Dag, not really so. I'm looking at a spreadsheet right now. Two things are involved. One, HCPB counties are the smaller ones. Diebold counted are the larger one. There is some overlap in medium sized polls.

There was a slight upward trend for larger counties voting stronger for Clinton. The main thing that put Hillary over the top was the two largest counties, Manchester and Nashua were 45% Hillary, 30% Obama, and they make up 17% of the total votes. Now it is not out of the question that the machines in those two counties were hacked, and that would make more sense then even risking monkeying with smaller counties. It is very easy and relatively cheap in NH to get a hand recount (that is honest). So, it is very unlikely that anyone would risk it here (unless they have plans and ability to switch the ballots). It wouldn't be worth getting caught stealing here, why not save it for general election of the millions of precincts that no one does pay attention to.

I saw a video where a hacker successfully made the counter machine count negative votes with a hacked disc...
For anyone to use them after that is unbelievable to me. All it takes is for someone to switch one of the discs and no one would ever find out!

That's likely not what you saw (unless you were watching one of those sensationalist reports by NBC or some such). There are two main routes of attack:
1. Access to the machine's database is gained beginning with physical intrusion, the counts are changed within the machine, the manipulated data is sent to a centralized server.
2. Data is intercepted on its way to the server, or the actual server itself is compromised, no physical access required.

In either case, the actual disks are never switched out. It's possible to do it, but there are better ways.

All this being said, causality has not been established so be careful about drawing conclusions based on these statistics. For all you know, the municipalities that decided to use hand-counting tend to be the liberal/Democratic ones, and the ones that use Diebold tend to be conservative/Republican. In fact, this is almost certainly the case. Not that Diebold shouldn't go choke on a big one for being crooked like a zigzag, but don't do 'em any favors by building them a strawman to burn when they're fighting off a legit investigation. There are easier ways for Diebold to screw with vote counts that they have control of than hacking their own machines, so if you're going to argue that Diebold is doing this, there needs to be an explanation as to why they didn't do it another way (like accessing their own servers and changing the votes, then manipulating the access logs).

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Thanks for the insight blankfist - nice to hear from someone intimately involved with this.

I was reading about this earlier, and learned that the Microsoft created HDI vs the Blu-Ray Java based solution for extended features was the crux of the feud.

I don't fully understand the debate, but it sounds like IHD is XML based and pretty open - but does Microsoft own and license the tech? If so, I'm glad that Blu-Ray appears to be winning the battle - I trust Microsoft about as much as Diebold for their dedication to open software standards. (I'll never forgive them for J++)

No, Dag, Diebold most certainly is not a company to trust. You are right there, sir. If you read the book (with the long winded title) The Buying of the President 2004 : Who's Really Bankrolling Bush and His Democratic Challengers--and What They Expect in Return, written by Charles Lewis, founder and ex-executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, the book explains (through tireless research) how Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc, was active in the reelection of Bush - the book insinuates the buying of elections during the Bush/Gore election, and demonstrates some pretty ironclad proof to boot.

It's been said more than rumored that H. Clinton is a neo-con, just as Bush, Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton. I tend to agree. I think we're going to see Hillary win the next election, and that will have nothing to do with what the American people's vote. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I really think there's some truth to this whole blue blooded dynasty rumor with the Clinton/Bush Administrations being the only Executive Branch power for the next twenty some years. That's scary, no?

Jebus H Christ! Haven't you Yanks learnt anything from 00 and 04? Stop using Diebold!

Worrying about whether or not we should build sentient beings superior to ourselves is somewhat pointless because it's going to happen. If there were no possible outcomes besides the destruction of our race, someone would still desire that outcome.

We're not talking about building a massive calculator, here. We're talking about building a sentient intelligence. Is it safe to release that intelligence unfettered upon the world? Is it right to contain that intelligence to protect ourselves? Is it right to force that intelligence to serve us?

