Recount NY Governor's Race: Blame the New Machines
It is a statistical impropability that Rick Lazio lost to Paladino by a 24 point spread. Compared to ALL other races in the state and across the country, Tea Party angst does not explain this absurd margin. These new machines are rigged. by Natalie Schultz
(libertarian)
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
This is ridiculous! An absolute statistical improbability! How in the world can anyone actually believe that Carl Paladino beat Rick Lazio by more than 100,000 votes?!? It is mathematically impossible! Tea Party angst aside, the margin of "victory" is absolutely absurd. Even in Delaware at least the race was close and every other race in NY was within reason. With 97% of precincts reporting Paladino received 272,765 votes to Lazio's 166,226 (62% to 38%). Give me a break!
I am no fan of Lazio. I am only registered Republican so that I can vote in the primaries (and quite frankly I'm sick of my candidates losing). I am absolutely devastated over Malpass's loss (aside from Rand Paul, Malpass was the only qualified Senate candidate in the entire country and the NY State GOP blew it once again by backing Big Brother Blakeman). However, I did vote for Lazio in the primary, just to give him a buffer against Paladino. I was then and now definitely am voting Libertarian across the board (OK, I'll vote for DioGuardi just because I CAN"T STAND Gillibrand, and he is a nice old man (but no Malpass)) in the General Election. Now, I had every reason to believe that my vote for Lazio was an important vote he was running neck-in-neck with Paladino. And, well, Paladino is a NUT! Not a yummy nutritious type nut, but a Corporo-Fascist NUT!
As many New Yorkers know, we have new voting machines this year. Our great old hard-wearing, efficient analogue pull-lever machines have been dumped in the landfills in favor of "high-tech" scanning machines with all their inherent glitches. Thanks George W! So I showed up at my polling place normally there are two pull-lever machines and two lines one Republican and one Democrat. This time there were 10-12 cubbies, paper ballots that must be bubbled in with the proper marker in the correct way and then scanned into a computer. So we exchanged two machines that rarely had problems for gazillions of paper ballots (how many tress were cut down for those?) at least 10 laminated particle board cubbies and felt markers (toxins, anyone?) and ONE scanner to scan all the paper ballots. That's right just ONE scanner at the polling place!!! Obviously they were prepared for a high voter turnout with all those cubbies, so why only ONE scanner? And what, pray tell, were the poll watchers going to do if that ONE scanner broke down?!? News reports all over NY were telling tales of scanners not accepting ballots, or not returning ballots. Wait, did the scanner RETURN my ballot? I didn't even notice!!! Honestly, I had a woman helping me the whole time (the place was empty). The thing is, the ballot was supposed to come with a "sleeve" to hide the vote selections I did not receive a sleeve! I only realized it when she showed me how to slide the ballot into the scanner with my vote selections facing up for all to view! I didn't care, but still. So the woman said "Now slide the ballot in like this, and then we'll see if the computer accepts it." How reassuring! The scanner sucked in my ballot, we waited, and a little box on the side changed from 106 to 107. "You're done!" she said. I replied "Only 107 people have voted today?" (It was 6pm) "That's a high turnout for a polling place with only 1,000 voters. Some places only had 10 people. This is a very conscientious neighborhood." she said. Yep! And so I left, not even noticing if my ballot was returned!
OK, here's the deal - Lazio was backed by both the GOP and the Conservative Party. Yes, Paladino went after the Tea Party vote hard, but still the voter discrepancy is absurd. As for the Ground Zero Mosque, that issue was a wash because both candidates ran ads against it. In fact that was Paladino's only ad (that I saw on TV); at least Lazio started running some other ads. All the ads were equally horrible (drop dead boring). All other things equal, we must account for "aesthetics." B.S. I know, but studies have proven that "attractiveness" does play a factor in elections. On this Lazio wins because Palladino's voice is literally dead-pan monotone (as heard in his ads), and quite frankly Lazio is well-groomed and Paladino looks like an old guy who just rolled out of bed in a cheap suit. And, back to the Mosque, Lazio had a legitimate point it IS the Attorney General's job to investigate terrorist financing in the state (the Cordoba Initiative is a NYS charity), and the AG is Andrew Cuomo the Democrat running for Governor. Paladino, on the other hand wants to use EMMINENT DOMAIN to take the site by FORCE! That is INSANE!!! And totally NOT what any "Tea Party" people should be in favor of. The Mosque is a contentious issue that the GOVERNMENT has absolutely NO RIGHT to interfere in not Bloomberg, not the Governor, and most especially NOT the President. This issue will be hashed out by We the People expressing our First Amendment Rights on both sides of the issue by protesting, debating and even burning Korans (if that's your thing it most certainly IS your Right). Gov. Chris Christie is the only sane person so far on this issue Keep politics out of it! No NYC Union workers (all construction in NYC is Union and only in that crowded place does such a law make sense for safety reasons) will ever agree to build it; but if some workers are imported in and construction begins, then at least make sure Paladino is firmly planted deep inside the wet concrete foundation. Welcome to NY!
Ok, so now we are looking at the "Establishment Republican" vs. the "Businessman." Even if it was that simple the race would have still been much closer, as all such races have been across the country. Definitely NOT a 62% to 38% margin. First of all, Paladino has made his profits OFF the Government the TAXPAYERS have been subsidizing his real estate "business" for years! Yeah, Lazio was a lobbyist, but that is what comes with "Establishment Candidate" territory. Nevermind that Paladino has sent out raunchy emails and Lazio has not. All this considered the candidates should be neck-in-neck at best.
