Diebold Demands That HBO Cancel Documentary On Voting Machines

[Gold9472]

Diebold demands that HBO cancel documentary on voting machines
Film saying they can be manipulated 'inaccurate'

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/290653_diebold01.html

By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
BLOOMBERG NEWS

Diebold Inc. insisted that cable network HBO cancel a documentary that questions the integrity of its voting machines, calling the program inaccurate and unfair.

The program, "Hacking Democracy," is scheduled to debut Thursday, , five days before the 2006 U.S. midterm elections. The film claims that Diebold voting machines aren't tamper-proof and can be manipulated to change voting results.

"Hacking Democracy" is "replete with material examples of inaccurate reporting," Diebold Election System President David Byrd said in a letter to HBO President and Chief Executive Chris Albrecht posted on Diebold's Web site. Short of pulling the film, Monday's letter asks for disclaimers to be aired and for HBO to post Diebold's response on its Web site.

According to Byrd's letter, inaccuracies in the film include the assertion that Diebold, whose election systems unit is based in Allen, Texas, tabulated more than 40 percent of the votes cast in the 2000 presidential election.

The letter says Diebold wasn't in the electronic voting business in 2000, when disputes over ballots in Florida delayed President Bush's victory for more than a month and raised questions about the reliability of electronic voting machines.

"We stand by the film," said Jeff Cusson, a spokesman for HBO, which is a unit of Time Warner Inc.

"We have no intention of withdrawing it from our schedule. It appears that the film Diebold is responding to is not the film HBO is airing."

David Bear, a spokesman for Diebold, said the company bought another firm, Global Elections, in 2002 that served about 8 percent of balloting in 2000, including voters in Florida. The company, which hasn't seen the film, based its complaints on material from the HBO Web site, Bear said.

This is Diebold's second recent defense of its system. On Sept. 26, Byrd wrote to Jann Wenner, editor and publisher of Rolling Stone, saying a story written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., "Will the Next Election Be Hacked?" was "error-riddled" and that readers "deserve a better researched and reported article."

The HBO documentary is based on the work of Bev Harris, the Renton woman who founded BlackBoxVoting.org, which monitors election accuracy. In 2004 the attorney general of California took up a whistle-blower claim filed by Harris against Diebold and settled with the company for $2.6 million in December.

[Gold9472]

HBO film takes on electronic voting just days before election

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/HBOs_October_Surprise_in_November_1102.html

Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: Thursday November 2, 2006

A documentary set to air tonight will raise serious questions about the reliability of electronic voting just days before the US midterm elections. A copy of the film has been obtained by RAW STORY.

Hacking Democracy, scheduled to run on cable network HBO starting this evening, consists largely of a collection of videos taken by advocacy groups, interviews with experts, and documentation that suggests something could go very wrong on election night.

At the center of the film is advocacy group Black Box Voting, headed by voter activist Bev Harris, along with other Seattle natives. Among them was the late Andy Stephenson, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2005. At the time of his work with Harris, Stephenson had just failed in his bid to win the Washington State post of Secretary of State.

While the advance buzz about the documentary has focused almost entirely on Diebold, a leading vendors of voting machines, the film explores a wider range of issues, suggesting that something far more insidious than technology is at play, and could threaten our democratic process.

The Machines
The film presents Diebold, for all of its obvious partisan ties and questionable funding, as a tool for something much bigger, engulfing the national media and both parties: a bizarre "don't ask, don't tell" game that creates an illusion of fair and honest voting, despite mathematical realities and the documented criminal activities of partisan loyalists at the local and national levels.

It opens with disturbing numbers from the 2000 election: The Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Al Gore, came up with negative 16,022 votes in Volusia County, Florida. The investigators looking into why the votes were subtracted by Diebold's election technology ruled out machine failure, because the subtractions only occurred in votes cast for President/Vice President. However, questions about the error remained unanswered, because Diebold’s software is a trade secret.

Bev Harris, incensed by these and other allegations of machine count irregularities, began digging and, by chance, unearthed paydirt in the form of Diebold’s online FTP site, left unsecured. Harris took the Diebold documents she had downloaded from the FTP server to Johns Hopkins University security expert, Dr. Avi Rubin, who concluded that the software was not secure, and open to tampering.

Joined by Stephenson, Cleveland election advocate Kathleen Wynn, and others, Harris began dumpster-diving from state to state to obtain information that should be readily available in a democracy and open to the public.

Who Benefits?
One example of what the team from Black Box Voting found during their digs through garbage was that an internal Diebold accounts receivable ledger showed money owed to the company from the Republican Party of Texas' 8th district. But for what? Harris et al do not know, and neither do voters.

We learn also from the documentary of an infamous fundraising letter sent in 2003 on behalf of the Republican National Committee by Walden O’Dell, then CEO of Diebold, promising to deliver Ohio to President Bush the next year.

While election fraud has always been a reality, with both parties taking part in vote theft and voter suppression, those activities have previously tended to happen only in small pockets and on the local level. It is only with electronic voting machines that there is now the potential for vote-rigging on a widescale basis.

The film presents one example from New Orleans, where a Republican candidate in Jefferson Parish, Susan Bernecker, found that when her name was selected, her Democratic opponent's name would instead appear in the result box.

But overall, the majority of glitches and technical anomalies appear to work in favor of the Republican Party. Never before has one party allegedly been so effective at manipulating the system across the nation, using corporate alliances in order to orchestrate an election coup.

Largely through implication, the filmmakers present a picture of an historically unprecedented, well-funded and well-organized national effort to rig elections since 2000 to favor one party: the Republican Party.

The system is broken
The most astonishing aspect of this story, however, is not that the Republican Party is so often favored by these glitches, or that a private company using proprietary software is also raising money for the Republican Party, but that the mainstream media does not question and the Democratic Party does not seem to challenge the outcome of election cycles since 2000.

In one telling scene in the film, Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) is attacked by the Republican Party for demanding that Ohio voters be heard, after having watched her state disenfranchise black voters in large numbers and the recount be manipulated, and even though local election workers were indicted as a result.

Tubbs Jones, backed by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), issued a challenge to the official Ohio certification of the 2004 presidential election, asking that Congress review the results before certifying them. The challenge, the likes of which had not been seen for nearly a century, aimed merely to present her findings and explore the serious allegations.

Members of the Republican Party, including Tom Delay, the former Republican House Majority Leader who is now under indictment for money laundering, took to the floor, attacking Democrats. In the end, the election was certified by Congress despite widespread allegations of voter fraud, documented evidence of voter suppression, and eyewitness accounts of ballot tampering.

Other forms of fraud
The film sticks closely to issues relating to electronic voter fraud, and does not consider all claims of voter fraud in recent years, omitting the allegedly extensive voter suppression tactics used against African American voters by the Republican Party – including phony felon lists, false police inspection check points, and full-out scrub and caging lists – which essentially suppress a large segment of the Democratic voting demographic from ever casting a vote.

