Failed Again: Widely-Used Diebold Touch-Screens Systems Dropped Votes in Recent Ohio Primary

[BradBlog]

Failed Again: Widely-Used Diebold Touch-Screens Systems Dropped Votes in Recent Ohio Primary
Vote Totals from Memory Cards in Butler County Not Tallied by Central Tabulator, Despite System Reporting Otherwise
Letter to Company from County Officials Also Reveals New Admission Concerning Another Potential Serious Problem for November...

A failure in Diebold touch-screen voting systems in Butler County, OH resulted in votes not being included properly in Election Night results, even though the system had reported that all votes were uploaded and recorded correctly. Once the error was discovered, a subsequent upload of all of the county's 1599 touch-screen memory cards to the Diebold central election tabulator after the election, also resulted in the failure to record the results of one of the memory cards, despite the system having reported that all results were "uploaded properly."

The failure of Diebold's widely-used AccuVote TSx machines during the state's March 4th primary election resulted in the initial loss of at least 150 votes, and has prompted a letter of concern to the company (posted in full at the end of this article) from Butler County's Election Director, Betty L. McGary and Deputy Director, Lynn Edward Kinkaid.

In the letter to David Byrd, President of Diebold's recently-renamed election division, "Premier Election Solutions," the officials point out that two different memory cards failed to upload vote tallies to the central tabulator.

"It may appear that every vote has been counted when cards indicate they are being properly uploaded, when in fact votes cast on a memory card(s) are not tabulated in the results," the officials wrote after having discovered the matter. "It is unimaginable how serious this situation could have been should the problem be undetected, or ignored," they concluded.

The letter also details yet another previously-unknown problem with Diebold's central tabulator --- one that could well-effect this November's general election --- as revealed to the officials by a company employee during the initial trouble-shooting of the problem...

FULL STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5879

[Berry Cool]

1. Obviously there is still work to be done.

I want to see this state go ALL PAPER for November.

Make it so, Jennifer Brunner!

[BzaDem]

2. Is that her goal? I certainly hope so.

[BradBlog]

3. That's what she recommended, but the counties ignored...

...Details in the link from the original story.

[lame54]

16. Watch this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxF4y9tSG08
pass it around

[BradBlog]

4. Self-kicking, cuz I can't believe nobody has noticed this HUGE story...

[diva77]

22. I would have seen it sooner had it been posted in election reform forum!!

:hi:

[kster]

5. K&R NT

[Ellipsis]

6. kick

[sasquatch]

7. Good thing our machines have paper trails

This is still stupid though.

[BradBlog]

17. Your "paper trails" are meaningless, unless...

...Unless they are actually paper BALLOTS. If all you have a printout from a touch-screen machine, you are screwed.

DEMAND a paper BALLOT.

[Richard Steele]

8. The machines were DESIGNED to throw elections. How can anyone still not see that? K&R

[Just-plain-Kathy]

25. And after '00 and '04 people feel we still have a democracy? ..n/t

[caseycoon]

9. K&R This makes me sick. n/t

[electropop]

10. What failure? The machines are working perfectly.

They are efficently stealing votes. Where's the problem?

[Supersedeas]

11. nothing to see here -- feed them more sports, more weather, more poll numbers

[Kurovski]

12. K&R. (nt)

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

13. This is why we are going to have McStain as president come November

Someone better get off their ass up there, fast........

[Richard Steele]

26. Yup. nm

[bleever]

14. Kickety.

:kick:

[lame54]

15. Check out this ad for paper ballots...

pass it around
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxF4y9tSG08

[HCE SuiGeneris]

18. No failure. The programming to count the votes is as basic as it comes.

Hiding the intentional manipulation of votes gets a bit trickier if they are constantly monitored. We just need to stop auditing them and they will work perfectly for their intended purpose. The purpose they were designed for, stealing elections.

[Brigid]

19. Why, why, why . . .

Are these things still used? :banghead:

[Xenocrates]

20. My paper trail is a pile of chad!

However, these machines are still a step above and beyond the older punch card system. Does anyone have the failure rate of "bulging-chad" making punch cards? I'm sure it was more than 150 votes. Any new system is going to have its bugs, let alone the additional training for the election judges, and the additional training I need to sufficiently tap on the screen. ;)

[Kurovski]

21. Kick. (nt)

[diva77]

23. This certainly exposes the charade that L & A testing on a small

sample of machines is supposed to indicate whether the entire pool of machines works accurately -- not to mention undetectable malicious code, etc. etc.

"The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that officials "don’t yet know whether the same glitch may have affected results from previous elections in Butler County or elsewhere." ...
"If we cannot produce accurate and reliable numbers, then it throws the entire process in question," McGary told the paper, which ads that it's "It’s unknown how widespread the problem could be."

[samsingh]

24. all these machines need to be thrown into a garbage heep