As you might have guessed, I’m buried for the moment in a blizzard of incoming calls, emails, and more (such as bad, and misleading, articles and blog items about all of this), even while trying to both learn more details on a number of fronts and keep up with media appearances to discuss the issues so Americans might better understand what’s really going on here, and what the concerns really are.
So I’ll have much more on all of this tonight, as I get caught up with a number of related items that I’ve been working on at the same time, while trying to keep up with all of the above.
Until then, consider this an Open Thread. And I hope you’ll help me, by continuing to spread the facts about the questions at hand.
Those questions begin with this concern:
While pollsters and the MSM and even theoretically-Progressive bloggers are speculating about what might have gone wrong in dozens of different, independent, transparent pre-election polls — almost all of which found precisely the same information — very few seem to be questioning whether the completely unverified results, from 80% of New Hampshire, counted on hackable, error-prone Diebold machines, completely programmed, controlled, and operated by a single, private, less-than-respectable company (LHS Associates), were actually accurate in the first place.
At the same time, evidence exists that even the Exit Polls showed Obama was winning throughout the day, and there have been a number of eyebrow-raising questions about the reported results themselves, as discovered so far, during independent analysis of them. Not enough anomalies have yet been found, in my opinion, to raise any large red flags, but certainly a still-growing number of anomalies for yellow ones.
I’ll add that even if the ballots, if they are ever actually counted, turn out to reveal a different result than reported, it could be due to error, not fraud, and if fraud, it needn’t have been committed by anybody related, in any way, to the Clinton camp.
I believe we all deserve to know if the results, as reported, were accurate beyond a shadow of a doubt. That is the sensible and responsible question for the moment. And anybody who offers you reasons for why Clinton won (perhaps she did, we cannot know for sure at this time) or why Obama lost (perhaps he did, we cannot know for sure at this time) is doing nothing but irresponsibly speculating.
Discuss. More tonight…
(UPDATE: Okay, more tomorrow instead…promise. Lots going on.)
This just released from the Secretary of State’s office in New Hampshire, both the Republican and the Democratic races will be recounted – BY HAND -starting on January 16th, once the costs are estimated and paid. Go to
http://www.sos.nh.gov/recount%20press%20release.pdf for the official Press Release.
Chain of custody will be the biggest factor working against the outcome being meaningful or not.
I like the no fu%king around post from Brad. Let’s hope nobody is playing around with the paper trail.
does anyone know how the recount will be done? is says by hand. – but what about the diebold machines – i really don’t understand how they recount the votes from those machines. doesn’t this all but assure that the same result will come out? personally i think theres a good chance this thing was rigged. none of it makes sense.
There’s another way they kill our votes — even if they count them correctly (a big if), they manipulate our process by an endless expectations game:
Spin squared — Us poor ignorant voters aren’t allowed to decide who we like by the old-fashioned method of voting any more. Instead, the media tell us who we’re GOING to vote for, enabling them to choose for us.
See my full article on opednews:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_michael__080111_spin_squared.htm
***SOUTH CAROLINA PRIMARY ALERT: NON-AUDITABLE, HACKABLE TOUCH-SCREEN MACHINES TO BE USED***
Folks, to anybody living in South Carolina, make a stink about this, write letters to the editor, go to the statehouse, whatever it takes– and DEMAND that South Carolina primaries use paper ballots that are hand-counted, multiple times, and verifiable!
It would be very easy to rig the SC primaries since the touch-screen machines have no paper trail and nothing to audit. After the fiasco of NH– with Obama winning in the hand-counted (and easily verifiable) ballots yet losing on the Diebold ballots, something is very fishy here, and we need to make sure that SC is absolutely transparent. Make sure there are paper ballots!
dcvaxus #3: I believe (someone else on this blog can easily confirm) that in New Hampshire, they use DieBold machines to COUNT paper ballots, so the ballots themsaelves can easily be counted and compared to the DieBold results, assuming the paper ballots haven’t been “dealt with” to assure they match the machines. In some cases, absent “extra ballots” that would be impossible to achieve. You can throw out all the ballots you want, but without extra blanks, you can’t CREATE new paper ballots to match pretend votes you electronically created.
What I think happened is this: Obama cheated in Iowa in a big way and then said, “Dean did the same thing in 2004, busing in a lot of kids to vote.” Then, somebody cheated to flip votes in NH, so Obama couldn’t run away with the race based on cheating. Edwards is suffering most from all this. Early results in Iowa showed him winning by about 5-6 percentage points with Clinton & Obama nearly tied.
Thank God SC is doing it right? Oh, they’re screwed up too? Well then, at least Edwards might win and neutralize all the screwiness of the first 3 elections — except that he’s lost tons of momentum and money while Obama got all the early attention.
Isn’t this just ducky. Brad has been warning people for years now and we still have ridiculously awful election systems in these first few states. Who in the world invented cross-over voting anyway? Why are Iowans so stupid as to not even require and ID for voters?
If it were my choice I’d toss all these first few states out and start from scratch, but Edwards still suffers from not having won first. Lovely.
