I don't believe the NH Primary was miscounted or stolen.

[Tesha]

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

[onenote]

1. thanks

[SoxFan]

2. K&R from an Obama supporter

This notion that the Diebold machines somehow stole the vote don't add up. The discrepancy between the "paper ballot" towns and the scanner towns has to do with demographic and ideological differences between regions. Most of the paper ballot towns are tiny communities in northern and western NH. These towns are more like Vermont than the rest of NH. The Democrats there tend to be affluent, highly educated, and waspy. Historically, they vote for candidates perceived as reform, anti-machine types. Howard Dean and Bill Bradley did well in these places, as did Mark Fernald in his gubernatorial campaigns and John Rauh in his senate campaigns (notably, both Fernald and Rauh supported Obama).

It's demographics, not Diebold.

[Tesha]

3. Thanks! (NT)

[Junkdrawer]

4. "If there were a hint of impropriety, a hand-recount could confirm or deny that."

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Stop it. You're killing me.

[helderheid]

5. yea, that one got me too. My keyboard is a mess!

:spray: :rofl:

[SoxFan]

7. Explain

You clearly don't understand what the Diebold machines in New Hampshire are like. They aren't touch screen devices. They utilize optical scanning technology. There is a paper ballot that can be manually counted by simply observing which bubble the voter filled in with a black pen.

I've been involved in a number of recounts, and the results very rarely change. The few changes that do occur are easily identifiable as having been caused by stray marks or by an oddball voter who did soemthing weird like writing comments next to the name of every candidate (this stuff happens).

The only yime I've seen a significant shift was actually in a race that involved paper ballots. In that case, a tabulation error gave a legislative candidate a windfall of about 30 votes.

[Junkdrawer]

10. Perhaps it's you that don't understand.

Now, in case you haven't heard about the Hursti Hack, let me give you a brief description:

The Zero Value Report is printed at the beginning of every election. Its only purpose is to assure the election officials that the memory card has no votes preloaded. But, in at least the Diebold case, the memory card also holds an AccuBasic program that prints the zero value report. That's right: The report that verifies the honesty of the memory card is on the same memory card.

With this design the Zero Value Report is less than useless, it’s a ruse meant to give a false sense of security to election officials. A kind of conjurer’s “nothing up my sleeves” ploy. This has been known for some time. Indeed, it was the center piece of an HBO documentary.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x489858

[SoxFan]

13. I understand better than any of you

I ran for the Manchester Board of Aldermen last month, and the race went to a recount. The then-city clerk was in my opponent's camp, and he probably isn't above skullduggery. The machine count had me up by 19 votes. After the hand count, I was up by 16. A change, but one that is completely attributable to someone marking the ballot in a way that goofs up the scanner.

I've observed recounts for several races for school board, state representative, and other offices. There has never been the slightest indication that the machines have been a factor in the outcome.

In fact, the scanner machines have actually decreased the level of cheating in many places. With a raw hand count, it was easy to "lose count" here or there; with the machines, there is a two part count, mechanical and manual, which makes it difficult to pull those kinds of stunts. Since Manchester instituted the use of the scanner ballots, the old political machine has actually lost close races, something that would not have occured when the old lever machines were in use.

[EFerrari]

23. Apples and oranges. Your specific experience doesn't generalize.

And, of course the new tech requires new methods of gaming the system.

[lumberjack_jeff]

28. Nor does it account for the reality that an alderman race has little motivation for big fraud. n/t

[Junkdrawer]

33. Thanks guy. I tried to post the same thing just before the thread was locked...

Great Minds.

:hi:

[creeksneakers2]

31. If votes were preloaded

those votes would show up on the preliminary test run.

[Junkdrawer]

32. Nope. The code to TEST the cards is on the cards...

All one needs to is to modify this report to print zeros if negative numbers are used.

And it's not just a theory, Harry Hursti did it and demonstrated it on the HBO documentary.

[creeksneakers2]

34. The programmers don't know which test count the checker will use

Each municipality is sent 50 test ballots. The individual municipalities are instructed to fill out the ballots with votes for every candidate and combinations of candidates with other candidates. There is no way to know if the municipalities will test with 30 Clinton to 20 Obama or 20 Clinton and 30 Obama. The test votes are filled out by hand in each municipality.

Also, if votes were to be added to the totals, the test run totals would move. And the final count wouldn't match the number of voters who actually voted.

Page 136
http://www.sos.nh.gov/FINAL%20EPM%208-30-2006.pdf

[Junkdrawer]

35. The test memory cards and the actual memory cards are not the same.

Also, the hack preloads a positive amount for the favored candidate and a negative amount for the disfavored candidate.

