Last updated on 2013.12.23
Nothing in the Davison County recount last week changed the winners of the municipal elections in Mitchell or the District 20 Legislative primary. However, KELO reports that the recount reduced the reported number of total voters from 6100 to 4400. Secretary of State Jason Gant puts the official voter turnout for Davison County at 4495.
So let's check this out: the machines from Elections Systems & Software overcount ballots by 36%. No one appears to know what caused the problem yet. Our Secretary of State, who makes one dog registering to vote in New Mexico a campaign issue, and who like many Republicans wants to kick more citizens off the voter rolls, has sounded no alarms about machines creating 1600 ghost voters, which I'm willing to bet is a hundred times more bogus votes in one county than the verifiably fraudulent votes we can find in any recent South Dakota election. Gant also hid behind the technicalities of law to allow a mayoral candidate to serve on the canvassing board. (Funny how Gant knows the letter of the law to keep his own fat out of the fire, but is blissfully ignorant of legal technicalities when they might redound upon his partisan pals.)
Election Systems & Software won't return the calls of the Mitchell Daily Republic, which broke the story of the ballot count discrepancies. The ES&S support manager is too busy to explain what went wrong with Davison County's machines because he is up in North Dakota supervising ES&S's machines in that state's elections today. Yikes.
Secretary Gant was to meet with the Governor and Chief Justice this morning to conduct the State Canvass. Let's hope they discussed the Davison County ballot count errors and found some solutions to prevent similar disasters from fouling the November count.
The dangers of democracy and technology. Best we rely on a Constitutional Republic for our rights.
Welcome to Davison County! You can vote,but we don't know if it'll actually count. Oh what the heck,if you're nice maybe we'll count your vote a couple of times. It'll be fun! *insert eye-roll here*
No, Steve, the solution is not to spout useless abstractions. It's actually quite the opposite, and quite democratic: keep more eyes on the process, keep more people involved in making decisions, and increase transparency. Besides, we're a Republic, and we still have to count votes to elect our legislators.
What is known about ESS? I'm thinking about what connections are hiding in the dusty darkness far removed from the visibile ESS faces. Is there someone like the Diebold guy who guaranteed to deliver wins to Repubs via his machines?
There Must Be a Paper Trail - Voter Receipts.
Even a constitutional republic needs voters voting in the leaders. The other option is a monarchy or dictatorship. If the voting is wrong either correct the problem or quit voting. If they do not correct the problem then the corruption will continue for sure. The tighter the circle of corruption and the less people to correct it the more entrenched the corruption will get. Look at the Catholic church. No vote, few leaders, coverups last indefinitely. If that is true in the church, it is much more likely to be that way in the government. The church at least thinks there is a God watching them.
Good question D.E. I just Googled them. There are several search results available. The links for the company itself are,as expected,just peachy. Unfortunately,the majority of other links provide information that makes one(me anyway) cuss a bit. For example: http://votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=77&Itemid=171
Mr. Gant and his deputy are not covering anything up. I don't understand why you people would even suggest that. Mr. Gant is transparent. Figuratively, I mean.
Grudz says "Mr. Gant is transparent" and I say "Mr. Gant is transparent in his work for ALEC and the TeaBaggers"
Sec. of State Gant has made a number of poor decisions, and his stewardship of the Sec. of State's Office is very much in question. Having to sue him to establish poll locations and equal voting periods in Indian country when the feds gave him money to do it but he refused. Endorsing people in elections that he oversees. Now his silence on this.
Good link Vickie, thanks.
Read some of the articles, and my first thought was, "Putin would be so proud."