After FIVE months...no clarity on where to find final, accurate results of an election

[Melissa G]

Vendors
Summary of the Collaborative Public Audit of the 2006 General Election in Cuyahoga County Ohio
By John Washburn, VoteTrustUSA Voting Technology Task Force
May 01, 2007
The final report for the audit of the November 7, 2006 election held in Cuyahoga County, Ohio was released on April 17, 2007. It took five months and some follow up reports are still to be produced. The complete report can be downloaded here.

The 68 page final audit report contains many startling findings including poor chain of custody, improper scanning of absentee ballots, poor data base design, poor security of the election management server, and possible database corruption. But the most stunning finding is found on page 36 of the report.
Additionally, we have no clarity on which table contains the final accurate results.
Stop and think about this.

After five months of diligent work there is no clarity where in the GEMS system one looks to find the final, accurate results of an election. After five months of consulting with computer experts, after months of consulting with Talbot Iredale, the professional engineer from Diebold Election Systems who designed the GEMS system, the auditors have no clarity on what are the final, accurate results for the November election or where to find those number.

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2425&Itemid=51

[Kurovski]

1. My God, but what a bad idea machine voting is for Democracy.

We can't even keep up a pretense of Democracy anymore.

As long as the e-machines are in place, we will never know with even reasonable certainty the results of an election.

[Melissa G]

2. Democracy Here? ...with no verifiable elections?

How do we do that? What would the doublespeak sound like?

[Kurovski]

3. Off the top of my head...

"Diebold: securing your vote for our Democracy."

[Melissa G]

4. So says the corporate viceroy..

:rofl:

[Kurovski]

5. Emphasis on "our Democracy".

The implication is clear. :-)