If you needed any more evidence to counter the argument that it would be “too expensive” to dump all the shitty, unreliable, inaccurate, hackable, disenfranchising touch-screen (DRE) voting systems in favor of paper ballots, just take a look at Utah. They’re the state which pushed out heroic 23-year Emery County Election Clerk Bruce Funk because he had the temerity to allow independent computer security experts to test the Diebold touch-screen systems the state was forcing him to use. (The experts found massive security flaws described as “the most severe” ever discovered.)
Well, now Utah has finally discovered that their switch from punch-cards to shitty, unreliable, inaccurate, hackable, disenfranchising Diebold touch-screen systems has doubled the cost of their elections. And then some. Get a load of this from the Salt-Lake Tribune…
Those costs are so prohibitive that many Utahns in next year’s local elections will revert to a voting style used for generations: checking a box on a paper ballot.
…
City leaders are worried, having heard rumors they may have to triple their election budget if they go with the touch-screen machines.
…
in August 2005, [Lt. Gov. Gary] Herbert signed a contract with Texas-based Diebold Election Systems for $24.5 million. He paid the tab with a federal grant issued through HAVA.
In return, Utah received about 3,000 voting machines and the technical support to run statewide elections this year and in 2008.
But it is now becoming clear that was just the start of the costs.
“We are not sure everyone understood what happened when they flicked that first domino over,” Cragun said.
…
Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen says she had to double the pay for poll workers because of the necessary training. She now spends $12,000 per month storing the bulky machines. And all of the memory cards, batteries and other essential machine accessories cost her office an extra $138,000 this year.
These costs will continue to accrue as Swensen and other county clerks say they need more machines for the 2008 presidential election.
Unbelievable. I love how they’re running around and saying “we had no idea!”… Idiots.
Have I mentioned lately how important it is that you — and everybody you know — sign this petition to demand Congress require a paper BALLOT for every vote cast (and get rid, once and for all, of all the shitty, unreliable, inaccurate, hackable, disenfranchising Direct Recording Electronic touch-screen voting systems in the bargain)?! As they say…Don’t wait! ACT NOW!
(Hat-tip John Gideon)
Yeah…!! 🙂
Yippeeeee…!! 🙂
PAPER BALLOTS, HAND COUNTED…!! 🙂
‘Tis the only way to go.
What a freakin’ waste of money those electonic pieces of rubbish are, and what morons those people are with their ‘we had no idea’ excuse.
As if anyone believes them for one second..!!
IDIOTS, indeed……each and everyone of them..
Heres one Brad about Fl 13, I can’t find the video but it might be on the site somewhere
Link
Famous last election official words: “you said billion … not million?
oh shit oh shit oh shit … gotta call Karl Rove for help in lying my way out of this one …”
Diebold corporation has compromised the integrity of everyone interviewed in the column and they still blame everybody BUT Diebold for it. The Salt Lake Tribune’s integrity has been compromised by not interviewing anybody who’s integrity has not been compromised.
How could the elections director for the Lieutenant Governor’s Office, Michael Cragun, say “I’m not sure any of us realized how much it is going to cost to own and operate this system,”. Wasn’t Mr. Cragun at the same four public hearings I was at, where emotions ranged from outrage to disbelief at the path our elections officials were taking.
The last hearing was marked by fact that almost every single person speaking before the committee called for the purchase of a much less expensive paper ballot counting system recommended by Kathy Dopp. I remember being moved by the fact that the participants, realizing this was their last chance, were now pleading more then informing the committee. The passion was palatable, and I felt sure that committee would change it’s mind. Not a single reporter or television station covered the event.
BLAME THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Joe Demma, chief of staff to the lieutenant governor says, “People like to point fingers at this office, Quite frankly, I would like to redirect that to Washington.” OK Joe, let’s be frank. You haven’t been honest once during this whole process and you know very well, the federal government did not require Utah to purchase any more then one, handicapped accessible, machine per polling place.
BLAME THE LAWYERS
Lt. governor Gary Herbert asked his lawyers to find a way out of the HAVA mess saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, Particularly because it is going to cost so much money.” With all due respect Mr. Herbert, after hearing you deny the existence of any opposition to the Diebold rollout, on national television, despite the fact that your office unlawfully removed an honest election clerk from office, I have a real hard time believing anything you say.
BLAME THE MEDIA
Utah’s media will continue to downplay the true cost of the Diebold mistake because they have become an arm of the government. The Salt Lake Tribune was hijacked by newspaper tycoon Dean Singleton who has ties to the Bush administration. The other large circulation paper here, The Deseret News, has replaced their editor with the brother of congressman Chris Cannon, someone who has no experience in the field and is just as partisan as his brother.
Not all states had voting machines in every pecinct this year, and Utah was one of the only states with one type of machine, so how can the Lt. Governor say we had “no other option”. Are all the other states in violation of the HAVA law?
The Lt. Governors office has only parroted Diebold’s happy, one-sided portrayal of the machines they shoved down our throats. Not once have they acknowledged the plethora of negative, to terrifying reports from universities, the Government Accounting Office, and even the Department of Homeland Security.
There has even been serious talk of Diebold shutting down their voting machine division amid pending lawsuits by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. which could result in Diebold having to pay TRIPLE penalties. They have already lost two suits for violating the law.
The Lt. Governors office was warned often and repeatedly about these problems over a three year period. So was the local media. They had a multitude of “other options” and it’s time they leveled with the people of Utah about why they forced us into buying a soon to be obsolete, multi-million dollar system that is much worse then the previous system which didn’t need to be stored at a cost of millions and didn’t require raising the pay of poll workers from $60 to $225 a day in some cases. Single punch card units cost about $40 instead of $3,000 for a single machine, and the governor of Maryland rejected his, already purchased, $27,000.000 Diebold system because the maintenance costs had gone up 1000%. A fact the Lt. Governor must have known when he purchased them. I did, and it’s not my job to know that.
If the people of Utah were informed rather then lied to about this, I don’t think that all they would have to say about the machines was that they were “fun to use” I always thought Utahn’s were conservative with their money, but maybe we aren’t really that conservative after all.
Please tell us why we need these 30 pound monstrosities to vote on, and don’t tell me it’s because handicapped people will be able to vote in private because I poll watched in two places this election which only had a total of two blind voters who ended up telling the election judge to enter their votes because they couldn’t figure out how to do it.
We need public, televised debate on this most important subject. I guarantee they would be exciting!
$8166.66666666666666666666666666667 per machine
haaaaaaa fricken haaaaaaaaaa
After all, no one could have anticipated… ITMFA for heaven’s sake!