Ohio Voting Machines Contained Programming Error That Dropped Votes

[bemildred]

Source: WaPo

A voting system used in 34 states contains a critical programming error that can cause votes to be dropped while being electronically transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point, the manufacturer acknowledges.

The problem was identified after complaints from Ohio elections officials following the March primary there, but the logic error that is the root of the problem has been part of the software for 10 years, said Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold.

The flawed software is on both touch screen and optical scan voting machines made by Premier and the problem with vote counts is most likely to affect larger jurisdictions that feed many memory cards to a central counting database rapidly.

Riggall said he was "confident" that elections officials through the years would have realized votes had been dropped when they crosschecked their tallies to certify final elections results and would have reloaded cards so as not to lose votes. Brunner has said no Ohio votes were lost because the nine Ohio counties that found the problem caught it before primary results were finalized.

Read more: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/08/21/ohio_voting_machines_contained.html

[Demeter]

1. Do Tell!

Well, I'm SURE that everybody will snap to it and either fix those pesky, bit-dropping machines, or replacing them with a more reliable means of recording and tallying the voting before November 4th.



NOT.

[TankLV]

47. So, why does this "glitch" ONLY "drop" DEMOCRATIC votes?!?!

anybody care to explain THAT one?!?!

we're still waiting...

It would not be as much of an issue, altho it would STILL be an issue, if it equally dropped repuke votes as well, but THAT "small" FACT doesn't seem to get reported or much cared about...

what a "surprise"...

and I'm sure that the FACT that ONLY REPUKE manufacturers make these things is just another AMAZING COOINCIDENCE!!

[bjobotts]

56. Exactly. Normally the customer has the ability to chek if the product they bought is working right

[bjobotts]

57. Without checks from outsiders how do we know their "fix" is not just another scam

[nolabels]

105. Nope, you're wrong there too

Shielding Big Pharma
Stephen Pizzo
January 25, 2006

(snip)
The Vioxx Nightmare

Then Vioxx happened. Big Pharma’s worst nightmare was realized. Merck's miracle painkiller had become a record-breaking cash cow for the company. The only trouble was, it was killing people in alarming numbers— upward of 55,000 Americans before it was finally pulled from the market. But this was known to both Merck and the FDA long before that—and both had ignored, denied and even suppressed evidence of this deadly side effect. )
(snip)
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/01/25/shielding_big_pharma.php

[JHB]

73. Doesn't have to...

It just has to be put in a heavily-Democratic-voting location to disproportionally shave Democratic votes off the final tally.

So "Where were these machines placed?" is a question that needs to be answered.

[sailor65]

99. Where does it say that? n/t

[TankLV]

121. Look it up - I'm not going to do your homework for you..;.

EVERY report of "voting machine irregularities" has it affecting OVERWHELMINGLY democratic votes that are "dropped", "lost", "undercounted", etc.

NEVER does it favor the Democrats. NOT ONE TIME...

Look it up...

It's been reported in DETAIL on DU here since the beginning...

It's a matter of RECORD...

[wvbygod]

103. Got a source on that one?

Where are you getting your data?

Here's the only statement I have found documented...
>Brunner has said no Ohio votes were lost because the nine Ohio counties that found the problem
>caught it before primary results were finalized.

[intheflow]

104. But that's only in the last election in March.

The problem has been in place for years and the 2004 election results, which rested on Ohio, were probably effected in the favor of Repukes. No hard facts on that b/c voting software is proprietary information, so public citizens have no way to examine if that happened or not. But it sure smells like it's targeted at Dems.

[Growler]

2. what a surprise n/t

[truthisfreedom]

3. Who would'a thunk rethuglican machines would lose votes?

Actually, I'm stunned that they admitted it.

[MissWaverly]

8. they only lose Dem votes, what a coincidence

according to the record, 125.7 million people voted in 2004, Bush won with the majority of those votes, he rec'd 62 million votes, go figure, that's less than half of those people. The total of votes for Bush and Kerry don't add up to that total, they add up ***62,040,610 (Bush total on record) and 59,028,444 (Kerry total on record)****=121,069,054 that does not equal 125.7 million votes in my book, of course they trashed a lot of votes, switched others, and kept people out of the voting booth but there's still the missing votes.

[Seldona]

69. Wow, if those figures aren't damning, nothing is.

What kind of system has that kind of an error rate, if that is even their excuse for the missing votes? I'm glad banking software works better than that. You would think stoplights would be harder to program...

[MissWaverly]

115. they did not realize the power of the internet

all the people who saw their vote switched, who were denied the right to vote, who were purged for no reason could now
communicate. I could tell how I waited in line for 2 hours in Baltimore City, Maryland and all my neighbors said the
precinct was jam packed and there were only 944 votes recorded at my precinct. They would not release the information from the poll books, it was a brazen robbery of the American people in plain daylight.

