In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Dade, There's My Vote!
And it was hiding in a little folder all the time! So why did a citizens group have to sue the state to find them? Somehow I find this so uncompletely reassuring:
The [citizens] group was hoping the audit trail might shed light on complaints of unrecorded votes in primarily black precincts.
The electronic voting records on touch-screen machines are a back-up measure listing everything that happens from boot-up to shutdown, documenting in an "event log" when every ballot was cast.
The records also include "vote image reports" that show for whom each ballot was cast. But the state recently prohibited the use of this data for recounts, saying that touch-screen machines do not allow for human error.
"This was an internal-office, human-error problem," Ms. Kaplan told members of the Miami-Dade County Commission at an afternoon meeting.
So we're all in agreement: touchscreen machines do not allow for human error, yet the failure to account for Florida's disappeared votes was "a human-error problem" -- so Florida immediately enacted a law that prohibits the use of touchscreen voting data for recounts, because the machines do not allow for human error. How's that for flawless legal logic? All you Republican loyalist brains, please weigh in on this one. I'd love to hear from you. This is Democracy at work, Bush style.
The reappearance of the records seemed to provide little comfort to the county commissioners.
One commissioner, Betty Ferguson, asked why the elections office publicly acknowledged problems only after citizens groups or reporters discovered them. The Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, the same group that uncovered the loss of the 2002 records, also discovered through a public-records request this spring that the audit log functions in Miami-Dade's touch-screen machines were flawed.
Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, chairwoman of the election reform coalition, questioned why the office had not used the audit data to investigate complaints of lost votes in 2002. A study by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida found that 8 percent of votes, or 1,544, appeared to have been lost on touch-screen machines in 31 precincts in Miami-Dade County.
"It's like a little child lost in the woods, and nobody calls the police, and you wonder why that child isn't being looked for," Ms. Rodriguez-Taseff said. "Not only have we not looked at our audit data, we can't even find it. And then we locate it in a conference room after they've been asked for it for a month."
Only in the next election, it won't be a little child lost in the woods, it'll be John Kerry. Show 'em which way is Florida, boys.
- Michael 5:32 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
TCS Now offers a News Reader Feed
Subscribe to the TCS Feed
Having trouble with some of the poor English
on this site?
Imagine what it looks like when translated by a machine:
This is a "team" blog. We are a bunch of
Americans, whose rising distress
in our leader's decisions brought us together to make this site.
As Bush said, he's a "uniter." Many of us have never even met.
That's the internet for you.
Buy our cool stuff.
And tell everyone what you feel.
We have a little Store
you can visit.
Our store's selection of items is constantly growing. Come
see what we have.
We're also Amazon Associates, so if you want to buy something from Amazon, please search for it below, and we will get a few bucks from the sale.
Static Sky
Tin Foil Caps
The Free Speech Zone
The office of the independent blogger
Buzzflash
Tom The Dancing Bug
VerifiedVoting.org
Get Your War
On
This Modern World
Eschaton / Atrios
Daily Kos
meowpurrmeow
Contribute to America's Future
It is now more important then ever.
Donate to the Democractic Congressional Campaign Committee
Donate to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
Some More Site Mottos
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the
president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is
not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the
American people."
- Teddy Roosevelt
"Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of
its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work
for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering
hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the
Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name must make
fitting response."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions, but laws must and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
- Thomas Jefferson
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain
degree."
- James Madison
"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."
- John F. Kennedy
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
more coming...
