Black Box Voting

In an article by Todd Weiss at Computerworld, Are design issues to blame for vote 'flipping' in touch-screen machines? - a Diebold spokesman admits that his company isn't designing or improving any touchscreen voting machines. He notes the growing popularity of paper ballots across the US.   "Since new touch-screen machines aren't being designed, no usability studies are being done to improve existing designs, he said. Of course Riggal, like makes sure to blame voters for the problems with touch screen machines.  

What about a possible Oprah effect? Oprah may have helped put another nail in touch screen voting's coffin - when she voted yesterday, electronically, the machine didn't record her vote for President at first. "It didn't record my presidential vote." 

 Charles Stewart III over at Election Updates says that DRES (touch screens) are not gone for good, that "While DREs are declining, they aren’t going to disappear..."

Well, I am still hoping that our entire country ends up ditching touch screen voting and goes to simpler more reliable and more transparent systems.

Ok, last week's news was that touchscreens in West Virginia were flipping votes from Barack Obama to John McCain. And they couldn't stop it.  Today, Brad Freidman of Brad Blog reports that in Tennessee, there are machines flipping votes the other way, from John McCain to Barack Obama.  And vote flipping has been reported in South Carolina as well.  Now that we have both sides pissed of, can we get off this Merry-Go-Round? Please!

Brad reports: 

Votes Reportedly Flipping from Repub to Dem in TN! October 22, 2008 by Brad Friedman

So NOW Can We Impound These Machines, Take Them Out of Service and Give Every Voter a PAPER BALLOT, Please?!

Several Decatur County voters are concerned about problems with the voting machines at the Election Commission Office. Voters claim they tried to vote for McCain for President but the machine checked Obama instead....

At least three voters encountered the problem when casting their early ballot on Saturday morning. Franklin Boroughs says he intended to vote for Republican but rather the computer had checked the Democratic candidate instead.

Brad writes about vote flipping in other years, and that in 2006 the only candidate to demand action was Rick Santorum, (R-PA).  At the end, Brad notes how both sides are responsible for doing something about these machines:

Unlike the Democrats, for some reason, Republicans don't seem to be afraid of being called "sore losers" or "conspiracy theorists" (most likely because the Rightwing media are the ones who spout such nonsense, and there are few in the media willing to throw such absurd insults at Republicans if/when they actually do the right thing.)

We would gladly support the efforts of either party here who does the right thing for the voters and gets these machines the hell out of service. Now!

Agreed, make it stop. We've seen this movie several times, we saw it four years ago as a matter of fact. Make - it - stop!