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Recount Proves No Fraud In NH Primary 96

Posted by kdawson from the nothing-to-see-here dept.
murdocj writes "You can take off those tinfoil hats, because the recount results of the NH Primary are in, and the hand count matches the machine count. Everyone can now move on to the conspiracy around the Texas flying saucer. In fact, only 40% of the vote was recounted (that's all that Dennis Kucinich was willing to pay for), but that 40% shows that the machine and hand counts match up nicely. As was pointed out when this 'story' broke, areas that have machine counting tend to have different demographics than hand-counted areas, and thus a difference in voting patterns."
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Recount Proves No Fraud In NH Primary More

Recount Proves No Fraud In NH Primary

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  • Yeah, well (Score:5, Informative)

    by Captain Splendid ( 673276 ) * <`capsplendid' `at' `gmail.com'> on Friday January 25, 2008 @12:03PM (#22183214) Homepage Journal
    When your security procedures are this lax [bbvforums.org], anything can happen.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by makomk ( 752139 )
      Quite. I think the elections for student's union posts at the university I'm at now have better tamper-proofing and chain of custody than that.
    • There is a voter fraud watchdog group that has done in depth investigation and created a documentary (http://cre8ive-design.net/blog/?cat=7) that proves that the way the recounts are performed are meaningless, unless all the votes are counted. Election officials pre-sort ballots by candidate, choose the quantity of ballots for each candidate that supports the official numbers, and provides the pre-selected ballots to the vote re-counters. This was admitted on tape by the election officials. This documentar

  • Sure.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by 4D6963 ( 933028 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @12:21PM (#22183328)

    Recount Proves No Fraud

    Sure, or maybe everybody frauded in a self canceling way.

    </double tinfoil hat>

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Or better yet that the fraudulently created ballots were counted for the second time giving the same results.
    • Its probably not fraud, but it defiantly did self cancel.
      On http://www.sos.nh.gov/recounthills.htm [nh.gov]
      In Nashua Ward 5 Clinton gained 71 votes (out of a about a thousand, a 7% difference)
      In Manchester Ward 10 Clinton lost 10 votes (of out about a 900)
      Anyways in total of all precients in which she gained votes she gained 163 votes (this is just one county in the state)
      In total of all precient in which she lost votes she lost 103.
      Leading to a net change of 59 votes.
    • The original article is just blatant b.s. Here's what the Kucinich campaign sent to the NH SoS: Image Link. [bradblog.com] The guy who paid for the recount thinks it proves that NH can't be trusted to count votes.

  • Pay for a recount? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pembo13 ( 770295 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @12:21PM (#22183352) Homepage
    If there is uncertainty, why does anyone (voters or the candidates) have to (directly) pay for the recount?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TheGreek ( 2403 )

      If there is uncertainty, why does anyone (voters or the candidates) have to (directly) pay for the recount?
      "Uncertainty" according to whose standard?

      Some people will refuse to accept reality no matter how many facts you shove in their faces.

      • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Some people will refuse to accept reality no matter how many facts you shove in their faces.

        Sounds like one of the tenets of /.

      • Re:Pay for a recount? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Original Replica ( 908688 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @01:35PM (#22184598) Journal
        "Uncertainty" according to whose standard?

        It's pretty easy when you look at the vote tallies for your county and see that the candidate you voted for is showing zero votes. [rense.com] That makes it obvious that the original count is wrong. It's difficult to spot shifting vote numbers once the numbers get higher, which is why we need UN election oversight. [house.gov] This is a measure we insist on in other countries but yet refuse in our own. Uncertainty is when you vote is being counted by black box machines made by a company that employs know felons in key management areas. [wired.com] Strangely the people put in power by this voting system, don't want the system to change, funny that. True election reform which would break us out of our dysfunctional two party system, such as approval voting [wikipedia.org] or instant runoff voting [wikipedia.org] will never pass through a legislature put in power by a strong two party system. Uncertainty is when 56% of the population doesn't even show up to vote, because they do not feel represented by either of the two available choices. [hnn.us]

        • Re:Pay for a recount? (Score:4, Informative)

          by TheGreek ( 2403 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:22PM (#22185284)
          Well, let's go in order, shall we?

          It's pretty easy when you look at the vote tallies for your county and see that the candidate you voted for is showing zero votes [rense.com]. That makes it obvious that the original count is wrong.
          The recount the Slashbots were talking about in the original story is the one Gollum [dennis4president.com] asked for. The missing votes for Rep. Paul were neither germane to the Democratic primary nor anything more than a rounding error.