{ED NOTE: The Iowa Caucus, particularly on the Democratic side, was a very open, very transparent process. Everyone had to be there to “vote” by standing in groups with other supporters of the same candidate, the total were announced at the polls in front of everyone, and then called in to the central tabulating office where those totals were released on the web, as updated every 30 seconds. MarkH’s comment about “Obama cheating in Iowa”, is without merit or any evidence I know. Don’t know if he was simply kidding to make a point, but I wanted to clarify that there are no concerns, that I know, about the counting on the Democratic side, at least, in the Iowa Caucus. — BF}
So don’t let Edwards suffer. Vote for him, damn it.
I won’t give you a speech about him. It seems like everybody agrees he is ahead of the pack on ideas, willingness to fight, electability vs all republicans—
Vote for him and quit with the faint praise shit.
I am flabbergasted at the comments on ‘Democratic’ blogs ,that call investigating voting irregularities “conspiricy theory”.
It demonstrates a staggering level of ignorance with the very real problems with the security of our votes.
I am now much less likely to take seriously the opinions of the self-important “pundit’ bloggers who do NOT understand that this problem threatens our very democracy.
What is the cost involved with calling for the recount. I know Denis Kucinich is asking for donations to help out…how much is needed.
Also Mark H#7 – re: Obama busing in voters. How can you bus people in to effect a vote? Aren’t you registered to your electorate? (It’s the way it’s done here in Australia so you can’t vote more than once.) You’re saying Obama cooked the books in Iowa? Any links to proof?
another thought came to mind… as i remember there were also some strange pick ups of votes for romney in nh. just curious: doe’s anybody know the order of the names on the ballots of both the dems and repugs? i assume that dems and repugs voted in the same buildings but of course had different paper ballots – but fed them into the same diebold machines after they voted. is this true? i’d just like to know… could it be possible that romneys name was in the same place of order as clintons was on the dems ballot? if so – then i’ll go from there..
Perhaps Kuchinich should just ask and pay for some precints. He could start with some suspicious ones, or do a random draw. If they count some, and things look bad, he can go further. If not, save the $$ for another recount in the next suspicious state. Thus this recount becomes a partial audit. Not every last ballot has to be hand counted to validate the outcome. Is this an option in New Hampshire?
Well put, Brad. Thanks for sticking up for democracy.
My question is this. In states like New Hampshire and my own, Connecticut, we have the top computer scientists in the country. Why don’t our states write the computer source code and build our own damn vote tabulators? Bet it would be cheaper, too! Can someone tell me: isn’t it unconstitutional for a private company to make a source code proprietary for a public election??????
A lot of these kinds of questions are being covered (and some of them answered) at Black Box Voting.
Barbara #9, invoking the “conspiracy theory” non-argument demonstrates true ignorance on the part of the blogger. And btw, you can’t know for sure that anyone who expresses that non-argument is a Democrat. All you can tell for sure is that they don’t want a recount, unless of course they’re just trying to get you to make a good case for it. Their motives are always questionable.
Lets get one thing straight. A recount of votes in New Hampshire will neither prove nor disprove the nagging suspicions and well-founded conclusions that:
A) There may have been, and may continue to be tampering with votes either cast, handled, or counted electronically.
And;
B) Machines are inherently unreliable and clearly unverifiable when no paper trail is present.
Further;
C) Optical-Scan machines with paper ballots provide no comfort of accuracy when there is great resistance to actually counting those ballots. If they are thrown in boxes, whatever the chain of custody, and there is no standard for handling or precedent for a built-in audit procedure, it offers little comfort that our votes are being recorded and aggregated to the candidate of our choice.
So if New Hampshire is used as a test case for the accuracy of these machines, or the necessity of future audits, we have a big problem. A recount that confirms the accuracy of the results could actually be used as cover for the next major fraud in November, or in future primary states. So what do we do?
We must audit as a matter of course, not as a matter of suspicion. It must be a built-in safeguard in every election to randomly audit 15-20% of precincts with a hand count and also offer to any candidate the option to audit a specific precinct of location. Then and only then should we even consider the option of machine voting over 100% paper ballots hand counted and verified by two sets of human eyes.
That’s my take as we embark upon the next media attempt to pigeonhole us as a group of lunatic conspiracy theorists. It scares the hell out of me that we are only asking for and audit of one state primary as opposed to all primaries. Let the Democrats be the standard-bearers of common sense here, not those whistling past their own graveyards.
Seeing as this is an “Open thread” I’d like to repost the following article .
“40 and out
It was back to reality for presidential candidate Albert Howard of Ann Arbor, back behind the wheel of his Checker cab waiting for passengers at Detroit Metro Airport.
The father of eight savored his 40 votes in the New Hampshire presidential GOP primary. Howard was among 42 also-rans who paid $1,000 to get on the New Hampshire ballot, and he was something of a celebrity, interviewed by Time magazine, the New York Times, Boston Globe and the nightly ABC News.
At one point, his vote total climbed to 178, then dropped. He is asking the New Hampshire Secretary of State for a recount. Howard said he was in awe that even 40 people picked him.
“I have no sense of defeat,” he said. “Maybe I’ll run for governor.””
LINK
Now can some one please explain to me how a candidate can have “178 votes” when finish with only “40 votes”. Surely this is a smoking gun ?
