County prepares to sue Diebold

[Algorem]

Source: Plain Dealer


Lab hired to check voting system
Friday, May 02, 2008
Joe Guillen
Plain Dealer Reporter

Cuyahoga County hired a nationally renowned lab on Thursday to prepare for a possible lawsuit against the maker of the $21 million touch-screen voting system scrapped in December.

The county - currently shopping for voting equipment for the November presidential election - wants to recoup its $7 million investment in the old system, which is only two years old. The rest of the purchase price was supplied by the federal government.

To prove the machines made by Diebold, Inc. were defective, the county has brought in SysTest Labs, of Denver, to study the touch-screen machines and vote-counting computer software.


SysTest is one of four labs accredited by the federal government to test voting systems for certification. The company has worked for a variety of governments and machine makers, including Diebold...


Read more: http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1209717214150610.xml&coll=2

[Demeter]

1. Good For Them!

Make it class-action! Suck Diebold into bankruptcy, lance this boil on our nation's backside.

[formercia]

2. The first case for the new Attorney General

Sue Diebold to recoup federal money spent on fraudulent voting systems.

[peace13]

3. Thank you Cuyahoga County and SOS Brunner!

Ohio thanks you and America thanks you. Now...about those paper ballots for November? Peace, kim

[The Doctor.]

4. About time.

Get Diebold out of elections.

[electropop]

5. No more machines - EVER.

We don't need 'em! They are not only hackable (which is their sole reason for existing), they are more expensive and much slower than transparent, witnessed hand-counting.

[Norrin Radd]

6. woo hoo!

[high density]

7. Prohibiting optical scan because it doesn't notify of "errors?"

Time to overturn that law. The vote is right there on paper. The voter can verify with their eyes that they filled it out properly before the ballot is put into the tabulator. It's up to the voter to follow the directions on the ballot.

[Trillo]

8. Why?

It seems the best or highest use of optical scan would be a fast count followed by a 100% hand count conducted by non-employee citizens or volunteers. With a system such as this, if a optical scan didn't notify of an error, yet it was seen during a hand count, then there could be a disparity.

Seems like a good law to me.

[OnyxCollie]

11. What's wrong with that?

If someone should make a mistake on their ballot, a non-centrally tabulated optical scanner will spit the ballot back out to the voter to correct the mistake. Centrally tabulated optical scanners don't do that.

Of course, I don't know what the possibility is of hacking non-centrally tabulated optical scanners over centrally tabulated optical scanners.

[high density]

12. I think people should check for mistakes on their own

We need to assume our voters have some idea of what they are doing. If they try to cast a vote for two different presidential candidates, that's their fault. I don't think we need a machine to be a vote nanny and ask everybody "Are you sure that's how you want to vote?"

What is an error on a ballot, anyway? Mine usually gets cast with a few blanks, because I do not often cast votes for people I know nothing about.

[sasquatch]

9. Sue their tits off

[Winterblues]

10. The company testing the machines used to work for Diebold

and the Government. I am too cynical any more to trust these folks with the truth..Would it be too much to ask for complete independence in the company doing the testing. To me there is a hint of "Conflict of Interest"

[formercia]

13. On the positive side...

Having worked for Diebold, they may know where the bodies are buried, so to speak.

[eppur_se_muova]

15. "one of four labs accredited by the federal government" ... Hmmmmmm ...

considering HAVA was a complete set-up from the beginning, is there any realistic chance that the companies accredited weren't exactly those who would play by Rethug rules? I'm pessimistic.

[Kaleko]

14. K & R