Recount in VT is a friggin' JOKE !

[garybeck]

For those not aware, the democratic primary for Governor of Vermont resulted in only ~200 votes separating the top two candidates, Peter Shumlin and Doug Racine. Racine, who trails, has asked for a recount.

Most of the votes in Vermont are counted by Diebold/Premier "Accuvote" optical scanners.

Well everyone always says, "the great advantage about optical scanners is, if you want to have a recount, you can always count some or all of the ballots by hand. With the touchscreen machines, you're completely S.O.L.

Well guess what, we're having a recount, but are they going to count any of those ballots by hand? Shit no! They're just going to feed the same ballots back into the same scanners, that have the same proprietary code on them counting the votes. Prediction: They're going to get the same results!

Why aren't they going to count any of those ballots by hand and make sure the machines counted correctly? Because the present Secretary of State (who finished 3rd in the race by the way) doesn't give a shit about our democracy and has been a shill for Diebold for the last 10 years!

Happy democracy everyone!

[pnwmom]

1. Actually, they might not get the same count twice. They didn't when

that happened here. So then there was a third count, by hand (with 3 people agreeing on each ballot), and the Democrat won. The Rethug, Dino Rossi, is still steamed about that -- insists that machine counting is more accurate than hand counting.

[cognoscere]

17. If Dino Rossi is a Republicon, then, by definition,

he is a lying sack of shit.

[RandomThoughts]

2. They will pay

[garybeck]

3. who will pay? for what? n/t

[RandomThoughts]

5. Long story.

[garybeck]

4. Wow. Someone actually "un-rec'd" this !?!?!

This had one rec and then it went down to zero. What motivation would there be for un-recing this?

[Bill Bored]

6. I got it back to 4 Recs as soon as I read the part in the OP that said "Shit no!"

As to why someone would un-rec, there are a lot of folks who still think scanners aren't computers and are lots better than DREs and that when the public counter on the scanner increments, it means the votes will be counted as cast like on a lever machine (no vote switching possible on lever machines!). And they think that because scanners are a step in the right direction for some DRE states, they shouldn't be trashed in public, but more like in private, or among election lawyers who stand to make fortunes representing candidates who want to get recounts, etc.

In other words, there are some vested interests out there who want the scanners.

So maybe your candidates should lawyer up and get those hand recounts -- at least the apparent loser should. The apparent winner should get his lawyer to fight AGAINST the recount, just like Bush v. Gore. The courts and these lawyers will end up deciding the outcome of the election. The voters just show up and vote.

What do you think will happen next? Are Vermonters so damn polite that they won't go to court to find out who really won an election?

(Of course, it may be too late to find out for sure, since the paper ballots are no long in public view.)

[garybeck]

7. I don't get it

forgive my ignorance but I don't understand why the "shit no" prompted you to unrec it?

regardless, here is what is going to happen... nothing. no one here in vermont realizes or understands the problem. we have a small group of people who "get it" and we are a thorn in the side of the SoS but the citizens of Vermont have no clue that the opscans have any potential problems at all. they have no idea what audits are or why we need them. and that goes for the candidates too. they are totally clueless. they think that by putting the ballots back into the machines, we are doing a valid recount. so there will be no lawyers, no fights for or against the recount.... nothing. in all likelihood the recount will have the same winner and people will complain that we had to spend the time and money on it at all. and if the Dem loses in the general election, they'll blame it on the recount and how it split the party apart. There ya go.

For the record, i am among those people you describe, who believe that opscans with audits are better than DREs. I don't have a vested interest, and I don't necessarily want the opscans to stay. I just would rather have audited opscans than DREs.

[Bill Bored]

8. To clarify, I REC'ed the thread! (And I'd rather have audited op scans than DREs too.) nt

[garybeck]

11. oh i get it now

i see, you got it from 3 to 4. i saw it go from 1 to 0 and also from 5 to 4... not that I stare at the recs but I did notice it, so at least 2 people unrec'd it. oh well, takes all kinds I guess....

[Bill Bored]

16. Right. nt

[Enthusiast]

14. Diebold stockholders? nt

[eridani]

9. King County (WA State) gave up using scanned images for ballot duplication

Turned out that some were too faint to be read, so the teams of duplicators are working off of the original ballots now, thank heavens.

[garybeck]

10. weird. why did they have to duplicate the ballots? n/t

[eridani]

12. Because of the effing all mail in balloting in a voter intent state

If you make a mistake, you line it out and mark the correct choice, but the machine can't read the ballot. Also, overvotes where voter intent is clear (marking the oval for a candidate and writing in the same candidate) have to be dupilicated. And ballots that get munged by the post office. And those which have X over the oval instead of filling it in, or are filled out with colors other than black or blue, etc. At least the new scanners seem to be able to tolerate slight printing registration errors a lot better. There is hand count auditing, but it needs to be made mandatory, and the protocol designed by real statisticians.

[Wilms]

13. I've said enough about this sort of thing prior to this.

I vote on a paper ballot blah, blah. :grr:

[eomer]

15. Recommend

Would kick too, but it was at the top anyway.