California delays certification of some electronic voting machines

AP via CNN ^ | 11/4/03

[Political Junkie Too]

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- New touchscreen voting machines failed to win the approval of a state advisory panel, throwing into question multimillion dollar contracts between the company that built them and at least three counties with plans to use them as early as next year.

Instead of certifying the Diebold AccuVote-TSX system as expected, the advisory panel to the secretary of state said Monday it would investigate uncertified software and hardware that may have been used in a recent election.

Assistant secretary of state Marc Carrel said the panel had discovered disconcerting information about the equipment, according to several people who attended a Monday meeting in Sacramento.

The state would not consider certification of the TSX until it completed the investigation, Carrel said to attendees, including voter rights advocates, computer scientists and representatives from Diebold and other voting equipment vendors.

[Political Junkie Too]

But... but... but...

I thought these were the saviors. These machines were supposed to save us from the disenfranchisement of the evil racist punch card machines. The ACLU even went to court to stop an in-progress election for these machines.

Say it ain't so! Don't tell me these machines are flawed!!

-PJ

[CounterCounterCulture]

And the winner is...DAISY!!!

[upchuck]

These machines are gonna be nothing but trouble.

CORRECTION: I'm sorry... These machines ARE nothing but trouble.

Oh, and FWIW, Thank you for posting an unnecessarily excerpted article.

[Irene Adler]

I cannot imagine why these people don't go to Scantron-type voting systems. They work great. They are easy as pie for the voter to use; they get scanned by machine with a very high degree of accuracy, and they leave a tidy, and easily readable, paper trail. We have used 'em for years where I vote. Honestly I wonder if they are TOO good for some democrats (too hard to corrupt).

[Political Junkie Too]

Oh, and FWIW, Thank you for posting an unnecessarily excerpted article.

You're welcome. I decided that just because something is unecessary, doesn't mean I don't have to do it. I saw the copywrite notice at the bottom of the article, and decided to not take the chance.

-PJ

[ysoitanly]

You are so right! I do NOT understand why ANYONE would allow a voting machine to have no paper trail, unless their express intent was fraud. There's absolutely no other reason not to have an audit trail. None. And I have wondered this for a long time.

[Political Junkie Too]

Another Freeper once posted that the touch machines should print a marked ballot that the voter then reviews and takes to a scanner. He then clips the receipt off the printed ballot. This way, the touch machine eliminates voter error (as much as is possible) but doesn't actually record the vote.

-PJ

[ysoitanly]

Interesting! I agree that we need some kind of back-up to track what vote was actually cast. To trust it to just a machine with no audit trail is absolutely unacceptable.

[Reeses]

I can imagine some Democrat going ballistic on these machines on Bush’s re-election night, smashing them to the floor. You don’t put the counting goods out on the betting floor, ever.

[Amerigomag]

Reason #1111318 to vote absentee.

There is a verifiable paper record of your vote.

[Political Junkie Too]

Don't you find it odd that the state wants to spend billions to "modernize" voting booth technology, and then they simultaneously encourage more absentee voting from home?

-PJ

[Swordmaker]

It's not MY vote I am worried about.. it is all those Democrat votes... the real and the fraudulent.

[Amerigomag]

Don't you find it odd that the state wants to spend billions to "modernize" voting booth technology,

Been all over the world, across cultures and races and political philosophies. There is one constant. The paper ballot.

The paper ballot, not because it's easy to count, but because it represnts a promise that my vote counted because it can be recounted.

[spokeshave]

So how do you do a recount with the electronic systesms..?..reconstitute the electrons.../sarcasm