          Uncertainty is when you vote is being counted by black box machines made by a company that employs know felons in key management areas.
          The Diebold machines in NH are optical scan machines that count paper ballots. A hand recount of these machine-counted ballots appears to have resulted in highly similar results [nh.gov], well within Sen. Clinton's margin of victory.

          Uncertainty is when 56% of the population doesn't even show up to vote, because they do not feel represented by either of the two available choices.
          Then those 56% of the people are complacent retards who aren't even trying to improve the process. There can be no uncertainty over ballots not even cast. Nice strawman.

          • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

            by Anonymous Coward
            those 56% of the people are complacent retards who aren't even trying to improve the process.

            How can you "improve the process" when neither of the two choices available to you are worthy leaders? How can you "improve the process" when any votes for someone that isn't a party tool are so marginalized that not counting them is so easily written off (why the fuck would you be rounding votes anyhow?)

            There can be no uncertainty over ballots not even cast. Nice strawman.

            Ok, who do I vote for that will g

        • It's difficult to spot shifting vote numbers once the numbers get higher, which is why we need UN election oversight. This is a measure we insist on in other countries but yet refuse in our own.

          I realize ragging on the election system in the US, any part of it really, is popular, but this argument - in and of itself - is completely ludicrous.

          "we insist on in other countries.."

          Not in any WESTERN country. I can't think of a single Western, "1st world", country that has UN oversight of its elections....

        • Did you REALLY just say UN election oversight? Are you out of your skull?

          First let me say, I TOTALLY agree with you that the election system is shot. It has been - the two party system is a joke and the way we vote is a joke (Voting should start across the US at say 7am ET and end 7am ET the next day AND should be on a weekend. The press should not be allowed to report exit polls until the election is finished - the speed in which they can do this has a DEFINITE effect on voting patterns. It's crazy t
        • "Uncertainty is when 56% of the population doesn't even show up to vote, because they do not feel represented by either of the two available choices." The article you cite is dated 2002 - interesting history, but dated. I don't think you can cite an analysis of low turnout to illuminate a primary of record turnout. E.g., the article cites party-non-identifiers as low rate voters, yet both O's non-partisan message and C's 'turn up the heat' message are driving massive turnout. We're in uncharted territor

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by fyrie ( 604735 )
      It varies from state-to-state, but typically it works like this: If an election is very close (within the margin of error of the vote tallying method), an automatic recount is done, and is payed for by the state. Any candidate can request a recount for any reason if they are willing to pay for it in the case the election did not fall into the automatic recount scenario.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by fyrie ( 604735 )
        I left out why recounts are costly: The State Employees who do the recounting have to skip out on their regular job duties until the recount is done. In highly contested cases where lawyers and party representatives are bickering over every ballot, it can become a huge time sink.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pembo13 ( 770295 )
        Fair enough. I didn't understand that part of it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Nutria ( 679911 )
          I didn't understand that part of it.

          How could you not understand that it takes LOTS of time to recount ballots (are you too young to remember the Florida recount?), and that it must be done by existing state elections employees, and that people who are doing Job B can't also be simultaneously be doing their normal Job A, and so the backlog of Job A piles up?

      • It varies from state-to-state, but typically it works like this: If an election is very close (within the margin of error of the vote tallying method), an automatic recount is done, and is payed for by the state. Any candidate can request a recount for any reason if they are willing to pay for it in the case the election did not fall into the automatic recount scenario.

        Also, if the recount proves that original result was wrong, the candidate will not be charged with a timeout.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nimey ( 114278 )
      The opposing argument is that if a candidate simply doesn't like the result, he could keep demanding a recount until it turns out the "right" way.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by BigT ( 70780 )
        That's how we elect governors in Washington state.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Aexia ( 517457 )
          You mean by running an automatic machine recount due to the closeness of the race and then accepting a $730,000 deposit to conduct a manual recount, all in accordance with state law?

