Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org
“Broward Supervisor of Elections spokeswoman Mary Cooney said it’s not uncommon for screens on heavily used machines to slip out of sync, making votes register incorrectly. Poll workers are trained to recalibrate them on the spot — essentially, to realign the video screen with the electronics inside. The 15-step process is outlined in the poll-workers manual.” These machines may be used 150 to 250 times on election day. And it seems the county expects them to “slip” out of calibration. Not a big issue because they have a “15 STEP PROCESS” to fix that condition??? / Informal discussions between Sequoia Voting Systems owner, Smartmatic, and the Treasury Dept. have now become a formal investigation, it seems. How much say does Hugo Chavez have in our elections? / In the laugh of the day officials in Lonoke Co Arkansas think they may be done counting votes and have the lights turned off by 9:30PM on election night. / Miller Co, Arkansas Election Administrator is resigning at the end of the year because ES&S representatives “are grossly incompetent, mean-spirited and can’t spell”….
IN SHORT: Early voting gets off to quick start, Lonoke official predicts early night election eve. LINK
Denver commission dumps plan for hand copying; machines will tally both styles LINK
Early voters are urged to cast their ballots with care following scattered reports of problems with heavily used machines. LINK
Residents sign up to run voting sites and help others cast their ballots. LINK
Election staff errors caused 200+ malfunctions LINK
**”Daily Voting News” is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in “Daily Voting News” may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or BradBlog.Com**
It seems a bit naive to think that the existance of a paper receipt or paper audit trail will solve problems with the voting process. What is needed is a write once, verifiable, persistant audit trail that is identical in all voting systems. Even if we could get this, it still requires a degree of trust where it might not be entirely warranted. Consider this – what if everyone who voted received a random, temporary voter number or identifier. And what if all votes were required to be posted (and downloadable) on the internet by temporary vote ID (with no one able to associate real voter ID with temporary vote receipt ID). If we could get that to happen, anyone could verify not only their own vote, but if so inclined could do their own counting of the votes. This would get rid of a need for a lot of trust. This is technologically feasible. This is a democracy. We should have access to the vote data.
Just wanted to stress that….
So, has this “out of sync” problem been essentially evenly distributed between candidates of each political party?
250 hits on a touch screen, and it’s out of allignment!?!?!
Is this the same standard of excellence Diebold applies to their ATM machines? Did anyone think to ask Clooney if she would accept an ATM machine that crapped out every 250 customers?
WTF?
It is absolutely ludicrous Diebold would have the GAUL to EXPECT the electorate to ACCEPT an error rate that high, when they KNOW damn well that the BANKS and CUSTOMERS who USE their ATM’s would scream bloody murder if their ATM’s had a similar failure rate!
Thanks Dan for saying what I was going to say. WTF indeed. What amazes me is — how do they get it to fail so often? The hardware can’t be so crappy and still work at all. So it’s worth looking into. Figuring this out would be worth taking the time to dissect a machine with a hardware debugger attached, to see what it was doing. I’ll bet that somewhere there is a software ‘bug’ coded in deliberately, maybe enven a way to secretly turn it on and off.
Diane Rehm is going to have a show about voting machines on this coming Monday 30th October. The last one was real good, but there is a Diebold shill on this one, so watch out!
What ever came of the lawsuit Bobby Kennedy and another fella had against Diebold?? I haven’t been checking it lately. I do not feel secure with the coming election. gw’s cavalier attitude with the election, he isn’t worried – is this because if the lose of brain cells due to the alcohol and cocaine or as we know, they already know which machines are going to be “recalibrated”?? Whatever happens, I hope more of the voters are aware and will act!!
