Reply #30: I wonder

[KaliTracy]

Why Blackwell, who was pushing for e-voting actually stopped? One first glance it seems that to merge precincts in anticipation of a "quicker" system, and then decide not to use the machines, and not change the precincts back was the plan all along, if one wants to assume he was mainly looking to suppress votes via long lines. But some other things might need to be considered.

1. Did they only "pilot" the e-voting machines in democratic counties in the primaries? My mother -- in Toledo -- said they were piloting them there, but they went back to the opti-scan for the election, deciding that they didn't want to "spend the money" or by another account -- that "there wasn't accountability" with e-machines. In the republican district I live in, we did not pilot e-machines, though we use punch card ballots.

2. Could it be that in this experiment/pilot they thought (*whoever they are*) that if the entire state did go to machines before the election, and then problems/glitches occured that there would be *more* scrutiny since a new way of voting was adopted?

3. If so... did they (again, whoever *they* are) then decide that to win this election, other means would be necessary -- which could be why such a flurry of legislation and challenges by Blackwell to things like paper weight and provisional ballots, or what-not.

A great majority of the machines in Ohio are still punch card or opti-scan. Given that in the Letter to Blackwell by the Judiciary Committee there were a lot of anomalies with votes going for obscure candidates, a recount would be a good place to start -- and the 93,000 "spoiled" votes could then be counted, too, though I don't know if by law if the 3% random machine recount supercedes the ability to count the 93,000 spoiled votes.