Man from La Mancha
07-23-2007, 05:25 PM
Dean was leading both Iowa and New Hampshire before the primaries. Looks like possible vote fraud to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dean
Iowa results and the "Dean Scream"
On January 19, 2004, Dean's campaign suffered a blow when a last-minute surge by rivals John Kerry and John Edwards led to an embarrassing third-place defeat for Dean in the 2004 Iowa Democratic caucuses, representing the first votes cast in primary season. Dean had been a strong contender for weeks in advance in that state, battling with Dick Gephardt for first place in the polls. To the surprise of the Dean and Gephardt campaigns, Dean finished third in Iowa behind Kerry and John Edwards, with Gephardt finishing fourth. Since Dean had spent months leading Iowa tracking polls, his third-place finish was widely considered a sign that the campaign was losing momentum. Most analysts blamed intense negative campaigning between Dean and Gephardt as the reason for their losses. Many Dean supporters questioned whether allegedly unfair media coverage played a role in the result. The Atlantic Monthly’s Joshua Green reported that in early January, the Wesley Clark campaign had leaked information to the press showing Dean to be "unelectable." Though every campaign, including Dean's, sends negative information to the press about rival candidates, Green claims the media turned against both Clark and Dean. Other insiders attribute the loss to staff and supporters inexperienced with the caucus process.
On January 27 Dean again suffered a defeat, finishing second to Kerry in the New Hampshire primary. As late as one week before the first votes were cast in Iowa's caucuses, Dean had enjoyed a 30% lead in New Hampshire opinion polls; accordingly, this loss represented another major setback to his campaign.
It's been all downhill for Howard Dean since he lost the New Hampshire primary by a significant margin. But, now questions are being raised about the security of New Hampshire's voting system in the wake of a recent analysis of the election results. It could add up to nothing, but it does underscore how easily technology can be used to sabotage the voting process.
Only one company, Massachusetts-based LHS Associates, Inc., programs and services all of New Hampshire's optical (ballot) scanners. Only two manufacturers, GOP-friendly Diebold and ES&S, provide all of the state's scanning equipment. And only Microsoft's Excel software tallies the results of all of those machines. It looks like New Hampshire has put all its eggs in one basket.
However, New Hampshire is unusual. Unlike many states that allow ballot-less voting, in 1995 the New Hampshire legislature passed a law that requires paper ballots in all elections. Has this law made New Hampshire’s voting system any more secure? Twenty percent of the ballots are hand-counted, but 80% are optically scanned - a technology that has a long history of being highly vulnerable to election fraud, which is documented in various reports as well as in the book, VoteScam: The Stealing of Democracy.
Recently some people have been asking if the 2004 New Hampshire primary was rigged.
Martin Bento published online an interesting analysis of New Hampshire's election results based on the voting systems used. It's been getting a lot of attention. According to Bento, Howard Dean lost to John Kerry by only 1.6% when the ballots were hand-counted, 9.7% when ES&S optical scanners were used, and 14.7% on Diebold scanners.
That doesn't look good. On the other hand, pre-election and exit polls do seem to match the election results. Of course, polling organizations can be as partisan as think tanks, so their accuracy should always be suspect. The exit poll for the major news networks was done by (Warren) Mitofsky International and Edison Media Research (on whose board Mitofsky, the "father" of exit polling, sits). It's really a reconstituted version of the highly secretive and controversial Voter News Service. Curiously, Mitofsky's exit polls do not disclose their over-all results. Everything is broken down into subcategories. The people at Edison told me to ask Kathy Levine of ABC's World News Tonight for that information. Levine told me that I could "buy it" from Edison "like the major networks did." As if I could afford it. Well, there always seems to be something fishy going on with the networks and their election polls, something that's also documented in VoteScam.
Moving on. Others point out that geography was the real factor in how the New Hampshire vote count went down, that the more populated areas where optical scanners are more often used are closer to Massachusetts (Kerry Country). Whereas, the rural areas where hand-counts rule are nearer to Vermont (Dean Country). The problem with that analysis is that it's a 'guess' at best. The only way to really know for sure is to check the ballots. But, there seems to be little interest in doing that.
"We don't audit our elections," says New Hampshire's Assistant Secretary of State Anthony Stevens. Frankly, I don't know a state that does, although it sounds like a good idea. Stevens contends that the numerous hand recounts that the state has conducted over the years for contested elections, serve as a deterrent to machine tampering and ensure that the machines work properly. But, Stevens admits that he wants to examine the exit polling data to see if there's anything to Bento's analysis.
That begs the question, why not just check the ballots? Isn't that what they're there for? Reliance on questionable polling data is no substitute for examining the hard evidence of how people actually voted. State election officials say that they have never overturned an election due to a machine malfunction. But, that doesn't mean that it can't happen. And there are trillions of dollars at stake in this particular election. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb04/Landes0210.htm
Read and learn from Dean's triumphs in fund raising, an average of $80/person and his defeat by voting machines.
