Voting Technology and the 2008 New Hampshire Primary

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY We address concerns that the reported vote counts of candidates running in the 2008 New Hampshire presidential primaries were affected by the vote-tabulating technologies used across New Hampshire. * In the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton was more successful in New Hampshire wards that used Accuvote optical scan vote-tabulating technology than was Barack Obama, receiving 4.3% more of the vote there (40.2% for Clinton versus 35.9% for Obama). In contrast, Clinton did worse than Obama in wards that counted paper ballots by hand, trailing by 6.1% (33.7% versus 39.8%). * In the Republican primary, Mitt Romney trailed John McCain by 3.6% in Accuvote wards and by 15% in wards that counted ballots by hand. * In New Hampshire, the choice of vote-tabulating technology is made ward by ward, and electronic technology was used in wards that typically differ demographically and politically from wards that count ballots by hand. Wards that selected electronic tabulation are disproportionately from the southeast part of New Hampshire, and they tend to be more densely populated and more affluent. Accuvote and hand count wards have also typically produced divergent voting patterns in elections prior to the 2008 primary. This context makes it plausible that most or all of the observed differences between vote-tabulating technologies in the votes candidates received reflect such background differences and not anything inherent in the tabulation methods. * Using a subset of New Hampshire wards that have similar demographic features and voting histories but differ in their vote-tabulating technologies, we find no significant relationship between a ward's use of vote-tabulating technology and the votes or vote shares received by most of the leading candidates who competed in the 2008 New Hampshire presidential primaries. Among Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson in the Democratic primary and among Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Ron Paul, and Mitt Romney in the Republican primary, we observe a significant difference only in the votes counted for Edwards, and that difference is small (a deficit of between 0.6% and 3.4% in the hand-counted votes). * With respect to Hillary Clinton's surprise victory in the Democratic primary and the differences across vote-tabulating technologies in Clinton's and others' votes, our results are consistent with these differences being due entirely to the fact that New Hampshire wards that use Accuvote optical scan machines have voters with different political preferences than wards that use hand-counted paper ballots. INTRODUCTION In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 New Hampshire Democratic and Republican presidential primaries there were widespread concerns that the reported vote counts of candidates running in these races were affected by the technologies used in New Hampshire to tabulate votes.1 Probably the most frequently discussed allegation asserted that a digital method of tabulating votes benefited New York Senator Hillary Clinton at the expense of her chief competitor in the Democratic primary, Illinois Senator Barack Obama.2 This allegation appears to be the motivating factor behind the recount that was pushed for by Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich.3 As a candidate in the Democratic primary (according to pre-recount results Kucinich received 390 1 votes in the race), Kucinich was entitled under New Hampshire election law to request a recount as long as he funded it.4 In fact, Kucinich funded a partial Democratic recount, and a complete Republican recount was funded by backers of Texas Congressman Ron Paul.5 Assuming that the original paper ballots are available, a recount is the only comprehensive method for evaluating the accuracy of a given election's vote tabulations.6 However, comprehensive audits of elections remain rare even in the post-2000 presidential election period. …