Few? It is to laugh.
From: Shock Looms On Nov. 7 From Unproven Voting Systems
Not really. According to a Zogby poll, the majority of Americans (52%) have doubts about the validity and integrity of the 2004 election (see Zogby - Voters Question Outcome Of '04 Election). 56% of Independents share those doubts, along with 19% of Republicans. Those are serious numbers any way you slice it.
This is the kind of stuff you really have to be careful about in polls. These people are really shocked and up in arms and they are doing exactly what about it?
Those look like the kind of numbers you’d get if you asked people if Bigfoot, UFOs, or Ghosts were real.
I think the republicans are content to let the democrats cry foul. It’s not like the Reps are preventing a paper trail, they’re just letting the states decide for themselves whether or not to have one. They can always say “states rights” or that state governments are big boys who don’t need the feds to hold their hand through the election process.
It’s also most likely true that it is federal law, the bipartisan Help America Vote Act of 2002, that is encouraging these crappy new electronic machines in the first place. That was only 4 years ago, are all these Democrats just now realizing that the bill they voted for didn’t require a paper trail? Who’s going to pay for all the new machines the states have to buy and implement, to replace all the HAVA compliant machines with HAVA II compliant machines?
Personally, I think the feds should have kept their damn noses out of the process in the first place.
Ambushed? People care about something when they’re willing to vote someone out of office over it, or vote on a referendum about it. In today’s world, the only thing I see that people caring about is their pocket book, the war, and other people’s sexual habits.
I assume that you have no problem applying the same standard of proof to the non-existent evidence that the 2000 and 2004 elections were “stolen” by the 'pubbies? DIO already stated that it was a fact that 2000 was stolen in this very thread. Still no proof though. :rolleyes:
I generally agree with this assessment WRT government incompetence and conspiracy theory, but I’m not willing to be neutral. Because the potential for fraud is so large , i don’t think the epoll machines should be used-unless they are modified as I’ll suggest below.
I honestly don’t know why we don’t still use those old fashioned machines. This whole electronic voting mess is a solution in search of a problem, coupled with a healthy helping of pork. Let’s throw away something that works fine in order to spend millions of dollars on a flashy, high-tech “solution” that does nothing but cause more problems. Government as usual!
Pure partisan wankery, as usual. Here in Maryland it is the Democrats who are gung-ho for evoting and the Republicans who want to scrap the system because of it’s flaws. It all depends on whose ox is being gored. I expressed real concerns on the SDMB after the primary about the lack of a requirement of ID to vote and the potential for fraud that that left open, only to be roundly told by the loyal lockstep lefties to STFU, I was just trying to disenfranchise the poor, the lame, immigrants and the stupid, all people whom they apparently felt would be more likely to vote Democratic anyway. Seems that concern about voter fraud that might benefit the left is nothing but sour grapes, but WRT Diebold machines where they think that it’s the Republicans who might benefit, then Katie bar the door! I have no idea why accurate voting should be a partisan issue for either side, but there you have it.
My solution to the problem is simple. Leave the electronic machines in place. After the voter makes his or her choices, it prints out a Scantron card with the voter’s selections marked. No hanging chads, no boxes filled in messily. The voter checks to verify that his selections are accurately reflected and hands his card to an election official who runs the card into an optical scanner where it is read, the vote is instantly tabulated, and the ballot itself goes into a locked box in case there is a need for a recount down the line. Simple, instantaneous and pretty damn secure. Anyone who has a problem with that system…well, I’d have to question their motives. Hell, even Diebold should get behind it, because they’d get a whole new contract to provide printers and card readers.
Um, I think it’s the other way around. The Pubs don’t want to leave the counting to traditional methods they believe to be fallible and more susceptible to fraud.
I believe it’s harder to hack into a machine than it is to monitor the millions of people who vote to make sure they’re all legal and then to make sure every person doing the counting is on the up and up.
If the Dems win the next election will you give this up?
Nonsense.
