Interestingly, the "problem" seems to have afflicted the most Democratic precincts, for some reason. And voters apparently complained numerous times about the machines being balking and not registering their votes for House Rep.
No paper trail, so these voters (and the courts) are screwed---so what else is new?
And what do our sophist Republican friends (and election officials) argue? That 18,000 voters just "chose" not to cast ballots in their hotly contested Congressional race. Riiiight....
They literally will say anything.
Posted by euzoius at November 14, 2006 06:47 PMMorons.
Posted by fafnir at November 14, 2006 06:51 PMIt is rather amazing, isn't it, that all these errors run in favor of the Republican candidates? Am I wrong? Can anyone cite a single instance in which the malfunctions or errors or examples of poor training or maintenance worked in favor of a Democrat?
The Democratic Party's next target ought to be the state of Florida. If the Party cannot get a majority, it can fight to parity by using whatever means necessary to ensure that voters can vote and that the votes are counted accurately.
Posted by James E. Powell at November 14, 2006 07:01 PMDidn't they target Florida already? I mean, Jeb running for re-election wasn't reason enough to go after Florida? Didn't they target Florida to beat W in 2004? Let's see, Jeb's term limited, wow, lets send a signal and win the governors race in 2006. Nope. Gee, so many misses. Y'all just can't shoot straight in Florida. They keep gaining Congressional districts from the north and Democrats can not seem to shoot straight there. Two more after the 2010 election. Maybe its because the Democratic Party in Florida lets anybody walk out the door with its money. Chrm Dean had to bail out the Party there with over $900K just to break even after the 04 vote. The party there had no idea where the money went. Keystone cops for Democrats in Florida.
Have at Mr. Powell, Janet Reno couldn't do it, maybe you'll have a better chance.
Posted by peter at November 14, 2006 08:40 PMHey, peter, I didn't mean to trip your switch.
Obviously, there is a problem in that state, a systemic problem. When I said "target" I made a poor choice of words.
I don't mean target in an election, I mean "schedule for maintenance" or "tear down and rebuild" or some other phrase that means fix the problem.
Posted by James E. Powell at November 14, 2006 08:56 PMThe lawyers are on the right track: impound the machines and open their innards to scrutiny. I hope they think to reset the internal clocks to 11/7. The best case scenario would be to show that the machines were programmed to flip every (eg) 20th vote for the D to the R. The same could be said for some other very, very close races in FL and elsewhere. The best explanation for Rove's and W's serentity leading up the election is that they knew the fix was in -- they just didn't realize that it was a big enough fix;.
Posted by Brian Boru at November 14, 2006 09:57 PMWell golly gee guys, if your own Brother can't deliver the vote, who can?
Posted by Judith at November 15, 2006 01:08 AMUncounted ballots in Florida are like dead bodies in the Baghdad morgue -- they just keep piling up.
There are at least 7,000 uncounted ballots from Miami-Dade and Broward (both heavily Democratic counties) reported by the New York Times to be locked away and untabulated.
There's no question had these ballots been counted, that Vice President Al Gore would've been president in 2000.
Posted by Christopher at November 15, 2006 03:38 AMMr. Powell, whatever counting method in use, but to say it favors one over another. Nope, the Democratic primary of 2002 showed problems with the count. Democrats counting for Democrats. Take the Ciro Rodriguez-Henry Cuellar primary in Texas, Democrats counting Democrats. The Florida 2000 vote in West Palm Beach, Democrats not operating, nor designing the ballot properly. It seems to me Democrats don't pay proper attention to detail in a lot of these close races. The punch card operator was suppose to inspect each card for hanging chads before registering the vote.
Basically, we have a good count, the operators try to have a good count. Some races, when within a voting system's error rate just looks funny. When the error rate's been there all the time. There is not any system without an error rate. Do we get perfect cars each and every time. Do we get perfect computers each and every time. How about Ipods? Cell phones?
There is not any system without an error rate. Do we get perfect cars each and every time. Do we get perfect computers each and every time. How about Ipods? Cell phones?
What a lame argument. So, we shouldn't even try to fix the screwed up elections because nothing's perfect? How idiotic are you? It's clear that there is a systemic problem in Florida and it's clear why. If the machines were stealing Rep votes or not counting Rep votes, you'd be screaming, crying and whining non-stop. And it's an easy fix, throw out the machines, throw out the butterfly ballots with the hanging chads and use paper ballots.
Posted by ann at November 15, 2006 05:11 AMpeter is an amoral authoritarian sophist. Lame arguments are his stock in trade. He has no interest in truth or universal progress, only rationalizations and manufactured arguments that support Team Conservative.
His "party" opposes (for some reason) the obvious paper trail solution to all these electronic voting problems and so he does, too.
His brain was a casualty of the KKKarl Buschist "conservative" movement and is poisoned for the rest of his life. A shame for his family.
TPM Muckraker.com had great post on this story yesterday, 11/14. The judge apparently granted to Dems request to impound the Sarasota County machines. I'm sure our truth-seeking Republicans will appeal.
Posted by euzoius at November 15, 2006 06:47 AMHey Peter, why does the "error" rate always seem to be favorable to Republicans?
Posted by Judith at November 15, 2006 06:47 AMI'm not surprised. Reminds me of the poll expert on The Snooze Hour the day after the election. He said that this year the polls STILL showed higher dem wins than actually occurred, so therefore the trend of more dems talking to the pollsters was proven (or something like that). I cry BS! I've never known a Republican to keep his loudmouthed opinion to himself....and that supposedly started in 2000? Give me a break.
Loudmouthed repubs. I won't mention any names. You know who you are....and we did too since you won't shut up.
You guys give petey too much credit. He's just a dumb kid spouting other people's talking points and pretending he knows what he's saying. petey actually thought the 'pukes got to vote for dem leadership, for gawd's sake.
Posted by iamcoyote at November 15, 2006 07:55 AMKathleen Harris' song has ended, but the melody lingers on.
The old standards never die! : )
Posted by keikekaze at November 15, 2006 06:56 PMGov Ehrlich wanted to fix the e-voting method only to rebuffed by the Democrats in the Legislature. Imagine that a Republican trying to fix this, saying he would sign the bill if sent to his desk and the Democrats never sent it. Who's system were they trying to protect? Certainly not the Republicans. Why didn't the Democrats who run the state buy a better system? Did they take kickbacks, is that why there were so many problems in the primary the governor wanted to scrap the system and go back to paper? Go get a paper trail and you'll still have error rates. That 'sorry' punchcard system had the lowest error rate of all. But for those hanging chads, oh well.
Posted by peter at November 15, 2006 09:49 PM