A Vote for Obama is a Vote for Romney - Literally

YT description:

My wife and I went to the voting booths this morning before work. There were 4 older ladies running the show and 3 voting booths that are similar to a science fair project in how they fold up. They had an oval VOTE logo on top center and a cartridge slot on the left that the volunteers used to start your ballot.

I initially selected Obama but Romney was highlighted. I assumed it was being picky so I deselected Romney and tried Obama again, this time more carefully, and still got Romney. Being a software developer, I immediately went into troubleshoot mode. I first thought the calibration was off and tried selecting Jill Stein to actually highlight Obama. Nope. Jill Stein was selected just fine. Next I deselected her and started at the top of Romney's name and started tapping very closely together to find the 'active areas'. From the top of Romney's button down to the bottom of the black checkbox beside Obama's name was all active for Romney. From the bottom of that same checkbox to the bottom of the Obama button (basically a small white sliver) is what let me choose Obama. Stein's button was fine. All other buttons worked fine.

I asked the voters on either side of me if they had any problems and they reported they did not. I then called over a volunteer to have a look at it. She him hawed for a bit then calmly said "It's nothing to worry about, everything will be OK." and went back to what she was doing. I then recorded this video.

There is a lot of speculation that the footage is edited. I'm not a video guy, but if it's possible to prove whether a video has been altered or not, I will GLADLY provide the raw footage to anyone who is willing to do so. The jumping frames are a result of the shitty camera app on my Android phone, nothing more.
Yogisays...

The faulty piece of equipment doesn't bother me, that's something that occurs in my everyday life and we deal with it as best we can. What does bother me is the actions of the polling people...if what this person says is true they shouldn't be there doing the polling. Show them a problem and it's their job to either fix it or decommission the machine.

bobknight33says...

That happened to my wife. She voted of Romney and and it was switching to Obama. She finally pocked around the screen to get the right vote. This was in the Carolinas not PA. Looks like same time of machine.

I would not call it fraud - Seems like a calibration issue. Still it should have been reported to the officials at the site.


>> ^KnivesOut:

Oh but remember, it's only Democrats that commit election fraud.

KnivesOutsays...

Your story makes me feel strangely better.

These awful voting machines just need to be removed from the equation.>> ^bobknight33:

That happened to my wife. She voted of Romney and and it was switching to Obama. She finally pocked around the screen to get the right vote. This was in the Carolinas not PA. Looks like same time of machine.
I would not call it fraud - Seems like a calibration issue. Still it should have been reported to the officials at the site.

>> ^KnivesOut:
Oh but remember, it's only Democrats that commit election fraud.


TheFreaksays...

>> ^KnivesOut:

Your story makes me feel strangely better.
These awful voting machines just need to be removed from the equation.>> ^bobknight33:
That happened to my wife. She voted of Romney and and it was switching to Obama. She finally pocked around the screen to get the right vote. This was in the Carolinas not PA. Looks like same time of machine.
I would not call it fraud - Seems like a calibration issue. Still it should have been reported to the officials at the site.
>> ^KnivesOut:
Oh but remember, it's only Democrats that commit election fraud.




His story makes my bullshit detector go off.

articiansays...

>> ^Yogi:

The faulty piece of equipment doesn't bother me, that's something that occurs in my everyday life and we deal with it as best we can. What does bother me is the actions of the polling people...if what this person says is true they shouldn't be there doing the polling. Show them a problem and it's their job to either fix it or decommission the machine.


It bothers me. I've been a software developer for over 10 years (professionally, technically I've been developing software for 3 decades, I know how machines work extremely thoroughly). Even considering the fact that he didn't display the input result from every option presented, this is still entirely suspect.

Regarding voting machine systems: there is literally NOTHING there that requires even a modicum of tech that's post-1985. Maybe encryption would cause a bug like this, but encryption would NOT, under any realistic circumstance, cause a reproducible user-feedback/GUI error like this, because it would be employed to store the data, not display feedback of any kind.


>> ^EvilDeathBee:

Totally.
Also, I would've said to her "No, it's NOT OK! This machine is defective!" and demanded it be removed. I wonder if it's part of the machines that got the "Experimental Patch"


Yeah me too. I would have recorded the entire exchange, as well as getting her name and the specific voting location. I would not let it go, but would probably post it and collect as much evidence as possible. "Both" parties are lying sacks of no good shit, and I don't trust any of them. I am sick of fake, self-servers running the United States at the expense of the rest of the world.

erlantersays...

I'd be nervous that even if you got the right light to appear after pressing around randomly, that it hadn't tallied your vote correctly in the final vote. If there's a paper receipt, great, if the person bothers to check. This is frustrating to watch.

vaire2ubesays...

EDIT: and with the election over and Obama ahead 303 electoral votes to 203... we can plainly see that lots of mormons live in Idaho, Wyoming, as well as their base of Utah... lol.

and my state legalized cannabis.

freedom rings!

Stormsingersays...

>> ^SlipperyPete:

If you were going to use machines that tabulate votes with no paper trail to steal votes, this is not the manner in which you'd do it.

Nope, but if it does produce a paper trail, this is a fine way to steal a number of votes from the unobservant and still keep plausible deniability.

entr0pysays...

I would expect that roughly every single person who goes to vote for Obama on that machine would complain; it's pretty hard to miss. And, even if the poll worker was being an idiot, I bet they would catch on and remove the machine after the second or third complaint.

This honestly doesn't seem like a plausible way to steal votes. People would detect the pattern if enough machines were messed with to make any difference. Honestly, I bet it's a hardware problem with that one touch screen, not a software issue.

messengersays...

Easy for me to say from my comfy chair in Canada, but I'd consider damaging that machine so that nobody could use it again. It would probably be as simple as taking a plug out of the back and bending all the pins over and walking out.

Either way, the election's effectively over, and Obama won. I'll eat my electronic hat if I'm wrong.

PostalBlowfishsays...

Screens should be calibrated and tested before an election. Like ALL of them. How hard is it to go through a few dozen machines checking that all the buttons do the right thing before you put them out for voters to use?

Some states tried to get special access to the software code in some instances with write access. There is no need for that. As artician correctly pointed out, this is not a complicated proposition. It's almost this simple:

if keypressed(Candidate1)==true and keypressed(CONFIRM)==true then Candidate1++
else Clear and Return
else if keypressed(Candidate2) ...and so on.

You only want write access into this process if you don't agree that a confirmed vote for candidate1 always counts for candidate1, etc.

I also agree with SlipperyPete that this is not a very bright way to try and mess with elections. If you could in fact write into the tabulation records, there is no reason you couldn't show the correct check mark on the screen and even print out the expected printout and then reverse the vote immediately after logout every 6th time anyway. You might leave a trail, but it will only be subject to examination if the totals are close, so you just make sure it won't be.

Sniper007says...

And yet you all assume the votes are actually being counted and tallied... When everything that is observable is lies and deceit, the hidden automatically can be relied upon? I think not. Voting is a massive waste of gas and time at best. Self-govern: stop delegating.

shangsays...

this was proven a hoax on slashdot and abovetopsecret.com ripping the video and you can watch the jump cuts in VLC. BBC reported it as a hoax video last night according to link on slashdot.

but who knows, and it doesnt matter anymore

Truckchasesays...

>> ^shang:

this was proven a hoax on slashdot and abovetopsecret.com ripping the video and you can watch the jump cuts in VLC. BBC reported it as a hoax video last night according to link on slashdot.
but who knows, and it doesnt matter anymore


But c'mon, I'm American... I want to be outraged for no reason all the time!

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