Senators Feinstein and Bennett introduce bill funding more e-voting machines.

[Dover]

Jul 30 2008 | Despite overwhelming evidence which demonstrates that the use of electronic voting machines seriously threatens the integrity of our elections, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Robert Bennett have introduced a bill that funds and encourages the continued use of this faulty voting equipment.

Electronic voting machines – otherwise known as Direct Recording Electronic voting systems (DREs) – have repeatedly proven to be unreliable and insecure for the recording and counting of votes. As a result, states across the country have found that the cheapest, easiest and simplest way to address voting machine flaws and improve voter confidence is to use paper ballot-based systems which, unlike DREs, allow for meaningful recounts and audits. Senators Feinstein and Bennett’s bill completely disregards the fact that, after suffering elections marred by malfunctions and controversy, many states including Florida, New Mexico, Iowa, and California, have thrown out their DREs in favor of paper ballot voting systems. S.3212 ignores these expensive lessons and would allocate millions more of taxpayer dollars for the continued use of DRE machines, amounting to a public boondoggle for the private companies that have marketed these flawed voting systems.

The United States Congress should be investigating, not financing, the private companies that have sold the DRE systems to states and counties throughout the country. With more than 3 billion dollars at stake, the American people have the right to know whether these companies knowingly marketed a defective product, as some evidence now reveals. If, in fact, any of these companies engaged in deceptive practices in accessing public funds, they should be held accountable and states and counties should get their money back. Just as Congress needed to apply scrutiny to Big Tobacco, it is time for Congress to investigate the elections industry...cont'd

http://www.voteraction.org/node/557

[sakabatou]

1. ... WTF is up with my senators?

[Dover]

2. Well....maybe they're not 'yours' afterall...n/t

[Botany]

3. N.Y. Times A Tale of Three (Electronic Voting) Elections

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/opinion/31observer.ht...

Georgia 2002 (Cleland), Alabama 2002 (Siegelman), & Florida 2006 (Jennings)

<Electronic voting has made great strides in reliability, but it has a long way to go. When reformers push for
greater safeguards, they often argue that future elections could produce the wrong result because of a computer
glitch or be stolen through malicious software. That’s being too nice.

There have already been elections in which it is impossible to be certain that the right candidate was declared the
winner. Here are three such races. It is not just remarkable that these elections were run so badly, but also that the
flaws are still common — and could easily create havoc in this fall’s voting.

snip

After the 2000 election debacle, Americans demanded a better system of voting. What we have gotten is new technology
with different flaws. If the presidential race is close, this year’s “hanging chad” could be a questionable result on electronic
voting machines that cannot be adequately investigated.>

[Breeze54]

4. Hmmm... what's in it for them? $$$ ?

:grr:

K&R

[Dover]

5. They sure are handy for getting the election results you desire...n/t