Early primaries

[freddyv]

anyone been keeping up with the early primaries? surprised that I haven't seen anything on here regarding them.

Iowa was probably a shocker for a lot of people. Huckabee and Romney were clearly ahead of the pack, with Thompson, McCain, and Paul finishing in a close cluster about 10 or so points behind Romney. Looks like Giuliani was smart to stay out of Iowa, doesn't seem like he had much of a chance there.

Not a whole lot of press on the Wyoming primary.

Obama seems to have a good lead on the dem nomination. Everyone else not named Clinton or Edwards should probably just drop out now.

[HBGOnline]

The Iowa primary's are a joke. The media makes a big deal out of them because they can start to build up and destroy canidates before the "real" primarys take place. New Hampshire is also a joke because close to 50% of registered voters are Independants.

I'm personally waiting for South Carolina, Florida and Super Tuesday to see how it all plays out.

If you believe the media most canidates will drop out before Super Tuesday. I think they want that to happen, but it won't.

[TAFKA g0d]

Giuliani is a fag!

[seanx]

what a shock..............


Vote Fraud Expert Warns Of New Hampshire Chicanery
Key vulnerabilities of Diebold machine identified within ten minutes by programmer

January 8, 2008
Paul Joseph Watson

"It's not who votes that counts. It's who counts the votes." Joseph Stalin.

Vote fraud expert Bev Harris has warned that New Hampshire's electronic voting machines are wide open to fraud and that even modestly skilled computer programmers were able to identify key vulnerabilities within ten minutes of assessing them as key Democrat and Republican primaries unfold today.

The contract for programming all of New Hampshire's Diebold voting machines, which combined will count 81 per cent of the vote today, is owned by LHS Associates, which also holds the contracts for Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont.

LHS is owned by John Silvestro, who has been at the center of a long-running public dispute in trying to deflect accusations made by hacker Harri Hursti that the machines can easily be rigged.

"The exact same make, model and version hacked in the Black Box Voting project in Leon County is used throughout New Hampshire, where about 45 percent of elections administrators hand count paper ballots at the polling pla ce, with the remaining locations all using the Diebold version 1.94w optical scan machine," writes Harris .

One area of disagreement between Hursti and Silvestro was the amount of expertise needed to exploit the Diebold 1.94w optical scan system. Silvestro claimed (in a strange contortion of reasoning) that he doesn't hire very skilled programmers, implying that this makes New Hampshire elections more secure.

Hursti pointed out that hiring programmers with a lack of knowledge is generally not considered a security feature, and also that an average high schooler can learn to exploit the system in two days to two weeks.

In this You Tube video, Silvestro constantly interrupts Hursti's testimony in front of the New Hampshire legislative.

After purchasing a Diebold 1.94w machine, a computer repair shop employee picked at random by Black Box Voting was able to zero in on the system's vulnerable memory card within just ten minutes.

Harris points out that LHS is a private company that will count over four fifths of the New Hampshire vote with no oversight whatsoever.

LHS is not subject to public records requirements, as the government is, at least, not in New Hampshire. The control over memory card contents is absolute; when cards malfunction or get lost, LHS brings the replacements.

Since LHS maintains the machines, repairs the machines, and replaces the machines -- often on Election Day -- when they malfunction, they have intimate access to the chips, sockets, ports, communications devices and other electronic components.

A recent CNN report featured on Lou Dobbs' show highlights just how easy it is to hack a voting machine and change how votes are tallied with just rudimentary programming skills. Experts warn that it takes only a minute for an unsupervised machine to be inserted with a virus and hacked.

[freddyv]

The election coverage is strange. Iowa and New Hampshire are a big deal, but apparently there have been other primaries going on that have gotten little to no press.

There have been clear first and second place finishers on the republican side, but then it's statistically speaking essentially been a three way tie for third. It hasn't really been presented as such though.

