Reply #15: Thanks! Here's what I emailed him:

[Hamoth]

I was reading about the problems going on with Fairfield County where the machine and hand counts were failing to match. What I found curious was that, from what I could tell, 4 undervotes where no presidential choice was present, were being logged as votes for Bush. If the machines were setup, as we have seen in some other places, namely NM, where Bush was the default choice in the software until something else is selected, then wouldn't all undervotes go to Bush? If only a few machines were so setup, this could be the mechanism by which thousands of expected Kerry votes would be switched through sloppy voting and a default Bush column, to the bush column...

Could the recent standoff in Fairfield County, Ohio be the result of discovering one such machine that was rigged to log undervotes as bush votes due to a default bush presidential choice? This would jive with other observations and explain quite a bit. The voter suppression and intentional use of crappy machines and rushed lines would cause more undervotes, and therefore, more bush votes!

We know that Blackwell and his friends often proclaim that there were nearly half as many undervotes in the election than previously in 2000. However we also know that so much of the state uses the same punch-card machinery that I wonder at how the reduction was achieved? The tabulation is the new component, and we may therefore ask how the tabulators reduced the number of undervotes in a clearly mechanical process. While claims of greater accuracy are issued, one may wonder by what standard the accuracy has been measured. It is known that most under and over voting occurs in heavily democratic precincts, and thus counting undervotes as Bush votes might well effectively switch expected Kerry votes, to the Bush column during tabulation. There might exist the specific mechanism for the anomalies you have observed. Is it possible that some machines were predisposed to log undervotes as votes for Bush?


Any opinions or people smarter than me that can substantiate / debunk this idea?