All posts by dusty1215

Central Valley

Diebold Voting Machines and snafus questioned in Kern County’s ’06 primary.

A reprint of my writeup about the Diebold fiasco in Kern’s 06 primary.The original can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/2…

The state of California’s Select Committe on Integrity of Elections began holding hearings today in my city of Bakersfield. Kern county experienced significant problems during the ’06 primary, forcing some voters to become disenfranchised..Meaning they couldn’t vote. The following three areas were targeted as unacceptable. And the cause of the voter disenfranchisement and reporting problems here in Kern County:

The Voter Access Cards
Lack of paper ballots for backup if the machines failed to work
Tabulation of the votes after the polls closed.

The Voter Access Cards, or VAC’s, which activate the Diebold TSX voting machine for each voter, did not work in many precincts when the polls opened. I personally did not experience any problems, but several precincts, such as those in Delano, CA did not have any working VAC’s and people were waiting to vote when the precincts opened. The poll workers had not been trained in how to deal with this type of malfunction. They were told it wouldn’t be a problem.

But it was. And people were turned away or got tired of waiting and left without voting. A privilege and one protected by the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

The root cause of the malfunction was determined to be old VAC’s from the previous election year that had not been updated with the new security codes. Who’s fault was this one might ask..Diebold piped up and accepted blame. But during the hearing, Diebolds California representative could not say with any certainty why Diebold dropped the ball in putting this crucial step into their training manuals sent out to Kern county, or why their representatives, who were in town on a weekly basis to the runup of the election, didn’t tell the Kern County Registrar that the VAC’s had to be re-programmed. The Diebold representative couldn’t answer most of the questions asked of him with any certainty. Neither could the Deputy Registar when it was her turn on the hotseat. The Deputy Registrar couldn’t even tell the senators how many paper ballots were cast because of the VAC malfunction. Neither individual seemed prepared for the hearing. Neither person could tell the Senators how much Kern County paid for the Diebold system that left voters out in the cold.

According to this article in the Bakersfield Californian, Kern County paid “about 5 million” for the system.

Two of the three senators conducting the hearing were Democrats. The lone Republican, Roy Ashburn however, asked many of the hard questions and didn’t accept the empty explanations and the “I don’t knows” offered by Diebold and the Registrar’s Office for the problems that occurred over the course of the election day and evening.

Some folks were given paper ballots. The county Registrar only issued 20 of these to each precinct. It should also be mentioned that Delano’s poll workers were lax in showing up to work. They had to grab folks that were not trained during the preceding months to fill in. When they ran out of paper ballots, they started giving people Spanish ballots, even if they didn’t speak Spanish. They also copied ballots and handed those out. They tried vainly to fill the need and rights of Californians to vote in an election. At one point it was mentioned during the hearing that the Registar had said she would accept “Faxed” ballots from voters. It had to be explained to the Registrar during the course of the election night that faxed ballots were not legal, and they were not accepted.

The third issue was the failure of Ridgecrest to transmit their voting results after the polls closed. Ridgecrest is over two hours away from Bakersfield. Each Diebold machine has the ability to act as a transmitter but the problem seemed to be blamed on the baud speed of the modems. The voting results had to be driven to Bakersfield, resulting in a major delay that should of never happened. The inability to transmit voting results from Ridgecrest, coupled with the processing of paper ballots led to a three hour delay in voting results after the polls closed here in California. When they did start showing results..they were being reported as “100% of precincts reporting” when in fact they had just started tabulating the votes.

Another problem in the process to tabulate the votes was the Security within the computer center for the Registrar. There was the expected panic when the numerous problems arose, however, people who had been hired for menial positions and were NOT cleared by security checks were given access to the computer room. Some were asked if they had any computer experience, and if not, would they be willing to learn. The secure computer room was no longer secure. Add to this mix, the paper ballots that were not expected to be processed because, according to several people that testified, this was never going to happen, and you had procedures that were ignored or altered after the fact.

