BBV screw up in last Tuesday's South Florida election!

[trumad]

This was a very small election last Tuesday in Broward County Florida. But look at the chaos that occurred because of BBV. Can't wait for the Nationals..Ugggg...

<snip>
Posted on Thu, Jan. 08, 2004
ELECTION 2004
New system no easy touch for 134 voters in Broward
Today's recount in the House District 91 race is likely to raise questions about electronic voting, including whether paper records are necessary.
BY ERIKA BOLSTAD
[e-mail]

Three years after helping render punch-card voting systems obsolete, Broward County voters have proven that no election system is foolproof.

In Tuesday's special election to fill state House seat 91, 134 Broward voters managed to use the 2-year-old touch-screen equipment without casting votes for any candidate.

How so many happened to cast nonvotes remains a riddle. Unlike with punch cards or paper ballots, there's no paper record with electronic voting that might offer a clue to the voter's intent.

The percentage of nonvotes -- 1.3 percent -- is modest compared to the days of ''hanging'' and ''pregnant chads.'' But in Tuesday's race, every vote was crucial. In a seven-candidate field, Ellyn Bogdanoff beat Oliver Parker by just 12 votes.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/7660910.htm

[Soul On Ice]

1. Who do we blame now

instead of elderly Jews for not being able to decipher the ballots and African Americans for not being able to find the polling places in time?

Next scapegoat: step right up!

BTW, CA is already doing what is being advocated here: "Lieberman has advocated adding printers to the touch-screen machines to create a paper record of each vote cast. Voters would be able to see the printout to verify it before they leave the machine, a type of technology that many states are beginning to consider."

[ithacan]

2. Broward Mayor Ilene Lieberman

that's the Lieberman quoted in the article, not Joe.

Thanks for posting this, it's great. WIth this kind of story so common you really have to wonder why anyone would oppose paper trail if they REALLY are interested in every vote counting as cast...

[trumad]

3. kick

[creativelcro]

4. again, perhaps everybody cast a vote

and the machine simply did not record it... This is criminal...

[BevHarris]

5. Exactly. And this is only the mistake we could find

The one we'll never find is one which maintains the same number of voters as the pollbook, but simply puts some votes in the wrong bin.

And remember, getting the paper ballot on these touch screens, while critically important, doesn't do anything if we don't use it to audit properly.

Now that we are making headway on requiring paper ballots, guess what I'm seeing resistance on now? They HATE the idea of properly auditing. They don't even ask what "proper auditing" is -- I'm hearing statements like "we should ONLY look at the paper ballots in case of a recount" and "we should ONLY look at them if the discrepancy could change the results of the election. (Wrong on both counts -- electronic vote-rigging would simply make sure it is beyond the recount spread and when you audit, if you find a discrepancy you pull more records to audit.)

Bev Harris

[Kelvin Mace]

6. Is there any part of...

"we told you so" you need us to explain?

David Allen
Plan Nine Publishing
www.plan9.org
www.blackboxvoting.com

Diebold, Inc.
Makers of voting stations with an unprecedented level of crappy security!

[soup]

7. 1.3% of the people

who bothered to take the time to go vote (did I read only 23% of eligible voters did? - it might have been even loser) in a one-race election cast a blank ballot. and this makes sense, no cause for alarm????

The thing I find interesting about this particular case is that it was only Republican candidates involved. Republicans starting to question these machines is really good news, but I'm afraid it may be coming too late to make a difference in time for November.



>"There's definitely something wrong," said attorney Charles Brady, a campaign consultant to Lauderdale-By-The-Sea Mayor Oliver Parker.

Parker finished second to Ellyn Bogdanoff in a seven-candidate race to represent state House District 91, which includes much of coastal Broward County and a tiny portion of Boca Raton. The special election was the only race on Tuesday's ballot.

Employees of Elections Systems & Software, which made the Broward machines, were reviewing precinct-by-precinct results Wednesday. ES&S spokeswoman Becky Vollmer said the 134 "under-votes" -- which were 1.3 percent of all votes cast in Broward County -- were not necessarily a cause for alarm.

"It's certainly not uncommon for voters to cast a blank ballot," Vollmer said.

Brady said he doubts 1.3 percent of Broward voters bothered to show up for a one-race election and then chose not to vote for any candidate.<
link to article


BOCA RATON -- U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Delray Beach, told conspiracy-minded Democrats Monday they can't trust the results of the 2004 elections unless new paperless electronic voting machines are outfitted with printers so voters can verify their ballots.

Wexler spoke to about 200 people at a meeting of the Committee to Defeat Bush, a local group whose chairwoman said Republicans stole the 2000 election and "will likely steal it once more" in 2004 by somehow tampering with electronic machines.

>snip<
California's secretary of state last month ordered all the electronic machines there to provide a ballot-by-ballot paper trail by 2006. Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood said there is no need for a similar requirement here.

The paper-trail issue has been embraced nationally by many Democrats, while Republicans have largely been silent or opposed. Wexler is a cosponsor of a House bill to require voter-verified audit trail with electronic voting. The bill's 94 cosponsors include 91 Democrats and three Republicans. Democratic Sen. Bob Graham introduced an identical bill in the Senate this month.

"It shouldn't be a Democratic or Republican thing, but to a degree it's turned into that," Wexler said.
link to article

note - my emphases added -



'conspiracy-minded Democrats' - yeah, that's all it is.



on edit: 11% overall turnout link