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| 1-7-08: Silvestro the Cat & New Hamps... |
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| Author |
Message |
    
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7383
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 9 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 2:16 pm: | 
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UPDATE JAN 9 9am PST: TOWN OF SUTTON CONFIRMS RON PAUL TOTALS WERE 31, NOT ZERO.
I just got off the phone with Jennifer Call, Town Clerk for Sutton. She confirmed that the Ron Paul totals in Sutton were actually 31, and said that they were "left off the tally sheet" and it was human error.
This is not an acceptable answer, especially because one of the most common forms of fraud in a hand count system is to alter or omit results on the reporting sheet. Hand count is lovely, transparent. They then fill out another reconciliation sheet, often in front of witnesses, and it looks fine. Then they provide a summary or media sheet with the incorrect results.
A Web site here: http://www.wheresthepaper.org has more on fraud techniques with hand counted paper ballots. You'll have to dig for it -- or Google, and the excellent research on this is Theresa Hommel from the state of New York.
* * * *
Comma delimited database: NH municipalities hand count vs use Diebold machines: http://www.bbvdocs.org/NH/state/Jan-08-votingsystems-NH.txt
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
John Silvestro and his small private business, LHS Associates, has the exclusive programming contracts for all New Hampshire voting machines, which combined will count about 81 percent of the vote tomorrow.
Silvestro IS the New Hampshire chain of custody
Or at least a very large component in it.
Last fall, with the help of some New Hampshire citizens, Black Box Voting began working on a "New Hampshire Chain of Custody" project, in which we identified some of the areas of concern that might affect many jurisdictions at once. First on the list is LHS Associates, a vendor with inside access to every memory card in New Hampshire, as well as to the chips containing the "brain" of the Diebold optical scan machines.
LHS Associates programs all the memory cards in New Hampshire and Connecticut; about all of Vermont's voting machines, and has a lock on almost all of Massachusetts as well.
RARE VIDEO FOOTAGE
In an unusual confluence of available video, we obtained footage of Silvestro grappling with Harri Hursti, the master hacker who had his way with the Diebold optical scans in Leon County, Florida in the famous exploit that was showcased in the film Hacking Democracy.
The exact same make, model and version hacked in the Black Box Voting project in Leon County is used throughout New Hampshire, where about 45 percent of elections administrators hand count paper ballots at the polling place, with the remaining locations all using the Diebold version 1.94w optical scan machine. Because the voting machine locations tend to be urban, this represents about 81 percent of the New Hampshire voters.
The video shows Harri Hursti testifying on Sept. 19 before the New Hampshire legislature, attempting to explain significant vulnerabilities requiring urgent mitigations; throughout his testimony, Silvestro inserted his own comments, opinions, misstatements and speculations.
VOTING MACHINE CHECKUP
One area of disagreement between Hursti and Silvestro was the amount of expertise needed to exploit the Diebold 1.94w optical scan system. Silvestro claimed (in a strange contortion of reasoning) that he doesn't hire very skilled programmers, implying that this makes New Hampshire elections more secure.
Hursti pointed out that hiring programmers with a lack of knowledge is generally not considered a security feature, and also that an average high schooler can learn to exploit the system in two days to two weeks.
WE THINK IT DOESN'T TAKE THAT LONG
Black Box Voting purchased a Diebold optical scan with 1.94w firmware, and chose a computer repair shop out of the phone book, took it in, grabbed the first available technician. It took him less than 10 minutes to zero in on the memory card as a point of critical vulnerability -- and oh my, did he point out some other intersting things!
NEW HAMPSHIRE HASN'T UPGRADED SYSTEM SECURITY
Silvestro tries to claim that the security problems have been fixed in newer editions. Whether or not they have been, it's a moot point in New Hampshire where the upgrade is not made unless the Ballot Law Commission meets, and they have not met for ages.
Silvestro then points to extraordinary measures taken by other states to enact special procedural safeguards, but of course none of those were implemented in New Hampshire either, because the Ballot Law Commission has not bothered to meet since March 2006.
IN FACT, NEW HAMPSHIRE HAS NOT IMPLEMENTED MITIGATIONS FOR KNOWN RISKS
Not only that, they have turned all the programming over to a sole source private company, taking vote counting for 81 percent of New Hampshire citizens out of the public domain.
