Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org
As we reported on July 15, Ron Paul’s supporters were concerned that Diebold touch-screen voting machines were going to be used in the Iowa Republican Straw Poll. Well, it turns out the concerns about touch-screens were misplaced, as the GOP chose paper-based Diebold optical-scan machines instead. But their fears of Diebold may well have been justified as two of their op-scan systems failed and delayed the reported results.
While GOP candidate Mitt Romney may have walked away with a winning edge in the Iowa Straw Poll, Diebold was true to form as their voting system failed to count ballots correctly. As the Des Moines Register is reporting two of Diebold’s optical scanners failed and 1500 paper ballots had to be manually recounted by hand…
Two machines caused the problem, said State Auditor David Vaudt. “What likely happened is someone submitted their ballot too quickly after the other,” he said. The ballots from those machines were hand counted, then re-fed into the system to recalculate the vote. A campaign poll-watcher said in one instance, a black box contained 500 paper ballots but the machine’s memory said it had scanned in 498.
At least there were paper ballots that could be hand counted when the machines failed. Had the Republican’s used Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines — as millions of Americans are forced to do each Election Day — there would have been nothing to go back to when the machines failed.
UPDATE: The Atlantic is reporting the number of ballots which had to be “re-run” as “about 4,500”.
Either way, there were reportedly 14,203 total ballots cast. So going by the Des Moines Register’s reported numbers, more than 10.5% of the ballots had to be recounted. If we go by The Atlantic’s reported numbers, nearly 32% of the ballots in the Iowa Republican Straw Poll had to be recounted by hand.
Yes, if this doesn’t put the last nail in the coffin of anyone who defends electronic voting machines for election I don’t know what will.
Relying entirely on computerized voting machines that have been proven to be able to be hacked, without any other form of validating votes, is a dangerous to a free democratic (or republic) society.
Here’s a link to another good article on this subject:
http://www.freemarketnews.com/W....asp?nid=47147
A very concerned citizen,
-Mr. Dylan
It is most likely worse than this.
There were 26,000 total Tickets sold for this event, yet there were only just 14,302 votes tabulated.
Now think about that for a minute.
26,000 people purchase tickets to go to a Straw Poll event, and yet we are to believe that 12,000 of those people couldn’t even care less about the voting part? Just what were they there for?
This is not believable.
12,000 people went through all that trouble to get a ticket, drive a long distance, wrestle around with parking, or public transportation, and spent their whole Saturday away at a crowded and noisy event, and then did not even vote for anybody?
What were they there for again?
I don’t buy it. This is not believable.
An Investigation is needed here.
I think what happened is that the Diebold E-Voting machines threw away votes — as we also saw last year with the 2006 Florida-13 race and the NC-08 race (hurting the more liberal candidate in each race) —
And, these machines most likely threw away the votes that were intended for only the anti-Iraq, anti-War, anti-Central-Bank-monopoly, anti-Patriot-Act, anti-Empire candidate in the race, Ron Paul.
We all know that Ron Paul had a huge very visible and very vocal crowd of supporters there at the event, that were perhaps equal in number to, or at least in the same ballpark as Mitt Romney.
So, if, for example, the machine only registered 1 out of every 4 Ron Paul votes — for Ron Paul himself — and then threw the rest out, that would explain his much lighter than expected 1,300 vote total, and also explain some of the huge gap between ticket buyers (26,000) and the total people recognized as having voted (14,000) in the event.
Of course, it could even be worse than this (even more Ron Paul voters votes thrown away), thus robbing Paul of an outright victory in the Straw Poll.
I cannot prove that this specifically is what happened.
But the point is that, without a open, transparent, inspectible, verifiable (in real-time) voting environment, which is a requirement for any Democracy, we will never know here.
I know this, 26,000 get tickets to an voting event, and only 14,302 bother to vote-?? That dog don’t hunt!
The ratio of votes cast to tickets bought is not necessarily suspicious. Things were similar in 1999. A lot of the campaigns buy a bunch of tickets to give to supporters, but those people don’t always go to the trouble of voting. If the tickets were actually paid for by individual voters I agree it would be highly suspect.
I hate having to sound like some tinfoil hat nutcase, but facts are facts…our federal government here in the United States is completely and hopelessly CORRUPT!
