BREAKING: Fire Destroys All 10,000 E-Vote Machines in Houston, Harris County, TX

[babsbunny]

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8017

By Brad Friedman on 8/27/2010 10:09AM

First, we didn't do it.

Second, via KHOU in Houston:
HOUSTON – A three-alarm fire swept through a northeast Houston warehouse early Friday wiping out more than 10,000 pieces of voting equipment. City officials said they are unsure what will be done when voting begins in the next few months.

The Harris County Election Technology Center, located on Canino at Downey, caught fire around 4:20 a.m., and the blaze quickly grew to three alarms.

The warehouse stored more than 10,000 pieces of equipment, including voting booths and eSlates, the computer-based machines used for collecting votes.

[DJ13]

1. Thats one way to force them to go back to paper ballots

[AnArmyVeteran]

37. I bet republicans torched the building!

Bill White the democrat running for governor was mayor of Houston. He would overwhelmingly win the votes in Harris County. Knowing this is Bill White's stronghold in Texas I'm willing to bet that Rick Perry's corrupt thugs torched the building to make it difficult for people to vote for White. I hope there is an investigation.

[L0oniX]

2. \/\/()() T

[BeHereNow]

3. May we all agree to a moment of silence to honor Andy.

I'll bet this is one fire he would rejoice at.

BHN

[uppityperson]

23. Indeed. k&r. eom

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Just a thought, use paper

[TK421]

5. I know, right? I just don't get what is so frigging difficult about that!

[RC]

8. You can't pre-program a paper ballot for your boy to win with in the margin of error.

Not you, you. Them.

[TK421]

12. I hear you...I guess what I was trying to point out was how

everyone voted before we had these machines. I don't see what the big deal is about using paper ballots in the voting process....not enough manpower for the tallies, perhaps? It worked in the past, didn't it? :crazy: Man...I got a freakin' headache already! ;)

[Igel]

22. I don't remember.

I wasn't around then.

I just know the last election I voted in I was confronted with a ballot with something like 87 different votes to cast. Very few precincts had the same ballot: Between state, city, county, and national races, city charter issues, local bond measures and who knows what all there were enough boundary lines criss-crossing the county that it made for a lot of different ballots.

We have early voting. I can vote anywhere in Harris County. But I need to have "my" ballot sheet, the one for my combination of city/county/etc. jurisdictions applicable for where I live wherever I drop in to vote, and when I vote the information has to be recorded properly so that on election-day Tuesday I'm not able to vote a second time. And at the early voting polling station they have to be able to keep the ballots separate or have some way of making sure that the ballot for my precinct doesn't get misscored according to the ballot sheet for another precinct.

Simple ballots on numerous election days would work. Election day is in a bit under 2 months. Early voting starts in mid-October. So they have to quickly design a system that complies with local and state law, design the ballots, print the dozens of versions and distribute them and train all the poll workers, as well as set up the voter verification system and make sure nobody can vote twice all in about 7 weeks. Then they have a couple more for figuring out how to do the tallying. Oh: And when it comes time to actually vote, we get to watch the lines trail out the door and into the next precinct as people figure out how to complete their ballots *and* correct mistakes. They have to get state and local laws squared away to keep the ballot complexity down and decide which bits of the ballot will be delayed until the next elections.

Harris County elections presuppose that computers do the counting and provide the right ballot questions. They do a good job. I don't think the people that work at the polling station would be able to replicate it in paper.

[BradBlog]

40. Um, yes you do...

Igel said (misleadingly):

"I just know the last election I voted in I was confronted with a ballot with something like 87 different votes to cast."

Uh, really? Where did you cast that vote with 87 didn't races? I think you're, um, not actually telling the truth here.

"Harris County elections presuppose that computers do the counting and provide the right ballot questions. They do a good job. I don't think the people that work at the polling station would be able to replicate it in paper."

I hope not! If I wanted 100% unverifiable, faith-based voting, I'd not even bother to vote! That's the tyranny that voters of Harris have been forced to deal with since the county brought in their 100% unverifiable, faith-based voting machines.

You may not care about self-governance, citizen oversight, checks and balances and democracy and stuff, but hopefully you'll pardon those of us that do. Good luck with using The Force to cast and count your vote. I'll take a piece of paper, eyeballs and transparency.

[RC]

31. Other countries do it. Canada does paper.

Millions of votes tabulated the next day. We used to do it also.

[Cleita]

6. Oops!

:rofl:

[handmade34]

7. can't pin it on me

I left Houston last week

[Xipe Totec]

9. I left 13 years ago

But I'm sure there will be questions anyway...

No, it wasn't me.

This time...

[Gold Metal Flake]

30. 23 for me.

I still miss Luther's.

[Xipe Totec]

33. I miss Treebeard's and Luther's

[proteus_lives]

10. What a tragedy!

:sarcasm:

[hayu_lol]

13. A step in the right direction...

:^)

[Incitatus]

11. How the hell are the cons supposed to steal votes now?

What a shame.

[City Lights]

14. Oh no! What a shame!

:bounce: :party: :applause: :fistbump: :toast:

[Poboy]

15. Interesting.

:nuke:

That photo at link is bad ass.

[AnArmyVeteran]

16. Bring out the purple dye!

[Rex]

17. Anyone seen Tom Delay? Wonder what he got paid.

He Who Dances with Diebold.

[MattBaggins]

18. All the rejoicers need to re-examine this

They won't have enough machines to go around. They will have to short certain districts. They will start with minority precincts and move up to younger urban/suburban areas.

[Scuba]

19. Nah, we can print a zillion ballots in time.

[PBS Poll-435]

21. Yep. And conveniently, in Bill White's stronghold.

:wtf:

[WolverineDG]

26. 2 weeks of early voting will help that out

you can vote anywhere in your county during early voting. :)

dg

[Gold Metal Flake]

27. Oh, my, whatever shall they dooooooooooooooooooooooooo?

Says Brad Blog:

"If they can't get "similar machines" from somewhere, how, oh, how will the citizens of Houston be able to have elections this year?! Especially since pieces of paper, pens, eyeballs, citizen oversight and common frickin' sense were all long ago outlawed in Harris County, Texas, apparently."

Can The citizens of Harris County make a fucking X? Well when I grew up there the letter X was in common use in the public school system so I'm guesing YES. FFS.

[Skink]

20. Perry's afraid to debate White.

sitting on his 8 point lead.

[Kip Humphrey]

24. Wow! Does this mean we get to vote on paper ballots?

[WolverineDG]

25. 1 down, 252 to go

since we'll get them stopped in my county too (just not so dramatically).

dg

[Gold Metal Flake]

29. By any means necessary.

Or whatever.

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Gold Metal Flake]

28. Other states, may God or whatever the fuck give your vote back to you, too.

[IDemo]

32. Hope somebody remembers to adjust the skew in the central vote tabulator

Could be sort of embarrassing if 10,000 non-existent machines "register" a vote.

[ensho]

34. hooray - paper ballots, hand counted with an audience

nt

[ellie]

35. Big fat bummer!

[Iggo]

38. -

:applause:

[femrap]

39. That's some good news....

maybe now we can save some money and just use paper ballots?! Or does that make too much sense?

Maybe the e-machines are a FIRE HAZARD? They must all be destroyed so not to endanger the people.