The documentary also does not address the massive money fraud engineered in states like Ohio, where it has come to be known as Coingate, or the conflicts of interest on the part of many election officials – for example Katherine Harris, who in 2000 was not only Florida’s Secretary of State, and thus in charge of elections, but also co-chair of the Bush-Cheney Florida campaign.

Hacking Democracy premiers tonight at 9 PM EST on HBO.

[simuvac]

Speaking of vote fraud:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/08/nh.main/index.html

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton has won New Hampshire's Democratic primary, CNN projects.

Sen. John McCain easily won New Hampshire's Republican primary Tuesday, but Clinton and Barack Obama were locked in a tight race much of the night.

Clinton held a 2 to 3 point lead over Obama throughout most of the night, despite recent polls showing Obama 9 points ahead of the New York senator.

The Republican results mark a resurgence for McCain, whose campaign was all but written off this summer.

Supporters at her headquarters chanted "comeback kid" as the results came in.

Female voters and older voters seem to be playing in Clinton's favor, according to exit polls.

In Iowa, Clinton lost out to Obama among women 35 percent to 30 percent. It's a different story in New Hampshire, where 45 percent of female Democratic primary voters picked Clinton, compared to 36 percent who went for Obama.

Older voters are also overwhelmingly outnumbering younger voters, a proportion that is benefiting Clinton. Sixty-seven percent of Democratic primary voters are over the age of 40, and they are breaking heavily for Clinton over Obama.

Clinton's team is still entertaining the possibility she will lose. They are waiting on Hanover -- "it's a straight-up college town" -- and Durham, two areas where they think it is possible Obama will do very well. But they say they are coming in 2 and 3 points ahead in areas they expected to lose.

Meanwhile, McCain pinned his win on "one strategy" -- telling the people of New Hampshire what he believes.

"Tonight, we sure showed them what a comeback looks like," the Arizona senator said as supporters shouted, "Mac is back."

"When the pundits declared us finished, I told them, 'I'm going to New Hampshire where the voters don't let you make their decisions for them,' " he said. " 'I'm going to New Hampshire, and I'm going to tell people the truth.' "

With 64 percent of Republican precincts reporting, McCain had 37 percent of the vote. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was second with 32 percent, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the winner of last week's Iowa GOP caucuses followed with 11 percent.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had 9 percent and Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 8 percent.

With 68 percent of precincts counted, Clinton had 39 percent of the vote to Iowa caucus winner Obama's 36 percent. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards had 17 percent. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson had 5 percent, and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich had 2 percent.

Edwards will finish third, CNN projects.

Recent polls showed Obama (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/candidates/barack.obama.html) with a 9-point lead over Clinton. Supporters at her headquarters chanted "comeback kid" as the results came in.

Romney and Huckabee called McCain to congratulate him Tuesday night.

"I'll fight to be back in this state and others," Romney told supporters. http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/.element/img/2.0/mosaic/tabs/video.gifWatch Romney congratulate McCain » (http://cnn.site.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Clinton+and+McCain+the+comeback+kids+-+CNN.com&expire=-1&urlID=25738528&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2008%2FPOLITICS%2F0 1%2F08%2Fnh.main%2Findex.html&partnerID=211911#cnnSTCVideo)

Huckabee, who earlier said a third-place finish would be "huge" for him, also promised to return to New Hampshire.

"After we secure the nomination, we've got to come back here and make sure we carry New Hampshire."

Voters who supported McCain and those who supported projected runner-up Romney differed significantly on what issues they feel are most important, exit polling shows.http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/.element/img/2.0/mosaic/tabs/video.gifWatch McCain's supporters cheer him on » (http://cnn.site.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Clinton+and+McCain+the+comeback+kids+-+CNN.com&expire=-1&urlID=25738528&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2008%2FPOLITICS%2F0 1%2F08%2Fnh.main%2Findex.html&partnerID=211911#cnnSTCVideo)

Forty-six percent of those who supported McCain ranked the war in Iraq the most important. Meanwhile, voters who supported Romney overwhelmingly felt immigration was the most important issue.

McCain has been a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq, but co-sponsored comprehensive immigration reform legislation that drew the ire of many conservatives in his party. The legislation failed to pass Congress. Romney has been taking a tough stance on immigration.

McCain (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/candidates/john.mccain.html) bested one-time Baptist minister Huckabee among New Hampshire voters who said a candidate's religious beliefs matter a great deal, according to CNN exit polls. While Huckabee won overwhelmingly among those voters in Iowa, in New Hampshire, 35 percent went to McCain while 31 percent went to Huckabee.

The religious voters made up 14 percent of all Republican primary voters in New Hampshire -- much less than in Iowa.

Voters turned out in higher-than-expected numbers Tuesday, with a sizable chunk making decisions on who to support at the last minute, according to early exit polls.

Eighteen percent of Republicans and 15 percent of Democrats said they picked their candidate on Election Day.

But the fate of the candidates could rest in the hands of New Hampshire independent voters, who make up about 40 percent of the electorate. A CNN-WMUR poll Sunday found independent voters split almost evenly between the parties this year.

New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch predicted a record turnout for the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. He said he expected half a million people to vote.

The governor's prediction followed record-breaking numbers in last week's Iowa Democratic and Republican caucuses.

New Hampshire Deputy Secretary of State Dave Scanlan said high turnout at polling stations forced the New Hampshire secretary of state's office to send more ballots to some polling locations, including Hampton Falls, Portsmouth, Keene, Hudson and Pelham.

Voting began in two hamlets just after midnight, hours before the rest of the state's polling places opened.

Asked Tuesday afternoon at a doughnut shop in Manchester whether he would consider himself the front-runner if he were to win in New Hampshire, Obama said, "I'm never a front-runner; I'm always the underdog."

Clinton of New York has tried to turn the tide by emphasizing her record as a "change agent," as a senator and as first lady.

She fought tears Monday as she described the stakes in the campaign at a forum with uncommitted voters in Portsmouth, calling it "one of the most important elections America has ever faced."

"This is very personal for me -- it's not just political, it's not just public," she said in response to a question about the stress of the campaign. "I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it."

Former President Clinton lashed out at the media coverage Monday night, saying Obama should be pressed more fully on Iraq and accusing the senator from Illinois of shifting his position to reflect changing attitudes on the war. http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/.element/img/2.0/mosaic/tabs/video.gifWatch as the ex-president tears into Obama's record » (http://cnn.site.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Clinton+and+McCain+the+comeback+kids+-+CNN.com&expire=-1&urlID=25738528&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2008%2FPOLITICS%2F0 1%2F08%2Fnh.main%2Findex.html&partnerID=211911#cnnSTCVideo)

"And you took that speech you're now running on off your Web site in 2004. And there's no difference in your voting record and Hillary's ever since."

He added, "Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."

