ask yourself why, when Diebold/whothefuckever made these electronic voting machines didnt think to add such a feature out of spirit?

I mean, if you were tasked with digitizing the voting process, wouldnt this argument have come up in the design and redundancy phase? Common sense is either uncommon, or the system knows where it failed on purpose.

True. A paper copy for the voter and the government. In most interactions with the government in our daily lives (paying taxes, marriage, driver's license, transferring property, etc...) there is some kind of paper record the citizen ends up with. What's wrong with taking home a paper copy of how you voted at the polls?

[Wild Cobra]

I think the touch screen methods makes the ballots a lot easier to understand, thereby increasing the amount of voters who are comfortable casting votes and lessening voter error.

But they should be required to print out a paper vote that people can verify, then drop in a box. They can be optically scanned later for quick tallying and still have a valid paper trail when irregularities occur.
I agree. I don't have a problem with the technology, I just want a way of securing the accuracy. Hackers are everywhere.

[Wild Cobra]

"there's a lot of illegal votes for Democrats that woudl be eliminated by requiring photo id..."

Election the Rove/Reugs/neo-cunts have been screaming about has not been proven to b significant. So where's your evidence?

Voter photo ID is Repug tactic to disnefranchise poor, marginal people.
It is a real issue in my state. Not all states are as open to illegals as Oregon is. In fact, an illegal activist actually stated proposed law changes would keep the illegals from voting, and se would know!

[Wild Cobra]

I am by no means saying there was some sort of fraud in NH.

But, to be as objective as one can in a free society that allows the people to vote, with time and technology reigning supreme over our everyday lives, why is it even a debate that there should be a print out stating your vote?

Ask yourself why, when Diebold/whothefuckever made these electronic voting machines didnt think to add such a feature out of spirit?

I mean, if you were tasked with digitizing the voting process, wouldnt this argument have come up in the design and redundancy phase? Common sense is either uncommon, or the system knows where it failed on purpose.
On top of that, I find it ironic that the media tries to explain it away. Exit polling had Obama winning to. When there was a smaller discrepancy in 2004 exit polling, most the media had stories suggesting the republicans manipulated the machines. But no... Their favored democrats would never do that, right?

[Holt's Cat]

Hillary's support is among old people, women, and those who don't make a bunch of $. Sure, the young, educated, and professional like Obama but that doesn't exactly comprise a high turnout voting bloc.

[Wild Cobra]

Diebold Voter Fraud Rumors in New Hampshire Primaries

"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.""

LINK (http://politics.slashdot.org/politics/08/01/10/1635225.shtml)

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I actually doubt that's the case without further evidence.
I just thought it was interesting to discuss.
It wouldn't surprise me. Remember the 2004 Ohio results? Kerry won the electronic vote, but president Bush won both the Optical and Punch Card:

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x262/Wild_Cobra/Ohio2004.jpg

Source:

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/xls/ohio_vote_county.xls

Pattern? Democrat wins the vote that cannot be recounted?

[Nbadan]

Gardner: Recount to go forward for both parties' primaries
By Associated Press
January 11, 2008 4:32 PM


CONCORD — State officials say they will conduct a hand recount of Tuesday's Democratic and Republican presidential primaries at the request of two minor candidates.

Ohio Democrat Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who received less than 2 percent of the vote, and Republican Albert Howard of Michigan, who received about 44 votes statewide, are expected to pay a $2,000 fee to start the process, state officials said.

"Mr. Howard has satisfied the requirements for initiating a statewide recount of the Republican Primary," Secretary of State William Gardner said in a statement. Officials said they expected a check from Kucinich to arrive late Friday, satisfying his requirements for the request.

Gardner is preparing an estimate of the recount's cost, which the requesting candidates must pay before it will begin. He said he expects to start the recount Jan. 16, and will announce further details once the payments have been received.

Under state law, if a candidate finished more than 3 percentage points behind the winner, the candidate must pay the cost of a recount. The cost is refunded if the recount finds the requester won or finished within 1 percentage point of the winner.

The last time New Hampshire did a statewide recount of the results of the presidential primary was in 1980.

Kucinich sent a letter to Gardner Thursday requesting the recount, citing "serious and credible reports, allegations and rumors" about the integrity of the primary results.

Sea Coast Online (http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080111/NEWS/80111030/-1/NEWS19&sfad=1)