The total number of Democratic votes was 288055. The preliminary counts gave Clinton 39.1% to Obama's 36.5%. Flipping the Hillsborough machine counts gives Obama 38.7% to Clinton's 36.9%. This also looks like a near reversal, just because of the size of Hillsborough relative to the whole state.
It has been argued that the order of the candidates on the ballot can explain up to a 3% difference between pre-election polls and actual results. Going from 40:34 to 39:37 for Obama due to this ballot placement effect and then to 36:39 due to a Hillsborough flip is not so far-fetched. We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
Who gets to design the ballots anyway ? Elling
Though I have read somewhere (no link, sorry) that it used to be that each precinct had a different randomly generated ordering so this effect was minimised, except that procedure wasn't used this time around. We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
Yes, they are recounting the machine ballots in Hillsborough and Rockingham counties, I believe. We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
Black Box Voting : 1-17-08: Ballot boxes found slit; NH stops putting ballots in vault;
No worries, say New Hampshire officials when cuts up to eight inches long are spotted in newly delivered ballot boxes. "The only seal that counts is the one on top." Except the seal on top can be peeled off without leaving a trace, then reaffixed. Black Box Voting has been doing a chain of custody exam for the New Hampshire Primary's recount. On Wednesday night, Election Defense Alliance's Sally Castleman mentioned a troubling observation: After following the ballots back to the ballot vault following Wednesday's recount, she had the opportunity to enter the ballot vault, and noticed what looked like cuts, or slits, in the side of many ballot boxes. New Hampshire officials assured us that these cuts, which slice through the tape and seals do not permit access to the uncounted ballots, pointing to a label on the boxtop which they call a seal.
I confirmed this morning that many if not most of the boxes scheduled to be counted today had slits in them. I went out when a vanload of ballots arrived, and saw that they were slit at the time they arrived by van. Susan Pynchon and I drove to two nearby towns and watched as they handed over their ballot boxes to "Butch and Hoppy", the two men who drive around in the state in a van picking the ballots up. We observed as they loaded boxes of ballots into the van with no slits at all in them. We videotaped each of these up close. They arrived at the destination without slits. The label on the top was affixed, but in some cases was crumpled, or also damaged.
