Harry Reid just lied about the Nevada Sequoias or his staff should be

[NVMojo]

shit canned for not doing their homework for him. He said Nevada had total e-machines with papertrails!!! I can't believe what I just heard!!!

This makes me more serious about my concerns that he has used those machines to win other elections and he and Bush won in Vegas with a milage of those machines in place and they are lying about it!

[aquart]

1. What a prince.

Can someone from Nevada please correct him? Preferably in a newspaper headline?

[NVMojo]

2. I can only blame myself for trusting his staffers with the research we

sent them. I will be in contact with someone about this. But I am only one person. I am sick over this. HE LIED!!!!

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

6. Well does he not know that MOST of Las Vegas had

NO PAPER TRAIL!? WE know but he doesn't?

[NVMojo]

16. shhhh, there are dems in denial on this board, they want to believe lies

get behind Patricia Axelrod, she goes to court on the 18th in Reno against Heller. I got this from her today.

Happy New Year News Flash…Judge Orders Nevada Secretary of State to surrender public records of 2004 Presidential election by January 18. Judge William Maddox has issued an “Alternative Writ of Mandamus’ commanding the Nevada Secretary of State, Dean Heller, to release public records generated by the 2004 Presidential Election to citizen activist and writer Patricia Axelrod. Axelrod sued for the release of the records December 7. Charging the Secretary and his Deputy Secretary of Elections, Ronda Moore, with unlawful denial of public records Axelrod called upon the Nevada State Public Record Act and the United States Constition to support her claim. In finding for Axelrod, Judge Maddox denied Axelrod’s constitutional argument instead writing …“ it appears that Petitioner has set forth issues of arguable merit and that she is wrongfully being refused access to and copies of the requested documents .” But there’s still a chance Axelrod won’t get the records. Judge Maddox has given the Secretary until January 1l to ‘show cause under oath’ why he cannot produce the records. A hearing in the matter is set for January 18. On that day the Secretary must either surrender the Nevada presidential records to Axelrod - in court - or argue why he is unable to do so.



Axelrod says, “A victory for me is a victory for all Americans who want to see in black and white how George Bush won the Presidential election.”



Details: Patricia Axelrod 775-787-1909

[NVMojo]

10. why the fuck would you attack me for sticking up for my state?

July 12, 2004

New voting machines hit snag

Approval process frustrates Nevada officials
By Molly Ball
LAS VEGAS SUN

The machines Nevada voters will use to cast their ballots in the September primary and the November election still aren't ready, alarming election officials who say they are already under immense strain.

Nevada plans to be the first state in America to use a device that keeps a paper record of electronic votes. But the device is taking longer than expected to go through the federal certification process.

The independent testing companies that are vetting the machines and their software were expected to approve them a month ago, Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said on Wednesday.

"Each time for four consecutive weeks, they've said, 'We found one minor problem; fix that and you'll be ready,' " Lomax said. "Then they say, 'No, we found another minor problem.' We're pretty frustrated down here."

Nevada is caught in the wake of the sweeping federal law changes after the voting mess in Florida in 2000 that left the outcome of the presidential election on hold for more than a month.

The debacle led to federal legislation to update and standardize voting in the states, notably by mandating electronic voting machines to avoid the uncertainty of "hanging chads" on punch-card ballots.

Now it is crunch time. The election, which promises to be a contentious one, is fast approaching.

Nevada, for its part, is trying to go above and beyond the rest of the country by pioneering innovative voting methods. But the complications of new machines and new regulations combine with a state system that was designed in the rural past. As a result, Lomax is stressed out.

The software for the new voting machines was finally approved on Thursday, just as Lomax said the county was about to give up on it and instead use programming from 2002, which would have made operations more labor-intensive.

As for hardware, the machines' final federal test, which involves bombarding them with radio waves, is scheduled for Monday, said Alfie Charles, vice president of business development at Sequoia Voting Systems, which makes the machines.

Voting machines must be certified at the federal and state level based on a battery of tests to make sure they count votes accurately, won't break down and aren't susceptible to fraud.

Lomax said Clark County does its own unofficial tests to understand how voting machines will perform under the county's unique conditions. The delays "are definitely cutting into our ability to test" the new technology, Lomax said. "We are normally well into our testing process at this time."

With 400,000 people expected to vote in Clark County in November's general election, "we don't just load the software on Election Day and say, 'Gee, I hope it works,' " he said. "We want to be absolutely sure when we go into the election that we have a good handle on everything."

The testing process is rigorous, but election officials are confident the new voting machines will pass, said Steve George, spokesman for Secretary of State Dean Heller.

