The following video comes fresh from our buddy Jake Soboroff of Why Tuesday? He was at last night’s Democratic debate and tried to get some answers from some of the local Democratic public officials on hand — including Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and PA Governor Ed Rendell — to see if they had any concerns about the e-voting machines to be used in next week’s crucial PA Primary.
Kudos to Jake for asking, just one of the so-many questions (if, arguably, one of the most important) that the Corporate Media, such as ABC News, couldn’t even be bothered to dream of, apparently.
Despite the fact that, next week, wholly unverifiable, 100% faith-based e-voting systems will be in use across much of the Keystone State — including, perhaps most notably, Sequoia’s AVC Advantage touch-screens in Montgomery and Northhampton counties, even though very same systems failed so spectacularly in neighboring NJ on Super Tuesday (see this recent BRAD BLOG story for the quick skinny on what happened, and continues to be going on with the NJ/Sequoia failed touch-screen imbroglio) — the election officials interviewed by Soboroff, in the following quick video recorded just last night, remain utterly and completely clueless.
It’s simply amazing…
And folks wonder why the job of restoring Election Integrity in this country is so frickin’ hard?!
The above video — including Nutter’s comments that there have been “no problems” with the machines, since, after all, they got him elected, and Rendell’s admission that he “knows nothing about them”, but that they are “all HAVA approved machines” — underscores how unbelievably difficult this fight is, and how clueless the very folks needed to help make a change actually are, in this entire fine mess.
Suggestion to Soboroff for next vid: Ask any elected official or election official in PA, or anywhere else, if they can prove that even a single vote — as cast on any touch-screen machine during any actual election — has ever been recorded and counted accurately as the voter intended. Just evidence of a single such vote will do. They will not be able to do so. None of them.
UPDATE 4/19/08: The good election integrity champions of VotePA touched base with us concerning our above suggestion to Soboroff to point out that there is one way possible to prove that a touch-screen/DRE counted a vote accurately, as per voter intent, during an actual election. An unusual write-in candidate could be cast, and then checked after the election to see if it was recorded accurately. Therefore, we’ll slightly modify our currently suggested challenge above, to any election official, asking for proof of any non-write-in vote having been recorded accurately as per voter intent, as ever cast on a DRE/touch-screen voting machine during an actual election. We’ve made that challenge for quite a while (minus the “non-write-in” part), and we’ve yet to receive an iota of proof from any election official, even from those who will tell you that their DRE/touch-screens record votes “accurately”.
Truth is, they have nothing to prove their case. Not even a single (non-write-in) vote ever cast. Yet they still claim them to be “accurate” without any such scientific evidence of same. Go figure.
Philly Mayor Nutter Says ‘No Problems, They Got Me Elected
Sheesh!
Being machine politicians,Nutter and Rendell are very much aware of the value of hackable voting machines in tilting the playing field to their advantage. The candidate that they support will be well served. Their professed ignorance is just a smoke screen.
In November,it may be a different story. Whichever candidates come up with the most “protection money” and/or “favors” will be well rewarded.
Sadly,we have come to a point in this country where the party which is better positioned and prepared to use election fraud will be victorious in the important and pivotal election contests. In 2008,it would seem that the GOP is better prepared and,because of privatization,is better positioned to impose their fraud on the electorate not to mention the fact that they cannot win without their secret weapon.
Steve B..I’m pessimistic, but I believe you have me beat on that prediction. It isn’t that easy unless it’s close. There is a lot more scrutiny now. Still..with Ed Rendell as gov. Obama wouldn’t have much of a chance in Penn.Ed said he would like to kill Howard Dean. That’s the definitive test for DLC or repub. Repubs. just come right out and say “I’d like to kill …Pat Robertson wants Chavez assasinated… Clint Eastwood said if Michael Moore rang his door bell he would kill him. Character flaw.
THANK YOU Brad, for posting this, and Jake for getting it on tape.
Just another example of why we are PENNSYLVANIA, STATE OF DENIAL .
As I said back in Nashville, three years ago this month, Pennsylvania is in deep trouble and our officials really are clueless.
I hope I am wrong, but I said it then and I’ll say it now — Pennsylvania is really on track to be “the next ________.”
Florida and Ohio are at least TRYING to clean up their acts.
Marybeth
VotePA.us
450,000 Americans are killed each year by doctors who you can’t vote in and can’t vote out.
Luddites have one answer. But it begs the question.
Sweet home Alabama bin Laden
Oooh, they’ll have “thousands of lawyers”.
At first I thought you were using the Kos quote when I saw “nutter” but it really is his name 🙂
Molly:
There is no viable scrutiny of the source code for these machines because we haven’t got access to it being that privatization to non public companies have,so far,made this proprietary information off limits.
Also,we have not been able to take proper control of chain of custody issues which would give us an idea of the prevalent type of fraud with which we are faced.
Without transparency,the actual closeness of the election or not really has little effect on the fraudsters other than forcing them to come up with elaborate explanations which seem halfway believable to justify the improbable result.
The 2008 New Hampshire primary is a prime example of that. The good thing about New Hampshire is that it has moved the goalposts toward election integrity by causing additional attention to the problem.
First, Ed Rendell isn’t dumb. He doesn’t have the Bush Excuse.
Two, if you support Hillary Clinton and she needs an overwhelming victory in Pennsylvania, then would you care if the machines were hacked in order for that to happen? I also tend to think that Rendell supports Hillary out of not just loyalty but because of Israel. Exhibit A would be Joe Leiberman. Exhibit B would be the recruiting class that Schumer and Rahm gave us that didn’t end the Iraq war, thought pretty much to be a proxy war for Israel.
Three, and this is posed as a question: if you didn’t care for someone named Obama would you care if Pennsylvania got robbed by McCain in 2008? You probably wouldn’t.
Just food for thought…
Philip Shropshire
http://www.threeriversonline.com
Fast eddy’s gettin nervous. Keep the pressure on ALL good folks. Yeah, I got priest friends.
Don’t question authority! Nothing to see here, folks!
HuffingtonPost has a story on this with the video of Mayor Nutter stating there are no problems with the touchscreens. I posted a link to BradBlog with comments on the incredible amount of research you have done on this issue, and they repeatedly remove it. Makes one wonder what is going on over there.