Paper Ballot Election Results Flip in UT After 'Recount' Finds Original Tally 'Extremely' Wrong

[BradBlog]

Source: BRAD BLOG



Paper Ballot Op-Scan Election Results in Utah Flipped After 'Recount' Finds New Tally 'Extremely in Favor of Opposite Candidate'
'We're doing recounts of recounts of recounts,' says candidate announced as 'loser' on Election Night...

After the Municipal Council elections in Provo, Utah on November 8, residents had been told that Gary Winterton had narrowly defeated Bonnie Morrow for the District 1 seat --- by just 9 votes.

The margin was close enough that Morrow was allowed to ask for a recount of the paper ballots which were tallied on Election Night by the city's optical scan systems made by Diebold Election Systems, Inc. (Following years of failure of Diebold's voting systems, the company changed their name to Premier, only to see the assets of the failing company finally purchased last year by Dominion Voting, a Canadian firm which now services the machines.) The same optical scan systems are used all over the country, and are set once again for use in the New Hampshire's "first in the nation" GOP Presidential primary to be held in January.

The first "recount" of Provo's Municipal Council District 1 ballots --- carried out on the same op-scan systems that tallied them in the first place --- was held yesterday, only to be abruptly called off when the results were found to be "extremely in favor of the opposite candidate"…

FULL STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8948


Read more: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8948

[CoffeeCat]

1. Our elections are a total joke...

Most likely, the majority of elections are stolen and the results fudged.

Why in the world anyone would argue how important it is to vote--is beyond me. It's
very sad, but the corruption and potential for fraud is so great--that voting has
become incredibly questionable and probably meaningless.

[BeFree]

4. For Now

But since folks like you and Brad continue to press for clean and transparent elections one day we will get justice and good elections again.

[No Elephants]

15. I doubt it. There was such an outcry after 2000. I was sure Democrats would do something when they

got control again.

They held some hearings, which established how easy it was to rig elections, then did nothing, not even force Republicans to a public vote.

It was such stunning inaction, especially when you consider that the vote is supposedly the basis of our entire system and their very own jobs depend on votes.

We really need to ponder why that happened.

[qb]

45. It was after 2000 that Congress called for unverifiable electronic devices.

The Dems were duped into believing they were better than mechanical punch or lever devices.

[No Elephants]

150. Do you have any basis at all for assuming they were duped?

[nebenaube]

69. yeah...

That was when I gave up... Where I voted in Wisconsin uses the same junk... with all the thugg ery that is going on there now over the recall petitions; I sense that the first skirmishes of the next 'civel war' will start there... on edit: they just legalized conceal carry there in a state where even a bow had to be in a case...

[snot]

72. That was when I began to fear that some substantial no. of Dems were essentially corrupted.

Their failure to act on that issue, as well as their acquiescence in the loosening of restrictions on media consolidation, made no sense unless they were complicit.

[2pooped2pop]

114. yep, me too. n/t

[saras]

77. They didn't "do nothing" here - the Democratic PARTY strongly SUPPORTED the machines

When the public asked them about election fraud, they said the machines were trustworthy against outside hackers. When the public asked how secure they were against hackers INSIDE the system, they literally smiled and said "you'll just have to trust us."

[certainot]

137. GOP/rove convinced tens of millions by radio that dems/acorn/ illegals are stealing

they controlled the messaging on this like everything else- by invisible radio waves-

GOP could generate instant statewide ridicule via local radio blowhard for any dem official suggesting fraud without proof. the same mechanism, mainly talk radio, was use to make excuses to keep americans from charging into the streets, and bring out hoards of dittoheads to attack any dem questioning without proof.

[tavalon]

101. Yeah, it's almost like they're complicit

Strike the "it's almost like".

[chervilant]

123. Actually,

at that specific point, it became crystal clear that the 'Democrats' were in the same lifeboat as the 'Republicans,' and the vast Hoi Polloi was floundering in the shark-infested waters.

[No Elephants]

153. It did not become obvious to me until about a year or two ago. Old habits die hard, I guess.

[chervilant]

169. Well,

I would argue that some of us--myself and, judging from your response, you--prefer to trust what people say. Isn't that what it means to have integrity--that a person with integrity is a truthful person?

Plus, we are taught to trust our government (good ol' patriotism, that last refuge to which a scoundrel clings...), and to exercise our right to vote. We are TRAINED to view voting as a civic duty AND a fundamental right.

I think Frank Zappa was right. Now, TPTB are pulling down the curtains, so that we can clearly see the brick wall. I suspect they are so confident in their mendacity that they think we'll fuss for a little while, and then adjust to the new scenery.

They are so very wrong...

[tblue]

126. I thought they would too.

Why didn't they? Pelosi/Reid/Obama? WTH?!

[oldhippydude]

134. the excuse they use

is that they are aware, but bringing it out in the open would simply add to the number of folks that are already staying away figuring what/s the use..

[No Elephants]

151. Very lame. That does not explain why they did not pass laws while they controlled Congress.

Strong, strong punishments for election fraud.

If election fraud might disencourage turnout, then strong penalties for election fraud might encourage turnout, right?


What the hell is the point of not discouraging voter turnout if the machines decide the vote anyway?

Sorry, that excuse does not hold together at all.

