ComputerWorld has just posted the following article of mine in full. Here’s the first few (pre-CW-edited) grafs to whet your appetite…
ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE SLAYS NINE!
Terrorizes Florida in Thrill-Kill RampageThat headline was from a satirical column written by Andy Borowitz and published last Monday, the day before Tuesday’s mid-term election.
Unfortunately, given the post-election coverage by some of the nation’s leading media — or at least their headline writers — it seems that only an event such as a Diebold voting machine becoming “unmoored from the floor and…trampling everyone and everything in its path,” as Borowitz wrote, would qualify as anything more than a “glitch,” “hiccup,” “snag,” or “snafu”. At least if you gauge the coverage from the headline writers at NYTimes or Associated Press.
“Voting System Worked, With Some Hiccups,” declared the AP headline on Wednesday. “Polling Places Report Snags, but Not Chaos,” echoed the Times.
“Hiccups”? “Snags”? Try telling it the thousands of voters around the country who were unable to simply cast a vote last Tuesday because new, untested electronic voting machines failed to work. Monumentally. Across the entire country.
“Not Chaos”? Apparently the Times headline writers failed to check with the folks in Denver who were lined up around the block for hours to vote. They didn’t even bother to read the the Denver Post, who headlined the problem as a “Voting Nightmare” during the day on Tuesday and quoted voter Lauren Brockman saying “We will not get to vote today,” after he had showed up before work to vote at 6:45 a.m. at the Botanic Gardens only to wait in line for an hour before giving up.
They didn’t check with Colorado’s Gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter, who had to wait almost two hours to vote, or with Sean Kelley, a Denver resident who said to the Post, “I can’t believe I’m in the United States of America,” before he gave up and went home without voting after waiting three hours in line when electronic machines broke down.
The courts in Colorado refused to allow the city’s new consolidated “Election Centers” to remain open for extra hours that night. And yet this was only a mid-term election, with far lower turnout than we can look forward to in 2008.
Similar problems led slighly more responsible officials to order polls to be kept open longer than scheduled in at least eight other states due to voting machine problems. In a NY Times story published the day before (which apparently the headline writers of the previously mentioned piece failed to read), it was reported that in Illinois “hundreds of precincts were kept open…because of late openings at polling places related to machine problems” and in Indiana “voting equipment problems led to extensions of at least 30 minutes, in three counties.”
Other states where polls remained open late due to the inability of legally registered voters to vote when they showed up earlier in the day include Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Indiana, and Ohio.
But the list of problems and, yes, meltdowns (not “glitches” “hiccups” “snags” or “snafus”) is still pouring in from around the country. My inbox has been beyond readability since polls opened on Tuesday morning, and my ability to keep up had already been near the breaking point in the weeks prior just from similar reported disasters that occured with these failing, flipping, and flimsy new pieces of junk during the Early Voting period in Florida, Arkansas, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas, and California, just to name a few.
On Election Day, the Electronic Frontier Foundation had received about 17,000 complaints on their toll-free hotline by 8pm. Common Cause received 14,000 calls by 4 p.m. John Gideon at VotersUnite.org performed the Herculean task of logging as many news reports as he could in a searchable online database of reported election problems that day.
One big fat bullet seems to have been dodged when George Allen conceded in his Virginia Senate race Thursday. Had he chosen not to, America would have found itself smack-dab in the middle of another Florida 2000 crisis with the balance of the entire United States Congress depending on voting machines in a state which offer absolutely no way to recount ballots to achieve any form of accuracy or clarity in the race. The battle of the forensic computer scientists trying to figure out what happened would have been another long national nightmare.
But that didn’t happen, so everything’s cool…
For the complete story, including other bullets barely dodged this week — from the Santorum Senate race in Pennsylvania to innumerable U.S. House elections currently uncountable and unrecountable due to the failures of these god-forsaken machines — and the ravages of an American electoral system in tatters no matter how the headline writers at the major national media and the Voting Machine Apologists are hoping to spin things…see my complete piece just published at ComputerWorld…
(Oh, and find out how that Diebold Voting Machine Killer Rampage in Florida comes out too!)