Obama dismissed the former president's comments, saying "It seems like you guys have been reporting on me the entire year.

"I remember this summer when we were down 20 points, we were getting knocked around pretty good, and I didn't hear the Clinton camp complaining about how terrible the press was."

Meanwhile, Edwards (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/candidates/john.edwards.html) sharpened his criticism of Clinton, blasting her for taking money from the pharmaceutical and defense interests the former trial lawyer routinely excoriates on the stump.

"I've never taken any money -- any money -- from a Washington lobbyist or a special interest PAC. She's continued to do that. She's taken more lobbyist money than any candidate," Edwards said Tuesday in Manchester.

[PhilosophyGenius]

I don't think you could really accuse the Clinton camp of rigging the election at this point just because they were down by 9 points in some polls.

There are other factors such as turn out (espcially with age groups) and people making up there minds at the last minute. Also there was stuff in the last day such Hillary tearing up and the last debate, Bill going on the attack, ect...


I heard a very intersting thing on the cable news analysis, that maybe a lot of Obama supporters saw the polls and thought "eh, Obama's going to win by a landslide, I think I'll order a pizza and have some beers." (I added the last part)

youth vote has proven note to be very reliable

[simuvac]

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5530


- The BRAD BLOG - http://www.bradblog.com -

NH Primary: Pre-Election Polls Wildly Different Than Results Announced for Clinton/Obama

Other Pre-Election Numbers, For Republicans and Rest of Dems, Nearly Dead on the Money...

Posted By Brad Friedman On 8th January 2008 @ 20:49 In Diebold/Premier, Election Irregularities, Election 2008, New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama | 87 Comments

if (window.document.getElementById('post-5530')) window.document.getElementById('post-5530').parentNode.className += ' adhesive_post';[UPDATED several times at end of article, and still developing with new updates...]

http://www.bradblog.com/Images/ObamaClinton.jpgI'm not sure why Obama would have conceded so soon, given the virtually inexplicable turn of events in New Hampshire tonight.

What's going on here? Before proceeding, I recommend you read the third section of the post I just ran (http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5529) [1] an hour or so ago, concerning the way the ballots are counted in New Hampshire, largely on Diebold optical-scan voting systems, wholly controlled and programmed by a very very bad company named LHS Associates.

Those Diebold op-scan machines are the exact same ones that were hacked in the HBO documentary, Hacking Democracy (http://hackingdemocracy.com/) [2]. See the previous report, as I recommend, which also includes a video of that hack, and footage of the guy who runs LHS Associates.

That said, the the pre-election pollster's numbers (NOTE: that's not Exit Polls, but Pre-Election Polls!) were dead-on, for the most part, on the Republican side, as well as on the Democratic side. Except in the do-or-die (for Hillary) Clinton v. Obama race. I'm watching MSNBC right now, and they all seem to agree that the results, for the moment, defy explanation.

I concur.

Here's a screenshot of a round up of all of the latest polls from RealClearPolitics.com tonight (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/nh/new_hampshire_democratic_primary-194.html) [3], and more, to get an idea of the serious concerns here...



http://www.bradblog.com/Images/RealClearPolitics_NHPolls_010808.gif They were all not just wrong, but wildly wrong. But only for the Clinton/Obama race.

For a closer look, here's Zogby's predicted numbers (http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1417) [4], for both the Republicans and Democrats:

http://www.bradblog.com/Images/Zogby_NHPolls_010808.gif And here are the latest numbers from the MSNBC website (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21660914/#NH) [5] (the numbers seem to be identical over at CNN and elsewhere):

http://www.bradblog.com/Images/MSNBC_NHResults_010808_0820pmPT.gif As you'll note, the numbers in Zogby's latest polls, for all but Clinton and Obama, seem to have been dead-on the money for both the Republicans and Democrats. Edwards, for example, was polled at 17% in Zogby's poll, and he received exactly 17% in the MSNBC numbers, with 63% of precincts reporting. So are we to believe that only those voters who preferred Obama previously, decided to change to Hillary at the last minute? I suppose so.

This election was regarded as do-or-die for Clinton, after most in the media had already written her off after her "thumpin'" in Iowa. But Tim Russert just agreed with Brokaw and Matthews that "this was the most stunning upset in the history of politics."

They are already grasping for reasons that this happened: the crying; she found her voice; the women turned out; oldline Dems showed up, etc. All reminiscent, if you ask me, of "the evangelicals who turned out at the very last minute to vote for Bush in 2004" as the Exit Poll apologists wrote in what would become conventional wisdom at the time. (Where did they get that info? The Exit Polls, they'll tell you. The same ones that they will also tell you were wildly wrong on every other count, apparently.)

Olbermann just called it "a titanic upset victory" for Clinton.

So, with another nod to the third section of the article I posted earlier (http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5529) [6] here tonight, what's going on here?

While I have no evidence at this time --- let me repeat, no evidence at this time --- of chicanery, what we do know is that chicanery, with this particular voting system, is not particularly difficult. Particularly when one private company --- and a less-than-respectable one at that, as I detailed in the previous post --- runs the entire process.

I should also note that some 40% of New Hampshire's precincts are hand-counted, which equals about 25% of the votes. All the rest are counted on hackable Diebold op-scan systems, with completely hackable memory cards, all programmed and managed by LHS Associates. As Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org (http://www.blackboxvoting.org/) [7] who seems to share my concern, says, LHS is the "chain of custody" in New Hampshire elections.

Other folks that I've spoken to, who follow this sort of thing, share my concern at this hour. Harris noted that it will be interesting to compare numbers of the hand-counted precincts with those counted on the hackable Diebold op-scan systems.

If I was Barack Obama, I'd certainly not have conceded this election this quickly. I'm not quite sure what he was thinking. And as far as offering an indication of whether he understands how these systems work, and the necessity of making sure that votes are counted, and counted accurately, it does not offer a great deal of confidence at this hour.

I'm trying to get in touch with his campaign, to let them know of these concerns. I hope you'll feel free to let them know as well, if any of you happen to be in touch with them, or a part of the campaign. I will, of course, be happy to discuss these concerns with them if they wish to call.

As mentioned, the numbers referred to above are not Exit Polls. They are Pre-Election Polls which are far less reliable than Exit Polls. So, if anybody knows where any decent Exit Polling data is, we'd appreciate it if you linked it in comments below...

UPDATE 9:18pm PT: This AP report (http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Moderates_help_McCain_women_aid_Cli_01082008.html) [8] includes information, said to be based on data from the Exit Polls. It indicates that the independents in NH, who may vote in either the R or D primary, voted mostly D, and were breaking for Obama. AP claims, however, that the same data show that Clinton's strength with women "offset that"...

