 | Unpacking the Ron Paul New Hampshire Vote Fraud Story |
Yesterday, I responded to a comment made by a poster here to the effect that there had been vote tampering in the 2008 New Hampshire primary against Ron Paul by making a trivially jokey fart video in which Mitt Romney tampers with Ron Paul voters by, um, farting them out of the room. See, fart jokes are funny because, see, um… ok, the humor doesn’t matter here. The point is that the whole idea of Ron Paul as the victim of vote tampering in New Hampshire seemed so far-out ridiculous to me as to be ridiculed, which I did, in farty fashion.
Since I posted that video, however, Irregular Times has been inundated with messages by people who seem to sincerely believe that Ron Paul came in 5th place in the Republican primary because he was the victim of vote fraud. The following e-mail message sent to Irregular Times and 237 others (including the Montana Militia, Jim Hightower, World Can’t Wait, TruthOut and some Ron Paul Campaign staffers) captures most of the common points:
Ron Paul - Vote Fraud Victim! THey are stealing ANOTHER FUCKING ELECTING right before OUR EYES! Fact! The powers that be in the treasonous CFR(Council on Foreign Relations) from BOTH parties are out to STOP Ron Paul! He is there ONLY threat, since only him, DK and Gravel and Tancredo are NOT members and Tancredo dropped out, and neither Gravel nor DK are going anywhere BUT Ron is gaining DAILY BIG TIME!! Tell me how in HELL someone with ALL that money and has majority of meetups and win’s straw poll after straw poll is NOT winning states too? Can it possibly be that the Israeli Firm in Iowa counting the votes, did something, especially since ONLY Ron wants to cut their aide? The CFR and New World Order will STOP at nothing to get one of their people in to further their treasonous agenda of one world order! Including assasination too! Dr. Paul knows this and is BRAVE enought to fight for America ANYWAY! Yet most people are too brainwashed to see it or are too busy being “good Democrats” or “good Republicans” to be “good Americans”! It’s dog and pony show people, and has been for YEARS! Either phoney choices we have, i.e. NO different, or IF there is a different they steal the election and as last resort if that doesn’t work the assasinate the guy, JFK! The damn ironic damn thing is, then our gov’t has the balls to tell other nations we will go over there to make SURE their elections are fair! What a F*cking sick joke!
J. Bruce Campbell doesn’t use all caps to emote as much, but he makes a similar set of contentions:
Ron Paul - Vote Fraud Victim
By J. Bruce Campbell
1-9-8The numbers don’t add up, obviously. Ron Paul wins straw poll after straw poll, he wins hack-proof online polls such as AOL’s and he gets unprecedented donations and still he gets wiped out by the Diebold machines, which was expected. Blackboxvoting.org has shown us how it is done. The exact same Diebold machines that were exposed in “Hacking Democracy” two years ago were used in New Hampshire yesterday to manage 81% of the primary ballots. Then we learned that the 2004 Iowa Caucus voting was handled by an Israeli-owned company, Elron. Were things different this year? Who is behind John Silvestro and his LHS company that counted the New Hampshire vote?
We should stop hoping that we can beat the house and its rigged roulette wheel, its programmed slot machines and its marked decks and loaded dice.
The Ron Paul campaign was given millions of dollars to clean out the corruption in the federal government. This will be impossible if vote fraud prevents Ron Paul from winning, despite his wild and growing popularity. Vote fraud is at the center of official corruption and will always prevent investigation and prosecution of those involved in criminal behavior.
Ooookay. It looks like a lot of people are taking this notion of Ron Paul voters being tampered with seriously. So let me make a serious response. The claims made above are unreasonable, adopt inappropriate evidence, and show more about the community of Ron Paul supporters than they do about the propriety of the New Hampshire primary election of 2008.
The claims that Ron Paul was the victim of vote-rigging in New Hampshire suffer from both logical and empirical problems. The largest logical problem is taking the leap from the widely-accepted claim that voting machines are vulnerable to tampering to the conclusion that voting machines have been tampered with. A number of Democratic partisans made the same mistake in 2004. Incredulous that Americans would actually vote for George W. Bush, they searched for an explanation, seized on reports of scattered irregularities in Ohio, and inappropriately called those irregularities “proof” that John Kerry actually won the election in Ohio. So far, Ron Paul supporters don’t even appear to have evidence of election irregularities — and so they’re making an even larger leap: if voting machines can be tampered with, and my candidate didn’t win an election, then the election must have been rigged!