[Seldona]

125. I consider myself lucky here then.

The machine I vote on produces TWO paper records of my vote. One that I originally fill out and scan in, and a receipt type paper that one has to look through a small window and validate all choices are correct. So if there is anything funny going on, we damn well can back in up with TWO forms of paper.

I hate to admit it, but BBV brought me to DU. I was researching election machines and there she, and DU was, right in the thick of things. In that sense I will always owe She Who Must Not Be Named. To bad what happened happened.

[MissWaverly]

126. Well, yes it was unfortunate

but I think the work that started back then against tremendous odds is bearing fruit now. I still think the process needs tweaked since the main problem is not when the vote is cast but when it is tabulated. I saw in Baltimore City in my precinct that the vote count was 944 for the entire day when I waited 2 hours to vote in November 2004. I am sure that these individual voters were able to review their results but from the time they voted until the votes were tabulated, votes vanished.

[muriel_volestrangler]

118. I know this will be a shock to you

but there were other candidates apart from the Republican and Democratic ones. That doesn't mean there weren't problem with the Ohio (or other state) machines too; but the reason the official Republican and Democratic vote totals don't add up to the offical overall total is pretty simple.i

[MissWaverly]

124. all votes for all candidate - 122,179,667 total cast 125.7 million

there were only 3 major candidates Bush, Kerry and Nader, since Nader received 1% of the vote, 411,304 votes, I didn't think it was relevant to the missing millions of votes. I was able to find out there were 699,309 votes for anyone else who was not Kerry, Bush or Nader.

Thanks

so let's add them up

62,040,610 votes for Bush
59,028,444 votes for Kerry
121,069,054 votes for both
411,304 votes for Nader
121,480,358 votes for all 3 candidates
699,309 all votes cast in 2004 not any of 3 major candidates
122,179,667 total of all cast votes according to CNN and CSPAN

125.7 million votes cast per US Bureau of the Census

Now the total of 122,179,667 is all votes counted for all candidates for the 2004 general election for president
which don't add up to 125.7 million votes to me.

[muriel_volestrangler]

131. So your 'total of votes cast' comes from a survey, not a known total

I'm sure you've read what the Census Bureau said about why there are always discrepancies between a survey of who voted (eg: they ask "did you vote?", not "did you vote for president?"), and the 3% difference in 2004 was better than the 4% to 12% they've had earlier.

[MissWaverly]

133. the survey is what the states rely to break down their votes

go check out statemaster.com, if 3 million people said they voted in 2004 but there is no corresponding vote, I believe them. I have checked out several states and others have pointed out discrepancies in the total number of votes cast on the state level. I know for a fact that in Baltimore, MD, I waited 2 hours to vote and there were only 944 total votes all day in my precinct. I estimated that there were at least 400 people there when I voted since the line was at least 1/2 a block long (double line for both wards).

[jjr5]

4. They should count ppl who come into voting places

and compare that with the number of votes the machine has counted. And they should do this in every state to identify problems. You have to check in at voting places any way. This Premier company problem is just deplorable. Good ppl should do what they can to try to fix this problem, if these ppl aren't going to.

[LiberalFighter]

12. Voters should be counted at the precinct level and compared with those signed in.

And then the election worker from each party in each precinct should verify that the county records it the same.

[KaryninMiami]

15. Matching the number of votes with the number of people voting only does just that--

Knowing if the votes actually reflect the choices of the voters however, is another story. We count here in Florida- I've done it myself. But until you have access to source codes or a paper ballot backup and random checks for accuracy, it cannot be verified that the results match the intent of the voter and we now know- and have for 6 years, that those machines can be and HAVE BEEN rigged.

"It's not how you vote that counts- it is who count's the votes"- can't remember who said that but always stuck with me.

[clspector]

31. Stalin said it...

"It's not how you vote that counts- it is who count's the votes"- can't remember who said that but always stuck with me.

[LiberalFighter]

32. The best that can happen is make sure that votes aren't more than number of actual voters.

Never be able to ascertain that votes were the intent of the voter cause it is a secret vote.

About the secret vote. It isn't a constitutional requirement that the vote be secret. It use to be that they would call out the name of a voter and he would announce his vote in front of everyone.

[KaryninMiami]

46. Nothing matters without access to the source codes and random sampling through the election.

Sure it's nice that the number of votes equal the number of voters- but so what if you don't know if someone put a patch in the machine to shift votes in one direction or another and the only way to know this is with access to source codes. Period.

[LiberalFighter]

82. Yes, I agree. Source codes should be open to verify integrity of the election.

Access should be denied once it has been installed. In fact, there should be a way to track any changes to coding on the machine or anyone accessing the machine. That would require additional storage. Preferably on the machine AND on the authorized election cartridge. Each time the election cartridge was plugged in it would transfer data starting where it left off from the previous time. It should also record when any devices were plugged in and also the starting time and ending time of the election day as well as times in between the cartridge was removed and then replaced.

The storage device would record regardless of whether an authorized election cartridge was tapped in or any other connection was made to the machine.

