20 Calif. Counties Scrap Electronic Vote Machines

[Lodestar]

This was back in 2008. Anyone know what the status of their voting system is
now? Did they go back to electronic? Paper ballots ARE an option still.

A study led by UC Berkeley computer scientist David Wagner revealed that e-voting is not as secure and reliable as it should be. As a result, electronic voting machines were decertified across California.

"We found the voting systems — all three of them we looked at — were susceptible to computer viruses," Wagner says.

"An attacker could craft a specially tailored computer virus that could spread throughout a county, and once it infected all the voting machines in a county, could miscount or misrecord the votes."

Wagner says any high-tech attacks would have required sophisticated hackers, but the bottom line is that it was possible to throw a close election.

Now 20 counties are scrambling to prepare for Tuesday's primary. Like Riverside County, most are using election workers to input paper ballots into old-style optical scanners.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18672642

[geek tragedy]

1. someone already beat you to the "Clinton cheated her way to victory in California' theory nt

[Renew Deal]

2. I hate to be dismissive because these are serious topics

But it's amazing that when the polls show Hillary winning people start screaming fraud. They can't accept that she has won fairly just like Bernie said.

[Lodestar]

7. I've been concerned about e-voting since it was first introduced.

It's literally been years, and I can't think of a bigger priority. And
yet no one in government has taken up this issue. And so questions will
continue to be raised whenever there is a contentious political race.

[FreakinDJ]

14. The country where the machines are made outlawed them

What does that tell you

[Stevepol]

24. I'm right there beside you.

There's no bigger priority, and all it would take is for a recognizable political figure who is also considered a straight shooter (I know this is a small gene pool) to take up the cause.

A recent book I've seen about the fact of voting machine manipulation of the vote and of our election process is CODE RED (2014) by Jon Simon of Election Defense Alliance. He says he has studied the deviations of the reported vote count and the exit polls (unadjusted) when the vote is counted on voting machines. He says that the average deviance or "red tilt" is an AVERAGE of 4% nationwide, larger in some places smaller in others.

One of his most convincing chapters deals with the Coakley/Brown senate race in MA in 2010, which Brown supposedly won. It so happens that there are a number of precincts in MA that count the vote by hand. The number of votes counted by hand is about 3%. The demographics of the hand-counting precincts are about the same as the rest of the state. If anything, it is more conservative than the rest of the state. This 3% of the voting population went for Coakley by about 3% I believe he said. In the rest of MA, Brown won by 5%. The total flip was thus 8%. As Simon says, "The odds of an 8% marginal disparity would be beyond astronomical. . . . Statisticians never say 'impossible' but that is, for all earthly intents and purposes, what it is."

[bkkyosemite]

8. No she didn't there is plenty of irregularities to show it.

[Lodestar]

3. It's about preventing any possibility of cheating so people can

be certain their vote is accurately counted. If Clinton or any other
candidate has a problem with this, I'd have to wonder why.
Certainly the Dems have done absolutely nothing about the security
issues of e-voting, so why is that?

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. I hate to point this to you

But after 2000 I stopped trusting my vote counts as cast. Now I trust it even less. I call it the torta effect. And Pallast correctly pointed out that shenanigans will be out in November. What happened in AZ for example, is just a dress rehearsal.

I cannot wait for "serious people" to take this issue seriously in November though

[geek tragedy]

12. There was definitely vote suppression in AZ, and the Democratic party and Clinton campaign

have sued over it.

They've also sued over vote suppression in Ohio.

As far as the "electoral fraud to steal the election from Bernie"--that's just bitter, sour grapes flavored tin foil.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Both Sanders and Clinton have

There I fixed that oversight for you. That does not change the fact that my feeling is that I will vote according to who counts the votes, all hail the central tabulator. I am just too stubborn to stop wasting my time. And if enough people do pretend to vote, the torta effect can be overcome.

This is not kooky, this is not a CT. This is how very sick democracies (I am being kind) actually work. I grew up in one. My vote at 18 in Mexico City was also a pretend vote ok.

[Lodestar]

18. And yet Clinton's PAC has no problem hiring internet trolls to

undermine Bernie. Such integrity!

[geek tragedy]

19. this is one of those Bernie Facts that isn't actually a fact nt

[Agnosticsherbet]

4. All counties have paper ballots scanned in by an optical scanner or Direct Entry Machines that give

paper copies so that there is a paper trail that can be recounted. This is state law.

[J_J_]

10. how are they recounted?

In my state, a recount is putting the paper ballots through the same damn machines again.

[Agnosticsherbet]

15. Link below to the Secretary of States page on voting systems.

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-systems/oversight/voting-systems-used-counties/how-use-your-countys-voting-system/sequoia-voting-systems/

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. In San Diego they sit down

And manually count them, with witnesses from both sides

[bkkyosemite]

5. That's what already happened throughout the Country the vote machines were fixed.

Good for my home state!

[LexVegas]

9. Load up the pre-excuses!

[AgingAmerican]

11. Debbie Wasserman Schultz will be PISSED!

[tularetom]

13. Anybody know the 20 counties that have trashed the machines?

I'd bet anything our backasswards county is not one of them, but I'm curious. We may have never switched from paper ballots in the first place.

[felix_numinous]

20. This election will be a good study

if nothing else, to teach us what systems turn out the most efficient and accurate results in order to implement election reform.

[Starry Messenger]

21. 2/3rds of us vote by mail.

[Wilms]

23. What difference does that make?

A lot of people seem to be under the impression that their vote on a paper ballot that's mailed is somehow more secure. It's not more secure. It's scanned.

[larkrake]

22. good news