But the New Hampshire primary election must have been rigged, these Ron Paul supporters insist. After all, Ron Paul has the biggest meetup, and won straw polls, and internet polls, and got lots of campaign money. “Tell me how in HELL someone with ALL that money and has majority of meetups and win’s straw poll after straw poll is NOT winning states too?,” the e-mail rhethorically challenges the reader — and then moves on the bizarre contention that it’s the Jews’ fault. The Israeli connection is so oddball that I’ll just let it sit there looking odd and move on to actually answering the Paulite’s challenge. Here’s how:
1. Ron Paul’s meetup membership as of January 10, 2008 stands at 95,284, with some of those meetup members in Europe and Asia. That’s big compared to the other candidates’ meetups, but then again other candidates are organizing groups on their own websites and not through meetup. The United States Population is over 300 million, which is three orders of magnitude larger than 100,000. New Hampshire has just eleven Ron Paul meetup groups, and even relatively large Portsmouth, New Hampshire has just 84 Ron Paul meetup participants.
2. Straw polls are won by candidates whose supporters are most motivated to turn out and show up. They’re not representative elections. Nobody ever accused Ron Paul supporters of being unmotivated. But straw poll results just show that Ron Paul supporters are motivated, which is not the same as being large in number.
3. Comparing campaign warchests of different candidates is a bad way of comparing how many people support different candidates. It’s an excellent way of comparing how well-off and how motivated different candidates’ supporters are. I see a lot of Ron Paul stickers in the neighborhoods where the lawyers and university professors live. I don’t see them so much in the hardscrabble areas. And, again, you’ll never hear me call Ron Paul supporters unmotivated. But that doesn’t mean there’s a lot of them. All we know is that what Ron Paul supporters exist have opened their wallets.
4. And then there’s internet polls. Um. Same point all over again. Internet polls are won or lost as a function of fervor by the set of people who spend lots of time online looking for such opportunities. They aren’t representative by any means.
All of the pieces of evidence the Ron Paul supporters mention in support of their notion that Ron Paul supporters are just everywhere aren’t trustworthy. If you look at indications of more broad support, you can look at actual representative sample surveys, in which Ron Paul consistently came in at or less than 10 percent before the New Hampshire election — not at all coincidentally close to what Ron Paul got in the primary vote. Do the Ron Paul supporters want to start claiming that the polling was rigged by corrupt hackers, too?
So for what reason do these Ron Paul supporters feel so strongly that the vote in New Hampshire must have been hacked? I can’t look into their heads, but I can think of two possible reasons, one ideological and the other sociological. Ideologically, Ron Paul supporters are committed to a conspiratorial world view in which the undesirable events in history are the result of secret cabals working behind the scene. People tend to port their explanations from one situation to another. Ideologically speaking, it is completely consistent for Ron Paul supporters to suppose that their candidate lost because the Jews, or the Council on Foreign Relations, or the North American Union, or the New World Order black helicopter people, or some other secret group arranged the loss.
Sociologically speaking, we all tend to make the mistake of thinking that our immediate network is representative of the big world. Ron Paul supporters form tight networks of people who talk to each other all the time, hang up posters all over the place, and do other things together. From the social viewpoint of a Ron Paul supporter, the whole world seems to consist of Ron Paul supporters. Everywhere they go, and with everything they do, they’re just surrounded by other Paulites! And boy howdy, aren’t they a loud and attention-seizing bunch? A person who spends all of his or her time with other Ron Paul supporters might find it easy to start thinking that America is really filled with Ron Paul supporters. Imagine the rude shock come election time. Hey, it happened to the Deaniacs too.
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the New Hampshire Republican primary election was really rigged, and Ron Paul did really win. If you have evidence — actual, empirical evidence — that this occurred, please share it with me. So far, I haven’t seen a scrap of evidence — just the emotional and illogical debris of some people who are understandably upset that their political dream is falling apart.
