ok. We had a 100% voting machine failure rate in south carolina, and Du is talking about

[robinlynne]

who to vote for? Am I missing something here? I haven't read everything on Du, as I've been busy, but is there possibly anything more important than this (nationwide)?

link to bradblog article by John Gideon:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5579#more-5579

[thunder rising]

1. For once it happened to the Republicans F!@#'em

We still have a decision to make

[NMDemDist2]

5. it's our turn next week with the same machines. n/t

[Flabbergasted]

26. Best reply I've seen in a while. Well done.

[gdaerin]

2. I love that blog nt

[NMDemDist2]

3. we had a few threads last night n/t

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, robinlynne.

[sandnsea]

6. And McCain won in SC

Yeah that is a little weird.

[creeksneakers2]

7. It only matters when Hillary wins n/t

[Wednesdays]

23. If there's a discrepancy of 10% or more between John Edwards' polls

and the actual vote, I'll be jumping up and down demanding a recount (just as I would if any of the candidates' numbers shift like that). Even if a recount would risk JE losing a state.

Don't believe me? If it happens, just watch me.

[panader0]

8. You are so right. What difference does it make who you vote for

if your vote doesn't count? Democracy is in deep dodo until our votes count. One person one vote. Screw electoral BS, delegates versus popular vote, superdelegates ad nauseum. Until we have a foolproof way to vote and be sure that our votes are counted, we are living in a delusion of Democracy.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

9. K & R, for something on which we should focus. How is the recount in NH progressing?

We'd better make DAMN sure we get accurate vote counts this time around. MKJ

[Laurab]

10. There's nothing on here more important - Thanks! nt

K and R

[jbnow]

11. This was in one county and the problems were

obvious. I hope McCain puts up a fuss and they might do something, bring attention. Always best when the winner complains.

But otherwise this doesn't mean much except for poor voters who go out in the rainstorm and get turned away.

Because doesn't South Carolina still have ES&S paperless electronic voting system?
We're lucky if we see things going wrong.
The threat is when it all goes smoothly but there is a programming glitch and results are incorrect.
When votes are not accepted but the machine doesn't indicate that to the voter.

Of course papers for hand counts without chain of custody safe guards don't promise any integrity but I'm not even talking about that issue of it.
Some problems that are caught is when a vote looks so odd they hand count and the difference is found to be a bad chip or programming error. They find a high rate of under-vote in a hot race when absentee from same area had hardly any...and they hand count and see the votes the machine just ignored.

But with no paper trail if the results are crazy they'll just have to make up crazy reasons because there is no way to check.

I think of the early experience with these in 2002 Georgia election when there was a 12 point shift from polls and Max Cleland was defeated and their Dem incumbent Governor Roy Barnes lost with an even bigger swing from polls.

The reason? Angry white men or that Cleland ad or bush glory or gun rights...
No way to see what real vote was. Just too bad.

Here we still are. But don't worry because if Obama doesn't do well it will be he overplayed the race card, blacks had loyalty to Clintons, the Bradley effect, women love Clinton and Bill shook hands and on and on.

Our best bet is if Obama wins in way much higher than polls and Bill has a big fit and yells at everyone until they allow a independent source code audit of voting machines, proprietary software be damned.
So far we don't even have that as we learned most recently in Florida Court: Protecting trade secrets takes priority over election transparency

The appeals court has chosen to support a lower court decision which asserts that forcing voting machine maker Election Systems and Software (ES&S) to provide source code access to independent security auditors would amount to "gutting the protections afforded those who own trade secrets."

The audit could then show there was an error (that he really won by more) and this will finally be covered and dealt with.

Or maybe Clinton would just blame Angry Black Men.

It's all a farce and the Dem Congress didn't change it. It should have been a priority.

[truedelphi]

15. bev Harris of Black Box voting ws saying on radio shows in Spring of 2004

That wherever there were paper ballots in the primaries in New Hampshire, Dean won.

