National Expositor Exclusive – Yesterday, Ernest Hancock, candidate for Arizona secretary of state spoke with Mary Tiffany, communications director for the Iowa state Republican Party. During the conversation, Tiffany confirmed that there will be no manual recount for the Iowa straw poll that occurs on Saturday. This weeks Iowa straw poll is to take place using the same Diebold electronic voting machines that have come into question in recent days. In an article in the Washington Post, Debra Bowen, California’s Secretary of State made the decision to withdraw approval of future use of the Diebold systems. “All of the voting systems studied had serious design flaws that have led directly to specific vulnerabilities, which attackers could exploit to affect election outcomes," Bowen explained.Computerworld, this week reported that Florida’s Secretary of State, Kurt Browning also withdrew approval of the same Diebold voting systems. “In a letter sent to Diebold Election Systems President David Byrd on Tuesday, Browning said that vulnerabilities cited in the report must be fixed by Aug. 17 or the vender’s certification would be denied.”
Both Florida and California in one week have decertified Diebold’s electronic voting machines. This should send a clear message to Iowa’s GOP that anything other than paper ballots would be unacceptable in this weeks straw poll. The Republican party of Iowa may claim that they will be doing manual checking of the Diebold systems, however, it is commonly known that this manual count would only consist of spot checks of the voting machines for device calibration purposes. This does not constitute a verifiable check of accuracy from either an engineering or statistical perspective.
Based on the same evidence that has forced California and Florida to decertify electronic Diebold voting machines it is not only reasonable to request a manual count of the votes in Iowa, but highly advisable. Anything short of a verifiable paper count will be unethical.
Iowa Republican Party - (515) 282-8105 Read more here.
1 comment:
Past elections have been fixed using touch screen voting machines. Our whole country must address the serious ... catastrophic... issue of unreliable, unsecured and unverifiable voting machines. Two presidential elections have been stolen. If this trend continues America will be an empire not a democracy.
Electronic voting machines can be programmed to record a vote for one candidate and give a paper receipt or print out showing a vote for the other candidate. We must insist on paper ballots and hand counting.
Electronic voting machines can be reprogrammed to flip votes with about one minute of access from the elections officials' offices to the machine at any voting location. Experts found that an attacker could tamper with the software before Election Day or even on the day of the election with a commonly used handheld device. That kind of wireless attack impersonates the program already in the machine.
For an in-depth analysis of voter fraud via electronic voting machines, see: Brennan Center for Justice-Press Release or read: “E-voting in the trenches.” For an education and dialogue on the topic see The Brad Blog: www.bradblog.com
Christie Mayo
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