Dean got only ONE vote in Hampstead County, NH

[Eloriel]

Hampstead County votes on optical scan machines, as do what looks like about 1/2 of NH counties (see http://www.electionline.org/interactiveMap_result.jsp?state=NH&stateText=New%20Hampshire&topicText=Voting%20System%20Used&topic_string=22:votingsystemtypemain )

The results in Hampstead County were as follows:

Kerry...............575..........43%
Lieberman...........156..........12%
Clark...............150..........11%
Sharpton..............7...........1%
Edwards...............2...........0%
Dean..................1...........0%


And in Guilford County, Dean got NO votes, and neither did anyone else except Lieberman, who got 115 votes. (See
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/primaries/pages/counties/NH/index.007.html ) I don't, however, know whether they use optical scan or paper.

Also of interest is that the percentages reported during the evening stayed fairly static throughout, despite the fact that there was quite a difference among various counties' results. Dean, for example, won quite a few counties. It's fascinating how the reports coming in could consistently add up to Kerry at 38-39% and Dean at 24-25 (I think he may be at 26% now). I don't recall watching other elections (except the Iowa caucuses just past) where the percentages stayed nearly totally static throughout.

[ProudToBeLiberal]

1. hmmm

this is interesting

[meisje]

4. Here we go

At one point, I saw Dean go up 2 points while Kerry stayed the same, where does that leave your theory?

[hellhathnofury]

6. That's kinda weak. There's something wrong here.

[Rose Siding]

2. That kind of Joe-mentum sure is hard to believe...

PRECINCTS
Gilford
updated: 9:51 p.m.,
January 27 Kerry 0 0% 100% reporting
Lieberman 115 96%
Clark 0 0%
Dean 0 0%
Edwards 0 0%
Kucinich 0 0%
Sharpton 0 0%

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/primaries/pages/counties/NH/index.007.html

[Zynx]

5. Something's wrong.

[SOS]

24. Hampstead is not a county

it is a small town.

[seaglass]

27. So is Gilford, an even smaller town.

[Hoppin_Mad]

3. Very fishy ! Recount ! -nt-

[ProudToBeLiberal]

7. email it to the dean campaign

and post it on the blog.

[Rose Siding]

8. Is there a state site with these figures?

Maybe it's a cnn glitch.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

9. Even Sharpton beat him. Hmmmm.

[ButterflyBlood]

10. um, where are these counties?

are NH counties subdivided or something?

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/maps/new_hampshire_map.html

[goobergunch]

29. They are towns (n/t)

[tridim]

11. I'd like to see the Hampstead County exit polling results

They would tell the story.

[blm]

12. Dean and Edwards should protest if they thinks its wrong.

You did notice that Edwards only got 2, didn't you?

[AP]

13. NH is pretty homogenous. It's not like CA or NY where different

counties would produce vastly different results.

But I am interested in those low counts in the optical scan counties.

[creativelcro]

21. not true: look at the numbers by town.

3 counties out of 10 went Dean. Quite variable.

http://www.boston.com/news/special/politics/2004_results/

[ButterflyBlood]

14. well the results have changed now:

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/primaries/pages/counties/NH/index.009.html

RACE
STATUS
CANDIDATE
COUNTY VOTE
VOTE %
PRECINCTS
Hampstead
updated: 11:25 p.m.,
January 27

Kerry
575
43%
100% reporting
 
Dean
287
21%
 
Edwards
158
12%
 
Lieberman
156
12%
 
Clark
150
11%
 
Sharpton
7
1%
 
Kucinich
6
0%

[SadEagle]

15. Supposedly "fixed" now:

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2004/1/28/3311/70772/34#34
" The Hampstead results have been changed. Dean now has 287 votes and Edwards 158". There are some other posts on dkos about that. They likely reversed some candidates

[Warpy]

16. That accounts for 70% of the vote

Who got the other 30%?

[ProudToBeLiberal]

17. gilford needs to be fixed now... nt

[ProudToBeLiberal]

18. kick

[KoKo]

19. Kick........interesting.

:kick:

[creativelcro]

20. Eloriel: good points! The stability concerned me as well

given the geographical variability. here is a link to the numbers by town:
http://www.boston.com/news/special/politics/2004_results/

[Merlin]

22. Damn good catch. This has GOT to be pursued.

Can some enterprising reporter go out to that county and find just 2 people who voted for Dean in the primary? It would be a national news story in absolutely no time flat!

