Did Washington waste millions on faulty voting machines?

[DogPoundPup]

Source: Miami Herald

WASHINGTON -- Hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding that have gone to upgrade the nation's voting machines since 2003 were used to purchase touch-screen systems that many states are now scrapping because of concerns about their security and reliability.

State governments in Alaska, California, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, Tennessee and New Mexico have decided to replace their touch-screen electronic machines. While some states have completed the switch, others won't finish replacing the machines until 2010. Nationwide, the federal government spent $1.2 billion on new voting machines between 2003 and 2007.

Optical scanning equipment is becoming the preferred replacement because, unlike touch-screens, it preserves each voter's original paper ballot in the event of a recount.

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is seeking to recover millions of dollars her state spent on the touch-screen machines and is urging the state legislature to require optical scanners statewide instead.

In a lawsuit, Brunner charged on Aug. 6 that touch-screen machines made by the former Diebold Election Systems and bought by 11 Ohio counties "produce computer stoppages" or delays and are vulnerable to "hacking, tampering and other attacks." In all, 44 Ohio counties spent $83 million in 2006 on Diebold's touch screens.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/645077.html

[Cassandra]

1. Waste?

Depends on what the objective was. I'm sure the repubs considered it (your) money well spent.

[baldguy]

3. As long as the GOP wins, they're happy.

Once they start losing, they'll whine & cry loudly & endlessly about how unfair electronic voting is.

[cstanleytech]

7. I was going to say pretty much the same thing LOL

[aquart]

2. They worked as they were intended to work.

And for that some people should hang.

[bullimiami]

4. exactly. they were designed to steal elections.

the republicans knew it and enough stupid democrats went along with it.

the scanners are no better unless there is a manual audit in place to always verify accuracy.
typically now they only can even look at the paper if its within a very small margin so that is useless if the election has been rigged to win by more than that margin.

[ozymandius]

5. And Georgia was the first to adopt these POS machines.

Our elected officials in the Secretary of State's office circled their wagons once confronted with 'what could go wrong' with these paperless Diebold dungheaps. Then Cathy Cox and her cadre of buffoons lost an election. Then some went to work for Diebold.

About the last bit: That's a fact, Jack.

[bemildred]

6. Yes. nt

[KittyWampus]

8. why not sue to get their money back?

[Frisbee]

9. HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

I'm sure the republicans considered it a waste. NOT!

[valerief]

10. Wasted millions on unfaulty ones, too, since voting machines = election fraud. nt

[HopeHoops]

11. Waste? Oh no. Diebold was VERY happy with the bounty

The Onion has a great news parody about Diebold machines accidentally releasing the results of the 2008 election early. The sad part of the parody is that it isn't fiction. The W Machine has paid well for the upcoming sham and without the fraud, McCain would be an "also ran". Okay, that's kind of rough. There are a frightening number of people who have lost their jobs to WalMart and as a result boast about how much they save by shopping at WalMart. The GOP can always count on these idiots. And then there is the recent statement by McCain that life begins at conception. That should lock in the pro-life trailer dwellers who have lost a kid or two to Bush in Iraq since it is "pro-life".

No, it wasn't a waste. Diebold's president pledged to do whatever it takes to get Bush elected - I'm sure he has standing orders with his programmers to give McCain the win as well. Exxon, WalMart, Diebold, they all got an excellent ROI from Bush, why would they expect different from McSame?

"Any nation that would sacrifice liberty to gain security deserves neither and will lose both" -- Benjamin Franklin

[hootinholler]

12. Maryland replacing the Deibold?

I hadn't heard that yet. If so, it's good news, especially since a paper ballot initiative was defeated inthe State Senate I think 2 years ago.

-Hoot