This is interesting. According to the BradBlog, a Florida county has removed their Diebold voting machines after it was proven they could be hacked (Update- my bad- BBV provided the following quote):
A test election was run in Leon County today with a total of eight ballots – six ballots voted “no” on a ballot question as to whether Diebold voting machines can be hacked or not. Two ballots, cast by Dr. Herbert Thomson and by Harri Hursti voted “yes” indicating a belief that the Diebold machines could be hacked.
At the beginning of the test election the memory card programmed by Harri Hursti was inserted into an Optical Scan Diebold voting machine. A “zero report” was run indicating zero votes on the memory card. In fact, however, Hursti had pre-loaded the memory card with plus and minus votes.
The eight ballots were run through the optical scan machine. The standard Diebold-supplied “ender card” was run through as is normal procedure ending the election. A results tape was run from the voting machine.
Correct results should have been:
Yes:2 No:6
However the results tape read:
Yes:7 No:1
I really do not see why these machines are needed. I used them in the last few elections, and they were convenient and easy to use. but if they are not secure, and they do not leave the voter confident that his/her vote is safe and will be counted, we shold not be moving forward with them.
Last night in Morgantown, the League of Women Voters held a debate on the purchase of these machines for Mon. County. I will check around tosee if I can find what came out of the town hall/meeting.
BTW- Leon County is one of ‘those’ 2000 Florida election counties.
I am an idiot. See the comments as to why.
Steve S
Because the CEO of Diebold promised that he was going to deliver Ohio for GW Bush, and by God that’s what he is going to do.
And making a few quick bucks as a result isn’t a bad thing.
Paul Wartenberg
These machines are needed because the old 19th century based voting booth machines are all still stuck on voting Democrat, and the Republicans wanted their own ‘fixed’ machines to vote for them.
There’s always been voter fraud down the centuries. The trick is to stay vigilant and prepared.
The simplist solution is to have printed receipts that can confirm how a person voted, and to have those receipts made available for any potential recount to ensure accuracy. Of course, no one will want that…
NorthWstPHD
I didn’t realize this site was one of the “Gore is President” sites. Look, you lost in 2000, you lost by a mandate in 2004. As your favorite site says, Move On! Believing that there is such a wide conspiracy to steal an election and then never having any actual evidence of that theft is just loony and you’re only dragging our your eventual realization that Democrats and Liberal politics are on the way out. The American people have spoken and you’re just not winning.
Mr.Ortiz
And yet every lefty who believes that the election might have been stolen is a wild-eyed business-hating kool-aid-drinking wingnut. Or are we the moonbats? I lose track.
Mr.Ortiz
Case in point. Thanks, NWPhD.
Mr.Ortiz
Or should I say … DOUGJ!
yet another jeff
Yep, that’s life in Tallahassee…
Sometimes the Luddites are right about a technology.
NorthWstPHD
I can’t believe that so many liberals were taken in by that paranoid conspiracy theory that a real election could be stolen. Offer me proof, moonbats. I see none of you stepping up to that plate.
neil
Your fake name is fooling no one, DougJ.
jcricket
You mean . Basically, having your voting technology designed by a for-profit company runs the risk that company will take its obligations to shareholders to be more important than its obligations to the voters.
I’m not sure if the Diebold machines are intentionally un-secure, but the fact is they aren’t secure, and the company shows no signs of being capable or interested in fixing the problems. Diebold machines should be immediately de-certified in any state still using them. If Diebold then goes “out of business”, so be it.
If there are no for-profit companies that can produce secure touch-screen voting systems, then let’s use the other options. Optical scan ballots used for an all-vote-by-mail system isn’t a perfect solution, but it’s far less hackable, leaves a paper trail and is more thoroughly tested.
In fact, you could probably eliminate the major problem with optical scan ballots (humans not filling them out properly) with a little technology. Send people envelopes with passcodes and a URL. At that URL the people fill out a ballot and print it out (using the passcode to match the ballot and envelope. The ballot is not stored on the server. The people mail in the “perfectly filled out” optical scan ballot (could even have a bar-code and the human-readable data on the same page).
This eliminates issues with over-voting, unintentional under-voting, stray marks, improperly filled out ovals and unintelligible write-in candidates. All without introducing any security/hacking issues.
neil
The weirdest thing about that story, to me, is that that means a Diebold machine can start out with _negative votes_, and not leave any record of that.
