Ballot bubble may baffle (Butte County, CA)

[fed-up]

Source: Chico Enterprise Record

Ballot bubble may baffle
By E-R Staff
Article Launched: 02/05/2008 11:22:10 AM PST

The lay out of the paper ballots in today's election may be causing confusion among some voters.
Voters are noticing that the fill-in bubble associated with a candidate's name is offset, which could possibly cause a mistaken vote.

The fill-in bubble is slightly lower than the candidate's name.

Butte County Clerk/Recorder Candace Grubbs, who is also the county's chief elections officer, said the off-set of bubble and name is the result of the way the ballots have to be designed.

..snip

Grubbs said each precinct, besides the paper ballots, also has one touch-screen machine. If the voter is fearful of confusion, he or she can opt to use the touch screen.

Read more: http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_8175248


I haven't voted yet, will report in a few hours...

[Peace Patriot]

1. Har-har-har! "If fearful of confusion...use the touch screen"--and see your vote

vanish before your eyes, or change to another candidate. Touchscreens are notorious for 'disappearing' Democratic votes (18,000 of them in Florida in '06, in a tight 350-vote margin race that went to...aha!...you guessed it, the Republican!). These machines are extremely error-prone and unreliable. If it's an ES&S touchscreen, it was likely manufactured in sweatshops in the Philippines. But all of them are bad. Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia particularly. And the silly little paper roll some of them have--as a "voter verified paper audit trail"--is printed in tiny 9 pt. type, so you can't read it.

DO. NOT. VOTE. ON. TOUCHSCREENS!!! Your vote is enough peril, as it is, on Diebold, ES&S or Sequoia optiscans (which at least have a ballot). Butte County is Diebold all the way (whose CEO in 2004 was a Bush/Cheney campaign chair). And Butte has "centralized tabulation"--the most insecure methods. All machines, ballots, tapes, etc., are hauled to one central location before any vote tallying is done. No local posting of results. Very bad.

See my assessment of California's voting system, with lots of info on individual county systems, and tools for analyzing today's results for fraud/error, at
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4380748

I don't know if the global corporate predators have a horse in the Democratic race in CA. But they have the EASY capability to steal ANY election. Votes in CA are very insecure, despite heroic efforts by our new reforming SoS Debra Bowen to reform the system in her first year in office, against the organized and vicious resistance of several corrupt county registrars and their powerful corporate vendors. I don't know if Butte's registrar is part of that cabal. All I would say is: Get out there and MONITOR whatever part of the process you can get access to, take notes, take pictures, post any shenanigans at DU in the Election forum, and we'll get it to the election integrity groups and lawyers who can use it. The post above has a pollwatchers' manual listed in the comment section (for San Diego--but can be used elsewhere.) And even if you're not that knowledgeable, go watch what you can. It's your RIGHT--and boy do these people need watching!