Jan 17th, 2008
Undressing Diebold: Disparities in New Hampshire Recount
Disparities between the hand-counted ballots and the Diebold Accuvote optical scanner electronic voting machine count are already surfacing in this the first day of the Democratic recount. The Secretary of State recount page has an on-line tally of the recount. While the results are consistent in some Wards when comparing the hand versus machine count, the disparities are occurring at alarming rates in many Wards and to all candidates from Paul to Obama, Clinton to Romney, throwing the election results further into doubt.
The republican candidates listed at the end of the tally received write-in votes on democratic ballots. So the votes are few for the write-in Republicans in comparison, but one can’t help to notice the disparity between the machine count vs. hand-counted ballots for Ron Paul. In an ironic twist though, Dennis Kucinich, who requested the partial Democratic recount, has fewer votes with the hand-recount.
The recount in Manchester’s Ward 5 revealed Clinton and Obama gained a 10% bump, and Edwards a 15% bump with the Diebold count. Further review of the data from Hillsborough County shows Ron Paul gains 13 votes with the hand-count. With 63 registered Democrats casting a write-in vote for Paul, that equates to a 20% increase over the machine count in this county when the ballots are hand-counted. Although this is a very small sampling, the irregularities being uncovered should command the attention from the voting public.
Albert Howard and Dennis Kucinich, the presidential candidates who filed for the recount, are asking for ground support and people with cameras to document the recount efforts at all precincts. The donations and the support from many concerned citizens worried about our election integrity have made this recount possible and despite it almost being stymied. Paypal froze the account of the donors and the Secretary of State Gardner almost rejected the request incorrectly citing election law misunderstandings. But an anonymous donor ponied-up the entire re-count fee of $55,600 and Howard delivered it in time and it was accepted by Secretary of State Gardner for the Republican hand count. So far, perseverance, persistence and pure will has lifted those fighting for the will of the people and election integrity to overcome these roadblocks.
A concerned Albert Howard, among others, said “I’ve heard some reports that some of the seals were broken and the Republican ballots were there and weren’t supposed to be there unless I was there.”
Many suspicions surround not only the machines, but with the sole-source private contractor, LHS, and the chain-of custody questions, defective systems that many states recognize and have banned and memory card malaises, make a strong statement against these optical scanner electronic voting systems. The vulnerable memory cards used in New Hampshire’s Diebold machines are “missing” according to state officials.
Voting Rights attorney John Bonifaz said, “I’m very concerned that this is not a fully transparent process that is happening there.”
Bonifaz, “Says he was told by Secretary of State William Gardner that his office doesn’t get involved in tracking what happens to those memory cards. Some have reportedly been returned to LHS, and may have had their memory erased already,” reports Brad’sBlog.
“When you have a private company counting 80% of the votes, and you later learn that the memory cards are unaccounted for, you have a serious question about the transparency and accountability in that process,” Bonifaz said.
Federal law mandates that all materials from elections be preserved for 22 months thereafter. If the memory cards have been erased, LHS Associates, who it was revealed last week had hired a narcotics trafficker to a high-level executive position, could be facing criminal charges.
Bev Harris witnessed a majority of ballot boxes had 8 inch slits in their side. Election Defense Alliance’s Sally Castleman followed the boxes back to the ballot vault and also noticed the cuts. Read Bev’s report here. Bev Harris, who is also in New Hampshire assisting with the recount efforts, posted the following on Black Box Voting.org:
“We are finding in New Hampshire: the best of the best in MOST situations, but considerable naivety and in some areas, and an alarming and willful negligence.
Among the “best of the best” of New Hampshire situations:
(1) Beautiful, community oriented hand counted paper ballots in more than one hundred jurisdictions.
(2) Very democratic and participatory township structure of government, combined with very high level of representation of local areas in the state legislature
(3) Amazing level of responsiveness of public officials. Secretary of State Bill Gardner, for example, answers questions personally and tirelessly from just about everyone. Many, many high level officials perfectly willing to talk with and answer all questions from the public.
(4) Beautiful, participatory 100% hand counted recounts.
(5) Very good public records laws. If they have it in their possession, they let you see it THAT DAY. Along those lines, Paddy Shaffer did a hand written records request today which elicited some very good information. The dream team here is in the process of editing another request as I write this.
On the almost schizophrenically BAD side:
(1) A reckless reliance on a sole source private contractor. Not particularly bothered that the company has private chain of custody during critical points, no policy or even apparent concern with having convicted felons involved in the voting system.
(2) Use of a system with known defects without even taking any mitigation steps that other states took.
(3) NO REQUIREMENT to even save the memory cards. The explanation is that they get a disk with the “program” on it. VotersUnite attorney Jon Bonifaz questioned the assistant attorney general on this closely today, because federal law requires records retention of 22 months on electronic media.
New Hampshire has a haphazard policy of allowing the memory cards to be kept, or not, with a chain of custody, or not, shipping back to LHS, or not, and it’s perfectly okay with New Hampshire if the memory cards are erased altogether the day after the election. They profess to believe that if they just have LHS ship them a disk containing some purported program — BEFORE the election, when there aren’t even any votes registered — everything is okay. No one could tell us if this is the memory card program, or the GEMS database file, or the optical scan chip. They seem to have no idea what they are doing with this and I would call this willful ignorance, not naivety.
(4) Lack of documentation and lack of diligence on keeping documentation or written procedures in key areas
(5) Ballot chain of custody procedures with major holes and a few very creepy areas that will be the subject of a future article.
The upshot will be that New Hampshire could be the role model for the nation, but not until they purge themselves of a limited number of very significant problems.
The problem with chain of custody: You can have a strong, beautiful, stainless steel chain but if one link is broken, the rest doesn’t matter. ”
11 Responses to “Undressing Diebold: Disparities in New Hampshire Recount”
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Albert Howard pulls through with a fat donation in the nick of time - and Kucinich is losing votes! The only word that comes to mind is “Wacky”.
This whole re-count thing looks like it could uncover, at the very least a few mistakes in the original count.
Is this Albert guy like some sort of guy riding in on a white horse or something? I’m just glad to see that somebody is still interested in elections with PAPER ballots. But will this bit of errors and mistakes and BS get out to the mainstream? Not likely. And if it does you watch, it will be spun. I’m waking up. How about you?
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