If all types of these machines aren't all pulled from use across the country NOW, can you imagine the mess we'll be in come Nov.?

The money spent buying them in the first place and now the money being spent to recount or even hold a new election could pay for a lot of people to hand count the ballots.

The incompetence of the manufactures of these things is beyond belief.

An abacus has nothing more than beads on rods and is far better for this very simple task of counting than these machines can ever dream of!

Methinks 'tis not incompetence, Bluebear2. Would that it were. Methinks the rats are gamboling very boldly through the timbers of our sinking ship of state, caring little at this late date who notices and deplores.

Maybe the vote rigging software gets totally confused if there are two republicans in the race?

Peg C

Ya, unfortunatley it sure looks that way. I think River has a good point too!

There are strong indications that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is about to drop another major indictment in the CIA leak case.

River, Thats the first thing I thought of when I was reading the article

How does the Ciro Rodriguez vs. Henry Cuellar primary race factor into these machine malfunctions and failures?

Wasn't Webb County (and Jefferson?) one of the key counties that was hung up, and late reporting, in their CD race?

Some of these candidates need to connect with each other to pool their resources here, damn the attorneys and their red tape obstructions. Steve Smith and Ciro Rodriguez uniting in a call for a fair count/recount would make themselves heard clear across the country.

So now a conservative Republican gets screwed. Well, now at least one of them has to come to terms with this being a reality. What an unholy mess this all is!

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
**'Expose Tom Feeney'**
"SUPPORT CLINT CURTIS!"
__www.clintcurtis.com__
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

By design Bob, by design

This is it, the BIG one.

This is where the fight for democracy and voting rights in America will be won or lost.

Tom DeLay and his minions in the state legislature need to be thrown in jail and HAVA overturned as a result of this blatant criminality.

...Peg C said on 3/22/2006 @ 6:33pm PT...

Methinks 'tis not incompetence, Bluebear2.

-------------------

I know this is not incompetence. As BBV, Harri Hursti and Brad has eloquently showed the Diebold voting machines can be preloaded with a negative number for the issue or person you want to lose and a positive number for the wannabe winner, the two numbers adding up to zero so as not to report a vote total greater or less than the actual number of voters.

What BBV and Hursti showed in Leon County, FL, was that 2 real 'yes' votes and 5 real 'no' votes came out, after traveling through the Diebold machine, as 6 'yes' and one 'no' vote.

Now, how can I say that this must be a deliberately designed feature? Well, before any voting is done, a zero-check - a printout of the totals - is done to assure that the machine isn't prematurely stuffed with votes. That zero-check must show zero votes for either candidate for any voting to be done on the machine.

I don't know if BBV or Brad has realized this yet but to get the Leon County results in the above mentioned demonstration the code must have been something like this:

Program die_bold()
string winner_name;
string looser_name;
int winner_count;
int looser_count;

Subroutine initialize(string wn, string ln, int offset) (
winner_name = wn;
looser_name = ln;
winner_count = 0 + offset;
looser_count = 0 - offset;
)

Subroutine zeroCheck() (
sleep until event zeroCheck; // wait for button
// pressed to launch the zero check
print("Total for ", winner_name, 0); // instead of
// printing '0' literally you could print
// winnercount + looser_count, but why bother?
print("Total for ", looser_name, 0); // -"-
)

Subroutine reportVotes() (
sleep until event reportVotes; // wait for button
// pressed to launch the vote report
print("Total for ", winner_name, winner_count);
print("Total for ", looser_name, looser_count);
)

Subroutine collectVotes() (
sleep until event collectVote
or event closeVote; // wait for vote
// or close vote button pressed
if (event collectVote(v) (
if (v == winner_name) winner_count +=1;
else if (v == looser_name) looser_count +=1;
)
)

(
initialize("Yes", "No", 4);
zeroCheck();
collectVotes();
reportVotes();
)

Now, why would anyone need an extra subroutine for printing the totals for the so called zero check? Well, to enable cheating of course!

I said above I wonder if BBV or Brad has realized this must be a design with some forethought. If they actually have they ought to bring a lawsuit based on that realization only.

To clarify a bit my #12:

The

initialize("Yes", "No", 4);

line I inserted in the program wouldn't actually be there, it just represents the effect of the Hursti-hack. Though to not detect the hack at the zero check you'd have to have a special routine for printing the zero check totals as shown in no #12.

