Florida County Hoping Other States Will Buy Its Broken E-Voting Machines
from the buy-early-and-often dept
As the battle still rages over Sarasota County's missing votes continues, it's worth remembering that the county did also vote to scrap the e-voting machines in a referendum that was on the ballot. So, now, the county is trying to figure out how to go about scrapping those voting machines and getting new ones. The vendor for the current machines, ES&S has given them a $4.1 million estimate for new machines -- though, it makes you wonder why the county is willing to stick with the same vendor after they delivered faulty machines for the last election. The county should be demanding a refund for the machines that clearly did not work -- not figuring out how to pay the same company more for yet another batch of questionable machines. While they will seek bids from all the e-voting vendors, just the fact that they immediately went back to the current vendor to get an estimate suggests they still don't recognize that they were sold dud machines. However, where the discussion gets really bizarre is that the county is saying that to reduce the cost of the new e-voting machines, they're hoping to trade in the existing, broken, machines because some other states may want to use them. Apparently, the rest of the country needs to experience thousands of lost votes for themselves. From the elections supervisor: "Sarasota County needs to talk trade-in because they are marketable machines. Just because there is some controversy over the touch-screen machines here, doesn't mean places like Georgia, Alabama, Washington, D.C., or Michigan won't want them."
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
But the question is...
Did they use e-voting for this vote?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: But the question is...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Or
/put on tinfoil hat
"They have served their purpose by rigging our election here, let's get them in other places to do the same!"
/remove tinfoil hat
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This highlights the axiom that "it's never about technology; it's about people." The referendum never should have been to replace the machines (though that would still be the goal), but to replace the officials who still don't think there is a problem.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
*sigh*
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: *sigh*
Oh yes they do! Next time you go to Burger king (or whatever) just think of how happy you are that there is someone that cannot do your job and is stuck doing a job like that.
Our society could NOT survive if everyone refused to do the sucky jobs cause they were too smart.
I love ignorant people, they make my wallet and belly fatter.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: *sigh*
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
crikey. why must they overcomplicate things?
What's wrong with continuing this? I know, I know, in major metropolitan areas that's a lot of counting. But big deal. Even if you have 5,000 polling places with 5 machines each, you could have 250 stations taking 100 machines in each. It wouldn't take anymore than 5 minutes to open each machine and write the totals down, so you're talking what, 8.5 hours of totalling, plus maybe a half hour of totalling the subtotals? Big deal. What's accuracy worth? No questionable computer security, no ballots eaten by scanners, no hanging chads, no running out of paper ballots, etc. etc. They're accurate, easy to use for both voters and officials and nearly impossible to screw up. Plus, you can leave the totals on the machine until the next election in case anyone every questions a number.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: crikey. why must they overcomplicate things?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
re: crikey. We'll never go back to the mechanical
They haven't been made in years, and too expensive to build at the current time, because the skilled labor (like clock makers, but more specialized!) is so rare.
The ones in existance now have been out of use for years, and need repairs (see above)
They're not tamper proof... But the one HUGE difference is that you can't rig an election from a single point with them. You'd be forced to use retail methods, such as vandalism, making machines in unfavorable districts "disapear", opening machines (before or after the polling) and resetting the wheels (think odometer fraud), and buying off the election judges/vote counters. Also the "paper trail" in those machines was a cash register tape (which was never seen/verified by the voter). The tape and/or ribbon could run out at any time.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: re: crikey. We'll never go back to the mechan
A few mechanical, electrical, programing and process engineers, plus a few others I'm not imagining, to design a factory layout, assemble it, and then a few middle-aged low-skill people to lube parts, unjam things on occasion, hit 'start' and 'stop' buttons, and know when things are screwed up bad enough to warrant calling back one of the aforementioned engineers to fix a robot arm.
Result: A few engineering jobs, a handful of middling-pay jobs, and a factory in a low-wage Southern state capable of sneezing 10,000 machines a day with a bunch of automated machines that don't know what a 'union' is much less how to form one.
Reminds me of the factory built for those Segways. Had some sort of ridiculously high capacity, but of course demand didn't skyrocket like the inventor hoped it would. But still. Modern industry simply doesn't need those specialists of which you speak. Especially when 'repairing' most items today is more expensive in terms of labor and one-off replacement parts than simply having a factory spit out a replacement.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Vote By Mail
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Michigan?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Not in Michigan
or Michigan
If they ship those machines to Michigan, we are prepared to declare war on Florida. We would cut off their supply lines, and, denied access to Geritol and golf pants, the Floridians would be forced into an unconditional surrender.
The American way: One man, one vote, one paper ballot.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Florida Democratic
Both Florida and Michigan changed their primary dates and got punished by Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for having the primaries too early, but do you hear the political commentators blasting the Michigan governor and Legislature? Of course not, because the Michigan governor is a Democrat.
--------------
mahesh55
Miami homes for sale-Miami homes for sale
[ link to this | view in chronology ]