“ILL-ADVISED DECISIONS”
by DefendtheVote, ©2015
(May 1, 2015) — It might not surprise Chicago and Suburban Cook County voters to learn the Dominion/Sequoia WinEds system, comprised of the electronic voting machine called the Edge2Plus (AVC Edge) and the 400c central counting machine, failed to pass the error testing rate as mandated by HAVA (Help America Vote Act). More complaints about these voting machines pile in after every election. The error testing rate permits one error per 500,000 ballot positions. Defend the Vote uncovered that not only did the voting system not pass the error testing as required by Federal Law, but Dominion removed the machines from further testing and has discontinued manufacturing the WinEds system altogether.
This does not mean Dominion/Sequoia has stopped making a profit from the error-prone machines. Not at all! Nation-wide, Dominion/Sequoia has exclusive multi-million dollar contracts to provide support for various versions of the WinEds system. Essentially, Dominion pulled the machines from the testing process because they knew their voting system could not pass the error testing requirements, but they still make substantial corporate profits from servicing the defective equipment. Those are our tax dollars being sunk into the upkeep of a discontinued and insecure voting system. Even worse, these vulnerable machines are used to count over half of the vote in Illinois and somewhere around 30 million votes across the USA.
Our research in late 2013 discovered that the State of Illinois has permitted the use of these machines despite being informed on multiple occasions that they are not lawfully certified as required by Illinois Law and the Illinois State Board of Elections’ rules. The Board prefers not to tackle the sticky issue of having to replace the defective machines, and the Board members have asked me more than once “who do you think should pay for new machines?”
Thanks to the ill-advised decisions made by the Illinois State Board of Elections, our taxes paid for the uncertified equipment and we will likely be footing the bill when they get around to replacing it. Of course, negotiating is a part of doing business, so let’s ask Dominion to provide a flexible and economic bid to replace their machines. Dominion’s Executive VP, Howard Cramer, has said to me that Dominion would offer favorable terms to get updated machines in Chicago. Either way, if Dominion’s numbers don’t add up, there are always other vendors.
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