Reality Check - Recounts... "little" changes mean BIG changes

[jsamuel]

So far in NH there has been a lady who said there were "little" changes in the vote after a recount in 2 precincts.

I just wanted to make sure everyone realizes that "little" changes means A LOT!

For example, what is "little"? Is it 1,2,5,10,20,50,100,300 votes per precinct?

Would you consider 15 votes in one precinct a "little" change? Well, try this on...

11,000 precincts in Ohio * 15 votes more for Kerry = 165,000 more votes for Kerry and he wins Ohio.

Keep that in mind. A "little" change in every precinct is a BIG DEAL.

[AmyCrat]

1. I've been saying this all along

Read my posts about simple math...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=62417#62575

If you added only 50 votes for Bush in 175,000 precincts across the country, you'd end up with and extra 8,750,000 votes. 25 and he gets 4,375,000 extra votes. He won by 3.4 million.

[masshole1979]

2. Thanks for keeping the faith...

...the one thing that does bother me about the possibility of the precincts only adding 50 votes for Kerry is that it would seem to mess with Ida Brigg's brilliant and hard-won statistical analysis which showed these precincts to be way off...I've had a bad feeling in my stomach about the fact that the recount was only in a few precincts...would make it so much easier to do some tracks-covering.

One thing gives me hope: the media have shown themselves to be such airheads about basic statistics that a Boston Globe reporter might very well see a 5% difference as "little," when in fact it would be anything but. (Not that I have any reason to suspect the difference really is that large!)

Can we get the actual recount numbers??????

PLEASE!!!!!

[jsamuel]

4. What I want to know, is Nader checking the voter rolls and keeping an eye

on where the ballots are stored? Lets face it, if there was fraud, it is likely they would try to fudge the ballots as best they could. However, they would probably only do that when something came under attack. I just hope someone is keeping an eye out for people changing things around...

[Virginian]

5. Someone mentioned here on DU...

That in the Republican counties, no one would notice if Bush got 60% and it was reported as 67%. That extra 7% could give him the state.

[jsamuel]

6. Shoot, not even that, Just keep it at 60% and raise the turnout by 1/3 and

that would give him the state.

[AmyCrat]

7. Increase overall results by just a bit...

like, oh say, 25 votes in precincts around the country - to assure the popular vote (and not have a repeat of 2000)... and then increase it by 5-15% in critical states to assure the electoral college.

Bingo. Winner.

[Straight Shooter]

3. And you can poison someone to death by giving arsenic a little at a time

Just because each dose is a small amount doesn't mean that the cumulative effect isn't fatal.

[Chasing Dreams]

8. You are correct, BUT

Ida is signaling that we won't find what we were hoping to find in NH: :-(

"The completed areas ...showed little change from the official tallies...She called the results strange. But she acknowledged the early recount results showed the changes from 2000 may reflect the actual vote accurately. 'What we're seeing is just oddness in New Hampshire,' she said. 'That may just be the way it is.'"

Still, what we need in Ohio is actually only 130,000 votes, perhaps less than 100,000 including provisionals, to swing the state. This means that we would need a net of 10 or so per precinct (e.g., 5 less for *, and 5 more for JFK). Since there are approximately 500 votes per Ohio precinct, this amounts to less than a 2% difference between paper and machine/software counts.

NH observers: please tell us if "little" is less than 1%, between 1 and 2%, or more than 2%.

[jsamuel]

9. Are they looking at the orignal signed voter rolls?

That is more important than the actual recount. How hard would it be for the person running that county to, after hearing about a possible recount, go shove 50 more ballots into her precincts?

Remember, Bev also found ballots in that trash bag...

[newyawker99]

13. Hi Chasing Dreams!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[EC]

10. Would they need to find

the whole 160,000 votes in Ohio? Wouldn't they need to subtract the same amount of found votes from *'s total if votes that should have gone to Kerry went to * instead?

[RedEagle]

11. Would you post this in GD?

Need to stop the impression that there are only "little changes," and that's somehow OK.

It's NEVER OK for someone's vote to be treated like it's insignificant.

And you are spot on about how little changes add up.

Keep in mind that "skimming" votes is going to be more subtle and harder to find than large changes- and therefore, more likely to be the case.

I'd like to know the percentage that were wrong from the original count also. It's a starting point for where you really have to start the audit percentages. These machines are only going to be accurate to a certain percentage to begin with. They don't meet business standards- heck, apparently, they don't even meet the FEC standards, which are a joke.

[mdb]

12. I found this from 1 precinct. A net gain of 3 votes for Kerry.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/articles/2004/11/19/so_far_nh_recount_reveals_no_surprises/

So far, N.H. recount reveals no surprises

November 19, 2004

CONCORD, N.H. -- There is no chance to affect the outcome of the election, but a piecemeal recount of presidential votes began yesterday in New Hampshire at the request of independent candidate Ralph Nader, who was acting on behalf of activists who are attempting to establish ''baseline data" on the accuracy of various vote-counting technologies.

Preliminary results from the tally, however, showed virtually no change in the result. The counting is tentatively scheduled to resume next week.

Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese, who observed the recount, said there ''was no significant difference" in the results from one ward in Manchester and the nearby town of Litchfield. Democrat John F. Kerry, who carried the state by 9,274 votes out of 678,000 cast, gained six votes, President George W. Bush picked up three, and there was no change for Nader, Zeese said. Nader received less than 1 percent of the vote in the state. A recount of other Manchester wards was continuing into the early evening.

Two organizations, the National Ballot Integrity Project and Democracy for New Hampshire, asked Nader to initiate the recount ''to collect baseline data comparing hand-counted with machine-counted ballots." Since the disputed 2000 presidential election, a number of organizations have been closely monitoring and raising questions about vote-counting methods, particularly electronic machines that leave no paper trail for recounts. New Hampshire does not use the ATM-like electronic voting machines.

Zeese called the exercise ''an audit of sorts." New Hampshire, he said, ''allows recounts relatively easily." In addition, the state uses only paper ballots, which are counted either by hand or optical scanning devices.

The Nader recount request focused on selected towns and city wards where Kerry's share of the vote was significantly lower than Al Gore's in 2000, when the Democrat lost the state to Bush by 7,211 votes. They included some hand-counted towns and a larger number of communities that tabulate with optical scanners made by two manufacturers.

Zeese said the campaign will evaluate the results before determining how long to continue the recount.

Secretary of State William M. Gardner said the official tally will only be changed if the entire state is recounted, in which case the Nader campaign could be charged about $60,000.

BRIAN C. MOONEY

[rzemanfl]

14. Out of how many?

What was the total of votes in this precinct? Again the error favors Bush. Here in Pinellas County Florida they "forgot" to count some ballots (they do that every year, for fun I guess) again the error favored Bush.

[mdb]

16. Out of 3618 votes

http://www.sos.nh.gov/general%202004/hillpres04.htm

Manchester ward 7

Bush Kerry Nader Other Total
1795 1788 30 5 3618

[jbnow]

18. Here are 200 results

http://www.sos.nh.gov/general2000/hillpres.html

Manchester Ward 7
b 1,295
GORE 1,529
OTHERs
7
83
2
18


Puzzling.

[rzemanfl]

19. thank you

Thanks, not much of a change, but I have yet to see any error that favored Kerry.

[jsamuel]

15. that's something

[eowyn_of_rohan]

17. Well thanks for putting this in perspective!

That gives me a much needed boost