24 Comments
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tinstaafl's avatar

Remember, it’s not what is printed on your ballot that matters; it’s what the computer says is on the ballot that determines the winner.

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tinstaafl's avatar

For those who only read comments, that is a quote from the article and bears repeating.

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tinstaafl's avatar

I wish there was a better word for salience bias. *My* decisions and actions are fine! *You* need to do better.

*My* congressman is good! *You* need to elect a different one.

Self reflection and mindfulness cannot replace reasoned arguments.

Reasoned arguments being paragraphs and thinky stuff that may cause brain hurt. It is *easy* to group up and name call. We prefer easy. We need to be able to do hard.

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Ben Brown, PE's avatar

So, now are all Dallas County Poll Books uncertified?

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Diana's avatar

Earlier this week, there were reports of Tarrant County having issues with machines switching votes.

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Ian Camacho's avatar

Did you guys check the official statement before running this story?

It gives times and specifics of the issues.

https://www.facebook.com/DallasCountyVotes/photos/we-have-released-a-statement-regarding-the-e-pollbook-software-issue-encountered/856349656676481/

Texas Scorecard also covered this yesterday:

https://texasscorecard.com/local/dallas-county-addresses-issues-with-electronic-poll-books-crashing/

"ES&S analyzed the device logs and confirmed that all voters in Dallas County were assigned to the correct precincts and ballot types.

Around 3:00 p.m., ES&S identified the issue and attributed the software crashes to repeated tapping of on-screen buttons, which overwhelmed the system.

“The issue was caused by the poll book workflow not displaying an indication that the devices were processing information input by the poll workers,” said ES&S in the statement.

In a conference call between ES&S and the Dallas County Elections Department, they discussed implementing a loading screen, which would mitigate continual tapping on screens. This update was agreed on and deployed to all devices Monday evening for the start of Tuesday voting.

“The update allows the poll books to successfully display to the poll worker when the devices are processing information,” ES&S stated. “The indication helps poll workers to avoid repeated touches and slowed performance.”

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Tommy Oliver's avatar

What is the significance of your comment?

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Ian Camacho's avatar

Thank you for asking. My question is did you check with the Dallas County Elections Department (DCED) for their take, or look at the statement posted on the DCED Facebook that directly explained the issues your article mentioned (and some others it didn't). Or did you check with ES&S for additional comment?

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Tommy Oliver's avatar

I’ve read what you posted. What specifically is relevant about any of this?

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Ian Camacho's avatar

Well, since the article is incendiary with a subtitle like "Heider Garcia is a menace to society" and refers to him as "infamous vote-counting machine salesman Heider GarStealer" I was curious why you didn't reach out to him for comment or DCED, especially as they issued a statement about what happened and what the cause was and the solution.

And ample use of scare quotes like “software issue”, “wrong ballots,” “workaround” and "fixed" implies he's lying, though the statement from DCED shows otherwise, which is why I'm asking if you contacted him to clarify. ES&S's statement says that everyone got the right ballot and all precincts were fine, and the cause was the multi-tapping on the e-pollbooks.

That's why I asked if you read the DCED statement.

In fairness to your article, Garcia said to NBC DFW "Some voters did get the wrong ballot" and Lee County also uses ES&S and since their statement acknowledges that it was off with calibration, which does support the original cause for suspicion.

So that's why I asked in the second comment if you contacted him or contacted ES&S for clarification between the NBC statement and official DCED statement, or for that matter ES&S about Dallas & Lee County?

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Current Revolt's avatar

So your issue is that we didn’t call Heider to ask for comment on his comment to NBC?

“Excuse me sir can we get a comment on your comment?”

Are you autistic by chance?

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Ian Camacho's avatar

No, if you go back and read my initial question, it was did you read the statement from DCED.

Are you blind as well as mentally retarded?

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Tommy Oliver's avatar

You are implying your links add any additional relevant facts. They simply do not.

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Ian Camacho's avatar

I disagree. The links literally address the issue at hand as they are a formal statement by DCED and provides significantly more context with information by ES&S, which is not merely a workaround but explained the issues, time it was handled, how it was handled, etc.

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Tommy Oliver's avatar

They aren’t scare quotes, they are direct quotes from the sources, including Heider himself.

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Ian Camacho's avatar

https://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/punctuation/quotes/scare

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes

Sneer quotes would have been a more appropriate usage but it applies.

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