Why the fraud red herring?

[spotbird]

There have been credible, verified problems with elections in recent years. Even doubters can't deny the convictions resulting from fraud in the Ohio recount in 2004. THe list of real concerns is well known to most here.

With that said, the charges raised and echoed about yesterday's election are obviously bogus. The allegations originate from a source that anyone who wants to know, knows, is entirely bogus and without a shred of credibility. So this nonsense must have an ulterior motive of some kind, but the motive is hard to pin down. Since the claim comes barely a whiff of basis, a basis which has been throughly debunked, what is the point? Maybe to distract from what will be real problems down the line? That's just speculation, but it is very curious.

Disclaimer: I do not support Hillary, never have supported her, and I hope she loses.

[wyldwolf]

1. Do you recall that kid you used to know in grade school...

...who would complain about a hurt foot only after losing a race? Or claim a teacher didn't like him after he made an 'F'?

He's grown up and they follow politics now.

[spotbird]

6. No, I don't think that's it

I'm as unhappy about yesterday's result as anyone(nothing personal, naturally) but I also don't think there support for these claims. NH has decentralized counting, much more difficult to rig, and there wasn't the same red flags we've seen elsewhere when there were real problems. It seems like this is an effort to distract. Maybe the purpose is to raise the issue often when it is false so that no one will listen when it is true? Considering the source, the only thing certain is that the motivation is nothing good.

[readmoreoften]

2. I'd be suspicious too if she won against a candidate that the media-industrial complex opposes.

But they like Obama too much for me to really consider this. Obama is no threat to them, so I don't see the point in rigging an election. I also don't know why we assume it wasn't rigged to push Edwards into third or Kucinich off the map, etc. For these reasons, it seems like a knee jerk reaction to me.

[jgraz]

3. Because we can't trust our elections anymore

And most Hillary supporters are so blinded by their thirst for victory that they're willing to take a big steaming dump on democracy as long as their girl can cry her way to the White House.

[SaveOurDemocracy]

7. Yikes! n/t

[HughMoran]

9. Do you really believe that?

Are Democrats that don't agree with you morans?

[jgraz]

10. No, just the ones who invent ridiculous straw men

What I don't like is when people are perfectly happy to gloss over huge problems in our election system just as long as their candidate is winning.

[HughMoran]

13. Isn't this hypocrisy?

Wouldn't you have been content and quiet today if Obama had won as the polls suggested he would?

I say yes.

[jgraz]

17. key words: AS THE POLLS SUGGESTED

If he was behind in the polls AND a favored candidate of the corporatists AND he staged a surprise win using voting machines, you bet your ass I'd be yelling foul.

The problem is that I'd never support the corporate candidate and I don't support Obama. I actually believe that Hillary most likely won fair and square last night. I just hate the fact that I'm not able to fully trust the results.

[HughMoran]

20. Do you know why I trust the results?

Because I am a NH voter and I was really, really pissed about the way Hillary was treated by the MSM since Iowa (and here for that matter.) Her choking up really did influence me as it showed she was a human being after all. When I walked by her at the polling station and said "hi Hillary" and she spun around and offered her hand, a smile and a nice greeting, I was impressed. When her daughter Chelsea apologized for blocking my path into the polling station, I was convinced that this was a sign that her parents had taught her humility - I then was able to vote for Hillary - which I did. I was not planning on voting for Hillary yesterday, I was leaning toward Obama previously. There were several other people who called into NPR with similar stories. I am a Democrat partially because I am compassionate. You want Hillary to win? Promote the continued character assassination of her her and in the MSM.

[jgraz]

21. So your personal experience is all the validation we need?

Thanks, but I'll wait for paper ballots if it's all the same to you.

[HughMoran]

24. Well, at least now you know why the exit polls were correct, and not Sunday's day-old poll

You can choose to use this disappointment to distract people with the "voter fraud" argument, but most people just see this as sour grapes. I know I do.

[jgraz]

25. And that's why our elections will continue to be suspect

As long as your candidate won, you're fine with untrustworthy voting methods. Tell me, will you still think it's sour grapes when McCain manages to just barely edge out Hillary next November?

[HughMoran]

26. OK, argument over

I fucking despise when people start using "look over here" techniques - bye.

:hi:

[jgraz]

30. Cool, enjoy your bubble.

[HughMoran]

34. Insult acknowledged

Good for you.

[LanternWaste]

32. No. But it's all that particular poster needed...

"So your personal experience is all the validation we need?"

No. But it's all that particular poster needed...

[jgraz]

33. Yes, but that particular poster is trying to use that to justify the entire result

That's where he lost me.

[LanternWaste]

31. That frustrates me almost as much as someone who

"What I don't like is when people are perfectly happy..."

That frustrates me almost as much as someone who takes a valid concern (e.g. voter fraud) and minimizes it because the candidate they support didn't win. It hurts the cause more than it helps it.

[ORDagnabbit]

4. well to begin with the diebold machines are used to count the votes in most areas

those diebold tabulating machines

have an already built in acceptable error rate
are programmable
are not hand verified.


do you completely trust an organization with no oversight to always give you the correct information?

if you do I have a bridge you might be interested in.


its a small state..... and if iraq can have all their votes in clear plastic containers counted by hand then the least we can do if verify totals on a machine against the actual votes cast.

seems like areas that were counted by diebold machines went for clinton and Mccain in higher percentages then areas taht were hand counted.