[No Elephants]

16. Self delete. Dupe.

[reACTIONary]

139. UPDATE: Hand-count finds ORIGINAL tally correct...

So they had some problem during the recount, stopped and did it right. And the original counts proved correct.t t

You know there are always at least two parties in every election both keeping an eye on each other. Neither are going to tolerate any nonsense from the other.

If you are suspicious, why don't you volunteer to be an election judge or observer? My guess is that you would come away from the experience with confidence in the system.

[bhikkhu]

6. Voting and demanding clean elections go hand in hand

I think its clear enough.

[pnwmom]

9. We have independent pollsters making their counts, too -- which is the way

we validate elections in foreign countries. Everyone voting is very important, because it is harder for them hide a very big discrepancy in the count. The bigger the margin, the better.

[No Elephants]

21. A truly "independent" pollster in the Uniuted States? Who might that be?

[quakerboy]

76. Not so far

We as a nation appear to find it quite easy to ignore any evidence that there might be a discrepancy, big or small.

[99th_Monkey]

86. Just. wow. we need 2 shine some bright sunlight on this dank disihonesty & corruption.~nt

[99th_Monkey]

87. It's not like a big secret our elections have been hacked into tiny pieces by 1%'s wood-chipper ~nt

[dotymed]

106. That is what is so telling.

We have "shined the light" very brightly, for years, about the discrepancies in our "voting" system. It has not mattered. That makes it very apparent that all or most of our politicians are aware of and complicit in the theft of our democracy. Until 2000, exit polls were so accurate that an election could be "called" before the polls even closed. this was the case for decades. When "W" was selected, it all changed. The exit polls proved that "W" had lost in many states and that he did not stand a chance after he lost Florida.

Viola, one call to Jeb and it all changed. Florida along with a few other states( where the exit polls had already called the race, against "W" suddenly became "up for grabs" and were switched from the "D" category to either the "R" category or the "too close to call" category. "Our" media was obviously complicit. They readily accepted and even apologized to America for the sudden inaccuracies of their exit polls. They gave the most ridiculous "explanations" ever heard. (" people who had voted for "W" lied to the exit pollsters," etc.)

Since the democrats did not fight much and the repubs were screaming their lies as usual, it was so obvious that our elections no longer mattered. Poppy bush spent much of his career, "fixing elections" in other countries, that stealing Americas democracy was just another day for the bush crime syndicate.

"We elect" no one. TPTB (just like the politburo in the old USSR did) decide who they want for a figurehead and that is who we get. It is the same for Congress and SCOTUS. America has been seized.

We must join OWS if we hope to restore America.

[INdemo]

2. Take note ..this is how Obama will lose in 2012

and no the backbone Democrats will let everything slide and Repukes will tally up another election theft.

[Cleita]

18. If that happens, I predict you will see an

occupy protest movement like you've never seen before. Wisconsin and Ohio were only a taste of what could come. People are really fed up and I don't think they will put up with the shenanigans of the corrupted election system any longer.

[glinda]

63. It will be too late by then. They will call out the militarized troops.

[lonestarnot]

108. K & R!

[No Elephants]

19. I would be beyond stunned if Obama lost in 2012.

[tavalon]

102. Would you be stunned enough to join us in the streets?

I don't think it will happen but I didn't think they would steal the 2004 election and they did, so.......

[No Elephants]

154. I would be happy to be in the street. Who is "us" though? Precious few out there with OWS.

200,000 in Tahrir Square the other day, according to the estimate of one NBC reporter who was there.

42 in Washington, D.C.--and that was twice as many as the ones who started the trek there.

[dotymed]

107. Me too.

If Obama "lost" there would be some r/w changes occur faster, in the endgame, if we allow things to continue, the changes will happen eventually. Whatever TPTB wants.

[SammyWinstonJack]

110. Unless the PTB decide otherwise.

:shrug:

[Blue Owl]

3. Karl Rove's "the math" at work for America

:mad:

[No Elephants]

20. Did Rove control Congress between January 2007 and January 2011?

[tavalon]

103. Apparently,

I thought the Democrats did, but since they were still acting like the minority party, maybe they knew something we didn't.

[certainot]

138. no, but 1000 invisible radio stations still sell the notion dems/illegals/acorn steal elections. and

the roves still manage most of that messaging.

[red dog 1]

5. WTF? ..... "30% of voters next year will be voting on unverifiable touch-screen machines"?

This is terrible!...............According to the Brad Blog article:

"20 to 30% of voters next year will be forced to vote on 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems next year, the very same paper-ballot optical-scan machines that failed in 2008....."

[Name removed]

118. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[GoCubsGo]

119. Dupe.

Sorry.

[drm604]

7. These machines are what we need to be protesting.

OWS, are you listening?

[stillwaiting]

22. They are ONE thing we need to be protesting.

The entire system and way we elect our candidates must change.

Paper ballots is one very important thing that must change.

There are many others.

Removing legalized bribery, instituting publicly funded elections, imposing term limits, creating bans on serving as lobbyists/corporate BOD's/etc., creating a massively reduced campaign season - it's time to kill the circus, etc.

We need to make the system work for the people and not have a system that guarantees millions to those of us who become elected to Congress. Those days are hopefully coming to an end one day.

[No Elephants]

25. Boston went to paper ballots for the 2004 Presidential, but then went to a different form of

automated and, in both cases, counting was done electronically.

In both cases, the voter received no verification.

