The Old Man and The Leaky Roof

[riqster]

A man went to visit his father, and found him surrounded by pans, buckets, bowls, all of which were catching rain that was pouring through the leaky roof. He asked his father why he didn't fix the roof, and the old man replied, "It's wet and slippery up there-if I went up there now, I'd fall and break my neck!"

When his son suggested fixing the roof when it was dry and sunny, the old man shrugged. "'Cause the roof ain't leakin' then."

This is a phenomenon I have witnessed many times, especially over the last day and a half. Confronted with the possibility of irregularies in the NH primary, many DUers are loathe to fix the leaky roof. They should remember that it will be raining on them soon.

It behooves ALL of us to work for a clean and honest primary process: I say this as a Kucinich backer with no real interest in the intra-frontrunner squabbles.

[Buzz Clik]

1. Okay. Where is the roof leaking, and what do you propose to fix it?

[riqster]

2. The leaking roof is well-documented, going back past 2000

Fixing it is also pretty much a no-brainer. Right now, while the showers are intermittent, we patch the roof as best we can. Early next year, when the weather is not an issue, we build a new one, keeping the string and safe bits and tossing all the weak and leaky parts.

[Buzz Clik]

5. Let's ditch the metaphor.

The problems in Florida were unique. What was wrong in New Hampshire?

[riqster]

12. Had this all typed, and it got lost when the Mod booted the thread into the dungeon

Ya know, Dems are election reform's worst enemies.

Florida was NOT unique, just more loudly promoted. Ohio and Tennessee were both rigged in 2000, and Ohio got it again in 2004. American politics has a tradition of electioneering going back to the founding. Do some research, it is really a fascinating story.

We have no idea what, if anything, was wrong in NH. Nor do we know what was right. However, to the trained eye, these danger signs appear:
<1> Differences in results between different voting technologies. Yes, it is possible that the results reflect demographic differences, but no one can prove or disprove that-is a piece of inferential logic with no mathematical validity.
<2> A privatized, partisan-controlled, secret tabulation process. Even the election officials aren't allowed to know how the machines count the votes. Only the vendors, Reep Dominionists in this case, know that. And they aren't telling.
<3> Altered exit poll results. The early news items were full of head-scratching about the disparity between the exit poll numbers and the voting results. Within a few hours, the exit poll numbers had been changed to match the vote totals-exactly what happened in 2004.
<4> The vituperative and aggressive efforts of the victor's supporters to quash investigations of the results.

All of these, while not proving fraud, fit the recent pattern of rigged elections well enough to cause concern.

[lumberjack_jeff]

3. Exactly

Elections are the roof, Diebold is the damage to it, the sun is shining and Kucinich should be the ladder that enables us to assess damage and begin repairs before the next rain.

[riqster]

4. We can't wait for anybody to fix it for us

..even Kooch, who I have supported for quite some time.

We the people have to make noise and push each and every official we can, hit the media all we can, persuade the obstructionist Dems, etc.

"There go my people. I must hurry and get in front of them, for I am their leader." (M Gandhi)

[catnhatnh]

6. Okay....

but who are the pots and pans?

[riqster]

11. That's outside the original point of the story

... but it could be the voters, drowning in the crumbling remains of the once-great edifice of American Democracy.

[Bonobo]

7. Excellent metaphor, and no, the problems are not limited to Florida as one poster said.

[Tesha]

8. You know, over the last few days, I've read dozens of threads alleging improprieties.

You know, over the last few days, I've read dozens of
threads alleging improprieties with the NH Primary
election and I have to tell you, as a long-term NH
voter, I just don't buy it.

Yes, we count *SOME* of our ballots using Diebold
optiscan systems. Yes, you *COULD* doubtless hack
these systems. But there are several factors arguing
strongly against that:

1. Here in NH, we *ALL* vote on paper ballots.
Whether they're counted by a machine or by Martha,
the town clerk, the paper ballots remain. If there
were a hint of impropriety, a hand-recount could
confirm or deny that. And given that paper back-up
of our vote, the risk of tampering with the counting
machines is just too high. Any evidence of systematic
tampering would be exposed and this exposure would
blow right out of the water any further possibilities
to steal some other election where there *ISN'T* a
paper trail.

Also, at least in Nashua, our machines were programmed
to reject over-votes. I saw this happen myself to the
voter in front of me at the polls; she had filled in
the oval and slashed off to the right from the oval
and the machine rejected her ballot several times before
counting it. And the ward workers were ready to give
her a substitute ballot if that had failed.

2. But I hear the next level of argument: The paper
ballots were tampered with. I'm sorry, but I don't
buy this either. The way the poll station closing
procedures are designed, it would take too many
people conspiring. And in my city, I *KNOW* the
ward workers and they know me and we've each known
each other for years. Yes, the ward moderator is
a Republican and a pain in the butt, but she's not
a vote thief. And even if she was vote thief, the
next several officials down the line aren't
partisan and wouldn't willingly join in the
conspiracy to steal an election.

3. Finally, you don't need exit polls to know,
*IN GENERAL*, how a race is going. I've held signs
enough times that I can tell you which candidates
are winning and which candidates are losing throughout
the election day. And the results in my ward pretty
much matched my gut for how things were going to
turn out. Sure, I couldn't tell you by what percent
Clinton beat Obama in my ward, but I could certainly
tell you that my guy, Edwards, finished far lower
than either of the leaders. And Kucinich? He had
no supporters, one sign stuck in the snow across
the street from the polls, and a lot of people
commiserating with me about how they'd really like
to have voted for Kuch but stopping Hillary was far
more important to them.

The *ONE THING* that New Hampshire could do that
it's not already doing is that the Secretary of
State (who runs the elections) should, after the
election and the count, pick some small number of
polling places at random and audit those, doing a
hand recount and checking against the previously-
announced tally. Because no one would know ahead
of time which polling places would be audited,
this would make the risk of tampering even higher.

And I've written to the SoS suggesting that he
start doing that exact thing.

The bottom line is that I'm confident that the
announced count from our primary was a reasonably
accurate reflection of the voters' true intent.
Some folks won, some folks lost, but I think it
was a fair election.

Tesha

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. Fair enough, but I think your "one thing" is a vitally important one thing. n/t

[riqster]

10. This is the problem -what we "think" is the best proof we have.

And that is not good enough.

Again: there is no proof of fraud in NH. However, due to the secrecy which surrounds the machine tabulation process, IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO GET PROOF.

And that is what the anti-reform Dems keep ignoring. "Prove it", they say. Bob Ney (remember him? He's in prison now) wrote HAVA in order to solidify the gains Reeps made in 2000. Secrecy and privatization were not accidental, they were put in on purpose so as to avoid any possibility of fraudsters being caught or punished.

And so ALL elections are suspect, because you don't know, can't know, in fact aren't legally allowed to know what really happened.