From today’s Indianapolis Star…
I’ve been building computers since 1977. The potential abuse in electronic vote systems is enormous. You have to be able to trust the voting systems or voter trust will evaporate.
It has come to my attention that the Busby-Bilbray special election in CA-50 on June 6 was conducted on Diebold voting machines, many if not all of which were left unsecured in the homes, cars and offices of poll workers in the weeks prior to the election. Diebold touch screen and optical scan machines have been proven by California’s secretary of state to be unreliable in the field and vulnerable to hacking in unsecure environments. Because improper procedures were used in this election, no one has proof that these machines were not subject to memory card switches or other easy tampering techniques such as manipulating the counters.
Voters must have confidence in the outcome of elections or else the security of our elections and our democracy will be undermined. This election belongs to the voters in CA-50, and people all across the nation have an interest in its outcome. Neither candidate has the right to concede this election when Diebold vote machines were used in a manner that fails to comply with normal security procedures.
Dana Kincaid
Indianapolis
(Hat tip, John Gideon. Kudos, Dana Kincaid!)
Dana Kincaid thank you for your voice in bringing more exposure to this travesty that is contaminating our democracy.
We don’t have to believe the pollworkers are felons. They probably are not. But there are lots of people who would like to see this election go one way or another, and I bet it is not to hard to find out who the pollworkers are. And it would not be too hard to find out when they are not going to be home, and pay the voting machine in their garage a little visit–or to pay their car a visit, while it is parked at their job all day with the machine “locked” in a rather unsecure trunk…
Not so fast, Bilbray!
Thankyou for pointing this crooked election out.
At least a LTTE about this got published in Indianapolis. The San Diego Union-Tribune has published none, including my letter asking why they didn’t mention in their article about Bilbray being sworn in that the results were NOT certified.
If I heard correctly, I believe the San Diego mayor’s race was won by a Democrat (unusual I think for relatively conservative San Diego, but San Diego has also been rife with corruption in recent years). The vote count that determined the winner was done by hand because the machines failed and/or were unreliable. The same tally should be done for the CA-50 congressional district. I believe the CA-50 district also includes or is near San Diego.