In light of this, I have to agree with the last commenter. Nothing can be proven here, but it would not surprise me in the least – after all that I’ve known the powerful industrialist/banking/war profiteering elite to do in the past – to have rigged a simple straw poll…
Hell, people, they’ve rigged whole elections before! They’ve overthrown governments. They’ve orchestrated admitted false flag events all over the world. They’ve installed puppet governments everywhere else… Why not here? In fact, you’d EXPECT them to do it here first, wouldn’t you?! It is, after all, the source of their power – to silently perpetrate this coup every 4 years and put on an elaborate pageant to give us docile masses the ILLUSION of choice.
What’s more unlikely? That the military industrial complex/world central banking elite would pull off such a smear campaign, or that they WOULDN’T do it?
Think about that for a minute.
It would be nice if someone could find out how many tickets were purchased by the candidates so it can be compared to how many votes were cast.
The voting machine issue is one of great concern and should be for all americans.
That being said, the discrepency between tickets purchased and votes tabulated is no defacto proof of anything. As has been already stated, campaigns purchased large amounts of tickets to give to their supporters. The Romney campaign spent tons of money at Ames and most likely had thousands of unused tickets.
The huge supporter base for Ron Paul is beyond contestetion, that being said many were unpaid supporters from out of state there to help out and cheer him on. Only Iowans could vote, so the number of supporters there cannot be used to judge the vote tally.
I’m a die hard Paul supporter, but if Dr. Paul’s message is to get out to the voting base, we need to proceed with logic and reason and not knee-jerk reactions. I’ll be the first to admit we need a better system of voting and confirmation in this country but to attack the GOP in Iowa is a fools errand. We will need GOP support, even the entrenced establishment, to get the good Dr. the nomination.
If the GOP wants to win against the Dem’s then lets let them know that supporting Ron Paul and working together it can be done, as his message crosses party lines and platforms.
There were 26,000 total Tickets sold for this event, yet there were only just 14,302 votes tabulated.
This sounds oddly remeniscent of other polls where Ron Paul has been eliminated from the vote count. Why? Plain and simple — he is anti-establishment. The American people are forming to have exit polls November 2nd, 2008. Ron Paul has consistently won nearly ALL polls. The American people will REVOLT if there is any voting fraud.
If you don’t beleive there is voting fraud, search ohio voting on video dot google dot com . You will be discusted. The programmer that fixed the votes previously confesses in front of a grand-jury of Ohio senators. What kinds of voting machines? Diebold, of course. I have written my secretary of state, have you?
We all know there is corruption currently in our government. Now is the time to talk to your Neighbors, and friends and families. Now is the time to let your voice be heard, before it is too late.
God Bless you and your families. God Bless America. God Bless Ron Paul. God help our country.
Great article but when you add the votes up they come to 14302 not 14203 I noticed the major papers and news like abc added the numbers to get the total where did the 14203 come from? How rigged was this election? I saw the 14203 number on other sites also.
And the poor Republicans think they have it bad ?
When it gets to general election time all of the errors in machine counting fall in favor of the Republican ticket…
At least some of you are noticing now anyway, good.
And the party of voter suppression is????????????????
The diebold machines did not fail in Iowa, they counted the votes exactly how they were programmed to. The vote is correct and the Iowa GOP has the printout to prove it. Missing votes? Forgetaboutit ANN
Can someone explain to me how we can’t build a COUNTING MACHINE. Having a background in computer science, I would have considered it a ****ing dream to build a circuit that incremented a single, specified tally by ONE on every iteration. You don’t even have to subtract! But somehow these machines DO subtract. WTF is wrong with these DIEBOLD people?
I’m a Ron Paul supporter also, but I must say, you can’t compare how many people were at the straw poll with Dr. Paul’s results, too many of them were from out of state (great for showing support and national appeal, but lousy for voting in the straw poll)
I read that the Paul campaign had 800 tickets to give away, and that many other groups had donated money to enable poor Iowans to vote for Dr. Paul. I think the majority of “missing” tickets were brought by the Romney campaign. Maybe they goofed, or maybe someone goofed them (oh sure, I’ll be there. Buy a ticket for me? – great! – See ya. – [click] – Sucker.)
There are three questions that need to be answered before we persue a challenge, and ask for a re-count.
1) Was there any evidence of real fraud?
2) Was the result close enough that the magnitude of the fraud would change the results?
3) Will the value of the changed result exceed the value of the bad press for looking like a whiner?
my answers:
1) So far, no.
2) Don’t think so, not for Ron Paul anyway.
