N.C. GOP leader: Touchscreen voting machines have flaw that aids Dems

[kick-ass-bob]

Source: Raleigh News and Observer

RALEIGH -- The chairman of the N.C. Republican Party alleged Thursday that a programming flaw with touchscreen voting machines used for early voting in 36 counties is causing votes intended for GOP candidates to be counted for Democrats.

Tom Fetzer, the Republican chairman, said that if the State Board of Elections does not enact a list of demands intended to remedy the problem by the end of today, the party's lawyers will be in federal court Friday morning seeking a statewide injunction.

Affected counties include some of the state's largest, such as Mecklenburg and Guilford.


Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/10/28/766257/nc-republican-party-chair-touchscreen.html#ixzz13gXIv4sD

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/10/28/766257/nc-republican-party-chair-touchscreen.html

[oswaldactedalone]

1. Our untraceable black ops infiltration program

is working. That's all I can say, you'll see the results Tuesday night.

[NewJeffCT]

33. This is merely one phase of Project X

heh heh heh

[AC_Mem]

2. Gee, they really are afraid

they are gonna lose, aren't they...

:)

[sadbear]

3. This is one of the ways they steal elections

[slackmaster]

4. Tinfoil hattery cuts both ways

[Ian David]

5. We *did* try to warn them for years, didn't we? But that was just crazy talk! n/t

[veganlush]

6. ok, sounds good to me,

...:patriot:

[Renew Deal]

7. Yes, the problem is that Dem votes are being counted

And this is unacceptable.

[bowens43]

8. well that's a nice change.......... nt

[Brother Buzz]

9. Sowing the seeds for a false flag operation

[Thegonagle]

10. So, now that both Dems and Pukes can acknowledge that DRE voting machines suck,

can we outlaw them on a national level? Paper ballots are the way to go.

Look at Minnesota... We outlawed the old lever machines in the 80's for lack of paper trail. It's all paper ballots now. They're tabulated electronically (optical scan), except when there is less than a 1% margin between candidates on the machine count. When that happens, it triggers an AUTOMATIC hand recount, which neither candidate has any control over.

Recounts happen frequently, but usually in local races, and don't get much attention. But the procedures are set in law, and officials have had plenty of practice. Hand recounts tend to bear out the overall accuracy of our machine counts. (Officials also hand audit a small number of random precincts each and every election, which also helps verify accuracy.)

Statewide recounts, such as the Franken-Coleman race, are relatively rare, but the media is all over them. The media, well they obviously wanted another Florida, but they didn't get one, because we already knew what we were doing, based on both experience and foresight, which we wrote down and put into law.

[slackmaster]

13. Everyone or nearly everyone on this board agrees that any paperless system is unacceptable

There are a lot of true Luddites among Republicans. I'm sure most of them feel the same way about unauditable "black box" systems that don't produce some kind of human-countable paper trail.

[Thegonagle]

16. Oh, I agree 100%. Fair and tranparent elections

that give every voter confidence in the process is not a partisan issue.

Black box voting has got to go.

[Bozita]

11. old GOP trick: keeping a straight face while accusing others of doing exactly what you are doing

[indimuse]

12. BINGO! n/t

[GoCubsGo]

17. Yep.

How many elections did NC use those things without a peep from the GOP? Now they're worried about "flaws"? It's a shame a huge percentage of North Carolinians are going to buy into all of the GOP's fear-mongering over it.

[CRK7376]

18. Unfortunately, many of

my fellow North Carolinians will blindly follow the GOP. I on the other hand have already cast my ballot by absenttee mailing.

[GoCubsGo]

25. That's how it is in South Carolina, too.

They'll wag their fingers at Democrats, calling them "tax cheats", yet when one of theirs gets caught at it, i.e. Nikki "Sanford-in-a-Skirt" Haley, they make up every excuse in the universe for her. We're going to get stuck with this corrupt dimwit as our governor, because like your fellow North Carolinians, a majority of my fellow South Carolinians also blindly vote for only those with an "R" after their name.

[AlbertCat]

35. fellow North Carolinians will blindly follow the GOP.

I thought this was interesting... A COMPLETELY UNSCIENTIFIC NUMBERS GAME

Over at the state board of Elections site

http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/

the numbers at the top tell who's registered as what. They read:

Dem: 2,761,865 Repug: 1,954,265 Libert: 9,159 Unaffil: 1,460,644

So more Dems are registered than Repugs. Libertarians are often conservative, not always, but lets give the Repugs the benefit of the doubt and add them all to their number.

Dem; 2,761,865 Repug & Libert: 1,963,424

Still short. What if we add 1/2 of the unaffiliated? I know probably more than half lean conservative... but let's just see.

Dem: 2,761,865 Repug & Libert & 1/2 Unaffil: 2,693,746

Still short and I haven't even added the other half of the unaffiliated registered voters to the Dems.