[Catch22Dem]

13. They do at my polling place, I don't know about yours or others

We walk in and check in with the poll worker. We have to sign next to our name that we've received a ballot.

[L. Coyote]

25. They do and they report this total. It is part of the official vote count

and available online.

[CitizenPatriot]

5. I had lunch today

with a guy who examined a diebold machine and is working on the new version of voting machine that would use paper and touch screen (reasons too complicated for me to pass on, but they made sense). He told me that all of the diebold machines can be rebooted from a pen drive and two other forms --and you don't have to get into the machine to do it. essentially, the machines are wide open for fraud. why they needed the vote switching devise in georgia is beyond me.

[alfredo]

6. They were instructed on how to fudge the numbers so they'd match.

[Doctor Cynic]

7. Were they running on Windows Vista?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

66. Probably Windows "Bob"

With the desktop arranged to look like an office at RNC.

[Spiffarino]

108. Windows "Houdini" n/t

[bemildred]

9. "The problem is most likely to affect larger jurisdictions ..."

So it would disfavor cities? And densely populated areas?

FWIW, I used to program things like this, it sounds like a coding error in the "incoming card queue" (my terminology), the sort of error naive programmers make. I worked on a piece of stock quote software that had exactly this sort of issue. It was driving them nuts until I fixed it, because it was an "intermittent bug", and they didn't know how to make it happen. With respect to this sort of issue, 90% of programmers are naive (in my experience).

[No Elephants]

64. Demand A Paper Trail From Your State And Town!

In 2004, my jurisdiction went to a paper ballot. There may not be time for that, but Diebold can easily provide the voter with a receipt. Demand at least that. And demand eliminating Diebold machines before 2010.

[bemildred]

78. I prefer a paper ballot, period.

Computer voting machines are NOT a good solution to voting. They are expensive, buggy, insecure, and error prone. The old punch-card systems work great and should be retained, upgraded if necessary. They have all the features you want. The REAL problem is that the US political system denigrates and dis-empowers voting and voters. They hate the idea of asking for our consent every so often. We do need federal voting rights and secure voting mandates. This all got started as a butt-covering exercise after the 2000 sElection boondoggle, and then it morphed into the usual money-grubbing contest.

[harun]

106. How convenient

[HopeHoops]

10. Oh, I am just SO shocked - to think, tsk.

I'm sure Diebold <wink> <wink> <nudge> <nudge> is TOTALLY SORRY about this. It was a COMPLETE accident <chuckle> I'm sure.

Gee, I wonder which party suffered from the vote dropping. Hmmm...

[peace frog]

45. Oh most defintely, it was totally accidental!

Especially after the Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold, promised to deliver votes for Bush in 2004. Uh huh.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

11. It's only the veracity of Democratic voting process...

we can get it straightened out in 10 or 20 years. No big deal.

[Doctor_J]

14. Tee-hee. "Error"?

:rofl:

[AndyTiedye]

16. if ((vote->candidate.party == DEMOCRATIC) && (rnd() < .1)) delete(vote)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwgaUzRBRC4

[kster]

17. Quick fix,

Buy a bunch of these:

Transparent Ballot Box, for 500 - 800 Paper Ballots, with Deposit Trap and Counter Easy to use, sturdy and stackable. Lockable with two individual locks. Deposit trap is operated using a lever which is coupled with the counter. Can be safely stored in the reusable protective box.



http://www.kaiserkraft.co.uk/equipment/transparent_ballot_box-36.html

Then Have everyone take a crash course using this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQMGIjChINA

Tell Diebold to take their machines and stick em.

K&R

[iconicgnom]

23. Too low tech. And besides, voters like the suspense of wondering who they voted for!

[killbotfactory]

18. Whoopsie!

Oh well. No harm, no foul.

[aquart]

19. "Errors," my Aunt Fanny.

[whistle]

20. That was NO programming error!

[lonestarnot]

21. NO! it WASN"T!

[iconicgnom]

22. well, after 2 rigged elections in a row, I'm glad the Dems have done something to fix the system!

I'm glad they've been on the case, esp. after '06 when they decided to do important stuff rather than, like, ensuring justice is served by impeaching criminal politicians.

If they hadn't done something while they had a final chance, just think of the situation the US'd be in today.

[AnneD]

24. So all of a sudden it's a problem????

and why wasn't it an issue 8 years ago. This just proves that the elections WERE stolen... I'm sorry I want proof of my vote counting.

[defendandprotect]

26. Shouldn't that headline say: "Ohio election machines were RIGGED to . . ."---????

and this went on 10 years --- !!!

I can see they were really worried about Dems catching up with them --- !!!

[defendandprotect]

27. Now if Diebold had been owned by Dems and this was going on . . ..what would reaction be?????

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

33. don't forget all the Diebold Dems: Lamone, Cathy Cox and even Joe Andrew former DNC Chair

Joe Andrew was hired by Diebold to promote the company and to try
to restore Diebold's name.

Then later Diebold just changed their name.

