A possible unintended consequence of the NH recount:

[Freddie Stubbs]

What if the recount closely matches the machine count?

Won't it then be more difficult to convince people that the voting machines are flawed?

:shrug:

[maddiejoan]

1. Which is why one should pick one's battles

I don't expect to see any difference in the recount.

[papau]

2. the problem is not the machine per see -problem is no paper trail & no mandatory audit

[Freddie Stubbs]

15. There is a paper trail in NH -- They use paper ballots there

[JMDEM]

20. Yes, but those ballots CANNOT BE SEEN by you or me!

So what if they have paper ballots if no one can see them? What a sick joke!

The only way paper ballots can be seen is if a candidate challenges an election. And if the candidate has < 3% of the (possibly bogus) vote total, then he or she has to ante up thousands of dollars for the "privilege" of seeing the ballots.

You call that transparent? I sure don't.

[EFerrari]

21. The presence of those ballots seems to encourage some false sense

of security.

It was via just such ballots that the Ohio recount was corrupted, for one thing.

It cost us four more years of this homicidal regime.

[Vincardog]

3. Why not recount every machine used in this election before we throw in the towl in the fight

[rudy23]

4. Better to let them know we'll do it, and we'll do it again, no matter what anyone thinks

I'm tired of operating from fear of what people will think.

[chimpymustgo]

5. Swear to GOD!!! Are we worried the Rethugs won't put us on their buddy lists?

I don't give a rat's ass what they think of us!!!! I want a fair, transparent, verified election.

Our powder's so dry, it's damn-near unusable.

[whatdoyouthink]

6. We

Should Re-count Every Time - Not if Someone Request for it or not - because Some might want to challenge it? but don't want to be seen as winers ...plus at this point Do most of us Here - trust them?

I think anyone could live with the tiniest margin of error - but with things getting closer and in this day and age (Republican decade) no buddy should be wonder what if or wonder what happened (IE.. 2000 and 2004)

PS - I don't think a Democrats would do it, but Companies or supports might? never know? got to even watch are own = Keep them honest + then there will be no accusations, and bad blood between are own

[EFerrari]

7. Why would you have to convince anyone about the facts?

Isn't this a RW argument?

The facts are the facts.

New Hampshire has no idea how the vote came out. They use insecure machines and do no audit. They are idiots.

[philly_bob]

8. Maybe. But (a) it's educating people and (b) I don't want to wait til November.

(a) Distrust of machine votes was a fringe conspiracy-nut idea in 2005. Now it is widely considered possible that machine votes are unreliable. Even long-standing and influential skeptic Farhad Manjoo of Salon has (kind of) come around.

(b) Every time there is a divergence between pre-election polls, exit polls, and actual results -- and machines are involved -- I intend to make some noise. Get people looking at the election process. Maybe it can be fixed. My greatest fear is that the November 2008 election for president is one that no-one has any confidence in. Recession + Global Warming + Election Uncertainty = ?????.

[kster]

9. ---

:thumbsup:

[OnTheOtherHand]

11. Manjoo was an early critic of the machines

Here is one of his first pieces at Salon: Voting Into the Void.

It's quite amazing that Manjoo ended up as the enemy for some people. He didn't change, as far as I can tell.

[philly_bob]

13. He was critical of machines -- but he consistently denied any effect on vote.

Consider these:

http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2004/11/10/voting/

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/03/kennedy/

Which made his writing especially frustrating. He knew the problems with machines,
but he ridiculed the idea that actual American elections were influenced by these
problems. And so we got eight years of George Bush.

He marginalized those who pointed to the possibility of election machine fraud.

Do we know what happened in Ohio in 2004? No. And in large part it's because of election fraud denialists like Manjoo.

I believe in Manjoo's latest article, he admits he has changed. He now says he grudgingly supports hand-counted paper ballots. That's a huge change!

[OnTheOtherHand]

14. he followed the evidence honestly

Maybe you found that frustrating, but maybe you needed better evidence. If you think that 2000 and/or 2004 were stolen on hacked machines (or whatever it is you are saying), you need to convince people of that -- not just point to "problems with machines."

He marginalized those who pointed to the possibility of election machine fraud.

Maybe you aren't aware of your semantic equivocation here, but I am painfully aware, because I have had much this conversation so many times before. Manjoo, as far as I can tell, has been entirely consistent in arguing that election machine fraud is feasible, along with many other kinds of election fraud. In the first article, he said that the 2004 election saw its share of fraud, and carefully quoted David Dill on the need for close scrutiny; in the second article, he wished for "an earnest exploration of the issues in order to finally shed some light on the problems we face in elections, and a call to urgently begin repairing our electoral machinery." You got a problem with that?

What Manjoo did was to point out that specific fraud theories didn't stand up under scrutiny. If you can rebut him, go for it.

The truth is that people -- even RFK Jr. -- who make crap arguments marginalize themselves. Folks can complain about left-wing gatekeepers until doomsday, but it would be a whole lot more efficient and effective to get things right. RFK Jr. in many ways didn't, and Manjoo called him on it. Maybe you think Manjoo should have left it alone because RFK Jr. is on our side. I don't.

[philly_bob]

16. For me, it's about 2008 and after, not about 2000/2004 controversies.

If you think that 2000 and/or 2004 were stolen on hacked machines (or whatever it is you are saying), you need to convince people of that -- not just point to "problems with machines."

