Michigan officials admit majority of Detroit vote counting machines broke on Election Day

[Farmgirl1961]

Was it merely old equipment which incompetent officials had failed to bother getting serviced, or was there something intentionally sinister going on? That’s the question now coming out of Michigan, where just as the statewide recount is getting underway, officials are finally admitting that the majority of vote counting machines in Detroit broke on election day. The stunning admission, which is getting virtually no national news coverage despite appearing in a major Detroit newspaper, casts doubt on the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s supposed narrow win in the state.

Even now, elections director Daniel Baxter appears to only be making the admission as part of a convoluted argument for why the ballots in those Detroit precincts can’t be recounted. He’s acknowledging that eighty-seven optical scanners in Detroit simply “broke” on the same day. But he and other Michigan officials are now making the argument that, because the broken machines resulted in different vote totals on the machines than on the precinct log books, state law means those ballots can’t be recounted.

http://www.palmerreport.com/?p=414

[triron]

1. Sounds like vote suppression

intentional or not, big time.

[DetlefK]

5. Sounds like election-fraud. Somebody call the FBI. No, seriously.

[jberryhill]

9. And tell the FBI that a blog makes a claim without even a direct quote

I'm sure they'll get right on that.

[Amishman]

11. It's not suppression, read what actually happened

Paper ballots are fed into scanners. Many scanners had feed problems causing the ballots to be inserted multiple times. The suspicion is that this multiple tries to scan may have caused ballots to be counted more than once.

Voter suppression is denying people the ability to vote or not counting their vote. This is the absolute opposite! People's votes may have been counted multiple times.

And since this has in a heavily Democratic area, if there are errors from this they would be in our favor. The reason the totals don't match is that there are too many votes and not enough ballots. Parts of Oakland county are over 150℅ turnout and went heavily for Hillary.

[napi21]

2. That excuse is BS! Optical scanners "read" paper ballots! So can human eyes!

If we were talking about the fully computerized voting machines, I'd agree. No paper, no recount. BUT they're talkin about PAPER BACKUP as the ORIGINAL DOCUMENT! Whoever this official is, he's full of BS!

[pangaia]

3. Just my first thought also.

Hell where I live we use optical scanners..

I fill in little circles VERY DARKLY, mind you.. and slide it into the machine.

Of course, who know what happens in there.

[iluvtennis]

4. Is there anything we can do to bring media t this in the mainstream media? n/t

[Ken Burch]

6. If so, is there anything that could be done with that?

Could the courts order a re-vote in Michigan or something?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

7. I just KNEW somewhere they would claim the machines are superior to the paper trail.

[StevieM]

8. This is insane. How can the national media not cover this story?

It's like a Banana Republic.

[jmg257]

10. Should still be able to count the actual ballots. They know why the machine counts were off

but if the number of ballots match the number of voters in the poll books, then the mismatch is understood and the ballots can be hand counted.



"Eighty-seven of Wayne County’s decade-old voting machines broke on election day, according to Detroit’s elections director, Daniel Baxter. He told the Detroit News, which first reported the story, that ballot scanners often jammed when polling place workers were trying to operate them. Every time a jammed ballot was removed and reinserted, he suspects the machine may have re-counted it."

here are three vote totals: the total number of votes the electronic ballot scanners report; the total number of people who signed the electoral roll, or “poll book”; and the total number of paper ballots filled out and stored in sealed containers. The poll books and the electronic ballot scanners do not match, so the paper ballots will be counted by hand. If hand-tallied ballots can’t resolve all the mismatches, the votes will stand in the counties where the errors remain.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/05/us-election-recount-michigan-donald-trump-hillary-clinton

[ChetSinger]

12. A recount won't help. There are too many votes in the machines, not too few

From Half of Detroit votes may be ineligible for recount

“It’s not good,” conceded Daniel Baxter, elections director for the city of Detroit.

He blamed the discrepancies on the city’s decade-old voting machines, saying 87 optical scanners broke on Election Day. Many jammed when voters fed ballots into scanners, which can result in erroneous vote counts if ballots are inserted multiple times. Poll workers are supposed to adjust counters to reflect a single vote but in many cases failed to do so, causing the discrepancies, Baxter said.

If they recount these votes the counts will drop, not rise. And Hillary will probably lose more votes than Trump. They might even be blamed for stuffing the ballot box on election day.

[ucrdem]

13. So what? Electing Hillary is not the primary purpose of the recount.

I also seriously doubt this silly talking point but never mind, the recounts MUST go forward and let the chips fall where they may.