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Good lord, where else is this occurring? (H/t The New Civil Rights Movement). Journalist David Pakman is covering this.
The voter shot video from his phone of what occurred — he selected Obama, and it highlighted Romney. But he went further…and left this commentary at YouTube:
I initially selected Obama but Romney was highlighted. I assumed it was being picky so I deselected Romney and tried Obama again, this time more carefully, and still got Romney. Being a software developer, I immediately went into troubleshoot mode. I first thought the calibration was off and tried selecting Jill Stein to actually highlight Obama. Nope. Jill Stein was selected just fine. Next I deselected her and started at the top of Romney’s name and started tapping very closely together to find the ‘active areas’. From the top of Romney’s button down to the bottom of the black checkbox beside Obama’s name was all active for Romney. From the bottom of that same checkbox to the bottom of the Obama button (basically a small white sliver) is what let me choose Obama. Stein’s button was fine. All other buttons worked fine.
I asked the voters on either side of me if they had any problems and they reported they did not. I then called over a volunteer to have a look at it. She him hawed for a bit then calmly said “It’s nothing to worry about, everything will be OK.” and went back to what she was doing. I then recorded this video.
There is a lot of speculation that the footage is edited. I’m not a video guy, but if it’s possible to prove whether a video has been altered or not, I will GLADLY provide the raw footage to anyone who is willing to do so. The jumping frames are a result of the shitty camera app on my Android phone, nothing more.
UPDATE: Note to vigilant folks going to the polls today, before taking video or pix with your cell phone/camera inside the polling station, make sure it’s legal in your state!
The following short video was created for the 2008 national elections by David Ardia. It’s still a good overview.
UPDATE 2: According to Think Progress, the “malfunctioning” machine in question was pulled.
Earlier today, a Pennsylvania voter posted video of a voting machine marking a vote for Mitt Romney when the voter pressed the appropriate location on the screen to vote for President Obama. The machine has now been taken out of service.
24 Comments
I think it’s a screen issue Pam. I’ve also heard a few Romney voters report that when they selected Romney, Obama showed up as their selection.
Obviously it’s not just a screen issue if PA officials pulled the machine offline. Now, how many votes were cast that weren’t what people meant to select?
Sounds like you’re right.
Figures.
In other words: looks like the 1% is simply interested in disenfranchsing all of the 99%.
Will any of this be “rectified”?? doubt it. things are working just fine as far as the 1% is concerned.
Who’d you vote for??? Who knows!
This is the Democrats fault completely . After Ohio 2004 they should have shut down electronic gaming machines pretending to be “voting” booths.
What a shame to have your vote counted for the conservative who wants to throw money at the rich while cutting programs for the needy, expand America’s military adventures, radically increase oil drilling, and move our country closer to a police state when you instead wanted to vote for the conservative who wants to throw money at the rich while cutting programs for the needy, expand America’s military adventures, radically increase oil drilling, and move our country closer to a police state!
While I have not dealt with those particular types of machines, I can honestly say I have seen this behavior as a result of touch screen controller failure (the card that translates what is pressed onto screen into input into the underlying machine).
It generally results in skewed areas of the screen which is different than calibration. In fact attempting to re-calibrate can make it worse. The most common areas this happens are the corners of the screen, and near the center if using a standard 4-pin type connector to the touch panel.
Either way, if they had good testing it should have been pulled long before it ever went out into the polling place.
I hate to say I told you so but I TOLD YOU SO. The shenanigans are occurring in states other than Ohio and Florida. They will occur in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Colorado. It is the places that people are NOT looking at.
WAKE UP. THE RETHUGS ARE NOT ATTACKING IN OLD BATTLEGROUND, BUT NEW ONES.
Citizen Pam Spaulding:
You are absolutely correct…consider the implications of sabotagin’ selected machines in majority Democratic precincts and then when brought to light throwin’ out all votes from those machines. We have had an entire county here in Wisconsin that was stolen for the crypto-Nazis right in front of the cameras and national observers and the bastards not only got away with it but doubled down.
The strategy of the fascists is and has been the same around the country as it was in 1932-33 Weimar Germany…not necessarily to win the elction but destroy any credibility to the results. I think that we are seein’ the final chapter in elective democracy…they got away with it in 2000 and they’ve perfected the strategy so that there will be no governance regardless of who is finally certified.
Ever given any thought why they never pursued this?