LHS is not subject to public records requirements, as the government is, at least, not in New Hampshire. The control over memory card contents is absolute; when cards malfunction or get lost, LHS brings the replacements.
Here is the YouTube video containing various footage taken by Black Box Voting and New Hampshire citizens:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiiaBqwqkXs
CONTROL OVER THE "BRAINS" OF THE MACHINE: ACCESS TO THE CHIP
Since LHS maintains the machines, repairs the machines, and replaces the machines -- often on Election Day -- when they malfunction, they have intimate access to the chips, sockets, ports, communications devices and other electronic components.
Silvestro stated that the chip has "read only memory" and cannot be reprogrammed without frying it under ultraviolet light overnight.
Hursti never had a chance to examine the hardware, nor have most of the recent university studies had access. But our friendly neighborhood computer repair guy differed with Silvestro on the point of plug & play reprogramming of the guts of the machine.
After I push the button to send this message out to the media and the citizenry, I'll work on getting a short YouTube video of the Accuvote checkup by our local computer repairman. And before you say, "But wait! He's not a world class expert!" -- That's just the point.
He may hit or miss on some of his analyses. You'll all be able to try your hand at second guessing him as soon as the video is up. But if he hits even one of his ideas for how to exploit the machine to steal votes, that's all it takes. From someone who is not, certainly, a world class hacker or even a hacker at all.
I'll post the link to that in a follow up here, and welcome any of you techs to weigh in.
Please feel free to distribute, reprint or excerpt, with link to Black Box Voting and the video link above. |
Russell Novkov
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rnovkov
Post Number: 233
Registered: 2-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 3:30 pm: |
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They either need to upgrade security or switch to voter-verified paper ballots.
Russell J. Novkov
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Mike LaBonte
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 52
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 3:42 pm: |
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I think you have to be clear when you talk about "the chip", which is not the same as the memory card. As far as I know there is some kind of PROM chip in there that gives the machine it's 1.94w BIOS. Except in fairly rare circumstances that chip is programmed once, while the memory cards are programmed for each election.
If it is claimed that UV light has to erase "the chip" to prepare it for re-programming, yeah, I can believe that. My city uses the same machines. The circuit board design looks like it dates back to the GES days, late 80's or early 90's. Programmable chips where relatively crude back then. Any reprogramming will probably be done by the manufacturer, and the local technician will simply unplug the old chip and pop in the new one. But this would be to upgrade to 1.96, or whatever, and it may never happen.
In the video there is a chip with a white label just left of the memory card bay. I could be wrong, but that might be the BIOS chip. The white label looks like a copyright label, found on almost all programmable chips.
The memory card, on the other hand, is programmed right inside any AV-OS machine. A laptop is hooked up to the AV-OS serial port. The software used is probably GEMS or some side utility.
Has anyone verified Harri Hursti's claim that a corrupt memory card can pass testing by date triggering? Even assuming that AccuBasic is still used to program the cards, I have no idea if the language supports date testing. It's hard to believe that a voting machine would support that. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7384
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 4:01 pm: |
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I'll post a much more detailed video soon and will welcome your insights.
Understand that New Hampshire has no upgrades since the Leon County hack and, because it doesn't upload to GEMS, Hursti's much simpler hack of May 26, the poll tape only hack, will work in New Hampshire. |
Fran Fleming
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Iwontbackdown
Post Number: 9
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 4:27 pm: |
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This report makes me sick to my stomach. The NH Primary is tomorrow! I thought that only paper ballots were to be used in caucus/primaries? Is anyone familiar with NCEL? I thought this law suit was suppose to stop the use of electronic voting machines until a court ruling.
http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/PROJECTS/NCEL/NCEL.htm |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7385
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 4:53 pm: |
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Fran,
I, and many others have been alerting both personally and in general, and the kind and gentle state of New Hampshire's approach has basically been to stall out the process.
I suppose you don't make enemies that way, but you can stall yourself straight to tyranny.
As late as yesterday I was trying to achieve at least some workarounds.
New Hampshire is unusual, in that the hand count locations -- and there are many -- have good electoral integrity, but the machine situation is such that quite literally the entire state could be Hursti-hacked, or worse, Berkeley-hacked, and if done skillfully there would be no telltale signs.
I strongly recommend recording CSPAN and CNN tomorrow night, examining the results for anomalies, but this is not a reliable way to catch anything.
