Philip Stark and Harri Hursti address massive ballot-folding glitch in tabulator machines, LHS prez conflict

Editor’s note: The town of Windham, New Hampshire, is presently conducting an audit of its Nov. 3, 2020 election, in which a hand recount one week later revealed that four Republican candidates each gained about 300 votes not counted on Election Night. Vermont uses the same Diebold AccuVote-OS vote tabulators owned by Dominion and managed by LHS Associates, of Salem, N.H.

Over the weekend, two auditors of the Nov. 3 election in Windham, New Hampshire, discussed an AccuVote tabulator glitch that produced errors based on ballot folds.

“So the question here was, would the fold through [candidate] St. Laurent’s vote target be interpreted as a mark that would generate an overvote in that contest so that none of the four would be counted. And we found rates of generating overvotes from roughly 24 percent up to 72 percent,” auditor Philip Stark told interviewer Nick Moseder.

The folding issue is not the only problem, auditor and computer expert Harri Hursti tweeted Sunday night. Error rates are another suspicious issue for the tabulator machines.

Image courtesy of Nick Moseder

9 thoughts on “Philip Stark and Harri Hursti address massive ballot-folding glitch in tabulator machines, LHS prez conflict

    • And of course there is the issue of Molly Grey not even meeting the qualifications, very very easy qualifications I might add to hold the office of Lt. Governor.

      But of course there is nothing to see here…..move along, everything is just great, that D- in ethics means absolutely nothing…..

    • Hi Neil,

      I added this from the URL you provided.
      Folds in ballots screw up the counting of ballots.
      Ballots need to be redesigned
      All ballots need to be hand counted for all elections.
      I will be happy to volunteer, as would thousands of the civic-minded Vermonters.

      In Derry, NH, for the November 2020 election, they used eight AccuVote machines. One machine was used exclusively for absentee ballots. This machine registered over 750 overvotes (for all offices together) with less than 100 overvotes total on all the other seven machines. This implies a major problem with FOLDED MAIL IN BALLOTS

      AccuVote machines and folded ballots. Derry had asked the AG’s office to investigate but they did not.

      When the information of the Derry overvotes was provided to one of the auditors of the Windham Audit, he arranged to have an inquiry sent to the election officials in all of the state’s cities and towns asking about any discrepancies where more than one AccuVote machine was in use last November. This is to give them some more background information.

      It should be considered that these machines may not be equally sensitive across the width of the ballot. This could mean that the potential for a misread may only happen, if the ballot is inserted into the machine in a certain orientation, such as front side up and bottom first into the machine. Also, remember that each machine may not be equally calibrated or sensitive in this regard.

      Some Legislative suggestions to do as a follow-up:

      Require the hand-counting of all folded ballots. This makes for a long night of ballot counting for large population towns. Some towns are larger than individual city wards so this may affect towns slightly more than cities.

      Keep ballots flat, use large envelopes for mailing. The cost of envelopes and postage go way up.

      Design ballots to not have candidate names (& ovals) within 1/2 inch of a fold location. This reduces the space on the ballot for all the various offices and the associated candidates.

      Require machines be programmed to report the number of overvotes (along with the blanks) for each race on the ballot.
      This gives the candidates a better idea of whether to file for an official recount. This can also show the public how big the machine error problem may be. This ought to be done even if nothing else gets done.

      Provide for a way for citizens to petition for recounts even if the candidates don’t ask.

      For official recounts, require that at least two other offices be audited on the ballots involved in the recount.

      Ban ballot-counting machines. This will make for a really long night of ballot counting.

      Some other things to do:

      Warrant articles in the various towns/cities to discontinue the use of the AccuVote machines and hand-count ballots within individual towns or cities. You can ask your Selectmen to do it or do a petitioned warrant article.

      Get more candidates to request a recount, even on some long-shots.

      Get more people to watch and observe the election process. Publish pictures and videos of local results. Get photos of the sealed boxes of ballots.

      Push back against any election official that tries to stonewall the public. Get names and details and publish.

      When the Windham Audit results are in, we should have a clearer picture of the ballot counting problem in New Hampshire.

      None of the above addresses any potential issues with counting-machine malicious programming.

      Having more recounts and audits could help expose malicious programming issues.

      • they knew this all along…..

        If you think this is the only problem with these machines…

        Why are they so TERRIFIED of investigating this? Because they can rig the machines….why would it ever have that feature to begin with?

        Why did NH Vote up and down, with Republicans winning house, senate, executive office and then Trump lose?

        Do you think Vice President Harris’s visit a couple of weeks ago to NH was a coincidence?

        NH may be the low hanging fruit that opens the flood gates. If people don’t think there is massive, massive corruption in Washington and that somebody might be playing games with our election….they are asleep, uninformed and clueless….

        There is corruption everywhere. Our for fathers knew that was human nature, they assumed people would stray from the narrow path, whereby France thought man was inherently good when they drew up their constitution, how very naive.