Early exit poll data indicated six in 10 independents opted for the Democratic contest and Obama led among them, but Clinton's advantage among women offset that.
...
The results are from exit polls Tuesday in 50 precincts around New Hampshire for The Associated Press and television networks by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International. The Democratic primary survey interviewed 1,800 voters, the Republican primary poll 1,301. The sampling error margin was plus or minus 4 percentage points for each exit poll.
Note: the Exit Pollsters used here were Mitofsky/Edison, the same ones who ran the infamous Exits in 2004 showing that, in state after state, Kerry should have won. They also later said their own polling was completely wrong (which is disputed strongly by statistics experts such as U. of Pennsylvania Prof. Steven F. Freeman Ph.D. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FWas-2004-Presidential-Election-Stolen%2Fdp%2F1583226877%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%2 6qid%3D1199857419%26sr%3D8-1&tag=tbb-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325) [9]http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=tbb-20&l=ur2&o=1) So, it's lovely that AP and the TV nets hired them again...

UPDATE 9:40pm PT: While the talking heads are trying to figure out what happened here on MSNBC, Eugene Robinson (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/03/24/LI2005032402899.html) [10] of the Washington Post, while paging through a stack of papers said to be Exit Poll data, just said: "Of those who made up their mind in the last three days, there was a slight favoring for Obama. If there was a huge difference in a move to Hillary, in the last three days, it doesn't seem to be reflected in the Exit Polling."

UPDATE 9:48pm PT: Olbermann repeated what Russert had said earlier, that Obama's internal polls showed him winning by 14%, Clinton's internal polls had Obama winning by 11%.

The effect of Obama being an African-American, the so-called "Bradley Effect" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect) [11], is now being discussed as the newest "reason" to explain the numbers. Though it's noted that it didn't effect Harold Ford in TN in '06, or even Obama in Iowa just five days ago.

(ADDED: Josh Holland from Alternet points out via email, correctly, concerning my point about the "Bradley Effect" not coming into play in Iowa: "The 'Bradley effect' would not work in an open caucus, where everyone can see whom everyone else is supporting. The theory requires the privacy of a voting booth." He's correct. Thanks for pointing that out! --- BF)

UPDATE 11:06pm PT: As we know, the presumption is always that the polls were wrong. Never the results. Despite how much less transparent the system used to count votes is than the system used to collect polling data. With that in mind, Matthew Yglesias at The Atlantic, makes the following point, in a post headlined "How Wrong Were the Polls?" (http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/how_wrong_were_the_polls.php) [12], suggesting that the only numbers that changed here were Clinton's. She surged. Everyone else, even Obama who just had an historic victory in Iowa five days ago, did not...

http://www.bradblog.com/Images/HowWrongWereThePolls_NH_010808.gif Commenter Brian makes an observation (http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/what_really_matters.php#comment-1097239) [13] "No one is talking about how the polls actually nailed Obama's number. Obama didn't lose this election. He stayed steady and Hillary surged ahead." That seems to be true. Here's a chart comparing the actual results to the most recent Pollster.com current standard estimate (http://www.pollster.com/08-NH-Dem-Pres-Primary.php) [14] polling average.

Just as Brian says, the difference between the Obama poll level and the Obama vote total level seems to just be your basic statistical variance. The pollsters underestimated Clinton's level of support. People who were undecided as of the last round of polling seem to have gone overwhelmingly in her direction.


So where did her votes come from, if Exit Polling data showed, as mentioned by MSNBC above, that last minute deciders broke evenly, and even a bit more for Obama??

UPDATE 1/9/08, 12:49am PT: Bev Harris offers this very useful information in comments below (http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5530#comment-281789) [15]. Worth elevating the key points up here to the original post:

New Hampshire, for the Democrats, was the exact opposite of Iowa. They used one of the worst voting systems in America and then handed programming of every memory card in New Hampshire over to a private outfit run by John Silvestro.

First order of business needs to be examining the published precinct results and comparing the hand count locations to the optical scam locations.

The results web site does not make this easy. You have to hover your mouse over each one of about 250 municipalities and then take a screen grab and then type it into a spreadsheet.

So far, no one I know has completed that task.

Here is the site with the municipality results:
http://www.politico.com/...imaries/nhmap-popup.html [16]

Here is a comma delimited data file I created with the municipalities and whether they are hand counted or opscam:
http://www.bbvdocs.org/N...-08-votingsystems-NH.txt [17]

I took the information from the NH Sec State site. A few of the locations do not have the voting system specified; if they have a low population, they are probably hand count.

Whoever gets the handcount vs opscam spreadsheet done gets two points. The tools are in the two links above.


Additionally, BeeSting then makes our night (http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5530#comment-281790) [18], with a pointer to this Ron Paul website, which lists all of the precinct results (http://ronrox.com/paulstats.php?party=DEMOCRATS) [19], and how each one of them was counted (by hand, or by Diebold/LHS Associaties/John Silverstro).

Thank you BeeSting and Bev both! Looks like we'll have lots to learn in the morning...

UPDATE 1/9/08 1:40am PT: Last update for the night. I hope. A quick note on all of this.

Over at Daily Kos, diarist "AHiddenSaint" has written a post (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/9/11259/71450/871/433390) [20] quoting, and linking over to this one, by way of sharing his/her concerns about the NH results.

The result: an embarrassing thread of comments, smashing up AHiddenSaint for posting something that the dKos commenters feel is little more than "conspiracy theory". Foolishly (for them), they have taken a sentence from the original post, in which I noted that I "have no evidence at this time --- of chicanery," to wonder why I would therefore write such a post at all. Their claim: that I am some how charging that Clinton stole the election.

I have made no such claim. In fact, if there was skullduggery here, there are plenty of reasons to believe it could have been committed by any number of interested parties, who have nothing to do with the Clinton campaign.

Daily Kos, of course, is a Clinton-centric website, which, more disturbingly, purged diaries and diarists after the 2004 Ohio election, if they were judged to be questioning what went on there. I spoke to Markos (the site's founder) about that, when we were at a conference together in Vegas last Summer. He stills stands by his decision to purge those folks. That, despite so much that has come out since '04 to show that what happened was a travesty of democracy. As I told him then, he owes his readers an apology. He did add, however, that he has someone ("Georgia10") who now cover issues of Election Integrity on their front page.

The result of his purge, is the mindset of the commenters now seen over there. It seems to me they are are begging for a world of hurt, someday, when their candidate doesn't win, under questionable circumstances. They will, of course, have cornered themselves such that they won't be able to ask questions themselvses. In the bargain, they are now fostering a culture of fear. Fear of asking questions. Fear of insisting that our democracy be transparent, of the people, by the people and for the people. If it were only themselves they were hurting by fostering that culture, I wouldn't give a damn. But rest assured, their comments, actions and attitudes will be leveraged, as we move forward, to hurt all of us.