Now let's compare the Governor's race to other NY primaries to really see how this result truly makes no sense. First there is Peter King's congressional seat he was challenged by another perennial Whacko. Peter King is my Congressman (no, I don't like him, but I voted for him in the primary only because someone mentioned that maybe if I left one section empty on the ballot that none of my votes would be accepted NOT a problem with the old lever machines) and Lazio's as well. OK, Lazio lives down the street from me, and I NEED to see a complete breakdown of the entire state polling place by polling place to find obvious discrepancies (I saw Ron Paul results literally change in front of my eyes in other states). I know that both King and Lazio (in 2000) always won my district and my polling place by wide margins. In the 2008 primaries (my polling place is majority Republican with a few Conservative and Democrat registered voters) McCain won the primary by a wide margin, Ron Paul received 7 votes and Guiliani received a bit more than 10 (stubborn or stupid, since he'd already dropped out). In the 2008 Presidential Race McCain beat Obama by a wide margin and Bob Barr received 8 votes. Long Island Republicans are generally Wall Street types and very rational voters who probably remember the Scourge of Mario Cuomo that bankrupted NY back in the 1980's, so going out on a limb to vote for a nut like Paladino and risk another wrath of Cuomoism does not make sense. In this election Peter King kept his seat with 91% of the vote: 20,472 votes to his opponent's 2,096, a difference of 18,376 votes in favor of King, the "Establishment" candidate. King and Lazio are essentially clones of one another; there is no difference between them. So, even if we were to double King's opponent's numbers and give them to Paladino, that'd be 4,000 to Paladino, and approx. 16,500 for Lazio. Of course this assumes that all the people in my Congressional district voted for both congress and governor; I'm sure some people came out just to vote in the Governor's race. Now, I do not think I am going out on a limb by assuming that all of Downstate NY Republicans voted in a similar way (all of Long Island, NYC and Westchester). If that is the case then the math would require that the absolute OPPOSITE happened Upstate that 90% of registered Republicans voted against Lazio. The downstate population is higher than Upstate, so this would have to be the case. But, like I said, a statistical improbability. Note also that Doug Hoffman, the Upstate Tea Party darling actually LOST his race! Something is just NOT ADDING UP!!!
The other important primary to compare the results with is the three-way Republican race to dump Kirsten Gillibrand into the Hudson (or Potomac, since that's where all her money comes from). This was my reason for voting. I absolutely DISTAIN the NYS GOP for this upset!!! The race was between Blakeman - a bureaucratic ballsac from the MTA - blame him for DOUBLE-TAXATION of all us New Yorkers who live outside the city to pay for pathetic union pensions in the gazillions that bankrupted the MTA, caused rates to skyrocket if we use the MTA, service to be cut so much that even trying to use the MTA is pointless, and all employers outside of the city who never use the MTA and whose employees never use the MTA must now pay an MTA payroll tax because NYC can't pay for itself, and now they have added an MTA property tax onto all properties outside the city. Yeah, that's the guy the NYS GOP APPOINTED at the convention. David Malpass received enough votes at the convention to get on the ballot, but then the poor old guy who didn't, Joseph DioGuardi (former Westchester congressman), turned in enough petitions to make the primary a three-way race. Malpass is an economist who knows what's going on he was the PERFECT candidate to unseat Gillibrand and save our country from the brink. He had the support of Steve Forbes, Giuliani, the NY Post, Crain's NY business, the Wall Street Journal, the National Review and yes, even the Tea Party (at least Freedom Works). And what happened? Blakeman took away enough votes that Malpass LOST! Now we have a 70 year old nice guy running against Gillibrand and her $12 Million DC bankroll. DioGuardi won with 42% (169,166), Malpass got 38% (152,540), and Blakeman 21% (84,243). Obviously without Blakeman, Malpass would have won by grabbing the Party Establishment. The thing is though that all the Blakeman supporters must have voted for Lazio, since they were the Party faithful who nominated both candidates in the first place. Even assuming that Lazio and Paladino split both the Malpass and DioGuardi votes, then Lazio still should have been only a few points behind at most.
The only other state-wide race was the Republican primary to get Ol Chucky Schmucky Schumer's whining mug off our TV screens. That was between a CIA agent (Berntsen) from Long Island (where I live) and a political strategist (Townsend) who happens to be a good public speaker from Upstate. Townsend won 56% to 44% (212,488 vs. 170,081). Even a 12 point spread is a reasonable margin of victory, vs. a 24 point spread between Paladino and Lazio (62% to 38%). Now, I voted for Townsend because the War-Monger (Schumer) vs. the CIA agent is pointless, and I am hoping that Townsend's skills give Schumer's mouth a run for it's money. However, let's assume that this election was Upstate vs. Downstate (as Newsday reports all Downstaters lost): Even then, based on the margins of victory in all the other Upstate vs. Downstate races, there is just NO WAY that Lazio could have lost to Paladino by 24 points! Especially considering that Lazio beat Paladino's stand-in on the Conservative Party ballot.
So as we can see, these new computerized machines were obviously rigged on the Republican Governor's line. This is easy to rig with computers by just changing that bit of code with some algorithm that either skips Lazio votes altogether or changes them to Paladino votes. This is why I insist on seeing the breakdown of EVERY SINGLE polling place, just like Newsday used to show in elections past. This computer vote trickery has happened before, and this is why I have protested against computerized voting. I want EVERY SINGLE paper ballot cast in New York RECOUNTED this week! This is not a joke. The General Election is going to be a disaster. I will be testing the system in November and I will be DEMANDING to see a report of every single vote cast at my polling place. I WILL know if my votes have been properly counted or not.
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