http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/16/mystery-ny-results-say-o_n_87020.html

snip

Mystery: NY Results Say Obama Got Zero Votes In 80 Districts
NY Times | Sam Roberts | February 16, 2008 04:20 PM

patriotscholar (See profile | I'm a fan of patriotscholar)
In 2004, my wife and I lived in Florida. Although I was registered as
a republican at that time, I voted for John Kerry in the general
election, as did a lot of other people I knew.Lo and behold, about 4
moths after the election, they released the precinct totals statewide
and the republicans were crowing about how they did, bragging that in
some precincts, all registered republicans voted for Bush. Mine was
one of them. I don't think so...there was a fox loose in the hen
houses that day.I sincerely hope that is not the case in NY, because
that would indicate a lot of lawbreakers running loose.
Reply | posted 11:52 pm on 02/16/2008

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Unofficial Tallies in City Understated Obama Vote
Michael Nagle/European Pressphoto Agency
A sign supporting Senator Barack Obama on Primary Day in Harlem. Some
districts reported that no one had voted for him.

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Del.icio.usDiggFacebookNewsvinePermalinkBy SAM ROBERTS
Published: February 16, 2008
Black voters are heavily represented in the 94th Election District in
HarlemÂ’s 70th Assembly District. Yet according to the unofficial
results from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single
vote in the district was cast for Senator Barack Obama.

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Multimedia
Graphic
Counting the Results That anomaly was not unique. In fact, a review by
The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night
found about 80 election districts among the cityÂ’s 6,106 where Mr.
Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where
he ran a respectable race in a nearby district.

City election officials this week said that their formal review of the
results, which will not be completed for weeks, had confirmed some
major discrepancies between the vote totals reported publicly — and
unofficially — on primary night and the actual tally on hundreds of
voting machines across the city.

In the Harlem district, for instance, where the primary night returns
suggested a 141 to 0 sweep by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the vote
now stands at 261 to 136. In an even more heavily black district in
Brooklyn — where the vote on primary night was recorded as 118 to 0
for Mrs. Clinton — she now barely leads, 118 to 116.

The history of New York elections has been punctuated by episodes of
confusion, incompetence and even occasional corruption. And election
officials and lawyers for both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton agree that
it is not uncommon for mistakes to be made by weary inspectors rushing
on election night to transcribe columns of numbers that are delivered
first to the police and then to the news media.

That said, in a presidential campaign in which every vote at the
Democratic National Convention may count, a swing of even a couple of
hundred votes in New York might help Mr. Obama gain a few additional
delegates.

City election officials said they were convinced that there was
nothing sinister to account for the inaccurate initial counts, and The
TimesÂ’s review found a handful of election districts in the city where
Mrs. Clinton received zero votes in the initial results.

“It looked like a lot of the numbers were wrong, probably the result
of human error,” said Marcus Cederqvist, who was named executive
director of the Board of Elections last month. He said such
discrepancies between the unofficial and final count rarely affected
the raw vote outcome because “they’re not usually that big.”

On primary night, Mrs. Clinton was leading with 57 percent to Mr.
ObamaÂ’s 40 percent in New York State, which meant she stood to win 139
delegates to Mr. ObamaÂ’s 93, with 49 others known as superdelegates
going to the national convention unaffiliated.

Jerome A. Koenig, a former chief of staff to the State AssemblyÂ’s
election law committee and a lawyer for the Obama campaign, suggested
that some of the discrepancy resulted from the design of the ballot.

Candidates were listed from left to right in an order selected by
drawing lots. Mrs. Clinton was first, followed by Gov. Bill Richardson
and Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., who in most election districts
received zero votes, and by John Edwards, who got relatively few. Mr.
Obama was fifth, just before Representative Dennis J. Kucinich.

Mr. Koenig said he seriously doubted that anything underhanded was at
work because local politicians care more about elections that matter
specifically to them.

“They steal votes for elections like Assembly District leader, where
people have a personal stake,” he said.

A number of political leaders also scoffed at the possibility that
local politicians, even if they considered it vital that Mr. Obama or
Mrs. Clinton prevail in the primary, were capable of even trying to
hijack such a contest.

Still, for those inclined to consider conspiracy theories, the figures
provided plenty of grist.

The 94th Election District in Harlem, for instance, sits within the
Congressional district represented by Charles B. Rangel, an original
supporter of Mrs. Clinton.

Assemblyman Keith L. T. Wright, a Clinton supporter who represents the
same area, said he was confident that there was an innocent
explanation for the original count giving Mr. Obama zero votes.

“I’m sure it’s a clerical error of some sort,” Mr. Wright said. “Being
around elections for the last 25 years, no candidate receives zero
votes.”

But Gordon J. Davis, a former New York City parks commissioner and an
Obama poll watcher in the district, remained skeptical, even after
being informed of the corrected count.

“First it was reported at 141 to 0, now it’s 261 to 136 in an Assembly
district that went 12,000 to 8,000 for Barack,” Mr. Davis said on
Friday.

“I was watching like a hawk, but how did I know the machine had a mind
of its own?” he added. “And I speak as one who grew up on the South
Side of Chicago where we delivered the margin of victory for John F.
Kennedy at 4 in the morning.”

At the sprawling Riverside Park Community apartments at Broadway and
135th Street, Alician D. Barksdale said she had voted for Mr. Obama
and her daughter had, too, by absentee ballot.

“Everyone around here voted for him,” she said.

The 53rd Assembly District, in Brooklyn, is represented by the
boroughÂ’s Democratic chairman, Assemblyman Vito P. Lopez, another
Clinton supporter. He said the party faithful have produced lopsided
margins of as much as 160 to 4 and that on Primary Day he fielded
election captains in every district to galvanize Hispanic voters for
Mrs. Clinton.

“We ran it the old-fashioned way,” he said. Still, he said, the 118 to
0 vote “has to be a mistake.”

At the Archive, a cafe and video store on the border of Bushwick and
East Williamsburg, the manager, Brad Lee, agreed. “There were Obama
posters in everyone’s windows,” he said. “There was even Obama
graffiti.”

Most election-night anomalies are later reconciled by the official
canvass of the machines and in the formal count of absentee returns
and of paper affidavit ballots issued on Primary Day, to people who do
not appear to be eligible but demand the right to vote, and later
validated.

On Feb. 5, Mrs. Clinton carried 61 of the stateÂ’s 62 counties but won
Brooklyn by a margin of less than 2 percent. Because delegates are
awarded proportionately on the basis of the primary vote in each
Congressional district, Obama supporters expressed hope that if the
official count continued in their favor, they might gain an additional
delegate or two.

Kate Hammer and Robin Stein contributed reporting.