I also recommend all of our statistical types get as much detail data as possible for each location -- remember, New Hampshire is municipality-based, not county-based. We should do a tight analysis on any differences between hand count and machine locations, and you can identify those in the New Hampshire forum.
Unfortunately, even the demographics can be tainted. New Hampshire has had problematic results going back to 1992, according to Steve Freeman, who has done very good statistical work in this area.
Regarding NCEL, if they were seeking an injunction the scheduled day has to have passed. I don't have up to date information on this, but I've sought injunctions on voting machine issues in the past, and it's an uphill battle to survive dismissal. |
Fran Fleming
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Iwontbackdown
Post Number: 10
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 5:26 pm: |
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Hi Bev,
Here is the filing in all 50 states. I volunteered to be a back up plaintiff. The suit was filed in plenty of time(?)
http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/UPDATE/Update2007-11-06.htm
November 6, 2007
50 States Sued to Block Computerized Vote Counting
Federal Court to be Asked to Delay Primaries
On October 2nd we posted an article in which we announced that the Clean Election Lawsuit was being expanded to all fifty states. We said we were in the process of filing an amended complaint to name all of the nation’s chief election officials as defendants.
We also announced that we were looking for up to three volunteers from each state to become plaintiffs and/or friends of the lawsuit. The response was very strong. We thank each and every one of the 610 people who responded to this call for action.
Plaintiffs from every state brought the suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York and maintain that current election practices, including the widespread use of computerized voting machines, are unconstitutional because they are ripe for fraud and error and effectively hide the physical vote counting process from the public, effectively denying citizens their legally protected Right to cast an effective vote.
The lawsuit seeks an Order from the Court prohibiting the use of all voting machines and to force election officials to instead utilize paper ballots and to count and total all votes by hand, always in full view of the public.
The lawsuit, called the NCEL, National Clean Elections Lawsuit, follows documented vote machine failures during August's Iowa Straw Poll, persisting claims questioning the integrity of the 2004 presidential election, and the official de-certification in August of virtually every major electronic voting system by the California Secretary of State based upon several comprehensive academic studies documenting the systems' significant vulnerabilities to software "hacking" and vote fraud.
Since October 2, 2007, here is what we have accomplished:
We have divided the country into eleven Circuits, matching the geographic boundaries of the eleven federal Circuit Courts. Eleven citizen “Circuit Leaders” were chosen. They interviewed many of the volunteers, coming up with a list of three or four potential plaintiffs from each state. Fifty citizen “State Leaders” were chosen as lead plaintiffs.
Numerous conference calls were held among the state and Circuit leaders and, at times, with all plaintiffs. A draft of the amended complaint was emailed to all potential plaintiffs for their review and comment.
Eventually, the amended complaint was finalized and approved by 150 named plaintiffs. In total, 84 state officers and election officials are named as defendants, many in their private, as well as official capacity.
On November 1st the Amended Summons and Amended Complaint, signed by 150 plaintiffs, were filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York.
Click here to read the Amended Complaint.
On Saturday, November 3rd, 50 cartons containing the requisite number of sets of legal documents were rushed to the state leaders for service on all defendants. All 50 Governors, all 50 Attorneys General and all 84 chief election officials in the 50 states are currently in the process of being served with the National Clean Election Lawsuit. Those in Alaska, Missouri and a few other states were served yesterday. Many are being served today. By tomorrow evening, service should have been completed.
Press Releases are being distributed regarding this important lawsuit involving the election practices of every state in the Union.
Click here to view the New York press release.
Click here to view the general national press release.
We will post another update once we confirm all defendants in the lawsuit have been served. Reactions by those being served has been interesting to say the least.
Finally, as noted, we intend to file a motion in a few days, asking the Court to delay the 2008 primaries and caucuses until the important constitutional issues raised by this lawsuit are finally determined. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7387
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 5:36 pm: |
|
Thanks for the update, Fran. |
Mugsy
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mugsy
Post Number: 5
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 6:51 pm: |
|
I may not have a complete grasp of the details, but my first reaction is that the fact the Read Only Memory (ROM... actually a EPROM if it is erasable) is irrelevant, because you don't have to change the firmware to "hack" an election. The vote count is stored to a database on a memory card. If you preload that database with opposite values (+10,000 for candidate X and -10,000 for candidate Y) so that the net total number of votes is still exactly the same, you can still manipulate the outcome. Flashing the firmware is irrelevant, but the fact they are using EPROM's at all is something else to be concerned about (very easy to "disable" a machine on demand so you can replace it with a pre-hacked replacement.)
