EXCLUSIVE: EDWARDS AGREES TO BAN ON TOUCH-SCREEN (DRE) VOTING!

[BradBlog]

And in other breaking John Edwards-related news from last night...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



EXCLUSIVE: JOHN EDWARDS SAYS 'YES' TO BAN ON TOUCH-SCREEN (DRE) VOTING MACHINES!
Presidential Candidate Becomes First to Join Growing Movement When Queried About Issue at Campaign Event in California
Edwards Becomes Second Politician in a Week to Announce Support for the Election Integrity Movement After Being Asked About it at Public Event

While it's unlikely to get as much attention as Ann Coulter calling him a "faggot" during her speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last night, The BRAD BLOG has learned that John Edwards became the first Presidential Candidate to announce his support for a growing movement calling for a ban on the use of all Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems in American elections.

The BRAD BLOG was contacted late last night by Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) Chairwoman, Mimi Kennedy with the news that Edwards agreed, during a campaign event in Los Angeles sponsored by the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club, to join her organization in calling for an end to electronic ballots in American elections....

FULL STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4217

[sellitman]

1. Awesome!

Kicked & voted. I hope this openss up the flood gates!

WTG John!

[Old and In the Way]

2. Excellent.

If all Democrats care about their election prospects, they'll join John on this issue.

[grmamo]

3. thanks Brad, this is great info.....still going to contact McCaskill to help with Holt bill changes

needed. It is nice to see Edwards is out front again.

[Robert P]

17. It's great to have some dems...

acting like Dems. Perhaps someday the 2000-2004 era will seem like a bad dream.

[tblue]

4. Chairman Dean should demand it!!! And all state party chairs, too.

[BradBlog]

5. SUGGESTING EVERYONE ASK CANDIDATES/LEGISLATORS ABOUT THIS AT PUBLIC EVENTS!

It seems to make a diff when these guys are asked during public events about these matters! See the full story for details/links to Maxine Waters similar moment last week when asked about it during a public Q&A at a townhall-like event!

[tblue]

7. and never let up until we achieve victory

With you all the way, Brad.

[caseycoon]

Wonderful!

I hope they all do this! Something MUST be done by '08!
Thanks so much, Brad, for posting this!
:woohoo:
:bounce:

[meldroc]

6. SWEET! 60 cool points for Edwards!

[The Count]

8. One of these days, he'll let us in on the results of 2004, I bet!

[Alexander]

9. Who cares about the right to vote? The important thing is, did he change his lightbulbs yet?

:sarcasm:

[aquart]

10. Well, sure. If he's the candidate, he wants to win.

And we know what happens to Democrats on those tinker toys.

[Melissa G]

11. EXCELLENT! Any candidate who is running should be opposed.

It tells me a lot about their IQ if they are not.
Edwards saw DRE results up close and personal in 04. Glad he is in the lead on this. May the others catch up quick so we can win in 08!

[crud76]

12. This Is A Good First Step

but I'm with Thom Hartmann on this, that we should use only paper ballots.

[loudsue]

13. I've read Barak Obama's books & he thinks it's all tinfoilhat stuff....

Someone needs to educate the Dem candidates on the real issues involved.

:applause: Yay for Edwards!! :thumbsup: He's already been stiffed by these damned electronic shenanigans, and I'm glad he's on board!

:kick::kick::kick:

[Catchawave]

26. Dang, how does he stand on Global Warming then?

:kick:

[Stevepol]

14. I posted about this before seeing this post, but what the hey!

This one needs about 6 or 7 dupes to make sure everybody sees it.

[seashorelady]

15. Keep them honest JRE

[kiteinthewind]

16. Now he just needs to acknowledge how the Optical Scans steal votes and he'll be right on track

to real election reform!
:think:

[VegasWolf]

18. Exactly!!! Touchscreen is NOT the issue! The issue is the proprietary tabulator

behind the touchscreen. An optical scanner has two parts, an optical reading head and a tabulator to process and record the data read. The tabulator on a scanner can be hacked as well as the tabulator on a touchscreen. The interface is not the problem, the tabulation is. A touchscreen can make a fine user interface if what happens behind the screen is cleared up.

[bearfan454]

19. It's in the memory cards. Believe me, it is.

http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/

[VegasWolf]

20. The memory cards are just a piece of hardware. It's the tabulator that reads and writes data

to the memory cards that is the culprit.

Optical scanners also store data on memory cards.

:toast:

[kiteinthewind]

23. Actually, we need to shoot all the machines and put them out of their misery.

edited to add: Actually to put them out of OUR misery!

Return to handcounted paper ballots, counted at precinct level, in public view, so EVERY person can see their vote counted, not just those with proprietary knowledge and source codes, etc. Sometimes new and shiny is NOT better!
:think:

[VegasWolf]

24. Problem there is that boxes and boxes of printed ballots for Gore in 2000 are still

turning up in Florida. Hand counting makes it very easy to cheat. If the election officials are corrupt, those ballots will just end up in the river. I would prefer to see a secured and non-proprietary electronic system that would be extremely difficult to compromise. We use touchscreens to manage our money in a bank and no one thinks twice about that. Time to fire Diebold and allow the computer scientists of the country to devise a great open-source system.

