Great news! Just in from WTHN.com in Connecticut…
…
“I am stopping the purchasing process for electronic voting equipment in Connecticut,” Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz. “The state will use lever voting machines in the 2006 election.”
After a much publicized, public testing of modern electronic voting technology late last year, it was determined that none of the high-tech devices met all of the requirements of new state and federal rules. In addition to being user friendly for those with disabilities, voters must be able to see the entire ballot all at once and there must be a voter verifiable paper record of their vote. Not even one of the machines tested qualified.
So the secretary of the state announced the process must start all over again.
At our invitation, two professors of computer science from a group called True Vote Connecticut watched. They had tried to raise the red flag on the electronic machines. Their complaints were dismissed last month by Secretary Bysiewicz, but today they learned that their observations were right on the money.
And, in a message that we hope other states and counties will also hear loud and clear now that the 1/1/06 deadline for “Help America Vote Act” (HAVA) money has now passed, the article adds:
So we can now add Connecticut to the growing list of American states and counties, including:
– Leon County, FL
– Volusia County, FL
– St. Louis County, MO
– The State of California
– The State of N. Carolina
…amongst those who seem, at least partially, to be coming to their senses of late vis a vis the absurd proposition of instituting unsecured, uncertified, un-transparent, hackable, secret software to count votes in our once-great American democracy!
(Hat-tip to BRAD BLOG emailer Robert R.!)
UPDATE 1/5/05: More details today from AP:
Other voting machine companies, she said, also failed to meet the state’s needs. Eight firms responded to the state’s request for proposals.
“Unfortunately we were unable to find qualified vendors,” she said, adding that no company could provide a certified electronic machine that displays a voter’s entire ballot and provides a paper receipt that he or she can verify.
We were remiss in pointing out originally, by the way, that Connecticut is home to Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd, one of the authors of the original crappy “Help America Vote Act” (HAVA). We suspect he can’t be too happy about his home state sticking with the older machines instead of caving to HAVA’s many flaws. Oh, well. Too bad.
I thought I would never see the day that electronic voting machines would be rejected. I had completely lost faith in our Democratic process ofter the double whammy of 2000 and 2004. This news actually restores a little bit of that faith.
Now if the momentum keeps rolling! There are honest politicians out there!
I’ve voted by absentee ballot for the last two elections (Florida) because I knew Diebold was fixing the tallies. There should be a federal law banning these electronic machines, unless certified that they are tamper-proof – and not by the company, especially if the CEO is a GOP contributor. How absolutely ridiculous!
While we are at it, help me get the goods on the Election Center, this might help knock down the entire house of cards:
Can anyone help me get the 2004 990 tax return for The Election Center. They are a non profit whose mission is supposedly to educate and train election officials – but they get at least 10% of funding from voting machine vendors, maybe more.
They were sitting on a nearly 1 million cash at end of 2003.
I have been waiting a year, and it still isn’t posted on http://www.guidestar.org
See my webpage on the EC here:
http://www.ncvoter.net/ElectionCenter.html
Abramoff needs to squeal what his boys have really been up to and then we’ll see this voting issue hit the fan so fast, the creeps trying to install these machines will be nailed to the wall.
Doug E
So tell me about lever-style voting. Is there a VVPB with such equipment? I remember voting on such stuff back in the day, but don’t remember ever seeing the ballot.
Does the state of Connecticut require VVPB? It looks to me like that’s what the story says…
Now we need to get the MA folks talking to the CT town that’s sticking with its paper ballots.
I got that backwards–should have said, we need to get CT folks talking to the MA town that’s sticking to its paper ballots w/o electronic machines.
For Bev or possibly anyone from BBV,
Correction: These checks were written to Diebold Inc.
Why would Diebold write to itself at least 8 seperate checks for 0 dollars and then 12,500 to Greenberg Traurig?
Check register for Diebold Inc
And who is the election center that North Carolina claims gets funding from vote-vendors?
Doug E.
Way to go CT! Now, ditch Lieberman.
Are lever machines OK? I’d think they could be rigged to. How are they verified?
Wow.
