Other machines flipping IN ADDITION TO the iVotronic?

[eridani]

Vote flipping in Texas, VW and TN. All seem to be ES&S so far. The AVU Diebold units in King County have not yet gotten a single complaint so far. I'm watching for it on the assumption that victims would be hollering all over the blogosphere if it were happening.

But then, maybe vote flippers just don't want to bother with blue states.

[dipsydoodle]

1. I'm in the UK

but saw filmed instances of this on CNN.

It would seem to me that adjacent proximity of Obama's and McCain's names , which may have been wilfully contrived, are making this problem worse. They should have been completely separated to totally remove the excuse of voter error.

[aquart]

2. Sweetie, this is NOT being done by the voters.

The machines, owned and manufactured by Republicans who hold the code as proprietary industrial secrets, are programmed to DEFAULT to the Republican name.

[billyoc]

3. These are touchscreen calibration problems.

When I change your vote behind your back, I won't be displaying my efforts on the screen for you.

[dipsydoodle]

4. They demonstrated visibly

the problem of touching the top part of Obama's tag which took it onto a Mccain vote. Touching the middle part of Obama's name produced the correct vote. Hence my remark that they shouldn't be in proximity to each other.

[Fly by night]

5. In Tennessee, the vote for Obama flipped to Cynthia McKinney ...

... the Green Party candidate, who was five candidates below Obama on the ballot. Here's the thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

As for Diebold not showing voter-flipping, it may be that their programmers are better at hiding the fraud. As many people have said here over the years, vote-flipping should be able to be programmed so the voter doesn't see anything untoward on the screen.

[xscd]

6. Election Reform - Electronic Voting Machines

To me, the problem is not electronic voting machines themselves, but rather the fact that they can be programmed to produce whatever results the programmers, or the company they work for, desires.

Electronic voting machines could greatly simplify and streamline the voting process, but the ones that exist now are so easily subject to fraud that they should be trashed and banned.

In my view, it would be a good idea to have a tax-supported governmental agency, a voting-systems commission where technical experts of all political persuasions designed both the hardware and software of an electronic voting machine/system. Both the hardware and software would be subject to public and private scrutiny by anyone at any time, by any concerned citizens group or group of non-partisan programmers. The software would be non-proprietary and the source code of the programs would be able to be obtained by anyone or any group. The administration and oversight would, mandated by law, be composed of a diverse selection of people from both or all major political parties.

This tax-funded project for the American people would be a non-partisan undertaking to produce voting machines that would then be uniform throughout the country and upon which each individual could rely and feel confident in the election and voting process.

That is an ideal. We are far from that ideal with proprietary voting machines bought by the government from private (and often partisan) companies with secret proprietary software. What we have now truly is "black box" voting, and in my view, it must go--

-Steve
New Mexico US

[eridani]

7. Agreed. I have no problems with a touchscreen as an interface only

They could print out a regular ballot just like everyone else's for scanning and/or hand counting.

[Stevepol]

9. I have trouble squaring the idea of electronic voting to the idea of democarcy.

I don't think you can have a democracy when the vote is counted in secret by private companies without verification. It's a totally anti-democratic concept, and it's really pretty easy for anybody to understand. A fifth grader would have no trouble figuring out the concept.

I don't know what the solution for our computer crazed society would be, but I know what we have now makes democracy impossible.

I believe Obama will win come the election, but I'm not at all sure of it. Every state where he could break thru has election integrity problems. Even tho PA has now a double-digit lead for Obama in polls, I actually am not sure PA will go for Obama when the votes from the voting machines cmoe in.

It's just too easy for an insider to rig the election without any possibility of detection. Given how easy it would be to do, they'd be cracy not to.

Of course, who knows, maybe some of the vendors are favoring Obama. That's one of the hopes we have: that the vendors will take the mood of the country and our vote into consideration when they reach their decision.

[eridani]

8. I think it's important to document not only WHERE this is occurring--

--but also which machines by brand and serial number.