Thom Hartmann: Something Very Very Wrong w/Voting Machines in KS?

[thomhartmann]

Dr. Elizabeth Clarkson PhD, Wichita State University, joins Thom. Thom asks Elizabeth how and why did she realized that there might be something going on with these voting machines and what her lawsuit is about.

For more information on the stories we've covered visit our websites at thomhartmann.com - freespeech.org - and RT.com. You can also watch tonight's show on Hulu - at Hulu.com/THE BIG PICTURE and over at The Big Picture YouTube page. And - be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter!

[Stevepol]

1. Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!

At least there is the possibility of putting an eye inside the black box. No telling what they will find, maybe a fragment of Rove's brain.

[KansDem]

2. Was it necessary to write "Wonderful" twice?

(I used a Kansas voting machine to tally the number of times you wrote "Wonderful!" )

[TrollBuster9090]

6. Stevepol is a big fan of Lawrence Welch. So what?

[Stevepol]

10. Not necessarily a fan but

his words echo my sentiments exactly for what Ms Clarkson is doing.

She is, by the way, going to serve as attorney for her own case against Kobach. All the lawyers expressed a doubt that she would be able to win her case so she decided that if she was going to lose anyway, she would argue her own case. She definitely has a lot of spunk and she may just have the determination to carry off what so many others have tried to do: break into those precious black boxes that can be programmed to do anything you want and then delete their own programming so there's no evidence when the election is supposedly over. It's the best of all possible worlds for any political cheat and thief in the country that also happens to be computer literate.

I'm right in the middle of this upcoming election. I'm 2 minutes from the headquarters of the Koch brothers and I'm a couple blocks from Wichita State, which is where Ms Clarkson plies her statistical trade.

[KansDem]

19. Hello, Wichita!

KC here. If you had written "Despicable" "Despicable" "Despicable", then my Kansas voting machine would have counted four times! You know, pro-GOP means add numbers; anti-GOP subtract numbers.

I'm following Ms. Clarkson's progress on this. And I intend to bring it up the next time Kobach or Brownback make a KC appearance!

[Sancho]

3. We've seen similar worrisome trends in Florida since 2004 at least.

Chances are that someone has been hacking the machines for years.

[TrollBuster9090]

7. Exactly, and all we have to do is show evidence that JUST ONE of these machines was hacked,

And the country will demand that a sledge hammer be taken to ALL of them. They'll never be trusted again, and never SHOULD be trusted.

Hopefully we'll then move to paper ballots that (literally) leave a paper trail that can be verified.

[colsohlibgal]

4. Not Just In Kansas

Time to dump them all and move to paper ballots.

[TrollBuster9090]

5. My only problem with this story is that only Hartmann seems to be covering it. This is HUGE!

It was huge to begin with, and it became GIGANTIC once they started blocking efforts to investigate it. It should be NATIONAL news in the MSM!

[Pharaoh]

16. NATIONAL news in the MSM

don't hold your breath!

[wolfie001]

8. I hope this leads to prison sentences!

....but the repukes always get away with this shit!

[Unknown Beatle]

9. WTF? Dr. Clarson doesn't think anyone is trying to

cover anything up. She claims that nobody likes to be audited and that county officials are responsible and honest individuals. Has she been living in a cave?

She's the one doing the investigation and the state is not cooperating but they're not trying to cover anything up? Yeah right!

[Stevepol]

11. I wouldn't be so sure that everybody down the line knows about the rigging.

I doubt that the people who are doing this want very many people to know what they're doing. I suspect it's just a few far right wing ideologues at the top, the people who own the companies, the Urosevic's and others. When you get too many people actually in on the process of rigging the machine itself (writing the programs, deciding on the tilt to give each race), there's a pretty big danger that somebody will blow the whistle. The average or typical Republican operative, the people who work in the elections, e.g., are usually sincere, if perhaps easily duped folks.

Also, remember that the red shift, the now unchanging tale of the tape that gets told every election cycle, where the exit polls ALWAYS indicate that the Dems have more votes than the "actual" results that are spit out of the voting machines, these can be partially accounted for in other ways. For example, the machine often types out the wrong choice on the print-out (that is, on the touch-screen machines) and if the voter doesn't notice this (and studies have shown that a pretty high percentage, something like 30% or more of voters, never notice that the print-out doesn't match their vote). This kind of skulduggery would also achieve the same end by shifting the results right, and enough to change the results of an election.

[Unknown Beatle]

12. But, if the printout doesn't match their vote,

do they get another chance to recast their vote?

That's probably one of the reasons that republicans are always wailing about voter fraud. They will claim that recasting a vote is indeed voter fraud. They almost have it down to a science, these lying, cheating, and evil repug assholes.

[Stevepol]

15. Yes, they do, at least I'd hope so, IF THEY NOTICE IT.

If they don't say anything about it, then the erroneous vote would be part of the print-out and the voter might be counted as a Dem voter in an exit poll but his vote be counted as a Repub by anybody auditing.

[bjobotts]

17. This is a national trend,which always favors republicans

Republican activists own the machines and their soft ware. The only way to trust the ballot is to get rid of the machines like Ireland did when they just scrapped them all. Kobach is a lying piece of crap who cannot be trusted. The only way to not know this is to not 'want' to know this. Last one leaving Kansas just leave the lights on as the 1% there will have plenty of money to pay for it from all they stole from the teachers and union pensions.

[Stevepol]

18. Germany trashed the machines in 2009.

The highest court in the country, tasked with deciding constitutional questions, spent a good length of time I think listening to witnesses about the vulnerability of the machines and other questions before deciding.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Germany-bans-computerized-by-Paul-Lehto-090303-583.html

[turbinetree]

13. Kobach and Brownback.......................Republicans ...................

now have problem with the recent ruling on this electioneering---------------they cannot run and hide anymore, and the citizens in this state deserve some answers--------------------now


Good on her and Thom--------------------big



Honk-------------for a political revolution Bernie 2016

[jtuck004]

14. Maybe she should enlist the math students across the state in the effort...n/t

[jimlup]

20. Just to raise a question I was hoping Tom would ask:

Is it possible that the effect is due to a bais in larger precints for Republicans just because of the demographics of the precints? I don't mean a random bais but a systematic bais. More Reptilians (I mean Republicans silly me...) inhabit areas where there are larger precints because larger precints tend to attract Repubican type voter demographics due to employment and social class bias?

[sketchy]

21. k+r