Posted on 03/17/2005 1:43:08 AM PST by ambrose
State to join ballot probe
Software change not pre-approved
By Troy Anderson and Beth Barrett
Staff Writers
Thursday, March 17, 2005 - The California Secretary of State's Office announced Wednesday that it will investigate why City Clerk Frank Martinez changed the software on the voting system used in Los Angeles' mayoral primary without state approval -- one of several steps he took that slowed the count and raised questions about the integrity of the process.
Martinez said he ordered a change in computer code in the scanner that "reads" InkaVote ballots in order to reduce uncertainty in what was anticipated to be an extremely close race. And on election night, he ordered workers to hand-sort the ballots and re-ink thousands of votes that might be too faint to scan.
But the change was made without getting the required approval of state officials, said Secretary of State's Office spokeswoman Caren Daniels-Meade.
"I'm really surprised to hear this," she said. "We were not alerted to any changes. We did not approve any changes.
"There is a provision in the elections code that says no change or modification to a voting system that has been previously certified can happen without written notification to the Secretary of State. We'll obviously be contacting (election officials) to determine if there indeed was a modification without our knowledge."
Martinez, who has been criticized for not telling the candidates or allowing independent observers to watch the over-writing of ballots, said his office tested the new InkaVote system about a month before the March 8 primary and required a change in computer software telling the system to proceed to the next ballot. He thought the change was so minor it did not need to be approved by the state.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailynews.com ...
"...he ordered workers to hand-sort the ballots and re-ink thousands of votes that might be too faint to scan..."
Frank Martinez for DNC Chairman.
"Martinez, who has been criticized for not telling the candidates or allowing independent observers to watch the over-writing of ballots..."
I think he was just misunderstood, overworked, and underpaid. The mayor should give him a pay hike and more vacation time.
Must be a Democrat because no information about party affiliation is given in the article. And we know how they are about "fair" elections.
He should be fired, sued, go to jail, or all of the above.
But this illustrates why I think it's so important to have a paper trail of the votes. We can go back over the ballots and see how many "too faint to scan" votes were changed to "Algore" votes. Without the paper, we might never know.
This is a completely *TRANSPARENT* attempt by the *RATS* to *STEAL* the election away from Walter Moore.
And they'll get *AWAY* with it too! That's why we need a *RE-VOTE*.
Voter Fraud....
Since it was Hahn's guy that did it, we can be assured that is who ordered it.
bet Hertzberg is pissed...
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