I’ve provided documented cases of widespread cheating in other (older) threads by the Dems in the Milwaukee area alone. Dig em up if you have the time, or I can try to find em later.
I’m pretty sure 'luci agrees with you, and was just being funny. In the very sad, disheartened way we try to be funny around here when thinking about these things.
There has always been some vote cheating. Chicago was famous for it. But,computers provide a way to cheat on a much better hidden scale. The fact that some elections have been won by Dems proves nothing. Who would cheat so blatantly as to rig every election at once. To win enough to keep power would be the trick.
Once the system is in place ,you would want to keep it there as long as possible.
The hacking of the machines has been an internet story for a long time. It is just arriving at the tv now.The internets precedes the main stream.
I’m really tired of this. In thread after thread we’ve trotted out the evidence demonstrating that the 2004 election was stolen via voter suppression efforts in Florida, most notably via the manner in which ChoicePoint rigged the voting rolls. But you people insist that there’s no proof, even though ChoicePoint eventually entered a guilty plea in a civil court case in Florida over the matter. I dunno how many times we’ve gone over this, but there’s PLENTY of evidence the Pubbies were pulling dirty tricks in Florida in 2000. Just saying “I’ve never seen any” is kinda … well … it’s not telling the truth. There’s been PLENTY in the media about it. Maybe you don’t accept it as evidence, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t PLENTY of evidence.
er, make that the 2000 election …
And another thing. I don’t like it that the only options here are … thinks everything is hunky-dory … interested in the voting process … conspiracy theorist/wingnut. There’s nothing particularly conspiratorial about thinking the Pubbies have been up to shenanigans in the last two Presidential elections … the stories have been all over the mainstream media … and there’s nothing particularly conspiratorial about thinking the Diebold evoting machines are vulnerable to vote hacking … that too has been all over the mainstream media. Putting those two elements together is just common sense, it’s not conspiracy mongering.
In the South, the Dems once engaged in voter suppression efforts against blacks that were so widespread and so blatant that it took the Voting Rights Act to give the feds the teeth they needed to clean things up. I am all for that clean-up. I suspect if we don’t nip this hackable voting booth thing in the bud, we’ll need a Voting Rights Act equivalent to make things right, eventually.
On a complete sidenote, I have always wanted to vote on one of those things! 
When I started voting in the early 80s, I was very disappointed to discover that I didn’t get to go into a little booth and pull levers on a big giant gray machine.
I would happily go along with WeirdDave’s plan. It’s a silly round-about method when they should have just bought the optical scan systems to start with, but it would work without requiring states to completely replace equipment they just purchased. I am less confident about the systems I’ve seen mentioned that would just show the ballot behind glass and then drop it - I’d have to know more about them to trust them.
FTR, I will continue to bitch about the electronic voting no matter who wins the upcoming elections. I think it’s an abysmally bad system and we shouldn’t be using it. I’ve said so since I first saw information on it.
Can you link to a news article about that? I tried to google up something, but only found an out of court settlement they made with the NAACP.
I agree 100%.
To really screw something up, you need a computer:
Ironically, it is the security measures that prevent an easy fix. 
Greg Palast a reporter who brought the election anomalies to light in 2000,said 2004 he went to Columbus,Ohio after 2004,to view the documents that would back up the voting machine totals.
they told him
“the backup tapes have been destroyed so as not to conflict with yhe official tally and create confusion”
Sleep tight.
In New Mexico there were Hispanic voting districts that less than 10% of the voters made a presidential selection.Went to the poles and didnt bother to vote in the most important vote on the ballot. These are a couple of many idiosycracies that occured.
Bear in mind, now you are talking about:
One we can be fairly certain does not exist, based on a recent study commissioned (and suppressed) by the U.S. Electoral Assistance Commission. (Covered in this recent thread.)
An add-on like this has already been invented – and the inventor did not take out a patent. See link in post #35.
I believe you have already found it.
Sure, and it stands to reason that measures that make it hard for Pubs to commit vote fraud will also make it hard for Dems to commit vote fraud. Everybody wins, except for slimy cheatin’ pols.