The Jones County, Mississippi, slogan is “A Great Place to Live.” While this may or may not be true, and I’ve never been there, it’s clearly not a great place to vote. At least if voting in a way that is verifiably accurate for the citizenry is something one might care about. A remarkable statement by the county’s Circuit Clerk, and a unanimous decision in support of it by the County’s Board of Supervisors this week, has made that as clear as can be.
You may recall that just last week, e-voting system failures — such as e-voting machines that wouldn’t start up at all and votes that were counted twice — led to chaos and uncertain results in Mississippi’s state primaries, leading one official to declare days afterward, as they were all struggling to sort out results of several close elections: “At this point there is no election…Everyone is baffled.”
Against that backdrop then, behold what Jones County, MS, Circuit Clerk Bart Gavin is now calling for — and receiving unanimous approval from the Jones County Board of Supervisors for(!) — as irresponsibly reported without even a hint of fact-checking by Laurel Leader-Call reporter Charlotte Graham under the laughably misleading headline, “Improving the voting process” [emphasis added]…
Gavin told supervisors the printers are defective and have often slowed up the voting process.
“Removing the printers will make it easy for the precinct and poll workers to open up at 7 a.m.,” said Gavin. “At 7 a.m. on voting day, all machines need to be up and running.
“The poll worker, bless their hearts,” he added. “We can go over things with them and they still mess up. This way they won’t have to go in and put in paper to print out results. They will only use what’s recorded in the computer.“
Before the vote, District Five Supervisor Jerome Wyatt questioned whether it was lawful to remove the printers. He said, as he recalled, the printers were authorized by the U.S. Justice Department, which compelled the state to use them to make sure votes and results could not be comprised [sic].
According to Gavin, the printed ballots were not a stipulation now. He said the voting machines record every vote and there is no way for them to be tampered with.
Gavin also told supervisors he has correspondence from state officials saying it is OK to do away with the printers. He added that other counties have removed them and are saving money as a result.
Not even sure where to begin with this mess.
“[T]here is no way for them to be tampered with”??? And Gavin is actually the election clerk in charge of actual elections and stuff, in this county?! Really?
I have no idea what party, if any, Gavin represents, and don’t much care. That he would offer a statement so clearly absurd, so clearly inaccurate, so clearly misleading — as revealed by lord-knows-how-many-scientific-studies at this point — to his county’s Board of Supervisors and all of their voters is nothing short of gob-smacking. That his county’s Board of Supes would actually approve the request, unanimously, is only slightly less so.
Beyond referring Gavin to a few hundred (thousand?) pages here at The BRAD BLOG which contradict his ridiculous assertion that there is “no way…to tamper” with the 100% unverifiable Diebold touch-screen voting systems used in Jones County, I’ll just point him to our coverage of the study released by Princeton in 2006 (5 years ago!) demonstrating how results on those 100% faith-based voting systems can be easily manipulated, “in about 10 seconds,” according to the study’s lead author, in such a way that an entire election can be flipped without detection.
And just in case Gavin is unable to read, as could well be the case based on his reported comments to the Board of Supes, we’re happy to share this video from Fox “News,” of all places, demonstrating the Princeton Diebold virus hack of which Gavin appears to be completely unaware…
There is a reason that state after state, from CA to FL, has decertified the Diebold AccuVote touch-screen e-voting system. Apparently, the voters of Jones County needn’t worry about those reasons, according to their top election official and the Board of Supervisors, who unskeptically support whatever he tells them.
As to Gavin’s claims, if accurately reported by Graham (who obviously didn’t bother to look into any of the facts behind the Circuit Clerk’s blatant misinformation before reporting it), the assertion that the U.S. Justice Department had ever been “compell[ing]” the state to use paper-trail printers on touch-screen voting machines is similarly without basis to my knowledge.
While the DoJ is charged with preclearing (or rejecting) changes to election laws in areas covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act where there have historically been racial disparities in election administration (the entire state of Mississippi is subject to Section 5), they have never “compelled” a jurisdiction to add a paper-trail printer to a touch-screen voting system as far as I’ve ever heard.
Even if they had, however, I can’t even imagine what he could be referring to when, as Graham reports, “According to Gavin, the printed ballots were not a stipulation now.”
Huh? They were before but now? That’s either sloppy reporting by Graham or Gavin was just making stuff up in his response to the Board.
