AMES -- The announcement of tonight's straw poll results has been delayed due to what one informed source says was a voting machine malfunction. About 4,500 ballots had to be re-run. We are waiting....
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Straw Poll Results Delayed Due To Voting Machine Malfunction
11 Aug 2007 08:25 pm
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Comments (164)
Not enough votes for Romney, I guess?
Darn those chads!
Lol, the Ron Paul people are going to have a field day with this.
What's this, Ron Paul came in first? This must be wrong! Discard those results!
Maybe the Ron Paul people were right and they are going to try and steal it from him....
Yeah, say what you want, but this is almost too ham-fisted to ignore. Exactly what the "conspiracy theorists" were predicting, huh?
Sounds like ron paul did great and they need to throw away his votes! HAhahahah! It looks like Romney couldn't even BUY this election!!!!
Bizarre... those electronic voting machines are a farce. (Counting votes shouldn't be that hard.)
The Romney folks are very closely tied in with the RPI. I don't like this one bit.
I fully expect every ballot to be hand-counted.
lol ... gotta agree with the RP tinfoil crowd on this one. Romney has pulled this crap before.
If Romney squeaks out a victory of under 2000 votes, I think that would be the best possible outcome for Paul, because it's such great conspiracy-theory grist.
I've just heard from inside sources that Romney is throwing a hissing fit. Apparently he is pissed that he couldn't buy the poll.
Wonder if the voting machines were made in Mexico?
Yo! Stop with the conspiracy theories! I'm for Ron Paul, but you guys are just going to scare everday people off!
Oh sure, the wonderful vote fraud devices must have malfunctioned and let the wrong candidate win. What a load of poo.I think it is time to demand paper ballots nationwide. I want to know that MY vote is counted even though it can be cancelled by an illegal alien voting.....Screw Free Tibet, FREE AMERICA!!!!
Wow! Electronic voting has made things SO much more convenient and reliable. Thank you Diebold.
Also, it's not like the IA GOP was overwhelmed by unexpected turnout. This was about 1/3 of their expected turnout. I am a Republican and I fully expected Romney to take this away ... but I honestly believe the IA GOP are goosing Romney's numbers for him.
Do they have paper ballots? Some are saying we need to become registered notaries and demand that exit polls be conducted and notarized to keep them honest.
Word was going around on Ron Paul groups that there was a fix in specifically connected to the use of these machines. Apparently a lot of RP supporters complained directly to the Iowa GOP about the many drawbacks of these machines, so much that the official campaign asked them to stop. Now, their claims suddenly carry a lot more weight. Someone - I don't know who or from what campaign - will challenge these results.
Sure the machines malfunctioned. Probably to many Ron Paul votes. Gotta make make sure the one who bought the straw poll(Romney) gets his money's worth.
Eh, Romney has already lost. They just delayed again (until 8pm IA time).
This is pathetic. I call fraud.
Not kidding.
The RPI owes it to everyone involved to do a hand-count of all the ballots.
They are re-running nearly a third of the casted ballots?!? Who is going to trust the Ames Straw Poll Results now, after the run-up we've had?
Ron Paul is trying to steal votes!! It's all part of the Zionist campaign for world domination......Ron Paul is only one small pawn in the hands of these powerful elite. WHEN WILL YOU PEOPLE WAKE UP?!?!?
Romney tried to buy the vote and lost. Now he is trying to fix the vote!
I guess Ron Paul supporters spammed to many votes for the machines to handle.
You realize the straw poll is a straw poll right?
No one gets anything but media attention from it. If someone "stole" it it's not a crime because we're not talking about an election here.
Yeah, this is nonsense...
Ron Paul won and they don't know what to do.
HAHAHAHAH GOOD!
FREEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!
You mean Romney needed 4,500 more votes to look presentable?
Alex: Do they have paper ballots?
They used paper ballots and scanned them, but apparently they weren't going to let anybody ever see them again once they were put in the slot.
It sounds like that idea may have gone poof, but the blatant attempts to disenfranchise Ron Paul through this entire process have been beyond ludicrous. Maybe we'll finally catch somebody at it, and we can stop this kind of crap before it effects 2008 further.
