Guest Blogged by John Gideon
Tonight Kitty and Lou discuss the cost of e-voting to the taxpayers. The announcement of a new report from the Brennan Center is welcome.
The text-transcript of tonight’s segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full…
Kitty Pilgrim reports.
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In recent Maryland elections, electronic voting was a disaster. But even before that debacle, Maryland governor Robert Ehrlich complained in a letter to the state Board of Elections about the unreliability and the cost of electronic voting systems, writing, quote, “I no longer have confidence in the State Board of Elections’ ability to conduct fair and accurate elections in 2006.”
The costs listed in the letter are so outrageous, they look like a misprint. In 2001, the state estimated maintenance costs for voting systems would be $858,000 in 2006. But now State Board has requested $9.5 million, a 1,000 percent increase. Electronic voting companies sell licensed software upgrades, but most counties don’t have the expertise to do it themselves.
LAWRENCE NORDEN, NYU BRENNAN CENTER: They have to pay the vendor to take care of the machine. And the vendor essentially has a monopoly, in that case, on programming. The vendor is the only one that has the code for the system, and they charge a lot per machine.
PILGRIM: NYU’s Brennan Center will release a report in two weeks, but advanced copies provided to this broadcast estimate $250 to $1, 500 per machine, per election for programming, and $100 to $250 per machine for maintenance.
In Arkansas, 51 of the 75 counties use electronic voting machines. The director of the State Board of Elections says some of the counties are surprised at the cost.
SUSIE STORMES, DIR., ARK. BOARD OF ELECTION COMM.: It’s going to require additional state dollars and the counties are going to have to appropriate additional monies to cover the continuing cost of conducting elections using this advanced technology.
PILGRIM: Costs that will be paid for by taxpayers with every new election.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(on camera): Now the Brennan Center is going cost calculator every legislator can access. And it calculates all the hidden costs that aren’t in the initial sticker price.
DOBBS: This, frankly, smells to high heaven. You’ve got counties and states paying ten times as much for an election because of these machines, and having really terrible vulnerability to fraud. The training in many cases, as you’ve documented in your reporting, inadequate. I mean, this is just nuts.
PILGRIM: It’s very outrageous. And these maintenance costs are huge.
DOBBS: What are the odds that we’re going to see governors step in here and secretaries of state, Congress, this president — and Lord, we’re sitting here so close to these elections — to do something to ensure the integrity of these elections?
PILGRIM: It is very tight, and there is some push back. Governor Ehrlich has been very, very vocal about it, but in some places it’s just being overlooked.
DOBBS: That’s a shame. Each of these politicians, certainly good at talking about it. They don’t seem to be wanting to take much action.
I say we get Lou (and every body you know) to start talking about the Wanta Plan (my source tells me it is very real, but sorry can’t tell you who) forcing their hand to get it done. Then with that money, a Completely Transparent Citizen Verified Hand Counted Paper Ballot Election is held!!!!!!!! Vote the criminals out and start sending em to jail. Or maybe to the FEMA death camps their building! Good idea huh? Seriously check out this link. Whooooooa
Paper is pretty damn cheap!! Beats the hell out of a “Pricey-Blackbox-o-theft”(TM)?
Real good to see that Dobbs is putting a notification at the start of the show, (on the front page, so to speak), about the voting machine problems to be covered in the show.
Newsweek?
Time?
Wall Street Journal?
New York Times?
Washinton Post?
Jerry’s Info Shack?
So, is ABC covering e-vote fraud like Lou Dobbs?
What I want to know, are NAMES! WHO…is saying, behind the scenes @ ABC/NBC/CBS, “OK, we’re NOT covering e-vote fraud.”
heh heh heh just wait till you smell the sulfur!
Or umhm, transformers. Or that sacred smoke that comes from chips.
How HOT was it where you voted? 100 + degrees?!
Think about that. How hot can your SMP 3.4GHz’s take?
How about a logic circuit that after X degrees Y logic, then Z degrees A logic.
Nevermind I sound like the psycho RUMSFIELD now.
Gee, it’s not like there aren’t a couple hundred thousand children in Ark. who would benefit from all that state money siphoned off by the voting machine companies. Arkansas already has one of the lowest levels of funding per student in their public schools.
Investing in the education fo the children would be a better way to protect, defend, and invest in democracy.
How ’bout everybody write to Lou Dobbs and Kitty Pilgrim and tell them about the attmept to get LAVA off the ground?
http://www.democracynow.org/art.../09/21/1538241
Read what Chavez said from Chavez, not from what someone else is saying that he said, or just the one sentence where he calls Bush the Devil.
