February 16, 2008
NYC's Undercounted Obama Votes on Primary Night
Photograph of an Obama volunteer in Harlem by Angela Radulescu on Flickr
Your Super Tuesday primary vote did count, although it may not have initially. The NY Times did some digging around after noticing, according to the unofficial results the media relies on, 80 NYC voting districts recorded no votes for Obama, even in neighborhoods with large black populations. The city has now "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."
Some examples: In Harlem, the unofficial results said Hillary Clinton won 141 to 0, but now the vote is 261 for Clinton and 136 for Obama. In Brooklyn, the primary night counted 118 votes for Clinton and none for Obama, but now Clinton has 118 and Obama 116. Why the differences? Probably human error.
The NY Times has a good graphic which explains this, but in a (big) nutshell: For unofficial results on primary night, inspectors examine the voting machines in each of the city's 6,106 districts, each writing down the results on a piece of paper, which each inspector gives to a police officer. The cop then take the paper to the precinct and enters the results into a computer, which distributes the information to the AP (which funnels the information to the other media outlets).
For official results, election officials go back to the voting machines, and "a Republican and Democrat go to each machine and write official results" on a piece of paper, which is then "used to enter data into a computer system by hand, along with a hand count of paper ballots."
Discrepancies are apparently common between unofficial and official results. Even a lawyer for the Obama campaign, Jerome A. Koenig, doubts there was any corruption, telling the Times he thinks some of the issue could be due to the ballot design (Obama's name was further over). Clinton supporter Assemblyman Keith Wright of Harlem said, "I’m sure it’s a clerical error of some sort. Being around elections for the last 25 years, no candidate receives zero votes.”
However, former parks commissioner Gordon Davis, who was an Obama poll watcher in Harlem, has his concerns, "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...I was watching like a hawk, but how did I know the machine had a mind of its own?"
Obama's campaign hopes that the official results, which are still being tabulated, may give him another valuable delegate.
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I smell a (party) rat
I smell a bunch of idiots.
Why even go through the process if this kind of stuff occurs? Make up any numbers you want and live with them.
c'mon man. You are basing the entire election on these shitty machines that do not fucking register votes? this shit has been happening for the last 100 years. I doubt it's actually one vote that's counted. I guarantee that these machines do not reflect what people actually voted. These people just wing it. I bet if 100 people voted in these machines I bet 60 votes were counted.
Clinton = Bush
I don't know why the United States just buy new machines for the all the states. This way every state gets modern machines and have the same voting process throughout the country.
is that what the world has come to? to now demonize clinton and affiliate her with Bush?
Florida all over again.
It's just as pausible that the Big O machine manipulated the results to embarrass Mrs C.
But then we all know that the real culprit is the B gang.
I agree with Steven. Why are we still using ancient voting machines? Sometimes it's weird how the US is the most powerful nation but so backwards in more ways than one.
"In Harlem, the unofficial results said Hillary Clinton won 141 to 0, but now the vote is 261 for Clinton and 136 for Obama."
So why does the headline say "NYC's Undercounted Obama Votes on Primary Night"?
Also, in response to those who question the lack of new voting machinese - it seems that most new voting machines (e.g. Diebold) are facing huge resistance. Not that we should settle for these archaic machines though...
To suggest that these newly discovered voting irregularities is not the result of fraud and corruption, but likely due to human error or fatigue, as reported in the press, is the biggest "fairy tale" I ever heard.
Something smells really bad. Kudos to the reporter who discovered and exposed this voter fraud.
yes, of course it was human error, the humans who are gonna get caught with this fraud committed an error,
hilary can only win now with underhanded tricks.
Obama = empty hope
clinton= hopeless hope
any republican= bend over, it's your turn again
obama= abstract hope, but anything's better than the other ronald mcdonald crap
Personally, I trust the old dinosaur machine more than the new, computerized ones. It's easier to hack into software than to fiddle with the old machines. I know, because I've worked in software testing. I know how even a mistake in the code of a software can accidentally cause the clicking of one choice to reflect the logging of another. Get it? It is very very easy. You can even arrange it so that the paper trail is misleading.
To verify the "honesty" of a computerized voting machine, the code would have to be gone over with a fine-toothed comb, one machine at a time, unless the software and the voting activity is online, sourcing one database only (like google calendar).
Wake up and smell the software!
I find it completely unbelievable that HUGE flashing red lights and sirens wouldn't have gone off in the heads of SOMEBODY in the process if EITHER candidate received ZERO votes in ANY precinct.
The fact that Mr. Obama received zero votes in Harlem defies belief and screams complete incompetence at the very least and incredible corruption at the worst.
~LCC
You've heard it before. There is no way to explain why it is easier to vote for your favorite Idol than the next president of this country.
If you look at it, nothing has captivated the nation and unified more people than a popular singing competition from the UK.
You've heard it before. There is no way to explain why it is easier to vote for your favorite Idol than the next president of this country.
If you look at it, nothing has captivated the nation and unified more people than a popular singing competition from the UK.