Three years after spending $24.5 million to install a controversial touch-screen voting system, Miami-Dade County elections officials have been asked to study scrapping the system in favor of paper-based balloting.
The request from County Manager George Burgess follows the recent resignation of Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan and the revelation that hundreds of votes in recent elections hadn’t been counted.
Uh, oh…Tom and Jeb aren’t gonna like that…
WHAT!!!???!!!!!!!!!!!
The article says it is costing Dade triple what it used to, to run an election. Maybe they can make it up in volume 🙂
I think the heat just got too intense down there. It’s burning their butts. Run for the river!!
Teresa #3
LOL It is hot down here, but we run for the beach! Rivers are yucky dirty even in the sub-tropics.
You go Miami!!!!!!
Throw ’em in the goddamned swamp with the alligators and the water moccasins!!!!!!!!
Good idea. No problem, I’m on it!!!!!!
No, wait, gators wont eat that shit!
LOL.
GOD IS WATCHING, it’s only a matter of time for the rest of the band of fools to fall as well.
Amen, Brian. They really are fools.
This is good news! They’re running scared. I’m glad to hear this. 😀
Well, they earned $24.5 million in that scam…
Republican Strategy:
(a) fight removal of the machines
(b) will at least buy time on how to fight paper ballots
(c) oh yes, ID cards – you can make a lot of money on this scam, and you can control who gets to vote…Okay, battle stations!
The repugs must have a humongous new felon list on the back burner.
I’m sure they can get a full refund since they enjoy a personal criminal relationship with the CEO.
Besides, they were all "defective". They didn’t work, it was obvious to 6 year olds. Send them all back, the public noticed and caught them all in the scam again. Jeezus…
I think Peggy is right. The G.O.P. might cry a few crocodile tears over this, but they’ve already begun to work on their strategy for stealing elections that use paper ballots.
Here are a few ideas they can borrow:
1) Mark ballots stealthily as you count them, if the vote is for the Democrat. Then claim the ballot is invalid because it has extraneous marks on it.
2) In Democratic districts, make sure the air conditioning fails at polling places. This will lower turnout and also cause ballots to stick together from the humidity.
3) In honor of Ken Blackwell: Bring in extra-thick paper to Democratic precincts (use normal paper in Republican areas). Then have the ballots invalidated because the paper is illegally thick.
These are semi-facetious. But I can promise you Rove, Feeney, et al. are at work on real tricks.
I love the air conditioning one.
Write on. At least lets make the election crooks work hard for their plunder. ("its haaarrrrd wooork").
As long as the voting machines are produced and programmed by neocon hacks lets stick with paper only voting.
Only when voting machines are produced and programmed with the public eye firmly watching each and every phase of the process and thereafter the election should we allow their use.
Good riddance.
Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if the GOP tried to sell the faulty machines to one of these under-priveledged countries we are "bringing democracy" to. Then they can make twice as much in resale. Will this shit never end? What is it going to take to get an honest election?
Shadow #17
Yes, it will end. I believe this. I must. It may not come in a loud BOOM, but it will come.
What is it going to take? What is being done here, some yell, understandable. Some are quietly making noise 24/7. That works too. Sometimes, when I stop and look back, I see progress, and it makes me stronger.
RLM #14
And the old standby, discusting intimidation. How many more times will they use that? How many more times will we allow it?
I wouldn’t be surprised if they have other plans in mind. Will they go back to the butterfly ballot or just a regular paper ballot? I live in a southeastern town in Tennessee and we just had a mayoral visit and we use paper ballots to where there is a circle and you use a permanent sharpie pen and bubble next to the person you want. Polls are open from 8am-8pm est and we knew the winner by 10pm est time and the winner matched all the polls the previous weeks (it was a very tight race like this last election). This only shows me even more they are guilty and are trying to hide the evidance.
Oops instead of mayoral visit I mean race (sorry was in a hurry).
And, Emily, that is the TRUTH about voting. All the rest of the Republican spin about major difficulties in using these methods of voting is designed to create public distrust.
They’ve marketed the paperless DREs with all the skill of boardwalk pitchmen, who sell worthless gadgets like hotcakes.
BEWARE of another "TERRA" attack ,the REAL results of the 2000 election came out on 9/11.
