PDA

View Full Version : Votes Found On Machines In Philly Before Polls Open



Sparrowhawk
11-02-04, 09:40 AM
Before voting even began in Philadelphia -- poll watchers found nearly 2000 votes already planted on machines scattered throughout the city...

http://drudgereport.com/phil.jpg




One incident occurred at the SALVATION ARMY, 2601 N. 11th St., Philadelphia, Pa: Ward 37, division 8... pollwatchers uncovered 4 machines with planted votes; one with over 200 and one with nearly 500... A second location, 1901 W. Girard Ave., Berean Institute, Philadelphia, Pa, had 300+ votes already on 2 machines at start of day... INCIDENT: 292 votes on machine at start of day; WARD/DIVISION: 7/7: ADDRESS: 122 W. Erie Ave., Roberto Clemente School, Philadelphia, Pa.; INCIDENT: 456 votes on machine at start of day; WARD/DIVISION: 12/3; ADDRESS: 5657 Chew Ave., storefront, Philadelphia, Pa... MORE...


A gun was purposely made visible to scare poll watchers at Ward 30, division 11, at 905 S. 20th St., Grand Court. Police were called and surrounded the location... Developing...

thedrifter
11-02-04, 09:42 AM
I'm not surprised..

They still had Roger listed...I made sure they wrote deceased on the record...

After 8 months, they should have gotten the message. All the right people did. ;)

I Just Love Philly :D


Ellie

mrbsox
11-02-04, 10:27 AM
Has anybody said WHOM the votes were for ??

thedrifter
11-02-04, 10:36 AM
Polling Places See Scattered Problems

1 hour, 48 minutes ago

By ANICK JESDANUN, Associated Press Writer

Polling places experienced scattered problems early Tuesday as legions of lawyers, election-rights activists and computer scientists watched, particularly in battleground states, for any trouble that could disenfranchise voters.


New rules, new voters and a tight presidential contest combined to create "a recipe for problems," said Sean Greene, who was assigned to watch Cleveland polls for the Election Reform Information Project, a nonpartisan research group on election reform.


Nearly one in three voters, including about half of those in Florida, were expected to cast ballots using ATM-style voting machines that computer scientists have criticized for their potential for software glitches, hacking and malfunctioning.


Other major concerns were over provisional ballots, new this presidential election and a potential source of delayed counts, and whether poll workers were adequate and sufficiently trained.


In one Richmond, Va., polling place, voters were confronted with the wrong congressional race on the ballot — the 7th District instead of the 3rd.


"Once it was discovered about 6:10, 6:15 (a.m.), people were offered a paper ballot," said Virginia Board of Elections executive secretary Jean Jensen. "I think the unknown is how many votes were cast before that happened."


Long lines greeted voters in many big cities in closely contested states: Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Columbus, Ohio, Detriot and elsewhere. Five locations in Franklin County, Ohio, opened up to a half-hour late because poll workers did not show up on time.


In Essex, Md., an election judge left a polling place briefly, saying he forgot something at home. Voters who had to wait were allowed to vote by provisional ballot.


One polling location in Mauldin, S.C., was forced to switch to paper ballots because of equipment troubles.


In Volusia County, Fla., a memory card in an optical-scan voting machine failed Monday at an early voting site and didn't count 13,000 ballots. Officials planned to feed and count those ballots Tuesday.


Chellie Pingree, president of the citizens lobbying group Common Cause, said she feared poll workers faced with long lines would be pressured to make quick but bad interpretations on rules governing registration validity and identification requirements.


"There's no question it's going to be a high turnout," Pingree said. "It's going to just add more confusion to already overburdened, understaffed polling places, many of which will have as many lawyers and poll challengers as they have people voting."


By mid-morning EST, an online and phone hotline maintained by nonpartisan and liberal voting-rights activists logged more than 1,650 items, mostly related to complaints or questions about registrations and polling locations. But some voters in New York and Pennsylvania complained to the hotline of troubles with non-electronic machines.


During the March primaries in California and Maryland, software bugs and inexperienced poll workers accidentally eliminated some races and allowed voters to cast ballots for contests in wrong precincts.


VerifiedVoting.org, a group of e-voting critics organized by Stanford University professor David Dill, has recruited more than 1,300 technology professionals to serve as poll monitors Tuesday.


Both parties had thousands of lawyers dispatched and on call to respond to the first sign of trouble.


In a decision early Tuesday, a federal appeals court cleared the way for political parties to challenge voters' eligibility at polling places throughout Ohio.





A key problem is the lack of a unified voting system for the nation, the legacy of a patchwork of balloting technologies, regulations, partisan bickering and litigation.

Among other problems, Ohio Republicans had sought over the past week to challenge some 35,000 voters, saying mail to them was returned undelivered, while in Colorado, GOP poll watchers complained that election officials in a Democratic stronghold failed to require early voters to produce identification.

