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Aftermath Of Failed Electronic Voting
dstates writes "The Christian Science Monitor and NPR report that failed electronic voting machines lost thousands of votes in Carteret County North Carolina, and the election for state agriculture commissioner is headed to court. A combination of human error (setting the machine to record a maximum of three thousand votes when eight thousand people voted) and a software malfunction (the machine kept accepting ballots after its memory was overloaded) resulted in the loss of 4,500 votes in an election decided by only 2,300 votes."
A combination of human error (setting the machine to record a maximum of three thousand votes when eight thousand people voted) and a software malfunction (the machine kept accepting ballots after its memory was overloaded) resulted in the loss of 4,500 votes in an election decided by only 2,300 votes."
It was human error on the part of the those who set it up and human error on the part of election officials who decided to use a product that wasn't thoroughly tested. Someone beyond the techs that administer the machines needs to be on the hook for this. Just because the machines that failed are electronic doesn't mean that there was no negligence on the part of those that chose to use them.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
I think you're missing the point... If that many votes weren't counted, there is something very very wrong with the system. Who cares who had more votes in the first XX% of voters who showed up? Fix the problem, don't argue semantics.
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
First, you're assuming that these 8000 voters were the only in the county. That seems rather unlikely; I assume this is just one polling station. Second, you're assuming randomness. Even if you ignore the very real possibility of fraud (come on, who can't count voter rolls and compare to memory space?), those who voted earlier would have their votes counted, while those that voted later - the last 4500 - would be ignored. Working class voters that don't get off work to go vote until 5 or 6 would therefore be all but guaranteed not to get their vote in, whereas those with white collar jobs that could take the day off and vote in the morning would be far more likely to vote. Stats don't apply if there are outside factors not reflected in the numbers. Your test fails on assumptions.
Who needs more than 3000 votes?
After all this crap, isn't it time that Diebold (and similar companies) be dropped, and another one (preferably FOSS) be chosen? Or is that solution too obvious? I wonder how many more elections fall victim to stupid and/or rigged coding....
A. Why you would have a maximum number of votes for a machine AT ALL.
B. Why you would have something like a memory contraint AT ALL in these days of cheaper-than-dirt storage.
C. Why you would have either or both of A and B if you wanted a fair election.
Can someone fill me in?
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
This is just further evidence of a deeply flawed system. There is absolutely no reason that we can't have an honest and reliable election system in this country. You can do with old-fashioned paper ballots and hand-counting in the presence of scrutineers from all parties. Instead we've got a mishmash of systems, many of them untested, many with known flaws, some of them run by companies like Diebold known to be both incompetant and dishonest. We can't be sure who won this election.
Here is some info on the voting machines used in the county.
Unilect Corportation is the manufactorer of the "Patriot Voting System" (because losing votes = being patriotic).
Interactive demo of their voting system!
Verified Voting has a Voter Information Sheet on the machine.
Disinfopedia has an article about Unilect Corporation. From this article:
The President of UniLect Corporation is Jack Gerbel, who has been actively involved in the election equipment industry since 1965. His career began in elections with IBM Corporation and then as a founder, Vice-President and Board of Directors member of Computer Election Systems (CES).
Mr. Gerbel had the distinction of personally selling and installing more election systems than any other person in the U.S.
Two major accounts that he sold and successfully installed were Cook County, Illinois and the City of Chicago.
Mr. Gerbel became Vice-President of Sales for Business Records Corporation (BRC).
So, there you have it. Background info. Side note: I live in NC and this is not the same machines that were being (these are the literal words of the poll workers) "tested" in Watauga County. And although they officially said these machines were only experimental and being tested, paper ballots were often withheld upon request and their availability was NOT posted. The Republic Party in Watauga County also refused to move polling locations onto Appalachian State University's campus, proposed by the Dem Party, although 22,000 of the 25,000 residents are students.
I'm a Republican, as are most of the people in my family, and for that matter most of the people in my state. And I don't know anyone who approves of what was done in this last election, once they are confronted with the facts. The closest is a sort of lame "well, they probably meant well" or "it must have been overly enthusiastic grunts"--but you can see in their faces that they don't buy it.
But none of them are happy about it. We were raised, I guess, with those "moral values" that everyone's talking about. And I don't recall cheating on that list, anywhere. No, I take that back. There was "Cheaters never prosper" and "If you cheat, you only cheat yourself" and "Better to die for the truth then live a lie."
But to hear the media tell it, we're all a bunch of saps that aprove of doing anything to win (When in fact we were taught "The ends don't justify the means." and "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.").
As my brother said at Thanksgiving, "I want my party back!"
--MarkusQ
In that entire story, there's no mention of which corporation made the failed machines. There's talk of "human error", talk of "software error", but no talk of "corporate error", where a corporation sold machines that wouldn't work, didn't work, and have sent North Carolina at least into a constitutional crisis. Less than zero accountability for the corporations getting rich off the destruction of democracy.
There's also no mention of the joke that is government testing and certification of these machines. Unless the elections controllers have demonstrated proof that the machines have been tested without failure or serious vulnerability, they must assume the machines will fail. And they can't claim ignorance of the risk, compounded by the absence of mitigation in a fallback auditable record, like a paper log. So these government officials, representing the people of North Carolina, are also unaccountable for their gross malfeasance.
These people have violated the public trust in North Carolina most seriously. It's not necessary to prove they colluded to design a failed election, for their political or economic benefit. Their gross malfeasance has deprived thousands of North Carolinans their fundamental right to vote, regardless of its effect on the election, though there seems to be at least one office, Secretary of Agriculture, which is seriously damaged. The irresponsible people must be unmasked, and sent to jail for these serious crimes against the people.