As someone recently said, any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
Mr.Ortiz
What kills me is that Diebold will simply release a “patch”–literally, a piece of cloth that they glue to the side of the machines–and that will satisfy anyone who might have had doubts after this demonstration. “They patched it, what more do you want?”
Perhaps in matters such as these, lawmakers should cede their votes to their IT guys. Or their grandkids.
SeesThroughIt
C’mon, DougJ is a thousand times better than this PHD character. This new guy is way unconvincing; DougJ has it down pat.
Anyway, voting machines can be hacked, what a shocker. The fact that Diebold actively fought against the idea of having a paper trail doesn’t exactly create feelings that everything is on the up and up, and this just proves the suspicion. It’s good to see these machines starting to be rejected; they’re just too shady and unreliable to be trusted with something as important as an election.
ET
Being from Louisian specifically New Orleans, I can be a bit sensitive on the whole “voting irregularities” issue, but I still would want a veneer – however, thin – that my vote, was counted the way I wanted counted. If people don’t make the reliability or whatever of the ballot box seriously and give it more than lip service and partisan bickering, many more people in the future will cease to think voting actually matters and the numbe of nonvoters will continue to increase no matter the bitching and moaning about the low voter turnout. You want a functioning democracy, this is one of the pesky little parts of that. Yes it is not sexy, can be totally boring but it is way to important to just say “get over Gore loosing” 2000 wasn’t stolen, or whatever.
neil
Taking the chance that NWPHD is for real, he raises an interesting point. He seems to be assuming John is a moonbat pinko for simply _referring_ to the fact that there _was_ a controversy over the 2000 election. So apparently, to be a Real Conservative, it’s not enough to believe that the controversy was much ado about nothing — you have to believe that it was a non-event, just a figment of the Traitorous Left’s imagination, of no historical interest other than as a reminder of their evil.
Interesting that this pathology exhibits itself on the same day that John posted about holocaust deniers. I’m just saying.
neil
they’re just too shady and unreliable to be trusted with something as important as an election.
Funny, that’s the same thing Republicans feel about voters.
Another Jeff
Actually, that’s not what makes someone a moonbat.
What makes someone a moonbat is when they’re outraged at what MAY OR MAY NOT have happened in Florida, and pat themselves on the back for their love of good and honest elections and every vote being counted and everything else, but then don’t give a flying fuck about what happens in places like Philly and Milwaukee and Chicago and St Louis because the shit that goes on there benefits Democrats.
BARRASSO
It looks like the Ohio GOP is taking a huge shit on democracy this week as well.
As is discussed here.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/
Shygetz
Yeah, this guy reminds me of BIRDZILLA.
jack
Yeah, you guys keep fighting that Bush–you’ll get him NEXT election. He doesn’t stand a chance!
Anyone remember why we have these electronic machines? Because, after losing in 2000, Democrats demanded that the system be overhauled. They demanded new voting technology.
Prior to the 2000 election Leon County had a paper ballot, with a ‘paper’ trail. Remember? Dimpled chads? Ring a bell?
And then Al lost. And no matter how many times they counted the ‘undervotes'(there is NO SUCH THING as an undervote–you are not required to vote for every candidate and issue) Al still lost.
Can’t blame the message–or the messenger. It must have been those voting machines themselves!
Now there are Democrats calling for paper ballots again.
Maybe they’re easier to ‘hack’. Anyone wanna ask Governor Gregoire in Washington? I bet she knows.
Mike S
Which appearently isn’t a problem for you.
I’m not sure why insuring fair and honest elections is a partisan issue. Have the ideals of this country really sunk this low.
Brad R.
Last night in Morgantown, the League of Women Voters held a debate on the purchase of these machines for Mon. County. I will check around tosee if I can find what came out of the town hall/meeting.
At first I’d thought you’d actually attended a meeting of the League of Women Voters. I was thinking, “DAMN you’ve become a commie.” ;-)
Bob In Pacifica
The Repub Sec of State is trying to get Diebold machines into Cali. Despite enormous public protest, I suspect he’ll get them. I’m not sure how many counties will use them though.
I’ve been voting with a simple “connect-the-line” paper ballot that works fine. Results don’t seem to take any longer to get than other systems.