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I liked this article. As a Ron Paul supporter myself, I think that many people are hysterically overreacting to this. There WAS evidence that Ron Paul votes were counted, there has not been evidence yet that PROVES that the vote was actually tampered with.
You are 100% right, Ron Paul has a large number of very active and very enthusiastic supporters. That is definitely the social side of it…and how when he loses people just can’t believe it. Many supporters believe so strongly that he is the best candidate they can’t see how someone could vote for someone else.
The Internet opens a doorway to conflicting opinions, ideas, and that combined with a shitty Bush administration and growing bureaucracy and debt has spurred a HUGE amount of distrust in the system. You can piece together all sorts of facts and incompetencies about the candidates. Tack on previous problems with vote counting and notorious and unnecessary Diebold machines and you have a recipe for disaster.
Maybe there is a global elite conspiracy… maybe there are forces duping the election. It doesn’t matter if you believe this or not. In contrast, it is obvious that most Americans FEEL SAFE or they would care more about it. If the majority reaches that point, I can assure you that the would tell Diebold to screw off and always request a paper ballot. Let’s have a little more faith in the voting public.
I also find it hypocritical on the part of a collection of Ron Paul supporters who simply CAN’T BELIEVE he is losing because he does well on Internet polls…. when they don’t trust the voting machines! How on Earth is an Internet poll more reliable? As someone who has been using the Internet for a food 12 years now, I can tell you those are among the easiest things to dupe. Wake up…this is very simple.
Regardless of a conspiracy (which I know this site openly criticizes), the Ron Paul campaign needs to get away from this hysteria and focus their support on the Doctor’s campaign and stop talking about conspiracy. Ron Paul criticizes the system, but he still believes in its Integrity….just that the government is mismanaged. I don’t like the ideas behind the CFR, North American Union, National ID card, War on Drugs, CIA, you name it…. but the people on this campaign focusing on things that aren’t issues in the mainstream agenda are never going to win an election.
If you support Ron Paul, focus on the issues. Explain the philosophical difference between Dr. Paul’s stance and the others. The Libertarian ideals and monetary policy that Ron Paul brings to the debates are the core of his campaign. Talk about the growing bureaucracy, the failing dollar, health care, taxes, and Iraq…and then what Ron Paul wants to do about it. Voters are across all spectrums: apathetic, concerned, angry, or downright paranoid. If you want to wake people up, give them that sense of National pride and empowerment that many of us feel when we hear Dr. Paul speak. Stop telling people speculations and stories - not everyone distrusts the system, or is as angry, as much as you.
Comment by Caffeine — 1/10/2008 @ 4:43 pm
What concerns me is the number of comments that I have seen by Ron Paul supporters that go along the lines: “This is the last straw, next time we take up arms” etc. What the hell is going on here? The only two common denominators are Ron Paul and Alex Jones.
Personally I dismissed Jones years ago so I am not up to date on what he is ‘preaching’. Is he instigating this stuff? And to what end?
Comment by Worried Citizen — 1/10/2008 @ 11:04 pm
so Ron Paul can’t run on unity08…. so now what do his crazy people do, can he get ballot access in time to put up a challenge? I hope reality is setting in that he has not galvanized the people, only the wingnuts. He needs another good quarter of fundraising to get a ballot access warchest and not subject himself to sore loser provisions in states like Texas, Illinois and others after their primaries…
The entire race is starting to get interesting.
Comment by wingnut — 1/11/2008 @ 12:43 am
Heres an update for this semi-gossip blog. There have been confirmed cases of voter fraud or err should I say human error that didnt count ron pauls votes so I dont believe his supporters are upset for no good reason. For example in Sutton NH they put him down for ZERO when he had 31 and for some weird cosmic reason Mr. Rudy 9/11 got 9.11% in a few areas and was the only candidate to have this happen to him. Hmmm could someone be messing with the system and like some criminals doing something stupid that will call attention to their crime
Comment by nick — 1/11/2008 @ 2:17 am
But Nick, you’re conveniently not telling the whole story, which is that those 31 votes were found and counted.
