The NH Recount will not change the results. It's still a good idea.

[riqster]

To understand why, let's look back to Ohio in 2004. Like today, there were many who distrusted the offical results, even though they had no evidence, and the victors as well as the democratic 'losers' were mocking the election integrity activists (myself included) for their efforts.

The focus was on Cuyahoga County, a Blue county whose Board of Elections was controlled by none other than the GOP party chairman, Bob Bennett. The recount did not turn up sufficient discrepancies to change the election results. Case (apparently) closed.

Later on, it turned out that workers at the BOE had pre-selected votes that would match, in order to save themselves the effort of doing a full recount. We had Congressional investigations, much media scrutiny,and a few books come out of that.

What made it worthwile? Well, the election workers who rigged the recount went to prison. The state Republican party suddenly became engulfed in scandal after scandal and lost its stranglehold on Ohio politics. The Cuyahoga County BOE Board Members were sacked en masse. Michael Vu, Dieboldian and all around scumbag, left to pursue other opportunities. We have a Dem SOS who is pursuing a serious reform agenda, and EVERYBODY is watching every election like hawks.

Was it worth it? YES. We shone a bright light where none had been shone, and uncovered a huge nest of cockroaches.

[rinsd]

1. I have no problem with a recount.

[niceypoo]

47. Neither do I

I love watching Obama's conspiracy brigade eat crow.

[Bad Thoughts]

2. Great Argument

I like the idea of requesting recounts as a way of drawing scrutiny on the entire electoral process. It makes them more legitimate, especially for general elections.

[HeraldSquare212]

3. Good to let BOE's know they will be under scrutiny

I don't know why there isn't a recount and third-party audit immediately following an election all the time, except of course for the cost. Even apart from fraud, why shouldn't we be looking at how each election went and figuring out how to do better next time?

[riqster]

4. We used to do more in the Punch-Card days

...in fact, it was SOP to examine the ballots for evidence of tampering before feeding them into the tabulator. This was a public process that was heavily audited and rigidly controlled.

[elizm]

38. My same thought.....Let them know we will be watching. Good on Kucinch! nt

[99th_Monkey]

5. Rec-ed ... Thank you. The NH recount naysayers need to read this. nt

[ladjf]

6. Partial recounts should be a part of the regular vote counting

process. If significant irregularities appear the count could be widened.

[K Gardner]

7. Kudos to the Watchers in Ohio ! n/t

[doublethink]

8. K&R ....

Excellent synopsis. Thank you.

[hvn_nbr_2]

9. It's good to force them to say, "Well, uh, duh, we can't recount these things." nt

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. Yes, this is why

We need to shine a light on all electoral practices when there is even a hint that something might be wrong. That way, the repukes won't be able to get away with it again.

[riqster]

11. Jennifer Brunner, our Dem SOS, has recently mandated...

that all voters who request a paper ballot be given one in 2008. And that those ballots be counted on Election Night along with whatever other votes are cast in that district.

Interestingly, Matt Damschroder, majorly corrupt Franklin County BOE Director (and Diebold bribe recipient) started whining about all the work that would cause: he's now under formal investigation.

Once you start on the process of transparency, lots of good things happen.

[AtLiberty]

12. K & R!!!

;)

[rudy23]

13. To me, what's more important, is letting Diebold and others know---they are being watched

I think a good strategy in the generals would be to PROMISE to spot check a certain number of states, whether or not the outcome was in doubt there.

[Recursion]

14. The effect on the GOP side might be a lot

I think Paul is asking for a recount too because whole counties with active Paul '08 groups recorded 0 votes for Paul. And their frontrunners are, I think, in a position to change delegate counts.

[whatdoyouthink]

15. I was not for

Hillary Or Obama -i was for the third place winner

So have some Objectivity


and think it should be re-counted - and as other said - here, they should be able too - and every State should have a % Recounted ALL-WAYS - Just to make Sure they got it right - and in case something funny happened (though don't think there far off? of what happened - Unless they flipped all Edwards votes to Both Hillary AND Obama (well just wishing)

Note - we even have to keep a watch on are self's - what that saying about Power something....

