| Beep, beep, beep... | | | | total went from 404 to 365. Other candidates totals |
| Beep, beep, beep... | | | | dropped as well. However, once again, the error was |
| Beep, beep, beep... | | | | made by a human, not an electronic counting device. |
| Over and over again the electronic ballot box rejected | | | | New Hampshire voters may vote for a |
| Mike's ballot. After the 5th rejection the election judge | | | | Vice-Presidential candidate on their ballot and some |
| provided him with a new ballot to complete and upon | | | | voters wrote their choice for president in the |
| completion we once again heard: | | | | Vice-Presidential space. The clerk posting the totals |
| Beep, beep, beep... | | | | erroneously added in the Vice-Presidential votes to the |
| Beep, beep, beep... | | | | totals for the Presidential candidates resulting in |
| Beep, beep, beep... | | | | overcounts. |
| As a former election judge I accompanied Mike to the | | | | Humans make errors on a regular basis, machines |
| early polling place this afternoon just to take a look see | | | | seldom do. |
| at what procedures were in place and see how much | | | | Score - Machine 2 - Human 0 |
| action our newly implemented early voting was getting. | | | | What is incredible about this whole mess is we have |
| When the second ballot was rejected I advised the | | | | 291 more days until the actual election. |
| person working with Mike that the screen on the | | | | Voting irregularities have made all of us more |
| optical scanner should provide him with information on | | | | conscious of what is going on at our polling place, |
| why the ballot wasn't accepted. Since the election | | | | which is good for the country as a whole, but all of us |
| worker wasn't familiar with the information indicated on | | | | must remember that humans are far more error prone |
| the screen he telephoned the election office to be | | | | than machines. |
| advised that the machine was telling him the ballot was | | | | According to the New Hampshire WMUR article |
| being placed in the wrong ballot bin. | | | | Human Error, Not Machine, Found During Recount |
| During an election ballots are coded for each precinct. | | | | hundreds of people have e-mailed New Hampshire |
| The early voting polling location covers several | | | | Secretary of State, Bill Gardner, calling him a "liar", |
| precincts so there were many optical scanning ballot | | | | calling the election process a "sham" or threatening to |
| boxes in place. Even though the election judge told | | | | have him arrested for "rigging the election". |
| Mike to place his ballot in the second machine, after | | | | Most of the irregularities found in voting tabulations |
| the machine scanned the ballot it knew it was in the | | | | over the past several years have been due to human |
| wrong bin and rejected it. | | | | error of some sort, but you generally don't hear that |
| Score - Machine 1 - Human 0 | | | | because it doesn't sell newspapers. What sells |
| Upon arriving home I was bombarded with newspaper | | | | newspapers and what gets peoples attention on the |
| headlines reading "NH Recount Finds Irregularities" - | | | | Internet are the articles that claim there is a conspiracy |
| "NH Recount Finds Vote Count Errors" as well as a | | | | going on to steal your vote, or there is some sort of |
| blog headline that I won't repeat because that would | | | | fraud. |
| encourage the nonsense. As you might guess the blog | | | | This country needs a voting system that is standard |
| article is extremely popular and had a count of 179 on | | | | from one county to the next, one state to the next, |
| Digg. | | | | from the Atlantic to the Pacific. We need election |
| What is so ridiculous about the blog article is the fact | | | | officials that are well trained in procedures and can |
| they were claiming huge errors were made by Diebold | | | | concentrate their efforts on helping the voter get in |
| in counting the votes. All ballots cast in New Hampshire | | | | and out of the polling place as quickly as possible. And |
| are paper ballots, with some counted by electronic | | | | the one thing we need more than anything else is |
| scanning devices. | | | | electronic voting machines that allow the blind, the |
| The recount is being done by hand and minor | | | | disabled and the non-English speaking public to vote |
| discrepancies found were due to human error. Some | | | | without assistance. |
| voters did not follow instructions resulting in improperly | | | | The reason HAVA was passed was due to the |
| marked ballots that could not be read by the scanning | | | | extraordinary number of votes that were lost in prior |
| devices. | | | | elections. Standard voting procedures, standard voting |
| The exception to the minor errors found were in the | | | | machines and trained personnel limit the number of lost |
| Manchester Ward 5 where larger errors were found. | | | | votes. |
| Clinton's total dropped from 683 to 619 and Obama's | | | | |