Some early W.Va. voters angry over switched votes

[Faygo Kid]

Source: The Charleston Gazette

October 18, 2008 - At least three early voters in Jackson County had a hard time voting for candidates they want to win.

Virginia Matheney and Calvin Thomas said touch-screen machines in the county clerk's office in Ripley kept switching their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates.

"When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain," said Matheney, who lives in Kenna.

When she reported the problem, she said, the poll worker in charge "responded that everything was all right. It was just that the screen was sensitive and I was touching the screen too hard. She instructed me to use only my fingernail." Even after she began using her fingernail, Matheney said, the problem persisted. . .

Read more: http://www.wvgazette.com/News/200810170676

---

Here we go. Again.

Damn those touch screens.

[goclark]

1. So what did she finally do about it?

Couldn't she vote provisional??

[xxqqqzme]

111. or there were no paper ballots available.

If a voter in CA requests a paper ballot, we supply it. In fact, during the lunch hour rush, we go through the line & ask people if they want a paper ballot just to get things moving.

[goclark]

122. Great idea!

[djp2]

132. Paper ballots..

aren't necessarily the best option as the machine that reads those can be compromised to not count correctly. But it is at least a paper record of your vote, if it is ever looked at....some chance!

[annunakigohome]

166. We have to demand paper ballots and discourage early voting

I don't trust where those votes are sent, whether by mail or machine. But definitely encourage everyone you know who has the option: PAPER BALLOTS!!!!

[ohio2007]

178. The issue the becomes this; Will Virginia Matheney and Calvin Thomas attempt to vote on Nov 4rth ?

[marions ghost]

204. the positives of early voting

outweigh the negatives by a long shot.

The problem is transparency and security.

[Leftist Agitator]

2. If tihs happens to me here in WV, I may go to jail for causing a disturbance.

NOBODY AND NOTHING WILL DENY ME MY VOTE!!!!!

[MaineDem]

15. This is one thing I would willingly go to jail for

Nothing is more important.

[proud2BlibKansan]

72. DUer galloglas will give you moral support

Remember he was arrested for voting in August here in the Kansas City (MO) area.

[felinetta]

115. TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS AND VIDEO!!!

IMMEDIATELY REPORT TO THE BARACK OBAMA CAMPAIGN 866-675-2008 AND DEMAND TO TALK TO ONE OF THEIR LAWYERS.

[CrispyQ]

138. In CO, electronic devices are not allowed to be used in the polling place.

This means Blackberries, cell phones & cameras.

If the media comes in to take photographs, every one who is currently in the polling place must consent. No consent, no photo.

The election judge should have called the election office immediately & reported this & then not allowed anyone to vote on the machine until it was replaced or repaired.

[Grinchie]

146. Thats because the machines are wide open to hacking from a simple cell phone..

Isn't technology grand?

[jules1962]

198. exactly right

everyone needs to put this number in their cell phone right now..do not delay this..forewarned is forearmed

[felinetta]

116. TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS AND VIDEO!!!

IMMEDIATELY REPORT TO THE BARACK OBAMA CAMPAIGN 866-675-2008 AND DEMAND TO TALK TO ONE OF THEIR LAWYERS.

[gateley]

3. They only had eight years to come up with a an accurate voting machine.

:grr:

How can we be sure the results of ANY election are accurate and valid?

I don't know if it's allowable, but I would have called a local news affiliate and had them come down with a camera crew to document it.

[lapfog_1]

10. There isn't any such thing, and never will be.

The only system I trust is paper ballots, hand counted by multiple people.

I was a "hacker" before there was a term for it.

[Occulus]

46. Well, it IS doable

but it would require an open-source solution, and that probably won't happen anytime soon.

On the other hand, come on- don't most CS101 courses begin with how to tell a computer how to count? As in, on the very first day of the freshman course?

And doesn't Diebold make ATM machines, that function flawlessly most of the time, and spit out a receipt?

[lapfog_1]

61. Sorry, There isn't an "open source"

solution. There cannot be. It doesn't matter if someone publishes some version of source on the front page of every newspaper (or posts it to the web). You cannot be sure that the source posted is the source of the machine executable running at the time of the vote. Any attempt to ensure same, no matter how sophisticated, can be defeated... for the simple reason that the attempt to monitor what is executed is done by computer, and the computer can be told to lie.

Byte counts, checksums, even image compares can all be falsified.

People will make a few mistakes, even when the ballots are counted by a Republican, Democratic, and Independent representatives. But to have massive vote fraud, you need a computer system.

[yardwork]

74. Diebold makes bank machines that count accurately because the banks demand that.

Diebold makes polling machines that switch votes for Democrats to votes for Republicans because that's what the Republican Party ordered, and Diebold was happy to oblige for the money and the ideology.

[lapfog_1]

126. Sure, machines that aren't falsely programmed,

either by the OEM or by hackers, can count votes accurately.

The problem is people. And the problem with computers is that people tell them what to do.

[MindMatter]

167. That's because it is in the bank's interest to count accurately

In the case of election machines, it is in the "owner's" (meaning the incumbent) interest to cheat. It is impossible to have a safe election system when the original vote is not recorded on a reliable, verifiable, recountable medium.

Even if there isn't fraud, there have been loads of cases where the electronic machines have irretrievably lost thousands of votes. This is simply unacceptable, especially considering that paper ballots with an optical scanner is a much cheaper and highly effective system. It is also far more efficient in the polling place because you can set up as many ballot-marking stations as you want. All you need is a table and a #2 pencil.

Eliminating all touch-screen voting machines nationwide must be a top priority once this election is over. We have already had two Presidential elections stolen via these machines and a third one in the balance. Enough is enough. If we can spend $700 billion to bail out Wall Street, I think we can spend a few million dollars to bail out our democracy.

[marions ghost]

206. YES

Elimination of touchscreen voting is the only way to go. Top priority, absolutely. I'd be willing to go with optiscan/paper ballots with foolproof safeguards in place.

It is insulting and egregious to the American voter that these machines got as far as they have. More than anything else it demonstrates Republican intent to dominate the future through election fraud. It also clearly shows Democratic naivete and failure to stop the unbelievably expedient proliferation of these machines.

It's a crime against the American voter.

[Grinchie]

148. Receipt!! Inconceivable!

Even if they did, it would be printed on typical chemically treated heat sensitive paper designed to dissapear in 2 weeks, like all the Receipts you get from WalMart, Home Depot, Lowes, etc.

You know, so you can't return the Chinese crap that looks good but doesn't function, like Generators, Tools, etc..

They would most likely do the same thing to voting receipts.

[gateley]

102. I have a a low-tech solution.

We have carbon ballots. We fill in our choices, a notary does that stamp/imprint thing, we take our copy, the original goes in the ballot box, and if there's any question we can match up the imprints on our copy to the original. What do you think?

[Jackpine Radical]

107. I don't like it.

First, it seems to demolish the idea of a secret ballot. Second, you would have to round up everybody who voted in order to get the count to work.

[Grinchie]

149. If you are afraid to let others know how you voted

Then you obviously are living in fear. I could not give a damn about other people know what I vot for, because I can explain every issue that way I see it and make my case.

You assume that everyone has the time for a Vendetta.

[awoke_in_2003]

164. "you obviously are living in fear"

Fear has nothing to do with it. One of our founding principals was the secret ballot, and that is the way it should stay.

[ldf]

173. fine

then DEAL with the results of the "secret ballot", and quit whining.

[awoke_in_2003]

174. I was't whining...

just pointing out a fact. And I did make a suggestion to the person who brougt up the carbon copy point- have the ballot stamped by the election worker (not an NP) before (not after) you vote

[RaleighNCDUer]

186. Nonsense. The founding principle was the vote - period. Nothing

secret about it. The votes were usually done in public, by a count of raised hands in town hall meetings.

I would not be surprised if the first "secret ballot" was suggested by the guy who wanted to stuff the ballot box.

[ret5hd]

177. Let the vote selling begin!

Do i hear $5.00?

