PBS/NOW: Will New Voting Machines Cause an Election Day Debacle?

[kpete]

September 8, 2006 at 06:02:11

Will New Voting Machines Cause an Election Day Debacle? Watch PBS tonight!

by Angela Stark


http://www.opednews.com

Will New Voting Machines Cause an Election Day Debacle?
NOW
t r u t h o u t | Programming Note http://www.pbs.org/now/

Airdate: Friday, September 8, 2006, at 8:30 p.m. on PBS.
(Check local listings at http://www.pbs.org/now/sched.html.)

Will new voting machines cause an Election Day debacle? This time on NOW.

Will new voting machines cure election headaches or cause them? The Help America Vote Act divided 3.1 billion dollars among all 50 states to update their voting systems with new technology. On Friday September 8, at 8:30 pm, NOW takes a close look at one Michigan county on Primary Day to see how the new machines are working, but also checks in on other states, including Texas, Iowa, New Mexico, and - you guessed it - Ohio. What we found was alarming - computer and human error, nonexistent contingency plans, and extreme vulnerability to tampering.

"We are no more certain today than we were in 2000 that we will not have an embarrassing moment and a tragic outcome in this year's election," Deforest Soaries, former Chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, told NOW.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_angela_s_060908_will_new_voting_mach.htm

[texpatriot2004]

1. No Transparency = No Democracy nt

[Peace Patriot]

2. All you have to do is look at who engineered the so-called "Help America

Vote Act"--the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney (now indicted or resigned in bribery scandals)--and who benefited from the $3.1 billion electronic voting boondoggle, to know that a Katrina-sized disaster would be made of our election system, including the disaster of a second Bush Junta term of power with a Diebold Congress to rubber-stamp the "unitary executive"'s whims on torture, spying, ripping up the Constitution, more tax cuts for the super-rich and more unjust, illegal, unnecessary war.

And the beneficiaries are...

DIEBOLD: Until recently, headed by Wally O'Dell, a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser (a Bush "Pioneer," right up there with Ken Lay), who promised in writing to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush-Cheney in 2004"; and

ES&S: A spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture), initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation (which touts the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things). Diebold and ES&S have an incestuous relationship; they are run by two brothers, Bob and Todd Urosevich.

These are the people who "counted" 80% of the nation's votes in 2004, under a veil of corporate secrecy--as the result of H.A.V.A.

And, SEQUOIA: The third major election theft machine player, which hired Republican former Calif Secretary of State Bill Jones, and his chief aide, Alfie Charles, to peddle their machines--in an outstanding example of the highly corrupt practice of "revolving door" employment.

--------------------------

Put these rightwing Bushite corporations in charge of our elections, and permit them to "count" all the votes with TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, and virtually no audit/recount controls--as well as no controls on lavish lobbying of local election officials, and on secret industry "testing" of the machines--and what do you expect?

It's no surprise that Bushites would want to steal votes with SECRET corporate vote "counting" by Bushite-friendly corporations--they couldn't get elected otherwise, considering what all they've done--nor is it a surprise that they would fuck our democracy over with crapass, extremely insecure and insider hackable voting systems, that regularly break down, and that no one can "fix" except private corporate personnel. And it's no surprise, really, that the war profiteering corporate news monopolies would place an "Iron Curtain" over this story, and even go to the length of DOCTORING their own exit polls to hide the fraudulent result of Diebold/ES&S's "trade secret" vote tabulation in 2004. We've come to expect such behavior from Bushites and their lapdog press. The big surprise is the Democratic Party leadership's MIND-BOGGLING SILENCE about it all. Are they insane, or what?

I am STILL shocked by this. And the best they can say (under pressure) is that maybe the touchscreens (which have no paper trail at all) are a bad idea. !!!!!!!!!!?????????

Jeez.

Corporate corruption? (--especially re Bilderberg 'Democrat' Sen. Christopher Dodd, who helped Delay and Ney--when they weren't busy with Abramoff bribes--engineer H.A.V.A. and push it through Congress with no paper trail or other controls on electronic voting?) Corruption re big electronics contracts in government? Corruption on the war (they LIKE having a Mideast war that someone else started, and deliberately threw the '04 election)? And maybe some component of stupidity, laziness, fear (it was the Anthrax Congress, after all*), and profit from Bush's tax cuts (they're almost all millionaires)? How to explain it? They don't WANT to get elected? With all this Bush fascism, they now "look good" and can offer "NICE" Corporate Rule as the alternative?

Even if all this were true of some, or many, of our Democrats, it still leaves me mind-boggled that they would permit Bushite corporations to "count" all the votes with SECRET FORMULAE! Are they that far gone? Do they no longer believe in democracy?

