(NOTE FROM BRAD: Catching up on a few items as time allows. Still mostly “off the grid” for the next several days, but jumping in when I can.)
You may recall the recent decertification of E-Voting machines made by the UniLect corporation in several Pennsylvania counties. That occured as a result of one good American citizen, Sheila Green, demanding an investigation into the Direct Electronic Response (DRE) voting machines in the state (oh, okay…Commonwealth) of Pennsylvania. The effort cost her just $450 and resulted in the decertification of PA’s $1.2 million UniLect touch-screen voting machines.
The machines were decertified after the investigation, according to the Sec. of the Commonwealth’s statement, because…
UniLect was generously allowed a chance to meet with the Department again to answer to the concerns revealed by the investigation. And now, after meeting with them, it looks like UniLect failed to meet the concerns according to a Press Release issued yesterday:
“As a result of a second reexamination of the UniLect Patriot Direct Recording Electronic Voting System, the decertification of the system that was issued on April 7, 2005 will remain in effect. In consideration of the upcoming Municipal Primary on May 17 and the interests of several parties, it was important for me to relay this decision quickly, so the Department of State can continue its work with Beaver, Greene and Mercer counties putting alternatives in place to ensure an accurate primary election. We remain committed to strong communication with the County Commissioners, and the voters in their counties so that no citizen is denied the right or opportunity to vote.”
(Hat tip the good folks from VotersUnite.org for the info!)
FANTASTIC!!!!!!!! An actual victory for us good guys! Anyone know how to reach Sheila Green so we can send her some flowers and thank you cards???
Now if only Ohio and Florida had any uncorrupted people left in charge…
The only thing I can say; God Is Watching
Says it all
"I really expected them to whitewash it," Green said. "They did the right thing. I don’t know why. I never expected it."
Surprise,surprise,surprise!
Rock on!! Now if they could only be barred from using my "name"! 😉
This isn’t going to fit well with the Baker-Carter Commission scam to federally control and centralize elections. A constitutional States Rights conflict may be on the horizon..?
This is a start, but there is an illegal sitting in The White House, and we cannot be given back the four-plus-years-and-counting that have been brazenly stolen from us. The Beelzebush Syndicate marches on….
Good going, Ms. Green!
The shake up in Miami-Dade to switch back to paper ballots, was also citizen activists at work. A group, Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition (MDERC) has been very vocal and involved.
Brian- You sure? Maybe he was tortured to death in Abu Ghraib, or the depleted uranium weapons in Iraq got him. Who knows.
So, Unilect’s systems failed some very very basic functionality testing… What were Pennsylvania’s original certification criteria? Only that it powers on? Christ. Imagine if this were a new ATM machine that had been in use for 5 months, and we were just now discovering that on-screen button presses weren’t working most of the time and the bank deposits we made at them never actually made it to our bank accounts.
The original certification criteria ought to be re-examined, and whoever gave the actual certification to Unilect before Nov 2004 ought to be investigated too.
Don’t get me wrong, this is excellent news. But this should definitely have been caught BEFORE they got certified in the first place.
Brad – Can we collect money to demand investigations into the e-vote machines used in Ohio? I don’t live in Ohio, but if it’s possible, I’d gladly fork a couple hundred out of my own pocket to contribute.
Could there be a smoking gun here to begin unraveling the Republicans
manipulation of the 2004 elections through voting fraud in Ohio?
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps...EWS24/50429002
"The contributions to the Bush campaign became the subject of a criminal
investigation after Bernadette Noe and Sam Thurber, two former GOP members of
the county elections board, talked to the county prosecutor’s office about
what they claimed was wrongdoing by Joe Kidd, the former director of the
county elections office and a fellow Republican.""
DeDe (#10)
There have been so many smoking guns left out in the open during this administration that I’m starting to cough up some ‘green stuff’. Evidence that is obvious to the naked eye has been seen and noted by many, yet has managed to disappear, be obfuscated, or spun so wildly that my head is still spinning. Regan from "The Exorcist" is getting jealous.
The problem isn’t the availability of the evidence; the problem is (for me), how come nothing is being done about it. Point after point, item after item is ignored. Evidence is gathered and presented, then gets lost within the committees that are supposed to be looking.
