Uh ... recount what, now?

[unixronin]

So.  NH primary, right?  McCain comes out of it on top of the Republican ticket, Hillary Clinton tops the Democratic ticket with 39% of the vote, with Barack Obama just behind her at 36% (or 37%, depending who you ask and which way they rounded the numbers).  WAAAAY behind both of'em, Dennis Kucinich is in fifth place with 1% of the vote, only fourteen hundred votes ahead of the total write-in candidates.

So now Kucinich wants a recount.

...Say WHAT?

Seriously now.  He'd have to triple his vote count just to get within reach of fourth place.  What on earth could he possibly hope to get out of a recount?

But then you dig a little further ...

In a letter dated Thursday, Kucinich said he does not expect significant changes in his vote total, but wants assurance that "100 percent of the voters had 100 percent of their votes counted."

Kucinich alluded to online reports alleging disparities around the state between hand-counted ballots, which tended to favor Sen. Barack Obama, and machine-counted ones that tended to favor Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.  He also noted the difference between pre-election polls, which indicated Obama would win, and Clinton's triumph by a 39 percent to 37 percent margin.

So wait a minute here.  Kucinich wants a recount not because he thinks he got shorted, but becuase he thinks Obama got shorted?  Are we supposed to be concluding from this that even other Democratic candidates (well, Kucinich, at least) are watching the primaries and muttering "Anyone but Clinton, anyone but Clinton"?

Comments

[nephthys510.livejournal.com]

That's jumping to conclusions. or projecting....

Polling was very different from the vote outcome. All the media were screeching about "surprise win" for Clinton - because polling put Obama way ahead of her.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

It'd be far, far from the first time actual election results have shown the pollsters to be smoking crack. I'd say the result is WELL within their demonstrated margin of error.

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

There is some concern. And Kucinich wants the numbers to be right. He knows Obama won't press for a recount - I've "lost" this round, let's move on to the next state. But Kucinich really wants to make sure there was no hankie pankie which Diebold has been notorious for before.
Diebold, who makes those machines, actually had More Votes in some Ohio districts vote for Bush than the district had registered voters back in 2004. It wasn't worth a court fight then, but there is much concern.
And if Diebold can be proven to be messing with the numbers, again, they may find all their machines pulled before the General Election, where the damage would be much worse.
It would be nice to Verify that the right number of votes go to the Right Person. And if that can't be done, Ring All the Alarms Now, before we end up with another Republican President we didn't vote for.

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

By the by, since NH proportions the delegates by the percent of vote received, and they have have only a small number of delegates, the delegate swing is only 1, again a good reason for Obama not to spend the energy.
FYI - Delegate count (last I heard) Obama - 25, Clinton - 24, Edwards - 18. Or why Edwards is Not Leaving the race yet. He still has some clout and some hope!

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

But New Hampshire doesn't use Diebold machines. I physically put my ballot into the optical scanning machine with my own hand, and it was not a Diebold machine.

[skellington.livejournal.com]

The folks over on the forum pointed out that in at least one case, one candidates vote was left off (Ron Paul had 0 votes in one district) in the final report and that the processing end of the optical scan machines are subject to tampering on the results-generation-side.

Doing a manual recount would guarantee that nothing happened, which probably isn't a bad idea (especially if it doesn't happen as part of random spot-checks automatically).

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

True, it can't hurt. Sad that it comes to this, though, with recounts being routinely demanded almost as a matter of course. It sort of makes you feel like you're living in a third-world banana republic.

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

You are sort of correct, Diebold, having caught h*ll in 2004, spun off their Voting Machine Division and call it something else now. Same idiots are in charge though.
Luckily, the optical ballots do allow a manual recount, but as was pointed out in another post, irregularities are already being found.
The thing is to Make Sure these suckers are counting fairly for the General Election. Now is the Time to challenge them. Not after the next Republican claims the White House.