FL Voting machine in turns up in CA Front Yard!

[Melissa G]

Posted on Sat, May. 07, 2005


Florida voting machine turns up in resident's yard

By Dan Stober

Mercury News


Surprise! It's a voting machine!

Somehow, a Florida voting machine from the infamous hanging-chad presidential election of 2000 landed on a walkway outside John Harker's Palo Alto home Thursday morning.


snip
Down in the windowless evidence room, evidence technician Brad Herran unfolded the voting machine Friday afternoon.

He found a sticker and some documents that surprised him. Officials in Palm Beach County, Florida, ground zero for hanging chads in the Bush-Gore fight, had apparently sold the old machines as historic souvenirs.

It was true. The county sold 560 of them on eBay in late 2001. For $300, buyers received a voting machine, complete with the famously confusing butterfly ballot. Some buyers opted for the $600 package, which included a ballot box.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/11589231.htm

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. Maybe it belongs...

...to some disillusioned Repug who had purchased it as a souvenir of the first election they stole? They have now seen that their Great Leader is really just an Evil Idiot.

[Melissa G]

2. Harker (finder) does not want to keep it....

From article...

Herran, the police technician, guessed that it was discarded by a burglar who didn't realize the value of what he had stolen. Another of the Palm Beach machines is selling on eBay for an asking price of $399.

Tony Enos, the voting systems manager for Palm Beach County, suggested that a thief might have thought he had stumbled onto something -- ``It's an aluminum case. It looks important at first'' -- and then tossed it after looking inside.

Herran said he would be back on the case Monday. If the owner can't be found after 90 days, Harker can re-claim the treasure he found on his walkway.

But Harker says the police can keep it. ``They can advertise it on eBay. I don't want it,'' he said.


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[peacetalksforall]

3. Is it just me or does everything related to the Palm Beach Election

Council (or Committee or whatever they call themselves) come off as being really, really sleazy?