DRE Ballot Question......

[yourout]

I have not voted on a DRE and I was wondering if on most ballot designs when you select a candidate does a checkmark appear next to your selection before you advance to the next screen?

If a checkmark appears correctly next to your chosen candidate only to appear next to the wrong selection on a review screen that in my eyes is NOT A CALIBRATION ISSUE.

ITS FRAUD.


On edit......I would love to see people use the digital cameras in there cell phones to confirm that this happens.

[napi21]

1. We've been voting on these machines since 2000.

When you touch the name of the candidate of your choice, that square changes background color, and yes you do have to opportunity to verify those you voted for before touching the final "cast my vote" spot.

Sp far, I've not seen any discrepancies on mone or my husbands.

[FogerRox]

3. If you are not familiar . .. .

the square doesnt change color, you dont know any better... and keep going Bush shows up on the review screen.

YOu said it so much better than I did.

[FogerRox]

2. 2 kinds of DREs I am familiar with.

Touchscreens (Diebold TSX & ES&S) and Push button (Unilect & Sequoia). Pushbuttons should turn on a light at each button. IIRC on the Diebold & ES&S you go to a review screen, thats when the switch becomes apparent. Most folks are new to using DREs and dont know that IIRC a DRE should notify the voter as the voter makes selections
It maybe that a check or a change of color is not readily apparent when making a selection though this function is required by law, its hard to tell. I have seen a demo of the Avante Vote trakker, it does clearly change the color of the box where the selected candidates name appears.

What I have heard from most voters in Broward county, in 2004, was they didnt notice the DRE change the color of the box, or check mark, where the selected candidates name appears.

In the past, most voters don't know how the DRE is supposed to behave, or were told, thats fine just finish voting... I heard one voter telling a lawyer about how she had a a poll worker hit the finish button for her.

If we don't take the Congress back this year, I dont know that I can continue thinking there is any democracy left in the USA.

And as to your statement about FRAUD, yes, but prove it not using the proprietary SW. Video the Damn VOte.

[yourout]

4. Kicking for answers.

[Land Shark]

5. the most common situation is the checkmark or other marking

appearing in the wrong box, though that can't be seen until at least a moment after one's finger is removed. a second problem is seeing the screens come up pre-voted from the get-go. In both cases it is difficult to switch them back. A certain percentage won't notice the first problem, and then those are "free votes" for the wrong candidate which itself is fraud because distorted election results are being passed off as the real deal, regardless of whether any specific person had criminal intent. Since the percentage of people who miss the problem is by definition unknown, it will also tend to "explain" an underlying fraud that is truly invisible to the voter that occurs only on the hard drive. Those discrepancies, if ever proven in some way, would be attributed by "responsible" academics and "upstanding" elections officials as being caused by folks who missed seeing the switched votes on the screen (there are always reports from people who caught it but not from those who failed to see it).

THus, the calibration issue is both itself a form of fraud (with an allegedly plausible explanation of miscalibration via "vibration" and so forth) that resists investigation because of the allegedly plausible explanation, as well as an actual or potential cover for even larger frauds that may be taking place on the level of the hard drive (and on that level, there is certainly no need for the fraud to give the voter any clue whatsoever that anything is going on, nor is there any reason why the boxes checked on the screen necessarily do match or need to match what is recorded on the hard drive IF ANYTHING.) It's "quaint" that people think when they press "cast vote" that there is some kind of mechanical squirrel or something that makes sure their ballot gets punched correctly...

But, if the review screen came up improper, I agree that would tend to be much more indicative of an intentional fraud. BUt it's not like the more common types of problems aren't also quite likely to be fraud, it's just a little more clever. The actual visibility of the problem, which you'd think was a down fall, is actually a nice feature of the fraud.

[eomer]

6. ES&S iVotronic in Miami-Dade County

The whole line is highlighted, in addition to a checkmark in the box. You cannot miss it.

I took my camera with me and was going to take video but only if something was wrong. Couldn't find anything wrong, so no video.