What just occurred during our recent primary election in Faulkner County, Arkansas involving two candidates running for a District 45 House of Representative race should disturb everyone who cares about their right to vote and Liberty. It seems that it's not about just your vote being cast, counted or recounted accurately. It's about your vote being cast in races you didn't plan for it to go into on electronic voting machines. So much for the intent of the voter and casting your vote for the candidate of your choice.
The reason? Software, well one of them anyway. Ineptitude another? Terry Fiddler ran against Linda Tyler for a position in the AR House of Representatives in the recent primary election. Fiddler was declared the winner, rejoiced overnight, then was declared the loser in yet another upset on Arkansas touch screen voting machines and their software. To compound this debacle, the election commissioner resigned after the recount. Faulkner County is election commissioner-less and facing a presidential election in November. Talk about left in a lurch.
Please keep in mind the story has changed, but I'll give it the old college try regarding the explanation:
The former election commissioner stated in several interviews that the night before the election the county clerk noticed that the District 45 House race was not programmed on the personal electronic ballot (PEB) in the E. Cadron B precinct and that they printed paper ballots for that race only and allowed voters to vote on the touch screens for all other races. Voters were issued paper ballots for the House race in this one precinct.
The former election commissioner stated that they 'assumed' the District 45 House race would not be on the memory card, therefore, not recorded in the machine. The PEB and the memory cards are supposed to match. So, if a candidate or race is left off one device, it should not be showing up on another. However, he stated later that it 'apparently' DID record the race and was recorded in the audit logs of the machines. Officials determined the machines had taken votes cast in a DIFFERENT race - a Constable race - and placed those votes in the non-existent District 45 House race that wasn't supposed to be on the ballot. Confused? So are we.
If that's not enough, election officials 'discovered' three PEB's tossed into a bag and 'set aside' which contained votes on them that had not been added into the totals. Upon this 'discovery', Linda Tyler picked up a few more votes. Tyler then demanded a recount and said she wanted her lawyer there. They did the recount. The former election commissioner stated that upon 'closer examination' they had discovered the constable's race had too many votes in it, 57 to be exact. 51 of those votes were taken away from Fiddler. How did they know to take them away from Fiddler? Tyler lost 6 votes. And how did they know those 6 went to Tyler? Add, then subtract the votes on the 'set aside' PEBs and Tyler was declared the winner. At that point the spotlight was on, the former election commissioner had the vendor, ES&S, conduct an audit of what went wrong. Their findings: "human error'. You know, this time I think they may be right. A human somewhere programmed those PEBs & memory cards on those 2 touch screen machines. In fact, a human programs them all.
A man who was a computer programmer said in a local meeting that what had been stated earlier by the former election commission did not actually happen, that he had been a poll worker and he said the problem occurred when they entered the vote totals on the election reporting software. That can happen and does with great frequency, ergo software. This person also denied the PEBs and memory cards didn't match, in fact he says they did. Well, if they matched up they wouldn't have needed to print paper ballots for the D45 race unless that race was missing off both devices. So, did they match up or not? Should it turn out he was correct, he must have been privy somehow to the programming of the devices. How does that happen? Poll worker friends of mine tell me they are not in the same room when they program their devices. I could have taken his version much more seriously had he come forward three weeks earlier when this actually occurred to tell it.
The AR Secretary of State's office confirmed that Faulkner County has the full software package to program their own personal electronic ballots and memory cards. Questions abound as to why then, upon that discovery the county clerk and election commissioner did not simply reprogram the PEB and memory cards with the D45 House race on them for the E. Cadron B precinct instead of printing the House race on a separate paper ballot adding further confusion in the mix for the poor voters.
Here's the deal. If you can't get it right, get out of the election business. If the machines and their software don't get it right then pitch them in the nearest body of water and be done with it. And if you're programming the devices for your guy to win, I hope you get a jail cell.
It's back to basics time and way past time to go back to hand counting paper ballots in our elections.
Lisa Burks National Coalition for Verified Voting
Lisa Burks is a member of the National Coalition for Verified Voting
The horror of the intellectual property voting systems is still unfolding.. We must rally against Microsoft and their minions. Thank goodness for the freedom fighters in the open source community - Their tireless efforts are now legendary.
Mucho applause for this story, Lisa. Investigation is important- Solution priceless. We must always move the movement to expedite the abolishment of proprietary software systems that prohibit public oversight and inspection. We must insist upon uniform, paper ballot based systems with open source code .
These systems will be demonstrated in San Francisco at LinuxWorld Aug.5th-7th 2008 Moscone Center- BT
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Brent Turner (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 94 comments)
on Sunday, June 15, 2008 at 9:30:39 PM
Are you kidding? The "Help America Vote Act" is busy sweeping thousands of these systems into voting precincts all across the country, with lots of money skimmed off the top and all paid for with your tax dollars.