Deans fund raising bat help him raise millions. He raised $50 million.
http://www.img9.org/uploads/d27683356eb0887442fead645e556c1c.jpg
Iowa results and the "Dean Scream"
On January 19, 2004, Dean's campaign suffered a blow when a last-minute surge by rivals John Kerry and John Edwards led to an embarrassing third-place defeat for Dean in the 2004 Iowa Democratic caucuses, representing the first votes cast in primary season. Dean had been a strong contender for weeks in advance in that state, battling with Dick Gephardt for first place in the polls. To the surprise of the Dean and Gephardt campaigns, Dean finished third in Iowa behind Kerry and John Edwards, with Gephardt finishing fourth. Since Dean had spent months leading Iowa tracking polls, his third-place finish was widely considered a sign that the campaign was losing momentum. Most analysts blamed intense negative campaigning between Dean and Gephardt as the reason for their losses. Many Dean supporters questioned whether allegedly unfair media coverage played a role in the result. The Atlantic Monthly’s Joshua Green reported that in early January, the Wesley Clark campaign had leaked information to the press showing Dean to be "unelectable." Though every campaign, including Dean's, sends negative information to the press about rival candidates, Green claims the media turned against both Clark and Dean. Other insiders attribute the loss to staff and supporters inexperienced with the caucus process.
On January 27 Dean again suffered a defeat, finishing second to Kerry in the New Hampshire primary. As late as one week before the first votes were cast in Iowa's caucuses, Dean had enjoyed a 30% lead in New Hampshire opinion polls; accordingly, this loss represented another major setback to his campaign.
It's been all downhill for Howard Dean since he lost the New Hampshire primary by a significant margin. But, now questions are being raised about the security of New Hampshire's voting system in the wake of a recent analysis of the election results. It could add up to nothing, but it does underscore how easily technology can be used to sabotage the voting process.
Only one company, Massachusetts-based LHS Associates, Inc., programs and services all of New Hampshire's optical (ballot) scanners. Only two manufacturers, GOP-friendly Diebold and ES&S, provide all of the state's scanning equipment. And only Microsoft's Excel software tallies the results of all of those machines. It looks like New Hampshire has put all its eggs in one basket.
However, New Hampshire is unusual. Unlike many states that allow ballot-less voting, in 1995 the New Hampshire legislature passed a law that requires paper ballots in all elections. Has this law made New Hampshire’s voting system any more secure? Twenty percent of the ballots are hand-counted, but 80% are optically scanned - a technology that has a long history of being highly vulnerable to election fraud, which is documented in various reports as well as in the book, VoteScam: The Stealing of Democracy.
Recently some people have been asking if the 2004 New Hampshire primary was rigged.
Martin Bento published online an interesting analysis of New Hampshire's election results based on the voting systems used. It's been getting a lot of attention. According to Bento, Howard Dean lost to John Kerry by only 1.6% when the ballots were hand-counted, 9.7% when ES&S optical scanners were used, and 14.7% on Diebold scanners.
That doesn't look good. On the other hand, pre-election and exit polls do seem to match the election results. Of course, polling organizations can be as partisan as think tanks, so their accuracy should always be suspect. The exit poll for the major news networks was done by (Warren) Mitofsky International and Edison Media Research (on whose board Mitofsky, the "father" of exit polling, sits). It's really a reconstituted version of the highly secretive and controversial Voter News Service. Curiously, Mitofsky's exit polls do not disclose their over-all results. Everything is broken down into subcategories. The people at Edison told me to ask Kathy Levine of ABC's World News Tonight for that information. Levine told me that I could "buy it" from Edison "like the major networks did." As if I could afford it. Well, there always seems to be something fishy going on with the networks and their election polls, something that's also documented in VoteScam.
Moving on. Others point out that geography was the real factor in how the New Hampshire vote count went down, that the more populated areas where optical scanners are more often used are closer to Massachusetts (Kerry Country). Whereas, the rural areas where hand-counts rule are nearer to Vermont (Dean Country). The problem with that analysis is that it's a 'guess' at best. The only way to really know for sure is to check the ballots. But, there seems to be little interest in doing that.
"We don't audit our elections," says New Hampshire's Assistant Secretary of State Anthony Stevens. Frankly, I don't know a state that does, although it sounds like a good idea. Stevens contends that the numerous hand recounts that the state has conducted over the years for contested elections, serve as a deterrent to machine tampering and ensure that the machines work properly. But, Stevens admits that he wants to examine the exit polling data to see if there's anything to Bento's analysis.
That begs the question, why not just check the ballots? Isn't that what they're there for? Reliance on questionable polling data is no substitute for examining the hard evidence of how people actually voted. State election officials say that they have never overturned an election due to a machine malfunction. But, that doesn't mean that it can't happen. And there are trillions of dollars at stake in this particular election. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb04/Landes0210.htm
Read and learn from Dean's triumphs in fund raising, an average of $80/person and his defeat by voting machines.
Deans fund raising bat help him raise millions. He raised $50 million.
http://www.img9.org/uploads/d27683356eb0887442fead645e556c1c.jpg