State wants limited voting machine checks (Florida)

BY GARY FINEOUT
gfineout@MiamiHerald.com

TALLAHASSEE - Months after a maverick elections supervisor irritated a leading voting-machine company and state officials by conducting unorthodox tests on voting equipment -- and finding security problems -- the state wants to make it harder for counties to check voting machines.

The state is proposing rules that require all 67 election supervisors in Florida to get approval from the state Division of Elections before testing their voting equipment for any problems, including whether or not it has security flaws or if the vote-counting software is working correctly.

The new rule would require county supervisors to submit a ''testing plan'' to the division, as well as to notify the maker of the machine before the test can take place. Any results of the test would have to be sent to state officials.

...snip...

But Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho says the state proposal is an effort to curtail any future tests of voting equipment. Last year, Sancho allowed computer experts to hack into his county's optical-scan voting machine system, which is manufactured by Diebold, the same company that makes the ATM-styled touch-screen machines used in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/14776132.htm

They don't even care about how blatant and obvious they are anymore. This shows either supreme confidence, or desperation.

lack of concern is so large that they are willing to let the current leadership destroy democracy and install a dictatorship for their corrupt corporatist ends.

They're stealing the election right before our eyes.

I'm willing to bet even that gruesome inept trollop Katherine Harris will "win" this fall.

they want to make us think the elections are rigged so we don't even bother coming to the polls.

They're making sure we CAN'T come to the polls, even if we wanted.

(House and Senate) passed and Governor Bush signed a law that makes it illegal to hand count any ballot that was first counted by a machine, this is just an after thought.

I'm sure that if they had only known that an elections supervisor would test the vote counting equipment for accuracy and security, that they would have included limiting equipment checks in the same bill.

I hope it doesn't affect public records laws which anyone can request a ballot inspection and count the votes independently.

There was a 2004 citizen ballot audit of some Florida precincts in Orange County. We made two trips to the Supervisor's building because the first count didn't match up from an incomplete stack. On the second visit, the remaining ballots were stored in plastic bags without any seals so there was no way to tell if our "results" were reliable. We plan on making more surprise visits.

If they try to use this law against our legal requests, we have the capability to notify every single media outlet in Florida and take possible legal action.

Adolfo
www.recountflorida.com

Jebby and his friends are just as evil and vindictive as George and his friends. But Jebby is more effective (and perhaps even meaner)..... and that is scary.

machines Not one. Not from Diebold, not from the governements that bought them, not the most neo-con of neo-cons. He can get people to defend ANYTHING else, but not this kind of voting.

Because they KNOW that unverifiable voting is indefensible.

Repulsive.

and some like my best friend, who used to have a will similar to mine, have drank every drop of kool aid given them.

I kinda know someone like that too

will just shot to hell, no fight left in them

what a joke. a cruel joke.