So I was invited to help test the voting machines today

[WolverineDG]

& when I got there, everyone laughed when I said I refuse to vote on machines. That I don't trust them, that they can get the counts wrong (either through machine error, intentional hacking/tampering, etc. Laugh laugh laugh. Do I use ATMs? Yes. Well, then, why not vote on the machines? Do the machines give me a receipt? :crickets: Well, is your balance always correct afterwards? Yes, but that's not the issue, & so on. Oh, dg, trust us, the machines are okay, they'll count the ballots right.

So, they run the test. 4 of us are present, 3 voting democratic, the other R, since he's the local party chair. Everyone chuckling at me. They print out the results. The results show that 3 voters voted REPUBLICAN & 1 DEMOCRATIC.

Ha ha ha. The R guy said while this might work well for him in the general election, he didn't like this error. So notations were made to tell ES&S to get it right for early voting. Which starts Tuesday. Primary day is March 4.

Moral of the story: DON"T TRUST THE FUCKING MACHINES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE, DEMAND A PAPER BALLOT!!!

BTW, I'm in Texas

dg

[NMDemDist2]

1. touch screen I assume? n/t

[WolverineDG]

2. with a cute little stylus

I must be :crazy: not to trust something that has a cute little stylus!!!

dg

[NMDemDist2]

4. at least we have ballots here in WEST west Tx (aka SE NM)

but they still use scanners to count....

[WolverineDG]

10. WEST west Texas

:rofl:

My friend from El Paso says they are really Eastern New Mexico. :)

dg

[NMDemDist2]

12. they are actually in South New Mexico

:rofl:

I love telling people "I live West of the Pecos and South of the Moon"

:evilgrin:

[gateley]

3. With today's technology, what could be so difficult in coming up with an

accurate machine which issues a paper copy?

Unless "they" don't WANT such a thing....:tinfoilhat:

[UpInArms]

5. I just covered the local Super Tuesday primaries

and the County Clerk (before Feb 5) said "I want you to come and see our voting machines. I promise the vote count will be accurate." So, I went to see.

The machines were great. They do not store any data. They are electronic pens. A paper ballot is printed with your vote on it - and it can be read manually or by a scanner on the machine - the vote count is accurate and not stored on the machines.

It's called "Populex" and it works great.

I witnessed it. I would vote on it with confidence knowing my vote would count.

It all depends on the machine and the way it works.

[Dumak]

9. Are the ballots it creates human readable? (nt)

[UpInArms]

14. yes

and machine scanable (is that a word?).

I held it in my hand and it was rather remarkable. I have to hand it to this particular county clerk - she really did her homework and had a mission - to make the vote real and countable and without a doubt, unhackable.

[gateley]

27. That sounds great - AND simple. I know that the Fed Gov can't mandate what

the States use for their local elections, but can't they insist that all FED elections use the same machine? Populex, for example? :7

[Lerkfish]

7. Its accurate, all right, it accurately manipulates votes

[MadMaddie]

8. Ding..Ding..Ding...the same companies that make the ATMS to

be accurate and print reciepts make the voting machines. They willingly are creating faulty machines. In my opinion they are interfering with the election process and should be prosecuted.

[kster]

13. Along with the Media who has already manipulated the 2008

election not by machines, but by the use of our airwaves.

People who get their news online vote

The final totals were:

Kucinich 31.97% 49364

Al Gore 24.77% 38242

Former Senator John Edwards 15.6% 24078

Senator Barack Obama 13.86% 21403

Senator Hillary Clinton 4.21% 6504

Governor Bill Richardson 4.09% 6309

Other 2.05% 3171

Senator Christopher Dodd 1.56% 2415

Senator Joe Biden 1.12% 1723

Former Senator Mike Gravel 0.77% 1182

Kucinich beat the other candidates among voters from the first caucus state of Iowa and the first primary state of New Hampshire. He also won the early caucus state of Nevada, while Obama won the early primary state of South Carolina.

Notably, Gore won New York state.

And what of the "front-runner" for the nomination? Hillary Clinton lost every state in the DFA survey, which saw 95 percent of voters back someone other than the New York senator.

It is no secret that the powers that be in the party leadership and the boardrooms of the major networks have fixated on Clinton as the likely nominee. Nor is it any secret that the party and media bosses would prefer to drop Kucinich from the roster of Democratic contenders who must be invited to join debates and participate in major events such as the Iowa Democratic Party's Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner. Gravel was excluded from the most recent Democratic debate at Drexel University and moderator Tim Russert did everything he could during the course of that debate to read Kucinich out of the running.

But Kucinich's poll numbers in formal national and state surveys actually went up after the Drexel debate. The congressman is polling ahead of Dodd and Biden -- as well as Gravel --in most national surveys of likely Democratic voters. The same is true of many surveys from early caucus and primary states. And, with the DFA result, he can now point to an impressive finish in a test most of the major contenders took seriously. While Kucinich certainly campaigned hard to get votes in the DFA poll, Obama, Edwards, Richardson and Dodd made significant efforts -- by sending emails and cutting videos -- to encourage their backers to participate in the survey. As such, Kucinich's win is meaningful -- and it should become at least a bit more difficult to dismiss the congressman's win, and his candidacy.


Posted by John Nichols at 11/06/2007 @ 10:38pm | Email This Post


http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=249126

[truedelphi]

33. And every one of their head honchos that say that it will require

X amount of thousands of dollars more to have a mchaine give receipts should serve six months for every time he or she has said that.