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/71200.htm...

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

[Usrename]

11. Nobody wants to explain this:

Where Paper Prevailed, Different Results
By Lori Price, www.legitgov.org

2008 New Hampshire Democratic Primary Results --Total Democratic Votes: 286,139 - Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008
Hillary Clinton, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 39.618%
Clinton, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 34.908%
Barack Obama, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 36.309%
Obama, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 38.617%

Machine vs Hand:
Clinton: 4.709% (13,475 votes)
Obama: -2.308% (-6,604 votes)
http://www.legitgov.org/nh_machine_vs_paper.html

Did this really happen?

[blueraven95]

28. as far as I can tell, these statistics are from a Ron Paul website.

do you have them from a more neutral source?

[Usrename]

38. Bradblog has it now.

Update: Some more statistics from the data shows that Obama in non-Diebold towns garnering 38.7% of the vote to Clinton's 36.2%. The results in Diebold towns show the exact opposite: Clinton with 40.7% of the vote and Obama with 36.2%. Not only are the positions swapped but the informal statistics have the second place candidate holding 36.2% in both cases, which could easily be a pure coincidence. What doesn't make a lot of sense to me right now and this could be a mathematical mistake on my part is where Clinton got the extra 2% of votes in Diebold towns. All the other numbers almost exact for every candidate, even Edwards who recieved 17% of the vote in Diebold towns compared to 17.6% in non-Diebold towns. That still doesn't make up for the extra 2% vote Clinton is receiving when she leads in certain towns compared to when Obama has the lead.

Update II: Another thing to keep in mind when looking at these statistics is that the Diebold machines create a 7 point difference (+4.5 for Clinton, -2.5 for Obama) which is exactly what the polls had been predicting. Again, I'm not explicitly stating there has been fraud, but in a supposed democracy such as ours, skepticism is a virtue and necessity.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5540

Sourced from: The Contrarian - by Ben Moseley

http://benmoseley.blogspot.com/2008/01/do-nh-primary-statistics-show-election.html

[tritsofme]

5. Many people here refuse to admit defeat or that they are not in the majority on every issue.

So any time one of their candidates loses, their only explanation is voter fraud.

[spotbird]

8. No, Bush really did cheat

in Ohio and Florida, there isn't much doubt about that. It doesn't matter that I despise him, he still wasn't honestly elected.

This reminds me of the voter id case which will be argued before the Supreme Court today. There is no fraud which id will prevent, the issue is entirely invented. So long as Republicans distract about that, the real election integrity issues are ignored.

Election manipulation is real, but charges like this discredit it. Some thing's up, we'll have to wait to find out what it is.

[L. Coyote]

12. Same old tired BS this stuff, new election is all. It helps cover up certain other

elections by drawing the attention. The attention may serve to drive a wedge between candidate camps, to make some think their candidate was cheated, to spread distrust of elections generally, to disrupt generally.

Your perspective raises this question: "Is this the sort of thing to expect BECAUSE they cheated in certain elections in the past?"

[ORDagnabbit]

27. easy way to tell...its a small state...hand recount

[riqster]

14. Waiting isn't good enough

... because it presupposes the existence of some other entity coming along to fix it. No such animal. We the people have to make it happen.

Like I said elsewhere, I am guessing that HRC won, but if we don't look at our election system in the primaries, the Reeps will use it to steal the general.


NH is a good test case: Small state, paper trail available, an alternative tabulation mechanism in some areas. Perfect laboratory for sniffing out fraud or errors in human or cybernetic arenas. The outcome of this race is not the only reason for the exercise.

[Karenina]

19. Bingo.

[XOKCowboy]

39. Wow spoken like every Repubican I talked to after '04... nt

[Der Blaue Engel]

15. Perhaps it's to set up their sudden belief in election fraud come November

if the Democrat (especially it's Hillary) wins.

They will suddenly become the biggest believers in black-box election fraud you've ever seen and they'll take to the streets the way this country should have when the real fraud was committed. That's what I'm afraid of. :(

[nashville_brook]

16. an opaque, proprietary system generates these problems. we'll never have clean and fair elections

until they are transparent and open.

[Emit]

18. What source did the allegations originate from? n/t

[spotbird]

22. Bev Harris. nt

[KoKo]

29. Lori Price at Citizens for a Legitimate Government posted about it too, though...

It's up over at Buzzflash with the link.

[KittyWampus]

23. You're the one with the red herring. No one is saying FRAUD. Some are poining out issues

with both electronic voting AND the polls last night.

It's possible to discuss the fact that electronic voting is hackable and also if there were oddments in polling data yesterday in NH.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

35. Denial.

Same reason people were accusing Obama of bussing in people from out of state to vote in Iowa.

[spotbird]

36. Link please? nt

[Perry Logan]

37. I'll have to admit, Diebold is a red flag ANYWHERE. I think NH should be thoroughly investigated.

[uppityperson]

40. For me it shows that the problems haven't been fixed.

That is all.

[ThePhilosopher04]

41. Because it stinks to high heaven...

not sure what Clinton supporters are afraid of if they truly felt it was a legitimate vote.