After an otherwise encouraging headline on MSNBC’s just posted “Optimism about voting reform wanes: New machines and procedures have been introduced, but problems persist” the article, by NBC News’ Huma Zaidi goes curiously downhill thereafter.
Zaidi cursorily mentions early “a group of experts and election officials” who met in DC last month to discuss election reform and “the picture most of them painted wasn’t very optimistic”. As well, he reports that “Almost a dozen states that have already held primaries this year have experienced problems.”
But enough with the facts of the matter. From there, it’s time for the Pro E-Voting spin to commence…
Zaidi goes on to quote three different Electronic Voting supporters and not one of those previously mentioned un-optimistic “experts and election officials.”
As well, while the article discusses the problems of “a handful of companies who produce voting machines” and who have had trouble fulfilling their contractual obligations to multiple states and counties in primary elections so far this year — along with a nod to a one or two of the “wrinkles” and “glitches” caused by the machines so far this year — not a single voting machine company is mentioned by name (not Diebold who has failed enormously, nor ES&S who has failed enormously, nor Sequoia Voting Systems who has failed enormously, nor Hart InterCivic who has failed enormously!)
On the other hand, the pro-electronic voting folks are named, and even have their websites plugged. Go figure.
We guess if you downplay problems by private companies who have access to millions of dollars and teams of attorneys ready to go, and don’t bother to mention them or their failings by name, you’re far less likely to be sued. Why else would NBC cover the issues this way after all?
As ever, we’re glad to see attention finally being given to the most important matter of the legitimacy of our votes in our electoral democracy — particularly by an outlet as large as MSNBC and NBC News — but these articles that end up doing little more than saying “there’s some problems, but everything will be just fine, nothing to worry about here” are getting absurd.
See NPR’s report (text transcript now included) from over the weekend for a far more responsible — and yes, “fair and balanced” — report on this issue.
For more thoughts on all of this, see mass media maven Danny Schecter’s “Why is the Media Downplaying Our Voting Scandal?” editorial as posted on Monday!
Surely you don’t expect the Media to let the Masses know we need to revolt and overthrow our local governments so we can get -real- voting reform and keep out the broke and cheatable machines, do you?
I don’t think we’ll -ever- get a "good story" on the 9-o-clock news. The "real" resolution is to have all the machines tossed out, but with corruption from the ground up being the norm, we’re screwed as a population..
MSNBC is fox news lite. They have resorted to outright lies or at the least gross misrepresentations of the facts.
Keith O. is the only sane one on the network.
So how exactly did they DO the Boston Tea Party?
They did it by having a population that was educated and mostly intelligent. That prevented the "police" from killing their neighbors over a rightous complaint..
Today, we have the Guard with machine guns and barely a high-school education, believing the pap spewed from the idiot box.. and willing to blow away anyone their told to..
I don’t think we’ll ever have another "Tea Party".. I think we’ll have to go straight to Civil War and hope the people can make a decent stand against the military/guard/etc.
omigod — surely that can’t be the whole story. dumb question: how could Huma have missed the lawsuits, the lockdown of the machiens in PA, the decision by the NM governor to completely ban use of ’em — oh, jut about EVERYTHING that has happened in the last year alone that shows these are more than just glitches and wrinkles?!?! how could Huma have neglected to mention the latest proof of Diebold’s ultra-hackability?
he and his editor both need to go back to Journalism 101 if they think this even remotely resembles actual coverage. it’s closer to a press release than real information.
Huma, everything is not okay, and it should be self-evident that the midterm elections are not "practice" elections for the equipment, because the results have national significance. for some people, especially those serving or about to serve in the millitary and those living in war-torn countries like Iraq and Sudan, this election could mean the difference between life and death.
a very mildly sarcastic ‘gee, thank you’ is owed to MSNBC, i guess — at least the website folks — for trying to at least post one small half-baked story; it’s better than nothing. maybe. it would be nice if somebody, somewhere in the MSM would write a full, well-balanced nd informative article about the true state of our election systems, the nationwide failure rate currently going on in the primaries…
and the electoral trainwreck that awaits us in November.
What a sin,.. civilized public discourse – got a problem,.. air your concerns,.. and take remedial
actions to resolve the problem.
Like Bradblog is doing. If this election fraud is not remedied,.. what resource remains,…
Our Democracy is at stake.
Revolt and Civil Uprising,… again,.. what a sin the direction things are heading in.
READ/SEE THE WRITING ON THE WALL.
Ya know when i was younger i wasn’t very interested in the news because it didn’t take me long to figure out it was a lot of one sided news stories which never gave you the truth of what happened.
But how long has it been accepted American television journalism as the outright bullhorn for spreading the word of total rubbish to the people??? There use to be this impression that journalists were the watch dogs who dug for the "real" truth on important issues. Now we get a product of the Bushit administration. Nuthin is wrong in TV la la land. Truth no longer matters at all. Go to the polls and touch anything on your touch screen you want because the reality is it doesn’t fcking matter any more. These ass wipe shit head bad actors are still getting paid by the corporate elite running this country to read off cue cards and report everything is fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.
