posted
I suppose I could burn my vote by picketing the voting place. I'm just a republican in Maryland after all. My husband is unaffiliated, though. Does anyone know where to find out whether Maryland's primary is semi-open? I've looked around our state website.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Kucinich calls for NH recount and his campaign is putting up the money to do it. I mostly doubt the recount will find anything significant enough to change the results, but I'm glad the recount will be done either way.
quote:Originally posted by scholar: I think that it is very hard in our society to believe our voice makes a difference. I received tons of letters from my senator saying "Thank you for your opinion on this vote. I am voting the other way." Voting against her doesn't matter (for a while I thought the reason to vote was so I could proudly say "I have voted against every single person in office right now."). I think that our current system (with election districts designed for no close races) makes people feel powerless and therefore apathetic.
I get tons of letters (emails) from my senators and representative saying, "Thank you for your opinion on this, I co-sponsored the bill you are asking me to support, so we're all good!" In other words, "Yes, Kate, we know. We're on it."
quote:Originally posted by Enigmatic: Kucinich calls for NH recount and his campaign is putting up the money to do it. I mostly doubt the recount will find anything significant enough to change the results, but I'm glad the recount will be done either way.
--Enigmatic
I'm glad they are doing a recount. I'm also happy to see that New Hampshire has this backup in place. I wish my state would do that. I think we could all learn from NH -- the votes were questioned and they have a system to respond to that questioning. Many states do not have any paper trail and must accept the computer-generated results as fact.
And that's the real problem here. Rumors of voter fraud in NH aside, there have been serious allegations of problems with these voting machines and virtually no response to those allegations.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Interesting. About 500,000 votes to recount across a couple dozen cities. I'd actually think it wouldn't take a ridiculous amount of time.
I gotta say it's funny that Kucinich of all people is footing the bill, when the people who really have the most to gain are Obama and Paul, near as I can tell.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
recounts are generally politically tedius arent they not and can potentionally harms one campaign? If anything Kucinich is perfect as he probably knows he probly can't win and so can stick his neck out to make sure the political process is fair and not make the others look like their whinning.
posted
Recounting 500thousand votes could be done by a couple hundred counter&watcher pairs within a workday. An estimate of "weeks" just means that NewHampshire officials are extremely reluctant to finish the recount before the next set of primaries and caucuses, including TsunamiTuesday. An answer of "weeks" is more appropriate as an estimate of the time needed for a small handful of hacks to fill in a bunch of new ballots to replace some real ballots before turning them over to counters&watchers.
Kucinich has the least to lose from charges of "paranoia"; especially if the recount totally confirms the election day results. Which it will probably do, or come very close to doing. Nonetheless, whatever you may think of his policy stances, he does have the utmost respect for the processes of democracy. So when some voters start speculating about whether there is something fishy about the difference between pre-vote&exit polls and the election results, between hand-counted ballots and machine-counted ballots, it's hardly surprising that Kucinich is willing to take the heat for their benefit.
Paul has little to gain from a recount beyond greater airing of his views. When LePen got into a two-man runoff for the French presidency with Chirac, LePen found out that he had maxed out on the vote count when there were multiple candidates in the primary. Despite the fact that most of the French voting for Chirac had to pinch their noses. Similarly, most of Paul's policy positions are so out of sync with those of the overwhelming majority of Americans that he's maxed out, or close to.
However the person with the most to lose is Giuliani. A shift in his vote count downward or a shift in Paul's count upward (or a small shift in the appropriate directions of both) will have Giuliani finishing after Paul. Giuliani's already deferred payment of campaign staff salaries until after TsunamiTuesday on February5th because of a cash crunch. A loss to Paul will dry up new campaign contributions to an even smaller amount, and make more of his volunteers look for a stronger candidate. Lack of money for sufficient advertising would make a poor showing on TsunamiTuesday even more likely. Without major victories on TsunamiTuesday, Giuliani is effectively out of the race. A loss to Paul might even get Giuliani disinvited to future debates while ensuring that Paul will have a place behind the podiums.
Though less hurtful, McCain also has more than a bit to lose. The bump from an overwhelming NewHampshire victory has certainly helped his campaign, both in volunteers and contributions.....and in the polls. His campaign bus has turned into a private Boeing737. A smaller lead over Romney will boister Romney campaign supporters, as well as Huckabee's.
I'd suspect that most Thompson's financial "supporters" are backing him in hopes that his "good ol' southern boy" celebrity facade will draw votes away from Huckabee, and not because they hope that he wins the Republican nomination.
Considering the vote differential on the Democratic side, the most that Obama can hope for is a photofinish win (though unlikely). Which wouldn't help him that much. The media raised public expectations for him to win by more than a whisker. Or hurt Clinton that much: she was supposed to lose by more than a hair.
quote:31 can be human error. At best he might get one more delegate and his reputation could get soiled. Huckabee might get more. On the hand count comparison Paul was down 2% and Huckabee was down like 2.33% (not exact numbers).
I am a Paul supporter and I don't know there was fraud--at least wide spread fraud.
What Paul said:
quote: ...
Without a firm belief that vote fraud had taken place, and without the possibility that a recount would have increased the chances for success of our campaign, a recount would have diverted campaign resources, time, and energy away from crucial battles elsewhere.
...
The numbers our caucus watchers reported agreed with the official tally, and both results also aligned with the campaign’s internal polling. In relatively pro-Paul counties, our sampling pegged support at 11.5%. This is consistent with an overall 10% finish for the entire state.
