The Hursti Hack, New Hampshire, and "Tinfoil"

[Junkdrawer]

Now, in case you haven't heard about the Hursti Hack, let me give you a brief description:

The Zero Value Report is printed at the beginning of every election. Its only purpose is to assure the election officials that the memory card has no votes preloaded. But, in at least the Diebold case, the memory card also holds an AccuBasic program that prints the zero value report. That's right: The report that verifies the honesty of the memory card is on the same memory card.

With this design the Zero Value Report is less than useless, it’s a ruse meant to give a false sense of security to election officials. A kind of conjurer’s “nothing up my sleeves” ploy. This has been known for some time. Indeed, it was the center piece of an HBO documentary.

Now, you'd think that such an odious system would be banned from US elections. Think again. It was used to count over 80% of last night's votes. You know, the election with the amazing last minute 10 to 15 point turn around.

So, what about that other 20%? Glad you asked. Turns out that when the votes were hand counted, Clinton lost to Obama. See: http://presscue.com/node/38034

So, go ahead. Flame me. Claim my tinfoil hat is too tight. But I, for one, think something stinks in Denmark.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

1. the link is non-functional n/t

[Junkdrawer]

3. Worked a second ago. Looks like it's being overwhelmed. n/t

[Nederland]

2. There was no 10 to 15 point turn around

Learn how to read polls.

[Junkdrawer]

28. Clinton's internal polls had her 11 points down...Obama's polls had a 14 point lead....

That alone is a 14 to 17 point turn around.

[Nederland]

31. Link?

This is my info:




Note that the polls correctly predicted well within the margin of error Obama and Edwards percentages. Clinton's numbers are simple the result of undecideds, Biden and Dodd supporters breaking her way.

[Junkdrawer]

32. Olbermann via BradBlog:

UPDATE 9:48pm PT: Olbermann repeated what Russert had said earlier, that Obama's internal polls showed him winning by 14%, Clinton's internal polls had Obama winning by 11%.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5530

[Nederland]

35. Interesting Link

Did those polls include undecideds?

I also couldn't help noticing that the article included a quote from BevHarris... :rofl:

[CTyankee]

4. Then get Obama's team to call for an investigation.

If this is a problem, it must be stopped. Some DUers blamed Kerry for not doing enough. Well, the shoe is on Obama's foot now. If he believes what you say, he should act.

[JackRiddler]

15. Please! That's ridiculous for so many reasons...

You cannot count on candidates ever to do this - especially frontrunners in an ongoing primary season.

No matter what the ultimate truth of the case, the first reaction will be a loud and aggressive chorus of derision and cries of "sore loser!" from the media and party activists. It would be suicide for Obama to bring this up - even if it turns out equally to be suicide not to bring it up.

It has to come from... well, the press is the institution that's supposed to be on top of this shit. But it took them seven years just to print the first non-derisory stories in the Times. And we know what a joke they are otherwise.

The media - the people - activists - the parties - any other honest actors left - all should be pressing on this. This should not be a burden on any given campaign.

[CTyankee]

18. Okay, fine. Just please do not do what so many DUers did to John Kerry after he lost!

They blamed him for not challenging the results of the 04 campaign. Maybe you were not part of this chorus, but it existed nonetheless. I just want to hold feet to the fire here with those liberals who blamed Kerry for his loss and who are not holding Obama to the same standard...

[JackRiddler]

29. The difference with Kerry

is that on Nov. 3 he had NOTHING left to lose, it was all over. And this was after he ran the lamest possible campaign in the GE, against the Republicans (not within the party).

And he conceded even before pressure built up to do so.

And his VP was ready to fight, but he abandoned it anyway, still having nothing left to lose.

And when the Greens and Libertarians filed the Ohio protest, he basically sent the message that they could fuck off.


Not comparable!

[althecat]

5. Whats the problem in Denmark... I thought there was a stink in New Hampshire....

[Junkdrawer]

6. And it's a truly magnificent stench, ain't it? n/t

[papau]

7. boy -they're good thieves - fixing the exit poll to match the vote via memory card fix -?? LOL

[Junkdrawer]

8. The Edison/Mitofsky exit polls of "correct the exit poll with actual results" fame?

And as long as the exit poll's purpose is to present voter trends, that's a defensible practice.

[papau]

24. It is called normalize the wieghtings by sub group as the election is considered poll data - it is

what they discuss on Tweety saying Bush in 2004 get 45% of the latino vote - and which was a key indicator of a stolen election as other polls - and election results - showed only 35% latino voting GOP.

But we are discussing the pre-normalization exit poll being correct - indeed the polls before the election got the vote for Obama correct - they just did not get the "undecided" vote correct.

