If you think that was a clean election, just

[garybeck]

just spend a few minutes in the EIRS database. here are just a few samples, these happen to be from Maryland, but there are LOTS more

"two problems at polling place: (1) polling place has 15 machines, but only 4 are working; (2) people had to vote multiple times ("5 times") because "the cards weren't working". Caller mentioned that this is a predominantly African-American neighborhood.

"For one voter, his confirmation page did not reflect his actual choices. He noticed this and changed it, but there may be other machines that this is happening on.

"1. Poll opened late 2. She was first in line - gave voter registration call - was asked whether she is democrat or republican - 3. Poll worker takes card and puts in scanner around neck and pushes in numbers - puts in machine kicks it out - doesn't work - puts back in scanner - card deleted next people - not asked party, didn't put card in scanner - took 40 minutes to vote 4. They required cell phone to be off - will mess up machines -

"She was 21st in line at the 7 a.m. opening. Everyone was given their electronic cards. When tried to vote, all machines went down but card was already processed. Required people to fill out paper (provisional) ballots. Then 3 machines became available. She was told to go vote on the machine but they had already taken back the cards. She was sent back and forth between the "machine" judges and the "cards" judges. Finally she just voted by provisional ballot

"Parkside Clubhouse North at 10522 Montrose Ave, Machine TS7 is not working properly. The voter brought the problem to the attention of election judge Ben Houghton, who called technical support but acted slowly and would not guarentee that the machine would be taken out of service. First Screen - First time she pushed the square to vote for Frost, she checked the screen and saw his opponent's name. She called the judge over and cleared it out, and a seond time, it did the same thing in his presence. When she tried a third time, she thinks it worked, but she couldn't verify it because the bottom part of the screen was cut off. Concerned enough that she went to Judge Van Houghton and she made an official complaint of voter fraud. She has a signed document from the election officials, signed and witnessed, saying that he saw it happen. She went back to see whether the machine had been taken away. After speaking to MoveOn.org's hotline Felt intimidated when she had the MoveO

"Machine twice showed he had picked the candidate above the one he picked. Democratic changed to republican. Had to clear votes, try again. After second try was able to vote correct.

"Machine #2 at this precinct records wrong candidate at summary page. Had to correct each candidate 3-4 times for it register correctly on summary screen. Concerned that others may not be checking summary screen and may inadvertently vote for wrong candidate.

" Voter tried to vote a democratic candidate and it incorrectly registered as Republican for three times in a row. She succeeded the fourth time. Also, the caller said that after providing her identification, the judge claimed not to have the caller's name in her pollbook. The caller produced her specimen ballot and the judge found her name.

"Machine flipped voter preferences for State initiatives 1 and 2. Voter noticed the error on the paper printout (which he could "barely make out") and notified a poll worker. She stated that this problem had occured "4 or 5 times" on two or more machines. He was on machine #7. He was given a provisional paper ballot on which to vote. He said that someone else used the machine right afterward. Poll workers are not pulling machines with known errors.

"Caller said that the poll worker said that they need a chip to download the information and none of the machines have the chip.

"machines broken, poll worker refused to give provisional ballots b/c "takes too long to count" and turned away 35 people, said to come back later.

Huge stack of more incidents like these:
http://eirs.cs.net:8080/EIRS_WEB/Reporting/displayUSReport.do

[rumpel]

1. gary please look at my thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x457283


I think all states all counties have to take screenshots, and download data now and continue until certification.
It is massive work - but we have to keep at it if we want to get rid of these machines.

[althecat]

2. Agreed Garry... you still wanna talk.... I PMed my YIM

[slackmaster]

3. Ohio seems to stand out as having more than its share of problems

The rest of the numbers look low to me, and not surprising.

I'd be much more interested in seeing well-documented problems than just anecdotes.

