Election Day Problems Statewide on NY's New Dominion/Sequoia E-Voting System

[BradBlog]

Election Day Problems Statewide on NY's New Dominion/Sequoia E-Voting System

Problems with New York's new electronic voting system are being reported across the state today, according to the New York Times. Today's primary elections mark the first statewide use of the new, paper-based optical-scan systems which have been been the cause of much controversy among election officials and Election Integrity advocates over the last several months and years in the Empire State.

New York is the last state in the union to replace their older election system --- much of the state, as well as all of New York City had previously used mechanical lever machines --- with new-fangled, failure-prone, easily-manipulated computerized systems following the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 which was enacted in the wake of the 2000 Presidential Election debacle.

The new systems are manufactured by the Canadian firm Dominion Voting, formerly as a partnership with Sequoia Voting Systems. Dominion eventually bought out cash-strapped Sequoia's portion of the NY state deal before buying out Sequoia entirely earlier this year. The purchase of Sequoia, then the nation's third-largest e-voting firm, on the heels of their purchase of Diebold/Premiere just weeks prior, has vaulted Dominion, virtually overnight, to one of the largest e-voting vendors in the U.S..

(Read The BRAD BLOG's recent exclusive on the Dominion purchase of Sequoia, and their attempts to cover up the continuing relationship that Sequoia has with a Venezuelan firm tied to President Hugo Chavez here: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7906)

Some state election officials and Election Integrity advocates alike had long-warned against the implementation of these new systems, going so far as to take the issue to court and to testify to the inability of certifying the accuracy of elections run on the new machines.

According to the Times this morning, some polling places "did not open for more than 90 minutes" in Brooklyn; elsewhere, every ballot scanned "was returning a the 'system error'" message; and across the state, there have been reports of "longer-than-usual delays and troubles with the scanners that are supposed to swallow and tabulate the new, SAT-style ballots"...

FULL STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8070

[Stevepol]

1. Golly it sure seem like they's a lot of problems w/ them machines.

[spanone]

2. problems = questionable elections

[bertman]

3. Couldn't possibly happen in New York. Could it?? Don't worry, they'll have it

fixed in no time flat.


:-(

[molly77]

5. Their system was not exactly pure prior to the new

voting machines. Remember the blip in MSM news? Obama did not get a single vote in the dem. primaries in Harlem and Brooklyn. NYPD did the transporting of ballots. Cuomo will be done in by his own lack of action on election fraud. Pity.

Few politicians have had the courage to stand up to the corruption. Look what happened to Don Seigleman. He lost his bid for gov. at 1 AM. The bewitching hour for election fraud.The entire machine called the US govt. came down on him. No appeals for Don Seigleman. Tom DeLay is dancing with the stars. I am sure the example is not lost on those running for office.

[lonestarnot]

4. I certainly thought about you tonight.

:evilgrin: Getting me into trouble on another thread and I didn't even mention your name. :D

[cal04]

6. Nassau officials blame workers for voting machine woes

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/nassau-officials-blame-workers-for-voting-machine-woes-1.2293467

Nassau election officials vowed Wednesday to retrain poll workers on new voting machines after their mistakes caused major headaches for confused primary voters and resulted in delayed counting of the ballots.

While voting problems in Tuesday's primary election were not as widespread on Long Island as in New York City, Nassau poll workers overloaded a troubleshooting call center with concerns they should have been able to handle themselves, said William Biamonte, the Nassau Democratic Party election commissioner.

"It created a real backlog," Biamonte said. "We're going to identify the inspectors we had real problems with and give them remedial training."

Biamonte said unprepared workers were the biggest problem as Nassau and the rest of the state switched from voting machines with levers to paper ballots fed into a scanner.

The machines themselves also shared blame, as six had to be replaced and there were persistent paper jams, Biamonte said. Uneducated voters didn't help, as they often pressed the wrong button or fed the ballot into the machine incorrectly.

But Biamonte and independent election experts blamed poll workers for problems such as not knowing how to print out election results and not distributing ballot privacy sleeves.

[earcandle]

7. wake up and promote internet ballots registered at your own bank (in confidence but numerically

sequenced and ticketed with password so you can check  on your
vote and find out who is using it for their programs.

Come on guys, and gals!  And techies of all natures! You can
do this.