I have no idea if a diary on this has already has reached the rec list as I have been off and on. Others(Pluto and DemocraticLuntz) have written highly recommended diaries about this very alarming story: Premier Election Solutions(formerly known as Diebold Election Systems) has admitted that its voting machines have a critical programming error in them that could have caused them to drop votes in transit 'from memory cards to a central tallying point.
From the article:
"Approximately 1,750 jurisdictions use the flawed system," [Spokesman for Premier] Chris Riggall said. "Both Maryland and Virginia use it," he said, "although Virginia does not relay its votes to a central counting point, which is where the problem surfaces," Riggall said. "Maryland does use a central count," he said. "The District of Columbia does not use the GEMS system."
Ha, ha - Funny that the Diebold spokesman's name is Riggall. Ahem. Gulp.
Since Premier refuses to allow independent analysts to review its machines, no independent expert is able to examine their code to verify that the voting machines are tallying votes correctly.
But no problem, since
"[...]Premier said that remedies to the problem will be in place for the November presidential election."
We have their word! So you see, everything's OK. Premier Election Solutions reviewed Premier Election Solutions' election solutions and determined that Premier Election Solutions' election solutions are perfectly fine, or at least will be by the time the election comes!
In fairness, the above quote was taken out of context. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner(D) also said that a fix will be in place in November and has taken a stand against electronic voting machines. But this still leaves the other 33 Secretaries of State/Commonwealths with these election systems in place to assure us!
So if for some reason the word of 1 Democratic Secretary of State and Diebold isn't enough for you - as it isn't for me - then you, like me, cannot be sure that the voting machines many of us will be using to cast our votes for Obama this coming November will have been fixed on time and will be tallying our votes correctly. We have to do something about this!
We need to urge by phone, email, and mail our Secretaries of State (and Commonwealth) to replace any touch-screen or optical scan machines that are manufactured by Premier Election Systems. I'm not sure if this is possible, but for the sake of our democracy it's worth a try!
After all, in a democracy the mechanisms by which we vote must be known to us. If we cannot be sure that our vote is being cast and counted properly, then every other issue is plainly irrelevant.
Here are the relevant URLs for two of the states mentioned in the story:
Virginia's Secretary of the Commonwealth
Maryland's Secretary of State
I would list more, but you can just
click here for a list of URLs for all the states' current Secretaries of State
UPDATE This might get buried because of all the convention coverage and because it is late at night, but it is important that people keep diarying about this until one finally reaches the rec list!