Man, HAVA allowed the radical ladies at the League of Women Voters make just these reccomendations BEFORE the 2004 election after the 2000 coup was prompted by the hanging chad fiasco.
How would Karl have been able to apply THE MATH under those conditions, however? Look how tough it was when there were so many flips required in 2006 that he missed the mark!
Jesus, banana republics manage elections more honestly.
The answer to the problem is easy, so one has to ask the obvious question, why won't they provide a paper copy? If your intention is to steal your third election, you re not going to provide anything that is verifiable.
In Missouri, we had a choice, paper or computer. One day we will not have that choice.
As far as I am concerned, the "hanging chad" was a ruse that worked. We never heard of "hanging chads" until Florida, after decades of using paper ballots.
Posted by Judith at July 30, 2007 04:54 AMWe need a Voting Right Law that demands paper copies.
Posted by Judith at July 30, 2007 05:03 AMMary, I don't know if this article slipped under the radar.
Democratic leaders in the House and Senate are slowing their drive to revamp the nation’s voting systems, aides said yesterday.
Voting Equipment, County By County Under pressure from state and local officials, as well as from lobbyists for the disabled, House leaders now advocate putting off the most sweeping changes until 2012, four years later than planned.
Overhauling voting systems before next year’s presidential election had once been a top Democratic priority, primarily to allow greater accountability and be certain that all votes registered on computerized touch-screen systems were counted. But state and local elections officials told Congress they could not make the changes in time for the balloting in November 2008, particularly in light of the extra workload involved in preparing for next year’s much-earlier presidential primary season.
Confronted by similar concerns, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee, said she had already decided against seeking any major changes in voting equipment before 2010.
If Diebold can make ATM machines that can generate a reciept, I don't see why they can't do it with voting. So far they have never made a mistake on my bank account.
Put off changes until 2012???? WTF!!!!!!! They have had four friggin years to make those changes. This really angers me.
Posted by Judith at July 30, 2007 05:42 AMWE CAN'T AFFORD TO WAIT FOR CHANGES!
HAVE THEY LOST THEIR F*CKING MINDS?
The most crucial election is coming up, and they want to wait until 2010 to make any "major changes." I can hear Schumer now.
Posted by Judith at July 30, 2007 05:49 AMRush Holt's HR 811 Does More Harm than Good
A Leading Election Integrity Advocate Speaks Out Against 7 Serious Failures in the Latest Holt Election Reform Bill ...
(This is the first of a two-part series. Tomorrow: An excerpt from the author's companion article, “Senator Feinstein’s Election Reform Bill: A Constitutional Heresy,” describing even graver concerns about S. 1487, a bill recently introduced in the Senate.)
1) Under HR 811, some “ballots” don’t have to ever be counted.
2) Secret vote-counting is endorsed.
3) Audits are inadequate and contain an invitation to tamper.
4) The “ban” on electronic communications and networking is incomplete and convoluted.
5) The impossible is required.
6) Massive voter disenfranchisement caused by broken machines will remain in 2008 and beyond.
7) The dysfunctional Election Assistance Commission (EAC) is made permanent.
There is no explicit requirement for those paper ballots to be counted on Election Night with all other reported results from DRE systems, etc. The state of California has a similar provisional for voters to request a paper ballot if they prefer. And in violation of the intent of that provision, some elections officials in the state announced they would not even begin to count such ballots until the Thursday following the election. Results reported on Election Night --- the all important ones reported in the news and establishing the “winner” in everyone’s minds --- would be skewed to represent the results of those who trust the use of DRE voting machines.
So, with new equipment required in a huge number of precincts across the country, 2008 is certain to see more of the same disenfranchisement that the original HR 811 was intended to halt. And this current version of the bill does nothing to address the disenfranchisement that broken voting machines will cause in early voting — ever.
Reports from the Government Accountability Office reveal that the Election Assistance Commission is incompetent, behind schedule by years, and derelict in their duties. Recent news articles regarding their suppression and subsequent altering of a Voter Fraud report, along with their undisclosed disapproval of the CIBER voting system test lab, has shown that the EAC is partisan and secretive. The process by which the 2005 federal voting systems standards were developed show that the agency is unduly influenced by the interests of voting system manufacturers. Yet, HR 811 puts these four Presidential appointees in charge of more duties than those they've inadequately handled so far, makes the EAC a permanent agency, and provides it with permanent funding.