So John Cole’s question of why would someone want these machines seems a tad naive. Why would someone want a poll tax? To raise money?
TallDave
Electronic voting is an incredibly stupid idea, as anyone who works in IT would know.
Chavez used it to steal the recall vote right under Carter’s nose.
NorthWstPHD
I’ve finally realized who DougJ is, and I can state with 100% certainty that I’m not him. He’s a fake and I’m surprised many of you have been taking in by him so easily. If any of you would escape this echo chamber you’ve created out of a “conservative” blog, you’d quickly realize my views are fairly mainstream and in the norm for the public.
And I still notice that none of you present a bit of factual evidence that any vote that has happened in the past was due to your “right-wing conspiracy”. Where is it? Do you think all election officials are Republican? Give me a break, you people are nuts.
I found this blog from a conservative Roll Call. I guess I’ll have to let that blog’s owner know what a bunch of communists really lurk here.
Mr.Ortiz
Funny, jack, I don’t remember anyone on the left being happy with these machines BEFORE the election. Unless your point is that conservatives used the public’s fear of hanging chads to replace a bad voting system with an even worse one. Then you’d be right.
jack
Mike S, do you not find it odd that the party whose mayoral candidate was unseated from the position of Mayor of Miami just prior to the 2000 election due to rampant vote fraud—ballot stuffing, multiple voting, and the Dems big constituency, the Dead, were all represented, is the party that seems so set on labeling the Republicans as the ones ‘stealing’ elections?
They screamed for an overhaul of the voting machines, got it, and then screamed because the head of the company dared to have a political opinion. He’s not supposed to? He MAKES voting machines.
It’s a good bet that ANY company making these machines will have people in the company that have political opinions. Democrats seem shocked by this fact.
And you can say what you like, but based on their actions, the Democrats have made it very plain that they don’t want an honest system. They want a system that they can easily rig.
Steve S
From an IT perspective, they aren’t just ‘not secure’… they weren’t even designed with security in mind.
Steve S
Huh? Isn’t the Miami Mayor race the one where the Republican candidate got tossed out because he was caught manipulating absentee votes?
Only a moonbat would claim that Republican corruption is ok because there is some Democratic corruption and it must be balanced.
Huh? Based on your comments, it sounds like that’s what you want and you are attacking anybody who questions that position.
It turns out… you are the moonbat.
Steve S
Found it…
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/03/04/miami.mayor/
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/03/11/miami.mayor/
Oh yeah… That’s right. Moonbat Jack claims the election in Miami was stolen! Yes, that’s right! Stolen! By the leftist sympathizers who planted fake absentee ballots voting for Suarez so as to cause the election to be thrown into the courts, where it could be handed to Carollo.
Sheesh, and you wonder why us average Americans get so tired of dealing with these idiots.
NorthWstPHD
I can see Jack’s point, why are the rest of you so eager to cast down his ideas? Why not discuss them, because unlike most of your counter arguments, his at least make sense.
yet another jeff
Ya know…what are you talking about? Leon County had no recount problems, it just happens to be the county with the state capitol. That’s why it comes up in the Google search.
In 2000, results from Leon County were 39073 to 61444 in favor of Gore.
Sheesh, JC mentions that the machines are buggy and so many people start with this whole “suck it up, Bush won!”. That’s not what anyone was talking about.
Ancient Purple
Still stuck in the 1970s? I dig your bell bottoms, man.
meowomon
Even if they did have the paper ballots, in Florida they are not counted in a recount. This past May bills were entered into REPUBLICAN controlled committees in both senate and house that would make this law, but both committees allowed it to die before even getting a vote to put it on the record. I wonder why they don’t want a paper trail???????
TallDave
Again, because it’s so important:
ELECTRONIC VOTING IS A VERY STUPID, VERY BAD IDEA.
The whole advantage of electronics is that electronic information is impermanent and can be easily manipulated. That is NOT an advantage for reliable elections.
So tell your election overseers to stick with old-fashioned, verifiable paper.
SeesThroughIt
At last, TallDave and I agree on something! I always request a paper ballot when I vote because I want to do what I can to make sure my vote is actually tallied according to how I voted.
I also totally agree with this:
All I can do is roll my eyes and chuckle when I see this course of action. I have a serious problem with voting corruption. I don’t care who’s doing it and for what gain. It’s gotten to the point where no matter what an election result is, I always have to wonder if that result is in accordance with how people actually voted.
yet another jeff
Rarely will I ever say this but…yeah, I agree with what TallDave just said.