These electronic voting machines are UNCONSTITUTIONAL because they corrupt and have corrupted the vote of WE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Since no one can stand up to voice the truth in the TV media, we must protest these machines and the process by which votes are counted until we can at least have elections where we get who we vote for with paper verification.
You know you guys could be able to get the military on side, after all, the joint chiefs are resigning and you can bet most of the DOD doesnt like this admin one bit.
I think it’s crazy to even complain that the MSM isn’t covering the real news. Those days are gone…allowing media consolidation under Reagan resulted in what we have today. It’s not going to ever get better.
We have to turn to FSTV (Free Speech TV – DISH 9415 – Democracy NOW! news, INN Report, Liberty News), and LINK-TV (DISH 9410 & DirecTV 9415).
There is real news on TV, and it’s ONLY on FSTV & LINK-TV. It’s there, just watch it. And ban watching any news with commercials. That’s how you know it’s corporate-controlled. No commercials on FSTV & LINK-TV. FSTV, I’ve noticed, has become phenomenal.
You never see politicians or actors on these channels, and no commercials. Just regular people, educational shows (education they SHOULD be showing us), uncensored/unfiltered news.
Forget about MSNBC, CNN, etc…
We all know that the machinery we use to choose our public servants is not good enough, and that
we are in dire peril of losing our franchise, and there are evil people who think that our Constitution is quaint , and all that… So the issue is not what we don’t want to happen, but how to work wisely for a
most-likely-to-succeed grassroots alternative to those machines and those people. The analysis part
has been done for years. It’s time to get our game
plan in order for this November.
Remember two things, friends. First, voting is not a political act, it’s a civic responsibility. Please focus on how to have our votes count as intended from now on, and then get all your family and friends to help spread the word.
Find out if your state has a paper ballot alternative,
and do whatever they require to be sure you get one for this 2006 election. Tell family and friends to do the same. Do this now, and if you learn that your state does not provide a paper ballot for the
asking, raise Hell in every legal way you can until
the law is changed in time for THIS election.
Okay, THREE things. Volunteer to be a poll watcher,
a ballot counter, an election official, an exit poller or whatever. Then make sure your family and friends do that, too. Actually get involved in such a
way that YOU can help insure accurate counts of all votes cast for all voters’ intended candidates
Canada did/does their national election with paper
ballots. They have their results the next morning.
It is true that Canada has a tenth of the population of the US. I guess we will have to have ten times as many citizens doing our counting, if we want our results the morning after our election, too. What better way to keep thugs out of the vote counting process? Remember Florida, 2000.
Forget the nonsense about civil disobedience, riots,
Tea Parties and revolution. We are still one election removed from disenfranchisement. Let’s just win it, and sweep all the self-incriminating weasels out of
government based on one simple criterion:
Whom did this "elected representative" represent over these last ten years; me or an interest group?
Comment #10 Guyhath
You sound like a neophyte with enthusiasm. I like enthusiasm.
Canada doesn’t have the raw power & $ to attract big league criminals like the US does.
I did begin training to be an election official, because I’ve been one in the past, before HAVA. I soon realized I was in over my head. I know very little about computers & I was certain that the white haired wanna-be election volunteers with their walkers & velcro closure tennies who were sitting there being trained with me didn’t either. They only asked questions related to how & when they get paid. It was like the blind leading the blind. I went through an ordeal with the ES&S representative when he spoke to us & claimed his machine was "tamper proof" & I challenged him on it. No body else had a clue at that place but me (& possibly the county clerk, but she wasen’t tellin).
I felt I wasn’t qualified to represent the peoples’ best interests & wouldn’t be doing the job I was getting paid for. They need people with computer knowledge.
A paper ballot for the 2006 election would be good, if we weren’t required by law to run them through an electronic counter, which can be tampered with. In Illinois, hand counting of any ballot is outlawed for federal elections. Hand counting of paper ballots for local elections is not outlawed, but you can only do that if your county hand counted ballots before HAVA came into effect & ours didn’t. I got that straight from a letter the Governor’s State Elections Board lawyer sent me. (I suppose HAVA is only concerned with rigging federal elections in Illinois, not local ones.)
I’ve written my representatives for 2 years now re this & all I get is form letters back. I’ve gone to board meeting city meetings etc. When I call, usually I get even less than that. E-mailing them gets a form e-mail back. I’ve signed countless petitions. The replies are all the same: "blah, blah, blah, NO."
We’ve already been disenfranchised. The majority of Americans, such as yourself, are just not aware of it yet.
We can’t "just win" the next election by voting "the weasels" out. That’s what this blog is about. Did you hear?