[EFerrari]

4. I just did. Vote fllipping in San Joaquin Co, long lines and sample ballots

in Santa Clara Co., absentee ballots gone "missing" in Contra Costa Co., races left off the Oakland ballot in Alameda Co. -- and I expect to hear more about that one.

We were lucky.

[Kurovski]

5. K&R.

It never ends.

[BlueEyedSon]

6. So youre saying the Dems didn't really win????

DOH!

[Kip Humphrey]

13. More like they won by more than we know (or will EVER know!)

[Stevepol]

18. Exactly. I just heard Andy Kohut on the News Hour, lauding the Exit Polls.

He thx it was hunky dory that they sequestered themselves and were able to adjust for the usual over-representation of Dems in the exit polls.

?????

He went on to say that the race was really very close, much closer than the early exit polls indicated (before the re-calibration started evidently). Only about 52% to 47% he said. Which is absolute baloney.

?????

In other words, the exit polls reflected probably about a 15-point sp4read (maybe 10 points in VA) but the races as reported by the machine counting were neck-and-neck.

So when the Natl Review comes up with a 15-point exit poll diff between the two parties and then the machines tell me it's neck-and-neck, I'm supposed to believe the machines?

Get real! These machines are made to steal elections and if this had been a normal election, Dems wouldn't have even smelled victory. Thank God the rage was so great against the criminals in office that the Dems prevailed.

We have to keep working and praying that this voting machine curse can be exorcised from this country.

[liberalla]

19. That IS a crock!

"...they sequestered themselves and were able to adjust for the usual over-representation of Dems in the exit polls."

And they talk about this on teevee???

Not only PAPER BALLOTS and election protection is necessary,

We need to do something about the MEDIA! For a start, bring back the Fairness Doctrine!

[IndyOp]

7. Indy: Vote cards for 66 precincts lost; Opscans dependent on DREs

The Marion County (Indianapolis) Clerk is saying that the machine problems earlier today were due to the pollworkers not understanding how to start the ES&S iVotronics (touch screen voting machines purchased so that the disabled could vote privately and independently) -- and that the iVotronic DREs affect the ballot scanner...

"She describes the machines as complicated and said workers had trouble turning them on. Those machines also affect the ballot scanner, so many ballots were not immediately counted. Problems affected about 220 of the 525 polling locations around Marion County and technicians were sent to those affected locations."

http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=5644563&nav=menu35_1


It does not make sense to me that the DREs system should affect the optical scanner, so I contacted a technical advisor for VoteTrustUSA and he replied:

No, it makes no sense at all.

The opscan/iVotronic arrangement is a "blended" system. Essentially it is 2 voting systems running in parallel. One system is the optical scanner (M100, M115, M350, M550, M650, Optech Eagle, AccuVote OS, whatever). The other is the accessibility add-on (iVotronic, Sequoia Edge, Diebold TSx, Automark, whatever). The 2 systems though are uncoupled. One does not affect the other....

The ballot definition though on both the scanner and the iVotronic could be defective as both are created by the centalized (County) server runing the UNITY ballot setup application.

My speculation on LIMIT info is the defect is in the UNITY software which "setup" both the iVotronic and the M100 scanners. I think the program likely at fault is the Hardware Program Manager. The other option is ES&S did the botched setup back in Nebraska as not every county spend the $60K to buy the Hardware Program Manager portion of the UNITY suite.


=======================================================

Parties tussle over uncounted votes
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061108/LOCAL19/611080549
By Tim Evans
[e-mail]

Marion County Democratic Chairman Ed Treacy, called problems tallying votes from the election a situation "bordering on malfeasance."

Treacy said that hundreds or thousands of votes remain uncounted and in some cases precinct results are still unaccounted for.

Treacy said the uncounted votes could play a role in four close races: Indiana House District 97, the Lawrence Township assessor, the Wayne Township small claims court judge and Warren Township.

Marion County Clerk Doris Ann Sadler said Treacy was overstating the problems which are common in every election. The difference this year she said is that votes still outstanding could impact the four close races.

