[Cynthia] McKinney calls for review of voting machines

[Bill Bored]

<http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=62916>

And then there's the rest of the story:

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x384604>

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x384423>

[wli]

1. review? suspend use during review if there's a doubt!

This is not a serious question. You don't leave those suspected of crimes wandering the streets during their trials, nor should one leave a suspect voting machine in prevalent use while it is suspect.

[Orsino]

9. Yep. Too late.

You hand balloting over to private corporations who use proprietary software on machines you're not allowed to touch, you deserve what happens next.

It starts with an 'f', and rhymes with fascism.

[autorank]

2. Great post. This is a perfectly normal suggestion...should be routine.

It shows how screwed up our current election system is when calling for a review, it's called "quality assurance" most places, is somehow an extreme request; causing the requester to be labeled as an extremist.

I believe that McKinney is a true patriot.

RECOMMENDED!!! If you love John Conyers, you'll do the same.

[loudsue]

17. I love John Conyers. I love Cynthia McKinney.

True patriots, heroes, both. Their courage and commitment to Democracy, and to the good of the CITIZENS of this country, just amaze me.

No wonder the repukes hate 'em, and turn their propaganda hounds on 'em every chance they get: Conyers and McKinney LOVE America. The fascists think the framers of the constitution were way too liberal. The repukes HATE America, and REALLY HATE "equality", which the constitution was founded on.

:kick::kick::kick:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. What's worse is when alleged Democrats make snide remarks about

these true patriots. :grr:

I didn't know much about Cynthia McKinney until I saw her interviewed in a documentary. She is one smart, smart woman, so no wonder the Republicanites hate her.

[MajorFlaw]

3. Interesting stuff.

:hi:

[snot]

4. Kick&nom'd--Election reform shd be our top priority. nt

[slay]

12. That's so true - How can we elect Dems if the machines are rigged?

We need paper trails, random audits, open source programming that can be verified correct, and companies that aren't run by Republican criminals counting the votes.

[Bill Bored]

5. 7/19 in the AJC:

<http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/0705/19mckinney.html>

[althecat]

10. That's pretty straight...

Found it now...

"The DeKalb County Democrat criticized the state for investing in a $54 million touch-screen computer format from Diebold Elections Systems and then forgoing adequate testing before the general election three years ago. McKinney suggested the failure raised doubts about the accuracy of the election results then and the outcome of the 2004 decisions — when McKinney herself won back her seat after a two-year absence."

COX and Diebold are (unsurprisingly AWOL)

A spokesman for Diebold did not return calls seeking comment.

Chris Riggall, press secretary for Secretary of State Cathy Cox, said the Diebold machines underwent "the country's most rigorous testing of voting equipment ever."

[eomer]

16. RIGGALL?! Is that really his or her name?

Riggall says the machines underwent "the country's most rigorous testing of voting equipment ever" but forgets to mention the little fact that THEY FAILED THE TEST!

For example, one item in the punchlist:

• Voters' selection of candidate on TS units improperly reflected on “Summary Screen”.

Good to know they were tested very thoroughly. Not to worry that the test found the system recording votes for the wrong candidate. /sarcasm

[Boredtodeath]

24. Yep, that's his real name

Pretty ironic, isn't it?

He's almost as smarmy as Ari Fleischer, too.

[Judi Lynn]

6. She's got guts. These people don't intend to lose. They've got control

and expect to keep it without much trouble, no doubt. I enjoyed the last paragaraph:

State elections officials dismissed McKinney's complaints, especially that the machines weren't properly tested before the 2002 elections.

"There's absolutely no credible information whatsoever that there has been any tampering," said Chris Riggall, spokesman for the Secretary of State, who oversees elections. "As a matter of fact, the accuracy level has soared and the real scandal is the antiquated system Georgia had before, which had the second-highest error rate in the country."

McKinney said she planned future news conferences where she would show more evidence of problems with electronic voting.

I hope she'll remember not to consider any small airplane trips anywhere.

[Peace Patriot]

7. Three cheers for McKinney! That woman speaks the truth!

She--and all of us--need to look into the bipartisan corruption in the electronic voting industry. Our elections have become big business deals, and one of the reasons reform is so difficult is that both Democratic and Republican state/local election officials have become corrupted by lavish lobbying, "revolving door" employment, the allure of being "experts" and "professionals" in the highly esoteric gobble-de-gook of electronic voting, and the power of controlling big expenditures for these complicated, high maintenance, insecure, hackable election systems.

Check out this hogfest at the Beverly Hilton this August--a week of fun and sun, and "graduation awards" (!!??) for local election officials from around the country, sponsored by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia, the prime purveyors of election theft machinery. It will burn your eyeballs!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

It has been absolutely incomprehensible to me how our Democratic Party leadership permitted Bushite companies--major Bush donors and campaign chairs (Diebold and ES&S)--to gain control of the country's vote tabulation with SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code!

I mean, come on...is that no-brainer, or what?