That is a Democratic Mayor in a state that has had over 90% Democrats in the state legislature for as long as I can remember and, since 2006, has had a Democratic Governor--one of Obama's campaign co-chairs in 2008, in fact.

I finally faced that both Parties loves them some electronics in voting.

[red dog 1]

62. "Both Parties loves them some electronics in voting"???......I don't think so!

[snot]

75. Hon, I'm afraid you need to look into some history. Seriously.

Dig into the Election Reform forum archives for a bit. If there was any doubt before 2004 that the situation was dire, that clinched it. Greg Palast and some others did first-rate investigative work, and statisticians did first-rate analyses showing the utter impossibility of some of the election results, and computer experts demonstrated time and again how easily the machines could be hacked, and Kennedy Jr. published a couple of brilliant articles in Rolling Stone, and grass-roots people like me and some other DU'er's gave money and wrote letters and hollered, and John Conyers held hearings and wrote a book about it, and the rest of Congress did nothing.

And then DU created a separate forum for the issue, so now most DU-er's don't have to hear about it.

But in any event, there is absolutely no way that Congressional Dems could have remained ignorant of the dangers of electronic voting.

[Chipper Chat]

133. Kerry won Ohio in 2008

but in some counties the machines were programmed so that every 10th vote for Kerry "flipped" to Bush. That's all it took. Plus that county that closed their doors to tabulate the votes in secret and the press was locked out (Cant remember which one). Ergo: Bush won! (the presidency that is.) Thank you Ohio.

[No Elephants]

157. If the elections in 2000 and 2004 were in fact stolen from Democrats by Republicans,

isn't that all the more reason to be stunned that Democrats did not enact laws, such as stiffer penalties for election fraud, when they took control of Congress in 2006? Or at least forced Republicans to vote against such laws?

Please see Reply 15 and the responses to it, among other posts on this thread.

We really need to update our red team, blue team paradigm.

[cui bono]

141. What? An election fraud dungeon??? Why?

That's ridiculous. Do TPTB at DU think it's wild conspiracy talk???

[snot]

143. Sorry; I don't think it was actually meant as a dungeon, but . . .

unfortunately, at least some of the effects were similar.

[Name removed]

144. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[No Elephants]

158. Which federal laws were enacted? And if you are relying on Bradblog, please

see his post on this subject, agreeing with me.

[No Elephants]

159. Self delete. Dupe

[red dog 1]

172. "HON", .I went to DU Election Reform forum....Here's what I found ..(& it's Frightening!)

"GOP Election Director Calls Into 'Malloy Show' on Probes With Pa. County's E-Voting Systems"....http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8834

"Ohio Supreme Court Throws 2012 Elections Into Chaos"
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2011015/NEWS01/1101

"Florida and other GOP-dominated states' new election rules could shut out 5 million voters in 2012"
http://www.postonpolitics.com/2011/10/florida-and-other-

"Disenfranchise No More"
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/disenfranchise

"EAC Initiates Formal Investigation Into ES&S Unity 3.2.0.0 Voting System"
http://www.eac.gov/eac-initiates-formal-investigation-

"Microsoft Researchers Propose Using Crypto-Technique as Temporary Band-Aid For Making E-Voting Secure"............(E-Voting remains insecure Despite Paper Trail)
http://www.infoworld.com/t/security/e-voting-still-insecure-

We need good old fashion' paper ballots in all 50 states...throw all the new machines out..........I wonder if the Republicans would agree to that?

[red dog 1]

179. HON........you're right!

[BradBlog]

80. ""Both Parties loves them some electronics in voting"???......I don't think so!" / I do.

[slay]

82. Indeed

I do too - it gives them TOTAL control. any decent Dem will oppose these horrible machines - if they don't, they are bought pure and simple. how hard is it to hand count? sheesh.

[Name removed]

147. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[patrice]

121. See post #120 re the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

[red dog 1]

148. Does post # 120 show that Democrats want voting machines without a paper ballot recount option?

[Name removed]

149. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[patrice]

168. "show"? "prove"???? Bwaa, ha, ha etc. ... don't know where you're trying to go with that. The post

I referenced is simply a suggestion to look into how HAVA was written, most especially by whom, and more importantly how it was implemented, again, and even more importantly, by whom.

[red dog 1]

170. Re: how HAVA was written, by Whom, & How it was implemented & by Whom.

patrice, I've looked up & down here & can't find your post # 120.

After that, I went to Brad Blog & read everything I could on HAVA; and found nothing as to WHO in Congress actually wrote or Who in Congress actually implemented it.

However, I did find some disturbing information about the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, including EAC activities after Obama came to office & when Dems controlled the House of Representatives.

Brad Bolg ...Guest Blog by John Gideon of Voters Unite.org
"Eac-Ya: The Nation's Federal System's Voting Oversight Commission Refuses To Do It's Job, Answer a Simple Question."

From the article, Gideon writes:
It's clear that if there is to be any federal body to recommend investigation and/or prosecution to the DoJ, in regards criminal violation of federal law concerning voting systems, it is to be the EAC, the body charged with testing, certifying, and performing as the "national clearinghouse..with respect to the administration of federal elections." (42 U S C ^ 15322) and the electronic voting systems employed across the country.
And yet the EAC has continued to utterly fail in those duties, as a particularly maddening chain of inquiries and e-mails---back and forth and round and round--that we'd sent to the EAC commissioners and their spokesperson over the past three months
illustrates all too well."

