This is just about the stupidest thing I've ever heard of:

[AndrewClarke]

In two counties in Washington, they used touch-screen machines with no paper trail for them to look at in the hand recount. So they are having the machines print out tens of thousands of "ballots" which they will then count by hand.

http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/washingtonstate/index.ssf?/base/news-10/110219154972620.xml&storylist=orwashington

No reference in the article to the pointlessness of this.

[wryter2000]

1. Oh, ye gods

Welcome to DU, Andrew. :hi:

[Warpy]

22. I echo the welcome

and just when you think election boards can't possibly be any more stupid or corrupt, they keep on working at it.

[tanyev]

2. Well I hope the hand recount

matches the official count in those two counties. :eyes:

[Igel]

23. Betcha it doesn't.

Ever count lots of money (or anything else)? And then recount it .. and get the same number you got the first time?

[aquart]

3. I think this would make my list, too.

Jesus H. Christ. If I were in WA, this would have me shrieking in a rubber room.

[LisaL]

4. What idiots! Why don't the freaking machines print the paper ballots

as people vote, so people can actually verify who they voted for.
Obviously, the machines are capable of doing that, since they will do it now.

[Straight Shooter]

5. Won't the machines simply regurgitate the info that's been recorded?

IOW, if I push John Kerry for president, and yet the machine because of a bug (:eyes:) records a vote for bush, then the ballot it prints will show a bush vote.

Am I missing something here?

And why is Rossi so hysterical over this? He should sit back and enjoy the show, if he's so effin' confident of his "win," instead of calling people desperate. I smell a wee bit of desperation emanating from his armpits, too.

[bahrbearian]

7. "If I had 2 certified counts , I wouldn't call for a recount"

Liar! He's worried big time! It makes sense to recount the touch screen machines, it should have been done before they bought em!

[AndrewClarke]

8. Rossi is hysterical because there are 37 other counties

. . . where they can do real recounts.

[JoMama49]

13. no ss, you're not missing somthing ....

I thought the same thing about the Ohio machines. If the fix was already in the software, and votes for Kerry recorded as votes for Bush, then the printouts will be the same. I'm sure the repukes thought of this when they fixed the election, anticipating that there may be recounts. No paper trail makes them recount proof, or so they think anyway. We have to find the code in the software that was programmed to change votes from one candidate to the other. Whether we can do this, I don't know. Hopefully it won't matter in WA with only 2 paperless counties, but I'm worried about Ohio and the other swing states.
JoMama.

[AndrewClarke]

14. They didn't use this type of machine in Ohio

They have a real paper trail there.

[noiretextatique]

6. this is stupid...if they can print "ballots"...then

why can't they print receipts with discrete numbers assigned to them? i'm an accountant, and this makes no sense, from an audit perspective. the only possible explanation for not having a verifiable audit trail is blatantly obvious.

[BlueDog2u]

9. Please Vote

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=99094&mesg_id=99094

Thanks.

[JohnGideon]

12. No One Except People Like VoteHere...

wants a receipt with discreet numbers on it. What would that prove? You can make a phone call or go on the internet and use those numbers to ensure your vote was counted? You can do the same and ensure your vote was counted the way you cast it?

That's what VoteHere and other people who espouse voter verification software want you to believe. It is only another level of non-transparency layered on other layers of non-transparency.

The top computer scientists and computer security experts say the same thing. No voter verification software in place of a paper ballot. If they want to spend the money, install the software but never allow it to replace the paper ballot that the voter verifies and that goes into the ballot box.

Give us a paper ballot directly from the machines, that goes into a ballot box and is counted as the official ballot. In other words, no DREs. Touch screens that print ballots, or, ballot generating devices.

Count the paper everytime.

[noiretextatique]

15. ok...a paper ballot, with a discrete number

and a receipt. i am not a computer scientist, but i know that it doesn't make much sense to print a piece of paper that doesn't have a number on it that can be cross-referenced to the software. and i don't think a system where voters can verify there receipts is a bad idea...in addition to paper ballots.

[txindy]

10. Is this a roundabout way of getting access to the coding in the machines?

If it is, it's a brilliant maneuver. So far, no state has had any of its paperless-machines impounded and studied for coding or hacking problems. This may be a way to begin that process.

If not, then I don't know what the point of this 'recount' will be.

[AndrewClarke]

16. The point is

. . . that they are required to do a hand recount, and there is no way to do that with these machines. So they do this stupid ballot-printing nonsense that serves no purpose at all.

[txindy]

18. Unless that is the purpose

To point out that a hand recount is not possible with these machines. A court challenge as to the legality of using machines that do not produce a paper trail may then ensue. Or, as I suggested before, they may subsequently gain access to the machine and analyze the code to verify that the votes were tallied properly within that machine. If they challenge the machine's produced total, they get access to the machine. That hasn't been achieved before because there was no legal basis for it. This may be the case we need to get to the code.

[geo]

11. that's not a recount, that is a re-print. :)

:) -G

[understandinglife]

17. Perhaps .....

....this would be a most interesting little exercise if the machines in Snohomish and Yakima are also examined by independent, skilled systems and software experts and the access logs and code are checked (including disk/memory scans to search for 'erased' code).

Anyone reading this thread with the connections to the Gregoire campaign might want to contact them about this essential aspect of the 'recount.'

And, some of you may know that among the FOIA requests filed by BBV, one was specifically targeted at Snohomish county.

You betcha the republicans are screaming 'nuclear bomb' because what's going to be radioactive are the findings that emit from both the manual count and the examination not just of the ballots that the touch screen machines 'print' but of the code, logs on those devices (and, if those devices are still capable of printing ballots, no matter how many times someone hit the 'delete,' with proper tools one can very likely recover the binary that was running during the voting process).

Peace.

"Did Bush Know?"

[txindy]

19. That's what I was saying in my own post just as you posted this.

This may be the case that gets us access to the machines, themselves. We can get to the code and the logs then. It's what we need. It's also why the GOP is trying to stop it from happening.

[understandinglife]

20. Roger that!! Must have been typing my....

...comments same time you were posting yours. We must all laser focus on doing everything we can to ensure that the DNC/Gregoire force skilled examination of everyone of those vote devices.

And, as you will see if you do searches here or at dKos, I've been rather persistent ;-) on this particular WA state opportunity -- I think when all of this is exposed during the next two weeks that someone made a bit of a miscalculation of how many votes to shave from Kerry coupled tightly with a miscalculation of what the margin, going into 2 Nov., was between Rossi and Gregoire. They'd have been much better off shaving fewer votes from Kerry in their "boost the 'mandate' scam" and not also messed with the Rossi/Gregoire race -- greed kills.

It's going to be interesting to look at other 'close' Senate/HR/Gov/State Congressional races in Pres/VP 'red shift' States, as the scam unwinds.

Peace.

"Did Bush Know?"

[henslee]

21. Why not just make a touch screen machine, Governor? Gov. Touchscreen.