Primary recount continues with minor changes
By TOM FAHEY
State House Bureau Chief
Friday, Jan. 18, 2008 Share on Facebook
CONCORD – A recount of 35,000 Democratic presidential primary ballots has yielded minor changes in totals, Secretary of State William Gardner said late yesterday.
Dennis Kucinich, who requested the recount and paid $27,000 toward covering its nearly $70,000 expense, has actually lost one vote so far. He received a total of 3,901 votes statewide.
Gardner said he'll continue recounting ballots in Hillsborough and Rockingham counties -- home to just over half the state's voters -- until he is close to having spent all the money Kucinich has paid.
"We'll stop at that point and see what's next," he said. So far, 12 of 17 precincts that were recounted showed no change in totals.
A Republican recount will follow the Democratic one, Gardner said. Even though a $55,600 check from fringe candidate Albert Howard was a day late, he said he decided, "We're gonna do it." Gardner does not want to interrupt the Democratic recount to start on the GOP side, so he'll wait until Kuchinich calls it off, or the recount is complete.
Kucinich spokesman Emmanuel Krasner said the campaign's plan is to "go as far as funds allow." He said Kucinich asked for the recount when it appeared machine-counted results were "distinctly different" from towns with hand-counted ones, and the fact that exit polls varied so widely from counted results.
"Congressman Kucinich is not one to back away from getting an answer to a question," he said.
So far, Krasner said, "results seem to be bearing out with slight ups and downs, but we'll know more when we have a broader survey."
The widest variations so far were in Manchester's Ward 5. Vote counters there mistakenly transposed write-in votes for vice president as votes for presidential candidate. As a result, all major candidates lost votes. Kucinich lost three in the ward and has a total of 20 votes there. Hillary Clinton lost 64 with a new total of 619; John Edwards lost 38 and has 217 votes; Barack Obama lost 39 and has 365, and Bill Richardson lost seven, leaving him 39.
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Guilty or not if the Republican votes are not recounted then the politicos will be deemed guilty through evasion.
- Tomas Estrada-Palma, Davidsonville, MD
The organization that watches voting integrity Black Box Voting says “New Hampshire primary discredited and unrecoverable”.
"Ballot boxes found slit; NH stops putting ballots in vault…"
Further they state that "The vote-riggers don’t even care if we see them rigging the elections; they are convinced you are too afraid to ever do anything about it."
This is nothing to be proud of. If this can happen here, what of the other states? Where are our representatives on this?
- Jane Aitken, Bedford, NH
From UL article 1/11 regarding Kucinich recount request: "Serious and credible reports, allegations, and rumors have surfaced in the past few days," Kucinich said in a statement on his Web site. "It is imperative that these questions be addressed in the interest of public confidence in the integrity of the election process and the election machinery -- not just in New Hampshire, but in every other state that conducts a primary election."
So if not just in NH, then where are the recount requests for other states that have voted? After all, they are using the same or similar machines as us, correct? If the answer is that the request is more about the poll disparity, then what about the fact that polls were showing an upturn in Clinton's numbers? If the primary had been held a day or two later, perhaps the polls would have more closely matched the results. Then again, with all the undecideds, maybe not.
I'm OK with a recount to validate our process, but I also think that someone's just frothing at the bit to find anything that - in their eyes - invalidates it. I truly hope I'm wrong; will wait for the full results...
- Shelly, Manchester
Minor Changes?!
Please people if you interested in whats really going on visit blackboxvoting.org for more information. Becuase the only information youll see here is what the Secretary of State tells you.
You have to seek the truth always...
- Seth, Stratham
Karin, incorrect vote totals aren't limited to machines. Over the years there were miscounts in vote count by hand.
After 35,000 ballots have been counted and each Clinton, Obama and Edwards vote totals off by the exact same total (-12) I don't think anyone should complain.
When you take 550,000 people it don't matter if the count is by hand or machine the vote totals will always be a little off.
New Hampshire's process has been vindicated.
- Travis, Brooklyn, NY
The current recount results are at the Secretary of State website:
http://www.sos.nh.gov/recountresults.htm
- Kevin Craig, Lancaster
I find the title of this article skewed. I think you should post the results by precinct and let people make up there own mind. When I saw the actual numbers I was shocked that the majority of the recount numbers did not match. The point of all this is not the totals, not any change in the ranking, not more or fewer delegates, not even fraud – IT IS A FAIR VOTE COUNT FOR ALL ELECTIONS (there is no hope without that). We rely on machines to be accurate 100%, not marginally. More precincts have errors then match. If ATM machines can be accurate why can't our voting machines?
- Karin Copley, Ponchatoula, LA
Ron Helwig, you didn't read the story. The big change was NOT a machine error, either intentional or bad programming. It was a human error in how to deal with VP votes, when the humans were writing down the machine totals. Other smaller changes come because the machines sometimes can't read marks where a voter doesn't completely fill in the circle, or if there are stray marks on the paper.
You have a good point about open source for computer voting. These machines aren't that complicated.
Next time, go to your precinct (or a nearby one, if yours don't use scanners) and watch them open the machines and read out and record the totals. It's public and open, and there are usually people there from both parties.
- Betsy, Providence, RI (formerly Manchester)
So what we have learned so far is that all of the post-primary hysteria about stolen elections, rigged votes, etc... have been found to be completely groundless. Obama fans are learning a harsh reality lesson that some people just do not like him as much as his supporters think they should.
- Tarc Meridian, Plymouth
The fact that 5 of the 17 precincts showed different totals shows that there is something seriously wrong with the machines.
We need to either use totally open source machines (hardware AND software) or not use machines at all. Any other choice is unacceptable, especially if we want to remain worthy of "first in the nation" status.
- Ron Helwig, Deerfield
Why arent you reporting that people on the democratic side actually voted for Ron Paul andJ .McCain?That is news too.You are not reporing the whole truth by a LONG SHOT
- Evangeline Wollmar, trrenton, maine