McKinney Rails Against Electronic Voting

[Desertdog]

Looks like the anti-electronic voting machine crowd has a new member.

McKinney Rails Against Electronic Voting
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/08/15/D8JH0EU80.html

By KATE BRUMBACK
Associated Press Writer


Rep. Cynthia McKinney, in her first public appearance since losing her re-election bid last week, said Tuesday that the black community needs to oppose electronic voting machines, which she said are designed to steal elections.

McKinney also said the state of Georgia should not allow crossover voting among political parties in primary elections.

The fiery Democratic congresswoman who scuffled with a Capitol Hill police officer earlier this year and has accused the Bush administration of having advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks said she considers herself a "black political paramedic," and the "black body politic is near comatose."

McKinney made the remarks during the National Dialogue and Revival for Social Justice in the Black Church. It was sponsored by the Rev. Al Sharpton's group, the National Action Network.

Last week, she lost her bid for a seventh term in Congress to challenger Hank Johnson, a former DeKalb County Commissioner. Johnson defeated McKinney 59 percent to 41 percent in the Democratic runoff.

After the runoff, McKinney blamed her defeat on the media and problems with electronic voting machines.

The crowd in Augusta, estimated at fewer than 200 people, gave McKinney a standing ovation when she was introduced and again when she finished speaking.

She refused to answer reporters' questions after her speech. A woman in McKinney's entourage got between the representative and a reporter. A male bodyguard said McKinney would not take questions.

 

[StrikeFire83]

As much as I dislike McKinney, I also dislike electronic voting machines. At least those in their current incarnation.

It's not brain surgery, electronic voting machines need to produce a nameless PAPER COPY of the vote for both the VOTER and for the COUNTERS.

When I buy a $1.00 hamburger I get a GIANT reciept. Do that with electonic voting machines, and then I'll trust them.

 

[FTF]

This could be a good opportunity for the 4th in Ga.

I've already signed up for volunteer time at Catherine Davis' website.. FYI she's the Republican running against Mr. Johnson. I've conversed with her via email and she seems like a "straight shooter". I've yet to hear anything back from "Mr. Johnson"... apparently he's already written off the white vote in this part of town.

McKinney is a joke. I really don't get too stressed over the cop slapping incident, honestly, I would like to slap a few cops too... now if I could only get away with it. BUT, she's got a horrible reputation as a whiner (she lost the last election but got her seat back when her opponent declined) and she might as well be an Islamic extremist from how much money she takes from them. Her immigration policy is nonexistant. Hank Johnnson has an amazingly vague opinion on the illegal immigrant issue as well... he's basically the choice for "those who don't want McKinney".

Maybe the peasants of the 4th will assess the candidates this time around and actually choose someone worth a darn. Ms. Davis has impeccable credentials, working class upbringing, real-life business saavy, not to mention she's about as pro-gun as you'll find around here, which really says a lot. I like her. She claims to be a "strict constitutionalist" which I applaud, I don't wholeheartedly agree with it, but it's more right than wrong. I volunteered for her campaign... we'll see where it goes from there... I really don't understand why this district votes so much on the dem side... from what I've seen from living here for 2 years, most of us are affluent, white folks... maybe I haven't experienced the 'west side' or whatever, but I really like GA gun laws and, for the most part, civil liberties... VOTE DAVIS!

And to stay on topic... there is no reason to blame the voting machines... pretty much every radio station in GA has callers that hate her. I'm amazed she got this far. You would have to live here to know, I guess... she's not at all popular... not nearly popular enough to be a representative for so long... methinks it was rigged in her favor for years, if anything.

 

[ravinraven]

Hate to see her go...

...because she was such a typical Democrat.

Joe was seemingly pro-liberty so they dumped him, but this lovely person was so great to haul out and show off as the Liberal ideal that to be without her will be tough.

rr

 

[Deanimator]

Other than idle amusement, there's no more reason to pay attention to this woman than to Paris Hilton or George Michael. Her fifteen minutes of fame have been over for fourteen minutes.