3) Never. Unless and until someone comes up with a bit of evidence that Ron Paul lost 75% of the votes cast for him (which would mean he maybe beat Romney – yeah, right.) we should not go down that road.
That said, I would like to see some independant group do a hand recount sometime to see if there are any problems with the opti-scan machines. Also a list of how many tickets were bought by each campaign might be enlightening.
Later.
John,
They were not ballots, according to the puss. If a computer prints them, they are “print outs” not paper ballots.And you know that print outs are unholy.
I suggested otherwise, but I had not checked in with puss central who asked god directly I suppose, then issued this papal bull. Be sure to check and make sure anything you say about paper ballots is oked by the puss first. His paper ballot religion is the one true paper ballot religion.
Well mary mosiman, the story county auditor and commissioner of elections, helped to oversee the straw poll in Iowa. She happens to be on the Romney for President Leadership Team in Iowa. The State Auditor David Vaudt received $1,000 from Romney’s Commonwealth PAC in 2004.
http://vote-ron-paul-2008.blogs...am-member.html
Diebold runs ATMs all across this nation tracking billions upon billions of dollars each year, yet they cannot seem to count and keep track of 14,000 ballots? Sure…
So when again,the machines “failed”,was a Diebold rep there to “fix” them? Or did they call in Geek Squad? Oh… I see. We got a s-election to run here. Mary,we have a corn on the cob. We will count the “printout ballots”. Yes,yes;that sounds good. Let me call Mitt real quick and tell him the two machines fucked up as planned,he’ll be so happy.Chicken Hawks for supper tonight,with a thick Diebold cheese sauce.
I would just as soon have the Girl Scouts run security at a GWAR show.
Just to correct a… misstatement… of Dredd’s yet again the ballots filled out for opscan machines are indeed paper ballots as each one is intended and required to be counted. Each and every one.
The wisdom of having an easily hacked computer doing that counting is another issue entirely 🙂 but those are paper ballots being counted.
The printouts from a DRE, however, the “paper trails” from a “touchscreen”… these are not required to be counted.
A small portion may be counted, but almost all DRE printouts will slide out of the machine to be placed into a storage bin never to be seen again… much less counted.
Since these “paper trails” are not required to be counted they literally can not be called ballots… for how can you call something a ballot when there is no requirement that it be ever be counted?
But Representative Rush Holt’s HR 811 (“Holt’s Fiasco” for short) among its other severe flaws attempts to decieve people by calling these uncounted DRE printouts “paper ballots” again and again and again throughout the bill… and they aren’t ballots by any stretch of the imagination.
But the grim irony in all this is that the whole discussion assumes that the DRE printout even has anything to do with what the DRE actually did with the voter’s vote… and as was recently proven yet again that’s just wishful thinking.
https://bradblog.com/?p=4909
By Garance Franke-Ruta 11 Aug 2007 Last night, at the pre-Straw Poll “Ronstock” concert at the Bali Satay House in Ames, a Ron Paul volunteer played back a recording of competing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney joking about cheating in a State Fair popularity contest, stuffing the ballot box in Ames, and dodging questions across the state… Romney also joked about stuffing the ballot box at today’s Straw Poll. “At 7 o’clock they will count the ballots. We will stuff the ballot box, I hope,” he said on the recording. And he joked about cheating in the Corn Poll, the bi-partisan State Fair popularity contest in which attendees are asked to “cast your kernel” by placing a kernel of corn in a jar for their favored candidate to show their support. “I was a little dismayed because I saw Barack Obama, he had a lot of corn in that Mason jar,” quipped Romney. “But I was number one – so thanks for cheating!”
Not too sure if there was too much vote fraud, I think it was a matter of time and money spent in Iowa.
Although I wouldn’t put it past them to cheat. See below:
AMES, Iowa —
Fred Thompson & Ron Paul do the most with the least.
Undeclared Presidential candidate Fred Thompson and internet powerhouse candidate Ron Paul did the most with the least in the Iowa Straw Poll.
Ron Paul received nearly 77 votes for every day he campaigned in Iowa, the best of all other candidates. Fred Thompson came in second with 50.75 votes received for every day he campaigned in Iowa.
The worst performers were, Sam Brownback of Kansas who spent 115 days in Iowa and only received 19 votes per day, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani who actually spent more time than Ron Paul, but only recieved about 7 votes for every day he campaigned in Iowa.
