3 days until Election Day.
Just a comment to those who want to dismiss ‘vote-flipping’ as voter error. All kinds of people go to the polls to vote. They are highly educated and high-school dropouts. Rich and poor. They have long fingernails and nails bitten to the quick. They have thin fingers and wide fingers. They are going to softly touch the screen or touch it hard. Vendors and election officials tend to blame vote-flipping on the voters. They touched the screen too hard; drug their finger; had long fingernails; or their fingers touched too large an area. So, is it the voters fault? NO! It is the vendors who designed, built and sold these machines that don’t work for all voters and it is the election officials who bought those machines.
A large majority of the ‘vote-flipping’ has been on older ES&S iVotronic DREs; those machines that were featured on last year’s Dan Rather Reports. The cheaply built, poorly tested touch screens that were used as components on those systems should have been scrapped long ago. It’s not the voters fault and this constant pointing of fingers is wrong. The vendors need to remember that when they point a finger at the voters they have three fingers pointing back at the real culprit, themselves; and it makes no difference what those fingers look like, they are the fingers of blame….
- National: The Technical Term for Voting Flaws: Human Error
http://www.pubrecord.org/commentary/447.html?task=view - National: Oprah’s Vote Lost & How You Can Fight to Assure It Doesn’t Happen to You!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedman/oprahs-vote-lost-how-you_b_140026.html - National: Voter, election fraud charges fly as Election Day nears
http://www.sacbee.com/175/story/1361905.html - National: Voting Machine Incident Roundup, 11/1
http://blog.ourvotelive.org/?p=151 - National: Voting Early: Sounds Good, But Its Not the Answer
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Voting-Early-Sounds-Good-by-Stephen-Unger-081031-4.html - National: Voters Eager to Have A Stake in Historical Election: Early Voting Predicts Strong Turnout Tuesday
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Voters-Eager-to-Have-A-Sta-by-Project-Vote-081031-532.html - AZ: Pima County – Pima vote count could be a slow, painstaking ordeal
Full results may take days given large turnout, provisional ballots, new oversight guidelines
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/265199 - AZ: Pima County – How vote problems will be addressed
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/265200 - CA: Los Angeles County – Early voters tough it out
http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_10872067 - CA: San Mateo County – Directly connected democracy
http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_10873448 - CO: Larimer County – Long voting lines likely
About 60,000 expected to cast their ballots on Election Day at vote centers
http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081101/NEWS03/811010343 - FL: Broward County – Close eye kept on Broward’s polls
As Election Day nears, some worry how Broward County’s understaffed elections department will fare.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/florida/story/750989.html - GA: Lawyers across state plan to keep their eyes on voting procedures
U.S. attorney, FBI will be on lookout for fraud, abuses
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/11/02/lawyers_1102.html - GA: Georgia’s Secretary of State Promotes Voter Challenges and Refuses to Extend Early Voting Hours
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/georgias_secretary_of_state_pr.php - GA: Fulton, Clayton may extend voting hours on Tuesday
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/stories/2008/11/01/clayton_voting_extend.html - MS: Lawmakers may call for earlier voting
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20081101/NEWS01/811010321 - NC: Can N.C. handle 4.5 million voters?
Concerns: Turnout, registration, software issues
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/408/story/212534.html - NH: Sort And Stack Elections In New Hampshire
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0811/S00011.htm - NJ: Big voter turnout could test election system in NJ
http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081101/UPDATES01/81101001 - NJ: Central Jersey officials expect significant voter turnout on Election Day
http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20081101/NEWS/811020314/-1/newsfront - NY: State restrictions put New York behind on early voting
Limited exceptions hurt turnout, experts say
http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/480605.html - NY: New York’s Voter Registration Database: Fact & Friction
http://e-voter.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-yorks-voter-registration-database.html - NY: Advocates concerned about language access at polls
http://www.bakersfield.com/894/story/597192.html - NY: NY State Board of Elections Halts E-Vote “Certification” Tests
http://re-mediaetc.blogspot.com/2008/11/breaking-ny-state-board-of-elections.html - OH: Succession of Voting Disputes Put Ohio Official in Spotlight
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122550106553589991.html?mod=googlenews_wsj - OH: Franklin County – Paper-ballot must be offered if poll is busy
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/11/01/more_paper.ART_ART_11-01-08_B2_2UBP0PV.html?sid=101 - OK: Pottawatomie County – Shawnee Election, Software Glitch Lend New Angle To National Vote
http://www.shawneesun.com/articles/2008/11/01/news/03election.txt - TX: Early Voting Records Broken In Smith County, Statewide
http://www.tylerpaper.com/article/20081101/NEWS15/811010328 - TX: Wichita County – Final day of early voting ends strong
Turnout steady at all six polling sites
http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2008/nov/01/final-day-of-early-voting-ends-strong/ - VA: NAACP to take lawsuit over voting machines to federal court
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/10/naacp-take-lawsuit-over-voting-machines-federal-court - VA: Five-Hour Wait Today for Richmond Voters
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/2008/11/five-hour_wait_today_for_richm.html
**”Daily Voting News” is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in “Daily Voting News” may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or BradBlog.Com**
You put your finger right on it, John. Well said, and thanks to you for your unrelenting work on DVN over the years. You are a hero of democracy.
GR / Oregon Voter Rights Coalition
I may have missed it but where is the outrage at the Black Panthers intimidating voters in Philly??
[ed note: Here, Ed…. –99]