Republican hypocrisy re voting machines
Submitted by scharrison on Fri, 10/29/2010 - 5:14pm
Compulsively litigious not-gay Republican leader suddenly allergic to electronics:
"We cannot have an election where voters in counties where the machines are used have less confidence that their votes are being accurately counted than in counties where optical scan ballots are used," Fetzer said. "It's an incompetent situation at the State Board of Elections. We believe that they knew of problems with the calibration of these machines up to two months ago."
And you dipshits were aware of potential programming issues years ago, and went to great lengths demonstrating that "glitches" had absolutely no impact on race results, and folks who wanted optical scan/paper verification were to be ridiculed by the puppet-in-charge:
there has apparently been some talk at committee meetings and among otherwise-sensible people across North Carolina of ditching all computer-assisted voting in favor of old-fashioned paper ballots. Paper is the “gold standard” for a good, trustworthy election system, said Sen. Ellie Kinnaird of Orange County, a community virtually seething with anger and rife with conspiracy theories about how President Bush and the national Republicans stole the 2004 election by rigging machines and hacking computer systems.
Fortunately, the committee appears unready to adopt the more preposterous notions offered by the “black-box voting” crowd. Nor have they been so panicked by the Carteret incident as to go along with proposals for a complete state takeover of elections boards or the adoption of a single statewide voting system from a single vendor, which would eliminate the benefits of local diversity and competition (just try selling the flawed Carteret devices to another county now).
This is the 21st century. It is the Internet age. Does anybody seriously believe that in the near future most of us won’t be voting with computer systems? In fact, many may be unaware of the fact that paper ballots, including those nifty optical-scan systems, already rely on computers for counting, processing, and reporting results. If conspirators can hack newer, more secure systems, they can certainly hack old ones.
Moreover, there is no real evidence that computer voting has generated more errors than past paper ballots have – only evidence that computerized voting and reporting make it more likely that mistakes, or shenanigans, will come to light rather than be lost or hidden. Human error is still the greatest threat to the accuracy and integrity of voting.
So why has Fetzer flipped now, especially when the polls are looking so good for Republicans? It's simple, really. He doesn't want a strong overall voter turnout, and the counties which still use ESS machines are (by average) more populous than those who use optical scan machines.
Even if his lawsuit fails a few months down the road, if Fetzer can force 1/3 of the state's counties (via a court injunction) to find replacement machines or use more archaic methods, Tuesday will be a nightmare for poll workers and voters. And many of the latter will simply not vote.
He has the same flip-floppiness
over whether he's gay or not. Poor schmuck.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
what the GOP really IS asking for - per court docs is
You are right that some ridiculed our effort to get rid of 100% paperless voting. But not most. We had bi partisan support in the state legislature for paper ballots. Too bad the legislature didn't listen when experts said get rid of touchscreens.
The GOP isn't asking for voting machines to be replaced.
Here's what the Republican Party is asking for, per News 14 and the legal complaint:
.
There should be media updates later:
Visit the link at News 14 and you can read the legal complaint as well as the exhibits. The GOP chair does throw in a little partisan swipe at the voting vendor, but don't discount the rest of the complaint.
The complaint is fascinating, as are the exhibits. There's interesting testimony from a IT forensic examiner.
Touchscreens inherently have issues of calibration, and the voting machines should be calibrated each day.
The NC SBOE sent out a memo on Oct 20 to recommend that all touchscreen counties recalibrate each day.
I don't know if you recall,
but I brought up concerns about ES&S machines a long time ago. Not about the calibration stuff, but about the owners of the company. My point is, I'm not defending the machines, I'm calling into question the motives of Tom Fetzer.
You might be glad to see these touch-screen machines being investigated, but don't make the mistake of taking Fetzer for his word. He's up to something with this, and it's very likely that we'll see a few (critical) Dem victories tied up in court in the days following the election.
touchscreen voting complaints are real & must be addressed
I've spoken with attorney Thomas Farr - he sought advice from nationally respected computer scientists on this issue. Whatever NCGOP Chair Fetzer's motives are, they should not be used to discount a very real problem. I don't know Fetzer. If Fetzer reported that a house was on fire, would we ask what his motives were for reporting it?
The pressure to investigate this came from voters who tried repeatedly to get their vote to register as they were trying to cast it. I've spoken with one voter this happened to, he didn't blame officials but he does not trust the machines, since they don't work correctly.
The problem is touchscreen technology - it doesn't matter who the voting vendor is. Votes can flip to candidate at top of ballot, which in our case are the DEM candidates.
We tried to ban the machines in 2004/2005, but officials from touchscreen counties loved the machines too much and outlobbyied us. It was not a republican vs democrat issue at the NCGA, it was citizens vs officials who preferred touchscreens.
Now here we are, in 2010, and I can say I told you so.
Counties with paper ballots, optically scanned, are vindicated. Here's an article about Cleveland County and folks are so glad they chose paper ballots:
As the machines age (they were purchased in early 2006), they will have more problems. A voting system can meet federal standards even if it fails up to 9.2% in a voting day.