The Arkansas primary is scheduled to be held on May 23 but early voting is to begin on May 8. So far the Arkansas voting machine vendor; yes, it's ES&S; has failed to deliver all of the voting machines purchased by some counties. They have also failed to provide the ballot programming to many counties.
The Arkansas Leader reports that ES&S has not programmed the iVotronic DREs in Pulaski County which is a problem; and they have failed to program the county's optical-scan machines which is a larger problem because the county cannot test their absentee ballots to ensure they work with the machines. The county is now preparing to hand-count those ballots on election night.
According to the Fort Smith Times Record Sebastian County has the same problems except that ES&S has also failed to deliver the paper ballots they have contracted to deliver. The county commission has decided that they want to be sure they are ready, so they are having their central-count optical scan machines programmed by their previous contractor and their paper ballots are being printed by the printer who used to print their ballots. They hope to be ready for their voters.
Is it too late to avert a disaster in our primary elections? That's probably going to be up to the voting machine vendors in many states and to the elections officials who choose to stand-up to them.
What is the federal Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) doing about all of this? Not a thing that we can see. They are just sitting back and telling the world that they have no power to regulate. The corporate mainstream media? Well, the local, and in some cases state-wide, media are reporting what is happening and editorial boards are doing their thing but the national media is sitting with their eyes closed -- failing to connect any dots whatsoever - and keeping mum on this train wreck in the making.
Ssshh! Don't tell anybody. We'd hate to disturb the voters"
The Arkansas Leader reports that ES&S has not programmed the iVotronic DREs in Pulaski County which is a problem; and they have failed to program the county's optical-scan machines which is a larger problem because the county cannot test their absentee ballots to ensure they work with the machines. The county is now preparing to hand-count those ballots on election night.
According to the Fort Smith Times Record Sebastian County has the same problems except that ES&S has also failed to deliver the paper ballots they have contracted to deliver. The county commission has decided that they want to be sure they are ready, so they are having their central-count optical scan machines programmed by their previous contractor and their paper ballots are being printed by the printer who used to print their ballots. They hope to be ready for their voters.
Is it too late to avert a disaster in our primary elections? That's probably going to be up to the voting machine vendors in many states and to the elections officials who choose to stand-up to them.
Ssshh! Don't tell anybody. We'd hate to disturb the voters"
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