Seriously, I like Obama, but endorsements from other politicians don’t mean much to me. They just want to be on the bandwagon. I guess it is a good indication of whose stock is up or down though.

I’m still not worried about NH, but I’ll be more aware going forward.

Ray, can you please cite any instances of optical scanners being decertified?

Prowers County voting scanners decertified

Decertification Effective 1/1/06

Voting Machines Used in N.M. Elections Decertified by CO Secretary of State due to programming errors and lack of security

among many, many others.

So if there were ever a recount—and there was after the 2004 election, when a survey of New Hampshire voting districts chosen by the Nader campaign showed there was virtually no difference between the scanned tabulation and the hand recount—the malfeasance would be easily discovered.

those districts were selected by Nader as the ones most likely to be wrong. And they weren’t. These aren’t touch screens. There’s no software to go wrong. They are paper ballots. Let Dennis have his recount. It’ll show the same result.

But please stop screaming fraud without a basis. It’s not enough to say “Diebold.” You need to have some basis in some irregularity. As I said, the exit polls support the differential wrt machine vs hand counts.

Bilbo, those results matched the exit poll results, which was my point at the outset. Both the ballots and the exit polls had Clinton winning in the machine counted areas, and Obama in the hand counted areas.

Got it. This is the piece I was missing. Thanks for sticking with me long enough to figure it out.

Ray, can you please cite any instances of optical scanners being decertified?

Optical scanners are absolutely routine devices. These aren’t touch screen machines with buggy (or hacked software). They scan the little ovals–the same way the SAT scanners do. And if you think the Mommies and Daddies sending their little boys and girls to Dalton would let THOSE not be right. you’ve got to reexamine your assumptions.

In fact, it’s my recollection that optical scans are more accurate than hand counts. A quick google returns this:

A report released last week by the University of Connecticut (UConn) Voting Technology Research Center (VoTeR Center) commends the Connecticut Secretary of State for her choice of optical scan voting technology to replace the state’s lever voting machines.

According to the report, optical scan voting technology is safer and more secure than other electronic voting technologies. UConn also emphasized the critical importance of tight physical custody procedures to ensure the reliability and accuracy of elections. The university has reviewed and approved the procedures put in place by the Office of the Secretary of the State to further safeguard the election process. Finally, UConn endorses Secretary Bysiewicz’s decision to conduct a random audit in the 25 towns that will be using optical scan voting machines on November 7th to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the machines.

The custody issue applies to paper ballots, of course. The disputed 1960s ballots were all paper ballots. For that matter, the optically scanned ballots are paper ballots.