A federal law passed in response to the 2000 election mess required states to offer provisional, or backup, ballots to voters who find they are not listed on the rolls, or whose eligibility is somehow in question. The ballots are set aside and evaluated after the election — they could take 10 days or longer to resolve.

But states have interpreted the law differently. Millions of newly registered voters may wrongly assume they can vote at any precinct in their city, town or county. State officials and courts have disagreed on whether provisional ballots are valid when a voter is at the wrong precinct.

The measure also requires first-time voters who registered by mail to provide identification when they show up at the polls, though disputes have arisen over whether to extend that to all first-time registrants and what documents count.

Add to that confusion: absentee ballots.

More than a dozen states missed the recommended deadline to mail ballots overseas, and in Florida's Broward County, thousands of absentee ballots went missing or got delayed.

As for electronic voting, many of the problems — whether accidental or intentional — may not be known until well after Tuesday — if at all. Most of the ATM-style machines, including all of Florida's, lack paper records that could be used to verify the electronic results in a recount.

Florida requires state election administrators to count — and, if necessary, recount — an election within 11 days. But lawsuits could drag out the results for weeks, even forcing the courts to decide the outcome.

Four years ago, the Supreme Court intervened in a recount after 36 days, handing George W. Bush a 537-vote victory in Florida and with it the presidency.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1963&e=7&u=/ap/20041102/ap_on_el_pr/eln_voting_problems_7


Ellie

yellowwing
11-02-04, 10:36 AM
It's from Matt Drudge, so take it with a grain of salt. I've been watching CNN and other sources to confirm. Nothing as of yet to verify.

HardJedi
11-02-04, 02:10 PM
they just had on CNN and FoX News that there were no extra votes on any machines at 130pm

cjwright90
11-02-04, 02:23 PM
I bet those people thought they were ordering a cheesesteak samich. Thats a lot of cheese steak! LOL

HardJedi
11-02-04, 02:56 PM
HMMMMMNNNN YUMMY! now that you meantion cheesesteak, CJ, know where the first one I ever had was? That's right! GUAM! down on the naval Station, at that itty bitty PX , also had a little grill attached to it. Was that there in your time CJ?

I used to love their cheesesteaks!

thedrifter
11-02-04, 04:07 PM
City Denies Reports Of Rigged Voting Machines In Philly
Incidents Alleged In 'Drudge Report' Web Site

POSTED: 12:14 pm EST November 2, 2004
UPDATED: 12:35 pm EST November 2, 2004

A Philadelphia city commissioner denies a report on the popular Internet site "The Drudge Report" that some voting machines already had votes on them before local polls opened today.

City Commissioner Marge Tartaglione, the official responsible for overseeing elections in the city, said Tuesday morning that the Internet report was false.

"Recent press reports have stated that machines in at least one precinct were not properly calibrated to ensure an accurate accounting of the number of votes cast," Tartaglione said.

"These allegations are completely unsubstantiated and have no factual basis whatsoever," she said.

An earlier report at www.drudgereport.com, a widely read Internet newsletter, alleged that "nearly 2000 votes already planted on machines scattered throughout the city."

The machines cited by Drudge included those at a Salvation Army location, the Berean Institute and the Roberto Clemente School.

One official from the Committee Of Seventy, which monitors voting in the city, told NBC 10 that some confusion may have arisen because voting machines also have a counter that shows how many votes are placed on a machine during its lifetime, in addition to a counter that shows current votes.

An attempt by NBC10.com to reach the Drudge Report for comment was unsuccessful. But an update on the Drudge Report site attributed the original report to "Republican poll watchers."

Also, the Associated Press reported that Republican observers in Philadelphia had lodged some of the earliest complaints, claiming that voting machines in the city already had thousands of votes recorded when the polls opened.

Deputy City Commissioner Ed Schulgen told the AP that the observers pulled the numbers from an odometer that records every vote ever cast on the machine in every election -- not the number to be counted today.


Ellie

kentmitchell
11-02-04, 04:16 PM
Anyone who watches CNN to confirm anything is a bit naive.
Drudge has the straight skinny and he has it before the others.
Check Drudge daily. You'll see that his stories begin to creep into networks and newspapers after about three days.
Stories they used to be able to ignore, they have to print now.

HardJedi
11-02-04, 04:32 PM
Dang Mitchell. that's two day's in a row you have ragged on me. what's up with that? LOL

thedrifter
11-02-04, 04:39 PM
If I hear You Marines stop complainning than that is a problem......;) :D


Ellie

yellowwing
11-02-04, 04:47 PM
If I hear You Marines stop complainning than that is a problem
Ya' got us pegged! You win a shot of JD for that one!

http://www.winecellar.co.uk/images/products/Spirits/Jack_Daniels_-_46333.jpg

thedrifter
11-02-04, 04:58 PM
I'll take that shot a little later...Need to get some dinner in me first.....;)

I just love You Guys.....




Ellie

thedrifter
11-02-04, 08:07 PM
Scattered Problems Impede Some Voting

By DEBORAH HASTINGS, AP National Writer

Machines malfunctioned, tempers flared and edgy voters often waited hours Tuesday to pick a president in a contentious race watched by thousands of monitors who expected the worst.