Hello? Ron Paul is at 1% in the national polls and he is a kook. Go away.
Mr. Hortingander,
Please elaborate about Gov. Romney's meltdown.
Maybe Barak Obama won...and nobody wants to admit it!
Actually, some Ron Paul supporter was so concerned about fraud that he actually went to an Iowa Court seeking an injunction to stop the Iowa GOP from using these particular machines. The judge however, refused to issue the order because this was not a "real election" but a purely private event, or something like that. I heard it on the local news in Des Moines.
What special-interest politicians allowed a system of voting where we can see no proof of a democratic vote other than a printout of the percentages. Surely this isn't happening!
You guys are taking this straw poll thing too seriously. I expect an honest result and regardless of what that result is, we're still talking about a straw poll.
I used to really respect Ron Paul, but all his wacko "I told you so" supporters are really annoying. They almost make me embarrassed to admit I like what Ron Paul represents.
That being said, this nation has drifted too far from the principles that Ron Paul espouses and he would be completely ineffectual as a leader. I believe that Romney possesses the right skill set to lead in the troubled circumstances we face as a nation.
If this "sub-prime" crisis leads to a larger economic down-turn, who would be most suited to get to the heart of the problem and lead to fixing the economy? My money's on the guy who averaged 113% ROI (return on investment) for 15 years in business. The same guy who turned a large company, a large state, and the 2002 Olympics into successful enterprises.
Bob, you aren't a serious politico. There are no national elections. None. There are only 50 State elections on National Election Day. What matters is how you are running in individual States, not nationwide.
Ron Paul is trying to steal votes!! It's all part of the Zionist campaign for world domination...
What, by electing the only non pro-Zionist candidate in the race?
Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Gary Bauer should get together and go bowling and drink Schlitz afterwards and compare notes on how it feels to be irrelevant.
Wow this doesn't sound good for Romney.The Ron Paul trolls broke the machines!!
Ron Paul supporters predicted this and they even sued to prevent it, but lost. Now we see that something smells fishy in Ames, and votes have to be recounted. The GOP is on the verge of being the laughingstock of the political community. Do the right thing and show the real results.
Ron Paul is a darling of the truthers...it's no wonder this, and other threads, are filled with the conspiracy goop.
The best thing that could happen is that Paul DOES win...and then the media will focus on him, and his isolationist/jewish/truther problems.
GO RON PAUL!
HAHAHAAAAA!
This is crap...what, did Ron Paul get 4500 votes and it has to be fixed?
I am trying to believe.
Is it true that Mitt Romney is gay? He sure looks gay.
Republicans here in Iowa have been laughing at the RPI for a while now.
Nor are you a serious politico. Ron Paul will never be President. Face it. Paul's supporters are a very loud and very small minority. Too bad. The 44th Prez will be either Hillary, Rudy, or Fred.
SC Conservative, how about a guy that understands monetary policy and the Federal Reserve? Monetary inflation has to stop. Ron Paul is the only candidate that has even the most basic understanding of macroeconomics. "Fixing" the economy means removing bad, destructive monetary policy.
I never stated I thought Ron Paul would definitely be President, Bob. You sound like a Democrat, to me, creating straw-men arguments and bashing conservative candidates for the hell of it.
If by "skill set" you mean lying, pandering, flip-flopping, war-dodging, daddy's money using, and Massachuseets Republican Party ruining, then yes, Romney should by all means be your guy. Honestly, he's a vile, vile person. Get on board with McCain, or even Gingrich. Say what you want about either of them, but I think they actually believe most of what they say...
Yeah many RP supporters said it was going to happen....guess what It did!!!
SC Conservative -
You should be concerned about the Fed dumping money into the system and causing INFLATION - they just dumped $38 billion into the system. All because they want to fiddle with a natural CORRECTION of the market. Funny how you guys are such fair-weather free marketers. As a result EVERYONE will pay a very high cost in INFLATION, but neither the Fed nor the Federal GOVERNMENT cares about that since the latter is a debtor government and the more inflation the better for THEM.
