Election Integrity Still An Issue, 10 Years Later.....

[garybeck]

Like many, I came to Democratic Underground back in 2004 around the election integrity issue. Diebold, e-voting, scanners, surprising results, exit polls,....

Ten years later, not much has changed. Some states have audits on their computers but even these audits are not robust.

After a few years of frustration I decided to focus on my home state. We formed Vermotners for Voting Integrity (http://vtvoters.org). Our group has been trying to get good audits but found that even our Dem Secretary of State doesn't "get it."

While it seems that interest in this issue has waned, I think we have just come up against a wall. We've tried to do something but had little success and many of us have had to move on to other issues.

To be honest I can't remember the last time I was on DU. I used to check it daily.

This is still a problem. The integrity of the election is vital to democracy, and it's seriously questionable. Whether you're concerned about accidental glitches or purposeful fraud, either could take place without detection.

We have all kinds of independent studies by experts to back up our concerns, but it's an uphill battle to convince people there is even a problem.

Unfortunately I'd say that in these 10 years the problem has probably gotten worse, but awareness and concern has waned.

How confident are you that the elections are counted properly?

What can we do?

[MineralMan]

1. In Minnesota, I'm very confident in the accuracy of the vote count.

[garybeck]

3. Just wondering, is your confidence based on understanding of the system, or just a general feeling?

Minnesota does have fairly good audits. 5% of the precincts are hand counted and checked against the machine counts. While the best recommendation is to have "risk limiting" audits where the hand-count samples are determined by statistical factors that evaluate the possibility that an error could occur, the 5% mandate is better than most.

I'm sure there are some good people doing good work behind that statute you have now requiring audits.

Wish we had them in Vermont! At this point we just have an optional audit, at the discretion of the Secretary of State, with no standards or rules. Just whatever they feel like doing.

[MineralMan]

5. Our audit system is good, and the precincts

are selected at random. In addition, statewide complete recounts were done in 2008 and 2010, for the Senate and Governor's election, respectively. In those counts were checked against the actual physical paper ballots. Really the only discrepancies were with absentee ballots that had been questioned. The optical scanner counts were very accurate already.

Those statewide manual recounts gave me excellent confidence in how voting is done here. I trust our election results to accurately reflect the will of the voters in MN.

[garybeck]

7. Good! Here in Vermont, recounts are just done on the same scanners!

if an election is close and a candidate wants a recount, all they do is shove the same ballots into the same scanners. WTF?

[marions ghost]

2. Voters in NC

have no reason to be confident. Not only does the state not have a good reputation for voter integrity but under Boosh & HAVA, 50 % of the state got diebolded. And then Koched.

I agree, not much has changed. It's discouraging.

Yes there's a wall around this issue.

[garybeck]

4. and Raw Story is reporting vote flipping in your state already

North Carolina voters report voting machines switching their votes to GOP candidate

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/north-carolina-voters-report-voting-machines-switching-their-votes-to-gop-candidate/

[marions ghost]

6. Greensboro (Guilford Co) got sold the touchscreens

because of HAVA (Help America Vote Act, a boondoggle to Republican interests)--funny how they always switch to favor Tillis....