The elections are manipulated 6 ways from Sunday.
Civil disobedience IS an honorable option & I would venture to say a citizen’s duty, when all other avenues fail & the situation is dire.
Like now.
The founding fathers said so & engaged in it themselves in a thing called the American Revolution.
I had a dream that we got to the voting machines on election day after the corporations did their thing & we made the winner President Mickey Mouse & for Vice President Scooby Doo!
Do you think THAT result would prove to America that that e-machines are trash?
It sure surprised them in my dream.
Charlene #11
How discouraging that an obviously intelligent, articulate, observant person felt so discouraged by the pollworker training on the new machines.
I hope you hang in there. We need your eyes, ears and common sense. You are especially important because you’re NOT a computer expert. Sometimes a casual observation by a non-expert leads to something significant. And you’re perfectly placed to ask innocent questions.
Thanks for describing your experience.
JoeWarwick:
You hit on something that gives me hope. I don’t think the police or the military is on Bush’s side. I was listening to a local right wing radio host saying that the police here have to buy some of their own equipment, just like the teachers do. I’ve also heard they have been asked or at least told them may have to work overtime without pay to deal with unfunded "homeland security" duty.
We all know the military is stretched way beyond maximum, and think we should get out of Iraq.
If people would take ONE day off work and get into the streets, it would be more then over. I really believe that! But, of course it’s not going to happen, because people are too divided, distracted, and scared.
But it does mean that a police state or military takeover of the populace is not going to happen. If Bush does something stupid enough to cause chaos to ensue, I think it will be the end of HIM, not US!
He actually apologized tonight for saying "bring it on". Should we forgive him? "Not a chance, Chimpy"! Give back our Democracy and we’ll think about it!
This MSNBC article shows why NBC was the station next in line behind FOX for having the most uninformed audience with regards to the stolen election of 2004, so this is right in line with that. Great work NBC.
Larry #13 makes an important point.
Should we be grateful to MSNBC for touching on the voting machine topic, when they do so in the obvious context of misinformation? What have they done for clean elections, other than to plant this seed:
"If anyone tells you about voting machine problems, don’t be concerned; they are minor issues and they’ve been resolved so don’t worry about it."
One could argue that spreading disinformation such as this is worse than being silent on the issue.
Brad, you pointed out very effectively the multiple weaknesses in the so-called jouralism of the article. This is disinformation, which should not be confused with coverage of the story.
It’s a problem, Brad, for all the reasons you point out. We shouldn’t be thanking MSNBC for this article.
Big Dan #9
For actual info FSTV and the others are good. I watch those stations too!
For finding out what lies are being told to the public (it is a lie not to report the electronic fiasco) one must observe the MSM.
That is because to reach those they are deceiving you need to know what the deceived think they know, and ask them questions that expose what they think they know.
Then tell them what you know and where to find the real facts.
Preaching to the choir is not an evangelical tactic that will increase the numbers of the informed.
And one cannot preach to the choir in the same manner one preaches to the unconverted and unaware.
Evangelism is an untidy job, as posts 11, 12 and 14 show, but somebody has to do it.
That is because the evangelism of the MSM is to pablum the public to sleep with "it can’t happen here" bedtime stories.
Then deny it when the damage is done.
MSNBC won’t cover any stories sufficiently, except on the olberman countdown
the election results of 2004 were never adequately covered
go to blackboxvoting.or
here’s another story that is not being adequately covered that goes to the heart of our democracy
something to consider, how america has moved so far to the right, the role that democrats have inadverently played, and how to correct it:
is HERE.
MSNBC and the rest of the MSM should be brought up on war crimes with the rest of the fascists, and I mean every single person who works within that fraudulent system in any capacity – they KNOW they’re pathologically lying, and do so realizing just what’s at stake, and yet routinely make the conscious decision to persist. It’s a form of mental illness. How can those shitbag enablers and apologists even look at their own children in the eye?
Here’s another story that I seriously doubt the MSM will cover:
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/36651
The Burial of the 9/11 Story that Got Away
By Rory O’Connor, AlterNet. Posted May 25, 2006.
The Times’ then managing editor, Bill Keller, was never told about a potential story predicting 9/11 attacks.
The 9/11 Story That Got Away
In 2001, an anonymous White House source leaked top-secret NSA intelligence to reporter Judith Miller that Al Qaida was planning a major attack on the United States. But the story never made it into the paper.
May 18, 2006
Last week, William Scott Malone and I broke the story of how a still anonymous, senior White House official leaked top-secret NSA intelligence in 2001 to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller. The intelligence indicated that Al Qaeda was planning a major attack on the United States. But the "The 9/11 Story That Got Away" never made it into the paper.
