meta-roj

i rarely get to get ahead of a story anymore, but this time i have a chance to give you some notice on a tv program you need to watch. as america bombs democracy into the middle east, american democracy is threatened. now will be exploring one of those threats with their episode block the vote.

check your local listings. or check the website after it airs.

just in case you thought the whole election thing was settled… it’s not.

http://www.bbvforums.org

florida election matchine logs with thousands of anomalies. don’t i remember that being a really close election in florida?

since i have spent a lot of time discussing diebold here, the news that their ceo has resigned (and the resulting rally in the stock price) is worth mentioning. briefly.

strange things afoot at the counter of votes?

Diebold insider alleges company plagued by technical woes, Diebold defends ‘sterling’ record [raw story, 2005.12.06]

“Does that mean fixing elections? Not necessarily, but if your people are in election departments and they are biased toward Republicans, you will have an influence…I think this is what they were buying, the positioning. Obviously screwing with the software would be a homerun—and I do think that was part of their recipe for getting into the election business. But the public got involved and said ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ That pulled the sheet off what their plan was with these paperless voting machines.”

some analysis of the election in florida… for your bemusement as we approach inauguration day.

Paper and pencil a winner in ’04 election [south florida sun-sentinel, january 16, 2005]

Florida’s touch-screen voting machines performed better in the Nov. 2 presidential election than they did in the March primary, but were still outmatched by older voting devices that use pencil and paper ballots, according to a South Florida Sun-Sentinel analysis.

…

Of 5 million votes analyzed from the November election, there were 18,555 examples of flawed or unregistered presidential ballots. Of 2.7 million votes on touch screens reviewed, 11,824 ballots had no vote registered for president. Of 2.3 million votes on optical-scan machines, 6,731 ballots were not recorded or flawed.

hmmm. what does diebold (one manufacturer of electronic touch-screen voting machines that gets a lot of space here) have to say about undervoting?

[diebold election systems faq

Q: Can you under-vote using the AccuVote-TSX terminal?

A: The AccuVote-TSX touch-screen ballot station offers a summary page to the voter once the voter has sequenced through the entire ballot. The summary page will indicate via a distinct color which races have been under-voted. A touch of the screen on the under-voted race will cause the AccuVote-TSX to return the voter to the under-voted race within the ballot and allow the voter to complete the voting process. A voter can also step back and forth through the ballot, changing any selection until the ballot is “cast.” The system will allow an under-voted ballot to be cast if it was the voter’s intent not to vote in a race.

so all the undervotes on the diebold machines (at least) are intentional. by design. anyone want to reconcile this?

the high court of maryland has affirmed [pdf] the lower court ruling that asserts that maryland election officials have done everything necessary to provide secure and accurate election counts for the coming general election.

i disagree, so i “may be absent” on election day.

maryland senator mikulski had an experience with diebold recently, which might explain some of the things coming out of congress lately….

Mikulski has voting machine mishap [ap via the herald-mail, september 14, 2004]

Mikulski was at the Takoma Park Folk Festival Sunday when she came across a booth demonstrating the AccuVote TS touchscreen machines manufactured by Diebold Election Systems. As she sampled the new machines, the senator apparently inadvertently brushed against the sensitive screens so that when she tried to vote “no” on a sample ballot, the machine displayed her vote as a “yes.”

so it seems that even with years of voting experience (she was elected to a city council seat in 1971), senator mikulski had a little trouble getting her intentions registered.

yeah. i’m confident in my election.

circuit court judge joseph p. manck ruled in favor of using the diebold touchscreen machines, without a paper trail, and without mandating any security or procedural change for the election in maryland.

i’ll come back and add some links later, but i wanted to get the verdict on the record.

i’m not sure how you hand-recount a touch-screen machine, but it seems that someone might have to figure out how to do it.

Fla. judge rules that ban on touchscreen hand recounts violates state law [ap via usa today, august 27, 2004]

A state rule barring the 15 Florida counties with touchscreen voting from conducting manual recounts is at odds with state law, which requires hand recounts in some close elections, a judge ruled Friday.

i’m ok with the voting on paper and counting by hand approach to elections. i don’t think we need the results in minutes. i think we need the right results.

stalin knew that (ok, he was more interested in who counted the votes, but in this case, we have machines to do that for us…)

check out the gem found by the good folks at black box voting.