Gideon was getting bullshit answers & promises of e-mail replies that never came.

Since this was taking place both before and after Obama took office in 2009, it appears that election irregularities regarding electronic voting machines wasn't something that President Obama thought important enough to do anyhting about.

I still would like to see what you have in post # 120; and if you want to message it to me, I would appreciate it.

[No Elephants]

156. Anything at all to support your assumption?

I gave some of the bases for my conclusions in Replies 15 and 25.

Replies to my Post 15 and other posts on this thread indicate the bases some other posters had for agreeing with me.

You, however, did not state any basis for your disagreement.

[red dog 1]

171. Nope! ...I stand corrected & now see that Obama doesn't care about voting machine fraud

[No Elephants]

174. Obama? I referred you to my posts about Congress and Boston.

This is way bigger than Obama.

BTW, I saw that you had a problem finding a post on the thread. Explorer and Chrome both enable you find something on a web page instantly. In Explorer, it's under the "EDIT" heading. In Chrome, it's where you see the little wrench icon.

Just type 120. and click on "Find." Be sure to put a period after the post number.

The "Find" function will make your life on message boards so much easier. It did mine, anyway.

[red dog 1]

176. You're Right!..."This is way bigger than Obama!"

"Explorer"?..."Chrome"?....I am barely able to post here & on my blogs, and barely able to write e-mails....I'm still a Beginner here on this computer & can only afford crappy dial-up, so I'm unable to even watch videos longer than 1 minute....

I read your other posts & I now agree with all you say...It IS way bigger than Obama.

I can't believe how naive I was to think that only the Repubs wanted DRE's with no verification....it's the Dems too.

Brad Friedman straightened me out in a long response to an e-mail I sent him....
He told me "even the
Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails", or VPATs, added to the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) machines still do not make them any more verifiable..
A DRE with a VPAT is still a 100% unverifiable voting system."

He also told me that many Dems in Congress do not want verifiable DREs, including Rush Holt "who once told me he'd be happy if everybody in the country voted on unverifiable touch-screen systems." ...(and I thought Holt was one of the "good guys")

After spending a couple of hours in the DU Election Reform forum, I found some very disturbing information about the unverifiable DREs;.... but I also found a possible "temporary fix",... it's the last link that I list in Post # 172.,(HON,I went to DU Election Reform forum etc)
"Microsoft Researchers Propose Using Crypto-Technique As Temporary Band-Aid For Making E-Machines Secure"

Too bad we can't just throw out all the damn touch-screen & optical scan voting machines & bring back the good old mechanical voting machines where you pull down the levers,.... remember them?

[Enthusiast]

90. Plus one! nt

[No Elephants]

23. You want someone else to protest?

[drm604]

31. Someone else?

I'm not sure what you mean.

[No Elephants]

34. Someone other than yourself..

[drm604]

50. Why shouldn't I?

[drm604]

57. To clarify... Why shouldn't I protest?

You think it needs to be someone other than me? :shrug:

[some guy]

73. I think the point was

in your post # 7 you call for OWS to protest.

The response was essentially why aren't you protesting instead of calling on OWS to protest for you.

[drm604]

74. And my subject line said

"These machines are what we need to be protesting."

I was including myself.

[nadinbrzezinski]

43. The list s long

That happens to be in the list.

[Initech]

8. We need to constitutionally ban electronic voting - it's getting dangerous.

[Politicalboi]

11. We already passed "dangerous" in 2000

[No Elephants]

29. Good luck with that. (Please see replies 15 and 25.)

[glinda]

64. We need a movement and petitions and actions NOW.

[Scuba]

10. Paper ballots. Hand counted. In public. Nothing less. n/t

[Paka]

12. Amen to that. n/t

[patrice]

13. YES!!! On a national PATRIOTIC HOLIDAY for voting, begins on Friday and ends the following Tuesday.

[Scuba]

14. Great idea. n/t

[patrice]

26. Yeah, if we can get 4 days off for religious holidays, why not for a holiday for saving our ass by

VOTING???

Make it a huge celebration, bigger and more patriotic than the 4th of July.

Go ahead and indulge our every impulse for commercialism to motivate everyone to register and vote.

Hell, we might even get more than 50% of registered voters to vote.

[No Elephants]

32. Saving our ass by voting on a Diebold machine?

[patrice]

39. No. See post #10 & its sub-thread. nt

[No Elephants]

152. Paper ballots, counted in public, by hand is simply not going to happen, though.

So, yeah, it's voting machines and/or counting machines made by Diebold or by someone else.

And, even if paper ballots, counted in public by hand, were to happen, voting might not "save our ass."

For proof, I give you the federal elections of 2006 and 2008, esp. 2008. Overwhelming majoritiy in the House, 60 in the Democratic caucus in the Senate and a Democrat in the WH. Yet, my ass was not saved.

ETA: And for those who bring up Lieberman every time a knee jerks, the Senate rules could have been changed by a simple majority of Senators in January 2007, January, 2009 (and January 2011, but changing them then would have been too obvious).

Moreover, there is no evidence Lieberman was leaned on for anything besides supporting McCain.

[dotymed]

130. Patrice, I remember getting my first SS card. I was 12.

I had worked as an electricians helper and some other cash jobs prior to that. But at 12 I had to get my SS card when I took over two paper routes. Not today. When children are born, they "get their papers." Of course "our" government could do the same with voter I.D.'s. Either at birth or when they turn 18 a person could automatically be registered to vote.