Oh, how right you are about the machines in Broward County. I attended the training for poll workers here in Broward. I can’t tell you how confusing just the manual itself is. I explained to them that I might be better equipped if I had been able to study that manual for a week before the training. I am computer literate, but this has nothing to do with computers, none of it makes any sense. If you have to help a disabled person vote. You must stop everything and call a roaming supervisor somewhere, because it is so time consuming, thats all that you will be able to do for at least the next half hour. People were bewildered with the training, but no one spoke up, they are all county workers and they get paid 180 dollars for the day. Even still, many did not show up to work non primary day, we’ll see what happens on the 7th. How hard would it be to train people to just count paper. Nobody is gonna stop to calibrate a machine unless they have to after how many altered votes?
NAtional: George Will – Federally-mandated voting machines could create havoc LINK
This link is gone AT the site. They have the headline but an error message comes up when you try to read the article. Are these schmucks censoring George Will now?
I’m more worried about Karl “the math” Rove and ilk, than I am about Chavez, what a diversion !!!
“Broward Supervisor of Elections spokeswoman Mary Cooney said it’s not uncommon for screens on heavily used machines to slip out of sync, making votes register incorrectly.”
And this is OK? They’re even ADMITTING PUBLICLY that the machines slip out of sync!!!
EARTH TO MARY COONEY: THIS IS NOT “OK”…….
Are poll workers and election officials trained by DIEBOLD to issue statements like “they slip out of sync” or “there were some hiccups”??????
These things are publicly admitting the evote machines do not work!!! Does anyone get that?
On http://www.blackboxvoting.org , there was an article where Georgia papers said “everything went well, besides a few hiccups”…and Bev Harris examines the situation there more closely, and has documented over 200 evote machine screwups…IN ONE COUNTY!!!!
Roger #9 – The articles can be found here: Chicago Sun Times. I checked it this morning and the link is good.
I don’t understand why we can’t have a choice at the polls of voting either on the voting maching or a paper ballot we mark with a sharpie marker. Either way we have to show id at the door. What’s the big deal with counting paper ballots at the precinct??
Big Dan and Dan:
Broward County uses machines manufactured by Sequoia Voting Systems, not Diebold. You can check out that fact by calling their office. I do agree with you: Why allow a poll worker to calibrate the machinery? Or, for that matter, she is concerned about calibration, so if the machine does need calibration, calibrate the machine at their office.
Sounds like she has no confidence in the machine’s ability.
Hi to all my most treasured friends here at Bradblog – I have missed you terribly! I’m checking in after a very long and much needed break from the computer – my hair is still on fire though.
Hehe – maybe the Smartmatic/Chavez flap will get the “faith-based” republican voters on board with the rest of us who have NO-FAITH in the remaining 80% of our vote-counting [ahem … vote-stealing, I meant] voting machines known to have close ties to the Republican party.
So – I continue to pound this issue – just what is the problem with THIS MODEL FOR SMART VOTING?
How to Hand-count Votes Marked on Paper Ballots – CANADA
How many ballots were received at the polling place?
How many ballots were used?
How many voters voted?
When the ballots are printed, they are in pads of 25 or 50 or 100. Each sheet of paper in the pad consists of a ballot and a stub. A ballot gets torn off its stub when the ballot is given to a voter.
Each stub is individually numbered with a unique serial number. (The ballots do not have serial numbers.) Records are kept to show what serial numbers are delivered to each polling place. For example, a polling place that receives 300 ballots might have serial numbers 901 through 1200.
Upon receiving the ballots, a polling official counts them to verify that the polling place has received the correct quantity of ballots, and that the serial numbers are correct according to what was supposed to be received. For example, if a pad is supposed to have 100 ballots, the polling official makes sure that it has 100, and not 99 or 101.
The polling official also prepares each ballot by writing his or her initials in a designated place on the back of each ballot.
Before voting begins, everyone looks into the ballot box to make sure it is empty.
When a voter arrives at the polling place, the voter’s name is looked for in the list of registered voters. If the voter’s name is found, a polling official tears off a ballot from a pad, folds the ballot correctly with the side for marking votes on the inside and the polling official’s initials on the outside. Then the polling official hands the folded ballot to the voter.
