Sorry if it's been posted before, couldn't find it yet.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said.
Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.
Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch.
State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome.
Didn't the guy that owned the company that made those machines say that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year"?
Stubborn as ever - Let's hope it pays off this time.
Isn't the Guardian one of those papers that will say anything to make a buck?
Kinda like the National Enquirer or Weekly World News?
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
Julhelm wrote:Now if Kerry won, would people have cried "h4x" as much?
Probably, just not the same people.
"On the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics." -Richard Feynman
Jesus, it's time to either get rid of electronic voting or open-source the software.
That said, unless this type of error is much more widespread it won't make much of a difference in the final vote tally.
BoTM / JL / MM / HAB / VRWC / Horseman
I'm studying for the CPA exam. Have a nice summer, and if you're down just sit back and realize that Joe is off somewhere, doing much worse than you are.
Again, what the fuck is the point of electonic voting, punch card voting, lever voting, etc? What is wrong with put X or fill in circle or whatever beside candidates name.
"You know, I was God once."
"Yes, I saw. You were doing well, until everyone died."
Bender and God, Futurama
The whole appeal of electronic voting is the ability of the voting machines to cope with the disabled, e.g. screen readers that can let a blind person tell which person he's voting for.
You can't really do that with a Scantron ballot or a punch card ballot.
But as it is, the Diebold machines suck at accessibility, suck at tabulation, etc... there's a reason that the state of California refuses to use their machines and indeed filed a lawsuit against Diebold.
And you all thought it was over. Oh no. I thought it was odd how many votes were coming in from some precincts. We'll see if this is more widespread, but I will be completely unsurprised if this is widely covered outside the US and swept under the rug here.
Manic Progressive: A liberal who violently swings from anger at politicos to despondency over them.
Out Of Context theatre: Ron Paul has repeatedly said he's not a racist. - Destructinator XIII on why Ron Paul isn't racist.
A nice read, but 3000 votes does nothing to deal with the other 130,000 that cost Kerry Ohio. The elections board should seriously look at this, but unless this happened in every Ohio precinct, it's not a big deal.
The wisdom of PA:
-Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad
It sounds like some idiot forgot to put an exit condition in a while loop, resulting in the vote counter getting incremented to heck.
If we're seeing results this bad, given that all Diebold machines basically used the same software, I'd expect this flaw to be duplicated across Ohio. Maybe not as drastic as 4000+ votes from 300, but I'd still expect flawed results nonetheless.
Then we need the P-Value, which would be how often this mistake can show up. Totally unknown, since apparently 'It can't be explained'. Bullshit.
1) The programmers made some Freshman-class-level mistake and don't want their careers torn apart.
2) They created their code by bashing their skulls against keyboards at random.
3) Tin foil hat time! It's not a bug, is the last option. I know, crazy, but isn't this the third or fourth time we've heard about odd errors from a Diebold machine in favor of a Republican? If I'm right, an old phrase is ringing in my head.
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Thrice is enemy action.
You can remove your tinfoil now. The mind control satellites have passed.
Manic Progressive: A liberal who violently swings from anger at politicos to despondency over them.
Out Of Context theatre: Ron Paul has repeatedly said he's not a racist. - Destructinator XIII on why Ron Paul isn't racist.
Crayz9000 wrote:It sounds like some idiot forgot to put an exit condition in a while loop, resulting in the vote counter getting incremented to heck.
Haha, that's first year computing stuff I used to forget about. I can only imagine how cluttered the code for this software is for something like that to happen.
LadyTevar wrote:Isn't the Guardian one of those papers that will say anything to make a buck?
Kinda like the National Enquirer or Weekly World News?
No, the Guardian is primarily interested in grinding its ideological axe; if they just wanted to sell papers they would go the simple minded soft core porn route of The Sun.
LadyTevar wrote:Isn't the Guardian one of those papers that will say anything to make a buck?
Kinda like the National Enquirer or Weekly World News?
No, the Guardian is primarily interested in grinding its ideological axe; if they just wanted to sell papers they would go the simple minded soft core porn route of The Sun.
Yay Page 3 Girls!
Manic Progressive: A liberal who violently swings from anger at politicos to despondency over them.
Out Of Context theatre: Ron Paul has repeatedly said he's not a racist. - Destructinator XIII on why Ron Paul isn't racist.
Yeah, but not as we know them. I hear they've been having segments on Page 3 girls with opinions on the US election (as opposed to saying "I think world peace is cool, yeah?" and "Kittens are fluffy").
Yeah, but not as we know them. I hear they've been having segments on Page 3 girls with opinions on the US election (as opposed to saying "I think world peace is cool, yeah?" and "Kittens are fluffy").
So sex and a political statement.
Not yay. More titties, less politics.
Manic Progressive: A liberal who violently swings from anger at politicos to despondency over them.
Out Of Context theatre: Ron Paul has repeatedly said he's not a racist. - Destructinator XIII on why Ron Paul isn't racist.
Admiral Valdemar wrote:Haha, that's first year computing stuff I used to forget about. I can only imagine how cluttered the code for this software is for something like that to happen.
It's a good example of why you leave the tabulating to tabulating machines. You don't tally up votes at the voting station, that's just plain bloody stupid.
Admiral Valdemar wrote:Haha, that's first year computing stuff I used to forget about. I can only imagine how cluttered the code for this software is for something like that to happen.
It's a good example of why you leave the tabulating to tabulating machines. You don't tally up votes at the voting station, that's just plain bloody stupid.
No kidding. I swear, I should just start a project with the kids in my programming class to make a voting machine more reliable than Diebold's.
Damien Sorresso
"Ever see what them computa bitchez do to numbas? It ain't natural. Numbas ain't supposed to be code, they supposed to quantify shit."
- The Onion
