New -ARS Technica's Analysis: Clinton, Obama and New Hampshire by the numbers

[Ichingcarpenter]

I've spent the better part of two days looking over numbers on web pages and spreadsheets, monitoring bulletin boards, sending out e-mails, and making calls, all in the name of sorting out what, if anything, went wrong with New Hampshire's presidential primary. Before I get into any kind of detailed discussion of the NH primary vote, I'll skip to the punchline and tell you the two conclusions that I've come to at this point:
Related Stories

* Analysis: Why the "Hillary hacked NH?" story is important (Updated)

* Nobody really knows whether anything actually went wrong with New Hampshire's presidential primary, either on the Republican side or on the Democratic side.

* The proposed recount may not truly end the dispute, or the underlying uncertainty.


snip......... ARS Technica analysis is a must read.


http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080116-analysis-new-hampshire-by-the-numbers.html

[mod mom]

1. On Chain of Custody:

from your link:

Most of the questions that will be raised about the results of today's recount (see below for time and place) will have to do with chain of custody issues. For the recount to be reliable, a chain of custody must be established for all of the ballots involved. This means that each ballot must have been either under lock and key or under the watchful eye of a known and trusted list of state officials for every moment of its post-election life. If any point a group of ballots were left unattended, or if it's impossible to list exactly who could've had access to them, then establishing a secure chain of custody for those ballots will be impossible.

In the absence of a secure chain of custody, it's possible that someone could have replaced some of the ballots with counterfeits, or that they could have tried to alter them in some way. That's why establishing such a chain of custody is important—at least, it's important in theory.

What will almost certainly happen in practice is that no one will be able to establish a secure chain of custody for every ballot cast in New Hampshire, but that won't stop the press from reporting the results of the recount as if they're 100 percent reliable. And they may well be reliable; in fact, they probably are. But absent a secure chain of custody, no one can know for sure.

The other thing that's critical to a proper recount is that it be undertaken in full public view. Public recounts don't always happen, but they should.
-snip