No I don't. I just want to jump up and down and shout that there are "problems with machines." Really. Because I want to reform America's election procedure for the future.

You do the same thing Manjoo did. You acknowledge problems with election procedures -- and then heap scorn on the idea that these problems actually affected the outcome of elections.

I don't understand Manjoo's certainty about the election of 2004. I have doubts. Lots of smart people have doubts -- call them "crap arguments" if you must. It deserves to be repeated: No-one knows the outcome of machine-counted elections which are vulnerable to technical skullduggery.

Anyway, note that Manjoo is now calling for hand-counted paper ballots, because (paraphrasing) these same arguments will pop up every time there is a close election. Do you agree with him? If so, then you and I completely agree on what's important.

The election-fraud controversies following the 2004 election were unpleasant -- even last week's discussion of New Hampshire caused a bruising split at DU -- but if we eventually move to hand-counted paper ballots, then those bitter controversies, both for journalists and left-wing gatekeepers, will be forgotten as a difficult but necessary episode in the history of democracy.

We'll be able to know the outcome of elections, without the cloud of machine-fixing.

Do you want to go into 2009 with Recession, Peak-Oil, Climate Change -- and half of America thinking the election was stolen?

[OnTheOtherHand]

17. excellent, that can work

but it won't work as well if you misrepresent other people's positions, as I think you did here.

then heap scorn on the idea that these problems actually affected the outcome of elections.

I'm quite sure I didn't do that, because I'm confident that machine problems determined the outcome in FL-13 in 2006. Possibly New Mexico in 2004. And so on.

I say we have to evaluate specific arguments, not just a general "idea." I've put a lot of time into evaluating specific arguments, as Manjoo did. It's as if X said Bush is a space alien's love child, Y disagreed, and then Z accused Y of heaping scorn on the idea that Bush is not to be trusted. Absolute non sequitur.

RFK Jr. served up some terrible arguments, and I heap scorn upon them because they are terrible. That's all. We should not make terrible arguments; we should not defend terrible arguments; we should not be codependent with respect to terrible arguments. Reality will serve us better.

Manjoo calls for routine random audits, as I also have called (and worked) for routine random audits. I don't know off-hand whether he has used the word "audit" before, but it doesn't seem like a big change in position. (He expressly did not call for 100% hand counts in every election.)

[philly_bob]

19. Cool.

Scorn WAS heaped, my friend, on allegations of election fraud, both on DU and in the mainstream media.

Maybe you didn't heap scorn. In my opinion, Manjoo did, in the tone of his earlier writing. He certainly has not established himself (at this point in his career) as the go-to guy for perspective on election reform issues. I canceled my subscription to Salon because of his obtuseness.

You say that "I'm confident that machine problems determined the outcome in FL-13 in 2006. Possibly New Mexico in 2004." Wow. If you believe that, then I definitely misrepresented your position, and I'm sorry. I thought you were a blanket fraud-denier. I wonder if Manjoo believes the same thing.

I've enjoyed this discussion, and would encourage you to share your thoughts on how to evaluate charges of election fraud. Especially when the NH recount results come out in about a month.

[OnTheOtherHand]

22. oh, I'm sure it was

People tend to lump things together. So it goes.

You say that you found Manjoo obtuse, but you haven't yet stated anything you disagreed with him about. Maybe it was a Gestalt conflict? Regardless, I wasn't nominating him as the go-to guy for perspective on election reform issues. He was interested in the tech angle, and he got mad at people whom he thought were muddying the waters. I agree, in fact (and Avi Rubin said something very similar in his book). But that is just one piece of the puzzle.

Whatever one agrees or disagrees with Manjoo about, I think it's important to understand that his articles were largely in reaction to other people's actions. Manjoo switched emphasis from solid critiques of voting vulnerabilities to acerbic rebuttals of bad arguments because people made bad arguments. Our actions have consequences. We can hope that the reporters will sort it all out for us and tactfully ignore the bad stuff -- although then, of course, some folks would be howling that the MSM is suppressing the real story. So, we have to make smart choices.

(I bet Manjoo agrees that Jennings should have won in FL-13. I have no idea what he thinks or even knows about New Mexico -- maybe I knew once....)

When it comes to charges of election fraud prior to any opportunity to inspect ballots, my general caution is to do some historical analysis. Some folks tend to assume that things are unprecedented anomalies without looking at precedents. Since no one knows everything about elections, it takes a habit of mind to resist this temptation. (I've had people swear to me that exit polls have been accurate all their lives -- as if the results have been leaked on the Internet every election day afternoon since 1972.)

But if we got ballot security and auditing right, then a lot of those charges would be moot. I would love to nail down auditing. Actually, I need to go work on some of that right now.... See ya.

[galloglas]

10. NOPE! Absolutely not !!

[Blue Congress]

12. It's all good

They know we're watching now- at least we are making their job more difficult

[garybeck]

18. No. we have nothing to lose.

we've already had recounts that came out OK and we're all still alive. the results of one particular recount change nothing about the machines, or the independent reports and studies that prove beyond all doubt that they are prone to tampering and errors.

[riqster]

23. Here's the best rebuttal I can provide: