Slashdot Mirror

Let me take this one, Hugh:

will E-voting ever reach standards rigorous enough to satisfy the American populace? If not, why?

Because current "rigorous standards" are neither. I mean, we have poll workers taking Diebold machines home for WEEKS before the vote. The weaknesses of these machines are well documented. This practice is so freakin' insecure it's just insane.

If you applied the same standards that are applied to, say, Nevada slot machines, with a few extras like verifiable paper (or other durable material) ballots and national auditing standards and procedures, I'd be just fine with e-voting.

It's not about the technology. It's about transparency and separation of powers. You know, the things some people still value in this country.

Apparently, Diebold actually did comment on the wrong documentary and screwed up factually too. Already reported on the BRAD BLOG .

Arguably, that's already happened.

But seen as Fox support the current administration I doubt it...

Which is why the setup that does the scanning is all open-source, with the standardized code set published with hashes so that observers can confirm the code is the "legit stuff" that 10,000+ geek eyeballs have looked at.

OK. Lemme 'splain something here. Speed MATTERS when we're talking about congressional races.

There have been two recent court decisions in California (the recent CD50 case in San Diego) and Nevada in which state court judges have ruled that each house of congress has the right to approve new members based on EARLY, uncertified, unofficial election results. And in the CD50 case that I know of, this "stamp of approval" on a GOP candidate by the GOP house leadership happened before the final canvass and before the 1% hand recount spotcheck mandated by state law.

That's right, folks. According to these courts, somehody like Hastert can deep-six any state election protection law that state passes and "annoint" candidates.

If this demented thinking holds, then we don't just need to find fraud or screwups, we've got to do so FAST. Hand recounting of all the paper (or even a random selection!) will take too long. We need to throw known-good code at trustworthy data in a hurry.

For those not aware of the San Diego fiasco:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3353

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Court_rules_agai nst_votersupervised_elections_attorney_0906.html

Jim March

Actually it is excersized. The issue is not that people haven't searched(or that it's their responsibility) it's that nothing is being done.

They didn't predict fox doing this though! Now did they?

Apart from that, agreed. The daily show is a better source, not just as good.

Plenty of Americans who aren't republicans are outraged. http://bradblog.com/ is all about election fraud, electronic voting machine hackability, and attempts for reform. I know it ain't high tech, but paper is the way to go. And maybe a DNA sample would help -- just spit/bleed on your ballot to confirm.

Here's the secret about DNA tests: They don't identify you.

The original tests looked for a certain number of snippets of DNA that were considered "genes". Fewer than a dozen at first, but towards the end of this test's usage, they were up to about 16. With only 2^16 possibilities ("there or not there", 16 times), it matched you, probably your family members, and about 50 thousand other people, assuming that none of those snippets of DNA were actually the gene for having two arms or something like that, since they didn't really know how all that worked back then.

Now that they have a better idea of how genetics works, they match based on the distance between particular genes on a chromosome. Every time people mate, the chromosome swap doesn't always line up the exact same way leading to genes that move up or down, or so the theory goes. Nobody is actually sure how accurate this is, the only studies done have been by the companies selling the kit or by criminal justice researchers, but simple logic dictates that the gene can only move so far before it runs into another important part of the sequence (unless it moves too, and if all the genes move at once, then the distance between them hasn't changed at all!), meaning that there is some finite limit to the variations this can map.

The only true way to genetically identify someone would be a complete map of at least one chromosome, and preferrably more. The Y chromosome matches every generation in a lineage of men, likewise, the X in a male identifies his mother and brothers, so those are disqualified. Of course, a complete map is ridiculously expensive and time consuming, and in these days of money going to bridges to nowhere and websites to track the money that went to bridges to nowhere, justice has to be done on a discount.

So what does this mean? It means that when the government starts collecting DNA samples from anyone and everyone, they'll have a pool of positive matches from which to pick the easiest sucker to blame the crime on. Of course, the prosecuting attourney won't mention that there are other people who match that sample, when he presents the "evidence" to the jurors, and the expert witness they paid to lie (have you ever seen a prosecutor prosecute their own star witness for perjury? I haven't. They always seem to be just "wrong") will neglect to mention that there were other matches, but they were either politically inconvenient (lol republican lol) or just plain rich. They won't need to worry about motive, alibis, or anything else, because the prosecutor will convince the jury who has watched far too much Law and Order that the DNA test is perfect.

Or hell, they could just do what Houston does, and just lie through the teeth about the whole thing.

Maybe one day it will be possible for American networks to do trival fact-checking using this kind of technology so they don't "accidentally" label a politician who has recently fallen out of favour as being a member of the wrong political party.

The "facts" listed in that article are all exaggerated, selective or distorted.

No examples spring to mind, eh?

I notice he didn't mention how the only actual convictions for interfering with the Ohio elections were Democrats charged with vandalizing Republican campaign sites and vehicles.

Hm, there's nothing like that out on news.google.com, but just searching the web, I turned up this impressive looking report at the "American Center for Voting Rights": Five Democrat Operatives In Milwaukee Charged With Slashing Tires Of Republican Vans On Morning Of Election Day

That sounds like a believably nasty little election dirty trick, but doesn't it seem peculiar that google news can't find any reports on the subject?

I tried googling up the "American Center for Voting Rights" itself. It appears that there's some bloggers who are convinced this is a bogus front group: ACVR, The Mystery Solved

So, my friend... it would appear that you have been swift-boated... (unless you're just trying to swift-boat us, eh?).

The "facts" listed in that article are all exaggerated, selective or distorted.

No examples spring to mind, eh?

I notice he didn't mention how the only actual convictions for interfering with the Ohio elections were Democrats charged with vandalizing Republican campaign sites and vehicles.

Hm, there's nothing like that out on news.google.com, but just searching the web, I turned up this impressive looking report at the "American Center for Voting Rights": Five Democrat Operatives In Milwaukee Charged With Slashing Tires Of Republican Vans On Morning Of Election Day

That sounds like a believably nasty little election dirty trick, but doesn't it seem peculiar that google news can't find any reports on the subject?

I tried googling up the "American Center for Voting Rights" itself. It appears that there's some bloggers who are convinced this is a bogus front group: ACVR, The Mystery Solved

So, my friend... it would appear that you have been swift-boated... (unless you're just trying to swift-boat us, eh?).

This topic will have it's evidence burried within hundreds of Off Topic rants.
Just like this one (2004 election stolen - 1191 comments) did.
There is a main stream (corporate) media blackout on this topic.
Corporate media is ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and FOX
We will have a PNAC cyberwar on slashdot every time this topic comes up.
The truth is on Bradblog.Com and BlackBoxVoting.Org
But the globalists, liars, war profiteers, and Bush administration does not want you to know the truth. They just want to change the laws so that when someone reports the truth like (Greg Palast for taking photos of FEMA Trailers) they can disappear them into a camp, torture them, then find them guilty on secret evidence, and put them to death.

This is what has become of America under Bush.

Folks are too busy working to pay attention to their government. Too busy to search for real news. Too busy to protest in the streets. They don't have the time or resources. They are working their ass off to make ends meet.

There is no electronic voting machine that can be validated. NONE.
All software can be cracked, all hardware can be specially crafted.
You can not see electricity, because it is physically invisible.

What is going on with Electronic Voting Machines has a name, it's called DOMESTIC TERRORISM.
The US Military has sworn an oath to protect our Constitution against this.

It's time to ask them to do their job.

Parts for these fucking machines are made in CHINA for god sake!

Bury this thread, bury this evidence, bury your children, and kiss the middle class goodbye, kiss your Constitution goodbye, kiss your Country goodbye.

The founder of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) is in jail now! WAKE THE FUCK UP!

These fucking machines are killing people, and have left us with trillions of dollars of debt. It's time to go back to the much less costly paper, and manual counting!

BLOGGED BY Joseph Cannon ON 8/22/2006 7:23PM

The Men Who Knew Too Much? NSA Wiretapping Whistleblowers Found Dead in Italy and Greece

Adamo Bove and Costas Tsalikidis: Both uncovered a secret bugging system and both met untimely ends.

Was That Just A Coincidence? And Who Made Your Cell Phone?

Guest blogged by Joseph Cannon

Is someone murdering people who know too much about NSA wiretapping overseas?

Two whistleblowers -- one in Italy, one in Greece -- uncovered a secret bugging system installed in cell phones around the world. Both met with untimely ends. The resultant scandals have received little press in the United States, despite the profound implications for American critics of the Bush administration.

Last month, Italian telecommunications security expert Adamo Bove either leapt or was pushed from a freeway overpass; he left no note and had no history of depression. Last year (March, 2005), Greek telecommunications expert Costas Tsalikidis met with a similarly enigmatic end. Both had uncovered American attempts to eavesdrop on government officials, anti-war activists, and private businessmen.

The Bove case relates to the long-standing controversy over the CIA's kidnapping of cleric Abu Omar, who was flown to Egypt and tortured. The post-Berlusconi government of Italy is attempting to arrest and try all of the CIA personnel involved. Bove used mobile phone records to trace more than two dozen American agents.

Bove had also revealed that his employer, Telecom Italia, had allowed illegal "spyware" -- undetectable wiretaps -- to infest Italy's largest communications system. His testimony helped to uncover the unsettling relationship between SISMI chief Marco Mancini and Telecom Italia head Giuliano Tavaroli. (Mancini, recently arrested by Italian investigators, has also come under some suspicion for his possible role in the strange affair of Major General Nicola Calipari, killed by American troops in Iraq.) In the 1990s, Bove had received wide praise for helping to secure convictions of two bosses in the Camorra, Naples' answer to the Sicilian Mafia.

The case of Costas Tsalikidis -- an engineer for Vodaphone, Greece's top telecommunications firm -- offers a similar picture. Tsalikidis discovered an extraordinarily spohisticated piece of spyware within his company's network. The Prime Minister and other top officials were targeted, along with Greek military officers, anti-war activists, various business figures -- and a cell phone within the American embassy itself. This page gives a full list of the targets, very few of whom could be considered as having even a remote connection to terrorism.

As investigative journalists Paolo Pontoniere and Jeffrey Klein report:

The Vodaphone eavesdropping was transmitted in real time via four antennae located near the U.S. embassy in Athens, according to an 11-month Greek government investigation. Some of these transmissions were sent to a phone in Laurel, Md., near America's National Security Agency.

According to Ta Nea, a Greek newspaper, Vodafone's CEO privately told the Greek government that the bugging culprits were "U.S. agents." Because Greece's prime minister feared domestic protests and a diplomati

Darn, I just read the headline and thought this story was about the 2004 presidential election..
Diebold and the State of Alaska still hasn't released the data files that could show wtf really happened there.
http://www.bradblog.com/?cat=101

--
What brought down WTC-7?

One American political party (the one who currently controls the country) likes Diebold voting machines and likes the CEO of Diebold.

An Aug. 14, 2003 fund-raising letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold sent to the Ohio Republican party said that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." The letter coincidentally went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (a Republican) was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.

http://www.bradblog.com/DieboldContributions.htm

You guys are missing the main meet of the story here..

Clint Curtis, (the man who testified to having rigged the software for the diebold machines at the behest of tom feeny, officially the most corrupt politian in office at the moment)

http://www.clintcurtis.com/

http://www.house.gov/feeney/

the "suicide" of the investigator that followed up his allegations (warning some graphic images)

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=1244

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Curtis

It all fits together quite nicely, a little switch, a preprepared flash software inserted whilst the machines were 'sleeping over' at the republican officials houses. Noone can possibly see the difference

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8112825559 202389150&q=hacking+the+vote

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=2449

Yang Enterprises - curtises former employer, linked to feeney, and a chinese spying ring to boot.

http://www.yangenterprises.com/

You guys are missing the main meet of the story here..

Clint Curtis, (the man who testified to having rigged the software for the diebold machines at the behest of tom feeny, officially the most corrupt politian in office at the moment)

http://www.clintcurtis.com/

http://www.house.gov/feeney/

the "suicide" of the investigator that followed up his allegations (warning some graphic images)

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=1244

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Curtis

It all fits together quite nicely, a little switch, a preprepared flash software inserted whilst the machines were 'sleeping over' at the republican officials houses. Noone can possibly see the difference

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8112825559 202389150&q=hacking+the+vote

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=2449

Yang Enterprises - curtises former employer, linked to feeney, and a chinese spying ring to boot.

http://www.yangenterprises.com/

With unvalidatable electronic voting how can you say wtf ANYONE voted for. Fuck you!
You've done NOTHING TO FUCKING FIX THIS PROBLEM.

You fucking libertarians better get your ass down to http://bradblog.com/
And get educated.

Meanwhile, the PNAC / religious freak fuckers are talking nukes.

Nothing will fucking matter pretty soon.

Paper ballots hand counted.
One more time of this election corruption and we Americans are fucking DONE!