GREG GRANDIN: From what I read in the New York Times is that applause — the UN organizers of the event had to quiet the crowd down, that the applause had gone on for so long that he received the longest ovation of any other speech at the event.
…here’s part of it…
“””The President then — and this he said himself — he said, “I have come to speak directly to the populations in the Middle East to tell them that my country wants peace.” That’s true. If we walk in the streets of the Bronx, if we walk around New York, Washington, San Diego, in any city, San Antonio, San Francisco, and we ask individuals, the citizens of the United States, “What does this country want? Does it want peace?” They will say, “Yes.” But the government doesn’t want peace. The government of the United States doesn’t want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war. It wants peace, but what’s happening in Iraq? What happened in Lebanon? Palestine? What’s happening? What’s happened over the last hundred years in Latin America and in the world? And now threatening Venezuela. New threats against Venezuela, against Iran. “””
There’s lots of sentences like that, you only hear that he called Bush the devil, and that’s all you will hear in the corporate MSM and the Hannitybaugh Show.
If you didn’t know Chavez said this, MAYBE you should be watch ing Democracy NOW! TV news on DISH 9410/9415 and Directv 375.
When is everyone going to wake up?
DO NOT COUNT ON THE GENERAL PUBLIC TO TAKE ANY ACTION EVER. THEY ARE STUPID AND USELESS AND HAVE NOT ONE IOTA OF THE AMERICAN SPIRIT OF OUR FOUNDING FATHERS AND THE PATRIOTS THAT FOUGHT THE FIRST REVOLUTION. THIS VOTING SITUATION WOULD NEVER HAVE GOTTEN TO THIS POINT IF REAL AMERICANS WERE INFORMED AND EDUCATED VOTERS RATHER THAN FAT LAZY COWARDLY SHEEP. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN NO ONE IS WILLING TO PROTECT THE CONSTITIUTION, THEIR RIGHTS AND THIS GREAT COUNTRY. WITH ALL THE CELL PHONES AND INTERNET ACCESS AND THE ABILITY TO CONTACT MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AT ONCE, THIS COUNTRY COULD HAVE BEEN THE MOST ORGANIZED AND INFORMED ON EARTH. The basic foundation of our government has worked for over 200 years, but a government is made up of people and ideas and neither are permanent. Governments can form and fall in an instant. IF THE PEOPLE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE ANY ACTION AND IF THEY ARE GOING TO RELY ON OFFICIALS WHO WE VOTED IN OFFICE TO TELL US WHAT METHOD WE ARE GOING TO USE TO VOTE INSTEAD OF US TELLING THEM WHAT METHOD WE ARE GOING TO USE TO VOTE, WE DESERVE THIS MESS. ANYONE WHO ISN’T TAKING ACTION AND IS JUST BITCHING AND WAITING TO SEE WHAT OTHERS ARE GOING TO DO SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES BECAUSE THEY ARE THE PROBLEM TOO. ALL THIS TALK TALK TALK OVER ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES IS PARALYZING THE COUNTRY AND IT’S BENG USED AS AN EXCUSE TO WHINE AND SIT ON THEIR ASSES. GET ACTIVE OR GET USED TO LIVING IN SHIT.
BIG DAN: No one is going to wake up in time for a peaceful resolution to this crisis. The toad in the water insn’t going to notice the danger cuz temperature is rising too slowly and will eventually cook it. It’s going to take another generation to get fed up with living under an oppressive regime still called democracy before they start the second revolution and get us back on track.
Before anyone comments on how I’m saying this comment instead of reading and COMPREHENDING WHAT i’m saying……….RANT MY ASS!
What actions are you taking Dixiecrat?
Dixiecrat: We need the time and the $$$/means to take action, but one thing we can ALL do, and you can’t use time/$$$ as an excuse, is write your feeling wherever you can on the internet, tell everyone you can by word of mouth and email about where the real news is like Brad Blog, Raw Story, LINK-TV, FSTV, and American Free Press, write email distribution lists linking to these internet sites to all your friends, etc… And for those of us who have the time AND $$$, get active in other ways like Camp Democracy, etc… Write to your local newspapers mailbags about all the misinformation and suppression in the mainstream media. Dispute misinformation letters in your local newspapers written by misinforming trolls, I do all the time. Call your local talk radio show as often as you can.
The Republicans very very soon will blitz the MSM with lying campaign commercials, get ready to fight back like I mentioned above. Dispute all lies in the media, in print on the internet OR in your local newspapers.
What I always wonder, is where are the “progressives” with time & $$$ ????? We all know who they are. They are themselves too “comfortable” to go out of their way???