[creeksneakers2]

16. Recounts should be scheduled before elections start

not after they are completed. A recount based on suspicion of fraud casts undue suspicion on the winner.

Also, an unplanned recount risks a loss of data.

Proponents of a recount are already claiming that the ballots from the primary aren't in secure storage so they can be tampered with. A recount at this point won't satisfy everybody.

[riqster]

17. Incorrect on all points. Here're the details:

<1> Neither plaintiff, nor anyone in the Election Integrity community, has alleged fraud by any candidate. The vendor who was contracted to count the ballots is the target.

<2> First, there is no such thing as an 'unplanned recount', only recounts that have been planned for more or less time. The data integrity question is not a function of time, but rather of operational and procedural security at the BOE involved.

<3> It is actually OPPONENTS of the recount who are bringing up the COC issue. Starting a recount ASAP will bring all the ballots into a secured environment so as to avoid further corruption. Also, "satisying everybody" is not the goal. Analysis of what went right and what did not, so as to improve the process, IS.

[creeksneakers2]

18. Nobody is pointing the finger at Hillary yet

But the idea that the vast right wing would fix an election and do so to make Hillary win would not fly anywhere but on the leftwing net. Its a far fetched conspiracy theory.

If there is suspicion of fraud and the story spreads beyond the net,everybody else's fingers will point at Hillary. She's their eternal target. She's the one who had the most to gain.

[riqster]

19. The American voter has the right to vote, and to have it counted accurately

Hypothetical scenarios of what might happen pale in comparison to the factually proven, wholesale disenfranchisement of the electorate.

It isn't about any candidate: it is about the voters. It is about the nation. Each and every candidate is there to serve their constituency, not the other way around.

Finally, there is ALREADY suspicion of fraud. Recounting and investigating will remove that suspicion to the extent possible and clear the air.

[creeksneakers2]

26. What factually proven wholesale disenfranchisement

took place in New Hampshire? Sounds like a conclusion before a recount.

I can tell you its more than hypothetical what happens when the Clintons are suspected of something. I followed the investigations all through the 90s and boy, I could tell you. If you want more secure elections then by all means we should have audits that are planned before the elections start. We don't need an audit now to know that's a great idea.

Here is another post I wrote about what is already happening and what will happen. Its not all hypothetical.

The audit won't just be a recount. It will turn into an investigation and the investigation will turn into a witch hunt. This happens every time the Clintons are accused of something. At the beginning, the accusers alway ask, "What harm could taking a second look do?" Then it all starts.

So far we have widely circulated falsehoods like the claim the Chris Matthews said that exit polls showed an 8% lead for Obama. A chart is circulating says Clinton only was projected to get 35% of the vote in the original exit poll but that number comes from one line in a British newspaper that didn't even have direct access to the data. We have invalid apples to oranges comparisons like hand counted to machine counted districts. Those comparison have been debunked, but the debunking is ignored.

Its already getting worse. People are raising the issue of ballot security. They believe that Obama ballots will be removed by insiders who want to cover up the fix. A recount won't satisfy a conspiracy theorist. Nothing ever does. When no evidence is found for the original accusation, the theorist just says it was covered up.

Soon we'll have revelations like somebody who worked at the software contractor made a donation to Bill Clinton in 1996. They'll find a Clinton supporter who had access to the ballots after the election. TV will pick it all up and they'll report it with phrases like "Hillary's ballot rigging scandal." It will go on and on until people get bored with it and it stops being covered on cable.

The proponents of the recount accuse those who are against it of not supporting clean elections. That is not the case with me. I'd love to see audits of our elections. But those audits should be scheduled BEFORE the election and not brought up afterward. A post election decision to audit casts suspicion on the winner. And if you are a Clinton you have the Clinton curse - every accusation must be followed by a witch hunt.

[riqster]

34. I did not say that the disenfranchisement took place in NH

It is a national phenomenon. NH does not exist in a vacuum.

I could care less which of our candidates gets the nod, in all honesty. Clinton would be the first woman, Obama the first black, Edwards is OK if slightly unconvincing, Kooch would light up DC like nobody in centuries. All good so far as I am concerned.

To cower meekly lest HRC get hit with more turds at the expense of democracy is ridiculous: the more so because she is more than capable of dealing with such missiles.

