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Vote Recount to Settle Doubts?
By Kim Zetter
Wired News
Wednesday 17 November 2004
A vote recount in New Hampshire on Thursday could shed light on anomalies with election results in that state, voting activists say. And if the recount finds problems with voting machines there, it could open the way for recounts in other states, such as Florida.
Presidential candidate Ralph Nader requested the recount, which will include only a small percentage of voting districts in the state where anomalies appeared in the election results. New Hampshire uses a combination of traditional paper ballots and optical-scan machines -- where voters mark a paper ballot with a pen before officials scan it through an electronic infrared reader. The anomalies occurred mostly in districts that used optical-scan machines.
Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese said the campaign was closing up shop and paying off its debts when it received several requests to look at data from a number of New Hampshire voting districts. "There was enough to it that made it worthwhile to at least check it out," he said.
The data came from Ida Briggs, a Michigan voter with 20 years of experience as a software programmer, including eight years as a statistical analyst of databases for the telecommunications industry. Briggs compared this year's New Hampshire votes with those cast in 2000.
Most people would have expected John Kerry's performance at the polls this year to be similar to Al Gore's in 2000. And in 229 out of 300 voting districts, or wards as they're called in New Hampshire, that was the case. Kerry either matched the percentage of votes that Gore received in 2000 in those wards or did better than Gore. But in 71 wards, Briggs found, Bush did better in 2004 than he did in 2000.
When Briggs broke the 71 wards down by voting equipment -- separating wards into those that used traditional paper ballots and those that used optical-scan machines -- she discovered that 73 percent of the wards used optical-scan equipment, while only 27 percent used traditional paper ballots. Even more interesting was the breakdown per brand of voting equipment. New Hampshire wards used optical-scan equipment made by Diebold Election Systems and Election Systems & Software. About 62 percent of the wards with anomalous results used Diebold machines.
"Which is pretty high," Briggs said. "Especially in comparison to hand-counted paper ballots, which accounted for only 27 percent of the out-of-trend wards."
In one ward in the city of Manchester, the change was remarkable. In 2000, Gore beat Bush 49 percent to 48 percent. But this year Bush carried the ward with 53 percent of votes. In another Manchester ward where Gore won 52 percent to Bush's 44 percent in 2000, Bush won with 50 percent to Kerry's 49 percent this year.
"The numbers could be real," Briggs said. "But to be this dramatically outside of the trend raises some red flags."
Some people have explained away the numbers as a result of affluent Massachusetts voters moving to New Hampshire to take advantage of its tax system. These transplants would be more likely to vote for Bush. But Briggs thinks this is too anecdotal and shouldn't be used to dismiss the numbers.
"It's also anecdotal that urban voters tend to vote more liberal than rural voters, but in New Hampshire we see that trend reversed," she said.
Briggs said the wards with surprising numbers account for about 235,000 votes, at least 200,000 of which are in wards that used Diebold machines. This is significant because earlier this year, activists found security flaws in the Diebold counting software that could allow someone with access to the system to alter votes.
But Briggs stressed that there was nothing to indicate fraud.
"My take is this could simply be a glitch. And if someone made a mistake, then it's an easy find," she said. "Thank God New Hampshire has a paper trail so we can just sit down and count the paper ballots."
Unlike states and counties using paperless touch-screen voting machines, New Hampshire passed a law in 1994 requiring all voting machines to produce a paper trail, so the paper can easily be used to verify the vote results.
But this isn't why Briggs chose to examine New Hampshire's machines. She chose the state because Kerry won there, with 50 percent of the votes to Bush's 49 percent, and people would be less likely to view her examination as a partisan tactic to overturn Bush's victory.
The recount will consist only of 11 wards, taken from a list of wards that Briggs supplied to the Nader campaign. Because state officials are already busy conducting 15 recounts in close local races, they will only be able to count five of the wards Thursday and will do the remaining six wards at a date to be determined.
Nader paid a $2,000 deposit to secure the recount and will have to pay an additional amount once the state determines the full cost, though it isn't expected to cost much more. If the 11 wards indicate problems with the machines, Nader officials will likely ask to widen the recount to include 44 wards.
Nader spokesman Zeese said New Hampshire officials have been very cooperative. He said his group also evaluated information about anomalies in Florida that were uncovered by a mathematician, but found no reason yet to call for a recount there.
"We're open-minded about looking at any evidence that raises suspicions that has legitimacy," he said. "But we're not going to just jump in and do a recount without reason." He said they looked at data showing that in Florida counties using optical-scan machines numerous Democrats had voted for Bush. But he concluded, as several academics did, that "it's not unusual," since many Democrats in Florida had been voting Republican for years.
But if the New Hampshire recount uncovers problems with the machines, the Nader campaign will consider seeking a recount in Florida, since the state uses many of the same Diebold and ES&S optical-scan machines as those in New Hampshire. The process in Florida, however, would be more complicated and expensive.
"New Hampshire makes it very easy to ask for a recount. But Florida requires you to file a lawsuit. You have to get a court order," Zeese said. "And we need to have a compelling reason to request a recount."
Briggs said that interesting data has also shown up in Ohio and New Mexico, though she has not yet been able to examine all of the figures she needs from those states. She said states vary in the level of data they make public and that finding numbers for individual voting districts rather than for whole counties has so far been difficult to do in Ohio and New Mexico. But at least two candidates are already seeking a recount in Ohio.
Anthony Stevens, New Hampshire's assistant secretary of state, said he thinks the recount in his state is a good thing.
"It will put people's minds at ease," Stevens said. "It will assure (voters) that things are being done right. It also may discourage any future tampering of the machines (if people see that the machines will be examined). So it's a good check and balance of the process."
Both Zeese and Briggs said whatever the recount results, the outcome would be positive.
"It will either show that there wasn't a problem with the machines or we'll find a problem and raise issues that need to be raised," Zeese said.
"Whenever there is even a perception that there is a problem, then there is a problem," Briggs said. "If people are raising questions then by God you sit down and you prove it so nobody has to take anyone's word for it. Why have four years of bitterness and doubt?"
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No kidding, Elvis Baby! He'd probably advocate nuking the red states...........
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