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| 1-15-08: Can recount chain of custody... |
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| Author |
Message |
    
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7492
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 9:15 pm: | 
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At this point we can pretty much guarantee the New Hampshire recount for Kucinich will match -- and that's not a good thing, because unless chain of custody can be documented properly, the recount doesn't provide real answers.
Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich did not order a statewide recount today, only two counties, and the Republican candidate, Albert Howard, was cut out of the recount altogether. I'll write more on the details later this week.
I have been doing field work since Saturday here in New Hampshire. Donations have been helping underwrite the costs of a citizen dream team: I invited some outstanding people to join me here to evaluate chain of custody for the recount: Susan Pynchon (Florida Fair Elections Coalition, has helped unravel the Sarasota situation); Melisa Urda (Illinois Ballot Integrity Project, has helped get the Illinois attorney general to issue a special directive ordering DuPage County to follow the law); and Paddy Shaffer (Ohio Election Justice Campaign, with Richard Hayes Phillips helped unravel the ballot chain of custody in Ohio). Others, like Election Defense Alliance Sally Castleman, have been organizing a team of citizen videographers, while Bruce O'Dell and Theron Horton have been quietly crunching the numbers to pinpoint locations with unusual footprints. (I also hoped to have the great Kathleen Wynne, but had to red-eye out to New Hampshire on such short notice that the timing didn't work this time.)
VERDICT: New Hampshire is unable to document its chain of custody properly, lacks written procedures, its secretary of state has said he doesn't know where its memory cards are, and LHS has been encroaching on state elections with near-total control. I'll be preparing a Special Report when I return from New Hampshire with documents and video to support this assessment.
VIDEO CAMERA CONFISCATION?
In New Hampshire, ballots are brought from each town and ward to a central location for recounts. We got a tip today that the location would be the state archive building, so we went there hoping for a walk-through.
There, police told us that videotaping the delivery of the ballots and the unloading of the ballots, would be prohibited and cameras would be confiscated if people were caught doing this. The rationale, we were told, was that they had placed the ballot delivery area in a state building with a parking lot that belonged to a mental hospital located on the grounds about a block away. On the theory that cameras might catch a mental patient wandering around and invade his privacy, all videotaping would be prohibited.
Now, there was 14 inches of snow yesterday and the drifts and mounds are up to 10 feet high, so the idea that a mental patient could even walk through this to the state archives to get their privacy invaded by a camera filming ballot unloading seemed preposterous. Paddy Shaffer got on the horn and called the chief of the "campus police" handling the mental hospital and he confirmed that cameras would be confiscated. We later alerted Secretary of State Bill Gardner, who called off the police video-busting rule.
SECRECY IN CHAIN OF CUSTODY
One official told us he thought the location of the delivered ballots should be a secret and that there would be no public observation of the intake process. We asked for the written procedures for the ballot intake and he said he hadn't been provided with any. Another member of the secretary of state's office said he could not confirm or deny that the ballots would be delivered to the archive building at all, and when you see the video of this you'll see that this was evasiveness, not lack of information.
We received a verbal description of the check-in process, which included a list of locations coming in and a check-off sheet. When we asked about the observaton area the official left, then came back and said no ballots would be delivered to the archives. Later, we learned that they would, after all, be delivered to the archives but only one city at a time. No written procedures for any of this, and quite a confusing time was being had by all.
"TRUST ME ELECTIONS"
A member of the Kucinich campaign tried to "wave me off" from looking into ballot chain of custody this evening. Another member of the Kucinich campaign said she has 100% confidence in the ballot chain of custody, even though, when I asked, she admitted she didn't know where the ballots go after leaving the towns.
This should be a huge concern for us. As the previous article, "Walking into a trap?" indicates, if you order a recount without first getting answers to the chain of custody questions, you may end up with a sham recount with stuffed or substituted ballots. No candidate's campaign should be satisfied with "trust" without asking and demanding answers to chain of custody questions.
I was told by one of the Kucinich people that chain of custody has always been completely trustworthy in the past, and that I should stick to securing the memory cards and chips and not get into ballot chain of custody issues. Basing an analysis of the CURRENT chain of custody on past (or imagined) chain of custody perceptions is like saying, "I won't lock the door tonight because I have locked it in the past."
WHAT'S NEXT?
They are recounting Manchester ballots tomorrow.
PREDICTION: They'll match all right. Exactly as Nancy Tobi predicted. This recount will be used to illustrate that the LHS-coded voting machines should be trusted.