It never made it to the attention of top Times executive Bill Keller either. Keller, now executive editor of the paper, was managing editor in July 2001. But he was kept in the dark when Miller’s "impeccable" source first revealed details of highly classified signals intelligence (SIGINT) concerning an impending Al Qaeda attack, perhaps to be visited on the continental United States. The NSA had been listening in on a conversation between two members of Osama bin Laden’s terror network. One was overheard saying to the other, "Don’t worry, we’re planning something so big now that the U.S. will have to respond."
Asked to comment on our revelation, Times man Keller emailed a statement that said in part, "I heard nothing about this from Judy or Steve (Stephen Engelberg, Miller’s editor) at the time."
Keller went on to note, "Obviously it would have been satisfying to have ‘predicted’ the 9/11 attacks — just as it was satisfying that we identified Al Qaeda as an important threat before 9/11, in the Pulitzer-winning series Judy heavily reported and Steve edited."
As Miller explained in our exclusive interview, she was initially "floored" by the information from her source, and thought the story had "major Page One potential." But after meeting with Engelberg, she agreed with his assessment that the story lacked sufficient detail. "I realized that I didn’t have the whole story," she told us. "As Steve put it to me, ‘You have a great first and second paragraph. What’s your third?"’
Bill Keller made the same point in his statement: "What Steve had in hand that day in July was a promising lead from an excited reporter — not, or not yet, a story." Keller concluded by seeming to damn Miller – a controversial figure who remains at the center of the ongoing perjury and obstruction of justice case involving former top White House official I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby – with faint praise: "What Steve had in hand that day in July was a promising lead from an excited reporter," Keller noted, "Not, or not yet, a story. It was the kind of tip that good investigative reporters build on, not something you throw into the paper in all its vagueness."
Did Keller mean to imply that Miller is not a "good investigative reporter?" After all, as Keller noted, she won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on Al Qaeda. But Miller and Keller certainly clashed in the weeks following Miller’s release after spending 85 days in jail before finally disclosing that Scooter Libby was her anonymous source in the Valerie Plame affair — another story Miller never wrote for the Times. In the aftermath of the Libby revelation, Miller was pilloried, Pulitzer and all, in the pages of the Times, and finally forced to leave.
Whatever Keller may have meant to suggest in all his vagueness, by her own admission Miller didn’t do much to build on the tip she received about the impending Al Qaeda attack. "I realized that this information was enormously sensitive, and that it was going to be difficult to get more," she told us. "But that my source undoubtedly knew more. So I promised to Steve that I would go back and try to get more. And I did…try."
But whoever knew about the ‘who’ and the ‘where’ was not willing to tell Miller more at that time — although she says she later "was told that, ‘The bad guys were in Yemen on this conversation.’"
That bit of information never made it to Times higher-ups such as Keller either, and Miller soon moved on. "Washington being Washington, and the CT [counter-terrorism] world being the CT world, I was soon off pursuing other things."
Miller says she did argue at that time "that it was worth going with just we had, even if it was vague, that the fact that the Al Qaeda was planning something that was so spectacular that we have to respond was worth getting into the paper in some way, shape or form." But the argument began and apparently ended with Steve Engelberg. "I think Steve decided, and I ultimately agreed, that we needed more details," she recalled. "And I simply couldn’t pry them loose."
There were other complications as well. At the time Miller and Engelberg also had had a book coming out. "So we were working flat out on that book trying to meet our deadline," she told us. "There was a lot going on. I was also doing biological weapons stories and homeland security stories. And in Washington, if you don’t have a sense of immediacy about something, and if you sense that there is bureaucratic resistance to a story, you tend to focus on areas of less resistance."
And so, faced with bureaucratic resistance, and for want of sufficient detail – perhaps unattainable, perhaps not–the "Page One potential’ story remained just that: a potential story that neither Times editors or readers became aware of until long after the worst terror attacks on US soil ever.
But two months after the initial tip — on the day of those attacks – both Miller and her Times editor Engelberg regretted the story they "didn’t do." Could Miller’s tale have turned out differently? Should it have?
I would have liked to ask Bill Keller those questions. I would also like to press for his opinion on the subject of reporters who work on books while also working fulltime for newspapers. Does their book reporting ever get in the way of their newspaper reporting? Does private enterprise (Bob Woodward and the Washington Post come to mind) ever conflict with the public’s right to know? Does the issue sometimes cut both ways, at times leading to greater public knowledge when papers decide to publish stories they have held back (James Risen and the New York Times come to mind), lest they be scooped by their own reporters’ books?
Then there’s the issue of leaks, when ‘papers of record’ like the Times are used as ammunition in Washington’s endless bureaucratic "turf wars" that seem endemic to its peculiar nexus of media, politics and power. Miller’s interview reveals much about how the game is played at the highest levels: "I got the sense that part of the reason that I was being told of what was going on was that the people in counter-terrorism were trying to get the word to the president or the senior officials through the press, because they were not able to get listened to themselves," she explained. "Sometimes, you wonder about why people tell you things and why people … we always wonder why people leak things, but that’s a very common motivation in Washington."