Shoot, I read the whole article waiting to read about the monster that ate Chicago or something like that.
I guess I’ll have to go watch “i, Robot” again. At least Sonny (a robot) stood up for humanity, even if our human leaders won’t.
The Dems have to make voting reform #1 in their “first 100 hours”, or they stink, too. They have 2 years to do it before they are hacked back into the minority.
We had at least one precinct in Nashville that had voters still in line at midnight…
shw
Shannon,.. Comment # 3
That is disgusting and shameful,..
welcome to AmeriKKKa.
I hope Rep. Conyers reads this post and our comments. He is perfectly positioned to lead the charge in investigating this mess. Such an investigation could not be charged with partisan bias, as the Democrats generally prevailed and cannot be easily charged with trying to accomplish with an investigation what they failed to do at the ballot box this election.
The whole gamut of election dirty tricks, phone jamming (read Laura Ingraham), robo-calls, etc., should be included as the topic of investigation. As these election problems play out, even without much MSM coverage, the new majority party will have no choice but to address the issue in order to seat the rest of members of Congress. The Dems have less to fear from such an investigation than the GOP.
That comment above that the Dems should be motivated to investigate this to avoid becoming a minority party again in 2008 is very appropriate. Well said!
I don’t know what it is with you Americans and your pushiness.
You have to live with the decisions of elections for two, four, or six years, and yet you expect tabulated results in two, four, or six seconds instead of two, four or six days.
If your elections are in November and your inaugurations and oaths are in January, what’s the rush? Why not take a week or two to count and recount paper ballots by hand? Democracy is tenuous enough as it is without putting it in the hands of corporate and special political interests (as the US media has been) all for the sake of speed. It was the rush to judgement on non-existent WMDs that got you into one particular mess.
And by the way, drop the idiotic butterfly and chad ballots. Democracies like Canada (mine), England and others mark ballots with a pencil, an “X”. If you make a mistake, you ask for a new ballot. Simple and effective; sometimes the lowest technology is the best.
You have a choice: count it right, or count it fast. You can’t have both.
Bookmarking to reread.
“We had at least one precinct in Nashville that had voters still in line at midnight”¦”
So shameful – I remember the photos of people waiting in the rain to vote in Ohio 2004. Those were powerful and MEMORABLE photos – did anyone take photos of the people waiting in line around the block or until midnight?
We endanger the anti-evote machine movement if we protest too loudly without loud evidence that resonates with the voters.
I think the proper rhetoric is that we dodged a bullet. The results are good, the republican dictatorship is being expelled, and the right thing happened.
We just don’t know how the machines worked and never will unless verification becomes reality.
Call it Luck or call it a miracle … whatever you like, but don’t ignore the dangers for 2008.
We must fix the machines, but in order to do that we must convince people. Not based on the results of this election, but based upon the machines themselves, gerrymandering, and election officials.
It went better than we expected by any standard.
We must avoid the “they who cried wolf” syndrome, because it may be cast upon us unless we choose our words and arguments wisely.
We let the Fascist/Nazis Of Bu$$h I and the perpetrators of Iran/Contra walk and slither away back under the nearest rock without prosecution. Within one decade they were back in full force dismantling our democracy,.. Constitution,.. and Bill of Rights – piece by piece.
Liberals and progressives can not let the Fascists/Nazis/Neo-Cons of Bu$$h II off the hook as they readily did Bu$$h I. If these Fascists are not made to answer for their “Extra Legal Government” – “Secret Government” and “Shadow Government” activities,.. these Fascist/Nazi/Neo-Cons will be back soon to haunt us again. They must be prosecuted. They must be incarcerated. Fascists must be punished for their egregious anti-democracy plans/schemes/activities.
Bu$$hco II is not the last generation of Fascist Brown-shirt Young College Republicans to come up through the ranks. The Bu$$h family and their cronies have been at this Nazi game for a long – long time. It is the only game they know,.. Fascism and self enrichment are the only GODs they truly worship.