"They have some little bugs that they are trying to iron out, but I know they're getting very close," George said last week.

"They are coming down to the time when they need to get it (testing) completed," he acknowledged. Despite the delays in approval, Sequoia has begun manufacturing the machines -- currently, they exist only as a prototype -- and has promised to ship them to Nevada by the beginning of August.

Sequoia has a $9 million contract with the state to provide nearly 2,000 new machines and more than 3,000 printers, as well as technical support. Almost all the money is federal funds, George said.

Heller decided to make Nevada the first state to use "voter-verifiable paper audit trail" voting machines, which are touch-screen machines with an attached printer, George said. Heller has said he wanted Nevada to have the country's most secure elections.

After voters make their selections, the machine prints a receipt behind a window. Voters can look at the receipts but not touch them. The receipts are kept as a back-up to the electronic votes, designed to verify that the electronic total is correct.

"The printed receipt allows voters to review their selections on the screen and on paper," Charles, of Sequoia, said. "That's important for voter confidence in the new systems, especially as questions have been raised about some companies in the industry."

In particular, Diebold Election Systems has faced several lawsuits around accusations that its voting machines' software is vulnerable. A federal appeals court in California temporarily put last year's gubernatorial recall election on hold because of questions about Diebold's machines.

Computer scientists and others concerned about computerized voting say a paper trail is the answer. "There's a lot of legislation in Congress saying this needs to be a necessary component of all (electronic voting) machines," George said.

Four states, including Nevada, have banned paperless voting, and fifteen others have introduced legislation. But only Nevada will be ready to roll out printed receipt technology in 2004, George said.

In Clark County, where more than 70 percent of Nevada's votes are cast, the printer machines are being phased in: 740 touch-screen machines with printers and 2,186 older push-button computer voting machines will be used. The push-button machines are paperless and have been used without apparent problems since 1996. Every polling place will have at least one printer machine that voters have the option to use, Lomax said.

Elsewhere in the state, every voting machine will be a touch-screen with a printer.

"States and counties across the country would like to learn from Nevada," Charles said. "Clark County and State of Nevada election officials have always been on the cutting edge of election technology generally."

Clark County was one of the first in the U.S. to use computer voting machines, in 1996, and the county leads the nation in early voting: about half of voters vote in the two-week period before Election Day.

The state also offers "no-fault" absentee voting, meaning anyone can request an absentee ballot without giving a reason.

Pioneering the printout machines will "showcase how advanced Nevada is," Charles said.

While Clark County has been ahead of the curve in technology, it is behind schedule this election.

The delays in getting the new machines are exacerbating what was already a tense election cycle. "This is a really tough election for us," Lomax said.

Last month, a group circulating a petition to put initiatives on the ballot claimed its members were harassed by state employees and asked for, and won, an extension of the petition deadline over the pleas of election officials.

Lomax testified before District Judge Ken Cory as to whether an extension was feasible.

"We are stretched to the absolute limit," Lomax said then. "We have gone to the Legislature three times to get more time and we can't get them to address this issue."

Lomax told the judge that Clark County was on the brink of an electoral crisis: "I'm afraid at some point there is going to be a recount or a contested election that will prove that it's (the process) broken," he said.

Ronda Moore, deputy secretary of state for elections, was even more emphatic, telling Cory, "The general election is hanging by a thread."

Moore said registrars and clerks in Nevada's counties were "freaking out." Election workers, she said, are "disbelieving and horrified and afraid ... that they are going to fail."

In interviews, Lomax said Clark County has outgrown the state's election laws, while changes at the federal level have made the situation even more stressful.

For example, with the state's primary on Sept. 7 and early voting for the Nov. 2 election beginning Oct. 16, county election workers must work nonstop to get sample and absentee ballots printed and mailed in time.

"The size of our county has grown to the point that it takes us so long to print everything that even printing round the clock we can't tolerate any delays," Lomax said.

For example, election laws allow primary votes to be challenged and recounts to be called. If that happened, the system would collapse and the general election probably could not be held as scheduled, Lomax said.

The challenges to the county's election preparations are many and varied, Lomax said. First is the sheer size and complexity of running an election in the country's 17th largest county: with all the overlapping districts of different elected officials, the coming election will require 338 different ballot styles in Clark County.

Because this is a presidential election year, more people are registering to vote -- 7,500 last week alone -- and turnout will be higher than in a non-presidential year, Lomax said.

In addition to the printers, the state's absentee ballots will be done in a new way, using optical scan technology, the method used to grade standardized tests.

And due to a calendrical quirk, this year there is one less week between the primary and the general election than there was last year.

