Arkansas Blog

Inman likes to keep the shit stirred up doesn't she?

Interesting fact about ES&S- Their VP-Governmental Affairs is a 6'7" gentleman whose nickname is "Stretch."

I voted this morning.

The old folks were really complaining about not having paper ballots. One Yankee-type said he wouldn't vote by touch screen...would only accept a paper ballot, but when the holder of the big book told him it's touch or nothing, his wife said, "Pa, they don't care what we want." to which the old guy pledged to vote every one of "them" out, starting with the Governor.

I loved the new touch screen and hope they stick with them a while. The large lettering should be a lot easier for vision impaired to use than the tiny print on the old paper ballots.

Patrick they are easier to use but they can be programed anyway a programer wants them to be. You will never know if your vote got counted correctly ever.

Patrick they are easier to use but they can be programed anyway a programer wants them to be. You will never know if your vote got counted correctly ever.

Electronic voting ONLY if the votes can be accounted for through paper ballots!

Remember: Black-Box voting/Diebold/Ohio/Florida...

I voted at the Laman Library precinct just yesterday, and I didn't notice the touch-screen machine(s). I was handed a paper ballot, steered to a lean-to booth/stand, and filled in a short series of broken arrows with the black felt pen on a string. After that, I dropped my paper ballot in a box and a kindly octogenarian gave me a "I Voted" sticker on my way out. Doesn't get more retro than that. I don't trust electronic voting machines and will never use one if there's an alternative.

You will never know if your vote got counted correctly ever. Posted by: please learn more

Electronic voting ONLY if the votes can be accounted for through paper ballots! Posted by: zelda

Good points. I agree there must be excellent checks in place to make sure the vote is accurately counted.

One good way might be to have the machine print out a paper receipt the voter could verify, then drop in an old-fashioned ballot box for later hand counting.

The hand counting would be work, but no more than we had in the old days of counting X's on the paper ballots. This way, we'd get an instant count from the machines on election day, and a verifying count of paper ballots a day later. It wouldn't really matter if the machine doesn't match the paper count exactly, except in cases where machine gives one winner and paper gives another. They you'd probably go by the paper count.

Sorry, I'm the engineering type. Always analyzing, and inventing, and boring!

Question: After Inman noticed the problem, did she or her staff take the machine out of the process or did she leave it to continue doing what it was doing?

This is so typically American. We are absolute slaves to the latest gadget. Canada holds national elections and hand counts paper ballots, and gets returns faster than the U.S. Contrary to our own self-stereotype, we have a can't-do attitude when anything involves hands-on work--always better to turn it over to machines, the flashier the better.

How about this?: Let's turn ballot counting over to Mexican immigrants. I guarantee they would do a better job than a "touch-screen" exotic gadget. Leave the video gadgetry where it belongs, in gambling parlors.

This is so typically American. We are absolute slaves to the latest gadget.
-------------------signed, Ted

One possible problem I noticed when being trained on the machines is that the selections seem to be too close together. It looks like it might be easy to miscast a vote if you don't have a steady hand. Perhaps tall voters misjudge the area they must touch to vote for their candidate.

Incidently, the machines do print a paper ballot of sorts, the cash register type tape to the left of the voting screen. Voting officials are instructed to save this tape record should the tape have to be changed.

It could be utilized as confirmation, although I not sure voting officials intend to use it in that manner. I doubt that it would be an easy process. Two very trustworthy types (or officials of various parties) examining the tape and calling out the votes to others who would have to tally each vote to an appropriate column, with adequate monitering here too, seems like a daunting task but it could be done.

Two very trustworthy types (or officials of various parties) examining the tape and calling out the votes to others who would have to tally each vote to an appropriate column, with adequate monitering here too, seems like a daunting task but it could be done. Posted by: Doigotta

Though a bit dated, HERE is an interesting article from Britain, where they concluded, "Paper ballots and physical presence in the polling station make the system too unwieldy to hack. We should keep it that way."

"I never vote. It only encourages them."
---Anon

Re: Patrick from Pocahontas - I loved the new touch screen and hope they stick with them a while. The large lettering should be a lot easier for vision impaired to use than the tiny print on the old paper ballots.

Oh sure, those touchscreens are nifty looking and fun to vote on. But, and it's a huge but, they do everything but tabulate the vote accurately, if at all.

Patrick, are you aware that if the voter doesn't hit the submit vote button within a certain time limit (10 minutes) the machine will begin to chirp like a bird. The voter may not know they have to hit submit upon voting for all their candidates...at that time, the voter, thinking they've cast their ballot just walks away leaving the ballot on the machine and then it begins to chirp to warn the vote's not been cast. At that time the poll worker can a. delete the vote cast b. change the vote cast or c. hit submit.

Still feel comfortable with the count being accurate now?

More on www.votersunite.org

re: voters over 6 feet tall's votes don't register on ES&S ivotronic touchscreen.

