LYNCHING BY LAPTOP 2

 
Just a hint : Before you export democracy, try having it at home !

...and in case you wonder why DEMs have been so slack on picking up on this…
 
Clinton’s ‘Diebold Bump’
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20080110_clintons_diebold_bump/<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Posted on Jan 10, 2008

 

 

An unfortunate coincidence has emerged from the New Hampshire primary results that is at least worth noting, if only for the sake of trivia (or democracy): Hillary Clinton performed better, and Barack Obama worse, in counties where votes were counted using Diebold machines. Whether you call it sour grapes or citizen journalism, the Brad Blog has the details. The point is, voting machine security is essential to our democratic process, and remains a problem that has not been resolved. As long as these devices have serious vulnerabilities, doubt is possible, and a healthy democracy cannot function effectively in the shadows.

Ben Moseley of The Contrarian, most succinctly covers what other folks have found as well today. Namely, a 7 point overall bump for Clinton over Obama where the machines were used instead of hand-counts… What the informal statistics show is that Hillary Clinton received a 4.5% boost in towns using Diebold voting machines compared to towns that didn’t. Meanwhile, Obama was hurt in these towns showing a 2.5% decrease in the Diebold towns.

Some more statistics from the data shows that Obama in non-Diebold towns garnering 38.7% of the vote to Clinton’s 36.2%. The results in Diebold towns show the exact opposite: Clinton with 40.7% of the vote and Obama with 36.2%. Not only are the positions swapped but the informal statistics have the second place candidate holding 36.2% in both cases, which could easily be a pure coincidence. What doesn’t make a lot of sense to me right now and this could be a mathematical mistake on my part is where Clinton got the extra 2% of votes in Diebold towns. All the other numbers almost exact for every candidate, even Edwards who recieved 17% of the vote in Diebold towns compared to 17.6% in non-Diebold towns. That still doesn’t make up for the extra 2% vote Clinton is receiving when she leads in certain towns compared to when Obama has the lead.

Diebold machines create a 7 point difference (+4.5 for Clinton, -2.5 for Obama) which is exactly what the polls had been predicting. Again, I’m not explicitly stating there has been fraud, but in a supposed democracy such as ours, skepticism is a virtue and necessity.

 

"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet it was planned that way."- Franklin D. Roosevelt