Steve S
Agreed. I don’t care what party anybody is in… a verified election is fundamental to the functioning of a Democracy.
Here in frenchie land we use paper ballots which are read by an optical scanner. I’ve always found them easy to read, and easy to use(You draw a line between the two arrows). They can be counted by the machine for expediency, but if necessary they can be counted by hand as well.
The problem in Florida in 2000 was with those stupid punch cards, which were a lousy way to vote. And yes, they also had those stupid punch cards in Chicago and several other locations.
But replacing them with fancy touch screens without paper isn’t the answer. Making the system more complex just makes it prone to failure.
Steve S
Oh yeah and one more thing…
A PAPER RECEIPT IS FUCKING MEANINGLESS
The source of the vote MUST BE PAPER. You use computers to count, but that is for speed an efficiency sake, nothing else.
The reason I believe the Diebold guys are trying to throw elections is because they never acknowledge the fallibility of computers. I’d love to just attribute this to incompetence, but there is too much evidence( and yes, Jack… holding a public politicial opinion is an example) that they are doing this purposefully.
Steve S
How come nobody ever talks about the good news of vote manipulation?
Elephant Man
hey for the record that quote from Brad Blog was a quote from Black Box Voting (www.blackboxvoting.org). BBV were the folks who did the research, did the many hundreds of public record requests, found the Finnish computer expert who would do the hacks (and who would speak out about it), and arranged for the hacks to take place.
Brad Friedman acknowledged his source and John Cole should do the same.
See the piece on Brad Blog for more details, including a great comment from Bev Harris about how lots of computer professionals and academics knew about the Diebold vulnerabilities well before the Nov. 2004 election–but kept their mouths shut.
And Ion Sanche deserves kudos for his integrity. He’s the first election official to take some interest in finding out whether or not his election machines are secure or accurate, and to do something abou it.
Getting votes counted accurately should matter to everyone, regardless of what party they do or don’t belong to or vote for. There’s plenty of evidence of election irregularities from both major parties. (Just read Bev Harris’s book “Black Box Voting” at the BBV website, or read “Votescam” by James & Kenneth Collier.)
The trouble is that NONE of the people who were elected from either party is actually pushing to examine the machines!!! They’re all looking at bandaid solutions and ignoring the real problems. Both major parties are filled with officials or supporters who will stop at nothing to get elected, if they can.
It’s the Real People (grassroots of all parties, and of no party) who will have to Wake Up and Get Involved.
arkabee
i agree with John’s sentiments,
electronic voting machines that are hackable are assinine.
on a seperate note,
if you are more angry about WHO benifitted from voting irregularities rather than voting irregularities existing AT ALL, go sit down in the corner and shut up.
and if someone can make a voting machine do this:
“Correct results should have been:
Yes:2 No:6
However the results tape read:
Yes:7 No:1”
you will be hard pressed to convince any average CITIZEN that voting irregularities do NOT exist.
NorthWstPHD
The Average citizen has spoken, it was called the election and Bush received a well-earned mandate. Despite years of shouting from the rooftops, you moonbats have yet to provide evidence of this Grand conspiracy. You can’t even name a single person that perpetrated this “election stealing” but that doesn’t stop you from repeating it as your personal gospel.
jaime
My problem with the 2000 election was Bush’s camp (in BUSH v. Gore) complaining that if voting continued there would be rioting in the streets and then Bush paying people…to riot in the streets.
yet another jeff
NWPHD…you seem to be commenting on things that nobody is saying in this thread. Pehaps you have a browser configuration issue.
S.W. Anderson
Gore lost by an army of paid hell raisers, a platoon of fast-talking Federalist Society shysters and a few GOP-grateful justices in 2000. And yes, considering the Anything-to-Win Gang’s zero-ethics approach to politics, there’s plenty of reason to suspect a few voting machines here and there were hacked.
Bush won by the slimmest margin ever for a president winning re-election — some mandate. Then, of that minuscule so-called mandate, what Bush didn’t blow away with six months of hot air about his plan to wreck Social Security was evaporated in the heat of August and then rinsed clean by the September debacle.