[ohio2007]

180. Tell that to the people of Zimbabwe who were not allowed to vote their conscience for 30 years

Who's to say a lot of outspoken racists will actually vote for Barack knowing their "small" circle of friends will never find out ?

[demokatgurrl]

114. THIS I like. Carbon is old-school but surely

there is still "carbonless" duplicate paper available- my checkbook is full of it.

Where I live in PA we have touch screens (I honestly don't even know if they are Diebold or not). There is NO paper backup of any cound- just an internal counter. I have been there at the end of the night when they counted votes. The machine just spits out a total for each candidate, like a cash register receipt. There is no way of verifying anything.


I DO hope those people reported it to the local Dem or Obama office. And hopefully now that it has widespread publicity something can/will be done.

[gateley]

133. You're right -- I meant carbonless. The goal being an exact duplicate, complete

with having to have the notary's seal indentations match up perfectly.

[Doremus]

136. You combine that with transparent counting at the precinct level and we have a deal!

Old-fashioned paper -- check
Old-fashioned counting before witnesses -- check

Nothing more accurate or tamper-resistant. Doesn't even take any longer either.

[awoke_in_2003]

163. I would change one thing...

have the election official stamp your ballot BEFORE you vote- the vote is supposed to be private.

[no1dolo]

121. This is the place!

" The only system I trust is paper ballots, hand counted by multiple people."

You would have been right at home here in Palm Beach County, Florida a few years ago.

:) :patriot:

[lapfog_1]

125. They used a punch paper/card system.

For ELECTRONIC tabulation. Only the ballots that were not punched correctly were counted by hand. And I would have had no problem with a recount (had it been completed and included all of Florida).

But the problem isn't one of "close" elections, it's one where there is massive voter fraud, of the type seen in many places like Ohio in 2004. It's where the election night exit polls not only disagree with the results, but where the results went from +5 % in the exit polling to -5 % in the reported results. A 10% swing in the "vote".

What's wrong with paper ballots where the voter marks "X" next to the name or ballot proposal that they want? Heck, you can even have touch screens to indicate your choice and then have the machine print your ballot (as many times as needed to get a ballot that reflects your choices... eliminating the "sloppy voter" problem). So long as the ballot is then hand counted.

[aggiesal]

128. It's not voter fraud, it's election fraud ...

Voter fraud is committed when a person votes multiple times or votes as a different person.

Election fraud is when voters are disenfranchised intentionally and the election is adjusted
in favor of 1 candidate over all others.
Florida 2000, Ohio 2004, and I believe Colorado 2008 will be victims of election fraud.

[Faygo Kid]

11. Repuke county clerk blames the voters. Of course.

The conclusion:

Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright said, "After we got a call from the Secretary of State's Office, we recalibrated the machine. We had already voted over 400 people with no problems."

Voting problems occur when voters touch the screen, Waybright said, but do not put their fingers inside boxes for their candidates.

Waybright blamed the problem on voters.

"People make mistakes more than the machines," he said, "but I went in yesterday and recalibrated the machines. We are doing everything we can not to disenfranchise anybody."

Matheney remains concerned.

"Leaving the polling place," she said, "I wondered how many voters might not have noticed that their vote was switched on the machine."

[yardwork]

76. I wonder what happened to the votes when they recalibrated the machines?

I don't trust anything the Republicans do. Nothing. Not after what they've done.

[AndyTiedye]

100. Because if You Touch the Machine ANYWHERE ELSE it Votes Republican

That is why they are Diebold Republican Electing Machinez!

[last_texas_dem]

160. Oh, but the Repugs are the *populist* party, don'cha know?

They disgust me so much; trying to put on their "populist" act at election time. Every time something like this occurs we see their true colors shine through. Remember how in 2000, whether Gore had truly won or not, voter's intentions didn't matter b/c if they hadn't voted 100% correctly, they were "too dumb to vote"?

[emulatorloo]

4. K&R n/t

[Frank Booth]

5. Oh, fuck.

I hope the Obama campaign is working on this.

[Heather MC]

95. We can work on it

Sarah C. Bailey
Deputy Secretary of State and Director of Communications
WV Secretary of State's Office
Bldg. 1 STe. 157-K, Kanawha Blvd. E
Charleston, WV 25305
Phone: 304 - 558-6000
Fax: 304 - 558-0900
E-Mail: [e-mail]
Class: '08



Sarah Carden Bailey received a Bachelor of Science degree from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky in 1994, and a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from the West Virginia University College of Law in 1997. Prior to her current position as Deputy Secretary of State and Director of Communications, she was Vice President and Assistant General Counsel for Acordia/Wells Fargo Insurance. She has also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Charles H. Haden II, Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia and an associate at the Charleston law firm of Bowles Rice McDavid Graff & Love, focusing on E.R.I.S.A. and commercial litigation. Since 1998, Sarah has been highly involved in the fundraising activities of Fund for the Arts, serving for two years as President of their Development Board and for the past nine years, as a principal organizer of the Wine & All that Jazz Festival. Sarah resides in Charleston.

[varelse]

6. Waybright blamed the problem on voters.

Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright said, "After we got a call from the Secretary of State's Office, we recalibrated the machine. We had already voted over 400 people with no problems."

Translation: in a largely Republican district, you voted 400 people who weren't going to even try to vote for the Democrats, and thus did not see any problem.

:grr:

[formercia]

7. "recalibrate"

yeah, right.

A pencil mark on a paper ballot doesn't need recalibration.

[bemildred]

12. That sounds like an on-the-fly software change, eh?

I don't imagine these machines have too many analog adjustment mechanisms. And gee, I thought all the software had to be "certified" before it was used.

[Delphinus]

37. Don't know if this in the political vids, but

watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKnIghBsU58

Edit to add: it's about Diebold and machines

[Grinchie]

154. There are such things as Thermal Drift

Thermal Drift is when electrical components change in Resistance, Capacitance and Impedance when they heat or cool. It can cause electrical signals to shift around, and this is certainly true with a touch screen.

A good example is a device called a Thermistor, which changes it's resistance in a precise manner depending on temperature. The resistance chance so precise and predictable, that it is used in digital thermometers. Regular resistors are not supposed to do this, but they can. In fact, nearly everything can drift given differing heat. It can be acceptable in some applications, unacceptable in others.

An example is when a machine is cold and turned on. It is then calibrated by clicking 4 check boxes in various parts of the screen. This "Sets" the coordinates for the Chip that translates impulse to Logical Coordinates.

As the device warms up, the electrical impulses may "Drift", and if the Drift is significant, the Logical Coordinates derived from the electrical impulses could be considerably different than the one detected when the machine was cold. This is a Normal, Documented effect present in ALL electronic devices.

The machine just needs to recalibrated to the new coordinates, but you can assume that the Polling workers don't even think about the possibility of Thermal Drift, or they have been explicitly not told about it.

As a Software and Electrical Engineer, I would never ever ever use an Electronic Voting machine unless it gave me a receipt.

These things are manufactured like Consumer Items and are not subjected to any rigorous testing or manufacturing standards for Software or Electrical components.

[w4rma]

183. Elections using receipts will be influenced by vote buying, so Electronic Voting machines are out.nt

[awoke_in_2003]

165. "these machines have too many analog adjustment mechanisms"

True, but it does have one very important analog system- the touch screen. If you have ever worked around these things, you learn that they will lose calibration. We have 2 touchscreens in every sim here for instructor input, and you need to clean the screens at least once a day, and calibrate every month or so.

[tazkcmo]

8. Ass Wipes

"Most voting machines in most counties do work properly, Bailey added."

As long as it's just the Dem's vote getting switched they're comfortable with MOST machines working properly. Let ONE Rethug vote get switched and it's voter fraud! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[The Wielding Truth]

64. Most of them? What a half-a answer. All votes must be correct!

[cvoogt]

9. calibration nonsense

if it's touch-screen, there's nothing to calibrate. How could moving the equipment cause it to get miscalibrated?
Sounds like they have to adjust their software instead. I guess maybe since it's a 'Republican' county, the software might have been tweaked to 'help' registered Republican voters make sure they actually vote for Republicans, and hope no one notices.

