Hillsborough, NH Recount as of 12:30 est-

[Marrah_G]

Clinton- Add 46 votes
Obama- Add 14 votes
Edwards- Add 11 votes
Richardson- Add 6 votes
Dodd- Subtract 3 votes
Kucinich- Add 1 vote
Gravel- Subtract 1 vote

This is a small margin of error.


Edit: Added +5 for Clinton that I missed earlier.

[JohnnyLib2]

1. Many will be disappointed, it seems.

On to the next conspiracy we go! :evilgrin:

[Marrah_G]

2. Now be nice

:spank:

[kirby]

8. I wont...

This recount, for me, was never about changing the outcome. It is about putting daylight on the pathetic voting system and laws in various states. It is to provide another case study for why reform is needed.

[JohnnyLib2]

14. Fair enough. I wish others' motives were the same.

Sure don't think so, though.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

15. Hear hear!

We have to keep the spotlight on vote counting in this country.

[Orsino]

61. And a different many will seize on this outcome...

...as proof that recounts are by definition a waste of time.

Personally, I'll remain disappointed as long as unverifiable voting is used on a massive scale, with the power to tip elections so far as we know.

[Marrah_G]

67. That is what I worry about

I don't want this sort of thing hampering efforts to get real changes made. We need random audits and paper ballots.

[MethuenProgressive]

3. "Clinton- Add 41 votes"? Stop the recount!!

:rofl:

[zanne]

38. Hillsborough NH is a tiny town.

When you take that into account, this isn't insignificant.

[Bluebear]

64. Are you sure this isn;t Hillsborough County?

[Perry Logan]

80. DUzy!

[sunonmars]

4. I'd seriously piss myself laughing......

If Hillary ends up with a net gain.

After all the hooha that was created

[ronnykmarshall]

47. Like an addtional percentage?

That would be a scream.

And I'd like to take the results and shove them down the trap of this PRICK on KTLK here in LA.

[orleans]

57. but even that would be fucked up. that would show that votes for her

were not counted. and if it is enough to alter the count by a couple percentage points (even in her favor) then it would show that there is definately a problem with the scanners/counters.

[SoCalDem]

77. That's WHY we must count by hand..

I am not actively supporting any candidate yet, but how awful it would be to win and to have your win being suspected..

When everyone agrees on the count, and you won a close election, there can be NO doubt.

To win close or unexpectedly, and have half the people suspecting you did NOT win, is NO way to win at all..

Hand counts "sanctify" the winners..

Hand counts in PUBLIC, where all can see it happening..that's the only way to count an election..EVERY election

[kath]

78. Hand counting (*in the precinct*, so ballots don't get "lost "on the way to county headquarters),

with plenty of observers from all parties.

Works in Canada. Abso-fuckin-lutely NO reason why it can't work here (other than our incredible impatience).

[SoCalDem]

82. Yup.. count in EACH precinct.. upload the numbers and publicize them

AND release all the information..


precinct #114

number registered......
number signed in.......
number of ballots received......
number of ballots given out.....
number of UNUSED ballots
number of spoiled ballots turned back in & exchanged for new ones

count for each candidate..


ALL TOTALS MUST MATCH BEFORE ANYONE LEAVES..

[halobeam]

83. exactly.

[ORDagnabbit]

theyve recounted maybe 20,000 votes from one area.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

21. Yeah, And That Area Was 99.62% Accurate.

I'd say it's off to a good start...

[KittyWampus]

42. And how would we know the accuracy without the recount? You've been told numerous times

the point is that without a random hand recount of paper ballots, there's no way to know if count is accurate.

This isn't hard to grasp. And yet you refuse to get it.

Just taking an electronic tabulating machines numbers because it says so is not transparent or Democracy.

And further, the memory cards with the original information on it have gone missing. This is against the law. The actual law was violated.

Ultimately, for whatever reason, you and a few other DU'ers don't give a shit about the integrity of our election process.

[Marrah_G]

50. You know what- I am fucking done with you

We all have the same goal and we differ on how to get there. You keep making snarky, nasty remarks. You lie about what other DUers have said and accuse them of shit they haven't done, so as far as I am concerned you can go $%^&* off.

[rateyes]

5. So then, are you saying that so far they have identified

77 voters whose votes would not have counted had the recount not taken place?

How the hell can that happen?

If it happens to ONE voter, then the voting and vote counting procedures need to be changed.


This is supposed to be a Democratic Republic, dammit.

[sunonmars]

11. because things happen

Sometimes if a ballot is not marked properly, it can register it as blank, or if it was hand counted, one ballot gets stuck to another. Thats counting for you

[rateyes]

16. That's an unacceptable excuse. That kind of thinking

gave us George Bush.