Hmmmm, what candidate speaks of this. Only one. He even calls it an inflation TAX because it steals money out of your pocket, but no other candidate even acknowledges this.
Bob, you have no evidence. Look at Paul's attendance during his Pittsburgh and Des Moines rallies: around 300 to a thousand people at all his past events. Rudy would KILL for those numbers.
And the McCain employee that blocked him from the one Iowa debate? Ron Paul had a forum the same day as that event and it drew more supporters than all the other candidates combined.
These polls are poor tests.
Ron Paul, a conservative? Are you kidding? No, I'm not a 'crat. No harm meant. Just bashing my favorite nutcase a little. Have at it kids.
Yep, Romney is one more draft dodging pro war politician.
Bob,
Following on your comment and crow's, 113% ROI smells fishy in itself. That so rarely comes about through honest enterpreneurship...but commonly through insider dealing, scams, and political graft. I don't trust Romney's phoney smirk for one minute.
paul
Romney didn't ruin the MA Republican Party. The MA Republican Party has always been just the governor's office, which was occupied by Republicans from 1988 until Mitt left in January 2007. But the number of state legislators has been declining for decades. Mitt didn't save the MA Republican Party, it's true - but he didn't ruin it either. It's as weak now as it's been for a long time. The fact that he could win in the environment in which he ran is very impressive.
They might be just goading some of my fellow Paul supporters. Frankly who puts up with more crap than a Paul supporter? They don't cover our guy like a serious candidate, he rules the internet, yet Obama Girl gets more coverage. They try to say that Ron thinks 9/11 was an inside job when he never even alluded to that. That by itself is rumor journalism, no sources, no facts, just trying to pigeonhole the man and his vocal supporters are sick of being treated like they don't exist. If Ron was properly covered by the MSM we wouldn't have this but it seems like every step of the way, especially after we embarrassed FOX"NEWS", they have been after us like crazy. CNN put the NEOCON Soldier up against Ron and he answers the question definitively and respectfully. What do we have to do to have our existence acknowledged?
Crow,
I've read all of what Ron Paul has said and written about the devaluing of the American currency, the Federal Reserve, and the economic crisis we are facing. I even agree that this will likely be the cause of some huge economic crisis in the futuer--likely soon.
But Ron Paul won't be able to convince Washington or the rest of the country to change and fix the problem. He's basically the "I Told You So" candidate. But being right doesn't mean you can lead a country that has drifted from being right.
I've decided that the Ron Paul supporters have nothing better to do than spend their days mindlessly voting in online polls and posting inane comments on any political blog they can get to.
Can anyone show me an intelligent comment by any Paul supporter?
Can anyone show me an intelligent comment by Romney?
Ron Paul's mothership caused the malfunction!
Please explain how Paul is not a conservative. Do you know his voting record?
>>Can anyone show me an intelligent comment by any Paul supporter?
Cogito, ergo sum RP supporter.
IF there really were rigging of the count - and certainly we do not have any evidence either for it or against it now - would there be a crime?
And please note, I am just speculating about a hypothetical...
I would think that yes, even though this is not an actually election, there would be a crime of fraud. Thousands of people participated and spent large sums of money to take part in what is presented as a fair and accurate count of votes.
Election or no election, rigging the count would be a crime of fraud.
Weld, Celluci and even Swift were succeeded by Republican governors...only Romney managed to fritter away the one thing Republicans in that state had to hang onto...He took a party that was barely hanging on, and because he wanted to be President and was never there, let it slip away...Now they have Deval Patrick? I was being kind when he said he ruined the party. Since his campaign is basically anti-Massachusetts, he'll destroy any lingering goodwill to the party there was left. He basically destroyed the R's in Mass. There won't be another R governor in Mass. for 30 years, much less any other state officeholder.
But go ahead and vote for him...He looks pretty, so I'm sure you rubes think that counts for something...don't say I didn't warn ya...
No, David, it is just that there are a lot of supporters of Ron Paul and they are actually devoted.
Fred Thompson won and he wasn't even there...that's my prediction.
