I wonder if anyone has taken into consideration this fact:

[monicaangela]

Paperless Gangstas: The Reliability of South Carolina Voting Machines

From a 2011 article concerning voter machine tampering in South Carolina:

Diligent in his quest for some understanding, Heindel didn’t stop at the SCEC. On September 14, 2010, he sent another FOIA request to the Charleston County Board of Elections asking for the “paper trail” that the machines produced. The spreadsheet he received showed numerous “events” documenting errors with the machines – not quite the spotless record election officials had touted post-primary. Heindel has yet to receive an answer from the Board of Elections on what these events mean and if they could have influenced the outcome of the election. Adding to the foot-dragging, obfuscating, conspiracy-theory feel of the whole incident, the executive director of the Charleston County Board of Elections abruptly resigned after Heindel brought these potential problems to light. However, no mention of Heindel was made in the director’s resignation letter which cited personal reasons for her departure.

So what to make of all this? Heindel is certainly not the first citizen to have qualms with paperless voting machines. Since the 2000 presidential election fiasco, ballot administration has been a hot topic and many states have moved to electronic voting machines because they’re less prone to user-error than other voting systems (remember all those chads Pat Buchanan got pregnant in Florida because of the punch card butterfly ballot?). The tradeoff has been that electronic voting machines, specifically direct record electronic machines known as DRE, don’t have a paper trail and, hypothetically, are vulnerable to hacking, leaving people like Heindel uneasy about the integrity of an election.

http://electls.blogs.wm.edu/2011/02/09/paperless-gangstas-the-reliability-of-south-carolina-voting-machines/

Is this still going on in South Carolina today? When are we going to address our problem with electronic voter machines?

[99th_Monkey]

1. The DNC has taken a strong position on this obvious problem

MEH

Hence, we have a broken election system. Thanks Debbie.

[monicaangela]

25. Nice statement from DWS

But:

[LexVegas]

2. I KNEW it was a virtual tie in SC! nt

[monicaangela]

8. All jokes aside

what about the effed up system we have. What about getting together to try to fix it. This isn't about Bernie or Hillary, it is about all elections including state and local. I would think we all would be concerned about this. What if Hillary does win the nomination and the billionaire in the race decides to steal the election using these machines? I suppose that won't be funny for you now will it?

[MoonRiver]

13. We activists have been trying since 2000.

Nobody with the power to do anything has taken interest. I do not understand it either, but that seems to be the way it is. I'm now 16 years older and disabled, facing two major hip reconstructions, so I feel helpless to do much but rant on the internet, and I've pretty much given up on that too. Sigh. And you are correct, this is way beyond Bernie and Hillary.

[monicaangela]

17. I am really sorry to hear of your medical

problems. Don't give up though, technology and medicine has come a long way. And you would be surprised what you can do even as a disabled individual. As long as you can talk and type you can make your voice heard. Don't give up, we really need to fix this problem. My prayers will be with you MoonRiver as you prepare to undergo hip reconstruction, and I will be looking forward to an excellent report when the operation has been completed. Please keep me posted.

[MoonRiver]

19. Thank you monicaangela! Surgery is a week from tomorrow. Prayers appreciated!

It's a long story, but I will need a lot of bionic material inserted to replace my upper femurs and hip sockets, but am hopeful I can walk independently eventually.

I will help however I can to fix this horrible problem with voting machines. I have always thought it is the biggest threat, more than Citizens United, to our democracy. Remember that classic from Marx, "he who counts the votes, wins." In the early days when we were fighting this, Diebold was the enemy company. It had strong ties to Cheney and the Bushies. I am sure many other "entrepreneurs" are in the business of stealing our votes now.

[monicaangela]

20. I agree MoonRiver

Now that Diebold has gotten away with it, there is nothing to stop any other tech company that is corrupt enough to utilize their skills to steal elections and I'm sure they will do so without a second thought. It is like the bankers, as long as they don't go to jail, they don't care. Pay fines, no problem that's a tax write off, and on to dirty dealing while they continue to steal trillions from the rest of us.

I am happy to see you are in such good spirits, you know that is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome when you are going into surgery. Continue to keep your mind on a great outcome and you will receive one. Take care.

[MoonRiver]

21. Once again, thanks!

Nothing can be worse than the pain I deal with daily.

I think most of DU has shut down about this issue. Sometimes I think it is just too overwhelming and scary for people to deal with. There needs to be a credible national organization addressing this important subject. Bev Harris was our spokesperson for a long time. Then some horrible events discredited her. Again, long story, but you can google it, or do searches on DU.

