Good auditors don't guffaw before the audits are done.

Save back of the napkin stats for later, when it's clear the source of vote discrepancies and the data can be vetted to see what conclusions are appropriate (e.g. differences in judgment on eligibility that are up to the counter cannot be used as a credible argument for hand count unreliability, can they?)

Given that the chain of custody is problematic (the SOS didn't even follow ballot container procedures in the NH election statutes, e.g.), any discussion of the ballot counts can't or shouldn't be treated as fully reliable statistics, and should probably be couched and considered with the fact that the ballot chain of custody is inadequate and we simply don't know what we are looking at. A search of the facts will point out this problem of chain of custody was identified before a single ballot was counted.

The basic problems with chain of custody issues and lack (so far) of original signed machine tapes from local officials (which they are required to provide to the SOS but I believe have not yet been provided) make doing the count and bandying around unvetted "statistics" in some ways an exercise in lending credence to an already discredited process.

Albert Howard has released a letter to SOS Gardner, available at bradblog.com, pointing out that ballot recounters are writing their ward and precinct totals on a tally sheet in red pen, providing that spreadsheet to the a person entering this data in a master computer spreadsheet who is also using a red pen. Howard doesn't get the totals until after the second person with a red pen has handled them, and he has asked to receive them prior to their arriving at the second red pen.

The whole procedure overall merits and will benefit from examination with the eyes of an auditor, who would look not only to see what has occurred, but what within the procedures leaves opportunities and weaknesses for future occurrences. An auditor would ask: Why are both using red pens? As any second grade teacher who has ever checked a spelling quiz knows, you check with a different color of ink. You change your answer with the same color of pen. Once again, the recount has shown another place to improve the process.

At issue is not only actual wrongdoing; at issue is making the best system possible and increasing citizen confidence in an open and well administered election process.

Efforts toward convincing people that out of staters and conspiracy theorists have tainted the well of pure knowledge may be more than a little smoke screening to convince people to look away before they engage and think, as in "Nothing to see here, move along." It would be a shame if that stood in the way of NH being able to incorporate the very concrete lessons learned from the recount efforts and strengthen its election administration, at the very least.

The issues that have been revealed about the lack of proper procedures in the ballot chain of custody are very serious, troubling, and should be addressed. These issues include "seals" that don't seal and can be removed and replaced with no evidence of same, ballot boxes delivered to the recount with slits in them wide enough to put a hand through, evasive tactics by those delivering the ballots that resulted in complete lack of citizen oversight, and more.

This is not nonsense. It is our national security system, and while Congressman Hodes is recognizing the Challenger disaster, which was a direct result of bad decisions made knowingly by those in charge, we might consider accountability for the decisions being made in the state of NH about our national security system, our elections.

It is time for accountability, and there is no shame among activists asking for this.

The shame is that activists had to come from all around the nation to do this dirty work, and that New Hampshire activists are content to roll their eyes and blather on as usual about how NH is so wonderful.

Those aspects of NH that are wonderful, our wonderful and trusted local election officials, our exemplary hand count elections in 45% of our polling places, are made a mockery of by the negligent and abhorrent actions and behaviors captured on video in the Black Box Voting recount investigation.

This is not a silly little game we are playing here. People are dying in Iraq and in our own nation because of the lack of accountability in the one mechanism we have to ensure proper representative government: our elections.

"Elwood" (who does not reveal his true name) denigrates our entire system of democracy with this simplistic "wave your hand and it all goes away" approach.

We can not wave our hand to make it go away. We need to ask the hard questions, demand accountability, and remove corporate control and secret vote counting from our elections.

Indeed, we need to honor our hand count elections and use them as our example for true transparency, checks and balances, and everything that NH offers in the cause of true grassroots democracy.