Mick in NZ (home of an admirable Hillary )
Voltron said on 1/11/2008 @ 4:46 pm PT…
***SOUTH CAROLINA PRIMARY ALERT: NON-AUDITABLE, HACKABLE TOUCH-SCREEN MACHINES TO BE USED***
Folks, to anybody living in South Carolina, make a stink about this, write letters to the editor, go to the statehouse, whatever it takes– and DEMAND that South Carolina primaries use paper ballots that are hand-counted, multiple times, and verifiable!
*****You beat me to the point.South Carolina has no auditable election sytem,look for a BIG SURPRISE in South Carolina,perhaps a win by 1/2% point for someone.Think how crazy it is that our elections for the most part can’t be audited ?tells the story of how corrupt our Govt has become.
Brad or someone: With respect to how an election is rigged, have you thought of the possibility that the “rigger” sets the cards up ahead of time so that they match the polls. I read that the technician was changing cards illegally before the election but wasn’t concerned about it. What if a few days before the election the cards are set throughout the state to match the polls with a few modifications to match the preferences of the “rigger”. This election could have been a dry run with no preferences involved but one where the polls a few days before the election were used to set the cards in the machines to get the overall desired results. It also could have been rigged.
This would be a lazy way to do the job but it would work. It would also explain the New Hampshire election.
I have zero confidence in elections tabulating votes electronically.
Now with yesterday’s warning that the chain of custody is broken, I still have zero confidence.
Of course all the SOS’s and ROV’s that dragged on and on about policies and procedures, are now telling us about chain of custody. Well it looks like they screwed that up too, so zero confidence in SOS’s and ROV’s.
Then we have the corporate media that publishes their own results which can’t be validated either. So zero confidence in the media.
Then we have people elected from these zero confidence systems that have broken their oath of office. Zero confidence in government.
Zero confidence of perceived diligence by official talking heads.
I am not talking about the folks on Bradblog.com or Blackboxvoting.org
Anyway, want to restore confidence.
Nullify all the existing elections, and hold a real election that can be validated. No more electronic validation garbage, no more broken chain of custody.
If there’s no law to allow for this, make law. And while your making law for this we need enhancements for tampering, for vote caging, ballot stuffing all of this junk. ALL OF IT. It needs to be upped to the level of treason. And although I believe all media not just the fake crap that carries press passes should have entry and ability to provide oversight, that DOES NOT mean they get to publish results that they claim are official when in fact they are based in vapor.
One other thing, this whole thing about recounts, needs to be addressed, recounts are not very effective as a means to straighten things out when they are delayed to the point that the evidence has lost chain of custody, or delayed until a candidate is sworn it, it a recount is going to cost money, then the public should SERVE to do it, just like Jury Duty. The public has already paid MONEY for these elections. If the results are vapor and can’t be validated for ANY reason, then the public has been fraud-ed.
Whatever action is decided upon needs to be thought out for accuracy and fast executed. Justice denied is delayed and spoiled evidence.
I leave you all with one last thought.
If there’s candidates sworn in who were not the winners of an election, no constitution being followed (just the damn paper being held in a vault), justice denied in elections, a parallel black government that spies on us, databases our private information, then where are we?
Certainly the definition of a Constitutional Republic is not an accurate description anymore.
It can only be a matter of time before our government (whatever the new definition is) turns police on us. So go ahead, sit back in your chairs, and pretend someone else will fix these problems, that’s your right to do that, but it don’t make it right..
“nothing but irresponsibly speculating.”
Speculation isn’t necessarily irresponsible, sometimes speculation leads to revelation…
It’s not always irresponsible to consider alternative scenarios, but I agree, none of us on the blogs really knows the truth, only the potentially guilty parties can speak with certitude…
The rest of us can only wonder… and speculate.
The issue of electronic voting machines and the NH primary came up on Realtime with Bill Maher with two guests, Mark Cuban and Catherine Crier, that are knowledgeable about the subject. I suggest everyone go to the Realtime forum and bombard him with information and questions to ask in the Q&A session after the show.
Of course you realize, Brad, your influence, and the persistence of your resident watchdogs, had a great deal to do with the count coming to fruition.
And I agree, it’s not a recount at all, its a count, makes me wonder why they don’t do test counts as the ballots are being scanned, seems as if the errors (or mischief) would show up in the process throughout, not just at the final tally.
Thanks again for your persistence and hard work, regardless of the outcome of the count, this is a solid victory for the future of democracy. And a proud moment for you and your bloggers.
One last word… does it start to make sense, we should do the recount by rote, as the voting is progressing?
Especially considering that Republicans like Colorado’s Coffman, (sec. of state) and those California committee chairs seem to be willfully enabling either errors or mischief (wouldn’t want to specualte irresponsibly) doesn’t it make sense, there should be some sort of double-check in the actual voting process.
Like I said, how about a built-in count-check system that would reveal if there’s a problem DURING the vote, not after the fact, or after voting rights activists scramble all over the blogs with their virtual hair on fire.
So, what is the big problem with IMMEDIATE verification? Why would we not double-count right up front, during the process? Our governance is just too important to casualize the way they do.
Anyone who would defy that logic might seem to have an agenda…
Watching the returns on CNN, I noticed much was made of the fact that the returns from the college towns where Obama was expected to do well had not come in–which could tip the balance and therefore no prediction could be made.
When AP declared Clinton the winner and CNN followed ten or fifteen minutes later, there was no further mention of the college town vote.