[Wilms]

14. There sure is something to calibrate.

That said, these machines are error prone let alone insecure.

BTW, the machine is a Sequoia Ivtronic.

http://www.wvsos.com/elections/ballots/votingsystems.htm

[Wilms]

171. Ack!

ES&S. Not Sequoia.

[onlyadream]

31. touch screens do need to be calibrated

my kid's leapster got unadjusted and I had to go to a calibration feature, where it showed me "x"s on the four corners, which I had to select with the stylus - and then it was fine. This is just my personal example, but I do know they are all like that which is why I don't think this is a good way to vote. Also note that it NEVER seems to go the other way - to democrat. It just seems like it's a way blame the machine (when in reality it was really done on purpose).

[backscatter712]

96. Calibration is an easily abusable feature.

Think of a crooked local Rethug election worker deliberately miscalibrating the machines so it's off just so, so when you touch in the Barack Obama box, it registers in the John McCain box.

Think of it as a form of voter intimidation - in which the machine is deliberately miscalibrated and made to malfunction in a way to tell the voters "Your vote doesn't count!"

You're absolutely right - touch-screen machines are a poor choice for this application - where there's a lot of security concerns and issues with tampering.

[yardwork]

77. The machines appear to be programmed to switch Democratic votes to Republicans.

According to the article, at least three voters watched their votes change from the Democrat to the Republican candidate in the top three offices.

[greenmutha]

13. Noooooo! This cannot be happening!

And Matt Groening thought he was just kidding around:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k8MrtOwi9I

:grr: :nuke:

[NJCher]

129. that was funny

But it was also sad: because when it appears in the popular culture like that, it means it is institutionalized.

So now it's an institution: Republican electronic voting fraud.

It should never have come to this.



Cher

[CitizenPatriot]

16. DUers!!!! PLEASE tell your family and friends and everyone you talk to

to CALL the Obama campaign RIGHT then and there if this happens!!! They need to come to those precincts and make sure everything is OK.

they need to document these occurrences.

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD

[psomniferum]

47. Yes

This is what I heard. Don't leave the polling place. Call the Obama campaign. They're were mobilizing attorneys to dispatch to any location this happened.

I can't believe that the guy blamed this on the voters! What a crock.

[helderheid]

69. PLEASE make your post an OP. This is up to us. Thanks!

[RazBerryBeret]

17. I am so angry with BOTH

republicans and Democrats that we have done NOTHING about this problem in the last 4 years! Seriously, we knew this was a problem in '04. I live in Ohio and I will be voting on the same Diebold machine I voted on in '04....we had 4 years to fix this!!!

[Dukkha]

21. vote absentee NOW

I did yesterday here on Ohio and it's all done on paper ballot. Big crowd there yesterday too which is encouraging.

[kdmorris]

78. Well, some people tried

We have paper, optical scan ballots in Palm Beach County, FL now, mainly because of Rep. Robert Wexler fighting all the way to the Supreme Court for us to have a paper trail. Doesn't sound like anyone in Ohio did the same, which is really crappy.

[ekwhite]

142. We have the same type of ballot where I vote in California

At least the optical scan machines allow for a recount.

[Sydnie]

18. This is a remarkable story considering the area it's located in

Let me tell you a little story about Jackson County.

My mother moved to Jackson County in the late 70's. I never lived there as she moved there after I had left for college and well, I never lived with her after that.

I did visit there on rare occasion over the years though. After my first child was born, I went to visit several times, with years apart from each visit. As my son got older I was very concerned by my stepfather's use of the 'n' word. It was just part of the usual language you would here that as they thought that no one would object because well, there was only one black family in the whole county. They lived in the area that the locals had come to call 'ni**er hill'. I told my stepfather that if he said that word again in front of me or my son, I would take him from their house and never return. He respected my wishes but I can be sure that he didn't change his ways completely. Why would he when everyone else in the whole county shared the same ignorance ... except for that one lone family of course.

How did they know that there was only one black family in the county? My mother was an elected official and had access to that information and having canvassed in the county for herself, she had confirmed that fact on her own as well.

The fact that voters in Ripley are casting (or at least attempting to cast them) for a man that is so under represented in that county speaks volumes for the turn out across the state that we should expect. IF they don't steal it.

This one story has given me more hope to win WV than any single story this campaign cycle. Now, let's keep them from stealing it!

[snappyturtle]

19. The nightmare begins all over again. K&R nt

[MetaTrope]

20. Funny how I've never had an ATM deliver $1,000 to me while registering it as $10

[progressoid]

53. Ya, funny huh? . n/t.

[eridani]

195. That has happened

The reason that isn't a problem is that the bank or the customer can correct the problem easily because bank and customer and transaction are linked by unique identifying numbers. And also they have lots and lots of time to make the correction. Neither of those factors are relevant to voting.

[msongs]

22. too bad dems did nothing to fix this problem in the last 2 years eh? nt

[stillcool]

30. Too bad Jennifer Brunner..

isn't the Secretary of State there, eh?

[volatileblob]

23. I've had similar problems with ATMs really, not chosing the right account....

Maybe it isn't so much a conspiracy but a weakness in touch screens. Does static add to the problem? Maybe we should all bring Nintendo DS styluses to the polls?

Cause they really don't need you to see a vote flipped to cheat, right?

[stillcool]

43. Vote flipping is not a conspiracy..

it is a well documented problem. However I have not read anything about ATM's flipping a customers choices.
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1967&Itemid=26

[panzerfaust]

201. www.votefraud.org

Does anyone know what happened to them? They seem to be gone?

'www.votefraud.com' is now a redirect to a sleazy 'power herbal' site: which is suppose is as good a metaphor for what happened to our democracy as anything could be.

Ciao

[yardwork]

79. Maybe we shouldn't have touch screen voting, period.

My county has used optic scanning for over a decade. It works beautifully. It's simple. It's accurate. The voter fills in circles next to candidates' names on paper ballot, using a black pen provided at the polling place. The voter feeds the paper ballot into a scanner which instantly counts the votes - sort of like a fax machine. The paper ballot is retained in the locked bin behind the scanner. If the voter didn't mark the ballot correctly - if they put an x instead of marking a circle - the ballot is retained in a separate bin and counted by hand.

It's simple. It's accurate. It can't be hacked. Why do the counties in my region use this system? They're DEMOCRATS!

[mantis49]

94. Yes, it can be hacked.

What was that documentary on HBO that showed how? Can't remember the name of it, but they demonstrated how it can happen.

[amyrose2712]

99. "Hacking Democracy" nt

[ekwhite]

145. Sure, it can be hacked

The electronic total can be changed on the machine. The big point is that there is a paper record of the votes. The votes can be hand counted if the results are challenged. No system is perfect - even paper ballots can be falsified or destroyed - but the optical scan machines are better than touch screen machines. Why can't Congress pass a law banning touch screen machines - providing funds to switch over to optical scanners?

[eridani]

196. It can be hacked. That's why there should be manadatory audits

--no matter how close the race is.

[marions ghost]

207. yes

MANDATORY audits of EVERY race.

[dkofos]

24. If it happens to you and you have a video capable cell phone, RECORD IT.

I hate those fucking machines!!

[w4rma]

184. And get jailed for bringing a cell phone to a polling both. Don't be flippant.

Find another solution.

[aasleka]

25. Funny, that never happens with ATM's

[iamthebandfanman]

55. yeah really, not even diebold ones. n/t

[elocs]

26. Where I live in Wisconsin we use optical scan, connect the line by the candidate's name on ballots.

Seems like it should be foolproof, except when you get people who instead of connecting the line draw an X in the space or the circle the entire name. With some people you could show them a video before they voted and they would still get it wrong, but at least with the connect the line it would be possible to ascertain intention. The bottom line is that we clearly need a system where people use a pen to mark something by the name or choice of vote.

