Entries tagged as vote flipping
Tuesday, November 4. 2008
Tonight's blog is a last minute reminder to voters everywhere in the United States. Voters, please be prepared before you go to the polls. If you want to make sure your vote counts, then go to the correct polling place. Know your state's voter ID requirements, and if your state doesn't require ID, you might want to bring some anyway, in case there are voter roll problems. If you have a problem voting, call 1-866-OUR-VOTE. They have trained staff to answer your questions, supply help, and document the problems. You can see those reports as they happen, at OURVOTELIVE.
Wednesday, October 29. 2008
Techdirt has the "dirt" on how a West Virginia elections clerk demonstrated how "well" the touchscreen machines work. Clerk Jeff Waybright showed how a machine acts when not calibrated, and then he meant to show how the machine worked when calibrated. Watch Waybright manage keep a straight face when the "calibrated" ES&S iVotronic touch screen takes a straight ticket choice for Obama and converts it into a vote for McCain. Big credit goes to Video the Vote who captured this event. One thing this demonstrates to me is that the machines could be calibrated this way on purpose, at least when you see it happen consistently as it has in West Virginia. On October 27, just two days ago, the national organizations Verified Voting and the Brennan Center for Justice both sent a letter to 16 Secretaries of States "r/e iVotronic Vote Flipping" . The letter was sent to 16 Secretaries of State where iVotronic voting machines are in use. These states are: Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. On Oct 25, 2008 we blogged about the reports of vote flipping in North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. In North Carolina, the votes flipped from McCain to Obama, in the other states it was McCain to Obama.
Saturday, October 25. 2008
Is there a "party default" setting for these machines? Laugh or cry. You know how in Texas ,and WV the touchscreens are flipping votes from Obama to McCain? Well, in Tennessee there were reports of touchscreens flipping from McCain to Obama. Today I read that in Guilford County some machines were flipping from McCain to Obama. Surprised? It happened before in Oct 2004, in Craven County NC some votes saw their votes switched from Bush to Kerry Perhaps TX and WV have a republican default, and NC, and TN have a democratic default? Anyway, isn't it time to ditch these touchscreens now that we are all pissed off, in a bi partisan way? Some machines scramble voter choicesBY DAVID NIVENS dnivens@hpe.com Oct 25,2008 GUILFORD COUNTY - Laurie Edwards of Thomasville heard a strange voting story from her mother this week.
Turns out it's a fairly widespread problem with touch-screen voting machines.
Edwards said her mother, Liz Odom of Greensboro, had problems getting a voting machine in Jamestown to accept her presidential vote on Friday. She cancelled the vote until the machine accepted it.
"I have had several complaints of this happening, with the machines giving the Democratic vote when the Republican was selected," Bill Wright, chairman of the Guilford County Republican Party, told elections officials Friday. "These machines should be calibrated every day so this does not happen."
Election officials agreed to check the iVotronic machines more carefully and urged voters to study the review screens to make sure all their selections are correct before casting the electronic ballot.
"We know not everyone is pushing that review screen button," Wright said.
West Virginia voters have reported similar problems with touch-screen machines manufactured by Election Systems & Software, which is North Carolina's only machine vendor. Experts acknowledge that the machines can scramble vote selections if they are uncalibrated, causing a touch in the wrong place and an incorrect vote selection.
"Voters should tell us if they are having any problems," said Guilford County Elections Director George Gilbert. "If they don't tell us, then we can't know. I don't know how many of these are calibration problems. Some people touch the wrong spot."
Gilbert said older machines present the most problems. Election workers test voting machines before deploying them to voting sites.
"The new ones do not get out of calibration in two weeks of use," he said. "We will find the ones that are out of calibration."
dnivens@hpe.com
Friday, October 24. 2008
You vote, the machine decides. This time in Texas it is ES&S iVotronic Touchscreens flipping votes. One of the voters who complained also insisted that the machine be taken out of service immediately. Don't select the straight party option on the ballot or machine, there is too much that can go wrong. October 24, 2008 Concerns raised over electronic voting Two say machines tried changing their straight-party Democratic votes to straight Republican choices. By Libby Cluett lcluett@mineralwellsindex.com
At least two Palo Pinto County residents say they experienced early voting problems when the touch-screen voting machines they used kept switching their straight-party vote from Democratic to Republican.
“When I cast an early vote [Wednesday] at Palo Pinto County Courthouse, my vote was switched from Democrat to Republican right in front of my face - twice!” reported Lona Jones, a Precinct 1 county resident.
Intending to vote straight party on the Democratic ticket, Jones said she was surprised Wednesday when the electronic voting machine “on the left as you face the machines” in the courthouse basement asked her if she wanted to cast her vote for a straight Republican ticket.
Velvet Revolution has advice on what to do if a machine flips your votes: So if you're voting on an electronic voting machine and you see your votes being flipped (or if the machine malfunctions in any other way), what should you do? Here are some suggestions from election integrity experts at TrueVote.us, and from Emily Levy of Velvet Revolution's StandingForVoters.org and Ellen Theisen of VotersUnite.org. - Get the machine's serial number, if possible
- Call over a poll supervisor to observe the problem
- Insist on filling out a problem report
- Refuse to vote on that machine
- Request that the machine be taken out of service and impounded for later forensic examination
- Tell all the voters waiting in line exactly which machine flipped your vote (third machine from the left, or whatever)
- Report the problem via election integrity hotlines, twitter, and the voter suppression wiki. Information on how to do that is here.
- Call the county, city, and state election offices and report the problem. Find those phone numbers here.
- Call reporters and tell them about the problem
Thursday, October 23. 2008
This is taking software independence to an all new level. There's a surprise ending to this movie but you'll just have to watch it yourself.
Wednesday, October 22. 2008
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: 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!
|