Result: and even bigger boost for the favored candidate while keeping the sum the same.

e.g.

(Clinton + x) + (Obama - x) = (Clinton + Obama)

[creeksneakers2]

36. How do you know they used different cards?

What sense would that make? What would be the point of testing if you weren't testing the card that would actually be used?

Wouldn't it be expensive to program two different sets of cards? How do the programmers know whether they are fixing the test cards or the real cards? How do municipalities keep the cards separate?

I'm sorry. I have a very hard time believing they use two sets of cards.

[Junkdrawer]

40. From what I hear, the company that runs the elections have their...

technicians carrying around trunkfuls of the cards.

And if they used the same cards for the election and the test, then the test ballots would show up in the real count.

Bottom line: no one expects that the validation code is put on the very cards that the validation test is validating. BUT THAT'S THE DIEBOLD DESIGN.

[creeksneakers2]

44. Where did you hear about technicians running around

with trunks full of voting cards? That doesn't make sense either. Why would they have trunk full of cards? How would they get the trunkful of cards into all those separate quarantined Diebold machines all over New Hampshire? Is the presidential race the only one on the ballot? What about Congressmen or state representatives? Here, we need a different ballot for each district so somebody in Congressional district 17 and State Senate District 44 gets a different ballot than somebody in Congressional District 17 and State Senate District #45. Were the cards in the trunks for each individual district?

After the test ballots are run, the machine is zeroed out.

[Tesha]

46. That's a great document; thanks for posting it!

That's a great document; thanks for posting it!
I haven't seen it for a few years. I'm trying
to talk Mr. Tesha into running for Moderator in
'09 so maybe I'll slip it in with his mail...

Tesha

[doublethink]

6. Tesha ......

80% of N.H. paper ballots were counted by Diebold Optical Scanners. Susceptible to hacking without any of your fellow poll workers knowing. Only 20% of the vote in N.H. were hand counted. The Optical counts came out for Clinton, the Hand counts came out for Obama. To me this isn't about Clinton v.s. Obama, but transparent elections for our Country, and about smashing all Diebold, Premier, E&S, DRE's and outlawing them in our election process.

All that being said, thanks for taking time to think this issue through, and stating your reasons in an adult manner. I still haven't made up my mind on who I support in the election, but will soon. I suspect this thread will be moved to the Election Reform forum which it rightly should now by Skinners rules. Where I hope it can be rationally discussed further there with other DU'ers. All the best. Peace.

[Junkdrawer]

8. ...and manual recounts are just not that easy. They cost $80,000.00

Now a mainline candidate could easily afford that, but they would be putting their whole political career on the line.

A minor party candidate could do it, but they would have to pony up the $80 grand. Not exactly walking around money.

And if the recount in 2004 Ohio taught us anything, a substantial delay between the election and the recount gives great opportunity to those who would substitute newly minted ballots for the actual ballots. Nader's 2004 NH "recount" took a month and only did a handful of counties.

If you don't at least audit the elections on election night, all hope for transparency is lost.

[SoxFan]

11. About hand counts

New Hampshire has a weird, 400-member legislature, so there are lots of recounts in House races every year. I've been an observer in several of them since 2000. The hand counts nearly always match up with the mechanical tally. When there is a change, it is because of a voter who did something odd to the ballot, like drawing arrows, writing comments, and the like.

I'll also point out that the machines are maintained on the local level. If someone wanted to tamper with the machines, they would have to gain access from several hundred very territorial city clerks, town clerks, moderators, and selectmen spread out from the Boston suburbs to the Quebec border. It's just not a real possibility.

[Junkdrawer]

12. The tampering is done via the memory cards. There's an award winning HBO...

documentary that goes into the whole thing.

Hacking Democracy.

[truckin]

16. Do New Hampshire election officials program the memory cards

or does LHS? In Connecticut, LHS does all of the programming.

[Tesha]

18. I think that's an interesting question and willtry to find out.

It obviously varies between local elections (where every ward
has a different ballot) and Federal elections (where there
are just one or two ballots state-wide).

Tesha

[truckin]

19. Thanks nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

30. Good point.

It is counterintuitive that local clerks would be responsible for programming each vote tabulator for statewide elections.

The programming of vote tabulators is the main point of vulnerability for an election.

But I join in thanking you for the dispassionate response.

[doublethink]

50. LHS does the pre-programming in New Hampshire .........

on the memory cards. Even so "re-programming" can be done through the modem port which Harri Hurtsi tried getting disconnected in Sept of 2007. New Hampshire wouldn't do it. So these machines are hackable even with the memory cards securely locked in place.

