[EL] Video of PA touchscreen vote flipping in presidential race, apparently not miscalibration

[Paul Lehto]

Here's an 18 second video snippet of a Pennsylvania voter attempting to
vote for Obama but Romney lights up on the screen instead.  It's hard-to-get
evidence in light of the fact that most states make it illegal to possess
cameras or video equipment at polling places, (perhaps PA does as well) so
evidence like this is hard to come by relative to how frequently it is
heard.18 second highlight of Obama attempt: http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=QdpGd74DrBM
Longer version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOj2IPulNPA
In the longer version from which this snippet is taken, it's stated that
the voter tested to see if it was "miscalibration".  However, when voting
for the Libertarian candidate below Obama (since Obama is below Romney) the
machine correctly lights up and check marks Jill Stein's name, the
Libertarian candidate, unlike what appears on the screen for the attempted
Obama vote.  So, apparently the problem is not miscalibration of a half
inch or so.

The miscalibration "test" does not appear on screen, but it's stated that
the voter will submit their video for some sort of authentication.   But
given the *prima facie* evidence here of changed votes without
miscalibration being a facile explanation, it can not simply be assumed
that when a machine lights up and check marks a certain candidate that this
necessarily translates into an actual, recorded, electronic vote for that
candidate, because the naked presumption that the voting machine obeys only
the voter's command and not anything else is shattered - at least for this
voter and thousands of others. This kind of touch screen behavior has been
a top complaint in the past couple presidential elections.

Paul Lehto, J.D.

PS  I don't assert a fraud case per se, though this is the seed of a
potential case. Instead, the problem is bigger than fraud, and basically
nonpartisan:  because literally no human being has personal knowledge of
whether vote totals are correct, and because results of elections are not
reproducible and computerized counts are both invisible and secret, there
is no scientific basis for confidence in the reported results, no matter
what they are and no matter who wins, whether it's my favored candidates or
not (and I do vote).
This is all because of the HAVA-based approach to addressing the perceived
problems of ambiguous voter intent evidence symbolized by the hanging chad
from Florida 2000:  On account of the problems of ambiguous voter intent
evidence in the agonizing over hanging chads, let's ELIMINATE ALL evidence
of voter intent by using touch screens. Brilliant.

Rather than claiming the views of critics "cause harm" (apparently to the
necessary "confidence" or "faith" in secret vote counting), we ought to
recognize how terribly fragile the system is and fix it, restoring
transparent public vote counts.  When a person or group comes along with
enough power and media access, they will be able, with not all that much
evidence, to invalidate election results because as little evidence as
there may be for fraud, there's MORE evidence of fraud (even if a
scintilla) than there is in the utterly conclusory and magical election
results that pop out of black box computers.
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