Op-Scan Machines Miscount Iowa Republican Race! Hand Count Reversed!

[BradBlog]

Op-Scan Voting Machines Miscount Ballots in Iowa Republican Primary!
Hand Count Reveals Other Candidate Leads By Far!
Machine Counts for Halted in All Races After Hand Count of Absentee Ballots Finds 128 Vote Margin for Incumbant Instead of 20 Vote Margin for Challenger Reported by Op-Scan System!

More shortly concerning my reporting on the questionable Busby/Bilbray elections results in the U.S. House special election to fill "Duke" Cunningham's CA 50th congressional seat (details here: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002924.htm)

In the meantime, an article from yesterday's Daily Nonpareil in Iowa, about Tuesday's Republican primary there, underscores precisely what I was talking about in my report on Busby/Bilbray yesterday.

After optically scanning absentee ballots in a Republican Primary on Tuesday in Pottawattamie County, a popular, long-time incumbent was trailing a first-time college student candidate by 20 votes. Since that seemed odd, the County Auditor decided to count the absentee ballots by hand and indeed found that the incumbent had won the count instead!... By 128 votes instead of having lost it by 20!

Anybody beginning to get this yet? (...thump, thump...is this thing on?...)

In this case, the new optical scan computers being used for the first time were reportedly made by ES&S. (The ones used in Busby's San Diego race were made by Diebold).

FULL DETAILS:
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002927.htm

[Digit]

1. K&R!

[driver8]

2. Now who could ever imagine that this would happen??

This is great news...maybe this will wake some people up.

These machines have no place in the election process.

[leftchick]

3. thump thump indeed!

damn what more proof do they need? :banghead:

[AzDar]

4. We need to 'Boston Tea Party' these effing machines; no election

is legit until we do!

[saltpoint]

20. Good idea, AzDar. If we wanted, we could Boston tea-party several

states' worth of those machines.

I bet they'd make an excellent artificial reef. That way they'd at least be good for SOMETHING.

[jmowreader]

24. They'd make a TERRIBLE artificial reef

They're computers. They're full of heavy metals like lead and arsenic.

Those central tabulators would probably make nice servers for school systems, though.

[saltpoint]

28. O that's right. Here I was thinking of aquatic life needing reefs and

forgot the stuff inside the things.

Let's switch to your plan, definitely.

[ArmchairMeme]

26. K & R

[RagAss]

5. Freedom is on the March !!

[IdaBriggs]

6. The link isn't working for me -- can you give us some excerpts?

Thanks in advance! :) Best, Ida

[IndyOp]

8. From the Daily Nonpareil... Iowa paper...

ELECTION: Faulty voting machines delay results; counting under way
<http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16751509&BRD=>
TIM ROHWER, Staff Writer
06/07/2006

The counting in Tuesday's Pottawattamie County primary election came to a sudden halt shortly after midnight today when Pottawattamie County Auditor Marilyn Jo Drake announced to the waiting courthouse crowd that something wasn't right with the new computers purchased to count the ballots.

As a result, all of Tuesday's ballots were in the process of being counted by hand today. Drake said the winners in Tuesday's election might not be known until around midnight this evening.

<snip>

Things began to look fishy, Drake said, when the county's new computers counted the absentee ballots in the Republican Party's county race between longtime Recorder John Sciortino and newcomer Oscar Duran.

Absentee ballots are the ones counted first.

When all of those were counted, Duran, a University of Nebraska at Omaha student, had 99 votes, while Sciortino, the county recorder since 1983, had just 79.

<snip>

Drake said she decided to count the absentee ballots by hand to determine if the computers were counting correctly.

More at link...


EDIT: COPYRIGHT. PLEASE POST ONLY 4 OR 5 PARAGRAPHS
FROM THE COPYRIGHTED NEWS SOURCE PER DU RULES.

[BeFree]

13. Update

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16757670&BRD=2703&PAG=461&dept_id=555106&rfi=6

"Meanwhile, the cause of Tuesday's computer counting errors has been determined, said county deputy auditor Gary Herman.

According to Herman, the names of those in multiple candidate races are rotated in each precinct, so that one candidate won't be at the top of the list in all precincts. For example, one candidate's name might be at the top of the list in one precinct, but in the middle or at the bottom of the list in another precinct to avoid voter fraud, Herman said. The computers that read the ballots after they were completed were not programmed to recognize the different order for precincts, he said.

"They always alternate the listings to prevent voter fraud, but the computer didn't read it correctly," Knauss said. "I'm assuming it kept everything in alphabetical order."

Because of the programming error, some surprising numbers were tabulated in Tuesday's election before County Auditor Marilyn Jo Drake ordered a quick hand recount of absentee ballots that showed big differences. A hand recount of all the ballots was then held Wednesday."

<more at link>

So now the story is, after ES&S got to the machines, that the programming was wrong. No kidding. The idea is that the ballots were made out differently "as they always have been" for each precinct.

But, the problem first arose when the absentee ballots were counted by the machines.

We are being lead to believe the absentees were sorted by precinct.

We need someone from there to get to the bottom of this, now.

[BeFree]

16. Remember this

It may turn out that there is a reasonable explanation, although everyone has to admit that the programming didn't count the votes right.

