Unbelievable (BBV - North Carolina)

[HFishbine]

Carteret 'loses' 4,530 votes

By Beth Blake

NEWS-TIMES

BEAUFORT – Forget the old adage. Every vote doesn’t count in Carteret County .

After candidates and voters awaited Tuesday’s election results for more than five hours after polls closed, the County Board of Elections announced a major computer problem that wiped out 4,530 of the 7,537 early votes cast at the elections office, an error admitted by the system’s manufacturer.

While the company told the county the unit used for early voting could store up to 10,500 votes, it could only handle 3,005. But there were 7,537 early votes cast Oct. 14-30.

<snip>

“We are informed by the manufacturer’s technical people that because of an error on their part that the county was told that the unit would accumulate and store up to 10,500 votes.”

That was well within the number of votes cast in early voting.

“The Unilect technical people now admit that they were in error, and that the accumulation and storing capacity is only 3,005 total votes, and that the additional votes of 4,530 are lost,” Mr. Pond said.

What about alarms or warnings?

“They (Unilect staff) advise that there was no alerting alarm to indicate that the capacity limit was being approached or exceeded and that there is no secondary storage location,” Mr. Pond said.

more: http://www.carteretnewstimes.com/headln1.htm

[Lorien]

1. Good Lord-HOW MANY WERE OUT THERE??

what a freaking disaster. :-(

[KittyWampus]

2. Enough To Give Junior A Bogus "Popular Vote"

[whistle]

3. All of these vote counting discrepancies need to be thoroughly...

...investigated. There have been way too many problems.

[RedEagle]

14. You want to help investigate, go to www.blackboxvoting.org

They need volunteers and donations.

I've seen some FOIA laws from states and the requests can cost money. Mulitply that by 50, maybe several times for several things, and it takes some cash to do.

Help if you can.

[sonias]

4. Damn it!

This is precisely why we need verifiable paper ballots. Those printed ballots stored in a lock box could have be recounted. But no these a-hole BBV manufactures have sold the public a tainted bill of goods. I say fire all the bastards, plus sue them as well.

And who the hell is Unilect Corp of Duplin, Calif., the company that makes the Patriot Voting System? I have never heard of this company. It's even more 3rd rate than Diebold and ES&S.

:mad:

Sonia

[3trievers]

5. hmmm

Just a guess but was it a minority county?

[HFishbine]

16. I'm not really sure

It's a costal vacation destination during the summer. I'm not sure of the demographics of those who live there year-round.

[Meritaten1]

6. Inexcusable

It is standard procedure to "back up" database records.

[napi21]

7. Was this only in the NC paper?

I don't recognize the name Unilect, and I have no idea how many machines they had there and across the country. This information certainly needs to me made NATIONAL news, and it's something that needs to be checked on ALL evoting machines.

[Robeson]

8. This is exactly why there should have been no concession...

...speech. We needed time to build a case.

[napi21]

9. It wouldn't matter in this case. There is NO record!

What kind of case are you going to prove? There's no way to go back now. The only thing we can do now is keep fighting for a fix NOW! Most people will forget about this and only get all excited in 2008, and again the story is there's not enough time to do anything.

We need to keep pushing this issue starting NOW and not let up until the paper backup is in place!!!!!

[Robeson]

11. The point is, is that we needed to have had a scorched earth...

...policy. You saw the press conference from Bush today. He spoke to us as if he had a mandate from heaven. And I don't doubt, he thinks he does. Could we really win a challenge? Probably not. Could we have tarnished the validity of this Presidency for a second term? Possibly so. And thats the key point. And if that could have thrown a roadblock in front of him for his claim to being Gods Vicar on Earth, then it would have been a worthy endeavor. You may disagree, but I contend, we are at war with the Republican Party.

[napi21]

13. I agree with you on fighting to tarnish Shrub.

I suspect you have read all the other posts about the problems with the evoting machines, and I think that challenge is the way to go with this effort.

I just don't think it would have been a wise move to have Kerry not concede the election when we had no immediate proof of anything.

[requiem99]

15. We are at war, and we have facts and evidence on our side. See here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2602177&mesg_id=2602177&page=

[tridim]

10. Are these electronic touch screens?

If so, why would a computerized voting machine only store 10,500 (or 3,005) votes? You could store that many votes in about 16KB.

[Eric J in MN]

12. yeah, it's bizzarre. Computers can count into the trillions. (nt)

nt