FIRST - check out this awesome video about the virtue of preparedness. Provisional Toothbrush
http://www.youtube.com/...
Okay - now a story about pollworker training in OH.
Some background: In Franklin County (COlumbus) we are using the iVotronic machine made by ES&S. Yes, it prints a "voter-verified paper trail" though we were not trained to tell the voters to verify their vote by looking at this tape and as far as I know no one looks at these tapes except the pollworkers at the end of the night to make sure the count on the screen matches the count on the tapes (then theoretically the PEB card or flash memory card contains those same numbers and are counted by a master machine in some room by ES&S people - see this article on 2004 counting of votes from this machine in Chicago: http://www.votefraud.org/...)
Now - from the training:
TRAINER: ..."Okay, so then you take the flash card memory out of the machine and put it in this envelope - it's just like from your digital camera..."
[I look around the room at the 15 people over 73 that definitely do not have a digital camera - they don't seem as worried as I am about their abilities to do this on election day - probably thinking about the $15 their getting paid to sit thru this 3-hour "training"].
TRAINER: ..."We're sending you home with this DVD - you should review it 3 or 4 times before election day."
[Again, do these people really have friggin DVD players? am I just being agist? I think if they look like my grandma and walk like my grandma, they probably spend their money on their grandchildren and not on the latest gadgets for their entertainment center.]
TRAINER 2 (at the machine): "You take the flash card memory out and put it over here..."
ME: "Doesn't the flash card memory have a serial number on it that matches it to the machine it came from?"
TRAINER 2: "No."
Zoiks! WHy the F not you say? Good question. To be honest, I have do more research into whether the official count comes from the flash card from all the machines or the PEB card (Supervisor "key" like a Nintendo cartridge that you need to print tapes, open and close machines). But if we are going for system redundancy, it would be a good idea to have a number on the card associated with the machine it was plugged into. Not just a good idea - but the only idea worth having!
I wanted to get this diary up so people could see the above video and just to start another dialogue about Ohio voting because I foresee big problems on Election Day. Hopefully, youtube and Air America and Kos and the attention these things have gotten in the last two years will help us get the public's and MSM's attention when SOS Ken Blackwell tries to steal another one.
I'm going to supplemental pollworker training sometime today. Maybe I'll get some questions answered but I think the answers will be unsatisactory. Another thing I asked while there for the initial training was what happens when the green seal (sticker about as sticky as a postit) was removed from the flash memory during the day (it's supposed to stay there all day). The reply was that the machine should "go void". Not wanting to flag myself as a problem so early in training, I didn't press it, just took note of it. No computer I've ever known would get its ones and zeros churning and display "Void" if someone removed a sticker from it's plastic case. And in the 2006 spring primary, one whole precinct took these cards out at the beginning of the election and voters voted on machines without flash cards all day.
Another problem - recall that I said the green "seal" is abut as sticky as a postit? well, the red seal on the lock that locks that plastic PVC pipe cart where the machines are stored was equally unsecure - easy to remove and replace with no signs of tampering.
This entire system of stickers and zip ties (not even as strong as zip ties actually) and paper trails is all designed to give the illusioin of security, just like making us take our shoes off at the airport.
I've just scratced the surface of what's been swimming around in my head since 2000 but I'm trying to stay focused.
Besides all the other crap that goes on in Ohio - voter suppression, taking away machines in precincts where voter registration has increased, requiring certain weight paper for registration cards - you may have read of the rulings on our new ID law - to try to understand the changes in effect for this election only, you can read the 7 page ruling by Judge Marbley here - it is a pretty quck and easy read: http://www.co.franklin.oh.us/boe/assets/pdf/absenteeOrder.pdf
LET'S PAY ATTENTION EVERYONE AND BE READY TO FIGHT AFTER ELECTION DAY AS LONG AS IT TAKES!
UPDATE - I went to teh supplemental training to ask about flash cards and which electronic memory is counted. I was told that the PEB is the official electronic source for the digital count from each precinct. The flash card memory is the backup in case the PEB fails. BUT - the vote counts are not broken down by machine. At the end of the day, a tape is printed from one machine that shows the "public count" for each machine - Public count is the total number of votes cast on the machine according to the Franklin County BOE employee - and the end-of-day tape shows the vote totals for each candidate. That leaves the questions of whether the tape inside each machine (not the one we print with an external printer at the end of the day) totals up the votes for that machine and whether anyone ever looks at those. more later...