Call CNN. They probably still have troops on the ground there.

[no name no slogan]

23. Should be checked, BUT

as someone who lives in a state where optical scan machines have been in use for over a decade, I can attest that they are accurate.

I doubt it was the machines at fault-- they may be electronic, but they read off a PAPER ballot. They're very similar to those machine-read cards they used to use for standardized tests, the old "use a #2 pencil to fill in the box"-type cards.

If anybody is at fault, it could be the election judges. There could be some kind of tomfoolery going on there.

[Eloriel]

25. No, you can't

You can MAYBE attest to YOUR state -- but you absolutely cannot attest to NH.

Optical scan machines in use in FL in 2000 produced some very unusual results -- like a MINUS 16,000 votes that came through in one county for (or against, actually) Al Gore. Optical scan machines by Diebold use the same software their touchscreens use, and I think they're in use in NH too -- not in every town (not county, as I'd originally thought because that's what CNN's page calls them), but quite a few. The rest of the towns use paper.

There's something else. These machines are programmed to match state law, such as what to do with ballots overvotes or undervotes. In FL 2000, in heavily Dem precincts they were programmed to simply not count these but also to not reject them so the voter could re-do them or if later so they could be visually inspected and counted.

Also, if they're hooked up to phone lines or have wireless capability, realtime shifting of votes is not out of the question at all.

No, you can't attest to optical scan machines' accuracy at all. I prefer them because you at least have a paper record that definitely shows the voter's intent, but they're computerized and subject to the same possible errors and potential fraud that touchscreens are.

[LizW]

30. Optical scan machines can screw up

They did in Baldwin County, Alabama in the 2002 Election for governor. Feeding optical scan ballots through machines there gave three significantly different counts (7000 votes difference). At least that is what Republicans claim happened, no Democratic election watchers were present when the votes were allegedly re-tallied after midnight on election night. Although the difference was more than enough to change the outcome of the election, the Republican attorney general blocked a recount of the actual paper ballots.

To this day, everyone shrugs their shoulders and calls it a "computer glitch". There has never been any explaination of how it happened and whether it could happen again.

[seaglass]

26. So the conclusion is that Lieberman fixed the election

in Gilford?

[Eloriel]

28. LOL -- That's certainly not MY conclusion -- is it yours?

In fact I don't HAVE a conclusion -- I only have questions.

[seaglass]

31. So this thread is just a lot of innuendo.

What exactly is the question?

Do we question the results of every town that uses optical scan no matter what the outcome; or only the ones in which Dean lost?

[creativelcro]

32. Some numbers to look at (no innuendo, NUMBERS)

I've crunched a few numbers, just to see... I created a vector of towns with a 1 for towns that have optical scan machines and a 0 for standard paper ballots. I created another vector with a 1 if Kerry's numbers were higher than Dean's numbers (not even taking into account the magnitude of win) and 0 otherwise.

There are 237 data points. The correlation is about 0.36, highly significant (p<.0001) http://faculty.vassar.edu/lowry/ch4apx.html . This means, that towns with optical scan machines had a much higher chance to go Kerry than Dean. It may be a coincidence (e.g., there may be other factors that correlate with voting method distribution).
Perhaps worth looking into...

What do you think ?

[Merlin]

33. So what do we do now? Is this just gonna die here???

Can somebody get this to the Dean folks?

Can somebody get it to Bev Harris?

Can somebody call the NH media?

I'm working or I'd do it myself.

There is virtually NO CHANCE that this is an accurate count. If we give this a pass now, we are nothing!

On Edit:

I'm not saying this to try to alter the Dean outcome. That's history.

I'm saying it because it's a perfect opportunity to prove before the world that these machines have flaws and that an audit and recount mechanism is essential. All the Dean people have to do is find TWO DEAN VOTERS who will testify that they voted for Dean and we have a national news story on our hands.

Also, if we let the Diebold folks get away with it here, they're gonna walk all over us in Nov.

[genius]

34. Doesn't sound electable to me.

Perhaps we should go with a candidate people like. They seem to like Kerry. They would like Kucinich if they knew anything about him.

[Merlin]

35. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this vote count is WRONG.

It is beyond the realm of statistical probability that Dean--who should have received about 100 votes in this county--actually got only 1.

[NewHampster]

36. Uhh CNN doesn't know its geography

Those are not NH counties at all

[Uzybone]

37. Send it to Dean

if there is something to it then he will dig deep into it. If not then its nothing but rubbish.