These issues affect all voters, party affiliation has no bearing on this important issue of disenfranchisement. The three senators were Roy Ashburn, Joseph Dunn and the chair Debra Bowen. All three asked questions and participated equally. Sen. Ashburn was incensed that Ann Barnett, the Registrar, who is also our Auditor/Controller/County Clerk did not appear. He demanded to know why. He was told by Sandra Brockman, Deputy Registrar that she was “on vacation”. Sen. Dunn stated that accepting blame was easy for Diebold but providing restitution to the disenfranchised voters was no where to be found. Diebold’s representative stated they were going to pay for the helicopter needed to deliver working VAC’s to the precincts that did not have any when their polls opened that morning. This was not an acceptable response judging by the reaction of Sen. Dunn. Many of the important questions posed by the committee went unanswered. Since this is their first stop, I hope they will get answers to them somewhere down the road. Our right to vote depends on it.

Uncategorized

Swing Voters, The most important poll this Election Year

I believe this is the single most important poll of this, the silliest of seasons, Election Season. It’s worth a few minutes of your busy day to stop and read this in its entirety. It states very clearly, that large segments of voters are willing to change the status quo this November under defined conditions.

I was invited to participate in a conference call held by USAction.org Thursday, June 29th. For those of you unfamiliar with USAction, they are a non-profit organization that campaigns to strengthen social, economic and health security for all Americans. Recently USAction’s Education Fund was selected by Working Assets as one of 50 nonprofits eligible for funding in 2007. They are a legitimate group with a strong commitment to progressive change in this country.

I have no idea why they chose me to participate in the conference call. The other attendees included not only bloggers but progressive columnists. The reason for the conference call was to discuss a poll USAction.org commissioned regarding the issues that are important to swing voters in the key swing states, districts and cities in this election season. Swing voters were the turning point in electing George Bush for a second term.

A swing voter is defined as someone who doesn’t always vote along their party lines or is independent of party affiliation with either the Democrats or Republicans. I am one of the latter since I am registered as “decline to state”. The swing states, are defined as those states that “Lean Takeover, Toss-up, or Narrow Advantage Incumbent Party” by The Rothenberg Political Report as of early April, 2006. These states include Pennsylvania, Montana, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Ohio, Missouri, and Minnesota, as well as Tennessee.”

The swing districts are:

IA 1, OH 6, CO7, AZ8, OH18, TX22, NM1, PA6, IL8, IN9, IN8, CT2, LA3, CT4, GA8, IL6, WA8, GA12, FL22, CA50, VT-at large, IA3, MN6, PA8, WI8, NC11, TX17, WA2, CO3, KY4, SC5, NY29, IN2, NV2, CO4, CT5, LA7, NC8, FL9, OH13, OH15, AZ1, OH1, KY2, MN2, NH2, VA2, KY3, PA7, PA10, CA11, NY20, NHY1, NY1, UT2, KS3, NV3, TN4, OH5, IN7, NJ7, FL8, NY19, ND at-large, and SD at-large

The poll was conducted by Greenberg,Quinlan, and Rosner Research. Prior to Thursday’s conference call with GQRR and USAction, they provided us with the poll results, how they arrived at the results and obtained the data. It was a lot of information to digest. Thankfully, the folks from GQRR explained the data and answered our questions. The reason for this poll was to frame the issues that are important to the swing voters and to identify what angers them with regard to the current state of our Union. Keep in mind that these voters, for the most part, elected George Bush in 2004.This fact can not be stressed enough.

I have the permission of USAction to use any and all the data regarding this poll and to distribute it widely. I want to share with you what I consider to be some very important findings. You can view the same information that I was given by going to their website. The link for this project in its entirety is here: http://usaction.org/swingnation I have covered only a small portion of the questions asked the voters.

A whopping 73 percent describe the country as off on the wrong track, 66 percent disapprove of the performance of George Bush and nearly half (49 percent) strongly disapprove. The reasons for this anger range from the War in Iraq to the various scandals that have engulfed our elected officials and various departments of our government. Their anger also includes, and I quote from the Swing Nation memo here: “But much of the anger reflects persistent economic anxieties four years into the Bush economic “recovery.” By nearly a 2:1 margin, voters describe the economy in negative terms; nearly one third struggle to make ends meet.”