The issues that occurred with Mr. Noe in Ohio appear real and relevant. But ask me if I have faith in the FBI, that "no longer relevant agency" that is filled with Bush protagonists to actually maintain a proper investigation and keep us informed of the results. The "property" they took is probably at the bottom of a lake in Midland, Texas as we speak.
I’ like you, hope that we’ve seen a turning point to the blind-eye that has spread over this country’s watchdog agencies quicker than a herpes break-out. Actually, I pray for it. I’d like to see that ‘smirk’ be forever wiped off that face!
Alan
re #11: Yup! So many smoking guns, and no sheriff!! 🙁
Could this backfire?
After decertifying UniLect, could the officials in Pennsylvania then move in the future to certify even a WORSE electronic voting system, that is in bed with Bush & Co.? (think Florida, Ohio..)
Let’s all watch developments with respect to this VERY carefully.
MikeyCan
You may remember Andy Stephenson from his primary run for Washington Secretary of State. You may also know Andy from his work on Black Box Voting and electronic voting issues. Andy has been a leading advocate for electronic voting reform, and is personally responsible for much of the attention this cause has received.
Andy has been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on his pancreas, and requires surgery, which will be performed the second week of May. Because of Andy’s sacrifice for the cause of electronic voting reform, he does not have health insurance and is unable to cover the costs of this surgery.
Andy is at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and they require $25,000 upfront to schedule this surgery. As of this writing, Beth Ferrari has negotiated with Johns Hopkins to schedule the surgery if we can provide $15,000 this Monday, May 2, and $10,000 soon thereafter. The entire surgery is slated to cost $50,000. Beth has done amazing work in negotiating with Johns Hopkins.
If you are able to contribute in any way, please don’t hesitate.
1) via USPS:
send a check or a money order to:
Andy Stephenson
P O Box 25624
Seattle, WA 98165-1124
2) via Paypal:
(You must have a Paypal account)
http://www.paypal.com/
After logging in, choose "Send Money" and enter Andy’s email address
as the recipient Andy_Stephenson@comcast.net
3) via Amazon
http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varze...-6873839-90473\53
Just enter the amount and click "pay now"
!!!IMPORTANT!!!
If you can contribute, please email Beth Ferrari at info@dougzilla.com so she can track how much has been raised and report to Johns Hopkins.
Activists are working with Johns Hopkins to secure a fee reduction, and we are working with members of our Congressional delegation to secure their help in this matter as well.
In the meantime, Andy needs your help. I was contacted this afternoon and asked to spread the word about his situation, and I’m asking you to join me in helping Andy. Please forward this email to everyone you know, and please help financially. Over $11,000 has been raised in the last few days, and we need to keep pushing. This is a national effort.
Ray Minchew
Executive Director
Democracy for Washington
P.S. If the links are not working then please send the check snail mail. Please contact Beth (above) so she can report to the doctor if they will have the funds to perform the surgery.
Jeb has a year and a half left, so maybe after he departs Florida can regain some dignity and actually have a legitimate election! PA is such good news, I hope it catches on here in Florida!
Brad or Winter Patriot, is #14 legitimate?
Finally some "real evidence" how wonderful…can we do this in other states under suspicion..? Conyers..? Or does it have to be some one on the "inside" in each state as it was in PA.?
We have the very same Unilect Patriots in North Carolina, and there is no recourse for citizens to call for re-examination of the machines.
Carteret and Burke County also had gigantic undervote rates.
Burke County, North Carolina. 34,604 people went to the polls, 3,842 did not cast vote for president.
http://www.islandpacket.com/24h...-9916474c.html http://newsobserver.com/news/st...-8413353c.html
Burke has the Unilect Patriot DRE, purchased in Feb 2000, firmware 2.52 installed May 2000, with Intellect VS 2.45 tabulating software, installed in May 2000. Has modem capability. This is the same as was decertified by Pennsylvania. ________________________________________________________________
Carteret County problems with Unilect Patriot
Carteret County, North Carolina. The UniLect Patriot System.
