Simultaneously, at the stroke of 8pm ET, all of the major TV news networks and news agencies declared Mitt Romney the winner of the all-important “First-in-the-Nation” GOP New Hampshire primary.
It’s so important, in fact, that the “winner” was declared before any of the optically-scanned paper ballots — 90% of votes in the state are tallied by easily-hacked Diebold voting systems, which sometimes simply just drop votes, as programmed by a company with a criminal background — were examined by any human being to make certain the results actually reflected the voters’ intent. (In NH in 2008, they often did not.) The vast majority of them hadn’t even been tallied at all yet by one of those secret vote counting computers, as the news outlets declared their winner of the NH GOP primary based on Exit Poll results.
You remember Exit Polls, right? They’re the things that, as we were told over and again back in 2004, are neither accurate nor reliable for use in selecting the winner of elections. In NH in 2008, we were told they were wrong as well.
Nevertheless, with 51% of precincts reporting (and, again, none of the paper ballots from any of the Diebold-tallied towns actually examined to make certain the computers tallied them correctly), the media-reported results declare Ron Paul coming in second, followed by Jon Huntsman, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry and then Buddy Roemer.
One positive note: There was a dearth of problem reports, at least that I was able to find, coming from the polls today — where voters enjoyed the freedom to both register and vote on the very same day, and no voter was denied their right to cast their legal vote due to a lack of Photo ID in the “Live Free or Die” state.
And one cautionary note: As usual, our standard reminder that concerns about tallies and related problems do not often come to light until days, weeks (and sometimes even months) after Election Day. But for now, if you trust the results of your elections to Exit Polls, Diebold voting systems and LHS — the private, unaccountable company whose Vice President Ken Hajjar, a convicted drug trafficker, was barred from working on elections in the State of Connecticut after leaving profane remarks here in comments at The BRAD BLOG in 2007 — which programs them, well, there you have it.
It could be worse. It could be South Carolina…
Oh really, I’ve got something else to do and say…when it comes around to candidates and seasons they carry. Counts …and are on the folks of the regions yeah? No???????????????????????????
Was distressed to catch a moment on the Young Turks when Cenk Uygur was saying he didn’t trust exit polls and that for him the jury was still out on them or words to that effect. Sigh…..I’m going to the gym.
Thanks, Brad. Thanks, Ernie. I can’t thank you enough for providing reference points of sanity in this mad, mad world.
Exit polls agreeing with the final results is generally an indication of an accurate voting event (assuming no human or machine malfunction of significance during the entire process).
This this year’s GOP primary is unlike last year’s DEM primary in NH is it not?
(David – sorry to hear the Cenk does not yet grasp that reality … my guess is that he has not read this blog long enough to get it yet)
Oh yeah, then he had Al Gore on also pooh poohing exit poll reliability.
After listening to Republicans being cheered last night in response to speeches riddled with incoherence, delusion, and hypocrisy, the very black thought occurred to me again that maybe the best thing is for these guys to win. If a populace is ignorant enough to believe black is white maybe it’s just best if we devour ourselves and the planet throws us off.
Has anyone heard a single sentence from Willard The Mitt that wasn’t a bald faced lie?
I thought Bush was bad.
You’re likely on ths one already, Brad.
O’Keefe Pals Attempt Voter Fraud in New Hampshire, Could Go to Jail For It
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/01/11/okeefe-pals-attempt-voter-fraud-in-new-hampshire-could-go-to-jail-for-it/
I am wondering if there is any explanation behind the following statistical anomaly:
Initial precint counts that came in had Romney at 35, Paul at 27, Hunstman at 17, Santorum/Gingrich at 10 each.
Throughout the night there was a fairly linear change to the final count of Romney at 40, Paul at 23, Huntsman at 17 and Santorum/Gingrich at 9.
The latter 3 candidates varied by less than 0.5% from the medium value.
What could possibly explain the linear swing from Paul to Romney?
New Hampshire white rich Republicans give Romney the win; hardly a surprise. Last week, homophobic, anti choice social engineering white Republican Christians gave Santorum second place surge status; again hardly a surprise. South Carolina is next (Old Guard/Money GOP vs Christian Conservatives)it will be a repeat of Iowa; hardly a surprise. Oh, and the Ron Paul minions of all white youth tea party cultist quasiracist clones will give Ron Paul a meaningless placing among the top three; again hardly a surprise.
I’d really like to see some of this European socialism Romney keeps telling us about. Unlike most of his rivals, I suspect Romney is actually smart enough to know that there are virtually no countries in Europe with left-wing parties in power (there’s Greece and… er… Portugal?), and he’s probably smart enough to know that Europe’s very considerable problems do not stem from rampant socialism.
Unfortunately, Romney gets painted as a centrist and a moderate because he can’t make up his mind about how much he hates gays and loves foetuses. But the incessant sniping about social policies in American politics is a side issue and (pacem gay and feminist activists of the left) a diversion. To mangle a phrase coined by one of the most right-wing presidents in recent history, it’s the economic policy, stupid. Even by the standards of the US, where political office is bought rather than won, Romney is the candidate of big business interests. And he has powerful backers, but it remains to be seen whether they can convince a skeptical electorate that this unlikable corporate stooge and charisma-vacuum represents them.
What’s especially nice about this shift to reliance on exit polling, Brad, is that the people being exit polled can then manipulate results just like the ballot-counting-computer companies, only with less technology!
There’s nothing to ensure that those being exit polled are actual voters, after all, or registered to vote, or even residents of the state (they might have been bussed in en-masse by any interested party). They need only walk in the polling place, look at a few signs, walk out again, and answer the exit poll.
Why do that, you ask, when it won’t change the ballot results? But it will change the early reports, now, and the court jostling in the Bush v. Gore 2000 race showed that’s enough to give a candidate a putative claim on the office even if later results don’t look so good for him. Also, it can make shady hacked-ballot-counting results look more plausible.
After all the purported efforts to prevent voter fraud by stringently demanding IDs to vote — I don’t think anyone’s demanding IDs to answer exit polls, do you? So there’s nothing at all to prevent polling fraud, and the GOP’s dirty tricksters have to be keeping that in mind….
Hosting #9,
“I’d really like to see some of this European socialism Romney keeps telling us about.”
In Amurkaspeak “socialism” is the word for treating people with dignity, compassion, and concern.
It is “haaaarrrrddddd wwwweeeeerrrrrrkkkkkk” so the 1% tick class don’t want that dog to hunt.