3. Voting machines in New Hampshire aren’t linked by any kind of a network, meaning that one person could not act alone to commit fraud. Each machine would’ve had to have been tampered with in person. The massive level that the conspiracy would’ve needed to be at alone brings the scenario to the edge of insanity.
4. I can’t stress this enough, the Iowa caucuses are an undemocratic process that Obama shamefully exploited to his advantage, which is the only reason why he won by such a large margin. He brought in out of town voters, encouraged out-of-state students to caucus for him, he made shady pacts with Richardson, and Kucinich, and his precinct captains fraudulently increased the number of participants in caucuses so that second tier candidates would be deemed unviable, and would therefore have to caucus for someone else. That's a pretty good plan when you have pacts set up. By contrast, the New Hampshire primary is a very fair process that employs the concept of ‘one person, one vote, and by secret ballot.’ There no peer pressure, voters have to be registered, no out of state voters are allowed, and there is certainly no backroom vote-swapping taking place between candidates, as if our votes are tokens to be traded at will.
5. It’s actually much easier to cheat in a hand count. Like in Iowa where precinct captains “adjusted” the number of participants at caucus locations, Obama supporters could have just as easily adjusted the number of votes in a hand count. (Not that it ever happened.)
6. Polls were wrong in New Hampshire. They were inaccurate for two reasons: The first is because the New Hampshire came too close to Iowa (only five days later), and there simply wasn’t enough time to gather good samplings. The second is due to the makeup of New Hampshire’s voters; 40% of them are registered independents. A number of polls incorrectly attributed independents to Obama instead of John McCain.
7. Media irresponsibility. Some polls actually did get the numbers right. On January 5th the Concord Monitor predicted a one point advantage for Obama, so did the Suffolk/WHDH poll on January 6th. What’s the most telling is that the January 6th poll sponsored by CNN showed Obama up by 9 points, but their January 5th poll had Clinton and Obama exactly tied. Had they any journalistic responsibility left in them and were not a slave to ratings, then they would have reported that their January 6th poll must be an anomaly. It’s virtually impossible for a candidate to gain 9 points in a single night with no major event to propel the numbers. But, statistical irregularities and incongruent poll results aren’t as sensational as reporting dramatic poll changes, which is what pulls in the advertizing dollars.
What really happened…
In New Hampshire, people are confused about what they saw, because it’s not something that we’ve seen lately, so conspiracy theories are an easy and comforting because with a conspiracy, people can rest-assured that we live in a world where the media determines the outcome of all elections. It’s easier than accepting the truth; that what we really saw in New Hampshire was voters taking the process back for ‘we the people.’
I am fearful that liberals and progressives are becoming the new agents of conspiracy theories; that rational voices will become dissidents, not leaders. I would much rather have the far-right keep that particular honor to themselves with their moon landing denials, 6000 year old Earth fantasies, and stories of extraterrestrial influence in the federal government.
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