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206 Comments
- bcclist, on 06/11/2008, -3/+135woah - wtf is going on? the New Mexico ballots being stored at Clinton supporter houses, Clinton campaign attempts to reinstate MI and FL delegates, and articles like this give me the creeps. 2000 election anyone?
- 3tcp, on 02/16/2008, -25/+151Registration required so here's the text
February 16, 2008
Black voters are heavily represented in the 94th Election District in Harlem’s 70th Assembly District. Yet according to the unofficial results from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single vote in the district was cast for Senator Barack Obama.
That anomaly was not unique. In fact, a review by The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city’s 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district.
City election officials this week said that their formal review of the results, which will not be completed for weeks, had confirmed some major discrepancies between the vote totals reported publicly — and unofficially — on primary night and the actual tally on hundreds of voting machines across the city.
In the Harlem district, for instance, where the primary night returns suggested a 141 to 0 sweep by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the vote now stands at 261 to 136. In an even more heavily black district in Brooklyn — where the vote on primary night was recorded as 118 to 0 for Mrs. Clinton — she now barely leads, 118 to 116.
The history of New York elections has been punctuated by episodes of confusion, incompetence and even occasional corruption. And election officials and lawyers for both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton agree that it is not uncommon for mistakes to be made by weary inspectors rushing on election night to transcribe columns of numbers that are delivered first to the police and then to the news media.
That said, in a presidential campaign in which every vote at the Democratic National Convention may count, a swing of even a couple of hundred votes in New York might help Mr. Obama gain a few additional delegates.
City election officials said they were convinced that there was nothing sinister to account for the inaccurate initial counts, and The Times’s review found a handful of election districts in the city where Mrs. Clinton received zero votes in the initial results.
“It looked like a lot of the numbers were wrong, probably the result of human error,” said Marcus Cederqvist, who was named executive director of the Board of Elections last month. He said such discrepancies between the unofficial and final count rarely affected the raw vote outcome because “they’re not usually that big.”
On primary night, Mrs. Clinton was leading with 57 percent to Mr. Obama’s 40 percent in New York State, which meant she stood to win 139 delegates to Mr. Obama’s 93, with 49 others known as superdelegates going to the national convention unaffiliated.
Jerome A. Koenig, a former chief of staff to the State Assembly’s election law committee and a lawyer for the Obama campaign, suggested that some of the discrepancy resulted from the design of the ballot.
Candidates were listed from left to right in an order selected by drawing lots. Mrs. Clinton was first, followed by Gov. Bill Richardson and Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., who in most election districts received zero votes, and by John Edwards, who got relatively few. Mr. Obama was fifth, just before Representative Dennis J. Kucinich.
Mr. Koenig said he seriously doubted that anything underhanded was at work because local politicians care more about elections that matter specifically to them.
“They steal votes for elections like Assembly District leader, where people have a personal stake,” he said.
A number of political leaders also scoffed at the possibility that local politicians, even if they considered it vital that Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton prevail in the primary, were capable of even trying to hijack such a contest.
Still, for those inclined to consider conspiracy theories, the figures provided plenty of grist.
The 94th Election District in Harlem, for instance, sits within the Congressional district represented by Charles B. Rangel, an original supporter of Mrs. Clinton.
Assemblyman Keith L. T. Wright, a Clinton supporter who represents the same area, said he was confident that there was an innocent explanation for the original count giving Mr. Obama zero votes.
“I’m sure it’s a clerical error of some sort,” Mr. Wright said. “Being around elections for the last 25 years, no candidate receives zero votes.”
But Gordon J. Davis, a former New York City parks commissioner and an Obama poll watcher in the district, remained skeptical, even after being informed of the corrected count.
“First it was reported at 141 to 0, now it’s 261 to 136 in an Assembly district that went 12,000 to 8,000 for Barack,” Mr. Davis said on Friday.
“I was watching like a hawk, but how did I know the machine had a mind of its own?” he added. “And I speak as one who grew up on the South Side of Chicago where we delivered the margin of victory for John F. Kennedy at 4 in the morning.”
At the sprawling Riverside Park Community apartments at Broadway and 135th Street, Alician D. Barksdale said she had voted for Mr. Obama and her daughter had, too, by absentee ballot.
“Everyone around here voted for him,” she said.
The 53rd Assembly District, in Brooklyn, is represented by the borough’s Democratic chairman, Assemblyman Vito P. Lopez, another Clinton supporter. He said the party faithful have produced lopsided margins of as much as 160 to 4 and that on Primary Day he fielded election captains in every district to galvanize Hispanic voters for Mrs. Clinton.
