— Brad Friedman, The BRAD BLOG
Our Spidey-sense started tingling before going to bed last night and hearing reports, on MSNBC, that there were 17 paper ballots cast in Dixville Notch, NH, in its midnight, first-in-the-country voting. The report said that there were only 16 registered voters in the tiny voting precinct, yet 17 votes had been cast — suggesting that somehow, paper ballot “voter fraud” skullduggery was afoot.
Following on that, reports throughout the day appeared that NH precincts were out of paper ballots, and voters were unable to vote.
Trouble is, both reports are either completely untrue, or wholly misleading, or both, as The BRAD BLOG was able to confirm with two simple phone calls.
Each of those reports, however, would seem to go a long way towards giving the impression that paper ballots are a bad idea, and that “voter fraud” is easy to commit when using them. Given that one of those reports seems to have begun on The DRUDGE REPORT earlier today, we’re not particularly surprised that the MSM kept repeating the easily-debunked stories running all day.
That, even while there are reasons to be concerned about how the paper ballots used in the New Hampshire Primary will actually be counted by the hackable Diebold optical-scan systems used in the state, as controlled and programmed by an outrageously bad private contractor there…
First, as to the mainstream media debunking, we spoke to the Dixville Notch, NH, Town Clerk, Rick Erwin, who explained exactly what happened concerning the 17 ballots cast last night.
ABC News even spoke to Erwin themselves, according to their report. Yet still, they managed to scurrilously misreport the same irresponsible “voter fraud in Dixville Notch” rumor today.
The report, filed by ABC’s Karen Travers, was published on their website today at 3:40pm ET — an hour surely late enough to have actually confirmed the nonsense about the midnight voting last night, as we did, before running it on their website. Their report, as The BRAD BLOG bothered to confirm, was utter nonsense from the beginning!…
Will Dixville Notch go down as the first voting irregularity of this election?
Probably! But only because ABC News misreported it as such! Town Clerk Erwin explained to us what really happened.
“Yeah, that was due to the New Hampshire law that allows people to register on election day when the polls open,” Erwin explained to The BRAD BLOG in a phone call within the last hour. “We had a gentleman who lived here, who moved away and came back — the grandson of the man who started the tradition [of voting at midnight in Dixville Notch], incidentally — he moved back, but missed the cut-off date for getting onto the registration rolls.”
Erwin confirmed that yes, prior to the polls opening, there were just 16 registered voters in the tiny town, but after the new voter registered to vote, the total of 17 ballots cast as counted and reported was exactly right.
The news reports to the contrary are extraordinarily irresponsible. Especially given the case being heard in the U.S. Supreme Court tomorrow concerning Photo ID restrictions at the polls, where Republicans have used a great deal of disinformation to suggest there is a massive epidemic of polling place “voter fraud” that requires such laws to be implemented. That, despite the fact that some 10 to 30 million — largely Democratic-leaning — voters don’t have driver’s licenses that would meet the requirement. Such laws, as the Indiana case being heard tomorrow before the SCOTUS, have been regarded as a “modern day Jim Crow-era poll tax” by a number of federal judges, and election experts alike, who have found such laws unconstitutional.
For the record, we also confirmed that the paper ballots used in Dixville Notch are counted by hand, transparently, “in front of a million people,” Erwin hastened to add.
Our Spidey-sense continued to tingle throughout the day, as we saw reports that indicated paper ballots had run out in voting precincts across the state, due to a larger-than-expected Democratic turnout. As if to say: “Had there only been electronic voting machines in New Hampshire, this sort of thing wouldn’t have happened.”
Trouble is, a quick call to the NH Sec. of State’s office quickly debunked that report as well.
“There’s a lot of disinformation, yes,” Assistant Sec. of State Karen Ladd told The BRAD BLOG after we’d bothered to call the office tonight at around 7:00pm ET. “We were getting a lot of disinformation, calls from the media, that towns were running out of ballots, and that was not true.”
While there were concerns among some of the towns and wards that they might run out of ballots later in the day, due to the large Democratic turnout, Ladd confirmed that it wasn’t until 6pm that “a few” places, “a coupla towns,” actually did run out of ballots. In the few instances where that happened, she told us, the clerks simply gave paper absentee ballots to voters. If those ran out, they made xerox copies of paper ballots for voters to vote on.
