Machine Mis-calibration, Malfunctions and the Bottom Line

[KaliTracy]

Imagine people throughout the nation at their local fast food restaurant. Unfortunately for some reason the touch-screen keeps losing its calibration and the mega sandwich special that was ordered ends up to be a low-fat yogurt parfait in every location, but off and on throughout the day.

How many messed-up orders in One Day do you think one restaurant could tolerate, what mistakes do you think that people ordering would tolerate before going ballistic on the restaurant people (people get very emotional when it comes to their time and money and food, especially if there are other people pissed off around them).

Compound this by intermittent problems in several of the same franchised restaurants on the same day.

The Owners of said restaurant would be frantic, giving food away left and right in order to make the customers happy, and then, in desperation, if they couldn't get the machines to "stick" where they were supposed to, they would turn off the machines, and go to Verbal Ordering or Writing Down the Orders on Paper.

General Managers who knew about problems in more than one restaurant would be made to give detailed reports of what revenue was lost, how many people were affected, whether it was a "one-time" or single restaurant occurrence, or if it were more widespread. If it happened to only one menu item, or more than one. If the money wasn't recouped they may lose their bonus for the quarter.

Of course, if this only happened in the drive-through screens, only those who came back to complain would be counted and given free food.

***

Touch-screen technology is not new (over 10 years old) and is used in many, many areas, in high traffic (lots of screen time) situations -- and really, there is no logical reason for the kind of "mis-calibration" that took place on election day.





See a larger list of machine problems here. http://www.votersunite.org/info/previousmessups.asp

edited for clarity and spelling

[berniew1]

1. Documentation of vote machine fraud & dirty tricks in over 20 states

and lots of suppression of minorities

http://www.flcv.com/ussumall.html

[k8conant]

2. I don't think enough attention has been given to this.

I don't know why it even happens, except as part of fraud. And, yes, I'm a computer programmer.

[KaliTracy]

6. I heard that to "recalibrate" some of the machines, poll workers had

to first press a button in the back of the machine, which just happened to be next to one that would kick the machine into default mode... have you heard of this before?

I worked in a restaurant in the nineties that I am almost positive (but not 100% sure) that when we recalibrated we just touched the calibration points on the screen.

Do today's machines (or those that are several years old) have to be rebooted in order to be calibrated?

There was a thread on this a while back, but it was at least 2 or 3 weeks ago...

[emlev]

3. Thanks for that analogy.

[meganmonkey]

4. Excellent and succinct analogy.

I plan on using this on my friends & family, if you don't mind!

:)

[KaliTracy]

5. great! hope it helps! n/t

[bleever]

7. Great analogy. Thanks. n/t

[Bill Bored]

8. I'd still like to see a user manual for one of these machines.

It's not code, so why is it apparently a secret?

Does anyone know if the "default to Bush" phenomena was user configurable, or did it have to be a hack?

See this thread (although not many replied there) :-(

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x310796>

[KaliTracy]

10. In some machines it looks like a "manual mode" was accessible by

poll workers -- although "inadvertently" -- also looks like there is at a "Troubleshooting Guide" out there for at least one machine.

From locked thread: "How To Vote Repeatedly on Touch Screens (Connect the dots)"

"FACT: As discussed in our report linked below, the "manual mode" allows a voter to vote more than once, and is triggered by pressing the yellow activate button on the back of the machine, twice. A soft beep is heard. In fact, the Troubleshooter's guide specifically advises pollworkers that voters have to be watched to insure they do not vote more than once, in the event manual mode is triggered."

See thread here -- http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x287420

See article in first post here: http://www.votersunite.org/info/SnohomishElectionFraudInvestigation.pdf

[Bill Bored]

11. I skimmed that report once.

Maybe I'll back and actually read it! Thanks KaliT!

[Senator]

9. When using the analogy, add the "bottom line">>

As berniew1 adds, the results include "lots of suppression of minorities."

Any such suppression is unlawful under the Voting Rights Act. It need not be intentional nor must anyone commit any willful act. The disparate circumstance itself violates the law.

The US Commission on Civil Rights made a legal finding of such in the 2000 election. (No answer yet on their formal demand for prosecution.)

So when you repeat this analogy, tack on the bottom line. That the last 2 elections were "unlawful and racist" and consequently the White House is occupied by an appointed ruler, not an elected leader. As far as Real Americans are concerned, POTUS is still an elective office.

This is not a matter of opinion. Don't let anyone in your presence claim that it is.

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