BBV:Voting chaos looms for American election

[Andy_Stephenson]

The electronic voting system designed for the forthcoming American election is fundamentally flawed and could undermine the trustworthines of the entire US democratic process, a scientist has told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Paper ballots can be scrutinised to ensure they have not been misread or tampered with but electronic votes recorded only as computer code cannot be checked to see the true intention of the voter, said David Dill, professor of computer science at Stanford University in California.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=491730

[greatauntoftriplets]

1. Well, thank the gods that Illinois is still Neanderthal...

...and uses good old punch cards.

:hi:

[never cry wolf]

2. In Lake county we have optical scan machines

Many other places as well. I am not sure where you are GAOT but even punch cards are counted by computers, the only saving grace is that the punch cards are the official ballot and can be hand recounted.

[greatauntoftriplets]

3. I am in Chicago -- Far North Side.

Did not realize that Lake County had optical scans. My family in west suburbs (Berwyn and Brookfield) still have punch cards as well. We were talking about this on Saturday.

Look forward (hope you can make it) to meeting you on 2/29.

[Paulie]

5. Oh, I used to live around Lincoln/Devon

Can't get much further north than that, cross Devon and you're in the burbs. :D

[hedda_foil]

9. They're punch cards, great aunt, but there's a hitch.

They're optically scanned punch cards. The whole system is the same as the touch screen vote counting systems ... the only thing different is that there IS a hard copy of each vote. Nevertheless, a candidate has to officially contest the results to get those hard copies counted. And unless an election is super close it's not going to happen. There are other problems too, so though we're better off than many states, we still have some major problems.

[Paulie]

4. Southern Cook for me - we use "verifiers" for our punch cards

which also counts the ballots. For example, in 2002 I undervoted intentionally, because I couldn't vote for either of the governor slots.

The "verifier" said my ballot was "valid and correct" and sucked that puppy right in. The election judge was happy, said: "Wow, someone who knows how to vote!" I replied, "Yes I do, but I left governor unpunched in an intentional UNDERVOTE." Just got blank stares...

Unless multiple humans actually count them, any vote total is questionable when technology is involved. PERIOD!

[greatauntoftriplets]

7. I am on the Far North Side of the city, not too far from Lincoln/Devon.

I wrote in a governor candidate in 2002. What a mess that was. I kept hitting override on the damned machine, and it kept spitting it back. The judges didn't know what to do with me for not toeing the party line and wanted to make me re-vote. Because I had to get to work, I told them I would not re-vote for the damned judges. Finally, they let it go through. Jeez.

[JetJaguar]

8. Are you sure the "verifiers" were on.

They were intentionally left off in the 2000
election. But only in Cook Co.

The Washington Post
December 27, 2000, Wednesday, Final Edition

...
But in no state was the pattern as pronounced as in Illinois. A Post analysis found that in many black precincts in Chicago, one of every six ballots in the presidential election was thrown out, while almost every vote was counted in some of the city's outer suburbs.

Voters in Chicago's Cook County confronted an array of balloting complications that may have led them to either accidentally "overvote" (punch for two candidates) or "undervote" (fail to make a proper punch). The November ballot was extraordinarily long and confusing. Voters used rickety punch-card machines that are hard to operate at the best of times. The machines get so out of alignment that voters sometimes can't line up the holes to be pressed, and the plastic backing under the ballot can become so brittle or filled with discarded chads that it gets hard to punch the holes properly.

This also was the first presidential election in Illinois since the elimination of the "straight party" vote, which let people punch for an entire slate. Moreover, the GOP-led state Senate prevented Cook County from using a device on its machines that notifies voters of some mistakes and gives them a second chance to cast valid ballots.
...

[Zan_of_Texas]

6. Hi Andy!

:hi:

You the man! Keep up the good work!

[fleetus]

10. I'm voting absentee to avoid BBV

Are other Democrats doing the same?

[GregD]

11. Absentee has its own issues

In Diebold counties, one issue is GEMS. GEMS is the central tabulation system for touchscreen and optical scan. Absentee votes are scanned.

The good news is there is a paper ballot that can be inspected. So it's not all-bad. It's just not a complete solution.

[blurp]

12. Paper ballots CAN be tampered with

And it's pretty easy, too.

Just stack several up and run a stiff metal wire through your candidate of choice.

Those that voted for your candidate are fine. Those for your opponent get spoiled as a double vote.

There were rumors floating around Florida about this happening in 2000.

[scottxyz]

13. Bush is going to win 51/49% in a hacked election...

...although the real numbers will probably be more like 90/10%.

The Republicans know they don't have any more support anymore.

That's why they're working so hard to hack the election.

This is a "meta"-issue which trumps all others.

All this yacking on DU won't mean a thing if our votes aren't counted.

[dusty64]

14. Kick!

:kick:

[RedEagle]

15. Back Up

Kick!