WA: Snohomish County touch-screen machines said to favor Rossi

[Newsjock]

http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0504/050126_news_snohomish.php

Even if you have followed every strange twist and U-turn of the 2004–05 Washington gubernatorial election, would it surprise you to hear that more than 100,000 votes were never recounted? These are the electronic votes from the two counties, Snohomish and Yakima, that have computerized touch-screen voting in Washington. The computers do not include a mechanism to recount and compare votes for error. More than 2.7 million paper votes statewide were recounted by optical-reader machine and by hand, ultimately giving Democrat Christine Gregoire a hairbreadth 129-vote victory. But the 106,000 touch-screen ballots—constituting almost 4 percent of the state vote—were simply re-totaled without review and added in. A new study questions the validity of many of those touch-screen votes, suggesting that Gregoire should have beaten Republican Dino Rossi in the initial tally of ballots on Election Day. Rossi was on top at that point by 261 votes, before a final hand recount gave the election to Gregoire.

... At least 28 Snohomish touch screens had "calibration issues," officials concede. That includes electronically shifting votes to a candidate other than the one selected by the touch-screen voter. Some screens also appeared with votes already selected by the computer.

... Their 29-page report found that problems of switched votes or machines freezing up occurred at more than 50 polling places. Under their scenario, Gregoire likely beat Rossi in Snohomish County or, at worst, lost by a much narrower margin—meaning she likely lost enough votes to account for Rossi's 261-vote statewide lead shortly after Election Day.

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[berniew1]

1. Vote machine fraud in Washington(default from Kerry to Bush) documented

http://www.flcv.com/snohomis.html

and suppression of Dem voters
http://www.flcv.com/washingt.html

[MissWaverly]

8. that's the same machine I used in Baltimore that kept voting for Bush

11/2/2004 Machine malfunction WA Snohomish County. Voters in at least four polling precincts in Snohomish County said they have encountered problems with the Sequoia electronic voting machines. When they touched the screen to vote for a candidate, an indicator showed they had selected the opposing candidate. It took at least four attempts before the indicator showed the correct candidate.

I just took a snip from your link, that's the machine that I pressed 5 times for Kerry and GWB lit up and on the 6th try, the Kerry button lit and stayed lit in Baltimore City, MD. Baltimore City used the AVC Advantage Model 315 by Sequoia Voting Systems, I think the rest of the state used Diebold Accuvote-TS.

[berniew1]

11. I updated the info on Washington counties a little more- suppression

http://www.flcv.com/snohomis.html
http://www.flcv.com/washingt.html

[understandinglife]

12. Your efforts are remarkable; thank you 'berniew1' (nt)

"TbO;24/7

[NationalEnquirer]

2. Surprise, surprise...

I dont know how they will explain away this one, demographics?
Whenever they use that explanation, its "secret code" for "Them dumb stupid n*ggers just don't know how ta vote!"

[Land Shark]

3. demographics can't possibly explain why

MALFUNCTIONING MACHINES disporportionately "attract" one party's voters than the other party's voters, because outwardly all touch screens look the same, and no one knows which will mallfunction when they set them up on election day.

So, in this case, some of the data transcends demographic defenses or excuses....

[Stevepol]

4. I can't believe it. You mean voting machines can make mistakes?

I thought they were infallible. Why else would they be the only vote counting device immune to audits and recounts? Call in the Diebold tecnnicians, let them look it over and then re-run the machine. I'll bet they can find more votes for Rossi.

But let exit polls be anathema. Everybody knows how prone to error they are!

I believe we should have a small shrine at every polling place dedicated to the worship of Diebold and its many clones, ES&S, Sequoia, ad infinitum. We could burn hanging chads in an incense bowl and kiss the ring of the Diebold technician behind the table. One warning: don't eat the wafer if he offers you one!

[L. Coyote]

5. Original Study by Paul R. Lehto and Jeffery Hoffman == Link

Evidence of Election Irregularities in Snohomish County, WA by Paul R. Lehto and Jeffery Hoffman

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/01/307675.shtml

This came out around the Jan. 6. and there have been previous threads.

"The chances that 2/3 of the vote would show a Democrat lead of 97044 to 95288 votes, while the remaining 1/3 of the vote on touch sreens would show a Republican lead of almost 5% .. as a result of voters randomly choosing to vote by paper ballot or by touch screen is about 1 in 1 trillion, a true impossibility."

[Amaryllis]

6. Here ya go. This is the study by Lehto and Hoffman:

http://www.votersunite.org/info/SnohomishElectionFraudInvestigation.pdf

[smartvoter]

7. Of course. Always the same direction, too. nt

[KaliTracy]

9. Could you imagine the chaos and the people getting mad when at

their local fast food restaurant the touch-screen kept losing its callibration and the mega sandwich that was ordered ended up to be a low-fat yogurt parfait.

How many messed-up orders in One Day do you think a restaurant could tolerate, what mistakes do you think that people ordering would tolerate before going ballistic on the restaurant people (people get very emotional when it comes to their time and money and food).

The Owners of said restaurant would be frantic, livid, they would be giving food away left and right in order to make the customers happy, and then, in desparation, if they couldn't get the machines to "stick" where they were supposed to, they would turn off the machines, and go to Verbal Ordering or Writing Down the Orders on Paper.

Thing is -- this technology is used in many, many areas, in high traffic (lots of screen time) situations -- and really, there is no logical reason for the kind of "mis-callibration" that took place. At least, that's the way I see it.

[Land Shark]

10. Give me my Big Mac and nobody gets hurt! : ) Good point KaliTracy n/t