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Politics : Bush-The Mastermind behind 9/11? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Edscharp who wrote (4711)	12/23/2003 5:27:21 PM
From: JBTFD	Respond to of 20039

The link works for me, I don't know why it doesn't work for you. It was to a interview with Rob, a guy in Georgia who was supposed to get the machines ready for voting day. Maybe someone else can let me know if the link works for them. Here's another one: blackboxvoting.org It talks in general about problems with electronic voting machines. At the end of the chapter are footnotes referencing the individual articles. If you read this and still think there is no problem, then I think we have nothing to talk about.

To: Edscharp who wrote (4711)	12/23/2003 6:34:21 PM
From: JBTFD	Respond to of 20039

Here's a few clips from the most recent link that make my point: "Some voters aren’t so sure that every single vote was accurately counted during the 2002 general election in Maryland. “I pushed a Republican ticket for governor and his name disappeared,” said Kevin West of Upper Marlboro, who voted at the St. Thomas Church in Croom. “Then the Democrat’s name got an ‘X’ put in it.” No one will ever know whether the Maryland machines counted correctly because the new Diebold touch-screen system is unauditable.7" "Dallas, Texas: More than 41,000 votes were not counted during the 1998 general election because of incorrect programming. A recount was done and ES&S took the blame. Democrats picked up more than 1,000 votes, not quite enough to overturn the election.9" "For the third time in as many elections, Pima County, Arizona, found errors in the tally. The computers recorded no votes for 24 precincts in the 1998 general election, but voter rolls showed thousands had voted at those polling places. Pima was using Global Election Systems machines, which now are sold under the Diebold company name. 11" "21 Officials in Broward County, Florida, had said that all the precincts were included in the Nov. 5, 2002, election and that the new, unauditable ES&S touchscreen machines had counted the vote without a major hitch. The next day, the County Elections Office discovered 103,222 votes had not been counted. Broward Deputy Elections Supervisor Joe Cotter called the previous day’s mistake “a minor software thing.” 13" and here's the best one so far: :In Union County, Florida, a programming error caused machines to read 2,642 Democratic and Republican votes as entirely Republican in the September 2002 election. The vendor, ES&S, accepted responsibility for the programming error and paid for a hand recount. Unlike the new touch-screen systems, which eliminate voter-verified paper trails, Union County retained a voter-verified paper trail. Thus, a recount was possible and Democratic votes could be identified. 26"

To: Edscharp who wrote (4711)	12/23/2003 6:46:11 PM
From: JBTFD	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20039

Here's another article I read recently: "Now here's the really interesting part. Forgetting for a moment Diebold's voting machines, let's look at the other equipment they make. Diebold makes a lot of ATM machines. They make machines that sell tickets for trains and subways. They make store checkout scanners, including self-service scanners. They make machines that allow access to buildings for people with magnetic cards. They make machines that use magnetic cards for payment in closed systems like university dining rooms. All of these are machines that involve data input that results in a transaction, just like a voting machine. But unlike a voting machine, every one of these other kinds of Diebold machines -- EVERY ONE -- creates a paper trail and can be audited. Would Citibank have it any other way? Would Home Depot? Would the CIA? Of course not. These machines affect the livelihood of their owners. If they can't be audited they can't be trusted. If they can't be trusted they won't be used. Now back to those voting machines. If EVERY OTHER kind of machine you make includes an auditable paper trail, wouldn't it seem logical to include such a capability in the voting machines, too? Given that what you are doing is adapting existing technology to a new purpose, wouldn't it be logical to carry over to voting machines this capability that is so important in every other kind of transaction device? This confuses me. I'd love to know who said to leave the feature out and why? " independent-media.tv. pbs.org Both links are to the same article.