I've had to resort to watching CNN's coverage as sadly it seems the most complete. It's funny though...they'll have pie charts showing what the election results are...and they'll have the pieces for Romney, McCain, and Huckabee labeled...and then they'll have a big unlabeled piece of almost equal value to the third place finisher that is unlabeled...I wonder whose that is...

Maybe it's just coincidence. On the dem side though they'll have the distant fourth place finisher's piece labeled, even though it's typically like 3%.

[JeffD5Buddy]

If you are speaking of Ron Paul.... he finished 5th in New Hampshire, 5th in Iowa and at the bottom in Wyoming (Don't fully understand hpw it works there because he shows 0% and I'm sure that's not true). He isn't getting any coverage because he still polls low in upcoming states where as Giuliani and Thompson show strong support (I.E. Giuliani in Lforida and California and Thompson down south) and surges in upcoming states. But I know, I know.... it's a vast conspiracy against Ron Paul. After he doesn't win the nomination and fades away, I'm sure you Ron Paulers will keep us all abreast of the vast government conspiracy contrived in unison with the media to keep Ron Paul out of the spotlight and out of the White House.

[freddyv]

it's not a conspiracy...watch the coverage. I think it's actually kinda funny, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Iowa:

Huckabee 34%
Romney 25%
Thompson 13%
McCain 13%
Paul 10%

statistically speaking, the difference between thompson, mccain, and paul is insignificant. basically it's a clear 1-2, and a three-way tie for third.

New Hampshire:

McCain 37%
Romney 31%
Huckabee 11%
Giuliani 9%
Paul 8%

again, clear 1-2 and basically a three-way tie for third. 3% is not significant when the top two candidates essentially take 2/3 of the total vote and three guys evenly split the other third.

from uspolitics.about.com/od/2008elections/tp/wyoming_caucuses.htm :

Only Republicans are caucusing on Saturday 5 January in Wyoming. Any registered voter can participate in a caucus. Parties require that voters re-register as a party member; a voter can attend only one party's caucus.

Republicans separate candidate preference from convention delegate selection. After everyone has had a say, attendees vote in a straw poll (paper ballot, counted by hand) to determine the winner. The attendees then select delegates, who do not have to declare which candidate they support.

Because Wyoming does not have a large population, candidates have not spent a lot of time here. Only Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter have visited since September.



All of the delegates were split among three candidates. No one else received any delegates and their result was reported as 0%.

you don't have to like ron paul...obviously you're allowed to support whomever you like. you don't have to be a douche bag about it though. not everyone that supports ron paul is a conspiracy theorist.

p.s. - know the facts before you pontificate.

[freddyv]

also, everyone forgets that iowa, wyoming, and new hampshire are nothing states with very few delegates. about 1% of the total number of voters have voted so far. this is why guiliani basically skipped out on all three states. three states...three different winners...and other than romney it's been different at the top every time. if anything, this shows that the election is wide open at this point. after all, giuliani is a favorite and he hasn't even hit 10% in any state so far.

[seanx]

Jeff, how the hell were you able to post a photo of your brain as your personal icon? (just a joke....so don't freak out on me, my friend)

Ron Paul Votes Not Counted In New Hampshire District
Vote fraud confirmed, Clinton reversed mammoth pre-polling deficit to beat Obama, Diebold machines aid Giuliani, Romney January 9, 2008
Paul Joseph Watson

Major allegations of vote fraud in New Hampshire are circulating after Hillary Clinton reversed a mammoth pre-polling deficit to defeat Barack Obama with the aid of Diebold electronic voting machines, while confirmed votes for Ron Paul in the Sutton district were not even counted.

According to a voter in Sutton, New Hampshire , three of her family members voted for Ron Paul, yet when she checked the voting map on the Politico website, the total votes for Ron Paul were zero.

With 100% of precincts now reporting, the map still says zero votes for Ron Paul as you can see below.