I have not addressed every problem with the bill. But these seven problems are sufficient to convince me that this bill is not just “imperfect.” In my opinion, the flaws in this bill are more damaging to democracy and our future election process than the good that might come of the minimal safeguards it could provide for our elections in 2008 and beyond. So, far from celebrating that a Holt election reform bill will finally come to the floor for a vote as I might have been back in 2003, or even 2005, I am now filled with sadness. This bill should never be passed as it is currently written.
Tomorrow, I'll discuss Sen. Feinstein’s “election reform bill” S. 1487, a bill so dangerous, HR 811 pales by comparison.
http://www.democrats.com/node/13231
Posted by Judith at July 30, 2007 06:08 AMWouldn't it be easier, more cost effective, and much more fair just to flip a coin this time around?
On second thought, Rove would just pull the old "heads we win, tails you lose" bullshit, and of course the dems would not know how they managed to lose another one.
Posted by TIKI AL at July 30, 2007 06:42 AMpaper ballots only. allow for people with disabilities to have help voting so that their vote will be cast.
Ron Wyden has introduced a bill to bring back paper voting for this country. We have it in Oregon, and it works.
Paper has a unique aspect. It is a physical thing that we must have people transport to where they are counted, by people on all sides of the question. It has to be moved by people. not by metadata
makes sense doesn't it? few things do any longer
Posted by oldtree at July 30, 2007 07:32 AMoldtree is right. why not JUST paper ballots?
here in Canada they work fine and always have. it's really difficult to cheat on a count that's done in front of representatives of all the major parties. and it's FAST -- less than a day -- with a decisive result.
(it probably helps to have more than two major parties, too.)
leave voting machines for the blizzard of initiatives that seem to charm americans so much. for the critical part, electing representatives, use paper.
Posted by sagesource at July 30, 2007 08:07 AMIt seems to me that the machine should generate two receipts - one, unsigned, to be submitted to a poling site official, and one - to be signed by and kept by the voter.
The double receipt would be useful in challenges.
Posted by hell's kitchen at July 30, 2007 08:08 AMThe House Bill, according to the New York Times, is going back to the House for "compromises."
I have always avocated paper ballots. For decades there were no problem with paper ballots.
The paper ballot ruse was orchestrated
by the GOP in the Florida elections of 2000. It was all planned. Remember, right on the heels of that fiasco, came the electronic voting machines (which were waiting in the wings.) We have been duped.
The House Bill is being returned to the House for "compromises" according to the New York Times.
Gonzo can't even find any wuv on FOX Noise.
"We invited White House officials and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend Attorney General Gonzales. We had no takers." - Chris Wallace, FOX Noise propaganda soldier
Posted by Christopher at July 30, 2007 08:30 AMElectronic voting with secret, proprietary software is suspect on its face. If there was truly a desire to have all votes counted accurately, open source voting and vote tabulation software would be mandatory, as would random audits of paper trails.
The fact that no elected representative is calling for these obvious solutions to vote tally tampering indicates to me that election fraud has become institutionalized.
Wouldn't it be easier, more cost effective, and much more fair just to flip a coin this time around?
Very astute, TIKI.
Oh, and by the way, where is the “war czar’ these days? I haven’t heard dick from this political hack yet.
Wonder why the media fails to ask the same question Tempus?
The War Czar is off war czaring, don't ya know. Hell, I can't even remember his name.
Posted by Judith at July 30, 2007 01:04 PMLater today, the House will be voting on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007 (H.R. 2831). The bill would restore a vital civil rights protection that was attacked by the Roberts-Alito Supreme Court in this latest term. The Supreme Court's decision was wrong and passage of this bill should be a no-brainer, but now, the White House is threatening a veto!
Help pass this bill with a bipartisan, veto-proof majority. Your representative needs to hear from you NOW to vote YES on H.R. 2831.
In Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire, the Supreme Court's conservative justices took a chisel to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the provision protecting against pay discrimination. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the 5-4 decision -- authored by Bush-appointee Justice Samuel Alito -- a "cramped interpretation" and "incompatible with the statute's broad remedial purpose."