But that’s OK, NorthWstPHD. You hang in there prattling the RNC party line. The more time that passes with with these wiseguys in control, the more outrageous their overreaching becomes, the obvious their incompetence becomes, and the greater people’s dissatisfaction grows. There’s another 40-year hiatus coming up, and it’s got “Republican-right” written all over it.
Rita J. King
O’Dell might have resigned from Diebold, but there’s much more to the story than meets the eye as the deadline for the federal mandate to replace all voting machines by September 2006 looms. To find out how this law affects every voting precinct in the nation, and why most states might end up with electronic machines, visit The Ruminations on America Project (www.ruminationsonamerica.blogspot.com)
yet another jeff
Sorry JC…the snark tone of the Leon County results was meant for someone upthread that took that ball and ran with it.
S. W. Anderson…I have a theory that one of the reasons for the GOP not controlling the legislature is that they were being punished for their actions in the McCarthy era.
yet another jeff
Sorry JC…the snark tone of the Leon County results was meant for someone upthread that took that ball and ran with it.
S. W. Anderson…I have a theory that one of the reasons for the GOP not controlling the legislature for 40 years is that they were being punished for their actions in the McCarthy era.
John S.
I don’t think many people do claim there was some “grand conspiracy”, but there are some that do believe there were serious irregularities in 2004:
Source
Now go call the GAO a moonbat if you wish, but you will only succeed in looking like an even bigger fool.
Perry Como
Those are some mighty sour lemons you are sucking on there. Don’t worry, you can always beat G.W. Bush in 2008!
Blue Shark
…The real question is, and always has been, do we as Americans want freely and accurately counted votes in our elections?
…Every single thinking American, Red or Blue, would say yes (cuz both sides can cheat electronically now don’tchaknow)!
…Paper Ballots Hand Counted. It works for dozens of democracies around the globe.
…So I think…lets let the Dems steal the next three elctions, take the US House, Take the Senate, Take the Presidency just like the Republicans have done…then call it even and get rid of the fucking machines.
S.W. Anderson
Before 2008 finally gets here, you may well be wishing someone could beat him sooner. He’s that bad.
Blue Shark
…Just for that fool up-thread who keeps insisting there has been no evidence of election manipulation shown by us moonbats…suck on these for a couple hours and then maybe you can write intelligently about the discussion at hand:
20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA
>Please distribute the following facts about voting in the United
>States and tell your friends, because their TV won’t….
__________________________________________________
>
>1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies:
>Diebold and ES&S.
>
>http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/04280…
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
>
>2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or
>oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
>
>http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
>http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/04280…
>
>3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are
>brothers.
>
>http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.h…
>http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/04280…
>
>4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign
>organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was “committed to
>helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”
>
>http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main63…
>http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886
>
>5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He
>became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
>
>http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/0…
>http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031…
>
>6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush
>family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by
>the Senate Ethics Committee.
>
>http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php ?
>name=News&file=article&sid=26
>http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
>http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php
>
>7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush’s
>vice-presidential candidates.
>
>http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm
>http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.ht…
>
>8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and
>counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
>
>http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
>http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/04280…
>
>9. Diebold’s new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail
>of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data
>coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put
>in by voters.
>
>http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
>http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfin…
>
>10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket
>machines, all of which log each transaction
>and can generate a paper trail.
>
>http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
>http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm
>
>11. Diebold is based in Ohio.
>
>http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/ataglance/default.htm
>
>12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and
>developers to help write the central compiler computer code that
>counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
>
>http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html
>http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml
>
>13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of Global Election Systems
>when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted
>of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was
>retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for
>programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the
>United States.
>
>http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0312/S00191.htm
>http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
>http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
>
>14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back
>doors in his software and using a “high degree of sophistication”
>to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
>
>http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
>http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
>
>15. None of the international election observers were allowed in
>the polls in Ohio.
>
>http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html
>http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/loc_elexoh….
>
>16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the
>security was so bad. Despite Diebold’s claims that the audit logs
>could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it!
> ;(See the movie: http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov .)
>
>http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html
>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190
>
>17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch
>screen voting machines with no paper trail.
>
>http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main63…
>
>18. All — not some — but all the voting machine errors detected
>and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican
>candidates.
>
>http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html
>http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04 /
>ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
>http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html
>http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php ?
>op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=950
>http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm
>
>19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the
>President’s brother.
