Voting machines??

Question

Do you think they should put a ban on electronic voting machines? Please expain why you choose Yes/No on this subject? I think they should ban them and go back to the old ways of voting

Answer 1

Absolutely..being in Ohio and a voting rights activist and seeing first hand the massive fraud, and studying the issue for 4 years, I no longer have any confidence the vote counts. I hope you will read this long answer that took me 1 1/2 hours to write as it is rift with information and good links. Use it as a reference and study the issue. Most people don't know what happened in Ohio. I was eyewitness..you will not regret reading below if you care about democracy..please do read this.

First the supposedly unhackable machines are so easy to hack, a chimpanzee could do it.

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/2368.html?1144138741

second, hear the stunning testimony of a 40 year republican from Florida who was asked to design vote rigging software prior to 2000 election by Jeb Bush running mate, now congressman Feeney, then Florida's speaker of the house. Clint Curtis, surprisingly now running as a conservative democrat for congress against Feeney, testified before a US house committee that he designed such self erasing, undetectable software. Curtis was under oath and also passed two lie detector tests. The whistleblower has received death threats and had two dogs killed.

Here Curtis' testimony here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzY2tnwExs&mode=related&search=

Third, there were 57,000 voting irregularities in the 2004 election (such as a precinct in Columbus suburb here, Gahanna, Ohio that had 4000 plus votes for Bush and only 638 voters..just one of many "glitches" whether error or fraud,.

Fourth, 87% of the vote is counted by partisan voting companies that each donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Bush campaign..two of the companies CEO/owners were Bush pioneers. They hire felons convicted of computer fraud. They keep the software/sourcecode secret (proprietary secret) and without being able to examine this there is NO way to defect the vote fraud according to an overwhelming number of computer experts and programmers.

In Ohio before the recount, Triad (republican vote machine company) came into board of elections and altered the machines and also told election workers to use cheat sheets disguised as "employee information" and read the same number as the original results instead of what the machines said so they would match. A whistle-blower was fired.

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1284

I will try to find a link to tone of the stories of it. (not to mention Blackwell, our chief election official secretary of state and co chair of the reelect Bush campaign in his Katherine Harris type role broke several Ohio election laws in the recount. Attorneys trying to file suit in Bush v Moss were ruled against by the republican judge also named in the voter fraud suit and he refused to recuse himself and all the reps tried to sanction the attorneys despite peas from US congresspeople on their behalf.

What I witnessed at the polls and hearings etc in Ohio will remain with me all my life. I witnessed the fact our democracy is dead and we don't chose our leaders.

I witnessed the deliberate creation of lines 2-13 hours long due to subtracting machines from nearly every inner city precinct despite a record number of new voters..more than they had ever seen before and them getting many broken machines. Republican areas got more machines and lines of zero to 30 minutes. One church in suburbs had 16 machines while one precinct in inner city had none--the two they got were broken and all voted provisionally nd their vote was filed in the trash can.

Board of elections was impossible to reach..the exact number of voting machines they took away were later found in a warehouse stored there while people were begging for them. Our republican newspaper reported on this.

I watched people sad and crying that they had to leave lines without voting due to job and parenting responsibilities and disability and old age. People on chemo were passing out after standing in line three hours and not getting to vote and kids were screaming from hunger. People spent their own money to bring food and drink and trashbag raiincoats. Fights broke out because people didn't know they could leave line to go to the bathroom. Many waited hours in line only to e told it was the wrong line..go to the other line and wait another 2 hours..so mcuh for the golden rule of the "values voters" politicians.

See some of it in this new comic of what happened in Ohio..

http://www.wakeupandsaveyourcountry.com/cheated.htm

People were tenaciously waiting in line in absolutely freezing rain (as I worked the polls, my umbrella was repeatedly blown inside out and the chair kept blowing away..it took me several hours to warm up..I was chilled to the bone..and yet they waited and waited and their vote was stolen from them by the electronic machines and the created lines and the overpacked ballot that rushed they through.

I witnessed the decency of the young..the college students who worked so hard and waited up tio 3 am to vote. Such passion--they were absolutely dashed to find out it didn't count due to the theft . I will never "get over" it--any of it, ever.

I still work with a group of election voting rights activist..many with me on the winter freedom bus ride to DC for a national press conference, lobbying senators, and the historic election challenge on Jan 6th, 2005 (2nd only in 228 years). here is a video of a song and the protest we attended when we went from Ohio, scene of the crime to Washington,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQyX0PxUo5w

We are conducting the third citizen parallel election on Nov 7th to try to double check the vote (in a type of exit poll with a much greater chance of accuracy due to the number of voters polled and asked to verify who they voted for (see here for more info.)

http://www.thelandesreport.com/VotingSecurity.htm

Fifth, Also be aware that paper and punch card ballots are not safe due to being electronically tabulated (via optical scanners). Also paper trails do not protect from fraud and when recounts are rigged and the price for one has been upped to 1/2 million dollars (since greens and libertarian presidential candidate had the audacity to file for a recount (only presidential candidates can file and Bush and Kerry weren't), so now they upped the price.

Sixth, Plus voting machines are way more expensive than hand counted paper ballots. See this map of the US and crucial state, Ohio for some of the many errors with electronic voting machines reported by poll workers in 2004. The two maps of problems are on the right hand side of the page (2nd box)http://www.votersunite.org/info/flyers.asp

If this still depressing there is a ray of hope and you can help..if you believe in having fair, transparent, difficult to hack elections, call all the congresspeople you can and ask them to cosign and support HB 6200, just introduced by congressman Dennis Kucinich. If it passes, it will make all future presidential elections be hand counted at the precinct (and posted and in full view of people) on paper ballots. This would do more for democracy than voting since it doesn't count (I still vote though). as it may open the door for amendments and spread to other elections and restore democracy.

Also be sure to watch the documentary "hacking democracy" on HBO (tentative date) on Nov 2nd.


Pleae check out some of the links

Answer 2

What is the old way of voting?

A mechanical switch box, ,such as is used in Chicago

A punch card with "chads" like much of the country uses?

An anonymous paper with an X in the spot, which requires days to count and report?

New systems are not necessarily inferior, they just need to be rationalized for defects that people could use to cheat. I don;t think there are many more issues with computer voting than with other systems...just differentways to cheat.

Answer 3

I like a paper trail. The new machines we used in Wisconsin had a paper print out that looked like a cash register recite. That is how your vote was recorded perhaps this will be the best of both systems

Answer 4

Yes, we should NOT encourage E-voting because those sneaky REPUBLICANS will always find a way to beat the system while the DEMS fight like crazy to keep it all honest and above board. In one county in NJ over 300 DEAD PEOPLE voted for REPUBLICANS!!!

go figure

Answer 5

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THE OLD WAY OF VOTING THE COUNTY I LIVE IN HAS HAD NO TRUE PAPER TRAIL IN ABOUT 60 YEARS.. WHEN THEY ACTUALLY VOTED ON A PAPER BALLOT.. WHICH IF YOU ASK ME A PAPER BALLOT CAN BE MORE EASILY CHANGED, LOST OR U CAN HAVE PEOPLE STUFFING THE BALLOT.

Answer 6

Yes please. Then the Democrats can't complain about voting irregularities. Never mind, they can't even read a ballot that the DNC created in Florida. The dems will always cry fowl if they don't win an election.

Answer 7

I agree with you NDman.. We need a paper trail... Never trust e-voting... You never know who can hack into it.. Look at hackers today on the internet... Nuff said..

Answer 8

yeah...I think this is a realllly bad idea, on many levels.