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Recent (August) articles and videos by Scientific American, The Associated Press, CBS News, The NY Times, The Washington Post, a top Republican cyber-security expert, and others, discuss the flaws of U.S. voting machines.
These articles and videos are particularly important because our national press has not until now diligently informed us on election integrity and voting system issues.
Of specific interest are:
1. the videos by Republican security expert Stephen Spoonamore,
2. articles by Ph.D. computer scientists rebutting the recent book "Electronic Elections" by e-voting proponents,
3. *Today's* CNN's Lou Dobbs report that Diebold/Premier has publicly admitted that its machines drop votes from entire touch-screen memory cards and has warned all jurisdictions that use its machines of the "bug" that can lose hundreds of votes in each county. (Lou Dobbs video should be publicly available on U-Tube by tomorrow.)
NOTE: Any very close recent election outcomes implemented Diebold/Premier touchscreen voting machines are in doubt.
---------
Please read these articles or view these videos and support strong, scientific post-election auditing procedures.
Illinois Green Party http://www.ilgp.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, FEBRUARY 5, 2008
CONTACT: Patrick Kelly, ILGP Media Coordinator, 773-203-9631, media@ilgp.org Phil Huckelberry, Chair, ILGP Government & Elections Committee, 309-268-9974, phil.huckelberry@ilgp.org Tom Abram, Media Committee, 847-814-6947, tabram@gmail.com
GREEN PARTY FIELDS NUMEROUS REPORTS OF VOTING IRREGULARITIES IN CHICAGO, ELSEWHERE
Voters who hoped to participate in the Illinois' first ever statewide Green Party primary are receiving a very rude reception at many polling places, especially in Chicago.
In the early hours of voting, Green Party officials began receiving reports from frustrated voters across the state who, in many cases, had been told by pollworkers that there are no Green Party ballots available at their polling places, or that they had to vote on suspect electronic voting machines, even while other parties use paper ballots.
Some of the most outrageous incidents, however, occurred across the wards of Chicago, where Green Party ballots have been apparently tampered with so they can't be read and accepted by voting machines, voters are given Democratic ballots despite requesting Green ballots.
What follows are a few examples of reports. Check http://www.ilgp.org for more reports as they are received. More information will also be available at the Green Party gathering tonight at Decima Musa Restaurant, 1901 S. Loomis, Chicago (in Pilsen).
1st WARD, 26th PRECINCT
A voter reports that all of the Green Party ballots had been folded in half, causing them to not feed through the machine properly. The Republican and Democratic ballots were not folded. Because his first ballot kept getting rejected by the machine, the voter was asked by pollworkers to fill out another Green Party ballot, which also had been previously folded. That ballot was not able to be read and was rejected as well.
Salt Lake County decided to consolidate polling places and as a result there were long lines. I went to vote after work and arrived at my polling place at around 6:30pm. I waiting in a long line outside for about 1/2 hour and another 1/2 hour inside (including voting time). Not only that, there was only one table with one person checking off names with one assistant.
What's up with that?
I will elaborate in my actual vote expereience at a later time. There's some news coming down the pike about vote machines in which I will be involved.
Here is just ONE (1) day of news stories re. electronic voting problems in November 7 election (stories are continuing to unfold). One county using Diebold voting machines in another state has still not announced their election results due to memory card failures. Utah county's "glitch" disenfranchised voters and touchscreens caused long lines in Utah. Federal law only requires ONE (1) touchscreen voting machine in each polling place for the disabled to use - Utah could use optical scan paper ballots which are conveniently manually auditable, voter verified, less expensive, cause no long lines; and are not susceptible to power outages, denial of service attacks, and vote flipping attacks. Is there any reason to trust insufficiently manually audited invisible e-ballots which are secretly counted by proprietary humanly-unreadable machine language software on voting machines whose components are made in China, Canada, and various U.S. states? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ It took over 24 hours for Cook Co. Illinois to count their votes. That's with their brand-new Smartmatic clone Sequoia voting machines. County Clerk David Orr conceded that the hardware and software being used should be re-examined. / One of the striking problems that has come up around the country is the reason for long lines in many places. They just didn't buy enough machines for the turnout they had. Another boon for the vendors when all they really needed to do was buy one Precinct-Based Optical Scan (PBOS) for each precinct and there would have been no need to go out and buy more DRE machines. And the cause of the long lines in Denver; poorly written, poorly tested voter registration software from Sequoia.
Kathy Dopp, Desert Greens candidate for Summit County Clerk sent this today:
In Summit County, the manual audit is being held today (Monday) at 10 a.m. at the County Building.
I assume that the manual audits are also being held today in other counties, but please call your own county clerk to find out for sure.
In Summit County, the final canvass is being held on Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the County Courthouse.
It would be great to go observe the manual audit and final vote canvass for your county. I've been told that the public may observe the manual audit, even though the written procedures do not require it - except to say a counting poll worker or watcher may observe - which I think means that anyone appointed by a political party or a candidate may observe.