And what is "the movement" doing? Right now, there are so many LIBERAL and democratic voters out there who will spit in your face the moment you even suggest voter fraud takes place, that you can't even talk about it in most "progressive" blogs.
Hell, you would think this case might get some media attention, or maybe Bev Harris or that guy who figured out they program the damn cards, but nothing. Not a damn peep.
The dems would rather bask in the glory of their expected landslide than face the reality of what is happening.
And just like years gone by, as soon as the rigged elections are over, and McCain/Lieberman "win", they will start blaming third party candidates like Nader, or Hillary, or hidden racism or some other damn thing...
...because they are too stupid to realise the republic is on fire. And that is a fact boys and girls. "Move the movement"... are you kidding. Look at the size of the 9/11Truth movement. Engineers, Architects, Professors, Physists, and activists all over the damn place. Physical evidence and eye witness testimony... and these same "progressives" call them "conspiracy theorists" and ban their comments from their sites.
Sheep. Pathetic, sheep. On one side you have the 27%ers who are so stupid they can't see past the flag draped around the liars...
...and on the other side, you have cowards that won't even look for fear it might upset their precious Obamadream.
We don't need a "movement". we need a revolution.
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scott creighton (25 articles, 11 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 244 comments)
on Monday, June 16, 2008 at 12:09:52 AM
First, we need to come to grips with the fact our nation has become not a democracy, but a fascist one. Although we are seeing our leaders adhere to things like torture, illegal invasions of sovereign countries, people being wiretapped illegally, and on and on, this does not imply our form of fascist has taken the same mold as that of Germany in the 30's and 40's. It does show that rather than the people having a say in the laws and governance of our nation, corporations and the power elite do. In order to ensure this the corporate media propagandists must feed the masses what the power elite want them to know. It follows the axiom of Bono – The less you know, the more you believe. The media has certainly been doing their job, even eliminating those amongst them who have attempted at informing the people (Dan Rather, Phil Donahue, etc.). In case the media failed in its work of “selling” a particular candidate that would continue to strive for corporate dominance they always had the corporate vote counters, Diebold, ES &S, and even a relatively unknown in the world of vote counters, but one that played a major role in the false counting of the 2004 Presidential campaign in Ohio, Triad.
Until we the people are able to gain control of the three branches of government this fascist movement will only worsen as far as the people are concerned. First, and foremost the three branches must be reestablished as they were intended, each having its own place in government, each being separate, and each being watchful of the others. Second, we must have each of the three branches working to preserve the Constitution and of individuals' rights (not corporate rights), and third, we must form a mechanism whereby corporate interests no longer play the major role in forming laws, news, and candidates.
This is quite a mess we have allowed ourselves to get into and the only way out is to first make certain that not a single incumbent is reelected. Sure, there are a scant few who are actually working for the people, people like Dennis Kucinich. But to single out those scant few would only mean people will justify in their mind why they should retain their candidate, thus make for a status quo. Once we have rid our representation from the incumbents we must be diligent in keeping track of how those we have placed in office and how they are actually representing us. If they support us, reelect them, if they are favoring the interests of corporations, oust them.
Another thing that must be done is that of changing the vote counting process in order to eliminate the taint of the corporate count. Until this has been accomplished corporations will continue to put in office only those who will favor their interests once in. There is only one such program I have come across that would eliminate the corporate manipulation. That system is called “seeVote” (http://www.seevote.com_ ) It is an open source program so anyone attempting to put in their little formulas to manipulate will be exposed immediately. Furthermore the system audits itself, verifies itself, and allows for the voter to verify their vote was actually counted as they intended it to be, in addition to providing the voter with a printed receipt. I cannot find anything in the program that would allow for illegal play. The count would be as valid as a hand count, if not more so.
In order to get such a program, however, we must first change our government and those representing us as a vote by those representing us would be required. Until we change that we will continue to have what we have – a vote counting process we all know is criminally flawed.
By the way – corrupt elections is one of Dr. Britt's 14 Points of Fasicsm.
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Dennis Kaiser (14 articles, 0 quicklinks, 15 diaries, 291 comments)
on Monday, June 16, 2008 at 7:15:20 AM
To err is human, but it takes a computer to really screw things up. Due to a computers ability to be extremely multiplicative one error, or one vote chamge can be done millions of times with no problem at all. As a former programmer analyst I will stand by our motto "GIGO". Or in other words, Garbage in, Garbage out!
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Hayesml47 (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 502 comments)
on Monday, June 16, 2008 at 12:47:55 PM
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