Calif. Official Bans Some Voting Machines [Calls for Criminal Investigation of Diebold]

Associated Press ^ | May 1, 2004 | Jim Wasserman

[gitmo]

You don't keep your receipt. You verify it and drop it in the ballot box, which is stored separately and used as an audit trail against the electronic tallies.

Another question though: do these electronic machines retain information about which candidate individual voters voted for? That would be dangerous if they did.

[Carry_Okie]

You don't keep your receipt. You verify it and drop it in the ballot box, which is stored separately and used as an audit trail against the electronic tallies.

Already understood. You do know that the error rate of electronic voting exceeds that for paper ballots?

Another question though: do these electronic machines retain information about which candidate individual voters voted for?

Not to my knowledge. There is no connection between the issuance of a ballot and the name of the voter of which I am aware. Still, it wouldn't be hard to institute in the name of "preserving the integrity of the voter rolls."

We do have a precedent for violation of the secret ballot in tax elections in Silicon Valley for the Mid Peninsula Open Space District bond sales. They hustle consultants, issue statements advocating bond sales, issue the ballots by mail, and count them. Totally corrupt. They even keep records of individual votes WITHIN the household and the consultants use that data for solicitation purposes elsewhere.

There are people who belong in jail for this kind of crap.

[CyberAnt]

I believe all the "counties" the AG is concerned with are "republican" leading counties. At least I know San Diego County is.

Also .. IIRC the dems were upset about the company making the machines, Diebold - BECAUSE THEY GIVE BIG DONATIONS TO REPUBLICANS; claiming the company would set the machines to favor the repubs.

Hmmmm? I wonder ..??.. if Diebold had made contributions to the dems would that have made a difference in how the machines were accepted ..??

[mvpel]

Here's the work that Jim March, a California activist, did on the Diebold issue - work that undoubtedtly led to this ban: http://www.equalccw.com/voteprar.html