-*- Mugsy -*-
|
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7389
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 7:09 pm: |
|
Hi, "Mugsy" -- you'll need to go in and edit your profile - link in left column -- to put your real first and last name in. That's a requirement we've had since mid-2005; I realize you may have registered earlier than that.
If you can control the programming of the chips you can create a machine that has backdoors which persist -- in other words, even if the memory card situation was cleaned up, could override the memory cards.
But best to look at the upcoming video before doing too much speculation. |
Tom D'Ambrosio
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mugsy
Post Number: 6
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 8:09 pm: |
|
I just watched the video, but could not tell much about the hardware due to the low quality except that it is quite old (I'd say circa 1987) judging by the amount of space between the IC's (older machines didn't have as much circuitry and needed more space between components for cooling. The lack of a fan (from what I can tell) pretty much ensures this is a pre 1990's piece of hardware.
I did not see a "UV Flashable EPROM" chip in the video. It would be in a socket and have a circle with exposed "chip" in the center that the UV light can shine on. It must be in a socket because you must remove the chip to place it in a high intensity UV box for a minimum of several minutes. EEPROM's ("Electronically Erasable Programmable ROM's") don't have an exposed chip, but they too must be in a socket (but can be easily destroyed with static electricity). The "labeled" chip is probably the BIOS, which is typically not erasable.
From the video, while I have no idea how sophisticated the software is, if someone wanted to hack an election, they could write the firmware to report a 0/0 pre count any time a value in the database contains a negative pre-count. If either vote total is negative, then the card has not been voted on yet.
If the programmer is dumb, he'd have the system report 0/0 EVERY time you ran a pre-test no matter what the card says. But if someone KNOWINGLY inserts a pre-hacked card just to test the machine, and it reports 0/0, that's evidence of fraud. If they are clever, they might make it more difficult to detect if the "hack" only ran the FIRST time you test the machine after a power-on, but there after, report correctly. You can check this by running multiple pre tests. There are an almost infinite number of ways to make the test even more undetectable (reading serial numbers, checking user ID numbers, etc).
If just one company, LHS has full chain of custody over the machines and cards, then they can alter the firmware or data on the cards at any time. And with an EEPROM, even disable an unhacked machine with an electric shock and replace it with a hacked unit with modified firmware/card.
-*- Mugsy -*-
|
Fran Fleming
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Iwontbackdown
Post Number: 12
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 8:14 pm: |
|
Ok, not sure if this is somewhere on this thread but it looks like libertybroadcastnetwork.org has a detailed plan for those dreaded machines.
More info here:
http://www.libertybroadcastnetwork.org/
COMPUTER COUNTED POLLING PLACES IN NH: In the 175 computer counted polling places in NH, observers need to ask any computerized city, on Monday or Tuesday if possible, if they will pull the ballots out of the computer at closing time, and count them AGAIN by hand, to double-check the computer count. (In NH each town has the right to do this under NH law, but is not required to do it.) IF they will or will not pull out the ballots at closing time for a hand count, please ask them why, and record their answer, either in your notes or (preferably) on video camera. In either case, a grocery store-like receipt will be spit out of the computer at closing time. Mark down what the count is for each candidate, and also ask if you can take a picture of the ticker tape-like receipt, either on a video camera or with a snapshot camera, if you are able to do either one. (Then, of course, if they count the ballots again by hand at closing time, stay around for that count, and then call it into your contact at Liberty Broadcast Network, or as a last resort to our 4 PM to midnight conference call line at: 641-715-3200; 1064662# ) |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7390
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 8:17 pm: |
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Okay, I'm going to get you hungry people some better video of the examination.
In order to make it easy on myself I'm just going to put it up in 3-4 "dumps" without editing except to remove stuff like getting a phone call and stopping work. The whole thing isn't even 30 minute I don't think.