Tell you all what. Remember me in the future. Ron Paul won't ever break double digits in the major polls and he'll pull out and never be President. That's my last word. And Ron Paul is an anti-American kook, saying 9/11 was an inside job.
Who ya gonna call
Ron Paul!!
Who ya gonna call
Ron Paul!!
Who ya gonna call
Ron Paul!!
Who ya gonna call
Ron Paul!!
Anyone who is claiming that Ron Paul is not a conservative is an ignorant fool. Either that or they a democrat operative, or a neocon try to keep their power in the republican party.
Ron Paul better end up winning in the end or Romney will become famous for engaging in vote fraud at a straw poll.
Is there a source with more information? I'm a software engineer and am very fmailiar with the software the Diebold machines use. The vote tabulation is done in a matter of seconds and, even if the software locks up, a re-tabulation should only take as long as it takes to reboot the machine. If it was a hardware failure then there would be another set of concerns altogether. If you have more detail, please provide it as the explanation given here can not possibly be accurate.
Hey Bob, please explain why you think Ron Paul is a kook. Is the Constitution kooky? If so, why do Presidents get on international TV, put their hand on a Bible and swear to protect and uphold that kooky document? Please explain your empty comment.
Liberty!
This just in. Inside sources have confirmed that the vote will be delayed due to an unexpected event. Raffle Wiggum, a local Iowa resident, dropped a candy bar into the optical ballot scanner. When questioned about the incited, Raffle replied, "I'm special!".
One more comment:
I'm not a Romney supporter.
And I will admit that Ron Paul would be bettter than Hillary Clinton. Barely, but better.
The liberal Mass. bureaucracy is screwing up the healthcare program up there. they are losing applications. More like they are throwing them away to get off early and go to get drunk.
To Bob and anyone who thinks he said that 9/11 was an inside job:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDa59TBR_38
Watch this interview, he is asked point blank if he belives 9/11 was an inside job. His answer was NO!
See for yourselves.
Alex,
It was 58 Billion, not 35 Billion and yes, this is a major problem--even a crisis. But sitting around and saying "I told you so" isn't going to fix it, and one man in the White House isn't going to fix it.
Ron Paul may be a revolutionary, but he's no George Washington. He lacks the leadership skills to influence change. If you want to fix this kind of a problem, it must start behind the scenes by competent people. There's not enough of those in Washington to make a dent in it.
For what a president does, and can do, Romney is the best man for the job right now.
RE: Bob and his "inside job" comment...
Why would you post lies? Is it because you can do so anonymously and therefore detach yourself from the shame? Is the candidiate you support really that bad?!?!
I wasn't going to comment on Bob's inane lies, but his most recent assertion that Ron Paul "believes 9/11 was an inside job" is just too much to let slide.
This is proof positive that Bob doesn't know a damned thing about Ron Paul. The fact is that in a recent interview, Paul was asked point blank whether he believes that our government was complicit in any way in the events of 9/11. His answer: "Absolutely not."
Simpleminded people like Bob may be confused by Paul's explanation of the CAUSES of 9/11, which interestingly enough match up with the explanation offered by none other than the CIA. As a matter of fact, Michael Scheuer, who was head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden task force until Bush quietly disbanded that unit and stopped even looking for OBL, appeared in a press conference with Paul where they presented Rudy Ghouliani with a reading list explaining how our interventionist foreign policy has contributed to the hatred that results in terrorism against us.
Simpletons like Bob here may not understand that we've made some mistakes overseas that give militant islamists with their number one recruiting and propaganda tools, but anyone with a real grasp of geopolitics can see right through the Bushbot propaganda.
Maybe Bob will wise up one of these days.
Bob- Ron Paul is not anti-American! What a hateful comment. The man has dedicated his life to American principles and fought to make this country the the best that it can be. He brought thousands of Americans into this world. You should be ashamed of yourself. I hope that you do not consider yourself a Republican. I'm ashamed that you can even call yourself an American making comments like that.
And Ron Paul never said that 9/11 was an inside job. Please examine your opinions before carelesssly throwing them about as facts.
