Reply #189: no, I think the question can be addressed without knowing those things

[OnTheOtherHand]

It's legitimate and sensible to start with the question: what would one expect to happen in New Hampshire? Would one expect a very close race, or not?

(It isn't necessary to single out New Hampshire; one can carry this analysis across all the states.)

In 2004 as in 2008, most New Hampshire voters used optically scanned paper ballots; many used hand-counted paper ballots. Many of the optical scan ballots were recounted after the election, so one would have to postulate not only massive hacking of the scanners, but massive ballot tampering after the fact. But setting that aside, the question remains: what would one expect to happen in New Hampshire? If we don't ask that question, we can make the general point that electronic vote-casting and -counting isn't trustworthy, and then we're stuck -- which is fine, if we decide not to argue about what happened in 2004.