          Of course, there was a court challenge, but the only thing that did was knock a few fraudulent votes off the Republican candidate's total.
    • There is always uncertainty, so the vote should be recounted every time. I say, do the first count by hand, the second by computer, and the third again by hand. $3000 per state recount is peanuts. This is the most important democratic action a democracy can have. Isn't it worth double- and triple-checking?
      • Yeah, when I used to work in cash control, we'd have to count every stack of money twice - once by hand and once per machine. If the counts didn't match, we did another hand count. It seems silly that there's no sort of double-checking built in to a system that's the blood and marrow of our democracy, where companies require double and triple checks on things that are done every day.
    • Uncertainty can be a figment of your imagination, a sign of a sore loser and a complexed reality all at once. It used to be that recounts were demanded by the loosing party and paid for by the state/city. This got expensive as the population grew and it had a side effect. The loser always wanted a recount and if it changed the outcome, the new loser would demand one also.(think florida 2000 on a much larger scale)

      Now the recounts are only paid for by the state/city when the margin of victory is less then th

  • Proof? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PseudoThink ( 576121 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @12:21PM (#22183354)
    I think it only proves there's no fraud detectable by recount. </tinfoil>

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Applekid ( 993327 )
      Unit tests cannot prove there are no bugs, rather, proves the existance of a subset of possible bugs. I'd imagine a recount to be akin to those.

      "Prove" is such a strong word. How about Proofiness?

  • Great (Score:2)

    by MattW ( 97290 )
    Given the discrepancy, it was a good idea to check.

    • Re:Great (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Stanistani ( 808333 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @12:39PM (#22183692) Homepage Journal
      Given the level of mistrust about the previous two presidential elections, I think it would be only prudent to have recounts randomly throughout the process, however they are initiated.

      Legitimacy of the power wielded by the Chief Executive should be widely accepted.

      • Re:Great (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25, 2008 @01:13PM (#22184296)

        Legitimacy of the power wielded by the Chief Executive should be widely accepted.

        I'll never accept it! I'm an anarchist! The only Chief Executive who tells me what to do is me!

        <To self>: I'll never accept you as my master! I'm an anarchist! The only Chief Executive who tells me what to do is me!

        <To self>: <To self>: I'll never accept you as my master! I'm an anarchist! The only Chief Executive who tells me what to do is me!

      • Re:Great (Score:4, Interesting)

        by quacking duck ( 607555 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @01:19PM (#22184376)
        Further, given the metric crapload of money candidates already spend/waste on campaigning, you'd think there would be a system in place to skim off a percentage towards recounts. Election insurance, as it were.

        Why the hell not? You're voting to give these clowns the right to skim money off *your* income for their pork barrel projects...
        • Some would say the better route would be that no skimming would happen at all...
        • Other than filing fees, none of the money that candidates spend on campaigning goes to the governments of the states that the elections are held in. If you're advocating some type of "election fee", wouldn't that disproportionately affect campaigns with a smaller war chest, like lesser-known and third party candidates?
          • Taxes are on a sliding scale, no? Candidates would pay nothing if their campaign spending is below a certain limit, while those that spend millions get hit. The thinking being that if they're already spending that much money trying to convince us to elect them, they must have a vested interest in making sure their vote counts are accurate.

            Of course, this'll never happen because those who actually hold power (or have a shot at getting it) would never do anything to take money away from themselves.
  • Those are only the democratic recounts. Also, any republican counts are write-ins. They're not all done yet.

    • Republican counting (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The republican count is the one I'm interested in. Like the districts where Ron Paul got 0 votes, but multiple people report having voted for him. Good luck trying to explain that.

      Even if it wasn't intentional fraud, I'm scared of a system where less-popular candidates are hurt. If a major candidate loses 100 votes, it might not even be statistically significant (unless it's a really close race). If a grassroots candidate loses 100 votes and shows up as "0", the election is broadcasting to all that ever

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by murdocj ( 543661 )

        When I submitted this article, I knew that some folks would automatically assume that the election was fraudulent, and that any recount that didn't agree with what they "knew" must also be fraudulent. It's sad proof that facts can't drive out firmly held convictions. But just in another vain attempt, the issue with Ron Paul getting zero votes has already been clearly explained in this article [concordmonitor.com] that I posted a link to in the previous discussion of the NH election.

        For anyone too lazy to click the link, here

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by neomunk ( 913773 )
          That's not information, it's emotional pandering.

          How this person FEELS about being in the middle of voter fraud doesn't add one iota of meaningful information into the discussion.

          Basically (from only the clip you posted, I didn't read the whole article you linked to) you're saying that the person who got caught involved in stealing a diamond necklace (not as valuable as democracy mind you, but it's good enough for analogy) is really really upset about the negative attention she's getting. Well, sorry (not

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by murdocj ( 543661 )

            Well, sorry (not really), but that's what happens when you get caught up in a crime like this

            Thanks for proving my point. There was NO crime here. The attitude of "39 votes were lost, there must be a conspiracy, let's start a witch hunt" is exactly what this woman was upset about.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by neomunk ( 913773 )
              If my -ONE- vote is stolen, it's a crime, and the person responsible is a criminal. If YOUR -ONE- vote was stolen, you'd be in a red-faced hissy-fit about it, and would then understand that it was a crime.

