being told to take Diebold voting machines home after going to their training sessions; these machines sat in garages/homes for up to 2 weeks. This was permitted by San Diego Registrar of Voters, in violation of federal election law.
The concern is that these machines can easily be tampered with; it only takes a minute or two (as others have recently shown) and Brad claimed that tampering with just one machine could affect all the results (not just the results from that machine; if someone knows whether this is true, please chime in).
The 50th House district is in San Diego country (the Busby/Bilbray race for Cunningham's old seat) which is why people have paid so much attention to this (although given the ease of tampering with the machines, we should all be concerned about this violation of the law).
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I don't know if touchscreen machines were only used for handicapped voters in the 50th district (or all of San Diego county); the first letter below mentions the machines he took home were only for handicapped voters. Obviously, handicapped voters need to have the same protection of their votes as anyone else so in principal, whether or not touchscreen machines were used only for handicapped voters is irrelevant. But if they were only used for handicapped voters, the number of votes which could have been tampered with is quite small.
Optiscan ballots were used at many San Diego precincts - it's not clear whether the readers of these ballots were sent home with pollworkers or not.
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This is a letter posted at
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=2932I was an assistant precinct inspector in charge of equipment during this eleciton (I'm in the 50th). I had my two Diebold machines for seven full days before the election (I was dumbfounded). The chain of custody is abysmal. There is a seal on the machines (which are locked) but I am the one who sets up/breaks down the equipment and breaks the seal at the end of the day. The machines were reserved specifically for disabled voters but could have been used if a voter insisted on using it instead of the scanner. I registered zero votes and assume most if not all of the 1,646 precincts in the county had very little use but don't know for sure. I had no key to unlock the memory card but if I were motivated and had "friends" of like mind it would have been extremely easy.
The November election will use only the touchscreen machines (the scanners will not be used at all). I will encourage voters to look at the paper and make sure their votes are registered properly there but still, what's the guarantee?
I attended a breakfast with Francine and she said if the vote was close she would demand a recount. I'll follow your advice and give her office a call.
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Enjoyed reading the Busby/Bilbray article on BradBlog and the questionable election equipment used, since I was working the election as an Assistant Precinct Inspector - Equipment. This is the person responsible for setting up and tearing down the Diebold Touch Screen Voting Stations. I understand that all but 7 CA counties will be using these systems as their main way of voting in November! I don't trust them, and the team that I trained with a week before the election didn't trust them either.
BTW, since I was trained a WEEK before the election, that means I got my two voting stations, 2 printers and cardboard privacy screen right after my training. All this equipment was sitting in my garage for nearly a week, but it was a rule that you couldn't leave the equipment at the poll site if you set up the night before. My neighbors were quite surprised when I showed them one of the touch screen systems from my garage. My Mom was also very surprised that the registrar of voters allowed us to take election equipment home with us.
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Brian C Baer
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