The New Hampshire Recount - What Result?

[MethuenProgressive]

They're re-counting up in New Hampshire.
What do you think the result be?

[OnTheOtherHand]

1. wait, I have more than one answer...

You can probably guess which ones.

But I'm skipping the last one. Some folks will question any result they don't like, but there's no need to lump everyone together.

[Renew Deal]

2. No matter the result, I don't think Hillary rigged machines

Someone else may have, but she didn't.

[stellanoir]

3. I don't think anyone in the activist community thinks that

the Clinton campaign rigged it.

People just wonder about the discrepancies between the hand counts and the machine counts and are sick of the bubble heads trashing the pollsters and not scrutinizing the machines.

Some feel that the Repub's would prefer to run against Hillary for a myriad of reasons.

But who knows. . .?

Hopefully it'll get people to wake up to the necessity of hand counted ballots and get people to stop declaring winners so quickly, and opting out of instant gratification for accuracy.

[suston96]

4. Result? Paper ballots are the best no matter how you count them.....

...KILL the EV machines - NOW!

[MethuenProgressive]

6. The paper ballots in NH were counted by optical scanners .

I don't think NH used any paperless voting machines at all.

[suston96]

8. Yes, I know how they were counted. But those paper ballots are recountable by hand....

...I have used them in Massachusetts and in Arizona. The point is, any close election or suspicion of election foulness can be remedied with manual recounting of those paper ballots.

[Tesha]

11. It is currently *ILLEGAL* in NH to use a paperless ballot. (NT)

[rox63]

17. YAY!

Go NH!

[Pathwalker]

14. I think they should be PUBLICLY counted - even if it's just

web cams placed in the corners of the room where they are counted, and streamed live on the net. Why isn't the counting process made public?

[MethuenProgressive]

16. They are counted in public. You can even volunteer to watch, or help.

[Pathwalker]

18. Really? That's fabulous! Thank you so much for that

information! That makes me relieved, that at least we can believe the recount. :bounce:

[ihelpu2see]

5. I hope it will show that the software behind the Deibold equipment can not

be trusted...

viva paper ballots

[bdamomma]

7. those scanners could have been easily hacked into.

switching votes.

this was from bradblog:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5544



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.

[Tarc]

9. Did you ever consider alternative explanations?

Before reaching for the conspiratorial? More affluent districts have the more modern equipment, while the sparser, rural districts do not. I don't have links to the vote breakdown on-hand, I'm sure someone can find them, but perhaps Clinton was viewed more favorably in the more upscale districts than out in the boondocks.

[mckeown1128]

15. Exit polling data states that Obama is stronger among

the affluent.

[SoxFan]

24. Actually, it's the opposite

The hand count towns are generally small, well-off communities in Grafton and Cheshire Counties. These towns are "East Vermont", and the voters tend to be highly educated and reformist in their politics. Bill Bradley and Howard Dean did well in these towns as well.

I know this is going to piss some people off, but the machines probably helped Obama in Manchester and Nashua. Since the scanners went into use, the amount of cheating has decreased markedly in both of these cities. It is much harder to screw with a scanner ballot count than it was to monkey with the old mechanical machines. If Ray Buckley (Manchester uberhack) and Jane Clemons (Nashua uberhack) could have found a way to cheat for Hilalry, they would have done so. The presence of scanner ballots made that job much tougher.

[SoxFan]

13. Recounts are performed by hand

They run the ballots through the scanners one last time, then count the ballots by hand. Inevitably, the result is almost the same. The only changes are due to odd things like voters who write commentary on their ballot and the like.

[Tesha]

10. There's always some change in a recount this big. But it will be insignificant.

There's always some change in a recount this big;
in order to count half a million votes, there are
simply too many operations for all of them to be
conducted error-free, at least where humans are
involved. And it's just as likely that the errors
will have occurred during the recounting process as
during the original tally. For example, the official
instructions on how to recount the ballots include
directions to sort the ballots into piles for each
candidate, grouped into sets of twenty-five ballots.
When you're considering thousands of ballots for
each candidate (as is true in my ward), that manual
process could easily go wrong by a few counts.

But in the end, the changes produced will be
insignificant and not indicative of any systematic
fraud or bias.

Tesha

[onenote]

12. agreed

[Kucinich4America]

19. There's only one reasonable thing to do with Diebold machines

And you all saw Office Space, didn't you? :evilgrin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6syezOHJ2Q

[Pathwalker]

20. Link won't work for me. Does it involve melting them down

into a giant fist with the middle finger raised, and presented to Diebold, with a note saying "From the American voter"? Because, that's what I'd like to see happen to them.

[Adelante]

21. Little change, if any

But it wouldn't take very much ;)

[MethuenProgressive]

22. The recount starts today. "Last one tooks weeks, w/ several lawsuits" -WMUR

O joy.

[Tesha]

23. Kucinich is starting small, though.

> "Last one tooks weeks, w/ several lawsuits"

Kucinich is starting small, though. They'll be recounting
just Manchester, then deciding what to do. If they go
onwards, they'll recount Hillsborough County (which
includes the City of Nashua as well).

No information yet on what happens after that.

Personally, I think they'll find no significant
change in Manchester and Kucinich will decline to
spend any more of his money (although I'd prefer
they went on to Nashua, my home town).

Tesha