4,438 votes lost by faulty control unit. One statewide election could not be settled,
the democratic contender for Commissioner of Agriculture finally withdrew from the
contest as there was no other solution except for a new statewide election.
http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=3884
According to Joseph Lorezo Hall, (http://www.evoting-experts.com/ )
"the problem in Carteret County was in a control unit. That is, the Patriot is
a daisy-chained voting system where a bunch of touchscreens are all
plugged into a central control device (from which voting machines are
activated, etc.). The central unit in these counties didn’t have
enough memory (essentially) to hold more than a small number of
electronic ballots."
________________________________________________________________
What the Media Missed:
For Burke County, the media only paid attention to the Presidential contest, and failed to question the ballot design theory proposed by the NC BOE.
For Carteret County, the media only latched onto the obvious problem of the 4,436 votes lost on the control unit. They completely missed the undervote story.
Burke County’s undervotes are much more shocking when you look at the precinct data.
Undervotes by precinct ranged as high as 69% for the Presidential contest in one precinct, down to a more modest but still unacceptable 5.17 % in others.
The ballot design along with our "straight ticket voting law" was blamed for the problem,
Yet this would not account for the high undervote for Governor:
with the lowest undervote rate at the Morganton 4 precinct at 3.86
and the highest undervote by precinct for Governor at 14% at the Smoky Creek Precinct.
Overall, Burke County’s total average "undervote" for the Presidential contest was 11%, and the total for Governor was 7.117%, indicating that more was involved in voting problems than the straight ticket voting and ballot design.
25 of the 29 regular voting precincts had a 6% or higher undervote for Governor, indicating that the problem with casting or counting the votes was likely to be a voting system problem.
How did Burke County compare to other counties in their undervote for President and for Governor?
The undervote rate for all DRE counties for president averaged 2.05, with Burke at 11%.
The undervote rate for all DRE counties for governor averaged 3.03, with Burke at 7.12%.
(A detailed analysis of DRE by precinct showed that some had extremely large overvotes for president, therefore causing the overall average undervote to seem lower.)
OpScan counties fared much better overall.
The undervote rate for all OpScan Counties for pres averaged 2.19.
The undervote rate for all OpScan Counties for gov averaged 2.00
http://www.cs.duke.edu/~justin/...ng/totals.html
Cartert County undervote problems by precinct examined –
It was not highly publicized, but Carteret County had problems at various precincts with a large number of undervotes. This is aside from the votes lost during one stop voting due to the 3,005 vote limit on the software. These undervotes are from ballots cast, but no vote registered for a particular contest.
Citizens should not be compelled to vote on systems that can and do throw their votes away in such astonishing numbers.
IF banks threw away 5 to 10% of the money deposited, the government would shut them down. However, when this happens to our votes, the "currency" of democracy, nothing is said.
Some Carteret Precincts with astonishing undervote rates:
At the Peletier Precinct, at the COMMUNITY BUILDING, 252 Peletier Loop Rd, of 455 voters who went to the polls,
7.91 % did not cast vote for President,
9.45% did not cast a vote for governor, and
8.35% did not cast vote for US Senate.
Voters had a similar problem at the Morehead Nr 1 precinct, at the MOREHEAD PARKS & REC. BUILDING, 1600 Fisher St.
Of the 807 voters who went to the polls,
7.063 did not cast vote for president,
9.045 did not cast vote for Governor, and
7.56% did not cast vote for US Senate.
At the Morehead 4 precinct, OPEN DOOR BAPTIST CHURCH, 227 Highway 24, out of 1,039 voters,
6.256% did not effectively cast a vote for president,
8.18% did not cast a vote for Governor, and
5.87 did not cast a vote for US Senate.
At the Stella precinct, of 457 voters,
5.69 % of all ballots did not register a vote for president,
8.75 did not count for governor, and
6.35% did not count for US Senate.
At Cape Carteret, Ceder Point, at WESTERN PARK COMM. CENTER, 275 Old Highway 58, of the 1,271 voters who turned out,
5.43% did not cast a vote for president,
7.24 did not cast a vote for governor, and
5.43 did not count for US Senate.
Awesome now we can get some diebold machines in there.
repubs in 2008