The opti-scans, the machines that count the paper ballots, can be hacked and maliciously programmed just as easily as the touch screens. This was done in the documentary HACKING AMERICA, Bev Harris's movie about the dangers of using electronic voting machines. The only difference is that the opti-scans supposedly retain the paper ballots so that if the state requires an audit of randomly selected precincts that can be done and any malfunction or malfeasance involving the election would almost certainly be detected. If the election requires a recount, the paper is there for a hand-count if that's mandated. Problem is if the number of votes is large as is the case in LA, the vote count, even of absentee ballots or provisional ballots, is done on the opti-scans.
The only effective ways to check the reliability of a voting machine's count is by good exit polls (unadjusted polls of course) or audits of a large enough percentage of the voters (at least 5%) in randomly selected precincts to provide a statistical check that would tell what the probability of the supposed result actually happening given the hand-counted result in the 5% sample.
As far as I know neither of these procedures is required in any state using the machines, and that means just about all of them. In other words, in the end, it's the machines or rather their actual programmers who determine the outcome of elections in the US. Currently, according to Election Defense Alliance, the results of elections in the US tilt in favor of Republicans BEYOND THE REP0RTED EXIT POLLING RESULTS by about 3%. In KS it's about 7%. In some states, the % is more than 7%. In some states, there are no exit polls to use to measure the discrepancies. This is one reason that the Carter Institute refuses to monitor elections in the US. It is impossible to verify the vote. Elections in Central American countries are apparently much more trustworthy than elections in the US. The US probably ranks at the bottom in the trustworthiness of their election results.
Here's the EDA web site and the article the figures above were taken from (unless they change the article before you can click on the link):
http://electiondefensealliance.org/
= new reply since forum marked as read