“So there will be a ballot from everybody. Nobody will be denied the right to vote because they ran out of ballots,” Ladd assured us.
So where did this rumor begin, we asked her, in reference to her comment about “disinformation”? Apparently — surprise, surprise — The DRUDGE REPORT!
“The Drudge Report, that’s where it started,” she told us, “and everybody picked up on it, and started calling” just after lunch, “around two-ish,” she explained.
But the report from the DRUDGE, largely regarded as a rightwing propaganda outlet, was wrong, she says. “The fact is that nobody was running out of ballots. Nobody had run out of ballots. We did have calls that there was concerns that they might run out, but nobody did run out.”
Polls close at 7pm ET in most New Hampshire precincts, and at 8pm ET in a few of them. The only large town voting precinct to run out of paper ballots, late in the day, was Londerry, Ladd said, and they simply made photocopies to ensure that every voter could vote.
All ballots are counted at the polls, either by hand or optical-scan systems, and results are announced and/or posted at the precincts before being shipped back to the Secretary of State, Ladd told us. As it should be.
However, for those in the media interested in actual concerns about the integrity of today’s NH Primary, we’d strongly recommend the following video primer. In it, you’ll learn that the Diebold optical-scan system used across most of New Hampshire (some 40% of precincts still count paper ballots by hand, at the precinct), can be easily rigged by insiders, and only if the paper ballots are properly audited by hand, in some fashion, can the results of the op-scanners be trusted in any way, shape, or form.
Reporters would do well to take note, particularly given the tightness of the race at this hour on the Democratic side, between Obama and Clinton — curious, given the final Zogby polling numbers which were dead-on on the Republican side, but, so far, seem wildly off on the Dem side. Zogby’s numbers had predicted an Obama blowout, 42/29 over Clinton.
The machines used in the state are the same ones seen being hacked in HBO’s documentary, Hacking Democracy. As well, a single private company with a very bad record, LHS Associates, Diebold’s exclusive distributor and technical contractor in New England, runs the elections and controls the vulnerable memory cards for the voting systems across the state. That company has an horrendous record of lax security policies and has admitted to having replaced memory cards, on a whim, on their own, in the middle of past elections.
As well, their Director of Sales and Marketing, Ken Hajaar, has previously posted a comment on The BRAD BLOG under his own name, declaring: “You are totally full of shit.”
His tirade went on against those concerned about transparency and Election Integrity, such as ourselves and BlackBoxVoting.org’s Bev Harris to be “deluded,” “paranoid.” and “loony ideologues.”
His comments here succeeded only having him be banned from working on elections in Connecticut by the Sec. of State there, where LHS Associates also irresponsibly and secretly ply their trade at taxpayer expense.
The video below shows LHS Associate President John Silvestro challenging Finnish computer security expert Harri Hursti, during testimony in New Hampshire, after Hursti’s landmark hack of a Diebold optical-scan machine in late 2005 in Leon County, FL, as seen in Hacking Democracy. That hack is again shown in this video, courtesy of BlackBoxVoting.org…
UPDATE 9:04pm PT: We’d say the numbers coming out of New Hampshire tonight, as compared to the pre-election polling, offer good reason to be concerned about the points above. Very. More details now here…
You are really on top of things.
Thank you for your dedication, Brad.
Keeping the b.s. from flowing over into the totals, that’s what it’s all about.
Brad, you are the MAN! Thanks for keeping us updated on this critically important issue.
Personally, I don’t believe the results of ANY elections! I’m serious!
If Hillary wins this, how do they explain all the double-digit leads Obama had in the polls?
Does anyone here believe elections are accurate?
The results in NH are bullshit. If anyone believes that Diebold machines had nothing to do with the outcome, they know nothing about elections or E-voting machines.
These results, contrary to polls, kept Hillary—the Bush Candidate—alive. It also, stopped the momentum of Obama and knocked John Edwards– the most threatening candidate to the corporations–down a notch.
There really does need to be an investigation of the results of this election.
AMERICA IS NO LONGER A DEMOCRACY IF ONE MAN DOESN’T HAVE HIS ONE VOTED COUNTED CORRECTLY.
The Clinton’s Look Marvelous!
