A partial hand-count was demanded afterwards by Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich and obscure Republican candidate Albert Howard, revealing thousands of mis-tallied votes had occurred on Election Night in towns across the state.
New Hampshire, Utah and dozens of other states use the same type of voting systems that were shown to be easily manipulated in the climactic final scene of the 2006 Emmy-nominated HBO documentary Hacking Democracy as well as numerous scientific analyses carried out across the country over the past several years.
Nonetheless, while some 20% to 30% of voters will be forced to vote on 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems next year, the very same paper-ballot optical-scan machines that failed in 2008 in the New Hampshire primary and in this month's Provo Municipal Council race (and in dozens of other elections over the years) are set to be used once again all across the country during the 2012 Presidential election cycle.
It's unlikely that voters in any of the elections held on those systems will see ballots actually counted by human beings prior to "winners" and "losers" being declared on Election Night. It's also extremely rare that hand-tallies will be carried out afterwards or that elections results will be allowed to be overturned thereafter, even in the event that mis-tallies are discovered.
Watch the climactic final scene of HBO's Hacking Democracy , when the results of a mock paper ballot election held on a Diebold op-scan system in Leon County, FL are invisibly flipped by the op-scan system to report the opposite of the votes seen cast on the actual paper ballots...
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