Recount, albeit limited, goes ahead

Source: Concord Monitor

Kucinich doesn't pay enough; GOP waiting

A hand recount of last week's Democratic primary votes will begin this morning, after presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich met a deadline to pay for a second tally, said Secretary of State Bill Gardner.

But the recount will be a truncated one: Kucinich forked over $27,000, less than half of the $69,600 the secretary of state's office estimated a hand tally of all the Democratic votes would cost. As a result, ballot-counters will begin with Hillsborough and Rockingham counties, the two portions of the state Kucinich is most interested in, Gardner said.

The fate of a requested Republican primary recount, meanwhile, remained unclear last night.

Republican candidate Albert Howard failed to arrive at Gardner's office with the $57,600 required to conduct a full hand recount of the Republican primary votes. Although Kucinich and Howard were both supposed to pay the estimated costs by 3 p.m. yesterday or lose their shots at a recount, Gardner signaled that he's leaving the door open to a second Republican vote tally.

Read more: http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080116/NEWS01/801160352/1043/NEWS01

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The possibility that the Patriot Act kept the Republican money from reaching the SOS on time is almost ironic.

Republican candidate Albert Howard...
A Michigan chauffer and father of eight, Howard says that the angel of the Lord came to him in 1992 and told him that he and Clinton would run against each other, and that Clinton would lose.

I guess he could have been talking about running against Bill Clinton in a marathon. Who knows, Howard might just stand a chance in that race. :rofl:

I heard Ron Paul wanted a recount.

Here in NH, if you can come up with $1,000, you can be
on one of our Primary ballots.

So how many votes did Vermin Supreme get this time, anyway?

o http://www.verminsupreme.com/

o http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2004/01/11/merry_prankster/

Tesha

Or was it just more hot air from that Texas cowpie?

Seriously, does anyone know?

From the article:

Howard's Republican recount request has the financial backing of individuals worried about the integrity of the state's electronic ballot systems. At least some of those ballot-count skeptics are supporters of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, a Texas congressman with libertarian leanings.

Perhaps this is what you heard about? Sorry I can't be of more help but I tend to run from Ron Paul's followers, rather than stay and chat. :P

In New Hampshire, only a candidate can call for a recount.
Ron Paul didn't want to call for a recount, even though his
nutball supporters wanted him to.

But when that waydownticket "The Lord God told me to run
and I would defeat Clinton!" guy asked for a recount, the
Paulist people saw him as a useful fool and quickly came
up with the money to pay for him to ask for a recount.

Tesha

for recounts that are made by candidates in the races. $100,000 per state would be pennies for the Feds. And the benefits would be a restoration of faith in the vote counting process.

NH is a very small and rural state.

Besides, how long until the recounts aren't trusted (with or without reason). We need to fix things, but endless recounts are not the answer. Nor is crying foul at every turn.

that Americans have in the vote counting process?

It certainly needs to be looked at and really studied to come up with way of Voting that is both transparent and secret with a way to handcount if necessary.

which is the vote casting process. If the votes could be tallied in bona fide audi table manner, recounts would be unnecessary. There are ways to do this. Among them is to tie each vote to an identifying number such as encrypted SS# or individual passwords and them have the tallies accessible to all as public record.

Many oppose this fearing that the votes would not be anonymous. I understand that fear. But, that small possible loss of privacy is less harmful that allowing the process to be carried out by electronic machines that are TOTALLY under the control of the manufacturers and programmers with no
real audits at all.

My suggestions about paying for the recounts were meant only as a temporary stopgap answer to the fact that there is no control over either the vote casting or vote counting. I imagined that not all states would request recounts therefore, the $100,000 average might be close. If not, it still might be worth the money. It's a terrible thing when those who are living in a Democracy don't have faith in the voting process. It undermines everything.

...every ballot was numbered and that number was written in the poll book when it was handed to you.

During the counting process, that number was ignored: it was only used for auditing purposes.

in getting the votes counted anyway? Something as important as elections deserves all of the safeguards possible.

There were a fair few security holes in the punch-card system, too. Yes, it was far better than what we have, but I'd rather go forward and lock out more fraudsters.

would have my vote for Attorney General.

And thus too blunt for the first position, and too honest for the second. Thanks, though.:hi:

In short, I was an educator for 30 years turned IT to make more money. Did make a lot more money but the educator job was better for me. Educators are supposed to help people. IT people are required to make profit for the employer.

I disagree. The New Hampshire law seems reasonable.

Candidates who lose by 3 percentage or less are entitled to a recount for a $2,000 fee. Candidates who lose by more must pay for the full cost.

If you let any candidate demand a recount regardless of the initial results we would still be recounting Iowa, Montana, New Hampshire and Michigan. I think Obama lost by less then 3% and could have requested one for just $2,000 if he wanted to.

...rather than hand over nearly 70 G's, he's starting with the most troublesome spots. If they come up clean, it is unlikely that the rest of the state will show any irregularities. If they're dirty, he forks over the rest and they count the rest of the state.