Don’t know if anyone saw this yet…
http://www.libertybroadcastnetw...cations_nh.htm
Compare the total of hand counted precincts to computer counted…
As a Paul supporter, I find it extremely hard to believe he would not land in the top three in NH, (especially in NH!)but as a supporter of common sense and ideals, I find it even harder to believe that these machines have not been done away with in one manner or another, be it lawfully or unlawfully.
But as a famous hero/villain once said, “you need only look in a mirror”. Or Jimmy said it softly…”it’s my own damn fault”.
U.S. elections are a bogus disguise.
I find the results extrememly suspicious. Does anyone know whether we can get results broken down by county??
I’m getting that bad 2004 election feeling all over again. Like Big Dan and Young Harry, I’m more than suspicious of a Clinton victory while the polls were showing Obama double digits ahead. So what’s going on in Obama’s brain right now? Given all those polls predicting a monster win for him, will he accept this result without question? Will he question it but do nothing? Will he fight the way he must in 2008 if he becomes, against the best efforts of machine hacking Republican fascists, the democratic candidate? This is a test. This is a reminder that even after major prolonged efforts to get rid of those machines, the bastards may still “win” in 2008. Having done their cheating in the primaries and getting Hillary on the ballot, they may not have to lift a hand in 2008.
Just heard on msnbc – head of Democratic Party in NH, a Clinton supporter, told onsite nbc news reporters early this afternoon that the polls would be proven wrong and it would be within one point either way. echoes of Max Cleland and the disappearing 16 point lead on Georgia’s all Diebold machines. I think she stole it. 10 points do not disappear in 6 hours
Yes, the the hand-counted paper ballots as opposed to the machines would show the discrepancy.
Zogby’s 42% lead of Obama over Clinto at 29% was for the poll taken from Saturday through Monday. Was there any other poll taken between Monday and Tuesday?
The Democratic Candidates an ALL STARS.
Just split screen any one of’em with “you know who” . . .
WE NEED TO SEE THE EXIT POLLS. WHERE ARE THEY?
Nora O’Donnell—the White House stenographer–gave them on MSNBC. They didn’t make sense. Totally made up. Even Keith and Chris Matthews scratched their heads on her report.
NOTE THE FRESH THREAD ON CONCERNS ABOUT THE NH RESULTS NOW HERE:
https://bradblog.com/?p=5530
Who here has a connection to one of the campaigns to demand a recount. anybody? Brad?
Black candidates usually underperform relative to their polling numbers. This apparently happened to Obama in NH; the public polls had him leading by between 5% and 13%, his internal polls had him ahead by 14%, and Hillary’s internal polls had him ahead by 11%. He led the exit polls, too.
The polls I’m noting mostly took place very close to the primary, some of them the previous day. None of them showed a swing to Clinton.
The chances of this being a statistical error in the polling are remote — for one thing, the difference between the polls and the actual votes was way above the margin of error, and for another heavy turnout usually reduces the chance of a heavy discrepancy.
And the chances of a genuine double-digit swing to Clinton in the last 24 hours are equally small.
People were lying to the pollsters; it’s far and away the most credible explanation.
Note that in Iowa the results of the caucus were quite close to the polls — but of course, that’s not voting by secret ballot.
Likewise, McCain’s results closely track his polling numbers… but McCain is white.
Obama basically got struck by the “campaigning while black” effect.
It’s deplorable, but it’s also foolish to ignore it; once in the secrecy of the voting booth, people are different.
And if it’s true that a black candidate drops 10% when the voters get into the booth among_Democratic_ voters in _New Hampshire_, imagine the effect nationally. (Over 85% of blacks will generally vote for _any_ Democratic candidate, of course, so the ‘favorite son’ effect isn’t really relevant.)
The Iowa results were not significant and, to be frank, Obama hasn’t a prayer if nominated; not even against Huckabee. President Huckabee… shudder.
Them as is serious about the election should support Clinton; she’s the only chance we’ve got at this point. Particularly if the GOP gets a rush of sanity to the head and nominates McCain.
The TV machine showed Hillary’s supporter hall and it was half empty. The reporter even noted that they had rented a small hall, not expecting a huge turnout, and unexpectedly it was only about half full when the results were announced. It did look rather subdued and somewhat empty. I bet they never show THIS report again. Your thoughts?