[rebel with a cause]

63. In Illinois, at least in the county where I vote,

they also use the optical scan, but we have to fill in the circle across from our candidate name. Which is fine as long as a person knows that you have to fill the whole circle in and not go outside the circle. Then the question arises, how much out of the circle do you have to go to mess up you vote. With my illness/medication my hands are losing some of their control. This only means that it is harder for me to do crafts, write with a pen and pencil for long periods and especially do so neatly. There are times that even neatly signing my name is not possible/probable, so to fill in the circle how can I be sure that I did not accidentally get any ink outside the circle? I don't think I did, but what if I did? What if someone else does? Will that cause a problem?

I don't think it should, but then what do I know about the ways things go these days?

[yardwork]

81. The beauty of optical scans is that the paper ballot is retained and can be hand-counted later.

My county uses optical scanning and it seems to be very accurate. It also retains a paper trail of the ballots. It's easy to use and doesn't leave the system wide open for malicious programming.

[Critters2]

120. That's why I feel good about optical scan. There's a paper trail. nt

[eridani]

197. We test our laboratory scales with standard weights every single morning

They are reliable and rarely fail, but we check them anyway. The same should apply to auditing optical scanning.

[stillcool]

27. Favorite quote.

"Most voting machines in most counties do work properly, Bailey added."

[progressivebydesign]

36. Yeah "most", the others just count all the votes for the republicans. n/t

[Joe Chi Minh]

75. "Most voting machines in most counties...." That is utterly surreal!

Where are the Russian election monitors?

[AlbertCat]

104. Most voting machines in most counties do work properly, Bailey added

Fine.

I guess that we only count "most" of WV's electoral college votes then, not all of them.

[whistle]

28. This is clear and un-refutable evidence of vote tampering and all

...touchscreen machines should be seized and the machine suppliers and handlers arrested and prosecuted.

In the meantime all precincts in that county should be immediately required to switch to paper ballots. Let's end this vote tampering and stealing once and for all.

[hedgehog]

29. And New York State is in trouble with the Feds for not replacing

our old clunky machines because we couldn't find anything better!

New York, the Great Empire State where the engines of democracy still run!

[shadowknows69]

39. I didn't hear that. Did we stop the machines from coming in?

Because our levers have always worked fine for me, but my poll workers told me at the primaries that touch screens would be in place for 08. They conceded it wouldn't be Deibold though, not that that is a great comfort.

[hedgehog]

41. I'm not sure if we stopped the machines from coming in so much as it

was a case of bureaucratic foot dragging. Replacing all the machines is going to cost a ton of money that the state doesn't really have right now to fix a problem that doesn't exist!

[hedgehog]

44. "Voting Machines Can’t Meet NY Standards in Time for 2009"

"It’s become obvious that New York State’s new voting systems will not be able to complete New York State certification testing in time for the scheduled 2009 rollout. The state sets the highest bar in the nation for approval of voting machines, one that vendors have never been required to meet before. Their performance in New York demonstrates that they are a long, long way from understanding that the public will not stand for poorly designed, badly tested and outrageously overpriced equipment, and a business philosophy of let the customer be damned."

http://www.nyvv.org/boblog/


I love NY!

[shadowknows69]

54. Cool, thanks HH

[aquart]

32. "Miscalibrated"? Yeah, that's the ticket.

[psomniferum]

49. Does that even mean anything?

[droidamus2]

33. Isn't it amazing

Isn't it amazing that the overwhelming majority of these kind of complaints are Democrats or those trying to vote Democratic that have their votes changed to the Republican candidate. I don't know enough about touchscreens and some here have stated there is nothing to calibrate, but even if there was calibration to be done wouldn't every entry on the screen get screwed up. Either you wouldn't be able to register your vote if there was no other touch area near where you were trying to enter or in every case your entry would switch. Also, if the machine was miscalibrated why is it that the machine, as reported, first registers the vote correctly and then it switches to the Republican. Yeah right tell me how that happens from 'miscalibration'. It's interesting when this happens and there are Republicans in charge they don't seem to have any problem with it. Finally if the machine becoming 'miscalibrated' is a problem when they are moved then wouldn't you think it would be the responsibility of the people running the voting process to run each machine through a rigorous test after they are moved to assure that the votes would be recorded correctly.

[Frustratedlady]

34. We need to scrap ALL the machines and go back to paper ballot.

This is why I've switched to absentee ballot. I know it will be counted.

[progressivebydesign]

35. Oh fuck. Here we go again! Why is it ALWAYS a mistake in the REPUBS favor???

Anyone ever wonder that??? It's never the other way around. This is such bullshit. We've all used touch screens, from ATM transactions to making a dog tag at Petco. Anyone here EVER have a problem with that on other machines? Of course not...

[Faygo Kid]

51. Because it's no "mistake," and never has been. This is what they have in store for us.

They will confine it to the battlegrounds they need to have, of course.

Watch for McCain to somehow "pull out" Florida and Ohio in "nail biters."

Toughest climb they have yet had since they put this theft in place in 2000, though.

[AndyTiedye]

98. And The MSM Will Say It Was Due to the "Bradley Effect"

[ekwhite]

147. That's what I thought when I saw the articles on the "Bradley Effect"

The MSM is trying to prepare the way for a McCain presidency, even though he is far behind in the polls. They want to be able to steal the election no matter what the polls say. Expect to see election fraud on a massive scale this year.

[New_England_Patriot]

58. You never hear ANY problems with people voting the other way.

You never hear "I tried votin' fer McCain n' it switched it to Obama! Those damn libruls r' riggin' th' votin' machines!" :sarcasm:

NEVER. You never heard ANY issues in 2004 with people voting for Bush and switching it to Kerry either. This bullshit with electronic voting machines needs to end.

It was Diebold who wanted to insert themselves into the process of government voting for the sole purpose of making millions of dollars.

To the former Diebold and now presently Premier Election Solutions... VOTING IS NOT A FUCKING MARKET. YOU ARE NOT THE SOLUTION. YOU ARE THE PROBLEM YOU FAT ASSHOLE PIGS!

...I feel better.... eh, not really... :grr:

[fascisthunter]

118. It's Deliberately Flipping votes for the Republican Party

[CitizenPatriot]

38. stop blaming the dems for this crap

people..come on. the DoJ is so politicized and has been for so long- they have refused to investigate this stuff and that is THEIR job. Believe me, some dems have worked endlessly to change this system. I know a guy who has worked on making machines that can't be tampered with and when they put it on the ballot to change these systems over, it was voted down by the people of California.

If only CA had voted yes on it, it would have helped change the nation's voting systems.

However, I am quite sure the people didn't KNOW exactly what they were voting for or against -- as they folks didn't have an advertising budget per se.

Who did people complain to? The head of the DoJ who recently had to be let go due illegal politicization? The new guy, Muck-Assey? Who hasn't done JACK to change anything? He is the guy still pursuing voter fraud instead of election fraud! And I might add, the guy Obama just wrote the letter to, asking him to add this years voter disenfranchisement efforts on behalf of the GOP and McKKKain to the Special Prosecutor's Ongoing Investigation of the GOP.

It is worth note that Obama suggested that the GOP is on cahoots and using tax payer money to help the McKKKain campaign do this.

Now, all of this is highly illegal and violates codes of ethics (oh, pesky ethics).... But what many here seem to forget is WHO do the dems have to bring complaints to? the DoJ.

The DoJ kills these complaints....then they try to take it above and that gets killed by *.

Please stop attacking our own -- I know it's frustrating, but it behooves all of us to understand WHAT the problem is so we can solve it. And I'm not suggesting they are all working hard for us. We need to keep an eye on all of them. But let's try to be as informed about the reality as we can be.

[jwirr]

60. Our machines here in MN are touch screen but they give you a paper

that you can check and then place in the counter. The problems here would be in the machine that does the counting but I haven't heard of problems with that.

[CitizenPatriot]

65. I haven't either -- of course, anything is possible

but my friend who does the work on voting machines tells me those are the best kind to use...so good news for you in MN! I wish we could have a nationalized system. I was SO pissed last year as I lobbied for paper voting or those touch screens with the paper to be told that it would not be possible for everyone in the nation to get the paper ballots ordered on time. WTF? Are you kidding me?

Not enough paper? Too big of an order? This is a reason to stop democracy?

So sad.