[SoxFan]

9. I'll say it again

This is about demographics, not Diebold.

The towns that use paper ballots are mainly in "East Vermont", places with highly educated, waspy Democrats who vote for anti-establishment liberal reformers like Obama, Bradley, Dean, Fernald, Rauh, etc.

The optical scan machines have been in use for about a decade, but the patterns of voting are long standing and are readily apparent to anyone who understands New Hampshire political demography.

This bleating about Diebold only makes those of us who worked for Obama look goofy.

[EFerrari]

20. You make yourself look goofy when you claim he is anti establisment.

Holy cow. Check out his contributors and his advisors.

[doublethink]

21. If you have a moment read through this short article .....

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5540#more-5540 the author addresses your explanation (doesn't totally discount it) ... but still raises questions we all should be concerned about. Again I've stated in my previous post that "I'm an undecided voter" and believe all our Democratic candidates would serve us way better in the White House than the other side. "The bleating about Diebold" .... has nothing to do with a perception of goofiness on anyones account and it shouldn't. It's about open and fair elections, democracy. Thanks for keeping this discussion on a serious level. Peace.

[lumberjack_jeff]

29. I find it intriguing that those who comment most passionately on this issue

Are not (obviously) vocal Obama supporters.

[The Magistrate]

14. Locking

Please see Mr. Skinner's statement here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4021441&mesg_id=4021441

[Lerkfish]

26. now, election transparency is not an accepted topic?

ok, good to know. sorry I already responded to the thread before I read your lock

[tbyg52]

67. You mean the statement that said it should be moved to ERD (I assume it was started somewhere else)

*not* locked....?

Edited because I didn't notice my original subject was too long for the closing parenthesis.

[Tesha]

15. Thanks to whoever it was that unlocked this! (NT)

[Tesha]

17. More about our poll-closing procedures

I thought I'd tell you a bit more about our poll-
opening and closing procedures.

Before the polls open, a Democrat and a Republican
are solicited to look into the machine and verify
that the collection area for ballots is empty and
the ballot counter and tallies read zero. The
machine is then physically locked up and the
polls can open. (I've occasionally been "the
designated Democrat").

Later...

At 8:00, the people in line get to vote, but after
that, the polls are "closed". But that doesn't mean
that anything happens in secret. Anyone who wants
can be in the polling station when the doors are
closed and watch the entire process.

The optiscan machine is opened, and the two piles
of ballots removed. One pile contains the ordinary
ballots and the other contains any ballot where the
voter chose to write-in a candidate; obviously, those
ballots need human intervention to read the name of
the written-in candidate.

The ballots are then secured. (I don't recall if
they are hand-counted to match against the machine's
ballot counter that I describe below.)

The vote tally is then recorded. This used to be a lot
more interesting in the days of "lever" voting machines
because for each machine, there was a process to lock
out votes, print the tally sheet, and unlock the
machine to remove the multi-copy tally sheet. One
copy of the tally sheet from each machine was then
posted where it could be inspected. Nowadays, collecting
the results from the optiscan machine is a lot more
boring.

Earlier in the day, the absentee ballots were counted,
often during a slow period in the afternoon. The
process followed is to verify the name and signature
on the outer envelope, separate the inner envelope
containing the ballot, and then feed the ballot
through the scanner just like any other ballot.

Throughout the day, the machine is displaying a
continuous count of how many ballots it has collected.
This tally must match the count of voters who have
checked-in with the election officials.

Sensible campaigns often attend these closing activities;
it's often the fastest way to get the vote tallies over
to the campaign's headquarters.

As I mentioned, there really aren't a lot of opportunities
to screw-around/screw up.

And yes, I've attended recounts and no, aside from the
errors that any human-directed activity may be prone to,
I've never seen them change the tally by much.

I understand the "not set to zero" gambit but I'm
reasonably comfortable it would be caught in some
precinct. Remember, the ballot count by the machine
must match the head-count of voters. And as I said
earlier, I've called for the Secretary of State to
do audits on a random-sampling basis to deter
exactly this sort of problem.

Tesha

[doublethink]

39. Hey Tesha ! :)

Glad your thread was unlocked .... all the thanks to The Magistrate moderator !! They put up with enough stuff from us at times but their work is greatly appreciated in here. Anyway ...... here's a short video if ya get a moment (10 minutes long) .... the makers of this video don't have a positive reputation here on DU with good reason.

