After reports of ES&S touch-screen votes flipping away from Republicans, for a change, over the last several days in North Carolina and in Texas, reports are now coming in from Nevada about similar occurrences on that state’s Sequoia touch-screens, just in time to underscore the importance of my story published today at Truthout, “Hacking Harry Reid (or Sharron’s Angle)” arguing that one or both of the candidates locked in the Silver State Senate Standoff need to get to a court immediately, even though neither of them are likely to do so.
First, the reports of touch-screen troubles today in NV (which closely mirror the scores of reports in the same state that I detailed exclusively in 2008 as affecting Obama and the Democrats during early voting). This time, however, it’s Republican voters charging trouble with touch-screens…
Voter Joyce Ferrara said when they went to vote for Republican Sharron Angle, her Democratic opponent, Sen. Harry Reid’s name was already checked.
Ferrara said she wasn’t alone in her voting experience. She said her husband and several others voting at the same time all had the same thing happen.
The Clark County Registrar of Voters, as such officials are wont to do, downplayed the reports, describing them as “patently false” and claims they were reported only to the media, but not to election officials.
Whether they were or weren’t, doesn’t really matter. The fact is, nobody should be forced — as the entire state of Nevada is — to vote on 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting machines. Not even in the state where slot machines, if not e-voting machines, go through unbelievable rigorous testing. And if the election results are reported as close as they are expected to be, there will be no way to disprove the inevitable cries of “fraud” whether any actually occurred or not. That point, is at the heart of my piece for Truthout today which begins this way:
by: Brad Friedman, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis
Sharron Angle should start filing the lawsuits right now. Then again, so should Harry Reid. However, it might be a bit more difficult politically for the Senate majority leader, given the undeserved support Reid has shown in the past for Nevada’s 100 percent unverifiable, error-prone, hackable, illegally-certified, electronic voting systems the state forces all voters to use at the polling place.
Given that the Angle/Reid contest in Nevada is likely to be among the closest – and most closely-watched – races for the US Senate this November 2, both parties would be wise to get to court and file for an order to ensure all of the hard drives, flash memory chips and memory cartridges to be used in their electronic voting machines during both early voting and on Election Day are securely retained for 22 months after the election.
Please read the rest of the article here…
Brad, I’m not certain but I recall reading somewhere that the NV gaming commission requires electronic slot machine companies to provide their source codes; yet E-voting system manufacturers are permitted to assert trade secret protection.
Fitting, in 21st Century America, gambling is regarded as more important than democracy.
Tell NPR’s PAM FESTLER!
Tuesday’s Morning Edition had a story called Efforts To Prevent Voter Fraud Draw Scrutiny. Sounds good, no? Instead of exposing the FRAUD (made of WHOLE CLOTH) the best mention is “Weiser says the campaigns appear to be based on fears that most election experts think are overblown “ that, in fact, there are few cases of illegitimate voters who cast ballots.”
Tell Pam Festler about it! And Brad’s t r u t h o u t essay, too!
Contact NPR HERE
Maybe Pam might scoop the Beltway Bobbleheads, eh? Give her a lead!
**** Most excellent essay, Brad! ****
Holy crap! Look at those ugly voting machines! Are they using rear-projection units?
I’m assuming that the 1970s technology assures unvarifiacapability.
Ernie – The comparison to NV gaming commission requirements for slot machines is linked in the article above. But as it looks like you missed it, here it is again.
And thanks BillORightsMan!
And remember kids, the fun thing with the supposed visible flipping of “R” votes to “D” votes is that the machines can do that while still counting the “R” votes as “R” votes and some of the “D” votes as “R” votes as well.
The point being that what the machine shows you on screen and/or prints on those useless “paper trails” has literally nothing at all to do with what is happening with your votes inside the machine. Nothing at all.
But wouldn’t that make a great wingnut rallying cry for further voter suppression? “The Dems tried to steal the election but we
still won!”
Will this nightmare ever end?
On the bright side- I love your caption “Voters hoping to get lucky”
yep. Gamblers- ALL…
It is extremely curious that the flips are now R to D!
As zapkitty so well points out- probably only on the screen.
GOP is flipping the truth and the media may now take an interest to come to their aid.
Highly unlikely, especially with the good SEIU members maintaining these machines.