[bean fidhleir]

92. Don't alibi them - the Dems are in it up to their necks

The reality is that anything they really want to have happen, they find a way to make it happen.

[CitizenPatriot]

106. OK, like what?

I'm not "alibi-ing" them...I'm dealing with what I've determined to be the reality of the situation.

Now, if you know things I don't --and I'm sure you do -- please share -- but don't just tell me I'm giving them an alibi without dealing with the rest of my post.

How do you expect them to circumvent the DoJ?

Have you kept track of their attempts at justice?

What do you say about the illegal investigation of Dems by the DoJ and the potential for black-mailing of our congresspeople?

I am not making excuses for them; but if we want to change something, railing against the end result does us no good. Are they all really a bunch of wimps who gave into * for no reason when they were voted in en masse to change things???? Did you hear what they had on Pelosi? I heard about that months ago and it explained a bit. I had been saying for the past year it looked like she was being black-mailed, but for what? And then it comes out -- but only part of it has come out. Does this excuse her? No...but it sure as hell explains a lot.

I never said they were perfect -- In fact, the end of my post says we need to keep an eye on all of them.

[bean fidhleir]

123. Sorry if I've misinterpreted, but it looks a lot like you're alibi-ing them

As to what they could do: every state with a Dem legislative majority could have mandated open-source voting software, open-access vote counting, put the onus on the election bosses to prove they'd run an honest election, made it a *major felony* to run a bum election, made election day a state holiday (and even open the polls from Saturday through the Tuesday).

That's just for starters.

And if the GOP resisted, the Dems could put them in the wrong immediately.

But the Dems are rarely on our side - they value "collegiality" and "bipartisanship" more than their duty to us, the people who pay the bills including their @#$%! salaries and perqs.

[CitizenPatriot]

144. with what majority? the house?

While Democrats technically have a majority in both houses of Congress, they only control the Senate 51-49 – and that’s only if you count Joe Lieberman as a “Democrat.”

To get real change, winning additional Senate seats in 2008 is a priority. But activists must be strategic in attaining this goal, and that means prioritizing four Blue States that currently have a Republican Senator up for re-election -- activists need to keep their eyes on the prize – and that is a Lieberman-proof majority.

As I said, the states did try to do this -- CA had it on their ballot and it got shot down. They needed CA to pass it to justify the "expense" to the other states (or some such long winded bs I didn't catch all of). Kucinich has been in there, fighting for us with all he's got. (Love that man). I've been fighting for the paper ballot thing for a while now -- I'm frustrated and angry, too.

Election fraud is already a violation of the DoJ's codes. The DoJ doesn't have to answer to anyone, because * took away congressional authority. That is what people should be pissed off about. The lack of checks and balances- the destruction of the constitution! And when congress asks for documents to begin charges or investigations which could lead to these changes we all want, what happens? The * administration refused to give them. They fail to respond to subpoenas. They destroy evidence. Missing emails. Etc. What would/could congress do???? Who is supposed to enforce their power? The DoJ.

This is the real insidious damage of the * administration. I began researching this a year or so ago, and came across a constitutional scholar who said that the single largest thing the Bush administration did was the politicization of the DoJ. That this would be his legacy, much worse in the long term than his many other crimes. Worse than what Nixon did, by far.


here's a note:
snip:

The connection to the US attorney Purge is that a number of the fired US attorneys have been removed because they failed to bring criminal charges against people who committed technical violations of election laws with no intent of voting illegally. They have been replaced by highly partisan individuals who have no hesitation to convict someone for making an inadvertent error without any intent to commit a crime. That is, the Department of Justice is replacing ethical US attorneys with unethical ones who will use their very significant legal powers to advance the fate of the Republican Party rather than to control crime.

This effort at the Department of Justice was initiated and pushed through by Karl Rove. TPM Muckraker has clearly documented this based on the documents the Department of Justice has provided to Congress.

If Rove's actions and those of the Department of Justice do not constitute voter fraud, then the term "voter fraud" has lost all rational meaning.

http://politicsplusstuff.blogspot.com/2007/04/where-is-real-voter-fraud.html

______

here's what congress is trying to do about this:

Leahy Testifies Before Senate Committee On Voter Disenfranchisement



WASHINGTON (Wednesday, March 12, 2008) – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) testified today before the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration about voter disenfranchisement stemming from purported voter fraud claims. Last Congress, the Senate and House Judiciary Committees held more than 20 hearings to examine the reauthorization of the historic 1957 Voting Rights Act, which was later passed by Congress and signed into law by the President. Under Leahy’s chairmanship, the Judiciary Committee’s investigation into the mass firings of U.S. Attorneys has uncovered evidence showing that the pursuit of so-called ‘voter fraud’ has been used as a partisan tool designed to influence elections. Leahy’s full testimony is below.


http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200803/031208a.html
http://rules.senate.gov/hearings/2008/031208hrg.htm
__________________

read Inspector Fine's report on the DoJ intern program, which many blow off until they realize these people were appointed for life. The DoJ violated federal law, and these people are not in "trouble" for anything. Who is going to hold them accountable? Cheney says he didn't order them to do these things, and the documents were "missing" when requested...

snip:

Allow this to soak in for a moment: documentary evidence in personnel files at the US Department of Justice was destroyed, including notes on hiring decisions and other pertinent documents which are generally kept in all cases for review by employers nationwide should there be discrimination or other claims which require later review. They were destroyed. As in missing, taken out of the files, not there...before the OIG and the OPR could look at them.

http://firedoglake.com/2008/06/24/breaking-oig-and-opr-confirms-politicization-of-hiring-at-doj/
__________________

here's some on that, but you can google it and rread his report right from the govt website.

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/06/politicizing-th.html


I'm truly not making excuses for them; but if you see it that way, that's OK. I just hope you don't misunderstand my position. I'm not against standing up and making them accountable. I want to be sure I have a grasp on what the challenges are and what can be done about them. From what I've read, we are in a tough position until we have a president who can clean up the DoJ, and even then, these lifelong appointees who were picked on their fundy and political (GOP diehards with no ethics) are in there for GOOD. These are the people who decide whether or not to pursue "voter fraud" or "election fraud". That's the real trash and garbage of the * administration.

We need a majority in the Senate, a dem president, and some really clean, non-partisan lawyers to begin cleaning up the DoJ. This is the tip of the iceberg of the mess * created. We only see the results, not the molding festering destruction of our country's constitution. I applaud the spirit behind what your opinion; I hope you see where mine is coming from.

Have a great Saturday...and let's GOTV for everything it's worth to make it harder for them to steal.

[lonestarnot]

40. If the motherfuckers steal this one, a word to all cowards: Get the fuck under your bed!

[IndianaGreen]

42. The only way McCain can win is by stealing the election

Get your weapons ready boys and girls. The Left should arm itself and not surrender to the Right.

[kansasblue]

45. FILM it if you can!

[hedgehog]

48. Here's how we do it in New York:

http://www.vote.nyc.ny.us/img/votenyc.mpg

[furgee]

50. For the first time I voted on a machine

here in the suburbs of Chicago. I have never used the touch screen machines before and always asked for the paper but early voting is done via machine. The machine I used then printed out my votes on a paper roll within the machine and I was to check that before casting the votes. I overheard the judges talking about how often they have had to change those papers.
sooo my question - is this a paper backup of my vote? And if it is are we one of the few places on earth that use machines with paper back-ups that can be used in a recount if needed?

[stillcool]

57. The use of Voter Verified Paper ballot's..

has been legislated in 32 states, according to...
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/index.php

[rebel with a cause]

73. Illinois is one of them that has to be verified (paper back up)

I believe. I find it funny that on the map, the states that are dark green are mostly all blue states, except they say Florida is and we all know about Florida. Oy vey. :eyes:

[Petrushka]

194. Touch screen machines have a paper back-up system here in WEST VIRGINIA too . . .

. . . in Marshall County, West (by God!) Virginia, that is.