A rose by any other name would smell like crap just the same.

[defendandprotect]

34. Wow . . . !!! had no idea ---

[high density]

28. Umm, if you have one output from the system that says Z votes and another says Y votes

Why can the operator automatically assume that one readout is more accurate than the other? Do you just assume more is better? The spokesman is clouding the issue.

[sofa king]

68. I think that's when you call in the terrorist attack.

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/11/10/loc_warrenvote10.html

[RoccoR5955]

29. This is what happens when our elections are privatized.

Now corporations have the source code to these computerized machines. The major vendors use Windows in some form or another. Windows is a proprietary operating system, with back doors, and security holes up the whazoo. (If you have a little yellow shield down by the time on your Windows PC, you haven't patched all the security holes that they know about yet.) Add that to the probability that the people programming these complicated systems don't always take the time to patch their holes.

It would be much more secure, that if we have to use computerized systems, we should use open source software, on an open source operating system. If everything is open, security holes can be found in advance, and patched. This cannot be done, if the operating system and software are held in secrecy.

[NoSheep]

54. You've hit the possum on the head! Privitization yields Predator state.

[Seldona]

71. Patching Windows can result in loss of third party software support.

So in many cases administrators either have to run unpatched, or find a work around. I have had many a migraine from so called 'fixes' and the results of using these patches on untested configurations with third party software. It is no fun to be down after installing a Microsoft patch, have them tell you it is the vendors fault, and have the vendor tell you their warranty and/or support is only available for the unpatched configuration.

WEEEEEEEEEEE!!! Just what we need for our election systems. These are the kinds of problems we can have even if everything is on the up and up. Wouldn't it be funny if a Windows patch broke their vote stealing software though? I mean after the indictments, etc...

[RamboLiberal]

30. And it can't be fixed before the November 5th election

The problem can't be fixed before the Nov. 4 election, so Premier Election Solutions and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner are issuing guidelines to counties for how to avoid the problem.

"We will continue to monitor the situation and provide boards of elections with the instruction and support they need to ensure an orderly and efficient election and an accurate count of Ohioans' votes," Brunner said in a memo released today.

Premier, formerly Diebold Election Systems, initially speculated that the problem was a conflict between its system and anti-virus software.

But in a letter Tuesday to Brunner, Premier President David Byrd admitted that further testing showed a source-code error that can cause votes not to be recorded when memory cards are uploaded to computer servers under certain circumstances.

http://dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/08/21/voting_machines.html?sid=101

So prepare for Ohio to be stolen again? And what other state?

[DFW]

35. Is there still time to undo Ohio 2004?

Not that we could undo all the damage done by Cheneybush during that time.........

[TankLV]

48. and of course, they have to DUMP all the voting info RIGHT AFTER THE ELECTION

because god knows they can't transfer or backup all the data onto - I dunno - tapes or CDs or something - so that they can be kept for INDEPENDENT TESTING anytime after the election, and besides, all those ones and zeros take up TONS of space in large WAREHOUSES, and nobody, like banks, or the IRS, ever keeps records because of all the "space" it would take up...and god knows NOBODY would EVER want to keep this stuff for anything like HISTORICAL records, or anything...because ABSOLUTELY ONBODY has ever expresssed even a REMOTE interest in such a thing, EVER...

[End Of The Road]

51. Is there still time to undo Florida 2000?

Either one works for me.

[MissWaverly]

127. maybe it's just me but I think that the votes should be counted

maybe it's just me but I think there should be a clear record, if it's not possible to count the electronic hokey pokey then the pollbooks should be examined and the number of voters registering on election day compared with electronic votes that were tabulated.

[deutsey]

36. Gosh. What a coincidence. n/t

[seemslikeadream]

37. Has someone been reading the DU archives?

Just in time to do something about the 2012 election, maybe?

[ejbr]

38. quelle surprise Madam(oiselle), quelle surprise. n/t

[Peace Patriot]

39. I hate to criticize well-meaning public officials like Brunner, whom I know can't

do the right thing (chuck these infernal election theft machines into the Ohio River and go back to handcounted paper ballots), cuz I know they can get whacked. Kevin Shelley, elected Democratic Sec of State of Cailf, sued Dieobold for this very sort of thing six months before the 2004 election, and then got driven from office on entirely bogus corruption charges, and Schwarzenegger appointed a Puke Diebold shill as Sec of State, and not until 2006 were we able to get rid of that fucker. Now we have a Brunner-type Sec of State, Debra Bowen--smart as a whip and into open government her entire career--but she, too, is just fiddling around the edges of the biggest goddamn scandal in the history of this country: the takeover of our very voting system by rightwing Bushite corporations, using 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls.

If this massive, fast-tracked conversion to private, corporate control of elections had been well-intended--and not intended as the fascist coup that it was--there would have been a requirement of a paper ballot backup and a 100% hand-count, from the get-go. FORTY PERCENT of the voting systems in the country now have NO AUDIT CAPABILITY WHATSOEVER, 10% have paper backup but DON'T COUNT ANY OF THE BALLOTS, and the rest count ONLY 1% (miserably inadequate in a 'TRADE SECRET' CODE system).