The voter goes into a booth and marks the ballot by pencil or pen.
After marking the ballot, the voter folds it again so that the votes are on the inside and the polling official’s initials are on the outside. The voter hands the ballot to the polling official. The polling official checks his or her initials, finds the voter’s name on the voter list, and marks a line through the voter’s name to indicate that this voter has voted. In some elections the ballot is handed back to the voter, who places it into the ballot box in front of the polling official.
More frequently the polling official places the ballot into the ballot box while the voter watches.
When the polling place is closed at the end of the day, the ballot boxes are opened and the ballots are counted. Everyone looks into the ballot box to make sure that it is empty and all ballots have been taken out.
The number of voted ballots must be exactly the same as the number of voters’ names that were crossed with a line on the voter list. Also, the number of ballots used must be exactly the same as the number of ballots that were removed from their stubs on the ballot pads. Sometimes there is a spoiled ballot that was removed from a pad but not placed in the ballot box, or you might have two ballots that stick together and no one notices until the counting of ballots later, but polling officials must account for all ballots that have been removed from their stubs on the pads.
Canadians have people called “Scrutineers” who observe and assist in elections. One Scrutineer from each party may observe and participate in the procedures in each polling place.
A Scrutineer with 30 years experience in elections was asked, “What if the number of ballots in the ballot box doesn’t match the number voters’ names crossed in the voter list, or what if the number of ballots removed from the pads is not the same as the number of ballots in the ballot box plus the spoiled ballots?” The reply was, “It’s never happened in my experience.” [more at link]
Another article to read — the link will take you to a page that will “redirect” you to the article … just give it a moment to relocate.
2003 article by PBS’s I,Cringley – Follow the Money: Why the Best Voting Technology May Be No Technology at All
[snip] My model for smart voting is Canada. The Canadians are watching our election problems and laughing their butts off. They think we are crazy, and they are right.
Forget touch screens and electronic voting. In Canadian Federal elections, two barely-paid representatives of each party, known as “scrutineers,” are present all day at the voting place. If there are more political parties, there are more scrutineers. To vote, you write an “X” with a pencil in a one centimeter circle beside the candidate’s name, fold the ballot up and stuff it into a box. Later, the scrutineers AND ANY VOTER WHO WANTS TO WATCH all sit at a table for about half an hour and count every ballot, keeping a tally for each candidate. If the counts agree at the end of the process, the results are phoned-in and everyone goes home. If they don’t, you do it again. Fairness is achieved by balanced self-interest, not by technology. The population of Canada is about the same as California, so the elections are of comparable scale. In the last Canadian Federal election the entire vote was counted in four hours. Why does it take us 30 days or more?
The 2002-2003 budget for Elections Canada is just over $57 million U.S. dollars, or $1.81 per Canadian citizen. It is extremely hard to get an equivalent per-citizen figure for U.S. elections, but trust me, it is a LOT higher. This week, San Francisco held a runoff mayoral election that cost $2.5 million, or $3.27 per citizen of the city. And this was for just one election, not a whole year of them.
We are spending $3.9 billion or $10 per citizen for new voting machines. Canada just prints ballots. [endsnip]
Unfortunately I recently noticed that “In a deeply misguided move, Peterborough Ontario will be providing Internet voting in the 2006 municipal election.” http://papervotecanada.blogspot.com/
It seems the death knell for democracy everywhere is being sounded.
Folks – it has gotten worse. If we can’t stop “THE MATH” & Martial Law, we are sunk.
Love y’all!
