Op-ed: Valid reasons to ban voting machines

By Ken Eyring | GraniteGrok

The reliability of voting machines to accurately count votes has come under scrutiny — especially since the fiasco of the Windham Incident that took place at the Nov. 3, 2020, general election. Those election results produced NH’s largest numerical discrepancy between election day vote totals and a subsequent hand recount.

That disturbing event triggered people in a few dozen NH towns to submit Warrant Articles seeking to ban the use of voting machines to count votes in their town. Many of those people have reached out to me asking for examples and reasons for voters ban voting machines.

Here are 8 reasons:

  • Reason #1: While it is more work, hand counting ballots has historically been a more accurate way to tally votes.
  • Reason #2: Voting machines can be easily programmed with malware to produce fraudulent results.
  • Reason #3: All of NH’s voting machines are programmed by a single company with no way for voters to know if the machines were properly programmed. This sets up a scenario of trust with no verify.  If election integrity is important, then this should be a red flag.
  • Reason #4: Voting machines can malfunction and cause ballots to be misread – thereby causing voters to be unknowingly disenfranchised.
  • Reason #5: Voting machines are NOT consistently accurate from machine to machine (see graph below).

This graph shows the different vote totals that were counted for the Rockingham County District 7 Race in the Windham 11/3/20 Election. It contains the election day totals (11/3/20), the hand recount totals (11/12/20), and the totals that were generated during an audit when all of the ballots were fed through each of the four voting machines

The column titled “11/03/20” shows the total number of votes for each candidate on election day – by adding the vote totals from all four machines.

The column titled “11/12/20” shows the total number of votes for each candidate that were hand counted by the Secretary of State’s office.

  • Reason #6: After the 11/12/20 recount, the four Republican candidates gained close to 300 votes each, the leading Democrat lost 99 votes, and the other three Democrats gained 21, 21 and 18 votes respectfully. The number of votes that were adjusted between election day and the hand recount totaled 1,363. Clearly that many machine related errors are unacceptable for an election where only 10,006 ballots were cast.

The discrepancies above led to an audit where all of the ballots were fed through each machine (See Audit AV1, Audit AV2, Audit AV3 and Audit AV4). The vote totals across each of the four machines were NOT consistent – and NONE of the audit machine totals matched the results of the hand counts.

  • Reason #7: During the audit, some of the machines produced consistent results from machine to machine within 2 votes (Ioana Singureanu), while those same machines produced wildly different results that varied by as many as 55 votes (Bob Lynn). That represents an enormous difference of 54 votes in favor of Ioana Singureanu.
  • Reason #8: When comparing the results of the hand recount with Audit Machine #4, the difference is a loss of 6 votes for Ioana Singureanu, while the difference for Bob Lynn is a loss of 77 votes. That represents an even more enormous difference of 71 votes in favor of Ioana Singureanu.

The types of discrepancies that took place in the Windham 11/3/20 election appear to have occurred in many other towns across NH. Towns like Derry, Nashua, Merrimack, Bedford, Hookset, Sandown and many more are just a few that showed similar anomalies that mirror what took place in Windham. Unfortunately, those in a position to investigate have shown no interest in doing so.

As voters, we are asked to blindly trust with no means to verify. When the integrity of our elections are at stake – that is unacceptable… which is why I believe that hand counting ballots is the best method for counting votes.

If England, Canada and Australia can hand count the votes for their national elections, then NH can hand count votes as well.

Image courtesy of Flickr/justgrimes

5 thoughts on “Op-ed: Valid reasons to ban voting machines

  1. Ken,

    You wrote a great, informative article.
    Please send it to all VT Legislators

    ELECTION RULES REFORM TO PREVENT FUTURE FRAUDS
    https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/state-and-local-election-reforms-are-long-overdue

    NEW HAMPSHIRE; An Urgent Job for the New Hampshire Legislature

    Ensuring fraud-free elections should be a prime concern of all voters, and VT Attorney General Donovan, and Secretary of State Condos.

    Voter ID, with photo, should be an absolute minimum to ensure the person showing up to vote is indeed that person.