The integration of electronics into our own brains is a more immediate concern. The potential then exists for our thoughts to be monitored and controlled on a whole new level. This can happen overtly or covertly. The extreme example of the overt method would be mandatory implants. Covert deployment seems more likely to me, with malicious code or behavior hidden within an attractive package. The Diebold of the future will not tamper with voting machines, they will control the decisions of the voters.

Inevitably there will be religious extremists who protest these advancements on the basis that we are "playing God". The technology will establish itself regardless. When it does, religious extremists will seek to "play God" themselves by "fixing" homosexuals and other blasphemers.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I smell Diebold's work here...

If RP is still in it when the primaries get to PA, I'll walk down the street and hit a check-box on a diebold machine, not that that sounds empowering, but I might as well try.

WTF. And how do you power this? Solar (haha.. little joke)
I believe this increases greenhouse effect.


Did you catch the guy's name.... Steven Salter.

Too funny, it's like the Diebold spokeperson, Rigall.

Please allow me to apologize guys. I'm sorry for offending anyone. I was just trying to use humor as a way of expressing my outrage to the way people react to certain videos. You show something that has anything to do with a problem in govornment and you get the latest diatribe from some nutcase that they got from the back of an Ann Coulter book. I just love that phrase: "the church of liberalism." It offends me on so many levels that it's hard not to burst a blood vessel.
A lot of us saw Florida voters get laughed out of congress for even suggesting that they might have been prevented from voting. All the credible evidence is there. For anyone who beleives that this hearing never happened, just look it up. For anyone who believes that diebold voting machines aren't flawed, go ahead and look that up too. Researchers from both Princeton and MIT did it in minutes: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/11/diebold-voting-machi.html
Again, I'm sorry if I offended anyone, I just need a grain of salt with these videos sometimes and for me, that means a little humor to gloss over such an aggravating subject.
And if you still don't get the joke...

The worst part is that the tech to run a fair and transparent election exists. Using GPG and script kiddy level coding it's possible to implement a full voting system with redundant cryptographic checksums to multiple servers (run by each party + as many "impartial" observers, or more).

The system could even use commodity hardware and public code, instead of these expensive security-through-obscurity boxen that diebold and clan turn out.

The only thing stopping a squeeky clean election system is money and power (possibly tech illiteracy, but I don't really give these cats the benefit of the doubt on that one).

I'm not saying that a purely technical solution exists. Messing with other aspects of the election, like voter roles, can be just as destructive to democratic intent.

Moving the "is the vote count even valid" question in to the strong "yes" category would help, but it's not a panacea.

...and, when the spin is needed for the candidate groomed for the position this go-round, fox and all the others will be there, to wring the public's minds again.....Voting for the President, has become a novel idea, an imaginary privilege...farcical.

When the spin really heats up, lesser candidates will be put into abox, and the dem and repub. candidates, Plan A, and Plan B, will get the attention.....ron Paul, if he starts to be trouble....will be dealt with cheap pokes and Diebold.....and, most importantly, the powerless and apathetic public...

US coverage of this and the entire political process is so rigged, its so ridiculous.

Ron Paul handles it quite well. Though we all know the system is rigged against him. He'd need a huge clear majority, and even then, he'd need to make sure Diebold didn't fudge the election numbers in someone else's favor.

Johnald_Chaffinch.. that webpage you linked needs a serious design overhaul. Its painful to look at and navigate. Hopefully the owner fixes it, as its doubtful anyone will pay any serious attention. I also hope they purposefully mispelled Tyranny as Teariny.

I'm all for people making political pages such as that, but effective page design is extremely important. A good example.... A clean-cut guy in a suit approaches you with a question.. A greasy unwashed burlap sack wearing person walks up to you with a question. Which are you most likely to cringe and walk away from without hearing a word? Its all about first impressions, ease of access/use, then comes quality of content.

Now will Diebold let Ron Paul's votes count? We'll have to see.

All hail the Resident of the United States! Sifted some time ago was an expose on Diebold and electronic voting in general. They put some handy little virus on the pc cards the put in the machines, did a test vote and recorded the records. It made one of the participating election workers cry because she realized all her work was for naught.