Remember Prescott Bu$$h ? He was found in violation of “Trading With the Enemy Act”. He gave aid and support to the enemy,.. Nazi Germany,.. the USA let Prescott Bu$$h walk,.. he was given a free pass. Did we enable/endorse/encourage the next generations of American Nazis – al la GHWB #I & GWB #2. Prescott Bu$$h should have been prosecuted to the full extent of the law. His ill begotten gains should have been seized by the US Government. The Fascism of The House of Bu$$h would have been nipped in the bud. To our detriment,.. to the mockery of democracy,.. we allow these Fascist criminals to run free with out any sanctions. Without constant monitoring. Without discipline,.. without control.
Is it any wonder the American Republican Nazi/Fascists/Corporatist Political Party keeps popping back into the picture ?
“We will not impeach the pResident,..”
WTF
At sunrise,.. before breakfast,.. gwb should meet his firing squad,.. close this ugly chapter of American history,.. and rapidly move on. Begin to clean up the mess this man/child/infant/selfish frat-boy-brat left for us to rectify.
Bob Dog #11, I hope that you will send your post as a letter to the Editor of the NYTimes. well-said.
We’ve been asking those same questions for a couple of years here at Brad Blog. Why is the rush to announce results more important than accuracy, transparency and accountability (and re-countability? it is madness.
I was a precinct inspector this election in my county. My precinct was one of two at one particular polling place. We each had one electronic voting machine. It required 45 minutes to set each one of them up, and 30 minutes each to take them down. Not a single voter used either machine. What a waste! The good news is that we had no hanging chads, no erroneously purged voters, no one was denied the ability to vote, we had plenty of provisional ballots, and we had an 800 hotline for anyone who had a question about their status on the voting lists. No one was put on hold, and everyone’s inquiries were answered fully and satisfactorily. It’s just not that hard to run a good, clean election. The problem comes when there are forces at work to prevent this from happening.
E-voting is NOT the answer.
E-voting causes MASSIVE voter disenfranchisement.
Everywhere across the country, electric power companies are straining to keep up with demand. Brown-outs occur daily and sometimes several times a day in my town. Blackouts are frequent enough to be expected at least once or twice a month – more in very hot or very cold seasons.
This is JUST ONE reason among many that make E-voting disasterous.
Computers need a moderately cool temperature to run properly and they are affected by humidity. Many precincts do not have air-conditioning. Many precincts are in humid areas.
Damn. What’s wrong with our gov’t officials? I know some of them really are in on a crooked deal looking for immediate financial gain [see Kenneth Blackwell], but too many seem to be just plain dumb and oblivious.
Now is the time to pull out all the stops & demand a return to paper ballots. Demand the U.S. take the Canadian method for paper ballot elections. Cost: about $1.81 per vote. With the EVMs we spend how much per vote? Possibly $30 or more – and the software can be tampered with to rig an election, so our votes are largely meaningless.
Yes the Democrats won this election — the Repubs couldn’t steal this one [completely] as before because of the vigilant activists on the ground with eyes wide open.
The Repubs couldn’t steal this one [completely] as before because We The People made it known before the sElection that We were a LANDSLIDE against the current corruption & admin.
Now we have to remind the Democrats that they & the rest of Congress & the pResident WORK FOR US, not the other way around.
Email – FAX – write Letters – Go in person to Congresspeople’s offices – and do all the same to the MEDIA.
Remember Thomas Jefferson and the other founding fathers who warned us & left instructions for us in case we found ourselves in this situation.
Kira # 13
As a Brit living in Canada for 41 years, I have to say that paper ballots and pencils are the only way to go. The chance for fraud is almost impossible as everything is done on a ‘hand to hand’ basis.
You walk into the polling station, receive your ballot and proceed to the booth where you mark it and then post it into the box.
Granted, we only have to deal with who we want for whichever election it is at the time. It could be a national election to decide our government, or a local election for mayor etc, but the process is the same.
We never have to vote for issues that concern a particular district or state, so it’s hard to imagine how you would proceed with that. Guess your paper ballots would have to be a lot bigger than ours…lol..!!!!
Mar #14
Thank you!
So, the ballots would have to be bigger. That’s a teeny-tiny problem compared to this EVM Fiasco.
I say DUMP THE DAMN MACHINES!!! Count the ballots in about 4 hours. What could be easier?