Democrats are a MINORITY in both houses of Congress!

[Gothmog]

43. The GOP does not rely on secret codes but on good old fashion voter suppression efforts

I volunteer in the area of voter protection. The state party and others try to discourage talk about fixed machines in that this suppresses the vote. It is hard enough to get voters out to vote without telling them that the system if fixed. There are mechanism and testing in place that makes me believe that there is no fix in place.

I am one the team that has watched the certification and testing of machines each cycle. A very boring job but is necessary. Basically each machine is tested to confirm that all candidates are properly on each ballot and then a zero tape is run to show that there are no votes on the machine. Every state has some sort of certification and testing system in place. I have talked to programmers and it would be difficult to fix the machines used in most counties in Texas without getting into the hardware which would not be easy. Again, test votes and other tests are done each cycle to make sure that each judge booth controller (the unit that counts the vote) are set at zero votes and then there is a special seal placed on each machine. If that seal is broken, then that machine will be tested to make sure that there was no tampering. There are three redundant counters in the JBCs used by my county that can only be accessed by taking the machine apart. It would be very difficult to fix such a machine.

If the GOP had a magical fix or computer bug that would give them these elections, the GOP would not be so busy using normal voter suppression tactics. . I helped trained 200+ poll watchers and helped organized and ran a statewide voter protection hotlines. The GOP relies on standard voter suppression tactics like voter id laws. We got a great ruling in Texas so that any registered voter could vote with among other things a voter registration card (one is issued to each voter each cycle), a bank statement or bill if they signed an affidavit. The GOP stilled tried to cheat by having poll greeters tell voters that they need ids to get into polling location (we stopped this fairly quickly).

There was a motion filed today in the Texas voter id case to lift the stay on the injunction declaring the Texas voter id law void http://electionlawblog.org/?p=96463 Even if that stay is not lifted, the plaintiffs have won significant victories that still allow any voter to vote with a number of forms of id if they sign an affidavit. The Democrats won a great victory here but the GOP is fighting like crazy to keep what is left of the Texas voter id law in place.

Democrats are fighting voter suppression. I honestly do not believe that the machines used in my county are fixed and I trust the measures used to test these machines.