Trotting off to get you guys better video of the chips... |
John Dean
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bozosforbush
Post Number: 932
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 8:38 pm: |
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Fran, my apologies. I don't want to change the focus of this thread though, so it is ok if you don't respond. I'm just very protective of Bev and her work, and the poster prior to you was heading down a road that inevitably leads to junk. Often, those types of posters create clones with other screennames in order to spread their handicraft, but sometimes people are just people as well. So my apologies, and sincere thanks for getting involved here.
John
Deserter, brain is fried, no WMDs, yada yada yada. No wonder we clowns laugh.
|
Jamie Dyer
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jamie
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 9:11 pm: |
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Hi Bev and Co.-
This is my first post here. I'm glad this forum exists.
I saw a comment from Ken Hajjar once in which he stated that questions about companies like LHS were "an indication of just how dangerous the Internet has become". I suppose it's only dangerous if one's market might be threatened.
Thank you for all of your efforts. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7392
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 7, 2008 - 9:50 pm: |
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Jamie, welcome to Black Box Voting. For those who didn't know, Ken Hajjar is an employee of LHS.
And for those of you who work in the elections industry, the issue is not whether LHS employees are good or bad. The issue is that the government has an obligation to protect and secure our voting rights, and turning critical points of custody over to a single source for a whole state allows the entire state's democracy to collapse if one card in that house of cards goes bad. That kind of "Trust me" model does not protect our rights.
John Silvestro stated that he divides the work into testing, programming, etc. and one doesn't know what the other is doing. That may be a good idea, but of course, one or more people have keys to the building -- like Silvestro, for example. One person could come in after hours, take something home, let a friend in ...
All it takes is one.
I'd like to get more insights on whether the chips can be reprogrammed or not ... I am uploading links to the YouTube video of more detailed look inside here:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/73/71201.html
This is where to discuss the chips, modems, ports, etc. There will be 4-5 clips, each around 5 minutes.
It is delightful to have you all here.
John, Fran:  joining you both in a group hug. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1701
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 5:17 am: |
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The part that is labelled just ROM is the one that contains ROM, this is a socketed EPROM. EPROM stands for (E)rasable (P)rogrammable (R)ead (O)nly (M)emory. It looks to be made by SGS Thomson (the logo is recognizable, I've burned hundreds of these). It is erasable by a UV light. There is a glass window under that sticker that tells you the version and usually a checksum. Since it's socketed, you could take it out, copy it, edit/patch/replace its firmware and replace the chip with the original, or remove the label and put it on another chip and install it. The time taken to read the chip would be under 3 minutes (under 1 if you came ready). Time to install another chip (just install the chip if you had the machine apart) 30 seconds, if you're clumsy.
It's going to have a number on it 27, followed by possibly C followed by a number, if you can forward me the number, I can tell you its capacity. SO 27'XXXXX' where we don't know what the rest of it is, is a run of the mill, UV erasable EPROM. I can't quite read the number. It can't be reprogrammed in the machine, but it wouldn't take long to put in its replacement in a few minutes, even with taking apart the machine.
He's on the money; just the physical protections are infantile. |
Fran Fleming
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Iwontbackdown
Post Number: 13
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 5:33 am: |
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It's all cool, John, glad we're on the same team:>) |
Jamie Dyer
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jamie
Post Number: 2
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 7:19 am: |
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Hi Bev-
I'm sorry for the confusion. My intention wasn't to make 'good' or 'bad' judgments about LHS employees. I was trying, poorly, to make the point that voting shouldn't be treated as a business.
I'm very curious to hear your opinions after the NH vote today. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7396
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 9:53 am: |
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Jamie,
Your post was fine. I decided to clarify and set the tone for focus on the issues because many people here remember Ken Hajjar's aggressive posts (there were many). He tended to get people a little riled up, which in turn took the focus off of the issue and onto personalities.
You made good points, and yes, it will be interesting to see what happens today. I expect this to be a late night, because for Black Box Voting, the biggest amount of work always happens in the days and weeks AFTER the election as we collect information and piece it back together. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7401
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 12:38 pm: |
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Hi, have moved a couple posts containing incoming tips on dirty tricks etc by campaigns into the 'talk politics' forum here -- and Ricardo, welcome to Black Box Voting, your post was one of the ones I moved.
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/47395/71203.html |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7404
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 5:18 pm: |
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I do not have access to a VCR tonight. I hope someone has been recording CNN. The pie chart and the numbers have Ron Paul and Giuliani essentially in a tie. The pie chart reports Giuliani but leaves the large, equal slice for Ron Paul blank. In other words, CNN is omitting Ron Paul from the graphic, representing him only as a gray spot.