              You're not nearly important enough to decide what level of fraud is considered crime, ESPECIALLY voter fraud. How many votes lost DOES matter? Can they all be from the same candidate's voter pool? (you've answered affirmative on that already) Does it only matter if the votes would have gone to YOUR ca

  • Did Diebold write this? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by megamerican ( 1073936 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @12:49PM (#22183920)
    First of all, the Republican ballots haven't been counted yet. Secondly, Kucinich ran out of money so not all of the ballots on the Democratic side were counted. Not only that, but the chain of custody for the ballots was severely lacking. It would be alomst impossible to prove fraud when you can't fully account for where the ballots were and everyone who had custody of them. There were lots of discrepencies in the diebold counted places. Simply check out http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ [blackboxvoting.org] and http://www.bradblog.com/ [bradblog.com] and you'll see how incredibly bad NH was.

    The Republican ballots won't even have started to be counted for a few days. More money was donated to the 3rd party candidate to make the recount (mostly Ron Paul supporters through the Granny Warriors). There were at least two cities in NH that reported 0 votes for Ron Paul, then magically found them the next day when it was pointed out to them that people voted for him there (all by accident, of course).

    The fact that the diebold ballots were so far off is very troubling, considering they make ATM's which don't miss a penny and are virtually fraud proof (not to mention there is a paper trail). LHS Associates, who counted 81% of the votes in NH also have an executive who was convicted of narcotics trafficking. It was also LHS Associates who handled a lot of the ballots after the voting was done. They can't use the Fry defense "Don't blame me, I'm a non-voting felon." They're vote counting felons.

    Anyone who gets their votes counted through a Diebold machine should get stickers saying "I think I voted."

    • They can't use the Fry defense "Don't blame me, I'm a non-voting felon." They're vote counting felons.
      That's Bender.

    • I forgot to add.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by megamerican ( 1073936 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @01:29PM (#22184522)
      I also forgot to add that the so called seals on the boxes were more like post it notes. You could take them off and put them back on and no one would ever notice.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKQEQ7qHvgM [youtube.com]
      This video demonstrates how great the chain of custody was in NH. This basically proves that fraud could have easily happened and been undetectable.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by illumin8 ( 148082 )

      First of all, the Republican ballots haven't been counted yet. Secondly, Kucinich ran out of money so not all of the ballots on the Democratic side were counted. Not only that, but the chain of custody for the ballots was severely lacking.

      Yeah, because they obviously went to so much trouble that they had to manufacture brand new ballots to perfectly match the fraudulent machine count. And they did this all overnight, while the ballots were stored in this warehouse with "post-it notes" sealing the boxes.

      You

      • This isn't about a particular candidate.

        This is about a voting system with little security or oversight.

        To firmly believe there couldn't have been fraud is as irrational as believing firmly that there was fraud.

      • Gadfly, Nut, and Weirdo (Score:4, Insightful)

        by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Friday January 25, 2008 @07:57PM (#22189204) Homepage Journal
        Get over it. Ron Paul lost. He will continue to lose, because his ideas don't appeal to the majority of Americans.

        Seriously? I'll bet you five dollars a majority of Americans have no clue what Ron Paul's ideas are.

        Political activists, maybe, but even then > 50% is hard to believe. At least among the people I talk to, 10% have even looked at his website or heard about his policy ideas. Most of them know he's a gadfly, a nut, and a weirdo, though.
    • Are you just flat-out ignoring the demographic differences here? Diebolds were mostly in urban areas, where voters tend to vote differently than those in rural areas where the Diebold machines were few and far between.
    • Actually, most Diebold machines sold in the past ten years don't have a "paper trail" (internal paper transaction journal) anymore; they have an electronic journal. However, banks reconcile ATM transactions to cash balances every business day (and only bank employees have physical access to the critical parts of the machine, usually under dual control), so errors are relatively rare and quickly discovered.

      On the other hand, banks' take the whereabouts of their money very seriously. Probably more serious

    • The fact that the diebold ballots were so far off is very troubling, considering they make ATM's which don't miss a penny and are virtually fraud proof (not to mention there is a paper trail).

      I'm not a lawyer or a banker, but if an ATM malfunctions due to a software or hardware error, I'd bet that Diebold would be held financial responsible under the terms of the sales agreements they had with the bank. [Given how much is at stake for the bank, they'd be foolish not to have their lawyers include something

    • Here [bbvforums.org] is one of the more incredible accounts.

