[ExI] FW: elections again (with new analysis)

[The Avantguardian]

--- spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> Is there any other internet chatter to this effect?  Seems this
> should
> become a SMIR, or Snowballing Massive Internet Rumor: that the voting
> machines miscounted the NH primary votes.  The implications are
> stunning.

I don't think this is a loony conspiracy theory, Spike. It is well
documented that the electronic voting system is easy to hack. Check out
this:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133214,00.html

Apparently a trained chimp can do it without the help of a conspiracy.
Although there is the question of motivation as in the video obviously
somebody supplied the bananas.
An interesting excerpt from the article:

begin->----------------
The Diebold central tabulators use a program called "GEMS" that saves
vote totals in Microsoft Access, a Windows-based database program.

GEMS (search) requires users to enter a password to access the vote
totals, but Harris showed that the totals can also be opened -- and
altered -- with Access, without ever running GEMS.

Because Access functions are already built in to the Windows operating
system, the totals could be altered even if a computer did not have
Access installed on it, said Herbert Thompson, a computer security
expert who teaches at the Florida Institute of Technology (search). He
demonstrated how to change vote totals with a six-line program in
Microsoft notepad, "a simple text editor" that comes with all copies of
Windows.
end->-----------------

Even without stealth code in the application, or as an autorun script
on a handful of flash cards from hefty districts, there are still many
opportunities for a single bad actor to alter election results. And if
you had a very short window of opportunity to alter the election
results, switching the names would require the least effort and would
not alter the vote count or seem obviously fake. Statistically data is
hard to fake but easy to misrepresent.

Take into account the discrepency of the exit polls from the actual
election results and there is a real possibility that something fishy
occured in New Hampshire. I get the willies everytime exit polls are
wrong.

>From what I know of statistics, as long as the data collectors are
selecting their respondants randomly, these surveys should be correct
to within their confidence interval. The least significance I think
that any statistician would design his poll to reflect would be 95%. In
other words the maximum chance that the exit polls are wrong is 5% and
they should only be off by a small margin.

Therefore to have candidates declared the winner by exit surveys
reported in the media, only to have their results overturned by the
"official" vote count in two consecutive presedential elections is
exceedingly unlikely. (Kerry vs. Bush, Ohio 2004) Using my conservative
estimate of 5% uncertainty outside the confidence interval, that is a
1/400 chance.

Add to this the fact that candidates from both parties are demanding
recounts (Ron Paul and Dean Kucinich) and you have a very reasonable
chance that there was fraud involved.

Somewhat disturbing is that the UN is apparently more concerned over
this than our own media is.
http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout5.php&id=4271&blz=1   

So in short, I wholeheartedly support your efforts to get to the bottom
of this anomaly. I for one think that every precint that uses the
voting machines should be required to take a small random sample of
hand counted paper ballots as well. This sample could be used to
validate the machine count. 

Here is a site that has useful election data:
http://checkthevotes.com/primary_dem_New_Hampshire-comparison




Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"Life is the sum of all your choices."  
Albert Camus


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