----------------------------------------------

*(Fear may be no small factor in the Democratic leaderhip's silence about Bushite corporate control of our elections. They all saw what happened to elected Democrat Kevin Shelley, the Calif Secretary of State who sued Diebold for their lies about the security of their machines, de-certified the worst of those machines (the touchscreens), and demanded to see their source code, prior to the 2004 election. He was "swiftboated" out of office on entirely bogus corruption charges--with the Calif Democratic Party legislative leadership (who hold a 2 to 1 majority in both houses) hiding under their desks, or colluding in Shelly's demise--and was replaced by Schwarzenegger APPOINTEE and Diebold shill Bruce McPherson, who has now illegally RE-certified Diebold touchscreens. Be a good boy and you get comfy salary, benefits and pensions. Question Diebold, and you're out. This may not explain why ALL BUT TWO** Democratic U.S. Senators voted FOR H.A.V.A., but it may well explain their silence since then, as this tyrannical electronic (s)election system was put into place.)

**(The exceptions were Sens. Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, who voted against H.A.V.A. Go figure.)

[Peace Patriot]

3. Bust the Machines--Vote Absentee this November!

Throw Diebold, ES&S and all election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

It's the only way I can see of getting rid of these diabolical machines peacefully--and quickly: MASSIVE Absentee Ballot voting this fall! BOYCOTT the machines! DON'T vote on them? FLOOD election officials with MOUNTAINS of paper AB votes, and create sufficient panic and crisis in the election theft industry to FORCE reform NOW. It won't likely get us accurate vote counts this fall, but it may save the '08 primaries and general election from another major rigging of the results.

[liam_laddie]

7. absentee vote recording at BOE's

I generally agree with absentee/early voting. Ohio just passed a law allowing anyone
to vote absentee; no age, disability, away-from-home reasons required anymore. This
sounds like a plus. However, early voting chain-of-custody is a potential problem. I'd
wait until a few days before the deadline to mail or deliver...less time for corrupt BOE
employees to damage, lose or otherwise "cancel" your ballot/vote. I'd also run a couple
photocopies of the completed ballot before mailing.

There is also to possiblity that your ballot choices will be entered into the tallying system
by a clerk at the BOE, rather than being scanned or otherwise machine-read. There was
a mention here some months back of someone observing clerks data-entering the absentee
ballot choices on a DRE screen. This would be in a county having only DRE's, except for disabled
voters. All BOE's have their own procedures; you might want to check with the locals as to how
they will tally early/absentee ballots. So many ways to cheat...VIGILANCE!

[Independent_Liberal]

10. Right Peace Patriot! Scream your head off about it now!

Tell as many people as you can! Friends, family, neighbors, state legislators, district attorneys, state attorney generals, HELL, even your pet!

Toss the machines out in the streets! Grind them up in a friggin trash compactor! Flood the office of every legislator and city council with paper ballots! DO IT NOW!!! We aren't gonna let them steal it from us again!

Reform! Reform! Reform!

[galloglas]

4. That is like breaking through The Grand Canyon

National Park barrier walls, at eighty miles an hour, while driving a car full of friends and asking whether there will be any problems resulting from the action.

At first, the car's trajectory would be more or less flat. Then gravity would take over (Labor Day, metaphorically?) and then you and your friends would start downward. The GOP friends would say, "I don't see any problem now. We're not near anything. Don't worry!"

But, remember, now you're driving a HAVA. And there ain't no going back!

So, when we all crawl out of that piece of crap come November, we need to junk the SOB, 'cause it can't be fixed. Then we have to climb that great big cliff back to the level land of Constitutional Freedom and governmental accountability.

It will be a long, hard slog. But there is no other choice. And we must do it by Ourselves Alone.

[Kurovski]

5. Yes they will, just as they are designed to do.

Thanks for the heads-up on this program!

K&R.

[katinmn]

6. Is that a rhetorical question?

I don't know about everyone else but I FULLY expect mass cheating that will make everything else look tame. Denny Hastert will continue to swear in any Repubs who are in disputed races and Frist and Chenney will settle any "disagreements" about Senate races.

The question is: What will the people do?

[JimDandy]

8. "Down For the Count" is the actual title

of this PBS NOW segment on voting machines.

More info here: http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/236/index.html

Thanks for the reminder kpete!

[nicknameless]

9. "Will they cause a debacle?" That's what they're for.

:shrug:

[Land Shark]

11. Here's the link to watch the first episode online

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/236/index.html

[emlev]

12. Useful quote from Deforest Soaries at the very end

"What we don’t need is for people not to vote. What we need for people to do is to vote and insist on answers to questions about the machines. We need people to show up. We need the public to not only to engage in voting but to engage in the process of holding the elections administration of voting accountable."