What are Keller’s thoughts about the Times being used by the nation’s top counter-terrorism officials in a vain attempt at getting the White House to pay sufficient attention to the Al Qaeda threat? This seems particularly relevant at a time when the Libby defense team is threatening to put Miller, the Times, and other reporters and news organizations "on trial," and the Attorney General is again threatening to prosecute reporters who receive classified information such as Miller did, both in the Valerie Plame affair and in this instance – from yet another, still anonymous White House source.
Steve Engelberg, now managing editor of the Oregonian in Portland, expressed regret in hindsight at not publishing the story in the summer of 2001. "More than once I’ve wondered what would have happened if we’d run the piece?" he said. "A case can be made that it would have been alarmist, and I just couldn’t justify it, but you can’t help but think maybe I made the wrong call…. So yes, I do still have regrets."
So does Miller, who told us, "I sometimes think back, and Steve and I have talked a few times about the fact that that story wasn’t fit, and that neither one of us pursued it at that time with the kind of vigor and determination that we would have had we known what was going to happen."
Ultimately one can’t help but wonder – if only… If only the Times had put something, anything, in the paper about the threat of an impending Al Qaeda attack "so big now that the U.S. will have to respond," perhaps the attack might have been averted. Or perhaps the people in the second World Trade Center tower would have known that the first plane to hit was a terrorist attack, and evacuated the building, saving hundreds of lives. Passengers on the hijacked planes that hit the WTC and the Pentagon might have reacted like those on United Flight 93.
Regrets. Perhaps. If only. "Sometimes in journalism you regret the stories you do, but most of the time you regret the ones that you didn’t do," Judy Miller sadly concluded. But New York Times executive editor Bill Keller seems to have few regrets, other than the obvious one that "it would have been satisfying to have ‘predicted’ the 9/11 attacks." He doesn’t even seem to regret not telling the world of the story the Times "didn’t do" in the days and weeks and years following 911. Apparently Keller didn’t feel that the story of "the 911 story that got away" was fit to print either – then or now. That’s why you read it here first.
Rory O’Connor is a documentary filmmaker and journalist. He is also president and co-founder of the international media firm Globalvision, Inc, and MediaChannel.org, an affiliated non-profit media watch dog website. NavySEALs.com Senior Editor W. Scott Malone contributed to this article.
5. Touchscreen Voting Machines
Despite clear, copious evidence that these nefarious contraptions are built to be tampered with, they continue to spread and dominate the voting landscape, thanks to Bush’s "Help America Vote Act," the exploitation of corrupt elections officials, and the general public’s enduring cluelessness.
In Utah, Emery County Elections Director Bruce Funk witnessed security testing by an outside firm on Diebold voting machines which showed them to be a security risk. But his warnings fell on deaf ears. Instead Diebold attorneys were flown to Emery County on the governor’s airplane to squelch the story. Funk was fired. In Florida, Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho discovered an alarming security flaw in their Diebold system at the end of last year. Rather than fix the flaw, Diebold refused to fulfill its contract. Both of the other two touchscreen voting machine vendors, Sequoia and ES&S, now refuse to do business with Sancho, who is required by HAVA to implement a touchscreen system and will be sued by his own state if he doesn’t. Diebold is said to be pressuring for Sancho’s ouster before it will resume servicing the county.
Stories like these and much worse abound, and yet TV news outlets have done less coverage of the new era of elections fraud than even 9/11 conspiracy theories. This is possibly the most important story of this century, but nobody seems to give a damn. As long as this issue is ignored, real American democracy will remain an illusion. The midterm elections will be an interesting test of the public’s continuing gullibility about voting integrity, especially if the Democrats don’t win substantial gains, as they almost surely will if everything is kosher.
Bush just suggested that his brother Jeb would make a good president. We really need to fix this problem soon.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/art...oliceState.htm
Friday 5/26/06 – gunfire rings out at US Capitol,
Rayburn Building,.. underground parking garage,..
breaking media story,…
Link : Gunshots at US Capitol
Old Turk #20
Someone saw Cheney going into the firing range in the basement with a shotgun and a beer.
He said he was working on a friggin writ of habeas corpus and wanted to know where Jefferson was …
More breaking news,.. gunshots at US Capitol,..
Link : Gunfire US Capitol
DREDD:
Yes Cheney is likely shitfaced again,..
mistook a pigeon,.. for game quail,… OOPS.
Comment Charlene #11
When you get to a certain age it’s very important to choose an enthusiasm you can support without burning out. Following Florida’s travesty in 2000, I chose voting system dysfunction as the absolutely most important set of problems facing the country.
