Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite.Org
In an article this morning from the St Petersburgh (FL) Times the reporters report that Diebold/Premier voting systems failed to work properly in Hillsborough County.
They report:
However, after major computer problems cropped up during Ohio’s March elections, the manufacturer acknowledged last week that its software contains a critical programming error. Because of the error, votes can be dropped while being electronically transferred from memory cards. As a result, the company sent out a nationwide customer alert with recommended actions to deal with the problem.
An hour after the polls closed in Hillsborough, Johnson told reporters that his vote counting system had developed a computer problem that was preventing it from posting the tallies electronically “” and he blamed Premier Voting Solutions.
“I haven’t been able to get a straight answer from Premier, but I will by the end of the night,” he said. “I expect them to fix this issue. We’ve paid a lot of money. My staff has done a great job.”
Johnson said other counties were having similar problems, but [Secretary of State Kurt] Browning’s staff said no other counties statewide had reported a similar glitch. Still, Johnson insisted the problem didn’t lie with his office.
However, Florida Today reports that Brevard County had problems with their Diebold voting machines and this problem is recurring…
The problem — that the touch-screen machines failed to transmit data by modem to the elections office — is one that the supervisor of elections office has been aware of for some time. It has cropped up in past elections.
With the data unable to be transmitted back by those machines, the “votes” had to be trucked back to the elections office in Viera. Elections officials said the last of the trucks arrived around 10:30 p.m. and results were being finalized just before 11 p.m.
What is important about this inability to modem results from the polling places (this same problem was reported from around the state) is that some Florida election officials tried to minimize the affect of the Diebold admission that their GEMS tabulation system may lose votes by pointing to the fact that they modem results from the polls so they don’t have to read directly from memory cards into GEMS.
It appears that another known problem exists on the Diebold system in Florida and nothing is done about it except to ignore it and make excuses when it affects tabulation and reporting.
Just think how shitty it will be in November when only 12% showed up in Pinellas and Hillsborough was less than 7% turnout Tuesday.
Nobody will register to vote down here because they’re afraid of getting called to jury duty which pays less than they earn and can’t afford to miss their job.
Most likely by design I’m sure.
I am interested in the Diebold story but unfortunately I have little trust in blogs. (Nothing personal, I don’t trust any of them. Yours is one of the few I even check.) Can you give me a primary source, not hearsay or reprints. Thanks Pat Coyle
Pat, this IS a primary source. The bulk of Brad’s election integrity work is his own investigative reporting, and Daily Voting News, to the right near the top of the sidebar, is daily chockfull of links to all kinds of sources.
“Programming error” my fundament! This glitch was obviously deliberately put into the programming for the purpose of dropping votes! It’s the kind of mischief my grandson-in-law (the programmer) warned about five years ago! When told about “Programming errors” he guffawed. “PROGRAMMERS don’t make that sort of error! It was either deliberate or whoever did it should be both fired and blacklisted for incompetence!”
Pat Coyle
I do the “Daily Voting News” clipping service that goes out to nearly 500 direct subscribers including congressional staff, EAC commissioners and staff, state and local election officials and elected officials, advocates, attorneys, media, and members of the EI community; and BradBlog and other places on the net. I read a lot of news articles during the day and I blog on important ones on occasion. That is what I did with this article.
I live in WA state and not in FL but if you want a direct source for more information I would suggest you contact Florida Voters Coalition or wait a week for the dust to settle and call Buddy Johnson, the Hillsborough County election director and/or Ion Sancho, the Leon Co. election director.