Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org
The depth and pressure of all of the news reports about electronic voting issues must have finally built up so much that the Associated Press ‘dam’ finally burst and they had to respond! Today they even mentioned the GAO report, well over a month after it was issued with much bipartisan fanfare from members of Congress.
“E-voting under scrutiny as federal compliance deadline looms”, by AP Technology Writer Brian Bergstein, correctly says that some states are in trouble and will not be able to meet some mandates of the Help America Vote Act of 2002.
Bergstein runs through the gamut of problems that have been reported in the past few days and some that happened in past elections. With regards to the GAO report he says:
Bergstein also discusses yesterday’s report from North Carolina where Diebold was told to ‘put up or shut up’: either meet the state law that requires them to put all their source code into escrow, or forget about doing business in North Carolina.
It’s almost as if Bergstein had been reading The BRAD BLOG because he also picked up on the California hack story and got an update on that from the SoS spokeswoman, Nghia Nguyen Demovic.
Unfortunately Bergstein didn’t report on the “Deadline” and what that means to many states. California is one of many states that will not meet the January 1, 2006 deadline for having accessible voting systems. This is going to be a nationwide problem. Yesterday, the Sacramento Bee had this to say:
“States have been on notice for three years that this deadline is coming up,” he said. “If they don’t [comply], we fully expect the Justice Department to get involved, to look at this issue.”
DeGregorio added that DOJ could file a lawsuit or use a consent decree to get states and counties to update their voting systems. He also said he would not be surprised if voters with disabilities pursue private lawsuits.
We are happy to see the Associated Press finally coming out of their shell with regard to voting technology. Is this something that will last or is it just a passing phase?
Brad,
I just wanted to say thank you & so many others for your tireless efforts on this important issue.
It is people like yourself who will keep democracy alive in this country.
Thanks for all your efforts. Sorry to see it took them so long, but now that it’s public ‘news’, maybe we can turn up the heat and get it simmering… actually, I think a full rolling boils would be more appropriate. BTW, links don’t seem to be working.
Sign Rep. Holt’s Petition…
http://blondesense.blogspot.com/
Thanks, Marlene, for the comment about the broken links. They are all fixed now, I think! 😉
Re: The deadline
You need to realize the Jan. 1 deadline is for decisions to be made and contracts for purchase in place so that the HAVA money can be disbursed.
It does not mean that the machines must to be on-site or delivered by Jan. 1.
That difference always gets lost in the shuffle.
The purchase order should allow for at least one accessible (to disabled voters) machine in every precinct.
I don’t believe it’s absolutely true that every county must get rid of lever or punchcard technology. However, if they want to be reiumbursed by the feds under HAVA for any purchases they make, then they must update. That’s the info I’ve read lately. The state disburses the federal HAVA money to each county.
The absolute requirement is for an accessible voting machine per precinct before the next election.
But some states haven’t certified the machines they will be willing to offer, so it’s hard for the counties to make their selection before the certifications. New York, for example.
Thanks very much for this, John. Good work as always! 🙂
Finally at long last!!!!
THE CORPORATE MEDIA BREAKS THE SILENCE!!!!! VOTING MACHINES ARE BECOMING A HUGE ISSUE
Now will we get some REAL updates from McPherson’s office and see why they are deliberately attempting to NOT comply with the law??
And trying to certify this insecure ridiculous machines when they could have gone with AUTOMARK already!?!??
POUR THE HEAT ON THEM ALL!!!!
hardball@msnbc.com, loudobbs@cnn.com, msnbcreports@msnbc.com, david.gregory@nbc.com, late.edition@cnn.com, kolbermann@msnbc.com
Link to the AP story and ask for updates.
Doug E.
This mornings editorial in the Sacramento Bee seems to be in favor of Diebold. It is titled "Listen to the Registrars"
It goes on to talk about the insecurities etc. of the machines and mentions complaints by the handicapped about inability to "read" the paper trails of the machines. (At least they are talking paper trail). But then go on to explain that these paper trails as proposed are also insecure and hackable.
They conclude by saying that many of the Registrars are in favor of the machines and that they should be listened to.
Very convoluted – not quite sure what they are trying to say.
Will the SoS’s still love them in the morning?
Good news John.
This is tough territory and it is hard to get a grip. We are all a bit inebriated by the wine of propaganda. The wine saying that we are the most fair and honest democracy. Once maybe but not now.
These rigged voting and inferior voting machine stories debunk myths we are quite fond of … at least in our lore. So America tends to shun them.
But to make the lore the reality we gotta face up and clean up.
It’s almost as if Bergstein had been reading The BRAD BLOG because he also picked up on the California hack story and got an update on that from the SoS spokeswoman, Nghia Nguyen Demovic.
I don know but why i don find such informative and profitable blogs so often,I suspect blogging world is becoming so small that we cant find such lucrative blogs like this one.