Electronic Voting Has No Safety Net, Critics Say (FL)

[soup]

By JEROME R. STOCKFISCH [e-mail]
Published: Jun 14, 2005

TALLAHASSEE - A South Florida Election Day foul-up in November demonstrates shortcomings in the way the state counts votes, a reform group said Monday as it urged the Division of Elections to strengthen rules and accounting policies.

The triple tally of votes from a faulty machine in a south Miami precinct suggests there are ``extremely serious voting security problems'' with touch- screen voting systems, said Martha Mahoney, a University of Miami law professor and member of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition.
>snip<

They cited the case of Miami-Dade's Precinct 816, where 945 voters signed in to vote at a church, but 1,116 votes were sent to the official county canvass. It later was determined that one machine had sent results three times.

The discrepancy went unnoticed for months.
>more:
http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBXRLLLX9E.html

[LosinIt]

1. Faulty voting machine in Florida??? How could that be?

Perhaps they learned their Quality Assurance from the state of Ohio.

[soup]

2. Liberal media.

Much ado about something -

>>Election Systems and Software, the Omaha, Neb.-based manufacturer of the iVotronic system used in Miami-Dade County, acknowledged that a memory failure triggered last fall's incident. That should have been caught by a poll worker, whose repeated attempts to shut down the machine sent the results to the county over and over. Backup memory systems performed as expected and preserved the data, said Meghan McCormick, a company spokeswoman.

``We absolutely are confident in the equipment,'' McCormick said. She said ESS recommends that poll workers compare signatures with vote totals, the procedure the reform group is pushing.

The ESS iVotronic system is not used in Hillsborough or Pinellas counties. In Pasco, where it is, Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning said it could be ``problematic'' to require large counties to compare signatures and vote tallies before certifying the results. ``If the Legislature tells us that's what we have to do, then that's what we'll do,'' he said. ``But they'll have to give us more time to get it done.''<<

--

If they could just eliminate people from the process, it'd run much more smoothly.

[iconoclastic cat]

7. So all they had to do to cheat was toggle the on/off switch a few times?

So easy, a monkey could do it! Oh, wait...

[LightningFlash]

3. What a surprise.

:eyes: :eyes:

Yes surely, Blackwell doesn't have influence over Kaplan and the supervisors in Florida? What with them going to the same school. What a surprise that Florida was stolen. :toast:

[soup]

6. "the envy of the nation"

May 10, 2001

WEST PALM BEACH -- Gov. Jeb Bush returned to the land of hanging chads Wednesday for ceremonial signings of a new elections bill designed to take Florida off the Saturday night comedy shows and make it a model for the nation.

"It is a day to celebrate," Bush said as he, Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan and Secretary of State Katherine Harris joined Palm Beach Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore and legislative leaders. They gathered at the county's emergency operations center -- the place where butterfly ballots and controversial recounts occurred during the election dispute that resulted in George W. Bush winning the presidency.
>snip<

"With this bill, we can stand all the scrutiny of the nation," Bush added. "There will be no more chads."
http://www.sptimes.com/News/051001/State/Be_proud_of_election_.shtml

[truthisfreedom]

4. i never would have guessed. i guess all those rethuglicans who were

so worried about electronic voting were right!

[Wilms]

5. I'm relieved the problem was caught.

For a moment there, I thought the losing candidate won the presidency and the exit polls were right.

So how 'bout that Jackson verdict? :eyes:

[wallwriter]

8. I'm shocked. Shocked.

And frankly, I'll be even more shocked if the MSM ever pays any f***ing attention to one of the most grotesque frauds in US history.

[soup]

9. It's not just the media, I'm personally guilty, too.

The last thing I did to help/fight/correct/expose any of this was sending in $10.00 for the Ohio recount. :insert 'bad soup' icon here:

I'm just so glad there are others out there that didn't let go.

--

Miami-Dade County, Florida. May, 2005. ES&S iVotronic.
New evidence shows both phantom votes and lost votes in the November election.


The number of voters reported by election workers didn't match the number of ballots cast in 260 (35%) of Miami-Dade's 749 polling places. Some showed more votes than voters ("phantom votes"); others showed significantly more voters than ballots cast.*

While some of the discrepancies can be traced to sloppy procedures and training, others are evidence of problems not yet explained:

Phantom votes: precinct with a major difference was Precinct 362, which recorded 583 votes and 859 signatures. A review of that precinct's signature log found 580 signatures.

Phantom votes: in Precinct 41 there were 910 votes and 844 signatures, a difference of 62.

Lost votes: At combined Precinct 117/166, the ballots totaled 995 and the signatures numbered 1,276.
>more:
http://www.votersunite.org/info/content/newmessup-17.asp

[Tommymac]

10. Duh. nt