Dean, activists target e-voting honesty in California

Dean, activists target e-voting honesty in California

“We need honesty and openness back in American government …and that means we do not need election workers taking voting machines home,” Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean said at the 3rd annual DemocracyFest at San Diego State University on Saturday, July 15th.

His remarks were met by applause and cheers from the crowd in San Diego State University’s open air theater. “I am tired of electronic voting machines we can’t trust,” added Dean, who also called for equal distribution of voting equipment in African-American districts and other improvements to protect citizens’ voting rights. “All I’m asking the Republicans to do is count every vote!”

San Diego has become a national focal point for election reform following controversy over Registrar Mikel Haas’ decision to allow pollworkers to take home electronic voting machines with programmable memory cards inside for up to two weeks before the election. Hack tests on identical optical scan systems have demonstrated that cards can be rigged in less than a minute; when a hacked card is later placed in a central tabulator, it can change votes for a large geographic area and actually flip the outcome of an entire Congressional district.

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“We are all thrilled and delighted by the DNC’s call for a hand-count,” said Friedman. “San Diego is now ground zero for federal integrity in elections,” he said, noting that Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), Democracy for America (DFA), and the California Election Protection Network (CEPN) have all “joined in this cry with citizen patriots in calling for a full hand count of all 150,000 ballots in the Busby-Bilbray race.”