By contrast, in Venezuela, they have have electronic voting, but it is an OPEN SOURCE CODE system--anyone may review the code by which the votes are tabulated--and they hand-count a whopping 55% of the votes, as a check on machine fraud.

Some experts say we need to hand-count a minimum 10% of the votes to detect electronic fraud. We are nowhere near even the MINIMUM needed; half the country is wide open to electronic fraud, especially insider hacking, and, in the rest of the country, insider hacking is easy and almost risk-free, since no one counts 99% of the goddamn votes. And the question is not only how can we get the public to realize this, and to demand fully transparent, PUBLIC VENUE vote counting, but why did it happen? Transparent vote counting is a no-brainer. It is the bottom line of democracy. Who did this, and WHY?

Bowen in Calif has at least implemented a rule not only that every vote has to have a ballot, but also that 10% of them be handcounted in very close races (within 0.05%, I believe). That is something, but that is not good enough. There is no excuse for non-transparancy in any election or in any component of our election system. That there is, was maliciously intended, and fast-tracked by means of vast corruption--a $3.9 BILLION e-voting booddoggle passed by the Anthrax Congress.

Anthrax didn't just kill people and threaten people, it produced the Patriot Act, the Iraq War and NON-TRANSPARENT, CORPORATE-RUN, 'TRADE SECRET' VOTE COUNTING!

[philb]

40. Machines with known problems and poorly functioning equipment was used in minority precints in

Florida and other swing states in recent elections. Along with other systematic dirty tricks and manipulations to reduce the numbers of votes in highly Democratic precincts.

www.flcv.com/fraudpat.html
www.flcv.com/ohiosum.html 2004

www.flcv.com/eirstss6.html 2006
www.flcv.com/eirsppp6.html
www.flcv.com/eirsdt6.html

www.flcv.com/elec0604.html

[bluesmail]

41. Really? Come on now.

[agent46]

42. How hard is it

How hard is it to write code for an adding machine? Unbelievable.

[YvonneCa]

43. Did you read the comments? This one is...

...great:


"Please tell me how a nation who alone has put men on the moon takes a decade to find out they can't count. "

:)

[defendandprotect]

95. And, then again .....

July 2, 1969 . . .

You really believe that we had the capability to "land on the moon" but haven't

been back in almost 40 years --- !!!! ?????

[defendandprotect]

96. In other words, Democrats need to have 30% more votes just to cover Diebold losses . . .

[lovuian]

44. After 8 years we finally hear the TRUTH the election was

STOLEN

[Botany]

49. This was not an error this is what the machine's hardware/software ....

.... were programed to do. Computers just don't lose or change data
by mistake.

Time to lock up these election stealing bastards and use
"advanced interrogation" on them.

In 2000 in Volusia County, FL one precinct w/ Diebold
machines produced a negative 16,000 votes for Al Gore.


<the problem with vote counts is most likely to affect larger jurisdictions> why that just might
be the Cities with all them democratic votes .... nothing to see here move on

[samdogmom]

50. While this vindicates my absolute belief that the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen...

it doesn't gain me respect! My friends and family still howl with laughter and claim I'm a wacko when I try to discuss election integrity!

I'm no longer interested in trying to prove past wrongs...instead...going forward I just want things to be above board and fair!

CAN WE TRUST THE RESULTS OF THE 2008 ELECTION? I'm not sure at this point...I've read way too many articles that give me great pause and much concern!

So....I'll let you know if I think the 2008 results are acceptable!

[vanboggie]

52. Bull Sh*t

Lying SOB's are so used to getting away with it that they dare say it was an "error". Thanks, Nancy, for working on that corruption in politics and ensuring stolen election 08 will come off without a hitch. :sarcasm:

[TheWatcher]

53. It wasn't an error.

It's called "by design."

[Iggo]

55. "Error"....Right. (n/t)

[Hekate]

58. These are not "errors" or "glitches" & I heartily wish the M$M would stop calling them that...

The programming in these machines was (and is) deliberate subversion of the vote-counting process.

Hekate

[savistocate]

59. A fraud by any other name would smell as rotted putrid.

Diebold changes its name but nothin else. Premier Election Solutions huh.

[Hekate]

60. P.E.S. --> PEStilential. ha. nt

[Ellipsis]

61. The dam is about to break.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=506712&mesg_id=506712






.

[Enthusiast]

62. Oh yeah?

They will never mention of it on mainstream News outlets. Look the other way.

[Ellipsis]

98. YEAHHH! .....Screw the mainstream media.

Not what I'm talkin about. Thou ...last I checked WaPo was the MSM as is Lou Dobbs.

1.)

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner on Wednesday responded to a lawsuit filed by Premier Election Solutions against the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and the Secretary of State in which Premier seeks a court order that it has met its obligations to the State of Ohio under its voting machine contract negotiated by the former administration.