You have to be kidding me. FOX"NEWS" is airing a show called "Victory or Retreat", I don't know exactly what they are talking about because I naturally have the episode muted, but this smells like more propaganda to me. I better put on something with less propaganda content like "Pastor" Hagee. There you go Atlantic, two stories for you guys to cover, even though the American Conservative beat you to "Pastor" Hagee. You have to tell me what they are saying, for if I put the sound on my IQ will drop and I may not be able to digest my evening reading of Leo Strauss's "City and Man". It is a splendid book I suggest you all read it some time, but I would suggest reading "Persecution and the Art of Writing" beforehand to better digest the subject matter. But anywho, that is rather irrelevant I guess.
Ron Paul served in Vietnam. He's not a chickenhawk like Bush-Cheney.
The President himself can't bring limited government by 'leadership'. Such an idea is counter to federalism. SC Conservative seems to be saying that a liberal like Romney can actually bring the country back to conservatism. Working inside the Beltway only leads to growing government and special interests devouring the taxpayers.
We need more Ron Pauls in Congress.
http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=3555094491715905699
This is a documentary about electronic voting machines. I thought it was interesting.
There have been documented cases where the voting malfunctions resulted in incorrect counting.
Its amazing how every time one of the outsiders draws lots of supporters to a vote, the machines 'break down', and long drawn out recounts happen. Always with the insider candidate ending up winning.
Acroso,
Just for the record, Ron Paul did not go to Vietnam. He was, however, a flight surgeon the US Air Force from 1963-1968.
I wouldn't worry much about fools like Bob. They are simple brainwashed trolls. Once Ron Paul gains serious traction and begins to be a threat to the Democrats, you will see people like Bob start to come out and say that Ron Paul is a white supremacist.
"Weld, Celluci and even Swift were succeeded by Republican governors...only Romney managed to fritter away the one thing Republicans in that state had to hang onto."
If I were to fault Romney for something, actually, it would be for not getting enough Republican state legislators, not for losing the governorship.
Let's be honest, if Romney hadn't jumped in when he did, Swift would not have been succeeded by a Republican governor. We would have had a Democratic governor then, instead of 4 years later.
And the only reason Cellucci was "succeeded" by a Republican governor is that he left and Swift filled in the rest of his term. Swift wasn't ever actually elected. Republicans had already held office for more than 10 years, and the disconnect between that and the politics of the state was increasingly apparent. Romney jumped into tough political territory and did MA Republicans a favor - it wasn't enough, but it helped.
He tried to get more state legislators elected so he could sustain a veto. It didn't work, and so he stopped trying because the losses made him lose political capital. I wish he had tried harder, but he was still a net gain for the MA Republican Party. The situation the party is in now was basically inevitable, and it will take an outside force to resurrect the state party now.
There's a lot of things RP says i agree with in all seriousness. getting rid of welfare and the anchor baby bullcrap depts of energy and all the other regulation.i don't believe we can go back to the gold standard. the fed caused all the housing crisis by raising interest rates too high. that causes inflation.. walmart is the biggest inflation fighter on the planet.
Well, Bob, Ron Paul has never said that 9/11 was an inside job, so you're either uninformed or deliberately lying.
Ron Paul won't win the nomination, but by running an insurgent anti-war primary campaign he helps make sure that none of the repeataBushes will win, either. That's almost as good as winning. I hate Hillary, but I'll honestly take her over any of the collection of pro-torture thugs and Young Earth trailer trash that constitute the set of other available candidates.
It's a real disgrace when 8 years of a Republican presidency produces more Democrat policies than 8 years of a Democrat presidency did. To make sure that never happens again, the party has to be chastened by truly ignominious defeat. If Paul can contribute to that process, it's worth supporting him.
FRAUD!!!!!!!!!!
Cheney gives Bush Jr. a thrashing finally. Admits the
Admits that the war in Iraq is a âOccupationâ and has turned into a âQuagmire.â Wishes they never invaded!
NH,
You say Romney ruined the Massachusetts GOP. That sounds about as conspiratorial as some of the Ron Paul supporters.
The GOP lost in Massachusetts because Romney FIXED the problem he was elected to fix. Once the fiscal crisis was averted, the go old liberals were able to focus on their pet social issues like abortion and gay marriage, and there was no need for a Republican.