If you add 2/5ths of Unaffiliated to the Dems, and 3/5ths to the repugs...

Dem & 2/5 Unaffil: 3,346,122.6 Repug & Libert & 3/5 Unaffil: 2,839,810.4

How about 1/4 vs 3/4?

Dem & 1/4 Unaffil: 3,127,026 Repug & Libert & 3/4 Unaffil: 3,058,907

Even getting all the Libertarian and 3/4th the Unaffiliated registered voters, the GOP loses by 68,119.


Ok.... I know all registered voters don't vote (what if they did?) And I completely made up the Unaffiliated folks' and Libertarians' voting patterns....hell, I didn't even check my math! But the point seems to be there are a LOT of Dems in the state at least able to vote.

NC is so skitzoid.

[Marthe48]

14. What goes around

and all that. When do we get rid of these power freaks who try to make everything in the world swing both ways for their benefit?

Wonder if somebody will resurrect EXIT POLLS?

[blackspade]

15. BS

This is another GOP attempt at stealing an election.

[spirald]

19. Rigged for 2008 ballot, backfiring on 2010 ballot

The touchscreens are probably "miscalibrated" in a direction that was "convenient" for the 2008 vote, but now Ds are on the other side of the ballot... :)

[Independem]

20. Help America Vote Act (HAVA), Only $3 Billion

Help America Vote Act (HAVA),

In 2002, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which allocated more than $3 billion to replace punch-card equipment, and states, eager to spend this bounty, rushed off to purchase a wide variety of electronic replacements.

A learning curve is to be expected after the introduction of unfamiliar technology, and election jurisdictions experienced a wide variety of problems with their new systems, including machine failures, inadequately trained poll workers, poor ballot setup, and voter confusion. In some cases, votes validly cast were not counted and were lost forever. In 2004, in Carteret County, North Carolina, in a now-classic failure, a voting machine with a capacity of about 3,000 votes was used to record more than 7,000, resulting in the loss of about 4,500 votes. As a result, a new election had to be held. The causes of incidents of this kind are generally well understood and can be traced to canonical engineering failures. In Carteret County, for example, if the voting machine had been engineered not to accept ballots once its memory was full, the problem would not have occurred.

http://www.nae.edu/Publications/Bridge/VotingTechnologies/VotingasanEngineeringProblem.aspx

N.C. has had problems counting votes for a long time, maybe the schools need more money to fund educated then someone could catch the thief’s running elections.

Only $3 Billon in 2002 for machines that don’t work 8 years later?

[Pab Sungenis]

29. Interesting thought. Who was on Column "A" in 2008, and who was on "B?"

They may have been programmed to flip from one column to the next when the Republicans were on Column A, then when Obama unexpectedly won the state in 2008, it could have flipped the Democrats to Column A instead.

[liberalmuse]

21. I wish.

Not that I'd condone it, but it seems corporations that make these machines aren't exactly pro-Democrat. Or Democracy for that matter.

[Owl]

22. GOP flavored crap, as usual.

[COLGATE4]

23. Preemptive strike by Rethugs to gain popular support for their

upcoming efforts to delegitimize Democratic gains in this election cycle.

[Independem]

24. Old Trick, say votes that are going for the opposition are fraud when you don’t like the vote count

Old Trick, say votes that are going for the opposition are fraud when you don’t like the vote count.

[Matariki]

26. Yeah well, the solution is to get rid of the machines and use paper ballots.

No argument from the Democrat.

[Chulanowa]

27. This is good!

Get him on board to expose the flaws in these damn things. Invite him along, and we'll crack these fuckers wide open.

ten bucks says he'll decline any and all such offers :)

[Pab Sungenis]

28. Tell ya what.

You agree to make the change permanent and we'll sign off on switching to hand counted paper ballots just to make sure we don't steal an election from you. 'K'?

[Iliyah]

30. I think the

gop Tea Bats know they are not going to get the many seats that their polls claim and therefore to off set it they are already crying foul and pointing fingers at the Dems for voter fraud. Too many repugs are speaking about fraud before the elections. That tells me that they are very much worried.

[droidamus2]

31. Actually what happened

Is the Republicans let one of their Tea Party friends go in and program the system to steal votes but they got it wrong and instead of stealing Democratic votes it gave votes to the Democrats. Oh well you win some you lose some.

[LiberalLovinLug]

32. I almost hope he is right

Or to be more specific, it would help if some black op Democratic supporter geek caused a few of the races in heavy Republican districts to swing inexplicably to the Democrats. I'm sure meanwhile that Rove and Co. would be doing their part to balance things out nicely anyways. But perhaps it would cause Republicans to be shouting out for getting rid of the machines as well.

:hide:

[mercuryblues]

34. When

it favored the republicants it was called a glitch that did not effect the outcome of the vote. Now that it favors the democratic party it is fraud.

