voting

[onoway]

ran across this today and had a hard time believing it...is this for real?

http://nightweed.com/printableusavotefacts.html

[matmat]

#19 is obviously true.

I also believe it is true that international observers were not allowed at US elections.

 

the others, I expect there is some truth behind them, but the sources linked do not seem too reputable (in some cases the links are broken), and, as we all know, anything can be made to sound/look real on the interweb.

[kenberg]

Let's look a little.

 

 

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

 

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee

 

So which is it? He owns it? He used to be chair? Both? Neither? What was the lie? Generally it is pretty hard to keep it a secret if you either own a major company or are the Chairman of a major company. Did he wear a hood at board meetings?

 

And then we find

 

Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

 

Call the Washington Post! Call Bob Woodward!

 

 

I am not prepared to speak at length about Chuck Hagel but it would not seem to me that any special conspiracy theory is needed to explain him being on a short list of veep candidates.

 

 

The airwaves and the internet are overflowing with rightwing crap so I guess it is only fair for the left to get into the act. I'm sorry to see it though.

[jdonn]

kenberg, are you thus claiming the other 17 or so points are true? (I'm not claiming that necessarily myself)

 

Regardless of how many of these points are true, trueish, or false, I have long thought the voting system used in this country needs a major overhaul. It never seems to be brought up as a major issue though, probably since when elections aren't near few people care, and when they are near people are more interested in the elections and candidates themselves.

[kenberg]

kenberg, are you thus claiming the other 17 or so points are true? (I'm not claiming that necessarily myself)

 

Regardless of how many of these points are true, trueish, or false, I have long thought the voting system used in this country needs a major overhaul. It never seems to be brought up as a major issue though, probably since when elections aren't near few people care, and when they are near people are more interested in the elections and candidates themselves.

No, I certainly do not claim/concede that the others are true.

 

My rightwing friends send me stuff and if I have time I sometimes refute some of the more obvious junk, but in general it could be a full time job. People can make up crap far faster and easier than I or anyone can debunk it.

 

Now is there a real problem with voting machines? I wouldn't be surprised. A serious look would be well-advised. Actually I think some places are now insisting that there be a paper trail.

 

As a college student, I grabbed a buck where I could. One short term (one evening actually) job I had was to pick up ballot boxes after the polls closed and deliver them from somewhere to somewhere else. I saw it as one more way to make a buck but in retrospect it seems bizarre. No one knew me at all. I was just a kid with a car. They gave me the boxes, I delivered the boxes and got my dough. As far as I know there was no follow up plan if I and/or the boxes disappeared.

 

Anyway, I don't know which statements in Pam's list are true, which not, and I won't be checking them out. I don't regard it as a serious attempt to address what I agree could be a serious problem. I'm pretty sure Chuck Hagel isn't the problem.

[barmar]

Let's look a little.

 

 

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

 

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee

 

So which is it? He owns it? He used to be chair? Both? Neither? What was the lie? Generally it is pretty hard to keep it a secret if you either own a major company or are the Chairman of a major company. Did he wear a hood at board meetings?

Did you bother reading the news articles that provide the details?

 

He was chairman of ES&S in the mid-90's. He resigned from the board a few days before he announced his candidacy for the Senate. 8 months later he was the surprise winner in the election.

 

In a 2002 news interview he said he sold his share of The McCarthy group, ES&S's parent company, before the election, but it turned out that he still owned $5 millions worth. He also owned shares of AIS Investors, a group of investors that invests in ES&S.

 

So he used to be chairman, their voting machines declared him the winner a few months after he left the company, and and he lied about the fact that he still owned a big chunk of it. This isn't proof that something hinky was going on, but it's enough to make one suspicious.

[luke warm]

Let's look a little.

 

 

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S.  He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

 

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee

 

So which is it? He owns it? He used to be chair? Both? Neither? What was the lie? Generally it is pretty hard to keep it a secret if you either own a major company or are the Chairman of a major company. Did he wear a hood at board meetings?

Did you bother reading the news articles that provide the details?

 

He was chairman of ES&S in the mid-90's. He resigned from the board a few days before he announced his candidacy for the Senate. 8 months later he was the surprise winner in the election.

 

In a 2002 news interview he said he sold his share of The McCarthy group, ES&S's parent company, before the election, but it turned out that he still owned $5 millions worth. He also owned shares of AIS Investors, a group of investors that invests in ES&S.

 

So he used to be chairman, their voting machines declared him the winner a few months after he left the company, and and he lied about the fact that he still owned a big chunk of it. This isn't proof that something hinky was going on, but it's enough to make one suspicious.

this is most likely a non-issue... i like the idea of more or less automated voting, but i agree with ken that there needs to be more thought put into the logistics of it

[kenberg]

Let's look a little.

 

 

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S.  He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

 

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee

 

So which is it? He owns it? He used to be chair? Both? Neither? What was the lie? Generally it is pretty hard to keep it a secret if you either own a major company or are the Chairman of a major company. Did he wear a hood at board meetings?

Did you bother reading the news articles that provide the details?

 

He was chairman of ES&S in the mid-90's. He resigned from the board a few days before he announced his candidacy for the Senate. 8 months later he was the surprise winner in the election.

