BBV (sort of) on Philly Inquirer front page

Here is a letter I just emailed to the "journalist" who wrote a front page article on electronic voting.

<snip>
Electronic voting: A trust issue

As the nation heads into a presidential election year, the technology takes center stage. It is not error-free.

By Linda K. Harris

Inquirer Staff Writer

As the nation approaches its first presidential election since the controversial Florida count gave George W. Bush the White House, debate is heating up over the security and accuracy of electronic-voting machines.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/8146562.htm
<snip>

Dear Ms. Harris,
I was pleased to see you story on electronic voting on the front page of today's (March 9) Inquirer. This is an issue that needs much more exposure, as it is at the heart of our democracy and efforts to preserve it.
However, I was very disappointed in reading your piece to see that you, like most of the media, gloss over the real danger and emphasize the "positive" aspects of voting by computer. In addition, the brief mention you give to concerns barely touch on the real threat, that being the ease with which deliberate fraud (and not random error) can be achieved.
Without going into too many details, I refer you to the excellent work by Bev Harris (no relation I assume) on this issue of black box voting (BBV). That name more clearly communicates the danger that is evident when looking at trusting one's vote to an unknown, unmonitored system that is the control of partisan corporate interests.
As (1) the owner of Diebold has been quoted as saying that he would "do everything he could to guarantee George Bush's re-election" and (2) there have been enough unexpected results to call into question the validity of the system and (3) testimony from experts have attested to the vulnerability of electronic voting systems, your treatment and tone was in the vein of "move along, nothing to see here." I would have expected more from the Philadelphia Inquirer.
This issue will not go away. There are too many Americans who understand what is at stake and will not let this be swept under the rug. Your choice is to continue to be part of the coverup or try to remember what a journalist is supposed to be.

Tom Wolf
Jenkintown, PA

Florida county orders recount (optical BBV shows Gep beating Kerry 2 to 1!


http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/10/recount/index.html

Florida county orders recount in primary
Election outcome unaffected as Kerry easily carries state

(CNN) -- Election officials in Bay County, Florida, plan to recount all of the almost 20,000 ballots cast in Tuesday's presidential primary because of vote-counting irregularities, election Supervisor Mark Andersen said Wednesday.

"I'm not the happiest camper," Andersen said hours before the recount was scheduled to get under way. "We're going to redo everything."

The recount in the Panhandle county will not affect the outcome of Florida's primary, which handily went to Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who secured 77 percent of the state's vote.

According to Andersen, the county's optical scanner did not count the votes correctly because of a discrepancy between the way the absentee and standard ballots were printed.<snip>


Andersen did not release the initial results, but The Associated Press reported that Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri held a 2-to-1 lead over Kerry in the county, with more than 60 percent of precincts tallied.<snip>