But Kerry took any districts with machine ballots.

And Hillary pulled some major shenanigans when Kerry went down - she wanted to ensure her winning the WH in 2008.

[mopinko]

25. and they recounted nh in '04

no thanks to fucking grifter bev. stfu with that.

[KoKo]

12. I've been checking it out....and YES the whole Myrtle Beach Area had Macine Melt Down!

the DRE MACHINES FAILED but the REPUG RW in SC is trying to shut down how many SC'linians were "turned away" or had their vote not counted because there weren't ENOUGH ...PAPER BALLOTS for the voters when the "MACHINES WENT DOWN!" Now...the Repug voters might start to UNDERSTAND what it feels like when our VOTING SYSTEM IS CORRUPTED BY HAVA ACT! ...and shades of Gore in FLA..2000. :eyes:

[Stevepol]

13. Not only a 100% failure rate but a 100% non-verified, no paper trail result.

SC is just as bad as GA.

How any sane person can think you can have a democracy when the vote is counted in total secrecy by machines programmed by private companies WITHOUT EVEN THE POSSIBILITY OF A TRUE AUDIT OR RECOUNT is way way beyond me.

This was exactly what happened in GA in 02. When I saw that result, I thought immediately, Oh boy the press will be all over that like white on rice. They won't let that go.

Now it's 6 years (!!!!) later and still you've got states like SC opting for vote counting machines that don't even produce paper, so there's not even the possibility of having a fair audit or recount.

This is the ultimate in political mindlessness and imbecility.

Then, you'll have even some Dems say, Well you can't point to any election where you can show that it was fraudulent.

Well, DUH??? oF COURSE NOT, AND THAT'S WHOLE POINT!!! Wake up Tickle me Elmo.

You can't prove it was fair, you can't prove it was fraudulent. YOU CAN'T PROVE A DAMNED THING!!! AND THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A DEMOCRACY?????

Others will say, well the loser, whoever it happens to be in the election, if he questions the result, is just a whiner or a poor loser.

Well, I personally hope that every loser in every election in the country is a poor loser and a whiner and I hope those candidates don't stop whining until we fix the election system and restore a small measure of democracy to America.

[hayu_lol]

14. Someone mentioned this on another thread...

not only did the machines fail, but many precincts ran out of ballots. The staffers were tearing up paper scraps so that people could vote.

McCain protested until he discovered that he was ahead...and then he dropped his protest. LOL!

Nice when their very own dirty tricks bite them ain't it. LOL!

[barbtries]

19. i'd love to hear the winners start whining

when they don't know if it was the people who gave them the win or not. now that would be a breath of fresh air.

of course i know i will not live that long

[annabanana]

16. Error: You've already recommended that thread. . .So.. How many

people do you think were disenfrachised by this meltdown... in round numbers?-

I am every bit as upset when a Republican loses his vote as I am when a Democrat does. If we can't trust the system.. we have no system!

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

17. Kick again. Helloooo??? Most. important. issue.

:kick:


MKJ

[Wilms]

18. Pick Obama, or pick Clinton. Nothing else matters. Why do you hate America(n Idol)?

:sarcasm:

[NikolaC]

20. Not Surprised

I don't care if it was a Thuglican primary or a Dem one, those machines need to be GONE. It's hard to trust that your vote has been counted, or that the results were not tampered with. The SoSs need to get rid of them and institute a paper balloting system.

[rucky]

21. Thanks!

I have to put Brad Blog on my bookmarks. This isn't really the place to go for news anymore.

I hope this leads to some PISSED OFF Secretaries of state, repeal of HAVA and a class-action suit against the voting machine companies.

That seems to be the quickest path back to fair elections.

[pampango]

22. Voting machine conspiracies exist only if they affect us.

:shrug:

[styersc]

24. There was not 100% voting machine failure in South Carolina.

Jesus this place is more Free Republic everyday.