SM Stirling please let us know your basis for saying blacks underperform relative to their polling numbers. If it is really the case that blacks underperform by ten or more percent, why wouldn’t pollsters figure that into their calculations? Why is lying about voting for a black candidate “the most credible explanation” given the proven hackabilty of the machines?
Maybe republicans lie about whether they are going to vote for a black candidate, but not democrats. Democrats are the inclusive ones, and quite happily and proudly vote for people of color and women.
I would also like to know why you think Hillary represents our best hope of winning, since she is the only one of the three democratic frontrunners to lose in matchups against republicans. In fact, Hillary is the very candidate republicans want to run against, they’re relying on her to motivate the hatred of their base. They know they offer nothing but corruption, their only hope of getting Republicans to vote is to offer up a Clinton for them to slaver over and rip apart. Not to mention that I don’t personally know one human being who’s going to vote for her.
Obama and Edwards offer the best hope of winning. Rove mentioned that in the 2004 “election” Edwards was the one republicans were really afraid of.
…and this is the point where in steps an indy to siphon off more votes from the Dems.
Funded by Repubs.
They stole this for her.
Amen
(a little poem for after the primaries)
I said it before and I’ll say it a-gain
Hold your nose, vote Hillary
or get John McCain
If there were 3 registered GOP, 2 registered Dems and 12 undeclareds, there were (count it, 3+2+12=) SEVENTEEN registered voters in Dixfield Notch, EXACTLY how many voted in the election!
“It’s not who votes that counts. It’s who counts the votes.” Joseph Stalin.
“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.” – Howard Beale, in the 1976 classic “Network”
If we’re going to get anywhere with this discourse, we’re going to need to embrace these two mantras. Otherwise, we’ll just continue to be labeled kooks and nutjobs.
For what it’s worth Zogby’s contorted explanation:
Released: January 09, 2008
Polling the New Hampshire Primaries: What Happened?
By John Zogby
President and CEO
Zogby International
There was no shortage of polls going into the New Hampshire primary in 2008 and it looks like we all missed the mark on the Democratic side. This will require a lot of scrutiny in the coming days and weeks, but here are some initial thoughts on what has been happening:
According to the exit polls, 18% of the voters said that they made up their minds on primary day. That is just an unprecedented number. I have polled many races, especially close ones, where 4% to 8% have said they finally decided on their vote the day of the election and that can wreak havoc on those of us who are in the business of capturing pre-election movements and trends. But nearly one in five this time?
It looks like the always feisty voters in both Iowa and New Hampshire have rejected pre-election coronations. In the case of Iowa, Democratic voters said that Mrs. Clinton is not inevitable, while in New Hampshire they were not ready to endorse the Obama train without checking the engine.
The compressed schedule of the two events may have had an impact. Normally the winning candidate gets an initial big bounce out of Iowa, and then plateaus. Then the next primary race begins. With less than five full days, Obama got his bounce in New Hampshire, then the settling down period began on the last day ““ under the radar screen.
My polling showed Clinton doing well on the late Sunday night and all day Monday ““ she was in a 2-point race in that portion of the polling. But since our methods call for a three-day rolling average, we had to legitimately factor the huge Obama numbers on Friday and Saturday ““ thus his 12 point average lead. Unfortunately, one day or a day”“and”“a”“half does not make a trend and we ran out of time.
Going into the New Hampshire primary, we certainly did see Clinton holding on to a significant lead among women and older voters. But we were focusing on Obama’s massive lead among younger and independent voters. We seem to have missed the huge turnout of older women that apparently put Clinton over the top.
We expected that Obama would receive the lion’s share of independents and drain the Republican primary of these voters. It now appears that, perhaps with a sense that Obama had a lock on the Democratic side, independents felt free to vote on the Republican side and reward their hero, John McCain.
We will pour through the data and try to come up with something more definitive, but those are my early observations. There is much speculation that Senator Clinton’s crying incident may have offered voters ““ especially women ““ a peek at the human side of someone who is often seen as scripted. I think she also scored points during the ABC debate Saturday night when she declared, amid a discussion about the country’s desire for a change in direction, that electing a woman would represent a big change in itself. Her numbers did go up in that last 24″“hour period.