Kathy Dopp http://electionarchive.org National Election Data Archive Dedicated to Accurately Counting Elections Subscribe to announcements by emailing election-subscribe@uscountvotes.org Please donate or volunteer.
From Bruce Funk in Emery County, who was locked out of his own office to keep him from going to work after having computer scientists discover that Diebold had sold Utah used, refjected voting machines from other states with security holes big enough to drive a truck through.
Election Day may be over but we'd like to hear about your voting experience. We've designed a survey to allow you to share your voting experience with the League. It is your personal story, Kathy, along with other statistics, that will provide the basis for Election Day 2006 follow-up.
If you voted a provisional ballot, we want to remind you to follow-up with your local elections official because you may need to show ID or proof of registration in order for your provisional ballot to be counted. All states have a free access system for voters to use to find out if their provisional ballot was counted. For more information on provisional voting, please check the state specific information on www.VOTE411.org or call one of the free hotlines listed on our 5 Things You Need To Know On Election Day cards.
We look forward to hearing from you and continuing our work to educate voters and improve the election system.
Sincerely,
Mary G. Wilson President, League of Women Voters of the United States
Voting machine encoders fail in Utah County ABC 4 - Salt Lake City,USA ... says voting machine encoders, used to program individual user cards have been incorrectly programmed, causing delays for many voters, primarily in Utah County. ...
Voters Experience Glitches At Some Utah Locations KUTV - Salt Lake City,UT,USA (KUTV) SALT LAKE CITY Election Day is underway and there are already reports of voting machine problems. The biggest is in Utah County where they were having ...
Early Morning Voting Machine Problems Reported in Utah County New West - Missoula,MT,USA By Tracy Medley, 11-07-06. Some voters in Utah County were turned away this morning because of technical difficulties with the new electronic voting machines. ...
I have a colleague who got up early to vote before coming to work today. Not only was the place packed, but everyone eventually had to be given paper ballots because the machines weren't functioning correctly.
This came across my desk today from Kathy Dopp of Utah Counts Votes:
Background: Elizabeth Liddle's work was widely quoted by U.S. press to support dismissing the evidence of outcome-altering vote miscount in the US 2004 presidential election.
Coincidence that these two were posted on the same day?
"How to read exit polls: a primer" by Elizabeth Liddle Sat Nov 04, 2006 at 11:48:26 AM PST
Is there ANY doubt who Elizabeth Liddle is employed by?
Is anyone else curious why Liddle has revived, in her Daily Kos article, a previously disproven hypothesis that Liddle formerly disavowed vehemently, in numerous harranging emails to myself and my academic colleagues?
If Americans don't think that our upcoming Tuesday election is going to be targeted for vote fraud, then we must be hopelessly naive, given that our current U.S. election system is not independently audited; hides the evidence of vote miscount in aggregated election results data, and uses vote casting and counting equipment that is ideal for undetectable tampering!
My voting experience today was pretty uneventful. Probably because I was anticipating a confrontation.
I stood in line for about 1/2 hour and when I finally was up to the registration table I asked for a paper ballot and was cheerfully accommodated. The poll worker **did** ask my why, stating that he had to document that (I should have taken issue with that, but I didn't). I simply stated that I was uncomfortable with the electronic voting machines. The poll worker got me my ballot, I voted, submitted it in a folder labeled "secrecy envelope" (who came up with that name?) and left.
While I was voting on my paper ballot, people appeared to be having problems with the machines they were using (the "access card" wouldn't work right, etc.). It feels good to have voted and not used the Diebold machines.
If you read this short article carefully, you will see how it is framed to make readeres think that most Americans think votes will be counted accurately.
I am planning to vote early (probably Saturday) and request a paper ballot. Here is some information on early voting and projected items for voting day November 7:
The Clerk's Office provides voters the option of voting prior to Election Day at an Early Voting Location. Voters do not need an excuse to utilize this convenient voting method. Registered voters may visit an Early Voting Location and cast a ballot in person using a touch screen voting device. Early voting begins 14 days before Election Day, and ends the Friday before Election Day.
In order to be eligible to participate in Early Voting, voters must be registered to vote at least 30 days prior to the election and provide valid voter identification. Valid voter identification means: * a form of identification that bears the name and photograph of the voter; * or two forms of identification that bear the name of the voter and provide evidence that the voter resides in the voting precinct.
NOTE: Identification is not required for those who are 65 or older or disabled. If you have questions regarding valid voter identification, please call the Salt Lake County Clerk, Elections Division at (801) 468-3427.
Voting will take place in the Clerk's Office, Elections Division (2100 South State Street, South Building, First Floor) every weekday beginning on October 10 - November 6 from 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. and on Saturday, October 28 and Saturday, November 4 from 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Other Early Voting Locations and Hours: ( Read more... )
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