[jgraz]

9. That is exactly what was done in 2004

Once the votes were so clearly out of line with the data, the exit polls were "adjusted". Unfortunately, they couldn't get the entire matrix to work out quite right. The "adjusted" polls showed huge numbers of Gore voters switching to Bush in 2004 (unlikely). It also showed Kerry in negative numbers in some of the smaller demographics (impossible).

My guess is that, if there's been any shenanigai, there will be some smaller categories that just don't make sense. For example, Eugene Robinson pointed out last night that the exit polls showed that the vast majority of NH voters made up their minds 3 days or more before the election. That doesn't jive with a last-minute comeback.

[SIMPLYB1980]

10. Keep crying wolf.

Then when the Republicans try to steal a state from us we will be ignored like in Ohio.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

11. Keep using

Diebold Premiere and we will never know whether it is crying wolf or not.

[Junkdrawer]

12. I'm asking why these Diebold machines are still in use.

A FAR cry from "wolf".

[CTyankee]

21. And is your candidate doing this? If not, why not? n/t

[JackRiddler]

30. I don't have a candidate. I just want democracy to mean something.

[Pathwalker]

13. Yep. We all "know" the only way a woman can win is fraud.

At least in this back-assward country.

[puebloknot]

19. If there *was* fraud, wouldn't anyone with intelligence and devotion...

...to truth want to know it? Can a woman commit fraud in this back-assward counry?

BTW, I'm a woman.

[Pathwalker]

20. "Knowing" is one thing, proving it another.

Getting the MSM to mention it, yet another. But just assuming that because a woman won, there was guaranteed fraud is sexist BS, something this nation is very, very good at.
And I'm a woman too, who's tired of the blatant sexism.

[puebloknot]

22. I agree with you that there's rampant sexism, and the older you get...

...the more serious it is. You're not speaking to a spring chicken here. But who is assuming that because a woman won, there is guaranteed fraud?

I am assuming that because Diebold machines (or that type) were used, there is a strong and reasonable assumption of fraud, whether the candidate is male or female.

We hurt ourselves if we too quickly jump to the conclusion that there must be sexism involved in the reasonable questions that are being asked about the NH primary.

[Pathwalker]

23. I agree with a lot of what you say, but what is reasonable?

There are posters here who've written that the mere fact that Hillary won PROVES fraud, because according to them, there's simply no way she could win. There's also another poster who calls her a corporate whore in practically every post, but has never called a single male candidate a whore. The NY papers were brutal, too. It's been here all day, and it's disgusting, imo. Hardly reasonable.
The problem with fraud isn't just limited to the Diebold machines, either. Those damn opti-scan machines have a 10% mistake rate, as well. The only way we can guarantee fair and honest elections is to go back to paper ballots and hand counting, but that won't happen until the people demand it, and we get a new Supreme Court; during the 2000 recount Scalia insisted that the American people couldn't be asked to wait for a hand-re-count. So, we're years away from any actual reform - unless Hillary wins the General Election. Then, the Republicans will demand it, immediately. Otherwise, most Americans just don't care.
I've tried to get them to care, but their eyes just glaze over... sigh.

[puebloknot]

25. I will give it to Hillary that she has had to deflect a lot of crap...

...going back to the time when she and Bill were in the White House. I want to trust her more than I do these days.

As to NH, I don't know that we'll ever have a definitive answer to the suspicions that have arisen.

You've summed up our national trauma very well in this post. Thanks for a depressing evening! :)

[Pathwalker]

27. I'm sorry - I wasn't trying to depress you!

I'm just an old Feminist Grandma who's grown tired of all the crap being thrown at the first woman candidate for President, who has an actual chance of winning the Presidency, something I'd given up ever seeing in my lifetime. The press hates her, and I hate them - I'm contrary that way.
:hi:

[rainy]

14. I totally agree with you. I've been thinking about this all day. It seems

like the same thing happened in 04 when all of a sudden Kerry, who, frankly was boring to watch, came along and started winning out of the blue.

[Junkdrawer]

16. Picking our candidates for us....

The Corporate Media and the election machine corporations work hand in glove.

Wait until after the conventions, and you'll see a smear campaign that will peel paint.

Deja vu all over again.

[sam kane]

17. Obama won the hand-counted precincts, rural voters

and as we all know, the young, more left voters all live in the country! Must be a lot of communes in NH.

Tinfoil, indeed.

[HughMoran]

26. It's actually true

It shocked me when I first found out too. I looked at a political map of NH (I live here) and the blue areas were surprisingly in the rural areas near Vermont, Maine & the Canadian border. Who knew?

[Junkdrawer]

33. Just a kick so that this, too, gets sent to the dungeon...

Thanks, Skinner for shielding us from Diebold / electronic voting issues.

:hi:

[Bonobo]

34. kick

[Wilms]

36. Kick n/t