>
>http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/7…
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10544-20…
>
>20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida — again always favoring
>Bush — have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are
>recommending further investigation.
>
>http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04 /
>ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
>http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/governmen… /
>0,10801,97614,00.html
>http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands…
>http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
>http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html
>http://uscountvotes.org /
>
Perry Como
Common Dreams, Online Journal and IndyMedia are authoritative sources now! Pardon me while I go check MoveOn for my Known Facts(TM).
Blue Shark
…Disbelievers can deny the facts all day long every day but the units in use were sold as an unhackable machine and they were hacked easily with no trail of the hack.
…Really…doesn’t that raise a flag for you? All of you?
ppGaz
Somebody please tell Dave to change his mind on this. Agreeing with him makes me nervous.
“All data is opinion.”
Electronic data has one advantage over paper: Speed. Every other aspect is a disadvantage.
We should not trade trust in the election process for speed.
Bad trade.
Bad.
Blue Shark
Perry Como (I thought he died)
…If you don’t like my media sources provide me some of your own that conclusively prove the vote was accurately counted and reported…Good Luck.
And from
John Dowd the last time we had this issue on Balloon Juice:
I’m surprised at the amount of discussion and speculation going on, without much reference to all that has been written about this issue. There are many facts and resources that people should know about. Here are some links that I think everyone will find of interest who cares about this issue, and who have not been following it. Get ready to be sick.
Start with “20 Amazing facts about Electronic Voting”, Google it. Widely available. Daily Kos links to it here: http://nightweed.com/usavotefacts.html
Someone mentioned Volusia county. That was where Deborah Tannenbaum in 2000, noticed that right after her county’s results went in, the state tally for Gore somehow DROPPED by 16,000 votes. That took a while to get corrected, but resulted in Gore’s early concession, which he later retracted. That really happened. You can google it, and it’s been written about in numerous places. Here’s one: http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=3337&fcategory_desc=The%20Bush%20Crime%20Family How can we KNOW that there were not countless other similar unexplained, but undetected “glitches”? We can’t. On the other hand, it’s hard to walk out of a polling place with 16,0000 uncounted paper ballots. Unlike electronic counts, you can’t just make paper ballots go away, so huge fraud required huge risk. Not so with electronic machines, where it’s as easy to change 16000 votes as it is to change just a few.
Can’t resist this quote from Bev Harris on the Volusia incident: “The fact that “negative votes” could be applied to a candidate’s total demonstrates such a fundamentally flawed software model that it calls into question the competence and integrity of the programmers, the company and the certification process itself.”
See http://www.blackbox.org for lots of information about how easy it is to hack these machines, and suggestive circumstantial evidence that it has happened. Really scary stuff. It will creep you out.
Kathy Dopp’s group has marshalled some really compelling statistical evidence of fraud. They want to establish a national, public database of local precinct-by-precinct election results. Check out the website here, with many excellent links, and .pdf documents: http://www.electionarchive.org/
Steven F. Freeman, a professional, academic statistician, says that the exit-poll discrepancy was so large that, there was virtually NO chance it could have happened by chance alone. Though he has been slimed for his trouble, I have not seen anyone take his arguments, or his data apart in a way that can stand scrutiny or calm rebuttal. This site has his article, plus many others: http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/DirectoryElectionFraud.html
Exit-polling has NOT changed and has proven to be sound time and time again—until just lately. Pollsters didn’t somehow just become hugely incompetent. Do you seriously want to argue that the voters somehow colluded in a massive conspiracy, and voted one way, while saying they voted in a different way? Come on. Parsimony, and the circumstantial evidence (the only kind there CAN be with no physical records) point to fraud commited by just a few people with deep knowledge of the machines, and with inside access. Until you have read Bev Harris’s “Blackbox Voting”, don’t try to tell me that is implausible. You have no idea how horribly open these systems are.
Further stink is spread on all of this by the story of how the last county to report from Ohio, forced all reporters and observers to leave, claiming there was a terrorist threat, which the FBI later claimed they had no knowledge of. It was a total fabrication, but never was explained. Wonder why they didn’t want any observers present as they manipulated the final state totals? Smells bad though, doesn’t it?
By the way, the circumstances surrounding the election of Chuck Hagel to the senate in Nebraska are particularly suspicious. Check out this article, and see if you don’t also think so: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm
Hagel could be our next president. I think he’s unstoppable. He knows how to get the votes.
