In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
The news is getting out:
Voting systems 'can't be trusted'
"What we know is that the machines can't be trusted. It's an unlocked bank vault ..., a disaster waiting to happen," said David Dill, a Stanford University computer science professor who has prompted more than 110 fellow scientists to sign a petition calling for more accountability in voting technology.
The researchers fear that problems with software systems will result in hacking and voter fraud, allowing people to cast extra votes and poll workers to alter ballots undetected.
Of course, it's too late for Georgia and Maryland, and probably many others who have spend millions on these pieces of junk.
Others dismiss such warnings as paranoid conspiracy theories.
"It's fear-mongering by a few people who want to go back to the 19th century-way of voting," Adams County Clerk and Recorder Carol Snyder said.
Is this paranoid:
April 2002, Johnson County, Kansas - Johnson County’s new Diebold touch screen machines, proclaimed a success on election night, did not work as well as originally believed. Incorrect vote totals were discovered in six races, three of them contested, leaving county election officials scrambling to make sure the unofficial results were accurate. Johnson County Election Commissioner Connie Schmidt checked the machines and found that the computers had under- and over-reported hundreds of votes. “The machines performed terrifically,” said Bob Urosevich, CEO of Diebold Election Systems. “The anomaly showed up on the reporting part.”
The problem, however, was so perplexing that Schmidt asked the Board of Canvassers to order a hand re-count to make sure the results were accurate. Unfortunately, the touch screen machines did away with the ballots, so the only way to do a hand recount is to have the machine print its internal data page by page. Diebold tried to re-create the error in hopes of correcting it. “I wish I had an answer,” Urosevich said. In some cases, vote totals changed dramatically.
November 2002, Baldwin County, Alabama - No one at the voting machine company can explain the mystery votes that changed after polling places had closed, flipping the election from the Democratic winner to a Republican in the Alabama governor’s race. “Something happened. I don’t have enough intelligence to say exactly what,” said Mark Kelley of ES&S. Baldwin County results showed that Democrat Don Siegelman earned enough votes to win the state of Alabama. All the observers went home. The next morning, however, 6,300 of Siegelman’s votes inexplicably had disappeared, and the election was handed to Republican Bob Riley. A recount was requested, but denied.
For more scary stories, and a scary article go to Bigger Than Watergate! (article originally posted here, do read the post if you want to know which representative is trying to deal with this).
Now if you want to get real scared (and maybe a little paranoid), read: How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election
- rob 4:47 PM - [PermaLink] -
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