This would make more sense than forcing SS cards on newborns. Unfortunately, until we actually get legitimate elections, it doesn't matter.

IMO, voting should be mandatory for every American. Further, I think the continued "caging" practices that are done by the rethugs (at least) are just a cover for the fact that our voting no longer counts. We have been taken over.

Hopefully, OWS is the beginning of the end of this coup.

[Enthusiast]

91. I'm with you, patrice.

[No Elephants]

36. How hopeful

[valerief]

38. But that would be FAIR! Can't have that in this plutocracy. nt

[bengalherder]

41. It's the ONLY way! n/t

[wakemewhenitsover]

56. +1 n/t

[glinda]

65. Yes

[tavalon]

104. Nothing less, nothing more.

Simple and yet, somehow, unachievable. No wonder I and many others have turned away from Washington politics. The stink of illegitimacy is just too strong to take.

[Scuba]

105. I think distrust of our elections keeps ~ 25% of eligible voter home. n/t

[bvar22]

127. Paper ballots. Hand counted. In public. Nothing less.... AMEN!

...And ONLY ONE "Democrat" has the courage to STAND UP and point that out,
and he has been marginalized by the Party leadership,
and now "redistricted".


There are now MORE unverifiable BBV and Tabulators in operation
than when the "Democrats" assumed control of Congress in 2006.











You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
Solidarity99!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[cui bono]

142. With international monitoring! n/t

[russspeakeasy]

17. No fuckin wonder we're in debt...we can't count.

[No Elephants]

40. Well, our education system is not the best, but we can count, if we really want to.

"If we really want to" being the key words. Please see Replies 15 and 25.

[L. Coyote]

24. Beware voter suppression psychology

If people get the impression voting is futile, they will not vote .....

[pocoloco]

28. ....or who they vote for turns out to be a dipfuck!

[No Elephants]

30. What a bizarre reaction to posts about election fraud by voting machine.

Besides, people don't vote as it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout

The most strange thing (IMO). Tthe U.S. census makes no attempt to count adults in the U.S. who are eligible to vote.

I once email them asking which percent of adults who are eligible to vote did not vote in the 2004 election. They replied they did not have any information that would enable them to answer that question.

Then, they started sending me emails trying to sell me stuff. Only in America.

[Warren DeMontague]

27. Ahhhh... Ummmm....

Thanks for being on top of this, as always, Brad.

[Plucketeer]

33. SOMEWHERE along the way`

I never caught a glimpse of the memo that reasoned WHY we were going to Op-Scan and Electronic "ballots" in the first place! I can only conclude that these fallible machines were pushed on us because they were manufactured in some congress-dolt's district and HE twisted arms that got us stuck with these jokes.

I know I risk sounding awfully ignorant with that question, but I honestly want some info as to why were STILL persisting with this junk when it's been shown that they're anything but trustworthy.

[No Elephants]

42. You don't sound ignorant. You sound trusting.

Please see Replies 15. and 25.

In my mind, there is pretty much only one reason why people in either party whose very jobs depend on voting machines don't act on the issue beyond holding some hearings about how easily the machines can be fixed.

[bengalherder]

47. The name 'Diebold' comes to mind.

The guys who make the ATMs...

People often wonder, how come these companies make bank equipment and it functions pretty close to 100% for the banks..however when it comes to voting it seems to malfunction and be horribly inaccurate, even inconsistent while it is tabulating votes.



The one percent not only buy elections, they OWN 'em.

[Plucketeer]

52. Thanks

funny you should mention their ATMs. I deposited a check into one just about two hours ago. Just a bare check and it read the amount and certified that I had co-signed it's backside for deposit. This has worked flawlessly for me many and many a time in recent years. Amazing that the voting machines cant "cut it".

[bengalherder]

117. Thank YOU!

It was your question that made start thinking about that. I'd never really thought about it before in post-OWS perspective. :)

[disndat]

124. ATM bank machines are monitored 24/7

for accuracy. Banks cannot afford malfunctioning of their ATM machines. Whereas the Diebold voting machines are programmed to favor the candidate of choice.

[Xtraneous]

51. Not only are they not trustworthy...

but several of the companies' principals are foreign criminals and the software is "proprietary"! I've been reading BradBlog since he started in 2001(?) and you would think that things would get better, yet they've actually gotten much worse. I'm in NY State. We were the last ones to give in- unnecessarily according to HAVA- to the hijacked computerized crap. We had lever machines, some of which were 80 years old and still working perfectly with a little maintenance. Now we have plastic crap that isn't only unreliable and untrustworthy, but cost a fortune to "update" and "maintain". With the lever machines we had local results within the hour of the polls closing. This last election it took close to 3 hours to get digitized results. It would have taken far less time to hand count at the polling places.

I vote only out of habit now. I EXPECT my vote not to be counted as I intended.

[PotatoChip]

97. Wow your town w/the lever machines

has been ahead of mine for a long time apparently. We are completely 'machine-less' and always have been. We still drop our ballots into a century old wooden box. Ballot clerks then count them by hand after the polls close.

Most of the towns around here are like mine btw. Machine voting comes up from time to time at town meetings but always gets voted down. No one wants to spend the money on 'new-fangled' things like lever machines. ;-)

[boppers]

59. Because meat machines are even worse.

It's harder to bribe a metal machine, and easier to rip them open when their results are less than accurate.

