Diebold / Premier Admits Slight Problem

The Washington Post, Associated Press and others are reporting that Diebold (now Premier) admits that there is a little problem with dropping votes, but it would be taken care of by the well-trained volunteer staff at counting time when they noticed the discrepancy.

I'm sure.

This is from The Associated Press:

Company acknowledges voting machine error (By STEPHEN MAJORS) COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)
Ohio Voting Machines Contained Programming Error That Dropped Votes

The AP article states: "At least 1,000 total votes were dropped in nine Ohio counties over the course of a handful elections back to 2006, including the March presidential primary, though the error was in all cases discovered and corrected within several hours. Premier Election Solutions Inc. previously had said complications with antivirus software caused the problem, but on Tuesday the company said in a product advisory that the problem is with the machines themselves."

The Washington Post has this article: (By MARY PAT FLAHERTY)
Ohio Voting Machines Contained Programming Error That Dropped Votes

"Unlike other software, the problem acknowledged by Premier cannot be fixed by sending out a coding fix to its customers because of federal rules for certifying election systems, Rigall said. Changes to systems must go through the Election Assistance Commission, he said, and take two years on average for certification and approval -- and that is apart from whatever approvals and reviews would be needed by each elections board throughout the country."

Well, that didn't stop Diebold from altering the machines in Georgia a few days before the vote (see Diebold post below).

Good luck. The US is going to need it.