For the record, I am neither a Clinton supporter nor an Obama supporter (nor a supporter of anyone else in the race at this time, in any party.) I am a supporter of the VOTERS. Period. It's they --- us --- who could really use some support right about now. I intend to do exactly that. All damned year. No matter how many "tin foil hats" the shortsighted, self-destructive Kossack types, who are behaving like the worst of the Republicans, try to throw at me.

That's a promise. 'Night.



Article printed from The BRAD BLOG: http://www.bradblog.com


URL to article: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5530


URLs in this post:
[1] the post I just ran: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5529
[2] Hacking Democracy: http://hackingdemocracy.com
[3] from RealClearPolitics.com tonight: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/nh/new_hampshire_democrat
ic_primary-194.html
[4] Zogby's predicted numbers: http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1417
[5] from the MSNBC website: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21660914/#NH
[6] article I posted earlier: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5529
[7] BlackBoxVoting.org: http://www.BlackBoxVoting.org
[8] This AP report: http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Moderates_help_McCain_women_aid_Cli_0108200
8.html
[9] Prof. Steven F. Freeman Ph.D.: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.am
azon.com%2FWas-2004-Presidential-Election-Stolen%2Fdp%2F1583226877%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%2 6qid%3D1199857419%26sr%3D8-1&tag=tbb-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325
[10] Eugene Robinson: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/03/24/LI2005032402899.
html
[11] "Bradley Effect": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect
[12] "How Wrong Were the Polls?": http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/how_wrong_were_the_polls
.php
[13] makes an observation: http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/what_really_matters.php#
comment-1097239
[14] recent Pollster.com current standard estimate: http://www.pollster.com/08-NH-Dem-Pres-Primary.php
[15] in comments below: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5530#comment-281789
[16] http://www.politico.com/...imaries/nhmap-popup.html: http://www.politico.com/nhprimaries/nhmap-popup.html
[17] (http://www.politico.com/...imaries/nhmap-popup.html)http://www.bbvdocs.org/N...-08-votingsystems-NH.txt: (http://www.bbvdocs.org/N...-08-votingsystems-NH.txt)http://www.bbvdocs.org/NH/state/Jan-08-votingsystems-NH.txt
[18] BeeSting then makes our night: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5530#comment-281790
[19] this Ron Paul website, which lists all of the precinct results: http://ronrox.com/paulstats.php?party=DEMOCRATS
[20] written a post: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/9/11259/71450/871/433390

(http://www.bbvdocs.org/N...-08-votingsystems-NH.txt)
Click (http://www.bbvdocs.org/N...-08-votingsystems-NH.txt)here (http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5530&print=1#Print) to print.

[simuvac]

The online discussion forum Election Integrity is following potential vote fraud in New Hampshire. For example, there appear to be discrepancies in the vote count for Ron Paul:

http://groups.google.com/group/ElectionIntegrity/browse_thread/thread/89389d3c166ff159/adc99fe22f5cefbd#adc99fe22f5cefbd

From: VerifiedVote2... (http://groups.google.com/groups/unlock?msg=adc99fe22f5cefbd&_done=/group/ElectionIntegrity/browse_thread/thread/89389d3c166ff159/adc99fe22f5cefbd)@aol.com [mailto:VerifiedVote2... (http://groups.google.com/groups/unlock?msg=adc99fe22f5cefbd&_done=/group/ElectionIntegrity/browse_thread/thread/89389d3c166ff159/adc99fe22f5cefbd)@aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 9:46 AM
To: Coordinat... (http://groups.google.com/groups/unlock?msg=adc99fe22f5cefbd&_done=/group/ElectionIntegrity/browse_thread/thread/89389d3c166ff159/adc99fe22f5cefbd)@ElectionDefenseAlliance.org


Three votes cast. Zero votes recorded. This is the kind of 'tiny smoking
gun' that, if there were enough of them, could absolutely not be written off
as 'glitch'. Wondering if others are checking and reports are filtering in;
and whether they will go on record with signed affidavits as in Ohio, and
certainly contact the appropriate campaigns.


You would think the riggers would be careful about a zero vote
anywhere--since that makes it impossible for anyone who voted to think 'well
my vote must be among those three that got recorded'.


To me it shows a reckless abandon that in turn suggests that they had to
delete/shift a ton of Paul votes. And, while we're at it, why not knock the
knees out from under Obama and create a bruising nomination battle down to the wire rather than a coronation?


Yes, it's all speculative as to the motives--but when three people vote
and there are zero votes recorded, it opens up a wonderful world of
possibilities, doesn't it?--Jonathan


_____


Sent: 1/9/2008 9:04:59 A.M. Eastern Standard Time
Subj: Obama /NH Thanks, Jenese. LHS Assocs RIGGED The NH Primary: Ron Paul
Robbed: Must Demand a Recount!!!


"My mom, aunt, and dad all voted for RP today in my hometown, My mom and aunt both work passing out ballots, and checking them off. I just looked at the politico map and it says their town has ZERO votes for Ron. Now i know that there isn't corruption on voting in that little town, so where they reported it must be. What do I do, anyone know???


Originally Posted by sstjean View Post
This was posted to ronpaul-801 tonight: "This town numbers are wrong wrong wrong on this map. I am from Sutton originally and my parents and one aunt all voted for Ron Paul today and Sutton says 0. So this is wrong. This is a town that had 20 people counting the ballots and I have no reason to believe that they cheated. Small town and I was born and raised there. The real numbers will come in by morning. The electronic machines in the big towns are the ones we have to worry about."


Nancy Tobi View profile (http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=QUqfkBQAAABpTEIhHyyH2oqLUHxs0Y77O PANdqfI6prRsqjc7uCt1A) More options Jan 9, 11:11 am From: "Nancy Tobi" <nancy.t... (http://groups.google.com/groups/unlock?msg=346882e990161728&_done=/group/ElectionIntegrity/browse_thread/thread/89389d3c166ff159/adc99fe22f5cefbd)@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 11:11:37 -0500
Local: Wed, Jan 9 2008 11:11 am
Subject: Re: [ei] Evidence of NH Primary rigging: Anyone know anyonne in Sutton County, NH?