Since then I have examined, discussed and thought
about these problems, why they came to exist and
what might be done to solve them. For me, there is
no reason to trust anything computer-controlled if I
(or my trusted representative) do not have total
access to the device and the software that runs the
functions it performs. For me, there is no reason to
vote if my choices are not entered directly by me
on a paper ballot that can be recounted if there are
any questionable results in precinct totals. For me,
exit polls have proven – worldwide – to illuminate all
kinds of unexplainable results; these potential vote
problems can and should trigger a recount of all of
the original paper ballots IN EVERY INSTANCE. For
me, until we citizens have been convinced that our
votes have been counted as we cast them, there is
no reason to accept an "official" result, no matter
what government body may proclaim one.
““““““““““““““““`
I would like to offer one response to those who are
quite right to point out that any computer-controlled
optical scanner can produce faulty vote totals, (for a
number of reasons that include deliberate rigging).
There is a simple, inexpensive and accurate way to
detect such errors and then trigger a recount of the
physical ballots by the friends and neighbors whom
We The People can trust to do the job honestly.
I repeat my original proposition that we still have one election left if we insist that it be conducted of, by and for us. Now is the time to insist that we will
not be forced by our elected employees to let them
transform themselves into our rulers. It really does
come down to that, and it may require some form of civil disobedience to take back the right we have
almost forfeited. But if we do not do it before this election we will surely never get another chance to
decide who we want to hire to do the government
work of this country.
Any questions?
#23 Guyhath
Yea, here’s a question.
If "a paper ballot that can be recounted" makes you feel good–not even going into whether it’s an actual ballot you save or a roll of heat sensitive paper—have you tried researching what it takes legally to get a recount & how often, by percentage, recounts have been done?
If you’re like me, after you realize a judge must ALLOW the recount for there to be one ( the judge can play politics & say no for any reason he wants to pick), add the fact the recount cannot even be legally attempted unless the votes fall within a certain narrow percentage margin, which is different in each state & that margin can be played to by the vote rigger, plus the recount can be mishandled by nefarious intersts in many ways–well, you don’t feel so good anymore.
Here’s another question.
What is the "simple, inexpensive & accurate way to detect (scanner) ..errors" & how do the People get permission to use it?
It’s good you’re taking up this issue.
We’ve all been at it for quite a while here.
Good luck to you.
I have to laugh about comments that deal with the "mess" of E-Voting….. Each company has enjoyed record sales, and although there have been a few bumps in the road (none more serious than we had in earlier days), and physically challenged voters have been more empowered and enfranchised than ever before.
The only "mess" comes from the bogging community where conspiracy theories and "bad news" abounds. Since those of you who subscribe to such theories spend most of your time speaking to each other, I know that you rarely ever see, hear or recognize the good news when it arises.
Keep that pessimistic outlook….while the rest of us continue to focus on the improvements we’ve witnessed and on building upon the successes achieved thus far.
Because as we all know, record sales = everything is fine, nothing to see here folks
LMAO.. Way to go DOUG!
Lemme guess.. Instead of reading -anything- about voting from this site, or the many sites that fully detail the "problems", you just read wing-nut sites that say "it’s all dems and conspiracy nuts" and leave it at that?
It’s ok.. keep your head in the sand, ignore the facts. That’s what Republicans and the Religious Right are best at.. delusion.
By the way, how does a "touch screen" machine help someone who’s deaf or blind? OH.. right.. they DON’T.. and nevermind that the "machines" don’t even use their "paper trail" when detached from the stands so "physically challenged" folks can vote, and nevermind that a PAPER BALLOT in their LAP is easier, and works the same "on the stand" or not.
It will never cease to amaze me just how ignorant some/most people are. Thanks, Doug, for giving me my daily dose of "holy shit! can someone be that sheltered and ignorant?!?!"..
we’re laughing right back atcha, Doug. you haven’t been paying attention at all, have you?
and now you have dropped in from on high to bestow upon us the fruits of your extensive research into this subject, blessing us with your positive presence to help free us all from the capture of conspiracy theories that have clogged our poor, uneducated, troglodyte brains.
you have seen the truth, and you simply wish to help us poor souls to move on. how kind.
next time you decide to drop in, i do hope you will read up on any of the thousands upon thousands of documented, verified and independently corroborated failures and security breaches that have been plaguing these miracle machines. i know these news reports from respected outlets all over the country are only ‘a few bumps in the road’ in your learned assessment, but maybe you could take the time to do your due diligence so that you could participate in an intelligent dialogue, using actual facts, rather than hilariously inaccurate platitudes.
hehehe…
"Record sales"
Yes, if $3.8 billion in tax-payer funded corporate welfare and a government mandate led by a congressman named in four different bribery cases equals "record sales" then that they’ve had. 🙂
I wonder how "Doug Allen" feels about such Government welfare for folks who actually need it!
Back to your regularly scheduled disinfo now, "Doug Allen", keep up the good "work"!
(With all that free money from the government, you wouldn’t think these guys would have to work so hard, but go figure)
The problem with machine-produced "ballots" is that
the computer program (not the voter) instructs the
printer what character to print where. Not the voter.
