Monday, October 30, 2006

Election Machine Woes


I early voted. I hit the straight Democratic ticket button and then went through race by race and made some other choices but never removed a vote for a Democratic candidate. Libertarian opponents to GOP judges got some of my votes, a write-in candidate for Supreme Court Judge got a vote, two Republicans got my vote. (Gasp! but one was an unopposed judge and one was for a Sekula spoiler.) In looking at the ballot summary, I noticed that it had not recorded a vote for governor despite my hitting the straight Democratic Ticket button. All of my dozens of other votes were correct. I quickly went back and corrected the Bell vote but why was it blank? There is a glitch in the machines we use that while the screen is moving to a new page and if you hit enter they may remove a vote for a candidate. Except I didn't hit enter and didn't do that. But what do I know, I must have made a mistake and removed my vote for Chris Bell. I have only been an election judge for years and have taken a half dozen or so e-slate training classes. The lesson is to triple check the summary pages of your votes before hitting cast ballot. If you vote in my precinct and something like this happens I will call it in and will try to take the machine out of service.

Florida voting machines giving wrong results - vote Dem get GOP

There are no reports of voters hitting the GOP candidate and getting the Democratic candidate. These reports follow reports from Dallas and Baytown, Texas as well as similar reports from Missouri and Arkansas. In the Texas primary, some electronic ballots were counted six times. The Texas Democratic Party has filed a lawsuit to replace our current system - if the GOP remains in power in Texas that won't happen.

The Florida excuse is that following complaints the poll workers should realign these touch-screen machines - a 15-step process. Except to me this is similar to the optical scan voting machines that reject bad ballots, but only if election workers flip a switch which they didn't do in high Democratic areas. Voting cards from optical scan machines can also be preloaded to subtract votes from one candidate and add them to another.

The former Bush appointed Head of the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) Rev. DeForest Soaries says he resigned because neither the White House nor the Congress was really serious about election reform, the commission produced no standards for voting machines, and the system and machines now are "ripe for stealing elections and for fraud."

In yet more bad news for voters, a glitch in the Chicago online voter database exposed all the information to anyone somewhat knowledgeable about databases. Typing in one character through an Internet connection brought access to all the data including Social Security numbers, birthdays and voting eligibility and the ability to make at least temporary changes.

An Ohio investigation with no support from the Democratic Party or the mass media has been uncovering massive evidence of voter fraud. Is the Democratic Party ready for another Holy Ghost election? The Free Press also reports:
This year Blackwell will count the votes in his own race for governor, in the crucial U.S. Senate race between GOP incumbent Mike DeWine versus Congressman Sherrod Brown, and in a number of critical House races hotly contested for the first time in years.

As he does so, Blackwell is conducting the largest purge of voter rolls since the apartheid nightmare of the post-Reconstruction Jim Crow south.

The Free Press has further learned that even at this early date, some ten percent of absentee votes are being trashed by Blackwell's BOEs. Ohio's new "no-fault" rule allows anyone to vote absentee for this election, so absentee voting is estimated to increase 20-30%. Many Ohioans are opting for the absentee ballots to avoid electronic voting machines, which are notoriously vulnerable to tampering.
Severe election problems seen in ten states
"This was supposed to be the year - and the election - when the voting process nationwide was more secure, more technologically advanced and more trusted by the citizens and candidates participating," Electionline.org said in a summary of its report. "Yet as the mid-term elections approach, machine failures, database delays and foul-ups, inconsistent procedures, new rules and new equipment have some predicting chaos at the polls at worst and widespread polling place snafus at best."
Direct Material Proof of Massive Election Fraud in Ohio in 2004 - Dr. Ron Bainman - Large PDF report.

A talk with Mark Crispin Miller about what voters can do to prevent another stolen election
1-Vote, vote, vote...and get everyone you know to vote as well
2-Write your congressmen and senators and demand uniformity and federal standards for the election process. Demand an end to electronic voting machines unless there's a viable paper trail. Demand paper ballots instead. Ask that election day be declared a national holiday
3-Bombard the media with letters and calls that demand coverage of election fraud
4-Organize demonstrations
5-Go armed to the polls next month with 1-866-OUR-VOTE and call it immediately to report any fraudulent and/or suspicious activity
Appeal filed to prevent Congress from bypassing state laws to seat candidates. Hastert this summer seated a congressional candidate while the election was still under review in California. A court then held that the election could not be reviewed.

Election Fraud 2006 – Quantifying The Risk

Whatever you do, don't get mad and storm out of the voting booth.

Time Cover Story - Can These Machines Be Trusted?

Texas Democrats preparing to go to court over unconstitutional voting system.

The shortest route to America's salvation is a straight ticket
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Electronic Voting Malfunctions and Miscounts, Sorted by Vendor

The Daily Voting News has a long list of links to news articles for one day. Here is one - Only 1 in 4 Americans Very Confident Votes Will Be Counted Accurately.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ain't Democracy great? Ultimately, probably in 2008, we'll have the ultimate fiasco, a Constitutional crisis over the vote. Then what? A civil war? Only time will tell but by constantly challenging the system and the validity of elections I suspect we're slowly underming any integrity that might be left in the system. It's worked it's magic on me.