Kira
MUGZI,.. Comment # 7
The Kennedy/Papantonio fraud litigation against the electronic voting machine vendors was waiting for the sign off of US Attorney General Abu/Gitmo Gonzales. By law he had to be given an opportunity to review the case and decide if the government would join the suit as a prime litigator or reject involvement and allow the case to proceed as a civil trial. Gonzales as expected pushed of his decision to join or reject to join the case until after the midterm election. After the election is over and the votes tabulated,.. Gonzales will likely render his decision,.. then the case will proceed. The political impact of that litigation will be felt in 2008 provided it is given an expedited schedule to be heard in court and not buried with endless continuances by the defendant. The wheels of justice grind,……….. slowly.
Bradblog details of Kennedy/Papantonio litigation against the Electronic Computer Vote Counting Machine Vendors,…LINK,.. https://bradblog.com/?p=3065
Kira # 15. Just one little correction. You added an extra step in our voting procedure. Our name is crossed off when we arrive, (desks are lined up for names alphabetically) we give our name and then we are given the ballot. It takes about 3-4 minutes to vote.
Unfortunately as you say some provinces are looking at E-voting. Our Election Commissioner is not in favour of it so hopefully it will not happen.
Hi GWN #17, thanks for the correction. I sincerely hope Canada [or any other country] doesn’t go forward with E-voting.
There are only 2 ways to view what’s going on in the US – Either our election officials are hopelessly stupid or hopelessly crooked & bought off.
In my state of GA [the launching pad of the great Diebold Experiment, thanks to our SoS Cathy Cox & her former boss GA SoS Lewis Massey, who became a Diebold Lobbyist the day after he left his state job] I’m leaning toward both explanations.
Hopefully the lawsuit filed by VoterGA will do some good — I just can’t believe we’re going forward with elections using these machines at all. It seems any honest elections official would call for old-fashioned paper ballots until the problems (identified after their first use in 2002 by Cathy Cox & reported immediately to Diebold) have been thoroughly investigated along with the Voting Machine Companies themselves. It’s just unbelievable.
A bunch of us are so furious we can hardly contain ourselves.
Thanks Brad for keeping this story going! You’re simply Fabulous, Dahling!
Kira — Welcome back. Missed you. I thought you were gone forever!
Hi Arry, thanks for the welcome. I had to take a long break from the computer & politics – I was exhausted. I’m still exhausted, because I take all this MESS to heart.
I did lurk for a couple of months … enjoyed reading your posts as always! … & then decided I just had to add my 2 cents worth about how easy, efficient, economical & SECURE voting on Paper Ballots CAN BE.
Anyway, I won’t be able to spend nearly as much time posting comments as I once did. I do love it though!
I’m praying earnestly for a miracle that will spark a serious investigation of this corrupt administration.
Hey — I just found this going on at Muckracker — remember the phoney voting group ACVR??
Start here:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001900.php
Shadowy Nonprofit Attacks PA Dem from Left
By Paul Kiel – October 30, 2006, 12:33 PM
Here’s another thing to watch for this campaign season: front groups that attack Democrats from the left.
…But as TC wrote us, there’s something fishy about the group … Indeed, the url on the mailer, http://www.progressivepolicycouncil.org, leads nowhere. And the group, despite its stated purpose to get the message out, definitely does not want to be contacted.
Whoever is behind the group, which was formed in mid-June, has taken care not to leave any public traces. [more at link]
The next entry:
“Progressive” Nonprofit Repped by Bush-Cheney Vet
By Paul Kiel – October 30, 2006, 1:50 PM
Well, I think we have our answer as to who is behind the Progressive Policy Council, the phony group behind a mailer that’s gone out to an untold number of Pennsylvania voters in an apparent attempt to sour liberal voters on Democrat Bob Casey.
Records with the Virginia State Corporation Commission show that the group’s charter was filed by a man named Jason Torchinsky of Holtzman Vogel. And who is he?
… Actually, it turns out that diminishing voter turnout is somewhat of a hobby for Torchinsky. Torchinsky is also affiliated with the American Center for Voting Rights, a conservative organization working to pass Voter ID laws in several states. [more at link]
Restoring Honor & Integrity to the White House on a daily basis. Republicans should be so proud.