But by the close of East Coast polls, only scattered local snafus had been reported in an election turnout that was shaping up to be the heaviest in years.


"So far, it's no big, but lots of littles," said Doug Chapin, director of the Election Reform Information Project, a nonpartisan research group. "We know of no major meltdowns anywhere along the lines some people were worried about."


About 50 percent of all voters said they were very certain ballots in their state would be accurately counted, according to a national Associated Press exit poll conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.


Hyper-vigilance appeared to be the order of the day, which in some states prompted poll closures and unfounded complaints.


In New Jersey, for example, a suspicious substance later determined to be spilled salt prompted the two-hour closure of a Mount Laurel precinct. In Pennsylvania, zealous GOP election monitors complained that some Philadelphia voting machines already had thousands of recorded votes when the polls opened at 7 a.m.


Local election officials quickly explained that voting machines registered every vote ever cast on them — like mileage on a car odometer — and that did not constitute evidence of fraud.


"It's absolutely ridiculous," said Deputy City Commissioner Ed Schulgen.


In Colorado, Republican Party officials said a lawyer for the Democrats showed up at an Eagle County precinct with a list of registered GOP voters, planning to challenge them all. Democrats acknowledged it was true.


In other closely contested states — including Iowa and Michigan — the liberal group MoveOn.org was accused of disrupting local precincts. In Ohio, a woman filed a lawsuit on behalf of voters who didn't receive absentee ballots on time, asking they be allowed to cast provisional ballots. Later, a Toledo federal judge granted her request.


Also in Michigan, the NAACP filed a Justice Department (news - web sites) complaint, saying it received 35 complaints that GOP poll watchers were harassing voters in Detroit.


In Wisconsin, Republicans said vandals spray-painted "Illegitimate Democracy" across state party headquarters. In Milwaukee, police said tires were slashed on about 20 get-out-the-vote vehicles leased by the GOP.


New touch-screen voting machines, criticized by computer scientists and several elections officials as susceptible to hacking and malfunction, were used Tuesday in 29 states and the District of Columbia. Only Nevada has mandated the machines produce paper receipts, which could make recounts more reliable.


In Florida, which gave the 2000 election to George W. Bush on the basis of 537 votes, 10 touch-screen voting machines failed at various precincts in Broward County. Nearly half the state's voters were using the ATM-like machines.


Chellie Pingree, president of Common Cause and a former international election monitor, said a toll-free voting hot line established by her citizens' lobbying group had logged at least 50,000 calls.


Tuesday's high voter turnout could bring "more confusion to already overburdened, understaffed polling places," Pingree said. And many of those places, she added, "will have as many lawyers and poll challengers as they have people voting."


Tensions flared early at many of those sites. A Democratic official in Cleveland claimed he was thrown out of a church basement by a screaming poll judge. Another judge allowed him to return.





In Florida, two Bush supporters filed a lawsuit seeking at least $15,000 in damages, claiming they were punched, pushed, shoved and spat on when they showed up at a Halloween rally for Democratic candidate John Kerry (news - web sites), dressed as giant flip-flops. In a separate lawsuit, the ACLU asked that absentee ballots mailed within the United States be subject to the same deadline, Nov. 12. as overseas ballots.

Provisional ballots, new this election, also prompted disaster fears because they could delay any recount efforts. Any voter whose name does not appear on precinct rolls is entitled to cast a provisional — or paper — ballot. But elections officials must individually certify them as being cast by registered voters before they can be counted.

A Kerry campaign lawyer said some Pennsylvania voters were prevented from voting when at least a dozen Allegheny County precincts ran out of provisional ballots. More ballots were on their way, and voters were encouraged to return later in the day. A similar complaint surfaced in New Mexico.

Despite all the lawyers, election-rights activists and partisan voting monitors who descended on polls across the country intent on uncovering voter fraud, the biggest complaint appeared to be long lines that forced voters to wait hours, in queues that circled buildings and wound down streets.

Extremely high turnout, and massive voter-registration efforts by Democrats and Republicans, were considered the cause.

But in New Orleans, problems with electronic machines, some of which did not boot up, forced precinct workers to tell voters they would have to come back, said voting activists.

"New Orleans wins the award for the worst voting situation in the country when it comes from electronic voting machines," said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The complicated issue of counting absentee ballots also added to the confusing array of new machines and new state voting regulations prompted by the debacle of the last race for the White House.

States have differing and confusing rules about deadlines for such ballots. Some states, for example, allow absentee votes to be counted days after the election, provided they are postmarked by Nov. 2. Others mandate that mailed ballots received after Election Day do not count.

And in more than a dozen states, election officials missed the recommended deadline for mailing absentee ballots overseas, meaning soldiers risking their lives in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites) might not get them in time to vote.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=3&u=/ap/20041103/ap_on_el_pr/eln_voting_problems


Ellie