[Devil_Fish]

66. Figures don't lie, but liers will figure. The machine is only as trust worthy as the programer. NT

[boppers]

68. "The machine is only as trust worthy as the programer."

This is true of both meat, and metal, machines.

It's much more legal to dissect the metal ones, than the meat ones, though. Humans get kind of angry when you want to dissect them while they're still running.

(That being said, "magic code" meat, and metal, machines, are both suspect if they cannot be dissected and inspected for flaws.).

[aquart]

95. liars

[patrice]

120. Look at the geneology of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 i.e. how it was written -AND- implemented

"... un-natural, machine men ..." all of the way through.

[valerief]

35. And this will be all over the MSM. NOT. This vote flipping is now the norm and the ruling class's

dirty little secret.

:grr:

[No Elephants]

44. +1. While I think Jay Z is scum for not thinking about sharing profits with the OWS movement,

his tweak to the slogan was perfect: Occupy ALL Streets.

Thing is, we already do--and we don't use that.

[Dj13Francis]

37. Huh.

Wow. Nobody could have seen that coming. Huh...

Oh yeah... Uh, wasn't that what I've been saying all along?

[No Elephants]

46. As always, thanks, Bradblog.

[valerief]

48. There is no citizen voting process in America. It's all a sham. I wish an army

would blow up all the vote-thieving machines.

[qb]

49. It's hopeless when the Dems are too weak to do or say anything even when the evidence

is staring them in the face.
:banghead:

[bbgrunt]

115. you've got to wonder if "weak" is the right word. I think it

is more like "complicit".

[No Elephants]

160. Assuming they say nothing only because they are weak is, well, an assumption.

Do you have any basis to assume that their reason for saying nothing is weakness?

[ooglymoogly]

53. Isn't just too odd that Diebold machines never ever make a mistake

in a bank setting when dispensing money, but always seem to chronically make mistakes favoring candidates who are pugs or backed by pugs...especially considering the owners of Diebold are rabid pugs. Complaints of their crooked behavior are made over and over and over, yet nothing is done.

Our elections are just scams to make pug election fraud look respectable.

We keep asking ourselves why do voters vote against their own interests...for the most part they don't, but the voting machines DO vote against their interests.

Thank you Brad for keeping this vastly criminal story alive.

[truedelphi]

181. Hi ooglymoogly.

Glad to catch you and here's a small toast:

:toast:

[IamK]

54. do you think Al Gore would be thinner now if he was elected president?

[No Elephants]

161. Is that an anti-Gore slam or a fat joke, or both?

[riverbendviewgal]

55. we use pencil and paper in Canada

and manually count our ballots.

I like this....

[AllyCat]

58. No problem, just stop using those pesky paper ballots that are fed into these and the plm is solved!

Great. This is what we use here in WI. Stop the machines! Just tell the media and the American public to sit on their hands and wait for the counts to be completed. In public. By hand. Might take a couple weeks. We don't need INSTANT results on election night!

[BradBlog]

83. Can't tell if you're being snarky, or if you're misinformed...

...But if you count the ballots by hand, in front of the public, all parties and video cameras at the precinct with results posted there before ballots are moved anywhere, it won't "take a couple weeks". It'll likely take a few hours. As it does in places like 40% of NH towns where all the ballots are counted by human beings and often completed before the Diebold towns have finished their counts.

[AllyCat]

145. Sorry for the confusion. I am completely in favor of hand counts on paper, in public

I have no idea how long it will take, but we need to get over this idea that we have to have numbers RIGHT NOW. If we can do it quickly and accurately and fairly and legally in a couple hours, that is great. If we have to wait, it will be worth it. Peace.

[Bozita]

60. Every American voter should be required to watch that video! ... Recommended

[bertman]

61. As always, thanks to bradblog for staying on top of this. REC. nt

[Zorra]

70. +a billion. Thanks, Brad, for your awesome service to all of us.

Your work, and the work of your staff, on behalf of the interests of the 99%, is so very greatly appreciated.

Thank you for totally understanding and exposing the entire spectrum of electronic voting lunacy.
:yourock:

[BradBlog]

84. Thanks backatcha, Zorra. And if I had a staff, I know they'd thank you too! :-)

[Norrin Radd]

67. kr

[snot]

71. K&R'd. I can't believe we're acquiescing in the use of these machines.

Some of us on DU kicked and screamed about it for years, but never managed to arouse much interest even on DU. I hope maybe that's about to change.

[Occulus]

113. That's because we were browbeaten into not caring by the fucking trolls

There were several Usual Suspects here mocking and shouting that "THERE'S NO PROOF" each and every time it was brought up. This was a very well-coordinated effort. Cleverly, one of the principals in that effort was one Bev Harris (Harpy Grifter, Hell), who managed to convince a lot of people, myself included, that she was on "our side".

That ended when people started hacking the machines to play Pac-Man, but the damage was long done by that time. The bastards got what they wanted compromised elections and laws requiring the use of compromised machines written with closed-source software.

[markpkessinger]

78. Not to be a Luddite or anything...

...but why not just return to hand-counted, paper ballots? Sure, it means we might have to wait several days, maybe even a week or two, before the final tallies come in. But paper ballots make it much easier to verify actual. votes in the event of any question. Seems like instantaneous results are a pretty small sacrifice considering the stakes.

