Fucking Florida again (ensuring they can continue to steal the vote)

[RagingInMiami]

OK, fellow activists. Let's bombard the Miami Herald with LTTEs about this. I'm going to compose one right now. It doesn't have to be long. In fact, it's better if it's short and to the point. Not more than 150 words.


TALLAHASSEE - Months after a maverick elections supervisor irritated a leading voting-machine company and state officials by conducting unorthodox tests on voting equipment -- and finding security problems -- the state wants to make it harder for counties to check voting machines.

The state is proposing rules that require all 67 election supervisors in Florida to get approval from the state Division of Elections before testing their voting equipment for any problems, including whether or not it has security flaws or if the vote-counting software is working correctly.

The new rule would require county supervisors to submit a ''testing plan'' to the division, as well as to notify the maker of the machine before the test can take place. Any results of the test would have to be sent to state officials.

''The purpose is to make the process more transparent,'' said Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for the Department of State. ``Certainly any supervisor can test any machine. It's just so the department and vendor will be included. In essence, it's so all parties have the same information.''

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14776132.htm

[McCamy Taylor]

1. Testing? Testing? We dont need no stinking testing!

Note that whenever E voting systems fail in GOP primaries and cost incumbents or the Bush Co. candidate votes, there is always a rapid manual recount and the problem is quietly remedied. But no one ever gets around to fixing the machines.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mnemosyne]

3. Enjoy your stay. n/t

:rofl:

[RagingInMiami]

4. Maybe you just suck

[Patsy Stone]

5. Thanks for posting this

Here's mine:

While reading Gary Fineout's June 9th article, "State wants limited voting machine checks" I was struck by the struggle we have in ensuring our elections accurately reflect our will.

Without paper ballots, there can be no manual recount. Without the ability to perform a manual recount, the results are based on the veracity of the machines' tabulations. The machines can be tampered with.

There is no need for a huge conspiracy, or a network of players, just one or two motivated individuals. With privately owned corporations with proprietary software preventing any sort of true examination of the security of the system, that's truly a scary proposition for a country who prides itself on democratic elections.

What purpose would these additional restrictions on testing serve? To stave off an over-zealous elections supervisor? To save the time of making sure the vote (the greatest American franchise) is counted properly? Where is the logic? Where is the respect for the voice of the people?

If this misguided proposition is designed to show that the state is somehow more concerned about fair and free elections, it's failed to make its point. Leaving me with the impression that its expected results are just the opposite.

xxxx
Miami Beach

[RagingInMiami]

6. Good letter

I'm still working on mine; writer's block and all.

[Patsy Stone]

7. Get over yourself.

It's only The Herald, fer chrissakes.

Yo no creo en El Herald. :)

p.s. Loved the Cuba photos. But they made me sad.

[RagingInMiami]

8. I know, but my first sentence came out like this

So Jeb Bush and his cronies are ensuring they can continue stealing votes by making it illegal for counties to test the corporate-owned, paperless and highly susceptible-to-fraud voting machines?

I may just go with it, but I don't want to lose a chance of getting the letter published because I come out fully slandering the governor.

[Patsy Stone]

11. Did you go walk this off?

:)

[RagingInMiami]

17. Here's the letter I am sending off

In a doublespeak era where black is white and night is day, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that state election officials want to make it harder for county election officials to check for problems with the computer voting machines.

Not only did Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho demonstrate that these machines are susceptible to manipulation and fraud, the Federal General Accountability Office determined the same thing in an underreported study in 2005.

These are the same paperless machines we used in the 2004 presidential election when exit polls throughout Florida had John Kerry beating George W. Bush in a landslide victory.

Those corporate-owned voting machines eventually decided that Bush had won Florida by nearly 400,000 votes.

A miracle considering that in 2000, before he mislead us into war, Bush barely squeaked by Al Gore with 537 votes to win the state of Florida. And that was the year of the infamous Palm Beach butterfly ballot, which diverted thousands of votes from Gore to Pat Buchanan.

And although both political parties had major registration drives before 2004, democrats still outnumbered republicans by the same margin they did in 2000.

Still not convinced? Ask yourself this:

How many Floridians do you know voted against Bush in 2000 before voting for him in 2004?

Isn’t it much easier to find someone who voted for Bush in 2000 before voting against him in 2004?

[Patsy Stone]

18. Very nice!

I hope there is more outrage out there in the State besides you and me. This is a blatant attempt to control the vote. More power to Ion.

:thumbsup:

[McCamy Taylor]

9. Nonviolent Protest response is Test, Test, Test: Dare the to file charges

If there are criminal penalties attached to failing to notify the vendor or state in advance even better. Instead, do the test with the news media and other neutral observers present but dont tell the state and vendors until the results are back.

Then, the ball is in their court. Do they try to file charges in order to punish truth tellers? This is way more media attention grabbing than simply being told you cant. And if a bunch of precints get together and test all at once, it becomes a real theater event.

It is this kind of crazy, over the top law that can be exploited when one is doing non violent protest. The public will recognize that the intent of the law is bad--if they can see the law being used.

[bleever]

10. Second rec. More, please.

:thumbsup:


ed: sp

[MelissaB]

12. Done

#5 :hi:

[autorank]

13. It meets all of the goals of a true tyranny...naked fraud, pure and simple

Thanks Raging...wtf folks, this is just amazing. What quislings in the Florida Leg.

Why does Jeb hate democracy?

[Kurovski]

14. K&R.(nt)

[seafan]

15. Bless Ion Sancho's heart. He's going to fight them all the way.

Orlando Sentinel

By Brent Kallestad
June 10, 2006

TALLAHASSEE -- A proposed rule change that would prohibit counties from testing their voting equipment without state approval will be argued Monday, a measure that could create some discomfort among Florida's independently elected elections supervisors.

One of the more outspoken of Florida's 67 supervisors, Leon County's Ion Sancho, conducted a test last year where elections-office workers hacked into a Diebold optical-scan voting system in an effort to show that it could be made to produce false results.
And it turned out, Sancho's experiment exposed problems that prompted the state, as well as California, to develop better security safeguards.

But now state officials want more influence in any future tests on voting equipment, hoping to require the supervisors to submit a plan to the Division of Elections and notify the manufacturer beforehand.

"Chutzpah is the word that comes to mind," Sancho said Friday. "The state should not be so concerned about protecting the voting companies from embarrassment when their equipment has security vulnerabilities."

snip

Sancho, who said he doesn't think the state has the authority to require the supervisors to accept their rules on voting-equipment security, plans to bring attorneys with him to Monday's public hearing.

snip

Remember what former Ambassador Joe Wilson recently said, that everyone should bombard their Senators, Reps, and the media, no matter the party affiliation. He said that the pressure will become so great that these people will be forced to act according to the will of the people.

I still think pressuring FL Secretary of State Sue Cobb, by way of 67 elections supervisors who are pressured by the people, is an excellent route. We need pen and paper ballots, hand-counted at each precinct immediately after polls close, with the tallies telephoned in to the Secretary of State's office. No. Machines. Whatsoever.

If we do not rescue our voting rights, nothing, absolutely nothing else will matter.

[307 MMS]

19. Exactly

"If we do not rescue our voting rights, nothing, absolutely nothing else will matter".
Couldn't have put it better, myself. It should be THE #1 issue, or wave good-bye.

[BeFree]

16. So,

The state that invented 'Sunshine Laws' wants to pull the blinds on open, free, and fair elections?

Not only is there now a law keeping people's ballots from a hand recount
they want to keep our prying eyes from the architecture as well?

This state is slipping into darkness.