West Virginia Vote Flipping Allegedly Caught On Tape (VIDEO)

In this video, which allegedly shows vote flipping in West Virginia, one see the many potential problems voting machines could cause on Election Day.

If you've experienced any voting problems, or know of someone who has, please let us know.

Comments

[batspaul]

Go to any major restaurant chain in the U.S. They all use touch screens for food and drink orders now. Every waiter or bartender will tell you that a screen that is out of calibration can make a lot of errors before it is caught and corrected, and that's with servers AND customers checking the bill. And screens that go out of calibration do so only slightly at first, registering the adjacent selection by mistake. Sometimes you find out when the wrong food arrives at the table. Sometimes it is when the check is presented. How many times has that happened to you?

This is a lot more serious than ordering the grilled chicken caesar and getting loaded potato skins instead.

[Repub4Obama]

Agreed. Get rid of Diebold, hello SQUIRREL!

[canadagood]

Speaking as a software developer who has personally counted paper ballots in a country where they still do things the old-fashioned way:
Why don't Americans put the waitresses in charge of the election with some help from SQUIRREL? Waitresses know all about counting cash and making things balance at the end of their shift, they know about keeping records for any tax audits, they know that their credit card receipts have to balance with the total in the cash register and -- from their first day on the job -- they know the chaos that results when they accidentally ask for a well-done Obama burger when they really meant the refried McCain special.
I am sure that the average waitress -- and perhaps even the average waiter -- knows more about technology and the need to track orders and money straight far more than the elderly semi-retired people that American counties hire at minimum wage to run their elections.
I also expect that the average point-of-sale machine manufacturer knows far more about keeping data accurate, keeping machinery working in difficult conditions and making things easy to use with minimal training than Diebold does.

[MakeAWish]

Why hasn't the Democratic party filed a class action lawsuit against these crooked machines? We need paper trail ballots. Why not go back to the card ballots, where each voter gets to mark each vote they cast?

[WolfI]

That is an excellent question. Why hasn't there been legal action taken by either the party or voters?

[sd4peace]

The only elected Dem that I know of who actively challenged the 2004 results was Cynthia McKinney and her political career was all but destroyed because of it.

[gladys46]

Obama has asked for investigations:


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aAYOYsAX8sQs

[gladys46]

This is the siphoned "we got them where we want them" votes that Mc's camp are relying upon ! As they are apparently made aware of this early voting count, they "see" victory !

The operative words are DON'T LEAVE THE BOOTH UNTIL YOU ARE SATISFIED YOUR PERFERENCED VOTE IS VISIBLE ... make some noise, call an official and don't move until you are satisfied !!

[PCRX]

Amen to this. IF your machine is doing wierd things BE VOCAL!!! If you are not you are letting THEM WIN.

[sd4peace]

Just like W's smirk when FL was first called for Gore in 2000.

It made me sick to my stomach hearing McCain so confident about winning a state (a BLUE one) in which he was trailing 10-12 pts in "polls"

[wedgie]

WHY ARE WE NOT USING PAPER SCANNABLE BALLOTS?

**

[SunshineDaydream]

florida does

[vhankar]

that is what we used when I voted in NC

[Krikkit]

The title of this piece is somewhat misleading. Vote flipping takes place internally, not on the screen. A true vote flip would show a selection for the candidate, but internally record a vote for someone else. Vote flipping is invisible.

[SunshineDaydream]

that is not what voters are reporting. check out bradblog dot com

[harriettubman]

Good. Someone finally caught it and shamed the clerk's office. The clerk's office defended this on the news. The man said people probably had part of their finger between Obama and McCain and it flipped to McCain. Yeah, right.

St. Louis did a mock run thru and tested all of their electric machines. W. VA & Ohio should've done the same thing instead of defending themselves from incompetency and complaints.