[emilyg]

28. It does happen.

Conspiracies are so much more fun.

[winter999]

29. Seems to me that this recount (from electronic polling) is a whole lot more accurate

than the punch-cards of Florida. Isn't this recount proving that electronic polling is superior?

[Marrah_G]

35. It really depends on what sort of electronics you are using

These are optical scan machines.

The touchscreen machines are the major issue as they have no way of recounting the votes if there is an error. There is no paper trail at all.

[uppityperson]

22. That is why every election needs to be recounted.

[Tarc]

13. What have you eaten this week?

Chances are that at some point during that food's preparation/packaging/delivery, it has accumulated a small amount of rat shit, dirt, and such. The FDA mandates that as long as its not over a certain %, it s ok an safe to eat.

Point being, no food you eat will ever, ever be 100% vermin free. There will always be a small degree of error in the process of getting it from farm to store to you. Same with elections; whether it is due to human action (voter and ballot counter alike), computers, or whatnot there will always be a degree of error. 66 / 20,000 = 0.33% Statistically insignificant.

[rateyes]

19. I don't eat ballots, and ONE VOTE can change an election.

We can put a person on the moon, but we can't count votes correctly? Unacceptable.

[Tarc]

27. Your fantastic leaps of logic border on the farcial

and we've blown up two shuttles in the ensuing years, so no, that ain't perfect either. Stop embarrassing yourself, please.

Perfection is unattainable in any fact of life, and if you insist on it ten you are a fool wasting his time.

[rateyes]

63. In an election decided by 1% of the total....

getting half of a percent of the vote wrong is NOT acceptable. I don't know about you, but I have the ability to count, and to add numbers together. It is not rocket science (like space shuttles.)

[Tarc]

65. Yes, it is acceptable

Get a grip, and a clue while you're at it.

[rateyes]

70. I'm gripped tightly enough.

And, you can take your snarky-assed comments and put 'em where the sun don't shine.

You tell me how in the hell you can live with a half a percent error in a count where an election is decided by 1% of the vote. That thinking gave us George Bush.

[Tarc]

71. You're hopeless

just as fanatic as the evangelicals who will vote for Huckabee come hell or high water. Funny how much you have in common.

[rateyes]

73. Self delete

You're not worth it.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

31. In Any Election Where One Vote Could Make A Difference, There Would Be A Recount. Duh.

But for general elections with general margins between winner and loser, a success rate of 99.62% is more than acceptable and worthy of confidence.

[Tesha]

43. And as we've discussed elsewhere, so long as there's no systemic bias...

And as we've discussed elsewhere, so long as there's no
systemic bias in the errors, they won't affect the outcome
of the election.

So, for example, if in NH, everybody picks up ~0.4% more
votes (because humans can interpret some wierdly-marked
ballots that the machines ignored), there will be no effect
on the outcome of the election.

This is *A LOT DIFFERENT* than the Election 2000 punch-card
debacle in Florida, where the infamous "butterfly ballot"
combined with failed/worn/full card punches appears to have
been designed to cause Gore voters to misvote or undervote
in far greater numbers than Bush voters.

That sort of "systemic bias" overturns elections.

Tesha

[Tarc]

58. Agreed

There can be errors all-around, with the voter as well as wit the counters. I tend to be a "skip the directions" type, and didn't note that the oval had to be filled in, and not just check-marked like I did initially. Ended up making one big oval to encompass the check-mark so who knows what the machine thought of that.

[Individualist]

34. Have you noticed

which posters are saying "lost votes, no big deal"? :eyes:

[Tarc]

6. Sadly, some will never be satisfied with any result

that doesn't "discover" thousands of lost Obama votes and right what they consider to be a grievous miscarriage of justice. True Believers(tm) are hard to shake.

[Individualist]

7. One lost vote is one too many

Every person's vote is supposed to count.

[Marrah_G]

9. No vote of this size anywhere will be absolutely perfect every time.

[lame54]

17. Bush took Florida by 541 votes - Now that's a margin of ERROR

[Marrah_G]

25. Yes and we were fucked by the FL government and the Supreme court

[Tesha]

44. No, that wasn't "the margin". That happened to be "the margin" when the Supreme Court...

No, that wasn't "the margin". That happened to be "the margin"
when the Supreme Court conveniently stopped the counting.

And it was 537.

Tesha

[Individualist]

18. 77 votes lost is nowhere near "absolutely perfect", and the count isn't complete.