[monicaangela]

22. I believe

there needs to be a national outcry from the citizens of this country. I know we will never get every person of the electorate to devote time to improving the system, but many that I talk to are so tired of wondering if it even matters if they take the time to get out and vote as long as no tracking system is in place.

I have heard of Bev Harris, I have read her book Black Box Voting. I wondered what happened to her and why she had stopped investigating and advocating. Is there someplace on the web I can read the story. I have been trying to find an activist group willing to take on this issue but have had no luck so far. I have been trying to organize members of my community. The elections board in my county is really tight lipped and it isn't easy to attend any of their meetings. I will continue to try though.

Again, I would be interested in any information or links you might be able to provide regarding Bev Harris.

I found this over at Wikipedia: She has been served with four cease and desist notices and in 2004, was interviewed by the US Secret Service Cybercrime Task Force five times in connection with a claim by the VoteHere company that their site had been "hacked" with their source code stolen. In connection with this, Harris received a gag order from a U.S. Attorney in preparation for a federal grand jury investigation. An article by The Seattle Weekly covered this.

It appears the corporate elites would rather she not investigate or report. Why isn't anybody complaining about this?

[questionseverything]

26. people are still trying

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027647260

http://www.sweetremedy.tv/fatallyflawed/media/RTA_Fraud_Flyer_3_7_12.pdf

judge rawl from sc took his case to the sc democratic party but they sided with non transparency

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7899

super Tuesday election results spin for days after the 2010 primary

http://bradblog.com/?p=7875

2,699 Republican votes have now disappeared! There were reportedly 2,793 Republican voters on May 19th, but just 94 as of May 25th! Neat trick!

To top it all off, even after all of these mystery adjustments, the "total votes" cast in Monroe County as of May 21st, as shown above, is said to be 2,159 --- so, despite the radical change in results, the county's 0% undervote rate stayed intact. Every single voter who cast a vote in either the Republican or Democratic Primary election on May 18th voted in the Senate election, at least according to the Arkansas Sec. of State.

The "good" news? In the CD1 race, while the number of Republican voters has dropped by 229 (to 89 total) and the number of Democratic votes has increased by 60 (to 1,920 total), at least there are not now more Democratic votes than physically possible, as with the county's original numbers on May 19th.

//////////////////////////////

thank you for caring about an accurate vote count

[monicaangela]

27. I am from Ohio questioneverything

I watched the 2004 elections very closely here. We had so many problems with voting machines, voter suppression and an outright intervention in the election by Kenny Blackwell who was Secretary of State in Ohio at the time. I have never forgotten that, and I always question the results of elections since that time. I is amazing to me that these things continue to occur and the voting public appears to shrug their shoulders and continue to accept it. Unbelievable. Just look at this article from the Ohio 2004 election:

Vote Fraud 2004: How Ohio
was "Delivered" to Bush

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/2004votefraud_ohio.html

Thank you for caring about an accurate vote count, if we can't trust our voting system, and if we don't question the manner in which this problem is being handled, what is the use of voting. Why should we continue to give those that would steal elections an appearance of free and fair elections in this country?

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. I know people will make fun of it

and it will break along predictable lines, but this is an issue that needs to be addressed. We need to go back to paper ballots, period. Or if we insist, my county uses scanners to count the votes, but they need to keep the PAPER BALLOTS for two years.

There are many other issues about the electoral system that need to be addressed, that partisans do not like to talk about. For example, mass incarceration has made sure that many people of color cannot vote, period, end of discussion, for life. Yet, when they are in jail or prison and we have a census, they count for the purpose of districting. It is called prison gerrymandering. This is another issue people do not want to talk about, It tends to help more rural districts by the way, where these prisons have replaced many other good jobs.

[monicaangela]

6. Thank you for understanding

what my article is about. In this country we are no better off than those third world nations we laugh at because their election systems are so corrupt. We have proof in this nation that in more than one election votes have been lost, not reported, flipped, and never counted. I often wonder if we are even more backward than many of those nations we laugh at due to the fact that we know all of this and still continue to use these machines and have no way to track votes or vote totals once the election is over. Sad commentary for "the greatest nation on earth." or at least that is what some have been led to believe.

