VT voting machines: Oh NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[garybeck]

In Vermont we have Diebold optical scanners and not audit requirement. Not ideal but it's about to get worse.

I just discovered a bill in our state legislature that has already passed the house and is on its way to the Senate. This bill named H298 in the house, will take away virtually all the benefits of having a paper ballot in the first place.

The worst part of the bill is where it requires all recounts to be done by the optical scanners instead of human beings. In other words, they will take the same ballots and shove them through the same machines. We all know what will happen then - they'll get the same results.

So why even have paper ballots? We might as well save the paper and get some DREs.

This is a horrible bill and it makes me ill, to think that people entrusted to administer our Democratic elections have spent time writing it, and it's already cleared the house.

here's the bill if anyone needs an excuse to vomit:
http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/2012/bills/House/H-298.pdf

:puke:

STOP the attack on Vermont's Democracy!
Call your VT Senator immediately! Vote NO on this horrible bill!

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[blm]

2. They write bills like that to protect thievery, not guard against it. What does THAT tell you about

their intentions?

Where's Dean and his Vermont crew, fer chrissakes?

[Wilms]

3. Not the first I've heard of the technique...and so awful as to make one wonder what they're thinking

Who sponsored the bill? Isn't it worth a call to ask "what they're thinking"?

[garybeck]

4. my guess is that our Director of Elections has something to do with it

We got a new SoS but the DoE stayed on and she is BAD NEWS, a Diebold junkie.

I'm going to have to fire up the sirens, sound the alarm, and do what I can to bury this one.

[flamingdem]

5. Oh no - the only way to dislodge Bernie and the dems is

election "irregularities" ..

[Marie Marie]

6. Sen Sanders was the very first man I thought of. When you can't win

fair and square you have two options: Rig the voting system or redistrict.

[robinlynne]

7. yep. optical scanners are computers. FOr some reason people just dont realize that.

[Wilms]

9. I think that issue goes back a decade.

Paperless DREs were being pushed and alarm bells were going off. HCPB wasn't going to happen. Reformers, wrongly, thought that lever manufacturers were out of business. Optical Scan seemed the obvious fall-back choice "because you have the paper ballot in case there are any questions".

Lost in all of that was the fact that optical scanners ARE computers, and that you need recount law to get at the paper.

So there's A LOT of misunderstanding out there. I really should have a blurb handy to paste given the number of times I posted an explanation, especially with regard to NY where NYVV/Lipari did a lot of damage to efforts to educate about the involved issues.

New York, pending the outcome of a lawsuit against optical scan computer vote tallying, has just started using scanners. The first election with state-wide use of them saw the state senate handed over to republican control in a razor thin margin election that was a poster child for the need for recount law. A court blocked the recount. Lipari, et. al. didn't say a word until right before the final appeal.

Not cool. And predictable. Their mantra was "you have the paper ballot in case there are any questions".

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

8. hand count reversed winner in Wayne Co NC in 2002

WAYNE COUNTY 2002

• Paper Ballot Optical Scanners used.
• Phill Baddour was apparent winner on election night
• A noticed anomaly in vote totals leads to the examination of programming for vote counting machines.
• Subsequent recount of Voter Verified Paper Ballots lead to Rep. Louis Pate being declared the definitive winner.

See article at this link
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/103388/