And finally, check out this chilling link to see congressman Peter King say, before the 2004 election was over, “It’s all over now but the counting. And we’ll take care of the counting.” http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/2004votefraud_review.html
I could go on and on. There’s no end to this stuff. It’s just not reported by the mainstream, corporate-owned and corporate-controlled media, except for a few journalists willing to jeapordize their careers, like Christina Borjesson, and Greg Pallast. Noam Chomsky (linguist) also has a good handle on the media silence. He has a recent, good book on propaganda and media control in this country.
Feel a little ill perhaps? Sorry. I warned you. But you’ll look good in mylar.
John Dowd
Perry Como
What raises a flag are the zombie voters that the DemocRATS always seem to rely on.
Sojourner
Not true. If the over and under votes had been counted for the entire state of Florida, Gore would have won.
That’s why some of us are still pissed off. Also, the SC had no constitutional business intruding into Florida’s business.
So why are you so against the American public having their votes counted accurately?
Blue Shark
Perry Como
…your link reveals “The Commercial Appeal newspaper reports it found a second case of the name of a dead person being used to vote.”
…wow…two fraudulent (maybe) democratic votes to a fraudulent 3.2 million national vote “Mandate” for bush.
…you sure showed me. I conceed game…set…and match.
Perry Como
I could link spam, citing MoveOn emails like you do, but I was giving one recent example. There are plenty of other examples available. Dems cheat the system. Now you are mad because electronic voting prevents that cheating.
Steve S
Ok, as much as I didn’t care for the other guys post…
That’s pretty damn stupid.
Steve S
I’ll clarify. I don’t care for the blackbox voting website. I don’t trust the guys running it, and I think they are scam artists themselves.
That being said, Perry Como is way off in wingnuttery land claiming it’s ok for Republicans to cheat because sometimes Democrats do it.
Blue Shark
Perry Como
…You still dodge the critical issue. Nobody should have to prove fraud and the evidence IS voluminous even if you personally are repelled by the sources who report it.
…The system, any system, in place should prove to voters that it is trustworthy, verifiable, and accurate. It is so NOT that.
…If George Bush and his administration was so confident in a non-fraudulent vote accounting in Ohio, why did Kenneth Blackwell and his minions fight a fair recount tooth and nail, using illegal means?
SeesThroughIt
No, politicians and their parties cheat the system, Republican and Democrat alike. It’s just that you only care when Democrats do it and think that somehow Republicans don’t do it or that it’s OK for Republicans to do it because Democrats do it.
And then you call everybody moonbats.
I assume you find no hypocrisy in this because you’re too lost to ideology to have a rational outlook; I further assume that you will try to change the subject.
tbrosz
Why is it automatically assumed that only Republicans are smart enough to hack a voting machine?
BigHeavingSigh
tbrosz, I don’t think it’s a matter of Rep.’s being “smart enough” (as if), it is more a matter of being brazen enough. Every day another strip of our skin is sliced off with a dull, rusty, crumbling butter knife, held by the utterly shamless Rep.’s, who obviously surrendered ANY molecule of integrity they ever possessed a long time ago. All in the pursuit of power, and all that goes with it. And all those poor lost bastiges that endlessly repeat the same old tired denials, over and over and over again, not realizing the depth of their delusions, as they are trapped inside of them. But I think that their end is near, and they know it. Why else would they be so insistant that anyone who does not share their warped wailings must be looney themselves? It is both sad and funny to watch them thrash about, caught in the web that they themselves wove. Ah, well…. better get comfy….
Blue Shark
BigHeavingSigh…
…Well said!
Perry Como
Steve S Says:
Where did I say that? Please point it out.
Blue Shark Says:
I can’t prove a negative. Get over it. The evidence proves that President Bush won the election. Maybe if I strap on some tinfoil, I’ll come around to your position.
Steve S
Nearly every one of your troll statements here says we should all ignore problems, because Democrats do it too.
What did you think you were saying?
Don’t be a partisan prick. For once in your life consider the good of your country.
Perry Como
The good of OUR country lies in the verifiable electronic votes that have been counted. Just because your side didn’t win…well, whine some more. Maybe you’ll beat Bush in 2008.