The numbers at the time were about 1812 for Paul and 1868 for Giuliani. Both were listed as "9 percent" on the numbers. The pie slice graphic showed them tied, but omitted Ron Paul's name, and the announcer announced his percentage as "8 percent" though from my view, it was 9%.
Okay, so maybe CNN would explain they have a policy only to label the top four on the pie chart?
That' won't fly, because the raw numbers just showed Ron Paul ahead of Giuliani by about 30, but his pie slice was still gray (as opposed to all the other slices, shades of red) and his pie slice was still unlabeled. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7405
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 5:30 pm: |
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Another observation: At this stage of the game, and this may not be relevant statistically due to demographic differences in reporting locations (which are nowhere identified as far as I can tell)...
The voting machine results coming in for the Democratic candidates do not match the exit polls for the top two. Obama was the clear winner, according to reports I heard based on the exit polls. Hillary has a commanding lead from the incoming voting machine reports.
There are two stages to the projections: Exit polling, which is what people said they voted for, and voting machine results, which is what the computers report. Early projections come from exit polls, and as the evening progresses, what's coming in comes from voting machines.
We saw exit polls award the race to Gore in 2000, and then voting machines award it to Bush (and then, when the minus 16,022 votes were pulled out of the Diebold optical scan -- the same make, model and version as New Hampshire's machines), they put the candidates at a tie. A statewide hand count later showed Gore won.
In 2002, the same pattern appeared, but was more pronounced: The exit polls went one way, but when the voting machine results came in it flipped.
Watch the Dem race very carefully to see if the front runners remain flipped from the exit polls as the machine results come in.
The two areas identified as most likely to be dirty in NH are Manchester and Nashua, according to my sources on the ground there.
In New Hampshire, I expect to see the first hour's results to be mostly machine results, with some machine results withheld for the very end. The hand counts will take a little longer to come in, but since I like to make bets, I'm betting that some voting machine locations will be withheld until after the hand count places.
New Hampshire is not identifying which locations are in, unless I'm missing something at the Sec. State web site. |
Fran Fleming
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Iwontbackdown
Post Number: 15
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 5:48 pm: |
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Obama and Paul poll workers kicked out of some precincts
Campaign volunteers for the Barack Obama and Ron Paul have been kicked out of precincts from Concord to Swanzey for not having the proper credentials, several unrelated sources have witnessed.
In general elections it is standard practice to have poll workers sitting behind the registration table and scratching off names as people sign in. Periodically they take those lists and the campaign gets in contact with those who have voted yet.
But, that is for general elections and everyone who does this a) has to live reasonably nearby (read: state residents) and b.) have letters from the state party to be an "observer".
Apparently many of these Obama and Paul observers did not have this letter. These same sources say that it is the Clinton campaign that has called foul
New Hampshire Senate President Sylvia Larsen, a Concord Democrat who supports Hillary Clinton, said she saw the Obama observers.
"I knew who they were and what they were doing," Larsen said.
Neither the Clinton nor Obama campaigns would comment.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/politics/primarysource/2008/01/obama_and_paul.h tml |
Bev Harris
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Username: Admin
Post Number: 7406
Registered: 12-2004
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 5:55 pm: |
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The pie slice on CNN just had Giuliani trailing unmarked gray by a large margin.
That umarked gray guy's pie slice doesn't match the Ron Paul guy's numeric results. They must not be coming from the same data source. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7407
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 6:04 pm: |
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The specific locations need to be identified and names need to be affixed to the unidentified observers on the observer reports.
If the observers or witnesses are really patriots, they will identify themselves by name and state which precincts this took place in and about what time of day. If they fail to come forward, or no one follows up with specifics, the story will not be taken as credible. |
Bev Harris
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Username: Admin
Post Number: 7408
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 6:10 pm: |
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Watch the pie chart as it refreshes.
Sure hope someone is recording this.
They kept the pie chart off the screen for quite a while, and now have placed it at an oblique camera angle where it is harder to see Unmarked Gray vs. Rudy Giuliani. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7410
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 6:30 pm: |
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The hand count towns are beginning to come in. Watch the trends very carefully right now. |
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