Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org
In a surprise announcement late this afternoon ES&S has announced it has purchased all of the assets of AutoMark Technical Systems. This announcement means that ES&S will now manufacture and market the ballot marking devices. According to their press release this acquisition will now allow ES&S to “enhance the product as part of the company’s suite of end-to-end, fully integrated voting solutions.” In other words, they can now use inexpensive parts made in Asian sweatshops and sell the machines more expensively. Not explained in this release is what this sale will do to Diebold/Premier’s plan to market AutoMark machines.
The ACLU has now filed a motion with the courts in Ohio to stop Cuyahoga Co from using any central-count optical scan system as the primary system to count ballots in the March primary.
Those stories, and the other notable voting news today, all linked below…
- AR: See you at the poll : Prevalence of elections in 2008 means plenty of trips to ballot box
http://nwanews.com/nwat/News/61688/ - AR: Some states rethink reliability of electronic voting
http://nwanews.com/nwat/News/61691/ - AR: Daniels encourages early voting
http://www.stuttgartdailyleader.com/articles/2008/01/28/news/news05.txt - CA: A paper jam roils California vote [First of two parts]
There’s a rush in the state to replace decertified electronic devices with printed ballots and scanners.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-calvote28jan28,1,4034804.story?track=crosspromo - CA: San Francisco County – Switch to paper ballots ensures long night
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/28/BAIFULUNC.DTL - FL: Editorial – Touch and hope no way to vote
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/opnOPN78012808.htm - FL: Are election officials ready?
http://www.tampabays10.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=72667 - FL: Columnist – FL Officials Hope To Keep Ghosts Of Elections Past At Bay
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heidi-pickman/fl-officials-hope-to-keep_b_83613.html - FL: Hillsborough County – After Primary, Hillsborough Ditching Touch-Screens
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/jan/28/me-primary-marks-end-for-touch-screens/ - IL: McHenry County – Early voting becoming hit
http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2008/01/28/news/local/doc479d6c82c74c9617555129.txt - IN: Marion County – Central count of special election ballots questioned
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080128/LOCAL19/80128052 - IN: Marion County – Republicans cry foul over special election plans
http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=7786697&nav=9Tai - NH: Activists had eye on each step of recount
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080128/NEWS08/480564814/-1/news08 - NH: Republican Candidate Calls for ‘Tightening Up’ of New Hampshire Election Contest Hand Count Procedures
https://bradblog.com/?p=5616 - NJ: Opinion – Make it convenient to vote in elections
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080128/OPINION/801280302/1046 - NY: Tompkins County – Board of Elections selects voting machine
http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080128/NEWS01/80128012/1002 - OH: Opinion – Not needed, fast
http://www.limaohio.com/story.php?IDnum=48421 - OH: Voting debate grows partisan
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080128/NEWS01/801280356/1077/COL02 - OK: Most of state’s provisional ballots in recent years not valid
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20080128_1__OKLAH52803 - OH: Cuyahoga County – ACLU Asks Federal Court to Block Use of Unfair Voting Technology
http://www.aclu.org/votingrights/gen/33832prs20080128.html - OH: Cuyahoga County – ACLU tries another way to stop Cuyahoga County March 4 primary voting
http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=82184&provider=gnews - OH: Cuyahoga County – ACLU Sues Over Paper Ballots in Ohio
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5he8Blnwws1k9ho3ArBE4wYNydVFwD8UF4FDG1
**”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**
Sure seems like it shouldn’t be legal for these companies to merge or change their names.
But without getting into all that, the easy solution to nuking them all at once is to outlaw electronic vote tabulation devices.
If all their electronic devices do is help the disabled print a paper ballot, that would be good.
But if they’re going to take on ownership of electronic boxes that tabulate votes, then I don’t care what they make, I hope their whole company fails when all is finally said and done and it’s finally proven their invisible vote tabulation devices are all unconstitutional.
MSNBC is reporting voting problems in the Broward County area Florida primary today. Not many details yet.
As far as the ACLU suit in Ohio that insists on having the paper ballot scanned- while the voter is still present- addresses not only the error problem but also the major problem we saw in NH: chain of custody. It also eliminates the central tabulation problem of creating a central hackable site that would affect more votes. The issue with absentee ballots I’m sure can be worked around.
The clueless kos thinks that voting machines cannot fail. If there are discrepancies between or among polls, exit polls, and the reported results, then it must axiomatically be fraud he surmises.
I wonder if he gets out much?
He argues that the polls were off in Carolina, therefore, there must have been fraud. Kos, get a grip dude, it could also be malfunction.
But without a paper trail we just don’t know. So what you present as knowledge is actually the unknown. Is there also a monster under your bed? Get real dude, knowledge is based on the known, not the unknown.
And “there are many here among us who think that” elections should be based upon the known, not the unknown mixed in with the election religion of faith no matter what. Get it yet?
I’m glad to see the ACLU is taking up the central tabulation issue in Ohio. Unfortunately, for us in Sacramento, our voter registrar just scrapped our ES&S precinct optical scanners (M100’s) for the Feb. 5th election because of unexplained failures in their logic and accuracy tests, so we will be doing centralized tabulation of our votes as well. I am more concerned about chain of custody issues, but alerting citizens of potential errors on their ballots before they are cast is also important.