The thing is: without a paper ballot to look at, even the election officials in that county would have had no way to rectify the machine's mistake. This case is a great argument for paper ballots in all elections.

Then too, is the fact that the official was honest enough to bring the computer count to a halt, and demand a hand count.

Had Ohio officials had a bit more of the honesty the Iowa official had, Kerry would be the president. If only.

[IndyOp]

17. Thank you for the update. This is a huge error whether unintentional or

intentional it reveals that we cannot ever, ever trust the machines to count correctly -- without voter verified paper ballots we have *no security* in our elections. None. We must have random audits no matter whether the difference between candidates is small or large.

:kick:

[lindisfarne]

23. It makes you wonder if other elections had this problem - someone

obviously didn't program the computer to read the ballots correctly - could they have made the same error in another election?

[spuddonna]

7. Crap, these machines are all crap...

When will America wake up on this issue?!

[emulatorloo]

9. kick n/t

[me b zola]

10. People think that our Oregon elections are safe

People think that our Oregon elections are safe because we vote by mail. But our votes are COUNTED on these lousy machines!


Thanks for all of the work that you do, Brad. :hi:

[lpbk2713]

11. Woops!

That's what they get for hiring the lowest bidding hacker.

[BeFree]

12. The media so far can't get it straight

From the same Iowa website, these two different stories from the same state election official: Charlie Krogmier


Statewide, there were only a few minor issues, such as battery problems and poll workers unable to get machines started, said Charlie Krogmeier, a spokesman for the Secretary of State's office.

Then:

Throughout the process, Deputy Secretary of State Charles Krogmeier maintained that the outcome would not affect any of Iowa's major races, including governor.

Krogmeier said the problem apparently involves the programming on the scanners to read the ballots.

"It apparently wasn't done correctly so it doesn't read the ballots properly," he said.
.

Don't those people read their own website? If they did they see something is wrong, and there needs to be some investigating, that is if they even care.

[Evergreen Emerald]

27. can't or won't?

This has been a huge story, and lets face it: it should be common sense to the media to do a story on machines that have no oversight and can easily be manipulated; the polls--that have been used for generations to accuratly predict the outcome of races--are suddenly inaccurate; and the mistakes, when uncovered, ALWAYS favors republicans. We are in the middle of a coup.

I watched an angry, sarcastic, Blitzer ridicule Kennedy for his article about voter fraud. The media is doing nothing because they are nothing but a propoganda machine for those in power.

[tom_paine]

14. The "college student" is a hardcore Bushevik with ties to THE PARTY

99.9% certainty.

Someone with some time on their hands want to research and confrim was is already certain?

[formercia]

15. Oops, they got the wrong software.

It was meant for another set of candidates...:evilgrin:

[BlooInBloo]

18. I'm getting what looks to be a custom 404 error. Anyone else?

[file83]

33. You mean, THIS 404 error?...

[LizW]

19. They should be able to figure out how this happened.

It is essential to figure out WHY the machine miscounted the votes. With this small number, it could be done easily. Run them through the machine again. What's the count? How does it differ from the hand count and why? Extra marks on some ballots? Ballots marked too lightly? Marked with pencil instead of ink? What happened?

Then check the tabulation. Does it agree with what the machine counted? If not, why the heck not? Did something go wrong with the machine, or with the tabulation?

If the machine counts incorrectly, and no one can figure out WHY, then ALL these machines need to be sent back to the manufacturer for a refund, BECAUSE THEY DON'T WORK.

[glitch]

32. Not this time - the machines need to be impounded as evidence for trial.

Then forensic investigations should be performed on them immediately.

Sending them back to the manufacturer is the last thing they should do.

[eppur_se_muova]

21. OK, so who doesn't regard this as a SMOKING GUN ??

(I mean, besides the media and the Democratic leadership.)

[Wilms]

22. K&R n/t

[bklyncowgirl]

25. At least with op-scan they could do a hand count.

I just voted on Sequoia touch screens. No hand count, no recount, no problem.

Oh yeah and the company's owned by Venezualan interests.

[ArmchairMeme]

29. Since the bottom line is the issue

Just suppose you got your bank statement and the bottom line is what you had expected it to be. On closer inspection of the statement you find that the bank had processed someone else's checks with your money but the bottom line was correct. The problem is that your checks did not get processed! Your bills are now overdue and there will be late charges through no fault of yours AND beside that you have paid someone else's debts!

Would that be an acceptable outcome?

Well, processing votes in this manner is NOT acceptable. It is NOT acceptable that the machines are seen as beyond human error. It was GIGO, garbage in, garbage out, extremely lax, improper programming.

I say we the people do not buy a product or service that DOES NOT WORK!

[Toots]

30. Is ES&S the Venezuelan Company and was the incumbent a Republican?

I sure hope so. If Republicans start to fear machine voting things may get changed.

[Zan_of_Texas]

35. Sequoia has ties to Venezuela. ES&S is based in Nebraska. n/t

[In Truth We Trust]

31. K&R Hand counted paper ballots NOW!!!

[AnarchoFreeThinker]

34. Brad--re CA 50...where are the missing 3600 votes in that race?

ideas?