Secretary Brunner filed counter charges against Premier and urged the Franklin County Common Pleas Court to find that Premier has failed to live up to its contractual obligations.

She seeks damages, including punitive damages, against Premier for voting system malfunctions that have caused problems in at least 11 of the 44 counties using the Premier voting system and for Premier’s claims that warranties on voting equipment have expired.


2.)


A civil suit is being brought in Ohio against Karl Rove to air the details of the stolen election so that Ohio will be permitted to clamp down on the election machine manufacturers to prevent a repeat in '08. Top IT expert Spoonamore participates and insists that the only safe way to hold an election is to hand count all ballots. Georgia 2002 is also discussed and links are made with Jack Abramoff, Bob Ney, Ken Blackwell, Grover Norquist, Michael Connell and others. Watch both the 8-part press conference from 7-18 and the interview from 7-19 that are linked from the page above. Absolutely riveting!

http://www.velvetrevolution.us/#071908 >



3.)


Ohio Republicans Sued for Ballot Shredding
Submitted by davidswanson on Fri, 2008-07-11 17:18.


This is a big deal. In over 70 Ohio counties, the GOP-controlled election boards summarily
trashed countless ballots from 2004--in bald defiance of a federal court order. They did
so to destroy the evidence of that huge crime--i.e., BushCo's "re-election"--which
Richard Hayes Phillips so meticulously documents in his invaluable new book. (It's fortunate
for all of us that Richard took some 30,000 digital photographs of said ballots, although it
surely is because of his research that BushCo's henchmen vaporized the evidence itself.)


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x505347


4.)


Cliff Arnebeck: At the very top of the list is probably Mike Connell. For the same reason that Spoonamore is so valuable to us as a witness, Connell has a breadth of perspective in this stuff and when Connell, with his politics and his position, identifies Triad and the Rapp family as an area, as a point of vulnerability - Well, we're saying, if Connell makes the same observation --which we think he will because if you look at this objectively, it makes no sense. Here's a guy, he's a mathematician or an engineer or whatever; we anticipate he is going to say "Yeah, that looks odd."
So Connell's an important witness and because we're talking about a conspiracy, one of the problems is you say 'where's the coordination, where's the communication?' -- Here's one individual who's been part of all the elements of the things that we think are problematic.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x505839

[annabanana]

63. "no Ohio votes were lost" - PROVE IT!

PROVE IT you son of a bitch!!!!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

65. These fucking idjits never heard of an MD5 sum?

Fuck's sake.

[ForeignSpectator]

67. Wouldn't be very surprising if that glitch looked like this :

#include <makedemocratslose.h>


if( state == NOT_OHIO )
{
for( int counter = 0; counter < totalVotes; counter++ )
{
if( votes< counter > == VOTE_REPUBLICAN )
StoreVote( votes< counter >);
else FuckThatVote( votes< counter >);
}
}
else
{
for( int counter = 0; counter < totalVotes; counter++ )
{
if( totalvotecount< REPUBLICAN > < FIFTY_PERCENT )
MakeVoteRepublican( votes< counter >);

StoreVote( votes< counter >);
}
}

[sendero]

77. Election fraud is even simpler than that...

...

if(todaysDate == ElectionDay)
{
includeVote((counter++ % 10 == 0) ? voteRepublican : realVote);
}
else
{
includeVote(realVote);
}

Counts votes correctly on every day except election day, where it pads the Republican vote by about 5%.

Trivial, simple, virtually undetectable unless you actually test a machine on election day.

[JackDragna]

70. I have no illusions this election will be legitimate.

..and it's too late to fix now. Our party did nothing to stop this.

[Botany]

72. Link to story in the post no longer works

:tinfoilhat:

[annabanana]

74. This article just makes me cry. Stephanie Tubbs Jones knew... WE knew

When the corporate media gets around to a vital story FOUR YEARS after it could have made a difference for our Country I can barely breathe...

[AtLiberty]

75. We've been screaming about these machines for 4+ years...

I'm grateful that this is finally becoming big news and that Dems are catching on, but it would have been much better to see this wave two or three years ago when there would be more time to change voting systems. As it stands, the electoral process is such a mess that I hold little hope for Obama. Sure, he's the most popular and will likely receive the most votes by a landslide, but that no longer makes any difference. Ask John Kerry. On second thought, don't ask John Kerry...he conceded.

The opti-scans are better than touch screens, but not much. Votes can still be flipped and you'd never see it happen. And if the margin stays outside of 2 percent, then there's little hope for recounts.

[MasonJar]

76. So do citizens have to use these or are they going to be repaired or

better still scrapped?

[populistdriven]

79. This "bug" was targeted to affect larger jurisdictions which coincidentally are more Democratic

"most likely to affect larger jurisdictions that feed many memory cards to a central counting database rapidly."

[liam_laddie]

87. "...coincidentally are more Democratic..."