[Marrah_G]

23. The count has the 5th and 7th precints left and so far is 99.62 percent correct.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

24. Actually, It's Pretty Damn Close To Perfect. A 99.62% Success Rate Is Pretty Damn Good.

[kirby]

10. Especially in 2000!!! n/t

[winter999]

36. Let me lay some numbers on you.

Candidate A gets 1000 votes.
Candidate B gets 2000 votes.
There's 100 votes uncounted or in error.

No matter how you tally it, no matter how many recounts, you can't change the outcome if the difference between candidates is more than the number of votes in question.

In the above scenario, do those 100 uncounted votes matter besides making everyone feel good?

Boy, Dennis paid a lot of money for just 1 vote! I know his point was to show vast discrepancies in the Diebold voting, but he ended up proving just the opposite.

[kirby]

53. Can you predict the future?

Your hypothetical is really based on hind site. You dont know those will be the numbers in future elections which is why demonstrating that the current system needs to be replaced is fundamental.

What if the votes were instead:

Candidate A 2,909,135 (48.8%)
Candidate B 2,907,351 (48.8%)

Who knows how many votes are in error?

And the recount does not show Diebold in a positive light. It is highlighting utter failure in the process both by Diebold (now LHS) and the state. Inability to account for the memory cards, failure to use the proper 'sharpie markers'.

In own town the wrong markers were used. The poll works inserted the ballots, 550 of them, and out came a big fat Zero count. That was a gross error/red flag which caused them to scratch their asses and figure out something was wrong. What about the precinct where just 1 or 2 of the markers were incorrect, rendering perhaps 10% of the ballots to be uncounted. Sounds to me like the current process would not catch this.

And here is another result of this... It also proves that having a PAPER TRAIL MATTERS!

[rateyes]

68. This statement is not true:

"No matter how you tally it, no matter how many recounts, you can't change the outcome if the difference between candidates is more than the number of votes in question."

Scenario:

Candidate A: 1000
Candidate B: 2000
Votes in question: 501.

The difference between the results is larger than the votes in question. Take away 501 from Candidate B--1499. Add those same 501 to Candidate A--1501. Result changed.

As far as your percentage argument.

In a NASCAR race, a car that wins with an average speed of 160mph to the second place car doing 159mph, beats the second car by hundreds of feet. If the 99.62 success rate holds up, over that many ballots cast---how many total voters are disenfranchised? We're talking several hundred--perhaps even over a thousand.

Is that really acceptable?

[SoCalDem]

85. 100 x how many other precincts? perhaps a BIG change n/t

[Junkdrawer]

12. Ummm....

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5568

[Marrah_G]

20. I gave you the actual tallies from the SoS page- all but 2 precints are done

Bradblog can put whatever spin they want on it. These numbers came from the actual recount page which Bradblog says he hasn't had toime to review yet.....before posting that article.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

26. Yeah,,,,, He Likes To Overhype Things Up And Stuff. You Know That, Right?

Hey, where's the big red flashing lights? LOL

[girl_interrupted]

30. Are they going to be doing a recount of Iowa, too?

[VotesForWomen]

75. obama did out-perform polls there.... nt

[fascisthunter]

32. Here's a VERY IMPORTANT Snip:

Snip

He says he was told by Secretary of State William Gardner that his office doesn't get involved in tracking what happens to those memory cards. Some have reportedly been returned to LHS, and may have had their memory erased already.

"When you have a private company counting 80% of the votes, and you later learn that the memory cards are unaccounted for, you have a serious question about the transparency and accountability in that process," Bonifaz said.

He notes that federal law requires all materials from elections be preserved for 22 months after the election. So if those materials have already been lost, destroyed, or over-written, there are legal questions that must be addressed.

Snip


How do we trust our election process when this type of crap occurs?

[Marrah_G]

33. That problem needs to be addressed.

[fascisthunter]

37. Thank You Marrah

my intentions are not to derail any candidate but to point this out. We all need to be concerned for there will be a general election and I don't want it to be compromised.

[Marrah_G]

41. Oh we NEED huge election reforms- My issue with this has always been...

That if we cry wolf it make it even harder for us to get the necessary reforms through.

"Everything was fine in NH, no need to change anything, they are just being over dramatic and sore losers, no need to recount anything"--- THAT is what I fear.

[Tesha]

46. And your fear is justified; the Republicans will turn this into a "talking point" quicker than...

And your fear is justified; the Republicans will turn this
into a "talking point" quicker than you can say "Karl Rove".

And the fine distinction between paper ballots counted by
optical scanners and completely paperless Direct Recording
Electronic (DRE) voting machines will be completely ignored
by the Republican spinmeisters as they trumpet "the success
of Electronic Voting in New Hampshire!"

