The Official Dispute

Florida election officials have disputed the claims that the bizarre date discrepencies found in poll tapes and voting machine log files represent a gross number of problems or perhaps even pre-election vote tampering. Some 100,000 errors are reported in DRE logs, in only 40 machines. This is an average of 25o0 errors per machine. This is an astounding number of errors considering that some machines recorded a little more than a thousand votes (see link above).

On one poll tape, an "election zero report," the election date field is fixed and we can plainly see:

DATE: 11/02/04     TYPE: G
POLL CTR:           305A00

TIME: 06:46:41
01/24/104

Two weeks later, the same memory card in a different machine produced this output tape:

DATE: 11/02/04     TYPE: G
POLL CTR:           305A00
...
TIME: 14:33:29    11/15/04

In an hilarious denial of problem, Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Deanie Lowe, a woman who wouldn't know a bad date if she was on one, claimed that the first number 01/24/104 was not a date at all. She says she has no idea what it might be, but she assures us that she knows what it isn't. Better yet and despite an inability to know what the tape shows, she further assures America that, odd as the tape may look, nothing odd actually happened. It is a faith-based election result.

Naturally, the "IT" guy is brought to wash over the problem by simply claiming expertise that others do not possess. Jeff Darter says,

Harris' charge of votes cast before Election Day didn't happen.

Though the logs themselves certainly make it appear as though it did, Darter does not address the contents of the logfiles and simply says it didn't happen.

Then please, Jeff, impart your technical expertise upon us and tell us what these log entries really mean:

1060 WEST JUPITER COMM CTR 6401 ... 6039 Election - Cast Vote 590 10/16/2004 1:36:30 PM
1060 WEST JUPITER COMM CTR 6401 ... 6039 Election - Cast Vote 591 10/16/2004 1:40:12 PM
1060 WEST JUPITER COMM CTR 6401 ... 6039 Election - Cast Vote 592 10/16/2004 1:45:07 PM
1060 WEST JUPITER COMM CTR 6401 ... 6039 Election - Cast Vote 593 10/16/2004 1:49:05 PM
1060 WEST JUPITER COMM CTR 6401 ... 6039 Election - Cast Vote 594 10/16/2004 1:53:02 PM
1060 WEST JUPITER COMM CTR 6401 ... 6039 Election - Cast Vote 595 10/16/2004 1:58:31 PM
1060 WEST JUPITER COMM CTR 6401 ... 6039 Election - Cast Vote 596 10/16/2004 2:02:15 PM
1060 WEST JUPITER COMM CTR 6401 ... 6039 Election - Cast Vote 597 10/16/2004 2:05:59 PM
1060 WEST JUPITER COMM CTR 6401 ... 6039 Election - Cast Vote 598 10/16/2004 2:08:53 PM
1060 WEST JUPITER COMM CTR 6401 ... 6039 Election - Cast Vote 599 10/16/2004 2:11:59 PM
1060 WEST JUPITER COMM CTR 6401 ... 6039 Election - Cast Vote 600 10/16/2004 2:17:22 PM
1060 WEST JUPITER COMM CTR 6401 ... 6039 Election - Cast Vote 601 10/16/2004 2:25:05 PM
1060 WEST JUPITER COMM CTR 6401 ... 6039 Election - Cast Vote 602 10/16/2004 2:28:48 PM
1060 WEST JUPITER COMM CTR 6401 ... 6039 Election - Cast Vote 603 10/16/2004 2:32:46 PM
...

No matter whether you believe in actual election fraud or not -- though the evidence really places the issue beyond question -- the behaviour of these machines ought to give anyone pause. These are not robust system and the sheer number of errors, whatever those might represent, is absurd. Of course, as long as these machine venders are able to get machines certified or, baring that, installed anyway, as is happening in Californian right now, and maintains the secrecy of their code, election outcomes will always be in doubt.

And if you don't believe that, then you haven't been paying attention.