Nov. 08, 2006 - 17:45 MST

CYBERIAN NIGHTMARE

My hometown was too much like my home as it is sometimes. And in Denver like in our home, if the guy in charge had listened to an experienced person, bad things wouldn't have happened.

In the editorial section of the Rocky Mountain News this morning is an article, herein quoted in full:

THE INEXCUSABLE VOTING MESS IN DENVER

"Obviously the first major test of Denver's new "vote centers" fell somewhere between a disaster and a fiasco. Just ask the thousands of voters who waited for hours in long, snaking lines at many of the 55 centers around the city. And the undetermined number who got fed up and left without voting."

"It was no picnic in Douglas County, either, where some voters endured horrendous lines, but Denver's mess semed on a scale of its own."

"Ironically many of the 24 machines at any given Denver vote center were idle much of the time. In fact, shortly after 10 a.m. at the Wellington Webb Building, no machines were in use even though 150 people were waiting. "The computers are down," said an election official.

"The problem was checking in, not voting. Everyone had to be checked against the central "electronic poll book" that kept records for every registered elector in the city."

"But each voting center had only four laptops to tap into the e-poll book. Worse, the server capacity was inadequate for the job at hand. Apparently the servers had never been put to a full test before Tuesday's election. The trial run during the primary in August produced its own problems but little was learned from that experience. And the turn out Tuesday, of course, was much greater."

"There is plenty of blame to go around, beginning with the three-member election commission. Two are elected, but the third, the clerk and recorder, is appointed by the mayor. Had Mayor John Hickenlooper intervened forcefully months ago, the way he is promising to do now, he might have prevented Tuesday's debacle. But he didn't take warnings seriously enough." Auditor Dennis Gallagher told him last June that, "a tsunami is coming and we are not prepared." Hickenlooper replied that the allegations were NOT ACCURATE."

"It's not Denver's first voting fiasco. A new system in 1982 delayed vote totals until almost 11 a.m. the next day."

"The technology has progreesed since then, but human mistakes and misjudgments never seem to go away."

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Around here, they don't shoot messengers or auditors, but discredit them and ignore them, it seems."

Each voting center having only four laptops to check voters in seems woefully inadequate to me, and the server capacity being inadequate should also be unforgivable.

Well, there is one thing about it, those who became disheartened and walked off without voting will never have to worry about a paper trail. Those who weren't allowed to vote after the polls "closed" won't have to worry either. But the rest of us will wonder if during the cyber-circus of voting day in Denver will remain puzzled over just how messed up an electronic gang can screw up so badly.

The panorama of Denvers cyberama is loaded with drama. Wonder who will get stood up against a wall and be politically done in ?

Also I wonder how long the buck will be passed back and forth until something sensible will be done ?

I wonder how many places in our proud country have had such problems this election ? Still taking pain pills to ease the headache of our own CYBERIAN NIGHTMARE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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