The fact is, Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems like the Diebold AccuVote are no more reliable or even verifiable with a paper-trail printer than they are without them. There are a number of reasons for that which we’ve discussed here many times, but I won’t bore you with them again for the moment. And yes, those crappy printers attached to the Diebold DREs — as well as those made by other manufacturers for similar DREs — are garbage and often fail during elections. They can, indeed, be a pain in the ass for poll workers to have to do deal with. However, with or without the paper-trail, or so called “Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail” (VVPAT) printers, it is strictly impossible to prove that any vote ever cast on such machines during any election for any candidate or initiative on any ballot has ever been recorded accurately as per any voter’s intent.
The fact is that these machines should never be used, with or without a so-called “paper trail,” in any election, as they amount to 100% faith-based voting systems, antithetical to overseeable democracy and the self-governance envisioned by the U.S. Constitution…and mere common sense.
But to suggest that Diebold touch-screen “voting machines record every vote and there is no way for them to be tampered with” is so absurd, so laughably contrary to actual and scientifically-demonstrated reality, as to hardly be worthy of even responding to…had it not come from an election official who is seeking to make a terrible system even worse, if that’s possible, while offering misinformation to the public in the bargain. (It may also be a potential violation of federal law in the bargain. Voting machines are federally certified as a complete unit. Removing one piece of that machine, the printer in this case, means it would no longer meet the federal certification it was approved under, though some states don’t require that their voting systems meet federal certification guidelines.)
Want to save money, Mr. Gavin? Want to really “Improve the voting process” as ridiculously suggested by the Leader-Call’s headline? Tell the truth about the unverifiable e-voting systems you use, to both the Board of Supes and the voters, and then switch to a hand-marked paper ballot system and count them all by hand, on Election Night, at the polls in front of the public. The system will be cheaper, verifiable, more reliable, actually representative of democracy and self-governance, and actually improve the voting process.
Good lord.
Emails sent by The BRAD BLOG to both Jones County, MS, Circuit Clerk Bart Gavin and Laurel Leader-Call reporter Charlotte Graham seeking more information to determine whether the article accurately reported what transpired at this week’s meeting of the Board of Supes have not been answered.
It’s not entirely clear, Brad, whether Bart Gavin is flat-out lying or has been brainwashed by Diebold and actually believes the disinformation he gave to the Jones County Board of Supervisors.
What is clear is that Gavin’s claim that “the voting machines record every vote and there is no way for them to be tampered with” provides a classic example of what Roger G. Johnston, Ph.D of the Argonne National Laboratory describes as the Arrogance Maxim:
More soon, by the way, from Roger Johnston and Argonne Labs — according to a li’l birdie — on these very Diebold AccuVote machines that Gavin says can’t be tampered with.
Stories like this make me wanna just give it up all together. Seriously. Just incredible.
Politics on a stick.
This is so outrageous! What has been shared with The Jones County Board of Supervisors? Are they aware now of Jones County Circuit Clerk Bart Gavin’s incompetence and misrepresentation of facts about these voting machines?
Also, thank you so much for your coverage of this story… kudos, Brad!
Reading your comment #2 Brad I was thinking about the meeting you had with the DNC, way back. Had to look it up. It was in 2006, five years ago.
DYSFUNCTION AT THE DNC: Brad Addresses the DNC on Election Integrity, But Is Anybody There Listening?
( Quote)”While it’d be nice to give you an encouraging report from the DNC meeting of how the Dems have finally figured out what the hell is going on here — how they are going to get out in front of this electile dysfunction thing, take the offensive, become proactive and lead the way in becoming the party which stands for vigilance, Electoral Integrity and the assurance that every vote will be counted and counted accurately — I can’t give such a report.”
But every path is built one stone at a time-you say. The stones must be three layers deep by now.
I don’t know how you do it but thanks for all your work. WE are listening.
Senior moment. Forgot the link and forgot to close the tags too:)
https://bradblog.com/?p=3308
[ED NOTE: Fixed it, GWN. And thank you. – Brad]
Hello Brad,
Love the photo of Bart Gavin as taken by Charlotte A. Graham. One word describes this “priceless”.
I think we now have the next election night scandal of vote rigging in Mississippi.
Customer: I would like an order of 3,421 additional votes with some fries.
Clerk: Would you like me to super-size that to 7,000?
Customer: No, thank you.
I agree with most of your blog, except the recommendation for hand-counting the paper ballots. There are many more errors when we hand count votes. I’d prefer paper ballots scanned for tabulation, and retained for recounts. The recounts could be by hand. I believe that would be more accurate and secure.
Laura @10 writes:
Link?
I’m unaware of any academic studies that substantiate that assumption.
Laura next states:
As I recently observed in No Real Surprise in Recent Florida E-Voting Hack
The only way to verify whether the computers tabulating the scanned ballots accurately counted the ballots is to hand-count the paper ballots.
