Hmmm! Video games have stronger security measures than the Diebolds! What does that tell you?????

Here in Utah, I responded to the articles regarding the "recount" by sending the following in to The Salt Lake Tribune Public Forum:

"FUNNY DEMMA"

Surely Mr. Demma jests - claiming the "recount" done July 12 demonstrates "100 percent accuracy" of the Diebold machines. Excuse me, but "Duh." Of course, the result was the same. It was merely a reprint of the first result. That's all that can be done. There's nothing to count.

It is insulting to Utahns when Demma, Cragun, and County Clerk Swenson make public statements about recount procedures, as if it's relevant, when the truth is that Utah elections officials are already aware that recent changes in Utah law designate the voting machine memory cards as the "ballot of record". Period. That means there is no such thing as actually recounting anything. It's just about hitting "total" again.

And because Diebold claims proprietary ownership of the software thats cohabiting with the voting data stored on that same memory card, the data is completely unavailable for review or audit.

Ask the Alaska Democratic Party. In April of this year, they filed suit in their Superior Court to force their Division of Elections to honor state law and release public records from the 2004 election. Two years later, there is still no answer as to why the Diebold machines showed 200% voter turnout in half the election districts.

But Alaska doesn't own the data. Diebold does. And the corporation wins - not the voters.

Better get used to it.

Barbara #2

I will never get used to the republican dictatorship calling itself a democracy.

dictatorship does not equal constitutional republic unless you have cracked all the loopholes.

If those in charge in Utah have any interest in democracy whatsoever they can verify the accuracy of their machines during the election. Accuracy of the election counting is all that really counts. Even my old Radio Shack Model One computer could count very accurately. Nobody should be the least bit concerned with whether a machine can count accurately if it is programmed to do so. That is a given. What one has to verify before any machine is trusted to count any votes is that any machine credited with counting votes is actually counting the votes as they were cast. Even if the software is secret, this can be verified during the election by printing out a uniquely numbered receipt for each voter and each precinct to keep. The voter can make sure that those receipts are correct before leaving the polling place. Since Utah has already discovered that the machine can remember the data and “count” it again, the machine can also remember the number of each ballot and create a spreadsheet of the data it remembers. Any programmer worth his salt can easily program the machine to create a file in numerical order by voter number to post on the internet for verification purposes. Any voter who has access to the internet can easily check to see if his or her vote was actually counted correctly. Since the machine has already demonstrated it can “recount” the data with perfect accuracy, nobody affiliated with any of the DREs should have any problem with covering the cost of a hand count of the paper copies printed out for each precinct if it can be shown that less than 99.9% the voter receipts are the same as those posted on the internet. Then all we have to do is hand count the number of ballots cast in each precinct to prevent ballot stuffing and we can have a verifiable election using DREs to do what they do well. They can be programmed to sort and count very well during elections. The question we need to be answered for any election is whether or not they are actually doing it well. The “recount” in Utah gives us no clue whatsoever as to what the answer to that question is. That answer can be found if Utah wants to return to being part of a Democracy. So does Utah want to continue to be a DRE controlled state or does Utah want to return to democratic voting like they may have had before the DREs took complete control of the states “election” results?

The fact is that nobody, not even the Lt. Governor of Utah himself, will know if his own vote is being counted correctly.

If that signifies complete election success, then next time, the crickets are going to be eating the seagulls!

The Diebold voting machine company is going to court without a hanging chad to stand on, and I'm going to be laughing until the day I die.

THIS IS GOING TO BE GREAT!

bob young #5 - very interesting and (to me) a novel idea. is this your brainchild or something that's been floating around awhile that i've simply missed? wonder what the drawbacks are?

John - regarding your NM link above concerning gov. richardson's endorsement of paper ballots, thats good news right? theres additional info about the conference at www.brennancenter.org . anxious to hear what comes outta there. think i'll call my SoS tomorrow and see if he was in attendance.