Most of Clark County's election headaches come from Nevada's late primary, which leaves only a short window between when candidates for many races are selected and the general election.

Lomax said the novel election methods the county and state have adopted make poll workers' jobs easier and voting more convenient. Early voting, for instance, gives voters an extra two weeks to make it to the polls. And with half of the county's voters voting early, only half as many poll workers and voting machines are needed on Election Day itself.

The new voting machines being used this year could also make voting smoother, especially for Spanish speakers. The touch-screen devices can switch from English to Spanish in a flash, unlike the push-button machines. For that reason, the limited number of touch-screen devices in Clark County will be concentrated in heavily Hispanic areas.

[LoZoccolo]

11. I'm not doing that.

See what I mean? People who clutter up discourse in one place are too frequently seen doing it elsewhere, which is why I take steps to reclaim my time from them.

[NVMojo]

12. and this...

The Verified Voting Foundation sent out about a dozen technology professionals to Nevada on Election Day to monitor touch-screen voting.

Computer experts are concerned because only 740 of 2,926 machines in Clark County produce paper records of every ballot cast.

"That's a major area of concern. With a paper trail you have a way of doing a reliable recount or audit," foundation spokesman Will Doherty said.

Lomax said he would prefer to have machines with paper trails, but a lack of funding prevents Clark County from buying them. The state is mandating the county install the machines by 2006.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/11/04/politics1958EST0134.DTL

[LoZoccolo]

14. Same deal.

You know what you're doing. Or you don't. Either way it doesn't matter.

[Moderator]

21. NVMojo

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news source
and provide a link to
the news source.


Thank you.


DU Moderator

[NVMojo]

22. Moderator, the links aren't there anymore on the EDFP story

otherwise, I apologize. That paper is a repuke owned and operated paper and they took it down the day after they ran it. Then they put it up, then they took it down. The copy I posted here was emailed to me by the editor to use as I wish. I got his permission, he's a dem but not in charge of the website. I still have the email that has his permission so I am not worried about it.

[NVMojo]

19. LoZoccolo, what state are you from?

How secure are you with your state's voting system?

[LoZoccolo]

24. Illinois.

I'm pretty secure for now, but if they ever stop using paper ballots, I won't be.

And this has what to do with your rampant hyperbole?

[Up2Late]

4. That NEWS to me!

That's ALL they EVER reported for Nevada. Are you talking about non-touch screen absentee voting?

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TheZoo]

5. The ones at my polling place had them

I got to see the printout of who I voted for. The wife voted on the machine next to me and she was able to see the print out. This was in Vegas.

[NVMojo]

8. here, prove this wrong then ignore me for all you want ....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x251123

[Stand and Fight]

9. He was mistaken.

It does not mean that he lied. His staff misinformed him more than likely. Good grief.
:eyes:

[NVMojo]

13. that slip of tongue keeps the Repukes in control ...with false perception

you obviously don't have a problem with false stories being spread to cover ups potential fraud.

[Emit]

17. I'm with you NV Mojo

I heard Reid, too, and whether he's mistaken or lied, either way, it's not good. His recent response to my email shows that he is either unaware or is continuing to keep up the charade that NV had a paper trail "statewide". Also, the paper trail we had still did not give me confidence that our votes were counted accurately...the machine can show one thing and count the vote another way...

I'm writing him AGAIN!

[NVMojo]

18. thanks, Emit! He'll be hearing from me and a few friends who've

called me in the past 30 minutes. We are outraged. I blame him and his staff for lying.

And those paper trails were a joke. Here's what happened in my county a month after the election, and it was announced after I requested copies of each precincts totals for the Green Party.


http://www.elkodaily.com/articles/2004/12/08/news/local... http://www.elkodaily.com/articles/2004/12/08/news/local...

Missing votes found in machines

December 8, 2004

By DAVE WOODSON, Free Press Staff Writer

ELKO - Elko County Clerk Win Smith said 271 votes in November's general election were not counted because of a "computer glitch" with the new touch-screen machine system.

Smith said three result cards from machines used at the Elko Convention Center, the voting location for the City of Elko, were found to have had problems.

However, she said those votes have since been recovered from the computer cards and added to the final totals.

"The good thing is that they found it," Elko County Manager Rob Stokes said.

Smith said the recovered votes did not impact any election results.

"No votes were lost," she said. "No races were changed."

Smith said the missing votes were discovered late Thursday when county employees inputting voter history into the system discovered that the number of voters and the number of votes did not match.

"We found out all the votes were not counted," she said.

