Well, it's done. I am now the proud owner of an "I Voted Today" sticker. Coincidentally, it also bears the slogan "Vote your Conscience;" which is this participant's mantra.
Sadly, there was a glitch in my voting process.
My touch-screen machine seemed to work fine (so I'm somewhat hopeful that my vote was electronically recorded), but I know for a fact there is no paper trail.
As I flipped up the little plastic door which would let me view the printed receipt I saw only four short lines of bar code symbols. In consternation I called a poll worker over.
The poll worker told me it didn't really mean anything; my vote was recorded on the little card I'd slid into the machine, so I shouldn't worry.
As we walked through the parking lot, my sweet Donna Blue Eyes told me that her receipt had looked like a grocery store tally. That was the straw that turned my intent and I walked back in.
I happened to approach the poll supervisor and told him there had been a problem with my vote. He walked me over to the machine (which had been flagged out of order), and opened up the printer box. The paper had jammed near the end of it's start-up cycle.
I realized in that minute that mine was not the only vote that hadn't been recorded on paper. Everyone who had voted before me on that machine also had not left a revivable log. Luckily, I voted early. I was probably the sixth person to use the machine.
Assured that my vote had been recorded electronically, I left thinking; "Woo-Hoo! I've got something to write about today."
Despite my joy at the handy spoon, it's still disconcerting to my American Spirit that our voting process should have so many gremlins.
As I sit here writing this, the local TV station is breaking in with reports of poll place problems;
- Machines not working on Frebis Ave.
- 4 machines not working in Bexley
- A break in at a school polling place. Machines reported as un-effected.
I'll be hearing more as the day progresses.
The thing is, we make such an issue out of getting people to go and vote. We rant, rave, point fingers, stand on soap boxes, crack our whips and put signs in windows and yards; all to get people to go and vote.
It's more difficult to inspire and motivate the reluctant, apathetic and disaffected voter when the processes demonstrate their dysfunction; harder to argue with: "Why bother! It won't be counted right, anyway."
The meager confidences of punch card voting are now missed.
This just in (11:00 a.m.) - Democrats are leading - the voter complaint lines operated by the Franklin County board of elections has been shut down due to a flood of calls.
Oh my..
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Comments: 40
Candidate I don't want < I
Candidate I do want <---I
Easy clear and best of all RECOUNTABLE
The down side is there were very few choices and several uncontested race. Ted Kennedy vs Some Guy noone has ever heard of, wonder who'll win that one? Gee, Scott Brown vs Nobody at all? Mmmm "democracy"...
One word: Diebold.
Thanks.
I hope significant action is taken against the election machine vendors and the civic response is to either ditch the machines altogether or find a reputable vendor. Some Republican-chaired counties, Ohio's Cuyahoga county in particular, *knowingly* purchased electronic voting machines that failed basic security safeguards. Those responsible should be imprisoned.
Katherine Harris was the Republican Secretary of State, who also served as co-chair of Bush's Florida campaign. Though she repeatedly said that she had erected "a firewall" during the election between her state office and the Republican Party documents found on her state computers endorsing Mr. Bush were among tens of thousands of computer files released by Harris after reporters questioned whether she had erased records about the 2000 election that a newspaper had asked to examine.
One of the documents was titled "George W. Bush Talking Points." It was dated March 14, 2000, and endorsed Mr. Bush's nomination for president, saying he had "proven in Texas that he can manage like an executive, govern across party lines and lead with inclusiveness."
But, I am not a Democrat and my article does point any fingers at any party. I merely pointed out that The Diebold machine malfunctioned.
Since you've brought it up, I'll echo Donna's comment; the push to convert Ohio to these machines has been championed and buffalo'd by Ken Blackwell (the current Secreatry of State, Chief Elections Officer and Republican candidate for Governor.
When computer scientists warn of possible tampering with voting machines, they are not talking about hacking but about someone physically breaking open the lock on each individual machine and reprogramming it. But even if those breaking into the machines could overcome the tamper-proof seals without being noticed, going through one computer at a time hardly seems like the way to steal most elections.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/11/02/18325809.php
Yellow button on California voting machines permits multiple votes
by Bradblog
Thursday Nov 2nd, 2006 1:20 PM
"Just push the yellow button and you can vote as many times as you want," Tom Courbat, an Election Integrity advocate from Riverside County, California informed The BRAD BLOG tonight. Not that we're in any mood to report more such stories, but this seems to be a big one. A very big one.
It seems there's a little yellow button on the back of every touch-screen computer made by Sequoia Voting Systems, that allows any voter, or poll worker, or precinct inspector to set the system into "Manual Mode" allowing them to cast as many votes as they want.
Concerns about the flaw were first reported some thirty days ago to California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson's office by Ron Watt, a Tehama County, CA precinct inspector who has been a poll worker in the county for the last fifteen years. And yet, as recently as a radio interview last Tuesday, McPherson — who has been crowing about having the country's most stringent security process for voting systems — denied he was aware of any security issues with Sequoia systems.
"They didn't care about it," Watt told us tonight about his "late September or early October" discussion with McPherson's voting systems chief Bruce McDannold. "He said he didn't think it was an important issue. He said I don't believe this is really a vulnerability."
Watt and Courbat disagreed and placed another phone call to the SoS' office on Friday after Watt received a copy of Sequoia's "Poll Workers Guide, Booklet #5: Troubleshooting" via a public records request in Tehama. On pages 19 through 22 of the booklet — which is marked as "Confidential and Proprietary" — he confirmed the simple manual override to the system. He'd learned about it years earlier and the new manuals confirmed that button was still in place. Even in the latest models of the Sequoia Edge voting systems (both models 1 and 2).
The complete sequence to override the system and enter manual voting mode, along with the Sequoia booklet received via Watt's public records request, is now posted here at BlackBoxVoting.org.
http://www.hack247.co.uk/2006/11/02/american-election-hacker-testifies/
9/11 Mysteries (video)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6708190071483512003
Even if you had a single stand alone computer that was not connected to anything, the proper term for any act of unauthorized access is "hack."
Just because a computer is not attached to the Internet does not mean it can't be hacked, it just means it can't be hacked over the Internet.
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Leo - Well, we see how that worked out for him, eh?
Peter - LOL - Loved that paper and plastic line.
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The biggest failing of e-voting is that it just adds more aspects for error, loss and manipulation.
Like Leo infers, we already need worry that the people counting the votes may violate the electoriate's trust. Adding ranges of machine errors to the mix just adds to voter insecurity; which feeds voter apathy.
I'd like to know if they are protected from electro magnetic disturbances.
I saw an interview on CSPAN the other day of two authors that wrote books on voting and voting machines. It was very interesting, to say the least. Did you know that voting by ballots is a relatively new way of voting, and it used to be done orally? They also said that the worst method of voting, and most susceptible to fraud, was vote by mail. The above example came from that show too by the way.
If they replay the show, book signing, you may want to see it.
So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BILL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ H E Y B I L L @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
*H * A * P * P * Y * B * I * R * T * H * D * A * Y *
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And thanks for the Birthday wish(es). I'm one smiling puppy today. Me thinks my sweetheart has put out the word. (Love you, Blue Eyes!)
Ed - I've never known you to go overboard about anything. What a great guy! How Cool !! Triple Thanks, man.