It's not as if Sutton had a handful of voters like some other districts - a total of 386 people voted yet we are led to believe that not one voted for Ron Paul? Judging by the Iowa results, around 10% of residents would be expected to vote for the Congressman, returning a total of around 38 votes in this district. Let's be ultra-conservative and say just 5% support Paul - he'd still get 19 votes - but he got absolutely none whatsoever. Is there something wrong with this picture?

Greenville also tallied 144 votes yet not one for Congressman Paul.

Anyone else in Sutton who voted for Ron Paul needs to go public immediately with the charge of vote fraud and make it known that they were cheated out of their right to vote.

Diebold voting machines also did Congressman Paul no favors last night - compared to hand counted ballots Giuliani gained just short of 0.5% from electronic voting whereas Paul lost over 2%, which was the difference between finishing 4th and 5th, as this graph documents .

Mitt Romney profited the most from the Diebold swing, he received 7% more votes compared to hand counted ballots.

In the Democratic race the Diebold voting machines clearly swung the primary in Hillary Clinton's favor at the expense of Barack Obama, who had a commanding lead over the New York Senator going into the contest.

Zogby polling numbers had Obama leading Clinton by a whopping 42/29 per cent, yet Clinton eventually took the primary by three per cent.

"If I was Barack Obama, I'd certainly not have conceded this election this quickly," writes The Brad Blog . "I'm not quite sure what he was thinking. And as far as offering an indication of whether he understands how these systems work, and the necessity of making sure that votes are counted, and counted accurately, it does not offer a great deal of confidence at this hour."

"While I have no evidence at this time --- let me repeat, no evidence at this time --- of chicanery, what we do know is that chicanery, with this particular voting system, is not particularly difficult. Particularly when one private company --- and a less-than-respectable one at that, as I detailed in the previous post --- runs the entire process."

As we reported yesterday , the contract for programming all of New Hampshire's Diebold voting machines, which combined counted 81 per cent of the vote yesterday, is owned by LHS Associates, whose owner John Silvestro has gone to great lengths to deflect accusations that the machines can easily be rigged.

After purchasing a Diebold 1.94w machine, the same system used in New Hampshire, a computer repair shop employee picked at random by Black Box Voting was able to zero in on the system's vulnerable memory card within just ten minutes. Hacking expert Harri Hursti testified in front of the New Hampshire legislature that the machines were wide open to fraud.

[JeffD5Buddy]

freddyv said:

also, everyone forgets that iowa, wyoming, and new hampshire are nothing states with very few delegates. about 1% of the total number of voters have voted so far. this is why guiliani basically skipped out on all three states. three states...three different winners...and other than romney it's been different at the top every time. if anything, this shows that the election is wide open at this point. after all, giuliani is a favorite and he hasn't even hit 10% in any state so far.

I agree.... I think if Paul starts to finish top3 in upcoming primaries.... they'll have no choice but to cover him.... but now he appears as a flash in the pan. (Not saying I agree, but to the average Joe)

[JeffD5Buddy]

freddv...what facts did I miss before I "pontificated?" He DID finish 5th in the states I mentioned and I freely admitted I wasn't fully aware of how Wyoming worked... I know there are delegates so what are you getting at? Your comment made absolutely NO sense what so ever. As for the conspiracy thing.... I don't think all Ron Paul fans are conspiracy theorists ( I happen to agree with well over 50% of what he says).... but I think most are. Example..... seanx posted above about voter fraud in New Hampshire..... so I Googled voter fraud New Hampshire. The FIRST site claiming voter fraud.... www.ronpaulwarroom.com..... the 2nd was a link to the fore mentioned article and the 3rd... links to a blog for Boston based 911 truthers. If the shoe fits man.... And remember, I don't just post articles on here from websites. Like them or not, I give opinions based on information I gather. What I posted above was my opinion. It was my opinion based on numbers and what I believe is happening, not something I read or heard.

(As a side note.... seanx, I didn't mean to use you as the example, just so happened you posted something that fit my argument, I know a bunch of other Paul supporters who are right in line with your thought process and feeling on things.)

