E-Voting: 1 County Sues State (California) | Los Angeles Times

[Ediacara]

E-Voting: 1 County Sues State
Five others may follow Riverside in fighting the decertification of digital vote machines.

By Seema Mehta and Stuart Pfeifer, Times Staff Writers

Riverside County's Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to sue the state's top election official to regain the right to use electronic voting machines in November.

Officials in five other counties said they also might seek court approval to use their touch-screen voting machines on election day, which would overturn the temporary ban on their use and keep California on an aggressive path from paper to electronic balloting.

Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, noting security and technological concerns about the machines, banned electronic voting in four counties whose machines used unapproved software. He also decertified and set strict conditions for recertifying 10 other counties, including Riverside, that intended to use the machines in November.

More at the Los Angeles Times

[nolabels]

1. Gee, look my worthless undemocratic registrar of voters made the news

I love my county for how they try to steam roll anybody that don't adhere to their fascist republican ways

[el_gato]

2. Here they are

http://www.co.riverside.ca.us/depts/brdofsup/supervisors.asp

[nolabels]

4. Hey check this out, with just a few more links you find out what state ..

policies they work under

(snip)
FLORIDA STATE ASSOCIATION OF SUPERVISORS OF ELECTIONS

The State Association of Florida's elected Supervisors of Elections has published a position paper in response to those who have concerns about the accuracy, security and reliability of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) Voting Equipment.


(snip)

http://www.election.co.riverside.ca.us/ts/vvpat/index.htm

[Kadie]

3. They don't work properly, but we want to use them anyway.

I bet this goes over big with the voters. Good Grief!

[el_gato]

5. James Venable vice chair some links on him

Open secrets Link to Venable
http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.asp?NumOfThou=0&txtName=Venable&txtState=CA&txtZip=&txtEmploy=&txtCand=&txt1998=Y&Order=N

Lincoln Club of Riverside County (a repub organization)
http://www.schwarzenegger.com/en/news/uptotheminute/news_upto_57n58_coalition.asp?sec=news&subsec=uptotheminute

[nolabels]

7. My supervisor doesn't want a run off either

He is also the the chairman of the board. All of them seem to have gotten fat and sassy as of late

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/05/05/news/californian/21_23_235_4_04.txt

Supervisors OK lawsuit over voting machines

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer

RIVERSIDE ---- In open defiance of the state's sweeping order to decertify touch-screen voting machines in 14 counties, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 Tuesday to authorize filing a lawsuit to overturn the order.
(snip)
(snip)
Time and money

But all that will take time, said Mischelle Townsend, the Riverside County registrar of voters.

"And we don't have time before November because candidates will be filing their nomination documents in July," Townsend said.

Compliance also would be quite costly at $2.7 million, most of it for printing paper ballots, she said.

Riverside County supervisors suggested the conditions were unreasonable. And they maintained Shelley was overreacting to widespread problems reported with the startup of new electronic voting systems in other counties, including San Diego, and giving in to political pressure from critics of electronic voting.

"There are problems with computers, and we need to make improvements," said Supervisor Bob Buster. "But this is more than asking for improvements. They (state officials) are really pandering to the conspiratorial what-if scenarios" being raised by critics.

"In my own recount, the problems lay in the old paper ballot system," Buster said.

In the primary, supervisors must receive 50 percent of the votes, plus one, to avoid a fall runoff with the second-place finisher. Buster barely cleared that threshold ---- by 48 votes in the initial count and 34 in a recount ---- in a three-way race.
(snip)

The republican operative in Mischelle Townsend should have thought about time when she was running around the Republican candidate for Boxer's seat in the person of Bill Jones

http://www.thedesertsun.com/news/stories2003/local/20031029021102.shtml
(snip)
Court denies appeal of voting lawsuit

A federal appeals court has ruled against a Palm Desert woman who challenged Riverside County’s touch-screen voting machines.

Susan Marie Weber had argued that votes recorded on touch-screen ballots cannot be confirmed because the systems don’t provide a voter-verified paper record of the voter’s ballot.

In a suit filed in 2001, she also maintained the machines offer no way of legitimately recounting votes in the case of a close election.

The suit was dismissed in 2002 in U.S. District Court and Weber appealed.

In its ruling this week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Pasadena agreed with then-California Secretary of State Bill Jones and Riverside County Registrar of Voters Mischelle Townsend that the machines met the state’s certification process for voting machines and other requirements.
(snip)

[hunter]

6. Repeat after me...

Corporations GOOD!
Government BAD!
Corporations GOOD!
Government BAD!
Corporations GOOD!
Government BAD!
Corporations GOOD!
Government BAD!

With the proper mindset it doesn't make any sense to sue the people who sold you the voting machines.

[samsingh]

8. why would they want to use voting devices

that even appear to have an accuracy/security problem?

is the fix in?

[Ediacara]

9. Not that I support the BBV machines

But some counties may have legitimate concerns about what to do with millions of dollars worth of illegal machines that have already been bought and paid for.

[hunter]

10. Easy. Scrap the machines...

Sue the manufacturers...

What would they do if they'd bought unreliable cars that often didn't start, couldn't be driven safely, and could be stolen by any fifteen year old gangster using a bent paper clip?

The regulatory bar for these machines was set pretty low by the State, and still the voting machine manufacturers managed to trip over it.

[Ediacara]

12. That's one route

But again, not to support the BBV manufacturers, but the BBV manufacturers could come back and say, "They were legal when you bought them, tough shit if you can't use them now." I really doubt any state has a voting machine lemon law, so I'm not sure how much recourse the counties would really have.

But having said that, the counties definately should sue the pants off of Diebold, or at the very least try to return the machines for a refund.

[CatWoman]

11. Expert Says E-Voting Is 'Terrible'

31 minutes ago Add U.S. Government - AP to My Yahoo!


By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - A computer science expert criticized electronic voting systems planned for the November election as highly vulnerable and flawed, saying on Wednesday a backup paper system is the only short-term solution to avoid another disputed presidential election.

"On a spectrum of terrible to very good, we are sitting at terrible," Aviel D. Rubin, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University, told the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. "Not only have the vendors not implemented security safeguards that are possible, they have not even correctly implemented the ones that are easy."


Other experts said electronic voting offers advantages over paper balloting, including increasing access to the blind and people who do not speak English. They contended that backing up electronic systems with paper ballots could be costly.


"We want systems that are secure but also accessible to people with disabilities," said Stephen Berger, an expert at TEM Consulting, an engineering services consulting firm.


The first public hearing by the commission came as many states consider legislation to require a paper record of every vote cast as a backup to technology they consider potentially faulty or vulnerable to attack.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=513&e=3&u=/ap/20040505/ap_on_go_ot/electronic_voting

[AndyTiedye]

15. Legal or not, The Machinez are DEFECTIVE!

A lot of them crashed during the primaries and were unusable.
They are hopelessly insecure.
Sue the bastards!

[narcjen]

13. Is Riverside a Blue or Red area?

[AP]

14. So what is the name of the politician who OK'd this law suit?