Reply (http://groups.google.com/group/ElectionIntegrity/post?inreplyto=346882e990161728&reply_to=group&_done=%2Fgroup%2FElectionIntegrity%2Fbrowse_thread %2Fthread%2F89389d3c166ff159%2Fadc99fe22f5cefbd%3F&) | Reply to author (http://groups.google.com/group/ElectionIntegrity/post?inreplyto=346882e990161728&reply_to=author&_done=%2Fgroup%2FElectionIntegrity%2Fbrowse_thread %2Fthread%2F89389d3c166ff159%2Fadc99fe22f5cefbd%3F&) | Forward (http://groups.google.com/group/ElectionIntegrity/post?inreplyto=346882e990161728&forward=1&_done=%2Fgroup%2FElectionIntegrity%2Fbrowse_thread %2Fthread%2F89389d3c166ff159%2Fadc99fe22f5cefbd%3F&) | Print (http://groups.google.com/group/ElectionIntegrity/msg/346882e990161728?dmode=print) | Individual message (http://groups.google.com/group/ElectionIntegrity/msg/346882e990161728) | Show original (http://groups.google.com/group/ElectionIntegrity/msg/346882e990161728?dmode=source) | Report this message (http://groups.google.com/groups/abuse?group=ElectionIntegrity&type=message&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgroups.google.com%2Fgroup%2FElect ionIntegrity%2Fmsg%2F346882e990161728&_done=%2Fgroup%2FElectionIntegrity%2Fbrowse_thread %2Fthread%2F89389d3c166ff159%2Fadc99fe22f5cefbd%3F&) | Find messages by this author (http://groups.google.com/groups/search?enc_author=QUqfkBQAAABpTEIhHyyH2oqLUHxs0Y77 OPANdqfI6prRsqjc7uCt1A&scoring=d)



I strongly recommend against asking for a recount right now. We do not have
secure chain of custody of the ballots and do not have enough control over
that process. We could be too easily set up.


On Jan 9, 2008 11:02 AM, Steve Freeman <steven.f.free... (http://groups.google.com/groups/unlock?msg=346882e990161728&_done=/group/ElectionIntegrity/browse_thread/thread/89389d3c166ff159/adc99fe22f5cefbd)@verizon.net> wrote:


- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
(http://groups.google.com/group/ElectionIntegrity/browse_thread/thread/89389d3c166ff159/adc99fe22f5cefbd?hide_quotes=no#msg_346882e9901617 28)

> _____
> From: VerifiedVote2... (http://groups.google.com/groups/unlock?msg=346882e990161728&_done=/group/ElectionIntegrity/browse_thread/thread/89389d3c166ff159/adc99fe22f5cefbd)@aol.com [mailto:VerifiedVote2... (http://groups.google.com/groups/unlock?msg=346882e990161728&_done=/group/ElectionIntegrity/browse_thread/thread/89389d3c166ff159/adc99fe22f5cefbd)@aol.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 9:46 AM
> To: Coordinat... (http://groups.google.com/groups/unlock?msg=346882e990161728&_done=/group/ElectionIntegrity/browse_thread/thread/89389d3c166ff159/adc99fe22f5cefbd)@ElectionDefenseAlliance.org


> Three votes cast. Zero votes recorded. This is the kind of 'tiny
> smoking
> gun' that, if there were enough of them, could absolutely not be written
> off
> as 'glitch'. Wondering if others are checking and reports are filtering
> in;
> and whether they will go on record with signed affidavits as in Ohio, and
> certainly contact the appropriate campaigns.


> You would think the riggers would be careful about a zero vote
> anywhere--since that makes it impossible for anyone who voted to think
> 'well
> my vote must be among those three that got recorded'.


> To me it shows a reckless abandon that in turn suggests that they had
> to
> delete/shift a ton of Paul votes. And, while we're at it, why not knock
> the
> knees out from under Obama and create a bruising nomination battle down to
> the wire rather than a coronation?


> Yes, it's all speculative as to the motives--but when three people vote
> and there are zero votes recorded, it opens up a wonderful world of
> possibilities, doesn't it?--Jonathan


> _____


> Sent: 1/9/2008 9:04:59 A.M. Eastern Standard Time
> Subj: Obama /NH Thanks, Jenese. LHS Assocs RIGGED The NH Primary: Ron Paul
> Robbed: Must Demand a Recount!!!


> "My mom, aunt, and dad all voted for RP today in my hometown, My mom and
> aunt both work passing out ballots, and checking them off. I just looked
> at
> the politico map and it says their town has ZERO votes for Ron. Now i know
> that there isn't corruption on voting in that little town, so where they
> reported it must be. What do I do, anyone know???


> Originally Posted by sstjean View Post
> This was posted to ronpaul-801 tonight: "This town numbers are wrong wrong
> wrong on this map. I am from Sutton originally and my parents and one aunt
> all voted for Ron Paul today and Sutton says 0. So this is wrong. This is
> a
> town that had 20 people counting the ballots and I have no reason to
> believe
> that they cheated. Small town and I was born and raised there. The real
> numbers will come in by morning. The electronic machines in the big towns
> are the ones we have to worry about."



Bev Harris View profile (http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=mwo-yhYAAADOFT_g8pLUQfvICHTDGTrqHu-9xExBnq5bzjL0P-dGlA) More options Jan 9, 11:57 am From: Bev Harris <b... (http://groups.google.com/groups/unlock?msg=59a0e247e8188f73&_done=/group/ElectionIntegrity/browse_thread/thread/89389d3c166ff159/adc99fe22f5cefbd)@blackboxvoting.org>
Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 10:57:53 -0600
Local: Wed, Jan 9 2008 11:57 am
Subject: Re: [ei] Evidence of NH Primary rigging: Anyone know anyonne in Sutton County, NH?

Reply (http://groups.google.com/group/ElectionIntegrity/post?inreplyto=59a0e247e8188f73&reply_to=group&_done=%2Fgroup%2FElectionIntegrity%2Fbrowse_thread %2Fthread%2F89389d3c166ff159%2Fadc99fe22f5cefbd%3F&) | Reply to author (http://groups.google.com/group/ElectionIntegrity/post?inreplyto=59a0e247e8188f73&reply_to=author&_done=%2Fgroup%2FElectionIntegrity%2Fbrowse_thread %2Fthread%2F89389d3c166ff159%2Fadc99fe22f5cefbd%3F&) | Forward (http://groups.google.com/group/ElectionIntegrity/post?inreplyto=59a0e247e8188f73&forward=1&_done=%2Fgroup%2FElectionIntegrity%2Fbrowse_thread %2Fthread%2F89389d3c166ff159%2Fadc99fe22f5cefbd%3F&) | Print (http://groups.google.com/group/ElectionIntegrity/msg/59a0e247e8188f73?dmode=print) | Individual message (http://groups.google.com/group/ElectionIntegrity/msg/59a0e247e8188f73) | Show original (http://groups.google.com/group/ElectionIntegrity/msg/59a0e247e8188f73?dmode=source) | Report this message (http://groups.google.com/groups/abuse?group=ElectionIntegrity&type=message&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgroups.google.com%2Fgroup%2FElect ionIntegrity%2Fmsg%2F59a0e247e8188f73&_done=%2Fgroup%2FElectionIntegrity%2Fbrowse_thread %2Fthread%2F89389d3c166ff159%2Fadc99fe22f5cefbd%3F&) | Find messages by this author (http://groups.google.com/groups/search?enc_author=mwo-yhYAAADOFT_g8pLUQfvICHTDGTrqHu-9xExBnq5bzjL0P-dGlA&scoring=d)



I have information that there were actually 31 votes for Ron Paul in the Town of Sutton. It is being reported that the election official there has confirmed this, but that line is terminally busy and I have thus far been unable to reach them to confirm or find out the reason why.
----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.

