Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org
As a result of complaints from voters the Diebold DREs used in Montgomery Co. Ohio have been tested. Voters complained that votes flipped on the screens. Testing of the machines that were used by the complaining voters has proven that 56 of the number tested failed the test and did, in fact, flip votes. The blame has been put on possible mis-handling of the machines by the shipping company that delivered the machines to the poll sites. Diebold claims that no votes were lost and that every vote was counted accurately. Of course, the accurate count claim does not mean that the choices of the people were counted; just that the selection made by the machine was accurately chosen. What is interesting about the media reports of the testing is that the local Dayton Daily News reports that 125 machines were tested resulting in a 45% failure rate while the Associated Press reports that 258 machines were tested which results in a 19% failure rate. Which number was true? I’ve got calls in but the Montgomery Co. Board of Elections has ignored my query so far….
Electronic Ballot Decision Rightfully Belongs to the People, Not Only Congress LINK
Who’ll be the new supervisor is just one outcome; the other will be the addressing of state’s mixed signals. LINK
Our position: Florida’s secretary of state shouldn’t back off banning touch-screens. LINK
Vote display delay didn’t cause overvotes, scientist says LINK
Republicans say the bill fails to adequately protect against election fraud. LINK
Backers hope to thwart election fraud; critics fear voter turnout would slide LINK
Plan could cost more than $16 million; similar proposal pending in Senate LINK
Montgomery officials tested the 5% of machines that drew complaints; 56 of those 125 machines failed. LINK
56 touch-screen units in Montgomery have calibration problems LINK
**”Daily Voting News” is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in “Daily Voting News” may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or BradBlog.Com**
Cachagua Store update:
We have been the polling place in our little valley for four years now. We are a country store and Pub, complete with woodstove and cracker barrel. Last November I went public, on the radio and on our blog about the voting machine handling in Monterey County.
We receive our voting machines on the Thursday before the Tuesday elections, delivered by a moving company. Someone signs a delivery receipt for the machines, and we put them in the bar. Nowhere on the receipt does it say anything about how we are supposed to treat the machines, care for them, protect them from heat, cold, rain, people with mini-bar keys and USB cables…whatever. I was sorely tempted to turn them over to my UCSC catering crew, but that whole felony thing…you know.
We did, however introduce the machines to each of our patrons over the weekend and on Monday Night dinner. And, it is true….there may have been some lingerie involved in the presentation. The moving company comes back on Thursday to retrieve the machines. We are alone with them for a week.
Most recently we are keeping a petition in the Store to return to paper ballots along with a volunteer sign up sheet to count paper.
Surprise! Surprise! I got a call on Monday from the County Election worker: they have decided to go in a different direction, polling place-wise. The new polling place will be the garage of the CDF station on the other side of the mountain. No woodstove, no crackerbarrel. And, no sarcasm or advocacy. We will, however, continue our policy of free Guinness or Newcastle drafts for Blue voters, and free Coors for Red voters on Election Day.
Shoot the messenger seems to be the M.O.
Keep up the message!
Fitrakis and Wasserman have another detailed piece on the Ohio fraudulent election and the blowback,..
snip :
In the 2004 presidential election, Cuyahoga County suffered serious election irregularities that worked to the disadvantage of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Among them: the purging of 24.93% of all the voters in the city of Cleveland, where Kerry won 83% of the vote; mysterious and suspect vote totals for third party candidates in majority African American wards; unexplained “security” problems that caused the last-minute shift of voting locations in the inner city Cleveland Public School polling places; improbably low apparent turnouts in heavily Democratic inner city wards, and more.
The Free Press has learned that Brunner’s office is also investigating an unexplained undercount in the 2006 general election in six Ohio counties which all used the Diebold TSX DRE voting machines. In Montgomery County, where the Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland beat Blackwell, the Republican nominee, by 107,593 to 76,189, there was an abnormally high 13.76% of the machines registering no vote for the state’s highest office. Problems are also under investigation in Adams, Darke, Highland, Mercer and Perry Counties.
Source/link,..
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0320-23.htm