Hugh Hewitt: Pennsylvania Meltdown

www.HughHewitt.com ^ | 11/07/06 | Hugh Hewitt

[The Blitherer]

From a connected Keystoner:

We all prepared for this year’s elections to be heated, particularly in PA with so many contested races. But even with teams of lawyers on the ground, I don’t think anyone anticipated what is going on right now. I expect this will be THE national story by 5pm today if not sooner.

37 counties in Pennsylvania use the ESS & Ivotronic.

These machines are experiencing massive failures.

If you vote for one candidate, the opposing candidate lights up.

Rendell votes are counting for Swann. Santorum votes are counting for Casey and so on

County Boards of Elections or the PA Dept of State are refusing to take action.

They don’t see the disaster that is coming.

Hundreds if not thousands of voters are alerting the authorities of these problems.

This may warrant a revote in these 37 counties.

[Tribune7]

I just voted. Everything went well.

[Fudd]

This was NJ and I was very sorry to see the old mechanical ,achines replaced. It is my understanding they were the most accurate system possible. I think it was absolute insanity to switch to electronic voting.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the mechanical machines were a nightmare. Aside from the wear and tear of moving parts, a knowledgable person could tamper with the machine to not record certain votes, and the tampering could easily escape detection. Think about it - who else uses mechanical computers today?

With the right electronic system, tampering becomes problematic. In Ohio, a legible printed ballot is created with the electronic record, providing redundancy. Tampering with the vote without detection is much much more difficult.

There are still ways a group could disrupt a vote to change its outcome, but I will not discuss them in a public forum.

[floozy22]

I voted about 4 pm today in eastern Berks county. The little old ladies were in the back of the machine, "making sure that everything worked properly," they said. Hope they weren't up to no good.

[estrogen]

You can check that ballot, and then drop it in the ballot box. The paper ballots are counted and checked against the computer count. They better match. Redundant and a paper trail

This is the most sensible post I've seen all day.

[darth]

I have seen massive fraud in elections using paper ballots too. How about cards pre-punched for Gore in 2000 before they were handed to voters? (Saw that personally). How about a plastic template pushed into a punch card machine that prevented the chad from being punched unless it was for a democrat (note that the cards then had HANGING CHADS AND PREGNANT CHADS!) That one happened here in Houston in 2000. How about a democrat voting official in Florida with a fingernail sharpened into a punch who had punched out HUNDREDS OF BALLOTS FOR GORE IN 2000 BEFORE THE REPUBLICANS COULD GET A JUDGE TO STOP HER?!!!!

[maryz]

Whatever happened to simple paper ballots and marking the candidate you want with an "X"?

Like they used in Tip O'Neill's first election way back when? When the counters (who wanted Tip) kept pieces of graphite under their fingernails to "correct" what ballots they could?

[cgk]

We just voted over here in Montgomery Co. Everything went smoothly, even with high turn-out (more than we ever saw in San Diego, CA).

Didn't see any strange occurrences when I voted, either, though I was expecting a touch-screen or similar and it was some kind of electronic push button thing.

[arthurus]

Electronic voting is a recipe for handing elections over to the judges. People will never be convinced that they are not fraudulent. People have too much experience with viruses and hacking is constantly in the news. Few will ever entirely trust computers for voting. Computer voting is a major blow to the concept of popular voting in the United States. It is the one subject my UF prof friend and I agree on.