[seanx]

....it's ok, Jeff.....I'm a good example to use. Are you a good example of the people who haven't awakened yet?............yes.......sexy

[sayten]

how can anyone take Wyoming seriously? They have more cattle than people....

It is awfully sad when the news comes on and they talk nothing of alternatives...

it's just the same recycled tools from Sears

[freddyv]

jeffd5buddy said:

Your comment made absolutely NO sense what so ever.

I don't know what you are referring to. my statistical analysis? it is a misrepresentation of the final tally to simply say the guy finished fifth and therefore is insignificant. that implies that he had far fewer votes than anyone else. when you do some simple statistical analysis on the spread, it shows that two people carried almost all of the vote, and the third, fourth, and fifth place finishers essentially all finished with the "same" amount of votes.

considering foxnews showed ron paul at 3%, the fact that he finished with about 10% in both iowa and new hampshire and in a dead heat with 60% of the major candidates should tell you that maybe he's a little more popular than you've been lead to believe.

[JeffD5Buddy]

I don't know what you are referring to either. Maybe I misunderstood something you meant.

[freddyv]

foxnews is reporting that a hand recount for the new hampshire primary is on. sounds like maybe the voter fraud isn't just a conspiracy theory after all, no?

[freddyv]

I'm curious what everyone makes of Giuliani's showing so far in the early primaries. His candidacy is a bit paradoxical; I'm not quite sure why he isn't garnering more of the vote in spite of his lack of effort.

Going into the process, he was touted as a favorite. Clearly he's got a tremendous amount of name recognition from being mayor of NYC and his role post-911. But if he truly is a favorite as the media would have you believe, then why isn't he doing better at the polls? I don't really buy that it's because he isn't spending much time in the early states as republican voters in those states obviously know who he is and what his stances are on the issues.

A lot of people (including some on this board) slam Ron Paul, but he's actually got almost double the raw vote when compared to Giuliani (84,554 to 49,198) despite having virtually zero name recognition. Fred Thompson is polling better as well with 50,925 votes. Those three guys are way behind the the leaders though (Romney, McCain, and Huckabee, respectively).

[freddyv]

Dr. Paul finished 2nd in Saturday's Nevada Caucus. Hunter has withdrawn, and barring a better showing in Florida, Thompson and Giuliani could be on their way out as well. Things are getting interesting.

[freddyv]

Looks like Rudy is in trouble...

Giuliani's Florida win appears in danger
By LIZ SIDOTI and JENNIFER LOVEN,
Associated Press Writers
1 hour, 57 minutes ago

DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. - Rudy Giuliani splurged on Florida, lavishing time and money on a high-risk gamble that the state would vault him to the Republican presidential nomination.

Five days before his make-or-break primary, all that last year's national front-runner has to show for the love he's given the Sunshine State is a diminished standing.

"We are gaining support. I think you'll see that over the next few days," Giuliani insisted Wednesday, hours before a new poll showed him trailing John McCain and Mitt Romney.

Florida was supposed to be "Rudy Country." His game plan called for playing down earlier-voting states for a laser focus on Florida and its 57-delegate prize. He pumped more than $3 million into advertising and planted himself here, counting on a win to give him unbeatable momentum going into the voting by nearly two dozen states on Feb. 5. The nomination was to follow.

All that now is in danger.

McCain and Romney grabbed headlines by winning states that voted earlier; Giuliani won nothing and stayed out of the picture. Polls this week, even in his home state of New York, an expected bulwark for him on Feb. 5, showed him tied or behind. His once huge advantage in California is no more, either.

In Florida, a new poll shows McCain and Romney neck-and-neck for the lead, with 25 percent and 23 percent, respectively, while Giuliani and Mike Huckabee trail at 15 percent. More than one-fourth of the likely voters surveyed between Sunday and Tuesday — 27 percent — said they still may change their minds. The poll was sponsored by the St. Petersburg Times, The Miami Herald and Bay News 9.

the rest is here:
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080124/ap_on_el_pr/giuliani_florida