--
make install -not war
Are you on crack? That list is all well and good, but how conveniently you ignore Bill Clinton. The guy got a blowjob and lied about it so that his wife wouldn't find out. Impeachment was too soft a punishment for such a criminal act.
>> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"
All the reports just after the election claimed that these votes were lost because the machine ran out of memory. Now we're reading the explanation that someone set a max-votes limit to 3000.
...". But the slashdot abstract says "... setting the machine to record a maximum of three thousand votes ...", which conflicts with the article's explanation.
...
Are the reporters really so clueless that they don't understand the difference? Or maybe they do understand, but half of them are trying to put something over on us?
I notice that TFA's explanation is "... an exhausted poll worker failed to notice a "memory full" caption on a machine,
So which is it? Inquiring minds want to know
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Bill Clinton ... got a blowjob and lied about it so that his wife wouldn't find out.
;-)
...
So where in the world did you grow up?
When I was a boy growing up in the US, one of the firm lessons that was drilled into us was that a guy with any brains wouldn't "kiss and tell". We had a name for such a guy; we called him a "jerk". If you wanted the slightest chance with the chicks, you'd keep very quiet about what you did with them in private. I understood all this at an early age, perhaps because most of my good friends were of the female persuasion. I suspect that this was true for Bill Clinton, too. Talking about your sex life would get you a bad rep and cut your chances.
Bill was just being a normal American guy who likes women and wants to "protect their reputation", as the saying goes. And his choice of a wife tells us that he sees women for who they are, not just for their bod. "Yeah, he fools around with bimbos. But look at the woman he married. What a man!"
When the stories about Bill's sex life started coming out, we also heard the reports about 80% of American women having dreams (or daydreams) of sex with him. As an experiment, I tried mentioning the above explanation to various women. Invariably, they'd grin. Quite a few of them said that this was one reason they dreamed about sex with him.
Sorry, but outside of the most extreme anti-sex right-winger crowds, Bill's secrecy about what he and Monica were doing was not only not criminal in any way; it was the expected behavior of a fellow who wants to avoid the "jerk" label. It was highly honorable behavior.
If you think otherwise, you're simply announcing an extremist anti-sex attitude, probably having something to do with extremist religious beliefs.
As for the "lying to Congress" charge; Congress had no business asking him about his private sex life. That was underhanded politics in the extreme, and it's a lot of why so many people are dismissing the Republican party as a gang of radical fundamentalists now. No honorable American male would even think of asking such things in a public forum. When the Senate Republicans did so, it merely told us that they are a bunch of jerks.
(We would gossip about him in private, of course. But we'd never expect Bill to tell us the truth. A grin and a chuckle would do. Nudge, nudge; wink; wink.
Now back to bashing Wally O'Dell and company
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
While I agree with most of your points. Clinton was asked, in a sworn deposition during a trial whether he had sexual relations with Lewinsky, to establish a pattern of behavior. This was during the Tripp trial (if memory serves), where the pattern of behavior would have been relevent.
What he did was perjury, something for which you and I, mere mortals, would have spent a little time on probation for (first offense, probably wouldn't have served any time). Now, did this warrant an impechement? Hell, no. Maybe a congressional censure, or a very firm letter, but that's about it. But let's not go to the other extreme and say he didn't do anything wrong. Lying under oath is treated differently for a whole host of reasons.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
You do realize that this was a statewide election and that the problems happened at a single polling station in a single county (out of 100), right? ~2.5 million North Carolinians voted for President, and I would assume that about that number voted in this race as well. so 2300 votes is a margin of less than 0.1%. That is a pretty close race.
I don't really have a dog in this race, despite being from NC, but it seems to me ($0.02) that they should only repoll the ~4500 people whose votes were lost. Rather than letting the candidates affect the outcome by campaigning to people who didn't bother to vote the first time. If only the lost votes are repolled, the results should be pretty similar to what they would have been if the votes had not been lost.
Oh, and since you were nit-picking, when you only have 1 sig-fig, 8000-3000=5000 doesn't mean that the answer isn't actually closer to 4500.
Let's go Hurricanes!!! 2006 Stanley Cup Champions!!!
How would you feel if you were on trial for let's say shoplifting. Now you got your wife/girlfriend in the courtroom to give you support and out of nowhere, the prosecuting lawyer asks you if you've ever cheated on your wife/girlfriend. Now let's say that you have. I have all my money on you saying that you never cheated on your significant other. Especially since it has nothing to do with the original case at hand.
Maybe you need to read up a little more on your history and why Clinton was actually on trial in the first place. If lawyers were allowed to make convictions for every little thing under the sun besides the exact reason they are in the court in the first place, well...there would be a lot more people in jail for shit that's not illegal, but just stuff they were just too ashamed to want anyone else to hear about.
Think about it.
-my other sig is your mom
What he did was perjury
No, its not, in the slightest. Wether or not Clinton had had consensual sex with Monica is irrelevant to wether or not he harrassed Paula Jones(Tripp trail? wtf?). Even the judge said so, look it up if you want to.
something for which you and I, mere mortals, would have spent a little time on probation for
Nonsense. You forget that Starr and Republicans in Congress didn't set out to convict him of any specific crime, they set out to convict him of *something*, by any means necessary. They couldn't find anything with Whitewater, they couldn't find anything with Vince Foster, so they asked him enought irrelevant questions about his private life until he was forced into telling a lie, and then making a bs pergury charge. If the government spent over $60 million dollars going over every inch of your life with a microscope, the worst thing they could dig up was you cheating on your wife/girlfriend? No, normal individuals get investigated for a specific charge, get indited and go to trial. Not have the government ingestigate and investigate and investigate until they find SOMETHING to charge you with.
Maybe a congressional censure, or a very firm letter
The real justice would have been prosecuting Starr and the GOP reps in Congress for malicious prosecution.