[nichomachus]

20. Please consider another scenario

Beware of unintended consequences.

Your comments about Cuyahoa County are well-taken, and are more important because there was fraud.

But what if there were no fraud in NH -- only some expected clerical errors. There are always going to be some errors.

Suppose there was no fraud -- and then suppose that the recount shows that the machine vote was far more accurate than the hand-count vote, which, in the absence of fraud, is highly likely. That will really take the wind out of the sails of people who are arguing for paper ballots and hand counts.

Then, imagine that in the general election there is voter fraud and the machines are involved. Anyone who tries to raise the issue will be laughed out of the room. "We went through that in NH and we found that the machines are far more accurate than the hand count."

This would really be a severe blow to those of us who are concerned about machines.

Personally, I'd like to know what really did go on in NH, but I'd rather save the ammo for when we're reasonably sure there has been some machine-related voter fraud -- not waste in on a case where it really won't change the outcome. All we have in NH right now are numbers that some people aren't happy with. I'd like to see more evidence of tampering before getting all in an uproar about it.

[riqster]

22. We already have a huge problem in NH

Chain of Custody was violated.There may well be (likely will be)other irregularities exposed as time goes on.

What we learned in Ohio was this: any meaningful investigation will follow a recount. There is no comparable recourse in American politics to a recount. If the numbers match but other practices (nefarious in nature or just sloppiness) are exposed, that validates the recount and no negative fallout results.

[RufusTFirefly]

24. As always, you definitely have a point, Nicho

... but I'm concerned about pre-empting ourselves out of fear of the consequences.

If there's a lesson to be learned from the last 7 years, it's that each time we "play it safe," each time we worry about the votes, worry about the consequences, worry about the swing states, or worry about our chances of re-election, we get screwed.
Instead of running an anti-war candidate who echoed the sentiments of the party, we chose a bona fide war hero who voted for the IWR.
And we got screwed.
Perhaps in the interest of bipartisanship, Speaker Pelosi has kept impeachment "off the table."
And we've been screwed.
Let's face it: Anything we do is bound to be distorted, so why not do the right thing?

"I hear people say you can sit at a table with these people, negotiate with them, and they will volunteer their power away. That is a complete fantasy. You can't ‘nice’ these people to death." -- John Edwards

[riqster]

25. Nicho always has a point, has for years

...I don't always agree, but am glad to see that nic show up again. A smart and savvy individual.

Thanks for your insights as well, Mr. President ;-)

[nichomachus]

27. It could be Dan Rather all over again

Remember Dan Rather?

Rather said he had documents that illustrated Bush's AWOL status from the TANG. The media claimed that the documents were false, when there's reason to believe they were not.

But since then, no one has raised the issue ever again.

The same could happen here.

[RufusTFirefly]

29. But were Rather and producer Mary Mapes wrong to go with the story?

What possible benefit would be derived from keeping it under wraps? Or from biting our tongues when faced with the appearance of possible election irregularities?

If all goes well, New Hampshire election officials will be able to breathe a sigh of relief when a recount turns up no significant irregularities. But I think a recount sends an important message: As has been pointed out on another thread, there's a big difference between "auditable" and "audited." Election officials need to know that somewhere, somehow, perhaps when they least expect it, they will be audited, so they'd better make damn sure that every vote is counted -- and counted correctly.

[nichomachus]

31. It's not a question of right and wrong

It's a question of choosing your battles wisely. I'm not arguing against recounting, if people feel that's warranted. I just wouldn't do it on the vague assumption that voting machines gave faulty totals. If it's shown that the voting machine totals were more reliable than paper ballots and hand counting, it will work in favor of people who want to rig voting machines in other elections.

If I were Karl Rove, and I knew there were no meaningful tampering in NH, I would pay for the recount myself -- just as he probably paid to have the phony documents passed to Dan Rather.

[RufusTFirefly]

32. Yes, but it seems that the Rethugs choose nearly every battle. And win!

Or to shift analogies, thanks to an obeisant media, almost everything they throw against the wall tends to stick.

[nichomachus]

33. You're right

If you think you can win, then go ahead. Better still, if you think there is something to win, go ahead.

