Judge Voids Un-Auditable California Election

For only the second time in California history, a judge in Alameda County voided an election result and called for the election to be re-run, because the e-voting tallies from Diebold machines couldn't be audited. The vote was on a controversial ballot measure addressing the operation of medical marijuana dispensaries, and the result was a close margin. Activists went to court to demand a recount, but after the lawsuit was filed, elections officials sent voting machines back to Diebold. The court found that 96% of the necessary audit information had been erased. The judge ordered the ballot measure to be re-run in the next election.

Re:Yay! Now ban the machines

[RandoX]

Yes, you would.

Re:Corporations

[ScentCone]

the corporations seem to win no matter what you do

You'd think that Frito-Lay would be all over this initiative. And Dominos. While it may be hard to re-muster the Stoner Caucus to do this all over again, perhaps the Munchie Cartel can pick up the slack.

California. *sigh*

There's plenty of reasons to re-invent electronically-assisted voting (I like the also-spits-out-paper variation, myself), but it really doesn't help the cause when - to a casual newsreader - an important test case seems to be about weed.

The solution

[clickety6]

We need to get rid of these electronic polling machines.

They should raise a proposition on this so that we can vote on the issue.

Re:Corporations

[cez]

Plus... this is for a medical marijuana vote... I'm sure it was tough enough for supporters to make it to the polls the first time! Who imagines they'd actually remember when the revote will be...

Re:Yay! Now ban the machines

[Lumpy]

'd be nice to eliminate the source of the problem, rather than have to litigate over the after-effects.

Agreed but it's highly illegal to take all politicians and corperate executives and kill them on pikes in public.

Re:Why hasn't this been fixed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do others suggest it would be a bad one? Why? What is the reasoning behind that? Or was it just that nobody thought of that when designing the machines?

Yeah, what were those guys smoking? Oh, wait...

Re:Corporations

[mrogers]

This is a rare case of Diebold tallies matching the exit polls: the machines couldn't remember how the votes were cast and neither could the voters.