Micro-Vote & others blasted in Ft. Wayne newspaper article.

[Stevepol]

This is a really excellent article for the way it gives the circumstantial evidence pointing to the criminality of these voting machine companies. Is it possible that newspaper reporters are beginning to wake up to what's happening?

Nah! I guess not, but this article certainly deserves reading. It's about as close to an expose as you'll get from a regular, average-sized newspaper. This comes courtesy VotersUnite and John Gideon.





Vote of confidence?
Firm has low profile
By Sherry Slater and Niki Kelly
The Journal Gazette

SNIP...

Controversy has plagued the direct record electronic voting machine industry for years. Critics question whether political contributions made by the voting machine makers sway some election officials to buy those companies’ products. And security experts call for machines to generate a paper trail so vote totals can later be audited.

How company leaders will approach their public relations challenge is shrouded in mystery, however. MicroVote President Jim Ries Jr. didn’t acknowledge Wednesday afternoon that any such challenge exists.

“We have an obligation, and that’s to provide an accurate vote count,” he said on the subject. “We’ve done that for 25 years.”



Flying below – far below – the radar seems to be woven into the MicroVote culture.

As a privately owned company, MicroVote isn’t required to open its financial records to public or government scrutiny. Ries declined to share any revenue numbers with The Journal Gazette. The company employs 25 full time and has 40 contractors it uses as needed for support service.


Link: http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/fortwayne/news/local/14440848.htm

[IndyOp]

1. Thank you, Stevepol !!

I am in Indiana and have just make an appointment to talk with the head of Board of Elections in my area. I softened him up in 40-minute phone conversation last week - he is a fan of MicroVotes - seems a straight arrow, just quite naive about the perils of electronic voting. He ended the conversation agreeing that he would like to talk with me after the primaries are over. We have MicroVote464's and it is the MicroVote Infinity's that had the 'recently updated' software. The head of BOE for my county said that the software was just being updated so it was more accessible for disabled voters -- just a cosmetic change. In any case, the software is newly certified and the Infinity's will be used next week. I am wondering now what races in the MicroVote Infinity counties the GOP might want to 'throw'...

:grr:

[Stevepol]

5. A couple points you might make the BOE person aware of.

First, MV claims to have a "proven track record of over two decades of flawless and accurate elections." You might ask the BOE how the MV prez could make that claim since, according to all computer scientists, the only feasible way at present to verify the accuracy of a voting machine is with voter-verified paper print-outs and MV has fought and continues to fight tooth and nail to keep from having to print out a voter-verified paper ballot (they have a paper scroll inside the machine that supposedly prints out the vote, but of course it's not voter-verified and so is meaningless as a means of verification). A few months ago and this is probably still true, you could go to their web site and find a video about how much more efficient and accurate a paperless voting machine is than one of these messy machines with a printer to print out a voter-verifiable audit trail. It's just common sense to have a voter-verified paper ballot print-out and it's the most non-partisan issue imaginable. If you don't believe in it, you just don't believe in democracy.

Second, be sure to mention the Boone County boondoggle and the Montgomery County PA $1 million dollar lawsuit that MV lost and then lost again on appeal.

Third, the machines used in Meklenburg County NC were the same machines used earlier in PA. They screwed up again in the 04 election in NC and that's where the fellow in NC was accused of taking bribes to buy the lousy MV machines. MV of course denied they had anything to do with their rep, the one who supposedly bribed the guy in NC, said he was just a renegade salesman doing it on his own. This guy, the latest I heard, is doing presentations thru-out the country about the efficiency and accuracy of voting machine technology in vote counting, yanking down a good salary in exchange for burying deeper and deeper the American experiment in democracy.

Fourth, a personal experience. I wrote a LTTE to a newspaper here in KS and used the two examples above since we use MV as well in our county. I had to face an irate MV rep on the phone who threatened to sue me for misrepresentation, even tho I'd used the two examples above, taken from web sites or articles available freely on the web. He lied to me about the Montgomery County PA case, even tho I had a print-out from a web article from the law firm that won the case against MV right in front of me as we talked. This is their modus operandi: bluff, lie, bully, threaten, etc. Before talking with the rep I had the idea that MV was sincere and not corrupt, just less powerful, maybe just poorer in technology, following in the tracks of the Big three or four, but after that experience I believe MV is just as corrupt and criminal as, maybe more so than, the other companies that have stolen our democracy.

Fifth, if you're not acquainted with the statistical facts about elections since the voting machines started counting votes, you might do some reading about it. Begin with Hagel's "amazing" victory in NE in 96 (where Hagel's own company (he resigned from the ownership right before the election), AIS, which later became ES&S, counted the votes for his election), then the GA election (all Diebold all the time) of 02, one of the most obviously fraudulent in history, the referendum in OH in 05 (the current record-holder for degree of tilt in an obviously fraudulent election), and of course the 04 Kerry victory. There are many sources for the stats, the most trustworthy being NEDA or www.uscountvotes.org. But the best analysis is Truthisall's web site.

Good luck with your meeting.

[IndyOp]

6. Stevepol - Have you been in touch with BOE officials?

Have you got suggestions on how to loosen them up about these machines, this company? My response from my local BOE official was that the MicroVotes were 'nice little machines' and that he did not want to hear about how his equipment was 'junk.' I suggested to him that in other areas citizens had raised money to retrofit systems with voter-verified paper ballots and he seemed neutral/relieved... So I am wondering if on first approach I ought to just attempt to get the VVPB's and not bother talking about the specifics of why they are needed with the MicroVotes... What do you think?

On a complete and total tangent I just woke up from a nap. I had a dream in which I had to fight my way through/past a huge spiderweb full of nasty, big, hairy spiders... Wonder who they might represent? :shrug:

On Edit: As I mentioned, I just woke up from a nap.

[Stevepol]

8. If this visit was on your mind, the spiders probably represented the BOE.

This whole issue is a real mess. I talked to the MV rep for a long time (and at the end he told me to just forget about his earlier threats to sue me -- which was all bluff anyway probably) and I asked him about retro-fitting for paper print-outs. I had tried to find this out from the Election Commissioner here, but cd get nowhere. I cdn't get anywhere with this rep either. He told me the fonts made this impossible or some such obvious lie. If the thing can write on the scroll inside, it can write on a paper outside. They just refuse to do it.

The way you describe this person on the BOE, he or she would probably not believe you if you told some of the facts about voting machines in general, but he should be aware of this article from the home of MV. Maybe you could print off the article and give it to him. And this person would definitely understand the need for a voter-verified paper ballot for audits and recounts. And just ask him to bring this up with MV. Maybe say that you've been told they refuse to do this and that they argue against it. But wherever the VVPB has been voted on, it has almost unanimous support by legislators. Mark Crispin Miller, by the way, says that Zogby did a poll recently and found out that 80% of the American people would prefer a return to a paper ballot. These machines look cute but unless they print out a paper ballot for audits, a lot of American voters are going to feel cheated and uneasy about it.

Good luck, and don't be discouraged whatever happens.

[Kurovski]

2. K&R(nt)

[kster]

3. K&R...nt

[autorank]

4. Stevepol, "the circumstantial evidence pointing to the criminality" - ubet

Nice one. I think you're on target. Florida begot Ohio; Ohio begot Indiana...and the lord said, "This is an abomination and an offense to my eyes." Or something like that;)

[flyingobject]

7. file lemon law complaint?

www.lemonlawoffice.com/