New Hampshire Recount Goes Slowly

A recount Ralph Nader requested for some New Hampshire towns went slower than expected Thursday and won't resume until next week, state election officials said.

"It's impossible," said Secretary of State Bill Gardner, declining to predict when the recount would end.
Briggs' analysis showed about three quarters of precincts with severe changes from 2000 were using Diebold Inc.'s Accuvote optical scanning machines. Nader campaign representatives said they wanted to ensure the machines were accurate.

"Nader, an independent presidential candidate this year, paid $2,000 to begin a recount of 11 of the state's 126 precincts after an analysis showed wide differences in voting trends between the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

The analysis, performed by Michigan programmer Ida Briggs, said Sen. John Kerry's votes were much worse in some locations than former Vice President Al Gore's in 2000, even though Kerry carried the state and Gore didn't.

That was enough of a coincidence that we thought a recount made sense," said Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese. "It's an audit, if you will."

UPDATE:

From the Nashua Telegraph comes this report:

The recount of presidential ballots in Litchfield and two Manchester wards Thursday night differed by only 15 votes from more than 12,000 ballots cast.

Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese said those reviewed Thursday were not representative enough to suspend the recount. Zeese conceded this would likely prove voting-machine tampering favoring President George W. Bush did not take place.

“This just shows Democrats have more soul-searching to do for why they lost the election. They can’t use machine troubles as an excuse,” Zeese said.

Of course, following the paper trails in NH does not prove that everything was on the up and up in all the other states...