50% of Voting Machines Flawed in Sequoia, NY

50% of Voting Machines Flawed in Sequoia, Ny

Source Article

New York state is in the process of replacing its lever voting machines with new voting equipment, but the state revealed recently that it has found problems with 50 percent of the roughly 1,500 ImageCast optical-scan machines (shown in the video above) that Sequoia Voting Systems has delivered to the state so far -- machines that are slated to be used by dozens of counties in the state's September 9 primary and November 4 presidential election.

In Nassau County alone, the largest voting district outside of New York City, officials found problems with 85 percent of the 240 ImageCast machines it received so far -- problems that the county characterized in a letter as "substantial operational flaws that render them unusable or that require major repairs."

Here's an intresting tidbit of information.

New York doesn't have a choice about using the machines this year. The state was sued by the Department of Justice for failing to meet a federal deadline for having accessible voting machines in place. The Help America Vote Act passed in 2002 requires every voting precinct to provide at least one accessible voting machine for disabled voters by 2006. New York is just now getting the machines in place.

I wonder if the Department of Justice required New Yourk to use this vendor?

After the testing is completed, a tamper-evident seal is placed on the machines and they're passed back to the vendor representative who is responsible for shipping off the machines to counties.
This creates chain-of-custody concerns that Biamonte says are exacerbated by the fact that when he received his machines in Nassau County, a number of the tamper-evident seals on them were cracked.

Hmmmm...Tamper seals cracked, 50% of them don't work properly. Pretty fishy don't you think.

"How do we know this wasn't tampered with?" he said.

Indeed, how do we know they weren't tampered with.

reply to post by pjsconcrete



I really dont understand how anyone can trust these machines in the first place. I know they claim they are required for disabled people but im sure any disabled person who is legally able to vote would trust their care worker or next-of-kin/spouse to be present with them, act as an agent and check the box on a piece of paper for them. The loss of privacy to a trusted or loved one for the disabled voter would surely be worth the potential loss of vote by using a machine that can obviously be tampered with or rigged.. in fact it seems likely to me that that is the whole reason they were created in the first place.

Aren't we always offered a shiny new thing of convenience passed off as a technological and social advance meant to better our lives, but which really is merely a veiled way for us to willingly offer up information and privacy?

Not that i entirely trust the paper-ballot method (which i am still glad we use in Canada) as politics can have a religious zeal to them that some staunch "followers" will be driven by to do what it takes to make them "right" and vindicate their beliefs.

I don't trust any method of voting that doesn't supply a paper trail. These touch screen machines were installed in many places here in Florida after the 2000 debacle, and there have been many problems. In Ohio in 2004, the Diebold CEO came right out and said that he was going to deliver the state to Bush. We all know what happened then.

The "Help America Vote Act" is doublespeak. It should be called the "Vote the way we want act." There have been many threads on this site about how easily these machines are to manipulate. I'm in college for computer programming, and can assure you that this is the case. If I had access to one of these machines, I could easily enter code that would double votes for one candidate or the other, or syphon votes from one to the other.

These machines are just another step in the process of devaluing the votes of the American people. Whoever our Corporate Masters want in office will be elected, and there's little we can do about it.