[iamthebandfanman]

52. why states use touch screens is beyond me

as if a button costs a lot of fucking money.

give people buttons to push you jackasses, not a fake one on a screen.

computers are falible.


oh no lets not upgrade our energy sources, but lets upgrade our voting booths with computers that can make mistakes!

you know, nasa has computers from the 80s as the backbone of their shuttles and theres a good reason... they dont screw up all the time!

voting is supposed to be accurate, not technologically advanced.

voting machines should only be mechanical(with moving parts so you can visible see a problem) or on paper.

i mean, whats that say about us?
we are to fucking lazy to count paper ballots?

we dont deserve democracy.

[yardwork]

84. Republican states and Republican counties use touch screens for one reason.

They come with a feature - votes for Democrats are switched to votes for Republicans.

[quiet.american]

161. Bingo. nt

[OregonProg]

56. repeat performance

I emailed CNN, ABC News, CBS News as well as West VA SOS Betty Ireland.

[bjobotts]

59. Why doesn't it flip republican to democrat then. Why only dem to republican???

[CitizenPatriot]

70. because they can be programmed to flip from Dem to Rep

on purpose. See Spoonamoore's videos for more on this. It is sickening and it is NOT a tinfoil hat theory.

My friend who works on these machines also explained to me that our votes can be switched by rebooting the machine from a memory card from another machine (say, a republican district) from the OUTSIDE of the machine! No tampering needed.

Another reason to GOTV.

Yes, they steal votes. But they can't steal all of the votes. That would be too obvious.

Let's show them what democracy looks like here in the "PRO-American" USA.

GOTV, Du-ers!!!

PS edited to this from my friend (he just replied to my email about this):

that sounds like a screen calibration problem. It's not necessarily
intentional but when it happens it is usually extremely difficult to
convince the poll workers that anything is wrong because poll workers
don't want to think about anything. Typically the screen can be
re-calibrated but sometimes it can be a hardware problem (in which
case the machine needs to be taken off the job).

_______

all the more reason to call the Obama camp ASAP if this happens to you or a friend or family member

[Mari333]

62. Is anyone sending this info to Obama headquarters?

or Olbermann, kos, huffpo, etc..this needs to be nipped in the bud and the only way to do that is to put some light on it.

[dana_b]

88. let's do it right now!! n/t

[WyldRogue]

66. Myself and quite a few others...

.... will be taking our digicams to the polling places. If there is a discrepancy in the way our votes are shown, we WILL take pictures as proof that there is a deception going on against the American voters.

People, take your cameras, put them in your pockets/purses/anywhere, just make sure you have one on you when you go to the polling places and take pictures of the screen if it shows a discrepancy. We CANNOT allow them to steal this election from us and it'll be a cold day in hell before they'll succeed in stealing my vote!

[Baby Snooks]

67. I predict a close election

And no doubt once again the Democratic Party will either twiddle its thumbs or the Supreme Court will decide the election. By making it impossible to retally the votes. Mustn't interfere with the electoral college's right to elect the president in a timely manner, you know. Even though there is no real "timely" requirement except in the minds of some not-so-supreme Supreme Court justices.

If I had the money, I would expatriate to Europe or possibly Brazil. I have no faith in the future of this country. And reading this just reminds me of that fact.

In areas of the country were there were and are problems within the Democratic Party with regard to racism, it will be easy to make sure the votes for Obama are switched to McCain. And if someone complains, well, you know, these are just those hard-working white voters Hillary Clinton referred to during her campaign.

Only thing that will make a difference is enormous numbers of minorities turning out in key states in numbers that simply cannot be ignored. My fear is that is going to happen. Even ACORN preferred setting up little tables here and there. Instead of getting in the neighborhoods and going door to door. Signing up real voters. Instead of causing problems by signing up people who don't even exist. Sorry but ACORN brought the accusations on itself this time.

All of this just saddens me. Because if McCain is elected, what's left of this country and our Constitution is gone forever.

[AllyCat]

68. Why do these glitches always favor Repukes???

If these were truly glitches, it would be about 50/50 or (gasp!) select a third party candidate. This is not a mistake. Poll workers are not computer experts. They aren't going to help, aren't trained to help, nor should they HAVE TO!!

[phillysuse]

71. This happened to my husband in the Primary in NJ.

The machine's default was Clinton. He tried first to vote for Obama, the machine defaulted to Clinton. Then he figured, what happens if I vote for Edwards who was still on the ballot. Again it defaulted to Clinton. So he pushed Obama and the Vote button simultaneously. He then asked for a paper receipt and was told he couldn't get one. Who knows who he voted for?

We then called the Obama folks and were told that they would count all the machines in the precinct individually and make sure that one was not an outlier. I guess that's good unless they were doing this with all the machines.

And this was in Blue Jersey.

This election is not won until the voted have been counted or not counted or miscounted.

[Mz Pip]

80. Can you imagine what would happen

if the gambling machines in Vegas did this?

Here we are, the United States of America, a beacon of hope for all who hunger for Democracy. The whole world is watching this election and this is the kind of crap they see.

[seafan]

82. Pen and paper ballots, hand-counted at the precinct, under public observation, totals posted on door

... and the tally phoned in to the Secretary of State's office.


NO TOUCH SCREEN MACHINES/NO OPTICAL SCANS/NO COMPUTERS/NO INTERNET ACCESS/NO MECHANICAL DEVICES.


Literally, put our voting and vote counting back into the hands of the people!


That's the final answer.



And we all have to PUSH Congress to act on this, when the new one takes over in January. This MUST be one of our top priorities, for if we are robbed of our votes, nothing, absolutely nothing else will matter.



Some early W.Va. voters angry over switched votes, October 18, 2008

[lizziegrace]

83. If you're voting on Ohio

Jennifer Brunner said on Rachel Maddow's show that voters can ask for a paper ballot that *will* be counted the night of the election.

Link to video: Statement made at 3:25

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4wEqLPcUPc&feature=related

[IsItJustMe]

85. People need to start bringing vidoe cameras with them when they go to vote. My god, how screwed up

can it get.

[yardwork]

86. This is the real vote theft. Acorn is the distraction.

[dana_b]

87. so this is how McCain will "squeak out" his win...

he learned from the best, I guess!!

So where was it that everyone was going to move to again??

[mayahbird]

89. Paper ballots

For years we have had paper ballots. This year Illinois has switched to touch screens. I just wonder why? The state is going broke and yet we have enough money to buy all these new touch screen voting machines. Paper and pencil is sure a lot cheaper, has worked for a lot of years and I know who I am voting for. I wonder if going to work for the government causes a brain warp and you lose all common sense????

[toadzilla]

90. how many fucking times is it going to be "news" when this happens?

EVERY year there is an election. same shit. its like death and taxes.

[mantis49]

91. This story needs to get out there!

It wasn't on Digg yet, but I submitted it. Digg it up!

[Lifetimedem]

93. Hey thats how Bush won

The commissioner should order paper ballots as a back up at all machines..

[pleah]

97. To hell with those machines!

Go back to pen and paper!

[MetaTrope]

101. What's bizarre is, if they're going to flip the vote you'd figure they wouldn't display it onscreen

[bagrman]

103. Why aren't these things in ashes, think "08 T party"

[laughingwaters]

105. West Virginia

It may help to contact the WV secretary of state at: [e-mail]

[sofa king]

108. Just to point out the obvious:

It has been literally only days since anyone thought West Virginia might be up for grabs. It's been one of the least frequently polled states and after the embarrassing primary most have assumed it would go McCain.

Until about five days ago, no Republican even knew that West Virginia would have to be stolen.

I'm not saying that intentional election fraud isn't possible. What I am saying is that you need to keep this time-window in mind. Either the fix was in from the beginning, or it was just put in. Anything in between seems unlikely.

[Enthusiast]

192. Nope, ya got it wrong.

They set up the machines to switch around 12% of the vote regardless of what the polls say. They have been cheating in every election and getting away with it.

[jimlup]

109. Why the fuck can't we just use paper ballots?

We need a hard copy. That is final reciept and a verifiable way of doing a recount. There is no debate. I'm shocked that 99.9% of Americans don't strongly agree.

[ClusterFreak]

110. I'm sorry but I gotta say it...

...in Canada we do it this way: paper ballot, pencil, box.