Does anyone know why these votes came in so late and what their impact was?
(The schools were the University of New Hampshire, Dartmouth and someplace else.)
I posted this at 200+ comments on the other thread, but posted here on this fresher thread because this is a very interesting calculation I did!
Take a look again at those vote numbers provided by the Election Defense Alliance in Brad’s previous NH primary thread.
The swapped percentages can be carried out to almost 6 (six) significant figures! Rather than the 4 significant figures in Brad’s previous article!
Clinton Optical Scan:
52.9507%
Barack Hand Count:
52.9506%
Clinton Hand Count:
47.0494%
Barack Optical Scan:
47.0493%
And I found ANOTHER strangeness in the numbers! CHECK THIS OUT!
Take the calculation out to 8 sig figs, and look at the difference between the Obama Op Scan and Clinton Hand Count. That miniscule difference is 0.00014%. Now take the Clinton Hand Count and add 1 vote to it, just to see how much it changes things. Now the difference between the Obama Op Scan and Clinton Hand Count is 0.002388%. That is a small number, but it is actually 17 times larger than the 0.00014%.
What that means is that the vote totals are swapped PERFECTLY. Even adding one single vote, and it starts to deviate from perfection! I don’t know if that means anything, but it sure is WIERD!!
And the same holds true for adding or subtracting 1 vote to ANY of the 4 vote totals. Any perturbation of just one vote and it deveates from perfection. Out of all these 217,610 votes cast for Barack and Clinton on the two voting methods, they could not possibly be more perfectly swapped, not even by one vote.
Fascinating!
Olbermann covered the “re”count story, too… but he seems a bit skeptical.
On the day after the primary, Crawford gave him an angle on it that was, to me, a bit too dismissivee of the potential for foul play.
Overnight, I think some of the quirky percentages convinced Keith there was at least some smoke, if not fire, in the story.
Wonder who else will give it some press? Either way, error or mischief, the way the story is now unfolding, they can’t ignore it any longer.
Am I wrong, in reckoning that, if you took the percentage disparity Bejammin just posted and rectified it, and give Obama back that “swap,” it matches the exit polls AND some of the more prescient pre-polls almost to the exact percentage?
Simple logic; if suspected purloined votes are recounted properly, and the results match the exit polls, it is more than just circumstantial proof of mischief, not error…
Shades of Bush-Kerry 2004… remember the exit polls?
Since the votes for Op Scan appear to possibly be flipped for Obama and Clinton, the best way to test that hypothesis would be to focus on each candidate’s strongholds in the Op Scan locations.
If the votes were indeed flipped between those two candidates, the discrepancies would be largest in those areas.
If there’s a fund specifically for the recount, I will send some cash, as will many others, I’m sure. Kos at Dailykos has a post sort of boiling it down to “money talks” and half ridiculing us. Let’s pony up and fund this thing! And I don’t even think we need to do the entire state. We’re assuming the hand count was good. Focus on the Clinton and Obama strongholds in the Op Scan areas. That is the place to start.
Actually, if the public could just get some of the polling data, especially the exit poll data. That would provide a lot of answers.
On second thought, what do you all think about raising money to purchase the exit poll data from Mitofsky (or whoever) ?? They are for-profit and obviously don’t want to give it away. I’m willing to pay for it. How much would they charge? Having the exit poll data could give some immediate answers.
Mitofsky will never sell the raw exit poll data.
Mitofsky has been “in on it” since 1998.
Not even all the money Bush/Cheney have stolen from our treasury would be enough.
If the recount in NH is anything like the 2004 recount in Ohio, then we better have a “plan c.”
I think it’s time to start thinking about wooden shoes and gears in November.
It’s time to start thinking about disabling the electrical beasts and leaving nothing but paper ballots and human beings to count them. No opti-scans, no DREs, nothing but paper ballots and human beings.
I recall that Nader financed a recount of votes in New Hampshire precincts in 2004 after that presidential election, but no significant counting errors were found despite there being some anomalous-looking results in some localities.
Anybody have any insights or thoughts about that, especially Brad?
Traditionally, I think, calls for recounts were held when races were so close that a mistake here or there could cause an actual difference in outcome. Over the years, as voting methods improved, the demands for recalls began to simultaneously become expensive propositions, and/or sour grapes. But things are different now. I think that with the advent of electronic voting there are new opportunities for tampering. Easy tampering, if truth be told. And there is nothing wrong with the American electorate (and that means any one single person that votes) has every right to question the results. Brad, I have five words for you: Thank you for your efforts. I’m sorry, I have two more: Thank you. Whoops! I forgot these: I applaud you, you are doing what democracy is about. Just one more thing, thank you.
#31 CharlieL
“It’s time to start thinking about disabling the electrical beasts and leaving nothing but paper ballots and human beings to count them. No opti-scans, no DREs, nothing but paper ballots and human beings.”
I agree CharlieL but until these criminals are impeached this will not stop IMO. I imagine Rove somewhere, a dark room, lights off, with Jeffy maybe, laughing his fat ass of at this discussion we are having…
BTW kos is asking folks in MI to vote for Romney in the primary…all fun and games according to him. How childish.
Geny #33,
To rip off Winston Churchill and put it another way:
Never in democracy have so many votes been vulnerable to so few.
