Primaryvotes to be recounted

Published on Saturday, January 12, 2008.


Source: Concord Monitor

Democratic and Republican presidential primaries will undergo a hand recount, after two candidates who garnered little support here questioned the results.
The Democratic recount was requested by Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who won about 1 percent of the vote in Tuesday's primary. In a letter to Secretary of State Bill Gardner, Kucinich cited "unexplained disparities between hand-counted ballots and machine-counted ballots" and pointed to the divergence between opinion polls leading up to the primary - which showed Barack Obama ahead by a wide margin - and the final outcome. Hillary Clinton narrowly won the Democratic contest.

On the Republican side, a Michigan chauffeur and little-known presidential candidate named Albert Howard joined forces with supporters of Rep. Ron Paul yesterday to request a full recount of the Republican ballots from Tuesday's primary.

Howard is a 41-year-old father of eight from Ann Arbor who says he believes an angel of the Lord came to him and told him he would beat Clinton in a run for the presidency. He flew to New Hampshire on Thursday night and was at Gardner's office at 8:30 yesterday morning with the necessary paperwork.

Now, Gardner said, the state is required to conduct a full hand recount of the nearly 240,000 ballots cast in Tuesday's Republican primary and the more than 285,000 ballots cast in the Democratic primary.

By law, the recounts will start Wednesday. Because every ballot in the state must be recounted by hand, "we're talking days and probably weeks," said Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan.

"We're very confident that the results that were reflected after the primary was over are going to be the results that would be the outcome of a recount," Scanlan said.

The last time the state conducted a recount in the presidential primary it was 1980 at the request of perennial candidate Lyndon LaRouche, Gardner said. The recount gained LaRouche 11 votes, from a total of eight to 19.

Under state law, if a candidate finishes more than 3 percentage points behind the winner, he or she must pay the cost of a recount. Kucinich representatives arrived at Gardner's office late yesterday - just in time to meet the deadline to request a recount - with the $2,000 fee required to initiate the process. They also agreed to pay for the full cost of the recount, Scanlan said.

Gardner is working on estimates for the recount costs, but they'll likely be significantly higher than $2,000. Gardner will announce the time and location of the recount after he estimates the total cost and the state has received a payment for that estimate.

The Republican recount is being bankrolled by backers of Paul, the libertarian-minded Texas congressman whose presidential candidacy has become an internet phenomenon. Two Paul supporters, Margaret and Eric Newhouse of Moultonboro, arrived at the secretary of state's office at noon yesterday with a wad of $100 bills totaling $2,000.

The Newhouses they said that an online drive for recount funds has already raised $18,000, and that the $2,000 was some of their own money plus contributions from other Paul supporters.

Kucinich's request for a recount came amid considerable internet speculation about the discrepancy between results of ballots counted by hand and those counted electronically. Bloggers and voters have pointed to Clinton's lead over Obama in towns where ballots were machine-counted as evidence of possible vote tampering.

"I am not making this request in the expectation that a recount will significantly affect the number of votes that were cast on my behalf," Kucinich wrote, according to a press release. But "serious and credible reports, allegations and rumors have surfaced in the past few days. . . . It is imperative that these questions be addressed in the interest of public confidence in the integrity of the election process and the election machinery - not just in New Hampshire, but in every other state that conducts a primary election."

In a letter to the Monitor, Alton residents Nick and Patty Diliberto also questioned the results. "In cities and towns that counted ballots by hand. . . . Obama came out the winner, 39 to 36 percent," compared with communities with machine counts, where Clinton led, they wrote. Voting machines "can be hacked into and votes can be flipped. A hand recount of all ballots might reveal a different outcome."

But speculation about the disparity in the vote counts overlooks a crucial fact, said Dante Scala, an associate professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire.

"People expected Clinton to do well in cities, blue-collar cities, many of which have these automated balloting," Scala said. "And towns, where Obama was expected to do better, do hand counts, because they don't have the electronic machines." Cities where Clinton won convincingly - such as Manchester, Somersworth, Rochester, Nashua and Berlin - all rely on electronic counting.

"The people who are espousing all these theories have no understanding of the New Hampshire electorate, so they leap on these things," Scala said. He added that such recounts will only "strengthen the credibility of New Hampshire's system."

An Obama spokesman didn't return a phone call yesterday.

On the Republican side, the Newhouses said they were spurred to action by concerns about the integrity of Diebold voting machines plus word that some 31 votes for Paul were not at first recorded in the town of Sutton. (State officials say the votes were counted but were not originally passed on to the state due to a transcription error.)

"That's pretty huge," said Eric Newhouse, a carpenter and father of five who brought a videotape to record him handing the money over.

They hoped the recount in New Hampshire would be watched across the country.

"If we can prove something with the election voting machines in this state, we've changed this entire election," said Newhouse, who deemed the recount fee "the best money I've ever spent in my life."

Paul spokeswoman Kate Rick didn't return a phone call yesterday.

Howard said he grew concerned watching the results roll in on C-SPAN on Tuesday. With 12 percent of the precincts counted, Howard said, C-SPAN showed he had 150 votes, then 187. Suddenly, Howard said, his name disappeared and his vote total dipped down to 30.

"I was actually ahead of Alan Keyes for a while," Howard said. "That's what triggered some real emotion in me."

According to unofficial tallies, Howard won 44 votes in the primary. Keyes snagged 203.

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