The program also tells the screen what character to
show in each position on the screen. Not the voter.
The system can be programmed to show what you
enter in the right place on the screen, while drafting
an entirely sequence of characters to be printed at
the end of the electronic "ballot".
The same computer can be programmed to "watch"
how the election is progressing on its machine, and
to transfer control feeding the machine accumulator
totals to another, hidden subroutine that can shift
votes from candidate A’s column to candidate B’s,
but only enough to ensure a winning margin for B.
The same computer can be programmed to erase
the hidden subroiutine when the poll worker pushes
the "Totals, Please" button at the end of the day.
There are many refinements to the basic scenario,
but you can see why DRE manufacturers insist that
"their" software must not be inspected by anyone
but their employees. (What I cannot explain is why
our public servants ever supported the idea that it
would be good to privatize the US election system.
———————————————————-
The Paper Ballot Optical Scan (PBOS) technology is
also computer controlled. No printer is required, of
course, but there are still the accumulator and the
screen, as in the touch screen machine. The PBOS
computer could be programmed to do exactly what
the touch screen machine’s computer did, but the
voter-prepared paper ballot makes it simple to test
to make sure the accumulator count accurately.
Run each ballot through TWO optical scanners, from
two different precincts, and compare the totals. Any
difference between the two scanner outputs should
trigger a manual recount of the precinct’s ballots to
establish the official numbers at the county level.
Clear enough?
Clear enough, GuyHath. Where do I sign?
We’ve seen how they game "checking counts" before (there was a story here about picking a list to use as the "random samples" in Ohio).
The only way I think you can "kinda" use 2 different systems would be if -every- ballot was put into 2 systems.. that is, you would have to find a (reasonable) way to randomly assign which precincts would run as a "second" to a location, and make sure they weren’t just "you do mine and I’ll do yours", and, you’d have to make sure no precinct was overly loaded..
Then, keep in mind that normally, a "recount" is to stuff all the ballots -back- into the machine and see what the count is. When the -same- machine can’t get the same count twice, -then- they normally do it by hand (wich you can’t do with TSX machines anyway). I can see "recount" laws being overlaid onto this "twice counted" plan to say that if the 2 different machines have more than x% of a difference, then hand count.. yet, why is it that I can make my computer do the exact same thing over and over and over and -never- do something "different" unless it’s a mistake?
Here’s the problem. These machines have a certian level of "falability" that’s being considered "ok" already. Until we get these machines "perfect", there’s no point in using them. That is, until I can shove 10,000 ballots in to a scanner 500 times and get the -exact same- counts every time, they should NOT be used. I remember in High School, going over the "test results" because the scanners didn’t always grade the sheets properly. That’s where the idea of using the TSX machines would be favorable instead (it’s more like using my computer to do a repetitive task, something that’s a lot more reliable than scanning then interpriting).. yet, those have no way to "verify" nothing shifty is going on.
I’ll use computers to write papers, play games, add figures in a spread sheet, etc. etc. But I don’t want to put my "public trust" into something that a 13 year old Chinese boy can "crash" as a hoby in his spare time.. These machines we’re using for our Democracy are NOT NEEDED and therefore, in my mind, should not be used, period. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.. Using technology simply because you "can" is NOT a good enough reason. Where there are "significant gains" from using technology, or you can do something only with technology, fine. But to use it to supplant human actions simply because you can doesn’t make senes, especially in a case like this.
Paper ballots, hand counting, on broadcast TV of the entire process. Those interested can watch, there will be recordings, and being "sneaky" will be near impossible (compared to pointing a PDA at a voting machine and setting the results to what you want).
#31 Guyhath
Bush is hellbent on privatizing anything & everything he possibly can because he can’t make money for himself & his cronies when civil servants do the work.
Your suggestion may be clear, but how will you be allowed to "run each ballot through TWO optical scanners, from two different precincts"?
They aren’t going to let you do all that stuff.
We know there are many & varied ways to manipulate voting machines, voters, circumstances surrounding the voters etc.
But you forgot to answer my 2 questions.
YOU asked for questions.
Are you just making a list of questions?
It’s true you didn’t actually claim you were going to ANSWER any of them.
Anyhoo, as I said before, I don’t give the MSM any credit. They seem to be doing damage control.
First, they stonewall the story as long as possible.
Then, when the blogs have spread the word around enough for people to start asking questions & the story reaches critical mass, they jump in & own it only so they can make it sound like it’s not that bad.
It’s their typical modus operondi when they want to kill a story.
#17,
From that DailyKos article you linked to:
"…The election was lost in 2004…. For two reasons.
The first is the poor media coverage of the underlying facts.
The second is the failure of the democrats to communicate their message…"
As long as good people continue to repeat & believe neo-con talking points like the two above, the truckload of documented evidence demonstrating that the system is compromised will not be investigated.
