Reply #50: In 1988, some NH counties used a form of DRE (Shouptronic). [View All]

Since then, the vast majority have been all paper ballots that are optically scanned except the many tiny localities that still hand count. The cities and suburbs are obviously demographically different from little towns with populations of 10-200 or so, which accounts for differences in the hand and machine counted ballots that some are holding up as a reason for fraud. DU's Ida Briggs and I were heavily involved in organizing the 2004 NH recount of votes that were hugely different from the polls (I believe the swing was 11% in Bush's favor and election 2000.) EI activists observed with an eagle eye as each ballot in the towns and precincts we had picked for their anomalies was hand-counted at the SoS office. Everything was right on the button -- no more than a vote off per precinct. NH is pretty squeaky clean, though there are always improvements needed everywhere. In NH, a random statistical audit of the paper ballots is needed.