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| In the 2004 election, roughly 30% of voters were cast on paperless ballots. In 2000, it was 12%. |
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| The commission Congress created to investigate electronic voting machine security determined that software was unreliable. [Details] |
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| Four corporations make e-voting equipment. All are controlled by GOP supporters. [Details] |
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| In the Nov. 2004 election, 80% of votes were counted on machines supplied by ES&S and Diebold. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers. |
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| There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the US voting machine industry. |
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| E-voting machine results (and optical scan equipment that read paper ballots) are usually sent via modem to a central tabulating computer. From there, election results can be changed in 90 seconds without leaving a trace. |
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| In 2002, Tom Eschberger, now a key ES&S executive, asked for immunity for testimony in the bribery kickback conviction of the Arkansas Secretary of State. In 1999, two Sequoia executives, Phil Foster and Pasquale Ricci, were indicted for paying the Louisiana Commissioner of Elections an $8 million bribe to buy their voting machines. Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell wrote, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year." [Details] |
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| 35% of ES&S is owned by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, who became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines. |
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| In eleven Florida counties, the ‘actual' Bush vote was at least twice higher than the expected vote from exit polls. Thirteen counties had Bush vote tallies 50-100% higher than expected. [Details] |
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| On November 11, 2004, at a National Press Club event, former Enron lobbyist and current RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie called for an end to exit polls. |
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| The White House argued to "prohibit" lawsuits involving voting rights violations. [Details] |
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| Across Ohio's minority-rich cities, there were fewer voting machines than in past elections. Precincts saw a decrease in machines from one-third to one-half even though turnout increased substantially. |
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| In Ohio, 67 of the 88 counties used punch-card ballots of the sort that caused major problems in Florida in 2000. |
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| Verified Voting, an organization formed by a Stanford University professor, has collected over 34,000 reports of election fraud and other problems in 2004. |
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| An MIT/CalTech study found that 8.2% of touch-screen votes in senatorial elections between 1998 and 2000 were lost - more than any other system except lever machines, which lost 9.5%. |
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| In the 2000 election, Caltech/MIT research estimated that four million to six million votes were lost, of which 1.5 to three million were lost due to "registration mix ups," including names missing from voter rolls and clerical errors. Further, it has been reported that over 1 million African American votes were left uncounted four years ago. |
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| Both H.R. 2239 and S. 2313 would force voting machines to produce a voter-verified paper ballot and to be randomly audited. In two years, neither has made it out of committee in the Republican-controlled House or Senate. |
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| The Help America Vote Act of 2002 was never fully funded and states were given numerous loop holes to "opt out" of key elements of the bill including establishing statewide databases of registered voters. HAVA also left it up to states to determine what constitutes a valid provisional ballot and whose votes will be counted. |
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| In November 2004, Diebold agreed to pay California $2.6 million to settle a lawsuit. The company was sued for misleading state officials about the security and certification of its products. |
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| More than 181,000 dead people were listed on voter rolls in the six swing states of Ohio, Florida, Iowa, New Mexico, Minnesota, and Michigan in the November election. |
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| An unusually high 90,000 voters in Ohio cast ballots without a valid
presidential choice. |
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| Central tabulating computers collect and calculate the vote totals of optical scanners, DREs and punch cards. They are vulnerable to hacking, manipulation and/or vote skimming. |
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