Well, the above-mentioned bipartisan corruption is why, in my opinion. It is absolutely appalling. Our election officials have literally sold our right to vote to the corporate rulers in exchange for weeklong vacations in Hollywood and other personal and professional perks.

We need to clean house. We need a BIG BROOM. We need

--paper ballots/hand counts

or at the least

--paper ballot backup of electronic systems, stringent auditing and security, and no secret, proprietary programming code owned and controlled by Bushites!

Jeez.

[ladjf]

8. The future of American politics hinges on whether or not our

politicians will step up and correct this awful scam. If they don't, it's simply all over.

[loudsue]

18. That's the plain and simple truth. We fix it, or it's over.

:kick::kick::kick:

[ladjf]

22. There's really no use to discuss all of the other political issues.

If they can steal elections, unchallenged, why bother? We still have a slim chance to correct this problem and re-gain some control of our Democratic government. However, if we blow it in 2006 and 2008, as you have correctly said, it's all over.

[Al-CIAda]

11. McKinney dares to speak the truth, while the POS in the party

leave her, Conyers, Slaughter, Boxer, etc out on a limb. Its disgusting how they care so little about stolen elections -just so long as they get their cut. America is but an idea, because this democracy died several years ago.

[left hand man]

13. I live in Ga. and agree

We had the old mechanical machines for years. then we went to the "Opti Scan" where you took a black marker and "filled in" the gap on your choice.I thought this was the best system, as you scan it into the machine for instant results,but had a hard copy for review.
The new Diebold voters are ripe for manipulation-- I have a buddy who can do magic on computer software--- and I bet there are folks out there who make him look like a rookie.
This is a system only a politician could love.
my.02 worth

[marions ghost]

20. opti-scan is also

much CHEAPER than DREs to buy and maintain.
Here's a Feb 2005 article from Florida about costs:
-----------------------------

DRE Voting Machines Costly To Use

Upon the recommendation of the Sarasota County supervisor of elections, the County Commission spent $4.7 million for direct-recording electronic voting machines in November 2001. The DREs were supposed to be less expensive to use than other machines. To measure the accuracy of this, we have analyzed and compared the annual expenditures of the supervisors of elections offices for Sarasota and Manatee counties for the fiscal years 1999 through 2004. (Manatee County purchased optical scanners in 1997. Because the registered voting population of Manatee County is approximately 20 percent smaller than Sarasota's, we increased Manatee's annual costs by 25 percent to correct for this disparity).

Sarasota County's average annual expenses for 1999- 2001 were $1.8 million and, for 2002-2004, $2.8 million.

Manatee County's adjusted average annual expenses for 1999-2001 were $1.3 million and, for 2002-2004, $1.7 million.

It is obvious from the data that there was an increase of a million dollars per year in average annual expenses of the Sarasota County elections office in changing from punch cards to the DREs. Also, it has cost Sarasota County, on average, an extra $1.2 million each year to maintain and operate the DREs vs. Manatee County's adjusted average annual cost for using optical scanners.

Clearly, using DREs is significantly more expensive than using the punch cards we had before 2002 or optical scanners. There would have been real savings if the Sarasota County Commission had discarded the DREs in April 2004 and spent $600,000 to buy optical scanners, as a citizens' group had suggested to the commissioners. The supervisor of elections said that paper ballots were expensive. Manatee bought its paper ballots for 20 cents each. For 100,000 voters, this amounts to $20,000, a trivial sum compared with the above-mentioned $1.2 million.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050225/OPINION/502250391/1029

[Eloriel]

26. Opti-Scan NOT problem free, in fact just as bad with 1 exception

and that exception is that there is at least a paper ballot which is an integral part of the system.

Otherwise, they use some of hte very same software and are every bit as vulnerable to fraud, hackings, etc., etc., etc. as touchscreens. Every bit.

[marions ghost]

28. not presenting it as trouble-free

but it is far simpler for voters to use and the technology has been around since the 60's. Much less maintenance. Mainly I wanted to stress the point of how much cheaper the opti-scan systems are than DREs. I don't think we're going to get all hand-counted in bigger precincts--but at least with paper ballots, we could get random hand counts as the voting proceeds.

Of course everything electronic in the system such as a scanner is vulnerable to hacking. That's a separate issue which has to be addressed no matter what system you use. The whole system has to be made more transparent.

[Al-CIAda]

14. .

[VegasWolf]

15. What genius "black box voting" is for these corrupt politicians. No

accounting, no traceability, no method to rectify even if fraud
were proved. Diebold, pure evil GENIUS. Brilliant!

[loudsue]

19. It's part of the mafia that's running our government.

There IS no more democracy in America.

:kick:

[goforit]

21. Gooooooo Cynthia!!!

[Bill Bored]

23. kick for the VIDEOS!

There are now videos available here:

<http://www.dembloggers.com/story/2005/7/19/232324/915>

[Kilroy003]

27. Gotta love that woman.

Horseshit news cycle timing, but love her anyway.