Dow PattenShowdown in Emery County
By now, anyone with an ear to the ground on electronic voting in Utah knows about what is going on in Emery county. Brave souls are doing their jobs by ensuring that the machines do not endager the votes or the voters. Watch out! We wouldn’t want to void that warranty.
Utah is purchasing the “Accuvote-TSX”, and the “Global Elections Management Software” to tally up the votes. This is the same setup over which Voter Action, a nonprofit, filed suit last week against the California Secretary of State challenging the certification of this setup. Again, the exact same Diebold models that Utah is purchasing are clouded by a lawsuit, again. Last time Diebold paid millions. Who knows what the result will be this time?
I haven’t seen the Voter Action complaint, but I don’t think it has allegations of electrical safety, where power cords come out and expose voters to current, or come with different amounts of data on the memory cartridges, strong facts by any measure.
Meanwhile, the governor apparently signed HB 348, a lengthy cleanup bill seemingly designed to build in procedures for the eventuality that errors will creep into the “Accuvote” system. Poll workers end up doing what elections judges used to do. Poll workers drive the memory cards to the GEMS mothership or dial them in on modems.
Remember that Utah is not purchasing the Diebold machines referenced in this article, but it is likely that the votes are being counted by the same GEMS software.
Troubling, at the very least.
March 28th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
Thank you Dow for posting this. I’ve posted a diary entry at DailyKos http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/28/134521/609
..which I hope will generate some interest. We must galvanize support for Bruce, as he is under increasing pressure to resign, and the pressure will increase along with the noise level.
March 28th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
This is merely more of the same old game playing in the Great State of Utah by the Mormon Machine. The various local governments dang well knew of documented flaws or potential for shortcomings with the voting machines going into the contract with Diebold, yet chose to proceed regardless - what we Utahns sometimes refer to as a leap of faith. Now that faith has come up short and flaws have been exposed, for certain, all hell breaks loose as the good ole boy network in Emery County goes into overdrive to paint the poor county clerk as a shmuck who strayed from the Machine without prior consultation or authorization.
Take some responsibility for this one, guys. The chickens be comin home to roost!
March 28th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
With every body from the Goppers piling on the clerk down home, I called the Sheriffs office to see if we could get a statement, and some deputies to put a guard on the machines. A little assurance from someone I can trust. Dad is in Manti till tomorrow so I just left a message on Lamar’s Machine.
Hope he calls me back.
Till then.
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002614.htm
March 28th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
This is the pdf file containing the California lawsuit. I read it yesterday and was astonished
http://www.voteraction.org/States/California/CA_legal.html
March 28th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
It should be pointed out that The S.L County Council was also uncomfortable with Diebold decision and reluctantly voted to approve http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,605152615,00.html with Jim Bradly as the lone dissenting vote.
The very least The Lt. Govornors Office could do is make the extra effort to demonstrate good faith in fixing the obvious problems instead of pressuring elected officials to resign.
March 28th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
If you read through the law suit filed in California you will see the problems are so extensive that it was determined that only a few steps could be taken prior to the next election to make the machines somewhat safer, adequate for a small local election. They stated that for a large scale election, such as a statewide election, the problems were to extensive to fix by November. Its further into the suit, the third section I think.
So while good faith should be shown, as in republicans should want honest elections as much as anyone and demonstrate that by not purchasing known to be hackable equipment, any effort to fix Diebold machines means requiring open source code, outside independent verification of the repairs . California Secretary of State McPherson upon review of the UCBerkeley report and the other report simply pushed down to the county level the responsiblity, without the resources, of ensuring DRE’s are compliant with the laws in California, that is his job and he knows the Diebold machines are not compliant with current laws. His actions allow him to shift the blame for failing to enforce compliance on Diebold to county voter registrars and he knows this. I’m not sure of what position the Utah Lt Gov has taken on the Diebold machines, but I certainly hope people there do know slot machines have better security and safety measures to protect the consumer than do DRE’s currently for a safe election
March 28th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
Graduate Farmdog said it best. We are simple, honest folk here in Utah, and trust what our elected officials tell us. If it’s good enough for Emery County officials - sans Bruce Funk - why then it’s good enough for the rest of us. Who needs all this verification crap anyway? Ain’t no democrat ever goin’ to win an election in rural Utah to begin wid!
April 1st, 2006 at 12:04 pm
Just wanted to mention. I read blackboxvoting site and the dailykos site on this. It is worse than power cord problem. the socket where the power cord goes into the machine actually falls out so bare wires are hanging out of the back of the box - see this picture http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/19675.jpg
January 15th, 2007 at 3:26 am
God bless any child in this world and beyond
March 10th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Vorovannaja stochka ty zhe znaesh