In New Hampshire, while I would have hoped for a better result than eight percent, I am convinced that vote fraud played no role in this result. Rumors of vote fraud were investigated, and in the end they proved to be the result of errors in early media reports that were not reflected in the official numbers.
...
Many have expressed concerns that those ballots counted by machine yielded a 2% lower total than those counted by hand. However, machine counted vote totals were more than 2% lower for both John McCain and Mike Huckabee. Hand counted votes were more likely to be cast in rural areas. Results almost always vary between urban and rural areas.
My campaign staff and I have analyzed the numbers in New Hampshire and I have reached the conclusion that it was the high turnout -- not vote fraud or counting errors -- that left us with eight percent of the vote. Our total vote count of over 18,000 votes was well within what we projected given the efforts of our extensive statewide get-out-the-vote program, giving me no reason to believe that vote fraud played any role in the results of the Granite State’s primary.
In both Iowa and New Hampshire there is much to be proud of. Taking both states together, I am honored that over 30,000 people cast their vote for me -- more than either Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson. Unlike many other candidates’ efforts, our campaign for freedom is growing and our message is spreading.
This should put the "Alex Jones and Ron Paul share the same belief" narrative to rest. Ron Paul doesn't believe 9/11 was an inside job, and we can trust him on that. Ron Paul doesn't believe the election is being stolen, despite Jone's repeated insistence that Paul play the victim.
Paul is a class act and I hope his ideas on being fiscally conservative and desire to promote change through trade instead of war "re"-finds a home in the republican party.
posted
Maybe he's not electable, but I think Paul's done some permanent good for the population of eligible and/or once-apathetic voters. He's really made the Republican party look like a bunch of clowns jumping on a bandwagon in these debates. I think there's some hope that an increasing number of people won't just settle for the status quo after this year.
Posts: 349 | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
pooka: I believe Maryland's election is closed. I'm from Maryland as well, though I'm living in Illinois now.
Ron Paul is the first politician I have ever given money to(just $30).
I know he'll never win, and I don't agree with some of his views to be sure, but we always need a voice of dissent, and Paul is dissenting in generally the right direction, in my opinion. We need to shake down the power structure of our society as often as possible.
The stances of the mainstream candidates do not differ except in ways that distract from what's important. Then there's the personality worship that the candidates try to make as important as possible to voters. They all support the current power structure of our country.
Whether or not it's Ron Paul, I don't care. The role he's filling is necessary, though.
Posts: 106 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I've never been in a district with electronic voting machines. As a computer scientist, though, I hope I never have to vote that way.
They corrupt human readability and physicality constraints on tampering. Data about voting disappears from human readability when entered and voting is finished, if there's no paper trail. There's no evidence that your vote exists, from the human sensory point of view. Likewise, data can not only be corrupted, but automatically, in milliseconds.
In a situation where human trust is paramount, electronic recording of votes alone will never be enough.
Posts: 106 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by scholar: I think that it is very hard in our society to believe our voice makes a difference. I received tons of letters from my senator saying "Thank you for your opinion on this vote. I am voting the other way." Voting against her doesn't matter (for a while I thought the reason to vote was so I could proudly say "I have voted against every single person in office right now."). I think that our current system (with election districts designed for no close races) makes people feel powerless and therefore apathetic.
I get tons of letters (emails) from my senators and representative saying, "Thank you for your opinion on this, I co-sponsored the bill you are asking me to support, so we're all good!" In other words, "Yes, Kate, we know. We're on it."
I love my district.
I wrote to Schakowski once asking her to vote against something, and she wrote back thanking me for my support and assuring me that she was definitely voting for it. I guess whoever was in charge of the form letters misread mine.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't know if everyone has forgotten about this, but The NH recount did not find much discrepancy.
So does everyone feel much better now?
Though I was listening to a talk show yesterday and I guess they were Thompson fans, calling in to say McCain is being set up as a fall guy because the powers that be have decided "it's Hillary's turn." I'm glad I'm not that nuts.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
they only counted some 40 percent of the votes so far.
IP: Logged |
posted
I'm confused on how there would be any discrepancy at all. 27 votes went to Clinton that should have gone to Obama. How does that happen? How do we know that those were the only ones?
Posts: 1314 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
40% or ~115thousand represents the number of ballots that Kucinich has already paid for to be recounted, and not the number of ballots already recounted. A full recount will cost him another $43thousand.
They've only recounted "thousands of ballots" of ~287thousand cast on the Democratic side of the primary. From normal usage, the "thousands" means more than 2thousand but less than 20thousand. Otherwise they would have used "tens of thousands"
And "Percentage-wise, the changes...are so small that they all get rounded down to zero" means a maximum error rate of less than 0.5%, ie less than 1error per 200ballots. "Barack Obama gained 27 votes and Dennis Kucinich gained three, while Hillary Rodham Clinton lost 27 and John Edwards lost four" means that at most 61ballots were miscounted. 61errors within a maximum rate of 1error per 200ballots means that a minimum of 12,200 ballots have been counted. So my best guess is that between 13thousand and 20thousand ballots have been recounted thus far.
However, since the newspaper is going out of its way to obscure the actual number that have been recounted, "...they all get rounded down to zero" could be misleadingly used as meaning each individual candidate's change shows less than 1error per 200ballots when compared to the combined total vote recount. With the vote recounts for Obama and Clinton each having individual errors of 27ballots, the minimum number of ballots recounted thus far could be as little as 1 ballot more than 200times27ballots, or 5401ballots.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Evil]](graemlins/evil.gif)
