Ron Paul snatches fifth place in Straw Poll as voting machines again fail, questions raised over conflicts of interest in oversight personnel
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Monday, August 13, 2007
Ron Paul supporters were angered at this weekend's straw poll in Iowa by the fact that Diebold voting machines once again malfunctioned and caused significant delays in the count, coupled with the fact that a Mitt Romney team member was placed in charge of overseeing the voting procedure.
The Story County Auditor's Office, which was in charge of running the votes is headed by Mary Mosiman who also happens to be on Mitt Romney's "Romney for President Leadership Team".
Though Ron Paul's campaign people chose to remain uninvolved in these matters, it turned out that the fears were justified as around 4500 ballots were re-run and the announcement of the poll results was delayed by around an hour as a recount was initiated.
The machines used were Diebold's optical scanners, which do provide paper ballots, unlike the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines which provide no paper trail to go back to should the machines fail.
Though it was reported that about 30,000 to 33,000 Republicans came to meet candidates and cast their votes, only 14,302 were actually cast. Over a quarter of the votes had to be recounted after the malfunction.
Though it was also reported that "there were nothing but Ron Paul signs in the crowd" and that his campaign signs lined the highways and streets leading into Ames, Iowa, Paul came in fifth place behind Romney, Huckabee, Brownback and Tancredo. This is encouraging however because many of Paul's supporters came from out of state, meaning they were ineligible to vote.
Mitt Romney 4516 31.5%
Mike Huckabee 2587 18.1%
Sam Brownback 2192 15.3%
Tom Tancredo 1961 13.7%
Ron Paul 1305 9.1%
Tommy Thompson 1039 7.3%
Fred Thompson 203 1.4%
Rudy Giuliani 183 1.3%
Duncan Hunter 174 1.2%
John McCain 101 1.0%
John Cox 41 0.1%
14,302 Total Votes
26,000 Total Tickets Sold
Given that Romney reportedly spent millions on advertising the straw poll and personally paid for his supporters travel expenses, laying on hundreds of buses, as well as paying for their tickets, it was not surprising that he won by such a margin.
In addition, given that only about 14,000 votes were reportedly cast, Ron Paul’s showing of 1305 votes is almost 10 percent, quadruple the 2% of the vote he supposedly has in national polls and what sources said was the base level of support that the campaign hoped to achieve in the Iowa Straw Poll.
Ron Paul's campaign is encouraged by the result which has proven that he is able to turn online support into actual votes and has disproved ridiculous claims that his supporters are merely trolls and spammers who are adept at fixing online polls.
"We are pleased and encouraged by the results. ... Our campaign has begun," Paul's campaign chairman Kent Snyder said in a statement posted on the RonPaul2008.com. Snyder listed three ingredients for success: the message of "freedom, peace and prosperity"; "the man: Ron Paul"; and Paul's committed supporters
Gambling 911 has reported that the Straw Poll results seem not to have mattered as far as the online bookmakers are concerned. Huckabee remains at 50 to 1 odds while neither Romney's or Ron Paul's numbers changed remaining at 8 to 1.
Related: See Ron Paul's keynote speech and how it was once again spun by the corporate media here.