So if Hillary cheated in New Hampshire, isn't that a point in her favor?

I mean,considering the Republican record in recent elections, wouldn't it be smart to nominate a crook to beat the crooks?

I said IF.

There is a lot of speculation on this board and elsewhere about that. I have no particular opinion about it. My comment was framed as a hypothetical.

...I don't think "Hillary cheated" would be how it happened. I think it more likely that the global corporate predators, for whom Hillary may be the 'made' candidate this year, convey their orders to the Bushite corporations that run the vote counting with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, and virtually no audit/recount controls, and they take care of it. I think the Corporate Rulership works like the Mafia, where the powerful try to keep their hands clean and maintain deniability, underlings take the rap when necessary, and the actual candidate may be kept out of the loop entirely (as with Bush, I think, in 2004, but for different reasons than Hillary might be; with Bush, kept out of the loop because he's such a stupid, drugged-up moron).

The kind of rigging that our election system is most vulnerable to is INSIDER rigging--done with "back doors" built into the system at the manufacturers, and/or with private corporate personnel gaining access for maintenance, for "patches," during deliberately caused (or other kinds of) machine "breakdowns," and due to the fact that public officials and certainly election workers often don't have a clue how these systems work, and any problems that arise need technical expertise, and, since the code is "trade secret," that expertise often comes from the manufacturer. Truly, private corporations are literally running our elections. Our election officials are just attendants.

A manufacturer, such as ES&S, can install a program that activates malicious code throughout the system. Who would know? The systems are generally "tested" by private corporations, in secret, overseen by a Bushite commission. State testing is spotty, and depends a lot on who the Sec of State is--how knowledgeable, how vigilant, and who he/she uses as experts. ES&S just got sued by the CA Sec of State for selling hundreds of voting machines to several counties that ES&S claimed were "state certified," but which were not. They can get around testing regs in many ways. In that case, they got caught. How often does that sort of thing happen where they DON'T get caught--because state election officials are in their pocket or afraid of these corporations' enormous power?

Hell, ES&S machines 'disappeared' 18,000 votes for Congress in Democratic areas, in FL-13 in 2006, with complete impunity. (The GAO is on the case now, but FL-13 has meanwhile had two years of a Bushite representing them in Congress, that they didn't vote for.) Further, when the lawyers for the Democrat (Christine Jennings) asked in court to review ES&S's secret code - to try to find out what happened to those 18,000 deciding votes - ES&S REFUSED, and argued that their "right" to profit from our elections with their "trade secret" code TRUMPS the right of the voters to know how their votes are counted - even in a major stinker of a vote count, such as FL-13. And the Jeb judge agreed!

So, opportunity, access, expertise, motive, and this new asserted "right" of corporations to count our votes in secret, all make THEIR theft of our elections the most likely kind of theft that can occur. And we don't really know who they would favor, or why, in the current circumstance (--although it's very clear that they generally favor Bushites and pro-war, pro-corporate Democrats). Perhaps they have photos of Hillary is some compromised situation, and they are planning her downfall after they Diebold her into the nomination.

Some other caveats about NH: I've heard different reports about whether or not this will be a full recount. Recounts are generally of only 3% or so of selected precincts. And I was shocked to hear that NH does NO audit--NONE!--80% of the votes, all the Diebold optiscan votes, were NEVER counted, to begin with. So there are not even 1% audit totals to compare a recount TO! Also, "chain of custody" on some of the ballots, and on components of the system, was broken, so, do we have a reliable set of facts on which to base a judgement of the actual vote? Even if there IS a full recount going on, we still can't be sure that the ballots being counted are the ones that were voted, that the totals that they are show are the real totals, and that the codes, memory cards, etc. that are being reviewed were the ones used in the election.

The manufacturers and collusive election officials just have far, far too much opportunity to hide error or fraud, and the only thing that can stop that from happening is a full, 100% handcount of all ballots, right at the conclusion of every election. They can use these machines for data storage and conveyance, or to double-check the count--if they want to justify their huge expense--but we CANNOT rely on this system to give us accurate vote counts unless there is a full, publicly conducted count of the ballots. We simply CAN'T! They have too many reason to steal our elections, and too many ways they can do it, and cover it up.

And I can't laugh about THAT--except in a dark sort of way at the absolute absurdity of Bushite corporations 'counting' all our votes with "TRADE SECRET" code. I mean, come on. Tell me it ain't true. Slap me and wake me up.

Because then she is completely beholden to them. It's called blackmail and it's how the bush-cia-gop-enron-halliburton-exxon-mobile crime ring stays out of prison.

Here in Florida, the votes are Democratic and the machines are repubs! Anyone who can put things back on track is good for me.