Vote Recount to Settle Doubts?

Vote Recount to Settle Doubts?

By Kim Zetter

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65736,00.html

02:00 AM Nov. 17, 2004 PT

(snip)

The data came from Ida Briggs, a Michigan voter with 20 years of
experience as a software programmer, including eight years as a
statistical analyst of databases for the telecommunications industry.
Briggs compared this year's New Hampshire votes with those cast in
2000.

Most people would have expected John Kerry's performance at the polls
this year to be similar to Al Gore's in 2000. And in 229 out of 300
voting districts, or wards as they're called in New Hampshire, that
was the case. Kerry either matched the percentage of votes that Gore
received in 2000 in those wards or did better than Gore. But in 71
wards, Briggs found, Bush did better in 2004 than he did in 2000.

When Briggs broke the 71 wards down by voting equipment -- separating
wards into those that used traditional paper ballots and those that
used optical-scan machines -- she discovered that 73 percent of the
wards used optical-scan equipment, while only 27 percent used
traditional paper ballots. Even more interesting was the breakdown per
brand of voting equipment. New Hampshire wards used optical-scan
equipment made by Diebold Election Systems and Election Systems &
Software. About 62 percent of the wards with anomalous results used
Diebold machines.

(snip)

In one ward in the city of Manchester, the change was remarkable. In
2000, Gore beat Bush 49 percent to 48 percent. But this year Bush
carried the ward with 53 percent of votes. In another Manchester ward
where Gore won 52 percent to Bush's 44 percent in 2000, Bush won with
50 percent to Kerry's 49 percent this year.

(snip)

Thanks for the post, sled...and WELCOME TO DU! :toast:

Formerly of the "Media Awareness Project"