[truedelphi]

88. Totally agree. Though our esteemable M$M always has its

Talking Heads weighing in on how very important it is to the nation and to the candidates to have the instant results.

Why they wouldn't prefer that the results be correct rather than instantaneous, I don't know.

[boppers]

92. Because a lying human is harder to fix than a broken metal machine.

[markpkessinger]

125. If ONLY the problem were a matter of "broken" machines...

But, speaking as someone who has a fair amount of programming experience, I know how easy it is to slip a bit of code into the software that runs these machines. This isn't a matter of a malfunctioning machine; the machine is functioning exactly as it was built to function (I.e., according to the instructions coded in the software).

Also, I grew up in a small town that used paper ballots until fairly recently. In fact, my mother was often one of the counters. There were always at least four counters, two from each party, as well as an offi ial observer. It would have been VERY difficult to pull off a lie.

[boppers]

173. "two from each party"

So, if there are 74 parties, that would be 148 counters? I doubt that.

It doesn't matter who votes, it matters who or what counts, and how a vote is counted.

[No Elephants]

163. Nonsense. Those machines are not broken. If you believe that

elections are stolen via machines, they are programmed by humans. And a human is a hell of a lot easier to punish than is a machine.

Besides, the issue is not mere falsehood, but election fraud, allegedly on a very large, nationwide scale, including in federal elections. For those who believe that, there is no rational explanation for not dramatically increasing penalties for election fraud.

IMO, it is treason, inasmuch as it undermines, if not negates, the entire basis of our system, namely, the vote. However, whether or not it is treason, penalties for it should be very stiff and served in penitentiary.

[truedelphi]

182. During the Bush years, the FBI, which was the agency one

reported criminal election matters to, failed to call people back regarding the matters they were trying to report.

SO nothing was ever done to those who perpetuated the criminal behavior.

I tried for weeks after Nov 2008 to have a woman employed by the Marin County, California, Registrar of Voters be cited for a felony she committed against a group of voting activists, who had done nothing wrong but were punished by her.

We do need stiff penalties and some way of knowing there is someone to report to.

[patrice]

122. Agreed!!!!!!!!!!! Time should be less, waaaaaaaaaaaaay less, valuable than the unity of our nation.

[No Elephants]

162. Good question, Mark. What do you suppose the answer is?

As for what happened when Boston went back to paper ballots, please see Reply 25.

[AndyTiedye]

79. Diebold Republican Electing Machinez

[slay]

81. BradBlog all over that shit as usual! Huge K&R! Andy Stephenson would be proud!

you are THE BEST, Mr. Friedman, at exposing these HORRIBLE PROPRIETARY e-voting machines and the power those who control them have! Andy Stephenson would be proud!!!! These things can NOT be trusted. #OWS needs to add this to their demands - NO MORE OF THESE MACHINES!

[BradBlog]

85. Thanks, Slay -- and I miss Andy...and John Gideon...every day! :-(

[Enthusiast]

89. Can you say Banana Republic?

I knew you could.

[malaise]

93. If the machines counting the robber barons' money were so inaccurate

they would have been destroyed and banned eons ago but hey it's only democracy and the consent of the people we're talking about here so it hardly matters,

[AsahinaKimi]

94. This is the stuff that scares me...

Rigged elections that put a Republican in the White House. Once was ENOUGH!!!

[oldhippydude]

132. while im scared of these damn machines

im terrified of the voter suppression laws that the Rebublicans are pushing in many states... please remember part of the Florida Fiasco in 2000 was denial of voting rights based on fabricated "felonious registration"..

the point is that its like playing whack a mole with the ptb.. they have unlimited money and truley evil people, they have proven they will do anything to stay in power.. after all they have a paranoid fear of the people

its like Racheal Maddow says a couple of point here a couple of points there.. with an outmoded electoral collage,its easy enough to fix the election of POTUS

[No Elephants]

164. No reason to assume it was only once.

[Name removed]

96. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[perdita9]

98. Can Diebold be Charged with Treason?

After all, isn't a corporation a person?

[fascisthunter]

112. it should be treated that way... RICO

[mother earth]

99. When you have all the money, you need supreme control.

TPTB own all of the politicians, or most of them, the few they don't own cannot change this system alone. Ensuring the vote should be a no-brainer if we are truly a democracy. The reality speaks loud & clear, we are NOT a democracy, the vote is up for grabs.

When something stinks this much, and begs for attention, isn't it incredibly telling that it has NOT been addressed? Occupy is not going away any time soon. We have major work ahead of us if we will ever truly be represented as we should be.

[tavalon]

100. My goodness, that's a surprise! Not.

It's nice that this one was looked at, but I no longer believe in our "election" process. Why is it Diebold can make receipts for ATM transactions but not voting. Answer: They can, they won't.

[No Elephants]

165. Worse. They can; no government (federal, state, county, city, town) requires them to.

The governments make the laws and they are also the consumers. They can specify what they will and will not buy.

[polichick]

109. As long as we don't have 100% verifiable voting, we have no democracy...

And neither party is fighting for verifiable voting.

[fascisthunter]

111. the GOP and their Machines

listen up you corporate fascists.... we will take this country back, and you will pay for treason. That is what your agenda is... it is treason.

[The Wizard]

116. All those people in uniform

believing they're protecting free and fair elections is a Constitutional Democracy are serving a demonic enterprise geared toward enslaving the 99% for the benefit of the 1%. What would happen if these well trained heavily armed servants found out they were being played?