Best post of the day! LOL for real.
p.s. I think any cheating going on is just to keep the election close so the Bipartisanship meme will go full sail into the next Congress. Imagine if Rmoney lost in a landslide O couldn’t continue with the Grand Bargain as easily.
Citizen psalongo:
“Ever given any thought why they never pursued this?”
Obviously because there wasn’t anything to it…right? JEEzus H. Christ on a fuckin’ crutch, they made the calculation that any response to election fraud and manipulation at that time would just play into the fascist line that no election results can be trusted…that and the fact that the corporate sponsors of the Democratic Party make the machines too.
That gambit won’t play this time. Too many people got burned twice. Plus I think Obama’s people have gamed this out. If they didn’t, he doesn’t deserve to be re-elected (there are other reasons as well, but I just point out the obvious here).
I would be more concerned about voters who aren’t paying attention and allow the mis-represented vote to go on without challenge.
F’rinstance, before this soul who wrote the article noticed the problem, how many other votes were cast where no one questioned the deviation? I’m sure this didn’t happen first thing this morning.
It’s elemental. When the money boys spend all that dough on getting Willard elected, they expect a return on their investment not just after voting day, but on voting day as well. Like the way Bain operates, it doesn’t matter how you get that return, just get it.
My prediction is that FL and Ohio this year are GOP manufactured side shows, PA will turn out to what FL was in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. We’re already starting to see big problems there.
If we had a standarized federal voting system, using paper ballots and honoring any form of ID, and have early voting, you might get a semblance of a fair and accurate vote. But since that system would genrally favor Dems, it’s never going to happen. We will remain with “the best democracy that money can buy.”
First let me say I have lived in a major city all my life. I have never had to wait more than 5-10 minutes to start voting….
My issue is, WHY oh WHY in the 21st century with pc’s, smart phones and tablets do we even have to still deal with polling places. Seems to me if the government wanted to they could set up a secure voting system people could access from anywhere.
Going down to the fire station or elementary school or where ever seems as antiquated as the milk man.
This is crazy. How simple would it be to just have the Obama button register for "Romney" regardless of what appears on the screen? (That is a huge oversight.) I can't really imagine why this would be an intentional act of sabotage, unless they are flaunting it, which seems absolutely ridiculous. However, pressing "Green" allows you to cast ballots for the Green Party candidates does seem incredibly suspicious…
This would all be solved by making the First Tuesday in Nov a national American holiday. As we celebrate wars, war heroes and things only tangentially related to democracy with by national or federal holiday, it's really inexcusable that the fundemental act, has been rendered to be about as inconvenient as it can, and isn't a holiday at all.
The only sane conclusion is that powerful interests are served by people not voting, when it is so damn easy to enable millions and millions of people to vote on things that are of no democratic importance, like American Idol. Online voting is probably on the way, and this inconvenience is the preamble. Online voting is much, much easier to alter or tamper with.
There is your smoking gun people.
This shit needs to stop and the people behind it need to go to prison for a long damn time.
One of those highly strange things.
A video, almost exactly like this but showing a Romney vote changing to Obama was posted on a few right leaning sites.
Likely BOTH are spoofs designed to gen up conflict.
Color me very skeptical. I think this self described tech savvy guy protests too much about not having faked this.
Pennsy was a swing state. There had to be poll watchers from both major political parties there.
After one poll official ignored his complaint, he goes to all the trouble of shooting a video, but does not seek out a poll watch or even a second official? Or call the city’s election department, or a cop? Or even demand that he be given access to a second voting machine?
Sorry, the the story does not hang together.
Anyway, Pennsy’s gone for Obama.
No, not a smoking gun. Maybe a steaming pile of hoaxing attempt, but not a smoking gun.
You’re right, for many reasons. Democrats do nothing about supposed election fraud beyond sending stuff to the media. However, in this case, I think we have a hoax by the videographer and not a very clever one at that.
Romney, Landslide Loser Refuses Timely Concession!
EXCERPT:
“America does some really dumb things but running an organized crime boss for president, and a bumbling wimp of one at that, this had gone too far.
THE FIX
What we saw here was a failure, an attempt to put a lizard with a bow tie in the White House. We can’t allow this again.
We can no longer accept the government under these circumstances, the money in politics, the rule by special interest, the war for profit and the imposed third world slavery that the American people are expecting their grandchildren to face.
Obama don’t get off the hook, he is now free to do all those thing he promised.”
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/11/06/romney-landslide-loser-refuses-timely-concession/