VOTE

This is from my friend Scott, in Atlanta. As he says, if it seems there is mischief today--god I hope there will not be--We do have options: "Four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo - use in that order."
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All Four Major E-Voting Machines Flip Votes in Early Voting
By Warren Stewart, VoteTrustUSA
November 05, 2006

Early voting in five states showed that voters' choice are being
flipped
to the opposite candidate on all four major e-voting machines —
Diebold
TSx, Sequoia Edge, ES&S iVotronic, and Hart InterCivic eSlate.

Three counties in Texas report vote-flipping on the Diebold and ES&S
machines. Three counties in Florida report vote-flipping on the ES&S
and
Sequoia machines. One county in Illinois, on the Sequioa Edge, and one
county in Arkansas, on the ES&S iVotronic. In some cases, when the
voter selects one candidate, the machine shows an opponent is selected
instead.

A South Florida voter reports:

"When I touched the one [button] for the Democratic vote, that
button disappeared and the vote went to the Republican."

And from Illinois:

"Corrine Stoker pushed the button for one candidate, but her voting
machine showed she voted for the opponent."

In other cases, the votes are reported wrong on the review screen. From
Texas:

"El Paso County Attorney José Rodríguez said 16 people complained
Friday that a vote cast on their touch-screen ballot was the wrong vote
when they reviewed their ballots."

And from Florida:

"He touched the screen for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis, a
Democrat, but the review screen repeatedly registered the Republican,
Charlie Crist."

Douglas Jones, a computer scientist at the University of Iowa, says
he's
heard similar stories from voters in several states, including one
computer scientist in South Carolina who said that his attempts to vote
for one candidate on the iVotronic were repeatedly changed to an
opposing candidate by the time he got to the voter verification
screen."

Officials normally explain the vote-flipping as calibration errors —
touches on the screen are simply registering incorrectly They point to
the 15-step process that poll workers can do to re-calibrate the
screen.

But vote-flipping on the eSlate can't be explained as a calibration
error, since the eSlate doesn't have a touch screen. Voters use
physical
dials and buttons to move the highlight on the screen and make their
selections.

A professor at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky (Calloway
County) used the eSlate in early voting and reports that his
straight-party votes were switched to the opposite party in contested
races:

"I tried to vote a straight ticket, but when I checked the final page,
which summarizes one's vote, I noticed that I had voted for some of the
candidates of the other party. I went to the first screen again and
ticked the straight ticket box for the Democratic party, and, again, I
found that for all of the contested races the Republican boxes were
ticked.

"I had to go through individually to tick the Democratic boxes. I'm not
a Democrat, and I don't suspect vast right-wing some conspiracy. I'm
just telling those of you who will be voting soon to check the
summarizing page carefully, regardless of your voting preferences."

UPDATE Now the ES&S iVotronics in Sarasota County Florida aren't
flipping, just deleting votes from the summary screen. Several people
from different polling places report that their votes for Jennings (Dem
candidate for 13 Cong Dist) don't appear on the review screen. They
have
to go back and vote for her again.