And how many votes did Ron Paul lose by?
Comment by Jim — 1/11/2008 @ 2:31 am
Two words: exit polls. The international gold standard for election monitoring.
Exit polls for the Democrat race show Obama beating Clinton by 4%. Election results have it the other way around. An 8 point swing is way beyond what’s normally expected. If you want to argue the polls were distorted because he’s black, then explain why we didn’t see that effect in Iowa.
There’s a similar discrepancy between Paul and Romney; not as large, but big enough to be significant. If it can happen with one party, it can happen with the other. And the biggest discrepancies for both parties are in the machine-counted precincts.
Even according to the exit polls Paul came nowhere near first place, but they do suggest he should have come in better than fifth.
There are plenty of reasons to doubt the official counts, even apart from the biased views of the Paul supporters. The more you read up on this issue, the dirtier it looks. This analysis of the 2006 election, for example:
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/fingerprints_election_theft
Much more info at electiondefensealliance.org and blackboxvoting.org. This is an issue that should transcend parties. Election fraud is not exactly a new issue in this country; we shouldn’t pretend we’re above all that.
Comment by joe — 1/14/2008 @ 3:27 pm
http://www.ronpaulwarroom.com/?p=749
Hand Count Shows 15% For Ron Paul
By zooamerica | January 9, 2008
This would have placed Dr. Paul in 3rd place, just as the polls were showing before the primary…
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/23643
The computer counted votes are the problem.
Not a single hand count township showed less than 10%
Supposedly, Ron Paul got 8% - this does not make sense.
richmond is hand count 34% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
lyman is hand count 28.7% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Orange is hand count 25% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Harts location is hand count 25% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
wentworth is hand count 24% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
goshen is hand count 17.68% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
marlow is hand count 16.6% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
cornish is hand count 14.8% for dr. Paul…100% reporting
Rumney is hand count 14.5% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
croydon is hand count 14 % for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
dorchester is hand count 13.89% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
effingham is hand count 13% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
albany is hand count 12.9% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
antrim is hand count 12% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
south hampton is hand count 12% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
sullivan is hand count 12.61% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
troy is hand count 12.21% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
mason is hand count 11.88% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
newport is hand count 11.45% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
charlstown is hand count 11.3% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Allenstown is hand count 11.16% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
bristol is hand count 11% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
warren is hand count 11% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Strafford is hand count 11% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
washington is hand count 11.02% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
lancaster is hand count 10.9% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
springfield is hand count 10.6% for Dr.Paul…100% reporting
wilton is hand count 10.37% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Northfield is hand count 10.3% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
mont vernon is hand count 10.25% for Dr. Paul…100% reporting
Comment by Jim Dodson — 2/20/2008 @ 12:44 am
The information I posted above shows all hand counts. An interesting thing about the hand counts- there is absolutely no overlap of these numbers with the machine counts. These two sets of numbers form completely separate lumps on a graph, with both sets of numbers separated by at least two percentage points, the lowest hand counted area being at least two points higher than the machine counted ones. This is an astounding statistical event. Now, juxtapose this with the comment from above:
” So far, Ron Paul supporters don’t even appear to have evidence of election irregularities — and so they’re making an even larger leap: if voting machines can be tampered with, and my candidate didn’t win an election, then the election must have been rigged!”
There is no “leap” made here. This is clearly an “irregularity” by any reasonable definition of the term.
Comment by Jim Dodson — 2/20/2008 @ 12:58 am
There was an HBO special called “Hacking Democracy” which leaves no doubt that voting machines are highly vulnerable to tampering. This entire HBO special is still on the internet, in segments on Youtube, I think.
Comment by Jim Dodson — 2/20/2008 @ 1:02 am
Jim, a difference of two percent in a precinct where one or two hundred people voted is not a big difference. Are you really claiming that there was a conspiracy to hack into the voting machines in order to take one, two, five or ten votes away from Ron Paul in every precinct, just to keep him out of third place… because third place would have given Ron Paul the nomination?!?
Comment by Ozzie — 2/20/2008 @ 7:53 am