 

In a 2002 news interview he said he sold his share of The McCarthy group, ES&S's parent company, before the election, but it turned out that he still owned $5 millions worth. He also owned shares of AIS Investors, a group of investors that invests in ES&S.

 

So he used to be chairman, their voting machines declared him the winner a few months after he left the company, and and he lied about the fact that he still owned a big chunk of it. This isn't proof that something hinky was going on, but it's enough to make one suspicious.

I clicked on one of the links, it didn't take me anywhere, so I stopped.

 

Perhaps I should have tried others but as mentioned it can be a full time job sorting out what's true and what isn't from these political broadsides. Jeb Bush was once the governor of Florida.. Yep. Chuck Hagel was once on the short list for veep. Probably so, I don't know.

 

Possibly there is a real scandal behind all of this. My guess is that there is not but I have been wrong before. I do however think that it is important that voting should not only be on the square but should be clearly be seen to be so. That stuff eight years ago in Florida was not something anyone could be proud of, no matter how the decision actually went.

 

So the upshot is that I much favor all the thought about how to make voting tamper proof but I am skeptical of some specifics such as the suggestion or innuendo or vague and veiled claim or what have you that Hagel somehow got the computers to override the voter's choice. Could be, lots of things could be, but I doubt it.

 

 

I guess it would give new meaning to the term "political machine".

[jonottawa]

#19 is obviously true.

Not really (The governor of the State of Florida is Charlie Crist.) But the rest of them are true. George Bush stole the election in 2000 (he lost Florida) and probably did it again in 2004 (he might have lost Ohio if the votes were counted correctly and almost surely would have lost Ohio if the lines in many Democratic districts hadn't been hours and hours long for lack of functional voting machines.)

 

As they say, if George Bush is so determined to spread democracy to the rest of the world, why doesn't he start with America?

[hrothgar]

#19 is obviously true.

Not really (The governor of the State of Florida is Charlie Crist.) But the rest of them are true. George Bush stole the election in 2000 (he lost Florida) and probably did it again in 2004 (he might have lost Ohio if the votes were counted correctly and almost surely would have lost Ohio if the lines in many Democratic districts hadn't been hours and hours long for lack of functional voting machines.)

 

As they say, if George Bush is so determined to spread democracy to the rest of the world, why doesn't he start with America?

Jon has obliquely introduced a very signficant topic:

 

Personally, I am expecting McCain to get his ass handed to him come November. Suffice it to say that the electoral dynamics don't favor the Republicans this time arround.

 

I suspect that the only way that the Republicans have any chance is a strong concerted effort at voter supression. Furthermore, I think that they know this.

 

I'm expecting a VERY ugly election night...

[barmar]

As they say, if George Bush is so determined to spread democracy to the rest of the world, why doesn't he start with America?

Or maybe he should stop sending it overseas, because we don't have enough to go around.

[Al_U_Card]

I'm expecting a VERY ugly election night...

Considering Barack's voting record (more Clinton (Bill) than Hilary) and the number of ex-Bill Clinton advisors that he has.....that wind of change will likely just fade into a breeze of bullshit once the votes are counted.

[y66]

This looks like a big problem waiting to happen again.

 

Will reallocate part of my bridge time budget to read up on this and follow up in my state. Not touching the golf budget though.

 

Like the idea of voter-verifiable receipts (or scannable paper ballots). Open source software sounds good too.

[luke warm]

I'm expecting a VERY ugly election night...

Considering Barack's voting record (more Clinton (Bill) than Hilary) and the number of ex-Bill Clinton advisors that he has.....that wind of change will likely just fade into a breeze of bullshit once the votes are counted.

we can only hope so... some change is better left in the conceptual state

[y66]

What Happened in Sarasota County?

 

"On November 7, 2006, there was an electoral disaster in Sarasota County, Florida. Almost 18,000 people, about one in seven of the people who voted electronically, left the polls without recording a vote in the congressional race, the hottest race on the ballot. Most observers agree that few of these voters deliberately skipped voting in that race. Instead, they were either misled into not seeing that race or the voting machines somehow failed to record their votes. There is consensus on one point, however. Although Republican Vern Buchanan was certified the winner by only 369 out of more than 238,000 votes and is now representing the 13th Congressional District of Florida (CD13) in the U.S. House of Representatives, if the “missing” votes had been recorded, Democrat Christine Jennings would almost certainly have been elected (Stewart, 2006).

 

"This election illustrates in dramatic fashion not only the complex problems that arise with the use of all-electronic voting systems, but also the deep concerns of computer scientists and security experts about total reliance on software to capture and count votes in public elections. A considerable amount of technical investigation has been done into the circumstances of this election, and many hypotheses have been eliminated. But to date (April 2007), the exact cause(s) are not known with complete certainty—indeed, they may never be known.

 

from David Jefferson's article based on a presentation given on February 8, 2007, at the NAE National Meeting Symposium. Jefferson is a computer scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and chair of the California Secretary of State Voting Systems Technology Assessment and Advisory Board.

 

More ...

[Al_U_Card]

It would be interesting to see how many democratic candidates won when there were machine malfunctions.....

 

Also, if ATM's had this kind of a problem, there would be hell to pay. Voting machines just count a vote...no transactions, no interface, nothing....makes you wonder.