 

[DonP]

Electronic voting is evil ... Huh?

I get a real laugh out of all the folks ranting about how easy it is to steal elections with electronic voting. "No paper trail", "hack the software", and on and on.

Some of you guys act like an election has never been stolen with paper ballots.

Here in Chicago we literally invented the phrase, "stuffing the ballot box". Alderman Paddy Bauler and "Bathouse" John Coughlin used to show up at headquarters, where the votes were counted, with three or four ballot boxes literally overstuffed with ballots. They ran a precinct that only had a couple of hundred voters total, but always turned in around a thousand votes for the current mayor. That's how Mayor Daley the first made sure JFK won the Presdiency in 1960.

About 25 years or so ago they switched from paper ballots to mechanical machines with the little levers. The ward bosses just walked into the little booth with the voters and showed them where the staright ticket Democrat lever was and if the older folks had trouble reaching the lever, they turned it for them. Then bought them a nice cup of coffee and donut.

Then we went to the push pin ballots, complete with hanging chads etc. Now it's electronic voting that's the big evil threat.

For me the bottom line is that evil people will try every trick in the book to sway a few votes in each precinct their way. Paper, machine, punch card or electronic it won't matter to them.

The solution is to find and punish the people that do it, not keep trying to demonize one voting system over another or invent the ultimate foolproof system.

 

[Third_Rail]

DonP - it's not that electronic voting is the devil or anything, it's that it is TOO easy to modify the votes. Easy enough that you could quite simply change an election in minutes with only one person pulling the strings.

 

[ACP230]

I tried to find some sympathy for her numerous, whiny, complaints.
But, in her case, "...my give a damn's busted..."

 

[Justin]

Blind hog, acorn, once in a while, etc.

 

[tellner]

"I don't like her. She doesn't like something. So I have to like it."

Socrates would have laughed at logic like that.

Take a look at the issues surrounding electronic voting. Don't just go by Karl Rove's talking points. It's an issue where you see a lot of Lefties and Righties on the same side. Heck, the Black Box Voting people include several high-ranking members of the CCRKBA as activists.

The idea of vote security under these systems is a poor joke. They can be manipulated, are prone to errors, can not be audited and are already known to have screwed up in quite a few cases. The idea that a political activist who promises to "deliver [a state] by any means necessary" should own the machines that count the votes is something that should horrify any decent person.

 

[Art Eatman]

OT

 

[mountainclmbr]

Art, you forgot to press the lock button. A very rare occurance for any topic. Even guns and civil liberties seem OT these days.

 

[Desertdog]

Sounds Political to me.

 

[mountainclmbr]

guns, political, social ...... get locked ???

 

[Robert Hairless]

Ms. McKinney is doing as Ms. McKinney does: she blames her failures on external factors instead of on her own failings. Life is more tolerable for many people when they look at the world through objective correlatives--in these situations through objects that represent and substitute for their real problems.

She uses electronic voting machines to objectify her failure to win votes. Any means of counting and recording votes is subject to error and can be manipulated. If Ms. McKinney has evidence of error or manipulation, she would be right to lay out that evidence so it can be investigated. But she isn't doing that. She objectifies her generally irrational and emotional behaviors by projecting them, in this situation, onto the machines in general. It's understandable in one way: she doesn't trust what she can't see. Unfortunately she also doesn't trust what she can see.

 

[xd9fan]

boy I never saw this coming....

 

[XD_fan]

Take a look at what happened in the Governor election in Washington in the not so distant past. King county was still "finding" uncounted ballots months after the election. There is a woman who has been written about in the local papers who votes twice in every election. She has yet to be prosecuted.

In the end the integrity of an election is determined by the diligience paid to ensuring that voters are who they say they are, only vote once and that every ballot gets counted. None of this hanging chad crap either.