Wexler's bid to outlaw paperless voting fails on appeal

[Freddie Stubbs]

By George Bennett

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected Democratic U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler's claim that paperless electronic voting violates the constitutional rights of Floridians.

The ruling by the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a federal district judge's 2004 ruling against a Wexler lawsuit that sought to outlaw paperless voting in Florida, where 15 counties use paperless systems and 52 counties use paper ballots that are read by optical scanners.

Paper ballots can be manually recounted in a close election while those cast on electronic touch screens cannot. That different treatment, Wexler argues, amounts to a denial of the equal-protection and due-process rights of the voters who use paperless systems.

The appeals court, however, said there can be different voting systems within a state and the inability of some voters to have an electronic vote manually recounted does not unduly burden voters.

more: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/pbcsouth/content/local_news/epaper/2006/06/21/s3b_wexler_0621.html

[BlueJazz]

1. You Left out part of the Ruling:

The appeals court, however, said there can be different voting systems within a state and the inability of some voters to have an electronic vote manually recounted does not unduly burden voters.....>>>

"Especially if the Recount is performed by extreme right-Wing Nuts like Kathleen Harris". :)

[Cha]

2. WTF!

I commend Robert Wexler for trying to get some honesty into our voting systems especially down there in Florida. Too bad the courts don't see "paper trails" as something necessary for reliability. What's it gonna take to have the repukeoCONs to stop counting the votes?

[Jawja]

3. Revolution.

They've got the system rigged lock, stock and barrel. They control the voting systems and the "counting" of the "votes." Therefore, they control the legislatures and thus the courts. Therefore, no real reform or voting integrity is going to be passed. Therefore, they continue to control the voting systems and the "counting" of the "votes."

Only revolution against the tyrants and criminals who have seized our once great republic will put an end to this cycle.

[Cha]

4. I hear ya! Who woulda

thought growing up in the '50's that I would find it necessary to entertain these thoughts?

That damn pendulum better hurry and make a hefty Swing!

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. They've got to be kidding?

In other words, the Repugs can vote of paper and the Dems have to use ether. So much for equal protection.

Look at where the ether vote machines are located. They are mostly in DEM counties. The Repugs get paper and optical scanners.

[drduffy]

6. Trouble with many dems is that

many of us believe we will be able to vote our way out of this mess. Once you begin to understand that is not going to happen - for the reasons often noted - then you will come to see that there is but one alternative.

[jerry611]

7. Well, I don't really know if I buy into the whole vote stealing thing

I think Bush may have influenced the vote in other ways like with purging voter rolls or voter intimidation. But I think the accusation that machines are made to fudge the numbers is a little outrageous. It is too unpredictable to make a machine count votes a certain way. The results would be so skewed that it would be obvious.

Yeah, I have heard the stories of the selection being different on the review screen. But you know what, that's why it is called a review screen. With my online banking the other day, I put through a transfer of $300 from one account to another. A confirmation screen came up asking if it is correct...it said $3,000. I swore I typed in 300... but I must have typed too many zeros. So I had to go back and correct it. No big deal.

If you don't bother to look at that review screen...then you are 100% responsible for any error on that screen. Not the computer.

Same thing with punch-card ballots. If you push through the wrong name, and you don't say anything and vote anyway...that's your own fault if your vote is counted wrong.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jerry611]

9. But even with manual ballots they can be rigged

You take a few thousand dummy votes and simply replace those with the real ones. Take the real ones somewhere and burn them.

That or you can also convince dead people to vote. That's been tried many times.

You think vote rigging is something new? It's been going on since ancient Greece.

[jerry611]

10. And even if it is rigged....

...it doesn't excuse the poor campagn management by Democrats.

You can lose a football game if the refs are paid off. That's certainly possible. But fumbling the ball or throwing interceptions also doesn't help. Kerry's campaign was ran very poorly in the final few months. And that is one reason why the lead Kerry had through the summer evaporated and the election became a statistical dead heat.

And you know what... I see the democrats fumbling the ball again right now. They could have NAILED Bush to the wall the past few months but didn't do it. Dems have the lead in the polls right now, but the way it looks, the GOP is going to close the gap right before the election.

[w4rma]

12. Bullshit. I wouldn't want to spend 30 mins explaining to my dad how to use

these things without it changing his vote, nor would I want anyone else to have to try to spend 30 mins explaining it to a computer newbie. And I wouldn't trust them with my own vote or anyone else's vote, anyway, as a very very experienced computer user.

Also poll taxes and poll tests are supposed to be illegal.

[djg21]

11. I actually see this as a good development!

There is now an apparent "split" amongst the Courts of Appeals for the 6th and 11th Circuits.

In Stewart v. Blackwell, 05-3044 (6th Cir. Apr. 21, 2006), the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore must be afforded precedential value.

Murky, transparent, illegitimate, right, wrong, big, tall, short or small; regardless of the adjective one might use to describe the decision, the proper noun that precedes it - “Supreme Court” - carries more weight with us. Whatever else Bush v.Gore may be, it is first and foremost a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States and we are bound to adhere to it.

See Opinion at p. 13 n.8.

The Court then held that the selective use of "unreliable" and "deficient" punch card machines in some Ohio counties but not others violates the Equal Protection Clause of the First Amendment:

By maintaining a system in which these two technologies are utilized, voters in Ohio vote under two separate standards. Although voters approach the polls with the opportunity to vote in the same elections for the same candidates, once they step into the voting booth, they have an unequal chance of their vote being counted, not as a result of any action on the part of the voter, but because of the different technology utilized.

Opinion at p. 23

In Wexler, the 11th Circuit seemingly discounted Bush v. Gore and held that Florida's manual recount procedures in counties employing paperless touchscreen voting machines (when compared to procedures in other counties using paper ballots) does not violate the rights of voters in those counties to equal protection and due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Thus, the 6th Circuit, reling on Bush v. Gore, appears to require some significant degree of uniformity in voting and tabulation systems, whereas the 11th Circuit has essentially discounted Bush v. Gore, and does not require uniformity (or arguably does to a lesser degree). Given this apparent split in authority regarding the import of Bush v. Gore, I would expect Congressmen Wexler to pursue a petition for a writ of certiorari. It should prove interesting to see how the Supreme Court deals with the entire lawless and untenable decision it issued in Bush v. Gore.

[leesa]

13. People need to understand that Diebold is the same company that makes

their ATM machine. When the Diebold guy comes on the teevee and says it is silly or outrageous to expect a paper vote receipt, people would know he's full of shit because they get a receipt every time they bank with an ATM. Most people don't know it's the same technology.