I agree also with your comment on prisons and the gerrymandering and also the fact that many in prison cannot vote which I believe is one reason we have so many in prison or out of prison but still denied the vote after they have served their time. Then there is the new voter suppression with all of the new laws about voter ID as if someone is trying to steal elections by voting multiple times. Who has time to wait in line for hours in one place and then go to another and wait some more hours, and then there is the matter of the registration, if you are at a location where you aren't registered you can't vote anyway. This system is full of BS that continues to prevent an actual true vote. As I said before, I wonder when we are going to start preventing the theft of elections via all of these little tricks republicans and yes, some democrats have devised.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. I acutally read the policy that partisans will not touch

so I get it.

For the record some states are worst than others, and it is not a coincidence who is "blue"and who is "red" Many of the red states have life time disenfranchisement. Many blue states give it back after some time, except for the most heinous of crimes like murder one.

But you will not get them to discuss that... as you are finding out.

[monicaangela]

12. I see

I think it is really sad that some will ignore the horrible state of the electoral system in this nation. But I suppose if you can't get them to notice anything but sports and entertainment, and not the connection of the government to their everyday lives, they continue to ignore the fact that elections are being stolen every cycle. Maybe some don't believe all of this is happening. And, most don't care if prisoners can vote or not since they equate prisoners with minorities the majority of the time. I often wonder how this country got so dumbed down. It's really sad IMHO.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. And the best part is that these are the folks

who are sort of plugged in... as to how the nation got dumbed down. I partially blame my brethren in the media. You need money to run studios, and adds keep you in business. A boring city hall meeting, or wort the local fire board, will not bring eyes to screen. But a nasty crash will

[monicaangela]

18. An interesting article you might like to read:

The U.S. media are rapidly being monopolized by a dwindling number of parent corporations, all of whom have conservative economic agendas. The media are also critically dependent upon corporations for advertising. As a result, the news almost completely ignores corporate crime, as well as pro-labor and pro-consumer issues. Surveys of journalists show that the majority were personally liberal in the 1980s, but today they are centrists, with more conservatives than liberals on economic issues. However, no study has proven that they give their personal bias to the news. On the other hand, the political spectrum of pundits -- who do engage in noisy editorializing -- leans heavily to the right. The most extreme example of this is talk radio, where liberals are almost nonexistent. The Fairness Doctrine was designed to prevent one-sided bias in the media by requiring broadcasters to air opposing views. It once enjoyed the broad support of both liberals and conservatives. But now that the media have become increasingly owned and controlled by corporations, conservatives defiantly oppose the Fairness Doctrine. This is probably the best proof that the media's bias is conservative, not liberal.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-liberalmedia.htm

[asuhornets]

4. So Clinton actually lost?...n/t

[monicaangela]

5. Give it a break please

This has nothing to do with Clinton or Sanders, this is about our voting machines..wake up, pay attention and stop trying to turn everything into a gotcha moment.

[Lucinda]

7. You made it a gotcha moment when you chose the wording of your title

rather than using the article title. As is customary.

[monicaangela]

9. I used the tittle I used

because I was not truly referring to just that article. I was using the article to make a point about our elections system. I suppose you never think beyond customary.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. This is not LBN, where it is the rulez, you are the one playing gotcha

I tend to use the title regardless, but seriously, want to discuss this as a policy level or not? I suspect your answer is not really.

[monicaangela]

16. No need to argue with Lucinda

This appears to be a game where that moniker is concerned but lately I have been thinking a lot about this. Watch this video:

[asuhornets]

24. I agree...n/t

[Bettie]

14. Do you want faulty voting machines to give the election to whatever

giant bag of whatever wins the Republican primary?

I've seen posts about this in non-election years as well with regard to a variety of states.

[asuhornets]

23. Absolutely not...n/t

[Arazi]

28. Thank you for raising a most important topic that should concern ALL of us

Kicked and recced

[monicaangela]

29. You're welcome Arazi

If we are to consider ourselves a free democratic republic of, for, and by the people we all need to pay careful attention to how the wealthy and their politician stooges are stealing elections, making this country no better than many third world countries with dictatorships IMHO.

[Jitter65]

30. I think you really need to worry about the electronic machine during the GE.

[monicaangela]

31. If the primary can be stolen

as well as the general, doesn't that mean voters choice is being directed by those that are manipulating the machines? I believe we need to remain vigilant in all elections, local, state, federal and especially primary elections, that is where your choice inside the party can be manipulated, by the time it gets to the general you not only have your own party manipulating machines, you also have the opposite party engaging in the same tactics and worse. No Jitter65, I believe every election should be scrutinized where electronic voter systems are concerned, voter suppression, and any other tactic that limits or changes the vote.