But .... the content (procedures) in the video is something I think you are familiar with from what you have posted. Hacking these machines (changing vote counts) doesn't involve actual physical contact with them, it can and has be done over a wireless connection, from another computer. Again ...... it can be, and has been done over a WIRELESS source ..... with the hacker no where near the tabulator.

here's the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiiaBqwqkXs

interested in your thoughts after watching it. Peace. :hi:

[doublethink]

47. Another short synopsis ....... here ......

http://voter.engr.uconn.edu/voter/Report-OS.html on these 'tabulators' something to think about. Why all these 'open ports' of entry on these machines vulnerable to being hacked .... ?

Yet 'Premier' systems, formerly Diebold ..... has propriety rights to these machines so your's and my vote can't be verified legally, without moving heaven and earth. Where did OUR rights go in this process? Thanks for listening. Peace.

[HughMoran]

55. Thanks for all the great info

I live in NH too and vote on the optiscan and I also find it somewhat difficult to believe that votes could be hacked using these. That, and they'd have to be hacked in many locations at once to be able to tilt the election without detection. If somehow the machines had a problem with the ballots due to a technical glitch, that is one thing, but tampering seems very, very unlikely IMHO.

[Tesha]

60. See, that's the point.

> I live in NH too and vote on the optiscan and I also find
> it somewhat difficult to believe that votes could be hacked
> using these.

See, that's the point: I don't doubt for *A MINUTE*
that the machines can be hacked. It's not as trivially-
easy as some are making it out to be (because, for example,
our scanners *AREN'T* networked) but I know computers and
understand the feasibility of the technical threats.

But I believe NH's voting system, *AS A WHOLE*, has
enough checks-and-balances that large-scale fraud
would be detected or snitched. Like I said, I *KNOW*
my local poll workers personally and I simply will
not be convinced that even though some are Republicans,
that they are criminals who would compromise this
aspect of the electoral process in order to win.
Attempt to treat the various campaign workers unfairly
at the polling station? Sure, that happens all the
time and I'm on their cases about it all the time
as well. But deliberately miscount the vote? I just
don't see them doing it and being able to get away
with the size of the conspiracy that would be
required; we NH citizens are too involved with
the process.

Tesha

[EFerrari]

22. With respect, why do we need to rely on belief?

This was an election, not a seance.

Thank you, though, for your on the ground reports.

[foo_bar]

24. that's a good question

I believe, which is just knowing with your heart.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x325629#326558

[Joe Chi Minh]

48. Very dry. And equally to the point.

[Tesha]

51. Well, if you don't want to believe me, then...

> With respect, why do we need to rely on belief?

Well, if you don't want to believe me, then all you
need to do is get a candidate in the Democratic
Primary to call for a recount and pony up the
money to pay for it.

Maybe Hillary will do it in the interest of "free,
fair, and accurate" elections? ;)

Tesha

[Lerkfish]

25. the problem is a lack of transparency in elections

and that problem is not solved, no matter who runs or who wins.
Unless you go ahead and DO the hand count every time, you cannot GUARANTEE an election that is electronically tabulated.

The point is that you cannot guard against hackery. That is not proof of hackery in and of itself, but it certainly is proof that you cannot say it wasn't hacked if you don't back up the count by hand.

why is this not an understandable issue?

[stillcool]

27. Ohio recount...

[L. Coyote]

70. Ohio punch cards moved to wrong precincts counted the same, NOT as intended again.

[creeksneakers2]

37. It still doesn't explain how the exit polls could be fixed either n/t

[JackRiddler]

38. I'm sorry, but what either you or I believe is irrelevant.

Why don't you want to KNOW, rather than believe?

A hand count of the paper ballots would verify whether the optiscan machines produced a clean count. This would be an empirical truth. All else is belief, no matter how well grounded in rationality or probability.

[creeksneakers2]

41. There was a test against hand counted ballots

It took place before the election with 50 hand counted test ballots for each machine.

I don't have to launch a big investigation to find out if Mexico is going to nuke us next week. Its rational to disbelieve all ridiculous claims until they are proven. Sure, I could be wrong but it would probably by 1 time in 10,000, as opposed to never being able to know what to believe in ever.

[JackRiddler]

42. Too cute.

In a rational republic, fraud would always be assumed - there would be full tests, automatic hand counts of whatever a programmable machine says. Rational people may have noticed by now that the system is completely corrupt, that elections have already been stolen, that gangsters rule. Hell, rationality would already require safeguards and double checks just on the basis of human nature.

These machines are programmable - advance test tells you nothing about whether the program is corrupted so as to produce the false result on the real election.