It would be dumb to think people stole paper votes in the past, when it was harder to do, but not now, when it is much easier.
JEP #24
“…do test counts as the ballots are being scanned,…”
Doesn’t this just say: if we do the hand counts by the book, why bother with the machines?
REAL ID IS RAMPING UP NOW.
The Real Id Containing All Of Our Data Will Be Shared With Mexico And Canada. NAU?!
And then the want this crap in the Voter ID crap Verses fuckers can MAIL in a fucking vote with NO ID.
Screw these REAL ID / VOTER FUCKING ID people
Straighten this idiot out.
http://www.westwoodone.com/jimbo
He wants the Voter ID shit.
GWN, interesting concept, I wonder what the legal penalty for destroying the power supply to a school or a home or a building is?
Maybe a
14 year old kid can do it?
open thread right?
Question, What is the one thing that could fix the broken economy right now?
Answer, if gas was 25 cents a gallon.
The percentages being swapped thing: It would be in the same category of unlikeliness that areas with Diebold machines and those that were handcounted would have exactly same proportion of votes going between Hillary and Obama. So I dont think it is exactly just a swap thing.
I have only two ways to see this, either it is all a huge coinsidence (Ok, possible), or the person(s) behind this have left their signature for whom ever wants to see it (perhaps primarily to themselves).
I presume the hand counted totals came before the last Diebolds, so they just kept fixing them and perhaps made their mind about it at the very last moment when noticing the proportion was quite close to make it exact.
Now I remember there were same kind of anomalies in 2004.
This is my preferred explanation: They are having fun with it, just making their preferred candidate win wouldnt be enough, they want to sign their work also. (I wouldnt be suprised if somewhere along the line some vote total would be their phone number, or birthdate or such.)
Bejammin075 #26
I once found a bug in Microsoft’s C++ library where true=false and false=true in one function. The degree of the change in expected results depended on how much the particular function was used.
What you describe points to a classic and “simple” malfunction type rather than a hack.
However, a smart programmer who wanted to make a hack look like a logic error would do just that. But in all cases this type of bug can be hard to detect during software development, without extensive sequential testing throughout a project’s progress to completion.
To generate such a scenario, at a place where tabulation takes place all you have to do is make A’s totals the totals of B. No other changes are required to change an election.
If someone trusts the polls and expected B to win, then that simple flip would apply B’s winning totals to A’s account, thereby totally changing the outcome of the election.
The smoking gun would be numbers like those you have indicated exist in the tallies.
That is why I say it looks like that kind of flip if your figures are correct.
It could be a simple assignment of the totals to the wrong variable, rather than a math error.
My take on it is, that election after election, people suspect foul play OR outright bad counting on these lousy machines. Then we cry foul. Then people call us “conspiracy theorists”. Then the politicians take office. Then years later, they find out we were right. And elections were stolen, and the politicians get to finish out their term, nothing happens to them.
The big thing, in the meantime, is that nothing’s done to correct it in between elections.
There are even people in jail for rigging the Ohio recount, how come no one’s talking about that? Kerry won, and it’s not “sour grapes” because I didn’t even like Kerry. It’s about our votes not counting!
The Free Press has unearthed evidence indicating possible criminal misconduct by a wide range of election officials throughout the state, including Blackwell. Under the law, election boards are required to do recounts by choosing 3% of a county’s voters at random for sampling. But throughout the state, apparently with the explicit knowledge and approval of Blackwell, precincts were hand-counted for recounting, a criminal act. This non-random sampling in essence voided the recount, for which backers of the Green and Libertarian Parties paid more than $100,000.
“According to the prosecution in the case against Maiden and Dreamer, this method of action led to the recount being illegally “rigged.” When investigators working with the Free Press attempted to audit the Cuyahoga County ballots from the 2004 election last summer, BOE officials were unable to find the ballots for four full days. The investigation team, led by Richard Hayes Phillips, had to find the ballots on their own. Under Ohio law, the ballots were to be locked in a known location, and secured by two keys, one controlled by each major party. ”
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0320-23.htm
How come we have proof the 2004 election was stolen, people are in jail for rigging the recount, there’s video’s all over the place of people easily hacking into e-vote machines…and some people continually accept the outcomes of elections, no questions asked???
The people wearing the “tin foil hats” are the ones that think election counts are accurate!
Sit down, shut up, grab a coffee, and watch these videos…THEN say we’re “conspiracy theorists”:
http://bigdanblogger.blogspot.com/2008/01/do-you-trust-electronic-voting-machines.html
I notice on politico.com that election results differ very much from county to county.
Obama won 5 counties along central and west NH. Hillary won 5 county in south, south est, and the north (Berlin).
It means that the vote results are not only based on the devide small cities/big cities , but also have a geographical devide.
I wonder if some of you made a comparison hand vote / Accuvote county by county to check if the discrepancy still resist.
Thanks, d.
Big Dan,
I went to your blog and tried to watch HACKING DEMOCRACY, but the last 3 segments wouldn’t fly. Why is that? I’d like to watch the end. I’ve heard of this video for years, but never got around to watching it. It’s cool to see the late great Andy Stephenson doing his thing…
shw
This is an email I sent to Neil Cavuto at Fox after his interview with Dennis Jan 11. Thank you Brad for the info.
