Glitch could force state to vote again - BBV

[Kelvin Mace]

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/10133265.htm

More than 4,500 votes irretrievably lost in coastal Carteret County could trigger a new statewide election if the official margin of victory in two Council of State races is close enough, state election officials said Monday.

Does this mean that NC's electoral votes would be up for grabs again?

The problem, which one expert called one of the worst election glitches nationwide, occurred on a machine that wasn't set correctly.

Gary Bartlett, the state board's executive director, did not know Monday if the state has ever had to redo a statewide election; it hasn't happened in recent memory. A second election would cost between $2.5 million and $3.5 million, he said.

"It was a simple mistake, one that could be fixed with a simple two-second key stroke," said Jack Gerbel, the company's president. "None of our customers have ever lost even a single vote, and now this."

HOW DO THEY KNOW NO ONE LOST VOTES????!!!!!

Gerbel said the machines flash a warning message when there is no more room for storing ballots. "It was either ignored or overlooked," he said.

Bartlett said Carteret County elections officials have sworn the message never appeared.

Gerbel said his company is looking for a way to stop the machines from accepting votes after the memory is full.

IS THIS GUY FOR REAL??!! My cat could write code to prevent this from happening.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org
http://www.blackboxvoting.com

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. I think my parrot has written that code.

;-)

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Before or after eacint the shirt?

Don't ask... sun conure been a bad girl

[TahitiNut]

29. My parrot's pinin' for the fjords.

His name is 'Democracy.'

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. get the kitty to write the code

this may be one way to get the revote....if you know what I mean

[high density]

4. "Looking for a way???"

LOL, I knew the people engineering these machines were dumb, but I didn't think they were THAT dumb. Even more idiotic are the states who buy stuff from such stupid companies.

[jdj]

32. they aren't dumb

at all.

[Greylyn58]

5. I Live In North Carolina

and the election they are talking about would be for two state council seats and wouldn't involved the Presidential race.

At least that's what I gathered from the Observers news article.

[Kelvin Mace]

6. I live in High Point

Also from the story:

Attorneys are studying whether the board could call a new election in Carteret County only, or even ask the disenfranchised voters to vote again. (Local elections officials have their names.)

But state law may not allow that: "The new election shall be held in the entire jurisdiction in which the original election was held," it says. That could mean the whole state.

Which means it depends on what a judge interprets the word "election" to mean. <g>

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org
http://www.blackboxvoting.com

[pbartch]

13. Are there DEMOCRAT judges that would call for a new election?

Who are the judges that would decide?

[newyawker99]

34. Hi pbartch!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Magic_Cookie]

8. IMHO If the votes for the Council Seats

were cast at the same time as vote for President, Senate, etc then ALL VOTES should be redone, not just the ones that have a close race.
How horrible to think that perhaps your vote Really didn't count after all. Oh wait, we're all experiencing that....

edit: I sent the story to K Olbermann

[idiosyncratic]

10. Send this story to Olberman too. The Russians are onto this.

Pravda -- Did Bush fix the elections?

If the Russian press reports freely on this . . . and Putin wanted * . . . shouldn't this be on the front page of our newspapers?

[Lizzie Borden]

17. Thank-you Pravda...

which is the Russian word for Truth.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

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

[Kelvin Mace]

24. *Was* a hard-core communist

newspaper. You need to get up to date.

Welcome to DU.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org
http://www.blackboxvoting.com

[uhhuh]

25. Uhhuh

You are cute!

[Piperay]

30. UH

Communist USSR doesn't exist anymore, it is now Russia and it isn't Communist any longer.

[Judi Lynn]

31. Fear not! We've got things under control.

We've got tons of this stuff, little one!



Just rest your feverish mind. Simmer down, now. Try to stay on topic.

[Kelvin Mace]

11. There is also the question of mysterious votes...

for President appearing in Craven county

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org
http://www.blackboxvoting.com

[pbartch]

14. Way to go.....send K Olbermann LOTS of stories

get him all the stories dealing with fraud. He said last night he will keep investigating. Send the information to those REPRESENTATIVES who were mentioned on the MSNBC story last night too.