:toast:

[BradBlog]

30. That's silly...

You comments about cheating via Hand Counted Paper Ballots are misleading, and suggest an lack of awareness of what HCPB actually means and how it actually works.

ALL ballots are tabulated on election night, in public view, at the precincts *before* being sent to the central office.

They are signed off on by witnesses from both parties then and there, and overseen by normal citizens. Ballots cannot disappear "in the river" because the entire process is overseen publicly from the get go and the tallies cannot be easily changed, number of ballots, etc. if citizens participate in their democracy.

The "scientists of the country" have already spoken out and they concur that non-paper-based voting systems, open-source or otherwise, cannot work. Period.

Brad

[kiteinthewind]

33. Absolutely! nt

:thumbsup:

[kiteinthewind]

32. Problem is, for me, that your average citizen doesn't have the knowledge

to verify that kind of 'secure'. Had the ballots been originally handcounted at the precinct level instead of using machines, it would have been a much easier process. And average people could have witnessed the process. Transparency. Machines will NEVER be transparent!
:)

[BradBlog]

34. Um...yes, touchscreen *is* the issue (in additional to proprietary tabulators, etc.)

"A touchscreen can make a fine user interface if what happens behind the screen is cleared up."

You couldn't be more wrong here. If you can't see it, you can't count it. You can't see how a DRE is counting votes.

Now if you're referring to non-DRE touch-screens (eg. AutoMARK which simply produces a paper ballot to be counted by another method), then *perhaps* we can talk :-)

Brad

[hippiechick]

21. Well done, John !

:applause:

[Kurovski]

22. K&R.(nt)

[Zorra]

25. Outstanding. John Edwards just left the pack in the dust in my estimation.

I'm surprised DK hasn't already done this.

[benny05]

28. Me too...

Are you a DK member? Maybe you could do one. :thumbsup:

[dkofos]

27. That is great, BUT

Will we have a REAL voting system in place in time for the Jan. primaries???

[benny05]

29. Good point

Prolly not, but it's good to raise the awareness now.

[Gloria]

31. Another plus mark for John Edwards....

[Peace Patriot]

35. Is it just a coincidence that Diebold seems to be bailing out...

...now that they've done their dirty work?

-----

"Diebold Weighs Strategy for Voting Unit

Mar 4, 3:29 PM (ET)

By M.R. KROPKO

"CLEVELAND (AP) - Diebold Inc. (DBD) saw great potential in the modernization of elections equipment. Now, analysts say, executives may be angling for ways to dump its e-voting subsidiary that's widely seen as tarnishing the company's reputation.

"Though Diebold Election Systems - the company's smallest business segment - has shown growth and profit, it's faced persistent criticism over the reliability and security of its touch-screen voting machines. About 150,000 of its touch-screen or optical scan systems were used in 34 states in last November's election.

"The criticism is particularly jarring for a nearly 150-year-old company whose primary focus has long been safes and automated teller machines." (MORE)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2755003

--------------------------

GREAT to see that Edwards has broken the dam on the MIND-BOGGLING SILENCE of our Democratic Party leadership on this vital matter--but some SERIOUS issues still remain...

...that it's all still run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations--in the central tabulators and the optiscans themselves.

...a 2% audit--probably the best we can expect from this still very seriously compromised Congress--is EXTREMELY inadequate--Venezuela handcounts FIFTY-FIVE PERCENT of the ballots as a check against machine fraud--we should do no less. It is NUTS that we didn't!

...that these are righwing Bushite corporations, who now get rewarded for their skulduggery with billions more in contracts to replace the touchscreens.

...still much too much gobble-de-gook for many voters; vote counting should be SIMPLE and TOTALLY TRANSPARENT.

...a full-scale investigation into the code used in the 2004 election needs to be undertaken, with subpoenas for the code--Kevin Shelley started this in California, and was "swift-boated" out of office, on completely bogus corruption charges, and his career ruined, as thanks for his diligence--the people who did this need to be investigated, with full disclosure of all code used in that election. There are also great suspicions about several '02 elections, the Ohio election reform initiatives in '05, and the '06 elections, especially where anyone who supports Bush's heinous war was elected or reelected.

What else? This is only the beginning. I hope to see the 2004 election invalidated, as having been conducted with an entirely fraudulent voting system, engineered by the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress--Tom Delay and Bob Ney--and abetted by corporatist Christopher Dodd (also Terry McAullffe). And we have much corruption to deal with in the election theft industry, that got fast-tracked into place. Unfortunately, Edwards has only articulated the corporate fallback position--touchscreens, bad; optiscans, good; central tabulators not mentioned. That's not good enough. But it's certainly a start, and will help in all touchscreen and no-paper trail and no-audit states.

[benny05]

36. Tough crowd around here

Seems like no Dem who is running for President is good enough to get the ball rolling on issues such as clean elections.