________________________________________
NH Recounts Interview on Fox’s Your World Jan 11
________________________________________
From: Will
To: Cavuto@foxnews.com
Cc: NY Time Op-Ed , Boston Globe OP-Ed
Subject: NH Recounts Interview on Fox’s Your World Jan 11
Date: Jan 12, 2008 9:07 AM
________________________________________
Neil,
Unfortunately in your interview with Dennis Kucinich he was not able to provide some of the additional reasons that the recount in NH is necessary. Their are 2 specific problems that would require that a recount is needed:
1) The poll numbers. You said that poll numbers have been wrong in the past, but in fact the exit polls have been quite accurate, and it is what is used in other countries to verify the validity of elections. As I understand it, the polling company that has done this for over 20 years, in 2000 stated that their world wide polls over decades had been wrong only twice, and once it was during the 2000 elections.
Also, in NH all the polls turned out to be correct except for Clinton and Obama.
2) The counts. In NH 20% of the votes were counted manually, and the rest done automatically. The manual counts were in line with the polls, the automatic ones were not, and in fact, for Clinton and Obama the percentages were exactly reversed! Here are the facts:
“We do note, however, the following rather remarkably anomalous result which was reported late this afternoon by analysts from the Election Defense Alliance (EDA). As noted by one of the researchers, IT Consultant Bruce O’Dell:
Analysts at the Election Defense Alliance (EDA) have confirmed that based on the official results on the New Hampshire Secretary of state web site, there is a remarkable relationship between Obama and Clinton votes, when you look at votes tabulated by op-scan v. votes tabulated by hand:
Clinton Optical scan 91,717 52.95%
Obama Optical scan 81,495 47.05%
Clinton Hand-counted 20,889 47.05%
Obama Hand-counted 23,509 52.95%
The percentages appear to be swapped. That seems highly unusual, to say the least.”
The above is from https://bradblog.com/?p=5544
Note that this web site, along with Bev Harris (Black Box Voting) has been reporting on voting issues for several years. Including information on a programmer who testified before congress, who was paid to develop a program that was un-detectable and would be able to change automated vote counts.
Also, note that your reference to dead people voting in Chicago in the 60’s is not really a relevant argument since voter fraud a) has not been a real issue, and b) the ability to skew results is much much greater using computerized vote tallying than via any type of voter fraud – by many orders of magnitude.
If you would really like to present a fair presentation of the real issues with voting concerns, you should contact Bev Harris or Brad Friedman (of BradBlog.com) and interview them on your show.
Regards,
Will
Reply to Benjammin075 (Post #26) and others who have joined that discussion. I was stunned by the numbers you presented. I pointed out to a friend of mine who was highly skeptical about them that last week I brought items to the register at a grocery store and the total came to exactly $10.00 –no change! That has happened to me maybe only twice in my lifetime. There have had to be hundreds of thousands of times (given my age) when it didn’t happen. I don’t deny that such coincidences exist, it’s just that I never got anywhere believing in them. Now, I do not attribute that anamoly to a conspiracy on the part of the grocery store, of course. But the numbers Ben– showed are more like on the scale of winning the Powerball in terms of coincidence. And, yes, you must ask, “Cui bono?”
Still, I am also very puzzled by what the numbers mean. Given: 20% of the ballots were hand-counted paper ballots. 80% were on Diebold machines. How strange it would be if the voting pattern of the districts that hand counted was within .00014 a match for the 80% cast on the machines in other precincts. Yet, that’s what the “swap” seems to suggest. On the other hand, if the count was of the paper ballots that were put through the optical scanners and later hand counted, and those results occured, that would still be very strange, but it would go a long way to make the argument for vote tampering.
Does any one know? I’ve sent this data out to friends of mine who are logicians, mathematicians, statisticians and computer scientists to see what they have to say, though Dredd, you seem to be pretty savvy about this stuff and maybe you could help provide an answer.
Olbermann covers NH recount!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/22618101#22618101
But wait, his special guest to discuss the issue is Rep. Holt? Good grief! Good effort Kieth, but I am afraid confusion has been created. “Paper ballots CAN be recounted” says Holt with excitement! This is fine. BUT…
What is so terribly difficult about counting paper ballots by hand in the first place?
I too was having trouble emailing the countdown show, finally I called and spoke to a person and recommended Kieth have Brad on as a guest. The reply was “great idea! Thank you!”
well, we will see…
FAIR media list is an easy link to get contact information for many mainstream news sources. Apparently they ALL need a seroius reality check!
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=111
Where are you people getting your numbers? The total hand-counted votes for Clinton =15817 out of 46734 ballots for a 33.84% total. Obama Hand count votes =18744 for 40.10%. The machine count for Clinton was 96789 out of 238800 for 40.53%, and Obama Machine count was 86260 for 36.12%.
#39 Phil, Have to give CharlieL credit for that concept but I agreed with him.
What about everyone carrying BIG f’n magnets, would that work? Or would you all be sticking to each other 🙂
Don’t let Rove know about that 14 yr old kid for gods sake!
Re Big Dan #44: I recommend very highly the series of videos he has posted at his site, 1 through 9, although I was also unable to view 7 through 9 and am eagerly awaiting Dan fixing this problem.
