Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick


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Lawsuit Against Florida Law Prohibiting E-Vote Recounting

from the that-would-probably-be-helpful dept

thecaptain writes in to tell us: "Voting groups are fighting to overturn a rule that prohibits manual recounting of ballots cast with touchscreen machines. There's a RULE in Florida that prohibits recounts of ballots cast with touchscreen machines? How frightening is that? I'm glad I'm Canadian." It's even more frightening than it seems. As is pointed out in the article, the law is based on the obviously incorrect assertion that e-voting machines can do no wrong -- something that's already been shown to be false in an audit conducted in Florida. Even worse, reports are now coming out that the company behind the mis-count problem, Electronic Systems and Software, knew about the problem over a year ago and never bothered to tell anyone about it. Their argument is that it doesn't actually impact the real vote counts, but only the audit record. Obviously, since Florida bans rechecking the vote counts, that audit record is meaningless, so why should they have told anyone? What is it with Florida and voting?

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  1. Of course

    by Exadios - Jul 8th, 2004 @ 10:36am

    This is a no brainer. Of course there has to be a rule disallowing recounts. How do you expect them to rig an election if recounts are allowed?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Re: Of course

    by Anonymous Coward - Jul 8th, 2004 @ 10:57am

    > How do you expect them to rig an election if recounts are allowed?

    By letting dead people and convicts vote. Several cities in swing states have more registered voters than residents over the legal voting age.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Dead Electronic Voting?

    by Director Mitch - Jul 8th, 2004 @ 4:38pm

    Just combine the previous story about video tombstones with electronic voting machines, and you have an electronic tombstone voting machine for dead people that a Chicago democratic operative could only love.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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