Daily Voting News For August 21, 2008

This past March, a Butler Co Ohio election official was examining the database from the just held primary. The official found a problem he was not looking for. It seems that two memory cards had not been downloaded even though the system had reported that it was. 150 votes were affected. That revelation led to an inspection of the system and a pronouncement by Premier/Diebold that there was a problem with the interactivity between the GEMS software and anti-virus software. This problem has led to a lawsuit and counter-suit. Recently SoS staff and Premier/Diebold staff went to Butler Co to look closer at the software in question. Today it was announced that Premier has admitted that their GEMS software has a programming error and that this error goes back over ten years worth of software. Of course, they make the highly implausible claim that no votes were lost during all that time. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner also has said that no votes were lost in Ohio. However, Brunner ignores the fact that the problem has been on the machines for years and just because they found the problem in March does not mean the problem did not affect elections in previous years....

**"Daily Voting News" is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in "Daily Voting News" may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or Scoop.**

John Gideon
Co-Executive Director
VotersUnite.Org
www.votersunite.org

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