Why is no candidate talking about Verified Voting?

It's sad really, that a topic that everybody pretty much agrees on, that everybody should have the ability to vote and know their vote accounted, has turned into something divisive and fracturing.

I used to have high hopes that Rep. Holt's bill in the house would pass in the Republican congress, after all it had plenty of Republican co-sponsors, and there had been multiple companion bills in the Senate. That didn't happen, the Republican leadership would never let it come to a vote.

Now we have a Democratic congress, and while we hold only a bare majority in the Senate, still the legislation never ends up coming to a vote.

Moreover, anytime "irregularities" show up, people are immediately divided up into "deniers" and "fraudsters".

While it is true that you can't blame every electoral loss or mishap on "Diebold", it is also foolish to pretend that the problem doesn't exist or that "the states have it under control."

In some cases this is true, but why fight 50 battles when we don't have to?

There's more...

New Hampshire Election Fraud:

Hillary LOST the paper ballot count but WON the optical scan ballot count.
Obama WON the paper ballot count but LOST the optical scan ballot count.

2008 New Hampshire Democratic Primary Results --Total Democratic Votes: 286,139 - Machine vs Hand
(RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008

Clinton, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 34.908%
Obama, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 38.617%

Hillary Clinton, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 39.618%
Barack Obama, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 36.309%

Machine vs Hand:
Clinton: 4.709% (13,475 votes)
Obama: -2.308% (-6,604 votes)

See: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ ron_corv_080109_new_hampshire_electi.htm

There's more...

I think OJ is innocent and like Kucinich I have seen an unidentified flying object, so I'm immune to taunts about conspiracy theories and the like - fire away.  But we have faced two Presidential Elections where we saw irregularities in vote counting.  We have seen the documentaries, read the articles, and some of us have had our States decertify machines.  Indeed, California's Secretary of State won the election precisely over the issue.  

We have started the first of many actual primaries where machines are going to come into play.  We have already begun looking at polling with some skepticism, an examination which I imagine will be constant as we go forward from State to State.  I am not making any judgments as to what the data means, but I firmly think that while we go forward in this process it is important we also examine State by State the irregularities and differences between machine tabulation and traditional means and see what develops, see if there's a pattern.  

New Hampshire had roughly 80% of it's votes counted by Diebod machines which have a terrible record for accuracy.  On the democrat side there is an 8.448% swing between the positive and negative extremes in terms of % differential between the counting methods.  On the Republican side the swing was: 10.383%.   The following is the differences between machine and hand tabulation. A positive is means they did better when votes were counted by machines.

There's more...

We have seen error filled Elections and Election Results ever since 2000. It has become so commonplace now, that they occur every Election cycle (including in 2006 with FL-13, NC-09).  

Reported from www.bradblog.com:

For those in the media interested in actual concerns about the integrity of today's NH Primary, we'd strongly recommend the following video primer. In it, you'll learn that the Diebold optical-scan system used across most of New Hampshire can be easily rigged by insiders, and only if the paper ballots are properly audited by hand, in some fashion (some 40% of precincts still count paper ballots by hand, at the precinct), can the results of the op-scanners be trusted in any way, shape or form.

The paper ballots used in the New Hampshire Primary will actually be counted by the hackable Diebold optical-scan systems used in the state, as controlled and programmed by a known bad private contractor.

There's more...

About two months ago I was on the phone speaking with the voter registrars office regarding the new voting gizmo's coming to Milford. These were a particular concern of mine because Moveon.org all but has condemned electronic voting all together.

Quite happily I felt very comfortable to know that our authorities at the voter registrars office have the up most confidence in these new voting machines. Not only are they electronic calculators, but they are backed with a paper receipt making the system pretty much a two tier fail safe unit. So that is what I, and you have been all told.

Just last week, in my mailbox came a little postcard with instructions on how to use this new little voting wonder, and for the first time I learned its name. The unit aptly dubbed the "Diebold optical scan" (see photo) requires us, the voters, to mark a card that we feed through a scanner that then reads our card and records our vote into memory. Eventually, after we have all voted and the polls close, the gizmo publishes the electronic results announcing the winners.

This is the part that gets a bit slippery, because it entails my skepticism and distrust of technology all together. Also, being that I am the CEO of Computerfox Inc., I can expertly speak to the fact that these Diebold machines are not only prone to error, but are about as reliable as your basic home computer. Computers that my company fixes by the thousands in CT.

My paranoia of these "diabolical" machines, as of yesterday became a grim reality. What I suspected of them is appallingly true they do not work reliably. The Daytona beach news journal in Fla. the "capitol state" of voting disasters, all but condemned these machines exposing defects in their memory cards, and unacceptable failure rates that cannot be checked unless the proper manpower is used to supervise these units. This too is difficult because, its designers refuse to give up the computer code. Diabold alleges that despite the integrity of the electoral system, election auditors or computer programmers have no right to look at the computer code. This code is the computer language that is written inside the unit. There is already evidence (see the video below) that this programming language can be tampered with to throw an election.

Video at: www.rfrank118.com/blog.htm

Diebold indicated, however, that they are committed to examining any problems, but to do so with reticence, in other words someone would have to force them into action. Immediately after learning about this problem I placed a "Diary" at dailykos.com. This is what 17 people said: See cooments at www.rfrank118.com/blog.htm

The overwhelming majority response was shocking and not what I expected, and now once again I find myself challenging the Voter Registrar, and election commission here in our state as should you. Please help voice your opinion to local leaders, to restore trust in our electoral process.

This is the news link to the Daytona Paper. (also at website)

Posted by Rocco J. Frank Jr.
Milford, CT

There's more...