  1. Here is what happened in New Hampshire

    MAJOR COUNTING AND BALLOT BOX STUFFING Fraud in New Hampshire
    https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/state-and-local-election-reforms-are-long-overdue

    The hand recount of the Windham (Rockingham District 7) New Hampshire House 2020 race revealed Dominion election counting machines under-counted all four Republicans by about 300 votes. Gee, how is this possible?

    This was no a trivial matter. The difference was 1,363 votes out of 10,006 vote cast, 13.63%

    A forensic audit will determine the huge discrepancy between the election day results and subsequent recount of Windham’s November 3, 2020, State Rep. race where a difference of 1,363 total votes from just 10,006 ballots was uncovered.
    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/04/update-new-hampshire-house-passes-sb43-mandate-audit-windhams-disturbing-2020-election-results/

    NOTE: If such COUNTING AND BALLOT BOX STUFFING frauds go on in New Hampshire, they would not happen in Vermont?

    The Reveal of the COUNTING Fraud in Windham County

    This fraud was revealed, because St. Laurent, Democrat, who lost by 24 votes, challenged the count, and got a recount.
    Soti, Republican, recovered the 297 votes falsely taken from him by sneaky Dem/Prog vote COUNTERS
    St. Laurent, had to give back 99 votes falsely attributed to him by sneaky Dem/Prog vote COUNTERS
    As a result, instead of losing by 24 votes, St. Laurent ended up losing by 420 votes!!! Yikes!!

    St. Laurent must not be glad he asked for a recount, because the recount of the votes of the other 3 Republicans showed each of them had been screwed out of about 300 votes as well, thanks to sneaky Dem/Prog COUNTING shenanigans.

    The thinking of the Dem/Progs must have been: “Heh, this is a close race. Maybe we can flip it”.

    Dem/Progs vote COUNTERS were:

    1) Holding back votes so they would not be counted in a timely manner, and/or
    2) Rigged the vote-counting machines. See URL
    https://granitegrok.com/mg_windham/2020/11/recount-in-windham-rock-dist-7-machine-shorted-every-republican-by-about-300-votes

    FRAUD No. 1
    Soti, Republican, before recount 4480 votes, after recount 4777 votes, gain 297 votes
    St. Laurent, before recount 4456, after recount 4357, a LOSS of 99 votes
    Margin, before recount 24, after recount 420.

    FRAUD No. 2
    Griffin, Republican, before recount 5292, after recount 5591 votes, gain 299 votes
    Azibert, Democrat, before recount 2787 votes, after recount 2808 votes, gain 28 votes
    Margin, before recount 2505 votes, after recount 2783 votes

    FRAUD NO. 3
    Lyon, Republican, before recount 4786 votes, after recount 5039 votes, gain 303 votes
    Roman, Democrat, before recount 3415 votes, after recount 3443 votes, gain 28 votes
    Margin, before recount 1371 votes, after recount 1646 votes

    FRAUD No. 4
    McMahon, Republican, before recount 5256 votes, after recount 5554 votes, gain 298 votes
    Singueau, Democrat, before recount 2764 votes, after recount 2782 votes, gain 18 votes
    Margin, before recount 2492 votes, after recount 2772 votes

    NOTE: Late night visit by NH election official, as watched over by NH state police, at 11:15 pm on Wednesday, May 12, to add 4 more boxes with ballots. The Windham Town clerk had signed off on 23 boxes, but now the auditors have 27?

    Why was an associate NH Attorney General, caught on camera, in the building in which were stored the “secured” Windham Ballots, at 11:15 PM, Wednesday night.
    Right after that time, the surveillance cameras GO BLANK for about one hour!!!
    What in hell was she doing?

    http://www.truenorthreports.com/associate-nh-ag-caught-on-camera-with-the-secured-windham-ballots-at-1115-p-m-wed-night-then-cameras-go-out
    https://granitegrok.com/blog/2021/05/why-was-ann-edwards-from-the-nh-ag-with-the-secured-windham-ballots-at-1115-pm-wed-night

  2. No Audit in Vermont…..

    Then we are completely overrun by criminals and spineless leaders…..

  3. We must demand an audit now. Reportedly, four New England states are part of this issue as well. Which ones? I believe Vermont is likely one since our Legislature and Condos put their foot on the gas to put all future elections in jeopardy – the people must act now and demand the audit. The corruption must be stopped and the citizens are the only ones who can stop it. Brian Judd’s lawsuit is paramount to this fight – Barre City is in the cross-hairs, we must put all towns on notice and protect the evidence.

  4. Has Condos looked into this.
    It appears the same did or could happen in Vermont, which is using the same machines as New Hampshire.

    Remember, all this was revealed as a result of a recount requested by a Democrat candidate who lost by 24 votes.

    After the recount, he lost by 420 votes, of which 99 had been falsely given to him, plus about 300 had been falsely not counted for the Republican.

    These two items are entirely separate from mail-in ballots having folds, which are being misread by the counting machines.

    Condos, who loves universal mail-in ballots, should learn from NH, and perform due diligence to make sure this does not happen in Vermont, next election.

    If that means no mail-in ballots, so be it.

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