THAT is the reason we "lost" in ’04. Granted, of course, the media did not do & is not doing its job and progressives need to get out the message; but those are secondary to the fact that if election fraud is not dealt with we can kiss American democracy goodbye.
The author asks re the media "What are they scared of? Declining circulation? Declining advertising revenues? Public ridicule? It’s time to figure it out…"
We are fast running out of of time to figure it out. It is WAY PAST TIME for people to wake up & smell the iniquity.
When I went to hear Mark Crispin Miller speak recently, I asked him if I was being crazily paranoid to think that the media (and members of Congress, for that matter) and/or their families may have been threatened. He said "No, you’re not being paranoid. That’s exactly the way these people operate."
One guy, one opinion. Fine.
Many still seem to find it unthinkable that people in positions of power in this country would stoop to gangster-level threats & violence to realize their ends.
Why? Our own history, not to mention the present-day world, is blood-drenched & full of appalling episodes of human beings perpetrating violence upon other human beings. Why do so many still buy into the fantasy that because a guy wears a suit & swears an oath that there are lines of decency he will not cross?
One last iteration, then I’m off to walk the walk.
It doesn’t matter HOW inaccurate election results
have been. They have been increasingly inaccurate
since the introduction of computer-controlled voting
machines, and there is no rational reason to expect
that they will ever become accurate without serious
modifications to their design, ownership and usage.
It doesn’t matter HOW ineffective the people we’ve
hired to do the work of government have been. All
of us can point to government waste, inequity and
corruption in more cases and situations today than
at any earlier time in our lives.
It doesn’t matter HOW people with no computer or
security or election expertise were allowed to build
and operate election systems without government
oversight. They were, and still are, protected from
voter scrutiny by an act of the Congress that gave
these people access to $3.9B of taxpayer treasure.
It doesn’t matter HOW our elected representatives
thought they could hand over the decision-making
of what machinery to buy to political appointees at
the state or county level, and get away with it. They
just did that, and more.
(More than one Secretary of State is in complete
control of their state’s election system, AND leading
political campaigns for state and federal offices.)
My point is that there are plenty of diverse reasons
to want to worry about our country’s future in the
hands of people like the ones who have allowed the
current conditions to develop. Now we citizens need
to find a way to retake control of our country, and
a way we can better select future public servants.
So I say do whatever you must in order to use only
a paper ballot that you fill in. Surely, we can count
our ballots by hand in non-partisan neighborhood
citizen committees, under the supervision of those
citizens we employ to do the work of government.
The details of a clean election are not very difficult
to devise. We need to tell our local incumbents to
stand with us or be replaced. And we need to tell
our county representatives to stand with us or be
replaced. And we need to tell all political parties to
stand with us if they want to get another chance to
represent us.
Elections in America are a crooked game with none
of the players on the side of the citizenry. So when
you talk to your incumbent representatives be sure
to remind them that YOU are THEIR employer, and
not the other way around. Then tell them what you
want them to do. Do NOT ask permission for you to
try to do the job you hired them to do.
That would be like asking for your kids’ permission
to clean up the messes they made in their rooms,
wouldn’t it?
#36 Guyhath
The ole "I’m your employer" thing?
(Have you ever spoken to a Representative yourself?)
We are their bosses only on paper.
Their real bosses are corporations & the monied elite. They’ve changed all the laws in their favor, privatized everything, or claimed authority because of 9/11, until they now have consolidated their power.
It doesn’t matter who is elected. They will follow an agenda set by the elite, not us.
There is only one political party in effect. Some have called it "the Corporate Party". It’s ruthless & has no conscience.
THAT is the problem we wrestle.
Don’t you love how the news always crafts what you NEED to be afraid of and what you DON’T need to be afraid of. They always seem to work against people and for large companies.
Saddam – fear fear fear – we need weapons
Terrorism – fear fear fear – we need surveillence
Iran – fear fear fear – oil prices go up
Someone’s coming to get your kids – fear fear fear – we need to buy a bunch of crap
Voting machine fraud – nothing to worry about – relax
Iraq becoming a civil war – nothing to worry about – relax
Your rights are being slowly taken away one by one – relax
Doug Allen #25
Your email DPATexas @ gmail . com is from Texas. That explains a lot. You probably get you disinfo from DeLay, a guy who is so successful at the disinformation you promote, that he had to "resign to continue to help the wildly successful republican party".
Meanwhile, in one Texas race, there were 100,000 more votes on an electronic machine than there were voters in that district.
The extra hundred thousand went to give the election to a jurist who is almost as close to Bush as Ken Lay, but who had never done appellate work. So the 100,000 "extra" votes went to put a man on the Texas Supreme Court who never did appellate work.
Doug Allen, the republican dictatorship sucks, and so do the kool aid drinkers with the tin foil hats who show up to deceive.