Hillary's Votes Higher From Diebold Machines Even Controlling for Demographics

(Not my blog, found on the web)

In contrast to exit polls, the final vote tally from the NH democratic primary shows a surprise victory for Hillary Clinton. People quickly noticed an anomaly in the voting tallies which seemed to show an advantage to Hillary conferred by the use of Diebold machines.

http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2008/01/the_diebold_effect_hillarys_vo.php

However, there was an easy explanation: towns with Diebold machines are more urban on average, and Hillary was always thought to have more support in urban areas. So, like many others, I was supremely irritated by the lack of analyses which statistically controlled for this obvious factor.

So I got a copy of the vote counts, and thanks to Brian London at BlackBoxVoting, the demographic information from each town (most notably, the % holding bachelor's degrees, the median household income, and the total town population). Now, Mike LaBonte at BlackBoxVoting has provided estimates of the mileage for each district, allowing for the calculation of population density.

To my complete (and continuing) amazement, the "diebold effect" on Hillary's votes remains after controlling for any and all of those demographic variables, with a p-value of <.001: that is, there are less than 1:1000 odds for this difference occurring through chance alone, and that's after adjusting for variability in Hillary's votes due to education, income, total population, and population density.

While this "diebold effect" varies in magnitude depending on the exact covariates used, it seems to center around an additional 5.2% of votes going for Clinton from Diebold machines. The same analysis shows a Diebold disadvantage for Obama of about -4.2%, significant with a p<.001, using the same covariates.

......
NONETHELESS ... the general conclusion is buttressed by the following analyses, all of which have come to similar conclusions:

- Elecion Archive's analysis http://electionarchive.org/ucvData/NH/DemPrimary2008-PairedPrecinctStudy.pdf
- This one by an econ professor at Dartmouth. http://robertghansen.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-hampshire-machine-count-bias.html
- The european tribune reviews the case, with a variety of analyses http://www.eurotrib.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2008/1/12/191247/981
- An analysis using R http://call-with-current-continuation.blogspot.com/2008/01/diebold-effect-sticks-around-need.html
- BrFox's analysis http://electionstats.wordpress.com/

As you can see, something appears to be highly amiss. There may be an unmeasured third variable (it's probably not urban vs rural) or there may be something more nefarious.

Draw your own conclusions. Here are all the data files:
- The correct list of NH precincts using Diebold machines http://www.sos.nh.gov/voting%20machines2006.htm
- Mark Shauer's List of Votes in NH precincts http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/NH_Primary_Data-71320.xls , Brian Fox's data of the same, http://abaababa.ouvaton.org/fm.dat and Semmelweiss's data of the same http://otto.ouvaton.org/new-hampshire-pack-v2.tar.gz
- NH town square mileage, for calculating population density http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/NH_muni_area-71354.unk
- My "mega file" with all demographic information, squaremileage, and voting information. http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/ChathamNHDemPrimary.csv

Please God let the Hate Hillary crowd donate their time and money to getting those filthy, utterly untrustworthy machines tossed into landfill and crunched.

Every analysis I see that disputes the significance of the discrepancy indicates that Hillary's popularity was so much greater in the urban areas than Obama's that this accounts for the difference since the machines tend to be located in those areas.

If the recount is carried out fairly (no mean feat where politics is concerned), it will support one theory or the other.

and one would think that the overall percentages would be similar, as they are, and very reminiscent of 2004. Any election within the 5% switch range, pretty hefty, is endangered. 2006 is scary in that it WAS far above that range but nonetheless at least 20 seats are dubious.

Of course we will have statisticians coming out of all corners in a tug of war over this. The dismal fact remains that nothing has done about the physical danger of theses machines and the near impossibility of doing anything before, during or after the election to stop anyone who CHOOSES to perform this kind of theft. One way would be to quickly dump this proprietary black hole by getting rid of the machines(leaving optical scanners that NEED to be verified in a patchwork quilt of state laws). Another aggressive way, lacking the help of course of the DOJ and most state authorities, is to aggressively watchdog the entire process and demand what they cannot get- access to the proprietary software in action
on election day.

If we cannot get the machines removed with the irrefutable physical dangers and performance having enough of a national effect to cast doubt on everything, then the magnificent theories of vote count contradictions can only stir emotions and little else. In other countries the masses would be lacing up their street shoes, politicians would be boycotting states captive to techno-robbery. SOME major newspapers and media venues would be banner-lining the outrage.

If we ARE going to keep our fingers crossed and debate whether on telling people their actual chance of a vote has been reduced by a critical fraction- if they are not kept from the polls by GOP suppressive tactics equally kept off the radar- one alarming truth remains.

Not just presuming this will be a great year for Dems, we have to ASSURE it will be a tsunami- or the victory much less the mandate and many fine candidates will be disappeared. Anyone gambling on caution is alarmingly blind and I note, has done little except increase the despair and distrust that will give further advantage to the GOP. Any sacrifice of anything, even for a great candidate, must be somberly reviewed at least by party pols. False interpretations of the success of 2006 have sufficiently been wasted away already by Congressional weakness and caution. There is NO option left except to go for broke. Yet the media enforced view is that this a normal, legitimately two-sided, popularity contest and issue smorgasbord.

I think most Americans feel enough to notice the hairs rising at the backs of their necks. Thanks to horrible party leadership and a treasonous or equally dumb media establishment, they do not know. They need a leader and a knowledge and a solution. In the normal course of political events in America it will not reach all of the people, perhaps not even most, perhaps not enough to pry away loyalties already vested in other candidates submitting to the general falsity. Even the primaries will suffer from the possibility and likelihood of GOP machine fraud as they are already suffering from extremely purposeful, though personality erratic, media interference. The odds are against us and the choice to better the odds and face them should not be so hard.

Furthermore, poised to seal the advantage of possible fraud, a third party of, by and for corporate suckers will split that unified campaign morass three ways to the GOP advantage if we run any type of corporate candidate whatsoever. Maybe one can scoff at such dark predictions and maybe they can dissipate. Scoffing however seems only to increase their power, and the skepticism grows apace anyway, so simple is it to poison the public mind without giving them any hope of power to change anything.

We will win another election even with Hillary and a third party candidate blurring the combined corporate edges- the progressive disappearing completely from view. We will win and the same, or different, people will scoff and say she lost fairly when the GOP is announced the champ instead. The same as Gore who won everything despite everything and Kerry who fell under the 5% cloud of unknowing with not even the ghost of a whisper about the actual evidence of vote suppression. Most assuredly though, dozens of elected officials needed for the legislation and fights in this less than fighting Congress, will be sent home to watch the unnecessary crimes and horrors continue to the future demise of a one term Dem president.

Do they cheat with machines? The proof is in undeniable inference. They can. They cheat by any means possible in ALL other arenas, even reshaping the DOJ for vote suppression. They lie. They steal every nickel including those nailed down. By exact and irrefutable inference they game the simple, secret, untraceable election software to the same level of daring. And why not? What consequences have there been except for minor, local setbacks and few legal consequences for ever paying a price? For Republicans it means being ever more slaves to fraud and those who control their last hope. The dependence is like heroin and their party dying, even their deluded people given less and less choice of any sort for any reason. Why would any Dems want to share the needles?

I haven't seen anyone explain yet how it is that the so-called "Diebold effect" was even stronger in the 2004 primary, yet Kerry didn't improve appreciably (or at all) on his pre-election poll numbers.

ETA: But nothing wrong with this result -- I think it's probably true that demographics don't wash out the "effect." One can even compare cities (all using scanners) with similar demographics but very different votes, in 2008 and previously.