Guest Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite.Org
HD Net has announced the content of this Tuesday’s “Dan Rather Reports”: An hour-long investigative special report dedicated to the failures of touch-screen voting and the companies that make them. Horribly. Here’s a piece of their recent media release, and a video preview is posted below…
What: This Tuesday, DAN RATHER REPORTS presents conclusive evidence of the failure of touch screen voting machines across the country. The episode, “The Trouble with Touch Screens,” is an entire hour devoted to new information on this story. From scientists involved in testing the equipment to manufacturers in third-world countries who shipped these defective voting machines to the United States, DAN RATHER REPORTS will present new information showing that these defective machines may have altered the outcome of multiple elections.
When: Dan Rather Reports “The Trouble with Touch Screens” will air Tuesday, August 14 at 8:00 p.m. ET. The program also airs at 11:00 p.m. ET to accommodate west coast prime time.
This is on HD Net so not everyone is going to be able to see it live but there will surely be copies on-line a day or two after the episode airs, if not sooner.
In the startling preview clip (posted below) notice that the only test performed on the ES&S iVotronic Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) touch-screen voting machines by the people who manufacture the machines in the Philippines is a “shake test” to ensure there were no loose pieces left in the machines. These people who make $2.10 to $2.50 a day and work in what amounts to a sweat shop where cats, rats, and snakes were removed from the basement by the truckload.
And the American who was dispatched to deal with problems at the factory back in 2001 admits that the touch-screens failed and “bubbled” as far back as then. But what has been done about it since?
The machines made by ES&S may not have any screws loose, but the folks who think this is any way to run a democracy certainly do!
A preview clip of the first segment of Rather’s report follows…
UPDATE 87/15/07: The complete video report is now posted here…
So, they test the touch-screen machines before the elections. The ones that don’t keep calibration–those are the ones to be sent to the Democratic precincts. That would explain why only Democrats complained about votes being affected.
Voila. Another way to suppress the Democratic vote.
Dan Rather DON’T FLY ANYWHERE please.
“you have to get at the underlaying infrastructure ” the same people that are responsible for 911 are behind election fraud , connect the dots to see who benefits from both .
Its a tangled web you weave …
Will quit this month; KKKarl rove A.K.A. joseph goebbels or just gerbels . . .
“Security through Fascism” is the new improved version of “Security through Obscurity”.
(proudly stolen from slashdot)
And remember that it is not only the DRE machines that are defective and shoddily made.
Also the source code is shodilly made on all of them that have been examined.
JoJ #4
Karl Rove’s departure means at least three things: 1) they are getting close; 2) election gaming will need a new leader; and 3) the politicizing of the Department of
JusticeJust Us, and other government departments, will need a new leader.Why is it that they can make spy cameras work so well but can’t make electronic voting machines as well?
Check this out:
(Boston News, emphasis added). These guys think like Stalin , who always controlled those who counted election ballots, and was always spying on people.
Does anyone have a status of the qui tam lawsuit that is more recent than this update from Brad?
COMMENT #7 [Permalink]
… Dredd said on 8/13/2007 @ 5:05 am PT…
“Why is it that they can make spy cameras work so well but can’t make electronic voting machines as well?”
It’s on purpose, it’s no mistake, Dredd.
I’m hoping that the whole hour will be available online soon.
Here are what I found of note from looking at the 12 min clip:
* In Lee County Florida, voting elections operations staff found that they had to have triple the staff that they did when they used punch systems to cope with maintaining and testing the machines.
* The machines were assembled in the Philippines by workers making minimum wage there ($2.15-$2.50/day)
* Factory temperature often was 90 degrees plus with inadequate cooling systems
* Lots of creepy crawlies had to be cleaned out of the factory
* The manufacture involved no quality tests aside from a shake test – even that was not always used
* The principal machine fault was with ‘bubbling’ of the touchscreen component. This is consistent with reports of misaligned touch screens.
Any of y’all who have ES&S machines in your county be sure to alert your election officials to watch this. There’ll be a quiz the next day.
shw
And, just when you think that things couldn’t get any more ridiculous, they do!
The false story in the CMSM about the Dan Rather/Bush AWOL documents:
“Mary Mapes is a long time television news producer and reporter who worked for CBS for 15 years. In 2004, just a few months before the Texas National Guard story aired, she uncovered the photos of torture at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison bringing worldwide attention to the practices there.
Mapes has always stood by the National Guard story and maintains that the documents in question were never found to be false. She condemned the CBS investigation as politically biased and has said that she was fired because the Chief Executive of Viacom, which is the corporate parent of CBS, feared regulatory retaliation by the Bush administration. CBS maintains that Mapes was fired because of faulty reporting. Mary has written a book about her experience titled, “Truth and Duty: The Press, The President and the Privilege of Power.” ”
http://www.democracynow.org/art...ad&tid=25
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow...38;start=43:15
http://www.democracynow.org/art...ad&tid=25
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow...38;start=42:40
A question for Brad, or John G, or anyone:
Have any of these e-Voting companies ever been punished for lying about their products?
Has any state SoS been asked (and then answered) how they can trust companies who routinely lie about their products? Why should contracts be renewed with these companies?
If I lied even one tenth that much at my job, I’d be fired and replaced.
BeJammin075 –
Punishment for lying? Not that I know of. Unless you consider Shelley’s decert of some of Diebold’s systems back in ’04, for their use of secretly installed hardware/software updates to be punishment. But no real legal punishment or jail time, etc.
Also, Diebold paid up a few million for a CA qui tam later in ’04 as brought by Bev Harris and Jim March, though it didn’t go to court, as the State of CA decided to settle with Diebold (unfortunately).