It's very difficult to prepare articles with documentation and video while spending days and nights in the field, but I hope to get more information to you shortly about some of the field work of Susan Pynchon and Melisa Urda, who visited New Hampshire election sites asking questions about ballot accounting procedures, memory card storage, and looking into various questions. They obtained a fairly horrific document from LHS Associates.
Stay tuned. |
David Edgecomb
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: David_e
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 9:34 pm: |
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THANK YOU BEV!
I just discovered the site earlier tonight and am so grateful for your work. The amount of digging up and exposing you are doing has earned you a standing ovation from me. I'm clapping, really  |
Jason Reed
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jasonr54
Post Number: 16
Registered: 10-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 9:41 pm: |
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Bless you Bev. We DO appreciate all of yours and the others tirless work.
On pins & needles! |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7495
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 9:49 pm: |
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Hi David, and welcome to Black Box Voting.
The compliments feel good. I'll deliver them also to Paddy and Melisa, who had rubber gloves on tonight while looking for democracy inside a dumpster, and Susan, who just briefed VotersUnite attorney Jon Bonifaz on some of this.
It is hugely disappointing that the Republican candidate, who DID raise the money, is not being allowed a recount. Bill Gardner told him to pony up a certified check by 3 pm today, and when the wire transfer -- though it had LEFT the first bank -- was called "in transit" rather than "received" by the receiving bank, the deadline passed. Like Nader in 2004, he was told he had to pay up front for the whole state, which does not appear to be required by New Hampshire law. Unlike Nader, and also unlike Kucinich, Albert Howard was not told that he could start by recounting a subset of locations requiring a smaller up front payment. He had about $30,000 with the rest coming in by wire. Had he been provided with the same opportunity as Nader and Kucinich, there would be a Republican recount tomorrow as well. It is pretty clear that an independent minded Republican candidate certified check is something the New Hampshire secretary of state does NOT want.
New Hampshire law does not appear to require full prepayment with a certified check before the recount, and this is an especially onerous demand when the price is not provided to the candidate until Monday and the money is due Tuesday at 3 pm.
Like so many other things we are finding in New Hampshire, there seems to be an overly informal process for communicating recount options in New Hampshire. Some candidates are apparently allowed to dicker over the price; others are handed a sheet of paper with a price and no alternate options mentioned. |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 5
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 10:49 pm: |
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Kudos and I am extremely grateful you're there Bev/Paddy/Melissa.
I am watching this thread and trying to promote appropriate information to a broader audience. |
David Luebbers
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: David_luebbers
Post Number: 48
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 11:30 pm: |
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Thank you for all your hard work Bev..
"It doesn't matter who votes. It only matters who counts the ballots." Stalin
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Tom Courbat
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Leftisbest
Post Number: 82
Registered: 6-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 12:53 am: |
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Kucinich has paid $25K so far and the recounts start in Concord at 9:30 this morning in the State Archives Building. This amount covers approximately the first 100,000 ballots. The first counties to be counted will be Manchester and Hillsborough. Total cost estimate for a full hand-recount of all Dem ballots is estimated to be $67,600.
If Republican candidate Albert Howard were to come up with [unclear whether all or a portion of] the estimated cost of $57,600 tomorrow, SOS Gardner said he would consider allowing the recount for the Repubs to go forward.
Full story from the Union Leader at http://tinyurl.com |
Tom Courbat
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Leftisbest
Post Number: 83
Registered: 6-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 1:35 am: |
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Bev,
Can you get to the higher ups of the Kucinich people and force them to understand the insanity of proceeding without any documentation of the chain of custody? We have to frame this for the media immediately or we will be laughed out of the recount as precinct after precinct amazingly "balances" with the reports from the machines. The SOS doesn't KNOW where the memory cards were? I'll bet John Silvestro knows, what do you think?
This is such a basic concept - how can they NOT get it?? This, as Nancy Tobi warned, could be much worse than no recount if we don't get the caveats out there right away. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4393
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 2:40 am: |
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Tom, perhaps if you know someone in the campaign you could you ask them to contact Bev?
BBV cannot legally take the initiative to approach any campaigns, but BBV can give information and advice in response to direct requests from any campaign. |
Arlie Hart
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pathfinder
Post Number: 1
Registered: 7-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 5:58 am: |
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Keep up the good work Bev! - In an article on the Union Leader site this morning, written by Tom Fahey, State House Bureau Chief, is this note:
"There is no Republican recount at this point," Gardner said. If Howard were to come up with the money during the Democratic recount process, Gardner said he would make a decision on whether to start counting GOP ballots.
"If the money were to show up, I'd deal with it at that point," he said.