[newhouse1]

Allowing this new process to be tested in an actual presidential election, is the closest thing to national mental illness I have ever seen. The idea that mechanical voting booths, similar to those used in New York State, have been abandoned under the guise of technological advancement, is appalling. Watching the fellow in the video, familiar with the apparatus and skilled in rectifying technical issues, demonstrate how even he was befuddled is just awful. America deserves better. Bangladesh can do better by counting whether the voter pointed to the donkey or the freakin goat!

[notconfindtweenhatnboots]

In the US, we have to point to the donkey or the freakin' elephant tho. Maybe we should do it by caucus instead, all of those for Obama, go stand by the donkey. Those for McCain by the elephant. :-)

[Gericault]

I want a purple thumb after I mark an "x".

[lordball]

This isn't Irag. You should get a blue thumb after your voted. :)

[apduncan1]

Heck, Venezuela has better voting machines than the trash we have here.

[LHoney]

Just wondering, what was wrong with the old "lift the lever" machines that worked for many, many years?

[apduncan1]

Couldn't be tampered with?

Didn't vote Republican enough?

[newhouse1]

more true than you may imagine.

[AMERIKA]

First of all, the right to vote is fundamental, and the importance of being able to trust the outcome of an elections is paramount. As such, we, as a nation, need to address this problem regardless of cost. The only fair solution is one where every person across the nation uses exactly the same technology, and it goes without saying, that the technology must provide a paper trail. Further, as far as I am concerned, no private company should be able to influence the election. As such, the government themselves must be the manufacturer of the voting machine, or at least the software that runs the machine if it is a computerized tool. I for one, favor a credit card or ATM like system - that tracks who you are and what your precinct is so that you can vote anywhere with a local ballot being created for you based on your voter card. Seems simple to me. In fact, you might even be able to vote at ATM's with a software upgrade...­just a thought

[ESerafina42]

AMERIKA -
Wouldn't your ATM idea be under the control of a private company, possibly even the banks?

In NYS we've used the ones where you push down the little levers for as long as I can remember, and as far as I know that's what we will be using this year. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I've NEVER heard of ANY problems with those.

[newhouse1]

ESerafina42, I live in NY, we use the mechanical little lever voting booths, and you are right: there have not been problems with their accuracy, ability to count and record votes, durability. The things have been around for literally generations, and as such, being mechanical, have experienced "WD-40" type disrepair. But the voter and poll workers would recognize and could remedy issues right away, and voter confidence in the sanctity of the process is there.

[ICanHasDemocracy]

The lever machines can suffer mechanical problems, but have never really suffered any great mischances. It's these touchscreen machines ( hey how about you type in the name instead?)-too difficult? add a secure captcha generator or somesuch for verification. This touchscreen software is made by a company owned by a GOP sympatico lobbyist (McConnell). Why can't we have a non-partisan company do this? Or maybe lets all just go back to writing a name and stuffing it into a ballot box.

www.commoncause.com

[joe757]

If it's so easy to fix then why are there so many problems with it?

[eladora]

why didnt the govt go to Bill Gates for a universal system across the US? He could have had it done in a short period of time without any of the influences of local politics. Everyone in America should file class action lawsuits against these manufacturers ----

[ICanHasDemocracy]

two words...Wi­ndows Vista....

[surfcitysteven]

If this happens again, America is finished, take the flags down and burn them, we failed.

[wedgie]

TRUTH.

**

[ac00perw]

Why is it even possible for these machines to become misaligned in the first place? Sketchy that some dude with a "master dongle" plugs it in to fix it- what else does the dongle do? Also scary re: Diebold and their proprietary voting software. Ridiculous. If you haven't seen these already:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=diebold+vote+hack

[bugsbonzai]

I've used Micros touchscreens for years, and they NEVER become miscalibrated. So either there's fishy business going on, or these companies are incompetent and should be run out of business.

[observer007]

Agreed. The only reason they hand us this "misaligned" crap is because they think we're too stupid to know that SOFTWARE IS WRITTEN BY PEOPLE, AND MESSED UP PEOPLE WRITE MESSED UP SOFTWARE.