Maryland House Unanimously votes in Paper ballots

[aintitfunny]

including the amendment for leasing optical scanners for the '06 election. This is great news. I was, however, shocked to read that it may be Democrats in the Senate throwing up hurdles on this.

"The measure now heads to the Senate, where its fortunes are less clear. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, a Democrat, has questioned the wisdom of leasing optical-scan machines that read ballots marked by hand. Maryland has already spent about $90 million acquiring and maintaining the Diebold machines, and the lease requirement for optical-scan machines would add another $12.5 million this year, supporters said.”

“Miller repeated his doubts today about whether Maryland should warehouse its electronic voting machines. They worked perfectly two years ago," Miller said. "We had the lowest rate of error of any state in the country. The machines worked perfectly." Miller also pointed out that optical-scan voting would slow results, although he didn't predict whether the bill would fail in his chamber.

This begs the question - how does he KNOW they worked perfectly - does anyone? Why are the Democrats on the wrong side of this issue? Every active Democrat I know thinks this is important.

If you care about this issue, please contact your state Senator and Mike Miller can be emailed directly at: [e-mail]


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-paper0309,0,3826497.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

[Stinky The Clown]

1. It was, if I recall correctly, another Dem who got us Diebold to start.

A woman. I can't recall her name as I type this, but I am 99.9% certain that it was a woman Democrat on some cammittee who got us into the Diebold thing to start with.

Mike Miller's generally a guy, but why oh why is he speaking out opposing this?

Are we the state that Diebold wants to stay Democratic??? :shrug:

[aintitfunny]

2. I think you are right - I know Lamone

the Dem head of the Board of Elections was gung ho for Diebold. I think it is just politics. Erlich supports it so they are against it. That is just a guess, whatever is behind it I still want to know that votes are correctly counted THIS year and there is a real way to recount if there is any doubt.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. I'll bet Saur(Sour)brey would always want to have a recountable system

And its too late to edit, by my comment on Mike Miller should not have been the obvious "he's generally a guy' ... but the more qualifying "he's generally a good guy'. :)

[DaveinMD]

4. John Willis

the Secretary of State under Glendening is who introduced the machines. He had good intentions. Reducing misread votes ala the hanging chads.

[DementedDemoGuy]

6. On the Diabold voting machines

The idea of the voting machine was and still is a solid one. Ask any programmer out there that saw one of them and they could probably tell you how to cheat it and how to make it a solid one. It should also be stated that any competent programmer could have done a better job in less than a month so whoever did the work should retire and let real programmers get at it.

I talked to Mike Miller and Phil Jimino (district 31) a couple of days after they were introduced to us but didn't get a positive response from either of them. I also told them that they would not be able to plead ignorance later. At the time, I also explained just how easy it would be to cheat the system but they, not being technically savvy, pretty much blew me off.

The State of maryland should hire a small team (2-3) of programmers and give them the task of creating voting software that the state would own and could control. The programmers should be employed by the state. This is NOT an area that 'contractors' or 'vendors' should be allowed to touch. As a career programmer with over 31 years under my belt, I can authoritatively say that there is nothing in the diabold product that is beyond the average programmer with a few years experience. This statement goes to the cost of the software and the hardware in general. The state is being ripped off by Diabold. $5000 per machine? you can buy a laptop with a touch screen for under $1000 off the shelf. Three programmers and the management staff to support them would only cost another $250,000 or so. Maybe a bit more but not millions.

The operating system I saw was windows. My question is, "What justifies the millions of dollars spent with a obviously flawed system?" The only answer I can come up with is fraud. Sort of like those $4000 toilets you hear about.

[Alex35332]

7. Just so people know the Senate

killed this bill. I get calls from many who think we are getting a paper trail and we are not. There are several rumors why this happened. 1. The Dem's did not want to make the Gov. look good, one of those great examples of when the GOP out smarts the left tactically speaking. The Governor ended up being a hero on this issue and the MD Senate Dem's look like a village idiot. 2. Linda Lamone's relationship with Miller, there are a lot of rumors about the two of them, I don't know whats true and what is not.

The overall fiscal breakdown for running the coming election is going to be about 10 million. The cost of running the 2005 elections was 5 million. The SBE budget under Linda Lamone is close to 30 million. Back before HAVA, in 2001 it was close to 2 million.
Source TrueVoteMD.org & the State Department of Budget and Management.

[aintitfunny]

9. According to a State Senator

the problem was with the solution. There was no good solution because the optical scanners were just as bad or worse. I don't know what the truth is - maybe the Senator was right about the optical scanners. I was so happy when the house was unanimous in this, and so angry when the Senate failed to protect our right to vote. This was indeed the most important issue and for the second year the Senate produced diddly squat.

[tiptoe]

12. Brennan Center for Justice security recommends for paperless DRE state:

see: Close polls = fraud invite? MD, too ==HIGH RISK, all DRE, paperless state

[tiptoe]

11. Same answer as RFK Jr: Fed 'qui tam' (fraud) suit filed re 2 e-Vote cmps

(FIRST RFK JR. VOTING MACHINE WHISTLEBLOWER LAWSUIT NOW FILED IN FEDERAL COURT! NEW DETAILS! BLOGGED BY Brad on 7/12/2006)

Interview, Mike Papantonio & Mike Malloy July 12, mp3

Filing remains sealed for 60 days, while Justice Dept (Gonzales) mulls over joining the suit. Can't be known for now exactly the WHO, WHEN or WHERE of the filing...done recently.

[LiberalEsto]

5. Linda Lamone

I wonder what Diebold gave her besides the dinner cruise on the Potomac River.

[TrueFunkSoldier]

8. ...and lo' and behold: Erhlich is suddenly gaining on O'Malley's lead...

...I think there's something fishy going on here in Maryland with this election. O'Malley is now currently polling only 8% points ahead of Erhlich, whereas only one month ago, he was ahead by double digits. Call me paranoid, but they're trying to make this one really close so that when the machines don't produce a paper trail, they can steal the election here, too. I don't know why I feel this way, but there were a lot of sinister, egregious tactics used by these fascists in majority-minority districts in 2002, 2004. But since this state votes overwhelmingly democratic anyway, no one really took the charges of impropriety seriously.

I know that it's still rather early to get my panties all wrapped up in a bunch, but I don't trust these people as far as I can spit 'em.

[aintitfunny]

10. Yes, it will come down to the wire

It will be a virtual tie

But Ehrlich will pull ahead in the final hours.

What a nightmare.