On the face this seems logical. In Butler County, Ohio (one of the pesky "ring counties" around Cincinnati,) the Premier/Diebold machines dropped 150 votes in the March primary. What party? What race or issue? The entire ballot? Not disclosed, SFAIK. Why not???

This county as well as Warren and Clermont vote R reliably by a good margin. Drop just enough from both parties to make the "programming error" look non-biased, but not enough to give the D a win. My point is, dropping votes on both sides in those areas which have been reliably R, but with a growing D segment, would mask the growing D presence out there, according to registrations. The R would still win but by a smaller margin, when in truth, the D may have won more votes. I dunno, is this scenario feasible?

[Runcible Spoon]

80. Chris RIG-ALL, a spokesman for Premier Election Solutions

Jesus, did they specifically pick this guy because of his name? :crazy:

[paparush]

81. Shocking! Denying voters access on the front end, dropping votes on the back end

Throw these guys to the lions (or tigers).

[dccrossman]

83. I am shocked

Shocked to find gambling going on here.

K&R

[happygoluckytoyou]

84. SHOULDA USED DA UNION LABOR TO BUILD EM

[happygoluckytoyou]

85. Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold...by assholes formerly known as Republicans

[debbierlus]

86. And, many people think Bush actually won in 04 -

Obama needs to SEIZE on this information, he may need to fight hard to get the election he will surely win IF it is NOT allowed to be stolen again. Pointing out these major flaws will make it easier, if and when the time comes.

A whole speech needs to address this issue

[antimatter98]

88. So an ATM maker cannot build secure voting software?

This is outrageous, and just watch--- won't appear in the media,
and the Democrats will remain asleep about this entire issue.

We've 'corporatized' "The Vote" with zero standards of performance
and zero standards for audit.

But our ATM machines operate reliably, the banks audit ATM traffic,
and yet its ok for our voting systems to be ad hoc, unreliable,
and hackable.

What a country we are. Wild-West-predatory toward citizens,
and no sheriff in town to drive the criminals out. While we
sit in the bar getting drunk.

[OneBlueSky]

89. because the Democratic Congress did nothing to address the voting machine fiasco . . .

these same "glitches" are going to ensure that McCain is the one we'll be inaugurating in January . . .

they stole the election in 2000, they stole it in 2004, and everything is in place for them to steal it again in 2008 . . . Mark Crispin Miller, in fact, has said repeatedly that "the fix is already in," yet our "representatives" in Congress continue to remain oblivious to the very obvious fact that presidential election results in this country are now pre-determined by Republican corporations . . .

"it's not who votes that counts; it's who counts the votes" . . .

[1Hippiechick]

90. If you want to know how really widespread this OLD problem is, go to www.blackboxvoting.org

AND visit the DU forum, Election Reform. This is NOT a new problem, folks, but it is one that many of us have been trying to get ppl to get behind! OUR VOTES ARE NOT BEING COUNTED! OUR DEMOCRACY IS A SHAM! WHEN WILL PPL WAKE UP?!? This is EXACTLY why we need a president who will UNIFY ALL PEOPLE in this country. The PEOPLE have no voice if not unified. McLyingAsshole represents the the corruption in this country that wants to keep the masses divided so that we WON'T have any power--it's retained by the ultra rich--and they're not about to give it up!

You want change? Get out and do what you can between now and November 4th to register voters, take voters by the vanload or truckload to vote early (beginning 19 days before the election). We already know that there will be insufficient numbers of voting machines for ppl to use. How many hard-working ppl can afford to GET OFF WORK W/O PAY to go stand in long lines with only a hope of getting to cast a vote that THEN IS ELECTRONICALLY RIGGED NOT TO COUNT AS THEY VOTED?

Obama's victory is up to US! He can't do it alone!

[redqueen]

91. Oh well hey... if a representative from the company is confident that our votes aren't being lost

then that's more than reassuring enough for me!

:sarcasm:

Morons!

[L. Coyote]

92. REC this news VIDEO: CNN: E-Voting Machine Maker Admits Miscounts!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x172888

Rate, Comment, Favorite, Post, etc. at YouTube too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL3VyifXCEc

[benld74]

93. Another effin GOP tax payer funded boondoggle, just like everything else!!!

[BrklynLiberal]

94. "when they crosschecked their tallies to certify final elections results"

Shouldn't that say "IF they crosschecked their tallies to certify final elections results" ?

[defendandprotect]

97. And similar problems I'd guess all over the country . . . Where are the Democrats --- !!!????

[newportdadde]

100. I'm a programmer and this programming 'error' is a joke.

First of all just how freaking hard is it to build a system that can reliably add +1 honestly.. black box software to protect basic addition software.. okay.

As someone who has worked on large financial systems, millions of sales transactions etc I can tell you this software should have had some type of control totals. If you got 1000 votes in after distributing those votes to various candidates a total should have been taken to make sure the votes out matched the votes coming in, if they don't match then ABEND the damn thing and figure it out (some old schoolers might recognize that). Anyone in the IT industry that was worked with systems such as POS or Scanned Based Trading should know what I'm talking about in regards to controls.

