(no subject)

[netmouse]

Kucinich calls for recount in NH.


In the last year not a lot of people have been talking about the fact that two years ago lots of watchdog groups were saying we were not ready to have a presidential election we could depend on--many of the electronic ballot-counting systems were actually worse at the time (for accountability) than New Hampshire's, which at least appears to keep a copy of a physical ballot. I'm not sure how far we've gotten since then.

One analysis group reports of the NH primary that comparison of *some* hand-counted ballots with *all* the electronic ballots show eerily switched percentages for Obama and Clinton compared to the total count reported. What's that Scalzi was just saying about how hard Clinton would fight for this election? Seriously, though, numbers do weird things sometimes. It's not always a conspiracy. But I'd like to see a recount like this done at a time when no one can argue the whole national economy is waiting with baited breath for the results and that therefore (this argument never held water for me) we have to stop counting the votes. Please, please, please, let's not have another Florida/Ohio/etc. situation. This is America. We really ought to be able to get this voting thing down. It's not really that complicated.

Comments

[grimfaire.livejournal.com]

There were a lot of "fishy" numbers in NH when comparing hand counted to electronic counted. The guilliani/romney/paul numbers were way off. Hand count had paul at like 15%, romney at 15 and guilliani at 8... much different from the electronic numbers which were off in some instances more than 9% from the hand count.

From a computer security expert voice; not one of the electronic voting machines has passed inspection. Most of them can be "hacked" (I really that term btw) pretty quickly with items you can carry in your pocket. And since you're screen from each other, you can do it so no one else sees you. Of course, if you want to get real conspiricy, they could also be modified before the election. Oh, you pressed Obama and that's vote for obama as a multiple of 3 so it gets marked down as clinton.

[foms.livejournal.com]

It would be nice if the US used hand-marked ballots.

Voting

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"It's not really that complicated."

Unfortunately, it is far more complicated than most people think. "It's really not that complicated" is the source of a lot of our problems.

B

[childe.livejournal.com]

Our voting system would not qualify as First World with the UN. I'm not sure if it even qualifies as Second.

[marsgov.livejournal.com]

The other question is whether or not people from neighboring states came to vote in NH. I've heard rumors that the laws are sufficiently lax to allow a simple declaration of intent to live in NH suffices to vote in the primary.

The other is the "get real" factor. A three percent difference in the vote count at this level isn't a victory; it's a tie.

[davehogg.livejournal.com]

What's that Scalzi was just saying about how hard Clinton would fight for this election?

No way. Not a chance.

Here, off the top of my head, are some reason that the idea of the Clintons fixing the primary is impossible:

1) Why? Bill and Hillary Clinton are not nearly stupid enough to risk throwing away their legacies to win one state primary. Even if you think that Hillary had to win New Hampshire to have any chance of getting the nomination, there's no way it is worth the risk. One person squeals, and everything they've done on the national stage in the last 16 years goes down the toilet.

2) When? New Hampshire didn't become a must-win for Clinton until she finished third in Iowa. That was five days before the New Hampshire primary. Even if you say that they started the process when she started slipping in the polls, they would have had to fix the primary in two weeks.

3) How? Even if I'm wrong about #1 and #2, it is impossible. These aren't touch-screen ballots like Ohio. These are the optical-scan ballots that we use in Michigan. Even if you hack all the machines at all the precincts to switch every third Obama vote to Clinton, which would be a trick in itself, it's really easy to recount Diebold ballots. I've been involved in a Diebold recount. You'd be risking everything on the fact that no one, in an era of internal and external polls and highly sophisticated result-projecting software, would notice there was a problem. Hell, in 1992, I had an Excel spreadsheet that tracked the results in every precinct, and we would have noticed if a few of them were really off, and that was written by a 23-year-old on a computer that probably couldn't run my washing machine these days.

I suspect there's a "Where?" in there somewhere. And a "What?"

[mjwise.livejournal.com]

My understanding is in NH that all ballots are hand-marked, but only some are machine read. I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of variation since I imagine the distribution of machine reading is much heavier in higher density areas. And you do tend to see a lot of urban-rural voting differences on a micro and macro basis.

And, regardless of all else Dennis Kucinich is a grade A kookburger. He makes Ron Paul look sane and well-reasoned.