Sadler said vote tally cards from 66 precints remain out or have been misplaced with other election material. Election workers are searching for those documents this morning. She said the initial emphasis is on the 27 precincts that are involved in the four tight races.

Sadler said that voting machines that had to be disabled at about 500 precincts also must be returned to election headquarters to confirm the votes cast on those machines before they were shut down. She said the total votes involved is likely less than 500.

"Most of what you are seeing today is standard operation procedure but nobody pays attention unless there are close races"

[IndyOp]

8. Indy County Votes Still Being Counted As Data Cards Missing

Marion County Votes Still Being Counted As Data Cards Missing
Nov 8, 2006 03:48 PM

By Rick Dawson
News 8 @ 5:00

There are still votes to be counted in Marion County because of some Election Day problems.

The issue is 66 missing data cards that record the votes on the voting machines. The cards were supposed to be turned in Tuesday night, but were not returned to the drop off spots to be counted. Election workers are still searching for the cards and the votes on them are uncounted.

Keeping track of the cards is the job of precinct inspectors.

"We have 914 of them, the vast majority of them are going to get it just right and we have a few that don't quite get it right at the end of the night and that's what we have to live with," said Marion County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler.

There was also trouble setting up the new touch-screen machines used by disabled voters. And because of a programming error in all of them, those votes have yet to be counted. The machines were set to Pennsylvania's voting times, where the polls did not close until 8:00 p.m.

"Because those are separate machines, what I would liken it to is, first of all the average age of our inspectors and poll workers is over 70 years of age. It is like asking your grandpa to hook up a new VCR," Marion County Democratic Chair Ed Treacy.

<snip>

The misplaced cards eventually turn up, but officials are having to look for more of them this year than ever before. The cards hold up to about 12 percent of the vote.

There are four close races of concern: Indiana House District 97 with Ed Mahern and Jon Elrod, Lawrence assesor, the Warren trustee and the Wayne trustee.

[mikeybabe125]

9. EXACTLY! We can't forget about this...

Even though we won both houses... the senate was because of sheer numbers that got us through... and not by much. We should of been much wider margins in a 100% clean election. We still have to keep on these voting machines and diebold.

[w4rma]

10. Paper *ballots*, please. (nt)

[GETPLANING]

11. THAT MAY BE EXACTLY HOW THEY HACK THE MACHINES

"Cell phones must be off- they mess up machines". When I saw that a klaxon went off in my head.
I live in Spain half the time, and one of the fun little aspects of that country is that Spain has more bars that the rest of Europe combined. And all these bars have coin operated slot machines in them, a mini gambling industry. A few years ago, a ring of very enterprising Chinese criminals were arrested for figuring out a way to get the slot machines to PAY OFF by rigging their CELL PHONES to transmit a signal to the machine. They would come into a bar, have a Coke, play a few coins, and then one of them would make a phone call on his mobile, and KACHING, the slot machine would discharge all it's money! What got them caught was one time, when they made their "call", ALL the slot machines in the bar discharged their coins at the same instant! Cell phones do radiate a lot of signals, just hold one up to a TV or a stereo speaker. So not having them near a voting machine is probably a good idea, but it may also be an avenue of attack for hackers.
Just a thought.

[Daneel]

12. Good posting, we must be very cautious now that the DEMS have wun

that we don't look without criticism at the past election. I was sure the republicans would steal 2006 too, and I'm very surprised that didn't happen. Or did it?

[In Truth We Trust]

14. I support a Constitutional Amendment requiring Hand Counted Paper Ballots. Nothing more nothing less

[adamuu]

15. it should probably specify this in the Constitution, shouldn't it? n/t

[GliderGuider]

16. for purposes of research

I'd like to suggest Elections Canada.
http://www.elections.ca/

This is a publicly funded agency of the federal government. (The provinces have similar agencies.) It answers to Parliament but not to the Prime Minister or any party. No one makes money off of an election up here. Privatized elections are at the root of your problems.

