Chicago Tribune reporting many problems with Sequoia machines in Illinois

[xray s]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/newsroom/chi-060321voterproblems,1,1831943.story?coll=chi-news-hed

High-tech voting hits snags

By John McCormick and James Janega
Tribune staff reporters
Published March 21, 2006, 7:39 PM CST


As election officials closed the polls Tuesday evening, reports of glitches from throughout the day continued as both voters and election officials learned how to deal with a new, high-tech voting system in Chicago and suburban Cook County....

At Lowell Elementary School on the city's Northwest Side, the only touch-screen voting machine was locked up around 6 p.m. It had been that way since about 4:30 p.m. after a voter tried to use it and the message: "Election verify. Please wait" appeared on the screen....

On the city's South Side, only Republican ballots registered on the optical scanner at the Providence of God Early Learning Center, 1814 S. Union St. "It's a landslide," Republican election judge David Masak said, trying to diffuse the situation with humor. "As of right now, I can tell you we are officially the only precinct in Chicago that is going 100-percent Republican."...

Of the 57 ballots cast in the 25th Ward's heavily Democratic 31st Precinct, only its seven Republican ballots have been counted. The precinct's 50 Democratic ballots were dropped in a lock box, Masak said, and judges were told to drive them downtown if the machines didn't fix themselves by 7 p.m. In Oak Park, election judges arrived at Barrie Center early Tuesday and discovered the optical scan and touch-screen machines wouldn't work properly. For several hours, voters had to mark their ballots by hand and stick them in a locked box suspended above one of the new machines, which spit out a confusing ribbon of paper that had the judges paging furiously through a 131-page manual for answers....

[MissWaverly]

1. Excuse me, how does a machine fix itself

and how would a machine only count Republican votes, it had to programmed to do that.

Did your car ever fix itself, this is so stupid when we would could have democracy
back with paper ballots and we stand around watching it go down the electronic toilet.

[lindisfarne]

11. Counting on computers involves electrons, and some electrons count

for more than others. Democratic electrons are worth less, apparently. The problems with the machines have shown us this previously undiscovered scientific law.

[Javaman]

24. In a recently discovered unpublished manuscript by Orwell...

Animal Farm had another draft called computer farm. ;)

[MissWaverly]

52. Yes and Wally is the Famer in the Dell, growing

"largely invisible grassroots support" = quote from Karl Rove speech.

[MissWaverly]

51. It's time, we called it what it is, election fraud

In 2004, Bush supposedly received 36,230 votes in the City of Balitmore, I swore an affadavit saying that I saw my machine default to Bush 5 times in Baltimore City.

Why do I say, Bush did not get 36,230 votes in Baltimore City, because he had left us
our very own HUGE deficit of 31 million - thanks to No Child Left Behind. Do you think
36,230 people rushed out to thank George for this? NOT. Here's a snip and link
to one of many articles that appeared on this.

O'Malley and Welsh requested the study in January after the mayor, school board, and state legislators learned of an unexpected $31 million deficit in the fiscal 2002-2003 school budget.

http://www.gbc.org/news/July03/bcpssstudy.html

[Land Shark]

22. Let's get the RELIABILITY and CHECKS AND BALANCES back

which can happen if humans are properly ARRANGED (but doesn't happen if they are not, as humans are often fallible)

MEANING: If three folks are sitting at a table from different parties and nobody is going anywhere until all three agree that Pile X contains 100 votes for Cand Y and 88 votes for Cand Z, THIS IS A HIGHLY RELIABLE PROCESS, more reliable than machines.

It just so happens that this typically involves paper ballots, but it is not the paper that creates the accuracy, it is the checks and balances, chain of custody, etc.

It would behoove everyone not to open yourselves up to unfair criticism by using "paper ballot" shorthand when what it seems you really want are checks and balances similar to the above

I just heard the "Back to the future" groan on CAlif radio this a.m. (taped from yesterday) Happened as soon as paper ballots were advocated, and this was from people who were otherwise criticizing diebold

It's progress to move up to higher tech. It's NOT progress to get rid of checks and balances, it's destruction. Focus on the destruction, folks.

[RaleighNCDUer]

25. OK, you tell me how three impartial election judges can count

and verify electronic ballots, and I'll give you a pass on paper ballots.

IT IS NOT POSSIBLE.

Demand paper ballots. It's the only way to be sure.

[MissWaverly]

50. I voted on the manual lever machines and they were more

reliable than this, they have analyzed lever voting machines for over 44 years and they are
more reliable. Jeez, what does it take, to realize that a system that
is frought with private software, computer glitches and is vulnerable to manipulation
does not belong in our democracy.

