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WV Voters Say Machines Are Switching Votes
An anonymous reader writes "Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week.
This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for 'Barack Obama' kept flipping to 'John McCain.'"
BlackBoxVoting has been doing some really thorough coverage on these occurrences and I would like to point out that in North Carolina & Tennessee, people are complaining about votes flipping from McCain to Obama. Some are saying this is a serious issue and not just isolated incidents of entropy.
I'm confused as to why the people voting weren't given access to an on site authority or technician that could verify this was occurring. I guess it's also possible this is something that will only happen once rarely but enough to do damage. It could also be attention seeking or insurance to claim fraud if the other side wins.
My work here is dung.
Vote by mail, and make a photocopy of your ballot. It is a lot harder to change a vote when there's a massively distributed paper trail.
stuff |
In Pennsylvania we have the option of either using the electronic machines, or using a paper ballot. I use the paper ballot every time.
-posted with LYNX, the Commodore 64 browser
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Video tape your election vote.
If it does a dodgy switcheroo, you have the evidence that you hit the right button, etc...
But honestly, if you were going to fiddle a machine to flip a few votes to the GOP, why have the output show the flip at all?
Just edit the totals and display whatever the hell you want on the UI.
printf "You have voted for Obama"; McCain++;
Know what I mean?
Commodore 64's have mice. Here's a picture of one that's basically an Amiga 500 mouse and intended to be used with GEOS (Mac-like OS). Or with games like Marble Madness/Arkanoid. ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64_peripherals#Input_devices
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
The simple answer: Because a good paper ballot is hard to forge (in time for the pre-counting of the votes).
Previously in US, Inc. where paper ballots have been used in the past, they've been "lost", "stolen", or switched out for "other" ballots with different counts.
Electronic voting doesn't have all of those pesky "accountability" issues that paper ballots have.
Doesn't anybody remember the Robin Williams movie? The voting machines are rigged to change random votes to the candidate with alphabeticaly-first double letters. John McCain?!
It's exactly like in the movie!
/sarcasm
I guess that's why you want military advisers for. The president needs only his intelligence and common sense to take the right decision of the choices that have been put before him. One person cannot know ALL of military, economics, education, healthcare and so on.
Your head a splode
I saw a documentary a while back about that; the card makers used crappy paper stock to make the ballots. They disregarded their own QA people's warning, and shipped cards that wouldn't tear off neatly as they used to.
Nice blaming the victim once again.
Excuse me, but Stephen fucking Hawking can use a computer and not move any part of his fucking body, and McCain, who is wealthy enough not only to buy a copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking ($145 retail), but probably buy the whole company company has to have his wife sit and read email to him?
Is Cindy going to sit next to him in the oval office and move the mouse around for him? Gee, I hope she stays off the Vicodin the day John McCain has to google "cyberterrorism".
This pitiful use of McCain's POW status to excuse every one of his shortcomings is really sickening. Strange, most people who have experienced horrific things in war don't like to talk about it, but McCain can't say three sentences without reminding us that he was a POW. He usually leaves out the part about making propaganda films for his captors, though.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The battle for e-voting has been lost. Just as many posts in this topic prove, the public is hyper sensitive and hyper suspicious of electronic voting. They aren't going to trust it no matter what. It matters not whether or not their fears are justified.
We should return to paper ballots. They are the only voting method that might be accepted.
I happen to believe that paper balloting is much more subject to actual fraud and abuse than any other method. There are centuries of history in finding creative ways to cheat on paper ballots. Still, actual fraud is irrelevant, only public confidence matters.
My preferred solution would require a constitutional amendment. Prior to an election, the authorities would declare a target margin of error. Say 5%. The margin would account for fraud, abuse, errors, miscounts, whatever. The winner would have to win a plurality with a margin greater than 5% over the second place candidate. If the results are closer than 5%, the election is declared a tie and a whole new election would be required. Sure, that might result in revote after revote after revote, but not an infinite series.