A looming election nightmare?
Summary: After the recount debacle of 2000, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). As a result, most states went out and replaced their punch card ballots with electronic voting machines.
After the recount debacle of 2000, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). As a result, most states went out and replaced their punch card ballots with electronic voting machines. Unfortunately, evidence is mounting that this will have the opposite effect than the one Congress intended.
According to a story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, a recent recount of the printouts from touch-screen voting machines found that more than 20% were unreadable.
Election workers inspected 70 paper printouts, which represented nearly 4,400 ballots cast Nov. 6 in North Royalton and Bedford Heights. Election workers found 15 of the 70 printouts damaged and those had to be reprinted.
"This is very much a cause for concern," board member Inajo Davis Chappell said. "All the technology issues pose a challenge to us, especially given the volume of voters we expect in the primary."
The machines were made by Diebold Inc. who renamed its elections division Premier Election Solutions. Diebold has been at the center of the storm surrounding eVoting for years.
Electronic voting is a technology that was rolled out way before it's time and we're seeing the problems now. The Cleveland issue is a simple printer problem. Most states aren't equipped to find the real problem: targeted attacks. Most elections officials just turn a blind eye to very real security problems believing that it would never happen to them.
The sad part is we'll probably never know if it does because it's too expensive to perform post election audits at a level that will reveal targeted fraud. The 2008 election will be exciting for a lot of reasons--good and bad. I hope it isn't exciting because of problems with voting machines.
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Talkback
Election fraud is REAL and has gone on for years
This is nasty stuff. The more you read and find out about these companies and their voting machines, the more frightening 2008 looks.
I make a prediction right now.
Re: I make a prediction right now.
Um. It would be helpful to remember that the whole Justice Department scandal over fired federal attorneys happened because it was felt by Republican politicos that the fired attorneys weren't pursuing enough election fraud cases.
Sorry to have to tell you, but this is usually what happens when someone blurts out an ignorant, idiotic statement like the one you did.
For the record, I'm not affiliated with either party. It just makes my skin crawl when someone from either side indicates that their side is good and the other is bad. Frankly, it's a sign of stupidity.
:)
:)
Well, duh.
because some political activists and the press whipped up a
hysteria about it because their guy didn't win doesn't change
that fact.
And anyone with half a brain can tell you that decisions made
as the result of hysteria always have negative consequences.