Congress should be up in arms about this, I can tell you my business partners have gotten angry over 200 bucks missing out of 7 million before. I guess a corporations money is just more important then the right to a counted vote.

[davidwparker]

101. and the dropped votes all belonged to Kerry

[JohnWxy]

102. THIS JUST MEANS THEY'VE COME UP WITH ANOTHER WAY TO DROP DEMOCRATIC VOTES

...and it'll take another two phony elections to find those tricks.

So much for democracy in America.

[bertman]

107. Today Ed Schultz held a live Town Hall meeting in Ohio. He took many many questions from citizens

but I did not hear one question about the voting machines. Disclaimer: I was not able to hear the entire show so I may have missed that question if it came up.

Can anyone tell me if this issue was addressed in an OHIO TOWN HALL MEETING OF DEMOCRATIC OBAMA SUPPORTERS?

It's so frustrating to hear guys like Ed Schultz act like anyone who thinks the votes were stolen is a paranoid wacko. What can we do to change this?

[Botany]

109. I was @ that meeting and passed along the information to people

who can act on this crime .... and Schultz was very helpful in bringing up this story

[bertman]

112. Thanks, Botany. Does this mean Ed was actually open to the idea that the elections were stolen?

I remember right after the '04 election, Ed was berating callers who were suggesting that the machines had eaten Kerry votes or given them to Bush. Telling callers not to act like "sore losers" a la Hannity.

A note of appreciation to you for bringing this up at the meeting.

[BeFree]

110. Heh

Well, if they can do it by accident, they can sure as hell do it on purpose.

But some still think that they wouldn't do it on purpose. Steal votes, that is.

What the hell is wrong with those people? Bushco has the means and the motive, to take and keep the ultimate power of our democracy - our votes.

What is it about Bushco that those people think Bushco wouldn't do whatever it could to stay in power?

To those people who have fought to protect Bushco, I say FU!

[jmowreader]

111. Sounds like an alibi to me...

It's just a bug. Sorry. Just a lil' ol' programming error...in a big system you're bound to have some.

Come on now...they can't come out and tell people they put it in there on purpose, now can they?

[superconnected]

113. So why are we still using them?

[Kurovski]

116. Because they're convenient, fun, and cost-effective!

What? Are you a Luddite or something?

(I'm trolling for a job with Premier Election Solutions. I need a minimum of $4,000 a month to start.)

K&R

[Throd]

114. "Chris Riggall"? Criminy folks, it's right there in his freakin' name!

[Imagevision]

117. These machines are doing what they were designed to do - control the outcome of an election...

what part don't you understand?

[Sunnyshine]

119. The problem was identified and did not effect Ohio primaries? How do we know that for sure?

Brunner is pursuing legal actions against the company responsible for this "glitch". She is digging through decades of corruption.
On a positive note, she changed procedures for securing the storage of voting machines and how/when they are delivered to polling stations. That is a huge step forward and it is progress that has not taken place in other states. Example: DCScripts

Democratic Ohioans are working hard to assure fair elections for everyone! (with little help from most Republicans.)

Does that mean there aren't others that can be installed or integrated? Who knows for sure, and how can can it be qualified nationally? Electronically, it really seems impossible. Paper ballots and hand counts, along with a 2 day voting window and a week to verify the tangible results. It is up to us to change what is broken, show up to demand it and ask questions. There is a better way.

This article highlights the fraud that took place under Blackwell. It should be getting mainstream coverage in the media, but of course that won't happen in the land of confusion. That's how you know there is more to the story than meet the eyes.:eyes:

[crimsonblue]

120. these errors are BULLSHIT

Im not programming whiz, but I know for a fact that it is ridculously easy to write a program to count votes. We even made one in my programming class in college. These errors are blatantly intentional.

[democrat2thecore]

122. Oklahoma's system: Did anyone see the story on Lou Dobbs ?

The ONLY state that mandates BY LAW that the election system is run by the public - no private interference from companies. The election board guy says they have optical scan w/ paper trail and the voting machine company, which they purchased the machines from, CANNOT - by law - be involved in any way. It's all public. Dobbs was saying it's the system that the NATION should adopt - NOW.

[Sick Of Their Lies]

123. it is fixed

It is a well known fact that the Founder of Diebold feels that George Bush and his Gang must be in office for life.
With these touch screen machines the chance of fair elections is NIl
Because of the Republicans and Most of Corporate America THe citizens of the USA will be the least free people in the History of the World.

[MissWaverly]

128. yeah, include Mexico, France and countless other places too

our machines are involved in many nations all over the world

[Kurovski]

129. Kick. (nt)

[Eurobabe]

130. Wow, imagine "we'll deliver Ohio to you Wally O'Dell" that.

:sarcasm:

[lonestarnot]

132. And we are doing what about it?