Smith said she contacted Sequoia Voting Systems Inc., the Oakland, Calif.-based hardware and software firm that provided the touch-screen system, and the company provided assistance in finding and correcting the problem.

"We walked it through," she said. "We easily got the votes out of those cartridges."

Smith said the ability to quickly correct the problem was a positive aspect of the new machines, which were used for the first time this year.

"It proves that this system was very reliable," she said.

Smith said the Nevada Secretary of State's office has been notified. She also said an amended vote canvass would have to submitted.

Stokes said the county board will meet in special session at 1 p.m. Thursday at the county courthouse to approve the amended canvass results. He said those results would then be sent to the Nevada Secretary of State so statewide totals also can be amended.

In only two races did the losing candidate pick up more votes than the winning candidate, but it was not enough to alter the outcome of the balloting.

In the contest for Elko County School Board of Trustees District 4, Gordon Fobes added 129 votes to Bill Wilkerson's 58 additional votes.

Despite Fobes cutting into Wilkerson's margin, Wilkerson still won the seat with 7,399 votes to Fobes' 5,981 votes.

In the Elko Civic Auditorium race for Seat C, winner Dave Huckaby added 122 votes while John Collett collected 123 votes. Huckaby still won the seat by a 6,081 to 5,225 margin.

With the amended results, President George W. Bush's winning margin in Elko climbed by .5 percent to 77.98 when he picked up an additional 204 votes while Democratic challenger John Kerry added 55 votes to his total. Bush carried Elko County with 12,142 votes over Kerry's 3,106.

Incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Harry Reid picked up 107 additional votes but Republican Richard Ziser added 135 votes.

Ziser continued to carry the county with 8,047 votes in his losing bid to unseat Reid, who polled 6,191 votes.

GOP Rep. Jim Gibbons gained 199 votes in his near landslide win over Democrat Angie Cochran, who added 42 votes, with the final total showing Gibbons with 12,008 to Cochran's 2,324.

State Sen. Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, mainted his lead over Independent American Party candidate Thomas Jefferson, when Rhoads added 198 votes to Jefferson's 68 votes.

Rhoads' winning margin was 11,794 to Jefferson's 3,060.

State Assemblyman John Carpenter, R-Elko, who ran unopposed, upped his ballot total by 206 votes to 12,030.

Also running unopposed was Elko County Commissioner Democrat Mike Nannini for his fourth term from District 1, who picked up an additional 215 votes to bring his total to 11,536.

Incumbent Republican John Ellison in District 3 added 191 votes while his challenger, IAP candidate Dorothy Jefferson, added 72 votes that gave Ellison a margin of 11,313 to Jefferson's 3,413 ballots.

Another incumbent Republican, Warren Russell, in District 5, collected an additional 176 votes while his challenger IAP's Michael Smith added 80 votes for a final tally of Russell with 10,347 votes to Smith's 4,305 votes.

In the Elko County School Board of Trustees race in District 3, winner Annette Kerr picked up 157 votes while Jerry Williams added 50 votes to make the final total Kerr with 7,651 to Williams' 6,045.

Incumbent District 7 school board member Lou Basanez added 160 votes while her challenger Mary Polish picked up 97 votes. Basanez defeated Polish by a 7,653 to 5,863 margin.

[Emit]

20. I'm gathering some of your info...

some of your links and statements to form my letter to him, and a letter to the editor of Reno Gazette Journal---If you have more, bring 'em on.

Thanks for the info, as I was having a hard time finding those articles you put on DU several weeks ago about Heller gloating about paper trails in NV and misrepresenting that some old machines were still being used. If I recall, even in Vanity Fair, which had a very detailed story about e-voting, they pointed out, inaccurately--I now know, that NV was the "only" state with a papertrail--neglecting to point out again those machines that were old that had no trail were used, too. I think this stems from Heller misrepresenting this on talk shows and news articles, I think he's the one lying by ommission. I heard him on local UNR/NPR High Dessert Forum after the election, gloating....uugghhh! Tried to call in but couldn't get on. I wonder now whether Reid or his staff really know for sure.

I worked for Reid through the Democratic Party here in the North, as his office was right next to the Kerry campaign office here. I dropped literature for him, etc. I met one of his staffers/advisers from DC (Whom is a brother of a friend of mine and I still have his card). I'll write to that staffer, too.

[NVMojo]

23. Emit, a staffer from Reid's office just contacted me and I sent the

articles on. There are more. I have to go to work right now but will send more later. Once our email links are on, please contact me. Are you in Reno? I plan to go in two weekends and hope to meet with Patricia Axelrod who is fighting Heller....

[NVMojo]

15. and he just screwed Boxer and us.