No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for April 22nd, 2011

Sloth makes waste, electoral edition

(H/T – Lisa Sink)

Over at Shorewood Patch, Marie Rohde explains why those municipalities still using Optech Eagle opitical-scan machines and seeking to upgrade to the current version of the software are going to go through a hand recount of those ballots – the software update that would allow the storage of both the election-day run of ballots and a recount of that election on the same memory cartridge took close to three years to be approved by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (in fact, it was approved only earlier this year) and has yet to be approved by the Government Accountability Board, a process which will likely take another several months.

Thanks to that, the recount will cost just Miwlaukee County an additional $500,000 over the cost of doing the recount by-the-book (optical-scan ballots are run through the machines, the DRE/touch-screen ballots are hand-counted). That is expected to drive up the cost of the recount to close to $1,000,000.

I wonder how many modern optical-scan machines could be bought with that money. I know Oak Creek has a few of those, as not all the wards here will need a full hand recount, but unfortunately, none of them were at my polling place on April 5.

Revisions/extensions (5:57 pm 4/25/2011) – The story gets curiouser and curiouser. Even though the Government Accountability Board lists ES&S as the vendor of the majority of the Eagle systems in use in Wisconsin (the link lists all the voting systems by municipality), it’s actually a Sequoia Voting Systems (since acquired by Dominion Voting Systems) machine. Moreover, not only is no system from Dominion currently certified by the Election Assistance Commission, it appears that the version that includes the Optech line that is still under testing (WinEDS 4.0) does not include the Eagle as part of the test.

R&E part 2 (6:43 pm 4/28/2011) – Things are quite a bit clearer after representatives from Dominion contacted me. To wit, Dominion Voting Systems says that WinEDS 4.0 does work with the Optech Eagle optical-scan machine, and once the underlying system is approved by the EAC, the GAB will test the software with the Eagle.

Introducing the Government Motors Chevy Cruzeless

by @ 8:36. Filed under Miscellaneous.

(H/T – Little Miss Atilla)

Yes, I’m a little late to this party, but somebody put up a page touting the 2011 Chevy Cruzeless. My favorite part is the “More Performance” section –

Steering is for sissies. You want performance and Cruzeless delivers. With the fuel economy of a compact car and the amenities of a mid-size, the Cruzeless is the ideal driving machine for really, really wide open spaces like the Bonneville Salt Flats.

Recount a waste of time and money says…the Racine Journal Times?

by @ 8:26. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

In an editorial that has more of a RDW feel, The Racine Journal Times editorial board skewered the decision by JoAnne Kloppenburg to seek a recount. The open which I’ll tease you with is worth it on its own, but it’s hardly the only broadside they launched:

By this time we would have known if election clerks had somehow missed counting the votes from Kloppenburgville (pop. 7,317) somewhere in western Dane County.

But that’s not happened, and we don’t expect it to.

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