If the Machines did swap the votes there would be no reason for the percents to be perfectly swapped. They are not counting the same ballots. Small towns count by hand, big towns count by Machine. Unless the voters voted exactly the same percentages (to 5 figures) in these very different demographics, the totals are going to be different.
I compared similar size towns, 400 to 1100 votes. 46 Hand Count towns, 35 Machine count. Clinton Gained 3.33%, Obama Lost 3.14% Machine vs Hand count. Very suggestive, although not conclusive.
Marky, I’m with you on this. One of the reasons I trust this blog and Brad Friedman is the integrity and intellectual honesty that Brad and most of the contributors display. But the more I look at the numbers Brad and Benjammin075 show for the evidence of the swap, the more questions I have. How did you arrive at those percentages, Brad? Benjammin?
I did not come up with those numbers, but rather the folks at EDA who have been analyzing them, as taken from the NH SOS website.
They have also been independently confirmed as accurate by several others sources who checked them as well.
They are taken after removing all of the other candidates from the results, as I understand them, and then examining the percentages of each candidate Obama and Clinton.
Hope that answers your question, Cyteria.
NOTE: I’m not suggesting it’s “evidence for the swap”. In fact, I noted when I first reported those numbers, that I have no idea whatsoever what to make of them. I still do not.
I know everyone is all involved in the NH recount, and I know that takes nearly all of your time.
I think we all got too relaxed coming into 2008, cause now the crap is hitting the fans.
check out this REAL ID thing,
http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/pr_1200065427422.shtm
and the final rule
http://www.dhs.gov/xprevprot/laws/gc_1172765386179.shtm
(PDF, 120 pages – 4.2 MB) (note they made it PDF as to not be easily grep’d via search engine)
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/real_id_final_rule_part1_2008-01-11.pdf
(PDF, 164 pages – 5.6 MB)(note they made it PDF as to not be easily grep’d via search engine)
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/real_id_final_rule_part2_2008-01-11.pdf
Public Law 109-13
109th Congress
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/useftp.cgi?IPaddress=162.140.64.21&filename=publ013.109&directory=/diskb/wais/data/109_cong_public_laws
EPIC has words.
http://epic.org/privacy/id-cards/
I might also note how it’s quite interesting that the cutoff date was DEC 1ST 1964. Now why would they do that? So us more knowledgeable folk are less intimidated and shut up about it?
Also there was a nice government technology article on this back in 2005 (for those that like to compare the past to the present)
http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/97147?id=&story_pg=1
I know it’s off topic of the New Hampshire recount but it is incremental-ism cracking down on everyone whether or not they wish to chose to pay attention to it.
Also some may recall this was tacked onto other bills at the time with no debate, and no discussion. I guess were all gonna pay for not paying attention.
NBC is excluding Dennis Kucinich from upcoming JAN. 15th NEVADA DEBATE:
http://www.dennis4presid…rom-presidential-debate/
Here’s what you can do about it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIBjFh1r0RQ
Fantastic video, 99~! You’re ACES! Thanks~I’m on it. In fact, I may just punch redial tonight thru Monday…
My boyfriend, a big Kucinich supporter, just fired this off to CHRIS TODD @
chuck.todd@nbcuni.com
“…Kucinich has been successfully written off and discredited and even castrated by media outlets and, subsequently, by the populous who depends on the media to inform them…JOURNALISTS should not make it their business to decide who the population should endow with credibility. Further, the press should make every reasonable effort to see to it that all views are given exposure and consideration…
“…Now, if it is true what I hear, that the mainstream media is motivated exclusively by business interests and that journalistic integrity has gone the way of the dodo, then I have another card to play: I urge you to contact your colleagues at Fox News and ask them what sort of fiscal hit they took from discluding Ron Paul in New Hampshire. Clearly, logistics came to play. And I can assure you that your entire organization (including, to my chagrin, Olbermann) will lose viewers if you do not reconsider. I , personally, will seek to dissuade your viewership and can realistically strip NBC of at least five hundred viewers. The chain reaction would depend on the ferocity of those five hundred. But I can guarantee five hundred. I hate to resort to blackmail, truly. But as your integrity slips, so does mine. And with the writer’s strike still going strong I don’t see how NBC can afford to take any chances with one of its only cash cows, right?…
“Thank you for your great coverage thus far. I hope this issue can be resolved so I can continue to look to you for my news…”
Thanks again, 99. We’ll barrage them.
Agent 99, here’s my letter to MSNBC:
I am writing to strongly urge MSNBC to stand up to its corporate parent, and not allow G.E. to interfere in our national elections process by denying Rep. Kucinich the right to participate in the upcoming debates in Las Vegas. This is an outrageous act of political censorship on the part of G.E. Corporation, and I like to think that NBC’s news programming is above the low-level of elections shenanigans that G.E. is engaging in. If you can have Keith Olbermann on your team, then you can stand up to G.E. and not let them squelch free political speech during this extraordinarily important election season.
When you finally do the right thing, and let Rep. Kucinich participate, then I will be…
Respectfully,
Thanks goils! I also emailed the video link to everyone I know, and keep thinking up new places to insert it across the web. I really think that on top of this being another distinctly fascist-war-pig-like move that we should fight no matter what and no matter who, Dennis particularly deserves our solidarity right now for standing up for the voters in New Hampshire as he has. I can’t think of a thing that will get him elected, but he is now UNEQUIVOCALLY a true American hero. He deserves the solidarity of every one of us.
