Punch cards out, paper trails in

[kpete]

Monday, March 27, 2006
Punch cards out, paper trails in
By Eric Kelderman, Stateline.org Staff Writer


Glitches in new voting machines in Illinois' primary elections last week may foreshadow snafus in several states this year, as more than 30.6 million voters are expected to encounter new equipment when they go to the polls.

"History show that it's the first election with new equipment when jurisdictions are most likely to experience problems," said Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services (EDS), a political consulting firm that specializes in election administration and redistricting.

By November, nearly 45 percent of all counties expect to have changed their voting equipment to meet new federal guidelines sparked by the disputes in the 2000 presidential election, according to EDS. But 20 percent of counties are still in the midst of preparing for this year's elections, the company found.


Despite some states' initial rush to buy all-digital voting machines, more than half of the nation's counties still will be voting with something that requires paper, EDS found. While at least 29 states will use some form of touch-screen voting machine in the 2006 election, laws in 26 states require either a paper receipt from a digital voting device or a paper balloting system, according to Electionline.org, a nonprofit group that tracks state voting reforms.

http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=136&languageId=1&contentId=99161

[Land Shark]

1. There's the quote that 's the start of my "Glitches as Bait" prediction

In that threadly, I expressly predict that for whatever reason, and whether intentional or not, the incidence of VISIBLE glitches will die down and be pronounced by the vendors to be dead. But the invisible glitches and secret vote counting --i.e. the real issues--- will remain.

On edit: and the quote is: ""History show that it's the first election with new equipment when jurisdictions are most likely to experience problems," said Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services (EDS), a political consulting firm that specializes in election administration and redistricting."

They are trying to tell us this is the high water mark for the mis-named "glitch" which is really a malfunction, programming error, fraud or defective design.

BTW if more than a very very small number of people can not navigate a technology properly, human factors studies teach that this is a design defect, not a voter defect...

Elections officials are like store proprietors with a 2 inch unmarked rise on the exit door watching, pointing and criticizing when their customers trip on the 2" rise, fall and spill all their groceries on the sidewalk outside.

[Kurovski]

2. For convenience' sake, I wish to post a link to that thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x418342

[Wilms]

3. You're getting to me Land Shark.

That sentence you snipped jumped off the page when I first read it.

It's probably true, however. And I hope we can help make the case that let alone vendors, BoE's and voters have ZERO idea of what's going on inside those machines.

[Wilms]

4. Good to see you here, kpete.

Thanks for posting.

:hi: