Blogged by John Gideon on 4/26/2006 7:40AM  
But ES&S Has a Brilliant New Plan for Technical Support!

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Regular readers will remember the last time we discussed Summit County, Ohio and the failure of their E-Voting vendor, Elections Systems and Software (ES&S), to get anything right. First they discovered that 30% of the memory cards, which store vote totals and other vital information, had completely failed. Later, they were able to get the number down to 10%. And then, as reported by THE BRAD BLOG the Director of the Board of Elections, Brian Williams, had announced that he had no confidence in ES&S and was predicting failures in the primary election that will be held next Tuesday, May 2.
Bad enough? Not for Train Wreck '06!

Today the county announced that they have completed all testing of their ES&S optical-scan voting machines and another 17 memory cards suddenly failed. These are cards that had previously been tested over and over again with no problems.

But never fear. If there are problems on Election Day, ES&S has a plan!

They've now announced that their technical team for on-the-ground assistance will be made-up of 19 university students from the University of Akron. The students will get training on Saturday. Yes, one day of training and they will be expected to represent ES&S for all technical matters in Tuesday's primary.

And, on top of all of that, two-thirds of the ballots needed for primary day have still not been received from the printer, an ES&S hired contractor.

Full speed ahead!

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READER COMMENTS ON
"E-VOTE TRAIN WRECK '06: ES&S Memory Cards Continue to Fail in Ohio as Primary Kicks off Next Tuesday"
(8 Responses so far...)

COMMENT #1 [Permalink]
... Dredd said on 4/26/2006 @ 7:57 am PT...


Am I missing something?

Consumer Protection Laws should apply to the electronic voting machine companies ... should they not?

Where would any company be if they handled PC's this way?

The Attornies General of the various states would come down on them as if they were tobacco companies.

What gives here? If it is not a conspiracy to make junk out of American elections via the Train Wreck coming ... what is it?

I mean, terrorists could not hit all of our voting precincts ... it takes election officials to destroy our democracy thru hideous negligence?


COMMENT #2 [Permalink]
... chicago dyke said on 4/26/2006 @ 8:20 am PT...


dredd, i stopped trying to make "sense" of the evoting horrorshow years ago. if anyone at any level were applying it, this madness would've been stopped long ago.

no, we live in a nation run by ratfucking criminals, and operated by incompetent, uninformed lackeys just stupid enough to get us all killed, by the time the republicans are done. the evoting story is just littered with too many examples of why slovenly, apathetic amurka is going to get what it deserves.

sorry, one of those mornings.


COMMENT #3 [Permalink]
... mr.ed said on 4/26/2006 @ 8:21 am PT...


It's now less than a week before the election here in NE Ohio. We have not received the voting machine instruction guides that just got to the board of elections last week. Given the vagaries of bulk mail, I don't expect them for up to six weeks from now. I look forward to walking around the corner to our voting station (school) to see the fun. I'll keep you posted during the day. It promises to be interesting, as in the Chinese curse.


COMMENT #4 [Permalink]
... Shannon Williford said on 4/26/2006 @ 8:59 am PT...


With the train wreck coming, we all need to prepare to make sure we have video, audio, mediabites and art. We need to make a big effort to take all of the "train wreck" stuff and send it to our local media. Maybe a local young (as in too young to be vested in the corrupt old media system...) producer/reporter/editor type wants to make a name for him/herself! There's certainly plenty of story there!

So do all you can to let everybody know it's coming and be there speedy-quick to present the evidence once the explosion occurs.

shw


COMMENT #5 [Permalink]
... Ginny said on 4/26/2006 @ 10:37 am PT...


Everyone,

Step #1
Please go to this link

http://www.c-spanstore.o...amp;products_id=191987-1

and buy a copy of the C-span DVD of Mark Crispin Miller.

Step #2
Show it to every one in your state, especially election officials

Step #3
Demand paper ballots of record and a ban on secret software.

Step #4
Get off the tracks before the train wreck! Go grab your camcorder and capture the disasters and chaos in Nov. '06

Step #5
Get up, dust off, rinse, and repeat until '08.


COMMENT #6 [Permalink]
... Erik N said on 4/26/2006 @ 11:06 am PT...


I predict that this will be noticed in the MSM after this years elections and then get broad attention right before the 2008 elections, giving the White House crooks a perfect excuse to cancel the elections and stay in power.

I really hope I'm wrong.


COMMENT #7 [Permalink]
... bluebear 2 said on 4/26/2006 @ 12:03 pm PT...


And what will these technical teams be doing for on-the-ground assistance?

Inserting new memory cards?

Hmmmmm!

Choo Choo!


COMMENT #8 [Permalink]
... Larry Bergan said on 4/27/2006 @ 11:33 pm PT...


Ever get the feeling that our lives have become one big, long sitcom! When the hell is Ricky going to get home and fix these damn voting machines!


-=- Comments on this item are now closed. -=-


VotersUnite.org's Daily Voting News 'Daily Voting News'
For December 04, 2008

by John Gideon

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) was signed into law in Oct. 2002. Amongst other things HAVA required the formation of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and provided some mandates, in Title III of the law, for federal elections including some standards for voting systems. Those standards include, but are not limited to, accessibility for voters with disabilities and accuracy in the vote count. Testing by experts in accessibility has shown that none of the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems presently in use meet the requirements for accessibility for disabled voters. Failures in testing and vote counting in real elections have also proven that, at times, the voting systems presently being used across the country do not meet the federally mandated requirements for accuracy.

So what guidance has been provided by the EAC to the states with regards to Title III? Well, actually none. In fact even though voting systems presently in use do not meet federal law the EAC is just now getting around to issuing guidance to state and local election officials and, according to the draft of the plan ‘featured’ below, it is going to take another two years before the EAC can complete the guidance.

Why can’t they just tell the vendors and the states that the law is clear and, if they fail to follow that law, violations will be referred to the DoJ? The fact that the vendors misrepresent their products as being accessible is a clear violation of the law. It is time they are held responsible and it doesn’t take two years of studying Title III of HAVA to make that clear....

Click for links to all of today's notable voting news headlines...

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