Their vulnerability to fraud was amply demonstrated in the recent HBO documentary.

Why do such machines exist in the first place - with proprietary closed-source programming, no less?

Get rid of these machines so we don't have to debate what the odds are. You say it's less than 1 in 10,000, but you have no empirical basis for making any claim. So I'll say the odds are 99 in 100, not because I believe it but because I can!

[yourout]

43. Time activated code can give an accurant count everytime except when the coder wants..

them to.

A clever hacker would never allow a hack to activate on test runs.

[JackRiddler]

49. Furthermore...

Number of times Mexico has nuked U.S.: 0

Number of nuclear reactors in Mexico: 0



Now you tell me:

Cases of electoral fraud and stolen elections in American history: ??

[Bonobo]

45. Whew, that's a relief.

We can all rest easily now that our Democracy is secure.

[mhatrw]

52. Nice, reasonable post.

You may be 100% right. However, it would be nice to know for sure, wouldn't it?

I agree 100% with your great suggestion for partial hand recounts. However, the municipalities/wards selected to be recounted in the manner would have to be chosen in a 100% public, 100% transparent and 100% random manner once the machine results were already posted or such a recount would be meaningless.

[Tesha]

56. Yes, of course.

> I agree 100% with your great suggestion for partial
> hand recounts. However, the municipalities/wards
> selected to be recounted in the manner would have
> to be chosen in a 100% public, 100% transparent
> and 100% random manner once the machine results
> were already posted or such a recount would be
> meaningless.

Yes, of course.

But I'm starting to believe that if the NH Secretary
of State stood in front of everyone, dumped a bunch
of balls visibly numbered 1 to 1800 (or however many
voting precincts we have here in NH) into a Bingo
tumbler, spun it for five minutes and pulled out
ten at random, people would *STILL* claim "the
drawing was fixed" (because, after all, we know
those air-bounced ball lottery machines can be
"fixed" by using balls of different weights and
who knows who made the balls in Bill Gardner's
Precinct Bingo machine...).


Tesha

[mhatrw]

59. That's why I would not suggest using this method.

Instead I would roll a giant die 200 times to ensure it was reasonably well balanced, and then roll the same die as many times as it takes to randomly choose the municipalities/wards to be recounted. Why have any questions about the randomness of a critical process when it's so easy to get rid of them?

[Tesha]

61. My point, of course, is that some still won't believe it.

They'll tell you there's an electromagnet under the
table and a piece of iron in the die and it was only
turned on when the actual precincts were being selected.

Ultimately, there's no way to convince some folks
that their candidate simply lost because fewer
voters voted for that candidate.

Tesha

[mhatrw]

62. That is true. But that is no reason not to improve current vote counting practices

to the point where reasonable people can have a strong measure of confidence in them.

[SOS]

53. "pick some small number of polling places and audit those"

Must disagree.

NH is a small state. Recount every single Diebold ballot.

If Canada can hand-count their national elections, we should certainly be able to hand-count the NH primary.

[Tesha]

54. Okay -- you pay for it.

Right now, Dennis Kucinich is asking for the money
to do this; help him out!

Tesha

[SOS]

57. Done

Sent $30 today. Paying for this is no problem.

"Candidates who lose by 3 percentage or less are entitled to a recount for a $2,000 fee. Candidates who lose by more must pay for the full cost. Kucinich's campaign said it was sending the $2,000 fee to start the recount."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22608231/

The money will be raised so fast, it won't even be a consideration.

[Tesha]

58. Kucinich lost by more than 3% so he's still got about $77,970 to go. (NT)

[Junkdrawer]

63. Make that $77,920....

:evilgrin:

[Kurovski]

68. Heh.

Thank you for contributing, Junkdrawer. :-)

[SOS]

64. Granny Warriors have already raised $17,000.

Money is no problem. It'll be raised in a couple of days.

http://grannywarrior.chipin.com/recount-

[Tesha]

65. The Granny Warriors are working on the Republican side of the ballot.

As I understand it, their money doesn't count for
recounting all those blue ballots, just the pink
ones.

Tesha

[mhatrw]

66. $80,000 to help ensure democracy?

That's about what we spend every 10 seconds in Iraq.

[L. Coyote]

69. Thanks. My guess. You don't have a donate button on an elecion integrity website!

I noticed the smoke before the vote. For some people activism is an avocation, for some a job, for some a business, for some a way to panhandle online. It seemed the panhandlers started the fire before the vote. Where there is excess smoke, I suspect Nixonian dirty tricksters at work too, fanning any fires.