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard about voting machines and I've been researching them for five years.

NEVER heard of such a thing. There is more going on here that meets the eye and you can take that to the bank.

Re: this whole thread:

we are so screwed

I haven't voted yet anywhere on an electronic machine, but I'm here to say that I've stood behind many an ATM patron who couldn't navigate the choices, no matter how many times they tried.

It won't surprise me that some votes will be discarded or misread. Same thing has always happened with paper ballots--and yes, it's possible to hack (or hijack) ballot boxes, unless I misunderstood some old Elliot Ness plots or more recent news reports from OH! say Iraq, Serbia, Ukraine and not a few counties in Arkansas and elsewhere in the US.

You can account for all the votes in a committee meeting. It's not so easy to do in a country.

The only course of action is to keep voting and hope that intelligence and common sense will eventually prevail against the various evils that afflict and thwart attempts at living together civilly.

It won't hurt to strive for a little less corruption in every damned thing we try to do, too.

Hugh mann:

Yep, for a while.

But , what goes up must come down.

Hahahaha

I think I'll get in touch with the Dept. of Justice and let them know that tall voters are disenfranchised in one county in the entire nation.

Their lame excuses are crazier and more far out than a spongebob cartoon.

Hello!! It's more like the software is extrememly flawed. Pulaski Co. Elec. Commission: are you idiots or are you sell outs? And you DID know.

There is no doubt that ES&S is ran by a bunch of tightfisted boobs who won't allocate the resources and manpower to get the job done, but don't forget that our election commission is ran by someone who literally thrives on chaos. She can't live without it. She could always count on the incompetent Carolyn Staley to provide the misery, but since Staley is gone, Ms. Inman has to look for it wherever she can. She gleefully runs to the media everytime she finds something ES&S has screwed up on instead of just working to find a solution. This is a statewide issue but Pulaski County has no chance of a smooth election with this finger-pointing whinebag running the election commission.

Can't some whiz kid from Hendrix write a computer program that says "press 1 for Martha Shoffner, press 2 for Don House . . ." that feeds into an Access database and that uses a standard laser printer to automatically print out a verifiable receipt on perforated paper, one half of which the voter keeps and the other half of which is deposited in a ballot box? Thus the county clerk has two sets of records to verify against the each other and the voter can check the receipt to make sure everything went as planned.

A computer scientist explains:

There's probably also a problem with short people too. I use the touchscreen to buy Amtrak tickets and it often gives me the "off by one" selection.

This is due to the parallax problem when viewing the display under the touchscreen at an extreme angle. This problem with touchscreens has been known for YEARS, and it's of course been a problem with the voting machines all along (since they are never formally tested for "true" accessibility, there's lots of other problems in that regard too). But it doesn't account for all of the mis-reported votes with the ES&S and other e-voting equipment.

Wonder why they "just" noticed it now?? Hmmm.

Whitey Herzog, since you chose to use a baseball name, let me say you don't know your ass from third base. Susan Inman is the reason things are as good as they are. She should call ES&S's hand publicly. It's the only thing that makes them move. Susan Inman and Jerry Larkowski are the ones that cleaned up Charles King's mess at the Election Commission. You are obviously part of that old crowd.

Sleight of hand voting:

Definitions of parallax on the Web:

An optical illusion which occurs in analog meters and causes reading errors. It occurs when the viewing eye is not in the same plane, perpendicular to the meter face, as the indicating needle. (or box to vote in)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&client=safari&rls=en&defl=en&q=define:parallax&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

Socrates: Denial is not your friend. Ask the Election Commission.

Inman and Larkowski, as well as the rest of the election commission were warned that the ES&S iVotronics were flawed. So was the SOS office, state board of election commission and nearly all 75 county clerks. Also, the legislature was warned - both houses. They at least listened.

They were all given documentation prior to 2004. They denied it and Carolyn Staley was blamed relentlessly for having her voters vote on that crap. The buck never stopped with Staley. She was only the scapegoat.

Height makes no difference. A friend of mine's mother who is all of 5'3" had problems with the electronic voting. Sounds like they are making excuses.

Everyone does know that ES&S is run by the brother of the guy that ran Diebold, don't they?

I'm hoping I can get a paper ballot, although they probably won't count it.

We don't all have to vote on the machines. The machines are really only there for the disabled, according to HAVA.

Julie, you make no sense at all. Of course, the whole damned world was warned about the voting machines. That's my point as to why Inman should go public. Nobody ever blamed Staley for voting machine problems. There was plenty of other stuff to blame her for. Obviously, you were part of the Staley mismanagment team.

Socrates:

If you know so much about Inman and the election comission then read the question I asked earlier. Did she take the system offline when she noticed the problem or was she too busy complaining to the media about the problem to fix it?

That old-timey picture of Max and Warwick together is pretty funny.
They must have went to Branson together.

Wooderson, she took the system offline immediately. But something tells me you already know that.

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