Lever voting machines? I cast my very first vote on a lever voting machine in Illinois. Chicago elections at that time have never been held up as a model of what an open, honest and fair election should look like. Am I to believe that it’s only an urban myth that Chicago elections on lever machines were "adjusted" as needed?
Here’s the Smithsonian’s link to Lever Voting Machines.
I look forward to hearing about the current state of lever machines from people in lever states.
Any system can be manipulated. They didn’t call it stuffing the ballot box for nothing. Whole trays of boxes of paper ballots can disappear. The dog can eat the precinct tally.
Levers or no levers, computers or paper, we absolutely need transparency in the counting, tallying and processing, as well as in the software and the equipment.
Transparency, transparency, transparency — but you all have known that for a long time.
–Senator Debra Bowen
Doug,
The checks are written by Diebold to the various payees, not the other way around. What you linked to is a pre-check register, the worksheet their accounting system produces when they cut checks. The corresponding documents are the check stubs. However, we have even more confirmation than that: The document you linked, above, contains a $20,000 payment to Juan Andrade. We have him on videotape admitting to taking payments from Diebold.
From: Diebold
To: Greenberg Traurig & others.
You aren’t the first one to find certain financial transaction forms to be confusing. Hope this clarifies things.
Bev
Senator Bowen or Bev,
What kind of oversight would be neccesary to have lever machines? I have never seen a case with lever machines that didn’t get stuffed. It almost seems like they need the same security cameras that scanners do.
Also I think that clears it up for me re: Diebold, thanks again. I was wondering why those checks didn’t show any amounts. Now it appears to be a case where Diebold did its accounting a bit differently.
Doug
Historically, the metal works of lever machines could be shaved, thus resulting in counts that were off. They are mechanical, not electronic.
None of the advocates of election reform I know of are pushing lever machines as an answer. At this point, the machines are also mostly old and it’s hard to get parts for them.
Still, a postponement of the decision to purchase new stuff is good news.
Jane Hamsher at FireDogLake has some very interesting comments regarding the Bush "recess" appointments to the Federal Election Commission.
Don’t polute Presidential Elections with other races ?
Only vote on Saturday ?
Don’t DRE’s units only handle 200 or so votes each on Election day ?
mick
Sen. Bowen, Doug, et al.
Concerning lever voting machines: it is precisely the problem with lever voting machines that they do not have a voter-verfied paper ballot (I don’t see why they couldn’t be manufactured that way, but, to my knowledge, they are no longer manufactured at all, which makes it hard to get parts.)
It was SoS Bysiewicz’ judgment that the lever machines would be prohibuted by HAVA precisely for the lack of a VVPB, as well as other reasons, but, CT State AG Blumenthal (also a Dem.) concurred that a "good faith effort" was made to find replacements and ruled that lever machines could be used in CT in Nov. anyway.
Can they be tampered with? Sure, anything can. But within common sense. I heard of a case of a precinct using these machines where 300 people voted and only 75 votes registered, but that was probably a mechanical error, not fraud. Compare with the computerized vote tabulators in Ohio and Florida (remember the district there where 500 registered voters where 3000 (!) went for Bush!)
Lever machines can’t be hacked, they are not in network, the results are PHONED in by precinct registrars. I’ve got to think that the old ways are best.
If I’m not mistaken, the "Votescam" book by the Collier brothers takes a look at the lever machines and they apparently have been manipulated too, maybe since their first usage.
Agreed, however, that CT’s decision to not purchase electronic equipment is excellent news!!!
Vickie
Can this trend of blue states rejecting electronic voting machines, the Democrats acknowledging electronic vote fraud, without coming out and saying it? Notice it’s in blue Dem-controlled states? Why don’t the Dems just come out and say that there’s vote fraud on electronic machines? They’re fighting to save their votes in the blue states. Let’s see how the Republicans try to stop them. GOP controlled states with GOP Sec of States are doing the opposite, calling people conspiracy theorists.
Re Election Center
Tax forms must be publicly available by law at the state attorney general’s office. Or you can get them directly from the organization by paying for xeroxing/postage. Again, required by law.
{ed note: Disinfo related to Jeff Fisher removed. Please alert me anytime you happen to see such garbage posted here about him. Disinformation will NOT be tolerated here. Thank you.}