[yourout]

2. Always seem to have problems counting Demcratic Votes.

:argh:

[ThomCat]

6. Funny thing, that.

It's amazing how the errors are always on the side of undercounting Democrats. But certainly that's not a sign of programmed vote fixing.
:eyes:

[FatDave]

26. That is strange, isn't it?

Also strange how it's always republicans fighting to keep the electronic voting machines, fighting to not have a paper trail. Oh, and then there's the contributions Diebold execs gave Bush.

[holboz]

43. Note some problems came from "internal switches" that had to be turned on

I suppose the next thing they'll say is that the reason the machines defaulted to repuke choices is because the poll workers didn't "Do the hokey pokey and turn themselves around" after they flipped the internal switch.

[ThomCat]

44. Right, because the volunteers need to turn on your ability

to vote for each party. The volunteers just forgot to turn on the Democrats.

That's right.
:eyes:

[stillcool]

3. WTF?....

this is absolutely absurd.....

"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."
- Albert Einstein

"The imagination equips us to perceive reality when it is not fully materialized."
- Mary Caroline Richards

"Humpty-Dumpty was pushed!"

"Anti-conspiracists insist that, unlike the rest of us, the rich
and powerful do not act with deliberate intent." Michael Parenti

[Pirate Smile]

4. Only counts Republican votes? Well, that sure isn't surpicious.

:eyes: :argh:

[tanyev]

5. No, it's really amusing, see?

Like President Dimbulb searching for WMDs in his office. It's funny.

[Pirate Smile]

14. I don't feel like laughing but I just noticed I typed suspicious wrong

and it is past editing time. Damn. I hate looking stupid. I can't believe I didn't use spell check. This friggin story threw me off my game.

Why doesn't the Hotline blog that is covering the Illinois races hot and heavy mention this little tidbit? I want that crap shouted from the rooftops.

This is the voting mishap they point out - "Atlantic's Joshua Green: "More worrisome voting technology news from Illinois: a precinct judge got her finger caught in the new electronic voting machine. Will finger-chomping Diebold machines be the hanging chads of '06?!"...."

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/

[louis-t]

45. I just thought you were being funny.

Made up word, y'know like, 'stategery'.:-)

[Pirate Smile]

47. Nah! Sometimes the fingers just hit the wrong keys.

:)

Have we heard any more on why in the world a machine would only count Republican votes?

[Selteri]

55. Make you wanna go *?GACK?* At least we know how they'll win now...

Illegally, immorally and by cheating in any way possible... now we just need to remember to stand up and catch these bastards!

[bleever]

7. Would you use a broken machine to fix something? How about Itself??

The absurdity mounts and mounts!

[buddysmellgood]

8. WHY in God's name are we putting up with this shit? I'd rather have the

Iraqi system.

[kster]

9. We need to hand count them scanned paper ballots

to verify that the machine totals are correct, atleast for the next 5 election cycles, not 1,10 or 20% of them but all of them, Because of all the problems with the new voting equipment, I think that might be a good selling point for our side, given the bad news about these machines.........

My 2 cents.........

[Amaryllis]

10. Have you noticed that these stories are being reported by MSM around

the country on a nearly daily basis now? Won't be fixed in time for the '06 elections but there sure will be a whole lot more people watching this time.

[kster]

12. Never say never

The crew at the DU doesn't seem to be giving up anytime soon, when it comes to these election theft machines. NGU.........

[Amaryllis]

13. True.. and with these lawsuits! Love them...

[Patsy Stone]

15. Nice to see this covered, but:

"Of the 57 ballots cast in the 25th Ward's heavily Democratic 31st Precinct, only its seven Republican ballots have been counted. The precinct's 50 Democratic ballots were dropped in a lock box, Masak said, and judges were told to drive them downtown if the machines didn't fix themselves by 7 p.m."

:wtf:

K&R

[Inland]

16. A report on DuPage County's Diebold touch screen machines.

First, no problems have been reported, that I've heard of.

The machine prints a paper record for audit purposes that remains in the machine and is viewable through a plastic window, so if you are a fast reader, you can see that the paper matches your vote. The screen gives at least two summaries for review and cancelling before your vote is final.

[singe]

17. duckworth

U.S. House - District 6 - Dem Primary - Illinois 520 of 526 Precincts Reporting - 98.86%
Name Party Votes Pct

Duckworth , Tammy Dem 14,019 43.81

Cegelis , Christine Dem 12,939 40.44

Scott , Lindy Dem 5,038 15.75

i copied this from the chicago tribune. so it looks like ms. duckworth who lost both of her legs in the iraq war and has a critical view of mr. shit head and his agenda will run as the democrat for fat ass henry hyde's congressional seat. it will be a tough one for a democrat to win but i plan on helping her with some money and some noise.