[livvy]

29. Hi, Gateley! Welcome to ER,

Lots to learn here and good people, too.
:patriot:

[babylonsister]

6. Wow! And that SUCKS! Rec'd. nt

[kansasblue]

11. "Do I use ATMs?"

Do I use ATMs? Yes, because I know what amount of money I should have in the bank. I don't need to know the totals of everyone money.

When I vote all votes go into one account (so to speak). I care how much is in that account. But I don't know what other people have put in. In this case if someone changes the total it's impossible for any one person to prove the count is wrong. The controls for this type of data collection need to exceed that of a normal bank account.

Imagine an bank account where everyone privately puts in money. And at the end a third party will tell you how much money was put in.

It's not at all like an ATM. Reject that comparison immediately when it's offered.

[WolverineDG]

15. My mind was so busy with other stuff

that I overlooked the perfect shut-down of that line of argument: If there is an error, I HAVE A DAMN PIECE OF PAPER TO BACK IT UP!!!

The best part of the whole thing was watching all the smirks fall off faces when the results from these wonderful machines was wrong.

dg

[Votergater]

16. Can I ask 'WolverineDG'... Did anyone film the machine test you witnessed?

This is exactly the kind of evidence that documentary film makers like myself need to make the case for films with
Executive producers and great broadcasters such as HBO (who got our documentary "Hacking Democracy" out across America)

[WolverineDG]

17. No

It was just the standard "let's do the machine test before election day" thing. I got a call from a friend who said that it was starting at 3 & the Dem party chair wanted me to be there (this was at 3:20ish). This wasn't even on my radar; I actually went to the test so I could ask the party chair if he knew of anyone w/office space for the Obama campaign.

I'm not sure if they're going to do another between the end of early voting & Election Day, though, but pm me for contact info if you like. Much more crap happened here in 2006, lawsuits filed, etc, so I can give you that info if you want as well.

dg

[crispini]

18. Wow, what a mess.

Glad you have a choice.

[Fly by night]

19. Is there any written documentation available on this event? It would help us here in Tennessee.

As much as I use DU as a major source of info, distributing your thread would not be useful because our Republican legislators would cry "bias". I don't doubt your account at all. However, a written report from your local election officials that documents your experience would be very powerful here.

If there is such documentation available, please let me know. I will PM you with a fax number and/or my email address and would appreciate your sending me the documentation ASAP. (I speak before our legislature again soon.)

Thanks kindly. I wish I had been there to help wipe the smiles off your colleagues' faces and listen to them choke on their laughter. Dumb asses indeed.

Greetings from a Texas-Ex (MA, 1976), back when Austin was really weird (we just didn't know it.)

[sonias]

20. Fly by night - I didn't know you were an ex-Austinite

Especially from way back in 1976. I was here then too.

Anyhow I have dg getting me all her specifics too for our Texas lawsuit which goes to court on March 31st. The only way you're going to get the election officials to write/document this is to subpoena them.

In Texas the only way you get anything passed at the Lege is to sue them and win in the courts. We've been through 2 legislative rounds with them on these paperless DREs and they keep bottling up our bills in committee because they're cheap ass bastards.

Which is why we had so much hope that one of the Holt bills would force them to take action. Now we are totally screwed for Nov of this year.

Austin uses Hart Intercivic eSlate as do many of the large urban counties. Harris/Houston area is eSlate too.

:hi:

Sonia

[Fly by night]

22. Ah yes, Barton Springs, Hippie Hollow, the Armadillo ... those were the days.

Unfortunately, I didn't stick around long, earning my MA in nine months and then moving on to Tyler and all points beyond. Still have sweet memories though of a very beautiful and welcoming community.

Here in Tennessee, our legislature is moving forward with a vvpb bill (which passed the relevant Senate committee on a UNANIMOUS vote on Tuesday). But these kinds of up-to-the-minute examples of DRE cluster-farts will be helpful here.

Hope to get back to Austintacious someday -- maybe on the way to Fanta Se, NM -- my heart's second home.

[sonias]

23. You let us know if you ever make it back to Austin

You do know that Netroots Nation is in Austin this year don't you? Don't know if you're a Daily Kos reader, but this is huge for us in Texas.

You wouldn't recognize Austin at all these days. It would break your heart, but at the same time we have our little funky culture.

Sonia

[SharonRB]

21. Good job, DG!

I would have loved to see the look on their faces.

:rofl:

[WolverineDG]

26. Ah that was the best part

watching all those faces getting hit with a brick wall at the same time.

dg

[Patsy Stone]

24. Wowee

Kill the machines!

Thanks for your vigilance DG, and don't ever let the naysayers get you down. Until there is transparency, the vote will be in question.

K&R and :thumbsup:

[WolverineDG]

25. UPDATE

They have received the corrected software/whatever & are having another test today. I will update you with the results when I return.

dg

[livvy]

28. Way to go, Wolverine!

I bet the look on all their faces was a keeper.
I'm looking forward to your update.
:hi: and a :hug: Long time no see!

[WolverineDG]

30. UPDATE Part 2

The problem, whatever it was, has been fixed, papers signed, etc. And now comes election season!

dg

[tbyg52]

31. Sure, and

what guarantee is there that the *fix* will actually stick for the actual election? And how would anyone know if it did or if it didn't. (I know, preaching to the choir.... ;) )

[riqster]

32. Next question:

...to ba asked right before the election, preferably election eve: "Were all of the machines under lock and key since the fix?"

Assuming the answer will be "no", ask them to run the test again. ;-)