Is it finally occurring to Texans, that our democracy has been stolen from us via e-vote machines?

It's stolen from registered Republicans, too. There are Republicans who vote for Democrats to get "fresh blood" in there, and their votes are being stolen, too. I am a registered Democrat, but I have voted before for Republicans. They are stealing votes on e-machines from Republicans who want a change. Like the Schmidt/Hackett Ohio election. That district is heavily Republican, meaning that a great % of Republicans voted for Hackett. Of course, Schmidt won 51%-49% after the machines went down in the bottom of the 9th, and came up with a miraculous amount of Schmidt votes. That election was a case of registered Republican's votes being stolen. They voted for Hackett.

Did DeLay even win that primary? Somehow, I believe Texans are not that stupid. I actually believe in them, and their votes are being stolen, like the rest of us. They are not stupid down there.

I believe they will pull saame old tricks in Nov. with the machines How can a Democrat win when the deck is stackedd against them? Lets hope they outlaw the machines.

What about the other Texas Congressional races that DeLay funded. They deserve a recount no doubt.

The first year the machines were used here in Texas, I voted 'straight ticket' Democrat. When you are through voting and the machine has registered your vote, a flag is supposed to wave on the screen. If it doesn't, you need to go back at least one screen and click on "cast your vote" again. I did this at least three or four times before I got the waving flag at the end. A worker came over and watched me do this after the second attempt and agreed I did nothing wrong.

Naturally, I am in a heavily Republican district. I know of many who were there who voted straight ticket Republican (including my husband) and were through in no time.

It's bad enough I am merely voting my conscience, with no impact on the final outcome, but to think that my vote was *maybe* not counted at all is truly sickening.

Thought Delay was way down in the polls. They used to say votes can be stolen in a tight race. Repubs are getting desperate. Can we email this judge? Maybe he would be more interested in fair elections since it has hit hime. Like the social security and port uproar. Public opinion still counts for something.

I love it when the criminals prove it's non-partisan! The key in this case being, the opponent is backed by Rick Perry. Maybe if enough Republicans get screwed, they will force the issue to the front burner for us!

As a Texan, I'm happy that we're finally getting enough blatant screwups to make good cases.

Thursday morning (23rd) there was a Citizens' Input hearing at the Sec. of State's office in Austin, to comment on whether or not Diebold should be recertified in Texas. The State gave approximately 24 hours notice of this hearing, preventing many of the players on our side from attending. Karen Renick and I attended, but only about 6 others showed up to speak. In spite of the fact they told us the meeting would last for two hours, Ann McGeehan, the TX Director of Elections for the State, opened the meeting by only giving us 5 minutes to speak (thereby crucifying my 10 minute statement, which I'd painstakingly prepared with great ammunition from Jim March of BBV and which included, of course, the news about the Leon County and the recent Utah hacks by BBV and Hursti.)

Karen offered to concede her 5 minutes to me in order for me to deliver the whole statement. Ms. McGeehan said, "No, we won't have that in that meeting!" with no further explanation.

35 minutes into the meeting, after I'd delivered one half of my statement and everyone else had finished, she looked like such an ass that she offered me the other 5 minutes, so I got to complete my statement and Karen got to deliver hers as well. However, we were basically speaking to a videocam, as the Voting Systems Examiners Board here have already looked at Diebold and sent their recommendations to the Sec. of State. Our statements are supposed to be delivered to him also for his consideration (yeah, right!) The yay or nay on Diebold recertification will happen sometime in April. Watch for more fireworks in Texas when the predictable actually happens.

The Texas Secretary of State and Elections Commissioner, Roger Williams, is a Republican who recently stepped in for another speaker at a fundraiser at the last minute here in Austin. The Republican fundraiser raised $150,000 for the candidate, and the Austin American Statesman ran an article in which Williams declared he saw nothing wrong with his attendance and just wanted to be able to visit with old friends. Carol Strayhorn (Scott McClellan's mother), is an independent running for Governor. She chastised Williams and also threatend to file a lawsuit because Williams is making it impossible for her to gather the signatures in time to be on the ballot for governor. I wrote Williams on his website complaining of his participation at this fundraiser, and he tracked my e-mail address; contacted my employer via forwarding my email; jokingly asked my employer if he was mad at him (Williams); and who in turn asked if they could stop me from sending emails to him. I do not expect much from his investigation into voter fraud in Texas. He is a weasel.