State to probe Gaston election -Diebold Employee Loaded, Counted VOTES!!!

[Rose Siding]

snip>
In Gaston, the state also will investigate whether a technician employed by a private company did work on Election Day that should have been done by elections officials.

The Gaston Board of Elections paid for the presence of a technician from Diebold Election Systems, which manufactures the county's voting machines.

Gaston Elections Director Sandra Page has told the Observer that the employee loaded the county's early votes onto a computer and otherwise assisted in the vote-counting process, a job reserved for elections officials.

"We don't want that technician to do anything that is the responsibility of an election official," Bartlett said. "If you have some technician doing that, there better be some election official right beside them."

But Page has told the Observer that she did not watch the entire process. She says the county Board of Elections watched, but Richard Jordan, one of three board members, said he did not remember watching.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/politics/10220215.htm

The Charlotte Observer broke this story, the first media org to initiate a voting probe, as far as I know. It has an involved free reg, so I'll include this non-reg link for the backstory.

Discrepancies found in numbers of Gaston votes, voters

http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031779228434&path=!localnews&s=1037645509099

[Pacifist Patriot]

1. It will be interesting to see what comes of this.

[Old and In the Way]

2. Diebold Value-added service.

No extra charge!

:-)

[aquart]

3. That's one. Now what about the others?

Has every election in our history been as incompetent and dishonest?

[nashville_brook]

6. my father-in-law

who has been in east tennessee mountain politics since the korean war says elections have always been tampered with. and if you wanted bootleg liquor in a dry county you can bet there's a minister somewhere with a stash.

corruption is as old as power.

[JD Lau]

9. Yeah, but buying bootleg likker from a bootlegger is only

between the bootlegger and you. When elections are corrupt it affects whole countries, whole nations, possibly the whole world. And just because "it has always been that way" don't make it right, eh?

[nashville_brook]

12. totally, but the point was

to the yahoos who run the political machine -- there is no morality. there is no line drawn. they take what they can. turn a buck where they can. steal votes, fix elections, sell liquor -- they are above the law no matter their station. no matter if they are clergy or mayors or indian chiefs.

[Roland99]

4. Holy Crap!!

[MidwestTransplant]

5. Even if they were watching

I bet they wouldn't even be able to know if this guy were messing with votes. They don't have the technical expertise.

[bmoney07]

7. Another problem

that will be dismissed under the rug.

Nope no problem here - says the media clowns.

Thank goodness the local paper(s) are doing there jobs.

It's too bad that the AP doesn't see these stories.

:(

[Starlight]

13. Maybe I'm confused...but wasn't AP the sole election return source?

They were the ones compilating the results from various precincts?? I heard something like that on tv but I may not have understood it correctly. I know it bothered me a lot. Maybe someone else can clarify this? :shrug:

[BeFree]

8. More details from NC

http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031779235637&path=!localnews!stategov&s=1037645509153



Friday, November 19, 2004
NC ballot count could bring revote
Winners' leads shrink in races for agriculture, public-instruction posts

By David Ingram
JOURNAL RALEIGH BUREAU


The ultimate decision on whether to call for a new election is not Cobb's, though. "The State Board (of Elections) is the official arbiter," Siegel said.

Cobb's campaign filed another complaint yesterday regarding the loss of 120 ballots in Cleveland County. At a polling place in Casar, in northern Cleveland County, precinct workers left behind the ballots when they left after Election Day.

Janitors found the ballots the next day and thought they were trash.

"From what I understand, they're in the landfill," Bartlett said.

[Rose Siding]

11. That makes 3 NC counties with faulty results already

and you have to wonder, how many people are really combing through NC totals?

What of errors that didn't stand out by just *looking* at the results?

[JD Lau]

10. Kick!

[Straight Shooter]

14. Can someone send this to votersunite which is keeping a tally?

http://www.votersunite.org/electionproblems.asp?sort=state&selectstate=NV&selectproblemtype=ALL

I'm kind of under the gun here to finish a work assignment.

(DU is a bad bad addiction.)

[Hobbes199]

15. Awesome excuse

>> Gaston's apparent failure to balance the numbers "surprises me because I always just thought that's a part of the audit process," said Judy Caudill, director of elections in Lincoln County.

>> Page has said she simply cannot explain what went wrong. She has said that she was sick during the week after the election, and therefore prone to mistakes.