If there are other instances, they are not coming to mind right now, but there has yet to be anybody, for instance, go to jail for the fraud that the company’s have been perpetuating on American tax payers as far as I know.
Rather positions his own well placed dynamite…
I propose a “Fraud! Five for Filipinos” campaign. We all send them five bucks to shake a little harder 🙂
I pointed this out before, does anyone notice that when there’s a CMSM article about Republican Bob Ney being in jail for the Abramoff scandal, they never mention that Ney sponsored the HAVA act, that proliferated e-vote machines? They have to be purposely doing this, because it’s a no-brainer to always mention this.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/w...v=rss_politics
Why show the public now?
After Debra Bowen’s work there WILL be change. Rather’s show is almost irrelevant now. Three years ago or six years ago it would’ve really helped. Why delay it ’til now?
Is this just CYA for Rather and CBS?
MarkH
I think you are putting too much expectation into the reports from CA. The vendors and many, many election officials across the country are doing all they can to minimize those reports.
Now they are also doing all they can to minimize the damage from the new Rather report.
By the way, this has nothing to do with CBS. Rather no longer works for them. He is now an employee of Mark Cubin’s HDNet.
Thank you Brad and Dan Rather! This confirmation of faulty hardware explains many random incidents and failures. Finally. However, unless there is a clear pattern to the touch screen bubble effect (for example the faulty touch screen consistently does not record votes close to the margins of the screen), it does not necessarily explain the 18,000 missing votes in Christine Jennings’ Sarasota election. Sarasota’s election showed a clear and consistent pattern of undervotes in statistically relevant numbers for that race. A software problem or a ballot setup error could also be at fault. All machines and software being equal, all machines should have behaved in the exact same way. And our election laws should have automatically tossed this election out based on the improbable high incidents of undervotes. It did not.
Lani Massey Brown, MARGIN OF ERROR BALLOTS OF STRAW, a novel.
It is his LAWYERS that Karl Rove needs to spend more time with, not his family, as claimed.
Yeah, seven years too late. Way to stay on top of things Mr. Rather.
Dan Rather!?!!?! He’s kind of a polarizing figure… Easy to discredit on the basis of his previous error.
I can see why they picked him to do the most important story of a generation.
yes it is ironic that Dan Rather would be reporting on this now, after being set up by Rove in the National Guard story. it is better than nothing, but when will someone have the guts to say the word “fraud” and not just “defective”?
I cant’ get the HDTV show, so will have to depend on reports here.
Waiting to see if Rather covers more than just the workmanship/manufacturing angle.
I hope he goes after the software too and makes the point about the “secret” vote counting these machines are all about- and why extensive audits of real evidence- the voter marked paper ballots, is imperative.
Voter marked paper ballots- no DRE’s or DRE’s print outs.
Eomer #8
The qui tam (a la RFK Jr.) that was touted as a landmark event, with Brad even giving it a boss hogg light when it was posted, has become something we are evidently not supposed to talk about. It drives 99 up the wall when I ask about it, and Brad who commented here to another poster, did not address your concerns either. Others, besides myself, have also asked. There have been no definitive answers yet that I am aware of.
I am ever worried that the powers that be have an effect on blogs from time to time. While it is a good sign that the powers that be would be “interested” in a blog because it means they take that blog seriously, such “interest” also has a dark side.
Those who have watched the “From The Wilderness” blog story, concerning Mike Ruppert and company, know what I mean.
The qui tam is a mystery at this point. All we can do is hope that our movement will remain as transparent as we want government to be. We must lead by good example and always be transparent to all the facts.
Big Dan #9
Yes, all things Stalin seem to work just fine, while things american seem to fail all too often these daze.
Big Brother is a republican, however, he is a shape shifter as well and can turn up anywhere (e.g. Zell Miller).
This will actually serve as cover for the intentional vulnerabilities programmed into these machines. Just as any discovered tampering with elections can be attributed to outside hackers rather than inside vote fixers, now the nogoodniks can point to shoddy manufacture when election results look screwy.
Tsk! Tsk! Sorry but no spam here.
Comment removed.
MarkH (comment #18)
One TV show doesn’t solve very much. Rather’s show is certainly welcome, and a help, but you are estimating the impact of 1 TV show, 1 time, on an obscure cable channel to be much greater than it actually is. Even if this was 1 hour of prime time on a major network, it still wouldn’t have much impact all by itself.
I searched for the show, and among my 200 or so channels in my Comcast digital cable package, the show is not there. The number of people who will watch this is minimal.
How many TV shows have exposed the lies about the Iraq war? And the war is the number 1 issue that people care about. There is a big gap between passively getting information vs. people taking action that gets tangible results.
You mean the DRE’s are UNRELIABLE?
I’m SHOCKED and AWED! Who’d a’thunk it???
‘cept maybe 6 or 7 bloggers…*winks*
(For those not familiar with that phrase, or where it originated on Bradblog:
https://bradblog.com/?p=1338)
BTW, I was reading over all the names on that thread (and yep, I’m there, at #128) and wondering – are all of y’all still around?
Unfortunately, the show was on HDNet so who knows how many people saw it. But I did, and the real bomb shell was not the ES&S touch screens in the first half, but the bad Sequoia punch cards used in the 2000 Florida election in the second half. Six ex-employees discussed the causes of the “hanging chads” and accused the company of knowingly and perhaps even purposely using substandard card stock for the ballots. This is huge. Brad, you must see this if you haven’t and do anything you can to get that part of the show available online to your readers.
Show transcript is at http://www.hd.net/transcript.ht...aster_id=A4755
KBE #31
“I am that I am” 🙂
.
I miss many of they historical Bradblog posters:
… tired fingers … there are others … help me out KBE.