[simuvac]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/09/6265/

Published on Wednesday, January 9, 2008 by The Guardian/UK (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections08/barackobama/story/0,,2237808,00.html)
Did Racist Voters Cost Obama The Primary?

by Haroon Siddique

It seems strange to be looking for the reasons for Barack Obama’s shock defeat in the New Hampshire primary.

Just a few weeks ago Hillary Clinton was the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination to contest the presidential election but that was before the Illinois senator stormed to victory in the Iowa caucus.His campaign seemed to have built up an unstoppable momentum, which was reflected in opinion polls that had him comfortably ahead. So how did the pollsters get it so wrong?

One possible, if unsavoury, explanation is the so-called Bradley effect.

The phenomenon was named after Tom Bradley, the long time mayor of Los Angeles, and describes the difference between what members of the public will say in relation to a black candidate when asked by pollsters and the change in their behaviour when they actually vote.

Bradley, who is black, ran as the Democratic candidate for governor in 1982, but, after polls showed he was consistently in the lead, he was a surprise loser.

It was suggested that voters may have told pollsters they supported the black candidate, because they were embarrassed to admit they were racist, but that when it came to voting in private they supported his white opponent, precisely because he was not black.

The Bradley effect was also cited in 1989 when Douglas Wilder won the contest for governor of Virginia by a razor-thin margin after leading comfortably in all the pre-election opinion polls.

There is even a precedent in a Democratic primary. In 1988 a huge number of Democrats told pollsters they supported the black candidate Jesse Jackson but actually voted for Michael Dukakis.

The same pollsters who predicted Obama’s victory yesterday correctly anticipated a victory for John McCain - but there was no black candidate to distort opinions in the Republican primary.

Obama may have triumphed in Iowa but that was a public caucus where there was no opportunity for voters to surreptitiously change their stated intentions in the comfort of a polling booth, as they could in New Hampshire, one of the whitest states in the US.

But before jumping to the conclusion that racist voters cost Obama the primary, there is evidence that contradicts the impact of the Bradley effect in New Hampshire.

In 2006, Democrat Deval Patrick was elected as the first black governor of Massachusetts - which neighbours New Hampshire to the south - and the final result accurately reflected his lead in the opinion polls.

Perhaps more significantly, in seven polls preceding yesterday’s vote Obama’s share of the vote came in at an average of 38.7%, with Clinton averaging approximately 30%.

Although the final results have yet to be announced it looks like the Illinois senator will poll approximately 36% and his rival 39%.

Those figures would seem to suggest that rather than voters abandoning Obama because of the colour of his skin, people who had never stated their support for him were drawn towards Clinton’s campaign.

With another caucus, in Nevada, on January 19 and a primary in South Carolina - where 50% of eligible Democratic voters are black - on January 26, Obama’s chances of overall victory, and whether it was the Bradley effect that defeated him in New Hampshire, could soon become a lot clearer.


© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

[simuvac]

http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=5219

Ron Paul Votes Not Counted In New Hampshire District Published on Wednesday, January 09, 2008.


Source: Prison Planet (http://www.prisonplanet.com/index.html) - Paul Joseph Watson

http://www.prisonplanet.com/images/january2008/090108voters.jpg

Major allegations of vote fraud in New Hampshire are circulating after Hillary Clinton reversed a mammoth pre-polling deficit to defeat Barack Obama with the aid of Diebold electronic voting machines, while confirmed votes for Ron Paul in the Sutton district were not even counted.



According to a voter in Sutton, New Hampshire (http://www.ronpaulwarroom.com/?p=655), three of her family members voted for Ron Paul, yet when she checked the voting map on the Politico website, the total votes for Ron Paul were zero.


With 100% of precincts now reporting, the map still says zero votes for Ron Paul as you can see below.

(Article continues below)

http://www.prisonplanet.com/images/january2008/090108screen1.jpg (http://www.prisonplanet.com/images/january2008/090108screen.jpg)
CLICK FOR ENLARGEMENT



It's not as if Sutton had a handful of voters like some other districts - a total of 386 people voted yet we are led to believe that not one voted for Ron Paul? Judging by the Iowa results, around 10% of residents would be expected to vote for the Congressman, returning a total of around 38 votes in this district. Let's be ultra-conservative and say just 5% support Paul - he'd still get 19 votes - but he got absolutely none whatsoever. Is there something wrong with this picture?



Greenville also tallied 144 votes yet not one for Congressman Paul.


Anyone else in Sutton who voted for Ron Paul needs to go public immediately with the charge of vote fraud and make it known that they were cheated out of their right to vote.



Diebold voting machines also did Congressman Paul no favors last night - compared to hand counted ballots Giuliani gained just short of 0.5% from electronic voting whereas Paul lost over 2%, which was the difference between finishing 4th and 5th, as this graph documents (http://ronrox.com/paulstats.php).



Mitt Romney profited the most from the Diebold swing, he received 7% more votes compared to hand counted ballots.


In the Democratic race the Diebold voting machines clearly swung the primary in Hillary Clinton's favor at the expense of Barack Obama, who had a commanding lead over the New York Senator going into the contest.



Zogby polling numbers (http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1417) had Obama leading Clinton by a whopping 42/29 per cent, yet Clinton eventually took the primary by three per cent.



"If I was Barack Obama, I'd certainly not have conceded this election this quickly," writes The Brad Blog (http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5530). "I'm not quite sure what he was thinking. And as far as offering an indication of whether he understands how these systems work, and the necessity of making sure that votes are counted, and counted accurately, it does not offer a great deal of confidence at this hour."



"While I have no evidence at this time --- let me repeat, no evidence at this time --- of chicanery, what we do know is that chicanery, with this particular voting system, is not particularly difficult. Particularly when one private company --- and a less-than-respectable one at that, as I detailed in the previous post --- runs the entire process."


Clinton would not have beat Obama without the aid of Diebold voting machines. In precincts where electronic voting machines were used, Clinton got a 7% swing over Obama (http://ronrox.com/paulstats.php?party=DEMOCRATS), having gained 5% in comparison to hand-counted ballots and Obama losing 2%.



As we reported yesterday (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2008/010808_vote_fraud.htm), the contract for programming all of New Hampshire's Diebold voting machines, which combined counted 81 per cent of the vote yesterday, is owned by LHS Associates, whose owner John Silvestro has gone to great lengths to deflect accusations that the machines can easily be rigged.



After purchasing a Diebold 1.94w machine, the same system used in New Hampshire, a computer repair shop employee picked at random by Black Box Voting was able to zero in on the system's vulnerable memory card within just ten minutes. Hacking expert Harri Hursti testified in front of the New Hampshire legislature that the machines were wide open to fraud.