With this newest revelation, and the exit poll discrepancies.

I'd say we have a crime.

No crime?

How about this?

A sworn affidavit that there was voting fraud taking place.

Or the discepancy in exit polls.

What exactly are you looking for?

It is not our fault that the government refuses to investigate.

To quote the latest article on the Black Box Voting site (and then some background below that):

---
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/1559 5.html?1134523376

Due to security design issues and contractual non-performance, Leon County (Florida) supervisor of elections Ion Sancho told Black Box Voting that he will never use Diebold in an election again. He has requested funds to replace the Diebold system from the county. He will issue a formal announcement to this effect shortly.

Finnish security expert Harri Hursti proved that Diebold lied to Secretaries of State across the nation when Diebold claimed votes could not be changed on the memory card.

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

The results were then uploaded from the optical scan voting machine into the GEMS central tabulator. The central tabulator is the "mothership" that pulls in all votes from voting machines. The results in the central tabulator read:

Yes:7 No:1

This proves that the votes themselves were changed in a one-step process that would not be detected in any normal canvassing procedure - using only a credit-card sized memory card.

Diebold Elections Systems head of research and development Pat Green specifically told the Cuyahoga County board of elections that votes could not be changed on the memory card.

According to Public Records responses obtained by Black Box Voting in response to our requests shows that Diebold promulgated this misrepresentation to as many as 800 state and local elections officials.

In other news, according to Bradblog a stockholder suit was filed today against Diebold by the law offices of Scott and Scott:

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002153.htm

Permission to reprint granted with link to http://blackboxvoting.org/
---

Jim again. Let me fill you in on the background.

Six months ago Leon County elections administrator Ion Sancho asked us (Black Box Voting) to "test hack" his Diebold optical scan system. We brought Finnish security expert Harri Hursti and Dr. Hugh Thomson from Florida along.

Dr. Thomson proved that the central tabulator's database (in MS-Access of all things) can be hacked without a retail copy of MS-Access present. He used Visual Basic to control the MS Jet database engine directly, using very small script files...small enough to be typed in via MS-Windows Notepad at the tabulator console. We already knew the MS-Access database was tamper-friendly but this was real-world proof that you didn't need to bring in and load a copy of Access to tamper. The same things can almost certainly be done in Java and probably other ways as well.

Harri Hursti pulled off something new.

The report co-written with Bev Harris proved it's possible to doctor the poll tapes. These are the end-of-day printouts showing the number of votes for each candidate or issue taken in on that machine. It's basically

There are no problems with electronic voting machince, except maybe for this minor glitch.

Yeah great, so when is the FEC going to acknowledge
that electronic voting machines are completely
unreliable, or that all the companies that
make them in the USA happen to be run by
Republicans and some have mafia ties?

http://electionfraud2004.org/
http://bradblog.com/

"For the one millionth time. The Bush Administration is just being strict on federal funding for embryonic stem cells researcg.

Stem cell research can be funded by state or by private organizations. Also, there is nothing limiting research other types of stem cells.

If you hate that the Bush Administration puts America in a bad light, why do you aid the cause by spreading misinformation which makes America look far worse than it really is?"

The Bush Admin is repugnant in their placing more value on a zygote than an Iraqi citizen, in their fixing the facts and evidence around the policy of War Upon Iraq, the truth notwithstanding.

Maybe Mr. Bush should explain his "morals and ethics" to Specialist Tomas Young.

I beg to differ...

A paper came out shortly after the Nov '04 election showing how exit poll data differend from official tallies in Florida, Ohio & Pennsylvania. Exit polls in all 3 states showed a Kerry win. Official results has Bush winning Florida & Ohio, and Kerry winning Pennsylvania by a much smaller margin than exit polling showed. Given the long, accurate-within-a-margin-of-error track record of exit polls, the probability of the exit polls being that wrong in all 3 states is 662,000 to 1.
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/ale04090.htm l

And who decides to not vote just because e-vote machines are in use? The method used to cast my vote at the polling station is the LAST thing on my mind when I go to vote.

Recently, UniLect had their e-vote machines decertified in Pennsylvania, thanks to the efforts of 1 citizen who coughed up $450 for a re-evaluation of their functionality. The results were pretty embarassing for UniLect, to say the least, and I'm baffled as to how this wasn't discovered BEFORE the election: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001364.htm

ES&S's explanation for the thousands of extra Bush votes counted by their machines in Franklin County, Ohio in Nov '04 was that the card reader they had hooked up their tabulation laptop was sending the data to the laptop too quickly for the laptop to process it, so some data got dropped. This is either a huge lie, or only demonstrates some magnificent incompetence in ES&S's development team: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001184.htm Either way, they should also have their e-vote machines decertified. Here's to hoping.

The Miama Herald also reported this week that their ES&S machines counted more votes than voters in Nov '04: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001390.htm

And the fact that Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc, sent a fundraising letter to Republicans in Ohio in 2003 saying that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year" casts doubt on the legitimacy of all reported results from Diebold machines in Ohio in Nov '04.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.ht m

I realize that nothing that humans do is perfect, but these e-vote machines used in '04 show a definite trend towards "much less perfect" than in previous elections.

I beg to differ...

A paper came out shortly after the Nov '04 election showing how exit poll data differend from official tallies in Florida, Ohio & Pennsylvania. Exit polls in all 3 states showed a Kerry win. Official results has Bush winning Florida & Ohio, and Kerry winning Pennsylvania by a much smaller margin than exit polling showed. Given the long, accurate-within-a-margin-of-error track record of exit polls, the probability of the exit polls being that wrong in all 3 states is 662,000 to 1.
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/ale04090.htm l

And who decides to not vote just because e-vote machines are in use? The method used to cast my vote at the polling station is the LAST thing on my mind when I go to vote.

Recently, UniLect had their e-vote machines decertified in Pennsylvania, thanks to the efforts of 1 citizen who coughed up $450 for a re-evaluation of their functionality. The results were pretty embarassing for UniLect, to say the least, and I'm baffled as to how this wasn't discovered BEFORE the election: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001364.htm

ES&S's explanation for the thousands of extra Bush votes counted by their machines in Franklin County, Ohio in Nov '04 was that the card reader they had hooked up their tabulation laptop was sending the data to the laptop too quickly for the laptop to process it, so some data got dropped. This is either a huge lie, or only demonstrates some magnificent incompetence in ES&S's development team: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001184.htm Either way, they should also have their e-vote machines decertified. Here's to hoping.

The Miama Herald also reported this week that their ES&S machines counted more votes than voters in Nov '04: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001390.htm

And the fact that Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc, sent a fundraising letter to Republicans in Ohio in 2003 saying that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year" casts doubt on the legitimacy of all reported results from Diebold machines in Ohio in Nov '04.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.ht m

I realize that nothing that humans do is perfect, but these e-vote machines used in '04 show a definite trend towards "much less perfect" than in previous elections.

I beg to differ...

A paper came out shortly after the Nov '04 election showing how exit poll data differend from official tallies in Florida, Ohio & Pennsylvania. Exit polls in all 3 states showed a Kerry win. Official results has Bush winning Florida & Ohio, and Kerry winning Pennsylvania by a much smaller margin than exit polling showed. Given the long, accurate-within-a-margin-of-error track record of exit polls, the probability of the exit polls being that wrong in all 3 states is 662,000 to 1.
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/ale04090.htm l

And who decides to not vote just because e-vote machines are in use? The method used to cast my vote at the polling station is the LAST thing on my mind when I go to vote.

Recently, UniLect had their e-vote machines decertified in Pennsylvania, thanks to the efforts of 1 citizen who coughed up $450 for a re-evaluation of their functionality. The results were pretty embarassing for UniLect, to say the least, and I'm baffled as to how this wasn't discovered BEFORE the election: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001364.htm

ES&S's explanation for the thousands of extra Bush votes counted by their machines in Franklin County, Ohio in Nov '04 was that the card reader they had hooked up their tabulation laptop was sending the data to the laptop too quickly for the laptop to process it, so some data got dropped. This is either a huge lie, or only demonstrates some magnificent incompetence in ES&S's development team: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001184.htm Either way, they should also have their e-vote machines decertified. Here's to hoping.

The Miama Herald also reported this week that their ES&S machines counted more votes than voters in Nov '04: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001390.htm

And the fact that Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc, sent a fundraising letter to Republicans in Ohio in 2003 saying that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year" casts doubt on the legitimacy of all reported results from Diebold machines in Ohio in Nov '04.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.ht m

I realize that nothing that humans do is perfect, but these e-vote machines used in '04 show a definite trend towards "much less perfect" than in previous elections.