On the Elections Canada website you'll find all sorts of information. One thing I like, for example, is that EC keeps the list of voters. Nowhere will you find party affiliation on the list. And it's a felony to share the information.
(http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?section=ins&document=national&dir=nre&lang=e&textonly=false)

The people who work at EC, both permanently and temporarily at election time, are absolutely scrupulous about their non-partisanship. The do not abide even the whiff of an irregularity. For an example, they audited the riding of Trinity-Spadina (a riding in Toronto) after the January 2006 election because the turnout was unusually high. One reason was because the NDP candidate, Olivia Chow, (who won -- Yay!) was of Chinese descent and had connections in the large Chinese community. They pulled the vote. And that raised red flags at EC.

There is never a question about whether we should abandon paper ballots. Canadians have unshakable faith in our electoral system. Here's a good overview. http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?section=ceo&document=index&dir=msg&lang=e&textonly=false

Best of luck.

And here's my vote for the "Stephenson Act".

[adamuu]

17. wow thats quite a database

everyone should poke around in there

some things i found
reports of policemen standing outside polling place.
i've never heard of that

1601 Other Inquiry Problem New York New York No Voter noted that a policeman was sitting outside the polling place. After inquiry, the voter indicated that there was no problem or activity, but just wanted to know if policemen could be near polling places.

4041 Voter Intimidation Problem New Haven Connecticut Chase School No Police Officer was parked next to parking lot entrance. As cars pulled in, she was stopping them and in some cases, she asked voters to roll up the window and gave parking instructions. He said that this was unusual. She was standing in front of the parking lot entrance and stopping cars. Second incident at Tinker School, Waterbury Ct. (corner of Congress and High Winds Avenue): Waterbury cop was standing in front of the entrance of the school and standing there with hands behin his back. He appeared initimidating. He has them both on type.


Much more common are cases where poll workers refused to start using paper ballots, usually because they mean more work.


3883 Polling Place Problem Saint Louis Missouri Parkview Apartment Towers Yes Voter waited 2 hours in line despite 4 poll workers who would not open paper voting booths. People leaving line - every half hour at least 20 left line. People in line telling those approaching walked away after being told that the wait would be 2 hours. Person in front of voter left because of timing. In line from 2pm to 4pm.

2879 Polling Place Problem Shelby Tennessee Yes Only two machines working at Mitchell Community Center on Mitchell Road, Memphis. Five machines down. 100 people turned away; not being offered paper ballots. Same problem at Ford Road Elementary School (Ford and Mitchell)

3239 Polling Place Problem Lynchburg Virginia No 7 paper ballot stations and 1 electronic--people being told they have to wait in line for electronic because they don't have enough paper ballots


And, these are ...um... intersting:

4390 Polling Place Problem Marion Indiana Indian Fairgrounds Yes Paper ballot that goes through machine. The machine was broken and rather than give out paper ballots, the poll workers told the voters to fill out a slip for the machine and then put in an unsecure box; the voter was told the ballots would be put through the machine later

2455 Polling Place Problem Marion Indiana Mayfield Green Cooperative Yes Polling place has two types of polling machines, both of which were not working. Voter was instructed to use paper ballot and leave completed ballot in an unsecure box under the machine. Voter is concerned that her and other ballots can be removed.

2073 Polling Place Problem Elkhart Indiana baugo Yes scanner was down - being asked to put the paper ballots into a cardboard box that is not being carefully monitored -

1370 Polling Place Problem Marion Indiana Pickwick Place Yes After she gave her id and signed in she was told the voting machines do not work and was given a paper ballot, which was deposited in an open card board box. Concerned about open box and also not told of problem until she signed the register.



Theres a small bug on the site.... if two states have a similarly-named county, the site gets confused.

[Kurovski]

20. Kick.nt