NY: (U.S. District Court Decision) A Boost for Nassau's Fight to Keep Lever Voting Machines

[Wilms]

A Boost for Nassau's Fight to Keep Lever Voting Machines

June 19, 2010 by RICK BRAND / [e-mail]

snip

"The door is open a crack," said County Attorney John Ciampoli, "but we're ready to lean on it."

In his ruling, U.S. District Court Justice Joseph Bianco sided with Nassau ordering the county voting machine lawsuit be heard in state courts, despite opposition from the state Board of Elections and the attorney general's office.

In its lawsuit, Nassau claims the new electronic voting systems violate the state constitution because they threaten to disenfranchise voters due to their unreliability and security problems. They also claim elections would no longer be controlled by public officials but private companies that own the software.

snip

State officials argued the county is trying to use state claims to avoid implementing Help America Vote legislation and ignore court orders. Bianco disagreed: "HAVA does not prescribe a particular type of voting machine nor does it have anything to say about any specific requirements" on how New York officials must carry out their duties.

snip

William Biamonte, Democratic elections commissioner, said state court will allow them to raise the issue of machine flaws (Judge) Sharpe ignored. "This takes it back to (NY State) Supreme Court where the state can't hide behind the Justice Department, a consent decree or a federal judge (Sharpe) who has already made up his mind."

snip

Biamonte also maintains that while federal aid funded purchase of electronic machines, ongoing costs for training, paper supplies, and special trucks now needed to transport the computerized systems are going to be far more costly than the sturdy lever machines. "Paper alone is $1 million a year," he said.

snip

http://www.newsday.com/columnists/rick-brand/a-boost-for-nassau-s-fight-to-keep-lever-voting-machines-1.2037844

[Scuba]

1. What's all the paper for?

Last fall, ES&S quietly purchased Diebold, giving them 80% of market for electronic voting machings. And it's not just the un-auditable vote-counting; they now also own polling place check-in software (electronic pollbooks), voter registration software and vote-by-mail authentication software.

http://www.benalexandra.com/cool_stuff/diebold_ess.htm

This link has very disturbing information, all with appropriate citations, regarding what could easily be a mass-manipulation of our elections.

They've already been caught registering voters who thought they were just signing petitions. Getting total registered voter numbers higher gives them more room to fudge numbers.

When you buy a pack of gum, you get a receipt. Why is there no receipt/audit trail on our votes? I can only think of one reason.

[Bill Bored]

2. Actually Diebold Election Systems is now owned by Dominion Voting Systems

They are one of New York's vendors with connections to Sequoia and Smartmatic.

I bet all those NY Dems who got so upset when Diebold executive Wally O'Dell said he'd deliver Ohio to Bush in 2004 never thought Diebold would be doing business in the Empire state.

[Bill Bored]

6. The receipt concept may not be as simple as you think.

When it comes to elections, you have to be able to prove to yourself how your vote was recorded, but not be able to prove it to anyone else. That's so you can't sell your vote to the highest bidder. It's not as simple getting a receipt for a pack of gum.

While there are some cryptographic methods that can be used to make this possible, they are not mature in my opinion because issues such as dispute resolution (in case a voter claims the system changed her vote) have not been fully elucidated.

Also, none of this has anything directly to do with whether the votes were counted as cast. Vote recording and vote counting are two different things.

[Bill Bored]

3. This part is funny:

From the full article:

Douglas Kellner, co-chair of the state Board of Elections, said Nassau's bid will be futile: "Our position is, that ship has sailed . . . and the time for challenging lever machines has long passed." The only way to stop the demise of lever machines, he added, "would be an act of Congress and it's pretty clear that's not going to happen."

What he fails to mention is that there's ALREADY an act of congress that allows the use of lever machines: The Help America Vote Act!:patriot:

[Wilms]

4. Funny? I think it's pathetic.

Their "...position is, that ship has sailed..."? The "ship has sailed" is not a position. It's meaningless NYVV/Berry/Lipari jingoism.

I say, tell that to a judge!

[Bill Bored]

7. Nah. Kellner is just thinking like a lawyer.

He claims that an act of Congress is necessary to keep lever voting machines. But he knows that's already happened. HAVA was passed in 2002.

He claims that it's not likely to happen now. Of course not, because it's ALREADY happened!

Indeed, the ship has sailed. Congress had a chance to ban lever voting machines in federal elections when they wrote HAVA and they didn't do it.

He says "the time for challenging lever machines has long passed." Right again. Those who would challenge lever voting machines are living in the past -- when they were led to believe that:
- ballot scanners were NOT computers,
- ballot scanners would be properly audited (using the paper ballots),
- ballot scanners were standalone devices programmed by little old blue-haired Democratic and Republican ladies at the poll sites,
- etc., etc.

Those days are long gone in New York, although the smell of this BS still lingers.

That's why the New York State courts will have to decide what happens next.

[EFerrari]

5. K&R

[aquart]

8. Save my levers!

And sell those vote-theft machines to China for scrap.

[Peace Patriot]

9. "elections no longer controlled by public officials but private companies that own the software"

That's the gist of it. And this is very, very, very, VERY wrong, unjust, anti-transparent and un-American!

:patriot:

[Wilms]

10. Here's a link to the entire article.

http://walmartcommunityvotes.com/election-news/newsday-melville-n-y-rick-brand-column-4

[Bill Bored]

11. Apparently this decision has ruffled a few feathers.

It's an inconvenient truth that HAVA does NOT ban lever voting machines in federal elections.

There's now an anonymous campaign underway (probably by the State Board of Elections) to give New Yorkers the impression that counties like Nassau, who are opposed to computerized vote counting, will "comply" by switching to ballot scanners this year.

Of course the counties will do what they have to do, but the jury is still out on these lawsuits, and anything can happen.

Which of Gandhi's stages are we in now: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win?”

I'd say somewhere between fighting and winning. They sure ain't ignoring or laughing at us!

[Wilms]

12. More feather ruffling shortly.

I'll be back in a moment with a link.

- edit -

Here it is:

NY: (State Supreme Court Decision) Another Boost for Nassau's Fight to Keep Lever Voting Machines!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x515886

[Bill Bored]

13. Parrots with ruffled feathers is more like it.

[Wilms]

14. Ship has sailed. Ship has sailed.

Brwwwwwp.