    The following should be on file with Town Clerks for each registered voter

    Voter signature
    Passport photo
    Birth certificate
    Proof of legal residence, such as bank accounts, property tax receipts, driver license, etc.
    Proof of citizenship,

    Voter ID, with photo and signature, must be on record with Town Clerks, as a pre-requisite for requesting a mail-in ballot.
    Each mail-in-ballot ENVELOPE must be signed, and dated, by the absentee voter.

    NOTE: Airlines require photo IDs to get on a plane, plus a passport with photo, for international flights.
    It would be dereliction of duty not to require proper IDs for voting.

    An Urgent Job for the New Hampshire Legislature

    NH has a perfect opportunity to immediately revise NH voting laws.
    Strictly regulate the circumstances and methods of COUNTING the votes.
    None of the counting machines should be programmable by insiders and outsiders
    None should be connectable to the internet and other computers by means of wired or wireless networks.
    None should have an insertable, programmable electronic card
    Abolish all absentee voting, except for special cases.
    Abolish all ballot drop boxes.
    Abolish motor-voter
    Abolish same day registration and voting
    Abolish out-of-state students from voting. They would not be “deprived”, because they can, and should, vote in their own state.

    NOTE: The Legislature of New Hampshire became Republican, because the “activist student vote” was absent. They likely also voted in their own states. After all, every vote counts!

    COUNTING ERROR in New Hampshire

    However, the COUNTING of the votes is even more important. Often, the counting is performed mostly by government employees and associated entities in Dem/Prog-controlled counting centers.

    The hand recount of ballots of the 2020 Election in Windham County (Rockingham District 7) revealed the Dominion election counting machines under-counted all four Republicans by about 300 votes., and over-counted one Democrat by about 100 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, mandated by the NH Legislature, had determined the reason for 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.

    This miscount was revealed, because St. Laurent, Democrat, who lost by 24 votes, challenged the count, and got a recount.

    Soti, Republican was credited with an additional 297 votes
    St. Laurent lost 99 votes
    As a result, instead of losing by 24 votes, St. Laurent ended up losing by 420 votes!!! Yikes!!

    St. Laurent must not be glad she asked for a recount, because the recount of the votes of the other 3 Republicans showed each of them had been shorted about 300 votes as well.

    Here are the forensic results before and after the recount:

    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.

    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

    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

    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

    Windham County had used a ballot folding machine that caused a fold to be in the same place as a bubble. As a result, the counting machine rejected votes. Other Towns likely did not use a folding machine.

    Strange, Unexplained Happenings Late at Night

    Late night visit by an associate NH Attorney General, as viewed 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 forensic auditors have 27?

    Why was she, caught on surveillance camera, in the building in which were stored the “secured” Windham Ballots, at 11:15 PM, Wednesday night.
    Right after she arrived, the surveillance cameras went BLANK for about one hour, with or without knowledge of the NH State Police. What in hell was she doing? Did anyone investigate this not-so-innocent escapade?

    Was that part of holding “Free, Fair, and Open Elections” with only legal votes accurately counted?

  2. Was recently reading about one state I think was GA where the leftist voter fraud
    enablers we decrying the attempt to open up the machines to scrutiny claiming
    they are too fragile to have that done.. if that’s the case they should be banned
    from use as they can’t be verified..

  3. I’ve participated in a couple of statewide recounts, and even if we had defective machines, all our voting is on handmarked ballots. While the ballots are read by machines, they are physical objects which can be reviewed by members appointed from both major parties. The manual recount would reveal any problem with the machinery.

    As far as I know there has never been a chain of ballot custody issue in the history of Vermont.

    It sounds as though this is something New Hampshire needs to look into.

    • The chain of custody became very questionable when ballots were mailed out to everyone on the checklist. Add to that no voter ID requirement.

  4. But SOS Condos assures us our Dominion machines are different, and aren’t working for the CCP.
    Honest.
    We’re different because we are Vermont.
    Honest.
    Believe me.
    Honest.
    I wouldn’t lie to you.

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