[Voterescue] Moonshine Elections - VIDEO - Voting machines jailed

[Black Box Voting]

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"Where do you keep your voting machines?" I asked my favorite elections official this summer, Connie from Floyd County. 

"They are in a locked jail cell," she said matter of factly. 

Well, I can't think of a better place for them, so I fussed around with video editing software and uploaded the Floyd County Voting Machines in Jail video on YouTube.com - 90 second clip: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IaWYWxJHiI 

MOONSHINE ELECTIONS - KENTUCKY SERIES

* Several of the issues we're going to document in Kentucky are mirrored in other states 

Kentucky had some weird problems on Nov. 7, 2006. Tens of thousands of votes zoned in at exactly 6.81 percent for the same candidate on two different sets of machines in Franklin County. More votes showed up than voters in every race in Bullitt County. Reports of vote-flipping perplexed citizen watchdogs when they saw that touch-screen miscalibrations were appearing in Hart Intercivic counties – because the Hart eSlate machines don't have touch-screens. Mismatched vote totals showed up all over Kentucky, reportedly because a "fusion" program designed to combine vote totals "fused" the wrong totals. 

Reports came into Black Box Voting all day long during the 2006 federal election, followed by a pyroclastic flow of excuses and explanations, mostly lacking useful follow up questions from the media. It's only our democratic republic oozing down the hillside. 

KENTUCKY RECORDS KLUDGE

Black Box Voting plunged in with sweep for public records pertaining to glitches, mishaps, and all communications with vendors. In Kentucky, most counties responded by failing to protect the citizens right to know at all, ignoring our requests for the simplest of information.  

Out of 120 counties, only 22 bothered to respond to the records requests, and many of these submitted information that was nonresponsive. Notable for its excellence: Rockcastle County, which promptly provided good information. 

Part of Kentucky's weirdness came from this: Of Kentucky's 120 counties, 96 use Hart eSlate DREs alongside old 1980s-vintage Shoup 1242 touch-screens. (Twenty-three counties use new ES&S iVotronic touch-screens, almost all combining them with old MicroVote touch-screens.) Jefferson County is the lone ranger, using Diebold machines.  

We sent records requests to all, customized by vendor. More info here: 
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/54470.html

VOTING MACHINE SECURITY - FRIED & TIED

We ran smack into a break-in where a voting machine was compromised. They told us they might not be able to afford afford high priced locks or electronic key cards, yet this county sports a brand new courthouse with a fancy annex for the county clerk. We wondered how less affluent counties manage voting machine security.  

"Where do you keep your voting machines?" I asked my favorite elections official this summer, Connie from Floyd County. 

"They are in a locked jail cell," she said matter of factly. 

Well, I can't think of a better place for them, so I fussed around with video editing software and uploaded the Floyd County Voting Machines in Jail video on YouTube.com - 90 second clip: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IaWYWxJHiI 

More to come... 

In Kentucky, public records revealed vendors most of America has never heard of. We found cracks in procedural protections that spill over to other states. And we met some of the worst (and best), and most obstructive (and some of the friendliest) people yet. 

Next article in the Moonshine Elections series: THE HUNT FOR JOE BOLTON

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