Broward considers dumping $17 million in touch voting machines

Sun-Sentinel ^ | 09/24/03 | Scott Wyman

[bedolido]

Less than two years after spending $17 million to replace Broward County's election system, county commissioners expressed growing apprehension Tuesday about electronic voting and decided to rethink what they had done.

Commissioners ordered their staff to explore retrofitting the new touch-screen voting machines to print copies of each ballot or ditching the machinery in favor of paper ballots read by optical scanners. They want the study completed in the next couple of months so they can make any changes before next year's presidential elections. The ATM-style touch screens replaced the punch-card ballots that were banned in Florida after the 2000 presidential election recount. But critics complain electronic voting could be prone to tampering and also is impossible to recount during a disputed election.

"There is no confidence in the equipment and no confidence that it will work properly," Commissioner John Rodstrom said. "We were rushed into making a decision, and now we need to figure out a better way because there is no way to go back and recount. We need to have integrity in our voting system."

[zeugma]

This is excellent news. Balloting without physical audit trails is extremely dangerous to liberty.

[savedbygrace]

How much does a touch screen PC cost?

How much do you want it to cost?

;-)

[SwinneySwitch]

can you say "morons"?

Sure, "demonrats".

[Cobra64]

Balloting without physical audit trails is extremely dangerous to liberty.

So you do not believe in electronic audit trails? Better notify IBM...

[RonF]

A butterfly ballot is wafer thin. Just bending them causes the chads to fall out.

I've voted with punch-card ballots in Illinois for years. This isn't true, at least not with the ones we use. And after 2000, in our 2002 elections (primary and general), I closely inspected my ballot and found no problems at all with dimpled but not punched holes, hanging chads, chads falling out in unpunched holes if you bend the card, or anything else.

[_Jim]

And if there's more than one ballot under the booklet?
How many democrats does it take to vote 6 times?

I dodn't realize you were talking in a fraudalent way ... still, your description looked incorrect; we've used that style 'machine' for years in out here and I never had a problem. Recently we've started using the Diebold 'touchscreen' machines - I think they're the pits ... distracting reflections off the screens make them hard to read for starters ...

[ijcr]

How do you counter an activist armed with an eraser and a 2b pencil?

If any ATM or gas pump can print a transaction so should the touch screen units.

[RonF]

Sure you can. All you've got to do is stack up a few hundred cards and use a wire to punch out the appropriate column of chads. If you stack up too many, then it gets too hard to do, and you get a "dent" at the end of the stack where your wire stopped.

Run that by me again?

I stack up 10 cards. The wire hits the top card's chad. That's the one that gets the dimple in it. Each chad cushions the one below it, so there's no dimple in any chad below probably card 2 or 3. And, if you press hard enough to dislodge the chads in card 10, or even cause it to bend, the dimpled chad (#1) must have been pushed though card #1 and probably into card #3. There's no dent in the chad at the end of the stack.

[RonF]

And if there's more than one ballot under the booklet?

We use punch card ballots all the time in Illinois. There's no room for more than one punch card under the booklet.

How many democrats does it take to vote 100 times? One. Just walk away and come back for seconds with a second address. Who's watching?

In my precinct, the election judges, both Republican and Democrat. What kind of precinct do you vote in?

[RonF]

Have you ever in your life handled a punch card? Tried to punch a perforated chad out of one? "All you've got to do is stack up a few hundred cards and punch out the appropriate column of chads" indeed. I'm sorry, but that's real stupid.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Actually, I recall an extended interview with an employee of the company that made the Broward voting machines.

When the election fiasco started, they began testing their machines to duplicate the results and discovered that the only way they could get "dimpled" ballots was by putting 10-15 ballots in the machine:  the first few were punched through..the next few were partially punched (Hanging) and the last few were dimpled.

Their final conclusion was that it was statistically impossible to dimple a ballot any other way.....try it with a paperclip and a short stack of paper and you'll see it comes out the same:  you'll poke through the first couple sheets, tear a sheet or two below that, and dimple the sheets after that.

[Diddle E. Squat]

But Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant rallied residents behind electronic voting as more efficient and accurate and persuaded the board to reverse course.

Nine-month inquiry details chaos in Oliphant’s elections office (Broward Co. FL)

Oliphant is forced to surrender reports

Florida Official Criticized Amid Familiar Election Chaos (Oliphant)(2003)

Gov. Bush sets deadline, debates suspending Oliphant from office(2002)

Audit says Oliphant overspent Elections Office budget by $921,263

Oliphant rented house to employee she gave 40% raise

Florida Saga Continues- Broward County "Finds" 104,000 Votes, Oliphant, "Only A Small Problem"

Bush: No late voting hours Governor rejects Oliphant request [Dems looking for ways to cheat](2002)

Election Supervisor Oliphant fires old white lady in wheelchair so Oliphant mom can have her job.

Oliphant relinquishing control of struggling Broward elections office

And that doesn't even get back to articles on her misdeads during the 2000 election.

[Humvee]

FYI, the Broward County Commission is predominantly Democratic. The Elections Supervisor is a Democratic, female of a darker persuasion. She is threatening to sue the County Commission for not giving her all the money she wants. She was almost fired by JEB and is self-serving, corrupt and incompetent. So thank you Dems.

On the other hand, the Palm Beach supervisor, Christine LePore, was, as most everyone will recall, screwed over as the sacrificial lamb by the Dems in 2000. However, she runs an efficient department- and is now a registered independent.

[ItsMyVoteDammit]

Electronic Frontier Foundation has set up an action center for people who would like to send their representative a letter supporting the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 (HR 2239) to require open-source software and voter-verifiable paper audit trails for all new e-voting machines.

http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2754

[The KG9 Kid]

Theresa LePore.

:)

[zeugma]

No. I don't believe in electronic audit trails when it concerns election equipment.

Anyone involved in computer security will tell you that if you give someone physical access to a computer you are toast.

There must be verifiable paper trails in elections.

[dennisw]

If any ATM or gas pump can print a transaction so should the touch screen units..........


But as the article says it adds $1000 to each unit

[longtermmemmory]

Oliphant is in office for one reason only. her race. She personally campaigned for a touch screen system and was adamant against the optical scan. SHE PAID her employees to set up "educational demonstrations" to push for the optical systems. (can u say kickback?)

Now in light of budget overspending and outright incompetence, she is threatening to take the commision (democrats) to court if she does not get the 14 million she demands for her office. (does the county really need to provide cellphones for everyone?)

The commision actually brought in someone else to do her job on the quiet in order to avoid further humiliation.

There have been complaints about the machines not showing all candidates, the letters are too small, one worker had the memory cartriges OVERNIGHT at home because there was no way for him to turn them over to the elections office. (if he had been dishonest it would have been a night mare)

All the longtime workers with knowledge have been discharge in favor of cronies who know nothing or are just lazy good for gubermental jobs only. The local NAACP is on the record as wanting to make sure that the supervisor's post stays a "black" elected seat. (in other words no other races need apply)

Fraud will happen in broward again.

[NautiNurse]

Hey--thanks for posting the Opliphant Summary list. She's still non-stick and bulletproof.

[G.Mason]

"Broward considers dumping $17 million in touch voting machines"

Won't help.

The south east side of the state is "out of touch"!