RTFA: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j9YDTLWNOCPajU8…

TROY, N.Y. AP – Who is running for president? In an upstate New York county, hundreds of voters have been sent absentee ballots in which they could vote for “Barack Osama.”

The absentee ballots sent to voters in Rensselaer County identified the two presidential candidates as “Barack Osama” and “John McCain.” …

The elections office faxed a statement in which the two commissioners, Democrat Edward McDonough and Republican Larry Bugbee, said they regret the error but never acknowledge what the error was.

“It’s human error, it’s very unfortunate, it’s an embarrassment to our office, obviously,” McDonough said in a later phone interview. “We wish we could turn back the clock, but we can’t.”

Who knew Osama was running for elected office? Must be his family’s long-standing Bush connections that made him full of pluck. Anyway, O. Bin Laden doesn’t have my vote.

It’s rather hard to believe how this “error” could have occurred. Absentee ballots are not just viewed by one person before they are sent to voters. Furthermore, any persuasion researcher or psycholinguist can tell you the negative effects of a mistake like this. If you’re wanting a taste of what those effects might be, check out classical conditioning and/or the sleeper effect. I think we have to believe the official explanation, though, just so our heads don’t explode. An additional oddity is that they will send out a new ballot and count either one … methinks we’ll be hearing about counting errors in Rensselaer County, don’t you?

Terrible.

RTFA: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/3400-ball…

Palm Beach County, Florida, is in the news again for another election mishap. This time the culprit isnt the countys infamous butterfly ballot that made headlines in the 2000 presidential race. Instead, the problem is ballots used with the countys new 5.5 million optical-scan machines made by Sequoia Voting Systems.

More than 3,000 optical-scan ballots have mysteriously disappeared since the county held an election last Tuesday.

According to tallies a week ago, a total of 102,523 ballots were cast in the election. But according to a recount of one of the races, which was completed this last Sunday, the total number of cast ballots was only 99,045 — a difference of 3,478. Election officials say they cant explain the discrepancy, though critics are concerned that this is a precursor to problems that could arise in the November presidential election.

The problem was discovered only because the county was conducting a recount of a close judicial race between an incumbent, 15th Circuit Judge Richard Wennet, and his challenger William Abramson. Prior to the recount, Abramson had won the election by 17 votes; but the recount flipped the race and resulted in him losing the election to Wennet by 60 votes. The total number of votes cast in that specific race dropped by 2,900 between the time ballots were counted last Tuesday and the recount.

Palm Beach County Election Supervisor Arthur Anderson said the discrepancy in the number of votes cast in the judicial race was likely due to the extra sensitivity of optical-scan machines used in the recount, which are different from optical-scan machines that counted the ballots on Election Day. The seven high-speed tabulating machines used in the recount are much more “unforgiving” than those that processed the votes on election day, he told the Palm Beach Post.

read the full article for rage

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RTFA: http://dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/storie…

The maker of touch-screen voting machines used in half of Ohio’s counties has admitted that its own programming error is to blame for votes being dropped in some counties.

The maker in this case is Diebold, which recently renamed their voting machines division to Premier Elections. I laughed in cynical hysteria at Premier Elections’ homepage which boldly displays the words “On Election Day, WHAT MATTERS MOST TO YOU? SERVICE, RELIABILITY, TRUST”. Wow! You’re right! I do want a reliable trust worthy voting system, but you filthy fucking corporate lying sons-of-fascists apparently don’t know how to make a machine that can COUNT. Really, honestly? HONESTLY? You can’t make a machine that can count? This is from the makers of ATM machines, which begs the question of how many times has a Diebold ATM machine suddenly lost your money?

The simple solution to these ridiculous problems is of course to have a paper trail. The voting machine prints out a receipt for you and then you drop that receipt into a ballot box.

I saw a great comment on /. that I will repost here:

from sp332:

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

Serves: 1 precinct

Things you will need:
at least one day off work
money for fines
a destructive device (something small, like a ball-peen hammer, is recommended)

1. Go to the polls as early as possible. Try to be one the the first voters.
2. Ensure that the polling place has enough reserve paper ballots on hand, or can easily obtain them in time.
3. Disable the polling machines. One or two well-placed hits from a hammer should do.
Act quickly to get them all before you are stopped.
4. Cooperate with any police officers who arrive. You may be treated roughly. Do not put up a fight at this point.
You will almost certainly go to jail for some time, from hours to days, depending on circumstances.
5. If there is any media present, let them know what you did and *why* you did it.
Try not to come off as a raving loony. Practice in front of a mirror is recommended.

RTFA: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/mom-ca…

Ohio is an election battleground state with perennial problems at the polls. So what have election officials in some precincts of the state been doing to keep their voting machines safe from tampering?

Taking the machines home with them and stashing them in their garages in the days before a big election…

After the 2004 presidential election, in which Ohio narrowly went to President Bush, some inspectors said they found signs of tampering in a number of precincts throughout the state.

Many local election officials who defend the “sleepover” practice say it makes it easier for them to transport the machines to polling sites, and that it allows them to keep an eye on the machines. But their critics call that nonsense, and argue that allowing people to take voting machines home with them — where they can access them at any time, and potentially hack into them — is the very definition of a security risk.

One of those critics is Ohio’s secretary of state, Jennifer Brunner, who has pointed to reports of poll workers casting ballots on machines in their homes. With Ohio expected to be another critical battleground state in November, Ms. Brunner issued a directive today that put a stop to the controversial practice.

“We want Ohio’s voters and the rest of the nation to see that we have prepared a transparent process of transporting voting equipment, ballots and supplies. That begins with security practices at boards of elections and polling places, documented chain of custody, and now procedures to make secure voting machine delivery.”

Wow. Jesus. Wow. Eight years later, two controversial presidential elections later, and still no real progress with voting machines.

From xkcd.com

Honestly, I’m thinking of boycotting voting until they fix these ridiculous problems.