Suspicious voting machine behavior hits home:
Thought I would add my voting experience in Falls Church, VA, since you haven’t heard from us yet:
I am a former election official, so I know all about the electronic machines. (I voted on October 11 as I am presently in Texas.) I voted for Pat Murray, the Republican, and moved on to the constitutional amendments. The screen then shows the completed ballot for the voter to check before casting the ballot. That’s when I noticed that Murray’s name had been deleted and replaced with “no selection.” So I returned to the beginning and selected Murray again. The second time it held and when I cast the ballot it remained. It was the first time I had ever had that experience as a voter, but more importantly it never came up while I was a part of the election board.
A possible voter error? Or something more significant?
Greg Corombos and I discussed this briefly in the Three Martini Lunch (downloadable archives coming eventually, I’m told). At this point, the best thing worried voters can do is A) bring a camera to the polls and B) double or triple-check their ballot before hitting “submit.” If anything seems odd, report it to the poll watchers and local party immediately; depending on the seriousness, contact the secretary of state and local media.
In some cases, this may be legitimate technical snafus and innocent mistakes. But right now, those running the polls have nuked the benefit of the doubt. People have seen authorities yawn at fraudulent registration perpetuated by ACORN and shrug their shoulders at outlandish behavior like the New Black Panthers strutting outside the polling place. It’s going to take a lot more than “trust us” on these issues.
These are the kind of totally unexpected results I would expect to see in a wave election - Democrats that no one thought were in trouble with bad polls. Same thing in my neck of the woods with Carolyn McCarthy in NY04. I think there are going to be a whole bunch of these Democrat losses next week that no one saw coming.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThese 'gliches' seem to be occurring here and there, all over the country. Does anyone know of a single 'glich' (anywhere) which benefits the GOP? I am not aware of any.
P.S. My strong personal preference is for a return to paper ballots. They leave a trail, and can be recounted. This is one small area where we can learn from the Canadians, who use them (unless they have changed recently).
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI read where old folks are having a hard time with these new fangled voting machines....;)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI prefer the Optical Mark Recognition ballots. Huge card-stock where you use the black marker to complete the arrow pointing to the name of the candidate you want. Then you run your ballot through the machine and it reads your vote selection. That way the ballot is counted fast, but there is always the backup of the paper ballot.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm not so sure about bringing a camera. Here in Texas, at least, that is against the law.
Definitely double-check, but I'd say also report irregularities immediately to the poll-workers.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseVoter fraud has probably been with us since our first election of President Washington.
I have personally written computer databases and I know that talented programmers, especially using highly complex compiled code, could write code that could change or delete a vote or a specific voter’s selection.
More concerning to me are cases, such as in Troy, NY where absentee ballets were sent in by people other than the actually voter.
If the voter doesn’t cast a vote, they may never know that someone else has stolen their identity and voted in their place.
Why is it that Democrats, in particular, tend to always block proposed requirements that voters must provide an ID, such as a valid driver’s license, prior to voting?
Shouldn’t an important tenant of our Democratic Republic be both the right to vote and the assurance that no one can take our right away by stealing our ballot?
Perhaps we need an identity theft service like “Life Alert” for tracking fraudulent voting. We could call it “Liberty Alert.”
Robert J. Thorpe, author of “Reclaim Liberty: 3-Step Plan for Restoring our Constitutional Government”
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusewww.reclaimliberty.us, www.Amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com, “Laus Deo”
Tim W, cameras are illegal in Kentucky polling places too, but I suspect the spirit of the law would permit a cell phone photo of a dubious voting machine.
After a decade-plus of electronic machines, my county returned to paper ballots this year. Still and all, I'm going to be doubly diligent in my poll-worker duties next Tuesday.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThese are the times when I am glad to have good old fashioned paper ballots. I've been voting for 18 years and our township and county have always used them. Paper, pencil and Scantron machine. Gives me the warm fuzzies.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe democrats have been systematically undermining confidence in our elections ever since "Florida 2000." Classic Alinsky: jam up the system until people can't trust it any more.
The narrative is that there are two possible outcomes of an election these days: either the Democrats win, or else Republicans cheated and stole the election. A shocking number of Democrat voters actually seem to believe this!!
The Obama spin is to add a dash of hyperbolic PR-speak on top: "if Democrats win it is an expression of hope and wisdom and progress, if Republicans win it is because the American people are paralysed by hate and fear. And also, they cheated!"
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