[dbt]

7. More fuel for the fire at the very least!

Exxxxxxxxxxxxxcellent.

:bounce:
dbt

[hang a left]

9. kick

:kick:

[althecat]

12. Fantastic catch David...

[oscar111]

16. $150 million for re-vote nationally: chicken feed

3 million is the figure in the article for NC alone.. if NC is avrage in population, then the national cost would be in my title.

Very thinkable then, to re vote.

50 Cents per citizen, in a land of 300 million folks.

PS pure ol paper ballots... seem most fraud proof, if watched by many eyes. Slow to count, but so what. What do you think of getting back to the simplest, if least tricks possible this way?

Revote in Diebold areas could be staggered to allow for borrowing better papertrail machines from near areas.

[Kelvin Mace]

19. The NC General Assembly will be

appointing a commission to look into the matter of BBV. I just emailed the two chairs and asked them if they would ask the Director of Election when our check from UniLect would arrive to pay for the "re-do".

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org
http://www.blackboxvoting.com

[Lostnote03]

22. Haaaaa!!!!!

.....did you keep the receipt????....oh nevermind~~~

[NC_Nate]

26. I'm in NC

and Wake County (Raleigh) used paper ballots..

[Kelvin Mace]

18. The 'Pubs

in Carteret Co. where the 4500 votes "vanished" forever are PISSED! I was invited on to the local talk station, very right-wing (they run Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Frau Doktor L.) and they were mad. I made a joke that North Carolina voters should recreate the "villagers storming the castle" scene from Frankenstein and they loved it.

As you might guess, their guys lost in the election by under the margin of "lost" votes, so they suddenly find problems with these machines.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org
http://www.blackboxvoting.com

[krkaufman]

15. Peter Jennings would say, "Nothing to see here. Move along." n/t

[GregD]

20. Last Fall, we got a call from a guy

Last Fall, we (Verified Voting) got a call from a guy named Mr. Freeman who had run for office in a small rural community of NC. It was a town of a few hundred, and he wanted to be mayor.

With only one precinct, he stood near the polling place and waved to friends all day. As they passed, he was greeted by smiles, waves and "thumbs up". All those folks wanted him to be the mayor. It was pretty clear that he would win.

I forget the rest of the details, but essentially, it was a very close race, they were using a paperless system and there was no way to get a recount just to check. He was heartbroken. We were furious on his behalf.

Well, when he contacted us, we figured this was classic. With such a small community, we could get each and every voter to come to the local high school gymnasium and ask everyone to stand on one side of the hall depending on who they voted for. We could literally put a face on the disenfranchised voters and candidate. It was gonna be great - front page news.

Regrettably, he would not raise a stink and wanted to just let it go. Pity... It would have really helped to publicize the problem of paperless voting.

If I'm not wrong, I think the new report here is dealing with the same general community.

[Laughing Mirror]

33. Freeman must have his reasons

But you should urge him to do as you suggested he do. If he wants to be a leader of the community what better way to prove it than this show of real democracy in action on a small local level over a large-scale fraud that has much broader national (not to mention international) implications.

[olddad56]

21. oh yeah, I'm sure it wouldn't be rigged next time.

[arikara]

27. OK, assuming for a moment that it isn't outright fraud...

have they never heard of thoroughly testing their software? Speaking as an out-of-work software tester, they can hire me for the job.

[TXDemGal]

28. Great! My brother is in NC

and maybe this time he can vote for the correct prez candidate if they're going to do the whole enchilada over. Yes, I am forced to admit that I share a gene pool with a trogolodyte.

[lcbart]

35. My Dog just handed me this.

IF VoteCount >= MaxVoteCount
Do Shutdown()
ELSE
Do Countvote()
ENDIF

[MallRat]

36. Stop the machines from entering votes when the memory is full???

WTF? How big is a single ballot file? 500 MB?!?!?!

I would imagine that each "ballot" is just a string of a few hundred alphanumeric characters, maybe with some additional encryption.

Why is running out of memory even an issue?!?!

-MR

[Mister K]

37. See....this is what happens when you outsource stuff

Was the QA department asleep at the wheel on this one?