“We ran it the old-fashioned way,” he said. Still, he said, the 118 to 0 vote “has to be a mistake.”
At the Archive, a cafe and video store on the border of Bushwick and East Williamsburg, the manager, Brad Lee, agreed. “There were Obama posters in everyone’s windows,” he said. “There was even Obama graffiti.”
Most election-night anomalies are later reconciled by the official canvass of the machines and in the formal count of absentee returns and of paper affidavit ballots issued on Primary Day, to people who do not appear to be eligible but demand the right to vote, and later validated.
On Feb. 5, Mrs. Clinton carried 61 of the state’s 62 counties but won Brooklyn by a margin of less than 2 percent. Because delegates are awarded proportionately on the basis of the primary vote in each Congressional district, Obama supporters expressed hope that if the official count continued in their favor, they might gain an additional delegate or two. - muckemuck, on 02/16/2008, -8/+115hey.. at least his name wasn't crossed off of the ballot and people told repeatedly that they weren't allowed to vote for him.. it happened in NY this year.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2008/ ...
And you all do know there are still almost a million votes not counted in California, right? The total for ALL Rep votes in CA was 2.5million and http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/711791.html almost 1 million are still uncounted - and yet the media is already calling winners. sheesh. - statik99, on 11/03/2009, -3/+86Seriously... we're supposed to be an advanced nation and elections can't even be done properly?
FRANCE IS LAUGHING AT US! - inactive, on 02/16/2008, -3/+84Hillary is not even president and has enough scandles on her hands to write a book.
- u2wedge, on 02/16/2008, -5/+77This needs to be dugg up bigtime.
- u2wedge, on 02/16/2008, -1/+67clear your cache man, NYT disabled subscription requirement weeks ago.
- Frostman3D, on 02/16/2008, -13/+69Impeach Hillary!
- inactive, on 02/16/2008, -7/+63Possible? This is definitely election fraud!
- fuckingusername, on 02/16/2008, -0/+48fraud in the US government hmmm how odd
- djcll6122, on 02/16/2008, -2/+38Remove "possible" from the title, please.
- GliTCH82, on 02/16/2008, -4/+36If you want to be taken seriously, dismissing a news source immediately without research just because of any preconceived notions you may have about the legitimacy of the source is not a great idea.
- ftp77, on 02/16/2008, -0/+28In case people have yet to see this... how to hack an evoting machine... from Princeton U
http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/
Do away with these infernal machines...NOW - fmello, on 02/16/2008, -4/+30No surprises that they didn't bother to mention the crap that happened to people that tried to vote for Ron Paul.
Ron Paul's Name crossed off the ballots:
http://ronpaul.meetup.com/boards/thread/4177876/
Poll Workers telling voters that Ron Paul Dropped out:
http://ronpaul.meetup.com/boards/thread/4172968/0/ - inactive, on 02/16/2008, -9/+33Fraud? Clintons? That can't be possible. Elect this woman President and this country will be up to its ears in fraud. The Clintons are as dirty as they come. Just remember how many scandals Bill was involved in during his terms.
- holygram, on 02/16/2008, -5/+28lol @ america
- ThunderPigs, on 02/16/2008, -1/+23I don't understand why, maybe it's my ignorant youth, but I am not in the least bit surprised.
- gooddaysunshine, on 02/16/2008, -0/+20are we talking about the same people who helped sell us the Iraq War and whitewashed the last two presidential elections in regard to vote fraud?
- brambley, on 02/16/2008, -2/+22W
T
F
I am sick of reading about election fraud.
This country is broken. Fix it. Someone. - offspring06, on 02/16/2008, -1/+20This election is rigged.
- inobla, on 02/16/2008, -3/+22Vote NO on Billary!!
- feenxfire, on 02/16/2008, -3/+21Most of the state hates this witch. If Obama had campaigned here, hammering down Hillary's failed promises to deliver 200,000 jobs upstate, he would have closed the gap to within 5 points.
- Beagle17, on 02/16/2008, -2/+20Just how much "human error" is possible? I think the human race has just totally lost its sense of integrity. Nitsche was not only right, but should have added that Machiavelli has replaced God.
- Goodfeeling32, on 02/16/2008, -7/+25Good that this is the New-York time that is reporting that, this might be solid.
If this fraud in New-York is for real, Clinton can always call Giuliani as back up and let him say "Yes, there might be a fraud, but 9/11!" - indicas, on 02/16/2008, -3/+20Something stinks about this. Fitting it's New York, I wonder which candidate would benefit...