They know how the elections will turn out and they are running to the courts already. Maybe it will get to the court they are threatening to defund if they don't like their rulings.

[marions ghost]

36. The same machines shoved down NC's throat by Repuglicans,,,,

ya just can't trust those touchscreens, can ya?

:rofl:

Let's see that play out in court...with no paper ballots. Nobody can prove anything.

[Downwinder]

42. K&R

[crim son]

37. Observe how quickly the flaws will be corrected!

Hypocrites, every damned one of them.

[Kelvin Mace]

38. Oh, NOW you have a problem

with touchscreen voting?

[Phlem]

39. Bullshit.

It's another setup.

Let's switch to traceable paper ballots then MF'r.

-p

[Roy Rolling]

40. Fox News Alert

Perhaps Fox News can do them a favor and teach them how to read. They've, apparently, dumbed them down too far.

[ProudDad]

41. If true, it's still wrong... (n/t)

[BradBlog]

43. NC Republicans Threaten Lawsuit Over 'Widespread' Touch-screen Failures, Votes Flipping to Dems

Source: BRAD BLOG

NC Republicans Threaten Lawsuit Over 'Widespread' Touch-screen Failures, Votes Flipping to Dems
GOP attorney: ES&S iVotronic 'systems should have been banned'
Officials: Just 'isolated' probs, 'no different than every election'...

It would have been nice if these guys had spoken up years ago, when the bulk of the Republican Party and their sympathizers were labeling Democrats as "conspiracy theorists" and "sore losers" for their documented complaints of touch-screen voting systems flipping votes on screen to Republican candidates. But better late than never, we suppose.

This afternoon, Legal Counsel for the North Carolina Republican State Executive Committee sent a letter to the NC State Board of Elections threatening legal action if their "demands" were not "immediately" met for taking a number of specific actions to mitigate reported touch-screen voting problems describes as "significantly more widespread than the NC GOP initially understood."

The GOP attorney, John E. Branch III writes that the voting system problems should have been addressed prior to the early voting period "and, to the extend they were not, the touch screen systems should have been been banned."

The problems in contention are related to reports of the state's ES&S iVotronic e-voting systems reportedly showing votes as flipping from Republicans to Democrats on the screen. The threat from the state GOP comes on the heels of complaints made last week in two different NC counties, Craven and New Hanover. Those reports were a switch from previous years when voters in dozens of states had reported votes flipping largely from Democratic to Republican.

Branch charges that the party has "received word" that similar problems have emerged in "Mecklenburg...Randolph...Cumberland, Wilson, Pender, Forsyth, Lenoir and other counties," which all similarly use the oft-failed, 100% unverifiable ES&S touch-screen voting machines. The same systems are also used in more than a dozen other states...

FULL STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8158

Read more: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8158

[gateley]

44. "Votes Flipping to Dems" - Well that's gotta be a first. nt

[DCKit]

46. I think we're being set up. n/t

[gateley]

47. We usually are. They are so incredibly devious, like all the best crooks. nt

[Pab Sungenis]

45. I wish they'd been as concerned

every time we'd reported them flipping the other way in the last eight years.

[gateley]

48. Well in all fairness, WE should have been screaming holy hell about that, too!

And by 'we' I mean the Dems in Big Places, like these Republicans are doing now.

[Pab Sungenis]

50. I was going to say "what do you mean 'we'?"

but saw your qualifier. Maybe now we can get rid of those zombie boxes.

[w4rma]

49. Good! Sue! Trash the damn things! (nt)

[Downwinder]

51. I'm looking forward to the Repugs testifying

that they know it can be done because "we did it."

[bowens43]

52. I know exactly why these idiots are screaming.....

Democratic turn out in early voting here in NC is much greater then the con/bagger turn out.
I voted last week and there were Dems in the parking lots passing out voter info cards that included info about and suggestions for every race on the ballot including those marked as nonpartisan. There were no republicans in sight.

Despite the best efforts of the main stream media to try to discourage Democrats from going to the polls, we are turning out in tremendous numbers. There is no enthusiasm gap.

[Bozita]

53. GOPers often accuse others of stuff which they themselves are guilty of doing

[Lugnut]

54. +100 n/t

[OHdem10]

55. Let's stay cool and see what happens. I find it interesting that

Fox sounds almost paranoid. I am not saying there is
nothing wrong. Suspicious how much "Voter Fraud" that
the Fox News channel is reporting. The GOP is using
these story to put Integrity Watchers at every polling
place particularly in "Urban Areas". Can Integrity be
interpreted as Intimidators. I surely hope so.

All I am saying is I do not want to jump to conclusions
until we get more info.

[bjobotts]

56. Don't be fooled.They just want to disguise their vote flipping to steal an election

[bjobotts]

57. Voter fraud is ridiculous.Who risks spending yrs in prison to add one extra vote.It's always "electi

election fraud" never voter fraud.