Divert
Distract
Deceive
To KestrelBrighteyes, Teresa, Peg C, Peggy, Winter Patriot, Supersoling, Chemo-Electric Trashman, Shadowtwinchaos, Bejammin075, Da Wookie, Czaragorn, Savantster, Kira, Republicans are Fascists, BUSHW@CKER, Miss Persistent, Cole and any other Brad Blog regulars (or non-regulars) I might have missed (AND SOME ARE NOT NAMED BECAUSE I HAVE ALREADY CORRESPONDED WITH THEM):
I have sketched out a BRAD BLOG FUNDRAISER BLOGATHON concept and have already shared it with several Brad Bloggers by e-mail. All have expressed enthusiasm about what I presented to them and several have given additional excellent suggestions. I am trying to incorporate these suggestions (and some other ideas based on some of your comments on various threads) into the overall concept to try to create a Blogathon that will go beyond just fundraising for Brad and try to do something positive for Progressive blogsites, in general. TERESA commented in a recent thread: "… more and more people will be coming to the blogs. That’s where it’s happening now. Money will be coming as well. I think it is important for us to absolutely keep up this wonderful intelligent dialogue, without too much complaining, and people will be tuning in more and more. They will want to be a part of this growing movement. We are in the vanguard. I take our responsibilty seriously." These are my sentiments, exactly. This is where the Revolution has already begun and we need to do everything we can to further it and to support the vanguards of the vanguards, like Brad and the Brad Blog. I don’t have e-mail addresses for most of those I mentioned above. I would like to share what I (with the help of others) have come up with and add your ideas to the mix before presenting the final proposal to Brad, hopefully in the next week. To do that, I need as many of you as possible to link to my e-mail address (click on Steve at the top of this comment) and e-mail me so that I can e-mail the proposal to you and you can comment or add to it if you wish. I promise not to share your e-mail address with anyone, including on this blog (unless you have already posted/linked it on the blog). It would not be practical to try to flesh this concept out on an open comment blog and their are a few things that I’d like to leave as a possible surprise to Brad if this idea takes wings. I have no other agenda or marketing ambitions. I am a pediatrician and have plenty of other things to do to keep me busy, but, like many of you, I feel called to action by what is happening in this country and by what I have learned from this and other blogs. I would like to try and do my part. I look forward to hearing from you and getting your input.
Thanks, Steve
In January 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower, a career military man, shocked people when he left office by giving a valedictory speech that warned about the military-industrial complex. Roughly translated, Ike meant, "Wars are profitable for many companies, and those companies will use their influence with politicians who are in a position to make war, to enhance their own profits."
Now we have an "electoral-industrial complex," wherein voting-machine companies and politicians work hand in hand to steal elections and make profits at the same time. To keep the system going, the public has to be convinced that 1) the elections were in fact honest, and 2) without the electronic machines, they would not have been.
John Kerry conceded on Nov. 3, because (he said) there weren’t enough uncounted provisional ballots to change the result. He said nothing then or since about flipped votes and electronic fraud, nothing about hidden source codes, nothing about the incestuous relationships between politicians and the executives of voting machine companies.
This silence seems to suggest that Kerry either was ignorant of what had happened, or doesn’t care.
Given that his history is not one of ignorance and uncaring public service, I suspect the problem of electronic vote fraud is much more widespread than anyone realizes, involving both parties and extending down to state and local races as far back as the 1990s…and that knowing this, Kerry decided to fall on his sword rather than open up Pandora’s box.
RLM – have you read this?
The Greatest Cover-Up Of All: Vote Fraud In America
by James J. Condit Jr.
This takes us back to the ’70s and – well, it blew me away.
What does it matter? no matter which way the Democrats lose that will cry and bitch that they were wronged. Get over it you lost!!!
To SATWOODS comment#27
Its sad that you are apathetic about vote tampering, election rigging and voter fraud. "What does it matter?"…. The point here is that our vote counting system be accurate, verifiable and uncorruptible. That should be the goal.
You might be satisfied that your vote is accurately tallied when one punches a button on a black box with no audit trail but many of us are not.
My brother (the Republican) couldn’t see any fraud or wrongdoing in Florida 2000, has a blind eye for the voting irregularities across the country in 2004 but I have to listen to him cry foul and bitch about the Republicans losing a close election for the Govenor here in Washington State. (there is no doubt in his mind the results are fraudulent)