Where have all the Naysayers gone?

Is the Gazette worrying about a Democrat loss in the upcoming Elections ....... and they are just trying to "prime the pump" in the advent of said.

January 25, 2008

Shared concerns: New voting machines are trustworthy
Betty Ireland

ON JAN. 15, the Charleston Gazette presented an editorial "Confidence: Voting Machines" raising questions about the trustworthiness of touch-screen voting devices manufactured by Election Systems & Software (ES&S) and used in 34 counties in West Virginia.

I sincerely appreciate the Gazette's concern about dependable voting results in our state, and I respect and admire its duty to raise questions as a watchdog for the people. I also fully understand that questions raised by the Gazette are no doubt shared by some voters who have read news reports that a handful of states have barred ES&S devices from further use in their elections.

As secretary of state, I am personally devoted to the premise of fair, accurate and trustworthy elections in our state. Contrary to the Gazette's statement that my expressed confidence in ES&S machines was made in a "hasty way," my office has in fact been carefully and thoroughly reviewing these reports, as well as communicating regularly with other states and national experts in voting technology.

The fact is, so-called "problems" that have been widely reported about ES&S voting machines, including optical scan and precinct counting machines, have never been evidenced in actual balloting by voters participating in any elections. Put another way, to my knowledge these machines have never been hacked on Election Day, and no votes have been tampered with at anytime in any election. Rather, all of the issues reported in the press have come as a result of "tests" conducted in a few states, tests which varied widely in their method and controls.

The conditions under which Ohio and Colorado conducted their tests simply do not mirror the actual conditions present in an election precinct, and they do not reflect the measures in place before, during and after an election to ensure votes are cast and counted properly.

For example, in Colorado state elections officials claimed that a magnet held close to the device caused a failure in operation. But when county officials in Mesa County, Colorado, tried to duplicate those tests, they encountered no problems at all.

A news story in The (Grand Junction) Daily Sentinel (Jan. 10) reported on the Mesa County tests as follows: "Thursday's mock election conducted by the Mesa County Clerk's Elections Division, with its decertified ES&S electronic vote machines, went off without a hitch. Try as they might, elections officials could not reproduce the problems that led Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman to decertify the county's voting machines recently."

West Virginia has one of the most stringent testing procedures in the nation. State law requires that the machines be subjected to a pre-test, a public test, an Election Day test, and a test prior to canvass. Security measures required by statute and those developed by my office will protect against the concerns, however remote, identified in these reports.

Elections are always subject to corruption and error. Long before the advent of electronic voting devices, parts of our state were historically plagued with election corruption. In fact, the easiest ballots to corrupt are paper ballots.

When individuals take it upon themselves to manipulate or corrupt an election, they will, sadly, often find ways to do so. But I believe the electronic systems we have in place now in West Virginia, which include touch-screens as well as optical scan and precinct count machines, make such efforts more difficult than almost any other method of voting.

What would be truly irresponsible would be for anyone to advocate decertification of the ES&S machines based on news reports, or testing that was conducted under improperly controlled settings, or complaints that are politically motivated. (Notably, many states, including South Carolina and neighboring states Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania, plan to use ES&S devices in their '08 primaries.)

Responsible decision making on this issue requires a consideration only of sound, properly controlled testing procedures, and actual election conditions and results. Under those criteria, West Virginia voters can be confident in the performance, integrity and accuracy of ES&S touch screen voting machines.

Ireland is West Virginia's secretary of state.

http://www.wvgazette.com/Opinion/Op-EdCommentaries/200801240808

Well now, .... this:

these machines have never been hacked on Election Day, and no votes have been tampered with at anytime in any election

Will surely put the "fear of God" in bunches of Partisan Democrats.



.