Electronic Voting in NJ -- Is It Safe?

The Sequoia Advantage uses the Z-80 (0.00 / 0)

Chip, circa 1975. Orginally a 4 bit chip, the Z-80 was upgraded to a 8 bits chip in the late 1970's. The Radio Shack TRS-80 used the z-80 chip.

From Wiki:
History
Announced at a press conference on August 3, 1977, the Tandy TRS-80 Model I was Tandy's entry into the home computer market, meant to compete head on against the Commodore PET 2001 and the Apple II. At $599 for a complete package including cassette storage, the computer was the most expensive single product Tandy's Radio Shack chain of electronics stores had ever offered. Company management was unsure of the computer's market appeal, and intentionally kept the initial production run to 3,000 units so that, if the computer failed to sell, it could at least be used for accounting purposes within the chain's 3,000 stores.

Tandy ended up selling 10,000 the first month and 55,000 its first year. Before its January 1981 discontinuation, Tandy sold more than 250,000 Model I's.

http://en.wikipedia....

At $8,000 per unit we got ripped off.

Check out my 3 paragraph primer on Polywell Fusion.

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by: FogerRox @ Wed Nov 01, 2006 at 06:20:32 AM UTC

This is an issue that should concern... (0.00 / 0)

...both Democrats and Republicans in New Jersey since the Democratic establishment in blue counties is just as apt to tamper with electronic voting machines to rig an otherwise close election as the Republicans are in red counties.

Since the Democratic and Republican bosses in NJ care more about maintaiing their own fiefdoms than building up their respective parties statewide and nationally, I have no doubt that a tacit, possibly unspoken, agreement exists to tolerate the tampering that takes lace on each side within their respective fiefdoms.

This should make the unusually close statewide race between Menendez and Junior even more interesting.  No matter who wins, I don't expect too many party leaders to complain about tampering knowing that it is likely that each side could be equally questionable.

That said, with control of the U.S. Senate possibly being decided by the outcome of our race here in NJ, if Menendez wins by less than a percentage point, I wonder if national Republicans are going to jump on the verified voting bandwagon starting next year, giving it much needed traction.

If not, I see this situation becoming especially problematic during contested primaries like the one that will take place next year in the 37th District between Loretta Weinberg and Bergen County Bossman, Joe Ferriero's boy, Ken Zisa.

Loretta should have the votes to win based on her popularity in the district, but the race will be close enough that if Ferriero could have his acolytes that run the elections tamper with the machines by reducing the number of votes that she gets in her hometown of Teaneck and increasing the number of votes that Zisa gets in his hometown of Hackensack, an election and a formerly progressive State Senate seat could be stolen.

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by: taxandspendliberal @ Wed Nov 01, 2006 at 14:53:03 PM UTC

IMHO the major problem with E-voting is this equipment doesn't work very (0.00 / 0)

ANd without a VVPB, how do you know if a voting machine broke down. Its not just the ability for someone to hack them, they dont work very well. If they counted votes accuratly, security would be a simple fix. Since the don't count votes very well, they need to be thrown out and new designs brought in.

Like a paper & a pencil.

Check out my 3 paragraph primer on Polywell Fusion.

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by: FogerRox @ Wed Nov 01, 2006 at 19:21:26 PM UTC