What Never Happens Happened Again
Saturday, November 15, 2008 at 09:38AM State Rep. candidate Tom Keane of Bow set the record straight yesterday by following through on a request for a recount of his race in Bow/Dunbarton with a hand count of the ballots. I helped, along with a small band of Tom’s other friends.
If you have never been involved with a recount of machine ballots and may want to do so some day, here is what you are in for – a long suffering Kabuki Dance.
Tom Keane was suspicious of the end tally of totals from Bow and Dunbarton as well as the disposition of some of the absentee ballots. Tom he asked for a recount even though he lost by 58 votes, 1.01% of the total cast. A total of 58 votes are hard to make up in a recount of the ballots because there are often very few ballots where the intent of the voter may be in question.
So as is the silly tradition here in NH we dump out, in front of a slew of observers, the sealed ballot materials from election day and go through the motions of hand counting each and every one, which unless you won or lost by less that 10 votes is a waste of everyone’s time.
The quickest and easiest and probably most effective way to re-count would be to FIRST take the documents from election day, what I like to call tally sheets, and look for mathematical mistakes. WE don’t do that. No, we act as though the thousands of marked ballots hold some secret final number the machines and ballot clerks did not see when in fact it is in the Town Moderator’s ADDITION of the votes cast where you will often find problems.
From 1:00 PM to about 5:5:00 we went through the motions of counting all the ballots the machines and ballot clerks counted already, winding up with something like a 3 or 4 vote difference. Not quite the 58 Tom needed.
Ah, but when the totals of all votes counted were re-totaled there was a 70 vote difference. That would be 70 as in a 7 and a 0 side by side. And in the world of numbers 70 is larger than 58.
In this case the 70 vote difference seems to be an error in one candidate’s total in one town.
BOTTOM LINE: We hand count for hours each and every ballot for voter intent and find only three votes changed. But we add up the totals of the same ballots and find a 70 vote difference in one candidate's final result! The election results remain the same because that 70 vote difference did not change the position Tom Keane was in at the end of the six person race for three seats.
We could have avoided the four hours of Kabuki recounting had we simply counted the total of UNUSED ballots and matched them with the USED ballots or had state-generated, efficient, understandable tally sheets from election day and simply reviewed the math and looked for a 70 vote mistake.
But we don’t do that in NH and we NEVER have recounts that have more than a handful of mistakes, do we?
Reader Comments (4)
Looking at other states where touch-screen voting is the norm, New Hampshire's recount process makes manipulation of the vote count very difficult, if not impossible without detection. A simple re-tally as you suggested would have perhaps saved time, but would not have been a recount as guaranteed under state law. Call it complicated, but it's one important way to preserve democracy and protect the integrity of our electoral system.
I asked you once before when you responded to one of my articles to give your side of what happened at the last Election Law Committee meeting at which I testified. I thought it was unique and interesting to say the least.
Remember, the one where you were huddled with the Chairman and that reprehensible phony Chuck Weed. I left the room for a minute and when I came back the Chairman was saying I was intimidating the committee during the testimony on of all bills the Democrat house bill designed to intimdate challengers?
By the way.
What would be wrong about taking the total ballot materials and doing some quick math BEFORE a full blown re-count of each ballot.
THAT is my point.
Just subtract from the total amount of printed ballots sent to the town from the State the amount of ballts used - then subtract the spoiled ballots - next you add up the amount of votes CAST and look for a difference between the two.
The amount of votes CAST should also match the amount of people who went through the checklist - in - then out. Or why else do do this?
In Bow we would have most likely caught the 70 vote mathmatical mistake without the total five hour hand count going FIRST!
Or is the five hour total recount policy meant to discourage recount requests?
This also reminds me I have to write about my activities in Durham on Election Day!
Glad you reminded me!
First, Chuck Weed is a fantastic guy and democratic all the way with a small "d." You should get to know him.
Second, I have no idea about the meeting you're talking about. For all I know, if I went out of a meeting when the Chair did I might have just been going to the rest room. Just because two people leave together doesn't mean they're talking about you.
And third, when a formal recount request is made, a formal recount has to be conducted -- not some shortcut. We have laws to protect everyone, including the person asking for a recount. He/she and he/she alone can ask for a recount to be cancelled, but a recount must be properly and fully conducted once it is called.
The rights of the person calling the recount as well as the rights of those who did not call for a recount because they are at that moment winning -- all those rights have to be protected. Why would anyone want it any other way?
Chuck Weed helped hand out, at the 2006 election in Keene, home made same day registration applications instead of the State forms because he did not like the perjury clause in the legal forms.
The AG's Office sent Bud Fitch out to stop him, which he did. It was in the papers and several of our people were there. Weed should have been charged with tampering with public documents.
The definition of a fantastic guy ends at voter fraud for me.
The testimony I am talking about was in regards to the bill filed by a Rep. from Hanover who specifically wrote it to stop challengers such as myself who were in Hanover in 2002.
This bill just blew up in his face because on Nov. 4. Judge Abrahmson filed an injunction against the Secretary of State which protects this basic right.
I was the person on site in Durham this year who documented the practice of preventing challangers from observing the same day registration tables, and who complained to the Moderator.