You wait, they'll spend the surpluss Mitt gave them and come crying back to the Republicans for some more economic salvation.
oh and romney is a flip flopper and a snake in the grass.
I'm starting to believe the tinfoil-hatters now. They said this would happen. Maybe someone rigged the machine in a way that causes impossible results, like negative votes. If a half-assed hacker did something like that, it would cause them to have to recount by hand. I wonder if they would ever admit that it happend though.
They should ditch the caucus and have a contest to see Who can say Saddam, terrorist, and WMD the fastest
If Romney is a conservative, then so is Hillary.
And if you like Ron Paul better than Hillary then you better hope he wins the nomination because Paul is the only Republican that stands a chance of beating whomever the Dem nominee is.
Romney's destruction of the Republican Party of Mass. isn't a conspiracy at all...He was elected only so he would have a political base to run for President from...that's a fact, not a conspiracy...then, because he is going to spend his whole campaign badmouthing the state he just came from, he will wipe out the last vestige of good will toward the state Republican party.
I don't get what you mean by "conspiracy." I live here, so I think I know what I actually see every day...You live in Cracker Barrel land, so you don't have a grasp on what happens here...Thanks to Romney, NH doesn't even get disgruntled Republicans moving in from Mass. anymore to help us out, because there aren't any left...
The following video exposes some of the flaws of Diebold voting machines and the electronic voting machines in general:
Votergate
http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=3555094491715905699
The architecture of the programming is poor, the machines are not guarded or sealed adequately to prevent tampering, diebold keeps the programming secret claiming it is intellectual property - it only needs to be a simple calculator there should be no issue with revealing the source code. It is possible to remote access the central tabulator.
There have been documented cases where the voting malfunctions resulted in incorrect counting, and thousands of miscounts due to Diebolds machines.
Do not trust what people tell you about electronic voting, do some research.
Brett,
I agree that we need more Ron Pauls in congress, but I disagree with your assessment of Mitt Romney.
Simply because people accuse Romney of being a liberal doesn't make him a liberal. They've been drinking too much of the ultra-right-wing Kool-aide.
While he probably leans more towards the status quo than I would like, I don't see anyone more conservative than Romney ever getting elected. He believes in small government, strong family, and a strong, but mostly silent military.
Face it people. Our elections have been rigged for years. They fix the primaries and the generals. Both parties are in on it which is why they dont do anything about it.
All the Ron Paul supporters who think we should build a big fence around the US and withdraw from the world, please raise your hands.
So Ron Paul is at 2 percent in national, scientific polls of likely Republican primary voters, as identified by the pollsters, among people who barely know anything about the candidates and haven't started following the campaign.
What do you think he's polling among people who actually know what most of the candidates stand for? There's a reason he does so well online -- people on the Internet have a chance to learn about all the candidates, and think for themselves.
As more people tune in to the election, Ron Paul's support is going to get a LOT higher....
How hard is it to count 14,000 votes?
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but this electronic voting needs to go right in the garbage. Paper ballots and nothing else hand counted in public view at all times.
Side Note - How many of these votes were paid votes? Mitt bused in what, 10,000 people? And he only pulled 4K from the stats? lol
Bob, oh, so now the elections are all rigged? Who's the conspiracy theorist, here?
David,
To all those who think that we should invade and nation build countries that had nothing to do with 9/11 which you so heavily invoke raise your hands. Of course that is why we have no allies and and are more isolated from the world than Al Qaeda is from the Middle East. We should isolate Al Qaeda with proper foreign policy pinpoint accuracy, not isolate ourselves with Wilsonian Democracy Spreading into countries that neither attacked us nor was involved in 9/11. I hate to break it to you, reality is a bitch, but permanent revolution doesn't work, the Bolsheviks gave up when Germany faltered, Che died the second time around, a third world army with defensive tactics cannot achieve a global caliphate, and permanent revolution cannot be achieved through democracy spreading.
David, you still got your hand up?
FRAUD!
Posted by Another Alex, Hereafter Alex2 | August 11, 2007 8:28 PM