DEFAULT SETTINGS IN MAHONING COUNTY

Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
December 20, 2004

A disturbing story has been widely circulated that a
vote for Bush was the default choice in the software of
electronic voting machines in a number of states. By
definition, “default” settings are built-in by the
manufacturer to make sure their programs work properly,
and can be changed by the user. Some examples of
default settings on a home computer are screen savers,
type face, and screen resolution.

According an article by Ann Harrison, posted at

http://www.counterpunch.org/harrison12082004.html

in certain counties in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania,
Texas, and New Mexico where touch screen voting machines
were used, there have been complaints from voters who
selected Kerry on the touch screen and saw their votes
change to Bush on a summary screen. In addition, there
was a specific problem with the Sequoia AVC Edge machine
(not used in Ohio) where voters actually saw preselected
default choices presented to them.

With touch screen machines, it is possible to set up a
default choice for Bush that would not be seen by the
voters. Their votes would be automatically cast for
Bush unless they successfully overrode the default
choice of the computer. Likewise, if they deliberately
chose not to vote for president, their votes would be
counted for Bush.

Mahoning County was by far the largest county in Ohio
where touch screen voting machines were utilized.
According to a report by the Youngstown Vindicator at

http://www.vindy.com/basic/news/281829446390855.php

Mark Munroe, Chairman of the Mahoning County Board of
Elections, said there were 20 to 30 machines that needed
to be recalibrated during the voting process because
some votes for a candidate were being counted for that
candidate’s opponent. In addition, about a dozen
machines needed to be reset because they “essentially
froze.” Later on election night, problems arose in 16
precincts (11 in Youngstown, 2 in Boardman, and one each
in Jackson Township, Craig Beach, and Washingtonville),
causing election results to be delayed for three hours
as Board of Elections employees checked the vote tallies
of the touch screen machines.

<snip>

For Mahoning County there are 116 incident reports, 28
of them involving machine problems. Most of these are
complaints consistent with the voting machine having a
preselected default setting. There are several reports
of machines miscasting votes, always away from Kerry,
that do not specify a polling site. Most, however,
do specify a polling place, and for these I have
ascertained the precinct by calling the Board of
Elections or referring to their website at

www.electionohio.com/mahoning/findpollinglocation.asp

<snip>

If touch screen machines are to be used, against the
better judgment of this writer, it is essential to allow
inadvertent undervotes by having a default setting for
no vote at all, and that the machines function properly
so that the number of undervotes is small. To steer
undervotes into the column of a candidate chosen by a
computer hacker is nothing short of fraud. The number
of votes stolen in this manner may seem small in any
given precinct, but it can happen almost everywhere at
once, automatically, undetected, without a paper trail.

http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/youngstown.htm

Is this being investigated by the Mo Attorney General, district attorneys, state police, FBI, grand jury, other?

DEFAULT SETTING SHOULD BE NONE OF THE CANDIDATES, FORCING THE VOTER TO EXPLICITLY SELECT ONE OF THE CANDIDATES.

What's going to be amazing is how damaging all this evidence will be once compiled and investigated.

I sent this somebody on Cliff Aernbeck's just about 30 mins ago, now I can not access my email anymore. HMMMMM

This thread should be merged with MISSOURI Election Fraud Volume 2. Has anyone here seen Volume 1? I think it's somewhere in "Fair Election Practices." Take a look. Very informative.

It's being investigated by MOVAT.

Who is MOVAT?

I'm sorry...... but anywhere that a machine needed to be reset is a problem. How could they continue not knowing what had really happened before the problem was corrected??

Who would just continue and shrug their shoulders???

How would you know who had been on the machine? You're screwed. It's a "do over".

Even if a machine prints out what it is supposedly going to send in as my vote, why should I believe it? If it has a barcode.... how do I know the barcode matches what I am reading? I like our optical readers. Only what I mark is on the page..... what happens after that could happen to any system.... unless I trust the poll workers to double check...... a lot of things!! I would love to be able to go on line to see my vote with some sort of serial number...... then I'd be happy. I'd be happier with the slight chance that someone could figure out my vote than this blind system of FAITH!
I have lost all faith!

MOVAT is the Missouri Votescam Action Team.

Thank you.

I have to wonder how many times this happened to people who had been waiting in line for hours and they just gave up in frustration and left without complaining after it appeared they had mistakenly voted for Bush. The entire election stinks from one end to the other. We have to have paper trails and we cannot have software that cannot be inspected before, during and after an election.