Posted by
Tom Johnson (via Google Docs) on
Nov 07, 2006; 11:54pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/voting-machine-tampering-tp522939p522959.html
I voted late in morning in Santa Fe. Our paper ballot had candidates on one
side, bond issues on the other. We filled in a circle with a ballpoint
pen. After filling the ballot, we took it to a guy who instructed us to
feed the ballot into a scanner/reader. I did so, and the ballot
disappeared. Not knowing that it scanned both sides on one pass, I waited a
moment for it to pop back out so I could feed it to capture the other side.
I said the to guy, "What about the other side?" He panicked. "You mean you
didn't fill it out?" he said. When I assured him I had, he was quite
visibly relieved. "Boy, if you hadn't, it sure would have messed up the
system."
Seems to me it should have been his job to visually check it before telling
me to feed it in, but....
My long-winded point, though: I bet that, at least in New Mexico, there may
be a larger-than-expected discrepancy between the number of votes cast for
candidates and the votes cast on the bond issues. If so, that might not
mean any skulduggery was involved.
PS: I just received my sixth or seventh call in 24 hrs from my "new" best
friend, Gov. Bill Richardson reminding me, this time, that the polls are
closing in a few hours. I do hope someone is doing a "how long until they
hang up" analysis to try an determine an aggravation threshold.
-tom
On 11/6/06, Michael Gizzi <mgizzi at mesastate.edu> wrote:
>
> I was impressed that when I voted on Friday (Colorado has early voting),
> that the touch screen was attached to a printer that printed out each of my
> responses. This was not present when voting in 2004; sure... its still
> possible to mess with the system, but the print out provides a bit more
> confidence on the part of the voter.
>
> Michael Gizzi
>
>
==========================================
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
www.analyticjournalism.com
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.us
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the
existing model obsolete."
-- Buckminster Fuller
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