On the other side, most of us did a whole lot better coming close to the numbers on the Republican side of the aisle. But this is one of those cases that remind us that pre-election polls are guides to voter attitudes and shifts. All things considered in this and other cases, we pollsters still do a creditable job.
(1/9/2008)
PS> What Zogby fails to address is that the 18% who made up their mind late – split almost evenly between O and H (per CNN exits) So there is no fuel for Hillary’s gain.
Hey Brad, have you considered the possibility that the Clinton machine successfully bussed in voters from other states to vote for her? Not a big problem in New Hampshire.
“3 Republicans, 2 Democrats, and 12 Independents”?
3+2+12 = 17.
Q.E.D.
Are there any sites which have the votes for each area, or any sites that may have already showed us what the hand-count was vs. the Diebold scam-count? I’m quite sure Ron Paul finished in at least 3rd place with at least 16%. I can’t believe we as human-beings and believers of the U.S. constitution ever let a corporation CON-trol the counting of our votes, our Republic is clearly under attack from within. The real terrorists are closer then many think…
To quote from the Contrarian: What the informal statistics show is that Hillary Clinton received a 4.5% boost in towns using Diebold voting machines compared to towns that didn’t. Meanwhile, Obama was hurt in these towns showing a 2.5% decrease in the Diebold towns.
The possibility of election fraud is even more important considering the predictions heading into NH primaries. All the polls were showing Obama with at least a 7 point lead over Clinton, with a few showing a double-digit lead, which is no surprise considering Obama’s win in Iowa over Clinton who placed third in the caucuses.
The results were significantly closer than the blow-out that was predicted.
Update: Some more statistics from the data shows that Obama in non-Diebold towns garnering 38.7% of the vote to Clinton’s 36.2%. The results in Diebold towns show the exact opposite: Clinton with 40.7% of the vote and Obama with 36.2%. Not only are the positions swapped but the informal statistics have the second place candidate holding 36.2% in both cases, which could easily be a pure coincidence. Clinton got the extra 2% of votes in Diebold towns. All the other numbers almost exact for every candidate, even Edwards who recieved 17% of the vote in Diebold towns compared to 17.6% in non-Diebold towns. That still doesn’t make up for the extra 2% vote Clinton is receiving when she leads in certain towns compared to when Obama has the lead.
Update II: Another thing to keep in mind when looking at these statistics is that the Diebold machines create a 7 point difference (+4.5 for Clinton, -2.5 for Obama) which is exactly what the polls had been predicting.
Breaking News Alert Voter fraud verified, get all the latest at http://www.prisonplanet.com
The smallest of points overlooked can change entirely the largest of equations and render all the interpretations MEANINGLESS.
Thanks for this Blog. Without action, we will see another election stolen. No question.
And who will be tallying the ballots if there is a recount? If it’s the Attorney General of NH, forget about it.
Only a disinterested outsider can be trusted to perform the recount, and that isn’t even in the cards. You’re all pissing in the wind!
Not to sound like an ad, but visit grannywarrior.chipin.com/recount if you want to chip in for a recount/audit. They have collected over $12,000 and already have a candidate to ask for the recount. (You only have to receive one vote to be able to ask for a recount) Something is not right when there is such a stark contrast between the electronic and hand counted ballots.
As a Canadian, it seems to me that the issue of recount and who pays for it should be the Democratic Party. The candidates presume a fair election process, as provided by the party. The recount costs, if results differ from the initial count (especially the Diebold precincts), should then be recoverable from the Diebold supplier.
As far as the statistics pre-voting, exit polls, and voting results, it looks like the pundits need to take real statistics courses. They don’t seem to reinforce the concepts of “plus or minus 4%”, or “19 times out of 20”, or indicate the “undecided”. And they rarely indicate the differences in methodology between surveying a resident population, and surveying exit polls, and the concepts of selection bias.
The only problem with paper ballots would be the fact that we are not using 100% paper ballots. Mixing paper ballots with voting machines will still contribute to election fraud. Optical scanners also tend me to lean toward questioning integrity of our election process. What is wrong with 100% paper and open fair human counts? The people need to be involved in the counting process. Paper,people, and ink. Fear a government that doesn’t trust the people. Fear an election count that doesn’t involve people. Insist upon transparency in our voting!