Gardner's office said a Republican recount would cost $57,600, based on an expected cost of 24 cents per ballot.
This is somewhat hopeful, maybe?
Union Leader link - http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Kucinich+hands+over+%2425%2c000 +to+start+NH+recount&articleId=c5b584b0-6965-4ded-bdd4-b554a0a11399
Hope that link works -
Never Give Up, Never Surrender!!! |
Fran Fleming
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Iwontbackdown
Post Number: 24
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 6:04 am: |
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Bev, Paddy, Melisa and Susan,
I am in awe of your very bold investigative skills. Thank you for setting a precedent for other Citizens to hopefully follow along in the 'trenches' in their local communities. The "pandora's box" of voting irregularities seems to be opening on a national scale. Besides exposing the vulnerability and secrecy of e-voting black boxes; also documenting the chain of custody just makes good, good sense! |
Bill Bowen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbowen8
Post Number: 24
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 7:21 am: |
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I asked earlier if anyone had any information on the political or lobbyist leanings of the NH Secretary of State. It looks like it's becoming clearer.
Could it be that our best hope is to wait for a state with an extremely disgruntled, anti black box Secretary of State, make sure they have laws explicitly stating chain of custody, and wait for the statistical anomolies to happen there? It's not like we're having a hard time finding state's where e-voting data conflicts sharply with exit polls or hand count regions within the same state. Obviously the candidates need to be more educated on the situation, but one will come along. If BBV can't contact candidates directly, the participants of BBV can certainly hound them.
Do we know of any specific Secretary's of State that are fed up with black box voting out there, and which one's? I'll certainly focus my efforts to that state.
Bill
(Message edited by bbowen8 on January 16, 2008) |
Mark Michaels
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mark_michaels
Post Number: 2
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 8:25 am: |
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The three Secretaries of State who are most aggressive against electronic vote tabulation are Bowen in California, Brunner in Ohio and Coffman in Colorado. Various citizens groups in each state are effectively lobbying to ban electronic tabulation. You will find information about activities in these states in other places on this web site. |
Derek Larsson
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Morecowbell
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 9:26 am: |
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Can someone educate the Kucinich representatives that they really need to follow documented criteria that Albert Howard tried to use for tracing the chain of custody of the ballots?
Also, why didn't Kucinich call for a full Statewide Recount? This idea of just counting up a sample town or two is futile. This is just a smokescreen, and not the equivalent of any serious examination the integrity of our Elections. We need a full Statewide recount to take place here. What is Kucinich's goal?
Finally, does Albert Howard have any recourse? Why couldn't someone have just ponied up the $55K for him while he was/is waiting for the ChipIn/PayPal fiasco to get resolved? What can he do now?
(Message edited by MoreCowbell on January 16, 2008)
(Message edited by MoreCowbell on January 16, 2008) |
Bill Bowen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbowen8
Post Number: 25
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 9:48 am: |
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I believe the more you towns you count, the more you pay. So Kucinich thinks by zeroing in on the two towns with the highest poll/result discrepencies, that should be convincing enough.
Regardless, with the chain of custody issues Bev outlines above already, even a full statewide recount of NH is pretty much moot. |
Drew J. Jones
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Drewjjones
Post Number: 9
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 9:53 am: |
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Any idea when we'll start getting results from the recount? Is Bev going to give us updates? |
Kevin Davis
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Millman
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 10:07 am: |
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Bev, I think your site is desparately needed. I am a Canadian watching your people lose control of their nation. I sincerely believe that most Americans really aren't paying attention. It's time they turned off the TV and turned on the internet and to get out there now and do something about the people who are stealing your country from you. This crime is not a made-for-television movie, This is the real thing! A re-count without chain of custody is a farce. The powers that rig the election have all bases covered. I fear that there is little Americans can do to stop this but people like you and others at least are not sitting idle.
It appears that whoever controls the MSM controls the country. They are determining what the people hear and think. That is not how they did it in 1776. I heard someone say a few days ago that this is 1776 all over again and you are there. I hope everyday Americans can realize this. Best of luck Bev. Canadians are pulling for you all. Kevin in Nova Scotia. |
Randal Divinski
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Randydiv
Post Number: 8
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 10:09 am: |
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I'd like to respond to the idea of waiting for the perfect test case (e.g., a state with a disgruntled secretary of state). Not everyone has a legal right to REQUEST a recount. Each state has its own laws: usually it has to be a candidate, and sometimes only if there is a narrow margin of victory. Too often the potentially-cheated candidate is afraid of being called a sore loser (Kerry!) or doesn't have the funds left to pay for a recount. It seems almost nowhere is there an actual right for concerned citizens to initiate a recount.