[colsohlibgal]

128. Change We Can Believe In - Voting.

We need to use paper ballots followed by strict custody control of those ballots. They then need to be counted publicly/transparently with multiple official witnesses; representatives of each candidate and an impartial observer with no dog in the hunt, maybe from Canada or whatever.

It's been proven over and over that machines/computers can be tampered with all along the trail including during voting. There have been some shady custody hanky panky as well.

I am 99% sure that the 2004 Bush/ Kerry race was flipped as well as the Demint/Cleland senate race.

We're supposed to be a shining example of democracy yet among other things our voting processes are like a 3rd world dictatorship.

Again, old Joe Stalin was an evil SOB but he wasn't dumb, he was dead on about the power being with the people who count the votes rather than with those voting.

[jimlup]

129. How can these jackasses manage to sell machines that don't have public domain software review?

That these jokers claim that their software is "proprietary" and not open for review is UNACCEPTABLE in a democracy. We should pass a law right now that all vote counting software must be open to public review. Further a law should be passed requiring a paper trail in ALL elections.

I mean what the hell Americans? Are you that busy sucking corporate CEO's?

[Fly by night]

131. It's a shame you opposed the Holt bill. Maybe our elections would be more secure than they now are.

No one believes our TN elections anymore. If the Holt bill had passed, we would not be using DREs in 93 of our 95 counties and we would have random manual audits in all 95 counties.

The perfect is the enemy of the good. Corporatized elections are the enemy of democracy.

[BradBlog]

175. Not a shame at all. Your elections would have been worse.

Just for the record, had the Holt bill passed (the version you were made at me about not supporting), you would STILL have been using DREs, since his bill failed to ban them and even supported their use.

Moreover, secret, privatized "proprietary source code would have been approved for use by federal legislation.

[red dog 1]

177. K & R

Regarding Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ), Brad Friedman wrote:

"Holt once told me he'd be happy if everyone in the country voted on 100% unverifiable
touch-screen systems."

[Gin]

135. deposited a check into an ATM the other day....got a receipt

with a copy of the check....immediately thought that there is no reason the voting machines can't give paper copies of the vote..

the only reason is to keep the system corrupt.

[certainot]

136. the thieves will use local RW radio to generate excuses and to somehow (always) blame dems

[Life Long Dem]

140. It's just a coincidence system errors always favor the Republicans

Every state needs a system like Oregon.

[muriel_volestrangler]

155. Which one is the Republican in this case? It looks like machine error to me

Looking through the reports, I can't see anything identifying either Winterton or Morrow as Republican or Democratic. They may both be non-partisan. But even if one or both are partisan, then it's difficult to say whom the 'system error' favoured. Winterton was declared the winner at first, but it was close enough for a recount - which hugely favoured Morrow; so huge that they said "there's a problem". The hand count confirmed the original count.

So the error was in favour of Morrow; but it only happened due to a recount, and was so big that they decided one of the counts must be wrong. It's hard to see that the error was introduced to favour Morrow.

It looks to me like a big hardware or software reliability problem, which is still extremely worrying - if it happened on a first count, there'd be no indication there was a problem and the incorrect result could be let through.

[No Elephants]

166. If they always favor Republicans, wouldn't you expect Democrats to do something about that?

[AllyCat]

146. Okay, if a group of people want hand counts in public, how do we go about changing what is?

Can a city do this? A precinct? A ward? Our whole state uses different machines so it seems that a small group of citizens could change policy. Anyone who can guide me on where to find out how to work on this?

[No Elephants]

167. You might start with your city hall or town hall. Also, check you state laws to see

what it takes for a citizen to get a law considered by your state legislature.

A lot of laws are online, but you can use law libraries at state and federal courthouses for free and I've found the librarians at the federal courthouse in Boston are very helpful.

Your local library should be able to help you get your hands on state laws, too.

But, public opinion is going to be critical. Check your local access cable channels and see if you can't get some info from someone who knows about pr in your area. Write letters to editors of papers, etc.

It's going to be a lot of work because it seems neither Party really wants to change the status quo.

[Imajika]

178. So basically this story amounted to nothing...

The original machine count winner was verified to be.....the winner.

"UPDATE 11/24/11: According to newspaper reports today, two hand-counts on Wednesday have now confirmed the accuracy of the original optical-scan count giving the election victory to Gary Winterton after all. The "recount" on the same op-scan systems seem to have been inaccurate, while the original count was accurate. We still don't know why, of course."

[BradBlog]

183. Well, no...

For a start, why did the op-scan machines used during the recount get it so incredibly wrong (under the presumption that they did)? And are you okay with these clearly flawed -- and easily manipulated -- machines determining winners and losers in elections where ballots aren't checked to make sure the op-scanners were correct (as will be the case in NH and most other states and almost every single election in the country next year)?!

[red dog 1]

180. Paper Ballots?

THE HISTORY OF VOTING MACHINES by Mary Bellis

PAPER BALLOTS

"The paper ballot system employs uniform official ballots of various stock weights on which the names of all candidates and issues are printed.
Voters record their choices, in private by marking the boxes next to the candidate or issue choice they select and drop the voted ballot in a sealed ballot box."

Read entire article...http://inventers.about.com/library/weekly/ae111300b.htm
(enter "paper ballots" in search bar)

[lonestarnot]

184. lemme guess 181818?

999. or 666 snort.