Slashdot Mirror
New Mexico Touchscreen Voting Problems
phr1 writes "The
Albuquerque Journal reports yet more hassles with electronic voting machines.
Early voters pressing the Kerry button have repeatedly found the machine instead putting a check mark next to 'Bush'. The operators of course say it's the voters' fault. It would be just too unfortunate if the machines happened to systematically favor one candidate over the other, heh, heh."
RTFA it says that people who voted for Bush also saw their votes "change" to Kerry and straight ticket votes go for the opposite party. The problem is with the machines not some right-wing conspiracy.
Damn liberal chicken littles.
To be fair, the article (around the middle) mentions that voters had the opposite problem: votes intended for Bush were showing up for Kerry. So it doesn't sound like a systematic attempt to cheat the vote. (Although statistics on how many mis-votes occur each way would be very interesting.)
That said, of course the friggin' problem is in the machines. OK, so the voters are maybe not using them exactly as intended. But, I'm sorry, if touching the screen with my palm accidentally will mis-register a vote, then they need to re-work the design. It's clear that a lot of people are having this sort of problem, so it's a design flaw.
If they're selling the things under the premise that they'll make voting easier and more accurate, they'd better be able to handle real-world usage.
(And that's all assuming that the problem is not a more basic bug in the system. The fact that people have had multiple misvotes in a row implies, to me, that it might be a more basic flaw than how people are using them. When you make a mistake once, you usually are much more careful the next time. So I'm dubious that people are making the same mistakes. It's possible, but I'm not convinced.)
As screwed up as this interface may be, I think the stories about the GEMS county level counting machines are much scarier. The county offices will all have no problem altering totals. It's so easy, I expect most election supervisors will cheat. I just wonder if there are more Democrat or Republican election supervisors across the country. http://www.blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov
"In Sandoval County, three Rio Rancho residents said they had a similar problem, with opposite results. They said a touch-screen machine switched their presidential votes from Bush to Kerry."
Of course the abstract for this story only mensions votes being switched from Kerry to Bush.
What a surprise.
1. Yes, I know Albuquerque is in NM. I simply had a brainfart when I saw "abqjournal" and read it as "azjournal" or something like that. 2. The article I submitted was edited for length before posting, so some stuff I'd asked was chopped out, like whether there were errors in Kerry's favor similar to the ones for Bush. The abqjournal article itself was not clear about that at all. While it says there were some errors in each direction, we don't know at all whether 90% of the errors favored Bush, 90% favored Kerry, or what. 3. ABQ Journal is apparently a Republican paper and it has endorsed Bush, so anything it prints is certainly not Democratic propoganda.
In Maryland you have to use the electronic machines. 22 people got together and tried to do early paper ballots but the state supreme court invalidated their votes and said that only absentee voters may use paper ballots in the election.
If Maryland goes for Bush you know something is seriously fucked up.
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
"Is it "voluntary" or do they have to follow the political view of their platoon/division leader?"
When the President is addressing a whole unit I think they are following the orders of their Commander in Chief, the President. I'm pretty sure they have no choice but to attend and look happy about it unless they want their life to be made miserable. Maybe they are given an option to not attend but I really doubt it or that anyone would risk a career full of misery by refusing to go.
When you see soldiers behind him in campaign appearances I'm pretty sure the local Republican party officials who screen and loyalty test everyone attending the President's campaign events locate loyal Republican servicemen, encourage them to attend and seat them behind the President so they will be on camera.
However when the President dropped in to Iraq for a suprise Thanksgiving visit the officers in charge of the unit he visited hand picked the people who got in and the rest were turned away from Thanksgiving dinner without explanation and ate MRE's in their tents. Its kind of ironic that the President's photo op, morale building trip actually screwed over everyone in the unit that wasn't the commanders favorite.
60 minutes had a pretty good piece this evening on how the Congress and the Pentagon are screwing the soldiers in Iraq, especially the guard and reserve. 18 months in to the war and many of them are still riding around in unarmored Humvees where they've surrounded in plywood boxes they've filled with sandbags and armor plates off old Iraqi tanks. So much for America's vaunted, gold plated military. Unfortunately its hard to armor the floors which is the weak spot so if they run over a mine or IED they still die or lose their legs. Its noteworthy that in Iraq the KIA count is at historic lows thanks to the quality of the air evacuation and field hospitals. It however means there is a very high rate of soliders who are severely maimed who would have died in previous wars. The casualty count is currently around 9200, 1100 dead and 8100 wounded.
The Pentagon is apparently sending some armored Humvees but amazingly they still dont have armored floors, just doors. Many of the gaurd soldiers have no radios so their families are sending them unencrypted walkie talkies they buy in Walmart which insurgents can listen to. Same story for nigh vision goggles, GPS gear, body armor(though I think body armor is finally getting fixed). Many of the guard units are using M-16's that date from Vietnam which are rated as OK for stateside duty but not combat duty because of the propensity for old M-16's to jam. They are also short on ammunition so they can't target practice. Helicopters, Bradleys, and Abrams tanks are all suffering critical parts shortages.
60 minutes had on Winslow Wheeler, (a.ka. Spartacus). Wheeler has been a congressional staffer in the armed services committee for 30+ years. He was recently forced to resign because he's been writing exposes, under the pen name Spartacus, on pork barrel spending by Congressman on the armed services committee and the Pentagon. There is at least $9 billion in pure pork in this years Defense budget. It appears big ticket, high budget weapons contracts can't be touched to cover this pork, so a good portion of it is shaved out of the budget for maintenance, spares, and basic equipment especially for guard and reserve units. Despite the Bush administration rhetoric to the contrary the Pentagon isn't giving the troops in Iraq some of the most basic, essential equipment to insure their survival.
This is not really a great time to be a grunt slogging through the dirt and mud in Iraq because they are they ass end of the Pentagon.
@de_machina