Shannon: Hit “refresh”, it will clear up the temporary storage filled up by watching video’s 1-6. That should work. If that doesn’t work, reboot your pc. One of those 2 things will work.
When you watch too many videos, too much temp files, cache, etc…gets filled up, and you must hit “refresh” on the webpage you’re on. OR…reboot your pc.
I’m a computer programmer. Someone once told me years ago, “When all else fails, hit the off/on switch.” Best advice I ever got!
“If Voting Changed Anything, They’d Make It Illegal”. Emma Goldman
I had no problem with video’s 7-9, but I didn’t watch 1-6 first (I watched them many times before). So, apparently watching 1-6 fills something up, and you have to refresh. Let me know if there’s still problems, because they all work for me, but like I said, i just clicked on 7-9 from the get-go. They’re also on youtube, but I put them all in one spot. I saw the movie “Hacking Democracy” when it came out…several times! That’s Bev Harris, you know! From BlackBoxVoting.org !
The “Grandmother from Seattle”…as they say…
How about Lou Dobbs? He has a frickin’ SERIES on how insecure e-vote machines are! Then he QUICKLY apologizes for “getting it wrong”! Without entertaining that “the count” MIGHT be wrong…you know, Lou, LIKE YOUR FRICKIN’ SERIES SAID! You lame-o!!!!!!!!!!!
So Lou, are you going to come out and say you were wrong about the illegal immigrant series you had and the outsourcing American series, too???
I went over to the SOS office on Wed and got a list of the towns that requested Paper Ballots for hand counting. The guy who gave them to me said that all other towns use the Diebold counters. I then went on the SoS site and copied the raw data into an excel spreadsheet. I then organized the data, put an H beside the handcount numbers, and did the math. That is where I got the numbers shown in #50. I’d be glad to email the spreadsheet. Where should I send it. Brad?
Clinton Optical scan 91,717 52.95%
Obama Optical scan 81,495 47.05%
Clinton Hand-counted 20,889 47.05%
Obama Hand-counted 23,509 52.95%
If that’s true, that’s probably impossible odds for that to happen! That’s like hitting the lottery!
My numbers:
Clinton Optical Scan 96,789/238,800 = 40.53%
Obama Optical Scan 86,260/238,800 = 36.12%
Clinton Hand-counted 15,817/46,734 = 33.84%
Obama Hand-counted 18,744/46,734 = 40.10%
From: Raw data SoS website,and printout of hand-counted ballot towns.
Hi guys!
Thought I’d provide some complete information and let people do their own calculations!
Source:http://checkthevotes.com/
Plus MSNBC for Acworth
Note: Got the data Jan 11. The website data changed slightly by Jan 12.
Will somebody please explain why there are three different vote totals presented on this list? (BigDan, Marky, James) Do the vote tallies keep changing? Isn’t that suspicious in itself? Or is there a reasonable and trustworthy explanation?
The checkthevote numbers do not match the numbers on the NH SoS site. Furthermore, they have 11 towns as Hand-count that I have as Diebold. Also, they have 3 Unknowns and a zero count for Windsor. My info on H vs D comes directly from the SoS office, and the data from the website.
The zapkitty has been banned from Daily Kos.
That sure didn’t take long… 🙂
This was the thread:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/13/105314/137/225/436062
I was busy replying to someone who’d confused “potentially compromised chain of custody” with “accusations of ballot tampering” and without warning… *poof!* Agent #69 was forcibly retired 🙂
Thing is… none of my comments appear to even have been troll-rated.
http://www.dailykos.com/user/the zapkitty/comments
Daily Kos: Fighting for
Democracy… er… to elect ever more Democrats so they can capitulate to accusations of “Conspiracy Theorist!” even faster!… 😛
{Zap, I can’t believe you let them think you’re related to me! CONTROL agents never give anything away to the forces of KAOS! Back to basic for you, dude. –99}
Well, I got mine from Bev Harris’s & EDA’s site…
oops… seemed to have double-posted my dkosian ban both here and in another thread. My apologies.
Thanks MARKY!
I don’t know why they do not match, but I can tell you that the checkthevotes numbers match both CNN, politico.com and the Associated Press. I suspect it is a timing/update issue. The stranger thing is that when I compare the NH SoS numbers to checkthevotes, the OTHER category is lower in SoS. This truly does not make sense (although the numbers are trivial).
#49 Thanks for the contact website. I tried to email K.Olberman but never could find an address.Brad …this is the answer ..please post K.Olberman and Democracy Now’s emails address on your blog… You have to get out to the big shows now.Amy Goodman stated on a Q&A with Brian Lamb that Democracy Now and Tim Russert are tied for most popular news shows.
POLITICO.com is not representative of bloggers. Repubs just paid for all the out of work repub. pundits out of work since Crossfire went under to call themselves bloggers.
Getting banned from thedailykos: So what?
lol
Am I the only one who thinks, irregardless of their content, that their site has a very bad layout? I couldn’t stand it! Also, I hate anywhere that you have to “sign in” to comment…don’t you have to sign in there? If I remember correctly?