Because the ruling interpreted (actually, misinterpreted) a federal statute and not the Constitution, Congress can fix it! It's not every day that Congress has the chance to undo the damage wrought by extreme right-wing judges, so this is an opportunity that cannot be squandered.
Responding to the White House's veto threat, bill sponsor and Education and Labor Chairman Rep. George Miller (D-CA) responded: "The president has issued enough veto threats to paper the walls of the U.S. Capitol building. But this legislation is going to pass with bipartisan support, and it is going to become law."
We couldn't have said it better ourselves.
According to Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who initiated these tests, the team was able to "bypass physical and software security in every machine they tested." The group, which was sanctioned by the state, was given full access to the machines, as well as their source code and manuals, leaving some to argue that the test doesn't accurately depict how vulnerable the machines are -- because we all know how hard it is for hackers to get their hands on that kind of stuff. The report will affect whether or not Bowen approves the systems for use throughout California in its upcoming presidential primaries. It looks like 2008 is going to be an exciting year, to say the least.
Give the hacker everything they could want then tell everyone it can be hacked. Shame on you for believing Ms. Bowen at her word.
Happy 60th birthday Arnold!
Posted by peter at July 30, 2007 05:25 PM"Democratic leaders in the House and Senate are slowing their drive to revamp the nation’s voting systems, aides said yesterday."
Did y'all ever think maybe they liked the results. Maybe the GOP wasn't the offender here.
"As far as I am concerned, the "hanging chad" was a ruse that worked. We never heard of "hanging chads" until Florida, after decades of using paper ballots."
Who brought up the "hanging chad" stuff, not the GOP. Smiling ALGORE did this one. As well as the Democratic poll workers in Palm Beach. Seems to me this has Democrat's fingerprints all over it. Imagine that, Democrats all along messing with this stuff all the time blaming the other side. They liked the results last November and now they put on the brakes. "Let's get more of "us" elected before we fix it again." "We might be able to pull off what we failed at in 2000." Maybe they were doing the "Duping" of the American public.
Posted by peter at July 30, 2007 05:37 PMPeter, if you don't see Rove's fingerprints all over this, then your IQ has dropped to 11. And I am being kind.
Posted by tempus at July 30, 2007 06:28 PM...then your IQ has dropped to 11.
And it confuses him on which 1 to write first.
Posted by Seven of Six at July 30, 2007 06:32 PMAs long as we continue to use electronic computerized voting machines and vote tabulating machines in American elections, there will be GOP hackers, criminals and traitors happy to hack, rig, fix and steal our elections.
Republicans have been electronically stealing elections since Sen. Chuck Hagel (R - Neb) first stole both the primary and general elections in Nebraska, which were conducted on his own corporation's voting machines... See the Internets for details. In 2004, the Bush and GOP gangsters flipped about seven million Kerry votes into Bush votes on Election night.
These GOP traitors may be laying low now, hoping that the Democrats are too stupid or too trusting to not dump all of these electonic "voting" machines into the nearest body of water and returning to hand-counted paper ballots... so that they can again rig and steal the 2008 elections...
Posted by james k. sayre at July 30, 2007 09:03 PMPeter - dude - you're so weird. The hanging chad stuff was Gore? He WON the election. Calling for a recount and double checking votes was when the comedy started. That was the "oh shit" moment for admin cronies to come up with their faux-news tele-drama... Basically it was so stupid everyone decided to throw in the towel. That's when I decided not to conserve gasoline and figured I'll do my part to watch Florida sink under 2 feet of ocean...
It's important that we find a way to get rid of these machines entirely.
Give the hacker everything they could want then tell everyone it can be hacked. Shame on you for believing Ms. Bowen at her word.
It almost sounds 1ik3 y0u b3li3ve hackers can't get their hands on stuff like
voting machine keys. Or DVD encryption.
Maybe the dems know that since the GOP would drop to the lowest levels of voter fraud (not through hackers but through the actual manuals and back doors built into the systems since they own the companies), that all is fair now...? Or to catch somebody in the act (which could be setting up the dems). Man - I'm getting paranoid...