Note to DU: the whole NH "election fraud" discussion is moot.

Guess what: New Hampshire awards delegates proportionally. Clinton "won," and got 9 delegates. Obama "came in second," and got (drumroll please) 9 delegates. Had Obama held onto his one point, 8:10 p.m. lead as indicated in the AP exit polling, he'd have emerged victorious (!) with 9 delegates, while Clinton would have finished a lowly second, also with 9 delegates.

http://www.wdbj7.com/global/story.asp?s=7597467

So, what can we all freak out about next?

think Obama got screwed out of a big win, and they're baffled that his campaign hasn't contested the "suspicious" results, or they think he's afraid to contest because Clinton's people will call him a shuckin' jivin' sore loser, or something. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing he didn't contest because the "massive election fraud" in New Hampshire, if it happened (which I doubt), resulted in zero change in the number of delegates awarded. A lot of trouble for someone to go to for no actual gain.

Just wondering...:shrug:

And as I said below, I support any/all efforts to get rid of Diebold/ES&S and the rest of the secret, proprietary, privately owned vote counting machines nationwide. But screaming "fraud" in a case in which the outcome is unaffected seems, well, hysterical to me.

And for good reason.

We already had one election stolen; I'd rather folks be a little hysterical and vigilant.

It's called paying attention.

Better to err on the side of doing it right this November. Diebold could very well cost us another election - nothing hysterical about that.



peace~:)

But yes, vigilance is a good thing. But I think for the sake of the credibility of the hand-count movement we should be careful about how we pick our battles.

delegates. It's about the impression the American people have, unfortunately.

look like a total horse's ass. So that's not an altogether terrible outcome. My point being, the American people now have the ultimately correct impression that the talking heads are babbling morons. Perhaps the truth has been served, if not the purity of the democratic process.

:eyes: :shrug:

the media turned what was, essentially a tie for the pre-anointed "front runner" into a "stunning victory". :eyes:

That said, I think it should be standard operating procedure to hand-count a random sample of these votes tallied on questionable machines, at least until the companies we've paid millions of dollars for 'em can demonstrate that they're not easily hacked.

Until the returns came in. Then they screamed they were gypped. Please don't rewrite history this close to the event.

For the "pre-anointed front runner," Hillary's people didn't seem all that chipper going into NH. People weren't even planning to go to the party they thought it would be so funereal. You'd think if they knew they were going to win, there would at least have been a little gleam in someone's eye. But no.

So lie and spin and cry victim all you want. And then tell me how you're a "change" from the Republicans.

Out here, there are allllll kinds of people whose concerns are not yours. They may distract you for a while. You might even enjoy some of them.

I really don't know what is provoking you to throw your little temper tantrum, but you're throwing it at the wrong person. First off, I'm not even an Obama supporter. But you know as well as I do that we've been blasted with Hillary front runner/inevitability bullshit for over a fucking YEAR, now.

And you know what?

She still MAY NOT WIN. FUCKING WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! :cry:

More than who won or lost in NH, 81% of ALL THE VOTES were counted by rethug owned Diebold voting machines.

Take the candidates names out and simply ask do you want Diebold counting your vote or anybodies vote?

I though we made progress with election reform?

We need accountable paper trails and we need to shit-can Diebold from our election system --- that's the point of the discussion about NH.

Of course, it will also get Obama tossed but I think I'm good with that, too.

on the outcome. Yes, it sucks that wingnut-owned, Bush-connected Diebold is still counting votes, and yes I support any and all efforts to outlaw electronic vote counting using secret, proprietary code in privately-owned machines. But I don't think there was fraud in this case—if there was, whoever was responsible went to a lot of trouble for nothing.

As long as Diebold is counting, who the hell knows?

We could speculate forever --- maybe someone on the puke side wanted Hillary to win? That may be just tin foil hat conspiracy paranoia, but until we have an accountable system that assures no one can fuck with it, or program it ahead of time - the questions will continue.

And we MUST ASK THE QUESTIONS!

Forget about fraud - focus on Diebold. Until Diebold is gone, the fraud questions will continue.

For some of us, it is not who won that matters but rather the fact that normally intelligent, questioning people have drank so much kool-aid and had their expectations for transparency in government lowered so much that they can no longer even see the need for verifying our vote.

The real story is that when we lose the GE, it will too late to cry foul because we allowed it even in our own primaries, under our own noses, in the face of compelling questions.

The NH vote is fully verifiable. Every vote was cast with a pen on a paper ballot. If there was any reason to do a recount, they'd do one. But since the un-corrected exit polls were only two points outside their "normal" MOE (the McCain-Romney race was also outside the MOE, btw), and since the number of delegates awarded is completely unaffected, there's no reason to do a recount. Do I favor hand-counts of paper ballots? Sure. Would hand-counts of paper ballots have changed anything in NH? Nope.

/:sarcasm:

Fine, there are low stakes. What better opportunity to get broad agreement to validate the machine counted results through a recount?

It would cost a lot of money and even if Obama emerged with a slim victory, he'd still get 9 delegates. And so would Clinton. Do I think machine counting of votes sucks ass? Yes, I do. Do I think there's anything in particular to get hysterical about in NH? Nope—no more than in any other state that uses opti-scan equipment.

An honest recount there would have changed the outcome, no?

This is just my thinking. We have an opportunity here to verify if our election will be sort of clean in November. There are enough anomalies and an outcome that people have called "the most historic upset in the history of the NH primary".

I don't believe we can get an audit, let alone a recount of NH. And that's a shame. Because we'd be putting our issue, election protection, on a national stage. Which couldn't hurt come November.

that will have zero effect on the outcome. If you want some serious irregularities to worry about, wait 'til we get to SC and FL.

Having no way to verify your result -- is that what our elections are?

They hold better elections in Venezuela.

And, oh boy, I can't wait for SC, FL and NV.

to change the delegate allocation. If exit polling is really that accuarate, that shouldn't happen.

You're probably right about Venezuala.

And yeah, hold onto yer hat.

And I mean that as a compliment.

My interest with all of this is not to call into question the specific results here; but since, as you say "machine counting of votes sucks ass", AND these particular Diebold GEMS tabulators have been demonstrated to be EXTREMELY easy to hack, perhaps the awareness raised on this could lead people to demand that -at least until whoever we're paying to design these things can show some REAL unquestionable security around 'em and their operation- in cases where these opti-scan machines are counting the votes, why not institute random spot checks or double checks by hand on certain batches of votes? Why not? The ballots are still there, and if the machine results check out with no discrepancy, all the better- we as Americans can be that much more secure in the knowledge our votes are being accurately counted.

It's about verifying that the votes were counted accurately.

They're not about vote-counting per se. The whole reason you have them is so you can choose between candidates, no? Call me a pragmatist, I don't mind.

So the pragmatist will support election reform and transparency.

But in this case, even if the count was off, the outcome was unaffected. So a recount would look like a waste of time to the NH taxpayers, most likely. That's my point.

...the fact that people hold back from government accountability because it might look bad is a pretty dangerous sign in and of itself.

If people are made aware that their votes are NOT being counted by the government, and that in fact the government itself doesn't know how the votes are being handled at all, it will mitigate that risk.

Democracy was.