So, if we intend to wait for a brave candidate with funds left who loses by a narrow margin in a state with good chain of custody laws (which are studious followed) and which also has a great secretary of state -- that could be a LONG, LONG WAIT.
Add to that, voting machines don't do the hacking themselves. There are people that plan it, and if the above "perfect" conditions exist somewhere, isn't it more likely that they will just pass on the cheating and find a more pliable environment.
They are going to cheat where the conditions favor it, not where the conditions favor getting caught.
I can't say that NH is our best bet of uncovering something, but it is the chance that history has given us. I am grateful that Bev, despite her misgivings, is "playing the ball where it lies" and seeing what can be accomplished.
Our best hope may be that, having been given free rein to steal elections without challenge or scrutiny for so long, those involved may have been careless and/or complacent in how they went about it. They had the opportunity to commit the "perfect" (undetectable) crime, but they are also fallable human beings, and there may be a slip up somewhere.
And, as a final note of optimism, while the door is open for a successful cover-up, history is full of examples where the cover-up itself is what leads ultimately to exposure and conviction. It just takes one minor person caught in a cover-up role to cause the whole plot to unravel.
All of you on the ground: thanks so much. Perhaps you will be the one to talk to the right person, or take the right picture, or observe the crucial behavior. You are the eyes and ears of democracy!
(Message edited by randydiv on January 16, 2008) |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4402
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 10:16 am: |
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quote:They are going to cheat where the conditions favor it, not where the conditions favor getting caught.
Yes. Precisely.
quote:those involved may have been careless and/or complacent in how they went about it. . . there may be a slip up somewhere. . .
. . . history is full of examples where the cover-up itself is what leads ultimately to exposure and conviction. It just takes one minor person caught in a cover-up role to cause the whole plot to unravel.
So true. It's so important to at least look and pay attention!
quote:I am grateful that Bev, despite her misgivings, is "playing the ball where it lies" and seeing what can be accomplished.
I couldn't agree with you more. We have to start from where we are (literally) and do what we can to start the process.
Bev and others in the field are doing heroic work. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4403
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 10:21 am: |
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Kevin,
Thanks so much for your post. I live in Ireland and I, too, see America slipping away beneath the very eyes of its citizens, just as you describe. It is easier to see it while living outside the country.
Maybe if we are fortunate we will live to see the birthing of something new and/or improved, with a public that is committed to participating in and ensuring good governance. It doesn't happen on its own, by magic. It takes people caring enough that they are willing to shoulder some responsibility. |
Bill Bowen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbowen8
Post Number: 26
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 11:01 am: |
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Randal, I don't disagree with you at all about not waiting for the ideal conditions. I'm just frustrated that after years of following these stories, after "Hacking Democracy" and so many other documentaries on this subject, I can't even convince some of my most intelligent friends that our current election process is mostly bunk. And I'm a software engineer trainer!
I'm proud of everyone here and particularly Bev and her Dream Team in NH today. I think what bothers me more than anything is not that a change is gonna come (to quote Sam Cooke), but that when it does, the people who helped initiate the cause won't even be recognized for it. That will be the bigger crime. But the efforts happening in NH today--whatever comes from it--I am certain will resonate. I know I've been calling every newspaper and media outlet in NH, trying to inform the candidates and their campaigns of the issues and trying to do my part. I just don't know how much more patient I can be personally! |
Bill Bowen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbowen8
Post Number: 27
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 11:20 am: |
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Things seem to bode a little bit better on the Republican side for a NH recount, provided Howard gets his money in--and it does look like he will.
Here is a copy of requests to NH SoS Gardner from Howard regarding the Republican recount. Notice he wants a full state-wide recount, and also #2, and the request for chain of custody of all ballots, as well as his final threat to pursue legal action if any of the requests are denied.
I have no idea what legal recourse he has, but the letter sounds better than Kucinich's attempt at a recount.
Bill |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 28
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 11:30 am: |
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"... history is full of examples where the cover-up itself is what leads ultimately to exposure and conviction ..."
Even without exposure and conviction,
(1) witnessing the consistency of experiences such as those listed in the post opening this thread ('protecting the privacy of mental patients' who might be going for a walk in 10ft of snow, etc) ...
(2) continuing to ask questions like 'why would chain of custody ever be designed with holes in it, holes that are easily preventable?' or 'why are we using a specfic make of voting system that has (a) been demonstrated to be easily hackable, and (b) demonstrated to have been hacked during elections?' or any of a whole range of similar questions that get asked here-in ...
