January 16, 2008 at 09:23:54

New Hampshire: U.S. Elections Still in SNAFU Mode

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By Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers (about the author) Page 3 of 3 page(s)

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Allen Roland in Salon ( http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2008/01/10.htm ) writes that "those Diebold op-scan machines are the exact same ones that were hacked [as a demonstration for the press] in the HBO documentary 'Hacking Democracy.' The New Hampshire pre-election pollsters' numbers were accurate, for the most part, on the Republican side, as well as on the Democratic side -- except in the Clinton/Obama race where machine-counted votes gave Clinton a whopping 6% vote advantage over hand-counted paper ballots."

IF TAMPERED WITH, WHO DONE IT?

Assuming that a full, hand-recount would demonstrate that somehow the announced vote totals for Obama and Clinton were manipulated, who might have done that and why? Of course, one can't know for sure, but, if there was tampering, it's safe to say that a prime suspect would be LHS, which was solely in charge of the vote-counting and whose president already had admitted to illegally moving memory cards around and touching secure machines, which violated Connecticut's 2006 election laws.

According to Dori Smith of Talk Nation Radio, things weren't much different in the neighboring state: "It's troubling that in New Hampshire last week, reports indicate that LHS employees had regular access to memory cards and voting machines, and even replaced them during the course of the day..." ( www.bradblog.com/?p=5553 ) The election clerks who broke the security seals to permit LHS entry had no knowledge of computer coding and such.

For what it's worth, LHS executive Ken Hajjar, director of sales & marketing in New England -- who has said about his firm's slipshod way of dealing with state rules: "I don't pay attention to every little law" -- pled guilty to criminal charges of narcotics-trafficking in the 1990s. ( www.bradblog.com/?p=5537 ) The head of the Diebold ballot-printing plant reportedly was also an ex-con.

AND WHAT WOULD THE MOTIVE BE?

Assuming for the moment that Osama/Clinton vote-tallies might have been fiddled with, the question would be: Why? Again, we can't ascribe possible motives with any certainty. What we can say is that Karl Rove and other GOP heavies long have anticipated the 2008 Republican candidate being able to run against Hillary Clinton, who they believe is the most vulnerable Democrat since her negatives are so high. Given the weak candidates seeking the GOP nomination, and the low repute that Republicans in general have these days, having Hillary as the Democratic standard-bearer could only be good news for the GOP.

But none of us likes to indulge merely in speculation about scandals. We want to see evidence. It's possible that Clinton won it fair and square; as I said up top, there are plenty of reasons why this might be so. But unless the New Hampshire election authorities conduct a full, by-hand recount of all scanned ballots, or at least an in-depth investigation into how and why the results turned out the way they did, her election victory will always be tainted by doubt and suspicion.

Dennis Kucinich and a minor Republican candidate have put down a deposit to pay for such a probe, which could begin in a few days, but Obama and the Democratic Party in New Hampshire and nationally have not jumped on board.

They should. America's election system is broken, and tinkering with it just seems to make it worse. We need to make electoral integrity a front-page issue or American democracy may be screwed (again) in November. At least, let's acknowledge that we've been warned. #

Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked as a writer-editor with the San Francisco Chronicle for two decades, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org). To comment: crisispapers@comcast.net .

First published by The Crisis Papers and Democratic Underground 1/15/08.
www.crisispapers.org/essays8w/snafu.htm

Copyright 2008 by Bernard Weiner.

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Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked for two decades as a writer-editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (more...)

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