"New voting machines a crazy idea"

[stevietheman]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06032/647541.stm

Locals in Pennsylvania are getting the squeeze-play with regards to electronic voting machines.

Say the toilet in your home has worked fine for 40 years with a few tweaks here and there. But now the U.S. Congress, mindful of serious plumbing problems in other parts of the country, passes the Help America Flush Act, requiring everyone to install modern toilets.

The feds set a deadline of May 2006. Meet it and they'll help foot the bill. Don't meet it and they just might fine you.

Shockingly enough, problems ensue. The state says you must choose toilets from its approved list, but that list only has a few models, none of which you'd want in your house. Meanwhile, a lot of the modernized toilets turn out to be backing up and springing leaks all over the place.

What do you do? Face penalties by holding out for a model that actually works the way it should? Or follow orders and pick from the approved choices, even though they may flood you out of house and home?

Details follow in article.

Also, Diebold (as in "aren't they dead yet?") rears its ugly head again:

Complicating matters further is a deep discount being offered to the cash-strapped county by Diebold Inc. of Ohio, whose touch-screen machines have caused so many problems they've been decertified in several states. That "bargain," if cheaper unreliable machines can be considered such, was to have expired yesterday but has been extended one more week.

[kster]

1. I like this part

"Either voting machines are ready to be sensibly and reliably deployed or they're not," said Dr. Eckhardt. "If they're ready, the state should certify them. If they're not ready, we shouldn't be deploying them. There's no emergency here, nobody is dying."

The county board of elections has done a conscientious job so far and should continue its refusal to be railroaded. The electoral process only works when the public has faith in it. And once that faith is flushed away, it's awfully hard to get it back.

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

2. What A JOKE!!

That last paragraph:

Complicating matters further is a deep discount being offered to the cash-strapped county by Diebold Inc. of Ohio, whose touch-screen machines have caused so many problems they've been decertified in several states. That "bargain," if cheaper unreliable machines can be considered such, was to have expired yesterday but has been extended one more week.


Gee.....I'd be willing to bet they'll extend it another Year, so they can secure the contract. Heck, they'll increase the discount. diebold is not dead. They're a GREEDY, CORRUPT, EVIL corporation, and they'll be maintained no matter what, by the powers that be.

[I Have A Dream]

3. This is from the Post-Gazette also

By Jerome L. Sherman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Washington County commissioners yesterday unanimously approved the purchase of 700 touch-screen voting machines from Diebold Inc., while dozens of other Pennsylvania counties face legal problems in their own attempts to buy new machines.

Local election officials across the country must update their equipment this year to meet requirements of the Help America Vote Act, a law passed after the controversial 2000 presidential election in Florida.

But last week, a Commonwealth Court judge ruled that counties using aging lever machines -- including Allegheny County -- must give voters a chance to decide if they want new technology. State attorneys have asked the court to review the decision.

That's not the situation in Washington County.

(continued at link)

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06048/656862.stm


Here's a quote from the Washington County commissioner from the article:

"The machine has been certified by the state and federal governments," he said of the TSX. "For me, as the county commissioner, to be second-guessing that kind of testing would be a little naive and presumptuous."

:puke:

[Kurovski]

4. K&R(nt)

[nicknameless]

5. These crappy machines are NEVER a bargain. Yearly maintenance costs

are EXTREMELY high. Will they really choose to lose democracy and go broke at the same time?

[demodonkey]

6. Contact the Washington County (PA) Commissioners about Diebold HERE:

Thank them for selling out their constituents' sacred right to vote to the lowest bidder, and let 'em know what other states have ended up with by purchasing one of Diebold's "bargains".

Commissioner J. Bracken Burns, Sr.: [email protected] (this one's a real jerk, and the main root of the problem)
Commissioner Diana L. Irey: [email protected]
Commissioner Lawrence O. Maggi: [email protected]

[EC]

7. Hackers all over the world should take out ads on TV and newspapers

revealing how to hack them for everyday citizens...if anyone could hack them the Republicans will not want to use them ...