Next.

[offog]

152. I was gonna say the same.

Hi, Chimpys_Last_Stand! Greetings from a fellow Canadian. Yeah, I've been voting with paper ballots my whole life, and I've done scrutineering for ballot counts too. No problems! I can live with waiting an hour or two for election results, if it means that the votes are counted properly. If the Harper administration ever tries to bring in voting machines, I hope everyone gets up in arms about it.

[eridani]

199. Not all the time you don't

A Seattle elections worker claims that Vancouver BC uses optical scanners whenever they have a lot of items on the ballot. This year my county has 3082 different ballot formats. We don't vote for party slates; we vote for individuals, each of which must be listed separately. My state legislative district has 3 different congressional districts and 4 different county council districts. And ballot propositions, and fire and sewer and water districts.. There is no way you could count all of that by hand. It took weeks to hand count just the gubernatorial race in 2004.

[PatSeg]

112. Everyone needs to have this phone number when they go

to the polls, in case they have problems: 1-886-OUR-VOTE. www.STEALBACKYOURVOTE.ORG



We need to be organized and vigilant this time!

[BrklynLiberal]

113. Same shit. Different election!

[fascisthunter]

117. This is ELECTION FRAUD!

We know these machines cannot be trusted, and have proven to be unworthy of use. But there are those, expecially Republicans who seem to want to use them even though we know they FLIP FUCKING VOTES, and in favor of REPUBLICANS. You don't need tin foil to figure this one out unless you are brain dead.

[redqueen]

119. They are setting us up. I hope people don't turn violent...

It seems the fires are being stoked for conflict, and what with the troops being here now for crowd control... I am worried. Very worried.

[lonestarnot]

124. And for good cause!

Very worried indeed!

[Fire1]

170. lonestarnot, I have one thing to say andf I will repeat this at the

Obama campaign headquarters tomorrow. The media has been aware of this for weeks. Obama's camapaign has known about this for weeks. Since obviously nothing is being done to prevent this from happening, I will not continue to waste my time (nor my money) making calls and canvassing the streets.

[ekwhite]

150. If this election is stolen, expect to see blood in the streets

There are a lot of VERY angry people out there.

[Enthusiast]

193. It will be our blood, unfortunately.

Who do you think is armed to the teeth? Who do you think will fill the streets to defend America against the evil socialist rabble? There are right wing militias in every state. How do you think such a conflict will be portrayed in the media?

[Liberalatus]

127. Here's a question I NEED answered...

Has there EVER been a Republican that has complained that their vote was switched from Republican to Democrat?

....Ever?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

134. Yes, in Craven Co NC vote for Bush switched to Kerry

'One-Stop' voting has big first day and a few bugs
October 15,2004
BY Sue Book Sun Journal Staff

If the first day of "One-Stop" voting is an indication of voter interest, the 768 voters who cast ballots at three locations in Craven County Thursday predict high turnout numbers for election 2004.

But the first day of voting did not pass without problems to solve.

Charlie Jackson was one of at least three voters, who experienced difficulty registering his vote on electronic voting equipment.

"I got to the machine and punched the box for Bush/Cheney on the very first item for president and the light appeared by Kerry/Edwards," said Jackson.

"I called one of the poll workers over and said, 'hey, how about this?' He said to just keep tapping and it will register right so I pushed several times and the one for Kerry/Edwards disappeared and Bush/Cheney came up," said Jackson, who left confident that his vote was properly recorded.

...more here (archived via Wayback machine)

http://web.archive.org/web/20051018224317/http://www.newbernsj.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=17905&Section=Local

[Lorien]

130. Homer Simpson had the same problem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k8MrtOwi9I

[PolyD]

131. Thanks

Thanks for bringing this out. I hope the Obama Campaign has lawyers, guns and money ready. Maybe not guns, but lawyers and money.

[TankLV]

135. Isn't it amazing how this always happens to DEMOCRATS only...

and yet somehow this is NEVER "newsworthy" for the whore media...

acorn all the time, you betcha!

[O.M.B.inOhio]

137. I just wrote the WV Governor

to ask him to intervene. Their Secretary of State is a Republican who's not seeking reelection. However, their Attorney General is a Democrat. Maybe this is a job for the FBI? Impound the machine, examine the code (fuck the claims of proprietary code you can't even examine in a criminal investigation), interview the people who have programmed or handled the machine. Somebody knows something. What I don't get is why it would SHOW you that your vote was switched! I wonder whether there would be a measurable difference in vote results today between the DRE machine and the paper ballots that were available.

[desktop]

139. This happened to me in Dallas in 2002

If the electronic voting machines are fixed, and there is a good possibility they are. Then Obama will probably not be allowed to win. What will we do as a people if this happens?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

140. One possible algorithm for cheating

is to change every nth vote from Democratic to Republican, depending on what the predicted point spread is.

[LiberalLovinLug]

141. join the modern world USA

And adapt to what all of the other modern western democracies use. Here in Canada we have a state of the art system that is conducted with exactly the same way in every riding. This ensures a more controlled, and efficient and faster way of tabulating votes. We just had our federal elections, I'll forgive you if you blinked and missed them. No voter or election fraud stories, just the boring number results coming in on election night.

What is this advanced voting system that is now used in Europe, Australia and every other respectable nation?

PAPER BALLOTS.

It is the most marvelous system possible. As the human hand is a much more advanced machine than anything humans have invented. It is amazing to watch as you deftly hold a pen and scribe a giant X next to your choice of names. Then using both of these wonders of technology that we each possess, you fold it and drop it into a big box with a hole in the top. Later other hands and eyes will actually count each vote with representatives from all parties keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings.

This system is pretty well incorruptible, and no private companies are making any profit by it.
Perhaps one day you'all down there will advance to the technological level as Canada and the other Western Democracies and set up a system like this.

Good Luck

[ekwhite]

153. Sorry, but that system is NOT incorruptible

There are plenty of instances of rigged elections before machine voting. All it takes is corruption. There are plenty of examples, from Tammany Hall to Chicago 1960. The system works in Canada mostly because it is run by Canadians. Americans are much more corrupt.

With that being said, I think we should go back to paper ballots. If the Republicans are worried about multiple voting, we can go to the Iraqi system - have the voter dip their finger in indelible ink before they vote. All the people at the registration station have to do is look at their right hand.

[Zorra]

143. What if people accidentally bumped into these machines while voting,

knocking them to the ground, and then accidentally stepped on them.

Whoops, sorry, guess I broke it, huh?

[bkkyosemite]

151. Ms. Bailey, (my message to Ms. Bailey)

So if a machine switches a vote from Obama to McCain or any other Dem to Republican it's the voter's fault. Their finger just missed the outline of the dem box. Yea sure!

Is the box calibrated so that if you dare touch out of the line the parameter it is all Republican. Stop! Get rid of those machines if any of this happens! Do not use those machines! Where is a paper ballot for those voters if this happens. What happened to the other votes when the machines were recalibrated. The machines can be manipulated and frauded so easily and you are the one that needs to get on this immediately. Do not use any machines that even once counted wrong a vote, not even once.

A concerned citizen who does not want this election stolen!

[LiberalFighter]

155. Who controls the state of West Virginia? Isn't it that mine owner that had a major accident out west

[The Brethren]

156. If this election is stolen again

and McCorpse and Poison Palin are allowed to win through fraud and no one does anything about it, then we're not a Democracy and should not bother referring to our country as such.

With Toddie and Sarah Palin's involvement with AIP, if (they) get their hands on the White House, then we might as well pass GO and head straight for our next Civil War. The Palins are not interested in a "United States". They're seeking a divided country run by them.

A little thing like an honest, accurate voting system is just an annoying block for their real goals. With McCorpse too stupid to realize just how power greedy his running mate and her controlling hubby are. In other words, once in office the old fart will be moved out of the picture and in comes the Palins. The more I learn about the Palins, the clearer it's becoming what they're really planning on doing. And the electronic voting machines are just what they need to lie their way into power.