[Inland]

19. You an illinoisan?

If so, don't forget to visit the Illinois section and check in on the thread. There's been a lot of heat and noise over this primary fight and there had better be some making up soon, so it might be worth a visit.

[singe]

20. nope

i am in new york but i have been following this race. i sent some money to her thru kerry's appeal and still have this crystal clear image of hyde refusing to open the door ( or was he trying to knock it down? ) when he was having an affair as a "kid" (40+). this all came out around clintons bj hullabaloo and i am really glad his fat, disingenous ass is gonna be gone. too bad to hear the usual intra-party shit is going on and i hope as you say, they get it straightened out because this will be a tough one to win even with everyone paddling in synch. my congressman is sweeney ( ny, 20th )and he is an unbelievable sack of shit. he was one of the leaders of the mob that kicked down the door or whatever to stop the recount in florida in 2000. we are gonna try to ride a spitzer landslide and get rid of him but it too will be a tough one. good luck.

[merbex]

18. I have tried and tried to get my Dem Town Committee to see that

e voting machines are a huge problem. They refuse to admit it. We live in MA.

Luckily I have been elected a delegate to our nominating convention in June where I will proudly vote for John Bonifaz for MA Secretary of State. I have told many other delegate "activists"of my intention and they look at me as if I am stupid because I'm not supporting the entrenched insider incumbent who has done nothing to bring this important issue to the public's attention.

I am really nervous now about November

[mom cat]

21. Start demanding paper ballots.

[ClintonTyree]

31. I live in New York State..........

for as long as I've been voting (almost 40 years now) we've used the old lever machines that keep a running tally that election officials can verify at any time. They worked perfectly, not one problem in all those years. NOW we're told we HAVE TO use electronic machines, part of the HAVA program, and scrap all of those "outdated" machines. Or course, this puts millions into the Republican owned electronic voting machine companies coffers and allows the Republicans to make great inroads in a state that is overwhelmingly Democratic.

:nuke: :grr: :nuke: Change for the sake of change. All that changes does not progress. This is QUITE evident where these new E-Machines is concerned.

[singe]

33. yup

i agree. i have been voting for about the same amount of time ( are we old yet? ) and never had a problem with the little booths and their lever that closes and opens the drape. and the election workers ( always ladies that are older than me, yeah!) have a dish of left over halloween candy for voters to pick thru. so now we have to go to some bullshit electronic device that we can't trust...but i thought ny was not gonna do it?

[iconoclastNYC]

39. I have read that LEVER machines are not without thier faults

Apparently they work very well if they are properly maintained. But if they aren't maintained properly you get problems that can depress the vote count.

With a Republican gov which districts do u think are going to get the well maintained machines?

We need paper ballots, voter verifiable, scanned into machines with open source software as secure as vegas slot machines. And we need random audits.

[sinkingfeeling]

23. Smoking gun? Scanners that only count Republican ballots. How could

anybody doubt that our American elections aren't pure fraud?

[INdemo]

27. Could we file a class action suit in every state to outlaw

electronic voting machines..It seems there is no end to the problems with this fraudulent voting system??

[emald]

28. this should surprise no one

we have not had an honest election for at least two cycles now. Bushit did not get elected into office, not at any time. The dishonesty runs right through the repukes and their equipment for votes. Only counts repuke votes my ass. wtf?

[ClintonTyree]

29. Odd......

every "mistake" and "glitch" seems to help the Republican candidate. What are the odds of that happening? Not just in THIS election but in all previous elections as well. I think our :tinfoilhat: can be removed now and everyone should realize that there is something diabolically wrong with electronic voting machines. How much more proof would anyone need? Every election in the past two years using electronic voting machines has had these problems and every time the "problems" favor the Republican party.

Enough is enough! Paper ballots! I don't care if it takes weeks to name the victor, the Corporate Media will just have to wait to declare a winner.

[subterranean]

46. Someone should compile all the reports of "glitches"

and see what percentage of them favor the Republican. I bet it's close to 100 percent. I have never heard of a bug, glitch or foulup with the machines that went in favor of the Democratic candidate. Just a coincidence, I'm sure. :eyes:

[Thav]

30. It doesn't surprise me...

Being a software developer, it doesn't surprise me that all these machines have crazy bugs. All these machines that have been developed are obviously not up to snuff - not because the seem to only count one party's votes, but because they cannot reliably reproduce results.

