November 21, 2006
Problems with electronic voting in Hidalgo County

Rep. Pena reprints a article about voting problems in Hidalgo County, which have generated bipartisan complaints.


Hidalgo County Republican Party Chairman Hollis Rutledge has contacted Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams personally over the general election vote totals fiasco in Hidalgo County.

Rutledge told the Guardian he contacted Williams after speaking with Hidalgo County Democratic Party Juan Maldonado. Rutledge said both major political parties were in agreement that something needed to be done to avoid similar screw-ups in the future.

"We know that no matter which version of the three or four different voting totals we were given is correct, the actual election results will not change," Rutledge said.

"We simply want answers because we are concerned about the integrity of the process in the future. We all realize that if we do not get to the bottom of this, the average Joe Blow in Hidalgo County will lose confidence that his vote is being counted correctly."


That's exactly it. People need to feel confident that the equipment they're using is reliable, and right now a whole lot of people, especially but by no means exclusively people in Williamson County, have good reason not to feel confident. And it's not just the machinery, but how those machines are operated that raises all kinds of questions. It's just a matter of time before Texas has an election where problems with voting machines will affect the outcome of a race. It would be better to try and deal with the underlying issues now, before that happens.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on November 21, 2006 to Election 2006 | TrackBack
Comments

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Observably honest elections with numbered ballots as demanded by our Texas Constitution solves everyone's problem with these machines of No Evidence or Hidden Evidence.

Do we want to solve global warming or not? If hopefully, thankfully we do want to survive by solving global warming, we need to prove our Democracy.

from:
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/8/44498.html
(From BBV):

Love this quote from Avi Rubin, about what we should do when we dump all these security-defective voting machines:

I recommended to them [state officials] that they give these thirty, forty thousand machines that they have to the schools, attach a mouse and a keyboard, they're Windows machines, let the kids use them, said Avi Rubin, who votes in Maryland. Or give them to a country whose government we want to control.

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For Democracy's future, thanks to two great Texas Congresswomen:

http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/44399.html

Now we're getting somewhere --
Congressional hand counted paper ballots bill introduced in U.S. Congress

Bev Harris
Board Administrator Posted on Sunday, October 15, 2006 - 05:00 pm:

Here is the text of the bill, courtesy of Paul Lehto:

Paper Ballot Act of 2006 (Introduced in House)
HR 6200 IH

109th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 6200

To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require States to conduct Presidential elections using paper ballots and to count those ballots by hand, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 27, 2006

Mr. KUCINICH (for himself, Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida, Mr. CLAY, Mr. CONYERS, Mr. FILNER, Mr. GRIJALVA, Mr. GUTIERREZ, Mr. HASTINGS of Florida, Mr. HINCHEY, Mr. JACKSON of Illinois, Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas, Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas, Ms. KAPTUR, Ms. LEE, Mr.MCDERMOTT, Ms. MCKINNEY, Mrs. MALONEY, Ms. SOLIS, Ms. WATERS, and Ms. WOOLSEY) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on House Administration, and in addition to the Committee on Government Reform, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

A BILL
To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require States to conduct Presidential elections using paper ballots and to count those ballots by hand, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Paper Ballot Act of 2006'.

SEC. 2. REQUIRING USE OF HAND-COUNTED PAPER BALLOTS IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS.

Section 301(a) of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (42 U.S.C. 15481(a)) is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:

`(7) SPECIAL RULES FOR PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS- Notwithstanding any other provision of this subsection, in the case of a regularly scheduled general election for the electors of President and Vice President (beginning with the election in November 2008), the following rules shall apply:

`(A) The State shall conduct the election using only paper ballots.

`(B) The State shall ensure that the number of ballots cast at a precinct or equivalent location which are placed inside a single box or similar container does not exceed 500.

`(C) The ballots cast at a precinct or equivalent location shall be counted by hand by election officials at the precinct, and a representative of each political party with a candidate on the ballot, as well as any interested member of the public, may observe the officials as they count the ballots. The previous sentence shall not apply with respect to provisional ballots cast under section 302 a).'.

SEC. 3. MOVING OBSERVATION OF WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY TO ELECTION DAY DURING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION YEARS.

Section 6103(a) of title 5, United States Code, is amended--

(1) by inserting `the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November in 2008 and every fourth year thereafter, and' after `Washington's Birthday,'; and

(2) by inserting `in any other year' after `February'.

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Posted by: Prove Our Democracy So We Can Reverse Global Warming on November 21, 2006 12:06 PM

Bipartisan View:

You are correct that problems with voting machines can hurt any political party or candidate.

So, even four versions of the votes by these machines may still hide the real vote count numbers, whether Democrats and Republicans say so or not.

The remedy (see above) is a bipartisan future of a provable Democracy and everyone following the law of our Texas Constitution for observably honest elections with numbered paper ballots that are handcounted. That would work.

Otherwise: Partisan View:

Why do so many of these defects so hugely affect one party more than the other? When machines automatically switch votes, why is it nearly 100% in one party's favor?

Yet, Democrats won around the nation, though not so much in Texas. So, is everything now okay?

For an update, see:

Election Defense Alliance Press Release

Election Defense Alliance, a national election integrity organization, issued an urgent call for further investigation into the 2006 election results and a moratorium on deployment of all electronic election equipment, after analysis of national exit polling data indicated a major undercount of Democratic votes and an overcount of Republican votes in U.S. House and Senate races across the country. “These findings raise urgent questions about the electoral machinery and vote counting systems used in the United States,” according to Sally Castleman, National Chair of EDA. This is a national indictment of the vote counting process in the United States!

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This is the best I can think of to do -- Democrats and Republicans could work this out for the sake of our kids and their hope of having a future which means we have to solve global warming. To do that we have to prove our Democracy.

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Posted by: Prove Our Democracy So We Can Reverse Global Warming on November 21, 2006 12:54 PM