[mdmc]

157. Too bad the dems love them diebold machines

Too bad the dem party won't fight the voter fraud. Both of my Senators, and my former gov, all think these machines are hunky dorey. Just makes me think that we (meaning they) are all in it together.

[elleng]

172. It does appear

that the 'games' have been/were endorsed by d as well as r, certainly considering '04 results. So as expected, NOW we the people scream.

Note that FL's gov. has said 'we'll do ANYTHING.'

[mdmc]

185. yup

[Kurovski]

158. K&R. (nt)

[last_texas_dem]

159. I wonder why...

...in every story I've heard about voting machines switching votes from one party's candidate to the other's, it has always, with no exceptions, been from D to R?

Oh yeah, and here's hoping stories like this get as much play in the media as *ACORN*. (Yeah, right...) Somehow Mickey Mouse having a voter registration form in his name is a bigger threat to the election outcome than voting machines switching people's votes to the candidate of the opposition party...

[SharonRB]

162. Uh oh. Here we go again.

I sure hope they get this straightened out soon or at least have paper ballots available.

[emlev]

168. SOMETHING EASY TO DO (even from afar) that could help:

Alert candidates in Virginia to the possible need to challenge elections. Ask them to take the Standing For Voters pledge.

How can this help?
--Gives you an opportunity to raise issues about election integrity with candidates directly, including candidates for local, regional, and state offices.
--Alerts candidates that they may have standing to issue election challenges. Somebody should be researching the possibility of taking legal action to get those specific machines at least, and preferably all of the machines, "quarantined."
--Helps candidates understand their responsibility to advance the cause of democracy.
--Puts candidates directly in touch with Standing For Voters, so we can feed them tips we get about problems within the jurisdiction where they're running.
--Helps put election officials on notice that people are watching and ready to act.

At the Standing For Voters site, you'll find links to help you get contact information for candidates running for office in Jackson County.

You can also use Verified Voting's "verifier" tool to see if your own jurisdiction uses these same machines!

[Pooka Fey]

169. Pay no attention to the mounting evidence of another stolen election. nt

[kaygore]

175. I hope that these people called the Obama campaign and the local media

I saw the very same thing in Florida in 2004. We need to all vote early and be very loud and persistent if we encounter problems with our votes.

[ohio2007]

179. Virginia Matheney and Calvin Thomas may speak out again if on Nov 4rth they say

"I'm being told I'm not allowed in to cast my vote TODAY "



..... you people again ?
;)





another problem with early voting. What if a person thinks it over after a few weeks and says; ," I made a mistake and want to recast my vote ?"


It is going to get strange if for some reason the vote isn't a lanslide.

[CoffeeCat]

176. We must video our votes!!!!!!!!!

We must video this vote-switching happening! I am going to record my vote.

I don't give a damn who gives a damn.

We must do this, so we have proof!

Can you imagine...McCain winning?????? If the poll show Obama beating McCain by
10 and McCain comes out the winner because of FRAUD????

We must document ALL OF THIS!!

[Larry L. Burks]

181. vote rigged

After they deleted my name off the voter's list last election.
I had to reregister in order to vote.
I voted straight ticked Democrat by way of absentee ballot.
Vote is in the mail.
The state will not release any info of how many names have been deleted off the voters list. They destroy the record as they go.
They think that they are safe by doing so.
Not true.
The FBI can take the hard drives of their computers and pull back up any file that has been deleted.
The state has an off site back up. A snap shot of the state's voters list. Done daily.
There are ways that the FBI can use to prove voter fraud by way of deleting at will legal voters from the voters list.
Looks like a lot of people are going to go to jail.
It's illegal to destroy public record. ( 25 years in the pin. )
If you destroy a voter's record. It's Voter Fraud. ( 25 years in the pin )
If you destroy evidence in a felony case. Voter fraud. ( 25 years in the pin )
Bush has tied the FBI's hands in this matter.
Obama is going to prosecute.
Obama is going to take the chain out from around the nick of the FBI.
And turn them loose.

This is hot.......

I have some hot stuff on Mc Cain. It's about some thing that he said in the debate last week.
He said it twice. No one else caught it. But I did.
Mc Cain said that he was put in charge of the investigation of 9/11.
Bush put his right hand man. Mc Cain in charge of the Cover up of 9/11. Is what happened.
This goes All the way to the top. In Mc Cain own words.
We knew that some one very high up would have had to have did this.
But we also knew that it would have had to been some one very high up. To cover it up.
Now we know.

Look at the law suit on Judy's page.

http://www.drjudywood.com/articles/NIST/Qui_Tam_Wood.shtml

[tblue37]

182. They say it's just voters being careless, but we shouldn't

have to watch like a hawk to make sure our vote isn't switched--and why do all the errors seem to switch Democtratic votes to Republican candidates? Just coincidence? Yeah, right.

[ArnoldLayne]

190. the same thing happened to me yesterday when I voted in wheeling

when I pushed the touchscreen for Obama it registered correctly with the checkmark in the Obama circle. The problem occurred when I tried to vote for gov joe manchin democratic gov. When I touched the circle for gov manchin it put my checkmark in republican challenger for gov. I complained to one of the poll workers and she said touch the checkmark and it will delele it. Now touch the gov manchin circle again and the same thing happened again so I deleted it again and she said push just a little below the manchin circle and it worked my checkmark went into the democratic gov manchin circle. But it happened again two more times when I voted democratic attorney general and a democratic justice to the wv supreme court but I corrected it by putting my finger just below the circle and it was corrected. I made sure it worked by looking at the paper ballot that is visible on the left side of the touchscreen. On the paper ballot I doublechecked all my selections and they were all the correct candidates I voted for especially Obama who I wanted to make sure registered correctly and it was. I mentioned it to one of the pollworkers what was going on and she and one other pollworkers said that had happened to several other voters and they said "the machines must be a little sensitive to the touch and they tell voters to touch a little below the circle of the candidate of their choice". Thank you. Arnoldlaynea

[marions ghost]

208. please be sure to report this

n/t

[buddysmellgood]

187. I would have a hard time not destroying the machine...of course then I'd go to prison. Ironic...no?

[VoodooGuru]

188. Actually I wonder if early voting isn't going to catch this problem this time.

If it's actually in the public eye before Nov. 4, people might actually believe in stolen elections. I swear, most people really do seem to tune you out when you bring up the very real probability of GOP skulduggery.

God, but I love that word, "skulduggery".

[nolabels]

189. Help America vote, indeed

:puke:

[Enthusiast]

191. And, somehow, this isn't newsworthy?

Make no mistake about these and other actions by Republican operatives. We are facing an effort by a fascist ideology. Believers in democracy would not engage in this subterfuge.

[panzerfaust]

200. Those who cast the votes decide nothing ...

"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything"
- Stalin

And they have already decided, thus the choice of Palin: They do not have to (likely cannot) win, but they can be close enough in the polls to (once again) steal the election - without resorting to the extreme and dangerously transparent tactic used in Florida in 2000 (where, if you will recall, seeing how it was going to go, they managed to get the actual counting of the votes stopped).

I am sure that the people who programmed the voting machines were as 'miffed' (that is the word used in the original article) as well that this happened. The votes were not supposed to be switched until after being recorded! The theft was not supposed to have been visible.

Welcome to the New Amerika.

[ohio2007]

203. Stalin did say that.

Some will say all the power is held by a few chosen families anyway.

Tin foil conspiracy types etc.

[DallasNE]

202. Touchscreens Are In Widespread Use

ATM machines; waitresses use them. Never any problems. The technology is there to make them reliable. It takes criminal intent to screw them up. The stupid part is that the contract prohibits an audit of the code. It makes no sense to sign a contract with provisions such as this.

[JonLP24]

205. Loser Take All: Election Fraud and The Subversion of Democracy, 2000 - 2008

This is well documented and this is still happening!!!!!!!!! Mark Crispin Miller urges voters to show up to polls with cameras, even outside interview people. Ask them about their experience, how they voted and what happened. This is NOT good!!!!!!! Even if you already voted early show up anyways, document wtf is going on.

Link to a must read book.http://www.amazon.com/Loser-Take-All-Subversion-Democracy/dp/0978843142