Another Primary Election Day. Another E-Voting Mess. This time in Arkansas.
Mind you, this comes on the heels of earlier announcements that several major counties in Arkansas would be forced to use paper ballots instead of electronic machines after ES&S failed to deliver ballots and programming on time for the start of elections (something like the 10th state in which this has happened with ES&S so far this year, as regular BRAD BLOG readers know. But shhh…don’t tell anyone!)
On Monday, the day before the election, at least one county election director in Arkansas pleaded with voters to choose paper on Election Day. “Grab a paper ballot, vote it and put it in the ballot box. It will go smoother,” Benton County’s election coordinator told voters on Monday.
Well, now it looks like ES&S has failed even further (we’re shocked, shocked!) as tabulators in some counties failed to work at all, so ballots can’t be counted until tomorrow at the earliest. And now the AR Secretary of State wants some answers about all of it.
Andrew Bagley, a justice of peace candidate, said the note told the curious that tabulation of votes would be delayed, quote,”because the vendor failed to supply a chip for the tabulator.”
Deputy Secretary of State Janet Harris said state officials and technicians for Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Nebraska,which provided the equipment, had been working on the Phillips County issue all day. She said the company plans to reprogram a chip and drive it back to the county tomorrow.
Secretary of State Charlie Daniels says he wants to find out why a $15 million contract with ESS for the voting machines wasn’t completely fulfilled by the time voting started in party primaries. Officials in four of Arkansas’ 75 counties were not able to use the touch-screen voting machines provided by ESS, which meet the requirements of the Help America Vote Act.
While the article says that ES&S’ machines apparently “meet the requirements of the Help America Vote Act,” we guess none of those HAVA requirements include anything about the machines actually being required to work.
(Hat tip John Gideon, natch.)
MAchines is broke can’t count till we "fix" them tonight and no you can not watch us fix them.
A PHONE COMPANY
THAT STANDS UP FOR RIGHTS
SWITCH TO
THE AMERICAN QUEST
(AT&T – SOUTHERN BELL = SPY WHORES)
Demand that all vote tabulation link-ups go thru Qwest phone lines. All other phone lines go thru the republican dictatorship lackies. The tabulations can be intercepted, changed, then pumped on thru to the fascist side of life.
It isn’t who votes that counts
its who sends the "votes" to the
final destination
This may have been asked, but, is anyone keeping track or analyzing which counties are or aren’t being trashed in terms of D/R registration? Any patterns?
So, all the vote-holding memory cards will be held -where- while they wait for the "official" tabulators to be fixed? The cards can be put in -what- machines in the mean time and "adjusted", during how long of a period?
I sure hope we have enough "major problems" with these damn machines to stir up the hornet’s nets and get people on paper instead of invisible bits of electricity/state machines. And I hope it happens in such a large swath as to make sure "suspect" elections are done over again on paper.
The will of the PEOPLE needs to be heard, no matter what that will is.
Hey folks specially in Florida. Check it out. This is supposably a bi-partisan new statewide initiative harnesses technology to inform voters about the 2006 elections. http://www.forthepublic.net/ Guess who you can listen to so far, Randy Johnson R-Winter Garden and Senator R-Mike Bennett. You can find what they say by following the Projects & Programs to Growth & Communities. I hope our Democrats are aware of this new service. Let’s see if any of them are able to use it. Our Democrats need to get an early start on this. The non-partisan forums will allow candidates for statewide office to speak on a variety of topics of vital importance to Florida ’s future. Candidates running for governor, attorney general, chief financial officer, agriculture commissioner and U.S. Senate will have the opportunity to present their views and platforms to voters.
does anyone else think it’s nonsensical that they ‘can’t count’ the votes until they get the machines fixed — er, repaired?
did they forget how to count by hand?
Des, a lot of the "votes" are on "memory cards", not ballots.. There is no way to count them "by hand"..
And, that’s -exactly- the problem..
He needs answers??
If he just came to this blog he’d have had his answer a long time ago.
Lisa B #6
Thanks for the heads-up. Campaigns might be different if each candidate got equal air time and equal advertising opportunities.
And as for Arkansas–when are they going to wake up and smell the fire? The awareness of the big picture–the frequency and depth of the problems with the various kinds of electronic voting machines–is still painfully limited.