Another fact from the poll that I found enlightening, with regard to how these voters think about our current elected officials is this: “Fully 73 percent agree, “It seems like the federal government always puts the needs of corporate special interests ahead of the needs of average families.” Another 74 percent agree, “Government should do more so that working class and middle income people do not get left behind in today’s economy.” This matches up with what most, if not all, progressive’s believe doesn’t it? Their frustration is our frustration.

This poll was not only about what people hate or distrust regarding our current government. It offered solutions to the problems we face as a nation. The voters were asked to respond to a specific “plan” that would alleviate the waste in our federal budget, provide quality public education, clean energy and affordable health insurance for all Americans, just to name a few of the points. A direct question asked was:

Let me tell you about something called the [plan]. Under this plan, government will invest more money to expand access to quality child development and preschool programs that help kids start school ready to succeed, will strengthen public schools, expand college aid and will provide access to high quality, affordable health care for all. This plan will also provide all Americans access to free high speed Internet and promote safe, clean energy to help end our dependence on oil. In order to pay for the plan, it would eliminate recently passed tax cuts for corporations and those earning over $200,000 per year [and include new measures to hold government accountable and reduce corruption and waste.] Having heard this, do you favor or oppose [plan]?

Their responses fell into these categories:

69 percent favor

24 percent oppose

7 percent don’t know/refused

The rightwingers will tell us this election season that the issues are the occupation of Iraq, flag burning, gay marriage and their favorite, the war on terror. I feel that this poll points out that people are not as willing to follow George Bush and his minions or the Senate and House of Representatives down the path they have chosen for us as a country. This poll shows us that the people, who made the difference in the voting booth during the 2004 election, will not be led down the same path by the same people again if they are given a good alternative. They are tired of our government protecting big corporations and their bottom line. This poll shows us that the average American does not care about the trumped up war on terror more than they care about the economic issues facing us today. They are sick and tired of financial insolvency within our federal government and at the same time, giving tax breaks to the top 1% of workers and huge corporations like the “Big Oil” companies. The swing voter cares about the environment, public education from K through college, oil dependency and a host of other social and economic issues. The swing voters don’t want rhetoric, they want a plan. Our candidates need to give them a plan that will bring us, as a country, back to financial stability and educating our children so they will be able to handle what life throws at them in the next century. The right will tell us that the economy is fine, and this poll shows us that swing voters aren’t buying the bullshit. Swing voters care about the working poor and the slowly disappearing middle class. Their concerns are OUR concerns. When you take away the labels, we, as a nation are really worried about the same things. These are moral issues not political ones, they cross party lines, according to the GQRR poll.

Remember, these voters were not labeled as anything other than Democrats, Republicans or Independents. They were not asked whether they held liberal or conservative views. They were only identified by the factors I named at the head of this post. These issues are the ones that need to be addressed if the Democrats want to take back our government. We, as citizens and bloggers need to get this message out to those who we wish to see elected. I did not cover every angle, issue and point made by the poll. I did not want to overload you, the reader, with facts and figures. Please feel free to read all the documentation on USAction’s website, which I linked at the beginning of this post. It’s very lengthy, and broken into three parts but in my opinion, worth your time. You can now, do one of two things;

You can move on to the next blog.

Or you can take action by spreading the word and/or blogging about this poll and its results.

I firmly believe we can take back our government if we make our candidates aware of these results. I believe we can affect change if we write about these points and ask others to do the same. I will post this on every forum I belong to, every blog that I write. I will be attending the Democracy for America convention being held in San Diego, July 13th through the 16th. I will be raising awareness of this poll there. I am quite the loud mouth when I am worked up about something. I enjoy hearing my own voice when there is something important to be said. I ask that you, my dear reader, do the same in your own way. We need to flood the blogosphere with this information; we need to make the candidates aware of this poll and its findings. We only have four months left to do it.