Guest Blogged by John Gideon
Summit County has recently had problems with failed memory cards as related by BRAD BLOG on March 9 and March 10. The problems in Summit County concerned a 30% failure rate found in pre-election testing for those cards. That problem alerted folks in North Carolina to test those same cards on their own ES&S machines where they discovered last week that more than 1000 of them failed to work!
Now that those problems have been in the media (Yes, even the MSM has reported the problems) the vendor has decided to not be cooperative with Summit County, OH.
The ES&S on-site project manager was not allowed by the company to attend a board of elections meeting to explain why there were problems with memory cards. Board members have also complained that ES&S staffers installing the system have suddenly become cold and getting any information is “like pulling teeth”.
The Akron Beacon Journal also reports on other problems the board is having:
“They won’t give us the opportunity to proofread the ballot,” [Board Director] Williams said. He explained that the board, working in teams of Democrats and Republicans, routinely triple-checks the rotation of names on the ballots, but ES&S won’t provide copies of the ballot to do that.
[Board Deputy Director] Donofrio said in early copies the rotation — the order in which the candidates’ names appear on the ballot — was incorrect.Williams said ES&S’ attitude has been that the extra checking “was not necessary,” but the problems the board had with the company’s performance have proven that it is.
He said the board hoped to order the ballots on Monday. “We’ll be lucky to have them ordered by the end of the week,” he said.
However, that does not mean that ballots will not be printed in time for the May 2 election.
And in addition:
Donofrio said she intends to ask the company to replace the broken equipment.
[Republican Board member] Arshinkoff accused ES&S of “doing the job of three men — Larry, Curly and Moe.”“This is inexcusable. I think ES&S has failed in their capacity as a vendor. If this doesn’t work in the May primary, we’re going to have to make real hard choices,” he said.
Meanwhile, SoS Ken Blackwell’s office has, in effect, just shrugged their shoulders and said that they hope both sides can get along and adhere to their obligations. Of course it was Ken Blackwell who chose ES&S as the vendor for Summit County.
We will be sure to keep an eye on this situation and report back when there is more to pass on.
I haven’t found this voting machine scandal anything to laugh about, but I have to admit Mr. Arshinkoff’s quip about "Larry, Curly, and Moe" got me laughing out loud.
Aside from that, I think these machines are not this inaccurate by accident. They have re-written history by putting the wrong administration in power, and we will all suffer for it, for ages.
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**’Expose Tom Feeney’**
"SUPPORT CLINT CURTIS!"
__www.clintcurtis.com__
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I hope ol Ken gets his ass hung out to dry (is that too forward of thinking ?)
This man is probably proud of himself thinking that he is soley responsible for having Bush in another four years
Whats funny is, when he takes the hit, good ol "whitey" up in the White(y) House is going to have the last laugh
I saying if Karma kicks in, that’s what Blackwell deserves for disenfranchising his own brothers (what a low down piece of shit he is)
Blackwell and his Patriot Pastors/Ohio Restoration Project are counting on election day mayhem to place Blackwell in the Gov seat come November.
Thanks to everyone who’s been working tirelessly to expose the truth of these hackable pieces of crap.
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WHO’S COUNTING? …pass it on.
i lurk here quite a bit and because of the work done BradBlog i signed up for this:
http://www.icountcoalition.org/
thank you all for keeping the voting issues out there!
(that praise includes all you commentors, too!!!! )
ES&S won’t permit election officials to inspect the ballots?? Just whose ballots are they??? Democracy is gasping its last gasp, and unless we can pull off a miracle and dismantle this whole reeking e-voting corporate pile of corruption QUICKLY, the corporations (and the machines) will have taken over from humans permanently.
This is just the beginning of the election season and all these massive problems are coming to light. What the hell is going on here? Has anyone thought that maybe the good guys should hack every election then once good people are in power we can take all the electronic voting machines and build a big building and then crash a plane painted in the likeness of George Bush into it and shoot some fireworks and drink and say gosh, we live in a darn crazy world. Though of course that wouldn’t be 1/1000000000000 as crazy as what is going on right now. But seriously, if these machines are so vulnerable why don’t we find some teenage whizkids and have a contest with some monetary prize where we have the Green Party win by like 90% margins and the kid who hacks the most counties wins! Maybe then the dems and the evil paRty will take reform seriously.
Mr. Arshinkoff (and fellow board members):
Why would you WAIT until AFTER an election FAILS(!) to "make real hard choices"? How do you ‘undo’ a failed election?! And how do you explain letting such a thing happen on your watch?
This IS "inexcusable" execution of a VITAL public trust, by the for-profit ES&S. Now, already. THROW the ES&S ‘Three Stooges’ OUT of your county, without further delay. Who do they think they are?!!
Call up Canada, or New England, and get some FREE advice on setting up a paper-ballot-marked-by-hand and hand-counted voting system. You still have time to do that before your primary, and I guarantee that you will be able to find citizen volunteers to do the counting for you, if need be.
DARE Mr. Blackwell to sue you for taking your duties to the voting public and our democracy seriously. ES&S shouldn’t be given another dime of the Summit County (or federal) public’s money for such bad faith lack of performance by a company entrusted with such a vital, fail-safe-necessary task.
Blackwell will win the governor’s seat. Why do you think he wants these machines to stay in place? They will assure his victory.
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**’Expose Tom Feeney’**
"SUPPORT CLINT CURTIS!"
__www.clintcurtis.com__
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