17 days in Iowa R. Paul(1) 76.76 votes per day
04 days in Iowa F. Thompson(2) 50.75 votes per day
89 days in Iowa M. Romney(3) 50.74 votes per day
70 days in Iowa M. Huckabee(4) 36.95 votes per day
66 days in Iowa T. Tancredo(5) 29.71 votes per day
115 days in Iowa S. Brownback(6) 19.06 votes per day
26 days in Iowa R. Guliani(7) 7.03 vote per day
Source:
http://projects.washingtonpost....ker/candidates
Candidate A spends 10x the amount of money of Candidate B, Candidate A spends more than 10x the amount of time in Iowa as Candidate B, all the polls show Candidate A with a sizeable lead over Candidate B, but there’s a problem with the voting machines. The solution to the problem is the 1 Candidate B had been asking for (a hand recount of the ballots). Candidate A wins. Candidate B doesn’t finish 2 or 3 or 4 but 5th. Candidate B claims fraud!!?! I support Ron Paul but the claims of fraud are just plain silly. Such claims are making our enemies point that Ron Paul supporters are conspiracy nuts.
This is so discouraging. This can’t be all for not.
The issue here is voter confidence.
I mean, how do we know what happened — unless we have a truly open, transparent, monitored, end-to-end verifiable process that leaves a record?
If Ron Paul finished with around 2000 votes, I’d buy it more easily. But I have a hard time believing that he only cracked 1000.
But, if we could get these damn closed-system, proprietary, insecure, software version dependent, E-voting tabulators abolished, then our confidence in Election results could be a whole lot higher.
Remember, the wrong person had occupied the White House now for the past two election cycles.
There should be a public mutiny against E-Voting machines!
The issue here is voter confidence… Nuff said.
I have zero confidence in Diebold, and have seen repeatedly what they are capable of. If given the chance, 90% of these bastards would cheat in a heartbeat and to give any politician or corporation the benefit of the doubt is childish.
I am a Paul supporter as well,but I am no conspiracy nut.
Perhaps Paul himself still believes in election integrity. Quit your flowery optimism and join the dark side.
Here is another story Via IowaIndependet.com, Sat. Aug 11:
“Last night, at the pre-Straw Poll “Ronstock” concert at the Bali Satay House in Ames, a Ron Paul volunteer played back a recording of competing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney joking about cheating in a State Fair popularity contest, stuffing the ballot box in Ames, and dodging questions across the state.
Dudley Brown, executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, a group that has been shadowing Romney across the state, introduced me to Jeffrey Goines – which also happens to be the name of a character in the movie Twelve Monkeys — who had been entertaining a group of gun enthusiasts with a recording he says he made at the Mitt Romney pre-Straw Poll rally, also held that evening in Ames. Goines said he attended the event to pass out Paul fliers and was not an official tracker for the Paul campaign.
“Gosh, those Ask Mitt Anythings, how many of those did we have? 46? 47? Unfortunately, people took us for our word,” Romney joked, according to a sound clip on the digital recording device. “They asked me anything. There were some truly awful questions. But I, but I tried to dodge most of those. And I, I’ll keep on doing that as long as I can.”
Dudley, who described himself as “a different kind of gun nut” and carried an iPhone, was appalled by the joke, which he says was inappropriate given the administration’s obsession with secrecy.
So where’s Ken Hilfiger?
…to defend this? A noticeable absence…
OMFG Diebold Again??? When will this ever end? NEVER!!! Poster is right.. time to join the dark side, and get a cool lightsaber, and some Haliburton stock 🙁
If people are going to go down the road and start pulling out names like conspiracy nut then I would like to say that you are smart enough to be retarted. Are you fucking serious when you don’t think there is any fowl play.
I mean it slaps you in the face and you have the nerve to say oh my god I didn’t see that one coming. Wake the Fuck up… It should be obvious what we the people are dealing with. Geese we have all been bitching about it for long enough and then it happens again.
I know lets wait and see if it happens again.. this time didn’t count, we weren’t ready for it. Had no idea this was going happen.
Vote rigging, yet another infringement on our rights by the gov’t. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like America Deceived (book) from Amazon.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting 2 illegal wars based on lies and on behalf of a foriegn gov’t.
Support Dr. Ron Paul and end this madness.
I don’t mean to nitpick (o.k., maybe I do), but:
How else does one manually recount ballots?
… greggp asked…
… “and 1500 paper ballots had to be manually recounted by hand”…
How else does one manually recount ballots?
By paw… 🙂
I tried, John…. xoxox