I'm simply talking about choosing battles carefully.

If they go ahead with this and it shows that there was some kind of voting fraud, then it won't change the outcome of the elections (delegates awarded), but it may land a few people in jail or make the fraud folks more careful in the future.

HOWEVER (and this is a big however) if they go ahead with this, and my scenario plays out, then we're in Dan Rather territory -- and it will set the anti-voting fraud movement back 10 years, neutralize any call for paper ballots and audit trails, and will give machine voting a huge boost.

So, if it were my decision, I'd want to make sure we had a solid case before we started calling for recounts based on supposed machine fraud, because the penalty for being wrong in this case is pretty high. Right now, all I'm seeing is "votes in this town with machines were this way and votes in hand-count towns were this way and we don't like that."

Machiavelli summed it up in a different context: "If you strike at the prince, kill him." The message there is to be sure of success or you could end up worse off than before.

If this were a "winner take all" election, rather than a primary with a proportional assignment of delegates, I'd be more inclined to ask for the recount.

[riqster]

36. The difference between the Rather scenario and ours (call it Rather Not?)

...is that Rather didn't have anything else to stand on. In this case, we already have corruption or incompetence by public officials and/or private contractors-the Chain of Custody problem. No matter the numbers, we WILL find other roaches scurrying about and provide a public service.

If it were numbers or nothing, I'd be right with you-or as Judd Nelson said to Ice-T, ahead of you. But it's not. Read the 2004 example above-we know more going into this one than we did that.

[nichomachus]

37. I'll take your word for it

You apparently know things I'm unaware of. If you are certain there are serious irregularities in the NH vote that will be uncovered by a recount, then it's certainly called for.

But we need to be prepared for the possibility that the voting machines will prove to be much more reliable than hand counting, which they might be in the absence of deliberate rigging. If that happens, then the move for doing away with machines and providing paper audit trails will be dead in the water.

[riqster]

39. Let me clarify, my old friendly antagonist

...or is that acrimonious pal? Whatever, I am happy to see you again. :toast:

We do not know that we have a problem with the numbers at this point. We do know that there is a problem with what's called the 'Chain of Custody': the ballots themselves were not handled in accordance with the law. Security procedures were violated (either willfully or stupidly) and the ballots may have been tampered with since the original count.

This is a VERY serious violation of election law, one of the most serious in fact. It is sliding off the radar screen as we type. The ONLY quick, effective, and legal way of getting a handle on this situation is a recount. If Kooch is willing to pay (I'm donating today), then they HAVE to do a recount. Also, the last time this happened, the NH election workers pulled a few Cuyahoga-esque tricks themselves to screw it up.

The overall scandal about the shoddy and/or corrupt practices in the BOEs involved is more than enough reason to do this and will be seen as such afterwards, whatever the numbers show. Here are two scenarios:
<1> The numbers match perfectly. However, the ballots may have been tampered with. The ballot-handling practices and the ballots themselves will have to be examined to explain this.
<2>The numbers DON'T match perfectly. However, the ballots may have been tampered with. The ballot-handling practices and the ballots themselves will have to be examined to explain this.

(Edited to add NH at one point)

[nichomachus]

40. You seem to know better

I don't know enough about the details to either agree or disagree and I'll take your word for it.

If someone thinks there was ballot tampering, then there is cause for a recount, just to keep the process above board. But they should make it clear that it's about ballot tampering and why they think there was tampering -- other than that they just don't like the results.

However, what I'm hearing from where I am is that it's all about the machines giving faulty counts and that is the basis for the recount. So, I assume that's what other people are hearing. My only concern, which I've stated before, is that given that perception, if it proves that the machines are accurate, then future claims that voting machines are a problem will be met with reactions ranging from skepticism to ridicule.

This will leave the way clear for Rove & Co. to rig machines from Florida to California during the general, and you'd have a hard time getting anyone to listen to you if you complained.

[riqster]

41. It is a fair point and a valid risk to call out

A recount must be based on suspicion of a bad count, so that is why it is phrased so. That's what happened in 2004. In 2004, the rest of the scenario played out as I describe, which gives me reason to believe that it will again.

If you're right (and you have a good track record IIRC), I'll say so.

[Tesha]

30. Bingo. (NT)

[pgh_dem]

21. On a different thread someone suggested that Sen Clinton herself request it.

I thought that would be a great idea. Delegate-wise it's almost a mathematical impossibility to change anything, more likely to give her the edge in the tie. She'd score HUGE points with those of us for whom the 2004 Ohio election still stinks to high heaven. (As an aside, that was my favorite Sen Clinton debate moment, when asked if she was bothered by Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton, and she said, 'Well yeah, the second Bush bothers me. I thought the other guy won.")

I thought it made great sense as an inoculation against "sore loser" complaints in the general for a winner to ask that the tallies be verified. It would also send a terrific message of transparency, sort of a "We're throwing the doors of government open, this is what a Clinton administration would be like. No more Bush admin back-room deals, no more "Trust us." We're here to show you that you CAN trust us, not to demand that you do."

Oh well. Maybe Obama could do it after the S. Carolina if he makes a big win there. Particularly with an eye to Cuyahoga County, it would be very valuable to do a full audit on computerized tabulators/electronic voting machines in predominantly African American precincts.

[riqster]

23. That would have been preferable.

But of the current crop of candidates, only Kucinich and Edwards have made Election Integrity a part of their message. Edwards, as the third-place finisher, would have been more vulnreable to the Soreloserman crap than Kooch, who obviously has nothing personal to gain here.

[vee]

28. Has there never been election fraud before in the US?

Or is your assumption that the results won't change based on some other missing facts?

[riqster]

35. There's been fraud since before the country's inception

..it's a helluva story. Every half century or so, pricks like me, AtLiberty, GaryBeck,and several thousand of our nearest and dearest friends raise such a stink that the cesspool is flushed. After a while, politics being what it is, the tank fills up with sludge again.

The outcome is unlikely to to change because the outcome is not votes for a candidate but delegates, and it would require a large shift to alter the allocations: a shift that seems unlikely. But then, without a full count, I can't say for sure. Just applying experience to limited data.

The reasons for recounting are expressed above and seem valid to me whether or not HRC gets 7 delegates and BHO 5, or vice versa. The IMPORTANT THING is for voters to have trust in their elections, and that said trust be based on facts, not smoke and mirrors from Diebold and its ilk.

[Imagevision]

42. Recount will not change the results? -> only in America...

[riqster]

43. Some examples of what we're looking at:

An example of how the private sector has taken over our election process.
(Snip from Brad's article) "Late last year, I reported on a recorded interview I'd had with LHS's director of Sales and Marketing, Ken Hajjar, who admitted that the company routinely replaces both voting machines, and vulnerable memory cards, during elections.

Despite such replacements against strict laws in Connecticut, Hajjar told me, "I mean, I don't pay attention to every little law."

[riqster]

44. Here's why this is a huge honkin' problem

(That's technical-speak, don'tcha know)

The scanner reads the vote information and stores it on a memory card: the same sort used on Touchscreen voting machines. Those cards are then used for the official count back at the BOE.

Changing a machine or card during an election violates the integrity of the data, and is a prime point of failure/window for hacking.

But hey, they're only little laws, right?

[riqster]

45. Excellent Editorial

Nice to see some common sense breaking out. A few snips from this well-written editorial (I recommend reading the entire piece):

"And many activists want courtroom-level proof. And they deserve it -- or something close. We live in an era in which partisans on each side believe that the other side is capable of out-and-out theft. Proving that theft didn't occur should be a routine part of elections -- all elections, all the time. "

"Why not count the votes? And thanks to Kucinich, that's what will likely happen now. It will probably take some time; weeks, if not months. But soon, we'll know what happened.

But as many voting-reform experts have argued, manually counting the votes should be a routine in any race. There are logistical reasons why it would be impractical to hand count every vote in every election. But if we're going to use machines -- optical-scan machines that use paper ballots, that is; touch-screen machines everywhere ought to be burned -- we should, at least, conduct a randomized, accountant-approved audit of ballots."

[riqster]

46. When Riqster's right, he's right

Basically, some small count errors. HUGE problems elsewhere. New Hampshire is about to get cleaned up!