(3) creating a space that is genuine, serious, creative, respectful, skeptical (toward 'trust us' officials and over-theoretical critics both), thereby feeding hope and energy to dig in knowing one is in good company, while also building a place where someone inside enough to witness convictable crime can go with their tale to get it out in the open
(4) defining issues and possibilities with clarity
and
(5) providing a level of scrutiny that hopefully makes election fraud significantly less likely in this election cycle (even if that is then used as a false 'proof' that there was no cause for scrutiny to begin with)
... all have effects that are, cumulatively, just as positive as catching someone red-handed in the act of fraud
... and perhaps more significant, because one act of crime can be regarded (especially by folk trained to internal denial and ignore-ance systems) as a one-time aberration. Witness Watergate, which was trumpeted, and accepted by many an ostrich, as proof positive that 'the system works'; while in fact the crime wave that the Watergate break-in was one isolated aspect of was effectively ignored by focusing so much effort and attention on that one aspect. In that sense, the system really did work, in a manner historically traditional to congressional investigations: it covered up the broader crime wave with its very narrowly focused expose. |
rush
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Grimawormtongue
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 8:36 am: |
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What is this "horrific document" from LHS that you mention?
Man, what a teaser!
C'mon..details! |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4427
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 4:21 pm: |
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Rush,
Please re-register using your full, correct name.
It would be easier to know what document you're referring to if you mentioned the poster or quoted part of the post that mentioned it. I saw a photograph of some form of LHS manual that looked like it was 2 or 3 inches thick. I can't remember what it was for. It was mentioned on another recent thread. |
Jody Holder
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Holder
Post Number: 38
Registered: 11-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 6:37 pm: |
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I do not know which precincts were hand counted and which were machine counted, so those that know may let us know.
In reviewing the results of the first days recount in Hampshire County I noticed something unusual. In particular Manchester Ward 5. The recount confirmed the same count for all Democratic candidates other than Edwards, Clinton, Kucinich, Obama, and Richardson. All of those candidates LOST votes. The error rate percentages are very high, ranging from 9.3% to 15.2%. The actual lost votes and error rates are:
Edwards: minus 38 votes 14.9%
Clinton: minus 64 votes 9.3%
Kucinich: minus 3 votes 13.04%
Obama: minus 39 votes 9.6%
Richardson: minus 7 15.2%
Now if this is a handcounted precinct some may make the argument that this proves the inherent inaccuracy of hand-counted ballots. I would counter that with this high of percentages of inaccurate counts there was either deliberate miscounting, or missing ballots. I would want to compare the number of people that actually voted with the total of ballots involved in the recount.
If this was a Diebold AccuVote optical scan precinct then these percentages could be the result of several possibilities:
1. Someone ran the same ballots through the optical scanner more than once at the precincts.
2. The machines were miscalibrated or the ballots were marked with the wrong marking tool.
3. The ballot definitions used to assign vote credits were defective, programmed incorrectly, or manipulated.
4. There are missing ballots.
5. The GEMS program did not tabulate or report the totals accurately.
The original total for the above 5 candidates was 1,411. In the recount there was a cumulative vote loss of 151, an average error rate of 10.7%.
Now if there were vote switching that would mean that the total of votes would remain the same, just the crediting of those votes would change.
In this case all the vote totals remained the same for the other candidates other than the five main ones. If there was an error in the scanning, tabulating, or reporting it should have affected some of the smaller candidate's numbers, which did not happen.
Many other precincts had errors both positive and negative, but none as large as Manchester Ward 5. What sticks out even more is the fact that the error is consistently negative for the candidates. |
Chris Chatham
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Neuronomy
Post Number: 18
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 6:54 pm: |
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Jody, that is very helpful. With precinct-by-precinct recount data I should be able to run statistics on the average error rate, to determine if any precincts have significantly larger error rates than the mean. |
John Howard
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Harmonyguy
Post Number: 553
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 8:16 pm: |
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Jody,
Do you know of any photographs of ballots at the recount? I have the ones that Bob Fleischer posted on Flickr which appear to be Manchester Ward 1. I'm looking for other cities and or other Manchester Wards.
Thanks
HG;) |
Michael W Mather
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gypsy
Post Number: 180
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 9:02 pm: |
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Jody,
Manchester was reported to be machine counted. But I think folks should hold off on their analyses. The posted results are probably incomplete and/or contain typos. For example, The Bedford count for Richardson is now showing a drop from 184 to nil, while all his other results show little change. |
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