There is no way you can have a true "paperless" voting system, especially when accountability is needed. But knowing government, there's probably a lot of asinine rules and regulations you have to follow with these things. Some of these rules/regulations probably cause some of these problems.

Personally, I like the system we have in my area - scanned cards. You fill in ovals with a black pen, it's scanned and placed into a box. Not too difficult, and one machine can service an entire voting center, as the scan takes like 4 seconds.

[Boomer]

36. I don't support paper backup for eVoting...

>> There is no way you can have a true "paperless" voting system, especially when accountability is needed.<<

All too true. I don't support paper receipts for eVoting systems because I know just how easy it would be to print a person's vote on the receipt and then merrily discount it in the tabulation.

Unless all the paper receipts are gathered up and counted, then compared against the electronic vote, there's no true verification. And if you're going to count the paper votes ANYWAY, why bother with the electronic system?

[Seedersandleechers]

41. Wecome to DU!!! It's a great place..-

[sandrakae]

32. Yea and they probably only have them in predominantly Democratic precincts.

[Chicago1]

34. GEEEE, who would of ever thought THE VOTING MACHINES WOULD MALFUNCTION!!

This is RIDICULOUS. I KNEW this would happen. I know everything would collapse and create problems. This will be VERY VERY INTERESTING to watch!!!


START THE REVOLUTION
START THE IMPEACHMENT

[Pacifist Patriot]

35. Show of Hands: Who didn't see this coming? No, no. not you sir...

put your hand down. Supervisors of Elections are not allowed to vote in this one.

[valerief]

37. A show of hands vote would be more accurate than these

TAINTED evoting machines.

[TankLV]

38. Only REPUKE ballots went thru OK - why is it always the DEMOCRATIC votes

that are lost/disgarded/not registered/dropped?

SOMEBODY SHOULD BE SCREAMING THIS TO THE HIGH HEAVENS!

Where are our so-called democratic leadership on this?

Why am I not surprised by ANY of this REPUKE CRIMINAL KRAP?

[Higans]

40. We need a Class Action Suit.

Out law these damn machines.

It seems to me that since the democratic 50 ballots in the lock box can be recounted over and over, by hand, and the 7 republic-con ballots can not be recounted, perhaps it is the republic-con ballots that are in error. perhaps that Ward Precinct should say something to the effect of "we are not sure that these 7 republic-con ballots are accurate, therefor we will not be counting them in the final total. However we are sure of the 50 Democratic ballots that were marked on paper. We counted them by hand in front of witnesses. our reported total for the Ward Precinct is 50 for the democrats, and 7 spoiled ballots. No need to drive them down town, but you can have the machine back if you like. We will keep the lock box for the next election thanks.

Damn this stuff pisses me off.

[madrchsod]

42. republican in chicago? someone must have sent

the wrong machines to chicago...

[Felix Mala]

48. "It's a landslide," Oh, my side hurts.

It's so funny seeing democracy go down the drain.

[kster]

54. My side hurts when late night comedians joke about Diebold

but they can never have a guest on that talks serious about the election theft machines. Some times I think the comedians are there to make the problem appear less serious than what they really are when it comes to the election theft machines. (Letterman,Jon Stewart ,Bill Maher) come to mind, or else why wouldn't they interview Fritakis, Mark C Miller, Harri Hursti or Ion Sancho?

I'm with you, Maybe they think "It's so funny seeing democracy go down the drain" or they are being threatened, or the late night comedians, just plain and simply are not really on our side.

Just a thought..........

[DianaForRussFeingold]

49. 'Smoking Gun,Sworn testimony before U.S. House Judiciary in Ohio

"Is the whole damn country completely braindead. How can all of this information be verified and how can we get it out before the public. I dont think that many people go online looking for this kind of information because they are not aware all of this is going on. The media certainly isnt covering any of it. I think if the general public knew all of this there would be such a groundswell, something would have to done". Don.

UPDATE 12/18/04: The full video of Clint Curtis' sworn testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Members in Ohio is now available. Previously, we only had links to a portion of...

VIDEO ONLINE OF CLINT CURTIS TESTIMONY!
UPDATED TO INCLUDE FULL VIDEO TESTIMONY!

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001049.htm

And CHECK THIS OUT:

"Raymond C. Lemme, a Florida DOT investigator, spent about a year investigating and told Curtis that he "had tracked the corruption 'all the way to the top', that the story would 'break in the next few weeks' and he would be satisfied with the results". This conversation occurred two weeks before his unexpected death on June 30, 2003, an apparent suicide in a town located 80 miles from where he resided."

Clint Curtis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia :grr: :banghead:

[FogerRox]

53. KNR

Hosted by:
http://news.globalfreepress.com/

[kster]

56. -