- V0lk, on 02/16/2008, -1/+18They are obviously trying to steal the election from Obama. The "Clinton machine" lusts for power again, and they obviously don't care about what Americans want.
- huggybarrel, on 02/16/2008, -1/+18ahh they don't hold a candle to the Bush Administration
- masterwalls69, on 02/16/2008, -2/+19Poor ole Obama....at least he gets media attention when he is cheated...Dennis and Ron dont get anything.
- wkpower, on 02/16/2008, -2/+18my friend went to vote on primary night here in new york. he changed from democrat to republican, months ahead of time, so he could vote for ron paul. when he went down there to vote, he couldn't hit the button for ron paul. they told him he was still a democrat, even though he filed all the paperwork and he even called in to see if it had been changed, also ahead of time. they told him nope you're still democrat. so he voted for obama instead. but i guess now his vote didn't even count. way to go america.
- Herv3, on 02/16/2008, -0/+15Fair enough. How about no more Clinton or Bush?
- corbinman, on 02/16/2008, -0/+14 I think maybe Canada and a few other countries should have to come in and supervise the vote counting to ensure there is no corruption. Just like we had to do in the Ukraine a few years ago.
- redxii, on 02/16/2008, -0/+14Also, you have to allow cookies for nytimes.com..
- inactive, on 02/16/2008, -1/+15Anyone else think That Diebold should change its name to DieDemocracy ???
- cecinestpasvrai, on 02/16/2008, -6/+20It actually looks like not so much. The disparities seem to have effected both candidates (full disclosure, I'm an Obama supporter), but hurt Obama much more so because of the location it occurred in. I'm all for ferreting out any Clinton dirty tricks, but as of right now I've seen no evidence of this occurring. Human error is common in elections, (though it shouldn't be) and the important thing is to make sure the votes are eventually counted correct.
- molecool, on 02/16/2008, -6/+19they never stopped - it started when Americans began to refer to the US as the 'greatest country on earth'
- thentro, on 02/16/2008, -1/+14Glad this came to light
- dondara, on 02/16/2008, -0/+13Seconded
- naju, on 02/16/2008, -0/+12furthermore, www.bugmenot.com is your friend
- Schmapdi, on 02/16/2008, -2/+14Actually - it looks like from the article it might be Kuciniches fault (not really though). From what I gathered they seemed to imply the following. Obama was right before Kucinich on the ballot. Now some tired election worker typing results into a spreadsheet or whatnot looks at the vote tally for Obama looks over sees and enters a 0 (Kuciniche's vote tally - sorry Denny) and puts it in the computer or whatever, where it then gets complied and announced as the result.
It happened to Clinton too (she was next to Richardson) albeit not as often. I don't think there's any malice here on anyones part. But hey - a few more delegates for Obama in New York could make all the difference in a close election, so at least they are taking the time to make sure people's votes are counted correctly.
*And sorry to Dennis Kucinich(?) - whose name I cannot spell correctly for the life of me. - bjornski, on 02/16/2008, -0/+10Actually, it shows you've been paying attention. Good job.
- inobla, on 02/16/2008, -2/+12No. I hate Hillary because she is FAKE. If everybody else in the country loved her, it wouldn't change my opinion. When contrasting the two candidates, she makes it DAMN easy to like Obama.
- Chigga75, on 02/16/2008, -3/+13It's ridiculous how we have "Possible Election fraud in _blank_ state" for pretty much every single primary. Am I the only one who smells conspiracy?
- TheSeptimHeir, on 02/16/2008, -0/+9Your real name is Bill Clinton, isn't it?
- zephyr42, on 02/16/2008, -4/+13Jumping the gun a bit are we?
- DonTazeMeBro, on 02/16/2008, -0/+9Fourth. And my civics teacher laughed when I said we lived in an oligarchy.
- TheSeptimHeir, on 02/16/2008, -1/+10To be fair...NY is the state that was dumb enough to elect Hillary to the Senate - where she's sponsored practically no bills, missed most of her Committee meetings, and regularly skips pivotal votes. It stands to reason they wouldn't be competent to count ballots.
- aboutlogin, on 02/16/2008, -2/+10makes you wonder if there is even the remotest chance ohio and texas will have fair counts...
- Spytap, on 02/16/2008, -0/+8Third. We've had enough political oligarchy.
- dylio, on 02/16/2008, -0/+8Go ahead and digg him down. Nobody likes truth about other candidates, do they?
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