      I guess maybe punchscan [punchscan.org] has it right...

  • Dump the paultarded flag (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This particular recount was requested by a democrat and was targetted to demo ballots.

    Ron Paul never claimed there was a NH problem. They released a statement that claimed their counts and internal polls jibed with the reported results [dailypaul.com] and that any discrepencies were innocent.

  • "Recount Proves NH Election Fraud Undetectable" (Score:5, Funny)

    by R2.0 ( 532027 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @01:07PM (#22184172)
    Fixed that for ya'.

    Logic says that one can never prove a negative, and here in conspiracy land we OBEY the laws of logic.

  • Male Bovine Excrement (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They "lost" the diebold memory cards, and there's already documentation of different precincts with highly strange results. And the secstate there stated kucinich was satisfied with the results, even though in a letter to him he clearly says he wasn't, and you can find the letter and the couinbter statements online to see that. The secstate there right off the bat looks to be lying. The system is *rigged*, and it isn't just in New Hampshire either. Some ballot boxes-used freaking cardboard boxes used to tra

  • According to the Hillsborough County recount, which was completed, there is now a total of 46 votes less than originally counted. I can see how votes could be missed or misread and therefore not counted, but how does one actually end up with less votes?

    Also, according to the NH Secretary of State, the Republican primary recount was scheduled to start yesterday, yet they've had recounted Republican votes for Hillsborough County posted on their website for almost a week now.

  • "hand count matches the machine count"? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mtgradwell ( 763744 ) <martin.gradwellNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:23PM (#22185298)
    Where do you get that from? Looking at the actual results, I see numerous instances where the initial count differs from the recount. More often than not it's just a 1 or 2 vote discrepancy, but it is pervasive. During the early stages of the recount it was being reported that getting on for 1% of the votes hadn't been counted; either the machines would ignore every 100th ballot or so, or they'd ignore a whole batch because pens with the wrong kind of ink had been used. Most of the batched errors were caught on the day of the count, but it took a recount to show up the sporadic individual errors.

    Why is this important? One reason is because there is a demographic difference between hand-counted and machine-counted areas, so if you're going to disenfranchise 1% of the population in machine-counted areas, even if it's done entirely at random, that reduces the elective power of the demographic in those areas, which can tip a close election. Besides, isn't every vote supposed to be counted? Isn't that why you go and vote, because you believe that your vote will be counted? How many voters wouldn't bother if they knew it was some sort of lottery?

    Another point: a partial recount will never disclose a fraud if the people choosing the areas to be recounted are also the people behind the fraud. They will simply leave the areas where the fraud took place until last, secure in the knowledge that the recount sponsor's finances or resolve will run out before the recount gets that far. And it certainly was the case that Kucinich couldn't specify exactly what was recounted. His requests for a tally of the uncast ballot papers, for instance, fell on deaf ears. So what happened to those uncast ballots? Did they get cast after all?

  • when all the remaining candidates are clones of each other. The war will go on. The patriot act, DMCA, etc aren't going anywhere. Censorship of the internet and tracking will continue to increase. You all can be expected to need your national ID card or an electronic bracelet or implant or tattoo if you want to leave the house. All hope of any change in course is lost until at least 2012. And if the present power structure comes under any real threat, you can bet that there will be no elections then.

  • Proof against fraud (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HalAtWork ( 926717 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @03:03PM (#22185886)
    Good, now we found a way to show that an election hasn't been rigged. Shouldn't we be doing this everywhere? That way if the machine is rigged, the hand count will show it. If the hand count is rigged, the machine count will show it. It's better than having a single point of failure.
  • As many other people have noted, this recount, for a wide variety of reasons, doesn't "prove no fraud" here. I'd like to add one other factor that can't be covered by any recount: people voting in precincts where they aren't eligible to vote.

    Failing to count one person's vote disenfranchises that one person completely. Allowing someone to vote where/when they aren't legally supposed to disenfranchises all of us by a little bit each.

  • I thought it was a government conspiracy or something, guess not :(

    Although you never know, in a year someone could cone forward and say it's a lie...
  • I'm baffled that so many citizen commentators are eager to conclusively report no malfeasance in the NH primary. As a voter, I'd assume the bias of your average citizen blogger would favor transparent and closely scrutinized treatment of the recount process - not a burning desire to proclaim "All Clear!" well ahead of any reasonable period for investigation.

    No, seriously, what is the incentive?

    Might want to look at the recount table again:
    http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5598 [bradblog.com]
    (hint: scroll to the bottom

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