Justice Department upholds Dallas County voting machines

[sonias]

File under news of "this sucks!"

Dallas Morning News 3/25/10
Justice Department upholds Dallas County voting machines

The Department of Justice has approved the way Dallas County electronic voting machines tabulate straight-ticket ballots, quelling a challenge about whether the machines should be reprogrammed.

The review, announced in a letter released Wednesday, was prompted by the Texas Democratic Party, which raised concerns after learning that the touch-screen machines treat certain straight-ticket voting differently than had been the case with paper and absentee ballots.

Before the county went to iVotronic voting machines in 1998, people who voted a straight-party ticket and selected a specific candidate within that party were thought to be emphasizing how much they wanted that candidate, and the vote for that candidate was counted along with the ticket.

But on the electronic machines, if a straight-party is selected and then the voter punches a particular candidate in that party, the machine deselects the candidate. Before the ballot is cast, the machine shows that no selection was made in that race.

How I hate these paper-less e-voting machines. :mad:

[tbyg52]

1. The wheels of justice are falling off the wagon. nt

[sonias]

2. The Texas House race for District 146

Boris Miles won the recount by 8 votes but Al Edwards is not giving up. He's taking the contest to state district court. Supposedly they will look at all the machine counts too. Like that will do any good.

The only thing you can do with a recount like this is look at paper ballots - mail in ballots only.

Both of them have served in the Texas Legislature and Boris actually introduced a bill for ACLU for open source software one year. If he hangs on to the seat, I'm thinking he would be a good one to push for verifiable voting standards.