“Retained for recounts” is precisely what the folks in Wisconsin did to a limited extent. (Absent a court order, a “recount” in WI entails simply feeding the paper ballots back through the same optical scanners which may or may not have been rigged).
A post-election hand-count of paper ballots entails a need for strict, post-election chain-of-custody procedures after the paper ballots are transferred from the individual precincts to a central location.
See, Tale of the Tapes: Wisconsin’s ‘Dog-and-Pony Show’ Faith-Based Supreme Court Election ‘Recount’
I would strongly urge that you, and any other readers who have misconceptions about Democracy’s Gold Standard, read New Hampshire Town Citizens Prohibit Concealed Vote Counting by Computers or Any Other Method.
The key, Laura, is transparency!
Those towns conduct publicly observed hand-counts at the precinct level, producing verifiable counts, often more rapidly than the unverified results produced by the machine produced optical scan tallies.
Those computer tabulators are, in essence, an expensive and unnecessary middle-man. And the ability for a single malicious insider to rig an entire election by manipulating a central tabulator cannot be duplicated by a human being who hand counts ballots at the precinct level.
It is possible for a “human error” to occur even during a hand-count, but that possibility is significantly reduced by having the count publicly observed.
Laura #10, have you watched Hacking Democracy?
http://hackingdemocracy.com/
Brad will likely respond with an updated comment but here is his response to a commenter about op-scan in a previous blog.
“Trouble is, there is no way to know that the op-scan system has read the paper ballot correctly and/or that the op-scan system hasn’t been tampered with to report inaccurate results, unless one counts the paper ballots by hand — thus rendering the op-scan system useless in the first place.
https://bradblog.com/?p=8003
Ernest I see you posted a much better response as I was writing.
I think HackingDemocracy should have to be watched BEFORE anyone is allowed to work anywhere near elections.
Well, bless Bart Gavin’s sweet li’l heart! Now Jones County, Mississippi voters will really never know how their votes were counted. Yeah, sure, it’s all the printers’ fault! Pesky printers. Jes’ get rid of ’em. What you don’t see won’t hurt you!
I don’t mean to suggest that the printers would make everything all right again…they most certainly would not! But when one crappy piece of equipment doesn’t agree with another crappy piece of equipment, at least you have people asking questions. Now we’re down to only one crappy piece of equipment, with nothing to contradict its results. So no one needs to ask.
Some folks are sure to be smiling over the decision to toss the printers, and it ain’t anyone honest!
Laura (#10) wrote,
“There are many more errors when we hand count votes.”
That’s quite a statement to make here at the Brad Blog without any back-up whatsoever.
Show ’em if you got ’em.
It would be interesting to know where Laura@10 gets her belief that hand counted paper ballots have more errors in counting than opscans. I have looked at a lot of information and nothing I have seen supports her belief about this. I know the NC audit showed HCPB to be 100% correct and the DRE and opscan to have what I would call, major problems. Thanks to Ernest@11 and GWN@12 for the excellent responses to Laura@10.
As a side note, have been working on something to go with the song Mississippi Goddam relating to voting and EI. I was wondering about how to relate the song to current events and wham, here it is. Wish I had had to work harder to get something, meaning that this is beyond the pale crazy. I truly do not understand how anyone can think?/believe any system cannot be hacked and/or fitted with malware. Mississippi Gd!
Also thanks to Lora@14&15!
“Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann [R] Thursday questioned the high number of absentee votes, mostly in the Democratic-dominated Delta region, that were cast Aug. 3 in the state’s primary election.”
Well, duh, Mr. Hosemann. In states like yours who persist in using 100% unverifiable touch-screen DREs, the only way voters can create a paper record of how they actually voted is by casting an absentee ballot.
If y’all scrapped your unverifiable electronic crap and applied Democracy’s Gold Standard, you’d find a good number of those absentee voters happy to come in and vote in person.
“Stories like this make me wanna just give it up all together. Seriously. Just incredible.”
Join the club Brad.
I have a theory that the microbes down Mississippi way have been contaminated by BP (big propaganda).
There, fixed it.
Really, Brad? I’d have thought stories like this would make you want to go hack certain voting machines, so you could rub Bart Gavin’s criminally incompetent nose in it!
Hmm, there seems to be something screwy in the implementation of your {/blockquote} tag today. Diebold software, perhaps?
(Also, the comment system is eating the final character I enter in the Website field; fortunately, it’s not a vital appendage.)
(Indulge me a moment longer while I test a theory that it was actually a missing {/i} tag in some earlier post that caused this mess — thereby indicating a design flaw in the comment system. All this should appear in Roman type.)
