NJEssex County Task Force on E-Voting, forces officials to look @ opscans

[FogerRox]

In NJ the Attorney General runs the election. This deal is a slap in his face. We will bring in vendors for a demo of equipment that isnt certified in NJ. Tuff luck AG.
With no optical scanners certified for general use in NJ, this is how we brought opscans to the table, now the pressure is on the AG.
(Note from Roj.)




$7.5M earmarked for voting machines
Vendors invited to present options
Thursday, July 14, 2005
BY JONATHAN CASIANO
Star-Ledger Staff
The Essex County freeholders agreed last night to spend $7.5 million for the purchase of new voting machines after election officials said voting rights activists could present alternative voting systems for consideration.

A compromise was hammered out between Essex County Superintendent of Elections Carmine Casciano and the Essex County Voting Task Force in the hallway outside the freeholder chambers and presented to the freeholders, although many on the board had expected another marathon debate over the faults of electronic voting systems.

According to the agreement, five voting machine vendors will be invited to the Hall of Records to present their machines to election officials and the freeholders. Casciano will then make a final recommendation and present the freeholders with a purchase contract.

The county has already negotiated a contract with California- based Sequoia Voting Systems to buy 700 full-face, electronic machines. Those machines are used in a dozen New Jersey counties and Casciano has fervently supported bringing them to Essex County.

rest of article:
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/essex/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1121316701302120.xml&coll=1

[rfranklin]

1. Somebody looked into the firm that tests machines in Morris Cty...

It was run out of a garage in West New York or North Bergen by some guy who contributes large sums to the Republican Party. We have ES&S machines in Morris County.

The article was posted here back in 2004.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

2. Ending the love affair with DREs

Is there any way to end the love affair with DREs?

Most don't have more than 2 or 3 of the 11 disabled accessibility features shown at
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6028

They aren't cost effective:
(scroll half way down page)
http://www.ncvoter.net/affordable.html

They have a higher undervote rate than optical scanners

North Carolina Study indicating that optical scan machines have the most consistent and
lowest undervote rates of the various technologies used this past election. 2004 report
http://www.cs.duke.edu/~justin/voting/totals.html

DREs in New Mexico dropped votes 5 times as often as optical
scanners did: Nov 2004 http://www.votersunite.org/info/newmexicophantomvotes.asp

Florida study indicating that DREs had 8 times as many undervotes as optical scanners:
July 2004. http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?list=type&type=26

Just how effective and "worth it" is a voter-verified paper ballot, especially if it's only used by a small number of voters?
Very effective: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~justin/voting/paper_effectiveness.html

DREs add, subtract, and even lose votes:
http://www.ncvoter.net/news.html

[FogerRox]

3. Great group of links Will

[emcguffie]

4. Now is a good time --

-- to pitch this to the MSM, as "media enforcer" Karl Rove is at the moment out of business.

If you look at the media right now, they are singing some songs they haven't been singing for a very long time, and I think it's because they feel safer doing so now.

For that reason, I think this would be an excellent time to pitch the voting fraud story to them. Seriously.

Ellen