Fulton (Atlanta) Reports Poll Problems

"In at least one Sandy Springs voting precinct voters report that when they vote for one candidate the machine actually records a vote for another candidate."

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/5279821/detail.html

Assuming officials will consider this a "glitch", I would ask: If the machines switch votes even when all effort is to make them count accurately, how hard could it be to make them switch intentioanlly?

See this thread from a Duluth, GA DUer. They did not use Diebold (is that possible in GA?) and they asked for ID but I'm not sure what kind:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=146x2865

I recently heard from a Democratic friend that her Democratic friend in Madison, GA had a Republican appear on the screen when she chose a Democratic candidate in the 2004 election.

Something stinks in GA. There was no voting in Athens today.

but if it happened then, it could happen now. I never heard anyone in Athens ever report that this happened here.

It is possible - local and municipal elections are not required to use Diebold voting machines. They can be used, but municipalities can decline to pay KSU to program the ballots, etc. if they so choose.

Also, ID was always required - the (now enjoined) law only changed the acceptable forms of ID which can be used. Acceptable IDs include a utility bill, a hunting license, a state university student ID, etc. The new law made a state issued ID (driver's license) the only acceptable ID.

there was also another form of ID that the state would issue to voters for free -- in case you didn't drive.

It is time to demand investigations of all the voting machine companies.

They are designed not to register the intent of the voter, but to erase all physical traces of that intent and to replace them with an electronic fiction--one that may invisibly be switched to someone else's preference.

There is never an actual ballot, and so no recount after the fact is possible. Whatever was put on the hard drive at the time of the vote, or at some impossible-to-verify later time by someone else, is all the record that there will ever be.

When a private corporation offers to do this to our balloting, our response should not be to welcome the interference. We should place the officers of that company under surveillance. They are after the only remaining mechanism that might keep us free.

my mom told me that when she went to vote today, 5 machines were
broken down. When she asked what was wrong with them, the election
officials responded that the machines weren't calibrated.

I am so torn. Cox thought she was doing the right thing (I think) when she went first in the nation all Diebold then it backfired horribly.

Starting within a month of the November 2002 elections. She KNEW these machines were complete and utter garbage, and continued to defend them, lobbying against voter verified paper ballots while writing letters to Diebold enumerating 30 catastrophic failures in a single election.

Read the letters and weep. Then get busy holding Cox responsible for her behavior:

http://www.countthevote.org/cynthia_2005/list.htm

I've met both of them (Cathy and Mark.) Are you in GA and, if so, who will you vote for for in the Democratic gubernatorial primary?

Not now. But, know the politics and politicians well.

If I were in Georgia I'd have to go with Mark Taylor.

If ATM's glitched as often as voting machines do, and the way voting machines do, the country would stop functioning. Your vote is as important as your bank account and should be recorded on a glitch-free machine and the paper print-out should be the ballot.

noticed. The machines are built to be corrupted. Reat the GAO report on this subject.

They all need to be dumped into the harbour.

Atlanta is the third largest gay community in the country and Fulton County is about 40% African American. Let's see, 2% of blacks for the GOP and maybe 3% log cabin republicans, that's let's see, 53% for the GOP!

I know the new Sandy Springs mayor won in a landslide, Atlanta mayor won in a landslide, so I am not sure anything would be changed, in this election. Obviously, this is an issue that needs to be fixed.

I've only heard reports of isolated instances and they claim to shut down the problem machines right away. But the fact that my friend had a problem in Midtown is what makes me think at least that one was a glitch. It would be a very stupid person who would try to turn enough votes in that area by switching them on the screen. But to me, it's almost worse if this happens by accident. I mean, of all the possible glitches and problems with these machines, to think that they actually ACCIDENTALLY SWITCH VOTES DURING A REAL ELECTION is incredible. What possible sequence of events could cause that to happen by accident? I mean, I would think the things catching on fire would be more likely that actually switching a vote.

Presidential Preferences Primaries on Diebold DRE in Dekalb County. I called over a poll worker and we had to press the screen several times to get it to change (Cynthia McKinney race).

Lots of reporting around the country about this happening. It doesn't really matter if the voter catches it, after all, the GEMS code could switch the vote no matter what "button" we push on the screen. It's the code that counts the votes, after all, and no one knows for sure other than those who write the code, what it is programmed to do during an election. All the supposed testing and certification is just smoke and mirrors.

It would be simple to do with bar code and hand scanners, and a printout.