Ah-HA! Brad, there’s something here that needs a’fixin’. Missing formatting codes should be checked for and, as required, inserted at the end of each post.
I’d like to think that this little discovery only strengthens the argument for the unreliability of the voting systems in question! 😉
The problem wasn’t the block quote tag. Dredd punched the italics tag at the end of his bold tag, and never closed it.
I’ve corrected the problem. EC
Infinitude of Tortoises said:
Well, yeah, there’s that too. 🙂 Speaking of which. A related story — concerning the same machines our friend Bart says cannot be tampered with, and a fresh new way to tamper with them — coming soon. Again. Stay tuned…
(And thanks for fixing the open ended itals, Ernie! Been busy all day, so hadn’t gotten here to notice!)
Brad–Well covered! We must not forget to thank Clerk Gavin for providing this opportunity to expose the ignorance (at best) behind the insanity of our 100% faith-based computer voting system.
Ernest #25,
I am pro-Italian … try it you’ll like it.
Thanx for the fix … 😉
I just went to the Mississippi Sec. of State, Elections page to do some research and saw the following. No wonder “they” are trying to get rid of any paper trail. Not that the paper trail is ever looked at but, just in-case, better to be certain and make sure it isn’t there. I think the first initiative is very telling….
Peace
http://www.sos.ms.gov/page.aspx...1=1&s2=84
These Constitutional Initiatives will be decided in the
November 8, 2011 General Election.
Initiative #26 – Definition of “person”
Click to submit a public comment
Click to read comments
Click to download PDF of brochure
Should the term “person” be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the equivalent thereof?
Initiative #27 – Voter Identification
Click to submit a public comment
Click to read comments
Click to download PDF of brochure
Should the Mississippi Constitution be amended to require a person to submit government issued photo identification in order to vote?
Initiative #31 – Eminent Domain
Click to submit a public comment
Click to read comments
Click to download PDF of brochure
Should government be prohibited from taking private property by eminent domain and then transferring it to other persons?
Ernest A. Canning @25: Yeah, I ultimately deduced it was an unclosed italic tag, and thanks for fixing things up. But tell me, was what you did an ad hoc, one-time edit or a change to the commenting system code itself? Because what I think you really want here is the latter! (And while you’re in there, there’s also that matter of truncation in the Website field….)
Hey, Sark. Wouldn’t be funny if someone hacked into the MS system and changed the ballot measure to exclude corporations from the definition of “person” as opposed to the religious right definition they’re seeking to impose as an assault on Roe v. Wade?
I have a great idea for our friends at Anonymous: hack into these systems and track all the changes made to the vote totals. Then publish the exact data with as much information as possible, such as any logins and any spurious activity affecting stored data. Grab all their logfiles. Expose these rats and let them know that they can’t hide the truth.
Ernest@31; funny and fantastic!
I wonder if they could also change it to give the environment/Mother Nature personhood rights like Bolivia enacted….
Realist@32, I keep waiting/hoping for something like that to happen. Please Anonymous, please!
Both democrats and republican parties have been dragging their feet to maintain their corrupt hold on a true voting process. It is too bad too many Americans have decided to take the stupid way out by worshipping their TV sets. If they liked 9-11, and the Maconda oil well blow out, and the ARMortgage fraud and all the other bank frauds, and the chemtrail/HAARP circle tornados and flooding, being waged against the people, then vote fraud and their excessive mewling and sucking will continue to serve them well. Go for it, America, you prancing little fool.
Also, thank you so much for your coverage of this story, mattes
The confederate flag in the background was all I needed to see
To Bill Hill,
The so called “confederate flag” in the background… is a Mississippi State Flag!!! Some people need to get their facts straight before commenting on something they know nothing about!!!
momof3 @37.
You are quite right, but the real question is why, some 156 years after the end of the civil war, the state of MS still sports a flag that is patterned on the confederate flag?
Ernest A. Canning @38
I do not know much about “WHY” the state of MS has kept the flag that it has. I can tell you that I am from MS and I am proud to be from here. Really and truly, there is nothing I can do about our flag. It is part of our heritage and it shouldn’t be changed. People need to get a grip on stuff like this. Why change it? It is what it is!! No matter who likes it or not, we were a part of the confederate states!!! Our forefathers were obviously proud of that! Our flag does not depict the people that we are and our flag should not offend anyone.
Tell me MOMOF3, would you have found it obnoxious if, after the end of WWII, the Germans kept the Swastika in their flag?
The Confederate Flag is a symbol of a system that kept much of its population in chains. It continued to be flown during the ravages of Jim Crow and lynchings.
How can anyone be “proud” of such a heritage?