[simuvac]

BradBlog has compared the vast discordance between pre-election polling and primary results, especially Zogby's, which predicted a 42-29 sweep for Obama over Hilary with only 5% undecided. Steven Freeman has asked for suggestions about how to pinpoint the likely mechanism of fraud if the hypothesis of fraud holds up, and has offered Ron Paul's breakdown's of the vote by machine vs. hand, and by town size. See http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5530 and
http://ronrox.com/paulstats.php?party=DEMOCRATS (which has a link to REPUBLICANS).

Several points are worth emphasis. First, even the hand-counted paper ballots give Obama only a circa 3.5% victory, not a blow out, he loses more heavily to Clinton in large cities that were roughly 2/3 of the total vote. Thus, if you want to do the stats to see whether or not there was a fraud, try to obtain the breakdown of the polling data by town size from the pollsters. Was a blow-out expected in rural areas? If, for example, Obama was expected to beat Clinton evenly across the board, or was expected to run especially strongly in the big cities, then the case for fraud is very clear. The strongest case for fraud would have pre-polling favoring Obama by about 3.5% in rural areas where hand-counting occurred, and stronger in the big cities. This would indicate that the rigging was done primarily in urban areas through control of the electronic voting machines. The generally accurate pre-polling data with the reported results for all the other candidates, both Dems and Repubs, is the evidence for the fix. I cannot do the stats any longer, but isn't the data already set up for a very simple ANOVA design whose results can be compared with the pre-polling results by city size? (Please do not forget about the "undecided" voters in any analysis.) In any case, no town of over 1,500 used Hand Counted Paper Ballots, but many towns under 1,500 used electronic means. If I were a better person, I would just look at all towns of less than 1,500 and compare the results of hand vs. electronic because that is the only town-size within which the relevant comparison can be made. Over 1,500, everyone's electronic.

Second, as Brad Friedman remarked, the MSM is engaging in disinformation to make us distrust paper ballots; it may also be engaged in disinformation to make the public distrust exit polls, pre-polls and anything else except the official vote count. Distrusting pre-polls makes it easier to fix the Big One. Additionally, the "horse race" phenomenon speaks for itself to the appearance of vitality and integrity in the electoral process whether or not it has any.

Third, if the fix has been put in for Hillary, there are two scenarios which I adumbrated previously but are worth repeating. One scenario has the pseudo-liberal hawk Hilary as the first Madame President; the other has her put in the running seat of the Dems for the purpose of defeating her with a McCain-Huckabee ticket. Q: Why bother with fixing the Dem primary if one can fix the finals? A: In a "democracy" like ours it is always important to keep up appearances, and Hilary gives the best appearance of a Democratic candidate headed for honest defeat, one where the fix is easy, small, easily concealed, etc. Please keep in mind the CNN poll of who would do what in the Big One, viz., that Clinton would lose to McCain:
CNN poll: Edwards DESTROYS GOP candidates (with graphs!)

by BruinKid (http://bruinkid.dailykos.com/)

Thu Dec 13, 2007 at 05:53:13 AM PST

CNN poll results (.pdf) (http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/12/11/tue6ampoll.pdf)

GENERAL ELECTION MATCH-UPS Democrat Republican Margin Clinton 51% Giuliani 45% Win by 6% Obama 52% Giuliani 45% Win by 7% Edwards 53% Giuliani 44% Win by 9%


Clinton 54% Romney 43% Win by 11% Obama 54% Romney 41% Win by 13% Edwards 59% Romney 37% Win by 22%


Clinton 48% McCain 50% Lose by 2% Obama 48% McCain 48% Tie Edwards 52% McCain 44% Win by 8%


Clinton 54% Huckabee 44% Win by 10% Obama 55% Huckabee 40% Win by 15% Edwards 60% Huckabee 35% Win by 25%


Yes, polls change constantly, but McCain is a fairly solid popular favorite, as is Huckabee -- who would pull in the religious right and who has said that McCain "is one of my heroes." McCain is pledged to winning the war in the Middle East even if it takes a hundred years, while Mike Huckabee -- in his policy statement published in Foreign Affairs Jan/Feb 2008 -- has proven that he is on board with the Council on Foreign Relations' sophisticated foreign policy of NOT attacking Iran but in turning US attention to Pakistan (as the means of encroaching on China that is the US's major economic rival). Huckabee has gone so far as to say that Osama bin Laden wants the U.S. to attack Iran but that he prefers direct negotiations. Huckabee has also covertly "admitted" what 911 activists have known since a month post 911, viz., that Pakistan -- through its ISI chief General Mahmoud Ahmad whom the Time of India reported, confirmed by the FBI, directed Saeed Sheikh to send Mohammed Atta $100,000 shortly before 911 -- was directly involved in funding the "hijackers" to whom the caper is officially attributed (concealing that the ISI was developed by the CIA and serves foreign policy interests of the U.S. by facilitating "terrorists" to behave as needed). Huckabee writes:
TOUGH LOVE FOR PAKISTAN

Whereas our failure to tackle Iran seems to be leading inexorably to our attacking it, our failure to tackle al Qaeda in Pakistan seems to be leading inexorably to its attacking us again.

When we let bin Laden escape at Tora Bora, a region along the Afghan-Pakistani border, in December 2001, we played Brer Fox to his Brer Rabbit. We threw him into the perfect briar patch, under the direct protection of tribal leaders who do not consider their land part of Pakistan and under the indirect protection of the Pakistani government, which believes that it is. On September 12, 2001, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf agreed to sever his relationship with the Taliban and let us fight al Qaeda inside Pakistan. But distracted by Iraq, we have since allowed him to go back on his word. http://tinyurl.com/24dhct


Though nobody has a crystal ball, myself included, the McCain-Huckabee ticket is a Republican powerhouse and Hilary is the opponent-of-choice, and she would not be so bad for the corporate class if elected: recall her retort to Edwards during the debates that she would not agree to raise the Social Security tax cap above $97,000 "because that would hurt the poor and middle class" only to have Edwards reply that the poor and middle-class do not earn more than $97,000, only the well-to-do. Hilary, here as elsewhere, wore her allegiance to the ongoing transfer of wealth on her sleeve. Nonetheless, my odds-on bet is for a McCain-Huckabee ticket to beat a Hilary & friend in the Big One and the fixes, if needed, to support that end.

Oh, but let's get the accessible cheap data first, starting with hand vs. electronic in the small and middle sized towns (<501, >500 but <1,501). That should tell us a lot.

Regards,
Michael Green

[PhilosophyGenius]

intersting info

[simuvac]

intersting info

The fact I find most interesting is that the exit polls were right about every single candidate's eventual vote total except for Clinton (see the bar graph above, for example).

[PhilosophyGenius]

The fact I find most interesting is that the exit polls were right about every single candidate's eventual vote total except for Clinton (see the bar graph above, for example).


Same thing happend in 04, the exit polls didn't match the voting.


And of course we already know what happend there...