Tesha

[Marrah_G]

51. I wish some would see that

Instead of saying nasty snarky lies about other Duers.

[Tesha]

54. C'est la vie, non? (NT)

[Marrah_G]

55. Oui !

[lonestarnot]

40. We DON'T!

[TreasonousBastard]

49. If NH works like NY does, the memory card handling...

is up to the county. I don't know if state law in NH says anything what the county is supposed to do with the cards.

I don't see how the memory card falls under the "all materials" part of Federal law. My understanding was that that meant ballots, paper tallies, and such and the original ballots are obviously still around.

Case in point-- we still use the old lever machines here, and it would be impossible to not rezero them for 22 months. There would be several elections during that time and we don't have thousands of extra machines to use. Doesn't seem to be a significant difference between that and erasing memory cards. Erasing memory cards would actually be less of a problem, since the original balots still exist.

[Tesha]

56. Except for the fact that we divide into municipalities instead of counties...

> If NH works like NY does, the memory card handling is up to the county.

Except for the fact that we divide into municipalities instead
of counties (that is, our counties have no responsibility for
non-county elections), that sounds correct. But next time I
talk to our City Clerk, I'll ask him about this.

Tesha

[VotesForWomen]

76. yes, the chain of custody is a joke. nt

[KittyWampus]

39. Look, the opening poster has been told again & again. We'd have NO WAY TO KNOW any margin of error

in actual vote without a random audit.

This isn't complicated. So why the opening poster and a FEW other DU'ers can't understand is beyond me. Unless they have some reason to play stupid.

Furthermore, the memory cards have gone missing. Which is against the fucking law.

[Marrah_G]

45. Please don't accuse me of stupidity for posting facts

As I have said time and time again we NEED election reform. Recounting states where there is no apparent reason too is not helping in the fight to get that reform done.

YES- we need random audits YES- We need paper trails.

What we don't fucking need is to hand ammo to the opponents of reforms.

Now we both want the same god damn thing- We differ on how to reach those goals-- Please stop flinging shit and accusing me of either stupidity or being an operative. I would never have said that about you.

Note: The memory card issue is a doozy- They definitely need to fix that shit.

[madokie]

48. so add 78 too and take away 3. and theres no reason to have a recount

someone who believes it's a waste of time and or money please explain to me how that is. Oh and I'm pretty set in my ways on defending our constitution too

[Marrah_G]

52. 99.62 percent correct. It will NEVER be 100 % even with hand counting.

[madokie]

62. and

like was said, one is too many. sorry

[Tarc]

66. No, it isn't "one too many"

Stop propogating that ridiculous and asinine canard.

Expecting perfection from an election or anything else in life is unreasonable and unrealistic, there is always going to be some margin of error.

[madokie]

72. well ain't you a fine one.

peace

[dnbmathguy]

59. Just to clarify - this is Manchester

Manchester is the biggest city in the state - it is located in Hillsborough County, one of the counties that is being recounted. They have not counted the town of Hillsborough yet.

[Maine-ah]

60. it's a small town, but not that small

that's a rather poor voter turn out.

[KharmaTrain]

69. How Many Total Ballots?

Once upon a time when human hands did the vote counting, you'd almost always see discrpencies in the vote counts in a recount or canvass. Usually this occurs in some real close race where the extra votes can mean winning or losing.

I know these are urban precincts so we could be talking about several thousand. Also, are they only recounting the Presidential and not the down-ticket races? Comparing voting trend of other races also can point out a discrpency if there are "anomolies" when compared with past voting results.

[Tesha]

74. The only "down-ticket" race was for Veep.

I don't know about Hillsborough County (our most populous
county), but statewide, an Associated Press count showed
526,671 residents voted. This news story cited 287,821
Democrats voting and 238,850 Republicans voting.

Quite a few ballots. I'd *GUESS* 1/4 to 1/3 were in
Hillsborough County.

Tesha

[dnbmathguy]

79. According to my calculations

In Hillsborough County, there were 80,945 Democratic ballots cast out of a total of 287,821 total Democratic ballots statewide - that accounts for 28.1% of the votes.

Edit: The other county Kucinich wanted was Rockingham County, where 63,531 Democratic ballots were cast, or 22.1% of the vote. These are the counties with most of the big cities, and they account for as many ballots between them as the other eight counties combined.

[Perry Logan]

81. The apologies are going to start pouring in anytime now. Let's all hold our breath...

[indimuse]

84. this iiiiissss toooo funny..!

omg......:rofl::woohoo: