The auditors’ report for the Windham fiasco is out. Frankly, I doubt that there was much in the way of deliberate fraud, so I’m not going to go through the whole thing. But here are the two points from the executive summary.
This audit found the primary root cause of the discrepancy to be folds through vote targets on some absentee ballots, largely resulting from using a machine to fold absentee ballots. That folding machine, leased by the town for other purposes, did not fold ballots along the score lines between vote targets, where the ballots were designed to be folded. Instead, it often folded ballots through vote targets in the State Representative contest, which the scanners interpreted as vote attempts a substantial fraction of the time: we estimate that about 44 percent of folds through targets were interpreted as marked ovals in November, and experiments conducted during the audit exhibited rates of about 20 percent to more than 72 percent.
OK, big problem, but not fraud. And then we get to this.
[F]or the most part our audit found the Windham election to have been well run under challenging circumstances, and we confirmed the number of ballots cast to within two ballots.
“Well run.” I don’t consider the use of processes and equipment that guaranteed a minimum error rate of 20%, and allowed an error rate of 72%, to be a well run election. I don’t consider an election that was not in compliance with state law, and — I repeat — guaranteed, even if they didn’t realize it because they never tested the process and equipment, to be “well run.”
656:16 Uniformity; Folding. – There shall be no impression or mark to distinguish one general election ballot from another. The names of all candidates shall be printed in uniform type, and the ballots for each town and city shall be such that their width and length when folded shall be uniform.
In-person and mail-in ballots were not uniformly folded, and it did seriously affect the accuracy of the automated count. The idiot(s) who decided to borrow and use another agency’s folding machine without testing and properly aligning it should be fired. And more; let’s go back to NH state law.
656:42 Rules. – VI. Any person who knowingly violates the testing procedures established under this section or the rules of the ballot law commission shall be guilty of a misdemeanor if a natural person, or guilty of a felony if any other person.
They knew they were folding ballots differently. They knew they skipped testing and alignment of the folding machine.
But, once again, nothing to see here.
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