Shygetz
How were they verified? How do we know that dead people didn’t press that touchscreen? How do we know that the voters were properly registered? Electronic voting doesn’t fix any of the problems you claim the Democrats use; instead, they add new problems of not only ensuring that the person who votes is a valid voter, but also ensuring that his vote is recorded properly. And yet, since you got the result you obviously want in the last election, it must be a good system. Partisans like you (on both sides, although the Dems actually seem to be allergic to partisan unity) are what is killing this country by 1000 cuts.
Frank
John- The league of women voters meeting was last night at the county courthouse tonight on the third floor in courtroom #1 from 6-8pm.
It was an alright meeting there were quite a few concerned citizens and a guy from Electronics Systems and Software there (ES&S) to answer questions. There were also people from the state elections commision and district people. The nice thing about the system we are getting is that there is a paper trail. We are going to be using a machine that prints all the votes out on a long roll of paper which will be the official tallie in the event of a recount, which either of the candidates can call for for $300.
Now we just have to make sure that no one can dispose of the original paper trail and print off a new one, so it shouldn’t be too easy to steal an election here.
Our Sec. State was really glad Diebolt didn’t get the contract
jack
Sojourner,
There IS NO SUCH THING as an ‘undervote’. There is no law requiring that a voter must vote in all races and issues on the ballot. You are not required to vote for president in a presidential election. Therefore, ballots on which no vote for president was recorded are not ‘undervotes’–they are valid accurate ballots and needed no special scrutiny.
But they got it anyway.
Overvotes occur when someone makes an error and votes twice in a single race. It’s a fairly normal mistake, and one that goes unremarked in normal elections. Additionally, it does not invalidate a voter’s ballot–it only affects the race in which the error was made. Stupidity, haste or carelessness are the usual causes of this error. Usually they are simply not counted.
Except this time.
The problem with counting ANY of these is that eventually you come to cases where you have to guess. Even if a person votes a straight Republican ticket, you CANNOT know, with absolute certainty what his vote would have been in the race that was over or undervoted–unless the ‘overvote’ is a case of the voter writing in and punching out the same candidate.
I do not want my vote subject to any human opinion. Humans lie, humans cheat. Machines do what they’re made to do. Counting via a simple mechanical device is best. Even better if each party gets to do their own count. Discrepencies would be embarassing.
tbrosz
BigHeavingSigh:
That was quite eloquent and colorful, but didn’t really address the odd question of why it’s assumed only Republicans would cook an election. It’s not as if Democrats have never screwed with the voting process anytime in the past fifty years.
Tapin
Did anyone look at PerryComo’s list of ways Dems cheat the vote? It’s rather amusing — most are non-issues, several are potential fraud, and then #10:
“Normally it’s assumed that Republicans benefit from absentee ballots. But in the case of Miami’s 1997 mayoral election, hundreds of absentee ballots were made for sale or sent out to non-Miami residents. Fraud was so extensive in the race that the final results were overturned in court.”
So the #10 way that Democrats steal elections is an example of a Republican getting caught defrauding the vote?
Anonymous
Elephant Man wrote:
Bev Harris is right about a lot of things, but she’s wrong about the computer professionals and academics. They were making as much noise as they could, long before the election. It was heavily covered in the nerd press (like Wired and The Register) but almost completely suppressed in the so-called “mainstream” press.
At the beginning of 2003 (almost two years before the 2004 election) Dr. David Dill of Stanford wrote a resolution demanding auditable (paper) ballots, and he got THOUSANDS of other academics and computer professionals to sign it.
In the summer of 2004 the ACM made a similar recommendation, and it was supported by NINETY-FIVE percent of ACM members.
The vast majority of academics and computer professionals did the right thing; there were only a tiny percentage of them who supported the voting machine companies, just like there were a tiny percentage of doctors who supported the cigarette companies.
I think Bev Harris is angry because the scientists insisted that we need to have auditable (paper) ballots, but they didn’t insist that we need to go ahead and do the audit. What the hell, that’s not their job, you don’t need a scientist to tell you that there has to be an audit.
I see my doctor once per year, and in all those years he never told me that I shouldn’t drink diesel fuel. I’m sure he knew that drinking diesel fuel was dangerous, but he kept his mouth shut. Does that mean he’s out to get me? Or he’s a bad doctor? No, it just isn’t his job; I shouldn’t need a doctor to tell me not to drink diesel fuel.